A Wild Time Amidst the Madness

Falling behind yet again with my blog entries. It's the time of the "B" - Budgeting. Given that the company is run generally by a number of shrewd Chinese bankers, there's no room for slip-ups on our part, everything has to be detailed, precise and accountable for. This explains largely for my absence from the cyberspace.

Catching up a little here, the BBs and I celebrated @ndrea's belated birthday a few weeks ago at Wild Rocket at Mount Emily. Our first time there, we totally enjoyed ourselves, the food was really as good as the reviews have been.

More importantly, it was quality time spent with my BBs, as we caught up with each other on how we have been separately. By the end of the evening and 2 bottles of vino, we were all giggly-happy, like how we have always been back during those days at the Bay.

Sigh, I do miss those times.








Not wishing for the night to end so soon, it was spontaneous Rochor bean curd thereafter, even though we were totally stuffed after a sumptuous dinner.

Much has happened since the day @ndrea and I left the Bay, yet the bond between the 4 of us remains strong and steadfast and I am just simply thankful and appreciative for this friendship and camaraderie.

BBs, LUP!!

A Time for Everything

And so, the last day came and went. It has been an emotional last few days. It could be a good thing that I've been so sick with flu and a bad cough, that I had lesser energy to feel the sadness in its entirety.

It's a good thing too, that the BMW Popiah Party has been postponed, cos I definitely wouldn't want to pass my sickness on to some of the brides-to-be, and new mummy! ;)

And for one more, possibly last, time, we were in coordinated dressing again, at the Padang yesterday! The atmosphere was so electrifying when they were about to announce the results of the Youth Olympic Games bid. As if we didn't know the answer already!



And there was the farewell lunch today, with all the department heads and my team as well.




Oh, and I had a little farewell gift from the dept heads. On the pretext of wanting to borrow to "take a look", the BBs later added on this charmer as a surprise. Absolutely love it, will always be reminded of how much we love to shop during lunch hours!


Saying goodbye to some of the greatest people I've come to love has been really hard. Even these chefs call me "Mama".




A lot has happened in the last couple of years I've been here. There were highs and there were lows. There were difficult periods we had to deal with, we overcame them all. And we did it as a team.

I don't need a report card from anyone to tell me how I've fared during this tenure. Because having the following validation is good enough for me. One email from Matt, one ST article of "the Mandarin girls". I think I've done what I first set out to do.

知道他们有我的心， 我就心满意足了。 Ok I don't know which "zhu" or "zu".

Dear all luppies,

The only piece of work that I am proud to present to mama (my dear boss) got to be the poster
that I did for her birthday cum farewell. 40% that I wanna show her how far I had improved on my creativity,
another 60% got to be from my heart to thank her for being patient, kind and most importantly giving chance for me to improve my CS skills.

As she said, change boss doesn't mean change job, I totally agree with both legs and hands.
Though Marina Mandarin to Meritus Mandarin is just a stone throw away, we must make sure our friendship is as strong as stone and no one can thrown us apart.

We must keep in touch, email and stay tune with gossip.

LUP,
Matt

Fark, this is machiam like breakup, crying for days on end. But the beauty of it - we have built a lasting, meaningful friendship.

BBs, LUP MANY MANY!!!

The BBs Celebrated My Birthday!

Since I do not have many days left in this office, thought I might as well hang around a little longer. It's quiet here now, cos I'm the only one around.

But the laughter, the screaming, the shrieking, the use of colourful language that the four of us shared still rings in my ears, most deeply in my heart.

Came back to the office today after a couple of days off, and the sweet darlings gave me a birthday surprise late in the afternoon. Even though Matt was on leave, he came back as well.

Apart from my all-time favourite Lana Cake (which BBE's beloved collected and sent all the way here), there was a huge poster too. It was a collage of all our moments together, it was an expression of the highest level of creativity (and LUP) that I've ever seen from Matt. I totally, absolutely love it.

I even hugged him although he was all sweaty and stinky from all that running over to the office!!!

By the way, this dude RUNS. He really can run. He would run from City Plaza to City Hall (from sending his teenage son to school, to come to work) 3 times a week, in the morning. As he puts it, he would run from one city to another. And you wouldn't believe how old he is, despite how he looks!








Here's some close ups of the ingenius creativity as well - doesn't it resemble the Business Times masthead? :)




Oh, and isn't my cake pretty? First time I've got a cake in the name of a Mama!


Ok, I'm not gonna let my emotions get the better of me again. I'm truly blessed to have known them.

Toasty Love

Even though I'm not into celebrating Valentine's the "commercial" way, decided to do a little something for The Boy and the BBs on this romance-filled day.

Made each of them I Love You egg-mayo toast, coupled with an apple, to mean that each is "the apple of my eye". Yah, I can be quite cheesy at times, heh.


In the office, the BBs and I got very busy taking photos with the toasts and apples. Matt put his graphic designer skills to good use, coming up with this nice pic. He even gave his interpretation to "Apple of my eye" - he said it can become "Apple of my 爱“. Haha.


Realisation is slowly seeping in. Realisation that next week will be the final week that I'll be officially working with my BBs.

I've done pretty well not succumbing to the emotional heartache so far, not wanting to think too much about it. In that way, I won't cry. But I'm not sure how long more I can keep up with this. It does get more unbearable with the days.

开工日！

Today's the first day of work after the long CNY break. The BBs were all ready with mandarin oranges to 拜年, right after I stepped into the office. It was too early in the morning to take pictures, as you can tell from our pale faces.


After work, we got off earlier to go for our 开工饭, at one of my favourite cze char places, Sin Hoi San along Tiong Bahru Road. R@e was damn thrilled to be at the outlet which 五月天 frequents whenever they are in Singapore.

We had lo hei, great food and good ol' Tiger. We had lots of, lots of fun and laughter.




By the end of the evening, we realised that between the 6 of us, we finished 7 bottles of Tiger. So to make it a FATT year, we ordered one last, the 8th bottle, for the road.


So here we are, the 4 of us - BBL, BBE, BBM and Mama - before and after the 8 bottles. We've been through 2 fantastic years as a team, so strong no one could bitch around with us. The camaraderie, the chemistry we have as a team. It was even unthinkable to be anywhere else.

I love us so so much. Damn, I'm gonna miss us so so so so much.

We Lup

Finally, after more than a month of dilemma and contemplation, I have decided to move out of my comfort zone, to the sister property down at Orchard.

Over the last 2 years, I have come to know the greatest team that I would ever have had the honour of being in. The camaraderie, the ability to understand each other, the rapport, the friendship that we have developed in that lil office of ours, I don't think I will experience again.

On any given day in the work week, even when faced with stressful deadlines, that lil office never fails to be filled with our laughter - laughing with each other, laughing at others (ok we've got a really mean streak), laughing at each other. I've never considered them as my colleagues, I've never considered them as my subordinates. They are my joy, they are my BBs.

"Mama and BBs" came about because I'm the ultimate naggy queen, always nagging at them to finish their work on time. BBE - BB Elephant - is too skinny, and so Elephant is what she should "aspire" to be. BBL - BB Lion - needs to stand firm against all unreasonable demands, to hold our grounds. As for Mama Rabbit - I was given the name cos I need to be less fierce, more gentle. Ha.

There has not been a day where I dread waking up to go to work. We work hard but we play hard. And we shop hard too (!) of which we fail miserably at being each other's conscience to stop spending!

Now, the time has come for all of us to leave our comfort zone and take on new challenges. It has been hard, it has been painful. It has been sleepless nights, and constant worries. But I know that only with new challenges can all of us grow. And seeing my BBs grow to become the best marcoms possible - the pain would be worth it. In any case, the best thing that came out of this is the friendship that we have built.


For myself, in another month's time, I will be venturing into unknown territories. Double the size of operation, double the size of team, with new exciting developments - sounds like a long roller coaster ride. But I know that through it all, God is in control. I have the faith that for every step that I take, He will be looking out for me.

Feast #1

Took Friday off, and we had the BBs over for dinner that evening, the first of our festive feasting at the Jemej's. It had been a while since I last cooked, and coupled with a few recipes that I was trying out for the first time, started the preparations earlier than usual.

In line with The Boy's invite cum menu card, he bought the red noses as well, as a form of "welcome shot" that everyone had to take.




My indulgences from iwannagohome! added a nice little touch to the festive mood. Made the roast beef for the first time, recipe courtesy of my chef. Turned out great, except that for the next time round, I would shorten the roasting time to make it more medium rare!!!


With the standard-sized remekins this time round, chocolate fondant didn't explode and came out perfect!!!! So this led me to believe, at least for this time round, that the last few times I had failed in the making the fondant was due to too large a remekin cup size.


Pictionary was hilarious, and I guess everyone ended the night with lots of gifts and loads of fun and laughter.