The last time I worked this late was at that job in Kulai, but that was fun (doing work late at night with two girls? FUN.) too. My colleagues are worried I’ll burn myself out by week’s end, but that’s part of the challenge right? It’s something I’ve never done before and I want to test my limits.

On the whole, the client staff have been really nice, though cellphones and bags are forbidden in the office area due to the sensitive nature of their work. Still, we got quite a bit done today, though how well that translates into getting the reports done is still beyond me. Hopefully things continue to go this well for the rest of the week!

I’ll pen a longer post when I have the time. Goodnight!

Photo by MyLifeStory // Flickr Creative Commons

Work has, thus far, been good to me. Admittedly my department has had to let go some people over the past few months, but such is the nature of audit.

The upshot of this is that those of us who’ve remained gain the opportunity to work on different types of engagements than we would normally do. For instance, my previous client in Kulai allowed me to get some hands-on tinkering with SAP for a manufacturing environment.

If the allocation list is any indication, I have a diverse client portfolio to keep me busy till the year-end. Best part is, as I mentioned earlier, the type of work I’ll be doing differs from client to client. Granted there are a few similar type jobs here and there, but that’s to be expected.

I’m looking forward to the coming peak period for this reason alone. I hope the workload won’t be too daunting (considering how audit firms always seem to be short on people as this time rolls around) so that I’ll be able to better focus on each engagement I take on and take home some practical and useful learning experiences.

As of now though, I’m happy with where I am here. The previous week has been especially productive, especially since I managed to get a number of things done with the help of my team members and managers. One of them even openly told me of her intention to write me a good performance review for the work I did for her, which buoyed my morale.

This week will be especially busy for me. I opted myself into an attestation engagement for a major financial institution, though the working hours for this particular entity are quite odd – I’m presuming that this is due to the nature of its global-oriented business, so working late is definitely on the cards.

I’m not working on this one alone though – the manager in charge is someone with whom I’ve worked before and she is assisted by one assistant manager who’s quite helpful in providing suitable materials for our reference. On the lower end of the food chain, I’m accompanied by one senior associate and one intern from UTP.

I’m told on top of the late working hours we’ll have our work cut out for us as well. There are a number of financial controls we’ll need to examine and test in some detail, but what exactly our scope covers will only be explained tomorrow before we head out to the client’s.

Seeing how I’ve got a long week ahead of me, I’ll be tucking in shortly. I miss hanging out with people other than my colleagues/housemates though, so I hope to be able to hook up with a few people this weekend for catching up. Here’s to an awesomesauce week, eh folks?

According to news reports, the church had organized a breaking-of-fast dinner in conjunction with the Muslim holy month of Ramadhan. JAIS is accusing the church of proselytizing, or attempting to convert, Muslims that were in attendance that night. They even declared that they had found evidence to support this claim and investigations were ongoing.

While it raises the obvious question about JAIS’ right to invade religious places of worship as and when it suits them, I want to ask another question entirely: Does JAIS and its various supporters truly believe their fellow Muslims are so weak in spirit and faith that this sort of thuggish bullying is necessary to keep them in line?

What was the intention of the raid anyway? Were they just trying to humiliate those Muslims joining their Christian friends for the breaking of fast? Try as I might, I cannot see any reason, no matter how sincere and honest, being sufficient justification for gatecrashing (to put it politely) a church dinner!

At the same time, you have the Director of JAIS that he wasn’t aware or involved in the raid at all. Assuming this statement is true, this raises some equally worrying questions:

• What was JAIS’ procedures for determining the validity of the complaint regarding the church proselytizing to Muslims?
• Who was responsible for authorizing the raid?
• If no authorization was given, then what will be the consequences for the officers who carried it out?
• What guarantee can the state government or JAIS give that no such similar raids will be carried out on other places of worship in future?

It is extremely disheartening that this incident should occur during this time of patience, religious dedication and self-reflection. Though the state government has been quick to condemn the raid, that it had occurred at all has seriously damaged their credibility and what goodwill they may enjoy among the population.

If Pakatan Rakyat is serious about its leadership ambitions, it has to take decisive action here to punish those responsible for such a thoughtless action and pave the way for better race relations to come.

KTM was gracious enough to offer free shuttle buses to Kepong to board the ETS there, while offering full refunds to those who wanted it. Granted, there was some confusion at the ETS ticket counters as to which counters were actually catering for refunds and which ones were solely for other purposes. On the whole though, I felt that KTM did make some solid efforts to try to minimize the damage and bad publicity an unforeseen incident like this could cause them, so kudos to them on that.

The ticket for the 8.00am train set me back about RM25 more than the ETS’s usual fare, but the upside is I get to go home this weekend after about one month away – definitely one of the longest periods I’ve not returned to Ipoh. I think expecting KTM to reduce the price on that ticket simply for this incident would have been nice, but unnecessary; they still have a business to operate after all.

It feels good to be going home.

I’m also planning to be doing some blogging this weekend – expect posts coming soon on events in the past week both personal and national. Stay tuned folks!

You need to drive for half an hour before you reach Johor Bahru, so the only reason we stopped by was to hail a cab into Singapore. There’s a sense of familiarity, what with sleek glass-and-steel modern skyscrapers side-by-side with beautifully maintained pre-war buildings, but also a feeling of newness. It’s quite amazing to walk along Orchard Road and not only find pedestrian-friendly routes, but also no rubbish at all.

All in all, it was a productive two weeks there. The environment was not ideal and we faced some tough challenges, but I left Kulai with new knowledge and possibly feeling a little bit more grownup in terms of my working capabilities. I’m looking forward to more large-scale engagements such as this one, especially with a solid team to back me up!

Photo by Mykl Roventine // Flickr Creative Commons

Say what you will about cats, but they’re awesome. With their quick reflexes, swift agility, graceful poise and keenly honed survival instincts, cats have evolved the tools necessary to co-exist with us in the modern world, one full of dangers both natural and man-made.

While cats have demonstrated time and again their supernatural ability to skillfully avert death at the last minute, I’ve noticed that we humans actually take what cats can do for granted.

For one, if a proverb is anything to go by, cats supposedly have nine lives.

A bit about that image up there. Unless you’re secretly Batman, when we talk about having more than one life we usually use it in the context of gaming. It’s a risk-reward system: to win the game, you have to pass a challenge or two to do that.

Example: in Pac-Man, your goal is to clear the board of all the little dots while evading ghosts at the same time. Should you get caught by a ghost, however, you don’t immediately lose the game. Instead, you’re given a small amount of “lives” that dictate how many times you can be caught before you actually lose and the “GAME OVER” sign flashes on-screen.

My point is this: in Pac-Man you only lose a life if you get caught by a ghost. The penalty is imposed only when you fail the condition of not being caught.

So why don’t we apply the same standard for cats?

When a cat narrowly avoids being squished by a car, or escapes the vengeance of a vicious dog by mere inches, it’s common to hear people say, “Oh, there goes one life” or “That’s one less life for that kitty”, or something to that effect.

Why don’t cats get the same treatment as our games? Do you think they appreciate it when you so callously toss away their lives when they did a darned fine job of escaping death’s clutches for another day? Imagine if they did that to you while you were gaming:

“Minus one life?! But I used my Epic Grapple Multipurpose Robot Kitchen Claw (TM) to swing out of reach of the Giganto-Beast’s Ultra-Mega Hypersonic Stormwave Fireshock Cannons Galore (TM) by mere milimeters!”

Not so fun, isn’t it?

If we really cared about our cats, we’d wait till they ended up under the heavy tires of that eighteen-wheeler, crushed and bleeding to death. Then, once they’ve re-spawned some moments after, we’ll look upon them wistfully and sigh, “Sorry pussy, it was a good try but not good enough. Minus one life.”

So in closing I say to you: equality for our furry feline friends, or minus one life!

More updates forthcoming, so don’t you worry!

Photo by By SCA Svenska Cellulosa Aktiebolaget // Flickr Creative Commons

Disclaimer: Do not read this post during mealtimes. You have been forewarned!

You notice one thing about Malaysians; though a lot of us speak English with foreign accents, have studied in prestigious universities abroad, or work with professional global corporations, our sense of toilet etiquette (especially in public toilets) is remarkably atrocious!

Some of the more ‘interesting’ toilet habits I have heard friends complain about include:

• Not washing hands after leaving the urinal/cubicle
• Shaking hands dry and splashing water everywhere
• Throwing tissue paper in the urinals
• Sleeping in the cubicles

Makes you wonder what kind of person is able to sleep in a toilet. As to whether this person was simultaneously engaging in ‘big business’ and shut-eye, I did not ask.

What was your most ‘memorable’ bathroom visit lately?

I can identify with that though; I used a Nokia 1112 for almost 5 years before I decided to trade in my ex [Note: Why wouldn't I call it that? All the memories.. *sigh*] for my current one, a shiny red-and-black Nokia 5130 XpressMusic (which still has a proper keypad with buttons and all, much to the chagrin of my mostly iPhone-using colleagues).

There’s just something to be said about old phone models though; they’re a lot more reliable and sturdy than current editions hot on everyone’s wishlist! Here’s a list of the things I miss most about my ex, the good ol’ Nokia 1112:

1. Scheduled text messages. I really hate those moments where I get so caught up in things that I forget to drop someone a text message or make an important call. My ex had an exciting feature that is surprisingly missing from my new one: a “Send Later” option for text messages! I used it especially for sending midnight birthday wishes to old friends – my ex was a useful thing to have handy when looking to be the first one to wish them “Happy Birthday!”

2. Built-in torchlight. Back during my college days, power blackouts were an all-too-common occurrence, and the timing each time was just terrible. Whether you were doing an important assignment, gaming with friends, or taking a shower; when the lights went out, chaos ensued on a campus-wide scale. My ex had a great counter to all this though, one button press and voila! the torchlight saves the day! Plus, Nokia had ingeniously used a white bulb with minimal battery usage in the phone, so I ended up using the phone one more often than my actual flashlight.

3. Never say die. I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve dropped my phone on the floor, sometimes high up enough that the phone just disassembles upon impact. No harm done; I’d just pick it up, dust it off, put it back together, and I can make a call right the next minute. My ex definitely wouldn’t survive an 88-storey drop, but what kind of an idiot’d have his phone dangling near the edge like that anyway? And besides, dints, scratches, nicks, and gouges mean nothing to me, not when my ex can easily..

4. Change clothes. Like I said, my ex has seen its share of troubles. Old as my ex was, it’s not like I can impress anyone with its battle scars. The beauty of it was how easy – and, more importantly, cheap – it was to switch phone casings. You could switch it up even for the fun of it. I wonder if there was anyone who actually kept a wardrobe for their favorite old Nokia? (I certainly didn’t; cheap as it was, I was a real miser when I was younger.)

5. Super clear screen. Malaysia, if you didn’t know it already, is a country where things can get hot as hell (and I’m not talking about the political climate, har-har-har). As if the oppressive heat (not a synonym for “government”) wasn’t bad enough, the bright glare makes walking in the hot sun almost unbearable. Still, no matter how bad the sunlight got, I was always able to read what was on my ex with perfect clarity. Black-and-white screens FTW!

Yes sir, those were the good ol’ days with my good ol’ ex! What about you? Do you miss anything at all about your old phone(s)? Or, keeping in tune with the whole “my ex” thing, did you suffer a bad breakup? Leave your thoughts in the comments section below!

P.S.: Names have been changed to protect their privacy.
P.P.S.: Jason* made me include this disclaimer.