I think that if I stay here on Xanga you'll never see another update from me again, it's too unreliable at loading now -- update your bookmarks and stuff, I'm moving to my blogspot account.

http://kidneybeanbat.blogspot.com

Ja ne~
To Xanga: Stop being bloody snobs and fix your site, you'll lose more user base at the rate you're going.

I haven't updated in forever.

Okay, the need-to-knows.

-I now have Facebook.
-I'm in Sunway doing CIMP, most intellectually stimulating courses ever -- I've never woken up feeling passionate about learning before.
-Further studies: Australia.
-College life is friggin' fun
-This week is chaotic
-I'm in the living room right now watching/typing. Obama's inauguration kicks off in about 40 minutes. Mum is here camping out too.
Obamarathon in Omamaville for sure.


- Currently also trying to guess who exactly designed this "gold embossed coat and shift style dress"
EDIT: Isabel Toledo
- I'm going to my first college party on my birthday! Freshies Nite, with a really nice bunch, Themed: Retro & Techno - I'm going as a flower power chick of sorts.
- Birthday at the end of the week, need to still make a guess at how much food is required D;
- Need to finalize my costume; Pretty wench or stylish captain? Fufufu.
- I promise to update properly T___T;

Calling Xanga a bitch wouldn't do justice to how DIFFICULT it has been just trying to log on into the editor.

I'm going to recap as briefly as possible the week of... 22nd - 28th (even if it's 12.03am as I type and officially the 29th).

22nd
Mel and Chris arrived (yes, arrived, not Married like some of you thought o_o) around 2 in the afternoon.
Mark drove mum and I to the airport and proved he was truly my father's son by taking an alternative route and letting us drive for over an hour (a usual airport trip is 40 minutes at worst on my mum's usual track).

The Kajang Silk Highway really IS SILKY SMOOTH.
We're talking no other cars on a wide stretch of road here.

Even though we were totally late and their plane landed EARLY, baggage took long enough to come out.

We got home, dad missed his firstborn so much that they chatted for hours practically.
Went out for a good Chinese meal -- Yam basket, butter prawns, sizzling tau fu, asparagus and something covered in belacan.

They unpacked some goodies for us.

These treats were made by Chris's mum, Doris. She's like a super home maker and cookie maker too.
They probably don't appear as wonderful as they might have looked freshly made -- but the taste, oh god, I'm in love with this woman on the other side of the world.

Those heart shaped cookies are my favourite, they're normal butter cookies but superbly soft.

The healthy cookies Chris and Mel made, made mostly with oats and no sugar and designed to counter the damage the first tin probably would do to your system.
Very yummy too.

23rd

These guys got over their jetlag almost instantly, in time to make cookies.
and experimental Rinderrouladen.

It's braised beef rolls, though we used pork.
You can look it up online, but at any rate it's a thin slice of meat thats topped up with onions, mustard and sour gerkins, rolled up and cut into portions, then tied with twine and braised before being topped with gravy.

Here:

Consumed with Mash potatoes and Salad, yum. (I told you guys, my sister's cooking is unmatched)

Here is the apple cake and the nutty cookies (drizzled with chocolate)
  
Truth be told I only really took photos of stuff she made the first day, after that it seemed my camera was always further out of reach if compared to cutlery.

24th

Chris needed to hunt for Mel's Christmas present -- he had wanted to get her a Nokia 5000 in Dubai, it was perfect for my sister, being really thin. But due to complications, he didn't manage to.

We went to three different malls with Mark, hunting for ingredients that Mel needed for future dishes, in addition to this phone.

Of course you should know that when the sales people see a Mat Salleh, everything becomes magically overpriced.


I spent most of the day mall-hopping, really.

Chris managed to get his gift for Mel in the end, sometime late evening.
The model is Blue-black, though Mel almost had one that was pink and white. I think this one is the nicest in the series though -- but seriously, that is one slim phone.

In German tradition, the 24th is when presents are opened.
Mum and Dad had the MOST gifts this year, but here's just a sample of their reactions.

Dad, with his Davyth doll -- if you've watched Little Britain, you would know.
If you squeeze his left hand, it plays voice clips of his lines from the show.

PS. My dad does a killer impression :B
(and yes, we bought a 57 year old man a DOLL for Christmas and he was very pleased -- he also got some local German wine of sorts, a genuine leather toilletries bag, a giant salt and pepper shaker for his kitchen adventures (which he took apart and reassembled at the table with Mel and Chris the same night) and a copy of Little Britain USA which is not out in Asia yet.)


Mummy, with her OBAMA shirt.
She also got a load of presents. Estee Lauder perfume, Michelle Obama's book, An Unauthorized Biography on Obama, her Omama and Obama T-Shirts and lots of cleaning agents.

I gathered a few things off my Christmas list, though through some amazing feat I had already predicted what my sister was going to surprise me with (that wasn't on the list).
I swear we chatted about it, she swears the conversation never took place, so who knows?
I don't really feel like telling you what it is though xD

Let me share some other neat gifts:


The skirt was from mum, the two necklaces are from my sister, she made the hippie one.
The belt is from Nii's girlfriend, Erica, and the phrase that runs along it is pretty amusing:

"IN MY HEART YOU ARE ALL MY LOVERS."

It's from a Japanese store, so it makes sense.
^^;


A very personal gift from my cousin Stella Jane.
She explained each of the charm meanings to me, but I think I heard several variations later --

The star - for the star that I am.
The heart - I forgot.
The boots - for my fashionable personality
The lips - to always speak sweet words (or to someday have a pair of sweet ones to kiss?)
The gloves - for the cold countries I'll eventually be venturing to.
The K - to make it all the more personal.

WHEN I have car keys, I'll be using this.
Speaking of which, Chris wants to take me for my first driving lesson.

I'll get back to all of you on that one...

25th

We went to church early morning as usual.
I was falling asleep, but God was pretty much present.

A beetle sat on me and I jumped up at the start of service.

Quietly musing by myself, I said that if the beetle comes along again, it's God's sign to stay awake and pay attention.
A few minutes after I forgot about it, the beetle flew up along and landed on my leg again, flapping it's tiny beetle wings furiously.

God was certainly there. I named the beetle Edward by the way, personal joke.

At home, the family prepared a grand spread which I didn't manage to take any photos of. You would all know that I didn't invite anyone this year, except Mallini who'm I had badly wanted to sample my sister's cooking -- however the spread was quite badly demolished by the time the two of us came down for food!

@___@

I must also add, Mallini made the most moist, tastiest chocolate cupcakes I've EVER eaten.

We camwhored a bit...
These are the only ones I'm publishing.


26th

Everyone relaxed.
Watched Heroes with Chris. Man, that series is complicated and depressing.


27th

We had a wedding in Ampang. As usual I'm never sure how I'm related to whoever, but I don't think that's too important.

It was a wedding by a lakeside, the weather was very good and there was a very pretty sunset.


There was a flower girl who looked so terribly pained, and I swear she was the cutest thing walking down the aisle.


In the crowd of 1500 family and friends was another relative:



We also caught a glimpse of my mother's childhood home. I had pictures of it in the daytime, but my camera SPAZZED and it was all deleted. Here is the sad remains of what was once a beautiful house with a front yard large enough to host a wedding.


It was so big it's now an Iranian restaurant and partially a used car lot too.

28th

When Mel received her handphone, she was very excited that it had a camera and was capable of holding music. However due to the phone's capacity, it wasn't a practical mp3 player -- Mel mentioned she'd love an iPod.

Since she bought my brother two very nice winter coats and a pair of shoes all for his further studies to Australia, he went out and got her an iPod Shuffle.

It's so TINY and cute.
and it's PINK.

I spent most of the day tinkering with iTunes and loading CDs up into it :B

29th

We were all supposed to go swimming today...
It's about 1.45pm now, probably going to relax today.

30th

Genting Trip planned due to the fact there'll be an all-day power cut is still pending, but dad already agreed to it.

Note: Xanga was such a bitch that this post was compiled on a wordpad a whole load of time later than when I started :\

Happy New Year everyone! Just in case I'm not able to update in time.

P.S. BIG SQUISHY KISHES FOR PANDA <33

From title: ...sometime in the future laaah.
 
Xanga has hated me for a couple of days now.
So has my internet connection -- I'm going to agree with my brother and say there are lots of Malaysians out there right now with nothing else to do but get online.
Hah, holiday syndrome I suppose.

Friends and people I know alike are either out enjoying party life 24/7 while the rest are working part time or at least working on getting their driving license.
I know I said I wasn't going to work because I needed to pick up skills, but somehow everything starts with me having to clean my room.

-looks around at the mass of clutter-
This could take a while.

My sleep cycle is really buggy at the moment, after the past couple of nights of sleeping between 3 - 5am, I'm not really in the mood to go out and do things (heck I forgot Comic Fiesta was tomorrow, sorry guys!)

Yeah -_-; Need to get the sleep cycle back right, I'm useless for anything at the moment.

Oh my gosh, let's not even talk Christmas presents. Haven't made nor bought any. x__x;
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The reason I didn't sleep last night:



Thank goodness mum doesn't know about this blog hey?
Here's Mel & Chris's (with efforts from Nii and I) homage to mum and her severe fangirl syndrome for Obama. I must say this is the most artistic exercise I've had all holidays.

A neighbour and friend of my parents got back from the States and bought mum an AUDIO CD READ BY OBAMA of Dreams From My Father. 6 CDs of velvety voiced goodness, I actually sympathize with dad.

I'll be sure to document mum's reaction of her spoof. Meanwhile, lips zipped until after Christmas, thanks.
----------------

I'm kind of starting to feel bad for my neighbours. Somehow a musang family is a lot more cute and cuddly than these guys:

I certainly wouldn't keep my kitchen door open.

 

If you know Mey, Marie and her Barbie and moreso what 'happened', this picture would look a whole lot funnier.

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Aunty May visited yesterday with kids.
Su Yin is my age, and her brother Ming Shen was my brother's schoolmate from yonks ago xD I was too young to remember but it was a fun meet all the same.

Su Yin's an UBER violinist. I really, really feel inept in the presence of musical talent, particularly classical.
X_x ah the things we wish we could do...

-------

Here, what spurred the title that probably made half of ya'll click in wonderment :B...

I was never one of those little girls that planned dream weddings, but let me share something that was pretty enough to make me decide I want to wed in September with a Blue & White themed wedding?



Check the website out, they have really adoring and inspirational cake designs and specialize in decorated cookies and gum paste decor. I think cookies are a great idea for favours.

I understand people have fruitcakes to signify fruitful marriages, but I've seen marriages go down in smoke despite the fruitcakes, so I will not have one or make people go home with it in little boxes either :\
Now, mandarin chocolate cakes are very good (but hey, the groom should have some say, right?)

From the same website:



Provided there are no pyromaniacs in the incoming family, that candle-light-water-fountain-thisissogay wedding cake is really...
Okay, I just like the tought of candlelight?
(who here forsees the bride's veil or someone's sleeve catching a flame sometime at that wedding?)

That flip flop cake is too cute. I WANT ONE.
*cough* Speaking of cakes, I think it might be nice to have an Ice cream cake for my 18th, yes eighteenth, not eight. Have any of you every tried that? It's sinfully good, but finishes quite quickly, and therefore there is less chance of me having leftovers to pick at for the following week. (I can already see Nii shaking his head hopelessly at this reasoning.)

That Lily cake is gorgeous too.
Chris, are you picking up the signals here?

Sunday -- Twilight Hate Fest with Mey, Debbeh, Ka-teh and Dutchboi x3

[mild spoiler warnings]
I have to say that was one of the-most-boring movies I've ever made myself sit through >>;
It started out slow, never reached any climax (not in romance, not in drama, not in action) despite the many many oh-my-god-isplotandcharacterdevelopmentactuallyhappeninghere? scenes.

Bella wasn't a bimbo as I'm sure was originally anticipated, but she was about as exciting as a paper plate.

I'm sure people who roleplay avidly will understand that sort of dryness and how BORING it is.
Even MARY SUES are a better stereotype than the indecisive, quiet, whatssogreatabout life types.

Not only is Bella decidedly empty headed
-no sense of style,
-no identifyable personality/physical traits besides emoness and pale skin,
-no unique habits that make her seem more human and like an actual person I can relate to,
-no wit,
-her curiousity about Edward was very... like she didn't really care but wanted to know anyway,
but she really pissed me off when she was willing to hurt her father (who was my favourite for being the most developed, at least in the movie, as a dad who loves his daughter unconditionally but has difficulty showing emotion like most fathers besides being protective) just to get away with Edward (when it was his fault they even had to leave.)

Even if it was "for the best", it was badly screenwritten.

Edward?
Don't get me started.

Word up, the sparkly thing isn't sexy in the least.
Neither are mood swings on guys. Major turn off.
And I NEVER realized how CREEPY staring was until he did it.
(I used to think gazing at one's lover as they dreamed was somewhat romantic, pfft, not anymore)

I think we were all critical about the make-up flaws and visible foundation lines.

When the movie was actually over, I was actually surprised because it ended in such a blah way I can't even remember it now, a day later.

Even if you watched waiting for one exciting thing to happen, it never does. Think of it as plot-impotence.

By the way, Bella falls in love with Edward, and when she says it in narration, you'd almost think someone was holding a gun to her head as she did. I'm not as big into the Romance genre as my brother is, but I definitely know this was a poor love story because they fell in love in the blink of an eye and I think everyone missed it. >>;

Unless being Sparkly is the new in thing at getting people to fall for you. You know? Like how girls used to fall for Princes back in the old days of decent lovestories.

Well, whatever it is. If you don't have anything against Twilight I'm sure you'll enjoy the movie.
If you don't care but watch movies for plot and exciting unexpected twists, this is not for you.
If you've been into Vampire lit and movies for a very,very,very long time, you will either become homicidal or suicidal. Usually the former. Or worse, you'll fall out of love with the species entirely.

Because I have no pictures of our day, I leave you all with this:



Credits:
- writer83729 @ livejournal
- michaela0823 in twilight_sucks @ livejournal communities
- totallygay81 in funwithicons @ livejournal communities
- LynnVolta @ xanga

The piggyback one is going to be a favourite of mine for a long time to come.