a recap of 2008

16 days into 2009....guess it's time to do some recap of what 2008 is all about to me.

after giving it some thought, i can now conclude that 2008 with one word; "change"

what has changed?

- moved into a new place

- changed job

- started cooking at home

- had sightly longer hair

- had a male boss after a string of female bosses

the list should go on...but these are some (and it think it's quite a big change) that will hopefully lead me to a great 2009!

thus in memory of 2008, i've assigned jeep to come up with a tattoo that says 'change' and it will be in my skin forever...(well, i will have to first approve jeep's design hah!)

HAPPY NEW YEAR to my family & buddies...let us all have a great year ahead!

the birth of attic

attic is born! with a nice name and a beautiful face...

attic is waiting for us to bring her friends, to get her engine roaring and probably a dog?

sitting here in the middle of the day gives me a kind of calmness that is almost unreal, can't believe shanghai can be this quiet. i turn right and i see a big tree right at my window; i turn left and i see the beautiful glass door overlooking more greenery. 

having created this by taking into accounts the tiniest detail, i hope everyone else will appreciate it as much as we do. and having said this, here's wishing attic a great ride!

identity is everything

my name is chyeyee, my country is malaysia, i'm living in china...i have been living with all these but only today did it suddenly hit me that these are what it's all about, these are what we call 'identity'.

sigh....without identity, nothing can be done. 

the thrill of it

adrenaline rush

heart pumping

nervous

stressed

excited

frustration

fear

i think the words above well describe what i'm feeling right now. it is such a mixed feeling that i have to take one day at a time, one thing at a time, give everything my best shot and hope everything falls in place at the end of the day...

but i have a feeling that it will be great and i'm really looking forward to it. i'm not sure what will i feel when its all done and we're ready to rock, i guess the feeling will be pretty amazing. and at that very moment, i can proudly say "this is my baby"...

feeling good

i'm feeling healthy both mentally and physically, and i intend to keep it up...

after spending a week of basically not really doing anything at work, it is finally coming to an end. i've been counting down the days and right now, it should be 2 more days to go. the last 15 months as a recruiter has been very useful and i know it's now time to move on or i will regret. i hope this new ride will be the answer for what i've been missing for quite some time...

i've been planning my dinner since 4pm in the office, well yes...this is what people do when they are bored in the office. after collecting inspiration from here and there, i found what i want to make tonight. as the clock tick 6pm, i'm almost the first one to rush to the lift and off i go with 2 other colleagues; walking toward the direction of bus no.49 which will take me to The Center. i walked from there on back home; put down my things...change and off i go again first to lian hua and then to the gym. 

bought all the stuffs i need...head to the gym. ran for 30mins on the threadmill while watching the replay of  the women's individual class 5 table tennis where ren guixiang (the 4th photo in the link) of China won the gold medal in the 2008 paralympics. did a bit of weights on the machine after that and then walked home. i felt so good after the run that i thought...."hmm...maybe should sweat even more.." then i thought of the crunch yoga dvd from Jen. so yeah, that's what i did...i did the fat burning yoga. it was quite a tough session (at least for people with zero yoga experience like me)...but hey, I SWEAT LIKE MAD it feels so good! after cooling down....i finally started my dinner preparation. hehe...so what did i prepare for dinner? here you go...

my roasted pumpkin on top of salad (without dressing) that contains green veg, red pepper and cherry tomatoes.

the nike 10km human race

malaysian national day, which is last sunday was celebrated by doing my 2nd run in shanghai (erm...yeah, 2nd run after more than 5 years). and guess what? this run has 15,000 participants wor!! so, let's imagine this...it's basically jam packed with human and you are actually doing a 10km run surrounded by people throughout. 

now, talk about surrounded by people. you will think, "so what?". now imagine this, its running in the rain coz it started to pour before the gun even went off, then you will see people taking out umbrella (umbrella during a run?). halfway through, couples start to walk under their umbrella like they are strolling in a park. most hilarious was how these 2 guys lit their cigarette during the run and start to walk while smoking...

can imgine? still can't?? well, let's take a look at the pictures then...hehe

this is like 0.1% of the crowd...so imagine 15,000 of these similar 'red people' swarming around u...haha!

but anyway, it was a really fun experience. so at the end of the day we are still smiling and laughing and most importantly we felt that we've shed some pounds by doing the run (not to mention that we went for curry fish head, roti canai, sinchew fried beehoon later as our way of celebrating "merdeka! merdeka"). 

told you....we had fun! 

the spirit of the games

in the midst of my olympics fever, honfoong managed to drag me out of the house and did some shopping today. today was more than getting flowers for the house, picking up the painting from the frame shop, refilling the fridge and visiting our favourite muji and uniqlo.

our visit to superbrand mall somehow gotten us to the adidas outlet. honfoong was checking out the official tees for the china team by adidas; contemplating whether or not to buy it for her dad. when asked for my opinion, my reply was "i'm sure old folks would love it, just get it". almost immediately after i said that one old man in his 70s old walked into the shop, stopped right in front of the national jacket and asked for the price. he said “要一件” almost immediately too. i turned around and saw a middle aged woman (whom i presume is his daughter) smiling broadly. i felt so proud that my theory of old folks loving the national outfits has proven correct.

the next thing i know, the oldman was stripping off his long worn polo-t and putting on the china team's polo tee on. he straighten the tee, tucked it into his track bottom while the shopkeeper fold his old tee and put it into the paperbag with the new jacket. his daughter was out of the shop paying for his shopping while all this was happening in the shop.


i can't help but asked the oldman, “要去看足球比赛吗？”

he replied, “我每天都运动！”


we left about the same time and we trailed the couple of son & daughter to the counter for issuing of the official receipt. the oldman looked so good in his new tee you can almost feel his patriotism bursting out from him. they then left the mall with the daughter carrying the paperbag in her hand and nothing else. i'm sure they made the trip to the mall just to get the jacket & the tee. the daughter might have spent RMB 1000 in less than 30mins but the smile on the oldman's face showed that he is feeling ecstatic with his new purchase.




35 golds and another week to go...chinese air is filled with the olympics spirit. i'm so glad i'm right where the historic moment is happening...