Last year I made resolutions for the first time in my life…listing out items that I would like to finish in the 365 days. Now that it is the end of my time limit….how did I do? Well, let’s see…

Home
To finish decorating the house to resemble a home. To plot escape route and possibly move countries. Two totally contradicting resolutions, but it will be either one or the other.
To plant a tree and start a brand new garden. Planting my friends’ favourite plants and flowers always reminds me of them,if you want to be reminded, tell me what your flower is!

Result: Finished decorating (somewhat) but now no chance to escape at all. Planted a cherry tree but no chance of a new garden.

Self
To lose 5+kg and return to the gym. Start Yoga lessons to correct posture and internal peace
To make an effort to go out more often and love my friends more.To appreciate the friends I keep and cease-and-desist those not worth keeping (like slash and burn). To get over the sickening feeling of homesickness.

Result: More like +10kg. Never saw the inside of a gym. Started Pilates classes, but that quickly went to pot when the instructer keeps failing to turn up. Slash and burn worked.

Hobbies
To make salt dough creations. Finish my origami book with all it’s examples.Take massage classes. Cook proper Malaysian dishes instead of the same old easy student-y dishes. Conquer the art of making Nasi Lemak. Take more photos and get a SLR for more hobbyist shots.

Result: Salt dough did not go further than buying a book. Origami book is still in progress. Am now a qualified Indian Head Massage practitioner.Cooking wise, I had vastly improved over the past 365 days, and have grown to be very adventurous ingreddients wise. I had learn to trust my tingling tastebuds when imagining recipies. Made Nasi Lemak amongst other things. Got an SLR but life got in the way of taking more pictures.

Travel
Would be happy in Ibiza (target time - April). Or if ££ permitting, Phuket with the girls and boy. Get to Glastonbury in end June. Bring parents around UK in July.A longer trip back to KL - preferably with an island break.

Result: Done Ibiza in May. Got to Glastonbury in June and came back nearly in tears with the endless rain. Parents never arrived in the UK. Did not make it back to KL in 2007, but I did get to Prague in August. Did not do much of UK, did not even make it to London at all this year which is outrageous

Career
To find a career that I really want. Do not succumb to work related stress. To develope a more zen-like approach at work.Make more friends at work, irregardless if I move or not.To have a proper saving account instead of splashing it all out on the house and touring the world. Pay off all house-related debts - other than mortgage and car

Result: Move jobs twice.Now in something that I believe I can remain content in for some time to come, which is encouraging. All the hard work of job hunting has come to an end at last after nearly a whole year. Getting better at friends-at-work thing.I had a proper savings account, which had dwindled to near nothingness in the past two weeks. Blame it on xmas spluge, visa price & after Christmas sales. And not to mention my tickets to KL for Feb. Sigh. However, finance wise should look up next year as Bacon would have gotten a 40% pay rise from his current salary.

And here’s wishing a happy & succesful New 2008 to everyone!!!!!

Lately I seem to be running into a writers’ block. I’ve got ideas, all surrounded by the need to take pictures. With the turning weather, honestly, I really do NOT feel like going out to take pictures. All I seem to do when I get back is eat, clean, bathe and watch tv in bed. I love the concept of tv in bed; my old room was too tiny and all I could afford when I was a student in Fresno was a 13inch tv.

Tonight’s choice of tv show is China’s missing children. It explores the illegal trade of child trafficking in this one-child country, voluntary and kidnapped. Strangely enough, children in China are actually a topic very close to my heart. I have been searching high and low for a charity to belong to, something that I feel strongly enough. I wanted to ’save the turtles’, but of course, am unable to send a local Malaysian cheque. I then turned to look for a charity to help children’s education in China, but strangely enough cannot find one that penetrates deep China where it is most needed.

I digress.

Some child trafficking are done with the parents’ consent , some are kidnapped and sold on to childless couples desparate for a child to love. Some are sold as cheap labour. And some, according to the wifes’ tale that I grew up with, are groomed to be petty thiefs or to beg on the streets. For the purposes of this blog, I am only going to discuss parents who had knowingly sold their children. This is definately not something new in China, who for centuries, the peasants have sold their children to richer families as child servant or betrothed thier pre pubescent daughters as future wifes and mistresses of the local landlord. Anyone who had ever watched an olden style TVB drama would know what I am talking about. Parents who are so improvished, they willingly sell their children out of love, to enable them to lead a better life. Or not?

I am of course, not a mother, nor am I even half motherly. I can love my cat, and that’s probably all I am capable of now. Therefore, I make no claim to understanding how parents feel when giving their children away. But I have actually know of children who had been sold by their mothers. No, they were not kidnapped, they were ‘given away’ by their parents for a price. A very lucrative price. And of course, boys fetch a much higher price than the girls.

Whether morally it is right or wrong, the sold children that I have personally witnessed is now leading a much, much better life than it would have been possible with their birth parents. One came from a poor family already burdened with 7 children. Another came from an illicit affair between a drug addict and an underage girl.

They are now very loved by their ‘adopted’ parents. The big difference between a purchased child and an adopted child boils down to legality. With a purchased child, if an agreement is made before the child is born, it is entirely possible to get the buyers’ names on the birth certificate, thus the child never knowing that they have been adopted. Ignorace is bliss? The way the Malaysian government works does not help as well, passport applications for under-21s require the birth father’s signature, and the child will only receive Malaysian citizenship if the father is Malaysian.

I am frankly torn between this moral dillema of child trade. In a perfect world, we would all be able to reproduce a mini-me if we should choose to, but this world is far from perfect. No, I am not planning to have a baby now nor am I planning to buy one. Is it right to buy a child, if not for anything to at least give it a better life than the birth parents can ever dream of? Is it right to hide from your children that they are not blood and flesh, but were purchased for a price? Will they really be happier knowing that their birth parents had sold them for cold hard cash?

Seeing how much their ‘adopted’ parents love them, seeing them being showered with gifts and toys I feel that they have been very lucky indeed. But as I watch them grow into teenagers, I am not sure how long have their doting parents got until the children finally finds out that they have been purchased.

I have drafted and re-drafted this post in an attempt to articulate my thoughts - but it’s been fairly difficult and sometimes downright conflicting.Two incidents over the past week had made me question the development of female equality. Now, I have never admitted to be a feminist, I enjoy the occasional male chivalry and being pampered as a female species. I don’t mind having to pay my half of the household bills, and I believe that with or without a husband/bf, I would still be able to support myself and be happy.I even enjoy bending the rules by batting my eyelashes. But the two incidents over the past week had made me rethink about how far have we really come as a sex.

Case 1:
Some girls are brought up to depend to men for everything. They believe that they are able to manipulate any men by just the simple fact that they are pretty; personality not required. They believe that their beauty will get them the ‘best’ man; i.e. the richest, best looking, treat them best ect. They also believe that they will stand behind their man, and not side by side.

In the same train of thought, we had a shocking discovery last week of a friend that admitted at last in wanting an expensive wedding, paid for by her supposedly well-off boyfriend -> how he treats her or how their relationship is developing is irrelevant. What was most important to her was that she believe that she would be able to upgrade her life (to a stay-at-home tai tai I guess) once she manages to manipulate him to matrimony.She also believed that irregardless of how damaging their relationship had been or the fact that she had continued ‘hunting’ for better prey, it is just logical that the next step for him is to spend all his money on marrying her.

What really got to me was that she felt so strongly about ‘marrying upwards’ and that at her ripe age (a little younger than me), she is unable to wait any longer for a lifetime commitment. I know her requirements for a partner had always been high, but I had always questioned her attitute to men that her beauty surpasses everything. Unless you’re close to her, she has the personality of a limpet, an attitute of an ignorant peasant woman and a very showy(branded items) front. She basically blow every chance that life had given her to ‘upgrade’ her life i.e. education, better career ect. And at the moment she is just like a cake sitting in the window, waiting to be sold off.

At the moment, I am not even sure if she’s ever loved this poor guy she’s trying to entrap or is she just ticking off a box that says he is rich.

Why do women marry for the sake of money & status (i.e. being MRS DR XXX) , and what will posess them to be so helplessly useless?

Case 2:
I recently met up with someone I have known for ages, yes, right here in the UK. We have never hung out together, so she wouldn’t appear on my list of call-a-friend if I ever appear on Who wants to be a millionaire. Being related makes us ‘friends’, and makes me a must-meet -up person. But I digress

She popped over to Leeds to meet up with me with a guy ‘FRIEND’. Now, I have guy friends as well,and for most part, I think I have more guy friends compared to female friends. Just look at the who’s who on my bacherlorette party. However, when we go out as friends, we either take turns to pay or go dutch; after all, we are all trying to earn a living here. Unless you’re PenangKia, in which case you secretly pay my bill even if you did not have a drink.

This guy friend of her (which she had known for a few months), upon meeting us (me & bacon) for the first time an hour ago, proceeded to pay for our dinners. I was fairly uncomfortable with that, as I do not know him well, and from what I know, he was not well-paid in his job (he incidentaly works in the same company as bacon, and we were able to guess his salary from his job title) .What shocked me most was that SHE did not offer to pay at all. Neither did another friend of hers that tagged along. Upon further discussions (no, I did NOT interrogated her, just surfaced in our conversation) I realized that he pays for her most of the time, if not all the time.And they go out to eat at least a couple of times a week. If you’ve been reading my blog, you would had realized that I sometimes feel I am eating away all my salary - and that’s with me and bacon mostly taking turns.

The key here is that she has a bf back home, whom she is apparently planning to marry next year.

The matching database key also says that he is treating her like they are an item, paying for everything and going out with her for restaurant meals, taking time off to go shopping with her.

And the SQL (I am such a geek) statement produces the answer that this is a relationship

HOWEVER, she (and her other friend - female) also allowed me to pay for drinks ect. without lifting a finger to help me carry them nor a penny to pay towards the drinks. Which I don’t really mind doing for her, seeing that we’re related and all, but her other friend (female) who just sits there sponging off strangers, I find a little strange.

It is also extremely disturbing to me that they sponge off this guy endlessly and just expects him to pay for all their food ect even though they have not known him long.

They incidentaly also sponged off bacon by not offering to pay him anything when he got their drinks in. Bear in mind they had not met him before.

I don’t wish to pick on small token sums of money. I willingly pay for friends and people I love,but I will not be taken for a sui yee (turtle) by people I dont know.

———————————————————————————–

How far have we really come from the 1950s where the man is expected to bring back the bacon, and the woman is just supposed to not contribute nor have any ambitions other than to snare a rich man?

I am extremely dissapointed.

arteries of the heart

It rains again, she moaned. How am I ever going to get home?

The perpetual need for an umbrella to protect her from the elements. Splashing your best pair of heels into puddles is not fun when you are actually old enough to wear heels. Dancing in the rain is an illusion created by songs of dreamers not yet hardened by heartache. The drenched-wet look had never completely caught on with the fashionista faction, preferring the blow dried pneumonia-free style.

The pitter patter of the rain resonated with the conversations in her head.It drips,it plops in an awfully slow way, contently awaiting for the big storm. The whisperings in her head persuading her to stay and go at the same time, with equally baffling arguments from the devil perching on her right shoulder and the angel on the left. Go home,you know you want to, whispered angel. But you will get wet and probably sick from walking in the rain.Stay here where its dry and comforting,argued the little devil.

The deceptive sunshine that peeks through the clouds presents a hope that the rain will be stopping soon somewhere over the horizons.Somehow she is jaded by the knowledge and experience that a deception is what it is,nothing else. The sun should just completely dissapear, bringing the world with it,she secretly complained.What is the use of the sun if it continues drowning in the overwhemingly grey rain-producing cumulus?

When will this ever stop, when will summer ever grace us with its glorious beams? Her head continues to spin at a dizzying speed, as the rain picks up outside the stained glass looking down on the little-travelled highway. She wants to hitch a ride, steal a car,ride a bicycle, anything to get on the road. A tuk-tuk with an umbrella,maybe, she ponders.Or a superman in a red cape, with the distinguishing outer-innerwear to set it apart from little red riding hood.But where would the road ahead lead?

Or does it matter?

How do you spend your weekend? Is it peppered with shopping malls or do you do volunteer work (hah,my readers??) ? Maybe you run away to dive like senhon or spend time with the baby like mag. Or dreamily go thorugh the weekend being half sober like what I used to do?

What does your weekend say about you, really? It’s the only two days that most of us gets any reprive from the cat eat cat world of corporate slavery. Mine had changed dramatically over the past year or two. From weekends of being half-conscious smelling perpetually of whiskey with coffee sessions and dinner with the folks to my current state of domestic goddess wannabe, I am creeping myself out. For a short while last year, weekends were filled with shopping and more window shopping, which had winded down this year to be replaced by domestic good work.

dreybee: what you doing this weekend?
me: i am damn excited! should I cook pho or make curry puff or be really naughty and do both?
dreybee: mmm..pho! simple!
me: so what are you doing this weekend then
dreybee: mm..dont know.

So yeah. There it is. The story of my pathetic life.The most exciting thing that I can look forward to is cooking over the weekend.Do I miss my half-conscious weekends. I do. The smell of whiskey still brings me back.But I do like my bizzare state of domesticity. I love it when the stuff I planted grows and my nasi lemak turns out pleasantly edible. I can happily sit at home and fold origami on a sat night whereas I could never had stayed home on weekend nights - even after pulling a 12-hour at work.The only time I am not out at the clubs or bars or parties is when I am off on holiday somewhere under a coconut tree. I can now happily spend all day cooking.AT HOME. I suck :(.Even my mother is more happening than me with her gatherings and breakfast parties. I think she don’t even recognize me anymore. Most people cannot even start to believe that I had turned to such a domestic sucker goddess.

More excitement this weekend..I am building my own chest of drawers! WOohOo! With electric screwdriver and hammer and all…ableit the hammer was used to hammer down my earrings:).I can unpack after long last.Don’t you wish your life was as exciting as mine?

Btw ; should I make pho or should I make curry puff?

Just because I’ve done this a number of times doesn’t mean that it gets better with time. It is always hard being away from family in times of celebration.And there are no bigger celebration than the annual Chinese New Year. As much as I hate the yearly trek of traffic jams in the name of celebration, I love all the fuss really. I love scoffing down all the food in name of celebration, the laziness of the whole celebration, the yeesang and the reunion dinner that is always held at a hotel - the last time my family cooked a reunion dinner was nearly 20 years ago.

It’s not often that we (as a family - I do it all the time hee hee) go for buffets, so that once a year occasion is usually met with whooping joy even though the food is usually bad and they sometimes have lameass competitions.I miss the day-before rush to get the freshest fruits and the best meats from the wet market and the tradition of visiting ancestral gods at the ancestral village at the stroke of midnight. That is the one day in the year I feel close to my roots and what it is to be a fourth-generation malaysian chinese of the fisherman stock.The smell of burning incense, the loud incessant karaoke blasting through the village complete with mahjong tiles clucking always makes me feel like I belong, if only for a moment. Beer cans are pushed around in truckloads like a carlsberg sponsored event. The females are forced upon bottles of mineral water.And all the while, the karaoke continues blasting like crazy frog on heat.

And the next moment it is gone. I will never be able to connect with the karaoke-blasting sunflower seed-cracking people sitting around every year at the ‘community centre’ awaiting the dawn of the new year. They call each other pighead and smelly teat (not kidding) and treat me like the urbanite I am; gawking at my mannerism and my false airs. The flailing ties that connect us as the same family ( we’re all connected by surname) will end with my father being recognized as the cheeky 3-year old who ran up and down the village in his diapers ready for a game of cards. Me and my brother do not belong here, with the scary-looking ancestral gods and ruddy faced fisherman pushing beers into our hands. We belong in the Starbucks generation, but has Starbucks ever believed that we were one of them,urbanites so completely influenced by commercialization that we do not belong to the people that is part and parcel of a huge family?Of our huge family?

The first day of chinese new year will always start with a vegetarian meal and then off to my maternal grandmother’s. Now here is when it gets even more confusing. Both maternal grandparents are adopted, which makes roots tracing a bit of a problem. Am I 100% chinese? I have no idea. Am I part of another culture three generations removed? Both my grandmothers follow the tradition of the Straits Chinese of beautiful frilly kebayas and living in sarongs all day long. My childhood food is a classic representation of the Straits Chinese food of Penang. We do not only have classic chinese foods like steamed fish and double-boiled soups, we have creamy curry chicken, tamarind-flavoured curried stingray and all sorts of kuihs ( sweetcakes)

But who am I, really?

This year’s ‘reunion dinner’ included a wide spread of hotpot/steamboat assortments and a chinese white fungus desset in my attempt to grasp at the straws of my heritage.It is as chinese as I can get without blasting karaoke, but somehow, a family of two is never the same with the frustration with dealing with a family of 100.

If you are celebrating this year of the Golden Pig with family, rememeber, no matter how painful it is (when you getting married ah?When you having children ah?) or how boring (eat eat eat gamble sleep), you choose your friends, but not your family, because they are and always will be what you are made out of.

From time to time, I read blogs by people that i don’t usually read, and it’s usually through links of those that are on my blogroll. I don’t really enjoy them, but its for the times when I am bored out of my mind. Some end up being on my blogroll because I end up reading them more than once a week and enjoy them tremendously(see new additions to my links).

One of the blogs I read occasionally belong to a married woman with 2 kids.A week ago (I think) she posted that single people who thinks that they are happy are in denial. She also thinks that if you think you are single and can depend on your friends, you are just denying your friends the chance to hook up and NOT be single. You are thus pathetic and a sore loser by proclaiming that you are happy being single.

I seem to think that I have quite an ‘authority’ on this topic - aherm. I am obviously not jealous of her married status and her happiness in being married. I think marriage should not be the be all and end all. It is the solidification of the commitment you have with someone and an agreement that even though he farts in bed and leaves his socks everywhere, you would still like to be together with this person. If one day your other half cannot stand it any longer, marriage over, no need to dwell on it and stay in a relationship just to have someone miserable to spend the rest of your life with.I also feel, and tell me if I am wrong, that I am no less of a friend to the people who are important to me whether or not I am single. It is a union of two persons, not one half of a person. Just because I am married does not mean we’ve morphed into siamese twins. True, I might have more time to kau jai (seduce men) with the girls if I am single, but other than that, I do not see myself having no time for my friends (distance notwithstanding ok).

I have many, many single friends. Many smugly-married seemed to have choose their married status over friends. I believe that my utter trust in decisions my friends make and my ability to stand by them irregardless is the reason why I keep friends. I can say that if any of them (single friends) choose to hook up with tom,dick or harry just TO BE MARRIED and IN A RELATIONSHIP, they can. In fact, most of them are actually quite *cough*hot*cough*. But they choose to be single. And I believe that they are happy in the single state. Heck, if you do not choose to be single, I don’t think you would have the space to know yourself well enough to love someone else. Unless you know and love yourself, I do not believe that you are able to love someone else. I chose to be single once, a long long time ago,because I knew I needed it. It was a scary process (resulting in a tattoo), but a nessacary one for me to discover who/what I want in life. And you know what? Those were the best days of my life. It might take you 10 years, it might take you 1 year, the process varies between people. But the bottom line is, you can still choose to be single AND happy.And no, it is not lame. In fact I think it is extremely commendable to choose to be single. Esp if you are single and NOT LOOKING. It is always better to not be in a relationship than to be in the wrong relationship for all the cliched reasons.

I know quoting her without linking her page is quite nonsensical since I am bitching posting about it, but this year my resolution is to be more zen;therefore no flaming.Besides, she did say that it is just solely her personal opinion.That did not stop many of her regular readers from leaving harsh comments anyway - some call her closeminded and ignorant. Its people like her that gives the coupled up a bad name - you all know that sort of couples,they stare smugly down at happy singletons. I know of many smugly coupled who feels/think the same as her - including my own parents. I do not blame the older generation - women were brought up to depend on men. We also, in this age in time, do not NEED a (marriage)license to screw, which was another one of her reasons.I sometimes wonder if she lives in the dark ages.And brandishing her christianity as part of the reason why people should get married - man, that is just not down with it.

But guys, do tell me - do you think it is OK choose to be single or do you (like her) think that God created Adam & Eve (which in the first place I am not even christian:)) and thus if you are single you are pathetic and lame?Or worse, desparately in denial ?

hmm…

Ever since I started blogging back in 2005, I had always hankered for

a) my own domain
Achieved at last, even though it did take many years and panting jealously over mooiness.com.

b) a new camera
Had to replace my faithfull Canon Ixus in Oct 2005 due to malfunctioning lenses.I still miss it; my Nikon S3 is not as inituative as the Canon. HOWEVER, it was the first digital camera that I had purchased for myself with my hard-earned money - even the canon was a donated item.So it still remains a well-loved part of my handbag.

Jan 2007 - a passable version of the cybershot is now in my posession; masquerading as a phone.

Feb 2007 - thirsting for a dSLR with Nikon D40. I want more control, I want nice macro shots. I want to be a food photographer and an amatuer wedding photographer.Sigh.HOW NOW

c) a new laptop
My Dell inspiron had served me since 2000 (!!!)Which means it is now 7 years old.

Shall I buy a new Dell or whoop my lazyass and reformat Bacon’s 2 year old completely useless Compaq for my own usage?

Decisions decisions.I can only do one

2006 is fast running out, and to toast to the year that was, here was my tops for the past 12 months. I had unwillingly grown up some, learnt much and am still over antagonizing all things trival.I started off by getting hitched, and it ended with the birth of Joel, the cute little poo-ing bundle of joy.HE IS NOT MINE OK!

Jan
Got married

Feb
Maggy & Benny got married

Mar
Started working again

Apr
Visited Edinburgh & Da Vinci Code’s Rosslyn Chapel
Easter-egged out

May
Krispy Kreme-ed and witnessed the Cheeserolling competition
My first big purchase - the A Series
Lost my wedding & engagement Tiffany’s

June
Grew a veggie plot
Stressing out for the upcomming nuptials

July
Got married-again
Spent some time with the sea and the surf

August
Contemplating on purchasing a new house
Visited Pammy @ London
My first festival - V Festival at Westeron Park with Groove Armada,Fatboy slim,the Hed Kandi gang and the sugababes
Made my first jam

September
Watched Robbie Williams live in action

October
Car got broken in
Started jobhunting again

Nov
Moved to a house that is owned by me and myself!Oh and partly Bacon of course

Dec
Did the Australian tour
Held my first godson Joel.
Met up with moo,my not-so-secret blogging friend and YC the hotchick of blogworld

Ta-Da!