Football's only sexy when you can see their faces...

Football has never been a god-given talent for me. You see, I can't get the offside rule, can't remember names or teams or premierships or leagues and I spend half the game bugging Lionel with "What happened?" to which I'll get back a snappy "Watch lah!" or else a good case of the ignoramus.

Anyway, yesterday Lionel decided that the footballers on the screen were just too small for his liking... no, not really... so we trundled up the Victoria line to Seven Sisters together with Lu and Khairiah. I was feeling really hyped. Tottenham Hotspurs vs. West Brom. My second live football match is something to be proud of! (I was also feeling hyped because Lu gave me his last piece of sushi and carbs really perk me up! I'm a fun tong (rice pot)... it explains the thunder thighs!)
Me and my rarely worn Spurs cap had to fight the wind to make it to White Hart Lane, but once I got there, I swear the deafening roars would have swept my cap off faster than the wind. We had bets on the game being extremely exciting, only because West Brom was desperate not to be kicked out. And it really was a heart clenching first half with 1-0 to West Brom and I thought the guy beside me was about to collapse from a burst artery as he hurled abuses at West Brom and continuously coached the Spurs players from the upper east stands.

Nevertheless as exciting as it was, I had to entertain myself by giving the Korean Spurs striker YP Lee several names. In the first half he was Kim Jong Il. Towards half time he became Pak My Kha and finally he was christened Ginseng Boy! Lionel was quite amused that I was amusing myself, but I sure wasn't done with names. The moment West Brom substituted with a Japanese guy - Sushi Boy was born!

During half time, things became even more complicated - I had to find a ladies toilet amongst the masses of testosterone. Not only did I have to try and spot a female sign, I had to push my way through several beefy, beer guzzling, white men. Not exactly my dream situation. If it were, they would all be Ewan McGregor. Upon realising I was clearly the minority, I spent the second half of the game amusing myself by yelling out to the players in Cantonese and Malay. Mr Excitable next to me wasn't to be outdone and proceeded to jump off his seat and waved his fist threateningly to the players who were decidedly ignoring him.

Luckily Tottenham decided to score in the second half with an extremely tension filled penalty goal which saved Mr Excitable from an early death.

The verdict? I like football matches, only when I get to make a nuisance of the players and give the Asian ones funny names.

Me, Lionel, Lu and Khairiah - happy that we made it worth our money (10 quid a goal!)

Lionel and me with my Spurs cap. Girls like me don't take sides. You just love the team they love.

No reason at all

Haven't been able to get this song out of my head for a few months now. Think I'll put it here for safe keeping

Softly now,
You owe it to the world
And everyone knows that you're my favourite girl
But there're some things in life that are not meant to be
I'm not meant for you and you're not meant for me
Here's to our problems
And here's to our fights
Here's to our achings
And here's to you having a good life
From me
Good life

Softer now,
You owe it to yourself
And don't think that you will be left on the shelf
Cause there's someone for you and there's someone for me
Like me you'll meet them eventually
Here's to your lover
And here's to my wife
Here's to your children and here's to you having a good life
From me
Good life

Louder Now,
You've lost all your pain
You're married with children and happy again
And now I'm regretting the move that I made
Fatal mistakes are so easily made
Enough of my problems they only cause fights
Forget that I rang you
And promise you'll have such a
Beautifully happy and painlessly romantic
Good life
From me
Good life

-Francis Dunnery

Public perceptions...

The wearing of the tudung (hijjab/head scarf) has always been an issue wherever I've been. No, not because I wear it, but because I come from a Muslim country and well, people always expect you to have an opinion about it.

Well, I don't have an opinion. It isn't my religion and so I shouldn't. But this short video by On Par productions says everything that society thinks about the tudung in the 21st century.

Invasion of the Amar

I woke up yesterday morning to find 2 cartons of lime diet coke and a box of krispy kremes in the kitchen. There was a bottle of Small Talk 'bed hair' wax in the bathroom and several bottles of facial products I never use. And the living room smelt of overpowering Vera Wang perfume and stripey scarves.

Yup, the Amar has landed. And my little flat is now a minefield of everything metrosexual.

When Amar rolled down to London, quite unannounced, and planted himself in our living room it took us awhile to realise:

"Hey, are you here because there's no one in Warwick to celebrate your birthday?"

The boy turns 22 today. It's 3pm and he's still sleeping. Maybe he's feeling old. It can't just be the clocks going forward. We went all the way to Selfridges to buy him a Mandoline (which is a fancy way of saying food slicer and grater). We also put 4 candles on a Krispy Kreme for him to blow out. We were feeling generous.

In return, Amar made Cachaca from a huge ass bottle of sugar cane liquor he bought from Selfridges (which resulted in Lionel and I bumping into him at the same time we were buying the Mandoline which is too stupidly big to hide).

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Other exciting things happened this weekend. It's finally the end of term, and after submitting the Finance and Financial Management coursework around noon, I sat in the computer labs vegetating - trying to take in the surrealness of having absolutely nothing to do. Its a creepy feeling... of time passing by so slowly when there are no deadlines to meet.

A few hours later, I managed to grasp the concept of freedom and joined Odac Batch XVI for dinner at Chinatown. Wee Lee and his girlfriend, Julie, were visiting from the US and so was Thanan, who managed to catch some sort of bug from the Frenchies in Paris which didn't seem to affect his all too kemp sense of humour or his very American accent ("Twalk to da hand"). Lester gave us very strict instructions to meet at the Big T at Chinatown at 6.30pm. Being Odac, no one really knew what he meant by the Big T and to Lester's annoyance we all arrived somewhat together at Leicester Square tube station at 7pm.

It was rather funny that it was raining after dinner. I thought Batch XVI was rain repellent. Or maybe it was me and Batch XVII being rain prone.

Anyway, Saturday got even more exciting. Lionel's classmates, Sebastian and Gary, were celebrating their birthdays at Busaba Eathai (on Store Street, highly recommended!). We ended up at a pub after dinner which seemed like a good idea at first until I had a Breezer and a pint of Fosters in front of me. I'm not sure why, but the Thai food had made me feel really parched and downing rum alcopops and beer in quick succession is really not a smart way of quenching your thirst. But I do some pretty dumb things sometimes. Besides, I've always held my liquor well... maybe too well most times, its pretty shitty being one of the most sober around... but point of the story is, I ended up regurgitating almost half my dinner.

Now puking when you're wasted is one thing (and something I haven't tried yet). Puking when you're still fully sober really isn't funny. Puking out a pretty expensive dinner... well that's just me being a calculative Malaysian.

Later that night, at Jun and Matt's house party, I had to make CL watch me so I wouldn't take even a sip of alcohol. That didn't really seem to work, as Matt kindly spiked my lemonade with vodka and I could taste my dinner again. Setting my cup down, I spent the rest of the evening only touching solid foods. I risked the jelly being alcoholic but well, you only live once.

So there I was, sitting in a corner, almost alcohol free and thinking - its shitty to be the one damn sober person at a party with so much free flowing liquor! Not only did it make me realise how the lack of alcohol can make one feel old and anti-social (it was a junior's party and you could count the number of 3rd years on one hand!), it also made me wonder about something Jere said a few days ago when I told him I was preparing slides for a Christian Praise and Worship Session

Jere: No!! You're kidding right??? Charlotte Yeow! Don't play games with me!
Me: Huh?? What? I don't seem like the kinda person who does this sort of thing?
Jere: No... I thought you were more of a 1 tequila, 2 tequila, 3 tequila, floor.

Oh thanks. Years of trying on the 'Charlotte the sweet (and sometimes anal)' facade has been eroded by:

Hi, I'm Charlotte and I'm an alcoholic.

Anyway, weekend's almost over and we're going out to celebrate Amar's birthday at some Greek place. At least I think its Greek. Let see if its worth his fancy schmancy food slicer.

Just one day more...

Easter holidays are so close I can almost press my face into its sweaty palmed, nightmarish revision filled, midnight oil burning weeks!

And yet, here I am vegetating in the Computing Department trying to print past year papers. Last I checked, I was number 105 in the queue. My print jobs will be ready in time for wrapping Christmas presents.

After this am out for a night on the town. Chinatown that is. Wee Lee and Thanan are here from the US and Lester has given us strict instructions to meet in the middle of the Big T. I'm not sure what that means, I'll just walk up and down Gerrard Street until I find them.

Making exams easier? Why? Too hard ah?

Ooh! Big news! Our Education Minister Datuk Seri Hishammuddin Tun Hussein is making extreme education reforms ala Tony Blair. While Tony the tiger is on a warpath to curb discipline in schools and improve the level of reading, Hishammuddin has taken the "relax-lah" approach and is making the way for easier exams with less subjects and demoting their importance.

"What for?" my anti-rote learning, anti-memorisation, Singaporean (quite contradictory, right?) boyfriend asks. "Exams too hard ah?"

"Must be lah, I think... so hard yet number of As in SPM keep increasing every year. Now 10A1s not normal adi, like that is sub standard. Now must get at least 15As!"

There's an obvious non-correlation here. And thus the Education Minister has decided exams don't seem to separate the cows from the sheep and so, lets not try and review the exam system and make questions more analytical, lets not involve more critical thinking. Lets take the easy way out - take out more subjects, put in more practical/project based assessments. After all a subjective evaluation will make it easier to tell cow from sheep now. (And this way if we give more marks to a particular segment of society, no one can argue what! It's all subjective).

Now some people would think this is a great move away from the old fashioned exam based system. But in a young country like Malaysia - where our exams are barely internationally recognised, where we have only just made the switch to teach in English, where teaching is a lowly paid profession (and these days you only become a teacher if you don't have the SPM/GCSE results to get a better job), where meritocracy in scholarship awards is still a new fangled idea - you can't bring in a system like this. We'll fall apart.

Good Malaysian teachers (of whom I've only met about 8 in my life) will make it succeed. But what about the other 80% of incompetant teachers whom I've had the joy of meeting? I'll tell you what more project work will be like. In chemistry it will mean following a list of instructions as if baking a cake and instead of asking "why it oxidises" or "did the covalence bonds matter" it will be "teacher, solution not enough lah"... "teacher, this bunsen burner no gas"... followed by an inept teacher being unable to give answers or coaxing her young students to think. Worse still, I can imagine the project work for History, for 'The effects of WWII on South East Asia" will be directly plagarised from the internet, and then translated into Malay to avoid being caught. And no one will be the wiser.

And they want this to start from primary school? What other projects can you give young kids that aren't already being done? "Fototropisme in a shoebox"? (I did that in primary 4, ok?) What if the poor kid's taugeh beans (green beans) refuse to grow? Give the kid a D which forever plague him?

Here's what we really need in our exam system! We need kids to pick up math much faster and earlier. We need kids to pick up critical reading before they hit secondary school. We need more subjects to be taught in English (do you know how much more History I could have learnt!!! I think I would have learnt so much more if we were allowed to debate History in class). We need a marking system where keywords matter NOT the exact replication of phrases (i.e. Moral Studies - in fact we need to do away with this exam altogether). We need more creative and better set exam questions with a proper answer scheme that isn't sold to Sasbadi for publication rights.

We need so much more. I could rant for days. But I have to make a call and get to Uni to hand out hoodies. Sorry for the abrupt end. Mud coloured EE hoodies await.

I've forgotten the lyrics to this one...

Third post in a day... I get distracted too easily.

I think my current playlist is outdated. I need new music (but shush! Counting Crows and Tori Amos are ageless). I haven't properly listened to the radio for 3 years now. Tell me something new. No, play me something new.

This is project 'play me a new song'

Tell me your current favourite song(s). Mine's Good Life by Francis Dunnery. It makes me remember. Its depressing.

Ich spreche keine Deutsche and the misfortunes of taking on a fourth (fifth?) language

Hilft mir!

I'm not sure German is taking to me as much as I'm taking to it. Which isn't much to begin with.

Currently I'm memorising lists of adjectival endings (and muddling them up in the process) and I'm just sick and tired of dissecting a language into objects, subjects, imperfect, dative, genitive... when did language become a science? Definite article + adjective + noun (plural or singular?). It's a freakish form of math and this engineer needs to get use to it before Thursday's oral and written exam.

I've taken English grammar way too much for granted (Malay grammar on the other hand has hardly any use other than sitting for SPM/GCSE). Tenses and sentence structures that come so easily to me in English are like a major disability in German - and that's just written German.

I foresee myself staring blankly at the oral examiner on Thursday. "Wie bitte? Ich verstehe nicht. Bitte wiederholen Sie die Frage?" (repeat while(true) )

Guns in the Hands of Babes II

It's been what, three years since my brother had his lucky escape from the chaotic mutiny that is National Service - and three years since its notorious beginnings the ministries (note plural!!) still haven't come to a consensus on the use of firearms?

NS Training Council chairman Tan Sri Lee Lam Thye said the proposal to include the firearms module would be put on hold until approved by the Defence Ministry.

“I received a lot of queries from parents regarding this issue this morning when they sent their children here. In fact, they are very eager to let their children participate in the basic firearms training.

“But all I can say now is there will be no firearms module until we get approval from the ministry,''

No, seriously! Which parent said that? Welfare and Child abuse organisations ought check in on them.

I remain steadfast in support of NO FIREARMS for NS. If they were training to be soldiers or in voluntary military service - by all means, please learn to use firearms for the sake of defending our country. BUT National Service has never been (and this has been quoted time after time by the great defence minister himself) a military conscription. We CANNOT compare ourselves to Singapore's NS and ask that we hold guns because they do (and do NOT argue this point with me, you will end up sounding ridiculous). They are training an army. We are not.

Learning to use firearms doesn't build character and doesn't instill discipline. So what is the point of it being brought into National Service besides a being a great waste of the RM 4.4bil we're saving by increasing the price of petrol?

Malaysian Night in The Star!!!

Oh I'm so proud of MSoc! They've gone one step further in reputation!

See Ghastly sights and spooky thrills

And as Tao would say "It's because of our teaching..."

Asian Boys and other stories

If you haven't made up your mind, I'd reeeeally encourage you to watch Asian Boys tonight. The homophobic squeemishness only lasts for about 20 minutes into the play, but after that you really marvel at the brilliant little plots by Alfian Sa'at and the wealth of gay issues you never knew existed in non-gay Singapore. The actors (and actress) were very convincing, despite some of them actually being straight with the exception of our very own drag queen - Fidel "Stage Whore" Anaya. So if you've got 2 pounds to spare... go to LSE tonight and watch it! Well worth my money. Lets see if Rojak tonight can come a close second.

As for other stories, its great to feel a big sigh of relief wash over me as I can finally stop worrying about wasting away my summer, knowing that I will be spending it cooped up in a little office in Hong Kong. Except for the fact that that office will be carrying the name Goldman Sachs.

And as for more stories - its coming to the end of term. That means 5 weeks to the start of exams. And I'm not sure I've learnt anything at all this year. Prepare for a barrage of study-induced rants littering these pages. I'm not gonna apologise for any of it.

** Later Edit **
Did I forget to wish you a Happy St. Patrick's Day yesterday?

Happy St. Patrick's Day

I wanted a Guinness clover hat but didn't know where to get one.

Linstead, I'll be back!

So here's to another year at Linstead.

I finally made up my mind and sent an email back to Anthony, the warden, accepting the position. And then a letter to the Willis Jackson warden, rejecting the position. And then a letter to Teresa telling her how sorry I am that I won't be living with her next year. I really am sorry. Teresa's been like the best senior from the start of my days at Imperial, and now its closing in on three years and the words Final Year are growing clearer.

It's vague, it's unpredictable, it's scary... but worse of all... I'm afraid it's going to be oh so lonely.

Anyway, congratulations are in store for the new EESoc committee, and their new treasurer. Gary's going to be a great chair. And when I think of it, does anyone get to be a great table? I'm disappearing until Gary starts putting bags of money in my hands. THEN we'll talk!

Will be watching Asian Boys tomorrow. Yes, it's as every bit as dodgy as the title implies. A play on the Asian homosexual scene. Anyone else wanna come along? Fidel's acting!

Crunch time!!!

After the agonisingly long process of applying for internships, guess what I've succeeded the most in? Getting re-app positions!!!

I mean, think about the statistics of it. I made 8 or 9 internship applications... and I'm still waiting to hear from some of them while most of them rejected me straight out. I applied to just 2 halls to become a re-app and I get both of them. And you'd think one of them would reject me, just to make life a tad easier.

So now, quick - IC people - Willis Jackson or Linstead? I think one of them is the more obvious choice, just for the proximity, the food, and for old times sakes. When I went back to Linstead last night for the re-app meeting, the carpet smelt just like it used to when we used to hang around outside the dining hall after dinner and do stupid things for the camera. Ahh... nostalgia.

BUT Willis Jackson is newer, bigger, and Teresa will be there (who I might add has been bugging me to choose WJ or in her own words "You'd better move in missy!") and the carpets don't really smell and the colour themes are interesting and the common room is huge. But its far and there's no food and I've never lived there before.

How??? I've to make up my mind by today!!! This is killing me! I'd wish I was asking "Google or Goldman?" instead!

Dumb terrorists in the making

Here quick! Hide the evidence!

Mustapa, will you turn a blind eye?

This very humble letter in yesterday's issue of The Star (Malaysian English daily) caught my eye.

An Open Letter to Mustapa

The good doctor, Azmi Sharom (an associate prof in the Law faculty of Universiti Malaya), is a brave man indeed - questioning the new education minister and putting his career on the line. I salute him, and all other academics 'keeping it real' back home.

Will cut and paste excerpts if I have the time.

If you are in EEE or ISE please take 2 minutes now to go to www.union.ic.ac.uk/vote to vote Charlotte for treasurer, and if you're a doll you'll also vote Gary aka Siulun Leong for Chair. Thank you, now please continue reading.

I'm trying to muster enough courage to go to the Vidal Sassoon Academy for a badly needed haircut. Would anyone like to go with me? I'm not sure that I can face the scissors of a drunken bohemian Russian by myself.

Malaysian Night 2006 was last Saturday and my favourite bits are in the videos below

1. The immensely creative Hakka-inspired Dikir


2. The Chinese fan dance (especially Wei Li's bit)


3. Ayish's Bharatnatyam solo bit


4. And the funky Hip-hop bit


I would put up all the songs too, but there aren't any good videos of them and Alan's beautiful voice just doesn't come through quite as well on a limited bandwidth. Oh well, I know the ex-comm's tired of me saying this but - SEE! I TOLD you Alan could sing!!!

All videos are courtesy of Tock. And as much as we (the ex-committee) loved M-Night 2006 (I mean the acting, the jokes, the whole plot was WOW)... we couldn't help meeting up the next night at As Greek As It Gets for a 'bitching' session. Or in other words, we were just trying to relive our own M-Night memories through the latest one.


That's the old team - CL, Cheng Chun, Tock, Nicole, Tao, me and Jia Hong... and you can just about see half of Ayish! Ah... days gone by...

I have a feeling Amar is rolling his way down to London from Warwick as I type. The darkening clouds have to be a sign.

Happy Birthday, Anu Babu!

Yes, I do give my friends strange names. I doubt they appreciate such affection, but nevertheless -Here's to one more year, Anu! Older, Wiser and Fatter! It's about time you put on a bit more weight and stopped resembling Skeletor! Imagine, next birthday (or the next, next birthday?) you'll be DOCTOR Anushia - ready to be set loose on the unsuspecting disease-ridden public. Beware of her wielding scapel and latex gloves in skeletal hands!

Oh and because I assume you're rather confused by now, no that isn't a photo of Anu and me above. In fact, its a photo of my sister with a friend who strangely resembles Anu. Here's a more accurate one:

Anu, me, and Sugi outside Swensons in SS2 - which we had to sneak Anu to cos according to
Anu's daddy, my neighbourhood is a 'dangerous place' to be!

That's us, some four or five years ago, before we set out to destroy the world as potential doctor and engineers. Oh, and for my adoring public - yes, there was a point in time when I didn't give a damn about my hair. Compare that with this:

Me, Sugi and Anu at Anu's VERY belated 21st birthday dinner - some 9 months after her actual birthday!

4 or 5 years, coupled with the lack of sleep and coursework/dissertation deadlines strangely makes everyone look A LOT better! Oh and owning a digital camera helps too. I mean it even makes the guys look so grown up!

Sugi, Ravi, Sharmila, Ramnath, Anu, Prashant and Me
Just for fans of Bunga Raya's & Coconuts (M-Nite 2005), yes that is
the original Ravi who inspired me to create our beloved lead character!

And just for your birthday, Anu, I'm making you feel nostalgic. That's my present to you. You can thank me later... and also scold me for wishing you a day after your birthday. In my defence I have a pile high of excuses, but I'll save them for later. *HUGS*

And so the mud-slinging begins...

A vote for Charlotte, is a vote for organisational freakiness!

It's election time again, and this time I'm running for EESoc Treasurer (read my manifesto here). And what do I stand for? Immaculate accounts and overall transparent subsidies! Now be a dear and go tell that to all your friends in EEE!

I've got to work on my campaign posters. Anyone wanna help?

George Clooney, reigning Hamas king!

Am I the only one who thinks the new Hamas political leader, Khaled Meshaal and George Clooney were switched at birth?

I mean, take a look at this:
And then, go watch Syriana:
Uncanny isn't it?

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!).

Was haben Sie in der neue Jahr gemacht?

Viel! viel! Essen und trinken! Tanzen und schlafen! (es tut mir leid, ich hat eine Deutsche essay geschrieben)

Just to recap the New Year festivities. On New Year's eve, Lionel and I bundled ourselves up nice and warm and took the train to Walton-on-Thames where my aunty lives with her two cats, Molly and Henry. I like steamboat, and I like it even better when my aunt does it with loads of prawns and cuttlefish! We got on really well with my aunt's friend's daughters who were our age. That was rather strange. I don't ever get off to a good start with girls. I'm much better with guys because you don't get the feeling that they're sizing you up, unless they're trying to hit on you. But these two girls were just so chatty and we had a pretty flowing conversation from animal activists to the Da Vinci code.

New Year's day was slightly more relaxed than usual. It helped that it fell on a Sunday, of which I spent half a day on my Control Engineering report. The potluck at my place was a little last minute, but since Nicole and I were set on not spending Chinese New Year with housemates we aren't extremely close to, thus we had the Malaysians and Fidel over to my place to tuck in on a delicious feast of Yee Sang, spring rolls, Four Seasons duck, roast duck popiah, nian gou, agar-agar and the most un-Chinesy of all - Chocolate Fondue!!! (The story of my fondue pot will come soon in a separate post about my birthday... when I finally sit down and write it). I didn't have to cook a single thing (apart from deep frying spring rolls) and yet received a free flow of compliments on the great food throughout the night. I love these guys. It's just too easy to con all of them into thinking I'm such a marvelous cook. I was particularly happy that Ayish, the vegetarian, had enough to eat! Years of having to plan vegan appropriate dishes for Sugi and Maggie have paid off!

And so that was new year - playing with the iDog, laughing at Tock trying to sing in Mandarin, and accidently pouring chocolate fondue on spring rolls. A good start to a dog year. I've already got two pups to look after - Ba Kua my nintendog and now the iDog. Lets see how this goes.

Chinese Whispers

*Warning* Sentimental puddles ahead. May splash.

For whatever reason, it seems as if it was just last year that we were all in grand old 538 in Penang. Our grandparents' dilapitated colonial mansion has no other name but 538 (think Jean Valjean's - 24601), and 538 it shall stay.

I have no other memory of Chinese New Year apart from the painful 4 hour ride to 538, in a car filled to the brim with mandarin oranges, abalones, lap cheong, kuih kapit, fresh fish and children. Three children to be precise. One who would swallow books whole, one with an endless amount of (not always politically correct) jokes, and one who always complained her siblings were taking up more than their share of the back seat.

4 hours later the children, oranges, abalones, lap cheong, kuih kapit, and fresh fish would be spit out onto the driveway of 538, not necessarily in that order. And then Operation Spotless would begin, and in military fashion aunties would bark orders:
"Who forgot to clean behind the aircond vents?" "Grey is unacceptable, I want the fans white!" "What do you mean you can't reach that cobweb? What do you think the ladder is for?" "A scout helps at all times, including Chinese New Year" "No one gets angpows without working for it first!"

And just like an Etopian shoe factory, children of all ages could be seen working their little hearts out - climbing on chairs atop tables, wielding vacuum cleaners and rags or beating mattresses in the scorching sun or drowning nasty coloured cushion covers in buckets of soapy water.

But as soon as the sun sets and 538 is gleaming as much as its old walls can bear, it's time for the feast of the century (if we don't count Christmas, and popiah parties and laksa parties and the obligatory celebration when someone comes back from overseas). 3 generations crowd around the old dining table with just enough space in between to raise a chopstick and poke the person next to you.

And then we tuck into the only dinner my grandmother ever cooks each year. Don't ask me what she spends the other three hundred and sixty four days doing, but when grandma only cooks this rarely, you shut up and enjoy the overflowing plates with fancy names that are a mumbo jumbo of prosperity and happiness and fortune and luck and buddhas.

As soon as the plates are cleared and the mandarins have been passed out, then begins the great kitchen war. Too many women in one kitchen is just a bad idea. My grandmother knows that too and leaves it to her vocally expressive daughters and daughter in laws to plan the New Year's day meal. The children too are no where within earshot, for if caught it could mean an evening of chopping shallots or shelling peas.

Instead the young cousins lounge about in the massive lawn that stretches an entire football field with room to spare. They'll sit on the swing and tell stories of yore, of love bourne and lost of dreams yet to unfold. And when the authorities still allowed it, they lit up the sky with a display of fireworks and red fire crackers that gave the little ones nightmares.

But it's all for a good cause. Because when the morning comes, nightmares are forgotten and little red packets have mysteriously appeared under our pillows. Everyone fights for the one and only bathroom in the house. New, shiny red clothes appear in abundance and the children recite New Year phrases, the rare bits of Chinese that has been drummed into their heads a week beforehand. There is plenty of tea to go around and a cup of tea to an elder is a password for receiving an angpow.

And the children know they'll never get more than a few dollars in their ang pows, but its the excitement, the totalling up of accounts and the feeling of new crisp notes in their hands. And after a hearty breakfast of radish cake and in more recent times: hong bak with gee niah kuih, the door bell rings and guest after guest comes pouring in. Our grandfather being the eldest in the family and a respected court interpretor, sits like a grand duke in his chair as friends and relatives come to pay their respects.

The girls like young maidens flutter in and out of the guestroom with tea and sweet trays and coequettish smiles in hand. The boys just try not to break anything, because the brooms have been hidden and grandma's long drawn scoldings just aren't worth it.

There is no gambling in 538. The governor and governess run a respectable Cantonese family where the young ones should be seen and not heard, and when seen should either engage in the most intelligent of conversations or else be seen reading a good book. But when their backs are turned, away run the children to an afternoon of Hong Kong movies on tv. No one ever gets tired of Kungfu reruns. Certainly not us.

And before they know it, it's dinner time and again three generations try to squeeze into one table. Voices grow louder and drift into the night and one more family has ushered in the new year.

*************

I start to hallucinate terribly when the withdrawal symptoms of spending three years away from home begin to kick in.

Gong Hei Fatt Choy!!!

courtesy of Kee's World, The Star

The excited puppy in me would like to wish all of you a Happy and Prosperous New Year and may the year of the dog bring you the loyalty and companionship of loved ones! Xin Nian Kuai Le, Wan Shi Ru Yi, Nian Nian You Yu! etc. etc. *exchanges mandarin oranges*

Control Freaks and Rock Chicks

I'm doing everything... but my Control Engineering report!

Nevertheless I thought I should do a plug for my latest musical discovery - Keren Deberg. Chicks with a guitar rule. Chicks who pen their own songs are even better. Chicks with a squeaky lilt to their vocals? You know I'd love them!

Being the Bic Runga, Fiona Apple and company fan... and also a real cheapo, I have been downloading her music all afternoon and although its not as raw as I would like it... at least she's got more of an edge than Hilary Duff.

Mmm... Hilary Duff... I love that girl and her lashes. That's all you need to attract 20 year olds like Sachpal to Lizzie Mcguire.

Oh and if you've got the time and like acoustic guitars and happen to be suffering from a broken heart... Colin Hay's just amazing!

In times of duress Charl reverts to Manglish (the one where she speaks English and her coursemates don't understand)

Yalah! I know lah! It's been very quiet around here and it's probably because I'm lazy to do a proper post with proper photos and etc, sans the whining about deadlines and workload stress.


But on a whim, after a hell-raising week, I decided I had had enough and spent 2 hours making onde-onde. I know the picture looks lovely, but they didn't turn out like that! You want to know why? Because Lionel refused to go back to the shops and get green food dye! So I ended up with a box of white puffy snowballs, which didn't look too bad actually and tasted quite good, until we put them into the fridge overnight and they became rock hard. Next time I'll dye 'em pink.

Monday was a real treat. I woke up at 6.30 just to get to Sandip's place in time to be driven all the way to Farnborough by 9.30 for the IBM Business Challenge Semifinals. We didn't win, but I discovered my talents lie in inspiring holographic handphones, building paper warships, drawing logos and creating and directing a sketch in 20 minutes. My talents for business? Zero!

Right, I'd love to chat more but there's this seriously jialat Control lab report to write up which out of 25 pages I have only finished about 5 half empty ones. Here's to the late nights and mugs of coffee! Jia You!

p/s: I was at West End last night watching Chicago. All that jazz!!! Dayaamm... I miss peforming, or organising performances. Here lies a sorely retired Malaysian Night scriptwriter/creativeconsultant/publicitymanageress wishing we could relive the fun moments one more time (you know without all the yelling over rehearsals and prima donna attitudes and post midnight emergency phonecalls)

Watch this space!

It's been a busy first week of uni (as expected) .
Things to blog about in the near future:
1. My birthday dinner and strange birthday present themes
2. My Marriot dinner sponsored by Barclays Capital
3. My US trip followed by photos... eventually
4. Ba Kua, my nintendog

The list is for me, not you.

Goodnight now. The world is listening.

Another year older?

Repeat after me:
Tomorrow is going to be normal.
I will wake up after 10 and jump out of bed in horror because its mid morning.
I will go for German at noon followed by Databases in the afternoon.
I will come home and cook something nice for dinner.
I will not wash the dishes because I hate washing dishes because when I have to wash dishes I end up cleaning the whole kitchen.
I will do some Matlab, watch some tv, take a bath with my new Egyptian bath milk (you're allowed to admit you're jealous of me) and then I'll tuck Lionel into bed, program abit more...
and that will be the story of my life, albeit another year older.

Oh and if you'd like to make my day - I really would like that Lychee and Jasmine ironing water from Sainsbury's that costs 89p and a nice photo frame for my new family photos. I don't really need anything else, Lionel's been offering to buy me everything from detergent to discounted Body Shop Christmas packs. And if you can't do that, just don't bully me tomorrow. It'll make me feel so loved!

Random-ness!

This has got to be the most simple and narcissistically fulfulling meme in awhile (tagged by Fidel the neighbourhood quirk).

5 random facts about myself

1. My parents taught me to read at the age of one, tell the time at the age of 2 and paint still life with crayons and water colours at the age of 4. My cousin who was a year older couldn't read till she was 7. Guess who was the little family favourite?
(Don't get me wrong though, I love my cousin to bits and followed her everywhere!)

2. I think roses are pretentious. My favourite flower is a carnation which is my late grandmother's favourite.

3. When I was 16, I fell in love with restoring heritage buildings on a visit to the Cheung Fatt Tze mansion in Penang. I still believe I will one day help to restore the ruins of Suffolk House - built by Francis Light for his common law wife. Many romantic paintings of it hang in the Penang Museum, although right now it looks like something out of Jungle Book!

4. I have a motion sickness problem related to my hearing. In the evenings passing cars and loud noises scare me and I can't stand when I'm on the tube unless I absolutely have to.

5. In 20 years I hope to be able to have enough power (and money) to revamp the entire Malaysian Public Library system to one which will not only contain books of a higher standard (I say 'higher' so as not to offend the current government administration who often think of themselves as perfect demi-gods) where preferably more than half of them will be in English (the books, not the demi-gods) with credible authors and not just half torn Nancy Drew books that were dumped at the library steps when the kids left home. I also envision a Public Library that will become a centre of wholesome activities for young children and impressionable teenagers who believe 'c u 8ter u knnccbbbq' is a sentence. I don't know what bbq is. Amar came up with it.
And I haven't been drinking. Promise!

And I shall tag - EVERYBODY!!! I'm not choosy.

Thank God, one of us got in!

I'm not a big fan of Oxbridge - number one because my parents put so much pressure on me to apply and number two because I really didn't want to go to another Raffles-like institute of excellance and number three - take me out of the city?? Hell no!

So to whet my parent's appetite for at least one graduate from Oxbridge, I sacrificed my little brother.

Anyway he was over the moon when the offer from Oxford came in. I was too! I always knew my brother deserved it, after his heart wrenching disappointment when he didn't get into RJC just like his sister did. And I'm also very happy that he won't be in Imperial, running to my house everytime he wants a good meal, or just a meal and someone to don his socks! My brother can't look after himself. He believes that's what sisters are for.

So now that my parents will have in their hands one graduate from Imperial and one from Oxford, my 15 year old sister fears having to go to Cambridge to complete the holy trinity. Tsk! Over achieving families!

Into Two Thousand and Six

It's hard to keep up with this blog. But I'll try my very best after spending a very busy day cooking a teriyaki beef don lunch and lounging around in the living room watching episodes of Frasier on TV. I love to savour my bouts of inactivity. I don't get enough of them.

Yesterday Lionel and I spent almost the entire day on the couch in our PJs watching back to back episodes of Little Britain. Yeah but no but yea but...Shaddup! Amar can vouch for it. He was the only person who had taken a bath by noon - a real surprise that was!

The last few days of 2005 weren't anything spectacular if it wasn't for Kim spending 2 days with the folks at Longridge Road. I bet she believes my house to be down right mad and that we do alot of laundry! (I'm just done with the last load of post New York laundry and this weeks clothes are just glaring at me, begging to be washed!)

We finally gave our first house party on New Year's Eve. Yes, everyone's been waiting to see our flat for quite awhile. And no one is to tell Rich Arckless that I once again committed the crime of not inviting him to one of my 'Malaysian' parties. I would have, if I wasn't deathly afraid of the neighbours complaining of the commotion coming from the fifty noisy kids in flat 2. It doesn't help that my neighbours give us that 'Oh, you're Asian!' look and you can almost see them cringing at the idea of illegal Chinese immigrants harbouring rats and ajinomoto. Oh, and that's why I didn't tell any of my coursemates about the party either. Oops! I'll bake cookies when term starts. I promise! And make spring rolls?

Anyway back to the party. The popiah (unfried spring rolls) was a success! I almost whooped for joy when I could see the bottom of the bowl of joo hoo char (turnip and carrot mixed veg thing) by 9.30pm, and then my good hostess persona kicked in and I freaked out about not having enough food. Thank goodness for the overflowing bowls of rojak (Malaysian fruit salad with prawn paste dressing) and the Tiramisu I made the night before just because I could. The Tiramisu recipe is of course accredited to Darwin the ISE Tai Kor (big brother - colloqially: Chinese Mafia boss) without whom I could not gloat at the many many compliments I received (and that's not just for my Tiramisu!)

Amar of course lived up to the position of drink marshall with a free flow of Pimms and lychee screwdrivers (with real lychee bits from Fulham market) throughout the night. I'll give him points for trying to get me drunk, but it didn't work and would have been too expensive and no one else would have gotten any drinks. I must say drinking sure saves my having to put on any make-up though.

It was really great to be able to see CL and Tock and Nicole and Wei Kiat and Soha and well, everyone again! You sure miss out on so much gossip when you're travelling around the US! And it was great that Kim and her friend Emily could join us. And of course Fidel had to grace the occasion with a brand new haircut! You go, Fidzy!! I can't believe how long Kim and I went on telling Fidel about our Odac days. We even brought out old photos, photos I hadn't seen for half a year, photos I'd forgotten about! Reliving the memories was exhilarating! I didn't realise how much I'd washed out of my memory after just 3 years!

Anyway, it was much too cold to make our way down to the London Eye to watch fireworks, and besides the panaromic view displayed on our tv was just perfect. Tock's confetti popper things added just the right touch as well and we ushered in the new year on that note and snuggled into a warm night under our duvets.

Except for Amar. We forgot to give him a blanket as he froze on the sofabed.

Merry Christmas and party on into the New Year!

I'm back in London and recovering from busting a big hole in my bank account with the unbelievable amount of shopping I've done. New York (and New Jersey where there are no taxes) has drained me of almost all my living expenses!

Do not judge me until the Harrods sales are on.

Will regale you with stories of Nine West shoes, frustrations of the New Yorks strikes and unbelievably stupid Americans later. Right now I've just gotta get my jetlag fixed.

Hope you had a Merry Christmas. And may it snow tomorrow. (Come on, just a little, pleeeease?)

Coming to you live from Chicago!

The funniest bumper sticker I've seen so far:

Nobody died
When Clinton lied

It's an average of -8C here and we're in my granduncle's apartment facing a very beautiful (and I might add frozen) Lake Michigan.

A quick run down of our last two days would be:
Heathrow - Charles de Gaule - JFK - New Jersey (CHEAP Cheena food!!! and NO TAXES!) - La Guardia - Chicago Midway - Vietnames Pho - High School Band concert (my uncle who's 16 plays the tuba which weighs 25 pounds) - Express tour around Chicago city in my uncle's warm car - Pompeii exhibit at the Field Museum (Charl: Who's Pompeii? Lionel: It's a place, not a person!) - Jazz band at the Green Mill club - Decorate real live Christmas tree while sipping mugs of hot chocolate and popcorn

And that's about it

Any last orders?

I'm leaving for New York on the 15th. Will be in Chicago until the 20th. Then back to New York and then back in good ol' London on the 28th.

This is a last call for addresses if you would like postcards/Christmas cards/Thinking of you in this freaking bitter cold weather cards!

This is also a last call for anyone who wants to meet up in New York/Chicago or wants presents from New York/Chicago! Nicole's birthday present is already on the list.

And a very desperate request for anyone who's able to house Lionel and I on the 15th for one night to avoid us having to spend the night at JFK airport, on transit to Chicago the next day. We sleep on floors, own a sleeping bag and are generally clean and well mannered.

Ah, the life of a backpacker on a shoe string. My granduncle sponsoring my air ticket and my EEE department tour guide income only just manages to cover my accomodation! How many more snotty A-Level kids do I have to entertain to earn enough money for a decent holiday? (Although in all fairness, they're not snotty... except the ones who would rather go to Oxbridge)

p/s: London folk - keep New Year's Eve free! And vote for a) Popiah party, b) Charlotte's various (and suspicious) finger food recipes or c) 2 mins in the microwave Iceland frozen food packs OR d) all of the above!

The Leader?

This so cracked me up in the midst of my coursework fury!

How a poem like this could be printed in a Pakistani school textbook is both a mystery to me and to the Pakistani government! We're not the only bumbling education system in the world, huh?

THE LEADER by anonymous

Patient and steady with all he must bear,
Ready to meet every challenge with care,
Easy in manner, yet solid as steel,
Strong in his faith, refreshingly real.
Isn't afraid to propose what is bold,
Doesn't conform to the usual mould,
Eyes that have foresight, for hindsight won't do,
Never backs down when he sees what is true,
Tells it all straight, and means it all too.
Going forward and knowing he's right,
Even when doubted for why he would fight,
Over and over he makes his case clear,
Reaching to touch the ones who won't hear.
Growing in strength he won't be unnerved,
Ever assuring he'll stand by his word.
Wanting the world to join his firm stand,
Bracing for war, but praying for peace,
Using his power so evil will cease,
So much a leader and worthy of trust,
Here stands a man who will do what he must.

It's the most wonderful time of the year

When the workload is piling and winds come a-calling and deadlines are here!
It's the most wonderful time of the year!

Does anyone feel like it's spring? After the last 2 week's worth of frost and bitter cold, this 'warmer' weather and the few trees that are still green are a welcomed change. Now THIS is what autumn is supposed to be like!

Let's paint a bull's eye on Queen's Tower, aye?

DSP coursework - compiled, proof read and printed an entire day before the deadline! Boy do I feel a smug look coming on.

In other news, I will be in Chicago on the 15th, then in New York on the 20th, then (fingers crossed) at Harrods during the boxing day sales with my hands on a good coat. Who says one can have too many coats? One cannot have enough coats in a lifetime. Nor boots.

Anyone noticed that Imperial College has been in the lime light recently? For all the wrong reasons! Thanks to the Rector's ban on hoodies, face veils and scarves that hide ugly braces we've become a nationwide controversy! We even appeared on the evening news! Everyone loves a good scandal.

Now it's not like anyone's really abiding by the new draconian laws. Sure the security guards tried to stop me once for not wearing my ID tag. But how much harm could I have caused? I was trying to leave the grounds, not get in! But that was just an isolated incident and since our own campus shop sells hoodies with the IC name proudly stitched on, no one's really bothered.

Except for the bunch of amnesty international and other monkeys from jobless human rights societies. There they were, right outside the Faculty building, protesting and waving placards calling the Rector out on account of Islamaphobia and Hijab-phobia and what not. And here we were in German class trying to understand genitive cases and adjectival nouns and not being able to hear a word of it due to the inconsiderate shouting outside.

Now, I think it's incredibly immature and petty. The rules were enforced two weeks ago. And it's taken 2 weeks to round up enough protestors? Come on, why wasn't this done when the bun was still fresh out of the oven? Most students don't seem to be affected by it, let alone feel strongly about it. My Malay friends, in headscarves nontheless, aren't the ones running around with placards. In fact they're pretty passive about the whole thing. After all it was a rule disallowing the wearing of hoods which hides the face from security cameras in the event of a break in or theft, which has been plagueing our halls and campus offices recently. No one even brought up the topic of banning headscarves.

But along come the do-gooders. Making something out of nothing. I personally think all this attention we're drawing is making us the perfect target for a terrorist bombing. Way to go Imperial. It's not like we don't have all the stuff to make our own bomb right here on campus!

Kumpulan Orang Biru, and other Christmas thoughts

It's been threatening to snow. But it hasn't yet. I've forgotten what it's like to have feeling in my ears. Thus all I would like to have for Christmas (and preferably before) is this - warm fluffy (and preferably pink) ear muffs!

Alternatively, I will also settle for:


Mini tabletop vacuums!
Available at Robert Dyas for only 4.99, and come in an assortment of cute animal shapes too. Personally I'd like a little pink pig. Wouldn't you?








Christmas presents aside, we spent last night watching the Blue Man Group, which is really hard to describe so go here and read about them. And you'd better not miss out on the videos! I really can't decide if the best part of the night was having to wear ponchos throughout the show (ah, memories of rainy Odac days) or getting teepeed by humongous rolls of toilet paper. If you've never tried swimming in a sea of toilet paper, go watch the Blue Man Group instead of buying more Kleenex!

Above on the left is just one of the three men in blue (MIB), and frankly I find anybody covered in a latex layer of thick (and still wet) blue paint to be rather creepy. But covering an audience member in blue paint, hanging him from his legs and swinging him face first onto a white canvas is surprisingly rather artistic. So are flourescent UV pipes!

Me, Lionel, Lu and Grace with The Band!

Chien Liq and his prized Blue Man saliva painting,
lovingly spat onto a blank canvas for him

And Matt, who got Blue Man-handled!

As the busy bee

Some of us have discovered the tricks of the trade on Bullbearings. Some of us have just learnt how to outscheme the computer program. *cough* I've just been trying my hand at it and earned 40 pounds in half an hour just from trading US Dollars and Japanese Yen. Now if only I could cash it in for a new pair of leather boots!

Have I ever told you how easy it is to make wontons? And how easy it is to overcook them?

Need to run now. I did say I was going to get started on DSPs about 6 hours ago!

Mr Newell, you are SO not a Harry Potter fan!

I'm going to spoil Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (HP&GoF) for you if you haven't watched it yet so read at your own peril.

I'm gutted! Where was the Quidditch World Cup match? What happened to all the obstacles in the third task? Why were the triwizard champions made such shallow characters instead of the extremely talented wizards/witches they were? Why didn't they show Harry picking up all those neat charms and spells for the triwizard tournament? How could they completely write off the house elves and SPEW? Why did Rita Skeeter disappear halfway through and why didn't they show Hermione bottling her beetle animagus in the end? That would have made a much better ending than Hermione's melancholy theatrics in that 'trying too hard to be bittersweet' ending.

I take my Harry Potter much too seriously. But anal retentiveness aside, it was an amazing movie. I'm not trying to nitpick on the details. I'll admit the CGI was perfect, the magical creatures were spectacular, the setting would make Peter Jackson weep, and I cried when Cedric Diggory died.

I just wish it had been more magical than a display of special effects. Shame on you Mike Newell. You ought to know your Harry Potter better.

Fiesta Pina!

It was pineapple day yesterday. Don't ask me what that is, I made it up! We had 2 pineapples in our kitchen yesterday because it's 1 for 1 at Sainsbury's.

So I made pineapple fried rice (Amar you would have loved it, and cooked it better probably!) and pineapple curry with fish! Mmm mm mmmm! It was a dinner worthy of inviting Justin over for.

Justin for some strange reason thinks I'm an amazing cook when all he's ever tasted is my Tiramisu. Apparently Lionel's been telling him that he'd rather eat my culinary concoctions (or disasters) than eat out at any Chinese restaurant. My explanation of that is 1. If he doesn't say so he won't have ANYTHING to eat at home and 2. Have you ever tasted Chinese food in London? It's rubbish with a touch of ajinomoto (MSG) 3. He seems to have mentally blocked out the time I served him very hard, burnt fried rice way back in the first year.

But since Justin is taking Lionel's word for it (and the rest of the emperor's gate folks who only say I cook well because they don't want to cook themselves!) I'm still trying to find a day when I can proudly invite him over to taste my 'wonderful' cooking.


Here's all that is left of yesterday's pineapple rice. It has thus become my lunch. Yes I'm gonna eat out of the frying pan. I'm lazy to wash up more plates.

Alcohol makes me blush

I love a good photo. Especially one taken after downing a Smirnoff. We're so red... and I'll blame the red light bulbs at Sanjeev's 'Heaven or Hell' house party. We're in the hell part of the house. It must be hell when Andy's multiple personalities (hyper vodka chugging Andy and zoned out Andy) start showing. He managed to take a lovely photo though... and even caught the incriminating Smirnoff in Lionel's hand. I made him hold it 'cos it's girly.

Illustrations...

The Christmas feeling is in the air. I know it, because Starbucks and their red cups are telling me so. It's just me and my Gingerbread Latte on this cold November evening. Mmmm, I've gotta fashion some Christmas deco for my room to make it a little more festive.

Christmas would be really nice if only I didn't have a mountain of courseworks blocking the view. Like right now.

I think Amar has the right idea though

by the way...

things I forgot to mention which I think are worth mentioning...

1. Guy Fawkes Day was a blast! Quite literally
2. Maomao, I will never forgive you for sending us the restaurant game! I can no longer do courseworks normally, or start them for that matter.
3. I have to get my eyes checked. Nicole just found out she's short sighted and that made me put abit more thought into those blurry looking lecture slides.

So Exciting!

No time to sleep. It's overrated anyway. These eyebags aren't disappearing no matter how many hours of snooze time I get. What the...

Raya weekend was, all Amar. Spent it at house parties (Sanjeev's and Yunju's) and I can't even remember what else on the weekend. My memory is going. How am I going to finish my courseworks like this?

Pasar Malam gave me a cold and a new addiction to mehndi tattoos. I should post up the designs Sau Yin and I drew. Gorgeous dragons, pheonixes and waterlilies. Want a tattoo? You know where to find us.

I wanted to blog about an article in November's GQ. About this guy who was bashing a Perodua Kelisa with a mallet. Amar if you still have the issue, put the photo up. I think it's a lovely bash to the heads of our egotistical national car producers. The Kelisa isn't a car. It's just a reason to generate a national economy. (I also believe it is the main reason for the high accident rates during Hari Raya, but lets not go there)

I have such an exciting week ahead. Watch as I rush to make deadlines and burn the midnight oil (and then start lighting every flammable object in my house that will create light) to cram numbers and German into my head. Do applaud me if you see me hand in everything on time.

Otherwise, I need to get Fidel's guitar fixed. Two of the strings have snapped and I can't improvise on three strings. And I need to pick songs for bible study group and practise before Thursday. Yeah, I'm being good. I'm going for bible study now. My mum can't stop smiling.

It's me again

We've finally got internet at home, and all is right with the world again.

Well not particularly so. Fiery riots in Paris and now Argentina makes you think that people never learn. Aggression is trendy. Forget about helping the Asian Earthquake appeal (which I did, mind you - I bought a couple of cupcakes and gave away all my cash). Lets just burn stuff down to show everyone we mean business. Even if it's in response to an unconfirmed claim as in Birmingham; sparked off by a rumour which proved to be untrue. They're pretty thick in the west midlands aren't they?

Anyway I thought this silent movie from Vidu was interesting. The comment box is free for your interpretations; random, disturbing or otherwise. I promise there's nothing Freudian about it.

I know I've been hiding here in my little (or not so little) part of London, ignoring several birthdays. I haven't even had the time to cancel my contract line, let alone look for birthday cards (or addresses for that matter). And so, in a very belated (and sheepish) shout out:

Happy Birthday Yin Tse, Maomao, Kim, Jilly and my Grandpa (who doesn't read my blog but knows that I write. Alot.)

There's no need to wish Ayish, after all her 21st birthday party must be one she'll remember for a lifetime. Lets just say that the invitation strictly insisted on everyone dressing up for a black tie evening and that dinner would cost no more than 5 pounds at a secret venue on Knightsbridge that the birthday girl herself did not know off. So imagine the utter shock and horror of 30 elegant suits and gowns entering a private room at McDonalds with a rather, erm, tipsy Ayish. Hopefully the alcohol helped to numb the shock a little. The very amusing things Linsteadians do. I'll post up Nicole's photos when I get the chance.

I wish I had photos of my night at Lehman Brothers though. Imagine being on the top floor (that's 31 floors above ground) overlooking all of London and the Thames with fireworks going off opposite the South Bank! Whipping out my camera phone at that time would unfortunately have been most unappropriate. I just took a mental snap shot - Kirsten Dunst style. Watch Elizabethtown. That's my advice for the week. I got free preview tickets but I would have gladly paid for it, if only for Kirsten Dunst. What Orlando Bloom? Let's go on a roadtrip, just you and me.

Amar's here for the weekend. Enough said.

Spank me!

Erm, no... not really...

But some one should if I don't sit my ass down and finish this stupid comms systems coursework by today! It's only due tomorrow at 5pm, but tomorrow being commemoration day it means everyone gets a holiday and I'll have no one's coursework to copy! Bah!

It was a bloody waste of time dressing up for year rep elections. Yeah, I am year rep, but it's a joint year rep position and thus was won by a general consensus that everyone agreed to having more than one (or rather we agreed NOT to vote out anyone) due to the wide spectrum of ISE courses the year reps would have to deal with. So what was the point of Chien Liq and Wei Kiat educating me on how to use my feminine charms on the largely male population of ISE again? Such a waste of hair combing, lip rouging, cleavage plumping, etc. etc. I still hold that I'm the prettier year rep anyway.

I've gotten myself dragged into the IBM university business challenge. In other words, I get to run an imaginary alcopop company for 6 weeks. Ah... my dream career.

I want to go check out the Alien exhibit at the Science Museum tomorrow. Provided I finish and hand in my coursework. Then it's shopping at Harrods, and Death of a Salesman in the evening with Fidel.

And this is why I love London

A First Lady, fondly remembered

My mother sms-ed early this morning, or perhaps late last night. The news that our first lady had passed away obviously could not have waited until I'd woken up. But that's how much she means to us and how much we've grown so fond of her.

For a family that has grown up in the arms of the civil service and government forces in Malaysia, it has been truly difficult to take a liking to anyone of 'them'. Respect, maybe, but like is a an estranged word when it comes to anyone in the government and their respective family members.

But we really liked Endon. Oh, we so did! Maybe we feared that she would never hold a torch up to Tun Dr. Siti Hasmah, but she's carved her own niche into our hearts. She's been the gentle caring, giving, loving, favourite mother of the nation, whether in Bakti or batik. She was fearless in the face of cancer and a shining example, even to my own father in his period of recovery.

And she will be so missed. Thanks for staying awhile to touch us hard of heart, Malaysians. Yours was the hardest battle to fight.

Neither here nor there

So it's the beginning of week 3, and I'm not quite sure where week 1 and 2 have gone. I wish I could say it's been due to a hectic schedule of debauchery and wild freshers events, but sadly this is me and as much as my lovely PJ friends would like to believe that I'm an alcoholic, the only alcohol I've had all week is a glass of fizzy lemoncello while watching some documentary on the telly.

My courses are all a mess. I thought I had them sorted out after meeting with my personal tutor, but it isn't very helpful when he keeps saying "Come on, with your grades you can do anything you want!"

I don't want to do anything. I want him to specifically tell me if I should drop freaking killer Math for signals and systems and take up crappy no brainer Software Engineering or ditch 9am Controls lectures and do Peter Cheung's Deegital Seestems. Well, he did tell me that Controls doesn't seem to fit in because of my Signals and Comms direction, but I'm happily dropping it because I don't want 9am lectures four times a week.

So I'm running from lecture to lecture most of the time. I'm even recording lectures in Computing that clash with those in EEE. When I have time to breathe, I'm either buying groceries or cleaning the flat, or staring zombie-like at the TV. It's amazing how much time the telly takes off your life. Especially now that we've discovered free cable TV. We're not sure who's paying for it, but we certainly aren't.

But I'm doing an hour of yoga on the side. It's like taking a nap in the middle of a hectic Thursday. Just give me 6 months and I'll be able to contort into a little human cube... or at least finally be able to touch my toes. I want to do Salsa on Tuesdays, but Lionel's not the keenest dance partner. I also want to go for the Leornado Soc sessions, but they're a whopping £3.50! I might go for selective ones, that involve expensive art material.

I still haven't figured out how to bump the other Year Rep nominees out of the race. But I'm taking that easy for now.

The Frida Kahlo exhibition on the last weekend was amazing. I like frustrated artists because I'm a relaxed lazy one.

There's Death of a Salesman next week. Lionel still pretends to sulk about having to give Fidel his ticket. Well, maybe he's not pretending.

Then there's Guys and Dolls to fight for tomorrow. Only 20 tickets. Lionel had damn well better be the first in line. There's nothing that can't be sacrificed for an evening with Ewan McGregor.

I'm done for today.

Rather quiet, isn't it?

London is...

.... just as I left it

The vibrant Earl's Court takes some getting used to, and dodging drunken winos is a skill I need to brush up... but you should just see the view from my bedside window! Autumn English backyards in their brilliant reds and golds are certainly worth waking up for.

First weeks are as usual confusing and utterly fluid. Changing time tables, not knowing which electives to take and not being able to find the right rooms for the ArtSoc meeting. Trying to remember names and faces and the one thousand societies I have joined. Trying to find a new phone plan. Trying to figure out how to fix the latch on the bathroom door and how many boxes of files I had altogether because I am quite certain some files are still missing! Trying to plan how I am going to convince 40 ISE students to pick me as year rep instead of the other guy.

It's a lovely way to start off a new term.

Email me for my new address. I'd really appreciate Christmas cards to brighten up my dreary December days.

ps - I do miss home. I really do. I cried on the way back because I won't see my little sister for a year. She's still crying at home.
pps - 6 weeks of home isn't enough. Whatever made me think I can bear 10 straight months without going home?

All aboard! Destination - who knows?

It's almost second nature to harden myself against sentimentality. To plug up the emotions and look everything in the face with steely coldness.

And so, when I leave tomorrow, when I step out of this house for the last time, there will be no looking back. It's too painful to miss something you've always known all your life. Reason tells me to not hold sentiments for something as lifeless as a house. On the otherhand, I guess it's alright to miss something as full of life as a home.

A home with its white washed walls that for 22 years has played canvas to my fingerprints, and its fading terrazo floor on which I played a secret game of only stepping on particular 'islands' to get to the kitchen for fear the rest of its white vastness will swallow you whole. A room with delicate China blue wallpaper which rocked me to sleep to the sounds of Matchbox 20, and hid all my diaries and poems and sketches from prying eyes. A staircase with my own make belief poltergeist that ran up and down noisily just to get attention. And the very overrated aquarium which has held several generations of goldfish, guppies and parrot fish in its time (my favourite being the gormless looking parrot fish). And the tiny backyard where I used to play with the neighbourhood kittens until my mother educated me on the various types of tapeworm diseases that cats bring with them.

It's hard to say goodbye to 22 years of life. Thankfully my new house with my own room and my own bathroom to sing off key in makes it a little easier. It's going to be bigger with more space for the dog to run around. That is the dog will be running around outside, not in my room. I've picked out a new bed after my mother examined my 22 year old bed which has been threatening to fall apart anytime soon. Built-in cupboards have pretty much been designed, and my piano has a designated spot in the house. It's perfect!

I just hope it doesn't have that 'hotel' feeling when I come home next year.