Talent

When you try your best but you don't succeed...
(Coldplay comes to mind)

At first when you don't succeed, try, try again.

Fall down seven times, stand up eight.

When does it end? When does one know that you've tried enough, and accept the situation?

I knew that talent will only get one so far, but with sufficient hardwork, anything can be achieved. Really though?

I reckon the only talent I do have, is in disappointing people whom I care for and cares for me. Family, friends, I can hardly recall moments that made them proud to be associated with me. But I can pinpoint numerous occasions where I've been a disappointment.

Everything in the world is temporary anyway.. I'm just grateful and blessed for the opportunities though I did not manage to make the best of it.

Thank you and I'm sorry.

Skabetti

Since young, one of my favourite food has always been spaghetti. When I chance upon any Italian restaurant, spaghetti bolognese would be my first choice unless for some bizarre reason that it's not on the menu. I would also judge the rest of the cuisine base on how well their spaghetti bolognese turns out to be. 

Naturally, home cooked spaghetti remains the only dish I can confidently prepare. A recipe imparted from my mum who learned it from her friend. LV grew to enjoy spaghetti as well. 

LV had always pronounced spaghetti correctly with no issues... until recently. Last week she called out to me saying she wants to eat skabetti. It took me a while to figure out she meant spaghetti. I'm clueless how spaghetti turned into skabetti given that all this while, she had no issues saying spaghetti o___o

So yesterday, I cooked spaghetti for dinner. Later at night, I asked her to say spaghetti.

"Skabetti"

(hubby starts chuckling at his PC)

So I went syllable by syllable. Spa. Ghe. Ti. 

"Spa. Ghe. Ti.". LV echoes perfectly. 

"Spaghetti" I said at one go. 

"Skabetti" She says. 

(hubby starts chuckling louder)

After repeated attempts and yielding the same results, both Steven and I just burst into laughter, Steven of amusement, me partly of anguish. LV huffs "WHAT'S SO FUNNY?"

Steven laughs harder and proceeds to give LV a big cuddle. 

A few minutes later, she manages to say Spaghetti albeit not consistently. 

So I asked, "What did you have for dinner tonight?"

"Apple", she responded. I did an imaginary face-palm and asked, "What did you have before the apple?". "Apple", she repeats. 

I guess I'll try again today :P

Five years on

This was probably my longest break from blogger. It simply didn't become an active hobby anymore, but that also meant it was probably the most eventful 5 years of my life? Not to say that the previous years were uneventful, but here's a brief snapshot of my last 5 years:

2014
I had my firstborn, whom I usually refer to as LV or #lyanav on Instagram. That is pretty much the highlight of that year as Steven and I embraced (more like figuring out) parenting.
This is also the year I moved on from Financial Surveillance to Strategic Management. This was the beginning of a new adventure in my career which led me to where I am now.

2015
Unfortunately I don't recall much of this year, except basketball was introduced to ICBG and I participated in their trainings. It was my first physical activity postpartum and I must say my fitness level was definitely down and I struggled to keep up. Nevertheless I still enjoyed the training. I could not tryout as during tournament time I'd be travelling, but seeing the rest of the talents I knew chances to make the team was slim. At least selections was fair compared to what I went through in school.

2016
Now what happened in 2016? Me and hubby started playing more online games again, especially after we've put LV to bed. Toddlers sleep early, and since there isn't much else we can do, we "returned" to our gaming life. Probably one of the turning points was buying the Valve Pack on Steam which gave us access to games like Portal, CS, Left for Dead and such. We completed Portal 2 co-op together and started CS:GO. Prior to this, we played a lot of Gauntlet, courtesy of myuu.

2017
I left my first job. That's another story not meant for the blog. But in summary, I went into the consulting line for about 5.5 months before joining Deposit Insurance with a better offer. I'm now a Project Manager in a Project Management Office, or at least that's what it says on my business card. This is also the year I began playing CS:GO competitively. But don't let that fool you, I'm still an amateur noob at the game until now. But it created a whole new community for me to venture into and familiarise with.

2018
While 2018 was only last year I don't really know what happened. One major switch was moving from my first esports team to 1Percent Esports. Then, I was expecting our second child. It kinda feels like 2018 is a year I'd prefer not to remember. 2019 is also beginning to feel the same. So let's go straight to 2019.

2019
Our second child was born. He's referred to as HV or #harounv on Instagram. He's now about 2.5 months old, at least 6 kgs and growing up so fast. He's so cuddly and adorable.

I'll stop here for now, and we'll see if blogging will become regular again or not. With so much development in the world of social media, there's so many avenues to share thoughts instantly. So we'll see...

Getting that long term social pass or visa or spouse visa done in Malaysia

Some quick useful links: Information on Hasil operating hours and branches http://www.hasil.gov.my/goindex.php?kump=2&skum=1&posi=1&unit=2&sequ=1 How to fill in that security bond http://www.expats.com.my/expats2009/pdf/Personal_Bond2.pdf How much is your security bond http://www.imi.gov.my/index.php/en/main-services/visa/security-bond Other people's experiences: http://www.mywanderingstory.com/2010/11/marrying-malaysian.html

Reverse

Some while back... I mentioned to some people that I've decided to discontinue updating my blog. And indeed, I had not try to find time to update this at all. But things change. And being partly nostalgic humans often are... I chanced upon some old comments which made blogging fun and funny in years before. That made me look upon this page again, noticing that I've had this site up since 2005... 2005!!! And this is when, I have decided to reverse my decision to quit this blog. Let's see how long this will last though... :P

Going for Fitness

Sometime back in October 2012, or perhaps end-September, Lol-Friend signed up at Fitness First Manulife which is super near her current workplace.

As a joke, she referred me and several friends to the gym.

To summarize, me and about 6-7 friends joined in after her.. :D

We both earned this pretty t-shirt for referring people :D

But why on earth would I, someone who has access to a gym at home, and office, sign up for a gym outside?

Two words: Group exercises :D

I'm now in my third year dancing with Talent Hub. But I realise my fitness is severely lacking ever since I stopped sailing competitively. Not like it was any better during that time. I wanted fun classes to help build up my cardio/endurance and stamina. My membership consultant at that time, knew just how to pitch the membership to me. We never talked about the gym itself, just the classes, the type of classes, the costs, and such.

And for me, as long as you're able to commit for classes, cost per class is quite reasonable. Of course, commitment is always an issue, thus I signed up for a shorter membership tenure at first. Within two months, I moved on to premium :D When you discover how enjoyable classes can be, commitment won't be an issue. You'd drop everything else to go.

My main gym hangout is the Fitness First in 1 Mont Kiara Mall, despite signing up at Manulife as well. The friendly staff there made every visit much more enjoyable.

Classes that I enjoy going include Shbam, Body Jam, Body Combat, Core Flow, amongst others :D One that I'm yet to try, but hope to someday is Body Step.

The improvement, is indeed noticeable :D

ICS to Jellybean

My last post ages ago, I just made the leap to ICS.

Now, with a little hand-me-down from the awesome big brother, I now have a "little" jellybean to play with :D while he plays with his new Samsung Note II.

I got the HTC One X.

And now I'm in love with HTC... yes, battery still goes down, but that's nothing new to me, from my old Iphone 3GS (see last blog post). It doesn't go down as fast, and it's nifty that the charge cable is the same with many other phones including the Note, Kindle, Blackberry and such.

Jumping from iPhone 3GS to HTC One X gives a superb feeling. My friend says her iPhone 5 is still superior, but so what.. this is from 3GS! XD

There's several things that happened since October.. but let's slowly update.. shall we? :D

Ice Cream Sandwich

Just upgraded tabby's operating system from honeycomb to ice cream sandwich :-)

Now I understand why people say to upgrade whenever possible  :-D

Doesn't work with the iPhone tho, iOS 6 seems to drain my battery like drinking water

Also, finally synced my blogger to my tabby, so I can start blogging a little more now and wherever I am  :-D

Chewmil loves my hair

Edit: Video link here (might be private as it's on my brother's Facebook)

Jetlagged?

This paints quite an accurate picture of what I've been living with for some time now




aside from the jetlag, that is. But currently, just over a week since I got back from Europe.. I think there's some jetlag lingering in my system.

While some people say it's due to waking up around 5 am for sahur but this is definitely not the first time I practice fasting during Ramadan and I don't recall having this sleepiness problem before.

Almost daily now since my return, my head and my eyelids become really heavy in the mornings. Now Belgium is six hours behind. While I was there, I had the tendency to wake up around 6 AM earliest before continuing to snooze. Mornings in Malaysia pretty much means sleep time in Belgium. Only close to 12 PM Malaysian time (6 AM Belgium time) would I suddenly awake from my morning daze feeling wide awake. WHY WHY WHY?

Speaking of jetlag, somehow no matter what I try, like adjusting myself before traveling, or using the flight to either stay up or get some shut eye.. I will still go through some form of jetlag. My first night in Belgium, I awoke at 3 AM local time (9 AM Malaysian time), and even though it's summer, it's still dark at that time, and everyone else is asleep. Oh gosh, what do I do.... was my thought for several more hours before I dragged myself outta bed just because I had to use the loo.

Aside from all that, I had one of the most splendid holidays ever. First time in Spain. First time hiking. First time kayaking downstream for 16km. I would do it again. But next time, I'd be better prepared :P

The heart bleeds

the hands cover the ears,
eyes shut tight.
the scream is silent,
hiding from the light.

the light shines between the fingers,
but the grip tightens.
the truth just lingers,
while you stay frightened.

the mountain of paper rises,
while the tray shrinks.
the oceans aren't enough
and nobody can think.

the silence is deafening,
as the mouth chose to shut.
while the finger starts pointing,
the cuts reach the heart.

I'm not a total newbie, but I'm not intermediate either

That's my level of mandarin. I still want to master that language some day. But my problem is, I want to master so many things. So my limited days per week is often filled with a variety of stuff. It used to be sailing, and due to the sport being rather demanding in terms of time, effort and commitment, I've pretty much stopped sailing and went on to do other things.

Now, I rekindled my old love for dance back from the schooldays when mum enrolled me for traditional dance. Now I don't mean to imply that dancing doesn't take time, effort and commitment. It does, and a lot of hard work must be invested if you wanna go far. But the plus point for dancing, is that I don't have to travel all the way to Klang each free day and stay there from morning to evening. (plus, paying Penchala Link toll is much cheaper than NKVE to Klang ;D )

So after a year of doing street jam at Talent Hub, I picked up contemporary at the same studio to see how far I can go with the technical parts of dancing. While I still miss doing ballroom and latin stuff from unidays, doing contemporary is so fulfilling. I'm far from doing splits or kicks, but that's the challenge doing contemporary is giving me, and there's like a goal I wanna reach.

But it wasn't enough, I wanted to do more. I wanted something related to performance, so I picked up Broadway Dancing from Broadway Academy. We just finished doing Saturday Night Fever, and despite the slow start, I'm loving how the end result is.

Now that's three dance classes per week. That's about RM330 per month. And I wanna continue to pick up mandarin. It would certainly be a waste to have learned so much mandarin back in uni and sometime in KL if I don't practice or master it. Given the environment, it's definitely not easy, perhaps because I don't socialise that much anyway, haha. Definitely a long trip to China to immerse in the culture and language is suuuper ideal. As for now.. I'll have to see if my monthly budget would allow me to retake classes. Problem is, I can't start as a beginner, nor can I join an intermediate class. One-to-one would be ideal, but it's suuuuper pricey (obviously). So having a class that is flexible enough to work around my schedule.. is a task on its own. Haih~~

Anyone wanna sponsor me? :D

So here's another day turning younger

I came home after a long day while it's my birthday. Dad was sitting on the couch, having biscuits for dinner. After some small talk, I mentioned that my boss told me I should've taken the day off as it was my birthday, and my dad was like OH! (Yes, he forgot, but it's not surprising :P ) I then added that I've turned 27 (WTF!).

*a brief pause*

"It has been 27 years already??" exclaims Dad. xD

"Yup!"

Initially I planned to take today and tomorrow off, but decided to take it last week instead. Since there's a cluster of public holidays within this three weeks, taking that two days gave me a 7 day weekend :) Besides, my lil bro was flying off on the 4th, so I thought it would be nice to spend some extra time with him.

So yes, I was at work. It's fine, as I felt I managed to get a lot of things done today.

And I had Broadway Dance Class :) So there was definitely something to look forward too. The pace is now not too fast, not too slow either, and seeing the piece come together is very exciting!

Here's a promotional video for the class:



Birthday well spent. ^^

新年快乐！

It's the lunar new year today.

It's the time where families come together, work together, and spend time together.

I had this funny dream this morning that I had to prepare sup ekor (ox tail soup) to bring to my uncle's house for new years... and oh, my uncle's vegetarian btw :P

At my uncle's place, my siblings and I happily talked about our chinese zodiac. I'm a wood rat, while most of my peers are ox (just because I happened to be born before Chinese New Year that year, so my zodiac is similar to those born in 1984). You can find your zodiac here.


"Overall, Rats are full of energy, talkative and charming but they have a tendency to become aggressive."

Wahahahaha! No wonder I started dancing so much.

Happy Chinese New Year Everyone! :)

Now if only the first quarter isn't the busiest in my office, and in 2012 in particular... I so could've taken 10 days off, resulting in 3 weeks off due to the number of public holidays that happened to lump around this period. There's Chinese New Year, there's Federal Territory Day, there's the Prophet's Birthday and Thaipusam!!

Updated wishlist

Only while editing it did I realise it's been a loooong while since I last updated it :o Striking out a lot of the current items pretty much meant that I've acquired a lot of things that I wanted in the past year :D

YAY!

Time to put stuff to get in 2012 :D

The forgetful me

I often do my thinking of things in general... such as my life, my work, my priorities, anything, while driving. And this is normally when I'm driving home, or the way to work. It's sometimes scary how one can drive autopilot to and fro from home and office :S

Anyway, there has been many occasions where I tell myself, I should blog what I was thinking... But obviously.. it didn't happen :P Normally by the time I reach home, I just forget. I forgot that I wanted to blog, and I forget what I wanted to blog about.

It's like how we forget what we dreamed after we wake up in the morning...

Anyway, I'm gonna try for a 2012 resolution: blog more! even if it's just one para, one line, whatever :)

Long ago, I could never type without looking at the keyboard

Now at my 3rd try.. :D

Visit the Typing Test and try!

Thanks to Jules :P

Talent Hub: La Senza Pin-Up store launch performance

Talent Hub: La Senza Pin-Up store launch performance: La Senza launched their latest Pin-Up concept store in One Utama on 3rd November 2011. Our 20 dancers performed an upbeat and exciting dance...

I choose you, Pikachu!

Say hello to Pikachu!

Bright, loud, and full of power!

I got this SE 1.5 Myvi towards the end of September and I'm loving it. Sure it took a bit of getting used to. I'm still working on the handling of the car, but at least, after her first service, she doesn't guzzle as much petrol anymore. I used to have to refill her tank within a week. But now it's definitely over.

It's funny switching from a 1k cc engine to this 1.5. The change in fuel consumption is very very obvious, and bear in mind that I've been driving my old red kelisa for 8 years before I got Pikachu.

The story of getting the Myvi:
When the new Myvi 1.3 was launched back in June, I placed an order for the sleek purple Myvi elegance. I wasn't too impressed with the exterior facelift, however, I was enchanted by the new interior design. Prior to this, I never had a GPS device, so I was bent to get the built in navigation system on the Myvi, which led me to the Elegance.

A couple of months passed, and no news on the delivery of the purple Elegance. Then they launched the 1.5. After being convinced to switch to the 1.5, I requested for the purple one again, or silver, whichever comes faster. Within a week, I received a call that my car was ready to be delivered. Since I sorta requested purple or silver, I asked what colour this one was. Imagine my surprise when I was told that it's yellow. Now, don't get me wrong, I don't hate yellow, and I think the yellow is a beautiful shade, and it really stands out on the car. But that's also the thing.. I didn't quite want to stand out. The colour is loud, and I didn't feel like being so obvious that I just got a new car.

I had like, two-three days to decide whether to take the yellow or not. Upon hearing several advices, I went with it since it's already available, wherelse there's no telling when the purple SE 1.5 will ever emerge. And here comes Pikachu!

The name Pikachu was suggested by Steven. People used to ask when I was gonna get my Barney (during the time I was expecting the purple).

I do know that there has been more purple Myvis out there now, but I'm glad I got my Pikachu. No regrets there :)

The Games I Play Lately

Ramadan and Raya came and left. If you were on my facebook, you'd probably know that Steven came by Malaysia to celebrate one of the most festive seasons in Malaysia :) I seriously believe men in 'baju melayu' look sooooo hot and dashing!

And now he's back home :( Can't wait till the next meet. But I don't know when yet... :(

Anyway, just wanna share some of the games I've been playing on and off recently. Some iPhone games is listed here as well, but not all.. there's too many. lol! But I say, iphone apps make waiting sooo much more bearable now.

Online

1. Dragon Saga: To me it's something between Maplestory and WoW. Lag is not bad, I probably have much better connection if I ever upgrade to Unifi. Steven found this game while looking for a game that both of us could play, since I can't play Maplestory anymore :( Stupid region block.
2. Transformice: It's a simple game, but sooo entertaining. It's short 2-3 min rounds makes it a good time filler. But it's hard to get off it as well, making me procrastinate at times XD
3. Epicmafia: Realtime mafia/"werewolf". Practise lying acting skills here.

Iphone

1. Plants vs Zombies: Used to play this a bit, till I got all the achievements. But now it's updated with tonnes of mini games and more achievements, it goes back to the main list :D
2. Monopoly: On of my fav time fillers.
3. Bakery Story: Cuz the food looks yum. Some colleagues were playing this, and now so am I :3

That's all I can think for now. Too many? I dunno :o *thinks about the outdoor activities I'm up to as well....*