Define "friends with benefits.."

Define: interdependence
the close relationships of people aimed at satisfying needs for affection, development, and resources to achieve relational integrity.

Define: independent
not dependent on or conditioned by or relative to anything else

Spending time to get to know someone better so you can decide how good a friend they are or can be must be too much for some people. Some people are born social creatures, the need to interact with another human being, whether platonic or not, comes so naturally to them they do not need to think about it. Some people are asocial, the need for interaction is not great and therefore they do not see what the fuss is all about.

Define: friends with benefit..
I'm open for suggestions...

Friends who know me too well...

Thanks M!

Busy bee...

My social life has shot up off late. It's nice to meet up with friends and catch up with them. Mary was here last weekend and she blogged it.

Then on Monday, I met up with Sarah for lunch. It's nice that she's working in Oxford and we get to catch up every so often. Too bad she won't be around for much more. I had an easy day on Tuesday and on Wednesday it was quite random. I woke up and decided to watch the new Harry Potter movie in the afternoon and had to rush at work. I didn't expect any work but lo and behold, the new microscope room was ready! It's all set up and working now so time to get my nose back to the grindstone. :)

I watched the movie with Jo and she had a good time. It was nice to catch up with her. I keep promising a dinner party and it will happen soon when I have time to breathe! Later in the evening, went for drinks with PC who's finally leaving Oxford. Finishing his DPhil and now moving on to greater things in life. Or so we hope.

Thursday was a magical evening. JM's 34th birthday. I haven't even had time to download the pictures yet but will post one soon. We surprised him with a cake from Maison Blanc (oh, it was so divine!). Lots of food, lots of drinks (we went through 2 bottles of sparkling wine, a bottle of red and a bottle of Hungarian dessert wine that I had bought ages ago). It was so nice. I miss living in the old house a lot.

Friday...ah. The weekend. I started it off by not planning on doing very much but I got invited very kindly by one of the trustees of the European Union Baroque Orchestra for their performance in Oxford. So I toddled off for free champagne and canapes, followed by an astounding performance in baroque music. Thanks! Cutting it close to ten, I headed over to Holywell for a few more drinks with PC who is now actually gone. Oxford won't be the same again! Was supposed to meet Annie but didn't quite make it. I'm sorry babes!

Last night was JJ's birthday party in Castle Mill. C had a few friends over so we had dinner first. He cooks well! We had pasta to start then a turkey steak with salad and thankfully, there was no dessert. But we made it to the party and had peanut butter cookies,baked with my recipe. And of course, promises for another dinner party (how does my life always revolve around food?). Then we managed to extricate ourselves and made our way to The Bridge. There was queue and £8 to get in. But we did it and enjoyed ourselves. Dancing away to the wonderful new drinking laws which allowed us one extra hour until 3am. It was amusing in the queue as the bouncers didn't allow any groups without a female to be let into the premises. I suppose that would reduce the fights in the club? Althought it made me feel important as the boys wouldn't have been let in without me?

Got home late and slept late. Now I have managed to waste the whole Sunday afternoon but oh, it feels good. Time to get ready to go to church and then to the lab.

Oh, and prepare myself for the week ahead!

Controversy and objectivity

A piece on the front page of BBC's online news caught my eye. Malaysia is once again in the public eye, and not in the best possible light. Less stern reporting found on The Star, a Malaysian daily. And much debate and discussion on Malaysiakini an alternative Malaysian news website. Wide coverage also posted on another Malaysian blogger, Jeff Ooi.

And much more stories can be found by doing a simple Google News search.

The one who aired it to national and international media Teresa Kok A piece from Malaysiakini on SUARAM a Malaysian human rights organisation.

Basically, if you've not clicked on any of the links, the wonders of modern technology shows a grainy video of a fair-skinned woman naked after a strip search and forced to do squats while holding on to her ears. She is being watched by an officer who is wearing a head-scarf (tudung).

The Inspector General of Police has commented that it is normal for those who are detained to be asked to strip and do ear squats for drug offences. Let's not even get started on the human rights issues here, for there are many.

More comments later.

The game's afoot!

Squealing with delight,
Unearthing the new joy
It was pleasing to the eye.
She held it up to the light
and scrutinised it with intensity.
She picked it up to smell
and touch the new corners
her fingers had never felt before

This was something special,
She felt that it had to be
Disappointment had already
crushed their vines,
around her heart,
hardened it like a rock.

As before, time passes
Flaws revealed
Cracks become gulfs
Feelings dissipate

The new toy is discarded
To the bottom.

-aL-
(yes, it's mine)

The weekend has landed!

It's been an old busy week. I really enjoy being busy, although I would have enjoyed it more if I actually did some proper work. I went to A&A's flat on Tuesday evening and enjoyed catching up with them and making plans for more dinners! We love food, making and sharing.

Chad came over to my flat on Wednesday and we drank. I polished off a whole bottle of wine, which isn't so good but it was funny. Surreal night. As Chad left, my housemate knocked on my dood and we chatted for over half an hour. He's a great guy. All around nice guy.

I woke up at 6am the next morning and blitzed my room! It's nice to have an organised room again, it was getting to the point where it was annoying me. I go through this every so often, it gets to a point where I can't take it anymore and I blitz. Wanted to go to work in the morning but met up with Jo and ended up talking until I went to meet S for lunch.

Although the one good thing is that I managed to do some work today, but the results were disappointing. I need to be better at it. I blame the new lab jinx as to why my results are not that great.

Chad cooked dinner for me tonight (which was very very nice of him) and then went out with his housemates to the pub. I was tired so I came home to crash and burn. Mary gets here tomorrow! And we'll be spending a whole day together without anyone else. YAY!

S is DJing tomorrow at the bop so we might pop into that as well, since he got me on the guest list so I wouldn't have to pay. I hope he remembers. Life and relationships are too complicated. Or maybe we choose to make it complicated so that our lives don't seem that overly boring, when in fact it's all simple and good.

Who knows? My warm bed is calling me. It is literally FREEZING out there.

Faith and hope

I went to College Mass on Monday. The sermon involved a bit of finding out your vocation in life. To think about why you're at university and to make the most of it. The readings were heading in that direction anyways so I suppose he made the best of it.

I didn't spend that much time thinking about it.

But as I spent yet another day doing the same routine, I felt an overwhelming sense of ennui. I don't deal with disappointment well and today made me miss J even more. He always knew how to listen and say the right things to make me feel better. I was never happier in my life than when I was with him.

I once read somewhere that unhappiness is caused by the amount of choice that we have now. I think that it might be true. Everyone is always chasing after the perfect one and because the world has shrunk so much, everyone thinks it's possible.

But enough of this crap. I am going to have some food, crack open a bottle of wine and watch some tv.

Maybe I'll be more coherent later. My brain feels like such an addled mess.

There's this boy...

who took me out to dinner last night. He's quite nice.

I think he's quite likeable too but then again, I would have to say it because he reads my blog. At least he tells me he reads this blog.

All highly confusing.

I will now go and do some proper work, like submitting an abstract so I can go to Houston in March for free.

Leaving blues

The weekend has been a washout. I needed to do some work desperately, finish writing the abstract for the conference and organise my work for the next few weeks.

Friday was a non-day because I got in at 5am and was asleep by 8pm. Saturday was weird, I was waiting for Mark to finish his law careers fair and meet up for drinks, then there was JM for coffee since I hadn't spoken to him in a while. And of course, as you do on a weekend, meeting S for drinks at Duke happy hour.

Mark didn't finish till 3, so I was hanging around town for a while. He bumped into Annie and Ketan on the way to meet me and we ended up at KA for a pint. By 4-ish I was starting to feel quite tired, guess jet lag does sort of happen to me. When we were done, it was too late to meet JM for coffee so went to the Duke earlier to meet S. As I was early he wasn't there yet so I got in some drinks.

And just to prove a point, he still owes me 4 drinks! :-)

Now, it's 2pm on a Sunday. All I've achieved was that I had breakfast with S in G and D's as well as walking around some shops. He's a nice guy. He amuses me but I'm not sure what is happening there.

We have a dinner party tonight. My housemate is back from Paris and there are goodies to be shared by cooking. I think there's a rabbit involved. (Apologies to all vegetarian peoples.) Of course, some of my Malaysian stuff will be out on show as well. I can't believe he's leaving Oxford for good in a couple of days.

CSI Season 5 is amazing! I can't stop watching it.

Cat city tales

Ahh...

Back in Oxford. It got dark at 5pm and started raining. I knew there was a reason for coming back to this country.

It was fun being at home, even though it's monsoon season. So it rained every afternoon or evening making it not so hot. But I braved through the tropical weather by eating lots of gorgeous food that you can't get anywhere in the world except in Kuching. For those who don't know, I'm from Kuching.

Mm...food... I can't even begin to describe it, so I won't really try.

Dad's birthday was hectic. I got back and Joyce was already home. We had the whole family together again. It's nice. The whole weekend was sheer and utter madness but completely fun! We have lots of relatives and we eat everytime we see each other.

Most people left on Sunday so I had a few days with my sister and parents. Relaxed a bit too much but hey, that's what going home is all about. Had a hair cut so I now look like this, on a good day, when I can be bothered to do my hair.


Left Malaysia last night, got here this morning and have been awake for way way too long. Am super sleepy. Think I will eat some dinner, watch some CSI and sleep. I like sleep...Will post more meaningful thoughts some other time.

Oh, I did get Joyce (my younger sister) to help me buy some RAM so the love of my life (as there is no other) the Powerbook has now got a sexy 1.5GB of RAM.

Enough random thoughts for now. Later people...

How time flies..

I flew home November 1 and reached Kuching, November 2. It's weird. 12 hours across space and time. (or just 8 time zones...)

First time that I'm in Malaysia for a couple of years and I didn't meet up with J. It's weird. It feels wrong but I know it's the right thing to be doing.

The trip is almost over now. I am going to spend the last night catching up with some friends and then I'm back off to Oxford tomorrow. I wish it hadn't gone by so quick. There's more people to see, more stuff to do and much much more food to eat. I think my parents have more acceptance of me as a grown up now although most of the time it's still hard to behave like one. Things change so quickly, yet some things don't change at all.

More updates when I'm high on coffee and trying to stay awake past the jet lag.

Coming soon tomorrow!

Overachievers

Overachievers annoy me. I just worked this out. I've always had this bedgrudging feeling towards them and I feel a slight animosity towards them. It's not the ones who are at the top of their fields, I mean, how many top ranking scientists, historians, philosophers and so forth that are the best in their field but lack either social graces or table manners?

No, the kind of overachievers that annoy me are the ones who are really nice, really good-looking, have perfect manners and are good at everything they put their hand at doing. And you can't even really gossip or have a good old catty chat about them because they are so nice to everyone. Really, how can someone be such perfection around here? They must have some flaws but if they do, they are so well hidden that I'm hard-pressed to find them. And trust me, I would be looking for them.

In a way, I envy them because I would like to be like that. Who wouldn't? I mean, if you could be good at anything and everything that you wanted, wouldn't you want it to be so?

But then again, I feel sad for them. Human life is all about enjoying your flaws. You might not believe me but don't you feel better about yourself when you know that you are better than someone else at something? It doesn't matter what it is, just something. You like commiserating with others, whether with a cup of hot chocolate, or a really lip-smackingly gorgeous glass of wine, or two or three. But I digress. We enjoy the company that misery provides and it makes us have a common bond because it doesn't matter that we're not good at, we have it in common.

There was a point to this somewhere but I've lost my train of thought now so it's all over.

News on me.

Went to 2 parties this weekend, was supposed to be three but am so exhausted that have decided that two is enough.That and the fact that I slept away most of Saturday should be an indication to slow down and not do anything but nevermind. St Cross Halloween bop on Friday which I didn't really want to go but Annie was working and I thought it would be fun to see what the new students were like. It wasn't all as much fun but it could be due to the fact that I didn't really know anyone and I wasn't in the mood for socialising. Tonight, went for dinner at JM's new place. His place is gorgeous. The rooms are massive and we had dinner in a proper dining room. It's a converted mansion so very nice. Just a bit far out from town center and I suppose the rooms would be a bit cold as the house was so old and would be hard to heat.

Tried to get as much done as possible for the abstract so I can go to the big fly meeting, and it seems to be going ok except just have to get the references downloaded and the pictures pulled off the other computer. Not quite sure what to do about that because I don't really need to include the pics but if I am going to do the statistical analysis I should look at all the pics again. I should just pull it into my laptop then do the backups. Sigh, I hate going away. Especially when I have things to do. But at least it should be nice to go home and see family and EAT. I cannot wait to be eating all the foods again..mmmmm...

And now to end my procrastination for the evening, I might go and do what I planned and finish all the work before tomorrow. Still need to pack and think of a present for dad but how hard can it be? Yeah, right.

Happy things!

So, the last post was a tad violent.

Things to be happy about for this week include the fact that I've received 2 more books for my birthday, thanks to Katey and Adam. They are getting married 19 March 2006!

But yes, back to me. I received Nigel Slater's Real Cooking and The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger.

Yesterday my housemate concluded his DPhil. He had a 2-hour viva and was told that he passed. Fabulous! We (me, him and other housemate) celebrated at the unit by drinking champagne and other sparklies. Then moved on to the Turf for a pint, then Fishers for seafood! That was an amazing night. Conversation was great because we did not talk about work, mumbled crap and discussed other pleasantries.

My dad's 60th birthday is coming up soon and I will be going home for that, although I have no idea what to get him for a present (suggestions welcome).But I thank God that he's had a really good life and three daughters who are all going to fly home for it.

I have fantastic friends who give me virtual hugs and keep me company when I'm bored at work, you girls know who you are!

So, this is a nice pleasant post. I'm in a happy complacent place in time.

And this bit of news from Malaysia put a smile on my face. Yes, it's ridiculous but it happens all the time where I come from.

Complex relationships

Honestly, boys are such complex creatures. I work in a lab of mostly boys and really, that should make the whole atmosphere all nice and relaxed right? Boys are less fussed about things and having spent far too many years in an all-female convent girls school, I was convinced that it would be fine. But no, oh no, the boys in my lab have a clique, an honest to God clique. How much more fuckwittage can you get from that?

Can you tell that I'm on a roll for a rant? It wouldn't be so bad really, if it wasn't for the actions of some of them that influence the rest. I mean, I spend 90% of my time in the dark all by myself out of their way, you would think that for the 10% of the time, I would be able to communicate sensibly with the other human beings? No. Exx-cu-se me, how rude. It's fine for them to joke around and make silly comments but when I try to join in, ice-queen central. Melodramatic females or what?

I've decided that maybe I should turn into a creature of the night, it would be far more interesting than attempting to communicate with half-evolved apes who need to have tribal gatherings and secret grunts.

Fuckwittage.

Child proof caps

who the hell invented them? They are a grand idea but not when you're ill and you need to be doped up. sigh. give me my paracetamol, antihistamine, anti-everything mix already. Let me be off to la-la-land.

God, I am such a drama queen for a small cold.

Pants

I have caught a cold and the last post didn't get published because blogger went all blotto on me. (hrms, that's quite catchy..)

Anyways, busy busy busy. Work hectic, and have been a moody cow at work just because I am female and therefore I can. But some things have been upsetting me lately mainly because I am such a sensitive sort of gal, yeah right.

That was really weird and didn't make much sense. Never mind.

Mary's birthday was on Friday, we went out for drinks in Reading and I bought her a spa treat day, which is very exciting. And as it's for two people, I get to go with her! yay!

Mark graduated yesterday and had all the attendant stresses of looking after your family in a strange place. He had his whole family (literally!) and it seemed like they were having a good time. It's strange to see him out of context. But he's promised to come back down to Oxford for a night out. It'd be good to see him again. I miss talking to him. In such a short time, we've become such good friends. He's a really cool guy.

I am now going to crawl back into bed, watch lots of csi and medicate. *sniffle*

and thanks to kath, one of the nicest people i know! she sent me reese's peanut butter cups because i told her ages ago how much i loved them. Seriously, one of the best birthday presents I got, and who knew you could drag a birthday out this long?

Bowling for Soup

was sold out when I got there. I refused to pay £30 to touts so came home instead. I think Seb was upset I didn't get to go but it's my fault for not looking it up. Ho hum. Wa-hey, such is life.

I came back and got sentimental, partly due to the fact that I met one of my high school friends today, Valerie. She's been working in Wolverhampton for almost two years now and I just randomly met her the other day in China Town London. Remember the thing about six degrees of seperation? It must be true in this world.

Back to the point, of which I may have one, I logged back on to Friendster, which is a friend network website and started looking up old high school mates. Fond memories, but why have I never kept in touch with them? So many are married and are procreating. I wonder now about the eternal question, what happens when I go home? It never worries me when I visit my family because I am there for a purpose, something for me to look forward to. But if I move back, what will happen to me?

Too much of my life has been spent here in England. I worked out it will be my sixth year living here soon. I think it may be time to leave but will I have the courage when the time comes?

I could just run away again, to somewhere else. Someone said the Caribbean or West Indies were cheap....

I have to stop drinking

to try and escape the fugue in my life. I think a stable person to keep me in hold with reality because nothing is what I perceive it to be.

Why do I keep running away from what is supposed to be my real life?

DAMN

What I really want for Christmas

is a new Video Ipod. sigh. Why do these things cost so much?
But they look so good...
And they match my Powerbook...

Anyone wants to spring one for me?
No?

Failing that, I'll just be heading off to watch Bowling for Soup on Sunday.

New piercing

So, I got a new piercing today. I had been thinking about it for a long time but never actually went and got it done. Felt bored and didn't have a nice present for myself, coupled with a dozen other excuses (most involving men, ugh), so ta-dah!