Saturday, November 13, 2004

Sydney Photos!

Hello folks, finally I've scanned a few of my favorite Sydney photos, the film photos turned out a lot better than the digital ones, but of course! Anyway its located in my multiply site coz I dont have the time to make a separate site. They're not sorted in any order as well, so you could be jumping from one place to another, but thats the fun part of travelling isn't it?

http://crickyt.multiply.com/photos/album/5

Tuesday, November 09, 2004

How bad is bad?

It started like a bad week: lack of sleep, lack of interest and the desire to get things in order. Chaos was the rule of the day, which lasted several days, until the realization that it was the essence of the country - we are essentially living in chaos.

Just as I came back and started driving again, it reared its ugly head almost immediately, and within 2 hours I was being all I can be, a truly Malaysian driver, driving offensively, defensively, all with a clear head and a foul mouth. It was multitasking at its best, an orchestra of chaos, and I loved it. It was good to be back!

So my first orders of the day, or rather, disorder to be exact, was to clear up the backlog that extended 2 weeks back since I left, find a set of missing keys that I seemed to misplace, and to deal with filing a claim for my sister's recent car accident. The backlog went fairly well, and I managed to keep everything in check. It was surreal to be back in my workplace and feeling like it was home. It *was* home, but it just felt too comfortable to be true, you know? Coz I was hoping I'd never come back here, but I did, and it wasn't so bad.

Secondly were the missing keys. I had to backtrack events and things I did, and still couldn't figure out where the keys went. It consisted of 2 very important keys, one was an override to the magnetic security lock, and another was access to the safe. The anxiety could have killed me, but thinking over and over again bore no results, so in the end I just called up the security people and asked them to change the lock as a preventive measure. Its funny how solutions like that doesn't present itself when you're thinking too hard about it. But anyway today, almost 24 hours after the search, I found it in my jacket, and I called up the security people again to see if they were on their way, apparently the report wasn't even filed in yet. Cheers for incompetence! So all ends well.

Thirdly, filing a claim. That required filing a police report in the first place. I won't go into details, but the level of corruption was way beyond alarming. If you wanted something done, even with the protocol flowchart printed on the wall, you'd have to pay up. If not you'd just be shifted further and further into the backlog. Or they'd just ask you to come back another day. It was unacceptable, and being a smart-ass doesn't get you anywhere, even though I knew all the procedures and the sections of the law, it got you - nowhere. Welcome to my country.

The day is coming to a rainy end, its dark out, and the weather's great if there's no traffic, but of course there is. For everyone that thinks that waiting till the traffic eases, someone else within a 10 metre radius will think the same thing, and you'll most likely run into them on the way back, so just hope that they don't cut you off and give you the finger. That will just make a 'not-so-bad' day into a bad day, and we don't need none of that.