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.