New start

Finally a new phone. As much as I love my BB its time to another brand a chance. This brand is more suited to my budget and lack of a data plan. Besides it gives me a chance to experienced the android market.

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Hunger

:Lately I have always been feeling hungry. Most of the time I feel the need to have something savory instead of sweet. Food with that umami taste, kinda like when I take a lick out of an Ajinomoto Peppersalt.

I wish I could learn how to make savory stuff instead of the usual sweet stuff I do with baking. I pretty much have an idea of what each ingredients in a cookie dough would do and taste like, but when it comes with savory flavours I am at a lost.

The only confirmed savoury flavours that I know I could work with is onions, and garlics because I would know how these two ingredients would smell and taste when added to food.

The only reason I know is because when I am feeling extra special, I would add onions and garlic into my fried eggs. Those boring eggs suddenly becomes more flavourful and I become a bit happier with it.

I tried to make "Kampong" style fried rice, using onions, garlic and anchovies, but it does not seem to work out. I just don't have the basic ratio of each ingredients.

Anything that we cook in the kitchen, requires a certain ration of each ingredients. My chef friend told me that a cookie dough will require 3/4 of dry ingredients and 1/4 of wet ingredients in order for it to be a good cookie dough, while another friend told me a cake batter is about 50:50.

With these ratios in mind, you can virtually create any type of cookie and cake according to the ratios that we know.

Now however, savory things are something I have in mind but my principles in cooking these savory things will still be the same which is, it has to be simple, easy and taste damn good.

Master

I was having lunch with a bunch of friends the other day when one of them said "Bud, I first started knowing you when you were doing your masters". I replied "I think everyone knew me when I was doing my masters"

I was not kidding.

Literally all the friends (and enemies) that I have currently, I found during my masters. My masters took about 4 long, terrible years and its still not over.

Its not that I don't have friends before I was doing my masters, but most of my friends I made during studying and living in hostels and in a rented apartment. Once we had a semester break or we finished studying, I would never see them again or the friendship will just taper off.

Friends during my masters are radically different.

First of all, most of them don't even go to class with me. Second, I found them through social networking sites. Thirdly, I found them through a friend and finally they are much older that I am.

This also creates a problem in my family because I guess they assume I have no friends at all. My mother even exclaimed "Why do you have so many friends?" I never knew there was cap limit in having friends. Her paranoia makes it hard to even get out of the house. When I do tell her, she keep asking questions like, Where did you meet them? How long did you know them? Are they married? Where are their from? Mind you this are questions that are being asked to me in my mid 20s not when I was a teenager.

Anyhow she can't really stop me and I do have to slither through her every damn restrictions. Its a challenge that most people with over bearing parents must face. We just gotta keep slithering through it and power through it,

Even if it means emoing in a blog or Facebook status....

Our Indoor Yard Sale

 Our house has been transformed into a boutique

 Most of these stuff are my older sisters

 These are actually cloths my cousin sells and my sister is selling it for her

 A collection of shoes from my mother and sister, but most of them is my sisters. Lots of brand names that she rarely worn.

Lots of nice clothes, that have rarely been worn, worn once or never worn at all. Reasons include she got bored of it, she can't mix or match and the best reason of all "the dress makes you look like a "cicak" ROTFLMAO!!!

My Parking Lot

Parking in my house is a source of stress for me. This is due to my father's insanity that all cars should be parked inside by sunset. Regardless of what, all cars must be inside, as long as there is still a roof over the porch, the cars must still be in. The figure above is the layout of our parking configuration so that we could fit all 6 cars inside the gate. As you can see, our cars comes in variety of sizes. Mother and Father are the biggest and longest cars, followed by the Mine. The Sister and older Sister are of similar size while the Brother is the smallest of the lot.

In order to fit in all the cars the Mine  and  Brother's car can only be park at that spot only. Mother and Father can changes spots, so does the Sister and Older Sister cars.

Stress is caused when I come home late and Sister, Older Sister and Brother cars are already inside, so I have to take out 3 cars before putting Mine in and then park back the remaining 3 cars. Stress is also caused when Older Sister comes home late, since she can't park. If she does park, somehow you can open the door or walk around the car. She completely seals the car in. However, Sister and Brother are able to put their cars in and more, so that is not a problem for me. If however any car is blocking the Older Sister car, Mother, Sister, Brother or myself has to get the blocking car out so that Older Sister could get out.

Yes, parking sucks at my house and imagine trying to park while just woken up from sleep or after a rough night. Stress..

Cold

I hate having the cold. Its a terrible disease that has no cure, because there is so many bacterias and viruses that causes it.

For me a typical cold will start with a sniffle, and a runny nose. Then the runny nose turns into a blocked nose and the mucus will turn green. After that I developed a sore throat and then you start coughing. I then starts to develop a fever and then end up miserable.

I then ran will run out of tissues and have the need to always consume any hot liquid, even hot water is fine during this period because the steam and the warmth helps my nose to be clear. Also since I will blow my nose a lot, my nostril becomes dry and it will starts getting irritated unless I apply some Vaseline to it.

I hate it, and now I am starting to get it.

As I wrote before, there is no cure for the common cold. All that they give you is an anti histamine, panadol, cough syrup, sore throat candy and vitamin C. Sometimes they will prescribe you antibiotics.

Anti histamine is used for allergies, believe it or not, all that runny nose action is actually the body's way to remove the bacteria or virus that decides to make your nose its home. The body's own reaction of over producing antibody leads to runny noses which provides even a better environment for the bacteria/virus. Anti histamines will help the nose to dry up a bit so that the bacteria/virus won't have a nice place to live.

Panadol or paracetamol is a medication so common to most Malaysians. People assume its a cold medicine, but its only a pain killer and one of the best medicine to treat fever. Read the label, it relives PAIN and FEVER due to cold and not the cold itself. Anyhow, since people believe it, the placebo effect should cure them too. Your body will develop a fever because the bacteria/virus cannot live above the normal human body temperature, but too much fever will cause you to have headaches and be delirious, so we need to calm it down.

Cough syrup, as the name implied is made to sooth the throat, loosen the phlegm and reduce the cough. Some cough syrup has antihistamine in them, so you get the extra anti histamine along with the anti histamine tablets that the doctors already prescribe to you. Beware, usually the anti histamines in cough syrups are the drowsy ones.

Sore throat candy, as the name suggested is given to soothe your throat that has been inflamed by bacteria from your nose that drips down to the throat.

Vitamin C is given to fight infection. Its an antioxidants, since the body needs a boost of it to help fight the cold.

If you have green mucus, when you blow your nose, it means you have an infection and doctors will usually prescribe antibiotics so that you will get better faster. At least that is what happens to me

Its sounds like normal disease but outside of Malaysia, a common cold can kill a person if its not treated. People will usually succumb to pneumonia and die!!. Which is why they take it very seriously and treat it well.

If I am not mistaken, a flu differs from a cold, by producing body and joint aches all over.

Anyhow, I am starting to have a cold, since my nose is blocked. Its just a matter of time before it develops to a full blown cold. So I always have anti histamines in hand at all times. You can get it at your local drugstore/chemist for like RM8. The ones I used is Loratadine, to most people including me, it is not drowsy and  you just need a tablet each morning. Sometimes when I am allergic to something (my noses run, my eyes waters) I just pop one in and I will feel better.

However during a full blown cold or if the Loratadine does not work, I take this really cheap ass anti histamines called Chlorpheniramine Maleate which cause only RM1.50 for a tab of it.This is a 1st generation anti histamine which means, its very drowsy. So I took it before bedtime. When I was doing my diploma, the campus clinic always gives this as the cold medicine. You had to take it 3 times a day and its so drowsy, that you just faint after taking it.

I ran out of my Chlorpheniramine and now down to 1 tablet of Loratadine. These two medication are available at most pharmacy. The pharmacist could prescribe you a different anti histamine but does the same thing.

Anyhow, so far I have been slowing the progress of the cold for almost a week now without antibiotics. Although I prefer to have them since my cold will be heal within a week, but I am afraid of being dependent on it (which I think I am) and that I will develop resistant to the antibiotics. Off I go to the pharmacist tomorrow!!