My Birthday dinner

Yes .. i know!! It has been about 20 over days since my birthday and I have just gotten round to blogging about my birthday. Well, blame my inertia ... my lackdaisical nature ... my whatever.



Anyway, first off I have to thank C-kun for organising it. Thanks to the everyone who came - (I tried to do the usual first letter of the last name, but it got too long. You pp know who you are. *another manifestation of my laziness?!*). We went to Cordury and Finch - food was ok but the company was great. So I can't complain. Ha!

So here's too one more year that has passed. May I become wiser...

Thai food at Golden Mile

Finally met up with Mr Anus after a long time. He has been studying for the last month so this would probably be the first time he is out. Poor boy .. haha. We went to Golden Mile because I have been telling him about the great Thai food there - cheap and good.

Reaching there, it was almost like entering another country - thai workers everywhere. You even have the occasional tranny walking by. How authentic!!




We went to this store and ordered seafood tom yum, black pepper beef, chicken curry and pad thai. The tom yum was good - hot, spicy (a little too spicy for my taste), and sour. So was the beef, although i have to say that it would have been better if they used a better cut from the beef - the beef had some stringy bits. The chicken was ok at the start but got a little too heavy towards the end - I think the sauce had too much coconut. The pad thai was rather authentic. Overall, I would say that it was a good meal and not too expensive. With drinks and rice, it cost $33. Will come back again to try other dishes.

Mocha Banana Chocolate Chip Muffin

Fresh out of the oven...



These came out good. The crust was crispy and the inside moist. I am becoming quite good at baking muffins *pat myself on the back*.

You can get the recipe here or below:

I added more coffee though since I love coffee and decreased the amount of sugar to up the "mocha" taste. I used vegetable oil too instead of magarine or butter.

INGREDIENTS
1 cup margarine
1 1/4 cups white sugar
1 egg
3 ripe bananas
1 tablespoon instant coffee granules, dissolved in
1 tablespoon water
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 cup semisweet chocolate chips

DIRECTIONS
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C).
2. Blend butter or margarine, sugar, egg, banana, dissolved coffee, and vanilla in food processor for 2 minutes. Add flour, salt, baking powder, and soda, and blend just until flour disappears. Add chocolate chips and mix in with wooden spoon. Spoon mixture into 15 to 18 paper-lined muffin cups.
3. Bake for 25 minutes. Cool on wire racks.

Weiner Kaffehaus

I am having blogg-iahroe.


During the last few days, it was a big-boss-free and together with Ms. X, Y and L, I went to Weiner Kaffehaus on Cantonment Road. It serves Austrian food but it's similar to German food. The owner, anton, was friendly and walked around chatting to the customers - it gave the place a very European feel. The wait staff was a little gun-du though - we kept having to reminding them to get our things, partly because we were quite demanding. In the end, we ended up getting the forks, knives, water ourselves. But I have to say that the food is really Delish!

Too Bad Bee-hoon and Chua-kun cannot join us. Maybe next time ... Anyway, Dec will be truely a boss-free month.

the Veal Brutwurst


Wedges - it was deep fried to perfection: crispy on the outside, soft and fluffly potato on the inside. God, I sound like an Ad.


Beef Gulash - yes i know ... that is how the menu spelt it. It even had the little dumplings at the side. Sorry that the photo was a little blurred.


Slaughter Platter - the coup de grace. The pork knuckle was fantastic: not that much fats (all of it probably melted into the sauce), tender meat and very crispy skin. The smoked pork was good. But I felt that the burtwurst wasn't as nice as the Veal one. And don't think that it was all meat. There was the suarkruat too which was good too.

It's been a while - Little shop of Horrors

I have been negligent in blogging. Cos I have been lazy, choosing instead to surf, chat or read books. But I will give more updates ..

So I will be donig many flash backs ... the birthday dinner that Chua-kun so kindly help organised, some food pictures, more food pictures and hopefully more things to come. :)


First off, the office went for a play/musical "Little shop of Horrors" - a really really off broadway production, with the Dim Sum Dollies. I have to say that the dim sum dollies were the highlight for me. They were hilarious. Made me regret that I did not catch their previous productions. However, the 3 dim sums were not the main stars. I would say that the actress playing Audrey (brenda something) was surprisingly good. It was Hossan again in the lead - *does Singapore not have other actors. Seems like there is only a finite number of guys willing to go into acting*.

The ending was a little let-down though. It was a little strange - everyone died and the plant was cloned and its terror spread all over Singapore. It ended with the warning "Don't Feed the Plants!!" 0_0 *huh??!!*

Anyway, it was enjoyable nonetheless and I got to see Jade from America's Next Top Model. According to our resident TV guide, Jade is in town doing some photo shots. I really wanted to take a photo of her but I thought it was a little desperate. I can't say whether she is pretty or not - she was wearing a LARGE sunglasses when she was standing in the lobby. But she has style, i will give her that. And she got her poofy hair back. ...

Quarter Life Crisis

It is past 12 midnight.

I can officially declare that I am having a Quarter life crisis. :( ... although this is assuming that i am going to live to 100 years old. (Judging by my eating habits ... maybe not).

Well ... have been wallowing for the past two weeks. Is it in anticipation for this day? The realisation that time is passing again and I am standing still ... *sigh*.

I need a compass...

Trip to Algeria

Finally blogging about the algeria trip in OCt ...


Had a rather long stopover in paris .. because was not allowed to go into the business lounge with Mr T, i had to rough it out in the cafe myself for (i think) 5 hours. There was cigerette smoke everywhere. And the sad thing is, I only had work with me :( So i did my work ... and was actually able to puzzle out the whole thing and produced a powerpoint presentation at the end of it. Good on me!! haha.


Then to Algeria. There was nothing there ... or rather i could nto venture out cos i was with *ahem* someone elderly and not very adventureous. Well .. at least on the last day of meeting we were ferried around the town area. It looked nice and interesting. I had many issues on this trip. It was Ramadan so many of the restaurants were closed during the day. And it did not help that I was in a hotel that was about 1/2 hour away from the city. Also, it was french or arabic speaking so English will not get you far.


But one thing i saw was that at least it was not the usual desert and white buildings. I find those rather depressing. There was a nice garden beside our hotel but it was closed for renovation so all i got was this picture.

Banana Crumb Muffin

Hi Mr Anus,

I have made my banana crumb muffin. It has had rave reviews although some have said that they liked my apple cinnamon muffins better ("but next time, hold the burnt bits and the overcooked top" :). Some have also mentioned that it is a little salty.

Too bad you could not try this one. Next time then. .. hee.
website
And for those that are interested, here is the recipe from the allrecipe.com website.

INGREDIENTS
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
3 bananas, mashed
3/4 cup white sugar
1 egg, lightly beaten
1/3 cup butter, melted
1/3 cup packed brown sugar
2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
1/8 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 tablespoon butter

DIRECTIONS
1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C). Lightly grease 10 muffin cups, or line with muffin papers.
2. In a large bowl, mix together 1 1/2 cups flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt. In another bowl, beat together bananas, sugar, egg and melted butter. Stir the banana mixture into the flour mixture just until moistened. Spoon batter into prepared muffin cups.
3. In a small bowl, mix together brown sugar, 2 tablespoons flour and cinnamon. Cut in 1 tablespoon butter until mixture resembles coarse cornmeal. Sprinkle topping over muffins.
4. Bake in preheated oven for 18 to 20 minutes, until a toothpick inserted into center of a muffin comes out clean.

My Apple Cinnamon Muffins

I have been looking for a muffin tray for a long time. Cos I am not sure whether I will continue to make muffins after the first try, I wanted to get a cheap muffin tray. Got one from some dept store in chinatown for $5. What a steal!!

Anyway made my first muffins - Apple Cinnamon muffins. (See pix).
According to pp in office and home, it is not bad .. some even ventured a "good". I find it so fulfilling to cook / bake!

The recipe if you are interested:
3 cups flour
3/4 cup sugar
3/4 cup packed brown sugar
3 teaspoons baking powder
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1 cup milk
2/3 cup butter, melted
2 eggs, slightly beaten
2 cups finely chopped tart apples

1. Preheat oven to 375.
2. In a large bowl, combine flour, sugar, brown sugar, baking powder and cinnamon. Mix together.
3. Add all remaining ingredients and stir until flour mixture is moistened.
4. Spoon batter into 2 greased or paper-lined 12-cup muffin pans.
5. Bake at 375 for 19-23 minutes or until lightly browned. Cool for about 5 minutes before removing from pan.

Back from Algeria + Paris

I know it has been a long time ... i have been busy (*ahem* lazy). Hee!! Well now that i have been on a trip i thought that it would be requisite for me to post something about it and put up some photos for the pp that are reading this blog (I highly doubt that though). haha.

So once i got the photos to my comp, I will blog about it. Till then. .. hopefully it will not be two weeks from now.

K800i

i finally got it after two weeks of agonising :) .. so far, it has been fun using the camera. Fun thing is that i can take a photo and blog it immediately. Havent used it yet though. More photos from the phone later.

Wondering about the urinal

Things i have always wondered about urinals:
- why the urinals have a big "TOTO" on top of them? It is prob the brand of the urinal but goodness, it is so strange to be peeing into Dorothy's dog (from Wizard of Oz). ladies, you have to see it to believe it. Maybe one day you should just sneak into the male toilet, esp the one on 23rd floor ;)
- why pp in the toilet (male) never stand side by side in the urinal? When there is 3 urinals and two males, both would split up and go to the urinal 1 and 3. Urinal 2 is left empty. [One time i went in and there was 2 pp already at the urinal. Urinal 2 was empty so I slotted myself in and then persons using Urinal 1 and 3 starting talking over me. Most strange experience.]
- pp tend to look down when they pee? Like they would aim wrongly even though the urinal is such a giant mouth.
- {this is not about urinals but closely related} women can do the hovering thing on the toilet bowl .. (all the better to avoid touching the seat .. can't imagine? Go ask your friends). They must all have strong abdominal / gluteus / hamstring / thigh muscles. It is akin to doing the horse stance ('ma bu') for at least 1 min. Amazing :P

Finally ... i have managed to change my template.

it has been a struggle but i have finally tweaked my template and got it to work with the blogger system .. yippee. I think that this new template is nice :P comments?

my Virgin DQP with cheese

I finally got off my ass to transfer the remaining photos of the peru trip. Actually these are the few photos that i took after returning from machu Picchu. The most exciting one is actually a photo of a Double Quarter Pounder (DQP) with cheese. WTF ... you would say. Well, let me tell you.

Long long time ago, when i was in sec school, my indian friend Mr N Swami. told me about the greatness of a DQP with cheese. "Did you know that Singapore used to have a DQP with cheese but it was taken off the menu of Macca's because it was toooo unhealthy?" But apparently Mr S has tasted this ambrosia in the States and he swears that it is soo good. So because I have never went to a country with a macca's selling a DQP with cheese, I have never tasted one. Then when the Macca's here put the DQP with cheese, Mr S commented that it was not the same, it cannot compare... it is NOT REALLY A HALF POUND burger (for those mathetically challenged -- 2 quarter pounds makes half a pound).


Then when i stopped over in LAX, I told myself I had to have one DQP with cheese. I begged money (becuase i have spent all my USD) from Ms L and then went to buy the burger. Please note that this was BEFORE i suffered my traumatic food poisioning experience on the way from LAX to SG. And NO it is not due to the burger. .. or at least i dont think so. I distinctly remember that I vomitted the soba .. which was something that I ate AFTER the burger. Unless of course the burger caused the food poisoning and then it was down hill from there?

I have to tell Mr S that the burger was good .. succulent and definitely seemed tastier than those you find in SG. Of course this could be the hunger talking .. well i finally tasted it. ... Mr S will be so proud of me!!

Addendum to "drool???"

Sorry if I have been absent minded .. but I can also 3G with dad, mum and of course Mr Anus too :)

Drool???

In yet another attempt to agonise about buying this phone ...

It is actually a beautiful phone with all the bells and whistles ... the fantastic camera at the back (I am still wondering whether I really need a 3.2 mp camera, or whether I will even use it in the first place ... but then I can be a japanese tourist sometimes) ... and the 3G function (who am i going to 3G with .. C-kun? Ms J?.) What i want in the phone is the mp3 function so that i can zone out on the way to and fro office. So nice just to have some peace and quiet.

I think i shouldn't have asked Ms Y to go phone buying with me. I was so settled on the w700 phone .. the bling bling titanium gold walkman phone but then she comes along and says the k800 is so nice, so new, so ...

I will wait till this sat to see what other offers i can find ...

A day of Thai, Arab, Malay food

Went to golden mile for lunch today with OY and JC. Amazingly, it took my foreign friend to point out how wonderful the Thai food in golden mile is. Cheap and authentic. yummy ... We had seafood tom yum, beans with pork, Kai lan with roast pork, and beef noodle, rice and drinks for only $26. CHEAP!! But the place really is dodgy and i cannot forget the toilet that i went to when i was there a few months ago (read the entry on KL trip). Later we went to Arab street to have a middle easter dessert. It was only so so though, nothing special. Dont want to waste time blogging about it.



Then for dinner, met up with WF and WX for nasi Lemak. Well, i was the only one that bother to queue for the nasi lemak. I have photos :) It took me about 15 mins to get the rice. And then they did not have the "full house". Only the chicken meal. :(



The rice was yummy - they used basmati rice to make the nasi and the chicken was freshly fried, ohhh the oil. And the chilli was good - sweet and spicy but not too spicy. And of course, my fav, the ikan bilis, was so delicate and freshly fried. I think cos they have such a large clientele the store can afford to just keep frying and frying to have fresh supplies of ikan bilis and chicken. But truth be told, once i had it, i thought that i wont bother queueing up again for the nasi lemak. Unless someone is going to queue for me. :)

Anyone??

What do you want to be when you grow up ....

I hate it when i have to think about the future. It seems to be happening more often now. It doesnt help that there is always someone that is asking you "what do you want to do with your life"? It makes me questions whether i am really happy. ...

Photos from Peru ... finally

after much procrastination and delay ... I attribute it ALL to work, here are the photos of my work trip to peru.

Downtown lima
click here to view the slideshow

Cusco and Machu Picchu
click here to view the slideshow

Because i have taken over 600+ shots and am still waiting for more from other pp.. I did not upload all my photos. So too bad for those pp who dont know me or have no access to my laptops. haha ...

Back from Peru ....

I am finally back from my trip to Peru ... The funny thing is that i was fine throughout the trip but then when i boarded the plane, i started to have diarrhoe and nausea. And then when i got back home, I had to worst case of Jet lag.

But it was WORTH IT :D

Peru is so freaking Fun ... some many things to do and see and BUY... hehe

I will blog later with more photos. They are all currently residing in the office lappy.

Next week ... Jakarta :P

KL - the rest of the trip.

Okay .. nothing much happend after the drama of the first night.

we did however arrive at 6 am in KL bus station (pudu raya) and since both of us are so gundu and have not been to KL alone before, we had no idea where to go at that time. We were faced with a choice of three roads - only on the second day did i know where the three roads led to: 1. chinatown area, 2. the HOTEL, 3. train station. We chose the train station and decided that it is early so we could go and queue up for the tix to visit the skybridge at KLCC. I can now say that i have walked around KLCC at 6.20 am - no one was there or at least we thought so. We saw a signboard telling us the opening time for the skybridge (8.30 am) and there was no one at the queue so we went to have breaky.

Breakfast - the indian waiter preson only understood Malay so WF went safe and chose the nasi lemak that was on the table, those packet ones wrapped in banana leaf. Me being the brave and intrepid advanturer (well .. not really :) chose to have roti prata. BUT in malaysia, it is Roti Chennai and not prata. The waiter tried to ask if it was roti and with planta (which i guess sounds like PRATA but) or kaya. I thought that he meant Roti (as in toasted bread) so i chose kaya. What came out was roti prata (chennai) with KAYA. yummmm o_o ... but then it tasted not bad .. kinda like roti prata with sugar.

we madea pit stop to the toilets .. and we chose to use Mandarin's toilet. :) FYI their toilets are nice. If you are ever caught out in KLCC area with no place to go, visit Mandarin's toilets and there are sofas outside for you to rest/sleep/chat. Pretend that you belong and noone will come and bother you.. hehe

Skybridge - opening time was 8.30 an we arrived at 8.20 and saw no queue. We thought "great .. we are the first". Then i noticed that there was a map .. "You are HERE .. QUEUE up HERE (as in go left. then right, then down the escalator)" and what do you see... at least 60 pp in the Q already. BUT we were lucky when we reached the counter, someone gave up their tix and we were able to get the 9.15 am tix. BEWARE - there is a very LAME video at the holding area where they tell you that the twin towers is the first kind of project in malaysia. DUH ... WHERE ELSE WOULD IT BE?? PENANG? JOHORE? MALACCA? .. please...

We were able to finish up the skybridge walk and then the shops open. We walked till 12 plus and decided that we should go to the hotel. We walked out and there were LOTS of touters which got us irritated. We thought we should just take the monorail as it was near our hotel. We asked 'information" where it was and we followed the directions and walked to the station.

We wlkaed and walked and walked ... and walked .. but there was not station in sight. Then i saw that we were reaching bukit bintang and then we reached the area where our hotel is. We stupidly walked all the way to the hotel... my feet hurt but then now i KNOW where the bukit nanas monorail station is (exit the KLCC where the office lobby is and walk towards the open university building and then follow the road to the left. :) Lesson learnt!!

Nothing else stupid happened. Just that we were able to shop (i bought a few shirts/t-shirts, ties, and a cufflinks) and we ate a lot.

we got back at 11.45 pm sunday evening and then i went red-eyed and zombie-fied to work the next day. At least it was fun :)

KL Trip - first night and we are not even there yet

As some pp may know, i recently went to KL but i decided that i should go there and fully enjoy myself and stuff myself silly with the food and shopping :P .. so off i went with WF over the weekend.

The drama started in tryign to book the ticket. Being the DIY (anti-tour group) person, I thought i will book the hotel and bus separately instead of going to get those package. I went to Transnasional to get the bus tix - it was painful to get the tix as there was some prob with their system (more on this later) and also they do NOT accept credit cards or Netts (and the only atm was 10 mins away .. arghh).

So on the day of the bus to KL, WF and I rushed down to the bus depot to catch the 10 pm bus. We reached at 9.45 .. thinking that we were on time (or even early), contgratulating ourselves that we were on time and saying that we were going to sleep thoughout the trip to KL. BUT .... (dum dee dum dum ... this is the part where there is a flashback to the scene where there was a system error on their comp when issuing the tix) ... there was ANOTHER TWO PP BOOKED ON OUR SEATS!!! We stood in the bus while the bus driver (who cannot speak a word of english) go and check on the status of our seats. The tix seller basically told us that we cannot take the bus cos there was only one seat remaining and she will refund us the tix. I thought of cancelling the trip altogether and demanding that the bus coy also pay for our hotel (yes HH ... i did think of that :) ) BUT she offer to book us on the morning bus ride which would get us into KL at 1 pm, which is not good as we will waste half a day.

SO .. ala amazing race ... we had to rush to golden mile but the taxis were not picking us up. I suspect that they were all rushing to city hall area cos they will be able to get city charges and booking fees (BOO!! to all the taxi drivers that refused to pick us up). Luckily I went up an SBS bus and the driver told us his bus does go to golden mile. Even better .. there was a nice lady on the bus that gave us directions and said she will press the button for us when the bus stop comes.

We reached golden mile and went door to door asking if there was a bus going to KL. This was already 10.30 and the last bus have already left at 10.30 pm. The only other place was this travel agent that had a 12 midnight bus. We went there and we told that there was only two seats left but one of them was on hold by someone. We had to wait. Only at 11.15 were we told that the seats were available and we relaxed enough to go to toilet (BTW the toilets in golden mile are FILTHY, DISGUSTING AND CROCROACH INFESTED... DO NOT GO THERE!!).

No more dramas that night. ... the bus came and we went on it to KL.

If you like danae and lucy...

Go read this collection of comics of them ... hilarious. Just LOVE danae!!

Congratualtion Mr Chiam

You are an institution. :)

Would vote for you if i was still in Potong Pasir.

More pictures from Oman

These are pictures that you would not normally associate with a desert country :)

- nightscape when we were having dinner.

- this is their fantastic Al-Bhustan hotel. 6-star ... very chi-chi. Felt like as though we were in some kind of Arabian jewel box.

- another photo of us in front of Al-Bhustan

- the tunnel through the hill and shangri la was on the other side of it.



- the BEACH at Shangri la. It was an amazing view and there were a lot of caucasians sun-bathing themselves till lobster-red. Found out there that Oman is a popular beach vacation spot for Europeans.

Pix for Oman (finally)

these are some pic that you would expect from a trip to the middle east .. sand sand and more sand :) .. haha


- the sultan's palace. But apparently he does not use it unless for State visits.


- The Souq (marketplace) in Mutrah, Oman. Interesting things to look at but things are not cheap. A T-shirt was 4 Oman Rials, which is roughly $16 Sing.


- view from the hotel room


- view from another hotel room


- this is the biggest mosque in Oman and has the biggest CARPET in the world!

Typical pics of Oman (not)..

sorry .. pictures will have to wait. Somehow it is taking too long to upload the pictures. I will continue tomorrow. Stay tuned.

Trip to Oman

It has been a long time since i have blogged about anything. Mainly becuase I have been busy with work and have nothing really interesting to blog about. Also, can't really blog about my work since i am suspect it might be breaking some laws (who knows?). But recently I have been Oman for business trip and at least THAT is something to blog about. I have photos to show too :)

The temperature there was an insane 40+ degrees .. kinda like melbourne in summer only somehow it was much worse. Prob due to the fact that i was mostly in work clothes (jacket, shirt and pants) or jeans. I thought that i would be quite inappropriate for me to wear shorts and T-shirt around. The surprising thing is that there are SO MANY South Asians and Filippinos and Oman working - South Asians in the hard labour areas or menial tasks; Filippinos more in the service sectors, like waitering or sales.

It was really funny that our host was so nice that it became more like a holiday rather than a business trip. After the first day of meeting, we were offered the car and driver to go sightseeing. And then the host had a dinner for us. After the second day of meeting, we were picked up by our host and (get this) brought to his house, like guests, to meet his family. So Amazing!! This is not a normal business trip now is it. .. After meeting his family, WE (us, host, and WIFE AND KIDS) went to the mall to have dinner. After that, the goodbyes became more like one of friends departing rather than one of business colleagues. VERY STRAnGE but nice :)

Anyway, the only thing i can complain about is that there was a HUGE wait in the Bahrain airport for the transit flight. We had to while away 5 hours in the airport and so i ended up changing all my Oman Rials to Bahrain Dinars and I spent all of the Dinars at the duty free shop. I bought some wine (french chardonnay). Don't ask me what is the name... i have no idea. I just bought it cos the wine cost the exact amount I had in Dinars.

All out, it was a very interesting experience. ... and Now on the pix.

My first trip to Kuala Lumpur

Yes ... finally i have gone for my first 'business trip' and it was to Kuala Lumpur Malaysia. I went on my own - no one from the office to accompany and make sure that I don't goof up. Luckily the pp that I went with knew that I was a complete idiot and did not expect much from me. haha. Yes ... you might be thinking KL? ... please!! But then this is the first time I have been to KL since .. since they had the twin towers. (I have seen it .. and it definitely looks nicer on pictures. The pollution does not do it any good.)

I got to stay in Bukit Bintang, which was THE shopping district. But all the talk about KL being a shopping paradise, I only bought 3 shirts and I had to find them in Isetan. They were cheap though .. after the sale. And also the thing is their dept store seems to have a better range of shirts than the Singapore ones.

Luckily the meeting went as planned and nothing big came up. Also I was able to leech off some free wireless and I was able to talk to pp back in the office .. so at least I have support. :)

I was not able to sample as much of the KL food as I wanted though - was only able to go to the Overseas and Hakka restuarants. Then the rest of the meals of at the hotel - yummm... breakfast buffet. I love free flow of egg omelette. *drool* I was however able to use the gym .. this is my attempt to assuage my guilt.

My next trip is probably coming up soon ... I wonder where I will be going. I might be Tokyo but I cannot confirm.

Meaning of A-tas

Recently I just realise that a new word has appeared onto my radar. 'A-tas' ... i slowly realise that it means high-class (in a perjorative sense), as in "oh, that person is so a-tas, she doesn't even want to take the bus.' But the question is where did it come from? I only heard of this word last year from a classmate and she laughed when i said that i have never heard of it before. Now it seems to be everywhere - cognitive dissonance? Once i know of its exisitence, i notice it everywhere.

So where is the word 'a-tas' derived from? A malay word? *pause for 1 min* .. back from my fact-finding mission (aka google). atas IS a malay word - meaning 'above' which makes perfect sense now.

atas - malay for above, which is also Singaporean slang for high-class. How interesting!

It's tiring to blog

I am finally blogging after a long hiatus. I feel like there is no one out there that is reading this ... unless you consider the random person who might stumble across the blog while looking for something interesting. (Sorry .. nothing is happening here .. move along ..) Anyway, it seems like work sucks out the desire to switch on the comp. I stare at the laptop at work for about 8 hours. I don't want to come home and stare at the screen again.

But today is different - i am online mainly cos i realise that i want to sell something (my german language set that i bought a few years ago and now realise that i have lost interest in that language). Also i have been considering getting some Indonesian language set so that I can learn some Indonesian. haha .. hopefully i can communicate with Stef when i meet him the next time.

One thing about working though - you treasure your social life more. You are more concerned about maintaining the relationships and friendships built before starting work. So you are out whenever you can cos there is really so little time to spend outside work. One depressing fact - out of the 24 hours, we spend about 9 hours working (assuming that you don't work OT), 1 hour travelling, 8 hours sleeping, and 2 hours eating, shitting, miscellaneous. SO that leaves you with only 5 hours to do your own things. Things that do not belong to the gods of work and necessity. That is we have less than 25% of our time during weekdays.

Resolution - make better use of my time instead of wasting time vegging in front of TV or surfing aimlessly.

I miss msn-ing

I miss using msn ... i have been deprived of chatting with steffie and other pp for a long time now. I used to be so connected with the pp out there. It was my line to the outside world. When i was stuck in the library ... stuck in the grad room typing out my essay ... stuck in class.. there was always the messenger keeping me company. Even though i don't chat with most of the pp on my list, at least i still can read their nick and figure out what happen to them. The nick on the msn is a surprisingly good form of communication, the individual's expression in 20 words.

I was on msn for the last two plus year ... every working day from 8 to 5 ... i was one of the lucky ones to able to connect online when i was serving my NS and chatted with steffie practically everyday, barring meetings and overseas trips and holidays.
Well now i can't log on even to the online version. VERY SAD!!

Well at least work is picking up so i am not just sitting there finding stuff to do. hahaha.

The embarassment of youth

The local idol competition is coming again and it got me thinking - i wonder what happen to all the insane fans of last year's finalists? I won't name names but i know someone who was insane about the final two (the chinese one) - followed him everywhere and went to all his public appearances. Even appeared in a commercial with him .. fine ... it's my younger sister. hahaha ..she's outed.

Anyway, one year down the road and she seems to have lost all interest in this has-been idol. But trust me, she was insane about him then. I wonder issit youth that gives you the excuse to profess undying love for something but change your mind in a manner of minutes later. When you grow up, you are suppose to know what you want and what you should do. If you like something then you LIKE that thing. People do not take to or assume that you can change your mind.

But it must be embarrasing to have someone chronicle what you like in the past .. even though now you are sooooo past it. Btw, my sister used to like Britney Spears but she would rather DIE then admit now - OVER HER 'LINKIN PARK, FORT MINOR, FALL OUT BOY' LOVING BODY!! Isn't it horrible to have an elder brother?

Will it ever stop raining??

it has been raining for the whole day .. i knew i shouldn't have woken up so early today. Now i am just surfing around and being a general voyeur - looking at other pp's blog. I thought i would go jogging later at the usual jogging route by the canal but somehow i had a feeling that the rain will not stop by then. I knew i shouldnt have ate so much just now.

I need a purpose

Growing up .. you studied so you can get to the next level - from secondary to university to job. But once you reach the job, then what do you do? I am rather lost. I need some direction or at least something to work towards. I cannot just keep on plodding away. I need to do something besides play the ps2 game (for pp in the know, i am currently playing Dragon Quest. SO FUN!!).

Maybe i will snap out of this once i am immersed in my work? Some delegation is coming in a week's time. That should be interesting ...

I need a bag ...

I am currently in a crisis. I need a bag to carry my 'barang barang' to work - sandwich, some Cds, reading materials on the train and bus, my mp3 player ... so it does not have to be that big. BUT i will need a bag that is big enough for my laptop just in case i would have to bring it home to do extra work. Or when i will am travelling between places. But i also dont want to get one of those lame black suitcases ... it's quite disgusting and someone i knew (GLENN) used to carry it and i thought it looked Fugly.

So i decided to go with the trusted Crumpler .. So now the decision is what size to choose. I think I will go with a messenger bag instead of a laptop bag since the laptop bag is flat and i don't like that shape. I already have a seedy three (whose design is about 2-3 years old .. ). But if i go with a messenger bag that is big enough to store my stuff and laptop then it would be about the seedy three size.

goodness ... just realise that this is a rather lame entry. Oh well..

Work ...

I am into my second week of work and it is rather depressing that i would in the 9 to whenever kind of life. There is no chance to do your own thang, no access of msn (arghh .. the horrors). The only way to contact other pp is through email. It makes me wonder what am I really doing? Am i suited for the working like? Should I go back to studying and become an acadmic? The life of an academic seem so much easier. But then I would be escaping from reality... i think i should at least spend a year plus working before i decide.

The image of all the people trudging home after work is really depressing, especially when you know you are one of them too. One of the drones.