The One with the Thai Food

I have been mentioning that I have a love affair with food. Food never rejects you, doesn't call you fat or doesn't ever think you're undeserving of any love or comfort. Furthermore, food never judges you. So here's a fabulous treat for me as a foodie. 

My first serving of Thai food (ever) was at Som's Noodle House. It used to be a hole in the wall, literally. It was a virtual unknown until people started flocking to it by the multitudes to sample its authentic and delicious choices for food. Check out Jane Chua's review of the place in 2008. 

But now, it's turned into something light and airy with the fresh aroma of Thai spices filling the air. It's almost amazing how the food is cooked and delivered right to your table and how spectacularly it could assail your senses. 

Obviously, I was with my favorite foodies (no love affairs with food, cos food and I have a monogamous relationship...) Jessie and Candy were actually the first ones to take me here and made me appreciate the delicious curiosity of Thai cuisine. We started with the usual, some fried food to balance the crunch and the taste of what was to come next. It's some shrimp cakes and it was fried to perfection. 

We had to start with some appetizers, obviously. Check out the shrimp cakes. It's actually a viand on its own! 

My favorite food enthusiasts. Candy with some fried rice. 

No Thai food adventure would be complete with the sought-after Tom Yum. It's an experience having a bowl of this. It's tart and sweet with a slight tinge of heat and some well-married flavors like shrimp and basil. I couldn't imagine it being compared to the Filipino Sinigang, but it's a close second. 

Tom Yum soup with shrimp, basil, a little lemongrass and a lot of other ingredients I can't quite decipher. It's a good reason to try Thai food.

It's actually a good soup to try with an entire meal. 

We wanted to try something common and yet something with a Thai twist. It's a perfect combo of their Chicken Fried Rice (amazingly cooked with a lot of green spring onions, real huge chicken pieces with some curry and cumin action) and their Green Beef Curry (loaded with beef strips and rich, thick and creamy green curry sauce). 

See the huge lump of tomato there? That's just blanched to perfection! Along with the huge strips of chicken in this dish, you won't want to order a viand! 

That's Green Curry - sauce is rich, thick, creamy and super amazingly good. I could eat it for days! It's got baby eggplants sliced thinly, some red and green bell pepper and some coriander. It's just an amazing treat! 

All of this was capped off with their delicious iced milk tea. Make sure to ask for it.

If you're in the Alger St or Rockwell vicinity, check out Som's Noodle House. They don't have a website just yet but they do have a number if you ever need directions. 

Jane Chua is a blogger and enjoys fashion, food and fun. Check her out in her fashion and fun moments Between Bites. 

Candy herself is a blogger and a food enthusiast but she loves learning more. Check it out as she Defines life, love and other things. 

The One with the Anniversary

I took a quick hiatus from the world of online blogging the past few weeks to focus on something I needed to do for myself. In case you're wondering if it's part of my bucket list, I would say it's part of my happy list. While most people have been wondering about what to do for Valentine's Day and how to find the love they long to have, I have been busy finding time for all the crazy activities I wanted to have for this month.

I still have yet to read Outliers. I know I've had that since December and I still haven't managed to read it. I have been meaning to get a massage and I just choose to waste whatever free time I have on either TV or sleep. I have been wanting to try out several restaurants and yet all I actually do is settle with some fast food quick fix (and the McDonalds Twister Fries are AWESOME!!!) and finally, I have been wanting to do the "in" thing and run a marathon (hey, a fun run would do) and my treadmill hasn't seen the light of day. It's still occluded (read: buried) under my clothes.

So ever wonder why I'm always busy? I have this conference call, that issue to deal with, this director to please and this course to deploy. 

An email I sent out to my entire team. 

I turned one StarTek year old! 

I wanted to thank my team for making me feel like I'm home. I have set-out last year wanting so badly to belong (ergo, almost getting married) and now, I feel like I do. I have wonderful mentors, like my mean best friend James and my "Positive Polly" Candy and I have a corporate US boss that I love a lot. I have Ivan who doubles as my son and my best friend at work at the same time (primarily cos we work in partnership a lot with some admin tasks). I have great friends at work and a lot of perspective. My SMEs have been great. There's Dan, the director of Human Resources, whom I have come to love and enjoy the company of, cos he's just a lot of ideas in an hour's meeting. There's Kevin and Judy from Finance whom I think the world of. There's a lot of development going on and if I can ask for one thing, I'd ask for one thing only - a higher salary, lolz. 

The One with the Appreciation

I recently got a package from my boss, Senior Training Manager, Sonja. This is the first time someone actually gave me a stationery set with my name on it!

Cute pattern, and I'm glad she didn't choose hearts and butterflies for me. She chose a pattern she probably saw from a dress I wore, or perhaps a notebook scribble she saw when she attended a meeting with me. 

Intentionally took a fuzzy shot, I like mystery. If you google my name, you might see something shocking! Hahaha! 

Yes, she calls me Megz. 

I even got a tag that says "enjoy". I love it! 

Sonja, love, love, love it!

The One with the Instructional Design

Whenever I meet up with high school, college and other work friends, I really have to explain what I currently do. I'm an Instructional Systems Designer. So if you had enough time to actually understand what you just read off Wikipedia, if you read up, that is, I am someone that practices Bloom's Taxonomy, ADDIE and Rapid Prototyping (at times). I'm someone that decided to embrace the 9 Events of Gagne and tries to hit all the bells and whistles of the VAK Learning Types.

Simply put, I design corporate learning materials. 

I feel a little bit like Chandler Bing. No one knows or remembers what the heck I do for a living, and when simply asked, they say "Trainer". 

So here's what I am really doing. 

1. I get assigned a topic. That topic could range from new hire orientation to a new IT system to expense reimbursement or company principles. I usually say I get assigned fluff topics, primarily because I tend to get the long-winded ones which aren't based on systems or procedures. I get the policy-driven ones.

Yes and there's lots of paperwork too! I mainly do HR courses. 

2. I read up on it. I research on the net. I contact several thousands of SMEs (subject matter experts) and try to squeeze a little time in their calendars either virtually or via phone. Yes, it's tedious, but nothing gets me more riled up than actually getting to talk to a SME that's excellently succinct and direct to the point. 

A lot of them hide behind their schedules, but that's fine. They are still loved so long as I get approved.

3. I then get cracking on development. Depending on what's needed, I just get cracking asap. If it's an instructor-led training, I work on a presentation first, then a facilitator guide, then a participant guide or a job aid. If it's an eLearning module, I get cracking on the platform it's supposed to be in. I currently know a system called Toolbook and Adobe Presenter. I'm kind of good with Captivate, but only when I'm actually capturing video off my screen. I've tried my hand at doing Flash before, but using SoThink and SWFer from Merlin. 

Yes, it's a pretty grueling job considering how big a chatterbox I am. But I like chatting over the phone anyhow. 

4. I show my SMEs and then get editing. 

Erase and rewrite... If you know the Cardigan song, this would be pretty funny. If you don't then boo hoo... look it up. 

5. Final approval comes right after the edits. I usually run it by the Senior Training Manager first and when she approves, then I run it by the sponsors, the SMEs and whomever will be training the piece. 

It's definitely desk work, and there's a lot more intricacies in actually making a module work. Like I told a good friend earlier, I think a good trainer dumbs things down. An Instructional Designer makes the "dumbing down" look intelligent, such that no one would think it's condescending and as mentioned earlier, it hits all the bells and whistles it needs to hit for retention. 

So, that's my work. I am getting paid to actually see things from a learner's perspective and how it works in his/her mind so they'd retain it. 

So, in case you're wondering how grueling a job is it? It's an 8 hour job, I work at night to be able to consult with the corporate SMEs, and the sponsors. 

And we go on breaks, don't worry, cos we really do... In fact... 

This was taken last Friday. Jessie and Ivan locked in Chess Supremacy battle while Iris and Candy looks on. 

Yeah, I gave them the Chess set. It's a cheap version of it... a piece of colored paper. 

That's Ivan trying to concentrate. 

While Jessie looks bored. Iris looks more concentrated on the game! Hahaha! 

So if you're wondering why I love this job... it's because there's nothing I would love in this world more than to touch one person's life. If I helped make someone remember something that would help them in their jobs, I would have made a difference. 

Oh and my teammates rock too! 

Note: No photographers were harmed intellectually during the making of this post. Pictures that were not taken by **meg** were obtained legally from Stock Xchng. 


Candy is a blog author herself. Read riveting revelations about Candy on her blog.