The Swindler and I

And it all started with this DM I received in my IG...

Come on lah... this trick is too old lah. A handsome, young guy just randomly sends me a DM to compliment me together with a super cheesy and cringey sentence? The moon is drunk and I am drunk?? Really??

I wanted to just ignore, block and delete. But then my sister suggested that I send a sarcastic reply and that gave me the idea to initiate a short play... so I typed the following and the rest of the story followed....

And then he went offline 🤣🤣🤣

I'm Back!! or I'm Back??

It's been 2.5 years now since I last published a post. So many life changing things happened since 2020...  some good but mostly bad and some traumatic.

Now when we talk about year 2020, all that people will remember is that Covid-19 happened. The pandemic that changed the WORLD! People were forced to stay indoors for weeks and some months. Wearing a face mask now is as necessary as wearing an underwear. Almost everyone's nose have been violated at least once. So everything bad is somewhat related to C19. And now that we're in year 2022, C19 is still among us and every country is trying to recover from the impact it has caused.

About the good... the BEST thing that happened to me that changed my life was my daughter, Lilo aka Lee Lo.

She's a mix of Pomeranian and Toy Poodle. She was born on 10 March 2020 and I brought her home on 30 April 2020 when she was 6 weeks old. No, I didn't buy her... my friend, Richvan, gave her to me. Being on lockdown and working from home has given me all the time I needed to train and bond with her.

All my life, prior to having Lilo, I was afraid of dogs... no matter big or small. What made me decided to say yes to having her... I don't know. She was like God sent to me to be my daughter in this life. She's brought a lot of joy to me and my family. I am so blessed that she's easily trained and well behaved. We can leave her alone at home uncaged and not be coming home to a mess. She's not easily tempted with food and she won't run wild when we let her out of the house unleashed. She won't bark unnecessarily and definitely do not bite. She will not simply poo and pee in the public, thus making it easy for us to bring her out. Most people will think that I spoilt her but when she was growing up and misbehaved badly, I spanked her... not the light tap on her bum, but a real hard spank.

Her most outstanding features will be her ears and the most frequent heard comment was that she looks like a teddy bear. The thing about Lilo is that she can be quite a diva... so much at times that I think she thinks that she's human. She don't mingle with other dogs, definitely don't like them sniffing her bum. She hardly looks at the camera, so it's very hard to get her to pose for a photo.

So other than life with Lilo, my cycling team is now updated...

New logo, new team T-shirt and some new faces...

Same amount of pedaling but more laughs and more food. It is never about how fast and how far we cycle. It has always been about who we cycle with and that made a whole lot of difference.

I really would like to keep my blogging a bit more consistent from now on and try not to disappear for too long. Till I get my next inspiration....

The Prank Queen Strikes Again!

9 January 2020 was Aless's last working day in Kotra. In the past, I've done quite a number farewell pranks to some colleagues who were leaving Kotra... and that was during my days when I was still there. Most of them thought that these pranks would end when I leave and cockroach letter prank was my farewell prank to them. So now that Aless was leaving, though we were still frequently in touch, she never guessed that I would come back to deliver the prank.

So lo and behold.... my MASTERPIECE...

Her ride was all chained up and locked with 2 combination padlocks and 2 key padlocks. In order for her ride to be set free, she had to clear 3 stages....

First stage : Complete the Black Bag Dance.

Second Stage : Every Time Rich = Number for the combination padlocks. 

Third Stage : The key is at Apple's White Horse's Leg.

Now... her reaction was suppose to be videoed by Sharon and Apple but unfortunately, she discovered this on her own without their knowledge. So, no video footage. But the funny thing was when she saw her car, she didn't realize that it was her car and thought what happened to this person's car... so unfortunate. Only when she looked at the number plate, she realized that it was her car.

So next I will only share the Black Bag Dance video and not the other details on how she finally unlocked her car.

With this, we will now considered her blessed and her future undertakings will be great.

So Aless... if you're reading this, please know that I love you and wish you all the best in your future undertakings. May you be stronger and always happy. I believe that you will do great in your new career path and you will excel to greater heights. Remember that we are always here for you no matter what the weather is.

The As

Welcome Year 2020!

As the clock strikes at 12.00am, it marked the end on 2019 and hello 2020. HAPPY NEW YEAR, everyone!

It's been awhile since I've sat down and focused on updating my much neglected blog. On the first day of 2020, I intend to reset and reboot most of the things that I enjoyed doing in the past but then slowly neglected them due to my mental state and shifts in my priorities.

Before I talk about my year 2020 aspirations, let me summarize and wrap up my 2019.

The most emotional part of 2019 was when I decided to leave the company that I've been working in for the past 9 plus years and to start fresh in a new place. My decision was somewhat shocking to some of my colleagues because they thought I would never leave (despite of all the things that I have to put up with) just because I was already there for so long. To some, it was about time I made this decision and wished me well.

It was an emotional decision because I had to leave my team of promoters and some of my friends behind. I hate saying goodbyes and I really sucked at it. But it was a decision I had to make for the sake of my own mental health and for the sake of my family. It may sound over exaggerated, but really... it is not and this picture says it all...

So when I felt a big part of me is dying and even my husband could feel me dying, I told myself that it is time.

From the time I tendered my resignation letter, office relationships were once again put to the test. My life experiences have taught me this...

• A colleague may not be your friend.
• A friend may not be a good colleague.
• Some colleagues will become your friend.
• And there are some who have to stop being your colleague in order to become your friend.

When I understand this, I become thankful for those who became my friend and not lose hair over those who have proven that they are just colleagues and now my ex-colleagues. Some I've known for 9 years are still only my colleague and some I've just got to know less than a year have become my friends.

So for those who made my journey in Kotra Pharma a happy and memorable one, I would like to thank you for the memories and here's to you...

That's a wrap for my 2019 and let's move on to my year 2020 aspirations.

Here are the things I would like to do and achieve in 2020:

1. To update my blogs, this one and my food one, more actively.
2. Read more books 📚📚... at least 1 book a month. 
3. To cook at least once a week... 😅already sweating when I type this.
4. To bake at least once a month.
5. To cycle more 🚴🏻‍♀🚴🏻‍♀... at least twice a week... and then to accomplish 1 ride up to Fraser's Hill with the team.
6. Lose 10kg of weight... 😫 the toughest one of all.

Well... it may be tough but it's not impossible. Besides, there are 2 person that inspired me a lot and by seeing their progress has just proven the point that when there's a will, there's a way.

My inspiration... Victor & Dason
(My brother in-law and his twin brother)

Let me share with you their before and after photos...

Their weight loss journey was really inspiring and it was a journey that I've witnessed with my own eyes. So here's BIG shout out to you both, Victor and Dason! 

Before I sign off for today, I would like to wish you a very Happy New Year and may 2020 be a happier, healthier and prosperous year for you and your loved ones. 

It's been way too long...

It has been awhile since I wrote something in my blog...

I started this blog when I left my previous job and was sitting at home thinking and planning my next career move. My husband was away for training and I was home alone with too much time in my hands... And that was 10 years ago.

Back then, I just wrote whatever that came to mind and whatever that I wanted to share. 

As time goes by, I slowly forgot why I blog and the joy I found in blogging.

For the past few years, I would always have something in mind that I wanted to share or talk about. But when I start typing my thoughts out, I also started to over think... whether I should share this, whether anyone would even read this... and then, I just saved it in the Draft and never looked at it again.

So before I started this post, I just deleted everything in the draft folder and just typed anyway.

In case you didn't know, I also started a food blog called Fantastic Food and Where To Find Them. Again, I stopped writing elaborate food post in that blog and just shared them on my food Page on FB with the same name.

It's about time that I start to do the things I love again... I hope this post will be a great kickstart for me.

Who cares if no one reads my stuff... it's suppose to be an open diary anyway... for me to read the stuff I wrote before and laugh about it myself.

I will start blogging again... this is a promise I make to myself.

See you soon.

Social Media Fraud Alert!! (Part 4 - The Finale)

Before you go any further and in case you missed the previous parts of this story, these are the links to the previous parts...

Part 1  /  Part 2  / Part 3

If you have been following this story and is up to date on what has been happening, you can now proceed. This is the grand finale to this story...

Once again I didn't expect that I would have enough contents to have Part 4. A few hours after Part 3 was published, the following came in...

The GIF image was a bit unexpected... but it does look like flowers over a grave. So creepy! At this point, I was beginning to get bored with his text messages and even felt lazy to respond. 

My husband even got tired of this and asked me to stop responding to him. My brother and a few friends were also worried of my safety and asked me to stop playing with him as it is to my disadvantage because he knows how I look but I have no idea the real face behind that handsome profile picture. I do think that they are right but I need to end this in style.

2 days later, he sent an early morning text and then followed by an audio file. I was so afraid to open it by myself, so I waited until I've reached the office and played the audio file in the presence of my colleagues.

Click on the following link to hear what he actually sent me...

This was the most cringe moment I have ever experienced. I didn't even have to wait until it reaches the chorus to stop the audio file. It's so cheesy!! Michael Learns To Rock? Really?!

And yes, I decided to lie about being in Seoul, Korea just to avoid him for awhile and have an excuse not to respond to him. That photo was a genuine photo I took in Korea but not in Seoul but in Busan... last year.

Then he asked for a photo with me in it... so to make it more believable, I sent one of my Busan trip's photo that has Korean signboards in the background. I also sent another photo with my husband in it and to make sure it looks legit, I chose a photo from my Seoul trip but wearing the same shirt.

And after that last Hello, I actually blocked him out for awhile.

And today I decided it's time for the grand finale... 

And if you noticed, the profile picture in the top corner of this screenshot has gone missing. I think he blocked me out after the last double blue tick you see in the above screenshot.

And this is the end to this story.

Once again, ladies... please be very careful who you befriend with. Don't be friends with random strangers whose real face you have never seen in your life. Don't ever let these scammers think that women are such an easy prey.

Social Media Fraud Alert!! (Part 3)

It's been 2 weeks since my last post and a few of my friends have been constantly asking me about Part 3. I didn't expect that there would be a Part 3 because it all depended on the text messages. So when I published Part 1 and Part 2, I thought he would somehow get to know about it and all the crazy text messages would stop. 

But crazy enough, they did not... so let Part 3 begin!

As mentioned at the end of Part 2, I sent him a test message to see if he will respond...

The tone of the messages sounded really different from his previous ones. So I thought he's brushing me off already. But then the next day came... so did the messages.

I was indeed outstation for work. But his messages was not really making sense and that day's messages just ended like that. Then it started again on the following day.

Romantic message that can only be sent via email? Sounds more like a virus loaded email to me... And then, the tlc messages started again (In case you're wondering... tlc means tender, loving, care). So the day ended with me sending another test message.

By now it has become a bit of a bore because he's no longer following the usual time pattern and his messages always stopped abruptly.

The messages that came the following day was a bit more interesting...

My reply messages in the beginning was a bit blunt coz I was really busy and tired with work. Part of me just wanted to stop all this bulls**t messages but another part of me wanted to see how long this could go on.

So after this part of the message, I decided to test his Korean language since he mentioned in Part 1 that he was still learning the language.

Learning a language via Google Translate? He seriously expect me to believe that?

After that incident, it went quiet for a full day. Since I needed content for my Part 3 post, I decided to text him first...

The messages were so short and cold. So I thought he's lost interest and left it as that. However, the next day I was woken up by my phone ringing. When I reached for my phone to see who was calling me, I saw this... 

Instead of picking up the call, I just decided to ignore it till the ringing stopped on its own. And when I did not answer the call, it just ended as that. No messages came in after that nor days after. I too made no attempt to trigger anymore messages because it was becoming pretty boring.

And just when I thought I would conclude this whole story with Part 3... this came in today...

And the messages ended here for now. But if the messages do continue days later, I do have a plan up my sleeves. Let's just wait and see.

If any of you have any comment of any sort after reading the whole story, please feel free to leave me a comment.

Social Media Fraud Alert!! (Part 2)

Have you read Part 1? If not, please read it before you continue with Part 2.

If you're done let's continue...

On the same evening as I was on my way home, a mutual friend and also my ex-colleague, called me to ask if I knew this person whom I recently added as a friend on my Facebook. I went on to ask her if she sent him a friend request first (as he claimed in the text in Part 1) or vice versa. She confirmed that he sent her a friend request first and she accepted seeing they had mutual friends as well. She even told me the he tried to call her twice the night before but she did not answer the call. I told her that he was a scam and asked her to unfriend him. By this time I was really determined to expose him on my blog.

I wanted to check if the fish was still on the hook after all that geography and musical scare... so I sent him a test message...

The fish is still on the hook!

Right after this part of the text message, I opened my laptop and started my search for the real owner of that face because I'm 100% sure the face belonged to someone else. I did a search on Google Images using his profile picture...

The ever dependable Mr Google came back with some results and when I checked each search result, I found a LinkedIn profile...

I continued my search to see if this face really belonged to this Kenneth Ang... I went back to Facebook to search for a Kenneth Ang and I found him! The face REALLY belonged to this Kenneth Ang, who is also the Founder of the New Shanghai Group.

While going through his FB profile, I noticed that this Kenneth Ang and I have a mutual friend. So I texted this friend of mine to validate his identity and he confirmed that this Kenneth Ang was the real McCoy. Since he was such a successful businessman, I looked him up on YouTube too.

Let me present to you the owner of that handsome face, Mr Kenneth Ang:

I also found out from my friend that this was not the first time his face was being used by scammers. In fact, apart from the profile I showed you in Part 1, this unfortunate guy's face had been used MANY times...

So, people... please check your Facebook account again and see if you have any one of the above in your Friends List. If you do, I'm sure you know what to do. I'm not sure if the person behind all these fake profiles are the same or a syndicate. Please be very careful and do not accept Friend Requests from strangers... even if you have mutual friends. It would be like giving you house keys to a thief.

And for you Mr Kenneth Ang (if you're reading this), I would suggest you lock your Facebook account and confine it within the view of your family and friends to avoid further damage to your handsome face.

The story didn't end there... the episode continued the next day...

By this time, I already know the real owner of that Profile Photo. And if you noticed, his command in English has changed too. After some casual talk, I decided to throw him the carrot...

Whoah... Talk about desperate!! That escalated fast. I've heard of love at first sight... But love at first text? Seriously?? Now wait for it....

THERE!! The key sentence appeared! Did you see it? "Am planning to invest in Asian country" part? Yup... it's all about the $$$. Really... there is NO SUCH THING as Love in First Text. If a lady is easily moved by those sweet words, she would have fallen for his trap. I'm sure it would have progressed to him asking to bank in money into his account.

So ladies... once again I would like to stress my point to you about befriending strangers... especially the ones with handsome/pretty faces. These scammers will always start by being friendly, then caring, then sweet and so on. If you're lonely or emotionally wounded, please make friends with people around you and talk to your family. Please don't turn to social media for a solution to your problem. There are many bad people out there!

On a side note... while I was having the above chat with scammer number 1, a second contestant came in...

To protect my mutual friend's identity, I had to delete out her name. I texted my friend to check if she knew this person. She told me that he was a friend's friend and asked me to ignore this request because he is indeed a scam.

Real people with pretty faces, successful and rich will never send random Friend Request to people they do not know nor seen before!

The conversation ended there when I came home to post Part 1. As I was drafting this Part 2, I texted him to see if he would respond. If I didn't get any response from him, then I'm pretty sure that he's aware of my post.

One and a half hour later... he responded. Let's see if he is really dumb enough for me to have a Part 3 to this story.

Thanks for your time to read this. Please help me to share it with your friends to warn as many people as we can.

Social Media Fraud Alert!! (Part 1)

The purpose of my post is to warn people about a fraud that I have recently encountered. However, I think he is the unlucky one to have picked the wrong person... ME!

On Tuesday (18 April 2017) morning, I received an FB Friend Request from a stranger. And when I receive such requests I would usually click into his profile to see more details and it looked like this...

I also noticed that he had common friends with me, a few of my ex-colleagues. I usually do not accept people I don't know nor seen before into my Facebook. This time I decided to accept because I saw Incheon, Korea, and I was telling my friend that maybe I could practice my Korean language with him. People... don't be easily deceived by their profile picture. Real people with face like this don't need to do random FB Friend Requests okay.

Immediately after I accepted his Friend Request, he sent me messages via the FB Messenger

Till this point I really thought he wanted to be friends and I was disappointed that I wouldn't be able to brush up my Korean after all... And so the messaging for that day continued like this...

Still sounded dodgy so I did not let my guards down for even a moment. I just wanted to see how far this goes. When I got home after work that day, I even showed my husband the whole chat conversation... so in case some of you are wondering... Yes, my husband is fully aware about this!

Then next day came... the messaging started again.

Whoah... when he asked for my Whatsapp number, I really did hesitate for a long time. But I wanted to reel him in to see what he's got in his little back of tricks... so I gave him my number. (Sorry... I had to blur out my number here.)

And just as expected, whatsapp messages from him came in immediateley.

I'm impressed... he even made it looks legit by using a UK phone number. All my answers to him are true and not made up but was very careful with what I say.

The next day, whatsapp messages came in again like clockwork...

I even included photos to make him think that I'm really interested in this whole conversation with him.

Later that day, the messaging continued...

Wow... up till now, he really sounded like a real caring guy. Sad to say but some girls or ladies could have been easily drawn in with all that attention. Check the "Dear"s and the "Angel"s that he's been using. Those were really my goosebumps moments.

Now the next day was a more exciting day coz you could see the London Bridge Falling Down 😜

Jeng... jeng... jeng.... And so the song begins...

Woohoo!! You're the only one I care for? Because I want your happiness? At that time, I was having lunch with my girl friends and we were having a ball reading this!

Now be ready for the next part... if you're not good with geography, I suggest you have Googlemaps on the standby...

By this time, we were laughing our asses off!! OMG... he didn't do his homework!! So, people.... please don't trust people blindly. Go do some research and the easiest way is to ask Mr Google!!

Then all of a sudden, he announced that he have closed his FB account...

And when I tried to go deeper, he said he had to go take a shower... We translate it as... he need to go do his homework about Musicals.

And by the way, I checked using my FB account, he seemed as though he really closed his FB account. But he actually didn't coz he's still there when we used another FB account to look him up. I think he just blocked me. 😂😂

That's all for Part 1... I'll continue Part 2 tomorrow. Yes... there's more to this. So, stay tuned!