Ninjas STILL can't catch you if you're on fire

6.8 Magnitude Earthquake in Myanmar ... the article only states the distance to Chiang Rai and Chiang Mai itself is around 3 hours away by car. I am blanking on the precise distance, but whatever it was, we were actually able to feel things shuddering lightly under our feet in the office (6th floor) at shortly around 9PM. At first I thought it was just MR kicking the connecting wall of our cubicle unit, but slowly the entire office seemed to realize that Something Was Wrong. Cue the vaguely confused cries of "earthquake?", and then our servers had a slight hiccup and all calls were fucked, which was ace timing as everyone basically dropped everything to file out down the stairs to the ground floor. We milled around for a bit, the smokers happy for the respite and soon enough we headed back in to continue work. It was pretty freaky, but seemed to be a one-off occurrence, though of course this was the beginning of rampant speculation to happen and people to post OUTDATED news reports of the 2006 earthquake on FB (seriously, it's like the French upstairs are unable to read posted news dates, sighhh) ...until we felt more slight wobbling shortly before 11PM. That was also right around my clocking out time, and MR and I were considering trudging down the office again before DI was all "uhh hello, it's all over now wtf, stay inside." And the dude did have a point, so I sent off some credit requests as we log ALL THE MINUTES EVER and this crap plus our server problems from yesterday mean I have some annoying time deficits..... only to then find out that we were closing the office early. The late shift people effectively didn't have to work 2 hours! God, couldn't they have had this bright idea at fricken' 9PM the first time we felt anything? Gah.

This may sound flippant to y'all, but let me reiterate that we were effectively so far away that what shaking we felt really wasn't enough to even damage anything, just disturb people in a country that isn't used to earthquakes AT ALL (EDIT: At least not in Chiang Mai, as I was typing this post at something AM I didn't hear about the one old lady who died in Chiang Rai, nor about the housing damage there.). Floods and forest fires, now those you kind of learn to expect here when you think about natural disasters. I would obviously have been more worried were we in Chiang Rai, but uh. We weren't. It must've been pretty disturbing for people in the way high highrises in BKK though, I imagine.

AND SPEAKING OF BANGKOK-- that's where I'll be headed tomorrow morning! Yet to have packed, I might add, and there's an eaaaaaaarly wake-up for me, awwww fuck.

So that's all from me for now~~

PS: OH AND cheshire_tabby, YOUR MAIL CAME kfhkjfj such a pleasant surprise THANK YOU SO MUCH, BB!! Love the cards, love the butterflies and the note book and also the caramels! Already ate two of the three and totally had to hang up on some incoming calls, as I was smart enough to eat time during work and wasn't expecting just how they'd meld my mouth together XDD. Also I was reading this list of badasses and saw this hardcore POLISH BEAR SOLDIER and had to share the awesome with you. SO AMAZING.

My first week of being back on the job since the 9th of December last year is behind me now and I have got to say that barring getting to see my ladies (and dude, can't forget M, our lone XY chromosome-holder in the group) again, IT WAS A LOAD OF STEAMING SHIT. I thought it was all in my head at first, that I wasn't used to the workload any more, the way the calls seemed to pile up but I counted along and we are back to the level of having a call come in every minute for about 95% of the work day. I am still lucky that most of these aren't the negative yelling-and-insulting-your-intelligence ones, but it is only a matter of time. In the interest of keeping my sanity up, I have implemented the usual coping-strategies without shame again, fuck my statistics: delaying the moment of picking up the phone, spending a bit of the post-call processing time eating snacks and uh, sometimes just hanging up on the callers for accounts that piss me off. These little rebellions are still a drop in the ocean though, since deep in my heart I normally like to follow rules and normally feel very guilty about these things.

We also have a new girl R, who I am still formulating my opinion about, but the current forecast seems to be rough since she pings all my dirty-hippy-backpacker prejudices and that just makes me automatically affect a more disdainful and stuck-up version of who I normally am. I KNOW BACKPACKERS ARE MOSTLY VERY NICE PEOPLE but man the ones that I have talked to that keep yammering about how their way is the only ~true way to experience the REAL Asia just keep getting my hackles up. Also perhaps we are too jaded but I. told me that R also has some pretty naive expectations about her working life here and ahahahaha we'll see. We kind of have an unofficial bet going for how long she's gonna last.

BUT NOW FOR MORE ~*FANDOM-Y NEWS*~:

yuletart reveals went up a few days ago and I can now say that I was behind the following The Hunger Games paper dolls! I remain pretty pleased with how it turned out, and again, many thanks to laliandra and laulan for being my usual art betas! Am not at my own computer at the moment, but I'll put up an actual post soon with the HQ versions as I did make them to actually be playable (well somewhat. At the very least, they're supposed to be nearly A4-sized!). My gift art this year was the following SMOKING HOT CAROLINE from The Vampire Diaries (season 2 spoilers!) by the lovely dualbunny, who was also my own recipient lol. BASICALLY I WAS VERY PLEASED BY THIS YEAR'S YULETART and it remains one of my favorite yearly art fests ♥

Here are also some awesome vids that I have been linked to and have been obsessively rewatching:

Cupid's Chokehold by nel_ani. Hawaii Five-0 Steve/Danny goodness, AHHHH ♥. I need to download this onto my laptop so I can watch it every day for that shot of pure happiness, ahh. Such clever use of the clips to the lyrics, too-- I just keep alternating between cracking up and sighing contently.
Runs in the Family by kaiyote. Supernatural and a total MOOD SHIFT from the previous vid. Fantastic song choice and look at the fucked-up angels and again, excellent use of clips and sharp, rapid cutting. I particularly adore the editing of the "fill me up" (all the sex and in between it all, Cas gorging himself on food) and "knock me up" (ANGELS WILL MESS YOU UP) parts. Also, it reminds me that Misha Collins is fantastic at all those different weary/hopeless/dead tired Castiel!faces.
Sex and Reruns by greensilver. Community and mucho thanks for Lalface for reccing this to me. I cannot say enough that Community is one of the best shows ever and every one should watch it. How can it be so consistently hilarious and touching, creative and zany and still above all retain such a lovely heart? I LOVE EVERYTHING ABOUT IT and this vid just reinforces my convictions ♥ ♥.
Folding Chair by sisabet. Another Community vid, this time focusing on Annie. Lovely song and OH ANNIE, YOU ARE SO AMAZING AND HILARIOUS AND ADORABLE <33. I had the biggest smile after I finished watching this. And Allison Brie is hot, it has to be said.

...I continue to have a tenuous grasp on time management and juggling my responsibilities. Though in my defense I was quite sick from the time of my last posting- that week was basically a wash. Monday sick leave, Tuesday work where started to kind of already feel shitty then, but I dragged myself to work on Wednesday because I was stubborn and wanted to finish a translation. Ended up leaving after less than three hours and spent the rest of the day rolling around my apartment and feeling sorry for myself. Ma did drop by to give me home-made (!) chicken soup and lime + honey to make soothing juice, though. Thursday I called in sick again and went to the hospital for a check-up to find out what was up with my body trying to make life hell for me-- since apparently coughing like it was going out of style and having a fucked voice wasn't bad enough (not like I actually need to use my voice for my job or anything), well! My body decided early that week that it wasn't going to accept most of what I tried to introduce as food to it. In retrospect, probably about 85% of my feeling like crap at work, especially as I was back on Friday again, was due to MY INTENSE FEELINGS OF HUNGER. The end diagnosis ended up being ~acute bronchitis with a side helping of gastro-intestinal fuckery~. But I did finally get around to finding out my blood-group after 22 years of life: I AM A+! Something which was somehow intensely amusing to me. BRB looking at those blood-group personality test thingies now.

I was really nervous about this sickness not being over and done with before my BKK trip that was from last Friday until this Tuesday (especially the food thing, because damn if that would've screwed everything beautiful about BKK time!), but PRAISE THE DEITIES it was all okay. I still maintain the fact that our office is a giant teeming petri-dish for bacteria and this company is absolutely horrible if you want to leave work early if you feel like shit or are actualfax sick. SO MUCH HASSLE INVOLVED, IT IS NO WONDER I WASN'T SICK BEFORE. This was actually my first legit sickness in about 3 years, iirc.

I still feel the vestiges of a cough lurking in my throat right now-- it has reached that insanely irritating stage where you feel like you constantly need to clear your throat every 20 seconds, and you just know that every one around you is secretly hating you because you sound disgusting and you feel disgusting and ughhhhhh.

ALSO THERE ARE ANTS IN MY ROOM AGAIN. WHAT ARE THEY DOING THERE FML AND FUCK THIS STUPID APARTMENT.

Moaaar posts to come (BKK recap! TEH DRAMAZ AT WORK! etc!), I just had to at least get this off my chest lol.

And because I would do anything for dearest Carmen, it would be awesome if you all could just click this link and vote for bifi!

Or at least the willpower to not go down the same road of "well I do have pressing things to do in the 2-3 hours I have after coming home from work past midnight BUT WAIT LET ME READ 20K OF FIC FIRST YES" every damn night. OH WELL, AT LEAST IT IS THE WEEKEND NOW. I survived a week of midnight shift without having to drink a single coffee! I even had a whole day without having to take calls today! Got to attempt and fail to translate 43 not quite jam-packed but very unevenly written and melodramatic Powerpoint presentation slides from German to English in 8 hours instead, and it is extra unpaid work that I will gladly take. Anything to keep me from having to talk to the idiotic callers that are somehow an extra special flavor of thick when it is a Friday.

Last weekend was also our very first new office office-party, and in retrospect that most exciting thing that happened was ........wait, I can't even think of anything besides the fact that a bunch of people seem to had gotten some mild stomach flu from the food, which isn't even exciting and more along the lines of depressing. We had "unlimited beer" though, which led to one of my colleagues (NB) coming up with the following charming statement about me to someone's plus one, said with the sincere belief of the blasted to their eyeballs wasted:
"Isn't her accent amazing?? It's just so American! *makes mock "American" noises to illustrate her point* And I sound so British instead, and sometimes when I hear her talk to clients in English I think that she is just so good BUT OH IT'S JUST SO DREADFUL-SOUNDING BECAUSE IT'S AMERICAN ENGLISH" ...yeah, idek what to say to that.

A lot of things have been happening and I have been remiss in blogging about them, so this weekend I will try to catch up!

Now for randomosity! Some links of Bangkok-related awesome that I have been clicking through during work:
Still-Life in Moving Vehicles ...ever want to see just how amazing Thai cabs can look like? Well then this is the blog for you <3

5 Movies That Offer Eyeopening Views of Bangkok ...some movies that I definitely have to check out. And speaking of Thai movies, I am very vexed that I will probably not get to see Insee Daeng/Red Eagle before it is out of theaters :// IF ONLY I COULD SKIP WORK TO GO SEE MOVIES INSTEAD NEXT WEEK, GODDAMN.

Paolo Bacigalupi's "Windup-Girl" ...waiting for my order to come in from Asia Books and super excited to read this already~~

AND BECAUSE I CAN, this vid somehow makes me really happy:

...Even after numerous repeat viewings I still have not managed to get any more of the lyrics into my brain than what is in the chorus, but the video just never fails to make me smile. Her hair actually looks really cute in that style! And she just looks so happy and is working the hell outta her outfits AND THERE IS SWINGING INTO THE SKY AND TRIUMPHANT FISTS AND THE SUN SHINING ON YOU AND BALLOONS AND JUMPING AROUND WITH FIREWORKS EXPLODING and ssdjkfhjfd <33 How can I not be charmed?? Can't wait to actually boogie to this in a club somewhere, this better be on heavy rotation on MTV Thailand soon!

OFF TO BANGKOK UNTIL MONDAY EVENING! In an act of trying to ensure I will be social and free have decided to leave my laptop behind. But I will probably end up stealing Dad's to watch shows on TV-Dome.net though ahhh. And will be semi-connected anyways thanks to my trusty BB. So this post is kind of pointless, ahaha.

See y'all on the flipside though! People who are expecting mail, I have actually bought envelopes and started filling them. So at my current rate, you will most def get things in ...two months?? Ahahaha oh man, I suck.

AND NEXT WEEK IS LATE SHIFT :(( This is good for me on Tuesday, but generally ugh. I seriously do not look forward to when it's winter and the time-delay extends the working-hours of this shift to be 4.30PM-1AM ;_____;


PS I WONDER HOW FLOODED MY APARTMENT ROOM WILL BE WHEN I GET BACK THOUGH. Accidental death by slipping on tricky water that always seeps in from the rain thanks to weird and shoddy construction? Not a way I want to go!

First: Saturday I got my laptop back and EVERYTHING WORKS and my data from 2010 was completely salvaged and words are inadequate in describing how utterly relieved I felt. It's now almost like I have a new laptop, the com guys added some new programs and I even got Adobe Illustrator added in to the mix besides the Photoshop I explicitly wanted them to put in. Looking forward to puttering with it some more and making it my own alllll over again ♥

Second: BUT what pisses me off to no end is that my computer refuses to recognize my German keyboard, fiddling with the language and regional settings be damned. It makes for some hella weird typing, as the Y/Z switcheroo I can mostly anticipate and correct for, but uh ALL OTHER THINGS like the various punctuation marks are really confusing. I mostly have a 50/50 chance of hitting those ones, which leads to situations like actually having to type out QUESTION MARK in skype chat in lieu of the sign, because that actually took less time. I really hope I can work this out, as the coms at the office all use the German keyboard, and it's just extremely irritating as all my reflex keyboard shortcuts on PS are totally borked. Speaking of which, made some more progress on my BB pic! Still have some small details bothering me on the title picture that I feel I should get over and done with before I start with another one, ahhh it's just so slow working since I keep screwing up my commands :|||

Third: Training on Friday went well, small stupid mishaps here and there not counted... though I seem to be doing alright based on my feedback evaluation thing. I kind of don't trust it, as it seems weirdly high and positive, but I guess I am just still so thrown by how friendly and nice everyone is here? I should've spent the weekend studying up on my responses and the like, but I hope that tomorrow morning before I head in will suffice. Apparently if Training Officer deems me ready, I might start my first 8-hour shift tomorrow! I am mostly nervous and just aughhhh about it, the thought of EIGHT HOURS of those phone calls is kind of daunting. But ahh well, nothing to be done. THINK OF THE CASH MONEY, SELF! Also, I will be moving into my new swank pad tomorrow, right smack dab near work and a posh supermarket and the giant shopping center that has my gym. So, yayyy for that part! It has a teeny-weeny INTENSELY PINK balcony that has a view of the mountains around Chiang Mai, as well as the planes taking off/landing from the airport nearby. What it additionally has is a collection of hideously kitschy fake flowers in vases and creepy bedlinen, but that can be dealt with and the place generally has its own charm~~