The Virgin and the Gipsy by D.H Lawrence

I was queing in a hypermarket one Saturday morning, to pay up for my weekly groceries. I had like 3 people infront of me. Next to me was this metal crate filled with books. Cheap books. To be honest, I've been eyeing that crate ever since they placed it there, somewhere about 3 weeks before. Try to tell myself, ' I've enough books to last me till at least the end of the year'.
So I innocently pick up one to browse, while waiting for the line to move. Then another and another. Soon, I'm hoping for the person at the counter will take their time so I can browse more. Hopeless me. No self-control or willpower whatsoever when it comes to b-o-o-k-s.
At the end, as so my effort don't go to waste, I've decided to buy one by D.H Lawrence. The name does ring a bell.
Virgin and Gipsy is all about unspoken, un-allowed, indecesive thoughts, words, actions typical of those era. I'm not sure why I must torture myself with classics again? But I did. After I've finished with the book - I went like 'that's it'??

The Gargoyle by Andrew Davidson

Accidents ambush the unsuspecting, often violently, just like love

I started reading the book on the bus when I went for my office's brain drain session for Management staffs. A foreign colleague from Mumbai changed her seat to another after several attempts to lure me into talking more than a few sentences failed. I was so engrossed in the book (I've already forewarned her before the journey starts). When the bus stopped for 10 minutes toilet break, my ED asked me 'what are you reading?' I was so afraid that he would suggest me to present book of the month session, I replied 'purely, 100% fiction' hope he caught what I meant and he answered after looking at the book cover, what not MB?? (mills and boon). I'm only interested if its MB, he said. ... Yeah right, I knew he was joking.

Love is as strong as death, as hard as Hell
Death separates the soul from the body, but love separates all things from the soul -Meister Eckhart, German mystic

As fast as I was intrigued by the book, I was also faster in losing interest in it. I'm not too sure what I was expecting. Maybe I thought or hoping it would be a another not too horror/paranormal genre but it turned out to be a gothic love story. Usually I'm all for these out-of-this-world kinda of love story but I soon found myself tired of another flash-backs (plenty in this book) and centuries old 'I tell you' story over and over again. My lack of interest became obvious when twice, I fell asleep after reading a few lines from the book. But the present situation/description of the characters were very interesting. And that, I really enjoyed. It varies from being an unwanted child to nephew of drug junkies to Galileo's book fan to professional pornography artist to the so-called 'fourth' degree burn victim to 'this one is not dead yet' guest to Hell. The last part was when my interest picked up its pace again. No doubt, author has been very thorough in his research for the book. At one point I felt as if I was reading a cross between medical journal on burnt or religious history book.

I love you. Aishiteru. Ego amo te. Ti amo. Eg elska pig. Ich liebe dich.

King of Fruits

2 weekends ago, our good friends invited hubby and me to visit their durian orchard in Batu Pahat, Johore. Beside their home compound which is planted with many tropical fruit trees (durian, mangosteen, rambutan, pulasan, duku, mango) the invitation also include to pick durian at their 30 acres durian filled orchard! This year will be the last durian harvest for the land bcos after this season the said land will be turn into palm oil plantation. So this is the last 'kopek' (last chance). Our agenda for the day include appetiser - eating durian, plucking rambutan and pulasan; followed by lunch at Batu Pahat town with nasi briyani and otak-otak as main menu; then we stopped at the 'market' to buy fresh crabs, prawns and fishes direct from the fisherman (unbelievably cheap) and lastly to the main agenda of collecting durians from the orchard.
We acted like professionals at picking the fell durians without actually realise that some were not naturally dropped from the trees but in fact were plucked by monkeys. The orchard care taker showed us how to differentiate the good durian from the bad ones (trying so hard not to laugh at us). But the main important thing was all of us had so much fun ... posing for the cameras!! ^_^

Makan durian, burp durian, kentut durian ...

Revenge of The Fallen

3 days after the movie premiered in our local theaters, I received a text from an ex-colleague asking whether I would like to watch Transformers 2, bcos he can give me free tickets? Are you kidding me? I am more than willing to pay for the tickets but unfortunately all were sold out ... at least for the 1st weekend. Those who get tickets, apparently had placed their bookings ages ago. I've already mentally prep my kids to be patient at least for the next two weekends before we can get the opportunity to watch it in theatre. But I guess lady luck was smiling on us. Turned out my friend had 6 FOC tickets to give away!! Since hubby was in Singapore so my kids and I went with 2 of my brothers and my sis in law.
I read that critics preferred the 1st movie but all of us love it!! 3 words ... Awesome! Awesome! Awesome! Enough said.

ps/ thank you Lionel

Brain drain sessions

Starting tomorrow, I'll be going for a 3 days brain drain sessions organised by my company in the beautiful island of Pangkor. Mixing work with pleasure? Ha!ha! I wish. Been to similar sessions before and it was gruelling!! By the time they released us for dinner .. you are literally brain-dead..
So dont forget to tune in for my torture report later :)) If I live to tell my story, okay-okay just kidding! Have a good week ahead, people.

Farewell Michael Jackson 1958/2009

I first received the text at 06:30am. Michael Jackson died. Is this some kind of a sick joke? Then the next one at 07:40am. I've got no time to check the facts. Went into the car. It was all over the radio. HitzFM Djs were receiving calls from listeners that caused me to choke with tears on my way to work. At a traffic light, I quickly grab a tissue. Gosh, I was in a mess. Memories of my first encounter with the name Michael Jackson when a cousin's family who was living in the States for 11 years came back. His 8 year old son ( my second cousin) showed me (then 12 years old) - MJ album. Who's he? I asked. My question was answered later that year when he won several Grammy awards for Beat It. Ooo.. so he's Michael Jackson.
I sang the song Ben (by MJ) at a school gathering when I was 14.
In 1996, hubby (back then boyfriend)and me went to watch Michael History Tour Concert in KL. We pushed our way to secure tickets at Hard Rock Cafe KL on weekdays bcos it's almost sold out everywhere else. I knew then, that was going to be my first and last 'live' encounter with MJ.



The office was at a sombre mood. Some in the know. While some had just heard in the elevator. I quickly switched to CNN. Everywhere around me preparation was being made by channel reps to change TV schedule for at least the next day in order to pay tribute to the King of Pop. I went into the meeting room with an exclamation remark 'Are we still gonna have this meeting? I'm mourning here! ' I meant it as a joke. And when I honestly dont have any contribution towards around the table questions my VP remarked 'I think we have to kill another Superstar next week' (just to get my mouth shut). Mean boss.

I like the song below. Hope you do too.



RIP MJ

Breaking Dawn by Stephenie Meyer

When you love the one who was killing you, it left you no options. How could you run, how could you fight, when doing so would hurt that beloved one? If your life was all you had to give your beloved, how could you not give it? If it was someone you truly loved? Preface

I know it's inevitable. Sooner or later I would finish reading the book and it happened too soon. Last Sunday I reached 'the end' of its 756 pages. I kept going like 'oh gosh, 8 more chapters to go, 4 more, oh I should stop now and continue tomorrow etc. But it didnt happened. I continued to read. Danish my eldest son cheered me all the way (literally), my hubby shook his head while gave comment like for the life of me, I would never finish a book as thick as that even if you gave me two years to read. All were fast asleep when I finally put the book down.

More than my own life - Bella Swan

I cried. Twice. Once on page 682 and second when the above words were uttered. I'm not too sure whether I was really moved by the story or what's happening to the characters that I've grown to love or was it bcos I know 'the end' is approaching and there will be no book 5 in the series. I do enjoyed the book but I must say Eclipse (3rd book of the saga) is still my favourite.

So here's sayonara to the Twilight saga books. Its 2nd and 3rd movie will be out in Nov 09 and 2010 respectively. Until then.