26.01.2009

First of all i would like to wish you all GONG XI FA CAI, PROSPEROUS NEW YEAR AND A BLESSED YEAR OF GOLDEN OX!

this year's preparation, i could say, not so much things to do, other than get up early in the morning to go to the market, so that we can get the best meat. even tanglung and the CNY decos were put up only on the day before CNY. usually, we (especially kakak), will be busy decorating the house a week before..i dunno what happen this year? but, i think, it's because CNY is quite near to the previous festive season, which was Christmas and New Year, and that was why we were a bit slowed down.

somehow, i managed to do something new..it's pineapple tarts..hehe. i made 4 batches altogether, where the first batch i gave away all to Ah Soon. usually the first batch are the most not-so-good ones, but, because of time constraint, i still gave them away and hope that he likes them. =) then, for the 2nd batch, i got ben to help me out to roll the fillings, and he was so proud of himself, that he kept on saying, he is a fast learner, who can roll one filling in just 13 seconds..duh~ and we did this at around 11:30pm..

i arranged them nicely in the container and didnt really promote them. and guess what? roddy thought that they were from the shop..and he said, they're nice! wahaha..it was the FIRST time he ever compliment on my baked products..sometimes, their comments (especially roddy and ben) are just too discouraging.

on the eve of CNY, our usual tradition is do cooking the whole morning and then we will have the offering ceremony for the ancestor, in the afternoon..this tradition has been carried out since i-dunno-when..but previously it was done in kampong..only after ThaiKong and ThaiMa passed away, we started to do it here, in KK. this tradition is carried out because it's their wish, written in their will. it has been passed down from generation to generation, and i do not know what will happen in the future..

every year, there are a few obligatory menu. they are whole chicken, fried noodles, fried mihun, mixed vege (not the normal corn-peas-carrot, this one is bamboo shoots, kimcham, black fungus, etc), bun-bak and fu-chuk soup..but there will always be extra menu other than all that because after the ceremony, we will be feasting on those food.. ;p this is just a tradition. people say 'biar mati anak, jangan mati adat'. hehe.

then at night, we usually gather at our house because dad is the eldest son. but, maybe also, because most of the food prepared at our home.. somehow, i heard there's suggestion saying that, next year, we will do it in DeChe's house.

mom prepared yee sang as the first dish, every year, for tuan yuan fan (reunion dinner), and we will lau and finish it all, before we proceed with the next dish.

update: due to too many questions from my friend, about the ingredient we used for yee sang, i'm going to tell you here. they are, carrot, fish-satay, jelly-fish, red cabbage, cuttlefish strips, seaweed, blanched abalone and raw salmon. nah, hope u can do it by yourself, next year, instead buying them from Tesco. =)

milia, me and teeta getting ready for the journey

this year, we went to Weston to visit TuaKoh and family, then we went to Menumbok and stayed a night there, in MaKo's house.
i remembered when we were celebrating the Dong Zhi Festival, i wanted to see if it will rain or not during CNY. and, guess what? it rained during our way to Weston. does that shows that the prediction is correct? honestly, i'm still not sure of how far the truth is, because it might be just a coincidence. i'll do the test again next year. =)

when we arrived in Weston, the unicorns had just arrived too, and they were about to start their dances. they performed the complete one, whereby they had the drunken unicorn dance, the playful (or should i say, courageous unicorn) because they are not afraid of the firecrackers, and they gave them lucky numbers. but i'm not sure how lucky the numbers will be. =)

the numbers are 1-3-8-8. go buy 4D and tell me if it strikes.

after that, we had our lunch, which was tom yam steamboat and we continued our journey to Menumbok.

i love the blue-green scenery very much. but after 30 minutes, i got sleepy and slept until we reached our destination. i planned to go to mempakul beach (which we went, last year) for some photo session before sun sets. but we reached there around 6pm and it was already dark.

so, we just stayed at home and helped Koko Ann with the dinner. we enjoyed ourselves with durian kampong, which DeChe bought at one of the stalls along the way to Menumbok.

then, we visited Uncle Richard's house, and he served us 5litres of red wine. Dad was so excited and challenge ourselves (all 17 of us) to finish it all in half an hour. in deed we did it! haha~ and guess, who got affected the most among us all? Dad..

the girls: yunie, ah meng, jun-jun, kayla and teeta

after came back from Uncle Richard's house, we had our dinner, then the boys light-up the firecrackers/works, because these little girls want to sleep already.

the next morning, we (the ladies) made tang yuan for all. then, we had fun pua-kiawing, prepared lunch and prepared ourselves for family photo session.

then, we headed back to KK. we reached KK at around 4:30pm.

and, these are my collection for the year 2009. muahaha! ;D

23.01.2009

What happen when a good friend of yours is also your irritating client? how do you deal with the situation? well, this happens to me, and honestly, it's difficult to deal with it. a moment, i feel like punching the person on the face and the next moment, i care for the person, because the person is my good friend. do i need 2 hearts, one for office and one for the real me?? no, i dont.. =|

I pray for patience and professionalism in handling this difficulty. Amen.

this picture might be out of topic, but i need this to calm myself down..fuh~

and this, to bring myself back to happy mode.. ;D
Cheers!

21.01.2009

Father Lord, I pray for peacefulness. May this worries, fears and doubts that I have in mind be clearer to me. And Lord, whatever that will happen in the future, I pray for guidance. For you is the Almighty One, guide me in Your loving arms. Amen.

20.01.2009

God has His own way to make me smile and happy. and some other reasons that make my stomach full of butterflies!
He knows that His creations around me, can cheer me up! =)

the view of Gunung Kinabalu on my way to work..sempat lagi, snap gambar..

My cactus is healthy and having babies..

19.01.2009

my weekdays passed by as usual. Morning: rush to work, evening: come back from work and force myself to do some exercise, night: go for tuition class and after that, do some surfing on the net. and i'm done with my 24-hours-day.

my days during the weekends were great. i went out with ah meng on saturday morning, hoping to get some new clothes for Chinese new year. however, we dont even get to buy one. hmmphh..


then, i went to Church with Bunie and Clare, in the evening. luckily, we managed to join the Novena. ;D After Mass, we went to Fish & Co. for our dinner and had our girls' talk. haha. we talked toooo much until Clare got sore- throat.

fish&chips. one set for each of us.

Can you imagine how long we girls can talk? ;p we've not been seeing clare for almost 4 months (if i'm not mistaken la), that's why we need time to catch up with each other..

on Sunday morning, i tried to make some tarts, referring to a recipe book, which i got on Saturday. it was my first time.

the crust, before going in to the oven

previously, i will always get tarts from Joyce, whenever she baked (how bahagia i was in those days, hehe). She was my supplier for tarts and you must know, her tarts are EXCELLENT! but now, she had moved to Beijing and i have to make my own if i want to eat one. huhu~. ok, back to the tarts i made, they turn out not as expected, because the crust were over-baked. and they looked like chocolate-flavoured crust, where they are actually vanilla crust. Somehow, the taste was not too bad. C advised me, that i have to focus and must do it with open-hearted. Ben gave me 3 marks out of 10..that's only 30%?! if in exams, i've already failed. the reason is, because my filling is desiccated coconut (that's the easiest for a beginner) and he dont like coconut. dont u think, he's bias?? but, will still take his comments for improvement. for people who are not bias, like mom and kakak, they gave me 8 marks out of 10, each. so, in average, i got 63.33%, which is B-, and which is not too bad for a new baker, like me.. anyhow, i believe there's so much i can improve on.. =) and, surely, i will..

L-R: 1st batch and 2nd batch, next to each other. can u see the difference?

then, at night, i tried again to make another batch of tarts without repeating the same mistakes i did earlier on. people say, never say die before you try. so, i must try again =) and ta--daa~. i'm happy with the outcome. of course the 2nd batch are much better than the first one.

15.01.2009

Lord God,
i pray for wisdom to manage the things that are under my responsibilities and live the life that you want me to. I surrender everything unto your hands to guide me through, Lord. May i make use of my life to the fullest that will glorify Your name.
Amen.

12.01.2009

i just got call from bunie at around 12:45pm. She was so happy that i don’t understand what she’s trying to say, until that she has to repeat it for three times. SHE DID IT! She passed her first assessment for her PTD post. i am happy for her, that she has got what she dreamt for. And, every time i got news such as this, i’ll be sad and reflect on what i have in my life. Honestly, i’m happy with what i’m doing now. There are lots to learn and i can see opportunities in front of me. i am happy for i am not suffering with the job i’m doing. But, i’ll be happier if i get to do the job that I want. Somehow, if you ask me, what is my dream job? i don’t think i can give you the exact answer.

The same things happen previously, when bunie told me, nancy has got offer from Air Asia to be part of them. a few days before, while we were SMSing with each other, we did discussed about what are we doing for living. She did tell me about her dream jobs. and one of them is to be stewardess. i told her about mine too, and we promised to pray for each other. now that she has got it, she must be very glad. i thank God for listening to our prayers.

What do i really want in life? Recently, dad is into something which requires one of us to handle. this makes me think, if i should leave what i'm doing now, to help him? i dont know. somehow, eventually decision has to be made. and it's just a matter of time..

Bunie, you sounds extremely happy on the phone just now, and i feel bad that i don’t sound as happy as you did. but, deep down in me, again, i thank God for answering our prayers. and, surely i'll continue to pray for you for all the coming assesments. =) u know me, kan.. hehe.

09.01.2009

time has been passing by, very fast..it's already Friday, and myself keep on thinking that it's still Wednesday...looks like i haven't do enough work for the week. well, not enough work doesn't mean, i don't do my work.
on Tuesday, i've got meeting with boss and then prepare some quotation for chemical analysis which took quite a lot of my time, because i'm still learning. then, on Thursday, i got Lina Chan, our microbiologist from Subang, came in and discussed on some issues especially the SRB media for Petronas project, which i found out there's something wrong with their reports (even thinking about that now, gives me headache!). and, today, we had trainer from Kuching to train us on the AAS machine, and i am still 85% blur! *i have to do more reading on that*

lots of things happened in the office. azman left on monday, lenin will be leaving soon, we got news from the management that this year, there will be no salary increment, because of the current economic crisis, and today, marrion is leaving Chemsain. she got an offer from the government, and she'll be leaving to KL next week. so, we had a small farewell gathering for her this evening, in the lab.

me and iyon

last Christmas, when i baked some Christmas cakes (which i added some rum in) for my colleagues, she intercomed me asking me to bake her another one, without rum because she cannot consumed any type of alcohol. but, i cant because i ran out of mixed fruits and also i was lazy to bake already, at that time. but, since today is her last day in the office, i offered myself to bake her any cake she would like to have. she requested chocolate cake which i never bake before. i have never bake chocolate cake because dad don't like it (that's why i was extremely happy when Bunie gave me two gigantic chocolate cake for Christmas! hehe). so, yesterday was officially my first chocolate cake. and luckily it came out okay. acceptable. presentable. and most important, marrion likes them! =)

the friendship that built in these very short time, i appreciate it very much. i pray that God will lead her in everything she does. and hope that she will be a successful engineer! all the best to you, marrion.

05.01.2009

it's already the 5th day of the first month of the year. i'm sure this year, time will pass by very fast too. somehow, i know it depends on myself to make it a good year or a bad year.

i've been in holiday mood since Christmas, which was 11 days ago. and now, everything has to get back to their place. i'll be busy again with my tuition classes (i must study hard too for the sake of my students, they will be sitting for PMR and SPM), daily job (no more lazy-ing around and must be serious) but not forgetting, to have fun! =)

for the past four days of January, i can say, i've done quite a lot and eat a lot. i'm gonna share with all of you. =)

1. i went to a place where my hair was transformed! ;p i've been planning to change my hairstyle because it has been the same style since my school time. only that the length is different. so, this year, i wanted something new. the one i have is totally different from what i wanted. but, i'm still satisfied with it. furthermore, it's not as expensive as doing rebounding treatment. i think i look chubbier and i look older.


2. we went to tanjung aru. the initial plan was actually to jog, and burn some calories. but we ended up walking and enjoy the breeze, because we think it's weird to jog by the beach. somehow, it was nice! and, we did some cam-whoring. ;p there were lots of people it the 3rd beach, so we decided to go to the second beach and walk towards third beach.

ben, roddy and me

our aim to walk until we see the kayu bakau, near the Tanjung Aru Hotel. we had walked almost 3 km (if i'm not mistaken).


along the way, there were lots of things to see. we got a few dead fish, jellyfish, little crabs, etc.

this is the dead crab, on the kayu bakau. they have their own ecosystem under the kayu bakau.


there are a few different fish living together. that day was low-tide. i think when it's high tide, they will be brought back to the sea.

we were at the playground which we used to go

half way on the way back to car, we stopped by at the stalls to get some drink and guava. i think we add more calories than the amount that we burnt. *sigh*
then, we went to the Prince Phillip Park. it's a place for family outing, where in the evening, you can see lots of children running around and couples walking romantically (erk, how do you walk romantically?) Mom and Dad used to bring us to the park when we were young..more or less 18 years ago. it was long time ago.. and i think it has change a lot. they have more flowers now.

3. i managed to make my own pizza, which i have been postponing since last year. i actually wanted to make it before chia ling flies back to KL, but due to my busy-ness and also a bit of lazy-ness, i am only able to make it last saturday. but, i promised chia ling to make one for her when she comes.


according to a random pizza lover, which is ben (i'm not sure if his statement is reliable), to know if it's a good pizza, you have to see it's crust. it was my first time, and i was worried, just in case the crust turns out not edible. but luckily, everything was fine.

the dough

i made two because the dough was too much. so, i divided it into two. one was chicken pepperoni and the other one was combo pizza- tuna mayo and chicken papperoni. now i know how easy domino pizza do their combo pizza.

chicken pepperoni

mozarella cheese

the first pizza before going in to the oven

for the combo pizza

the combo pizza ready to be served

i could say it was an achievement. =) somehow, mom and roddy got bloated after eating the pizza. i guess it's because of the yeast..or maybe the cheese?

4. tuakoh came from weston and brought 5 kg of fresh prawns. and we had prawn feast on saturday night. i had too much until i got swollen lips..this was also because i was seated next to deche, and he can peel the prawns very fast! (and did it for me). so, i had the chance to eat more and faster. ;p

deche had the most shells