Come To An End, Again It Has

 Honestly speaking, 2012 has been a relatively blah year for me. Nothing absolutely fantastic happened to me, nor have I done anything out of the ordinary or memorable. The only thing that I can be proud of is that I've grown a year wiser *duh* but in a sense that my level of maturity has definitely went up a notch.

 I used to be the kind of person who tries to change how other people act, especially when they are around me just to suit my needs and reach my expectations. But I've come to realise that we all have to give and take in life. If a person can change for me, why can't I for the them? So, I meet them half way *cues singing will you meet me halfway*.

Annnnnnd we're moving on. There aren't any "highlights" this year, but more of "memorable" ones instead. Here goes...

TGIF

Working at Fridays Subang has been a roller coaster ride. Though not the most glamorous job, it is still counted as the first ever job that I landed all on my own so yeah, that gave me a sense of self satisfaction. Despite all the conflicts, arguments, pissy scolding from the managers and the occasional stalker moments, I couldn't have asked for a better place to work because Fridays is all about having crazy fun. We work hard and play hard.

PENANG & THAILAND

Penang served as a farewell trip to dahling SengFatt and also a holiday treat after Sem3 finals. We had a whole duplex all to ourselves courtesy of Wayne and the whole trip was all about stuffing our faces with Penang's finest food. Not to mention it was also a super hectic weekend for me because we departed for Penang a day after finals, and my trip to Thailand was a day after I reached home from Penang.

Thailand was such a memorable trip because it was the first overseas trip I went out without the rest of the Choo Clan. The trip was super last minute and was only finalised 2weeks before the departure date. Also, it was my first time travelling with YiWen alone anywhere. 

True, there were ups and downs, but it made us closer than we were before in a way and I couldn't have asked for a better companion to embark on a journey to the Land of Smiles.

Parasailing 

Despite only being 700feet above sea water for a mere 15 minutes, it was one of the best and most indescribable feeling I've ever experienced. It wasn't because of the adrenaline rush though, it was more of the feeling of not having a care in the world. Being amongst the clouds and having creatures of the air circling around you while you ascend and descend is just... I can't even describe it lol its just something you have to experience for yourself.

Thirst 2012

The first rave and by far the best party I've ever attended in my whole life... For now. There's just something about raves that makes it different from clubs. You don't have to worry about dressing up, looking good for guys or whatever. People go there to genuinely have fun and party their heart out. 

And to also meet new friends-! Who you may never know might end up as one of your best girlfriends boyfriend ahaha. I've never partied this hard and drank so much in an extremely long time. Needless to say, the old, fun Qing decided to make an appearance, but for one night only lol. I'm pretty sure a lot of people missed her. Owh well, its for the best that she no longer exists anyways.

Paintball

It seems that I'm very adventurous and active this year. First para sailing and now paintball. I honestly thought that I would be one of those girls that will just hide behind an obstacle and never reveal myself till game comes to an end but boy was it fun-! As soon as the marshal finished counting down, I found myself rushing to the front of the line and shooting my heart out ahaha. As for the not so glamorous moments, I fell down really epically a couple of times and received two head shots. In case you were wondering, yes, it does stings especially if it hits your skin directly.

Fit-tastic

I know I may not exactly be the people's favourite skinny meany lean mean ab-tastic bodied kind of girl, but looking at where I was a year ago compared to where I am now, I think I'm pretty satisfied. I started going to the gym last year but it wasn't until I quit that stupid mainstream gym that I started to see results.

See the thing is, I've always had this constant struggle with my weight. Like I'd go on a crash diet right before CNY then go back to eating normally, if not more after dieting like an arse.  I was so absent minded and clueless about what I was doing last year and the fact that I wasn't seeing results made me binge eat more because I didn't know what I was doing wrong. 

It wasn't until this year when I started going to my UniGym that I really changed my routine. I used to do cardio like mad at the mainstream gym which-shall-not-be-named so when I cut down to only running on the treadmill, I gained back a few kg and got slightly bigger again.

 But then I started to incorporate more sets (arms, legs whatever) and also started going to FitCamp at the UniGym. Though not as hardcore as boot camps, I'd like to think of it as pre-training for the boot camp, which I also plan on joining next year my internship. Well we'll see how it goes.

Basically, my new year's resolution is not to lose 10kg or whatever ridiculous goal of losing weight like that. But instead, I want to see a better fitter me than I am now. More toned and less fluffy ahaha and of course eating right. I do believe that abs are made in the kitchen. I only started eating better and cleaner about 2months ago (by cleaner i mean no more fried stuff and that's about it) and I see noticeable difference. No where near ab ready yet but, I'd like to think that its getting there XP

A Special Surprise

I'm usually not the kind of person that publicly displays my dating life because I think it'll jinx it and also because I don't like people being nosey and poking into my business but... I think its different this time? Lol another indescribable feeling. Though we met on messed up unique circumstances, if I were able to predict the future, I would have never been able to see us like where and how we are today. I'm going to steal his line now...

 "You really showed me how you could still care for someone despite being bundled up wth the daily hassles of life. Furthermore, accepting me for entirely being me". With him being such a goofy guy and me, a person who talks gibberish most of the time with him being one of the few species who can understand me, we make a pretty weird team :')

All in all, if you would ask me that given the chance to turn back time, would I do anything differently? No. Never. I only think of the experiences to be preserved in my memory and to disregard the unpleasant ones. After all, we would not be who we are today if there were no mistakes to learn from. 

With that, I have no regrets with what I've managed to accomplish, despite its insignificance. Instead, I usher in the New Year with glistening hope in my eyes that it will be yet another extraordinary year. No matter how things are planned out for me in my life, I will try to welcome everything with open arms. Happy New Year everyone-! May you have a blessed and fruitful year ahead =)

Ohana

Like fine wine, one mellows with age. 

The Choo's celebrated Mrs Choo's birthday at Ben's at Bangsar Village. We seldom dine in at a Western restaurant when it comes to family dinner but we were so impressed with the food at Ben's KLCC so we decided to give the branch at Bangsar ago. That, and we had to collect Mrs Choo's birthday cake at Humble Beginnings.

My peppermint milkshake (tis the season to be jiggly I say) and Mr Choo's root beer float

Small Choo's four cheese macaroni

Roasted chicken served with Caesar salad on the side. Shared by the other three.

The roasted chicken was slightly under cook, if you noticed the pinkish area of the meat. But the gravy that accompanied it was good. However, as The Choo's frequents Caesar Salad, we found it a tad bit disappointing. The dressing could've been more flavourful. The croutons were, basically huge chunks of tough bread and what should be grated Parmesan cheese was deep fried blocks of cheese.

And owh buddha don't even get me started about this salad. I suppose if you would enjoy this salad if you were a health junky. Actually, no, not even then. This marinated button mushroom and soy salad is... Ungodly. The vinaigrette was too overpowering and overall, not a dish that we enjoyed.

Went to Humble Beginnings after dinner to collect the cake WHERE SMALL CHOO AND I MET REUBEN KANG zomgosh *squeals* , went to Ikea to shop for furniture and went back home after that. Upon driving up the street where we live, we notice that two row of houses did not have any power at all, including ours. We also found pieces of tree branches strewed all across the road. 

We later found out that there was a massive orchestra or thunder and lightning earlier in the evening and it stuck one of the tree's outside of our house and it exploded a bit, leaving not more than half of the tree trunk left standing there. But hey, in the name of Mother Choo, the celebration must go on. Not having any electricity didn't stop us from eating cutting the cake lol. 

The power was out for a good 5hrs and it only came on at about 11pm. Moving past that grim night... Happy Birthday again mummy-! You've turned 53 but yet you don't look like a day past erm, 48? Lol at this age it can be counted as a blessing to look 3yrs younger than your actual age. Love that woman.

Mr Choo and I headed back to Teluk Intan for a day trip to visit the grandparents since I won't be going back this Chinese New Year. But the main reason was to help them set up the new TV-! Being the wonderful son that Mr Choo is, he bought Senior Choo a new TV and TV stand to replace the old rickety one that they had for years.  

So, Mr Choo and I sat in the living room early in the morning to help them fix up the TV stand FROM SCRATCH. It's a good thing too as a matter of fact because Mr Choo taught me a thing or two about fixing furniture. I'm proud to say that I helped assembled half of the TV stand *gleems* now now lads, take a number ahahhaa. See, potential wife material. I can help set up wardrobes and drawers and such while my husband stays in the kitchen and make me a sandwich. 

The setting up of the TV however, was all left to Mr Choo. Electrical and wiring isn't exactly my forte. And THAT is the end product-! My dad really never fails to surprise me with his technical and hands on ability to do such things, from carpentry, to gardening and to plumbing even. How lucky is my mum to have been able to snag such a handyman for a husband :3

The Choo's found themselves among the rest of the Choo family on a Saturday night having a pre Chinese New Year gathering at my aunt's new condo at Sri Perling. A woman who has an MBA, who bought the unit by herself and living on her own. That's lady balls right there. It was a pot luck event, thus, we ended up with a big fat spread of hearty and delicious meals prepared by every family. Again, tis the season to be jiggly.

Everyone also had a skype session with my Grand Aunt&Uncle all the way from the States. They have been there forever, more like forced to settle down there for the past decade or more because my Grand Uncle misplaced his immigration card which caused his Malaysian passport to be impounded. He was teary eyed during the whole skype session.

That was actually the first time Small Choo, my younger cousin and I were seeing him. I've never had a conversation with him or his son before, not even sure they know about my existence prior to this skype session. Having relatives and not knowing they exist or never having seeing them before is the worst feeling. And I know it's even worse for my Grand Uncle because Mrs Choo told me he wants nothing more than to come back to Malaysia to see his family, and to leave the States once and for all.

I'm sorry to say that I've been ditching hanging out with my friends this whole week, but I think I needed to spend more time with my family instead. I rarely get to sit down and have a proper talk with them on a daily basis and I felt that I have been neglecting them so much to the point that I find myself hardly able to catch up with them in family conversations regarding the latest happening and gossips and such.

This past week have been such a blessing because come next year, I know I'll be doing the same thing all over again because of my internship and involvement with the Student Development Hub in Uni. It has been a while since I got to hang out with them like this. I've even started going to the gym with Small Choo and I'm glad to say we've gotten pretty close because of that as well. The most important thing that I've learned during the holidays is that we really do have time for everything, we just need to know how to prioritize them well so we get some time off for ourselves too. With that being said, I'd like to end this post with "mon famille, mon ife". My family, my life :')

My Unhealthy Obsession

 Okay so I wouldn't call it an obsession, more like a "hobby" fascinating over all of the Hello Kitty products I wish to have. I'm most probably the only one out of my current circle of friends that loves likes Hello Kitty. A lot of people can't tell because of my extremely snobbish appearance, which by the way I really can't help. Honestly, I really do try my hardest to smile all the time.

My fascination grew tremendously after visiting Sanrio Hello Kitty Town in Johor. What used to be a fascination soon turned into an obsession. Before I knew it, I started googling everything Hello Kitty. EVERYTHING. From calenders, to planners, to Iphone covers you name it laa. Anything that I can stick a Hello Kitty face on, I'll like it. Believe it or not, I was soooo tempted to get this Iphone covers, and that's saying something, coming from a person who despises large covers.

And then Samsung released the new Samsung Galaxy Y limited edition Hello Kitty line. I came close to buying this because my Iphone4 was giving me major problems during the GalaxyY's release and it only costs RM599, like what?! Other bloggers heavily advertised it as the must have phone for best friends. Well first off, I'm forever alone so I aint got no best friend. Secondly, androids confuse my technologically impaired brain.

BUT, not all hope is lost. Went to Pavillion for Christmas and CNY shopping with Mrs Choo and small Choo, and my present this year is this-! Hello Kitty Eau de parfum, stamped and approved by Sanrio. The original cost is RM250++ but it was on special discount for the holiday season and it was marked down to RM169. Steal? Ahahahhaa I'd like to think so. 

I'm not the kind of girl that fancies perfumes. The only one that I like is Marc Jacob's Daisy which is ridiculously expensive and no way in hell am I paying that much for a perfume when I can use deodorants that smell equally as good, if not better heh. And my mum's Chance by Chanel because of its crisp clean and fruity scent. But this HK perfume is even lighter than that which I love love LOVE.

So there you have it, my perfume virginity was given away to this beautiful black and clear bottle. Owh, and Mrs Choo bought me a Hello Kitty top from Forever21 as well. Despite my love for the damn cat, people are surprise that I have such few Kitty merchandises. Other than these two, I only have another one which are socks that I only use for the gym that MrS gave to me. But they're the most authentic because he got them from Japan *close enough*. 

Okay so now I've openly declared my obsession for Hello Kitty. I have no shame. And Merry Christmas everyone =)

The Mermaid's Flower Power 21st

The first one among all of us to turn 21! Now she doesn't have the right to say she's still 20 because that has been her excuse for the whole year. What's to be embarrass about being elder than us one year right? Like fine wine, we mellow with age. But in her case...

The theme for her birthday party was flowery, as you can tell by the title. So everyone was forced to dress in anything flowery. The boys were going crazy all week fussing about what to wear. I initially planned on wearing a pastel coloured floral tube dress, but thought I'd save that for New Years and went with this instead. This dress has been through 2 of the girls birthday's now. Andrea and Ariel.

Lim Tai Tai ( we call her that just for fun because she claims she's going to be a housewife in 10years time ) decided to celebrate at Alexis @The Gardens. Posh woman is posh. It was the first time dining there for most of us so we didn't know what to expect. 

 The birthday girl woman and I. She was all decked out in a red floral cheongsam, with a bun and corsage and everything. It looked like she was attending her own wedding instead of her birthday party. 

The rest soon arrived. Except for Stoner. He only made it in time when Ariel cut the cake. Now I know why everyone has been raving about Alexis. The ambiance is really nice, though not as posh as other places like Ploy and stuff, its still radiates that "classy" feel. Most of the servers were friendly, the captains weren't as humble and there was this waiter whom everyone thought was a bit too cocky for his own good ( thinks he's so good looking pfft ).

YiWen's Cappuccino that came with a whole bowl of sugar. Diabetic much?

Vanilla, chocolate and strawberry milkshake RM15. Gavin's, Ariel's and mine. Highly recommend the strawberry shake because the other two tasted quite bland.

The girls shared meatball spaghetti

Car's Alexis Burger. That's seriously the only thing she ever orders wherever she goes. Burgers, burgers, burgers. And the way she eats is anything but ladylike.

Ceccilia's chicken mushroom pie

Gavin's extremely shocked expression when his pizza arrived

Ariel trying to hide her disgust for Rocket veggies

This is the pizza that YWen, Ariel and I shared. Extremely healthy because of all the rockets sprinkled on the top.

More pizza. Price ranges from RM30+ to RM40+

Sang Ping Er is back from Switzerland-! In my opinion, he lost quite a lot of weight, but soon gained it back after his week long trip to Australia, blame it on his food fest. I totally understand how he feels as I struggle with the same thing. Sigh what is wrong with the constant battle between me and my weight :/

Seafood pizza

Roasted duck accompanied with mandarin orange salad. This little bird costs RM40+ and the size is no larger than your regular chicken breast. The taste of it however, is surprisingly good after comparing it to its serving size. It is cooked medium well with blood oozing out slightly. The skin is crisp with a considerable amount of fat beneath it. All in all, a good dish but we didn't think it was worth the price because of the serving size.

Calamari. Future diners may opt to skip this appetizer because better ones can be found at Italiannies. The batter was not crisp. Tasted quite bland except for the ocassional sudden dash of paprika because of its uneven seasoning.

There were more surprises in stored for the birthday girl of course-! Everyone was given a rose which was to be presented to Ariel after she cut her cake. Upon giving her the rose ( a la bachelorette ), everyone had to give her a birthday wish/blessing. Only we can make birthdays seem so formal. Many thanks to Andrea for buying the roses.

Hello ladies ;)

We like to call ourselves the pioneers of the clan  :')

Twins will be twins. We bring thinking alike to a whole new level. For now, we have the same nail colour preference. It scared how well we coordinate sometimes.

I hereby declare the best dressed male of the night, which does to Stoner-! He reached just in time before Ariel cut her cake because he was celebrating with his family for his sister just collected her PMR results. He had a blue hoodie on when he walked in the restaurant but being the "gate keeper", I sorta forbid him to step foot into the party zone without revealing what was underneath his hoodie. And tadaah-! THIS, is flower power boys *shame on you* lol.

The most failed part of the night was when one of the servers came up to Ariel and asked "Excuse me Miss, for the Tiramisu, do you want a slice or the whole cake?". If you didn't get the failed part, the cake was suppose to be a surprise for Ariel and the server blew it ahaha. Can't blame him though, she was dressed the most extravagant among all of us so naturally he'd asked her.

We decided to give her a nasty surprise in the end though. We used sparkle candles, the kind that will never go out despite how much you try to blow it out. The only way you can extinguish it is by immersing them into water. 

HAPPY BIRTHDAY I-MEI-! It sure took her long enough to blow out all her candles. Everyone was helping her in the end. I even ordered water as standby just so we could immerse the candles in the water.

Ellen is shocked at how much money I have left till New Years, which is extremely little by the way. The memoirs of a broke college student lol.

Felt extremely bad for the mess we left behind that night. Glasses of water everywhere, food spilled, rose petals and leaves everywhere. I just had to tip the server by the end of the night, even though he ruined the cake surprise -.-"

Group picture at the end of the night. A good birthday is not about the presents received or the well wishes given. It is about spending your day with good and fun company, in short, to be surrounded by the people who are closest to you and which you spend everyday with. No gift needed, your presence is a gift that is good enough. That, is my idea of a good birthday :')

Maybe a bouquet of Hello Kitty balloons wouldn't hurt as well ahahah.

Happy 21st again Ariel-! Hope you had a blessed birthday and enjoyed your dinner with us. To more years of friendship to come =)