First trip to Kluang, Johor

Although my seniors went to Kluang several times to collect insects there, I've never followed. Most of the time, they come back with some insect larvae, I would gladly just take them and make them my OWN culture. What a pity - they were sweaty, tired and with just a day's trip there, and all credit goes to me.

There was no escape this time. I must go to Kluang. Kluang is famed for its agriculture and their coffee. I've one SIF friend that is a Kluang-born kid, now working in KL - O. Puay Seong (sorry, FFK during raya!). I've tried Ipoh Original white coffee, Kemaman's White Coffee, and now the original Kluang RailCoffee (but it's famous for the Kopi-O, not the white coffee). It's a buzzling town, selling loads of shoes and kain for baju kurung/Melayu. The main reason I went there, however, was to screen through the all Kluang's hardware shops for ONE particular pesticide sprayer that I desperately looked for.


Not surprising that small towns usually cooks good food. Not talking about the Kluang Railstation food but the Malay stall down the masjid which cooks the most delicious Kuay-Tiow goreng. My Professor, the driver, Arshia and I shared(!) a plate of kuay tiow goreng (everyone jaga health marr), but ended with each of us (except me) tah-pau another packet home. My Professor said, "Charge everything to our research grant. Tah-pau more. Buy more". I should have just bought a pair of shoes and charge it to our grant :P

We visited the kilang membuat sprayer - the ever worldwide famous JungChung Sdn. Bhd. World famous, but I bet none of you would have known :P Come on, who the hell does all this spraying experiments but me and my 7 other labmates. In this Malaysia, only 8 person cares about such company.

Reached UPM about 10.30pm. I was tired, but not sweaty. The van driver blasted the aircon. Arshia and I hugged each other behind the rear seat to sleep............





.........YOU WISH!

Animal Farm alone.

After church today, I dropped by my uncle's house in BU, read his yesterday's newspaper and suddenly spotted the column which mentioned Pentas Project's "Animal Farm" final day was today!!! Sunday matineee @ 3pm. I looked at the clock. It was 12pm. I had forgotten all about this play and I won't want to miss this chance.

I was never familiar with Sentul area but I remembered once Callie took me for a joyride around KL til 3am, she pointed to me KLPAC at Sentul West. Oh well..., I don't quite get it that time because (1) it was dark, and (2) I wasn't driving. When you're not driving, you just don't get it. I left BU about 1pm, lost my way round for 20 minutes but thanks to a Mobil station assistant, I found KLPAC. This assistant had this smirk on his face when he said that we both were actually standing just opposite the KLPAC's entrance! I blushed!! "Kemaluan saya besar", as Samy Vellu would have said.

Stage design and settings.

No tics. Sold out. But I was on the waiting list and was warned about the possibility of sitting on the staircase. Eventually, I got myself a seat (on a chair). The production was impressive. The cast was extraordinary as they played animals (difficult!) and their sounds were sooo accurate that my hair stand on ends. There was this girl who played a raven; I was so awed by her performance from start to the end. The script was in Mandarin but this was one reason why I came to this play too - to improve my Mandarin (I enrolled in a Mandarin class lately). (Actually, I didn't learn much Mandarin today but one word stuck to me 'til now: "Man-sui" = "Long live (Napolean, the dictator pig)". There were English surtitles for bananas and the surtitles were 'surprisingly' excellent. Flawless. I said 'surprised' because I always have this notion about subtitles. Based on my experience with pirated-DVDs, English subtitles were always ridiculous to the brink of me laughing on a solemn scene.

KLPAC's Hall

Sentul Park

Sentul Park has a lovely scenery. Trees are soo important. Reminded me of D.R park in Ipoh. There was never a problem for me doing anything ALONE because I am always loner by choice. However, today, as I was sitting at the park facing the koi pond, I realised the only problem of being alone was that my freaking chatty mouth wants to expressed the lovely scenery my eyes was lusting on, but there was no one to tell that to. How torturous! Plus, no one was there to take a pic of you with the lovely scenery. But I have a pic of myself captured by an anonymous:

Ahhh....doing stuffs ALONE. Biasalah....

Overhaul

First thing that flies thru' your shallow brains could be that my Kelisa failed on me. Overhaul.

But it's not. It's my looks. I did a overhaul on my hair... and face. I haven't had a radical hair change since 1997, hence today was historical. I never had a single facial treatment in my entire life. Last week was historical as well.

My aunt works as the manager in BSC's Leonard & Drake under Dermalogica and her clients include Najib himself, Mahathir's daughter-in-law and last week, I felt like VIP because not only she did she invite me to do it in her house but with service as good as what was given to Najib's f**ked-up wife. I felt more than a VIP because it's FOC and it was done in her house. All my blackheads and T-zones since my puberty were removed. The facial hair, sebums and pores were cleared-up. Not even 10 years of Lancome products could save you if you do not first remove these impurities which have been embedded inside the skin since I turned woman. Only now can my Lancome products work its way thru' me.

Then comes my hair. Mavis from high school harsh one-liner kept me wondering for 2 weeks++. She said my hair was conservative and has never left me since SPM. My housemate's 'fashion-nagginess' left me thinking of a new hair-do. I knew it was time:

After church, I went to the Curve and spot this chic looking salon and said just this: "I want a overhaul and it must be below RM400". I went home with an overhaul but poorer by RM500. After SIX hours at the salon with a phoned-in lunch delivered from Thai Express (wow!!!) as well as two coffees I personally requested for (instead of chinese tea), five women mags and 150 pages of Tyler Cowen's "Discover Your Inner Economics" plus the prologue of Tim Harfords' "Logic of Life" - I was made! Immediately, I felt a sense of relieved/renewed. Thank you: my hairstylist and washer (I had my hair washed 4 freaking times) - Daniel and Cat.

Permed and coloured. 

I will return to this hair salon as they were amazing ppl. I wanted to go somewhere else for my hairdo, but with due respect to Callie, I had to change my mind. Hahhahaa. JeanYip Salon was actually Plan B. I bet the rest of you knew what Plan A was, eh Callie..???

TWELVE is a lot!

Never been sooo enticed by the number 12. Thirteen, eight, seven, 666...yes, but not twelve. As of today, twelve is an evil number. One lesser than thirteen, it has now horrified me. Let's set the trend.



The twelve dams going to be built in Sarawak has again reminded me of the dirty money into destroying lives and the environment. Enough of development. Try maintenance instead!! Even the development of Bakun is a failure...what makes these 12 dams better?

During Mahathir's time, Bruno Manser has vouch his life for the local ppl against all logging and' development' of Sarawak's beautiful rainforests. He was presumed dead. Never have been found. Will all Penans (or other asli settlers) face the same fate in the long-run?

Cut-n-Paste syndrome

To my utter dismay, I will be attending the BioMalaysia at KLCC this October. What was soo horrifying was that earlier, I intended to register for the ASUM Swimming Instructors course in Bukit Jalil which commence on the same bloody day. What a clash! It's not like I don't like to attend conferences. I love to meet my peers (esp. those singles). Conferences creates networking sessions (tea-breaks) in which my talent in talking (actually, my bullsh**t talking) had caught the eyes of many corporate figures that hailed from Australia to Netherlands (maybe they were looking at me elsewhere :P). A rich (but balding..sighhh..) man even asked me if I am interested to join their company come Monday! However, conferences can be dead boring when you don't hear of anything but the word 'biotechnology' in every damn speech. The word is more annoying than James Blunt! And of course, I don't learn anything much from conferences; I basically just had the lenghty definition of 'Biotechnology' behind my head. I have never lived thru' any closing of any conferences because I might have had plotted the escape route even before they all started: The best escape route...to the shopping mall!

 

I clicked to www.biomalaysia.com.my to check on the programme. The website was great and informative. Got all the scheduled speakers and what I needed. But still eerrr...not too happy with Pak Lah merasmikan the whole thing. Now, HERE's THE STORY: I wanted to save the programme for the 3 day seminar, so I clicked on the Adobe Acrobat icon at the right hand corner. I was shocked!: Basically (please correct me if I'm wrong) this is totally cut and paste punya kerja! : (see below)

http://www.biomalaysia.com.my/v4/index.php?view=article;&catid=35:conference&id=50:conference-programme&format=pdf&option=com_content&Itemid=65

For once, I felt Malaysian. Everything we start, we finished it damn 'well'. :P Outside nice, inside: zero in substance.

Congratulations. Malaysia boleh.

Alamak, my fav candy kena banned!

Alahai, my favourite candy kena banned! 

And I thought it was made in Malaysia. 

I loved the outer film that melts into your tongue. Wonder if they still film-wrap it? Loved the milky taste too...and it's not tooo sweet either. 

 :( hooooooh hoooh :( Sob!

Also read: http://sunrise.jolmy.com/2008/09/22/china-dairy-based-confectionary-banned-white-rabbit-creamy-candy-included/

Bitch?

When I was in London, I insisted on entering the Tower of London even though the entrance fee cost my parents a fortune. There, the enthusiastic guards (their tour-guide) explained about the terrors of the Tower, in which I thought were highly exaggerated, but most of these were facts on the reign of Henry the VIII and his infamous scheming mistress - Anne Boleyn, who soon became queen of England with the consequence of the King departing from Catholism.

Natalie Portman was stellar in the movie. Who could be more suitable for the role of Anne, the smarter sister of the two, bitch and seducer that caught the eyes of the King, but himself couldn't even come close to touching her in the beginning. She acted well in V for Vendetta and I expect no less from her in this movie. 

What I've learnt from this movie is that being a bitch is okay. Being highly ambitious is fine. But finally, you will have your head on the chopping board, that is if you go-overboard. So, don't be too scheming. Do put in effort(s), but have this phrase in mind: Come what may. Don't try toooo hard.

I bought Starbucks.

Embeded 'Starbucks' wordings on the plunger

Callie just gave me the best advice ever for this year. Not even the most brilliant of CFPs would have given me this same advice. This is the best investment plan by a coffee lover herself. She probably loves coffee, but I'm addicted. "Since you love coffee, buy a coffee-maker". I heeded just that.

Today, in the year 2008, on Callie's birthday itself, I purportedly bought a quality Bodum plunger from Starbucks. Bodum writes that as a coffee-maker, but I think an addict-to-ANY-coffee like me won't bother. It’s a coffee-plunger. Actually, all I want is coffee and not any 3in1 Nescafe (in actual fact, any kopitiam beans would suffice). However, I couldn't ignore my favourite brew by Starbucks - the Kenyan Arabica beans and boubght a packet of those. Starbucks grinded them for me happily.

Sad but true, it was not all the time about the coffee; Starbucks was selling me their so-called 'Experience' all this while!! I believe what I'll be missing out next would be the pleasure of sneeking out in the middle of the night to buy a latte from Starbucks IOI Puchong (do that before 12am). Or even lying to my housemate I wanted to buy something from Jusco, but headed off to Starbucks first to get a taste of their coffee-of-the-week. I spent RM10 for the brew; bought RM3 Jusco tidbits, RM1 for parking (I could have just gotten them from the sundry). But my caffeine satisfaction was immediately guaranteed. How could I sleep w/o a perfect brew? (Well, I can't sleep anyway with coffee that late!).

I wanna attribute this post to the Starbucks staffs at Central Point, BU for being one of the most helpful Starbucks ever. Damn, they were soo kind to introduce me their most expensive coffee-maker there. They don't even have a price tag to their that featured coffee-maker, so I assumed it was freaking expensive. After much frantic searching for the price tag, I gave up, they gave up, and alas introduced to me their cheapest plunger (bought that) and let me taste their brew of the week (didn't buy that!). Yucks! I just want Kenya. As Yvonne would have said: Once black, never look back.

Now, Yvonne, you have just reminded me of something: I want the Jamaican Blue Mountain beans!!!

"When I grow up..."

Irritatingly (sorry people, neighbours), "When I Grow Up" by PSD has been our theme for the month. My housemate and I have no qualms dancing in front of my new Samsung when MTV plays them music video. But damn irritatingly true - we girls have always wanted fame. "So, u mean WE've grown up?" Not when you not famous....yet. I was never that ambitious to the brink of craving for fame, and never a bucket list too (read: Jonie). But having to live with her for a while, the darker side of me has emerged. Yes, I WANT TO BE FAMOUS. 

Singing isn't our forte, our brains (yes, we have brains) isn't doing us any good right now, can't dance, can't sports, can't catwalk. "now, lay low, ladies....." But now, remember we're both Masters and Ph.d. material. She's a pyschology major and I'm...errr....you all know what I'm up to (and I'm getting sick of that word).

Nope, we are not shiok sendiri. Serious business. You people should know. Especially when Ivy is involved. I have faith. You would have to concur that FP and I are one powerful combo. Different in character and taste - me: sporty, and independent while she: feministic in nature and an attention-seeker, our differences makes us a (hypothetically) good team. Me, having overworked my left brain have always looked up to her art-tish and creative taste. I love writing and reading political books or classics; she loves sleeping and reading Cleo. She eats nothing, I eat everything. She can't even run a mile, I can run (only) ten. She talks, I listen (nah! :P) 

But it is our similarities that makes us, us! We are both cunning in our own ways. We both adore guys; we love clothes (read: shopping). Plus, can't deny we're both vertically-challenged; giggle way too much; both cutey pies; height-phobics; love the pool; love bikinis; love sleeping on the sofa; love to watch Project Runway; love Chris Siriano (because he's fierce and gay) and we both love ANTM because we both know we can never have those legs. And we both can run on heels. Now, try that! But no, we're are not trying to be paris and nicole. We are friends, we love fun, and and it's our fate.

You've been waiting, I know. What's gonna make (or break) us? An audition tape and a book. (ask us about it).

At the end of the day, u should know it's not about being famous. It's about knowing what our fortes and our weaknesses are and you know you've tried. And at least, we want to grow up.

When I grow up 

I wanna be famous 

I wanna be a star 

I wanna be in movies 

When I grow up 

I wanna see the world 

Drive nice cars 

I wanna have Groupies 

When I grow up 

Be on TV 

People know me 

Be on magazines 

When I grow up 

Fresh and clean 

Number one chick when I step out on the scene 

But be careful what you wish for 

'Cause you just might get it 

But you just might get it 

But You just might get it 

TIME, FAST, and FLIGHT?

Time flies. As I am writing this posts, my friends are all counting their final hours before buka puasa. They claimed time flies when it comes to puasa. "Just keep yourself busy and don't sleep around". I think she actually meant: "Don't laze around" :P

I couldn't help but ponder at her words. I am always busy. Ask my colleagues, ask everyone. Even when it's relatively not busy (subjective!), I'll just SAY it out loud to everyone and myself that I am BUSY. "So don't kacau me". My friends in the lab kept asking me to slow down. Many ppl claimed that I'll wrinkle fast if I kept up with the current pace. There's little pressure, but I tend to do things fast. And sometimes, with one eye closed. Because to me, there's sooo much to do in life; so little time to waste. One step at a time??? Nah, can't do that.

Last week was just the Port Dickson trip and before I even knew it, it's already this week. Time flies when you had fun. Time flies when you're returning from a trip rather than when you're heading for somewhere. There were soo much to say, play, but soo little time! Before I can even say goodnight or goodbye to Ow's and Ian's Chivas and JD, my buddies have all dropped 'dead' :P Come on, I was the one losing almost every round!......give me more time to win back lahhh!

Time flies while clubbing too. Maybe it was just because we girls always arrive late all the time. Even before our erotic selves comes alive, they have turned on the lights. Potong stim. This merdeka celebration was a memorable one. I wasn't my usual self, the music kinda sucked, the crowd was one too many, and the DJ played a remix-disco version of Alleycats' "Aku Anak Malaysia" when the clock struck 12 (I thanked God it wasn't "Negaraku" because if that was so, hundreds of clubbers will be thrown into Kamunting jail). Though I had quite some fun that night, I came back home with a soreful heart and a confidence of the lowest low. At that time, I wish time flew....fast.

Well, time did fly. Next thing in the morning, without even brushing my teeth, I headed back to Ipoh. I had friends that really woke me up from my sad and self-despising mode. Thank you. Everyone made me laughed and Zohan made me laughed even more the next day. I did have a great time and sometimes I wish I hadn't had my own house in KL so as to bring me heart closer to my real HOME.

One Japanese haiku poem I've read had this to say (I am a history enthusiast). I dunno the exact phrase, but I know it meant something like that: Our life is like a sakura flower. It blooms rarely, but as fast as it blooms and before you can even appreciate it, it withers to the ground. Sad, but that's life. That's how I felt earlier. No time. Just soo unfair. Nice/pretty things goes away faster than you can even think..........