Year end dinner with mask

Prologue
If you've been following my writings, you'd have notice that I seldom, or maybe never, write things that touch too much into my personal feeling. Sometimes I may rant a little about being busy, about being not rich enough, about our government, maybe express my anger on something but mostly it'd be about happy stuff like where I went for holiday, the good food that I had, expensive stuff that I bought and things that I achieved. I have never touch on how sorry and regret I am when I did something to somebody, how sad I am when something bad happen or things that I am not proud of. In short, I never share things that touch my inner feeling.

These unhappy thoughts/unproud moments are ought to be forgotten. With my short-term memory loss illness, it'd be easy to forget them.

I am about to write about some thing I do not intend to write initially but ended up typing it here after all, due to some reasons.

Content
2 weeks ago, my newly formed department (a merger of few other departments) organized an annual dinner. The theme of the annual dinner is "Masquerade Party with fancy/formal dressing". One would need to have a mask, pair with a formal/fancy attire to attend. The venue is at Bayview Beach Resort, some where far far away near Batu Ferringhi beach.

I was super busy during the week prior to the event. With the Qurban holiday, Poi Lam's wedding and tight project schedule (I am listing these down as an excuse for my un-prepare-ness). Everything is at the last minute for me. I do not have a mask until Wed (the dinner was on Fri), I do not have a make-up kit until Fri morning (borrowed the make-up kit from a colleague). The mask was sponsored by my boss, he bought a pack of those cardboard mask meant for party and distributed it among the group (aww...my boss is so nice!).

On Thu before the dinner, I get very worried: Should I put make-up on? But I don't know how!! Where should I find a make-up kit? Can I still fit into the dress? Do I know how to walk with the heels on? I totally fail as a female human being...n i am not proud

Finally, D day arrives. We're allowed to leave office at 3pm in order to prepare ourselves. I left at 3.30pm, had to finish something up before leaving. Registration starts at 6.30pm, dinner at 7. It takes an hour to drive to Batu Ferringhi.

Because I do not know how to make-up and not wanting to look like a monkey's red ass, I put on only very very tiny teeny little make-up on, hardly can be seen at all, hair was at the usual, no special time spent on that. And that is how I have attended the department-wide annual dinner.

Bayview Beach Resort, Grand Ballroom. We have a Zorro-like camera man

My policy that night? Sit diam-diam at my table, stay low-profile, no/less photo policy. Yes, that is how I have been the whole night.

The food served is similar to Chinese wedding dinner. Everybody sit in round table.

This is the first dish served. The white color one is salad, very nice...

The second dish is as usual, shark fin soup minus the fin.

And then I lost count. But here's some photo of the food.

Chicken

Black pepper prawn

There are more food but no photos available

We had 2 funny MCs. Then there were some games, lucky draw, making fun of bosses, voting of best dress and performances such as hip hop dancing, group singing, solo singing and Christmas caroling, all performed by engineers in our newly merged department. In between those slot, there were singing by a band, which I think is we hired or they're with the hotel, I'm not sure.

The professional band

Lucky draw prizes were good, iPod Nano 8GB and Sony PSP is some of the prizes people are drooling over. None of it falls into my hand, not even the Starbucks voucher or the RM200 TGI Friday voucher :(

Conclusion
It was an event planned up in a short period of time, maybe about one and a half month, maximum 2. And everybody had only a short notice about it, the official invitation came about 3weeks before the annual dinner. But everybody were able to prepare themselves so well, some was well prepared with very nice mask. Most of the female engineers who are seen with jeans and T-shirt in the office most of the time were transformed into beautiful women on that night. The annual dinner was a success.

Sitting quietly in my table, it might not be too fun for me but nevertheless, I still enjoy myself.

These are the young people in my sub department, HCDC
3 people with the same mask, sponsored by BOSS :)

Among the 6 person here, I'm the most senior, joined Altr one year earlier then the rest. Luckily, based on age, I'm not the eldest (is this self comforting?)

Last but not least, a photo of ME!

Me -_-

All photos are taken by other people and are shared out in the company Intranet. None of the photos belong to me as I did not bring along my camera.