It's a celebration!

It's a celebration of three days and three nights...! No, I am not talking about Deeparaya, its processor total shutdown day coming up, ie. the special day of one special person - me!

I am going to eat, sleep, have a good girl spa session and enjoy the great company of my friends and family for three days three nights coming up to my birthday. For every year, I've always wanted to celebrate my birthday with those around me, and thank them for their support for putting up to the ironics and idiosyncracies of me.

There were those I celebrated with my family when I was younger, there were those I celebrated with my uni friends studying for exams, and there were those I celebrated with my first love, there were those I celebrated with my best friends, there were those I celebrated with colleagues, there were those I celebrated at work. These are memories both sweet and residual, memories which I cherish for those who choose to be with me on my special day.

When I am now much older, and claim to be 18 every year, I want to just relax and enjoy birthdays like everyday in life, with a reminder that I am glad to be here...So, in celebrating my love for life, I would like to wish those around me, thank you for being you. And thank you for helping me love life! (And no blogging for three days :-) )

I received this from a friend I've known for 15 years, very touching, one of those whom I thought warrants a record... made my day.

GIRLFRIENDS IN YOUR LIFE
When I was little, I used to believe in the concept of one best friend, and then I started to become a woman. And then I found out that if you allow your heart to open up, you will see the best in many friends. One friend is needed when you're going through things with your man. Another friend is needed when you're going through things with your mum. Another when you want to shop, share, heal, hurt, joke, or just be. One friend will say let's pray together, another let's cry together, another let's fight together, another let's walk away together. One friend will meet your spiritual need, another your shoe fetish, another your love for a good laugh, another will be with you in your season of confusion, another will be your clarifier, another the wind beneath your wings, another your mentor.

But whatever their assignment in your life, on whatever the occasion, on whatever the day, or wherever you need them, whether to meet you with their gym shoes on and hair pulled back, or to hold you back from making a complete fool of yourself ........ Those are your best friends. It may all be wrapped up in one woman, but for many it's wrapped up in several. One from 7th grade, one from high school, several from the college years, a couple from old jobs, on some days your mother, on others your sisters, and on some days your daughters. So whether they've been there 20 minutes or 20 years, pass this on to the women in your life to make a difference. Time passes, Distance separates, Children grow up, Love waxes and wanes, Hearts break, Careers end, Jobs come and go, Colleagues forget favours, Men don't call when they say they will BUT...........

Girlfriends are always there, no matter how much time and how many miles are between you. A girlfriend is never farther away than needing her can reach. The world wouldn't be the same without them, and neither would we. When we began this adventure called womanhood, we had no idea of the incredible joys or sorrows that lay ahead. Nor did we know how much we would need each other.

Every day, we need each other still. Pass this onto the women who helps make your life work.

Hurricanes are named after females because only a female's wrath can be felt that forcefully :-)

I guess I won't be going anywhere but hopefully the hotel when I go to US (Florida!) for my training soon in the coming weeks....

In the news today...

Wilma Barrels Across South Florida
By MIKE SCHNEIDER, Associated Press Writer
NAPLES, Fla. - Hurricane Wilma crashed ashore early Monday as a strong Category 3 storm, battering southwest Florida with tornados, 125 mph winds that shook the sturdiest buildings and pounding waves that flooded parts of this area and Key West. At least one death was blamed on the storm.

By 9 a.m., the storm's top sustained winds had weakened to 110 mph, a Category 2 storm. It was centered in the middle of the state about 45 miles southwest of West Palm Beach. It was moving northeast at about 25 mph.

A man in the Fort Lauderdale suburb of Coral Springs died when a tree fell on him, Broward County spokesman Carl Fowler said. Fowler had no other details.

The center of Wilma's eye made landfall around 6:30 a.m. EDT near Cape Romano on an uninhabited island of the same name, 22 miles south of Naples in Collier County on Florida's southwest coast, according to the National Hurricane Center in Miami. But severe weather began long before.

Wilma's devastating winds had reached Florida's east coast by midmorning, with wind gusts of more than 100 mph reported in suburban Fort Lauderdale and Miami.

More than 316,000 homes and businesses lost power in the Keys, Miami, Fort Lauderdale and even into central Florida. Nearly 33,100 Floridians hunkered down in dozens of shelters across the state's southern half.

Soul Food
I pressed the reset button on my processor yesterday, and rebooted myself. It is difficult to understand how and why people feel stressed, depressed or anxious. Do you not wish that you could, when you need to, just press a reset button and then you can start all over again?

If you are feeling down, tired or stressed, let me introduce you to some soul food.
1. Reflexology - Foot pampering. This is my favourite soul food... though the foot gets all the relaxation, people say that many parts of our body is linked to the soles of our feet. Nothing beets a good press... ooh... they say pleasure is pain :-)

2. Music - Radio is my favourite. I love the upbeat mood of the radio dj's. My favourite station is Mix FM. The two programs and djs I love is the morning breakfast show couple, Shazmin and Richard and the night love songs and dedication - Aldeena. They have so much energy!!!!

3. Exercise - Going to the gym at night, even after an exhausting long day is really good for the body, exercise brings up the positive happy energy similar to eating chocolate, except that it also helps you keep healthy!!

4. Shopping - This one only applies to the girls. Some guys I know do this as well, but at a higher price level, they buy cars, gadgets, stuff too pricy for the normal person! Shopping never fails to sooth the soul!

5. Coffee - This is also one very specific to me... a love for coffee!

6. Friends - They say this is the best remedy, and its true, good friends take you as you are, on your blue, bright, and many shades day, and accept you for who you are.

7. Food - Good food is always good for the soul! (Is that where the word soul food come from?). Having a good meal and not rushing through the meal, but savoring the food, this is life's best moments :-) Don't skip meals just because you are down...

8. Mind over matter - A wise man said 'mood is choice', and I said to someone else on another occasion, I am always happy because I change my attitude to life... now to keep that attitude intact...

A reset button is virtual. Create one if you don't have one, and take charge of life before it takes charge of you.

Beep.

Feeling the blues...
I am feeling the blues today. Spirits are at an all time low... If you know me or do not know me, give me a smiley sms, I would appreciate one!

Golfing Thoughts
On Saturday for the first time, I played golf with two ladies on a partial business stance. It is a first of sorts for me, as not only do I not solely play with with business relationships, it was a friendly affair which I did not expect to pay, and also it was with only ladies. My previous affairs playing with my closest golf mates Evonne and Ai Leen had proven to be always entertaining and very unwinding, and it pretty much died down quite a bit after Ai Leen left for Melbourne.

It rained at 6:50 when I woke up for the event. Surprisingly, and also an indication of how crazy a golfer we can be, I did not question or SMS the organiser to inquire whether it was on or not. I knew however that if I did not turn up, there was no chance they could play even if the rain stopped as there were only three of us, and without me it would have been only two person.
So I drove there, to arrive on time as per the host's request, at 8:45 am, and the rain died down to a slight drizzle.

Let me describe my two golfing mates - they were two people I greatly admire in their work attitude. I admire them for their rightness, their efficiency of doing things and their direct way of doing business. Despite that they are slightly older than me, I also respect them for respecting me.


In golf, how you play the game greatly reflects the person you are. A, a relatively easy-going person, always is modest about her score and declares a 'double-par' for too many shots. She however, never gives up, and it is reflected in her quick to pick up the game and her 'working hard' at each shot despite not playing well.

B, on the other hand is a woman in control. She plays at tournaments and is relatively business savvy. She is a forward looking person, and assesses those around her closely. Only a risk taker will start talking about betting with me on the first hole, not because I am good, but because I have never played with her before, so my capabilities are unknown!!!


I, am a person who enjoys a challenge. I bet all the time to improve my own motivation to win, but for those which I don't have a chance or have no interest in winning, I would never bet. Which explains why I did not bet this round!!! I also play better under pressure, but I knew women play golf to socialise, not to discuss work. And I had looked forward to the game with this in mind.

I do not recall what was the score, but we all had a good time. I definitely could do better, but was not too bad as well, just out of practice and losing some concentration on a few holes.

One of the key learning points for me from this event was my glimpse into these golfing acquaintances lifestyle. Both were perhaps somewhere in their early middle ages. They both had kids in the school ages. They have a comfortable job, a good husband and loving family. Yet, they still suffered from a chronic difficulty of balancing work and family life. Often I detected some tinge of regret of not spending more time with the children or for example fetching kids to school, etc. I had a glimpse of a possible lifestyle I was heading for. I was quiet as I contemplated how I could ever escape this rat race called work. It was a small but niggling and disturbing thought of what I could end up to be, even at the best, will still be besieged with time constraints.

I leave this blog with that thought, which I will never have an answer, but definitely on my mind, at least for the moment. This is something I learnt also to let go the last couple of years - enjoy this moment of your life, as you can never know what will happen in the days to come.

My Memorable PhotoBlog Part 1- most photos taken by my small and cute DiMage XT Minolta (it froze in KK top, so the first one is an exception!)

Looking through the few exciting trips and some of the thought inspiring photos I've taken in the last two years, it is indeed a pleasure to share some of the memories via a photo-blog. Whilst I've always wished for a digital SLR camera, I've always loved my Minolta, 3 Megapixel 'fastest startup' camera. It has gone with me to many places, and in some cases, gone without me! Of late, I've started to socialise it to other members of my family in the hope that it will be adopted by one of them and hence make way for a newer model! (No wonder it rejected me at the peak of KK). I'd post up part 2 when I can figure a better way to get photos into the site!



1. Mt Kinabalu, August 2005 - On top of the world - Oh, what a feeling! We are on top of Mount KK, Low's Peak, 4092m above sea level. Just a step and a sign at the peak, but the feeling is ... I've done it!





2. Great Wall of China, March 2005 - Would you believe that to keep fit, you cannot spit? A really funny and badly translated sign-board we saw at the bottom of the Great Wall.





3. Colosseum, Rome, November 2004 - The first historic sight I saw in Rome - after so many years seeing this over tourist documentaries and movies, looking at this historic 'battlefield' is very special, inside and outside.





4. Copper Mountain, Colorado, November 2003 - Can you believe I can ski and take photos at the same time, moving slowly? Copper Mountain - the coldest ski resort I've been to, at minus 40F, I was freezing my fingers when I took this shot.






5. Mt Kinabalu, August 2005 - Above the clouds, you almost feel godly. This image on the way down gives meaning to the phrase "living on the edge".









6. Grand Canyon, November 2003 - Do you remember David Copperfield flying across the Grand Canyon? This monument took my breath away for quite a while when I first saw it.






7. Sahara Dessert, November 2004 - My friend sunbathing on the Sahara. Miles of solitude and peace, a sand ridge that's both real and unreal. My best memory - running up the sand ridge in the dark out of boredom, with only a million stars accompanying us above.




8. My Niece - One of my favorite photo targets are children. At such a young age, they are so innocent, and learn quickly. They know there's a device which captures their faces, and able to 'see' it like TV a moment later! Children will be children, and this is my best photo of her, in her own pure innocence, the light providing a tinge of childhood shyness, something us adults cannot imitate.

The Power of Branding
I related this story twice over the last week, so I thought I'd write briefly about this. Most of my closest friends have actually heard of where I work - Accenture. But, I still encounter maybe about 50% hit-miss ratio with new people I meet who are not directly in the industry. For many years, even my parents have little idea what I do for a living, and I never did try to explain. So here are a few funny stories and also how powerful branding can be :

The first was a month or so back when I renewed my gym membership with Sweat Club, now Jackie Chan California Fitness. There are actually two stories here - one was that they had a bunch of very friendly staff who tried to sell me many forms of renewal. When we finally agreed to something, I handed him my business card to simplify his registration. The next time I met with the guy again, to close off the discussion, he asked me whether I worked with a hair salon! I was actually very amused, also wondering why he would think so... he said, "Your business card look like one of those from a hair salon, and it does not say what your company do". Very very true.. such is the sometimes frustrating thing about working for a consulting company - everything is vague, from the company logo, designation and perhaps as some clients think, even the services!

However, one of the most prominent logos for us in the recent years must be the Tiger Woods campaign. We are strongly affiliated with the Tiger Woods brand for high performance delivery. It worked well initially and went to a bit of a slump when Tiger had his slump, but luckily he recovered. He is indeed my ideal of a winner - he is above and beyond all other golfers, even during a slump period, he could come up with amazing winners. Best of all, he is passionate about winning - seeing him win the Masters is indeed the most amazing feat. Our tie-in with Tiger is reflected in our logo - Go on, Be a Tiger. This was not very well known, and as one of my vendors said, he always sees it at airports, where we target business travellers. The funniest incident happened a few weeks back. I was running for this Shah Alam 10km race, and at one point a bit tired of the ups and downs and actually slowed down significantly almost to a walking pace for a short distance. There was this 50 something 'uncle' who actually shuffled/run up to me and called "Don't stop Tiger!". This surprised me somewhat until I realised I was wearing a cap with the company logo at the back, however that still surprised me a bit, as not many people know the correlation. I was not sure whether I was actually day-dreaming or had actually heard him say that, anyhow I related that to my marketing manager later, and she was so pleased, it made her day! Also, the 'uncle' made me run faster! (how to not do that when I am suddenly associated with high performance!)

If you ask me what is the strongest brand around, I have to say it would be Nike - the swoosh sign and the "Just Do It". This is both simple and relevant. Good branding means easy to remember, long lasting associations and ability to relate to everyone, even the man on the street. The other one I can relate to well, but is not too strong globally is Toyota. For some time ago, there had been an advertisement with the motto "A Toyota Never Breaks Down". Till now, I recall that line, especially when I relate to others why I still like to drive my Toyota, even if the car is old already!

For more interesting pictures of the great Tiger Woods campaign, see the link below :
http://www.accenture.com/xd/xd.asp?it=enweb&xd=aboutus\advertising\ad_print.xml

I still believe it to be a rumor that how we paid Tiger was to help him with his website. Unbelievable for a man with a 1Million USD appearance fee... one day I will find the truth!

Red Box
Last week the entire team went for Karaoke at Red Box at the Curve. The last time I had been to a karaoke must have been years, maybe even as far back as the times when I was working in Taiwan! Red Box originated from Taiwan, and had pretty much the same concept - it was a all in one fun place to hang-out with friends. The room we booked was able to accomodate up to 30 people, I think we had about 20-25 at peak during the night. We booked from 8-12midnite. There was a buffet package which included dinner, and they even threw in a package with 3 bottles of Chivas whiskey.

Arrived there at around 8:40pm, slightly worried that I may be penalised to sing because I was last. But apparently the others were worse time keepers than me... when I arrived only about 10-12 people were there, and they have not even started singing!!!

I was worried that the group was not singing, but soon my worries disappeared quickly. All I can say is that my team is filled with amazing talents and singers. First off the block was Aloysious (he's indian), who sang a chinese song!!! That got everyone warmed up, and before we know it, even I was singing (not solo-lah!). Key notable surprises was Kok Meng, Chinese karaoke king, Kamal who can sing to an audience, Alex - all oldies only (but he's still young!), Joong (our CSG Korean friend) who did a Korean number, and of course our young group who drank nearly all the Chivas - luckily I had a couple of small glasses before everyone attacked it.

There was a short moment, at the end of the session, when I just had a great wave of pride - I had with me here, a team of people, who had pride in what they were doing during the day, could enjoy themselves at night, and whom I will take to the battlefield to help our clients be successful. I was almost filled with pride at the way we just disregarded race, level, talent for singing and was together screaming our hearts out. This team will take us to the end, I was sure nothing will take us down, and I was not in this journey alone.

Best singer of the night went to Alex Tan, who was also birthday boy, good on him, otherwise we would've missed the discounted rate for the night :-)

For a great glimpse of the youth and vibrance of my team, and how we can sing, check out these photos (I took a great portion of them - they were too busy singing!)... see if you can spot me (in t-shirt) http://au.pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/joycesau/album?.dir=7f64 (Joyce's album)... I was singing Teresa Teng (yue liang tai piow wo de xin) (now that is an oldie).

Blogging again
It feels good to be blogging again. I did it before to experiment the feeling but returning to blog about the interesting things in life, I have to give credit to a guy I hardly know, a Mr KC Leong - he's a runner - his weblog site is here - http://penguin-r2.blogspot.com.

Met him twice, albeit briefly, first time accidentally in KK, and another time in PJ Half Marathon which I did a 10km race, riding on an enjoyable high after getting back to running mode in the Rat Race. The site portrays a strong passion for the sport, and in doing so, made me realise that passion is so important in expression. It reflects in the photos, the writing of the group of people within the site. So a big thumbs up, you unknowingly made me realise how I used to be talented in writing as well, before I got distracted by a non-passion sport called work. I myself was surprised to see I had 2-3 weblogs, one mms log which I've just been playing with, but no focus. So the remaining blogs will all be dedicated to memorable life events!

Two weddings
Two weddings over two days last weekend. Congratulations to Soo Yee and Beng Hooi and Alan and Sandy. Soo Yee and Alan were from the same university as me. Thinking back, this is quite a while ago. The photo here, at Soo Yee's wedding is such a rare occurence - we have Mun Lan (who happens to be around from Shanghai), myself (locally based now), Dr Soo Wei (my favorite cool docter, based in UK), Cheng Mei (my 'sister' in namesake, and now in Security Comm, two kids), Irene (computer science, based in Singapore) and Michelle Tan (ex PWC, used to roam around HK, but now local, Accounting graduate). Not forgetting Soo Yee (Accounting/Info System, now working in Penang) and groom, and John, Cheng Mei's husband (successful lawyer). What a mix bunch!!! As I told Mun Lan, it is a rare occasion, the last time we ever stood like this, dressed like this for a photo was more than xx years ago (so that others do not know our age, but those of you who do, you know how it feels).

All the best gals!! I am so proud to stand with all of you. May we have many more occasions to celebrate together.