Beautifully Imperfect.

I am smelling the air of freedom and non-existent classes and exams. Hee!

Quick, quick update on what I've been doing thus far:

Sleeping. You just cannot get enough of this after exams. I'm paying my pillow back for all the lost hours of sleep. It has missed me dearly.

Precious TV time. One Tree Hill. Grey's Anatomy. Both of which have amazing new seasons. Should go watch. I'm trying to burn OTH for you, Mary and Suki, but there's something wrong with my craptulent CD burner. Healing Hands III! Heh. Amazing Race. I'm going to try to download Veronica Mars and Prison Break because everyone tells me it's oh-so-fantastic, but we'll see, because I'm kinda running out of disk space.

Buddies. I have missed hanging out with everyone so much. I spent over three hours just sitting with Siokkwan at a mamak and catching up with just about everything under the sun. How many people can you just sit with for a long, long time and still not run out of things to say? (Don't roll your eyes and say that I could never run out of things to say, okay? Heh. I can, too.)And then, we went out after that with Jo and Mary and Nick, got a couple of beers and just chilled. I'm going to miss little things like this if I go to Australia next year.

More buddies. Caught up with Sharmo, Manda, Karen and Mun Fong a few days after that. We went to watch this play at KLPAC. It's called 'The Odd Couple' and it stars Bernie Chan, Samantha Schubert and Elaine Daly, and a few other people which I'm ignorantly unaware of in the Malaysian performing arts scene. If you haven't been to KLPAC, it's actually a very pretty place. It's in the Sentul Park, which is a really gorgeous big landscaped park. It was raining, or else there would be pictures, but really, go check it out. It's really gorgeous at night, all lighted up. The insides of the centre is really pretty as well, very cost-minimal (words out of Mun Fong, the Limkokwing design student, so you know it's correct-lah) and very modern-looking.



I enjoy watching plays and musicals and stuff like this, so it was good to be able to go. It was just okay, IMO. The ending was just rather strange, and abrupt, and could have been different, I suppose. Elaine Daly was rather good, I must say. And before you look at the poster and think 'oh, how lesbo-looking', let me clarify and say that it's not! LOL.

Karaoke. Zhen Han, Mel, Bryan and I left straight to Pyramid after the Law paper for lunch. Went to this place, whose name kinda eludes me right now, but they have really good authentic Indian food. Almost like the stuff I had in India. Atmosphere's quite good. Comfy cushions and water running down one wall, and invert-comma salt and pepper shakers. Heh. Don't ask. Met up with Aaron after that and we went to Red Box. I have converted these people into Red Box lovers. Hee. We are a muhibah bunch. Everyone sings English songs. Zhen Han and Aaron can sing Mandarin songs. I sing Malay songs. Mel sings Japanese songs. Bryan, to round things up, put on some Bollywood song. LMAO. So, on the 2nd of November, there were five sesat people geleng-ing our heads to some Hindi song called 'Hey Brother!'. Omg. Hilarious stuff. The best songs to sing in a karaoke are the old school type though. You know, Backstreet Boys, Westlife, Spice Girls, Boyzone, stuff like that. Singalong classics. Everyone knows those. This time it was Aaron's turn to solo (When he wasn't too busy looking at the pictures behind the words, that it. you know what I mean!), because Darren was still having exams. :D

Clubbing. Went to let loose in Maison's after our last paper. It was like a Monash reunion there, let me tell you. Saw Pohyee, Caryn and gang outside, and inside we met Shawn, Kar Wai, Joy and more Monash people. Met Diane and Eugene, who was having his 19th birthday on that day, there too. And a lot of other familiar faces. Always seem to bump into Diane at clubs, actually, come to think of it. =P Awesome fun. It always is. Ladies night too. Came home, bathed, and just collapsed.

Babysitting. Little Amelia is so adorable. Her hair's grown longer, so it's not as spiky as before, and is all curly and pretty now. Hee. Have been playing board games with the boys. Their favourite is 'Who's the Boss', which a little like Monopoly. I don't think they quite mastered the whole idea of giving money and receiving change.

Me: Okay, you give me 50, 000, so I have to give you back 5,000, okay, Joshua?
Joel: Yerr, why Joshua so good one? Give money and can get back money one?
Me: (goes into a long-assed explanation about change)

*ten minutes later*

Joel: Nah, Wen Kor. 30,000.
Me: But it's only 10,000, boy. (tries to take 10,000 dollar note from him)
Joel: Dowanlah. Give you this one, because I want to get back money. So good.
Me: -_-"

*goes on until my bank runs out of small change*

Entertaining, I tell you.

*

My dad is being anal about letting me use the car. I don't understand why. I had a huge fight with him that other night over driving. Why is it that he doesn't let me take the car out? Why is it that he doesn't let me drive to college? He always gives me lame-assed excuses about needing the car, or some other crap and it's honestly bullshit. My sister has this theory about him wanting to still be involved in my life, and him possibly feeling left out or something like that. I mean, I can try to understand that. I have possibly a lot of freedom when it comes to going out compared to a number of people, but all I'm asking for is the ability to get around myself sometimes. During the freaking day. I'm not even asking to drive at midnight, because I know my mother will be worried sick. Just in the day. I'm tired of asking people to give me lifts here and there. I feel bad for always hitching rides from Jo, Ching, Siokkwan, Sharm, Manda, Zhen Han, Darren and everyone else. I feel bad, and I'm sorry.

*

I am a dork... because it isn't even mid-November and I'm already in the Christmas mood. Heh. Listening to Christmassy songs make me all happy. Let me spread the joy with some songs; uploaded some Christmas songs by some mainstream & indie artists.

Copeland - Do You Hear What I Hear
Jack Johnson - Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer
Avril Lavigne & Chantal Kreviazuk - O Holy Night
Bright Eyes - Blue Christmas
Eisley - The Christmas Song
Mandy Moore - Walking In a Winter Wonderland
Ron Sexsmith - Maybe This Christmas
Low - Just Like Christmas
The Used - Alone This Holiday
Emery - The Last Christmas
Plain White T's - Seasons of a Lifetime
Leona Naess - Christmas
Kelly Clarkson - O Holy Night
The Ravonettes - The Christmas Song
Barenaked Ladies & Sarah McLachlan - Christmas Medley
Smashing Pumpkins - Christmas Time
Aly & AJ - The First Noel
Aly & AJ - We Three Kings
Eve 6 - Noel
Relient K – I Celebrate the Day
Sufjan Stevens - We Three Kings
Dandy Warhols - Little Drummer Boy
Dido - Christmas Day
Jewel - Hark! the Herald Angels Sing
Sixpence None the Richer - It Came Upon the Midnight Clear
Something Corporate – Forget Christmas
Death Cab For Cutie - Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)
Hem - Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas
Gavin DeGraw - Silver Bells
Gavin DeGraw - Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas
Jimmy Eat World – Last Christmas
The Perishers – Blue Christmas
Tyler Hilton – Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas
Rachael Yamagata – River
U2 – Christmas (Please Come Home)
Keane - White Christmas
Matthew Ryan - Little Drummer Boy
Fall Out Boy - Yule Shoot Your Eye Out
Coldplay - Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas
Sense Field - Happy Christmas (War Is Over)
Switchfoot - Evergreen
Vanessa Carlton - Greensleeves
Eels - Everything's Gonna Be Cool This Christmas
Sheryl Crow - Run Rudolph Run
Sheryl Crow - Blue Christmas
Phantom Planet - Winter Wonderland
Jimmy Eat World - 12.23.95
Pilate - Fairytale in New York
Jack's Mannequin - The Lights and Buzz
Belle and Sebastian - O Come, O Come Emmanuel
Snow Patrol - When I Get Home For Christmas
Rooney - Merry Xmas Everybody

Sarah McLachlan also has a gorgeous Christmas album out called Wintersong. Try getting it.

*
Till next, Wen loves you. =)

Haven't blogged in so long, so I figured that my next blog post should be on the first day of the New Year. First of all, a very very very awesome-licious [this new word is courtesy of Ms. Lee Man Teng] super-tastic 2006! We had a good 2005, and hopefully a better '06, aight?

Okay, I haven't blogged since Christmas, so it would be totally wrong not to write about one of the last events of 2005, so here it is.

Instead of a white Christmas, Malaysians everywhere had a wet Christmas, because it just wouldn't quit raining. Went to church in the morning, and I loved it as usual. I love Christmas hymns, and the choirs and the lovely decorations. And most of all because we're celebrating the birth of dear Jesus Christ. That's one reason; another is that Christmas is one of the few times that my entire family actually gets to spend time together, and that's great. We're all usually so busy with our own things, that we don't sit down and have a meal together. I've got college, my siblings with work, the kids with kindergarten.


Our puny Christmas tree surrounded by a truckload of pressies. Mostly for the kids. *pout* But I'm a kid too!

Big big big thank you to Mary's dad and mum who treated us to a great buffet lunch at the Grand Season's Hotel. How many rounds did we go? A lot. Jo sapu-ed almost a whole plateful of lala. There was a lot of good food; turkey, a huge array of cakes, mousse, ice-cream, etc [As you can probably tell, I'm a dessert person]. We sat around feeling incredibly bloated for a pretty long time, feeling like humongous pigs.


Us girls.


Jo, Mary and Sioki. Siokkwan looks extra happy because she just glared at some small kid. Evil woman.


See those satisfied smiles?

The six of us had previously drawn lots to see who we had to buy Christmas gifts for. I bought Ching a shirt; Mary got me six pairs of earrings [!] and a beautiful choker. Oh, and Siokkwan bought this really funny book for Jo, it's called 'How To Be an Action Superhero', or something like that. Lol. It's pretty funny, a little crappy, but funny all the same. It teaches you [or rather, it teaches Jo] how to make a love potion, how to dirty dance, how to trap a thief and things like that. To make a love potion, Jo would have to collect two cups of rain water, amongst other things. Haha. People, stay away from Jo. He has that book, now.


After lunch with bigger tummies. Sigh.


Another pic.


Mary's shot at a self-taken pic. Not bad considering we managed to get six big heads into one shot. =P


In Jo's Atos on the way home.

Rushed home to prepare for my family's annual dinner, where each one of the girls [my two sis-in-laws, my sis and me] prepare one course each for the dinner. We were joking that next year we should make the guys cook. Hah! Mine as usual was dessert. Baked chocolate cake this year, and served it with hot chocolate sauce and vanilla ice-cream. Slurp. Ate somemore during dinner and felt even more bloated. I practically ate my way through Christmas! Mannnn.


The four chefs of the night with the feast laid out before us.


Fruits and flowers. Mmmmm. Aren't they beautiful?


Family pic. Everyone's secretly dying to dig into the food already.

Got loads of lovely gifts. New purple Ipanema slippers from Ching, more earrings and accessories, and a few tops for the new year. Presents make me a very happy lil girl.

Fast forward a few days, and we're at New Year's Eve. We went to the Curve this year for their street party: Jo, Siokkwan, Suki, Drew, Mary, Xue, Ching, Ming and I. Went to Secret Recipe's for dinner because our booking at TGIFs didn't get through, and anyway TGIFs didn't have their ala carte menu for the night, so their cheapest set dinner would've been a freaking RM 69.90. Had dinner while Mary and Wenxue tried their best not to argue be bitter with each other until the new year. Lol. It was an achievement.


Ching and Ming on the way to the Curve during the jam in Xue's car.


Drew and the two SKs during dinner.


Jo and Mary.

Left Secret Recipe's to go out to the celebration. It was still dristling, but that didn't stop a lot of people from going to the stage with umbrellas. Seriously. Not us, though. Lol. We waited for the rain to stop, and then went forward. Frequency Cannon was playing at that time, I think. They're pretty good. The standard of Malaysian music acts is slowly rising, at least.


The view from the steps while we were waiting. Lol.


Me, Siok Kwan and Mary.


Me and Jo. Sigh, his complexion is nicer than mine.

Bumped into Rica, Nicole and Cyndi near the stage, and then later Ping and Josh(plus his sister and her friend), and (after what seemed like ages of us holding up our arms trying to let them know where we were in the crowd) Sheng and Andrew. ALL of us were holding up our arms and waving to no one in particular, trying to get their attention for the LONGEST ever time. And then holding up our cameras and flash-ing randomly [Xue and Drew had to keep on putting up the cameras and snapping because they had the longest limbs amongst us all. Hee hee. Xue is Jar Jar Binks, after all]. Finally, Sheng found us about an hour later with the help of my handphone. [Yes Sheng, now we're even! Or else you couldn't have countdown-ed with us.] It was like a Taman Sea reunion. We screamed like mad and deafened the people in front of us. So, slowly, they moved to let us through and we made our way to the front of the stage. Mwahahahahahaha. We are all experienced campfire and installation screamers. Mary was the champion screamer, I tell you. *shakes head* Do not mess with us.


This is how near we got to the stage as a result of screaming. Yeah, we're good.


Cam-whoring while we were waiting for Zainal Abidin to come out. *shuddddders* He didn't come out in the end. Phew. Goodness knows where he went, but that's okay. I don't really wanna know.


Sweet innocent smiles. Ehehe. Not while we're cursing the people who spray-ed us and the weird dancers, right? =P


Half me, Mary and three-quarters of Jo.


Jo and us girls.


Drew, Xue, Ching and Rica. The guys look bored, lol. The light was behind me, so the pic turned out this way.


Mary and I.


Rica, Nicole on the phone giving directions to Ping, Cyndi and Sioki.


Sookies and Jo.


Me, Mary, Suki and Jo.


Ching and me. I think we have one pic like this almost every special event.


The light's behind the camera in this one, but somehow I like the effect.


There's Mary's new obsession guy, Vince on the screen. Lol. Sorry Mary, didn't get any good shots of him. But I have to say, he looks way better in person, sounds really good live, and is a really good entertainer. Mary (after his performance): He's mine, ahhhhhhh!


Nicholas Teo, singing. He sounded pretty good too.


Him again.


*Squeals* Pop Shuvit! Pop Shuvit! Ahhhhhhhh! I screamed myself hoarse. Too bad their drummer's way at the back. Sigh.


More Pop Shuvit.


And more.


And more, of course!

To potong steam after Pop Shuvit's superb performance, Ella came out. Ugh. Her voice is good, but oh my bleeping goodness, she's so slutty-looking. Trying to be cute, running her fingers through her hair again and again. Yuck. And then there was Ferhad, who sounds a little like Aaron Carter at times, and scarily like Diana Ross at other times. Ass. He kept on telling the crowd to reach out, and feel and touch others, because it's the New Year's. Uh-huh.


Countdown-ing!


First pic of 2006!

And then the fireworks came! Wheeeee. I'm such a little kid. I LURVE fireworks. I watch them and literally go ooh-ing and aah-ing. So gorgeous. Somehow the fireworks looked a whole lot better when I was little, but I guess you're easily amazed when you're a kid-lah, right?


Check the fireworks out.








And after all the explosions and bang-bang-booms, they told us to turn around to witness the biggest fireworks in Malaysia. So we turned around and saw...


(Supposedly) the biggest fireworks in Malaysia. Errrrr, okay? Lol. The ones we had earlier were way bigger, thank you very much.

Reshmonu came out after the fireworks and sang a few songs, that was fun. Dancin'. Partyin'. And getting knocked by this bunch of really weird people dancing, their jackets inside-out and with their elbows in the air and all. Ping calls it their 'rasa sayang' style. Lmao. Hee hee. And urgh, I hate that snow-spray in a bottle shit. It stinks. Some arses were dousing us with tons of it.

It took us about an hour to get out of the Tesco parking lot, where Jo successfully, skillfully maneuvered an-almost 300 degrees in his own parking place to zoom out and drive against the traffic. Whoa. Skill, Jo! Ask me to tell you the story when you see me, because I have no idea how to put it in words here. It's too amazing. Lol. Okay, before Jo totally inflates-slash-kembang, we must also all thank Andrew for being the other hero and getting out of the car to move the dustbin and trolley to give Jo enough space to do his magic, and also walking around the parking lot to see which exit we should go to. Our first adventure of the New Year's.

Went off to Mosin becuase Williams was too packed. Sigh. Was dying for a Ribena Longan after all that crazy screaming. Met up with some others over there, and also walked over to Williams for a short while to see some old classmates. Saw Andrea there too.

After more chit-chatting, got a ride home from Xue. Bathed, washed my hair and got whatever snow-spray that had gotten into it, and collapsed into bed at about 4 a.m.

What an eventful first day of 2006, seriously. Crazy ladies [plus a few guys] nite out. If the rest of the year's gonna be like this, I'll need to stop and catch my breath first. =P

More reenactments of our crazy night out: Sheng's blog and Nic's blog.

All the pics will be up very very soon at my Multiply site, so go there to curi whatever you want that's not here. =P

Till then, happy new year! xoxoxo Loadsa lurve, from..ME!

You'll never guess how we spent our Christmas Eve. Seriously.

Okaaaaay. First of all, we've been planning to do something for Christmas Eve, but we had no idea what. All sorts of ideas popped up, i.e. potluck dinner, trip to Kuala Selangor, trip to Ipoh, pizza party, Christmas-cookie baking session.

Well, none of those happened. We ended up at FRIM. Yeah, the forest reserve, FRIM. The one which we used to read about in our Geography textbooks back in Form 3.

They all came over to my place first last night before we went out for dinner. As usual, the kids took them for human playgrounds, and literally climbed up and all over them. Haha.


Sioki and Josh, Jo and Joel, Drew and Aaron, and Suki.

Then, went off to Williams and had dinner, where Suki had very close encounters with the flying bugs in her mashed potato sauce. Dinner was a debate about where to go and what to do for Christmas Eve. Forty-five minutes later, and two Ribena Longans later, we finally decided to picnic at Frim. Off we went to Tesco in Mutiara Damansara to get all our picnic supplies. Bought about seven packets of chips, a loaf of bread, potatoes, chocolates, chicken, eggs and a whole load of other unhealthy junk.


Drew was left stranded at our place, so in return for a ride, he had to help us shred chicken for the sandwiches. And he wasn't even going for our picnic. Fella had to go back to Melaka. Ladies, look at the dude who can also cut it as a chicken-shredder. =P

Went home to boil eggs, and prepare the filling for sandwiches so I wouldn't have to wake up at the crack of dawn. Off we went with all our food, badminton rackets, and old newspaper to sit on. Road trip, wheeeee. Okay, not exactly a road trip, but good enough.

At the entrance of FRIM before going up to the waterfalls.

Bert sitting amidst the newspapers which he so proudly arranged.


Next Malaysian badminton gold medallist in the making.

What do you think? Candid shot, or a pose by a poser? Lol.

Many badminton shots later [plus some Shaolin badminton moves courtesy of Sukkwan], we decided we were hungry and finally sat down for some food. Egg sandwiches by me, chicken sandwiches by Ching, potato salad by Jo, nuggets by Siokkwan, drinks from Sukkwan and an appetite from Albert. Hehe.


Our version of picnic food.


Chow down, people.

We forgot to freeze the little jellies that we bought the previous night, so Ching wanted to dip the entire packet into the cold water there. Didn't really work, but somehow, eating the jellies in the water, barefooted; it seemed to taste better. Lol.


Mary, me and Ching. First touch of the feet to the cold water.


All dry. Not for long, though.


Candid shot. That's me, messing around =P


Jo and Mary.


Me: Hey, do some funny poses.
Ching: Okay, Albert, do a pose-lah, and then we'll all follow you.
*So, look at the result of the posing. LMAO! *Note to self: Do not ever say that to Albert.


Us, all nice and dry before our water games.

Okay, before you see anymore crazy pics, I'd better explain our game. Jo brought a sepak takraw ball, which was our sole entertainment for the day, surprisingly. Here's how it went: Only five of us who wanted to play, Jo, Bert, Siok Kwan, Mary and I stood in a circle. The sepak takraw ball gets tossed around and around and around, until someone fails to catch it. The person who can't catch it, or drops it, gets splashed! Lol. Ahhhhh. That was really fun. We were like little kids, attracting all the stares of the people trekking past us. But who cares? We had loads of fun, ganging up against Albert. *insert evil laughter here* We were all drenched wet. And the video recording of us playing is damn funny. And we didn't even realise that so much time had flew by. We were splashing around until about 1 p.m. while Ching and Sukkwan were higher up at our picnic spot 'sunbathing'. They were lying down on their backs, in a sunbathing position. Only that there was no sun. Lol.

After some improvisation, we came up with a new game. First, we set a category, and then the ball got tossed around. Everytime you caught the ball, you had to name something from the category. That was hilarious, really. If you can't, you get splashed. You can imagine how soaked we were by the end of the day.

Jo: Okay, let's name songs. English ones, only.

[Everyone agrees]

Jo: [Catches ball] Feelings. [Throws ball to Siokkwan]

Siokkwan: [Catches ball] Er. No Feelings. [Gets splashed]

[Few minutes later]

Jo: [Catches ball] Gone with the Wind [Throws ball to Siokkwan]

Siokkwan: [Catches ball] Erm, Gone with the Sun? [Gets splashed]

[Another few minutes later]

Me: [Catches ball] Chariot. [Throws ball to Siokkwan]

Siokkwan: [Catches ball and answers quickly] Chariot Remix! [Yes, she gets splashed again.]

Haha. We had a good laugh. Seriously.


Us, after all our silly games, trying to be creative. Oh well.


And our after-shot. All wet, drenched and soaked.


Christmas Eve in FRIM? Who would have thought? At least we finally got our picnic. We'd all been planning a picnic since August, but thanks to Wei Soon *ahem*, it got postposed all the time. So finally we got our picnic, without you, Wei Soon! Lol. It's okay, it was so much fun, we'll go again when you're back.

In the meantime, here's wishing everyone of you a blessed Christmas and a Happy New Year! May the good Lord bless you! =)