CIPS1 Day: At Eagle Ranch, Port Dickson

A day after the bienniel dinner…we had CIPS 1 day at Eagle Ranch on the 18th-19th of November, 2007.
Registration starts at 1030 hours, hence, we left (Car pooled with Jt, Yiven and Shanice) at 0930 hours..and we reached there at 1045hours…

The reception of Eagle Ranch..

Our meeting room..

Door Gift \(^o^)/ An organiser! Whee! The firm obviously thinks we aren’t the most organised employees.. =

While waiting for the opening speech by our industry leader *Pic taken with Nokia 6500…quality was not too bad I reckon*

The place looks pretty good, really…
The day started with a speech by our engagement leader before breaking for lunch.
We were given a short break till 1500hours, free to venture out on our own..Went to walk around…And some random shots by a colleague..of course…since I was without a camera..

Then, from 1500-1800 hours, we had some team building activities…which were pretty fun, but super tiring…

By the time we finished…it was 1800++ hours, so me and Shanice decided to head back to the room…to take a rest, chill out…and bathe…before the bbq dinner at night…
As I open the door to our room…I was shocked…the room feels warmer than outside…. (-.-)”
Air-conditioning not working??
Called for help at 1900 hours, and at 2000 hours, we have yet to receive any help??
*Sigh*
Went to complain at the reception, and demanded that we get a change of room…which they happily obliged *knowing how pissed we (Me and Shanice) were then…*
After dinner…went back to the room, and we notice…THIS ROOM IS AS WARM AS THE ROOM BEFORE!! wt….

As we went complaining for the god-knows-how-many-times…one of the organisers gave us another 2 rooms to try out…
Finally! Only to find out the rooms were like… 198439563593740 miles away from where we were….
Great….
My luggage wasn’t only for a day…it was for a week! Cuz I was supposed to head to Seremban for job straight after the CIPS day…One can imagine how heavy my luggage was…
And what’s worse? I couldn’t use the rollers…Why? Cuz this is how the pathway looks like…
The walkway was of cowboy style…*A patch of bare pathway, with lots of stones…*

Shanice: Eh funny! You better carry your luggage…This is gonna spoil the rollers…
Me: o.O….. Carry? But this is super heavy!
Shanice: Well, you’re surely gonna spoil ur bag this way….
Me: Great x 2 !
After what felt like a 19483847 hours of walking…we finally reached the other room of ours! The Tepee! It looks nice…and although it’s much smaller than our original room, it was very cosy…and the air-condition was superb!

The ceiling light…inside the Tepee

The “skylight” shower

Finally! Settled down, before heading out for “bonding” *cough..drinking..cough* session…

Only managed to head back to our room at 0300 hours… (=.=)
Bathe once more, and then headed for the bed….to chat for another hour plus before we actually sleep…
Lucky thing we get Monday off…but still….*yawn*

Day 2 of CIPS 1 day:
It’s a free and easy day! Phew! Woke up at 1030 hours…and was rushing all the way, as my colleagues were ready to leave for Seremban at 1100 hours!
Managed to snap a few pics before leaving the place…

Tepees, where we spent the night! It looks quite cute, I reckon

Woke up, bathe….and then I realised there was no hair dryer! *This place really meant…CAMP*
Hence, the pic with wet hair…. (-.-)”

Headed to Port Dickson beach, took a bit of pics there too…

At PD Beach..The water was surprisingly clean..much cleaner than I thought…I’ve always thought that PD beach was full of plastic bottles, plastic bags and other rubbish…but this turns out to be cleaner than Penang beach!

A pic with everyone…

…before heading off to Seremban for seafood lunch! Yummy!

The rest of the week was….well….I felt like a zombie…
On a totally random note….
To add to my misery of sleep-deprived week, I was sleeping in my hotel room last Thursday night (22/11/07), before I was woken up by some super-noisy-random-ppl who checked in at 12am in the midnight! How weird….
And if I thought that was weird, I was once again woken up at 0400hours…someone was calling, pressing on the door bell and banging on the door nextdoor… *Cool cool…go back to sleep*..
5 mins later…the 2 dudes next door were arguing….and it does sound like it was pretty heated up, and ready to fight… (-.-)” *Forget bout them, they can stab each other if they like…lets head back to my lovely sleeeepp*
At 0500 hours…my phone rang!
*#$%!!!*&^*@# WHO THE HELL CALLS AT THIS HOUR???
*Picked up the phone…*
Me: Hello
Voice operator: Good morning, this is your wake up call.
Me: (o.O)……wake up call??!!….at this hour????….!*&#$%*@#$^ wth……

Conclusion: I have decided to be nice and spare everyone pics of my face…ok fine…it’s becuz I didn’t have a camera, and the usual “camera provider” – Shanice, forgot to bring hers too…
Which is why, minimal pics with my face…hahaha

*Credits to Jocelyn for the pics

Back to work…

After being away from work for 4 weeks, studying my heads off for 2 CPA papers (Which reminded me why I fell sick after the 2 papers last year…it can get really bad studying for 2 papers at one go), I’m back to work….
Sat for my Audit paper on Monday, 05/11/2007 and I was back to work on Tuesday….
(-.-)…
Initially, I thought I would be in office, for this week, because when I check my job allocation a few weeks ago, there was no job allocated to me for the week!
hahaha…i was obviously thinking, well, who would want someone who’s only available for 3 days? (considering Thurs is a public holiday)…
I couldn’t be any further from the truth! Apparently, we are running so low on staff that managers are fighting to get staff for their job! My best guess: This is so as many is currently on study break…CPA, ICAEW, CA (coming soon)….
So, I’m back at work, and on job…in Bukit Jelutong (which is a lil further down from Shah Alam)…till Friday, and then I should be heading to Seremban…for 6 weeks…

For those who have been following the blog, would have realised that I’m running really low on luck lately…
Things haven’t been exactly smooth…not even a bit…from small problems, to big troublesome issues…they seemed to have grown quite fond of me….
My latest challenge being a screwed mobile phone, which resulted in me losing all my contacts the day before exam…and led to a string of events…but I guess, what really matters, is that, in the end..everything turned out fine…well…almost..my phone being one of those that didn’t turn out so fine, and is now hospitalised (in the phone shop)
I guess, sometimes, when nothing seems right, when you no longer know what to do…it may be for the best that you do not do anything… just hope that the rainbow would appear after the rain. Doing nothing and hope…may not seem very practical…but I’ve learn it the hard way…the more I tried to work things out, the worse things got…
Yesterday morning, while I was driving to the client’s…I saw the rainbow…
And I knew then…things would change for the better…

P/s: In my last post, I forgot to thank another person whom tried their very best to help us out during the treasure hunt..*and she came hunting for me after reading the previous post*…So, here it is:
A special thank you to Shanice’s team for helping us buy the treasures, which, although, in the end,the treasures never reached us…or the orphanage, it’s the thought that counts…Not to mention, they actually went all the way out to buy those treasures, and bought our share too, and ultimately, absorbed the costs for all the goods which went to waste…
Well, not that her team was incapable, but because their team’s car were having some problem, they had to go looking for workshops to fix ’em, which ultimately, resulted in them not being able to finish the hunt on time, and pass us the goods…
A big thank you to them, and Shanice, for calling and telling us the answers as well as buying us the treasures. *hugs*

Conclusion: “Hope is a good thing, perhaps the best of things” [A phrase from the movie, Shawshank Redemption]
And so I hope…