part 1 - paris

And I'm back!

Really, I am afraid of updating everything after a really long holiday. The last 2 times I did (Hong Kong and KK trips) I ended up with a headache and giddiness, thanks to staring at my computer for so LONG a time. And lets not forget that I like to make collages out of my holiday photos. Now that really takes up a lot of energy!

I kept a little diary throughout those 17 days. it wasn't so much a diary of events; rather I think it was more of a memoir of my thoughts and feelings.

Am feeling a little lazy, so I'm going to keep this short.


+:+:+:+:+

Paris

We kind of lost our way the night we arrived in paris, and couldn't find our hotel. There were these two young parisian ladies who were SO helpful, they pored over the map with us and even called up the hotel itself to ask for directions, using their own cellphones!

Our hotel Andre Gill was actually quite nice. They served the same breakfast every morning (croissants and a hard bread, and coffee or tea), had 2 proud-looking cats, and a funny and helpful counter staff person. A few steps down the road and it was heaven for guys: the red-light district, ha! Moulin rounge was further down but we didn't go. Show me the money, man!

The first thing we did the next morning was to rush over to the Louvre as it was free admission day, which happens every first sunday of the month. I was slightly disappointed by the Mona Lisa painting. I did not understand the hype about it; I simply did not understand it. I am not an art student after all. Furthermore it was put behind a glass screen, and that decreased its magic somewhat.

The famous painting, blurred by my camera zoom....

...which we managed to get to the very front after battling the crowd.

Altogether now guys, stare down at your, erm...instruments?

doing the karen cheng using the powder table of a famous person...I think it was one of the French kings.

posing like him...not!

I find this kind of disturbing. How they managed to pose that way for the artist, is really beyond me.

Then, we went to the Orsay museum, for free again. Yay!

This painting is on my Chopin music scorebook which I used for 5 years+.

And then, Eiffel tower!



...and someone yelled in delight when she saw this, hehehe.

Then,

...both which I covet, but cannot afford. le sigh.

Diary musings excerpts:

• We are all independent, yet interdependent too. There is no such thing as minding our own business. Others' business are also our business.
• Had my first taste of foie gras! It is SO good. The liver had a slightly musky tang to it, and the combination with baked egg was perfect.
• I like my new Loccitane Cherry blossom fragrance!

To be continued...


xoxo

see you in 2.5 weeks' time!

And that's because I'll be leaving for Paris + Italy today at noon.

I think I've grown to be fairly blase about going on trips abroad.
Perhaps I've been to too many places that left me somewhat..disappointed.

I still remember I used to be SO excited when I went on trips with my parents when I was young.
I'd literally squeal and jump for joy the day before leaving, and I'd be too excited to sleep.
And I used to be so amazed by everything I saw.
Even the ice cream in foreign lands seemed loads better than homegrown ones.
(but to their credit, New Zealand DOES produce really good ice cream. Must be their milk I think.)

I used to be so excited about how my photos would turn out, how I would look in them, and whether people thought our photos were nice.
I used to insist on bringing back a bunch of souvenirs from every place I visited.
And I used to have so much fun reminiscing about my trip long after I returned.

But I'm not like that anymore.
Perhaps I've grown out of the excitement of going on holidays.
Or perhaps I've just grown up.

Now, I feel the most important thing about holidays abroad, is the feel itself.
I want to cherish every moment, every thing, and every person I see.
I want to immerse myself in the locals' life.
I want the feel of the place I'm visiting to permeate every cell of my body.

I remember when I first arrived in Glasgow, I like to imagine myself as Elizabeth Bennet or Jane Eyre in the midst of the medieval styled buildings Glasgow is famous for.
I like to imagine how life would be like for those who lived in Pollock House, how the servants would bustle around serving the ladies and gentlemen, how the ladies would walk, hand in hand, around the grounds of the garden, how they'd laugh gently at each other's jokes.

I'm not really interested in how many pictures I take.
Rather, I want each and every picture I take to be a remembrance of a memory I had in that place, at that time.
I want to write down my thoughts when I come across interestings things.
I want to eat as the locals do, and taste every morsel with my tongue and let the delight wash over me, and lodges in a part of my brain, never to be forgotten.

I want to experience a place my way.
And that, to me, is what really matters.


So, as they would say,
Let the fun begin! =)

xoxo

missing home.

Exams are finally over.
But I cannot bring myself to be in the 'holiday mode'.
I can't help but think about my exams. And their outcome.
I want to pass my exams.
I just want to PASS.
Is that too much to ask for?
Sometimes I feel I have lowered my expectations way too low.
But if doing my best is not even enough to give me a pass....
I just want to pass.
Pretty please?


I woke up this morning.
Listened to a few emo-ish songs.
And started crying.
Because the songs made me think of home.
I miss home.
I miss my parents.
I miss the feeling of being on home soil.
I am getting tired of being a foreigner, here.


We went to Lung Fung for dinner tonight.
Ate a lot of chinese food.
Sang a lot of chinese songs.
(actually 'a lot' in this case is somewhat an underestimation!)
And for those 5 hours we were in our private room, I felt like I was back in Malaysia.
No blonde hair, no blue eyes, no haggis, no scottish english.
Just us one big bunch of friends, the food we were so familiar with, and the songs we used to love so much.
And in that 5 hours, I felt....normal. Again.
And I really, really liked that.


I never thought being 'home' would mean so much to me.
But now, I just want to be home.



p/s: if you were wondering, the picture above is a view of my desk. Neat and tidy and just the way I want it to be.

WWHAM

Who? Me.
What are the symptoms? Nausea and vomiting, tachycardia, headaches.
How long? Since a week ago.
Action taken? Rubbed hong yiu on my temples and drank ginger tea.
Medicines? Paracetamol.

Diagnosis?
Semester 6 FMT1 and FMT2 finals.
(and perhaps PP3 feedback next tuesday.)

Professional decision making: Do not give any medicines to patient, symptoms will subside on wednesday.

^-^

because I have a duty to assure my readers that I'm still alive.

Yes, I know I've been very silent these days.
No, I haven't been abducted by aliens or kidnapped.

I just have been using my brain a lot more than usual.

And by a lot, I really mean A LOT.

Well, I (or rather, the whole of P107) have been rushing lab reports, preparing for FMT1 and PP3 tests, and getting a whole lot of pimples along the way.

FMT test was...okay I think.

PP3 was okay too.......I think? *thinks a little harder*
I mean, I did all that I was supposed to do, and as far as I can see I have not killed any pseudo patients of mine. Yet.
So hopefully this time I'll have a positive mark on my paper.

How pathetic right.
The first time I told my parents this, they were like, "Um, you mean you hope you'll pass, right?"
Then I go, "No, I mean I hope I'll get positive marks. Like, the opposite of negative?"
Talk about lowering my standards!

And the other reason I haven't have had much to say recently is because...well, there really isn't a lot to say, actually.
Life's been uniform, but not unhappy. I've been keeping busy and that's good.


+:+:+:+:+

I've been thinking about this lately.

Is it right to base our opinions of someone, purely on others' opinions of that person?
I mean, what they say might (or might not) be true of that person.
So should we decide what sort of a person he/she is, based on those second-hand facts?

Like, if people around you tell you that this person (let's call him Jim) likes to borrow money without paying them back.
So do you believe them, and decline to lend Jim any money because of that?
Or if you choose not to believe people and you want to see the truth for yourself. Then you lend Jim some money. What is he pays you back promptly? Does that mean all those people were liars?

That's why I have always been very careful not to label any person or tell any tales. Though some of them may be true, I always prefer to talk good about everyone. And if that person is really a bad person, I suppose others would find it out in good time.

You may say, oh I should warn other people about this person's faults so they won't be taken in, but then again who am I to decide who is a good person and who's the bad guy?
I mean, no one's 100% good or bad, are they?
Much as we like to put everything, including people, in neat little boxes labelled black or white, very often that is not the case in real life. All of us are in the same box, the same grey box, aren't we?


Till the next time I have spare time on my hands (and that may be in a loooong time),

xoxo

ahh.

So yesterday evening a very kind soul brought us out for tapas and paella. A fantassimmo dinner we had there!

(btw, this is the same very kind soul who cooked lunch for us today. muahaha.)

Anyways, as we were walking back in the semi-dark glasgow night.
We stopped at George Square.
And I was staring at the Glasgow City Chambers, lit up brilliantly against the backdrop of a cool glaswegian evening.

And it struck me.

All this while, I have been quite blase about coming to study in Scotland.
To me, it didn't feel much different from home, except for the weather.
It was like studying in a cold KL to me.

But as I gawked at the buildings yesterday night, it hit me.

I'm in Glasgow!

This is scottish soil I'm stepping on.

And, it was like, a million lightbulbs suddenly lit up in my mind.
I'm here!
I'm studying in UK!
I'm living THE dream of many.


It's difficult to explain exactly what I felt yesterday, at that Eureka! moment.

I guess the feeling of stepping on foreign soil is particularly intense when I'm on 'holiday' mode.
But not in 'study' mode.

I'll have to learn to appreciate my time here more.
In time, I'll learn to love Glasgow.
I hope. =)

maid horror

By the time this post comes out, many of my friends would probably have heard the story of my fantastic maid (hear my sarcasm dripping?). But I'll tell it here anyway, people out there need to know!

Well.
It started with my parents bringing home RM10,000 from the bank.
(If you're wondering, the money is now safely in the bank again. No need to go rob my house.)
The very next morning, they took the money out and only RM8000 was left.
Takan RM2000 disappeared overnight?!
Since the only people left in my home are my parents and our maid of 8 years, the obvious culprit would seem like the latter.
So my parents confronted her. She denied.
Then they went to her room and searched. No money found.
Then they contacted the maid agency. An agent was dispatched to our house to search again.
Guess what?

The agent found RM4000 in my maid's baju sembahyang.

And,
That's not all!

She also found a knife hidden under my maid's mattress in her room!

It was the very same knife we thought had 'hilang' some time ago.

After that, the maid confessed that she had duplicated the key to our drawer, which we usually put our cash in. How she managed to do it is still a mystery to us.
(p/s: obviously now the drawer is no longer used for that purpose. Who knows how many copies of the keys were made by her?!)

Considering the fact that we have had her for about 8 years, I really don't know how much money exactly was filched from us over the years. I don't even dare to think about it. And this RM4000 was stolen from us in the 2 weeks she returned from her hometown in Surabaya. Only god knows how much she must have 'transported' home.

The sad thing about this whole game is that, our maid is actually quite a good one. She has singlehandedly run our household for the past 8 years, doing everything that needs to be done in our house. Although sometimes she will be a little lazy, for most of the time she is indispensable in our house.

Ah well. Thank goodness I had the good luck to be in scotland when the drama unfolded.

Now the difficult issue is to get another maid (or not!).
You see, my grandma is staying with us. And she wants a maid to keep her company when we're not at home. She's always paranoid that she'll fall down or have a heart attack or something when she's alone and no one would be around to help her.
But apparently Indonesian maids are now not allowed into malaysia now, according to some new ruling in our country.
So I don't know what's gonna happen now.
I can only hope for the best.


+:+:+:+:+:+


Life is SUPER BUSY oh my god!

Sometimes I feel like an express bus which had to run back and forth from Singapore to Perlis continuously for the past 2 weeks and hadn't had time to rest at all.

There is no time to cram all the information we've learnt into our brains, and before we know it, there's more new information to be learnt!

*prays hard that I'll be exempted from PP3*



Till my first PP3 class test,

xoxo

Dose of glasgow is safe, appropriate and effective

Ahhh.
The green green grass of glasgow!

The weather is beautiful, the people nice, and you won't believe how amazingly gorgeous the guys here are.

Scotland is already working its magic on me.

Of course, my skin is peeling like a papery onion, and the conversion rate is sky-high, and finding cheap food is a little difficult when you're spending pounds on a ringgit income.

But I still love it.

It's my 6th day here, and I'm still happy. =)



Okay, so my hostel room is super tiny and my bed is facing the bedroom door directly, which is supposed to be a no-no in fengshui. But since there's nothing I can do about it, I'll just have to live with it I guess. Or perhaps fengshui doesn't apply here. But the room is cosy, and everything is working nicely.

I'm still not missing home....yet.

I love the fact that I can go out a whole day in the sun and not sweat!

I love my Lebara number. Free calls, woohoo!

I love the lecturers here. Well, some of them, at least.

I love the buildings here. It's like they've come right out of an Austen book!

I love putting on a sweet-smelling moisturiser and not feel icky or sticky after that.

I love the FAST internet!



And I don't really have much more to say.

So, till next time!

xoxo

Everything is just a concept

Have you ever wondered what makes something good and another, bad?

It's all a matter of concept.

It's fascinating to me how a person's concept of the world can differ so radically from another.
In fact, what makes our reality, is how we view the world.

If you think the whole world is out to get you, then yes, sad to say, the people you meet would be waiting and pouncing to take advantage of you whenever they can.

If you think the whole world is better than you and looks down on you, then the people you meet would be those who stomp on you and put you down at every chance you get.

If you think the whole world is unfair, then all you can see would be the unfairness and inequality in the world.

Problem is, once our reality of reality is set in stone, very little can be done to change it.
Unless a life-altering, earth shattering event occurs.
Like Kris Allen winning AI8. =)
I have not been the most diligent fan of AI8, and I'm definitely not the best person to give an opinion regarding anything AI8 related.
But from what I have seen, Kris started off as a humble guy, so humble to the extent that if you asked him at the start if he thought he would win AI8, he would probably stare at you incredulously and go "huh?"
But look at him now.
A shining star is born right before our eyes.
That's the beauty of AI. You get to witness the growth of the contestants through the contest, and it never fails to amaze me bila bintang dilahirkan.

Anyways, I digress. This post is not for me to gush over Kris or Adam or anyone else, actually.

It's supposed to be about a certain camp me and my friends took part some days ago.
Which I know I'm not supposed to write about, due to the 'secrecy oath' all of us took before the camp.
But that's not gonna stop me from telling you about other stuff that happened in those 5 days!

1. I am still swooning over *cough* our Mister Penghulu. Ha!
I am starting to think I have this radar for big successful guys. Or guys that are somewhere along the way there. The first day when we were sitting in the auditorium waiting for the rest of the peserta to reach, he was the first person who caught my eye. I don't know how, but I just...knew. Maybe it was his good looks (but remember, I didn't find him good-looking at first), or the fact that he looked like one of my former crushes, hehe. *shy*And it was a pity I wasn't in the same group as him, but still...haizzz... But he's younger la. So cannot.

2. I think I am getting older.
Because I am starting to think of people as 'kids'. And those people are like, what, 18 years old?! I don't know why. But at one point when my group leader (we were assigned to small groups of 12 or 13 for easier discussions) failed to turn up on time for our practice session for our patriotic song performance, I found myself thinking...ah well. He's just a kid, let him be.

And after a while, I started. and thought, what the...?!
It's not that I'm a lot older than him. 5 years is not really a lot. Perhaps it is a sign of ageing...

3. I finally tried abseiling!!

4. I am so in love with this song 'Mulanya di sini'.
For people who went to the camp, it's the 'sama sama' song that all of us sang together on thursday. And. I. Like. It. So. Much!! It makes me want to hug my fellow Malaysians and sing with them at the top of our voices in the middle of Federal highway.
(and no, I am not suicidal.)

5. I realised I can go without 'real' food for days.
Because the food at the camp was really...yuck. By my standards, anyway. Too oily for my stomach and too spicy for my tastebuds. How to eat? So I didn't eat. And surprise! I didn't feel too hungry, and I found that now my appetite is smaller and I am eating lesser. The perks of the camp, hahaha....

6. My malay has improved.
Not much, actually. But better than nothing. The first day of our group discussions, for most of the time I was actually trying to figure out what the others were saying (in BM, of course!). And it didn't help that our group facilitator speaks with an alarmingly fast rate. I mean, just because our camp is in Formula 1 Sepang doesn't mean that you have to compete with the cars to see who goes faster right?.. it was really really tough. I actually wanted to ask him (and my group members) to speak slower, but...aih. Paiseh la. I'm malaysian after all, right.

7. Silence is golden.

8. Telling lies, is not.

9. Somehow the camp reminds me of NS. A very short one, albeit.
But of course, NS was much, much more enjoyable. And I read a piece of news that the government plans to get the former NS-ians together to garner whether they still have the 'patriotic spirit'. How are they gonna prove that? I don't know. But if I am chosen to go then I shall just sing all the lagu patriotik that I have learnt in the last camp. Guaranteed patriotic!

10. Seeing from others' perspectives is vital for success.


And the end!

Okay. So the reason why I am late with this post is that, ahah! I am back to scrubbing the floors and clothes. And everything else in between.

Because my darling maid has just decided to stay longer in her hometown.
Her story was, her bus broke down on her way to the airport. Then she missed the flight. Then she booked another flight on the 28th. 10 days later than promised.

I don't really believe her.
But what can I do?!

Of course, I have come up with my own plans for making my burden lighter.
Like, putting more clothes in the washing machine instead of hand-washing them.
Cooking porridge for lunch instead of a whole 3-course meal.
Whipping out my bedroom slippers for my parents instead of sweeping and mopping the floors daily.
And manja-ing my parents to tapau dinner instead of having me to cook. Ha!

Smart leh....


Till I fly!
xoxo

what doesn't kill you, makes you stronger

So recently I've been getting more irritated, angry, and stressed out than I've ever been in a fairly long time.

Reason? I'm back home, sans my indonesian maid.
And being the only one with 'lots of free time', I was the obvious choice to take over her chores.

Lest you start thinking I'm a good-for-nothing lazy bum, let me explain that the household chores are not the reasons why I'm so upset.

1. My efforts are not appreciated. I feel like what I'm doing is EXPECTED. Sometimes I start feeling like a maid obeying orders from her boss.

2. I feel as if I'm not trusted. Well, this applies mostly to my grandma. She's always reminding me about chores and tasks that I have not done, or didn't do properly. But the thing is, the way she reminds me is so berputar belit that I have to scratch my head to figure out what she wants. I mean, hello! I'm 23 years old for god's sake. I have stayed on my own for almost 5 years (2 years college plus 2.5 years university). I know how to run a house. Really. But the feeling of not being trusted to do what I do, does not feel good.

3. My grandma (again!) and her complaints. She can't do any housework (because of her slipped disc which never recovered) and somehow she feels guilty that she can't help out. So she goes around saying things like "Oh, I'm old already, useless already, cannot help you all to do things. What to do, what to do...." And sometimes she'll throw in a "Aih, I'm going to die soon.." for good measure. (!) I mean, when she says that for the first time, I still can layan her nicely and tell her, oh don't say that, it's our duty anyway, you're considered very healthy for your age, bla bla bla....you know, the standard things we say to pacify old people. But when she says that for the freakin' 20th time, I really have to refrain myself from yelling at her. Of course I succeed (in refraining, not yelling!) but it's really stressing me out this way. Doing my chores is already quite tiring, and plus pacifying her, I'm drained physically and mentally. Sometimes I feel like I have got nothing more to give, and yet she's still taking, and taking, and taking......


Actually there are more issues, just that I don't feel like relating more of them. Reminding myself of unhappy stuff makes me unhappy.
Perhaps you would think I'm this ungrateful and unfilial brat that snaps at her grandma.
But really, not all grandmothers are made equal.
Like when Cyik was telling me about how her grandmother would make bak zhangs specially catered to her tastes for her, I was so...envious. And sad. Because I knew my grandmother would never do that for me.
Actually I guess I can't blame her for that. She belongs to the generation of people that puts their sons and grandsons above everything else. Daughters and granddaughters are just people that 'belong to other people once they're married.'
And she doesn't make a secret of her biased love for her male heirs.
In other words, I know she doesn't love me.
And I can never make her love me, no matter how much I love her or how much I do for her.


Then today I woke up and it struck me.

Fact no.1: I have to do my chores and deal with my grandma.
Fact no.2: I can be happy or unhappy about it.

Either way I still have to do what I'm supposed to do.
So why don't I choose to be happy when I'm doing it?

I don't need people to appreciate the things I do.
Whatever I do, I do for myself.
I cook nice meals so the people I love can have a healthy and wholesome meal.
I clean the house so the people I love (and myself) can live in a clean place.
I wash the clothes so the people I love (and myself) can have clean clothes to wear everyday.

So even if they don't appreciate my efforts, I myself am still benefiting from what I have done.
In other words,
I am not doing this for them.
I'm doing this for myself.

And as for my grandmother, I don't NEED her to love me for me to survive.
I still have my parents. And my friends.
I don't have to let her affect my moods.

In other words,
I realised that, nothing is personal.

My grandma's not loving me is not because I'm not good enough.
It's because of her olden ways of thinking.

My uncle's not liking the food I cooked is not because my cooking is horrible.
It's just because he's not used to eating western food.
(FYI, he found the pasta I cooked for him to be one word: Yuck!)

Other people who say unkind things to me are not because I am a bad person.
It's because THEY are bad people. Or perhaps they've had a bad day.

You see,
When others scold you,
it's because THEY are angry.

When others irritate you,
it's because THEY are inconsiderate.

When others say something unkind,
it's because THEY choose to say unkind stuff to you.

Either way,
It's not you.
It's them!

So why should we be affected?

Accepting this fact has made me a happier person.
Nothing should, and would be taken personally.


Till I get my visa,
xoxo