D-1

The weather is crappy and I don't feel like going out. All this humidity is messing up my hair and giving me allergies. I don't know how this is even possible. so I'm going to cozily stay at home, watch TV and read stuff.

On some other note, after one month of waiting, tomorrow is the D-Day - the halloween party. I'm getting so excited. Today we're gonna start setting everything up and decorating.

Tomorrow there'll be lots of cooking and finally partying. I hope I manage to get everything ready for tomorrow...

P.S: Some previews of the halloween party decorations.

Cheers!

Recommendations could do the trick.

Several months ago I wrote a post about how the pricing strategy of a particular supermarket is, in my opinion, not enough to attract and sustain customer loyalty. The points I mentioned did really seem like empty words, I'm the first one to acknowledge that.

I, however, truly wanted to bring a change or at least find ways to improve customer service within organisations of that kind by making use of HR practices. And so, as from next week I'll be carrying out employee satisfaction surveys in order to assess the employee satisfaction level within a similar supermarket. This will be part of a research I am supposed to do in my coursework. I will be linking employee satisfaction to customer service and based on my findings I will make recommendations for improvement. Those recommendations should be valid and applicable within the organisation.

I am quite excited  about all this and a little scared. OK, very, very scared. But I'm gonna make it. I will have to. :)

Oh Kaka!

I swear I'm not swearing. Kaka is just the name of the football guy. Oh I know you know him. Everyone knows him. And guess what? I've got a crush on him. Oh I know it's an impossible love but I can't help it, can I? Ever since I watched his totally cool advert for a kids' chocolate cake brand called Doowap (don't you love saying "Doowap"? Like Rooch loves saying "Olga"). Anyway we're getting out of the point. And I must make sure to explain why I got the crush on Kaka. You see I was always hearing his name on TV and never actually saw him. You see (again) my dad is a huge football fan, and even now, as I'm writing this, I'm hearing the sound of all the cheers of stadium spectators. So I thought, basing my biases on his name, that Kaka must be some totally ugly guy. I mean you just have to hear the name to think "eew" and so I got this huge shock and pleasant surprise when on that advert the kids shouted "Kaka!" and instead of seeing a pile of faeces, I saw that guy who was a pile of good looks.

And so began the crush on Kaka, it was about 1 hour ago and I feel like it's fading away slowly. Still 1 hour, that must be some kind of record. Oh well, I'm off to prepare myself for tomorrow, we got a group assignment to work on. So long dudettes and dudes!

Totally Divali

Today was one hell of a hectic day and it all started right from the morning. It involved cleaning, placing the mini light bulbs, baking and finally praying and enjoying the lights and cakes. I just wanted to share some photos and wish you all dudettes and dudes out there a wonderful Divali. Enjoy the sweets and lights and do ponder on how this festival came to be!

How I went internet-less for 4 days

It all started on Sunday morning when a bunch of lads, who were cutting down tree branches in the neighbourhood, mistook our telephone line for a branch. So they cut down the line and ran away like any other respectable coward would have done. And so we called Orange's hotline the very same day and nothing unexpected, we were told that it might take days for them to send a team to our place. Anyway, yesterday, at around noon, the team came and fixed the problem in five minutes. No need to say how elated I was to be "connected" again.

Oh and yesterday was my sister's birthday. I baked a cake for her. As you can see she was totally into the pink and white theme this year.

And so tomorrow's Divali, we haven't yet made any cake. Should we start giving in to panic? I think I gotta go shop for provisions and start making some gateaux batate. I can't wait to eat that!

Halloween Shopping

Today we begun the 1st part of our shopping for the halloween party; we went to get the non-perishables. We bought some elements of the party decoration and a bunch of customised paper plates. We found all these at a shop called Deco Fete in Grand Bay.

I discovered the shop last Saturday as we were returning home from Trou aux Biches. As you can see, the front window is really striking.  At the very first glance I could tell it had everything we were looking for in terms of halloween decoration and I was so right. Even the saleswoman's appearance fitted the halloween theme. She had loads of make-up on and had totally worked on the "witch look". Oh how I loved that!

On another note, earlier today we brunched at Sunset Cafe. Jevin seemed to have enjoyed his feast and I found the croissants great-tasting!

We finished the day at Pereybere, which was crowdy as usual. And now I'm really tired and I feel like I need a good foot bath which I'm gonna get in a few minutes.

So long dudettes and dudes. How has your Saturday been?

Hot and here.

Summer's here, at least in my part of the country it is. I'm sweating, not like in December but it's still sweat and mosquitoes are doing their rounds, as usual, for the sole purpose of annoying people and to occasionally feed on their blood.

Today I woke up at 3 a.m by the sounds of those pests as they were hovering around my ears. I did all I could to make them stop but to no avail. So I ended up wasting some precious sleeping time. I rose at 5 and got a mosquito repellent. Haha! And they were done. I could now sleep for another 2 hours before waking up at around 7. Dr Thomas Garavan, the Limerick guy's lecture was supposed to start at 10:45. I had ample time to shower, have breakfast, get ready and take the bus to Reduit.

The lecture was very interesting. The guy is truly well versed in Human Resource Development (HRD) and he applied some of the concepts to the Mauritian context.

By noon the lecture was over and I chatted with my buddies for a while before heading home. Port-Louis was warm and stuffy. The north was a little less warm but I still felt like I badly needed a shower when I got home.

All these go to say that the signs are here; we're entering summer!

Despite all these, I don't hate summer. Infact, when it comes to summer my feelings are quite mixed. On one side there are the perspirations, mosquitoes and smelly people in the bus and on the other side there are the flowers, colours, beverages and most importantly the holidays and celebrations.

I think out of the two seasons that we have, summer is definitely my favourite as that's the season wherein we have Divali, Christmas and New Year and I always associate it with shoppings and gifts...

October is the month baby!

Two of my friends just called; no classes today. I can't even say how happy I am and I'm going to make the most of today, not by going through books but by planning for 2 parties coming up this month. The first one is my sister's birthday party and the second one is a halloween party that Jev and I are throwing on the 31st. Oh, by the way, everyone's invited for the halloween party. We'll be posting more details in the coming days!

Pictures from 2007's halloween party

Parties parties! I just can't wait! I'll be taking care of the decorations and I'm hoping to make it awesome!

P.S: I forgot Divali! How could I? It's on the 17th. Ooh ooh! 3 great events in October for me.

Enter the Limerick guy

We got the news today; an eminent HR guy from the University of Limerick is going to be lecturing us on Strategic HR Development this Friday and we're supposed to show how erudite we are on the subject for 2 main reasons; first not to embarass our lecturer, who I'm sure wants to show to what extent he has been transmitting us the best knowledge ever and second, not to embarass ourselves by avoiding to be our regular selves.

Ideally, we are supposed to be asking the guy questions and those, of course, do not include questions pertaining to the weather. So I've got a strategy, it's not an innovative one but I'm sure as hell no one in my class have thought of it yet. I'm gonna go through the guy's books. Oh I know, it's gonna take time but I've got till Friday and it's not as though I'll really read the books. That's the delightful difference between "reading" and "going through".

Ah anyway dudettes and dudes, I guess revision is coming sooner this year. Oh! And did I mention, they are going to be counting our attendance on that day. Yeah, a deterrent, just in case anyone decided to ditch the Limerick guy.

The trip to Ile aux cerfs.

Yesterday Jevin and I went to Ile aux cerfs with my HR buddies. The day was cool; there were great friends, food, drinks and a whole lot of laughter! We first went to Flacq, then around Trou D'eau Douce to take the boat to go to Ile aux Cerfs. On our way to the boat quay Jevin realised a wonderful drift on a roundabout. I was all shaken from the experience. But Jason and Ashwin, who were riding with us, we totally happy about it. This made me wonder why guys love stuff like that. I mean it's dangerous, isn't it?

Anyway, talking about the boat trip, I was finding the first one quite long until we saw some dolphins. The chaps, however, preferred realising stunts for tourists rather than approaching us for some photos! Damned dolphins!

Then we reached the island and installed everything for the barbecue. It took a formidable team work to get on with the barbecue and provide enough grilled food for all of us, but we made it. We've been trained to work in teams, ain't it? And guess we're really good at it. :p

After the food, some indulged into a football match while most of the girls, including me, played poker. Yeah! We're totally into poker lately!

On our return boat journey, the boatman proposed to take us to a waterfall found nearby. Damn! That was amazing! It was like a trip in a prehistoric jungle. Even the birds look weird there and we thoroughly enjoyed that!

Back to the boat quay, it was the end of the day. I'm looking forward to yet another day like this, 'cause one was surely not enough!