work, marriage and ...

today i went down to a job agency for an quick interview ... it was quite strange ... stupid you may say, but one of the questions i asked the interviewer was if they had anything against married women ... maybe i'm over reacting but reactions I have personally come across as well as news that I have heard hadn't really empowered me with faith of employers ...

recently someone posted on a forum i visit that one employer actually asked her to sign an agreement not to get pregnant within the first 12 months of employment ... so there you go ...

I also had to write my anwers to some "philosphy" questions based on Sun Tzu's Strategy of War (in this case employment/ career) ... interestingly the person was quite surprised to recieved one page full of my answers ... i am longwinded at times but there is nothing more I like then to debate philosphy or general questions (trust me, i excel in this area when it comes to GP). Actually it was FUN to write about it ... one question was "how important is job security to you?" I wrote, "Job Security is important to some extent, to cover basic needs and neccessities. However, to pursue passion and interest, there is no guarentee of job security."

I would love to write more, but there is 10 questions to complete. I would have added, "While it may seem as a trade off between passion/ interest and stable monetary returns, job security is actually just an illusion. Basically it ends up as there is no real job security, only stability of income for a limited period." But i doubt that would get me a job with any employers.

So how did it go? it was a bit sad, but true. I am looking for administrative based jobs, but I am out of touch for the past 5 years. But frankly speaking, how out of touch can I be when I have to deal with paper work every day anyway? Travel desk? not an issue. Presentations and Reports? I do them all the time! Personnel and HR procedures? how hard can it be to follow? Tracking for paperwork, inventory and stationery? Boring but doable.

am i that unemployable? *sigh*

stupid bugs ...

sigh ... now my chilli plants are infested with whiteflies ... going to blast them one more them tonight with soapy water ... my plants dun seem to be able to take the commercial bug spray ...

i found 2 mealy bugs on my kalachoe baby plants so i blasted the plants with the bug spray then took a tissue paper to squash them to death (just in case the bug spray didn't work) ... I also poured boiling water over the "infested" soil where i suspected them to be hiding ... maybe i should do that 1 more time tonight in case the bugs managed to escape the first time ... maybe i'm excessive but these bugs do nothing but suck life out of my plants ... parasites!

my japanese roses are blooming very nicely ... the single petals plants i have yellow, pink and orange ... beautiful! now am waiting for them to grow stronger (somehow i noticed the plants with orange/ salmon colored flowers are the most aggressive growers) and hopefully will provide me with some relief of colors on my balcony!

my climber ...Mandevilla x amoena 'Alice du Pont' but one pet name for it is pink allamanda ... it's suppose to be a PROLIFIC flowering climber but look at mine and it's BARE ... so i nip off the shoots for 2 reasons ... to stop the plant from concentrating all its resources on producing more leaves so that it can put some for flowers ... and also to make the plant branch out ... now i have 4 vertical shoots growing parallel ... it's not really covering my net that i've put up for it ... I've tried threatening it by saying if i don't see any flowers, i'll grow morning glories instead!

According to http://www.floridata.com/ref/m/mandev.cfm,

Mandevilla is a tender woody vine much beloved by gardeners in warmer climates. It provides a nonstop bounty of huge pink trumpet shaped flowers shown off against attractive evergreen foliage. The very showy flowers have white and gold throats and are up to 4 in (10 cm) across and arranged in racemes (flower clusters). Mandevilla blooms heaviest in summer and sporadically throughout the rest of the year. This vine's fuzzy young stems twine around supports, eventually scrambling to heights up to 10 ft (3 m). The handsome leathery leaves are dark green, up to 8 in (20 cm) long and 3-4 in (7.6-10 cm) wide. Given adequate care, mandevilla is pest free and fast growing.

So what am i doing wrong *cry* ....

Morning glory? the purple one? nope ... actually it's not even morning glory ... according to this malaysia website, it's called "Railway Creeper". A twining herb, very common in Malaysia, establishing itself on railway embankments, roadside and other similar places. The leaf is cut into five pointed lobes. The flowers have a purplish tinge. Grown from seeds.

Morning Glory come in an array of colors and while looking similar, looks like this

grows fast, flowers fast and die fast ... good for committment phobic like me ... found this cool site that shows the opening and closing of the flower ... short life!
http://sunflower.bio.indiana.edu/~rhangart/plantmotion/flowers/morningglory/morningglory.html

Irc ...

IRC - Internet Relay Chat ....

To think i'll be celebrating my 12th anniversary as a IRC-er end of this year ...

today i happen to meet some of the old timers ... people i've met in my first 3 years of IRC-ing ...

i was so ... HAPPY !!!! it's was just an event and my boss asked me to attend ... and since my dearest hubby is going so why not ...

So first i saw was SIM ... my little brother in the IRC world ... then i saw GIM, my erm ... 4th or 5th hubby in the virtual world ... i also saw Capella , another IRC-er who is the hubby of another IRC-er friend of mine ...

so we chat about mutual friends, and caught a little about each other's life ... hmmm.... after a couple of drinks on a empty stomach ... i'm in maybe the 3rd heaven ... i'm just happy to be seeing my old friends and happy to be chatting to them ...

it's been really a great day today =)

hmmm ...

ok i took a sneak taste at my raspberry gin ... hmmm is my verdict ... i'll think i need to throw in my strawberry jam and some sugar and let it alone for 3 months and i'm done ... i think i'm pretty much on track *hic*

Expired Raspberry jam ...

Recently i have been digging out stuff from my food cabinets and finding things that have breathed their very last breath (expired) ...

I found this bottle of expired raspberry jam we bought from Kates Berry Farm from Tasmania last year ... well i opened it up and tasted it ... quite normal and no greeny or white furry stuff either ... just wondering if it's full of perservatives though (just a quick side track - my mini cabinet at the yard sprouted mushrooms! just unfortunately i can't tell if they are edible or not).

Anyway, I just thought why not just give my alcohol making interest a kick start ... so I scrapped up all the jam and dumped into a sterilzed vodka bottle and put in some gin ... shook it up a bit and it's now lying on my wine rack ... whether it will turn out nice or not I have no idea ... and I won't have an idea till ... er ... maybe 2 months later ... i might sneak a taste or two to check if i've enough fruity stuff inside, else I've a bottle of homemade strawberry jam somewhere which i can add in to enhance its flavour ....

I'm going to start on my strawberry confiture (vodka soaked strawberries to drink your tea with ... but i'm thinking of dropping them unto ice creams or glasses of white wine) and then strawberry vodka, and then my apple pie vodka ... Hopefully I'll get to collect my vodka from Carol sometime this week, then I can start my experiments this weekend! onz!

Does anyone know where i can buy Bacardi 151?

my other interests/ hobbies

Yes, i do have hobbies/ interests in things that are not plants ... for example, baking, cooking, handicrafts (mostly to do with clay though) and ... anything to do with alcohol ...

if you must know, i'm crazy about collecting small bottles of alcohol ... i *ahem* came back from a trip to Europe with my main luggage weighing in at 28KG (not to mention my other bag weighing at 14kg as well as other stuff i had begged people to lobang back for me) with most of the weight contributed by such beloved horde ... it was so wonderful ... in Bath (UK) i acquired some of the apple beverage (the milder version so sadly), in Normandy (France) their lovely Apple Brandy, in Austria, their cute little round bottles of Mozart(?) liquer .... the list goes on ... the only thing i don't collect is beer i think ...

lately my interest is not so much as collecting (i'm thinking maybe to drink the honeymoon mead in my cabinet on my wedding annivesary) but well ... _CREATING_ alcoholic beverages of choice ... it's not a matter of cocktails ... it's more of ... HEALTHY stuff ... like fruity liqour ...

It kind of started recently, when i was musing to myself ... about how to create this lovely apple pie drink i had once in Chicago (from Bucket O Suds - YEAH! I was only of those lucky few who had the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to visit the pub. I'll write something about the place one of these days) ... research turned into making fruit wines ... and now i'm sitting here thinking about my list of things to get before my first attempt at my Death By Apple Pie drink ... ingredients will remain secret until I've done the perfect brew but the end results will only be tasted 6 months later ... so watch out for it!

Plants again *hehe*

Ok ... my XXX plant is known as kalanchoe ... i've just reposition them to a shadier spot since according to expert website it will only flower as long as it does not get more than 10 hours of sun light (artificial light included) ... so far my orange and pink ones are starting to flower again *phew* but no signs for my red color one *sigh* maybe it's just resting now or i should just brutally prune it further down the stems .... I've also dug up the soil and the plants are resting on a bed of charcoal for better drainage and less moisture ....

My dearest japanese roses (otherwise known as Portulaca) ... i moved them to a very sunny spot where they will get min 6 hours of direct sun ... did beautifully ... until i itchy hands decided to reposition it ... so now it's in a spot ... where it gets only 3 hours of sun! I only realised it after I had painsakingly repotted the plants into a long trough container ... i guess i'll just let it recover from the "repotting" before i transplant them to yet another pot ...

My chilli padi plants are doing quite well ... one plant have started to flower and the rest seems to be catching up ... also transplanted 3 from pots into a trough as my balcony is overrunned by them! Now i have 7 in pots (i gave away 2 last weekend) and 4 in my trough ...

My hydrangea are doing ok too ... growing but slowly since my backyard doesn't have direct sunlight ... it's bright enough though for it to survive so far in the open (mostly i let the rain does the job of watering the plants unless it's been exceptionally hot for a few days). It's supposed to be the PeeGees type ( shortform for Psomething Grandiflora) and _IF_ it blooms, I can alter the colours by either adding acidic or alkalinic stuff unto the soil ... cool =)

the next mad thing that i'm unto now is trying to have plants that I can eat off (other than my chilli padis) ... been eyeing tomatoes but still thinking since I'm not sure if there is really enough space and if I can even reach out to harvest the fruits ... no harm trying i guess ... just have to limit the size of the pot so that the plants won't grow too big ...

ok tt's all i have for plants ... i think ... what do you think of strawberries?