Ellipsis [...]

Re: Flight Reminder

This is a reminder email about your forthcoming flight about 14 days from now. This reminder email is for your information only. No action is needed from you.

PNR: IRSPLG
Number of pax: 2
Insurance Policy: None
Flight Itinerary:

• SIN-HKG 3K 691 04 Nov 2008 0640 1025
  • SITI NURULJANNAH BAHARUDIN – 14A
  • SARINAH KADIR – 14B
• HKG-SIN 3K 696 07 Nov 2008 2015 2350
  • SITI NURULJANNAH BAHARUDIN – 14F
  • SARINAH KADIR – 14E

Only two weeks to go? But wait, I have NOT:

1. planned an itinerary
2. thought of what to bring, how much currency (HKD) to buy
3. bought travel insurance
4. booked a hotel room

Not to mention finish my last assignment of the semester (due in one week) AND study for exams! Looks like I won’t be sleeping much on the eve of the trip. Tsk tsk.

Just four weeks to go to the end of the semester. Then a two-week break followed by my one & only exam. After that, it’s off to Hong Kong I go, and I can’t wait. I wouldn’t even mind if it were elsewhere & not HK we’re going. I just need an escape, to give me the change of environment I need.

Operations Management is not as tough as I imagined. It’s rather scientific & mathematical in nature, which suits me just fine, because I am a sciences type of girl at heart (or brain). The group assignment looks manageable too, thank God. Now all I need are group members I can work with. I already got slotted into a group earlier today, except that I haven’t met any of the members as it was all settled over email & SMS. The wonders of modern faceless communication. Haha.

Am looking through the just-released IT Project Management end-of-course assessment. It actually looks pretty straightforward. Just clear-cut questions, purely online submission, and the best thing is, no powerpoint slides or video presentation involved. Yesss!

The next four weeks are looking more & more survivable.

It just hit me that the Hong Kong trip is less than 2 months away, and the only thing I have is flight tickets. No hotel room, no itinerary. And Mama’s leaving everything to me. If I don’t start planning soon, we might just end up landing in HKIA on the morning of November 4th not knowing where to go next. Haha. Better start squeezing in some time for planning then.

I miss Hong Kong much much.

South Korea for November 2009 seems highly likely at the moment. (I would go sooner, but this part-time student has to plan around her school schedule. Meh.) By then, I would (hopefully) be brave enough to bust out my Korean-speaking skills to the native Koreans. Haha! I just need to look for a travel partner (or two). Any takers? If I’m lucky, I might get to meet up with my online buddies in Seoul as well. Squeeee, how exciting!

• Just splurged close to US$90 on a couple of DVDs I’ve wanted for months: 즐거운 인생 First Press Limited Edition DVD and 한성별곡 Director’s Cut DVD. Shucks. Where the hell is my self-restraint?! Jannah, you still want that iPhone / iPod Touch, do you?
• Speaking of which, iPhone 3G is landing in exactly 8 days! Oh gosh, if I end up getting one, please let there not be long queues.
• I really need to book a hotel room for the HK trip, soon.
• Why are IM clients on Windows so damn ugly???
• Going Turkish for team dinner tonight & Italian tomorrow with TKGians, woot!
• I swear, replying emails take up more energy than coding. X_x
• StreetDirectory.com has their maps back, yay!

I’ve just bought round-trip flights for Mama & myself. Departure on November 4th @ 0640 hours; return on the 7th @ 2345 hours. Wasn’t planning to book the tickets this early, but Jetstar Airways is having a sale, and we’d be saving about $70 pax with the current deals. Which means a little extra cash to treat ourselves with while we’re there.

The trip is a few days after my 23rd birthday & only a day after my exams, so it’ll be a post-exam celebratory vacation of sorts. And it’ll be just the two of us, so that’s four days of precious one-on-one mother-daughter time. We’re gonna have a ball, away from the men! (For Mama at least, since I don’t have a man. Haha.) I’m excited already.

Only a month to go till school resumes. As always, I am looking forward to it, at this point of time conveniently in denial of the fact that three weeks into the semester, I would be thinking: What the hell have I gotten myself into again? Wahahaha. But I’m extra determined to do well this coming semester, with my horrifying grades from last semester fueling this determination.

Maybe I am being overzealous, wanting to excel in my career and studies at the same time. But still, I find it hard to justify spending thousands of dollars of my hard-earned money on a university education, only to scrape through it with Bs and Cs. So this is why, despite the fact that my grades have virtually no impact on my existing career, I still feel the need to slog for those As.

At least my disappointing exam results were followed by some good news. I got offered all three modules that I chose:

1. Contract & Agency Law
2. Operations Management
3. IT Project Management

Which is great, because it means I will only sit for ONE exam! Which also means I can proceed with my travel plans to Hong Kong on November 4th.

Now Jannah is one happy & relieved girl. Couldn’t care less about the results right now. I just want my life back.

I’m back in the office today and surprisingly NOT flooded with a tsunami of work. Which is not at all good, because it means the worst is yet to come. The only other Java developer on my team will be making his exit in a week, so I’m going to be dumped with his work. And I’ll be left alone again. Damn him.

So I’ll have what, seven, eight projects to handle starting June. Plus a new project coming in next month. If that’s not overloaded, I don’t know what is. Good thing my manager knows that very well, and makes it clear to the other teams that Jannah is indeed overloaded (so bugger off & don’t try to include me in every single project, thanks very much).

Despite that, I’m still looking forward to the next couple of months because:

• No school -> more leisure time, more SLEEP.
• More money will be rolling in – pay adjustments take effect this month!
• I’m switching from Windows to Mac, hopefully never having look back.
• I signed up for the Korean language course I mentioned before; classes start June 11th.
• Real planning for the HK trip in November will begin!

The whimsical side of me is considering taking drum lessons. Haha. Just for fun, and as an outlet for stress. The other time I came across a poster advertising a 3-month drum course at a little music academy near home. Well, we’ll see about that.

Last bit of randomness: I want an iPod Touch!