spent my sunday morning hunting for a minced beef. I went to giant, NTUC, ShopNSave still I couldn't find a halal minced beef. So I decided to take a walk to the nearest wet market, find the halal meat stall and bought myself 200 gr of it. As usual everytime I go to wet market, I'd spend time strolling around from one lane to another looking at how fresh things are. It suddenly made me realised how much I miss doing weekend marketing with my parents back home. Dad always make sure that we help mum in the kitchen during the weekends regardless of how many servants we have. Normally one of us will follow to the market, while another one stays at home preparing herself to help in the kitchen once we're home & another sis will be cleaning the fish pond with my dad, wash the bird cage or simply helping out in the kitchen. They always said that however high your education is, being a female means being able to cook and do house work. I still remember cryingthe 1st time I learned to clean the fish but if you look back at all those 'torturing' days I am glad to have parents who still insist on us girls doing housework. thanks!!

:: stuck in the middle ::

time difference is really a big issue when you are in the middle of something yet you can't do anything about it, simply waiting for someone at the other end of the world to be awake. one thing for sure, I have to said goodbye to my plan

just came back from a 3 hours lunch that Im so darn sleepy now from all the food we had. 4 of us - me, my boss, 3 hr ppl - went to sabai for a 'celebration' that our 1st project is completed. we were ushered to a private dining room and chit chat while waiting for the partner & managing partner to arrive. a very delicious food i shall said, found out that when the jordan king is in the country he will request the chef of this place to cook for him in the hotel, even one of the brunei prince enjoys the food that it is frequented by him whenever he's around. im just glad they chose that place :) i guess they've frequented this place that even the managers there know them by name & even ask about the well being of their families.
at first i thought it's gonna be quite awkward especially i got the seat next to the partner but our managing partner is so full of life and has so many stories and jokes to share with us. of course there are some office stuff being discussed between the high level people and me & 2 of the hr colleagues simply enjoy listening to all the stuff we won't be hearing had we not been there :). But all in all its a great lunch, two thumbs up for the food & i wonder if i will ever go back there sans the special greetings of course.
now i hope i can go back doing my work & prepare myself to approach boss about the oz thingy. i think going there a better option now ..

so i've renewed my permanent residence here - another 10 years to go. what am i going to do with my life for the next 10 years? stuck here? go back home? venture somewhere else? a lot of plans i do have but a lot of planning needs to be done before i can execute it. am i prepared? not for this year for sure - next year? im not sure of it too - im working on it bit by bit hoping that next year will be a time for me to plan anything. well 2 years at least i'll still be here
mom told me when she was here early this year to think thoroughly what do i really want to do in life knowing that im ageing by the day. sis just gave me a piece of advice on yahoo messenger - an advice that i keep dearly in my mind. i know they didn't really know whats going on in my mind but i know they can have some idea what it is about. all the advice is really meaningful to me if only i could execute it in my near future .. how i wish.

some of my wish might not come true if i keep on staying afoot in this little island. that means i cant hope for great thing for the next 2-3 years. so, if you have a power like a fairy god mother does - please do keep in touch.

:: Its Monday Again

Had quite a good weekend. It started with me n yolli watching Walk The Line. They said its a good movie, but I find it kinda boring .. too much talking. Well I guess this is due to me not knowing much about Johnny Cash.
Went for the dragon boat event on saturday with jen. Basically we're simply helping out the event. It was quite fun and we left around 4 pm. Went to bugis as we planned to watch any movie but there's nothing good so we ended having our dinner & chatting for hours about everything. Afterwards we went for shopping and off we went home after doing some grocery shopping. Its quite a tiring day but its fun. I remembered my eyes were full of tears when those blind paddlers took picture together after paddling for 5 km. I was - AM - really touch with their perserverance to show that being blind is not a hindrance at all.
Spent most of my sunday at home, supposed to go for cardio but I was too lazy that i simply did a 20 mins cardio at home - hope june's okay with that when i told her later he3. Went out for the dessert club outing at night. I guess people were quite unsure if the event still on that only 5 of us showed up. Supposed to meet rosie but she cancelled last minute so i simply met cindy before heading down to the place. It was a really fun night especially with joan (or is it joy?) around that she talked a lot about her travel experience - the kind of travel I've been dreaming of. It is true what she said about travelling to the 3rd world country as it will changed one day but those modern cities will always be the same, hence modern cities are her least priorities. She's been to india and china 10 years ago - when tourism wasn't hot there, iran, israel, middle east, poland, laos, angkor wat, vietnam, and lots of other places and mostly backpacking ALONE! I really admire her and she totally changed my perception of india and all other places. I seldom see local girl with her spirit, hence we start talking about how locals are divided in 2 group in general - those pampered and those outdoor and how rare in finding someone who's in between. It also open my mind about the attitude of locals. Apart from this, we also talk about the ourselves and of course the oh the forever so hot topic - life partnerl. Its good that the guy left early so 4 of us girls really talk about almost everything. It so funny listening to joan/joy's story about a backpacker who covered her face if she didn't have any make up on. Really fun night that we were the last person to left the place.

All this conversation actually gave me some new perspective on travelling as well. That's why Im so keen to join cindy on her next trip. If only there isn't any project ...

:: Hello Weekend

pink panther, the constant gardener, munich, matchpoint, transamerica, brokeback mountain (always remind me of nicole kidman in cold mountain saying 'come back to me, come back to cold mountain'), final destination 3 , rumor has it - these are the movies that I want to watch - so many movies so little time ..

Tomorrow I'll be volunteering in an event for the blind. Nalled 'naga merah' (red dragon) the blind are going to row a dragon boat from kallang basin up to the merlion. this should be fun..

updated at 2.40 PM

just had a lunch with ellyn, we didn't know where to eat so we just walked until telok ayer talking about healthy food and the organic food outing that is going to start next week when we came across this place. Simply a coincidence but the food is not bad, with us having to open our footware before heading upstairs made it feel like we're dining at someone's house. Definitely will go back there one day.

"calling all singles out there, what's the plan for v-day"
"why don't we have our gathering on v-day and all the girls wear pink"
"why not we exchange gifts on v day, guys bring flower for the girls and girls bring chocolate for the guys"
"i think i'm not joining you guys, i think i'll just stay at home - it's miserable enough to be alone on this day"
"i'm planning on a quiet night on v-day"

cheesy huh? .. well - that's some comments I read/heard from people I know or don't know. I know some people make a great deal of valentine's day and some don't - it's your freedom of choice. But I don't think you have to be self loathing just because you have no plan or still single on that day. Did I ever make deal of valentine's day? Well of course I did. During my junior high school I did make cards and gave it to my friends - its fun and as I aged *sigh* I get to know more and more about this valentine history - history, cultural, religion, and social wise.
I still took advantage of it during my Uni years though where me, my roommate, and another friend of mine had a small parcel business during this day. It's quite fun for us to be creative on how to balance the parcel, how to get the cheapest rose etc - we actually made profit, not much but still a profit.
2 years ago me & my flatmate went to a movie during this day and we decided not to go for late night movies on V-day as most girls wearing pink with a bouquet of flower on their hand *lol*
Just came back from lunch, surprisingly I didn't see that much flower seller or people with bouquet on their hand this year. I only saw a handful delivery man in my office building, unlike all other years. But there's something new too this year - On my way to the train station this morning, I saw a big heart shape with the word 'Celebrate Love' being hung on the trees along the road. Cheesy indeed..

Ah well, one thing for sure - I for one am going to watch TV tonight as they're airing Love Actually again on cable and Im kinda into Collin Firth nowadays. I dunno there's something with these brits that I find interesting. Matthew McFayden proves it more with his performance in Pride&Prejudice. Oh and one more - I'm glad that CocaCola celebrates valentine's day by giving away free light coke since yesterday ... I'm in heaven ..

everytime I zip on my pants or skirt, button up my blouse, put on my shirt, or simply putting on my gym wear; something inside me screamed "Wake Up, I'm Fat!"

It's monday again - beginning of our 2 months testing with the central team. Hope everything goes well. Nothing much to talk about now, simply blogging while downloading files from central.

Weekend was okay - decided not to go to the gym on saturday as we're going for a gathering organised by and held in one of my ex-uni senior. Supposed to meet kat and see the thaipusam together but I was too lazy to dress up that I decided to let it go and get her review on it. Lucky me not promising her that I'll come and by giving one of my colleague number to her I'm sure she had a wonderful day taking video from the preparation 'til the ceremony is over. Actually I was quite interested to see it as normally I only see them walking but with my colleague's nephew participating in the ceremony, I could see from the time they prepared themself for the event but TV won me over and there's always next year.
Gathering was okay, food was great of course ;). Spent quite a time there before heading back and watch a movie, interesting movie I shall say.

Managed to woke up early this morning to go to the gym. Almost had myself killed, thanks to the stupid lorry driver who was still speeding eventhough I was in the middle of the zebra crossing. Thank God, I reacted fast and ran back to the pavement. Else I don't know what'd happened to me. I actually was quite in a shock state that I couldn't control my tears 'til I reached the MRT station. It was like I was given a 2nd chance in life, especially after me talking to myself last night about how far better I was before religion wise. Exaggerating? I don't think so - I look at it as a sign of my deep thought last night.

::Mesotheraphy

friend : hey girl, wanna go mesotheraphy?
me: ha3, not for me. it's quite costly right?

that's a sms conversation i had with my friend. Hmm, truth is I too was interested after reading an article about it last year. Just imagine, without surgery and you can do it during your lunch break - as simple as that. The article mentioned that more and more people are doing this as they are happy with the result but, of course you have to come back on a regular basis. I wonder how many people has undergo this procedure and maintain the result without changing their lifestyle. If you know such a person, let me know..

"The man who said 'I'd rather be lucky than good' saw deeply into life. People are afraid to face how great a part of life is dependent on luck. It's scary to think so much is out of one's control. There are moments in a match when the ball hits the top of the net, and for a split second it can either go forward or fall back. With a little luck, it goes forward and you win…or maybe it doesn't, and you lose." - matchpoint

indeed it is true..

life is a mystery, you would never know what will happen to you even 5 seconds from now. Life has its ups and downs as well, you might be the luckiest person now but you never know when God wants that to be taken away from you. Just be humble, love your enemies, respect your families and friends and most of all prepare for your future - there's no one but yourself who can help you out of any trouble. Well, immediate family take part as well so maintaining good relationship with them is crucial. I for one, value my family more than anything in this world. This is what I learnt this week.

:: I can't believe it!

This afternoon someone messaged me saying if it's okay to call me and what time is it convenient to call. I assume this someone is my mom's friend's sister's niece 'cos I've been told that she'd be working here soon. Boy was I surprised when it's a male's voice at the other end. I immediately said that I thought it's a female who's gonna call me & he was surprised too that I know nuts about this. Boy it was awkward so we decided to end the call. My mom sure has lots of explanation to do tomorrow - I'll make sure of it.

::updated Feb 06 2006
Apparently my mom had no idea abt this , she gave my number to her friend when she knew that some of her friend's relative is moving here from Sydney simply for me expanding my network - nothing more than that. Poor mum gotta faced my tantrum without even knowing the head and tail of it haha.. I guess her friend is the one who has nothing better to do

my colleague asked me why I couldn't control myself like I did before, wasn't it wasted all my hardwork gone just like that. She said she used to see me at the gym all the time but not anymore.
I smiled and share the block of chocolate I was eating with the rest of them. I guess Im the only one who haven't feel wasted. I actually did but I always delayed the process of getting back in shape. I actually couldn't imagine how I could do it before .. from 56 t0 42 and now Im 52. Even today I have no mood to go to the gym when my favourite instructor is actually doing the class!! haiz ...

::Reality Check::

I've been munching and munching and munching non stop since my trip to the US. After that trip my weight gradually increased and it hit the pick during my trip home for hari raya. Managed to lost few kgs prior to going home last weekend and now its back and yet I bought myself 2 packs of chocolates. Worst still, before pump class yesterday I stopped by this chocolate shop & bought 50gr of Tiramisu chocolate!. Have been eating chicken rice for the past 2 days and craving for some indian rojak since last night - hope the shop is open today.
Anyway starting next Monday I am going back to eating normal, no diet but simply healthy. Why Monday? so that I have time to plan on my meal and start preparing my own breakfast and dinner. If going to the movie on Sunday with 'I dunno who's going' is cancelled, I can start on Sunday instead. I'm aiming to give myself a birthday present I've been dreaming of.

ketoprak, mie ayam, nasi goreng dokdok, siomay, nando's, martabak manis spesial, martabak tipker spesial, mom's chicken rice, mom's roti jala, buah menteng, mee goreng, teh botol, asinan buah - that's some of the food i remember eating when i was in jakarta last weekend...
met 2 uni friends for lunch & accompany juwi for some gadget shopping (though none of us knew the how and what).
it's just a short break home but fun with my nephew around. my elder sis was hospitalised for 3 days hence my nephew spent most of the time with me. he actually slept with me as well & i have to wake up in the middle of the night every day to make him another serving of milk - its 'fun' to be an aunt ;)
well, a friend of mine said that she'd not be going home 'til she stays here for 6 months so just that she really feel that she's out of the country. With me having lots of families here, I wouldn't be able to feel that but with the project i'm in there is no way for me to go home until october. I know what I'll miss most is the food, the families & of course my nephew. But hope that when I go home on oct, it's also to see the new member of the family... hope my sis stays well 'til her due date ...