summing up the year 2019

talking to my boss recently got me to thinking of how much i miss writing, jotting my thoughts into words and posting it online for everyone to see (ok well, that last part is crap, it's actually more of me cementing my thoughts into stone before my birdbrain forgets every small detail haha, but whatevs)

me asks Deskmate: eh semalam utk lunch i makan apa eh?
Deskmate: *smacks forehead*

bahahaha. don't play2. every single word from my mouth will be ungkited and used as ammo against me later T__T

(if i asked Lina, she'd probably demand RM5 per question hahahah)

i've realized that the lesser i write in English, the rustier my command of the language, serious. i also haven't been reading as much as i should, despite having a few books lined up at home - Kay Hooper, Sophie Kinsella, to name a few. the ig is a real blog killer - i've been posting more on ig rather than on my blog, so i apologize for the rare updates. my friend has even closed down her ig to spend more time on her blog, how awesome is that.

well anyway, let's see. a whole year of 2019 has passed in a blink of an eye, my maid keeps reminding me how fast time flies, as if i didn't realize that already. almost two years have passed since i first started working at the company, i'm due to be expired in about two weeks, and what the heck am i going to fill up in my kpi form this year? haizzz. thanks to the Boss' insistence, i'm now CTAL certified. at least that's one thing i can say if he asks me about my achievement for this year, LOL

i've had a whole year of ups and downs, with my car taking the cake - emptying my purse like water mengalahkan all the water cuts that occured in Selangor this year alone, hahahahhah. 9 more months to go, the car you love to hate and hate to love, that car will be fully paid for, whoopee. i've no plans for a new car, that allocation's going to the Pilot next year. this year, the only 'vehicle' we bought is a Mobot, ever heard of it? the kids are really enjoying being the pillion rider. let's see if the Pilot's going to use it for Friday prayers as originally intended, hahahahhaha.

in terms of travelling, i didn't really get to do much jet-setting this year, the Pilot's been more busier on the ground than in the air. i went to London before puasa to visit the fil, he hasn't been well the whole year and the kids miss him terribly. i've already forgotten the scent of the aircraft cabin =D but i've made more gorgeous friends in the aviation sector this year, let's hope i get to see them onboard sometime.

me and Dad

on a more personal note, be careful for what you wish for because i permanently gained a few kgs this year and am unable to shed them as easily as i hoped i could. people have noticed and have complimented on how i've gained, i look much better than the skeleton that i used to be, but i don't like how my face looks like a round plate in photos (hi nana pinggan!) and how i'm unable to fit into most of my existing outfits T___T. i need to come with terms that i'm no longer a default XS, hahahhaha. buying a whole new wardrobe is not an option, so i'm gonna have to start getting into shape before i automatically turn into a full fledged dumpling. my last jog was in August ok, bahahahhaha. i keep saying i should drag my eldest along for excursions because even she complains that she's tired all day - mana taknya asyik duduk depan computer je tak gerak2, no?

i've chopped my locks and dyed my hair earlier this year with Avantlamode, just because the old color was growing out. my friends decided to chop off their locks instead of favoring the french twist and hairspray, so i decided to follow suit haha (and because short hair makes you look younger they say hahahha). my hair is now a weird shade of green. i cannot wait for my hair to grow longer and have it redyed again to a color i'm more comfortable with. my kids are delighted with the relevation that yellow + blue actually does make green, bahahahhahah.

new hair color

took me a year to complete Xenoblade Chronicles 2, am now playing Octopath Traveler, finishing all the sidequests available. not sure what game to move on to next, hmmm.... #forevergamer

Octopath Traveler =D

with regards to my offspring, this year my #3 graduates from kindy and is going to primary school next year. my #2 received an award from Kafa. next year is going to be hectic with three kids in Primary, the last one in kindy, and the eldest sitting for her UPSR (i secretly think that i'm going to stress out more than she being stressed herself, heck i'm not even sure if she will be, hmmmmm). some asks me, when do you wanna add on? i will punch the next person that asks me that. i'm going to have to upgrade my vehicle to a bus liddat. i have yet to sew on their school badges onto their uniforms for next year's term.

my ladder of life

this year i joined Viper - twice - and dragged a bunch of random friends along for the second time around (two Spartan pros, who i think found Viper to be easy peasy, simple pimple =P). due to my comprehensiveness of attempting the 20km route, we signed up for the 5km and despite my out-of-shapedness (if there ever is a word), we plan to do the 20km just for the sake of the awesome obstacles next year, choooooiiii LOL. i'm still thinking twice (no, make that 1000 times) about joining Spartan again, though. can die joining that one. my next year resolution would be to eat less, ganti puasa and be a bit more fit next year, lol.

viper the First

viper, second helping

i've come to realize that despite all the upsides, rushed timelines may not be a good thing, because good things can come to an end a tad too soon even before you realize it. for some people, that is.

so here's to the new year 2020. merry christmas and a happy new year to those celebrating. happy holidays! =)

second Viper of the year

i joined Viper for the second time this year. you know how it is, after successfully completing ONE Viper challenge without killing yourself in the process, you get so pumped up with adrenaline that you enthusiastically say YES to the next person who invites you to join the upcoming Viper challenge event. WITHOUT EVEN THINKING OR BATTING AN EYELASH. hahahahhahaha.

after the adrenaline wears off:

(*WHAT WAS I THINKING??!*)

all is good, though. Viper's no Spartan, and since one of Viper's sponsors is Great Eastern, i can guarantee that the event organizers do not secretly want to kill their participants (i'm kidding). as long as you have the spirit and enthusiasm, i'm sure you'll do fine in Viper. i mean i've seen people from all walks of life participating, it's a great way to promote a healthy lifestyle, at the same time being able to bond and have fun with your team members in the process. who else will be willing to haul your heavy arse over a 10 feet wall? =P some of them even had matching outfits made with their names emblazoned on the back, cool eh?

well anyway, back to all that adrenaline - since Viper had an early bird special for ticket prices, i randomly rounded up a bunch of friends to join me: my uni-mate, his Spartan-mate, his Aunt, and my babywearing-mate. gila random kan, ahahhahahah. my uni-mate had just earned his Spartan trifecta, Viper's considered kacang for him. among the five of us, my babywearing-mate and my friend's aunt were newbies to Viper. and guess what we named our team? Debab Kingdom, HAHAHAHHAHAHAHA

muka baru bangun tido

we chose the 5km (clean and dry) route (12 obstacles with running in between) because i wasn't very confident in covering the 20km route due to its freaking long distance, despite me wanting to attempt the more fun (read: wet and muddier) route which had a whopping 25 obstacles. nanti terkexut pulak the Viper newbies =D~ next year perhaps?

or perhaps they could create a 50-obstacle course with very little running in between. LOL

muka cun sebelum start course

the start time that we were assigned to was at 8.30am. word of advice, if you want to avoid the human traffic buildup at each obstacles, you might want to choose the earliest start time possible. plus, the weather won't be hot. luckily for us the skies were very accommodating; halfway through the course, it started to drizzle.

i'll just let the photos do the talking. there weren't that many, but i'm glad there were any at all. i didn't bring my phone during my first Viper event because i didn't know what to expect, i mean i had to immerse my whole body into a murky watery pit for Spartan, and my phone definitely wasn't waterproof (post challenge i saw my friend from another team posting photos of themselves at every single obstacle hi Yuzmin! hahahhahaha). if it wasn't for my friend who took so many random shots, we probably would only have photos of ourselves just at the Finish line.

the three of us in one shot, yay

ada potensi boleh ajak dia join Viper lagi hahahahha

p/s. i should've photographed Fahmi climbing the inverted wall. hahahahahahhaha

we climbed onto the bales of hay just to take this photo =P

team Debab Kingdom

finish!

friend for lyfe

StepHuntoo - Treasure Hunting

the starting point

my company held a Treasure Hunt competition last weekend, a day right after my birthday =D. the last time i participated in one was when i was still working with my previous company (and we somehow quite unexpectedly won first place woohoo). i love treasure hunts on wheels, it didn't matter if we won or lost, i enjoy just having fun running around like a headless chicken trying to solve riddles and stuff. haha.

StepHuntoo

Team Ape

briefing before the race

up bright & early

i was supposed to have 4 people on my team, but at the last minute my friend V was warded and was unable to recover in time, so it was just the three of us: me, my deskmate and my former unimate who is now my officemate, haha. team name? BEN10 hahahahha (becuase we were Team #10, geddit). meden volunteered to drive, so i got the backseat all to myself.

Team Ben10

mind you it's been awhile since i've attempted answering treasure hunt questions, you don't have to overthink things too much to get the answer. unfortunately that's what we ended up doing, hahahahhaha. then you start doubting your teammates' answers... and when you start panicking, keywords such as sounds like, initially, and whatnot can mean nuts, and then you start taking random photos of store signboards with the determination that you'll double back to the question later.

but trust me, YOU'LL NEVER GO BACK TO THAT QUESTION. there'd be too many photos in your camera roll and you'll lose track of which photos belong to what question. seriously, i had so many photos of store signboards in my camera roll that i don't even remember why i took them in the first place. then you finally start to realize time's running out so you'll start peeping at other teams trying to figure out which signboards they're staring at with the hopes that you'll telepathically figure out the answer. 

or they might be as equally blur as you and it'll be like the blind leading the blind. just sayin'. haha.

midway there was a checkpoint @ Challenge#2 - Get Fit where we had to perform some exercises; i was given the task of pushups because according to my team members, i was the lightest so it would be much easier for me than it was for them. what they didn't know was i hadn't had a decent workout in a long while (in fact, NEVER); attempting 5 pushups alone was torture. i had to do... 20? 30 pushups? can't remember, i lost count.

here's my deskmate attempting burpees. hahahahahhaha

kena dera! HAHA

the lunch checkpoint was at Restoran Pak Wan, somewhere in Sepang. if you google, it'll pop up. food's not bad.

lunch, kampung style

the treasures were easy to figure out, but they weren't necessarily easy to find. do you know how many places we attempted to look for a certain brand of sardine? NUTS i tell you. when i finally did find it in a gigantic superstore (which was located totally out of the way from the treasure hunt sector), i heaved such a huge sigh of relief that i accidentally startled the old lady standing beside me haha. pastu kene marah dengan teammate because i is kemut for grabbing the smallest tin. LOL LOL 

the susah gila nak cari punye sardin

it was raining by the time we reached the final checkpoint to submit our answers. we had to perform another activity - shaking your booty to get ping pong balls fall out of a tissue box tied to your waist, sounds familiar? - before submitting our answers. and only then did i realize that during the flag off that morning, they handed us smart watches which we were required to wear during all that running around for extra points. bahahhahahahahhahahah. they were sitting nicely in the backseat the whole time. whoops. kene marah lagi. haha

we didn't win. there were some pretty hard core treasure hunters in the company ok, don't play-play. but that was okay. i had fun. 

muka-muka post race

on the same day i was running around town creating havoc with my colleagues, my daughter was having orientation at her new school for next year. luckily i had my brother to help me out with this one. my girl is so big already!

a year older again

because my birthday falls on a glorious Friday this year, i decided to celebrate myself in the office - the more the merrier, no? - by supporting local bakers on Instagram! =D i feel like this year has got me ballooning into a Zorb ball of the sorts no thanks to my foodie friends =P since you only turn each age once, why the heck not la kan. we diet next year, ok?

started the morning by dragging the girls on the team for breakfast at San Fran. it's Friday; who has the mood to work on a Friday morning? bahahahhaha. 

i ordered cream puffs and brownies from my friend Atie, who's @delia_delectables on Instagram. serious laaaa everything she bakes is sedap. too bad (or lucky for me, lul) that she stays at the other side of KL, if not i think i'd be ordering from her every other day. haha.

creampuffs

browniessssss yummmmm

the mini chicken burgers in the image below i ordered from Zety who's @so.fluffeh on Instagram. i saw my friend order this for her kids and her photos looked so mouth-watering i just had to try this for myself. sedap ok this mini burgers. i seriously wish i had ordered more hahahhaha.

and then a couple of days later during the weekend i had a mini celebration at home when the cousins came over. them coming over is sort of like a twice a year (or so) ritual - the kids would be preoccupied with the Switch; the older occupants in the house would be busy stuffing their faces and onionning, haha.

mini celebration with the cousins

happy birthday to meeeee =D

my fly girls

last month i had to stop by the Academy to drop off the Pilot's iPad when i chanced upon them outside during their morning break. i haven't seen the girls since February!
when you hang out with gorgeous girls long enough, their gorgeousness will definitely rub off on you, don't you think?
(proof: they say i look like i'm in my late 20s, score! =D now i really do wish i was still in my late 20s hahaha).
anyways, these fly girls finally complete their training this week after 80+ days of training. #jeles

i am grateful to have gotten to know these bunch of people. i wish them all the best in the skies!

on another note, the Pilot is grounded for another month (#B738forever punye pasal lol), so it's been awhile since i boarded an aircraft. i miss the adrenaline rush each time flying on standby... i miss the smell of the aircraft cabin... i miss getting to know the crew (and listen to their gossip, haha). macam2 lah i miss when it comes to this metal bird! LOL

my favourite analyst

when you look for your Analyst
but she gives you this answer in response

LOL LOL LOL LOL

celebrating Aidilfitri in the Company

this year would be the second time i'm celebrating Aidilfitri with the company. last year, i didn't know anyone well enough to feel like part of the family.

this year? well let's just say the feeling slightly increased by 35%, bahahahah.
still... the title 'anak tiri' of the company still stands though.

so these were a couple of photos taken last year in 2018 during raya:

QM+PMO, 2018

unsure of where i belong in the office

and these were taken this year.

QM team, 2019

#pulanglahraya

TDRock

i'd say being in the company for the past 1.5 years has been a refreshing experience; one, being a totally different industry from my previous companies; and two, the majority of employees being Malay (culture shock, i tell u bahahahhaha).

here's to surviving the second half of the year in the company =D

Salam Aidilfitri, Maaf Zahir & Batin!

my battery is dying

it's just one of those days when random things like these happen to you just as you're about to leave for work:

ABS System

VSA System

Brake System

and then you decide to get emotional on social media =D~~~

thank God my car insurance provides free service to jump-start my car. but they also came with bad news that my car battery wasn't gonna last very long; i'd have to replace it if i didn't want anymore unwanted breakdowns T_T

maintenance-free pun boleh kasi problem hahah

(and knowing me, i just love to tempt fate, hahahahahaha).

coming to my 8th year anniversary with this car, macam2 lah nak jadi.

can i get a CHR for my birthday? LOL.