Random photo updates

Aileen was in Brisbane on Tuesday, and we managed to meet up before she had to fly again the next day. It's been light years since we last saw each other, but she's still the same old Aileen, lovely as ever, and we had a great time catching up over a great dinner @ Pig n' Whistle.



She bought me something! :D



I got really excited because its something I always want to get whenever I travel (but haven't done because I don't usually spend my money on makeup)



Love the little padlock 'key holder' hanging on one end!



The shades are gorgeous. Especially LOVE the lipcolour... and I've never even used lipstick before! I wanna go buy lipstick in that exact shade now :)

. . . . .

On Thursday, while waiting for the bus to the city to meet up with Eddie for lunch

The lilies outside our house are in full bloom now! Prettyyy

. . . . .

My Sayang and her housemates had a Raya open house today. We were supposed to go at 3pm, but Eddie and I rocked up super early because we had soccer at 3.30. We missed the crowd, but we didn't miss out on the yummy food :D

I know I've said this a million times already for the past weeks, but I LOVE HOME-COOKED FOOOOD. And nothing beats authentic Malay home-cooked food, I tell you.

This was my second helping... yums

Someone even made Laksa Sarawak, but my favourite was still Izzy's roti jala!!! SOOooOOoo GOOooOOood

Sayang had offered to lend me one of her baju kurungs and had already picked one out for me, but since Eddie and I couldn't stay long, I didn't think I'd wear it... but she had even ironed it and laid it out for me, and it was so pretty I just couldn't resist putting it on for a little while to take some pictures in it. :)

Pictures stolen from her facebook album, cos my camera battery died.

Eddie needs a baju melayu too x)

This was a totally random shot! Teehee

So retarded. He was trying to kiss me but I didn't know... thus the startled expression on my face when I turned to find his big fat puckered lips in my face lol ♥

. . . . .

The girls rocked up for soccer today. It was drizzling and we were really hoping that it wouldn't start pouring.

The good thing was that it didn't start pouring.

The bad thing was that we got chased off the field because we didn't book it. Damn UQ Sport (-.-)

. . . . .

After soccer, Julia & Brenan brought us to 7-8 (a Japanese-Western fusion restaurant at Robertson) for dinner.

My 'Black Peach' (which was actually just ice-cream float with Coke. God knows why they called it a 'Black Peach' haha)

My Tonkatsu + Udon was TOPS *two thumbs up*

Overall, the food was good, ambience was good, and best of all, it didn't burn a hole in our pockets. Great recommendation guys, I'd definitely go back again! :)

. . . . .

OK I'm getting really sleepy now so G'NIGHT LOVES, it's time to hit the sack.

xx

Random Blahs

+ Sports really do bring out the best and worst in people.

+ I have an insane craving for Cheezels right now

+ I was a little taken aback by all the responses I got from readers on the last post, both on the chatbox and in person. Please be assured that if I had sounded like a sore loser (and I hope I hadn't), I was just being emo and I wasn't angry at anybody or targetting anyone with that rant. It happens once a month :)

+ I suffer from chronic Photographer's Syndrome. Main symptom: Feeling insecure whenever not armed with a camera. I took a stroll to uni this evening, empty-handed. Walked under a beautiful jacaranda tree shedding its purple flowers, and wished I had the DSLR with me. 5 mins later I walked past Chai's and kicked myself for not bringing my Diana to capture the sunset hues splashed across the shops and apartments. Walking on, I made a mental note to keep the compact digicam in the car so that I'm at least prepared to take photos with something other than my shitty phone camera. While watching the boys play soccer, my fingers started twitching and I was making mental snapshots of action frames, and now I'm blaming myself for not having any pictures from today to post up because I didn't bring a camera O.o

+ Spring is here, and the Jacarandas are in full bloom! Love seeing patches of purple everywhere, and the flowers are starting to blanket the ground in purple too. Gorgeous ♥ ♥ (And for the first time ever, I don't have to worry about exams muahaha ^^)

+ Mooncake Festival yesterday. More photos from last night's glorious crab feast...

+ Friends are family when you're far away from home :)

+ It's mummy's birthday tomorrow!

Ahhh too frickin lazy to organize my thoughts and write more lah. Work starts again tomorrow, BOO.

Futsal emo-ness

Even though our two teams won gold and silver yesterday, I personally did not feel liked I've achieved anything at all.

First of all, I barely played for 5 mins before I started to feel sharp pains in my ankle again, so I called for a sub. It was the most horrible thing to sit there in full gear and not being able to play, but I tried to compensate by cheering my voice hoarse for the team.

Secondly, WE NEED A COACH. Sze Luan, Jovy, Zoe and I agreed in the car (on the way home) that we hadn't made any progress in terms of improving our skills and tactics, etc.; if anything, with Anas gone for good and Hajar (who usually takes charge) being back home for the holidays, we'd only been running around like headless chickens and regurgitating drills without being given any input or learning anything new. I'm really really glad, though, that Shaymi has been helping out however and whenever he can, and Shiv has been doing a good job rounding the girls up for light kickarounds and such.



I got a little emo watching the other teams with their coaches, soaking up instructions. The Indonesian girls had Kreshna (they've even got a manager and assistant manager wtf), and the Singaporean girls had Eddie. The most painful thing was the fact that Eddie was my boyfriend, and he was coaching the team who scored against us. Eddie tried to be fair by coming over to talk to us after we'd lost. He meant well but I felt it was the wrong thing for him to do to do at the wrong time, because everyone was still simmering from the defeat, and I could feel Daph trying to surpress her anger while Eddie went on about what he thought we ought to improve on. I felt tears coming, and for the first time ever, I walked away from him.

I wasn't upset because we had lost, not at all. I thought it was a fair win and that Farah scored a good goal. I was jealous and angry because the other teams have got someone totally committed to helping them be their best for this competition, and we hadn't. We've clung on to what we've gotten from the NCG, and I'm really grateful we've at least had that exposure which the other teams don't.

I miss Anas terribly. I miss his encouragement and his calmness, and I miss his exhausting but fun training sessions. I miss his positive attitude towards everything no matter how badly we sucked, and I miss him always using Jerry to demonstrate his drills just because he could budge her around a bit more. I miss having him shouting at us from the side-lines, telling us what to do and coordinating who needs to be where, and who needs to be substituted. I miss him giving us a pat on the back and telling us we've done a great job. I miss how easily he could make anyone feel confident enough to conquer the world. Everyone felt lost without him yesterday; we didn't know what we were doing wrong, and we didn't know what we needed to do. In the end, during the finals, the girls got so desperate that they just grabbed some random guy in a jersey walking past, and appointed him to watch and supervise and yell at us... and I think it was not because we needed him to tell us what to do, but because we needed the comfort of knowing that there was someone there looking out for us.



Sigh. Anas can you pls clone yourself and come back?

I CAN WALK!! :D

It still hurts to go down the stairs, and I still cannot fully rotate my foot, especially sideways... But at least I can drive now, yay! No need to get people to drive me to KFC anymore hehe *cough* (Thanks Brenan! :P )

So I drove to Ind'roo today. Dropped off my first roll of 120mm film... and was shocked to hear that it'd take one week because they need to send it off to someone else to develop it :( Bought some paper to make wedding card & angpao. Went to Myers and spent a bomb on Jurlique products. Then went to Coles and spent even more money on groceries + goodies for our little girlie party tomorrow ♥ ♥ ♥



. . . . .

Eddie and I decided to cancel all our Friday night plans, since it was inconvenient for me to get around with me hobbling at the speed of a freeze-dried snail.

The sweetiepie then suddenly called from work in the afternoon and randomly said he wanted to treat me to a nice dinner because I was injured! *melts* :') *thinks to self, must get injured more often muahah*

He brought me to Sizzler's

:D

Now bringing me to Sizzler's is like unleashing a kid with a sweet tooth in Willy Wonka's chocolate factory. Especially after having had only a bit of yogurt + a spoonful of peanut butter for lunch, I went wild at the all-you-can-eat salad bar. (Note: Crispy potato skin + blue cheese dressing = ORGASMIC. Move over, wedges & sour cream!)

The only thing that wasn't satisfactory was the steak.



I ordered the sizzling steak with creamy garlic prawns. It sucked. I've had steak a couple of times at Sizzler's already, and every single time I was sorely disappointed.

Yeah don't go to Sizzler's for steak (even though you're supposed to go to Sizzler's for steak). If you really really must have steak at Sizzler's, DO NOT ORDER THE RUMP STEAK. The beef did not taste fresh, and it was like chewing lumps of old clay. Go to Fiasco's instead, people ^^

But other than that, the rest of the meal was tops. Thanks again darling!!! (I can't say this to you now cos you're snoring behind me, heh. Cuteness)

. . . . .

I'm gonna hit the sack now, big day tomorrow


(I bought a whole bag of soup pasta, just for these few letters for the card :P)

'Nites, world!

Sleeping is no mean art:

for its sake one must stay awake all day.

~Friedrich Nietzsche

Ouchie

I hurt my foot during futsal last night.


Meet my friends- Panadol and Voltaren

It was the most stupid injury ever. No one kicked or dived at me. I wasn't even attempting some fancy heroic stunt while dribbling or tackling the ball. Of all things, I simply stepped on the ball during a passing drill and tripped myself up. (-.-")

The girls helped me up and I joined Grace (who had also sprained her ankle the previous night) on the bench, and the both of us sat there being mad itchy cos we wanted to play but couldnt.

But the night wasn't all that bad; Ben had made delicious Raya goodies and she generously brought some to share. So in true Malaysian spirit, everyone sat around after training, munching on melt-in-your-mouth cookies and dipping home-made lemang into a communal bowl of scrumptious rendang.


**Not my picture lah, ripped from the web; I didn't bring my camera

SOOOOOO GOOOOOOOOD. I had been getting pretty homesick looking at all the Raya photos on Facebook, so it was absolute HEAVEN to be able to satiate my insane cravings with some of that glorious home food. Thanks Ben, you rock :D

Anyway, I still couldn't walk by the end of the night, and none of the girls could drive manual so thankfully Coach Shaymi didn't bring his car and was therefore able to drive us back. Eddie helped send the rest home after I got dropped off first, and when the darling got back he helped wrap my foot up in a towel and ice, stacked cushions for me to elevate my foot on, and helped me put on some strapping tape.

Ugh I hope it gets better by the end of the week, I NEED TO PLAY FUTSAL!!!!!!!!!

Comet, Cupid, Dusty and Duster

A mega dust storm from Sydney reached Brisbane this morning. The sky outside my windows is eerily orange, and I am lying here typing this post now in a room awashed in sepia.

I'm pretty sure if I went outside now, I'd be able to finger-draw pretty pictures on my dust-covered car.

Here's a photo someone took of the Storey Bridge exactly 2 hours ago:

[ Source ].

How bad is this?? I hope it goes away soon, I'm finding it difficult to breathe!

. . . . .

I made poached eggs for breakfast today, for the first time in my life :D

The first attempt was a disaster, but the second egg came out beautifully. Good thing Eddie remembered Bjorn's expert chef tips just in time.



Taadaahh... Homestyle eggs Benedict, with poached eggs and premium smoked ham on wholegrain toast! Didn't have lemon to make hollandaise sauce, so I used sliced Bega cheese instead, which melted on the hot egg, and topped it off with a sprinkle of dill.



Absolutely yums.

3 reasons to be HAPPY on a Monday

1. I'm officially on 2 weeks' holidays!!! Hear that??? *silence* That's the sound of me NOT mumbling and swearing to myself while trying to comprehend incomprehensible drafts at 11pm. AHHhhhHHhhh

2. Mooncakes for breakfast (AND lunch... and dinner... and supper...)

3. Mr. Postman arrived this morning with THIS:



Introducing the latest addition to my growing family of photo-taking gadgets-

The SNOWCAT VERSION of the DIANA F+



[ SNOWCAT ] is a cute cartoon journal by a Korean illustrator. I have no idea what the captions in the comic mean because it's in Korean, but the simple yet adorable cat design was enough to convince me to buy it on this plastic baby I've been putting off for yoinks because "it's a WANT, not a necessity".

I finally gave in to the itch after [ Jerry ] got the Colette version, and [ Daph ] got the mini.



Mariah sussing the new camera out


Who dis new CAT?!?!! I'z d only feeline allowd in hawse!!

Snowcat no good, mommee. I'z still kiuter

. . . . .

I totally had an angel/devil conversation going on in my head yesterday morning, when I was watching Eddie train the Singaporean girls.

The catfight between the one with the fluffy halo and the one with the pitchfork went something like this:

HALO: *smiling sweetly* Sighh. Look at that. Eddie is such a fantastic coach. You're the luckiest girl in the world... You've got a wonderful boyfriend who's puts in so much time and effort into something he's not obliged to do, yet willingly helps out just because he can... and you've got wonderful girlfriends who are taking up a sport you love, so you don't have to play alone anymore! Life can't be any better than this, can it? *angelic beams*

HORNS: MOVE BEEYATCH *shoves Miss Halo away and yells into Jody's ear* HELLO ARE YOU KIDDING MEEEH?!! Your BOYFRIEND is coaching YOUR OPPONENTS. See how good they're getting!! Yes, you should be worried. What the hell were you thinking, helping recruit players for the enemy and asking your boyfriend to help train them? WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU??!! You're asking to get trashed, that's what it is. You have the power to tell Eddie to stop training them before it's too...

*Jody promptly flicks the little Devil away, picks up the poor Angel and places her back on shoulder*

See, this is why I didn't want to participate in the ASEAN Games in the first place. I don't like being competitive; I just want to play for fun! I used to get serious performance anxiety during Karate days because I just CANNOT bring myself to compete against friends.

But since [ Alia ] and [ Yasmin ] have left the team (graduated and gone back to Malaysia), we were already short of players, and with more of our good players being injured or away for the holidays, Hajar was having a hard time looking for new substitutes so it wouldn't be fair if I said I didn't want to play when I was totally available.

Nevertheless, with the ASEAN opening ceremony coming up this Sunday, I'm totally looking forward to it now, regardless of who wins or loses. Hey it's just a game after all, and at the end of the day, it's the learning experience and the exposure that counts :)

OHAI

Yew callz mai naime?

Smell that?

That's the smell of a hole being burnt in my pocket.

Eddie and I went to Rebel Sport today after our lunch date, and he bought.... NOTHING!! (Although he was cradling a EPL soccer ball with a price tag that could buy almost a dozen normal soccer balls)

Guess who splurged instead?



Today's damage:

Bus ticket - $5.80
Lunch (kebab + drink) - $9
New Dan Brown book from Borders - $32.99
Starbucks Strawberries & Cream frapp (tall) - $4.80
Jean-Paul Gaultier 'Classique' fragrance (Ma Dame- 2009 Summer Edition) - $99
80k car servicing - $445.70
Dinner (Chilli tofu & noodles + drink @ Chez Tessa) - $8.50
*EDITED* Lomographic Diana F+ Snowcat Edition + 2 rolls of 120mm film - $245
------------------------------------
GRAND TOTAL: $850.79 T.T
------------------------------------

My next car servicing will cost even more, FML.
Why is it so expensive to own a car *wails*
. . . . .

Took the bus to UQ from the city (took me light years to find the 412 bus-stop goddammit) to watch Grace play with her usual casual futsal kakis



The WAGs and the Singaporean girls' team might be training tonight. I don't think it'll be very nice of me to play with them at this stage (so close to the competition) when I'm the 'enemy'... I might look like a spy or something :P

Methinks I'll just go for a run instead and build some much-needed stamina.

Of ASEAN nations and futsal madness

My girlfriends are playing for the Singaporean team
and I for the Malaysian team
Because I am Malaysian
And dating a Singaporean
Who is coaching the Singaporean men's team
And who plays with a friend
Who is coaching the Indonesian women's team
Whom we are playing against tonight

Amen kthxbai.

Super Sunday

Farah had organized a casual soccer session for the Singaporean girls and had invited me along. I whinged a lot all morning (too early la, still sleepy la, no warm-up la, no stamina la, sun too hot la, need foot massage la, too tired la, too hungry la etc. etc.) but in retrospect, I actually had a really good time playing... Especially with the WAGs and Juju being there, and also being able to work on some basic drills afterwards with the help of Eddie and Brennan :)


Our furry spectators

Had had a headache since I woke up this morning, which got worse as the day progressed. Popped a Panadol Rapid in the arvo after getting home from soccer but it didn't help at all. I think it might've been because of wearing my contact lenses to sleep for the past 3 days. Anyway, I've just woken up from a good nap and the headache's gone now so that's good!

Went to Sunnybank with Juju and Julia in the arvo and we finally got MOONCAKES!!! xD I got a box of 4 mooncakes with 4 yolks in each. OMG I have been craving for my eggyolks for the longest time, and it was soooo goooood to finally be able to sink my teeth into one...



Eddie and I devoured a whole mooncake in minutes (well actually, I ate most of it *cough*) and I fell asleep happy after that. ^^

Hmm I think I'll go have some more now.

The Body Shop party

Yoshi invited us to a foot pampering-themed party, which was hosted by her colleague, whose ex-boyfriend's sister is a Body Shop consultant.

The host Gemma (Jenna?) had made cupcakes, and there were also strawbies, veggies with dip, crackers and camambert, coffee, tea, juice... the whole lot.



The yummy spread!

After games and being given some products to try on/sniff/slather on, we had the foot spa yay



The girls (the guy is someone's boyfriend heh) munching on cupcakes and enjoying their Peppermint foot baths.

The Body Shop lady is Kellie; she had only started doing these party packages (this was only her third party, I think). I like her cos she's nice and genuinely friendly, and I think she's trying really hard to see how she can improve her next parties!

The chickas...



And my foot. I had to B&W this photo cos my leg looked disgusting and blotchy, compared to the bronzed goddess on the cover of the catalogue sitting on my lap. Look at my yucky toenails bruised from soccer.



Rhonda and I did not buy a single thing from the party, tempting as the Catalogue was, cos...

... WE'RE HOSTING OUR OWN PARTY ON THE 26th!!!! :D :D :D

We booked the MAKEUP package cos we love Body Shop makeup, and it'll be good to have products to play around with so that we can all try and test and have fun without the embarrassment of having to walk into a shop and have the sales assistants look at you like an idiot when you ask them noob questions, or when you take too long trying to figure out what suits your skin tone, or when you have to say "Thanks, but no thanks" because you really really cannot afford to spend your week's pay on five more smokey black eyeshadows but now you're obliged to because the SA has spent half an hour piling the stuff on your face!

*takes a deep breath*

Anyway, after the party, the three of us went to Westfield Chermside to suss out some more BS products for our party, window-shop around a bit and had lunch.

Then went home and crashed with the boyfriend.

Really need to stop taking afternoon naps, it's past midnight now and we're still wide awake! How to wake up for soccer tomorrow morning?

GTG Eddie cooked chicken drumsticks for supper and it shmells damn good ^^

Pissed off

No, I am NOT VERY HAPPY AT ALL with students who use me as an excuse to NOT pass up their drafts which were due LAST WEEK, email me drafts now when it's BEDTIME and expect me to correct them AND help them write up conclusions and whatnot before 8am tomorrow morning.

Fuck it, I've had a long day and I'm going to bed.

Craving for stingrays

Thought we'd give Shorncliffe another go since Adrian hadn't caught his stinger yet (and also because it's been a while since we've had grilled stingrays slathered with sambal), but we ended up catching... NONE.

Instead, we hauled up a mixed seafood platter of herring, toadfish, mullet, prawns, squid, a truckload of undersized bream, a small shovelnose shark, and a crab (a BIIG one which greedily hung on to the bait, but let go of the line when Adrian cleverly tried to get it up with the castnet) -.-

Weather was really tranquil though, after the storm this morning. I had never seen anything like this at the jetty! The wind died down to nothing-ness, the moon was full and it just reflected off the calm surface of the water like a mirror.


Sans flash

Eddie and his shovelnose



Our live bait bucket



This tiny fella broke my personal record in two ways:
1. It was my first ever (spotted rock) cod, and
2. At about 2 inches, it was the smallest wee thing I have ever caught on a line!



The li'l sucker tried to swallow bait almost its own size O.o

Tried recharging Adrian's squid jig with my camera flash (rather than use his tiny torchlight), but it didn't work very well



Adrian caught a small squid.

I know I look damn fugly in this photo... I was going "Faster take, faster take!" cos I didn't want the sotong to squirt ink in my face, even though it had supposedly used up all its ink already



In the end we got so fed up with the undersized fishies and non-existent action that we decided to pack up and go home just after high tide.

Brought a prawn back for Mariah. She went CRAZY



Alright I'm super sleepy already. Bed time, goodnight world! x

Reading by the Riverside

(Current book: A Long Way Down by Nick Hornby)

Dressing room saga

Eddie's gone off to see Venecia to continue his physical assessment, so I might as well put up some photos from today while I wait for him to come back.

I'm really proud of Eddie and his determination to lose weight by signing up for personal training (so that we can eat more when we go back to Singapore end of the year bahaha) but at the same time, feeling embarrassed for myself because I've been pigging out on junk food like nobody's business, being lazy, getting fat, not exercising, and what have I been doing about it?

NOTHING.

My girlfriend is training my boyfriend, instead of training me.

=.=

Eddie has even given up the cheese in his kebabs, swapping it for tabouleh (omg RESPECT... I can never ever give up CHEESE!!!), because everytime he eats anything sinful these days, he'd start imagining a tiny little Venecia perched on his shoulder tsk tsk-ing into his ear and frowning at him disapprovingly.

O.o

Anyways after lunch, we chilled out at Starbucks for a bit before Eddie went back to his office...



I didn't feel like going home just yet so I thought I'd walk around the city and window-shop.

Took pictures of some of the stuff I tried on at [ Forever New ]. This shop is one of my favourite haunts cos they've got pretty nice designs, good material, and best of all their garments are pretty affordable.

I actually really like this picnicky top, because the material is thin, comfy and perfect for summer... But they didn't have my size :( This was a size too big.



I loved the hummingbird design on this one! Again, they didn't have my size; this size was frumpy to the point of looking like a nightie :( If it were a size smaller, it would've been perfect teamed with a belt.



This halter dress was nice, but it was a size too SMALL...



...I couldn't even zip it up from behind.



This silk dress was lovely and pretty and flowy, but didn't like the cutting cos it made my small boobs look even smaller! So nope, of course I didn't get it.



Tried to find work stuff at [ SUPRÉ ] but no luck. I swear they make clothes for 7-ft girls, not for short people like me (T.T)



OK Eddie's back! Damn hungry. Gonna go tapao dinner and go watch the Asean Cup Trial 2 for the Singapore men's soccer team!

It was summer last week

Why is it winter again this week?

. . . . .

Futsal last night was pretty intense for me. Could barely play for 10 mins and I was already out of breath! T.T Shit as lah, I really need to start running more to get some stamina back...

There are SO MANY THINGS I need to work on; for starters I really need to stop losing the ball all the damn time and know where I'm supposed to be at so that I can support my team-mates grrh

Had invited Yoshi along as well... She fell down going after the ball and her knee wouldn't stop bleeding O.o

Nevertheless it was a good turnout and it was good to see the girls again!

. . . . .

OK time to get ready for my Thursday date with Eddie ;)