What's New? A reluctance to change

Things have been happening too fast. It's already approaching March and I've been appointed as the named cosec for a week,  although I'm still on my CNY break.

Organisational Culture

Like a typical Gen-Y, I have had my fair share of job hopping (not as many as some I know though). And what I've noticed is that although organisations are made up of individuals working together, there was an unmistakable difference in corporate culture in each organisation. It isn't just working style, but age spread, dressing and even physical attractiveness.

Linking risk management with news

I must say that the syllabus and reading materials I've been exposed to has helped me to gradually see how risk management comes into play in many situations. For example, the United Airlines incident a couple of days back where a passenger was dragged out screaming and injured, forced to leave on an overbooked flight - the first thing I thought of was that there was a lapse of controls.

Plan thwarted

Sadly, due to my reliance on Spotify to facilitate my studying session, I've had to reactivate my fb. I didn't know the linked apps would stop functioning once fb has been deactivated.

But the good which came out of it was that I found that I could function without having an itch to check fb every free minute I had. But once I start, it's a challenge to stop scrolling and say enough! So now the principle is to restrict fb access to my personal laptop only and no other devices.

Priceless 10: Facebook after death

Priceless is...

...the moment I discovered that we can actually appoint a friend to be like an "executor" of our fb profile in case of death.

Priceless 8: HTML & CSS

Priceless is...

... the moment when I found out how to edit the copyright info at the footer of my blog in three clicks.

Priceless 7: Eyeliner Awry

Priceless are...

... the times when I think warm shower water will serve as a solvent to my minimal makeup and then I take a peep at the fogged up mirror to the horror of my reflection - panda eyes in the reminiscence of Uncle Fester! Can't help but to burst out laughing with an eyeball popping expression!

Photo credit: dfiles.me

Perils of a lazy gal wearing makeup. Lesson learned (for the 1000th time), makeup remover ESSENTIAL. Especially with K-Pallete 1-day tattoo!

Priceless 3: Discovery

Priceless is...

... that moment when I discovered a scammer, thanks to Google image search.

One from the sick

Posting from my sick bed. It's time to reflect.

On the last working day of 2016, my Healthcare colleagues were pushing (ok, more appropriate verb - "encouraging") us to take up the influenza vaccination jab as it was part of our staff benefit and also, they wanted to finish their stock by year end before the accounts were closed. I was told, "I'll book one for you, you come after lunch ok?" With my fear of needles (trypanophobia), obviously I didn't go to our clinic after lunch!

Cooking Experiments: Spaghetti Carbonara Scrambled

When the cat is out, the mouse comes out to play. It's just so awesome to have all the ingredients at hand and the only 'need' is to get into the mood. Today, after a long day at work and dinner-less, I decided to try cooking carbonara. A friend had said it's really easy and you basically only need eggs!

So I modified a recipe to suit... well, actually I just like modifying things according to gut feel! haha! It turned out...

Somewhat spaghetti carbonara - maybe next time...

Desert Rose - Dead and Alive

Every year we have charity sales in the office around September. I got a little desert rose plantling, which I was supposed to love and nurture as advised by my colleague. But by October, my poor desert rose plant lost all its leaves. I didn't dare tell my colleague this, because it was "hard work growing them from the seeds!". I was worried that I was indeed a plant killer!

Desert Rose plant - alive (left); seemingly dead (right)

Baking Experiments: Baked Cheese Tarts

When we were in Japan (a few years back), I remember buying this Pablo 'rare cheese tart' because (1) there was a long queue (kiasu lah) and (2) I was curious why they called it "rare" since I've only seen the term used in steak. It turned out to be a light cheese cake with a wobbly centre - we took the medium rare. At that time, we were greenhorns and put up all our mental barriers that it was too oozy for our schmoozy time.

Recently there's been a craze for Hokkaido baked cheese tarts. A slew of stores have been popping up in all the malls and there are a few brands which are all yellow with black text - I haven't been paying attention, I thought they were all the same. The tarts would sell for around RM5 each (but I've not bought any in Malaysia so far). The only time I had it was in Bangkok earlier this year - and it was gooood!

Bake Cheese Tarts we had while waiting for a seat in After You Cafe in Central World, Bangkok

Cooking Experiments: Creamy Curry Pasta

Over the weekend I bought some cooking cream in the hopes of trying my hand at carbonara (my fav which causes fatty ass but I probably need some adipose there!). When I got home and started googling for a recipe, to my surprise most of the recipes only used eggs and no cooking cream! A moment of enlightenment for me.

So over to today's lunch. The lunch gang decided that Friday is a splurge day after the crazy week we've had. And so we drove out to the nearby New Chapter by The Owls Cafe. Going into CCC reminded me of the Sponsor a Brick from many many years ago and now I was a stranger entering.

Creamy curry pasta - New Chapter (left) & homemade (right)

Health & Wellness week

I knew it was not a good idea to have a toffee nut latte after dinner and this is the consequence - a wee hour post.

The good thing about smaller organisations is that corporate initiatives can be done in a more intimate setting. We had our Health & Wellness week a couple of weeks back. I for one, was quite excited to see how the plans would pan out after hearing the first mention of this in management meetings and then seeing the proposal papers come through. The objective was for us as an organisation to walk the talk as well as to reduce our medical claims.

Nexus 5 hot and not powering up [Solved]

I thought I could rest on my medical leave but while I was clearing my Nexus 5's memory to accommodate the software updates, the phone suddenly wouldn't turn on when the standby button was pressed. I tried to boot the phone but it didn't work too.

Nexus 5 surgery - I sick you also sick!

Baking Experiments: Blackout Brownies, Roasted Vegetables, Baked Eggs, Berries with Yoghurt, Pizza & Salted Caramel Chocolate Tarts

For the past few months I have been experimenting whenever time permitted. The success rate was somewhat mixed but I am just happy that I completed them and eventually someone ate them up.

Computer Problems Round 2 (Error Code 0xc0000001)

Not long after I had restored my laptop to working condition, probably about a month or so, I had a promo email from Microsoft reminding that the free upgrade to Windows 10 was still being offered. Thinking that my laptop was touchscreen-enabled and not too old, I reckoned that my laptop could handle the upgrade. Unfortunately, halfway through the upgrading, I got the BCD again!

Computer Problems Round 1 (Error Code 0xc0000034)

Around end of 2015, I had run into some problems when installing a Windows 8.1 update on my personal laptop (HP Envy Touchsmart). The installation was stuck at 82% the night before and when I woke up the morning after, it was still stuck at 82%. As I had to rush off to work, I forced quit my laptop (I know, such a "girl" thing to do) and I paid dearly for that mistake - blue screen of death!

Nexus 5 connecting to PC issue

Today's the second time I've had problems connecting my Nexus 5 via USB cable to my laptop (HP Envy TouchSmart running on Windows 8.1). I'm so glad that I bookmarked this website, which has saved me twice!

Symptoms: After connecting Nexus 5 to PC via USB cable, switching from "Charging" to "File Transfer" on the phone results in the PC's alert sound indicating the device has disconnected. Going to "This PC", you won't find your device there either.

Solution: Go to Device Manager (Control Panel > Hardware and Sound > Devices and Printers > Device Manager) and like the Passmark forum, my Nexus 5 was listed as "ACER Device". Clicking on it reveals a sub-category "ACER ADB Interface". Right click this and update driver, selecting the "search your local drive". For my case, there were 2 options to choose from and I chose the "MTP USB Driver".

After the driver was updated, my Nexus 5 immediately popped up as a removable drive on my PC. Voila, settled!

Thinking back, I probably needed to do this twice because of my PC 'blue screen of death' problem I had in January - which I also resolved through Google. That will be saved for another post.

My Hot Dog

I found this website where AI would determine if you're hot, from reading a HelloGiggles article and tried it out with various photos. While my own headshots yielded only "OK" ratings (hahaha... okla AI shows dependability), I was surprised with this!

My dog's photo generated using mirror image (used to be my blog profile pic once upon a time)

 And upon looking closer, even more surprised!