...Then wind

It seems like the weather has something new to offer everyday here. And most of my blog entries have centered around the drive I have to make to work and back. It's not too bad if the drivers on the road are all behaving. It's when you have impatient drivers that zig zag in and out that makes things more stressful. It's a whole lot of chain reaction 'brake'ing and with the huge trucks on the roads too, it's so easy to get involved in a hit. Today the winds are really strong. And so on the way from work I kept feeling my car getting blown to the side everytime there was a gust of wind. It's so annoying coz you have to be really alert and not let the car just do what it wants to do. If there were no other cars on the road, I think it'd be perfectly acceptable to just let your car get blown to the next lane! haha!

Work has been relaxing. Can you believe it? The drive is stressful and the work relaxing. Most people here stick to the 9 hour work day. And so if you get in at 6am, you can leave at 3pm. If you come in at 9am, you leave at 6pm. I really like that. You actually work the time that you're there. In my last workplace, everyone takes a break at 10am, then an hour for lunch, then tea at 4pm. With all the breaks in between, it's no wonder people don't leave the office till close to 7 or 8pm. And overtime is the norm isn't it? I like the fact that my work days can end at 5pm. Then I can come home and actually spend the time cooking dinner and hanging out with hubby. For that I am grateful.

Speaking of which, I'd better get going and get the stove burning. hehe.. Hopefully we can have a nice dinner and oh, maybe watch Grey's Anatomy? woot! woot!

First snow, now ice

Well, the temperature is rising. Now we're averaging -1C instead of -15C. I'm so glad. I couldn't take the snow and cold anymore. But even with the rise in temperature, there's still dangerous spots on the roads - Ice! The snow that piled up over the week has started melting. But because it's still freezing point, the melted snow has turned to ice in some spots. One spot is right outside our apartment building entrance. Haiyo.... hubby and I were dancing like weird people coz we were rushing to get to work and as soon as both of us stepped out the building door, we immediately realized that the puddle of water we were standing in had some ice on the bottom. Jiggle, jiggle, wiggle, wiggle before we found our balance again. Lucky I didn't fall on me tushy. Tsk..tsk...

Thanks for those who voiced their concern over my safety. I really appreciate it. It's almost 10pm now and I gotta get to bed. Yes, I sleep very early now. Only coz I need to leave the house by 6:30am. Or else I get stuck in a horrible traffic jam. 45 minutes of driving is good enough for me. I have no desire to extend it to more than an hour. Plus, if I get early into work, I get to leave early too. So that's nice. :)

2007 Snowstorm

Well well well... we saw a historical event here in Ohio. Non stop snow since Tuesday afternoon. It's 4:26pm on Wednesday and it still hasn't stopped snowing. Schools, businesses and universities are closed and I was told by my manager to stay at home. Actually, my colleague and I called each other this morning pondering whether it was a good idea to go to work or not, and we decided that we wouldn't go. Then an hour later the manager called to check and make sure that I was safe at home and not endangering my life by driving on the icy roads. I'm just glad I got the day off. Only the really important people had to still get to work. Non-emergency personnel all stayed at home.

Our cars are stuck in about ooooh, a foot of snow? Somewhere in the middle of the tyres. The snow plowers have been working all day trying to push the snow to one side. But every time they push it, the wind would blow the snow right back on the plowed area. I don't think salt is being put on the streets either. Apparently if salt is put on the snow, the snow will melt but the temperature will make the melted snow icy again. And yup, that's bad.

So with all the snow around, many people aren't celebrating valentine's day. Some florists are delivering flowers, some aren't. As for me, hubby and I don't observe the holiday. It's not because of the non-islamic part of it, but more due to hubby's belief that love should be shown everyday of the year. Not just one day of the year. When we first got together I always got so envious of my friends who received flowers from their boyfriends while I never received anything. But now I've gotten used to it.

Anyway, we're going to go change the tyres on the car so that I can drive safely to work tomorrow. Should've done that yesterday. But we're procrastinators. And who would've thought that the weather was going to get this bad? We thought winter was almost over!! Snow is so much fun to play in but it's horrible to drive in.

Can't wait for the sunshine.

Crazy Snow

Uwwaaaaa it took me 3 hours to get home from work today (it normally takes 45 mins)!!!!

The snow storm was so bad! I've never been so scared driving in my life! So much for the cute new car. I've now realized that the tyres on my new car are the sporty kind. Yeah, sporty - nice to look at, nice to race in, but not good for driving in the snow at all.

We're actually under a snow storm warning. I was told to leave the office one hour early, but huh - as if it made that much difference. My manager actually left at 2pm!! I should've just left right after him. It's a weird kind of feeling for me. Kinda excited that such a huge winter storm is happening(yes, so huge that even hubby got to leave at 3pm and tomorrow his office is closed!!), but what a horrible emotionally tiring drive it was for me. I couldn't see the lines on the roads, the snow was falling so fast that right after a road was plowed, it was covered right away, and wait for it -- I spun out of control and almost hit the railing!!!! Yes, I was perpendicular to the road! I was reading as many ayats I could remember in my head. I almost wanted to stop at the side of the road and give up driving all the way back home. I just wanted to cry!!! But I persevered and continued my 35kmh drive on the icy road and ignoring the other drivers who obviously had snow tyres on their car coz they were going oh, like 60kmh - just a bit more faster than my little zoom zoom.

Stoopid zoom zoom, with stoopid sporty tyres. I was driving so slow I felt like a snail! And after spinning out, and crawling on the 35 miles road (I swear it took 30 minutes to drive even one mile!), I finally reached home and got stuck in the snow that accumulated around the parking garage!!!!!! The stooopid snow plowers were so useless - they didn't even plow the 2 feet snow around our condo area that I got stuck! Nasib baik for hubby. He took out his handy snow shovel and dug my car out. He got in the driver's seat, slammed on the pedal to accelerate and there was my zoom zoom mazda spinning left and right with the back tires still stuck in the snow. Spin and spin and spin like a little fish with its fins stuck in a mouth of a bigger fist. Finally it got out of the foot deep snow.

Finally my zoom zoom was free from the snow. The snow plow came a bit too late.

Finally!!!! After 3 hours and some minutes later I got to cry in hubby's arms while I thanked Allah for keeping me safe and making sure my zoom zoom car was not damaged. Never again!!!!!! Tomorrow hubby's driving me to work in our Accord. Yes, Accord not sporty, but practical.

The roads may be clearer, but the pathway to the front door was still covered with a foot of snow.

First Day at Work

Penat!!!

I woke up by accident at 4am this morning and couldn't get back to bed. I woke up feeling icky too. It was cold last night, so hubby had us use 3 duvets. I actually woke up sweating coz I was trapped under all that duvet! It was just such an uncomfortable feeling. Especially since when I got out from underneath the duvet, the cold was bighting!

Anyway, I took my shower and hubby went down to heat up my car. Then I drove to work. It only took me 45 minutes coz the traffic wasn't heavy. So I got there at 6:50am. Ok, an hour to kill before checking in with the security desk. So I listened to the radio. Bosan giler.... Plus my perut memulas ok. Luckily there was a private bathroom right next to the security desk. Anyhoo... I ended up having to wait for the other new hire coz he was late. He apparently went in through a different entrance so, my manager came to pick me up first and then we picked up the other new hire. We got our pictures taken for the work tag and then off we went for a tour of the office. Ok, it's huge!!!! There are basically four main building.. and they're all connected through a basement. So you can start walking and walking and before you know it, you're entering a different building without realizing it. Anyway, the manager really took us around. I mean, he showed us everything!! Macam over doing it pulak. In fact, we sat in his office going through all the company policies and core values and filling out forms. Then he took us to lunch which was nice and then one of the team leads took over and set our laptops up. Coolness siot... first day dapat laptop dah. Woot Woot

Anyway, the person who supposed to train us actually took an emergency leave and we ended up having nothing much to do while the team lead tried to figure out how to get us to fill up some of our time. She's pretty hyper and I would love to have her as my team lead. Unfortunately she's moving to a different department next week. Oh well. The other members of the team seem pretty nice. Pretty nice bunch lah.

I'm just tired now. The drive home was so long (about an hour) and then hubby wanted dinner. He had cooked rice so I just heated up some of the leftovers. But I think I'd better cook something tonight so that we have something to eat tomorrow. Then it's an early night to bed tonight. Ngantuk sangat....

All in all the first day was really slow. And my car is so dirty now. Boo hoo...... I just washed and polished it yesterday and now it's covered in dirt! So horrid. Oh well....

Oh yeah, I can't log on to blogger from work. Sucks... can't even log on to gmail. SUCKS! They really control which websites you can and cannot go to! So much for the new laptop. :P

Woopiee!

Alright! I just heard from the finance dude and I've been approved for the auto loan AND the special interest rate! Damn, I could've afforded the upgraded version of the car had I known I was going to be able to get the special interest rate. Hmm... I wonder if it's the same rate throughout the whole duration of the loan though... I'd better go ask them that.

Well, off I go to the dealership. If all goes well, I'll be signing the contracts and driving my brand new pearl white mazda3 hatchback home. Eeeeeeeeek! My first car!

Zoom zoom?

I'm looking at getting this car. In pearl white. And black upholstery. Zoom zoom anyone?

I'm waiting for the financier to call back. He's checking out my credit to see if I qualify for the car or not. I do hope I get it. I'm so worried that I'll be charged a 10% APR rate. Apparently there's a 3.9% APR special... but I heard that only people with perfect credit get this rate. Let's wait...and wait...and wait....

Well, anyway, I tested the car yesterday and I think it's the perfect car! It's not too flashy (not by American standards anyway), has good miles per gallon, is safe, and has loads of space! The glove compartment is so deep that you can even put a laptop in it! Well, that's what it says on the brochure anyway. I didn't have my laptop with me when I was testing out the car so I couldn't test it out. But it was horizontally deep.

And I think the whole half auto half manual transmission bit is really interesting. It's basically an auto transmission. But you can switch the gears to the left and push up to go up one gear and then down to down a gear. And you'll see which gear you're in on the dashboard. Cool eh. I think it'll be nice using that to overtake the massive trucks on the roads here. No more wishing that my car would have more power. hehe...

Ugghhh I'd better stop talking about the car. What if I don't get the loan? Or what if I DO get the loan, but have to pay an immensely high interest rate?! How sucky will that be. I'd better go occupy myself with something else. Else I'll get too excited.

Watch out drivers!

Muahahahaaaa I finally got my driver's license. I had to take the driving portion this morning in the freaking cold!!! With snow on the ground!!! I was confident in driving in the snow until the tester said "It's snowing today so be careful. If you slip, it's an automatic fail". Crap...crap...crap... Thank goodness our tyres were new. The last set of tyres we had could not keep us from slipping all over the snowy, icy roads. Other than that comment I wasn't too worried about anything else. Especially since I got the only male tester at the test center. Hehehehee... I liked him - old, sweet man. He made jokes when he opened the door to the testing center for me this morning. All the other testers looked like they would rather be somewhere else - and they were women. I don't know why, but whenever you put a woman in charge of something they get really authoritative. Whenever I check-in at the airport, the women staff members are always so 'kerek'. They give me a harder time and they're waaaaaaaay too possessive over the little bit of power they have. Even the ones at customs. Oh my gawd!!!! Maybe it's just my experience. And you'd think that other women would give me some sort of friendliness sign. We're all women after all. Shouldn't we stick up for each other? Anyway, I'm not dissing all women in certain powerful positions. Just some. Like, women doctors I like... they're more gentle. And women grocery packers are more likely to pack your groceries properly. And they say friendly greetings. Women post workers are horrible!!! They snarl if you filled out the wrong form and rudely tell you to switch to another line coz they want to take a break. Oh well, nuff said.

So yay, I passed my driver's test with some ease. The only points that were deducted for me was for not making a complete stop at intersections and stop signs. Biasalah.... Malaysian driver kan... can't help but creep creep creep until the end of the curb and make the turn. And apparently there are two types of stop signs here. Hubby didn't know about it either. So can't blame me for not knowing. It wasn't in the study guide. The first type of stop sign has a line at the stop sign and then a cross walk at the curb. You're supposed to stop BEFORE the line (stop meaning complete stop where you can actually count 3, 2, 1 in your head). Then you move up to the curb where the cross walk is to check and see if it's clear (again, you gotta make a full stop to check). If it's clear, you can go. The second type of stop sign doesn't have a line where you should stop. In which case you go right to the end of the curb and make a full stop. Check to see if the road is clear and then proceed. I did everything else properly. Oh, and the officers at the test center are all so nice when you pass the test. Everyone's congratulating you. Almost seems like a huge celebration for anyone to pass. Hehe....

Well, I'm just glad I got the proper license. Now I can go get a new car. woot! woot! And next week I start my first day of work. I hope it'll be exciting and challenging. Oh, and I hope the weather gets warmer by next week too. Enuff of this arctic wind already!!!! It's too cold!! I just told a friend from home that I was chatting to her with two pairs of fleece pants on, two fleece sweaters, a hat, gloves and two pairs of socks. Talk about not wanting to turn the heater on for fear of high gas bills! Thank goodness for $5 Old Navy fleece sweaters and sweats!!! They keep me nice and warm. :)

Brrrrrr.......

Mak ai! Terketar-ketar today the whole day!! Check out the weather temperatures for us today!


Temperature arouns -16 degrees C but it feels like -27 degrees C!!! Everytime the wind blew today, I had to quickly cover any exposed flesh. The cold was bighting! Even my bulu hidung felt like it was frozen!! hehehehehehehehe. I've never felt anything this cold before. It's the first time the temperature's been so low. I'm glad now that I won't start work until a week starting tomorrow. At least I won't get the bone chilling wind and snow while driving up to the office. The office is actually nearer to Lake Eirie so when it's cold, it's REALLY cold over there... and the traffic is crazy with ppl driving more slowly than normal. Brrrr....

I still haven't taken my driver's license test. Was trying out the maneuverability test today but hubby got me so agitated. I was trying to argue that we should use the cones, but he didn't want me to use them. What's the point of practising when I can't even learn to judge the edge of the car so that I don't hit the cones?! Today he said we'd go practice tonight at the empty parking lot near the church here. Tapi now he's sat himself in front of the tv to watch the Super Bowl (the american football final) so I doubt we'll be practicing my driving and maneuvering skills.

Videos from home

Today I received a package from home. Mum had packed together a compilation of DVDs from my brother's wedding. I had been waiting for it for a while now and was excited to watch it. Up to this point I've been able to not get too upset or depressed and sentimental about missing out on attending the ceremonies to welcome a new family member into the family. Even during the conversations I had with relatives at home while they were getting ready for the wedding ceremony were upbeat. I never allowed myself to get emotional. After all, it was a happy occasion!

The strong front I had put up to this day disappeared very quickly as soon as I hit the play button on the DVD. I heard the song that accompanied the clip for the nikah portion, and felt a tug on my heartstrings. The song Kenangan Terindah by the Samsons was a song that I've only recently heard and fell in love with. It reminds me of home (even if the song is actually Indonesian). There aren't a lot of good malay songs, and lesser still malay songs that I get to listen to over here. Anyway, I knew I'd get homesick as soon as I watched the many familiar faces on the tv screen, but the song made me even more uncontrollable. The scenes of my family getting ready for my brother's big day, the scenes of my father saying some words for my brother, the scenes of the masjid, my uncles and aunties and the actual akad were so beautiful and familiar. It made me miss home so much. All the hugs, the salams and smiles made me wish so much that I was back home with them. So much for being strong about the whole thing.

Anyway, it was a beautiful ceremony. The decorations were elegant, the speeches eloquent and humorous. My brother got the akad correct the first time and it was funny watching everybody burst out into laughter when the witnesses approved the akad. My brother looked so relieved on camera, his face in a huge smile when he realized he passed the test with flying colors, getting the lafaz correct the first time. Hehe... how nerve racking it is to be the groom!

I do wish though, that the cameraman could have done a better process in editing the video. It's not too bad, but a teeny weeny bit on the amateur-ish side. Some parts are really good, but they could've done just a little bit better. Oh well...

Ooooh now I feel like watching the videos from my wedding. I think I shall spend some time doing that while waiting for hubby to get home from work.