I love you like a song baby.

Salam,

Aaaaheeeyyyy!!

Asyik-asyik cerita pasal how stressful life as a PhD student is, why not this time cerita pasal everything happy and dandy pulak. Rasa macam banyak nak bebel but will see how it goes lah after I write this whole thing up. 

Spring is near!! *bird's chirping* padahal 8 pm sekarang :P The weather is getting warmer these days, Alhamdulillah. Tapi I was reminded dari awal datang dulu, UK weather ni bukan macam US; US betul-betul ada four distinct seasons, walaupun kadang-kadang sampai bulan 4 pun still snow, tapi UK ni, sejuk/chilly je memanjang. Summer pun boleh jadi sejuk, ape cerita tu? Jadi harus prepare mental dan fizikal menghadap Spring/Summer yang macam Autumn/Winter huhu.

Hari Jumaat lepas, weather memang terbaik, jadi instead of taking the bus home, I walked :) Cannot waste a good weather one, rugi rugi. On the way balik tu, fikiran melayang ke musim bunga di bumi Rochester, wah gitu. Rindu bangat sehhh!! Spring is everyone's favorite season, I guess, with some exceptions of course because ada je kawan yang suka gila Winter -__- heh. Spring in Rochester lagi lah favorite sebab time tu lah keluar semua benda yang tak terkeluar time season-season lain. My batch and prolly the batch above can relate the most with 'The Spring Drama'..starring..me, you, and us hahaha. Asal Spring je ada drama, asal ada drama je Spring. My hypothesis is, disebabkan time Spring banyak activities, macam Malaysian Night (yang awesome tu), BBQ, gathering sana-sini, orang semua berkumpul lalu banyaklah ragam manusia yang lead to drama. Hehe

Speaking of BBQ and gathering, oh man what is Spring without BBQ and endless makan-makan/gathering. Time ni lah badan diisi dengan segala karbon lepas tu orang dok ingatkan, 'Tak baik makan BBQ banyak-banyak, karbon tu boleh buat cancer'. But since we are a bunch of keras kepala people, karbon tolak tepi, janji kenyang! Bila makan-makan sure lah ada aktiviti lain, we are not fat and keras kepala people okay, we know how to balance ihiks. So cara untuk bakar lemak-lemak tepu dari ayam BBQ tu ialah dengan bermain volleyball, karaoke SingStar sampai takde suara, dan juga main mafia. Okay kalau korang ingat karaoke and main mafia tak membakar lemak, memang korang silap besar. Berpeluh main mafia tau tak, hasil menjerit menuduh orang dan men-defend diri sendiri dari kena tuduh mafia. Karaoke plak bukan main-main, nyanyi lagu mendiang Whitney Houston Greatest Love of All, Toni Braxton Unbreak My Heart, korang hengat senang?? Berpeluh jugak nak tarik, lagi-lagi nak lawan si Mior. 

 Spring 2008 - Freshman Year

Siap bonfire lagik.

Spring 2009 - Sophomore Year

Spring 2010 - Junior Year

Main tuju/baling selipar

Yuerin jadi Yuna :P

Konon terer le yang baju kuning tu, padahal...

Spring 2010 jugak rasanya.

Ha yang ni tak ingat. Spring 2009 I think. 

Lihatlah pipi ku masih kempis.

Ni baru gambar BBQ, tu pn mostly the ones that I hosted. Gambar BBQ yang orang lain host tak masuk.  Aktiviti-aktiviti lain tak kira lagi. Looking at all these pictures, I instantly remember all the 'dramas' that happened during that particular Spring hahaha. Oh good times good times.

Kata entry happy and dandy kan, ini boleh jadi depressing jugak ni sebab dok ingat cerita lama. Uwaaaa rindu Rochester and the people. 

Seriously I can go on hours on end cakap pasal ni. Let's end it here. I think the best way to end this entry is to share this song with my Rochester buddies. I first heard of it when I went to watch 'Rent', a Broadway show in New York City with Jiji, Joe and Joe's gang (TQ Joe sebab kasi Jiji and I crashed the party :). When I speak of Rochester friends, mesti teringat lagu ni. Cerita 'Rent' ni pun pasal kawan-kawan :P So I dedicate this song to you guys, with a note, yang ada blog tu sila lah update!! Rindu seh nak baca blog korang macam dulu balik. As I am writing this, I actually went to your blogs and tolong cuci habuk kat blog korang. Haha. Update lah update lah!!

Five hundred twenty-five thousand
Six hundred minutes,
Five hundred twenty-five thousand
Moments so dear.
Five hundred twenty-five thousand
Six hundred minutes
How do you measure, measure a year?

In daylights, in sunsets, in midnights
In cups of coffee
In inches, in miles, in laughter, in strife.

In five hundred twenty-five thousand
Six hundred minutes
How do you measure
A year in the life?

How about love?
How about love?
How about love? Measure in love

Seasons of love. Seasons of love

Five hundred twenty-five thousand
Six hundred minutes!
Five hundred twenty-five thousand
Journeys to plan.

Five hundred twenty-five thousand
Six hundred minutes
How do you measure the life
Of a woman or a man?

In truths that she learned,
Or in times that he cried.
In bridges he burned,
Or the way that she died.

It's time now to sing out,
Tho' the story never ends
Let's celebrate
Remember a year in the life of friends
Remember the love!
Remember the love!
Seasons of love!

Oh you got to got to
Remember the love!
You know that love is a gift from up above
Share love, give love spread love
Measure measure your life in love.

I have been scammed!

Literature review is a scam.

It is one thing in life that has no ending.

In the morning, you sit down comfortably at your desk, sipping coffee (not in my case), and fix your eyes on a piece of paper (or many, to be exact) that you just printed from Google Scholar. You highlight some texts, you nod, you jot down notes, you nod again, you frown a little, you scratch your head, highlight more texts, and if you are lucky you have some Eureka! moment, one page done, two page done, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve and then you come to the references list (phewwhh), you highlight one reference, two reference, then three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, and then you realized 'Dang it did I just highlight ten references????' 

How is it not a scam, you tell me!!!

p/s: Pardon me, I am having rough weeks since last week I'd lose my sanity if this goes on until next week. Let's hope I don't lose wires up here.

Picture from Google.

happy.com

I am generally a happy person. I believe, to be happy, it must come from you - how you shape your life, the decisions you make on a daily basis. It shouldn't depend on the surrounding, the people around you, the weather, how much money you have in your pocket yada yada yada.

I'd like to share these few tips with you about how I make myself happy, which you probably know already :P

1. Express love to your loved ones

I do this all the time, especially to my family and close friends. I go on Skype with my mom almost everyday. 'Sayang Adik' 'Sayang Mama' 'Love you Ma' 'Love you too baby' are common phrases to end our conversation.

Now, it's different with my father because he just doesn't talk very much. But whenever he passes Mama talking to me, he would stop and say, 'Hi baby!'. Yes, my parents still call me baby and I don't care at all, because that's how they show their love to me. And I love being 'gedik' with my dad by saying 'Love you Dadi' instead of the usual 'Ayah'.

I know a lot of people are finding it hard to express their love to their parents, which I find weird. Well I know you would say, 'Not saying I love you doesn't mean we love our parents any less than you do'. Yes I agree, but why can't you say it? Some say it's difficult because their parents don't really show/say/express it, so they feel shy to do the same. Well to me it should be a breeze, because I believe those love expressions are easily uttered when we were small. But why not now? What makes it so difficult? Weird, isn't it? I really wanna know why, if you could tell me in the comment box. 

With my close friends, sometimes we don't go by our names, but by 'Darling' 'Yang' 'Dear' 'Sayang' instead. It might seem small to you, but it makes a lot of difference, seriously. We feel more close, more intimate with each other. And with that it lets us to trust each other more. I really don't know how to explain this, but you should try. It's magic :P We don't have problems with saying 'Love you' or hugging each other (errr kissing to some small extent LOL). I know some people who are not comfortable being all 'mushy' with their friends, even best friends. Some people just don't like the 'touchy touchy' feelings. I guess you have to open up a little :P

Same goes to your crush. I know some of us girls are a little conventional about confessing to the guy. But hey, Imam Muda Asyraf pun cakap jodoh kena cari. It's not like you see a guy you like and you go to him and say, 'Hey I like you!'. There's so many ways around it. You can still be conventional, but with a little wit :P

Bottom line is, the more you express the love you have in your heart, it becomes bigger, and that allows you to have more room for love for other people. I hold the principle that, 'Life is short. If you don't say it now, you'll probably regret it once you lose that person because no one can be sure what could happen tomorrow'.

But you don't have to take my word for it, try it yourself. First with your parents :P Kalau kat crush/bf/gf beria cakap I love you I miss you bagai, but shy to say those to your parents, memang nak kena!!!

2. Celebrate little things in life.

I love to celebrate little things in life. I reward myself every time I achieve something, big or small. And the reward does not necessarily mean I have create a hole in my pocket, sometimes a bar of chocolate or a red velvet cupcake would do the trick :P

Being somewhat a joyful person, I love celebrations, of any kind - birthdays, parties, weddings, gatherings, reunions, a simple makan-makan, or even just an outing. It's hard for me to say 'No' because those mean 'happy time' for me so why should I avoid it?

To those wondering why I made a big fuss for not being able to attend my friends' weddings, or a kenduri of any kind, my answer is simple. It's not always we get to see and experience these beautiful things in life, and being someone who love celebrations, of course it's sad for me to not be able to come. But I am aware that this is the price I have to pay for being here, so takpelah, saya pasrah. InsyALLAH there'll be others that I could attend, kalau panjang umur. To my friends who are getting married this year, please know that I want to come so badly, but circumstances are not permitting :(

Actually there a few more I'd like to share, but this entry is longer that I intended it to be. Just two for now then :)

Let's log on to happy.com :)))

1-month lunch challenge.

**UPDATED

Ehem ehem

I am proud to announce that...

I completed the challenge with success!!

Now, the next challenge is to sustain it.

InsyALLAH I will always remind myself that I can always make something better than forking out 2.50 pound for a sandwich :P

You guys should take on this challenge too! Reduce those calories from all the nasi campur you eat during lunch. *I tak jeles okayh :P*

****

Since I started my PhD, I have always wanted to bring lunch to work everyday. During my first week here, majority of my colleageous brought their own food and ate at the pantry. Then when I went down to get food for myself, there were very limited choices, I mean, what do you expect to get in a hospital's cafeteria. Actually I just went to a small snack shop two floors down my department, as the real cafeteria is located quite far away. So, again, what do you expect to get in a snack shop? The closest thing to 'lunch' I can get is a sandwich or a salad or a jacket potato (baked potato). They don't even sell soups! *Now I miss RIT SAU Cafe*

So from then on I tried to bring something, most of the time it was leftover from dinner. I thought of waking up early in the morning to make something, but the weather is not permitting *kaitan??* Of course ada kaitan, when it's cold it's so hard to get up in the morning, hence no time to make lunch. LOL.

But true what people say, when you plan on doing something, you would end up not doing it. Came new year, suddenly my brain just tricked my body into waking up early and just like that, my body went down the stairs and started making lunch and ate breakfast at the same time. It's been three days now *baru 3 hari duuhh* and I already feel proud of myself *allow a little vanity please*. 

Come to think of it, I better off bring my own lunch, first because there aren't much choice *if we have nasi campur here, I wouldn't even have thought about this entry*, and second, it's much cheaper. OK fine, two out of the three days I brought sandwiches. But still, my version of sandwich is 5 times better than what they have in the snack shop-I get to put whatever I want (compared to tuna, egg and prawn sandwiches I could get from the shop) with a much much cheaper price. A tuna sandwich downstairs cost 2.50 pound, whereas if I'm making a meatloaf sandwich, it'll probably be just 1 pound or even less. There's a trick that my housemate taught me - always hunt for reduced items. Here, everything that's getting close to the expiry date, the supermarket will reduce the price of the item. Last time we bought a loaf of bread for just 10 pence (cent), and the bread hasn't gone bad until now, one week after its expiry date. They do that (reducing the price) out of formality, I guess, because things here don't go bad as easily as they would have in the climate like Malaysia's.

So yeah, back to the point of this entry *Boy, I talk so much*

I am now challenging myself to bring lunch for the whole month, without fail. Other than saving money, it's also to test my creativity to come up with different meal every morning and also a test of preserverance LOL. I shall report the results of this challenge on *checking calendar* Tuesday, February the first. Kalau gagal don't ejek me, okay? Kat atas cakap jangan plan, now dah plan pulak. We will see :)

My lunch on Thursday: Meatloaf sandwich, clementine orange and Ferrero Rocher :P