I am really looking forward to the servicing and MOT-ing of my car tomorrow. Well, that will be the first service and MOT since I bought the car back in July 2008. A whole seven months and I have never driven a car for that long time until a service is needed. When I was working in Malaysia, I had to service the car I was driving about every 4 months and the shortest being 2 months.

At the moment, I know nothing about the condition of my car but I will, after tomorrow. I am taking it to one of the main Ford dealers thinking that it would be better handled. Part of the reason is also the promotion that ends tomorrow. Next time, I believe that I will be looking for independent garages unless main Ford dealers have better offers.

The main difference between independent garages and main dealers is the equipment. Main dealers normally have proper car lifts, better knowledge on specific type of cars, better time management and most definitely, the parts they provide will be the certified ones. Indeed, the charges are sometimes shocking but I believe that it is kind of worth it if you can afford it. Independent garages rely on trust and the relationship but you never know that you might find a good deal with the main dealers.

While I was in Malaysia, my mum always told us (siblings) not to eat too full, just 80% would be good enough. Well, that is quite true because the feeling of eating too full is so uncomfortable. Since I am making my own meals most of the time now, I choose to eat a reasonable portion of food and a mixture of fruits and yogurt after each meal. After, the meals that I am making for myself are certainly not as good as what Mee prepared for me in the past. Hence, the fruits and yogurt are there to provide me a good balance of diet.

The fruits that I normally consume are apples, nectarines, bananas, grapes and any other fruits that are on promotion. Have you heard of mulberry? Hmmm… not the fashion Mulberry. I have only heard of blackberry, cranberry, blueberry and raspberry but not mulberry. Apparently, Mulberry trees can be easily grown in European countries as well as US. However, I find none the supermarkets around this area. Anyway, I do not really keen on berries kind of things but I must say that they are expensive. Mee likes them though especially strawberry.

When I first bought my car, Mee accompanied me to collect it. At that time, there was this huge blackberry tree, full of blackberries of course, at the back of the garage. Mee almost plucked all the blackberries but I stopped her as we did not know the source of it. If allowed, I believe Mee would have taken the whole tree home. If Mee and I got a backyard of our own, Mee will most probably grow some berry trees.

I was quite busy this morning, having to rush a report and then trying to clear some of my tasks. I met a lot of other colleagues and talked a lot too as I needed to understand the things that they are trying to do as well as the things that they are doing now. Yesterday, I sent an email to obtain some feedback from ILP users. ILP stands for individual learning plans. However, I have received negative feedback and hopefully, as more feedback coming in, I will be able to evaluate the usability of the ILP system.

Currently, the customer service department is looking forward to receive payments from students and thus, I need to understand the hardware needed as well as what they need to achieve at the end of the day. Surprisingly, I met some of my old ‘friends’; good old electronic cash registers. After all, I used to work as an ECR support. The ECRs that we have here are mid-end Casio ECR. However, they are just using it for collecting cash which only uses 20% of what the ECRs are capable of.

Well, I was quite enjoying the talking to other staffs but at the same time, I felt familiar yet strange. Familiar because I was doing similar things all the time during all my previous works and in fact, I really miss doing support. Strange because I have not been doing this that frequent. Indeed, I also work as a support now but most of the problems can be solved by sitting in front of my computer.