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quick update

Napped from 5.15pm to 10.15pm just now.

Ahh satisfaction.

Ok my goal is to finish off the FAP exam by this week. No matter what I will resist the temptation of TVB-ing and finish everything by the end of this week. After that, I will have one less thing on my mind, and I will start on my little apartment-clearing project (hopefully with a lot of help from my bro).

Also, a big THANK YOU to WILSON for helping out with my blog's format again and again hehehee. Both Wilson and Ing Tai dropped me a visit yesterday in CR (so you can guess how many hours I slept last night with them here.. hmm that sounds wrong). Anyway, it was fun! DINNER was so good. I can be a chef next time as my backup job. Omg that's plan D! lol ok kiddingggg..

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1:22 a.m. - 2008-06-26

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Dua Bulan lagi.

Disneyland.

How I wish I can be there everyday. So I can see elephants fly and time stands still.

Sigh.

Too many things on my mind lately...

Remember my plan A and plan B on previous posts? I'm not even sure if plan A or B will happen now. I might need a plan C. Sigh. This sucks. Am I thinking too much? Or am I just expecting too much? I really need someone to tell me some answers here.

As time comes nearer, many things that have been pushed aside have to be dealt with now. How I wish I could have my mom here to deal this with me. I have so many things yet to buy, and I have 10000 more things to sell. Fine I'm a big girl, I can do this myself. I'll just need to call mom more often so that I can whine to her. She'll listen. She's the only one who will be happy to listen to me.

I really don't want plan A or plan B to fail, because I'll have to go with plan C, and plan C is excluding something that I feel right now is important to me.

Sigh.

I think I'm typing in codes. If you know what I'm talking about, please advice me what to do. If you don't, ignore this post.

I think it is tough making an important decision like what I'm about to do in a few months. This is a turning point decision with a no-turning-back feature added in as a bonus. Ok it's probably not as big a decision as getting married or having a kid (because those decisions are REALLY life decisions) but at least there will be 2 people handling that decision together. Here it's only me and me only. So, I need some support people. I need some encouragement and not bombarding questions on why, how come, why, what's wrong, why, and why, and the biggest statement of all - "yl, you're going to regret this." (you know who you are haha!).

Ok quit whining. I'm a big girl I'll do this myself. 2-3 months to go. Wow. Gimme support.

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8:49 p.m. - 2008-06-22

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Authentic chinese food

Flood is OVER. (YAY or NAY?)

I spent the long weekend playing cards in my colleague's place most of the time >< so it was unproductively spent.. but I had a blast! I LOVE the chinese game 升级! It is so fun la the game.

On Sunday we played from 2pm to 11pm. I know, it's a little crazy. I thought we were only playing in the afternoon so I didn't even drive >< In the end I had to walk home at 11pm. damn.

My colleague's mom was so nice she cooked us dinner that day. Since they're from China I was curious to see how their dishes were like, and omg they were so different! I thought they'll be similar but nope, not at all.

I had this instead of rice.

wtf? Why is the rice reddish black?

This isn't dessert. When I first saw this I was like "Oh! red bean soup dessert!" and I got some weird stares.

This is actually porridge.

Cooked with black glutinous rice.

And I was asked if I wanted to add sugar inside my porridge!

I was like .."um... let me taste it first" (and I took one spoonful) "ok please pass me the sugar thank you."

It was a really good experience though.

These are the dishes that the nice aunt prepared to eat with the porridge.

I can't really explain what the dishes are in english. I don't quite know it in chinese even.

Let's just say I've never tasted porridge that's reddish black in color and have these dishes to eat with it. The weirdest one would be the bottom right one : it's fried biscuits (??). Tastes like sweet roti canai to me and I love it! Yummy!

The bottom left one is actually shredded potatoes! Omg I never knew it could be cooked like that. It's really tasty though.

The most normal one would be on the top right : fried pork with celery. But wait a minute! You don't just eat it like that. You have to wrap it up... with this...

Looks like tortilla wrap, sounds like tortilla wrap, but it's not a tortilla wrap.

Looking at authentic chinese food made me want to go to China all the more, aww to be able to tour Shanghai, Beijing, Szechuan, and eat all the good food there! Anybody interested in joining me? :P

One of my colleauges from Szechuan kept telling me how tasty the food is there and when I got to taste the food that she cooked, omg it was so good, and she could reply me saying that her cooking is nothing compared to the food in Szechuan. That's it lah. I'm going there no matter what one of these days. According to her, Szechuan is not all about 麻辣, because I made a mistake of asking her if the food in Szechuan is super spicy because I suck at spicy food!

Maybe next time when somebody praises my cooking skills, I can tell them my cooking is nothing compared to the food in KL (which is technically true). But I'll need to find someone to praise my cooking first.

Random fact: I had the ultimate nightmare last night. Woke up in the middle of the night with my heart beating fast. Wanted to talk to somebody but didn't know who to call. Gosh. Staying alone sucks.

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7:24 p.m. - 2008-06-19

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Flood of 2008 in Cedar Rapids

This is the Flood of 2008.

(That's what they call it on TV)

I know you guys probably won't feel anything much because it's on a video. It's on TV and it seems very far away from you.

But I felt it. Because this place in the video is just 5-10 mins from my apartment. This place in the video is Cedar Rapids downtown, and it's entirely flooded now.

I guess, nobody won't really feel the magnitude of the entire situation until you see it with your own eyes.
And I did.

My apartment was out of electricity twice today. Once at 7.40am (power restored at 11am) and another one at 4.30pm (restored at 9.30pm). I won't be surprised if I'm out of electricity this weekend. My area, although I am still confident that it won't be flooded, is too close to the disaster zone.

I drove out just now to search for food. I turned to the left and realized that Mcds and Burger King also had no power. Then I U-turned and head right, and before I could reach 10 blocks the road has been closed and I have been told to turn - and I COULD SEE WATER FLOWING IN FRONT TOWARDS MY CAR!

Imagine the horror!

This is crazy

A lot of people are puzzled as to why there's flood because there isn't a lot of rain in CR. Sigh. The flood isn't caused by the rain (although raining obviously worsens the situation), but it's caused by the overflowing river coming down from up north.

I just wanna pray and hope that when I wake up tomorrow there's still electricity and water and cable. That's all. Last year during winter I always hoped that the office will be closed and I don't need to work. But it didn't happen in winter even with snow storms. It's happening in the summer now - with floods.

I wish I could go back to work honestly. This is a disaster to the city. I don't want to see the city that I have lived for 2 years go under the water. Iowa had a bad year. Winter was so painful we had snow every week and storms every other week. Spring wasn't pretty either we had tornado warnings all the time (and some tornadoes landed in few areas as well, wiping out few towns too), and as if it's not enough, we now have the historical flood happening right now.

You know it's really really bad when it hits Yahoo! News on its main page.

A sad Quote from a news reporter on Local News: "What the tornadoes didn't take away, the flood took care of it."

p/s: Pictures were taken from Yahoo! website

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1:17 a.m. - 2008-06-13

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Preview - Flood of 2008

Heard this song on the radio 3 times during my drive back from MN on Sunday (from different radio stations though).

And boy this song is addictive!

on a G5,G5!

No stress no stress no stress..

Cedar Rapids is flooded now. Whole downtown is under the water. Nice. Went to Walmart and bought bottled water, bread, torchlight (because my apartment went out of electricity this morning WTF!) and some basic necessities.

Everyone's bracing for the worst.

I can't believe I'm seeing this happening before my eyes. I'm in the middle of a disaster zone.

My company closed at 1pm today - the management advised everyone to leave at 12.30pm. This has never happened before. Not even snow storms!

I just hope nobody dies in this flood.
Gonna update later with some photos. In the meantime, you can read Siti's side of story on the "Flood of 2008" HERE

p/s: Noticed two posts gone? Guestblogger took it down! Hehehe.

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3:18 p.m. - 2008-06-12