Mark the beautiful days....

I had a good pause at work with a lapse of work to do.

Odie carried a pastor and wife home!

Then there was a lot of kimchi for dinner!

Random thought of the day:

Being with five to six people, I am still fine.

Much like a band; 

there will be a drummer, a bassist, a lead guitarist, lead singer, pianist or another guitarist and keyboardist.

Restoration

*a week delayed. I've had to get myself together as hard as it was. God's been good. :))*

Goodbye, Cub.

Goodbye, Willy.

Goodbye, Slavedriver.

Cub, such a bitter painful regrettable end.

Sorry it was that way with you.

The only choice left when we've hit rock bottom is up.

And that's where I'm looking now even as I have to let you go.

Willy, so many beautiful memories made in you.

Priceless pranks, laughter and uncontrollable joy.

There was never one too many road trips to take in you.

Never one as fast as you were either.

Slavedriver, for all that was.

I'm so glad you've finally got a plan.

No one can replace you or the lessons learnt from you.

It's been good to have jammed with you.

Thank you for the good times.

I'm thankful that our paths have crossed.

Maybe some bad times could have been avoided if I've been a better person.

But it's never too late with Him. :))

So I'm trying now and it has to start with letting go and moving on.

Some fights are worth fighting for....

(#254) Through the jam.

Making it home in 1.5 hours on a Friday evening.

Miracles exist, don't they?

(#255) Through the weather.

Rain drizzling off in good timing.

(#256) Through the risk of disappointments.

Both UB and Abu was opened.

And I had both in one night!

Bags aren't packed yet.

I haven't got enough sleep yet.

But I've somehow winded down with time spent in (#257) Cub's magic.

Away from all the demands of civility, I had my fill.

Aimlessly where Odie will take us.

It's a balm to my soul.

One that I hope will last.

Soooo contented and ready now.

Less than 6 hours to go now.

Big Bad Wolf, here I come!!!!!!!!

A thankful for today...

When I think about it,

Kancil

Kelisa

Kenari

Saga

Waja

City

Civic

Sonata

X5

167 I've been blessed with the chance to drive so many cars!

At my age!

=3

Hi!

I swear I'm back.

The thing is I was left on my own for the last 2.5 weeks while my dad flew over.

Things have been really busy;
with work,
spending time with my aunt who was visiting for 2 weeks,
and catching up with people....

Managed to dye my hair, watched Hunger Games and ate my Nandos (which bird size seems to be shrinking!) in between all that.

And had fun being all by myself.
I loved the clear thoughts and decisions that I could make. The late nights out.
Being this independent and knowing I am capable of looking after the bills and house.

Anyway, tonight being my last night of freedom of sort, I took a chance and asked a friend if I could drive his Sonata.
And he said YES. All the way back from the island I drove. Woohooooooo!!!!
Poor man, I think he regret it after because he was holding on tight to the grab handle above the window the whole time. *with this big wicked grin on my face the whole time*

My Weekend (since Vi ask it that way...)

Happenings in reverse mode. Thankfuls in the right order of numbering.


Thankful no.58 for San's driving because I was so tired after church today.
Met up with Lyin, said bye bye, and got pretty sweets before heading for some shopping.

Thankful no.59 -  I was inspired today watching our young keyboardist playing the drums this afternoon.
That same awe effect that watching the orchestra in Aussie or jazz outdoor performance in Singapore produced, right in my own church.

Seeing how well she can catch on to the beats and improvising along the way, made me realise she's bolder then I give her credit for.
Hence, I'll bombard her with piano books and technics to practice on soon.
Despite being SPM year for her.

Muahahahahahahahahaha!

Odie's been dropped to the floor.

I guess that's it for him then.
I had a dream, everything was going to work itself out (thankful no.60).

Thankful no. 61 - Having a total blast after practice last night.
It was wicked going over to the island for dinner and enjoying the sea breeze til late.

But it was a memorable event, so early of 2011.

I'm such a bad influence.

First, I made her miss the 2nd set at the conference because we had McD ice cream.

And now she went along over to the island.

The first time, at such an hour, for the both of us. 

All I did, was went 'Kia!!' jokingly when the question pop up.

It really really didn't occur to me that we'd really really go for it. 

I momentary lost sight of everything else as we looked at each other,

and went 'You can bo?' almost simultaneously.

Yes, I was worried.

I've never done anything so out of the blue before.

Ok, fine. I might have done some out of the blue things before.

But not in terms of having an accomplice along for the ride.

This was a first.

Thank God her mum was cool about it. (no.62)

Can't say the same for my side, I'm thankful to have just been able to evade the interrogation and avoid lying. (no.63)

But I'm not the only bad influence around here if I wasn't the one who popped the random question, right?

Kakakakakakakaka!

Watched like 8 episodes of Nodame anime on Friday night.
Laughed hard alone at some scenes, remembering how it has been on the drama.
It was just the right cure after worrying about keyboards all afternoon and part of my evening.
Thankful for the right distraction. (no.64)


End of happenings recollection.


After a season of having a hard time finding things to be thankful for, its nice to be back in swing.

11th Dec in Retrospect

Being taken for a ride at 148km/hour over the Penang bridge (reaching the other end in 3minutes) is something really worth remembering, reliving.
That adrenaline rush that came with it,
made all other car rides after that just 'bleah' in retrospective of that few minutes.

Went through the motions bravely.
Sneaked out for some ice cream and was late back to starting the 2nd set.
Which was just totally wicked.

In some ways it was good to watch Raymond the great jamming with the mates.
Brings me down to earth, and reminds me of the many steps I still have to take.
How its still not over. And He's not done with me.

53. I'm just glad the weekend's done with.

Heartbeat

Yesterday Odie won't start up after work.

And had to be jump started to resurrect him.

Odie's heart crashed for good at around 2am last night.

His clock stopped at that time, that's how I know.

He had a heart transplant this morning.

But it isn't the same again.

Today is the 11th day in the 11th month of 2008.

What a day for things to happen.

It annoys me a heck having to go thru this so soon.
That sinking-hollow feeling when things go wrong, you can't seem to shake off even when you know you have a set of 'instructions for life' to solve it and you are calm going about it.....

I do however realize that I'm thankful and truly blessed through this experience.

For my colleague was still around when I left, because usually everyone leaves at 5pm sharp around here. She really tried to help by calling up this and that friends of hers to get a foreman over. The best part was she kept me company while waiting for the person to get here. What more she chatted up with the foreman, which is a huge relief because I'm hopeless in making conversations.

This morning, when Odie couldn't start up again, one of my uncle came over by chance.
So at least I wasn't alone when I had to call the people to come again. And he brought up the heart 'trade-in' question I wasn't sure how to bring up. Hehehe!

Wind-blown away

One of the things I will miss most about going to work at 5am in the morning is lowering down both car windows and enjoying the cool breeze while trying to keep both my eyes on the road and gazing at the stars at the same time.
I haven't succeeded yet in putting my whole head out while driving with one arm and leg on the pedal. Someday.

A while back, Jen and I made a trip to an isolated house in the middle of the night.
A good stretch of the way was really dark and eerie with not a single car passing or behind us.

Let's just say that, on the way back with Jen driving instead of me....I lowered down the car window and more or less sit on the door frame, holding on to the hand support thingy on the ceiling and keeping one feet rooted to the car. Needless to say my seat belt was abandoned la.
It was super awesome to be able to...

Feel the breeze blowing at 60km/hour and gazing up at the stars.

Knowing that there's God up there.

If she could have gone up to 80km/hour...man that would have been a blast.

A long long time ago, I was in a car going 120-130km/hour.
The opportunity was there because the air-con wasn't working.

I regret that I didn't just unbuckle and do it this way back then.
All I did was stuck my head out, body still buckled down to the seat by the seat belt.
*sigh*

If anyone out there is willing to drive that fast or faster for me someday, do let me know.

I won't hold back this time.

Vanity of vanities

I found this HUGE pair of sunglasses in my cousin's car and couldn't help myself.

Makes you grin or shake your head too, right?

I have this policy that I won't put up any photos with me in them here, but here I am breaking it.
THAT went on all the way to Qmall and all the way back. But I don't want to put the rest up. And there's only one with the lips that way. I blame it on the chamomile tea I had during lunchtime.

Coming back from lunch at PHOP (which I will blog about some other time), I saw that Odie has been.......raped. Badly. No notes left or sign of the culprit.

Yet I can still laugh about lunchtime and this above.
And somehow remembering this in the process.

Ecclesiastes 1 (King James Version)

1The words of the Preacher, the son of David, king in Jerusalem.

2Vanity of vanities, saith the Preacher, vanity of vanities; all is vanity.

3What profit hath a man of all his labour which he taketh under the sun?

4One generation passeth away, and another generation cometh: but the earth abideth for ever.

5The sun also ariseth, and the sun goeth down, and hasteth to his place where he arose.

6The wind goeth toward the south, and turneth about unto the north; it whirleth about continually, and the wind returneth again according to his circuits.

7All the rivers run into the sea; yet the sea is not full; unto the place from whence the rivers come, thither they return again.

8All things are full of labour; man cannot utter it: the eye is not satisfied with seeing, nor the ear filled with hearing.

9The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be; and that which is done is that which shall be done: and there is no new thing under the sun.

10Is there any thing whereof it may be said, See, this is new? it hath been already of old time, which was before us.

11There is no remembrance of former things; neither shall there be any remembrance of things that are to come with those that shall come after.

12I the Preacher was king over Israel in Jerusalem.

13And I gave my heart to seek and search out by wisdom concerning all things that are done under heaven: this sore travail hath God given to the sons of man to be exercised therewith.

14I have seen all the works that are done under the sun; and, behold, all is vanity and vexation of spirit.

15That which is crooked cannot be made straight; and that which is wanting cannot be numbered.

16I communed with mine own heart, saying, Lo, I am come to great estate, and have gotten more wisdom than all they that have been before me in Jerusalem: yea, my heart had great experience of wisdom and knowledge.

17And I gave my heart to know wisdom, and to know madness and folly: I perceived that this also is vexation of spirit.

18For in much wisdom is much grief: and he that increaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow.

Odie will be fine and so will I. :D
I'm laying it down for the joy of the Lord.

CNY coming.....

Today's the 35th day of the year 2008.
Food been pouring in with CNY coming up.
And I'm finally well enough to savor those chocolates from Langkawi! Hehehehehe!!!!
I can't wait for the money flow ;)


Yesterday I took a drive out to Kulim, for baking purposes. Hahahaha!
On the way, was suppose to pick up a friend, but I missed the turning and ended up going alone.
It's so stupid....on the way back only got signboard showing the turning and the words 'Sg. Lembu' turn right there. There wasn't a signboard on the other side of the road for drivers going down to Kulim!!!!!

Anyway this was the first time I was driving alone all the way to Kulim.
I got lost. Did a few U-turns, before calling for directions. It was really lame, but not scary panicky wise, because it was in the afternoon and the traffic was less.
So finally got there and get to make cookies, hahahahahahahahaha! Too bad it's just round ones, dun get to play with cookie cutters or have a flour fight because the stuff was premix!
Hahahaha! On the way back, I made a detour to Pastor's taman just to make sure I still remember the way.

Nodame SP is taking a long time to load these days.......Eeek Eeek Eeek! But it's so niceeeee, especially the battle between the Black Prince and White Prince. Hahahahahaha!!!

The end of Nodame Cantabile

I had such a nice weekend.

Finally finished Nodame Cantabile on Saturday and can get over my obsessions with their classical pieces and how well the characters play them.
Although I'm a tad dissappointed la....the 'on/off' romance of the main characters in the show kinda sealed at the end only by a HUG and alot of words BUT not 'love declaration's from the guy. Ish. Summore dare to deny in front of her parents!!! (Oops, sorry if I spoiled the show for ya, Lyin! You'll still help me find the music scores,rite?)
But that's how Japanese dramas are. They are not obvious, exaggerated love stories, just bittersweet, no yucky yucky (thank God!), warm scenes.
I've discovered that Beethoven Symphony No. 7 Piano version is way fantastic.
Play it slow and it sounds so sad, so pathetic....but speed it way up.........it becomes such an amazing, beautifully energetic piece. Now I want this music score also!!!!!!! It's so difficult to just play by ear because this piece was made for an orchestra so when its converted to piano there's alot of places where many fingers involved in a single shot.

*/edit at 1.03pm I found the music score!! Weeee!!!!!!!! Liszt converted some of Beethoven's symphonies into piano pieces. It's beautifully insane!!! Now to simplify it to 6 fingers version.... Haha!/*

On Sunday morning, we have the honor of having the Heartbeat Band from FGA KL and Ps. Cameron Bennett from YouthAlive as our guest speaker. Looking at the team from KL, makes me miss KL a teeny bit. Donuts *sigh*. And seeing a Roland keyboard wrapped and packed up into a hard casing much like lead guitars is way...........*sigh*. It was a good refreshing service though. God cleared a few things in my heart. It was also the last service for a family gonna move down to KL. I'm going to miss them. Their sense of humor can brighten up the gloomiest person, and more importantly they made me at ease. There are jokes that take a while to understand, but their's bring out belly-laughters on the spot.

I picked up lunch on my way back here. Thank God I did, because the bridge was all bottlenecked up at 2pm!!! So early for a jam to start!
There's just such pleasure biting into a piece of hot Cheezy Wedges held in one hand while driving with the other hand. And licking the cheesy sauce off my finger tips.......*bliss* I won't describe about starting a burger at the first traffic light, and continue biting while driving because all the other traffic lights are green after that! Some other time. Haha!
I believe that once you have mastered the art of eating a sundae ice-cream while driving, you can eat almost any other fast food in the car. Hehehehehe!!!

good music+altar call+food+sleep=NICE!!!!

House Train Me

The evenings of this past weekend has been spent visiting the new house.
Yeah, finally an 'own home'.
I'm so excited about it. No more town pot holes!! Did you know that from the Jln. Sungai Rambai traffic light until the railway gate to town there's 7 or 8 pothole areas? Each area has 2 square metal pothole covers. So you have to bounce 4 times *bump bump bump bump* because of front and back wheels. I personally play 'avoid the metal bump bumps' while I drive, and once in a while I get a straight strike of smooth drive. Bingo!

The bad news is: I'm going to have a room half the size of what I sleep in now!

Ahhh.....!!! Eek.......!!!!!

And because of that, the only thing I can bring from my room now to the new house is my bed, my Billy shelf, and a small table cupboard. The one comforting thought to compensate that is that I'll be getting some new built-in furnitures. Haha!
I'm sad yet excited. To leave behind these furnitures that has come all the way back from KL with me, and what more some are built by my dad with his own two hands.
Don't have emotional attachment to things, he said.
But I remember way a lot more of the past with these furnitures here with me!!, I believe. And considering how young I was when we moved here, I don't have that much memories to recall. The more reason to cling to these physical objects.

Anyway these are some views from my window. The sound of people talking in their back rooms or kitchen or bathroom can travel loud and clear thru the back alley. I used to spend some time in my brother's room just to spy on or hear what's going on in the houses behind ours. There was a house that had an alarm clock that rang loud and long for full minutes. Either there wasn't anyone around to shut the alarm clock off or the person's a really deep sleeper! And back in my college days, there was a kid in the house behind who practice his/her violin only about once or twice a week. So terrible. Hahaha!

From the back alley, a curvy perspective.
The house is painted in warm red and cream colors. Even the rooms are a little off white, which I'm glad of else it would have been so boring.

Driving from BM.....

takes about 43 minutes to get to my workplace. I started out at 7.25am and reached the car park at 8.08am. The good news is I get to park quite close to the entrance, being this early and also because yesterday was Deepavali, so a lot of people take leave today in order to have a long weekend. Coming over the Penang Bridge there was a lot of cars and a little bottleneck right after the toll. Traffic was pretty slow moving on the bridge, but once I got into Bayan Lepas coastal road there was a big difference in the number of cars on the road.

I thought today was pretty fun although I had to wake up nearly 45 minutes earlier than I usually do if I was at my grandma's. The estimation of time, deciding what roads to take from my home, driving over the bridge in the morning, it was all a good experience in case there comes a time when I need to do that everyday. You never know. Even though the traffic is much much less than what a normal day will look like, at least now I have a picture of what it's like.

It's such a quiet day at work today.

Yesterday morning, I went to Botanical Gardens with my cousin. The pictures of that will be up soon (once she transfer/publish the pics so that I can steal some!). My hp cam is good on far shots but is pretty blur for close ups. And this below is food again. Not all went into my stomach, I swear!! Haha! I had to touch up a couple of them because of the low lighting at where I went for dinner. Actually, I brought my bro's camera there, but because there of the low lights, it auto flashes on my subjects, and well....basically I wasn't used to using the camera, so I went back to my hp cam instead.

food food food food......

I could have had another scoop of green tea ice cream actually...... =P