Staycation & Chambers Bar and Grill at Hilton KL

Sneaking in a food post which is way past due.

This is about our date at Chambers Bar and Grill at Hilton KL.

In December 2015, we decided to book a room for a night at Hilton KL for our staycation. I had accumulated some points in my HHonors card due to my extended stay at Hilton whilst in Netherlands, and thought it would be great to use up some points. After an bitter, eventful check in (room not ready even at 4 pm(!), and Daniel crying at the reception), we finally got an upgrade to our deluxe room. I also made a booking earlier on to dine at its infamous Chambers Bar and Grill.

2.5 months old baby Daniel didn't want his pre-requested babycot. Only wants fluffy pillows and white sheets.

Though not as famous and therefore (probably) less expensive than Prime at Le Meridien right next door, we decided to go for the steakhouse at Hilton because I wanted to use my HHonors for further discount. Smart consumerism ok.

The steak did make a statement. 300 g Porterhouse T-bone steak from NZ sounded small, but when the waiter brought it in, I was like"WAHH ZAHH, huge gilerrr!!" I had it medium-well because my erythrocytes-phobic hubby will not have a share of my gigantic steak if he sees blood. See see, when I cut open the steak, still quite pink inside. Opps. He and I know it's silly to eat premium steak above the medium-rare temperature, but oh well.

We knew one beef steak was enough, so hubby ordered fish: black cod steak. Our mains came with fragrant baked garlic and that garlic did make a lot of difference. Who knew baked garlic goes well with both been and fish steaks!

FYI, the mains does not come with sides, so we ordered sides. I had the grilled asparagus while hubby ordered the usual suspects - simple grilled vegetables - turned out to be surprisingly yummy. I also ordered the sauce to come with the mains - trio of mustards. Well, not all mustard suited well with my tastes nor goes well with steak, although technically mustard would be 'smartest' sauce to choose from the various sauces. In a very Malaysian way, I secretly wished I had Kimball chili sauce with my steak. :-P Honorable mention are the array Himalayan salts provided at each table, but did wonder in which part of my dish would I sprinkle salts on, as the steak was perfect enough.

Try eating steak with a sticky baby on one hand and a knife on the other

Pefectly grilled cod for hubs. Melts

Back to the T-bone steak: it was absolutely yummy.  Maybe I was hungry, but I managed to gobble the steak up within an hour and hubby just had a bite or two of my steak (because he sees pink). Had a bite of his black cod and it was so juicy. I thought a steak house serves perfect T-bones, but didn't know they could make a fish meat melt in my mouth. Wah,...I secretly wished I had that fish instead (of beef) when I had that bite.

Mind you, I am never a foodie, so you know that I have limited vocabulary when describing good food. What I can write is that service was brisk, the ambiance was great albeit rather dark but romantic (and definitely not Instagram-friendly), food and sides were made skillfully, and I didn't feel a pinch when I foot the bill (=worth the money). The staff also found us a table where I can dock my gigantic stroller. With such classy service and restaurant, you wouldn't think eating here would be a challenge, but with a baby in one hand and a knife in another, the dining experience was still amazing.

My son would not have remembered that day at 2.5 months old. I shall bring him back here but only when I see my son is old enough to tell me he would share a medium-rare steak with his mummy (and not papa).

Childhood 80s & 90s

Sometimes I do think back the times where I was a kid growing up in Ipoh. I mean, like a 6 years-18 years old kid (as far as my memory can backtrack). Although my mother was confirmed a tiger stayed-home mum, she allows us to do whatever we want after school hours (but studies comes first, of course). Despite being strict, she was the kampung-type, so she knew her kids needed some good old' childhood.

What I meant was that we had a lot of (outdoor) freedom back then in the 80s-90s compared to kids growing up in this 21st century. Those days wasn't e-economy, everything was k-economy, and therefore had less foreign workers at that era; people around my taman were mostly medium class; trust was REALLY trust (between parents and kids, neighbours with neighbours); there were no mobile phones; neither did the word social media existed yet (do ICQ and IRC count?). So kids were relatively 'dumb' due to the lack of access to information of the world compared to kids today. 

Here's what I went through knowing that the current generation are 'missing-out' (or are not):

1. Connecting to my first ever internet via Jaring dial-up. Oh mann, it has this dial-tone (the damn tune!) that I could remember to this very day. Dial 1511 and you get to look at internet some pages (using Netscape) which are bombarded with prompts of pornography ads. My computer processor was a 486, and I was so happy my friend Yeong (15 years old, probably) who is a self-made IT genius at his age, taught me to play games on DOS (e.g. Paperboy, Prince of Persia, Dune, etc.), and I taught me to write scripts on DOS. And that is already like damn genius. Worth mentioning is my house phone which was a orange rotary dial-phone and you need to pusing-pusing the entire phone numbers one-by-one clockwise before making calls. 

2. My first mobile phone was at age 20 (!) where I was given my brother's Ericsson BLUE(!) flip phone (no Sony that time, ok). I got this mobile phone all because I needed to go university in KL for the first time in my life. And that time, the trend was to see: WHO COULD TYPE SMS the fastest amongst us all, using ABC, DEF, keyboards. 

3. I will cycle alone the whole of Ipoh Garden East with my BMX. Alone was nothing to be afraid of at that time because many girls around 14 years old also do that. We girls have this biking gang at Ipoh Garden East. My bike was the coolest because it was my brother's bike and it is NOT a girly bike with pink bells and basket in front. I felt like the king of the road and I wore baseball shirt and cap every time I ride on the bike. I bike by my own sometimes to as far as Wooley foodcourt. Last time, there was a game arcade up the first floor of Wooley and I would go see people play arcade games such as Street Fighter 1 and played a game of Tetris on my own. My mum let me because she trusted me to not talk to strangers and there was no such thing as: Indonesia/Bangladesh workers will kidnap you, etc.....NONE. But she said this: Thai people kidnap you to be handicap child beggar at Thailand (that does scare me, ok).

This was the arcade tetris interface way back then

4. I will also bike to tuition at Canning Garden, yes, all alone. I have some girlfriends who could roller blade (I could not) and will drag the back of my bicycle for a free ride on their blades. We girl friends just roam the whole Taman ourselves with no fear whatsoever. 

5.  On some evening, I will walk/bike all the way to the padang at the end of Persiaran Perajurit 2, near Taman Kemuncak. I will go meet my playmate, Liza Oh to play masak-masak at the playground or climb the monkey bars and swings and claim them our own 'territory'. We will also go play at each other's homes. Without any adult supervision. There was no clock in sight so, we just make sure we are home by 7 pm (we can see that when the sunsets, it's already late). Mom doesn't care if I go to playground, but she will scream crazy when I come back late.

6. I will force my mum to buy me cloth and made her make batu seremban out of rice. And made her buy a box of rubberbands or stole those she has collected in the kitchen to make jumping ropes. Those were my muses. Also, I would buy cardboards of japanese ladies and cut-out clothings where I will dress my my 2D paper dolls. My mum loves to buy those cardboard dolls for me from Kampung Simee market. 

I remembered I can't get enough of this. Mom approves.

7. There was a point in my life, 7 years old, where I go up the then on-going North South Highway which was yet to be completed. It was just piles of sand that time. My friend Pei Jet and I will bring our bikes and hike up the sand dune and slide down the slope! We will bring up our bicycle to the top of the sand dune (now the infamous NS-Hiway) and cycled up to Tambun interchange (which didn't look much of an interchange at that time).

8. Those were the days where it took 4 hours from Ipoh to KL. My father, who was a KL-ite, would drop by at Tanjung Malim to eat pau curry/kacang at Yik Mun corner shop. Also, gone were those times where people will use the coastal highway to KL.

9. When I sat on my first MAS flight ever (from Ipoh to KL), my dad said I should dress well. No shorts/jeans because people who gets on the plane are privileged people. wth. Those times, if you can go on a airplane, you are like the luckiest person one earth ok. You must appreciate this privilege by being well dressed on board. Those days, no everyone could fly.

10. Mechanical pencils was an unknown invention until I was 7 years old, til I brought one mechanical pencil from Rashid Mini Market (my brother bought it for me) and I brought it to school at Standard 1. Because no one has seen a mechanical pencil nor how was this going to work better than a staedtler, so I demoed by clicking several times on the pencil top and then new lead pops up. Every dumb friend in my class was wowing as if I was its founder of the most amazing creation on earth. *clap*clap*

11. I remembered walking alone to school (SRK Mahkota Sari) from home in the wee hours of the morning when I was living in Gerik, Hulu Perak . At age 12, I walked 1 km(!), through a lane that farms pigs (sty), to the main roads of Gerik, and straight to school during some mornings and no one kidnap me pun. Like no fear pun. I still wonder why those days are so safe and parents are sooo trusting of their kids. 

I did primary 5 & 6 (1992-1993) here in the once awarded "Cleanest school in Malaysia". SRK Mahkota Sari Gerik. 

12. Most of us girls are shorter than the current generation at the same age. You can attribute it to genetics, but I believe it was the previous formula milk powder that lack of DHA, EPA, etc. LOL! We girls get menses only at 13-14 years of age on average (that's late compared to average 10-11 years old these days). We were late bloomers with small boobs. Nowadays, if you see the 12-13 years old girls, they talk mature like they are 20s and have large boobs hovering over their chest.

13. We are exposed to nursery rhymes and movies like Sound of Music. But today I see no kids know about a single nursery rhyme that I mentioned (maybe I was child genius in English nursery rhymes and Aesop Fables). Nope, dunno Humpty Dumpty, Nope, dunno Jack and Jill. Nope, dunno Jack and the Beanstalk. Nope, dunno who what how a mirror can speak of beauty. Nor do they know what the hell I was talking when I mentioned Do Re Mi from Sound of Music. Hello, what happen to early-school education lately? I see kids being taught the toughest vocabularies and grammar as well as chinese characters as young as the age of 5 with a bunch of meaningless homework. 

Oh well, maybe kids learnt different things now compared to my time. Like how to dance like SNSD, identify suave hair like Lee Min Ho's, how to protect yourself from the Walking Dead, and how to hack into your parent's iTunes password. Lol.

I am just reminiscing the times we had and what our child is exposed to these days. How to give them the best of both worlds: the pre-globalization and the post-globalization times. The time will come and we shall see. 

Ivy-out!

Holidays Milestone in November

Holiday milestone achieve all in one month! November.

But NOT forgetting my holiday trips to Bangkok in May and Chiang Mai in August.

Entering November, it started with a Beijing business trip which I missed-out because my Chinese visa has expired and I was not-in-time to renew it due to the absurd short-notice for the trip. I don't miss Beijing though. What I missed was the thousands of Enrich points that could be collected from this trip. Not entirely a loss, as I felt restless knowing that I will be going onto the equivalent of the doomed flight MH370 (albeit now a different flight code). And with MH17, who dare say lightning doesn't strike twice in the same place?

1. Melaka over-night
Being denied Beijing, Melaka trip was next. I was excited because husband good friend from UM, Janice, was getting married. We were there over the weekend and were so lucky to have Siow Nee  and the bride & groom themselves(!) to bring us around jalan-jalan cari makan. I love the chendol in Melaka more than that of Penang all because the santan at the former is more lemak. I had satay babi (just next to Melaka river), Donald and Lily's mee rebus (many fresh cockles) & rojak.The last makan stop was the longest queue ever coconut shake at Klebang,15 minutes car ride off Melaka city. Of course, hubby and I took our own time out roaming Jonker street to have lunch and coffee. Certainly a memorable trip.

Janice and Ivan

Mee Ketuk at Donald and Lily



Fresh cockles at Donald and Lily

The infamous satay babi near Melaka River

Klebang's infamous long-queue, sweaty but worthwhile coconut milk shake and other Malay delicacies.

2. Grand Lexis, Port Dickson
Just the next morning(!) after returning from Melaka, I had to board the company's bus to Grand Lexis, Port Dickson for a short team-building event there. The water villa was huge and unsuspectedly beautiful beyond words. The catch is that each villa has their own swimming pool! Yes, private swimming pool in your room. How about that for a Monday! My roommate ended up making a day trip (her baby's ill), so the entire king-size bed was mine. Mine!! I highly recommend this hotel to whoever wants to have a relaxing vacation with a family of maximum five.



One of the Water villa with a view of the ocean and from the floor.

Each room has its personalized pool and open shower.

Since this is a team-building, there were games and surprisingly, I had a marvelous time. They were all indoor team building games, and one of it was a Trading Game where we trade with other 'countries' based on commodities selling prices, information of the countries and collaboration, etc.

Another game was a Masterchef Black Box Challenge, where my team (out of 40 teams) got 2nd placing!  We had access to a small kitchen, and just cook whatever was given to us, and we cooked a perfect Curry Chicken and Pengat Pisang (which I contributed the most) and Pineapple juice in 1 hour to win second placing. We were commended and honoured with a 4 star certificate by the real Head Chef of Grand Lexis. I was proud because it felt like you could even please the hellish Gordon Ramsay with your normal Pengat Pisang (I watch too much TV). Should I lose my chemist job in Petronas, I am pretty sure I could make it as a chef of Pengat Pisang and Curry Chicken :-P. Naturally, hubby don't quite believe my achievement.


This Cert means more to me than any sports achievement. Because it's rare that I get to show off cooking skills openly.

Oil platform with Lego building blocks - one of the exciting Team Building game.

3. Penang
Upon retuning from Port Dickson, the same weekend itself, Hubby and I drove to Penang for his inaugural Penang Bridge International Marathon (PBIM) at the Second Bridge. This is the first time PBIM is held at the new bridge. We stayed at Equatorial Hotel which room is soo comfortable, I didn't want to move out of the bed. Hubby and I loved the swimming pool, and we had a short dip to relax both our minds and body. I did not run, but since I played supporter this time, I need to wake up as early as 4am to wait at the finish line for my hubby, which I estimated would finish at 6.30 am sharp. So, there I was taking the shuttle to the finish line about 10km away, and spotted Ling Ling in the same bus! What got me surprised was that she is running 10km, like for real..

We did savour some Penang cuisines at Bayan Lepas, courtesy of hubby's bosses and managers which were also runners and doing various distances at PBIM. We joined them for some great chit-chat and at the end, went to bed early with stomachs full (even I carboloaded). Hubby woke up 11 pm to catch the 12.00am bus to the starting line for Full marathon. Crazy! I am so proud he did sub-5 hours this time. Guess what, I missed my husband at the finish line. Just tooo many people finishing the same time as him.

At the end, he found me instead at the supporters line. Hah!

Ohh-chien

Frantically looking for my hubby, I was already glad this nightMARE wasn't him.

4. Turkey Honeymoon
And then, not even 2 days later, we board an Etihad plane, on business class(!), to Abu Dhabi (transit), and then to Turkey for our honeymoon. That shall be a 8 days trip, which I shall describe in my next blogpost. Wait up!


Four holidays in a row. Who needs a breather when it comes to holidays. And nope, not tiring at all.

March-ing forward

March was crazy.

First was my wedding. Immediately came the anti-climax (read: post-wedding disorder) that hit me like a truck: The wedding we planned for 6 months, was all over in ONE day! I am married but I don't see anything has changed. Maybe we have been living together before that and wedding was just a formality. But before you lay your judgement, just to let you know now that I am really very happy being married, yo! I feel grown up somehow, to have someone by my side at night and for me to kacau.

Some snap shots of my wedding morning by my aunt recently given to me.

Then it struck me that  I don't have any honeymoon planned. I have a race in KK in May called the Borneo International Marathon but that trip is booked for the sole purpose of racing and there don't seem to be any time left for go-sees. Oh well, maybe running is how we both fall-in-love, and maybe running is how we'll honeymoon. During the full-marathon: we've got 6 hours of romantic 'get-away', literally.

Nope.

We went to MATTA fair and booked a trip to Turkey. It will be in November 2014. So mind you, it may be a bit too late(?? subjective) for a honeymoon. Okay, let's call it a TRIP instead. Turkey was never in my mind as a trip, but because we both want to avoid beaches (too much beaches, tanning and dive trips in our entire lives, you must agree), and I wanted a BIG CITY trip - with much historical value and *ahem*...shopping element included. Turkey was quite reasonable as it is now in the middle of a internal political mess, and also some brushing with Syria down south, but still, much better than Egypt. And we are going to those places in the far west (countryside?) of Turkey - Pamukalle's, Troy (did somebody said Brad Pitt?!), Ephesus, Pergamon, bla bla bla bla, dunno where, some cruise, and then finally Istanbul, so you won't feel the political tension in the city, if applicable.

I thought of visiting cities of Honshu Island for spring but there were runners that returned with radiation exposure due to Sendai/Fukushima run-offs to the underground water (read: contamination) and ocean (read: sushi and sashimi), etc. which actually did scare me a little. I want to have a baby, of course. And some doctors advice that if you kena radiasi, have to wait 6 years before you should conceive, so that your baby has lower risk to mutations. That's probably too long a wait.

Or Australia? But I have been to Australia a couple of times and seems like there's no ancient history for me look forward to. Scenery are so not my kinda thing. Or Santorini? Too expensive to visit just ONE place just for its scenery. Or Eastern Europe? Cost too much, with too many cities at one go (think hectic!) and not many annual leave left for both of us. There's always a next time :-)

Now, I am taking up a course sponsored by my company to be a certified chemist. This is darn important to my career, if not, my own perusal. As many of you already know - I still love studying. When you start to work, you kinda miss studying. I know having a doctorate is high enough, but deep down I still want to improve myself with different kinds of knowledge over the years. Furthermore, I might want to earn an MBA somewhere down the road. I am thinking to follow the footsteps of my hubby (professional engineer & MBA) but tough luck as he's more focused than I. My chemistry course will be in UTAR and this program will definitely affect my weekend-double-hill-run pat-thor and charkuayteow time with hubby for the rest of the year.

This year seems to pass super fast but not without events that shook me and the world real hard - MH370, the prolonged dry season, and now water crisis in Selangor, kidnapping at Sabah, etc. Then before you know it American Idol is already at Season 13. The last I remember was Philip Philips sang "Home" in his finale, I now wonder which season he was in. I was glued to The Voice & eyes on Adam Levene for Season 1 & 2, but *blink*blink*eye* it's now Season 6. I was called Ivy che-che all these while by everyone at home, but now, now my cousins and nieces, nephew call me Ah Sam or Ah Sou. (Yah...I know....like how my mum called the vegetable aunty at Kg. Simee market)

Blardy, I am Ah Sou already. Hell, time flies.

Damn you Mayans (20121221)

Today is 20th Dec 2012, and according to the extinct Mayans, yes, tomorrow 21.12.12. is the end of our earth. But by what means would this world end remains vague. Some people say it will be a huge tsunami (it's too late to learn swimming, ppl); some say it could be some nuclear warfare and I may be killed by excessive radiation. But me thinks, nothing can be worst than being attacked by a zombie, probably due a mad scientist from...er...say...North Korea/Russia releasing a gray-matter-eating bacteria which consequently creates a pandemic. Zombie Apocalyse, they called it. I am not paranoid, but I've learnt a lot of zombie-apocalypse survival skills over 3 Seasons of "Walking Dead". I should be okay when that happens.

As I sit here reflecting upon my life, looking at the sky and watching closely at the chirping birds and spot a black cat crossing pass me, everything seemed so..... normal. No indication (animals are good indicators) of an apocalypse. But I do feel that year 2012 did pass me by like a swift wind. Guess it has been a dramatic year so far, but if you have Ivy in your life, everything is dramatic. Let's recap:

January 2012:
I was given the task to take over a scientific project in Universiti Teknologi PETRONAS, in Tronoh. I have to spell that out in CAPS because I've never been given a task so huge before, both time and space. First: my new car (at that time), was pushed to its limits travelling incessantly from Ipoh-Tronoh-Ipoh-KL-Tronoh-Ipoh-KL-Ipoh-Tronoh. Phew! My new car has to go thru' pothole-filled roads, lembu-crossing areas, tankers-filled roads daily. Second: UTP is such a brilliant campus with nice architecture, but located in a lousy township. Honestly. Food was scarce; my life was downgraded. I couldn't accept it (I am a spoilt kid). My Ipoh home was my lifesaver. UTP post here.

Farewell party for Susan. I went to UTP to take over her role.

February 2012:
We had our first trip out in Cameron Highlands in conjunction with Valentine's day. How amazing having ourselves just for ourselves, doing things we love most: run, walk, hike, talk. Cameron Highlands adventures here. Also, Whitney passed away this February. Sob! Sob! My dad was devastated.

How convenient. Fresh flowers from Camerons on V-day.

I hate tea.

Hike from Brinchang to Sungai Palas.

March 2012
Still stuck in Tronoh. Traveled Ipoh-KL-Tronoh-KL-Ipoh A LOT. Nothing interesting. Oh yes: I made 6 dives with my colleagues at Lang Tengah! Scuba at Lang Tengah post here.

Lang Tengah with colleagues

April 2012
I was sent offshore to assist in a sampling project for 2.5 weeks. Actually, I volunteered (you'll know why - October 2012). What an experience! In short, it was 'interesting'. Sufficient amount of experience to let myself know I do not want to be an offshore person, ever! Even if it pays 2X to 3X more than my current salary. All my oily offshore experiences are mentioned in previous post here.

May 2012
Begged my boss not to send me offshore again. :P She wanted me to go on August 2012, but to my delight (and a little begging, plus a cute Puss In Boots face), I don't have to anymore.

I was sent to Penang for a huge conference to talk about.....yes...what else ...but on oil, oil, oil. Nevertheless I had a great time in a 5 star hotel (invited my whole family to stay over a few nights) and once more, experiencing Penang like a pure tourist. I joined the kwai-low delegates to visit the whole of Penang touristsy spots. Even as a Malaysian, I had to be opened about facing the "tourist traps", but was smart enough to NOT buy any batiks.

Rasa Sayang

Up Bukit Bendera with the kwai low delegates. Nothing interesting.

View of Penang bridge from Bukit Bendera

June 2012
My 2nd Full Marathon completed at 5:47. Wee!!! ONE-freaking-hour improvement from my 1st Marathon in Singapore 2011. He teman-ed me throughout whole 42.2km, and we finished together. Some runners always say: we reach the finish line holding hands. Where got?!?! Prove below:

Who said we held hands to the finish line? :P

July 2012
Kerja masih jalan, but I have to study for my naik-pangkat assessment. Subject runs from statistics to physical chemistry, I became cuckoo and hormonal.... for the reason I had to study!?!?!?! I thought I don't have to study ever again, really. :P I guess learning is a continuous process until the day you die (tomorrow?).

August 2012
I purchased a condo for myself. Finally!! Yay!! Yippee!! WoWweee!! But I remembered being very broke after that. But, but, but...if don't buy now, buy when kan?

The infinity pool (and view!) was what made me bought this condo. I think.

Also on Hari Raya, I had an awesome Phuket dive trip and walk-around adventure with Fong. He paid mostly everything because he knew (and understood) that...I was broke.

Boat dive at Koh Phi Phi

What a view!

September 2012.
I remembered still being broke. Very Broke. Even my car was 'broke' (from a robbery attempt of my bag at the traffic lights). Brief account here.

October 2012
Found out I scored fairly well in my naik-pangkat assessment. My mentor said I did quite well for a "biologist in an engineering world" :-) I gave myself a pat in the back, literally. Became not so hormonal. Oh dear, was devastated when I made a decision to cancel my trip to Sipadan. It's already end-of-the-world tomorrow and I still haven't had a chance to dive at Sipadan. *Bucket list dilemma*

Fong's graduation was what made me so proud of him. He worked really hard for this 2-3 years juggling between work and study (and relationship!) to complete his MBA at UM. I am grateful to have him as my guy.

November 2012
Company team-building trip to PD. I had a great stay at a 5 star hotel. At night, I was dipaksa-rela to do Gangnam on stage in front of 500 ppl. Blardy...all because I look the most Korean amongst my colleagues.

Gangnam with some selected big-size PSY. Try spot my GM.

December 2012

Participated in the hardest-ever-questions-given-in-a-treasure-hunt: The Sun's MotorHunt with our team Bundan & Hobbitz. Malu je...Ph.D. dan Masters degree semua tarak boleh pakai dalam Hunt ni. It was called the 'mother of all treasure-hunts' for a reason! Nvm, even we didn't get a good placing amongst 250 teams, at least one team member won the 1st prize in lucky draw!!!! Will post about this later. 

End-of-the-world today. My mum just called to ask me to help out in her Christmas party 24 Dec 2012. Through the looking glass; she's soo optimistic. I love her.

P/S: Just in case this end of the world shit really happens: I want to thank all my blog readers for your continuous support all these years. Now, go hide in some plumbum-coated underground bunker, or read the below:

I forgot to blog

A couple of subscribers to my blog have already doubted my dedication towards blogging and it's about time I post something now. The real issue is not that I have nothing to say; I have been procrastinating as usual. Now, let me update you subscribers(?) on my going-ons lately:

Feb was fab!

Gotten myself(?), no..my parents...a new car. It's a grey Perodua Alza. The downpayment for the Alza was dug-up from my(?) amazing, small-turning circle, cute, reed, mini-cooper-like Kelisa which I sold to a close subordinate. Though I felt absolutely depressed on the departure of my love of 5 years, it was about time I gave this great looking car up before the selling price drops. The good (or bad?) thing is that I still my(?) Kelisa is still very visible at my office parking area. Urrgghh..actually each time I see the Kelisa - it's a jab straight to the heart (it's bad). And the Alza I bought for my parents in exchange for the safer(?) Waja? - it definitely ain't my no. 1 car choice: as you can see it's an aunty-car!

I now drive my dad's Waja of 7 years. A huge, safe, but pariah (per-rye-ah) car, I should conclude. By all means: BIG BIG turning circle (sick!), huge ass, and eats up my petrol like oil is free. And this car has given me some heart-attack moments e.g. in the heart of KL-near Pelita. Thanks for coming to my rescue in a middle of a downpour!! :)

How could I talk about Feb without touching on the topic of CNY which passed me by like a swift wind. This year was different as I, if I am not wrong, have not celebrated CNY in Ipoh since 2005(?). I wish to have it every year in Ipoh if not for my dad's hometown being PJ. :( But nothing is as memorable as me putting on like 1-2kg(!) this CNY. And I can't seem to lose it despite the runs and swims.

FP and Gary ROM, of course...How could I forget :) What happened in between is none of my business...hahahaa...but I'm glad to have been part of her happiness. Almost 1.5 years have passed since she moved in and many eventful stuffs have come and gone between us. I'll cherished those moments together. I really hope someday I'll be happy like her. Hey FP, when's our next clubbing?!? Hahhahaa..

March seemed like a mix:

I do look like a prisoner/detainee in that yellow coveralls! But indeed, in March, I could prophesy that I will be prisoner/hard-labourer for my work/company. Datelines are coming up real-real soon and I would have to crack my brains and fingers for the entire month's installation.

But the month of March 2010 also began with a good dose of refreshing(?) jokes and comedy:

This month's Time Out KL's Comedy Thursday again has impressed me with new line ups (incl. Rudy from Hitz.fm) of comedians. One have to come to Zouk every first Thursday of each month to understand the impact it has done to me to the extend that I have the inkling feeling of going back each month(!), which is of course, quite unnecessary. Lots of jokes (with sexual connotation) this month. I loike! I laughed out sooooooo loud that I was embarrassed with my own laughter(soo rough!) and for those who were around me. Also would like to really thank someone for his company throughout this time and for tahan-ing all my crude behavior.

Energizer Night Race is up end of March. Let's wear-out our running shoes! I don't hope to improve my 10km time, but I hope that this run and the built-up to this run will sorta bring back my original body-shape :P

Til then, folks. P/S: Sorry for the punctuation overload.

Delete the obsoletes

It's been 3 weeks since I last came back to Ipoh. I quickly notice the changes in my own room. My parents had someone remove the wallpaper that once beautified my entire room. Well, I won't say exactly the word 'beautiful'. I thought it was just different. Today, the wall has just been re-Nippon and I am somehow very happy with the plain new blue. I have never said this before, but I used to loathe my own 'ugly' wallpaper; I didn't tell my parents because I did not want to hurt their feelings for their initial plan and concept of a wallpapered room. Wallpapers may fit a hotel room but to me, wallpapers are a big no-no for private residences.

Many things go obsolete. I dunno if there are people who still paste wallpapers to their houses. Other simple noticeable obsoletes in my room that I've noticed are my printed photographs and their negatives(!?!!?!?!), my Aiwa radio cum cassette player and my KRU's AWAS cassette. That's crazy. But as much as I want to do away and dumb all these obsolete stuff into the recycle bin (not the photographs, of course), I just can't do it now and now!! They have sentimental value. How I wish my parents hadn't discard the old stamp books I once had. Besides Beh, I dare say that no one does stamp collecting anymore.

Oh, ya....one very very obsolete thing in my room: my Encarta encyclopaedia set that cost a bomb (RM1000 at when I was 10 years old was a lot of money) and the Atlas book that came with it! They still had Yugoslavia! Madras was still Madras!

I found another obsolete in my room: The floppy.

Good read:
http://tech.msn.com/products/articlepcw.aspx?cp-documentid=21159559

Q: What's obsolete in your room?

Hiatus

As my relationship takes a hiatus, I got on track quickly with my career. It was more like a break, and I asked for it: He wasn't PERFORMING. Yah. Monetory-wise. And it was bad timing for him and I too. I went into a quick realisation that with or without him didn't matter at all: I prefer 'without'. I lost myself while with him. No regrets on my decision for the break. I am back to the real me again. With him, I was always always always solemn.

And within a week, I was back on track. REAL QUICK. I finished my whole thesis in 2 weeks! All 5 chapters with references, 130 pages, 1.5 spacing for the draft to reduce paper wastage and the environment (do I actually give a damn!?). So, the real thesis with double spacing plus all the rubbish extras i.e. acknowledgement, appendices, etc. will make my thesis about 200 pages. Which will make my Prof. a very unhappy man as he expects the Harvard rule of any thesis exceeding 150 pages as "sure-a-lot-rubbish and redundancies". It's really up to my examiners now to proofread and criticise my work which could take up to 6 months!!! Wosrt still, my semester fees depends on their diligence in reading my work. As of now, though I have completed EVERYTHING - as long as they don't finish criticising my thesis, I am stuck with paying my semester fees of RM2000!!!

Hiatus on my Ph.D., my relationship: I feel relief nowadays, though I do miss the whole lovey-dovey parts of boyfriend-girlfriend activities and I do miss my Ph.D.-work stress! Cause stress can be quite euphoric for me.

With nothing on my mind, I prepared myself for the interview with Petronas. They wanted a scientist. Let me tell you, I was more excited than nervous! I was working out my Law Of Attraction and praying hard. The interview toook damnit - 2 hours!! Which is good, cause the likeliness of them rejecting an applicant after interviewing him/her and wasting 2 hours of their time is LOW. That's just my bloody hypotheses on HRM. I really really hope I get it. Pls Pls Pls. The interview went very well (again, to my opinion. So, respect it). If I get this job, I'll be sent to Torino, Italy to learn more about surfactant and lubricant sciences (which is quite pesticide related)! I wanna see the Shroud of Turin, but is it kept there?.

I know this is childish. But after the interview, I took advantage of the electronic pass to access KLCC's Tower 1. I went to all the lifts to several floors....then I went to almost the highest point that I dare to reach with my pass. From the 43rd floor, the view was amazing! I think the security would have gotten a shot of me from their CCTV going up and down the lift for no apparent reason. Hope it will not lead to a mugshot! The only complain which I had was the haze, which clouded the beauty of KL City. Another set-back: I had no camera.

I will be in Ipoh from today til Monday. Again, it's regarding my health...and my mum's grumbling. Nothing big, just AGE catching up on me. *wink* "Doctor, I'll pay you lots, just remove the problem." This time more of my money flying off again cause it's a specialist! How to save $$$ arr?

I am loving April!

It's April 09!!!! And before you know it will be December 09 soon...time flies!!

Time flew pass me too quickly and I which I had a time machine to turn back time. But I am somehow, somehow very glad to have arrived at the month of April.

Why I need April soo badly and to put March behind me real quickly:

1. My laptop hard-disk crashed on me. I cried. My housemate said I trembled soo bad, I might had fits. I was screaming but no voice came out cause I had no voice. NO voice because my health on March was extremely bad that IN every week in the horrible month of March, I had at least a disease worst than the ugly vocab of Chikugunya - it usually turned out to be a cold, a runny nose, a cough, a sore-throat or a no-voice problem. Somtimes I feel like God's giving me an MCQ on my health so that I can choose which disease I want for that week (or Semua Di Atas!). So, the day my hard-disk betrayed me was the week that I had almost no voice! NO VOICE!! You deemed yourselves lucky as I was having my PMS that week and my greatest weapon (viz. voice) was not working.

Ish Ish Ish....but I thank God for my brainy decision months before to backup my Ph.D. work. Tada!!! introducing my beloved Google Docs and Office Live Workspace! Though one week worth of writings were lost.....SOB SOB!!!! :( ......at least I've got to retrieve some significant work from those backups. As of now, I will continue to type from my online office.

(BTW, I've gotten myself a new hard disk di!)

2. Okay, you guys have been saying that my housemate and I were crazy ppl that never stop having ideas of doing this and that, but it's never done or even never got started. Pink is the ultimate procrastinator, while I am tag hugely with the ugly word 'complacency'. However:
Actually, behind your backs, we have done something......very big, but it is a still a big secret. That's one reason why we can't wait for APRIL to come! We will both reveal it soon.

Oh, how our mums are going to kill us :P