Cultural Note

Since I’ve been working in 3 different banks now, I realized something common amongst my Malay colleagues. During the Raya month, they will get together and cook a meal for us. I never realized this until this year, when we have only 2 Malay colleagues, one a guy and the other a girl. But even with only 2, they still whipped up a fantastic meal for us last Monday.

She spent most of her Sunday and Monday morning cooking chicken rendang, mee kari and nasi hempit for us while my guy colleague made his sister to wake up early and also cook for us roti jala and chicken curry. Sigh. Sumptuous!

Then I thought, we don’t cook for them when we have our Chinese New Year. We just bring leftover cookies. Maybe it’s because our food may not be halal or that it’s just not in our culture to bring Chinese New Year food for our colleagues. But then again, what IS CNY food anyway? Vegetarian? I wonder if it is wrong to serve vegetarian luncheon meat…

Before & After

Thought it would be good to post up some photos of my home, before and after. Without the furniture (as the house is still in sort of mess and incomplete).

The living room:

The kitchen:

Uh, I just realized I don't have many before photos that match with my after photos. And, I have to go out now. Loading the photos was a pain. Will attempt more later.

Live Performances

Over the last month, I've had the privilege of watching some live performances all at my church. First one was Aubrey Suwito's Christmas in August, where his sister Juwita Suwito teamed up with Jacklyn Victor mesmerized a packed audience with Christmas carols. They were filming it for local television for Christmas. I am told it will be shown on 8TV on Christmas this year so look out for it.

Then the next ones were by Sidney Mohede who flew in from Indonesia and Glenn Packiam who flew in from the States. I have Sidney Mohede's songs on my playlist at work which I listen to often enough. This was a worship night as part of the Worship God 2010 Conference and the nights were packed! Glenn preached a simple but powerful message. Very humbling.

Flight Stress

This year hasn’t been a good year for travel bookings for me. First, it was our trip to Canada/USA which was supposed to happen in end August. But because of the delay in our house renovations, we postponed it to October.

Then, just two days before the travel fair last weekend when we were going to place our bookings, we realized we haven’t applied for our visa for both countries since we were so bogged down with the house.

So rather than spending so much money on air flights with the risk of having our visas declined, we then shifted our plans for Canada/USA to next year now.

Immediately after deciding to postpone our trip, we tried to buy our U2 Perth concert tickets. To be honest, based on the 2005 experience, tickets were sold out in 2 hours so I really wasn’t putting my hopes high on getting them.

So when my sis-in-law, Yen, successfully made the purchase, I was over the moon! I was going to watch U2 again PLUS Jan and Yen were also watching with us PLUS I was still going on a holiday this year!

Since our U2 ticket confirmation coincided with the start of the travel fair, I excitedly logged on to MAS to look for flights and found the cheapest I found. On an impulse, I purchased what looked right in terms of the number of days that we’ll be in Perth, just a week.

To my carelessness, I completely forgot to check with Yen who’s hosting us. The day that we leave is the day her leave begins and naturally, she’s disappointed. Frantically, we tried contacting MAS to see if we could change dates but were told we can’t unless there’s a family emergency.

To book a one-way back from Perth on a later date with a low cost would cost almost as much as my entire flight to and fro Perth with MAS. Still checking and hoping daily.

Then last night, I discovered to my mounting horror that KS actually has a Youth Camp to attend when we leave for Perth. I’m almost giving up on this Perth trip.

All this is why I am not so excited about my U2 concert this year. :(

Is this a “Dragons Should Not Fly” Year in some Chinese astrology by any chance?

Sneak Peek

Ok, so here's what's been taking up ALL my time for these many months. The house is just about ready, stuff has been moved in so now is time to unpack.

Again, I am so glad my Dad is able to help me with all the contractors coming in during working hours and sourcing for stuff we didn't know where to look. Even so, it's been a nightmare of coordination. Sigh. The major parts are almost over now.

So, here's a sneak peek at how my new home looks like, before and after: