Atlantis_My world

Who I am today

2012-01-16T16:41:00.001+08:00

Today its the 16th day of 2012, I came across this new song from Jason Mraz which i instantly fell in love with it.

Who I am today, Jason Mraz

I thank the boys who kicked my ass when I was 17
I thank the ones who chose to laugh and those who acted mean
I thank the bullies for body slams and accidents and then some
They shaped my life; they made me like who I've become

I thank the girls who gave a hand and showed me how to dance
I thank the ones who passed who never gave a second glance
I learned that it's okay for some to go and some to stay
They shaped my life; they made me love who I am today

I thank the captains of the boats who brave the sea
I thank the farmers for the sowing of the seeds
I thank the men who paved the roads I'm travelling on
They shaped my life, they took me down the path I've gone

I thank the volunteers for giving up their time for free
I thank the engineers; all those who keep our water clean
I thank the janitors for all their years behind the scenes
They shaped my life they taught me generosity
They shaped my life they let me see who I could be

So, i, i know, life is good

I thank the galaxy for how it made up gravity
I thank the sky above for hosting clouds to float on top of me
They gave me air to breathe and give me rain and give me snow
They shaped my life, they gave me so much room to grow

I thank the frogs, and daddy long legs and the bees
I thank the microorganisms under every tree
I thank the fertile soil for the life behind the food I eat
They shaped my life they gave me possibility
And I, I know, that life is good...
yes I, I know....

You shape my life. You make me love who I am today.

How many of us can confidently say to ourself that "I love who I am today". Sometimes, we keep on saying "How i wish i am like so and so, or how i wish i have what so and so has..". Its almost too easy to think that its better to be someone else rather than to be yourself.

Anyway, I was greatly inspired by the song. I know the message is not something new or earth shattering, however it was the right one which came at the right time.

Enjoy

The Undomestic Godess

2012-01-05T10:42:00.000+08:00

My oven is fuming and blazing since Christmas.

Blueberry muffins, oh and my latest addition of dunno-what-plant-is-it to my gardening (with no garden) collection.

During New Year's holiday, i made a batch of blueberry muffin, with FRESH blueberry, impressive or not, hahaha ... The other day, Peter went all the way getting his hand dirty kneading dough and baking bread. Do check out the Basic bread recipe for details.

According master Jamie Oliver, its just 6 simple steps of :

Stage 1: making a well

Stage 2: getting it together

Stage 3: kneading!

Stage 4: first prove

Stage 5: second prove, flavouring and shaping

Stage 6: cooking your bread

Sounds simple right, but truth be told, its more expensive and extremely time consuming to bake your own bread rather than just went to bakery at the corner of the road to buy a freshly made loaf of bread. Its only cost a penny and is equally good (or even better) with home made. However, its a different kind of satisfaction I would say. To eat from the fruit of your labour, literally. Oh, and it gives you great muscle exercise with all the kneading and mixing too!

We made a grilled chicken sandwich with the bread. hmm..hmmm... delicious.

I was so into the baking stuff that the other day i bought this chick flick book by Sophie Kinsella named "The Undomestic Goddess". I can totally echo with the main character Samantha Sweating. She is a successful attorney but a total workaholic who did a major blunder in her career and went down all the way to zero. To make things worse, she become a housekeeper by mistake.

I like the way how the author put this smart women (with flighty thoughts) into a beyond imaginary circumstances and come out better than everyone could have think of. There is this funny scene which describes her first bread baking experience. She had a total nervous breakdown when the kneading is going no where and to make it worse, she has to wait for the yeast to make the bread rise. In her own words:

"I look at the bowl, trying to think miracles. But it isn’t working. I can’t feel calm or serene..... I used to be in control of my time to the minute. To the second. And now I’m supposed to stand here, in an apron, waiting for a...fungus?"

Yeast = fungus, priceless!

I was literally laughing out loud. but a couple of pages after, i was on the verge of shedding tears.

".... A yeasty smell is rising up. I open my eyes to see a loaf of bread in my arms. Proper bread. Real, proper bread like you’d see in a baker’s window. Fat and plump and golden-brown, with faint striations and a crusty, almost flaky top. It smells so delicious I can feel my mouth watering.

“Tell me that’s nothing,” says Iris, squeezing my arm. “You made that, sweetie. And you should be proud of yourself.”

Something hot is wadding my throat as I clutch the warm loaf. I made this bread. I made it. I, Samantha Sweeting, who couldn’t even microwave a packet of soup. Who gave up seven years of her life to end up with nothing, to be wiped out of existence. Who has no idea who she even is anymore. I made a loaf of bread. Right now I feel like this is the only thing I have to hold on to."

I guess that's the meaning of comfort food. When you pour all the hard works and love into whatever you cook/ bake, the food will comfort your soul in return. Its almost like a cleansing and rejuvenating process. Anyway, now you know i have a soft spot for stuff like this. ;)

New year's message on death

2012-01-01T22:37:00.001+08:00

This is a sequel to my "Death" post.

Today's Sunday service's sermon talked about the topic related to death, I would say its pretty heavy stuff and ironically today is the first day of the new year-1/1/2012. What a start to a new year! ;) Many would think that talking about death is inappropriate during festive season. For Chinese, as you know that we are deliberately avoiding anything to do with the figure "4", as in mandarin, the word pronounced the same as "death", so its a BIG NO NO talking about death during Chinese new year, it's considered inauspicious.

However, it has almost become a strange norm that the first few days of every new year, I will receive some kind of message which is related to "death". During end of 2007, it was the first time I realized that my life is not of mine. Of course I know that no one can live forever, however sometimes we live under the delusion that we are bigger than the life itself.

Anyway, back to the story. A youtube video was shared during the sermon. It was about this 18 year old boy named Ben Breedlove. On 18th of December, Ben posted a video on youtube about his 3 times close encounters with death. In his word, he "cheated" death. He had a genetic condition called hypertrophic cardiomyoparthy, which is basically the thicken of the heart muscle wall which can lead to heart attacks. On 25th of December the Christmas day, his heart stopped.

Before he died, he left his story behind and described his personal encounters with the edge in two youtube videos. Quoted from ABC news:

"The world has come to know our Ben," it said. "He was a genius at using the Internet to reach and influence his peers. Through his brilliance with manoeuvring the capabilities of YouTube, Ben has left a message for his generation. In the weeks prior to his death, he had faced some scary situations with his health, but had been given an amazing gift that he was determined to share; first with us, his family, and then, not surprisingly (and generously) with his YouTube audience.

....His message is profound, relating his experiences or visions that made him aware of something amazing beyond this world. This is a message that some will find comfort in and others will simply not accept. It is the tangible, material world versus the unknown."

Now, if you still havent heard or watch the video, do check it out, and decide for yourself whether would you agree with the quoted comment.

As i've been repeatedly saying, death is inevitable. But still, I dont think anyone can stand in front of death and said that they are not afraid to die. For some reason, Ben make it sounds as if its ok to die. I think the point is if you have done enough in your life and when you look into the mirror on that day and felt exactly how Ben felt:

".... I couldn't stop smiling. I then looked at myself in the mirror, I was proud of MYSELF, of my entire life, everything I have done. It was THE BEST feeling."

then I guess death is ok.

However imagine, if your life has been nothing but lost opportunities, such as the other day when you saw someone is in need but you didnt lend your helping hand; or you know you should have reachout to more people but you didnt; or you have this special gift of knowing how to play music or sing beautifully, but you never really use it beyond your own personal enjoyment etc. I guess when the day came and you look into the mirror, there will be nothing but "how i wish..." list of regret and gnashing of teeth as what bible described.

I read another commentary about Ben Breedlove, whereby the writer ends the whole story with the question "does it verify God?"

Well, that's a question we should really ponder about, aren't we?

Happy new year folks.

Post Christmas Blues

2011-12-27T17:27:00.002+08:00

Its approaching the end of 2011.

Many had started to write posts such as: 10 most memorable moments in 2011 or 10 greatest achievements in 2011. I don't understand why are people so obsess with the number "10". If I end up writing such a post, I will never limit myself with 10.

Anyway, its two days after Christmas. I'm sitting in the office while my husband went for a shopping spree at KLCC. Thats why i'm blue. Nah, truth be told, am feeling one kind because there were so much of anticipation and hypes building up all the way to the Christmas, and in a blink of an eye, it ended. Don't get me wrong, my Christmas was fabulous. But the fact that it turned into past tense so fast before I can drench myself in the Christmas spirit makes me cant help but sigh.

In fact, the shopping malls started to play all the "ji ke long dong qiang dong qiang" songs even before the Christmas decoration tears down. Wow, that's fast. I felt i was sorta left behind, while others had started to march towards the new year.

Often, many feel a sense of loneliness or emptiness after Christmas season. Its like a void deep inside which can never be filled by any Christmas gifts. Some are recovering from the burnt wallet, some are wondering so-what's-next? Some felt a emotion sharp turn which nearly send them into depression. But, my blue was a different kind of blue.

There were so much to feel, so much to do, so many friends to meet, so much of love to share during the Christmas, but Christmas day is just ONE day in the cycle of 365 days. In fact i somehow managed to stretch the celebration to 4 days by having church Christmas night event on 23/12, Christmas mass and family Christmas dinner on 25/12 and two Christmas gatherings at my home on 26/12. Gosh it was super hectic and I cant recalled the last time I've baked and cooked so much. However, it still felt NOT enough. How I wished the celebration can be extended to the whole year round, and i don't mind listening to Micheal Buble's I'll be home for Christmas for another 365 days. s

23/12 Church Christmas celebration, all the girls performing mimes for "We are the Reason"

Of course i can still have the gatherings with my friends and families during normal days and not only during Christmas season. But Christmas has this wonderful (and strange) effects on people. I find that people's heart are more open because its the Christmas season. Maybe its the Christmas song, or maybe its white and snowy decoration, or maybe its the peaceful and jolly ambiance. Whatever reason it is, it brought smiles onto people's face easily, it makes you want to skip while walking, it makes your heart felt light and fluffy.

I just wanted this good feeling to go on and on.

2011 Christmas was a special Christmas for me, as I'm celebrating my first Christmas with my 'new' family. Peter and I took up the challenge of cooking the Christmas dinner for the whole family. We had pork ribs, paella, minestrone soup and the cheesecake (which was failed to set, bleh). The food was all gone before I can even take the picture of it. It was a simple dinner with just great conversation and laughters, and I enjoyed the Christmas night with my extended family tremendously. I mean I'm close with Peter's family, but that night, i felt like we were closer than ever. It was finally dawn on me that they are my family now. I guess somewhere along the line after being away from home for 8 years, I've found an anchor and a home here in this city which no longer foreign to me.

If I sum up one thing which the Christmas this year had taught me, that would be "Cherish the moments of love". The great moments in our lives are precious, but fleeting. So enjoy and make full use of it when it still last.

Its Christmas season

2011-12-23T08:00:00.000+08:00

2 more days before Christmas come. Hooray!

I know Christmas has been commercialised pretty much to the extent of maximum nowadays, and heck Jesus is not even born exactly on 25th of December. BUT, i still cant contain the bursting joy in me, knowing that end of the year is coming and this is the time for friends and family to come together and celebrate the fruits of labour which they have harvested throughout the year.

Anyway, in the spirit of Christmas, i shall share with you what Peter and I have done with our Oven for the past few weeks.

In Clockwise, 1. our first roast chicken (stuffed with lemon), its super juicy and easy

2. My raisin and nutty chocolate bar, its easy to make but its too sweet!

3. My first chocolate butter cookies, again its too sweet, will use dark chocolate next time.

Oh, the gals and I had a good time at Plan B the other day, it has a very hip bar-semi restaurant look and its perfect for hang outs!

We ordered a salted beef sandwich (which has a very good texture and taste!), carbonara (very very CHEESY and CREAMY), Morocon lamb pie (the meat comes in chunks but the lamb taste is a little tad too strong to our liking) and the grilled cheese burger (perfect!!)

Cakes, cakes and cakes!!! Happy birthday to our gal Elena!

Ps: See Kohyee with her forever busy with iphone pose

That's all for now, Merry Christmas to all!

"I wish we could put up some of the Christmas spirit in jars and open a jar of it every month." ~Harlan Miller

Death

2011-12-06T15:23:00.001+08:00

Last night, i came across this quote about death in "Norwegian wood"-

"Death exists, not as the opposite but as a part of life"

I believe everyone at one point of their life would have thought about the matter of death. In fact i've thought about it multiple times in my life, about the meaning of death, what's come after death, and how my love ones should continue to live their life happily after my departure.

I'm working with a company which provides informatics solutions to forensic institution (especially mortuary), hence in the 4++ years of my working life, i had saw many dead bodies- Fresh, exhumed, stored in freezer for 10 years, virtual body in 3D, you name it. I wont go into details as they were really not pleasant experiences, plus i dont want my boss to stumble across my blog through google search of keywords.

I remember there was one Saturday night, about a month before my wedding, i have to witness bodies of 16 orphans who were buried alive in an orphanage hit by a landslide. It was nearly 11 pm when the forensic guy from the hospital called me to go to the morgue to assist them with our company's software system. I give a call to my boss to inform him about the situation, took off my pyjamas and put on my jeans, then drove straight to the hospital, all within 15 minutes.

When the midnight came, the bodies started to reach the mortuary one by one. Despite of the multiple ambulances and so many bodies, the entire forensic department was eerily quiet. One of the medical personnel told me later that it was because the deceased were orphans, so there were no families came with the body. I was speechless when the words struck me. There are many deaths in this world which are not been mourned, and there are many souls passed away unnoticed by the world.

Suddenly the silent was no more uneasy nor eerie. It was deafening, with a deep sense of sorrow.

Then the autopsy started, body was opened up, one by one. It saddened me to say this but I have to re conditioned my mind to view those body images displayed on the screen as an object and not a human who no longer can breath, talk nor move. That was the only way i can carry out my work and deliver what i should, with a total detached emotion.

When i drove back home at nearly 2 in the morning, my heart was heavy. I don't know how the forensic pathologists can go back home every night have their dinner with the family, have normal conversation, go into bed and sleep soundly after facing so many death during the day. Maybe they have compartmentalised their personal feelings towards the living and the dead, maybe death had become a routine in their life.

Sometimes, life itself has a way to remind us about death. Death is not foreign, nor its opposite of life. In fact, its part of life. We are all part of this vicious cycle of life and death which no one can be exempted. And i asked myself from time to time, am i ready to face it if it comes today? or i will be like the rich fool in one of the parable in the bible- unprepared and poor in spirit?

Do you think about death constantly? i know its a taboo for some, but maybe we can talk about death openly sometimes. Inevitably, we all have to face it one day, cuz death is the only certainty in life.

My Nephew

2011-11-22T16:06:00.001+08:00

Say Hi to my nephew!

Frankly, i've always felt like all the babies look the same. But when i finally saw this cute little fella, i was able to identify my sister's mouth and eyes in him. Am totally bias in this but he looks super cute to me, you know being so baby, so little, and ewwwwwww..... i wish i could hold his tiny little fingers now.

Kudos to my sister as she went through more than a day of hard labour to bring this fella to the world. By the way, there is this question which always lingering in my mind and finally i got the chance to ask the person with the first hand experience.

"There is always a saying that the moment you see the face of the baby after long hours of excruciating labour pain, all the pain just went "poof" and vanished! IS IT TRUE?"

My sister answer was "Vanish you head la! of course the PAIN is still there".

So here it goes, the myth is now busted.

The making of the kitchen

2011-11-21T12:56:00.001+08:00

Yesterday Sunday service message was about procrastination and its bad consequences. While listening to the message i made an effort to list down all the things which i supposed to do but ended up in my procrastination list.

I guess there is no surprise that blogging the back dated events was on the top of the list. SO, out of great shame and deep regret, i wrote this post the moment i went back home. Here comes the making of my kitchen. which occurred a month ago. ;p

Day 1: Basically cleaning up the space and hacking the wall for the electrical plug outlets

Day 2: Things getting intense as the contractor removed the existing build in cabinet and semen top

In between, there were dust everywhere, i nearly die of continuously stepping on dusty floor.

Day 3: Fill in the cement gaps

Day 4: New floor and wall tiles

1st Weekend: The credit of painting the wall solely goes to none other than Peter and myself. The funny thing was we painted the wall at NIGHT. We were running around in the morning buying the necessary accessories and meeting vendors, so for the two consecutive nights during the weekend, we were in our most worn out clothes, climbing and painting the wall until its glow in white.

There was more dust.

2nd week: The subsequent week was all about the carpentry work. We have chosen a C shape black granite kitchen Top and glossy white wall cabinet. The chunk of the moolah went to the Fotile kitchen set which includes the suction unit, the ~~induction~~ electric ceramic cooker and the built in Oven.

By the end of 3rd week. Our black and white theme kitchen was completed.

I was in complete euphoric as there was no more DUST!!!
ps: Pardon the picture of the jars of snacks. Gosh I love the IKEA air tight jar!

Taiwan Trip part III

2011-10-31T17:39:00.001+08:00

Here comes the long awaited third post of my Taiwan Trip. I have to admit that since the trip was like 2 months ago, i find its kinda hard to remember all the details. Well, hopefully the rest of the posts will come swiftly in no time, i cant stand myself going through another 2 months of procrastination.

Second part of our second day of the Taiwan Trip started off with the visit to the infamous Chiang Kai Shek Memorial Hall (中正紀念堂). Chiang Kai Shek was the successor of SunyatSen after he died in 1925. He served as the President of the Republic of China in 1954 and moved his government to Taipei, Taiwan.

The memorial hall is located in the Liberty square (自由広場), its a big squarish compound surrounded by a white color entrance ark, A Chinese National Theatre and a National Concert Hall at each sides and the memorial hall is facing the ark. The compound is so big (240,000 square meters) that it takes around 5-8 minutes just to walk across to the opposite site.

Peter was greatly amazed by the Gigantic ark. Yes, we were trying out the panorama shooting mode and the output was kinda hilarious.

Now, my turn. This is one of the Chinese Theatre or National Concert Hall (they look exactly the same anyway), and the opposite one in panorama mode.

And here i am sitting infront of the memorial hall

The building looks magnificent in white, the wide space and white tiles accentuate its magistic and i gotta say this is how a national monument supposed to look like.

And then we started our journey of climbing up the thousands steps (okok, its only 89 steps) of staircases to the hall where the famous statue located. It almost reminded me of our very own Batu Caves 292 staircase.

The famous Chiang Kai Shek Bronze statue (the picture does not justify how big is the statue, its about 3 floors high in its actual size) and the changing of the guards which take place every hour, attracting many visitors.

There is this inscription on both side of the wall which says: The purpose of life is to improve the general life of humanity and The meaning of life is to create and sustain subsequent lives in the universe. If you have watched the recent Jacky Chan 100th movie 1911, you will understand the statement better. Its basically corroborates the ideology of democracy. The fact that the Chinese democracy was achieved through shedding of blood and sacrificing of lives, the statement sounds much more meaningful than just a fancy slogan.

Underneath the hall (behind the staircases) is a big museum which showcases the history of Chiang Kai shek. There were so much to see and digest, from official documents, letters, to the chair he sat and the car he drove! but sadly its all written in Chinese.

So, peter can only admire all the pictures in order to figure out the historical events

The impressive miniature of the CKS Memorial hall

While we are viewing the display in the museum, i heard a loud noise from the hallway and discovered that the changing guards actually walk all the way from the museum area (underneath) up to the main hall (above) where the statue is. The funny thing is they will march all the way in and take a lift to go up, while maintaning their perfect posture and no smile at all time. how cool is that!

oh, the guards are pretty cute too. for some reason, they all look the same to me. Maybe that's their selection criteria, not too tall nor too short, slim built, short hair, dark skin and small eyes (seriously!)

Overall, Peter and I enjoyed the visit to CKS memorial. I wish our country have a memorial hall like this, not the 'istana' type which cost billions to built but only meant for private use.

Disclaimer: This is a picture grabbed from Google

P/s: Last picture to share here, this has become our favourite thing to do for the rest of our Taiwan Trip. ;)

Meme

2011-10-27T11:37:00.002+08:00

This is for peter.

My dear always like mimicking the Forever Alone and Trollface meme. So before i start to explain what the heck is this Forever Alone and Trollace, see this.

Forever alone Trollface

Don't ask me why, Peter just love to crack me up with these.

Now let me further elaborate on these meme, well, its something like the "planking" or "Where the Hell Matt is" craze which went on and spread like wild fire across internet, but instead of 'doing it', people actually "drawing it". Forever Alone is used to express loneliness and disappointment with life. While Trollface is meant to portray the expression someone makes while trolling (Trolling is an act of intentionally anger or frustrate someone else). People exploits these rage comic character by drawing (ugly) comic strip about it. For example,

Forever alone

trollface

Now let me explain to you how Mr. Peter executes the meme. Sometimes while he is driving with me sitting beside, when the car go stagnant infront of the traffic light, he will turn his head 90 degrees slowly (yes, the word is SLOWLY) and show his Trollface expression to me. Or at times when we are lovey dovey hugging each other, he will pull out his forever alone face just to kill the moment. And when i go speechless with wth expression, he will laugh his pants off.

wth expression

Yeah, that's what we do when we are alone.

Anyway, the motivation of writing this is i read this post- Day of Memes this morning, Its about these bunch of pretty girls mimicking various memes and post it on her blog. It's so funny and i cant help but to challenge Peter to mimic this meme.

So, here comes the LOL guy. Can you do this? ;)

LOL Guy

Reference from http://knowyourmeme.com

Embrace ambiguity

2011-10-24T11:42:00.001+08:00

The rain continues to pour mercilessly in Thailand. Sometimes, it makes you wonder will it ever stop. Not just the rain, but also the quakes, the suffering, the uncertainty, the ambiguity, and the march towards end time.

Frankly, i still don't know what's my part to play in this grandeur plan of life, suffering, end time and eternity.

To make it worse, ambiguity is my biggest enemy as i'm the type of person who cannot tolerate having no certainty towards what's ahead of me. I need to know whether my bank account has sufficient to pay off my car loans next month; i need to know where my career will lead me in another year time; I need to know even the weather forecast, so that i can plan my journey and prevent from stuck in jam. Don't get me wrong, its great to micro-managing, as it clears off nearly 80% of all the short term ambiguities. However the approach does not relief me from the macro ambiguities in life which i have no control over, and these ambiguities have far more impact than just being immobile in heavy traffic for a few hours.

English words is so rich in its essence that sometime the word alone tells a story. The root word of "Ambiguity" is "amble" in Latin, which means wanderer. In the state of ambiguous is like wandering around, without a clear purpose. However, there is always a boundaries or a scope of the act of wondering around. The planets wonder around the sun, the electrons wonder around the atom, the molecules wonder around the being. and somewhere in my spiritual journey, I realized that as long as I have a clear purpose in life, I may wondering around, I may divert from the road, but I will still reach the final destination.

In this age of ambiguities where mass disasters occurs every other day, many have taken the step of faith, relieve from work and step into the battle zone itself to serve the needy. I have nothing but admiration for them, especially the brethren from Christian Disciples Church at Thailand. They loaded their vehicles with survival kits and went all the way to Chainat to deliver the goods to the areas which do not have access to government aid. Their courages is great, their compassion is real, their stoic attitude in the face of unexpected is the true testimony of their faith. They were the ones who embrace the ambiguities with open hearts as they know where their final destination is.

If you like to contribute monetarily, do go to their website @ Love the Needy. I can also help to assist you in donation if you want less hassle. But sorry folks, i dont know whether you can claim a tax break for this or not, but let us do this in the true spirit of compassion and charity.

You can never make friends when...

2011-10-12T13:52:00.000+08:00

You can never make friends when...

it comes to business and work related matters.

I dont know whether those of my friends who work as sales person/product specialist/business executive (or anyone who has interaction with customer/ vendor / business partners) agree with me on this or not. When i first started in the business line, i was the forever sincere and accommodating person. I will try my best to fight for customer rights or benefits (even though it requires me to face my boss head-to-head), working late hours and all means to cater to business partner's need (although sometimes its ridiculous and trivial matter such as printing 100 copies of the same documents and send to their office in person ) and the list went on. If you want to laugh at my naiveness after reading all this, by all means. Because sometimes i laughed at my own stupidity as well.

Sadly, being 4 years in the position had taught me a hard lesson that no one appreciate you being sincere when it comes to business, in fact the client will try to take advantages of your courteous; boss will scold you for being too nice with the vendors and not squeezing till their last drop; business partners will said can you make another 100 copies of the same for the other client of his as well.

As the result of the bad experience, i have try my best to stay professionally when it comes to business, there is no i-friend-friend-with-you, cuz its all about business. I don't wish to befriend you but its nothing personal because business is all about being mutually beneficial. Decision is made and actions are taken based in the context of mutual benefits and not feeling. You have a business request, and i have the solution, we agreed on the working relationship and the price tagged along with it. Therefore we shake hands and the work begin. When the deal is done, we say all the best and hope to work with you again in future. There is no "lets go out for a drink next time", or "lets continue to be friends although the business is over".

If the client is asking for sponsorship or a meal, i will comply the request if my boss said yes, its not that i friend-friend with you. But frankly, I hate the business luncheon, business dinners and whatever meals which the intention is not to fill the stomach but to fulfill the business objective. Sometimes when the setting is out of office, suddenly everything is let loose, people will start to bitch about their boss, their company, competitors and they expected you to either nod your head and agree with every words they said or you should offer them equally juicy news. And to make it worse, sometimes you are forced to talk about the topics which you only talk to you friends, just to keep the conversation going. "Oh, where do you live? where do you usually hang out? oh i like that restaurant as well". blah blah blah. Its as though for that 60 minutes, you have to psycho yourself that the person is somewhat you friend.

Unequivocally, that everyone who treat me as the person with title "Product Manager", and not the "Susan" i am, will be "unfriended" when the business/ work is over. Opps, maybe thats not the right words, as there is no friendship to start off with. Maybe 'dissociated" is a better words but i like the word "unfriend" more. Its like you can unfriend a person from your facebook's friend list when you (wish to) no longer in contact with them.

Today, i have the urge of 'unfriend' a person so much that i wish i can dig out his facebook account, purposely add him then unfriend him just to release my dissatisfaction. He is my company's distributor, and i have constant interaction with him as sometimes we will go to see customer together. I will do technical explanation and he will do whatever necessary to close the sales. We are in good terms but again we never went cross each other's line, so there is no reason for me to dislike him. This morning, my company hosted a discussion for a group of clients, and since he is the appointed distributor for that particular client so he came as well. The sales manager asked me whether i wanted to join the lunch with the client after the discussion. I said go ahead without me, as the distributor can handle (aka entertain) the client (anyway that is why he was being appointed anyway). To be frank, i used the sentence "He pandai-pandai handle them la". But this is not an insult by all means, this is supposedly how Malaysians talk in a non-formal setting.

Then my sales manager open her eyes widely and mouthed to me: "he-is-sitting-there!!" and i know at that instance i'm dead on the spot as he would have overheard our conversation easily. Well, the conversation ended and i pretend nothing happened and went back to my work. You would have thought that the story ends here, but this is just the beginning of his "annoys-susan-plan". He purposely went and sat beside me, asked another colleague of mine who sits in a cubicle away from me about some product related questions, when he knows exactly that i have the answer for it. I don't know whether he did it purposely to belittle or annoy me, but i remained poised.

Then before he went out for the mentioned luncheon, which i told my sales team to go ahead without me, he delivered the final blow and ridiculed me infront of my colleagues, "But we need you to handle the client ma". I nearly puke blood when he said that, but i just put on a poker face as though i dont know he is being sarcastic. Please tell me, how to have a "friendly" relationship when the distributor do this to the product manager of the principal company? I'm not trying to imply the differences in positions here, but in business, isn't professionalism is the least of the expectation?

So the insight if today is "do not initiate friendship when it comes to business as 100% of the time, you will regret it eventually, worse still, immediately".

Gourmet Pizza making

2011-10-10T12:49:00.000+08:00

Peter and I love to cook. It was a joint interest which we have developed across the years of being together. However, both of our mothers never really taught us how to cook when we are young. I suspected it was because they scared that we will trashed and burnt their precious kitchen. Hence, we grew up thinking that cooking was only meant for housewife, and the only cooking skill which we mastered was boiling instant noodles.

Then somewhere in between our instant noodles and scramble egg (which supposed to be sunny side up in the first place), Jamie Oliver started his naked chef series, and then Gordon Ramsey's Hells kitchen came along, and then Nigella Feast.... Suddenly, cooking seems like a cool and posh thing to do. Man who gets his hand dirty kneading pasta dough looks masculine, and ladies in apron oozing a sense of sexiness all over. So weeks after weeks, Peter and I were fixated on the cooking shows showing on Travel Living Channel. And strangely enough, the cuisine which caught our attention was the Italian.

Peter loves anything and everything when it comes to Italian cuisine. At first we went shopping around for herbs. Rosmary, dill, basil were the common items in our shopping cart whenever we went to Cold storage. Then Dolmio or Prego was forever vanished from our dictionary when Peter started to make his own pasta sauce. Before we even realizing it, Italian words/ phases dominated our vocabulary - al dante, il prosciutto, al fungi, pomidori etc. And it was really fun, it felt like we are learning another culture itself through its food.

A month ago, Peter and I subscribed to a 3.5 hours of Gourmet Pizza making class at The Cooking House. We enjoyed the whole process as this is the first time we make our own pizza from scratch!

Here comes the stainless steel worktop and my happy husband who is eager to start!

Mixing, kneading then the dough was left for setting (for around 20 mins), no picture of kneading as its impossible to take picture with the flour sticking on our hand. The dough puffed up nicely after a while and it was used for 4 different type of pizza. Basically its just mixing different type of ingredient either on top / into the pizza bread.

Pizza Dolci is a sweet pizza with orange marmalade and fruits. We use alot of mashmallows, preserved can fruits such as peaches and the binding element was cream cheese. It was something new for us as we didnt know that the same pizza dough can be used for fruits top ups as well.

Pizzete Fritte is mini fried pizza with tomato salsa and shaved parmesan cheese. Its basically bruchetta but with pizza dough instead of baguettes/ French bread. The freshly prepared salsa was superb and i like the acidic taste of balsamic vinegar along with the salty taste of the parmesan cheese.

Calzone Al Salmone Affumicato is the infamous folded or stuffed pizza with smoke salmon, tomato, cheese and capers. Out of the pizzas, we love this the most as its easy to make (basically its a BIG curry puff except its filled with salmon and cheese instead of sardin with potatoes). The calzone tasted so good and I love the crunchy bready texture and the fragrant smoke salmon with chives.

Before and after (baked to perfection)

Calzone Al Salmone Affumicato, yummy.

The last but not least was the Pizza Quattro Stagioni (4-in-1) - Mushroom-cheese, Tomato-anchovies, cheese-basil and artichoke-olive. The chef (cant remember his name) basically dump all the leftovers material into a big pizza dough outlined into 4 quarters, as easy as that. Since we didnt get the chance to do the Pizza Quattro Stagioni, the chef used our leftovers (some tomato / salsa sauce) and cook together with lots of garlic, basil and pepper to make the topping for middle eastern bread with no cheese.

I have to say its not rocket science to make pizza, and both of us are inspired to make our own pizzas once our kitchen is renovated. So, next time if you visit our home, we will make sure no more cold dominos, it will be homemade fresh from the oven Pizza! :)

Love Happens

2011-10-06T13:15:00.000+08:00

Our dear wedding photographer uploaded our wedding photos in September, so check this out Walking down aisle-peter & susan

At first i was thinking of uploading 1 more batch of our wedding photos but i think the photographer did better than me so this is the last post of my official wedding photos blog series.

This post took me ages to write, and i'm glad its finally done. I've intended to publish this right after wedding, as a recollection of the post wedding feelings. However, its really difficult for me to pour out my heart in words, without any inhibition. Its a feeling of being stripped naked, whereby all the hidden pages of my life are now laid open for other people to read. At the same time this is also a love confession to my one and only, in words and in entirety. Sometimes a hug or a kiss can speaks thousands of words, as there are no hidden emotion behind such intimate gesture. But to put thousand of words forward in order to show those same intensity of emotions deep within, its harder than it looks.

So here it comes, dedicated to him - my now and forever.

-- Password Protected (click the link below and enter my surname)--

Show encrypted text

Official Wedding Photos Part 3: Wedding Entourage

2011-10-04T12:14:00.002+08:00

This is the second last post about my wedding photos.

Our brides maids and best men

His boys

My girls

And two of my dear flower gals

Words cannot describes how thankful i am to my dear dear friends, who had tirelessly lending us their helping hands during the entire process. Undoubtedly, all of you are important parts of our wedding, and we can never be thankful enough for being the witnesses of the covenant of our love.

Love you all so much.

一个人看戏

2011-10-03T17:22:00.002+08:00

好久好久没有一个人看戏了。

没有眩目的动作场面，没有华丽的情节。只有五月天的歌声，穿插着三段暖暖的小故事。

廣州篇一個在廣州辛苦經營咖哩魚蛋小吃舖的父親，以精湛的廚藝成功緊抓每個客人的胃，然而，面對自己寶貝女兒瘋狂追星的行為卻束手無策。廣州篇林雪的愛女想排除萬難去聽演唱會。

台北篇一個被愛情傷很深的計程車司機與一個神秘的女乘客，在寂寞的台北街頭展開奇異大冒險，奇妙的互動讓兩個陌生人漸漸拉近彼此的距離。臺北篇劉若英飾演的角色遭遇情傷，在任賢齊開的計程車上，因為一首《溫柔》開啟了另一個愛情故事。

上海篇上海篇講一個快遞小子用積蓄完成妹妹的夢想。一個年輕又勤奮的快遞員，每日穿梭在上海的大街小巷努力工作，只為了要趕快存錢帶妹妹去聽一場五月天的演唱會……。

取自WIKI

一整个半小时，我一个人随性地哼唱着，脚板不自觉地打着节拍，简直不亦乐乎。

旁边坐着一个小男生。把戏院简直当成是私人KAREOKE包厢。从头到尾唱个不停。若是其他戏剧，我一定赏他白眼。可是这是五月天电影，我还陪他唱呢！唱至整部戏结束，我还真想和他来个会心的一笑，或同路人的拥抱！

走出戏院，有种恍世的感觉。

回忆起许多年少的过去。

回忆起曾经的抱负。

回忆起那青涩的自己。

A post dedicated to Mayday

2011-09-18T02:54:00.002+08:00

Yesterday I had a dinner gathering with some of my old mates from Liverpool. Well, one topic led to another, and at some point we were talking about movies and I cant help but mentioning the Mayday movie 追梦3DNA which is currently showing in cinema. I was getting all excited and pumped up talking about my favourite band and how i'm so eager and cant wait to watch the movie. My friends looking at me as though i'm from another dimension or generation but i don't care because they are the epitome of Chinese rock music of the late 90s. They were the true dawn of the "Student-band-turned-biggest-Chinese-band-of-the-era", which subsequently led to the born of many many other Chinese student band and the popularization of such kind of music genre. Frankly, even today, i say that they still hold the title of the biggest Chinese band on earth with no doubt at all.

10 years ago i picked up guitar and learnt to play my first chinese song -Mayday's 溫柔. Since then 10 years have passed, and today when i listened to their latest rendition of the song which accompany me through many many days and nights of my youthful days, it still stir up the same emotion inside of me. It reminded me of the youthful dreams which i used to have; the burning passion of wanting to stand on the stage to sing; the lesson of never ever give up what the heart desire... gosh, it was the 18 years old me which i missed the most. The me who was happy just by listening to a Mayday's song; the me who never recognize failure as a choice and who will keep on going forward bumps after bumps; the simple me who just love to sing and nothing more.

I remembered I wrote something about my passion for singing some years ago. Just a simple search (thanks to the blogger's fabulous search features) and i was able to retrieve not just one, but many many of posts of which i've wrote about singing:

想唱歌的心情

唱歌

Music Passion of My Life

Into the Studio

Confession of a music freak

and many many more... and heck, i cant even stand myself repeating the tagline "Music is the passion of my life" literally in every of those posts like its some kind of mantra.

Anyway, just to share with you the song which i can still remember every words in the lyrics and every notes in the melody after 10 years. If you feel they are somewhat good, come join me for the movie.

如果你對我說你想要一朵花

那麼我就會給你一朵花

如果你對我說你想要一顆星星

那麼我就會給你一顆星星

如果你對我說你想要一場雪

那麼我就會給你一場雪

如果你對我說你想要離開我

那麼我會說我會對你說…

我給你全部自由

Official Wedding Photo Pt 2: The groom

2011-09-07T13:13:00.000+08:00

The man with the boyish charm. With his rich facial expression, its stupid for me not to spice up the pictures with some funny dialogues.

So the lady say yes and married him. The end.

I love his contented face whenever he sees good food, the big drumstick in his bowl of mee suah just made his day.

My Girls

2011-09-06T12:30:00.000+08:00

A friend created a facebook account for me not long ago. So that i can 'grab' some of the photos which my close friends had uploaded online. Frankly, i still couldnt see much of the benefit of maintaining a fb account, except from the ease of "photo stealing". So most of the time, the account was left idle until my faithful girlfriends ping me to check out the discussion board (or whatever you call it) to keep myself updated with some of the outings which they have planned in my 'virtual absence' (why everyone like to plan events in fb arr?).

These are the two photos i loved the most which i've grabbed from one of my girls's fb photo gallery. They are so funny and cute, and i keep counting those who are in the photos to figure out who was the photographer. its Chek right? It was a detour trip to Melaka after our 1 night stay in PD. and boy, we enjoyed it so much. There were many other hilarious photos of us making funny faces while dipping (cant say swimming) in the swimming pool, oh and there were sexy bikinis as well, which of course i'm not gonna share it here.

Well, the reason i'm sharing this is because I cant wait for this weekend trip to Melaka again. I hope all of us will be there but i think some of the gals cannot make it. so sad. LOH JIAVERN AND CHONG SIN TEE, I'm talking to both of YOU!

Anyway girls, lets bring swimsuit this time k (i promise to bring mine, i bought it during my hot spring trip in taiwan), i'm sure it will be SUPER FUN!

H means HOLIDAY!

2011-08-31T21:30:00.000+08:00

Holiday holiday holiday. It was the long awaited week long of Raya and National day holiday. 3 more days to go before going back to the hectic life of a busy working lady. Still cant believe how fast time passes.

Anyway, i was the full time housewife for the past few days. Its a funny feeling whereby you know that you can sleep as much as you can without worry that you might be late for work; whereby an hour before the lunch or dinner and automatically you'll started to think what to cook. And the best of all is there are so much of free time and yet you are not getting bored of it at all (not yet maybe).

For the past few days, i have been watching many episode of The Voice; sewing my pupurin (of course you dont know what it is, cuz i will only reveal it in my next blog); working on my wedding photobook to sent for printing; and cooking for breakfast, lunch and dinner. If this is how's a house wife's life is all about, i think i'm managed well. ;)

So come back to my cooking. I have been reading alot about recipes from food blogs and planning on how to best utilize all the raw materials which has been slowly piling up in my fridge. So this are the dishes i cooked yesterday and the day before.

Breakfast was Omelet with alot of stuff in it like spinach, tomatoes, luncheon meet etc.

Lunch was the pork with potatoes salad

Dinner was again the pork with fresh leafy vege and kolo mee (all the way from Sarawak)

The pork was inspired by Tables for 2's no-bake-cha-siew, but i didnt cook it long enough until its melting soft. I like my pork a bit chewy. hehehe.

Yesterday brunch was osmanthus scrambled egg. I wanted it to be a vermicelli dish more than an egg dish, so put more vermicelli than what was required in the recipe. It was alright, nothing fabulous. Maybe it meant for egg dish anyway.

Peter is busy cooking lunch right now, his favorite Italian cookings. The flagrant of the fried onion is filling up my nostrils as I'm writing the blog now. yum, yum... Stay tune cuz i will definitely post up the picture in a while. :)

Happy merdeka day to all!

Official Wedding Photo Pt 1: The Bride

2011-08-27T01:09:00.005+08:00

Taking a break from my Taiwan post to give way to some of my wedding photos from the photographer.

I figure out i wont be uploading all the photos onto fb and leaving it there waiting to be tagged or if not rotten as no one will care about it. So am choosing three of my favorite of each theme to share with you all in this blog. So here comes the first, which is me, myself and I.

Hope you've enjoyed it.

Taiwan Trip Part 2

2011-08-25T10:21:00.015+08:00

The second day of Taiwan started off with onion pancake (蔥油餅) at hawkers stall at the underground shopping street of Long Shan Temple MRT Station.

Frankly the onion pancake tasted alright, i've asked the aunty to add in pork leg pieces however its still a bit bland to my taste bud. There were alot of this funny leaves (i think its 九層塔- chinese basil leaves) inside which resembles some sort of herb taste and its kinda over powering.

Anyway, back to the Long shan Temple. The temple is huge but not as huge as our Ke Lok Si at Penang, there were many lady monks (do you call them nuns as well?) praying earnestly to the idols and there are seas of people buying the lucky charm and burning joysticks.

The infamous temple is located in a very old part of Taipei city called Wan Hua District. Peter and I were amused by so many old people wandering around the old streets and run down buildings in this area. It actually felt like the other side of the coin of the Taipei City which was never surfaced in those tourist advertisement on the tele. In fact it was a stark contrast of the picture of clean and advance Taipei city which we are more familiar with.

We got to know more about the old district when we went to the next destination which is 剥皮寮. The old district were inhabited by the Taiwanese natives- Bangka or Mongka (艋舺), during those early days, the people build their lives around the tradings of goods with the Han chinese along the Danshui river, and the natives uses canoe (獨木舟) and cows as their means of transportation and that's why the place we known as Bangka (which basically means canoe in their native tongues).

剥皮寮 is one of the oldest street in Taiwan which was restored and made anew in order to preserved its historic value. We were having great fun appreciating its history, old buildings, billboards, displays, and they looked absolutely stunning in digital.

In fact there was this SHE music video and a Taiwan local movie named Monga which talks about gangsterism, underworld activities, sex trade etc. which were being filmed here!

There were many old quarters/ shop houses being converted to living museum, whereby the history was described in details through posters and pictures hang on the wall, on top of that, there is a multimedia room which shows documentary of 艋舺 to the tourists. After we get bored with all the history, we started to do some funny things to entertain ourselves.

We were giggling like children when we took those pictures. It was super funny.

Next stop was the famous shopping street Xi Men Ding. Its a shopping heaven for the youngsters, whereby there were many street performances, concert being held in this busy hippy street across the year.

It was actually kinda hard to believe that we were still in the same wan hua district (its just a station away from the old 艋舺 area) but in Xi Men Ding everything spells of modern and civilisation. Except that they do have one historical building in Xi men ding which is the red house theatre. It was originally a market building and was converted to a theatre. we find that it was kinda boring since we didnt really plan to do shopping, hence we went to have a bowl of the famous "Ah Zong Mee Sua" before we moved on to our next destination.

Well, again, its too bland to my liking. Basically its mee sua in thick sweet soy sauce with some chicken skin strips and corriander leaves. You can see from Peter's facial expression that it was not up to his expectation as well. In fact he thinks that my mom chicken essence mee sua is much better than Ah Zong mee sua. :)

Stay tune for my Taiwan Trip part III post. Gosh, i've written a full post for only half a day of the trip, and i still have another 5 1/2 days of trip to cover!!!

Taiwan Trip Part 1

2011-08-22T23:19:00.017+08:00

Going to Taiwan was an impromptu decision.

Peter and I were browsing through Airasia website to purchase last minute tickets to Bali/ Phuket for our honeymoon and we accidentally discovered that it only cost us RM40 more per person if we are flying to Taiwan instead of Indonesia/ Thailand. Well, I've been to Hong Kong and China (Shanghai and Chong Qing) before but Taiwan remains the mysterious virgin land to me, so i'm quite excited with the idea of changing the plan. However what surprised me was that Peter was also keen to choose Taiwan. Well you need to understand that he never really showed that much of interest when it comes to the Chinese culture nor the "Chinese-ism" deep rooted in me which pretty much who i am for the first 20 years of my life. When it comes to Taiwan, what reminded him was always the image of lala mui or lala zai (bimbo girls and guys) and the Chinese entertainment show which i find extremely funny such as 棒棒堂 or 我猜 but is perceived as retarded by his standard. Being an Eurasian, marrying a Chinese girl and having in laws who only watch Chinese channels on the tele was probably something he least expected in his life. LOL

Anyway, my point is it was totally something which is unplanned for and spontaneous, but we were happy when we finally pressed the "Puchase Ticket" button on the website. And heck i was already started to look forward for the honeymoon trip the moment we did that (more than the wedding itself). And i have to say we have no regrets making that decision at all. Taiwan is definitely a FUN place to travel to. There are so many places to see and new things to experience. However, i must say that THE famous Taiwan food which we very much looking forward to was not up to our expectation. It's good but not great enough. There are not much of varieties and if you have tasted food from 1 night market, you have probably tasted all.

Now this bring us to our first night at Taiwan, which is the visit to ShihLin night market. You can tell how eager we were trying to get a taste of the Taiwan food as we literally ran to the so called biggest night market in Taipei once we checked into our lodging place. Frankly, we were expecting like a mile long of street food hawkers but i have to say that our Ming Tian food court at Taman Megah is probably better than ShihLin food stalls. There were not much of varieties and the stalls were serving the same food at every corner. And to make it worse, the smell of smelly taufu is everywhere. I described the smell as shit smell, Peter thought that it was a rotten carcass smell.

Ps: The smell will stick to your hair and Peter literally forced me to go shower and wash my hair once we back to the hotel.

However overall, it was a great eating experience as i have finally tasted "big sausage wrap small sausage". There were so many flavors such as garlic, spicy, wasabi etc., and do you know that the big sausage is actually the sticky glutenous rice?

I think no ones does chinese sausage better than Taiwanese ;)

This is something like a torayaki which filled with different fillings like Red Bean Paste, Carrot slices and butter, and it only cost like RM3 (T$30) for 3.

This is the famous O-ya-jian at RM5 (T$50). In my opinion, Malaysian version better. The taiwan version has to many gelatin like material which the texture is like jelly except it has no taste.

This is another famous pastry which called big pastry wrap small pastry. it wasnt physically appealing so we give it a skip.

We saw some other interesting food like this sausage stall which sell scallions (green onions) wrapped in bacon. This reminds me of Hannah's version of bbq must have- Shitake wrapped in bacon.

Guess what is the most satisfying meal at the end of the day which drew the biggest smile from Peter's face after being tortured by hours of the infused smell of smelly toufu.

It's Yoshinoya's beef rice (T$780). The beef was tender and it tasted heavenly with teriyaki sauce and some ginger mince. Can you imagine that Yoshinoya in Taiwan opens for 24 hours, its 7-11 equivalent. It was truly a fast food restaurant whereby you need to go to counter to order and take your own food and the best thing is the food was served within minutes of ordering.

See how long is the streaky beef strips.

Anyway, thanks to Yoshinoya. the first night of food hunt was ended satisfactorily. Stay tuned for my next post on Taiwan Trip.

Back from Taiwan

2011-08-19T10:41:00.006+08:00

For those who didnt know, I was off for honeymoon, and i'm back now! * I hope that justified why i am so inconsistent with my post nowadays *

I have tons and tons to blog about. And Peter just 'softly' reminded me that i have promised to write so much, yet i've posted so less. yeah yeah, i have a whole list of pending posts:

1. My serious writing (which i am seriously contemplating it at the moment)

2. My Liverpool photo-blog

3. The official wedding photos and slides

4. My Taiwan Honeymoon trip- *newly added to the list* :)

Anyway, Taiwan trip is a BLAST! went from City to village, from hotspring to hill, from Gold mines to harbour. I CANT WAIT to share with you all my first hotspring experience, in an open air hotspring bath!

*NO nudity k, nonsense.

Memories from Liverpool

2011-08-08T11:46:00.002+08:00

This is an out dated post.

Received a pleasant surprise gift a few days ago before my wedding day. It was a round poster tube with printed UK address sticking on my door grill.

The cover of the envelope was labelled as "Hope to bring your some memories of Liverpool". It was a poster of the Liverpool-European capital of culture poster from a very dear friend of mine in UK who cant attend my wedding day.

My oh my, it indeed brought back so many memories. In fact I was nearly in tears when i saw some of those familiar places which makes me reminiscence on those older days.

Clockwise: The Gormley statue, Crosby beach; Albert dock; Anglican Cathedral, Royal Liver Building

Kim, Ky, Jv and Chek, I wonder would you gals feel the same when you see the photos of all these familiar yet faraway places?

I think i am going to start a series of blog posts to describe the places i have visited previously in Liverpool. It will be fun to see the picture of these beautiful places with me actually in it. ;)

Relay for Life 2011

2011-07-26T11:00:00.004+08:00

I participated in Relay for Life 2011 last Saturday night. It was a happening weekend, my dear kp friends were enjoying themselves in the Bon Odori Festival in Shah Alam, but most of the crowd went to watch the Liverpool-Malaysia Tiger team football match at Stadium Bukit Jalil i guess.

I was loud in my previous post about not being a patriotic person, and i'm going to be equally loud in this post- i'm NOT a charitable person neither. Attending 1 charity event in a year does not qualified myself being a charity activist. I have to admit that when my company announced that they are sponsoring their employees to attend the event as part of fulfilling social responsibility, i was skeptical about it. Well, there are many similar events such as pink ribbons, terry fox runs etc. conducted throughout the year to raise the awareness towards cancer, and having 16 hours continuous relay sounds pretty much the same.

Boy, how wrong was I. I enjoyed the ambience, the message, the fun and the companionship of my colleagues throughout the whole night, and i even felt guilty for not able to stay till the end of the 16 hours. The event started off with run /jog from the cancer survivors, even for those who are on wheel chair. It was then followed by all the sponsors from private sectors, everyone carrying big banners representing there companies (starbucks, KPJ, Columbia Asia etc.), except us. We came totally unprepared, but everyone in such good spirit that it really doesnt matter even if the initial purpose of coming is all about marketing and brand awareness.

My colleagues and I in yellow T shirt (NOT Bersih k)

Then we have lots of lots activities like games, singing and dancing throughout the night, however one of the most memorable events was the Luminaria ceremony. The Luminaria Ceremony is targeted toward “Remember.” During this time, participants are asked to gather and remember those who have fallen victim to cancer. Luminaria bags are distributed and often decorated by participants, honoring a loved one who has passed or is fighting the disease. Then these bags are placed around the track and candles inside the bags are lit before all the lights went off. Following the Luminaria Ceremony, participants walk a lap around the track in silence to give respect to those who have fallen ill with cancer or to those whose lives were lost.

Campsite for those who want to stay overnight

And i walked around the track, looking at the luminated bags decorated with the pictures of the lost, words of remembrance such as "We missed you","You will be always in our mind", "never give up" really brought tears to my eyes.

I had never lost my love ones due to cancer illness before. However that night, when i'm walking in the dark beside many strangers who may have fought, or still fighting, or had lost their loves ones due to the deadly illness, i felt a great sense of togetherness. Doesnt matter where we all came from, what we have went through, today we are all here, to remember those who had lost the battle, to celebrate those who had won and to fight for the same course.

Anyway, my company luminted bag were so dull and boring, it made me nearly puke blood when i saw it.

Anyone joining me next year? :)

Popo

2011-07-13T09:43:00.009+08:00

如果大家有机会走进体育场，婆婆就不会被淋湿了。

Direct translation: If we have a chance to walk into the stadium, the granny will not be wet because of the rain.

Saw this picture (labelled as "Popo") from http://jinjing1943.blogspot.com/2011/07/blog-post_10.html. I cant help but agreed with what the writer wrote in the end of the blog.

"我也期盼没有催泪弹的集会，我可以带爸爸妈妈跟妹妹，甚至以后我的小孩一起去参与、去喊出我们要的未来。"

The observer's account of the B Demonstration

2011-07-11T13:50:00.009+08:00

I have to admit that I'm not a patriotic person.

When i first heard there will be the B-demonstration going on this Saturday. My first response is "Shit, road blocks will be everywhere". And indeed, there were road blocks causing endless traffic jam since early last week, during peak rush hours, causing half of the people in my office came late for work. It really makes me questioned the intelligence of our law enforcers of making such a decision, unless they are trying to make a point that they can make our lives difficult any time they want because they have the badge.

So come back to the B-demonstration. Well, i didnt took the walk with the rest of the ten thousands of demonstrators the last Saturday. And I wont sugar coat by saying my mom didn't allow me to go (which she really did by calling me at 7 o' clock on Saturday morning), or it will never make a change, its useless, blah blah blah....

The truth is this was never my call. I dreamt of doing alot of things but to be at the forefront to make a difference to the country was never my call. I do believe one day if our country go further downhill, everyone including myself will have to bear the consequences of it. However, i also feel that all of us have our part to play, whether to march on the street, or to vote for the right party, or to continue to serve our country in our own professionalism... In fact, my colleague went to help with St John's first aid and was stationed at the Dataran Merdeka last Saturday, kudos to him!

I guess there is time and place for everyone. And when my time comes, even my mom's call will not be able to hold me back. But for this time, i am the observer. I have read some blogs and international news on this, and i would like to share just a few with you.

http://kyspeaks.com/2011/07/10/my-account-on-bersih-2-0/

http://quaintly.net/2011/07/what-we-must/

http://timthinksthat.net/2011/07/i-took-a-walk-in-the-city-bersihstories/

http://xes.cx/?p=5590

I was quite surprised with the spirit of the demonstration, especially their great effort of trying to make it a peaceful rally. After reading the participant's account, I was curious to know what was our government response after the incident, hence i followed through diligently Saturday and Sunday's news from TV3 and NTV7. And this is what i saw.

http://quaintly.net/2011/07/dear-malaysia/

http://malaysiansmustknowthetruth.blogspot.com/2011/07/najib-clinker-umno-youths-illegal-rally.html

http://www.pribumiperkasa.com/?p=6033

I think you can judge yourself. I was greatly bewildered and baffled.

Let me repeat, i am not a patriotic person. Sometimes when I have a yum-char session at mamak stall with my friends, whether its intended or subconsciously, the topic will somehow come back to how sucky the situation in our country now. And yes, apart from Nasi Lemak, we Malaysian don't boost around telling how good our country is all the time. We curse, we criticise, sometimes we even hate the corrupted system we had in our country to the gut. But nevertheless, we still felt that there is no place like home. Malaysia is my home.

ps: There is no Nasi Lemak better than Malaysian's.

Prelude to wedding photographs

2011-07-08T17:01:00.008+08:00

I am probably our wedding photographer's best customer as i do my own the framing and compilation for the prelude. Do check out our photographer works at www.lovehappensphoto.com, they are a newly wed couple who took up wedding photography as their part-time job. I admired the courage they have in transforming their love and passion for photography into something real and fruitful despite the fact that it requires more time and effort for full time workers.

Anyway, this is just a teaser, i need to wait for another 2 weeks for all the other photos and montage. Do stay tuned.

Back to normal life

2011-07-05T12:00:00.001+08:00

I need a haircut.

And that's the first sign of going back to my normal life. Shorter hair= boring hairstyle= but hair wont fall or entangle so easily = easy to manage = normal me and normal life

My makeup artist forbid me from going for haircut for months as i have thin volume of hair. So i had this long fringes infront of my face which i need to use some flowery pin to clip it to the side which makes me look a tad too girly.

I'm gonna miss the flowery pin.

Anyway, wedding was good, a BIG turning point in my life. It kept my mind occupied for the past 1 year. A year before, I thought the day will never come as there were so much waiting and contemplating along the process. It almost felt like silly to plan for something one year ahead. But then it happened, really happened. And it was done and over.

wow. Am now officially back to my normal life, except now with a title of "married".

My colleague asked me a silly question the other day when she saw me at the bistro having breakfast.

"Eh, not cooking breakfast for yourself and your husband meh" She said.

-___-

I told her she is kolot (old fashion in another word). if husbands of this age still expect their wife to prepare breakfast, lunch and dinner for them everyday without fail, then they should pay their wife, Cuz you pay money to maid to do this kinda of thing for you. In fact, my husband was sleeping soundly like a pig when i left for work every morning (he works at home most of the time). Its kinda amusing that we still harbour the stereotypic belief on the definition of wife / husband whereby you are a wife/ husband, because you cook & clean / working hard & is the bread winner.

Sometimes, we also have certain perception on how the marriage life should be, we expect a BIG transformation of no-more-2-person-but-together-as-1 sort of life. But trust me, when you really are in it, it felt actually kinda same. Its almost felt like NORMAL.

Well, in a way, i am glad that everything is back to normal again.

Peek-a-boo at the wedding photos

2011-07-01T09:00:00.000+08:00

I have yet to receive my wedding photos from our photographer yet. So here comes some of the shots from my friend's camera.

At home, with my favourite girls (and angry birds!)

and my favourite man

The wedding car and the church

The march in

My dad is super nervous k

In front of the altar

The march out

At the restaurant

Peter was the star of the noon, everyone called him the Justin Bieber

And the cupcakes. Anyone interested please let me know, my professional baker friends are happy to expand their cupcakes business

With my churchie friends

I will write more when i am more settling. :)

3 more days

2011-06-21T13:04:00.005+08:00

3 days to go.

wow...

what i really mean is WOW!

Can you believe it, the wedding bells are just around the corner, and the clock is ticking faster and faster even as when i'm writing now. I know it sounds ridiculous that i'm getting anxious unnecessarily, yes things are getting prepared according to plan, my sisters are getting their hands busy (and 'dirty' for the bakers) helping me out with all the details, the gown is hanging in the closet.... yet the whole realization of i-am-getting-married is like a bomb which set to explode in 3 days time, and i have to constantly hold my chest so that my heart wont just bursting out.

The worst thing is i cant wait till the whole thing is over, and that's exactly what i have been trying to avoid since the whole wedding preparation started. I am worried that i may not really 'be present' on this important day of my life. Many brides told me that they felt their wedding day went off so fast and it felt like a blur as there are so many things to do and to take care of. At the end of the day, when the whole event ends and the light is off, they left with a pair of sore feet and messy hair to shampoo, which literally makes them nuts.

I don't want that to happen to my wedding day, I hope i'm not just physically there, but i'm really present there, relish in it, take it all in, have all the fun i can because its the happiest day of my life. I do hope that i'm able to get my hands off from all the details and leave it to my trusted friends as I do know that i have the tendency of getting caught up in "getting-the-things-done" rush cuz basically i'm THAT type of person. I love running around in my heels, making sure things is done according to the plan and all the guest wears the biggest smile on their face. I may be a good wedding coordinator but may not be a good bride.

Anyway, gals if you see my hands started to get itchy please tie it up, shoo me off, but most important thing is enjoy the moment together with me.

See you all on the wedding day.

Busy month

2011-06-08T14:24:00.008+08:00

Busy month... That's shall explain it all. So much was done and to be done in such a short period of time.

First it was Sam and Don's wedding during the end of April.

Then Nana's birthday at pelita mamak, lol

Then church camp at Bukit Larut (Maxwell Hill), Taiping during end of May

Gosh i love the iphone apps so much, it instantly applied some kind of vintage, earthy look to the photos. And i love all my galfriends in the photos too :)

Then a baptism at Bagan Lalang, Sepang

Baptism is an excuse for us to go to beach and enjoy seafood :)

Anyway, i'll be back to my serious writing project, after my wedding of course.

Virtual Communication

2011-05-16T10:16:00.010+08:00

This is a post about the communication using the virtual tools. Some people called it online networking, some called in facebook-ing, some think that its the only way to communicate, some are addicted to it, some cannot live without it. Well, i guess if you are not part of it, people probably going to forget you very soon, because you are the dinosaur of this age, and only fit to be exhibited in museum. "Oh, you are so ANCIENT!" like a 8 years old used to tell me.

And i am still the same ancient person.

I do acknowledge the importance and benefits of what these online tools can do. It makes communication faster, easier, 'cheaper', more fun and creative. And thats why i never stop blogging and forum-ing. And recently i have make a vow to myself that i'll commit more time to what i term as "content writing".

(So this is not an anti-Facebook post, gotcha!)

Content writing is a technical words whereby some freelance writer writes the right content for certain websites and getting paid by doing it. Some people called it content marketing, or copy writing, or content strategy services, but generally the more bombastic it sound, the better it is. Its in a booming phase these days and the industry which depends highly on internet marketing offers very lucrative opportunities for such profession/services. However what i aspired to do got nothing to do with this.

So here comes my enlightment. On and off Peter and I were talking about the issue of mankind, how our world had slowly turned into a place of self destruction, and how the earth which we have inhabited and colonized since thousands of years ago have become a place which is no longer fit for our next generation to grow up and to live and survive. But there are also times we talk about how great it is to have each other, to be able to visit countries which we never visit before, to have intellectual interaction, to have the intellectuality and spirituality so that we can experience deeper and broader.

I have a ball of emotions inside of me which is running wild and shooting at all direction inside of me at times. Sometimes a tiny thing happens to me (maybe just a thought, or someone comments, or even news on the tele) and though its just a petty thing but it triggers a string of emotions in me and consecutively affects my action and the way I react other people. During those moments of time, I felt like I need a channel to talk to someone, an outlet to vent these emotions, but in a positive way, so that whatever i felt didnt just go into 'waste' or left in vain.

I love the process of able to express my thoughts in words which people can comprehend and able to receive feedbacks or echoes in return. The best way to do this is through writing.

Well, is it different from blogging? yeah it is. Cuz the writing is no more focusing on myself, i'm striving to write if not a positive message, then a mind triggering piece, and publish it in a place where it will reach out to bigger crowd. And its not easy as it sounds, cuz i will write about religion, about constitutional believes, about customs, about people relationship, about society and how we conform to it etc. It involves alot of research and it will be a brain consuming activities.

I will start of with a piece which i've did recently for bible study on Christians view on suffering and tribulations. and hopefully this will further triggers many other writings. So do stay tuned.

About wedding, not mine

2011-04-29T13:14:00.008+08:00

Tomorrow will be Sam and Tong's big day. I don't know whether is it faith or something else they see in me (of which i'm totally blind to), they have chosen me to help to coordinate the morning wedding service. Nevertheless, it was an honor.

Last night was the first and the last rehearsal. A bit kelam kabut as the care taker of the church suddenly requested that we need to vacate the church at 9pm. And the worst thing is initially we had planned to start at 830pm since everyone has to rush to the church straightly after work. However, the rehearsal was accomplished on time in good spirit. And i really have to thank the cooperation from all the people who involved.

The wedding service will be conducted at Zion Lutheran church at Brickfield, which is like 5 minutes away from the church which my wedding will be at. It was old traditional church built in 1924, the internal looks abit similar to Catholic church and i love the old feeling with the chandeliers hanging on the wall and wooden bench with classic red carpet.

Anyway, grabbed some photos from weddingguideaisia.com about the church. It looks stunning from the lens of the photographer.

For those who are going, see you all tomorrow.

Ps: Please wear your best piece of clothe with a bit of red or white K? their theme is red and white.

androgynous

2011-04-18T13:51:00.011+08:00

Outdated post again.

I am a big fan of So you think you can dance, and i'm even bigger fan of a few dancers who out shined the rest of the dancers on the show (in my own definition). In session 6, Jacob Karr caught my attention from the first episode till the last. His Jason Derulo "whatcha say" routine was my all time favorite. But, Sadly he didnt won. And in latest season, Billy Bell made my eyes glued on the screen every time he danced, but again, he got voted off at top 6.

The executive producer Nigel lythgoe commented something 'weird' about Billy in his final episode with SYTYCD. "Androgynous" was the word Nigel used to describe Billy. The word was not in my vocabulary dictionary and i had to google it in order to understand his comment. Apparently, the executive producer explained himself to tabloids post to the show.

“’Slightly androgynous’ means that it’s asexual. It’s not something you see guys or girls do – it’s his own unique style, and it’s asexual. It’s not like a male, it’s not like a female…It’s obviously not connected with America.. But that style is still being respected by the lovers of dance, choreographers, and artistic directors.” Nigel.

Wow, i felt that's kind of labeling remarks. In a another words, he hypothesized that because Billy is not masculine in his dancing hence it turned the American viewers off. Well, I do agreed that Billy best pieces does not involved alot of sexy masculine dancing with lady partners, such as the "Mad world" with Ade and "Bitter earth" with Alex Wong and Ade. However, what he said was kind of sound like borderline homophobic comments and what even distasteful was that he 'assume' the rest of the viewer is of homophobic nature as well.

Watch "Mad World" by Billy and Ade, choreography by Stacy Tookey, here

Watch "Bitter earth" by Billy, Ade, Alex Wong, choreograph by Mia Micheals, here

Again i am making a blasphemous statement here by saying its not wrong for a guy to act soft, or "sissy" as what commonly applied to guys of that category. I love Kurt in the Glee. He is really one of his kind. It really doesnt matter if the character is gay or not. It just make me smile every time he dressed up in his extravagant style of fashion, or singing in his angelic choir boy voice, or holds a funeral and dedicating a song to his dead pet bird.

I do understand that we need a differentiation of the gender personality in order to draw the line between the two sexes. However, when it comes to artistic appreciation, i think the essence of the art itself precedes the conventional frame of the definition of the gender. The dancer/actor is acting as an individual, and not as a role (of a male/female) which is conform to the cultural perception, if its fits the cookie cutter exactly, we wouldnt have call it as an art in the first place.

Seriously i dont mind if I have a guy friend who dressed great and enjoy shopping together with ladies. In fact a used to have 2 friends with such personalities. Boy, they write good poetry, read good books (which i can totally connect to), they are understanding and sensitive, and they are fun to hang out too!

Call me an anti, but i'm totally appose the Americans for voting off Billy. Now i am really dreadful to finish off the rest of SYTYCD episodes, the show just lost its sparks.

PD company trip

2011-04-08T14:12:00.002+08:00

This is one of my old post which never get to publish if i didn't put enough effort to search through all my draft post. Anyway since its a Friday (TGIF!) and i'm pretty much in my weekend mood already, so I think i can spare some of my working hours to dug those unpublished post out and publish it.

So you will see more old post coming out. mind you its all back-dated.

Here comes the post about my recent company trip to Port Dickson. Frankly i cant remember when it was. But the funny thing is I was enjoyed it pretty much, of course before i was down with massive diarrhea on the second day of the trip. Well, the thing is i'm having this love-hate relationship about my job. I hate the sucky politics and the nature of the business the company is in. But i love the interaction with my colleagues and my boss did acknowledged the work i did. I understood the cons are inevitable as its all part of the package. Well, that kind of summarize what JOB is all about.

So we went to this resort called the Eagle Ranch, its the theme resort whereby everything is in cowboy style. And i even get to stay in this funny chalet called bandwagon.

The Eagle Ranch Resort, and the bandwagon

So here comes the activities. first up was my presentation on IP scheme and program which i have working so hard convincing the management for the past few months.

And yes, i need to wear the blue white company t shirt which my churchmate said looks like a uniform for Street sweeper.

Next is the group creative presentation, and my group came out with this idea of cross dressing (not male-female cross dressing, but cross culture) and cultural show which we have been practicing endlessly. i was dressing like an Indian gal and have to sing Jayho verse in solo and dance together with my team. My tongue got twisted singing "jane-jane-ane-sane-keta-le.." and mind you thats literally how i remember the lyrics

If you want me to become trainer for Jayho dance, come and find me k? :)

And next, Futsal. I kicked some ball k. Dont play play.

Then go cart racing.

The camera must be loving me so much, i have tons of picture showing me speeding like F1 driver on the wheel.

Then beach volleyball. I catch good ball also k.

After that of course the food. We had BBQ beside the pool and there is super big stage for karaoke. The meals are good, we even get to taste a whole grilled lamb.

And then, the price presentation, my team won as best sport group !

By the time when it comes to kareoke and Indian dance (cuz all the people who start dancing are my Indian colleague), my first wave of explosive diarhea started. So miss the rest of the activities. which includes drinking session at the resort pub, night walk, and the next day.....

Rafting!!! So while i'm shitting my pants out in the room, my team are tying their rafts and rowing hard.

Anyway, last picture of diarhea suffered shitty face before i say goodbye to PD!

And the prep goes on

2011-04-04T16:37:00.009+08:00

Love the compilation of the photos Nana did for our recent visit to baking shop. For the full post, read here!

So, the wedding preparation went on. I'm blessed for having many helping hands, or... maybe my galfriends are eager to experiment on me so that they gain experience and know what to do when their big days come. Hahaha... Anyway, everyone was fairly excited about it, especially my two bridesmaids :)

I won't said the process is all smooth and easy, hiccups is here and there, but i'm determined to handle it as "professional" as possible, without losing the sight of the big picture. Simple things like the design of the invitation card went through 3-4 times review and 2 visits before it got finalized for printing even though I have given the exact design and wording. Future MIL being fussy over the wedding service program and Church secretary are picking on all the typos etc. I can easily be impatient if i let my emotional overrules my head. Not to mention the haunting of something-went-wrong-during-the-wedding-day-dreams which i'm keep having now and then (in fact Peter having the same dream lately).

I was listening to Katy Perry the other day, a song called "Not like the movie", and it really speaks to me. How everyone wish their wedding is just like the movie, but most of the time it doesnt turn up to be that way. BUT, that's how it should be. I don't wished for a fairy tale wedding ( or ending, :p), i just wished for a happy wedding and a perfect beginning of our life together.

Not like the movie

He put it on me, I put it on,
Like there was nothing wrong.
It didn't fit,
It wasn't right.
Wasn't just the size.
They say you know,
When you know.
I don't know.

I didn't feel
The fairytale feeling, no.
Am I a stupid girl
For even dreaming that I could.

If it's not like the movies,
Thats how it should be, yeah.
When he's the one,
I'll come undone,
And my world will stop spinning
And that's just the beginning, yeah.

Snow white said when I was young,
"One day my prince will come."
So I wait for that date.
They say its hard to meet your match,
Find my better half.
So we make perfect shapes.
If stars don't align,

If it doesn't stop time,
If you cant see the sign,
Wait for it.
One hundred percent,
With every penny spent.
He'll be the one that,
Finishes your sentences.

If it's not like the movies,
Thats how it should be.
When he's the one,
He'll come undone,
And my world will stop spinning,
And thats just the beginning.

'Cause I know you're out there,
And your, your love came for me.
It's a crazy idea that you were made,
Perfectly for me you'll see.

Just like the movies.
That's how it will be.
Cinematic and dramatic with the perfect ending.
It's not like the movies,
But that's how it will be.
When he's the one,
You'll come undone,
And your world will stop spinning,
And it's just the beginning.

Listen to Not a movie

Wedding is way overated

2011-03-29T14:40:00.002+08:00

Time for a little complaining.

Along the process of wedding preparation, one thing which I'm constantly frustrated about is the people's general perception towards wedding.

For simplicity, i would called the so called generally stereotyped weddings as celebrity wedding, while mine which is less extravagant and simple as my humble wedding. Apparently, not all, but some who doubted peter and my decision for a humble wedding. For example, during the course of wedding preparation, we were being bombarded endlessly by questions such as "are you serious of not serving any alcohol?", "what about speech?""why there is no reception dinner/tea ceremony/ chip san leong?", "you got no money is it?" etc.

Let me emphasize this before i continue, this is purely my PERSONAL opinion, so it does not conform to the general opinion of how wedding should be. And i am relief that the other person who is integral in this wedding is 100% in tune with me. PERSONALLY, i believe that wedding is the occasion where the couple come together as one, and it is a special moment for the couple to celebrate and sharing their joy with their love ones. On the other hand, wedding frills and favors are secondary, am not saying that its not necessary, but i would say that its not that important compare to the focus of the wedding, which is the couple themselves. The frills follows the ceremony for obvious reasons, as it contributes to the entire ambiance and good feelings of the wedding. However, with or without the frills, extravagant or not, all the wedding are of the same purpose and it should brings equal sheer happiness to the couple as well as the witness who shared the happiness of the couple.

Most of us, have certain level of "wedding indoctrination" buried deep within, i.e. designer dress, expensive wines, wedding banquets etc. Frankly, i'm the lone ranger here, fighting the Goliath celebrity wedding 'system' which was deep rooted in any culture or society. I blame it to media influence OR ..... its sheer vanity.

Well, all i can say is that its unavoidable that there are expectations from many, however in the end of the day its up to me and Peter to keep it in perspective.

I guess you got the point now, other wise dont blame me if i turn into bridezilla k.

Indifferent

2011-03-14T11:03:00.003+08:00

I was running on the treadmill in the gymn yesterday, when i watched the videos of Japan's Tsunami from the CNN channel for the first time since the sad incident happened on last Friday.

I was frightening beyond relief, one of the survivor said. I have no words. When he saw his wife swept away by the tide.

And i continue to run, and run, but my heart become so heavy that at one point, i need to decrease the running speed in order to pant, not because of the physical tiredness, but because of the sadness i felt so deep til it choked my lungs.

It really doesn't matter what language they speaks, the tears was the universal language, and i understand it. It really doesnt matter how many thousand of kilometers away they are from me, the sadness is mutual, and i really felt it.

And i felt even more sad because i am here, running on a treadmill, paying gymn membership so that i can keep my weight; while people on the other side of the earth, running for the lives, can't even purchase a single piece of bread even though they have the money. I can hear the sound of tears and the newscasters from my earphones, at the same time, i heard the sound of laughters and chattering from the surrounding of the gymn.

Its an ironic.

Some had just lost their lives.
There are some others live their lives as though they are in full control.

In a way, i am helpless. I don't want to register myself as one of the crowds who continue to live their lives irrespective of what is happening on the other side of the earth. I don't want to be acting indifferent as though the thousands lives that were lost during that day has nothing to do with me.

Yet, what can i do?

It reminds me the message i heard last week in church.

Luke 7:31-32: “To what, then, can I compare the people of this generation? What are they like? They are like children sitting in the marketplace and calling out to each other:
We played the flute for you, and you did not dance;
we sang a dirge, and you did not cry.’

How true is the word of God, how did the people of this generation act? Indifferent. They don't want to participate in the joyful celebration, nor they want to mourn and cry for others lost. Are we indifferent to other's pain? Do we share the joy of others? and the most important question is do we even care about others or we just shut our eyes and focus on our self interest?

Is our heart so shallow and only concern about our own well being that we choose to be ignorant and blinded towards things which happens to others, things which happen around us.

And the question come back to me. What can i do?

I don't have any answer. And i continue to run.

It has been 2 weeks

2011-03-10T16:32:00.004+08:00

I have so much to write but so little time. The reality slowly dawned on me, that its officially less than 4 months now.

Peter and I were ambitious. We planned to finish all the necessary preparation within 1 month, then we gonna goyang kaki sampai patah for the next 3 months til the BIG day comes. And i seriously thought i'm gonna be able to achieve that. Whats so hard about wedding preparation, with my speed and his attention to details, of course we can glide to our big day effortlessly. Because of the great ambition, we have been rushing to get done as much things as possible for the past 2 weeks. So for two weekends consecutively, we have been running all over the places, meeting all sorts of people, calling and emailing all the vendors.

Boy, it was tired. Very very tired but i have to say that we managed it alright. Since the day we have the confirmed date in hand, things has been progressing, slowly but surely. Just to recap the things which we have settled:

1. Booked the church, went through 2 sessions with the priest and the secretary separately
2. Booked the restaurant for lunch reception, have a good food tasting session with one of our best man
3. Finalized and got all the helpers for the church services
4. Bought the wedding program cover and got the Church service program all drawn out
5. Went for a 1 day makeup course and going for another bridal makeup trial on coming Saturday.
6. Bought my wedding gown, heels, and his full suit
7. Booked with a florist for my bridal bouquet and his buttonhole
8. Booked my family's Kuching-KL air tickets
9. Bought the dress for my bridesmaid and ties for the best men
10. Redo my car deco to suit my color theme (am not gonna show anything here, if you are interested then come to see on the day itself. wuahaha... )

However on the other side of the stories, with Peter's fussyness and me being anal, we keep going back and forth on some of our decision. Just to name a few of those pending:

1. Went to a few wedding card printing shop, still couldnt decide the design which i like the most
2. Met 2 photographers after screening through all the portfolios and quotations, but still couldnt decide on which one to engage with.
Vendor 1
Vendor 2
3. Wedding door gifts *secret *
4. Flower girl's dress (flower girls are busier than me, exam kononnya)
5. Makeup artist
.......

Anyway, 2 weeks to go to achieve our goal to goyang kaki!

Save the date!!

2011-02-28T10:01:00.004+08:00

Its 25th of June, 2011.

PLEASE SAVE THE DATE!

The wedding will be at Church of Holy Rosary, Kuala Lumpur.

Its a 100 years old church, can you believe that! I remembered when i was still a young and innocent college student, i always saw the church through the windows of the LRT everytime the train passed by Pasar Seni heading to KL sentral station. It is standing tall and magistic in white, and i cant helped but wonder how the church looks inside.

And now, am gonna get married in the church. * Awe Stuck *

"The Holy Rosary Church was completed in 1904 but suffered some damages during World War II. Therefore, renovations took place in the 1950s to repair the building, resulting in the structure that we see today. In addition the Holy Rosary Church at the time of complete construction was different from the present building. The roof of the church was flat and the wings were not added until 1950.

Easily the Holy Rosary Church is one of the most beautiful of the Malaysian churches. Little is recorded of the history of the church except that it was constructed by Father Francis Emile Terrien, a French missionary. The church took 18 months to build, and was blessed on December 18, 1904.

The attraction of the Holy Rosary Church lies in its Neo-Gothic architecture style. Its characteristic features include the pointed arch, the ribbed vault and the flying buttress. The Neo-Gothic architecture is most familiar as the architecture of many of the great cathedrals, abbeys and parish churches of Europe. It is also the architecture of many castles, palaces, town halls, guild halls, universities, and to a less prominent extent, private dwellings."

Extracted from http://holidaysinmalaysia.org/kuala-lumpur/holy-rosary-church/

Mixed Marriages

2011-02-25T17:22:00.009+08:00

Sensitive content so need to put in a "read more" page break here...

What kind of 'dispensation' from the parish is needed in order for me to get married to my dear.

1. Catholic and protestant christian= Dispensation from the impediment of mixed religion
2. Catholic with non catholic/christian (e.g. Buddhist, Hindus etc.) = Dispensation from the impediment of disparity of CULT !

For your reading, mixed marriage

Peter and I are having mixed marriages X2 (difference in religion as well as race), fuiyoh.

Ps: Comments are not allowed k. I still wanna get married.

Wedding at Church of Francis Xavier

2011-02-21T15:41:00.009+08:00

I came to know Peter's God brother and his wife through the Catholic marriage preparation course half a year before, and yesterday we have attended their wedding at Church of Francis Xavier. They have a very happy theme with Brunos Mas, "Just the way you are," as their theme song. Its really an out of norm kinda selection, but i love the way the song had brought alive the entire ambiance of the wedding. It was fun and the couple really enjoyed their special day.

Anyway just to share some photos here.

The colorful windows of the church, they looks magistically beautiful.

Their theme was blue, so all the flowers are in blue.

The wedding bulletin (which is super thick) and the cute clipart of the wedding birds at the back of the bulletin

The wedding favors- at first i thought it was a gingerbread man biscuits, until someone pointed out that it is a candle.

Aren't they adorable?

Peter and I at the banquet

I have to confess that after i attended their wedding i felt a bit depressed, I havent done much cuz the date is yet to confirm. Any volunteers to help me with the prep??

Wedding Diy: Wedding Car Deco

2011-02-16T09:47:00.012+08:00

For the whole of last weekend, am putting my creativity cells into great test. The challenge is to reuse my sister wedding car deco and diy it according to my own taste.

Frankly, i really dont mind reuse some of the old deco staff for my wedding. Both Peter and I believe in spending money in its appropriate place, and funny to say wedding decoration comes at the least in our list of priority.

This is what i've 'inherited' from my sister. There is 2 sets of the big ones (for both front and back of the car) and 2 sets of small ones (for side handles). Its not my favourite color, but well at least it pleases the elders (Red - good color for chinese).

I bought this white-pinkish color artificial flowers with shiny edge from a shop called "Ribbons and lace". Each cost at RM1.50. The important thing is that it must have a sturdy (preferably long) metal stem which is easy to bend, yet tightly seal to the flower. It will be funny if the flowers keep falling off from the car during the drive to the church.

Some other essential materials are the metal wire (RM1 for 25 pieces), and the white web like plastic wrappers of the same materials (RM 2.20/metre) with the original car deco (red and pink). Fold the wrapers into three layer from the side, then back and forth from the end. Tie the middle with a piece of the wire. The output will look something like this.

Next, release the folds from the sides so that it looks fluffy. Tie the fluffy white flower with wire in the middle to the original red-pink deco.

Then add in two flowers on top of the white fluffy flower, make sure all the wire stuff goes through the main deco structure to the back and tie all the wire together into a knot.

TaDa! this is the final outcome. Wonder how my Myvi looks with these decos.

Back on track

2011-02-14T10:50:00.007+08:00

Before starting my food post, first of all i really need to thank all my friends for the concern they've showered upon me after reading my previous post. It'd all settled now and yours truly is back on track. I know i may sound like a pms fella having a bad mood swing of "one min-i'm in hell, next minute- i'm ok", honestly its not easy for me to summarize the entire incident with a simple "It's ok", but what good is there to continue to indulge in the swirl of self guilty and sympathy. I believe every human have a certain level of reserved capacity inside of us, an inertia which help us to fought back the the centrifugal force which determines to pull us down into the swirl of misery and bitterness.

Anyway, being survived from getting drowned entitles me a reward of good food.

Peter and I went for an spontaneous food hunt yesterday at Sunway. And since we really wanted to try something new, we have decided to go for a fusion restaurant of two types of cuisine we loved the most- Japanese and Italian- Pasta Zanmai.

My unagi rice with a pouch egg, peter's Japanese Pizza with alot of seaweed on top

This is the set which Peter ordered (as shown in the menu), but i forgot to take the photos of the seafood spaghetti. The green tea in a pot on the right.

Beef stew in a crusty pastry, warm and satisfying to eat on a cold rainy days.

Not bad at all for spontaneous food hunt on Sunday night.

I wish

2011-02-09T12:26:00.015+08:00

I have a slow walk around the neighborhood with Peter last night. It was after an hour of workout at gym and an exhaustive day i had in office. The workout had been a way for me to stretch and release the stiffness i had on my shoulders, but it was the walk with Peter which soothed and untangled the strain in my heart.

I reached his place around 9pm, his mom was pretty much in a nagging mood, and believe me, you don't want another round of 'i-want-to-change-some-songs-in-the-wedding-service-program' conversation after a hectic day. i guess Peter sensed my tension and dragged me out for a walk before i snapped.

We haven't see each other for a week, and i miss dearly the quiet time we had together. We walked aimlessly while making small talks, it calmed me down tremendously by simply holding his hands while walking beside him. I told him i made a wrong decision and that had cost me losing a precious friendship. I told him that i wished i can shrug it off like a man and not fretting it over and over again like an indecisive and moody woman.

I wish the question "what should i do" stop lingering in mind, all the time. I wish i had been more determined in my decision and made a better judgment instead of doing what i've done.

But you know, if i were to consider all my thoughts, every thread and every pieces of my thought; and i were careful enough to not miss even a tiny glimpse of what might possible go wrong, to calculate even the smallest details and analyze it in every possible way; And if i can rationalize myself to do things right everytime and to minimize the destruction as much as possible.

... then I'm not human.

I don't know how others accept the wrongs they made. Try to fix it right, then move on? what if its beyond fixing? shrug off and tell yourself that you have done everything you can and therefore your conscious is clear?

Well, I wish i can do that. i wish i can say doing wrong is making space for the right. I wish i can say the wrong move is worthwhile taking cuz i am learning from the mistake. I wish.

But most of the time, you just dont get what you wish for.

Ps: A very humbling song, nearly shed a tear when i first heard it. Enjoy.

Humble uploaded by atlantisian

Back to work

2011-02-08T16:13:00.001+08:00

Its 5.25pm. I have to dissociate myself from the mounting office work for a few minutes just to ease the the growing ache in my head. The Chinese new year holiday was a bliss; but having to face the TONS of email and backlogs after being away from the office for a week is hell.

Boss was jumping at me for some documents...

Did one hour presentation to the client on last minute notice...

Head of IT was bombarding his email missile on me (as usual) as if he didnt know i am off for the whole of last week...

And i still have like 20 over emails to reply....

Yeah, holiday is over and welcome back to work.

The Butterfly Effect

2011-01-24T16:48:00.006+08:00

Having explosive diarrhea for the past two days. Am sure you are not interested to know the process of how did it developed and happened. Anyway, the interesting part of what happened last night was, with the combination of bloated stomach, lose of appetite, and lack of flexibility, i was lying on the sofa watching an old movie called Butterfly Effect.

Frankly, i didnt know that the movie was this good. The cast wasnt even attractive, come on. Ashton Kutcher? whenever i think of him, Demi Moore will popped up in my head. Its not that he is a bad actor or what, its just that his personal life had overshadowed his true talent as an actor. Anyway back to the movie, seriously, I have a hard time removing my eyes from the screen. Even when my stomach make the unavoidable call, i have to quickly paused the movie, ran to the bathroom to heed the call, and ran out and jumped into the sofa to continue the movie.

Ashton acts as a young man who blocks out harmful memories of significant events of his life. As he grows up, he finds a way to remember these lost memories and a supernatural way to alter his life. And boy it works, he manage to turn back time not once, but multiple times and everytime he did that, it changes the entire history of his life. The problem its not only his life which was being altered, but also his loves ones, families and his friend's life. He is quite lucky that the final time he did this, he manage to pull off and everyone had led a good life in this version of life.

It sorta led me to think that, things which we did everyday, maybe its just a very tiny gesture or a little decision which we made can eventually stir us to another direction in our life. Just like the caption which was shown when the movie starts:

The flapping of butterfly wings could eventually culminate in a typhoon on the other side of the world

Imagine if i decided not to meet up with Peter's cousin for yum cha after my prom night back in year 2004. Forget about becoming his wife, I would never had the chance of knowing Peter at all. If i didnt save enough money to go to bought the ticket to fly to UK for further my studies, i would never know my dear sisters at all.

Scary huh.

So, i kinda agreed with Edward lorenz's chaos theory, in the end its all about the cause-and-effect. And i have always acknowledge the fact that we may not make good decision all the times, but whatever decision we made, we need to take the consequences.

In short, it was the second movie after "Inception" which gives such as good mind warping cinematic experience to its viewers. Kudos!

Chris Colfer

2011-01-18T12:18:00.005+08:00

Short one here.

Chris Colfer (Glee) wins the best supporting actor in Golden Globe Awards!

His character really stands out in the second season and i think he really deserve the trophy.

It still gives me the creeps everytime i heard his "house is not a home" and i really love the episode whereby he refuse to believe in God when his father went unconscious. Although am a christian, but strangely i can register his feeling and it sort of give me the perspective from the other side of the door.

--End of post--

New Year

2011-01-07T16:29:00.003+08:00

My brain and finger refuse to cooperate as they are still in the holiday mood. I think i will resume the writing of all the draft blog next week.

New year resolution? i think am too old for that.

Just a random photo before i signed off for the week. A beautiful bouquet from Kim when he came to my place a few days before. We had a great time with my dear friends from secondary school days.

Anyway, thanks Kim!

My 2010 Favorite... * the tangible*

2010-12-31T10:15:00.002+08:00

And the list begins....

1. Favorite place on earth

My home of course. i would rather spent a full day at home then going out to fancy shopping mall or restaurant.

2. Favorite Holiday

Christmas of course, duh. I went to Penang for christmas holiday and the town is really charming! And the best is i get to meet up with my GOOD friend- HL after so many years! And she will be married around the same time with me next year, Jack you are a lucky lad you know!

3. Favorite Christmas presents

Stila Smokey eyes makeup palette

I know i am a bit too old for the gothic smokey eyes makeup, but who cares! Thanks Jenny, love ya!

Favorite Movie

Inception

Leonardo is simply marvelous in this movie. I love the plot and the storyline, it holds your breath and kept you captivated for the whole two hours.

Favorite book

Charlaine Harris- Sookie Stakehouse series

Do i need elaborate more?

Favorite Drama series

1. How i met your mother

Its hilarious man! it sorta reminds me of Friends. The whole story talks about how Ted met his wife, which is yet to revealed even after 5 season. I hope i get to know who the mother is in the season 6!

2. Glee

Kurt is super cool in Season 2 Glee. he gaves me a few goosebumps especially when he sang the song "house is not a home" wait, is that Season 1?? anyway, I think the drama will stay for a long long time

Cougar Town

I cant believe Courtney Cox still can pull it off after Friends. Its as though the character Jules is specially tailor made for her. I love the episode whereby she breakup with her younger boyfriend, Josh. The standing in the rain crying his heart scene gives me the ' awwwweeeeeeee' all over.

Favorite album

1. One Republic- Waking up

My favorite in the 1st half of the year. I played the album whenever i'm in the car consecutively for 3 months.

2. The Script- Love and Science

Peter's influence. Love "Nothing" and "For the first time" and the story behind the song.

"The song 'For the First Time' was about a time when we got back after touring around the world. We wanted to press palms with the people who had really gotten us there, and we got home and realised there's a stark reality out there, the recession has hit, people are losing their jobs and their valuable things, and we thought, it almost pales in comparison to your news. We started the song, and it ended up being a bit bleak and we felt we really needed a great message in these, to turn it around... so we needed a message of hope, as people are being stripped of all these things they're realising what's really important. It's all about going back to basics: drinking cheap wine, eating your dinner off the floor. That's when you meet each other for the first time, when you have nothing " Danny O'Donoghue of The Script

My favorite blog

http://thepioneerwoman.com/

The blog was introduced by Audrey, it was really a cool blog for a housewife. It makes me wonder can my life be so enriched like her after married?

i will come with my list of intangible soon....

201210 ROM Photo stream

2010-12-30T10:26:00.005+08:00

Thanks to Nana for the great photo stream!

decrypt me! (my name)

Wedding and some of my thoughts

2010-12-29T15:37:00.004+08:00

Am shopping for a good photographer for my wedding day now. And for some reason i thought of KL and eve's wedding photographer- Dennis Yap. A bit of google search and i've landed with his site with the blog entry of the newly wed's wedding photo shoot 2 months ago. Click here to view.

In his entry, he commented "It may seemed a little dull if a wedding is a plain process without any emotional elements." which kinda caught me in surprise, i wasnt aware that he viewed the entire process in such a way. I was acting the busy bridesmaid on the day, so it was only normal that i didnt really know how did the outsiders (those who are not directly involved in the wedding process) felt or responded towards the whole event. Did they enjoyed it though its a christian wedding? Do they felt that they were part of the celebration? do they felt like a mere observer rather than a participant? or do they felt out of place with all the 'ritual' and proceedings of a christian wedding?

The busy bridesmaid: Sam, SH and myself

The experience of being bridesmaid (not once but twice!) had taught me 1 thing, that most of the brides just wanna get it done and over during the BIG day. The planning process was tedious and the actual day was pretty much tiring and exhaustive. Imagine wearing the makeup and the long gown the whole day, while wearing the smile and suck in your stomach the whole time so that you look like miss universe at all time under the flashes of the camera.

I think it looks glamor from the outside but sometimes its not really a pretty enjoyable experience for the wedding couple.

For some reason, it kinda makes me wonder would the invitees who came felt the same way too? Of course we all want to be there to give our blessing to the couple, but do all of us actually enjoyed the process or felt that its an obligation?

In my heart i had always wished my wedding is just a small exclusive party for those who we love. A nice little restaurant with afternoon tea and lots of cupcakes, people going around chatting with each other, people giving toast and telling funny stories of us, some may want to sing a song or two. Just a casual afternoon hang out with lots of laughter.

Since when we have all succumb to the stereotypical wedding whereby BIG church and BIG crowd and BIG 8 course chinese dinner reception are a must.

Anyway, just my little ramblings on a very dull afternoon in an empty office (how come everyone is still in holiday!!!). I will post my ROM photos stream in my next blog. Its password protected so please do send me an email if you want to view it! ;)

For your eyes only

2010-12-23T13:46:00.006+08:00

All my friends were bugging me for ROM photos. The thing is I DONT HAVE IT!!!! Well, you cant expect the bride dressing in white going around taking photos with DSLR hanging on her neck right? Anyway, my dear bride maid managed to sent me some from her iphone this morning, all the way from Singapore. Being a iPhone newbie, all her photos were ..... hmmm .... lets say if i have a restless leg syndrome, she had the same for her hand k.

hahaha... Jv dont be angry at me. Am so glad you are there with me that day.

To curb your curiosity, am uploading two of the best quality here.

Us, holding the marriage cert like those secondary school kids attending graduation ceremony

Lunch at Saisaki, Hannah, myself, daddy and jv

Anyway, thats all. To all the gu-po gang, Hannah will upload all the photos onto FB for your KIND viewing and comment. Ironically, yesterday i was lectured by a 6 years old (my future flower gal) that "Daddy told me we shouldnt upload private pictures on Facebook" LOL

husband sounds foreign to me

2010-12-22T15:22:00.003+08:00

Yeah, i guess the title said it all. Am having trouble to acknowledge the fact that i have a husband now. Yesterday when we sent the car for service, Peter referred the car as "my wife's car" and for some weird reason, i started to smile nervously to the service counter lady, as though i need to act 'normal' so that i do look like a wife.

If you asked me how i felt about being legally married, my answer is "its kinda weird". In my heart i know something is different, yet life still went on as usual. All the hard works in physical (buying clothes, booking of restaurant) and emotional preparations, finally came the ROM ceremony, and then the whole event went passed in the speed of light ..... welcome everyone, lots of hugs, snapping photos, ceremony starts, signing of the certificates, the registrar was overly enthusiastic, congratulation wishes, more hugs, more photo snapping, food, chatting around, more food, final hugs and many goodbye .....

Yesterday morning it marked the end of the entire process when i've finally sent my dad off to LCCT at 5am. After drove back home, I crawled into my bed and slept again for another few hours before i was woke up by the alarm. The moment i opened my eyes, it slowly dawned to me that i'm lying in the same room, enjoying the same quiet tranquility of the morning like any other morning (my home felt much crowded with the mere presence of my dad for the past few days), wondering what to do for the rest of the day. And i felt that i am myself again, as though this is THE real life and the past few days was just a long long dream.

Its really weird.

This whole thing of bearing a new identity as someone's else wife but the life still going on the same is totally weird.

I think it will be long long time before i can get used to it.

10 days to go

2010-12-10T16:57:00.002+08:00

Last night i was trying out the white dress and white heels just to ensure that it still fits. And it suddenly dawned on me that its only 10 days to go... FREAKING 10 days! Can you imagine that? 7 years of relationship will be finally concluded on a piece of legal paper.

yeah, its kinda freaks me out now.

Birthday at The Daily Grind

2010-12-08T17:27:00.008+08:00

Not my birthday by the way. Its Peter's. And i'd mistakenly wished him one year older than his actual age which pissed him off, lol. Anyway, the Daily Grind is a great place for late evening hangouts and BURGERS. For gourmet lover like me, its heaven.

We had big plate of garlic chicken with fresh salad as appertizer. It was pretty good. Apart from the combination of the nicely grilled garlic chicken and garden salads like the lettuce, olives, it also comes together with the croutons, cheek peas and walnuts slices.

Garden salad with garlic chicken, RM18

Our mains consists of 2 types of burger, mine was down from the farm burger (RM33) and Peter chosen a non conventional Tokyo burger.

My burger set comes with burger with beef patty (bbq sauce), some onion rings, big fat grench fries, corn bun and fresh salads. The burger was nicely done, but i think it taste kinda mild. I was expecting some sort of kick with the cowboys on the horse trampling through my taste buds.

Peter's Tokyo burger (RM30) has a softshell crab lying between the buns, at first i thought the beef patty must be lying underneath the crab or playing hide and seek with me. but after numerous attempt of search, there is no beef patty at all! its just a big fat softshell crab! The wasabi sauce was great but the taste reminded me the Softshell crab Okonomiyaki (Japanese pancakes) from Zanmai Sushi. It wasn't bad, but it wasnt extremely good either. Just different i guess.

After the dinner, we went to walk around Bangsar and i bought the series of The diary of the whimpy kids for him as present. I don't know if you have this quite disgusting habit, but I think its a good crapping book. Seriously, i mean it literally, its a good book to read when you are crapping in the toilet. Peter does it, me too, as well as my brother. I remember my brother used to put all his book in this old bathtub beside the toilet bowl which we never used in my parent's master bedroom toilets. The books slowly mounting up and fill up the whole bath tub and everytime i need a book from my brother, we will have to dive into the bath tub to search for it.

Anyway, come back to the birthday topic, it was a good and relaxing evening. We were listening to the newest album of The Script while we were driving back. There is this particular songs which is really cool. The singer song writer wrote the song after an argument with his wife on the fact whether love is part of a scientific process of evolution or its purely a faith.

Science and Faith

Tried to break her to a science in an act of good defiance
I broke her heart (I broke her heart)
There’s a pull up on her theories
there’s a watch her growing weary
I broke her heart (I broke her heart)

Having heavy conversations about the frivolous
Constellations of our souls oooooh
We’re just trying to find some meaning in the things that we believe in
But we got some ways to go.

Of all of the things that she’s ever said
She goes and says something that just knocks me dead.

Chorus
You won’t find faith or hope down a telescope
You won’t find heart and soul in the stars
You can break everything, got the chemicals
But you can’t explain a love like ours.

Its the way we feel, yeah this is real
Its the way we feel, yeah this is real

I tried pushing evolution as the obvious conclusion of the start
Anekatips hmmm .. it was all my own amusement
Saying love was an illusion of a hopeless heart

Of all of the things that she’s ever said
She goes and says something that knocks me dead.

Anyway, thats the topic for my next post. Science and Faith. Stay tuned

Xian

2010-12-01T11:54:00.009+08:00

Its a slang for boring by the way.

Life has been pretty mundane actually. Everyday is the same as yesterday, work, gym, watching downloaded drama series, weekend, gym, movie, dinner ....

Moving out/in and renovating the house has keep me occupied for a few months. Now, am slowly getting used to living alone (which is one of the best thing happen in my life!!), and since the excitement of moving in finally wear off, its kinda xian when everyday falls back to the same routine. It even felt like the empty pages in New Moon whereby Stephenie Myres had left it blank purposely to indicate how mundane Bella's life was after Edward left.

However, one thing which was constantly good even during these predictable days is my book reading. In fact, since i have move in 3 months ago, i have finished reading more than 10 books.

1. Sookie stakehouse series (book 1-9) by Charlaine Harris

I have a good time reading this. During those night when my adrenaline runs high, i will read 4 hours consecutively until my brain went numb. Its about this cheeky telepathic waitress named Sookie Stakehouse whom encountered all sort of adventures in the world of supernaturals (Vampires, warewolves, witches, fairies etc.). I love her spirits and agility. Am anxiously waiting for the tenth book "dead in the family" to be released now.

2. When God writes your love story by Eric and Leslie Ludy

Its a christian contemporary books on dating guide, its kinda 'mild' for me if you know what i'm saying, but i love the part whereby there are a sort of dialogue between male (Eric) and female (Leslie) which shows different perspective towards topics related to love.

3. Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold

It was a book whereby it took me a few nights just to get through first few chapters. Not because its bad, but because of the fact that the words was so real it sends shivers through my spines. Its about a 14-year-old girl named Susie Salmon who narrates the story from heaven after she is raped and murdered on her way home from school. As the girl adjusts in her own heaven, she watches her family members as they try to recover from the feelings of despair that have invaded their everyday lives after her death.

I have scenes and images running through my mind as though i am going through it myself since the book is written from the narration of the victim herself.

"We lay there as I shook, a powerful knowledge took hold. He had done this thing to me and I had lived. That was all. I was still breathing. I heard his heart. I smelled his breath. The dark earth surrounding us smelled like what it was, moist dirt where worms and animals lived their daily lives. I could have yelled for hours. I knew he was going to kill me. I did not realize then that I was an animal already dying..."

Reading this took me another 3 day before i can pick up the book again.

And no, i have yet to finish the book.

4. Vampire diaries series by LJ Smith
I know, i know. You will think that now i am a vampire fan or what (come to think about it, i finished all the twilight series, sookie stakehouse series and vampire diaries, cheesy..), actually i do like the thought of having the supernaturals co exist with human, it never occur to me that romance between two species (do you call it species?) can be quite addictive to read. Anyway, the story focus on Elena, a human who was turn to vampire by two vampire brothers, and her after life in a small town named Fells church. Anyway, it was interesting but too teenage-ish, like Sookie series, it focus alot on killings and blood sheds with a twist of romance in between, but somewhat less realistic compare to the former.

Anyway, anyone wanna join my book club?

Life as a busy bee

2010-11-29T17:21:00.009+08:00

Hello my fellow earthlings!

It has been 2 weeks since my disappearance from the surface of the earth, and yes i have been buzzing around working my a** off for the company (even throughout weekends!!!) like a busy bee. Finally, sweet finally, i have landed on the solid ground and able to be myself again.

Just to show you how hard i've worked, my colleague said that i am emitting a scary aura like a sunray effect

My friend used to told me that the number of my blog entries i've posted is the indication of my status of either being free or busy. Well, by now you would have realized its a case of inversely proportional, whereby the more free time i have (and therefore the happier i am), the productivity increases i.e. the number of published posts increases.

Pardon for my absence and here comes the snippets of what i've done for the past 2 weeks.

1. Finished and submitted my 12 page IP assignment and i am one step closer of getting my Professional IP Manager cert!

2. Tried currywurst, Swedish Pork Sausage, German Prok Knuckle (which was a BIG let down) with Peter and my brother in law at Weissbräu, Pavillion.

Sausage sausage and more SAUSAGE!

3. Bought my wedding gown! (yeah i've mentioned that in my previous post)

4. Tried the food at Barbarillos near to Wangsa walk (which tempted me so much everytime i passed by the restaurant after my gym session), and unfortunately it's kinda sucks.

Upper: Nasi cordero (Garlic fried rice with grilled lamb in somekind of Tandori sauce) RM 18.90, Bottom: Cheeseburger (with fried pouch egg sitting on top of the beef patty, which is kind of funny, anyway its tastless) RM20.90.

5. Bought a big oak color bookshelf, which is now residing happily in the study room housing my TONS of books.

6.Invited my fellow homemakers to my home for dinner and monthly meeting. And guess what, although its pretty bare, but they like our home! Especially my lovely bathroom and study room. Wuahahaha ...

So here comes the things i am gonna do next, since i am finally free and i need to really compensate myself for all the hardworks for the past 2 weeks.

1. Bought ticket for Peter Pan musical (showing at Sunway Lagoon), am going to the Neverland!

2. I want to watch MEGAMIND! Am so impressed with the trailer and the non conventional storyline. Anyone willing to accompany this poor lady for a movie?

*pleasssseeeeeee*

wedding gown

2010-11-19T17:23:00.005+08:00

Bought my wedding gown, wuahahahahah... Thanks to my dear, my bridesmaid and Hannah accompanying me running around to tryout the gowns. By the way, i bought the gown in just 1 hour, which nearly made all of them dropped their jaws. I even forgot to bargain until Hannah reminded me. I think Peter is super lucky to have such a no fussy lady to become his wife. *wink*

I will post some picture of the gown (without the bride of course), soon. ( or maybe i shouldnt, thats make it more exciting isnt it. THE WAITING GAME). well, at least you can check out @ http://atleast1.wordpress.com/. And don't guess, cuz my gown is not published on the website. The owner Miss Eka is a super sweet lady, i'm greatly charmed by her friendliness and courtesy.

Anyway, busy busy week. will come back to blogphere soon. till then.

The study room

2010-11-09T16:13:00.007+08:00

Am grinding and squeezing my grey matter over the past whole week trying to to figure out how to decorate my study room. (So now you know that my 2nd favourite room after the bathroom is the study room).

It wasnt a big room to start off with, hence am mighty careful in trying to get the combination of right furniture in order to make it functional yet without choking up all the spaces. Well, the study room serves 3 functions:

1. To accommodate my tons of books and Peter's tons of books, which makes MANY tons of books. Hence a big bookshelf is a must.

2. A nice sofa bed where i can continue to spoil my eye sight by lying down and read my books leisurely. The sofa should also serve as a bed in case my girls decides to stay over for a pajamas party.

3. A good computer table set to accommodate Peter's computer and it should be mighty comfortable that even after he spends hours playing with his darling MMORPG (not me), he wont develop any backache and will still be sober enough to spend time with his darling (that's me)

My thought was having a bookshelf with an attached desk initially in order to maximise the space. And i love the design on the right as the bookshelf blends literally into the wall. However, after surveying through quite a few furniture shops, i have no choice but to abandon the idea. The standard bookshelf-table set which was offered by the shops was too much of office feel to my liking. Custom made is not an option unless you are willing to burn a hole right through your pocket. In the end, i'm placing an order for a simple 5 rows X 3 columns bookshelf without the attached desk.

On the bright side, the sofa bed was finally delivered last Saturday, and it looks exactly what i want. It was sturdy and comfortable and the brown color match well with the Picasso walnut laminated floor.

No picture still, cuz i want to present the entire study room as a whole when the room is finally complete. Finger cross that i'll get it done fast to reveal the final look!

For my sisters

2010-11-04T08:15:00.010+08:00

Last Tuesday night was the night of farewell, as well as the night of reminiscence. My soon to be brides maid found her dream job in Singapore so there she goes, "all her bags are packed and she is ready to go... cuz she's leaving on a jetplane, dont know when she'll be back again..."

okok, cut the emo crap. Sincerely, am happy for her, from the bottom of my heart. She had always yearned to go back to research job and after taking such a BIG step of faith by submitting a resignation letter on her current post without any secured job offer in place, she deserve it 100%. However, it still make me sad somehow to know that now she will be in some faraway merlion roaring land at 300++km away. Although i know she is a lady of her own now, but for some reason, we just cant stop worry about her (dont you feel the same, ky?). Will she get along with new housemates? will she fit into the new church? will there be a lot of work pressure in Singapore? I think no matter how old she is, she is still our dear mong-cha-cha sister.

When i'm slowly getting to accept the news of her soon departure, i heard another news that supposedly-my-other-bridesmaid-if-she-is-around-in-KL went through a very tough time in UK. Maybe its the fact that she had always took the extra effort to fly back and spend time with us as often as possible, i'd always felt that she is somewhat in vicinity (although physically she is not). However, after the online chat with her that day, it began to dawn on me that we are actually very very far away from each other, and though my heart ached for her, and no matter how much i wanted to give her a hug or even just to be close to her, it is physically impossible.

Sometimes i just cant belive that it has been 4 solid years since we waved goodbye to the little house we shared in albany road, Kensington. Those happy and wonderful moments are simply too short. We were still very young and dont know much about the reality of life (especially the working life), and the only thing we worried about is eat, play and sleep!

It has been a long journey since then. We have found our job, settled in a new church, visited more places, expanded our circles of friends dadada... And frankly we are walking on different paths now, and maybe even towards different direction. However, i know we will always keep each other close to our heart, and no matter where we are and what we are doing, we will always have faith in each other, and doing our best in our position and in our life.

So, til we meet again!

Finally.....

2010-11-01T08:13:00.006+08:00

Finally...

training was done and over. A class photo, couple glass of sparkling juice, warm good byes and best wishes, that marks the end of journey for IP manager training.

Anyway, time flies relatively faster in the time of busy. A few months ago we are still talking about the preparation for Eve and KL's wedding. In the blink of an eye, its done and over. Many funny and memorable incidents happened during the process and i am sure all of us will cherish the memory for a long long time. The endless walking up and down the isle during the rehearsal; the midnight decoration of the gazeebo for the garden wedding; the "chip san neong" session; the song presentation (which we forgot to turn on the mic) during the dinner reception and etc. Those may not be very significant events, however, it was the little things which made the memories even fonder.

To the dear newly wed couple, am so glad you guys had finally tied the knot, all the best to your marriege life! ;)

And the life goes on

2010-10-20T16:33:00.004+08:00

I know its been a while since the last time i've updated the blog.... well, it will be more than just 'a while' before the next post come.

Am extremely busy for the past 1-2 weeks. The thing is i need to spent like 3 days a week for 3 weeks to get myself certified as an IP Manager. I will talk more about this in my subsequent posts. Imagine the amount of work pile up after being absence for so many days. On top of that, i have assignments which involves me visiting MyIPO office, presentation, literature review on topics such as IP valuation. And man, it has been 4 years since i've attended classroom lectures for more than 8 hours in a row, and to make it worse, its not even science related. Strategic planning, product valuation blah blah... All the formulas and financial models such as DCF, cost replacement, Monte Carlo Simulation are really getting on my nerves.

And you know what, once i've been certified, i need to start to implement IP institutionally, according to my dear boss, its my KPI. Damn, who invented this whole KPI thingy! (I do know the person who popularize it in our country though, dear PM, thanks ya! (-___-)

Well, i have another 4 days of training to go next week and two assignments are due next month. The flooring contractor is coming to work on our bedroom's laminate floor this Friday. And i'm going to be a bridesmaid again this sat!

Am pretty much overwhelm by all the works now. so do pardon me for being gibberish.

On choosing best man and bridesmaid

2010-10-08T14:34:00.006+08:00

Peter and I had a 'constructive debate' a few days ago when we talked about choosing our bridesmaid and best men. For me its a no-brainer exercise, the numbers of girlfriends i have can be counted by fingers, minus out those who are not in Malaysia (yes, thats you, ky), who had already/going to get married, obviously the only one who is available is Jv (Hahahaha, am joking Jv, please don't be mad and ditch me on the aisle, you are the first one came into my mind when i thought about my bridesmaid).

So, mission accomplished.

Peter's part was a bit more complicated. Apparently he got three candidates. His first choice was our matchmaker, the second one is his yum char kaki and third one is his ex college mate. It was a long discussion, whether this person is a better candidate compare to the other person, whether will he felt obliged if we asked, or maybe he will be too busy to do this etc. Well, i must said its funny to see the way Peter do his mental calculation over this.

Anyway, my point is how come i can choose my bridesmaid as easy as pie, but its a hell lot difficult to choose the best man.

I think women and men are really earth and sky, when i asked my girlfriend whether she want to become my bridesmaid or not, she was smiling like a chesire cat and 100 times more excited than the bride herself. But for guys, guys are just COOL about it, cool like ice lemon tea (insider joke). They wont send you "100 guides to wedding".pdf during office hour, they are not concern about the color theme of the wedding, they dont asked whether have you started any facial treatment or not.

*At this point, Peter was protesting loudly: "Imagine if my best man come and ask me: 'bro, what can i do for you, blah blah blah... OMG i am so excited!". Well, the thought of THAT gives him goosebumps all over.

So i went googled, and found out there are so many guides on how to choose a best man. So here comes the checklist:

1. Would he be happy to accept the duty
2. Does he have the ability and enthusiasm to carry out the detailed talk of organizing the event.
3. Can he make a speech to a large group of people?
4. Is he quick to deal with any emergency? Can he handle any slip ups that may occur
5. Can you rely on him to safeguard the ring, will he remember where he kept them?
6. Does he get along well with the bride?
7. Is he available to take part in the ceremony? does he have time to help in the pre planning?

I was laughing my heads off when i saw point 5. its hilarious. I think i should i ask this questions to Peter's best man.

The living room

2010-09-29T08:17:00.010+08:00

As promised, here comes the photos.

This is my favorite spot at the living room-the single sofa seater which facing the wide open balcony. Since our apartment is on the highest floor so we really do have a good view. It was nearly 5pm when the workers moved in the last piece of the sofa, and i remember well the satisfaction feeling i had when i sit on the sofa, having the wide view opened before me.

If you compare this against the before-renovation living room. My oh my, i have to say boy we have came a long way.

The marble floor had been polished, new marble skirting (it cost a bomb!), the plaster ceiling was up, new fan, new balcony tiles, new paints, AND.... the seagrass sofa set!

If you notice the striking green wall along the corridor, well, that's the feature wall which we intend to create. However, things didn't turn out well as it happened to be too green to our taste.

In fact i have re-painted one side of the green wall back to lavender white, (It will be good if i can have the song by Celine dion "All by myself" as background now....), which tone down quite a bit of the greens. However, its far from satisfaction and there is still a lot of interior deco to do. Maybe some picture hanging along the corridor will do the trick.

Anyway, that's it for time being. And yes Kim, no house warming yet as the place is far from ready and all other rooms are still empty ;)

Gibberish

2010-09-27T18:26:00.007+08:00

I felt gibberish today...

I don't have my phone with me the whole day, and i felt totally disabled. I have to come out with some lousy excuse whenever client told me "i called you just now, you didnt pick up the phone!".

Signal reception issue, very bad one...

Thats my standard answer. (And yes, I know its not making sense at all). But it strikes me that nowadays we are relying so much on all these digital gadget and communication tool as though our life depends on it. Take away my computer and i wont be able to work for the whole day.

I wonder how the old generation can stand the long turnaround of snail mail.

I wonder how can i live through life without a handphone as a teenager.

A good thing to ponder indeed.

...........

My body is aching all over today, i bought a new curtain for my temporary guest-room-turn-bedroom yesterday at iKEA. The no-curtain-bare-window is really getting on my nerve as the wide open window makes me felt vulnerable as though i've been watched all the time.

i was climbing high and low to put on my new curtain rods, iron the curtain and hang the curtains. The day before i had re painted one side of the green wall to lavender white. Now i really cant survive without the 5 steps ladder.

I wanted to show the photos i've taken for the new curtain and new sofa, but heck, i dont have my camera phone with me today.

.............

which bring me back to the same question, i wonder how people can survive without having a handphone.

The chasing game

2010-09-22T11:20:00.001+08:00

What will you do if someone 'carded' you?

That's the million dollar question which i read from the "lifestyle" section, Star newspaper last week. Cheek'd is the new dating gimmicks in town. Stranger coyly slip business card with cheeky message such as "feel free to stalk me", "i dare you" to those who catch their eye. The receiver will go to the networking website and check on the fella's profile/contacts and if you feel up to it, wallah! you have a date!

If you feel totally lost, don't sweat, cuz i felt the same. And that's not all, i came across September social and Skout the other day, and was totally taken aback by revolution of the act called "dating". Apply for a date through blog? location based iphone mobile dating apps which allow you to detect singles within 0.5 mile radius? Frankly, it was really an eye opener for me (maybe i am really from STONE age). I didn't now that dating had become so sophisticated nowadays. People are taking advantage of the new media technology and social networking to the maximum and the normal rules of engagement which used to apply to the previous generation (like me!) has somewhat became invalid.

Although i am not that old, but during my days (which is like 6-7 years ago), the entire dating process was very much depended on physical (not virtual) interaction, i.e. he/she is either your friend/classmates/churchmate OR your brother's friends OR your friend's friend (thats how i met Peter, hahaha... ) etc. and the modus operandi is always the same: exchange glance, show interest, sms/chatting online, finding excuse to ditch the rest of the friends and go out alone with him/her, more sms (maybe in tons), and finally comes the peak of the entire process, which is the love confession, its either a face to face "Will-you-be-my-girlfriend?" or a 10 page love letter which quoting all the lyrics from the love song you heard before.

Maybe i am the dinosaur here, but i still think that nothing can beat the feeling of a guy asking a girl out the old school way. If i am still unattached now, i probably end up being single forever, cuz i dont think i can keep up with the dating-pace of this generation. It seems as though they are simply making new rules as they go, wait.... is there any rules at all?

I asked Peter once whether did it ever crossed his mind that he may want to have a new girlfriend (you know 6 years is not short so he might getting itchy or start to develop wandering eyes syndrome). His answer was a firm "no", and here comes the reason: He is too lazy to go through the chasing and flirting game (a.k.a guy go all out playing Romeo, girl playing hard to get) all over again.

Priceless.

I think we are really made for each other.

My first 'house warming' present

2010-09-20T09:43:00.007+08:00

I was drowned in joy when i saw the surprise present peter bought for me the 1st day i moved into the new place. He was greatly amused by the half dreamy half stupid (i-cant-believe-you-secretly-bought-for-me-this) smile which i carried for the rest of the day.

"This is for you to kill your time in case you felt boring in your new place", said Peter.

Behold, Charlaine Harris's True Blood series (7 books)!

Boy how i LOVE the present! and within 2 days, i had finished the 3rd book " Club dead". Yeah, i kill not just free time, but A LOT of time by reading it.

Well, i owned another copy of the first 2 books, if there is any interested takers, i'm wiling to let go my old ones half the price i bought. ;)

Am starting on the 4th book tonight-Dead to the world (yay!). Eric Northman is having memory lost and Sookie will find him hard to resist.... Ignore my gibberish, am still in hyper mood.

You say good bye, and i say hello

2010-09-17T08:19:00.018+08:00

Last night was the first night I slept in the new room of our home. It will be the room which i will inhabit for another 1/2 year, before i can finally move into the master bedroom with someone i'll call my husband. When I lay down on the same old mattress (which i've carried all the way from 16 floor of my old flat up to the fourth floor of my new home) in the room which everything else spells S-T-R-A-N-G-E-R to me, it felt somewhat weird, but weird in a good way though.

I looked out the bare window and that was when the moment came. It was a whole BIG piece of open sky, in a strange slightly red, slightly orange colors, without any glimmering shining stars nor shooting stars. It was just open, wide, and bare, like the bare window in my room without a curtain. It was a luxury to me, to be able to lie down like this and absorbed such a scenery. All the rooms i lived before this didn't have a good window view. Especially if you lived in a crowded 18 floors sardin-can-flat, all you can see is just the wall of the opposite flat.

It was oddly peaceful. i tried to associate the feeling to "at home", and the first picture which came into my mind, was an image which i've posted in one of my old posts, LONG LONG time ago (to be exact 5 freaking years ago!). It didn't ring a bell until i checkout my blog for my previous entries this morning. It was such a coincidence that the post was about saying goodbyes. I guess this is all part of molting process. Moving house, being engaged, starting a new household, saying goodbye to my housemates, and my soon to be expired single life ... It's not easy and hell yes i'm scared like mad inside. However, for some reason, in my heart, i know this is right, that i am walking towards the right direction. And maybe that's why my heart is at peace.

So hello new home ! (and my new life perhaps?)

True love

My happy bathroom

2010-09-15T09:00:00.005+08:00

This is my happy bathroom, i named it in such a way because of all the rooms of our home, i love the bathroom the most.

My happy bathroom is the first room which i've decorated, i felt a gush of endorphin running through my body every time i walk into the room. The sanitation set are brand new; the basin is in table top design (you don't know how much of trouble i went through to get this); the tiles is of my favorite color (black of course), and the flexible 3 arm lamp alone cost us around RM150!

I went to KK Home Deco (Yeah, that's the shop that sells all sorts of white theme furniture /decorative items of flora design) last night, and come out with RM50 less in my pocket. Bought a glass vase and a bunch of white turlip (of course its fake), a white metal rack for my beauty products, a 2 tier metal rack for bathroom sets and a clock.

I know its funny that i felt so attached to my bathroom, but who cares! (its the endorphin which is talking, not me.)

Selamat Hari Raya

2010-09-09T17:23:00.007+08:00

Tomorrow is the first day of Raya, so am taking the chance to say "Selamat Hari Raya" to all my malay colleagues!

So here come the grand plan of what i'll do during the Raya holiday:

MOVING INTO MY NEW PLACE !!!

However.... (there is always a however), i will need to mop the floor, scrub the tiles, plaster the unfilled holes in between the tiles, polish the window, and do thousands of other cleaning work first before i can move in.

So dont call me out for breakfast/ movie/ lunch/ dinner/ shopping for the next few days, cuz the lady is going to be full time cleaning lady!!

Home made English breakfast

2010-09-06T16:39:00.020+08:00

La Bodega is on the top of the list when it comes to my favorite western restaurant. Peter and I went for dinner and brunch at La Bodega two weeks in a row last month. I know its a bit pricey for a full course meal, but if you choose their cheese burger (RM22, fairly cheap i would say) the satisfaction is guaranteed.

The first time we went there we ordered the Spanish tapas, the lamb meat ball and the cold sausage cuts, which came together with the complementary bread slices. It was fine, nothing to shout about.

Here comes the star of the restaurant, the super good cheese burger. I know it looks a bit rare, but trust me it best to be eaten in that way. I would recommend medium, medium rare is a bit too bloody while fully done is too dry. The patty was so moist and full in its texture, and the cheese is just melting away in mouth with every bite!

On the second visit, we tried the English breakfast. The set comes with 2 eggs (scrambled, sunny side up or omelet), 2 slices of breads, grilled tomatoes, mushrooms, 2 mini sausages, 2 pieces of beef bacons and baked beans. While we were happily enjoying our gastronomic experience, Peter suddenly came out with this great idea. Why not we do this our own?

So behold, La bodega's big English Breakfast vs Peter and Susan's Big English Breakfast!

I know the presentation was not that great compared to La Bodega's, but i can assure you it tasted equally good! We had potato slices and prawn omelet, cheese baked tomatoes (stuff with garlic buttered bread crumbs).....

Yummy Bacons, pan fried mushroom, garlic bread and salad. It was easy to made and satisfyingly good!

Ad hoc trip to Malacca

2010-09-02T16:00:00.009+08:00

The decision was totally spontaneous.

My colleagues and I went for a good dinner at Seremban last weekend. We came all the way from KL just to try out the BLUE tilapia. Yeah, you heard me right, its not the typical red tillapia, whereby the modified fish species was reared in natural hill fountain water, hence doesnt have the usual inland fisheries (ikan air tawar)'s fishy smell. The fish was cooked in salt baked style and Portuguese style. It was so yummy that 5 of us finished the two fishes within 10 mins.

The salt baked fishes (fish wrapped in paper and baked together with salt rock in tin foil), The portugues fish (tasted like eurasian style, with alot of spicy chili shrimp paste)

On top of that, we have our asam (tasted more like belacan) prawns, fuyuyaoma and hakka style sweet vineger pork.

We started our dinner at around 730pm, an hour later, we were on our way cruising to Malacca. It was totally the spur of the moment, and the excuse was, well, since we are half way there, so why not. And i'm glad that we made that decision cuz the whole trip was simply fun!

Hello Melacca!

The entire ambiance was serene but lively at the same time, many tourists were wandering around, shooting picture, taking the river cruise, enjoying romantic walks hand in hand.

So we went to the famous Jonker street, saw some interesting things like colorful trishaw which has a BIG woofer (installed underneath the seat) bombarding Beyonce's song at 1000dsb, San Shu Gong which sell all the local delicacies like Gula Melaka etc.

Talked to an uncle who made spiral potatoes chip (thin potato chips sprinkled with chilli, salt and curry powder) and free posing for me.

At first i thought this is the 'kao qin' fortune teller thingy (whereby people will shake a wooden bottle full of sticks, and then when one of the stick come off, you just bring it to Shi fu to decipher and tell you when you gonna get married, have how many kids dadada...), but it turns out to be chopsticks carved with chinese surname.

i ate the famous curry fishball, octupus lok lok, dim sum (7 for 3 bucks!!! can you believe it), and of course the famous cendol with lots and lots of gula Melaka, yum yum!

It was 1230am by the time we left Jonker street and waved Melacca good bye, but the night was still young for those people who were still drinking and dancing at the bars, and the queque for Satay Lok Lok was forever long. It was indeed a great trip and i think i'll come back again in near future.

The renovation

2010-08-25T10:23:00.007+08:00

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

2010-08-24T17:46:00.001+08:00

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

2010-08-23T17:08:00.006+08:00

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

Book Sale!

2010-08-13T13:54:00.002+08:00

Check this out!

Neither here nor there

2010-08-12T12:53:00.004+08:00

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.