kakikopi

the eve of the eve of Christmas Day

2012-01-31T07:14:00.000+08:00

Friday, 23.12.2011

took leave from work to run an errand before driving back to Penang.

excited to be back home after missing out on 4 consecutive years of Christmas-ses with my friends from diaper days.

sorted out books donated by WS to ACR. lugged them to my car.

participated in a massive to KL. ACR was not open. participated in the jam on the way back.

took photos during the jam.

sorted out the books again. lugged them back to the apartment.

note to self: call first before going.

the pressie i got for a Christmas gift-exchange with childhood friends.

i was even hoping i'd get back my own gift :p

picked up Hosie from her PJ home, and then Ben from GCIT office.

popped by DUMC for a toilet break after picking Ben up :p

the journey to Penang begins.

surprisingly there was a semi-jam.

Hosie in the loo.

first refreshing drink in Penang!

and my first meal in Penang:

Char Koay Kak

Sar Hor Fun

Tomyam fish noodles

home... discovered my neighbour sells earrings now.

displayed on my family shoe rack.

Add caption

wedding dance

2012-01-30T07:05:00.000+08:00

will be dancing at one wedding this year. this time's a "proper" dance.

seems like all the "proper" wedding dances occur in the earlier part of the year.

(last year it was at Erin and Winston's wedding). this time it's an even lovelier choreography because it's done by Charlotte.

the wedding march music is lovely :)

will be missing out on most of the practices...

Office Christmas Party

2012-01-29T23:25:00.000+08:00

Wednesday, 21,12.2011

small group supper cum informal Myer-Briggs session:

with Charmaine, Melissa, Jenny, Karyn, Koontz

dancers' supper

2012-01-29T23:21:00.003+08:00

Thursday, 20.12.2011

post-dance supper at our usual supper place. the maggi is quite bad, but at least there's no flying cockroaches at this mamak

Jeanine and Kath

toys, and some sewing

2012-01-29T23:05:00.003+08:00

Tuesday, 20.12.2011

Aletheia in the office \

Christmas pressies for teammates

weekend 17-18 Dec

2012-01-29T22:58:00.004+08:00

Sat-Sun, 17-18.12.2011

work in office, cell Christmas party, dance rehearsal, dance,

rehearsal, dance, babysitting, amcorp mall-ing, full moon party, yum-cha/catch-up session, dinner, Kindle production, supper

Screening "Take Me Out"

2012-01-29T22:36:00.006+08:00

Friday, 16.12.2011

dance practice

2012-01-29T22:29:00.004+08:00

Thursday, 15.12.2011

Badminton, Dinner and a Movie

2012-01-29T22:13:00.005+08:00

Badminton at New Vision cancelled...

i ended up dating Clare - we had dinner and watched Puss in Boots

Rodgers and Hammerstein, MPO

2012-01-29T22:12:00.000+08:00

Sunday, 11.12.2011

with Mei Mei and Eng Boon

strictly no photography

KLCC

2012-01-29T22:11:00.000+08:00

Haven Cafe, Ampang

2012-01-29T22:10:00.007+08:00

Chef and Brew, Damansara Heights

2012-01-29T22:07:00.003+08:00

Kiara Park

2012-01-29T22:06:00.003+08:00

Postcard from Hong Kong

2012-01-29T22:05:00.000+08:00

been a while since i last received any snail mail, always a welcome surprise :)

Human Rights Day and Baking Muffins

2012-01-29T22:03:00.003+08:00

Saturday, 10.12.2011

pork knuckles and nachos from Tom, Dick & Harry's

a reflection from the oven

Empire Shopping Gallery

2012-01-29T21:54:00.001+08:00

Sunday, 4.11.2011

after the performance, we walked back to to mall carpark.

on the way we stopped for a while to admire the Christmas goodies.

too bad it was after shopping hours.

ESG Jazz Festival 2011 - Yudi and Junji Delfino

2012-01-29T21:54:00.000+08:00

Sunday, 4.12.2011

NT Relatives in KL

2012-01-29T21:39:00.000+08:00

Friday-Saturday, 8-9 Dec 2011

instagram photos:

Publika

2012-01-29T18:29:00.002+08:00

Monday, 28.11.2011

Publika has a nice, ghetto-ish arti-fartiness feel.

photos only:

Haute, Hartamas

2012-01-29T18:29:00.001+08:00

Monday, 28.11.2011

so cute!

Haven Cafe, Ampang

2012-01-29T17:49:00.000+08:00

Saturday, 10.12.2011

cell thanksgiving dinner at Haven Cafe.

we almost ended up at Haven at Lookout Point.

be careful when there's confusing similarity in restaurant names, and both are also in Ampang.

Arwen and Irwon

organic food

there's also an award-winning spa in the building.

they've recently relocated to this place, shelves were still empty.

Sunny, David Pek and a bit of Lennard

Debbie, Irwin, Sunny and Jenny

Lennard, David Pek and Ivy Kwek

the Pek and Kwek couple

Koontz and Arwen

and then David attempted to breastfeed Arwen

the wonders of technology

Law Awareness Week

2012-01-29T17:19:00.003+08:00

Wed-Thurs, 7-8 Dec 2011

at Taylor's College, Lakeside Campus.

Relatives from Nibong Tebal in KL

2012-01-29T17:14:00.001+08:00

Fri-Sat, 9-10 December 2011

grandma, some aunts, uncles and cousins came on Thursday for a long weekend, but i joined them on Fri onwards.

we hung out at one small section of One Utama, had lunch at Pasta Zanmai,

and a homemade steamboat at Ascott (exactly the same layout as the apartment stay with RDLians the year before).

so many sweet and pretty little dresses for little girls

The Body Shop - they have good CSR

mum brought grandma to Uniglo to buy long pants

we had a big lunch at Pasta Zanmai

mum and uncle fighting to get the bill

later that evening... we had a steamboat at The Ascott

Sulawesi, Indonesia

2012-01-29T16:58:00.002+08:00

5-12 November 2011

some photos from a colleague's phone camera. not bad.

Yennie's Indonesian Birthday

2012-01-29T16:48:00.001+08:00

Friday, 2.12.2011

just photos, from Sony Nex-5 :)

rojak january

2012-01-28T14:41:00.002+08:00

got back to KL yesterday evening.

was confronted with a bedroom that looked like the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.

took me a bit of time to finish loads of laundry, place stuff where they belong, most items were overflowing anyway.

January 2012 has been a tad unusual, in the sense where i had the opportunity to fast from the internet for most of the time. that resulted in me reading more than usual. i've done reading several books: The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time by Mark Haddon, Evening is A Whole Day by Preeta Samarasan, Falling Leaves by Adeline Yen-Mah (highly recommended), A Time to Keep Silence and A Time To Speak by Goh Keat Peng, and Maeve Binchy's The Writers' Club.

back in Penang i had the chance to read some old long-winded journals (they were so long winded that i only read part of the stories in Form 5 and some from Form 6). i was such a different person back then.

+i had much higher level of determination in high school (eg. i was either determined to excel, or determined to fail. evident from some test papers where it was possible for me to score 10/10 for Art and glaring 0s for Add Math), my family labelled me an extremist (especially when it came to my sweet tooth),

+spent (much) more time thinking, hence the long-winded journals,

+was much more organised, saved more back then (i saved every penny from my allowance, eventually overspending for that one thing i was saving for eg. a handphone, or whenever the mood struck),

+experienced quite a lot of drama (or rather, was able to dramatise small events like Jane Austen),

+quite cocky, and incredibly stubborn

+annoying,

+had a lot of pent-up anger,

+and a lot of energy and was in a state of perpetual restlessness,

+a huge romantic, yet others called me emotionless

+went through almost all the break-ups alone; survived the most painful ones by spending time at the beach and sometimes walking long distances all over Penang island - because at that time, i didn't think anyone would've understood

+detailed to a fault (all the posts are dated, timed and some even contained toilet/shower/telephone/conversation breaks),

+read a lot, wrote a lot too (two unfinished novels in the making which for some reason i haven't torn them apart yet, unlike another half completed one; a small file of poems and lyrics with forgotten melodies; funny lyrics to familiar tunes; prank love poems to church friends typed on an old typewriter; some articles published in a family-related newsletter when i was 15; funny songs to entertain my high school classmates (some submitted to the school magazine but rejected because of inappropriate content :p)

+hated the attention in Form 6 (negative attention that ruined some friendships, episodes of being stalked by a Form 6 schoolmate),

+i was sometimes hilarious in in my observations of people and assessment of situations that the present me laughed out loud as i read on.

it was like meeting an imaginary younger version of yourself telling you stuff that happened long, long time ago with dramatic gestures and much excitement.

some important gadgets are still down, needing my attention badly. an iPhone and a hard disk containing tons of important and sentimental data. work documents, music files saved over the years, also my income tax details.

now that i am back in KL, i am faced with a host of pending work to tackle. errands to run, items to prepare before the next Sabah trip, emails to attend to, annual reports to re-do (thanks to the faulty hard disk, argh!), books to deliver to ACR, and a room to clean.

seriously considering renting a space in Amcorp to clear my extra items.

i missed the company of friends when i was in Sabah. had the experience of being a katak di bawah tempurung with no news from the outside world, since there was no internet, no phone reception and no newspapers up in the kampung.

back here, am struggling with the multiple invitations for baby parties, housewarmings, more CNY gatherings.

in 2011, i spent a month's salary on wedding angpows. that's close to 10% of my annual income.

right now, am just frustrated that i can't access the office server even with VPN. will just drive to office and work from there.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

post-morning/afternoon errands:

turns out i have problems accessing the server from the office as well. just my laptop.

called Andrew Wong, woke him up from his sleep on his non-working day and he tried to help me sort out my laptop and its connectivity to the server for more than an hour, but unsuccessful.

had to trouble Angeline to lend me her PC so i could email myself some documents to refer to when i re-do all the annual reports. i really hate redoing all this painstaking work.... i doubt i had saved all the relevant documents today. how on earth can i meet the dateline this Monday, i still wonder.

went to Digital Mall to see if they could help save my hard disk... but alas.... it's beyond repair unless i send it to some technicians somewhere in PJ if i want to retrieve the data. they will dissect the hard disk and do the job for more than 1k. i am seriously considering whether to do this..

while i was there, i bought an iPad case.

then i visited the shop that helped to partially fix my iPhone, this time with the sim card tray.

next stop was supposed to be the service centre, but thankfully i checked online before heading there... it's closed on weekends. cilaka.

a lot of my belongings are falling apart on me :(

+camera fell apart a bit, but at least it's only the external parts.

+iPhone problems for the second time now.... the partial repair done was RM350

+hard disk problem - oh the price of traveling in rough places... :'( and the huge lesson learned from forgetting to back up all data :(

+my trusty roller luggage had fallen apart after more than 10 years of use. i hate to buy and use a new bag especially when i am going to kampung areas... i'd miss the familiarity of this nondescript dark blue bag... and yes, time to hunt for a new bag before the next trip to an even 'ulu' area.

am semi-discouraged at the state of things and the expenses brought about partly from my stupidity and carelessness. and grateful for the small bits of blessing ... like

+discovering my old phone which i am using now

+having the mind to save my picture folders (only photos from my camera) in the office laptop before the crash of the hard disk [been collating photos and sorting them into folders for three friends as a gift, those were erased as well]

+the fact that i am still receiving ang pows at this age, the amount is not that much, but at least it's better than nothing

suan le...

time to start on the reports.

"Away" part 2

2012-01-21T06:56:00.002+08:00

got back home last night slightly before 11pm. there's so much to share from the last visit to Sabah, but my tiredness left me incapacitated of any coherent thought, was just able to ramble some nonsense on facebook and kay-poh on friends' posts - eg. click 'like' on almost everyone's posts and leave annoying and lame comments. which can be quite fun.

and now, doing some hurried packing to head to Penang.

mixed feelings on this - i wish i had more time in KL so i could continue sorting the repairs to my damaged phone, repair a wonky external hard disk (where i have saved several reports that i have been working on while i was in Sabah, including the Sabah report!) which i had not backed up (oh when will i ever learn???), and of course, clean my room!

at the same time, how could i miss CNY with my family members back home?

will be back for a week, including a wedding of two very good friends who have dated since law school, reunion with high school friends, and childhood friends too if time permits.

here's to another week of no internet :p

(worrying about the condition of my hard disk now)

coming to 7am soon, got to go!

"Away"

2012-01-09T04:11:00.004+08:00

for two weeks, for work in Sabah

will not have access to internet, and the phone too.

this will be my longest 'away' for work season to date.

traveling alone, but will not be alone because Father is with me.

Saviour Friend

2012-01-08T17:38:00.003+08:00

Saviour Friend

launched on 7 and 8 January 2012 in DUMC!

truly amazing teamwork!

and songs that touch and minister to the spirit.

photo credits: Benny

so amazing to see, hold and listen to the product in a tangible form!
love the songs, and music arrangement, the vocals...
yes am biased, but it is reaaaaaalllllly goooood.

[last year i attempted some song-writing for this album (in collaboration with some very talented people from DUMC), for Aniu (mainly a Malay and an English version for his Chinese "Guang Jia Ya") and Tay Cher Siang (putting english lyrics to the "Sea Outside My Window", somewhere in the sea of items in my hard disk, yet to be revised)].

thanks to some musicians, i have the chord charts to some of the songs.
am bringing the CD along with me to Sabah tomorrow, shall share the songs with the people i have yet to meet. there is no such thing as a 'night life' (defined by city folks) there. the people play carom, play games and sing songs with guitars at night. may these songs encourage the Sabahans!

the iPhone and the instagram

2012-01-07T19:02:00.000+08:00

will be taking a break in January 2012.

that means, no instaSpam-ming :p

have received a number of complaints from followers.
but then again, i've already placed a caution on my profile.

"i take loads of pics. it's about quantity, not quality"

will definitely miss out a good opportunity for loads of good photos on instagram this trip to Sabah.

on the other hand, am quite happy to use my old beat-up but reliable sony ericsson.

quite entertaining to discover some old phone photos and some notes.

eg. this old wishlist sometime in 2009:
sport shoes, dance shoes, laptop, phone with internet, sewing machine.

they have all been fulfilled :)
save for the phone that is taking a break at the moment

post dance practice

2012-01-07T18:49:00.000+08:00

Thursday, 8.12.2011

the moon - from the carpark

post-dance dinner

dance practice

2012-01-07T18:42:00.000+08:00

Thursday, 8.12.2011

Beebs leading light ballet warm-ups

kang-kang-kan kaki....

Child Rights booth - Day 2

2012-01-07T18:40:00.000+08:00

Thursday, 8.12.2011

articles 5 and 11, glad my birthdate is highlighted :D

evaluated students' presentation on child rights

pending work-list
tweegram is pretty awesome too :)