Enough Not Enough

Isn't ironic, don't you think.. When you feel like you don't have enough, its actually enough, like the time I did my seminar proposal, I feel like I don't have enough ideas and materials to present but it end up quite good or that when you feel it is enough but actually its not, like the time I handed in my first draft to my co supervisor. It turns out I was lacking in many key areas of the thesis. Ouch.. Very ironic... I hope I always feel like there is not enough in life so that ironically, I do have enough.

Wak? Bi? Awak?

I went to visit my uncle's house during raya. I saw this cage and automatically, I meowed at it, thinking there would be a cat, to my surprise it was a large lizard (an iguana I was told) that was chilling in there. So much for meowing at it. :p

A Little Color in Your Eyes

Contact lenses are great if you don't like to wear glasses/spectacles if you feel its uncomfortable or it compromises your looks. They are great to wear during sports or any strenuous activity because the sweat won't travel from your frame into your eyes. Some contact lenses have UV filter built in them to protect your eyes. Another feature on some contact lenses, is the ability to change your iris color. Its fun to just sometimes change it a little. Since you can take them out anytime or wear them whenever it is suitable, its quite convenient.

Freshlook Colorblends Brown. A shade for those who wants a subtle change or who to warm up their dark eyes with tinge of color.

Freshlook Colorblends Pure Hazel. A subtle blend of brown and green that seem to change with the environment. Another subtle color that works perfectly with Asian skin.

Freshlook Colorblends Sterling Grey. One of 3 new Freshlook Colorblends shade that includes, Gemstone Green and Brilliant Blue. These new shades are much more dramatic and invites people to look into your eyes. My sisters found out, with this shade, all you need is black mascara and black or brown eyeliners with this lens, since the lens itself already makes your eye pop out. Not for the weak hearted since people will stare into your eyes.

Freshkon Alluring Eyes in Mystical Black. A black colored lenses, for that big beautiful baby like eyes. If I am not mistaken, the iris is one the parts of the human body that is the same from birth. I could be wrong but noticed how the iris of baby seem to be big, perhaps to due their small bodies and big head. It makes your look very anime with your big black eyes. As the lenses say, very alluring.

Fast and Slow

Do you feel sometimes times incredibly fast, at other times its incredibly slow. Lunch hour went blasting fast from my point of view, from picking my friend up at his faculty, to having lunch at The Mines, to him picking up his sister, to me banking in some money. Its fast that I am already at 5th sem, ye so so slow when trying to finish the thesis.

Back to Real Life

Fasting is over, Raya in theory is over for me, since I already visited most of my close relatives. Its an adjustment again to be able to eat in the day, its also an adjustment to be hungry again after binging for 3-5 days while visiting relatives. It's just not polite to not eat, after your host prepares something for you, its also not polite to think that your guest have eaten before coming to your house. I know, a friend of mine made a mistake saying I have eaten before coming to his house, when in fact I was starving. Last time I came to his house. The sudden binge of food, resulted in sudden weight gain, hence those pair of jean that I was so excited that fits perfectly, now does not. Bring on the loose clothes now, its going to be a while before I can fit into them again. Like 1 year, (for the next fasting). Apparently that is how long it took before I could wear my last year Raya pants, and I could only wear it during fasting. Now I have retrain myself to allow myself to be slightly hungry or that ridiculously hard to find low rise jeans size 38, has to be retired for a year.

Short

I am the tallest in my family. Yup at 162cm I am the tallest in the family. You would think the rest of my relatives would be my height. Nope. most of them are at least 170cm, with some of my cousins, towering at 185cm. I blame genetics, because both my mum and dad are short. The rest of my cousins had genetics from their other side of the family that is quite tall. My mother's youngest sister children are the only ones that suffer the same fate us we are since her husband family are short. Does it matter? Well yeah, if they haven't reached puberty yet, but they still tower over you at 170cm..

Importance

This has to be one of the rooms in UPM that the Malaysian grad students in my lab spend time the most. Its our lab technologist room. This her office, but its also a pantry, a gossip point, psychologist room, a medical room, an entertainment room, a news room, a store, a weight check room, a self reflecting room, a nap room, a "i have a nervous breakdown room", a room to hide, etc. Yeap, now I know how much I depend on it, because I make and drink coffee there. Why? right now, I deprived of caffeine.. cofeeee. need cofeeeeee.... but lazy to go down and buy a cup of coffee since its so much cheaper to make one and taste much better too..

Raya Mood

I arrive at 11pm today at the lab and to my expectation, the parking lot was practically empty. Get real man, who really takes a two day break to celebrate raya. Anyways I need to come back early, there is no one to feed my mice, and my mice are breeding now, if you don't feed them, they will consume their pups for nourishment. It will take another month before they reproduce again. Holiday really take a toll on your study levels.. ergh.. its almost over.. just a wee bit more.. the do it again with a PhD...

3-2-1 Contact

I should blog more right? It does not mean having to write down every single detail of my life, nor does it mean to bitch and moan about life, but a reflection of oneself, just like what Ms Shakie, but now Madam Shakie said to us during BEL 200. Its interesting how much I love this thick coke bottle frame glasses. I love it so much, I wear them most of the time. In fact I wear them so much, people forgotten I used to wear contacts. It does not help, that these thick plastic frame are incredibly comfortable, that I could wear them anywear, anytime and anyplace without fearing that it would rust, peel, discolour, bruise my kin nor bend. Alas, its just a way for me to hide behind it, maybe I am hidden way to often behind them.

Iris

Hmm I was stumbling on some youtube videos when I stumbled upon on this video. Its about a African race baby with sky blue eyes. His eyes is completely natural even though both of his parents were African, with black eyes. Some say its just a genetic defect or a type of albinism that affects the eye only. I don't think its that weird for African people to have blue eyes. That guy is CSI Las Vegas has it, the "bitch" Willamina in Ugly Betty or better know as Vanessa William, has blue eyes, that guy in Beyonce Halo music video has blue eyes. Some African tribes do green eyes naturally, its just the little error in nature that us humans seem to appreciated it. These error include firey red hair and piercing green eyes of the Irish and Scottish people. It just does not stop with African people, some asian people were also born with naturally lighter color eyes. I seen a chinese guy at the cyber cafe with Amber eyes, amber is the color of your cars turning signal. I seen lots of people in Perlis with naturally amber eyes. Its very appealing. . My English teacher said, her Malay Brunei friend has green eyes. Wicked!. I never thought I would see is a Malay with green eyes, but I did recently. My friend's friend, has green eyes, okay his eyes were hazel, but hazel eyes can change constantly. I swear his eyes changed from amber to greenish brown. It was mesmerizing. If I wanted to change my eye color, I just put on some Freshlook Colorblends contact lenses. To me these are really the most natural looking lense on the market, because they blend in with your natural eyes color. I could wear green, amethyst, or brown, and most of the time people won't noticed it. Unlike other brands, they really make your eyes look scary because eyes naturally don't look that bright, even if you have blue eyes. Another video in youtube showed me people who had colored Iris implanted in behind their cornea !!!! yes, you can surgically change your eye color. Erghh, luckily these people are not promoting, instead they were warning the side effects of putting these lens into your eyes. Now they had to take it out, one at a time, because they ran out of money. So they walk with two different color eyes for a few months before they could raise the money to take the surgery again. Apparently Panama is the only country in the whole wide world who does this type of surgery. This is the website http://www.newcoloriris.com/index.html. They say its looks more natural than color contact. Natural my A@!, they look fake as hell, go figure. It like wanting to go blonde, instead of just bleaching your hair blonde, you go for a scalp transplant. Ergh.. This is scary just like fake boobs, extending limbs and so on.

However to be fair, there are people who needs to fake iris, the fake boob and limb extension, and we must not be judgemental to them. I wear color contacts sometimes and color my hair sometimes, but its something not permanent, and I could go natural when I choose too. Its fun to change it sometimes, as long as it safe, and my family does not oppose it, its fine with me. But having to go under the knife? and a procedure which is not FDA approved nor done else where? Hmm talk about a risk, and as they say beauty is pain. I rather have something I could turn back into something normal again if I choose to, then choosing something permanent. There is video here about a guy who so excited with his new blue iris, but in the end after a lots of problem and hearing stories of his friends going blind, he took them out. Its quite scary actually. I have been in similar situation with my color contact before. I used these permanent lenses but I was a cheapskate and did not use a protein remover, in the end what happend I had this bumps forming under my eye lids, that grab the contact lenses, which will pull the lenses up after I blink. No more, no permanent lense for me, I am sticking with good ol disposable lenses. I also make sure I rub my leanses when cleaning them to remove the protein deposits.

I could have light colored eyes too, naturally. How? Go live in place where there is winter, your skin, hair and eyes, go lighter in the winter, I had amber eyes in the winter. So cool.. but then really, real iris changes, and sometimes my I do get the amber eyes, albeit in the hot sun.. :p. Eyes are the windows to the soul, so any eye color is beautiful, however just like windows, we can change the original curtains if we wanted to ;)







This has nothing to with the eye, but I love the song Iris, by the goo goo dolls :D

Something in Malay

Dah nak raya, yey yey. Hik2.. Kuih aku dah siap, I'm in charge of making 2 kuih raya tahun nih, and I did it all by my self, sambil di perhatikan oleh kakak, mak dan ayah.. Yaaa benar... mereka perhatikan sahaja sambil discuss isu2 di Petronas. Semalam dari pukul 8mlm sampai 11.30, aku duduk di dapur membuat biskut femes aku, chocolate chip almond. Yeaaaah, biskut yang membuat jejaka dan gadis jatuh hati dengan aku. muahahahah... Aku suka gile tgk reaksi org bila mkn biskut aku. Mana tak nyer, penat la wei.. penaat you know.. nasib baik oven yg berumur 18 thn tu masih lagi leh pakai, cepat gak nak siap buat kuih tuh. Yaa dengan riaknya aku berkata, my raisin oatmeal dan chocolate chip almond lebih sedap dari any store bought cookies. Famous Amos, eat your heart out...

Memang la kuih aku agak hodoh rupa dia, ye la.. takde color2, takde nak hias dengan gula la, manik la, ceri la, whatver lah.. tapi sekali makan.. haaa baru ko tau best ke tidak. Bahan2 pun simple jer, takde la nak kena beli yg pelik2 sangat, semua barang kat kedai runcit biasa pun jual, except maybe chocolate chip, almond slivers, cinnamon dan nutmeg.. tu kena pi kedai runcit luar biasa kot.. Raya tahun macam raya tahun lepas, balik kampung bwk keta honda baru.. yaaaa kereta honda baru, sekali lagi.. tapi ni kakak aku yang masih single itue yang beli, dia beli pun sebab ayah aku bayar kat dia kereta myvi dia tuh, supaya adik perempuan aku leh pakai, so daripada beli secondhand kat tah siapa, baik beli kat keluarga sendiri kan.... at least aku tau gak ape yang rosak and so on kat keta tuh.. So kakak aku setelah di manipulate oleh ayah aku, akhirnya membeli sebuah Honda Jazz. Nice car, safety rating dia tinggi giler di EuroNCAP, NHTSA, dan IIHS, tapi yang model kat Malaysia ni takde side airbags and curtain airbags, tapi at least aku tgk, kereta ni teguh la, jika malang tak berbau kan...

Anyways mysteri primer aku, telah di selesaikan oleh the lovely dr shahriza, yang sudi menolong diriku yang sentiasa blur ini, pasni takde la seram sangat jumpe dgn wendy yg baru saje habis Viva dan akan buat phd.. T_T and takde la rasa mcm nak mengelak dari jumpe dr shahril di surau tingkat 3 or cube melarikan diri dari prof wan dengan menyorok di library atau di animal house.. yaaa masuk sem 5 pun mahu sorok2 lagi? hell yeah.. selagi boleh menyorok, selagi tu aku akan buat okay...

Baju raya semua dah ade, kasut dah ade, songkok dah ade, butang raya ade, hmm undies raya? jeng2.. tak kot.. byk pula dah kumpul, dan byk lak dh aku buang, kerana tidak lagi menyerupai sebuah pakaian dalaman... okay la kot.. just harap pinggang ni muat lagi time raya.. huhuh

okay sekian sahaja rambling aku dalam bahasa melayu. BTW, this is how I actually speak in real life in Malay, friends and family will notice, how the idea constantly shifts without notice and how long I could go on with my nasal voice. The only thing that you can't see is how animated I can be when talking, filled with sound effects and expressions..

Hometown

So where is your hometown? When we were little, our hometown is our grand parents house right. When we are adults or nearing that stage, hometown is where our parents are right? Since I live with my parents, I am living in my hometown then? Hometown is where you were born right and raised, I was born in KL but raised all over the peninsular Malaysia and parts of North America. Now my parents bought a house in Kajang 9 years ago, so technically my hometown is Kajang.. Yeah I know such a long story for something that requires a short answer. So its easy to just say, my hometown is in Kajang. Simple right

Also it is a lot easier during festive seasons. I don't have to buy bus tickets 1 month in advance, not worry what time I should leave, the taxi and so on. I have been there in that position when I did my diploma in Perlis. Its kinda liberating not to worry about tickets and stuff. In fact this Raya, we will celebrate at my Dad's hometown, which is in Ampang. No worries there :D. Celebrating Raya in the city is quite nice, the traffic is clear, you see people in their Baju Melayu and Baju Kurung. Very festive, just like Kampung. Although some with ultra modern (or ultra ignorant) thinking, goes to see a movie on the first day of raya. That is just plain crazy.

Coke

I had a sudden urge to drink Coke yesterday, so I decided to buy a 1.5 litre bottle yesterday at Tesco, while searching for a light bulb. Apparently its almost insanely difficult to get a Cool Daylight and Warm White Genie 14w Energy Saving Lamps at Tesco. I don't think they even carry this type at the Kajang branch. Anyways frustration of the missing bulb, the insane traffic jam after picking up my sister from her Islamic School which was combined with another school because they had Islamic School exam. I felt like a rat, trapped in a maze of traffic jam, and was desperately finding ways to get out of the gridlock. We weren't even in the city, it was small neighborhood road.

I am not sure either to be insulted or amazed.

Anyways stress levels were high, and unlike last year, the last days of fasting seemed the most terrible for me. Tempers flare, sleepiness increase, and I feel quite nocturnal. I needed something, a quick fix, a drug or sort. Its terrible, its bad and its unhealthy, especially since I dranked the whole bottle within 12 hours. Yeah, that is crazy and I suffered the consequences. Coke has caffeine, just like coffee but not as much though, but 1 whole bottle of Coke, I think that is a lot of caffeine going to my system. Unlike most people, I can still sleep with a dose of caffeine. The other effects of caffeine is increased bowel movements. Yes, that means you tend to go to the bathroom more often to do number 2. On the bright side, its cleasing to the digestive system. Yeah its not good to associate food with emotion, for that it would make me a better candidate to enter The Biggest Loser Asia, but I swear, that eating chocolates does not make me fat. Time and time it shows when I down lots and lots of chocolate, people end up saying, I look good and thin. Perhaps chocolate stops me from eating other things, or the phytochemicals in chocolates makes your radiant with in. Studies shown chocolate makes you be in a better mood too.

That Thing We Do At The End Of Ramadan

Its that time of the year again, time to be baking delicious Raya biscuits or cookies. The lines at the bakery was deathly long, as long as the store it self. You can see the kind of biscuits or cookies people are making based on the ingredients. The makcik in front of me, has 2 bags of corn flakes from germany and 8 pieces of butter. She must be making cornflakes biscuits, a easy no bake biscuit.

My family plans to have only 6 homemade biscuits this year, we will have oatmeal raisin, chocolate chip almond, kuih gunting, kuih siput, semperit and cornflakes biscuits. No pineapple tarts, macadamia london, bangkit, or chocolate flower. I just don't like store bought cookies, they taste the same to me. Different color, but same floury taste. Raisin oatmeal is done, now tomorrow perhaps chocolate chip almond.

Car Safety

I love these two websites that I frequently visit. Its the IIHS, SAFERCAR and Euro NCAP. IIHS stands for Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, while Euro NCAP stands for European New Car Assessment Program. These two websites shows you the safety rating of vehicles produced by various manufactures. We have one of the highest statistics involving road accidents and it worsen during festive season. There many factors that leads to road fatality such as human error or road condition. Another important factor is the design of cars itself, a well design cars will prevent accidents from happening from the first place, protect the occupants during an accidents, and allows rescues easier after accidents. Each institutes has a slightly different rating for each cars and some might have unique test. Some even have videos and pictures for you to download. However it is noted, some of the cars available in Malaysia, is stripped from many of its safety features. We are the public that has not been educated on the importantness of car safety. That is however, is a different story to tell. Point of note, sure that extra thousands that you pay to get that "premium" model which include all the "accessories" but these so called "accessories" such as supplementary restraint system (SRS or airbags) and anti lock braking system (ABS) are just basic passive and active safety system that should be always be chosen when your finance permits. These two features are much better than any sport rims and speakers at Brothers.

This the Peugeot 308, which is available in Malaysia and built in Kedah. The Peugeot 308 Turbo has 6 airbags, but misses the drivers knee airbags that is available in the 407 which also gets 5 star rating

Ever wonder what the Decepticon police car in the first Transformers movie would look like in a crash, now you can.

Not only Edward Cullen is a dashing vampire, he also drives a car that is also very safe, Volvo C30.

Things That Runs Out At 11.30 pm

The printer ink seemed to run out unexpectedly always. I rarely use this printer, so I am not sure how much ink is usually left. Its irritating, they would do a print job at 12 am and then tell me the printer ran out of ink. Then they have to come to my room use my aging Epson c45, which prints 2 page per minute which is tiring if they were to print a 30 page assignment.

Yes, this is another thing that conveniently run out, at night. Late at night. Now I seem to have the urge to buy a pack whenever I go to Tesco. Kotex Maxi with Wings

Sahur and Iftar

This was our sahur

This is our iftar, a chinese chicken salad
Hawaian pizza. The salad and pizza was from California Pizza at KLCC.

Could you have these two meals? I know some could not stomach this kind of meals, neither does my mother. I could have it two or three times a week, but nothing like a plate of rice to fill me up nicely. Actually, before that hotdog and beans sahur, my sister and I had McD for iftar before it, so basically we had no rice for 3 meals. Hohoho... they said rice makes you fat, its true since its loaded with complex sugar that will be turned into fat if not used, but these meals aren't exactly healthy, but my sister swear she looses weight eating these stuff. Go figure eh..

This is my parking lot now, if I decided to come late to UPM. The barred access to all students including post grad student, into the parking lot, so we are forced to parked in this poor make shift parking spot.
This the parking spot without the gravel, so its typically muddy. This is actually one of the better areas. The ones further are so muddy, so many cars got stucked, and not they barred the area from parking. Students now park everywhere. and no one gives a hoot about the ticket, only because UPM does not supply enough parking spaces.

So each day I decided to come late or when there is no parking space. This is what happens to my tires.

So each day I have to hose it down with water to avoid dirtying up our car porch

Jualan Gudang Air Pepsi

Only for valid at 3rd and 4th September only. Hurry! :D

Leak

I came to the lab on Thursday to find out a the lab floor was covered in water. The culprit, was the plumbing on the lab above us leaked into our ceiling

Our microscope room floor was covered with water.

We had some really expensive equipments here, luckily most of it were covered with plastic and thank goodness none of the equipment short circuited.

There was so much water, it spilled out the door an into our main lab area.

Rye, En Nawi and I took turns moping up the excess water since the cleaners never made it to our lab.

Pulang

Bapaku pulang dari Sudan
Bapaku bawa daging kambing biri-biri
Daging beku di simpan dalam beg
Boleh di jamah ramai-ramai

Yum yum yum yum yum yum yum yum yum
Daging kambing yang di perap dan di bakar
Sangat lah sedap lagi manis
Elok di makan waktu berbuka.

Finished

Yes, finished. I finished a bottle of lotion. Yeah sounds kinda lame or kinda suspicious depending on your state of mind, this is because I seem to loose the bottle of lotion or threw it out because I haven't used it for 2 years. I am just lazy to apply it on my body and feet, because its too greasy or I totally forgotten about it. Unlike my face, which is something I don't event ouch normally. Besides you never feel dry on your feet or body, but always on the face. I guess this why the skin condition on my face is much2 better than the rest of my skin. I have to changed that, a dear friend did say, if you take good care of your feet, the effect will manifest itself right to your the tip of your hair. I been doing it all wrong, I focused more on my scalp and my face than my feet. Hmm, I wonder if there is actually proof in this. However my friend did point out, if you see people with nice shoes, 9 out of 10 they look great as a whole. Same thing with people with a nice lawn/yard/garage/porch/balcony. If they could spend money to make the outside of the house look nice, the inside must even be better.