Here's My Story

When I was in Canberra, it was already late autumn. It was already cold, at least for me. Temperature ranged from around 3 degree to 16 degree Celsius. I remarked to my sister and her hubby that "we are not made to live in such weather" and that "how can anyone get any work done in this country?". Lol, yah I was a bit cranky about the early morning cold weather. Imagine if it's winter :-) Hate winter. Hate summer. That pretty much rules out idea of living and working in Australia. Here are some pictures of autumn in Canberra. The first one was taken somewhere in Evatt while the rest are in ANU. It can be lovely, that I admit, but I much prefer spring.

Sorry as this photo is not clear enough since my gimpy camphone can't take close-up photos. I believed the stem on the left shows it clearly: there are pox-like things on the stems of my baby. It makes the stems feel bumpy. I removed a few of them before. They are moist underneath. I feel uneasy as I suspect it may be a disease and if it is, what steps I should take. However I'm not too sure either as for it could jolly well be part of the plant's growth.*Shrug* Any idea?

Really, some people just don't know when to stop scratching at other people's business. I have a client, company A, who outsource certain part of their accounting service to company B, whereas my company acts as consultant to A. In order to provide a certain certificate, we have requested data from A. Upon learning that A has difficulty extracting historical data, we suggested that they just try their best to extract as far back as possible. B's interest in this is indirect as they need to prepare the accounts for the auditor's sign-off and the auditor wants to sight the certificate. B then tried pressing us to tell A it's ok to provide data up to certain year only. I've reiterated that we have consistently told A to provide as far back as they possibly can. How much clearer can that be? It is up to A then to provide what they can. In any case, if A has problems, shouldn't they talk to us instead? B is not involved at all in the data extraction. Seriou...

He’s caught in the past Allowing him to return would amount to an admission ... OOI KEE BENG xtra@mediacorp.com.sg THE final attempt by the 85-year-old former leader of the Malayan Communist Party (MCP), Chin Peng, to gain the right to return to Malaysia was quashed on April 30 by the Federal Court. . His failure to produce his birth certificate was used as sufficient reason to deny his appeal. . The legal technicalities involved in stopping him from entering the country are interestingly not the most significant theme in this saga. His failure nevertheless injects disturbing elements from the past into contemporary Malaysian consciousness. . Many see no danger in allowing the old man to return from his place of exile in Bangkok to his place of birth in Sitiawan, Perak, where many of his relatives live, but others, including the federal authorities, refuse to forget the violence perpetrated by the MCP during the birth of the nation. . The official stand is taken despit...

After I met my sis and her family at Canberra airport, we drove back to her house to put down my luggage before going off for lunch at a Chinese restaurant for some dim sum. Ironically we also had Singapore noodle: Something that cannot be found in Singapore :-) Similarly, you can have Hong Kong noodle in Singapore and Malaysia but not in Hong Kong. We then dropped by the National Museum. We've been there before although I didn't get to see everything because everyone else was waiting for me and legs were killing me at that time. However, this time, we were there because of the kids. Just wanted them to enjoy the outside of the museum: We were lucky that day because there was a paddle steamer for viewing. It's called PS Enterprise. It's more than 125 years old. The National Museum of Australia acquired it in 1984. First time I saw such boat and up close too:

I grew them from seeds. Out of many seeds, only 3 managed to survive. Actually, there were many seedlings but they were all flat on the soil when I was back from Chinese New Year. Still, I hoped and watered them anyway. Miraculously, 3 seedlings responded and now there's a flower! I would have loved to watch the flowering process but I'm already happy that it flowered at all because it has been months. Derek, thanks for looking after it and other plants while I was in Australia. At least none died this time ;-)

This time, instead of the typical transit point at Sydney, I transitted at Brisbane. No, it wasn't because I wanted to stop over and walk about, especially since I've never been to Brisbane before. It was because of 2 factors: (1) I wanted to avoid the harrowing experience I had with respect to time in between flights. I was running from one terminal to other terminal. Hence, this time I ensured I had more than an hour transfer time. (2) I wanted to reach Canberra at a time such that my sis and her entire family could come and pick me up, instead of only my brother in-law since the kids have certain routine to follow. Ironically, I did run lol. After putting through my bag and yoga mat, with my laptop taken out and screened separately, I forgot to take my yoga mat. I only realised that after I was close to the domestic terminal departure gate. I ran back, got it back (thankfully) and ran towards the gate. I was the last passenger...again lol. Brisbane has much better weathe...

So there's a tough choice for a weak Prime Minister: raise $1.9billion by making health more expensive and putting more pressure on the public hospital system, or by adding about 3cents more to the price of a cigarette and taking pressure off the public health system. - Australia's Opposition Leader Malcolm Turnbull on the Government's proposal to fund new spending with a new means test on taxpayer-funded rebates on 30% of the cost of private health insurance You always have a choice. Sometimes it's easy to to think you don't have one. - (may not be entirely verbatim) Guinevere to Gaius in the British television drama series Merlin Girls grow up to be women. Boys grow up to be just bigger boys. - me quoting to my sister. Anyone remember who originally said this?

One of my sis's favourite tv show is The Gruen Transfer, where the host and a panel of experts talk about some advertisements. I caught it last night where somewhere at the start they mentioned about a global brand using ads that claimed its product was recommended by Doctor Associates Inc or something like that. It certainly gave the impression that a group of doctors recommended it, right? I'm sure you're familiar with such ads with such endorsement/recommendation. Well, I cannot really remember what The Gruen Transfer discovered about the true nature of the Inc but subsequently they revealed that they have registed a company with the name "Nine Out Of Ten Experts". Hence, anyone who wants to engage them to recommend a product could then obtain the tagline in an ad: "Nine out of ten experts recommend this".

I'm in Canberra now. In fact, typing this while in a library at Australian National University, my alma mater. I've been here since Saturday, 9 May. My objective is to spend time with my sis and her hubby and twin sons (nothing new here :-) ). Been rather busy that I didn't have time to surf net. During the days when the kids are at school and their parents at work, I'm at the library supposedly trying to do my assignment. The first time I tried that on Monday, I estimated I got a whole 2 hours of work done on the assignment. Hehe. The rest of the time? Read newspapers, walk here and there, deciding on whether I should walk up to the actuarial department to request giving a short talk on practical applications of what you learn in university, and people watching. It seems that all the cute guys have not returned from parading for William in Melbourne . Well, I better get going with my assignment. Hope to finish it today or at least get a draft out. Meanwhile, here...

I think if you believe what you are doing is right, live a good life, do a good work and persuade people by what you do and how you life rather than by pushing your ideas on them in a more pushy way. - Deputy Prime Minister of Singapore Teo Chee Hean

*Ring Ring* Me: Hello? WS: Hey Me: Yes, how can I help you? WS: Ask you ar, do you know where to get a cheap incubator? Me: *Laughed* Why? You have premature baby? Turned out that he was worried about two eggs in the nest in the garden of his workplace. As he was closing the door, for some unknown reasons, the mother bird flew past him and into his office and smacked into the front glass door, leaving discharges over a couple of places. He panicked. "OMG, she died!" Fortunately, that wasn't the case. In fact, later, she was upright again but staring at him wearily. I on the other hand, tried searching for a vet nearby for him to phone (I was still at work) but in the end, he called SPCA. WS: OMG I think the mother bird died! SPCA: Calm down, WS. Are you hurt? Ok, I made that up but the way things went, he was panicking more than the bird lol. After exchange some information, SPCA adviced him to observe for a while. The bird could just be in shock to move a...