3

Today I found out that my dad has 3 phones.

1) His old Nokia which he uses as an alarm clock
2) His old iPhone 3GS, which he plays games on before he sleeps (?!)
3) His current iPhone 4S which is his phone phone

whutttttttttt

Looks like everyone at home is still the same and still quite weird. My mom’s singing has also not improved that much haha.

H♥me

So I flew home from KAUST and will be here for 1 week Well, it was a last minute thing because my mom will be undergoing surgery on Monday and I really could not let her and my family go through everything without me being there so I decided to go home for this week.

Alhamdulillah, my bosses were understanding and gave me some time off. It really sucks that I will be home for such a short while but I will make do. I have really missed home. You know when I see the Singapore airline planes, I still get get a sense of pride but it is nothing compared to the feeling I get when the plane flies low over the Changi golf course. The greenery and the pretty city that I call home is still the same place that I love so very much.

This was last night at Jeddah airport, where I sat at the bakery alone eating my chicken wrap haha. I really hate travelling alone, did I mention?

I got this wrap from the supermarket on campus, mega cheap and mega nice. Haha I refuse to pay for overpriced food at airports!

While waiting to board, I chatted with this indonesian lady who works as a helper for an arab business couple in makkah. It was her first time flying back home in 4 years. At that point in time, I realised how fortunate I was and was really thankful.

The plane was the mega large airbus330 but had only about 30 passengers. Empty flight, yes!

I purposedly checked the seating plan before I left for the airport again to see that no one took the seat next to mine. But there was! So I changed my seat to an empty one haha. I’m quite a diva when I’m travelling alone. I don’t like to sit next to random strangers because I don’t want to talk to strangers on a night flight.

But at the stopover in Abu Dhabi, about 10 more people boarded and this chinese indonesian couple with a freaking toddler took BOTH 4 seater rows next to mine! UGHHHHHHHH My worst fears came true! This toddler was about 2-3 years old and was like a demon child who wouldn’t stop crying. I seriously couldn’t sleep at or when I was about to fall asleep the toddler would cry ughhhh.

I mean, Valerio’s son is about that age and he’s quite a well behaved child who doesn’t cry so I know its not about the age. This girl was crying because her parents didn’t want to take out her toy or something ughhhh shut uppppppp. I mean if she was sick or if her eardrums were hurting because of the pressure then I totally understand because when we were landing before, another baby was crying at the back because of the pressure change. But she was practically whining for her stupid toy and I (together with other passengers who were giving the couple dirty stares) expressed my frustration so her mom thought that the best idea was to carry her crying child to the front cabin.

The girl was crying so loudly that I could hear her even when she was in the front cabin and I swear I could hear people from the front going “OII”. UGHHHHHH kids who can’t behave themselves shouldn’t be allowed out!

Well I covered my head with 2 layers of blankets to block out most of the crying and managed to sleep for a good 3h before waking up because of the stuffiness haha.

Then HOME! My sister picked me up at the airport and we headed straight for westmall for bubble tea and yummy food!

Hello green apple green tea my tummy has missed you so!!!!!

Hello mee goreng!!!! Enjoy your stay in my tummy!!!

HELLO NASI GORENG KAMPUNG!!!!!!!!!!

Super shiokness. I really wish I didn’t have to watch my calorie intake because I really wanted to bedal everything!

My sister rejoiced over the goodies I bought her from kaust.

HALAL HARIBO YES! And random willy wonka candy canes!

My sister showed me the latest thing my dad bought. Cos for some reason he can’t sit directly on the floor like we all do. He says his butt is special and needs cushioning.

Its such an old school thing right! At first I rolled my eyes at my dad’s diva-ness but after sitting in it for a while its actually quite shiok and I approve haha.

It is really good to be home. I hope the time passes by as slowly as possible this week.

35:38

I am SO proud! I finished the 5km race in 35 mins 38 seconds. Its not eactly 35 minutes but close enough! Considering everytime I run outside  I come in at 37 minutes. I am so so happy with this race and how I finished. It was incredibly fun, and really running with other people does push you on. It really really feels good!

During the race, I told myself I would find one person to pace myself with so I can push myself, so I ran with this random girl. But after 3km she was running so much faster than I could so I changed to this old man next to me. But he left me too

Haha so I decided to run with this mexican couple but then they stopped running and started walking UGHHHHH plan spoiled again. Haha one thing I cannot do when I run is to walk halfway! Because it would be crazy difficult to start running again and I know I can run at least 7km without stopping so I wasn’t going to stop! But whatever it is, the race was really nice, I never did run alone. I was either trying to catch up with someone or keeping pace with someone else. It was so much fun, I would really do this again! Plus the 5k did NOT feel like a 5k at all. I felt I was running a 2.4 or something.

When the sports complex was in sight, we had about 800m or so more to go, this housewife RUNNING WHILE PUSHING A FREAKING PRAM with her 2 KIDS inside suddenly comes out of nowhere and OVERTAKES ME?!?!! WTH?! And at that point I was totally hammered I really could not keep up with the housewife sighsigh you really begin to doubt your own fitness level when a housewife pushing her 2 kids overtakes you AND YOU CAN’T KEEP UP!

Haha but if I learnt anything from the biggest loser it is to celebrate little victories and I’m really really happy I finished!

So we just finished baking 4 trays of dessert for Valerio’s birthday party. I really hope it tastes good though.

I’m watching the american idol premiere and like omg 15 year olds who look like they’re 25?!

5k

Hola friends!

So tomorrow I will be running in the kaust 5k event.. hmm it is my first time doing any kind of run actually and honestly I am crazy nervous. I mean it is not the first time I am running 5km but it is my first time running with other people who are doing the same thing you know and in my mind all I want is to not come in last!

Really.

My time for the 5k is not that fabulous to begin with, the fastest I ever managed was 34mins and that was on a treadmill (and my legs almost fell off). Haha if I run on the track it would take me somewhere around 37 mins… so I just really don’t want to finish last. If I make it in 35mins that would make me really happy.

I know it says fun run but for me, I’m totally in serious mode. Well its my first run of sorts anyway and I want it to be good! I’m a little panicky now because what if I wake up tomorrow and I don’t feel like running? Or what if I wake up tomorrow and I get my period? GAH!!!!!! Should I eat a heavy breakfast? Should I sleep early tonight? Should I still exercise tonight?

Gawd woman you just need to chill for a sec. It is only 5km and not like a 10k or a freaking half marathon.

Hmm ya I know lets see how we do tomorrow.

Freaking quarterly report

I was seriously just panicking about the quarterly report that we have to submit (in end dec or early jan, which means I’m severly overdue) and antoine further fuelled that panic because he asked me to vet his report this morning. I haven’t started, in case you’re wondering.

Well I guess this is a classic case in life where everything happens for a reason because I just received this in the mail.

Yessssssssssssss alhamdulillah only God knows how relieved I am.

Back in Utopia

So I am back in KAUST! Will be staying here for 2 months, insyaAllah. Tina and I are sharing a house like the last time but we didn’t get our old house back. We are now staying in the Gardens district (the last time we stayed in the Island district) and it is even further away from lab – I’m not sure though, will time my walk to lab on saturday.

It is also far away from the sports centre (gym, pool, bowl) and discovery square. I used to be able to get to those places in 3-7 mins but now I think I take 15 mins by foot? And I don’t see a shuttle stop nearby. Well that’s ok. More walking for me, which is a good thing because after watching 4 seasons of the biggest loser back to back, my goal for this new year is to lose 8 kilos. No, seriously I will do it watch me!!!! Don’t laugh!!

On the bright side, the house that we’re living in is definitely newer than the last one. It is so new that the house is not even shown on the kaust map yet. Plus I am totally loving the decor of the house. The walls are this light teal colour, and the furniture is light teal to match! It is so lovely. The curtains remind me of my crescent uniform though, but not as striking haha. They’re light teal and mustard yellow.

Ah well you can’t really see from the pictures but it is really lovely!

The house is also located such that the big supermarket is on the way home from lab! Which is awesome so I can always have fresh meat and veggies for dinner! I bought fresh beef today which looked soooo awesome and I made black pepper beef for lunch! Needless to say it was yums haha.

As usual I have problems with my room so I blasted ayatul kursi before going to sleep last night and read it only like a hundred times out loud. I also slept with my Quran next to me on the bed haha. Its so freaky you know! Cos I was unpacking and I saw like red stains on the floor by the cupboards that look like blood??? So my imagination started taking me to faraway places and it didn’t help that I was watching Harry Potter on the plane and the face of the ghost in ravenclaw tower when she told harry that her mother’s diadem was defiled with black magic was like imprinted in my mind freaking shit scary.

Obviously I slept with the lights on and only fell asleep at 2am and woke up every hour after that omg. I really don’t know whats my problem with strange rooms but ya it exists.

Hmm okay I am going swimming nao! toodles!

Woo

I am actually writing this in the plane. Alhamdulillah, nothing is better than an empty flight on a plane. Much room to stretch out and I can change seats every 5 minutes if I wanted haha.

All 3 of us got a whole row of seats to ourselves which is mega awesome! Well we are moving off soon so see you in kaust insyaAllah!

Packed

Leaving for jeddah tmr!

Typical Conversation

Meh

We had a mega storm yesterday! It was entirely scary, my windows were rattling like crazy, the trees were threatening to uproot and the sound of the howling wind was so loud that it woke me from sleep!

Alhamdulillah, it has cleared today, less windy but there is psychotic snowfall!! The snow pieces are crazy big! But it is something I welcome because this december was almost snowless! Last year at this time, snowfall was up to our knees! I have missed you, snow!

Oh wow it does look like some sort of a blizzard outside.

Well life as we know it is kind of meh. I’ve been staying home for most of the time playing xbox or watching biggest loser in bed. The most exciting thing this week was Hieu’s portal tshirt finally arriving in the mail.

So cute. And it looks awesome on him.

Sigh I know it is kind of geeky but eversince Hieu exposed me to the world of portal and video games, I’ve been kind of hooked? I recently finished LA Noire and my life just feels so empty without it. Solving crimes and shooting bad people.

Okay well anyway, I hope everyone’s having a good start to 2012! Time for more TV haha. Oh and it is a public holiday today in bavaria! Love these random christian holidays.