the year to date

Just a slighly more sane little update of sorts (after the wisdom tooth rant) to fill in the 6-month void in blogposts :-D. After the Year of the Major Musical (which swept four awards at the 2006 Cameronian Arts Awards), didn't join Tunku The Musical this year, but did get involved in a variety of other musical excursions. View photos taken at a recent concert of German songs here. The Phil (refer also to the blog) has started having monthly Movie Nites.

And, speaking of movies, Transformers premiered in Malaysia on June 28th, a week before the official release in the US (now ain't that cool). The show has probably revived the car-sticker/decal business (Autobot car sticker - guilty as charged!), and has had grown men lining up for toys (grown women, too).

In other news, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix premieres this Thursday. But more importantly, have you booked your copy of the seventh instalment of the boy wizard's adventures? :)

Surrealism is..

.. doing up a website in a language you aren't terribly familiar with. especially if it isn't romanised. in particular, the Chinese version of the English site I had recently finished designing for a client. Sure, I've been given a bunch of text and instructions on what to cut-n-paste and where, but my forgotten knowledge of Chinese characters is rather limited to start with and to be honest, I don't know what most of the stuff given to me means, and obviously they assumed i did. (for all you know they're saying "we're never wrong. any errors on this website are the responsibility of the web designer who worked on this Chinese version of the site, who, by the way, doesn't know Chinese".) that's what you get for being a banana*. well at least I know enough about the strokes in Chinese characters to make informed comparisons to ensure consistency within the site.. but I seriously need to re-learn Mandarin, properly...

Speaking of learning. I wanna learn the drums too. (Empress is gonna lecture me for this :-D)

*Person of Chinese origin who doesn't know Chinese (Bananas - white on the outside, yellow on the inside!)

Of Recordings and Resurfacings

We will be recording the songs from Broken Bridges for a double-disc CD to be on sale during the run of the musical (Aug 19 - Sept 3). While the Ipoh 'field trip' to check out the places and types of food we've been singing and talking about has been cancelled (for this), it looks like we're still having a feast anyway - we'll be having a potluck of sorts for breakfast, elevenses, lunch and tea of healthy food (i.e. no chocolates, curry, chilli, PINEAPPLE LUMPS and anything else that may result in a cacophony of croaking). Will probably bring some Raisin au Fromage if I have the time to go grocery-shopping today. (Cheese isn't banned, right? :P)

Oh yes... TICKETS ARE ON SALE already for the musical... more info coming up on that!

In other news, the maid has rearranged the study room during our 2-week absence (with the best of intentions, of course; nobody can face the sight of a hurricane aftermath and not do anything about it), and I can't find a lot of things now (I have a photographic memory of where I put things and it's horrible when I can't find something I knew I placed *right there* a few days ago). On the bright side, things I've not seen for a long time have resurfaced.. like this photo of me and Form 3 classmates on an afternoon of gallavanting in the Lake Gardens (though I can't remember the reason we were there!) (Guess which is me.) I know at least three in the photo are married, at least one is in Singapore.. Wonder where everyone else is!

Wanted: Cure for Sore Throat

'Tis the season again.

It absolutely plagues and cripples you. You can't sleep, you don't feel like speaking, and you won't have an appetite even for the most tantalising of gastronomic feasts.

Have been drinking honey lemon (2 teaspoonfuls of Manuka honey in water, with 3 slices of lemon) the whole day and that seems to have been a great help. Well, at least the zesty lemon taste helps.

Woe to sore throats!

did you forget to feed your parking meter today?

today is a public holiday in KL.

today is NOT a public holiday in Selangor!

being PJ-dwellers and KL-workers, we forgot that the poor Selangoreans (or Selangorites, or perhaps Selangorees..) have to go to work today, and that the MPPJ officers could therefore be feeling mean today and decide to go on a parking-ticket-giving rampage on poor KLites who thought it was a holiday and forgot to put 60 cents in the pay-n-display machines. (got caught early this morning when we headed out for breakfast in Sec 14. fortunately we got the lower fine of 30 bucks as opposed to the (is it 300?) cos we happened to have a bunch of old tickets left on the windscreen - due to that the offence was categorised as "displaying expired ticket" instead of "no ticket displayed". thank God for loopholes, ha ha.)

so all ye gallavanting in merry Selangor today, DON'T FORGET to pay your parking, lah.

lazy tuesday afternoon

it was real hot and humid out there, and the bag of apples i bought 2 weeks ago would be making cider in the fridge if i didn't do anything about it, so i made an exotic (or so i think) drink out of red apples and ginger, topped with a stick of lemongrass (bruised on the thick end) and a bit of lemon juice. it actually tastes quite good, there's a refreshing whiff of lemongrass and a tangy lemon aftertaste.. except that i think i overdid the ginger (my throat is now seething with heat), and unless you're into sour drinks, a bit of syrup may come in handy.

i'd take a snapshot of a glass of the potent potion and post it up but i can't remember where exactly the camera is after the moving-of-stuff-around over the last week in preparing for the festivities..

speaking of which, i'd better start packing up the stuff i need to move over to the new digs. there isn't much pressure to pack quickly cos the two places are 10 minutes apart in good traffic.. nevertheless i think some stuff HAS to go over today.. since i'll have to get out of the post-vacation vegetation state and do some real work soon :-)

me the nomad.

oh, so you're a lawyer! great, cos my mind is bursting with legal questions on my rental agreement, my sister's marriage and my company's HR policies!

one of the irritating things about being qualified in my field of work is when random persons you meet ask you for your thoughts on something 'legal'. and because they expect you to be well-versed with law in general, they don't quite understand when you say you're not familiar with that particular area and that you will need to check/can recommend them someone who is.

many legal issues involve a lot of common sense. sometimes when you respond logically to queries on such issues, you get the skeptical "are you really a lawyer? i expected legal jargon from you but you seem to think like a regular person" look.

on the other hand, there are also some who think lawyers are gods, and will listen and take notes on every single word that you say, even asking you to pause so they can write it down (presumably so that they can repeat it later to impress the party they are having a dispute with). you could be spouting nonsense and they will take it as the gospel truth. it's like you actually wield a power to set people's minds at ease. what a huge responsibility.

a flash of orange

i was on my way back home today when i saw it.. between the frantically darting wiper blades in the heavy torrential rain.. there it was ... the EXACT same school bus i took to school close to 20 years ago, still plying the dangerous tar pits of kay ell! wow, it's still roadworthy after all these years!

cogito, ergo sum

woo hoo! here comes the feeling of helplessness again..

ages ago, it was the trepidation of having to move back to highlighters and reams of notepaper; the utter disbelief that i was leaving a job to become a student again.

that time is now over. before long, we will all be each going our own way again. a bunch of people brought together by diverse circumstances, being released once again into the whirlpool of the rat race.

thinking of it on a larger scale, it's strange how life revolves around having to work for a living. and how knowledge gained is supposed to be translated to gains in your coffers via (the anticipation of) a higher wage earned. and all that to turn the cogs and wheels of the economy. economies. countries. world peace. strange how the world works.

things almost always don't quite make sense when you try and put them in perspective through the macro, big-picture lens. it all boils down to.. hey you! you're just a tiny, rather insignificant, dot on the surface of the earth. your doing the MBA was, ah, just a trivial part of the entire ecosystem of knowledge acquisition, a pause in the conversation before moving on to other more important things in life.. well, who knows what that might be. another chapter of your existence down, time to move on with Life, the Universe, and Everything [with apologies to Douglas Adams!].

well, all in all, i would say that it's been a fulfilling experience. wish it could go on, but unfortunately one can't be a student forever :-D.

can't place a finger on it. was it the whole freedom-of-being-a-student-again thing? or the camaraderie and working with fun people? all of the above?

heck, i'll probably even miss the surreal drives down to the faraway campus. - surreal cos the kajang SILK highway is such a vast expanse of tar on each side and SO EMPTY that you practically have the whole road to yourself.. wonderful to blast music to..

well, thanks for the journey, all you wonderful people in it. anyone up for a PhD? hahaha, sorry. couldn't resist that.. ;-D

and life goes on..

what did you do after you finished your final exams (of whatever)?

post-UPSR:
am afraid i don't recall, haha! probably a case of mom and dad finally saying 'ok, you can watch tv now', or 'ok you can get back to the computer games now'...

post-SRP (yes, not PMR, i'm old):
to be honest, i don't remember either. :-D tho i do remember the school arranging some activities between the end of the exams and the end of the school term so that the third-formers wouldn't go crazy and gallavant around town giving the school a bad name. :-D well, there was first aid, 'personal grooming' (wonder how that one went), French and .. there was something else. i took French, and i'm proud to say i can, inter alia, tell the time (tho possibly only 8:45 - i somehow only remember 'il est neuf heures moins le quart' - it is a quarter to nine) and croak a bit of Edith Piaf's La Vie En Rose (the French classes had to put up a performance at the end of it all), but, unfortunately, not be able to speak French to save my life (cos the mob will probably kill me for butchering Edith Piaf). :P

post-SPM:
bunch of us hopped on a bus and headed down to Rex (remember Rex? and its famed legend of the Japanese-era underground tunnel that connects to VI..) to watch The Lion King (2nd time for me, cos I'd already watched it between the History and English papers! heh heh!) Hakuna Matata! It means no worries.. for the rest of your days...

post-A-levels:
i think it was a dinner celebration with fellow sufferers, having one last rant about why the building management had to paint the college building pink and purple (can you guess which college it is now? :-D), hoping that England would somehow win the World Cup that year (our papers were being marked in the UK and it was right smack into World Cup season!) and being ushered to countless British university pre-departure briefings (they almost always told the same joke about rice-cookers going round the conveyor in Heathrow being a sign of Malaysian students arriving).

post-1st year undergrad:
all modules done and not a worry in the world till next year! woo hoo!

post-2nd year undergrad:
all modules done and not a worry in the world till next year! woo hoo!

post-3rd year undergrad:
entire degree done and not a worry in the world till i'll have to find a job! boo hoo!

post-postgrad:
entire degree done and i've gotta get back to my job soon! boo hoo!

evil!

last night some young punk parked his car at the side-lane next to my house and started blasting music from his car radio into the starlit sky. at midnight. first it was a malay P. Ramlee-esque tune, and then some hip-hop by Nelly.

i wasn't asleep yet, but i was trying to read something and all that Nelly was beginning to bother me after a while. even my radio couldn't drown it out. not unless i upped the volume till my room turned into a disco.

so i whipped out my halogen torchlight (which beams penetrated even thick fog in winter back in University days), walked down to the 2nd floor leaving the lights off, opened the window that overlooked the side-lane, and blasted a beam of light down onto the windscreen of the offending car. you should have seen the guy's face as he peered up into the black void into the glare of the halogen torch. i think he got the message - he turned off his radio.

the next time he decides to blast music down my tranquil side-lane at unearthly hours, i shall cover my face with my green avocado face-mask, dress in black, walk out to the side of his car, and shine my halogen torch on my face. (and maybe take a photo of his expression and paste it up onto the net for all to see!) *evil laugh*

runnin'

you know you've got a bad case of the sniffles when...

- you can't smell the freshly cooked dish of belacan & petai in front of you

- you can't hear what people around you are saying unless they turn it up a few decibels

- your pals start to fuss over you and start changing group-discussion plans to suit your fragile disposition (dang, i thought i could skive discussions for once! :-D)

- the customer service lady on the phone addresses you 'Sir'

time, and the [perceived?] lack of it

time passes very, very quickly when you're a student. and being a full-time postgraduate means...

... a lot of hours need to be put in - to start with, each lecture is 3 hours long (undergrad lectures lasted an hour). and for at least two modules we have a weekly case study to be discussed as a group (we were told not to complain because if we were in Harvard or Oxford, we'd be having two case studies per night). to add on to that, 5 out of the 6 modules have assessed coursework. so group discussions happen on a regular basis. so regular that we don't seem to have time to read up the material before a discussion comes along.

... the office will call once in a while when someone needs help on some files which i had previously handled. the first week of my sabbatical (which was also the first week of classes) was a bit of a nightmare because i kept worrying about the progress of certain files at work while trying to adjust my brain to think in a different discipline ("stakeholder" in the legal sense isn't the same as "stakeholder" in the business sense - no wonder the merchant bankers in the recent deal were confused when the legal team insisted that "protecting the interests of the stakeholders" was "too vague"!). anyway, am glad to have finally 'officially' handed over my files to the new recruit who has taken over my portfolio.

... you don't get to take advantage of the free laser printing in the office anymore... haha, just kidding... not.

... you would have thought that you'd have a more 'flexible' timetable, not realizing that the reality is that it's just a disguised version of 'irregular working hours'. i wonder how much of my list of 'possible things to do with free time' will still be done:

. teach art to kids? (still haven't gone around to checking out the nearby centre)
. teach english? (ditto)
. teach piano? (can't bring myself to sacrificing my weekends yet)
. work towards the FTCL? (this means i gotta go for classes. not for the unemployed! :-D)
. guitar? (progress: i've cleaned the case)
. violin? (progress: i've cleaned the case)
. update my website? (progress: at least i've put SOMEthing up on the 'home' page. today.)
. peddling my perceived web design skills to unsuspecting pals? (progress: a possible freelance designing job coming up! which is why i had to put SOMEthing up on the home page. sample, lah.)
. clear up room? (progress: don't ask.)
. oh yeah. wedding planning. (progress: grandma has sent me the almanac for good dates in 2005.)

... suddenly legal research and drafting legal opinions seemed so easy. it's hard to break out of what you've been used to and grown comfortable with, to venture into different fields. but that's the only way to improve, no?

... you have assessments and exams to worry about. wonder why this wasn't so apparent when i was applying for the course. :-D

in the wee small hours

things not to do at 2.40 a.m. :

#1 - drafting a publicity poster for a concert. may end up giving very strange directions to the city.

#2 - attempting to sight-read the piano part of a Christmas medley that starts "steady and soulful, with some freedom" and continues a few pages later with "hip shuffle". just waaay too early in the morning to go telling funky rhythms on the mountain, over the hills and ev'rywhere.

the sandman calls. hallelujah.

digest this!

never understood why it is that when i eat absolute rubbish at the stall at the dusty road by the grubby open drain, my tummy doesn't give two hoots about the filth entering it, but i get the worst cases of stomach upsets and virus attacks from what appear to be benign meals at hotel functions, pizza places or the neighbourhood steakhouse.

possible hypotheses:

(1) guess what? your classy hotel, favourite pizza joint and neighbourhood steakhouse may look clean, but in reality the stall by the drain is far more sanitary than their kitchens!

(2) i eat more than most women or men (friends and family will testify to this) and thus, according to the laws of probability, it is more probable that i will catch any contaminants which may be present in the food being consumed.

(3) i've got what people have started to sympathetically refer to as a "sensitive stomach".

HEY, i used to buy those bright-coloured drinks that ol' Pakcik dispenses from grimy containers amidst clouds of smoke from environmentally-unaware school buses that traverse busy jalan bukit bintang, and i lived to tell the tale.. who ya calling sensitive, huh? then again, if hypothesis (1) above is correct, the likes of Pakcik's stall are in fact the cleanest food joints around..

what EXACTLY is a "sensitive" stomach anyway?

(4) as a friend recently eloquently put it, "aiyaa, your stomach needs the nonsense laa. you cannot eat at classy places laa."

(NB. Hypothesis (1), if correct, would also disprove this.)

(5) what the heck. it's just my luck.

more random shots

... government offices must consume a lot of tea leaves, sugar and milk. but you know that already, don't you. it appears though that some have started to have 'minum' (i.e. tea breaks) at 9.30 in the morning.. oh sorry, was that still breakfast? i had read the newspaper from cover to cover and probably memorized the entire Carta Organisasi on the wall and the officer was still at 'minum, lah'. on the other hand, it could well be the case that the officer was in fact in a bona fide meeting and the guard outside only said "minum, lah" because it's almost an irrebuttable presumption that if an officer was not found in his room/cubicle, he would be in the pantry having tea.

... and, speaking of government offices.. wonder what the interior of the new government offices in the new federal administrative capital look like. some of the facades are nothing short of impressive, e.g. that of the federal treasury. would they have retained the tacky yellow leather sofas, polystyrene organization charts and crackly radios playing strains of Ella (not Fitzgerald)?

... anyway, won't have to deal with government offices so much anymore for a while, so i should stop griping. and anyway, CHRISTMAS IS COMING SOON!!

random shots

... the office moneyplant is home. the 2-dollar Ikea plant in a beige Ikea vase which has thrived on plain water, fluorescent light and dust from files for three years, and has since grown into a forest in its own right, is home.

... I used to loathe britpop when it was overplayed on Trent FM every morning. now, after resurrecting my BBC Top of the Pops 1998 CDs on the car speakers, I'm actually missing the stuff.

... I know it's way too early, but CHRISTMAS IS COMING SOON! now, if only the weather was chilly, the days were getting shorter and there was a chance of snow...

... I volunteered to play for Christmas. I'm not even sure I remember the feeling of how my fingers should be positioned on the piano.

cold cape cod clams, 'gainst their wish, do it ...

Random howler from the Science Joke Archive:

Chemical engineers do it in packed beds.
Chemists do it in test tubes.
Chemists do it in the fume hood.
Chemists do it periodically on the table.
Chemists do it reactively.
Chemists like to experiment.
Electrochemists have greater potential.
Polymer chemists do it in chains.
Toxicologists do it till they're half-dead.

and there are unbelievably long lists on how physicists and mathematicians do it.. (sorry, i chose chemistry only because it was a favourite subject in college..)

there and [all the way] back again

so here we are. it's the end of the month.

end of the athens olympiad.

end of the nation's preparations for this year's independence day.

end of the due-d exercise (er, well, almost).

two weeks till my official last working day.

near the end of the luxury of having your own stash to spend on almost anything you desire, and having it replenished every month.

near the end of strutting around in suits.

in many ways I still can't believe I'd (finally) made the decision to become a student again. for a year.

have I lost my mind? my bosses probably think so. "a year in practice is more valuable than a year of study. think about it."

a colleague initially dismissed it as a joke - apparently I was a fixture in the company; the last person to come up with such deviant ideas. "yeah right. since when did YOU leave."

so just what madness came over me? was it because I felt I needed a change? an attempt at a brief escape from the hectic working world? adding a milestone to the elusive search for enlightenment? an effort to understand the machinery at work behind the corporate wheels and ultimately a means to comprehend the incomprehensible? a struggle in the name of personal enrichment and in the spirit of man's never-ending quest for knowledge? a blind stab in the dark in the fervent hope that Opportunity will present itself, or that Muse will lend some ideas, at the very least? or, to put it in a few over-used words, because I wanted a break? none of the above? some of the above? all of the above?

*slap*
you silly spoilt brat of a dingbat you, stop being all picky and idealistic and just be a good girl and continue doing what you're doing.

*slap*
no! that's not right! you wanted Opportunity to present itself, here's Opportunity presenting itself. of course you should take the chance, you idiot. sure, you wouldn't know what's in store, but there's absolutely nothing to lose.

*slap!* * slap!*

yep, end of months of indecision.

end of the 'financial year'.

the end of four years since the last time I sat in a lecture hall armed with highlighters and reams of notepaper; and the beginning of it all again.

end of one path, and the beginning of another.

independence day.

the sandman

man, it's crazy how there's always a lot to do just when you're about to go on leave. it's a conspiracy, i say. everything from tiresome client calling up with tiresome query when you really don't need it, and client giving instructions on a new matter a day before you leave (when the client had all of the past 2 months to send the instructions), to papercut from the darned Submission documents.

got home at midnight, had a snack, flipped through what had been (for a few minutes already then) yesterday's papers, and then decided to do something about the throbbing headache so whipped out the trusty bottle of medicated menthol oil. absent-mindedly dabbed at the oil with the finger on which the papercut was suffered just a few hours ago. ouch. the therapeutic effect of the halo of 'minyak angin' generated now slowly drifts the conscious mind away into the dominion of the sandman...