The Long Awaited Post

A little bit of an update since my last post on Saturday....

On Sunday, it was really busy at work. There were customers constantly coming to the shoes department and I touched some kid's feet which was wet! ughhh And I didn't even get to do the stuff I needed to do. I only got to escape the shoe department around one hour before closing. Besides that, I also got to meet another new colleague that also studies in Queen Mary~ There's also another girl that studies at QM on our floor. But this guy isn't actually a new staff, he just got transferred to Toys from Menswear. And I bumped into him ytd at uni while I was rushing off for to Dagenham East for my last Team Up session.

On Monday, I was, according to Nia, "very slow". Mainly because I didn't get enough sleep. But at least I made it to my 10am lecture on time! After 2 hours of lectures, I was sooo hungry and I just wanted to have some real food! I brought two pain au chocolat to uni as lunch but I was craving a full meal~ So I asked a few friends in my Advertising lecture whether they wanted to go have lunch and they were all not interested.... So I decided to just go to the library to have my pain au chocolat. But then... so coincidentally, I bumped into Karkai in the revolving door while entering the library hahaha. The first question I asked her was, "Do you want to go have lunch?" kekeke and she said yes! We then took the bus to Westfield Stratford (that day was the 6th day in the row I went there lol)~ We wanted Italian food but couldn't find any nice pasta place so went to a pizza place instead which was quite good. After lunch, went to do some window shopping before I had to head back to uni for an appointment with the Careers department to check my CV. The appointment was okay, got some tips on how to improve my CV which I'll then need to quickly start applying for stuff to do over summer. Ugh the stress.
Anyway, after that I had my Human Resource Management seminar at 4pm which was okay. Last week, the case study we discussed was actually about John Lewis and my lecturer actually asked in class who had previous work experience or part-time jobs and only two people raised their hands (including me). The other guy was an American who shared his experience working in Panda Express lol. And I had to talk about my experience working in John Lewis. lol

After that, I went back to the library and waited for Nia so that we could go to Team Up's AGM. After she came and before we left to go to the meeting, we bumped into Ben and ended up chatting for almost half an hour. We mainly talked about accommodations around uni coz it's something every international student worries about. I am actually planning to move out of my current place... it's a long story regarding why I want to do so, so I'll leave that till next time. But Nia said, I might be able to move in to her flat. Maybe. Slight chance. But hopefully. :)

During the AGM, we had free pizzas~ and I went without any expectations of doing anything besides eating free pizza but ended up being pulled into being an Events Manager for next year! I haven't received any official confirmation about this yet but I think it's something interesting and different~ Nia is running for the position as well (they need 3 people for the role).
My Team Up sessions ended ytd and honestly, I'm so glad it's over. It's not that I didn't enjoy it, it's just that it took up too much of my time and it was quite a big commitment. And I would not do it again next year. So taking on the position of Events Manager instead of a tutor is more appealing to me. Let's wait and see how everything works out. I am just worried I won't be able to cope with everything next year... Being in my 3rd year and needing to work and take on this role and then applying for jobs and stuff... ugh the stress.

During ytd's session, I met another Malaysian! Well, he's British but it still counts. He is probably one of the only people that could immediately tell that I am Malaysian lol. But it's obviously easier for Malaysians to recognise Malaysians. On Monday, after the AGM, Nia and I went to Sainsbury's and while we were at the queue, this guy behind us asked us what language we were speaking and I was like, "English." and he asked, "Where are you guys from? Japan?" LOL
Anyways, it's always nice to meet fellow Malaysians around London~

Putting that aside, let's look back to the fun times I had over the last three months~
Some of these photos were taken in January! That seems so long ago already...

12/01/2015

This was the first meal we (me, Nia, Phuong and Sue) had together during the first week of this semester~ We always end up going to the pub near our uni lol

And I rmb we ordered a sharing platter of lots of fried food and it was so sinfully good.
I miss hanging out tgt, just the four of us~ This semester, because we only have a few of the same modules, I rarely get to meet them. 

And this was a Christmas present Nia brought back from the Netherlands for me~

It was so so so good. Seriously if you haven't tried it yet, try it! Probably one of my favourite chocolates now!

And this is the moisturiser that saved my skin from being dry and flaky over the bitter cold winter.

I bought it in January and I regret not buying it earlier! 

It's quite a big tub so I hope it will last me till next winter.

This is my current favourite eyeliner~ I bought it on Ebay with free shipping! And it's cheaper than my previous Stila eyeliner. I liked the Stila one but the felt tip wore off so I couldnt draw precise lines anymore. This one smudges a bit after wearing it for around 6 hours though.

I really want to try the famous Kat Von D eyeliner but it's so so so expensive....

16/01/2015

Karkai, Keziah and I went to Giraffe in Westfield to have lunch together on a Friday afternoon before I had to go for work.

These quesadillas were so yummy and spicy~

19/01/2015

Lunch with Keziah and Jamie after our Advertising lecture at Polo Bar near Liverpool Street Station.

When our food came, I was so jealous of their full English breakfast. I ordered pancakes with toffee and bananas which didn't fill me up. 

But all our food were slightly burnt because they forgot our order and probably had to cook it in a hurry. 

02/02/2015

Lunch in Westfield again! hahahaha 

But this time at GBK coz Kez had a voucher to redeem a free side (if you can see in the photo, that side of onion rings were so yummy).

I went for the vegetarian option because I love falafels.

After lunch, we even went to Costa to get coffee and finish up our seminar work. 

These photos makes me look like I'm fully enjoying my life LOL 

But that was a lot of money spent on food...... I should probably start restraining myself a bit....

While we were there, Keziah and I kept praising the amazing urban architecture of the shopping centre so we ended up taking a few photos. 

I posted this on Instagram and my mum asked me to take a few more photos for her so a few days afterwards, I did! And all those photos will be in the next post~

Kez and I~ We rarely take photos tgt

06/02/2015

A precious photo of Nia and Karkai~

We were waiting for the bus to go to Westfield. lol you must be thinking, AGAIN?!

It was because I had to go to work and these two ladies wanted to shop~

But they were nice enough to go visit me at work kekeke

07/02/2015

Grocery shopping.

I went in wanting to get bread and one carton of oat milk but ended up with all these items.

I love my chocolate oat milk. 

09/02/2015
Nia needed me to take a photo of her against this wall because she needed a nice photo for her campaign running as Volunteering Office of the Student Union (which she officially is now!).
And I ended up asking her to take photos of me as well kekeke
That day was one of those rare sunny days where the weather was considered warm in London!

After taking photos, we went to Nando's for lunch! with Nia, Keziah and Jamie~

I shared the wings with Nia and they were goooood. We both loveeeee chicken wings.

14/02/2015

Had a romantic Valentine's Day dinner at Pizza Express with two of my colleagues (Hema and Katie) from work~

We were so hungry after work because we all had our lunches quite early at work (we don't get to choose what time we get to have lunch, our managers get to choose). 

Pizzas are always a good idea. Cheese is always good idea.

19/02/2015

First day of CNY and I had to work and wear all black~ I guess that's a first!

I love wearing all black. So I don't mind it. But now I always have an excuse to buy only black clothing lol. I keep saying I need an all-black dress, or new black skirts and tops, for work!

This was at the Malaysian Society's CNY dinner somewhere in Queensway.

I specially took a day off from work to attend this! and also so that I could finish up my Occpational Psychology coursework lol (which I just got my results for it back today; got a first! woohoo)

The food was okay. Not too bad. I wasn't planning to go at first... coz I'm not really close to anyone in the society but then I asked Ben to go with me~ It's hard to make friends with them when I don't ever turn up for any of the activities that doesn't involve food. lol just kidding. I want to get involved more but they always have their stuff at times when I have work... :( 

Mmmmm~ that's my only reaction to these photos.

DumDum is always available at Box Park but they were available at Westfield some time ago (and they're back again for the next two weeks!). They have this small stall near Waitrose so I saw it on my way to work. I went there wanting to just buy two donuts but then the guy told me they were selling 4 for £10 so I bought 4! I thought I might just share them with friends at uni~ And then I told the guy I was just working upstairs in John Lewis and after hearing that, he gave me two of those small heart shaped donuts for free~!!! So then I went and spread the word about how good they were to all my colleagues lol 

Seriously though, their donuts and cronuts are so delicious. They are baked, not fried so they're not greasy. And the fillings in these donuts were so so good. Yeah, the cronuts have cream in between each layer. So amazing. I walked by their stall again today and almost bought some. But i'm trying not to spend so much money now so no donuts for me!

Okay, it's past 2am and I am so tired.

Ytd I fell asleep at 1am with my laptop and lights still on... lol

I don't understand how the weather is still so cold... It's almost April alr! And I hope it won't be too cold when I go for my holiday in less than two weeks' time~ 

Okay, good night~

x

An Eventful Reading Week

Right now as I'm typing this, I'm really tired but I really want to blog and get this post up. I uploaded a bazillion photos onto the blog and separated them into 4 posts because there's no way I can squeeze them into one post. So this is going to be the first post~

I went to work today and it was so busyyy. I was in the shoe department the whole day when I was supposed to be in baby-wear. It's just that the person in charge of shoes gave me a list of stuff to do ytd and asked me get as much done as possible but because we were so busy, I didn't really get much done. I actually hate being in the shoe department. I don't mind replenishing stock, arranging everything and making sure everything is neat and tidy but measuring people's feet and needing to squat down and stand up and look for stock and deal with fussy customers are a pain. I sometimes wish people can just leave me alone... but it's my job so I have no choice.

Nevertheless, I'm glad to be given more responsibility and I'm glad that the more senior colleagues trust me with some tasks. Because normally, all part-timers do are either stay on the tills or just make sure everything is neat and tidy (aka "recovery"). Although I don't mind those tasks but sometimes it's nice to have something different to do.

Also, I agreed to cover a colleague's shift tmr.... so it'll be another day in the shoe department... I always complain to some colleagues that Saturdays are so busy and tiring but they told me that Sundays are worst. So I'll keep my fingers crossed and hope that everything goes well tmr. I'm the type of person that feels down the whole day if one thing (major) goes wrong. For example, last week, a couple came in and wanted a refund for a piece of baby's clothing WITHOUT a receipt!
Let me give an advice to you right now before I continue, please NEVER try to get a refund without a receipt unless you can prove you bought something from that particular store!!! It's common sense not to return something without a receipt and yet some people can be so stubborn and refuse to accept that fact without going down with an argument. And if you know me, I'm not good with arguments. So this couple requested to talk to my manager when I told them they couldn't return this item that they say has shrunk after one wash! So I called my manager over and they argued with him for at least 15 mins while I just continued serving other customers on the till. At one point, they tried to push the blame on me for not being able to return their item! Karma is going to get back at these unreasonable people one day. In the end, they didn't get their refund (hooray!) and my manager didn't talk to me for about an hour (he normally comes around and asks me whether I'm okay every 15 mins. I know, he's weird kekeke but super nice.).

Another example, was when a customer complained to another colleague of mine that I was rude just because I refused to give her some extra fabric. I told her that if we give out extra fabric to everyone, we probably will end up making a loss. and she's like, "Yeah, true, true." and then she goes behind my back and tells someone the total opposite. And my colleague ended up giving her the extra fabric. Ughhhhh. But my colleague came and told me about it and said that she knows that I would be the last person to be rude to a customer and she didn't believe it when the customer told her I was rude. I was like, phewww thankfully all my colleagues are on my side.

Yet another example that happened a few days ago... It was 8pm, the store had closed and it was alr announced twice that the store was closed. And yet, this couple was slowing walking around the shop floor. I thought they were walking towards the escalators but they headed to the toilets instead. So I went over to them saying the store is closed and they said, "Oh, we just need to use the toilet." I was like, "Sorry, but we're closed." They answered, "We're just going to take a moment." I was like, "But we're supposed to have the shop floor cleared." And they before he could say anything more, my manager walked over and said, "Did you want to use the toilet? Okay, you can go, we'll wait for you to come out." I was like, wtf. And then when i was about to walk away from the situation because I was so annoyed, the guy turned to my manager while his gf went to the toilet and said, "Your colleague was being rude to us just now." I immediately turned around and was like, O____O But once again, thankfully my manager was on my side and answered (she's the best at winning arguments), "How was she rude? Was she shouting? What tone did she use?" and all he could say was, "She was being rude by saying we couldn't use the toilets." At that moment, I just walked off because I really couldn't stand being there being insulted by such an annoying person. He should be grateful my manager was kind enough to let his gf use the toilet because she normally starts telling customers that we're about to close 20 minutes before we actually close and she normally gets so annoyed when people linger around the shop floor when we are close. Anyway, when these kind of stuff happens, I try my best to ignore them and forget them but it's not easy.

Anyway, this has just turned into a rant LOL. Let's get back to the photos.....


So.... My reading week for this semester started on the 23rd of Feb till the 29th of Feb. And I was busy the whole week because I signed up to help with a University Taster Day event for the School of Business and Management on Monday and on Tues and Wed, there were UCAS days going on so I helped out too.

I had to lead the students into the lecture hall on Monday and while they were waiting, they showed a  slide show of some photos taken during our social event last year and Phuong's face appeared on the screen! Haha so I snapped a photo of it and sent it to her.

These are a few of the other student ambassadors that helped out at the event~

And they always give out free stuff during these events so I grabbed two of these bags. One for myself and one for Nia~ And on that Monday, they gave out free lunch (sandwiches) and there was a lot of left overs, so I ended up grabbing three sandwiches lol. 

On that Wednesday, after my shift at uni was over, I met with an ex-colleague from John Lewis for lunch at a pub near our uni. She was only working as a xmas temp at John Lewis so we only got the chance to work tgt for a short 2 months. She's a really sweet lady and so coincidentally we live quite near each other~  I actually bumped into her at Westfield ytd as well!

On Thurs, I met up with this young lady dressed in pink trousers... kekeke

...and who has the same obsession as me.... kekeke

Nia, me and another two of her friends were supposed to go to a art exhibition together but one of her friends was not feeling well and couldnt come. So the other friend thought we cancelled since one of us couldn't make it. So Nia and I met earlier that day to sit down for a cup of coffee and catch up on our lives... and we ended up chatting for 2 hours and when it was the time we told her friend we were meeting, we called her but she didnt pick up. When we finally got through to her, she said she thought we cancelled and wasn't ready to go out. LOL We still ended up meeting, but at Westfield instead hahaha

We ended up meeting at Westfield because I made a mistake on the dates of the exhibition... It was actually alr over a month ago *major fail*

So since it was raining quite heavily and we were both hungry and I had to go to work at 4pm, we decided to just head over to Westfield.

But before that, I had to snap a few photos of the Barbiban estate before leaving~

And a photo of the lady in the pink trousers. I really liked her pink outfit~  I can never see myself in a bright pink top and pink trousers. Ever. But it looks so nice on Nia~

The unique architecture of the Barbican estate. 

The exhibition we were supposed to go for was all about the Barbican estate.

It was a very gloomy day though....

When we got to Westfield, of course, we had to hit up the drugstores first before we did anything else lol But because I was trying to save money, I didn't buy anything. While we were there, Nia's friend Diva finally arrived! 

After that, we decided to have Thai food for lunch at Busaba Eathai~ 

This photo of me and Diva was taken before I learned how to switch off the "warm" setting on my camera.... so some of the photos turned out very orangey.... but i blame the lighting in the restaurant as well!

And being a typical Asian, we couldn't stop taking photos and the waiter decided to photobomb us lol

And then our foooood arrived!

Let me tell you, I will definitely be going back to Busaba Eathai! Their food are so good~

I actually have been to two other branches of theirs with Veronica before this. 

The waitress told us this was supposed to be their spiciest curry on the menu but it wasn't spicy at all 

It was more like a soup's consistency though..... But I loved the bamboo shoots in it~

Som Tam~ After working in a thai restaurant, i'm slightly more familiar with Thai food lol

This was so so good. Spicy though. Nia couldn't stop eating this dish!

We finished every last drop of its dressing. 

And lastly the spicy stir-fry prawns were delicious as well~ The sauce was so good. Kinda like a sambal. Loved it!

After our meal, took a few more photos before I had to head to work. And they visited me at work as well~ kekeke

This photo was obviously not taken on my camera... And I am aware that my hair looks a lot lighter in colour but I swear I didn't do anything to it since I dyed it last summer. It's just the lighting and the camera that fails to set its exposure right.

I am planning to cut a few inches off my hair though and then re-dye it~ Hopefully it'll happen during my Easter break! 

Okay, it's 3am and I need to sleep in order to be able to get through tmr without giving people the wrong shoes. 

I'll be back (hopefully) tmr with another post!

Good night~

x