So, I had been completely absent from the web again for a while, not having the chance to do anything to my blog, and up until just this week, almost completely away from facebook as well.

To be honest, the work situation right now has been less than ideal (not to say that there is such thing as the completely “ideal” work out there.) Anyway, I know there have been a lot of changes, and to survive in the corporate world, one needs to be able to adapt and adjust, and to be able to make the best out of the situation. However, having said that, right now I just can’t help feeling as though I’m now a lion cub that has been pushed off the cliff; or thrown off the cliff, to be exact.

To be fair though, I’m definitely learning a lot. Not so much the hard skills that I’m more used to, but a lot of the softer skills of dealing with those funny creatures called “people” (and of course, about the weirdest living thing of all — myself.)

I’m sure you’ve heard of Sun Tzu’s “The Art of War”. Perhaps the most famous passage from that is “know your enemy and know yourself, then you’ll win all the 100 battles that you fight.” (or something along that line.) Well, I figure the “enemy” will change from one situation to the other, but the “yourself” is probably going to always be there. I guess that’s the most benefit I get from this whole working experience. I’m getting a clearer ideas about what I want to be doing and what absolutely does not fit my style.

That, however, is not to say that I had figured out everything to say with certainly whether I want to do something or not. But at least I’m seeing some progress. :) I may be making a few more life-changing decisions again soon.

I’ll get to the knowing my enemy part later…

Right now I just need to get through the next few weeks. One of the things I just have to keep in mind all the time: “It’s not personal. It’s business.” Sometimes you can’t use all the logic to deal with people. Whoever thought that human is the rational race as in all those economics theories?

There has to be a line between work and personal life. I just need to find it.

In the meantime, life is going to continue to be busy for a while. Besides work, I’m half-switching into a half-study mode (therefore, an overall quarter-study mode?) I had not had much chance to expand my book list for this year. Maybe I’ll get to do more of that in a few months’ time.

I want this USB Drive!!!

But of course… I’m not sure I’d have the patience or the skill to make one myself, despite the completely detailed tutorial on the page.

Anyone interested in giving this to me as a birthday present? ;)

So, I had this one song stuck in my head for most of this evening (after oleo hummed a few bar and it got completely stuck in my head).

The only trouble was, neither of us knew what song it was! (I only remember that there are the words “love” and “rainbow” in the lyrics; which didn’t help much in trying to google up the song.) After racking our brains, we still couldn’t figure it out anyway, so I decided to try this website I found a long while ago: midomi.com. Basically, I hummed in the song, and voila!!! Out comes the name of the song I was looking for!

Not bad, I’d have to say. Especially for someone who never remembers the name of the songs/artists like me.

A Lover’s Concerto
Lyrics: Sandy Linzer and Denny Randell

How gentle is the rain
That falls softly on the meadow,
Birds high up the trees
Serenade the clouds with their melodies

Oh, see there beyond the hill,
The bright colors of the rainbow.
Some magic from above
Made this day for us just to fall in love

Now, I belong to you
From this day until forever,
Just love me tenderly
And I’ll give to you every part of me.

Oh, don’t ever make me cry
Through long lonely nights without us.
Be always true to me,
Keep this day in your heart eternally.

One day we shall return
To this place upon the meadow.
We’ll walk out in the rain,
See the birds above singing once again

Oh, you hold me in your arms,
And say once again you love me,
And if your love is true,
Everything will be just as wonderful.

You’ll hold me in your arms,
And say once again you’ll love me,
And if your love is true,
Everything will be just as wonderful

PS. By the way, I first found out about this site via those *coughsannoyingbutmoneymakingadscoughs* on my site… So I guess they’re not all bad… Once in a while something really interesting like this does come up… Really, really once in a while… but they still do.

For the first time in many many months, I’m finally getting to spend more than one night a week at *home* during this long weekend. Well, as some of my colleagues put it, they even teased me that I’m going back to the country-side during this Thai new year holiday season. That’s not so far from the truth as my house *is* really far from where I work! In a completely empty-road times, it probably would take me about 40-50 minutes of driving, but of course, during the rush hours of the usual traffic, that would translate to probably up to 2 hours of driving ONE-WAY. So, if I were to live at home, that would be *AT LEAST* 3 hours of my life everyday wasted on the road!

That, on top of the fact that right now my mom’s choosing to stay at my grandpa’s, is more than enough reasons for me to not go home unless for the Saturday night.

But anyway, I was planning to spend AT LEAST a whole day at home during this holiday. That plan completely fell through though. :( *sigh* A shame, really, since I never get to do that during the regular weekend, what with all the having to go back and forth between here and my grandpa’s place anyway.

Sometimes as I watched the whole “new year” celebration of splashing the water onto the passing cars or the motorcycles (all from the dryness of my car, of course), I sometimes wonder if this whole thing had gone too far and what really is the point of it all? I mean, sure… maybe some people think it’s fun… maybe it’s a tradition, but sometimes seeing kids rushing out onto the street with a bucket of water onto the running motorcycle, I couldn’t help thinking that it’s a) a little reckless & dangerous and b) quite a big usage of water resources!!

But who am I to judge this long-lived tradition?

There’s some new development in my work life today. (No, I have not quit nor have I been fired from the company yet! (Yet!!!)) but there are definitely going to be some changes for my work life during the next 2.5 months. Quite different from what I had thought it’d be.

So, there’ll definitely be more “work” (งาน — ngarn) for me to do, while not so much more of the money (เงิน — ngern) part. Funny how these two words sound so similar in Thai, while one doesn’t necessarily imply the other (although (in my short working experience so far) more money usually does imply more work!!!)

In any case, while I don’t want to get into the details of my work life on this blog, for those of you in Bangkok (or Korat, for that matters), if you’d actually like to help me make the next few months of my work life a tiny bit easier… feel free to ask me on im or anything!!!!

I had pretty much been absent from the online world for the past few days. No, I had not been enjoying the long weekend away anywhere last weekend (5-7 April) nor am I planning to go away anywhere during the long weekend this weekend (12-15 April). Since I got back from my little adventures at the book fair on Saturday, I had pretty much fallen ill, and besides having to be on bed for almost all of Monday that I had off, I also had to take another day off on Tuesday and spend it completely in bed as well. So there, that was my first fever of the year 2008. And HOPEFULLY, that would be the last as well!

I did manage to finish a few books so far this month. One of which is The Godfather, which may be the reasons why I was also feeling nauseated on top of the fever I had. (Gosh! some of the details… add that to my livid imaginations, and I could imagine some blood splattered across the pages!) So, after finishing that book, I had to quickly find something light to read.

But yah, so I added 4 more books to books list.