:)

After having the most delicious meals ever since I got here, I've got back my appetite. I had....... Asam Laksa cintan instant noodles and a cup of hot thick Milo, all thanks to Ellie from Packaging. You have no idea how happy my tummy was after that.... until I ate my left over burger in the fridge and tummy is back to feeling unhappy again.

When I touchdown in Penang next week, I'm gonna ask Yin How to fetch me straight to a hawker centre. I wanna eat laksa!!!!!

The thing is miss the most... is Penang FOOD!!!!! I don't even miss the hubby as much as I miss the FOOD. And the hubby is cruel enough to send me emails with photos of laksa and char keow teow.

Ugly Betty is no longer so ugly anymore. She's getting prettier.

I'm still addicted to the advertisements here. The Mac vs. Windows 7 advertisement is hillarious. There are lots of versions but I think this version the most.

Halloween in the SJ office

I wish we had stuff like this here. :)

A little more updates

1. Somebody from Penang arrived in SJ. I have a dinner buddy now. Yay!~ :)
2. I was very careful to mosturize my face so that my skin wouldn't dry out. But i forgot about my legs and arms and I have lizard skin now.
3. My nose has started bleeding. It's just so dry here.
4. Met a lot of people in SJ. Some are really friendly. Some are not so. Some are cute. ;)
5. It's interesting to be on the other side of the phone line during a meeting. People here can debate for an hour over one point in one presentation slide.
6. I went back from office at 9pm yesterday and panic when I found all the exit gates were closed and I couldn't find anybody around. Drove round and round and round and finally found something in the gym. Knocked on the door like a maniac until the guy got off his treadmill and put on his glasses to look at the crazy girl outside. :)
7. My GPS unit didn't say "Recalculating" today.
8. It's cold here. I prefer the weather back at home. I won't complain about it anymore.
9. I seem to have lost my appetite here. I can skip lunch with no problem and still can't finish my dinner later on.
10. Dogs have taken over my place at home. They now own the sofa and my side of the bed, thanks to Yin How.
11. I talked to the dogs through skype. They were terribly confused to hear me but not see me.

In point form

1. I can understand why a lot of Americans are overweight. If I live here, I might be overweight. The food portions are huge, so I buy a meal for lunch and leave half for dinner.
2. I can understand why a lot of Americans have credit card debts. If I live here, I might have credit card debts. There are so many things to buy here. Of course that's if I'm earning my salary in USD which I'm not so every thing I see, I'm mentally calculating the conversion rate and thinking, "What? RM6.60 for a can of Coke?" But other things are so much cheaper here.
3. The sales assistants in the shops here are so nice. They say, "Hi" and go about with their work instead of following you around like a stalker eyeing everything you touch and cleaning up after you as if you're making such a terrible mess.
4. I'm absolutely amazed by the fact that people here are soooooo courteous on the road.
1. When I'm a pedestrian standing on the road wanting to cross, cars will actually stop! @.@
2. When I'm in the car at the junction wanting to cross, cars will actually give way! @.@
3. I've only been honked at on the road 3 times which is very little considering I'm driving either too slow, or right in the middle of two lanes cos I'm confused where I was suppose to go or waiting for the light to turn red when I can actually move. If I were back home, you know what will happen la...
5. I'm useless at following the directions given by the GPS device. I either turn too early or turn too late. My GPS device's favourite word now is, "Recalculating".
6. I wanted to go to Gilroy today, but went to the Great Mall to have lunch first and got stuck in the Levi's store for too long. By the time I came out it was 3pm and Gilroy which is a 40 minutes drive away closes at 6pm and I would get lost probably 12 times on the way so I went to Wal-mart instead and got lost 4 times.
7. I still can't get use to driving on the right side, having the brake on the right side and the seat beat and signal on the left. Takes some concious brain processing.
8. USD notes and coins are not user friendly. There are no numbers on the coins, only words. And the notes are all of the same size and color. Why do they have to put "Quarter Dollar" instead of 25 cents?
9. I find it weird that there are only trolleys in Wal-mart but no shopping baskets.
10. I also find it weird that there are no pedestrian pavements by the roadside. 
11. HD TV is so cool!!!!! And I can get hook onto the TV watching commercials. I'm facisnated by the way they advertise.

I manage to arrive in one piece

And I'm so darn tired.

Yin How's little garden - updates

The one and only tomato has turn red. It's a tiny tomato, but still... I'm so proud of it. :)

Lady finger plant has finally grown one flower. Can't wait to see lady fingers growing.

Chilly plant has totally died. So sad.

There's just something about watching plants grow everyday and getting over-excited over every tiny change (as if I've never seen a tomato before). The simple joys of life. :)

JD - job description

I couldn't resist writing this in response to SH's blog entry about her job. At least people still will understand what her job is.

Mine goes like this.

What do you work as?

Mindy: An engineer

Ohhh... Intel ah?

Mindy: No, Altera (cheh, as if Intel is the only company of engineers on the earth)

*blank face* Factory ah?

Mindy: (thinking whether I should correct them to say it's a R&D company and not a factory but decides it would take too much effort to explain so....) Yes.


*happy to have guess that it's a factory correctly so continues asking* So what do you do there?

Mindy: Altera produces FPGA's which are programmable chips and I work on the software that programs those chips.

*Person trying to nod politely to mask the fact that he/she has no idea what I'm talking about sees that this is going to lead to a very boring topic and turns to Yin How*

So where do you work?

Yin How: Dell

*Expression suddenly changes as if the person has heard the most interesting thing in the world* Wah... Dell ah? I want to buy a Dell laptop, what do you recommend?. Do you get employee purchase prices? Is this Dell laptop model still good? I have an old laptop with the keyboard spoiled, can I still get a replacement? That day I called Dell customer service and ....etc, etc etc

Conservation about Dell goes on and on sometimes lasting over an hour. And Yin How suddenly becomes a Dell laptop guru, giving his expert advice on all things Dell. My friends and relatives who need anything from Dell? They call their new best friend for help, Yin How.

And at the end of the conversation, the only thing about people can remember about my job is .... that I work in a factory.

;)

The hike

I'm not a hiking-loving girl, I try to avoid it as much as possible but Yin How went on and on about how much he enjoyed hiking at Pantai Kerachut so I decided to follow him today.

When I got there I was whining non-stop about how muddy and slippery the jungle trail was, taking my own sweet time to avoid as much mud as possible. There was a was fallen tree trunk blocking the path and as I bent down to walk underneath it I heard Yin How say, "Snake, snake!". I was thinking, "Huh? Snake? Stupid guy trying to scare me, as if I'll fall for that.... OMG, SNAKE... THERE'S A SNAKE UNDERNEATH MY FEET!!"

I only saw the snake when I had one feet over it (I'm so glad I didn't step on it) and suddenly I forgot about how slippery and muddy the jungle floor was and ran under the tree trunk like a headless chicken screaming, "SNAKE, SNAKE!!" And there we were, Yin How on one side of the fallen tree trunk, me on the other side and the snake in the middle, staring at Yin How, daring him to cross over. The 3 of us stood there not moving for around 5 minutes until the snake got bored and went up a tree.

(I know this snake is not poisonous (I think) but it's not like I could google about it in the middle of the jungle)

I stopped taking my own sweet time after that. I just wanted to get to the beach as fast and I could.

I've been hiking with friends and colleagues but never with Yin How and I have to say that I really enjoyed the hike, the pretty beach and the boat ride back.

 

 

Hiking is not as bad as I remember. :)

Dearest Milo-making machine

Dearest Milo-making machine,

You were always there for me every morning for the past 5 years. You always made me that perfect cup of Milo, not too hot, not too sweet and with just the right amount of foam on the top. No matter how bad or how good my days were, you were always there to warm me up. And those days late at work, you always made my hungry tummy feel a little better. Oh how proud I was to have you, you are one of the few things here which I could proudly boast to others “Your pantry got free Milo-making machine or not? Don’t have ah… my pantry got ah”.

Oh how I miss you. After going off for a one week holiday, I was shocked to see you gone. They were smart, they were sneaky, choosing a long break when nobody was around, to take you away. How could they?? I didn’t even have a chance to say goodbye to you.

And now there’s that replacement? How could anything replace you? I tried working things out with the replacement. I tried to give him a chance to make me that perfect cup of warm chocolate drink like how you used to do it for me every morning. But unfortunately, Ricco, is not as perfect as you.

There’s a silent protest here. We all want you back. We don’t want any replacement. We don’t want Ricco. WE WANT MILO.

Despite my love for you, I kinda pity the replacement. Today in an act of protest, someone stuck a piece of paper over the replacement saying, “Bad Coffee, tastes like chlorine” and a few others stuck more papers in agreement. Imagine how the replacement was feeling, humiliated on his first week on the job. I’m guessing your replacement is feeling the stress of trying to fill in your shoes that he broke down from the pressure.

Oh well, I guess I’ll guess have to learn to live without you. It’s sad…. But I shall be to be strong. And maybe one day I'll learn to love the replacement as how I love you?

Missing you every morning,
Mindy

A few days ago, I was telling Yin How about all the crushes I had since I was a kid. I think my first crush was when I was in Standard 2. I had this crush on my class mate. 2nd crush was on a childhood friend. 3rd crush was when I was in Form 3 on a guy in tuition classes. 4th crush was in Form 4 on a guy from church.

I stopped there. Yin How looked at me waiting and said, “Then?”. I replied, “Then what? Oh…… no, I never had a crush on you.”

Hehehehehe…

Yin How was my first and only boyfriend. He chased me so I never had an initially crush on him. At that time, at 18 years old, it was really literally, "I like you, be my wife". So simple right? At that time, excited about having my first boyfriend, I thought, “Aiyah… just try try only la, there’s nothing to lose what”…

And because he was there since day one, he was always a part in whatever plans I had. We grew up together, graduated from college together, found our first jobs together, put our salaries into one account, bought our first car together, bought our first home together. And then 7 years later I did marry him. And even now, I’m amaze how much I can love a person for so long. I love him even more now than then.

But as simple as things can be, the actual fact is that it's amazing that two people who are biologically so different can live together for the rest of their lives. Men and women were just made to function and think differently. So it does really takes a lot of work and effort in a relationship. But of course, if you both love each other, no amount of work is too hard. And the amount of happiness you’ll gain make is all so worth it.

I have friends who are looking for the love of their live. I have friends with complicated relationships. I have friends who are nervous about getting married.

It all can very simple. He loves you. You love him. He can’t live without you. You can’t live without him. If you have a problem with your partner, compare that problem with the thought of a life without him. Then see which is worst.

I been telling my friend about this book. I strongly recommend it.