My Spring @ Louisville

In the preceding months that I went missing, I..

Thunder-ed Over Louisville.

Ran with the Roses at the Kentucky Derby.

Ate some of the best sushi I ever tasted.

Won and lost at Texas Hold'em.

Ambushed and got ambushed while playing Laser Tag.

Went underground literally in the Mammoth Caves.

Tried Equadorian Ethiopian cuisine for the first time.

Putted a hole-in-one and a triple bogey in Miniature Golf.

Thought my arm was going to break after just 2 rounds of bowling.

Cooked my first few Malaysian dishes since I came to Louisville.

Settled for playing Wii Sports as "exercise".

Found a good place to eat Bibimbap with raw egg.

Watched more movies than I ever did during my 3 years in Iowa.

Joined the circle of life via the Lion King musical.

Picked up phrases from a Chinese dialect.

Ordered take-out from all the major fast food chains.

Felt bad for not updating my blog. Really.

Wolfed down home-made quesadillas.

Picked peaches and hand-fed an alpaca at Huber's Farm.

Wore jeans to work for an entire month.

Attended my own "temporarily-going-away" party hosted by my colleague.

Learned that "one and one is two".

What a wonderful spring. :)

My weekend story

No updates since last Thursday. Evidently I'm getting lazy at this blogging thing.

Let's see... things I planned to do for the weekend. Celebrate. Did that. Go out and have fun. Also done. Do stuff that I can't write on my blog. Yep, did that too.

Last Friday, we went to Sully's (a bar) on Fourth Street Live! It was man-market night. Yes, you read that correctly. It's MAN market. Meaning there are (desperate) guys walking around in the bar with number tags. And if a girl/guy finds them scrumptious enough, he's sold. I wonder if he gets to say no to his buyer or not. Think there's a return policy?

The auctioneer was pulling guys up onstage every now and then to err.. promote the latest "offering". Truthfully, most were big "No"s. This guy was walking around in an orange suit! Wah, that one seriously cannot tahan. But hor, there was one very cute guy loh. Really very cute. I don't want to describe, but believe me, he was cute. The I-will-definitely-break-your-heart kind of cute. Too bad he didn't have a number tag though. :P

Guys are seriously unfair. All this while I've been going to bars and listening to their millions of comments on the ladies there. Lots of pretty girls here by the way. Cute guys not so much. Darn. So finally FINALLY I see one boleh tahan one hor, and I make one tiny comment saying "that guy over there is quite cute". And I get my taste proclaimed terrible, my eyesight doubted, and some eye-rolling action. Unfair or not?

So anyway, conclusion is I didn't bid for anyone in the man market.

Last Saturday I went to my colleagues' house for the poker tournament. Lost. Flat out lost. So much for my previous 2 winnings huh. Didn't have any good hands. And didn't dare to bluff. Was fun though. Their house is soooooooo nice. Next time I want to have a house like that too. With a dog, too.

It was snowing a little that night when we left their house. The roads were pretty icy. And guess what.. we got stuck on the road. There was a pretty bad accident (we found out later on) so the road was basically blocked. Didn't move an inch at all. For TWO hours. TWO hours!Really not moving. We could have turned off the engine and it wouldn't make a difference. Except we would freeze to death maybe. Crazy betul, 20 minute drive became 2 hours plus.

For the first 15 minutes when we were stuck, we watched the cars drive by on the opposite side. Some people here are crazy! These people were zooming past as though the roads were perfectly dry. We saw at least 5 cars spin, some hit the railing too. Since noone got hurt, it was quite interesting to watch.

Yes yes, I know we didn't get nearly half as much snow as Des Moines. Don't brag.

A Walking Contradiction

I think you can pretty much ignore all my announcements.

When I say I'm going to do (or not do) something, I'll usually contradict myself sooner or later.

Remember when I said that a particular blog will be my last about something?
The next day, I immediately wrote another blog related to that something.

Remember when I said I want to go home ASAP?
Now I'm having so much fun, I don't think I will anymore.

Remember when I said I want to work in a place that's warm all year round?
Look where I ended up. And loving every minute of it.

Remember when I said I won't blog until next Wednesday?
Well well what am I doing now?

Remember when I said I don't want you to come bursting my bubbles?
I think I'm on the verge of bursting them myself.

Obsessively thinking about three things.

Can't stop talking about two.

And listening to the same song over and over again.



I know this blog didn't make a lot of sense.

Oh well.

Busy Crazy Week!

Haven't been blogging much lately, compared with the one week where I had a blogging spree. I wrote one per day for 5 days in a row!

Too busy nowadays. I had a crazy week at work. CRAZY. Crazy until I couldn't take my Wednesday afternoon off for study time. :( Partly crazy because I work so slooooooooowly also. But then if I work fast I know I'll miss stuff and then I have to go back and redo it anyway.

Crazy until I have to go back to the office to work tomorrow!!!! And tomorrow is a SUNDAY. I'm working on a weekend for the first time! I think this requires a formal recognition of some sort. In a really weird way, I'm kind of happy that I finally have the need to work on a weekend. If you've never worked on a weekend, then you've never actually worked in a consulting firm. Hehe, just kidding yah. I'm working tomorrow because I'm slow mah.

Oh and so many things happened and will happen this week! My department had a poker tournament on Thursday night! And guess what? I won 2nd place overall. Second place! SECOND place you know! Me, win second place! Hehe, I have to keep saying it because it is really unbelievable that I won SECOND that night. I won second by chip count because we ran out of time. I would have won first if I knew it was the last hand (I thought 2nd last hand pula so I folded). If I went all in last hand, I would have won. But still, I didn't even think I would make top 5 loh. I was expecting to get busted in half an hour.

Trust me, I'm not a good poker player. I don't even have a poker face. But that night, I felt like I could just tell what people have, and somehow I knew when I had the best hand and how to lure them into betting their chips. It was soooooo cool. I think the fact that I only had 2 hours of sleep the night before helped. Too tired to show any expression on my face. Hehe.

And then last night I went out with my colleagues. Went to my colleague's house first, played a drinking game called Connections. So fun, but I was so unlucky loh, one round I had to drink the whole bottle of O3 in like 10 minutes. Then after that we went to play midnight bingo. The place was soooooooooo smoky. And speed bingo is so crazy. The person calls out numbers like a machine gun. I didn't even have time to check all my cards. I think I must missed like every other number he called. Plus the fact that I was a bit drunk already didn't help. Very fun though.

You know, I'm so happy I came to Louisville. Yeah, it sounds like all I do here is drink and gamble only. And I know quite a few of you think I'm becoming a drunkard. Which I'm NOT. I'm just trying to build up my tolerance. ;) But it's so fun here. My colleagues are sooooooooo nice and fun. The friends I met here are sooooooo nice and fun too! Sorry lah, my vocabulary for describing friends is a bit limited. So maybe there are not as many lengzhais here as LA, but who cares? You think I'm such a shallow person meh? I don't make friends with people just because they are lengzhai also. If I do, I won't be such good friends with Mr. Turtle liao loo. :P Hehe, just kidding yah.

There's a nice balance between having fun and studying here. Although recently it's tipping way over to "having fun". Die, I have to finish my 5th report by tomorrow and I haven't even started. Ah well, I'm going out in half an hour again! The university of Louisville has a Chinese Association and they have a Chinese New Year celebration tonight. Their performance schedule looks pretty impressive. The leaflet already looks super impressive. Oh and the food. I hope it's gooooooooooood. Guess I'll just have to stay up tonight to do my report.

I'm so happy I'm here!!! :D

M'sian Restaurant in Louisville

Can you believe it? There's a Malaysian restaurant in Louisville!!!

Called August Moon. Opened by a guy who was born in Ipoh. Apparently it's been here since 1987 (20 years.. whoa...). And has quite good reviews.

So today my friends and I went to try it out. I already read the menu on the website so I knew it wasn't very authentic before going. *sigh* My optimistic hopes about it being like the Penang restaurant in Chicago all gone.

For appetizers, we tried the chicken satay. It was........ HAIH....... I don't feel like saying. It was...... it was....... disappointing. :'( Was quite bland loh. We each took one skewer.. had one bite.. looked at each other with the it's-not-nice-but-I-want-to-be-polite kind of look.. and then all of us said.. "erm.. did they forget to put flavoring?" First round: failed.

I had "Malaysian style beef curry" for my entree. Mm.. definitely not like chicken curry, and definitely not like beef rendang. Speaking of which, I miss beef rendang! But too lazy to cook. So this "curry" hor, it was....... it was...... quite nice loh! :) Even though it's not very authentic lah, but for Asian food, it was pretty good. My friends' choices were pretty good too. 2nd round: passed passed passed!

Actually, I took photos of our food, but I haven't uploaded them from my phone. Why? Cause I'm lazy, and I don't really know how to upload stuff from my phone yet. Haven't done it enough times to remember. Speaking of which, I haven't put songs into my phone! All those free memory sitting idly in my phone unused. So wasted. But ahhh, too lazy.

Erm, I don't remember if I said this before, and too lazy to check my old posts, so I'll just say it again. We've designated Thursday as Dinner Night. My friends and I will go to a different restaurant every Thursday. We take turns choosing one restaurant. So far, we've had Korean barbecue, Cantonese, Greek, pan-Asian, American, and Malaysian!

It's quite fun. 2 of them are my colleagues, the other 3 I met through one of my colleagues. Sometimes they invite other people too (I don't bring anyone since I don't know many people in Louisville). A chance for us to keep up with one another. Plus time passes so fast here that Thursday seems to arrive in no time at all.

Wonder what we'll eat next week....

Winterfest 2007!

Last Saturday, our department had an event called Winterfest. Which is a fancy way of saying "annual new year dinner".

It was quite fun. Dressing up and meeting my colleagues' wives/ husbands/ girlfriends/ boyfriends after hearing about them for so long.

The food itself was okay, there was cheesecake! Although I think I've been pampered by very good tiramisu, so cheesecake doesn't have as much appeal anymore.

There's a Happy Hour coming up in two weeks! I think my department has tons of activities going on. One luncheon per month, potlucks every now and then, one happy hour per month, and then during summer there's softball, volleyball, soccer, scavenger hunts, farm outings...... I can't wait for summer already!

As promised, here are photos from Winterfest:

This is me, posing before leaving for Winterfest. Don't tell me you don't take photos of yourself when you are dressed up. :P I don't know why I'm holding the camera at that angle.



Sabrina and Jazz sit in the same "six-pack" (cubicle cluster) as I do. Baiyun is Jazz's guest. Sabrina's a reeeeeeeally nice person. She and I go grocery shopping together every Thursday. And we eat lunch together. Seriously, I don't know what I'd do without her in Louisville.



Jason and Alan also sit in my cluster. I didn't take a photo with the girl missing from our "six-pack" though. Shoulda. Rebecca is Dan's roommate. I work with Dan ALOT. Somehow we keep getting thrown into the same project teams. He's fun though. Jason and Alan keeps bullying him about giving me too much stuff to do. And I don't bother correcting them. Kekeke.



Okay, it's too much trouble making borders for all these photos. So that's it for show and tell. :P

An Encounter with Colonel Sanders

I met Colonel Sanders last Thursday! You know, the man behind (and in front of) every KFC.

Ok lah, not the real Colonel Sanders. I googled and found out that the real one passed away in 1980, even before I was born. So unless I can see ghosts...

But seriously ah, this guy looks EXACTLY like the KFC man.

See what I mean? (That drawing is a bit off-looking though.)

Hehe no lah, I didn't get a photo of him. Paiseh to ask. But the one I met looks just like the guy in the photo. Just a bit more friendly and grandfatherly looking. He was wearing the white suit, black bowtie, all white hair and beard and walking with a black cane! If I ever want to mimic someone famous, I'm going to go all out like that too.

I met him when I was walking around downtown towards the bus stop. He was strolling along, other people around him didn't even notice or care. I think I was the only 'suaku' around, stared a bit at first because I seriously wasn't expecting anything like this. I mean people have said sometimes we can see Muhammad Ali walking around downtown. But Colonel Sanders?

So far this is the closest I ever got to anything KFC-related in Kentucky. I've only seen one KFC restaurant since I got here. So enough with the jokes that the best thing to do in Louisville is eat KFC. Hmph.

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I think my vegetarian plan is not going as planned. But I don't care!

I've been eating quite a lot of good food recently. First went to a Chinese buffet with my colleague one day after grocery shopping. It's the typical Chinese buffet with quite a lot of seafood. They had prawn salad, which is one of my favorite ways of eating prawn I don't know why. Mmm.. and the cheese-covered mussels were pretty good too. I couldn't eat too much of it though because the cheese made me feel quite 'jelak'.

Then after that my colleague had a birthday party at her place. She and a few of her friends cooked. So good. The soup was especially nice. White carrot spare ribs soup. Mmmm.. just like the one my mum makes. I miss my mum's soups.

Friday we had a Thanksgiving potluck in the office. Everyone had to bring a dish. And since there's over 60 of us, you can imagine the amount of food we had. I don't normally fancy American food, but this was pretty good. Probably because my colleagues (or their wifes) are good cooks. I think dorm food is a bad way to introduce foreigners to American dishes.

This Sunday I had SiChuan food. Went with 2 friends I met at my colleague's birthday party. It was delicious. I wish it was spicier though, I was so afraid it was going to be super spicy but I ended up not having to drink water at all. But it was still good. Had a lot of leftovers too so I don't have to cook before Thanksgiving trip. :D

And today was the best of all. I had.......... Japanese food! Woohoo! And it was GOOD Japanese food too. Can fight with the restaurants in Chicago. I went out with one of the principals and 2 other colleagues. Actually I wasn't supposed to go, but one of them fell sick so I 'ganti'ed. Hehe so lucky for me.

The first dish was the best, called Fire Roll. They put the sushi on a small plate, which is placed on a bigger plate. Then they started a fire on the big plate, so the flames burn the sides of the small plate which crispifies the sides of the sushi. It was so pretty too, the flames were blue colored. I was going to take a photo with my new phone, but then realized I didn't bring my phone. Haih. What a waste. Next time I'm going back there to eat so I can take a photo. And also because it really is very very very very good loh.

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Lots of things happened since last Wednesday (which was the last time I blogged). Went for another happy hour. Watched Casino Royale. The movie is quite nice, I recommend it. I know Craig Owen doesn't look like the typical James Bond, but in the movie he was very good. Plus he has the bod too. Hehe.

Going to Saint Louis this Thursday for Thanksgiving break!

My Half-done Apartment

Ta dah!! Photos of my apartment!!

Actually I wasn't planning to post up photos of my apartment, since it's quite bare and u-g-l-y at the moment. But then, I promised someone I would and I'm not one to BACK OUT of a promise, unlike some people... hmph... if you say you'll call then you mighty well should right????

I digress. My apartment is pretty cosy (translate: not very big). It's a studio with some sort of walk-in closet that leads to the bathroom. The building was renovated a few years ago, so the apartment looks quite new, especially the kitchen! Almost all the other apartments I visited had pretty old-looking kitchens and bathrooms. Except for one which was simply gorgeous, floor-to-ceiling windows, huge living room & bedroom, and a balcony! But it was much more expensive and quite a bit further to walk. I think I wrote about this already, but never mind.

So here's my half-done apartment. The walls are completely bare now, except for my exercise workout poster. Hehe. Oh, and notice how everything is BROWN. So bland. Need to spice things up a bit, but why oh why does framed art cost so much? So frustrating.


The photo above was taken from the window corner. See my puppies? Hehe, I used to have 7 puppies on my bed, but I brought them home with me over summer and now I only have 2. So ironic right? When I had a small bed I had to squeeze with 7, now I have a big bed and only 2 puppies. The walk-in closet is at the far end (where the chair is), I have a study desk there as well but it's rarely used for studying. The bathroom is behind the wall with the workout poster. The kitchen is at the near right. You can't see it, but here it is:


Not very big hor? Told you it was a studio already mah. I want to get a potted plant to put in between the sink and stove. Apparently it's not good 'feng shui' to have the sink and stove next to each other. Something about water (sink) and fire (stove) clashing and bringing disharmony.

And here's my green bathroom! I love the bamboo shower curtain. Makes me feel like I'm outdoors, hehe.


Here's the view from my window. This is the south view though, had my apartment faced north, I would get a view of the Ohio river. I would have seen the fireworks during Thunder over Louisville without squeezing with the huge crowd near the river. :( Too bad there were only 2 options when I moved in, the other apartment was on the 3rd floor so it did not even have a view.

You can tell downtown Louisville doesn't have a lot of high rises. Plus the main chunk of them are to the north so I can't see them from my apartment anyway. It's quite pretty at night when the lights are up.

So my apartment quite bare hor? I want to buy sooooooo many things for my apartment, but then sometimes feel guilty because I'm supposed to be saving money. If I save now, then next time when I buy my own place I can get better furniture! But in the meantime, I'll be stuck with a not-so-pretty apartment. If I buy now, then maybe it won't fit my new place next time. Why is my world full of dilemmas???

My Life Part 2

I guess the previous blog didn't come out quite the way I wanted it to. When I wrote it, I didn't mean to say that I am bored here. No. It's just that on weekdays, I am so tired after work that all I want to do when I get home is slump on my couch and not do anything. By 9.30 I already feel like sleeping.

It's nice to live on my own. I can do whatever I want however I want whenever I want. Life is much slower-paced now compared to my university days. Sure I work 40 hours a week, but when I come home I'm done. There's no exams to study for, no assignments to complete, no papers to write. I don't have a 21-credit course load, no 20-hour-a-week internship, and no actuarial exams in the next 3 months. Now I can truly see how crazy that was.

When I get home, I have time to take care of myself. I can take my own sweet time to cook healthier meals, exercise (we'll see how long I can keep up the exercise part), and pamper myself with a nice long shower every night. I don't have to multitask. I don't have to rush. I don't have to stay up late to do something I don't like.

Yeah, I would like to know more people here. But that will come. I'm not worried. So you don't have to worry for me.

My 2nd week in Louisville

Arrrgh!!!! I did a stupid thing this evening coming back from work. Why did I do it? I hope it doesn’t come back to bite me. Why couldn’t I just say No? Why? Why? Why? DANG IT! EeeeeeeeeeeeSshhhhhhhHHhh!!!! GggggggggggggrrrrrrrrrrRRRRRRRrrrrrrr!!!!!

Ok now that I’ve got it out of my system… moving on to the happier stuff…

My first official weekend in Louisville was quite nice (last weekend doesn’t count because I had to spend 2 whole days setting up my apartment). I went to a Vietnamese grocery store on Saturday. There are quite a lot of Asian grocery stores here, apparently one of them sells Malaysian stuff too! :D But I don’t know how to get there and I don’t have a car, so… don’t know when I’ll go to that store. But at least now I know where to get Chinese stuff though, not stuck with eating lettuce, cabbage and broccoli only. Phew! Oh btw, I’m becoming a vegetarian again after a 3-year hiatus heehee. Lacto-ovo vegetarian to be exact. Meaning I’ll eat eggs and drink milk. But I’ll eat seafood about once a week lah, Mummy’s orders. I had lobster pasta on Sunday. :D

Sunday I went on a tour of Louisville, too. I had an unofficial ‘tour guide’. Hehe. It was more fun than I expected. Went to Bardstown Road, which has those tiny mom-and-pop shops on both sides of the road. Quite unique stuff. Then after that we went to Mall St. Matthews. I tell you, it was so difficult to walk inside loh. Every single shop was on sale!! And the mall had all the shops I like too!! I think I have internal injuries now. My heart was fighting with my head the whole time I was there. Let’s go shopping! No, save money! You need that nice bag! No, you won’t use it! Luckily, my credit card came out unswiped.

Then, after that we went to the Waterfront Park right next to the Ohio River. I’m still waiting for the photos though. I’ll write about this next time so that I can post the photos together.

Last Friday/Saturday (I don’t remember when liao) was the Mid-Autumn Festival. (Digressing a bit here: why is it called the Midautumn festival ah? It’s not the middle of Autumn also. I think Autumn starts around September 26, so if it’s true, that means we have only one month plus worth’s of Autumn only!!! Which is so not true.) My colleague gave me a mooncake. Soooooooooo nice. Her friend brought it over from Chicago, so it’s not the cheapo yucky kind of mooncake. It is quite delicious loh, shuang1 huang2 (double eggyolk) some more. Yum yum. Still have half left. I don’t have that much appetite nowadays.

Louisville is pretty nice. I’ve only been here 2 weeks so I can’t say I know the place well yet. But so far I like it a lot. The people here are very friendly (I feel so unfriendly compared to them sometimes, cause I don’t know what to say). Of course there are some very weird people too. Some are nice but weird. Some are just plain weird. And it seems like there are quite a lot of events going on during the weekends too. I’m hoping some band I like will come here to hold a concert. I know Matchbox 20 came last year and Nickelback came here 2 years ago. So am hoping. But I doubt Wang Lee Hom will come here loh. *sigh*

Oh and you know what I found out. According to a report by some online journal whose name and link I completely forgot liao, Louisville is the NUMBER ONE place for families to relocate! Ok lah, I know it says for families. But then if it’s good for families, it shouldn’t be that bad for young adults guaaaaaaaa. At least should be safe right? And families doesn’t mean ‘with small kids’ only right? Should include those with young adult children right right?

Also, according to another report by another online journal whose name and link I also completely forgot liao, Nashville is the NUMBER ONE place for relocating singles!! Hmm… Atlanta, Austin, New York and Houston are in the top 5 too. Am thinking about going to Atlanta October next year when I come back from Canada. But it’s such a pain to keep moving some place where I don’t know anyone. Maybe I’ll just come back to Louisville. I like the city. We’ll see what happens next year.

Okay, going to start on my FAP modules now. Haven’t been studying since I took the exam in May. 5-month break! I haven’t had such a long break since that 9-month holiday right before I came to the States. Ah, I miss my holiday.

Short Update

It's my 2nd day at work! Hmm, quite a lot of things happened since I last wrote, but I haven't got time now to write. Don't wanna use 'company resources' for 'excessive personal use', though how they quantify excessive is beyond me. Still waiting for the broadband company to set up my internet this Saturday. Then I can log on to MSN Messenger!! Hmm, haven't gone this long without signing in before.

Anyway, will write more when I get internet access in my apartment. Off to the library to get some movies and maybe a couple of books. I just watched Pride and Prejudice again last night. Yes, I know I just watched it only, but it's very nice mah. And I didn't have anything else to watch besides Aladdin. Haha, guess who sent me that? Should have kept World Without Thieves and deleted Aladdin. Higher repeat value. Darn. So now I want to read the book again. I think I've read it a few times but can't really remember the story liao. Sense and Sensibility I totally cannot recall. Maybe I'll get both. Hope they will give me a library card!

I'm here!

It took me nearly 30 hours and 2 stopovers, but I've finally arrived at Louisville, Kentucky!!!

The trip went well. I slept through the entire flight from KL to Seoul because it started at 1 am. The flight from Seoul to Atlanta was soooo long, good thing noone sat next to me so I could stretch out. There was a Korean guy sitting 2 seats away. He was real helpful, picked the better meal choices for me. The Korean food was quite good! Flying from Atlanta to Louisville was awful though. The plane wasn't that small, but it felt sooooo cramped. The worst hour of my whole trip.

I got to my hotel late evening yesterday. This morning I went apartment hunting! A lady from Apartment Locator Services came to pick me up. She is sooooooooooooo helpful! She did almost everything for me, find out what apartments are available, what features are available in each, set up appointments with all of them, drive me to every single one, ask questions that I forgot to ask, and so patient!! What's more, the service is FREE!! Unbelievable huh? I'm going to recommend them to anyone who's coming to Louisville, i.e. noone.

So we went to 4 apartment buildings. I didn't really know how to check them out actually, and once I got there, I forgot half the things I wanted to ask. Went well though, covered all the basic stuff (I think :P) and I applied for the last one. I just got a call back from the apartment manager half an hour ago and it's been approved!!! Woohoo!! Going back there tomorrow to sign the lease and pick up my keys.

The studio apartment is not very big, about 400 plus square feet. But it's so close to work and everything else! I'm going to walk to work everyday, it's only 2-3 blocks away. :D And it has the nicest kitchen and bathroom among the 4. All utilities paid, too. Love it! Nice and cosy. Don't need to buy so much furniture too hehe. My friend keeps telling me that I only need a bed, but a bare apartment is just depressing to me.

Tomorrow I'm going furniture hunting. Hope that goes as well as today's hunt! Took me 4 hours to get an apartment. :D Got done around 1.30 pm. Exhausting though. It's only 5.30 pm now but I'm going to sleep. Jet lag sucks. I woke up at 3 am today and couldn't go back to sleep. And I only got 6 hours of sleep. Wonder how long it's going to take to fix my clock. Ugh!

It's Official!

Finally confirmed. I'm flying to Louisville on 26th September! Work starts on 2nd October, which means I have about 5 days to...

• look for an apartment
• furnish my apartment
• open bank account
• figure out how to get to work
• find out how to get to Wal-mart & Target
• etc...........

This is crazy, but I'm so excited!!!!! My first apartment, to be decorated however I want! Or rather however my bank account wants. So fun so fun, too bad there's no IKEA nearby though. I was planning to get most of my stuff from IKEA since it's cheap and nice. But the closest one is around Chicago and shipping costs a bomb. We'll see what happens. Worse comes to worse, I'll rent furniture. I found a furniture rental company that has pretty nice-looking stuff. Of course, it costs a bomb, too.

I have exactly 3 more weeks in Malaysia. *sigh* It will be a 4-month long holiday, which is 2 months longer than I originally expected, but still... I wouldn't mind having more. It's sooooooooo nice to stay at home. People keep asking me what I do at home, well...

I wake up around 10.30 am, check my e-mail and IM some friends. Sometimes I teach tuition when my mum's busy, or cook dinner, or do housework when I'm feeling guilty for being lazy. I'm finishing up my craft projects from 3 years ago (more on this later) and still have one more left. Play lots of computer games, influencing my sis who's sitting for UPSR now, one of my mum's tuition kids and my bro along the way. Occasionally surf online to check out apartments in Louisville. At night watch Korean drama or whatever my family's watching. Sometimes I go out with my mum on errands.

So you see, nothing exciting. I rarely go out during weekdays since most of my friends are working already and I live too far away for last minute mamak calls at night. Surprisingly there are a lot of things to do at home or with my family. Weekends I go to Taman Tun and that's a different story and I don't want to tell. :P

My holiday may not be exciting, but I'm loving every minute of it. I won't get another one like this for a long long time.

Pilot Entry

This marks the first sentence in the first entry of my not-so-first blog. :D

I'm moving to Louisville, Kentucky soon. All alone. *sigh* Actually, it's kinda exciting to start fresh, because IF I manage to kick my bad habits, noone in the land of Fried Chicken will know I even had them in the first place. Muahahahaha. But then again... who is going to watch movies with me? Who is going to makan dinner with me? And most importantly, who is going to PLAY MAHJONG with me????

The big plan is, I'll write down my life working abroad in this journal. And I mean every single detail. I don't care how boring or mundane some entries may be. Because someday 10 years from now, I'll be glad that I have something to keep these memories alive.

I realize that I have virtually no pictures from my Freshman year in Grinnell. So sad. Those were fun times, watching movies with my roommate and next-door neighbor, hanging out with the international students (mostly Indian economics majors for some unknown reason) and having deep thoughtful conversations. No pictures as reminders, though. :( Good thing I took more photos at Drake.

So from now on, I will take as many photos as I can!! Hopefully my photography skills can improve also, but knowing myself, that is quite unlikely. It's about time I start using my camera too, before it becomes obsolete. :S

Btw, if I don't update this blog once every few days, please call / message / VISIT me. I might have died from loneliness. Or boredom.