More Assorted Feelings In December

Happy. I'm still obsessed with the sight of the sky in Dubai in the broad daylight. The sky is blue, as always but the white clouds make the difference. The presence of the cotton-like clouds floating in the sky on these bright sunny days reminds me of Malaysia, Truly Asia and makes me feel closer to home. I'm happier knowing I'll have visitors from home in a couple of days. The vast and scarce quarter along the Emirates Road compliments the vast sky above with its visiting clouds.

Delightful. My colleague George is blessed with his second child, named Faith. My other colleague Norton is blessed with an early delivery of his baby girl. The newborn is supposed to be delivered next month, but due to some complications, they had opted for an operation. The last time we talked, Norton was so delightful that everything went well. When I asked him for the name of his newborn, he said, "You know what... we have not decided". These are the delightful deliveries that add joy to the people around me.

Disturbed. At about the same time, my wife called. When she calls, I know something isn't right. She was in JB to attend the funeral of her grandfather. The man has been the subject of my blog in October. He had lived for over 100 years. We had visited him in the last raya, which was the last raya for us with him. My children have lost their only great-grandfather. They had gone to Johor with their mother, representing their father to pay the last tribute to the centenarian. Al-Fatihah. I was disturbed.

Excited. We had our last batch of chocolate for the year produced today. Then we'll have a plant shutdown for engineering and maintenance work until year end. In a way to mark our last production day for 2008, we had a BBQ lunch at the parking lot. It was exciting to unwind our year long work stress by enjoying the good food with the good mood in a good weather. I'm also excited thinking that now that I have my driving license, I'll next have my car parked in this parking lot. It is indeed excited to think about the new year and the new challenges.

Proud. We had also our proud moment to celebrate the Lost Time Accident (LTA) free days for our factory which has reached 2 years. We had a huge cake in our office to mark this milestone. It's Dubai mentality that if it's not the greatest or the biggest, then don't bother doing it. So we did it with the biggest cake ever cut in our factory. It's a vanilla cake with assorted tropical fruits toppings, 3x1 meters in size and about 30kg. The cake cutting started very proper but that was only for the first few minutes. Soon after the scene became like slaughtering a bull and chopping it into pieces for Qurban.