Blog whores and repentance

I'm sorry I called Hugo a whore today, because he accused me of doing things just so I can write it up on my blog just like he does.

Then again, maybe I called Hugo a whore because I wanted something to blog about today.

Nah!

Tomorrow is Ash Wednesday, which marks the start of 40 days of Lent. Sandip accused me of not knowing that today is Shrove Tuesday being the ignorant Christian that I am. "It's in the Bible!" Well, I checked and it isn't. But that doesn't stop me from enjoying Pancake Tuesday while the rest of the world celebrates and revels in sin at Mardi Gras. Alright, to be fair it's just New Orleans and they are trying to get back on their feet after Hurricane Katerina.

When I finally decide what I'm giving up for Lent, it'll be Easter. I'd give up red meat but that idea didn't sit well with my housemates and there's this very lovely packet of chilli bak kua that Lionel just brought back from Singapore. Oh, the dilemmas in my life!

Sunday brings, sunshine and nice things...

I took a chance today.

And joined Odac Batch XVI for lunch at a floating Dim Sum restaurant in Canary Wharf. I'm always apprehensive about joining my seniors for outings because, well, as much as I enjoy the company of Batch XVI (Lester Loi included) there's still my inability to be much of a conversationalist and click with them and yeah, I still think of Nick and Bok as scary BTC camp commandants. And I also happen to be busy or out of the country everytime they've tried to invite me. But today I decided on a whim that I had nothing better to do, and all in all it was great fun and Nick and Bok don't seem so scary anymore. I've even been made an honarary member of Batch XVI seeing that all of my batch has rejected me and gone to the states.

Just sitting in Cafe Nero with them, talking and talking, made me really miss the Odac days, sitting in Macs, talking and talking. And there are just things you understand and a language you speak that no one else in the world does, because you're Odac. And the horrified look on Teresa's face when Lester took a bite out of his char siew pau before we'd said "Odac jiak" was priceless!!! The traditions make no sense now and yet it's heartfelt when they are kept.

Got back to Earl's Court in the evening where CL, Yi Shan and Wei obligingly kept me company for dinner - CL's treat at Addie's Cafe! (Citigroup had better treat him well) At the rate I'm bringing people to Addie's Cafe I think they should offer me some sort of commission! I just only managed to shoo them out of my house a few minutes ago, after they devoured a mango, bullied the iDog and took turns with Lu's PSP.

I hate posts which detail every little thing I did in a day, but I had a really great day and I think it should be remembered just in case another great day doesn't come by for awhile. Oh what the heck, I'm clicking on 'Publish Post'.

S'kali

In support of any effort that's all about finding THE truly Malaysian movie I'm plugging S'kali, an indie movie currently being produced by young, visionary yet extremely gifted twenty somethings.

I am a bum!

Food check - 5 slices of toast with mushroom swiss cream devoured. And now I'm lolling around in bed with the duvet up to my neck and a fleece blanket thrown in to warm my toes. I've even got one of Lionel's warm jumpers on for good measure. Luckily for me, he owns practical jumpers. I on the other hand am from the school of thought that you cannot be both pretty and snugly warm at the same time.

Will be going to the gym later to cycle and read up about S&P500 simultaneously. That should give me enough time to come back and get dressed for the Charity dinner tonight. I'm bored, that's why I'm telling you everything on my mind. I really should stop now. Nite nite.

** Later edit **
Alright, so I didn't go to the gym. Yeah, and I know you didn't believe I would. I did some laundry and some ironing. How's that for a Saturday.

Work out or talk out!

Imperial's lovely new sport centre, Ethos, just opened a month ago and I've used it a grand total of two times (even though its free - every Malaysian's favourite word).

I've figured that going to the gym is pretty inefficient. Take yesterday. I spent 20 minutes on the treadmill. Then I spent 10 minutes talking to Lester. Then I did 3 sets of leg presses. Then I started talking to CL and Ashwin and Bryan. Then CL taught me to use the abs machines, and of course I talked more than I exercised. Then as I got onto the stairmasters, Chong Wai got on the one next to me, and you can guess it - more talking.

The only things I seem to be exercising in that gym are the muscles in my mouth.

I need a bigger gym where I don't bump into so many people I know.

I also need to get out of bed earlier and not fall asleep while reading about maximum likelihood estimators. But that's completely irrelevant.

M-Nite Plug

Just a quick one:

Malaysian Night tickets are running out. I haven't gone on the prowl this year for ticket buyers because I've been rather caught up with other non-MSoc things, but I'm feeling a little guilty... so here's a plug for Malaysian Night 2006 - The Writing's on The Wall.

I guarantee it'll be a Thriller!

If you want tickets let me know, quick. 9 pounds a piece. Amar, I've got yours.

Being single weekend...

Lionel's grandma passed away on Tuesday morning so he's flying back to Singapore this evening for just 4 days. What am I going to do without him?

Here's what:

First there's Fidel's birthday dinner tomorrow at Cafe Pacifico where the range of prices are astronomical and I hope they have a set menu. Then there's More House's charity dinner on Saturday. Nice little formal event, and the proceeds will go to building a well in Dafur. Oh, bless our little hearts. And I hope Sunday's relatively free as I might just feel like doing my very very backlogged German homework. But I really should meet up with Cheryl Marie and Yin Tse, after so long! Then Lionel arrives home on Monday evening or Tuesday morning. Either way I won't be able to pick him up as I have more social obligations to tend to - Ruby's 21st at Nectar Club (another 'dress smartly' event... I'm going to run out of fancy clothes at this rate... yes, I don't own too many...) which is bound to end in the wee hours of the morning and thus I'm not even sure I'll make it to 9am lectures on Tuesday.

Ah, the perks of being single weekend. I also get to use Lionel's duvet which is warmer than mine, a good thing on this hellishly cold weekend!

Happy Birthday, Sugi Poo!

Now, Sugania Narayanan isn't just my tallest friend. She isn't just my tallest friend who is vegetarian. She isn't just my tallest friend who is vegetarian and loves to gossip with me. She isn't just my tallest friend who is vegetarian, loves to gossip and yet is everybody's personal agony aunt. She isn't just my tallest friend, who is vegetarian, loves to gossip and yet is everybody's personal agony aunt but every Brahmin guy thinks she's hot and would shave their legs to be given even the slightest chance to be match-made with her.

She is now also my tallest friend, who is vegetarian, loves to gossip and yet is everybody's agony aunt but every Brahmin guy thinks she's hot and would shave their legs to be given even the slightest chance to be match-made with her (which her mother is going to do soon if she doesn't get herself a high paying engineering job!), who is turning TWENTY THREE today!

(and the Indian aunties are 'aiyoyo'-ing in the background because its about time she settled down and produced little Brahmin-lets)

*HUGS* Sugi, and Happy Birthday from all the way across the Atlantic, or Pacific or Indian Ocean or wherever I am. Something tells me I should have paid more attention during Geography but who needs Geog to be an engineer, right?

I said pull over!

So EESoc has come up with this new mud coloured pullover hoodie which is strangely the colour of the Hwa Chong uniform. For 13 pounds we get to personalise the hoodie and of course own it too. Now that Yi Shan's coerced all the Malaysians into forming a EEE hoodie gang, my biggest concern is what to write on the back of the hoodie. So I've come up with the following

1. Charlotte (simple but boring, although rather unique seeing that I'm the only known Charlotte in ISE)
2. csy03 (college login names - as suggested by EESoc... which is about as boring as tripe)
3. Pinky (without the kinky, for various reasons which include my having to bring the hoodie home someday and explain it to my mother)
4. ISE Queen (cleverly thought up by Hugo, and thus he deserves a mention on my blog)
5. Obsessive Compulsive Organisational Freak (they might charge me more than 13 pounds for that!)

So place your votes quick! I've gotta hand in the cash by Friday!

My first valentine

We went to our favourite Earl's Court haunt tonight - Addie's Cafe. It's got the best Thai food you can find in all of London and it's cosy setting is enough to make me forgive Lionel for the lack of flowers, candy, and all things saccharine on Valentine's day. Lionel's not big on the whole commercialised commemoration of love thing... but he's never stingy when it comes to taking me out for dinner, bless his cotton socks! (I picked that one up from Liam Madden's Java lecture... just shoot me, won't you?)

I've never been on an actual Valentine's date before, so going across the road to a Thai restaurant is my idea of the most extravagant Valentine's ever! Even beats the time the 5 of us Odac girls planted 'secret admirer' notes in hand decorated coloured cups for the 15 Odac guys in our batch. The Odac guys (only realising it was Valentine's day at the last minute) bought 5 beanie baby ducks for the 5 Odac girls and placed them in a plastic bag pinned up on the notice board with a piece of paper saying "Girls, take one each". Such sentimental bastards!

And while we're speaking of all things romantic, Paris photos will be up soon. We've got a nice collection I'm going to call the Parisien Monotone series, just because cloudy pictures make brilliant black and whites... or just look better that way...

Viva Le France!

I'm blogging because I'm suffering from information overload.
I'm blogging because I realise I have tried to be, no not politically correct, but politically quiet over all controversial Malaysian events and there's a boiling rage within me waiting to erupt. Yet my wish to remain a model scholar, representing one of Malaysia's public listed glories means imposing this self censorship.
I'm blogging because I'm worried about my future. I once told a board of interviewers that I would never become an academic because I felt there was something more I had to do. I had to change my country for the better. They were a professor, a CEO and a Managing Director, and they didn't laugh at me. I think I may have gone off track and failed.
I'm blogging because I just don't know I want to do anymore.


On a less depressive note - I'm catching the Eurostar to Paris this weekend for a Valentines/Birthday/too-much-free-time getaway. I haven't revisited Paris since I was about this high (points to shoulders) and have only very vivid memories of the Louvre and my brother crying over not being able to finish seeing all the Egyptian sarcophagi. He also cried when we had to leave the dinosaurs at the Natural History museum. I fear I'm not very good for his reputation.

Birmingham

Birmingham is so eclectic. The big Nike billboards flanking Queen Victoria's statue and St. Philips Cathedral standing shoulder to shoulder with the bulge of silver goosebumps that is an extension of Bullring's shopping centre is just... something. I don't like it, neither do I abhore it.

Together with a busload of SingSoc members, we spent half a morning in Cadbury World. The biggest irony of the day might have been that I don't like chocolate, but that was eclipsed by the one month supply of bubblegum I bought at the Cadbury souvenir shop or the several trips I made to the free flow supply of chocolate dipped fudge. I didn't eat the chocolate. Just the fudge.

Upon arriving back in London, I rushed to Chinatown for MSoc's CNY dinner. It wasn't my lucky day, being the only third year female there and having to fend off Tao and the other hungry third year guys from my share of the food. And lord knows, I'll miss them when there's no one to fight for food with next year.

A healthy start...

Breakfast, being the most important meal of the day, also happens to be the meal I miss most often here. When you're running a tight schedule and have a habit of waking up just 15 minutes before you're supposed to leave the house, it's hard to fit in even a glass of milk. These days I tend to grab whatever's lying on the kitchen counter (youghurt bars, pastries, biscuits, plastic coasters) and eat it hurriedly on the way to uni.



Back home, Malaysian breakfasts are a big deal! No school day ever starts without a big warm mug of Milo (which I will defend with my life over hot chocolate any day!). And breakfast is never too small an occasion for a big sizzling plate of KL Hokkien Mee (yummy stir fried egg noodles which are so bad for your arteries but taste soooo good!) or a huge spicy bowl of laksa, although on those rare days when my mother can't be bothered about our breakfasts - its usually scrambled eggs and toast or worse - Bovril on toast! Till now I don't really get Bovril. I'm suspicious of anything I can't classify as animal, vegetable or mineral.


Anyway, fast forward to cold, clammy and pasty white England... I've had the good fortune this term of having all my classes squashed into a painfully long Tuesday, and the rest of the week just doesn't seem to matter. And for some odd reason I've been waking up between 8 and 9 every morning. Which *gasp* leaves me time to make myself breakfast (even if it looks as though my cereal [pic right] has more fruit than actual flakes). Of course it's always nicer when someone else makes breakfast for me, but he can't be bothered to these days (damn those 9am lectures!).