Amelia's Nest

My turning three(3) year old son can now construct sentence. It was just an amazing feeling hearing your child utter those words and trying to converse with the elders in such a way that he appears to be a grown-up child. Here are some of the sentences he had constructed and uttered.

How about me mummy?
Oh terrible! Thomas crushed again.
I show it to daddy.
I am angry. Really really angry.
Come on Inna sit down here.
Stay there mummy. Don't touch.
This is my favorite, banana.
Mommy cooked this, yummy!
Let's go outside daddy.
This one for you mummy, for daddy, for mama and for Inna.
Let's go to the party.
Got it daddy?
I can't reached it.

Amazing isn't? Just a proud mother.

A friend tagged me with this or should I say gave me this. I don't know if it's an award or something. Stating J'Adore Tien Blog in English I love Your Blog. But there wasn't any instruction stated and so I decided to share this with Agnes, Wenny, WitsandNuts and Heather. I love your blog also and thanks for sharing your stories.


And to Joanne who gave me this, Merci! Merci!

There are times that I feel the need to drink. But don't get me wrong am not alcoholic or whatever. And seldom do I go out for a drinking session. But there are times that there's this want for me to drink something with alcohol content. What I do is I buy something from the supermarket and stocked it in the fridge and when the kids are already sleeping I open one bottle and just drink the entire content. And sometimes I and hubby do this. One to two bottles is enough and munch some chips while watching over a movie. And it feels good. It did. I don’t why and what’s the reason behind. It’s just like I felt I gave a certain amount of time for myself just by simply doing that.

How about you? Have it occurred to you that somehow it gives a relaxing feeling after drinking one bottle of beer, vodka or what-not? And just by sitting at your couch and just do nothing but drink and laze around leaves you a pleasant and enjoyable feeling.

My daughter turns two today. Yahoo! Thank God we were blessed with a loving & pretty daughter. We are so happy and delighted on this celebration. We celebrated her birthday last Sunday with some invited friends. Friends who had made our stay here in Singapore a worth-while one.

Husband grilled fish tilapia with tomatoes,garlic & onion stuffings. It was so delicious! Thanks dad for the hard-work in grilling. I prepared chicken-macaroni salad, cereal prawn, and chicken-afritada. My mother cooked spaghetti for her adorable little grand-child. Then Charmaine prepared a spring roll. And I baked a chocolate-cake specially for her birthday.


The party was Winnie-the-Pooh inspired theme and so I made a cake out of that. The celebration was a team effort actually but it was all fun and we did enjoy preparing the food and making Ria Ainna's 2nd birthday a memorable one. She may not know it today but photos taken can speak of how the event was celebrated.

Today, we plan to go to the church to attend thanksgiving mass for the fruitful and blessed year we have and for giving us a wonderful and amazing daughter. Have dinner together and celebrate the day. It's really fun to have kids. How blessed we are.

In my working career I have come across different systems. Been the process owner, designer, implementer, documenter and trainer for both client-server and web-based system. In-house developed or a big system developed by big companies. When I had my first exposure handling the system I was naïve and afraid since it’s in production already. But it will not going to hurt if you have done some minor mistakes.

As I moved-on bigger responsibilities where given and opportunities came in. Having worked as systems support for Oracle 11i Human Resource Management System (HRMS) faced me with more challenging and excruciating experience. Experience that made more resilient to any kind of circumstances and made me somewhat expert in the field where I am now. It gives more knowledge and skills in dealing with different scenarios of how Human Resource (HR) worked in a big and small company. Encountering different people with different reactions every time we are going to introduce and implement a system. People who are resistant to changes.

And now I am privileged to work on with another system which, PeopleSoft/Oracle Human Capital Management (HCM). Another system to challenge and to compare with. Which is much better? Will see as I go on.

And here’s my realisation. First, we try to put the process into system making life easier for all makes it more difficult and at times unbearable for people who will take hold of the system or the process owner. Because probably they are not equipped with certain skills or seeing it as an addition to what they are currently doing. In most of the cases people must be equipped with skills that can meet the criteria of the system they want to implement. The process owner must have a sound knowledge into the processes and procedures before one can fully understand the cycle and how the system works. Putting it into an X & Y diagram, X as your process and Y is your system, the more process you want to put into the system the more complex the end result of the system is. Becoming it more complex to those who are not ready for the changes introduced. Well, we can’t get away with this. Second, as the world is on its phase whereby everything runs in system one must be equipped with knowledge that can be of use when faced with these changes. And third, one good foundation of a sound company is the presences of firm processes and procedures and a functional system that can help owners, decision-makers and stake-holders in coming up with a sound decision to whether-or-not eliminate and retain people in the organisation.

Last Friday and Saturday, June 5-6, 2009 I have attended an event arranged by two colleagues for the whole company. This was the fist activity I have attended since joining the organisation. It's a two-day activity comprising of one and half-day functional training and three hours bowling. I find the training essential and substantial for there are a lot of information given as well as case scenario discussion and presentation. We were grouped into five and was asked to do the proposal, presentation and what-not based on the scenarios given. At the end of the training our team won the activity.


At the bowling, I was with different group again competing with the rest of the other team. We were grouped into six teams. I had a lot of fun even though bowling is not my piece-of-cake but still I managed to get a score of 75 points. What a crazy score! I was able to got one strike. But unluckily, we didn't won.

It was one eventful activity I have attended so far. Two-things rolled into one, training and bowling.

Last Sunday 31st of May, I treated my mother to a one-day tour to Batam, an island in Riau Province of Indonesia approximately 20km away from Singapore. This is my second time in the island and first time for my mum. And first time for both of us on an out of the country trip.

What I like about the this trip is that the tour guide was able to bring us to the temple. The biggest Buddhist-Taoist temple in South East Asia, the Maha Vihara Duta Maitreya Temple. Located at Bukit Beruntung in the Sei Panas area. Maha is a Sanskrit word which means great and Vihara, also a Sanskrit word which means dwelling.


They have fifteen Buddha statues in the temple. One is the Prosperity Buddha is a big, chubby, and laughing which symbolizes friendliness and happiness. They say when you touch the tummy of the buddha you have to place your hand to your pocket for good luck or touch your ears for long life. There is also a place for Kuan Gong (God of War) is said to protect the business. Fertility Buddha for those who want to have a baby or a boyfriend/girlfriend.


There is the presences of Sidharta Gaotama and GuangYing (Goddess of Mercy). Then the biggest statue is Buddha Maitreya who is standing and carrying a bag on his back and said to have magical power. Another one is Buddha Sakyamuni Graha, placed on the most spacious room on the ground floor, is "guarded" by two big lion statutes.


The temple can accommodate 30,000 worshippers and is open daily from 6:30am to 9:30pm.

Last Saturday, hubby and I went to Cathay Mall at Handy Road near Orchard Road to check for screening time of Angels and Demons that I so wished to watch since two weeks ago but due to some not-so-good timing we always bump-out the movie and instead do some other things. And so we decided to eat than to watch the movie. I told hubby to choose any restaurant that he prefers and it will my treat this time. From a few list in mind hubby chose Nihon Mura, a Japanese restaurant at the basement floor of The Cathay Mall.

We order for salmon don set and salmon teriyaki don with soda and soda-ice cream float. While waiting for the main dish we munch five plates of sushi which consist of my favourite California maki and others(which I forgot the name) and honestly I liked the taste of their sushi. I was asking hubby to order for waffle with double chocolate ice cream for dessert and he suggested we order for one after we eat because he has this idea that we may not be able to manage eating a dessert after a full meal. And so he was right. Good thing we didn't order for one but I tell you it was really mouth-watering and so enticing. But there will be a next time for this.

Being a not so Japanese food enthusiast as compared to my husband surprisingly I was pleased with the taste and the price. Pig-out on a Saturday night is what we did on a reasonable amount of price with a palatable restaurant. Imagine I just paid less than S$50.00 with a complete set of meal and drinks for two person. Not bad. We left the place with a happy and full tummy and smiling pocket. And I will definitely try this again.

Last Friday, hubby and I were supposed to have a date, we plan to watch movie and buy some clothes. But around four in the afternoon hubby's colleague sent me SMS and invited me for a girls shopping-night out and I said yes to the invitation after telling hubby about the invitation. That was the first time I went out with all female friends. We are five that night, two of us were already a mom, one recently married, the other one will get wed this September and the other one is still single. I met them up seven in the evening. We ate at KFC, just a quick bite and then head ourselves to Takashimaya Mall at Orchard Road. The mall is on sale from 10 up to 50 percent. They had great deals. It was so tempting to buy and shop. Even me and Carmela was tempted to buy the Guess hand-bag and wallet but I told her to focus on the need and not the want. We just both laugh. Bought myself long sleeve blouse and some toys for the kids. I had a great time with them. It's nice that once in a while we got to spend time with our girl-friends and have a small conversation. Just sharing some news and what-not.

After the shopping activity, me and Michelle head to the bar where our husbands' spending time with the rest of the male colleagues. The band was so cool and their voice was really interesting. They played old songs and some contemporary, they are Filipinos by the way. I had beer, first time to taste the Asahi beer of Japan and tequila sunrise. It was past twelve that we went home. Hubby and I know that the kids are already sleeping since it's past twelve but to our surprise, they are still awake. My mum said they woke up after three hours of nap. At least we can still play and hug them.

What an interesting and fun-filled Friday night.