Gymboree Weekend

O-v-e-r-w-o-r-k-e-d

Yeah, I bitch and whine and whinge and complain. But for some morbid reason, I find it exciting to be at work. My brain has a million things floating in it... it trickles in bibs and bobs like a leaky tap- like when I'm having lunch I will remember "WAIT! Alex's press visa for UN Climate Change Conference for Bali isn't sorted! Fudge Fudge Fudge!!" and lose the rest of my appetite...

Here's the list of projects this month:
BRAINLAB SHOOT
SCIENCE CTR CORPORATE VIDEO
SHELL SHOOT
AJI EDIT
SWISSTV ASEAN SHOOT/EDIT
QUINTUS COMPILE EDIT
DIWALI TRANSCRIBE
GLOBECAST DVCam SHOOT
APTN ASEAN SHOOT/EDIT
GLOBECAST SX SHOOT
APV MEDIA SHOOT
GUT.TUT.GUT DOCUMENTARY SHOOT
GLOBECAST - CTN SHOOT
APTN CAMBODIA DRY HIRE
EBU UN CONFERENCE IN BALI DEPLOYMENT
SWISS TV BALI DEPLOYMENT
APTN DRY HIRE
DIGIPOST RSAF TVC SHOOT

Somebody shoot me.

PS: I have 34 days of leave but can't even take half day off until things blow over... Sapna doll, sorry I havent been calling. I am drop dead tired at the end of the day- I sleep like a log. Lunch & maternity-wear shopping next week?

Bday Celebration Part II

BDay Celebration Part I

Turning 1

My little princess is turning 1- its unbelievable how quickly time flies when you're having fun.

Like a colleague said, "1st birthday parties are more for the Mummies and Daddies to show off right... not so much for the bub"- how true!

We wanted to book a chalet but it's all booked out from 6 months back. Oh well.. We have other plans to celebrate her 1st birthday and take as many photos for posterity:
1) My open house cum cake-cutting w all the relatives on 3 Nov.
2) A cake cutting ceremony w immediate family & Godparents on birthday night.
2) A trip to zoo with Faiz, Sanah and Rifqi on 10 Nov.

Mummy's hope is she turns out sugar & spice and everything nice, and smart to boot.

Arissa's 1st Eid

Bad Zen

My Zen balance has been upset.

A couple of friends are going through rough patches of their lives- 2 married couples are going through the motions of dealing with infidelity, another couple has broken up for no strong, apparent reason. I have had to deal with long phonecalls from the 'victims' of infidelity as they flit from 1 emotion to the next- one husband is blaming himself for his wife's infidelity; another wife is pissing mad at her husband and not able to cope with his disloyalty. I've had to make myself available for another friend who is on a verge of depression to help keep her spirits up.

Need a break from all this bad zen to get my balance back. A long overdue holiday is most welcome at this point.

My last entry was in Mar and now its Aug- where did 5 months of my life go!!! I installed an upgraded version of Norton in my lappy and it blocked access to this website. Argh.

Arissa is 9 months and 8 days today:
*She has 4 top teeth and 2 lower ones
*She can crawl at olympic speed
*She prefers to curl up between Mummy & Daddy in the big bed at night (there goes the Romance)
*She bites, pinches, smacks anyone who dares irritate her
*She participates in most of the games we play with her (peekaboo/monster chase ..)
*She gets sleepy automatically at 11.30pm
*She sits in the toddler car seat now
*She relishes her Baby Bites anytime
*She rocks back and forth and shakes her head when we recite La Illaha Illallah
*She clenches and unclenches her palm when we sing Nang Neng Pong/Twinkle Twinkle Little Star/Pok Amai Amai
*She puts everything she finds on the floor/table/bed in her mouth
*She loves to jump on your belly and throw her head back to an upside-down position
*She giggles with glee when you throw her in the air
*She hates wearing shoes/hairband and tugs at them
*She hates having to 'salam' anyone and hides her hand when she hears anyone saying "SALAM?"
*If you make her lie down, she will get offended and pop back up like Jack-in-the-Box.
*She needs her pacifier during bed/naptime
*She loves to shred tissue paper to bits
*She know how to plant a kiss on your cheek
*She says MAMAMAMAAM for food
*She yells in her top voice just to be funny and laughs along with you

:op

Old mates

Been bumping into all these old mates lately from Anderson... I think a reunion is highly overdue.

First bumped into Sulaiman, whom I hadn't met since I was in NUS and he was in SP. He was a high school 'boyfriend' in a monkey-love situation. I think we were in Sec 2 when he decided he liked the geeky me, glasses and all. I still wonder why..Of course it didn't get anywhere past the 'going to school together' date.

Then I bumped into Marlina. Once upon a time, she was the 'happening' one. She was the oldest in the clique and introduced the other naive girls to tea dances (remember those!?!?) and Giordano (when Giordano was HOT HOT HOT!). She also persuaded the other girls to do a dance routine on National Day (on stage!) to Janet Jackson's "Escapade". I remember Razif and Joe sitting beside me in hall, laughing so hard at the lot of them in tight skirts that they were rolling around on the floor with tears in their eyes. She's now a mother of 2.

Last week I bumped into Sunarti- the smart one. She sits with Sanjay in Malay class- the Sanjay who never got a Malay sentence correct his entire secondary school career and relentlessly let him copy all her work. She was in NUS with me, though I hardly ever saw her (as I was always skipping lectures and most tutorials, that was how much I hated NUS). She is married to Razid, who is another Andersonian, and they have an 18 month son, Zikri, with another Zafira on the way.

She told me Suzanna, my Malay class desk buddy, has just given birth to her 2nd one. She is married to a rich ang-mo banker and is a tai-tai (my favourite form of existence). I'm sure both her kids are gorgeous.

Then I called Aisyah who is the loopiest amongst us who insists on visiting Sunarti when she is in confinement so we can all have a reunion at Su's house. Sounds loopy? :-P

Postnatal hair loss

The word of warning came from my hair stylist Omar in late October when I was heavily preggers and getting a haircut in time for Eid Mubarak. "Watch out for the hair loss later" he says. 3 months after birth, my hair is still ok and I'm thinking he doesnt know what he's talking about, him being a man and all.

One day sometime in the 3rd month, it just started suddenly. I think i must've pulled out 50 hairs when I shampooed that morning... and it hasn't stopped til this day, some 1.5 months later. I get so freaked out when I shampoo my hair every morning that I've decided to shampoo alternate mornings. Same result. Although I've always had fine hair, I start seeing more of my scalp in the mirror and figured I need to do something before I develop a bald patch that would complement my eye bags (not!).

I went back to Omar who sat back wisely and said "I warned you...". He gave me a short spunky hairstyle that didn't need blowdrying everyday and some Redken products that ought to fix my problem but also sets me back S$200. I like my hair do but my wallet still hurts.

NB: Will post new face soon.

Finally in my Dream job.

I joined IFA as 'Office Manager' in 2004. Little did I realise I was to be the "know-all, do-all" person taking instructions from 5 bosses, managing the accounts and sitting in the office all day. I love my office job during its busy period, but I what I love more is the exhilaration of being posted out to some disaster location.

Before I went for my maternity leave, my MD asked me what I'd like to do as they've hired an accounts assistant for me. I suggested they let me do the marketing for the company as that's what I've been trained to do.

So now, I'm finally able to get into my dream job- and I'm going all out on this one.

www.infocusasia.com

*Bintang*

Hafidz has been so busy at work with Timur TV for the shoot of Bintang. He comes home at 5am, up at 11am to go to work and work 24-7, I hardly ever see his face anymore. One day, I got a classic shot of a tired man- sending an sms in his sleep.

Earthquake Evac

When the first quake hit, my colleague Jacintha and I were hangling over who gets to pay for coffee at Qiji. My phone rings and it says IFA Yazid (another colleague), I hear him panting on the other line:

"Rina where r u? We're evacuating the building, there's been an earthquake!"

I immediately went on high alert, recalling that week in Nias Island where we had worked 20hours on the earthquake devastation of the island.

"Will I be posted out to wherever the earthquake is?" "Who will take care of Arissa when I go?" "How will she cope without me?"... questions popping in and out of my head as I turn to my boss Joe and told him. A seasoned news cameraman, he immediately got on the phone for deployment news. I felt an enormous anticipation, hoping and not hoping to be sent there. No one knew where it happened yet and the phone lines were jammed up from people calling here and there, searching for answers.

We went back indoors after 20 mins (standard quake procedure, says Joe who has lived in Japan) and I went to the USGS website for some information.

Epicentre: Padang
Magnitude: 6.6
Tsunami threat: negative as quake happened under land

When the 2nd quake hit, I turned to Joe and stared at him wanting to get an affirmation before I hit the panic button. He looked back at me, then s-l-o-w-l-y the realisation dawned and he ran into the gallery and told everyone to evac. In the meantime, I could REALLY REALLY feel our 1974 building swaying and saw Anthia and the rest of the BBC people hitting the stairs. I fled shamelessly jumping 2 stairs at a time, clutching onto Lawrence. All I could think of was "You've been in worse situations than this! Why are you panicking?" and the answer to that is sweet and simple- my daughter. I have a baby who needs me and if anything happened to me now, what will happen to her?

So here I am awaiting news of deployment, hoping that there aren't too many deaths to interest those in London.

NB: Today Arissa has learned to laugh @ 7.30am. And I mean a full throttle laughter, not the chuckles she usually gives out.

Suraya (Mentel/Mental)'s Bday Dinner Pictures!

suraya.fadzil@dhl.com
1800-Call Me Baby


Post-pregnancy figure (Phe-weet... buntot cam J.Lo)


Fidza looks like a rabbit caught in the headlights
Syifaa & Me always look sweet
Suraya looks like Patpong girl with sore eyes


The money shot

Oii... tengok sini lerrrr...

Sume montel-montel so hv to squeeze a bit (except me la).

Jgn marah, nanti kena jual...


Do we hv to stuff our faces for every birthday!?! Whatever happened to the original plan of going for a spa treatment for anyone of our birthdays.... Thank God I'm still stick skinny after all that binging (the only one, mind you). Happy Bday tua. Ok la, kau pun tetap maintain, cuma buntot cam kuih Lopez :o oink-oink

Mini Holiday (KL, Bukit Tinggi & Genting Highlands)

Just what I needed after 9 months of pregnancy, 8hours of intensive labour, 3 months of confinement and 2 weeks back at work- a mini break!!

Arissa is 3 months and a darling. She's a social butterfly and even melted the hearts of the burly guys at PS Boutique (hence giving me a good bargain) with her giggles and smiles.

Welcome F-r-e-e-dom!!!

Its great the freedom that I have regained. The ability to pop into the shops or go meet some friends or just have a nice dinner somewhere. Things I have sorely missed whilst being in confinement.

Must say though that my body is not 100% back to normal- I tend to stoop now (from the oversized boobs? soft jelly-belly?); I get spells of faintness when walking or standing for too long; my knees are forever wobbly and I tire more easily.

On 23rd Dec, we had a 'cukur rambut cum open house kenduri' for family and close friends. It coincided with Hana Arissa's 44th day of living which also spelled the end of confinement period for me (hurrah!). Since our house was a work-in-progress, we had to madly clean it out and prep it up for the open house. It was so tiring that I started spotting again- either my stitches came undone or it was the beginning of a period, I don't know which. It was very alarming and I continued spotting throughout my open house function through til the next day when it suddenly stopped. I confined myself to home voluntarily and the pain and spotting disappeared over that Xmas weekend.

On 27 Dec, the girls came to my house and as usual it was utter chaos. Balqis smacked Rifqi on the head with Arissa's bottle- Balqis falls off my bed- Balqis tries to choke Rifqi when their moms aren't looking- Blaqis squashes Arissa affectionately- Suraya changes into the tightest pair of jeans her pregnant body can squeeze into- Batrisya dribbles porridge all over my floor and plays with my fan- Fidza undresses and snoozes (her excuse is "I'm pregnant and tired and Balqis kept me awake last night"- yeah right!) while Sanna & I chat away...

On 30th Dec, we were again at the new house watching "Underworld" and there was a commotion outside the window. I stopped patting Arissa and turned to my hubby and asked "Dear, is it New Year already?" and he boredly looked at his watch and said "Ya, its midnight" and we both snorted and he went back to watching TV and I resumed putting lil bub to sleep. THAT is how things will be for the next year- we will be missing out on many parties and exciting things in order to put Arissa to sleep. Sad, sad, sad.

On 2nd Jan, baby learned to smile. I was babytalking to her and she responded by going "ggghhh" and smiling her schweet baby shmile and I melted right there and then.

Happy Holidays!!