I joined lunch with my staff just now and found out about a funny incident that happened to one of my designers. Man and Yus normally walks home from work because they live nearby the office. One day, when going home time, Yus offered to send Man home. However, Yus said Man has to follow him back to his apartment and from there Yus can take his car and send Man. When they reached Yus's apartment carpark, he found out that his car is missing. Panicking, he apologise to Man and told him that his car was missing. Yus called his housemates and all of them said they didn't use the car and didn't know where the car. Beganning to worry, Yus asked the guard at the entrance. The guard didn't see anyone drive out Yus's car and he too was worried. Man felt sorry for Yus and offered to accompany him to the police station to make a report. He called one of the designers in the office to update him of the situation. That designer reply, "tell him no need. He left his car in the office..."
Hearing this, Man and the guard laugh their guts out at Yus's forgetfulness. Now I found someone who is as bad as me. I tend to miss up my appointment date.
Tuesday, July 22, 2008
Monday, July 21, 2008
Hunter X Hunter
Since I'm in the mood for anime today, this one is highly recommended. It's about a good nature boy, Gon Freecs, who lives on a small island learns that his father who he doesn't remember is an extremely famous man and an excellent hunter. Gon was rised by his aunt and decided to find his father at the age of 12. Gon takes the hunter exam to seek out his amazing father. During the first exam phase, he befriended with 3 other candidates, Kurapica, Leorio, and Killua. Gon and Killua became best friends when Killua found out that Gon doesn't judge his background and accepted him as who he is. The 4 friends learn that there is more to becoming a hunter. The test challenges their strength, ctreativity, focus, mind control and many more. The challenges they must face is beyond their imaginations. After 3 phases of exam, Gon and Killua motivate each other and learned to control their inner power more effectively. The episodes end when they enter Greed Island's competition. Greed Island is a reality game created by Gon's famous father and a few friends. Their journey in Greed Island will be in next season. There's suppose to be HunterXHunter Series 2. I hope I can find it in the market.
Hayate The Combat Butler
Last weekend I was watching a new anime. It's not new in the market but I started my anime collections late. I only bought the first season and I heard that there's a second season. I'll try to find it when I have finished this one. In total, there are 58 episodes. The story is about Hayate Ayasaki, a young boy who has to work since 5 years old to support his gambling parent's habit. When his parent ran away after owing a large sum of money to a loan shark, a rich, young girl, named Nagi saved him. In return Hayate became an accidental butler who serves Nagi Sanzenin who is an heiress with a yen for manga. In the Hayate no Gotoku (aka Hayate the Combat Butler) manga and animation series, Hayate finds himself involved in various escapades and adventures due to Nagi's tendency towards drama. Hayate has been trained since very young age to be familiar with a lot of situation and work. His skills come in handy when serving Nagi and handling her daily demands.
Friday, July 18, 2008
Company Policy
This afternoon our group IT deparment has activate the block again. With the block, there are many sites that I can't acccess during working hours. More like while I'm at the office. This took all the full away from working. I always believe that one should be given the freedom to browse to any url as long as one know how to seperate work and net surfing. With the block, I won't be able to access sites such as facebook, youtube, msn etc in the office. Sites that are deem personal relationship and games are not allow. I wonder how one can learn and update oneself of the current technology when many sites are block. Is this how China and Dubai control their people too?
How To Overcome Rising Cost Of Living?
On Tuesday, 15th July, there was a LIVE debate between Dtk Annuar Ibrahim and Dato Shabery Cheek about oil price. According to Annuar, he can reduce the current petrol price of RM2.70 per litre to RM2.20 per litre. A reduction of 50 cents. Of course both of them present the mombo jumbo thoughout the debate and the online version can be view in many sites. However, my topic here is not about discussing politic or my view on the debate. To me there's no benefit for me if I only hear all talk and no action. I will believe when I see result.
So how do I plan to overcome my financial burden in view of the rising cost of living? Not the mentioned I have to spend close to $200 each time I buy groceries for one person. In a few years back, I only spend less than $100 to stock up a whole month's groceries. Now, it is more important to flip though the newspaper to check what's on cheaper sales from hypermarket such as Giant, Cold Storage, Tesco and Carefour. Although I compare the prices, I only buy groceries at Giant, Cold storage and Isetan. All the non-perishable items I will buy at Giant and Cold Storage. However, for perishable items such as beef, onions, button mushroom, potatoes, garlic, fish, Japanese food and etc I will buy at Isetan. How, because in Isetan thses items are fresher and last longer. Example is onion. When I buy onions in Isetan, it stays fresh for 3-4 weeks. However in Giant, the onion on sales there are already near rotten. Besides that, it's difficult to select a good one out of a pile. No doubt the price in Giant is cheaper but I have to throw it away when I can't finish it on time. The one I bought from Isetan will not rotten easily and sometime lasted for few weeks. Therefore, when I buy groceries, I not only look for cheapest price but also freshness and long lasting. That's how I stretch my money these days.
Besides that, I do some freelance work to earn extra money. I'm partnering with my friend who's a great designer. He designs, I manage and service. I have been doing freelancing for many years but it has been on and off kind of thing. I have never taken it off due to planning and locality. Now that I have set up my study, I can concentrate on developing this business. It will be difficult because there are millions of people like me and it's a cut throat market. Some freelancers offer dirt cheap price that is just unreasonable and not even profitable. They probably took the job for some fast and easy cash. I tried that too when I was younger and it goes nowhere. In the end all the hours your put in turn to nothing because the cheap price you offer won't generate any income for rolling. I'm still at the planning stage because it's the most important part of the business. I prefer to get my foundation right and dynamic change according to market trend later.
Other than that, I'm selling the jewelly beads I made to friends and acquaintances. It's still slow but all business has to starts somewhere. I still haven't have time to upload my beads projects here. Main reason is because I'm still lazy in taking photos of the beads work and upload it. I'll see if I have the mood to do it this weekend. If not, we'll just have to wait a bit longer.
Instead of eating outside everyday, I resort to cooking at home. Altough cooking at home means instant noodles for dinner on weekdays. On weekend, I make sure I cook a 2proper meals. I stay near a hypermarket so I will buy the ingredient such as vegetable, chicken, taufoo fresh. I also started to learn some recipes from the cook books I have. I love to cook so I collect cook books and I use the rebate from credit cards to buy cook books. Everyone I know don't believe that I can cook or I like to cook. I can't blame them because I am a workaholic and queen control. Furthermore, I normally share my cooking with my sister and 2 other friends only. I plan to learn how to bake cakes, muffins and cookies. If it's any good, I plan to sell it. Of course I can't just sell it. My plan is to give it away as gifts to friends in first order or make. Then, the next order they will have to pay. I haven't decide on the price yet but I don't intend to charge a rocket for it. Everyone is having financial burden and the only way to get people to continue spending money is to charge a reasonable and affordable price.
Lastly, I started to take LRT and buses where possible. LRT is fine because I can still control my travel timing. Bus is when I have a lot of time to kill or the bus is already available when I arrive at the station. If not, I will use taxi. I hope taxi fares will not goes up. That will drastically impact my financial. Well, these are my ways to overcome the rising cost of living.
So how do I plan to overcome my financial burden in view of the rising cost of living? Not the mentioned I have to spend close to $200 each time I buy groceries for one person. In a few years back, I only spend less than $100 to stock up a whole month's groceries. Now, it is more important to flip though the newspaper to check what's on cheaper sales from hypermarket such as Giant, Cold Storage, Tesco and Carefour. Although I compare the prices, I only buy groceries at Giant, Cold storage and Isetan. All the non-perishable items I will buy at Giant and Cold Storage. However, for perishable items such as beef, onions, button mushroom, potatoes, garlic, fish, Japanese food and etc I will buy at Isetan. How, because in Isetan thses items are fresher and last longer. Example is onion. When I buy onions in Isetan, it stays fresh for 3-4 weeks. However in Giant, the onion on sales there are already near rotten. Besides that, it's difficult to select a good one out of a pile. No doubt the price in Giant is cheaper but I have to throw it away when I can't finish it on time. The one I bought from Isetan will not rotten easily and sometime lasted for few weeks. Therefore, when I buy groceries, I not only look for cheapest price but also freshness and long lasting. That's how I stretch my money these days.
Besides that, I do some freelance work to earn extra money. I'm partnering with my friend who's a great designer. He designs, I manage and service. I have been doing freelancing for many years but it has been on and off kind of thing. I have never taken it off due to planning and locality. Now that I have set up my study, I can concentrate on developing this business. It will be difficult because there are millions of people like me and it's a cut throat market. Some freelancers offer dirt cheap price that is just unreasonable and not even profitable. They probably took the job for some fast and easy cash. I tried that too when I was younger and it goes nowhere. In the end all the hours your put in turn to nothing because the cheap price you offer won't generate any income for rolling. I'm still at the planning stage because it's the most important part of the business. I prefer to get my foundation right and dynamic change according to market trend later.
Other than that, I'm selling the jewelly beads I made to friends and acquaintances. It's still slow but all business has to starts somewhere. I still haven't have time to upload my beads projects here. Main reason is because I'm still lazy in taking photos of the beads work and upload it. I'll see if I have the mood to do it this weekend. If not, we'll just have to wait a bit longer.
Instead of eating outside everyday, I resort to cooking at home. Altough cooking at home means instant noodles for dinner on weekdays. On weekend, I make sure I cook a 2proper meals. I stay near a hypermarket so I will buy the ingredient such as vegetable, chicken, taufoo fresh. I also started to learn some recipes from the cook books I have. I love to cook so I collect cook books and I use the rebate from credit cards to buy cook books. Everyone I know don't believe that I can cook or I like to cook. I can't blame them because I am a workaholic and queen control. Furthermore, I normally share my cooking with my sister and 2 other friends only. I plan to learn how to bake cakes, muffins and cookies. If it's any good, I plan to sell it. Of course I can't just sell it. My plan is to give it away as gifts to friends in first order or make. Then, the next order they will have to pay. I haven't decide on the price yet but I don't intend to charge a rocket for it. Everyone is having financial burden and the only way to get people to continue spending money is to charge a reasonable and affordable price.
Lastly, I started to take LRT and buses where possible. LRT is fine because I can still control my travel timing. Bus is when I have a lot of time to kill or the bus is already available when I arrive at the station. If not, I will use taxi. I hope taxi fares will not goes up. That will drastically impact my financial. Well, these are my ways to overcome the rising cost of living.
Wednesday, July 16, 2008
Another Interesting Craft
I just saw another interesting bead work from Craftbits. This a bling ring and in that page, there is an easy instruction accompany with photos of the bead making steps. I must upload my bead projects soon. Moreover, I better look for my craft box so I can jump start my craft passion again.
The Urge To Improve
Today I received a call from from new CEO, well more like the caretaker until we have a new CEO. My CEO called because he found out that one of our directories, Malaysia Tourist Pages has an minor graphic error. Finally, the call came to production seeking amendment. I can still recalled last year when our book became overnight infamous due to the excort ads and a media station went under cover to investigate those companies advertised in MTP. It make into the prime time news and the ministry and management called me to rectify the problem. In the end, we had to pull back all the books, take out the ads and reprint the pages and manually paste into the books. It was a tedious work that involved a lot of manpower.
Unfortunately, this the same execise will repeat. There was a graphic mistake in the book and my CEO wants to rectify it. The solution: print the correct graphic in sticker format and everyone in the company will stick on top on the error. It will be a sticking day again. Gosh...The error shouldn't happened if my designer didn't change the graphic last minute. He just has to change the graphic after the proofing stage. Due to his careless mistake, it will cost production extra. My designer has a weakness in attention to details. There is a mindset that designer only focus on design details. As a designer, he should put attention to details in all aspects, including the graphic, icon and text. When I mentioned text, I refer to spelling error, puntuation error and so on. Each time I told him about this, he feels that I'm nagging him. Well, now that there's a mistake in MTP, I let him find solution. He has to look for quotations for the stickers, the PRF and the printing of stickers. Then he has to get the staff to help with the sticking. Hopefully, he will learn his mistake and be more responsible next time. He has to accountable for his work.
Talking about improve, I plan to take up my MBA in the coming intake. It's long overdue and initially I wanted to do it overseas. However, looking at the current economic situation and my financial, I decided to pursue it locally. I plan to pursue it at Nottingham University Malaysia Campus. It's located at Chulan Tower so it quite convenience for someone like me who doesn't own a car. YUP, I rely on Malaysia's public transport to travel from one place to another. I'm the minority.
There will be a preview on the 23rd July at 7pm and I'll be attending it. The MBA will cost me RM46,000 in fees. At the moment, I have no means or ways to get this ammount. However, I believe if there's a will, there's a way. I did it before when I pursue my bachelor degrees and when I bought my house recently. No doubt it will be much tougher in the financial part as I'm still fresh in the house loan part. I just finished my renovation and purchase few basic furnitures. Now, I plan to add on more financial burden to myself. One may thinks I'm crazy, or ask me to wait. I'm different. I don't wait until I'm comfortable because it won't happen or I'll become lazy. I will definitely try to find ways to earn extra income and save up more. Although with the super high inflation cost, I'm unsure how I cam save.
My mind is made up and there's no turning back. I will have to sit for TOFEL test too. Everything involve money and money is never enough. How I wish someone or some company will sponsor my MBA. Wishful thinking. I have to improve myself or I will be out of the market. Lifelong learning is a must and good for the brain and heart. Working in a stressful place, study is an enjoyment and escape for me. Maybe that's why I have a lot of books at home and my study room is the first to fully furnished. Altough I still haven't add the deco touch on it yet. Reading borden my mind and general knowledge. This is something most Malaysian lacking. Many do read but only lifestyle magazines and not serious books or novels.
I can still spend a bit to qualify for the RM1k rebate in the annual income tax. Talking about income tax, government should lower income tax to ease the people's burden in view of the rising cost of living and inflation.
Unfortunately, this the same execise will repeat. There was a graphic mistake in the book and my CEO wants to rectify it. The solution: print the correct graphic in sticker format and everyone in the company will stick on top on the error. It will be a sticking day again. Gosh...The error shouldn't happened if my designer didn't change the graphic last minute. He just has to change the graphic after the proofing stage. Due to his careless mistake, it will cost production extra. My designer has a weakness in attention to details. There is a mindset that designer only focus on design details. As a designer, he should put attention to details in all aspects, including the graphic, icon and text. When I mentioned text, I refer to spelling error, puntuation error and so on. Each time I told him about this, he feels that I'm nagging him. Well, now that there's a mistake in MTP, I let him find solution. He has to look for quotations for the stickers, the PRF and the printing of stickers. Then he has to get the staff to help with the sticking. Hopefully, he will learn his mistake and be more responsible next time. He has to accountable for his work.
Talking about improve, I plan to take up my MBA in the coming intake. It's long overdue and initially I wanted to do it overseas. However, looking at the current economic situation and my financial, I decided to pursue it locally. I plan to pursue it at Nottingham University Malaysia Campus. It's located at Chulan Tower so it quite convenience for someone like me who doesn't own a car. YUP, I rely on Malaysia's public transport to travel from one place to another. I'm the minority.
There will be a preview on the 23rd July at 7pm and I'll be attending it. The MBA will cost me RM46,000 in fees. At the moment, I have no means or ways to get this ammount. However, I believe if there's a will, there's a way. I did it before when I pursue my bachelor degrees and when I bought my house recently. No doubt it will be much tougher in the financial part as I'm still fresh in the house loan part. I just finished my renovation and purchase few basic furnitures. Now, I plan to add on more financial burden to myself. One may thinks I'm crazy, or ask me to wait. I'm different. I don't wait until I'm comfortable because it won't happen or I'll become lazy. I will definitely try to find ways to earn extra income and save up more. Although with the super high inflation cost, I'm unsure how I cam save.
My mind is made up and there's no turning back. I will have to sit for TOFEL test too. Everything involve money and money is never enough. How I wish someone or some company will sponsor my MBA. Wishful thinking. I have to improve myself or I will be out of the market. Lifelong learning is a must and good for the brain and heart. Working in a stressful place, study is an enjoyment and escape for me. Maybe that's why I have a lot of books at home and my study room is the first to fully furnished. Altough I still haven't add the deco touch on it yet. Reading borden my mind and general knowledge. This is something most Malaysian lacking. Many do read but only lifestyle magazines and not serious books or novels.
I can still spend a bit to qualify for the RM1k rebate in the annual income tax. Talking about income tax, government should lower income tax to ease the people's burden in view of the rising cost of living and inflation.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)