Rambling - For That I am Thankful

First day at work and it felt almost fantastic. Had one of the worst night yesterday, itching with bad rashes and sleeping on the hard-sofa on the living room because the air conditioner in the Master Bedroom was not working. Certainly not what you want to feel the day before you start work (unofficially) and when you are facilitating a big workshop for the team. I was restless when I woke up at 5am, then again at 545am and finally forcing myself to be wide awake at 630am so that I can join the rest of the clan to leave at 715am, just in time for the 8am morning roll call at site office.

I’ve got the same question thrown to me when I reached office, ‘How’s married life been for you?’. I answered with a wide grin on my face, and they all walk away, nodding gleefully. Had it not been for this particular workshop this morning, I guess I would still be lazying at home with hubby watching 24 on his 17” computer screen. But I needed the brain exercise after 3 weeks of work disorientation, and too much partying in Krabi. So here I am again, in the much exciting Pasir Gudang this morning, and in Senai Airport now waiting for my flight back.

There is so much in my mind right now that when I am rambling on, I certainly am clueless about what should be said and done. There is so much I want to be thankful off, from a big wonderful family I have to the great amazing family that have accepted me as part of their life, to the much loved colleague who would call the night before just to check whether I have arrived safely in Johor. Sometimes we take things for granted. Sometimes we are ignorant about things that are just right there in front of us, as we seek for greater things to boast about.

It’s great to sit by yourself at a small corner of the coffee house and take a good reflection of your life, for that’s when your mind is at ease and your thought just started flowing excessively. That’s when you started thinking about things that happen, and make sense of everything that did not.

I believe that everything has a purpose in life. Things happen for a reason. And for that reason, I am thankful. God loves me dearly.

This wifey feeling

So I’m in Senai Airport, waiting for my flight back to Kuala Lumpur. What a week it has been, and it felt surreal.

A week ago, I was still replying work emails, managing subcontractors, answering calls from my expeditors, and TODAY, it was still the same chores. What happen in between was probably the most exciting period of my life.

I got married over the weekend, 2 of the biggest functions I’ve ever organized and attended (talking about micro-managing your very own wedding) and it felt oh-so-wonderful. I haven’t succumb to the fact that people are calling me Puan Suhana now (cause I am so used to it anyway, given my age, people ASSUME I am married) and that whenever I type on this lappy, I can see the ring he gave that symbolizes union of two very wonderful being. The henna is still red on the hand, and it felt just like yesterday when he kiss me on my forehead and did his akad.

I kept staring on my facebook profile photo, reliving those moment. What I can remember is how angry I was that the kadi was super late to the solemnization, and the restless look I had when I was literally directing people from the main table to correct the montage preview and managing the technical glitches. If I had just taken a step back, inhale and relax. But when I retract some of those very vivid moments, I remember him holding my hand and walk me down the aisle, and the look on his face after the whole akad completed. The moment when I became his wife.

So I’m smiling by myself at this half empty airport, and people may think I have gone cuckoo. But the feeling is just so wonderful not to relive.

I’m in Johor and he’s a few thousands km in Labuan, both working on different project on different fabrication site. How dreadful to think that this is how we are going to be next year, both with different commitment. But it will pay off in the future I suppose.

To Azlan Ishak, my soulmate – the guy who has finally pluck the apple from the top of the trees (cause they say that’s where the best ones are!), thank you for coming to my life.

As I listen to this track ‘Tercipta Untukku’, I feel like I’m almost in tears now.

I’m married.

(and somehow, my blogging mood is back these past few days).

Solemnised

A new chapter in my life.

I'm solemnised. I'm his, or should i rightfully say, He's MINE. muahahahaaaa

Brag!

So how is this to brag about yourself. A write up i did for Young Corporate Malaysia as new convener:

Suhana ......

Graduated with an Electrical & Electronic Engineering degree (majoring Telecommunication) from University of Melbourne in 2004. Though never practice, she is proud to be working in Oil & Gas with Malaysia’s only Fortune 500 company, PETRONAS. Believing in the spirit of giving back and leaving a legacy, she does a number of charity projects for the company including tutoring Primary 6 students, Petrosains Career Talk and many others in her small scale capacity. She was the first elected President of PETRONAS Carigali KL Young Professional Club and recently appointed as Youth Team Leader for World Gas Conference 2012, depicted as the Olympic of the Gas industry and the biggest conference to be held in Malaysia. She rants and speak her own mind on twitter @suhanasidik, and in between her spare time, she is a well known toastmaster enthusiast and a successful cupid!

Stage Time! Stage Time! Stage Time!

So I just came back from Malacca, attending the Semi Annual Convention for Toastmaster District 51. It was fun, educational and great networking session meeting some new friends and reconnect with some old friends, whom you’d only meet twice a year in occasion like this. Funny thing is, though most of us live in KL, we are too busy with our own lives to even get this chance to socialize (ok, I’m no toastmaster junkie anymore so I don’t go out much nowadays).

I should start with perhaps stating that the main reason why I went for the convention is because of my support to the Organising Chair, a strong iron lady and the fact that she has asked that I emceed the Saturday session, from the Opening Ceremony up until the conclusion of 4 Plenary sessions.

Ever since Darren Lacroix’s speech in KL about a year ago, that in order to be good at something you need to always grab stage time, stage time, stage time, I took a great deal of effort to never let go of opportunities. So I will enter speech contests, accept emceeing gigs, etc because I believe that I need to be good at what I do.

And I started that by emceeing the Young Corporate Malaysia 2^nd annual summit last year after being persuaded by a certain man-who-then-became-my-fiance.

It was scary, and I’ve done emceeing. But to do it in front of 1000 crowd and multiple CEOs was something else. I’m not the best there is, but I intend to become the very best one day, so I said yes when WMF, YCM founder tweeted me one day. Well, that shows how great social networking is right.

It wasn’t that bad I think, even though I get some congratulatory hand shake and perhaps hear some other not so great review about how casual I was when the topics are about the very serious World Economics.

Did I get demotivated? Not at all, when I have two things that really lifted me up.

Firstly when the keynote speaker, Tok Pa actually went down the stage as he was about to leave the hall and walked towards me at the rostrum and shake my hand. I guess it’s the fact that I made some Petronas jokes with him during Q&A.

And secondly, when Datuk Johan Raslan actually messaged me on twitter (waddup!) and said “You did a brilliant job as MC. Well done and thank you” I was overjoyed. I can’t believe he took the effort, to say that to me.

Well, no one can take those two things away from me.

So when I emceed the Toastmaster convention with hundreds of other great toastmasters who speaks very very well and one particular toastmaster who happen to be the Past President of Toastmaster International (the number 1 man in toastmaster worldwide), I was super nervous. I had to ask my co-emcee, Andrew to hype me up and end up jumping up and down just to get myself ready.

So in the end, it was not that bad. I had a lot of great feedback actually, even from those whom I’ve never met. Even one would say, “Even when I close my eyes I would know who is speaking. That is how unique your voice is”. I of course do feel quite skeptical.

Not until Distinguished Toastmaster Sivanangam came up to me and said that I did a good job, did I believe that I really did. And when Gary Schmidt said the same thing, I felt relief. So there is hope after all for me, so I can be good at this.

So as I reflect back on my school days when I was always the second option, because I don’t sound good enough on mic, I say it has shaped me to become who I am today. And my special thanks to Darren Lacroix for giving the best 3 tips ever – stage time, stage time, stage time.

As Papa Gerald Green put it,.”I don’t need to be first anymore. I just need to be available”

I’d say, ”I’m always available. I need more stage time!”

Till Death do us Part

A friend of mine had just lost her grandmother, barely 2 months after her grandfather died. Another good friend of mine had to go through the same difficulties last year, and it was very painful as she watched her grandfather, who misses the wife dearly, to lose the reason to live and died peacefully several weeks later.

I guess that’s how powerful true love is. For an 80 year old to still be in love, hold each other hand, and misses the other dearly that they have lost all reasons to continue living, is truly amazing.

I wonder how I would be 50 years from now. I constantly miss him now. But the future is not for us to say right.

So she writes again...

It’s been a while since I posted anything on this blog, but on this fateful day I decided to finally write again. It doesn’t matter whether you have people reading, or NOT, but at least I can either vent out my frustration, OR share my excitement.

Firstly, let me formally announce that someone HAS plugged the apple from high up the tree. So yes, I’m taken.

Secondly, yes, I am still working at the National Oil Company, and proud to be serving the country.

Thirdly, I’m no longer the Girl Power persona whom you may once recognize me from the early days. I have taken a seat back at everything in life, and decided that now, I need a boost to uplift this passion in me.

Let this be the first blog post, before I continue my rambling on … just about anything…

Thank You Hassan Marican

Been meaning to write for so long, but I have been stalling. I’ve become the typical bitch who whines about having meaningless life when there’s just so much around me. I’m degrading

Let’s just backtrack on things that bother me the most.

“Rakyat didahulukan, Pencapaian Diutamakan”

How is that even possible when the most outstanding CEO in Malaysia, Tan Sri Hassan was ousted from the position he held best in 15 years to give way to his successor who is just as old? Talk about grooming young potentials when you know the new guy probably will be as good, but not better? Not to discredit him or anything, but MISC was PETRONAS’s. Come on, the only reason why MISC is doing very well is because PETRONAS is pumping money into the company in whatever venture we can think of! It’s subsidiary, MMHE is a given example of how MISC has prospered.

Until now, Najib has not disclosed the widely-publicised KPI, though it was supposed to come out sometime last year. Even the brainy Idris Jala can’t think of a fair KPI which will make the ministers look good on paper, cause honestly, I don’t think they can cope in a KPI-environment. Throw them in a multinational company, and they’ll be like needle in a haystack. Without crony support, they won’t survive! “Datuk siapa..”

I’m just a tee-bit irritated with the fact that my CEO was ousted. I may not like some of the policy he introduced, but he did well at the helm of the national oil company. If an outstanding leader like him can be thrown out as the government pleased just because he didn’t submit to politicians demand (remember the whole fiasco on Omar Ong and alas, the board had to succumb to Najib’s veto decision to put him there), what of me who is just a minor junior Engineer who has yet to make an impact in the company?

When Omar was elected to the board, I only thought of two things:

1. Mr President, now that Omar sits in our board, would this mean that the policy that you’ve uphold for the last 15 years need to be revamped? I mean, PETRONAS’s reputation has already been tarnished by the decision to bring back a default scholar into the company. So would this mean that we will open recruitment to those who have left for better opportunities in the Middle East and now crying back for a return to home country? I mean, we’ve been talking about shortage in quality manpower, and this is a great time to re-look at opportunities and making sure that we will have strong manpower to lead the company when Omar Ong takes over as CEO later.

2. There’s so much instability in the country and I felt the first-hand effect seeing Hassan bid farewell to thousand of staff who awaited him in the lobby of KLCC on the fateful 9 February. No matter what qualm Najib may feel for Hassan, a one week notice is just too demeaning. With Hassan’s extensive network worldwide, he should have been given the opportunity to bid proper farewell to not just his staff in over 30 countries, but also his peers from all over the world. Isn’t there such thing as work handover? (But then again, because the job of a politician is so damn easy, any Dick, Tom & Harry can pick up fresh. Oh well). So do I really want to work in this country or should I think about relocating myself to a more stable country? Or if I really want to work in some junk ‘place’, I should really think about a massive paycheck just to compensate the hardship I have to go through.

Ok so there it is. Venting out my frustration here. Enough said.

Cheers all. Salam 1 Malaysia.

ps: I do welcome the new boss who will be another charismatic leader to PETRONAS. All my support to the company, obviously!