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The Mercenary       The Soul          The Fire          Welcome to Darkschunt...      Fire Poppies        Power             The Warrior      The House   The Guardian 
& The Lover                                                                                                                                   & Grief                                       of Justice            of Fire         



Monday, February 27, 2006

It's been a reunion weekend!!!
Met up with Curly Pumpkin, the Ninja Crisis, SweetRhapsody, the Pothead Teddy, Baby Bro, Nanny Bones and everyone else who came back to Perth! The Curly Pumpkin, Ninja Crisis, SweetRhapsody and Pothead Teddy were all here for their graduation ceremonies... congratulations, you little graduates!
The Gutter Philosopher, Soft-Spoken Socializer, E10, and Tom Thumb Hairdryer and I went to the Leederville Hotel on Wed nite...there's a club over there...that was the first time I have been to that place on a wednesday night without being too drunk to remember anything at all...it was arrite I guess, just arrite... and then we went to the Hip-E club...it was cute with rainbow hippy stuff painted on the walls and a volkswagon on the dance floor...but there wasn't a single atm working in either clubs and i had to walk three kms up the road to the nearest atm in my heels...wtf!!!
On friday night we then headed to vl and paramount for tom thumb's last night...he was leaving the next day to go home to Italy. Sniff...miss ya, tom thumb! hope u're having fun living it up in the wintry snowy weather over there... throw a snowball for me!
Speaking of the weather, it's been way hot over here...the weather has gone back to summer again. It's choking hot. I wish I had an air-conditioned car. I wish I have a car, period. People used to ask me if I didn't hate driving everyone around back home when I had a car but personally, I'd rather have a car and be able to drive myself everywhere then having to rely on other people to drive me about. It's so inconvenient. I hate asking people to drive me, I feel so bad about it. And the Gutter Philosopher is always such a grump whenever I ask him to drive me anywhere. Hmph. I should do a Stephan and hide his keys one day, hehe.
So anywya, as I said, tom thumb took off on saturday, dragging his massive bulging suitcase with him and leaving me a complete collection of 61 euro cents. And on saturday night, the gutter philosopher and me went over to euh for drinks at Dewson Boy's flat, whose balcony has a lovely view of a brick wall. The Soft-Spoken Socializer and the Mystery Wolf were also there, along with The Gutter Philosopher's friend from Seychelles, R, who is also staying at EUH and is a really funny guy, and Dewson Boy's ex-flatmate and her cousin. Kat and Gretchel were also there, but they left after a bit, Gretchel to her flat and Kat to change her clothes because we were all heading out to Metro's later on. Sheryl was there too, but she and the Tall One left soon to...bed...;)
So anyway most of us were pretty tired because we had all been clubbing the night before too and I was pretty much exhausted because I have had hardly any sleep plus I've been drinking way too much alcohol for the past three days and had only, like, a couple of glasses of water each day, max. My skin was crying out to me with the dehydration! But we decided to go out anyway, so Dewson Boy, his ex-flatmate, her cousin, Kat, the Soft-Spoken Socializer, myself and the Gutter Philosopher headed out to Metro's. The moment we got there, I just perked up. It must have been the music, which was a hell of a lot better than last week when I was there with the Philipino chicks. I got pleasantly drunk - it was a nice level, I was not too sober nor was I too drunk. Just pleasantly drunk. I want to remain at this level for the rest of the year. It is the perfect level - and I have not experienced that for a long time. Yay!
Anyway, I had to wake up early the next day to meet up with Little Miss SweetRhapsody because someone got kicked out of her hotel and needed to store her stuff at my place! There was a major mix up with communications and we finally found one another at the bus stop. We went over to my flat - everyone's there now except for me and I am probably already known as the flaky flatmate who's never around - again. I really need to move back in - and I suppose I will have to store my stuff on the crappy bathroom shelf that's so way up high, everyone else would have already snagged the good shelves.
Anyway, after lunch with Curly Pumpkin, the Ninja Crisis and Amirul, the Curly Pumpkin took off because she had to catch her flight (miss ya, dear! It was good seeing you again!) and the rest of us went shopping. SweetRhapsody especially went on a major shopping spree. We went to practically every shop. I hadn't planned on buying anything but somehow ended up purchasing a top, a dress and a cami top. Damnit, I'm not suppose to be spending money right now! Anyway, the Ninja Crisis and Amirul took off as well, and that left SweetRhapsody and myself at Merchant's, like we used to on Tuesdays. In between all this, the Duchess calls to announce her return to Perth and later on we take the bus back to EUH and met up with her again. Then the three of us, along with Baby Bro, Shuddup, the Dervish and the Silent One went out for dinner. The boys didn't eat, the girls ate everything. It was a sort of reverse-universe kind of thing.
Anyway, SweetRhapsody and I stayed over at the Duchess's. We yakked and yakked and went to bed at one and then I woke up this morning to see SweetRhapsody off in a cab to the airport while I hurried back to the Gutter Philosopher's house and woke him up before we both set off to campus because we had classes at ten am. He goes to his class (he has two 2-hour lectures and a 2-hour lab today, poor thing! lol! talk about major heavy scheduling! and i have zip compared to him, hahaha!) and i head off to mine only to meet up with a couple of old classmates and some other souls, all of us bewildered because there seemed to be no class going on. Right there, our lecture had been canceled! Why did any of us get up this morning? Cripes! So anyway, that's how I find myself in a computer lab right now, blogging on and on, and wondering if I should go to bed or to Coles. Bed or a long walk in the heat? Hmph, wonder which one I'd pick! Anyway, see ya, everyone!

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Wednesday, February 22, 2006

Well, in my last post I wrote about my bad news conference, today I will write about my good one! :) Went to a press conference at the Parliament House this morning. This time I left myself lots of time to reach the area in time and I did! Huzzah! And I managed to record my interview and everything and got it done, although I nearly fainted from running up a hill in the heat. But who cares when you've gotten your story? And it was a good story. :)
Went clubbing in Metro's with the Philipino gals on Saturday night - it wasn't as good as it used to be. They have a second bar upstairs now but we didn't head up there, but the music in the original room isn't as good as it used to be. Bah. So we left around two thirty in the morning - I wasn't even drunk because I hadn't brought much cash and the ATM in the club wasn't working - and I got home and just hung around, snacking and watching TV. Just as I am about go to bed, the Gutter Philosopher and Tom Thumb Hairdryer roar up to the house in the Gutter Philosopher's car and I hear the two of them giggling like drunken bimbos as they stumble out of the car and to the door. They try to open the door but they can't because they're not used to the key locks being turned counter-clockwise instead of clockwise (I'm not used to it myself). The Gutter Philosopher goes "What are your locks like back home?" And Tom Thumb goes "I know, mine turn the other way too." And the Gutter Philosopher go "Yeah, this is so weird!" And Tom Thumb goes "I know, this is so totally Aussie!" And they're both giggling hysterically outside after that. By the time they finally make it into the house, they're both still giggling and going "Totally Aussie!" When they see me, they just ask, "Are you...totally Aussie?" It's become the catch phrase of the week by now.
Speaking of which, I feel like a girl living in a house of Queer Eye for the Straight Girl. I swear, everyone's turning gay in that house. I am the only straight person in there and I am the only girl. Thus, Queer Eye for the Straight Girl.
Sheryl and I tried to get a tan the weekend before last weekend - what little tan I had was faded by the next day. Hmph! Must try harder.
On Sunday night, the Gutter Philosopher made briyani and rice and the Mystery Wolf came over for dinner. The rice was goo-ood. We were completely stuffed and lying about on the couches afterwards. And then we went to a jetty down by the river after that and had wine and sat on the end of the jetty and watch the moon rise and talk all kinds of crap and made a noir film out of Thomas's silhouette as he goes up and down the jetty to...erm...nourish the grass. I made them go home shortly after midnight though, because I had to work the next day, man, I felt like such a party pooper. So this is what having a job is like!
Most of our time, though, has been spent on watching Thomas's downloads of the Family Guy. Michel is over-addicted to it. And when I say over-addicted, I mean over-addicted.
Oh, and Claude has taken off to Seychelles! He was bursting with happiness on the day before he left. (Not on the day he left, though, because on that day I woke him up early to beg a ride to work as it was raining and he wasn't too happy. Oops!) See what I mean about work ruining your social life?
Last night, Michel, Thomas and I headed to a Mexican restaurant called the Good, the Bad and the Ugly. It had posters from cowboy movies of cowboys holding guns (Clint Eastwood? or someone like that) and fake cactuses everywhere and the food was good. I had a bowl of mussels and bread, it was dee-licious. We were super-stuffed after that.

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Monday, February 13, 2006

Failing and Learning.
Today was a sad day. :(
I decided to be brave and adventurous and set out by myself to a press conference. It was just me, my bag and a gigantic ancient tape recorder on the bus to the city. Should be pretty easy enough to find the place, I think, because the location of the conference was along one long huge main road.
Little did I know, I got off on the wrong stop before realizing the press conference site was actually miles away up that stupid huge long road!!! And there were no buses heading along the same way so I couldn't even hop on another bus to get me up there! I ended up walking as fast as I could while lugging that huge tape recorder on my shoulder and getting massive blisters on my feet because of my shoe straps and sweating and dying to death because of the incredibly hot sun. (Why oh why did it have to finally be a hot day on today of all days?) It was horrible. And I was late - so late! for the conference!
Well, anyhow I eventually arrived. The rest of the press was already there and the minister who was being interviewed (minister! Why didn't I pick some trivial non-governmental conference for my first press conference instead? Why didn't I chose something like 'Housewives who sell Organic Vegetables conference' instead?) and all the other PR executives for the minister as well. Everyone looked up at me as I entered behind the receptionist, lugging that horrible tape recorder and looking competely out of breath and disheveled. But they were all very nice and sweet (I think maybe because I must cut a pathetic sight, and maybe because I'm so obviously some young rookie intern) and even pushed me up with my tape recorder so I could get a good spot while recording the minister's speech. But I don't even want to think about whether I'd be up there with all the other reporters on camera (the big TV stations were there too, filming) and imagine if there was a scene on TV of me all disheveled and sweaty suddenly appearing amid all the well-dressed Brenda-Starr-like reporters around the minister. There I was sweating like a pig and EVERYONE else looked as if they were there to be interviewed, not to interview. I swear, they all looked so immaculately groomed and well-dressed, they should be actors or something instead. And in the midst of them was yours truly, looking like an abused, sweaty, probably wild-haired orphan who had just wandered in or something. OMG!
Even WORSE though was that my volume levels looked as if I was picking up NOTHING on my recorder! HORRORS! What if I went through all that and get NOTHING out of that conference? Why wasn't it recording? And I didn't dare to fiddle with anything because I had already disrupted the conference enough. What will my editor say when I return telling him I was actually late and then didn't even manage to get the interview? But he's really the sweetest person in the world and would understand. But nevertheless, I hated the thought of appearing so unprofessional and hopeless to my editor. SOB.
Well, anyway, the press conference was finally over. I followed the rest of the reporters down the lift (none of them said a word to me and I rather felt like I was entering a cage of tigers when I entered the elevator with them, they all seemed so unfriendly!) and then out the door where me in my horrorstruck and dazed state wandered up the street before realizing I should be wandering down instead where the bus stops were. So trudge, trudge, trudge back down the street in hot blazing sun with the recorder which seems a hundred times more heavier and the blisters which have just suddenly managed to make themselves a thousand times more noticable, caught a bus and then trudged back to the station.
As I said, my editor is the sweetest guy in the world and was very understanding about it all. "It's your first time," he reasoned, "And you were taking public transport. These things happen from time to time but at least you managed to get there and get the interview." But I wasn't even sure if I had picked up anything on the recorder.
Thank the Great God above, I had. I got the last five minutes of the press conference! So things were looking up. I scrambled to transfer the recording to PC and write a quick story and add a grab that I managed to pull out of those precious five minutes of recording before it was time to go home. Phew!
Well, all in all, it wasn't so bad. So I messed up pretty bad and made a fool of myself at the conference. But at least now I know something about what to do at a press conference and I have gotten some experience. And I managed to record something and gain a story out of it as well instead of just giving it up and going back to the station when I realize I was going to be waaay late for the conference. On the way back I was sadly thinking about how I'm always the type of person who inevitably messes up something every now and then, and how I wish I could be one of those calm, cool, collected people who never messed anything up, like how those reporters at the conference seem to be. But, hey, everyone messes up sometime in their life. Inevitably I'd make a fool of myself or fail at something every now and then. But what's important is that I can look back on it and laugh and also learn something from my failures. And now I'm determined to go to more conferences and be able to do a better job next time. And I will leave at least two hours ahead of time next time and never completely trust public transport timetables and maps. ;)

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Wednesday, February 08, 2006

Okay this is a fast one because a certain someone is nagging at me to hurry up and type so that we can leave the Abacus labs. But I don't think I have to worry because Pharrell is busy looking at pictures of the chicks they know on Hi-5, lol.
Anyway, quick update: lousy flight, watched Shopgirl, depressed the hell out of me, took the beef instead of the omelette as my sister warned me to (note to all passengers on MAS flights: TAKE THE BEEF), arrived in Perth, started my internship, um, more or less that's it.
Am crashing at the Gutter Philosopher's bachelor pad for the moment while waiting to get back to my flat. Pharrell is living there too and Tom Thumb Hairdryer is also moving in tomorrow so it'll be a total boys place. I must put up some pink lace and leave cushiony hearts around to remind myself I am still a girl, hehe.
Miss everyone back home!
It's not even hot here. What happened to the dry-as-hell summers? It's way cool. I even get cold at night! The sun is shining brightly but there's a wind. If you're in the shade and you're only wearing shorts and a tank top, you can freeze.
The Soft-Spoken Socializer and his friends came over during the weekend with two bottles of vodka. Pharrell had gotten Captain Morgan's rum and baccardi too so everyone ended up drinking and there were some smokies too. I didn't get that drunk but Pharrell did, lol. We made him go to bed at last but by the next morning, he was up and drinking again, with the Soft-Spoken Socializer, who had crashed over on the couch.
All right, that's it for the mo, Pharrell keeps looking over my shoulder. Over and out!

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Wednesday, February 01, 2006

It was Tuesday just five hours and eight minutes ago! On Tuesday, I dragged myself awake from what I was sure was a fairly exciting adventure-drama-thriller dream to go shopping with mum. I had a mission and that mission was to buy all the Vincci shoes I would need and want before I leave once more to Perth. I love Vincci. Vincci is the best. Nose is nothing compared to Vincci. I buy all my heels from Vincci! Hurray for Vincci! Although it'd be nice if my Vincci heels wouldn't wear out so fast that I constantly need to buy new ones every year to replace those that fall apart within half a year. To be fair, I'm always treating my high/low heels as if they're basketball sneakers and walking around my huuuge uni campus, gnashing the soles of aforementioned high/low heels on gravel and grass and sod as if they were Timberland boots, and Vincci does have the best ever prices for such pretty shoes that I really can't complain when the soles begin to wear out a little and the bottom of the heels start to fall apart a bit. But it's sad when a pretty pair of shoes that you love gives out on you. And Vincci shoes are so pretty.
Okay, anyway, enough rhapsodizing. We were to Vincci. Just outside the store, my mom remembers that we're not suppose to buy shoes during the Chinese New Year period because it's suppose to be bad luck or some such thing. Something to do with the word shoes in Chinese which is "hai" which sounds like a sigh in Chinese like "haaaaiiii". But I desperately need these shoes before I'm forced to leave for Perth once more! I need my high/low heels! Plus, we're Christians! We mustn't believe in these superstitions! Or so I said to my mom. Remember, this comes from the same girl who always instinctively looks over her shoulder everytime she enters her house because she believes some silly superstition that her older sister once told her about looking over your shoulder during the Hungry Ghost Festival period so that ghosts cannot follow you into your home. But shoes override everything else. Vincci shoes.
I should really get an extra discount on these shoes considering the ton of free promotion I am currently giving Vincci on this particulara post.
Anyway, after making purchase of three pairs of shoes (two for moi, one for my sister), we continue shopping and lunching (and buying yummy brownies from Puffin Muffin) until three, when we headed over to the cinema to watch Memoirs of a Geisha. This is the third time I've seen Memoirs and it is definitely going to be the last. I am sick of watching Memoirs of a Geisha. I refuse to watch it anymore. I've watched it with my sister, my friends, and now my mother. That's enough. I want to watch Family Stone and Underworld II and Final Destination III now. And Casanova and Pirates of the Caribbean II and Broken Flowers. Yeah.
Anyway, I later met up with CircleySquare and Potatoes and SydneyBoy and Paprika Shadows aka VJ that evening. It was a really fun night - we kept reminiscing about our confirmation days and the crazy things we used to do and watched rawmania wrestling (Potatoes was absolutely fascinated by it) and a dart competition where two sweaty men named Part and Taylor fought out their terrible devastating match. Part won.
But I also felt a little sad that night because I was going to be leaving so soon to Perth again. Coming back has just made me realize how much I really missed Malaysia! I miss everything about it, the malls which open til way late and the midnight movies and all the great food and the traffic jams and rude drivers and walking around with knives in my bag and enduring catcalls from passing drivers and making catcalls when I'm driving (or at least, when Backstabbed is driving my car and I'm drunk in the seat next to him) and riding on the LRT and yamcha-ing and shopping and most of all, running around with all my crazy friends, doing all our usual crazy things and making our crazy comments. I love you guys! Even though I know that to some of you I may seem like I've been acting strange and totally out of myself and different and maybe a little too sensitive and, I have to admit it, bitchy as well, although I never meant to act this way, honestly I've been feeling like I'm a stranger even to myself for a while and I'm still not exactly sure why (and I'm sorry, and even though we've never talked about this but I've kind of worked through the worst of this strange phase and finally managed to pull myself back together - or at least I hope I have - and even though we've never talked about this openly, I promise things are going to go back to normal and that I'm back to normal, or as normal as any of us can be anyway :p). And even when I get ridiculously upset and all, and I start despairing, I still knew in my heart that because you're my friends, even though you may be wondering what's gotten into me, that you wouldn't judge me for turning temporarily crazy/silly/bitchy and since I'll probably never have the guts to talk this out in person with you guys, I guess I just want to use my blog to thank you guys for being such great friends. I love ya all!
And it's really sad too that this has been such a short vacation and I have to leave so soon after getting a grip on my sanity. I promise I will make it up to you next time! And next time I'll definitely arrange a longer stay! I really missed you guys, it's been so good to see you again! Sniff! I wish I didn't have to leave so soon again!

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Ooh, by the way, I finished Jane Austen's Emma. I don't know what the people in The Jane Austen Book Club novel were going on about when they were saying how Emma and Knightley's relationship lacked passion and how Jane FairFax's and Frank Churchill's love was far more believable. I thought the Emma-Knightley relationship was passionate and sweet and believable and way better than Jane&Frank's. And I like Emma. She may be spoiled and all but she's wonderfully human and that's what's so nice about her. She's got faults too.
On Monday night, Potatoes, me, CircleySquare and SydneyBoy headed down to the new...um...town? can we call it a town?... known as Putrajaya to check out all the modern architecture-ness of the place and all. We made it down there in no time at all, thanks to Potatoes' superb driving skills! She's definitely the best driver I've ever met in my life.
Anyway, it was pretty exciting and fun down there. I don't think I've ever felt this patriotic before in my life, just looking at all the stuff down there!
We ended up first in the big square, where a big mosque stares down on loads of families picnicking in the well-lit square with their children racing around like maniacs, even though it's almost eleven at night. On the way to Putrajaya, I had been commenting on how clean the place had looked in pictures which my mom had shown me when she had taken my grandparents there for a vist once. "All that cleanliness probably wouldn't last long, give it a year more," said I, or something along the lines of that. When we arrived, it was fairly obvious we wouldn't need to wait a year - already there were crushed potato chips and Sarsi cans and cigarette butts everywhere and when CircleySquare tried the water fountain, she discovered something suspiciously like puke all over it. Bleh. Maybe they have cleaners who would magically whisk all rubbish out of sight by dawn. Maybe we need a strict littering fine like they do in Singapore. Only in Putrajaya because it's pretty much a hopeless case anywhere else in KL.
Anyway, the mosque itself was pretty exciting, though I would have expected it to be much bigger. I wanted to go inside and explore the place but I figured if we so much as took a step inside, we might suddenly get swarmed on by clerics screaming, "Out! Out! Devil children!" I wonder if we could ever really enter a mosque although we're not Muslim? I've never heard of any total restrictions on that. After all, anyone can walk into a church or temple, regardless of religion. I have a hankering to enter the mosque. I want to visit a mosque and visit that place where all the Muslims go for haaj where that big black rock is said to reside and where no none-Muslim is ever allowed to enter. I want to enter all these forbidden places, just because they're forbidden.
On another side of the square is another exciting building - exciting for us, anyway. It was some palace place with domes like a mosque although what with the mosque and the domes of the "palace" and the square, the place was looking more and more like a scene out of The Saint or at least a Russian scene out of a movie where the main actors meet up in the square wearing black leather Matrix-y coats and try to blend in with the crowd while eyeing the mosque and palace because those places are where an assassination will take place later. Already, CircleySquare and Potatoes and I were imagining ourselves dressed as Persian assassins in our black puffy pants and black silk scarves wound round our faces and a whole belt of bells slung around our waists. We'd knock over every important artifact in the palace hallways with our puffy pants and the bells on our belts would constantly be ringing but we'd be so cunning and stealthlike and so very talented in our assassin-jobs that we'd be able to evade all guards as we climb our way up one of the soft-aquamarine-lit domes of the palace. ;) As we made our plans, SydneyBoy continued to snap pictures on his tripod of the mosque and the palace, looking very innocent-tourist-like, and yet with a slim black belt which I guess he was using to hold his tripod or whatever camera stuff within but which we all agreed looked very much like it was used to hold a sniper. This is the sniper we will be using while we are attempting to climb up the back wall of the mosque in our puffy Persian assassin pants, and then make our way to the tallest tower of the mosque where it is purported that our dear friend, Backstabbed, is being held hostage.
But that is another story, so nevermind.
Anyway, we ended up traisping up the steps to the "palace" (we're not too sure if that's where the Agong lives or where our prime minister lives), looking over the dark, um, I'm guessing rolling hills and quiet lakes and lush lawns (at least that's how they looked in the dark) which lay between the mosque and the palace. It was all very pretty and Aladdin-like and we ended up snapping pics while standing on the extremely spiky false Japanese grass which surrounds the outer walls of the palace, several feet away from the guardhouse and directly in front of a sign which says something like "Keep Out/Forbidden Area" in several languages.
After the picture-snapping, we piled back into Potatoes's car and drove down the long road where all the fancy-schmancy buildings and all that modern-abstract-art decor resides. Even the traffic lights looked very abstract-artish, with long bendy poles that looked like they came out of a Salvador Dali painting. There were also these strange things which lined the roads and looked like little time capsules or modern dustbins. I was fairly sure they were dustbins but everyone said they weren't. Only some of them were. Some but not all.
All the ministers and government offices have moved to Putrajaya so we got a good look at the new court of Justice which has been given the grand name of "Palace of Justice". It was pretty but we agreed that it would look much cooler if they had painted it black with murals of various forms of capital punishment on the exterior walls. And when you push the entrance doors open, you'd come across a noose with a fresh body hanging from it. It would be the body of whoever the latest victim who got sentenced to capital punishment was. They'd need a fresh body every now and then, when the old body starts stinking up, and so lots of people going on trial at the Palace of Justice would very soon be sentenced to capital punishment, even if it was for something minor like... like forgetting to pay your car fines. Now that would indeed be a very intimidating Court of Justice. The talk of the world.
But no, we got pretty ivory walls and pretty words that say Palace of Justice. I forgot, but I think there may be an ivory dome perched upon it. It looks more like a hotel than a Palace of Justice.
There are a lot of precints in Putrajaya. Precint 1,2,3,4, 5,6, you get the idea. I think they got tired of coming up with various names for the areas and just decided to label them with numbers instead.
There were also a lot of bridges. There was a pretty bridge with pretty streetlamps that led us to what we thought was a convention centre building which Sydneyboy declared looked like an evil robot monster. And there were two glittering bridges with lots of abstract-art-ish structures. I hear they're building a third one. I approve. More bridges and more staircases. I like bridges and stairs. There's also a kind of lighthouse tower which seems to have no purpose whatsoever, and this great huge metallic structure where several office buildings reside. You can drive up to the metallic structure and walk through it and come upon several small grassy squares with lots of pretty, smooth, gray rocks arranged around the grassy areas that look like great places for a pagan rite. Circleysquare stole one of the rocks.
Anyway, we eventually got tired of looking at Putrajaya and drove home. I swear you could have smelt roasting ham on the highway. By the way, does anyone agree with me that the smell of petroleum is also very much like the smell of ice-cream, particularly a Swensens sundae? It's one of the yummiest smells in the world.
We made it back to good old PJ (Petaling Jaya, not Putrajaya) and opted for a midnight snack at McDonald's. Unfortunately the one that we chose had a 24 hour drive-thru, but did not open its restaurant 24-7. Nevertheless, we managed to get them to bring out chairs for us to sit and eat at one of the outdoor tables. And anyway, there were still a fair good number of people hanging around both in and outside the restaurant, eating, until like one am or something. So they weren't really closed. Either that or the workers were very nice people and we commend them especially for their brilliant customer service.

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Saturday was the eve of Chinese New Year! Spent most of the day comatose in bed, only waking up to head over to the usual annual family potluck. The weather was hot, hot, hot, but not as hot as I'd expected it to be, seeing that every Chinese New Year in Malaysia inevitably arrives with steaming hot weather.
On Sunday we headed to Ipoh to visit the relatives on Mom's side. We didn't visit too many houses this year, and hardly anyone was around because a bunch of them had taken off to visit Turkey and some other place. It wasn't much of a festive Chinese New Year this year, what with half of the relatives gone on vacation (and relatives missing on Saturday too, because one of my cousins had been admitted into hospital for food poisoning and her family had been obliged to accompany her and also most of us ended up heading home early). Also, we're still in mourning for Grandma this year so none of us had planned to make it into a big celebration thing and it was kind of sad on Sunday, especially at lunch, because I looked around at the table and it just felt so strange not to see her sitting at the table, and not being able to catch her eye and have us just smile at each other across the table. I really missed her then, and felt the loss of her presence then. It was so sad. I mentioned it to my mom later that afternoon as we were looking at old pictures that my great-aunt had dug up of old family reunions and my mom had been pointing out my grandmother in the pictures. "It just doesn't feel the same with out her," I said. "I know," she said, and I kind of regretted opening my big mouth and voicing out what she was no doubt feeling at the same time. But it was also good in a way for each of us to know that there was someone else who felt her loss just as much on this Chinese New Year.

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"Send a car, you imbecile!" - Dean Whiting (Christopher Plummer), Syriana.
So anyway, on Friday, Kelly-Mandy, Dizzy Lizzy and moi took ages to get to Midvalley, partly because of a certain scary taxi, but mostly because Kelly-Mandy took forever to be ready (when has this girl EVER been punctual? Diz Liz and I agree that we want at least two DVDs to be shown on the day of her wedding, so that the guests and bridemaids and everyone else has something to do before she finally shows up hours later) and also because we had to detour to drop off her pineapple tarts at Tropicana where Diz Liz and I took a very long U-turn into Tropicana to admire the fancy schamncy rich-people houses and where Kelly-Mandy *ahem* flirted with the guests till her "friend/customer" showed up. Our lunch plan eventually became a dinner instead!!! After dinner we rushed off to watch Syriana. Diz Liz and I were convinced it was a thriller drama a la a big political huff-puff along the lines of something like Spy Games or Thriller or, if we were really lucky, the Bourne Identity! Kelly-Mandy remained unconvinced. Unfortunately for her, all we got was a big documentary-type drama with lots of suits standing around arguing politics and big-money oil-business politics, with the occasional Muslim in a djellaba reciting the Quran thrown in for good measure. At the end of the movie, Diz Liz and Kelly-Mandy were bored out of their minds, and I think Diz Liz's extremely innocent life has been shocked forever at the sight of that man yanking out an overweight George Clooney's fingernails! To be fair, I did enjoy the movie myself although I would warn anyone who hasn't seen it that it is pretty slow and if you have zero idea about all the political oil-schmoil business going out between USA and the Middle East and weren't the slightest bit interested, then the only parts that you'd probably stay awake for are like, ahem, the part where George Clooney gets his fingernails pulled off. Even yours truly who liked the movie got restless occasionally. I would recommend watching this movie at home rather than in the cinema where you can stretch out on your own couch and munch on snackies, rather then sit upright in a cramped little cinema chair and freeze to death the way poor Kelly-Mandy did.
Did all the A-list stars in this movie put on weight just for this movie? Both George Clooney and Matt Damon looked distinctly fatter in Syriana. Maybe they were hoping for an Oscar for the way they changed their looks for a role, something along the lines of Charlize Theron in Monster and Nicole Kidman in The Hours? On the other hand, the guy who played the good Arab prince (the elder brother, Prince Nasir Al-Subaai) really cut a slim figure in his suit, he could have been a poster boy for a Heidi Slimane suit.
Another thing I liked about the movie: the way Wasim Kaan's (the kid who loses his job and gets hit by all kinds of misfortunates and eventually becomes a terrorist) father continually talked about snow and snow-capped mountains and how he dreamt of building his wife a house in the snowy mountains. He's such a nice, sweet, innocent dreamer kind of a guy, he just makes you want to go "Oh, man, I hope nobody tries to take advantage of this nice poor man!"
Anyway, not to give too many spoilers or anything but some of the good guys would probably have had a happier ending if only George Clooney's character had figured out how to better read his road maps. If you watch Syriana, you'll figure out what I mean, lol.

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Hello there again!!!
Guess what! The Students for Free Tibet organization has a blog too - you can find it on http://tibetwillbefree.blogspot.com/
Currently the latest issue is the hipocrisy of the search engine Google for colluding with the Chinese government to create a custom-built search engine for China, which effectively blocks out access to information sensitive to the Chinese government such as human rights, Tibet's right to freedom and independence and so on. Talk about ultimate censorship. To find out more, check out the aforementioned blog.

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Hello there again!!!
Guess what! The Students for Free Tibet organization has a blog too - you can find it on http://tibetwillbefree.blogspot.com/
Currently the latest issue is the hipocrisy of the search engine Google for colluding with the Chinese government to create a custom-built search engine for China, which effectively blocks out access to information sensitive to the Chinese government such as human rights, Tibet's right to freedom and independence and so on. Talk about ultimate censorship. To find out more, check out the aforementioned blog.

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