This just in: New YouTube video!

I have a new YouTube video out!

It’s a little bit special because it’s a mashup of Grammy winner Lady Antebellum’s Need You Now and Taio Cruz’s chart-topper Dynamite. Well, we tried anyway 🙂

A country song and a dance tune combo? You betcha!

Click on the video below to hear it for yourself. Enjoy!

Thanks for visiting my blog! If you like what you just read, feel free to share it on Facebook or Twitter. You might also like to check out my older stuff and my other blog. Thank you so much and see you soon!

Pop dream

Some of you might know that I sing as a hobby. But most might not realise that I have a YouTube channel which is very active of late.

I think I began uploading videos of myself singing cover versions circa 2007. At the time, I had my favourite Nokia phone which had two cameras and recorded quality videos and audio — but I dropped it in front of the office without realising it one day and it was gone 😦

My channel went on a hiatus for a while after that because I couldn’t find a good camera to record with. I ruled out web cams because they are horrible for recording YouTube videos. The visual and audio quality is unpredictable; you just don’t know how your videos are going to turn out.

It’s a good thing that my husband and I got the Sony Nex5 recently because it is not only a good digital slr camera but also an excellent video recorder as it records in High Definition.

And this time around, I have my husband to play the guitar for me so that I don’t need to rely on instrumental/minus one and have more room to add my interpretation to a popular song.

My channel doesn’t have thousands of subscribers yet. Sure, one video has had close to 3,000 views — only because I linked it to a popular video and it has been there for three years.

But getting thousands of views was not my aim when I set up the channel. It’s all just for fun; something that my husband and I can do together in our spare time.

I don’t want to say much because I’d rather the music speak for itself. So I’ll leave you with one of the videos that we recently recorded. Enjoy!

Thanks for visiting my blog! If you like what you just read, feel free to share it on Facebook or Twitter. You might also like to check out my older stuff and my other blog. Thank you so much and see you soon!

Where do you live?

In an interview with one of my favourite bloggers Gretchen Rubin, economic development expert Richard Florida said that: “As I explained in my book Who’s Your City?, the place we choose to live in is the single most important decision we make. It has a profound impact on the jobs we have access to, our career path, our social networks, the people we date, family and lifestyle choices and ultimately the wealth we accumulate as well as our overall happiness”.

I absolutely agree with him. Living in Shah Alam (in Selangor, Malaysia) has indeed had a profound impact on various aspects of my life.

I landed (and accepted) my current job when I was living in Shah Alam because, as a non-driver, I was confident that I would make it to work on time as I needed to take only one bus to work.

I don’t think my early courtship with my husband would have lasted very long if we had lived in different towns (I know Shah Alam is a city but to me it feels more like a town).

I have lived in Shah Alam since my late teens — first as a student, then as a working adult and later as a married woman. Naturally, I have developed an attachment to this quiet town.

Sure Shah Alam can be buzzing with activities if it wants to. It’s unbelievably jammed up during football/soccer matches, Sunday mornings due to the farmer’s market, Friday prayers because of the beautiful mosque that we have and also during Ramadhan because people from other towns know that they can do great Raya shopping at PKNS Shopping Complex and the other malls in the vicinity. Besides that, TV3 still tapes its entertainment reality shows at Plaza Alam Sentral. That’s a crowd puller too.

The shopping malls here may not have a lot to offer in terms of high street fashion and entertainment — we don’t have any cinemas — but it is still crowded on weekends.

And we have beautiful parks here for picnics with the family, for exercising, for cosy dinners dates, weddings and indie music showcase.

80 per cent of the time, the traffic here is bearable. I don’t know about the industrial areas of Shah Alam but the (noise and air) pollution levels at the residential areas here are pretty low.

The rent here is not cheap, though. As a small town with at least three major tertiary institutions, houses and rooms to let are snapped up like hot pisang goreng (banana fritters). I was really amused to see this room to let advert (that I saw in UiTM Shah Alam a few months back) which listed washing machines and wifi Internet connections among its basic amenities to attract new tenants. Back when I was a student in the late 90s and early 2000, we would be very lucky to even have a tv or phone line at our rented flats. Heck, we would be blessed to have our own personal computer at the time, let alone a laptop!

Times have changed, and so have lifestyles.

Shah Alam today is filled with middle-class families with money to spare — maybe more so than before. Although I had lived in Shah Alam longer than my husband has, I have only started mingling with born and bred Shah Alam residents through him.

Through them, I get to see a different side of the town. The youth of the town can be very liberal in their outlook and lifestyle. This is an affluent suburban where the kids go to the nearest town to have fun because they have the allowance and the car to get there. A majority of them don’t attend the public universities in town either because they don’t have the grades to qualify or they feel like an outcast and fit better in the private colleges. Their parents earn enough to make it possible for them to switch colleges “in case things don’t work out”.

But people from other towns have a lot of misconceived notions about this town and its people. When people tell me that they feel the people here are country bumpkins, I just laugh because it could not be farther from the truth.

I think it’s a great place to live in but I do worry about raising teenagers here. Bored suburban kids can get into a lot of trouble. Having said that, I think that generally, the 21st century has become a complicated time to raise a family, no matter where you live. Kids get abducted, purses get snatched, new born babies abandoned on a daily basis.

So I guess what’s more important is not where you live but how you live (your life). As the lyrics to that Dionne Warwick song goes:

♬ And a house is not a home
When there’s no one there to hold you tight,
And no one there you can kiss good night.♬

Next trip: Port Dickson?

Last month, I went to Kuala Terengganu for my cousin-in-law’s wedding. I’ve only been to Terengganu once before, and even then it was a day-trip (for work). So it was nice to spend the weekend there and get to see the city a bit.

That trip was made especially more memorable because we drove all the way from Shah Alam and back. That is a loooong way, in case you didn’t know. The journey is roughly six hours with some breaks in between.

This month — April — is my wedding anniversary. And my husband and I are planning to book a night’s stay at Legend Water Chalets that weekend.

I have heard about this place from my two female colleagues who spent a night there after one of them won a night’s stay at the chalet.

To be honest, the rooms look gaudy but the “attraction” is its open bathroom (with a jacuzzi-sized tub and separate shower) and lighted solid glass panel for viewing the sea beneath the floor. I’m also a little put off by the room rates. They’re pretty ex!

I’m still undecided about this place. The more I look at the rooms, the more I’m thinking: “Maybe not…” 🙂 We’ll see…

Budget aside, it shouldn’t really matter where we go. I’m happy to just stay somewhere in town, even at home, as long as we get to do things together — preferably something that is out of the ordinary.

But I won’t say no to checking in to a hotel for some privacy 🙂

Well, I’ll keep you posted on this. I’m going to take a hot shower and call it a day. Tomorrow’s another busy day!

How was your day?

There are days when you woke up on the wrong side of the bed. You leave your bed with little motivation and enthusiasm to go about your day that although nothing bad happens, (your day) just lacks that umph.

Other days, you wake up the moment that alarm clock rings and you immediately hop off the bed, sing or dance in the shower and proceed to have a mini-adventure of your own later that day.

I think I just had one of those days where I felt alive and chatty.

I had all reasons to be grouchy because I had to wake up at 5am just to make sure that I finish my work before 7am and have it ready for the boss to go over at 10am.

Plus, I had to rush all the way to Bandar Baru Sg Buloh to meet a class or Fifth formers who published a book, which is now in its second print. I’ll blog more about that some other day.

And then, I had to take the komuter to go back to the office and finish another piece of writing to be submitted before my sub leaves the office and takes the day off tomorrow.

But today, I also have a lot to be thankful for.

I work up at 5am and managed to finish my work within two hours  —  just like how I had planned. Normally, I would set the alarm at 5am and would hit the alarm and go back to sleep.

Then, my husband was free to send me to Bdr Baru Sg Buloh, so I didn’t have to take the train because I was running late anyway. We got to the school without any problems because I could find the school in the GPS and it took us right to it, right on time.

I had a blast talking to the students and some of the teachers who treated me to lunch. And then, one teacher — who was on the way home — was very kind to give me a lift to the komuter station.

I had to wait for only 15 minutes for the train to arrive and had a good chat with a Sixth former who was going back to her boarding school in Seremban. Before I alighted the train at KL Sentral, she actually salam-cium my hand as a sign of respect because earlier I had told her I was older than she thought. She thought I was a college student. Haha! That made my day 🙂

I got back to the office just in time to write the piece and still managed to leave the office at 6pm.

And when I got home, my mom-in-law had cooked yummilicious nasi ayam and I had that for dinner.

My day couldn’t be any better, really!

So I wonder what kind of day is in store for me tomorrow? Whatever tomorrow lies for me, I’ll start the day with a prayer and a rock-out session with my Disney princesses Miley Cyrus, Demi Lovato and Selena Gomez.

I love my manufactured pop and rock songs 🙂

Meanwhile, back at the ranch

It has been ages, I know. For that I apologise, folks.

My last post was 15 days ago. Needless to say, I had been up to many good and no goods since then 🙂

I went karaokeing with my husband and sister (on two separate occasions)

There is this new karaoke place in SA on the topmost floor of a nearby hotel. I promise you it’s not dodgy. In fact it’s quite clean as it is relatively new. It’s arguably one of the cheapest joints I have been to. If you are ever in town, do drop by. I mean, where else can you sing your heart out for only RM25 for TWO hours?

I had a lot of noodles

I recently discovered N00dle Stati0n. Its speciality is of course noodles but it serves Malaysianised Western food and goreng-goreng as well. But what got me hooked to the eatery is the more than two dozen types of hot and cold beverages on the menu. I recommend this one drink which is blue in colour and tastes like tasty cough syrup 🙂 Everything there is about RM6. Western food is slightly more expensive. The drinks, on the other hand, are rather pricey. They are also priced at RM6. But they come in tall glasses, so you can share the drink and split the cost.

I went to Ho Chi Minh City for 4 days and 3 nights

I’ve been to Hanoi before (last year) and was quite excited when I was sent to follow a group of 60+ college students on a study tour there. I really had fun because I had good company. We visited a local orphanage, did some sight-seeing around the city, visited local tertiary institutions, interacted with local students, shopped and tasted local delicacies.

I was proud of myself for being brave enough to try the local street food (equivalent to our gerai). It’s a pretty big deal for someone who is so anal about getting food poisoning (excuse the pun). When the host asked me if I’d like to try the local food, I had to grin and bare it. I don’t feel good about forcing everyone to follow my dietary regime. I know we’re supposed to follow our guts but in this case, I refuse to let my gut rule my life. I didn’t regret my decision at all. The grilled fish we had was so tasty and sweet and I loved the way they cooked the kangkong. Sedap!

So, moral of the story: high stakes, big reward.

P/S: I bought imitation canvas shoes which I simply adore for less than RM55. So happy 😀

I received lots of free books in the mailbox

I joined this online book swapping club called BookMooch recently. I sent two books to Singapore and Spain and have received two books so far from Spore. These are books that I have been meaning to buy but couldn’t afford — despite having book allowance. Well, you have to have some dough to buy the books before you can claim, right? Anyway, I’m happy that I got these books for free. I only spent about RM20 in stamps to send my two almost brand new books. I’m glad to report that my two recipients were happy with the condition of the books.

I received lots of items I bought online in the mailbox

These include my two tops, handbag and necklaces which I wear to death. I’m itching to make new purchases online. I saw a few nice tops and a pair of pants on cososo which I may just get. Free postage mah!

I’m sure I did a lot more than this but I can’t really remember. Besides, I’m kinda tired. Till next time neh…

All you can eat weekend

Looks like it’s going to be a weekend of eating, eating and eating.

It started with my friend, Shah’s 30th birthday bash on Thursday. It was a cosy get-together. He had some food catered but many of the guests brought their own. It was almost a pot luck affair. Some of them brought triffles, roast chicken, creme puffs etc. I loved the white chocolate birthday cake. Normally, I hate white chocolate because it’s too sweet. But this one was different. It had almond in it and it was not sweet at all. Just perfect!

The venue was our friend Sh3gar’s boutique-cum-office. He’s trying to develop his own clothing line and already has, at least, two local celebrity clients – both girls have been VJs and are top local actresses. As the office is quite new, he hasn’t come round to fixing the prices on his clothes. I told him that his designs are something that I would definitely wear. If they’re not too expensive, I would definitely buy em 🙂

To burn off all the calories I consumed from the party, I went to the gym and had a good 40-minute walk/climb/run on the treadmill. I think this is the perfect routine for me because although “switching gears” is hard but it made the time fly by. Before I knew it, I was already on my 35th minute!

I discovered one trick to distract me while I’m running, especially when I’m not listening to the iPod – play games on the treadmill. By that I mean as I run, I make a square. One second I’m on the left side of the conveyor’s belt and another I’m on the right. It’s like I’m running in a zig zag motion. I found that although I was on a relatively comfortable speed, I exerted more energy just to keep up. Whatever it takes to get my heart rate up, yeah?

After the cardio, I did some squats, walking lunges, sit ups on the exercise ball and threw some punches with a 5-pound dumbell on each hand. Just moves that I remember reading from my health magazines.

Right after gym, I had a shower and met my husband who played three rounds of volleyball on the rooftop. After both of us were done, we went straight to my husband’s cousin’s place. An@s (the cousin) had a going away party/kenduri doa selamat. He and his wife, A1re3n will be leaving for Istanbul on the 12th as he will be doing a three-year dentistry postgraduate course there. Istanbul is also where his parents-in-law are. His FIL is the malaysian ambassador there, if I’m not mistaken. I think by the time they come back to KL, they would have had a kid or two 🙂 Insya-Allah.

Just this afternoon, his uncle of his had a housewarming party. I’m still stuffed from the beriyani and ayam masak merah.

I suppose tomorrow we will be eating in. But since Mak Na (his aunt) and her husband, Uncle J0hn and two children – Ad@m and B3n, are down here from New Castle, mom-in-law is sure to have some dinner plans. 

Now usually all this eating would make my stomach go haywire. But since I started taking DigestAid, I have had little to no problem. The only uncomfortable side effect is the flatulence. Either I’m farting all the time or I’m having difficulties passing wind. But that beats needing to urgently pass motion. It’s one evil or the other, I guess. Remember, beggars can’t be choosers!

But I think I’m going to try to substitute my DigestAid pills which contains papaya and pineapple enzymes for the real thing – papaya and pineapple fruits. Like on Friday, I missed breakfast, so I took a long piece of papaya just before lunch. After lunch, I took a pill. The surprise was, I was fine. No stomach cramps and urgent need to go to the toilet. Success!

I think Princess wants to do dinner on Monday. More eating! But I must reconfirm with her. So, later!

P/S: I have Rihanna’s Take A Bow minus one. Next singing contest, I’m singing Rihanna for sure 😛

Yay, happy 2nd anniversary to me!

Two years ago today, today was a Saturday. On that hot Saturday morning, my husband and I were married.

So, yeah, happy 2nd anniversary to me and my husband!

We haven’t planned anything special tonight. Truth be told, I completely forgot the significance of today until I was keying something into my Outlook calender and saw the date. These days, I operate by days, not dates. I can tell you today is a Tuesday but don’t ask me what date it is. So yeah, that’s the story of my life.

Anyway, my husband incidentally got two tickets for the premier of Ironman tonight. So, we’re watching that as a way of celebrating our union. These days, I’m up for just about anything. Because it is normally the last minute plans that end up being the most enjoyable.

Since the cinema is near The Curve, we may just have dinner at Marche, where we normally go to treat ourselves. See how it goes.

I know anniversaries should be big deals but not to me. I’ve never been one to celebrate, not even my own birthday. So not surprisingly, I didn’t get any gifts for my husband and neither did he for me. We’re broke this month anyway.

If I have the money, I’ll probably surprise him with an Ipod or something. But we’re the type of couple who splurge on each other for no real reason. I would have made some effort if I weren’t so freakking busy this month.

Whatever it is, I’m glad that I’m able to get one story out of the way. It’s not mine but I’ve been tasked to rejig it. So rejig it I did. I can’t say I enjoyed it. How can you enjoy ripping apart someone else’s work and changing it beyond recognition. On second thought, it sounds like utter pleasure, esp if the story belongs to your enemy.

But I have no enemies (at least I’d like to think so), so I was doing the (re)jiggy like I was treading on eggshells. I hope I made a decent job.

Oklah. Tomorrow is American Idol day for me. Whatever Jason decides to sing, please, please, please make it so good that Simon says its BRILLIANT and ON THE MONEY, Paula starts bawling her eyes out and Randy gives a standing ovation and urges the audience to do the same. Coz I just want to see this boy in the Top Three. That’s not too much to ask, right?

Guess who’s back in the mack

After spending hours in the office staring at the computer screen and pages for this weekend’s issue, the last thing I need right now is spending another 30 minutes or so staring at the screen writing this blog entry.

I got a shock (a pleasant one) looking at my dashboard. I knew that the layout for the page where I post my entries has changed but I had ZERO idea that the new dashboard has been pimped as well. Now I can tell who had recently linked me from their blogs/websites, how many blogposts I have so far — fyi it’s 542 (incl. this one), how many people read my blog on certain dates and my most popular post, which happens to be my review of Everyday Minerals makeup.

So, mineral makeup fans out there are gonna love this entry because *drum roll* I just got my package all the way from Austin, TX a couple of days ago. Actually, I could have picked it up on the 8th if I had wanted to but I was away in Hanoi. So, as soon as I had some free time on Wednesday, I laced up my walking shoes and speed-walked all the way to the post office (about a 10-minute walk). I swear I was back at my desk in less 20 minutes – the day was threatening to rain, so I HAD to walk fast.

After thoroughly enjoying my free samples kit last year, I decided to make my first purchase from Everyday Minerals website. I chose the personal custom kit (mini) where I get to pick 6 items from the categories below:

* Foundations
* Blushes and Face Colours
* Concealers
* Eye Colors
* Finishing Powders
* Lip Colors

and pay only US$18 (plus US$9 shipping and handling charges). For those living in Malaysia, that translates to around RM88. Not bad, huh?

Anyway, this time around, the products come in purple-lided containers weighing 4 grams each. They are the size of your average lip pots (lipgloss in pots) (see picture below which I lifted off watercoloursky.blogspot.com. Thank you for the picture!)

The colours I picked were:

• Medium Beige Summer and Sandy Medium for foundation in intensive (intensive refers to the formula and it’s suppose to be the best for oily skin like mine. Other formulas include matte, semi-matte and original glo)
• Intensive Medium for concealer
• Weekend Getaway and Apple for blushers
• Cherry Fizz for lip colour

The morning after I picked up the package, I mixed both foundation and chose Weekend Getaway to complete my makeup. But mixing the foundations — which I thought would produce the perfect match for my skintone. Nope, not exactly, as I found out later. I looked too done up. But I loved my blusher which looked quite natural.

So this morning, I just went with Sandy Medium and what do you know, it’s quite close to my skin. I’m sure Medium Beige Summer isn’t too dark for me. It’ll be suitable for certain days when I need a little tan. I’m sure I’ll have one of those days 😛

I haven’t tried Apple because, frankly, it looks a little dark. Maybe it’s more suitable for night.

If you want to know how EM looks on my skin, just check out my current Facebook profile picture. In that photo, you’ll also notice that I am sporting a new hairdo. So far, I’ve got positive comments from people. I suppose if they have nothing nice to say about my hair, they probably won’t say anything *lol*. But I like my hair. If I had it my way, I would prefer a bob better but this cut is suited for my curly/wavy hair type. At least I don’t have to tie my hair when I run/walk on the treadmill. When I wash my hair, I use less shampoo and it takes less time to dry as well. I don’t need to use pomade to flick the ends of my hair because my natural curl does it for me FOC in my sleep 😛 I wake up and voila… instant swingy, bouncy curls.

Speaking of curls, today a colleague asked me if I had permed my hair? Hahaha. It’s all natural, baby!

I think I look boyish with this cut. Someone in the office says it makes me look younger than I already do. And my husband swears it makes me look taller(?!). Whatever!

I actually love long hair but I think I needed a makeover. Seven years is too long to have the same haircut, don’t you think?

Anyway, I do mean to post pictures from Hanoi soon. I still had long hair then. Right now though, I am too exhausted to even finish this entry and go grab a glass of cold water to drink. I promise, promise to do it before the end of the weekend. The Internet has been really good here in the new house so that’s a motivation to get it out of the way.

Ok, I’m so tired that the speaking voice in my head (which is narrating this entry) is slurring 😛 Night night then!

Home is where the heart is

Damn it, I couldn’t wake up early this morning! Oh well….

Today, I’ll be blogging about the new house, particularly our room 🙂

Located in Sect 2 in S.A, the house is currently under renovation. It’s quite massive because 90% of the windows are being changed – the old ones had arches on top of the windows which were too big and heavily tinted but not covered by curtains. I assume it can be quite scary at night because you can see outside from those arches.

One bedroom is being split into two because it’s too big and one kitchen wall which separates it from another room in the house is being torn down so as to join the dry kitchen and would-be dining area. My parents-in-law’s room will have a quite large walk-in wardrobe. Our room will have a very beautiful view of UiTM wtf. But seriously, the view is nice. And because the house behind is lower than ours, the second floor is very breezy. This is not confirmed yet but my husband and I may get our own walk-in wardrobe too. The room which was to be our toilet will be the walk-in wardrobe. Our toilet will be built somewhere else in the room.

That may mean that the lounge/tv/study area will be smaller. But because all other junks will be in the walk-in wardrobe, I suppose it won’t be so bad. I’m a little concerned about my magazine and book collection but guess they will be in the library – somewhere close to the kitchen or the family room. Not sure where yet. Could be placed in the lounge area upstairs too.

My guestimate is that the house will be ready in Feb 08. I’m looking forward to decorating the room, particularly but am dreading the packing up! Well, we’ll cross the bridge when we get there.

Here are some pictures of my room undergoing renovation:

View from balcony

Another view of the room from the balcony

Construction guy hard at work. He is standing where our bed will be

This is where the study/tv/lounge area will be

Raff in the toilet or walk-in wardrobe 😛

This is the view which will greet us every morning, noon and night