Awkward

Have you ever got invited to a function, went and came back with a very gloomy feeling?

I just got invited to a friend's birthday party. Birthday is supposed to be a cheery, joyous occasion, but I came back feeling really bad. I haven't seen this friend of mine for a long long time, and we used to work together. I was really tired, but decided to go to her birthday at night anyway. Went there, sat down, recognized around half of the people in the table (who used to work in the same company). But I got the feeling that aside from my friend and three other people, noone is really interested in knowing or chatting with me. 

I found out as well at the time that another friend who came to this party as well has gotten married as recent as 2 weeks ago. I didn't get the invite, nor anyone has told me about it. I instantly felt that I don't belong to this circle of people and it was a mistake coming here. In my boredom, I did a little chit chat with the guy sitting next to me. He worked at the same place i did, but never worked together in the same project. I do saw him several times around the office while passing through the kitchen for example. It's not a huge office anyway. In the middle of the conversation however, he paused, apologized and asked how I met the birthday girl. I gathered he had no clue that I worked at the same company as him and the birthday girl. 

As the night progresses, things seem to get worse. For whatever reason, I found myself sitting in the middle of three girls that I didn't know previously. They were hotly chatting about some fucking trips around europe and africa, totally ignoring me who sat in the middle. I felt really awkward and seriously, none of them actually glanced at me once while they were chatting. 

I went to the party in a happy but tired mood, and left with sad and really lonely feeling. I felt depressed thinking that if i suddenly dissapear, would anyone notice?

Indo Idol

YouTube.com has been one of my favourite sites. Its great to be able to look up some old music clips or even to follow something that you have missed.

Recently, I was trying to catch up on the idol show at my homeland, Indonesia. The talent pool was great, and here are two exceptional contestants in my opinion. They are placed in 3rd and 4th respectively.

This is a girl named Gea. Quite pretty :-), she is from Bandung. Bandung has produced a number of exceptional singer in the past and she didn't dissapoint at all. Singing an English song titled 'Because of You' (No! not Kelly Clarkson's!)



The next one I think is the single best performance in the whole show. The judges in the end said it was phenomenal, perfect and very moving. Sang by a guy from Papua New Guinea, Nobo. Weird name for an Indonesian huh, but who knows.. he is from Papua, Nobo may be very common name there. He sang a Indonesian song titled 'Sedih tak berujung' which translates as 'Endless sorrow'

Trash talk

I have been a fan of Martina Hingis - the tennis player for some time now. She made a come back this year from her 3-year 'hiatus' due to knee injuries. She is now older, more mature, and still plays very good tennis! I am very happy she is back.

I saw a post in a forum today, which reminded me of something. In the past, Hingis like to trash talk her opponents. It's just Hingis.. it's classic. Nowadays, the trash talk is less, I guess because she is older now. But in the past ... phew!

Here is a sample. It was between Hingis and Serena Williams at US Open 1999.

You just gotta smile at this.

New bag?

Something funny happened when I walked into my lecture tonight.

I was late to my lecture as usual :-) I spotted a seat between a girl and a guy. I visibly recognized the girl to be my friend as I walked in, and the guy as my friend as well. I was thinking, great!, I can sit between two people that I know.

As I was trying to pull out the chair, the guy's bag was in the way. He tried to move it. It was a shiny leather bag. Then in my lowered voice, I said, "Hey nice bag. New eh??', because I never seen my friend bring that bag before.

Then I looked at his face . . . and I don't know who he is! He is not my friend!
When I walked in, I thought he was the friend that I know since he looks very similar from the back.

He looked suprised as well. His eyes were very big staring back at me.

... so embarrasing.

Unlucky

I always hate the public transport in Sydney. It doesn't matter what it is, train or bus, it never come on time. It either comes too early, or too late, but never on time.

I had an interesting morning today. My bus was about 5 minutes late, which was still OK to Sydney 'standard'. It was then the usual pick-up drop off routine, until it reached the freeway. The usual 3-lane was reduced into 2-lane, which caused the traffic to crawl. At the time, I knew I'm going to be late to work maybe 10 minutes compared to my usual time.

I was so happy when the bus finally freed from the 2-lane part of the freeway. Hooray! Not long after ... BAM! I don't know what it was, but it appeared the bus had hit something... I don't know, I don't care... until the bus slowed and stopped. Awww... this is great! Announcement then came from the driver, I couldnt really heard it since I was at the far back of the bus. We waited for about 10 minutes in the middle of freeway!

I was late by half an hour.

Then anothing thing happened. I went inside the lift, pressed the button to level 43. Someone else pressed 42 and 49. I had a quick look, yeah 43 is pressed.
The lift stopped at 42, then it went all the way up to 49. What the f***!?

It's like some kind of force prevented me to come to the office today!

Fine dining

I just went dining at Kingsley Steakhouse at Bridge St (forgot the name, i will find out soon) with my current work colleagues. It was to welcome me to the team (How nice!), and to celebrate a colleague's coming marriage.

The food was very good. It has been a while that I have eaten so much.

Pre-Entree:
- Sliced bread with butter.
I know this sounds normal, but the special thing is the bread came out fresh and warm! Mmmmm ...

Entree:
- Salt & pepper calamari (french style!, not chinese style)
- Deep friend camembert cheese with jam (naughty but delicious)
- Kilpatrick Oysters -> semi-cooked oysters with bacon topping (double trouble!)

Main:
- Medium-cooked Angus rib-eye steak served with french fries, green vegetables, garlic mushrooms and worcestershire. It was very good, nicely cooked.

One of us had a really big steak, I can't recall the name of the cut now. It was huge, I think it has to be about 400 - 500g of meat there! But it wasn't the largest cut there though. If you are a big-eater, 1kg steak is available in the menu. Whoa! I went for quality instead of quantity. :-)

Dessert:
- Warm chocolate cake with vanilla ice cream.

By the time we had our main, all of us were really full, but we pushed for dessert (he he he, company's paying ;-P), but it was a total satisfaction when it came out. It took about 15 mins wait, but it was worth it. It was pretty small serving, but it was really nice, crunchy crust on the outside, oozing chocolate sauce in the middle and soft in between.

Mmmmmmmmmmm... so yummy.

A recollection

I quit my job last week and I am taking a week off in between jobs. Next week I am going to start working at a bank in Sydney.

My old workplace is quite different to the other two companies I have worked for. It is a smaller company so things could happen quite unexpectantly. My first day on the job for example - I arrived at 8.30am sharp at the reception area. I was hoping for someone to greet me there. Well, it didn't quite work out as planned. There wasn't anyone in the reception area! It was quite funny thinking about it, I actually thought that my watch must be broken and I arrived at the wrong time. I waited for a while and a white-haired lady came out, walked behind the reception counter. I told her this is my first day and I asked for my manager. He he he, but it's not a happy ending yet!

The receptionist told me she does not work for the company I am working at! What the!? I later found out that my company doesn't have a receptionist, she is working for the other company that shares floor with mine. Ah! Luckily, she was kind enough to try to look for someone in the company ... then she returned to break the news that there wasn't anyone in yet! Whoa!

At the same time though, two ladies walked out from the elevator. One of them was the support team leader, and the other one was a new starter as well. Yay! Finally, someone!

After disastrous first day, I was thrown to maintain a particular subsystem. I didn't quite enjoy the work I was thrown into. I wouldn't elaborate further, but in short, it was very bland. But despite this, I still say that it is quite a fun company to work for. It has quite a bit of perks if you like to drink alcohol. It is part of Australian culture really to have a bit of drink on Friday night. Unfortunately for me, my asian body couldn't handle it. Beleive it or not, one bottle - that's all it takes to get me half-drunk.

My colleagues were also a bunch of fun people to work with! To me, it is very important to work with people I enjoy being with. The great thing is most of us are of the same age, share similar backgrounds, so we really gel-ed, hang out together, and made practical jokes with each other almost every day. Lol. Ah! it makes me rather sad to leave all of them. But it is comforting to know that I made long-lasting friendship with my colleagues.

La Verna

When I first arrived at Melbourne back in winter 1997, I had representatives from an international student placement agency to pick me and others from Tullamarine airport. They were husband and wife who have apparently found homestays for us. They drove me and two other students (Joes & Nat) to the arranged homestay accomodation in Kew. We arrived at a homestay for Joes & Nat. The homestay looks like a normal house, nice and the host looks friendly. Apparently I would not be staying there, as the place was full.

My homestay is actually at another side of Kew. As we were driving along a really nice and green street, the car suddenly turn left into a gate entrance and huge driveway. I was excited, and I looked at the front window. I saw a huge house.

It was HUGE. MASSIVE. A mansion! What the!?

Mansion! It sounds nice, but I was really scared when I saw it. The wall was made from stone, it was greyish-colored, cold-looking. The garden was massive. It was a big estate, and there were only 3 of us standing there. It was a shock, very different to where I used to live, with plenty of hustle bustle of a big city. At the time, I couldn't help but thinking that I was taken to a place where vampires live and I will be their juicy fat victim. Why the heck did Joes & Nat got a normal, 'homey' place, and I got this count dracula castle?????



When I entered, I saw a 30-ish woman, blondish hair, who smiled widely. Her name is Karen, and she was the host of the place. She was very friendly. The interior walls are painted with warmer white color. Thank God its not grey! I forgot my fear very quickly.

I found out later that she rented part of the place to run her business in international student accomodation. There were approximately 5/6 rooms altogether, with about 10 students. The other part of the place was occupied by some kind of church organization. I had a very nice experience staying there, and made a lot of friends from different background, Johanes, Merry, Lea whom I am still in touch with every now and then.

A mansion typically has a name. It was called 'La Verna', built 1888. I recently googled the place up to find some photos, and to my suprise, the property has actually been sold back in 2004, and the property was sub-divided into 11 lots. The huge garden was bulldozed, and new modern houses were built.

The garden was massive and neatly landscaped, most of it are sadly gone now.

Below are a few recent pictures (2004) I found of La Verna:

View from newly built house on the divided lot:



New houses built on the divided lots:



and below, you can see the extent of the now-bulldozed-garden, la verna is the gray building at the far end:



More:
http://www.walkingmelbourne.com/forum/about695.html
http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2004/02/04/1075853937228.html?from=storyrhs

I moved closer to the city after 8 months, and about 2/3 years later, Karen decided to close her business. I think the stress of dealing with students got to her. :-)

La Verna... ah such great memories.

Apparently it is now occupied by a psychologist. Jeez, google finds everything!

Crazy John

I always admire modesty, even more so in a person of great achievements. I have just read a magazine featuring John Ilhan. He is an Australian businessman, the founder of mobile phone dealer 'Crazy John'.

He came to Australia as an immigrant, started a store in Brunswick - a working class suburb in Melbourne with just $1,000 back in 1991. Today, 120-store network is his empire.

It is an achievement that one would easily admire. And I am even more 'wowed' by his comments in the article:

Ilhan says he has never lost sight of his roots. "I am embarassed about my wealth", he says. "I don't think people should be valued because of his wealth - it should be by what sort of person they are. I'd rather talk to Mother Teresa, if she was still alive, than Bill Gates. I have a black Lamborghini, but I don't bring it to work. People say, 'bring it to work'. But I say it is showing off. Some people haven't got a home worth the value of that car. I'm embarassed about that."

Ditto. I couldn't agree more. Often when a person reaches success, they probably will buy a nice car, then drive it to work, show it off to others even strangers, and couldn't care more of others who has helped to get there.

Ilhan's modesty is is impressive, and I certainly hope that I could grow into a person of his quality in the future.

Food Art

I got this from my friend - Y's blog. I dont know where he got it from. But who cares! Look at these, it's awesome.

One thing I am very sure of ... only in Japan.

Colleague as friend?

I tried to make H to organize a trip to Hunter Valley, but previously failed.
Sometime later...

H: Anton, can I get (work stuffs) from ya?
me: Hmm, nah I dont have it at the moment, but if you can organize the HunterValley trip, I might.
H: Ha ha ha, nah I wont do that.
me: Fine, so it goes like this huh. Friends no more...
H: LoL, you are not my friend anyway, you are my colleague.

*ouch*

I then smiled irritantly. I then gave H the work stuffs that he wanted (but wrong one... he he he... i am so evil)

My first blog

I have been wanting to start blogging, but have always been delaying it as well.
This is it, from today onwards I will try to write something here whenever I can about things I encountered in my life.