2009 New Year Resolutions

Goodbye 2008. Welcome 2009! Happy new year! I remember this time last year I had written a 2008 new year resolutions. Here's the evaluation:

1) Stop being an anti-social. Erm... improving.
2) Get over the fear and nerve of talking to strangers, older people, cute guys, my boss (when I start working), distant relatives and friends, foreigners with a perfect British accent etc. Well... erm... improving.
3) Get used to public speaking, interviews, presentations etc. Erm... yeah... improving.
4) Achieve ideal weight of 49 kg (something I’d probably won’t succeed). Succeeded! Well kind of. Cause I had this terrible gastric attack and when i weighed myself at that time. I was 49.5 kg. Now that I'm healthy, I'm slightly more than that.
5) Learn how to put on make up (again something I’d probably be too lazy to achieve). I think I can consider this as achieved. From know-nothing-at-all to put-on-slight-makeup, I think I deserve a "achieved" don't I?
6) Start reading newspapers everyday. Well I read the Sun every working day. And the Star occassionally when my colleague buys it.
7) Learn to be involved in an intelligent conversation without feeling foolish. I have no idea whether i achieved this or not.
8) Quit clubbing. Or should I say, reduce the number of clubbing activities. I definitely had achieved that.
9) Learn what is love and how to love. Definitely in progress.

Hmm... not bad. Not bad at all. Here's the 2009 new year resolutions:

1) Continue with whatever not achieved in 2008 (as of above).
2) Learn to control my temper and emotions.
3) Learn to be more patient.
4) Excel in my new career starting in February 2009.
5) Sustain my relationship.
6) Learn to be more optimistic.

Food in Ikea

Ikea is the place you go when you want to shop for furnitures and home decorations; or to get ideas for interior design. But did you know that the food in Ikea is totally not bad at all with reasonable price and a fun way of self-serving? Zilin and I purposely went to Ikea for lunch haha! And here are the food we ordered:

Five pieces of meat balls with chips. You are supposed eat it with the gravy and strawberry sauce but I prefer only with the gravy. The plastic plate turns everyone off I know, but the taste is superb! It's only RM 5.
Baked salmon. The side dish is... erm... I think it's fried potatoes. Though the salmon tasted a little raw but the gravy was delicious, and the potatoes were good too. This costs RM15.90.
Chicken pie with mashed potatoes. The chicken pie, we both agreed, tasted like Seremban Siew Pau. Exactly the same taste. Zilin said maybe the Seremban Siew Pau imitate the western chicken pie. Well, possibly. The mashed potatoes were just okay. Cause we had this two days after the Italiannies Christmas dinner so I thought the mashed potatoes and its gravy in Italiannes tatsted better. The carrots, on the other hand, dipped in the gravy tasted weird. This costs RM7.

Finally, the dessert - Daim cake. Erm... or was it Daim pie? I don't remember. Anyway, this is a little too sweet. This should be shared by at least four people. Zilin and I had difficulty finishing it as both of us don't really like sweet stuff. This costs RM4.90.

We also ordered a glass of soft drinks. You can either order coffee/tea or soft drinks. The drinks are bottomless. There were four choices of soft drinks and another four for coffee/tea. The total came up to RM33++ including tax. We thought it was about the same price as having fast food. The amount of food we ordered were for three actually. But again because Zilin was there, we could finish it all up.

Love Letters of Great Men

Browsing through Shinyin's blog I came across this love letter which sounded strangely familiar. Googling it made me remember that it was quoted from Sex and the City by Sarah Jessica Parker. I remember it kind of touched me.

Good morning, on July 7

Though still in bed, my thoughts go out to you, my Immortal Beloved, now and then joyfully, then sadly, waiting to learn whether or not fate will hear us - I can live only wholly with you or not at all - Yes, I am resolved to wander so long away from you until I can fly to your arms and say that I am really at home with you, and can send my soul enwrapped in you into the land of spirits - Yes, unhappily it must be so - You will be the more contained since you know my fidelity to you. No one else can ever possess my heart - never - never - Oh God, why must one be parted from one whom one so loves. And yet my life in V is now a wretched life - Your love makes me at once the happiest and the unhappiest of men - At my age I need a steady, quiet life - can that be so in our connection? My angel, I have just been told that the mailcoach goes every day - therefore I must close at once so that you may receive the letter at once - Be calm, only by a calm consideration of our existence can we achieve our purpose to live together - Be calm - love me - today - yesterday - what tearful longings for you - you - you - my life - my all - farewell. Oh continue to love me - never misjudge the most faithful heart of your beloved.

ever thine
ever mine
ever ours

Found a website with a list of love letters written by famous people. Just thought of sharing it with you people.

The Day The Earth Stood Still

Starring my favourite actor, Keanu Reeves and Jennifer Connelly, The Day The Earth Stood Still is a remake of the 1951 version. Keanu Reeves play Klaatu, the alien who came to the Earth with unknown intentions. He had lost some weight and was looking as stunning as ever (though a bit wrinkles here and there). And when dressed in suit, he can melt any girl's heart haha!

Back to the movie, my comment is, highly extremely very disappointing. The script itself was not exactly well-written, as the story flow at some points were very coarse and unrefined, especially towards the end when Klaatu suddenly changed his mind and decided to give humans another chance. (Am I revealing too much?) And the huge destroying robot, for some reason it reminded me of a Doraemon story. It was pretty lame to me.

There were not any oooooohhhs and aaaaaahhhhs in this film. In fact, there is so little to talk about you would straight away forget you ever watched this the moment you walk out of the cinema.

In conclusion, besides the script I have nothing else to complain about. But then again, the script is about all of it, isn't it?

Italiannies

Zilin and me went to Italiannies in 1 Utama for Christmas dinner. We had always wanted to dine there and the food turned out to be not disappointing. We were presented with the Christmas menu with dinner sets ranging from RM45 to RM65. Both of us ordered a RM65 set each and a lemonade. The total came up to RM150. I thought the price was reasonable. There wasn't much choices for the appetizers and desserts - just two choices each. So when Zilin ordered one, I ordered the other. So that we could try both haha!

One of the appetizers - stuffed tomatoes. It doesn't look very appealing but the taste was okay. I have absolutely no idea what the stuffing was made of except that it contained spinach.
The breads were already half eaten when we took this picture. We were given... erm... about six pieces. We were supposed to dip the bread in the olive oil and vinegar (shown in picture) but I preferred the mysterious creamy gravy came together with the garlic bread that I ordered (not shown in picture). And we miraculously finished it. (Actually it's not so miraculous if you're dining with Zilin. He can swallow almost anything.)

The main course (entree) that I ordered was parmesan fish, whose full name I forgot. It was extremely devilishly delicious!!! Served with sliced fried potatoes and onion rings. It's simply irresistible!

Zilin ordered turkey with mashed potatoes. He said the turkey tasted like the Chinese "Char Siew", which I totally agreed. I concluded that the chef is actually Chinese and he marinated the turkey meat using his grandmother's traditional chinese method. The mashed potatoes, on the other hand, was so damn delicious it was better than any mash potatoes I've ever tasted (even those in Kenny Rogers).

One of the desserts was... erm... this bread and butter thing whose name I forgot. This looked very much like a fine dining dish and it tasted good too.

This was called... Struffoli if I'm not mistaken. It was like... fried bread dipped in orange juice and honey. It was incredibly sweet the moment you put it in your mouth. But when the orange smell came up it was not so bad. We didn't really like it though.

I was quite happy with the food and the service. The only flaw was that our table was not exactly in a strategic place. Zilin was literally sitting at the mouth of a staircase, half blocking the walkway. The distances between tables are also uncomfortably near. I couldn't help overhearing the conversation at the next table. Anyway the food was good enough to distract us from these.

Bukit Antarabangsa Landslide - a close encounter

5th December 2008
9:00 p.m.
Zilin arrived at my place in Oakleaf Park Condominium. We had dinner together and watched a bit of TV after. Nothing seemed unsual. Just an ordinary Friday night. We went to sleep at about 12:00 a.m.

6th December 2008
4:30 a.m.
I woke up from my slumber. Felt exceptionally warm. Why was the air-conditioner off? I remembered switching it on before I went to bed. I got up, checked the fuse box. It was okay. The corridor lights were still on, but the neighbour's porch light was out. Hmm... Strange. Too sleepy to think, I went back to bed.

8:45 a.m.
Still in semi-concious mode. Maroon 5 'makes me wonder' was playing at the background. That'd be my ringtone, I thought, and decided to ignore it. Five minutes later I called back LingYue. Landslide? What landslide? Bungalow near my house? On TV news? So that's why the electricity supply was out. I promised to get back to her later.

10:15 a.m.
Zilin and I walked down towards Impian Selatan Condominium and could not believe our eyes when we saw this...


The whole lot of bungalows were damaged beyond repair. One of the houses used to have two Porche parked right at the front. My brother and I would look at them in awe whenever we drove pass. I could only imagine what became of those luxurious cars.

11:20 a.m.
No power supply, and no water supply (only temporary supply from the water storage tank). We have food but without electricity for the refrigerator, it would get stale within approximately 30 hours. We couldn't drive out because the only access road to the outside was blocked. What should we do?

11:35 a.m.
There was a path through Impian Selatan Condominium that could lead us out. It's muddy and slippery and difficult to walk. But at least we'd be out of here. Should we go or should we stay?

1:50 p.m.
The access through Impian Selatan Condominium had been blocked as it was flooded. Another path was opened. To go through it we had to climb a 6-storeys high hill. I was worried about my mom's physical ability. Should we go or should we stay?

2:00 p.m.
We had decided to stay till tomorrow. If there's still no power supply by tomorrow afternoon, there's no way we're staying. We'd be starved (or bored) to death. Since there was nothing to do, we took a nap.

5:00 p.m.
We discovered from a neighbour that they were giving away food supply and candles further uphill. So Zilin and I drove up to get some while my mom stayed put at home. By the time we got down it was already dark. Zilin said that our situation was very dangerous because we were running out of ammo, and that the pedestrians were all zombies lurking in the dark waiting to feast on human flesh. I looked at him one kind and decided that it's time to forbid him to play anymore computer games.

7th December 2008
10:00 a.m.
Still no water supply. Still no power supply. The road through Impian Selatan Condominium had been reopened. Should we go or should we stay?

1:15 p.m.
After a delicious homecook meal, we decided it was time to go. We packed our stuff (just a few clothings and cash) put on our running shoes and were ready to go jungle trekking. On our way we saw what terrible things the landslide had done. The cars were squashed by the roof.
Pity those homelesss people...
The muddy path we had to walk through. This is considered the easiest part.
When we were out, we found ourselves behind the rows of ground zero bungalows. This was considered the danger zone. Though the houses were not damaged, the occupants were evacuated. We saw cracks on the bitumen road.

More cracks...

HUGE cracks!!!

There were authorities standing by.

Almost out of the danger zone. At the other side of the landslide, authorities standing by. At that moment, the rescue team were still working to find more survivors.

Tired and exhausted.

2:45 p.m.
My sister came to pick us up. We'd be staying with her for the time being.

when i died

When i died,
Will people ever weep for me?
Will they praise me with beautiful songs?
Will they remember me for all the good deeds that i've done?
Will they think of me, always,
as the girl who made them laugh,
who made them smile,
who made them cry,
who made them nervous,
who made them emotional,
who made them feel lost,
who made them fall in love?

Will people ever weep for me,
when i died?

love

"We are angels with single wings. The only way that we can fly is to hold onto each other."

Just saw the new entry in ShinYin's blog. And feel extremely, extremely disturbed. Well unlike ShinYin, I don't come from a family where EVERY man cheats. But I do come from one where... well, one man cheated... my Dad... three times. I supposed this is equally bad as ShinYin's case, isn't it?

Asked if I believe in love, my answer is... well I don't know. First of all, what is the definition of love?
Love is missing him?
Love is wanting to see him?
Love is a feeling of possession, wanting him all for myself?
Love is wanting him to be happy?
Love is willing to do anything for him?
Love is worrying about him whenever he drives in a sleepy condition?
Love is not wanting to be a burden for him?
Love is... a complicated feeling. I must say I haven't quite grasp the meaning of love. It's still very vague to me.

Asked if I believe that every man cheats, including my boyfriend, well I don't think he's cheating on me now but in the future, anything is possible. But as I'm saying this, I can't help believing in him. I mean, my mind would be divided into two sections - the emotional section; and the rational section. The former would tell me to believe whatever I hear; the latter would tell me to hold back my feelings, so that I don't get hurt easily. The emotional part always wins.

Asked if I would forgive my other half if he ever cheats on me... I used to think I can forgive this kind of thing, if and only if he tells me honestly before I find out myself. But now... I'm thinking... maybe not. I think I can never continue the relationship.

Maybe ShinYin is right. Maybe there is no such thing as love. Maybe it's just a term people made up, to console themselves. Maybe love only exist in Utopia. Maybe, just maybe.

Convocation

It is the day that reminded me that my life as a student had ended. The day I got to meet ALL my coursemates and reminisce the good old days together, for the last time. The day I got to visit UPM, probably for the last time as well. Yes, it is the day of my convocation ceremony. After the long hours in the hall and got our supposedly transcript and scroll and bla bla bla, by the time we got out it was already 5:30 p.m. We were busy taking pictures, entertaining our family and friends, there was barely enough time for us to look at each other's face, let alone exchange a few words. The only thing we have is our memory, and some photographs for remembrance. This blog entry is dedicated to all of you who had accompanied me throughout my ups and downs, bitter and sweet. May our friendship be forever. Cheers! ;)

Everyone is so happy. :)

I was on the phone with my juniors. They called up to find out where I was. They wanted to hand me the flowers and gifts. How sweet of them...

Yeah I was distracted. But YoYo could you NOT put your arm on my mortar?Poor Kok Chiang...

Lydia and Xiao Ming and me. :)

Manyee, my roommate for 3 years, and me. We're buddies.

Zilin and me.

Zilin and Hooi Fang and me! Wakakakakakaakaka.....

All of us. :)

Convocation gift from my big sister - a Doraemon graduate. How cute!

Though ShinYin, SukTeng, TzeYee and Audrey couldn't make it to my convo, I still got a bouquet of flowers from them. How sweet... :)

a day of MC...

It's a day after Deepavali and I'm on MC. I fell sick after the Melaka trip. Yeah I went Melaka during Deepavali. Will blog about the trip when I gather all the picutres. I'm feeling rather lost now. Maybe it's the carefree weekend without having to worry about anything, and I feel reluctant to go back to the reality... and think about the future. Maybe it's the MSN conversation I just had with Shin Tien, and I feel her loneliness... and also mine. Maybe it's the cough and flu medicine that I just took, and I'm sure they would cause some emotional side effects... Yeah, must be that...

Ponyo on the Cliff by the Sea

"Ponyo on the Cliff by the Sea" is Hayao Miyazaki's latest animation. Being a No. 1 fan of Miyazaki's, I had been anticipating the release of the DVD ever since I've heard of this movie. Finally having a chance to watch it, I'm sad to say it's kind of a disappointment.

The story itself is not attractive, neither is it captivating. At some points I found it difficult to concentrate on the progress. It's either because I have a very distracting movie companion or because of the movie itself.

The story is about... erm... a... mermaid, I supposed, named Ponyo who had, out of curiosity, ran away from home. She (though it was not obvious at the beginning that it's a female, but towards the end I suppose we can make that conclusion) met 5-year-old Sosuke and had taken a great liking to him. Meanwhile Ponyo's worried dad was looking for her to bring her back. And when he finally did, Ponyo declared her choice of becoming a human and live with Sosuke.

I feel that it is not convincing that the bond between Ponyo and Sosuke is very strong since there wasn't much elaboration in this matter. And yeah, the story sounds somewhat like "The Little Mermaid" from Walt Disney a number of years ago. But in this case, it's a love story between two 5-year-old kids! (If you can call that a love story...) I can't help thinking realistic... My movie companion also mentioned that there are many unexplained things.

Anyway maybe I should watch it again. It's possible that I've missed something. I mean, I didn't like "Howl's Moving Castle" that much the first time I watched it; and I don't expect anyone to produce another miracle like "Spirited Away". And for the rest of Miyazaki's fans out there, since you've watched all of his series, why not give this a try as well? Anyone wanna watch I'll be glad to lend it.

being happy

Like I said, my biggest failure in life, is that I am afraid to be happy. I guess I've finally decided to change for good. I'll start... say... by writing something less gloomy on my blog. So... here goes...

People say that the future lies in your hands. I believe it's more than that. I believe that a portion of it does lie in our hands; the other portion, is beyond our control. Or in a religious manner, it's in God's hands. What's important, is neither the future nor the past, it's the present. Enjoy the moment, live life to the fullest... These are things easier said than done. People spend too much time worrying about the future; and regretting the past, they fail to notice small little details around them... the apartment guard who greets you warmly every morning when you leave for work, your best friend who always listens when you tell her boring things like what you ate for lunch, the swing which always squeaks when you sit on it, the person who always notices whenever you feel unhappy and who is willing to go through so much trouble just to download a song that you like, the taste of the best dish in the world - mom's cooking, the soft "thank you" uttered by a pregnant lady when you offer her your seat in the LRT... When you have master the art of appreciation, you already possessed the key to happiness.

the saddest

I had recently discovered the reason I could never have happy thoughts, write happy things in my blog. I lack the courage to be happy.

I dare not have high expectations in myself, in people around me, in the world. Because I'm so afraid of having to be disappointed. So if I don't hope, there will be no disappointment.

There are many types of people living in this world. And I believe, I belong to the saddest, the most pathetic of all.

Is it time to let go?

Ampang Lookout Point

On the night of mid-autumn festival I went to Ampang Lookout Point. It's just a 30 minutes drive from my house, 20 minutes drive from Ampang Point. The map shown below is very accurate and reliable! If you can't find it, you are more geographically-blind than me. And I'd probably have to close down this blog (nah!).
There are restaurants with reasonable price. Though the food is not so nice but you get to enjoy the cool breeze and the beautiful scenery. There is also a observation tower where you can climb 3 levels of staircases to reach the top level and have a clear view of the city. When we reached the top it was totally packed with couples hugging and whispering to one another. There were like... around 10 pairs of them and they were behaving as if they live in their own world. I was slightly unhappy (or to better describe my feelings, "bu sun") by this and it was both funny and embarrassing at the same time.

It was my third time there and the coldest night of all three, as it was raining heavily that evening and it was still drizzling when we reached there. The main catch in that place is that it has a awesome night view of KL city.

Can't get enough of the beautiful scenes!

It is a nice place to hang out, whether you are with your family or your friends. One of my favourite places. Highly recommended!

Handicap

I am a handicap
I am unable to love
And therefore
I shall not be loved in return

Mirrors

I did not really have high expectations when I walked into the theater, to be honest. I figured this would just be another watch-and-forget movie. And I was right.

Mirrors is loosely based on a Korean horror movie in year 2003 - Into The Mirror. But except for the ending (and the mirrors of course), I can't find any resemblances. I would say both are equally bad.

Like any other conventional scary movies, the most important element to scare the viewers is... the sound effects. And yeah, I got scared, but it was not a creepy feeling, not the kind where after days of watching and you recall back the scenes you'd get goosebumps. And sadly, I don't remember the last horror film I saw that gave me this type of feeling and satisfaction.

There was a girl sitting next to me in the theater who was damn scared, kept hugging her boyfriend. This had disturbingly reminded me of a very bad experience I had when watching a ghost movie with a guy friend a very long time ago. So I made damn sure I don't repeat the same mistake with ZiLin, the guy I was watching this movie with. SukTeng, you know what I mean. And I'd like to assure you nothing dramatic happened.

And... Right, back to the movie. So there was blood, there were people dying horribly, there were ghosts suddenly popping up, there were mirrors, there were mysteries waiting to be solved and people to be saved... Up until 20 minutes before the movie ended, it was still acceptably frightening. But when a 60-year-old nun turned into a supposedly-possessed-by-demon-monster, it took me a great effort to choke back my laughter. I supposed the script just couldn't go on anymore but they simply had to put an end to the story. So this is where the monster conveniently came in. In a nutshell, if you have too much time to spend and too much money to waste, you are most welcome to watch Mirrors.

Wall-E

Wall-E stands for Waste Allocation Load Lifter - Earth Class. Their sole purpose of survival was to clear up the garbage left on earth so that the people can come back to Earth to live. The beginning of the movie was so sad. I just couldn't bear looking at Wall-E working alone on Earth collecting garbage. And the most pitiful is the part when he had to collect the second-hand spare parts from his fellow out-of-service Wall-E robots to replace his own. I find it quite unbelievable that he was able to develope human instincts from time to time. But this is an animation, so it's still acceptable.

It then started to become interesting following the introduction of the female robot, Eve (Extraterrestrial Vegetation Evaluator), who came back to Earth to look for sign of life - plants. The first half of the movie revolved around the two robots - Wall-E who fell in love with Eve; and also the extremely aggressive Eve.

There was not a single conversation before the appearance of the people, as in the humans. But just like what KokChiang and ZiLin said, a good animation/cartoon does not need conversations, take the classical Woddy Wood Pecker, Pink Panther etc.

And Wall-E is sooooooo cute!


The movie emphasized on the sense of touch. The people in the future eventually forget about the importance of the sense of touch. Touching is so important it shows passion, love and care. Even robots need to be touched. My colleague said the holding hands part means it is a movie to watch with the guy who's after you. But I think that's just crap. It's a good movie no matter with whom you watch it.

Just like any other Pixar production, it is moving, funny, cute, and irrelevant, especially at the ending. But then again, it is an animation, so it is still accpetable. I'll refrain myself from revealing too much. You guys should go watch it yourselves. It's another one of Pixar production that you can't miss!

Untitled

Tears streaming down my cheeks
Ignoring the curious stares from other passengers
I wiped away my tears
Allowing sadness to overcome me
Darkness was taking over
Enveloping me
When I felt a sudden vibration from inside my handbag
Heard the sweetest tone in the world
I took out my handphone and read,
"Hey, what are you doing?"
I stopped crying
My fingers gotten busy
As the darkness quietly slipped away
And I felt better already

Sparrow

A Johnny To production - one of the best movie director/producer from Hong Kong. Thus before the movie Sparrow (watch the trailer here.) actually ended, I was very much confident that something good would eventually come out of it.

The film started by introducing Simon Yam, sewing his own pants (or something like that, couldn't tell whether he was sewing a button on his pants or actually sewing his pants), with a very cheerful-sounding music playing in the background. It simply sounded weird cause I expected a typical Hong Kong style good-guys-versus-bad-guys-chase. But the cheerful soundtrack and a happy Simon Yam just don't fit in.

Things finally gotten serious when the film moved on to Simon and his fellow colleagues' daily routine - having breakfast together and then "hoi gong" (start work)... picking-pockets. Up until this point the story plot is still understandable. But for the next 30 minutes or so, the director gave a very out-of-the-ordinary introduction to Kelly Lin, one of the main characters. Kelly crossed paths with the 4 pick-pockets (sparrows) intentionally, trying to... seduce them (seemed to me), maybe. This could be the longest 30 minutes of my life. The slow-motion and unexplainable scenes could definitely bore you to tears. Halfway through the movie, the true purpose of her encounters with them finally revealed, though Zi Lin already could guessed at the beginning and told me before this already.

I have to agree with Zi Lin that the storyline was too simple, without unexpected twists. And the action sequence, to my surprise, was very limited. I believe that the story itself is quite fresh, it just needs some spices, a little bit of furnishing here and there, and LESS artistic/slow-motion scenes (the slow motion parts are very much like Johnny To's style though). I think that it has a lot of space for improvement, and I mean A LOT.

I watched this movie with ShinYin. She had some very interesting comments on this movie too.

watch Korean, Japanese, Taiwanese, HK dramas online

I was randomly surfing the net when I came across this website that allows you to watch Korean, Japanese, Taiwanese and Hong Kong dramas and movies online. For those who do not like to download dramas and movies (like me), this would be a good site to go. Truly feeding your drama addiction, http://www.mysoju.com/ provides a long list of dramas/movies (mostly Korean and Japanese) for your viewing pleasure. I find it quite convenient as I do not like to use bitcomet. Although I noticed a few of "under repair" dramas and movies, but the list is long enough for me to look for dramas that I've never watch before.

I'm now watching 1 litre of tears. A heart-warming Japanese series that tells a true story of a 15-year-old girl who had an incurable disease called spinocerebellar ataxia; and how she cope with the chronic disease that slowly destroyed her nervous system, taking away her ability to walk, speak, move, and understand. As I write I'm currently on episode 7, there's four more to go and already my eyes are watering like nobody's business. I usually am not easy to cry when watching movies. Any healthy living human beings should watch this, it made you realize how lucky you are to be alive, to be able to do things that you do everyday.

Sony Ericsson 350i

What attracted me to buy this phone was the classic flip-open look and its special, out-of-the-ordinary design. It costs me RM680, came with the usual package - handsfree, USB cable, charger and a 512MB memory card. After using it for more than a week, I have to conclude that it is not worth its price.

The bad:

• The camera is just 1.3 megapixel and it doesn't have a video recorder.
• The keypad on the outside looks and feels rather fragile and needs to be carefully attended.
• Although I've never let it drop on the ground before (touch wood), I think that if it did, it would be damaged beyond repair. And the 1-year warranty doesn't cover this.
• When the lid closes, it automatically displays the walkman player. This feature could not be turned off. Very battery consuming, I would say.
• When the lid closes, normal phone operations (e.g. answering calls, accessing the camera, texting messages, modifying settings etc.) cannot be established. I find that a little inconvenient.

The good:

• Very good sound system.
• Nice, slim, compact design.
• Look cool when flipping open and close to answer calls.
• Very nice displays. (But I guess all Sony Ericsson phones have nice displays.)

Hmm... So far I can only think of these few good things about it. I believe (without any supporting proof though), that with the same price, it's possible to get a handphone with much better specifications. Hopefully I'd be able to discover more interesting features and advantages in this new model of Sony Ericsson's.

the world is no longer safe

At approximately 7:00 a.m. on a Tuesday morning, she was driving down to the Wangsa Maju LRT station to take the LRT to work. She parked her humble white Kancil at the side of the main road, took no notice of the dark figure lurking right in front of the stairs. She turned off the engine, the door lock clicked open. She took her time wearing her Hush Puppies working shoes, grabbing her bag, preparing to get down from the car. The next thing she saw was a dark-skinned figure, and a knife.
She screamed out of shock, only to be silenced by the threatening voice of the stranger. Holding her wrist in one hand; the knife and a still-burning-cigarette in the other, the stranger ordered her to get into the passenger seat. Frightened, she obeyed. While being forced to hand him her wallet, handphone and mp3 player, she noticed the pedestrians walking right behind her car.
The stranger was holding her wrist all the time, she couldn't escape. He was having her car key. Worst case scenario, the stranger could hijack the car, drive her to some place where no one will be able to help her nor hear her scream... She could imagine a hundred dreadful things that could happen to her. She forced herself to think of happy thoughts, unsuccessfully.
Should she call for help? No, the sight of the knife made her thought better of it.
The stranger finished ransacking her belongings. "Drive away quietly, or I'll kill you," he said to her. For some reason, she thought that threat to be funny. Dying in the hands of a robber, is a thought that had never before occur to her.
Despite that, she was so thankful that the stranger gave her back her wallet together with her identity card, driving license, ATM cards, and most importantly, her car. So with trembling hands, she obediently drove away, leaving the stranger with his pocket full of cash, a less-than-a-year-old-second-hand-handphone, and a very-much-close-to-useless-mp3 player.
She remembered the last incident when her laptop was stolen, and what the police had done to help her (after spending endless hours in the police station) - basically nothing. So this time she decided not to make a police report.
And yes, the victim in the story, that would be me.

friendship vs direct-selling

Are friendships built upon the foundation of direct-selling? This thought had never, ever came across my mind before a friend said it to me. He and a few of my buddies from university are very much into this Amway direct-selling which, according to them, would help them develop their interpersonal skills, build up their confidence, widen their people network etc etc. And most importantly, it would, or could, be their stairway to financial freedom. Despite my bad experience with direct-selling, I do not think that it is a bad idea involving oneself in the Amway business because their main intention is to upgrade themselves, which is a good thing - not putting up so much hope in getting rich through direct-selling.

I've always believed that when they asked me out, it was because they enjoyed my company. There was a time when they asked me to a movie, I told them I was thankful they rescued me from a terrible day in the office.
Actually we asked you out for a reason, one of them said to me, which was when I found out there would be a Amway meeting on that weekend.
But then I managed to convince myself that even if they weren't going to ask me to attend that meeting, they would definitely still asked me out no matter what. In other words, the Amway thingy is not the only (or main) reason we were there. I believed it's true, I still do.

I received a call yesterday morning, which broke my heart entirely. He tried to convince me to join Amway as a member, asking me to support them, said he was asking as a friend. I would be more than happy to do so, emotionally and finanacially (as in the mere RM80 membership fees), had not he said that our friendship is build upon the foundation of direct-selling. To be fair, those are not his exact words, but that's how I interpret it.

He said that if not because they were all members of this Amway thingy, they wouldn't have met once every week on the Monday meetings, they wouldn't have something in common to talk about, and they wouldn't even meet each other. So I should join them this big family so that we can keep in touch. He said it as if it is a good thing, as if it is something to be proud of. I mean, how can you be so proud, when you need direct-selling to bring your friends and you together? How can you be happy, knowing that your friends and you would just ignore each other, get on with your lives and forget about your buddies if Amway does not exist? I was deeply hurt by the things he told me, but i hid my feelings over the phone, pretended that I was perfectly fine, and told him I was happy to help out.

Now that I think about it, I feel so stupid. I was so glad when they asked me out. I was so glad that they remembered me when they have get-togethers. I'd been looking forward to meeting them up consistently, even after graduation. I imagined going for movies or dinners on Friday nights, occasional clubbings on Saturday nights, and some mid-night mamak stall or McD. But now I fear that not being an active member of Amway, I'd eventually be forgotten. (I feel so ridiculous even as I'm writing this. It is the worst excuse anyone can think of to try to convince a person to join direct-selling.)

I worry and fear for the day that I do not have a single friend in my life. The thought of losing you, anyone of you, is unbearable.

Bali Day 4

On day 4 we went to Tanah Lot temple, which literally means "land in water". The temple was surrounded by sea water.

The temple behind me would be in the middle of the sea when the water level rises.

We came across some people shooting a movie somewhere around the temple. The girl cried till her mascara smudged and the guy hugged her. I wanted to know whether the actors were famous so I asked the tour guide. He said he didn't know them.

A picture of Eric while we were on our way to the temple in the sea.

An artistic picture of me taken by Ling Yue who was trying to be artistic.

Next stop was Mengwi, the temple where the King prays. And there was a sign saying women who were having their period can't enter the temple compound. I did anyway. :P

There was a tower that we could climb to view the whole temple.

We went to Bedugul, the Cameron Highlands of Bali. It was raining and it was damn cold and very foggy.

We came across this jetty and so warrior Lao Ann and warrior Yoyo decided to have a sword... erm, no... umbrella fight.

And then warrior Xiao Ming decided to join the battle.

It was rainy season in Bali (or maybe it was because of LingYue the rain goddess?). In tourist spots we could see kids trying to rent umbrellas.

One of the famous souvenirs from Bali is handicraft. I was really impressed by their 3-D carvings.

Yes, of course, the ever infamous Lao Ann. When I scanned through the pictures and deciding which to post in my blog, I couldn't help but notice this blurry-looking picture of his. "Bu neng ding" (tak boleh tahan)!