Power mums

It's 2 more hours to getting off from work and then it's friday! *Yawn* I'm soooo tired now and I can't wait to have a good rest this weekend.

Yupz, no guessing. I'm doing it at work, AGAIN. Just feel that my brain is going to explode from all these researching and figured out that I kindda needed a break (15 mins?). So here I am ranting and updating or whatsoever you want to call it. =P

Has it ever occured to you how tough it is to be a working mum? This has nothing to do with myself wanting or not to conceive, yet. It's just a thought that crosses my mind very often, especially when I'm tidying the room after work. At home, we have to do laundry ourselves and aside from that there's really not much housework to be done. No cooking, cleaning (outside of our territory) etc. Somehow, we will do lotsa miscellaneous stuff and by the time we are ready to rest for the day, it's past midnight.

On days that we are not dining out, we'll get home at 5. I'll proceed to sort the colours from the whites then do my laundry. And then we'll try tidying up the room before dinner. After dinner would be resting, thai class then movie. Speaking of thai class, I can now recite 28 out of 44 thai consonants and I can write them too!

I really cannot figure out how working mums have the time to wash additional loads of clothes, tend to their babies, potty train their kids, coaching them etc. Arent they just super? Even with the help of MILs and domestic helpers, putting aside quality time for kids after work requires effort. I mean, dont they need a rest after work? Like just slump onto a comfy chair and do nothing at all?

Super mums.

Singaporean comrades

Time passes really fast. I got up feeling that it's Monday when it's already mid-week! Working gets me really tired. Every morning, I get up feeling sick =S. I guess the laziness in me is back! Anyhow, I still enjoy my work (especially with the short working hours) and I hope this feeling is going to last.

Working gives me the opportunity to meet lotsa people and this is the primary reason I wanted a job in CNX. Interestingly, I am with the International College and people here are from all around. I got introduced to a Singaporean student few weeks back and this Canadian co-worker whose parents are Singaporeans who left for Cananda. They are nothing close to "Singaporeans" though. The mannerisms are different. Just when I thought there wouldnt be anyone who's "born and bred in Singapore", I met this guy who looked and walked like a Singaporean.

It's pretty strange how you feel connected to home just speaking to a stranger the Singaporean way. It's really hard to explain but I think I was pretty comforted that I am not alone. I'll not call myself patriotic but I'm missing alot back home. It doesnt help that stupid Tiger airways pulled their fleet out of CNX. ROAAARRRR.

Terminator

Our supply of movies is kindda depleting. And with the current season of PB ending and the new season for Heroes not up yet, we had turned to other serials. P downloaded Terminator: the Sarah Chronicles and we had been watching it for the past few days. I'm not a Terminator fan, in fact I havent seen any of Arnold's. But still it's better than nothing. It's not my kind of movie. But the serial had heavy references to the movies and my hubby downloaded all of them (Arnold's 1-3). =.='' We watched 2 yesterday and got up at 9 am this morning for the last one. Phew. It's finally over. I love weekends that I can lay around, doing nothing much. This is one of those that we can watch movie, sleep, get up watch movie again, sleep (although the movies kindda sucked). And it's now 5 pm! Mdm's waiting for my hubby and we would be going out for dinner. I'm going to the new Shangri-la Hotel for dinner. =)) I cant wait!!! We havent been eating much today cos we are starving ourselves for the buffet dinner. I hope it's worth the wait.

By the way, yesterday's braised pork received very good reviews. The entire pot was emptied out. This is the first time that the kids are digging into my food. Mdm is becoming professional. LOL~ So next time when you guys come over to my place, it's not just spaghetti.

Work, Food and Misc

It's sat! *Yawnz* I'm feeling so lazzzzyyyy.

Ok. So the title says it all. =))

WORK

It becomes pretty apparent that for the time being, my focus will be on fundraising work and I probably wont be teaching any time soon. My boss (Sam) had expressed that teaching would take up alot of time (even as an adjunct). But I really hope that I would have the opportunity to do it, cos... I really like teaching. Anywayz, back to my jobscope. Fund raising isnt new, in fact schools and non-profit organizations had been doing quite a bit of fundraising work. The work includes organizing events for fundraising, making proposals to foundations, trust and organizations for capital/ resource support etc.

Right now, the school had become pretty serious with fundraising and that explains why they had employed me and C, my new thai colleague. The work was previously done by Sam and the VP, who also had other jobs on hand. With us coming on board, the team is at full-fledged.

An example of what we have been researching on so far is funding for the pharmacy pilot plant. The pharmacy dept in Payap is very new (2 years old) and alot of the facilities for running the dept are lacking. Sam managed to secure some funds for the laboratory last year and the dean had expressed that for the program to be fully accredited, there's a need for a pharmacy pilot plant (for students to have hands-on experience in making drugs). Funding is needed for the construction of the plant plus purchase of equipments. What we probably would have to do next is to run down the list of foundations and filter those with interest in the pharmaceutical field. Also, we would have to look at pharmaceutical corporations locally for sponsorships and looking for both international and local donations of equipments (new or second hand). So... it's lotsa contacting and meeting people. As for proposal writing to foundations, there's like this budget analysis thingy that have to be done. For every proposal, we have to know our needs and why we are running the program. Ok, guess it sounds quite clear now. =))

FOOD

Got down to cooking char siew and mango pudding last sunday. Check out the pics:

Marinating the pork


Slow cooking


Ready!!


Not the typical char siew cos it's not roasted. I didnt put in red colouring as well. Nonetheless, it's rather yummy (although it doesnt look so from the pics, I know!!!)

Next was the mango pudding. I swear this is super yummy, especially for those who like the yum-cha style mango pudding. It's so super smooth and the mangoes I used were like so sweet and fresh!

The ingredients:


The base syrup (sugar and all)


Stirring in everything. Kindda dont look quite delicious here. LOL~


And finally, it's donnnneee!!!


I'll be doing braised pork today! O..O

BTW, this is like an "uniform" for Thais on Monday. I was told by C that it's better to wear it since we are working in a school. The whole wearing yellow thing is part of this campaign that was ran some years back. Anywayz, I have decided to boycott it after wearing it once last Monday. I really look like some factory worker you know. =.=''

Updates!

It has been a week since I've started work. I know I shldnt be doing this in the office, but it's 15 mins to lunch and I guess I can wrap up my updates before going off.

The past week had been fulfilling and work is great so far. To be frank, I like my job and how it is looking. People are friendly and helpful and the job is very enriching. I really like how a big portion of my working hours is spent on researching, which is something that I'm very into. Perhaps it would be easier to understand my jobscope if I am to give a brief description on what I am working on right now. That would have to be continued after lunch though. =P

A close friend of P got inducted into this monkhood program. We spent saturday in his house and a local temple, witnessing the ceremony and sending him off. He would have to stay in the temple for 2 weeks. As long as he does so, he's like a monk and not a commoner. It's pretty interesting how this works. According to P, most thai guys are expected to go through this before they are married. He obviously didnt and I doubt he would be ready to sacrifice his hair for it.

Off for lunch now and would be back with a short description of my work for folks back at home!
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I was quite caught up with work yesterday and didnt have the time to finish up my update! Gosh. This is amazing. So... I am doing it now in the office (again), 15 mins before lunch. We are having Macdonald's today and they are going to deliver my food right to my office! =)) I am lunching in cos I have to leave an hour earlier. Tam's here for the past few days and she's leaving today. P and I wanted to send her off cos we really dunno when we would be able to see her again. Anywayz, I very much want to visit her in HK (hopefully very soon!) more so since she has offered us free accomodation over at her new place. LOL~

We havent seen each other since my wedding in July and we dont really keep in contact via MSN 'cause she's really busy with work. Seeing her again and catching up is awesome. I had spent a lot of my time in Sydney with them, doing crazy stuff like visiting King's Cross in the wee hours, piling on lots and lotsa Indo mee, X-boxing, bitching etc. I dunno how she feels about seeing us becoming couple then getting married (must be kindda weird I suppose), but I really appreciate the fact that I've met her (and many others, of course). Some years later, I will tell my kid that she's a very special friend of ours. =))

WRT work, I seriously think it will get abit lengthy if I'm going to start describing it. So... I'll do it in my next post! Mdm is lazy arh.

Oh oh... Daddy and mummy are visiting next month during the Songkran week!

Back to woooorkkkk!

This is like the longest break from blogging I have had since arriving here. I was busy doing nothing last week. =)) Oh well, I did abit of design work but most of the time I was happily watching Youtube and surfing. We watched an average of 2 movies per day (most of which are rather crappy). I had wanted it to be an enjoyable week before work starts. We had plans to go photo taking in town last Sunday but we couldnt get hold of the super cool digital SLR from his friend. And so, we ended up staying at home the whole day. I cooked some yummy spaghetti in cream sauce (which was rated 7.8 by P) for lunch and we had BBQ at home with the rest of the family for dinner. That wrapped up my mundane day before work starts.

And today is my second day of work!!! I'm now sitting at my desk, blogging. Just like how work always is for me, there's nothing much to do for the moment (although I'm kindda like being overloaded with info about the school and my jobscope). It's an orientation week. We were told to surf the net to get familiarise with the various foundations for the next few days.

People are nice here and the working culture seems rather pleasant. The working environment is however nothing compared to Sg. The desks are wooden and computers are like 14-inch CRT. My computer mouse is without roller and there are no free stationery. My colleague commented that we would have to buy our own water cos the water from the pantry isnt potable. As for now, work itself seems pretty interesting. I was told that we might be doing abit of travelling. =))

By the way, there's no need to present MC unless you are absent from work for more than 3 days!! And I have 30 days of sick leave. LOL~

Lunchtime!