4.18am

can't sleep....aih.........

Day 15 of CNY @ The final day

Click to read:
Day 1 of CNY
Day 3 of CNY

With a blink of an eye, the final day of CNY has arrived. The past weeks has been pretty hectic..
But, I must give myself a pat on the back because all the hard work sort of paid off. Everything went well from class tests to assignments and to presentation. I'm currently on my study break before EOS begins on 15th March.... There's still tons to revise and  i think I'm gonna be depending on teh tarik or Xi Mut milk tea from Oldtown (I don't drink coffee), to stay awake gobbling every single detail and ensuring it stays in my memory till the 15th!

Well, with the end of CNY, it is also the end of the Winter Olympics.
To end CNY, my family had dinner at Damansara Village at Imbi. The restaurant is owned by Patrick Teoh who is also a blogger, celebrity, ex-radio dj, and my ex-neighbour.

Damansara Village serves steamboat and other variety of chinese dishes.

Outside the restaurant is sort of like a petting zoo. There’s a cage for an iguana, a cage with a tiny monkey inside, a place for little kids to catch tiny fishes, and a place where there were rabbits.

We started off dinner with yee sang. Mum loved the yee sang there as she said it was finely shredded and tasted good. To me, it tasted normal.

Then it was time for the main course.
Chicken wrapped with paper:

Steamed chicken:

Prawns:

Clams:

Sugarcane prawn:

Vege:

Crab:

Steamed fish:

Since my aunt frequent the restaurant, we were given complimentary tong yuen for dessert:

We also had rojak:

The service was good, the atmosphere was nice, the food was good and therefore, I definitely look forward to coming back to try the steamboat.

A family photo to wrap up CNY:

On a sad note, my Canon camera is dying a slow death. Its lense is giving problems, thus my pictures were sometimes blurry. I usually pray hard when I snap a shot, the picture turns out fine. Most of the time since its ailment began its been giving me plenty of shots like this:

Boohoooo :(

Day 1 of CNY: Ang pao collection day :)

On the first day of CNY, the usual tradition to start off the day is by serving tea to my mum and dad, and then receive ang pao from them.

Then, we'll have lunch at my grandfather's house with the usual teochew delicacies.

After lunch, we visit my grandaunt's house at Shah Alam.

Later at night, my family head over to Kepong where mum's side of the family gather.
The one interesting thing is that the family is getting bigger. Marriage, birth, growth, expansion! My nieces and nephews are growing older. The once I used to see as babies, have all grown up.

The next generation of gin-rummy players:

;)

Chinese New Year

CNY is just three days away. This time round, it'll be a test of preseverance and discipline to see if I have the ability to juggle with the festivities, two assignments, a class test, and a presentation, all due on the week after CNY break, which will also be the final week of lectures for this semester.
Looking at the calender, tomorrow marks the beginning of the 9 day CNY holiday.
It's going to be a race against time!

Eventhough everyone is dreading 2010 which is the year of the Metal Tiger, but the secret to defeat the tiger is by Working Hard and presevere :) I wish everyone a Happy and Prosperous Chinese New Year!!!

Gaga

Here is a link to the collection of Lady Gaga's wacky constumes thus far. I bet this is something most people have been waiting for!
TOP 14 WACKIEST LADY GAGA OUTFITS

Aside from going gaga over Lady Gaga's clothes, I've been going gaga (not in a good way) due to assignments!

Fabulous

My plan yesterday was to wake up to catch the Grammy's this morning at 9am on tv. But, I woke up at 9.30am, then had to get ready to head to Midvalley for brunch with the family. It was dissapointing indeed to know I was missing one show I was really looking forward too.

But then again, dim sum for brunch at Room Eighteen in Midvalley was FABULOUS! *I'll blog on Room Eighteen on another day.
After brunch, it was basically hanging around, doing what everyone else wanted to do or see or try. The plan was to shop for new clothes!
Midvalley was decorated with Chinese New Year deco. I'd call the mall 'Beautiful in pink' :)
In conjunction with the fast approaching Chinese New Year, Midvalley had some special performances. I had a chance to stop and watch the Chinese acrobats. They were FABULOUS too. *I'll also save the explanation for another post.
When I reached home, thanks to youtube, I managed to watch some performances from the Grammy's.

• Beyonce was awesome as usual.
• Pink performed with her acrobatic moves again.
• Greenday performed 21 Guns with the cast from Broadway.
• There was the Michael Jackson Tribute.
• Taylor Swift performed too, but didnt get much raving comments.
• Not forgetting, Lady Gaga's performance with Elton John
• Michael Jackson's Tribute by Jennifer Hudson, Celine Dion, Carrie Underwood, Usher and MJ's mentor.
• Lastly, Mary J. Blige singing with Andrea Bocelli

I did manage to catch bits and pieces of the Grammys repeat at night. But, I watched a bit only as I was playing ginrummy , then it was dinner time and after dinner I had to do the dishes. Anyway, I'm satisfied with the amount I watched.. FABULOUS!

I certainly prefer this version of 21 Guns compared to the original version.
It's a Fab Fab day today!

Grammy Award

The one show I'm looking forward to is The Grammy Award. It will be aired at 9am on Monday on Channel 711. Fortunately, Monday is also a publish holiday. So, my Monday morning has been booked for the Grammy.

It has been the talk on E! News, Aol, and many other shows and websites. Even Wikipedia was a part of it by putting up the list of nominees. MSN had a collection of Top 10 Grammy moments. I must say, after browsing through their top 10, I'm more geared up to watch the Grammy's this year.

Among the interesting 'memorable' Grammy moments were:
J. Lo's dress

Elton John and Eminem performing 'Stan' together.
Jon Stewart hosting the Grammy's and striping to his boxers.

Celine Dion and Richard Marx's tribute performance to Luther Vandross.
and others.
This years Grammy should be interesting. It's a fight between Beyonce, Lady Gaga, Taylor Swift and Black Eyed Peas for the awards. Mostly Beyonce vs Taylor Swift, anyway ;)

Irony

It is a Friday. Many people I talked to planned to go to the uni's library tomorrow, which is a Saturday.

Unfortunately, tomorrow is Thaipusam Day, meaning the library will be closed as it is a public holiday and the same goes for next Monday's Federal Territory holiday.

People were all geared up to spend the weekend in the library but it'll be closed!

Currently:

Eyes feeling tired.

Brain exhausted.

Back aching.

Saturated with info on eye infections...

I'm calling it quits for today................

What I did today:

Class, dance practice, library to research, dance during rehearsal.

Weird thing that happened today:

I took a whole load of books and did my research in one of the glass rooms in the library. Since I had to go for dance practice, I left the books there because I intended to continue my research after the practice. But when I returned, my books were not in the glass room anymore. It was on one of the study tables outside. Damnation to the female who 'threw' me out of the glass room. As I sat at the table where my books were 'misplaced',  I couldn't help but wonder why, of all the glass rooms in the library, she chose mine. I had the disturbing urge to confront her as I watched her occupying 'my' glass room, when there were so many other empty tables around. Maybe next time I should put a sign, "Do not touch. I'll be right back. You touch, you die."

~~

PS: The above was just a thought coming from my evil mind. Never gonna happen since technically, the room was considered vacant if no homosapiens were seen in it. The library's rule....

Bak-tee-rea

I have just completed a practical exam which deals with bacteria. 
6 benches with I think four types of bacterias provided, but we were told we didn't need to wear gloves and lab goggles. After the test, I wanted to wash my hands, but the sink had no soap, and the invigilator was rushing us  to the quarantine room where we were quarantined for two hours. The thought of bacteria being brought into the quarantine room was not something I looked forward to.

One good thing was for group study I had with a bunch of friends before the exam started. I wouldn't have read and focused much about the bacteria I was tested on, if it wasn't for the discussion. Somehow things like that happens occasionally, where the things you least expect and don't want to happen, will happen anyway.

Well, with the end of the exam, there comes a case presentation.
My case: A 34 year old dude working at an abattoir has profuse discharge from his left eye because he accidentally splashed water from a sink used to wash carcasses. His discharge was Gram stained and is showed a field full of pus cells and gram negative bacilli.

I googled abattoir:

A slaughterhouse, also called an abattoir or freezing works, is a facility where animals are killed and processed into meat foods. The animals most commonly slaughtered for food are cattle (for beef and veal), sheep (for lamb and mutton), pigs (for pork), horses (for horsemeat), goats (for chevon), and fowl, largely chickens, turkeys, and ducks, for poultry meat.

Reading the above definition certainly clarified the type of 'wash carcasses'.

Points to ponder thus far:
Purulent - Generally bacteria
Conjunctivitis - could be severe and infectious
Pseudomonas aeruginosa - gram negative bacilli
- sensitive to gentamicin, tobramycin, timentin, ceftazidime and
ciprofloxacin.1
- topical tobramycin, parenteral aminoglycoside, ticarcillin or piperacillin
 And etc....

Heading to Pavillion tonight again :)

The weekend

Weekends right now has been reserved to replenish sleep due to hectic weekdays.
Of course, it wasn't possible to sleep the entire day away. I've tried spending a day just lying in bed and sleeping the entire day, but all that left me was a throbbing head when I woke up. More worrying was when after all that long hours sleeping and just lying in bed, I felt more lethargic, sleepy and basically energy-less.

Yesterday I decided to go to Pavillion because it felt like eons since I last hung out there. I did go to Pavillion to celebrate New Year.. but, three weeks of not going to a mall  feels like an eternity.

The current attraction in Pavillion was probably the Chinese New Year decorations there. The deco outside was filled with pink cherry blossom trees, sky high red lanterns hanging from the ceiling, and variety of flowers all around the main entrance. Inside the main entrance there is a man-made bridge with a four huge fake birds ( i think a stork) where many people stop to take pictures with.

Aside from the lavish decos, I saw some new changes to the shops in Pavillion.
Snowflakes situated in front of Tangs was opened. They are currently having a 'Buy 1 Free 1' promotion till 31st January 2010. I think it was quite worth it since their bowl portion of desserts were huge.
At the Food Republic, Crispy Popiah opened right next to Serai Satay Bar. I had satay for dinner yesterday.

Yes, the festive season is back again. Time really flies. It feels like Christmas and New Year just ended yesterday. Pavillion was packed with people starting their shopping spree for the coming Chinese New Year celebration.

As for me, being a banana, I told my dad, "The only reason I'm chinese was because I love eating yee sang."
Of course, I can foresee the real Chinese people shaking their heads when reading that, but it's the truth.
 
Oh well, it does still fascinate me to see people decorating their houses with all the red colour believed to mean prosperity.