GaGa over...

I don’t know when it happened or how it happened but before I knew it, I was swept of my feet right into cloud nine.

I guess it’s probably love after a couple of times listening.

Yess… I’m a victim of the Hallyu wave!

Long live K-pop!

Move over billboard chart toppers & Hollywood music, it’s time for Eastern hegemony.

(Except perhaps Lady Gaga, who in my opinion still tops it all)

Haha... I never knew bubble gum pop could be so addictive.

Try listening to ‘Nobody’ by Wonder Girls or ‘Gee’ by Girls Generation.

Before you know it your body might just be grooving to the beat of the music.

Never mind if you can’t shake it as well as Roy, just as long the particles in you body starts vibrating & colliding with each other randomly at high speed (chemistry)

Wonder Girls

SNSD (Girls Generation)

Besides, korean rap & R&B have never sounded better especially since you & I can’t understand the language but who cares it’s all down to the awesome music arrangement & hot guys with good moves i.e. Big Bang, Super Junior, DBSK.

Watching 13 guys dance & do the chest popping move would definitely leave you breathless by the end of the video clip & keep you dreaming as you plug in your mp3 headphone & listen to the exact same song while trying to imagine each & every one of their faces. At last, let’s put some imagination & visualization to work!

Big Bang

Super Junior

SS501

For a more sober mood during those emo periods, switch to korean ballads which could probably leave you more emo than before once you realize that the chances of you going to Korea & bumping into anyone of those cute pop stars is perhaps possible but obviously not probable.

Well, I’m glad I at least have my mp3. For now I’m quite contented. =)

Davichi

From the Back of Accounting Class.. to My Bedroom In Home Sweet Subang Jaya.

As I write this, I sit at the back of my accounts class whilst the lecturer drones on about suspense accounts, a terrible misnomer for a topic so boring I'd rather be watching the moss now forming on my bathroom wall grow. Evidently, I need a little something fresh to get me though the day - and perhaps a little cleaning detergent for the bathroom wall.

So meanwhile, as I tick the seconds down to the weekend, here's a little update of the happenings in Hartamas:

Yesterday, I was interviewed to join the Student Council. I'd forgotten how much fun being interviewed...

**********

That was how far I got before my accounts lecturer (Mr. Pathman) snapped at me for using my handphone in class.. And now, I'm home! In overcrowded, polluted, traffic-crazy, H1N1-positive USJ, Subang Jaya. I miss this place so much!

Here's me continuing the epic tale of scholared life in Sri Hartamas. I'm expecting a huge offer to write my memoir any day now. And maybe a nice cover picture to go with it! I'm thinking a headshot as my abs aren't looking too good given the problem with my current workout plan (it doesn't exist and therein lies the problem).

In any case, I got into the Student Council. It's been alright thus far, but although the group is small, I feel a little like an outsider because everyone else seems to know each other and has so much in common. It's what I like to call the 'Odd-one-out Syndrome'.


See what I mean? I feel like Hitler in the Cloned Sisters of Mother Theresa convent..

Anyhoo, last week I drove my aunt, mom and cousins to Mid Valley. It was insanely crowded despite the fact that our country is supposedly in the midst of the swine flu pandemic. But while holding my breath to ensure I breathe in as little of the potentially infected air as I can, I managed to shop a little. Bought a few books; I'm currently reading "Here's What We'll Say" by Reichen Lehmkuhl and although Sarah's already lent it to me, I wanted (and bought) a copy of the "Life of Pi" by Yann Martel.


It's awesome and I'd like to reread it sometime soon; perhaps when I reduce the heaps of homework on my desk to a smaller, more managable pile..

Snippets of a Random MSN Convo.

The following is an extract from a random MSN conversation. Forgive the faulty language; it was, after all, instant messaging.

Nickolai says:
hehe.. but we have had 900 visitors in the past 2 months!
900!
NINE HUNDRED!
SEMBILAN RATUS!!

hazel - BACK PAIN AH. falling...falling...falling... =D says:
loll
kenny sia gets around 20000 hits per day
i think
hahahahhaahaha
was it?
remember that time we went to segi

Nickolai says:
oh we'll get there..
hehe
20000?
wow.. i had no idea so many people didnt have lives!

hazel - BACK PAIN AH. falling...falling...falling... =D says:
jealousy is so powerful
hahaha

Nickolai says:
imagine how many more avid-fan-reader people's lives we could fill with the miracle that is our exciting lives!
we're making the world a better place..
O.o we could be on Oprah..


hazel - BACK PAIN AH. falling...falling...falling... =D says:
omg nick

Nickolai says:
i see it now..

hazel - BACK PAIN AH. falling...falling...falling... =D says:
i'm going to post this conv on the blog
=D

Nickolai says:
is jeans appropriate for oprah?

Today!

Facebook is so interesting. You get to play weirdly uninteresting games like Mafia Wars and Friends For Sale and Pet Society. And you get to see who's in or out of love! Wonder why people like to parade that around... Oh and you get to stalk the people too! See what they play, see where they went, see who their circle of friends are, see their relationship status... *cough cough*

ANYWAY.

First part of today was pretty normal la. Got up relatively early, ate, practised, went online, lunched, went online. Then at 4pm I went to church and stayed till 10pm! For class and practice and somemore practice and then a session.

After church I came home and printed some things for mom, and while doing that went online A LITTLE WHILE and then suddenly it was 11.30pm edi. O.o And THEN i remembered I need a white formal blouse for tomorrow and went searching for it. And when I found it, it was sitting in the 'to-be-ironed' basket! OH NO. So I took half an hour to iron it (it's a really fussy blouse) and went up to my room feeling exhausted but very content. *proud* And THEN! I remembered... I need black pants for tomorrow too! Checked my cupboard and it wasn't there. =.= Decided to wear a brown skirt for tomorrow. XD

Oh and, I just removed my contact lenses and cleaned them. And poured the solution on my bedroom rug cos I couldn't open the washroom door. =D

Waiting for my hair to dry now cos I wasn't smart/disciplined enough to bathe the moment I got home.

Stupid me. =D

Hmm...

Note: This was posted by Lily then accidentally deleted by Nickolai then recovered by Hazel. So it appears to be posted by Hazel but is actually by Lily. XD (And Nickolai is highly apologetic).




I’m not an always optimistic person.

Grumbling, whining & complaining is my daily mantra which I can’t live without.

However after reading ‘A Daughter of The Samurai’, it got me thinking hard on how the author managed to find beauty & hope in death, separation & struggle.

The author, Etsu Inagaki Sugimoto was born into a well respected samurai family which valued tradition above all. She was bounded by the tight, strict traditional Japanese customs throughout her childhood which she obediently adhered to without giving it a second thought or questioning how or why. During her teens, she set out on her sole voyage to America to meet her husband, a Japanese man who was then drawn by the business opportunities offered in the West. Later, forced to raise two precious daughters as a single mother when her husband continued his journey to ‘the other’ world.

What awed me most is that Etsu told the world of her story without any threads of malice, revenge or spitefulness but instead with full of innocent inquisitiveness & vivid imagination. Being a conservative Japanese country girl new to the immense freedom America had to offer, Etsu found similarities between her present & past, concluding that people around the world may differ in fashion, perspective & tradition but in heart they are very much alike as we are all afterall humans.

She found happiness in discovering things that were new & puzzled her. Describing every experience she went thru with joy & pleasure unlike me who would have rant on & on about how depressing life is… opps, i just can’t help it!

The way Etsu painted & expressed her life & herself; putting language & imagination, 2 powerful tools to good use.

Haha… I’m glad I did pick up this book although was kind of skeptical at first when my mom recommended it to me as it was her literature piece in secondary school.

Miss you guys who are all studying at different places but at least I know,

‘The earth is flat & you are on the other side of the plate, not far away but out of sight.’

- A quote from ‘A Daughter of The Samurai’-

Learning to Bake With Hazel Beh and Eswhy Tan.

Sometime last year or last last year I went to stay over at my piano teacher, Mrs P's house for a week or so. My friend Eswhy joined me during the last three days. One night we got bored and decided to lug all of Mrs P's cookbooks to our room, where we spent half an hour poring all over the recipes. We decided we wanted to cook mashed potatoes! And so we marched downstairs to ask Mrs P about it. BUT, she pooh-pooed at our idea of making mashed potatoes because it was 'too easy'. And so she taught us how to bake buns instead.

Here is a short tutorial on one of the important parts of baking buns: How To Roll The Dough. Enjoy!



=D

Please excuse the over-enthusiasm, I was feeling a little high then. XD

Random post about short unrelated incidents. =)

1. Everyone seems particularly bitchy with me lately. Oh kla maybe not everyone but at least the people I live with at home. What on earth lah! Menopause is it! Or maybe I'm the one who's hitting menopause since all that screaming is directed at ME.




2. I went driving today, yesterday and the day before yesterday. First day I drove to the sundry shop 0.5km from my house. Second and third days I drove to this restaurant called Casablanca which is on the same row as the restaurant called Apollo. All three days I made my mom scream at me in fear. First day I took 10 minutes to reverse the car out of the house. Have to be extra careful cos I drive my mom's car which is relatively new cos I can't drive my brother's car cos he's living at SS2 now. Oh and today I mati enjin at the traffic lights in front of Casablanca cos when I stopped I didn't pull the handbrake so she made me do it cos I'm a new driver and she says the car was sliding backwards (but I don't think it was cos I was inching forward at that time, trying to reduce the distance between my car and the car in front of me). So anyway in the end I pulled the handbrake and at that instant the traffic lights turned green and so I panicked. The engine died twice after which my mom pulled the handbrake again and then the third time the engine DIDN'T die but I was still stuck cos the handbrake was up so I screamed at her to push the handbrake up and I VVVRRRRROOOOOOOOOOOMMed forward. Got a nice honking from the car behind me too! =D

3. Last week I found out my friend's mom reads this blog. Three days ago I found out my uncle reads it too. He reckons we should blog more often and use more pictures.




4. On Monday I went to see this Dr. Ranjit Singh who does cosmetic surgery. He seems like a good doctor, his clinic was packed with people (mostly aunties and uncles) the whole one hour I was there. I felt so out of place! Tried to tell myself that I was just accompanying my father. And NOLAH I WAS NOT THERE FOR COSMETIC SURGERY. My dad brought me there to check out my hair cos I look like I'm balding. Or I look bald. Or I AM bald. Whatever lah. He did this funny scan of my scalp with microscopes (I think) first magnifying the image to 50x then 200x then 1000x, first to see the scalp then pore then hair. Or something like that lah. And this lovely Dr. Ranjit Singh says, it's not my fault I'm bald! Cos it's hereditary... got it from my father. Nasty people out there who used to point out and in crowded places and in very loud voices that I'm bald, I know okay! Stop making me feel ugly. Anyway even though it's hereditary I still went home with two types of pills and two types of hair tonic thingies which he says I should use to prevent my condition from getting any worse. Apparently if I don't do anything I could end up bald like an egg, and I definitely don't want that happening. Lucky my mother has a whole headful of hair lo. Who knows how I might have turned out if my parents BOTH have hair problems.




5. I resent having to rely on other people for financial support and I resent it even more when that person rubs it in my face. I resent it when that person calculates over and over again how much money I've spent the past 18 years of my life and how much more I'm going to spend for my tertiary education. I resent it when that person takes delight in telling me how much I owe and in writing mock 'IOU' notes on my behalf. I'm going to make sure I earn lots of cash in future and pay back every last cent of the money I used. And I'll make sure I brag about it when that day comes.

6. I like our new header!

7. I think I need anger management classes. =D

8. I finished downloading Season 1 of the TV series "Chuck"! It took three weeks you know. Love this site! XTVi. They have 24 and Beauty and the Geek and CSI and Grey's Anatomy and House and Prison Break and Damages and Leverage and all those popular shows. Go check it out! =D

***

And that's all for today. =)

Adieu Yihui.

Yihui left for MIT last Thursday night. Needless to say, we'll miss her. It hasn't quite sunk in yet that we won't be hanging out at Starbucks or catching a movie as a gang; at least, not for awhile.

But of course, we couldn't just send her off without a decent hangout. So the Sunday prior to her departure, we (namely Roy, Hazel, Yihui and myself) took the LRT down to KLCC. It was an adventurous change from our overvisited hangouts at Sunway pyramid.

Upon arrival, we met up with Sarah and proceeded to the main attraction of any Malaysian shopping centre: the food court. It had just drizzled and we were torn between picnicking by the lake and risking wet bottoms, or just pigging it out right there in the food court.

Being the indecisive individuals we are, we couldn't come to any conclusions and settled on a coin toss. Head, we stay in; tails, lakeside picnic.

We got heads, indoors..



Ten minutes later, we found ourselves walking out the double doors that head towards the KLCC gardens equipt with sushi, McDonalds and Subway sandwiches. We sat on the steps by the huge pool and hung out/camwhored for a bit. Pleasantly, it was cloudy and hardly wet; great picnicking weather.

Yihui's planning on going to the US to claim that she's from a native tribe that lives on trees. Home sweet tree.

And her neighbour Roy-zan.

Peek-a-boo!

We then proceeded in for desert(!) and later Kino.
Gelato..

Sadly, all good things inevitably end and we left soon after.

We'll miss you Yihui. We love ya lots and look forward to future hangouts! Good luck math genius! Hugs.

*****************
If you hadn't the chance to wish her off, leave a comment for Yihui.

Today...

... is a bad day.

Why does it always take major bad news to remind us not to take things for granted?
Why is it that we appreciate things only when they're gone?
Why don't we think of the pain and regret that will surely come, when we leave things undone and things unsaid?

Today, students of SMK USJ 12 were scrambling to go home when word got out that a few of their number had caught the swine flu. I had just gotten out of bed in the morning when i heard the news that a teacher has passed away. A friend told me about how he regretted not paying enough attention in class when she was teaching... It was a huge shock to all of those who had known her: her colleagues, friends, students... It left all gripped by fear, hanging around in a daze.

Funny how it is, that I could read about the steadily rising death toll in the newspapers and not give a hoot. I remember proudly showing my mom a CNN report that said many more people die from the normal flu every year compared to the swine flu.

Yet when it happens to someone we hold close to our hearts...

Take care of your health, people. You never know when it may be gone.

My favourite game. =P

being the best in everything

Save my earsss. =(

I hate hearing those words. Unfortunately, it's daddy's mantra for everything under the sun.

"You must be the best! Second best also cannot! See, people always remember the first-prize winners! Where got people remember second or third prize one?! Do you know who came second in the 2006 World Cup? No right?! You must be in Team A! Cannot be in Team B! If jadi reserve then zhao gao liao lo!"

And so on and so forth.

It makes me soooo angry lah! Who do you think I am lah! Do I look like a genius to you?

Then when I start grumbling about there only being ONE best in everything, daddy starts: "Then you must give your best and hope for the best!"

Aiyoh. Of course then I'll diam and just let him talk lah. But you see, even if I practise 12 hours a day, I could always do 13 right? And even if I outdo myself and practise during every moment of free time I have, I could still take one minute less to bathe and eat and sleep and then use that one minute to practise right!

Ok lah I know I sound like a very lazy sulky brat now... XD

Come tell me your thoughts about this, anyone. =)

Old seasons

My T8 lecturer likes to inflict pain on his students.

ROF = Ruler on Finger.

And he has this evil smile when he does it.

We had a class test yesterday. Out of 60+ students, less than 10 people passed (including me!). There would be a longgg ROF session next class. Lol.

The lowest mark was 7%.. which means that person will get 43 ROFs.. Poor guy.

A random conversation with ex-lecturer :
Mr Jack : Hey!
Me : Hellooo, I am late for class!
Mr Jack : Aren't you always late for class?
Me : T__T what?? since when I was late for your class..?
Mr Jack : But you always ponteng my class.

Lol.. damn zha dou!

Currently sick.. This morning, woke up.. then...
Dad : How are you?
Me : I th.... *crap. no voice!*

Btw, it's not only the sick season now.. but also the coupling and break up season! =P

Kuala Selangor Trip..

(I'm back! My 2nd post and I'm still praying I won't stop updating..)

On Wednesday,as I previously mentioned,I went for a half-day trip to Kuala Selangor with the Korean girls who came to INTI SJ. We left Subang at about 4.15 p.m. and first stop was Bukit Melawati where we could see the Strait of Malacca and most of Kuala Selangor. There's also a colony of Silverleaf monkeys living on this hill. They're very tame and,at least in my opinion,cute.. We fed them nuts which we bought before we went up the hill. And to my surpsrise,the Korean girls were braver than I thoguht. They seemed really excited while feeding the monkeys and one of them actually told me she was suprise how in Malaysia we have monkeys hanging around at roadsides and how in Korea they can only see monkeys at the zoo.









After done playing with our long lost cousins,we went to the fishing village located along the river to have our dinner at one of the many seafood restaurants located there. The food was pretty good and the view was awesome. Once we filled ourselves up,the bus took us all to Kampung Kuantan for a trip along the river to look at fireflies. It was my first and I was totally awed. However,I was told that taking a picture of the trees litted by fireflies at night is utterly useless. So I didn't,though I did try.. It was an amazing sight to behold,seriously. The trees looked as if they were lit with Christmas lights. And the trip ended there. The bus then took us back to Subang.