Bali Love

I just came back from Bali and I loved it even more than the 1st time I went there. This time I went with the hubby. And this time, despite my control freak nature of having to plan the itenarary to every last detail, I found that renting a motorbike there and wandering aimlessly around the town was much more interesting.

The hubby and I have been working damn hard this year. And I spent this whole year unhappy about a lot of things. To spend those few days in Bali was definitely refreshing. For once in a very long time, my mind was at peace. No schedules or no demands, only nature, spirit, peace and love.

The hubby and I have been working damn hard. It is so easy to carried away with the stress of work, rushing for deadlines, coming back late from work, skipping meals, day after day after day. While we are both not ready to quit our careers yet, we need to slow down and start relaxing and enjoying life and each other.

And I'm already starting to think about the next vacation. Somewhere with lots of street markets for the hubby and beautiful beaches for me. :)

Freak accident

I went to Pulau Tikus market today to eat lok lok. It was still early so only 3 tables were taken. If you've eaten lok lok before, you'll know that each table has a gas tank attached to it. I was eating happily until there was an explosion of fire under one of the lok lok tables in front of me. The pipe attached to the gas came out there was a big ball of fire under the table.

I panicked, got up but didn't run away because I was too stunned. Everbody else around was either running or screaming. The lok lok lady grabbed the gas pipe which was now like a fire gun shooting a long stream of fire. Somebody yelled at her to take out the head from the gas tank and as soon as she did, the fire went out.

I had no appetide after that. I kept thinking that if I or anybody else was sitting at that table, it would have been really bad. My legs would have been burnt and I would have been badly scarred.

I went home, looked at the smooth skin on my legs and thanked God that nothing bad happened. I won't be eatting Lok Lok for a very long time after this.

I've been a while since I've seriously blogged. My absence was due to a lot reasons.

1) Managed a team of 5 engineers
2) Which grew to 9 engineers in 3 months
3) Then received 3 resignation letters from the original engineers all in one month (I think I broke the record here)
4) Hired 2 more new engineers in 2 months, looking for one more
5) So 1 experienced engineer, 1 relatively new one and 5 new babies to look after (one more baby coming soon)
6) Crazy deadlines to meet, a huge project to drive, fires to put out, new people to train, battles to fight
7) Oh, and throw in a miscarriage, 1 week to heal physically, came back to deal with a project behind schedule and months of depression after that

Today, we meet our 2nd milestone. Somehow, dear LP and I managed to hold this new team together despite all the challenges we faced. Everyday is a battle of running to meetings, coaching new hires, talking to other teams and departments. Sometimes I hide in the toilet, sometimes in a conference room, sometimes I hide at home. If it weren't for LP, I would throw in my badge and head running to the door.

Despite it all, at this moment, I am truly contented. Just a few days ago, I was tempted to quit. But there's always that nice feeling of accomplishment when you've managed to survive yet another round of shit.

It just makes you a teeny bit stronger each time.