It's a 3 days weekend, which means throngs of open house invitations. I try to fulfill all the invitations (giving priority to families first then friends) because this is the opportunity to get to meet far, far away relatives and friends.
Bak kata orang (bukan sedara saya), "kena kenal lah saudara mara. Kalau tak kenal silap-silap bergaduh tepi jalan ke, tak tahu pun itu sedara sendiri." [yeah, like I go out on the streets picking fights, lol!].
I took only one picture.
A Rainbow cake.
There's a story behind this rainbow cake - I have not tasted one before despite the hype of the cake all over the social networking scenes. Tried looking for one in Penang pre-Raya days, but did not manage to find anyone who's able to bake one in short notice. So we substituted Kek Lapis Sarawak for the Rainbow Cake. Told myself, "OK, my next goal is to get a rainbow cake".
Fast forward to last weekend, I was surprised to see one of the host has a Rainbow Cake on the menu! Pucuk dicita, ulam mendatang =)
(I think when it comes to food, I'm using the power of 'The Secret' excellently.)
Did you know Rainbow cakes are made from unicorns... urmm... droppings? That's why they're colourful.
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I just stepped down from the weighing scale with an "o.m.g... did I really gained THAT much???"
I already have a slight inkling of some 'accumulation' of body mass when putting on my jeans and with that, it's appropriate to say 'You have to go with your GUT feeling'.
I need to do something about this issue before it grows 'bigger'.
I had a 3 days workshop outside of the city and since i was in town, i thought of dropping by to a friend's house to visit. It has been almost 6 years since i last saw her and her family. Everybody is fine.
I used to babysit her 3 kids once in a while. Today's post is titled -Triple A because all those little kids name starts with A. The best part was having dinner over at their house. lol. Back then being paid in food is equivalent to being paid in cash
Now all the kids have grown into teenagers.
Seeing kids grow makes you think how bizarrely fast time flies. And most of all it makes you realise you are THAT old... despite you 'feeling' all indifferent about your age.
I was watching a movie 'You Again' about a girl who returned home to find his brother is marrying a girl from high school who was her high school 'nemesis'. IMDb might write a better synopsis of the movie than me here. Anyway, that movie reminded me about a recent high school class reunion I went to more than a month ago (not that anyone was MY nemesis).
Why do high school pictures are always so ... fugly ?
This is a picture of my classmates taken X years ago. Don't we all look so innocent and.... nerdy?
Fast forward to 2011, and here we are now:
504 class reunion
Only 6 of us turned up despite baiting efforts with a delicious cake (it was Ct's birthday), but I would say it wasn't a let down because we did enjoyed catching up with each other and laughing back at the old times.
The Internet social network (again?) has allowed people to own numerous profiles on the web. Some people keep it simple and consistent across the web and some people have many 'colorful' profiles from one site to the other. This could only mean one of two things, either each separate profile is a reflection of themselves from different sides of their decagonial dice (I wanted to say- different sides of the same coin, but a coin only has two sides) or they have a multiple personality disorder.
For me, my blog, which has it's own profile, is like an extension of myself, particularly of my thoughts, but I wouldn't say it's my personality. Or maybe it is. OK, so now I'm confused. I'll settle for it being a 'window' like how the eyes are the windows to the soul. But it makes me wonder how could that be? If someone have a bad soul, how would the eyes looks like? Is there a detailed manual guide for this? Maybe I need to make more eye contact. I better stop here before I chat away about contact lenses.
Have you had that awkward feeling when you introduce yourself by referring to the blog you're writing in? For example:
"Hi, I'm Dyanna from 'As Told By Dyanna'".
I did once and it felt, like I said, awkward. And now after my blog's name has changed, I think it'll be a mouthful to say it out loud and without getting my tongue twisted at the end of the sentence :D
I was wondering if anyone out there who is reading this blog that I have not met yet would recognize me if I were to pass you by and walked over to me and said "Hi.". Or maybe I should ask myself whether if I would walk up to you and said "Hi, I'm Dyanna from 'As Told by Dyanna' and I'm one of your blog reader. Nice to meet you in person. Now I'm happy to know you're an actual person and not a robot." That would be a weird thing to say, but you can bet your cats that I'm going to say it or at least slip the word 'robot' somewhere in between the conversation.
I once (actually many times..) told my room mate half jokingly to get married first because if not, I would be crossing over the sill (langkah bendul). And so she did. Good girl.
Last Saturday was her wedding reception in Kedah and I was there to eat the nasi minyak. Congratulations!
The theme was pink/purplish (is there a word for this kind of color?), which I think really suited her.
We came from the same batch in high school but at that time, I only knew that she was just some girl in class 510 who was a year older because had to go through 'kelas peralihan'. So everyone called her 'kak' and I never gave a second thought. Then she became my room mate and class mate in the tight knit community in college. When we separated to each respective Uni, we still manage to meet up a few times every year for the road trips and suchs. Then after graduating we kept bouncing emails to and fro during working hours just for fun and to pass the time (and because work servers are really fast so it's like 'chatting').
She's got a really big heart and very sporting because most of the time, she would be 'bullied' by ali and me most of the time with internal jokes like 'nomber', pumpong, 'wanite' and 'lari setempat' (teruk kan? sorilah).
Anyway, I am dedicating this song to her. I think this song is very suitable for the occasion. (ps, i'm still waiting for the next big bollywood movie to come by it's been ages since the last good one).
It's been a while since I last took pictures for a wedding, and this one turned out to be below my own standard of quality. I guess I have lost the touch somewhere along the road. As I was doing post processing, I was very disappointed to see there was a color shift when transferring images from photoshop to the web. Now the photos are looking like they've been washed with blue ink and people looked very pale like vampires. I also noticed that the colors are different in FB and in Fotopages. Why? I'm still trying to figure out why this is happening...
anyway, the album is in FB and Fotopages. You know where to find them.
Talk about weddings, this reminded me of a (re)tweet that i saw: RT @FlyFM958: if you had all the money in the world, where would you wanna get married? -Rush Hour-
I was thinking about it (just for fun) and thought of a few places:
5 star hotel (nah, too typical), castle (gives me an eerie and creepy feeling), museum (too nerdy, but the science museum in London might be interesting though, but geeky), by the beach (too windy).
There are other places that are really, really nice like Taj Mahal or Alhambra or Greece and Turkey. Or a mansion with vast garden and different themes like at Powerscourt in Dublin.
Then I thought about what I would really like is actually something simple like on an open roof that overlooks city lights at night that looked like stars. Or perhaps on a rooftop underneath thousand of stars. That rooftop must be somewhere in a desert or an ancient city with cool breeze so that it's not that hot. Or a rooftop in NYC or LA. Or a rooftop in Santorini Islands overlooking the sea. A Rocking Rooftop wedding. (lol as i am typing this).
One word - poyo!
And then I remembered one episode of The Walking Dead, where a guy was left chained on a rooftop with zombies trying to break down the door to get to him. Sure, Killjoy.
Well, the FB 'puasa' didn't go as well as I thought it would be (I was expecting like a one week hiatus), I only managed to keep it up for 48 hours.
And it took about 24 hrs for someone to notice I was 'absent' from FB.
From my 'very brief' experience of deactivating...
Deactivating your FB doesn't really prevents you from signing into FB. FB did take a lot of effort to deter its users from deactivating, there's actually 6 steps to deactivate. But it only took a mere one click of a button (sign in) to join back the social network and voila, everything went back to normal.
What happens when you deactivate FB? All it did was take you virtually off the FB map (people cannot search you or write on your wall - my guess lah) and your email won't be as congested as it was before.
If you do not wish to deactivate your FB account and save the emotional war from waging within you, then maybe you could consider some tips to manage distractions from FB:
Many complain that they get a lot of email notifications from FB and it's really distracting. What I did was redirect all FB mails to Gmail and set up filters and labels. It is easier to have the setting done properly so that your REAL emails won't be overlooked or hidden in between FB notifications. Now all notifications goes to my Gmail and straight into a folder labelled facebook. What I will do is select all 'unread' messages and delete them (weekly or monthly) or just ignore that folder altogether. Here's how to set up filters.
You spend too much time scrolling through the News Feed Wall. There is something about the endless trickles of messages that keeps you waiting for more. These kind of walls are great in a way that it feels like you're listening to what your friends have to 'say' and you can chit-chat with them if you feel like it. But most of the time the writings on the wall are just noises that are supposed to be ignored (eg: Warna apakah dirimu antara 25 warna-warna gula-gula?). You can actually control the number of news feed postings and also block a person's feed from showing up (without de-friending them). There is actually an option for this at the bottom of the News Feed page. 250 is a good number to start with.
Keep your circle of friends small. Okay, who has 5000 friends in real life (or 300) and kept in touch with ALL of them? Keep it real. If you count the actual number of friends you actually interact with it might only be 20 (minus work colleagues, your parents and siblings on FB). Yes it's good to keep in touch with pre-school friends or a person you only met once 5 years ago, but draw a limit to it.
Stop playing games on FB. I'm not a fan of virtual farming or running an oriental restaurant online. I don't see the point of doing so. But some people are addicted to it. I know it's hard to kick the habit, but step by step detach yourself from the time stealing games. Go on, press 'Delete' and 'Yes'.
Be selective in posting and commenting. You don't have share every single thoughts on FB. And you don't have to comment on all you friends' posts. There are times that you feel like you wanted to share with the world about how crooked your fingers looked like, or you had the best teh tarik for the day (everyday). And there's the eternal itch to respond to every friends posts even it it's just 'LOL.' or 'er...?'. You know you are better than that. Please don't get trapped in that lame-ness. (well, unless you're lonely and have nothing better to do than engage in pointless comment ping-pong match)
Be more disciplined. Set yourself a limit and respect that limit. That limit could be like; check FB only 3 times a day (morning, noon and night). Do not click 'Older posts' on the News Feed, take a deep breath and just let it go. Stop stalking other people or that new hot crush of yours. Spend only 10 minutes on FB each time. Just make up a rule and keep to it.
I shared 6 tips that I tried and tested before and it did worked for me when I was working in the office. My productivity at work improved with these 5 tips implemented. Now that my daily routine has changed, I have to admit that these set of tips needs to be 'upgraded' to suit my new schedule, hence the deactivation ('extreme' I know, but I haven't gone to the most 'extreme-mest' yet - deleting my account!).
There are other good ideas shared on the web on how to curb this need-to-know-about-others-anxiety. Just try googling it up ;)
As of now, I am off that map again after rationalising with myself that I'm not missing on a lot of things and people, I believe I can go on for much longer this time around. Let's see, maybe 1 week?
I received firm support and also good news from friends who are also following my action to be off FB. Hope we won't suffer severe withdrawal symptoms :P . Good luck to us!
(ps: it has been 4 days since I deactivated FB again) (pps: now hooked on Twitter pulak, but it's less distracting that FB, not yet.)
Facebook is the "IN" thing nowadays. I was skeptical of FB initially, mainly because my friend who introduced it to me keeps going on and on about how fun it is to play Vampire and Zombies on FB (ugh!) and take quizzes. That's what FB basically do last time. But now after many Facebook facelifts and re-vamps (pun intended), I've changed my mind ever since.
On a daily basis, I normally would get maybe 1 to 5 notifications a day. 10 is the max. 0 on really slow and boring days. But on this particular day, when I logged in FB around lunch time, there's a couple of small red boxes blaring at the top of FB menu wanting my attention.
30 new notifications and 10 new friend requests!
Wait a minute... I never get this much request in just a single day. This must definitely be spam!
Went to look at the thing that started this all. I was tagged in a class photo. A photo that came from the year 1992!
Up until today, the comments mounts up to 161, and still counting, though slower than initially. I was the Penolong Ketua Darjah that year.
And that started the wave of comments, from people that I haven't heard from in ages! And most of us are now connected to each other thanks to FB. And thanks to FB, I am now able to put names to the faces that I've forgotten all these years.
It is amazing and almost magical to think that one single picture is able to bring everyone together and how it manages to take us down memory lane and somehow it felt like this happened just recently and not 18 years ago. My goodness, how time surely flies!
It was good to hear from classmates again, especially from primary school =)
Faza is my friend from college. She's a cute person and fun to be with. Although sometimes I think she thinks too much, but I think that sets her special from the rest :)
Well, maybe some preview of Dora and Ikhwan's wedding day. (Click the pic above!). Still more to come. That'll keep me busy till next week and we'll resume back to ogling at Federer during Wimbledon season as normal :P
I got an sms last night. I just can't believe what I was reading. It must be some kind of a bad joke in the middle of midnight. However, news keep pouring in one after another, although hard to swallow, I just had to take it in.
I knew my friend, Adila Ishak when I was doing my short stint in UTM Skudai. During that short time spent staying together under one roof in the felo house in UTM, I knew her as a clever and fun going person, who always loved to smile. Sweet, sweet Dila.
I learnt that she was infected by one of her students who had TB and had been coughing since the end of last year. Thought it was just normal cough. It got worst around two weeks ago and had to be warded after the doctors diagnosed her with TB. Last week, she went into ICU (I was SMSe-ed about this last weekend). I've followed her health updates through my friends via yahoogroups. One of her lungs was badly infected and a respiratory machine had to be attached to her to help her breath. While reading those emails, a lot of emotions were going through my head, mostly about having faith and praying hard that she will get better soon and at the same time fearing the worst might happen. And she passed away last night, succumbed to TB.
A life, taken at a very young age. But Allah loves her more and it's fated to be only till here.
[pause]...
After leaving Utm, I've been following her life through her blog and friendster's profile update. It seems like she's had gone through some unfortunate vibes that made her feel a little bit sad and the thing that gave me goosebumps is what she wrote in her last entry. Speaking about death and she put her status as 'Kosong' on her profile. I guess the signs were there and were given subconsciously, and it's just that we failed to notice them or just simply been overlooked.
I know it's not my fault or anything, but I feel a little bit guilty because I did notice that she's feeling a little bit on the downs and I brushed it aside, thinking it was nothing serious. I think I should have asked how she was doing and maybe offered a little bit of motivation or advice rather waiting for blogs or profiles to be update. Now, it'll not be updated at all. Ever...
I guess, it's a lesson for me (if not, for all of us), to make a gesture to my friends every now and then. That's what online networking groups are for.
I'm surfing the net like usual on my free time. After jumping from blog to blog and finished reading all sort of weekly round ups I finally got bored and started googling people's name (bengong tak? klu dah takde keje sangat cam ni la).
I almost gagged when I saw the search results.... 'pom!' came out this picture.... it was for Utusan's Salam Aidilfitri in 2001.
Caption: Pengirim : x-Pelajar IB Kolej Mara Banting 1999/2001
Ucapan: Selamat Hari Raya Aidilfitri kepada seluruh kaum keluarga dan sahabat handai... tidak lupa juga kepada guru yang pernah mengajar kami......
This was taken in our first 3 months in UK. At Notts game. The first sports annual when uni starts. So you can notice the eager faces... for most of us, it's our first time living in a foreign country and all that you could depend on is yourself and your friends. Gone through a lot of obstacles but everything came out fine at the end.
Kelakar kan kalau tengok gambar lama-lama macam ni? After that, you start to wonder what's going on with their lives right now... orang ni macam dulu lagi ke? orang ni happy ke? orang ni finally dapat jumpa cinta sejati tak? orang ni kat mana sekarang? diorang sume wat ape? apa-apa pun, untuk semua I pray to you all the same, that you are leading a good life with all blessings given from the Almighty.
Here are two close friends of mine who got married last weekend. I could not think of any other couples who are as fun-loving and funky as you guys :D May you both be blessed with happiness, health, wealth and lots of children together.
I enjoyed every bit of the wedding event, the small KMB gathering we had and the food. The only regret that I had for the day was not bringing MY OWN camera to snap pictures (so rasa tak best plak nak taruk gambaq kat IBUK fotopages).
So, the next predictable question is: Who's next? ..... Jeng, jeng, jeng...
Hey guys, btw, Kak wan and I (accidentally) drove to KMB for a reality check ;P
I felt like a dinasour... huhuhu...Ingat tak ni???
There was a wedding last weekend. A garden wedding. Smack in the middle of Shah Alam. All those who went to Tepen would know the groom. He's my classmate. Selamat Pengantin Baru, tak sangka hang kawin dulu. Glamer jugak hang punya kenduri. I went to the wedding with these two nice girls...The wedding also turned out to be a small gathering of schoolmates and an impromptu batch meeting was conducted by Mr Izam himself to plan for a 10th year reunion for our batch. Honestly, I'm a little bit ashamed that I can't recall the names of my former schoolmates. Ampun! It's embarrassing, really. It's been such a long time since we left high school and I think I've never spoke to anyone else other than my classmates and the bureau team members.
And yes, it's about high time that we organise a reunion for our 97/98 batch next year to refresh and cherish our memories, tie up loose ends, create new networks, re-strengthen our friendship and ukhwah. Best!
Here's a view of the new Floating Mosque near Batu Feringghi. It's a beautiful mosque. One of the many things that you should come and see (and visit) when you are in Penang. Ain't that true, Dora?
(Tabblo will be updated in a few days time)
(Now I see the point why Mynn always saturates his pictures. It brings the colours out from their bland surrounding; grey overcast day).
There's a few things missed out from this blog, like:
Transformers, The Movie: It was a great movie! The CGI effects of the Autobots and Decepticons are really superb and almost real, that it almost made me screamed like a girl. Wait, I am a girl! I'd rate this movie 3.5 stars because I hate the heroin yg gedik tu (boleh tak?)
Last year, August was the month of friends, whereby I had a couple of good friends over in Penang for a visit. This year, my Month of Friends started early in July and may continue till end of August (I hope). Dora, my friend from Tepen came over for a visit. Took her around (almost) the whole island of Penang. Most of it was spent eating by the seaside. I had a great time and I hoped she had a good time too.
I have silenced the 'demons' in my head. Now I'm broke. But I am happy, I guess.. until I figured out how this thing works. (Evidently people, money doesn't buy you immediate happiness).
I dedicate this song to Fizah and Najib, whose wedding will be held this weekend :) :) :) Semoga bahagia berkekalan sampai bila-bila.
Some say love it is a river that drowns the tender reed Some say love it is a razor that leaves your soul to bleed
Some say love it is a hunger an endless aching need I say love it is a flower and you it's only seed
It's the heart afraid of breaking that never learns to dance It's the dream afraid of waking that never takes the chance It's the one who won't be taken who cannot seem to give and the soul afraid of dying that never learns to live
When the night has been too lonely and the road has been too long and you think that love is only for the lucky and the strong
Just remember in the winter far beneath the bitter snows lies the seed that with the sun's love in the spring becomes the rose
This song and video clip just melts your heart away. Don't you think so?
(I stumbled upon this song at Yat's blog and thought of looking at it's lyric and video clip.. and found beautiful Westlife people!)
We had a farewell dinner party, last week, for one of the manager who's leaving the country. I had the chance play David Tutera for that dinner party. If you're asking, "Who on earth is David Tutera?", well, he's the host of his own show The Party Planner on Astro Travel & Living Channel 11.
Being the party planner is not easy, but you get to boss everybody around...muahaha!... err, I mean in a good and productive manner to make the event flow smoothly (you can't do everything on your own, you know).
Party planning in a way is fun, especially at the visualisation part. There's so many decoration ideas to experiment with and so many theme to choose. However, the choking factor normally would be limitation of funds. And like always, (paying) guests expects a grandeur event but they only want to pay pennies for it. Mana boleh jalan?
So what to do? Pull some strings of course. Find someone who has a lot of friends in the party decorations industry, such as balloons (it's one of the most expensive items), tablewares, banners and start thinking of DIY things yourself. You'll be amazed to find out that you're quite the Martha Steward when it comes to make your own decorations.
Our dull and boring cafeteria has been tranformed into something more appealing to the eyes.
I don't want to talk much about food. Not that it is not good, but mainly because of my over anxiety and worrying that things might go wrong killed all of my appetite. I did though, ate a plateful of fried rice and some other stuff that I can't recognise. I would have eaten better if I was a guest. However, we did have loads of food plus three hawker stalls serving:
I went to Tasek Gelugor last weekend to attend a friend's wedding. Tasek Gelugor is located about 1 hour's drive from the island. This was the first time my parents ever let me drive anywhere outside of the island by my own (driving in UK doesn't count), so I was a little bit nervous. On my way there, I encountered a 'fresh' accident scene on the Penang Bridge (glad that I was spared the traffic jam) a reminder for me to drive even more carefully.
Like usual, it wouldn't be 'me' if I didn't get lost trying to get to a location, even if I had a co-pilot, we'd still get lost because I was the one driving. After reaching Sungai Dua, I thought I took the correct turn, but it proved to be otherwise after 5 minutes of driving and not recognising the landmarks I've passed compared to the map. I made a big U-turn and from then onwards, I drove with my instincts switched 'ON'.
It was not until upon reaching Tasek Gelugor (it's a smaller town compared to where I am staying) that I realised the massive scale of the wedding event. There was like half a dozen of RELA officers doing their best to control the traffic flow while other people parked their vehicle along the roadside on the narrow road. I can make a rough guess that this guy had invited at least EVERYONE at Tasek Gelugor to his wedding!
Ramainya umat...khemah extended sampai hujung padang.
Sifting through hundreds of guests, I try to find familiar faces among the crowd. Well, it seems that Penang is not a popular place to go to since majority of the guests are mostly local people, and most of my friends from KL and other places were prefered to attend the KL function later next month. (I also missed K Shameem & Man because they left early). Finally I found a postgrad family sitting on a table so I joined them. I'm sure my Cardiff friends will recognise them immediately. FYI, they're doing fine and now currently staying in SP.
Me (I look fat!!) , K Ani, Milla & Moqq, Abg Che Det and his daughter (front; green dress).
"Selamat Pengantin Baru kepada Moqq and Milla!!!"
About 4pm, we parted our ways. I headed straight towards the Penang Bridge only to find a sluggish traffic flow towards the bridge (not another bomb scare again!!!) (* I don't exactly know what actually happened). Then I decided to drive back to Butterworth and take the ferry instead. I was very excited at this point because this is my first ferry ride since 5 years (yeah, kesian budak ni...)
One of the few places where drivers actually follow instructions (minimal potong line, road hogging and road bullying).
A colourful ferry with Penang Island at the background.
Selamat Pengantin Baru diucapkan kepada sahabatku Fid suaminya Nazeri. Semoga bahagia berkekalan sampai ke akhir hayat.
Anyone has pictures to share?
Ramai jugak yg berkahwin last weekend rupanya, Fid, then ada dua org lagi yg keluar surat khabar Utusan mingguan tu, lepas tu 3 pasangan lagi yg masuk bertanding rancangan TV9-Cari Menantu.
I was invited to a wedding reception of one of my college friend in the 'inner side' of Perak, namely Gerik. Due to unforeseen circumstances, I had to politely put down the invitation of the bride because driving to Gerik alone was a bad idea.
Breaking the news to my friend made me feel bad towards her. So dengan tak malunya, I invited myself to the reception of the groom's side, which was much more closer to Penang.
Given only an address (since she doesn't know how to get there), I was set going on a wild goose chase yesterday. Figuratively speaking. Call me crazy for going after a wedding reception just based on a texted address without any directions and landmarks to refer to. If you're in Malaysia, this is considered a challenge, unless you are familiar with that area. So I dragged my parents along after much persuasion.
We managed to get to Kg Air Putih in Kulim without getting lost. And was quite lucky that the groom's family had put up a couple of sign boards to direct the guests to their location.
It was really weird at first being the only guests from the bride's side there (the bride's convoy were still on the road). I was afraid my dad would get all grumpy because I dragged him along into this, but suprisingly he met his old classmate which happens to be the groom's uncle and that made his day.What a small world indeed.
The groom's family was very nice and quite chatty with us. I got to met all of his sisters and aunties and they don't seem to mind at all we 'crashing' into the kenduri. Hehe...
Dan tersempurnalah hajat utk berjumpa dgn Ana di hari perkahwinannya. And here's to Farhana and Anuar... Congratulations to the lovely couple :)
lol. Back then being paid in food is equivalent to being paid in cash 
Laksa.
