Friday, March 30, 2007

WHAT'S NEXT?

I'm not being lazy... The last thing I need is an unauthorized copying lawsuit. I could use my hard earned money for so many other better things.


http://www.bernama.com.my/bernama/v3/news.php?id=254012

Wednesday, March 21, 2007

RED TUBES OF AROMATIC DELIGHTS

Where is the fine line between being a fan and being an addict?

I always thought that I was just a fan, be it in the simplest form of 3 in 1 with some hot water, or at the mamak, or even the version with all the fancy names... think frapuccino!

Yesterday, I realised (rather horrifiedly!) that I've passed the stage of just being a fan and had graduated to the status of an addict. As to when on earth did this strange occurence take place, I have no idea.

Now, it's been a habit of late (on working days, that is) where I have a cup in the mornings or during lunch break, where I rummage my bag for that red tube of deliciousness that exudes an aroma that fills the air with delight, but to my dismay, I found none!

I rummaged again, but all I found were rectangular packets of cereal... no way, this can't have happened. I'm sure I replenished my supply just last week. Distressed, I opened my desk drawer, hoping against all odds that a stray red tube might be lurking underneath the pencil and pens and business cards. Alas! There was nothing there... just an empty drawer where the business cards looked as though they were secretly laughing at me... "She's addicted... Ha! Ha! Ha!" they whisper amongst themselves. Presuming that I can't hear them.

You can bet that the rest of the day was pretty much miserable... the hours stretched painfully, the sleepy feeling overwhelming as the afternoon turned to early evening. The line has been crossed. There's no turning back... I have made myself into a slave of the beans that mean the world to thousands of others out there. I'm in the 'ín crowd'.

Dear world, welcome a brand new coffee addict!

Sunday, March 18, 2007

LANGUAGE UPDATE

It's just a few days past 3 months since I breathed a sigh of relief that my attempt to learn a new language has come to a close. I sat for a nerve-wrecking examination that lasted for like what felt like forever, and missed out on a friend's important day because of clashing schedules, and stopped my NaNoWriMo novel at 32000 words to study!

Anyway, the exam was fast forgotten, what with the mad rush to get other things finished and general mundane stuff such as work and all... until one day a paper with a few of our names was passed around, seeking our opinion on taking further classes, to upgrade our level from 4 to 3 (it's backwards, I know)

I nonchalantly crossed the space next to my name... No way am I gonna put myself through that torturous process again.

Yeah, so, the results came out the other day (Thursday) and it was opened by the people at work! What embarrassment! However, I suppose after all the good luck wishes that I received from you all, I kinda need to tell that I actually passed (Not with flying colours of course... that will only happen when pigs fly! Ha! Ha! Well, I sort of failed my listening test, but overall I passed. (Jumping with joy here)... It also looks like the few sacrifices I made paid off... Two less things to be bitter about!

I wonder if this is how the world really works or is it just me, but despite passing, I'm afraid I'm still unable to converse in Japanese fluently.... This might be a future real life scenario:
Japanese person: Speaks in high speed Japanese...babbles on...
Me: Hai... (pretending to understand)
Japanese person: Continues speaking in high speed, and adds a 'ka' to the back of her sentence intonating a question while looking at me questioningly...
Me: Ah, wakarimasen (I don't understand) followed by a foolish grin.

Wednesday, March 14, 2007

AND YET ANOTHER BOOK MEME

Look at the list of books below:
* Bold the ones you’ve read*
* Italicize the ones you want to read *
Leave blank the ones that you aren’t interested in.
* If you are reading this, tag, you’re it!*
*If there are any books on this list that I didn't italicize and you think I should read, let me know in comments!
Also, what other books do you think belong on this list and why?

1. The Da Vinci Code (Dan Brown)
2. Pride and Prejudice (Jane Austen)
3. To Kill A Mockingbird (Harper Lee)
4. Gone With The Wind (Margaret Mitchell)
5. The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King (Tolkien)
6. The Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring (Tolkien)
7. The Lord of the Rings: Two Towers (Tolkien)
8. Anne of Green Gables (L.M. Montgomery)
9. Outlander (Diana Gabaldon)
10. A Fine Balance (Rohinton Mistry)
11. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (Rowling)
12. Angels and Demons (Dan Brown)
13. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (Rowling)
14. A Prayer for Owen Meany (John Irving)
15. Memoirs of a Geisha (Arthur Golden)
16. Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone (Rowling)
17. Fall on Your Knees (Ann-Marie MacDonald)
18. The Stand (Stephen King)
19. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (Rowling)
20. Jane Eyre (Charlotte Bronte)
21. The Hobbit (Tolkien)
22. The Catcher in the Rye (J.D. Salinger)
23. Little Women (Louisa May Alcott)
24. The Lovely Bones (Alice Sebold)
25. Life of Pi (Yann Martel)
26. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (Douglas Adams)
27. Wuthering Heights (Emily Bronte)
28. The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe (C. S. Lewis)
29. East of Eden (John Steinbeck)
30. Tuesdays with Morrie (Mitch Albom)
31. Dune (Frank Herbert)
32. The Notebook (Nicholas Sparks)
33. Atlas Shrugged (Ayn Rand)
34. 1984 (Orwell)
35. The Mists of Avalon (Marion Zimmer Bradley)
36. The Pillars of the Earth (Ken Follett)
37. The Power of One (Bryce Courtenay)
38. I Know This Much is True (Wally Lamb)
39. The Red Tent (Anita Diamant)
40. The Alchemist (Paulo Coelho)
41. The Clan of the Cave Bear (Jean M. Auel)
42. The Kite Runner (Khaled Hosseini)
43. Confessions of a Shopaholic (Sophie Kinsella)
44. The Five People You Meet In Heaven (Mitch Albom)
45. Bible
46. Anna Karenina (Tolstoy)
47. The Count of Monte Cristo (Alexandre Dumas)
48. Angela’s Ashes (Frank McCourt)
49. The Grapes of Wrath (John Steinbeck)
50. She’s Come Undone (Wally Lamb)
51. The Poisonwood Bible (Barbara Kingsolver)
52. A Tale of Two Cities (Dickens)
53. Ender’s Game (Orson Scott Card)
54. Great Expectations (Dickens)
55. The Great Gatsby (Fitzgerald)
56. The Stone Angel (Margaret Laurence)
57. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (Rowling)
58. The Thorn Birds (Colleen McCullough)
59. The Handmaid’s Tale (Margaret Atwood)
60. The Time Traveller’s Wife (Audrew Niffenegger)
61. Crime and Punishment (Fyodor Dostoyevsky) - currently reading
62. The Fountainhead (Ayn Rand)
63. War and Peace (Tolstoy)
64. Interview With The Vampire (Anne Rice)
65. Fifth Business (Robertson Davis)
66. One Hundred Years Of Solitude (Gabriel Garcia Marquez)
67. The Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants (Ann Brashares)
68. Catch-22 (Joseph Heller)
69. Les Miserables (Hugo) abridged version
70. The Little Prince (Antoine de Saint-Exupery)
71. Bridget Jones’ Diary (Fielding)
72. Love in the Time of Cholera (Marquez)
73. Shogun (James Clavell)
74. The English Patient (Michael Ondaatje)
75. The Secret Garden (Frances Hodgson Burnett)
76. The Summer Tree (Guy Gavriel Kay)
77. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (Betty Smith)
78. The World According To Garp (John Irving)
79. The Diviners (Margaret Laurence)
80. Charlotte’s Web (E.B. White)
81. Not Wanted On The Voyage (Timothy Findley)
82. Of Mice And Men (Steinbeck)
83. Rebecca (Daphne DuMaurier)
84. Wizard’s First Rule (Terry Goodkind)
85. Emma (Jane Austen)
86. Watership Down(Richard Adams)
87. Brave New World (Aldous Huxley)
88. The Stone Diaries (Carol Shields)
89. Blindness (Jose Saramago)
90. Kane and Abel (Jeffrey Archer)
91. In The Skin Of A Lion (Ondaatje)
92. Lord of the Flies (Golding)
93. The Good Earth (Pearl S. Buck)
94. The Secret Life of Bees (Sue Monk Kidd)
95. The Bourne Identity (Robert Ludlum)
96. The Outsiders (S.E. Hinton)
97. White Oleander (Janet Fitch)
98. A Woman of Substance (Barbara Taylor Bradford)
99. The Celestine Prophecy (James Redfield)
100. Ulysses (James Joyce)

Those that were left behind:
1. The God of Small Things (Arundhati Roy)
2. Neverwhere (Neil Gaiman)
3. The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole (Sue Townsend)
4. Tom Sawyer (Mark Twain)
5. Moby Dick (Herman Melville)
6. God Knows (Joseph Heller)

Monday, March 12, 2007

INTERNATIONAL WOMEN'S DAY: GONE BUT NOT FORGOTTEN

I find myself not being able to blog at a comfortable frequency nowadays, possibly due to a busy schedule as well as more interest in reading blogs, which is why this post is very welcomed... See, with every non-blogging day, I end up missing out on an important event of some sort. Take for instance, International Women's Day which fell on 8 March.

Now, women have come a long way from the old days when they were unfortunately considered to be second class citizens and denied several rights like going to school, or voting or getting involved in politics or even defending their country (Remember Joan of Arc?)

However, things are much better for women now. We get to go to school and study in fields that were once only for men, we have the right to vote and we get to work. Although there are still some quarters which can be improved. For instance, safety for women in certain countries is still an issue, where a woman travelling alone may be kidnapped and raped, and closer to home, women are almost always the victims of unscrupulous snatch thieves.

In terms of culture, some people still consider the lady dressed rather sexily (some leg, maybe a bit of cleavage) as a tramp, and that she should dress down (read: more conservatively) to avoid getting raped. Other than that, there was a recent news where a politition suggested that chastity belts (for women) be reintroduced to prevent sexual crimes against women. (What the hell?!!!)

Some cultures practice unfair treatment of daughters because they will not carry on with their family names once they get married, which in extreme cases, these daughters are married off at an early age, or are killed off even before/or directly after being born.

Okay, this post was not supposed to head in that direction, but anyway....

It's nice to know that women all the world are celebrated on this day. My only hope is that things get better as time goes by!

HAPPY BELATED INTERNATIONAL WOMEN'S DAY to all the women out there :)

Sunday, March 11, 2007

ON TURNING 27

I just celebrated birthday no 27 on Thursday.

If anyone asks how it feels like to be 27, there's not much to say... I guess 27 just could put me in a position where it's more comfortable for me to say that I'm in my late twenties. And the scary fact that there's less than 3 years for me to hit the big 3-0.

Do I feel older?

As a matter of fact I don't. I'm still as nonsensical as ever (which I would like to believe is being young at heart!) and I can still pass of as a girl (according to a very nosy 19 year old temp we have working at our office) as opposed to a lady. Seriously, that kid is gonna get into serious trouble one day if he goes around calling everyone old. But then, I shouldn't be too happy... My legs hurt at the end of every working day and I'm beginning to find the need to sleep early to function like a normal human being the next day!

Well, it was not exactly a great birthday celebration... I was at work most of the day (and night!) and only came back at 10:30 p.m. I was too shy to tell anyone that it was my birthday to be able to run off early lest they tease me... and I pathetically cut my cake (upon being forced to) at 11:30 before I went to bed. The few good things that happened was I received my new laptop on that day which was akin to getting a cool birthday present (although it's from myself!), receiving sweet messages in the form of text messages, YM messages, emails and a good old snail mail posted card from family and friends. So in the end, I was quite happy.

Yeah, birthdays are happy occasions!

Sunday, March 04, 2007

THE GREAT GATSBY REVISITED

And then he dies, buried all alone accompanied by only his father , a friend since summer and a random owl eyed guy who frequented his parties that he threw throughout that summer. Who will then use the term 'old sport'?

I reread this book for the second time recently. There must have been something about it that makes it so endearing as a classic which I somehow failed to notice the first time reading it. True enough, this time around I found the language used beautiful, descriptions vivid and as the story builds up, you begin to walk around in the shoes of some of the characters... well, almost.

I sometimes wonder if things portrayed in fiction could have happened in real life, the desire deep down to do practically anything possible just to get back a person you once loved, or still love just like how Gatsby loved Daisy.

Or the fact that Wilson actually went forward to finish off Gatsby upon learning about the yellow car that took Mrs Wilson's life in that horrible accident.

Or how anyone could tolerate that bully Tom Buchanan. The description of him walking somehow reminds me of a T-rex, though I must admit that I've never been privileged to see one in person, walking or otherwise...

The thing is, I'm glad I read it again.At least I have a better understanding of what happened and an appreciation in the authors writing style.

Here is a favourite conversation from the book:
Daisy:(Whispering enthusiastically)
I'll tell you a afamily secret. It's about the butler's nose. Do you want to
hear about the butler's nose?
Nick: That's why I came over tonight

Thursday, March 01, 2007

HAZEL EYES

Now ever since early February when I finally got my hands on One Way Ticket To Hell and Back by The Darkness, this song has been playing in my mind at all times, regardless of time. Well, it's either this or some other song from the album.

Of course, I don't have hazel eyes. They're dark brown and will remain so, I hope. Unlike *cute eyes* who happens to have hazel coloured eyes and has made many hearts flutter wildly.(Hazel eyes are a rarity in Malaysia) But that's another story

I find it hard to find words to describe the song. Not only is it amazingly sweet, the whole musical arrangement is pretty amazing too!



Hazel Eyes [Album Version]
By The Darkness
BestAudioCodes.com





I hope this works.
**My soundcard has been destroyed by old age, so I do not know if it's working or not :D

*cute eyes* is the nickname one of our annoying **friends gave this guy who has hazel eyes. We initially called him *nice eyes* because we had no idea what his name was. I seriously prefer nice eyes to cute eyes because it sounds better, but somehow the name cute eyes stuck!
**the annoying friend is a senior who hung out with us. His best attribute is the horrible nick names he comes out with for people

IT's THAT TIME OF YEAR AGAIN

Time for the Annual Appraisal again.  It's a cloudy Sunday afternoon, and I had just finished giving scores to my subordinates on their ...