Dinner @ Taiwan Cafe

Real food as in real, solid, food with perceivable intensity. Example of fake food is CMU campus food, blargh. The rare and real food you can find in Pittsburgh...

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is food that is served warm,

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food that makes you happy instead of counting how much meal blocks you still have to 'waste',

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Chinese food,

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tasty food,
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And food that reminds you of home. =)

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Pork. Fish. Tofu. Chicken. Green beans. served hot with rice. woohoo!
Quotes Mark: This is the 1st time in 3 months that I eat REAL food. Proves how good it is.

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But sorry to disappoint you, they're not homemade dishes.

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The orang puteh who can hold chopsticks better than I can.

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Kenneth and Alicia. Rare moment when Kenneth's not mugging.

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Yeaps, awesome Saturday series is back with more food outings because we're just sick of campus food. On that very same day, had the very 1st Korean food (aka kimchi) in my life and it tastes like vegetable, which is awful for carnivores. At least now I know what's it like. Didn't bring my camera for the food, so yeah.

¡Feliz cumpleaños

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It feels so nice to be able to conveniently call back to Malaysia, even if it isn't using a phone. Botak, glad to keep in touch with ya'll. Take good care and good luck in your STPM.
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A belated one for Hui Ling who turned 19 last week,

An early one for YongQian who is turning 18 tomorrow,
And oh, Soon Hoe's turning 19 tomorrow too! Take care in Ann Arbor!

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HAPPY BIRTHDAY!
Sorry no delivery service for gifts, look forward to welcome me home. x)

1st Halloween

To clarify one thing first, having a blog with Halloween template doesn't indicate that I'm obsessive over Halloween, except that I'm a big fan of Nightmare before Xmas. For my very first Halloween in the US, it was rather uneventful and unproductive.

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SO, what did I do for Halloween?

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1. Laughed at my Mod Chem professor who dressed up like a clown.

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2. Ate candies given out by my 76100 instructor.

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3. Read a book. The Lost Symbol was pretty much disappointing by his previous books' standards, with little actions, little conspiracy, and little dilemma. Unlike his previous works, the book is less "hard to put down" as claimed by reviewers because it's more like a simple chase-and-run game, and the ending just resolves too simply. Maybe I'm just expecting too much from Dan Brown.

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4. Lunch at Oakland's Taiwan cafe where all the workers there are Malaysians. Good stuff. x)

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5. Watched I Not Stupid Too. Surprisingly no tears this time.

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6. Went through a day with 25 hours, literally. The whole daylight saving idea serves to "adjust daylight hours to when most people are awake and about", apparently research shows it to be effective in cutting down traffic accident, traffic fatalities, crime rates, and increasing kids' play time. But for me, it's just an extra hour of sleep and more confusion between my biological clock and the clock's display time.

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7. I almost forgot to mention the Stever Haunted Mansion event whereby they transformed the whole dorm into a haunted mansion by putting up decorations. It was a great work because the preliminary deco already freaked me out from going back to my dorm throughout the event. No photographs taken then, sorry. :(
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No trick or treats, no monster costume. They claim that I look scary enough to scare anyone. So yeah, there goes my 1st Halloween.

Have a Little Faith

Happiness in a tablet. This is our world. Prozac. Paxil. Xanax. Billions are spent to advertise such drugs. And billions more are spent on purchasing them. You don't even need a specific trauma; just "general depression" or "anxiety", as if sadness were treatable as the common cold.

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I knew depression was real, and in many cases require medical attention. I also knew we overused the word. Much of what we called "depression" was really dissatisfaction, a result of setting a bar impossibly high or expecting treasures that we weren't willing to work for. I knew people whose unbearable source of misery was their weight, their baldness, their lack of advancement in a workplace, or their inability to find the perfect mate, even if they themselves did not behave like one. To these people, unhappiness was a condition, an intolerable state of affairs.If pills could help, pills were taken.

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But pills were not going to change the fundamental problem in the construction. Wanting what you can't have. Looking for self-worth in the mirror. Layering work on top of work and still wondering why you weren't satisfied - before working some more.
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-- Have a Little Faith, Mitch Albom.
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Another great masterpiece by Mitch Albom, like his previous books highlighting on the values of life through lectures on Tuesdays with a dying professor, a story about a guy who failed suicide twice given one more day to spend with his mother who died long since, and an ordinary pier maintenance worker who died in a ride accident to save a child meeting five people in heaven. The latest book was about Mitch who started a journey of discovery after he promised his rabbi to "do his eulogy", reflecting much on a religious man's personal values, religious values, family, wisdom, and faith. Definitely worth the read!
Thanks Ricky for lending the book! x)
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A fruitful Thursday night spent on sticking my nose in a novel, first one since I came here. This is waaaay better than Chemistry.

Sunny day

Just pictures. Couldn't help from gasping at the awesome sight of a sunny autumn morning. Feeling grateful that I actually decided not to skip calculus recitation this morning, there was a surprise attendance grade today to substitute for the quiz.

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Walking to the sky. Re-erected.

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The scorching sun that stings your eyes so badly, yet so precious. Guess the sun's gonna be gone for days again when it gets gloomy.

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3 strokes of white against the blue background, pretty.

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The UC and the cut on a bright sunny morning.

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Another closeup picture of walking to the sky pole.

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Leaves changing colors. That place became a favorite spots for afternoon hangouts and photo shooting recently.

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Morewood.

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My dorm.

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Cheers. x)

Fall

To compensate for my lack of updates, I present you... RANDOM pictures!

since I only clear the images in my camera once in a blue moon nowadays.

Dating back to ...... 3 weeks ago?

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"OMG, fall is coming! Isn't that awesome!?" We went to Target two weekends ago to stock up food supply, buy stationeries, and gloves. The temperature dropped drastically from around 13 to 4 degrees Celcius. Time to unpack my winter clothings.

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Me in the rain, in a jacket, a t-shirt, and a hoodie. My fringe is annoying.
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Walking to the sky was taken down a while because it swayed badly and was on the verge of collapsing. Now they've thickened the pole and the people are gonna be up there again soon!

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A Sonnet 18 to praise the almighty architecture of Wean. It's the ugliest building in CMU.

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Who painted the leaves red?

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One of those things that remind you that you're in the US. I forgot what's the weather like in summer.

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Standing in the rain to take pictures with the red trees. Heard that it's gonna snow soon. Boohoo hope I don't die from the freezing cold.

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The reason I update today: I am supposed to be in Washington DC right now. x(

MFF

Yo, I'm back. Sorry for the lack of updates due to my depressing life as a nerd, and my laziness to empty my camera's images. Plus, Alicia did a pretty extensive coverage on the MFF already. Refer to hers for more details. x)

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So anyway, these are the nice pictures I got from Alicia's camera because she did a better job as a photographer. Nowadays I just forget to bring my camera whenever I go out because everyone has better cameras.

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The huge Malaysian flag I brought from home. That's our booth during the International Festival where we gave off free samples of Malaysian food (cincau and kaya toast only) to give people a preview of the actual Malaysian Food Fest (MFF).

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The first picture where all the CMU Malaysian freshmen class of 2013 came together.

From left: Mark, Abrar, Ricky, me, and Alicia, and my awesome flag.

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Despite having a Chemistry midterm on Monday, I spared my Sunday to be spent on 'cucuk'. Being in the kitchen is simply an awkward thing to do, I cut chili and it stung my nose so badly after I accidentally touched my nose with my fingers. After my tears dried and the torment was over, I joined the others to cut the chicken meat, and I did not chop my finger. x)

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Aww I heard that their hands stank badly after marinating the chicken. Still, the happy faces.
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The annual 'cucuk' event which surprisingly took us less than 2 hours.

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And this is what the satays turned out to be on MFF. Mmmm yummy!

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We chalked the whole campus to promote the MFF event in the freezing cold night air.

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On our menu, we have:
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Herbal eggs!

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Kaya toast.

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Ais Kacang. Surprisingly people still buy that when the temperature was 13 degrees Celcius.

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Oh well. Everyone knows what nasi lemak looks like. The curious thing to most of the non-Malaysians - sambal, super spicy stuff. hehe.

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Special thanks to Charles, my ChE group member who volunteered a helping hand at the MFF. Woohoo! Hot Pink Reactions rocks!

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Mark and Charles selling nasi lemak. Nasi lemak sold out pretty fast, high market demand, just goes to show how good Malaysian food really is.

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The random Malaysians who happened to be in Pitts. Gavin, the guy in the picture, is actually a Kuantanese who lives in my neighborhood back at home. They came here to help out in the MFF to sell herbal eggs. x)

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Yi Xiang preparing kaya toast. Kaya tastes really good, I regretted not appreciating it back at home.

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Mark, the pianist. He played the best version of Rasa Sayang ever!

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Lost, the official photographer for the event.

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Yiling in Kebaya! Cincau sold out fast too.

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I was supposed to make ais kacang. But I ended up selling mi siam. No fun.

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Yo MFF rocks yo.

A rare display of myself. heeee.