Jeet (Jack) of all trades?

Eventhough Golden Globe just passed and Oscar is yet to come, I am way overdue in collectiong this award. The lovely Cik Patin tagged me and as expected, I have to put up 7 facts of yours truly.

1. When I was young (actually I still am) I was VERY lazy (this is also still am). I only cleaned the room, tidy up once in every 1-2 weeks. My mom has actually ran out of ways to get me to the house chores. Luckily my older sister is the 'rajin' type. So most of the time I got away, and what was I doing while she is completing the house chores? Watch TV of course!!!


2. I watched all kinds of show in all sorts of languages. Most people that I know would either watch things that are in their mother tongue or majority spoken off. Not sure where this fascination of languages came about as I am born and raised 100% Malay :)


3. I didn't really blogged fully in Malay except for some odd occasion. Reason being, I could not stand typing improper Malay (which means all the shortcuts and stuffs) but I don't mind reading it on others (Aida's, Kak Yong's and Kak Tek's blogs sound just fine to me :) I know its weird but I could not explain why. If I started to blog in Malay, maybe and just maybe Dewan Bahasa will link to my blog as reference (I know...ini sudah lebih..hehehe......)


4.I have many interest (cooking, knitting, writing, commenting on football matches, traveling..etc..etc..), but none that I can make a living out of it. Maybe its time for me to focus being good at certain stuffs, so that I can have a stable side income..hhmm....


5. After SPM, I remember saying that I am not going to be an engineer (am not that good in Physics to begin with) So I applied for Diploma in Industrial Chemistry because out of all the science subject, Chemistry is my best. After diploma, during choosing the degree courses, I was so fed up with the lack of facility in Applied Science faculty, and wanted to do TESL (Teaching Language as Second Language) programme, but one of my friend managed to convince me to choose Chemical Engineering instead. After 3 years+ of torture, I landed a job here and voila, I am engineer..!!


6. My first oversea trip is to Phillipines in 2007, and I threw up after having my first in flight meals. The whole thing came out like nobody's business. I have always had this travel sick from young. We used to go 'balik kampung' by bus and my mum would spare one plastic bag for me to discharge my stomach content, every single time. Nowadays as I travel more often, I managed to overcome it already :P


7. I am reaching the big 3-0 this year, and I intend to map out a 10 years plan to look faboulous in 40s. Well, none that require liposuction or anything that involves going under the knives. Its more about living healthily and being in good shape even at 40 :D


So there it goes, another 7 random facts of yours truly. Most all of the people in my link have been tagged, so I guess that concludes this round ;)

Wholemeal Doughnut

I am so sorry for not updating this quite a while, nak amik award pon kena postpone kejap ye...
Just a quick one to cure my kempunan posting ;)

wholemeal doughnut

I have had bad experience with yeast before, tried to make bread, did not come out right. So next attempt is doughnut. I took the recipe from this blog. I portioned the ingredients to half (solo-molo kan...plus, this is only a trial, tak jadi membazir pulak...)

Alhamdulillah, it turns out OK, apart from the a bit over the top yeast taste. I have to reduce that next time around. The only thing is that with the recipe, I have to measure 10 gm of some of the ingredient, my weighing scale is 25gm minimum, so I have to calibrated the weight with my eyesight...hahaha...boleh gitu? ;)
Pardon the slightly burned look as I used canola oil (low smoke point), hence it heated up very quickly, but its not burnt anyway. Also the use of wholemeal flour just add to the darker shade.

But am still not very satisfied with the whole thing, well, practise make perfect rite? ;)

de mí que yo: mi versión

It turns out I have more similarities to this girl than I thought I have ;) Or maybe its just a coincidence. From her post I am inspired (iyolah tu..plagiarism is more appropriate actually) to put up this post.

When I was on top of Table Mountain, I bought a handful of postcards to be mailed back home and I was running low on cash to buy any other souvenir. So I sat down, and decided to send one to yours truly as well. 

bunch of them to be posted back home

see the things that I ticked ;)

Hi me!!

I wrote this while having coffee at the Table Mountain top cafe, the same day German trash Argentina 4-0 and yours truly was there to witness it LIVE ;)

Astro Movies : Great Day

Am on leave today, am meeting Shaz later and as usual, when I have time to kill, I check out the latest movies. Arrived in KLCC at 11 am. Was hoping to catch The Tourist but the only available show is later in the afternoon. None of the film shown interest me. I walked away from the counter and stumbled upon this one poster, the rating shows 'U', good enough for me to make a u turn back to the counter. 


Background - bendang in Perlis

 When I ask for the ticket, the girl reminded me its a Chinese movie, I said yes, noting that I know that when I asked for the tickets. Well, I could not blame her, as out of around 10 people in the hall, me as usual the only Malay watching Chinese movie (I did for Shinjuku Incident, Infernal Affairs, and some other Chinese movie that I can't remember already)

My verdict, it funny, hillarious at times but also touching at certain point. Its a feel good family movie and proves that Malaysian can make good movies too ;) I do not listen to MY FM as I don't really comprehend Mandarin, but watching the movie reminds me of my school days. There are certain parts of the movie they spoke Cantonese apart from other dialect, and its close to my heart as most of my classmate spoke that language (I even learnt to swear in Cantonese back then...).   

The story line is typical, but the cast made it more lively, the scenery is picturesque, background were taken at lush green paddy field up north and the view is breathtaking!!

All in, once in a while watching a film like this reminds you the importance of having family and close friends by your side, and how important for you to be there for them as well.

Jakun @ play!!

I have been using hotlink prepaid card since I started using phone,the basic sim (64kb) that doesn't even gets 3G services. Today am on leave,finally I changed to the 'uptodate' sim card! and guess what,am blogging via my phone,thanks to the 1hr free internet with rm15 hot ticket purchase : ) and now I don't know how to start new line,or paragraph for that matter :p.... till then...ciào!

Just a quick one

Few things has been happening these past few days. Remember when I mentioned that I report to 2 persons? Guess what? both of them are leaving. And these 2 gents reports to a bigger bos, he has left effectively this new year.

Though they are not leaving the company, I feel that I am going through a big loss. They are moving to better position and we saw that coming quite a while ago, but when the news is confirmed, only then we started to think really seriously. We know people are coming in to replace them, some of it we know really well. Someone who used to be my bickering partner, will soon be my boss, ouch...no, don't get me wrong, he deserves the place and I have a feeling he will be a good one, better than the last one, I hope. Just that the level of interaction may be somewhat different now.

Change is coming and I really have to keep my nose clear to smell where the cheese has been taken and be quick to go after it!!

What the Box Had Taught Me

Its undeniably true that I am a hardcore, true die hard (any other word?) couch potato. I have devoted my time to the box since I was 4 y.o, waiting for cartoon show to start and never failed to stand up straight each time the channel starts with Negaraku.

And lately there has been too many shows that focuses on one of my interest, cooking :) !! There is Masterchef S1, Top Chefs S1-S4 and having a whole channel dedicated to food and cooking adds more to me spending time in front of the TV.

I have expanded my culinary knowledge across the normal Malay cuisine. In within one year, my list of “to try recipes” increases in two, maybe three fold. For a start, let me list down what I am planning to try this year, might not be that much, but at least it’s a start. 

1. Red velvet Cake – am confused by the chocolate cake description but comes in RED colour. I actually tried this one, but didn't turned out red, so have to find a new recipe
2. Chocolate soufflé – after watching Masterchefs S1 semi-final, I am tempted to try this intricate, most challenging and apparently hard to master desert. Is it really that hard? I guess we will soon find out, once I buy that ramekin (which I always call soufflé cup before) !!
3. Koeksister – this is after tasting it during my Waka-waka trip last June. Got the recipe, will get this one done soon!!
4. Bread making!! – I have few failed attempts, am still not giving up; will keep on trying until I get the perfect recipe.
5. Gnocchi – after so many seasons of Top Chefs, this one keeps appearing off and on, so the simple dumpling cum pasta must be good then?

Anymore stuffs that I should try?

p/s: I know what is sous-vide now, and how to pronounce it as well ;) and I have learnt the art of poaching eggs, just never put it into practise just yet.

p/p/s : foie gras sound tempting, but I have tasted paté before, not really my pallet (hahaha...cakap pon dah macam judges on Top Chef..)

Breaking Out

I did not have a good working year last year, few things happened and am not dwelling on the tiny little details here. Bottom line, I promised to myself to slowly work on it this year ;). I was never a talker at work, anything that I do, I normally did not really tell other people (progress update etc...), and most communication is being done once I completed the work. So from 3rd party point of view, I did not really look as if I am doing my work. I was being invisible (I think...)  most of the time. I pretty much hang out with the same crowd over the years, in that sense did not really expanded my social network. Being an introvert, these are the few challenges that I need to work on.

Today I had a meeting with a few engineers (me the only lady, as usual), we need to work on an item that is for the umpteenth times none has been able to complete and get it running. We stick to the agenda and the meeting finished with some 20 mins to spare. One of the engineer started talking about him finally buying the i-Phone. He is a tech freak, you name all the latest gadget, he must have discovered it 1-2 years ago. So am a bit surprised that he is converting to i-Phone only now, after they have released the version 4. It turns out that there is this apps that allows him to navigate a remote helicopter (toys of course) and he intend to use that during his paintball games. And then the whole meeting start talking about the paintball fantasy and a bunch of guys stuffs, i mean missiles on heli...pastu ntah hape-hape lagi which I only understand the gist of it. 

Suddenly one guy asked another guy for his BBM, and the meeting organiser took note as well. I was about to leave when I said, "I only use phone for message and call, and that's about it", the reply that I get is "Blackberry is now becoming the engineering standard..hahaha..."

So I guess am not up to standard yet ;p

Anyhow, that is not the point, the whole less than 20 minutes thing made me realise how much comfortable I feel outside my comfort zone. I don't hang out with these guys (yela..sume suami orang ma...) but then I still have the ability to adapt to their conversation. So why am I alienating myself for the past one year? The question that I still have no answer, but I intend not to cause myself to ask again come end of this year, ;)

How Did It Go?

How did what went? My new year of course. Well, believe me or not, I did nothing. On the 31st went back to Cheras, stayed with my sisters, nieces and nephew. That night during the countdown, only my sis and I were wide awake. We stayed in Cheras at DBKL flat, ours was a 4 storey and our house is on the 3rd floor. From the balcony we can see fireworks from 3 different places, namely Dataran Merdeka, KLCC, and also Bukit Bintang.

1 hour before midnight there was a pre-new year fireworks happened in Sg Besi area, and we can see that as well. Since I was small, we always spent the eve of big celebration waiting for the fireworks at home. Only in the year 2000 I remembered going to KLCC for the celebration.

As the fireworks went on, baru teringat nak amik gambar, well, since I did not polish my skill of night photography yet, I decided not to use the DSLR, hence was using my phone camera, and this is the weak attempt to capture it. (I can blame the camera, not me...hahaha...so convenient!!)

My new year resolution is to focus on sharpening my skills in photography (as if I have any) so that by next new years' eve, I can take a decent pictures of the fireworks....;)


both at the same time, Dataran Merdeka and KLCC

 

from Dataran Merdeka



Astro dish kacau...

So by any luck, next year, I'll be taking better picture at the same spot? I wish...hahaha...

I spent the rest of 1111 by fighting over TV channel with my nephew....(Ben10 for straight 2-3 hours, nak muntah tengok alien tu sume...)