Tonight is when I have to stay up for the prayers to the Jade Emperor (Tih Kong). *Yawn*

Just when I thought it would be just another boring night...

A big white she-dog came all the way into our living room when no one was keeping watch at the open gate and open door grill for about a minute. Boy... it was hard work trying to shoo her out!!

Most hilariously, when we finally managed to corner the dog... my bro tried to prod her towards the door using a pole. That didn't get her to move one bit. She just stared dumbfoundedly at my bro.

Finally, I tooked her out by carrying her by her fore-legs. Taking her out side to the porch was not a good idea as she quickly found a corner and hid there for quite a while. It was some time before I managed to catch her and dragged her out... wow! phew...

Next... you would have thought that "Hey! Fireworks are illegal!!" but at about every 30 degree angle that I turn - I can see wonderful displays of fireworks over the horizon. POM!! POM!!! POM!! .

..oh well... noisy as it was - I went to sleep right after everything for the prayers was over and done with.

Wait.... I'm not done yet!!! You know this tradition we have to burn a pile of joss-paper? Well, apprently... gramps bought a really huge stack for us to pile this year and it started to drizzle.

My bro, mum and I were giddily laughing and giggling about the fact that we have only finished opening less than half the stack when the drizzle began to get heavier. That's when we decided to just toss everything as quickly as we can instead of gently pulling one by one out of the stack... and soon enough we had one great bonfire... ah... all done... ok.... time to sleep.... ZzZzzZZzzzz.....

CNY has thus far been a fun one. Cook, bake, eat, sleep, go visiting, eat some more, taking cat naps... and collect ang paus.

This time round... I only managed to make coffee shortcake (my trademark melt in ur mouth cookies), chocolate mud cheesecake (using bitter chocolate), and some fruit jelly. Didn't have time to make a larger variety but didn't have to worry about that coz my aunt made loads of stuff and gave some to us. Love her pineapple tarts!

Panic episodes included a time when my lack of sleep nearly resulted in cheesecake disaster. Made a mistake in the cheese mixture... but fortunately - a little compensation of some other ingredient helped to produce a perfectly sinful cake.

My favourite little cousin had come over to my house for a day too - just when dad decided to do his famous chicken pie to feed an army of relatives and friends. Luckily, while we were busy helping dad prepare the ingredients, she had found entertainment in playing with some leftover pastry dough when she wasn't in the mood to help a little here and there. She's probably one of the easiest kid to baby sit.

One other thing - my brother and I concluded that my uncle's Shih Tzu has not grown any wiser since it was a puppy dog 6 years ago... dumb dog... cute dog... :)

BTW, went back to work today and had a ball of a time. I chucked aside the 80-90 over unread emails aside and attended only to those that my colleagues actually called to ask me to follow up.

This is not much of an adviseable thing to do but definitely the easiest way to manage what to do when coming back to a barrage of unattended issues sitting in the form of the dreaded work emails.

Besides, I didn't have much time to pore over every single thing as every Blue, Blue Monday... I have to prepare some report... damn! The preparation of it is just one tedious process man.

In the afternoon... got caught in two 1-hour meetings... gosh! By the time all that was over - there was hardly any time left to do anything... I ended up happily calling it a day when our online system decided to take a break too.

And before I forget... GONG XI FA CAI! May the Year of the Monkey bring you countless joy, harmony & prosperity.

Oh gosh! SO much more to do for Chinese New Year!! Was on leave last Friday... the day I had one last round of clothes shopping... and the day I baked my first major batch of cookies. Started making the dough in the afternoon and only finished baking the last tray and packing up all the fresh cookies by something like nearly 2am.

Also had some last minute arrangement for Bernard to send some cookies I managed to pack for my other Singaporean colleagues. Luckily, I had Jocelyn somewhat helping me out with the cookie thing while I went out to make the delivery. She had come over to do some major CD burning.

On Sunday... finished my last big batch of cookies inclusive of packing by about 3am... simply because no one else in my house was of much help in the whole cookie business... I was on my own, kiddo.

Anyhow, I had a pretty lazy Saturday... the day I had to get a tooth extracted in preparation for my orthodontic treatment. After CNY - I have to remove 2 more. For the rest of the day... I was just really tired... not to mention, half my mouth was numb with anaesthetic - so rest day it was! *mpphhhbt*

Finally did grocery shopping for my cookie baking on last Saturday... *grins*... but I won't be baking til this coming Friday... when I'm off from work.... hahaha!!! I look forward to my long weekend!!!

Anyhow, it's freaky that my weekly horoscope had partly come true. A colleague just told me that he had a crush on me... err... hmm... and my neighbour had been joking that the guy liked me for the past month or so...

Though unfortunately, I had to give him the "Let's be friends" routine... don't quite feel like it'd be fair to the dude for just keeping mum and keeping his hopes up unnecessarily. ;P

I hapf ze fruu. Ma nosh is schtuck. *achoo*

...and I happily stayed up til 2am last night hanging out at Sega's (Gurney) with friends who happen to be studying in US, UK & the land of Oz. It was fun and at least I get to see them before they go back to wherever.

Anyway - for the whole of today, I have no idea what has gotten into me. I forgot to switch off my car lights (it was on half beam) - so I've got a flat battery now... Thank God for our security guards who were patrolling the office car park and my colleague who let me use her car's battery to get my car started up... all at about 9-ish pm.

Better yet... I didn't quite know what I was supposed to be doing for 1/3 of the time I was in office. I just sat and stared at pages of things... and they just didn't quite register in my mind... or maybe the lightbulb in my head was getting worn out just like my car battery.... That's a creepy thought... yikes!

...oh! And of course, I'll be late to work tomorrow since I'll have to get my car battery fixed... Just hope that all hell does not break loose in the office during the early hours of the day... I'm supposed to be backing up my counterpart who'll be on leave for the next 2 days. Bless us all!!!

Well... today being Friday and I'm back at work for one lousy day - it seems like everything has a mind of its own... argh! Where do I start? My table is just full of papers!!

Ok... forget that. Back on a lighter note, I found out that many of my friends and colleagues just stayed home watching TV while some few others plain slept through 2003 to 2004. So maybe New Year's celebration has become a cliche for us this year. Hmm... quite a thought that is.

Happy New Year! Hope this one will be a good one for everyone... bar the Chinese supertitions, as this year has a 4 in it. How was my New Year's eve? Well... I ended up spending it having dinner at my granduncle's place. Didn't know what the occasion was until I arrived there - his wife's birthday it seems.

Past 10-ish pm - I was at home and watching "Fools Rush In" on TV. Watched it before but am still amused that Matthew Perry will always be Chandler as long as he plays the bumbling joker roles.