To make you feel my love

I was lying down on my bed listened to some mushy love songs last night, something i rarely do since the days of my sweet 18 was over. There is this song sang by Kris Allen-"To make you feel my love" caught my attention, mind you i'm not big fan of him (i like Adam Lambert more), but i have to admit that he nailed the song.

It has been ages since the last time i heard a song which tells such a sweet and innocent love, it reminded me of Nicholas Spark's quiet story of enduring love such as "The notebook" and "A road to remember".

To make you feel my love

When the rain is blowing in your face
And the whole world is on your case
I would offer you a warm embrace
To make you feel my love

When the evening shadows and the stars appear
And there is no one to dry your tears
I could hold you for a million years
To make you feel my love

I know you haven't made your mind up yet
But I would never do you wrong
I've known it from the moment that we met
No doubt in my mind where you belong
I'd go hungry, I'd go blind for you
I'd go crawling down the aisle for you
There ain't nothing that I wouldn't do
To make you feel my love

The storms are raging on a rolling sea
Down the highway of regret
The winds of change are blowing wild and free
But you ain't seen nothing like me yet
There ain't nothing that I wouldn't do
Go to the ends of the earth for you
Make you happy, make your dreams come true
To make you feel my love

Original by Bob Dylan, and made famous by Billy Joel

I think any girl listen to her man singing this song to her will go all mushy inside. (Download the song here)

Ironically, listened to song like this sadden me, as i came to realize that such love has turned into dinosaur of the modern age- simply extinct. Gone with the days of sweet and innocent love of simple girls and boys with simple things on their mind. True love? that spell ancient.

I don't know when but somewhere along the lines love has evolved into something materialistic, superficial, carefree, preferred with no string attached.

which is sad, sad, sad.

How can something so beautiful forgotten so easily by this generation?

I was browsing randomly and saw this post "5C" by Mr. Manglish. I couldn't helped but echoed with him that nowadays there is a great emergence of a group of Venuses who worshiped the 5C. I'm not referring to all, but consciously or subconsciously, some women do put greater emphasis at the externals/qualification more than what the heart feels when it come to choosing a life partner. You may not agree with me but who wants to talk about future with a man who is still living under his mommy's wings?

In fact, i was in a conversation with my colleague yesterday and he shared the same view. He is a bachelor in early 30s, who experienced a failed relationship before and remained single til today. He felt that with the gradual growth of women's social status and earning power, its very hard for him to find a woman who is willing to be with him through thick and thins, and not just for temporal enjoyment or companionship (a.k.a hangout partner).

Is it really that hard for women to attain the balance of sense and sensibility?

Sad, sad, sad.

Dinner at Delicious

Went to Delicious restaurant (along Jalan Tunku Abdul Razak) for my birthday dinner last night, loves the ambiance there, the internal deco was really unique, as there were white branches extending from the pillars and lots of lights inside bird cages hanging on the wall.

Random photos taken while waiting for our food to arrive.

I've ordered a butterscotch shake (RM9.90) and quiche Lorianne (RM18.90), a french cuisine based on custard made from eggs and milk in pastry crust. The ingredients inside includes smokey beef bacon, onion slices and cheese, yummy. The butterscotch shake was superb, at first i thought it was a mix of liquor and milk, but it tasted like caramel and toffee.

Peter ordered a spicy zucchini pasta with feta cheese and pie nuts (RM19,90), it was very fresh and light. He enjoyed it very much as well.

Next, its the Bananna Puding (RM10.90) which comes together with Butterscotch sauce and vanilla ice cream. Its was simply irresistable, the moist bananna puding with sweet butterscotch taste and icy vanilla ice cream was a great blend of mixture!

After the dinner, we went for a walk at the Delicious Ingredients Store downstairs, they sell lots of imported goods such as champagne, smoked meat, spices, sweets and chocolates etc. You can even find the sponge fingers for tiramisu here (which is really really hard to find in KL) and some weird flavors for Pringles chips, such as Ranch, Spicy Guacamole etc.

Infront of Delicious Ingredients, The Pringles

Sweets and chocolates, bottles of Champagne

Breads and smoked meat

There are some great recipe from delicious website, wished that i have an oven.

R.I.P. Micheal

Micheal Jackson passed away 4 a.m. (MST) this morning. He suffered cardiac arrest and went into coma, soon after was pronounced dead by Los Angeles Coroner, reported by CNN.

I am not a big fan of him, however i love to see others sing his songs and dance his moves, such as Adam Lambert performance on MJ's Black or White in idol season 8 and Au Quan of BBT danced his moves in BBT concert. When i heard his songs being played one after another through Hitz.fm this morning (in the remembrance of him), i cant helped but feeling sad. He left a great legacy, and was truly an irresplacable singer and performer.

R.I.P Micheal Jackson

The realization

Here's what happened to me.

Two nights before, I have a get-together session with around 10 ladies and girls (I am stressing that there is a clear demarcation between the two groups, the ladies and the girls) at my place for a simple dinner. What i noticed was that i'm subconsciously skewing myself towards the working ladies and even when we randomly sat down in a circle, all the students tend to sit at one side and all the working ladies sitting on the other side, as if there is an invisible 20ft deep ravine between us.

Then, Evelyn told me: "Welcome to the "Aunties" group!". And that moment itself, the realization striked me hard, that I'm getting older and can no longer call myself a young girl! If you placed me among a group of 20 years old girls, probably i will be so out of place and people can spot me easily that I'm not really belong to the group.

(Side Track: Since most of my friends had passed through their first quarter life as well, i am just wondering when was that moment of truth for them? How old/when did they started to notice the fact that they are getting older)

For as long as I can remember people have always thought I am much younger than I actually was (or maybe i'm just self deceiving), partly due to my chubby face and choice of clothing (jeans and T shirt). Before this, I'm not really awared of the fact that my age is catching up, however i do admit that there has been some significant events happened in the past few years that slowly brought this all to light.

1. Many of my friends were married (yes, that's you, Dorcas and Chel!) and couples popping out kids (Lorna and Yue!!!) even those single dudes who swore to celibacy are settling down (except kim, hehehe). and when i'm attending wedding function, my relatives and the married ones will bug me nonstop on when its my turn.

2. Anytime I see girls making kawaii a.k.a acting cute pose during photography session and i couldnt bring myself to do the same thing. Sometimes when i looked at the actions of some younger people and think "they are definitely getting it wrong!", and moreover i found myself constantly telling the the younger ones " when i'm at your age..."

3. Doing all the grown up things such as having a car loans and mortgage, getting an insurance, paying bills, bills and more bills.

4. Every time i looked at the outrageous attires of the younger ones and realized that there is definitely a generation gap between us. (sign, ripped jeans are not popular anymore, mind you i have 2 pairs of those lying in my closet)

ripped jeans with style

5. I'm reminiscing things which happens years ago more often, exactly what i'm doing now.

6. I went for aerobic classes and cutting down junk food consumption, because all the food i ate showed up on the wrong parts of my body

However, the most evident of all is the change of my mindset, i used to think that life is all about living it to the fullest, which means travel to more places, getting to know more people, involved in lots of activities that wear me out physically, tiring as i sound but i know tomorrow when i open up my eyes its another brand new day and i can start it all over again. Being young also means having crushes and falling madly in love, sometimes even heart breaks were painfully sweet because it makes me felt alive.

Not only my physicals, its seems like my heart had aged as well, intense feelings/emotions worn me out easily. After 4 years of coupling, Peter and I love each other more as a family and a friend, rather than being love sick and crazy over each other all the time. Furthermore, the thought of settling down keep comes back to me from time to time. Nowadays, Saturday means snuggling in my bed til 10am, have a great brunch and watch a corny movie, practically just doing nothing. Boring as it sound, but i think i can adapt well to the life with no busy schedule.

Frankly, i'm not old (just older), i am far from it. Nonetheless, the differentiation between my early 20's and getting-into-late 20's life was obvious and indisputable. Do i miss my youthful days? sometimes yes, but majority of the time, not really. I think i've already tasted what youth was all about, and my physicals and emotional has taken a change to suit for other types of challenges in life.

As such, i'm eager to see what life is going to offer me next.

Update (25/6/2009):
The cat is out of the bag, i'm officially 26 today. The gathering mentioned in the blog was a get together session plus my pre-birthday celebration, thanks to my dear church mates for the surprise! and thanks to others who had send me birthday wishes as well (ps. adam, never expected to receive your msg, great to hear from you pal!!)

ps2: will upload some picture soon.

Father's day

It was Father's day yesterday, there was no cakes and celebration since my dad and I are physically separated by hundreds miles of open sea.

Although we only had a short tele conversation but i felt like we are closer than ever. i wished him a simple happy fathers day wish and as usual he told me to take good care of myself, eat proper and dont drive too fast and da da da.... Well, you get the idea. However despite of his usual nagging, there is this particular advice from him which left a warm imprint in my heart. He told me to always hold on to The Almighty since my mom and himself cannot be physically be there for me all the time.

It was a simple thing to say but it summarized the heart of a father. My earthly father loves me so much that he had decided long time ago to let me go in order for me to pursue my own dreams, even if it means i'm no longer under his wings of protection. As such, he can only asked the Heavenly Father to watch over me when i'm far away from home. Til this day, he still strongly believes that his childrens will never deviate too far from the right path if she/he honours God.

It has been a good 9 years since the day i left my home, no matter where i am, be UK or KL, he had consistently showed me that he had so much of faith in God and in me. For that, i have nothing but gratitude.

Happy Father's day, daddy.

The problem with Manglish

This is a continuation of my previous post on "The accident".

I've engaged in a tele conversation with this guy who is supposed to be "friend" of the lady whose car banged into mine on last Tuesday, and as what i've mentioned in the previous post, he is a soft spoken gentlemen who had apologized sincerely on behalf of the lady, of which i felt it was a good gesture but unnecessary. After the call, i sent out the repairment invoice and told myself to be patient while waiting for them to bank in the cash.

After 3 days of waiting, i lose my patience and went on sms-ed the lady, but still in a very polite manner, whether she received the email of which i've sent to her "friend" and if yes kindly send me an acknowledgment sms after bank in the cash. What surprised me is that she replied and asked me to share the bill, which means 50:50 for both parties. I called her up immediately and told her although it wasn't a fat bill and it doesn't cost me that much if i'm sharing the bill with her, however for me its not so much of a money matter, but more of standing up for my own principal as it was a clear cut whereby the accident resulted from her own careless driving, and i shouldn't be punished for her fault. Strictly speaking, i've incurred unnecessary troubles to send the car for repair, plus my car value depreciated and its only fair if she pay the price for the consequences of her act as well.

I explained to her the repairment cost was fair and she can even come with me to the workshop to get more clarification on the breakdown of the cost. That's when suddenly she changed her 'requesting' mode to rude mode. She said frankly this does not need not anymore physical interaction and there is no need for face to face meeting, in an essence "i don't want to see your face".

The whole issue is not the fact that she had requested for me to share the bill (she can try her luck and of course i have the right to refuse as well), but its her attitude and the way she speak, in specific, her manglish. Frankly, this is a serious negotiation process and is it that difficult to show a bit of respect to the other party by using proper English? Sentence like: "please lah, no need for us to meet up", "ha? its small amount, like that also cannot...." can be extremely annoying, if you know what i mean. She was rude, demanding and throughout the entire interaction, no words of sorry was spoken. At one point i need to stop her from bubbling on, and told her there is no need for her to be rude.

Since when did all these terms such as -lah and meh are ubiquitously used in the Malaysian lexicon?

Before Phua Chu Kang started the whole trend of speaking Singlish/Manglish, frankly speaking there is no words defined for such mis conduct of language, as its just simply either good English or bad English. Being a Malaysian myself, to be truth, i neither speak perfectly polished English, nor i'm 100% off the Manglish speaking trend as well. As bad as it sound, Manglish is the official language during the mamak session and speaking distorted English among circle of friends somehow make perfect sense. However, my point is in order to communicate effectively and express ourselves well, shouldn't we try to speak proper English in a serious conversation?

I'm not condoning the use of Manglish, nor i'm proud with the so called culture. Just because we cant control ourselves from speaking English in improper vocab and grammar, doesnt mean that we can justify it in the name of "Malaysian culture".

If you like your words to be taken seriously, please speak proper English.

(Side Track: I received a complain from Perodua Car Service Centre this morning saying that a lady called up and asking why did the bill cost so much, she was rude and refuse to identify herself. The attendants in charge thought that the caller was me and keep addressing her as "Miss Ong" (thats me), of which they later found out that the caller wasnt me of course.For this, i'm glad that i've sent my car to the proper service centre to repair and not some Ah Beng or Ah Wong workshop, all the records were computerized and non disputable, hence there is no way for the lady to dismiss me.)

Science and Buffet at Garden Hotel

Attended a Bio-automation workshop yesterday at Gardens, whereby the principal for a particular bio-equipment company fly all the way from Germany to hold the half day seminar. Being Malaysian, we always try to show our best hospitality to the foreigners, which means serving luxurious dinner at 5 star hotel. At the same time, its also Malaysian custom to have good food after heavy scientific talk to replenish the participant's exhausted grey matter. Furthermore, great scenery and ambiance to help the digestion of the food, which means open platform at sky high beside the swimming pool.

Food beside swimming pool


The waiters grilling and barbequeing the meat on the spot, great view from 5th floor of the Garden Residence Hotel

When i said good food, i truly mean it

Malaysia Signature dish, satay


Hotdogs, grilled chicken, otak-otak


Corn comb, Jacket potatoes, Grilled Lam, onions rings

Mixed Vege, fruit Jelly, cakes

All sort of desert, yummiessssss

Its quite funny to see all the 'guai lou' changed into their 'holiday attire' (shorts pants, hawaiian skirt and sun glasses) straight away after their presentation to attend the dinner. Apparently they are putting up a stay in Garden hotel as well, so i guess this will be something like a 'lawatan sambil belajar" for them. The only odd part was that all the Malaysian participants were dressing smart in their suit (including me), looking highly civilised but sweating like a pig inside, while the fellow foreigners were chit chating beside the pool, totally relaxed and enjoyed.

Well, at least i have free food to eat.

An accident

My fat Myvi's back bumper was banged yesterday morning.

It was nearly 8am, the road was still packed jam, and the traffic was bumper to bumper. However, that is very much my daily routine and frankly speaking, patience can be nurtured. So i wasnt particularly in bad mood or anything. Driving at the turtle speed, i'm half distracted by John Mayer's deep voice interweaved with rhythm of his bluesy guitar, playing softly from the radio.

And suddenly this car came and bang me from behind. I only managed to hear a loud bang and the next thing i know was my body flung towards the steering by the momentum. My instant reflex was "Not again!" (This is not the first time my car was banged by someone). The fact is everyone was driving slow, like 10km/hr maybe, so how can she speed from behind and banged into my car when there is not even a meter of space between our cars. Unless, she press on the accelerator accidentally and thought it was the break. No joking, i did that quite a few times my self.

Anyway, i'm thankful that no one was injured apart from my car.

I parked my car at the side of the road and the young office lady (early 20s maybe) came down from her car as well. When she looked at my car, she didnt even apologized but said this instead "oh, the bumper detached at one side only, you can re attached it back one." I am totally speechless, at her naiveness. I cant even find the right word to curse and if you allow me to describe this poetically, the words have left me, totally.

I told her to look at the side of my back tyer, of which the liner (the rubber piece between the tyre and the car body) was broken, and the seriously dented bumper, which is impossible to re attach back unless you detach the whole bumper and reattach by 'knocking and heat re-shaping' (dont asked me why i know this, like i said, its not my first time). Without obstructing the traffic further more than it was, i took her details down and tell her i will send the car to the workshop to see the damage and quote her accordingly.

When i reached the office, i quickly settled all the urgent works and took a half day leave. I sent my car to Perodua Service Centre to access the damage, of which the outcome was my bumper need to be knocked and some pins were broken, the reverse sensors had gone and the liner needs to be replaced. The total damage was around RM180.00. This is excluding the re-spray of the scratched part cuz i still can tolerate with the minor aesthetic flaw.

Thats when i call the lady's number to inform her that i will go ahead to pay it first and get it fix. The line went to the voice mail after ringing for ages. I call back, and this time the phone was shut down. Again, for the second time of the day, I'm speechless. Am not sure she is purposely avoiding my call or not but i'm getting really upset over the whole thing now.

Whether she is paying or not i need to get the car fixed so i went ahead. I sms her asking her to call back if she received my sms. still no calls returned.

It was not until nearly 3pm an unknown number called, i picked up the phone and there is this guy asking me am i the person whose car was knocked this morning. I said yes and went ahead to explain to him the damages. I didnt vent the frustration onto him and he sincerely apologizesd to me as well. So thats the whole story, am still waiting for him to wire the money to me, and until now, the lady never call me, not even once.

Just want to give my two cents here.

Why do we need another person (bf or brother or friend) to apologise for what we've done wrong? Regardless of how minor the lady may think the whole incident was, Its not that hard to just say a sincere sorry for causing so much of trouble to the other person isnt it? Throughout the entire interaction, i was never rude or anything, so its impossible that i scared her off.

Yes, of course bf can stood up for their girlfriend, there is nothing wrong about it. Carrying an XX chromosomes myself, i will be touched if my bf say sorry on behalf for me for thing which i've done wrong to others. However, take away the i'm-so-touched part, ladies, arent we are big enough to admit our own mistake? are we taking our love ones for granted as its simply convenient to let the man stood up for us everytime?

Just think about it.

Facebook? maybe not

Your mom is on Facebook (i'm not saying my mom, just in general, it will be miracle if my mom knows how to on a pc), your dad is on Facebook, your primary school mates in on Facebook and even your 8 years old cousin is on Facebook.

But the thing is you dont have a Facebook account, it seems like you are so totally 'out', if you know what i mean. Even if you keep up with a circle of old friends via emails or blogs, or even in person, there's a good chance you can be oblivious to a whole other dynamics if you're not on Facebook. They speak in a Facebooker language which you can never understand, such as "i peek", "i kidnapped you" etc. They played online Facebook games and gimmicks all the times and nowadays the most used pick up line is "Are you on facebook?"

Its mind boggling to see that we are so much hooked on to Facebook and its has become a trend on its own. Remember those days we used to call those who eats and sleep with their books bookwork or geeks, how funny is that nowadays, if you are not sleep and dine on Facebook, then you are a geek. Facebook is omnipresent and universal, to an extent that those who opt out seem to act like a outlier who needs to fight and justify for saying no.

The whole Facebook craze in my opinion is because the fact that it makes socializing like no other and so much easy than it used to be. Its a great game of Six Degree of seperation, a virtual networking map which typically makes your friends available at your fingertips. With just a "virtual presents" or "nudge", you can put a smile on the face of a friends who is thousands miles away. You can also informing others on how well you are lately by putting up notice/photos/comments/blogs etc. in your facebook homepage.

Sounds too good to be true, isnt ?

However, at the same time, Facebook took away the physical contact in human interaction, instead of chatting (with your mouth, not with your keyboard) and hanging out together, now we interact with typed words and amusing photos, while chained to the desk.

Yes, Facebook help us to find back our long lost friends who happen to be somewhere in this cyberspace. But the chance is if we dont usually hang out with those distant friends, such as the boy sitting at the corner of the classroom or the girl next door who we have not seen for 20 years, whats makes people think that they will be re connected 'physically' after being 'be-friended' in the Facebook's friend list.

Apart from that, there has been a big fuss on random"i want to be your friend and if you dont accept you suck" Facebook request from the strangers. I've heard many complains about similiar encounter from the facebookers whereby poeple hiding behind some anonymous name, using Facebook as a tool of harrasment to take advantages of others.

ok, the truth is I dont have a Facebook account and thats why i am writing this openly. But frankly speaking i am not against it, the fact that i didnt join is simply because i dont agrees with "I should be on Facebook because everybody expects me to." And, yes, i realized that i may miss out on social goings-on but i dont think joining Facebook is going to resolve my hermit lifestyle ( i enjoy my solitude anyway) or.... it gonna make it worse.

A taste of Churrascaria (Brazillian BBQ)

I went for a get-together dinner session with Peter's friends and old mates two nights before. It was a nice carnivorous experience at Carnaval Churrascaria, a Brazilian Restaurant at Damansara Jaya area.

Carnaval Churrascaria： Around 20 of us sitting on a long long table

Although the name "Churrascaria" itself suggested bbq feast for carnivores, however the salad bar offers quite a range of different vegetables which includes spinach, coleslaw, stir fried french beans, caulis and potatoes salad, wedges, mashed potatoes, black beans, beef stew, pasta etc. Hence, the restaurant still caters for the need of those who are not too fancy over meaty meal.

The passador or the waiter will bring out cuts of barbecued meats (some in big loaf) on skewers, and move around, carving the meat at your request. The big knife which he used to carve and slice out the meat are a bit scarry though. I cant really differentiate the taste of Brazilian barbequed meat and the usual d.i.y. barbecued meat, except that it was grilled to perfection, not much of the burnt charcoal bitter taste, and very aromatic as well. On top of that, the meat went very well with the self made mint, salsa sauce and others like HP and Lea & Perrins Worcestershire sauce.

The range of the meat they served wasnt that much of variety actually, there are lamb, garlic beef and medium rare beef slices/ribs, chicken, Chicken Ham, sausages, and fish. Peter's mates mentioned that they used to have prawns and gizzards as well. To my surprise, the lamb actually tasted better than beef, usually i'm not so much of a lamb person as i'm put off easily by the lamb smell, but they've done it nicely, juicy and succulent, maybe its the Brazilian secret recipe. The signature beef (see image below) was something i don't dare to try, cuz i can see the meat was bloody red, chewy and it leaves traces of blood in the plates. urghhh.... .

The Passador and the meat lover Adrian


The image above were grabbed from http://starbucaneer.blogspot.com as i totally forgot to capture the photos of the food, until my plate is empty

Another highlight was the pineapple, it supposed to be grilled until slightly brown. however, for some reason the piece he gave to me wasnt caremelized, hence it tasted extremely sweeeetttt...

The grilled pineapple and pieces of lamb meat

Its a good place for the carnivores as you can eat all you want for RM48++. In my opinion, there is still some room for improvement for the ambiance though, it would make a whole lot different if they can play some nice Brazilian song and make the environment more lively rather than just hanging a Brazil flag next to Malaysia's.