collection of odds and ends

pack rat, that's one of my secret personality...i'm pretty sure most people don't realise this...but it's who i am...i can never discard anything...ask jaja and gegel...i got boxes full of junk that i can never manage to be part with...i remember i collected stuff from when i was 9 and still collecting...


things that i keep include tissues from restaurants, hotels and theme parks (heck i save them just to remind myself i've been here and there!), ticket stubs from plays and movies (i know it sounds psycho but i rarely watch movies, i watch like maybe 1-2 times a year, i'd rather spend money on shopping or food than watching a movie that i can watch online huhuhu...so that's justified) and recipts...omg!i got tons of recipts that i'm pretty sure have faded and deserved to join my other wastes in the waste bin!


lots of people said i have so little stuff when i got tons and tons of them...they just don't see them...the super secret is, yup...it's a super secret...thus no peeking....anyhow, i think the 'disability' of chucking stuff away is my endearing trait (says who?says me!)...i am fond of stuff...when u don't have much anyway, u tend to hoard...i have this thing, that i think i may want to use some of the stuff i keep so i keep them for future use...up until now, i went and reuse probably only around 5% of these stuff...i can never even chuck my old torn and tattered clothes...


proof 1: i have 3 skirts that have torn hem and tears...i still keep them, hoping one fine day i will wake up and mend them...from this i learned to sew and mend clothes and linens...it seems to me almost all of my clothes will experience some sort of tear in their lifetimes...from loose buttons to torn hem, i know how to mend them all...i love all of my clothes...yes i regret some of them (impulse buying and i found later this or that dress makes me look bloated and pregnant but i still keep it) but i still love them...i pay money for them so i keep them no matter how tattered they are due to wear and tear...


proof 2: i even keep the boxes of stuff that i buy...i keep my laptop box, printer boxes (my sister said she can even hide in my printer box, that's how big it is taking space in her room underneath her bed), perfume boxes, heater boxes, present boxes and any sort of boxes as long as they are intact and are able to keep stuff in them...hey, they are useful for me to put all sorts of odds and ends i manage to keep...


proof 3: even containers cannot escape my collection...i collect plastic food containers from my take-outs...this is good as i reuse them for future use (reuse for the environment...oh yeah...err...)...other sort of containers such as water bottles and shampoo bottles are also part of my odds and ends...i can't seem to part with things...


i can list thousands of proofs of my 'pack-rat' behaviour but let's end it sweet...let's say i'm an avid general collecter shall we?

my babies

when i was still a child (pre-adolescent coz i was 9 then) i still remember the feeling of the excitement of the unknown when i knew i was going to have another sibling...i don't exactly remember how i knew i was going to have one but i somehow knew...my parents are not exactly the type of parents who share things with their kids...they don't do the birds-and-bees (aka sex) talk, they don't tell us where we are going (if we are going somewhere) and they don't usually answer our inccessant questions (i remember my mama's silence, it was horrifying)....now when i am who i am right now (in my 20s), i realised my parents are exactly who they are...they are not the perfect parents, i admit, but who in this world are?but they are my perfect parents....they let us grow to be ourselves...they don't restrict us and they trust us...in turn, we love them and we always come back home to them, no matter what...


anyway, reading about kids and how they prepare for new siblings reminds me of myself all those years ago...i was very excited (though i wasn't sure i showed it) and i was mindful of my manners (lest i annoy my mama hehehe)...i remember mama getting tired a lot...and fussy and getting into tempers (lord help my hubby when i get pregnant, i'm pretty sure i will follow mama's footsteps)...i also remember touching mama's belly, asking is my little sister/brother in there right now...it was a wonderous experience...i wish i remember more....when my sister was born (it was alin back then), i think she was the most beautiful baby in the world...i was protective of her, even though i didn't take care of her as much as i was supposed to...when aboy was born, it was a different experience as he was our only boy in the family...he was a nice baby as he cried a lot less than alin...


i love my little babies...they are beautiful babies...they grew up into beautiful boy and girl...they are intelligent, inquisitive, active and everything a sister wants them to be...i love indulging them and love to hear stories of them (usually relayed by my mama, jaja and gegel, without fail)...i hope my babies will continue to grow up to be good people and they will always be my babies (see how obsessive i am about my babies!!!!don't grow up!be as cute and innocent as u are!!!)...

this and that - a matter of deep thoughts and shower

i admit i am as shallow as a puddle...i refuse to think of things that matter such as world peace, war, poverty, politics and world economy...my justification: my life is already hard as it is...i talk a lot...most of them are things that doesn't affect anyone, not in what really matters...anyway, why do i suddenly become this deep?nah...not that deep...just thinking...i've stumbled across some blogs that touch upon important things such as racism and what-not...me?i'm content to talk about things that i've read and seen, (which is not impressive so far, i admit) my conversations and whatever that interests me at that particular moment...


why do i suddenly sound defensive?not really, i'm bored, i just filched one of evie's instant coffee packet (and feel guilty, will ask for her permission asap) and it's like 630 in the morning and i have no one to bother....it gives me too much time in my hands and that's a health hazard...i tend to go deep and well, it's not good...anyway, i really need to contact angie (for all of u all's info, that's my elusive apartment agent) about that light bulb in my shower...it gave up for ghost and girls and shower, it's a frightening combination...i need my shower desperately!!!


ah i remember now (this got absolutely nothing what-so-ever with the things i said earlier here)!!!i was doing my exam...all was fine and dandy...but u know, exam and health don't go hand in hand...u get sick a lot (at least i do, i got runny nose every time i'm having exams, i don't know why but i just do)....runny nose is very disgusting and snorting is not a best option (u can imagine my exam neighbours glaring at me, the noise is distracting)...so i had to ask for tissues...the lady who passed me the tissues seemed reluctant to go near me...i think she wouldn't touch me with a 10-foot pole...i guess it all boils down to the massive uni warning about the swine flu...they even reminded us to not attend exam if u are suspected of the flu...well lady, i'm pretty sure i'm not having the swine flu, just the exam flu...does that mean i may be excused from exam?hehehe...

vampy...here kitty kitty...

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daddy mine!

daddies are the cutest!my baba is usually flustered when it comes to his brood of 5...my sisters, little brother and i can be such pests most of the time but he usually gives in to our 'pesting'...a lot of my friends said i am terribly spoiled...i get what i want by sheer stubbornness (i butt heads with my baba all the time!)...this is a story that keeps repeating itself out and it's sweet in it's own way...


my sisters (the elder 3, jaja, gegel and i) are avid stalkers...we stalk the lives of our little family (baba and mama included) especially our little ones (alin and aboy, who're 14 and going to be 13 this year)...jaja, gegel and i still consider alin and aboy the babies of the house...since aboy is the only boy of the family and has a vestly different interests from us girls, he is considered a special case...and now he's into his macho phase, he becomes more different...alin is very affectionate to jaja...she allows jaja to kiss her all the time...that's why jaja calls her my kak lin (kak is a respectful way to address an older sister though alin is the youngest sister), baby, or b...alin's relationship with gegel is weirder...they share a room and i can safely say that alin shares all of gegel's stuff (according to a long litany of complaints by gegel on the phone)...in turn, alin allows gegel to bite and sit on her (which is truly weird but if u know gegel since she was a toddler, it is not so weird after all)...i guess that's the way gegel express her affection...err...as for me, i just buy alin and aboy things...i love shopping for them ;)


anyway, the story here is, us the 3 stooges (aka jaja, gegel and i) turn into professional stalking since our babies have a social life...now that they are in high school, they even have significant others (or so we concluded from our active, relentless stalking sessions) which is not an acceptable situation for us...they are OUR BABIES!!!they are supposed to act cute and ask stupid questions and allow us to kiss them!anyway, we always confront them about their 'bf' and 'gf' (puke-worthy sentence here!!!) and tease them unmercifully...i even said to alin yesterday after a stalking-her-'bf's'-myspace-page session, that i rejected her 'bf'!my baby is soooo cute and her 'bf' is such a barf!!!he's a reject!!!!what's this has to do with my daddy?


good question...today i called daddy n said 'baba u should stop allowing alin and aboy from having bf and gf!!!they are too young!!!and stop letting alin from hanging-out with her friends at the mall!!!'...n baba's infamous reply - 'i don't want to hear about all these!i want to hear about good grades and study'...yup...baba is all about study and good grades and he probably doesn't really know how to reply to other things unrelated to health, money and study...so cute!!!i always told baba to not allow my babies to date...they are my babies!!!!i can't let gooooo!!!!!!!my babies!!!how fast they are growing up...and baba...how he always let me do whatever i want...i guess that's why he never actually ask about our 'relationships' and is so open to anything that all of us do...i have a great baba ^^


btw, our method of stalking is checking their mobile phones for calls and texts, checking their myspace, friendster and facebook pages and other secret spy methods that cannot be divulged in public...it's a matter of high security....

cringe-worthy

day in, day out i cringe every time i log on my blog...why?it's the heading...it's butt-ugly...i can't seem to whip up enough interest to create a new background and heading (too much effort and i lose interest halfway through)...i'm pretty sure i get like a reader once a week (no one is interested in a nobody with no life right?hahaha) so, yeah, i write coz i love to babble so i sometimes see no reason to revamp this whole thingie...but still...i cringe...it's so amateurish, i feel bad for myself...i have no time to beautify my layout now (justifying myself when no one cares)...


one weird news of the day, all of our grafton exams are being shifted to the city campus...i don't see the reason, but then again, i'm just a small-fry in the food chain of auckland uni to know that...anyhow, it's a good news for me...if i have to go to tamaki (a journey of minimum 30-mins bus ride), i'll just kill myself (it was tortureous)...and going to grafton is a 30 mins journey involving 50 cents bus or the $1.60 hospital bus (the ones i usually took at the corner of anzac ave, it's miserable when it rains coz there's no covered bus stop) and it's another 30 mins of time wasting and stressing when i'd rather be studying or just waste time waiting at home...anyhow, the trip to city campus is usually around 10-15 mins so yeah, it's hell of a good news...


another not-so-good news is that the construction outside my windows is killing me...this morning they have this let's-drive-harley-crazy drilling session that went on and on for hours...i really felt like my eardrums will burst and bleed...i really do!i even felt like opening my curtains and windows and scream 'hey you!stop that infernal noise!!!!it's driving me crazy here!and i have exams!!!!'...not that they care...i just wish they can finish the whole construction thing asap...i'm at the end of my tether!!!and because of the construction my flowers (my beautiful beautiful flowers that i bought a few weeks ago with wee) wilted!!!they covered the area outside my windows and i didn't see sunshine for a long long long time (it feels like eternity) and i'm turning into a vampire...


anyhow, me need to scramble and study!

temptation, temptation!

as everyone keep on saying 'u know it's winter when u eat like a starving lion with a piece of meat'...as it is, i do eat a lot (i start eating when i open my eyes and only stop when i close them or running out of things to eat)...so my effort in gobbling triples in winter...today, as usual, i cook dishes that can last at least for 2 days (or i stretch them to 3 or 4 days, depending on my mood on cooking and ability to keep myself away from the fridge)...


lo and behold, me the goddess of domesticity (nothing to do with the rest of this particular sentence), today, ate, 4 pieces of lavishly buttered wheat toasts with maple syrup (tons of cholesterol and calories), a hash brown, a bowl of rice with a hash brown and celery and mushroom cooked with onion, garlic and oyster sauce, a half bowl of rice with fish ball 'sambal' (more and more and more cholesterol and calories), a mug of maple syrup lemonade (my absolute favourite!!!) and a mug of chamomile tea (evie's favourite) and gallons of plain water (my trusty plain water)...


n now, i'm still salivating...i'm thinking of my clam tom yum soup that i made today (i cooked that along with celery and mushroom cooked with onion, garlic and oyster sauce, fish ball 'sambal', hash browns and fried egg)...yipes!i need to focus on something else!ahhh...what about some garlic bread (bought this garlic spread that tastes heavenly yesterday, recommended by miss dora)...urghhh...need to think on something else!!!!anyhow, i'm glad i made myself a mug of maple syrup lemonade just now...at least my mouth and my hands are occupied, preventing myself of touching my ration of tomorrow (or the next 2-3 days) food!what a temptation!

things we take for granted

one fire alarm and flooded laundry room woke me up to reality (does that sounds dramatic to u?)...3 huge fire trucks and loads of hot, macho fire fighters (yes, i am entitled to some entertainment after being shooed off my warm cozy apartment in the middle of the damned freezing night and being forced to huddle in cold outside while waiting for things to settle) later, it was publicly made known that our laundry room had an explosion of water and the hot fire fighters had to turn the main water source to our whole building off...the direct and immediate effect was, yes, no water for all of us, poor devils...is that a problem if it's at 11 pm at night when most of us are going into dreamland?when u think about it, no, there's absolutely no problem with that...wait...


yes there will be a HUGE MAJOR problem here...it was cold that night, we were all forced to wait outside for at least 10 minutes (believe me 10 minutes is enough to induce our overactive homeostatic body to stimulate our bladder, aka, to urinate for a better word)...and yes, finally...we were allowed to use our commode to release our tension (aka toilet, this being a delicate subject and i would hate to spoil your delicate palate)...so, with no water, it means no flushing (us being a human in a modern world whereby we stop letting go in the wilderness, the river or the plain ole' chamber pot)...which leads to disgusting things being left in the toilet bowl that smells and disgusts other fellow flatmates...okay my point here...we were all desperate to go but had no avenue...i spent 30 mins contemplating of going to the 24/7 opened shops just to go...but alas, i found an alternative (it'll be my secret forever)...


anyway, i'm thankful that my water came again in the morning...i had already begged dora (who lived about 5 mins away on anzac ave) to use her shower (imagine how desperate i am) in the next morning...i had to coz i have a 3-hour poster presentation in the morning...imagine if i go there without brushing my teeth and washing my face, let alone having a decent shower...i would look like a homeless person...and smell like our building year-long-forgotten garbage room...i was most horrified with the idea of everytime i open my mouth to present, people would be struck by the smell of unbrushed teeth and fall over like dominoes...


anyway, thankfully the issue of water has passed...it got me thinking, what if water or electricity is cut off for whatever reason?i'm pretty sure i'll be driven to desperate measures (such as inviting myself to live temporarily in my friends' house as an unwanted guest or suicide)...this season got to be the worst season to have an electricity or water problem, not when most of us are depending on our heater and toilet and hot water....i am really thankful we live in this modern times and i am fortunate enough to live comfortably...huhu....

your accent is sooooooooo damn annoying!

i encountered that a lot...not that someone said it to my face...more like, it's me who go around thinking 'omg this girl needs to learn how to talk!'...yup it's vicious considering i have an accent too...in the context of new zealand english, i have the 'malaysian' accent (surprise, surprise)...at least i'm a bit better since i'm less pronounced (i don't know why it's just how it is) according to my former roommate (a new zealander) and i don't have the compulsion to add 'lah' at the end of my every sentence...but u get it...i still have a different accent from the new zealander...no matter how i drag my 'A' and pronounce anything with an 'E' to 'I', i still am different...


is it a wonder how i get so annoyed when people with the korean/chinese/japanese/russian or any other conceivable accents start speaking...'we need to be precise in this matter' becomes 'wii nid to be precisess innn dis matta'...yes, it's a double standard thing...it grates on my nerves but i'm pretty sure my own accent gets on someone else's nerves (probably more than half of the population that i interact with everyday)...so...what is my point here?


nothing...accented english exists...unless u are born and bred in england, u will always have accent (even americans have the american accent, believe me, i have an american friend nouran, and even rachel said her accent is so uhmm weird even though we've watched countless american mass-produced shows)...even english people themselves have different accents according to the places they are from (public vs private schools and so on)...i


guess it depends on the context of the society u are in...rachel and i found nouran's american english weird coz we are so used to listening to nz english and american accent spoken in american movies are different as all of the actors and actresses speak with the same accent so it is less/not noticable...as for people who are not from the oz or nz, they will say that the accent is similar but there is actually a difference (yes, i've been to oz and i think their accent is different though not so markedly different)...


so should i get annoyed with these thick accents?....no...i should've been more tolerant...but hey!i'm human...every now and then we are allowed to act like accident-prone, sinful and making-various-mistakes normal human...'i need tin of these pencils...may i pay with a tin?it's a good pencil aye?'...hehehehe...

my fav latest pix

these are some of my fav pix that i took of myself lately...i like them so i'll share them (out of sheer boredom!):

choon wei & me at parnell's citron vert cafe for breakfast...i had a yummy plate of potato pancake yum yum that cost an arm and leg...


2 cute lil' birdies gossiping by the viaduct harbour, auckland ^^ it's a fine morning to gossip!


my culinary triumph!(err that was fazan's nasi minyak huhuhu)

welcome june!i am one month older!

new month means new things to ponder...errr...not really...buuttt...i do have this thing that i wonder until now why i keep on doing...i sleep on the floor when i feel dirty and too tired/lazy to take another hauling shower before my bedtime...it's very painful for my back and neck...i feel bad when i wake up...i also feel like stupid when i wake up...i can't even sleep for more than 3-5 hours when i sleep on the damn floor!why give up a perfectly comfy bed to sleep on the floor?it's a rethorical question...i still wonder...ah yes, probably coz i don't feel like 'infecting' my own bed with my dirt...how anal can i be?...


moving on, moving on...i still have yet to touch my dirty laundry...the reason?yes, my humongous wardrobe enables me to amply collect dirty laundry until i have none to wear...is that a valid reason to pile up towering number of dirty used clothes for weeks (uhmm months?)?YEAH DEFINITELY!err i actually need to force my mind and body to do my laundry...all the dirty laundry in one one must not be good for my lungs (and brain)...especially now i'm cooped up all the more in my room (thank god my room is so huge i can get lost in it) with the window partially closed due to yes yes yes the cold cold winter chill...i guess i can blame on the heater and dirty laundry air (that fried my brain cells to become more lazy than my normal couch potato bones) for my reluctance to do my laundry...okay, i'm piling up blames here and there but hey, this is my right as a human being to say whatever i like ^^


i also noticed that sometimes i can be so crazy silly stupid, i am afraid to ask questions or approach a display area in a shop where the salespeople are around...that's tremendously silly...i mean they are there to be bothered right?that's what they are paid for right?how come i'm scared of them like one they are one of my examiner in some important exam?this is not malaysia where salespeople are snobs who look at you up and down and turn up their nose (how scary salespeople can be to my fragile ego) and say things like 'yes madam how may i help u?' haughtily with their hands clasped in front of them like a proper english housekeeper and standing up all erect and correct like their spine has been enforced with metal lining...makes me want to jump and shout 'aye aye sir!no sire!' and salute them...the more expensive the shops are, the more butlerish the salespeople are...sometimes i feel like shouting 'hey!i know i don't look rich but doesn't any customer a potential buyer???and plus, U R JUST A SALESPERSON!it's not a brain surgery!'...okay that's bitchy...but i have my bitchy side (most of the time)...


anyway, moving on to auckland salespeople...amazingly after 10-odd years of salespeople-battle-experince-scars, i'm still able to act like a reasonable shopper and go in any shops i like from my favourite boutiques like portsman to designer shops like louis vuitton (though designer stuff is never my favourite, coz they are wayyyy beyond my price range and let's face it, i'm more cutesy in style than designer) and poke my nose around like a hound dog in auckland shops..the auckland salespeople are so perfect (at least they seemed tailor-made for dear ole moi), they greet you like a long lost friend with 'hi!how's ur day so far?' or 'hey!how are you?need any help there?' with such sheer chirpiness that i somehow want to become all cheery too (or depending on my mood, i can feel like i want to smash their faces, how can a person be so chirpy so early in the morning?they are not human, more like chirpy robots hahaha)...i usually reply with 'that's alright...i'm just looking around!thanks!'...and with a smile and 'just buzz me if u need any help!', they leave me alone in peace...they don't follow ur movement with the corner of their eyes, as if they expect u to filch a stupid shopping bag and they are all ready to denounce u (at least that's what i feel with malaysian salespeople most of the time)...i think the malaysian salespeps need to take a lesson in sales-101 from nz salespeps...or i need to shop less...i am turning into a monster shopper lately...i need help!!!!