Help save lives!

How many of us take fire drills seriously? Every time we receive a notification about a fire evacuation coming up, some people think "No, I've got some $205 billion dollar deal to make here, fire drills are an absolute waste of time" (suddenly everyone has the most important job in the world).. or the more light hearted "Yay! We get to go out and grab a coffee with all our friends".

I was meant to help one of my friends check the girl's toilets during the evacuation. But after a few email exchanges, I was appointed a 'REAL' Fire Warden for Level 9, 101 Collins. Yes, I help save lives!!! And I get to stop traffic (with my red hat)! How exciting….

After 1 million training and briefing sessions, we had the evacuation last Thursday, and it went quite successful. There are 53 floors in this building. You really have to climb down the flight of stairs from the 53^rd floor (or whichever floor you're situated at). The firemen timed them (occupants of Level 53). 10 minutes. That's pretty good, yea? We also found out we're one of the best (in terms of fire evacuations and planning for high rise buildings) in the entire Melbourne CBD.

This is MooPoo and I at Treasury Gardens (Here, I'd like to reiterate the 'I-can't-take-a-decent-photo disorder' from my previous post).

This is me, escorting the troops along Flinders Lane to Treasury Gardens.

I was actually looking forward to stopping traffic (on Spring St)… But when I actually stood on Spring St with cars coming from every direction, I was more afraid of being run down by an X5. So, yea, that didn't go as planned. But nonetheless, I'm glad I participated as a Fire Warden.

Work events

Work has been keeping me quite busy.

One of the boys from work, MooPoo (self-appointed Social Director) organises lunch, dinners, drinks, etc. We went for Mexican last Friday. The pics are awful though. The French girl is a terrible photographer, she's got a terrible camera, and one of the Belgian guys shrinks the pics for us (that means bad quality photos).

But of course, the most important thing is that we all have a good time…. we enjoy ourselves, creating a cohesive and happy work environment for all.

Here's me and one of the Belgian boys. He suffers from this 'I-can't-take-a-decent-photo' disorder. Its true. Every time someone tries to take a nice picture, he makes a weird monkey face. He is honest about it though, and says he tries but just a second before the flash goes off, his facial expressions go wild. Hahahaha (I think I look awfully drunk, I only had one lousy margarita).

And just quickly, friends from work think I'm obsessed with lip gloss, every time they turn around and look at me at the office, I'm reapplying my lippie (hey, its not my fault the weather in Melb is so dry, hence, dry skin and dry lips). I only carry about 6 different lip glosses with me everywhere I go. And so during our dinner, they took an AWFUL impromptu shot of me applying some lip balm. And then look at my Belgian friend next to me… suddenly he smiles like a normal person in a candid photo!

dogtalk

The dog and I love our time at the local park. There's so much to do at our local Caulfield park. You can play various sports there (lacrosse, soccer, basketball, cricket, footy, there's a tennis wall, a little net to practise your golf swings, etc). I also go running at the 2.2km track there.. but most importantly, it is doggy friendly. There's a doggy section in this massive park.. where all the dogs come together and do the doggy handshake (sniff each other's bums).

Here's a pic of him I caught on camera, hehehehe doing a number two. Of course I cleaned it up.

House hunting

House hunting has gotten the best of me. I don't enjoy it. In fact, I'd rather keep renting my whole life… then I can take the money I've got, go to Europe and sit on gondolas and eat snails. Grumpy and I are looking for a place to buy. We decided that renting for the past 6 years hasn't been 'The way to go'… and so one day, we found an ideal place just 2 mins from where we currently live, rang our parents in Malaysia, and told them we were gonna buy an apartment. Both our parents were 101% supportive of our decision, so we rang the bank, got our mortgage approval and started counting down the days for the auction of the property…. Before we knew it, the real estate agent called a couple of days later to say the place has been sold prior to auction. We were crushed. Sons of bitches.

Oh well, maybe we weren't meant to get that place. That was back in October 2006. And so our journey began.. we continued looking. Most of the time it was ME looking up places on the Internet. Ringing up the agents. Driving to house inspections on Saturdays by myself (coz Grumpy works on Saturdays). Liaising with the agents. If I like a place (which is most likely..), I'd have to arrange for another time to have Grumpy have a look at the place. Grumpy has a tendency to dislike everything I like. And so we argue about everything there is to a house. From the places I'm looking up "How can you look at apartments? What about THE DOG?" suddenly Grumpy is so considerate over the dog's needs. "No, its too old.. its too small.. its too expensive… I don't like the kitchen… I don't like the layout… I don't want to pay $4k a year for body corporate" the arguments were endless.

And because the last time we discussed home loans was October 2006 (our budget for a place keeps going up), there was a rate increase in Nov 2006, you have to reassess your mortgage options. The mortgage broker goes "if you choose this home loan, you get THIS, THIS, THIS and THIS". "If you choose THAT home loan, you get THIS, THIS, a bit of THIS, maybe not TOO MUCH of THIS, blah blah blah blah". My view is that Australia has an inverse yield curve (higher short term rates, expectations of lower rates in the long term). But do you think Grumpy believes me? NO! I've only been studying finance for the past 6 years..

But guess what? We went to see 2 places we liked yesterday. For once, Grumpy did the homework. He looked up these places himself. The 1^st place is a 3 bedroom, 2 bathrooms. Its nice. Ideal. It's a bit steep.. but I don't like it. I don't want a big house. Hehehe Mum said most ppl want a big place, except for me. Firstly, with a 3 bedroom house, we'll definitely have a guest room. And what does that tell you? A lot of unwanted guests from Malaysia. Secondly, I struggle with the cleaning of my tiny 2 bedroom unit at the moment. We all fight over who does what housework. Most weekends, the boys are recovering from a hangover. Do they want to be cleaning the house on a Sunday morning? No. So this 3 bedroom place is OUT.

The 2^nd place is similar to my current place. Its small, its NOT too far from the city, I love it. And I've finally convinced Mum and Grumpy to agree to this smaller 2 bedroom unit. It is within our budget, we might have a little extra $$ to make the place look nice too.

That was yesterday. Guess what happens today? Mum & Grumpy start discussing how the furniture will look in this 2^nd place. Which walls to break down, new doors, etc. Typical Malaysian style-lah, u know what I mean. (What does a Malaysian do when they buy a new house? They either demolish the entire old house, build a new one over it… OR, break down half the house, and reinvent the layout of the existing place). I keep telling them to STOP talking about this place. The auction is 3 weeks away. We might not get the place. Auctions are awful. The last auction I went, the place sold for $110k more than the opening bid. I just don't want to jinx it. My friend from work MooPoo, bought all the new furniture (new bed, new sheets, new quilt, new bedside tables, u name it!) for his so-called new place… the only problem was, he hasn't found a place yet. The new furniture ended up sitting in his grandfather's house. It still is. WHY? Coz he jinxed it.

Fingers crossed.

Rabbit & eggs

The past week has been absolutely crazy! We had 3 more adults (Mum, Dad & Grandpa) living in our tiny 2 bedroom unit... Grumpy and I slept in the lounge room. Grumpy thought it was absolute bliss – sleeping in front the plasma. Juggling family commitments, I had work… and to make my life even better, I had a post-grad exam yesterday! Ahhh… *delirious*

Dopey finally graduates. While it was a really happy moment for the family, on the flip side, tempers flared, yelling matches occurred, everyone was ridiculously intense and overwhelmed. Rushing to get dressed (6 adults + 1 toilet & bath = NIGHTMARE), rushing to restaurants, organising who to sit in which car, cleaning up, trying to keep cool, making sure everyone was ok… and then at the end of the night, back to the books as I didn't want to screw up my exam… geez… S-T-R-E-S-S!

But that's OK. We struggled… but we got over it. Yeap, we survived. Here are some photos.

Dopey's such a superstar.

Here's a pic I took at the ceremony. I tried, but because these grads only get 2 seconds of fame, they walk on and off the stage so quickly… I am convinced that this person is NOT my brother.

Here are all of us, arguing… again.

Obviously, Dopey does not cope with pressure very well..

Thanks to Grumpy for these fantastic candid shots.

Enough of the graduation, all that s-t-r-e-s-s for a 2 hour boring convocation…

I had a really good time with the family. Dad and Grandpa's gone back now.

I miss Dad. I rang him this morning to check if he's arrived in KL safely.. he goes "Yes, I'm on my way to go get some Nasi Lemak for breakfast now" Gee thanks Dad. Thanks for mentioning Nasi Lemak… I haven't had authentic Malaysian Nasi Lemak for ONLY over a year and a half.

I did a bit of shopping with Mum. Here's us in the tram. I actually packed my bags, got ready to go study at the library on a freezing cold Saturday morning. 5 minutes before I left the house, I decided to go shopping instead. Shopping is very therapeutic.

Mum goes back this Easter weekend L Despite her driving me nuts most of the time, I love her so much and I will miss her tremendously when she leaves for KL.

Anyways, its time for chocolate bunnies and eggs. Happy Easter everyone.