will i am's delayed diary

In 2021, we had no shortage of mooncakes at home. To avoid being buried in mooncakes, we had to eat at leas three mooncakes a night. My sister and BIL kept received mooncakes from their friends and suppliers. Teochew and Shanghai mooncakes were de rigueur this year. Even Apollo's mum gave out a batch of those delicious layered pastries with yam filling. One thing I didn't like about this year's mooncakes was the subpar salted duck egg yolks ( specialists would talk about colour, oil exudation, and grittiness lol ). And of course, there were specialty mooncakes like  Henry the Hamster joined this year's celebration, and he had fun frolicking in a pomelo skin. Even took a bite out of it. We lit a wood and paper lantern ( like an andon ) with a tea light, and got Little Monster to pose with Henry. The restless hamster flew out of his hand and into the lantern causing quite a scare! When we finally got Henry out, he was a bit shaken and he licked himself at several spots. L

SK gave me big bowl of water hyacinths, and to avoid mosquito larvae from growing in the water, she  put one fighting fish into it. The water hyacinths started dying after a week. Strange because water hyacinths are actually pretty hardy weeds that choke ecosystems of lakes and rivers. Taking a closer look, I noticed small black dots and silky webs on the leaves. SK said they were spider mites. By the time all the water hyacinths die off, I'll be left with an aquarium that doubles as giant drinking dish for my neighbour's cats.  

My new employer produced the offer letter in record time, and they changed some standard clauses as a sign of their sincerity. I was happy with the package, and I signed it. A week later, I tendered my resignation after talking to the head of my department.  HOD: For everyone on the team, I have an idea on what would make them leave. For you, it would be due to task overloading, and perhaps also due to the CEO.  Thanked him for understanding my motivation to leave. In the afternoon my COO called me. COO: You want to leave? Seriously? Two months notice period not enough la. Can you delay one year? Or maybe you sign some retainer.  Don't be crazy. Not interested. Best of all, there was no counteroffer like I predicted. Less one thin g to reject. My handover dragged for one month because my COO thinks that my new employer would delay my onboarding. Wishful thinking. Anyway, he still 'insisted' that I help them out with some outstanding customer engagements that had been drag

Here's a gist of my working experience. In 2003, I joined the company that I interned with. Not long after I joined, the company was bought over by a bigger company. For a span of 18 odd years, I had stayed on, merely changing subsidiaries along the way. With each change, came a change of management, a change of line of business, a change of domain. There was some career progression up till a certain point. But the flexible nature of the organization made it not very clear. People often wonder why I stayed so long when I never got a single proper bonus payout. Loyal? Content? Afraid of change? Too well-paid? Somehow, I made it through laaaa. The past 4 years were the most challenging. We tried to do anything and everything under the sun, under the guise of being 'dynamic'. And from what I saw, it was mostly a waste of time. In the end, I ended up in a subsidiary that had more than fifty different clients with at least fifty different installations. The mountain of problems

The government announced the Langkawi Travel Bubble to kick-off the reopening of the local tourism sector. The Tribe pounced on the chance to travel further. For several Sundays they had been going to points of interests within Selangor, e.g. Pantai Morib, and Hulu Langat. On Tuesday night, my BIL managed to secure a police permit to travel by land to Langkawi. It was a five-day trip, so it fell to mum and I to babysit the latest member of their family-- Henry, a pudgy Syrian hamster. My sister brought him over in a small cage, and Little Monster handed me his hamster food, and chew snacks.  During the night, Henry is very active and would be running up and down. And he would even hang from the top of the cage like he was playing on monkey bars. One morning we woke to find that he had dismantled his hamster wheel. It had fallen down blocked his access to his water bottle. Once we moved it away, he went for a lonngggg drink. Not only that, he even managed to dislodge the water bottle on

One day, I received an unexpected parcel from Shopee. My name was on the package, but there was nothing pending in my account. Received all my sexy gear jor. Opened it anyway, and found it to be a box of Shiroi Koibito, a European-style cookie manufactured and sold by Japanese confectionery maker Ishiya in Sapporo. A must-buy when travelling to Hokkaido. A surprise gift perhaps? Secret admirer? The first person I asked was KH:  Moi: Baby, someone sent me Shiroi Koibito. KH: Oh, that's mine. I mistakenly sent it to your house.  Whattttttttttttttttttttt???????????????? Zzz.  

Two months passed and it was time for my second dose of Astra Zeneca. Such a long wait when one compares it to those who got Pfizer and Sinovac. KH drove me to WTC and took it as a chance to paktor . How the definition of paktor has changed. Haha. As expected, it was a smooth drive to WTC on a Sunday afternoon. Some weeks prior, vaccination appointments were screwed up the city center was locked down to thwart a political protest against the newly-minted prime minister. He was so insecure that he even shutdown the rail service. KH dropped me off at the entrance of WTC, and went to park at Sunway Putra Mall. Experience taught me to update my "COVID-19 Status" in the MySejahtera app and refresh my profile before approaching the crew at the first check point. Compared to my first appointment in July, there was noticeably less people, and there was no wait. Just kept walking from point to point. No longer needed to get to Dewan Merdeka on fourth floor. Did a quick registration,