The Single File Part III: You and Me

    I have wanted to write these down but I don’t know what seems to be holding me back from writing it. U see, I have always wanted to list down the traits that I am looking for in a man so that when he comes knocking, I would know that it is him. Pretty much from all my previous failed relationships, I know what I am looking for and what I don’t need.

1. Responsible
I cannot stress enough on how important this is. This is how u can judge his personal character. Any girl would feel safe with a guy she knows is responsible because he is the kind of guy u can rely on

2. Culinarily adventurous
I always say that I think with my stomach. When I am hungry I just can’t think properly. I like to eat and I like to try something new. It’s always nice if u goes out with someone and he could suggest we dine out somewhere I haven’t tried. It’s like an adventure and I do like to feel exhilarated

3. Funny
Chicks dig funny guys. Who doesn’t want to be with someone who can make them laugh and happy? But watch out. Make too many jokes and I am going to think u r not serious. There are times u can be funny, there are times u need to be serious

4. Can talk
What do I mean by can talk? Well, obviously someone who knows how to have conversation. I can be quite sometimes and I can be chatty sometimes. When I am quite, I need the guy to be able to start an interesting conversation and when I am chatty, that probably means I am in a good mood and I just want the guy to listen and respond accordingly

5. Treats me like a princess
This is a newly acquired trait I am looking for. Long gone are the days where I would make everything easy for the guy. Why shouldn’t I be treated like how I deserve to? I am not asking to be showered with materialistic stuff (although I wouldn’t say no to it), I just want to feel like I am getting all the love and attention I deserve. Think of it like an investment. If u treat me nice, I’ll treat u even nicer

6. Strong
Not strong as is physically, strong as in being able to handle me. I am opinionated and I can be stubborn sometimes. And I do like to win an argument. So what are u gonna do?

7. Emotionally matured
I have been in a relationship where the guy was not emotionally matured and let me tell u, it was torture and suffocating. I need my guy to be stable and leave all the emotional stuff to me ok?

8. Passion
There is something sexy about a guy who is passionate about the things that he loves. He could be passionate about his work, his life, his hobby, anything. You know this is the kind of guy who is not going to bore u. Although I have to say that I do feel slightly jealous about a guy who is passionate about cars. It’s like the guy gives more attention to cars than me. But as someone did point out to me, better a car than another woman. Point taken

9. Loves me any other way
Any talking breathing girl can relate to this. They would fear a guy only loves them for how they look on the outside but not who they are on the inside. Love me even if I am beautiful or not and most importantly accept my flaws for I am not perfect

10. A dash of romantic
I don’t know if I am asking too much by this but any relationship could use a dash of romanticism

    These are the traits that I look for in a man. As for physical traits, I am not choosy. As long as the guy is not bad to look at and at least as tall as I am, I am ok. I have decided that the next time I get involved in a relationship, it would be for the last time which means he would be the guy I will get married to which means he has to be financially secure and stable. I am not in any hurry to throw myself into any relationship and I am going to select carefully. There is another trait that I look for in a man, the most important one. The one which trumps all the traits above. But I am not going to write it here. Nanti ada pulak yang perasan….

Things That Matter

    My family’s Raya celebration was fantastic this year. Why? Because we get to celebrate it at our kampung obviously. All my siblings were there, I had fun with my nieces, my nephew and everybody else. When we first got there, there was no running water available. The funny thing is, this kind of thing happen almost every year when it is time for Raya celebrations. My aunt said it’s because there were not enough water when everyone balik kampung so they had to divert the water from our village to different areas. Don’t know if that’s true. But thankfully a lorry carrying tank water passed by so we managed to get our supply of water to do some cooking for break fasting and later that nite the water was back on running.



    This year is the first time I bought myself baju raya. I only managed to buy one(not counting my other baju raya which was given to me by my mother). Didn’t have enough time. Mayb next year I can shop a little earlier. It was also the first time I bought a baju melayu for my dad. Thankfully with a little help from the shopkeeper I managed to find the perfect size for my dad. This year was also the first time that the ketupat and nasi himpit that we cooked was not cooked properly(jadi keras!). I think the problem was nobody was giving them a stir. I didn’t have time to look after them as I was looking after the rendang and doing other things. I only had a couple bite of the rendang since I know I can’t eat too much of it.

    I have been late to work everyday this week. The traffic jam has been awful lately. Why is that? Especially near the Sg Besi toll. Is it because of the decrease of the oil prices or simply because they have moved the reload counter for touch n go? Beats me. And the traffic does not seem to subside even if I leave a little later to work. I have a feeling that I should leave for work earlier but currently I am having a hard time getting up a little earlier than 6.30 am. And I also can’t park at the area where I used to park. Those MBPJ officers seems to have a knack of giving out summonses for cars parked in that area so I had to park a little farther away.

                      

    There are things that u know u shouldn’t do but u do it anyway. For example, I just bought a bag that costs RM172. Is it worth it? Yes cause I like it very much. Do I feel guilty about it?. Yeah…I do. But just to justify it, I told myself that it is the birthday present I bought for myself. And how do I justify spending RM97 at the MPH warehose sale? Simple. Remember early this year, one of my resolution was to read at least one book every month? Well, the books I bought count for all the books I didn’t buy for the past months so now they are cheap I just buy them at one go. OK, now I will try not to splurge so much in the coming months and perhaps I could save some more money. Perhaps…

In Celebration Mood....

    The end of Ramadan is almost here. Surprisingly I have been able to wake up for sahur for most of the day. Usually it's hard for me to wake up because it interrupts with my sleeping pattern. Must have been because I had to get up early to get to work nowadays. By the way, I found that if I leave for work a little later, I can easily get to the office in 45 minutes instead of one hour. Don't know if it is because of puasa, everybody leaves for work early. It is possible. So maybe after raya, I will test out this theory. If it is not true, then I can leave for work a little later, anything to save my money and petrol hehe..

    My mom has been making kuih raya for sale so my siblings and I, we all helped by selling it at our offices. It's been received quite well. Everyone says it's delicious. Man advertised the kuih in the internet and surprisingly there was actually people wanting to buy them. We got orders from as far as Perlis, Miri and Labuan. There was actually people who wanted to reorder but we had to either decline to it or we'll make the kuih after raya. It's actually time and energy consuming to make the kuih and being the daughter who is staying at home, I do had to help a lot. Anything for my mother. At least she's got something to do at home now that she is retired. Next year we might be selling the kuih again so look out for it.

    Can't wait to balik kampung for raya. It will be fun. I heard from my mom that on the first day of raya, we will be having kenduri arwah for my late grandma. Don't know what we will be cooking though. Usually we will cook rendang ayam and daging, ketupat, lontong and kuah kacang. Bila masak rendang and ketupat, mesti masak kawah so usually I will be helping jaga api tu. This year I only made 1 baju raya. Usually I have at least two. I didn't have time to actually do some real shopping. I guess i will have to settle with just that. Have my duit raya ready also. I am lucky that I only have 2 nieces and 1 nephew and my cousins are all grown up so I will be saving some money by not having to give too much hehe...

Selamat Hari Raya and happy holidays everyone....

One Art

The art of losing isn't hard to master;
so many things seem filled with the intent
to be lost that their loss is no disaster.

Lose something every day. Accept the fluster
of lost door keys, the hour badly spent.
The art of losing isn't hard to master.

Then practice losing farther, losing faster:
places, and names, and where it was you meant
to travel. None of these will bring disaster.

I lost my mother's watch. And look! my last, or
next-to-last, of three loved houses went.
The art of losing isn't hard to master.

I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster,
some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent.
I miss them, but it wasn't a disaster.

Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture
I love) I shan't have lied. It's evident
the art of losing's not too hard to master
though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster.

-- Elizabeth Bishop

Is Your Life Complicated?

    2 weeks ago my office was robbed. And last week somebody broke into my mom's car and took the money in her wallet. What has happened to this world? Am i really living in this dangerous world? Is Malaysia that unsafe? Why are there so many crooks running around? Is there enough cops out there? Everyday when i drove to work i pray that nothing is going to happen to me, like getting into an accident, or getting the car hijacked or even worse getting kidnapped and u could imagine what sort of disastrous tragedy can occur consequently.

    The politically correct people in the political world are at war trying to oust the other n u can't help but wonder,'Are they paid to bicker in the public or serve the ppl in the country?'. Honestly, i think politicians are idiots. The more u pay attention to them, the more they blabber about nonsense. Okay, mayb not all of them but most are. That is why i cannot marry a politician. Call me ignorant, because i am ignorant. Life is better served not having to think about things that don't matter.

    Starting from next month i am going to hav to watch over my spending as money seems to be depleting in my account like running water into the drain. I hav finally write down my financial planning so i can keep track of what i spend on. We will have to see in a few months if this is going to work n hopefully help me save more money. Of course it would take some restraints on my part, that is restraining from impulse buying or eating out(really?). Anyone care to take me out on a free lunch/dinner? Hehe...

Days Gone By....

    A lot happened in the last few weeks. I nearly caused myself to be terminated from my job trough my own mistake. Nearly ruined my own reputation too. Started driving to work. Surprisingly I am not that bad at driving. It’s all in the head u know. I realized that I can do it, it is not that scary. Costs me RM10 worth of petrol everyday just to get to work and back, not including the toll charges and if I am lucky, I wouldn’t get honked at by other motorists. Just had my car serviced too, costs me RM178(bloodyhell…why so expensive?). Looks like I’ll be using a lot of money too this month.

    Soon it will be Aidilfitri. Mesti banyak duit nak kena pakai. Nasib baik la hari tu ada dapat duit rebat, ada la gak simpanan dalam bank sikit. I have been thinking about buying a book, Harry Potter and The Half Blood Prince. I know I’m a little bit late in reading it but I know that if I bought it I probably wouldn't have the time to read it, but I think now would be a good time to buy the book. Been thinking about renovating my room. I plan to repaint it and remove some furnitures and maybe buy some new racks or boxes to stash my books and manga collection. So, I need to lay out some plans and take a few days of leave from work.

    Finally I have been confirmed as a permanent staff at work(finally..took long enough). Got a bump in salary, only RM200(basically my friends in the office thinks it is way too little, the company’s a cheapskate anyway). Not sure if I still want to change job, probably not. I like working here because I have friends but not liking how things are run around the office. I like the work that I am doing, because I get to learn new things but I hate it when I don’t know how to solve it. Guess I will just have to see what happen in a few months…

The Mishaps Of My Driving

    11th of June 2008 will forever be a memorable day for me. It is the day I got my car. It is a Viva, it is blue and I think it is nice. Pian was sweet enough to help me drive it home as I don’t know the way to get home from PJ. Ever since then I have been driving it to the Komuter and park it there to get to work. The farthest I have driven so far was to Jusco Cheras Selatan, my new hangout place to catch a movie.

    That was until today when I decided to drive it to the office in Plaza Sentral, on a Saturday as it is moving day for Century to PJ. The drive to there was fine as there wasn’t as much car and I didn’t even speed. After stopping by at the old office, went to the new office. Got a couple of car blared their horn at me as I was driving quite haphazardly I guess as I was not sure of the way and again I was driving slow(it’s a brand new car and I can’t speed, duh!)

    After checking out the new office, I decided to go to Jaja’s wedding reception (my cousin) at Menara Yayasan Tun Razak. Things started to go downhill from there. So I drove(according to my brother’s instructions) to Jalan Tun Razak, then Jalan Ampang then Jalan Bukit Bintang and before I know it I was at Jalan Pudu so I turn around and drove through Jalan Tun Razak, then Jalan Ampang then Jalan Bukit Bintang and I make a turn to Jalan P. Ramlee and guess what, I took a wrong turn. That is not where I was supposed to go. And then somehow I found myself lost in Jalan Sultan Ismail and I wanted to take a right turn to Jalan Ampang but found out that I can’t so I had to drive forward and I found myself back at Jalan Tun Razak. I gave up at that point. By that time, I had been driving for more than an hour I think.

    So I stopped in front of Istana Budaya and asked my brother to meet me up somewhere so I could follow his car. He agreed so he told me to wait near Jalan Bukit Bintang. So I parked near the sidewalk at Jalan Bukit Bintang when I got a call from my brother telling me to look across the street. There he is in the car, in front of this tall building, which happens to be called Menara Yayasan Tun Razak. What the crap??? I’ve drove through in front of that building three times already. So I checked the map on the invitation card and realized that I have been looking at the map but not at the address. It states so plainly that the building is on Jalan Bukit Bintang. Aaahhhh…!!!

    Getting lost is okay I guess but what happens later really brings me down. After the reception was over, Mak Su asked me to drive the car to the lobby to help bring the wedding presents to Mak Long’s house in Kerinchi. As I was driving up to the lobby, I scrathed my car, specifically my right front tyre and rim on this low sidewalk. Damn. It wouldn’t have happened if this lady security guard didn’t suddenly just jump in front of my car and tell me to reverse back and sort of cause me panic.

    At that point, I told myself that it was okay, just a little scratch although by that point I already felt down(later I found out that the scratch is a bit more than a little). So I drove to Mak Long’s house, and it rained and my mom nagged me on my driving skill. Got there as safely as I could although there was this accident (which does not involve me) of this motorcyclist who drove to close to a big lorry. Thank god nobody was driving quite fast or that guy would have been paste on the road.

    Just stopped by for a while, I was feeling a little bit more down after that so I decided to go back home. When I tried to get out of the parking space, guess what, I scratched my car on another car. Before I scratched the other car, I saw that the car was already scratched at the front bumper on the driver’s side. There was this two guys who were talking nearby who heard my mishap and decided to help me. They were nice enough to help me to get out of my parking space and to just shush about it and not make a big deal about it(thank god it is not any of their car, cause I am sure they would be angry). Turns out that there were more scratches on my car than the other car. Darn it. I hope I can just get it sprayed with paint to cover the scratches. Gonna have to ask someone who is an expert to help me with that. Sigh….I just devalued my own car. I should have just stayed at home today.