How I survive Superbowl XLIX

Even though I don't agree that American football is called football, this sport is big in US and since I am here, I have to accept that is the football, and the football I knew is soccer. Fine. Once a year, two teams will compete to bring home the Superbowl trophy. This year, Superbowl XLIX (it's 49 for non-roman people) was on the 1st of February.

My feeling was neutral about Superbowl, neither too excited about the game nor despised having to hear about it all week long prior to the game. It is hard to avoid when your town team is going to the Superbowl and have a controversy about their balls. And it is also hard to ignore considering the quarterback of your town team is good looking with supermodel as a wife. Hehe

Being non-American and wasn't being exposed to this game until 6 years ago, it is hard for me to really enjoy it. But this year, I managed to enjoy it following with this few easy steps:

1) Understand the game

It is hard to enjoy something if you don't understand what is going on. You will lose interest, and before you know it, you are doing something else. For this reason, try to understand this game. Read about the players and maybe same interesting facts. It is quite hard to understand football by just reading. You need live game and someone to explain that to you to make it easier to understand. This brings us to the second point.

2) Watch it with the right people

It is important to watch it with the right crowd. You don't want to watch with a football fanatic who knew every players' stats, team history, and every single rule in the game. They will hate interruption, will look at you as if you are dumbass not knowing what the sport. You feel intimidate to ask questions and end up still clueless about the game. You also don't want to watch with people who is clueless about the game. Since they can't help you and you can't help them, you'll end up doing something else as both of you don't enjoy the game anymore. What you need is a combination of people who knew at least the basic of the game and some people who as clueless as you. So the people who are not fanatic but knew about the game will explain what happening now without you feeling like a loser since there are other people who don't know. You can ask basic questions and know at least basic rules to enjoy the game. In addition, since the crowd is not fanatic into the game, it is ok to discuss other things during the game. Like Steve Tyler's daughter is Liv Tyler who acted in Armageddon. Or Richard Sherman from Seahawks graduated from Stanford and Tom Brady from UMich and what school one of our friend is going to transfer to.

3) Have some awesome food

This is important. Having awesome food and dessert is important to ensure that we can 1) convince people to come to watch with us 2) avoid unnecessary anger due to empty stomach 3) as a topic when the game started to get boring 4) reason to stay longer until the game end aka endless trip to buffet table. 'Nuff said.

Optional

4) Your town team is playing

It is easy to get excited when you town's team is playing. You see everywhere in the supermarket, train, outside, banners hanging cheering for the team. It is easy to pick a team when watching the Superbowl because it is so obvious who you should cheer for. For me, it is of course New England Patriots. Go Pats!

5) Your team won

Well, it is easy to survive when your team won especially when the ending was so nerve breaking and unexpected.

That is how I survive and surprisingly enjoyed Sunday's game. We thought Patriots was going to lose but that interception by Butler saved the day! It was unbelievable. And to add the cherry on top of that winning, most of Boston universities closed the next day because of snow day. Yeayyy..

New England Patriots vs Seattle Seahawks. Pic from here

Just general topics please

Never ask a single person if they're "seeing anyone special", an unemployed person if they've found a job, or a married couple when they're planning to have children. You're are not making conversation. You're starting someone on the road to Prozac.

It is rude to ask a woman if she is pregnant. But it is a death wish to answer "yes" if a woman asks, "Do I look pregnant?".

- A Total Waste of Make Up by Kim Gruenenfelder

We should stick to the general topics like weather (yeah, it has been raining every day this week. OMG did you see how bad Kajang flood was?), traffics (it took me 1 hour plus to get here. And I have to pay tolls) or food (I think JM Briyani still has the best nasi briyani). 

Remember people, general topics. GENERAL TOPICS.

Blessed

I never felt so blessed and thankful for what I'm having right now. Even though Allah hasn't given us our own juniors but he replaced it with abundant of other goodness that I'm so thankful of . He gave me the most loving, patient and greatest husband. Abundant of love from families. Rezeki yang melimpah ruah. Peace of mind and healthy body. Sincere and long lasting friendships. Fun colleagues and interesting mentor.

Alhamdulillah. Thank you Allah.

Don't worry, I will never give up on my efforts and continue praying to You. Coz efforts and doa go hand in hand...

Everybody is a princess on her wedding

I am watching the royal wedding of Will and Kate's replay as I am typing this. It such a beautiful wedding. Beautiful bride with simple yet gorgeous dress and the prince, well, there's nothing to say about him. I used to have a huge celebrity crush on him. I bought like every magazine that has his pictures and my good friend, Sue, when she went to UK to do her A-Level, she posted me a life-size William's face postcard to me. She wrote in the postcard, 'the moment I saw this postcard, I immediately remembered you'. Awww... so sweet. I still kept it. I'll take the picture of it and post it here when I come back home one of these days. But why William becoming bald nowadays? Aiyahhh.. sudah tidak hensem la macam ni.

Anyway, when I watched a wedding, I always looking forward to this moment: the moment when a bride meet her groom. No matter in what religion, there is a moment when both bride and groom will meet for the first time in that ceremony. That particular face-to-face moment will show if they are really in love or feeling awkward. You know why? It remained me of my wedding. 

I remembered during my solemnization, when I was walking to my designated place, at that moment I didn't realized my future husband was watching me. Then without a plan, our eyes met and I only saw his love in his eyes. My heart skip a beat and fell in love all over again. At that moment I realized I made the best decision of my life. Then the whole ceremony was fuzzy to me. Until now, I can recall that moment clearly in my mind and never fail to make me smile.

Oh man, I was on romantic mode one whole day. With all the love songs Fly FM has been playing during my journey to and back from work, lovely dinner with my husband and best of all, all day chatting with him using IM (yup, his company is my company's vendor, so we able to chat with each other.. hehe), nothing can spoil my mood right now. Not even a diarrhea. 

Last but not least, congratulations William & Kate, Duke and Duchess of Cambridge.

Prince William told his bride Kate, "You look absolutely beautiful". The special moment that I was talking about.  Source: Here

Ps: Do you notice a large Malaysian flag in the crowd at the background of the interview segment? Who's that lucky chap?

Pray for Japan

Now, every time I felt life is hard, I thought about all the photos of the recent earthquake and tsunami in Japan and I thank God that Malaysia hasn't been involved in any devastating natural disaster. I remembered all the stories of the brave and resilience Japanese people faced this disaster. How they help each other even though they are not in the best comfort. 

Sometimes I wonder what happened if disaster like this happen in Malaysia? Nauzubillah. But are we ready for disaster management? Are we as brave, as discipline, as tolerance as the Japanese? I hope we are. I still have hope for Malaysian. And I am praying this will not happen to Malaysia.

For now, I stop complaining and start being thankful for everything. I'm sure Allah has His own plan for me.

These are satellite photos before and after the earthquake+tsunami in the area that was hit.

North of Sendai

North of Sendai

Sendai

Source: NY Times

I pray that the nuclear crisis will not be as bad as Chernobyl and will be fixed soon. 

On strict Datuk Kame training programme

Throughout my life, I only own 1 laptop, the one that I'm using right now. Back then in undergrad years I was a pro-desktop. Nothing in the world can convince me that laptop is more practical than desktop especially I always traveling between home and college. Actually I used that reasoning to convince that I don't need a laptop and of course, no money to buy one too. Haha. 

Then I borrowed my mom laptop for final year project, mainly to write my thesis. I found it more practical and what a life saving device especially when I was alone in my college room watching 'Desperate Housewives' back to back while lying in my bed. But the semester is almost over and I don't think it's convenient anymore to buy it since I'm moving out the college and will live at my house permanently.

My first job was at manufacturing company and I don't need a laptop. I used the desktop the company and I was happy as a bee (bee is happy creature right? I don't know, but it rhymed just nice with happy). Except during six sigma training where I have to borrow my beloved hubby's laptop (with a lot of terms & conditions, how to take care and so on). 

So when I decided to continue my study in United States, I realized, I need a laptop. Thanks to my mom scares on the tight ruling of US airports, I decided to buy one in US instead of in Malaysia. So my personal IT specialist aka husband list down what specifications that I need - latest processor, graphic card, wireless port etc. I surveyed TigerDirect, Newegg and few other websites. I finally found my laptop - have all the specifications that I need, within the price range and Lenovo. The reason I chose Lenovo because they are part of IBM and IBM known for making a durable laptop. So I thought since this is my first laptop, I need to have a strong one for me to learn how to take care a laptop. Because honestly I'm not the most delicate person in the world.

After arriving in US, I realized that my laptop of choice has sold out! I was devastated. I need a laptop ASAP and I can't waste my time by searching another model again. Thank God I have a very nice landlord. She took me around Durham finding laptop for me. Until we arrived at Circuit City (which later filed bankruptcy 2 weeks after I bought the laptop and closed down 567 their stores). I saw my dream laptop. Not the same model but a higher range of model and the price was above my range. However, the store offered me the display set with discount and they said the display set was only 1 week old, they will give full warranty and reformat the laptop before giving it to me. So I thought why not, and I bought it.

Zainal came 2 weeks later after my mom went home. The first thing he said was this laptop was heavy. I was still in honeymoon phase with my laptop immediately disagreed with him. I was in denial. Few weeks later I started to think my laptop might be a bit heavy. But few months later when I have to run across Terminal 1 in JFK Airport to Terminal 8 to catch my plane, I realized, my God, this laptop weight a tonnes. I swear I almost fainted by carrying this laptop only. I have come with full realization when I have to carry this laptop when walking to our hotel in Las Vegas and again in San Francisco. God, I wished I left this laptop and not carrying it all over west coast. I didn't care about checking my email and Facebook anymore. I. Just. Want. Not. To. Carry. This. Elephant. Anymore.

The pervert Datuk Kame or Kame Sennin with his turtle shell

Now I'm working where I have to use this laptop as my work station and brought along me whenever I go, I started to devise a mindset. I can't left my laptop anymore and it needs to be with me all the time. So whenever I have to carry this elephant, I imagined myself undergo a training programme with Datuk Kame. Haha. You know the one that he asked Goku to carry a heavy turtle shell around. I imagined that one day I can jump so high , run so fast without this heavy laptop on my back. I might even manage to do 'kame hame haaa' if I practice enough. Huhu. So there you go.

Kame Hame Haaaaa..... I know you have try before, in case there's going to be a fireball coming out, right? Huhu

So before you buy a laptop, make sure that weight is one of the main areas that you look into. If not, let's join Datuk Kame fitness programme.

Marvelous May

CST Production and Lyndarahim Kuala Lumpur is having a contest. Bloggers and Facebookers just need to describe their dream weddings and the most creative one will be chosen a winner. I actually have been waiting for CST contest coz I missed the last one. I mistakenly misread their closing date. Haih. However, this contest is a bit tricky coz I already have my dream wedding! I would not changed anything about my wedding if I given a chance... umm... ok, maybe 1 or 2 things I might change. But the wonderful people at CST soothed my worry when they said I can describe any other event.

I have this one event that I really want to organize since I got married. It's the combination of our birthday and anniversary. You see, both my husband and I were born in May and our anniversary fall in May too. This year we will turn to *ahem* years old and if you divide the *ahem* number into 2, you'll get the total number of years we have known each other. And.... this year is our 9th anniversary! (Note: it's not our wedding anniversary ya).

If I were to organize this event, how do I do it? These are the summary:

• Where? In the park (coz I love nature yo!)
• When? May 2011, after sunset (preferably after Maghrib)
• Who? 10-15 of our closest friends and their partner (so around 20-30 people)
• Theme? Chill, relax and forget about all your resolution (yea, I'm still on New Year mood)
• Food? 3 course meal with free flowing dessert and candies (birthday party should have a lot of candies)

Let's get into the details.

First, the venue

I would choose this place if we are in New York. We were there last spring and it was awesome in May!

We were fooling around at Central Park, NY

But, nevertheless, we are in Malaysia now so any park with big, strong and canopy-like trees will do. Preferably in Petaling Jaya & Subang Jaya vicinity coz I know my friends are lazy to drive further than this (ok, I'm the one who are lazy, not them actually... hehe). I will decorate the tree with lots, when I said lots, I really mean abundant of christmas lights hanging from the tree until it will light up the place. The long table that can sit 30 people will be placed in the middle of those trees. When the guests are sitting down, they will feel like they are dining under a huge fireworks. Awesome right.

(this picture is actually the night version of the earlier picture but I think it's in fall/early winter from the lack of leaves on the tree branch. Source)

Disclaimer: that are not worms hanging on the trees. That are the christmas lights

Secondly, the food

Good food is the way to your friend's heart. Because I love my friends so much, I would like to order 3 course meal from Tony Roma's for everybody.....

KIDDING!

Unless everybody agreed to pay for their meal. Haha. I will choose equally delicious restaurant to cater our food. So everybody that RSVP'ed that they are coming will need to choose their food choice before the event. So on that day, everybody will get their own choice of food.

Next, the decorations

Forget flowers as the table centerpiece. The theme is to break our resolution, remember? So I would put desserts, chocolate and candies in the middle of the table using beautiful jar and container. Brownies, cupcakes, M&Ms, Hershey's, Ferrero Rocher and fruit tart are being nicely placed in the middle of the table along side candles to swell the mood. My girlfriends will kill me for ruining their diet but that's what friends are for, right - presenting good things in life ;-)

Original pic source

Source

Each guest will have a personalized cupcake with their name at their respected seat. At each chair, a huge flower pouch that contains more candies will be hanged and this is the goodies bag for each guest.

Original pic source

Next, entertainment

Ahhh... what is a party without entertainment? I would have a live band playing softly (I have no idea how they will do that - maybe just instrumental) in the background during the dinner coz I hate going to some place that are very loud that you need to shout to talk to people. But when the dinner is over, the band will take over and dance floor will be open.

Remember when you are a kid, birthday party make you sugar high and you end up running around endlessly? So I want to bring back that fun memory except we are not going to run endlessly at the end of the night. That's where the dance floor comes in. We need to burn back all the excessive sugar intake by moving our body. Since this party is only open to close friends, I'm sure my friends will be more opened and get their body moving with the music. Most of them are already married, so enjoy yourself! When is the last time you dance with your partner?

Last but not least, video booth!

I would love to have a picture booth, but since CST Production is going to sponsor, let's take it a step above and make a video booth. Every guest need to get into that booth, wear the magic hat (or singing hat) and start to sing or act or both or do whatever you want to do (but no 18SX please!) That would be awesome.


Another details...

Guest can wear whatever they want as long as they wear something and comfortable in it. Ladies, I suggest you to keep your stilettos at home and wear your wedges instead. You don't want to your heels poke through the grass at each of your step. That would be annoying. But for me, I would like a white flowing dress that look casual yet elegant. Nothing too sparkly or fancy.

For the cake, I really want those beautiful fondant cake with fireworks cake candle. Nice right...

Original pic source

But most important, all I want is that everybody is having fun, enjoying themselves while celebrating our important days of the year.


By the way, check out these talented people:

Need to live

We are only human, but too many errs are way too much to handle, isn't it?

Human sometimes really can test your patience. That's why we are called human at the first place, don't we? These are few things that really pissed me off about human that I've been contacted with:

1. Who thinks that coming to US for my masters degree is like going to vacation. They would said, "How wonderful you got to travel. Oh, I need vacation too." First of all, it's not a vacation. How do you feel to be living alone (these past 1.5 days I'm not alone anymore) with no family and friends yet need to struggle everything from minimal allowance, unpredictable weather to scarce Halal food. Not to mention the stress and pressure of grad school? Though I looked happy posting pictures in FB travelling around the US, that's like 5% of the days that was captured and the other 95% wasn't all sunshine and rainbow. (Got the feeling Disney holiday need to be scraped as budget is not permitting again. Oh well.)
   
2. Someone who complained that they never had enough everything yet they did stuff that surely not for someone who didn't have enough >insert whatever they complain<. For example they said that the money that they get is not enough, yet they went shopping spree like there is no tomorrow. Rasa nak tikam je orang macam ni. Menyampah ok. I don't mind if they rich and have the money to spend, but to complain about not having enough but actually have the money to spend is like what my mom always said "tak syukur nikmat".
   
3. Someone who like to exaggerate every problem that they had. Like wow, their problems were worse than every country in the world problem's combined. And when they survived that problem, they told their success story like they won a Nobel prize without any help of others. Shithead.
   
4. Someone who told the world like they are the best in everything no matter what area or they have the best thing in the world like nobody has what they have. Like when someone they know good in photography, they would be better than that guy and when other people said that he is good in landscaping, suddenly they acclaimed that they are good in landscaping too. WTH?
5. Someone that used the third people (which is someone who is related to the person that they are complaining about) to complain about the other person. For example they have problem with their friends but complained to their mom (!) about that person when they can just talk to their friends. It's their friends btw, why involved parents? That the worst thing I ever encountered at the age of 26. This is not pre-school or primary school ok. So when you have problem with your spouse, you'll complain to your mother-in-law also instead of discuss between both of you? Hah!
   

Ok, I'm in fussy mood right now. Thus this rage leashing post was written. So sometimes I rather be quiet and considered no idea rather than being annoying people that people hate. Thank you.

Ps: Ya Allah, semoga Kau jauhiku dari sikap begini jugak.

Human Bias

Two situations that I have encountered not so recently.

Situation 1

Person X: I couldn't imagine not being close to your own mother. I talked to my mom everyday and we are very close. I pitied her for not being close to her mother. *

Situation 2

Person Y: I couldn't imagine that you have to talk to your mother everyday. It must be suffocated to tell everything to your mom everything. She must felt like she's been controlled.*

Situation 3

Me (thinking): Funny how we evaluated people based on our own bias. We think people are reacting the same way as we feel without we step into their shoes to understand their position. What worse is when we have this bias and we act on trying to 'free' the supposedly 'suppressed' people. For example when the Westerners cried the movement to free the Muslim women who has to cover their body. They said that it's against human right and they should be allowed to flaunt their body which they are restricted from.

First of all, do they think that this Muslim women feel that they are being suppressed as they have to cover all their body? From my opinion, I don't feel like I'm being forced to wear what I'm wearing. I even feel freer than my peers who have to wear sexy clothes just to feel sexy. I felt like they are the victims here as they have to follow the latest fashion, suffer in those tight, short and uncomfortable clothes. You think it's pleasant to wear a tube in the cold fall weather? Now you answer me.

So the conclusion is each life experience gives different impact on different people. Knowing that, we shouldn't made judgment based on our own experiences only. Think deep.


*Not the exact words but the have the same meanings as original. Person X was talking about Person Y and Person Y was talking about Person X.

** For me, I rather have my mom calls me often. Last semester my mom called me everyday but this semester she cut it to once a week since she felt that I'm doing better now. But I love to have her calling me 2-3 times a week.

*** Writing this me made me missed my mom psychology lectures that she loved to give me. Haha. I should take minor in psychology. It's interesting.

Confused

Sometimes some feelings are best left as secrets.

But too many feeling kept inside is not good too.

So what should one do?

Everywhere in the world Muslim is praying for you, Gaza

Even in Duke, where it founded by Methodist, Muslim has a chance to make people aware the suffering of the Gaza.

I wish I can attend this, but I don't have transport to move around at night. But don't worry, my prayer is always with you. May Allah put you among His loved ones, child.

Ps: I don't understand how people have the ability to kill innocent people. Don't they have feelings? Binatang pun lebih baik.

Salam Aidil Fitri

To all my friends....

Selamat Hari Raya Aidil Fitri

Maaf Zahir & Batin

Drive safely, eat slowly and forgive everybody

for one more day

Have you read books written by Mitch Albom. You know the guy who wrote Tuesdays with Morrie and 5 People You Meet in Heaven. I bought 5 People You Meet in Heaven few years ago out of curiosity. I heard a lot about this book and I'm wondering what's so good about it. It turns out to be one of the best book I've read.

The story was simple. If one day you died and if you can meet 5 people that made an impact in your 60-70 years of life who would it be. You'll be surprised that some of them is someone you don't even expected. Furthermore, the book is not the Dewan Bahasa thick kind of book and the language he used is very simple.

So last 2 weeks I bought another of his book, 'For One More Day'. The story was about a guy who attempting suicide but failed. During the unconsciousness he met his mother who had died 8 years ago. It's like he revisited his mother life once again. He find out about the why his father left his family, how his mother struggled to give a good life to him and few other things.

It made you think that you can't take life for granted. How do you know when would be your last moment with your loved ones. For this guy, he had a chance to have one more day with his mother to know and said everything that needs to be said. But us, do we have it? Obviously not. What's over is over.

There's few quotation that was very nice from this book. Some my favourites are:

"-now you know how badly someone wanted you, Charley. Children forget that sometimes. They think of themselves as a burden instead of a wish granted."

"A child embarrassed by his mother is just a child who hasn't lived long enough."

"Going back to something is harder than you think."

"Here is what you are going to find out about marriage: you have to work at it together. And you have to love 3 things. You have to love

1. each other
2. your children
3. your marriage

what I mean by that last one is, there may be times that you fight and sometimes you and her won't like each other. But those are the times you have to love your marriage. It's like a third party. Look at your wedding photos. Look at the memories you've made. And if you believe in those memories, they will pull you back together."