I'm getting fat for Christmas ?

Christmas is  round the corner. Used to be more happening when I was younger. Christmas was really big during my school days. Now... ?

Sigh.... my best friend just sent me the above! Makes me feel kinda guilty now. Does it mean we are going on a diet during Christmas? Must we? I do love the seasonal fruit cakes & the Christmas buffets, who can resist those ?????

Simple pasta dish I cooked !

I attempted to make a simple pasta yesterday after I saw this in a magazine

Looks so good right? It's simple too.

Just saute bacon, tomatoes & garlic, then add the penne & basil leaves.
Finally season with salt & pepper & add some cheese.

Well I didn't have any basil leaves, still it tasted very good!
You could try it too:)

Too good to be eaten :))

One of my colleague came back from a Korean trip & bought this snack for us. Has the Korean becoming like the Japanese? The food packaging is so nice, we all kinda stared at it for a long time, not wanting to eat & destroyed it ..lol.. By the way the snack looks better than it's taste! It's a rice cracker:)

Win- win situations :))

We were having lunch yesterday with colleagues of other departments & swapping gossips. It seems some of the department heads have been lay-off & sent home. What to do, down-sizing. Company took the opportunity to rid itself of expensive expatriate packages, during this down turn. Wonder if it'll affect small potatoes like us?

Tom ,one of our favorite  personal assistants was telling us how he has to "serve" 2 bosses instead of one now. He said it as if it was an achievement, like scaling Mt Everest ! We were all laughing as, before, we never really know what his job was. He's always around gossiping, telling us juicy tidbits of what's happening in the company. He's still doing that, so I suppose he could serve 3 bosses if it comes to that ! It's a win-win situation, company save more cost, Tom gets more news & we get more entertaining gossips.

If you were a Sailboat: Katie Melua

Friday is a funny day to resume posting, oh well this is the day I've picked. The lapses in post should be remedied since the crazy events for the last few months have passed.

Lately My friend introduced me to a Singer I'm not familiar with.
Singer : Katie Melua
Song: If you were a Sailboat
Good?: Very beautiful !!!

Drama Queen : The week after the dramatic incident ......

The week after the dramatic incident was unusually quiet. The main 'characters' avoided each other. They could as we helped to make sure they have nothing to do with each other. No one want another 'incident' to happen again.

On hindsight some of us felt that the 'victim' was way.... too sensitive, it's a silly joke, why cant she
just take it? Why turn something so 'small' into such a big thing. Why be so dramatic? And the husband coming down ,was totally unexpected & 'hard' to handle. My boss is a very diplomatic person, but I could tell even he has reach his limit- having to entertain 'an angry spouse' over a April Fool's joke??? Anyway he took a week off after that! Probably didn't want to see their faces.

We were thinking there goes any promotion for the 'TWO'. These sort of things matter. Now at every opportunity the 'victim' would corner us, & kind of explain to us why she got so mad etc etc... Cant she tell, no one is interested???? We just want to move on, & hope to forget it, it makes us feel uncomfortable. No one wants to lunch with her, as no one wants to hear that over & over again! I feel kinda bad for her initially, but after she started to corner me with an explanation in the lift, I gave up. Like the rest, I avoided her like the plague too! Now we wonder would she complain to her husband & this time get him to come over & talk to each of us!!!!

The most dramatic April Fool's Day ever

Do we ever play April Fool's day joke any more? I thought that's for kids, who have nothing much to do. Anyway today at the office a male colleague played a trick on a female colleague & it got out of hand. What was meant to be funny wasn't to the 'victim'. I wont mention what happened here, but depends on which side you happen to be on, it could be funny to the prankster & not so to the victim.

Long story short, it sort of divided the office into 2 camps. Sigh.... ya, it was a slow day, so everyone is sort of waiting for something to happen, & this did, so everyone got wired up. A small thing developed into something much bigger. Thank God I was in the ladies, so I didn't witness it. Our boss had to deal with the situation, which I could tell, pisses him off. Then they were 'forced' to say sorry to each other & that's it.

Thanks to technology & smses. By the end of lunch, the whole company including other branches

knew what happened! By afternoon tea, the husband of 'victim' actually came to the office to confront the 'perpetrator'. Oh Boy.... for a moment I thought the guys were going to fight! Luckily everyone gave 'face' to my boss & also to the image of our 'big time' company.

What a day. It's even more dramatic than any of the movies I've watched lately. Thank God it's over for the time being. Tomorrow is another day..... I can't wait !!!

Why bother working? I was advise to get a rich husband instead !

We were looking for a new person to join our team, & I was surprise many who applied were people in their 40s to 50s. If you take a look at our 'culture', you'll see an unwritten policy. The older people will stand no chance with us.  People in their fifties are increasingly finding themselves stuck in limbo.  On one hand, they're too young to retire & too old to get re-hired.

One can blame the economy, deep down everyone knows age discrimination was also at play. It's very difficult to prove hiring discrimination, because unless somebody says, 'you're too old for this job,' you don't know why you weren't hired. Plus, employers may have rational qualifications that are inadvertently weeding out older candidates. Recent education and technological skills are two areas where older workers are more likely to come up short compared to the younger competition.

"When there's a large supply of unemployed workers, employers can afford to be choosier, and they're opting for workers they think are less expensive or more recently trained. That's a hard reality for older job-seekers. When you're at 50 or 60, you've had a lifetime of work. You've played by the rules, and the rug has been pulled out from under you.

This topic is sort of taboo around the office. A senior colleague 'advise' me to get a rich husband & marry soon to become a taitai- it's a jungle out here she says!!!!

Monkey King 2 staring Aaron Kwok & Gong Li.

My friend sms me telling me Tokyo market went down 5%. Sigh.... this is Chinese New year & we certainly do not need anymore bad news.

For once I'm glad I'm not some big time investor as the world markets are going nuts. But when there's chaos, there's opportunities too. Anyway, that's not what I'm interested in. Yesterday I went for a movie, since there's nothing much to do. Monkey King 2 staring Aaron Kwok & Gong Li. It's really quite good. I enjoy it very much. Aaron Kwok makes a better Monkey God than Donnie Yen. GongLi is seriously eye catching every bit the "movie star". Him Law makes the most handsome Watery Wujing, in the history of this Journey to the west story ....lol....  :))

Aaron Kwok as Monkey God :))

When shares go down

The share market is really taking a beating now. Friends were complaining, my dad has been pulling a long face for days. Even his blue chips banking shares are not spared.

But if you have been in this for long, you'll also know, what goes down must come up. So if your counter is down for the moment, don't sweat. Turn off the news , don't read the papers. Just wait it out. Could be a while though, but it's the norm right? Markets go up & down, this is what they do. If you cant stomach a little dip, then this kind of investment is not for you, put your money in time deposit instead.

What's happening to 2016?

Time flies , cant believe it's almost mid of January. 2015 just whizz by. Time is indeed relative. When you are busy it seems to go faster. But when you are suffering.... it's almost like watching paint dry!

Strangely unlike other years, the end of 2015 was pretty quiet for me. The usual Christmas celebrations, parties etc... were somehow much toned down. No one seem exceptionally excited about anything. Same thing is happening for this coming CNY. Wonder what happen? Because the financial world is slowing down? And everyone is holding their breath?