You know when you’ve quit your job and just working out your notice? All those whisperings behind your back, people not really speaking to you and generally being treated as a leper? Your colleagues and manager not really getting you involved in anything as, well, it would be utterly pointless and a waste of time?

Well, welcome to my world. After serving a three month notice at my previous company, getting extremely stressed out by being asked to stay and being out casted, I am now going through it again after a happy week of working in this chandelier-clad building.

Yes folks, off I go again. But this time I am not even serving out my notice, as I had only been here two weeks tomorrow. So now I’ve actually got a WHOLE week off next week. One whole week of staying at home to finish the ironing…omg.

But I’d rather stay at home than to come to work and earn money, getting all those dirty looks from colleagues, not given anything to do and being made to feel like a traitor. At least one thing I learn, no matter what sort of company you work for, people will always be suspicious of anyone who jumps the boat.

The good news for you, my dear readers, is that I will be catching up on blogging and pictures. Erm…hello? Is anyone still reading?

PS: If you are a man, continue at your own insanity…

At the MAC counter, one lunchtime at Harvey Nichols:

me: Hi, I need some foundation please. Non-liquid ,pancake form if possible.

hot sales chick: Would you like to try our liquid foundation range?

me: No. I want it to come in a compact format.

hot sales chick: Oh. How about our studio fix range?

me: I already HAVE one of the studio fix compact. I want foundation, not powder!

hot sales chick: If you already have it, do you remember the color number

me: I don’t, BUT I do not want any powder! I still have the studio fix powder, I want foundation please!

hot sales chick: huh?

me: You know, foundation?that liquid bottle but in hard format?

hot sales chick: But the studio fix range IS foundation

me: WHAT? I came in asking for POWDER two months ago and someone sold me this studio fix!! That means I have been wearing DOUBLE foudation in the past two months?

hot sales chick: Did you wear the studio fix on top of another foundation???(looking at me stupidly)

me: yeah, because I was told it was POWDER!

Omg. No wonder my face seemed to be pretty ‘covered’ in the past few months. I even told dreybee that the MAC compact powder rocks big time, keeps all your pitholes away from public viewing. Padahal I was wearing double foundation.

Anyway, came away with a proper compact powder this time. But for all I know, the next time I will be told that the foundation is the powder and the powder is the foundation and that I have used it the opposite way.

Most of your would already know what I am referring to just by the title. But for the benefit of those that do not, this month is the 7th month in the Chinese calender, which also means that this is the month where the hell gates open and literally all hell let loose.An inadequate comparison would be to the Halloween.

When I was younger, I would be dragged along to do the whole 9 miles of serving an array of food to ancestors , random roaming ghosts, folding and burning ‘hell gold’. When I was even younger, I remembered watching seances in my father’s fisherman village, which really, scared the hell of me as he ran around with a whip jumping up and down muttering gibberish. A family friend would be there right next to the medium, ‘translating’. And I remember the traditional Chinese operas of painted faces and erhu, and how it slowly got replaced by scantily clad hoochie mamas prancing around stage pretending to ‘entertain’ ghosts. God, that disgusting stripper-like behavior is so disrespectful.

Anyway, I am not doing the explanation any justice as the last time I properly celebrated ‘Por Toh’ (as it is called in Hokkien), I was too young to snap pictures and appreciate the beauty of a dying tradition.

Let me ask you this, dear readers from around the world, do you believe in ghosts? Do you believe in directionless souls, let loose from the gates of hell for one month in the year?

Well, I did not. Not for the first 23 years of my life anyway. And I have grown up with all this superstitious crap. I even know of people who have the ‘third eye’. Perfectly normal people, capable of seeing ghosts. And I still do not care enough to entertain the thought of a third realm.

August 2002. I had just returned to KL after 3 years in sunny California, and an ex-bf came to visit. I was, for all the strangest reason, was going to bring him to the zoo on the morning of the 14th day of the 7th month of the Chinese calender. The only reason I even remembered this was because the night before we were out with a couple of my friends, and one of them innocently asked me; ” Are you not afraid to drive to the zoo tomorrow, as it is the 14th?” And me, in all my sophisticated ignorance told her to not be stupid.

So at 10.30am, on the 14th day, I drove along the KESAS highway, on my way to the zoo with him at the passenger seat. Now mind you, he’s an ex for a reason, and we argued loads before. Heck, I really didn’t want him there visiting me (he had ulterior motives you see) because as far as I was concerned, it was over. But he had to fucking call my MOTHER and she invited him to stay, so what choice did I have but to play tour guide?

Anyway….as we were driving along in KESAS, I suddenly just…lost control of the car. We were only driving at 100km/h on a 110km/h stretch, so I wasn’t going too fast. The next thing I know, I was in a very capricious position of feeling like I was on a roller coaster. And then it stopped.

The poor car had turned over, and re flipped over, properly landing on its wheels. What happened, I had no idea, I just recalled driving, and then the roller coaster sensation. The next I realized was that my mom was going to freaking kill me for wrecking her car. I could even open the door and just walk out of the car.Not a scratch. However, he was not so lucky, and had to be admitted to hospital to remove the fragments of glass from his head, leaving him looking like a bald coconut and me getting back together to him because of all this people making me guilty like hell for getting him into hospital - him included.

Only in the hospital did I recall my friend’s words the night before…of it being the day of all hell breaking loose. And there’s a chinese saying of ‘ Kwai ngam ngan‘ - literally meaning ghost covering eyes. I had always been a careful driver, and up to then, I had not even had a fender bender other than the time I accidentally reversed out of my car porch in Fresno and forgetting to close the door - rendering the door a little loose.

Ever since then, I had not driven during the 14th day of the 7th month. It has been 7 years, and I plan to continue my little superstition for the rest of my life. Even my mother think me crazy - as even though we had gone through the rites ect as a family for as long as they can remember, it was more of a tradition rather and any real wariness of superstitions.

So, my dear readers, do you believe in the chinese gates of hell?

PS: If you are crazy like me, Monday is the 14th day - so beware!!

Does your lunch look this good?

The bliss of working near to the only two places in Leeds that serves Siu Yuk Farn.

Just a few quickly snapped views…

The chandeliers that greet me each morning

The 19th Century wall decals

My new best friend

My exposed beam barnlike attic office

The balcony outside

These were just snapped as I walked into work today. I’m hoping to come in one day with bigasscamera for a proper photo shoot. At the moment I am enjoying the amount of chandeliers around me. Its so retro-elegance

Yeah yeah, I know..I can’t stop myself from blogging!

Just a few observations:

Office 2007 SUCKS big time if anyone out there plans to do some upgrading. All the commands on top bars have disappeared, replaced by tabbed commands with huge icons that you cannot get rid of. I do not oppose change, but it’s like replacing Google with AOL - from easy command-based settings to whistles and fanfare of icons,pictures, hover-over description and all that crap. Seemed to have been created for a beginner Office user who otherwise would’ve been like a lost lamb. Unlike XP where you are able to set views back to classic views, plugins are needed to ‘transform’ office 2007 to 2003 - AT A CHARGE. Not to mention that documents are now saved with a .docx instead of .doc extension (there is no way to automatically modify this as well) and 99.999% of the population will be unable to access your document unless you manually specify .doc,.xls ect.

(I just realized that this is the first time I actually had in my hand an official,original Office installation CD. Even though I actually remember Office 95, which makes it more than 10 years since I’ve started using Office.)

So I have now gone over to StarOffice. Open source is amazing.You can even save it as .doc. Happiness

I have also been converted on to Firefox. Its like a brand new world - or a new pair of rose-tinted glasses.It’s like….OOOH NOW I UNDERSTAND.

Part of my new role is website content management ala blogging. HOW COOL IS THAT!

Ok, enough of sounding geeky like hell…back to blogging working

knock knock..

I know, I know….I have been pretty bad with my non-posting lately here. Give me some time to settle down here and I promise it’ll be right up to speed again ok? Intermittent appearances until this weekend, when we have a 3 day weekend weeee!!!!Not much planned, so might do a trip to the seaside if it’s nice..otherwise, I’ve got 4 basketfuls of ironing to do..bleah how exciting

is a refreshing start to a new career

Work’s extremely exciting at the moment with loads to learn, discover and implement. Not gonna have time to blog from work I’m afraid, so I’m gonna need to change my blogging frequency and times.It’s strange to be using brains after so many months of being forced to hibernate stupidly.

to the end of my toxic working relationship …the same one that made me felt less than human with brains of a caterpillar.

Good riddance to bad rubbish.