The Book and the Magic Box

These past few days, two interests have been wholly occupying my time.

1) The TV series White Collar. Thanks to my mom, who doesn't comprehend that it is not cool to finish an entire season in the span of four days, are averaging three of four episodes a day. In case you were wondering, no, I am not only watching it because the lead character has grey eyes, I really do like the series and so does my mom... and Hui Jan's parents.

2) The book entitled The Reluctant Heiress @ Magic Flutes by Eva Ibbotson. On the second read now and I'm drinking every word in every minute I can get.

I'm also playing Plants vs. Zombies, but who's counting, really. School's coming back. Soon.

Here, I promise, to myself, to make full updates on items 1) and 2). Soon.

Another grey-eyed prince

Omaigod. Like seriously. I can't believe my mom has been watching this show all and I've, well, not. To be fair, she did tell me what it was about. Several times. But I never listened. Because my  mom has been witholding one crucial piece of information from me.

The main character has grey eyes.

Ajdskafjdrokjd, ajsdrieou, iasuroiuerios djofiuxfius adskjowiuxcnjd!

In case you were, well, wondering, what show this is.

Haha. I think I'd like the show, though, grey-eyed dark-haired as-close-to-Brigan-as-you-could-possibly-get conman aside. Since I'm in between seasons of Leverage now, I need my healthy dose of honest thievery. If only I could stop jumping up and down squealing "Grey eyes!" long enough to actually watch it properly.

Oh. His name is Neal Caffrey. That helps. One of my favourite Tamora Pierce characters is named Nealan of Queenscove.

Whoa. Just found a load of pictures of this grey-eyed hunk on Tumblr. Tumblr seems to me to be an unhealthy place to be. Lookit this. http://fuckyeahmrmattbomer.tumblr.com/ ?!

Merry Christmas

I don't care IF Jesus wasn't born in December. Today is the 25th of the last month of the year, so it's Christmas.

In my head, Christmas means everything. Giving, receiving, shopping, business, food, cooking, family, friends, excitement, anticipation, decoration, Christmas-related love songs, real Christmas songs, red, green, wishes, snow, movies, giftwrap, laughter, merriment, the Christmas spirit, everything.

In my heart, Christmas means only one thing, and that thing is everything:

Christ.

So, regardless of whatever it might mean to you, Merry Christmas, everybody.

Bustle

Yesterday went grocery shopping and shopping in OneU for five hours. But because God invented crocs (haha), I made it! Skipped through the entire mall attracting stares because I was singing loudly along to the Christmas songs being played, often having to switch in mid-song when I went from one shop to another. Why were people staring? Season's spirit mah!

Just so you know, I slept at 5.30a.m. yesterday morning. Yeap. Caffeine... has its downsides. Spent two hours in bed with my brain racing at full speed ahead and swearing to never drink coffee again.

Anyway, I came home from One U and made tong yuen for the Winter Solstice. (I have a thing for solstices and equinoxes, thanks to Tamora Pierce, and I've permanently memorised the dates in our Form 1 geography textbook, which are on the page which has a mistake because they mixed up the Cancer and Capricorn tropics, omg geek alert.) I did all by myself - made it from scratch from glutinous flour - because noone helped me. Har har. Two reasons why I'm obsessed with making tong yuen when noone else in my family is - one, I like to eat it, and two, I always used to make it with my maid. I make two colours only, pink and white, and put it in sugar water, no ginger, thank-you-very-much. Thank you bestfriendNgLiSar for reminding me when the tong yuen day was.

And then I went to SS2 mall and bought books at the Times book fair.

Today, made chocolate chip and oatmeal cookies and talked to my eldest sister over the phone - it's her birthday! I'm going to have to wrap presents today - something I put off doing for very long - because I loathe it. Last year, I spent three hours wrapping presents. Three hours. What say I try for two this year?

Two of my all-time favourite Christmas songs, which, incidentally, are non-Christ-related:

My Only Wish - Britney Spears

Last Christmas - originally by WHAM, but also re-recorded by almost every artist living (exaggeration)

Bonus:

Ay Ay Ay It's Christmas - Ricky Martin
Baby It's Cold Outside - Kurt and Kurt's Vampire Boyfriend


Psst. Tomorrow's Christmas Eve.

Happifood

Haha. What a sarden mess that previous post was. But I won't delete it. We learn.

Anyway, now I'm very pumped!

Asked the parents bring me go to Coffee Bean Bangsar (becoming regular liao!) for TripleDeckerCheesecake tee hee hee. I also ordered a Large Iced Mocha Latte to share with my mom, but looking back, I kinda think I drank it all. Oops.

On the way back from the good ol' sugar-and-caffeine dosage I had a startling revelation. You see, some days back my sister and I went to delicious at OneUtama for dinner. When we were standing waiting to be seated, I caught the eye of one of the waiters as he was, well, waiting on someone. So I gave him a small smile - because I'm such a friendly person, and all - and he started to give me a smile back - and then both our smiles froze and we stared at each other for like two seconds - I did, because he seemed so familiar. (Gahh, if my life were a movie the guy would be my handsome charming prince and I would be married by now, but moving on...) I spent the rest of the dinner ducking behind my hair the whole time he was serving us trying to rack my brains and try to remember where or if I'd seen him before.

And just now it struck me! The guy was my Confirmation mate! I'd spent the last two years having weekly classes with him! At least two years! Ohmigosh this shows what a terrible relationship I have with my confirmation yearmates. HE must've recognised me. I mean, if he wasn't as stupid as I was he would have. I did talk to the guy before, you know. I felt so BAD! I turned to my sister in the car and said, "I just realised that one of the waiters in delicious that day was my confirmation mate." Immediately my sister said, "You mean that Chinese boy who kept on staring at us non-stop?" Wham! And the wave of doubled guilt slams into me! Eeeee, I am a horrible person. He probably thought I knew he who he was but was deliberately refusing to acknowledge him. My mom said he was probably thinking I was "stuck-up not a word". Yeah, my mom, sister and conscience had a fine time beating me up on the way back home. I am so ashamed of myself, and yet, I keep on feeling this mad desire to laugh.

So sue me if you don't find this funny.

The car ride home isn't done yet. Two streets away from my house, my sister glanced out the window at a electricity wire and went, "Monkey!" And of course nothing would do but for me to go monkey-hunting, even though the creature sorta looked like a cat, which probably meant it was a civet cat (musang). The second we got down from the car, before my dad even killed the engine, I took my mom by the hand and dragged her, at ten past midnight, when it was pretty dark and miserably lit by the orange glow of streetlamps, to go two roads away and see if it was indeed a monkey. (She thought I was kidding at first.) The monkey/cat/musang was still there, sitting there all hunched over, which meant that it wasn't a monkey, but a cat/musang. And then my mom and I stood there for five whole minutes in the dark on the corner of a street, staring up at the creature and having a very loud argument about it. My mom said it was a musang due to the length of its tail. I said it was a cat because it was sitting like how witch's cats always sit in cartoons, and witch's cats can magic themselves up to sit on electricity cables even if normal cats can't.

Haha. After those five minutes, my dad finally arrived to check if my mom and I were still, well, alive, it being midnight and dark and lonely all, giving me the courage to walk with him to the spot directly where the cat/musang was sitting, making the cat/musang unhunch itself and gracefully reveal the shape of its snout, meaning that my mom was right (boo) and that it was indeed a musang, albeit an extraordinarily small one.

And then we walked back home.

:D

Thank you for reading this very long caffeine-and-sugar-fueled post, and have a nice day!

Busy Bee

I spent the whole of last week Christmas shopping.

Just when I took a break from Christmas shopping, I decided to spend time with my girls these past two days.

Yesterday, I watched Rapunzel 3D with Chalystha. It was awesome, obviously. And then we went to LiSar's cousin's apartment to meet up with Kee and Ng for gym and swimming time. Then I came home and after dinner, I watched three episodes of Bones back-to-back with my father, just like I did on Sunday night.

Today I went to LiSar's house to watch a disappointing movie, City of Ember. Except the guy looked like Prince Edmund from Narnia. Oh, Narnia. Narnia is bad for my soul. Narnia rips my soul apart until I could have as many Horcruxes as Lord Voldemort. I'm not ready to say why. Not yet. Please don't ask.

And now my sister just interrupted me to remind me once again what a hopeless human being I am just as I was typing this non-stop and I feel all deflated and I'm reading what I just wrote and it looks like crap and gosh I seriously have writer's block right now.

Anyway moving on. Me and Sar went to gym and pool again, LOL. Haha, not very funny. Feeling very depressed gonna go and watch three or four more episodes of Bones laterrr (which btw are currently very depressing, character-development-wise).

Going to One Utama tomorrow. Need to pick up the last few presents.

You Wish

"I think I love you."

"Oh my God, are you proposing? We've known each other for six weeks. Stand up. You're freaking me out."

Sam and Quinn forever

Trip

This is what I did for the past four days.

1) Eat

2) Eat

3) Eat

4) Eat

5) Eat

6) Eat

7) Eat

8) Eat

9) Drink

10) See 1-9

LOL.

It's insane, being cut off from the Internet for four whole days. For example, I missed out on welcoming Hui Jan back into the cyber world. I also missed out on the plans for Han Wey's birthday celebration, and because of that, I made the decision to go help homeless people today instead of going to attend it. AND THEN I REGRETTED IT LIKE WTF BECAUSE GAN WENT AND REWATCHED RAPUNZEL WITH DUCK. AND I WASN'T THERE. AKJDROAIRUOIEURI. FACEBOOK IS A NECESSITY, NOW I KNOW.

And now all I want to do is go and bury myself in my newly bought Tamora Pierce's Beka Cooper: Bloodhound until I finish it so I got no mood to blog, so bye.

RAPUNZEL: A TANGLED TALE

JUST GOT BACK FROM WATCHING RAPUNZEL!

IT WAS AWESOME!

OMG DISNEY YOU DID IT! YOU DID IT DISNEY!

IT'S A PRINCESS STORY SOMEMORE! AND IT'S AMAZING! IT WAS SO FUNNY! HILARIOUS! AND AMAZING! I NEED TO GET BETTER ADJECTIVES! BECAUSE IT WAS AWESOME!

AND RAPUNZEL IS SOOOOOOOOOOOOOO PRETTY!

WITH LOOOOOOOOVELY HAIR!

THIS IS WHAT DISNEY IS REALLY ABOUT!

I WOULD LOVE TO GO ON, DEAR READERS, BUT I'M OFF TO PENANG FOR A LONG WEEKEND, STOPPING AT CAMERON'S AGAIN ON THE WAY, SO SEE YOU MONDAY!

YOU HAVE TO WATCH THIS! YOU CAN'T NOT WATCH THIS! YOU HAVE TO!!!

THEN YOU WOULD KNOW WHAT I'M TALKING ABOUT! OMG I LOVE THIS MOVIEEEEEEE!

St. John's

These are my last school holidays. About this time next year, after I finish my SPM, I won't be having school holidays. No, I would be done with school - secondary school - forever. It's December now and Christmas is coming; I'd say time is slipping away if I'd ever gotten hold of it in the first place. But I'm not complaining. I'm tolerably happy with how I've spent my hols so far. Watching as many movies as I can, watching my TV shows, reading (Shakespeare), malling, sleeping, eating, blogging. It doesn't take much to make me happy.

Today was my third visit to the kitchen at St. John's, and through skillful coercion I managed to get Gan to come along with me. I feel rather a veteran now with the food preparation, washing and cutting vegetables (WE DON'T DO THE MEAT HAHA!), although serving is never the same from day to day. I think I know how to deal with the homeless people now, though - I don't talk to them. Or take notice of them when they get pushy. Or look at them when they're staring. And we definitely do not believe them when they come up to us in serious, authoritative tones saying they need to interview us for something, do we, Gan? I'm sorry I keep calling them homeless people, I don't know what else to call them. Actually, some of them really don't look homeless to me. Dyed hair, big shades, handbags and necklaces and all. But who can blame them - it's free food, much better than the food prefects get to eat at camp, and the menu varies each day. If you don't mind the oily plates. The homeless are required to wash up after themselves (thank God) and they don't do it very well. The first day I was there me and Chris re-washed the 120 plates because we were so disgusted. Now I don't bother anymore lol.

The homeless ones I really do admire are the ones who actually help out. I've volunteered thrice and there are always only the same few people who are there in the morning to lend a hand. I can't help respecting them for at least working a couple of hours for their food. Somewhere down the scale there are those uncles who at least help to arrange the plates of rice or pour out the tea. It's better than merely waiting like anxious wolves for the food to be served before pouncing. And believe me they do pounce. No, it's not just my imagination. One of the nice guys helping out today decided to rescue me by taking over my job as the chicken-server and letting me have his task of dishing out vegetables instead. People harry the chicken-server, you see, but not the vegetable-disher. Well. I did do fish and chicken on the previous days, it's just that today the crowd was extra testy.

And yeah, in case you missed out on that digit earlier, we average on about 120 customers a day.

My parents, and my dad, specifically, are very happy about me volunteering at St. John's. After I wrap up at 12.30, my mom comes from work, and my dad from the house, so we can all have lunch together in KL.

KL FOOD!!!

Lol.

Three more days to fulfill my 24 hours.

Oh, and sometimes monopolising your own glass of kopi o' ping turns the world into a sharper, more defined place. It's a drug.

Suddenly, my eyes are smarting so much it hurts to keep them open. In the afternoon today I unexpectedly went and watched Harry Potter 7 for the third time. Tomorrow going soup kitchen again. Pictures of the last time I went are up on facebook. Bye, very tired.

Update with a smile

When I published my previous post I honest-to-goodness was not fishing for compliments, but when I got them from Sze Li and Xin You they made me feel better immediately. Sometimes, a kind word is all a person needs to "get that warm fuzzy feeling" (Eminem!). Thanks guys!

Picture

Today I had probably the busiest day in the whole of the holidays, which is a bad thing, because it wasn't really that busy at all. Oh, woe to unproductive me. It was my first day carrying out my church programme feeding homeless people. I've spent the past hour and a half writing out the post for it. I'd decided to make it very long and detailed because I'll have to write a report for it later anyway. Aha, Sze Li and Xin You, don't regret all those nice stuff you wrote in my cbox when you see it tomorrow. :)

My dad came from home and my mom came out from her office to meet me up for lunch in KL. Oh, we are such foodies. We were standing outside a allegedly famous chappati shop trying to decide whether or not to eat there. My mom was saying, "They say that the chappati here is very good - " when a lady exiting the tiny shop heard the latter half of the sentence finished up with "Chappati is very good for health, yes!" Haha. She was probably trying to help us poor befuddled Chinese people out. I laughed. The chappati was very good, btw.

My dad then made me follow him to the Daughters of St. Paul shop, which is run by nuns, before we went home. And then the sister there tried to get me to consider a vocational life. Not kidding. She told me that I was still young and I had a lot of options and tried to get me to sign up for a workshop and spoke to my dad about it. Then she asked for my contact number so she could phone me about any programmes they have. Honestly, I didn't want to give it to her. Giving up my whole life to become a nun is something I can never even consider unless I get "the calling" one day. It's impossible. But she strong-armed me. I had to give me real number too, because, well, you can't lie to a nun! That would guarantee you an express ticket straight to hell, surely! And she being so nice, too!

I was really tired when I finally reached home at three, and I wanted to cancel the plans to go swimming with Li Sar and the girls, I was so sure I would just fall asleep in the pool and drown. But it showed how much I really wanted to see those idiots, because at 4pm I went anyway, and I had a lot fun with them. Hadn't swum in a long time. By the way, I can't swim.

Tomorrow I'm going to have to wake up pretty early to attend Uncle Gerard's funeral mass. It will be the first time I attend someone's funeral. Uncle Gerard has always been very good to me. Right now, I keep on remembering how happy I was when he gave me a box of chocolate-coated almonds all those years ago, one of the many kindnesses he's shown me. But he's moved on now, and I hope he's in a better place. God bless his soul.