FeistyCat

Met up with my good friend, SK for dinner after work. Work ends at around 7.00 pm so by the time I met SK, it was already 8.30. Had a good time chatting with SK as she’s so down to earth and brings me back to reality. Being caught up with work and office life (and politics) can really drain a person’s energy. I envy her as she is courageous to take six years no pay leave from her teaching career to look after her three kids. Being a full-time mother means she has plenty of quality time spent with her children. It comes with some sacrifices as she has to work around a tight budget. I believe it’s a worthwhile investment to spend time with the kids when they’re still young. Will I have the courage to let go of my working life? Right now, I’m in a middle of a cross road…

I’ve applied for one month no pay leave (NPL) starting from mid September and my boss gave me the green light yesterday. However, I still have to get the final approval from Human Resource (HR) department and today, I received a confirmation from HR that my NPL has been approved. Yippee!

I weighed the pros and cons carefully before deciding on taking the NPL. Last year, there was an opportunity to travel to the US with my hubby but I was in the midst of my studies and the timing wasn’t quite right. He’s going to San Francisco again in September and I’m not about to let go of this chance to travel to the US with him. After all, there might not be another one so soon. This is a good time for me to relax, see the world from a different perspective and maybe, maybe…

I’m taking Aliya on this journey with me because she learns a lot when we travel together. This is going to be a great experience for all of us. I’m really excited and looking forward to our trip to San Francisco. My eyes are getting dry and I need to remove my contact lens now. Later…

Looks like I still have two loyal readers of FeistyCat. Okay, I won’t kill the cat yet because I’m suddenly in the mood to ramble about my life. I’m more relaxed now that I don’t have to rush to NTU (Nanyang Technological University) to attend lectures after work. I’m done with exams and currently working on my thesis.

Thinking back, I’ve been so busy juggling work, school and family that I hardly have the time for anything else. It’s only recently that I started catching up with my friends from secondary school. It’s amazing how time flies and most of the girls I once knew are now mothers in their thirties. They all look fantastic as compared to the time when we were teenagers in RGS (Raffles Girls’ School), the so called top girls’ school in Singapore. I’m looking forward to our next meeting in July. Mmm…I’d like to write some more but my stomach is rumbling and I desperately need a shower before taking my dinner. Will be back..

I’ve been neglecting my blog until I checked and found more than 400 spam comments that have not been deleted over the last two months. It took me a while to remove them and I thought maybe I should just close this blog since I’ve been very inactive for a long time. It’ll be lucky if I post something once a month but that too has become so rare. Dum dee dum…

Dear FeistyCat,

I’d like to remind you to remove any negative thoughts from your mind. As you know, it doesn’t do you any good and may prevent you from achieving your goals. Please stay focused, stop whining and procrastinating and get started on what you’re supposed to do. If you’re feeling overwhelmed, I suggest you take a break and go for a holiday to relax and recharge yourself. I believe you’ll feel much better when you come back.

Happy Birthday! I know you love the birthday presents.

January came and went, and I’ve just moved to a brand new office in the town area. It’s in line with the company’s direction to change its image to a more corporate organization. The renovation is about 90 percent completed and the smell of glue is still very strong. I’ve been busy clearing out junk in the old office, packing and unpacking my stuff at the new office. The carpet is still very dusty and my hands and pants got very dirty after bending under the desk to plug in the computer cables. It really sucked that I had to do it all by myself. Although it was an easy task, I hated it because of the dust and the freaking air-con wasn’t working that morning. I got so hot and bothered but at least the computer was still working.

Just a quick post to wish everyone a Happy New Year. I hope 2008 will be a better year for all my friends and family. I’m a little anxious because there’ll be a lot of changes at work and it’s also my last semester of grad school. No new year’s resolution but I definitely have plans. Will update this wee blog about my plans as we go along. Till then, have a great year ahead!

Darn it, I’m coming down with the sniffles. It has been raining a lot here in Singapore. I hate carrying the umbrella, and sometimes I’m simply too lazy to open it unless there’s a heavy downpour. While I was crossing the wet and slippery road to my office yesterday, there was a sudden strong wind that blew my long hair across my face. That wasn’t as bad as the umbrella of a well-dressed man that snapped and close right over his head. He actually continued crossing the road with his head swallowed by the umbrella. It was quite a funny sight.

My poor little girl is very sick. It started on Sunday with a mild fever and slight cough. We gave Aliya some medicine to bring the fever down, but the next day her condition worsened. I took urgent leave from work to bring her to the doctor. Her temperature was pretty high and she threw up while waiting for her turn at the clinic. I felt terrible to see her coughing and moaning in pain. Her weight also dropped slightly because she had no appetite to eat. Four days had gone by and Aliya is still feeling rather sick. I just hope that she will fully recover and feel much better tomorrow.

It’s that time of the year again to renew our motor insurance and road tax. The price of petrol has gone up and so has our car insurance premium. Road tax is lower but ERP (Electronic Road Pricing) has gone up. Grrr… After sourcing around, we decided not to renew our motor insurance with company A. The renewal premium offered by company A is about $400 more than company B. It was a bit of a hassle as I had to search for the car’s log card and fill up some forms to apply for motor insurance under company B. Anyway, it’s worth the trouble because we have saved some money. Now, I can do some shopping with the extra 400 bucks.

Argh, I’ve just been bitten by a mosquito right in the middle of my forehead. I don’t know why no one else gets bitten by mosquitoes except me. Luckily, I have some Tiger Balm to apply and relieve a bit of the itchiness. I’m trying so hard not to scratch it. Nope, I can’t take it anymore. I need to scratch it now!

My cat has the habit of sitting and leaning against me on the couch, thus leaving a lot of cat fur on my pants or skirt. I need to buy a bigger lint brush to remove the cat fur from the couch. It’s always on my shopping list but I tend to forget about it. I have a travel lint brush that’s too small to be used for removing cat fur.

Update: The stinging pain is gone but the scratches on my hand are getting very itchy now.

It wasn’t entirely my cat’s fault. We were all sitting on the couch watching TV, with the cat in the middle sitting next to Aliya. My hubby, Wari tried to reach over to get my attention and the cat got a fright when his hand suddenly brushed against its head. It jumped and leapt on me. I was shocked and yelled loudly at the poor cat that tried to run away leaving two scratches on my right hand. All that happened so quickly, but it’s really not as bad as it looks.

I bought the balloon for Aliya six days ago and I’m surprised that it’s still floating around in our bedroom. Normally, a helium-filled balloon would have lasted a day before all the helium escaped from it. Anyway, I think the balloon is pretty expensive because I forked out seven bucks for it. I bought the balloon because she behaved pretty well while I was at the dentist. Aliya sat quietly and watched me from the corner of the room while Dr Chan attended to my tooth implant.

After my dental appointment, we walked down from Lucky Plaza to catch the Sesame Street show at Takashimaya. We had some junk food at KFC before the show. I couldn’t really eat as the right side of my mouth was still numb. We managed to get a good view of the stage and Aliya enjoyed the show. I took some pictures of her favourite Sesame Street characters and Aliya had a group photo with them too. I wondered why Elmo was so huge. I thought he should be smaller than Cookie. Oh, well.

After the show, I met my classmate, Eliz who was happy to celebrate her last exam paper. She wanted to have lunch and buy some presents for her friend’s children. We sat for half an hour at McDonald’s to chat before she left for Plaza Singapura. A neighbour and his family were sitting just opposite us and he waved in our direction. I waved and smiled back at them. Later, Aliya and I went shopping and I bought her some new clothes. I didn’t really get anything for myself except a nice leather belt for my jeans.

As we were walking around the mall, someone called out to me. I turned around and it was my colleague, Simon. We chatted for a few minutes and he gave me a table calendar. By then, Aliya was tired and requested to go home. It was raining quite heavily when we walked to the Orchard MRT station. On the way to the station, I bumped into Derrick, one of my team members who was with his very pregnant wife and they were out celebrating his birthday and wedding anniversary. What a small world.