A while ago, my family recorded a chinese new year message to be forwarded to friends and family. But since none of us are savvy enough to know how to convert a dvd file to a normal .mov file, we decided to do the pirated way! :) I recorded the video of our chinese new year greeting with my own camera.

With Angel doing her thing, it sure makes the message extra special! OH! I just realised!! Year of the dog! And Angel's a dog!

The lighting is bad because after all, we're not professionals. Hope you guys like it though! Gong hei fatt choi!

I spent my chinese new eve, rather productively I'd say. I spent quality time with Esther and her sis Alicia in Subang Parade before heading to Mel's place as they'll be leaving for Australia in a couple of weeks. SIgh. Whenever I come home to Subang, Subang won't be the same anymore without them living so near that I can just drive over and drag them out for a drink.

At Mel's place, her grandma put up a table full of food for the ancestors and the deceased by their doorway. Mel asked me not to bang onto the seats because apparently there are "people seating". Wahaha. But I thought the way Mel cupped the rice on teacups for their 'makan session' was pretty unique. So out comes the camera.

Nice right?

Some mess in my kitchen which is such a must during chinese new year. No mess not real.

I decorated Angel with the ribbon from the hamper and got her to pose for a few shots. Rather reluctantly, don't you think? But she does look like a little VIP of sorts, what with the big flower on her ..er..chest.

Spring cleaning comes hand in hand with Chinese New Year. So guess who washed the car for the first time ever since she got her license in April 2004?!

I'm such a horrible daughter.

10 years ago I would have pointed the water at myself after spraying the car...but....maturity has kicked in and I well, don't wet myself anymore, but I camwhore:) You'll see later.


Angel decided to keep me company while basking under the afternoon sun.


So fluffy!



It's not like I've never washed a car. I have. I just can't remember when.


Hard at work. See, at least I remember where to scrub what.


Scrubbing and scrubbing.


And posing too!:)

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According to chinese beliefs, if there is a death in the family, the family's not allowed to celebrate any occasion within the first three years of the person's death. However, it has been reduced to one year for the modern superstitious chinese. Out of respect, my family is practicising it therefore, we will not be going visiting this year.

Sorry to disappoint the lot of you, but my parents won't be able to give out ang pows this year. So you can forget about dropping by if your aim is to up your ang pow collection. Sorry ya.

But nobody said anything about reunion dinners! :D

it was a modest feast, all homecooked. It was quite emotional actually because my Aunty Judy who's back from the UK proposed a minute of silence for my grandparents and then she burst out in tears as she wished my grandparents happy chinese new year/eat rice.

It was more like a pot luck dinner... but my father's side only has 9 people. So yeah, I have a very small family, nothing much to scream about. We held the reunion dinner at my grandparents' place. It makes everyone feel ... normal in a way.


A salad dish.


Ang ku with lap cheong!


Man Lingau @ Steamed/Brewed Lotus


Ladies fingers with sambal belacan.


Lingau Tong!! @ Lotus soup


And the obligatory yee sang.


My mum's potato and chicken dish.


Dad and his video cam and a cute expression on.


Mum laying out the dishes.


yee sang with that crispy thing. Lovely!


Yee Sang literally means Fish Fresh. So of course we need salmon! :)


Aunty Judy and Aunty Susie busy with preparations.


Uncle Terry influenced all the men to stay put. The ladies did all the work. :(


This the mixing bit and everyone says a thing or two nice things. We did it in English because poor Uncle Terry would not understand chinese.


Tossing it~!


And this is dessert. We are seldom this elaborate. It's nice though. :)

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Ah, yes. I have a two weeks break from lousy Kedah. We ended our first term on a very happy note. We finished our exams and we had a lovely talk from our dean about their plans for our dental program. All the hopes that he is giving us sounds so promising and concrete. Our university is finally getting less obscure. :)

Another delightful turn of events was when he announced the winners for the dentistry project. Remember the project that involved the map of Sabah and Sarawak?? It was actually quite ugly compared to the other groups'. I thought we were going to get last place ... but turns out that we got 33/40 marks and the project was HIGHLY COMMENDED and it'll go into records(of I don't know what). But still, it's damn flattering! We got second place!! We put in effort by making phone calls to the dentistry departments in Sabah and Sarawak therefore our information on our poster was quite concrete. Sigh, the satisfaction. :)

Happy things keep coming.. must be the onset of Chinese New Year being lucky to me. I finally got to touch my new baby!!!

My Dell Inspiron 630m. The processor speed is 1.6 Ghz, 504 Mb of Ram! And the hard disk space is ..about 60gigs!

I'll miss my Acer travelmate..but it was a goner.

I love the buttons!!! It has electric blue lightings..

Furthermore, being home always makes me happy. :)

So many friends to see(especially those who are going to aussie)
so many days to spend with Chee Kiang,
so many things to settle together with Weng Lum at the national service's headquarters asap if we want to change our deferment into an exemption,
the quest for a purple/lilac dress for my Cousin Hong Fei's purple-themed wedding, the mass making of farewell presents. (more than 10 friends leaving for Aussie).
the mass effort in The Valentine's Day 2006's present(it's a tradition between us since 2001..;))
the exchange of yearbooks from form1-form5 to laugh at each other and mutual friends with Calvin,
excessive yamcha sessions namely with Justin, Dennis, Joshua etc.
MUST SEE ABBY ARGHH
... oh, and collect MyKad too!