The annual dinner!

STAR CRUISES ANNUAL DINNER 2008 AT SHERATON HOTEL SUBANG JAYA

OSCAR NITE!

Picture 1: Dave, Adrian (back), Gerrad

Picture 2: Adrian, Gerrad, David

Picture 3: Jesse Wong & David Geh

Picture 4: Ting Shin, David & Susan

After working here for more than 7 months, I finally got a chance to attend the company's annual dinner, after they have put of off once in November 07 because of Uncle Lim's sudden demise. The dinner was held at Sheraton Hotel Subang Jaya's Grand Ballroom.

The theme of the night was the 'Oscar Nite'. Come to think of it, these people in charge of organizing annual dinners must have shared the same the same party planning handbook or Annual Dinner for dummies handbook, cos as far as I can remember, I've been to so many 'Oscar Nites' already.

I think what I could say about the entire nite was, the buffet style food was nice. The main spread had a mix of western and some asian delights. The pasta 'station' was something different. I mistook it for an omelette station, I didn't really go near the salad and fruits station cos me and my fellow drinking kaki colleagues were busy down at the beer 'station' helping ourselves to watered down carlsberg.

After 3 drinks we still found ourselves sober with a sickening aftertaste of watered down beer and lots of water. Reminded me of ribena with too much water in it.

The show lined up for the evening was great, especially with Colin Kerr, the Cruise Director for the SC fleet as the MC. The 'showgirls' performances especially the belly dance one was extremely entertaining. It got people running from one end of the ballroom to the other end to avoid being chased by the transvestite belly dancer. The scene could be described as altogether hilarious, chaotic and enjoyable.

All that aside, I guess the highlight of the evening was the lucky draw event. There was like 2 dozen digital cameras up for grabs, home theater systems, plasma and lcd televisions, handphones, overseas trips and the grand prize was a Dell Latitude notebook. What I got? An electrolux electric toaster! I still wished it was a 32" plasma telly.

Personally I think that the highlight of the evening for most of us (guys) was the very very rare chance to see their fellow (female) colleagues dress to kill for the evening. Some were even hardly recognisable in their make up, hairdos, glitter and bling. It was a truly great evening.

The weekend that was 16-17/2/2008

Barely making it out 'alive' from a whole weekend of attending lectures for my MBA class, at least now, lying comfortably on my bed with the airconditioning on full blast and wrapped tightly in my comforter like a popiah, I can gladly say "THANK GOD IT'S OVER!", well at least for this month. I still got 4 projects to worry about for the whole of March till the middle of April.

The 2 subjects I am taking this month is Human Resource Management as well as Challenges to Management, in which classes were held on saturday and sunday respectively. I'm pretty happy glad that i'm in a very nice class with excellent coursemates, all 13 of them.

The lecturers fot the 2 subjects were great too. You'd expect the local faculty to be below average when it comes to teaching an MBA class right? Well, the 2 lecturers we had were seasoned pros. I reckon they could even teach the class with their eyes closed and hands tied behind their backs.

The HRM module lecturer was quite lively, he encouraged feedback and gave alot of industry based examples but his overall style was still alot of spoon feeding. The CTM lecturer really blew us away. The class was more like an American MBA program session. Alot of debate and exchange of ideas flowed freely the whole day. Alot of us which were used to being spoonfed were caught unaware and it took a while to respond to this new 'experience'. I must admit that, although I have pretty much 'seen it all', this new experience I had pretty much blew my socks off too.

Overall, it was a great weekend, although I only got to see her on saturday only. We went to Thean Hou Temple last night after dinner near Tawakal Hospital. All the lanterns were lit up and it looked very beautiful. There were even illuminated paper lanterns of the 12 animal zodiac signs with a giant rat lantern in the courtyard. Spent some quality time together and had a great evening there although there was so many people around. We left around midnight.

I really regret not being able to spend more time with her during the weekends, now even more so that I'm attending classes for the MBA program. And if thats not enough, work is taking alot of my energy during the day and when it comes to going home after it all, I hardly got any 'battery' left in me. Nevertheless, I'll try my best to make time for her. Life is all about striking a balance between work, relationship, future, commitments, spiritual enrichment and also to live life. This is my commitment for 2008! There will not be any achievement with contentment without a little sacrifice and hard work. This is what I live by.

A HAPPY CHINESE NEW YEAR 2008 IN PENANG!

GONG XI FA CAI! HERE ARE SOME CNY PICS TAKEN ON MY SISTER'S DIGICAM ON THE FIRST DAY OF CNY 2008

Us cousins.

From left to right: Sheena Geh, Gary Geh (bro), Pamela Geh (sis), Tracy Lynn + youngest son Joshua Lye, David Geh (me!), Karen Geh.

Front row: Clement Geh & Cheryl Geh

This pic was taken in one of our relative's (Uncle Soo Hay's) house in Jesselton Heights, Penang on 7/2/2008.


Above pic: My immediate family! My bro's 17 and he's taller than me!
Left to right: Bobby(dad), Teri (mom), Gary(bro), Pamela(sis) and David(me!)
The 5 of us again, this time taken in YMCA Penang's multipurpose hall right after the photo session of our Geh Clan's first gathering. The 'Geh' surname has a clan, don't play play huh!

Seated version.
Siblings!

RM9.6 million jackpot anybody?

Earlier at lunch I was told by a fellow colleague from another department that a regular guest on one of our cruises who happen to be a junket as well had passed away on the first day of chinese new year of some disease. He told me that this person almost literally lives on the ship as he's up there and out at sea almost 6 days in a week and spends most of his time at the 'entertainment centre'. He's also well known to be a high roller and friendly to almost all the crew onboard.

Well, the reason for him telling me the story of this man's passing wasn't because he wanted to tell me how much sympathy he felt for the deceased, but for the regret he is currently carrying around in his heart for missing the opportunity to purchase the 4D/Toto number of the dead person.

Although I occassionally get the itch for gambling and trying my luck at four digit numbers, I however don't enjoy making use of dead people's 'lucky' numbers. Be it the number of their automobile, mobile numbers as well as maybe death certificate numbers. My take on the whole four digit number and afterlife thing is, if the guy is 6 feet inside the ground, lets leave him to rest in peace.

But the fact that yesterday's draw was a special chinese new year one, and the first prize money pool (which happened to be the dead guy's handphone number) came up to be RM9.6 million, I guess every person who was close to him or even knew who he was had a small reason to wallow in self pity and enjoy the privilege of blaming him/herself for not putting some money down on that number to enjoy a slice of that prosperity pie.

Anyway, it wasn't that bad after all, at least we had something to chat about over lunch. We were daydreaming about what we would do if we had 9.6 million bucks in the bank. Would we resign tomorrow and go relax on some remote beach in Hawai'i, wouldn't that be awesome!

The MAD Rush Back 2 The City

Last Sunday, 10th February 2008, 2-3 million Malaysians and I were stuck on the North South Expressway for about 8-10 hours trying to get back to work the next day in the city from various parts of Malaysia, mine being Penang island. I left my parent's house in Tanjung Bunga at around 3:30pm and reached KL at a little past 12 midnight! Now if that ain't a jam, I don't know what is.

Spending 8.5 hours on what normally would be a 4 hour journey from Penang to KL is something maybe I'd not want to try again next year. However it definitely taught me a lesson or 2 in time management. I reckon the best lessons in life are learnt when you put your hand in the hole or when you get burnt trying it out for the first time. But wait a minute, this isn't my first time getting caught in the jam going back to KL, I remember back in 2000 and 2001 when I was driving a much smaller car and still being subjected to the same congested experience.

Well, in spite of all the chaos, I guess I must really thank my lucky stars that I had arrived at my destination in one piece and blessed with the ability to go to work early the next morning. The side effects of sitting in the car for almost 9 hours was the fatigue and tiredness which really took a toll on my health.

That aside, the week long break in Penang was well worth the trip back. I managed to unwind and set my direction straight as I charge forward into 2008. For many of us chinese, I guess that the year haven't really started until after the festivities of chinese new year. It is when the real 2008 starts, after the feng shui master's predictions, the exchange of red packets, the long mahjong sessions that stretch into the night, all the food and the reunion dinners and after all the hampers has been opened.

However, a day after the long trip, here I am back by the window on the 20th floor writing this entry while hoping and praying that this year would be much different in terms of opportunities, experience as well as social wise and career wise. And I also hope that the fatigue would eventually wear off by tomorrow and I would be in top form again.

HAPPY CHINESE NEW YEAR TO ALL!

HAPPY CHINESE NEW YEAR (RAT) 2008!

GONG XI FA CAI! SING NIAN KHUAI LE!

NIAN NIAN YOU YUE, WAN SHUI RUE YI!

It's chinese new year again! Same shit different year right? As usual it's hoped that (like every other year) things will be much better than the outgoing one. I, like everyone else, hope for the same thing for myself and my family.

Well this year it's pretty much going to be different, not by chance but by planning on my part. I heard it somewhere and it's stuck permanently in my head for some time now. "If it is to be, it's up to me!" Sound catchy? Well this year, besides finally moving into my own apartment (bought, not rented), I'm finally taking the crucial step to start my MBA program with the Malaysian Institute of Management (MIM) which offers its MBA program in conjunction with the University of Hertfordshire, UK. Before this I was contemplating between one from a local university college, the University of East London, RMIT University and this one but finally settled for this program because of it's catch phrase, "100% assignment based!" I was sold!

So, I'm going back to the classroom almost 9 years after I graduated from uni with my bachelor's degree. I reckon the time was right and if it ain't now, I don't know when is. We'll always be busy with this and that and there always will be something important coming up that tends to 'steal' your time away from pursuing your dreams and I thought to myself, if I made this my priority, then maybe I'd be busy with this instead of the small things which are both NOT important and NOT urgent.

I know this year is not going to be easy, a 1k a month mortgage and a self sponsored 30k MBA program as well as payments on the car loan, groceries, traveling, income tax, provident fund, insurance etc. I can say that I'm pretty much 'tied-down' for the year or for 2 years at least. (The MBA program runs for 2 years)

About Chinese New Year... the whole week leading to cny was really fun cos I was in Penang since the beginning of the month. Normally I don't enjoy the grind of cny. To me every single year, like the year before is the same thing over and over. Since Kevin went to Abu Dhabi earlier last month, I had wanted to take over his flight ticket to Sarawak to have a CNY with a difference, far away from the familiar routine I go through every year but too bad his ticket was for 20 days and I only could take off max 10 days from work.

As with the 'what ifs', a vacation somewhere far would be a nice change, I reckon. Chinese new year to me is like this, the night before cny, we will all gather in my uncle's place, my dad's eldest brother. The reunion dinner dishes has been the same every single year since I was a little kiddo. Green curry, my fav lor bak, some veggies, kiam chai boey soup, tu tor th'ng soup

Then there's the 1st day visiting relatives routine. Only I think this year is abit different in a sense that, most of us (my cousins and i in our generation) driving from one relative's house to another in black MPVs and V6ers. This year there's a fully tinted black Toyota Harrier, brand new black Toyota Wish, a black Honda Stream, then there's my dad's silver Hyundai Sonata, uncle Tommy's Waja, uncle Richard's black Wira and uncle Johnny's Gen2. If you had seen our convoy rollin' up and down the northern part of Penang on CNY I reckon you'd say it was like something out of a Mafia movie.

This year was particularly hot. I remember sweating like a pig in my new Valentino short sleeve shirt. That, was made worst by long lost cousins and uncles offering you Carlbergs and red wine at 12 in the pm out in the porch of some long lost uncle or auntie's semi detatched house.

That aside, all the ang pows made it all worth the effort.Almost a hundred bucks for a few hours of visiting, how's that for a profit. Hehe... Anyway, all that red packet and money comes with a message attached. And it reads clearly "THIS YEAR IS THE LAST YEAR YOU'RE GONNA GET ONE FROM ME!" and guess what? I'm pretty sure I'm gonna get another one next year! WAHAHAHA!

It's like this when it comes to red packets during chinese new year. When you're not married yet u get as many as you want as often as you want. When you get hitched, everyone comes to your big day and gives you a darn big packet for being the king of the day, everyone remembers you as being officially MARRIED! Then guess what? You get to give their kids when you go on your cny rounds once a year. But you get glitch back. Nada, Zero...

The strategy for getting back what you give out every year? Make babies! Make many and make em fast! Then when you got one to go around on the first day of cny to show off, you automatically get back 1 for every 1, 2, 3, 4 or as many as 6-10 if you're unlucky to meet some relative with that many children. Or if you feel broke for the year, you could always give a silly excuse like you in-law's cat died so you only can give out mandarin oranges this year. How many mandarin oranges can you give out until someone finds out that you're a cheapo broke dude? You might get banned from reunions after that.

Alright, this is the end of the posting. I don't want friends complaining I write long grandfather stories. Till next time!