Tue, 24 Dec, Christmas Eve: Half-day at work. *Woo-hOo!* Then it was off to a lunch reunion with the XSC at Kayu. There was Angelia, Dan Khoo, Malcolm, Dominic, and also Pei-Ti who's just returned from Melbourne. It's really nice to see all of them... and I sure miss having some nasi kandar. :)

I went home with the intention of having a nap... but then again... my more creative side won. I soon found myself weaving waxed-paper ribbons into a wrapping paper - to wrap a nice little name card holder for tonight's Secret Santa. I finished doing that in time to go get grandpa home from his office. There goes my nap...

At 9:30pm - I rummaged for my Cluedo set from my bookshelf. Jocelyn had requested for it to become a backup game in the party. With that done, I did a mental check of the stuff I'm taking up to Andrew's place... Cluedo *Check!*, Gift *Check!*, Soft Drinks *Check!*, and Ribbon *Check!*. I arrived there early enough to do a minor decoration touch up. Aside from Andrew, James was the only one there... and they just started watching... "The Phone". The rest were most likely stuck in the spillover traffic holdup at Gurney Drive.

Slowly and eventually... the others came... Soon Beng, Daniel Chan, Shen, Austin & his girlfriend. Austin asked for a wrapper to wrap his present... Andrew does not have anymore... and so we find Austin wrapping the gift with a sheet of newspaper. When "The Phone" ended, Jocelyn, Deborah, Jamie, Andy & Candy arrived. All the food was brought out and a bottle of wine was opened. There was apple tarts, honeydew sago, chocolate cheesecake, almond cake, potato mashes & a cheese dip. Later on, another bottle of wine and a bottle of port was opened. The Secret Santa part was a bit funny... some people ended up with stuff they didn't want and there was an exchange going on. A select number of people were also chosen to take on dares to win some extra prizes on the table... hehe...

Wed, 25 Dec, Christmas Day: At 2++am, we started clearing out of Andrew's place and headed for the Penang Swimming club beach. Daniel went off to get Mervyn. Andrew, Beng & James went off to C'Front to drop in on Andrew's aunt's party. At the beach, we had bottles of drinks with us but we soon found out we didn't have cups... until Mervyn voiced out that he left some papercups in Dan's car and it should still be there. Deborah, Jocelyn, Jamie, and I left at 3:50am or so.

I was woken up at about 12++pm... Ah Good!! That means dad had decided to let me and my brother sleep in instead of dragging us to a temple thinghy. Rejoice! Oh-jOyoUs-be!! We had lunch at home... there were cockles, fish otak-otak, a soup & fried chilli-stuffed fish. *yum!* We went to visit Aunty Nelly & family after that. Sitting there... I felt really sleepy and nearly dozed off. Then dad took us for Ais Kacang and cucur at Swatow Lane... hehe... 2nd time in 4 days!

When we got home... almost everyone had a nap... I was one of them... *yawn!* Woke up just in time to go out for dinner at Ocean Green. We had Black Pepper Fried Soft-Shell Crab, Curry Fish with Bihun, Fried Spring Chicken, a plate of vegie and some satay. Very nice :) - and then to top it off... we went to Secret Recipe to buy home some cakes. We bought a slice each of Carrot Cheesecake, Chocolate Mud Cake, Cappuccino Cheesecake, and Baked Cheesecake. We also made some coffee... mMmmmMMmmm - perfect!

Thu, 26 Dec: Dad dropped me off to work today. I did nothing much except a lot of writing up, a trilogy worthy-worth, for the blog and carried out some data entry into the training management system. Later, I made the mistake of looking out for the Ford Telstar instead of the Iswara Aeroback - and was greeted with an "apaler" from my brother who came to take me home. The rest of the time was basically a lot of lazing in front of the TV and having some munchies. Ah... sweet rest!

Sun, 22 Dec: At noon... I had followed my family up to the Penang Swimming Club since its along the way down from Bt. Feringghi where the home of Kalamari stays hold... where Kotak & Dan are guests of the house. First, we followed Kalamari on his errand. Then... the Incredible Gastronomic Journey @ Food Tour began... where Dan had fun taking photos of some notable landmarks and every food item that we ordered!!

We parked in Prangin Mall (flat rate parking charges)... and walked over to the famous Penang Road chendol stall... but first... we went into the coffee shop and ordered a round of Asam Laksa... after that, it was time for chendol by the roadside! *yummy!!* Next up - we walked into Komtar and we stopped at the Super Komtar Toy Dept where Kalamari & Dan bought some Pokemon cards... before we headed for Active Lifestyle where the link between Komtar & Prangin Mall is. Again... we stopped at the Toy Dept. before heading into Prangin Mall for a quick browse around... (we also ended up browsing in Parkson's Toy Dept.)

We were there until the time we met up with Kalamari's brother. Next... we headed towards Swatow Lane for a round of its famous Ais Kacang... where Kalamari is finally enlightened that atap-chi is actually the seed/fruit of the nipah palm... and not made from flour. Each bowl of Ais Kacang was slightly different from the other. One had watermelon, One was the standard package, One was with Ice Cream, and One was with banana. We also had some popiah, cucur udang and fried taukua. *yumMMmmMMm!* After a really nice tea break - it was time for all of us to go home.

Later in the evening, I followed Guat May & Jocelyn out for some last minute shopping at Super Tanjung. We didn't have dinner until much later though... right after Guats picked up her friend Marcus. We ate at the Hillside Medan Selera before going over to Andrew's to do some basic decoration for the X'mas party on Tuesday night.

Mon, 23 Dec: It already feels like a holiday and no one was in a mood to do work today. At 10am-ish, I told Lyne (the VP's PA) that I'd be going to Angela's house to give her her souvenir vacuum flask that's been sitting in my drawer for the past month, some blank CDs, and X'mas presents for her kids (Angela's my boss in Agilent who's currently still on maternity leave). Lyne quickly asked me to follow her to the convenient store to get something for Angela's kids. Later in the office, Suat Lee the Admin passes a souvenir bag from an offsite meeting for Angela to me... and pondered a long time on what to write on an empty card before giving it to her boss, Himanshu, to sign. I pestered her to be faster because it was nearly 11am and I needed to get to the airport really soon. Meanwhile, Himanshu asked me to packed some of the Indian sweet delicacy that he brought to the office for Angela too. The sweet is made from cashew nuts and milk.

I arrived at the airport and parked next to Chris' car. I quickly chucked the meltable items into the paper bag and carried it with me into the airport while looking around for Chris, Pinky and anyone else who was there to send Pinky off. Just my luck, I saw Chris and Pinky at the Nandos counter... and Rusdi was holding the fort at one of the tables. I gave Pinky her X'mas-cum-farewell gift and we all talked and joked around for a while. Then surprised! Balan came... we continued talking. Then eventually.. Another surprise! Nicholas had come too. But all too soon... it was 12:10pm - it was time for Pinky to check in for her flight back to Medan.

We do not know when she'll be back again. We know someone is heartbroken. Before she went off, she gave me a hug and I gave her a kiss on the cheek. She hugged everyone else too... but Chris gave her the longest one. It was an awkward moment for the rest of us... we just started whispering nonsense stuff to one another and talk about something other than what we are looking at. She finally went through the door and eventually out of our sight... but he still stood at the railing looking at the planes for a good 10 mins or more before he felt like its time to leave. I know he's sad and crying inside... so I gave him a hug and told him to take care. The others gave him a pat on the back, a firm handshake, and told him pretty much the same thing. It's up to himself to come out of whatever sorrow he's feeling right now.

Leaving the airport, I headed for Sg. Ara and arrived at Angela's place not too long afterwards. I felt like Santarina lugging littles bags of presents. That's how much stuff I had with me. I had lunch there and had a nice chit-chat with Angela. Her sister was there with a 2 year old and twin baby boys. In total: 3 babies and 3 kids in that house... what a commotion! They provided much entertainment though... kids... :)

I got back to the office at 3 to clear of some work... and went off at 5pm. I decided to stay home tonight to to tackle the ever-growing stack of cleaned laundry for ironing. It's getting a wee bit too high a stack for my liking... and I think I'm running out of things to wear. I also checked with Andrew when it'd be OK for me to go over tomorrow to do some last-minute-minor-decoration work... since I'm feeling too tired to go all the way up to his place to handle that tonight. Anyhow... no one feels like going up to do remedial decoration work tonight... it seems the X'mas lights we put up on Sunday have fallen.

To all who drop by this blog

...and Happy New Year! May angels look after you; By day and by night...

To people who don't celebrate - in the spirit of muhibbah-ness... join in the cheer and festivities... and Happy Holidays!!

p/s: I had actually wanted to do a little website for an X'mas display but I can't because of a really packed schedule during the past few days... I guess this will do too!

Thu, 19 Dec: Grandpa has finally agreed to take the car to the mechanic to fix the jammed wiper system today... I'm carless. And so the story goes... I had to stay on in Agilent until about 7pm, waiting for Jase... Anyhow, time was definitely not wasted because I was only given some last minute do-or-die task to complete at about 5pm. When Jase came by, we decided to have dinner at Dave's Deli... after I verbally slaughtered him for being a total moron for spilling the beans on something that he shouldn't have let on that he knew about. Yeah... Jase just laughed it off (what's new?)

1. The inevitable: Halfway through dinner, Grandpa called from the neighbour's house to tell me that he's locked out. Erm... ok... apparently he hasn't yet gone to make a new copy for the door that his current 1 or 2-month old faulty copy fails to open... I told him mum should be back by 8pm. By 8++ pm, my dad called me to scold me for not going home to open the door for my grandpa... "Excuse me, I'm CARLESS and my ride for dinner and LOTR won't be here until his shift is over..." was my story of the moment.

2. False alarm ala Amazing Race: After dinner, Jase and I picked up the movie tickets and we had actually wanted to do some shopping around... but seeing we had time (and getting a 2nd call from an irate dad 20-30 mins from the first call), I told Jase I better go back to check - just in case my mum still hasn't gone home. I had earlier tried to call her once or twice but no answer. Jase being helpful as always - gave me a ride home...

   Upon arriving in front of my house, I saw that my mum was already home. I decided that we needn't stop but head back to BJC... Jase said this unnecessary ride was like getting a false alarm or wrong interpretation of a clue in Amazing Race. Now, to make my story to my dad complete... I called mum's h/p to ask if she's home and we made jokes about grandpa's key situation. Our conclusion: This episode was inevitable to speed up the need for him to finally go make a working copy of THE KEY.

3. "Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers": Ho, ho!! Before leaving the office, I found out that my bro would be watching the 10++ pm show in Mid Valley. Meanwhile, I watched the 9:45pm in BJC's MegaPav.

   The opening scene of Gandalf vs a Balrog is a magnificent piece of work. The whole show was packed with action - enhanced with plenty of sound and visual effects wizardry. I do however have to agree with a movie review published in The Star - the storyline is rather choppy although it runs more closely to the book. Last but not least, I was a bit flabbergasted to find that a part of Book Two was not portrayed in LOTR: TTT. Looks like it's being pushed to the 3rd movie.

   I feel that Gollum's part was very well portrayed and rather comical at certain points. Merry & Pippin were more serious this time round... leaving Gimli to provide most of the comic moments. Legolas had a pretty unbelievable horse mounting scene... and a superb surf down the stairs while shooting arrows at intruding Orcs. The Elven armor is impressing and very shiny... although the design does remind me of Marvel's comic book superhero costumes. Theoden's transformation was really smooth... Eowyn gets a nice swordplay scene. Samwise does a good job keeping Frodo from wearing the One Ring... and Daniel Khoo mentioned that Gandalf kinda reminds him of Moses. The Ents were rather a comical sight... I believe some of them should have been made stockier - they all looked a bit too gangly. Overall... it was an enjoyable movie if we don't know the book and don't care much about logic.

Fri, 20 Dec: A night out - farewell outing for Pinky cum welcome home for Shakila. Shakila just came back for a term break from UK yesterday morning while Pinky will be returning to Medan on the coming Monday. The 3 of us went to the Sup Kambing place for dinner. Later on, Sha had the sudden urge for an Ice Blended... so we headed over to Gurney's Coffee Bean. It was nearly 12 when Ethan, Chris & Boon Guan finally came to join us. We had so much to say to each other that we didn't leave until 2am. During that time, Sha also pointed out and confirmed a certain observation that I have been noticing about a certain 2 persons... *sigh* The end of this story is going to be bittersweet indeed!

Sat, 21 Dec: The night before, I told dad I'd leave the house at about 6:15-6:30 pm to pick up Jocelyn, Wan Yee & Vijaya before dropping him off at uncle KS's place. When we left the house at 6:15pm today, he ranted that it was late. I told him not to complain coz yesterday he said 6:30 could be too early... and that he's panicking because some of his friends who were also going to the Xaverian's reunion had started calling him, as early as 5:45pm.

Meanwhile at 6pm, Joce called to say that she just got home from a trip to the beach and had the nerve to ask if I can pick her up later. I wasn't in a mood to be nice. I frankly told her "Be ready by 6:15pm or else!" She knows that she's not the only person I'm picking up... and she knows I have to drop my dad off by a certain time. Knowing about the time constraint that I have, she should have the common sense to be home earlier to get ready for our Annual Reunion Dinner with our CGL schoolmates from the class of 1997. I'm sorry but I won't be nice about something so stupidly unthinking and selfish on her part.

After picking up everyone along the way, dad suddenly decides it'd be better for me to drop him off directly to SXI instead of uncle KS's place. He also abandoned the kuih talam he intended to pass to Aunty May. Dang! I don't see why he can't take it with him. Nevermind that... I'd just leave it in the car while I have my own reunion dinner.

Dinner was at Mario's - way up in Batu Ferringhi. The food was nice although it's a bit pricey. I think I still like the food in Dave's of Gurney Plaza better. Anyhow, the other people who was there were Chui Ying, Soo Foong, Hui Chin, Guat May, Deborah, Jamie, Li Siah, Sze Lin, and Pei Ling. Lots of photos were taken... and the waiters and captain of the restaurant thought we were still in school. We told them we were already working and a few of us were graduating soon. Jamie's immediate comment was, "I feel so flattered! *giggles*"

With dinner done, some went off for a mamak session while some others decided to go hang out at the Mansion @ 32. On the other hand, Vijaya had to go home while I wanted to meet up with Kalamari for the purpose of checking out his family's new home. So, I dropped Vijaya home... before heading back up to Batu Ferringhi to meet up with Kalamari, Kotak & Dan. The house is really nice... and I gave them the kuih talam since they'd appreciate it. Anyhow... it was the authentic stuff made with real pandan juice and not just green colouring. I think it was about 2++am when I left for home... whoa... 2 super late nights in a row.

There's nothing much to be said about the past few days... except...

1. Jocelyn came over on both Tuesday & Wednesday night to copy some CDs.

2. I've finally sent out my Christmas cards after toiling over it (on and off) over the past 2 weeks or so... and by the way, I still have to finish my Christmas shopping... *crosses fingers*

3. ... Biggest heart-stopping adventure? My car wiper suddenly jammed and refused to work on Tuesday evening while I was driving in town. It was freaky! I had a waterfall on my windscreen, everything looked blur... and the rain was really pouring. I drove real slowly and tried very much to stay on my lane and avoid hitting the curb, other vehicles or even pedestrians that have been obscured from my view. Thank God the rain slowed down during the last league of my drive.

Looks forward to:

1. Strangling Jase(!!!) until he runs out of breathe for not keeping his mouth shut about a certain 2 persons and their respective (welcome/unwelcome) admirers. I have specifically told him to keep quiet until things settled down or blew over... but NooOooo... he had to go tease one of the "targets" about it. Sheesh... I have just effectively being put in a precarious situation. I hope she believes Joce's cover up.

Jase, if you don't know how to keep your mouth shut about certain things I tell you that I'm incidentally not supposed to know - I'm not gonna let you in on anymore tidbits!! You were not supposed to know about it... nor use it as a means of your entertainment... please lar pretend as if you do not know anything, IDIOT!!! You are not supposed to tease them and drop obvious hints of your knowledge... how MoRoNic can you get?!!

2. Watching LOTR tonight at Mega Pavilion, BJC, 9:45 PM... come.... come.... my pReCiOusSSss...

Quiz Results:

Which M&M's are you?

Friday, 13 Dec: Damn blur! Didn't remember it was Guat's birthday until in the evening. Blur, blur, blur... Anyhow, after dropping my grandpa home - Joce & I went to One-Stop to buy blank CDs. We also stopped by Watson's coz I needed to get a new lip gloss. The old one is finishing. Was thinking of buying the ZA one until I used one of the Revlon LipGlide testers to put a tiny dot of the lippy on my lips. Omigawd!! It felt super!!! The area that had the lippy on felt so moist compared to the other parts of my lips that were actually very parched and dry... that one hasil from sitting in an aircon office without properly protecting my lips with lip balm or whatever...

After that, we went to the Mount Erskine place for western food. I had the Boneless Chicken Cacciatora. *Mmm... slurp! yummy* Joce ordered the Chicken Maryland. Just love the price for the portions that they give us. Half-way through our meal, Andrew & James came to join us. After that we headed home... thought I'd take a rest... until Joce called to say that she'd ask Joyce, Andrew & James out for a game of cards at a joint in Prima Tanjung. So... off we went out again - I can't remember the name of the place but it sure is pretty cozy. We stayed there until nearly 2am... erm... wait! I am working tomorrow morning... noOooOooo...

Eh... did I just do a product testing review for Revlon? I guess I did, didn't I?~ Hehehe...

Sat, 14 Dec: I was the only one in the office. Had to hold the fort until 12-ish. Luckily I brought along my X'mas card project items with me... it was a slow morning. After I closed the office - went to get grandpa before waiting for my dad's bus to arrive at Garden Inn. Parked the car at G.Inn... but since the wait was gonna be quite a while... I went over to KDU for a while. Passed Chris & Daws their X'mas cards since they were there... the others... erm... I didn't finish colouring the cards yet... so... that'll be another day. Dad's bus arrived nearly 30 mins later.

Went home after that and had a light lunch while waiting for Guats to come by. The plan? To go for some coconut water / ais kacang at Swatow Lane. Joce & Joyce was there with us too. Shen & his friend "Hose" joined us a little later. After that, we gals moved over to Gurney Plaza and met up with Andrew & his "siamese twin", James. We hung out at Segafredo's and treated Guats with a slice of Blueberry Cheesecake, as a token for her birthday celebration. Shen & Hose joined us after they went over to Lush to collect/send some documents. Btw, Lush is the latest night spot in town serving techno music and where the drinks are priced really cheap compared to all the other places in the area. I know where it's at but I haven't been in there yet.

We left Gurney at about 6:30pm... and went right smack into a traffic jam. Arrr... Later at about 8pm, Andrew & James came to pick up Jocelyn and I for dinner at Genting. Genting is still badly ventilated but the food is still good. We had a call from Jamie to join them for Erh Pin's little party... I told Joce that I'd skip it and gave excuse that I'd rather wait and see if Vijaya wanted to go out coz I felt bad for having to ditch her the last time round.

Sunday, 15 Dec: Woke up about noon-ish. Ahh... finally caught up on sleep after 2 weeks of 4-5 hrs sleep per day. Dad rushed me to get ready for lunch at the Penang Swimming Club. He was supposed to meet up with 2 of his friends from the Penang Tourist Guides Association. I hopped into the car with my hair still dripping wet. Driving into the parking lot, looking for a spot... I noticed Andrew's car was there. Ha... messaged him for the heck of telling him I saw his car... but never expected that he'd call back. It was funny - first question from him after pleasantries was... "eh, u are a member here?" - "ah... yeah..." - "I didn't know that" - "err.. yeah... am very much so :p"... Also found out that he just came up from a swim. Crazy-niaAaaaAa... not many people in their right mind would be swimming around noon...

4-ish - I followed dad to collect his ticket... and then we headed over to Island Plaza since I wanted to check for a specialty item there... he wanted to check the pricing for something... and we also needed to stock up on some of our groceries from Super Tanjung. It was a really rushed trip since we had to quickly grab stuff off the racks, stock up Christmas presents - queue up to pay... and pick mum up from Penang Club... drop groceries home & pick grandpa up for a steamboat dinner at ET Steamboat with uncle Dean's family. *phew!* *takes a breathe* The steamboat was more vegies than meats... nice.... :)

Fri - Mon, 06 - 09 Dec: On Friday, 6:30am - I met up with the church group at Green Lane Heights. Our bus will be leaving for Sepang from there. We stopped at Sg. Buloh for lunch. We arrived at Seri Malaysia Hotel in a very secluded part of Sepang at about 1:30pm. To make a long story short - the itinerary of this 4 days, 3 nights camp is something like this. Mornings and afternoons were for preachings, testimony, bible study, sharing, and etc. of the more religious nature. I'll just sit in to observe and listen because I don't buy all that's being said 100% because I believe I'm taking a more liberated way to spiritual growth without all the trappings, certain hipocracies and symbolisms.

Evenings were more like entertainment sessions with skit performances & presentations. A few friends of mine acted in 2 of the plays. One of my friends played Joseph (in the story of Joseph who was betrayed by his brothers, sold as a slave... blah-blah... and ended up becoming a governor... in a dry-spell... famine... his brothers came to get supplies... he pardons them for their sin against him) cracked everyone up with his acting and comical facial expressions. After supper events included playing a complicated game of cards called Nerds. Fun to play... but I am not very good at it. Mostly collected negative points.

On the last morning there, Sharon had a bad bout of migraine - her pain was so great that she fainted. No detours for shopping when we left the camp site at 2pm. I had decided to sit next to her on the bus since I knew how to give head massages to relieve pain from massive headaches (she was so weak that they had to carry her up to the bus). Furthermore, throughout the camp she had been using my h/p # as a contact with her boyfriend. Her 016 had no signal there... so I played "operator" and nurse until she was better. About an hour++ later - she was much better and very chatty... so I talked with her until we stopped at Ipoh for dinner.

Ipoh is her hometown & her sister hitched a ride with us to Penang from our dinner-stop. When we went back to the bus, I happily gave up my seat to Sharon's sis and went to the back of the bus to cajole with the others... and especially with one 6-yr old called Charissa. She's so adorable, cheeky, a bit mad perhaps (at one time she asked me if I ate glue and if I ate pencils)... but a really bright kid.

Tue, 10 Dec: Went to watch Die Another Day, 20th James Bond Film. It's the 40th anniversary for 007 franchise. Made bookings for the show before I left the office... Am very happy to say that Jase and I was given very good seats at the cinema. Prangin MegaPav - Row F, center!! *woohoo!* *does a little dance of joy* My movie review: The movie was not all dynamic... but it didn't really follow the previous formula as observed in the other 007 movies. That sure made things interesting. The Ice Palace was beautiful!!! The villians were rather charming, and the girls had pretty strong characters. A moajor improvement from being mere playthings for the macho-men.

Today, 11 Dec: Prior to visiting Angela at her house, my manager in Agilent, we ordered pizza from Pizza Hut. Her new baby girl is absolutely beautiful. *aww!* *koo-chi-koo-chi* Then we had an after lunch adventure! - my colleagues Peugeot 306 engine suddenly stalled in front of Krystal Point... right after we came out from the busiest roundabout in Penang. Panic ensued when everyone else thought there was no way to summon for help... until I told them I had my h/p with me. They had abandoned theirs in the office. We managed to call the workshop, and waited a long while on the phone before someone told us to wait a while before trying to start the car again. Seems like the workshop was understaffed at the moment... some people were still on Raya vacation. It was about 20-25 minutes worth of baking in the car under the hot sun before the car could start again. *sweats!* *fuh!*

Mon & Tue, 02 - 03 Dec: The last working days in Agilent before the Raya shutdown. Didn't really have a heavy workload but some things that happened in the office were enought to drive me crazy. Hmm... yup, I still have my head attached.

Wed, 04 Dec: Went back to the MIM office to work today. It's a real freezer. Had lunch with Chris, Ewen, Pinky, and Ethan at Gurney's Nandos. *yummy!!!* (It was a belated birthday lunch celebration for Ewen)

Dinner was at a little restaurant called Palate in Pulau Tikus. The food is really good, the cooking style is rather unique - very much one of those western-oriental fusion food joints. There was Will Choon, Erh Pin, Emilia, Jocelyn, Cheryl, Deborah, Ai Hua, Guat May, Jamie, me, and of course our guest of honor - Chin. It's a farewell for her 'coz she's going back to MMU to finish her coursework after completing her industrial training here. We later went over to Segafredo's along Belissa Row - Andrew & James came to join us there.

Thu, 05 Dec: Getting out from the lift, I took a few paces towards the office door. A notice printed on yellow paper took my attention, so I read it... "On Thursday, 5th December - MIM will be closed at 1:00 PM". Still pretty blur, I opened the door and saw my colleague. I said, "Hey Michelle, we're working only half-day today?". Michelle answered, "Yalor. You didn't know meh?!". I shook my head feeling comfounded and rather dumb.

Later I joined Chris, Pinky, Angelina, Rusdi, and Kant for lunch at the Tenaga canteen. It was Chris' birthday... and he got creamed pretty well. The first round of creaming he ended up with a green nose, a red moustache and a red goatee. 2nd round of creaming - he looked like he had war paint on him. Pinky, Angel, & Kant was also creamed when Chris had his "revenge". As for me... Pinky put a thin streak of cream on my cheek. Chris thought I wouldn't do anything to him but he underestimated what I can do using the innocent looking fries on my plate. By the Power of Potato dipped in Tomato Sauce - I dabbed some tomato into his hair... nyahahahaha!!!

Oh well... after that I hung around KDU for a while n berborak with the likes of Kevin, Daw Seong (explored the menus on his 7210 too... too bad the keypad is quite badly designed - cool phone otherwise); Ewen, Rain, and Celine. Went home at about 3pm... then went back to town to get Joce & my grandpa at about 5pm. Lazed around before and after dinner... and made a few Christmas cards. My dad arrived back from KL at about 6-ish - he drove the Iswara back. I only started packing for the camp at 11pm and finished doing that at about 12:30am...

Worldwide on this day - we commemorate World AIDS Day. Although Malaysia had progressed greatly in many areas - I find that awareness on HIV/AIDS is still disappointingly lacking among many of her people. It is sad to read the multitudes of stories in the newspapers that report about the misconceptions of people towards PLWHAs (people living with HIV/AIDS)

I'm hugely saddened too to remember that Facets! Online, a project that was once my baby, is currently not being continued by my juniors in KDU Penang. It felt like only yesterday when it was launched at the 5th ICAAP (5th International Congress on AIDS in Asia and the Pacific), Oct 1999, in the PWTC.

Would you like to be part of an awareness campaign? Go to Link and Think and select a graphic. For information on AIDS, try AIDS 101 or better yet... check out what the United Nations AIDS Project has in store.

     

On a personal note: Let me share with you a little something that really moved me to the edge of tears. When I was at the 5th ICAAP, I've heard speeches from many who champion to spread awareness about the disease... they even lowered the lights and screened 2 videos showing the lives of PWLHAs in 2 very different scenarios.

One was about a husband and wife who are outcast by their families, who have exhausted their finances to get treatment, living in poverty & currently getting treatment from charity AIDS clinics. The other showed a young man who was luckier than the unfortunate couple - he had the understanding and support of his family.

When the lights came back on, the young man was on stage with his mother. He gave a short and emotional speech to everyone in the auditorium and told us that without the support of his mother, he would have given up the hope to live on, a long time ago. When they both started crying on stage and hugged each other... I felt tears forming. What would you do if you found out that someone in your circle had HIV/AIDS? Will you be a fair-weathered friend or a pillar of support?