Live

It is 10:30am. We have had breakfast and been to the beach, where I practised my ukulele and Leo ran. After taking a shower, we are now at the lovely hostel cafe, located right beside a big field on which two cows are steadily chomping grass. They have a lot of grass to get through, and I have a lot of work laid out. But I daresay we’re contented, the cows and I, and today is unfolding into a great day.

We have decided on a rough routine. We wake up about 7am, do beachy things, and start work around 10. Lunch, continue working, and do another round of beachy things around 5pm. Dinner follows, with or without copious amounts of alcohol – a mug of beer in the neighbourhood Chinese seafood place is RM5 – and we are merry until 11pm, the time we go to bed. The routine for the next ten days will be broken for two days of motorcycling/cycling around the island, since the hostel rents them out at low prices.

Besides some work that I’m quite excited to get into, I am also budgeting some time to practise the ukulele, read books (I am 10 books behind schedule for my 2015 reading challenge of 50 books), and brush up my long forgotten taichi. Some doodling on my notebook is in order because I forgot to bring a sketch pad. I guess some staring into the distance and daydreaming will also be involved. And writing – for the sake of writing. I don’t think I’ve done so in a long time.

Yup. We’re contented, the cows and I. Work awaits.

It is not often that I am inspired to document what I ate for lunch, so when the inspiration strikes I have no choice but to follow. Here it is, a lunch for two:

Lunch on a lazy Sunday afternoon

Lunch on a lazy Sunday afternoon

  1. Mashed Potatoes (boiled potatoes mashed with milk and butter and chopped rosemary from the garden)
  2. Stir Fry (of yellow zucchini, carrot, yellow cherry tomatoes, onion, and tempeh; seasoned with basil leaves from the garden, garlic, asam leaves, dried chilli and mushroom dark soy sauce)
  3. Salad (of yellow cherry tomatoes, cucumber, basil leaves, olive oil, and one of my dad’s homemade salted eggs, shredded)
  4. Potato Soup (byproduct of 1., basically salt and potato water)

The salad was a bit of an experiment because I had never tried salted egg in a salad before, and I’m happy to report that it tasted like cheese in the salad and not weird. There was a faint hint of duck. No salt was required and the dish had just the right level of saltiness. I guess it’s also because the salted egg was homemade and not overly salty. The stir fry and mashed potatoes were good as usual.

We ate in the balcony, with the company of three sleeping cats and a breeze circling my little garden of edible plants. When we finished, a high five was administered – followed quickly by a comatose nap curled up on the couch.

Not bad for a Sunday afternoon.

The first night David asked if I wanted to join him for trapeze practice. I had never been a trapeze swing, and had no doubt that my weak upper arms were not up to the task. A swing suspended high up in the air was also probably not for one who was afraid of heights. So of course I said yes. How often does one get an offer like that?

It was difficult. Most of the others in the group were newbies as well but were obviously much more limber than I was. I am only slightly more flexible than a tree trunk. David, in a magnificent thrust of his abs, managed to hoist himself onto the swing in one swift movement. He then did cool stuff like variations of hanging upside down from different angles with different limbs.

It was soon my turn and I managed to lift my feet slightly above ground and then dangled helplessly from the swing, willing my abs to do a similar manoeuvre. I’d like to think they did a good job but I suspect that I was only able to get on the swing with a great deal of help from David, who crammed my legs in between my arms, effectively then hanging me on the swing by my knees. With a bit of reaching, I was able to grab the ropes and hoisted myself onto the swing, hanging about 6-7 feet from the ground.

It was glorious. So this is what the world looks like to trapeze artists. (I later found out of course that normal trapeze swings are much higher because one has to budget for various acrobatics swinging from one swing to another, and one artist catching the other as well.)  My wide grin stretched from ear to ear.

I mustered up the courage to hang myself upside down with some contorting of my legs, but the rapid loss of abdominal strength (it really isn’t about the upper arms) meant that I also lost control very quickly. Soon I was dangling by my knees upside down squealing my head off, trying not to break into a full-blown scream or break my neck in the process. I managed to refrain from both and landed unceremoniously on my butt with both feet in the air, with David looking on with amusement.

“You are brave,” he peered at my red face. “I have to recognise that.”

  1. A good weekend of rest does incredible wonders for productivity. The past weekend I completely shut down my brain and did no work at all. On Monday back at work I was well-rested, focused, and full of ideas. The dancing keyboard fingers did their dancing on the keyboard. The bitchy inner monologue was a little less bitchy and a little more forgiving. The office felt friendlier than usual. All in all, highly recommended. One should try it every once in a while.
  2. While making lunch in my little office rice cooker, I absent-mindedly forgot to add water into the assortment of cut vegetables (if you need to know: 1 potato, 3 small tomatoes, long beans, 1 small onion, half a cucumber, half a carrot). The result, instead of a ruined pot, was flavourful steamed veges. Behold, my horizons have been blasted wide open. The veges tasted great, it took less time to cook, and it didn’t burn my tongue as bad (as the combination of hunger, impatience and hot soup does to you. Every day. Damn it).
  3. Making your own skincare products is an attainable project. I’ve been learning about different oils and emulsifiers and watching James Wong’s Grow Your Own Drugs series, as recommended by the fabulous Eva. And I’ve found a website that seems to sell most of the raw materials and they ship them to your door step. And I’ve decided to chill more during weekends. It appears as if the stars are all aligned.
  4. Learning two languages at the same time is possible. Every day I spend at least five minutes each (sometimes more, depending on how much time I have) on Spanish and Japanese, on learning grammar, reading, listening or watching videos. While I do not think that my conversation in these two languages have improved much, comprehension and grammar are definitely improving little by little, by the day. Happy achievements: I finished the Duolingo Spanish tree and an entire Doraemon comic book in Japanese.
  5. Red wine with snacks and a movie with mi novio is nice :) Some movies watched over the past few weeks, as we are the most outdated people ever, were: Breakfast at Tiffany’s, Shawshank Redemption, Infernal Affairs (#1), Sepet, Le Dîner de Cons, Le Charme discret de la bourgeoisie, Happy Together, Fallen Angels.
  6. Tailored thick curtains are fucking expensive.
  7. Cats can be hazardous to thin curtains.
  8. Glare of the morning sun through a huge gap in torn, thin curtains can be somewhat (unsatisfactorily) remedied by having an old t-shirt handy by the pillow to cover one’s eyes.
  9. Writing random things while procrastinating from writing work things is made more enjoyable by drinking mate. I’m about 50 words and one point away from making a 500 word ten-point list.
  10. One does not need to attain 500 words if one decides that one is happy with 467 words.

So I spent 20 minutes during lunch time doing the Neila Rey Wired Office Workout. Three sets, just to kick off – I guess I do feel a little better after it. There was even sweat! No kidding. To Leo who believes that exercising does not count if there is no sweat, I exercised today.

Behold the Spact (Sports Pact) between Eva and I, in which we promise to exercise at least four days a week. Accountability is kept through an honour and honesty system. It’s a system well-suited to the both of us honourable and honest people.

Leo and I, beyond Argentina, have decided that we have to work actively now to reverse our expanding waistlines. It is said that fitness is 20% exercise and 80% diet. As a result we are trying to cook more and eat less. As opposed to eating out all the time and stuffing our faces. We’re phasing out the artificial stock and flavour packets, and are opting for spices, herbs and natural seasoning like miso.

I will be able to judge the success of the Spact and Operation Cook More Eat Less through the tightness of my pants. In my heydays of travelling and walking everywhere I had some pants that were hanging off my hips because they were so loose. Nowadays they’re tight as I shimmy into them, reminiscing the old times when I used to slide into them and slide out of them.

Those days will return. Mark my words. In the meantime, I shall return to my work.

Today was Sunday and we had a MESYM event but I was stuck at home working for my paying job. It’s 3 minutes into Monday now, signalling the start of yet another hectic week… WHAT HAPPENED TO MY WEEKEND??

Sigh. Good news is that the current project that I’ve been working on for the past 2.5 months is ending, but bad news is that there seems still to be a sea of work that I cannot see beyond. I know that in about 3 weeks I’ll be going to Argentina (got the tickets already) but it has not sunk in yet. The moment of “oh hell yeah I am in a foreign country now!” only hits me when I disembark from the air plane.

I haven’t travelled for more than a year. Sometimes the travel bug chews on me and I find myself craving to go somewhere, anywhere; take a bus, take a train, take a plane. I miss carrying all that I need on my back and walking for kilometres. I miss sticking my thumb up by the road, under a clear blue sky. I miss vast, open spaces.

I miss Europe. I think of Taiwan sometimes. Even Hong Kong, the hectic city it is, was very kind to me. I wonder how Japan is like and I think about how Turkey was so important in shifting my language-learning paradigm.  I would love to practise my Japanese. But I shouldn’t be complaining. I just went through a few Duolingo sessions, and I’ve been doing one form or another of Spanish language learning, just to prepare myself for a month of Spanish language immersion.

I’m excited about it. It’s my first trip to South America, and it’s Leo’s birthplace, and I actually know enough of Spanish to function – just need to take the boat for a spin. Duolingo informs me that I’ve learnt 1017 words. I wonder if I’ll be able to finish all the Duolingo lessons before leaving for Argentina – that does seem rather ambitious!  I did a quick tally and I still have 103 lessons to get through. Which means, with the 21 days that I have left, I’ll need to do about 5 lessons per day with a tiny margin for failure.

Which is not too far-fetched.

Anyway I gotta go to bed. Long day tomorrow.

 

So I’ve been trying to blog to no avail. Today is the day that I finally update my blog in the new year! I owe it to all the drafts that were never published!

I can’t believe that we’re 9 days into the new year already. Oh shit I must remind myself to RSVP for something (deadline today, and I have this habit of leaving everything to the last day), and print Leo’s travel documents to Singapore. Leo says that I am cerebro de gallina (brain of a chicken), which is the Spanish way of saying scatter-brain, which is the English way of describing someone who simply does not have a functional short-term memory. Most of the time I walk into a room and wonder what I was supposed to do there. Or say something and forget what my point was mid-sentence. Or forget a person’s name immediately after I’ve been introduced to them.

That’s a problem, especially in the workplace, when all the names blur into each other and I categorise people according to their initials. Ok this person is a “Z”. It could be Zul, Zainal, Zakaria, Zara… if my brain had the capacity to store the rest of the characters beyond the Z I would probably be more confident in talking to people. I’m always afraid that I’d get caught out not knowing someone’s name, which happens.

The other day I was asked by this rather imposing lady who works in the next office (don’t know what she’s called) if one of the guys who sit outside of my office was there. Of course she said, is “Whatshisname” (pseudonym to protect the innocent) there? I froze because she was imposing, and in my two seconds of lag time Whatshisname replied that he was there. The problem is, I had always thought that Whatshisname was the guy who sat opposite this guy. I think it wasn’t good form to hesitate, but it could have been worse if I had actually answered. So now I know that Whatshisname is Whatshisname, and OtherGuy is OtherGuy.

I’ve been working in my office for a little more than 6 months, by the way.

Anyway. I don’t know how I managed to ramble on and on, but this post is looking promising so far. Maybe I’ll even publish it.

The new year has been relatively good. Workload picked up a notch, and I’m stressed lots of times, but I’m doing my best to keep myself balanced. For one, I’ve moved my working hours from 0745-1645 to 0930-1900. It’s an extra half hour that I’m staying in the office (to avoid traffic) but so far I like it. I have swum in the morning for two days in a row now. It’s just about half an hour, but it gets the daily exercise routine out of the way (it’s sometimes very hard to get motivated to exercise after a long day of work). I get more sleep (15 more minutes), and I think I’m more productive at work. I also get to eat breakfast together with Leo, who makes me coffee, and muesli+fruit. A far cry from the Milo+crackers breakfast that I’m used to eating at work.

So at least my body is being taken care of, in turn it will take care of my having to focus on work. Before you ask, I’m now typing this during my lunch time. Surely a girl can rest once in a while.

What else. I’ve started burning candles and essential oil in the office which improves my mood. We’re getting a new couch at home, courtesy of my uncle. Hand-me-downs are awesome! And this is after about 9 months without a couch. I am looking forward to it. I’m sure Spot would enjoy it too. Unfortunately I think Kenneth is lost for good. Sometimes I think of him when it rains, or when I see a straggly street cat going past. There was nothing we could have done, and this could have happened at any time since he was always the roaming type. I just hope that he’s having a better life now.

Oh well. Lunch time is over, and I should probably get back to work. Now is the decisive moment to act –

*presses publish*