Just Another Meme

Listening to: Rule the World, Take That; Because of You, Ne-Yo; How Do I Say?, Usher; Supernatural, Wild Orchid; One Night, The Corrs; Dirty Diana, Michael Jackson; King of Sorrow, Sade; 咖啡 Ka Fei, Jacky Cheung Hok Yau 張學友; Just One Breath, Dévics; It's Too Late, Genai; Nobody Knows, Tony Rich Project; Jet Lag, Joss Stone; Isabella, Search; 紅豆 (红豆) Hong Dou, Faye Wong 王菲; When I Need You, Celine Dion; 情誡 Cheng Kai, Faye Wong 王菲; Heaven Knows, Melinda Doolittle; Baby-baby-baby, TLC; Island in the Sun, Weezer; Love for Sale, Simply Red


For some reason, the miss with the misplaced sushi in her fruit basket decided that it would be great fun to tag a person who hasn't blogged in little under a year with a meme.

:p

__________________________________________________

The Rules

• Link to your tagger and post these rules.
• List eight random facts about yourself.
• Tag eight people at the end of your post and list their names (linking to them).
• Let them know they’ve been tagged by leaving them a comment on their blogs.

1. I'm finally getting baptised in the Roman Catholic Church this coming Easter.
If you've known me since Secondary School, you will also have known that I've been working towards this for a very, very, very long time; and through the Grace of the Lord above, this Easter I will receive my First Communion!

2. I think I'm addicted to Facebook.

Let me demonstrate (it would help if you have some psychology / psychiatry background; or you could just read about the CAGE Questionnaire for alcohol abuse):

1. Have you ever felt you needed to Cut down on your time on Facebook?
   Hmm... considering that I could be reading up on electrocardiogrammes at night or completing my ridiculous procedure logbook... ya, I think I could spend less time on that confounded social networking webpage...
   
2. Have people Annoyed you by criticising the time you've spent on Facebook?
   No... but I do get shy when people comment about it on my Wall...
   
3. Have you ever felt Guilty about spending time on Facebook?
   Yes! All the time! Medical students aren't supposed to do anything other than study and spend time in the hospital wards, you know...
   
4. Have you ever felt you needed to check your Facebook account first thing in the morning (Eye-opener) to steady your nerves or to get rid of a hangover?
   Yes! Yes! Yes! Just before I go to class - I brush my TV looking at my reflection in my glossy monitor screen!

So, what do you think? Do I have a problem? :-D

3. I'm REALLY not a confrontational person by nature.
I know, there was a time, not so long ago (and the Primary and High School people will agree), that I was the last person you'd want to piss off - the repercussions were close to the unthinkable. When they wrote that line about Hell (having) no fury like a woman scorn, they were obviously expecting my coming into being.
But I guess in preparation for my Baptism, I've been attending Mass and my Rite of Christian Initiation for Adults (RCIA) classes rather regularly, as well as reading and reflecting on my Bible very regularly. And I sincerely and honestly feel, that the moment you start reading God's Word, you start your journey on the path of change. By no means am I perfect, but I am working towards it.
I'm learning to forgive.
I'm learning not to judge, but to understand the circumstances that surround each person's actions. I'm learning not to cast the first stone.
More importantly, I'm learning to walk away more often from fights these days. It's enough to have just one fool in a fight. And so much bloodshed could have been avoided in the world if people would just learn how to walk away. I mean, no where in the New Testament were the Israelites encouraged to rise against the Roman Empire, were they?

4. I love instant noodles.
I could eat it for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, every single day, if not for the fact that I'm quite afraid of waking up bald one day; or even worse, ending up on a surgeon's operating table to relieve the acute intestinal obstruction brought about by all the wax from the noodles accumulated in my gastrointestinal tract. It may be an urban legend, but considering that I actually know what can go wrong in our country's operating theatres, I'll give it a pass.
But I honestly believe that instant noodles are Asia's best contribution to mankind.

5. I want Barack Obama to be the next President of the United States.


Never believe that just because you're not American, you don't have to be bothered about the country's leadership. You don't have the right to vote, yes, but it doesn't mean that you can't go around influencing all your friends who can. :)
Because what the self-proclaimed superpower does, is everybody's concern.
Look what happened during this administration!

6. My favourite perfume is still Obsession by Calvin Klein.
The scent has got to be at least a decade old, but I still use it, and I still restock when I run out of it.
Anyone can pull off flowers, and even more people can pull off oranges and lemons;
but very few people can pull off a scent as musky and heady as this, and not knock out an entire room in the process.

7. I'm still a cat lover, although I own a dog.
In fact, one of the reasons why I love Vico so much is because she's an atypical dog.
She doesn't need to spend every waking moment beside you, wagging her tail, tripping all over your footsteps; though she does get a tad bored when I leave her at home for extended periods of time, and she takes it out on my garden.
She gives me my space, and I give her hers.
I could never, and still can't understand the constant need for attention that most other dogs require.

8. I want to marry the man that I'm with right now.
Though we may not have the most exciting of relationships, we're pretty boring together, watching television, taking long walks in shopping malls, stuff like that;
but we have one goal and one focus in mind.
God.
And with that common focus, everything else we have will fall into place.

__________________________________________________

I'm done.

And I'm tagging:
Ajua
April
The Brat
Jerry
Pedro
Sandee
Shiau Lee
Vincent the Great

Margaret Alexandria Yoong

Goong 궁

From the soundtrack to Goong 궁: "앵무새", 하울 Howl; "Perhaps Love ♡ (사랑인가요)", 하울 Howl & J; "내가 선택한 길이야!"; "두번째 달", 2nd Moon; "당신은…나는 바보입니다 (Acoustic)", Stay; "궁 (Piano)"; "꽃잎이 내린다"; "Crystal Flower"; "궁"; "A Dancing Teddy"; "닿지 못한 마음"

I DID IT!
I FINALLY DID IT!

I finished ALL 24 episodes of Goong 궁 a.k.a. Princess Hours in ONE sitting!
(@.@")

I just HAD to do it!
It was getting unhealthy!
I started to refuse all invitations that would keep me away from a television at 2030 hrs!

It's still playing weekdays at 2030 hrs on 8tv!


I don't normally watch Korean dramas, though.
My first dip into the pool was with unnecessarily melodramatic 겨울연가 Winter Sonata and cruelly tragic 가을동화 Autumn in My Heart.
Convinced that all Korean scripwriters were a bunch of sadists and that the South Korean actresses all suffer from incurable chronic cases of epiphora, I swore off all of them.

And even though both the matriachs in my family were sucked into the Korean wave, I held my ground unwaveringly.
At last count my Mother and grandmother own at least five copies of 대장금 Jewel in the Palace - a series which I still refuse to watch despite my Mother's shameless pimping of the show - between them!

But exceptions had to be made for Goong 궁:
Daphne and I were bored silly in the house during our 2 week long study break;
and the timing was such that we could schedule our dinner (and later, our lives) around the tv!

What began as a curious interest slowly transformed into a monstruous obsession.
Everyday, punctually, at 2030 hrs, we (or Daphne at least - I'd stroll into the living room at 2100, forcing her to recount the previous 1/2 hour during the advertisements) would find ourselves planted solid in front of the idiot box, worshipping every flickering moment of the show.

We followed faithfully, the transformation of 신채경 Shin Chae Kyeong into an annoyingly uncouth troublemaker, into a semi-graceful princess, pathetically love-sick for her ice-cold prince, 이신 Lee Shin.
We boo-ed the glassy ballerina, 민효린 Min Hyo Rin, as she plotted and schemed to win Shin back into her devious heart.
And we drooled over 김정훈 Kim Jeong Hoon, who plays the outcasted prince 이율 Lee Yool, and cheered him on in his (initial - before he turned into a whiny crying brat) efforts to snatch Chae Kyeong from Shin.
(Although, from episode 15 onwards, I started paying more attention to the very hot model that plays Shin, 주지훈 Joo Ji Hoon. *drool*)

Now, excuse me if I wipe the saliva off Zeta...

...see what I mean?

Rule of Twelve

It takes 12 hours from the time of death for full rigor mortis to set it.
Coincidentally, in Buddhism, it takes 12 hours for the human soul to leave the body completely.

My Grandmother passed away last Thursday,
God rest her soul.

Why I FINALLY paid RM 459 for THE pair of jeans

Humming to: "P.D.A. (We Just Don't Care)", John Legend; "Where Did My Baby Go", John Legend; "Ordinary People", John Legend; "Used to Love U", John Legend; "I've Been Waiting on You", Miri Ben-Ari feat. Consequence & John Legend; "Another Again", John Legend; "She Don't Have to Know", John Legend; "Stay With You", John Legend; "I Can Change", John Legend feat. Snoop Dogg; "So High", John Legend
I worship the musical genius that is John Legend.
Not since Maxwell has the genre of R&B heard music that is as smooth and mellow as his.
(The Comrade may argue by bringing up Usher - but we all know how I feel about him now, don't we?)

If I were to have to name just one grouse (among twenty others that I can name at the drop of a hat) about the retail industry in Malaysia, it would be this:

Shop assistants are quick to dismiss customers that are not decked to the nines as poor people;
and therefore, not worthy of their attention.

And as my idea of retail therapy involves throwing on a Tare Panda baby-T; a pair of yoga pants; and RM 3.99 Japanese slippers; while carrying my wallet, handphone and car keys in an unglamorous McDonald's / KFC plastic bag; I am a frequent sufferer of this grave malady inflicting our shop assistants nationwide.

Take for example, when I was contemplating on whether an RM 459 pair of Levi's Lady Style Jeans were worth getting my head unceremoniously snapped off by my mother.

I'd been eyeing at the jeans for the past six months already, ever since I'd tried them on in the Levi's Flagship Store in Orchard Road:
the perfect shade of blue;
capable of making my typically Chinese non-existant arse look like Madhuri Dixit's (ok, maybe a lil' exaggeration there);
and crystallised with Swarovski, damn it!

If only it didn't cost RM 459. :(

And when they finally reached Malaysian shores (a good four months later), I found myself trying them on in the Dataran Pahlawan and Mahkota Parade outlets every week or so.
Most of these visits were impromptu trips to the mall: usually after an exam (and considering that we sat for six of them in the course of that two weeks...);
so as usual, I wasn't dressed to kill.

In Mahkota Parade, the shop assistants would stop mid-chatter, size me up, figure that I couldn't possibly afford any of the clothes on sale, and huddle back over the counter to resume their gossip extravaganza.
I'd be left perusing the denim wares on my own;
and when I walked over to the counter to ask for my size, the shop assistants would delegate the task among one another, finally deciding on one scapegoat, before half-heartedly trudging over to do the duty. There was even one occasion where I had to search for my size on my own.
Needless to say, when I finally left the shop empty handed, they weren't the least bit happy - and they made no attempt to hide their disappointment: you know that glare shop assistants give you when you don't buy anything from their shop?
Shame... shame they have brought to the House of Levi's.

On the other hand, in Dataran Pahlawan right across the street, the treatment I received was worlds apart.
Irregardless of how I appeared that day, I was waited upon and treated like a customer the moment I entered those doors.
I was given different options of jeans to try on: different styles, different sizes, and different colours;
as well as comments on how each different pair of jeans complemented or accentuated different parts of my body waist below.
Even the store manager joined in the fun, giving me brief history lessons about Levis Strauss & Co. on each visit.
And for each time that I walked out empty handed, I was still ushered out with the warmest of smiles and faces.
I didn't care what was said behind my back; the whole idea of the service and retail industry is to put up a good front.

And when I finally got those pair of jeans two days before Chinese New Year, I purchased them from Dataran Pahlawan.

It makes me recall a scene from the movie Pretty Woman:
when Julia Roberts' character was handed a thick wad full of cold hard cash from Richard Gere to buy a nice dress,
only to be chased out from an upscale Beverly Hills boutique because they didn't think she was classy enough.

Sure, I'm not loaded.
I can't afford to shop from any brand that has models walking on a runway.

I don't buy items of clothing often; ever since I returned from Manipal, I can count the number of clothes I've bought on two hands.

But I'm not your typical bargain shopper either.
I won't wait until the Great Malaysian Sale begins to rumage through bins of apparel priced at 50% off.
Frankly, I couldn't be bothered; not because I'm a snob, but because they've run out of my size by then.

And also because I know what looks good on me / what makes me look good; and I won't hesitate to buy it if the price is reasonable.
I've been known to spend RM 145 on a pinstriped skirt that hugged the curves of my tush ever-so-suggestively;
or close to RM 400 for a richly embroidered maroon lehengga for my last Annual Night in Manipal.
The only thing that keeps me from finally forking out the cash or signing the bill, is that smug bubblegum-chewing salesgirl behind the counter that thinks I'm not good enough to buy / wear their clothes.

You can't have a rich Datin or tai tai walk into your shop and sweep everything off the shelves.
You depend on regular girls like me to make sure that clothes keep moving off your racks and not into your bargain bins.

Maggie's lobster is NOT your dinner!

I bought a blue lobster on an impulse today.

I bought a blue lobster and a neon blue dwarf gaurami (as his tank mate) on an impulse today.

So say hello to Set

Ooo... lights... pretty...

and Amon-Ra.


I am NOT your dinner, damnit!
A ferocious eater with a voracious appetite.

In case you're wondering, I can't complete the family tree because:
my Sentra has been christened Osiris;
my modem is Anubis;
and I just helped name The Captain's imaginary Persian Isis.

On another note, I think Atlas is having an epileptic fit.
He experiences episodes where he goes rolling around the tank (like a dog when you ask him to roll over, but Atlas does it 50 times in succession), knocking into anything and anyone in his way.
And then he stops, swims around off balanced for a minute or so, and then goes about his normal self around the aquarium.
I've tried Googling for a possible cause, but I can't find anything.

Oh... American Idols for the girls is starting! I need to study for Monday's paper!

Margaret Alexandria Yoong

Something Fishy

Humming to: Cosy in the Rocket, Psapp; My Immortal (Acoustic), Evanescence; Good Enough, Evanescence; Miles to Go (Before I Sleep), Celine Dion; Stuck in a Moment You Can't Get Out Of, U2; For the Love of You, Jordan Hill; Walkin' on the Sun, Smash Mouth; (Our Love) Don't Throw It All Away, Andy Gibb; Don't Cha, Pussycat Dolls; Jupiter, Jewel; WINGS, Utada Hikaru 宇多田 ヒカル; Unforgettable, Nat King Cole; 一拍两散 Yat Pak Leung San, Joey Yung Cho Yee 容祖兒; A Love That Will Last, Reneé Olstead; Too Much, S.H.E.; Besame Mucho, Laura Fygi; Come on Closer, Jem; Androgyny; Garbage; 歡樂今宵 Fun Lok Kum Siew, Leo Ku Kui Kei 古巨基; Fly Away, Michael Jackson; The Way I Am, Ingrid Michaelson; If I Fell, The Beatles; Illegal; Shakira feat. Carlos Santana; Grease, Frankie Valli

I am bored;
so I will blog.
I will blog about my fish. :p

Tartarus



Named after the deepest of Ancient Greecian Hell, where the most sinister are condemned, this 30-gallon tank houses 10 goldfish and 1 Otocinclus sp. catfish.

This is Hades, the Black Moor of Tartarus.



When they first moved in, he was bullying everyone into order: chasing them away, nipping at their tails - I almost returned him to the shop.
He's much better now, though. Minds his own business.

Due to his budging eyes, he can't really see floating food pellets properly, and in the beginning, he used to go hungry because by the time he knew where to go to look for the food, it would be gobbled up by the Nefarious Gang of Five!
I solved the problem with sinking food pellets. :)

This is Demeter.


She's a Pearlscale goldie with very unique colouring:
one half of her body has a red-coloured head - very normal, no?;
but the other half... the other half is completely snow white. That, coupled with jet black eyes with the red fundal glow visible at certain angles, makes her a sight to behold. :)

I initially had a very feng shui set up in Tartarus: 8 gold goldies + 1 black goldie.
And then I saw Demeter. She looked so pretty, I just had to get her!

And here is Persephone.



An Oranda with a sub-goldfish level of intelligence.
She used to swim into the air pump to hide whenever I turned the lights on, getting herself stuck there. She's not afraid of the lights anymore.

Some of the members of the Nefarious Gang of Five.



There's really nothing nefarious about them - they're really lovable Fantails, actually. I just needed to keep up with the whole deepest depths of hell thingy.
When I stick my had in to scrub the house clean, they actuallt come up to my fingers and attempt to nibble on them. :p

Globus pallidus (R) and Globus hystericus (L)



Bubbly Pearlscale goldies.
Thanks to their disproportioned body build (balloon bodies with tiny fins), they look like they're wobbling more than swimming!

And the last (and newest) inhabitant of the tank: Cerberus!



An Otocinclus sp. catfish, he's a real scardy catfish!
He's supposed to be helping me eat up the algae in the tank, but he ends up hiding behind the air pump half the time!

I had a Chinese Algae Eater before this; but he enjoyed sucking my goldies' mucous coat more than the algae in the tank.
Globus hystericus lost some scales thanks to him!
He's now in Kwong Yan's koi pond, getting harassed by the bigger Plecos! Haha!


Mnemosyne



The experimental tank community tank.
It was initially set up to house 10 male guppies - only 2 are left. :p

It's currently over crowded with a school of cardinal, neon, albino, black tetras, and stupid harlequin rasboras; two male guppies that are at constant loggerheads with one another; two corys; one lonely glass catfish; one scardy-otocinclus-cat; four flourescent fish whose names I never found out; and two glass shrimp...




The sole survivors: Zeus (foreground) and Gaia (background)!
(For the record, Guppies are not very hardy fish - don't try cycling a tank with them first.)


Neon tetras & a cardinal tetra caught in between a school of harlequin rasboras.


Pregnant Neon Tetra? No?


An Albino Tetra in the foreground with a very lazy Atlas in the background.


Atlas, the albino Cory Catfish lazing around.


In the foreground is Minos, the Glass Catfish.
He's not that visible because he's transparent. *duh*
I made the mistake of only buying one - they are apparently school fish of 6 or more... *oops*
In the background is Hercules, another Cory Catfish.
He's the more hardworking of the two catfish - always scavenging around for food. Or maybe it's because he's always hungry. :p


One of four fish in Mnemosyne.
I never found out what they were called. :p
But they're very pretty under bright lights!


Louis, the Glass Shrimp.
There's another smaller one called Pierre, but I couldn't find him when I took the picture.
While Louis trots around the aquarium like he owns the place, Pierre's more fond of hiding among the plants.
I guess that's wise of him considering that these shrimps are actually sold as food for bigger fish!
(I thought they looked pretty, so I want to see if I can keep them as pets.)

That's all, I think.

I'm thinking of keeping a lobster and a crab as well... but I'll have to find place for them first...

It's back to the books!

Nargaret Alexandria Yoong

Have I no shame? Have You no shame? And have We All no shame?

Humming to: "Like I Never Loved You At All" Take That; "Patience" Take That; "Beautiful World" Take That; "Wooden Boat" Take That; "Butterfly" Take That; "Shine" Take That
Now, would you believe that: the state of the music that's being made these days is such that I actually find Take That's latest album, Beautiful World, good!
Which is saying a lot considering that I never cared much for their music at the height of their fame!


KEPERCAYAAN KEPADA TUHAN (translated: BELIEF IN GOD).
That's the first of the five principles in my country's Rukun Negara.
I was seven-years-old when I first recited that Pledge (which I can still recite it to this day), and one of my first questions to the teachers in my Primary School was: Why do we need to believe in God?;
for which the reply was always: Because believing in God stops us from doing bad things.

And so, at the age of seven, I sincerely, vehemently, and honestly believed that if you believed in the Almighty, and if you believed in His divine Love, Justice, and Power, that you would be a good person, and that you would be free from sin.

But I was seven.
And at that age, I also believed that I would be happily married to my first crush by the age of twenty-three - and we all know how that turned out.

And so I grew up.
And I learnt that we all sin; that we're a lot of sinners, us humans.
That somewhere, hidden in the deeper recesses of that double helical strand in our nuclei, is a gene that codes for it - sandwiched in between the ones that code for hedonism, hypocrisy, laziness, and procrastination.

And it's not just the thieves, rapists, murderers, and terrorists that sin.
It's also the desperate student that cheats for a much needed pass in his paper;
the drama queen that will not stop complaining about how it's unfair that the priviledged reap from the labours of the under priviledged, without stopping to think that she belongs to the former as well;
the hypocrite that points a finger at those around him without realising that four are pointing right back at him;
the devoted boyfriend or husband that screws anything and everything in a skirt behind your back;
or the loyal friend that stabs you in the back when you least expected it.

We bribe, we cheat, we lie, and we manipulate others to get our way;
we hunger for more, craving what our neighbour has and forgetting that which has been blessed upon us;
we are selfish to the core;
what once belonged to us will always belong to us, and we will stop at nothing, pulling out every devious trick in our hats, to keep it in our grasps;
when we do succeed, it is I who worked hard and I who deserved it;
but when we falter, it is God who is at fault for not answering our prayers.

And every night, (for those of us who do) we bow our heads in prayer to speak to the Lord.
Every week, we visit our Churches, our Mosques, our Temples, and our Gudwaras to be in communion with God;
to confess our sins and to beg for His forgiveness;
and to ask for His grace and His blessings for the week that is to come.
We put on a farce - show the world that we are a pious lot, and hopefully they won't see the soot that is as black as night enveloping within us.

Just because we ask Him to forgive us our sins, as we forgive those who sin against us, we seem to have taken it as our right to err, to hurt, and to destroy, because we know we've already secured our ticket to Heaven.


Most Catholics have it easy; every year for Lent, they go vegetarian - and pesco vegetarian for that matter!
And me? Considering I am a vegetarian the other 325-or-so days of the year, the start of the Lenten season usually has me cracking my head as to what I could possibly give up: something meaningful enough to be called a sacrifice, but whose absence will not have me tethering at an edge, wishfully counting the days to Easter Sunday!

新年快乐

Salutations, everyone!

What The F*CK?! has undergone a major face lift and is back on roll!

*whee*

Margaret Alexandria Yoong