monday

Mondays are never good. Today has been a day of... complaints.

Early morning complaint from housemate about rubbish being strewn about outside the house and not properly binned. Not mine, I said. Then another complaint about why wasn't I responsible enough to find out whose those were and deal with them.

Then colleagues complained about the lack of choices for lunch-food around the office. And why Tesco has to be shut and renovated for one whole week. And Planet Organic labelled walnut bread as white bread and we had to pay extra for the walnuts.

Afternoon complaint from the boyfriend about illegible fontsize and fontcolour in our new fledgling of a blog. But I can't change the font colour, it'll clash with the whole theme of the template! No, I'm not bolding the words either. It'd be like screaming the post out. Haggle haggle. I finally settled to increasing the font size by numero uno. Now, to figure out how to actually do it...

phooey

Wow, has it been that long, my ardent blog readers? Hello? Hi? Right. My online diary for myself then. I don't know why I don't write, it's not like I'm hopelessly addicted to Facebook or anything.

I know why. My creative writing juiced have dried up. The right side of my brain is about as shriveled as a toe that's been in the sea for 12 hours. So what's been the highlight of the past month of my absence? Chinese New Year back in Malaysia, of course.

Brought the boyfriend back to help with the festive cooking preparations (proved to be a good worker too with minimal complaints and needs) and meet the clan(s). Pioneering the list of boyfriends I actually brought home, I think the reception was alright. Phew.

Met up with more high school friends that I had in previous years because two special people had birthdays that fell during CNY this year and everyone gathered to celebrate. Happy birthday Val and Eryn! And, what's up with the strange fascination the boyfriend has with my armpit? That or he's kind enough to avoid a frontal of my face with that enormous zit (welcome home present from the tropics!)...

And then we went to Phuket and the works, Phi Phi Ley, Phi Phi Don (Maya Bay), James Bond Island, Khai Island etc. This is the place we stopped for lunch at Phi Phi Don. The water made me itchy and goosebumpy like no other. Magical.

This is the skimpiest you'd ever see me in. Count it your lucky day (to not be visually polluted with other more ogressy body parts). I saw lady tourists from China (quite a huge number of them around Phuket actually) wear colourful singlets inside their one-piece swimwear. Tsk tsk. It's much cooler when you wear it outside *flashback to high school, underdeveloped years*...

*squeal* My boyfriend is sooooo S-E-X-Y!!! Aiyo and so cute... *giggle*

The next morning, we discovered that we have yet to achieve the tan we wanted to return to Europe with, so it was hardcore 2 solid hours under the sun with MP3s and my book (ah the message he wrote within makes me smile every time).

I felt totally conned (hmm didn't I use this phrase already in my last post) by the elephant ride. I was expecting an hour of National Park rainforest exploration on top of an elephant, stopping every once in a while for her (it has to be a her and don't ask me why) to nibble on leaves and/or swat at bushes. Instead we got an hour under the blistering sun (no canopy here) in a man made uphill-downhill (poor elephants) elephant track. Upsetifying!

Valentine's dinner at a French restaurant in Bangkok made up for earlier disappointments! I wished I've ordered foie gras though. I want foie gras! But the 9-course dinner was nice. Peter had veal and I had a tuna steak as mains.

Last Malaysian meal before boarding the plane. Is this why I was so gassy?

conned!

I've been so conned. Winter in London is rain. And rain. And delayed London Underground services and buses with timetables of the KL buses - none. More rain. Black nose boogers. And more rain.

Whatever happened to snow-covered footpaths and fluffy flakes in my hair (not the dandruffy kind)?

I'm returning to Malaysia-lah!





















... for two weeks. I still love London and all she has to offer. Unless, of course, snow covers London when I'm back in Malaysia and melts when I'm back in London.

Then I shall HULKRAGE.

greetings

Happy New Year to my faithful blog readers! Yes, the three of you should know who you are. I am now back at work, and "at" is the most apt description because it denotes physical presence and not necessarily mental. The final few days of holidays I couldn't wait to get into work with renewed vigour, but now that I am at it my engines seem to have iced over in the numbing cold. Thaw, dammit, thaw. Or else the Bossman will have my skin when he's back.

My new year celebration was a nice and cosy one, surrounded by loved one(s) and fluffy pets and 3 different boardgames (intellectual innit) at Jos and Marjanne's in Heeze (a small town south of Eindhoven). The fireworks at midnight were surprisingly Chinese New Year-ish too, with neighbours all standing outside on the streets greeting each other and the smell of gunpowder in the air...

Had a very auntifying New Year's Day walking the dog in the nearby woods for 5km. My toes are still blistered. But good company always make up for physical discomfort. Come see more pictures!

What's your celebration like?

happy new year

My first out-of-town sight-seeing trip for the Christmas break - Den Bosch. Well the full name of the town is 's-Hertogenbosch but I'm sure all foreign visitors join me in rejoicing that it's better known for the humanly-pronunciable shorter name.

I haven't hung out much with twins as friends in real life. They're like unicorns. Fascinating and alien with plenty of theories and whispers of telepathy and the likes. I still stare at Jos with the intense interest of a scientist to a rare species of butterfly pinned onto a slide. Hence I try not to look at him too much. The resemblance in gait, laughter and outlook are scaaaary. Doppelganger!

My twin is well, less complex. I think. He's always happy. Click for more Den Bosch pictures while I go pack my bags to go to Jos and Marjanne's for New Year countdown and a game of Scrabble.

christmas

On Christmas Day I went to Peter's mum's for dinner with the rest of the Beerguzzlers. My earlier self-inflicted stress and worry proved to be merely self-inflicted (as always) because they were really nice people. It was a night of merry-making and introduction to a very different Christmas dinner do. Instead of stuffed roast turkey and Christmas log and brussel sprouts like what I anticipated from telly... my first ever European Christmas experience was a... gourmet.

"Christmas dinner in The Netherlands is a bit different from customs in neighbouring countries. One typical Dutch tradition is that of 'gourmet'. This is an evening long event where small groups of people sit together around a gourmet-set and use their own little frying pan to cook and season their own food in very small portions. The host has prepared finely chopped vegetables and different types of meats, fish and prawns/shrimps. Everything is accompanied by different salads, fruits and sauces. The origin of gourmet lies most likely in the former Dutch colony Indonesia." (from Wikipedia)

I'd sift through hundreds of mouth-watering foodie pics and post the best ones up but alas, as my luck with cameras would have it, the camera battery died before dinner started. Fuck. It. Lah.

Backview of the house where Peter grew up in. Was too shy to take pics of the frontal so I sneaked around the backyard, stepped in shit, and took pictures of...

... a homegrown brocolli (hopefully) plant. Much to the amusement of the family, whom I realised too late, could see my every move from the kitchen window.

The garden shed. Although, garden is very wrong a word to call the heee-yooooge piece of land around the house. And everyone's cajoling Peter to build his house on it, much to his aghast. As for me... why not? I can have the biggest mofo-ing kitchen in the world. And summers filled with strawberries around the house where I can just squat and stuff my face. And wave snails about at the faint-hearted. Fun! Let's see if I get my way in this... *rub hands in glee*

Note - Peter's family name translates into "in the beer house" in English.

tang yuen

Today is the first day of winter, according to the Chinese custom. It certainly felt like winter long ago. It doesn't make me gawp anymore watching my neighbours scrape ice off their windshields while I walk to the tube station in the mornings. I'm learning to not just look at the temperature but also wind chill factor. My ears feel like they're on fire every time I expose them outdoors. Walking itself is a chore, hobbling and slipping like a stunted penguin along ice-covered walkways. Painful lungs and steam rising from my nose/mouth with each laboured, icy breath.

Don't get me wrong, the general coldness is crisp and refreshing, as long as there's no wind. And no, I have yet to see snow.

Thank God for some familiarity on chilly days of dry flaky skin. Kong Kia is my very own Santa came early. I love you long time! I love tang-yuen with black sesame filling! (I cooked these, by the way. Me me me!)

autumn

This post is kicked into being by Sonia of Meta4our. I am very much pleased to know that I now have the grand total of two (maybe more, we'll have to see who shows him/herself by leaving a comment) constant readers. But my determination to learn as much as I can at work, coupled with the lovely London Underground service on Piccadilly Line that makes the normal 3-hour work commute drag into an unbearable 4... leaves me with precious little time to cook dinner, catch a glimpse of my downloads, talk to my bloke online, do laundry etc. Gradually decreasing sporadic bursts to write properly are cleanly absorbed by Facebook and emails. So, no blogging for long long time.

But it's time to turn over a new leaf. Because it's autumn and all old leaves fall down. Disregarding the merciless chilly wind and general coldness of London, I'm quite excited being smack in the middle of my virgin-autumn. Soon it'll be my virgin-winter, and boy-o-boy I'm gonna see/touch/lick me some real snow!

Can you blame me for subconsciously humming California Dreaming whenever I get outdoors?

It's so cold I'm wearing this indoors. And it's not winter yet. Dammit.

busy

Work busy.
House internet died.
Confirmed Berlin for Christmas break.
Confirmed flight back to Malaysia for Chinese New Year.
Going to the park at Eindhoven later.
Still alive.

perdido street station

China Miéville is a genius. When Bossman told me enthusiastically how Perdido Street Station is his favourite book of all time, all I could picture mentally was the cover of the Tom Hanks DVD which sounds eerily similar to the title.

It's not an easy book to read at all. I almost gave up at the second chapter because of the complexity of characters, setting with no explanation or flashbacks whatsoever. Who is who, where is where, what is what... my sleepy morning one-hour tube rides and exhausted evening ones didn't take well to the story. But like a soldier that I am, I trudged slowly through; word by word, sentence by sentence. I began to doubt if I share the same taste as Bossman in books after all. Which, should be the case because I've enjoyed six of his recommended books tremendously.

Then something shifted and I got sucked into New Crobuzon, smelling the pollutant-rich air (ok ok it could be London's public transport), walking among khepris, garudas, Remades, vodyanois, cactus people and sharing their ripe dark fear of the slake moths and nightmares, plotting together and against each other to survive.

I subject myself to two delicious hours of new words, new beings and new dimensions of existence every day... and now that I'm at the final quarter of the book, every paragraph is painstakingly precious. I don't want it to end! But I'm also dying to know the final outcome. Ah, this is what a beautiful book does to you. An empty sense of loss (and longing) and few minutes of displacement when you disengage mind from story.

I challenge you to read Perdido Street Station and not fall in love with it.

brussels

Scold me. Cane me. Unfriend me on Facebook. I'm sorry for the absence. Thanks Gab for bombarding me to come back here from my affair with Facebook. Dammit the fluff-pet thing there is addictive. I'll friend anyone who pets my pet! Come pet come pet.

Back to blogging. I'm back from a weekend in Brussels! I'm recovering from my first cold contracted in cold-and-getting-colder London! I'm gonna continue watching Supernatural Season 2 to make space for the 5 seasons of Futurama that Peter downloaded! Be a good boy/girl and see my Brussels pictures and leave me to faster watch and faster delete my drama series ok?

awwww

I was craving for hot, steaming Chinese food at 9pm last night. Being her typical self, London hid all the Chinese eateries away from sight after 8pm. I ate the chilly bone-searing nightwind instead, trudging along the bustling Oxford Street. (well ended up eating at Garfunkel's but it's not the same!)

This morning I came into work and lo behold! A Chinese takeaway container on my table! My heart leapt and saliva oozed. Could it be for me or some evil colleague chose this very day to accidentally leave the food I crave accidentally on my table? I asked around and got happier and hopefuller as the number of head-shakers increased.

Bossmum looked at me blankly when I asked if she brought me Chinese. Bossman overheard (what's new, the man's omni! -present, -hearing, -tasking and whatever you care to name) and went "Oh! I totally forgot about that! Supposed to put it in the fridge this morning!"

...

I told him he really made me happy for half an hour for nothing.

"But I got it for you!"

...
*vision blurs*

How to not love a boss like that?
Having said that, a telepathic one is kinda scary.

back from bologna

Bologna was great right up to the point when we were at the Italian airport waiting for our flight back. Like your usual friendly low-cost carrier, Ryan Air was late. The airport was small with nothing to eat except weird sandwiches. Nevermind. Then Stansted's passport control had to have this ridiculously long queue at freakin' 12.30am. Having missed the last train back into civilisation, we had to bus it, then cab it separately, and the last member of the posse reached home at 4am.

To add on to my frustration, I stepped on a snail walking to my front door. Sickening crunch, snail squashed, I wiped my boots on the neighbour's patch of grass, crashed into bed fully clothed and woke up with mascara on my pillow and contact lense dried up northwards of eyeball, threatening to lodge itself into brains.

But enough of moaning. Let's rewind a little bit now.

We had a 2-hour little getaway break before heading towards the airport after our Cersaie stint, so Bossman generously shoved us into the main plaza of Bologna - the Piazza Maggiore, fronting the famous San Petronio church. He also tried to get us to eat at the nicest restaurant in town but they close from 3-7pm. Boo. Must give him credit for trying though.

I love Bossman. Even if we had to work in the train. Because he remembers I cannot sit facing the opposite direction. And I love juice. And food makes me happy. And we share a bizarre, warped sense of humour.

bologna

The Whirlwind Called Peter came and left during the weekend. So has Incubus, the main reason Peter flew over (of course there's me, as well) to see them in action and, being the general disorganised person (new busy career-woman is how I like to put it) I am, there were no more tickets when I tried to book some. So I compensated by bringing him to the British Museum and look at ancient, shriveled dead people.

The Wern Yi has moved south to London! Befriended her friends and brother as well. Cool, cool people. Now I know someone in Leeds to bunk with, if the desire to visit ever arises. Funny how people connect and become friends so much faster in a foreign country than our own.

And tomorrow I fly to Bologna for Cersaie.

100% design

Where: Jessey's turf in the office.
When: 5pm Friday, after coming back from 100% Design exhibition.
Why: My orange juice was laced with a little vodka.

So much for trying to be the tough cookie when Bossman's buying everyone drinks. No no, I don't like beer. You guys go ahead. I'll have Malibu with pineapple juice. Oh you don't have that? What should I have then, Bossman? Oh? Vodka with sparkling orange juice is nice? Ok I'll have that.

Oh the length I had to go through to make sure I don't puke. No fun at all being humiliated (I'd prefer praised, but too bad all comments were from women) as a cheap date (note to self: order the most expensive tea there is on the menu to counter cheap date) and generally feeling like crap with head threatening to thud into explosion.

Why I cannot drink one.

too much

Someone is trying to hook Bossman up with the actress from Nip/Tuck. In real life. This job is getting too glamorous to handle. So is the totally hawt but totally shy freelance IT guy that comes in once a week.

My boss. Talking about Joely being too tall for him.
Most beautiful man in London. In my office.

Pinch me. Now.

close shop

Draaaaaat I haven't updated for so long I might as well close down the site. Now that I've started working I barely have time to read other people's blog, let alone blogging myself. And there's always the bane of normal, healthy social lives, Facebook. (whaaat, I'm almost at my 100th friend now so I'm excited ok!) Anyway Aggy's coming this weekend and I haven't vacuum (or shall I be a proper British and say "hoover") and clean up the sty. Then Wern-Yi might be coming the next weekend, and my Peter-ito the weekend after that. My bed's so gonna think I'm teh slut of the century.

But yeah, work. Work's been pretty much my entire life and universe for the past 3 weeks. Sure doesn't feel that long. It's very interesting, what I do now, being someone's personal assistant. Trying to learn everything the Bossman knows and then be a step ahead of him so I can plan tasks and schedules for him. So far the most exciting "projects" I've done is learning how to use Outlook (and having the powderful access to Bossman's mailbox), ordering stationery online, drawing our new website map with Visio, measuring and sketching a client's bathroom (doesn't smell very nice though, and it's disturbing how the pong slowly dissipated the longer I stayed in the small stuffy room... did my clothes absorb all the goodness?), and attempting to make sense of 10 boxes and 2 cabinet-ful of Bossman's miscellaneous junk. Unearthed some pretty weird stuff, I must say.

But yeah, work. Foresee more interesting days ahead. Nice boss, nice colleagues, nice working environment. Only un-nice part is the 3 hours of commuting every day. And I cannot afford to move any closer to work. Sigh. London! Nevermind, think positive think positive. Bossman's taking me to Bologna next month for Cersaie! And and...

Say hello to my new toy (a.k.a. handcuffs to the Bossman), the BlackBerry Pearl. I have no frickin' idea how to work it yet, I just use it for my morning alarm. Damn thing looks so canggih I'm seriously terrified of it. Yeah, I'm glad Bossman doesn't read my blog.

work and stratford

So I'm now a proper working class person. A week and a half into being a Bossman's Right-Hand, I'm still learning and enjoying the new experiences. Still terrified about picking up the phone (especially Bossman's mobile) but I could only run away to make tea that many times in a day. Next week we're gonna sit down to discuss the corporate website and brochure. Should be interesting. But then, having the sole power to order whatever stationery I like for everyone is also very interesting.

Now that the sun's only up till 8pm and not 10pm... what's better than reminiscing about the good summery trips we took a few weeks ago? Si, YC and I went to Stratford-upon-Avon to be immersed in Shakespeare one very sunny Saturday. And then his uni in Warwick and the 2 flats he lived in while studying and then dinner at his favourite Indian restaurant.

All those we did, but not Warwick Castle. Because no more sun.

bryan boy

I now have Bryan Boy as a friend on Facebook. Wow, talk about having the closest thing to a celebrity as a friend. I haven't been reading that third-world skinny bitch's blog as religiously nowadays, but you should. He's the loudest, funniest, smartest and proudest.

Which jives perfectly well with my post today on Brighton and it's annual Pride event. I know I'm a wee bit behind on this (but no, I'm not a behind-person so AIM CAREFULLY DAMMIT) but just bear with me yeah. I'll make this short and sweet so y'all can just click on the link and go see pictures. Someone killed my braincells a little today by asking me to download and watch A Night At The Roxbury so I'm not feeling too witty right now.

After lots of colourful parades (as well as openly gay displays of affection) in the Netherlands, I have to say the Brighton one wasn't too entertaining. Nevermind the few Chinese bitches who elbowed me and shouldered their ways to the front and left me snapping pictures of people's arms or hair or cameras. I was standing quite in front because I've been queuing there, dammit. I'm ashamed of my fellow skin sometimes.

Having said that, I went for a job interview with a manager who's from Brighton (and sounded suspiciously too enthusiastic about the whole Pride thing to be straight) and he said the REAL fun isn't at Madeira Drive (where the parade starts) but at the park where it ends and everyone gets really drunk and clappy-happy.

Note: No, I'm not a 'phobe. My interviewer said "Pride is AWESOME! I never miss a year!" and how can you not suspect a statement like that?

Si got really really sunburnt from sitting on the pebbled Brighton beach and feeding my tuna bagel to the pebbles. After ignoring his pinkness (which turned a more and more violent shade by the minute) by ogling at this hot young thing in a skin-coloured bikini (and betting with Si if it'd be transparent when she comes out of the water) for a good long time, we finally left Brighton. And since it's still quite early, we made an impromptu detour to visit Portsmouth. We drank beer at the pub which is converted from Si's dad's old office, and then watched Transformers at Vue. Then we went home and Si shed skin for the next week.

Now, I shall plot cunningly how to get Azwin Andy into my Facebook as well. *swoon*

No. Her bikini didn't become transparent.

ashamed

I'm ashamed of myself. Haven't been updating for the past 2 weeks! I swear, I'm going to sit my fat-ass down this weekend and catch up with updates on my escapades to several quaint English towns.

The whirlwind called Peter has come and left and I haven't even finished uploading pictures for my Netherlands trip a month ago. Shame, shame. Without further ado, the final chapter of my Netherlands trip (until October, that is), the town which I hate and like at the same time (more dislike than like) - Rotterdam.

Like: Sausages sold from automatic vending machines. Sounds like nothing special at all, right? They're made of horse meat. Both Frikadel and Kroket are made from a mixture of mashed meat, including horse. Uh huh. I had a horse sausage and it was salty and plenty GOOD.

Like: Sweaty and hot young men beating their sticks. Oooh la la.

Dislike: Too politically incorrect to say it here. But you girls can gawk at my usual pristine pictures.