Thoughts

I have doubts about a lot of stuff lately.

To clear out those doubts, I turn to my workouts.

Sweating it out comes with the bliss of forgetting everything.

About my 'weekend rendesvouz' and work, mostly.

Things like, how do I know if The Scotsman is actually ok with spending time with me almost every weekend, or how to motivate a team whose job priorities are in a mess.

I even think in my sleep. I sometimes dream about The Scotsman and I have had more than 30 sleepless nights occasions when I dreamt about work.

Heck... if I have a bedmate, I would probably be told that I talk about work in my sleep.

So, lately, one of the things that I try to do is to forget about thinking. The only time when I would not be thinking, would be when I sweat it out at the gym.

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I saw cows today at Kota Damansara.

At Persiaran Surian to be exact, like maybe 5 KMs away from Ikea.

I don't know how they got there, and I am sure all the other drivers were... puzzled too.

I for one said 'fuck me' a couple of times. One of them was walking on the pedestrian so called pavement, right next to the trailing traffic.

That was an eye opener.

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My first post on the new blog with new layout.

And all I can come up with are useless thoughts and cows.

*Slaps self*

Just keep swimming

I can't swim.

As much as I wished that my parents had enough sense to throw me into the pool when I was young, they didn't.

My parents were working parents. And it was not in the nature of my grandparents who live in the Kampung to throw their only granddaughter at the time to a parit pool.

Swimming pools were not exactly common back then.

Recently, I hung out a lot with The Scotsman on the weekends and one of his favorite pastime is to hang out by the pool.

Getting a tan were not our only priority, we are also supposed to go for a swim.

For someone who can't swim, that's a disturbing thought.

So I will be on the sunbed, in my two piece, looking enviously at the kids who would be swimming in the pool.

Me,  a 32 year old, thought, quietly... 'Damn it... if only I can at least float!'

Well, I think I can float. But I would have to hang on to something.

So I would be 'floating' at the edges of the pool.

Or trying quite devastatingly, to... at least have my foot off the pool's bottom.

@_@

The Scotsman is trying to teach me how to swim, I keep on saying that I need professional help. It's this fear I have of... sinking.

"You wee thing.. you can't sink. Your body won't let you." He said, before patting my wet head.

Yes... a human, technically... can't sink in shallow water.

But I a human can go under water and swallow a 'wee' bit of water and sputter to oblivion and feeling that damn nose sting.

But, I am trying to not get that into the way of me and swimming. I am going to take the risk and will learn how to swim... no matter what. I only have this lifetime to learn how to tread water with a certain degree of clumsiness, if I am never going to do so with grace.

-_-

Space

I believe in having my space.

Space is important. It's the cherry on top of the whipped cream for an independent woman.

We can love and care for someone to death but still need space.

I was 'accused' of giving one of my exes, apparently, too much space. He wanted to go and have a guy's night out and I said ok and he said I don't care for him.

The thing is, this I told him, I want him to have his own life, one that did not revolve around our relationship. There should always be a secular approach to relationships no?

Like the separation of education and religion, and politics. It's never good when it's all mixed up.

He called me a bitch for that.

And I walked out the door, literally.

Now you would wonder, how on earth did I end up with people like these? Well... I am a woman, yes? I was deceived by their sweet nothings and bullshit. They acted as if they were ok with it and one day, it all went out in the open.

Exploded... more like it.

I am not the kind of person who sits well being controlled by other people.

I observe my friends and the people I know and learnt from them.

A friend who is in a long term relationship decided to not go to a team outing because the 'boyfriend' said she could not go.

My first thought was :

'Who the fuck is the 'boyfriend' to make a decision whether she should go or not? He is not even her husband for fuck's sakes."

If I have a fucker like that as my 'other half' (Will NEVER happen), I would stick his foot in his ass.

Now imagine how it would be if they ever get married.

The horror.

Even if you are married, one should always retain a sense of individuality. Sure you will spend a lot more time with each other, but it doesn't mean that one should be 100% controlled by the other.

There should always be a balance.

Or am I wrong and this is why I am single.

*Laugh out loud*

Huh?

Weekend was spent quietly with The Scotsman.

I pity him at times. I am a workaholic and having a 24 hour responsibility slung on my back it's not exactly an ideal situation for a relationship/scandal/affair.

Being the unorganized nog that I am, I forgot to charge my blackberry on Friday. I went on a conference call and looked at my bb helplessly as it beeped it's way to temporary death.

The tech team asking me for info they should have asked me 48 hours ago was not helping.

I know that secretly, The Scotsman wished that I would just shut the fucking bb off.

But... well... I can't. I love my work too much.

Work is the only thing I have going on for me that I can fall back to.

The Scotsman is attuned to my emotional / expression changes. He knows when there is something off with me.

I find this weird. Not a lot of people can do that. Even if I suck at faking my emotions, most people would dismiss my changes in emotions/expression as me 'being Sarc'.

I am just aloof. Careless.

By their standards.

So where is this entry going? I don't know. I was questioning myself earlier... technically asking myself :

'What in fuck's sakes am I doing?'

I am trying to figure out myself, basically. The Scotsman is just there as a ... test medium... I guess.

Oih.. Yes I will stop writing now. -_-

Complication

I gave a somewhat a liberated sexual related comment on FB.

And before you knew it, I had 5 friends request from the bloke's chain of friends.

My purpose of having an FB account  is NOT to make new friends. I want to stay in touch with friends that I already have.

I decided then to change my relationship status to 'It's Complicated', to avoid all these friend's requests from strangers.

Forget about the fact that I AM currently in a rather complicated potential relationship situation.

What I didn't anticipate was that, it caused a hoo haa among my group of friends.

One remarked;

"Well, it's about FRIKKIN' time!"

Well... that came from Izso, one of the bloggers that I came to be friends with, who I have never met! -_-... the time will come...

Aaanyway...

I found it funny how people are excited for me being in a scandal relationship.

I am not even sure that what we have is a relationship. Sure we meet every weekend but I still feel like we are still in the getting to know each other phase, of remembering that he does not take his tea with sugar and him remembering I like my latte with NO sugar and with extra 6 2 shots.

I just found out that he makes a mean tomato sandwich. He just found out that I make the sun disappear everytime I go to the pool.

So really, it's actually not complicated. It's simple to see that both of us are having fun.

The reason for the whole change of status still stands.

I don't want to be friends with strangers and being poked by someone just because I said something wildly unexpected by Malay Malaysian standards.

Get with the program.

Thank You

I said Thank You to The Scotsman in very unexpected situations.

I do.

So much so that he was asking me 'What did you thank me for?'

I guess it's like a habit for me to say 'thanks' to people.

For one, The Scotsman treats me like an individual, not a possession. He listens to me and he takes what I think seriously.

Like which shirt to go with the shorts he chose for the day.

(Okay, so that's  not exactly ... important.)

During the weekend, we spent it mostly getting to know each other better.

I taught him how to eat 'nasi lemak bungkus' with half boiled eggs. He preferred to mix his rice with the half boiled eggs and eat them that way.

Apart from Will, my crazy American friend who has a penchant for really spicy foods, he would be the other white guy who loves his chili and spices.

The only difference with The Scotsman and Will would be, that I am dating The Scotsman.

The Scotsman thinks my foods are weird at times. Like cendol, which he doesn't like, or that soy cincau drink I had at Madam Kwan's.

Well, I thought that the way he does his dishes are weird, so we kind of squared off.

The weekend is also the time that we would be getting some downtime by hanging out by the pool, basically doing nothing, and having some sun.

But the thing is, I think the sun hates me.

I can't seem to come to any other conclusion other than that when it is so obvious.

The sun would be shining fiercely when I am in the apartment, or on my way to the pool, and the moment I arrive at the pool, it went cloudy.

I honestly hope that my fat(s) has nothing to do with it.

Wait. The white man in the pool with the jiggly belly didn't seem to make the sun disappear. He's been here for the past hour.

Dammit.

I have to position myself ideally too so that my fatness doesn't really show.

The Scotsman scoffed this off by saying all the other girls by the pool are not perfect either. Some of them are too skinny, butt's too freckled... etc.

"So... don't care about these things. Just relax and enjoy."

So for 35 minutes, I was relaxing, Sun came out for about 20 minutes and it feels like bliss. Just have to make sure that I have my I-Pod on the next time because if I have a gun next to me, I would have shot that crow that was making the damn noise for 10 minutes non stop.

So we happened to be around when the Ferraris came out to play at Pavilion. We were sitting nearby having our post-brunch cappuccino when the cars came out.

"I am going to take pictures of the people who are taking pictures of the Ferraris."

So I did just that :

I mean, what's the deal anyway, to take pictures with cars that don't belong to you.

Odd... human behavior.

And I had my taste of really good tomato sandwiches.

They were... delicious.

And pancakes at home. Joyce just felt like she wanted to have pancakes and so she invited a couple of friends (My staff from office) and we had a hot plate pancakes mini breakfast party :

It was great.... full of calories... but NICE.

So I guess, thanks are in order to people who made my weekends complete : My best friends, Joyce and Krishna, my girl night out partner, Faz, to be able to enjoy herself at No Black Tie for a Jazz trio on Friday, even though she is not really into Jazz :

And of course, to The Scotsman, who actually still wants me around every weekend.

Thank You!

Agitated

I met up with a good friend for lunch earlier. I drove to Pavilion and met up with her at The Loaf.

Now, I love The Loaf at Bangsar. Their service is not exceptional, but it's decent.

So Jade and I walked into The Loaf, expecting, first of all, food.

The waitress that served us waited for a while for us to choose from the menu.

You know how 1 person is actually enough to put people off from patronizing an establishment? The waitress that we had was such person.

A group of 4 people came in maybe 10 minutes after us and after they placed their order, their waitress, who was not ours, set the placesettings and served them the digestifs of freshly toasted bread and butter.

Jade and I looked at our yet to be set table and we looked at each other. At first, we didn't know that we are supposed to be served digestifs.

We ordered the grilled beef salad as appetizer, and after seeing that the food had arrived at our next table, we called to the other waitress to check on our order. She did just that and came back later with a plate of bread and butter, and set our table with plates and cutleries.

The waitress who served us was nowhere to be seen at this point.

Our appetizer arrived finally. We had to wait for a while for our main course, to the extent of Jade calling our waitress to find out what exactly happened with our food.

The waitress said :

"Yes we serve you the appetizer first."

I looked at Jade and said that well, the appetizer was not even served by YOU.

I guess, both Jade and I was so befuddled at that time that neither of us can actually say anything. We were speechless!

The waitress then disappeared and then came to take the empty dishes.

No apologies, no smile, no nothing.

Jade and I was irritated by then.

The other waitress then sent our food to our table. Jade ordered pasta so she asked our waitress for some paprika / black pepper.

Apparently the waitress said :

"Yes... black pepper sauce... yes."

Jade had to then ask for chilli flakes, since the server, didn't seem to know what paprika was.

We didn't really enjoy our meal. We were talking about the bad service rather than anything else.

Like how, upon ordering of the grilled beef salad, we were not asked on how we would like our beef, or how Jade wasn't asked if she wanted Spaghetti or Fetuccine for her pasta, when it was indicated in the menu that we do have a choice.

I bet if we were to ask that person about a certain dish, say, about the beef salad, she will tell us, with her blank face -"It's a salad."

"No need la kerja here that woman. Better pergi kerja kat mamak je. Mamak punya service pun elok lagi." I remarked.

Did we complaint? Well, the floor manager was no where to be seen and it won't be a good situation if we find out that the 'waitress' happened to be the floor manager. So we leave it at that.

This was what I personally observed. None of the servers at The Loaf actually bothered to smile at us, the paying customers. And being that we are Malaysians (Tsk tsk), we didn't say anything because, well, I guess, I was sleepy and I wasn't in the mood to argue or for conflict.

I am a terrifying disgruntled customer. But somehow, I was too lethargic to say anything.

On Monday, I met up with Jade at One Utama. She wanted to buy the Benefit's lipstick that I have. So I brought her to the Benefit's counter. I had an excellent promoter the last time I bought stuff there.

Unfortunately, the lady who tended to me wasn't there. There was a fairly new promoter and another girl who seemed to be more knowledgeable and informed of the products.

Jade remarked, because she was the one who was trying out the make up, that the girl who tended to her seemed to not want to help her.

It must be a trend for Malaysians to just have fucked up customer service skills because right after that, we were irritated again by the sales promoter at Xixili.

I wanted to buy a lingerie set there, but changed my mind because of the bad service rendered by the uninformed promoters there.

However, we went to the Benefits counter at Pavilion just now and thankfully, the promoters there were excellent. We complained to them about the service that we received at One Utama, and then we found out that the person who made me up, was responsible for all Benefits outlets in KL. He was apologetic and assure us that it will be taken care of.


1 person is enough to put people off from spending money. 1 person is enough to give any organization a bad name.

If I have the chance to change this, I would make these three people who we encountered to go through bad customer service for 1 year.

Crap begets crap... No?

Happiness

Define happiness.

Whenever someone asks me to do so, it would put me in a funk.

I am 32 and I have never quite know how happy truly feels like.

Was it when I got my first paycheck? My first kiss? The letter of acceptance to the University I chose to drop out from? The moment my ex boss told me that I got the team manager position?

Or the time I spent with someone who truly treats me with respect and adoration?

I am still stumped as to what truly defines happiness.

My good friend recently became a mother and I have never seen her happier. Her eyes lit up whenever she talks  about her baby girl. I wondered then if my idea of happiness is as domestic as having a kid.

Or should it be more? Should it be the time when I finally would have the opportunity to roam the streets of Morocco and climb the Kilimanjaro?

Or would it be the time when I finally would be given the chance... nay ... the challenge of leading a team of 100 people worldwide in a Fortune 500 company, making 100K a year?

Or would I define happiness when I finally have that chiseled toned body that I have always wanted?

For now, happiness is a blur to me.

I was happy when I found out that my best friend is pregnant. I am sad though thinking about the time when she would pack up and move out of the apartment.

She is now starting a family. It starts with the little munchkin growing inside of her.

I find it difficult to foresee myself as someone's other half, much less someone's wife... or just being proposed to.

Someone told me that people change. Whether it is towards good or bad, that's entirely up to the person.

So, happiness, that concept, is pretty much still elusive to me right now. As long as I still have things that I still want, I don't think that I can actually be happy.

I will blog about it, the moment I find that missing piece, I would.