Once upon a random

• At times, I have answers and opinions to questions asked. However, I choose to stay silent. I don't know why. But I don't feel any less smarter, or less anti social in any way. Sometimes, I feel good. Good to just keep it to myself.
• After 8 months, I still have not warm up yet.
• Only with certain people that I automatically switch and suddenly become less of me. Not intentionally. I don't know why and I don't even see it coming. 
• Sometimes it annoys me that some other people fills in another person's shoes when secretly I want that 'another person' to be the one filling in the shoes. But I have no control of it of course.
• I am so different at work and outside. But my colleagues know the real me! Like in my previous posts, I am crazy, loud, happy, cheerful. I love it that energy is super awesome at work and I'm always uber happy in the office....and...apparently I am garang at work. OMG, I don't marah people at all :P
• I tend to shut down on work-related matters outside working hours. Just because I think that 9-10 hours of work is enough for a day.
• My best friend and girlfriends know me inside out that sometimes when they tell others I'm 'like this', that other person cannot picture it.
• I want a SMURF!

Serious me

I clearly remembered when I applied for my Masters exactly 2 years ago. Part of my personal statement was me expressing my opinion on the 2008 financial crisis and why I wanted to pursue Financial Mathematics. They bought it. I got it.

Today, as I prepare myself to yet again reapply for my Masters after I declined this year’s intake, it’s like living a de javu. Just that this time, I’m talking about a wound that can’t be cured anymore with any sort of medication. Only thing it can be healed with, is by giving it time and having the discipline to not either scratch or touch or do anything to make the wound worse. Yes, the process will take a damn long time. Exactly how the market is out there right now.

Potentially a recession might pop by for a visit. There is no more solution out there come on, everyone knows it. But an attempt to show that the authorities are doing something to help the economy does help, even if it can’t do much. It’s a chicken and egg situation. Attending to growth concerns would mean the opportunity cost is the inflation concern. Likewise, if it was the other way around. Debts are rising, but you need public and every Tom, Dick and Harry to borrow in order to have the money to create demand and subsequently make the economy cycle faster to recovery.

So, this week was a pretty interesting one. I was very eager to read the minutes from the FOMC meet. Fed’s decision to launch ‘Operation Twist’ this week was not a surprise and was a clear evidence that the market perceives monetary policy is becoming less effective in supporting the economy. Buy long term, sell short term. Was reading the history on this and it was first introduced in 1967 to curb recession. Another history was in 1980 during the oil crisis triggered by Iranian revolution and quantum of rate cut was 1050 bps in the shortest time! Holy schmolly. From 20% down to 9.5% in 4 months! Freak of nature betul.

But ok. I thought it’s still better than dumping in money through a QE3. I don’t know. QE2 only sparked up inflation and damaged the real income of the middle class. It might help, but I believe only short term before inflation rises and things get expensive and people need more money and more borrowing, more defaults. That was in laymen terms. I believe it’s more complicated than what I just lined up. Clearly Operation Twist is less inflationary and it’s about time they don’t play dumb anymore.

Will it work though given that rates are already promised to be kept at close to zero till mid 2013? Interesting as it is, it’s all easier said than done. With limited options out there, seriously, only time and discipline can make up for it. As I see it, I think market’s gonna hurt for a lil longer this time before it slowly crawls back up :) Just be cautious to those playing with shares! To be honest, I’m having a really good time at work, learning and at the same time working around this falling market and taking advantage, making good out of it. A motivation in itself this market crash :)

At least for me. I don’t know if this works for everyone. Highly unlikely.

The next significant event this weekend is the G20 meeting, and the IMF-World bank annual meeting, both taking place in Washington.

Have a great weekend everyone! Mine already started very well with futsal tournaments this morning :))) Us in corporate finance team, up against our clients, auditors and consultants! Oh-so-ohsem!

Weird but true

It’s quite funny that sometimes you don’t feel the presence of the closest people around you but instead those furthest away from you make you feel like they’re right there next to you. Ironic much?

They’re far away but you make and spend a lot of time communicating with them somehow. You have time differences, but you speak to them more often than those people living in the same time zone as you are. It doesn’t feel complete if you don’t hear from them in one day, but it’s absolutely normal with people you’re close with and staying in the same country. Those in different time zones make you feel that it is important to have the simplest gestures, such as “How’s your day?” or even a “Good morning!” and it gives you this happy buzzing feeling in you. Where as, the same doesn’t exactly happen to those closest to you, staying in the same country, same time zone as you are.

Weird. But it’s definitely true. 

On that note, I’ve been getting a lot of love from Melbourne and London throughout my everyday, the random calls at work. It feels awesome! :)

Revisited 2009

"You don't cry when I leave anymore. Coz you don't love me anymore?' 

Yeah, I cried afterwards. For him. Just to show my love. haha!

If there's one person who will always be on my side and all defensive, protective over me, whether I'm right or I'm wrong is my favourite baby boy Azwan. Has also always been the most manja and my partner in crime. Since young, we have always been going around together at family events. Sleepovers. Ice cream/ happy meal times together. The boy who used to not be able to speak Malay coz he stayed in the UK so he'd follow me around so that I'll speak for him. The one who used to sleep on the couch and wait for me to come home from school so that we can play. I wear his clothes, he wears mine. He knows my friends, I know his and people used to think we were together if not warned before hand that we are cousins. One thing we love doing is surprising each other! :)

Good times. Now he's well into his 2nd year of Uni, has an awesome girlfriend and chasing those dreams he has! :) I'm proud. Can't believe he's all grown up already. Even harder to believe that things are so back to how it is after the most trying and toughest time ever 2 years ago. The time when I thought I was losing him and for that, I deferred my entry into the corporate world and would rather wait night and day at the hospital till he wakes up. Makes me cry everytime I think about it. Makes me smile though everytime I remember the day he wrote this.

January 2011 - Celebrating my birthday with them and happily stranded in London

September 2011 - Sending Azuzu and Farrara off and planning for the next visit! :)

Have fun in Spain guys!!

London came home

The only time I started going crazy and was talking to myself in the mirror was when I was so craving for an ice cream but I was so full! So I asked myself in the mirror...

This time, I thought I was hallucinating. A surprise that really happened. BIG TIME! 

This girl suddenly appeared all concern about my schedule...

YES! Phoebe is back from London and appeared outside my house!! Pfft. It was a really funny night though when it happened.

Pick me upper

I was feeling very very very exhausted and lethargic this week! To start of my week, an email to draft out 3 complicated products came in on Sunday and today is Malaysia Day. So that's 4 days to work on it. Nerve wrecking meetings that I got invited to at the 11th hour to attend and futsal trainings that have started. Sleep deprived too!

When I am tired, I get hyper. Exahusted? Very hyper! I really don't understand how this works really. One thing's for sure, when I get very hyper and start singing and dancing at work, my bosses would know that knackered is an understatement. I love it how they know oh-too-well already :)

So, we took a break and they did what an Alia needed yesterday. Revisit the "10 ways to pick up Alia's mood"! This is when I am feeling blah for no reason and need a pick me upper!

1. Catch my kind of movie
2. Finish a book in 2 days
3. Walk down digital memory lane
4. Pamper me
5. Give gifts for no reason
6. Sing out loud
7. Find my inner child
8. Create a mood playlist
9. Meet old friends
10. Desserts

So, the easiest for them at that time when I was dying for some happy times was? 1, 5, 6, 7, 8, 10. 6 out of 10, that should be able to push me to resume work with great energy!

I'd say 6 and 8 are pretty similar and yes, I listen to songs really loud at work that sometimes I don't even hear my own office phone rings. But the louder the music, the more motivated I am, the happier I be and the faster I complete my work. So my bosses have no complains on that volume level. He's just worried that when I get older, I won't be able to hear anything :P I got my bubble tea, planned our next movie outing, sang out loud in the office and I thought number 7 was the best.....They just threw markers on my table.... What happened next?

Gone were the glasses in the office coz Lil Alia came out to play.

To be honest, it feels really good when you can just be yourself at work without anyone judging you :)

The Power of Kindness

At the end of my first internship, my boss gave me this book entitled “The Power of Kindness” with a note that said ‘because you have everything in this book’ just before I left. Too sweet ok when I am so sure I don't have all those qualities in the book. Hmmph. One of the easiest superior to work with. He understands my needs, I understood his and we understood the importance of work life balance then. Till today, it leaves me with this very satisfying happy feeling every time I read it.

One thing I learned was that no matter how mean people can be to you, just stay on and be nice, coz at the end of the day, the one who is nice will never lose out no matter what. With that I mean that at the same time, never allow people to bully. Should someone step over the limit, then draw the line. It's aways scary when a nice person gets angry!

Reason why I’m suddenly writing this is because, a friend just told me about how rudely mean people can be to her. But I did tell her to stay on being the very nice girl she is and let them be the unhappy envious losers :) I’ve witnessed a time when it was difficult for a girl to ‘penetrate’ her way through a group. Not because they’re popular, they weren’t. In fact they were a group of aggressive lot, quite the opposite from her. Just that they were all a professional in what they do, and this girl was just wanting to learn a thing or two from them. They were also a group of clicks that weren’t too easy to accept anyone new.

Today, the girl works very well with the team and they’ve become so close with each other. It’s a nice thing to see! Happily ever after. Macam fairy tale dah pulak.

All I’m saying is that, always treat others the way you want to be treated and exercise kindness and moderation in everything that you do, coz in time people will learn to accept if you are sincere and usually, it’s always just a waste of energy to get angry, so you might as well just be happy :) 

Nothing in this world can ever be life’s biggest problem, really.

Running out of (single) days! Part 2

Before the start of it all! :)

Running out of (single) days!

No. I'm not getting married.


You (obviously) know that your best friend is getting married in a few months time. What you forgot was, her Hen’s night is in a few days time instead of months.

What do you do? Panic first. Faint second. Calm down later. And then start planning.

Rewind to a few days back when Shu just got back and I was practically living in her house, having family dinners and watching football matches with her parents,  niece, nephews, siblings and siblings’ other half. It’s still so very clear to me when she told me “Babes, my Hen’s night is on the 4^th k”. “Mmmkay”…before I fell asleep.

Because work was overtaking my life for a moment, Raya day was the only time when I had a moment to redigest all information mentioned to me in the past including Kim’s messages about the plans she had started with and the Hotel that Shura has liaised with (My god, such a Dory I am, I swear!). Thank god for Kimmeyh and mind you, Kim was still in Melbourne at that time and was only flying in back to Malaysia on Hen’s night day! So then it hit me that hey! “Shu’s hen’s night is this weekend!”

*faints for the second time*

By this time, when I mentioned it to Shura, she was going all “What the hell babes?!” haha! She never scolds me, she just goes “OI!” most of the time and that’s her marah for me :P Thank god for a very understanding best friend. But when she marah someone, I’d rather stay out of it. Or even when she gets all protective over me, even I’d want to stay out of it! Lol :)

Thank god for technology too, Kim and I managed to plan through the genius invention of that lil thing called Blackberry. You should see the communication chaos that we had to go through and persuading Shura to just trust us and go play far away!

Hotel

Event planner

Meet up with Zamir for a lil strategy planning (when Shu was out of KL)

Decorations

Sash/Banner

Spa

Games

High tea

Magic pens

Dinner

Punishments

Theme colour

Pretty papers

Guest list

Message board

Pictures to print

Veil

Customized cake/cupcakes

…

At one point, I was so sleepy whilst running these errands, I had to ask Aiman for happy jokes to wake me up. But…he was happily stocking up on raya food at open houses, so no, I did not wake up. And Kimmy, she fell sick on the way and was already spring cleaning the shopping mall, dragging those feet of hers around whilst I try to get her to hurry up!

4 days of intense planning, we both crashed even before the event started.

But you know what was worth it? Seeing lil miss best friend smile so wide, the rest of the girls had the most fun laughing hard throughout the night and knowing that her fiancée was super happy too (yes, I was updating Zamir every half an hour?). So much so that the next morning automatically, Zam’s first question was “so, what have you girls got planned this morning?”… 

“Well…last time I checked, I’m watching this market crash in the office whilst the rest were still sleeping when I left!” LOL!

It was an excellent day, with one of the best companies I could ever ask for, being surrounded by happy people, happy vibes and especially my favourite person, my best friend. It was a perfect Hen's night!

Like we’ve been saying it from the beginning, to my favourite couple, the gorgeous most perfect one, JOM GET MARRIED! Countdown till the big day. After the big day, we’ve agreed that nothing will change, and that just means that sleepovers will involve the three of us!

Congratulations Shura & Zamir! Have always and will forever love you both!!

Stay tuned for a photo post soon! This post is long enough, I'll hold the photos for now :)

Just because

Nothing is impossible, the word itself says 'I'm possible'! 

Save as draft

Sometimes, some things are meant to be saved as a draft.

Only because you love some things too much and you know that when you read it in the future, you will definitely see it from a different angle. But it becomes a concern when the number of drafts just keep on growing

That's love.

All I Needed

was the much-needed-'break'

It was a busy 3 days Raya break but definitely an excellent one with almost-all my favourites :) It started with a smile, it ended with a smile and I am back at work today! :) This is probably my first proper break for the year, since Dreamgirls was not a break ok, come on. It was hardwork!

Right now, I'm feeling very blessed, thankful and I'm definitely the happiest girl!

Time to get back to those market now.