Young, Growing, Glowing

I’m writing this at the tail end of what has been the. best. week. ever.

Like, how do I even tell you? Ok I guess I’ll start by saying that we had a 4-day weekend for Thanksgiving break. Work-wise, that meant the past couple of weeks were rough—we only worked 3 days this past week and I kinda only had 2 proper days of work the week prior because I did the bootcamp program thing. And that’s pretty much why I didn’t blog last week: I was just so groggy and tired. I wish I could say I was exaggerating, but one night, I came home at about 11 pm. Meals were skipped. Sleep was sacrificed.

I think that’s something I didn’t expect from the job but makes total sense… that is, no matter what, an episode comes out on Monday and all the work that goes into putting out an episode has to be done by Monday, regardless of what’s going on. Obviously all this “cramming” can be avoided with planning ahead but you can only do so much planning when your work also relies on other people, etc.

So yeah, that meant this 4-day weekend came at a REALLY good time and it turned out amazingly well. I spent it in Philly, which was just such a good decision on my part. On Thursday morning, before I left for Union Station, I did kinda feel a little lazy to travel… I felt like maybe I should’ve just vegged out at home. But I am beyond glad I went. It was just like a “balik kampung” feeling.

First of all, it was just surreal to be back in Philadelphia. Honestly, part of me felt like I never left. To top it all off, I stayed at my friend Oliver’s place while he was out of town for the holiday and he lives literally across the hall from my old apartment. So walking into that building, pressing the elevator button and trekking down the hall just felt so natural and automated. It was a bizarre feeling, to say the least. And walking through campus was just overwhelming. As I walked up Walnut Street, it just sent flashes of memories through my mind like a bunch of scenes from a long film spliced together. I don’t know how else to explain this other than to say it was magical. It felt like home. Really, it felt the same way as when I go back to KL for summers. It was intoxicating and confusing. I especially appreciated this because the feelings weren’t purely saccharine; they were complex and tinged with the bitterness I felt every time I landed at the Philly airport. As I rode through campus, I couldn’t help remembering all the times I’ve gone down that same street at the beginning of the semester, feeling groggy and annoyed that I had to be back on campus and now those memories of resentment just make me chuckle a little. It’s funny.

And of course, it was amazing to see my friends again. Ken and Vera both came to Philly for the holiday, and our friend Selina is still at Penn so we all hung out together. It made me really miss Shahirah, May May and Hui Jie though. On Thursday night, we got dinner at Banana Leaf (and had kangkung belacan!!!!) in lieu of a “proper” Thanksgiving dinner (we all didn’t have kitchens so like, can you blame us). That night, we decided to go to the Philadelphia Premium Outlet mall thing for Black Friday shopping—something I’ve never done but have always wanted to try for the sake of it. PPO is only like ~30-40 minutes away from Penn but my goodness, the traffic!! We were stuck in the car for 2.5 hours! I have to say though, I wouldn’t have changed a thing about it because it felt like we were on a real road trip and I appreciated the length of the drive since it meant we almost went through Taylor Swift’s entire discography.

FullSizeRender 3.jpg — MayMay wasn’t there but Ken and I got to talk to her for like 2 hours, which was nice ❤

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Shopping was kinda fun and I’d say it was worth it because I got some insane deals for things I actually needed, so I’m not complaining. It was pretty cold though and by the time we left PPO it was like… 5 am or something. We got back at 6 and by that point it had been like 24 hours since I woke up the morning before. I slept ASAP but if you’ve ever fallen asleep as the sun is rising (and if you’re a normal college student, I know you probably have…) you’d know that it’s not that easy. Like, your body is trained to get up with the sun… so by 8.30 I was having trouble staying asleep. I fought it for a bit but eventually I decided to go get Federal Donuts. Because here’s the other thing about my trip to Philly: I had a mission. And that was to cross off all the items on my craving list. I kid you not, last week, I even called all the restaurants I wanted to go to during my trip and checked what their holiday schedule was like. So yeah, I had fed nuts for breakfast, and then I had brunch at Beijing (where I was reunited with my all time fav, walnut shrimp) lol.

And then soon after, I had to get ready to leave because we were heading out of town to Wissahickon Valley Park for some hiking. I gotta say, I was a teensy bit nervous about it because I am not athletic but it was like…….. not even a hike. It was just us walking for 2+ hours. The view. was. beautiful. It was nice to be in nature after spending 5 hours participating in senseless consumerism the night before, you know? Plus, I had been yapping to Ken about wanting to see golden trees, so I was super happy when I got what I wanted. The park had the lingering autumn leaves in all its glorious colours and we had so many laughs going through the trail, taking pictures, telling stories. It was serene, the weather was absolutely ideal for hiking and the company was perfect. It’s one of those things I know I’ll remember for a very, very long time.

Then, for dinner, we had Korean food and I had some reeeeaaaal good dukbokki. We talked at dinner for hours and it felt just like college again. I loved that the conversations weren’t about like… “so where do you work? What do you do?” and it’s not because they already necessarily know what I do at work, but it’s because they know me, and they have more to talk about with me than jobs and what it’s like living in DC, etc. Over dinner, we talked about some of the things we were grateful for throughout our time at Penn and it made me realize again what I already knew: we had a good thing going. As much as I didn’t like school, I loved my friends and I loved that we had a community. I’ve said it a few times on here already, but that’s what I so sorely miss now that I’ve left school. It really is so easy when you have a group of people who feel like family and for that brief day, it felt like I had it again.

That night, I came back to Oliver’s place and I. just. crashed. I mean, at that point, I had gone shopping and hiking on very minimal sleep so really, it was inevitable that I fell asleep at 9 pm. I woke up almost 12 hours later and I just felt utterly renewed. It was beautiful.

On Saturday morning, our last day there, Selina hosted a cute little brunch thing at her lovely apartment. She had a cheese board and grapes, which I always appreciate, and she served us old town white coffee + kaya toast. It doesn’t really get any better than that. At brunch, I also got to see my dear Kimmy, who’s now a sophomore!! Recall that I met her in a creative writing seminar when she was a freshman and we became fast friends. I was so excited to see her again and I spent pretty much the rest of the day with her. We played air hockey and ping pong on Selina’s roof top for a while, which was insanely fun (Kim and I won air hockey!!) but I was still on my quest to cross things off my craving list, so after brunch, Kim and I went to Han Dynasty for some good ol’ veggie dan dan noodles. We caught up, talked about everything under sun… and then we went back to the Ludlow house to take a nap hahaha.

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I just want to take a moment to say that I love the Ludlow house. It started off a couple of years ago as Shaun, Lian Han and Ken’s scrappy lil home. Later, May May moved in when Shaun graduated and Hui Jie moved in when Lian Han graduated the semester after. So that house just became more and more so a home base for me and my friends. I love that the “legacy” of the house is kinda still being continued now that Kim and a few other Malaysian/Singaporeans are living there. It just makes me feel so happy. When Ken, Selina and I talked about the house with Vera the other day, Vera pointed out that if this was a novel, the house would really be like a character in and of itself… and she’s right. And that’s really cool.

But anyway, I loved that I got to hang out there again. The place looks and feels really different, but still the same in some ways. It’s cleaner and nicer and more packed but still really homey. I took a nap in Kim’s room which was nice because it’s the kind of hang out you’d have with someone if you had an abundance of time… even though we didn’t.

Then, for dinner, just before my bus, I saw Jamie at Zavino’s. At first I thought I wasn’t going to get to see her since she usually visits family for break but she got back in time for me to catch her and I loved that we got to split some ricotta + rosemary flatbread together because that meal and that restaurant is just super special to me and I have many fond memories of being there with Jamie. She’s a senior now and it’s such a strange feeling seeing her go through some of the things I went through just a year ago… it’s funny how much things can change in a year.

But yeah, then I had to head out to catch my bus at 6.45 and head back to DC. It was a pleasant ride back and I’m thankful I didn’t get motion sickness either on my way to or from Philly—that’s usually a big problem for me.

Today was mostly just recuperating and relaxing, enjoying the last of the weekend before I head back to the grind tomorrow morning. I would’ve loved to spend a bit more time in Philly but a) Ken had left anyway and b) the last time I returned to DC on a Sunday evening, I felt like shit the rest of the week so I’m definitely glad I came back on Saturday night.

I had the loveliest day today, though. I got copious amounts of sleep. I did my laundry. I went to the National Gallery of Art on the National Mall, which was really nice because even though I’ve been in DC for a couple of months now, I haven’t been back there since I first visited DC with Shahirah over 3 years ago. I watched people ice skate at the sculpture garden, and it made me really excited for winter holidays with my family again. I saw the sunset as I walked back up town. I got groceries at Trader Joe’s. I came back and made the. most. delicious. loaf of banana and chocolate chip bread while watching X Factor UK with my roommate. And now I’m just winding down preparing to sleep and writing this.

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I really am so thankful for this weekend and for where I am in life right now. Weekend trips with 3-hour bus rides, karaoke drives with friends, shopping til 5 am, fitting 10 people in a tiny little living room, taking long walks alone in the city without having to answer to anyone… it’s the kinds of things you can only really do when you’re young. That confusing feeling of not having a “home” anymore? That’s what it’s like when you’re young and rootless and growing. And sometimes it’s scary or just flat out annoying but there are moments that just feel like pure gold—like your heart is glowing.

What I’m about to say is so cheesy, but a few weeks ago, I was on my commute home from work and I was changing lines on the Metro at Gallery Place when I thought about how insanely lucky I am that things worked out the way they did. A year ago I felt kinda lost. Graduating felt like jumping off a cliff and freefalling. But I realized that day that you only fear falling if you don’t know you can fly. (Told you it was cheesy.) But it’s true. I still am rootless and a little bit aimless but I’ve figured it out before and I can figure it out again, and again, and again. This weekend really felt like everything will always turn out ok and even if it doesn’t, there will be moments of pure gold in the midst of everything. That’s just what it feels like to be young and growing.

Ok can we skip to the part where we become BFFs already?

I’ve been in DC for over 2 months now and in some ways, it just keeps getting better. I know neighbourhoods, grocery stores I like, bus routes and coffee places I prefer. I no longer struggle to wriggle my keys into and out of my apartment door. I no longer have to read the signs when I’m changing lines on the Metro on my daily commutes and I figured out the best places to consistently keep my work ID and Metro card. These kinds of things make me really happy.

But I miss the depth of my life in Philly. I don’t consider myself a person who gets lonely much. I rarely feel like I need people, or a certain person to be around me. But maybe that’s what I’m feeling right now? As in, I miss making extra pancakes for my friends. I made chocolate chip pancakes for breakfast on Saturday and was like… these would be great to share but guess I’ll just make them for myself?? I miss texting my friends when I have baked goods and have them just walk over quickly. I miss how those quick visits sometimes turn into late nights on the couch talking about every and anything.

I have a birthday coming up and as much as I have enjoyed the company of my new friends (I honestly cannot stress this enough—some of the people I’ve met these past few months are the nicest, most talented people I have ever met) I just want to be with the people who already know me really well.

I don’t really feeling like throwing a party with “nice to meet you” and “what do you do?” and “I just moved here from Houston in September”. I want “I was at Hubbub and I moved seats twice to move closer to my usual spot with the power outlet”. I want “this wedding photographer just requested to follow me on Instagram for the fourth time”. I want granularity. I want inside jokes. I want people who know where Damansara is and what cendol is. I want 2 a.m. conversations in Manglish.

I think that the kinds of friends I miss are the ones with a shared history. And I know that a shared history can be developed over time, but I guess right now I feel a little impatient. I also know I have my all my friends at my fingertips. I text May May and Sha all the time. But they’re not here.

Anyway, like I said, I don’t mean to suggest that I’m making no headway or that I don’t have fun because I do! I love it here and I absolutely adore the friends I’ve made in DC (though I’d appreciate it if we could become BFFs quicker because I’m bored, y’know?). Last night I made nasi lemak and invited Ken’s friend Vera over for dinner. I met Vera during Thanksgiving a couple of years ago while she was visiting Ken in Philly and we reconnected during Ken’s recent visits to DC. I totally knew we would get along, and I was right. We hung out just the two of us for the first time last night and I had such a nice time.

I could’ve talked to her all night, but I also wanted to go to Claire’s birthday thing the same night so I decided to bring Vera with me, and I’m glad I did! Vera is so good with new people and it was so much more fun having her with me. It’s also nice to hang out with work people like Claire, Benjamin and Rachel outside of the office. Claire is a huge denim enthusiast so she had a denim theme and I have to say, it’s such a good one because people always have so many opinions about colours and not everyone has polka dots or whatever. So props to Claire for picking a pretty accessible and fun theme haha. I also met a couple of people who did Fulbright in Malaysia in the past and it was SO EXCITING. We bonded over laksa and char kuey teow and it brought out all the –lahs in me instantly.

Vera and Benjamin turn parties into French lessons.

I’ve also been reconnecting with people I haven’t seen in ages. Yesterday, I saw Bu for coffee. I know Bu from following my dad to work when he was training BNM’s fresh grads. I’ve kept in touch with a number of the people I met there, and Bu is one of them. He’s living in DC now and we talked for like two hours. It’s sometimes nice to see someone who has a lot of mutual friends with you, especially when you’re in a new city. The familiarity is lovely. He also has been here for a bit longer than I have so he gave me advice about the city and you know, working and life and all that.

Today, I had lunch with Alya. She’s my parents’ friends’ daughter and she was probably my first friend ever in my whole life? Or at least, the first friend I remember having. We have quite a few pictures together of us as kids. But I haven’t seen her since… we couldn’t even remember when. More than 10 years, for sure. It was cool to catch up now that we’re both living in the same city! We had veggie ramen at this cute place in Adams Morgan (I love that neighbourhood) and it was amazing.

So yeah. It’s all good. In fact, it’s great. It’s just not home, but that’s ok. We did it once and we can do it again (did I ever tell you that when I talk to myself, I refer to myself as “we”? It’s like the me who’s speaking is different than the me I’m speaking to).

Until next time 🙂

Butterscotch Blondies, Bootcamp and… Being Bad at Blogging

I love me a good alliteration, y’know?

I just made some black pepper tofu stir fry thing and am now just chilling while Pitch Perfect 2 is on (you know how much I love movies with songs and coordinated dances!!). Work was pretty chill this week so I’m trying to use the downtime to kinda frontload stuff and get ahead.

This morning, I brought my butterscotch blondies to work because they were so good and I know if I didn’t share them, I would’ve end up eating it all myself… and that would’ve been so bad. I think people liked them but they weren’t as amazing as they were yesterday. I was FaceTiming May May yesterday while the blondies were in the oven and when I took them out she witnessed my sheer surprise when I tasted them for the first time. I liked that May May was at least “there” for that because I definitely miss baking stuff and just texting my friends saying like “hey guys, I made this, come over to try some if you’re free”. So it was at least nice to share it with people at work.

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Screen Shot 2017-11-06 at 22.01.07.png — Got a chance to try out this snazzy new toy I just got ON SALE AT TARGET!! I’ve ALWAYS wanted a Kitchen Aid.

Also, this week, I’m hoping to hear back about whether or not I got into this audio production bootcamp program thing that NPR has for interns. It’s this 2.5-day program where we get like a crash course in audio production from some senior editors and at the end of it we get paired with a mentor from the newsroom or something like that. Everyone who was interested had to take this test of audio proficiency last and out of the 20 or so people who took it, only 8 people will get in. I’m kind of not a fan of the competitiveness it adds but it is what it is, I guess and if I get it, cool, and if not, it won’t make or break anything.

We (we as in the How I Built This team) also just announced that we’re putting on a couple more live shows this year, which is exciting! The next one is on 30th Nov in DC. Guy will be interviewing Robert L. Johnson, who founded BET and I’m so excited that it’s local because I’ll get to go!!

In other recent updates, Ken came to visit again! We went to Thip Khao, which was that Laotian place I took Jamie when she came a couple of weeks ago, and it did not disappoint. The fried catfish and tofu laab were just amazing. Before dinner though, I took Ken to NPR to see the studio and my office and he seemed to really enjoy it, which made me really happy! I loved getting to share my “new world” to an old(er) friend.

After NPR, we came back to my neighbourhood to get dinner and the wait for the restaurant was like an HOUR. It was raining so we couldn’t just walk around and there weren’t any restaurants in the area that were nearly as good so we just went to this random place nearby to wait. At first, Ken suggested we go to Five Guys to split some fries but then I was like no lah, and suggested we go to this place called Z Burger??? because a sign said they had milkshakes and I had been craving milkshakes. But we walked in and I got distracted by onion rings!!!! Hahahaha. So we ended up getting onion rings and… fries. It was good though! I grilled the guy at the cashier over what kind of onion rings they had (breadcrumbs? floury? big? small? how many do you get? etc) and he seemed very amused by my indecision haha. But he gave us “Z sauce” which was thousand island + cajun and was just amazing with onion rings….. and….. this paragraph has evolved into a paragraph about food and isn’t about Ken anymore but um… basically it was a fun weekend. Here’s a picture of me and my preferred ring that Ken took:

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Anyway, I think that’ll be all for this week, haha. I’m going to febreeze the hell out of this apartment to tone down the black pepper smell lol byeeee!

Two weeks ago, I went to New York

I put fun in inverted commas because work is actually pretty fun and I want to be very careful about defining my life as only what happens outside of work, which is where I spend most of my time (and vice versa).

Anyway, my recent New York trip was two weeks ago now but I still want to immortalize it on here. It was the ever-so-controversial Columbus Day weekend, and we had Monday the 9th off of work so I decided to take the Megabus up to the city since tickets were also pretty cheap. I basically spent the whole time just meeting my friends and catching up with people. First, I met my friend Eliza who was one of my hallmates in the Quad during my freshman year. Then, I had dinner with Ken near Columbia, where he’s a first year PhD candidate!!!! (Sorry, I just get really excited about that still) He had two friends visiting him that week, so we all had dinner together at this pizza place and I absolutely loved the food and how quiet it was around the Columbia area. It was really nice to see Ken and I got to see his apartment as well, which was cool. It felt a little strange to be in a dorm with my college friend—just in a different city. Made me miss all my friends a bit more.

That weekend, I was staying with my friend Sarah, who I met earlier this year in January. You might recall (if you’re a loyal reader, I guess? I think I have like what, 7 of those?haha hello!) that she took me to see WNYC, where they produce some of my favourite podcasts like Radiolab, More Perfect and Freakonomics. I absolutely enjoyed staying with her because, like I said the last time, I feel like I’ve been friends with her for ages even though I’ve only kind of hung out with her 2-3 times. That first night I was there, I met her at the 42nd St subway stop and we were supposed to go to Brooklyn together but there was a power outage on Canal St that night so we ended up stopping at the next station for like 20-30 mins!! At the next station after that, we got stuck for a bit longer so Sarah and I were just like… ok, no way, we have to change trains. Everyone was just like running around trying to find an alternate route home. And it was so humid, we were all just like, totally drenched down there. It sounds awful, and it most definitely was, but it was also a hilarious bonding experience. Sarah kept apologizing to me on behalf of the city of New York and I was just like “meh, I’m young” LOL.

Me (in my PJs) and Sarah before she headed out for work

The next day, I had brunch with Iman, Keyan and Zohair. Keyan was visiting from Harvard, Zohair works in New York and Iman is at NYU Law. I felt so unbelievably happy to see my MSA friends again because they were really like an extended extended family for me at Penn. Really, I’d say it just felt super cosy to get together with them again. A few years ago, I thought I wouldn’t be able to see all my friends again after graduation so it really just feels so good to hang out with them post-school.

After that, I went to the Glossier showroom!! I’ve been curious about Glossier for over a year now, ever since I heard Emily Weiss, Glossier founder, on a podcast. I’m a no-make-up kind of ~gal~ but lately, I’ve been a bit braver and rajin-er so I’ve really been trying out a no-make-up make-up look haha and Glossier is totally perfect for that but I was too scared to make the investment without trying stuff out first. I absolutely loved the Invisible Shield and Generation G lip stick/balm things buuuuut I guess they’re just going to have to wait for my birthday hehe.

Stumbled upon this sign in Chinatown!!!! Made me miss home a lil bit more

I was walking around after going to Glossier and stumbled upon an Outdoor Voices store and they were giving away free Stumptown cold brews!!

I also stumbled upon Canal St Market near Glossier and it was full of all these cute little bits and bobs—this is literally the best thing about New York, there are gems at every corner.

That evening, I went to Gong Cha and got my utmost fav winter melon bubble tea and caught up with my friend Andrew, who I worked with on a club called Sangam back at Penn. I really looked up to him in college and it was nice to see him again after over a year. We talked about growing up and stuff and it was just really nice to catch up. Sarah and I had dinner after that at this Malaysian restaurant and it was so absurdly mediocre but I still enjoyed it. Part of it, I think, was getting to speak Malay with the waitress haha. Since I don’t live with Shahirah anymore, I never speak Malay anymore and I had no idea that I kinda missed it. (Btw pa, if you decide to FaceTime me speaking bahasa baku, my reaction is going to be -_- because that’s such a lame dad jokey thing to do lol)

The best mediocrity I’ve ever experienced

Thankfully, the second night, Sarah and I had no problems on the MTA. We got back to Brooklyn in the perfectly decent amount of time. I hung out with her and her roommate/cousin and it was just a nice chilled night. I was honestly glad to stay in because the weather was so crap that whole time. It was most certainly crap the next morning as well. I got breakfast with fellow NPR intern, Alice that Monday morning in Brooklyn because she lived not far away from Sarah’s place. I weathered an awfully windy gloomy humid morning to meet her at this cute breakfast place (probably the most reasonably priced sit-down meal I’ve ever had in New York). I met Alice at the internship orientation thing last month and she’s working on probably the most successful NPR podcast, Planet Money so I was really interested to hear how she’s doing and what she’s learning and all of that.

After breakfast, I just cleaned up at Sarah’s and made my way to Penn Station to head back to DC. I managed to snag one last New York goodie there—a slice of cake at Magnolia! Then I had to suffer through the 5-hour bus ride back. Let me just tell you, that I sometimes get car sick on a half an hour car ride so me being on long bus rides is always a….. story. I’m always equipped with Panadol, some vapour rub, some mints and snacks, a drink. It didn’t help that I sat close-ish to the bathroom, where the smell was… well, you know. Ugh. Could not sleep the entire time, either. And let me just add that I was already damp because I was stuck in a drizzle while waiting 45 minutes to board the bus. It is a TRUE WONDER how I did not get sick that week. But I made it back to my apartment and right after a good scrub, I made myself a good bowl of maggi kari and went to bed.

This is what the weather looked like the whole time I was in New York

I honestly don’t think I wanna do many more weekend trips haha, wow, I guess I’m getting old. It’s just that, when you’re working, a weekend trip feels like you actually lose the weekend. You always feel like you need a holiday to recover from your holiday, you know? And I was just so tired that whole week! It wasn’t like in school where like if I arrived Sunday night, I could go to class on Monday from let’s say 10-3 and then just curl up in bed. I was actually debating going back to Philly for Homecoming in November but a) I don’t want to spend that money and b) I like spending the weekends resting these days because I’m officially old and boring. Just at this very moment, I got struck by a strong craving for a Hokkaido cheese tart. Sigh.

Anyway, as I was saying, I like spending weekends resting. This weekend was perfect. I slept in on Saturday, spent the afternoon doing my groceries and then had Jamie come visit me that evening for a night. I initially was going to write a short thing about New York and continue to write about Jamie’s visit but we’re at 1300+ words right now so I guess that’ll just have to wait! Haha. Be back soon! 🙂

Fun weekend!

Hello!

I’m writing to you as I wrap up a really good weekend, and the first cold-ish weekend too. I just finished watching Season 1 of Broadchurch and I just can’t get over how good it was. A while ago, I went on this whole thing about how much I loved “The Missing” and this is so, so similar to that: a small British town mystery and a lot of drama. Every time I watch a new British mystery drama I’m like… ok… I know how this is gonna go… but I never ever do, so it’s always a pleasant surprise.

Anyway! The highlight of my weekend was, without a doubt, getting to see Ken. He was in DC for a conference event type thing and we got some decently yummy but very spicy thai food last night. I absolutely loved catching up and cracking up over the silly things that tend to happen when we’re together.

For example, when I arrived at the restaurant, he told me that he initially walked into the wrong restaurant!! So, let’s back up a little: I had never been to this place before—my roommate has like newspaper/magazine clippings of restaurant recs on the fridge and this was one of them so I was told to pick a place so I was like ok sure! I told him we were going to Baan Thai but forgot to tell him that it was on the second floor. I swear there aren’t that many thai restaurants in D.C. but it just so happened, there was another completely different thai restaurant right below the restaurant I picked and he walked into that one by mistake. He had apparently already been seated when he saw that the menu said Thaitanic, hahahaha. When he asked the waitress if this was Baan Thai, he said she rolled her eyes and took the menu away from him, LOL. It didn’t help that Thaitanic was pretty much completely empty and Baan Thai had a line!

Dinner was good! We both got papaya curry, I learned about his life at Columbia (have I mentioned that he’s at Columbia getting his PhD??? I’m SO proud of him!) and told him about work. Mandy joined us for dinner because she was also in town, so that was nice. She’s still a junior at Penn, so it was kinda nice to be regaled with tales of awful management classes and all of that again for a bit.

After dinner, we went to Momofuku Milk Bar, which was so awesome because their cereal milk soft serve is one of my favourite things ever and I didn’t even know they had a store in DC until I was browsing Google Maps for places to eat. I feel like I should probably be bored of this ice cream by now but… I’m really not. It was still so good. Ken had some and he was like “hmm it tastes like something I used to eat in the morning” HAHA. We ended up standing around in the small, crowded store for an hour before I went home. (I’m so happy I get to write about hanging out with my school friends again!! when we were walking around, it really felt like we were in Center City like the old days lol)

Also noteworthy, today I decided to venture into Georgetown. It’s a bit of a hassle to get to but I didn’t have anything else planned for the day and it was too beautiful a day to waste indoors. I’ve been to Georgetown before, once, with Shahirah. We visited DC for fall break our sophomore year. I completely forgot how beautiful it is. The flowers, the buildings… the variety of shops! It’s like better than any British high street could ever be, to tell you the truth. I really just liked walking around and taking in the sights of the pink flowers on the lamp post against the blue sky.

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So yeah, it’s been a great weekend, alhamdulillah. I’m just about to prepare myself for the work week ahead. Work’s been picking up! I’ve been getting to do some more new things and I know I haven’t hit like a… “responsibility plateau” yet so things will still be picking up for a bit more which will be interesting. I haven’t felt totally overwhelmed yet, but that’s not to say that I’m underwhelmed either, because I’m definitely not. I’m just very perfectly whelmed (this is a Clueless reference). I feel like I’m learning a lot because I’m constantly being pushed to try new things and take on more tasks, but I also feel like it’s not totally clear to me what I’m learning or how I’ll use these lessons in the future (what I mean is sometimes you don’t know what you’re learning until you get to apply that knowledge).

I mostly love that I don’t yearn for the weekend, I don’t count the hours until I get to leave the office and I don’t dread Mondays. I’m not particularly excited about commuting back and forth every day either but I definitely don’t mind it because spending so much time helping to make podcasts mean that my commutes are when I get to actually listen to them.

That’ll be all from me this week, I think. Until next week!

P.S. My name was featured in the credits of the show for the first time last week! Go give it a listen here!

Catching Up & Climbing Up

Hello from my bedroom where I am feeling super sore from today’s cardio-intense workout and (guiltily) sipping some Fanta grape which I bought on a whim earlier this afternoon. I’ve just gotten back from dinner with my family and we’re all currently really excited about our family bowling tournament tomorrow morning!

But first, let’s do a bit of catching up.

One of my favourite things I did last week was have dinner with my friend Nadia. She’s one of the handful of people I’ve become friends with pretty much purely out of randomly following each other on social media for years. I mean, we have a few mutual friends but I don’t think that counts because that’s not how we started becoming friends? Anyway, I’ve really enjoyed getting to know her better these past couple of years since we both blog, we found out our dads used to play football (or was it futsal?) together and since we learned that we both have similar ambitions.

Notice the “Closed” sign behind us. They handed us the bill and we were like “ok rude, we’re not done yet??” before we realised that it was 10pm.

I think that last part was totally why it was so much fun chatting with her last Wednesday. It had been over a year since we last hung out so I loved catching up, hearing about what she was learning at work and what her future plans are. There is absolutely nothing I love more in a person—especially a female—than ambition combined with a vision and a sense of self and Nadia totally has that. I was so into the conversation that I didn’t even check my phone the whole time. Nadia even pointed out later than night after we got home that she loved how the subject of ~boys~ didn’t even come up until right at the end of the conversation for a short while, haha. Anyway, I’m very excited to see what she’s going to get up to next and Nadia, I know you’ll read this so I’m gonna say again that you have my faith & support!

The next morning, my family and I went to KLCC to see my parents’ friends from university, a couple from London who were in KL to visit family. We went to Chinoz on the Park which reminded me of when I was like 9 and we went to KLCC relatively frequently because that seemed to be one of the only malls around at the time… but I digress. Breakfast was good and it was really nice to hear stories from my parents’ friends. I realised (not for the first time) that morning that when I was a child I used to just assume that everyone marries someone from their university because I know my parents and these particular friends of theirs met while they were all at Kent. How silly is that? Haha. I also thought about how I can’t wait to have catch-ups like those with some of my Penn friends and their kids someday.

I’m starting to realise as I’m thinking through this post right now that most of my last week was spent catching up with people. I had brunch with my friend Sabrena, who was my classmate when we both were doing our A-Levels. We had both recently graduated and it was nice seeing how far we’ve come from our days at Sunway. She’s almost a fully certified dentist now!

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My sisters, mum and I also went to visit my mum’s friend/roommate when she went for hajj ~7 years ago. We had such a good time listening to her stories about hajj and her travels, etc. I feel like my mum has a few friends who’re just really good at storytelling… I’m always amazed at how they can make a relatively normal story become really funny and entertaining. Plus, she surprised us with a spread of some insanely good food!! We had roti puri, kuey teow and some carrot cake—basically, a bunch of my favs. The kari she served with the puri was just so good. I ate so much that I left wishing I wore pants that were more stretchable, haha.

Over the weekend, my family and I went out for chinese food at Mohd Chan with the extended family on my mum’s side before my cousin Amirah headed back to Ohio State for her junior year. It was the first time I had crab in at least a year, and it was so good. I also didn’t realise that Mohd Chan would have an Inside Scoop next to it so when I saw my favourite ice cream shop there, it was a huge plus. I got the earl grey flavour, which was amazing. We saw Amirah off at the airport the next day and I know she was really sad but unlike me, she didn’t bawl at the departure gates. I, however, was already feeling like I was on the brink of tears because I knew the feeling of leaving-home-to-go-halfway-around-the-world-for-9-months too well.

On Sunday night, my family and I went to A&W for the first time in ages. When we were younger, A&W trips were like the most exciting thing ever. Root beer floats and waffles with ice cream just seemed like the best treat there ever was. We used to do it a lot more frequently but now that our tastes have diversified a bit more, we go a lot less. But some of that childhood excitement lingers so I still get really excited every time we go. The best part of that trip was my dad re-discovering Siri. He had written it off because Siri was bad at recognising his speech but I told him that Siri is really good now and gave it another try. He literally said “Siri, I’m having some waffles now!” HAHA. Earlier this morning when I came down for breakfast, he said “Siri, Dayana is finally up” and this evening on the way to dinner, when I wanted to ask Siri a question, he told me to make sure I say hello to Siri first, lol.

Then, on Monday morning, my dad, my sisters and I went to Batu Caves. It’s probably one of the most popular tourist destinations in KL, I would say. I know quite a few celebrities and American friends who have made it there before me. I think most recently, Ansel Elgort, that guy from The Fault in Our Stars was there and took a typical tourist picture with a monkey. Anyway, the thing about Batu Caves is that there are like 272 steps on the staircase up into the cave, which houses some hindu shrines. It was a good workout, to say the least. And I’m glad I now know what’s inside! It was a pretty fun visit. And of course, what is a morning activity in KL if it’s not followed up by a hearty breakfast? We went to Sri Paandi, one of my dad’s favourite restaurants, after going to Batu Caves for some good ol’ thosai and mango lassi.

Lastly, some time last week I also listened to this 3-part podcast series called “36 Questions” by Two Up (you can read about it here). It’s a MUSICAL in podcast form starring Jonathan Groff and Jessie Shelton. It’s about this couple on the brink of divorce reconnecting using the 36 questions thing that was featured on The New York Times a couple of years ago. At first, it seemed a little contrived because the premise is that the girl in the relationship, Judith, faked her identity for 2 years and that’s why she and her husband Jase are splitting and Judith is desperately trying to save it, which sounds totally insane doesn’t it? It doesn’t help that she’s a little annoying.

But I found that there were a lot of avenues for me to relate to it anyway because there is so much humanity in the story: we all learn things about people in our lives that make us think the oft-repeated phrase, “you’re not who I thought you were” (obviously, usually it’s not to the extent of a faked identity, but still), we all struggle with figuring out how to or whether to forgive people and we all struggle to move on sometimes. I also loved that the writers of this series used audio as a medium to make it accessible. Theatre tickets are expensive and hard to come by most times, but this is free and anyone anywhere can enjoy it the way it was intended to be. Plus, it helps that I’m a sucker for a good musical theatre soundtrack, which “36 Questions” does not disappoint on! (Don’t ask me how many times I’ve seen Hairspray or listened to the All Shook Up soundtrack) So if you’re into musicals and/or podcasts, definitely definitely definitely check this out!

So yeah, it was another great week. I spent most of this week in Kuching, where my mum is from. My sisters and I ticked a lot of items off our craving list there and spent time with our cousins and grandparents. I’ll probably write about that sometime this weekend. Until then, thanks for reading!

I can’t even remember the last time I was this relaxed for so long

Hello! I’m happy to report another blissful and leisurely week at home, alhamdulillah.

The week started out really strong on Monday (I know some people insist that the week starts on Sunday but I see it as starting on Monday and this is my blog, so y’know, roll with it) with an early breakfast at Chong Kok, all the way in Klang. I want to say that’s my favourite kopitiam but the truth is, I don’t go to a lot of other kopitiams ever, so I guess this is just my favourite by default. First of all, I love the atmosphere there. I love that you see Malay, Chinese and Indians having breakfast in the same place. I love that it’s super no-frills and casual with a lot of character—I think the place has been around since the 1940s. But honestly, the best part is that we always have breakfast there with my aunty and cousins. Food’s really good too!! I still remember the first time I had roti steam there, it was so fluffy and soft and warm, ugh, so so so good and it goes so brilliantly well with butter and kaya. A moment of silence please for people in other parts of the world without the gift of pandan! Ok, thanks.

After breakfast last Monday, we went back to my aunty’s house to see Amelia for a bit. It’s hard to resist just sitting around watching her bob around with her toys even if it’s just for half an hour. She’s just such a cutie. I tried to get a selfie with her but she just keeps trying to grab my phone so I guess she’s not ready for it yet. I’ll wait.

The rest of the week was super relaxing. I can’t even remember what I did for most of Tuesday and Wednesday, but my camera roll reminds me that I ate an insanely good murtabak cheese and played some Bananagrams with my mum and sister.

We went to KLCC on Thursday to go to Kinokuniya where I got some books. I absolutely love driving into KL and I know I only say that because I’m never the one actually driving; what I mean is I love sitting in a car being driven into KL. I love watching the highway break into the small KL roads and the view change from trees and houses to flyovers and skyscrapers.

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I’ve had 3 more personal training sessions (and one run!) since I last wrote on here and I think I’m getting a little better at it. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I still sit down anxiously in my room before every workout session hoping my trainer doesn’t literally kill me… but I’ve found that I’m so much less sore after exercising these days and I really enjoy the feeling of buckling down, silencing the nagging quitting-inclined voice in my head and focusing on hitting the number of reps the trainer sets for me. By the end of it, I’m always as red as a tomato and dripping in sweat, plus my heart seems to migrate into my ears because I can almost hear its pounding but it always feels so bloody good to see myself, quite frankly, just survive. We also had one kickboxing session with some pad work and I enjoyed that so I’m hoping to do that again a couple more times.

The best part of working out though, is actually how I feel when I eat after that! Haha. On Friday, we went to Chili’s for dinner after working out and it kinda felt more satisfying because it’s as if I deserved it more. Only as if.

After dinner last Friday, I went to see Ken, Peter and Shahirah at Artisan for dessert. Ken was leaving for the US that Sunday so we just wanted to hang out one last time this summer with the four of us together. We had Last Polka ice cream, and I had my absolute favourite flavour: salted gula melaka. We talked about everything from work grievances to toxic shock syndrome. Ken drove me all the way home from PJ again even though he had to be up at 5 the next morning because he’s just an insanely nice person. I’m going to really miss seeing these people regularly!!

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Anyway, that’s all from me today! I’ll probably write again tomorrow about my family’s weekend trip to Ipoh but until then, thank you for reading as always, byeeeee!

WHOLESOME

I think if I had to set up an ideal week at home for myself, it would probably look a lot like last week.

After a nice trip to Ipoh last Sunday, Monday was mostly spent hanging out with family. I went to Pavillion with my mum, sisters, aunty and my cousin Alesya. To be honest, we made the trip because my family isn’t impervious to the whole Duck Scarves hype. Their only store is all the way there, so I just wanted to go check it out since I had never been. I didn’t buy anything (I think my mum and I were the only ones who didn’t) but it was fine because the highlight of the trip was really getting my Milk Cow honey soft serve and having lunch at Ben’s.

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My mum, Alesya, my aunty (who I call Chik), me, Aida and Julia

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I should also mention that I’m really enjoying the fact that public transport (or at least, the trains) are half off until the end of the month! I really like taking the LRT around so I was really glad we all took it to KL, though it might not be a good idea for next time because of my aunty’s knee. I just love the views and people-watching! Plus, I like how it makes me feel independent… and you know, I hate navigating roads and parking haha. I’m glad connectivity is getting better in KL. It’s still not great, I usually need someone to send me to the closest station. But it’s a lot better now and I’m grateful for progress!

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We also made a few more food excursions last week (honestly… what’s new?). We went to one of my favourite places for breakfast, Azira in Seksyen 10. They serve everything and everything they serve is just so good. My favs are mi kari, lontong, roti jala and soto in that order. It’s one of those restaurants where you can take as much as you want, which I love, which means I can have just a bit of everything. Their kari especially is just so good, and I think I really like it because it’s just so berlemak haha.

Later that evening, we went on yet another food hunt. I had recently heard of the kuey teow place near FAM in Kelana Jaya and when I asked my dad about it, he said we actually used to go there a long time ago so we decided to give it a visit. The one at Subang Ria was unfortunately closed that day so we went to Restoran Jamal which also has a really famous char kuey teow place. Normally, I’d be bummed if I went to KJ for a certain thing and couldn’t get it but the kuey teow we got instead absolutely did not disappoint and just reaffirmed my putting kuey teow in the upper echelon of Malaysian food.

The next day, we had a cute little family photoshoot in Bangsar. We’ve been doing these once every 3 years or so and it’s always a little awkward having to do all the poses haha but they always turn out great so I’m excited to see these pictures, especially because we took some graduation pics as well and Aida got to be in them this time.

Got to wear this robe one more time and really make the most out of the absurd amount of money I had to spend on it, haha (my robe isn’t dirty btw, it was the mirror)

After the photoshoot thing, my dad had a meeting but the rest of us went to KGNS for lunch. I love KGNS and it’s probably really bougie of me to say that I love being part of a ~golf and country club~ lol but honestly we just go there for the food. Aida and I were particularly craving yong tau foo so we got that, some pau ayam and good old teh tarik. SO SATISFYING.

That night, I went to KL Sentral to have dinner because the Malaysians at Penn club thing was having a welcome dinner for the incoming freshmen. We squeezed into a small corner at Manhattan Fish Market because despite making a reservation, we were told we’d have to wait 30 minutes for a table otherwise. A little annoyed at first, we ended up making it work. I feel a little bad that I didn’t get to speak to the newbies much but it was the first time in ages that I got to see Peter, Han Yang and quite a few others who had graduated in previous years so I was just so excited to see them again.

Excuse the extra large font, it was Peter’s doing, not mine.

Ken offered to drive me, Sha and Peter home after dinner and I gladly accepted, forgetting for a minute that I actually drove to the Glenmarie LRT station, haha. I had a hell of a laugh for a second, thinking about what my parents would say in the morning if they saw that the car wasn’t there. In the end, he drove me to the train station near Sha’s house which is a lot closer to Glenmarie than KL Sentral is. We had so much fun in the car, laughing, talking about everything from work to the healthcare bill to figuring out how to use Boomerang. It was so blissful—more so than usual now that I more fully understand how precious and rare times like those are and will continue to be now that we’re all going to be in different cities. It reminded me of lazy hangs at Ludlow and it made me miss May May and Hui Jie a bit more.

On Friday night, my family and I went to KLPAC which is the KL Performing Arts Centre to watch Family, a production put on by the participants/students of their Theatre for Young People program as their final showcase. My dad knew someone who was in it, so we all decided to go support him since we thought it would also be really fun. The show was well written and as far as I could tell, it was a very good performance. It ran for about 80 minutes and consisted of short sketches that really attempted to blow out into the open all the things we Malaysians tend to sweep under the rug when it comes to family: secrets, broken homes, mental illnesses, multiracial families, domestic violence and etc. I definitely was glad I went.

FullSizeRender 2.jpg — Awfully dark and blurry picture of me and my sisters waiting for the show

I was also very happy to bump into Nadia that night at KLPAC!!! It was both of our first times there and we both adored the interiors together for a second, haha. I hadn’t seen her in ages and now that I’m thinking about it, this was probably the first time I’ve met her in Malaysia since we had only ever met up in London, where neither of us have lived, lol.

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We got back from the play and I had to try to fall asleep as soon as possible because the next morning, I had to wake up at like 5.30 because I was going hiking! Ken invited me and Peter only like a couple of days before but I’ve been wanting to go hiking for ages so I wasn’t going to turn it down. There was a hiking event at Bukit Wawasan and we kind of just randomly joined. My dad had to drive me out all the way to Puchong at like 6-ish a.m. (shoutout to my dad) and we started hiking just after 7. Literally 15 minutes after climbing uphill, I was panting and started to think, “hmm boleh ke ni?” (Can I actually do this?) LOL. Peter and Ken are so fit! Peter was literally just like prancing around while singing! But I’m not a giver-upper so I persisted through the 2-hour trail and I’m really glad I did because it was so satisfying. I have always said that the best part of physically exercising is the part where you train yourself to get better at negotiating with the nagging voice in your head and that was definitely true last Saturday as well.

After the hike, we were dead set on replacing all our calories with some good nasi lemak. We even drove out to Uptown to get Village Park nasi lemak (since Ken has never been!) but honestly… Village Park? At 9.30 am on a Saturday? Forget it. So we just drove to Bukit Jelutong since they were going to send me home anyway and the best nasi lemak is actually a 5-minute walk from my house. We ended up sitting there for a couple of hours and I joked that it was probably my most wholesome hangout with those two, haha.

On Sunday, even though I was a little sore and my toe really hurt from slipping during the hike, I went to Puchong in the afternoon to see my friend Lisa who is spending a year in Malaysia teaching English in Sarawak as a Fulbright scholar. She was in KL for the weekend as part of a Dance Camp some of the Fulbright scholars organised and I went to watch their closing show. It was so nice to catch up with Lisa and see firsthand how she’s like with her students. We didn’t get to speak a whole lot because obviously we didn’t want to be disruptive or disrespectful or whatever during the show but we did get to talk about the camp, a few of her struggles as a Fulbright ETA and what she’s thinking of doing next. I’m honestly so amazed by her enthusiasm and dedication to those kids. Her team ended up winning Audience Favourite and even I was about to just full on break into tears, not gonna lie.

(An awful shot of) the winning group’s performance. These kids teared up when they found out they won!!

Lisa hyping up her group before they went on stage

I got home that evening, baked some pecan cupcakes and helped prepare for a little dinner thing we were having that night. We invited one of our neighbours to come to dinner at our place as a family. We all just love spending time with Aunty A and her family; they’re always so warm and hospitable and funny. It’s just always a good time. My mum made laksa sarawak (insanely good, btw) and aunty brought some bread butter pudding, which was delicious. I actually used to follow Aunty A and her husband to work every morning when I was interning in KL a couple of summers ago and I honestly enjoyed chatting with them in the mornings and sometimes getting breakfast with them so having them over for dinner really reminded me of that, except more meriah because the rest of our families were there as well.

So yeah, that was my week! It was so lovely… Hiking and dinner with friends! Food excursions, shopping and theatre with family! Catching up with people! How cute and wholesome, am I right? I did leave a few things out, like following my dad to a work event, quick detours to get cronuts at Dotty’s, eating McD breakfast in traffic and going out for chinese food dinner with my cousins but… I don’t know, I guess I just missed it and now I’m too lazy to go back and fit it in lol. Anyway, rest assured, I also spent a lot of time at home doing boring things like napping, staring at the ceiling in my room and flipping through channels aimlessly hehe.

Until next time!

Stopping To Exchange Notes

I think so few days are as special as yesterday was. I took a train out to Ipoh on such a nice Sunday morning to visit my friend Nate, who’s spending the year in Kampung Gajah, Perak as a Fulbright ETA.

It’s so rare to have someone understand the particularities of having a foot in both Penn culture and Malaysian culture. No doubt, it’s easy to find people who personally understand the experience in broad strokes. So many of my Malaysian friends have studied abroad, even in America. But I think it’s different when you explain something subtle and specific and then get a “YES” or an “oh my god, me too!” in return because you both know both of those places to some extent and I feel like in terms of personality or like the way we think and some of the things we went through, there were a lot of similarities as well (to name a few: we both didn’t love Penn for most of our time there, we both felt very meh about majoring in Psychology, we both did Penn Monologues and we both mix sambal into the rice before eating nasi lemak).

Plus, I think what makes this whole thing even more amazing for me is that I don’t know anyone else from America who knows what it’s like to live here. All my other Penn friends who negotiate the same physical and cultural distance as me do that coming from the same side of the world as I do, so I was beyond curious to know and to hear firsthand what it’s like to be on the opposite side of that (if that makes sense?). I’ve been a huge fan of his blog about his experience in Malaysia from day one for this very reason. On my train ride home yesterday, I was thinking about how it’s kind of like two people on different journeys crossing the same path at the same time but going in different directions, looking at the same things but from different perspectives, stopping to exchange notes… which is kind of cool.

We spent almost the whole day together effortfully navigating our way around Ipoh by foot and car. And because this is Malaysia and I haven’t been to Ipoh in at least 5 years, we. ate. so. much. That’s kind of my fault because that’s kind of all I wanted to do, but the truth is, the food took a backseat on this trip because I really came to just catch up with Nate.

I think I might’ve mentioned in earlier posts that we both met in a small Cultural Psychology class in the spring of my junior year, though Nate was a senior then. It was during that semester that he found out he was going to spend a year in Malaysia and I think on some level, I’ve been waiting to have this conversation with him since I found out he got into the program. That might partly be because of selfish reasons, like a sense of pride for a culture that I’ve never really gotten to share with my friends abroad even though I’ve always wanted to or tried to in small ways. But I think my excitement also stems from this profound curiosity.

There were so many things I wanted to ask him and talk about and I feel like we covered so much ground. We talked about difficulties trying to adjust moving to and from Malaysia, the different ways in which we stick out, learning and participating in a new culture and where we think we’re headed in the next few years, etc. (At this point I feel like I should also say that my American accent immediately resurfaced and I’m sure everyone around me was probably glancing at me like… “that girl is Malay, why is she talking like that?” but I was too preoccupied to think about it really, lol.)

I honestly felt like I learned so much which isn’t at all surprising with someone as curious and introspective as Nate is. I left feeling somewhat… rejuvenated (?) but also felt like there were so many more things I wanted to talk about but didn’t get the chance to and obviously I can’t speak for him, but I imagine he might’ve felt the same.

I know I’ve only just written about how much I looked forward to asking Nate all my questions and how I feel now that I have gotten to catch up with him and nothing really about what we talked about but that’s in part because of our privacy and because I could never fully get everything right and I don’t want to risk getting anything wrong. And since there’s no way I could write about everything, I’ll just say that spending time with Nate really reminded me of how small we are and how much of the world we have to learn from. This is so cheesy but I am so inspired by his bravery and sensitivity—the fact that he literally moved to a kampung in Malaysia where he stands out like a coconut tree in a paddy field and does not speak the language, I mean, I don’t think that’s something I could do, and he does it with so much genuine care and respect for the people around him and that’s just something I really look up to him for.

I think it was special because there’s this huge part of my life that I know most of my American friends know about on the surface level. But to have someone from that… other world of mine come see for themselves what it’s like makes me feel understood in a way that I haven’t before. Maybe I feel seen and heard better. Maybe it’s like… having one foot on both sides of the world is difficult because it attempts to rip you down the middle, and this closes that gap just a little bit more than I ever could on my own and I’m really thankful for that.

What I’ve Been Up To, In List Form (ii)

I’ve been saying lately that all I’ve been doing is eating because it’s kind of true. A lot of life in Malaysia is centered on food. It’s not really a thing to say let’s go for a walk or whatever to catch up. So, just as a short foreword: there’s a lot of food on this list! Haha.

Qamarina

I got dinner with my friend Qamarina, who goes by QM for short (I actually have never asked her why…) last week. She’s working in London and was back for Raya for 2 weeks-ish. I don’t see her often at all so it was so nice to just catch up and talk about everything since I saw her last in December. It’s so crazy to think I have no idea when I’ll see her next but hopefully it won’t be 3 years again, which was the longest we went without catching up.

QM & my unintentionally patriotic selfie.

FullSizeRender 4.jpg — (My parking was a lot better that day!)

Corporate open house!

My sisters and I followed our dad to a corporate open house and the food was so good. We had durian, otak otak (my favourite, and this was such a wonderful surprise because they’re quite hard to find!) and laksa. My dad even “made” dodol—ok not really make, just stirred for a bit. This was pretty much my only real open house this year, and I didn’t even wear baju kurung for it! Like I said, it was such a quiet raya.

Otak otak and a good ol’ bowl of laksa Johor!!

FullSizeRender 9.jpg — Making dodol, haha

WISDOM TOOTH EXTRACTION

This was a big one last week. I removed my wisdom tooth from the top left side!!!! I did it, guys!! So here’s the thing, my bottom left wisdom tooth was giving me a hard time a couple of years ago because it was a little impacted. I had it removed at Penn in 2015, just a week or so before finals! I couldn’t eat solids for 6 days and was sore for such a long time… I remember having such a bad experience last time so I just totally dreaded going through it again.

Screen Shot 2017-07-24 at 00.29.50.png — My xray from 2015!! lol

In hindsight, I probably should’ve had both removed at the same time so that I wouldn’t have to recover twice. I definitely had the option to, but I knew it would be cheaper to wait and get it done in Malaysia so I just did what I absolutely had to do while I was in the US. Summer after summer passed and I kept putting it off… but my dad put his foot down and was like yeah, you definitely need to do it now. I even made him call the dentist to make the appointment because I refused haha.

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This extraction went a lot better than the last I think. And this time I got to keep the tooth! The first day, I could at least eat KFC’s mashed potatoes (which is pretty much liquid, let’s be honest) while binge-watching Stranger Things with my sisters. The toughest parts were when I had to go out in the rain to buy more gauze from the pharmacy and when I had to swallow painkillers with that whole gauze situation in my mouth.

Thankfully, I was able eat solid-ish foods within 1.5 days and in 3 days, I was back to normal although was still avoiding chewing hard things on the left side. I am so scared of the dentist, my heart starts pounding just at the thought of going for a regular scaling appointment. So yeah, very glad this is done with!

Baby sitting Amelia

Last week, my sisters and I got to babysit our cousin’s baby, Amelia. She’s a year old now, which means she’s just so full of energy. Even when she’s yawning and sleepy, she just runs around and giggles non stop. It’s kind of cute, but definitely tiring for us. The fun parts were playing with bouncy balls and carrying her around in a slow run while my mum pretended to chase us and “scare” her; she really enjoyed this. The not-so-fun part was watching her take apart and put together the same toys again, and again, and again. Children are cute, tiring, sometimes even boring but always fascinating.

FullSizeRender 8.jpg — It was so hard to even take a picture of her because she kept moving around!!

Chik’s open house

My aunty had an open house for her group of police wives last weekend but invited the whole family over as well. The funny part was that we were supposed to arrive after her guests had eaten. We even came a little later just to be super sure we wouldn’t be caught in the middle of her entertaining the whole lot of them and whatnot but when we arrived, they arrived at the same time right behind us! It turns out they were all late, hahaha. So we did end up getting caught right in the middle of it all.

I missed out on the roti jala (!!!) but I had lemang with kuah kacang and laksa. It was in the evening, too. Like, 4-ish p.m. and we had already eaten lunch at 1, had dessert after, and also had a cheese tart around 2.30… I really just… couldn’t believe how much I ate that day.

Banana leaf rice

We had banana leaf rice on Monday! We took Faizol there because he had never been before. I had some sotong goreng and tosai, which is always good. I wish Kanna Curry House still used actual banana leaves but their food would taste amazing on cardboard so I won’t really complain. And that’s all I have to say about that—I’ll let the pictures speak for themselves.

Seeing Shahirah at work!

I just cannot stress how proud I was to see Sha all legit with her work lanyard and access card and all of that when I visited her at work to have lunch a few days ago. I’ve heard her talk about working there for 4 years, dreading it and preparing for it. And now it’s finally there!!!!! Her work sounds really interesting and I’m beyond excited to see how she grows there.

We got dim sum for lunch and I gave her a birthday present, Charles Duhigg’s book The Power of Habit. Charawi and I have been asking her to read that book for like, a year now. Every time I see it, I snap it and send it to her and she keeps saying it “haunts” her and it became a funny thing between us so as soon as she could tell that my present was a book, she was like “OH MY GODDDDD, I KNOW WHAT IT IS” hahaha. It was priceless.

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Kickboxing

My sisters, my mum and I had a personal trainer come over last week for a private kickboxing class. Ugh. It was insane. I am still sore from it. My mom has been doing this for a while, and honestly I don’t know how she does it because it’s just not fun??? Yesterday though, we had the same trainers come over and we did more of a strength training thing with mats and I enjoyed that so much more. I am going out of town tomorrow though, so I’m a little worried that I’m going to be so sore the whole time but I’ll let you know how that goes! Anyway, with all the eating I’ve been doing here… I shouldn’t be complaining about the pain. I kinda don’t have a choice. I have to be doing some exercise to make up for all the calories.

[31 hours passed since I wrote that last sentence, just so you know lol]

Chair.

I was on the train back from KL on Tuesday, and as I was approaching the Asia Jaya station, I suddenly remembered that on my commutes back from KLCC in early 2013, I would always look at this office chair on a balcony of this random building between Taman Jaya and Asia Jaya. I would always wonder why it was there. And as I passed that same spot last Tuesday, my heart had this small leap of joy when I saw that two chairs were there. I know it might not have been the same chair but there was just something about it that made me feel really happy.

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Making my parents try quinoa

I kinda already wrote about this on Instagram so apologies for the repetition, but here it goes again. My parents used to always perli me when I ate quinoa because it’s “hipster food” or whatever but I brought some back from Trader Joe’s and cooked it at home. I just mixed some cooked quinoa with pesto, baked carrots + broccolis and lots of chopped red onions. I would’ve liked some dried cherry tomatoes and/or mushrooms in it but I was on a bit of a time crunch and had to just work with what was in the fridge. I think it turned out really well and my parents seemed to like it so it was a win for both me and quinoa that day.

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HomePro (haha)

I went to HomePro for the first time this past week because my dad wanted my sisters, my mum and me to go check out some wallpapers for our living room. We probably did that for like 10 minutes and then spent the rest of the time wandering around that huge shop… and we got the most stuck at the baking section. I ended up buying this really cute apron and a small muffin pan for our oven (which is relatively small) and I just really enjoyed looking at all the cute and different types of spatulas and whisks and pans!!!!!! AHHHH. Ok that’s all about HomePro. It’s not that interesting… I just felt like I had to include it because I was so excited there.

llao llao

One of the things I was sad about when I left Philly was leaving Yogorino. It’s this frozen yogurt place that serves one of my all-time favourite desserts and I actually dare say that llao llao is better than that!! It has the same tart taste but is milkier and like… fattier than Yogorino’s “thinner” frozen yogurt and I love it. I literally kept thinking about it during my last personal training session in order to help get me through. Right after the workout, my sisters and I took a shower, had quick dinner and headed to Aeon to get some llao llao. I wanted it so much I even volunteered to drive, which says a lot!

FullSizeRender 6.jpg — I like my frozen yogurt with as little toppings as possible and I think the Lotus biscuit crumbs might be the best one.

Shahirah’s surprise party

Shahirah’s mum organised a surprise party for her on Saturday and it was so nice! Sha was told that her mum was organising a makan makan thing for her friends (her mum’s friends, not Shahirah’s friends… I realize this is all a bit confusing…) and Sha had to help clean the house and prepare the table and all of that for supposedly 20 of her mum’s friends. She was so shocked when she saw her own friends turn up at the gate haha. Apparently she said that at first, she thought “what are they doing here?? My mum’s friends are coming soon!” or something like that lol. But the food was so good and I got to hang out with Aish and Kai Syuen as well so it was just a really, really pleasant Saturday evening.

In case you haven’t heard, Shahirah’s mum is a home chef extraordinaire.

Dunkirk

I watched Dunkirk last night and it was really interesting. I think I enjoyed it, if “enjoyed” is the right word for it. That is, I deeply appreciated it as a film. The sound effects and cinematography were amazing and I was just revelling in that the whole time. I loved how, conceptually, it felt more like an immersive experience than a typical movie. The plot doesn’t play a huge role in the film and I read this Slate review that described it as being a movie without “military higher-ups debating strategy over maps”, which I thought was really cool. But other than that, the movie leaves you with quite a bit of heartbreak, which means it’s effective as a film but not necessarily “enjoyable”. Plus, there were literally 2 women in the whole film and only 1 person of colour in a non-speaking role, so like, meh. I get that it is a historical thing so they were just portraying what was going on but looking at 400,000 white men can only be so interesting.

We also snuck in so much food from Carls Jr which was hilarious! I felt really bad when we opened the box of chili cheese fries in the cinema but we were pretty hungry so it finished really quickly and I hope no one was too bothered by it! It was so good though, heh.

Blurry picture of my dad holding the cheese fries, popcorn and on the right, those are 2 more bags with jalapeño poppers and chicken tenders in them! Haha

So that’s all for this week! I’ve got a really nice week lined up ahead of me and I’m so excited to be able to write about that next. Until then, as always always always, thanks for reading!