Photos first, blog later.

This week will be a hyper busy week for me, but I did enjoy the trip to Pangkor last weekend. I have no time to blog about it, but pics do mean a thousand words.

Thanks you guys/gals for making this trip happen. Appreciate it so much.

Photos: http://picasaweb.google.co.uk/cchivy/PulauPangkorTrip2324August2008

Love, Ivy

Minutes of Kuantan.

Kuantan airport --> Hired Car --> Wira Automatic --> "Wah, tak ada Kelisa meh?!" Wira expensive lah --> Sesat --> Found hotel. Too early. --> "Yay! - a Starbucks nearby" --> Chamomile-Tea --> Facebook --> text my colleagues --> "Eii, mana you all??" ---> "Sudah sampai" ---> Makan --> Gossip --> My professor thinks meal too expensive ---> taruh the restaurant: "Wei, though we are tourists, we're not stupid lahh!" --> Colleagues checked in ---> "creepy lah, your resthouse" ---> Register as participant at Hyatt --> "Wah, nice swimming pool!" ---> Short, but scenic beach --> East-Coast Mall --> "Wah, another Starbucks here. There's only 1 in Ipoh" --> Eat laksa --> You balik your creepy hotel; I love my cozy hotel --> Alone. Scared. ---> Watch HellBoy 2 pirated DVD ---> Olympics --> Ter-sleep.

L-R: Starbucks in Berjaya Megamall, Chamomile-T, Extremely beautiful beach of Teluk Chempedak

Aiya, late! Snoozed 3 times --> Drive recklessly --> Lost --> Alas, Hyatt --> Papers after papers; presentations after presentations --> Boring --> Found out that 'Yakult has human feces-bacteria' --> Lunch --> Dr. Tan found me --> become his kuli --> Presented posters --> Car missing, friends 'stole' ---> Swimming --> Pina colada by the pool --> Freestyle, thinking of Park Tae-Hwan --> Alone --> "So many ppl wanna tumpang my car arrr??? Please queue-up" --> Lost (again!) --> I forgo my Grand Dinner --> for Malaysia --> Watch Malaysia kena belasah in Badminton finals --> Dissapointed --> Alone --> "Should have just gone for the Grand dinner" :(

L-R: My poster; My new friend (she's soo nice), Lunch ALONE.

Hyatt --> Dr. Ting's presentation - My ultimate rival in research! --> Flirted with judges --> Later told me I win 3rd place (again! think AMC2007) --> Buy souvenirs --> Sleep in my cozy hotel --> Sleep --> Dream of Patrick, my doggy :P --> Sleeeeeeeeeep --> Prayed that I don't snooze next morning.

Airasia --> KL --> No place like KL. My home.

And it's not even Christmas!

You see, there are many surprises in life. My surprises came in a form of food and gifts.

So, a few surprises by friends. This one's from an newly known friend. It's a mudpie from TGIF. Maybe I've never eaten a mudpie before, but wow, does mudpie really look like this (see below)? This take-away mudpie really 'aroused' my palate and senses. Good 'first impression'. I think this friend knew I had to be reminded of my poo-poo, eh?

My housemate bought me gifts from Singapore. One was a devil's undie (no pictures of it, you wish!) and another was a PRINCE FROG-IN-AN-EGG. If you read Bea's blog, her latest post reminded me of this special gift. Nope, I don't have to kiss the frog (because obviously I am no Princess :P). I had to fill it with water and the frog will melt (euwww..) and voila!, it turns to prince charming. Now here's the catch: you need to wait for 3-4 days before it is 'fully grown'? Errr...

3 days after: What I thought would be Prince William, was a naked prince with distorted mouth and eye-piece. Thank God I didn't kiss it.My brother was the real santa: Bought me a Burberry Brit EDT. Wow, a genuine Burberry and it's not even my birthday?!?! I love the masculine smell. Wait, did I say masculine? Man, this is not good.
And a the best gift this month was a bouquet of dark red roses, sent to my lab, to the amusement of my colleagues and and the hoo-haa of the whole faculty. Oh man! I love them! Ya, buy Kian Ming and Tony Pua a drink, ya?! There's a reason why blogs are life-changing...

As of today...

As of today...

1. My poo-poo returned to normal. I wonder if you know what that means, but this MEANT A LOT TO ME!. So, keep wondering....
(I knew it - a doctor cured me. Gave me lao-sai ubat)

2. I submitted two abstracts for two conferences. I dunno if that meant anything to you. But that MEANT A LOT TO ME. I've not slept well for days thinking about the dateline.

3. My insects made me look like a fool for the pass few days. I was going to screw them, but they went to corrective school (i.e. Ministry of LOVE) and that MEANT A LOT TO ME because they started behaving the way I wanted them to today. Oooo...Big brother's watching!

4. Uncle Kuok knows I am broke and gave me the cash I needed. This MEANT A LOT and THE MOST TO ME.

5. I bluffed him about buying him a Burberry T-shirt, but my bro NOW MEANT A LOT TO ME because some fashiony stuffs are cheaper in the US. I've made a US-shopping list.

6. My bed meant a lot to me. But I've been developing a habit - it's called: Sleep on your sofa while watching TV and shut it only when you wake up at 8am. Daily.

7. I've got two books to read. One is called The Gathering by Anne Enright, and the other is Just Wars by A. Bell. Still wondering which is more readable and scientific. Neither!
(I've got this habit of reading about history. I should be a historian rather than being with my so-screwed insects!)

8. IT MEANT A LOT TO ME...when I couldn't poo for the pass few weeks and all my friends were concerned and tried soo hard when I couldn't. Thank you! I made it through the 'worst' days of my life.

A 'horror' movie called "The Urge"

I decided to head back to Ipoh. Meeting a family doctor and a family who celebrates the return of their VIP daughter to Ipoh. Since the afternoon barbeque at a farm in UPM (see previous post), I've not pass motion. If I get my maths right, it's been 14 days(??!??!?! ) since I last poo-poo. This remains the most embarassing medical condition yet for me, but hey, it's an extremely SERIOUS medical condition - not a laughing matter! Many people theorized about my condition for not having the urge to go toilet and I think I would gladly sum up their reasons and publish a paper entitled "No Urge in Poo-ing Is a Big Problem for Ivy. Coffee may be the cause." and get a Ph.D.

I know everyone's being helpful, but I unless I go to see a doctor, no solution is reliable. Solutions/Reasons proposed by various individuals: Prunes, Durian (!?!), Vitamin C, Lack of Magnesium, Lactose intolerance, Petai, Papaya, Dragon Fruit, Durian (?) Durian(?) and ya, Durians (REALLY?!). Thank you, my new housemate for buying me prunes extract that costs her a fortune, but unfortunately money can't buy my Urge.

And people, please STTTOOOPPP blaming my Starbucks. My medical condition has nothing to do with coffee. I'm sure of it. If non of this stop, I will post a video on Youtube crying and begging everyone LEAVE MY COFFEE (habits) ALONE!! (hint: leave-britney-alone video) :P

Sunday blues.

I have known to have experience many traffic jams here and about Malaysia, but none was as bad as this. And because it happened on a Sunday, I was extremely sinful and guilty for cursing out loud our government and police (for the roadblocks) on a Sabbath. Another frustrating thingy was that I took a toll road on Sunday and got stucked in a jam. Whereas, if I could have only thought of using the old Serdang Raya tolless road, I would have escape all these crap. Imagine your car being reduced to a standstill - a mere 4-5 metres for an hour! This was just right after the Sg. Besi toll plaza. RM1.60 is the price i paid for an assumption gone wrong. I heard David Cook sang the 'Time Of My Life' twice on the radio. Come on, I love Cook, but a cheesy song TWICE? I kept snapping pictures with my camera phone, but soon realised that I have been taking the same scene for an hour. At last I manuevered through the traffic (in short: potong queue and many lanes) to a less-taken road towards the roundabout of the racecourse near Mines and cancelled all my earlier plans to go KL.

BBQ party photos updates

I'll blog later, but here are some shots of our afternoon (yes, i did say 'afternoon') BBQ party at one of the farms in UPM. Date: 2 July 2008

http://picasaweb.google.co.uk/cchivy/MizieSBirthdayBBQPartyAtLadang102July2008

Tale as old as time.

I always knew Beauty and The Beast was the only Disney cartoon I ever really love. There's no other. I went to the first ever Disney On Ice 4 years ago with Beat and YP back at Bukit Jalil to watch some Beast skating, while Belle fell on her final triple-jump while skating with the singing beast (see, I can still remember vividly :P). I have always had 2 songs in my Sony Walkman - "Belle" and "Beauty And The Beast". It has been there ever since I've got this Walkman a long time ago. These songs have been sang and heard by me sooo many times I can simply read out the lyrics now w/o the tune (esp. "Belle"). Well, still couldn't get enough of it, I went to a musical broadway called Beauty And The Beast recently at KLCC with the girls. It was worth it. And despite knowing the whole story (well, everyone does), I still end up in tears and still end up in UTTER 'SHOCK' after learning that the beast WAS ACTUALLY A CUTE PRINCE. A child in pretence, I am. And it's worth every bit when I'm watching something I love. Something I've dreamt of since young - to believe that being odd is OKAY; because being odd brings you to your prince charming. Not that I'm a Beauty......okay, 'nuff said. :P

P/S: I'm not odd. I just love studying, okay!? It's not odd to study all your life....!

Tale as old as time. True as it can be. Barely even friends. Then somebody bends. Unexpectedly. Just a little change. Small to say the least. Both a little scared. Neither one prepared. Beauty and the Beast. Ever just the same. Ever a surprise. Ever as before. Ever just as sure. As the sun will rise. Tale as old as time. Tune as old as song. Bittersweet and strange. Finding you can change. Learning you were wrong. Certain as the sun. Rising in the east. Tale as old as time. Song as old as rhyme. Beauty and the Beast. Tale as old as time. Song as old as rhyme. Beauty and the Beast.

I am Proud and Patriotic of my Bata.

I just couldn't help but smile to myself when I read the article in a local paper. It reminded me of 6 years back where I was in a debate with my SIF-fellows during our stint in Singapore on which country Bata came from. Bata can be seen, well, almost every major supermarket in Malaysia. It is quite clear that I should assume that Bata belonged to Malaysia! My Singapore friend thought otherwise, where Bata should be a Singaporean brand because they too has many Bata shops. Thai friends seemed to think Bata belonged to the Thais. No evidence, no research done, everybody just claimed Bata's theirs as it has always been an established name in many ASEAN countries.

So, a Thai friend decided to do the smart thing: Research (....hmmphhh...i think wiki didn't exist yet, so...I think she just googled). Found out it was a Czech man who found Bata. So, the credit goes to Czech Republic. Ohh, which didn't made it thru' Euro top 8.

I know Bata has been trying to built it's brand but it has always been relayed to as a cheap brand. Or a school shoe brand. I have always wore Bata school shoes in my schooling years as Pallas was always a strap-on. Hated strape-ons as you always wanna show off your shoe string-tying skills.

I am proud of my new Bata. It's sweet:

1Lab + 6Pizzas --> 7Rules Broken

Oh, I had a birthday preview. June 6th, 2008. I realised that Dominos pizzas had a good combo deal if booked online, so I taked-away 6 pizzas and some side dishes for my labmates. We brunched at our lab - the lab largely known for storage of pesticides, used of toxic chemicals, foul fumes of glacial acetic acid, HCl, methanol, chloroform and fungal spores (that's mine). It's such an obscure place to dine, but we had no choice because we had limited food and not everybody was invited (lab also got office politics marrr).

Anyway, nobody sang any birthday song for me because we opened Youtube and let the computer sing Juno's 'Happy Birthday'. Now, that was what I call 'modern civilization' + 'lazyness' (even to sing) to the max!

I had a great party. It's different! I made sure my lab assistants were not around because they would have been furious for feasting in the most toxic lab in the whole faculty. I once drank distilled water from a used beaker. That was desperate times. Now too. 'Thank you', Pak Lah *hugs*.

That's us in Red. My birthday theme. Just maybe, everyone knows I love ManUtd.

Clockwise from left: Arshia, Aishah, Me, Dahlia, Mogeret, Sek Yee, Ina (middle).