who wants to get tagged?

Decided to consider myself "tagged" by Samantha Burns wrt this meme she blogged about on Sept 6th 2005:

Instructions:
Remove the blog at #1 from the following list and bump every one up one place; add your blog's name in the #5 spot; link to each of the other blogs for the desired cross pollination effect.

1. bluestocking
2. colleenscorner
3. canadianexpatriatesblog
4. samanthaburns
5. azlynne1972

Next: Select four new friends to add to the pollen count. (No one is obligated to participate and anyone can play if they want to). Here's the tough one... don't have that many people to tag, let alone those who'd be *willing* to be tagged :p So, any of you readers who are also bloggers and wanna try this out, go ahead and consider yourselves tagged, ok? Tell me in the comments section once you'e posted your answers and I'll come looking!)

~~~
What were you doing 10 years ago?

ooof... that would be mid-september 1995? wow, I was about to start my job! My first REAL job lah (the part-time Customer Service at Toys R Us doesn't count!)

I'd graduated with a BSc in Chemistry (with distinction, mind you! gotta treasure these little things in life..) in the U.S. in May, spent about a month in the UK and Switzerland, back in KL in July and checked-in with the company that sponsored my studies... and felt like they were lucky I was checking-in at all! I mean, it really seemed that it was news to them that I was ready to join the workforce?! And with all the paperwork already filled out previously when getting the scholarship, I thought it was ridiculous that I had to fill up a job application form as if I was a person who had never had any dealings with them ever, y'know?

One thing that struck me when filling out the form: a question that asked me to indicate if any of my relatives were working in the company, and if so, list their names & positions... so even before starting work, I wondered if what I knew was anywhere near as important as who I knew (or was related to)!

Anyway: yeah, so checked-in with them in July, called in for an interview (which ended up being an all-day "assessment" session) in August, and started work in September.

Before starting work, got the offer letter that only stated that I was being offered the position of "Quality Control Executive" in a [*cough*] processing plant on the east coast of Malaysia. Had no idea what that was. So many questions were running thru my head: what was the job all about? what if I don't want to go to the east coast? what happens if I decline the job offer? ... The letter also gave the name & contact info for the HR Senior Manager, so I called to try to get answers to the questions. And whaddaya know... she never got back to me... so in the end I just cringed and signed my acceptance of the offer...

I could go on, but I'll save it for another post, maybe, if you, dear reader, wanna hear about my first few days as an employee of [*ahem*].

What were you doing 5 years ago?

mid-sept 2000 - ah, yes, I think I was going thru a difficult stage relationship-wise (I think there were TWO "incidents" involving EtOH, in August and maybe Sept/Oct, that made me realise I was deeply unhappy but keeping it all bubbling inside); in the end, we broke up around December 2000.

Work-wise, a new MD/CEO had come into the picture, and was gung-ho about Peter Senge's The Fifth Discipline and the concept of Organisational Learning... and as the Organisational Improvement Executive (yes, I'd gotten a transfer to a different job, and in KL by then) I was in charge of kinda organising stuff for it... Don't remember if I / my deparment had a manager at this point (I'd pretty much run the (small) department single-handedly for quite a while, and doing a good job considering my lack of authority but full responsibility, but of course, there was no way I could be promoted directly to managerial level... aaaaah, how i do *not* miss the worklife!), or if the [*deleted negative description*] who had no clue about what he was doing had already been assigned to the department... I enjoyed the work (I learnt SO MUCH!!), but HATED feeling like I was being taken advantage of by my immediate boss/manager. (After taking all that I could take, I looked around for another position: and in Oct 2001, transferred to a totally different job, different responsibilities, and said good riddance to the jerk!)

What were you doing one year ago?

Oh, this is good! September 2004 was my LAST month of work!!

Early Sept: I did my final stint as an emcee for this series of "Management Forums" (or Fora [*wink* @ lengloi]) the company organises every year. The news of my resignation had leaked out, and coincidentally many of the attendees of that particular session were people I knew, so I had a LOT of explaining to do... but I value my privacy, and HATE gossip, so I did more of negating the various rumours about my resignation than actually telling anybody anything. teehee!

Mid/late Sept: I was playing tennis! Yeah, I was offered a place on the company's tennis team, which in a way means I was representing the country, to play against other countries in the south-east asia region. (vague? yeah, sorry, those who know where I worked what I'm talking about though,,, I think...). I'd been part of the team before, and had traveled to Jakarta, Manila and Bangkok, courtesy of the company, to play in these friendly tennis games. Actually, I think the only real thing I miss about where I worked was getting paid to play tennis!

Bottom line? One year ago, I was counting down the days till I would become a jobless bum!

What were you doing yesterday?
Updating my blog like crazy, wanting to capture the recent events of the last two weeks. Driving from St Louis back to Urbana.

Five snacks you enjoy:

* cream cheese danish
* Ben & Jerry's Dublin Mudslide
* donut holes (from cake donuts, not the fluffy donuts)
* chocolate, esp if w almonds
* chips & salsa (or picante sauce)

Five songs I know all the words to:

... but but but i know all the words to SO MANY songs, Kosh doesn't call me "lyric bank" for nothing! So here's just a (VERY SMALL!) sample:
* Do Re Mi (Maria & the von Trapp kids)
* Yesterday (The Beatles)
* Numb (Linkin Park)
* Fantasia Bulan Madu (Search)
* Negaraku (the Malaysian National Anthem - hehehe yeah let's be "patriotic" : I even know the rukunegara by heart, thanx to us having to repeat it every single (Mon?)day at morning assembly!)

Five things you would do if you had a million dollars:

* i'd buy Kosh a green dress (but not a real green dress, that's cruel!) teehee!
* Pay off the 1-year of work I owe my ex-employer (once they supply proof of the amount I owe, of course...)
* Buy a house here to settle in
* Equip the house with wireless broadband, and get a state of the art PC, laptop, and other toys to go with it
* Finally, put the rest into some sort of account/investment where i'd be able to live comfortably off of its interest

Five things you like doing:

* Blogging and reading blogs and pretty much spending time on the 'net
* helping others find (and reach) their potential
* "making order out of chaos" : seeing patterns and relationships in seemingly-unrelated things
* eating spicy foods (nasi lemak and sambal, mmmmmmmmm!!)
* curling up with a good book, having a good snooze

Five bad habits

* biting my nails :-(
* procrastinating / leaving things to the last minute
* "shutting down" instead of expressing irritation / frustration
* not drinking enough water daily
* linking my performance (in sports & games) to my sense of self-worth, and getting *so* frustrated if I don't do well

Five things I would never wear again

* lime green cotton-ribbed tights worn under ripped (holey) jeans
* lime green cotton-ribbed tights and long (mid-thigh) green t-thirt
* purple eyeshadow to match purple t-shirt (I have a picture - ugh!) (I don't wear makeup now anyway :p)
* short denim skirt (just at the knee) - or ANY skirt, for that matter!
* .. not gonna "wear" my hair like a french poodle again (a hair perm job that got screwed up - I looked like Gloria Estefan's hair!)

Five favorite toys

I'm gonna consider this asking for games as well as toys:
* my Sony Ericsson P800 phone/PDA (photos, solitaire, tetris)
* my Nokia 9100 (tetris!)
* The Sims and ALL expansions (but that's on my PC in Malaysia, sob sob!)
* SCRABBLE (I have the official scrabble dicitonary, what can i say...)
* Sudoku puzzles