Lunch with Dr. Ummul

When she was my thesis advisor, I used to think she couldn't stand the sight of me, and I was always freaked out by her ever so strict and 'scary' appearance. But then, so happens I ended up working for her as her research assistant. It's truly an honour. But I had my reservations. She became friendlier, but I still held back.. until one day, when she said "Come, let me buy you lunch.. it'll be your graduation present." I didn't know what to say, I was stunned. She bought me McDonald's.. although it was somewhat common, but it meant so much to me.. it's the thought that counts anyway. So, while eating lunch that day, I realized how well we both actually hit it off.. but then again, I still had my doubts. "She's just being nice." I thought.

The next week, I went to work as usual on Tuesday.. I talked to her in the morning and showed her what I had done so far. So, ok.. after that I went upstairs and continued what I was doing.. I was busy and so I forgot the time. At 12.40pm, she called me using the landline.. I was surprised:

Dr. Ummul: Grace?
Me: Oh, hi Dr.
Dr. Ummul: Are you hungry?
Me: mmm why?
Dr. Ummul: I'm hungry. Shall we go for lunch?
Me: Oh! Sure!
Dr. Ummul: Alrighty, I'll wait for you downstairs.

It was then that I realized, hey.. she does enjoy my company! And honestly, I do enjoy her company too. She's a totally different person when she isn't working.. totally easy going, very humourous too. It was then that I realized.. we became friends. She paid for lunch that day.. and then the Thursday following that I asked if I could buy her lunch.. but she wasn't free. And she told me that she would only be free following week.. it wasn't until today that I found this note in my logsheet.

"Grace, my calendar suddenly frees up today (by magic!) perhaps we could do lunch today? (28/8) Wait for me till I come back. Next week onwards will be ramadhan, so I can't miss this invitation - U :) "

My gosh, Dr. Ummul wrote me a cute note (with a smiley)?? That's unbelievable! LOL, anyway, she wanted to eat Japanese, so yeah.. I brought her to Sushi King and we ate a number of petite stuff. It was funny as I saw her standing at the sushi conveyor belt and staring at all the sushi for such a long time, and coming back with only one plate. "You don't really eat sushi, so I guess this is the only one you will dare eat.." :) She stood there so long to find something with me in mind too! We talked about lots of things, except work.. I made it a point not to talk about her work and I think she did too.. so she told me her stories, and I told her my stories. It's like each time we have lunch, we became just normal friends, instead of her being my superior.

After lunch, I asked if she was game for Starbucks.. she said ok, and so we went.. we ordered our drinks. When the barista made our drinks she asked "So is this to go?" I thought she might want to get back to work so I said "You want it to go?" And she said "Not really.... we still have 1/2 hour" So over coffee, more stories poured out as she talked about what she bought with her first pay (I just received my first paycheck then) etc..

I'll miss having lunch with her the next month (the fasting month).. I'll still see her, just not outside work. Perhaps the lunching will resume in September :) Till then, I guess she'll just be my boss. It's a wonder what 3 lunches can do.. and how it can bring two people closer.

till death do us part?

Come on, who are we kidding? Why do Hollywood stars have to say "till death do us part" when they know that marriages do not last a lifetime. And mind you, it's a vow.. a VOW.. let me enlighten you the meaning of 'vow'.

If you vow to do something, you make a serious promise or decision that you will do it.

that's according to Collins Cobuild Dictionary. Something serious.. a promise... but 2 years or even as short as a month later? It's as if that vow never existed. And the attitude towards marriage today is the idea of pre-nuptial agreement. What does that actually prove?! That you are going into a marriage thinking that there might be a big possibility that the marriage is going to fail? And then you can live happily ever after with those sums of cash. Like a celebrity news editor once said "In order to live happily ever after.. 3 words.. prenup, prenup, prenup!" Gosh, what do they take marriage for anyway?

The thing I don't get is that, why get married if you think it's not going to last? Why spend loads of cash.. tens of millions to have a wedding, and millions to get divorce? Why not stay status quo. That's what I don't get. Of course, I might be wrong.. celebrities might still think that their marriage will work.. but it always gets proven wrong.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not a skeptic when it comes to marriage. I'm quite the contrary actually. I think marriages are suppose to last for a lifetime.. it's just that I'm skeptical when it comes to high profile marriages, and those which have prenuptial agreements. That's the wrong footing.. and will lead to disaster.

That's just my thought anyway, and yet again.. perhaps it's due to too much coffee..lol.

Happiness is..

Happiness is.. well, to me.. a cup of coffee will do it! I'm that simple.. or, perhaps.. I'm just purely addicted. But it's true.. I can be pissed off at one point, but just a cup of coffee can make me really happy. Just don't ask me why though, because I can't figure it out either.
What is in the cup? Just a blend of bittersweet, aromatic liquid, with a drug called caffeine. Yet, it can wake a sleepy person up, and make a simple Malaysian girl very happy. LOL. And the weirdest thing is that whenever someone asks me "What do you want me to bring back from my vacation?" My answer will always be "Coffee."
Somehow at some point of my life.. where my love of coffee overtook my love for chocolates.. I used to be excited whenever I received chocolates from all around the world, but now, it's coffee that really does the trick. Today, I received a surprise from a friend of dad's when he gave us Kona coffee from Hawaii.. ohh such happiness! Can't wait to try that! hehehe.. I was like a little girl who was given candy ;)
Anyway, just thought I'd blog.. even when it's nothing much, after all.. it's a caffeine talking, remember? ;)

It's been too long

Wow! It's been so long since I've blogged. So many thing had happened since then.. for starters, my beloved grandfather passed away. I miss him so much. The house seemed to be a little strange without him around. As I was clearing up the books, I saw those which I bought for him, and stationery which I bought as his birthday gift. Sigh.. I miss you kong-kong. You're the best grandfather I ever had.. selfless, loving and patient.. and I know that you're up in heaven and in the presence of the good Lord. I love you...

Oh well, before I sink into depression, here are the rest of the stuff.. well, actually nothing very much.. my job is getting easier as I gain momentum. Reading and summarizing is never easy, especially when the font is so small.. argh.. but I'll make it! LOL. The best thing though, is having my boss' company :) The more I get to know her, the more I adore her to bits.. She's just a good person who is also really brilliant. I'm very very honored to be working for her, gaining insights as she explains things to me.. and even honored that she chose me out of the many that have crossed her path :)

As for life, I'm living it. As best as I can. I never fail to stop and enjoy life.. knowing that even though it's not as productive or full of direction as I'd like it to be, I know that God has a plan for me. Honestly, all I can do is wait till I'm sure of that something I would like to do, and then act upon it. My parents have laid down several options in which I'm still considering. I'm not going to rush things.. it's not my style; this is MY life and I will definitely have the final say. So, I'm just chilling, and being happy.. because to me, that's what matters the most :)

Ok then, I'll stop here.. hope to post more soon!

J for Just freaking crazy!!!

Well, it's Thursday, and it was a working day for me (or shall I say, working morning.. since I only work for 3.5 hours, 2 days a week?). Ok, so as usual, I had a date with Zati who was too shaken up by the previous incident (check previous blog post, 22nd July) that she just refused to ever step into "my" office again. HAHA. Anyway, we were suppose to have a lunch date after I got off work at about 12.30pm but instead of the usual university cafeteria, Zati thought it'd be good for us to visit the Jusco mall (which btw is the fave among the students of my uni) and have lunch there.. and so I agreed. We hopped into the taxi, and the first thing the taxi driver told us was there was a massive traffic jam in that area, but we decided to go anyway (BIG MISTAKE!).
When we were almost approching the mall, we realized that it was J-card member day. This could only mean 4 things:

1) GREAT discounts (but for members only)
2) massive HUMAN jam cuz there are freaking lots of people who are just scrambling their way through the mall and grabbing stuff like crazy.
3) illegal parking all over the place - becareful, you might receive a ticket.. and all those discounts won't be worth it after all.
4) massive TRAFFIC jam- all those petrol wasted, just to get the discounts.. if you ask me it's penny wise, pound foolish!

But even though I could see that the bad outweighs the good, people are still fighting to get into this place. I was only downstairs having my meal and I thought it was already freaking crazy, I couldn't imagine the scene upstairs where the real action is (and where all the claws start emerging!). Oh well, even my friend Zati was motivated enough to want to apply for a J-card and get that watch she wanted. What the heck?! Even after a friend of hers we met told us that the queue was long enough to make you wait for hours, Zati still wanted to shop. Gosh, I have time to waste.. but I decided to waste it back home. Anyway, I waited for my mom to come fetch me and then left, whether or not Zati decided to go for that shopping spree and start squeezing her way through to those shelves, I have no idea. I should probably ask her.. LOL. Anyway, yeah.. I'll never go for another J-card member day if I can help it.. I'm sensible enough to keep my cash and wait for the real sale.

Bullets and guns

Before you start judging this post by its title, let me tell you know the bullets and guns I have in mind are not even close to those that are typical. Personally, I think the words that come right out of my mouth are like bullets, and my mouth is like the gun. Except for the fact that this 'gun' of mine has a faulty trigger!!
There are many occassions in which I say wrong things, and I don't realize it till hours after. And then I start feeling bad, not being able to sleep blah blah blah... it's a vicious cycle. I can say stupid things like "You know, you look fatter" or tell things to certain people who aren't suppose to know those stuff and then I feel like slapping myself for it. There are a lot of stupid things that I have done, but I have said more stupid stuff.. sometimes I tell myself "STUPID, STUPID GRACE!" And then I'll be feeling so bad and yet I don't learn my lesson.. or perhaps it's so innate that I'll never be able to change.
Don't be mistaken, I do try to monitor what I say to the best that I can, and I do try not to let the cat out of the bag, but sometimes before I can get down to even trying to watch over the cat, it ran away... HAHAHHAHA. I hope you get the whole idea! Anyway, I'm still learning to keep my mouth shut when I have to, in fact, I keep it shut most of the time, but when I do open it, I say stupid things.. I probably have to get myself "devoiced" in that case.. SIGH. Oh well, that's me.. and so I have to live with it.

I'll end here, in case I type something really stupid :p

First day at work was slow, until...

My first day at work. Ah, it was better than I expected it to be.. a good boss who trusts me, and well, very flexible working hours! I started proper at 9.3o and it was slow.. but I was doing my work (except for the fact that the lan's connection went crazy for about at least 30 mins) and then at about 12, my boss came in to get her stuff for her class.. ahhh the notes looked too familiar.. I mean, come on I had to get those stuff in my head 3 years ago.. but it was funny, watching a side of her probably most have never seen.. ransacking her room, looking for one piece of paper (must be really important) and when she got tired, she exclaimed sarcastically "Ah! Good filing system!" HAHAHA.
Anyway, that's not the interesting part. I was suppose to meet my friend Zati for lunch, and since she was at the thesis room in my former faculty, I agreed that we should meet there before deciding where to eat. At about 12.30pm, there was this knock on the door.. (my boss' students all know she shifted to the new office) and so she asked "Is that for you?". I seriously did not expect Zati to come knocking! Oh yeah, and btw (digressing a little).. since she was our former lecturer with a reputation of being really really strict and scary, my friend Zati was terrified of her. Anyway, back to the story.. Dr. Ummul (my boss) opened the door, since I was busy and all that.. and there was Zati! The LOOK ON ZATI'S FACE!!! It was PRICELESS!! When Zati saw Dr. Ummul.. her whole face became pucat ('pale' in the Malay language) as if she had seen a ghost!! ahhaha.. it was hillarious! She told Dr. Ummul "Uh, I want to meet Grace" and I went and told Zati that I'll take awhile more while she still stood there with that bengang ("speechless" in the Malay language) look on her face.. hahaha.. it was the highlight of the day!
Zati told me during lunch.. "Grace, I've got to put this on my blog!!!" I told her "Yeah, me too!!" And so, there you have it! Hehe, just wished I was fast enough to capture the look on her face at the moment! Oh well, it has been imprinted on my brain for life...lol.