Randomness on 27 January 2011(AM)

1) I woke up remembering the dream I had last night. My thought, "Oh, must go and find out the interpretation of that dream." I have this book about interpreting dreams. It interprets my dream as " Long live & good in my religion ". Hopefully it's true. God's Will!

2) I remembered that my dear colleague / best friend had prepared from home my today's lunch. My favourite Gujarati dish, Pav Bhaji.

3) My FDW asked me if the Gaspipe serviceman will be coming today, and I confidently said it will be tomorrow, but she pointed it out that it will be today as shown on the notification letter. She caught me! Good concentration! Guess I should give her a bonus soon.

4) I was so excited to start on my Group presentation. Topic we'll be touching on is "Managing Internationally".

5) My post status in FB today is " A person tends to misread another person's post. This is what we call as written-miscommunication. I'm sure each of us have ever offended someone who misread the meaning of our post, and was surprised at the way someone else reported the content of that post. Random thoughts about what I saw in FB News Feed this morning. Good morning people!". So far, 3 people have liked it.

6) I wrote a HSSE observation card, suggesting that the department's Xerox/printing machine should be replaced with a brand new one because the more than 5 years old machine keeps on jamming the papers. It's a HSSE issue because:

1stly, wasting of paper

2ndly, waste of ink cartridge

3rdly, more maintenance

4thly, due to frequent maintenance & jams, time was lost

Lastly, all the wastage & frequent maintenance cost more money.

Actually, I get frustrated that I cannot complete my task promptly, just because of a stupid old & tired machine, but even it's not for completing my task, its always frustrating to handle jammed papers. That's the true reason to come out with the observation card. The HSSE thing-y were just additional excuses.

Haaiizzzz! Time to go back to work.

My Pav Bhaji Lunch

(PS: Do not be deceived by the mushy look. It tastes magnificient!)

Unwanted Invitation

A notification appeared in my FB account "You've been invited to an event!" I clicked to open, and an ex-school mate (whom I rarely talked to in school) had invited me for her wedding. OMG! You don't know me well yet you are inviting me to your wedding. Are you desperate to have people to crowd your wedding? Sorry, but I have to say that you are trying to make money from these invitations.. Right??? (Sad to say .. people are doing these in Asia). I was not reluctant to click onto the "Not Attending" button. I didn't even bother to reply "Sorry, unable to attend".

Few weeks later, I received another event invitation in FB. This time, a 'friend' had invited me for a birthday party of her 8yrs old daughter. I don't even know who she is!! Well.. She's in my friend list because I have been adding people to promote my Lasagna or Shepherd's Pie for sale in FB. Again, I wasn't reluctant to click the "Not Attending" button.

Few days later, she sent another 'invitation' notification & followed with a Private Message in my inbox pleading me to come (I really mean pleading because she wrote 'I hope you can come, please'. I guess this lady is lonely or desperate. I went home, told my husband about this lady & was told that she was an ex-girlfriend on hub's old long-lost friend whom he met some time ago. Gosh! He was actually the one who had suggested she adds me as FB friend if she wanted to know me more. Then, he suggested we should attend her party. I said "For what? You lost contact with her so long time ago & it's not that you were close to her" He said, "Well, we just go. Maybe I might see my long lost friends there." Actually, I find that was his excuse to go & at the same time I was quite curious why hubby wanted to attend this event so much. Does he have some kind of history with her? My thoughts were going wild for a moment, but that is another story.

The day came for us to go to this party with our kids. Once there, hubby immediately claimed, "Our party for our kids are more GRAND!" We started to compare on the location, the people, the food, the goodie bags, gifts & games. Well, it was Sunday evening & not much people were there. I, as a parent will not plan a kid's party on a Sunday Evening. Firstly, it's already the end of the week where people are tired & might need their last minute rest. 2ndly, people need to go to work/school the next day. Well, we were like strangers while we were there. Sitting in a corner eating fishballs. The host didn't even bother to speak much to us. She just told us to help ourself with the foods & drinks & went away. Such a lousy host.

Anyway, discussing back about unwanted invitations, I hate them. My mum & aunts used to send me invitation cards for weddings of people whom I never knew but they are my long-distant relatives. When I refused to attend, they requested that I should atleast passed a 'Green Packet' to congratulate them. WTH!! Now, no wonder there were so many people I'd never seen before during my wedding! Isn't such event to be celebrated with the closed & loved ones?

Such mass invitations should be done when having Sale Promotions, open celebrations, exhibitions etc but not for personal events. To me, it reflects that the host is desperate to gain from the invitation, meaning to show off to rivals that they have many "contacts" or collecting "Green Packets" to earn monetary profits.

By the way, I made Roasted Chicken for lunch! Bon Appetit!

Writing guide for a dummy like me

I got a D7 for my GCE 'O' Levels English result, so you can imagine that I'm actually not good in English language. My vocabs, comprehension & compositions, etc suck big time. This applies to my conversation in English too. At most time, it's broken English I'm speaking to people around me.. Oh not forgetting.. Singlish too. I guess by this 1st paragraph, readers might have captured alot of mistakes in my post. (I'm trying my best to write properly)

After my high school, I studied in Tertiary schools obtaining my Technical cert & Diplomas, and they are all for Engineering courses. Being in Engineering courses doesn't help in improving my English, because most of the time, we do calculations & formulas, & when questions were asked in test/exam papers, they were usually answered in point forms. Teachers & lecturers don't bother much about spelling mistakes & missing punctuations as long as you get the answers & fundamentals right. Now, I cared so much to improve my writings & conversing in English.

At work, my bosses are westerners. I'm always impressed listening to how they talk. They speak so fluently & confidently. I like that & hope to talk like them one day. I especially liked it when they joke or talking sarcastically. Initially I would not understand what they were talking about. Sometimes I laughed when I'm not supposed to laugh making me looked like a dumb bimbo (I'm not ofcourse) but having been around them for the past 5 years, I've learnt their way of talking & expressing. Maybe it is in the western culture to talk like that. I'm not sure but maybe.

Nowadays, I have an interest to look out meanings in dictionary. I recently learnt a word I've never used in my life!! Copulate; which means - to engage in sexual intercourse. Wow!! The word copulate sounds much more clever & decent than saying "engage in sexual intercourse". I'm so lame.

Anyway.. I intend to post today about writing well in English. I want to write properly because I'm doing a degree course in Business Management. Since there will be alot of assignments & essays, I need to buck up with my writing skills. A problem which I have, I don't know how to express my thoughts well into writings professionally . Like now, I'm trying to express myself but I'm writing it in a way I will say it. But to express it professionally in writing, I seriously have that big problem. When I read books, I'm impressed by how the author's ability to use bombastic words & laying out expressions so well that it interest his readers. To all my blog readers, do you find my post interesting? Be kind (or bad) enough to leave a comment. Blogging will be my training ground for writing. I hope readers will highlight my writing mistakes along the way.

PS: I'm going to the bookstore & look for a book "Writing Guide for Dummies" if that book does exist.