Tug-of-war and a Not-so-lonely Nightwalk

*ahem*

K, I actually wanted to blog yesterday but ended up doing some other stuff... so I shall blog about what I wanna blog about yesterday today.

But first, the tug-of-war...

I'm the prize (so to speak) and the competitors are CSC and Compliance. By right, my contract with Compliance ends tomorrow and I'm suppose to go over to CSC Monday. Thing is, I haven't gotten my contract for CSC, and Compliance wants to extend my contract. By sheer force, Compliance would get me on their side. But knowing that it's not fair to CSC, the heads of each department had a short little chat with me and gave me the power of choice.

Now that's tough... Apparently, where I work should be where I'm happiest. But knowing me, I'm happy working at both sides, so it's like a constant. So I told my boss that, because happiness is a constant, I need to rely on some other factor that will make my choice: Which side's projects are more important to the bank? I'm glad my boss spoke objectively and I take my hat off her. She said from a management point of view, CSC would be the one who'd need my assistance more. So yes, I have decided to "forsake" Compliance for CSC.

But these 3 weeks at Compliance have let me see that Miang Cze is practically buried with account openings, and Gavin is juggling between account openings and some other projects. So yes, Compliance is uber busy as well. Since I've been to both sides, I know that my workload isn't brimming, and I suggested that maybe something could be worked out for me to do work for both sides, while Compliance hunts for another temp worker. So my boss says that's a good compromise, but we'll have to see how's my workload when I switch departments.

Meanwhile, I got thinking, both departments want me badly because I've got experience with both sides. Madelin has experience with CSC. So if somehow everyone can agree to hire Madelin, then I could stay on to help in Compliance, and Madelin could help out in CSC! Everyone's happy, no? YES! I can't see any bad point in this. So I SMSed Madelin to ask her, but then I got low batt, so I'm gonna ask her on MSN... Unfortunately, she's not replying me for now. Haha!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Last night, I met Bingjun for supper at Casuarina. His classes ended at 10, so I thought maybe I'll take a stroll through the reservoir and look for scorpions. So I did. Brought 2 LED lights and a UV light to search for scorpions.

Even though I've walked through the pitch black and rustles of the secondary rainforest twice alone and once with company, I gotta admit it still gives me the heebie-jeebies when I went alone last night. There were new animal sounds, rustling and howling and plopping. Really creepy. But on I went coz I had to get to Casuarina somehow, and I'm already all geared up, so I just pushed on.

A third of the way into the dark, illuminated only with UV (which is almost totally useless since nothing fluoresces except littered tissue paper, yellowing leaves and bit and pieces of white rubbish), I saw some really bright flashes up ahead, and was instantly relieved. Photographers! I thought they might have found some cool insects or just hunting for them. It was a wet night, so termites would be moving, ants would be migrating, worms would be crawling... and lizards would be out hunting. Turns out, they weren't macro-photographers. They were bird-watchers. So what birds are there in the pitch black? It didn't cross my mind then, but they were shooting owls! Cool... and apparently they spotted a pretty rare find. Good for them! I trudged on thinking they might be at that spot awhile. I spotted a REALLY pretty caterpillar and stooped down to have a closer look. Those bird watchers caught up and overtook me. Not wanting to be left in the dark after having such brief company, I got up and walked with them behind. And also because their torches were totally pathetic. Time to show off! Hahaha!

So I was talking to 2 girls at the back. They sound like Malaysians, or PRC. No matter, I realized that one of them was using an FZ30! Woohoo! And their leader, who went on ahead much quicker, was using an FZ50! I'm using an FZ20 you know? =)

Well, nearing the end of the trail, they spotted an animal which they suspect was a mousedeer. How cool is that?! I didn't know mousedeers roamed the reservoir floors... So we squinted and stared intently into the dim light of their lousy torches. I didn't wanna shine mine coz the sudden brightness might scare the little critter.

*gasp*

I saw eyeshine! And it was small! I could just make out the shape of a miniature deer in the bushes! How exciting!!! But well, since I didn't wanna do anything that could make things go wrong, I looked around me whilst 4 of them shone their weak torches looking for eyeshine and inching forward slowly to photograph it.

That's when I saw it.

A little light floating at stomach level... blinking... fading... blinking... fading... FIREFLY!!! Yay! It's the second time I see fireflies near the Casuarina end of the trail. Shone my torch at it and followed it around abit. I knew it was a beetle, but I just wanted to have a closer look. But since it was flying, it's elytra was up and the hindwings were a blur. As it flew deeper into the vegetation, I gave up chasing it.

So I continued looking at the mousedeer who, strangely, didn't run away. When their leader got closer to the animal, the others shone their spotlights at it. That's when I shone mine too, and the guy with the FZ50 could take a few shots. With flash, of course. But you need to spot it first mah.

Anyways, Bingjun was done already and was waiting for me at the coffeeshop. So I bid them farewell and went on my way. Had hor fun with him, then Guangyu came to pick us up, then sent us back.

Nice evening I had... =)

Ok! Time to have my dinner... Lalalala!