The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini

"If I may ask, why did the man kill his wife? In fact, why did he ever have to feel sad to shed tears? Couldn't he have just smelled an onion?" So said the 7 year old Hassan and I subconsciously(if not already) fell in love with the character.

I had to laugh amidst my tears. The last book which managed to do exactly just that to me (torn between two opposite emotions) was Angela Ashes by the recently demise Frank McCourt.

The book was lend to me by my sis-in law K. Lin. In fact she loaned me 2 of Khaled Hosseini's best seller books (quite some time ago) BUT I was not ready to read it yet. I have the feeling that Kite Runner needs some serious concentration from me and its gonna be one of those intense book and I wasnt ready to ... cry especially. My taste in book change drastically after the passing of my father last February where I was so in need to get away from all of it that I dont want to drain myself emotionally. So I turned to reading unfamiliar characters which I dont have to relate to and if I were to cry bcos a girl is torn between her love towards a vampire and a werewolf so be it bcos somehow that is so far fetched. And so I indulged myself in many unfamiliar or different genres of books. Staying away as much as I can from the heart-wrenching ones (use to be my favourite).

Zendagi Migzara ... 'life goes on'

Two weekends ago I've decided that I am ready. And the book didnt dissappoint me. All the familiar emotions came rushing back to me and I embraced it gladly. The book was awesome. I wasnt paying much attention to the political background of the story (which was quite hard not to especially towards several chapters at the end) but more towards the turmoil relationship of the 2 boys Hassan (servant boy) and Amir (his master).

For you a thousand times over ...

I tried not to stay up too late especially on weekdays to read the book but the story kept pulling me back. It was so hard to resist. I finally put down the book last Tuesday night at 0110hr and suffered the next day at work.

But it was worth it.

ps/ I heard next month, one of the channel will be airing Kite Runner the movie. Okay got to wait for that one.

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• Angela's Ashes author Frank McCourt dies at 78 (thestar.com)

Brain drain - NOT

I'm sure you can't miss me ... not with that big fat arrow sticking out above my head ^_^. This post is way too long postponed. The management trip was more than one month ago and I said I was gonna write about it 'sigh' ... how time flies.

Well, nothing extra-ordinary happened. We kept ourselves pretty busy. The first day was filled with 'fun in the sun'. We played mini 'amazing asia' where we put our lazy muscles to work. There were 4 groups all together and my group won number two.
Our brain drain session started on the first night itself with ice-breaking session where each one of us were subjected to tell everyone 'what you don't know about me' confession game. That was kinda of interesting, with many stories that made you either laughed your heart out, popped your eyes or too stunned to response. Yeah, it was that wild. We are a bunch of hooligans, I must say :)

When the session officially starts the next day at 0800hr, the single thing that saved all of us were Michael Jackson's songs collection. It was less than a week after his demise - so the big boss filled his ipod with all MJ songs, hooked it into the speaker and played it in between the ciggy, toilet, refreshment, lunch, tea breaks. The rule of the day was whoever came in late was suppose to sing one line of MJ song (of their own choice) and of cos' accompanied by his moves. Very soon the come in late rule became come in last. So no matter how early you are, if you are the last one so you have to do a MJ. That was hilarious!! If there was any awards it would have gone to these two guys Sean (Head of Finance) and Mr Z (Exec Director). Sean from Sydney aka Mr GQ - turned his cap around chose Smooth Criminal from the ipod list and did the Moonwalk effortlessly accompanied by wild cheers from all of us! Whilst Mr Z was deemed the last to come in when all of us decided to play the prank on him (he was the one who came out wt the MJ 'punishment'idea). It was our last break for the day but when Mr Z went to the gents, ALL 45 of us rushed back into the room with our drinks etc and waited for him. He did suspect something when he realised he was alone at the empty hallway. Mr Z did bring the house down when he grabbed his groin ala MJ with Thriller.
We did push ourselves to finish the discussion and presentation till 6:00pm so we dont have to continue the next day. No worries, I won't bore you with the boring and serious content.
Dinner was BBQ at the area between pool and beach. The night was filled with songs from the 80's courtesy of the resort. At the table where I was sitted, everytime a new song came out we were trying to remember either the song title or the singer. That pretty much revealed our age lol. I retired early at about 10:45pm. By then almost half of us were already being thrown into the pool. Irregardless of your excuse, there were no mercy. You either choose the hard way, ran all the way across the beach with a group of lunatic (half were intoxicated) men chasing you or being carried away arms and legs (some while sitted on the beach chair and carried away like egyptian royalty) and swung into the pool, you go! It's almost like a ritual to all of our similar trip. Only this year, the casualties were lesser. Only one Blackberry and a Samsung handphone.

Elizabeth's Daughter by Marianne Fredriksson

'Words of comfort are like whipped cream, a superficial topping'
I like that phrase. Especially for people like me who prefer to listen rather than offer my words to others especially when someone losses somebody very dear to them. The book was a slow start for me. But only bcos I was just too sleepy and tired during weekday nights.

Elizabeth's Daughter was a perfect book for me to venture into modern setting after the classics. Set it modern Sweden which intrigue me to place the country as a must visit Europe country- one day, I hope ^_^ (apart from Germany). Even its society and culture sounds fascinating to me. So now, Sweden is no longer just Sony Ericsson, Ikea and Volvo to me. The one year maternity leave and emphasize on children's welfare also reminded me of a conversation I had before with my hubby's Swedish friend (many years ago) when he and family came to KL for two nights visit after their Borneo trip. We took them to see the famous fire-flies of Kuala Selangor.

Okay back to the book, I like its straight forwardness dialogue and no pretentious characters.

Here's a poem from T.S Eliot quote from the book:
'Where is the Life, we have lost in Living?
Where is the Wisdom, we have lost in Knowledge?
Where is the Knowledge, we have lost in Information?'

Have a good week ahead, everyone.

Fridge magnet (89-90) - Austria, Cambodia

Somewhere early this year I received one fridge magnet from Jakarta from a colleague who went there not for vacation but on work matter - to close our office which was based there. I didnt took its photo but that one made it to no. 88 on my fridge.

These two were given by Kak Long (sis-in law) which I havent met for 2 months perhaps until last weekend. Currently, she's the jet-setter in the family :))

Thank you K. Long for magnets no. 89 & 90!

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 ...