Last one in the office today.
Everybody has gone and the lights are all off for 3/4 of the office!

Happy New Year everybody!

okthxbye!

Lately, it's been happening again. I say or think of something, and it happens by coincidence. The most recent and memorable ones this time is about the Great Flood my family lived through several years back.

Oh so drama, right, to call it The Great Flood . About 12 to 15 years ago, affecting only the back of my home, the gutter attached to the roof got so clogged up with dead leaves etc that the rainwater couldn't drain away. What was supposed to be just another heavy rainstorm caused the rainwater to pool on the roof since couldn't drain away, and then soak in under the roof tiles, and pour through the ceiling of my bedroom! (btw, my bedroom means me and my sister's bedroom since we share it ) In those days, we used to have more things on the floor than in the cupboards or on the shelves. We had books and books and even more books on the floor, and of course the mandatory teenage junk comprising of posters, magazines, clothes, etc. The rainwater gushed down through the joints where the ceiling meets the wall, over the built in cupboards and flooded the room. Books were soggified and floating. The whole family was up and about, rushing to stem the flow of water. Dad went up the roof in the pitch darkness of the night, through the heavy rainstorm, from the front balcony, over the roof pinacle, all the way to the back of the house to clear the gutter, where if he fell it would be a three-storey drop. Water flooded the room, the landing outside our bedrooms, waterfalled off the landing onto the ground floor, and since our stairs are all at the same place, instead of pooling at the ground floor, the water just went on into the basement for it's final leg. It took us days to dry off everything and till today i still have puffy books with wavey pages thanks to their waterlogged experience.

A few days ago, i brought up memories of the great flood while talking to my sister who is back for the Christmas holidays. One of my big achievements in 2009 is re-organizing and clearing up the bedroom and i was pointing out to her the benefits of my actions in the event another flood ever occurs. Who would've thought it would happen again because happen again it did early in the wee hours of this morning, not too long after Wayne Rooney scored the first goal for Manchester United against Hull City.

As the only member of the family with work today, i was snuggled up and trying to sleep early. While listening to the heavy rainfall, i was roused from my dazy almost dreaming state when i suddenly realized the tip tap tapping of water against floor was a little too clear and getting more frantic as more tip tapping joined in the chorus. I jumped up, switched the lights on, and ran over to see if i was just being paranoid. And so continued the saga of the great flood, version 2009.

Dad and sis had to cut short their EPL fun. Sis and i immediately went nuts getting buckets and mopping floors. While dad went rushing to get the keys to the only balcony, which is attached to the masterbedroom. Mom took some time before she realized what was going on since nobody found the time to stop to explain. Suddenly my brother burst out of his room. We hadn't even thought about waking him up, but this time the rainwater was pouring into not only my room but also into his, and his precious collection of guitars was right in the line of fire. He dragged out and dumped his guitars (i last counted he had 16) on the landing outside our rooms but due to insufficient space he had to run down to put them downstairs too. All the while we were still mopping up and squeezing out buckets and buckets of rainwater.

The flood this round was worse because it affected 2 bedrooms instead of just 1, and this time the water went gushing through our built in cupboards too so most of our clothes and everything else we had in the cupboards were drenched, my computer got wet through and through (will test out if it's ok once it is completely dry), and quite a number of bro's guitar stuff got wet too. Luckily it wasn't as bad as it might have been because we jumped into action really early on and most of our floors were already cleared of stuff so no soggy books to dry out in the sun and the waters didnt reach the basement.

It was all over in about 2 hours. Dad went back down to watch the sports channel, Mom went to sleep, Sis soaked in soap all the cloths and rugs we'd used to mop up the waters, Bro (who was once quite conceited over having a neater room than ours but the flood clearly demonstrated otherwise since i had less stuff affected since most neatly packed away in their rightful places instead of stacked on floor, hah!) mumbled and grumbled while he cleared away soggy belongings. As for myself, i had to clean a cut on my hand i got from earlier the day which i suspect might get infected from wringing out not-so-clean-water-soaked cloths.

I went to bed after that with the feeling of satisfaction, knowing that it pays to have gone through much effort in clearing up my bedroom and changing it from the mess it once was to the pretty way it is now. Hehe yes yes in a way this is just a gloating boastful post about my efforts in cleaning up my room, but hey it did take a lot of time and effort and indirectly it caused a difference in the way the flood was managed. I'd not have heard the water when it first came trickling in if it had hit books instead of the floor, and stemming the flow of the waters would've been tricky if floor was covered in soggy-able materials, post-flood clean up wouldve been a nightmare of tossing out ruined stuff and going through mucky piles of soggy dust and dirt which would have been trapped among mess of books if a mess existed. Whew. Thank God i had resolved to re-do my room in 2009 .

a snippet from my life as of this morning.

0. 9.10am, im late for work by abt an hour.
1. my car refuses to start.
2. my car was parked too strategically, blocking the only 2 other cars available in my empty house.
3. dad didn't bring his hp with him on his walking-dog-rounds so i had to wait while he is somehwere with my crazy floppy brown dog, circling my housing area AND THE NEXT HOUSING AREA too.
4. sms boss to say i'll be late. luckily hp batt alto low, is not dead yet.
5. stupid kelisa too stupidly heavy to push coz tire neatly wedged in a dent in the pavement and it's on a slope in the wrong direction. ish.
5. dad comes back. dad not happy. dad pushes car.
6. i discover my jumper cables are not in my car. dad not happy.
7. borrow dad's jumper cables. jump unsuccessful. dad very not happy.
8. i borrow dad's car to get to work. i run before dad blows.
9. hp is not in my bag! it's on sofa at home, post-sms-to-boss. however, hp charger is in my bag >.<
10. i try to lock the car. remote control's batt is dead....

>.<

Initial emotion: Frustration!
Secondary emotion: Guilt! Poor daddy.
"After-taste" emotion: Sigh. I guess it is funny to have such silly idiotic events in one morning. As Mills pointed out to me, classic irony in bringing hp charger without bringing my hp. what else can i do but laugh at myself, right. SIGH!