Russian Roulette...

Fell in love with this song!

Take a breath, take it deep
Calm yourself, he says to me
If you play, you play for keeps
Take a gun, and count to three
I’m sweating now, moving slow
No time to think, my turn to go

And you can see my heart beating
You can see it through my chest
And I’m terrified but I’m not leaving
Know that I must pass this test
So just pull the trigger

Say a prayer to yourself
He says close your eyes
Sometimes it helps
And then I get a scary thought
That he’s here means he’s never lost

As my life flashes before my eyes
I’m wondering will I ever see another sunrise?
So many won’t get the chance to say goodbye
But it’s too late too pick up the value of my life

The last bit of the song is thought-provoking though...well, the whole song I suppose...=)


x fairy x

A Pretty Occupied Week...

Last week was a pretty occupied week for me. Went for the CME, short for continuous medical education, session, hosted an occupational safety and health event, had a meeting and the "best" part of all - had to work on Saturday. Though it was tiring, but I really did enjoyed all the given tasks. =)

Let me just start off with the CME session which was something about biotechnology as a tool to control the transmission of diseases by mosquitoes. The speaker was from the States and his research team did researches and studies on how to prevent disease transmission by mosquitoes. The irony was that, in their country, there weren't any issues related to mosquitoes i.e. dengue, malaria etc. But despite this fact, they were the ones who've came up with scientific solutions on how to prevent such event. How irony! We in contrast, are the ones facing the real situation yet we ourselves haven't managed to come up with any effective solutions. Though we have those people coming to our housing/office areas doing the fogging part, I was told that this was not really an effective way of killing such parasite - most of them were already 'immune' to the 'smoke'. I'm not sure about the statistics of how many people have died due to dengue, malaria or any other mosquito-transferred diseases but I surely am aware that the numbers are quite worrying in Malaysia. I know we are wayyyy 10 years (or probably more?) behind those developed countries in terms of the R&D. But if we could somehow, come up with any ideas to solve such matter, we could be an excellent example to other countries facing the exact problem. There're too much debatable issues about the lagging of our research - I definitely am not going to blabber about it over here but yeah, I suppose this is a point where we can ponder upon right?

On another account, I was offered to be the Master of Ceremony or the emcee (MC) in a simpler word, in conjunction with the Occupational Safety and Health (OSH) Week for the whole institute. To be honest, I've never been an emcee before for such a big event. It was an experience for me and to my surprise, I wasn't even shaking throughout the whole session, neither did I had that stage-freight (I thought I am?)! That's a wow and alhamdulillah things went well. Praise be upon Allah.

Anyhow, just an update about the last posts - as expected, no action has been taken by below mentioned parties so far. The last thing I did about this matter was to call them, lodge complaint and asked them to investigate further. It has been 2 weeks since then. I suppose I was too frustrated to follow-up on this matter hence I'll just leave it like that. If I continue digging out information, calling in here and there, at the end of the day, it would be me who'll be in despair.

I want to take this chance to wish all of you Eid'ul Adha. May all of us will always be under the blessing of Allah. Amin...

x fairy x

Parcel chaos!

FRIENDLY REMINDER: Words used might offend some people. So do not attempt to read this entry if you couldn't stand any vulgar languages. Thank you.

I am all PISSED-OFF!!

A few weeks ago, I've decided to buy this one item which I have been thinking over-and-over again for only God knows how many times. After that many thoughts putting in to-buy-or-not-to-buy the item, finally I've made up my mind to grab it. It costs me a lot, I know, but the desire of obsessing the item is convincing enough to make me purchase it. To make things short, I bought it with the help of a friend of mine in the UK (arigato-gozaimas Mr Anep!!!) and the item was addressed to my office in KL. The transaction was made on October,27 2009 and based on the website, the delivery item should be reaching me in 4-5 working days for international orders. On the November the 3rd,2009, I was informed by Mr Anep that my item was stuck somewhere in Sepang. The reason was because they couldn't get hold of me since there was no telephone number provided. The chaos started from this point!

I searched through the internet for UPS Malaysia and called them from the number provided on their website. Gave my number and was told that they'd process the item from there. Rite, thought things should be fine afterwards. The next day, I received a call from 'em saying that my item needed a permit from SIRIM which I myself have to go to SIRIM office in Shah Alam to apply for the permit. Hello??!? Why didn't you mention that to me yesterday?? At least I can prepare all the documentations yada yada... I started to get mad but fine fine fine! that's how thing should go. Went to Shah Alam that same day and did what I was told to do. Permit granted and was informed that what KASTAM needed to know was just the reference number. RM200 for just the reference number??? Haih, how expensive things are. It was actually an e-permit and so I have to wait for another 24 hours to access the information. Tried to access the site the next day but it kept displaying 'No Record found', so directly called them to email me the e-permit. Called UPS again saying that things have been settled and was asked to fax all the documents. Till this point, it was already November 06, 2009. The next two days were weekends. So, I don't expect any processing of the item made.

November 09, 2009 - Called UPS for any updates. They said that "things are still in progress". Any updates about the item I shared with Mr S. To this point, we were getting very anxious about the item and we've decided that if there were no updates until the next day, we'd pick the item straight at the KLIA. As expected, "things are still in progress". So drastic decision made, went straight to Sepang!

November 10, 2009 - Too much hassle over here. First, we don't really know the location. Took us some time to finally reach the place. Have to take passes first to enter. Then have to drive through the allocated tollbooths (which looked really like toll plaza) and finally reached the UPS office. Met with Ms Y and after signing things here and there, there was the item. To our shock, the item was really in spoiled condition. The item has already been bridged! Damn damn damnnnn!!!! Even the UPS staffs were shocked to see the dire condition of the item's packages. Okay, maybe they needed to inspect the item, afraid that there were drugs or any dangerous items been smuggled with the packages. Ouh, I suppose I forgot the mention that the item was handphones and it's not just one item actually -  I bought TWO of the same item. Upon opening the box, ouh I was real-real-real-REALLY disappointed to see that the phone has been turned on, the screen protector was missing, part of the safety manuals were missing and even one of the three-type of charger adapter went missing. What is this?? What are you trying to imply by turning the phone on?? Drugs been smuggled inside the phone?? Oh, come on!!! Fingerprints were all over the handphones, needless to mention that the boxes themselves didn't looked new at all. WTF? (mind the language, people! sorry). We were utterly mad about this and complaint to Ms Y about this, but we know that what happened wasn't her fault.

To make things worst, when I tried to charge the phone the next day, the charger couldn't be used. Gezzzz..only Allah knows how mad I was!! Me and Mr S were utterly regretful of purchasing the items straight from there coz we have other means of transporting the items safely to our hands. But things could not be turned back ait? I have called UPS and lodged my complaint about this and they promised that they will try to investigate this matter in detail. Now, it has been two days and we'll see how long would it take and what more excuses/reasons would they imply. I even called in to Kastam asking about the procedure that they should undertake for any import parcels. Now that I know the exact procedures, I myself will surely question the integrity of any of the abovementioned services forever!