Happy in the rain

+ One of my favourite artists - Salvador Dali. This is one of his works (1937) 'Swans Reflecting Elephants'

I do not know. I am very happy today. First, I made my maiden visit to Embassy of Malaysia in Ballsbridge. It was an OK experience, not bad - not much hiccups although I could use a bit of courtesy really - but it is OK. I had to get a few documents signed. They were not ready by 5pm today as the consular only came in at 12.30noon. I guess I need to go again tomorrow. Well that really is OK. I have never been to the embassy ever before, besides attending one function in 2007. They got me to fill the registration form again today - what the heck, I filled it up, a few scribbles I was done. No harm. So that was a done deal. They were happy, so was I.

Office - again nothing much. Except some follow up with projects that I support i.e. Estonia, Uruguay and local Irish project. So three projects (predominantly sales) that I need to support. Spoke to Michael in South Africa for IMS project definition and how to build business case out of that. I POLITELY declined the offer to assume a post in Sweden. I said to Aongus (my big boss) - I am rather capable to combine marketing and technology knowledge and skills in this role, but I do not see the advancement in terms of competence for I do not see myself carrying on after three months. I said "Open it up to other consultants". Anyway that is that really.

Spoke to Tom from Operation Consulting about the project that I prepared with him. It was an eTOM (process) project for Iran. It was so funny the way Tom described his experience entering Iran. I told him "I told you to master some Farsi" He was laughing and said to Aongus and me - "To judge the maturity of a country, we need to gauge how many stamps the custom officer needs to do on your passport and documents". It was great follow up chat with him.

After work - Anuar (ex colleague from Finance Div) visited me. He brought rendang. His girlfriend cooked and Anuar took that along to return my container. It is nice. We did some catching up. It was pretty much about work and politics in M'sia. He wants to return to Malaysia and still contemplating. I wish him well really. I hope all goes well for him. So we had the rendang with roti canai that I had in the fridge.

Right after that, I got a call from Lockz. She wanted to get me to come over to have dinner with her - salad and ravioli. Arghhh more foods! So I decided to go over to her place, at the same time to review her slides for a presentation at 7am tomorrow with a customer in Australia (over phone). On the way to her place, I stopped by at Ramz's since she had some beef rendang for me - from my parents. Yes Ramz just returned from Malaysia visiting her uncle who is currently hospitalised in Subang. I took the chance to get my mom to make some rendang for me and send it across the sea via Ramz. She was back in Malaysia for 2 weeks. I must make a point to visit her again after she regains her energy and recovers from jet lag.

That is all for today. I am getting ready for shower. I was in the rain. So I do not feel so good. I can feel slight headache lingering about - so I need to wash.