Waiting for November to come... oh, I mean December

The Malaysian MATTA Fair was on early this month in PWTC. Itching for a holiday to either Seoul or Tokyo, I tried convincing my buddy to go with me to check out the price. I know I would only be able to go several months later, but I still wanted to check the market price so I can pinch up as much cash as I can. Unfortunately, my buddy didn't wanna go with me because she knew I couldn't confirm the date... and in MATTA Fair, you need to confirm the date for booking to enjoy the price rate they have.

So, disappointed (as always,) I went onto Wikipedia to read up on Seoul and Tokyo (that's about as close as I could get to the cities.) I don't know how, but I ended up in the Seoul-Incheon International Airport page on Wiki.

Wakakakaka :P I couldn't believe my eyes! AirAsia X heading to Seoul?! That's like the best news I heard that day!

To be sure my eyes wasn't playing tricks on me, I went to AirAsia's homepage. Guess what I saw?

Not only do they fly to Seoul, they now also include Tokyo in their list of destinations! I can now go to 2 of my favourite cities in the world without killing my bank account! I'm now waiting for my partner-in-crime (hehe, my neighbour) to come back from Australia to see if she's willing to join me on a Korean/Japanese escapade! Hahahahaha xD

Flow is friends with the flu bug... for now...

I officially depleted the tissue supply in the house.

This all started early this week. My brother was down with a serious case of flu + sinus infection package since the beginning of the school holidays. Arrogantly thinking that my immune system is way better than him and anyone else in the house, I go about my daily life without taking precaution so as to not catch his "little friends". Little did I know, his "little friends" bit me in the behind before I knew it...

To cut a long story short, I caught the flu bug. But I didn't know until I visited the doctor on Friday for my medical check up. As I was having a runny nose, I asked the doc for some cold tablets and something for my throat. She in turn, stuck the electronic thermometer into my ear.

Doctor: Do you have any fever going on?

Me: No lah.

Doctor (after temperature reading): Eh, you sure you got no fever?

Me: Uh, ya (Duh, like as if I won't know if I have fever...)

She stuck the thermometer back into my ear again to take a reading.

Doctor: Eh, you got high grade fever la. See? (shows thermometer. Temperature: 37.9 Celsius)

Me: Oh... ok...

Doctor: You mean to tell me you don't even know you have fever? (=.=")

Me: *Paiseh, nods*

Shaking her head, she prescribed me some meds for my illness, before I kena sound from her for not even noticing I had high grade fever when I went to work. I told her I seriously felt fine and then she told me to take better care of myself and be aware if I'm sick, bla-bla-bla, all the things a doctor would say to a sick fella who didn't care enough to notice they were sick. She also told me to monitor my fever and go see her again if my fever is still on after 2-3 days.

The most chun thing was: they asked me to take my medication before I leave the clinic. Usually, even when I had high fever, the doctor would just ask me to go home, eat something before taking my meds and sleep. This is the first time the doctor asked me to eat it (despite my empty stomach) before I can go.

When I told my brother this, he said I must be in pretty critical condition for the doctor to take such actions! (Lol...) I tried to follow doctor's orders and monitor my temperature. My brother and I dug out our family thermometer from one of mother's cupboard. I took my temperature. The results are amazing.

Brother: So, what's your temperature?

Me: Urm... 33.5 Celsius

Brother: Say what?! Take it again!

Me: Urm... now it's 34.5 Celsius.

Brother: Ok, you don't have a fever, you're just a corpse

Me: The damn thing is broken, I tell you!

He then took his own temperature with the same thermometer.

Brother: Oh shit, now I'm a corpse too (His is 35 Celsius, if i recall correctly.)

In the end, I can't monitor my temperature after all (since my entire family can't feel that I have a fever and I myself can't detect it in the first place.) But, seeing how my condition is still the same and that I've finished all my medication (not to mention the wiped-out tissue supply,) I would have to see my doctor again tomorrow. Hopefully I won't kena sound again...

Username and password recovery is a pain in the behind

It has been many, many, MANY months since the last entry and the only reason was because: I forgot my username... and password... and the email I used for this blog.

Yes, I'm growing senile.

Guess I'm the kind who needs to log in every now and then (if not every day) just to remember what user name, password and email address is used for the account. I tried several times to recall the details for my blog's login, but my mind was still empty... until I found a notebook with its details today (Thank God!) but even so, logging in to my email to recover my blog's password (I remembered the URL but not the login username and password) was a pain in the ass. It's my fault as I have scribbled way too many things on that single sheet of paper...

Anyhow, after this pretty long lesson, there's gonna be a hard copy on paper, a soft copy on my phone and a mental copy in my head (although I get the feeling the mental copy ain't gonna last very long...)

擂茶

Today I tried something very new to me. The idea of it is totally foreign. In fact, I didn't know such a thing existed until late last year when my colleague told me so (and I call myself a Malaysian Chinese...)

The thing I had was called "擂茶" (lui cha) which apparently means pounded tea. I pronounce it as "lui cha" because that is how you pronounce it in Cantonese, however I don't know how it sounds like in its native Hakka.

I think there are 2 versions of it, at least. One of them is like a real tea. The ingredients of nuts, rice, soybeans and grains are all pounded together to make a powdered texture. Then, this is added in hot tea, usually green tea, since it's always green in colour.

The one I ate for dinner today, however, is slightly different. The ingredients are the same, except with the addition of french beans and a huge bunch of peppermint leaves and green vegetable leaves. The ingredients are not made into powder form, but rather left as it is. The leaves are sliced in thin strips and all the ingredients are mixed well (something like Bibimbap) before hot green tea is poured over. It is more of a soupy, rice dish than a beverage.

All I can say is that to appreciate this, you will have to have an acquired taste. It's not bad, it just tasted rather unusual to me. Too bad I don't have a photo to illustrate though, it does look kinda nice...

Scenario: My boyfriend/husband/whatever must be 100% like Mr. Darcy

It has occured to me that, for girls who reads Pride and Prejudice, they will soon (either subconsciously or not) conjure up a Mr. Fitzwilliam Dracy model that is to be used, if you will, on potential boyfriends/husbands.

Ok, so maybe not every girl have this whole Mr. Darcy complex going on in their heads after years of reading Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice, but some do.

It is not something difficult to understand when me, myself, reads the novel many times and personally admire Darcy's 'arrogant disposition' (I'd like to think of it as an inability to express oneself properly rather than pure arrogance.) However, I find the overt and excessive admiration for a fictional character to a point that a girl/woman wishes to model her boyfriend/husband entirely after the guy is a bit...extreme.

There is nothing wrong with admiring Fitzwilliam Darcy's character. A gentleman with fault is something more charming than a charismatic gentleman who turns out to be a fraud. Although this character is not as warm as Jane Austen's other heroes, such as George Knightley or Edmund Bertram; he is well received on his own right. After all, he is one of the favourite Austen novel heroes.

Having said that, as nice as it is to have a Mr. Darcy or Mr. Knightley around, finding such Victorian (or rather Georgian) gentlemen in our time isn't such an easy task. So give the guys a break, yea? It may not be easy to fill Mr. Darcy's shoes but I am sure there is some gentleman's quality in everyone :)

And for those of you who actually managed to find a Mr. Darcy/Mr. Knightley/Another Jane Austen hero in the real world; congratulations, that is quite a catch!

Hyped up about: Late nite reading

For the past week I have experimented with what I can do with my time after work. Without the existence of a computer and a TV.

I thought it was going to be a great challenge. After all, Youtubing is one of my favourite things to do, so is facebook-ing, surfing the web and sinking into that soft, fluffy couch as I watch TV dramas. How on earth am I going to spend the waking hours of the night?

For the first few nights, I came home late from work. Too tired and weary, I just grabbed a book and hopped onto bed. Before I could even finish a page, I was out cold like a knocked-out drunkard, snoozing and oinking away.

For the subsequent night, when I wasn’t so beat, I was scratching my head thinking of how to kill time. It was only 8.30PM, what am I gonna do?!

As I scanned through the book I casually picked up from my table, I kept asking myself: what to do, and what is wrong with this woman in the book. I felt so ding-dong when I realised I was doing something *ambient subconsciously* and that is reading.

I admit, it was pretty blur of me not to notice that I was reading and debating myself at the same time. Reading has always been my favourite pass time, especially during rainy weekend evenings. It used to be somewhat a routine in the past, but not any more. I had a habit of reading before bedtime when I was a student. Every night, from my high school days up until my final year in university, I would spend half an hour reading before I sleep. I had not notice when my fad with technology *ahem, namely my laptop and my cable TV* overtook this long time habit of mine.

After all that is said, I began picking up the habit of daily reading again, starting this week. I found that reading during the night time calms my nerves and is now added into my daily routine once again as it was before in the past. I may not have as much time as before for the dear friend *The Book*, but I shall certainly make more time for it in the future, considering how I enjoy its company immensely :)