Since I’ve been such a lazy blogger lately, let me make up to you, my dear readers by posting some of my favourite foodie (and drink) shots. It’s one of the things I’ll miss in my current job – ah, the lovely lovely Japanese food! And regardless what one dear reader says about my supposedly ‘unhealthy’ food shots, you can’t deny that Japanese food is one of the healthiest things you can eat. The raw-er, the better ;)

Yeah so, there ya go. After a week’s worth of blog drought, I present to you two postings today. Enjoy!

Mango Salad – utterly delish!!!

Just for fun shot. We ordered some fish and chips and air batu campur (ABC) at the Coffee House nearby.

Tofu Salad – this is great, too!!!

We washed everything down with this refreshing apple lime juice

I suppose this tastes as good as most sake do. It’s too expensive for us to gulp it though, so I wouldn’t know :P

It’s not every day that I come across a book that has me hooked from page one itself. In the rare event that I find such a book, a quavering sigh would escape me, involuntary shudders of pleasure will rack my person and I will bask in the contentment that my mind will be happily occupied the next couple of hours or days – depending on when I finish reading the book.

Yes, I absolutely detest the feeling of being bored to death. When I find myself stuck in a boring conversation in a meal or a party, it’s kinda hard to extricate myself without being rude or abrupt. At least with boring books, they aren’t hurt when I chuck them aside after a few pages. And they never seem to mind if I decide to delve into two, three and sometimes up to five books all at a time.

There are days when I simply do not have the time nor inclination to read. When all I could do was to sprawl in front of the tv and watch mindless movies. Then again, those no reading days are few and far between. I’m always happiest when surrounded by books. Books make waiting time bearable, sweet even. It’s better than the movies because I can picture the scenery and characters exactly as what I think the author wants me to see. I lost count of the many times when I was revved up to see a movie adaptation of my favorite books only to be sorely disappointed to find that it was very different from what I imagined it to be. But I suppose the television has its benefits. It does remove the brain work involved in putting pictures into words but it teaches you (rightly or wrongly) how words are actually pronounced.

Case in point: I always thought the term ’social mores’ was pronounced as ’social moors’ until I watched a movie and discovered that it’s actually pronounced as ’social mo-rays’.

So while I do have a vast vocabulary in the English language thanks to my years of reading non-audio books, I may not be able to pronounce them accurately. But then again, how often would I get to use the word ‘mores’ in my daily conversation with my family and friends? :P

Photo Credits: JS

This little baby saved my tush today. For some reason, every single photo I copied today to a shared network folder vanished into thin air. It didn’t help matters when I chose the Safe Delete option – to delete the pics as soon as they were transferred. Note to self: Do not safe delete before you verify that the files were indeed safely copied over.

When I discovered that the pics were missing, the hunt for a free undelete program began. The food photo shoot project took a lot of effort and coordination and it was near impossible to re-enact the whole thing again. Thanks to my best online friend Google, I came across FreeUndelete. Made the program scan my empty SD card and the rest, they say is history. Every single pic was retrieved in its entirety. Hallelujah!!!

For more reviews of this really cool (and free!) proggie, head here.

And now, I’m gonna head back home for some much-needed me time. Toodle-doo!

Sunflower and I compared notes about low-maintenance guys the other day during a thoroughly delightful meetup (we should do more of this, dearie!). By low-maintenance, we mean beings that are easily pleased by the very basic things in life.

One guy dislikes driving (even though he has a car and is a careful driver) and prefers to take public transportation everywhere. And I mean, everywhere. Another dude doesn’t see any reason to upgrade from his mattress on the floor to an honest-to-goodness bed. And one fellow sees nothing wrong in recycling flowers used in a friend’s wedding as a gift to his girlfriend.

Somehow, some way or the other, these guys found themselves perfectly matched to their life partners.

The first guy’s girl is someone who shares his passion in public transportation. She herself has a car but prefers to take the bus or lrt. When he suggests that he’ll pick her up and drive her to a nice place, she would pause thoughtfully and say, “Why don’t we take the bus instead?” The guy thought he had died and gone to heaven.

The second guy’s fiancee doesn’t possess a bed. Like him, she sleeps on a mattress on the floor. When they got married, they didn’t get a bed. “I have a mattress, he has a mattress – we’ll just join the mattresses together and sleep on them. Easy peasy!” she said cheerfully.

And the last guy’s wife was very touched by the recycled flowers. “You must understand, he actually took the trouble to handpick those flowers from me. I love them!”

Surely God must have had a hand in bringing these unique individuals together.

As for Sunflower and me, let’s just say that you wouldn’t catch us uttering such things. We used to think that we were low maintenance. Well, that was until we met those women mentioned above. I guess the accurate terminology to use in our case would be moderate maintenance.

Moderate maintenance women:

• don’t mind taking public transportation but only when necessary and for practical reasons like avoiding jams and such. But whenever possible, we prefer to drive/be driven everywhere.
• would very much prefer first-hand flowers. Period.
• prefer sleeping on a bed. Mattresses are fine on a temporary basis. Beds, however, give a sense of bonding and rootedness with our bedrooms.

So, any other moderate maintenance beings out there? We could form a group on Facebook, you know :)

The girls and I received our lovely and humorous wedding invites from a beloved friend today. Twinnie was ecstatic until she saw these dreaded words:

‘Kindly be dressed in beige, white or cream‘.

“Arkh! Those colors don’t flatter me at all, twinnie!” she moaned. “I don’t have any of them in my closet!”

These themed-colored weddings never fail to bring us to a tizzy. Surely we must have something white or beige or cream to wear. And suitable for a pool wedding party, too. Think, Twinnie, think!

And suddenly, a brilliant idea hit her. Should push comes to shove, we gals will turn up ala Pam Anderson – in something both white and ravishing. The only drawback is, we may be classified as wedding guests from hell and be banned forever from attending any future weddings. Hmmmm….

I love this song. Heck, I love her whole album. This girl could sing. And what’s more, she sang words that I can really identify with.

This song really helped put my feelings into words when I was going through a hard time with someone. That person believed that talking would resolve everything. I used to believe that, too until I realized that for all the hours invested in the talk, nothing was resolved in the end. Nothing changed. That was when I decided that there was enough talk already and we just had to agree to disagree and resolve our personal issues individually. No more talking necessary.

And now, I find myself singing to this song again. Same tune, different person. And I wonder, why do people think that mere talking would help? It doesn’t work. Not when one party is adamant that they are right and people should think the best of them even when they are behaving in the most unbecoming manner. And that everyone else need to change except them.

Sure makes me want to roll my eyes and say, “Whatever. Can I go now?”

Thwack!

Madam Mona and I looked up from our lunch packets to stare at the smiling face of Khai. He had just deposited two Malay newspapers on the table.

“Read it! My kids are featured in the papers.”

Duly impressed, I read the headlines – Identical Triplets Cry on Their First Day of School.

I gasped for two reasons:

1. I didn’t know that Khai had triplets!
2. Khai, or rather his kids are now famous!

The first newspaper showed three happy looking boys. The second one, however, displayed a picture of a tearful looking Khai Jr, crouching underneath his school desk. His two other brothers were nowhere to be seen.

I got to thinking. Why on earth would triplets cry on their first day of school? There were three of them to face up to any scary schoolmate. Surely there’s power in numbers. But apparently, even triplets can feel insecure in a brand new environment without the comfort of their parents.

And then I started reminiscing about my first day at school. I did not recall any crying but there sure was a lot of anticipation. I was all of 7 but I had been longing to go to primary school for as long as I could remember. I would put my small feet into my sisters’ white school shoes and trot about in them. Being able to wear that dark blue uniform (which now I think looks positively garish) was my ultimate dream.

Soon the day came when I got to wear my own school shoes and don my own school uniform. I woke up bright eyed and early and couldn’t wait to get a move on to my school. Mom was with me, holding my hand and we took a brief tour around the school compound.

“And there’s the canteen where you can buy food and snacks with your pocket money,” Mom said cheerily, gesturing to a rather ramshackled building with rows and rows of wooden benches and two counters. Something bright and shiny caught my eyes.

And Mom’s words felt like magic to my ears.

“Mom, can I have my pocket money now?” I held my free palm out.

“Sure, sweetie. Are you hungry? You have bread in your tupperware,” Mom reminded me as she dug her purse and gave me 20 sen. Don’t laugh. 20 sen was big money to me back then.

With the 20 sen in my hands, I led my mom to the counter.

The canteen operator looked at me enquiringly. I pointed to a shiny wrapper with the word Kum Kum boldly emblazoned upon it. “I want that.”

“That’ll be 20 sen,” he said. Now, you see why I love 20 sens. The exchange was made. Thus began a lifelong relationship with junk food :P

And I let go of my mom’s hand.

Mom ruffled my head, “Time for your first class. Will you be alright on your own?”

With yummy Kum Kum by my side, what could go wrong? I told my mom that I’ll be fine and marched excitedly to my class. Mom trailed behind, made sure that I settled in ok and left just after the first class started.

There were hardly any crying kids in class. Maybe we were raised the hardy way back then. I remembered making quite a number of new friends that day. And the first Malay word I learned at school was Isnin (Monday).

During my first year at school, I also learned that there were nice friends and not-so-nice friends who lie through their teeth and back stab you when you least expect it. I learned that there were dedicated and kind teachers, as well as lazy ones. I learned that the scariest kind of teachers were not the ones who were strict and make you work hard but rather, those who have unpredictable and temperamental moods.

And most importantly, in my Primary One year, I learned that my family who knows me through and through, would believe my word rather than my backstabbing friend’s and come to my defense and support when I most needed it.

Behind this brave Primary One student was a family who believed in her. And that made all the difference in sailing through the all the challenges that primary school had to dish out to her.

… has been a good year, all things considered.

Spent the last night of 2007 counting down with friends I made in 2007 itself – both humans and felines. God has really blessed me with amazing friends and it would seem that almost everywhere I go, I get connected to some new kindred spirit.

When Bezzie left for Aussieland in late 2006, I felt so bereft, empty and hollow. I felt that I’d never meet anyone like her again. And it was true, I didn’t. Instead, I met a whole new bunch of different people with different personalities. Each endearing in their own ways. Existing friendships became even closer. So it was good. Really, really good.

Most importantly, I learned the art of letting of go. And embracing what God really wants to give me. Not just in terms of friendship, but also ideals. Things that I thought would make my happiness complete. It truly is an art. Knowing what to let go and what to retain. I used to put loyalty on a pedestal. It was unthinkable for me to uproot and plant myself in a place that I knew would be better for my personal growth. I adore the safety of the familiar and despite my love for performance arts, I believe that drama should strictly be kept on the stage and not be allowed to cascade into real life.

And so the stage was set. After years of inertia, I was ripe for the picking. If not for a dramatic series of events in most pertinent areas of my life, I’d still be contented to be where I am and sticking only to people whom I have known for years. Close friends can attest that I’m one of the most stable and rooted persons they know. But God being God allowed all those things to happen. The end result being, I learned how to trust Him more and that gave me the strength and confidence to step out into unfamiliar territory into where He wants me to be. And in exchange for the pain of severing certain unhealthy ties and the sadness at leaving the safe and familiar, I gained the peace that surpasses understanding and a renewed vigor and passion for life.

Indeed as what my counselor said, “There is a difference between loyalty to your profession and faithfulness to God’s calling in your life.” Loyalty to a worthwhile cause is good but when it kills you a little everyday and you know that it’s time to move on elsewhere, then it’s best to decide to obey God’s calling in your life. And watch those doors of opportunities open to you. Things won’t happen until you have decided with your whole heart that this is the path that you have chosen. God’s calling above all else. This is how dreams come true.

I pray that 2008 will be an even better year for all of us. A year where the dreams that God has planted in our hearts come to pass.