Penat! Penat!

Working almost 7 days per week ever since I was roped into the DAW project. Coming back very late at night almost every day and hopping inside the cab the next day as I am too tired to walk towards the MRT station to go to work. The cab drivers' big smiles as they welcome me in.

Slight appetite to eat my dinner or lunch as I try to get the critical milestone chart ready before Thursday's presentation. Even, my mum was commenting that she rarely sees me in the house nowadays.

How to do a recovery plan for 5 weeks? Tough challenging meets but I will try my best. Oh well, at least the project durates for only a month, enough to kill me. I'm supposed to take leave after SMS PTF, but now, I can't.

Fasting month starts come Monday. I pray to God that I am able to sustain the momentum and energy to survive through this ordeal.

Penat! Penat!
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We've been saying lots of sorrys to each other nowadays. "Seems that things that I say to you makes you unhappy nowadays." "What makes you think, I can't do it?"

We really need to take a break from each other, at least for me. I blame DAW!

Giving up

It's hard to hide away from him. He is like everywhere in the hangar. First, it was a phone call from him in the morning. Then, he was in the conference room as I entered the room passing papers to my boss. Last, I cross-path with him again as he gave me a wink on the way to the 777 hangar.

I just need to deal with this I suppose.

Me:"How come my boss was teasing me about the flight test? What did you tell him?"
Him (innocently):"Nothing." "I think Raj was the one who told him what happened during the flight test."

Oh no, now my boss knows about it. Consoling myself that it's okay that everyone does stupid things once in their lives. Well, I give up because the truth is, I so used to have him around.

Trust

"I don't trust guys easily. It's more harder to do that in modern time nowadays." This is probably due to the past hurt experiences that I had. We try to maintain a honest friendship with each other. Telling each others' activities whenever we never meet as we do maintain our own spaces of privacy or our own circles of people that we hang out with.

"Cute girls like you should get married." He was shocked when I told him I am ready to buy my own house at the legal age of 35. "You can't forever hold that wall against someone who wants to get to know you."

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We played pool today. He is really very good in pool, showed me a few tips in shooting the balls. It's been 2 years since I played pool, hence the rusty hand in the game.

It's funny but today, I tend to agree that playing pool with a guy is rather sexy. Lots of touching as he taught me how to grip the pole properly and balancing the bridge of the fingers; a good way of impressing a girl if a guy is really damn good in the game.

But of course, we are just very good friends having a great time. A fun friend to be with.
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Something had happened while he was in Toulouse. "Nothing really happened. It was just that I was lonely and needed someone to talk with."

All I can say, that guys do get bored and lonely too easy sometimes.
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I need to take a break from him. I hope he understands.

FTB

"Do dreams come true?" It was one day after. The final hours before tomorrow's event will take place. Tomorrow, I will be needed in another hangar to help them with the DAW project. According to my boss, the project is in critical stage, whatever planning systems done in PTF, to be used for the DAW project. "The CEO needs the PTF team to save DAW."

"You'll be a FTB tomorrow. I've settled everything with your boss." Huh? A sms I've gotten from him at 12.42am. Hecks, his sms woke me up, being a light sleeper I am. Today, I had to call my boss to excuse myself from attending the meeting since I will be going for the flight test.

"Ya I know." It was confusing that my boss knows about my FCF yet he wanted me to attend the DAW meeting.

Flight test was a very great experience. You get to watch the management pilots do their tests in the cockpit, see the view of tilted skies and observe the tail shaker as the plane surges upwards or downwards. One thing that I had to bear was the slight buzzing in my eardrums but this time, the Captain did not bring the plane to a certain level that causes the oxygen masks to be released out.

Then, the plane dumps a few amount of pink-coloured jettison fuel that looks like pink trailing line across the white clouds and blue skies. It was such a fantastic sight to me.

The cabin was wells-stocked with food and drinks, there were also few bars of chocolates courtesy from him. It was nice to see him working that day as he was the main coordinator for the FCF. Always full of confidence as he talks with the pilots, the customers, the LAEs and the performance engineers. I was just an observer for that day, just happy and grateful to be given a chance to be onboard.

I cannot deny or pretend about it but something happened while we were on the plane. But what more prove can I say, I made a personal request to him 3 months ago on wanting to be on the FCF. Fortunately, a customer pilot had decided not to come and hence, I took over his place.

"Finally, a FTB!" As he grinned at me. FTB is flight test babe.

Difficult

Being a minority working in a large organization is difficult sometimes. You need to work more harder than the rest to prove your efficiency, productivity; suffice to say, your key performance index. More tough it is when you are a lady, thriving hard to stay competitive with the rest of your counterparts.

I was in my boss's office later in the evening. We were doing some billable and incurred manhours calculation needed to be shown in the presentation slides for the CEO. As usual, he was introducing me with mind-blowing formulaes as I try to keep up with his speed. We wanted to see how much cost revenue reached or profit margin we have obtained for the past 4 converted planes.

"You know, I had a talk with the SVP yesterday." " He wanted to send her first since DAW project is in crisis. But I told him to wait for a single person. You." "He thought that all the charts that I have used in my meetings were done by her. But I was telling it was you."

I was utterly shocked and saddened that my SVP thinks less of me. "Why did he think the charts were done by her?" He further explains. "She knows how to impress but knows nothing." "I told him PTF team can only go until we wait for you to finish all the necessary costings and post-mortem PTF planning things that you need to wrap up."

"Maybe you should let her do my planning charts from now on." A firm No was heard from him.

I will like to think that my boss is still a fair person.

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I am amazed on how much I need him to be available in my life. Probably because we are spending too much time with each other. I was looking forward to leave the office and meet him but due to the presence of my colleague, we couldn't.

Probably because of me, he is patient with her. "Why are you so nice to her?" "Cos she is my colleague." Lately, everytime he comes to the base, I noticed that she likes to blatantly presents herself to him in a manner that is forceful just to catch his attention.

I like to tease him, saying that probably she likes him. It just makes me smile when he gives me that irritating look as he objects to the statement I made.

I suppose my colleague is not very situationally smart, could not sense in seeing two people just want to have private moments alone. But then again, she never IS smart. Heh.

Staring

Abit dressed up than usual, I was abit nervous in meeting him today. Probably it is because it will be the first time that he will be seeing me in my make-up which I never did whenever we went out with each other.

"You can stop staring at me." Blushed, telling him as he had this weird look on his face.

We had gone for drinks overseeing the sea before bringing him to this lovely restaurant up at Serangoon. He knew that I liked Indian food and partly because I had wanted to see him eating with his fingers.

"Please don't see me while I'm eating." As he tried his best scooping up the briyani rice with his fingers. It was such a classical moment seeing a foreigner using his right hand, peeling off the skin of the masala prawns.

"I think I'll bring my mum to this place. The food was delicious." I'm glad that he liked the food as I try to introduce him to places that me and my friends frequent for our makan trips around Singapore.

We took the train back together, as usual he accompanied me to my destination station.

"Remember those guys that we came across at that place. They were looking at your direction the whole time. Probably they are wondering what this lady doing with me. You know, you looked so very pretty tonight."

I blushed as I said thank you. Goof me.

The Most Decorated Olympian ever

"That is why we must consider Phelps' achievements in these Olympics as the greatest athletic feat ever accomplished."

"It's not just about what he has done. It's about what he has endured"

"Television commentators are comparing Phelps to an actual fish, or an amphibian. When we think of the greatest athletes ever, fish aren't usually what comes to mind. But with Phelps, all conventional thinking goes out the window."

- ESPN sports on commenting Michael Phelps, winner of 8 Gold medals at Beijing 2008 Olympic Games.

Dreams of a child

"When you were young, did you ever dream what you wanted to be when you grow up?" He ponders few moments. "It's not being a lawyer, doctor or anything like that." " All that I wanted was to have a drink of my own soft drinks. Not sharing with anyone."

Back during his childhood days, it was tough growing up in a family of three siblings with parents of little money. I guess that makes him more humble in appreciating the money that he earns now.

"How about you?" Stuck, a difficult question to answer. "You'd probably laugh if I told you." He nudges more for me to tell.

"When I was young, I wanted to be a singer." "To sing on a stage accompanied by someone playing the guitar." "If I choose a song now, probably a rock ballad song."

He smiled at me as I smiled back.

Wish me luck

"Do we have time to have ice-cream?" Looking down to his watch."Hmm..we have half a hour." We made ourselves comfortable at the sofa seat of the haagen daz outlet.

We shared three scoops of ice-cream flavoured which I chose on a waffle basket. "You know eating ice-cream is a great alternative to having boyfriends." "It just releases you."As I happily savour my spoonful of chocolate ice-cream.

An unreadable look on his face as he just laugh the matter off.

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Today is the last day of the PTF production meeting. "Till we meet again next year." As the chairman ended the agenda meeting.

Then, I looked at him. Busy checking emails on his laptop. I didn't like what he was wearing today. A white shirt with tailored gray pants. I think guys look great with navy blue or black coloured shirts. Make them look tall, sleek, attractive and important.

Two more days and we won't be doing a project for a long time till next year.

Quality letter. It's feel important that I call the shots to stop the project's clock as we hope to hit our target day. Probably tomorrow or the day after. To make history in the passenger-to-freighter conversion production retrofit. Wish me luck!

The Dark Knight

It has been showing in Singapore's cinemas for awhile now. But all I could say that it is worth waiting for 3 weeks' to catch this movie. Both of us agreed that the 1st Rachel Dawson played by Katie Holmes is prettier than this time's.

The best Batman movie ever.

Photos love relive

"I'm being oblivious to the camera." He was trying to get a snapshot of me with his Canon compact camera as I just played refused.

It's been such awhile since I played with a camera, being photographed or taking photographs. The feeling was relived again as I took many candid photos of him which was really fun as he was easy to take, just happy to have his photos taken by me.

"Wah, how come got wrinkles and eye-bags?" As we take a look at the pictures of him that I have taken. I gave a good look at his face, scrutinizing if it was actually true as the photo shows, then it dawned me that he has a good clear skin.

Suddenly, he wanted a picture with the two of us in it. "Just to show people that you are really small standing next to my very tall frame."

In the end, he managed to take 2 shots of me as I smile shyly to the lens.

"You're quite photogenic you know." I just gave him a shrug.

Remember

I know I have been updating my blog on a regular basis. Just writing on what I had went through, to make me remember the emotions that I had felt during those moments.

I was mad at him. So mad that I refused to see his face even throughout the meeting. It was hard as he was sitting diagonally to where I was siting but he made his laptop faced me, so he was at my direction the whole time. I guess he felt the ignorance from my part, but stubborn enough that I just can't bring my eyes to meet his.

20 mins later, he was speaking out his views which then, I had to look at his face. So much confidence as he explains to the board what the customer will want to see after the flight test. Instead of focusing in what he has to say, I was observing his face, his eyes, his hair and his mouth. Momentarily, he caught my eyes and then, he gave me a sad look. Do people act childishly when you angry at a person plus stressed with work?

He brought me to eat Korean food for dinner since he knows I like Korean better than Japanese. "Funny, you ate Indian food when you went to Japan." We talked about his travelling days to Korea, saying that kimchi will taste better over there since he saw me finishing a bowful of perserved cabbage alone by myself.

"Is your shirt tailored new?" He looked at me in the eyes for awhile and then looked down."Can't you remember? This is the shirt that you told me that you like." It's heart-warming that he could remember this and that tiny bit of details throughout our friendship together.

Unmasked beneath that arrogant hard face is a man who is so soft, gentle, kind and sweet. I'm glad I am one of the closest few to know him as that.

"I'll probably be going to Seattle in October." "Really? Then, we can't celebrate our birthdays together."

Yes, both of us are from the same zodiac sign. Is it not coincident?

Over soon.

It's 655pm and I am still in the office. 5 more days till I submit the project completion declaration to the Quality department. If we manage to beat that target day, we can congratulate ourselves to the first MRO in the world to have achieve the shortest conversion TAT.

I just had a brief meeting with my planners, and I could see the lack of motivation shown on their faces.

I was finding ways to cheer them up, telling them that we are at the final leg of the long marathon, just abit more and we will be done. But, I know it's not just about the progress of the project, it is probably about everything.

"Am I a bad AO?" I was asking one of my planners. I'm just someone who is trying her best to be fair, listening ears' to their problems and help to tackle them, show my disapproval if they deter away from the project aim and making sure the group does not disintegrate but still move as a team. It's really tough to juggle so much responsibilities but I've never been afraid of challenges because I know I can handle and do them.

My colleague. I wish she will just shuts her mouth sometimes. She just talks innocently without thinking of whether it will hurt other people's feelings. I know she has been eyeing my job, probably since it is more glory than hers. I wish she would stop eavesdropping on all my phone conversations or hanging outside my cubicle to see who is stopping by to see me.

I can't stop other LAEs to come and talk to me more than her, right. Or if my boss is trying to talk to me, stop hovering from the walls of my cubicle. I don't understand why she wants to take notice of me so much.

More painful, when she told him about something that I had wish she has stopped. She doesn't know enough but now because of her, he knows that I am sad about it. I can't even looked at him on the eyes now.

Dah penat, dah. Cepatlah for next week to come and it will be over.

Dark chocolates

All the formulae on project productivity and efficiency that my boss was trying to entrust into my head were so confusing as they take time to comprehend and digest in. I'm amazed that he could calculate large numbers within seconds without punching into the calculator as I try to keep up with his explanations' speed. Only I had realised that with the current trend in depreciation of the US currency that we are losing money like waterdrops from a hole until we meet the target breakeven point.

It's challenging but it is fun playing with numbers as I told myself learning new things is normally a tough ordeal but after knowing them, they will be a breeze as you get the hang of them.

"So how is your Godiva's chocolates?" "They are okay but those big dark chocolate chunks that he gave us are more nicer." I felt like telling him that I could gladly bring more from home if he wants somemore. But of course, I kept mum. Knowing him, he will probably ask hard gruelling questions that I wish to avoid.

Reflecting back, Mr N was asking me what to buy for him since apparently he had forgotten to buy something back. "He likes chocolates alot, so you can buy that." And so, the Godiva's dark chocolate gift package.

Aloof and damn busy

Fake smile. When you are actually so tired and very irritated. Though, I still try to be patient and composed. Which I hope so. Probably, it's the crunch time. Or probably, he has not called or spoken anything to me today.

He's back to his own working self again. That aloof, damn busy and full of attitude kind of guy. Totally opposites to the caring, warmth, empathy me at work. But then, that's him. Him and his busy high-flying career. Can be irritating sometimes, going out with him when his phone rings and then, it's all about work. Sometimes, I feel like throwing his phone to the nearest dustbin that I could find.

One more week to go and I'm done with this plane. But looking at the emails being corresponded today, it gave me a worse feeling.

Shitty day. At least a guy at the fleet management office almost made my day today. I was having abit problem at work and he actually stayed awhile on the phone to help me solve it.

"It's okay. Have a nice dinner later and good rest at home." I wonder how he looks like.

Random participation of smiles

Is the aircon not working and the room getting hot suddenly or it is just me? He was outrightly flirting with me, infront of everyone else in the meeting room. I can't believe my luck that he had chose to sit opposite me as I divertly try not to make eye contacts with him.

Holding up his agenda paper, I saw the word S.Y? written on it. I blushed immediately knowing what he meant as he revives back our secret jokes. Even my boss notices this random participation of smiles, probably wondering this strange friendliness between us.

I had to keep up a straight face, looking professional everytime I had to speak up knowing that he is looking at me. It was the most hardest moment that I ever had to endure.

Glass beads bracelet. I don't know why I am jealous that I did not get a glass beads bracelet from him. That bracelet costs only 17 euros compared to pricely gift that he got for me.
Apparently, it was for his friend.

"It's unique and it is handmade glass beads, so French." "But yours is nicer and more expensive." "I don't need expensive things, the bracelet is sooo pretty." "Okay, I'll ask her to give up her bracelet, want or not?"

Gosh, since when I got so childish.

Aeroplane model from Toulouse