neither writing annual flashback on new year nor making new year resolutions is my habit. I always thought that if I want to do it, I'd just do it, why would I need to wait for new year to ponder about it.

but it turns out that having plan does help. upto now, 4 out of the 5 things that I put on 'wanted list' some time this year have been accomplished. the only one left is the toughest of them all, which I'm still struggling with day in day out.

a brief recap of my 2008, the year that was.
- bintan CNY getaway
- europe 18 days whirlwind tour
- jakarta trip
- cameron highland weekend getaway
- macau birthday trip
- salsa class
- basic 华语 class
- helped out on book translations for the visually impaired
- opened a food stall in church fun fair
- joined batam build project
- continued serving in choir ministry, despite the proximity
- started writing articles on ad-hoc basis for kompas community
- attended a wedding anniversary, many weddings and helped out in a few of them
- made a few new friends
- plunged into a project with super tight timeline and resources

cheers to a fabulous year ahead!
新年快乐！

attended the last wedding for this year at swissotel the stamford ballroom, an ex-colleague who got married to a colleague :) I was strategically seated in a table with some current colleagues and a few ex-colleagues, and joined in the photo taking for both groups, hehehe.. had a great time catching up with the ex-colleagues.

among all credit cards that I own, there is this one whose statement is the least user friendly. the statement is printed double sided. I normally just bother to pay attention to the first page, and as one third of that page is blank, I normally assume that's the end of the statement. I'd normally confuse myself to see that the total does not tally with the transaction details before realizing I should turn over the paper. or worse, to think that I've no outstanding balance as the grand total is printed on the other side of the paper. *sigh*

tried to call the bank to ask for waiver of late charges this evening. wasted so much time waiting for the customer service to pick up my call.. this is the most annoying automated message 'entertaining' me during the wait: "your call is important to us. that's why we ask you to hold for just a little longer."

merry christmas,
joyeux noel,
圣诞快乐!

a warm welcome to baby Iggy.. and congrats to the happy parents!

initially planned to have a gathering for lunch today with a few friends, especially my ex-roommate who is visiting singapore for the weekend. too bad she had got stomach infection and therefore could not to go out. changed the plan to bring the food home instead… and we packed the food from ivin’s. we ordered 8 dishes plus dessert since the portion is small. their ayam buah keluak tasted weird, but the rest was yummy as usual.

we had a great time catching up with one another’s updates on life.. and she also brought boxes of cute japanese mochi for us :)

attended friends’ wedding today at st. theresa’s church and marriot hotel. helped out in the reception table, and everything went well, with just a couple of challenges :) met lots of NTU friends, some of them came from afar, especially for this occasion. but it’s not easy to gather everybody to take a group photo. wanted to do another shoot of group photo, similar with the one we took years ago on easter vigil in front of our hostel, but too bad, it wasn’t a feasible idea.

met a friend who visited singapore for the weekend. he brought me maryamah karpov, the latest novel from andrea hirata, last one of the laskar pelangi tetralogi. yippiee.. have been waiting for this novel for a long time.

accompanied him to singapore flyer, since I’ve never been there myself. gave in to invitation to join in the ride, but the earliest available ride was too late for him, so we just took a few photos and had early dinner there. next destination was esplanade. saw hundreds of wishing sphere floating on marina bay, so we got a blank sphere and penned our wishes right there and then.. it was fun :)

despite the bad news announced this morning, expectation of even worse news in the coming year, plus the never-ending meetings, tons of documents to review, latency issue to solve, database to setup
.....
weekend is here, hooray!

just a few stuff thrown in random:
~ reached home early today, even before sunset... couldn't believe it myself.
~ this week is so slow.. I was already longing for weekend since tuesday :p
~ went to bedok market for lunch with colleagues a few days back. we had prawn noodle that is so famous the queue is forever long. it was a refreshing interlude among the monotonous daily menu we normally have. enjoyed the group's company. it's been a really long while since my last group lunch.
~ grateful for a christmas present received today, didn't expect it at all :)

when I bought a new spec last weekend, I was resigned to the fact that I should have my lens power increased. too much time spent for reading books and looking at monitors. in addition, a few months back I got my sight checked and was told that the power has increased by 500 on both eyes.

I got the optician checked my sight again for the new specs and found out that I could still wear lenses with same power as what I'm currently wearing. hmm.. I guess traveling on crowded buses and train that makes me unable to read my novels anymore is not totally bad after all. it's a blessing in disguise.

met up with friends for dinner at indo padang restaurant, the cathay. ordered sayur lodeh (super spicy), beef rendang (very tender but too bland and too beefy), soto ayam (didn't taste as nice as last time), fried chicken (crunchy and tasty), and es teler (didn't really look and taste like es teler but not bad).

a cool and breezy day.. perfect for a public holiday spent lazing around at home. finally had the time to set up our christmas tree!

attended friends' holy matrimony and wedding dinner today. woke up late and rushed like mad to the church, tried my best to be there on time, only to find out that the actual start time was half an hour later than what was stated on the invitation card and reminder sms. I kind of felt cheated. and it's not like the procession for the mass itself started on time (actual actual time is later than half an hour after the stated time).

anyway...

everything was well organized. although the mass took longer than usual since it's conducted in Indonesian, the choir sang well and the priest's sermon made sense. he said something like - in marriage there are not only engagement ring and wedding ring, but also suffer-ring. haha.

good planning and attention to details were more apparent during the dinner, held at grand hyatt hotel. although it was started late (it's a norm for a Chinese wedding dinner), yummy kue lapis and cup cakes were readily available along with the drinks during cocktail time, it's really thoughtful! the room itself was set in black and gold theme, with tall vases full of fresh flowers set on top of the tables. small silver frames were given as favours, with guests' names printed and displayed in them (my name was spelled wrongly, though).

the band provided enjoyable live music - it almost felt like sitting at cafes, listening to jazz while sipping wine. food was nice as well, all of them served in big serving plates, and then promptly distributed into small plates for each guest by the waitresses at the side tables. I felt the effort for decorating the food was wasted, as nobody could really appreciate it before it was distributed.

great company during the dinner as well - met some of my NTU CE friends. my Final Year Project lecturer was there too, and, surprise, surprise.. he still remembers my name.. *amazed*

a warm welcome to baby Allen! and congrats to the proud parents ;)