the long break (not!!)

we started the long raya break with a bbq bang :) the heavy heavy downpour didn't stop us in the least. we just waited it out. mostly cos we were hungry, and too lazy to go out to eat in the rain. my cell had a bbq bday celebration for all the october babies, yours truly included!! we had it at likxon's condo in mt.kiara.

watiting for the rain to let up: i like this picture cos it looks like an out of body experience. but it's mostly cos i don't know how to adjust my camera for night views. bleh

sitting pretty and finishing the marshmallows cos it was raining cats and dogs, and that was the only 'prepared' food we had:

i must say the guys really stepped up to it. i was quite impressed with how they started the fire (manually!!!!!) by blowing on it!! cos no one remembered to bring a fire starter. my darling fiance got his leftover five o'clock shadow singed off, how convenient..too bad i didnt take any photos of how RIDICULOUS they looked!!! HAHAHA

guys are so desirable when they know how to cook:

but they cooked everything for us while the girls just sat around chatting and making hungry faces. we demolished almost the whole packet of marshmallows cos we just cldnt wait anymore. the food was so excellent that till this day i am still dreaming of the one drumstick i let go off cos i was too stuffed. i haven't tasted barbequed meat so well cooked and succulent b4. mmmmmm....

i am so proud of my baby and some of the guys for cooking non stop in the fierce heat from the fire without complaining or eating also. they just served us all the time and waved away any enquiries to whether they wanted us to feed them. EXCEPT for one guy. bleh... so mega ungentlemanly and uncouth ok. urgh...just sat there demanding more chicken or sausages or mushrooms or bacon. he couldn't even get up to get it himself (as his gf pointed out)

gee... i only noticed this when the first ever plate of food was brought to the table by the mighty guys. being the gentleman, i know the rest would have let the famished girls eat 1st as there wasn't much on the plate. instead this specimen grabbed almost all the food while everyone else was left standing ard the table and staring at the fast disappearing plate. hahahah.. i would have been MORTIFIED at such manners if this person were related to me in any way! good grief! this was the pattern of his behavior the whole night. i don't think i was the only one who noticed tho. i think his gf noticed this too cos she quietly chided him that he'd already had enough when he asked for another piece of bacon. i guess she was embarrassed cos lots of other ppl wanted the bacon but hadn't eaten it yet, whereas this fella had already grabbed a few pieces by then. not once did he offer to help the other guys who were cooking. actually, not once did he move from his chair. sigh... he should be ashamed of his behavior but i don't think he even realised it. *shakes head*. to think that the rest of the guys hadn't eaten yet cos they were cooking for us. and one of them was the birthday boy himself. it was left to the girls to keep some food for the cooks.

other than that everyone had a really good time. needless to say i didn't notice the other guys talking to this fella. and i pointedly did not bother talking to him also, cos i simply can't bring myself to put on a polite facade and talk to someone whom i'm a bit irritated at. what a poser.

the birthday babies:
male bonding:Stef & I love this photo cos it looks so glowy & artistic hahaha:

nerd alert

i know i've said that weddings are a good excuse to meet up with old frens that u haven't seen in yonks. sending out invites are also a good excuse it seems. i was busy doing that over the long break, and it was quite productive and fun.

it's somewhat reassuring to know that your school and uni mates haven't changed since you met them. with the exception of bigger savings accts and more groomed appearances haha. but then again, anything would look better than our requisite jeans and whatever-i-can-find-before-i'm-late-for-lectures t-shirts. i find some comfort in seeing them looking nice and groomed, cos it validates my own need to look that way. Not least becos I was SUCH a NERD! And them too heehee.

Seriously. We all looked so uncool in the uniform of basic coloured baby T-s and jeans (at least they were not the carot-cut types - **gag**) and loafers/sneakers. How uncreative. And you see these ang-mohs in uni who at least made the effort to look like they had some modicum of time to get dressed in the morning! Makeup was not in our vocabulary. Anyway with the Malaysian society of students as it was, anyone wearing makeup would be considered a vain pot or whatever.

I remember one of those (frequent) days when I really couldn’t drag myself from my electric blanket heated bed to go for lectures. This always happens in winter. For the 9am lectures. How ungodly. Unfortunately this one day was the last day of lectures for a particularly stupid subject which I took. I kinda skipped every lecture except the 1^st and now, the last which I HAVE to go for. By the time this dawned on me I was so late I just dashed out the door in my pyjamas! Granted, it was quite decent – track pants and some sweater I could have shared with another person, it was so huge.

This just shows how much I actually cared about my appearance. I guess at the time I was more interested in ace-ing every subject and traveling to every imaginable spot in Australia. Clothes did not figure much then.

Enter final year of uni. By that time I think I was quite confident academic-wise, so I really let loose and enjoyed myself. Not to mention we were all fully adapted to our new host country already and could act like we owned the whole place! That’s when the real fun began. And that’s when we started becoming fashionistas.. but that’s another story. But now you know why we’re so vain now. I think it must be to erase all memories of bad-clothes-days previously.

So I just finished addressing all our wedding invites with the help from my absolutely marvelous, fantabulous friends last Saturday! Wheeeeee!!! We did it in only 1.5 hours.

I was so stressed that day cos Ad and I were about 2 hours late meeting them in Ann’s house. Cos we had NO idea that carting all those stuff from ikea was going to take absolute yonks! We spent a total of 4 hours in that place!!! bleh… I’m glad that’s over. Taking note of what we want to buy is sooooo not the same as actually looking for the stuff, carrying it to the checkout and to the car! Thank goodness Ad has some semblance of muscle man in him. I would have died if I were to do it alone.

We arrived in Ann’s house totally out of breath, in need of a shower and the bed. But Ann being Ann, she had nice bowls of pak koh tong sui laid out, and nice curry puffs, and nice drinks… and she bought me nice, lovely, artsy fartsy pens to write with, not the mention art wires which I intended to use as part of the card deco. (Idea scrapped cos it’s too blardy hard to do!!! Sob…)

Ann is so sweet that when we scrapped the idea of the wires etc, she pretended that she’ll be using the wires for some other things, and the pens as well, so she wouldn’t let me pay for them. I feel so bad! Cos she went shopping for me to get them!

And she is so humble and unassuming as to wonder whether I would invite her to our wedding. Duh… of the biggest order. She actually asked Ade quietly whether she would be invited cos she was planning a family holiday abroad and didn’t want to miss our wedding. And when she took a peep at my guest list and couldn’t find her name (she was looking at the wrong list), she felt even worse.

Oh dearie me… isn’t she the absolute funniest / adorable-st. To think she is offering us her home to be the venue for my hens’ party / sleepover, she’s part organising it esp the menu (popiah and sushi), and she’s helping me with the wedding preparations… and she actually thinks I’m not going to invite her. **Sob** How can I not invite her? I just love her! She makes my day especially since she takes all our corny, mean jokes so seriously. It’s such a laugh teasing her.

I am just touched and humbled by how supportive and helpful my friends have been. Planning our wedding has been one of the best fun so far. I say so far.. cos I know the RSVPs are gonna kill me.

Having so much love and support for your big day is really overwhelming. I wonder what I've done to deserve all this. I really don't actually.

Busy at work: Addressing envelopes, stuffing cards into envelopes, sealing them (Ad's talent); Ann is busy getting us food so she's not in the picture

Some of our wonderful helpers at our 1st 'wedding committee' meeting. i'm so embarrassed!! i have a committee!!

my birthday!!!

My family celebrated my birthday with Jap food.. ooOoooo yummy. But the person who took our photo completely cut off my dad’s face! Boo. What a grouch pot. So we didn’t even ask her to re-take. Good food, good company. Adjourned back home with stuffed stomachs to slouch around till midnight to cut my cake!!! Yes, I’m older but I still like my cake!

This is us stuffing our faces:

This is us after our shower, sans respectable clothes, after a full stomach and lazing at home; a pyjama ad if there ever was one:

This is what happens when we are too free / see each other too often / or not / there’s too many of us at home at once

Can u BELIEVE what our PM says these days???!! Good grief! I am floored. Might as well listen to a fire hydrant for all the sense he makes these days.

The latest case of him trying to be smart is about denying that the New Economic Policy (some call it the Never Ending Policy) has met its goal of 30% bumiputera equity interest for the malays (he says that they have only achieved 18.9% equity stake), versus the Asian Strategy and Leadership Institute’s (Asli) report that states that Bumiputras owned 45% of the country’s business equity.

This report (which is an independent report), cites statistics from the Bursa Malaysia Corporate Equity’s 2005, which estimates that the amount of bumiputra equity ownership is 45% of the RM715.4bil worth of stocks on the stock exchange, or RM325.08bil.

According to The Star, “Prime Minister Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi was recently quoted as saying that Asli’s 45% Bumiputra equity ownership result was wrong as it was based on a survey involving 1,000 companies listed on Bursa Malaysia, while the Economic Planning Unit (EPU) had surveyed 600,000 companies to come up with its 18.9% figure for the Ninth Malaysia Plan.

Badawi also says that Asli’s report is inaccurate because (get ready for this): “Government-linked companies (GLCs) are not bumiputra companies”. What would you classify them then? A ‘special’ corporate entity? If you exclude these companies from the poll, then you might as well not poll at all. Almost all the monopolistic big companies in Malaysia are GLC’s. It’s a bit ridiculous excluding some of the largest cap companies in the country from this report.

This is like taking a national poll on obesity and excluding the VERY HUGE people because they will skew the results. Gimme a break. Who are these people who makes these rules?

Another shocker: the PM claims that Asli’s report is inaccurate also because they calculate the value of a company using it’s market value, as opposed to the par value used in the government’s calculation.

DUH!!!! It’s such a stupid comment I cannot even believe I read it! The Edge has a good article on this. I think a 19 yr old finance undergraduate can tell you that NO ONE values a company using its par value! How ludicrous is that?!!!

Look, I buy Maybank shares. I bought them for about RM 7.50 some yonks ago. It’s par value is RM1. It’s market value now is about RM 11.20 ie. it’s trading in the Bursa now for RM 11.20. Heck if I’m gonna say my share is worth RM1 when it’s jolly well trading at 11.20! I’m not going to sell my shares for RM1 (par value)!!! I sure as heck am gonna sell it for RM11.20.

So, the PM thinks that companies shld be valued at par value. Okaaaaaay. I’m a bit worried here for our nation. I think this one remark of his is gonna make us a laughing stock to anyone who reads The Wall Street Journal or The Financial Times, not to mention our local papers!

more shoes to drool over

my favs:
drool worthy manolos



my fav in this collage is the brian atwood in the middle. and the two ballet shoes. heck, i love'em all.

Yay! It’s fridaaaaaaaaaay! My lethargic, uneventful week has taken a hop-skip-and-jump turn just because it’s Friday! And today, I am entitled to TWO steaming hot cuppas! ** My unhealthy allowance for the week. (Let’s not remember the chocolate cake for supper on Wednesday and the sausage snacks in bed to induce sleep)

Not to mention I just completed a horrid spreadsheet of stuff. So I’m home free this weekend!

Tonight will be attending Ad’s cell – we’re meeting at one of the adults’ home cos we’re having a so called ‘health’ talk. Which will most probably degenerate into obviously cloaked questions abt reproduction and what not, just becos the guy’s a gynae. Anyway we can be a cheeky bunch. I would actually like to test my boundaries with my questions. HAH. Cheap thrill.

Ad and I wanted to finish writing and addressing our wedding cards this weekend but the printer bungled up the cards. The insides are printed upside down! HAHAHA. Anyways, it’ll be fixed by tomorrow I think.

Behold! A shopping trip with ML tomorrow! I hope I find some gorgeous shoes. I’ve gone a grand total of 4 weeks without buying shoes! Not for any righteous reason though. It’s cos I can’t find what I want. Long sigh….

OooOO have another wedding to attend tomorrow. Fun fun. Photos to come later. Supposed to select flowers on Sunday night with MG, our really talented friend who’s doing our wedding deco. Unfortunately postponed. Or fortunately, cos I promised my Dad I’ll be home for dinner and I forgot.

I want dusky pink roses. But apparently dusky means a lot of different things to a lot of different ppl. Bleh. Really hope peonies are in season! Cos that’s my flower of choice, but only subject to season and availability. Sob. Oh well.. pink is pink.

If I have time I’m going to transform my many cool, cute ‘mooncake’ boxes (I dig the boxes more than the mooncakes inside!) into jewellery boxes or ‘whatever’ boxes to store stuff. It’s really pretty to store your girly stuff like sample bottles

can a girl ever have enough bags & shoes?

my wish list:

hermes long kelly - it is sooooo sleek

Miu Miu bag (you would think miuccia prada would design some cute stuff like this for her prada label huh..)

another Miu Miu


very cute flats but forgot by whom. who cares? they are cute and would look good with my denim capris and new cropped cardi. boo hoo.. how come i can't find anything like this here?

marc jacobs ballet flats!!!!!! i'm in lurve...
marc jacobs peep toes


are you drooling yet?

i've been reading the recent uproar over s'pore's minister mentor 's (is that some moniker for someone who just can't give up power?) remarks about how the m'sian govt marginalises the chinese here. hmm... we're treading on dangerous ground here people. especially if you agree with the old man.

not that i particularly like lee kuan yew, but i do admit that he is a brilliant man. and i do acquiese to his observations that the chinese in malaysia are subservient and submissive. if we aren't, why am i cautious abt admitting this? why are all of us careful about what we blog about? even if it is supposed to be our personal space. we're not really free to express anything of this sensitive nature, esp when it comes to racial differences or racial nepotism.

we put up with it. what choice do we have? it's just the way things are, and whether we like it or not, it'll continue to be this way for yonks. of course our m'sian counterparts lashed back that the chinese here are successful and happy and are the largest equity stakeholders. why not? we work damn bloody hard for it. nothing's handed down to us. so of course we bloody well are successful. that's a huge DUH if you ever ask for one. we all know it's not a level playing field here. the reason is economic planning; to 'create equity among the races to prevent another may 13'. well, to a certain extent i see the point in this. however, i'm sure it irks us that this 'reason' or excuse or whatever gets taken advantage off by a select, chosen few who become grossly wealthy, while the rural poor remain marginalised!

whether we gloss over the fact, or pretend that it doesn't exist in this country, it's anyone's prerogative to do so. live in total ignorance if you want, tan sri or minister so and so. i somehow understand that you have to. can't afford to create another racial ruckus yeah?

but for those of us who are so immune to this, coating each sentence with the insinuation that 'they are like that wan lah' whenever the topic of wealth integration arises; doesn't this just prove that we are in fact totally submissive to this? call it active passimism or active submission if you want. it's submission all the same. that's just my humble opinion.

the means to the end may be justified, but along the way, the true hardworking ppl (including the rural poor) are marginalised by the few who seek the easy way to wealth, through whatever means and whatever strings they can pull. all in the name of economic planning.

me? sew?

i just finished adding embellishments to one of my dinner dresses. *phew*. that was hard work. i felt like i was an underpaid, overworked minion in one of the sweat shops. bleh.. i would NEVER attempt to make this a part time job. sheesh. now i know why dresses with hand sewn beads and stuff on it is so expensive.

i was on a roll. momentum got me going. that's the only explanation i can give to having spent almost 8 straight hours sewing. but what a great sense of achievement i felt after that haha. it's finally done. and i'm quite pleased with the results actually.

maybe i can start embellishing other stuff now. gee.. did that just come out of my mouth? i take it back

the devil wears prada

i read the book abt 3 years ago, ovlivious to the furore that was taking place behind its bitchy, gossipy pages. i nevertheless enjoyed my brief encounter with new york's glamorous, hyped-up fashion industry. i am a girl after all, and the book is peppered generously with beautiful clothes and the latest va-va-voom fashions. you need to use your imagination, and at least have regular binges of fashion magazine to truly enjoy the decadent lifestyle it portrays. if you're on teh right side of the fashion tracks, that is.

imagine my glee in finding out the movie version was being made - i get to feast my eyes on everything fashionable and beautiful. so i watched it last saturday (to ad's chagrin) and i must say, i did enjoy it for the most part. a girl can never resist beautiful images of beautiful things! it's the most fashionable movie i've seen. i am still drolling over andy's (the protagonist) tweed chanel coat. not to mention her borrowed manolos.



but i need to gripe about said devil's hair! i cannot imagine a fashion editor (in this case, a thinly veiled representation of anna wintour, editor of fashoin bible vogue) with white, un-dyed hair. it's so not done. and although meryl streep's character, miranda priestly looks sophisticated and pruned, i wouldn't say she's taking advantage of her lofty front row perch in every fashion show. her dressing is a bit blah to me. i much prefer andy's makeover in chanel, chloe and what not.

i read about the great wintour's icy fury over the book, written by her former assistant, lauren weisberger. too close to home truths? anyway, it's a well-known fact that anna wintour is the reigning ice queen in the fashoin world, never too shy to wield her power over the world of publication and hollywood. it's said that she's threathened any designer or model that they would be banished from the hallowed pages of vogue if any of them appeared in cameo roles in the film. i raise my hat to gisele bundchen and valentino who made their thespian appearance despite this threat. gisele of course is gisele; she has no need for wintour's endorsements anymore, being the supermodel.

anna wintour in a rare picture sans her trademark chanel sunglasses

needless to say, many reviewers (who might have hopes in gaining the ice queen's nod) have trashed the book and the movie. it's only the laymen like us who love it. who love every thread of luxury-bleeding fabric portrayed in the movie, which we can ill afford!

my favourite character is of course, emily, the bitchy, sarcastic 1st assistant. what a fun role to play! but i would say the ugly duckling is more the fashion maven than she, after her much needed makeover.

a fun, gossipy movie that's sure to make you walk into the prada store this weekend.