the return of the girlfriend...and kid

my best friend in the whole wide world. ok ok. my 'oldest' best friend in the whole wide world is back for a visit. I have a couple of best friends- Alicia and Adrian. but Son has been my bestest friend since we were fifteen, and we've stayed close friends, although she's been miles away in Sydney for the last...errr...13 years!!!...

well my friend is no longer just my friend- she's a MAK BUDAK! (a mother!!!). Her baby is sooo big and so beautiful too.

we were supposed to hang out at Mersing over till new year's, but things didn't quite pan out. but that didn't stop me from driving over to JB to hang out with her and her kid. Alamak, she's so adorable!

Son- i'm so glad to have you here. even if its just for a bit!

art

Trudged down to the Singapore Art Museum to support a good friend who is also a wonderful local artist who was showing his piece as part of an exhibition of local Malay artists organised by APAD. I was really impressed with the quality of pieces both from newer/younger artists as well as the veteran artists.

There were some common themes that were featured. Islam was featured predominantly, with many pieces alluding to how Islam features in the life of modern Malay muslims. Tradition, and the threat of its extinction in modern society also came through clearly.

Congrats Rofi on your piece!

another edition

check this out 18042009

enchantress of florence

i must admit. i have a soft spot for salman rushdie. i mean i fell spell-bindingly in love with the best book ever written- midnight's children. i treasure my one copy of satanic versus as if satan himself would hunt me down as if it was his only copy i held. and i'm enamoured with the man who, in my view, is the most brillian literary genius to grace our existence.

so, it was with much rose-tinted lenses that i read his latest book- the enchantress of florence. what delights me most, is that his books always centre around themes that i feel define me, or at least, is the reason for my existence. what do i mean?

india & pakistan,
separation,
kashmir,
power,
race,
religion,
tradition,
modernity,
tension.

and this time. he touched about...wait for it...wait for it.....the Medici family, Niccolo machiavelli...... whoa.. be still my beating heart. he gave me a window by which to see Niccolo machiavelli, the father of realism, a side of him that i had never ever ventured to understand.

Anyhow, the book to me- was fabulous. i loved it. i love how he blurs the line between reality and imagination. how he subtly leads us to question the narratives we believe. history that could have been so easily re-written. what do we believe? is it really real? or is it real because we believe that it's real?

the thing i love about rushdie, is that his books need to be mulled over, thought about, reexamined to discover different layers. i'll have to read this book again. but i highly recommend it to you.

But i like Mickey

www.todayonline.com
Wednesday, 17th Oct 2008

cancer prediction

tuesday nites.

i've been trying to spend tuesday nites doing my little part for the community. thought i'd help a friend out at a nearby MPS, where the community in need of assistance, reaches out to their community leaders via the Meet the People's session. i used to help another friend at Marsiling, but with work and all, i just found it difficult to commit. and now, that i feel that its time to get back in touch with the ground...the petrol prices have gone up and in a bid to save the environment, and my pocket as well...i've decided to help out somewhere nearer- that somewhere is Bishan East.

anyhow, 2 weeks ago when i was there and hearing a citizen make his appeal, this particular man with a thick Honky (is that how you spell it?)- Hongkonger accent told me that i had a bad flu.

This man was no genius as my nose was obviously red, i was carrying around a box of tissues and blowing my nose every 2 minutes. But he did give me some good advise. Amongst suggesting that i go on an all green and red apple diet for a week (i mean yeah i need to lose a couple of pounds, but i don't think i'm THAT desperate), he suggested i consume garlic which is a natural antibiotic. He also warned me against the western antibiotics as he said that it would weaken my immune system.

All very valid points. So heeding his advise, i went home, sliced up some garlic, pan-fried them, and ate a whole plateful. I sweated through the nite, releasing potent garlic gas-bombs as i slept.
And woke up the next day feeling much much better, and he was right! my cold went away- in like a day.

Anyway, today...met him again. And he shared with me that what I had was the superflu and that i should be careful. If i have flu more than 10 times a year, its a symptom of a bigger problem. he said that i could have cancer. And he pointed at my breasts, saying that i could get breast cancer.

sigh. what damning news.

but hey. it is possible i suppose. i do have an aunt who suffered from breast cancer. anyhow i spent the night trying to remember how many times i've had the flu this year.

i don't think i've hit ten yet. i hope.

pho pho pho pho

i decided to cook tonight for iftar. i've been craving for some pho for quite some time, and finally decided to just cook it myself.

it went ok- not enough salt though, so it was a tad bit tasteless. I mean its quite tough to cook while ur fasting and ur not able to taste the food. anyway, obviously it wasn't going to be as good as the amazing bowl of pho that Pham took me to in Hanoi. But i was still happy with it!

kudos to my mom who's always cooking fabulous dishes even during fasting month!

i also made some spring-rolls.

noone really enjoyed it thought- the pho. mostly cos my folks are typically malay with typically malay tastebuds. Pho is just too soupy and not spicy enough for them. But they said it was good anyways.

but noone thanked me though! =(

a sucky iftar

i had a sucky iftar on Saturday. it was an I-man and cousins outing that i was invited to. I was happy to go but not so thrilled about where dinner was going to be held- Amiran's Grill!

Yeesh, i've never really enjoyed the food there, and i hate iftar buffets. The food almost always sucks big time. And i was right. there were at least 50 patrons that night, and the buffet was in a space smaller than my store room. It was such a squeeze getting food, and worse still cos my party was on the second floor, we had to trudge up and down to get food.

Foor ran out even before break fast time, and it took about another half hour before they started to replenish food. One of the I-man's cousin got so impatient waiting for rice, that he popped into the kitchen to ask them to put some rice on his plate. This was almost 40 minutes after the breakfast time!

It was the worst 22 bucks i had ever spent.

The company was great, and we ended up going bowling the rest of the night. Although i was dead tired! but i was glad to go. i had a lot of fun.

check out how stupid my outfit looked with the bowling shoes! har har!

Speaker's corner

Read some interesting articles today in TODAY:

First, valet parking is now (or has always been) illegal at HDB parking areas and there's operation 'clamp-down on valet parking @ Holland V' happening now. I heard it on the news and, yesterday, the massage place i go to at Holland V which offers me free valet when i go for a massage, called me to apologise about the need to stop that wonderful perk i've been enjoying!


I totally agree with Chitra that having valet parking would be a win-win for everybody. She correctly points out that parking at Holland V is a nightmare and that the ERP parking doesn't solve any parking issues that people face. And really, there's a shortage of carparks always! I also agree that businesses would be hit. As it is already, none of my friends want to drive down to Holland V for dinner. And those who did would usually just valet park. The valet parking companies are now appealing to HDB. I do hope that their views are heard and that HDB comes back with a ruling that would be a win-win situation for everyone.


While I was in the office slaving (and starving) away. Feliz and KT of www.geeksnotfreaks.com were making a speech at the Speakers Corner and Hong Lim park about how mobile phone charges should be lowered or even free. The news reported that it was a light-hearted speech which ended off with the duo singing an Abba ditty 'Money Money Money'. Unfortunately, only 15 people turned up to hear them, and most of them were friends.


Now, if I had known, I'd have gone down to listen. But i don't really know where they list the speeches that will happen, i really have to go and search. Apparently there's something happening there tomorrow too, by the Online Citizen at 5pm and they'll be talking about improving Singapore's Public Transport System.


I've always been for more space for expression in Singapore, and i think i'd better do my part to show that we need these spaces and that Singaporeans, especially young Singaporeans, want to use the space. I think we've got a knack for complaining that we don't have enough of this and enough of that. And when we get a bit, we say it's not enough and that gov is not being sincere, or that it's too late. Then is it as a sign of protest that we don't use the little inch that's been given to then demand a mile? No...it's probably cause we're just a nation of complainers more than anything.

So i think i'm going to go down tomorrow to hear the Online Citizen and support our claim that we want more freedom of expression and speech, and that we're mature enough to handle this responsibilities and that government should allow for more.

i wonder if those valet companies should sign up to say a couple of things at the speaker's corner!

good men

yesterday after sahur, the morning meal i have to kick off the fast, the sudden urge to look at an old album kinda hit me. so i reached out to look at my sydney album and started guffawing at the funny photos and sketches that i had done during my trip there. it was like a comic journal of every day's activities while i was reunited with one of my bestest girlfriends in the world Zhi and Son.

Anyway, as i flipped i suddenly saw a page from when i scaled the Sydney harbour bridge with the Z-man and one of his best mates! Whoa...a whole lot ot memories came flooding back..all good ones. Me and the Z-man are still good friends. Well, we don't meet in person, but we do chat on MSN a lot and he keeps me in the loop about his life, his career choices etc, and i do the same.

It's not been a problem for me having him still in my life. I mean you don't erase 3 years of your life just because the person you spent the most time with during that time isn't with you anymore right? I've always viewed it as a positive thing. I mean you can't change the fact that these individuals shape your life experience and one-way-or another help you form or define your world view. So the Z-man, did that. And so did some of the other men i've dated. And most often then not, even if I've shed a few tears in my time, i've alwas come out of it thinking- Hey! Now if that didn't happen, i wouldn't have learnt this or that....so i've always felt at the end of the day...that if i had a chance to do it again, ok i would, just because i learn from it.

of course, there are those you wish you could permanently delete from your memory. Of course! but the Z-man wasn't one of them.

Anyhow, i've disgressed...we were chatting on MSN yest, cos i was telling him about the album, when he asked me if i still had any of our photos. and i said, yes, confidently. and last night, before i went to bed i just had a sudden urge to look at them. and for a good hour, i couldn't find them. they weren't in the normal stash of photo albums i have (this was a long time ago, so before we kept soft-copies in our PCs/Macs). I panicked, thinking to myself, 'NO! I couldn't have thrown them away now could i?' It really upset me that i couldn't remember. Like after all that positive talk in the paras above, and then, did i like burn them or chuckem in some fit of rage that i couldn't remember. I honestly don't remember any rage associated to that break-up!

Then as i continued to search, i found them, a whole stash! hahaha...i was so deliriously happy that i still had them, as if it was proof that this part of my life still existed, that i didn't accidentally delete them from my history.

Phew!

I also found a whole stash of photos and cards from my first boyfriend the A-man. Heee. i was then 17! LOL. he's now married with 2 kids! i'm glad we bump into each other sometimes and i get to catch up on where he's at in life. I mean these are good men.

Good men, who've helped me learn about myself, about what makes a relationship work and what doesn't. Good men, that realise that life's more about experiences that help shape us. And as i'm pretty happy with the person I am now. I thank them for helping me get to where I am.

I'm with a good man now. And i'm hoping he'll push me further in life, and help me be an even better person than I am now.

iftar out

i had meant to bring some visitors who were here in Singapore from india to geylang to see the hari raya bazaar. this was after they complained that the didn't have anywhere interesting to go. so i decided to give up my thursday to bring them. but when i told them about the plans tonight, as in where to meet etc, they told me, 'sorry but we've decided to go to Sentosa instead'.

wtf.

yeesh. ah well, what to do? so instead of having a quick iftar (break fast) with the I-man...we had a long leisurely iftar out. since we were near work, and was really near a favourite old haunt of mine from uni days, we headed towards west coast.

oh my what a flood of memories came rushing back...those days in uni, when i use to drive out to this particular hawker centre to buy dinner for everyone studying late...usually with Mus if i was from school...and once i went with my honours year click. it was a long time since i had my favourite black pepper chicken rice.



i don't know why i haven't been back there since, cos it's really chock-filled with muslim food stalls. me and I-man also had some butter prawns (which are his fav) which weren't half bad! i also treated myself to a luscious cup of teh halia. Yum!






well things turned out well in the end. =)

lovely saturday wedding

a top the 33 storey of the OCBC wedding i stumbled upon a peach garden...not just any peach garden it was jo and den's peach garden...they wed in this beautiful garden where beautiful blossoms hung down from long willowy braches...protecting a feast of colours and flavours which tantalised the tastebuds and stimulated the senses....



it was a totally beautiful wedding.... there were maccaroons, cupcakes, mooncakes, fresh strawberries and well, what would a peach garden be without peaches?

jo was just ravishing...the perfect blushing bride...who even serenaded her new hubby... it was totally romantic...and i definitely didn't expect it from her!

a beatiful wedding it was...all the hard work of 'Heaven's gift'.

Sunday in the park..

it's been a long long while since i've been to the Botanic Gardens for the SSO Classics in the Park series. i used to be a regular, but it was then with the Z-man.

Seemed so so so long ago.

i always do that you know? like have a regular haunt with someone special, and when that specialness wears off for one reason or the other...that thing or place that once was so central to my life...also fades into some dark history...a page in my life that i seem reluctant to turn back to. Ballet in the park was with the A-man. and Hey, it's been what? 11 years and I still haven't returned to catch the Ballet in the park.

The Z-man had a foothold on the SSO Classics in the Park and also Siloso Beach.

Well, i was sitting in a bus the other day when i saw the banner showing that the SSO was playing on the 10th, and conveniently forgot until Sunday morning. Luckily I-man wasn't too sleepy after his pond expedition to accompany me. We almost didn't make it because of the light drizzle, but i was really glad we went. The weather was lovely, and I had forgotten just how pretty our SBG is. And what better way to spend a lovely cool Sunday afternoon, but with a loved one, surrounded by greenery, and amused by gay classics like Hungarian Rhapsody No.2 !! My favourite!

oooo and cos it was the National Day weekend, there were many people in Red and white, and we were treated to 'Sketches of Singapore' a lovely collection of Singapore melodies.....i'm still humming to 'Di Tankong Katong'....

i must remember to learn how to play the cello before i'm 40!

tis august...tis august!

tis august...

my favourite month of the year just because i get to indulge in this great celebration of ME!!

started out the month with a trip back to pakistan. we headed to Karachi for a day and then headed off to lahore for just another day. it was a quick business trip, but i'm glad we did it. i've missed lahore so so so much... and it was nice to be back in that vibrant beautiful city...and the mangoes! the mangoes! were sweeter than i remembered...

i didn't get a chance to see more than the financial district in karachi...so i'm not quite enamoured by the city. but lahore... lahore's captured my heart!

~~~
national day eve was spent on teambuilding... which wasn't too fun...well the facilitators weren't too fun but i did learn a lot about my team...which is a good thing.

but the highlight was the nice lunch which ended off with a lovely cake...i was expecting the cake, but still it was a nice surprise anyway...

happy august me...

Taxis...can't live with'em..can't live withou'em

Had dinner with some guests from Malaysia tonight...was fun..well getting there wasn't. Imp and i hopped into a cab, and told him to take us to royal plaza on scotts...and the fella went a long big round before I realised he was headed to Crown Prince Hotel instead! tsk...

I so wanted to get out of that cab, but the cab situation was bad, so we stuck with him after picking up our guests and headed off to Boat Quay. After Dinner, we had a nice stroll down to Fullerton hotel to pick up a taxi. There was a queue.

Imp quickly got onto the phone to try and call one.

Lines were busy!

So we waited in line, and got into a nice big cabbie, which on the way back to the hotel, told me that he couldn't send me off after the hotel stop. He was heading to marine parade, which was SOOOO in the opposite direction! So i had to get off.

Now my guests, who were really nice and concerned when they saw like a HUNDRED people outside their hotel waiting for a cab...was so worried that i wouldn't be able to get on one...i knew they wouldn't let me wait alone, so i lied. I lied and told them i was getting something at Orchard road anyways, so it wouldn't be an issue for them and duly chased them back into their hotel rooms.

And then i went for the great cab hunt. It was 10pm, and the whole world was going home. All the cab queues snaked endlessly, and i kept on walking and walking. Damn! I had an opportunity to claim taxi fare all the way home..and guess what? NO taxis...

So i walked across the road to the MRT station. As i walked past the road, i saw busses jam-packed with people trying to get home. Now cabs weren't anywhere to be found, and busses are jam-packed and the trains? After a whole day on my stilettos, standing in a cramped train with really smelly people (it could have all been the result of irritation rather than actual odours at this point) really turned me off. but what could i do?

Oh MY GAWD!

I repeat. I'd rather be stuck in my own car, fully a/ced with music i'm happy to listen to, in a traffic jam, rather than shoved up next to another person's armpits, while the 'gentlemen' grab the seat right from under ur arse.

yeesh...

this is way beyond just about taxis...

goodbye soul...?

i've been lamenting for some time now the death of my creative soul. i suspected it for some time but now, i confirm it.

i just can't. can't for the life of me pick up a pencil when it used to come so naturally...i ransacked my room last night, in search of proof of a person who used to express herself so liberally on paper with a few strokes of the pencil...i found my sketchbook of seoul...in it were sketches of the wild woods outside of seoul...memories of a days spent enjoying the fresh spice filled air of korea...

the last time i wrote a short except...the last trace that my mind used to flow with colourful images...in February 2006.

that was the year i took off...literally..took off...

i hate what i've become. really i do.

it's not that i'm unhappy, but sometimes i wonder if i've put a part of me to sleep, never to awake. the part of me that lived, that sung, that drew, that gained inspiration from the colours of life...

"Mind Like Water" Simile

I was in the library yesterday checking out books on ASEAN governance. Totally work related, of course, when i stumbled across a book titled 'Getting Things Done- How to Achieve Stress-free Productivity'.

My fragile state of mind yelled desperately to my lethargic physical being telling me to pick it up. The quote from the guardian stated on the cover 'Allen's (the author) ideas are nothin short of life-changing'. As something life-changing was something i desperately needed to help get my life together, i added the book to the heavy pile of books.

I managed to browse through it this morning on the way to work and found this excerpt terribly inspiring.

The "Mind Like Water Simile":

'In karate there is an image that's used to define the position of perfect readiness: "mind like water." Imagine throwing a pebble into a still pond. How does the water respond? The answer is, totally appropriately to the force and mass of the input; then it returns to calm. It doesn't overreach or underreact...

Anything that causes you to overreach or underreach can control you, and often does. Responding appropriately to your email, your staff, your projects, your unread magazines, your thoughts about what you need to do, your children or your boss will lead to less effective reaulsts than you'd like. Most lead to less effective results than you'd like. Most people give either more or less attention to things than they deserve, simply because they don't operate with a "mind like water".'

(Excerpt from Getting Things Done- How to Achieve Stress-free Productivity by David Allen, USA by Viking of the Penguin Grup, 2006)

I'll tell you when i finish reading the book, and maybe you can assess whether i've managed to train my mind to operate with "mind like water". =)

missing san diego...

i miss san diego... 9 days there was enough to convert me. i'm definitely going to look for a job there sometime... i love love love the weather, sunny but cool...i absolutely love the people who are laid back, friendly and have the sunniest dispositions (i must be the weather) and i love the traffic. cars actually slow down when they see that you're going to cross the road! aw mi gawd....yeesh.... and i also headed to LA where on the normal streets people drive at an average of 50km/h...when i got back and got into the passenger seat of my crazy most impatient husband-to-be...my heart almost leapt out of my chest and onto the hurried streets of the TPE.

anyway, i was in San diego for the American Society for Training and Development International Conference and Exhibition and boy was it fabulous. I attended a 3-day training certificate programme which basically was a workshop to help me become a better trainer and i had a fabulous time. I had really great course-mates from all walks of life in the states, and 3 from Kuwait, 1 from Saudi.

Check out this clip of one of our...'what not to do as a presenter' video... =)

Also- check out the some sights of lovely San Diego...

the marina and freeport village

lovely lovely balboa park

March me men birthdays....

it's the boys birthdays this march...

my lovely beau's is today...

and my darling not so small kitty kat's birthday falls on the same day as my fathers...18th!

i slaved over a surprise birthday cake for iman last night...was up till 2 this morning...some of his kids are allergic to eggs, so i made an eggless chocolate cake with chocoloate ganache topped with MnMs for the kids...

isn't it just cute... it's pretty yummy too...


it's strange though that i'm more excited about his birthday than he is! LOL..i'm such a sucker for birthdays...

oooh it's also bujang's birthday...he's grown so big over the year...and turned out sooo handsome.. we love him soo much, and i think mum would go nuts without him! ..by the way, he's a pedigree cat- a British shorthair. He's not a show quality, but he's still gorgeous i think. I've never had a pedigree cat, but really there's a huge difference in how they behave. Bujang is definitely a beautiful well-behaved lap cat!

see how cute?

Bujang about at 3 months.

Bujang almost 1 year old lazing on my mom's lap

A great profile of my handsome silver tabby british shorthair

happy birthday sayangs

been so long...

i haven't blogged in quite awhile..
a little busy..
a little lazy...
a little uninspired...
but i think i'll start to do it again..

i guess i miss just sharing my thoughts, ideas and feelings...

I've been baking more...which is great great great...
baked new year pineapple tarts and also valentine day cookies...

i've also found a baking partner in iman.. =)

i'm not in the midst of planning a high tea for my brunch kakis...
that's my 1st quarter workplan in my personal life..yeah!