What I did on my (summer) vacation

Surely I'm not the only one who immediately thinks of this when someone mentions summer vacation? (and don't call me Shirley!)

On the first day of my summer vacation, I woke up.
Then I went downtown. to. look. for a job.
Then I hung out in front of the drugstore.

On the second day of my summer vacation, I woke up.
Then I went downtown. to. look. for a job.
Then I hung out in front of the drugstore.

On the third day of my summer vacation, I woke up.
Then I went downtown. to. look. for a job.
Then I got a job keeping people from hanging out in front of the drugstore.

On the fourth day of my summer vacation ...

If you're not sure what I'm referring to, check out Cheech & Chong's Sister Mary Elephant skit. I swear you'll never say "thank you" the same way ever again! :)

But back to *my* vacation... here's a quick of list of all the activities I crammed into three weekends in Malaysia and 2.5 days in Singapore:

• Fri 23rd: arrived; ran some personal errands
• Sat 24th: gatecrashed my mother's yoga class; gatecrashed my friend's mother's birthday party
• Sun 25th: late night coffee with Als
• Mon 26th: morning walk in the park; bought my BlueBerry phone; met with Mandy; bought tea & chili sauce to bring back
• Tues 27th: in the KLCC area for personal stuff plus Rachel's performance, and caught up with Rik as she and hubby gave me a ride back after the concert.
• Wed 28th: followed-up on phone-related issues; #chickenwingtwtup
• Thurs 29th: debilitated -- I blame dirty ice! Canceled appt with Lan as a result.
• Fri 30th: Coffee at Bangsar Shopping Center with Als and Mars in the evening, followed by meet-up with Chewbies and some of her friends at a mamak in the Bangsar Village area.
• Sat 1st: the ankle incident and hospital visit :(
• Sun 2nd: the reunion! 1 2 3
  
• Mon 3rd: hospital follow-up; impromptu massage/torture session with Sunny as my ride and co-victim!
• Tues 4th: dinner with Veya and Lan; joined by Baby Angel for coffee later.
• Wed 5th: lunch with St Marians Airnon, Ija, Sally and Rik; dinner with PWC: another St Marian, a long lost senior :)
• Thurs 6th: tea-time with Rachel
• Fri 7th: TK-217 photoshoot; foot spa; bbq beef ribs for lunch, ka-ROCK-k in the evening: hail St Marians!
• Sat 8th: breakfast with Veya; follow-up massage/torture session; mamak catch-up with Chewbies
• Sun 9th: follow-up with Mandy; tea with Zu
• Mon 10th: Singapore here I come! Many thanks to Moomykin for hosting me!
• Tues 11th: lunch with Prasana and Kin; tea with Lin; dinner with Connie & sig other.
• Wed 12th: pre-lunch with Bea and Kin; dinner with Kin's family; packpackpack!
• Thurs 13th: the LONG journey back to Springfield that started at 3am in Singapore, ended at 9pm in Springfield with the Woman in 5D incident.
  

Want some pix? If you're friends with me on Facebook, look for the MY2010 album!!

I'll be filling in the blanks and adding links back to this list, so if you're interested in my mundane minutiae and navel gazing, by all means please bookmark and revisit/refresh this page over the next week or so, k?

Ciao!

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Sifting through memories...

Hey, remember Kosh and I having to move twice in two months last year? That’s when we couldn’t deny that we had WAAAAY too much stuff... and a lot of it were HIS things, not mine or ours, so it was easy for me to nag/hint/cajole/threaten him to get rid of the stuff... but I knew I was just as guilty as he was, the only difference was my stuff was halfway around the world.

This trip back, one of my goals was to downsize even further whatever stuff I’ve been holding on to. I’ve already set aside a whole big bag’s worth of tee shirts, office pants, and other random items to give away. Then I stumbled across a shoebox of my cassettes.... including my mix tapes from high school and college. I’m assuming they are unplayable, but will give them all a spin for old time’s sake. More importantly, however, I will be documenting them all here before getting rid of them, so that I have a record of the songs I used to listen to 2 decades ago. So please bear with me over the next few many posts, k? I’ll plan to have pix too, once I figure out the best way to get them uploaded.

= = =

Btw I’ll be keeping pseudo-tabs on my food intake on my other/new blog, if you are interested in following along... this is where I was keeping a record of my April resolution of exercise and raw/lightly processed food intake, and I plan to continue to use IQ vs lbs as a place for more health- and weight loss-related posts, so bookmark/subscribe if you’re interested, k?

= = =

.... and just for the record, I showered FOUR times today! At 6am when I woke up; 11:30am after yoga; 5:30pm before heading out for a birthday party; at a little past midnight when I got back from said party. Yes, I needed each and every one of them. Humidity is F.U.N!

Less than a week to go!!

In a week's time, I should be gasping for air trying to reacclimatize myself to the pollution and humidity of Malaysia. Fun! But on the bright side, I have all these distractions to look forward to!

1. Choosing, writing and sending off postcards for the Postcard/Link Exchange of 2010 (registration is technically closed, but I'll gladly accept anyone who signs up before I get the address labels printed out this weekend!)
2. Figuring out what Malaysia-themed gift to get for Steve.
3. Showing TK-217 around KL.
   
4. Participating in a proposed photo scavenger hunt, another kapgar brainchild!
5. Food!!!! Nasi lemak BRJ. Nasi lemak Sri Steven's. Milo ice blended Sri Stevens. Teh tarik. Roti canai. Roti chanai Raju. Roti bakar. Kaya. ... and plenty more. I believe a friend of mine is treating me to beef ribs too, yummy!
   
6. My school reunion!! There almost 100 attendees (excluding spouses/kids!!) to date, about 35 from my year alone. This is going to be waaaaay too big to be comfortable for me, but what the heck.
7. Going to DFP with DZE to see Rachel perform!
8. Tennis with my tennis mates! It keeps getting pushed further and further back, hopefully we manage to get a least ~one~ session in before I leave!
   
9. Maybe even a torture session or two! I mentioned it a few times here and here, but today I dug out my one and only poor picture of how I looked after my first-ever session. In black and white you can kinda see the bruising better, I think. That's my huge-ass arm, btw - the bruised part is the triceps area. Ouch. Yes, I am a sadist. Or was it a masochist?
10. Checking out and, if it seems like a gadget I'd be happy with, purchasing a dual-sim quad-band Malaysian-made Blackberry-wannabe.

... and a few others that I'll not share with ya, teeheehee, I gotta keep *some* things to myself, right?

Have a great weekend y'all!

this is gonna raise Kosh's eyebrows...

... but that's what he has to deal with, with a wife who is at heart Asian :)

My assignment this evening or tomorrow is to hunt for Mok Yee (black fungus) [my assignment immediately upon posting this is to check if there is a crock pot anymore in the apartment!]. You see, I was talking with Sunny (I *think* that's the pseudonym I assigned, a long time ago), catching up, and my father's health was discussed. She recommended Mok Yee to help clear the arteries for him. And since it's supposed to be good for reducing cholesterol in general, I might as well try it on myself, and if there's a (desired) effect, I might coax Kosh into giving it a try.

I know, I know, a Western medical practitioner, trying Eastern/Oriental herbal medicine? Blasphemy!! :p

Any folk who have tried it for themselves? On the 'net, I see just the same text being quoted over and over again, so that kinda detracts from credibility, IMO.


(posted 18 Feb 2009 9:45 pm Malaysian time)

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a broad malaysian?

... as I've mentioned off and on over the past four years [HOLY COW it's been FOUR years??!!], Life After Work was created as a means of staying in touch with friends and family after I upped and left them for the U.S. ... I later realised most of my target audience wasn't cooperating, but I went on blogging anyway, soon turning this blog into a real mixed bag of topics, which was fine with me, but sometimes I felt it could do with a little bit less fluff and a bit more meaningful content.

Thus the birth of a malaysian abroad. Here, I intend to focus on observing, comparing and ultimately celebrating the differences and similarities that exist between Malaysia, Switzerland, and the USA.

I talk about my reasons for wanting to do so here.

I think I've made this topic broad enough that I shouldn't run out of topics anytime soon, yet narrow enough that I hope I can lend a unique voice to a focused perspective.

So please swing on by and check out my other digs! And if you like what you see, do leave a comment there, consider subscribing too, and please visit often, okay? (It's now EC-equipped too, for my Entrecard readers)

.. and in case you were wondering, Life After Work will continue its erratic blogging schedule, no worries.

Have a good week, y'all!

p/s: we have 3 more weeks till 2009! Crikey!!

... will we never learn?

Sorry, this will be a short and incoherent post.

Yet another landslide in the Bukit Antarabangsa area.

The knee-jerk reaction? Banning new hillside developments. Wow. That is something that should have been done at least fifteen years ago, after the Highland Towers landslide.

But you know what has got my blood pressure up? Reading that Pak Lah has the gall to say "Malaysians never want to learn from past experiences. They want good views while developers only seek to profit ... no one takes safety and soil stability into consideration."

ummmm... wait a minute... there's at least one other player in this fiasco... or are you telling me that there is no government agency that is in charge of town planning and development? None that is in charge of checking, vetting and approving the profiteering developers' proposals, including looking at pesky little details such as safety and soil stability? That has the authority to can projects that are unsafe, or force projects to upgrade specifications before getting approval? None? Really? You sure?

C'mon lah, Pak Lah, don't insult us, okay?

*sigh*

If you haven't already, please consider subscribing to my feed, and checking out my other blog: a malaysian abroad

heartsick

No matter where my life journey takes me, where I'm from will always be Malaysia.

... although I told myself I just didn't want to know anymore about what was going on, politics-wise, recent events were ridiculous enough to make themselves known to me. Then in the past few weeks, the sh*t really seemed to hit the fan. Inflammatory racist remarks and actions. The dude refused to apologise; surprisingly he was "punished" - suspended from UMNO for 3 years & stripped of all posts. Good, right? Ummmm, yeaahh... except that the reporter who reported it has just been arrested under the catch-all Internal Security Act. Three newspapers issued show cause letters for reporting the incident (but not Utusan Malaysia? Not NST? I bet they reported it too?). Then a 3-term Member of Parliament and State Exco *and* Raja Petra (RPK) are also arrested under the ISA - why? I can guess, but you know what? The government doesn't have to say anything, it *is* the ISA!

... enough already ... I am heartsick.

omfg not again

this is utterly ridiculous!

in 1998, the war between Dr M and his upstart Deputy came (haha) to a head (hahahaa) when said Deputy was deposed, accused of sodomy, and thrown in jail. It was no thanks to such ridiculous accusations that Malaysians actually took to the streets protesting such ridiculous actions by the government.

While there might have been silent dissatisfaction before, in 1998 this dissatisfaction boiled over. It was now possible to be Malay, Muslim and NOT an UMNO (ruling Malay party) supporter. I'd like to think some people's eye were opened to suspect goings-on within the government. I do believe the younger people were less willing to put up with such actions. Heck, this probably did a lot to pave the way for the total shake-up in the March 2008 elections, where Barisan Nasional was denied a 2/3 majority in the newly elected Malaysian parliament.

In 2004, the Federal Court reversed the sodomy conviction and he was released. And back into politics he went. He couldn't run in the March 2008 elections, but I think he might be eligible now.

So, is it a surprise that this now hits the news?

Malaysia's Anwar to be investigated on sex charges: police

Agence France-Presse

KUALA LUMPUR - Malaysia's opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim will be investigated over new allegations of sodomy, police said Saturday, the same charge that saw him jailed a decade ago.

Anwar's Keadilan party said that one of his aides, Saiful Bahari, had been arrested and "forced" to make a statement saying he was sodomized by the opposition leader.

"Yes, we have received a police report from an aide of Anwar Ibrahim that he was sodomized. But no, we will not arrest Anwar at the moment," said deputy police chief Ismail Omar.

"We will investigate this report first. We will look into it and carry out the necessary steps before issuing any warrant of arrest," he told AFP.

Keadilan officials said that Anwar and other top members of the party were holding crisis talks and feared that he could be arrested soon.

The charismatic leader of Malaysia's resurgent opposition was a respected deputy prime minister and finance minister until 1998 when he was sacked and later jailed on sodomy and corruption charges.

He spent six years in jail until the sex charge was overturned, but the corruption conviction kept him out of politics until recently.

In March he led an alliance of opposition parties to unprecedented gains, wresting a third of parliamentary seats and five states from the Barisan Nasional coalition which has ruled for half a century.

Since then he has claimed he has the support of enough government lawmakers to form a new government.

(source: Rocky's Bru)

i just don't effing believe this

*looking around for a coconut shell I can crawl under*

durian-flavoured members...

Recently on Facebook I was invited to add the "Makan-Makan" application: literally translated as "eat-eat" it's Malay/sian for food, eating out, food glorious food. While I salivated at the sight of a scrumptious nasi lemak, I was tickled pick to see one of the items you could send to others is a durian.

Now, the durian, as you may or may not know, is deemed the King of Fruits,, and rightly so! After all, a fruit that stinks to high heaven yet tastes so heavenly deserves the highest honors and worship :)

HOWEVER...

.. in its raw form, it's the best.

Many people like to take the flesh and mix it in with santan (coconut milk) and rice, but I find that just waaay too rich and filling, detracting and distracting from the "purity" of the durian itself. Ditto for dodol, never been a fan of the stuff.

I remember back in my high school days, a nearby McDonald's introduced a durian shake. Tried it once. Once. That was enuf.

I remember converging onto a durian stall in... Batu Gajah? ... with my fellow work colleagues... we had a 2-day convention starting the next day, we'd all gone out for dinner, it was durian season... and I remember my colleagues were impressed at how much I enjoyed the fruit ... at that time I was also on a detox regiment which included drinking a tea that would move your bowels about 8 hours later... I didn't think about how it and the durian would react... wow... the next morning I *soooooooooo* had to go, I musta spent 20 mins on the throne, stinking out the entire bathroom: can u imagine a poop & durian combo "fragrance"?? yikes!!! But lemmie tell ya, I felt SO GOOD after that movement :D

Ummm okayyy... moving on...

Recently, Kosh and I explored a relatively new commercial neighbourhood: the Chinese restaurant we ate at had "Durian Fruit Freeze" on its menu... I had to try it... and OMG it's like liquid durian!! Heavenly!!! Of course you wanted to stay upwind of any of my belches that night, because oooo-eeeee naaaaasty!! :D :D :D

but this... this takes the cake... (compliments to Kenny Sia for the photo)


yes, that's a condom with durian fragrance (and I assume, flavour)

... be afraid.... be VERY VERY afraid...!!!

wtf?

Minister proposes female travel approval
Sun May 4, 1:43 AM ET

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia - Malaysia's foreign minister says women traveling alone abroad should be required to carry a letter from parents or employers verifying the reason for their journey, a news report said Sunday.

The foreign ministry said the aim was to curb the use of women as illicit drug couriers, but the plan was immediately condemned by women's rights groups as repressive.

Foreign Minister Rais Yatim has submitted the proposal to the Cabinet, the New Sunday Times reported. The plan is similar to requirements in some Arab countries, including Saudi Arabia, where women need permission from their guardians to travel as part of Islamic principles.

The news report said 119 Malaysians, 90 percent of them women, are imprisoned abroad for drug-related offenses. Most are aged between 21 and 27 years, it said.

"Many of these women leave the country on the pretext of work or attending courses and seminars," Rais was quoted as saying. "With this declaration, we will know for sure where and for what she is traveling overseas."

Women, Family and Community Development Minister Ng Yen Yen said she considered the proposal an infringement of women's rights.

Norhayati Kaprawi of the Sisters in Islam, a voluntary women's group, rejected the idea as "not only a violation of women's rights, but also a violation of human rights."

Malaysians were the main recruits for syndicates wanting to smuggle drugs into European Union countries because they do not require visas for short stays, the report said.

Foreign ministry officials were not available Sunday.
(taken from Yahoo!News)

... so you're saying that when I head back to Malaysia (tentatively planned for this October, need to renew my passport), and then when I leave with new passport to head back to the U.S., I just might have to have a letter from my parents (or, most probably, my father, he's male, eh?) giving written permission for my departure from / verification of my business outside of Malaysia??!!!

... no f-ing way.

... ... ... and this is supposed to "solve" the "drug mule problem" how?????

My mind is blown.

Good night.

St Marians' recap

... I've been out of the blogosphere for a while... and yesterday/today I'm slowly making my rounds again... I notice two of my three classmates who blog have had introspective pieces posted in the last month or so ... one reflecting on how her kids are missing out on so much positive interaction with her father, if he'd lived longer... and the other wondering about change, trust, and life in general. One of them also had a brief moment of joy then sadness when a pregnancy didn't last long. My thoughts and prayers go out to the both of you, and your families: don't let the past haunt you or bring you down - take what you can from the experience, learn from it, then move on, enjoy life, k? I'm always happy to see introspection going on tho, I've always felt people in general do too little of it. But that's my take on life. Anyways, one more thing: the 3rd of my blogging schoolmates? She's preggers! Congrats, dearie!

... it warms my heart ...

Warmth #1 : it looks like the Barisan Nasional has been denied a 2/3 majority in the newly elected Malaysian parliament. Votes are still being tallied, but it seems instead of just Kelantan (and Terengganu at one point, right?), Penang and Kedah are no longer in BN's hands. I am of course a bit concerned that it's PAS, the not-just-race-but-also-religion-based party, that's emerged victorious in Kedah... we'll see how things go over there...

Warmth #2: So over at Facebook I decided to look up some authors I like, and found that Patrick Rothfuss has a fan page and an actual group there. I fanned the former and joined the latter. And the next day, *gasp!*, I got a friend request from Mr Rothfuss! I was all geeked out that entire day :-) After all, it shows that he goes though his Facebook activity, and is acknowledging my fandom by "friend"-ing me. *grin* And just for that, I'll plug his work just a little bit more: if you haven't read The Name of the Wind yet, do pick it up, it really is a great book,,, I can't wait for Book 2 (and of course, after that, Book 3) to finally come out!!!

... another facebook- and author- related post next, stay tuned ...

'nuff said

D-DAY = MARCH 8, 2008

... last-minute change ... another ploy?

just for the record

... yeahhhh... so here are some pix and a writeup on a march that took place in Kuala Lumpur, a march to show the rakyat's want for clean elections, a march that got nasty and was forcibly dispersed, or perhaps was forcibly disperse and therefore turned nasty? I'm not bothering to read up more to find the answer to that, probably will get totally opposing answers depending on whether I'm reading official government propaganda piece or an independent/opposition site. Gotta love all that crap. Oh, and for more, check out all the comments here.

And on another note... I'm already bummed out by the fact that even if I wanted to take one or two more writing classes at this one place I'd used before, even if I were willing to put up with the 1-hr commute during evening rush hour, I CAN'T! Because the L-stop right by the place is going to be closed for renovation for a friggin year.

Oh, and I'm working on my NaNo in spurts. It's a question of motivation (which shouldn't even be an issue...), not inspiration.

*sigh*

p/s> it's 2:30 am. and tell me what is wrong with this picture?

quoth the raven...

it's been while since i've made any real (malaysian) social commentary here. it'll probably stay that way. why? because i don't have the heart for it. not anymore.

when I first started this blog, I made it a point to follow the goings-on in malaysia, and would share my thoughts on all sorts of stuff: the morality police, "safety last" attitude, the ridiculous handling of the Noritta Samsudin murder, even the seeming lack of one sen coins!

But over the years (this blog is slightly over 3 years old! w00t!), I let go of Malaysia, of keeping in touch with its goings-on. Partly because my life was in the U.S., and partly also because the news from "home" was just the same ol bleak picture of ridiculous politicians. I'd get my occasional update through Jeff Ooi, Maverick, Aisehman, but frankly, my visits have been few and far between because what they highlight is just so depressing I'd rather concentrate on other stuff, like my Sim City, or pottery, or my novel writing, or my book reading. On one hand, fluff, but on the other hand, it's stuff that appeals to me, and brings me *up*.

I was jolted out of my apathy earlier this year by the Lina Joy case, and wrote a scathing piece, which unfortunately rests in draft form, probably never to see the light of your screen. Why? Call me paranoid, but I don't trust that it won't come back and bite me in the ass. Politicians are calling Malaysian bloggers enemies of the state, for heavens' sake! Utter morons, they are. And unfortunately, some local bloggers have already suffered from the scrutiny of folks over at the ironically-named Hill of Peace (Bukit Aman laa). No worries, I have no delusions of grandeur. I am small fry, I merely intend to stay that way.

I recently did do the rounds of the Malaysian political / observation blogs. Same old story. There was this big hoo-hah about the first Malaysian astronaut, when all he was was a space tourist, really. I don't know how much money was thrown at the Russians to bring the dude up into space with them. They threw in some experiments to make the trip legit (at least they scrapped activities like spinning the gasing, or making teh tarik!), but the bottom line is, he was just a space tourist. It is not an indication of the technological achievement of the country. How different it would be if half the crew had been Malaysian, or even half the ground crew, y'know? Awww heck, there I've gone an hopped on my soapbox. Grrrr. *hops back down* But I did find out recently that Anwar Ibrahim has a blog now. I added to my blogroll if you want to visit. Like Uncle Kit's site, however, it's on my blogroll but rarely, if ever visited. Like I said, I've no heart lah anymore.

But what triggered this post? Having Pak Lah equated with Hitler, what's what. Disturbing, to say the least. Very very very disturbing, on so many levels, I can't even begin to describe how I feel at this sight.

A sign that things are really on a downward slide over at Bolehland, don't ya think?

Which reinforces my avoidance of all news Malaysian.

And on that downer note...

Ciao!