Turtle Channel!!!

The Princess- Dress

The would-be Princess

Pretty in Pink

Are you talking to me?

Cream-coloured boots that we fell for

Since we were already there, we decided to stay until midnight to watch the fireworks (it was already 11.15pm by the time we got in, and 11.45 pm by the time we bought the boots). It turned out to be an absolutely spectacular 10 minute display of fireworks. It was fantastic. Marilyn said she felt like she was in a dream. Indeed we were wishing we got a hotel room nearby (where Marilyn's dad could get a 70% discount) so that we could be closer to the view without having to face the crowds!

After the fireworks ended, they played the liberty song, and everyone was singing and shouting accordingly! The atmosphere was so pumped up and happy that I began to feel warm all over and so very proud of my country! It's Independence Day! It's our National Day! 50 years of Independence and the chants and songs really made me feel so very connected with my fellow countrymen.

At about 12.30am, we walked into Ikea and did some more shopping. Marilyn bought a soft and fluffy baby blue throw for her sofa. Then we walked out to the stalls that were set up alfresco just outside the mall. There, I almost bought a kimono. Marilyn loved it too! Too bad they didn't accept credit cards. Anyway, we may go to Time Square (where their shop is located) to buy the kimono in future, probably during Christmas or something. We can always take a train there to avoid having to drive through traffic. We shall see.

Japanese Doll Wannabe

Red-Faced Chinese Girls

1. buck teeth
2. awful hair
3. pimply
4. huge specs
5. bad posture
6. extremely skinny
7. pitifully undersized
8. socially impaired or disabled
9. giggles non-stop
10. talks very loudly and with false enthusiasm
11. tends to talk about themselves
12. asks strange questions about you
13. stares at you unflinchingly for long periods of time
14. has Grandma buying his clothes for him (i.e. clothes that even Mom won't buy)

I have just recently attracted another weird guy (my 5th one so far), who happens to know I am married but still doesn't seem to back off.

He waltzed into my office one day, happily telling me that he read about me in a magazine and wanted to introduce himself. He did. Then he started talking about his father, his life, his studies etc etc. All while I am busy doing work. Worst of all, he has really BAD body odour. I had to stop breathing to keep from choking to death.

He refused to leave my office. He sat down in one of the chairs and proceeded to stare at me when he ran out of things to say. After about 20 minutes of awkward silence interspaced with bad conversation about his life, I decided to tell him I was busy. He went "Oh, what are you busy with?" After hearing my reply, he proceeded to tell me everything he is busy with too. In the end, I had to MSN my colleague to come to my office and invite me for a meeting so that I had an excuse to kick him out.

My office smelled like a dead rat for 2 days. Everyone who entered my office complained about the stench. Arrgghh...

This weird guy kept visiting my office. Every time he pays me an unwanted visit, he would talk about something happy in his life and several times punched the air with his hands in a victory dance over some happy incidences in his life (e.g. an accepted conference paper, a holiday, an accepted journal paper etc etc). It's just so weird. He even tries to get me to talk about my spouse sometimes. I never facillitate him, because I don't like talking about personal stuff when at the office. Sometimes I wonder if the reason he keeps coming to me is because he has no friends.

We moved to a new office a couple of months ago. My new office is right next to my spouse's office. So now he visits me a lot less (GREAT!!)

Anyway 2 days ago, I went for a seminar with my female colleague and there he was sitting 4 rows in front of us. This weird guy kept turning around and STARING. My female colleague got freaked out. After about 20 minutes of periodically whipping his head around and staring for 3-4 minutes (i wonder why he didn't get a neck lash), he got up from his seat and moved to the seat in front of me.

I freaked out. I left immediately. My female colleague later told me that another colleague of ours asked her where I went, and the weird guy appeared to be eaves-dropping. She told him VERY LOUDLY that I went to call my Husband. Hahahaha.....

Thank God for friends like her!

Sometimes I swear I have a sign on my forehead that says "I am attracted to you" that happens to be only visible to geeks and freaks.

Lost in a sea of blue skies
Lie in the grass
That grows wild beneath my thighs
I guess it's summer time.

Winter had passed
As did the lies and truth,
I'm frozen inside
Yet seasons still renew
Perhaps the sun will shine through.

Let it fill my heart with its warmth
Let it feed my soul that I had scattered so long ago.
I'll fly away
Lost in a dream.
Help me redeem.

Lost in a maze of vanity
Seeking the pleasures
That never quenches my thirst
I thirst for more each time.

I heard a voice, so distant yet so clear.
It repeated the words
That I just refused to hear
A stubborn mind...
A deaf ear.

And yet is beckons me, here and now.
And it fills my soul that I had scattered so long ago.
I've lost myself
Chasing dreams.
Chasing in vain.

I wonder why my feet headed home.
It's been far too long
Yet somehow that's where I long to go
I've searched far and wide, yet it's here
All that I need,
Here in this sun
And in this rain
I live again.

Lost in a sea of blue skies,
Lie in the grass
That grows wild beneath my thighs.
Yes, it's summer time.

We have been quite broke recently, so we aven't actually gone out to eat a nice meal in ages. Actually since we have gotten married, we haven't gone out as a couple to a restaurant to have a nice meal.

Today, we decided to cook a nice lunch. I really missed Italian food, so it's pretty nice to have a good spagetti for lunch. We bought a nice honey mustard cream sauce from Australia, and decided to use it. We had mushrooms, mince meat, chicken ham and garlic mixed with the sauce. I also added cheese, white and black pepper to spice it up. Then we washed some fresh organic lettuce to partake with our lunch.

After some nice decoration on the plate, it looks like a restaurant level dish. I enjoyed it immensely, probably because I cooked it :)

What do you think? Does it look nice?

On Monday evening I finally met up with Radhika after so many months. She's now studying in the United States, so she didn't attend my wedding (sniff sniff). Anyway, since she came back for the holidays, it's been one problem after another for her :(

It's lucky she has John to support her, I guess :D And he's a pretty nice guy too. Anyway here's a pic of us together:

United again

Marilyn was also shopping with me, and we bought new nail polish! We also went window shopping, which includes trying on expensive jewellery and irritating the salesmen by trying everything on and buying nothing!!! We also tried on some nice clothes and took some pictures with them. I fell in love with this which coat...too bad it was too expensive for me :(

Snow White?

Marilyn tried on a sexy black number, which really showed off her best assets! I tried another black number, but it looked more like lingerie than a black dress! I have something that looks similar to it, but way cheaper. This black dress costs an arm and a leg!!

Sexy Black Dress - Model: Marilyn

Lingerie-lookalike

-Taken from Asia Sentinel-
by Darah Kacukan
Malaysia’s Malay leaders say ‘do as I say, not do as I do’ when it comes to marriage

In early June, the Malaysian media blossomed with pictures of Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi in the traditional Malay suap-menyuap ceremony, exchanging bites of colored glutinous rice with his new bride.

This low-key but high-profile wedding followed another elite ceremony in May when one of Malaysia’s most eligible bachelors, the Raja Muda (crown prince) of Perak, Dr Raja Nazrin Shah, finally got hitched at the age of 50 in an unostentatious ceremony in Kuala Kangsar.

But these two weddings had something else in common, a characteristic not much commented on in the media but clear to most Malaysians: in both cases the brides were locally-born Eurasians. The prime minister’s new wife is Jeanne Abdullah, a friend and relative of Abdullah Badawi’s late wife, Endon, who died of complications from breast cancer in October 2005. Jeanne had originally been Jean Danker, a Catholic from a Eurasian family which spans Malaysia and Singapore and who converted to Islam when she married her first husband, Endon’s brother Othman, from whom she was later divorced.

The bride of Oxford and Harvard-educated Raja Nazrin, son of the current Perak Sultan, who himself was formerly Malaysia’s top law official, is Zara Salim Davidson, a chemical engineer and the daughter of William Davidson, a British-born Ipoh lawyer and his Malay wife. She herself is a member of the Kedah royal house and thus related to Malaysia’s first prime minister, Tunku Abdul Rahman. Raja Nazrin has repeatedly spoken out against racism in Malaysia. Zara considers herself to be very much a Malay despite her Eurasian blood.

These weddings thus represent what should be one of the triumphs of Malaysia its ability to break down racial and religious barriers and subsume them into a broader Malaysian identity. Unfortunately the elite all too often fails to preach what it actually practices. It is a one-way street. Marry a Malay and you will become a Malay. You will also become a Muslim and, the courts say, you will stay that way.

The good-natured Abdullah Badawi clearly has no problem with the mixed racial ancestry of his bride, or with the fact that she was baptised a Christian. Yet he heads a ruling party which is not merely race-based but at times makes a fetish of Malay racial purity. And he heads a government that supports the recent court decision refusing to allow a Muslim to become a Christian, an act of supposed apostasy. But in the eyes of some Christian fundamentalists, the gentle Jeanne is also an apostate for having forsaken Christianity.

Malays are not the only ones with identity problems. Scratch many a Malaysian Chinese and one may also find a strain of Chinese chauvinism, as is often the case in Singapore. But in Malaysia it is the Malay elite which sets the tone. This is why many believe that a more open recognition of the sheer diversity of Malaysians’ origins would help offset the divisions caused by race-based politics that identifies religion with race.

Just a brief look at the origins of many members of the elite gives the lie to ethnic purity and religious dogmatism. There is Mahathir Mohamad, Malaysia’s longest-serving prime minister. His father was a Muslim Malayali from Kerala in south India who migrated to Malaysia and took a Malay bride. Mahathir himself was classified as an Indian when at university in Singapore.

But instead of celebrating the upward mobility that Malaysia offered to this migrant from India, the politics of the United Malays National Organisation required Mahathir to bury his ethnic past and wear his acquired Malay identity on his sleeve. In reality Mahathir welcomes racial mingling. His son Mirzan married into the family of Indonesian Chinese tycoon Liem Sioe Liong, and daughter Marina’s first husband was European.

The current head of the UMNO youth, Hishamuddin Hussein, who waved a kris (Malay dagger) at last year’s national UMNO convention and offered to bathe it in Chinese blood to the ominous cheers of the audience, is another whose Malay roots are not as deep as often assumed. His grandfather, the founder of UMNO, Onn Jaafar, appeared to be a Caucasian, which was not surprising given that his Johor-based family was of Turkish origin. Onn was ejected from the party he founded because he wanted to make it multi-racial and though his son went on to become the head of UMNO and a prime minister, he carried with him his father’s inclusive and moderate instincts.

Onn lost out politically to Malaysia’ s first Prime Minister, Tunku Abdul Rahman. Although the Tunku placed more emphasis on Malay identity, he was certainly no exclusivist. Indeed, he had been born a subject of the King of Siam and as a scion of the royal house of Kedah spent some of his early years in Bangkok at the court of his then sovereign. His mother was Siamese, though her family originally was from Pegu (Burma). Of his four wives, one was Thai Chinese, one English, one Malay and one Malaysian-Chinese. He never hid his fondness for whisky, even while heading the Organization of Islamic Conference, or his student days in England pre-occupied, as he once put it, with “fast women, fast cars and not-so-fast horses.”

The Malay aristocracy has anyway been quite catholic in its choice of brides. Those in mixed marriagesinclude Ahmad Shah, the Sultan of Pahang, whose consort is of Pakistani lineage. The Sultan of Selangor’s divorced second consort and mother of his heir apparent was an American citizen.

Sultan Iskandar of Johor’s first wife, the mother of his heir apparent, was a British woman, Josephine Trevorrow. In this respect Sultan Iskandar took after his own grandfather, Sultan Ibrahim, who had two European wives, one British, one Romanian.

Maybe it is Johor’s geography, its proximity to Singapore and the diversity of Indonesia, but its politicians seem to thrive on marrying outsiders. Former Deputy Prime Minister Musa Hitam’s first wife was from (Catholic) Latin America and his second was of mixed ancestry . Another Johor politician, Tun Ismail, deputy prime minister in the early 1970s, was of part Chinese ancestry.

Conversions of convenience to Islam often mean that Malay mixtures leave little trace compared with other cross-ethnic marriages. But the non-Malay, but Muslim, origins of many of the elite are found everywhere, from South Asia, Yemen, Egypt, Turkey and other countries. They include the likes of Zeti Aziz, the governor of Bank Negara. She is the daughter of Ungku Aziz, the European-looking former University of Malaya vice-chancellor, whose Johor-based family came from Turkey.

Chinese roots are also more real than apparent, often hidden by conversions. But relatively recent high-profile marriages to Chinese include Tengku Razaleigh, former finance minister and a member of the Kelantan royal house who married a long-time Chinese friend who converted and changed her name to Noor Abdullah. Rashid Hussein, the prominent Singapore-born, Anglophile financier whose father was Indian and mother Malay married Sue Kuok, a daughter of tycoon Robert Kuok Hock Nian, the Malaysian-born but now Hong Kong-based tycoon. Kuok’s first wife and mother of some of his children was Eurasian but he later married a Chinese and emphasized his Chinese ethnic identity. In a recent book, “Asian Godfathers” Kuok was described by an in-law as “the biggest racial bigot I have ever met.”

Among the non-Malay groups, inter-ethnic marriages are generally much more common than among Malays. However it also seems the case that migration is the preferred option for the numbers of Malaysians who either marry across ethnic lines or acquire foreign spouses while studying or working abroad. This particularly applies to Malay women who are either not particularly religious or who see no reason why their spouses should convert.

By one estimate, there are some 150,000 mixed marriages in Malaysia, a number that seems impossibly small in a population of 24 million. The leafy, winding streets of Damansara Heights and Kenny Hills abound with matrons who entered into marriage and lives of leisure with well-to-do Malays straight out of the universities of England, where the government had sent their mates. It is forbidden for a Muslim to marry a non-Muslim, so these women, with their servants and their huge homes, stop being Jean and become Jehan in public, although seldom in private.

But while the list of Malay elites is long and rich with instances of intermarriage, at the lower economic levels the list is short, and increasingly circumscribed by the growing power of Malaysia’s shariah, or Islamic religious courts. The issue was brought to the fore in the case of Lina Joy, who changed her name from Azlina Jailani and became a Catholic in an effort to marry a non-Muslim.

With scores, perhaps hundreds, of outraged Muslims outside the courtroom, demanding that she be denied the chance to change her religion on her identity card, a high court ruled in May that she was subject to the jurisdiction of the shariah court. The shariah courts have allowed one conversion in history – for a woman who had been dead for decades.

The result is that either people do not marry, or they emigrate. Bright women who have preferred to marry foreigners found their husbands denied work permits. There are believed to be thousands living in Australia, Canada or the United Kingdom.

For Malaysia’s young to take their cues from Malaysia’s top politicians and the cream of society outside of official policy might not be a bad idea. Shamsul Amri Baharuddin, the Director of the Institute of the Malay World Civilisation (ATMA) and Professor at University Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM) in Bangi – and himself married to an Australian, says Abdullah Badawi’s marriage to Jean Danker Abdullah is “not a catalyst but certainly symbolic.”

Marina Mahathir told Asia Sentinel that “If people think that marrying into another culture is enriching, then it will be a good thing. But some people make one person give up their own culture because they think of it as inferior.”

But so long as the elite indulges in kris-waving while marrying as it pleases, multiracial nation-building may have scant grass roots impact.

When I came back from my trip to Warsaw, Poland.

Friend: Oh, where is Warsaw? is it near Saudi Arabia?

Me: No, it's in Poland.

Friend: Oh. Poland. Did you see any Polar bears?

Me: Erm...



When I came back from Ottawa, Canada

Friend: Where is Ottawa?

Me: In Canada. It's the capital, actually.

Friend: Oh, you're wrong. The capital of Canada is Toronto.

Me: Actually, it's Ottawa, although most people are more familiar with Toronto. I visited the Parliament when I was there.

Friend: That must have been the American Parliament, because the Canadian Parliament is in Toronto.

Me: Erm...



When I came back from Seoul, Korea

Friend: So did you speak much Chinese when you were there?

Me: No, I went to Korea.

Friend: Oh. I thought you spoke Mandarin and Cantonese (Chinese dialects)

Me: I do, but I went to Korea and they don't speak Chinese.

Friend: Yes they do. It's not like you went to Japan or anything.

Me: Erm...


When I came back from Guilin, China

Friend: Where is Guilin

Me: China. It's really beautiful, you should visit there someday

Friend: Guilin? I have never heard of it. Is it near Shanghai?

Me: No, quite far actually.

Friend: So, did you see any Samurais there?

Me: Samurais??? Why would I see Samurais in Guilin?

Friend: Isn't it a remote area in China?

Me: Erm...sort of untouched. But ermm....Samurais are from the last few centuries ago. From Japan.

Friend: Really? But I just saw them on TV the other day.

Me: Erm...

A young lady, Anna, walked by a Chanel store. She peered into the window and recognized their classic bag. ‘It is gorgeous’, Anna thought, ‘and I must have it. I will look good in it. A bag like that will make me stand out in my group of friends’. She worked hard for a whole month. She ate nothing but bread and drank nothing but water to save for that bag. Within a month, she had enough savings to buy it. And so she did.

The bag was fantastic. Anna took it everywhere. And then a month later in the restroom of a popular restaurant, she overheard two friends talking.

“Anna has been carrying the same bag everyday for a month. She thinks she is so classy, but she uses a Chanel bag with a pair of cheap shoes!” Said Friend 1.

“Hahaha, oh yeah. And those awful clothes I know she got from the cheap shop downtown. I know where she shops. And can you believe she is using a Swatch watch with a Chanel bag!!! Who is she kidding???” Said Friend 2.

Both friends snickered while double checking their makeup. Assuring themselves that they looked flawless, they washed their hands and left the restroom. Anna had not moved from the toilet cubicle she was in. She was completely shocked. The bag did not make her look classy at all. Instead, it showed all her fashion flaws and people were laughing at her! She quickly wiped her tears left the restaurant without another word to anyone. She would later claim to had received an emergency phone call from home and had to rush off.

She spent the next two months looking for higher paying jobs, a wealthier boyfriend and better makeup. She borrowed money from her parents, sisters and friends to buy Gucci and Prada shoes, Fendi and Vuitton bags, and clothes from Emilio Pucci, Giorgio Armani and classic Chanel suits. She started reading Vogue diligently and followed the fashion advice.

Within a year, Anna was a different girl. She had a fabulous new wardrobe, was the best dressed girl in her group. Many other women looked up to her for fashion advice. She had beautiful handbags, shoes and clothes. But Anna was no longer satisfied for long. She used to be happy for months after a new purchase, yet now a new Chanel bag could only make her happy for a week. Then she was out shopping for a new Vuitton to add to her collection. She could not walk out with last season’s clothes. She had an image to maintain. She also needed to add jewels to her collection. Diamond rings, at least half a carat, necklaces and bracelets. Her watch must not be anything less than a gold Rolex. And she cannot be always wearing the same watch! She also needed earrings, a BMW, and a larger house. She needed to marry someone who could afford to buy a big apartment on a posh part of town with a prestigious address. She only ate in highly established restaurants and drank only Dom Pérignon champagne.

Anna. Oh, Anna.

The saddest irony of life is that when stranded in the middle of the ocean on a raft, you will probably die of thirst. If you drink from the waters, the salt content will make you so dehydrated, that you will need to drink more water. Drinking more sea water will dehydrate you even more, and so the process continues until you die. Of Dehydration. Of Thirst. While surrounded by an ocean of water.

Everyday, another one of us will start drinking the sea water, end up drinking more and more, never to quench our thirst and never realising that if only we stopped drinking that water, we would be less thirsty. What a pity to be surrounded by ample water, but remain constantly thirsty.

"Whoever drinks of this water will thirst again, but whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will never thirst."

Anna's mother had a difficult time taking care of her when she was a baby. Every time she was breastfed, Anna would cry and cry non stop for hours. Eventually, her mother temporarily stopped breastfeeding Anna and fed her milk powder formulated for babies instead. The crying did not stop. Worse of all, Anna had refused to drink any milk after 8 weeks. Confused and panicked, her parents rushed her to the hospital. Anna was a very tiny baby, much smaller than her peers at 8 weeks, and had not grown since she left the hospital.

The diagnosis was in within the week. Anna was lactose-intolerant. In fact, she was almost 99% intolerant, making it very difficult for her body to digest even very small amounts of milk. She would get nauseated, bloated, an upset and painful tummy, and occasionally get feverish. The doctors quickly put her on a special diet, and she was immediately better. The best thing was Anna began to grow.

Years later, when Anna was an adult, she would still have to take care of her food intake. She could not eat chocolates and drank soya milk to substitute for fresh milk. Even butter would send her to the toilet for hours. It became necessary for her to tell her friends about her condition so that when they invited her for parties, weddings or dinners, they would know to prepare a special meal for her or at least tell her in advance what the menu would be so that she could bring her own food.

When Anna got married, she made sure her husband, Dan, and his entire family knew she was lactose intolerant. Their wedding menu was designed to cater to her condition.

Two months after her wedding, her new mother-in-law, Joyce, invited Dan and Anna to a home-cooked dinner. Dan's entire family would be there and it was a casual get together in Joyce's house. Anna reminded Joyce about her condition and asked if she should bring a special meal for herself. Joyce told her it was not necessary.

So the happy newlyweds went to Joyce's house for dinner two weeks later, only to find that the main course was a French dish that was cream-based. Anna told Joyce that she couldn't eat it, and Joyce got very upset. Joyce had spent 2 weeks preparing the menu and the whole day cooking dinner to make it enjoyable for the family. She could not believe the newest member into her family would not eat her specially prepared dinner, which was hard work, and very expensive to prepare.

She told Anna that she put half the amount of cream that was required to cater to Anna's needs. It was half the amount, and Anna should be fine eating it.

Anna explained that it doesn't matter if it is half the amount or full amount. If it has lactose, she would not be able to eat it. She couldn't even eat trace amounts of butter without getting nauseated. Half the amount of cream would still send her to the toilet for the rest of the night!

Joyce was incredibly upset. She had specially prepared dinner, bought such expensive ingredients and even modified the amount of cream just to please her new daughter-in-law who was now telling her that she wasn't going to partake in dinner.

Anna was dumbfounded that her new mother-in-law was angry that she was born lactose-intolerant.

Joyce decided to compromise and told Anna to eat just a little bit, since it would be just a very small amount. Anna said no, and it really upsetted her. Here she was, slaving over the menu and preparing dinner for her new daughter-in-law who was so ungrateful and unappreciative. She couldn't believe how Dan could marry such a woman.

Anna was still dumbfounded and very annoyed that her mother-in-law was so clueless and was forcing her to eat something that would make her sick. She couldn't believe that someone would be so unreasonable as to get upset over a medical condition that Anna had no control over.

Dinner was awkward and stiff, and was not a good start to a new family.

Neither were really wrong, yet neither were really right. Such is the pity of life.