CNY Sequel

Hey all, I'm still very much celebrating the CNY holidays.
But I'm temporary back for new postings, though I'm not officially back in KL yet.
Thought of doing a quick entry for the day.

A few take aways from this CNY :

1. The Malays love mandarin oranges and crave for them more than we Chinese do. Was in Giant to do some CNY shopping with my parents, and observed this - at almost all queues at the checkout counters, most of the customers who are holding boxes and crates of mandarin oranges a.k.a "lou kam", are Malays. They simply love it. They're the ones who contribute to most sales of the oranges, majority by far.

2. Times are really bad. With the sliding economy status, even the ang pau (red packets) collection slides along. These days, a piece of RM5 contained ang pau can get me nowhere near a nice plate of chicken rice. I'm not complaining, I know exactly what age I am in now. I'm at the stage where ang pau money collection isn't something to look forward anymore. Instead, with me earning my own bucks now, I should be distributing/presenting/offering ang paus to my elders, ie. mum, dad, grandma. Speaking of which, my grandma has this pantang explaining how us unmarried kids shouldn't be giving out ang paus, even to elders as simply a genuine sign of respect. No idea why. I got a nice good warning from my grandma for attempting to give her ang pau. Oh crap.

3. I have friends (those who don't attempt or don't bother to actually keep in touch like, for a few years) who showed up at my house during CNY. And not that they bothered catching up when they're over at my place, they just talked among themselves, get their angpaus, grabbed some drinks, and left. Even better that they actually had the nerves to bring their cousins, siblings, who-so-ever, whom I do not know, and whom they do not bother introducing. They dropped by and left. Just like that. What good friends they are, huh?

Hmm.. Shall think of what else there is, and add more takeaway points here later.
Til' then, enjoy the remaining holidays everyone! Tata.

MY FM MY ASTRO - 2009 年《牛转乾坤庆团圆》

Here's something for all you out there looking for some songs to spice up the CNY mood. (SY, this is especially for you, haha).

Happy Chinese New Year!

Hey all... I'm taking this opportunity to make two announcements, err.. not really announcements - only 1 announcement and 1 greeting, to be exact.

Announcement

I'll be away for the week to celebrate CNY and will be back 2nd Feb. Hence my idle-ness in this blog (in case you're wondering).

Greeting

I'm also taking this chance to wish all of you Happy Chinese New Year 新年快乐, 恭喜发财！(I'm still trying to improve on my chinese vocabs, haha). Leaving you with this cute little graphic to kick-start your lunar year in the coming Year of the Ox. Have a great festive season everyone! Enjoy, 'til then.

Revisiting Half-Banana and Her Effort

In one of my earlier entries, I've talked about how I look yellow on the outside but not so much on the inside, and went to conclude me being a half-banana. But I'm constantly learning, and so to try my hands on blogging in chinese today. Yup, that's right, 没错，用华文写部落格！哈哈。还不错吧？But boy.. this will surely take longer than I've expected. I needed the help of Google Translate to serve as my dictionary, to verify and confirm that I'm typing what I've intended to mean, and not something else (just in case it ends up sounding like foul language). We wouldn't want that, would we? But well, with my 'half-pail-water' knowledge, I'll give it a go, looking at what great lengths I've went through, in my recent personal project that I'm working on, which required me to do a large scale of homework in chinese. Large scale because, the characters do look somewhat foreign to me in my limited capabilities. Warning ahead though, it might sound funny, trivial or grammatically incorrect for that matter, so if you're still planning to read on, then read at your own risk. Haha. Here goes.

有没有试过幻想许多个如果？
(sounds weird... but hmm, shall check out the right way of saying it later)
我相信，应该也有吧。
其实人类真得很矛盾，也很贪心。
拥有的时候，不懂去珍惜。失去了，才会想要保留。
当失去了，后悔了，才会想起当初的如果。
比如说，“如果当初我努力的读书，现在的我应该可以恨成功”。
同时，因为想了太多以后的如果，而害怕，也不见得是一件好事。
比如说，“如果明天我生病了，那我就不能去考试了”。
在事情还没有发生的时候已经在担心了。
所以，还是不要想那么多的如果吧。

Okay, time check : it took me close to almost an hour to type, check, and revalidate my short chinese passage. You've got to give me some credits; afterall, it is my first attempt! Haha! There it is, ta-da. Proudly presenting to you... [*grin*]

CNY Prequel

I am so looking forward to Chinese New Year. I've always anticipated the arrival of CNYs, but this year's different, anticipation towards it measures beyond words. I'm getting more and more of the 'home-sick' element these days. I miss my bed, miss my mum's cooking, miss waking up to the cheerful chit-chatty noise of the family. Here, I wake up next to a pile of pillows and magazines around me, and nothing more than that. I miss the warmth of my always-loving family. It's comical isn't it? With what I'm going through right now, I think of my family, my home - where I belong, which I think I've somewhat learnt to have taken for granted of in the recent years. Life's always been busy with other more exciting things that needed my attention & precious time - relationship, shopping, career, etc. Things are so much simpler back at home. When there's storm and thunder, I feel protected at home. And it's italic because there's more to it than just taking shelter from the bad weather outside [like a metaphor], but it also indicates how at ease to know that of all storms that life has to offer me, I can always come home to my family and know that I'm safe here, or at least I'm safe for a bit before I go out to war again outside home. I know that sooner or later I have to be an adult - move out, have my own family, and start handling my own life up's and down's, and the complexity of life. But right now, all I want to do is hold off my guards, and enjoy the simplicity of being a child to my parents, being a sister to my younger sisters. That simple. That's it then, 7 days counting down!

Understanding the 'Eye-Twitch'

The other afternoon while I was working away in the office, my right eye twitched. It twitched vigorously, alright. So there I was, a little annoyed with the non-stop twitching action that was distracting my concentration (and out of boredom), I went searching on the net on the whole idea of 'eye-twitching'. Here's my take-away from the analysis.

The Frequently-Spoken-Myths are as follows:
1. In general, most people believe that a twitch in the eye indicates the event of someone bad-mouthing you.

2. The Chinese believes, a twitch in the right eye of a man signifies good luck, while a twitch in the left eye could be a sign of bad omen, of ill luck. When it comes to women, however, it's a whole opposite side of story. Left - good, right - bad.

3. The Nigerians' beliefs are of the same nature with what the Chinese believes.

4. The Hawaiians - eye twitch indicates arrival of a stranger, or you're soon to mourn for someone. (Yea, totally scary).

[Source : Eye-lid Twitching Superstitions]

And here's the best by far : Eye-Twitching - Signs & Omens. It even lists the particular time-frame and the meaning respectively.

I then checked mine, it was about 4pm then, and it's on the right, so it reads :
"3pm - 5pm
In the left eye, it means you will lose money. In the right eye, then you will be thinking of your loved one very much."

Okay... so I had a lot on my mind, and I was (definitely) thinking of yz, a lot. It made sense.

And then the weirdest thing happened. Yesterday my right eye twitched again. It wasn't as vigorous, but it was twitching involuntarily. Uh-huh, my right eye twitched two days in a row. And I did a time-check - it was 3:35pm. Hmm..... (Yeah, I sound vain, I know).

On another note, I'll be away for the weekend, so there won't be any new posts soon. Ahh.. Home sweet home. I'm so counting down the hours to knock-off from work. Have a good weekend everyone!

Our World in a Kid's Eyes

It takes great courage to be a kid in an adults' world, I believe.
Here's what spurred the thought.

This morning when I was on my way to work in the crowded monorail, I saw a little gal tagging along with her mum. The kid was about 4-5 years of age, I presume, and she was wearing her kindergarten uniform. My guess was she's on her way to school. But what appealed to me was how lost she looked! She was standing amidst all the commuters who are busily on their way to work, trying to grab hold of something to desperately stabilize herself in the moving train. And her height was only half the most of us. Every other minute, her face was practically brushed off by occasional moving handbags of the OL (Office Ladies). And this guy I saw had the guts to actually shove his pair of butts (yes, you read correctly, butts) into her innocent face. How disrespectful. Gosh! I pity the 'lil kid. To think of how little & tiny she was, and yet all the giants all around her, in a midst of the morning rush, were giving her such a hard time, she must have been frightened in a way or another. Hmm....

On another note, I think the medication I'm taking is giving me diarrhea every now and then. But I still have to thank the medication undoubtedly for helping me suppress the spots from growing.

Handicapped : Day 3

I think to say that I'm handicapped is over-rated and over-stated.
I'm fine now. The larger spots are healing, so I hope I'll be fine even sooner than expected (I hope). The occasional itch is much more bearable than it was days ago. So I think it's safe to say that I shouldn't continue to be feeding off sympathy. Well, not all are sympathy, some are genuine concerns, I know. And I'm grateful that people around me make it a point to care for my general well-being. To the extent of helping me wipe my workstation to clear off the oil residue which chemical has given me such great inconvenience throughout the past few days. Thanks!

To date, I think this is my first attempt in trying to enter a blog post in the workplace. And I have a reason to justify that. I'm feeling miserable. Period.

Miserable at my current state of the relationship. And I know I risk doing the PDA (Public Display of Affection), or rather in this case, Public Display of Emotions. Rest assured, it is NOT my intention, I swear. I just figured this is my only avenue that will help me feel better, that's all.

I've been through thick and thin with him for the past 5 years. 5 is an odd number, it isn't too long, it isn't too short. What I do know however, is that 5 years have somewhat drained most of my energy away. And I thought 5 multiplies all the effort put in, would be more than convincing to last us a lifetime. I was wrong. Things were never enough. I don't want to sound unfair to anyone at this point of time, but I feel numb and unappreciated. Period. For many years throughout, most of my focus and energy were channelled to the relationship. I didn't think I even segregate that much amount of attention to other areas which deserved just as much attention - my career, my family, my friends. And I allowed that to happen. For all the kind & nice impression that I stroke a well-balanced focus, I don't deserve it, I don't qualify. I could've done better, honestly. Now that I'm all drained-out, probably I should start switching focuses already. For all it's worth, I do love him. But I'm tired. And I'm running out of strength, courage, and faith altogether. A relationship between two very different individuals requires a great degree of effort and a major measure of time to be nurtured. But all we do, is destroy it time and time again. The speed at which we destroy it is so much faster than the speed at which we nurture. It was as if we couldn't wait to put more scars into it. At the rate we're going, I wouldn't think the whole confidence or faith for that matter, was given the opportunity to heal or recover by itself before we started destroying it all over again. And THAT, is unhealthy. So, what do I do now?

Handicapped : Day 2

Here I am, in front of my home PC, away from work, trying to blog to distract myself from the itch. The medication hours and the occasional itch intervals have made it impossible for me to have proper sleep the whole night throughout. Hence, the day off away from work.

Status of the 'hand-disease' (let's just call it HD from now on, sounds more canggih and non-geli) : The larger spots seem to be fading, but there are some new mini spots popping up at different areas.

And when I thought of trying to be all-positive about it, here comes the bonus to it. 6 out of 10 person who knows about my so-called 'HD' have claimed, "It won't get well so soon wan lahhh...". But heck, Chinese New Year is coming soon! So it has to get better fast! Sigh... And some say, "The skin will peel off after that". But again, Chinese New Year is coming soon! :(
I don't want to be scratching my butts (I mean, hands) off while everyone is enjoying the yummy kuih kapits, mandarin oranges, cookies, and ba gua! That's surely not a sight to remember. As a means of reassurance, I have to feed by BC's explaination that when you're in the fan tai shui year, the 12th month of the chinese zodiac year will always reflect the worse of mishaps. I believe her now, she's the expert.

With my hands so creamy now, I think I'll stop here for the time being.
Will need to fill my days with more distractions (ie. to watch some TVB dramas) so that I can save my hands from typing entirely (okay, at least minimal typing) & keep myself away from the itch! (I know, I sound like some ham sap lou talking about kegatalan).

The Craziest Things have to Happen at the Oddest Times

I wish I could precisely tell you how much of the craziest and wackiest things happening to me lately. I even wish I had pictures taken to show you more. Unfortunately, at the speed that I am typing now, I wouldn't think that's allow-able. Just so you know, I'll be quite handicapped for the next few days to come. I'll tell you why.

For one, I've caught this skin problem/disease in these past days [...and which, will continue in the days to come :~( ]. My hands are now full of mini spots/chicken pox/blisters (however you may want to call them), and they itch like hell! It's a wonder I got through the day at work without actually tearing my skin apart! *Thinking to self : Definitely a great way to celebrate the 2nd week of work.. urgh*. The events that took turns prior to this, man, I have to say, I can't help but agree with dear bc - fan tai shui! (If you don't already know my dear friend, she just has this tendency of giving each mishaps the 'fan tai shui' reason throughout the whole of 2008 (2008 of chinese year, that is) - applicable to anyone who's of the chinese zodiac rat. And she's probably either a) laughing her head off reading this right now, or b) preparing to sms me saying I'd high-profiledly spoilt her reputation in my blog. Haha). Relating back to my story, I'd seen two doctors for this 'disease'. One prescribed me a wrong medication, which resulted in those itchy spots spreading to a larger area of my hands. I literally wanted to chop my hands off, it was THAT itchy, ok. CRAP doctor, I tell you. I was there, in his clinic, on the patient's chair, eagerly wanting to cure my so called 'sickness', and there he was, chit-chatting and flirting away with his nurse. And what I got out of there, was wrong medication! Thank god the second doctor I went to this morning was a gem! She prescribed me something to sooth the itchiness, but the downside to this is, I had to pop a pill every four-hourly, including the hours where I'm sleeping throughout the night. Imagine having to put my alarm from waking up at 1am, then 5am, then 7am (for work). Hmm... But the doctor was kind enough to actually offered (no wait, she didn't offer, she practically advised me) to take 2 days off work. She was explaining how much my work nature was to type, and that it wouldn't do any good if i stayed. But I ended up staying in the office til 6pm (I could've knock off 5.30pm, so I stayed half an hour later that expected) even with a valid MC on hand. Had too much to follow up from the weekend, and figured if I stayed home, I would still need to type anyway (except, not for work, but for my blog, and my messengers). So much so for the phrase 'Presence is not performance'. Right.

*Laughing hard* Realised that I actually started my story with 'For one...', and my 'one' was a pretty long one. [*Grin*] I'll just give myself this one entry to be emo about the events that had killed my mood.

For two, (yeah I know, it's not finished) I'd bought a bottle of cooling Ribena from the 7-Eleven next to crappy doctor's clinic to ease the thirst. I went home, thinking I could now feel better with the prescribed medicine and some dinner to fill the stomach, with my bottle of Ribena. IT WAS FULL OF MAGGOTS when I opened. On the whole of inner layer of the bottle cap. And I was calm enough to actually wash up the whole bottle and throw it in the dustbin without drinking a sip, thinking what the hell. That calm 'til I actually didn't think of re-capping that bottle and carry it back to 7-Eleven to complain. And I didn't even think of taking any photos to blog about. I was that calm alright. Three bucks gone, and I never had a sip.

That sums up about the craziest things that took most of my weekend away. The only good thing that happened over the weekend, was seeing my mum & dad do some cha-cha dance moves with the Wii that I've brought home. That switched my attention away from the itchiness and pain, A LOT. That, and meeting up with two of my good ol' ktn buddies for a nice catching-up session over long drinks. Haha!

Panic Attack!

My dad dropped me off at the entrance of my apartment block. Then he rushed off to work. "Hmm, this is unfamiliar", I thought. I haven't been using this side of the entrance to my apartment block before. In fact, never really know it existed. I took a lot of turns with lots of tall hedges around before I actually got to the lifts. I was searching for my floor number. "Where's 15?". There was one unfriendly guy with me in the elevator. He didn''t look helpful at all. So I thought, "Heck, just press 16 and walk one floor down. Always easier walking down the stairs than walking up!". So I exited the lift when it reached 16th floor, only to find it was a lobby to a hotel! Huh?! What the hell happened?! Where was I at exactly?! Was I lost?! Then I got panic. Real panic. I started searching high and low for directions, and frantically seeked help from the smartly-dressed people at the reception counters to find out how I could possibly find my way back to my apartment. And the best part was how they all looked at me point-blankly, as if the part of the world I was looking for didn't really exist. It was like I travelled through time or something to another era. Or rather, it was the same era, only different planets. I only wanted to go home. Why and how did I ended up here instead?! Then I heard Cao Ge's 'Shi Jie Wei Yi De Ni'. Wait, that's familiar. No wait, that's my alarm tone! Then I woke up. And you have no idea how relieved I was to have woken up this very morning! What a bad, bad dream. That must've have meant something. I wonder what it means. If it reflects stress, then it could be pretty damn right. And it was only my second day back to work after the holidays! Darn. Anyone cares to offer free consultations to dream interpretation? Let me know. *Sigh*

[*Yaaaaaaaawn*]
I've got to have better quality sleep! The fact that I can actually remember the nitty gritty details of my dream, scary. This is NOT good. Maybe it's time I invest in better pillows. Hmm... And the idiot(s) upstairs is/are actually blasting some techno songs or something through his/her/their stereo & woofer now. I could actually feel the vibration through my bed. Together with the *dong dong dong* beat through the ceiling and walls. Urgh. It has to be at this hour. WTH. Good night Sher Lin. And good luck at getting some sleep!

Life Without Work vs. Life With Work

Gawd. I'm so hyped at one time, sleepy & tired at another, energized at some point, demotivated at some other. I think I've definitely NOT get used to the 'getting out of bed at 7am, and going to bed at 12am' routine. First day of work for the year 2-0-0-9 starts today! And it certainly did start in full-gear ok! I came into office and saw the ever-long list of unread mails waiting to capture my attention and response, and began clearing them, 'til I saw "We regret to inform you that your reservations has been cancelled". WTH. I almost got a heart attack! That was my boss's hotel reservations that I'd by hook, by crook, finalised before I left for my year-end holidays! And now they're telling me it's cancelled 1 day before my boss's scheduled to check in! I was so pissed that I shot them an email with the meanest demand for clarification (well, not really that mean also la... I was just too gan-jiong, so I wasn't as polite to actually use the term "Could you kindly.... please?" like how I always do). Turns out, it was a misunderstanding. Fullstop. My bad. Fullstop. I must've grown 'rust' towards the so-called professionalism concept and grown careless for some reasons over the past week of non-work lifestyle! Luckily enough, I realised it was miscommunication, misunderstanding, misinterpretation, whatever that was, and sent another follow-up mail to the hotel reservations people and let them know it was alright and apologised from my end. I tell you... *Sweat*! But that wasn't all. It didn't just stop there. I had a series of 'heart-attack sessions' that followed to kick-start my entire morning, way throughout lunch hour! Even I'm amazed at the speed I actually un-slack-ed myself and picked up the art of multi-tasking almost instantly after finishing my morning cup of hot milo. I would've usually needed around half a day to warm up and pick up on speed & efficiency at work after a super long break away from office! Today's definitely different. 'Monday Blues' surely did not come visit me today.

But I do miss my waking ups at random hours in the morning (or noon). That, and sleeping at random wee hours way early in the morning. Haha! Now I'm having a hard time adapting to the supposingly normal routine clock. I miss the less-stressed, no-deadlines life. I miss the fun. I miss the laid-back days. I miss being near him. I miss doing things together. And this is something that will come as a shock (especially to myself). I actually miss jogging in the evenings in the neighbourhood. Who would've thought. I enjoyed my alternate evening jogs throughout the past week. Yes, my muscles did sore quite a bit during the entire process (blame the no-exercise lifestyle I'd been living with), but I guess it was the easy-going, peaceful surrounding that made those jogs enjoyable. And he joked I should continue jogging in the evenings when I'm back in KL, except there won't be any neighbourhoods, I can use the 'office-back-to-apartment' trail. Crazy! Where can la! I'd probably inhaled more carbon monoxide, smoke, gas, stinky river banks, stale rubbish dumps ever than oxygen!

First Entry of 2009

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Happy Two-Zero-Zero-Nine y'all!

(Yay! I've got my first 2009 header pointer at the right hand corner of my blog!)

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To start with, I think my 2009 marks how old I've become.

Pre-New Year, we (both yz and I) ruled-out counting down in public for the celebration. It was never even an option! (See, I told ya it marks the signs of aging). But I'll feed you some photos on how we spent the New Year's Eve.

Post-New Year, we (ok, actually it was only I, me & me alone) spring-cleaned the entire room! And I mean entire by the formula of =sum(left-right, up-down, vertical-horizontal, inside-out). And this sum is =product(3 consecutive effort-ful days)! Man... I'd start imagining 10 years down the road, when I've got my own family to care for, I'd probably spend New Year's Eve laying flat on my bed with 'half-eyes open'. And by the stroke of midnight when fireworks are up in the sky to mark another significant new year, I'd probably be snoring my way to slumberland. Yea, *snoooooorrre* to New Year, instead of "Cheeeeers" to New Year. So much so for a celebration, huh? [*hmm...]

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Hope you guys have had a great start to kick-off the new year!

As for us, both yz and I kick-ed off our new year by a quiet-er dinner at Korean Garden Club Restaurant, right opposite Danga Bay, JB. [And we rushed home prior to 12am to avoid the massive jam which followed suit later]. But all in all, it's a nice restaurant converted from an old bungalow atop of a hillslope which surprisingly, is made known to quite a number of Koreans. It was my 2nd time there. Here are a few pictures taken should you feel like feasting your eyes.

Banchan (반찬) - various Korean side dishes.

A closer shot.

We had beef ribs.

And I can assure you those beef ribs are really, really YUMMY!

We had pork ribs too. This is a little blurry though.

We had Korean omelette and Ginseng Chicken Soup for our side dishes too.

By the end of our dinner, we were so stuffed that we couldn't laugh out loud & hard. We could actually feel food stuffed from the bottom of our stomachs right to the top of our throats. Imagine that! (Which goes to show my stomach is just not cut-out to have lavish buffet dinners).