All I Want is a BIG GREAT DANE (or wolfhound oso jadi...)

Great danes are just that... GREAT! Since I set my eyes on one all those years ago, at the age of 8, I have always wanted a great dane for a pet. But due to the place we were living in when we got Jacki, we couldn't get one as the Dane would be too large to fit in the apartment. So instead, we got ourselves 2 monsters small in size, but BIG in attitude and stamina... hehehe... often we suspect that Jacki and Loca think they are HUGE!

Anyway, lately we have been talking and we are back to the topic...and I still want a Great Dane! But I don't really mind a wolfhound too! hehehe... but funny enough, the first 2 monsters when we got them, we didn't really have any hesitation. We went and got them. :D But now that we are getting a 3rd one, we don't seem to have so much bravado anymore! I wonder why....? I guess if we get either a Dane or a Wolfhound, the cost of it will equal having the 2 monsters, meaning it will double up, and that could be the killer when we go away on holidays! :S And a lot of things come into play as well, such as our rental property, transport, etc. Sigh, it's exactly like having kids when you have dogs.... hahahah...

Oh well, will let you guys know if we actually go and get one! But a Dane will probably be our first choice because contrary to its size (average 70kg), they actually make really good nannies to babys and young kids, their reputation being 'gentle giant' ;)

Meanwhile.... here's some pics of both the breeds..... :)

Dane Pup

Adult Dane

Irish Wolfhound Pup

Adult Irish Wolfhound

Big Mac and the layu fries....

I could not decide on what to have for dinner. First I wanted to order pizza, but knowing that I can't finish the portion alone, I ended up ordering McD's.

After I made my order, I waited for 45 minutes for delivery. Then the first call came through....the guy could not locate my house. So he requested I waited outside for him. And so I did....for 10 minutes before the mosquitoes decided to wage war against me. I waited INSIDE the house. Then the 2nd call came.....he was just a distance from my place, finally! By the time I got my order, the burger buns were soggy and the fries flaccid. My coke spilt out of the cup into the plastic bag around it. And btw, I specifically ordered "NO ICE" for my coke, and it came with freebies for me...ICE!! I tell you, I am NOT loving it!!!!

Halfway through my dinner, I toppled the cup of coke on the floor. GREAT! Now I gotta clean it before the ants have a feast. And since it spilled under my couch, I had to bend over to clean the place. My hair got dipped into some drinks on the floor...AARRGGGHHHH. Nevermind that, I can rinse it again after I clean up this mess. Under the couch, I found 2 small dried up langsat. Must have lost its way to my mum's mouth last week.....U lucky langsat!

Ok, now that the place is cleaned up, I need to get back to work.

Office birthday

I am suppose to organise my boss's 45th birthday the first week of Oct, and I am researching on how to have it differently this year. Any ideas????

Hiking and I

I spent the Saturday morning with our good friends, Kiran and Ivy, hiking up Gasing Hill. Indeed it was a refreshingly painful hike, which left me gasping for air and thirsting for water almost at the peak. Putting my scientific knowledge to good use, I turned to the plants for oxygen!! haha!!!

It's been some time since I last hiked. And this was my first time at Gasing Hill. I enjoy hiking, more so the feeling when I reach the peak. Love the cool breeze of the morning. S, a season hiker, told me that hiking up Gasing Hill burns 1000kcal per trip. If this is true, I'd rather hike than run on the threadmill. I'd lose more calories hiking.

So after a good tiring hike, 4 of us treated ourselves to breakfast - yummy thosai garing and a piece of fried chicken wing. hehe. Talking about losing calories. I just put on another 500 after that :) Anyhow, it's good to be out there with nature again. I am waiting in anticipation for my body to ache now..... I hope it will take pity on me and be merciful.....

Oh Yes..

... I do need to clean the house too! hahahaha.. Deb,your post made me feel guilty, but perhaps not guilty enough to actually get off my arse to work on it! hahahahahah...

New Chapter

Welcome back Debbie! =) Sorry folks, I have been pretty lazy myself! But I thought it's about time for me to start activating our blog again.. isn't it, Deb? :P Well, if you folks haven't heard of it yet, I have just left my office of 2.5 years. The most important reason for me leaving is the fact that my office is no longer a very pleasant place to work with. Apart from one particular colleague, I don't really enjoy the rest of the office anymore! My boss's wife (who is conveniently the office manager) is the most annoying person! Although she has no architectural training whatsoever, she is always butting into our conversations, telling us what we should do, even when we are on the phone, she wants to know who it was! How annoying is that?!?!?!? And even our pay is always not on time. It gets rather inconvenient when you have bills to pay!

So I started looking for new jobs, since I have gotten myself registered as an architect. It was really hard, as there weren't many jobs available due to the economic condition. But I was lucky enough to land myself one, although it's not offering me exactly what I wanted. It's a 6 months contract position, with view to be a permanent staff. This is a bit of a worry, what if the economy doesnt pick up enough for the office's workflow? It took me some time to consider this and discussing with Manlok about it. In the end, I decided to take the risk and hope that everything goes well.

So that was that and I will be starting the new job on Wednesday, took a couple of days off to just rest in between jobs since I never allowed myself to rest between jobs EVER! It's quite daunting as I haven't started a new job that is 100% new to me, as my previous jobs, I had at least 1 or 2 people that I know working in the office that I joined! Anyway, it would be rather interesting and nerve wrecking perhaps, as I wouldn't know what their expectation is of me and vice versa! Fingers crossed, I will get on well with the office... wish me luck! =)

Starbucks

STARBUCKS.....my fav coffee place. Me waiting for Simon to finish his meeting so we can have dinner. Meantime, I just makan-ed a (chicken) shepherd's pie and had my usual ice-blended Green Tea with whipped cream. Although having coffee at Starbucks can be quite expensive at times, but I like it nonetheless.

Did you know that sheperd's pie was formerly known as 'cottage pie'?

Cottage pie, also known as shepherd's pie, refers to an English meat pie with a crust made from mashed potato and beef.

The term cottage pie is known to have been in use in 1791, when potato was being introduced as an edible crop affordable for the poor (cf. "cottage" meaning a modest dwelling for rural workers).

In early cookery books, the dish was a means of using leftover roasted meat of any kind, and the pie dish was lined with mashed potato as well as having a mashed potato crust on top.

The term "shepherd's pie" did not appear until the 1870s, and since then it has been used synonymously with "cottage pie", regardless of whether the principal ingredient was beef or mutton. There is now a popular tendency for "shepherd's pie" to be used when the meat is mutton or lamb, with the suggested origin being that shepherds are concerned with sheep and not cattle, however this may be an example of folk etymology.

Hmmm, still no sign of Simon. *sien*

giat-ness

While I tengah giat to write, I thought I'd just pen down my thoughts.....on what? I also not sure. I guess I am abit celaru now. So many things to think about. So many details. So many issues. So many plans.

Ah, speaking about plans. Club Med is giving 1+1 promo again. U just need to pay for one adult, and the other goes for free. Quite a good deal since it covers meals and selected outdoor activities. My family enjoyed themselves the last time they visited Cherating. Now I am wondering if I should go. But with the other plans I have pending, I thought I shouldn't even be thinking about holiday-ing right now.

Just too many things to consider at this point of time.....

chak...here i am :D

Yes, yes, after thousand and one excuses to Sophie, I am finally making yet another re-apprearance here. After the wedding, I thought I should start blogging again now that I have a little more time to myself.

The wedding was a memorable one for me and Simon. And to have Sophie and Manlok come all the way from Melbourne made it extra special for us. Thanks you two :) Was great meeting Manlok for the first time, and even more sweet to catch up with friends some time after the wedding.

Now that the whole ceremony is over, I have some time over the weekend to do whatever I want since Simon is back in office for some urgent work. And so the first thing I did was to clean the apartment- something I haven't done in ages :P I am used to having the makcik over to clean for me since I told Simon that we were busy preparing for the wedding, and it's already tiring enough to walk round the city trying to get things done. And so the makcik, my saviour often cleans the apartment every fortnightly when we need her to. I contacted her for this week, but she is tied up with another house, and I can't stand another minute walking round the dusty place. My only option: CLEAN THE HOUSE MYSELF :( ...... With the new vacuum cleaner in hand, I started to clean. And clean. AND CLEAN. It's like never ending!!!! The apartment is only 900 sf in size, HOW LONG CAN IT TAKE TO CLEAN A SMALL SPACE???? The more I cleaned, the more I thought about this fact: Our moms had to cook, clean, wash, fold, iron, feed the kids and still maintained a career. HOW DID THEY MANAGE ALL THAT?

Maybe I am getting a taste of married life?

Lesson to Learn

Jacko is dead... DEAD! Can you believe it? I can't. I grew up with him! All through his persecutions, I always held steadfast in his innocence. I really do. And I feel really sad for him. For the way he had to live and the things society put him through just because he is so famous.

If you take a moment to think about it, if a normal person with his condition, society feels sympathizes with him (mental condition, abusive childhood, etc) but becuase its him, everyone just wants to have a piece of his flesh. Is this what society has come down to?

In my opinion, probably it's better for him to pass on than to continue his life as a moving target for today's envious society. I don't believe he molested those kids. I perceive him as a very scared and lonely person who missed out on all his childhood due to his fame since he was a kid. Can you imagine living under the spotlight since you are 5 years old? With no chance for a normal life, going to school, have a best friend, have your first kiss? Everything you do is always under the scrutiny of the media, can you imagine that?

It seems to me that he has a very innocent mind, if you watch all his interviews. All he wanted was just for people to be happy and for peace amongst nations. Perhaps you can say, he is a true Utopian. If you take some time to go through most of his lyrics, you will find that is true. And he just wants to be friends and hoping that others want to be friends with him too. Why can't society take the fact that, it's not weird to feel joy upon a smile on someone else's face?

Perhaps that's what's wrong with today's society, perhaps that's why there's so many wars raging around the world, perhaps that's why there are people who live excessively while others are dying of starvation....

Just reflect on the words from one of his songs below, mayhap there's a lesson for us to learn from the world's most misunderstood personality....

Man In The Mirror
Michael Jackson

I'm Starting With The Man In
The Mirror
I'm Asking Him To Change
His Ways
And No Message Could Have
Been Any Clearer
If You Wanna Make The World
A Better Place
Take A Look At Yourself, And
Then Make A Change

Mayhap we should look within ourselves before we start pointing fingers at others, you think?

Wedding Pics

Here are some wedding pics to share... to see more, just go to my profile on FB! =)












ps: trust me, it wasn't easy to keep the sarong in place... I had to use safety pins and periodically pull it, coz it's a traditional sarong that hasn't been tailored to suit. Lucky there wasn't any embarassing moments... *grin*

Things That Has Been Happening Since You Last Heard From Moi

Updates Updates....

What have I been doing since the last time you all heard from me? Hmm.. let's see, HEAPS! The past couple of months has been the most hectic time for me since I don't even know when! What, you might ask, have I been doing?!??!?! Quite a few things, actually.

1. Last minute wedding plan changes
2. Planning for the changes
3. Got my professional registration
4. Going through the MOST unorganised subject I have ever tutored in Uni of Melb

While I was busy organising the wedding, I was also busy attending classes for my professional registration exam. :S Yup, it's definitely hectic, to say the least! Imagine, I have my Part 2 exam on April 9, wedding on April 26 and Part 3 exam May 6.... :S and in between those things, my students had their thesis handed in as well. So between all those, I had to grade 40 x 2500-word thesis in a week!!!! All these on top of my full time work. Now I guess you can see why I have been absent since... :S

But the outcomes are all good. The wedding went really smoothly and memorable and I passed my exams! On my first try! :D Yay! No more awkward moments when people ask the most hated question for all pre-registration architects: So what do you do? URGH! Usually the typical answers would be:

a) I am SORT of an architect
b) I am not an architect YET but I do all the things an architect does
c) I am an architect, BUT I can't legally call myself that

After one of those answers, they will persist and ask: I thought you graduated with an architecture degree? *sigh* The typical public just don't really understand the rough path we architects have to go through. It's basically very much like a doctor where you have to do your internship. We have to do go through 2 degrees which takes up a whole 5-6 years. After that, you graduate and work, but not as an architect. They degrade you by giving you an extra 'GRADUATE' in front of the word ARCHITECT. :S

But all that is in the past... Now, when someone ask me that question, I can proudly say: I AM AN ARCHITECT!!!!! :D So what does that mean to me? It just means I am now in higher risk! hahhahahha....

M.I.A.

Sorry everyone... I have been so busy with work and with my registration exams that I didn't have time to update you guys on stuff that has been happening... promise will do it soon, k? Keep tuning in! =)

Registration of Marriage

I am back! Sorry for the disappearance...i know it's been a long time. I have been really busy, with work and with my life. All the events happening within a short time of frame. And it doesn't help that i don't have internet access at home. And at work....all i can is that my current boss is a monster.

I have some time now just before our ROM. It's gonna take place in 2 hours time, and here I am, still chilling and waiting to change. After this, I will no longer check 'single' in administrative forms. People will start to refer me as Mrs. Things are gonna change after this :) and i am excited !

Will post some pics later. Ciao

Making Our Wedding Bands

As a few of you would know, those that frequents FB Manlok and I have recently made a short trip to Sydney to make our very own wedding bands. Yup, you heard (read) right, we hand made our own wedding band! We made each other's band, to be exact. :P Why did we have to go all the way to Sydney? That is because they are the only jeweller that provides that opportunity to the public! After all, both of us are very into handmade items!

It was done over 4 hours. Although the whole time when we were there in Sydney, it was raining, BUT this wedding band making session was soooo enjoyable and exciting that it made me forget what lousy weather Sydney had for our entire SHORT trip there. It was such great fun and so much more enjoyable than walking into a shop and choosing the bands. You can basically create any design you want and the jeweller will assist you in making it. We wanted to have our fingerprints on the ring, but once the rings were done, we wanted to bring it home with us and not leave it to them to get the prints onto the ring later on. We decided that we will do that a bit later on... :D

Although it doesn't have any blings on it, or massive stones, but the fact that we did it together from their most basic element into a finished ring, we really cherished it much much more. We ended up with very rustic and organic bands, deciding not to polish it or even remove the oxidization of the bands. I highly recommend this experience to anyone who has a chance to do it for themselves. =)

Here are some pics for your enjoyment! cheers!














Sorry, pics are all jumbled up, hate posting pics on this blog!!! :(

Scent of Days Gone By

It's nearly 6 a.m. and I am awake, yes, awake on a saturday morning at 6 a.m. No, that's not entirely true. I was awake since 3.30a.m. after falling asleep on the couch last night. Since I have been sleeping for the past few hours, I am as awake as an owl. A few hours passed and my kids have been hassling me to let them out to relieve themselves.

The moment I opened the door from the garage to the yard, I was hit with the familiarity of my childhood days... the scent of morning dew and breeze. Momentarily, I was transported back 15 years (or so...). That scent reminded me of the early mornings (not so) long ago when we all had to get up at 6 a.m. to prepare for school. The early morning birds chirping and the smell, oh the smell! I love it sooo much.

It's like the dawn of a brand new day, that smell. So fresh, so enlightening, so nostalgic. It's funny how I am thousands of miles away from the place where I experienced this nearly every single morning for so many years, but the air still holds the same old fresh (how's that for an oxymoron? :P) scent! Makes you believe that it doesn't matter where you are, you will still be close to home... through these little but significant elements around you.

Not only does that scent remind me of waking up to go to school or walking through the school porch at 7 a.m. (God how I hated to go to school sooo early, but now, I think I miss it), it reminds me of all the other stuff that we do early in the morning, like first day of chinese new year, camping trips & school road trips with friends, sitting along the corridor of the classrooms before the morning bell rang, eating fried noodles or nasi lemak...

So many wondrous memories, how I wish I could rewind time and go back there again, and experience the innocence and the joys of being young and carefree. Yes, that is what the smell reminded me of... suddenly, I feel so old........ thanks to friends who are still close at heart, I am always reminded of those amazing years spent with them from childhood to adolescent years, and now, as young adults. I can't thank them enough :)

Fire Fire Burning Bright, In the Forest of the Night

As most of you would know, if you watch the news or listen to the radio, Victoria is facing their worst bushfire season this year. Weather has been quite radical and the fluctuation is so unreal. Currently, the bushfire around country Victoria has taken 130 lives. It is a very sad and harrowing time for people around Victoria, as almost everyone is touched by this disaster that has been described as bad or even worse than the Tsunami tragedy years ago.

I was out for a bit on the day when it was 46C and windy. It was like being in an oven. Literally being in the oven. Even when I was in the shades, the wind contained such high heat that I felt like I was burnt, even when I was in the shades! It was that bad, living in Malaysia for so many years, I have NEVER experience such heat naturally generated. And the day after that, the mercury dropped to 16C and raining. But the wind persisted. It is very scary indeed. How indecisive the weather can be, and the destruction it carries along.

Makes me wonder, will it come towards our direction? Should we be wary, and our kids at home when we are at work, are they gonna be save? We are thinking to put up a sign in front of our house that indicates that we have dogs in the house, so that if anything happens, at least their presence is known...... it makes me worry, seriously. You don't feel it until it's actually on your doorstep. Let's hope and pray the fire will go away.....

Exams....again!

I can't believe that I have to go through exams again!! Can't even remember when was the last time I went through an exam! This time round, it will be my professional exams. For those who don't know, in Australia, even by going through 5 long years of architectural tertiary education, you are STILL not allowed to call yourself an architect. You are only a GRADUATE architect. After you have accumulated enough hours doing all the different components of architectural work, then you are ready to do the exams so that you can call yourself an ARCHITECT, and carry more liability with you. =S

As for the exams, there are 2 parts. First, you need to do this multiple choice exams. Yah, ABCD. Sounds easy, eh? Especially when its only 8-9 questions to answer.... in 1 hour. What's that compared to SPM or the likes, eh? But hold your thought.. WRONG! It's actually harder than SPM, trust me. They are the most deceiving questions you can imagine, worded very similar from one to the other, and each question can have more than 1 answer! For every answer u get right, u get 2 points, and for every answer u chose that is wrong, 1 point gets deducted from you. There you go. On average, only about 50% of candidates pass that exam. :|

If you pass that first exam, you will have another exam to do... this time, it's oral. Yep, you read right. ORAL... INTERVIEW! This one, is even worse than the first, coz if you get a shitty architect doing it, he/she will give u a real hard time. *gulp*. The process takes around 45-60 minutes.. yes, WHOLE hour! And if you fail this one, u have to wait for 12 mths before you can retake it. And everytime you retake the exams.... there's a fee... A$300 for each exam... *sigh*

So, wish me luck again!!!

2009: The Highlight & The Lowlight

2008 has been quite uneventful, with nothing too huge happening. In a way, it's good as it means we had a bit to rest and relax. Although the economy went downhill in late 2008 which was a cause of some of our distress, as both of us are in the construction industry. Our industry is always the first to be hit when it comes to economic crisis. Seems that all construction comes to a standstill when that happens, probably because they all depend on the financial institutions for financial support! So, in just 2 weeks, almost 300 architects were retrenched... just in Melbourne! So you can imagine about the whole of Australia.

Fortunately, both of us are working in a small firm, which means we are more stable, since we don't deal with big massive projects but smaller residential developments and for myself, mostly private residences. Although we did see a drop in workflow, but heck, at least we are still going. We are very thankful for that. Hopefully, we will be able to keep our jobs throughout 2009.

Towards the end of the year, happy news came along, Manlok and I decided to take a step further in our relationship and tie the knot. =) So we started planning for the wedding, although it was another year ahead. But, planning ahead is not a crime, no? Just makes it easier for us when we are approaching closer to the actual date.

So, what does 2009 has in store for me? Heaps... the wedding and my professional exams *gulp*.

Highlight: The Wedding, Lowlight: The Wedding. It is definitely a great thing to look forward to, the wedding in December. We are very excited and I am lucky enough that Debbie is also having her wedding, so we have developed a 'hotline' of wedding discussions between us! NOTE: For those who read this blog and has a wedding to plan, feel free to join us! =)

Although we are excited over the wedding, but we do know that it won't be easy. As we are financing our own wedding, 'from head to toe', we have to work really hard for it. Having not much savings (if there are any at all! haha) we have to start from scratch. Luckily, we manage to get some private jobs to work on after hours... but that means we are working approx. 10-12 hours a day, as we get home from our day job and we will be working on our night job. Weekends are not free and easy anymore. We work through most weekends.

Still, money comes, money goes... Life is not easy trying to save up for a wedding! We are actually having a smallish wedding, but as we wanted it to be by the beach, it cost a little bit more than a wedding of the same capacity in a hotel. But Manlok said, it's a once in a lifetime event (we hope!) we should have it the way we both want it. Bit by bit we are trying to save and at the same time reduce the debt we have... *sigh*, in between the reception and wedding preparations to the dowry my mom is demanding (yes...)

We have been trying to cut cost by having a lot of DIY, from making our own leather headpiece, our own invites to retouching our pre-wedding photoshoot myself. I am going to only have 1 dress rather than a few, which will also reduce the cost of the wedding and we manage to find quite a good designer to do it for me at a very low price, really... below RM1k! =D As well, doing our pre-wedding shoots here saved us a fair bit too. As we have gone for a casual style, we used our own clothes and we paid A$90 for the shooting and A$400 for a small amount of images (retouched and originals). Well, that cost us less than A$500. =)

Well, plenty more to do...so wish me luck! Here's a preview of our pre-wedding shoot!

My New Obsession...

Last weekend, due to us trying ways to reduce the cost of our wedding, I self-taught myself some photo-editing and enhancing skills on photoshop. Although I had some basic knowledge of photoshop from my uni days, but I never really care much to learn more than I need to know! But after last weekend, I found that I do indeed LOVE it! Now, I am obsessed to enhancing ALL my images EVERY SINGLE NIGHT after work! :P

Have a look at the image below (1st image is the original image taken in Times Square in HK)... which is the best, in your opinion? (click on the images to enlarge...)

Like My Hair? =P

Our Photoshoot

Happy 2009!!! Sorry for the long absence. It was caused by my inherent laziness as I am still on my 3 week break. You would think when one is on a break, one would have more time to blog, eh? =P

Anyway... we did something we have never done before in our lives a few days ago... we did a photoshoot! Yes... a photoshoot! OK, the idea was we thought we needed photos for our wedding end of this year but we didn't want to go with the typical pre-wedding photos that so many couples opted for. So we found Linda Pottage (www.bluehousestudio.net) to do our very quirky and out of the box photoshooting session. It was a long drive to her studio, but it was really worth it!

We even brought our monsters with us so that they could be in some of the photos since they won't be with us when we go back for our reception in December... =( Everything went really well and it was certainly quirky, involving a detached chandelier, a pineapple and a frozen chicken.... so go figure! :P

It was a thoroughly enjoyable session as everyone was very relaxed and funny... even my make up artist, Vanessa was fantabulous! She was totally awesome... :P Even helped us to hold on to our monsters when we were doing our outdoor shots! hehheh... Thanks Vanessa!

We will have to wait for another 2-3 weeks at least before we can see the images of the day... :) Will share it with all of you when we get them! Till then, just have to hang on to my excitement! :D