3 steps to housechores

Not getting any closer to becoming a domestic Goddess, am I?

I hate folding clothes
I hate ironing (bloody hate this!)
I hate sweeping/mopping/vacuuming
I hate dusting

I'm ok with washing the dishes (kind of therapeutic)
I'm ok with washing clothes
I'm ok with hanging the dishes
I'm ok with organizing the cupboard/bookcase/wardrobe

I love cooking & makan
I love TV
I love music
I love books

Passport & Immigration Services

Based on true events

Sunday night: 
Flying overseas the next day at 11.20am by AirAsia with passport validity less than 6 months

Monday morning:
Queue at Immigration office Putrajaya at 7.30am. Counter opens at 8am. Go next door to snap passport picture & photocopy of IC. Queue again with completed form and payment at 8.50am. Passport ready at 9.30am, process takes only 40 minutes. Rush to LCCT and check in around 10.20am. Fly off to destination at 11.20am. Phew*
*Warning: Do not try this in the near future as it may induce anxiety.


In a nutshell
If you are planning to travel overseas, please make sure that your passport's validity is at least 6 months before the expiry date, or you may not be allowed to leave the country at all. The situation above is purely situational. What if the immigration office was offline and they couldn't process the passport? Then you won't be able to fly unless AirAsia postpones the flight.

How to know validity of your passport? Please read this blogspot by Nina Mustaffa.

 

Immigration Services
There are a few ways to renew passport:

Counter
There are some branches which opens on Saturday and Sunday from 8am - 1pm. So even if you are super busy you can still do your passport on the weekend. List of the Immigration offices that opens on weekend are here. This is still the most reliable form of passport update as it takes about 1 hour once you have made the payment (provided that you are early in getting the queue no.).

Kiosk
Person has to be manually there to key in personal info and drop the old passport. However, I was in Immigration office a few times but did not find the kiosk to be helpful as it was always out of service. One time I noticed that the officer would go to the kiosk and take out the applications to be processed manually. So it will take more time than queuing at the counter.


Online
For convenience, Immigration has also set up an online process at MyONLINE*PASSPORT. Very convenient but also at a risk of Immigration to reject application if pic is not up to the standard. You can specify branch and date that you want the collect the passport. However, it also mentioned that it may take two hours to collect depending on branch.


Good luck!

Skype Surprise - Not!!!

Technology is wonderful. But when someone abuse that, it becomes a nightmare. Think hackers, trolls, identity theft, etc.

Around 7pm yesterday I was at my desk doing work on my laptop, and suddenly my skype was blinking with a message. I got a message from an ex-colleague whom I only chatted a few times on skype previously. And this was out of the blue as we haven't chatted in ages - probably about 1 year or so after she left. Her profile picture was that of a cute furry kitten and truth be told I vaguely remembered her as most people, she used her nickname on skype. So we exchanged a few lines and said she wants to call me on skype. To be honest, I didn't want to talk to her because:

 

1. she left the company in a less than ideal way, and 

2. I don't possibly know what she wants to talk about - I was thinking maybe she wants to talk about employment opportunity (as we were interviewing some people but nothing in her line).

So naturally, I hold off for a good 15 mins while I settled my task in hand. Untill I feel ready to face her. She was offline. Then after a few minutes she was online again and placed a call on my skpe. I accepted the call, after a few second waited for the other caller to appear on the web cam. Lo and behold, there was a naked male torso with his *peep* erected. Mind you it was not a very attractive sight. Would help a bit if he has six pack but all I can see was his several love handles. Yucks! I quickly exit the chat but realised that the call was still on, so I had to open the skype box again with the guy still doing things to his *peep* and close it off properly. What a nightmare!

This morning I blocked and report abuse to skype. Hope I never meet that creep again!!

Back from the Dead!

Been on blog hiatus for months - busy with work & KPI, having writer's block, losing my passion to write and share for a while. Been off everybody's blog too. So today when I read La Signora's update, its nice to know that disconnecting from social media is ok. Disconnecting for some real life, but not totally disconnected at the same time. In my hiatus, I was back on FB updates since before I only go online once every 3 months. But after a while, the FB updates by other people and sometimes by myself felt so narcissistic. So I decided to get off FB and back into blogdom.

So the year 2012 is the year of the Water Dragon. I don't even know that there were different type of dragon until this year when I was enlightened by my Chinese colleagues. They have predicted that although its the Year of the Dragon, but the Water Dragon will not be so "ong" for them. They are already moaning about mishaps that happened to them and felt that the whole year it will continue in the same fashion. Personally, I don't subscribed in that belief, but when I fell down twice spraining both my ankles (first incident sprained my right ankle near the LRT station and then a week later sprained my other ankle while doing a jumping activity at home) and another colleague also fell down and did a split, my other colleagues were saying that this is not a good year for our office as so many mishaps had happened early of the year. Hmm....maybe its all just a coincidence.....read here for more info on the water dragon 2012.

One of my favourite things about the CNY was all the "Loh Sang" toast we did with the yee sang dish. I did at least 3 loh sang toast this year and some colleagues did 7 or 8! You can practically buy the loh sang at sushi restaurants and do it at home with the family. The loh sang dish is just a mixture of crackers, pomelo, salmon slice (optional), plum sauce and honey. Its just a fun cultural experience and good food if you think about it. My Loh Sang entry here.

That's all the updates I have for now.