Watching Duke basketball

I know I'm lying if I said I don't miss my life back in US. I've been dreaming in my sleep about places in US these past few weeks. Like I dreamed I went shopping in Marshall's and picnic at Duke Garden. But today, the event that took place in Duke made me missed Durham even more. What else than Duke vs UNC basketball rivalry.

I missed watching Duke basketball live, whether in the stadium itself, with other Dukies around the campus TV or at my apartment. The energy was amazing. To watch live in Cameron Indoor Stadium itself, you have to queue up to 2 hours or more, no matter if it is in winter or spring. Then in the stadium, there's no seating area for the graduate students. So the whole 2 hours game, you are standing up. You are jumping, cheering and shouting all the time. It is so crazy. Crazy beautiful.

This afternoon Malaysia time, there's a match between Duke and UNC at UNC ground. I was following the live updates from tweeter. UNC was leading all the way but few minutes before the game over, Duke was catching up. But the last 10 seconds, something wonderful happened. Austin Rivers got hold the ball and threw it for 3-pointer. The ball went into the hop when the clock turned to zero. And guess what? Duke won by just 1 point. You should see the face of all UNC.. haha.

There's a tradition in Duke, when we won against UNC, we will burn the benches.. Yup, those benches was build for that. The first semester I went to Duke, no benches got burned but lately I realized Duke must been building a lot of benches nowadays. Haha. I witnessed one burning ceremony during my last semester. Again, crazy! Don't worry, we got permit to do that.

Below are the pictures took when I was there in 2010 win!

Waaaa.. I want to go back to Duke, Durham and US. Even just for visiting. Hmmm.. maybe I should ask my company to send me there someday ;)

Ps: there is a saying in Duke and it is GTHC which mean Go To Hell Carolina! 

The making of our dream home: The beginning

One of my new year wish for this year is to move to our own house at least in May. Yes, our own sweet little dream house. I want to record all the journey in building our love nest in this blog of mine. 

The house that we bought is a second hand intermediate double storey linked house that never been renovated since ermm.. 1980s? The good news is that since it is in original state, we can change whatever we want but the bad news is there's a lot of changes need to be done. In short, major renovation!

Me who has an ambition to be an architect (besides astronomer but never engineer) is so happy to take this project especially it's going to be my own house. I declared myself to be the chief of designer and Zainal is of course the project manager. We also have other responsibilities like CFO (me- was forced to) and CEO (Zainal - self-appointed).

However there is a challenge being a designer and also finance controller. How am I gonna let my creative juice flow if every time I saw a beautiful product that suitable for the house, I have to think if this will also fit our budget. OMG, see how evil my husband's plan is. Initially he's the CFO but after hearing all my ideas, he decided I should be both so I can be creative within budget. To tell the truth, it's not easy and very stressful.

Anyway, after scouting for best house loans we finally decided on HSBC as they gave the best rate. Then we just used the lawyer that the bank used for ourselves too. Well, not our best decision as they keep on delaying my request until now. Now, they are my daily call to chase them. What a hassle.

While waiting to get our money for renovating, I started my role. I used Google SketchUp to draw the house plan as I don't have the house plan. We went to the house and measured every area. Then my job was to draw back the sketches accurately using a proper software. I was debating whether to use AutoCad or SketchUp but decided to use SketchUp since it is specialized for drawing building plan and can draw 3D easier than AutoCad. Glad I made that decision as it is indeed easier than AutoCad but the function a bit limited compared to AutoCad. So I recommend to use SketchUp if you want to draw house plan and you are not an architect.

After few discussion with my CEO, we came out with the final design. The house will have a library/study room, bigger kitchen, laundry room (inspired by Meg house in Durham), a glass room (or I called it Zainal's room) and of course a walk-in wardrobe. Other than that, the house will maintain it's original structure. 

We put up a 'board' using majong paper at our rent house that served as out idea board for the project. All ideas, details and processes were pasted there for reference. It was situated at the our dining area and every day we will pass through it. It's a constant reminder about our future house =)

The board at first day (excuse me for the pink wall, my landlord must really love pink & purple coz he painted the whole living room and dining area in these colour):

House plan - the current and proposed plan

Not-so-current idea board (coz now is more crowded than this):

I used post-it note, something that I learned at Duke for brainstorming especially for processes. 

That's all for now. I will continue the next step that we took after we agreed on the design.