Friday, July 31, 2009

u know u'r too old when

u wouldnt even wanna try n physically sit in one of those in public ( wat u want to do in my mind and heart is all up to u)





u will by no means be able to sit in one of those n be transported around






u'r not allowed on something as harmless as a trampoline bungee.

Look how much fun that little girl is having!! i wanna have a go on it too!!!!!!!!!







u'r not allowed to drive cos u'r too old, and not too young







again.. not allowed






u can only stand near the merry go round and enviously look at the little kids on it (i cant even remember the last time i went on one of those=( )






u cant strip n jump into a wee pond in public and have fun ... in public!

Wednesday, July 29, 2009

Glasgow River Festival Day 1

the brochure and the website clearly said that the River Festival wasfrom the 24th till 26th of July, and it was bigger and better this year... but all we saw on the 24th was a major let down for all my expectations


yes, i'm a daft... i got too excited when i saw that it was a festival, and it was near my place and i hadnt missed it yet, and for once i knew of a festival before it was over! hence the misreading of 25th as 24th! :S



wat do u expect to see when u go a day before the actual festival?? ppl setting things up, closed booths and drop dead gorgeous navy crew!!!!!!!!!! (too bad i couldnt manage to take a pic of them!! sigh)





an empty and quiet ship instead of one full of life and laughter and fun



everything was so quiet and dead




all we could do was hopelessly, and aimlessly and not forgetting, shamelessly, take pics










at least, we had decided to drop by the next day to see if the river festival was really bigger and better this year... i wasnt too sure about it at all... but i'm glad we did make it anyways!

Monday, July 27, 2009

Learning cooking from my mum

*this is just a sample of one of it, and this is why i never learnt cooking from my mum but went to my aunt instead!*

at 12 noon

Mum: i'm gonna cook today, so u concentrate on ur dissertation. we can have lunch whenever u want to

Me: okay, we'll have lunch at 1.30pm. is that ok? do u need any help in the kitchen?

Mum: no, i'm fine... i know my way around the kitchen pretty well now, i can handle it. we'll have lunch at 1.30pm

Me: cool... i'll go n do my work.. i'll be in the living room if u need anything


at 12.40pm

Me: wat r u doing? how's the cooking coming along

Mum: the curry is almost done... i just have to make the mushroom and cauliflower

Me: oh, u made curry out of this? how do u make curry? i never knew how to make curry.. i always end uo making a gravy or a so-called gravy with it

Mum: its very simple. i'll tell u later.


at 2.00 pm while having lunch

Me: tell me, how did u make d curry today?

Mum: just heat oil, stir fry the washed green beans, add some water, chopped onions and tomatoes, chilli powder, coriender powder, and salt to taste. leave it to boil and then its done.

Me: oh.. so simple.. i must try next time

Me: how did u do the cauliflower and mushroom??

Mum: bla bla bla... (simple recipe)



at ~300pm while washing dishes

Me: ma, didnt u add the tamarind in the curry today? u usually add tamrind rite?

Mum: of course i did

Me: see.... me never told me this!!!! if i hadnt asked u about the tamarind now, i would have made the curry without tamarind! how do u expect me to cook well then!!

Mum: u have to come n stand in the kitchen when i'm cooking... otherwise u'll never learn properly....

Me: i dun wan... u cook so many things at the same time.. i never know how to follow

after 20 minutes

Me: didnt u add butter to the cauliflower...? u said u were gonna add

Mum: yea i did *she turns n looks at me with the 'u have to stand here n help me in the kitchen' look*

Me: * raises n eye brow* see... this is y i never learnt cooking from u... ur sister taught me so much better n gave me step by step guide some more!!




really... this is one part of why i never learnt to cook much earlier.. n especially not from my mum

Saturday, July 25, 2009

Guess wat these are!

#1



#2




#3




#4 (the cream n maroon stripped thingy)





#5




#6





#7




#8




#9




#10





#11





Answers shall follow in the next post (which might be in a few days time).... do give it a try n see if u can guess it rite!


Coming up Next:
1) You know u'r too old when...
2) Glasgow River Festival Day 1 ( i never fail to proof that i'm such a daft!)
3) Glasgow River Festival Day 2 (the actual day)
4) learning cooking from my mum

my inboxes have never been this empty before


i dont know wat got into me last nite... .



wat started of as a harmful msg reading-deleting-if-unnecessary turned out like this.. cos i got sick of reading mails from year 2004!



n i'm not one to cherish the same forwards which 1000s of ppl would have sent to me. it would have been different if the mails were personal ones from a special someone... but since that doesnt look like happening anytime soon... all the forwards and mails from half a decade ago can go n sit in the rubbish bin n not in my inbox


25 pages of mails + >500 mails + 5 years = deleted in 30 minutes... impressive huh !





but now when i think about it, maybe i rushed into it... but then again... it had to go some day anyways rite...




now i only have my student account to take care of, which is gonna take me AGES!! cos this account doesnt have forwards n mails from 5 years ago! just d ones since Oct '08, but it has hell lot of important mails... sigh... so not looking forward to clearing it up... maybe i'll leave it for another 4/5 years ??






totally unrelated... but am lovin' my current desktop... hehehhe


Thursday, July 23, 2009

behold the war has started!

mum has finally started cooking in my kitchen... now i wish i hadnt pushed her so much !

last thursday, she took over my clothes cupboard

last friday, she took over my bathroom

last saturday, she started rearranging stuff in my kitchen. i found onions and potatoes sitting on the kitchen counter rather than in the cupboard. the rice container was sitting on the floor just next to the microwave table (i never had rice in my flat before, so it doesnt belong anywhere).

on sunday i found all my biscuits and cookies and munching stuff happily hiding in the cupboard together with my breakfast stuff n cooking stuff. and my new cans and unopened packs of food went missing from its place!! cos my mum hid it all in a corner (according to her, those dont need to be visible everyday!)

on monday, there was some more changes in the kitchen

on tuesday, my stuff in the freezer were all hopping about

on wednesday, i couldnt find anything i wanted in the fridge, cos they were all hidden behind one another.

in short, mum spent the entire week rearranging all my stuff and i spent the entire week cooking for her cos she wasnt used to my kitchen yet. i didnt mind it at all actually, cos i've never cooked for her before (ignore the fact that i tried to cook for her when i was back home last year). when i cooked on wednesday afternoon last week (just after mum had reached), she didnt complain much (i'd like to think she didnt complain too much cos she was too tired and the jet lag was taking its toll on her) but the food was really good according to my standard.

everday since then has been a bit of a tension cos mum doesnt like my cooking ... cos she wants every dish to be different, with the exact amount of salt, spices and variety but i dont give a damn if there's enough salt or if there's enough spices. as long as something goes into my stomach when i'm hungry and as long as my tummy behaves itself and not embarrass me in public by making noise, i'm happy. i couldnt be bothered to taste the food while i'm cooking and i couldnt be least bothered to have a variety of it all!

so i gave mum time till monday to learn everything around the kitchen and then she can start cooking. guess wat she did... she switched everything around in the kitchen and finally started cooking today.

we've been going out almost everyday since sunday, so mum never really had the time to cook. it was me who did all the cooking. mum promised that we'll stay in on thursday and she'll cook so that i can concentrate on my dissertation. she entered the kitchen at 11.30am today. at about 12.30pm she said lunch will be ready whenever i'm ready to eat. so i told her i'll be done by 1.30pm.

at 1.40pm i still wasnt done with my work and i still hadnt heard from mum yet. i walked in to the kitchen cos i was starving, and was greeted by a hurricane-run-kitchen, with most of my utensils and pots and pans on the counter (this coming from a mother who used to complain that i use up too many things unnecessarily for the simplest needs back home). that aside, i thought she had finally finished cooking, but all i saw that was ready was the curry that was almost done more than an hour ago, and some chopped tomatoes and onions. oh, n the rice was cooking in the rice cooker.

i didnt quite understand wat took her so long, and wat she was doing all along... i was gonna ask her that, but then thought the better of it and kept my mouth shut! (thank God i did!). she wasnt in one of her best moods. she had been struggling her way through in the kitchen looking for the things that she needed and she wasnt happy at all cos she didnt have wat she always uses at home. i quietly ate some biscuits and helped her around in the kitchen.

n then lunch was finally done slightly past 2pm. see... i am needed for everything!! if i hadnt entered the kitchen when i did, i highly doubt lunch would have been ready even by 3pm! (sshhh.. dont tell my mum i said that!)

even though mum takes a long time to cook, lunch was amazingly heavy today. i had to take a break from eating n go for a walk in the house before i could finish the food on my plate! n then i spent the next half an hour digesting the food by cleaning up the mess my mum made in the kitchen!

our roles have switched ever since mum came here. I do the cooking, cleaning, sorting out, arranging and being a perfectionist, while mum does the complaining, eating, non helping part :S

now that she's finally happy (as happy as she can get with a close to well equipped kitchen), she's gonna take care of the cooking herself (while she makes me do all the washing, of course), for which i'm very very grateful, but not too thrilled about .... cos i wont be able to fit into my graduation dress by the end of the year if i eat like i did today!!!!

excuse me, i got to go now... it's time for dinner... i got to go n stuff myself with some yummy homemade tomato cutney n thosa (i wonder how those turned out, especially when mum had to use my sauce pan (i dont have thosa cooking thing.. watever u call it) n no lid big enough to fit it)

Monday, July 20, 2009

i got burnt by hot ginger garlic paste


that explains wat i've been up to the past few days!

Thursday, July 16, 2009

there's nothing else better than







seeing ur santa clause sleeping on ur bed.. it doesnt matter even if u had to spend an uncomfortable nite on the dirty, ugly, old couch in the cold living room... MUM IS HERE!!!!!!!



n look wat goodies she brought for me!!





loads of colourful tablets .. oh goody! :S





bling blings!!!
i've never worn these things before... but it all looks so exciting and interesting now.. and surprisingly i seem to like it too.... actually, it's all hers..but i'm gonna help myself to it if i'm ever feeling like it (which might be in another decade i think)





one of my fav food stuff.. i was thinking of asking her to bring it, but never asked her.. but she brought it!! mothers know it even when u dont ask!







my bday present!!! seriously..i never thought about bday presents (yes, its presents, cos i always get a lot) this year ( i swear... for a person who starts listing out the things she wants for her bday, and christmas a year in advance... this year is a miracle, cos i didnt think about it at all...)




but my mum did!






Original Guess



made in Japan





with Diamonds ( i dont think so la... but aparently thats wat the salesmen said... n thats wat the price suggests also! )





Jealous or not?!!!!!!!!!! AHHAHAHAH





u know what.. i got to tell u d story of how stupid i was when i saw the watch box in her suitcase while unpacking!

*flash back to about 2 weeks ago* since my mum was leaving her company after 14 years of working there, all the staff decided to get her a watch, cos my mum's a watch freak, n they even let her choose it herself.




when i was talking to her over skype, she told me about the watch hunting story.. (it's a long story, but i'll keep it short, if i skip it, u wont even understand) 1st she said she chose one from Polo. i told her to go get one from Bonia cos she already has enough Polo-s. d next day mum told me that she didnt like anything from Bonia cos it was all too common and plain, and then she chose a Gucci.. i still wasnt happy with it... a few days later she picked out a Guess watch.. paid for it, and walked out.. n then walked back in and returned it cos she wasnt happy with it at all. she finally got a Bonia watch. (see.. i dont understand y mothers dont to listen to their children in the first instant. i knew i was right all along, and it was a Bonia that she ended up with in the end!). she went on and on and on about how beautiful it was, and how gorgeous it was (n it was waaaaaay over the budget that her staff had planned but they still paid for it!)... naturally, i couldnt wait to see it (being a watch freak that i am also). while waiting for the cab in the airport, i finally saw her watch.. n i understood y she fell in love with it.It.Was.Amazingly.Gorgeous!(for that price.. it had better be gorgeous! her friends paid for that unreasonably expensive Bonia! y dont i have friends like that?!)




*back to present* so when i was unpacking mum's suitcase, i saw a watch box, n it looked very classy... like a modified hard paper bag thingy, n i thought it was her watch's box. so i was like.. 'oh, wow.. is this ur watch's box.. it looks so cool', n while talking, i was fidgeting with it, and trying to open it.



that's when the small Guess booklet fell on my lap. like an idiot i picked it up and flipped through the pages claiming that even the booklet looks so cool and has so many languages bla bla bla... then all of a sudden, i realized that one of the pictures of the watch in the booklet didnt look like her watch. i flipped back to that page and started talking about y d pic was so different from her watch, n infact it wasnt even her watch. i thought the shop owner gave her d wrong booklet and even my mum didnt realize.(even while staring at it all along) it took me 10 whole minutes to realize that i was holding a Guess watch booklet and box and not a Bonia! n then i turned to stare at my mum like an idiot and finally realized that it wasnt my mother's watch box but it was some other watch box...n that i was supposed to open it. there it was... my bday present staring back at me.. while sitting majestically on her comfy pillow


i can be such a turtle sometimes cant i! even my mum said it today, "honestly Chumi, u'r very slow in the head department these days" LOL






oh .. wait wait.. thats not it...


mommy also bought me graduation dresses (yup.. its dresses.. cos i've got 2 dresses for my graduation now!! as long as i dont freeze in those .. i should have thought about graduating during the summer rather than winter.. nvm.. i have 2 dresses!!! ahahahah) but i'm not showing u pics of my dresses now.. (its bad luck!) wait till Dec!

ok fine.. i'll show u the earrings... this is currently my favouritestestestest earrings!!!





the only downside of having ur mum with u for 6 months is that:


she doesnt like ur place as much as u might have expected her to, and d only think u hear from her is that it isnt the same as ur own home back home... (i'm giving her 2 whole weeks to get used to it all here.. she has no other choice, and she cant even go back home before dec, cos i'll only make her come back all the way on the 3rd of Dec!)


she doesnt understand a single thing around the kitchen, especially when its shared with a friend. i've been doing the cooking n cleaning since mum came (okay, it;s only been slightly more than 24 hours since she came... :P) and i dont mind it for now cos i'm finally capable of cooking n cleaning, and my mum is surprised big time! this morning i gave mum a good lecture about dripping water on the kitchen floor and i felt so good, cos she keeps throwing out a 1001 conditions at me back home (those were the days when i only entire the kitchen when i wanna sneak something from the fridge) LOL. and the cooking n cleaning was all worth it, cos mum finally approved of my cooking!! aahahhha... well it was about time actually... (PS: when i told her that, she reverted it to me and said it was about time i learned cooking n cleaning!). btw, i'm only giving mum time till this weekend to get used to my kitchen, and then i'll happily let her take over the kitchen department.. i've had enough of it for the past 10 months!


till yesterday.. when i was all alone here, i had all the cupboard space and storage space and the entire bedroom and bathroom to myself. from today onwards i've got to share it all with mum. i dont mind sharing anything except for my cupboard, cos i spent hours n hours sorting my clothes out and arranging it in a managable way in the no-shelf-only-one-metal-rod-hanger-cupboard that i have now



the 1st thing my mum attacked was my scarves!! look wat has become of all my beautiful scarves! i love of all it and i took care of it with tender loving care all this while! now it's gonna be sitting in this congested little suitcase



and i wont even know wat scarves i have and what i dont! :( and mum was laughing away to glory all along! she can only dream of my sharing my scarves with her now! hhmmpp!! =( =( =(

Wednesday, July 15, 2009

heights of laziness #unknown and consequences of not combing ur hair for 2 weeks.. n seriously.. its christmas already for me!



stacked up dirty dishes, and empty dish drier






not bad eh... not bad at all i would say.. i'm not gonna comb my hair at all from now onwards n hope that i have this kindda good-hair-day (which only happens once in the bluest moon ever) everyday!

Monday, July 13, 2009

celebrating christmas in July

it felt as it was already Christmas lat nite.

my flatmate and i kept talking about giving cookies of sweets or something at all to all our fellow 70 Ferry Road residences since we moved in two weeks ago as an excuse to getting to know everyone... but we never got about doing it.... till last nite.

my friend and i baked a cake... (okay.. my friend baked a cake and i did the testing part as usual), which was a bit too much for us to finish. so we abruptly thought of giving that cake to everyone.

instead of just cutting pieces of cakes and putting it in plastic bags or watever simple way there is, we (I) wrapped it up in foil paper like it was a christmas present,


had it all lined up (had to line it up cos different sizes of cakes for different flats according to the number of ppl that we estimated),

wrote a note and stuck it on all 7 little parcels,



and went sneaking out at 1am to hang it on our neighbours' doors so that they will see it in the morning.



it really felt just like christmas..


its been 24 hours since we did all that... our greedy neighbours havent even bothered acknowledging!!! we even spent time thinking of appropriate things to write u know!