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...

Neighbours

Random: I've been meaning to blog here for a while, but when I have the blogger window open, I become clueless. When that happened again today during lunch hour, I ended up reading Nan's blog which I find superb with her command of English and the way she writes. Thanks Nan! :D I really really enjoyed it!

How many people down the street from your house, do you actually know? How often have you invited them over for tea, or hang out together from time to time?

If those questions were asked now, it would probably be 'very rarely' or 'never'.

But if you asked me when I was younger than 11 years old, I'd say 'all the time'.

Back in my childhood neighbourhood of Bukit Damansara, we pretty much knew the people left, right, front, back and several houses away. We often hang out and play. Maybe it was because we were young and carefree?

Yet still, after I moved to PJ at the age of 11, I barely knew the people who lived in this multi storey complex. And since then, I've moved from condo to condo, even as a university student, I stayed in some student apartment in Sydney. But Sydney was good :D We knew a lot of neighbours and hung out together at times.

What is a neighbourhood lately? I'm honestly ashamed at times that I don't know my neighbour well enough. I can only tell which car is theirs, and what time they usually leave for work.. xD

Hopefully this year would change things. :) I'm trying.

A Letter about Sydney

Yesterday and today, a friend came to me talking about his intentions of visiting Australia. He requested some input on places of interest, and I briefly told him what I knew of places in Australia. But for Sydney, it's a special case. Sydney's like my second home. There's so much I could talk about Sydney. Here's what I wrote to him:

Ok! And about Sydney!

After staying there 2.5 years, there are still some places I'm yet to explore. (tho funnily i can't remember what i haven't explored there now) Ah yes..

Now of course, there's the Sydney Opera House and the Harbour Bridge. If you love sights and have some extra cash to spend, you may consider going for the Bridge Climb. You have to book a spot online, and rain or shine, you gotta climb! There are night climbs and sunset climbs too. I'm afraid of heights, so I didn't try! :p If you don't have the means to climb it, you can still walk on the bridge! There's pedestrian paths on the side, and the view is still pretty awesome! That's what I did, hehe!

There's this beautiful coastal walk I love, from Coogee Beach up to Bondi Beach. If you go really slow, it could take 3 hrs, if you brisk jog, about 1.5 hrs. At Coogee Beach, before the start of the walk, there's also a little rock pool you may wanna jump in. However, it may be cold due to winter, where the waters there are about 12-14 C. You pass many small bridges and places, and also a cemetery on top a cliff facing the sea! It's good to go in the morning, then have lunch at Bondi Beach, Sydney's most famous beach. Other popular beaches there include Manly Beach, located at North Sydney and Maroubra Beach. Around Manly Beach there are also walks like the coastal walk, but I've not tried it before (cuz I liked Coogee-Bondi and lived about 20 mins walk from Coogee). Annually they also have a sculpture by the sea somewhere along the Coogee-Bondi walk, but I checked this year's date and it's at the end of October :( There're also some popular beaches up north of Manly, forgot the name, but heard the sand there is best. Now, that's just beach :P

Sydney has... all sorts of food from everywhere. One rather popular place is the Fish Market. Everything there is like, super fresh. Should go in the morning as well, it gets rather crowded around 11 AM. Then there's those chocolate stores, japanese, korean, i don't know, Sydney's just super diverse. If you want western food like ribs and steak, you could try Hog's Breath and/or Hurricanes. Be sure to make reservations as they're usually pretty full. There's a 24hr place called Pancake on the Rocks, situated at the Rocks, near the Opera House. Ppl love going there too, and the line can be pretty long, but it's 24 hrs! That's just food...

(I'm rather skipping a lot of details :P)

Ah yes, for food, I forgot to mention, a short bus ride from Sydney town towards south, you can also have good fish and chips. The place is called La Perouse, and there's a few fish and chip places there.

Oh yea, I did not even manage to go up the skytower xD But anyways, in terms of places to visit, in town, people like to look at the Queen Victoria Building (QVB). It's a shopping place inside. Darling Harbour is also another place of attraction. Sydney Aquarium and wildlife centre is there, it's quite interesting, I went to the Aquarium at least twice. Across the harbour, there's the zoo and seaworld. The zoo is pretty neat, I didn't go to the seaworld, but I heard from my family who went, that the aquarium is better. If you wanna carry a koala, you should go to Cairns or elsewhere, not sure about Melbourne. Because ppl are not allowed to carry/touch a koala in New South Wales. In Cairns, they allow so, I have a picture of myself carrying one there. In Sydney, you can just stand beside it and take photos.

Of course, I'm not done yet, with Sydney :P more places to visit include Watsons Bay, Port Douglas, Hunter Valley and the Blue Mountains. Watsons Bay is scenic, overlooking the harbour and the ocean. Port Douglas is about 2-3hrs drive up north of Sydney, where there are dolphine tours and sand dunes. The sand dunes are spectacular, as it's right next to the ocean. You can go sandboarding there, ride camels and such.

Hunter Valley... is also a short drive out of Sydney, I've never been there myself, but the reason people go there, I can't say here :P

Blue Mountains is also another drive/train out of Sydney to the west. There's a rock formation there known as the three sisters. There, there's also the Jenolan Caves there, which is quite cool. Other than that there's a few quaint little shops that's quite interesting to some =)

That's all for now, I can't think of anything else at the moment :)

I even forgot to include the pies at Woolloomooloo!

And about Penang... It'll be on facebook :P So I'm not gonna talk about it here. Besides, pictures are worth thousands of words ;)

Officially a Graduate

5 days, 4 nights, 15 hrs of flight, morning/noon flights.

Seriously not enough. I only managed to squeeze in 3 full days in Sydney. It wasn't a holiday. It was a trip. I wished I had more time, but it's ok, hopefully it pays off.

Most of it was spent on campus, surrounded by my dear friends, whom I really miss. Given my short time there, it allowed me to reflect back of all our friendships, and makes me ponder of how it's gonna be like from here onwards.

Nevertheless, it's a blessing. :)

Pics have been uploaded on facebook, tho it's not all of them. I wanna post one here sometime soon tho, once I find a fitting one for here xD

I wanted to type a lot more, but.. I keep getting distracted o.o *blames having 5 convos and tonnes of tabs open on firefox* :P

Last Post of 2007

Hehe, this year is certainly different. But it ends like any other year. Just like any other day.

And being a bit sick isn't helping xP

Man, organizing stuff is a hell lot harder online.. But yet, it's still something I kinda enjoy doing.. and thus the interest in managerial/international business stuff.

While helping organizing stuff like this online doesn't go into my resume or credentials, it still gives me experience, valuable experience and eyesights :)

Or perhaps I'm just insane xD

A very happy new year to everyone :) May you all have a blessed year ahead ^^

I was thinking of blabbering about stuff that I've achieved/done/failed in the year 2007, but sitting hear in my sleeveless and shorts and still feeling so hot and sweaty, I think I'll just pass xP

One more exam, Four more days to home

The feeling of uncertainty is so damn scary... and I guess that's basically the reason why everyone studies, work hard and such, to secure their future and rid of uncertainty. But uncertainty can't be avoided so easily... and I guess it's how we managed it

Haven't been posting much lately, I don't know why.. xD I guess I just don't really like my blog to be all sorts of words... and nothing else.. makes it looks boring to read

Then again, there hasn't been much happening... with just exams, and no more classes, thus, less outings.. there's that one bit when Wei Hon told me about him discovering some old stuff in his drawer from our school days xD Here's one of the pic:

Everyone says I look the same.. as usual :P while Wei Hon has changed a bit.. *pokes his blog* :P But anyways, those were good times, and I'm happy where I'm at, despite all the uncertainty. Bears in mind my dad's wise words "There are times when things do not go according to the way we plan. And when that happens, tough, no use worrying about it, and just move on." I miss him ^^ Can't wait to see him soon...

Funny thing, is that I don't recall taking this picture at all xD When he passed me a card in an envelope, my first thoughts were like, why the heck does this envelope have my handwriting on it? XD

Work work work

As I was writing up my cover letter and resume (for my 2500 words assignment due Monday :P), I searched for some stuff in my gmail account for my previous correspondence with the casual jobs that I did about two years ago.

This one brings back some memories xD

I worked giving out free samples of a drink to the general public, and this is a health drink.

I also remembered that a friend (guy) also was interested and so I inquired for him, and that's when I learnt that the job is for females only ;O

"so basically, image to portray is healthy la. :)

im nt very particular abt looks, but rather the image that is goin to be portrayed is very important."

"also,uniform will be a green top with white tennis skirt.

as said, it will be slightly above knee length."
(my first job wearing a short skirt xD)

"skirts are all standard size. only gt 1 size.

tops wise, only size 34 and 36.

if u rem who's Dawn, that's the maximum in terms of size we can go till.

she was able to donn on the size 36 top."
(here of course, I was given the smaller size :P)

"portraying a healthy image ... hmm... neat n tidy...to be in acceptable weight range ?

sth lidat.."

(could I possibly underweight? xD)

Anyway, I remember getting frantic when I learnt of the uniform.. xD I worked for them before, and that time, all I needed were Jeans and black t-shirts (thus the reason i have so many black shirts in my cupboard xD)

This time, it was a short white skirt and green t-shirt... I was quite conscious about how my legs looked... =P Now I remember.. it was this job that made me buy some basic makeup to look clean and healthy.. rofl!

We were given two pairs of the uniform that we were allowed to keep after performing the job too... I remember when trying out the uniform... the skirt is quite short in my opinion =P and it was wrap around my waist.. really looked like a tennis skirt... and also, i had to use a pin to keep it up... XD

I wore sports shoes too.. and if i recall correctly, that was the last time I wore my old sport shoes, as i totally ruined them

Hehe, and there were lots more that happened then, but I shall not continue rambling and goes back to working on my essay =P

Males... and games =P

Last night when I came back from my dance class, my two housemates of the same floor somehow started commenting that I have many guy friends :P

I don't deny that, since I often feel that I get along better with guys, even since young. Being the only girl among my siblings, and the oldest girl among my cousins on my dad's side (back then wasn't as close to the extended family on mum's side), I grew up with guys.. Playing football as a kid, often being the goalie.. xD I remember once my uncle confiscated out football because we kept playing at the side of the house, possibly hitting pots and breaking window panes.. xD and being the only girl, I set out to retrieve the ball without being caught...

Then back at home, with my brothers, I used to wrestle with my younger brother... until he got taller than me tho xD then played many games with my older brother... I remember:

• Heretic (and trying to get the eggs and turning the other player into a chicken) xD ,
• Wolfenstein 3-D, (sparked my interest in languages, first foreign dictionary bought - German)
  
• Doom (I & II) *always using the cheats 0:-) especially IDDQD, i think! xD unless it's a different game*,
• Dune II - ahhh, the sandworm! xD ps. damn cute photo if you played the game =D and when playing this, I kept associating those windtraps as the Sydney Opera House

and many many more.. those games were just the beginning =P then along came Quake, AoE, Diablo II (I was too scared to play Diablo I), Warcraft :P and oh wait, SimCity 2!

I love computer games =D

Then even at this age, back in Malaysia, unlike most people, I don't really go clubbing (actually never did that before) but I did sometimes follow myuu to internet/gaming cafes just to have big multiplayer games, like Counterstrike or Battlefield...

So yeah, I do enjoy more guys stuff, I guess... as Wei Hon like to rub it in, that I'm actually one of the guys.. :P Kris thinks I'd have problems dressing up for a girl; up till now, I have little knowledge of putting on make-up, and plus.. I don't know how to cook =P

Ahh.. I also just remembered I used to play these little motorized cars (Tamiya) and even had my own car B)

But when it comes to guys that I'd fall for... barely any that I know around here.. my housemates did ask me my preference, but here in Aussie, there's truly none I'd prefer... I do enjoy hanging out with *most* of them, not all for various reasons :P but yeah; it would definitely be nice to know a decent guy who shares many if not all the same interests as me and never fails to make me happy ^^