The petrol price hike blardy hurts.

I could go on to say more unsavoury things. But I shall stop here. They jail bloggers these days.

Almost there

*Breath

Courtesy of http://www.phdcomics.com

My deadlines : To have it all typed out by this Sunday. To print it all out on Monday. To send it to the binders on Tuesday. To collect it on Friday. To DHL it to London by Sunday.

Last-minute. Bad habits never die.

Thesis fever

Johari window

This is a very interesting thing ... received this from Jason, which then spouted many other Johari windows from various people in the span of 2 days. Thought I'd try one myself.

Do me the favour and click on the link below? Let me know what you think! Thanks lots! :)

http://kevan.org/johari?name=Amy+Wong

To the Eternal City

The more I read up about Rome, the more excited I am that I'll be going. Because KF has agreed to go with me when I *cross fingers* attend my graduation in London in July.

I'm researching right now on the cheapest ways to travel in order to minimize the damage. Euros and pounds are definitely heavy-duty currencies. Right now, it seems like travelling by train or by low-cost flight from London to Rome both cost about the same, although flights are of course a time-saver. But the idea of travelling by Eurostar, stopping in Paris to check out the Eiffel Tower, and then taking an overnight sleeper train to Rome seems like a very interesting and romantic adventure.

However, have to wait for a couple of friends to confirm their participation before I proceed to book the inter-travel tickets. This Monday itself I'll be booking my flight to London, hopefully with cheap airfares. The lousy underhanded technique of the current MAS travel fair by selling one-way tickets are definitely not something I admire. After everything, it's RM4,000/- for a return ticket to London ... like helloo, they call this discounted airfare? 2 years ago I went to London for RM3,000/- by MAS and that was the full fare. Yea yea, fuel price increase and security charges and million-dollar-paintings for the CEO's room ...

So yes, bottomline, budget is tight. But hopefully it shall be worth it. I've heard and read that Rome is very pretty. And that everyone throws coins into the world's famous Trevi Fountain to ensure a safe return journey to Rome in the future. Romanticism in Rome.

Valentine

When he reaches for her hand whenever it's free ...
When he smiles at her for no reason ...
When he shells the crabs for her voluntarily ...
When he calls at night after spending the entire day with her ...

When she dresses up for him ...
When she wakes up to his SMS ...
When she knows he's happy ...
When she's never been happier ...

When he makes the effort ...
When she can't help but bask in his love ...

The Days of CNY (4)

12th Day - Feb 9
Normal boring working day.

13th Day - Feb 10
Highlight was dinner at Shogun with my coursemates.

14th Day - Feb 11
Let's see ... woke the darling up. Went traipsing around SS2 for baby presents and then went to Klang to see KF's colleague and her cute little baby girl. And then, came home to type furiously on my thesis.

15th Day - Feb 12
Continued on thesis-typing (must keep the momentum going mah). Then KF picked me up for lunch at Ikea. Then Redbox karaoke with the others, to celebrate KF's and MP's upcoming birthdays. And seafood dinner in Tropicana with a few of them.

And so, there ends CNY of 2006.

Chap Goh Meh

In conjunction with Chinese Valentine's Day ...

"I have great hopes that we shall love each other all our lives as much as if we had never married at all." ~ Lord Byron

"Today I begin to understand what love must be, if it exists. When we are parted, we each feel the lack of the other half of ourselves. We are incomplete like a book in two volumes of which the first has been lost. That is what I imagine love to be: incompleteness in absence." ~Edmond and Jules de Goncourt

"You don't marry someone you can live with. You marry someone you cannot live without." ~Unknown

"If you have it [Love], you don't need to have anything else, and if you don't have it, it doesn't matter much what else you have." ~ Sir James M. Barrie

"Love does not consist in gazing at each other, but in looking outward together in the same direction." ~ Antoine de Saint-Exupery

"May you live as long as you wish, and love as long as you live." ~ Robert A. Heinlein

Earthquake Tuesday

Giant earthquake in Swensen's SS2, courtesy of Cindy Ong, the management accountant who flew in all the way from Sydney. 50% off every Tuesday - in all Swensen's nationwide. 8 scoops of ice-cream (take your pick) with 8 different toppings. A great way to cool off Monday pains. 

Shogun

Record turnout for our annual coursemates' CNY gathering this year. Attendees : me, Natallie, Hooi San, Siew Lan, Bee Yong, Wen Chuin, Seok Teng, Chee Meng, Alan, Tee Wei, Tack Loong, Joo Aun, Ban Poh, and Kim Chuan aka tai lo.

Had Japanese buffet last night at Shogun, new in 1-Utama's new wing, whose boss owns the famous Saisaki Restaurant in KL (apparently currently closed for renovations). My second time there, and funnily, I found it much better than my first visit - maybe it's the jolly company :) Food was excellent, especially their teppanyaki. Conversation was great, especially since one of our good friends finally publicly announced her upcoming marriage (was a real pain keeping it a secret from everyone else when only a few of us were in on the "secret"). The camaraderie between all 14 of us is truly amazing. It's because of them that I'm glad I went to UTM and not some ang moh university. And I believe that the friendships will only keep growing, since all of us are in the property line (yeah, we all graduated and continued pursuing the same field professionally), and of course, what's friendship without a little competition? ;) 

Buying a house (2)

This is a gem of a site - http://www.fiscal-wise.com.my
Contains a loan calculator tool which shows which bank has the best interest rates, and helps you calculate your installments and all. Totally nifty! :)

And, if you're searching to see how much properties generally cost, click on http://www.property2u.com which also includes classifieds listings from The Star.

Or, if you're into auction properties, click on http://www.auctions.com.my

I'm currently flipping through the February issue of Personal Money. Great issue really - has articles on REITs (the hottest thing in real estate right now), fixed-rate home loans, effects of the rising BLR, everything to suit the person in the street. Worth every cent of RM9.

The Days of CNY (3)

10th Day - Feb 7
Started work. Aiyoh, so hard to get up so early in the morning! Piles of stuff on my table, don't know how my boss manage to gather so much work for me in one day. Today itself I began my site inspections already. And ooh, at night, went to Swensen's SS2 for it's Earthquake 50% Off Tuesday! Had a giant one, shared with Jonie, Mei Heong, KF and Cindy (who paid for it). Yummy :) Went DVD-shopping nearby, spent almost a bomb - in preparation for when my thesis has been bound and DHL-ed. Then Cindy slept over and I fell asleep while she was still talking ...

11th Day - Feb 8
Took Cindy home. Went to work. Had company CNY lunch in Sri Melaka. Boss gave out angpau's. Must remember to peek and see how much. I'm still in office now, but leaving soon, to have dinner at SS3's chicken chop place with Clement. All these people from Australia ah, all come back during CNY ... suddenly have to layan so many people :P

Only 4 more days left. Then it's back to normal days once again. My thesis deadline is looming nearer, but all I can think of are holidays - Redang, Beijing, Vietnam, London, Paris, Italy (I really want to go to Italy) ... I think I need to strike a lottery ticket first, especially since I just called up MAS and found out that airfare to London in July has increased by 50% since two years ago. I choked when I heard it, honestly. Now, if someone can kindly tell me how to get to London cheaply ...

The Days of CNY (2)

5th Day (cont)
Had dinner with schoolfriends - Jonie, Li Bin, Michelle, Mei Heong and Bee Gaik - at Loong Foong restaurant. Then they came over to my house for some gambling. Unfortunate me lost about RM60 at my first session of "in-between" this year.

6th Day
Watched my 1st full DVD in the family AV room. "In Her Shoes" stars Cameron Diaz and is a great chick flick. Enjoyed it lots :) I think chick flicks and chick lit now rules the lives of girls as how Mills & Boon once did for the generation before. Went to a friend's apartment for short round of mahjong. Then went to Jonie's house for her annual CNY gathering - complete with lion dance. And then, the dear won back some money for me from the "in-between" game! :)

7th Day - Friends' Day
My house was opened for young people all day. In the morning, my sister and I went to Giant Kelana Jaya to do another round of sweeping - this time it was the plastic chairs. The afternoon session had my sisters' friends from school, IBM and university crowding into our house for lunch and gambling and UNO Stacko (for the un-money orientated). I popped over to ML's house for a couple of hours before coming back with the whole group to BBQ on that miraculous BBQKing grill. Another hand-gripping round of "in-between" went on again - seems to be the gambling game of the year.

8th Day
My dad's "kai zhai" came over with his family. So, as usual whenever there are babies and kids, we brought out UNO Stacko - that game fascinates all young kids. Finally, the whole week of CNY celebrations is coming to an end. Lepak-ed the rest of the day away.

9th Day
That's today, the day most people return to work. Well, I didn't. I'm due in the office tomorrow, because I took an additional day's leave. So I'll just hang around typing up my thesis and hang out with my best friend who just returned from Sydney this morning.

CNY's not at an end yet though, chap goh meh's this coming Sunday. Tomorrow till Friday it'll be work. But Friday night there's the annual gathering with my coursemates. And it'll probably be another 2 days of visiting and catching up with friends before the celebrations close for the year.

The only constancy in all these celebrations is that you get to see faces you seldom see, catch up with friends, and of course, see various facets of character surface during the long gambling sessions. CNY celebrations are merely just to bring noises of merriment to the various homes visited - noises of which are meant to signify happy activities and joy throughout the year. Indeed, CNY celebrations are nothing deeply meaningful - just lots of noise. No wonder they say Chinese people are noisy. I shall look forward to the contented peace that follows after chap goh meh, and of course, definitely looking forward to the days after CNY when the sun doesn't shine with such amazing intensity - until the next lunar new year.

The Days of CNY

Market Day
The eve of CNY is when everyone is home. Me, deciding to be a good daughter, volunteered to help my mum go to the market. Got up at 5.45 am and was at the market by 6am. Goodness! Apparently, PJ people aren't as lazy sleepers as I thought. The amount of people crammed at the market was more than you see on any normal Sunday. And everyone was talking animatedly, yelling for this person to wrap up that piece of pork, that person to count up the cost of the veggies, for everyone to move out of the way - big-pig-on-tray coming through ... wah, it was still dark as night you know! By 6.45 am we were done with the SEA Park market and arrived at the SS2 market by 7am for the 2nd round of shopping. My sole purpose was to merely be a driver, my mum had the maid to help her carry stuff. So I just had to round and round the place for parking - which was quite difficult to find, considering that it still wasn't light yet! By 8am when it was really bright already and the sun was beginning to stream light properly, we were ready to go home and wake my sisters up for breakfast. Spent the rest of the day in and out of the kitchen, helping with this and that, being a good girl :)

Family Day
The 1st day of Chinese New Year - 29 Jan 2006 - the 1st time in 12 years we're spending it in a house we can call our own. And, like every year ever since we've stopped going back to Tapah, my parents and us 3 girls traipse for our annual movie together, in GSC 1 Utama. This year, it was "Fearless" starring Jet Li. Not a bad movie, really. With a moral story on how martial arts should be for body and spiritual development, never for revenge or evil needs, that bloodspills only begets more bloodspills. That in the end, the ultimate kung fu master is one who understands compassion and cultivates mutual respect. Lots of action (apparently it is real action, judging from the "making of" scenes I saw on tv) and they even threw in a screening of Jay Chou's latest single which is the theme song for the movie.

Dad's Relatives Day
My dad's relatives descended on us, virtually unannounced. There was a flurry of activity going shopping at Tesco for a steamboat dinner to be held the next day, and to buy up all available mattresses from Giant. My dad's twin brother and his family from Singapore, my dad's older sister and her family from Kuantan. It's been a long while since we've had this many people staying over at home. Dinner was 2 tables at Loong Foong Restaurant, when it was announced that one of my cousins on my dad's side will get married this December, and another next April, both in Kuantan. In addition to another 2 cousins on my mum's side who are marrying in March in Batu Pahat and December in Singapore. Yet another one is marrying this year in Johor, but the date hasn't been set. And out of the 5, 2 of them are younger than I am. Great, the marrying trend is catching on for my generation - oh no.

Ipoh Day
Early in the morning on the 3rd day, me, ML, Jason, NY, MP, PL, and PL's friend Susan drove up to Ipoh to meet the guys up there. First stop, KP's house in Taman Pertama where CS met us with her French boyfriend Bernard. Next, lunch lou sang at East Ocean restaurant (Tung Hoi) in Ipoh Garden East. And then, karaoke at Justin's house in Bercham till 5pm, before some of them drove back to KL. I stayed the night at KF's place, meeting his relatives and all. Ipoh is really hot. Very rarely in my life can I jump into the bathroom and just splash icy cold water to bathe - only in Ipoh can it be done.

Mum's Relatives Day
Woke up, had brunch with KF and his sisters, and then left for KL with KP. The drive took almost 3 hours, biasalah with so many cars on the PLUS highway, and cars that stop for no good reason at the side of the highway. Arrived home and saw my mum's relatives were here. Had steamboat dinner at home, and long mahjong and gossip sessions.

Today
Sent off my mum's relatives. My parents and sisters went to the Dong Zen Temple in Jenjarom to see the much-talked beauty of that temple. I decided to stay home, to work on my thesis. But, it shall not be for long. Starting tonight, the 5th day of CNY, it's long gambling sessions with friends, all the way till Sunday, because people are trickling back to KL after the long holidays. I think, after CNY, I'll have to start ridding my body of all the excess Shandy, chrysanthemum tea, 100Plus, cookies, dinners ... but meanwhile, there's still another 10 days of merry-making to go! :)