Of pot-luck gathering and currypuffs... and Tein's birthday

Sorry for the long~~~ pause ya (especially to Iman!) Saya tidak berjaya menjadi pengkarya pilihan anda minggu lepas ya, hahahaha~

Oh well, maafkan saya. I'm GLAD that today ended the series of my Mo0Ody Days I had this week. I guess this time, it was the most terrible mo0Od swing I had! I'm relieved it's over!

We had a great pot luck time at my boss' place @ Bukit Antarabangsa today (penat lalu depan Rumah Dato' K, tak pernah2 terserempak, haha!) Most of the department staff were there, with each of us bringing our specialty meal and delicacies. Spaghettis, nasi ayam, sate, nasi impit... all the good and fattening food. Me? I brought my self-made currypuffs. Kak Nadia said they were good (of course la, acece..) She tapau-ed a few to bring home. Heehee.. I'm honored, and delighted, of course!

Most of my colleagues brought together their spouses and children. Haha, my fave baby would be Zeti's. Iman, nama baby Zeti pun Iman.. tapi it's a boy la.. hehe. All he did was chuckled to all of my weird and funny faces. Tapi, sayangla.. lupa pulak nak took his photos. I will post the pics of the day in my Facebook lar..

Very soon enough August will arrive. I will wait patiently for the passing of the first half of it. I am eager to know what will be the story for me starting from the second half and onwards. It may be exciting. It may be the other way round too.

Hmm.. lastly.. siapa nak tahu recipe kepada pastry karipap yang sangat sedap dan crunchy?? (siyes beb sedap.. ni my Maktok yang ajar ok! Please do try. Intinya, buat la sesuka hati anda ye.. hehe)

The currypuff pastry ingredients: Flour, cooking oil, butter, water, condensed milk, salt. (Sukatan? Terpulang kepada tukang masaknya, asalkan kena dengan selera anda)

The method:

1. Pour the flour into a mixing bowl. I used the whole packet.
2. Heat the cooking oil together with the butter. 2 tablespoon of butter to be heated with 1 cup of cooking oil. Turn off the burner after the butter has fully dissolved in the oil. Let it cool down for a while.
   
3. Pour the mixture of fats into the flour, a little at a time. Mix well until the flour texture turns into somewhat like damped sand.
   
4. Mix the water with a tablespoon of condensed milk and a pinch of salt. Taste it before pouring, so it matches your taste. Then pour it slowly, still a little at a time, so that the portion of the water mixture is just right for the flour-oil mixture to form a dough.
5. You will see that the dough can not be stretched that long. The texture is kinda choppy. That is a sign that your dough is good (good as in it will be crunchy after you have fried the currypuffs) Your dough is ready to be rolled into thin pieces now!
6. Tips: When you are about to fry your currypuffs, make sure that you place them into the frying pan before the cooking oil gets hot. Better if you place them before turning on the stove, so that the fried surface will not have 'bubbles', and your currypuffs will look good =)

Iman, try ok! Untuk gathering birthday Sarah ;) Ke, nak aku buatkan... hehehe...

Hari ni birthday Fatin. Happy birthday Tein =) I will not mention yang ke berapa, cuz even for myself, it's sensitive now, haha ;) sorry aku lambat sket wish (>_<)

Mom's new celebrity student~

I know my mom had a few ex students who now became popular celebrities: Awal Ashaari, Aishah Sinclair, Dynaz, Faizal Tahir and TV3 newscasters Azawate Zenol Abidin and Shahida Azad Jamaludin. Yeah.. maybe Mass Comm students have this desire to appear on TV after graduating. Maybe they wanna be called as graduate artistes kut.. mungkinlah..

She told me again of a student whom she is teaching now. But at this point of moment I am feeling a little bit frozen over the story that my mom just blurted.

Her current celebrity student now is JANNA SYARIZA. Yes, JANNA SYARIZA. The most-talked-about girl in Malaysia right now. The girl whose blog(s) received hundreds and thousands of critical comments in just a few days. A pilot's dumb daughter who lets herself continue to be the fiancée of the good-for-nothing, popularity-obsessed, university-dropout, potential-bisexual, can't-even-defend-himself-from-being-molested-by-a-sixty-year-old-man Saiful Bukhari.

I'm starting to feel the heat of living in a small world again!

(Iman, tidakkah anda berasa ingin menemani saya ke UiTM untuk melihat secara dekat minah ni?? Haha..)

This is definitely gonna be interesting ok. Who knows she would come to my place one day, bringing her fiancé along. Haha.. I'd love to imagine =)

Wanna know more about her? Ala, just Google la kay. Access to her blog has already been denied for unauthorized personnel (I just checked).

(well really, I would love to comment on that Saiful guy, but since there are too many informative posts here and there in the blogs, I will just read them instead of commenting too. But the fact is, he is already a gay, if he was really being s*******d)

Rantings on a Sunday

A SMALL WORLD

Okay. I must admit that I haven't been to sooo many places there are on the surface of Earth to call it small. But lately, the phrase 'what a small world' seems to be occurring for quite a few times already for me.. which you know, ignites the jitters at the back of my head. This is an example.

Like a month ago, I attended my distant uncle's wedding (he's my mom's second cousin) in Bangi. I was really eager to have a look at his bride cuz he was sooo adoring the laydee (how did I know..? I checked his friendster and blog la. Okay2.. now I sound like I was stalking, haha. No lah, not that kind of intention) When I came to the wedding and saw the bride, it came across my mind that she was someone kinda familiar to me. I totally forgot about it until last week when Nona aired the wedding ceremony. Indeed, she was really familiar. So, I did my usual searching method: seeking on Google.

And so, I came across her blog (yeah, she blogs, haha!) Reading her page from top to bottom, I managed to find the answer to my wondering. We lived in the same neighborhood before! And we even used to cycle in a group too.. only that I think she didn't really fancy me, and the same case was for me too.. and that we didn't really talk to each other.

And now she's my uncle's wife.. blimeyy.. (>_<) or should I say "eeuuuwww..~~~"

Nope, wouldn't try to make her remember our childhood stories though.. it's better that she doesn't even know that I'm related to the husband. Oh, my families are like that. We rarely do even yearly visits on Raya time. The ties are getting looser with the growing of globalization. Perhaps when I have my own children later, the aunts and uncles they will only know are my officemates, besides my siblings and in-laws.


OF MARRIAGES AND GETTING MARRIED

The elders said, "bila dah sampai seru nanti, berjodohlah.." I buy that =)

The second half of 2008 has already started. Wedding invitations from my fellas pour in like there's no time for me to breathe until I get the next invitation. So alright, I am starting to feel like I am in God-knows-which-poll-position-it-is, in terms of winning the race of who-gets-to-reach-the-status-of-being-wedded.

I dunno why, but the sense of competition is coming back to me. Believe it or not, I surrendered during my time in the varsity cuz I knew I would never beat Tpot or Rahimi, or better, I didn't wanna spend my time like they did. And that I thought, if I were to continue being tied-up in the competition mentality, I would lose the fun things that I could do. So the past 5 years, everything was done 'under my interest, capacity and self-drive'. Yeah, it went fine. Varsity years was great. But I guess now, being just 'fine' is not what I want any longer.

I have this cousin. Pretty and educated. It can be said that we competed on almost everything: UPSR, PMR, SPM, which university we attended, what kind of job, who knows how to cook what, who bakes better cakes and biscuits on Raya.. those kinda stuff. I guess it was because of this competition idea which made us strangers to each other. Only now that we're grown ups, we are trying to mend the ties between us.

And so, this coming August and December, she will get engaged and married. Yerp.. again, that makes me feel I am in God-knows-which-poll-position-it-is-to-reach-the-status-of-being-wedded. Darn~ I hate this feeling. I wish that I could think of buying her a sweet present for her big day. But the sense of competition is killing me. Darn darn..~!

I confided in a friend about this. He told me just to chill and relax. Yerp, I should realize, it is after the wedding where greater responsibility will be carried.. and getting married is not just for the sake of the life record. I guess it is better for me to equip myself with better knowledge and and conscience before taking this next important step.

Oh well.. I know I'm learning everyday.. hmm..


CLASSIFYING YOURSELF

During the induction course that I underwent in February, there was a fragment of the course that enabled us to identify what type of personality each of us had. I was classified as 'The Shark' that reflected me being dominant. There were 3 other types: The Owl, The Teddy Bear and the Sheep. I can't really recall what the three others specifically mean, but they are something like this: The Owl: the thinker, who pauses, takes time to decide; The Teddy Bear: carefree, likes to have fun, sweet; The Sheep: rather shy, needs to be pushed, makes the Shark type angry, haha.

Okay, so I was then classified as The Shark. I was quite comfortable by being classified as so, because I thought, over the years, I haven't actually lose that part of me. I was always the dominant type. I didn't wanna lose it.

Lately, I did a few reflections on my actions, behavior and doings. I guess this Shark attitude could actually drive me up the wall. It's like, I can anticipate, in a few years to come, I might be diagnosed with having high blood pressure or some other diseases related to that. So I think, it is best if I were to revisit my inner self again.. which I have not properly done for a couple of years.

I read somewhere, that everyone at present needs to be agile to the call of globalization. And that, the key to globalization is to be fast, accurate and competent, so that one can stay competitive and relevant to the present world. And I feel, that Shark attitude is overwhelming me, because I thought I wanna answer the call of globalization. But there are times when I actually don't.

There are times when I loved to answer numerous work calls. And there are times when I wish I was somewhere peaceful and quiet. To learn to better serve the Creator.

Yeah, it's good to keep abreast with the modernization, but I am afraid all these will take away the person i would wanna be.

There is an old saying 'Dunia dikelek, akhirat dijunjung; agama dididik, moden dibela'

I hope my conscience will be better..

Malam boring

2145 hrs

At this point of time:

- I'm amazed pemimpin-pemimpin senja ni pun ada Facebook.. kalau blog tu boleh la tahan lagi. Gilers impressed! Nak scout berapa ramai penyokong ler tu.. (>_<)

- rasa amatttlaaa bercinta kerana esok terpaksa pergi Bintulu.. haih cepat la masa berlalu.. takkan la Julai pun akan jadi miserable month kut.. seems to me it will be affirmative .. nooo..~

- pelik kerana dalam dua hari ini telah terserempak dengan seseorang yang tak mahu dijumpai who looked at me as if we have some unfinished deals.. apa hal la mamat tu..? Jealous eh.. haha~ *wink*

- rasa amat la boring kerana dalam dua minggu ni hidup akan terkeluar daripada kebiasaan.. sedikit keseoranganlah..

- i thought i have been quite honest. Agaknya tak cukup lagi untuk membuatkan my Big Ma'am notice.. isk2.. or dia saja buat begitu so that I would change my mind.. hmm.. neverrr~

- dua colleaguesku telah menamatkan zaman bujang (sunyi je office lately.. they are on leave) and because of that I get to be the target of that 'boring' question.. ye, sampai seru saya kawen le.. bawak sabaq sket..

- Hidup Gs di KLCC telah menjadi sedikit mellow dengan pemergian Nadi ke Kerteh untuk menyahut seruan menjadi engineer semula.. ye, pas ni my turn dengan Iman pulak eh.. amin.. (^_^)

- I promised myself that I won't spend as much as last month. But I just bought myself a pair of comfy sandals.. for the sake of comfy walk in Bintulu (-_-) abes la kena leter sebab tak save..

- I have missed quite a number of engagements + weddings. Sorry la guys.. tak sengaja.

- I haven't packed my things. Gotta go.


2235 hrs