"I'm still full." -Shangari S.

TGIF's has a new set of mouth-watering desserts - in shotglasses!!
How precious! :D Only RM3.90 each.

Anyway, pictures speak a "thousand words", so I'll save you having to read my regular thousand-word blog entries and just upload some photos from today. :)

As for how the internship is going, May Yen and I have just received the material we need to start work - so I'd better get started! :) Let's just say that by the end of my internship, I'm probably going to know a helluva lot more about Fiji, India, Pakistan, Nepal, Bangladesh, and Laos than I ever thought I'd find out. Human-rights-and-governmental wise, that is.

Also three cheers for the freeing of Raja Petra Kamaruddin! :DDD

Have a good weekend, everyone - and I'll be seeing some of you at Absolute Bazaar tomorrow! :D

"Language is the means of getting an idea from my brain into yours without surgery." -Mark Amidon

Schoolwork is, inevitably, piling up ...

But all work and no play makes ... a lousy cliche.

Hahahahaha.

Leila came over today for a much-needed de-stresser. Her exams are on the 28th August and 2nd September... which is, like, less than 2 weeks away ... I know you can do it, Leila!! :)

I also wanted to show her the Magical World of Atria. Hahaha.

And she wants to learn a new language - French! :)

Lol. Maybe I'll join the classes too.

Bonjour! Merci! Escargot!

Pardon my French. Hahaha.

Lunch at Nando's... where everybody knows your name... :)

We had coupons so we saved like 10 bucks. Use your ASTRO coupons, people! :D


And a new store has opened in Atria, called "WHY PAY MORE?"
It's actually "Why pay more, when you can pay less?"

:D :D :D

In this day and age of price hikes and inflation, this shop is a godsend.
Everything is just SO much cheaper than in most other places.

I also introduced her to Big Bookstore Warehouse. Another godsend.

:) Don't you just love thrift-shopping? (:

Merdeka Day fever is just around the corner, and there's a play I want to go and watch at KLPAC. And one of my ickle wickle cousins is having a birthday tomorrow!

Which means I have to go offline and do my homework now. :/

Have a good weekend, all! :)

"When you are content to be simply yourself and don't compare or compete, everybody will respect you." - Lao-Tzu

Let me just say this:

You wouldn't expect it, but ...

Lecturers can be so darn COOL.

The guy in the picture with the moustache and no headscarf is my Contemporary Worlds 2 lecturer, Dr Julian Lee. This has something to do with his research! :)

That aside, we got our Monash T-shirts at last! They're so frustratingly dull, though, and the Monash website address on the back makes me feel like an advertising billboard. :(

[Pic: Nushie-wants-a-sushie and yours truly.]

What they should have put on the shirt is "Ancora Imparo", the university motto.

It's Latin for "I am still learning". :)

And now, as compensation to my dear, sweet friends who I haven't seen for sooo many days now because of my morbidly high pile of schoolwork and assignments - here are some glimpses into my university life at Monash! :D

This is Lee Jung Ai, from South Korea. :D She's one of my journalism class buddies - super duper funny and nice. I can't believe I crashed her lunch table the other day, but I got to befriend another South Korean girl, a 2nd-year student named Sun. :) We were talking about Namdaemun and Dongdaemun and how skinny Korean girls are. Hahahahaa.

[Pic: Ai on the left and Wong Si-min on the right. She's Malaysian. But she studied for a long time in S'pore. She's my closest friend on Thursdays! :D We're in the same journalism and communications tutorials.]

And these here are pictures of parking at Monash! :D

Anusha (a.k.a. Nushie-wants-a-sushie) and I both drive a Myvi (except hers is silver - like my best friend, Tse Mun!), and sometimes we park really close to each other, so it's really cute. Hahahaha. Well, I think it is! ;)

[Pic: Nushie's car! This was the day we parked 1 car apart.]

[Pic: The green Myvi is mine. Michele Kuah (who sometimes hitch-hikes in my car, haha) and I were laughing about how my car looks like it's in the middle of the road! Haha. It's not, ok! It just looks like it! Haha.]

Surprising even myself, it turns out I'm not so bad in parking, after all. Hahaha.

BUT I did spend 10 minutes the other day trying to do a side parking into a tiny little cramped space that I was half-sure would fit my car... but after a fruitless attempt at reversing, moving forward, turning, reversing, etc - I decided not to push my luck, and parked at another (further) spot! Haha.

This is what Denise would have looked like if she had seen me sweating it out behind the wheel, trying to do the side-parking:

[Pic: That's Rachel and Denise Teo at Lotus Mamak the other day. :D]

And now... for more random pictures! :)

This was a few weeks ago, at the "Surviving Monash" workshop which my friends and I went to for about 10 minutes, before grabbing our bags and running out through the back door at the first opportunity! Hahahahahhaa.

[Pic: Joshua Liew in red, Kaireen in grey, Esther standing up in black]

We felt very bad after. Yes we did!

And this is what the Library & Learning Commons looks like from the other side of the glass. :P I think Monash doesn't provide enough computers in the library. All right, so they do have like 3 floors with some computers on each floor, and computer labs for everyone to use when classes are not on, but Taylor's had "The Web", which was just a big room full of computers. Oh, well! You get some, you lose some. Haha.

[Pic: Lau in blue-and-white-stripes. Anusha laughing at the camera.]

"Fish, to taste right, must swim three times - in water, in butter, and in wine." -Polish proverb

Today I had my last "outing" on my LET'S-GO-OUT-BEFORE-MY-SCHOOL-STARTS high! Hahaha. I'm also so frigging tired from mall-crawling (as opposed to pub-crawling), so many blisters have attacked my feet that I think it is now possible I am immune to them, and going out (eating out, shopping, transportation) is like pissing money away. Haha.

And I think I've had enough of going out to last me for a very, very, very long time. *happy smile*

Anyway - here are the highlights of today - starring also:


Shaun came the latest - poor fella, wanting to save money on petrol, he decided to opt fo public transportation of driving. So he took the KTM from Klang to KL Sentral to take the LRT to Kelana Jaya, ONLY to find that KL Sentral is closed because of a bomb scare. (It later transpires that it was a bomb simulation practice, not an actual bomb.) So he had to fork out RM30 to take a taxi from KL Sentral to The Curve. His frustrating experience makes me worry about relying too much on public transportation. :(

Oh haha and because he only arrived at The Curve after Rachel and I were already there for nearly an hour, we had already gotten into the rhythm of trying on clothes. :D So while Rachel decided to go with the pink-white or the white-pink shirt, I decided to help Shaun remember the day with the helpfulness of a camera. :D :D :D


Then we were all hungry as hell, so we put shopping on hold and trotted off in search of food.
Rachel and Shaun decided on Dragon-I, so I agreed. Haha it was so predictable anyway. But seeing as I've never been there before, I figured, it's an experience, eh! These 2 fellas took soooo long deciding what to order (I only took 2 minutes, tops, to decide on my RM15 pork chop and rice :D. It was almost guaranteed to taste good, and was the cheapest thing on the menu. Clever picker, me :D Daddy would be proud) so I entertained myself with the camera while waiting for them.

Rachel super-strongly recommended we try the dumplings (pictured below), so we ordered 1 dish and shared it. :) It was pretty good! RM9 for 4. It was in the Dim Sum category, so I guess the price is a bit high.

After the too-filling meal (problem with Dragon-I may be that their portions are too big - rice and noodles are pretty filling stuff, after all.. eurgg..) we went a-walking again. :)

All riiight. So that was the last outing! :) I planned to not spend any money on anything other than the necessary-for-survival food, but plans are never set in stone. :P Hang Ten was having a m-a-s-s-i-v-e clearance sale, so Rachel and I invaded the cramped store for almost an hour (Rachel more than me, I never take that long to decide if I want something or not, haha). My dear friend even had to go to the ATM machines at one point during the day. Hahaha.

Rachel: How come I never usually find nice clothes, but when I'm with you, I suddenly find so many nice clothes?

Me: Hahaha... Err, because I'm willing to try everything?

Oooo and An, I finally managed to find that "S" necklace I was looking for! :) It was thanks to the lovely Rachel - we had already said our goodbyes and parted when she called me 30 seconds later and half-shouted: "HEY! I FOUND THE "S" NECKLACE!" :D :D :D She found it at a stall outside Borders. RM10, such a better price than the RM23 ones at IKANO. :D

SO HAPPY :D

Get(ting) Smart

Yesterday (25th) was a pretty lousy day. I'm glad it's OVER. Today is a new day. Thank god!

But seeing as "every cloud has a silver lining", "there's a bright side to everything", all that jazz - I accompanied An on her after-exams outing on the 25th. :] She finished her last paper at 12.30pm, and was in front of my house (driven by her cousin, "Louis Koo") by, like, 1pm. Waa. Haha.

We watched "Get Smart"! It was hilarious, very enjoyable!! Hehehe. Even funnier than "Kung Fu Panda" and "40-year-old Virgin".

Oh, and we had to kill some time while waiting for the movie to start, so we managed to figure out a few 'productive' ways to do just that.

Equipment Needed:

1 Digital Camera/Cellphone Camera

Minimum 1 person(s)

1 Thick Face

1) Take photos with all available props for movies.

2) Take photos of / with all available company

3) Pretend to be characters from movies

4) Go to the loo. You don't want to miss bits of the movie by going out to take a leak in the middle of it! You may also take photographs in the loo. If caught or reprimanded by toilet authorities, do one of two things: (a) pretend you do not speak English/Malay/whichever language you are being reprimanded in - then walk away, pretending to be irritated, OR (b) apologise profusely and claim you were not aware at all about laws regulating use of cameras in washrooms. If push comes to shove, start bawling.

After the movie, we went to a few stores to look for some things An Nie wanted, and I just browsed through whatever looked interesting.

Here are some things I learnt by carefully studying 1-Utama for a blistering total of 7 hours:

1) On clothes: The conclusion I have arrived at is that the prices of clothes in 1-Utama can be ridiculously high! For example, just because something is branded with a big fashion name, it can be tagged at over RM300. That's just f-ing ridiculous. Almost nothing, and I repeat, nothing can be found for RM20 and below. Only a handful of stores even sell clothes that cost RM15-30. I feel sad to say that 99.9999% of clothes now in 1U stores (excluding Jusco and similar stores) cost well over RM50.

All one can do in times of high prices is to wear whatever you want - in the fitting rooms only. :D

At one of the moderately priced stores (this is the 1U average), I tried on a super outrageous muti-coloured ensemble that I thought my grandmother in Serdang wears (left picture) and a really nice-looking brown blouse (right picture). Guess how much they cost? (I didn't buy anything)

Go on, guess!

.

.

.

The answers: around RM30 for the left, and RM90 for the right.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!

I think FOS and JUSCO may be the only 2 places I personally deem economical enough to buy clothes in, in 1-Utama. :/ Maybe 1u rental is too high, and turnover in clothing stores too low. Maybe, maybe.

Poor businesspeople, poor consumers... kesian everybody, but what can we do?

2) On books: I think we've long known that Malaysia has a big issue with pricing books. Books in Malaysia are very expensive. The government says it wants to encourage reading, but there are not enough public libraries around and books are nearly always sold for a high price. MPH and Kinokuniya are classic examples of the squeezing numbers - Big Bookshop's Warehouse is an example of the de-squeezing. I wonder why?

But hey, MPH was giving free 3D glasses for that Hannah Montana show on ASTRO's Disney Channel. But I think it was on the 21st of June (it says ONE NIGHT ONLY hahaha), which has, as we all know, passed! Haha. 3D glasses were cool though. MPH deserves a picture mention for our new paper toys.

I think both of us are falling ill from the poor choices of food we made all day. First off, for the movie I managed to smuggle in An Nie's KFC popcorn chicken in my bag for her, I bought caramel popcorn, An bought the cinema hotdog. We were not sick yet then...

After the movie, we dropped by A&W to get root beers. I got a teeny packet of curly fries to go.

Then, feeling floooozy already (An more than me), we walked and walked and walked until it was time to eat dinner before leaving for home. We went to Itallianies for their calamari ...

But it didn't taste as good as the last time we went there. :( It's probably in our minds though.

I think An Nie was sick thanks to her eating durian in excess (a very Malaysian reason to fall sick, haha) and a serious lack of water (the girl doesn't drink water, you have to practically force it on her! ;S) ... and I dunno why I didn't have my appetite, I think that's what junk food does to you. :(

But spending the day with a lethargic, sick-thanks-to-herself friend does take its toll on your own mood also. It's surprisingly hard to be upbeat when your best friend is dragging her feet, yawning hugely, and suddenly losing her "LET'S GO EAT CHILLIS, THEN NANDOS, THEN ITALLIANNIES - OKAY? OKAY?" appetite.

Thanksalot An Nie. Hahahaha. Just joking la, don't worry.

But while we're on the subject, now that An's dehydration has gotten me thinking ... A lousy mood, like the flu, is infectious. This is a lesson for me: to somehow make myself impervious to what is not good. You know that saying, that says if one happy fella walks into a group of sad, whining fellas, then the happy fella very quickly becomes a sad fella also. But when a sad fella walks into a group of happy fellas, the whole group very quickly becomes a sad group also!

Hmmm.

OHHHH BUT WAIT!! Entries in this blog will always strive to end on a positive note, because goodness gracious the world needs more positivity!

At 11.05am on the 25th of June 2008, my cousin, Theodore Pung, was BORN! :D
Welcome to the family, Teddy!!!!!!! :D

The Groove is Back in 1-Utama: On Sushi!

As a post-exam celebration for Carmen, we went to 1-Utama and decided to eat something "adventurous". Now, now, before you start thinking of Fear Factor-ish live cockroaches and bull's testicles or something, bear in mind that we are suburban youths who do not leave the house after dark.

Ha, ha, ha.

Kidding lah. But anyway, we went to that fairly new restaurant called "Sushi Groove". And I gotta say, it's such a cool place! It's like a newer concept than the usual conveyor-belt sushi plates, which frankly I'm not such a fan of, 'coz everything's so expensive and before you know it, you've picked all the prettiest sushi and simultaneously burned a hole in your wallet. :(

But here, you order things off a menu and 98% of the dishes are below RM10. There were also a couple of "communal tables" in the restaurant, so if you want, you can sit with total strangers and chat with them. Hahahaha.

Suffice to say those tables were all empty.

But I have to commend them on their new ideas, yeah! :) I've heard about those communal-type restaurants overseas before, usually in Western countries, where you can have dinner with total strangers and make new friends, but here - maybe Malaysians are not so used to that idea yet. :P Give us time, give us time!

Sushi Groove had something else to offer, besides refreshing new ideas:

M O C K T A I L S !

They also serve cocktails, wine, beer, soft drinks, the works... but mocktails are the best! :) Non-alcoholic cocktails. Hahaha. Besides, the actual cocktails were, like, more than RM15. Our moctails probably only added up to RM15.

And F O O D , G L O R I O U S F O O D !

Heheee. Delicious! :) We had the Flying Geisha, Takoyaki Croquette, Golden Gate and Mayonnaise Dream Rolls.

My favourite. :)

This was described in the menu as octopus and beef filling, but we only tasted flour and yam/potatoes. Haha. Kids will like this, but not the best dish to order.

Raw fish sushi: salmon and tuna. Delicious! :) And this is a lot coming from me, because I've never eaten raw fish before. There are also other types of sushi in the menu, like cod fish sushi, which I didn't order - but you could try it. Let me know how it goes! :P

Verrrry nice. Very dreamy. Hahaha. The topping was warm, so the whole thing just melts in a savoury swirl in your mouth. Makes my mouth water just remembering it, haha.

Moral of the story: Sushi Groove is a restaurant I would highly recommend to anyone looking for a fresh Japanese experience. :)

Besides eating (always an activity for outings such as this, haha), we went shopping! Well, actually, we went window-shopping - but it was fun to try on clothes (we bought a couple - although, unfortunately, the JUSCO sale has ended and all the prices are jacked up again so we explored the other sales in other stores).

Then, before going home, we decided to conduct a social experiment to count how many people will stare if you take out your camera and start taking photos of yourself in a public place:

Haha, only joking. We really just wanted to take photos to kill time.

Ooh, and we bumped into Nirumala! She's an old friend of mine from primary and secondary school, and Carmen's classmate in upper secondary. :)

And the last thing I wanted to blog about (this will sound really stupid to anyone other than me, so you can just stop reading here - but I guess now that I've said that, you'll feel even more curious and want to read on): I finally found a cap that was within my budget in The Reject Shop! :D

I'm not sure if it's called "Reject Shop" or "The Reject Shop" or just "Reject", but you know which place I mean. All the other caps I see around are ridiculously pricey, between RM50 - RM100, and that's like - why, why, why on earth would anyone spend that much on a cap? But obviously, people do, and that's why those things sell like hot cakes.

But those are hot cakes that I refuse to afford, haha. So this, this I got for RM19.90 -- which is already pushing it! But I like it. :)

This is what it looks like:

Unluckily, the real world is not a snowflake fantasy land, so here's a dose of a classic bubble-burster:

I returned home all pleased with my "moneysaver" purchase, only to have Mum remark that it looks like a Chinaman's cap. :( Apparently the top is flat and not round, or something like that. It's torridly frustrating when I have no idea why something is bad. I wonder if anyone else understands what I mean.

And An Nie goes on to say it makes my head look big. But at least, to that, I have a ready answer: "My head is PROPORTIONATE to my body size".

Don't you just hate it when people don't tell you what you want to hear? Ha, ha, ha.

But now that I've received every possible criticism about the cap - "you look like a construction worker, etc" - I am now more or less immune to disses re my precious new acquisition.

But if you see me wearing it and you insist on making a negative comment ...

I will still be able to take it off my head and smack you with it! :(

Ho-hum. I really shouldn't let it bother me that my family and friends think the cap is shitty. I mean, I only need to wear it when I'm forced to be in the sun! And when you're in the sun, everybody's eyes will be all squinty to keep the sun out of their eyes, so nobody can see my cap clearly anymore.

So, really, I could have gotten a cap with green flamingoes on it and nobody would notice. I just wanted to get a cap (I've never bought a cap before, so I'm allowed to buy ONE, right?) because I'm tired of the company-logo caps around the house, although I still might wear the "Rock Hard Cafe" one. :) And hey, it turns out there really is such a restaurant in Phomn Penh! The "Rock Hard Cafe". It's supposedly really famous, too!

That's all for now. Good luck to those of you having exams, like Vanessa and An Nie! :)

PS: If you'd like to try Takoyaki (octopus, etc), there's a shop in 1-Utama that sells 3 balls for RM4.30 - cheaper than at Sushi Groove. I didn't try it, but Carmen loves it. My mum says it's just okay. So anyway, if you want to give it a try: it's this shop called "Tako" at the JUSCO supermarket place, where all the food is. :)