Costa Coffee

Bought a cup of coffee when I was on my way to work today. It is made by dispensing machine.

Took a sip. And recalled some memories few years back.

It was year 2010. I am in Seattle with Eunise. We were working on the project for Snohomish County. There is a few more like us there too. Almost every morning, we will get coffee. From our Residence hotel, from Starbucks across the office, from the little cabin at the petrol station.

You know what, the coffee stall is like a pop up stall at the petrol station. You can either walk over or just drive pass them to get it.And the barista will greet you in a damn happy manners! Of course we also greet them back nicely.

In the weather which is so chill, me and Eunise will just put on our jacket and take a “stroll”(mind you its office hour) to the Starbucks and get our daily fix.

We were young, I can take up to 2-3 cups of coffee per day. Nah, not at this age for me. I will make a stop for a cup only. I can have other option such as tea or chocolate.

Well, I also get to visit the first outlet of Starbucks which is at the Pike’s Place, which is a famous market and tourist area in Seattle. I would say it is a must go visit place.

How did I end up in Seattle? Now that I recall. I was actually visiting my ex-bf at that time which is stationed in Dallas, Texas. And next I know is, they asked me to travel to Seattle for work.

And also, just realized that I actually travelled to Montréal twice! That’s a freaking far country who will go there for visiting twice? That will be another story for another day.

Wow, this cup of coffee is taking me down the memory lane!

Kind of

Missing Toronto. At times, I confused my memories with Seattle.

Places in Toronto and good food in Seattle. Well, I confused.

The great food for Thai food is Kao San Road in Toronto! --> www.khaosanroad.ca/

I don't really want this to be forgotten. Koala is the one who found out about this place during his visit in Toronto, 2012.

Missing those days -- where I did not need to worry about who will take care of the kids if I am not around.

Missing those days -- that me and my friends had fun until wee morning.

Ask me if I want to go back to those days -- Nah, not now.

Missing those time -- that you will message me nor email me, write some notes and say I love you every chance to get.

Missing those time -- that you will call me and talk about your work and frustration.

Ask me if I want to go back to those time -- Nah, I got more important things and people to handle. PiPi and RouRou will keep me very busy!

Congratulations!

First thing first, congratulations to myself. I got a new job and today is my 37th day on the job.

Well, this is not just serving a single entity but a whole region – shared services.

After 6 weeks sitting in the office and observing how the task or IT is running, I am still not used to it.

I started off working on Change Request. The first assignment, download data. And then slowly the work coming in. This two week it’s like my honeymoon still, my team mates all went for business trip in Thailand.

I am already feeling very lonely here, without their presence, I felt even more lonely.

For the past few week, I have tried various route to reach office. I got stuck in the traffic maximum for 2 hours and minimal an hour. I just don't like the time being wasted on the traffic jam. On top of it, I also need to spend on highway tolls. It's a total of 2 tolls which is not cheap and I had to stuck in a jam. During my time in the traffic jam, I could only stream drama's and also catch up some movies. Oh the movies were 5 minutes narration by Good Amok. Really love how he narrates it.

Koala told me to leave home earlier so I can beat the jam. Hence this week I tried to stick to leave at 7.00am, no matters what happen I also need to go. No matters how hard PiPi and RouRou cries, I just have to leave them. Leave them with Koala. Today only experiment day number two. I am able to reach office around 7.40am+ and also bought my breakfast from the stall outside my office. Nice wor, can reach office early and have breakfast to kick start my day!

My aim of change is very easy. Let's see.

I want to change the scope of my job. I don't want to support Claims only - Done.

I want to live work life balance. I want to squeeze time to work out - Almost there. I leave work about 5pm. I have plenty of time before our dinner at 7.30-8.00pm. I managed to spend some time with the kids before sleep. There there there, I make them go to the room as early as 9.30pm to get ready for bed but they will not sleep until 10ish. I will change the routine gradually. Nowadays those two woke up same time as me! I can't really tip toe myself out from my bed room. PiPi will just cry whole morning for me, which I really not willing to let her do that because this will trouble other people and I noticed it will affect her mood too. So I will try to avoid those from happening so we all have a beautiful start for the day. You win I win everyone win. As for work out, once I sent PiPi home, I will take about 40 minutes time to work out at the gym. I am trying, gradually. I tend to do squad in the rest room in my office. Just to keep me sane.

Next one, it might be difficult but need a lot of efforts. Read a book a month? I try not to be ambitious. Oh, something that I wanted to improvise too. I want to write a lot. Write write write. Just write when I wanted to.

Well, this is me. Nice to meet you.