The renovation

Many had asked me how's the progress of our house renovation. "ok.... fine.... progressing ...." was my answer for the past one month. Now here comes the truth.

After the whole excitement wore off (during the first two weeks itself), it slowly become a drag and a pain in the ass. The renovation had been delayed for nearly a month now. The contractor is slow in his job and was poor in his communication skill. His standard answer to all our queries was "ok, ok, can, can, no problem.." but never bother to explain what he meant by saying "can", what is the cost implication. Plus there is issues with old piping etc. which was out of our expectation.

Peter and I have alot of friction due to the disagreement in the renovation work. He was the bridge of the communication between the contractor and myself as most of the time i am not able to monitor the progress of the renovation due to my long working hours. Being the miss fussy pants, i have alot of requirements whereby poor Peter have to become the postman to convey my words to the contractor and vice versa. When things didnt work out, he had to listen to my whines and complains, and at the same time he was frustrated with the contractor's 'chinaman' working style.

That's why i wrote the post "A house is not a home" quite some times back as a reminder to myself that never lose sight of the most important thing, which is US and not the house. I appreciated that Dorcas promptly dropped a concern email to me once she saw the post. It was really sweet for her to do so but i am super bad when it comes to reply email (hehe.. sorry mate!).

I have to say the entire process was thorny and painful, but i am thankful that we have achieved most of our objective for the course of past two months. And i really hope that by this week, the first phase of the renovation will be completed and i can move in on Merdeka day (what a coincidence!). So far, the renovation list includes:

1. New plaster ceiling
2. New bathrooms (I love the master bathroom the most!)
3. Tearing down the wall between the kitchen and living room
4. Re-routing and replacing old pipes
5. Replacing all the old doors
6. Varnishing and painting
7. Polishing marbles, new marble skirting
8. New tiles for the balcony
9. New curtain railings
10. New down lights and sockets
11. Laminated floor for bedrooms (PENDING!!!)

One good thing was throughout the process, after many disagreement, frustration, silent treatment and reconciliation (hugs and kisses, hahaha...), Peter and i had learned to deal with unexpected issues with open mind and even have the guts to laugh about it. For instance, Peter and I went for a check on the new paints last night, to our horror, the lime green color which we have chosen for the main corridor and wardrobe appears to be too GREEN whereby i can even see the reflection of the green color on Peter's face when he stood beside the wall. You can imagine how my heart dropped when i saw the green wardrobe as it looks like some sort of kindergarten room/prayer room (if you know what i'm saying).

To prevent Peter from turning into the incredible hulk everytime he enters the room, we decided to re paint the room, OURSELVES. The funny thing was on our way back, Peter suddenly turned to me and said " Luckily we change our mind about the theme of our house from white-red to white-green theme, imagine how the room looks like in red". And thats when we started to laugh hysterically.... oh my, not to mentioned that yesterday was the day of celebration for hungry ghost festival. No pun intended.

All in all, it was indeed a journey, i will definitely share some picture of the place once its being cleaned up. So till then, i will leave it to your imagination. ;)

Book review: 纸婚

Am reading a chinese novel-纸婚 for the past two nights. The book describes the reality of marriage life of a young couple of different background: A city girl and a village boy. It was written beautifully. Just to share with you all a passage which touched me deeply.

今天看见一个女作家写的话：爱情就像一把匕首，深深刺进我的心脏，在以后的很多年里，令我深陷于此、永志不渝。

永志不渝，这真是个美丽的词汇，在这个女作家年老的时候，回忆那场爱情的刹那，动人心扉。

她爱他，却无法和他生活在一起。
她的爱永志不渝，于是终生未嫁。

我想起，婚礼上，人们喜欢用这个词宣誓：我宣誓，无论疾病、贫困、灾难都无法将我们分开，我将深爱我的丈夫/妻子，永 志不渝。

那么多的新人，都曾用青春宣誓。可是，很多年过去，还是有很多人分开。
他们分开的时候，“永志不渝”就像一场稍纵即逝的烟火，它的美丽，只能用来嘲笑“永远”本身的短暂。所以，我想，“永志不渝”原来就是一场年轮的考验—— 这个词，这句话，本不是20岁的人可以说，并能说出味道来的。

就好像那位女作家，年轻的时候，没有人相信她所谓的“永远”。直到她老了，嘲笑她、奚落她的那些人，才相信“永远”的存在。

原来，“永志不渝”的意义，要靠时间来证实。
原来，说“永志不渝”的那个人，一定要白发苍苍。
原来，永志不渝，这不单是一个关于爱情的承诺，还是一个关于生命的承诺。

Went to Shanghai and back

17th Aug, 4pm. Am standing in front of a painting in my hotel room. My brain took quite some time to decipher what the painting was all about. Believe me, 5 and half hours of flight does cause permanent damage to your brain.

At last, the realization descended on me, it was a drawing of the famous pearl tower standing proudly across the Huang Pu River of Shanghai. And yes, i was in Shanghai of course.

This is where i stayed for the rest of the 4 days 3 nights.

This is what i had for breakfast, at a small cramped oven like chinese restaurant: chicken porridge, yao char kuai which is two times the length of my chopsticks and of course the infamous siao long bao. Total damage to my pocket, RM3.40 for 2 person, AMAZING!

This is what i eat for lunch for two subsequent days. Instant noodle, done in 4 minutes, guarantee satisfaction. The weather is simply too hot for me to wander around hunting for lunch. With the summer sun brightly shining at 40 degrees Celsius, you'll be soaking wet by the time you found a decent restaurant with proper air conditioning.

Ps: Dont go to Shanghai during this period of time, you will come back look like a charcoal


This is one of the restaurant we went for LUXURIOUS dinners. A restaurant which serves great SOUP!



And guess what, i've ate puffer fish! and its not bad at all. In case you dont know, puffer fish carries poisons and its not edible unless its being cleaned and handled by licensed cook in Japan. In Shanghai, the puffer fish was reared in ponds and was manipulated hence it doesnt carry anymore poison.



This is the chinese chap fan in 'KFC' style, served while its still steaming hot, within 5 mins! No one can beat chinese when it comes to efficiency

The end

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Neither here nor there

God put the Israelites in the wilderness for 40 years before they entered into the promise land.

Sometimes, i asked myself. Am i still in the wilderness?

Not just in the spiritual context, but in this earthly body as well. How mature am i? How meaningful is my life now? how well did i fulfill my role as a daughter to my parents, a christian to my fellow brethren, a fiancee to my love, an elder sister to my brother.

Am i still wandering around when i am suppose to do things i should do? whining and complaining when things get tough? sway and distracted easily from my goal and purpose?

The recent family issue and on going house renovation issue had shaken the core of my confidence. Suddenly, i am neither here nor there. Seed of doubts was planted and blossoming. I'm no more certain about the calling, the purpose, the goal, the direction, the vision, even the sights which was crystal clear to me before. And the scary thing is, without all these, there is no yardstick to tell me how well i did, there is no boundaries to tell me whether am i still on the right track.

Pastor Chuan shared something about faith last week: faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see. I certainly cant see anything now, nor i know whether my hope is certain. Maybe i just lack of faith.

I wonder how long more this 40 years gonna last.

Photo-blogging 040810

Finished the first two books of the Sookie Stakehouse vampire series. i would sum it up by saying its an adult version of twilight. Entertaining, bloody, nothing inspiring though. The drama series "True Blood" wasn't that great either, it loosely follows the original storyline, too much nudity, am surprised they even allow it to be aired on HBO.

i think i will stick with the book rather than the drama series at the moment. Anyway, my hand is itching to buy the entire series now. Amazon offered it at the price of 34.99 for the collection of 8 books, quite an amazing bargain i must say. Anyone bought anything from Amazon before? would need some advice here.

Am hooked with "The Host" for the past 3 nights. The book is much much better compare to the twilight series. The only flaw of the book is that the story flows at stephenie meyer's pace, if you know what i'm saying. Will come out with a proper review once i finished the book, another quarter to go.

Other than that, i am still a bit homesick i think. All i did since i came back from Kuching trip was just lying on the bed and reading, non stop....

which justify why i should buy more books. ;)

At home

The moment the plane touched down LCCT yesterday, my heart was in the state of tug of war. On one hand i'm glad to come back to the place which i've slowly grew attached to for the past 4 years; on another hand, i doubt that my heart will ever register this city as a place i can call my home.

It was easy to walk along the old and rugged shops at the street of Kuching's 7th mile and smile from my heart in reminiscence of old schooling days; it was easy to walk hand in hand with my mom, aimlessly in the neighborhood, just to enjoy the sunset and the presence of each other; it was easy to laugh at the silly act of my 29 years old sister and 22 years old brother, running away from the attack of God-knows-what flying insect; it was easy to lie on my bed, while listened to the cooking sound and nagging voice of my mom in the kitchen and felt nothing but contentment in my heart.

It was so easy to feel at home.

Ironically, it was easy to look at the sky scrappers which i've seen more than a million times and still felt totally foreign about it; it was easy to surround by people of different colors in a small cramp lift and suffocated by loneliness; it was easy to feel vulnerable and hurt when the only person i can call my family in this foreign land showed no sign of joy at the sight of me; it was easy to lie on the bed, in the room which i've inhabited for the past one year, and wondering what am i doing here.

It was so easy to feel not at home.