Second Chances

Do we deserve to get a second chance? A second attempt at making things right?

It really makes me wonder why some things happen the way they do and when they do. And why they happen to you.

My take on this: -

• We all make mistakes and I believe what is really important is that we truly learn from them.
• The beauty about second chances is you would not appreciate something going well for you unless you had it hard the first time round.

Sometimes getting a second chance is all we need to put things in perspective.

Cat Therapy Needed

I miss this furball.

The joy and contentment I get when I am around her is just indescribable.

Days like these I wish home was just a stone's throw away.

Songs On Loop

groovejet if this aint love + spillers

off the wall + michael jackson

shine + take that

just the way you are + barry white

sandy + john travolta

give me the night + george benson

to sir with love + lulu

all night long + mary jane girls

and the beat goes on + shalamar

you give me something + james morrison

only heaven can wait + roberta flack

in the stone + earth wind and fire

fix you + coldplay

never too much + luther vandross

Dollar Wise, Pound Foolish

Got me these cuties from Covent Garden last weekend. I love them. They make me feel really young and trendy.

Until I discovered in the internet that this only costs $40 in usa i.e. £10 less.

Now I feel stupid (but trendy nonetheless).

Big fat sigh.

For the longest time, my view of London has always been that it is the best place in the whole wide world to shop. Disclaimer: Please discount opinion expressed above, given my limited knowledge on shopping havens.

Granted (almost) everything here is more expensive in comparison to most other countries. However, I had no qualms paying a little extra; my justification being - the vast variety and endless choices she offered.

After my trip to the big apple, I know now that America is indeed the better option. Everything I like is considerably cheaper over there; be it make-up, iPods, cameras, shoes, handbags or clothes.

I *heart* Amerikaaah, for the wrong reasons no doubt.

Hence I did have a major spree stocking up on M.A.C., Coach, DKNY, Nine West, Gap, Ralph Lauren, T Hilfiger, and even Samsonite luggage is more affordable in the usa. Busted. I *cough* ran out of *cough cough* luggage space hence the purchase *cough*.

Now when I find the need to buy something, I make it a habit to check online its corresponding prices in the states.

And most times I am left feeling cheated and disappointed.

I wish I lived in America; the land of opportunity (to save money) indeedy.

R & R

After careful consideration and much deliberation, I have officially decided against going away this Easter in return for some serious, unadulterated rest & relax.

My reasons being:

1, In the last three months, I have had two major holidays already.

2, I really need to be wiser, learn to (and preferably stick to) budget, not make hasty decisions resulting in spending at my whim and fancy

3, I want to see my savings inflate (big big hopes and dreams here, bear with me)

4, I want to be able to do absolutely nothing during my time off as opposed to rushing about somewhere

Per point one – I was away during Christmas and three weeks later re-packed my suitcase for another trip abroad.

Points two and three are related. They are about my reckless, bordering wasteful, spending habits *hangs head in shame*.

Finally, on my last point; I just want to be able to put my feet up, wake up when I choose to, not have to leave the bed and roll about under the warm and toasty duvet, surf the net, roll about some more, have brunch or maybe skip breakfast altogether and proceed to having lunch at tea time, continue to be slothful until dinner, finally collapsing into a pile of snooze zzz and then repeat the whole routine for four sublime days. In between maybe read a book or two, catch a movie and seek good food.

I hardly spend my London days in this manner. Rest assured, I am very much looking forward to it.

Progress

Good news (finally) at the work front.

Two new recruits will be joining the team next week and the following week, respectively. I can finally breathe a sigh of relief and stop doing five people’s work-load.

Huzzah. Huzzah. Huzzah.

Holiday vs Stay Home. Adventure vs Relax. Luxurious vs Sensible. More Savings vs Less Spending.

Easter hols is at the end of March and we are in the midst of deciding to go away for a short trip.

This sounds odd but I don't really want to go for a holiday as all the events leading to a holiday is exactly what it is not supposed to be. Stressful, tiring and not fun. I end up exhausted with all the packing, cleaning up house, emptying fridge, laundry, waking up early, travelling to the airport, hotel transfers etc. Urgh

Then there's the intensive sight seeing to be done having merely four days; planning our itinerary for each day, what and where to visit, finding best methods of travelling around the city, where to have meals, etc - all too complicated really.

I think holidays are never restful (unless you head to a beach and just laze about with a good book sipping pinacolada all day long).

But.

There is a nagging worry that should I decide to stay home and just chill for four consecutive days (O bliss - it sounds so tempting already), I may regret not taking advantage of the bank holidays to venture to the continent. I only have a limited amount of annual leave entitlement per annum. This will be a good opportunity to save them and yet get some travelling done.

But.

If we decide in the end to go somewhere indeed, that simply means more money going out.

And.

The anniversary ticker indicates our wedding anniversary is less than three months away. It being the seventh makes me think I should put extra thought and effort on a more memorable and meaningful gift vs. previous gifts. Special gift = more money? Without sounding very materialistic, yes, I am afraid so. I know what he really wants (needs?) and it does not come cheap.

My bank account has been steadily depleting since September last year at an alarming rate. There was a big birthday gift, trips home, Boxing Day and January sales, the trip to the states, and more recently, Valentine's Day.

I need to restore the sad state it is in pronto.

Can someone ever so kindly tell me where I can find this goose that lays the golden eggs?

London By Night

A Celebration of Love Life and Laughter

War, er I mean, work front update: Still around, hanging on, albeit precariously. I want to quit but what would I do at home all by myself? No kitties. Or kiddies. And who will support my favourite pastime activity if I don’t bring home the dough. So work wise – status quo.

Thankfully there is this duality concept of yin and yang.

To balance out my dreadful work life, I had a lovely lovely valentine. IK did not disappoint (!).

First, there was a pre-Valentine celebration on Wednesday night at the movies. 'Definitely Maybe' was such a great feel-good, funny movie, with a splash of very touching parts thrown in as well. I, personally, loved it and I highly recommend it to all romantics out there.

On the day it self, we exchanged gifts (I am one happy love-filled bunny!), and had our romantic feast at BP. We ordered one too many dishes and ended up overeating. Heh. The yam cake was oh so divine though, so no regrets there.

Post-valentine; IK booked tix for the London Eye tomorrow. We have been on it twice before but both times in broad daylight. This time around, we will be seeing London by night from a few hundred feet above sea level. The view, lights, experience and with love all around, I’m guessing, it will be spectacular!

Hope everyone had a great time celebrating (with) their loved ones this valentine’s.

Happy Valentine's Day to my best friend, my soul mate, my punching bag and my pillar of strength.

'Grow old along with me and the best is yet to be'

Love You Lots.

Had Enough

Sometimes I feel like I am so done with this rat race and all forms of human interaction. I work 5 days a week on an average of 9 - 10 hours a day with people who don't matter to me.

Not only don't they matter, they are incredibly unbearable to be with.

Yet I have to be there every day; talk and behave politely and professionally, tolerate their difficult ways, deal with stupidity, manage unsupportive/unreasonable/unhelpful superiors, engage in non value added activities, get dumped with other people's workload subsequently having to understand very quickly how to do someone else’s job within the next half an hour, try hard to ignore and not allow lazy team-mate get to me, fight a battle just to get simple things done, get told off for being too slow (hey if you can do it any faster, be my guest). I’m sure there’s more but I’m too tired to elaborate.

I think I have taken in so much of crap for the last couple of months that now, today, this minute, I am feeling battered. I am totally drained. I have totally given up.

They have succeeded in breaking me.

***

I hope I will feel better tomorrow after a good night's sleep, I'd hate to see them win.

DC Shots

Congress - View from Washington Monument

White House - View from Washington Monument

WWII Memorial - View from Washington Monument

Library of Congress

The grand decor inside the Library of Congress

Abraham Lincoln Memorial

The White House - Ellipse view

The White House - Lafayette view

World War II Memorial

Thomas Jefferson Memorial

Washington Monument

Congress, Capitol Hill

Pentagon

Cleanest and biggest Metro I've ever come across

Epicure

Being Malaysian means loving food more than loving your parents. Maybe that's going overboard but you get my drift. Our life mainly revolves around food – for birthdays, anniversaries, festivities, promotions, for any type of celebratory events basically. I'm pretty certain we, shamelessly, live to eat.

This post is a note on my current favourite hideout(s). Essentially, about the source of local food I have discovered to sustain my cravings in this foreign land.

I have a favourite resto for each of my local palate:

• Blue Pac for Chinese food - North London/serves yam basket, char koay teow, kangkung belacan, tahu bakar, steam fish etc.
• Tayyabs for great hot + spicy Indian food/kebab/nan bread/etc - East London /their sauces are excellent.
• Msia Hall for delicious malay food - West London/the current selection is wider and taste a lot better too.
  

The epicurean that is me is sorted for life. Huzzah.

*****

My Saturday looked like this:

• Weekly skype sesh with the both families in the a.m. All OK.
• Tayyabs for lunch. Yummsteroo.
• Terminated RSC membership. I hope I don't regret this.
• Stopped by office to check new work station. Liking team's new seating-arrangements.
• Ice skating at the wharf. Fun. Fun. Fun.
• Completely zonked out at 5 - 6pm.
• Woke up feeling rejuvenated and did heaps of laundry. Yay me.

My Sunday should start like this:

• Nasi lemak and teh tarik breakfast at Msia Hall.

Simple pleasures in (my) life. Ooooh I can hardly wait.

Stock Take

To commemorate its one year presence, I have been browsing through some older posts of ELBCW and stumbled upon my scanty New Year resos.

Did a stock take and was appalled to discover that out of the five, I have failed three already, and we are merely 1 month and 8 days into the new year. Let's review my development shall we.

1, To become active in RSC again

Contemplating terminating my membership as I have been traveling a lot, am a busy bee at work and have no motivation at all to sacrifice my precious weekends for it hence exorbitant fee of £91/mth has been an utter and complete waste.

2, To find a suitable photography class that does not do too much damage to the pocket

I did find one. However, the classes I wanted to enroll with changed their time from 7pm to 2pm or something unworkable like that. Shattered. Truly am.

3, To enjoy my role with JT

JT resigned two weeks ago howsabout that.

4, To be healthier, food wise – I need to up my intake on fruit and veg. I have stocked up on EPO and spirulina for a start

On track with Spirulina and EPO. Re fruits and veg, so far so good although admittedly I have gone through 1/2 days without any fruits but am more aware of my intake now than I ever was.

5, To be happy, thankful and optimistic with life at all times

Work in progress.

I did also mention how I wanted to see more musicals and I did that in NY - it was Grease, my first for 2008. So that's one positive outcome.

To redeem myself,

• I will work on finding another course for reso numero duo.
• I will also try enjoy role with JT’s replacement, whoever that may be.
  

Will update on progress in the next couple of months.

Washington DC

After New York, we had the option of taking the train or renting a car to proceed to DC (taking a flight was very expensive). We chose to drive simply because it meant no restrictions on luggage and no rushing about for inflexible train schedules.

Our road trip which should have taken 3 hours ended up being 5.5 hour journey. Adapting to unfamiliar driving conditions i.e. driving on the other (wrong!) side of the road (IK), trying to understand the less *ahem* sophisticated Hertz satellite navigation system (me), missing a few junctions along the way (me) and heavy traffic in DC were the main reasons for the extra 'joy ride' hours.

Big Boo Boo: Driving out of NYC to get to the motorway - the time my heart skipped a beat when IK turned into the opposite carriageway. Funny it was not.

We made it anyways and kudos to IK for getting us there in one piece.

Highlights of DC:

• Lots of spacious, open areas


• Big boulevards + ample car park


• Large, comfortable + unbelievably clean subway trains


• Our fantastic hotel room


• Magnificent monuments + memorials


• Outstanding Smithsonian museums


• Remarkable and beautiful Library of Congress

One piece of advice. Although the cost of the train tix was no different to the car rental, we discovered that it was more expensive to drive resulting from unforeseen incidental costs such as fuel, additional parking charges at the hotel and lots of tolls along the way. In conclusion, travelling by train would be the cheaper option, although you won't have the luxury of time and will be bound to rigid train time tables.

***

Gong Xi Fa Chai to all celebrating the Lunar New Year!

Has It Been One Year Already? *Gasp*

ELBCW celebrates its one year presence, no doubt negligible, in the blog-sphere.

*claps cheers whistles*

I am amazed at how long I have persisted and am also glad I did not just let this blog collect dust along the way, go unnoticed and subsequently die a slow and inconspicuous death.

Well done TW *pats back*.

I hope I can keep this going on for at least another year.

Hope to see you on the 6th February 2009.

Happy 1st ELBCW.

NYC Summary

Highlights of New York City holiday:

• Amazing skyscrapers.
  
• Systematic grids for easy navigation around the city.
  
• Starbucks (considerably better choices for sandwiches and cakes), Citibank and Duane Reade (Boots equivalent) at every corner I kid you not.
  
• Cheap Broadway musicals; we watched Grease.
  
• Beautifully landscaped Central Park.
  
• Great shopping - Designer outlets + Macy’s; generally everything is cheaper here vs. London.
  
• The sale at Bath and Body Works; everything was going for $5 – Warm Vanilla Sugar is heavenly!
  
• Friendly New Yorkers, although Americans from other parts think otherwise.
  
• Discovering that flying British Airways far exceed my expectations.

Some unexpected setbacks too:

• Very cold weather for a tropical girl like me; it was -5 degrees on average everyday brrrr...
• We were both ill during trip.
  
• Bickering with IK; regrettably our differences tend to get amplified during holidays.
  
• Limited time to shop as much as I would have loved to boo hoo hoo.
  

New York Shots

The Beautiful Chrysler Building

View of Manhattan from Ferry

Bare trees on Liberty Island


Lady Liberty


Rockerfeller Center

Ground Zero

Grand Central Station

Times Square & Broadway


Natural History Museum


Empire State Building

Amazing view from 86th Floor, Empire State

Brooklyn Bridge

Manhattan Skyline

Wall Street Bull

NYSE

Frozen Lake in Central Park

Ice Skating at Central Park

Colourful Newspaper Bins