Another month...

So, it had been 2 months since I started working! Woot! 2 effing months! Yeah, it's not easy, but I'm proud to say that it's been 2 months! That's 9 weeks, yup, 9 whole weeks. And 60 hours a week, that makes it 540 hours and counting!

Anyway, so, last week was pretty much the same, other than I was given more 'trust and responsibility' as 2 of my colleagues went to a seminar, hence, I was to perform some of their tasks, and this led to me of having to work til about midnight (and thanks to my 3 other colleagues, who waited for me and even sent me back), so, I was in the office for about 16 hours on Thursday, crazy huh?

So, I am kinda lost track of the things that happened last week, so, I am just gonna write what comes to my mind.

On Tuesday, during lunch time, Chen Chow and I went to KLCC to meet with 2 other friends and a reporter, to talk about our experiences of studying in the States, so, the discussion went smoothly, and everything was great. And it came out on yesterday's paper, The Star, in the Education section. You can also read the article on
http://thestar.com.my/education/story.asp?file=/2006/7/30/education/14975021

Another thing cool that happened last week, was that on Friday, my colleagues and I, 14 of us went to donate our blood at the Pusat Darah Negara(National Blood Center) which situated at Jalan Tun Razak near our office. It felt good to know that by donating one pint of blood, we could possibly save up to 3 lives. (yup, just a pint of blood, and you can save up to 3 lives.) And one can donate once every 3 months. That was actually my 3 time donating blood, awesome, isn't it. :) I have some pictures of us donating blood, thanks to Mel for being our photographer.

And late on Friday night, technically, 10 minutes into Saturday, my bro, Chloe (his gf) and I (I know what you are thinking, i'm the *lamppost* rite? can't help it) went to catch a movie, Pirates of the Carribean : Dead Man's Chest. YEP. Not bad at all. Before the movie, we went to a 'mamak' stall at Kelana Jaya, Williams for the nasi lemak and the cheese naan, amazing food.

So, woke up the next morning, after a good 8 hour sleep, well, donating blood has such effect, where you will feel lethargic, and hence, it explained why my 8 hour sleep felt like a 2 hour nap. Whatever, woke up sometime after 11, went to collect my blood screening report, everything was great, and after lunch, my bro, Chloe and I went shopping at The Curve, wanted to shop more, but was limited by time and choices available. One great thing though, I found out that there's a Marche(R) Restaurant at The Curve, sweet, hopefully, I have time to go there before leaving for the States in exactly 3 weeks time.

We were limited by time because we needed to meet up with our cousins and aunt to have dinner at the Armada Hotel (R), it was raining heavily, and hence, the traffic in KL was really heavy. And we reached the hotel at about 7.30pm, and we started feasting on the food, great stuffs. After dinner, we went to this lantern show at Bukit Jalil. Some of the lantern stuffs were magnificent, but others are just moderate, didn't have pictures as we didn't plan to go there, and I don't have no fancy camera phone.

Sunday, just played more of the Warcraft, not DoTA this time, just a fun Tower Defense (TD) map. At night, I went to badminton with my friends and all, got back at about 10ish, and after everything, it's about time to call it a day, as well, it's Monday the next day, and I HATE Monday!

That's about my it, a pretty eventful last week, 2 more weeks of internship to go, and that's about it.

Oh yar, forgot to mention, another Ferrari 1-2 yesterday, looks like MS is back, and hopefully will snatch the title again.

Another great thing on sports, Detroit Tigers are kicking asses like no tomorrow!!!

And about the war and all happening between Lebanon and Israel, just wish that it will stop soon, the sooner the better. *Losing faith with the toothless UN*

All About My Weekend...

*Nothing* This is not an error or anything, I basically did nothing, absolutely nothing for the weekend.

So, on Friday, for some apparent reasons, I was dead tired. Well, mentally, and physically because of something at work. (It's a NO-NO to blog about work, so, that's it).

Got home at about 10pm on Friday, had a huge dinner, man, I was hungry. So, i had a huge bowl of fried rice, and that, after the heavy dinner, I practically sat around, and went to bed at about 11pm (one of my earliest for some good time).

So, woke up the next morning, at about 9am, cool, that's a good 10 hours. I remembered that I should go for my blood screening and all, and since I'd fasted for 10 hours at least, and will only be heading to the lab at about 2 hours time, i would definitely had fasted for 12 hours by the time then. So, what a 'coincidence'.

So, they tried to draw blood from me, first, my right arm, nope, my blood vein went into spasm. Nevermind, my left then, oops, the same thing happened. So, they needed more blood, so, they went to draw blood from the back of hand.(damn, i can't find any word to point out where it actually was.) And they struck a jackpot this time. lol

So, after that, I needed to pass urine, and that's nothing fun to talk about. After the test, I went to get some food. Hong Kong Chee Chueng Fun + Chicken Rice. (i'm doubling up, i'm not sure why, but i was feeling hungry.) Probably the stress? Stress? what stress.

So, after lunch, I practically did nothing much, other than surfing this and that, and miraculously, I was able to pack in another 3 hours of sleep. Cool eh? So, for dinner, I went to this restaurant,Kwai Lam, at Subang New Village, pretty good stuffs. But well, let say I was glad that I went for the blood test this morning, if i were to go for my blood test the next morning, my cholesterol level would be much higher.

So, was at home for the night, watching the Open. dang, can't believe that Tiger Woods was leading, and his performance wasn't that good. but well.

Come Sunday, did nothing much again. Woke up at about 10am, surfed around, the Internet that is, and then, had lunch, and then was fiddling with my laptop, dota for like 2 matches, kicked some AI asses... and backed up most of my personal files minus my mp3 collections onto a dvd, and that's about it. Went for a 3-mile run before dinner, well well, the weather was pretty hot and the humidity level was just insane.

At night, just sat in front of the tv, with my family, did nothing much again, and caught some British Open action again... well, Tiger Woods was leading the pack by like 3 strokes... What's new? Went to bed half past midnight, and that's about it...

just to describe my feeling today...
check this link out. here

Starting of a new countdown... Counting down again

So, today is the day where my post gets a bit emotional, where my post gets a bit whiny, and also where my post gets a bit personal, where my post gets a bit more 'insightful', where my post lets you look inside of me 'naked'.

It's a bit like 'Naked Truth' but less the truth, a bit like a confession, but not really, it's like a personal statement but less formal, it's just me being random.

So, is it cool to be random, or random to be cool, I've no effing idea. I'm just typing this piece of crap which I will regret, or think: what the heck was I thinking when I was typing this piece of crap, and not regretting. :)

Alright, so, I've spent more than 100 words writing nothing actually. And wasted your precious 2 minutes reading my nothing. ;) Sorry peeps!!

Anyway, here's what I wanted to write actually. Today marks the start of a new countdown, yup, counting down again. But, counting down to what? It's only a month left til my flight back to Ann Arbor, MI. Am I looking forward to it? Hell YES and hell NO.

HELL YES!!!!

why so? lol... well, I've been home since May 1st, and it's been almost 3 months of me missing great things happening in the college. College days are just great! The companions, the work, the people, the feel, the studies, the activities, the environment, the people again. It's just great! Forgot to mention, the alcohol, but actually not really, it's not so much about the drinks, it's more about the companions, try drinking the best vodka, or the most expensive wine with an arch nemesis, it doesn't work that way, does it? So... it's not about some chemical mixtures, or solutions, it's about the chemistry, probably with the help of those chemicals ;) And the weather to, not the weather now, but, the weather there when I get back. Fall is the shit. (I can't believe that how the world is changing, where shit actually means cool thing, hip thing. I really can't understand this, but well, that's the shit! - Am I getting old or what?)

HELL NO!!!

So, why am I contradicting myself again? This is by no means a diplomatic answer . This comes from the bottom of my heart!!! The family, the people, the country, the food, the bond, the touch and feel, the smell(although it's shitty - this shit as in shitty shit, not hip shit shit) but it just adds to the senses, the hustle and the bustle, the cafe, the sports. There's just so much for me to mention here. You just gotta be here to sense them. (A bit of a yoga there)

So, that's the counting down again. Whatever it is, it's only 1 month left, with 3 weeks of my internship to go, and also planning to shop for some stuffs before I head back, and also, the long awaited and yet to fall through sandy-beach-beautiful-palm-trees-extraordinary-underwater-sceneries-and-what-not trip to Bubu Long Beach Resort at Perhentian Island. And also, to renew my documents, and also, to meet up with my relatives again, for lunches and dinners, and that's about it.

Before long, it will actually be my time, waiting at the terminal(I look forward to reaching back in Ann Arbor, but not the journey, how I wish, I can just press the fast forward button once I'm on the flight, and reach Ann Arbor within an instant. That would be cool.), changing flights, dragging 2 huge luggage, and hailing a cab, and check into my new room, and meet my hallmates and all, and can't wait til the home game on the 2nd of Sept, and going to classes and parties again...

So, this post is not actually much more personal or anything rite? Just lamer I guess.

Anyway, did I mention that I passed my 2nd actuarial exam. Still waiting for the paper results. Wonder what grade did I score.

Later. It's Friday again!!!

Zizou International!!!

With the hype of Zinedine Zidane's(Zizou) headbutt incident in Germany 2006 World Cup Final, this is a tribute to the incident... LOL!!!

Got this from a friend of mine. I find it hilarious, just have to share this. :)

How Germans look at it.

How Frenchs look at it.

How Italians look at it.

How Terrorists look at it.

How Hong Kongers look at it.


Brilliant?!?!?! Ain't it? LOL...

Experiences KL 2006...

So, the highlight for last week was the Experiences KL 2006 - US Education Fair.
Everything done by students, for students. and what really amazes me is the scale of it, and also the quality of the event! Of course, there's room for improvement, but it's an understatement to say the it's job well done.

So, Foo Ming and I asked from our uni to send us brochures and some other promotional materials quite some time ago. But on Saturday, I started to wonder whether it will be enough, and those brochures weren't as informative as I think they should be, so, I started to make a brochure of U of Michigan. spent about 2 hours on it, and well, the final result wasn't too bad.

after that, I went down to the photocopy shop to get 1000 copies of it, and at the shop, I met WeiJie who was collecting his brochures for Carnegie Mellon Uni, it's a small world, really!

After that, I went down to Kajang with my parents to visit my aunt. And it was all good.

Sunday's Experiences KL 2006 (US education fair 2006 at Sunway Pyramid sConvention
Centre) turn out great.
Got to meet most, if not all, the incoming freshmen, 18 of them
are coming(15 JPA + 3 MARA). Quite a number of them are actually doing Bio-Tech, weird..
:)

The turnout for the fair was great.
Foo Ming, Sheikh, Khoon Yu, Chee Yong and I were there. Many juniors who have to spend 3 years at INTEC too came, and poor them were
asking all the questions about transferring and well, non of us can really give them
definite answers. And, I do know that they can only transfer a maximum of 60 credit
hours, so, really kesian. Also, the new SAT also consists a new writing component, so the
new total will be of 2400 points. (Boring me...)
So, this is Sheikh in front of our booth.
And this is me, stumped by a question. :) Not really, just that i was trying to be Goofy while answering questions. So, I lost my voice(I was already on the verge of going down with a cold last Friday). But well, it was an amazing education fair, as it was organized solely by students. The grand scale of it really speaks for what students can really do.

Three cheers to the organizers!!!

Of Americans on football.

Football as in FOOTBALL, (don't get me wrong, i do like American football too), but well, it's a totally different game, and how much do they know about the real football? not too much.

Here's a take on Zidane's famous headbutt:
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,202872,00.html

"I was listening to the BBC this morning. They were shocked, stunned, gobsmacked, flabbergasted, knicker-twisted about the head-butt. One stupefied Brit anchor called it "a moment of madness."

I didn't quite get it. I guess these BBC anchors don't notice what goes on in the stands between fans during these matches, or games as we would call them.

One crummy little head-butt and you would have thought the world had ended. I've seen worse in peewee hockey. Much worse in baseball, basketball and football. We all have."

Of World Cup.

So, World Cup Germany 2006 is finally over. I have a lot of thoughts about it, waiting to be put into words, but for the moment being, I'm not in the mood of writing them down. Wait for awhile, and hopefully, if I'm lucky enough, or you guys are unlucky enough, they will make their way here.

Here's a starter for it. Just a joke related to World Cup.
(Disclaimer: the God mentioned is not religion-specific)

A Korean football supporter asks God: When will Korea lift the World Cup?
God: 100 years.
The Korean broke into tears, because he couldn't live to witness it.

Then, a Japanese football supporter asks God: When will Japan lift the World Cup?
God: 200 years.
The Japanese broke into tears, for the same reason of not being able to live to witness
it.

Then, a Malaysian football supporter asks God: When will Malaysia lift the World Cup?
God: *Broke into tears*

...

How to waste a lazy Saturday?

Slacking 101.

How to waste a lazy Saturday? On second thoughts, make it Saturday AND Sunday. So, i really really got nothing much to do over the weekend. Yesterday, after dinner, I basically had 2 days and 3 nights ahead of me, waiting to be filled with whatever.

OK. So, I woke up at 10am this morning, screw the bright sunlight which was about to penetrate the curtain in my room. Dang, now I got more time to kill. Problematic.

So, after breakfast, I started to surf around. First, drudgereport.
A pretty interesting news site. After a couple of hours, slightly passed noon, I started on my sudoku run on websudoku. Wasn't doing well because my average time for Medium level was still at about 7 minutes. Dang. Wasted 2 hours there. (So, when I was saying slacking, I didn't really mean slacking. or was I? Probably, I have a different definition of slacking than the norm. :0) )

So, after that, it was YouTube time. Started clicking on videos, and waited for them to be loaded. And, while doing so, I found a new Summer TV Show which just started in the States not too long ago. America's Got Talent(R). Pretty nice. Interesting to see people from all walks of life, with talent (and/or lackthereof) trying to captivate the audience, so, got a copy of the show, and well, not bad at all.

By the time I'm done with this, it was almost 5.30pm. Several more sudoku games, and it's already 6pm. Went out jogging with my bro, and came back at about 7pm. Had dinner. Went out to have a drink (non-alcoholic) with Weij, Tremayne, Kim Tatt and Ting Ann. Got back at about 11pm, and was bored to hell. Caught some tennis, Men's Double Final. Saw Bryan's brothers kicked some ass.

Sunday. Pretty much the same, other than substituting the jogging part with DoTA. Found a new AI for the map, well, it was much improved, but, still, it's AI. Nothing near human intelligence. :0) Fortunately, or unfortunately so. And wanted to sleep early to wake up for World Cup Final between Italy vs France, however, Federer, aka Tennis' God was playing Rafael Nadal, and hence, I spent about 3 hours watching the match. So, went to bed about half past midnight, told my bro to wake me up, caught the first half of it, went to bed for the half time interval, thinking that i would be able to wake up. And u know what happened whenever u try doing something like that.

Of Living to Eat...

Alright, this post is long overdue. Sorry for that, but it's better to be late than never. So, here it goes. Our trip to Penang was a long planned one. It's great that it was happening in the end. So last weekend, as most of my colleagues were heading to Terengganu for the weekend (company sponsored event, too bad, interns weren't included), I took a day off and 5 of us went up to Penang for a getaway weekend. So, we started off late on Friday, we planned to make a move at about 6pm, but because my friend was caught in a bad traffic jam, we only left Subang at about quarter past 9. We reached Ipoh, Perak, at about 11.30pm, traffic was kinda slow, and I called up Putt. He brought us to a nice place for supper, and eventually paid for it, (so, if you are starving, and want good food, go to Ipoh and look for Putt... ) thanks again!!! So, we watched the Germany vs Spain match. And to my delight, Germany came out the winner! We left the place at about 1.30am, and continued our journey North, we finally arrived at our destination, Cititel Hotel, Penang, at about 3.30am. The second quarterfinal match was on, but i was too lazy and too tired to bother, took a quick shower, and off to bed... Day 2:
woke up the next morning at about 9.30am, we kickstarted our day with some over-nutritious breakfast! Bak Kut Teh at Gurney Drive. It was pretty good, but slightly over-priced. Well, none of us can really speak Hokkien, and hence, we arrived to the fact that we looked too tourist(well, Xin was holding a dSLR, and I was holding another digicam too), and so, the slightly-overpriced (just our conjecture). So, here you go.. Bak Kut Teh, is basically, pork in thick herbs broth... normally served with rice. The soup is normally great. And best go with lotsa garlic and thick black sauce. Next stop, we went to Kek Lok Si, a famous temple on a hill, overlooking the Penang Island. We spent about 2 hours there, and settled down in a restaurant, which is famous for its laksa (Asam laksa). Laksa, is noodle served in slightly spicy and sour soup. I topped it up with a glass of refreshing sugar cane juice Next, as my friend just dropped us at the temple, and he went to visit his relatives, he came back, not having his lunch, and so, we stopped by somewhere, Jalan Padang if i remember correctly, to have this Jellyfish rojak. Rojak is some fried stuffs (flour, and whatnot), and radish, and something else, in peanut sauce. Pretty interesting, as the jellyfish, is kinda unique. And on our way back to hotel, we stopped by at the famous Cendol stall, for our dose of cendol fix. Cendol is actually "thin worm-like, pandan-flavoured, green-coloured flour noodles", served in coconut milk, palm sugar, and shaved-ice, beans, and etc... amazingly refreshing and cooling. So, after an exhaustive day, we retired back to our room for a shower and a short nap, before we go out for dinner and night activities. At about 5.45pm, we headed out again, this time to Macalister Road, for the famous roadside foodstalls restaurant. As there are many stalls at this restaurant, we decided to order what we wanted and shared the food. We started off with the pork porridge (with fried innards, and roasted pork aka 'char siew'). (me, seen eating some kinda kuih, flour snack kinda thing, not too bad)
This dish was fucking amazing. Really! It was that good. We ended up ordering one for every one of us because it was just deli-fucking-cious. (sorry for the language) But, it was that good. The porridge(congee) was smooth, and the fried intestines was chewy yet crunchy, and with the spring onions, and pepper, and char siew, the blending of the texture of this congee is just unbelievable... i swear that this was the most amazing congee I had... I bet many people agreed with me with their action, as the stall owner expected great sales, as u can see the amount of intestines he prepared, and also the pig stomach (see hanging, the one on the very right), the cooked intestines (2nd from right), char siew (2nd from left), and last but not least, the fried intestines. On top of that, we too ordered fried oyster with eggs. This is also one of the must-have if you happened to go to Penang. The oyster was fresh, and the sheer amount of it, in the fried egg, made it great. Next, it was the Char Kueh Teow (fried noodle). Normally, it was fried with bean sprouts, shrimps, waxed intestines, cockles. It was good, but not great. Had better ones.

So, we also had loh bak, another dish of mixtures of fried meat and flour, served with thick sauce, which I forgot to snap a picture. (I remembered, but it was too late as it was almost completely chomped down by our furious mouth, so sorry for that.)

So, this was what's left after our quick bite. Actually, half of the plates were already cleared off to make space for more plates, so, you can imagine how much food we had. But, it was pretty reasonable, especially, if you convert it to foreign currency. We, on average spent RM 12 on food for dinner, That's about US $3.50.

Originally, we planned to go for a karaoke session, however, seeing that we were to full, we decided not to. We spent the early night hours walking aroud the Gurney Plaza, a pretty nice mall. Later, we went on hunting for cheap champagne, because I would like to introduce the amazing Mimosa(cocktail) to my friends, but too bad, champagne is particularly expensive in Malaysia.

So, we resorted to being cheap, and we went for some cheap sparkling juice. :)
Later that night, my friend went to meet his cousin, and hence, we tagged along, and, I had another dish of char(fried) carrot cake, no picture again, because I left my camera on the car.

We got back to the hotel at about 11.30pm, and we went out immediately to watch the England vs Portugal match. We went to bar, The LOUNGE, the official England supporters' bar, to meet my friend and her friends. There, we had some beers, and the match was great. The atmosphere was pretty tense, especially when England was at the penalty shootout. A couple of us, me included, started to cheer for Portugal (how daring... ?) and well, Portugal won the match, and I was a happy man. (i don't particularly hate England, and I am a Man U fan. I wasn't supporting England, because English football, under Sven G. Eriksson was boring as hell, and England just couldn't perform on the world stages, be it World Cup or Euro)

So, after the match, we walked back to our hotel, and then, I resorted to shower last, because I wanted to soak in hot water, using the bath tub. Done with washing up at about 3.15am, went to watch the boring match of Brazil vs France (i heard some insiders' news, but well, doesn't really matter), and then after a scoreless first half, I went to bed.

Woke up the next morning, tired and all, but we managed to go to Jalan Rangoon for the special rice noodles there. The spicy and sour soup noodle was really good, the fried noodle wasn't bad at all. The honey-sauce chicken was amazing too.

I wanted to take some pictures, but my battery died. I was able to take a close-up shot of the chillies.
So, we resorted back to our hotel, packed up, and some of us took a short nap, and then, we checked out at about 1pm, and then started our journey south to Subang Jaya. On the way home, we stopped by Bukit Tambun, for lunch, and the seafood was pretty disappointing because most of the famous dishes were sold-out. And what could be worse? I had a food poisoning from the food I had there (I'm pointing finger at them because I suspected them, and i only had this problem once I reached home, if it was any earlier, it could have been resulted from other food, but nope...)

So, I had diarrhea for the next 2 days... in a positive light, I didn't gain weight from all the eating during the trip. :)

So, this is all about my eating and relaxing trip to Penang Island last weekend. :)

cheers!

Of Rubber Taste and Toilet Smell

Alright, so this post was kinda late, and sorry about that. The pictures, I've uploaded them onto flickr.com, but apparently, flickr is flagged as some sites contain nudity, and hence, I couldn't link them to the post from my office's Internet connection.

Durian, is the king of all fruits. It has a hard, torny shell, green in color, and has strong, really really strong smell, that what my Caucasian friends describe as stinky smell like the toilet. So we believe, and it's rather true. Try bringing one onto the plane (you have to sneak that), and you will understand why. Most hotels don't allow their guests to bring it into their premise. It will 'stink' up the whole place within seconds, and the smell is so strong that it will last for days.

However, Malaysians, and actually, South East Asians, do enjoy durian. Good durian has really rich taste, so rich that it is bitter sweet. WARNING: If you are under serious diabetic conditions, never ever take durian. YES. NEVER. It is that rich!

And really good durian has really small pits. And the fruit is relatively small, about the size of probably a child's head. Really good and big durian, is rather expensive, and hard to find. So, the other day, my uncle found some(a lot actually), and bought us 5 durians. My parents drove down to Kuala Lumpur (about 45 minutes drive - thanks to the terrible city traffic) to collect them the very same night. (yar, we love durians!!!)


So, you can see the yellow flesh of durian (creeping you out yet??)

And so, you can see those thorns. don't try them. And this is how you crack them open...

For those leftovers, it's best to keep them in a container (Air tight preferably), and chilled them. And this is what's left after the 'ordeal'.

Another post of my eating trip to Penang will be up tonight. So ciao and take care!