Words of Inspiration

No one else is responsible for your own happiness except for yourself.

If you do not know how to love yourself, others will not know how to love you.

Do not be obssessed with depression. Because you are going to suffer from it. And nobody else is going to give a damn.

Do not worry. If the problem has a solution, you have nothing to worry about. If the problem has no solution, there's no use if you worry anyway.

What other people think about you is none of your business. Thus you should not care.

You should cherish what you have, not mourn over what you lost.

Always remember there is at least one person on earth who loves you.

Sakae Sushi & Autumn Quattro

Friends and I went to Sakae Sushi in KLCC to celebrate Manyee's birthday. I like that they gave us a small room for 11 of us and they have this computer screen at the side of the table where we can directly place our orders without having to wait for the waiters to come. It was very efficient.
The ocha (Japanese green tea) that were provided were of tea packets, which I found rather "cheap" for a restaurant that expensive. Lingyue and KC ordered a Japanese steamboat which contained scallops (quite a number of it), all types of vegetables and mushrooms. The soup was rather salty. Despite the fact that they ordered it for themselves, the steamboat was shared among us and I managed to grab one piece of scallop before it reached their hands. =P
Looks very nice, which was exactly the reason we ordered it. But I don't really fancy this. Poh Leng's girlfriend, Hui Tao said that the sashimi tasted exceptionally fresh.
Manyee ordered this. If I recall correctly this is some kind of chawanmushi with crab meat. I've always loved chawanmushi. This tasted so good!
This is the bento I ordered. Unagi (I don't recall a single time that I didn't order unagi in a Japanese restaurant) and chicken with rice and miso soup. The chicken was good (though a bit too salty) while the unagi is just okay.

My chicken and unagi. =)

Zilin ordered scallops and chicken served with rice and miso soup. Not bad.After dinner we went to Quattro (which means the number 4 in Italian) in Avenue K (opposite of KLCC). There were four sections, each named after a season - spring (lounge), summer (restaurant), autumn (club) and winter (bar). Due to the birthday girl's (a.k.a clubbing queen) request, of course we went to the club.

We reached there at about 11:00 p.m. The place was half empty, and the music they played were... from the 80's and 90's. They even played the soundtrack from Grease. We girls were like... what the hell? The guys were simply watching football from the huge flat screen TV on the wall as it was Manchester United versus Fulham (or was it Chelsea?) that night. But when the place was starting to get crowded the music kind of switched. They were playing Kathy Perry, Beyonce, Rihanna, Usher... the normal clubbing songs. And the choices of songs are actually quite good.

We opened two bottles, one of them a Henessey. That was the first time I tasted Henessey and I find it so much better than Chivas (which we usually order). I've tasted several other brands of whiskeys (which I don't remember) but Henessey is the best yet I had. There were about 8-10 of us and two bottles could barely fill our stomachs. Two bottles of whiskey, one night of clubbing (and football), RM75 per pax. It sure as hell is one expensive past-time.

loneliness

it feels so strange

and yet so familiar

the feeling of loneliness

when was the last time i felt it

i don't remember

home alone watching freedom writers for the umpteenth time

it never fail to touch me

never fail to awaken my tears

i guess that was when the loneliness crept in

silently

without a trace

i couldn't resist

i thought i didn't care

when they said they were busy

when they said they couldn't come

when she said i couldn't go visit

and

when i asked him not to call
i thought i'd be fine

i thought

when was the last time i felt this way

i can't remember

but the feeling is familiar

and yet so strange

The Art of Comparison

Being depressed about... her life in general, ShinYin wrote an entry in her Friendster blog. I'd like to share it with you people here...

there was this person in Hell, let’s call the person X.

so, X was living a relatively happy life.

there were happy days, sad days,

and recently, many stressful ones.

but it’s okay.

coz X believed that the days will past.

and there will be sunshine after the rain.

and X was glad of the life X had.

Life could not have been better.

then one day.

X met Y.

Y was someone from heaven.

so, Y was talking bout how perfect and wonderful life is.

Y was having the best time of Y’s life.

that was when X realized that X had been living in hell all this while.

and X craves to go to heaven.

and Y continues talking bout the fun and happiness.

and X wonder, why did Y have to tell X?

why did Y had to torture X that way??

-the end-

"The End", it says... but it is not the ending. The story is not complete. The complete story goes like this:

X continued to be very unhappy.

He kept thinking why he had to suffer like this, while Y can live a good life.

This thought troubled him by day, haunt him by night.

But then one day, X met Z.

Z was someone from the Earth.

Z was not a happy person.

He complained to X that his life sucks.

He had to go to work everyday, get a tiny weensy bit of salary in order to survive.

His boss treated him like a slave; his colleagues back-stabbed him.

Only to be retrenched due to recession.

Now that he was jobless and penny-less, his wife left him and ran away with another man.

His son got into drugs and his under age daughter got pregnant.

He was helpless and didn't know what to do.

That was when X realized that he had been living in heaven all this while.

And Z continued to nag about his troubles and problems.

X was sympathetic.

And at the same time glad, and contented about his life.

-THE END-

Now that's the ending. The moral of the story? Choose the right person to compare with and try not to make yourself feel miserable. =)

Way Back Into Love

This is a song from the movie "Music and Lyrics" starring Hugh Grant and Drew Barrymore. Never really had the chance to properly sit down and watch the movie and I don't think the story is anything special anyway. But I like the soundtrack. The melody is just okay but I love the lyrics, especially the part:

I've been hiding all my hopes and dreams away
Just in case I ever need them again someday

It just sounds so... Deep.
Anyway watch the video and sing with the lyrics. I'm sure you'll feel what I feel. Enjoy...

p.s. I didn't know Hugh Grant can sing. Not bad...

Love

If you want to be loved, love.

One thing I discovered about love is that...
One can never expect fairness in love.
A mother loves the child more than the child does, her.
A girlfriend misses her boyfriend more than he does, her.
It's not always the case but...
Most of the time, I suppose.
But then again...
How can you ever expect fairness in this world?
In the end...
Love is about tolerating one another.
If you love him, you'd want him to feel happy.

Food in Ikea 2

Yeah, I went to Ikea to eat, again. Except for the meatballs, we ordered different dishes this time. And we got a free coffee/tea (bottomless) borrowing my brother's Ikea Friends credit card. This is what we ordered:

One whole chicken leg with carrots and... erm... potatoes... Those are not potatoes actually. I don't know what you call it.
Pasta with tomato sauce. This does not taste as bad as it looks.

Of course the ever infamous delicious meatballs with chips.

And this forgot-what-it's-called as dessert. The white layer of thing that looks like fungus is actually sugar. This is not as sweet as the Daim cake we had the first time.

All these came up to RM23 only!!! I seriously feel this dining in Ikea is cheaper than any fast food restaurants. And the food quality is also very satisfying.

We had all these at around 5:00 p.m. So at 10:00 p.m. we went to the Ikea cafe to have a little bit of supper. We ordered a curry puff + soft drink (again bottomless) combo, a hot dog (which you can put as much onion, mustard and tomato sauce as you please), and another curry puff. All these only added up to RM 5. It's so damn cheap!!! I was so happy and contented that the food is so worth its price.

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

I am anticipating for this movie! Yes I am! The title itself already caught my attention. It sounds bizarre and I like everything that's bizarre. So I surf the net trying to find the trailer and the synopsis of the story. And I came across this. It's a website where you can read all kinds of novels, short stories, poems and plays online. (I even found Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice. Will be reading that next time.) Took me about 2 hours to finish reading The Curious Case of Benjamin Button by F. Scott Fitzgerald. It was weird, bizarre, disturbing, and... weird.

The original short story is different from the movie synopsis. It's about a child who was born with a seventy-year-old self and when he was "growing up", the aging process reversed. And my first thought was... How the hell did a seventy-year-old man with a seventy-year-old physical appearance get out of his mother's womb? Anyway, never mind that. The story then went on with how his parents deal with this disturbing phenomena and how he fell in love for the first time at the age of twenty (with a fifty-year-old body and mind). The ending was quite predictable. He "grew" to become a baby; and died, I supposed. Towards the end I felt so disturbed, partly because of the story itself, mainly it was about the author's indifferent tone that I sensed. Despite that, I'm still looking forward to watching the movie. Maybe will write a review for that. Stay tuned. ;)

What type of writer should you be?

What type of writer should you be? Bloggers, go find out yourselves here. Know about this site from ShinTien. And I should be a poet!!!

You craft words well, in creative and unexpected ways. And you have a great talent for evoking beautiful imagery... Or describing the most intense heartbreak ever. You're already naturally a poet, even if you've never written a poem.

I can't help it if I'm such a talented and creative person...

Fellow bloggers, please do tell me what kind of writer should you be in the comments column. :)

In Between

I hate it when I'm stucked in between, when I have to be the middle person. Unfortunately, for some mysteriously unknown reasons, I have always play that role my whole life. I was in between my Mom and Dad, between my brother and brother-in-law, between my Mom and sisters etc etc. The reasons that I can NEVER be a successful middle person are that:

1. I do not like to lie.
2. I am not a "two-headed snake" who says different things in front of different person.
3. I cannot take the pressure.
4. I cannot take the blame.

One of the main responsibility of a middle person is to pass messages. And believe me, those messages are nasty. I'd be forced to say means things to people whom I care about. It's difficult.

I was in a similar situation recently. I didn't protest. I guess I was too tired. When I heard the debate from both parties, seemed to me both had their points. I didn't know what to think. I didn't know which side to choose. I always have trouble deciding when it comes to this. When I couldn't take it any longer, I talked to a friend on the phone. I felt both better and worse after that. Better because he was there to share my suffering; worse because of his disapproval. He asked me not to think too much, but...

I guess there are some things in life that can't be helped. Or rather, I'm in a stage where I no longer care, or am too tired to care. I'll just go with the flow.