| world at my feet |

the girls slept over at marsie's mutiara rini house! whee!~

aishah (who stays in jb) so sweetly offered to drive us up! we had to go into jb friday night, since that's when marsie's family will arrive, about 9-10ish pm. but we had safety&security concerns, you know.. 4 young pretty girls going through jb customs at night.. haha! so when aishah suggested, whee we had a saviour! problem solved! :) :) so thanks aishah dear!

so we had yummy ramly burger that night *sluurps* and totally conquered marsie's room! but we were totally welcome! right marsie?? :D and her parents are so soo cute lah. they kept worrying if we were comfortable, and always getting us more pillows lah, mattresses lah, blankets lah.. they kept checking on us and asking us if we were sure we didn't want the boys' room as well. hehe. they say the boys' room 5star hotel (got tv and double bed), but we want to stay 3star only (marsie's room 1 single bed and no tv).. hehe so cuute riight! even the dad was standing at the room door with the mummy, making sure we were totally comfy. :) :) such hospitality!

the next day we headed to tebrau! we had a bigbiig yummy breakfast, after which i felt soo soo full and sleepy. i loove feeling satisfied after food. :D

pictures of lunch and ice-cream break at tebrau follows!

we didn't do much shopping, but i didn't mind at all. :) i wasn't totally wanting to shop. i liked that we just hung out, and had goooood food!! :D :D *sluurps* but i did get a pair of pretty mango pants. :)

oh oh and aaand. we bought marsie's family a huuuge whole cake from secret recipe at the end of the day!! to say THANK YOU! :) :) chocolate banana! the lady also helped us write THANK YOU on the cake in orange icing, looked pretty! i wanted to take photo of the cake, but they didn't open lah. hehe. when we were buying, we totally bluffed mars and told her it was nydia buying for her grandma's birthday. (haha sanggup ke orang nak bawak through immigration and all. haha.) and mars believed us! whatever it is, i felt marsie's parents were such such great hosts! yaayy! thank youu!! marsie and family rocks! :) :) *huUgs*

ok enjoy photos! :) :)

ok totally teaching young girls to camwhore! not like they don't already know how. :P haha. anyhoos. this was the next morning. :) pre-tebrau!

us girlies! right after a yummylicious breakfast, courtesy of marsie's mummy! :) :) thank youuu! the breakfast spread included cucur/jemput-jemput ikan bilis, epok-epok, otak-otak (malay words so many double words eh), lontong goreng, tuna sandwiches, egg tarts, aaand hot chocolate! yumYUM! :D :D oh oh sya and i helped fry the cucur! hehe. but i think they turned out too crunchy. :P

marsie's daddy so kindly drove us (and her brothers) to tebrau city! :) :) that's the pack in the back of his grandis! the other brother took the photo. the poor brothers got bored though, waiting for us til the end of the day. ;P

manhattan fish market for lunch! :) :)

i thought the set-up of the restaurant was pretty! this is a nice shot capturing the background. there's a concept and everything, which we find oddly similar to fish&co. not so odd when you realise the pioneer of manhattan fish market was once with fish&co! hehe. manhattan serves in pans on large wooden coasters too!

i look crazy happy man. haha. i couldn't smile properly between my sometimes runny and sometimes blocked red nose. :P but here we are, with the captain's quencher (orange juice in sprite) and the menu! ;P

pretty! poor marsie not in photo. :P would ask the staff to help us take picture, but the staff there was particularly irritating, pfft.

my grilled platter for one! looks yumyummyness, but no different from fish&co. in fact, fish&co has better portions, and is perhaps slighly tastier.

marsie's (rather boring) manhattan fish&chips.

all four GRILLED PLATTER FOR ONE! :D

baskin robbins!! yumYUM! this was mine, sya's and nydia's. each waffle sundae (or sthg) only had 2 scoops, and we took SUCH a loooooong time to decide on 2 flavours between us three. then suddenly i had a flash of brilliance! why doooooon't.. we get an additional single scoop cup, so we can each get the flavour of our choice! god. for all the studying that we do, we are some pretty dumb girls. :P

elly had a whoooole sundae to herself, WAAHH! see, her cup so bigbiigg! hehehehe ;)

enjoyiin our baskin robbins!! :D :D

deliriously delighted girls after a satisfying day at tebrau city! ;)

crazy happyy giirls!! :) :) elly, sya and i trying to squueze into the back of nydia's and marsie's selfiishh photos! puii! these same girls were also damn shagged later that night. ;P

adidas ad: jose +10

the selections. omg i loove the part the lil boy(jose) chooses the old star beckenbauer (or sthg like that) and when the fat boy(pedro) asks defoe to be keeper. haha! ;) and and when the boys barks out instructions to the players, omg SO CUTE! :D

adidas ad: jose +10

the game! whoo! omg soccer is like such a beautiful game, esp when they do tricks like that! so so cool what these guys can do with their feet!

Jose and Pedro football audition

omg soo cuute!! this was the boys' audition!

omg my throat is awfully scratchyyy and i can't find lozenges anywhere in the house!

die.

confirm wake up tomorrow with sandpaper throat. uughh. :( :(

i think i caught it from jaana today. who caught it from jia kai last week. oh boo.

lab conversation -
me: i think there's a bug in the lab.. i'm falling siickk! :(
person 1: maybe there's a virus in the lab..
person 2: (who didn't really catch the earlier part of the convo) yah we got baculovirus in the lab.

hurhur.

btw, baculovirus is something we work with in the lab. (susah man to tell such stories. need to explain, then explain already not funny. puii.)

oh ya. of no particular interest to anyone, but. i just realised my blog counter hasn't been up on the new layout. it's been frozen since the last time i changed layout. forgot la.

week6 at the lab and students are reaching their shagged-climax. (omg 2 words that should not be used in the same sentence.) ok so i meant we are at our most tired/busy peak. but maybe.. noo. because that would mean it's all downhill from here. ekk, not true. so i guess we've just hit rockbottom of our energy reserves, and work is only really starting to take a toll on us.

boy how i craaaave for late mornings in bed, waking up to an empty house.. stumbling out into the living room with hippoboy, lazing on the couch unbathed and smelly.. staring aimlessly at the boobtube, flipping channels leisurely.. watching everything, yet nothing.. dozing off again into round2 of slumber..

and that's just midday.

then late afternoon rolls around.. the tv has been running all day.. shows that i don't really watch but i know are aired.. random home-design shows, ambush makeover.. the 1pm old movie.. (sorrylah i no cable right.) followed by repeats of old local serials like first touch lah, and at one point in time, triple 9! haha. then just recently 5pm gilmore girls rerun, 6pm oprah, 7pm et!

aaaaargh.
i waant i waaant i waaant those days!

gimme backk! gimmegimmegimme!

omg cars is so good!

caught it last night with laliinglove at marina sq. aaaaahh lovedloved the ending. *satisfied-sigh* although he said it was rather cliche, i was taken by surprise. it was heartwarming, too. (ok so i'm a sap.) the piston cup race and the king and the end of the race, whoaaaa. :) :) oh oh for the record, hatta wants me to state that his favourite characters are mater and guido! haha!

meet guido!!

and everybody's favouriiiiiite - MATER!!

but oklah, i have to admit, the movie got a bit long-winded at times. the dialogue esp. some parts of it were so hard to catch! because of the slang/accent of the characters. oh and definitely not as funny or as cute as finding nemo. ;p

still! worth a watch to catch mater and luigi and guido, and to see the heartwarming end. ;)

a game we played last night - capital of what country.
we ask questions like "what's the capital of finland?" and the other has to answer. and of course, my mouth (and thinking process) faster than his (haha!), so i kept shooting the questions, and soon, he ran out of countries to ask. haha. so we got to this point -
him: what's the capital of Burkhinofaso?
me: haahh what rubbish!! no such country lah!!
him: got lah! really!
me: don't bluff lah, don't have!!
him: really! i never bluff you! GOT!! you don't know, you say don't have..
me: oklah so what is it?? what's the capital of Burkhinofaso??
him: (with glee) kepala buto!!

what a boyfriend i have.

oh and another conversation we had sometime back -
i was telling him that i would be continuing my internship here up till the next year or so.
me: sayang, i'm going to be at ibn still when school starts you know..
him: (frowns) what the hell is ibn??
me: fuck lah, it's where i work!!
him: oh. hahaha.

rubbish man. [09:00am]

[12:09pm] oh and soooomeonee has to come to biopolis to eat lunch with me becaaaause he left his handphone in my bag last night!! hahaha! yaayy!! :D :D

ok! off to lunch!! :D

and i'm shagged! :(

but i'm happy! :)

because
1) i'm seeing my baby tonight! i misschuu laliing.
2) i fell in love with a (female) horse! her name is penelope. :) we went horseback riding! and after a half-hour orientation around the pen, learning how to stop, turn and go, we went out onto the trail! and then it was just my horse and me. :)
3) i have new bags, shoes, tops and a new skirt! oh what else does a girl need. ;)

however, i'm also :( because
1) i still need new jeans, and decent bags for work. (the bags i bought are tiny handbags. heh. for jalanjalan only.)
2) i destroyed 2 tudungs in msia. so i have to go back to bugis to get more. THE SAME KIND. because i reallyreally like that kind.
3) i had breakfast buffets every morning. and on the second day, we had lunch buffet and dinner buffet. so now i'm fatfat-er.

pictures sometime later. i'm at work!

but jaana's not in today. aaaaand. i don't have anything to do. because i'm supposed to start on thee new project today. and i need her to brief me first right. soooo. dumdeedum.

yaayy! can't wait to see my baby! i have tshirts and yummies and a surpriiiise for you my cow!! (eh but cows are female!) oklah you bull! hehehehe :D

after work today, i reached my block, eyes dry and all groggy, trudged up the stairs and 4 pairs of slippers greeted me at the front door.

the tutees were already there, waiting for me.
even before i got home from work.

no chance to rest.

so tiring.

what to do, no choice lah. dropped my bag, took off my tudung, grabbed their books from the shelves, and sat down to teach.

cannot even eat first!

haiish. i complained to my kakak. the urge to want to withdraw is getting stronger.

but i also have to think about how to support my lifestyle and shopping like that. plus, i've been giving tuition since i was sec4. my first tutee was my cousin who was primary5 then. anyhows, i'm wondering how i'm going to cope with sudden loss in income. aiyaa. even if i do, it won't happen so soon lah.

work is.. work. haii. all the troubleshooting steps i carried out in the end gave me no clue as to what is going on with my bacteria and dna!! everything seems rather alright, it's just.. eergh. why isn't it happening?? frustratiiiing.

on another note, i finally talked to my principal investigator about converting my current internship into a project i can use for school, which means i can clear course credits at the same time. (thank god, yay! :) ) it's called UROPS - undergraduate research opportunities. and a plus point is that i'm already starting on the project, so hopefully come sem time, my load will be lighter. (vs doing project and all course modules during sem. :P)

and from the looks of it, i might be at ibn for another two good years, should i continue with my fyp there. highly likely. which means during sem time, i will be shuttling back and forth between campus and biopolis. :S

anyhoots. since i am proceeding onto UROPS at ibn, dr wang (PI) requested to jaana that i get a different project. in a way - sigh of relief. but in another - i'm all the more frustrated!! cause this means i'm never going to be able to complete this project!! and I CAN'T SEEM TO FIGURE OUT WHYY!! i know i know, in the lab there's a whole world of possibilities as to what could have happened, why it happened, how to make it happen.. i just wish i could have.

today jaana had me try the current project one last time. pfft. and no, no results still. i must have had misery scrawled all over my face because shalynn was so concerned she kept telling me to forget about it and gave me a nice warm hug before she left. :)

anyhoots, i won't be at work till next week! going holiday with the fam. :) don't really know where actually. haha. bukit tinggi or sthg. butbut what i do know is thaaaaat.. zati will be in kl the same days i will!! this weekend!! haha! we might just meet up. ;) ;) kan zat, kankankan? :D

oh yah. been wanting to blog about the following for a while now. so here goes:

the omen.
watched the omen a week ago. disappointing. that's not to say i didn't scream. thrice, he says. but i really thought it was a much bigger film. it hints of the coming of anti-christ right. so i thought it involved the rest of the world too. but nope. just about the boy and his parents. :(

new-age scientists.
research and experiments can get really frustrating right. how frustrating? this frustrating-

on level6 ryan uses the f-word so much that someone else commented "wahlau he use fuck like exclamation mark ah!"
eg. "what the hell, fuck lah.. what is this, fuck lah.. why is it like this, fuck man."

on level7, shalynn goes "wahlau, why like that. kanaasssai man." upon viewing her gel results.

and just to add. (since we're on the subject of cussing anyways)
jerome: "what kind of fucking shit is this??" or "oh jiakai got fucked up results today."

haha. random, but i find totally amusing.

i'm not supposed to think about work, (since i'm on holiday!) but i can't help thinking about, wondering if and hoping that my new project will work out better. please do, please do, insya'allah.

ok, off to good 'ol msia.
klcc, sungei wang plaza, berjaya times sq.. primavera, vincci, here i come!! :) :)

p.s. it's raining yellow cards in the french-swiss game. haha. watching it at the same time. boy, what an angstyangsty referee. heh.

that was my saturday. :) :)

babylove is still busy scouting around for laptops, for school! haha. so we dropped by apple at wheelock, and were at funan last week. haii, when it comes to technogadgets.. haha. well at least, he's excited about sthg about school, no? ;)

a couple of days back, i got a call during work, about a free trial at true yoga. apparently somebody had signed up, and listed me on their guest list (for true yoga to expand membership lah), so i get a free trial! haha. but uh, for one free hour of yoga (which was refreshing and interesting nevertheless. i mean we did make fuuull use of their bath facilities, not to mention sauna!! haha. kan kan nydia? ;) ;) ) we had to sit through like over two hours of yoga-brainwashing!! hahaha. but whatthehoots. they were trying to sell a health product/service to two ladies who firstly, study everything about the human body, and secondly, never concede defeat in a debate. hahaha. so guess who won lah.

so after free yoga, rush rush in the yummy showers and dressing area, (dammit i love their bath facilities! haha) and then rush rush to get cake (for elly dear ;)) and finally cabbed our way down to sofra at shaw tower, at a ridiculous 9:30pm, two hours behind schedule!! haha. but whatthehoots. we made last order anyways. ;) the pictures will tell a better story of our time at sofra. ;)

and backtracking a bit, friday we ordered in pizza for lunch at work! hehe. so we conquered the pantry, had a lovely long lunch, pizza came in two batches, because later on people decided to join us, so we had to order more pizza.. and totally cam-hoed in the pantry!! whee! again, see pictures for details! haha.

and more pictures of some dates, with girlfriends or otherwise, over the past 2 weeks. hee. no time to blog lah, esp weekdays. my days are usually work, tuition, iron clothes, sleep. or work, go out, iron clothes, sleep. gaahh. can get a wee bit tiring. and annoying too! cause like i try to watch the weeknight shows, but i totally conk out on them!! i've missed the last 10-20min of scrubs, csi, project runway and lost over the past 2 weeks! haha. i'm sick of not knowing the endings!! or who gets booted from project runway. :P

ok! gotta run! tutees are here!

goddammit, sometimes i think i'm turning workaholic. i work 8am-6.30pm weekdays, tuition tuesdays&thursdays 7.30pm-9.30pm, and more tuition sundays 11am-7pm. gaahh.

sometimes i feel like stopping tuition, but like i feel bad for ditching the kids halfway. :P i mean, i agreed to help them with their schoolwork, and then suddenly only, i bail. :
but i also want to shop, GSS!! but no tiiime!! baaahh.

oh, so enjoy the many, many pictures!!

yesterday was out with my baby, and whilst we were on ecp, freak shower!! sooo heavyy!!

eeeks!! can't see the car in front!

see!! can barely make out the tall tall buildings!! *shudders* scarryyy, i would've totally peed in my pants if i were driving. heh.

baby taz!! has a new pair of shorts and slippers aaaaall the way from the uk!! auntie nina bought for him!! hehe now he's a beach-bum who supports england! hehe thank you auntie nina!

he's in a ryan-atwood wife-beater! khehehehehe!

my loves!! dinner at sofra with them was definitely a riot ;) *muaaacks!* to all! and thankyouuus to aizad for so graciously being our photographer all night! :)

doner's plate, iskender kebap (sedap giler!!) and i don't know what farah is holding.. it was aizad's. hehh. aaand sadly i forgot to take a shot of the other side of the table. :P

surpriiise!! dinner was to celebrate elly's 21st! hehe. although late by mm, many days. haha. and there's elly clutching all her presents. ;)

lovely shoes from farahshix!

aaaand gorgeous white mango handbag!! (picked out by yours truly, and i'm so getting it for myself!! ;P) weweet, elly posing!! this set was from nydia, mars, syakittycat and me! :D

wait there's more!! perlini's bracelet inside the bag!! and and mmmm, starbucks' raspberry cheesecake!! all for ellyyyy!! :) :) happy (late) 21st birthday elly sweetiee!! *hUugs* sorry it took us this long to celebrate it with youuuu.. *muah!*

time to go home..

"nobody will want me now!"

that's better. ;)

happy darliiings! :) :)

we ordered in pizza for lunch on friday! this was only about half of the pizza-crowd though..

stuuuuuuuuudents!

work people, work!! ;)

camho!

7th june, dinner @ sakura with nydia! followed by of course, camwhoring.

5th june, dinner @ anatolia, followed by gelatissimo's gelato!! comfort food, comfort food, very necessary destressing after work!

happy post-icecream girls!

2nd june, dinner @ nana thai express, with ma darliiins!

30th may, dinner @ siam kitchen, suntec after work! :) with babydarliing o'course~*

the week's looking good. :)

work never fails to amuse me, :). the people, the politics, the friends i made here, the frustrating but nevertheless enjoyable experiments..

i love working in such an international community, french, germans, finnish, south asians, chinese (ok well, not so much them. :P). i would love to rant more about the politics butbut. haha. i don't wanna be having tea with nobody in particular..

anyhoots. can't wait for the world cup fever to hit! with so many nationalities around, it's bound to get exciting! hehe. the 3 germans on my floor are like banging their heads, wishing they were home. haha.

monday was superb. i love my darling girlfrieeeends. :) :) su, zat and i stayed in the office til maghrib, we conquered the pantry! hehe. (i loove auntie nancy's lemon tea, yumyum.) we had dinner at anatolia, and then comfort food gelato!! gelatissimo at shaw tower there. :) :) window-shopped a bit before and after dinner, looked at shows but SO SAD. stupid ice tee has such tiinyy sizes!! their size ten is a pathetic us size six or sthg lah! puii. ok so, have pictures, will put up soon darlings! oh ya. monday was also great becaaaaaause, syahirah joined us at ibn!! she's at level 8/9 though. i'm on 7 and su's on 6. :) :) nevertheless, i look forward to manymany happy lunches!

and then yesterday morning. omg. like 8 of us from my lab just sat in the pantry and talked. haha. from like 9:00-10:30am lah. haha. most of us were either waiting for reactions, waiting for our ordered reagents to come, and stuff. then we talked like about everything under the sun lah.. jump topic like anything. mixed children who look good, the genetics behind it, to inter-racial marriages, to religion, to da vinci code, religion again, ghost stories, to world cup, to omg just about anything! haha. hmm, the 8 consisted of quite a good mix of people, different races&religions, different nationalities (1 french, 1 indo-chinese, 1 china-born singaporean, 1 bangladeshi, and the remaining 4 locals), local and foreign undergrads and grads, and an age gap of 12years. fuhh. oldest was born in '79, youngest '91. and the youngest little darling, christine, 15-year-old, suggested going out for dinner and movie one day. hehe. andand we plan to order in pizza one day for lunch! whee, so fun!! :) :)

i'm really thankful for the close group of people i'm working with. the people closest to me in the lab, i get along with really well, and have loads fun with them. :) i was thinking once, you know how sometimes people complain about how they cannot work with their colleagues, and they are really working real jobs (not interning), and they are sorta stuck with those people.. i was thinking if this were my real job and they were my real colleagues, i would so love work. :) i hopehopehope that in future i get these kinda colleagues. :)

plus my mentor wasn't in for the past 2 days. so i was flying solo, i had experiments to run but on monday i damn kiasu, ran THREE at the same time. haha. but i hijacked kelvin, so he's like my partner now, since his mentor doesn't give two hoots anyway. :P so the 3 expts we ran were two different trouble-shooting reactions and 1 repeat experiment of last week, to see where i really screwed up. turns out, i didn't screw-up that badly! and i checked the reagent (pET16b vector) that i was given.. and strangely, the results seem to indicate that what i was given was NOT pET16b. sooooo, good news is: i didn't screw up too much! bad news: what i've been doing so far, rubbish!!

oh. everybody just arrived, and it's pantry-time! shall update more about work soon! :) :)

bad bad week.

typed a few paragraphs trying to describe the situation.
but really, what's the point?

plus, the situation was just made worse by yet another face-off, and again, another reminder of - really, can things get any worse?

life is pretty unfair, why are your mistakes remembered, but your good deeds go unnoticed?
i'm the one who got hurt, but i'm still the one going to hell, aren't i.

sometimes i feel like you purposely find fault with how i am, so that in comparison, she won't look so bad. i do these things too, but why don't you notice them? in fact, you defend her of things she clearly did. it's like you refuse to remember that part. why the disparity, the double standards?

and i hope you understand that i'm going through something so difficult, so out of my league for once. yeah sure, it's happened before, but this time, it's so much harder. i don't think you've realized how this is really taking a toll on me. when i get home, i shower and i sleep. i keep to myself the whole time. and it's difficult because i used to be life of the house. i was the one who was always talking, always brimming with stories to tell. in fact, i still am, it's just that i can't tell them anymore.

sometimes you pretend to be strong for so long that you actually start believing you're strong. to the point that you forget how to ask for help.

and you know that ironically, you have succeeded when people around you seem to have forgotten that you can be weak and vulnerable. and they forget to ask if you need help.

work is proving to be challenging, but at the very least, i find solace in busying myself, trying to make it work. tweaking this step and that, adding new angles to the project, trying time and again. at the very least, i'm the one in power this time.

work looks most optimistic. in fact, if i was offered a scholarship right now, to go somewhere far and cold, i would grab it, run and not look back.

so after this, i'm off to bed.
tomorrow may be a new day, but it's the same old mask.

the mask that perhaps now, you know is in place, but still you are afraid to find out what or who is behind it. because you are perhaps so accustomed to and comfortable with that mask that you see, that you are scared of what you might find if you remove it.

but i don't blame you, see.
because i myself am scared of removing it.

i wish blogspot had the function for private entries.

so here's an attempt to help both you and i forget:

the turn-ons
about the guys: turns ON, OFF or DM (Doesn't Matter)
taller than you: ON
shorter than you: OFF
wears braces: OFF
dresses preppy: cute, but i think OFF.
dresses ghetto: OFF
dresses gothic: OFF
blue eyes: OFF unless natural.
green eyes: OFF unless natural.
hazel eyes: ON
brown eyes: ON (am more forgiving towards more natural-looking hazel and brown.)
drinks alcohol: OFF
wears glasses: OFF unless fashion-savvy glasses.
smokes: OFF
plays sports: definitely ON
smiles a lot: definitely ON
calls you just to say hi: ON
compliments you: ON unless overbearing or insincere.
likes to talk: ON
shy and quiet: DM, but if shy&quiet=boring, then OFF.
good dancer: ON
wears jewellery: DM/ON (would consider it a bonus.)
smiles when you walk into the room: definitely ON ON ON.
brown hair: DM
black hair: DM
blonde hair: DM, but if asian by race and blonde, then OFF.
red hair: DM, but if asian by race and red-headed, then OFF.
makeup: totally OFF.
can make you laugh at any given moment: definitely ON.
loyal: of course ON
laid back: DM but depends.
plays guitar: quite ON.
plays piano: DM
plays drums: ON
sings: ON
he's buff (muscles): DM/ON (bonus.)
doesn't eat meat: OFF, i'd feel like a pig.
has a tattoo: so OFF.
has a lip ring: totally OFF.
has tongue ring: OFF OFF OFF, like get lost dude.
dislike parties: DM/OFF (if i want to go, how?)
love parties: DM
clubbers: OFF
virgin: ON
non-virgin: OFF lah.
has a car: ON
no car: DM
stays home: DM/OFF if he doesn't take me on dates.
stays out: doing what?
uses hankerchief: DM but like my daddy lydat.
no leg hair: ON if muscular. if not muscular, then OFF - that's just gay.

that was fun!