The last grand slam of the year

I have been getting on average about 5 hours sleep a night for the past week or so and I think my body just cannot handle it anymore. I was driving back home and stopped at a red light and almost fell asleep while waiting for it to turn green.

The US Open which is reaching its climax now is not helping with my sleeping pattern. Just as I thought that I would go to bed early and have a good night sleep, all of a sudden one Melanie Oudin dug really deep and out of nowhere produce shot after shot en route to an amazing comeback. Or sometimes just finding out grandmaster Federer was playing would keep me awake.

Melanie Oudin is out now, i just saw a rerun of her quarterfinals against Wozniacki in which she lost in straight sets. It is so refreshing to see these two women players. It is not their playing skills that impress me most, rather its their mental toughness. There was one game in the second set where Oudin was on breakpoint, and Wozniacki managed to keep her composure and hold her serve. I am pretty sure Oudin would have won that game if it was, say Safina that she was playing against. I am rooting for Wozniacki, she does not have the killer shots; at least she did not show that agianst Oudin; but I was really impressed by her composure and tenacity.

I think all these stories of women tennis players with their emotional meltdown, crazy nerve, 40 unforced errors and what not are getting old. The mother of all emotional breakdown-prone women tennis players, Elena Dementieva, just cant seem to deal with this problem despite all those years on the circuit and being one of the top players in the world. She was also the one who was infamously quoted saying " I dont know how to serve". To her credit her serve has improved tremendously, but despite possessing one of the best groundstrokes in the women's games she hasnt won a slam and I attribute that mainly to her nerves (now that she can serve better and get her double faults under control).

Dinara Safina is another tragic story. She is, thank god, a milder version of Safin but clearly it runs in the family. She seems to be on the verge of breaking down and cry in every game, and its is not fun to watch to say the least. And is it just me or does Safina alwasy look like shes 4 months pregnant?

The other day Sharapove had like 20 double faults (also lost to Oudin) but in all fairness she just came back from an injury. But still if not for the double faults she definitely would have won. Against the Italian player Zvonareva was really winning but in the second set she somehow had a meltdown and end up losing the match. At one point she looked like she was talking to her bandaged knee, as if blaming it for the shot caught in the net or a backhand down the line that went wide.

Change is here

Slowly but surely these changes that has been talked about so much is finally taking place right here, right now. Sooner rather than later these changes, which started at the global level and logically travels top down, will finally reach my level the macai's. We will have to wait until then to see whats the impact like.

My guess is that the Mckinsey guys have got to have something to do will all these restucturing and cloud nine big ideas. Looking at how regularly things Mckinsey got featured in our intranet, it is easy for me to come to that assumption.

Having said that, having previously coming from an advisory outfit and a super lean cigarette organisation before that, it is quite obvious that a lot of things are done differently here, not necessarily in a good way. On the first day, I was quite suprised that I was served coffee by a tea lady, having getting used to bringing my own cup and make my own coffee, or in better times go to the coffee machine and choose one of them delightful coffee concoction on offer. It most probably is high time for major changes, and naturally that is discomforting.

Lala land

I left office early today hoping to get to the bulatan bazaar ramadan fast. The last time I went there most of the good stuff are gone. Today apparently i was too early and the place was really packed, so I turned around and was headed to the other bazaar which is nearer to town.

I was walking around and saw this familiar face manning a stall. I was trying to recall where i met this man and after 5 mins walking around I remembered that this guy ripped me off and charged me RM5 for roti canai. I was sending my car for service and his restaurant is just opposite the service center so i went there to have breakfast and kill time. On the menu hung on the wall the price for roti canai is RM1. I got charged more because my kuah kari got like 3 pieces of meat.

I walked around some more looking for yogurt or the thing called dadih and found the stall with quite a selection of flavors. The guy manning the stall was entertaining this customer and I was just standing there waiting for my turn. But for some reason he did not notice me standing there and then sat down on his stool minding his own business and i was still waiting there. For some reason I started waving at him. This older guy who was standing there, whom I think also a customer waiting for his bbq fish from the adjacent stall, started yelling at him telling him he has a customer. The stall guy gave a sheepish grin and asked me what flavor I want. It has probably been a long day but strangely this has happened to me before. What the heck is wrong with these people.

2 year olds!

I printed my boarding pass for my return flight to Miri the other day and put it nicely on the computer desk. We have got a new all in one printer which photocopies, prints, scans and does other wonderful things. Replace that ancient CRT with concave screen and we have a full function office.

We were enjoying our berbuka dinner when someone said
"Wheres Hakeem?". Hakeem is my 2 year old nephew, son of my sister.
My sister seemed to be not bothered at all... if anything she can finally truly enjoy eating without a hyperactive kid yelling every minute at her. Heck nobody bothered... food was damn nice.

I was doing my part washing my dishes when I remembered that I put my boarding pass printout and realized it was not a good idea when you have a hyperactive kid in the house. It was not a surprise that my boarding pass was no longer on the computer desk.

First I heard my sister yelling
"OMG Hakeem my credit cards... no wonder u are so quiet!"

I rushed to the scene and there it was on the floor, a crumpled piece of paper scribbled all over with red and blue ink. That is what is left of my boarding pass. I did not save the boarding pass PDF in the computer.... I will have to make do with that crumpled paper.