A rose by any other name...

You know those rather annoying forwarded emails you get which ask you to count the number of letters/vowels/animal sounds in your name and multiply it by 7, add 5 and then divide it by 172? In your head? You can even replace [name] with [date of birth] for a more varied approach or even [number of times a week you wear green]. And after such awful brain teasers, you are often required to match the result with a look-up table which tells you more about yourself and what fate has chosen for your future/partner/sex life all based on the above complex mathematical equations.

I never counted on fate knowing math before the evolution that was the internet.


Anyway, Michelle's blog had this little look-up table alphabet which apparently gives you the meaning of your name, which goes something like this:

A : YOU'RE A HOTTIE
B : you are loved by alot of ppl
C : you're wild and crazy
D : You have trouble trusting people
E : You are always fun when it comes to meeting new people
F : People totally adore you
G : You are very friendly and undestanding
H : You have very good personality and looks
I : Love is something you deeply believe in
J : Everyone loves you
K : You like to try new things
L : You always make other people smile when you smile
M : You are beautiful, and sexy
N : Your sex is unforgetable
O : You love foreplay
P : You are very friendly and understanding
Q : You are a hypocrite
R : Someone loves you
S : People think you are so sexy
T : You are one of the best in bed
U : You are really a chilling material
V : You are not judgemental
W : You are very broad minded
X : You never let people tell you what to do
Y : you make every experience great
Z : You're Super cool

Apparently matching the letters in your name to the table provides a nice little portrait of a super-duper, ultra hot, oh so nice you!.

However, I couldn't help thinking, had my parents gotten my name wrong, I'd be this:

H : You have very good personality and looks
A : YOU'RE A HOTTIE
R : Someone loves you
L : You always make other people smile when you smile
O : You love foreplay
T : You are one of the best in bed

Adding a C and an E just makes me wild and crazy and fun when meeting someone new... and still all of the above! Adding an extra T does not help at all...

And if they spelt it the way some people *cough*Malaysians*cough* think my name ought to be spelt:

S : People think you are so sexy
H : You have very good personality and looks
A : YOU'RE A HOTTIE
L : You always make other people smile when you smile
L : You always make other people smile when you smile
O : You love foreplay
T : You are one of the best in bed

... I'd be one HELL of an Onion!!

Had my parents consulted the Internet before I was born, I might have been named something else.

On hindsight, you'd have thought any sane parent wouldn't give their child a name which has a female prostitute embedded in it!

He is risen!!!

To all you good folks out there - Happy Easter!

Christ is risen and He lives forevermore. 3 nails + 1 cross = 4 given. Go eat some chocolate eggs and bunnies.

and by the way, Tao's version of Easter goes something like this:

"Eh, so Jesus died yesterday on Good Friday right? And tomorrow He'll wake up and come out of the cave? So... why Easter Eggs? And why a bunny?"

[Later Edit]
Mary, did you know
That your baby boy will one day walk on water?
Did you know
That your baby boy will save our sons and daughters?
Did you know
That your baby boy has come to make you new?
This child that you’ve delivered
Will soon deliver you

Kamikaze ala Bunny!

If you ever wondered how bunnies commit suicide, then check out bunny suicides. If you've never wondered, welcome to Charlotte's chronically warped mind.

This is my favourite bunny suicide:

Vishnu Easter?

As I am trying to ignore the hunger pangs of a Good Friday abstinence (which I do not cope with very well and thus I reeeally hope I'll be forgiven for making a cup of Milo so I will be able to make it through the long reading of the Passion during mass with some level of clarity) I want to wish all my Tamil brudders, sisters, machas.. and yes, you Bhai.. a Happy Vishnu, Puthandu Vazthukal, and may Sugania's search for a worthy Brahmin husband (minimum height requirement 5 feet 9, must speak English, must love dogs, and must be able to withstand very insensitive and crude remarks from her over protective friends) bear fruit. Please refer to Sugania's blog for a study text of the Tamil, Bengali and Malayalee New Year.

Happy Easter to the rest! Don't you just love how our multi-racial festivities so nicely clash, and yet its still not made a public holiday? One of the best things about being in Malaysia (for me) is how you can sit in a friend's house, drinking Jack Daniels in front of a big picture of Ganesha and call Bhai a Bhai and then insult everyone in Chinese and Malay with so much laughter and friendship.

I <3 Yasmin Ahmad

I was surfing around for advertisements directed by Yasmin Ahmad, when I came across this year's Petronas ad for Chinese New Year. (psst... I'm really sorry if you don't understand Hokkien and well, for some of you the Malay subtitles won't be of any use either. I'll explain it another time.)

I really, really like this ad. It reminds me of a grandmother I never had. It also reminds me of a whole part of my own heritage I am missing out on. You see, the only Hokkien part of me is my surname and the only other attachment I have to the dialect is that I was brought up by a Hokkien nanny who taught me to speak Cantonese. And I don't even speak it well!

The Cantonese immersion program has begun, with one episode of a Hong Kong series Lu probably downloaded by accident. I will have to submerge myself fully into it the moment exams end.

In other news, Virgin is having a superb sale and I now own 4 new DVDs. Brilliant timing. I got some soppy flicks which included Steel Magnolias and also The Choirboys. I've hidden them behind the stairs in an attempt to remove them from my line of sight.

MPH is also having a sale. I've put 4 books into my cart and thankfully they'll be delivered to my little house in PJ so I can't read them until I go home anyway.

I need to concentrate on my notes and stop singing to Starlight Express.

Why I don't seem to be studying

Three Days Ago
If you really want to impress a girl and you're feeling a bit generous, I'd thoroughly recommend you take her/drag her/carry her kicking and screaming into Maggiore's.

A few weeks ago, in a fit of desperation and an 'all is lost' moment, I cynically told Lionel that I'd take him out for an expensive meal if everything turned out alright in the end. And they did. So Lionel got a free lunch. And it was our anniversary anyway, but things like that don't really matter.

So we went into Maggiore's and had the best duck ever. I also had a rabbit's leg as a starter and tried not to think of poor legless rabbits watching their limbs being roasted and laid in balsamic vinegar, which was quite easy to forget once you dig into the sweet sweet meat! Rabbit tastes just like chicken. And how timely, seeing that bird flu just hit the UK.

The best part of the restaurant though has to be its awesomely romantic conservatory. I mean, check out the dining experience and click on view interior for a 360 degrees span. I'd go again, if I can earn enough money from tour guiding next year.



Two Days Ago

So, Hugo thought the best way to turn 23 (without resorting to drunken chaos) was to sit in a park surrounded by lots of food. Oh, and friends.

And there was ALOT of food, seriously!

Even my tiramisu cake made an appearance. With plenty of rum in it.

And here's proof that people actually like it. Even if it was made absent-mindedly while watching House and Grey's Anatomy. But I didn't mention that to most people.

The weather started out really nice, nice enough for cam-whoring.
That's Me, Vidu and Menaka.

And all sorts of fuzzy creatures started appearing, like this inquisitive squirrel and lovely yellow labrador that wanted pizza. I think even a maltese bounded by

One of Hugo's friends tried to catch the squirrel. Didn't work out, did it?

Then this tractor, that had been nonchalently trimming the grass around us
started circling us like a shark.

Anyway it was getting really chilly, so we packed up,
but not before Andy started a camera fight

And Vidu (the first Sri Lankan eskimo) nearly died of hypothermia

And with that, Hugo turned 23... and has an uncanny sense of knowing when a camera is pointed at him, at all times!!

Akan Datang...

Watch this space for:

1. Photos from Hugo's birthday picnic on a windy hillside, by a glassy lake, surrounded by hungry friendly canine and a tractor/grass cutter machine... in the middle of Hyde Park! (where do I upload the photos to anyway? Andy?)
2. My review on Maggiore's. Good for a meal if you've got the $$moolah$$.
3. Movies I'm only allowed to watch on condition that I finish studying some horrible communication systems
4. A rant on why I am clearly going to be an unhappy engineer and not some bare footed free spirit who can't afford to make rent.

Policing Malaysian Police

Following on from Wan Aimran's discussion on police force - paper faces on parade

(yes I know I really should be studying, but...)

"Judging from the vehement oppositions to the establishment of the Independent Police Misconduct and Complaint Commission (IPCMC) shown by both the members of the police force and several of the BN MPs, I think it is perfectly justified for us as Malaysians to be cynical towards the outlook of the country in the near future."

I think one could not ask for a clearer or bolder display of misguided superiority that the police force have towards an unyielding commitment to transparency, integrity and accountability - a notion which is quickly being reduced to nothing but a hollow catchphrase in the current Malaysian political landscape.

Cynical we can and have always been. However I really cannot entertain the soft approach we as Malaysians seem to take. Having been brought up according to the "spare the rod and spoil the child" rule of thumb, I believe wholly that when a child does something wrong you cannot have one parent scolding sampai meletup* and on the other hand have the other parent saying "Tak apalah**" and giving excuses that the child doesn't know any better and is really a good child most of the time... sometimes....

Here in Malaysia, we are always quick to defend. Much too quick. We have ministers and chief of police playing good parent against bad parent. After all aggressiveness isn't welcome in Malaysian politics (cut to all members of parliament trying to take Aunty Rafidah down) or Malaysian establishments. How then is a IPCMC ever going to work. We'll complain and they'll say, "but you never praise them for the good work they do, see like today got police sergeant honoured for bravery... so the situation is not so bad really..."

The latest 'excuse', (brought to my attention by the ever vigilent Singaporean, Lionel), has the Malaysian police claiming that CSI is helping Malaysian criminals become smarter. This came just days after the Royal Malaysian Police Force was pretty much told to buck up and stop producing shoddy investigations. After all at least 10 murder cases remained unsolved, with a few among them being rather high profile cases. What I can't understand is how CSI hasn't motivated our own police to think one step ahead? Instead of wasting time looking for kopi money.

Right, this is just a very on-the-surface, superficial comment, but have you ever noticed that those special ops police who are waiting around the corner to catch minor traffic offenders never just need one or two men, but almost a whole police motorcade? I mean, 6 or 7 police officers to catch you making an illegal turning at a traffic light? That free, huh?

What was really interesting about the CSI comment thought was that after doing a search on Google, I managed to pull it out from Yahoo, CNN, Malaysiakini and finally Bernama. But I couldn't find it on any of our usual Malaysian dailies. Am I not looking hard enough? Tell me if you find it. Also, take a look at this article in The New York Post. Seems the CSI complaint is quite a common one, and it was only a matter of time before Musa quoted it himself.

Looking at this article however, you wonder if our judiciary system needs abit of shaking up as well:
Inquests not held despite being required.

I'm not complaining about my country. I'm encouraging it on to think with a first class mentality as underlined in the 9th Malaysia Plan. I haven't had the time to read it thoroughly, no thanks to ongoing exam revision. Exciting things always happen around the time of my exams. Like Anwar being arrested sometime before PMR. Damn it.

*until erupted/burst
** Never mind lah

Useless Fact #69

You know that Aero advert on tv with the two women speaking with their mouths full? It kinda inspired Lionel to try it. Except that all we had at home was Cadbury Bubbly.
So we each popped a piece into our mouths and waited. About 10 seconds later mine started to, well not POP as in the Aero advert, but fizz.


"Ohh, de bubbers!" I mouthed
"Where got!!! I don't feel any popping!"
"Thwy anoder piefs and pwess id agains de woof of your mouf"
"Nope, nothing"
I swallowed my piece and said "Maybe it's a genetic trait?"

We're just gonna have to get the real deal and try it again. If the bubbles don't pop loudly can we sue for false advertising?

I haven't really got anything interesting to say

That's normal for me, and even more so during exam study periods.

I called up Vidal Sassoon's Academy out of desperation this morning. My hair has outgrown its former straight sleek self and is now resembling a shaggy carpet with split ends. My days of not knowing where my hair brush is, are over.

A bored drawl picked up the phone and I said, "Is this where I book an appointment for a haircut?".
"April 18th", answered the drawl.
"Erm, are you saying April 18th is the earliest date you've got?" (I get a little thrown off when people don't answer my questions directly).
"Yes. 1pm... no, 3pm"
"Alright so I'll take April 18th at 3pm" (Although it's not like they were giving me several choices to begin with!)
"Okaay. We'll see you then." *click*

This had better be worth all my 5 pounds and tube fare.

With regards to studying, things are coming along just peachy. I have (hopefully) stopped making so many mathematical faux pas and can now move on to the advanced stuff like proper engineering concepts because I now know that:

1) The square of root(-1) is NOT 1.
My proof to Lionel (the biochemist) that :

root(a) x root(b) = root(ab)
and therefore root(-1) x root(-1) = root(1) = 1

only held water for about 5 minutes. Moments later Lionel walked back into the room and showed me how the square of root(-1) really and truly is -1. I think we ought to swap degrees.

and

2) Always simplify partial fractions
When dealing with partial fractions, it helps to remember how to use the cover up rule and not blindly sub in numbers. In addition it is always best to look at the numerator and think about simplifying it further before proceeding to over create variables without enough simultaneous equations to solve them all!!

Now on to digital FIR filters. I shall pretend they make me happy.

Trippies

I've been hard at work.


Planning a family holiday to Lourdes that is. Lourdes (the good Catholic's Mecca or Ganges) hosts the largest number of hotels outside of France, which is a pain to search through. So if anyone has any travel tips, please pass them this way. We're also planning to run through Florence and Rome and possibly wave at the leaning tower of Pisa along the way. Hotel recommendations et al are most welcome.

Charme and Sherene, if you both come to London lets runaway to Venice! Or Munich to kidnap Baa! Or Amsterdam for brownies!

Now back to annoying z-transforms... DSP makes me cry...

On hiatus

Am studying.

Really, I am.

Well at least a few hours a day.

Alright, less than 3.

Will be back once I get the hang of Ackermann's formula. Don't ask.

Peace out.

(Oh man, why did I say that? I never say that!)

Adoi!! Comelnye!!!! *

OKaay! Last youtube post for today... this week... the entire freaking Easter! But this is just too cute not to post!



Alright, gotta start looking for all the time I've wasted browsing through MADtv and Bobby Lee clips.

*Malay for: Oh my!! So cute!!!!

Child heroes or child zeroes?

Since one Muhamad Firdaus Harris (who could not swim) jumped into a pool to save a four-year-old from drowning, they have reinstated the Hang Tuah award after 20 years for courageous bravery in children. Or to quote:

For 23 years [since 1960], many child heroes received the award, named after the Malay warrior known for his strength of character and the nobility of the causes he served. These were children who put themselves in harm’s way to save the lives of others.

I don't know about you, but opening up the papers and telling your young ones "Eh, look! If you risk your life to save a drowning adik, you also can win award one and can also meet the Queen!" [sic]. Sure, courage and valour shouldn't go unrewarded but by making a big deal out of it... quite a thoughtless message you're sending out there.

And to add comic relief to the whole issue - along comes 60 year old Mohamed Nor Omar, the first recipient of the award who's complaining about being a forgotten child hero. I like how he says:

...people had forgotten him and had not given him the proper respect as the country’s first child hero.

Thus yesterday a Chief Minister, Mentri Besar Datuk Seri Idris Jusoh, paid him a long overdue visit, gave him 10,000 Ringgit from the state government and promised to give financial help to his youngest daughter who is only 15 and furthermore APOLOGISED for the lack of recognition in the past.

Huh??? What is there to apologise for? Is the state obliged to help every single child hero for the rest of their lives? How could I have missed out on this point while growing up? Why did they not teach us about this in Moral studies instead of inventing ridiculous situations of "What would you do if you ran over a farmer's cow (with your Kembara) in the middle of a kampung?" (CL's version includes angry villagers running towards you with pitchforks and parangs but whatever). Now they can include more realistic questions like "Why would you want to save a small child from drowning?" - because you can win the Hang Tuah award for an act of bravery [1 point for listing down appropriate moral nilai or value] and thus be supported by the state for the rest of your life which is rational and sayang kepada nyawa diri sendiri (love for one's own life) [2 points for 2 other nilais].

And what about everyday heroes? What about that fat girl who caught a thief by sitting on him? Or the little girl who ran back into a burning house to save her baby brother? Or the wonderful person who caught the 'ear squat' incident on camera phone and exposed the inhumane actions of the Royal Malaysian Police Force?

I think real heroes don't sit around complaining about a lack of recognition. Real heroes don't even need to put themselves in harms way thinking "Hey, I'm doing a noble deed!". Real heroes do what needs to be done, because its the right thing to do. And that's all.

Sounds like one of May's thought provoking questions:

When I make a decision to do the 'right thing', is it because I sincerely want to do the right thing for its own sake, or because I want to feel good about myself?

Is it?

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.