welcome, one and all, to another episode of...

FISH-TRAUMA-RAMA!

yuuuupp...you guessed it ladies and gentlemen..

the fish jumped yet again!

and this time, not into the adjacent pond, noooo sireee...but right onto dry land. YOU HEARD IT RIGHT! onto DRY LAND!

and it just lay there. for urhm...a fair bit of time i'm guessing.

you see, here's what happened.

i was having my sunday afternoon snooze, all up there in dreamland dreaming things that people do in dreamland when suddenly, i was rudely awakened by very rapid, staccato-like raps on my door. so i very groggily said..

'what?'
'JIE! YOU HAVE TO COME DOWN! NOW!!'
'why?'
'THE BIG FISH JUMPED OUT OF THE POND AND IT'S ON THE GROUND!'
'WHAAAAAAAAAAATT??'

then with an incredible burst of speed, i leaped up from my bed, almost hitting my ceiling fan in the process and scrambled to the door.

but then i remembered.

i headed to the toilet to do what i remembered to do.

'EH! STILL NEED TO GO TOILET ARRH??'
'i need to wear a bra right?'

*swt*

after all that, we rushed down and lo and behold. there it was. our ever so great, so big, so scary and so incredibly stupid fish. lying on the grass in front of our pagola.

apparently, uncle choy was having his evening walk and passed by our house when he noticed the really unusual sight of a fish out of water and proceeded to ring our doorbell till the cows came home.

which leads us now, to the FISH itself.

there it was. just lying there in all it's gruesome glory. it's tribal-carved-like face staring at us. taunting us.

'try and get me back in the pond. yeah..come on. i dare you'

it seemed to be saying. but of course, us being really scaredy pussies just stood there gawking at it like dumb chickens. and of course, taking pictures (click it. come on, i dare you) with it. i mean, come on, who could not be tempted. but it was scary of course. oh-so-scary.

we suddenly got the thought that it might be dead. since fish can't really breathe out of water. but then, i remembered that these fish could curl up in the mud of the amazon river where it originates during the dry spells and continue breathing. this is so, because they just happen to be, air-breathers. in the water, they come up for air to breathe.

but then, my sister, esther, got the hose and started watering it. and it quite frankly just suddenly came to life. it gasped for a few lungfuls of air and in the process, gained back quite a fair bit of it's energy. and what happened then? with it's newly regained energy, it started thrashing around on the ground! oh gosh..it was freakishly frightening. really. it just thrashed and flipped and flopped and it even changed direction! one minute it was facing the gate, which i think is north, and then it did a complete 180 degree turn and turned to face the house. which is of course, south of the gate.

and guess what we did?

we started jumping around and screaming like a bunch of headless banshees out for blood. i swear you could hear us from all the way in taipan.

two men were walking side-by-side in taipan, talking..
'hey..do you hear that?'
'hmm...faintly. what do you think it is?'
'i think it's a bunch of headless banshees'
they then proceed to continue on walking.

don't judge us. you there! the one with the bug-eyed glasses. yeah you. i know what you're thinking. stop it. you weren't here. you can't judge me. loser.

so, we jumped up and down and screamed till our throats were sore, and all the while, uncle choy kept coming up with ideas about how to try and get it in but never daring. 'cos methinks he was a weeeee bit scared too. but we heart you uncle choy and thanks for being here.

so, after a few more leaps and jumps, our hero arrived. in the form of my dad's indonesian foreman.

note:
my daddy's actually our real hero but he was in church, attending a board leader's meeting. so he couldn't rush back either since he had no car

so, there he came, putting on his motorcycle and when he arrived, he parked it, swished his helmet off and said

'bawa itu guni'

our very timid yet, really nice maid was standing in the sidelines holding the gunny sack and shaking like a pile of leaves.

she held it out to him, he took out his wallet and handphone, threw them on the ground and took the gunny sack. he threw it over the fish, who i think was beginning to see his short burst of freedom coming to an end, and proceeded to carry him back into the pond. but not before the fish put up the biggest struggle of it's life. and only after thrashing around and slapping our hero on his face, body and arms, did he get dumped back, albeit very unceremoniously, into the pond.

'wah...you macho lar'

what an ordeal. pheww..

it completely SUCKS to be a woman.

i repeat.

it SUCKS!

seriously.

i was walking and shopping at Petaling Street the other day with my mum and after a whole afternoon of walking and sweating and bargaining and brushing and bumping into smelly, sweaty, disgustingly ugly people, we went home. and in the car, mum said this..

"looks like it's going to pour eh? ah....can go home and rest and have ONE pineapple tart."

rewind.

ONE PINEAPPLE TART.

i looked at her and said,

"it sucks being a woman huh?"

and she nodded her head sadly.

it's so completely sad what we women have to go through.

first, there's the whole body image thing. ok, i know that we shouldn't conform and be happy they way we are because we're all made differently and in the image of God, but then again. do you think God would look like a fat blimp, the size of Australia? i mean, hello?

ok, i'm sounding waaaaaaaay too bimbotic for my liking.

but really, to maintain appearances, we women go through all sorts of shit to look good. we diet, we exercise, (and if you're anything like me, it doesn't help. at all.), we squeeze ourselves into really tight clothes that are supposedly 'in fashion', we do our hair, we buy ridiculously high shoes, (but that's a plus, and a priviledge, of course), and the most suckiest of all, we get period cramps, hot flashes, mood swings and pimple breakouts.

sigh...

you can tell by now, that i'm not a happy camper.

i've got cramps.

both in my tummy and in my mood.

i made fajitas tonight. beef and chicken, so that my sisters who are really picky eaters could have a choice. and stupid me, didn't check the nutrition information until AFTER i ate 1 and a half pieces of tortilla bread. it's SUPER DUPER HIGH IN CARBO! crap.

i also made tuna potato salad and stuffed mushrooms.

so, i'm off now to exercise my butt off. literally. it's growing to size of the whole american continent.

i currently have 7, count 'em...7 bruises. yeah.

not 1..not 2..3? yeah right..not even 4, 5, hardly, 6, gimme a break, but 7.

7 major bruises all around my legs.

and i don't even remember how i got half of them.

i've got one on my shin, two around my left knee, another 2 on my thighs one on the dorsum of my foot and one major one on my hip.

sigh...

i know i got the ones on my shin and knees when i was running up the spiral staircase. my sisters and i were alone at home at that time and they were bugging me to cook lunch for them. so i very nicely went and cooked them lunch. oh..did i mention we were having a grey's anatomy marathon? yeah..so, i rushed all the way up since i didn't wanna miss any bit of it. and guess what? i tripped on the 2nd last step of the spiral staircase and the bowl of noodles that i had cooked went flying outta my hands. don't ask what happened next.

sigh...

then a couple of days ago, i was hooking up my laptop to my printer and had to squeeze in between a table and a cupboard. so after hooking it up, i stood up and banged my hip straight into the table. ow. so now i've got a really angry looking bruise on my hip.

AND...

guess what happened this morning.

daddy and mummy were sending me to work and stopped at the end of the road so that he didn't have to turn in. so, i got down from the car, closed the door, and suddenly just slipped and fell. i can just picture in my head how my parents must have been going like..'whaa??' when they could at first clearly see me walking away from them and suddenly just disappear from sight. so, why did i fall? well, my slip in sandals broke. and when i took a step forward in them, i slipped, fell, and twisted my knee in a weird angle.

now i've got a strawberry mark on my other knee.

jolly good.

i am such a klutz...

speaking of strawberries, i made strawberry cupcakes last night. parents said it was too sweet. that means, it's perfect. =)

take one part sweat, stir in with 2 parts eyebags (due to lack of sleep), then add in 5 parts burnt fingers and mix in 2 parts tired legs and what do you get?

LASAGNA!

today was and still is my parents' 23rd anniversary

1, 2, 3...times 5 divided by 8 equals....23! ok, correct!


decided to make them dinner. sisters and i wanted to make it all romantic like how we did it for them during valentine's but then it turned out to be a normal family dinner. how boring.

decided to try making lasagna for the first time. and i think it turned out quite ok.

ok, i'm gonna tell you guys a secret.

the lasagna sheets i used were bought about half a year ago and have been sitting in the pantry for quite a bit.

so, today when i took them out to cook it, a whole bunch of weird looking ants came tumbling out too! and some actually got stuck and died in between the lasagna sheets! eeyieeer! it sounds quite gross and it looked even grosser.

*is there such a word? grosser?*

but then...while i was looking at it...

*thoughts fly back to eons ago*

i remembered that one time when i was helping daddy cook, actually cooked noodles that had these bugs in them before as well and when he boiled them, the bugs just floated off and died.

so, i tried to do the same thing.

and thank God it worked.

yup, so, boil, boil, boil, die, die, die, strain, strain, strain, and then onto the lasagna plate.

i don't remember getting diarrhoea from daddy's bug-drained noodles, so i hope i won't get it this time. and even if anything happens, it'll happen to me. i've got the weakest, stupidest stomach in my family.

who's got diarrhoea?
jie jie

who's got food poisoning?
jie jie

who's vomiting?
jie jie

see..it's always me. i've got a weird gastrointestinal tract.

so, i cooked lasagna and made caesar salad.

and you all know how caesar salad has lettuce, bacon bits, cheese, croutons and sliced boiled eggs in it right?

well, i forgot the bacon bits and eggs and croutons.

mainly cause when i went to shop for the ingredients, i ran outta money so i couldn't buy bacon and croutons. eggs, i just totally forgot.

so, to make up for the croutons, i heated up oil in the wok and cut up bread into little cube sized bits and deep fried them. it worked wonderfully. instant croutons. but i might have left them a little to long in the oil and it kinda turned blackish. so...instant croutons became instant charcoal pills. whoopee.

for the bacon bits, i tried to be smart. we had spam in the fridge and what i did was i sliced it really finely and fried them. till they were crispy and crunchy. turned out alright. didn't taste like bacon bits, but it made do.

talk about improvising.

but my salad was a hit and everything was eaten up. i even had to make seconds. not bad. oh and i made my own sauce as well. not baaaaaaaaaad.

happy anniversary mum and dad. love you guys.

starting to get worried.

although i know i shouldn't.

but i can't help it.

WHERE'S THE FRIGGIN' EMAIL THAT'S SUPPOSED TO GIVE ME MY STUDENT NUMBER?

sigh..

sarah and su-ann received their student number from UQ and i still haven't gotten mine. i hope i'm not the only one.

what if they got my email address wrong?

what if i end up in a weird, rural hospital while in queensland?

*what if i didn't get offered a place in UQ?*

...

so anyway, everyone's out.

they all went to get LB a new phone.

jolly good.

how did all this phone business come about hmm??

well, it all started when daddy's phone suddenly got infected by a virus, possibly due to receiving too many bluetooth messages or from an MMS. well, the virus caused daddy's phone to keep sending out MMSes. his contractors and friends from all over were getting MMSes from him but they couldn't open it. of course, daddy didn't know. but when his bill came, it was sky-high from all the MMSes he sent.

apparently this all began when i tried to send an MMS of a picture of my sisters and i to a cousin of mine in Australia.

oh...they're back.

she got a sony ericsson phone. will let HER blog about it.

so, back to the story. well, daddy went to get it checked out and yeah, it turned out to be a virus. so, he had to use my phone for a while.

there are about 4 old handphones lying around my house. 2 nokias and 2 samsungs. i'm using one of the old flip samsungs. i WAS previously using both the nokias, but i clogged them up with too many messages that i didn't want to erase, so i had to keep switching phones. so, the flip samsung is the latest one.

so, daddy's phone got fixed today and i got my flip back.

but...

for LB to get her new handphone, she had to trade in one of the old nokias.

sigh...

here's the sad part.

all my messages from my love, had to be deleted.

70 messages.

70 of the sweetest messages i've ever received.

all gone.

sigh...

so now LB's got a new phone.

my maid's changing my bedsheets today.

i guess i should be thankful that i at least HAVE a maid to change and wash my sheets.

but i don't like it that she changes it so often.

i think it's like she changes them every fortnight.

call me disgusting, but i kinda like my sheets to be on my bed for more than 2 weeks.

just when i've soften them and they've got my own smell, it goes into the wash and new sheets with the harsh sudsy, soappowderish smell meet my body every time i lie in bed.

i don't like.

i like sheets with my own smell.

ok, i'm not as disgusting as all that to want my sheets on forever so that i smell my own smell but leave them on at least for a month yeah?

...

have been getting really bad nights lately.

been plagued by really bad dreams, really weird dreams or just plain waking up in the middle of the night for no reason.

one of the earlier bad dreams that i've been having was one where a friend whom i no longer talk to anymore, appears in it.

won't go into details of how we become UN-friends, but just know enough that it was a tiny matter, which i blew way outta proportion. sigh...i miss my friend.

so my friend appears in it and we just started talking like it was when we WERE friends. and i woke up realising, i MUST call this friend before i head over to australia. must at least patch things up. if not recement the friendship, at least just become 'hi-bye' friends again.

i am losing my mind!!

OMG!!

the one thing i absolutely hate is the freaking renovation that's going on behind my house.

and the one thing i absolutely hate is how they build up walls, and beams and stuff that hold up houses and then proceed to BREAK THEM DOWN AGAIN!!

the noise is just absolutely driving me crazy.

you would think they'd know how to draw up a house, build it and then not tear it down again. IT IS a COMPLETE waste of money to keep building and tearing it down. not to mention time consuming since they'll continue at it till GOD knows when.

i'm annoyed and i'm bored. but there's a possibility of me getting a proper paying job in a whileeeeee....

it is time for me to come back

so...

HERE I AM!

yeah..so it's been quite a while since i last updated.

really sorry.

but been very very very very laaaaazy...

*grin*

so there have been many many things that have been happening since my last post.
don't think i wanna go into details.
mainly cos i don't really remember them.
hahaha..
but..

significant events:
july:
my birthday

august:
der yin's birthday, threw her a nice surprise party

september:
ky-vern's wedding.
very very significant.
SOME pics are up on my multiply. not much..and mostly of my sisters and pam and me.
was a wonderful wedding.
sigh..i wish it didn't have to end.

and now..i'm working.
for domino's.
not as a pizza maker.
i'm more of a data entry, mindless typing kinda girl.

not working this week.
i've got a sty in my eye.
yeah..a sty.
can't remember the last time i had one.
but i DO remember the last time der lyn had one.
woah...had to go for minor surgery.
local anaesthetic and all.
was fascinating.
for me lar..cos i think i might be part sadistic.
the dr had to flip her eyelid inside out and burst the sty.
*pssht*
the pus literally flew out. yuck.

so went for olivia's surprise birthday party last sunday night.
good time. good time.
laughed till my cheek muscles were hurting at the end of the night.

it's time for me to grow up.

hmmm....

i've been going through a whirlwind of emotions lately.

what with family matters

friends

loved ones

all suddenly running amok.

...sigh...

sometimes there are things that don't deserve to be forgiven but are anyway. things that shouldn't be remembered are. things that shouldn't be done also are. why?

there seems to be this thing where people go all out to fit in.

i know i have.

but then again. who hasn't?

we always want to be accepted. always want to be 'in' and 'hip' and 'in the know'. but do we really? we prance around air-kissing and gushing about how things are and make little comments we know will get us in the right circles. but are these the circles of our lives? do we intend to live a lifestyle instead of a life?

hmm...

i'm back! oh yes. and so is my cough. with a vengeance i must say. whoooo....got a bit of blood in my sputum now. nothing to be worried about i hope. just some lining epithelium in my throat getting hocked out. hehehe...

so......been MIA for a bit. since i've been stressing out over my thesis. i think i'm half a head balder now. from all the late nights and not washing hair for 3 days.

so since i've been doing my thesis thing nothing much has been happening. the usual lar. go uni, do thesis, come back, do thesis.

of course there were the little things in the middle like grandpa's 87th birthday, cousin coming home after quitting his job, friends getting hooked up but without me knowing since i'm MIA and blur (not a very good mix), daddy's birthday falls somewhere in there too i think. got him a nice rugby style renoma shirt. with a BIG R on the front. ahahaha...loves it. since R is for Robert.

nothing much lar.....

people are back, planning holiday trips, might be going to china and india. mmm....nice....hehehe.

cooked dinner yesterday. after a looooooooooong time. and it was GOOOOD! oh yes, it was. made lamb with asparagus and bacon and mash potato on the side. even made my own mint sauce. whoooo...can open restaurant already. for sure. i think i'll call it. food:glorious food! i know it's not very original but i like that song. i do. i sing it whenever i have food. heeeeyyyyyyyy, maybe i should make it so that my customers order food in song! eh...that's quite an idea.

waiterrrrrrr, i have my ordeerrrrrr
yes sirrrrr, what will you haveeee??
i'll haaaaaave the chicken and pea salaaaaad please
good sirrrrr, that's a very nice choiiiiiiice....
lalalala...

and they run off into the sunset together holding hands and going tralalalala...

mmm...nice picture.

i made a smart and wise decision of sleeping downstairs in the guest room last night. since it's the furthest room away from the stupid construction noise behind my house, i thought i'd be able to get a nice lie in this morning since i'm still a bit sick.

wrong.

instead of being rudely woken up by the drilling and knocking noise, i was woken up by my mum. at 8.32am. and you wanna know what for?

mum: der wen.....
me: *grunt*
mum: you not going to lab today?
me: going. but later. wanna sleep a bit more today.
mum: ok, that's good. but you see this? *flaps a flyer in front of my face* cold storage opening in subang parade today and all these items are going for 10 cents each!
me: really? ok, go lar.
mum: i cannot. i'm going to muar. so you and aunty go can ah? just get a few things then come home. 10 cents only. go lar.
me: maaaaaa....
mum: go laaaaaaaar....
me: haiya...ok lar ok lar.

so, i went at 9.30, thinking there wouldn't be anyone there yet. go early, come back early. but to my surprise, there was already a line into the parking lot and a small crowd of people waiting for the doors of the shopping complex to open. so, aunty went down first and i stayed in the car waiting for my turn to go in.

10 o'clock came. and i managed to get a really nice parking lot, right outside the doors. good sign right....aunty had already gone in and i went looking for her. while heading into the supermarket, to my horror, i saw throngs and throngs of people just grabbing at everything they could! oh my gosh. you'd think there was gonna be a war and people were stocking up on everything they could.

oh....some of the stuff that was going for 10 cents were like, apples, papayas, small bottles of sunsilk shampoo, mineral water, pepsi, coke, toothpaste, tomato sauce, biscuits, ice cream, and a few more not really essential items.

so, back to the story.

people were just grabbing everything in sight. armloads of stuff and then booms over the PA system.

'ladies and gentlemen, each customer is limited to only ONE item of each 10-cent-promotion item.'

jolly good. so, i thought i could at least get some stuff too. but nobody listened to him! they just continued grabbing as many things as they could. it got so bad, that bottles of shampoo got spilt all over the floor, bottles of tomato sauce were broken and glass and ketchup was all over the place and people were tugging and pulling against each other to get what they wanted.

it was mayhem.

and in all that melee of activity, i was just standing there, waiting for my aunty to grab the stuff since she said wasn't fast or agressive enough. and i overheard this conversation between two women:

lady with brown hair: excuse me! you're only allowed ONE item per product!
lady with small mouth and nose: *carrying about 8 packets of ladies' menstruation pads* no no no no....*vehemently shaking her head*
lady with brown hair: REALLY! you cannot take more than one! *starts tugging at the pads in the other lady's arms*
lady with small mouth and nose: WHAT ARE YOU DOING?! stop it! don't take my stuff!
lady with brown hair: but you're only allowed one!! give me ONE! GIVE ME! GIVE ME!

it continued until they were pulling at each other's hair and slapping one another. and tumbled very messily onto the floor. somehow, someone spilled a bottle of shampoo over them and they were all gooey and shampooey.

really.

needless to say, i left empty handed. since all the 10 cent items were gone within 10 minutes of the supermarket opening. and there were only 1000 items per product. so...go do the math.

i will have to stay in the lab till at least 11 pm tonight. sigh....

things i will be missing:

1. dinner with tiger and his good friend and his girlfriend.

2. dinner at home with family and mum's old friend and husband from UK.

3. my 10 o'clock shower.

4. my bed.

5. my tiger.

must say tiger's not very happy with my ffk-ing them. i know it meant a lot to him that we have dinner together.

curse this stupid lab work.

curse my choice to do BMedSc.

curse my choice of projects.

sigh...

I'M ON TONIGHT,
MY HIPS DON'T LIE AND I'M STARTING TO FEEL YOU BOY...

nenenenenene

yeah, i don't know the lyrics beyond that. hahaha...
i LOVE that song. there's just something about it and makes me wanna move.
but then i fail quite miserably in that department.
i was just watching the video clip and it never fails to make my jaw drop.
how does she move like that?
shucks. i wish i could do that.
it looks so sexy. hehehe


anyway, was taking random pictures of my sisters and i on the way home from church just now, so here're the products. thanks to lyn for adobe-shopping it. i can't do that for nuts. i'm quite the noob.

anyway, i just spent half an hour cleaning and de-inking squid. went to the pasar malam with mum and lyn and she was buying fish to feed my big fish at home and i saw some squid and i remembered i had this really nice recipe for squid salad. well, i don't know whether it's nice or not since i've never tried it, but then, you'll never know till you try right? so, i persuaded her to buy some and she did. so she told me i had to clean it before keeping it in the freezer, so i, in my gung-ho mood readily agreed.

until i got home.

here, i will give a blow-by-blow account on how to clean and de-ink a squid.

step one:
pull it's head out. make sure the whole head attachment comes out or you're in quite deep shit. if i had a choice, i'd just throw away the whole head and tentacly things. i mean, it looks icky! who's gonna eat that part anyway? but noooo....mum says can cook with something else. oh-kaaaaaay.

step two:
in the centre of the head attachment, there is a tiny, tiny sack that looks like a third eye that contains the squid ink. trust me, don't press it. gently tear it away from the rest of the head and throw away. before i got the hang of it, i ended up squirting ink all over myself. genius. a few times, i didn't pull the whole head attachment out and it got stucks inside. so the whole squid inside just turned blackish from the ink. yuck...

step three:
pull out the plastic looking backbone from the body of the squid. it comes out in one long strip so it's fairly easy an elephant blindfolded with it's trunk cut off and using it's feet would be able to do it.

step four:
peel the skin off the squid's body. if you don't know that it had skin, now you do. the squid's skin is the purplish-spottish colour and once that's peeled off, the squid looks white and clean and feels really rubbery. sorta like dolphin and killer whale skin. not like i've ever touched either sea mammals. but hey, i'm guessing here.

step five:
wash the whole thing properly and pack into a plastic bag and stick into the freezer till you want to use it.

and there you go! now i'm sure all of you will go out and buy squid and be able to clean and de-ink it all by yourself. i'm so proud of all of you.

warrrrgh!! i hate the stupid construction going on behind my house! it's absolutely driving me bonkers! imagine waking up to the noise of drilling and knocking of walls! it's freaking annoying. it's a weekend and i ssooooo wanted to sleep in, but noooooo, the stupid drilling and knocking started at 8 and woke me up! damn it. it's ok if it's a weekday since i NEED to get up around there but it's the freaking weekend!

i'm ready to start throwing really heavy objects out my window and injure them something serious.

hmm...i think my sofa bed would do quite nicely...since I'M certainly not gonna use it anytime soon...

i'm getting extremely stressed out. labwork is seriously getting to me. been doing it day after day and it still doesn't seem to be going anywhere. yesterday my supervisor dropped a whole shitload of work on my lap and says, time is running out. HELLO? do you think i don't know!? stop giving me more work to do! it's stupid that i've the heaviest workload of the bunch. i'm only a BMedSc student. i'm not a PhD student as much as you'd like to think i am. sigh....

and now she tells me i have to start drawing up graphs. WTF! she never told me anything about graphs! ok. call me blur and stupid and dumb, but hey....it would be nice to have a head's up once in a while. sigh...and plus, how am i supposed to do up graphs if i don't have any data?

time's running short and my stress level is running high. not a good combination.

i need help with drawing and plotting up the graphs. someone, help me. please.

i think i'll always be a young girl at heart. if any of you have seen the third floor of my house, you'll know how chock full of books it is. and i'm ashamed to say that at the most, i've only read about 30% of them. yeah....i've got everything. thrillers, romance, mysteries, comics, fables, fairy tales, children's books. you name them, i've got them.

last night, i was looking for something to read to put me to sleep with and instead of choosing one of the many, many books that i haven't opened, i returned to my childhood days and chose an enid blyton book. a very worn and well loved book i must say. the pages are dog-eared and browned and stained as i have the habit of reading while i eat. something which i do not encourage if you're a messy eater, as you'll end up with either very smelly books or books with their pages eaten away by insects trying to get at the stains. hahaha...

so, i went back to my room and opened the book and all my memories as a little girl came flooding back. i would read a paragraph and remember what i felt when i was a little girl reading it for the first time. the wonder and the excitement of anticipating what comes next in the coming pages.

of course i love new books and reading them. but it's just not the same. i think i'm getting a bit jaded and a bit more picky as to what i read. i don't devour the book anymore. i just read and let it flow. it kinda rolls of my back. at the end of the book, it doesn't really impact me in the way it used to. maybe i've got more pressing matters to attend to these days then to let the book sink in. i finish it for the sake of finishing it and reaching the end.

*****

anyway, i was watching made to order just now on channel 11 of astro, a.k.a. discovery travel and living, my absolute favourite channel and the chef on it was trying to cook wild boar with asian-type food stuffing. and the thing i can't stand is how these gweilos try to cook asian food yet they can't really get the hang of it. and it struck me. this particular chef would think he'd have a really wide and varied knowledge of the chinese cuisine but what he knows is really, really, really limited. and another thing that got to me was how he pronounced the chinese food.

siu mai became shao mei

lap cheong became lep cheng

sambal became sembel

and so on and so forth. i turned it off before i started yelling at him through the tv screen. yeah. i tend to do that.

so, i persuaded my sister into baking a cake for her friend's birthday yesterday and basically guided her step by step. hahaha...will let her tell the story and you'll can find it here. read it. it's really cute the way she makes it so real. hahaha...

did a lot of baking yesterday. actually, been doing a lot of baking recently. yesterday i baked apple chunkies, which tastes scrumplicious with ice cream, the week before i baked a chocolate cake to give to my supervisor in uni as a sign of thanks, and i also baked jam and cheese tarts which turned out ok. must try that again to see if i can really get the hang of it.

then i cooked seafood pasta and made a chicken salad for my tiger on friday afternoon and then i cooked lunch for my family today.

i'm getting really domesticated aren't i. hahaha...dunno why. in preparation of going to Queensland and not having anyone to cook. but we'll probably eat out most of the time since we won't really have much time to prepare and cook.

but cooking's fun. i enjoy it, no matter how much i sweat and cut myself. hahaha..i'm kidding. i sweat yes, but i don't cut myself. so i can only use the phrase, 'sweat and tears. and maybe a little bit of saliva'

it's just one of those days where i feel horribly lousy. i feel fat, i feel useless, i feel sorry for myself, i feel absolutely out of it all.

but then...i got this video f rom a friend which i just opened and it changed my whole outlook on this day.

i realise that i don't have to be who or what i think is perfect or right.

i can do that just by being me.

i can make a difference even though i don't think i can.

i am useful.

i am loved.

i am me.

and i know God appreciates me. He loves me and He wants me to know that.

i had the weirdest, craziest, scariest dream last night. i dreamt that my whole life was a lie. that the people around me were conspiring against me and were leading me along this road i called life. they had set everything up. how i talk, how i interact with people, my relationships. it was all a set-up. a very cleverly devised scheme to lead me into believing that i am me and that everyone around me were exactly the way i thought they were. but they weren't. and that's what scared me the most. i kept trying to wake up from that dream but i just couldn't. normally, when i'm in a bad dream, i just will myself to open my eyes and that's it. no more bad dream. but this time, it was as if it was sucking me in, forcing me to see things that i didn't want to, listen to things that i couldn't deem possible at all. it was as if, my subconcious was telling me something.

in the dream, i found out that everything that i went through in life was all planned out by my mum, aunts, sisters and friends. they had read something about how to change someone and they wanted to change me. which got me to thinking. am i such a horrible person that they want to change me? i'm speechless trying to think of something else to write here. my mind's a blank. i cannot even begin to conceive this notion. it's scary! it's like a knife twisting in my heart knowing that my closest loved ones do not actually love me. that they are just putting on a mask and telling me things i wanna hear. i'm scared. do i need to change? am i really that bad? is my life right now actually a conspiracy?

ok ok ..sorry sorry. late late late post. very busy week. too many things to do, not enough time.

we'll start from:

wed:
hmmm....can't remember. OH WAIT! yeah. i remember now. i did PCR and it turned out ok. hahaha. you can never say you've done lab work until you've done PCR and electrophoresis. it's quite cool but quite the stressful.

thurs:
AHH!! this i can remember. sure wan...got to uni at 10, started doing my work, mechanically, like a freaking robot. gosh, it's all quite the mind numbing. step after step. waiting and waiting. so anyway, yeah. did work till about 7, then went to tiger's and had dinner with him and thennnnnn...it was ALL NIGHT PRAYER MEETING! no elaboration, it would take too long. but, i went to church and was the official babysitter for the kids whose parents were in church. so, i had this whole night planned out. was going to start off with games and then some 'conman' rope tricks, guaranteed to wow the kids to sleep. *fer shizzle, my nizzle* and then if they were super stubborn and didn't get conned into sleep by that, i'd play a short cartoon to lull them to sleep. but nooooo....right after they came in, they zipped themselves all into their sleeping bags and demanded for the cartoon straight away. brats. but cute ones. so, halfway through the cartoon, they looked nowhere near going to sleep. so, rushed out to buy a dvd. decided upon 'sky high' and zoomed back to church. just in time as the cartoon just ended. so, put in the dvd and they watched it. i had this little rolly polly lying on me all the time and her feet were literally on my face. she was looking for a comfortable spot and ended up lying on my legs, face on her hands on my knees and feet right in my face. *sweat* one by one, they went to sleep. but i spent the rest of the night chasing these 6 monkeys that didn't want to get into their sleeping bags. annoying. so, didn't sleep the whole night. went home at 6.45 in the morning and KO-ed till 1pm.

fri:
didn't do anything. it was a public holiday! i deserved the right to do nothing.

sat:
guess what? i was in the lab! woohoo!! great. did lab work till about 5 and then sped off home since mom wanted to cook dinner for the gang. so, yeah. ended up sleeping and not helping at all. tired mah...what to do... gang came over and had dinner and then adjourned to watch 'the producers' later. *remember ulla dance? ulla dance again!*

sun:
church, lunch, home, sleep, SU-ANN'S HAIR SHOW! hahaha..yup. she unwittingly got conned into modelling her new hair cut which was coloured AH LIAN RED! hahaha...and it was in this little obscure club, little havana. tiger and i spent an hour getting lost and looking for it. thank god for KZ if not i don't think we would have made it. but true to malaysian form, the event started late and we got there with plenty of time to spare. i sooooooo regret not taking my camera! su-ann was in the poufy, bohemian type dress and in a mask. O_o she looked quite good surprisingly, and i think she pulled it off pretty well, since she's got that cocked-up face that says, 'wat you want?' had dinner at TGIF afterwards and then went home. hahaha...good day, good day. should have brought my camera. shucks. and i've never seen a gay-er guy than the one wearing lace and the drawn on beard during the hair show. *shudder*

oh yeah...happy belated mother's day. i'll post up the message i wrote for my mum.

people tend to show love the only way we know how. for us, it's nagging and bickering. hahaha...love you mum, happy mommy's day.

i wish i could turn back the clock.
i wish i could have known who you were back then.
i wish i could have seen how wonderful you are.
i wish i could have been the right one for you.

i wish you didn't have to have your heart broken.
i wish i could mend it for you.
i wish i could make you have faith again.
i wish i could chase your darkness away.

~~~

feeling randomly emotional now.

got home at about 1am from uni last night. sigh, went through all the slides i'd done and realised half of them need to be restained. if not i won't be able to get good enough results for my thesis. so, double my work. and then my lecturer decided to make me do MORE work and added in something else for me to discover since it hasn't been done yet. so, again, i'm spearheading another project.

got home and was utterly exhausted. earlier on i had hit a dead end in my research. not enough money, not enough material, not enough time. needed a place to vent and decided to splurge my last RM3 credit calling tiger. vented out all my frustrations, cried as i was so tired and fed-up of hitting dead ends all the way.

but i sucked it all up and finished my work for the night and went home. showered and was about to collapse into bed when i thought,

'maybe i should call tiger. let him know i'm home.'

ring ring...

'hey...i'm home'

'i thought you would never call!'

'why?'

'cause i'm outside your house'

!!!!

'seriously??'

'yeah'

so i thought maybe he'd come to say goodnight. turns out he knew i was going to bed without anything to eat since lunch and had come to cook dinner for me. *cue melting heart* ok, so it was just maggi mee. but it was such a sweet gesture.

that's why i'm emo now

i am utterly bored waiting for the mails i'm sending to my lecturer to be sent. so, to keep me entertained, i've been searching for videos to watch. and i came across one of the pussycat dolls video clips. the song's called 'buttons' and it's one of my favourites on their PCD album, which is really good by the way. so, i decided to let you guys view it since i seriously doubt it'll hit our tv screens in malaysia anytime soon. enjoy...

i'm being haunted by the spirit of the dead black cat my dogs killed. yesterday morning when i got into my car, the first thing i saw as i exited the house was a black cat. and it just stared at me. creepy? yes. but wait....

when i arrived at uni and parked my car. i stepped out and guess what? yup. i see a black cat. and again, it just stared at me. do you feel the hairs on the back of your neck standing up yet? cause mine are...

and last night when i went for mamak with my mum and sisters, again, i saw a black cat. it didn't stare at me this time. but it glanced at me and then just walked away. now my skin is really crawling...

now, i know you all must be thinking it's just a coincidence and that there are a gazillion black cats around malaysia. but what are the odds that i keep on seeing them, and they seem to appear everywhere i go? these were the only 3 places i went to yesterday and at all 3 places, i saw a black cat.

maybe a cat really does have 9 lives...

my dogs just killed a cat. yup. you heard me right. they just massacred and tore limb from limb a helpless, black, stray cat that's been frequenting my neighbourhood. part of me is relieved that my neighbourhood is now one stray cat less and the other part is horrified, appalled, disgusted, shocked, flabbergasted, nd everything else that makes me seem sorry for this event. because i am. truly i am. i mean, who wouldn't want to see and hear cats mating right outside their house right? since they sound oh so wonderful and melodious.

i was up in my room taking a drink of water from my tumbler when i suddenly i heard sounds similar to a cat fight only instead of 2 cats, i heard the hissing and spatting of one cat and the growls and snaps of dogs. my dogs had just been let out of their cages for their daily romp around the garden and the cat had chosen this unfortunate time to come strolling around my garden. no doubt trying to see if it could catch one of my fishes to eat.

but i digress.

so, i hear hissing and growling and i put 2 and 2 together.

'the dogs are fighting a cat!' i screamed as i flew down my stairs, my hair flying in a wide arc behind me.

instantly i was outside and horror of horrors, i saw all 3 of my dogs bearing down on the cat. it was on the ground, unable to stand up and i realised my dogs had broken the cat's hind legs.

'oh shit! oh shit! oh shit!'

der lyn and i started calling our dogs and trying to pull them away. but to no avail. partially due to fear that our dogs might in turn accidentally bite us. so, we each grabbed umbrellas and tried to shoo our dogs away from the cat. also to no avail. soon, the were biting the cat and both of us ended up running back into the house, too horrified to watch the scene. the last thing i saw was my rottie dragging the cat back to it's cage and just dropped it there.

my 2 german shepherds were out and we immediately chained them up and started calling for my rottie. and finally we tied her up too. then came the dilemma.

what do we do with the cat?

our maid was also too chicken to do anything and just stood in the kitchen clutching her broom. eventually, we got her to put the dead cat into a black plastic bag and we would then decide how to dispose of it.

so, we had chained up our 3 dogs in our front compound and were punishing them. well, der lyn was suddenly all macho and garang and started hitting them with a slipper. while i, filled with compassion and pity for my dogs tried to stop her when she got too garang. it got to the point where she would just stand in front of the dogs and they would cower. oooo....suddenly she quite the gaya. but still cruel. anyway....

by then, the dead cat was already in the plastic bag and dunno why, but i had to dispose of it. it was utterly disgusting. i was too grossed out to carry it, i took an umbrella and hooked it up and dragged it on the floor to the dumpster down our street. no words can describe the utter disgust and grossness of the situation. at every step, i could feel the cat's weight dragging on the floor. it was so bad, i just ended up chucking the bag in a pile of rubbish in front of my neighbour's house.

yuck....

i wanna go home! but i'm stuck in uni since it's raining elephants and kangaroos. sigh...

was in hkl again today. after a looooooong break from it. and i must say, looking good really gets you places. i wore a new top i bought from the mont kiara flea market yesterday and it's quite nice, if i do say so myself. ruffles and lace. so, i wore it and went to the lab and the usual people who would just snub me and ignore my presence suddenly all seemed very nice and polite. they smiled and greeted me. to my utmost, utmost, utmost surprise, the head of dept was also very nice. and she's known for being quite the mean bitch.

so anyway, after that i met up with ah koay for lunch in BTS. man that place is quite dead. for such a HUGE place, it's not a very nice place to shop. too many floors, too few nice shops. they were all the type of shops i'd find in summit and sungei wang. but didn't do much shopping, although i knew it was a sign when i rode the escalator up to the lower ground floor from the basement car park and as i reached the top, a shoe shop on sale appeared before my eyes. it was definitely a sign saying i need to go shoe shopping for new shoes.

roar, i so wanna go shopping. like all out shopping. but it's quite a waste of time and money yeah? but then again, when have i ever turned down an opportunity to shop? sigh...today. went back to uni empty handed after lunch. did my slides and now i've got a headache from looking too long into the microscope analysing my slides. bleh...

it's so good to be home. even if i was only in muar for a night. it just feels right. i have my couch, i have my tv, i have my computer, i have my room, i have my toilet. ahhh...nice.

anyway....

was in muar last night. drove down at about 6 in the evening. the whole family wanted to visit my grandmother after her harrowing experience of being led to believe she had a heart condition and had to be hospitalised a couple of weeks ago. thank goodness it wasn't true. oh well, the whole way down to muar, oh, i drove by the way. sigh....this is what happens when you get your license. your parents make you drive while they snore in the backseat. so, all the way down to muar, they made me listen to these cds of a pastor in singapore on singlehood and dating and stuff. gosh...could they BE any more obvious? hahahaha....but it not only gave me a new perspective to this whole dating and relationship scene, it kinda opened their eyes too. all their old fashioned thinking about how the ONE will definitely be out there for me and that God will preserve him for me and lead him to me is kinda like a whole lotta bullcrap. God presents us with choices and through Him, we learn how to choose and choose wisely. another thing he said that really made sense was about finding our 'other half's. why should we believe that we are not completely whole since we're not attached? instead of looking for our 'other half' we should be looking for our other 'whole'. well, it's easier to understand by listening to him and not to me. i'm like just summarising and paraphrasing.

so before leaving for muar yesterday, bea, lydia, datin su, aaron and i went out for lunch at Itallianes. love that place. great food, great environment and best of all, great friends to be with. we had a ball of a time there. you know how they serve bread with olive oil and balsamic vinegar there?

ooo..wait...nice breeze now. i wanna take a moment. mmmm.....

ok.

yeah, so we were so hungry, well, actually not really. more like greedy i think, we wolfed down the bread. we had all ordered and since the portions were so big, bea and i ordered the salmon fettucine, lydia and datin su ordered the carbonara, and aaron, being a MAN, ordered spaghetti and meatballs all for himself. since he's a MAN. and can eat a lot. yeah right. and as a communal dish, we ordered stuffed mushrooms. phew...sounds like a lot, yeah. yeah. it was. aaron's order came first and to his utmost shock, there, sitting there straddling the spaghetti, were these 2 HUGE, no. GIGANTIC, no. HUMONGOUS meatballs. they were literally the size of tennis balls. aaron's eyeballs nearly popped out and he looked at us.

' i think you should cancel the salmon fettucine since it's not here yet'

hahahaha....yeah so we did.

by then we were happily tucking into our food and the stuffed mushrooms came. oh and they came with cheeeeeese. mmmm....

so, datin su went,

'we need more bread. waiter!'

and gave a very ladylike, sexy flick of her wrist. instantly waiters were swarming our table. no, i kid. hahaha...but yeah a waiter eventually did come and datin su said,

'excuse me, could we have more bread? oh, and only the herb one ok? thanks. oh, and about 6 pieces, thanks.'

and proceeded on with her meal.

so after polishing off our meal, datin su wanted to dip her bread in the carbonara sauce lining the plate. which was a lot. so, polish, polish, dip, dip. and this waiter comes along.

'are you done with your meal? can i clear the plate?'

and datin su goes.

'no. i still want the sauce. no you can't have the plate'

and there we were with our jaws on the floor while she sits there blissfully dipping her bread.

'what? he's a junior from my school. i know him. it's ok wann...'

hahahahahaha....it was so cute. and 3 different waiters came over at different times trying to clear the plate and datin kept going, no, no, no annnnnd no. at least not until she completely cleaned the plate from all the carbonara sauce. hahaha....

so after lunch, we walked around 1u and noticed kids holding helium filled balloons. so we all had the same thought at once. LET'S GET BALLOONS!

we located the store giving out the free balloons and patiently waited in line, behind all the little children that only came up to about our knees. well, not all of us, more like lydia and datin. and after obtaining the balloons, off we went to a corner and starting sucking up the helium. what for? i hear you say? well, we wanted to see if sucking it would really make our voices squeeky high like how it is in the movies. AND IT DOES!!!! hahahaha...it was so funny!

suck, suck, suck....squeek squeek squeek. took some videos and will post them up soon.

guys are dustbins. literally. you open them, chuck something you don't want inside (preferably food) and they're happy, i'm happy, everybody's peachy keen. so last night mum cooked a bit too much food for a meeting she was having. i walked down to get a drink of water and she asked...

'wen, are any of your guy friends coming over tonight?'

hmmm..it was about 10pm and she was asking me if i had guy friends coming oveR? hmm..she must be desperate to get rid of the food. so who else do i call? tong sampah man! i.e. mr. wong wei jin. my kitty was already coming over but he had eaten a bit too much for dinner so, his tong sampah was already quite full. so 2nd backup was tong sampah man. an sms and a short explanation later and he was anxiously misscalling my phone to say he's arrived and raring to have a go at the food.

it's amazing watching guys eat. they just shovel it in. they don't seem to chew, don't seem to appreciate, don't seem to taste. they just bite, pat it down with their tongue a bit and swallow. of course with the exception of my kitty lar. he tastes everything and then compliments me. hehehe...but tong sampah man...wah...watch him eat, your jaw will drop in wonder. when he runs out of steam for a bit, he pauses, and minutes later he's back, full force.

i wonder if i can't get my dogs to eat their food will he come.....

i'm getting tired of my hairstyle. sarah and su-ann both have funky hairstyles now. maybe i should get mine done too. but according to kitty, he'll hear no end of it since i'll be bitching about it if it doesn't turn out nice. i have half my friends saying i should keep wearing it short, while the other half says i should leave it long again. ok, well, not half and half. more like sarah thinks i look better with short hair and zk thinks i should grow it long again. how did all this come about you're wondering? well, i was in sarah's room the other day and i saw a pic of her, suling and me taped to her wall. it was a pic of us during our IMU CF camp in port dickson. in it we all had long hair and geeky glasses. and whoaaa...my hair was super long. like almost covering my boobs and i was like...

'siiiiiiiigh....i miss my long hair.'

so after like...thinking and thinking and thinking, i've decided it's make or break time. should i cut it now, or should i continue to leave it long. so, i'm gonna let you all decide for me. i'm gonna start a poll. do you think i should cut it or leave it long. let me know. by the end of this month, which is only another 2 days, i'll do something to my hair or do nothing to it depending on the outcome of this poll. happy polling....

it's 12.40am. HAPPY BIRTHDAY ZHAO KANG AND KUNG FU HSU! you've reached 22 years. another good 60 years to go. FOR SURE! hahaha...just got back, well...not really just got back, more like got back about an hour ago from a steamboat birthday dinner at zhao's place. ate till wanna vomit. hahaha...means there was a lot of food. and of all things, we had porridge. yeah. porridge. apparently they wanted to try to make the steamboat porridge like this restaurant is doing in sri petaling. unfortunately, the porridge was cooked in a slow cooker and hence it's name. it cooked very slowly. so we had white, plain, tasteless, odourless porridge with soya sauce, onion oil and pepper. of course when all the food was cooked we just added it all in. so all in all, it was good.

am feeling extremely tired and was complaining about my aching feet when i left the lab when i turned on the tv and lo and behold, there was a documentary on chinese feet binding. right. irony to bite me in the butt. here i am complaining how my BIG feet were aching and there on the tv are some 80+ year old women who had to go through the arduous torture of binding their feet when they were little children. all for the sake of beauty. but to be totally honest, there isn't any beauty at all in it. it looks really ugly and deformed. the final look is a foot which has only one pointed toe. the rest are all cruelly and painfully curled under the foot and has basically been welded together through years of binding. it looks horrible. trust me. won't post pictures cause it'll be too gory and graphic. yuck. i'm here shuddering at the very thought of it. of course after the show i was extremely grateful for my huge feet.

imagine being 5 years old and having your feet bound. no running around. no playing with friends. heck, not even be able to walk properly without screaming out in pain. these old women literally totter now. they can't run and they can't walk fast. they need a walking stick just to get by. and imagine it being thought to be a symbol of beauty. do you know that they only wash their feet once ever 5-6 days? imagine the stench and all the dried up skin. urgh!! gruesome!

ok ok...change topic. on another note. sarah won the 24 challenge. first time being held in malaysia and she and ven gee (her cousin) won! woohoo...congratulations sarah. and i just wanna say, I WAS ROOTING FOR YOU ALL THE WAY!!

congrats again girl. and you looked gorgeous in your photos. and su-ann cut her hair super short. go ask her to show you the pic. can't simply post up. later she complain the pic not nice. should have seen her just now. when wanna take pic had to find correct spot to show off her new hair. hahahah...

*snooooore*

*scratches ear*

*briiiit briiiiit briiiiit*

*grunt* huh? whaa???

my hand whips out to smack the alarm clock and it promptly shuts up. i blearily open my eyes and squint at it nastily. 8.15. sigh. time to get up. i know i know. 8.15 doesn't seem very early in the morning to be getting up, but if you have 2-3 am nights like me, trust me, it's early. and pray tell why am i waking up so early in the morning? lab work. what else. sigh...i drag myself outta bed and shuffle into the toilet. and i know what you're thinking. images of me scratching my butt and yawning widely is flashing through your head now. BUT NO! i do NOT scratch my butt on the way to the toilet in the mornings. yawn, occasionally. but scratching definitely not. so, as i was saying, i shuffle into the toilet, do my early morning toilet business, you know, brush teeth, wash face, shower, etc. etc. etc....

by the time i'm done, it's 8.40. time to get ready for uni. i open my cupboard. what to wear, what to wear, what to wear? sigh...i need to go shopping. my clothes are all starting to look very old. so after a surprisingly short time in front of the cupboard, i decided what to wear. time: 9.06. now it's time to put on my face. sigh....i can never leave without putting on foundation, powder, blusher, eyeliner and just recently, mascara. oh...and of course not forgetting lipstick. what? you think i look this beautiful all the time? hahaha...gotcha fooled. so anyway, i managed to get my lashes to curl rEeeeaAaalllly nicely today. hehehe...big accomplishment since i've got the world's shortest eyelashes. time: 9.27.

ok. time to go. i glance quickly around my room to see if i'm forgetting anything. phone. check. wallet. check. sony mp3. check. slides. check. file. check. sunglasses. double check. (cannot forget my super gaya sunglasses) and i'm off.

i slide into my car and put it into reverse. i exit my house and begin my journey, only to be confronted with....JAM. WAT THE....? at 9.35 in the morning?? there's jam? this cannot be happening. anyway, to cut a long story short, i'm now in uni, typing this latest post in the postgraduate room, with a whole bunch of workers renovating the room peering over at me, wondering what i'm doing there. hmm...i think i should be leaving now. my slides are about done boiling and the men are starting to unnerve me.

i'm back...yup...you heard me right. i'm back and i'm ready to go. most of you must have been wondering why i kinda went MIA for a bit. well, it's a long story. but as most long stories, go, they don't really have sad endings, so....here i am...again.

phew...it's been quite an age since i last blogged eh? even with the old one i never really updated much. but i promise, it'll all change.

you must also be wondering, why am i starting up a blog again? well, it's been brought to my attention that i've been somewhat neglecting my friends and haven't been keeping up to breast to what has been going on in their lives. and by doing so, i'm not being a very good friend. nope. so, i've started up my blog again to keep myself from lapsing back into that rut. how? you may ask. well, by blogging, i'm forced to read other people's blog to see what's going on. because if i don't read other people's blogs, then who's gonna read mine? right? RIGHT? RIGHT? of course i'm right.

so, without further ado, here we go.

how has my life been the past few months? hmmm...good questions. well, i've been juggling between going to HKL, going to IMU-RL (research lab), spending time with my kitty and of course, trying to write up my thesis. all's going well except the thesis. haven't gotten round to getting it started. must be my procrastinator gene in me kicking into play. which is odd since my parents SWEAR by the holy book that they never EVER procrastinate. so where did i get this gene...hmm? i dunno. maybe some dormant gene that is only passed down to the granddaughter of my grandfather who's great-grandauntie 3 times removed from china, passed it down to her son's son who passed it down through his wife to his niece from the other side of the world. i dunno. i'm not making any sense. why? i dunno.

so, that's all for now. i must say i'm quite glad to be back to blogging. no. really. i am. can't you see i'm leaping and hopping with joy? jolly good.