Nice things are often nicer when they are totally unexpected. This week, I was rewarded with ‘durian runtuh’. Though this rumour had gone on in the office grapevine for the last couple of weeks, it had finally happened. Syukur alhamdulillah and hooray!
As a newcomer to the company, I am truly grateful and blessed with this pleasant surprise. Semoga rezeki ini diberkati Allah dan dipanjangkan selalu. Amin..
This past week has been full of meetings. Kat Qatar ke, kat Malaysia ke, sama aje, tak abis2 meeting. But, there are major differences between meetings kat Malaysia dengan meetings in Qatar. The obvious one is that people here love to talk. They can talk and talk and talk. Suka sangat nak bagi idea or opinion. No matter how silly they may be. This, I can still bear. The one that I absolutely cannot tahan is when these people all talk at the same time, not willing to listen to others, and the best thing is that they always think they are right. Oh yeah, let’s not forget how they jump when someone else tries to challenge their points. Mak oi, punya lah defensive, the word kritikan membina memang tak wujud kat sini. Since no one is listening or willing to accept other people’s ideas, as a result, discussions can be repetitive, going round and round in circles, hence unproductive and inefficient.
My boss tries hard to engage the staff by having a bi-weekly divisional meeting. But lately, he has purposely not turn up to these meetings, forcing people to take turns to chair it. Things have really gotten out of hand since this happened. Disorganized, unstructured and repeat cerita2 yang dah basi. Imagine, I’ve been in this company for five months, and I’m still seeing the same items in the minutes of this bi-weekly meeting carried forward from the first meeting that I attended five months ago. I would love to shake everyone off their deep slumber, but how the hell will I be able to do that single handedly? Jangan2 I’m the one that’s slowly blending into one of them instead. That, would be the day…!!
Two consecutive weekends spent at the beach. My cousin even commented in my Facebook, you guys simply love going to the beach or is there nothing else to do?? Well, she obviously hasn’t lived in Qatar!
Last weekend, we headed to Zikreet beach. It is located 1.5 hours away from Doha, on the way to Dukhan. Some Malaysians had posted this supposedly nice spot on the Malaysian Qatar forum. The pics looked nice, so we thought we’d give it a try. The recommended spot required us to go off road. Relying fully on our borrowed GPS, off we went on the bumpy rocky ride. Passed some camels on the way, and footsteps of ostriches can be seen on the ground. But nope, we never reached our intended destination in the end. Suffice to say, we gave up.. We did however stop for a short picnic of macaroni goreng and after the kids have had a brief dip in the sea, we headed home.
Yesterday, another attempt for the beach. This time, the famous Sealine Beach, near Mesaieed. Convoy 6 kreta. Only half an hour away from Doha, this beach is situated at the start of a beautiful desert which spans towards the border of Saudi Arabia. Overlooking the dunes, the public beach was rather crowded on a Friday, but we managed to find a vacant hut. While the kids had fun swimming in the sea and the mums busy with the picnic food, the dads had all disappeared into the nearby dunes. Though our Patrol has an excellent reputation for the dunes, Hubby on the other hand, is still an amateur when it comes to duning. After being gone for over an hour, I realized that I had missed a lil adventure i.e. Hubby & friends got stuck in the dunes with the tyres sinking halfway through. After a couple of failed rescue attempts, they finally got rescued by another Patrol. I am positive I would have been panicking if I was there but hey, take this as Dune 101 as there’ll be many more dune adventures in the future.
What time is it? Summer time!! This seems to be my kids’ favorite phrase cilok-ed from the High School Musical 2 which by the way, they can never get bored with, even after watching it for the 135th time.
Summer hols are here and I hardly have any activities lined up for the kids. Last weekend, we bought them bikes. Sorang nak, tiga-tiga lah dapat. So all 3 will be happily biking around the blocks in the evenings, with the maid running after them. Apart from that, swimming or rather berendam in the pool, has become almost a daily activity. So yesterday, I decided to call one swimming teacher which my friend’s wife recommended. So kalau takde aral melintang, the kids will be starting their private swimming lessons next week.
The best thing about summer in Doha is that the roads are sooo lengang in the morning. Nowadays, it takes me 20 mins to get to work, half of the normal time. Actually, kalau takde speed cameras I suspect I can even get to work faster. But I wouldn’t take that risk with the unbelievably high penalty charges slapped by the Murur. We were busted once while we were still using the rented car, a 500 riyals fine for speeding! One of the Malaysian guys we heard, got a 6,000 riyals fine for beating the red light. So nope, no way I’m gonna risk myself getting fine.
Hopefully by August Hubby will be able to take leave, and we can go for a short holiday out of Qatar. Of course by then, harap2 I won’t already be stuck with the business planning cycle. Till then, we shall be enjoying the summer heat (NOT!) and the summer sales!
