My, my, my... what a surprise

You can never know what you could/will find on the Net

When I'm bored, sometimes I have an inquisitive streak. What I like to do is to search or Googled word such as places, phrases and even names. It could either go both ways, sometimes its a dead end but at times, could give an inkling of what happen to an old friend, familiar places or just, news.

In order to know how famous my (old) friends are on the Net or what are they doing now, I googled their name. And my, my, my, was I in for a surprise. On one of the pages, it was written as her solemnization photos. What? She's married? Clicked on the link, and was directed to a page, full of the solemnization photos and outdoor shoot.

Called her, and she confirms the news, although she was surprised that I learnt about it through the Net. It was a small, family affair she says, as it was flooding out east and she's pressed for better timing. Work will occupy their (hers and her husband) time till early March, where she will hold the reception. She will definitely inform me of that March do, she assured me as we ended our conversation.

Last Wednesday, I had a call from her inviting me to her reception on the very next day. She is still in KL as she called me and will be driving back that night itself as she were not on leave. Thankfully, she's on leave on Friday, so she'll have a long weekend. Of course I would be honored to attend.

She look resplendent in her wedding dress, and the groom looks dashing. Its (most probably) just a 'makan' do, as she told me, she's a bit hesitant for the whole 'bersanding' thingy. Helena was there too, the perpetual twins, and she looks ravishing in her pinkish 'baju kurung'. Really missed hanging out with both of them :)

Congratulations to Masaida and Hakasha. Here's to a wonderful married life.

If you don't attend

If you're absent from a meeting, chances are some people will make a decision for you.

Most of the time, I will make an effort to attend all of the meeting that I need to attend either in my management, research, professional or my personal capacity.

It seems that this morning I need to attend a meeting with regards to a forthcoming international conference in April. The institute has been invited to talk about how we apply our specific know-how into the preparation of elite athletes. The meeting was supposed to discuss on the content of the keynote address, as we need to project that our work is basically integrated in nature.

Unfortunately for me, I was stuck with the Admin Director as I was passing over some documents to the Admin office. She chanced upon me, and invited me for a chat. Our chat revolves around day to day operations, to the expat staffs and overall views on the future of the institute. And I totally forgot about the former meeting.

Once I got back to office, Barry came over to my room, smiling, and commented that I should have been present in the meeting. Querying him on the reason, he answered that my name has been suggested to be the person to deliver the keynote address on our approach to elite athletes. Ouch! The meeting was of the opinion that a local might be the best candidate to deliver it, rather than an expat consultant. So its going to be me, and Leesa.

Bab also came and spoke to me about it. Prof R whom I meet later also said that he feels that me and Leesa would be the best person, to pull it together. I thank them for the opportunity and trust, and I hope I could do justice to the task given. After all, its all in a days work :)

A note to myself. Need to attend all those kind of meetings.

Election Aftermath II

So its going to be a new minister after all

The recent election aftermath saw a reshuffle of The Coalition cabinet. Even though The Coalition won, but with only a simple majority, it saw a shrinking number of possible candidate to go by. The shocking loss of some senior ministers in the election means that for once there are more posts on offer that there are qualified and suitable people to fill it.

Pre-election assumption puts DZH as the most probable candidate to head the ministry, in place of DSA. At some juncture, the name of The SIL has also cropped up as a possible candidate, but we are of the opinion that it would be a suicide if that were to happen. So its best to wait for the election...

Post election. With the smaller number of winning candidates to go through, some modification needs to be made. Some ministries are combined, the post of SUPA are abolished among the steps taken. Then yesterday, came more shock. A number of senior cabinet minister who WON had been sidelined from the new Cabinet. Why? Only AAB knows

In the end, a new person is entrusted to spearhead the ministry forward. Welcome aboard, Sir, we hope to be able to work with you towards the nations sporting excellence.

Kat mana? Glomac Square?

Yesterday, we met for the 2nd time. Some of us are working, so we set it later in the day. Numerous email and calls were made, to set up the time AND place. We wanted to be fair to everyone, so we try to pick a rendezvous point, and will rotate in the week to come. For this week, its in KJ.

As I was going to be a bit late, I called a few of the quorom. After work, i rushed to KJ and I was among the first to reach KJ, Kell and Masz join me a short while later. We look around for a place quiet and spacious enough for (all of) us. Angel called, to confirm the place. She went to the place across the road. Called Meni, she'll be there soon enough as her office is a stone throw away. Pet is the next one to arrive.

Discussion starts with what else, food. We had lotsa laksa, black pepper fried rice, bubur pulut hitam, french fries and many glasses of teh tarik, teh o suam and ais, juices, air kosong and black coffee. Then it started to rain heavily, but the discussion remains hot and furious. We watched videos of 'The Chair' and 'Merong' performances and more discussion ensued.

Its almost 630pm and Prez was nowhere to be seen. Called him, and he was just getting out of office, on the way to KJ. The consensus, we'll wait for him if he's coming. Discussion continues, and issues identified. We'll wait for Prez to get his views on certain matters. Around 715pm he whizzed pass, and went to the place across the road. Ceh.

Eating and drinking continued, discussion on our project interspersed with politics. Pet got the brunt of it, when he declared his choice at the recent polls. But, we manage to decide on a matter of things, and everyone understands the commitment needed for this project and constraint on time it may pose. Kell is in the thick of things, delegating responsibility. Prez is busy eating his fish, Masz itching to go home. Angel needs to go back and study while Meni offers to disseminate info thru the Net.

So, 'The Chair' it is, we'll come up with a tentative schedule till 'D-Day' for everyone's benefit. Til next weekend guys and gals, have a productive week ahead :)

Update

It was a shock (not really, though).

I stand at 96.5 now. Thats not too hard to guess. Need to go down a lot. Fast. Make that a lot faster.

Election Aftermath

With a bated breath, the nation speaketh.

The governing Coalition lost its 2/3 majority in the Parliament and lost a few key state in the process, namely Penang, Perak, Kedah and Selangor to the Opposition. Kelantan stays in the governance of the Opposition, under PAS.

It will be an exciting time for the nation, the next four years. Some arrogant bloke have the audacity to say that the 'rakyat' will suffer, but looking on a positive note, hopefully 'rakyat' will be on the receiving end of both party's goodwill. The Opposition will try to extend their welcome for the next term, while the Coalition will try to wrest back the states it has lost for the next election. The

 verdict? Both parties will want to be in the good books of the 'rakyat'.

Hopefully, that is what going to happen. You win some, you lose some. A win-win situation for the 'rakyat'.

An alternative to work?

It seems that my life has been taken over by meetings.

On Monday, I was invited to my organization's 'Think Tank' meeting, which I'm attending for the first time. From what I know its a weekly affair, and the previous one took 3 hours, ending at 6pm. So for this week, it is started at 2pm so hopefully it could be wrapped up earlier. Unfortunately for me, it still ended up at 6pm. A four hour meeting? Sheesh!

One of my earlier management meetings have to be broken up over two days, on different weeks, each part taking almost 4 hours each. The same meeting  last month stretches from 930am til 215pm, complete with breakfast and even lunch. Its as if they had foresee that the meeting would be really, really long.

In contrast to my own departmental meeting, usually it took 1 hour max. So I can't really see the need for this long winded, weekly, fortnightly or monthly meeting. I do subscribe to the view that we should keep it short and simple. Decisions do need to be made, information needs to be disseminated but meetings doesn't have to be too long.

No wonder, people took meetings as the accepted alternative to work. I would rather be doing something else though :)