Away

In the mood

... That’s where you wanna go to get away from it all
Bodies in the sand
Tropical drink melting in your hand
We’ll be falling in love
To the rhythm of a steel drum band ...

... We’ll get there fast
And then we’ll take it slow ...

... We’ll put out to sea
And we’ll perfect our chemistry
By and by we’ll defy a little bit of gravity
Afternoon delight
Cocktails and moonlit nights
That dreamy look in your eye
Give me a tropical contact high ...

... Everybody knows
A little place like Kokomo ...

~ the song that best describes my weekend ahead
"Kokomo" by the Beach Boys! :)

Elation

Student Reference: 0300917

Programme: MSC IN REAL ESTATE
Route: MSc IN REAL ESTATE

Dear Miss Wong Siew Fong

I am delighted to inform you that you have satisfied the requirements for award of MSc IN REAL ESTATE, with the classification of PASS.

You will shortly receive details of the presentation ceremony, which is to be held in the Great Hall of the University in July 2006. I very much hope that you will be able to attend on this occasion, with us and your fellow diplomates, to celebrate your achievement.

You may include the designatory letters MScRealEst after your name. This designation should precede any designation which an individual might be entitled to use to denote membership of a professional body.

Congratulations on your success.

Yours sincerely
Emma Jones BA
Examinations Officer
Academic Registry

College of Estate Management
University of Reading

Labour Day weekend getaway

Finally, after 3 years of clamoring to visit an East Coast island, it's finally coming true! Lang Tengah for 3 days 2 nights for only RM268! Inclusive of 2 snorkelling trips, accommodation and all meals. The trip starts this Friday evening and I shall be back to blog about it on Monday night (or maybe the weekend after, knowing lazy me).

I.cannot.wait.

Cafe Taste Walking

Yesterday was the 2nd time I was there at Cafe Taste Walking, this superbly good restaurant in Sri Petaling that serves exquisite-looking fusion food.

I was there, for the first time, last week with Jonie, etc. First impression : Dark lights trying to create an ambience, which caused me to constantly have to blink my eyes in order to reposition my contact lenses properly due to the dark lighting.

However, those impressions gave way to much better ones when we were served. The food looked real good on the plates (I've always always yearned to eat little bits of food placed on huge white plates). But don't worry, the portions are not too small - not too huge either, just nice I would say. And it's not just the looks! It tastes good as well! (Sorry ah, tak bawa camera)

The menu book is not too inspiring, as they do not have descriptions of the food nor pictures of it. However, the walls of the restaurant are pasted with huge posters of the food they serve ... so just find the dish that you like the look of, and point ;)

But most of all, the absolute must-have is the dessert - they only have one. Trust me, it is as good as, if not better than, the mocha mud pie in TGIF.

It is not very price-y, for fusion food la. The most expensive main dish is about RM18.90. The dessert is only RM3.50 (definitely value-for-money compared to Friday's RM10.90 mud pie). Drinks are about RM3.00 onwards.

We heard that the boss is contemplating moving to the Damansara area soon. And with that, definitely a price increase will follow. We definitely do not doubt that he'll have a strong following in Damansara, albeit a different crowd - the high-end market, no less. So, I would recommend that everyone try this place at least once when it is still affordable for orang makan gaji like us, before they move to the expat area of Damansara and charge expat prices.

Cafe Taste Walking
45, Jalan Radin Anum 1, Bandar Baru Seri Petaling
(same row as Ho Ho Steamboat)
Reservations : 012-200 6736
Open for lunch and dinner everyday except Thursdays

Tickets to the Code!

The much-awaited movie is opening in Malaysian cinemas on May 18, 2006.

But I get to watch it on May 17!!! :)

Actually, credit must be given where it's due. My boss (who suddenly seems rather handsome today) had 10 free tickets to attend the movie's premiere. This is SO amazing :)

And so therefore, today at work, I did more than I needed to do - haha. I got the lousy mentality of orang makan gaji la :P

Anyway, I am so excited. I think I shall re-read my beautiful book again before the movie.

Gubra

Dear all, please note spoilers ahead. If you have not seen the movie, I suggest you skip this post or else - I'll ruin it all for you! *evil laugh*

To do away with the mundane, this is what the story is about :

Part A
Orked (the ever adorable Sharifah Amani) is now married to Arif (the typical Malay male). Her parents, who live with their giant-size-of-a-maid and the gardener's son (or something along that confusing line), are still as adorably loving as ever (I particularly loved the scene where these 2 not-very-thin people squashed onto a single hospital bed did the macarena lying down). Orked's dad is admitted into the Ipoh hospital. I think that Yasmin Ahmad gets an A for effort in filming the entire Ipoh town into something so whimsical, old-but-new, timeless, something that makes you forget whether it's set in today times or yesterday times. But I digress.

Anyway, Alan bumps into Orked along the hospital's corridors. Alan is Jason's brother (if you did not watch Sepet and do not know who Jason is, go and bang a wall). By the way, Alan is played by Alan Yun, that gorgeous tall, fair, yummy and extremely well-built model who by the way, cannot act and is quite kayu. I understand that Yasmin takes the approach of not forcing her actors to act, but rather to let them be themselves. But, hmm, for someone as good-looking as Alan, it spoils it that he can't act lor.

Anyway, Alan befriends Orked (who earlier attacked him with a mop full of shit thinking he was some mad stranger). On the day Orked leaves her crap-of-a-husband, Alan drives her to his home in his really old workman's truck and gives her a box which contains letters Jason wrote but never sent, a book of English poems, a Chinese book (maybe someone can tell me what book it is), and the symbolic handphone that bears the marks of a broken screen. Orked breaks down and sobs for all the loves she has lost - heartbreakingly for Jason's, and self-pityingly for Arif's.

Part B
The story of a bilal (I learned from this movie that he is someone who calls the azan) and his relationship with 2 prostitutes. No, it's nothing like that. The 2 prostitutes do what they do merely for a living, one for the love of her little son, the other for the needs of her family in the kampung (the true reason of which is not shown in the movie). The one who has a son (her name is Temah) is, predictably but cruelly, diagnosed to be HIV positive. She turns to the bilal's wife for spiritual comfort and friendship, and implores for help in raising her son if she ever dies. The other prostitute, who is young and pretty, subjects herself to the whims of this sadistic customer who pays her extra to beat her up. She does it for the money. When she does save enough money to return to her kampung, Temah's son's useless-debt-ridden-father comes and steals all the money from the young prostitute (and goodness knows does what else behind that closed door, the screams coming from that door driving the pain into the viewers' hearts).

So, done with the synopsis, here's my thoughts after the movie :
It is amazing how one movie can portray SO many facets of love. Let us count the ways :

• The cute long-term love between husband and wife (Orked's parents)
• The often-portrayed young love between newly-weds (Orked and Arif when she grumbles that he didn't wait to bathe with her)
• That turns into heartsick when the husband has an affair he can't let go of (all men should strive NEVER to be like Arif)
• The brotherly love offered by Alan to Orked when Orked trustingly takes his hand and walks away after she confronts Arif with Latifah, the other woman
• The affectionate love of Orked's family towards their maid
• The budding love between the maid and a hospital boy (I don't know what his job is called - a male nurse?) who is Chinese, which sparks off jealousy from the gardener's son
• The typical gruff love between a bitter bed-ridden husband and a dutiful wife who have forgotten what it means to be alive together
• The sweet neighbourly love of the hospital-bed-neighbour, who offers chicken rendang when hospital food tastes too bad
• The love between mother and son, whose son is awaken by a bad dream where his mother is crying in a swing (which becomes true), and where the mother does everything she can to make his life as normal as is possible with her job as a prostitute
• The fatherly love between bilal and the 2 prostitutes, where the bilal understands their predicament and does what he can to help
• The sweet love between the bilal and his wife, who feeds him his bread and coffee before he goes off to call the prayers
• The twisted love between Temah and her husband, where he steals her money in order to avoid his eyes being cut off, but returns it upon gentle advice from the bilal
• And, most heartrending of all, the bittersweet love-that-can-never-be between Orked and Jason

Again, as in Sepet, Yasmin ends the movie with a sort of cliffhanger - which you'll only note if you stay until the end of the credits. My take on the ending - it means whatever you want it to be. It could mean that in real life, Jason never died and they live happily ever after. Or, it could mean that Orked yearns so much for Jason that he becomes a real part of her life.

Or, for me, it just means that, amidst all the soul-breaking realities of theft, infidelity, and all other human flaws, there is still love ... and there is still hope.

"Hope is the thing with feathers, that perches in the soul ..." ~ Emily Dickinson

Lately

• Visited my regular book rental place to stock up on books set in Italy
• Spent hours (broken up in days) perusing the travel books section in MPH (the 100-hour sale they are having has seriously made me tempted to buy everything I see - it has been too long since I indulged in a book shopping spree)
• Cracked my brains in The Wicked online game that I haven't yet completed (although I heard his bandwidth busted and it's not playable temporarily)
• Put in a lot more original and true effort into my work (after all, not to brag or anything, but I do have to show that 2.5 years of Masters is worth something)
• Managed to keep up an exercise regime of at least 4 times of 30-min workout sessions weekly - boy am I proud of this I tell you (and I would like to believe it is why my tummy looks taut-er, my thighs not so thunder and why I sleep like a baby most nights)
• Caught up with girlfriends over dinner to gossip on life for the newly-wed one (haha, boy how our topics of conversation have changed since our university days -we're grown up women now!)

But no, life hasn't been that rosy. Got la, unwitting entanglement in some office politics I don't care to elaborate :P Moans and groans about my petrol-guzzling machine but thankfulness for its (touchwood) obedience.

And since I work so hard at work now ah, I feel less inclined to come home and stare more at the computer - which explains my long absences. Right now, it's back to more digesting of Italian art, architecture, history and culture ... I am sooooo looking forward to the end of June! :)