Look what a bought this afternoon

In a bid to draw ( and possibly take a picture and upload to my slides) I went colour pencil shopping and found this to be the cheapest. Pelikan is cheaper than faber castel. Why why why?

Happy Independence day Malaysia

While the immediate reaction is to feel a surge of happiness because today is a day off work, let's not forget that 53 years ago, Malaysia gained her independence. A historic moment and most of our fathers were students during this time. I wonder whether they realised the full impact of going to the stadium and waving flags and shouting "Merdeka". We may not be perfect and we may have our internal problems but I am proud of Malaysia and proud to be Malaysian. Selamat Hari Kemerdekaan ke 35. May you continue to strive to be better and I pray for peace and harmony for you today and always. 

Picture taken during lunch a few weekends back. 

Marmalade

Marmalade is an excellent place to head to for breakfast. It has sunlight streaming in from one side of it and the decoration is made out of bright orange-themed colour scheme. There are fresh flowers placed on a huge round table at the centre. The seating arrangement allows you to eat comfortably.Part of it is partitioned off slightly and raised to give it some illusion of privacy. And that is used cleverly as seats with backs and they plump some striped cushions for you to seat beside. The space is big enough for buggies to be parked comfortably.  As for the food, no complains at all. A word of caution, this review is done only after ONE visit.

YUm

If you stay away from carbohydrates the weight will just melt off. But do you really want to do that? NO rice?

What I know this morning

Asthma isn't as easy as its made out to be. The typical phenotypes broadly divided into just two main groups of allergic vs the non-allergic can be chucked out the window. New data is uncovering the many phenotypes of asthma. So the next time you are faced with a patient with resistant asthma who needs high doses of steroids...be aware that guidelines  don't tell you how to manage these group and tread carefully so you don't lose the trust of your patient. And the inflammatory cascade with its various interactions is a nightmare to understand.

Public holiday hazard

Will I ever learn? The optimistic streak in me made me leave work at half five for home. The drive out to the main road was deceivingly smooth but directly after the roundabout, there loomed the many many cars waiting in line and my car joined in. And we crawled ( and I really do mean crawled) along Jalan Loke Yew and it was dark before I got home. I must be ill. The air condition in the car numbed the nose and hands and feet and I ended up playing " death on the nile" on the macbook in the car. That is proof enough that the cars were practically at a standstill. I wonder whether I would have been happier leaving at 7pm and arriving home within 45 minutes at the most. Note: Public Holidays result in heavy traffic on all routes heading out of the city centre. Dare I hope that tomorrow will see empty roads in KL??

Picture of Lawrence Hargrave Drive Wollongong.( circa Nov 2007 sydney trip)

Midweek wednesday hip hip hooray

It says much for my procrastinating nature that by this time of the day I am no nearer completing my self-inflicted dateline for two main tasks. My dining table ( which currently resembles a table in an officer) is no nearer returning to its state of neatness. So the revised plan is this; that I complete just ONE thing on the to-do-list, ignore the rest and head for bed soon. That way, I shan't be crabby tomorrow from lack of sleep. Always a bad thing to come to work crabby, it makes you very unpleasant to work with I'm sure. Here's to a more productive Thurs/friday. Picture is NOT the mess on the dining table. 

Need to lose weight

AAAArrrgh!! I have difficulty looking less lumpy in my kebaya. So guess those extra inches can't be hidden any more.

Cucur badak

I've not seen cucur badak served like this before. Have you? Thanks to the fasting month, our journey to PJ Hilton was smooth and we arrived far too soon for the meal. The nissan purred contentedly along the federal highway, having recently being serviced.  Of course being terribly organized creatures, we proceeded to survey the good food laid out, walking about making mental notes of what to have as the first course and what to leave out completely. There was a quiet anticipatory buzz as folks mingled with the food and quietly took their food to the table. Having done that, what was left was to wait for the time of breaking of fast. At least 2 tables within sight were taken by Mat sallehs and it was lovely to see them tactfully waiting like the rest of the crowd for the time to eat. I ate too much and got incredibly sleepy directly after the meal. 

24th August

My email inbox  reminds me of the talk I'm meant to be preparing on Heterogeneity of the response of treatment in bronchial asthma. Reminder unnecessary, as korean talk has been a cloud on the horizon ever since it was arranged in early August. If I could plan every detail and moment of the day,  I wouldn't have this feeling of impending doom. Remind myself that it is indeed possible to go on living despite embarrassing self to the max during session, and am able to thank the person who saddled me with this task with appropriate enthusiasm.

The real deal..

I have a short trip to Korea in a few weeks and will be able to sample authentic "bibimbap". The picture above is of a bibimbap done just right for these reasons
1. piping hot. I dislike lukewarm dolsot bibimbaps, eating it is like drinking lukewarm milo
2. The egg must be just on the brink of bursting so when you poke it with your fork it oozes out all over the rice and you get to stir vigorously. Overcooked eggs on bibimbap are sad. Rubbery ones the worst.
3. You must have enough chicken/beef bits. Stinting on these will ensure I do not return for seconds. And I will also warn other people about this.

If we could see the future

Picture is of the niece,...and for the record she did not fall in.( a slightly different story from two years ago)

People MUST eat

There is no such thing as folks giving up their Sunday Spread just because the economy isn't so good. We were seated pretty fast but the service was sadly slow. And the affragato was half its size by the time it got to our table. Not much OOmph.On the up side, my main dish salmon-something I forget the name was absolutely mouth-wateringly good. I'm definitely returning for another go. It won't be on a Sunday though. Slow service spoils any meal. Our seats faced the crowd and we saw KL fashion victims walk by from time to time. Much better than reading any magazine


And today is Friday the 13th. Superstitious? Bah! It was just a day packed with stuffy to do. Unless you count the slowing of brains during noon time which made me crabby. Or the very slight traffic I encountered en route home. Nope! There's nothing sinister about Friday the 13th anymore. I've done away with that:)

Just completed

One of the many lovely illustrations in this book

The Diary of Mr Charles Pooter

MPH has shipped in some vintage classic books and this was bought for RM 29.90 a few weeks ago. Written by George and Weedon Grossmith originally for the famous magazine Punch this was eventually expanded into a novel. The illustrations by Weedon re just the type I love. I've taken a picture of a "Daisy Mutlar" who was transiently Lupin's fiancee in this story. Lupin is the son of the Mr Charles Pooter who is the author of the diary. Lupin has funny ideas and loses his job at least twice in this story but my typing this hardly begins to be justice to the actual words. 

If I could predict the future

I would like to know the exam results. Sadly this is not possible. This is the third exam for me and for a change I got a lady, who spoke very little in between apart from the smile and obligatory phrases examples of which I will list out below

1. You may play your first song now

2.Thank you now we will do some scales..B flat major separate bow, A major slur,C sharp minor melodic slur, dominant 7 in G, DOuble stops...etc

3.Yes perhaps you better do that again ( when I fumbled on one scale BOooHOO)

4.And now we will do aural, ....Take a look at this sheet of music, practise it for HALF a min if you want and play when you're ready ( which would be never for me )

5. THANK YOU

And so the ordeal lasted almost an hour only because I was asked to play many many scales, etc. The student before me was thankfully an adult and a clarinet player. She and the clarinet sat very still in the waiting room whilst I chose to inflict my scales on the poor reluctant audience in the hotel lobby before my turn.

( picture of self when I still had long-ish hair)

23 hours and counting

Okay tomorrow at this time I would be nursing a post adrenaline surge headache. Violin exam is tomorrow afternoon at Hotel Istana which is where the exam was held last year and which is where I played an ENTIRE song out of pitch last year. *shake head* not going to happen this year no way no way. Preparation for this year has been like last year rather shoddy at the beginning and only furious practise sessions lined up the few weeks before. And as in last year, the weeks leading up to the exam were speckled with other essential work-related stuff which kinda mucked up the practise-mode somewhat. And so this am and pm I will be playing the violin intermittently. No point straining the ole wrist at this stage, Everything in moderation and no panicking allowed. I'll be back in business after this weekend. Picture is an old one taken a few years ago when I managed to climb the bridge. Dare to dream! That's the motto.