Stop Confusing Me

I never paid much attention..

to weather in Malaysia. Give or take a degree or two, the high of the day pretty much hovered at 89F/32C every single day. The only variations would be an interplay between scorching hot, rain or cloudy but always with enuff humidity up to your eyeballs and yes, the very predictable high of the day.

Since i've been in the States though, i have become a weather channel/triple doppler radar fiend.

A few posts ago, i talked about it snowing and how i was in awe of it all, seeing it for the first time, and then the weather warmed up. One night we even had to have the air conditioning on. In WINTER.

and then just in the span of yesterday and today, the weather decided to do an about turn. p/s: Abilene's west of Dallas, about 3 hours away.

YESTERDAY

TODAY

HUH?!?!?!?!?

Of Naked Mole Rats and Memories

Yesterday we went to Walmart.....

to return a faulty home theater system. Somehow when you click the button to turn it on, it dies.

The very young almost high school looking guy at Customer Service opened the box and said, "We can't take this back..there's no subwoofer". David almost slapped himself on the forehead right then, looked at me and said, "we left the biggest part of the friggin' thing at home." BLEH.

In the car later, pondering on stuff with the very wise naked mole rat, it struck me that suddenly i'm keeping track of stuff more carefully now. Why? Cos i would probably blog about them the next day. That has somehow made me be more aware of what happens everyday and as such, makes for more vivid memories.
( but somehow that doesn't help with noticing huge subwoofers right when you need to )

And keeping memories alive, the mole rat agrees, is not such a bad thing after all.

Of Robots and Hunky Men

NFL, NFC, AFC.....

These are abbreviations that continue to elude me.

David and his brother, Lin, however, are HUGE football fans. AND, being Texans, they root for the Dallas Cowboys even though they are out of the playoffs.

(Note: Pic above is from another game all together, but had footballers' buns so i thought, "what the heck")

Lin came by yesterday, to watch a Cowboys game on the huge 56" Samsung HLP 5685 ( amazing machine ) and as expected, I retreated into my little "study" and blog exploded to my heart's content.



The night being still young after the game, we settled down to watch a favourite, I, Robot, with the ever delectable Will Smith. How did Jada Pinkett ever get so lucky?



p/s: Trash Update : THEY WERE ON SCHEDULE TODAY!! *gasp*

Shhhh..!

This is an actual product, I swear.

The reason I know this is because I own this bottle.

Horlicks is a rather popular drink in Malaysia, kind of like Dr. Pepper or Iced Tea over here.

I never gave its name much thought until my sister-in-law, who is from China and now resides with my brother in the states, took one look at it and burst into uncontrollable giggles.

Just make sure that while you're wondering what's so funny, don't say the name out too loud in front of your parents.... OR children.

p/s: Their website advertises that it's a wonderful pre-bedtime beverage that'll help you sleep better. Go figure.

What We Learn

When I first arrived in the States a year ago to be with David,

stepping off the plane at Corpus Christi after spending almost 24 hours in the air and in airports, travelling halfway across the globe, I was full of excited anticipation but also there was a deep sense of uncertainty.

• I had just quit my job as a doctor,
• I had left behind my family and friends,
• I found myself suddenly not having an income,
• I was going to be dependent on someone else in ways I could never have imagined, after being fiercely independent,
• I had to adapt to a foreign country and culture
• I was going to be away from everything that I had taken for granted for 32 years in Malaysia and felt so comfortable with,
• I had numerous people telling me I was making a collossal mistake,

and all I could think was, "I'm leaving this up to You, I'm not going to make myself sick worrying over it another minute!"


But you know what? A year later, among others,

• I have a fiance who loves me to bits and whom I adore,
• I learnt to take my family less for granted,
• I am studying to take the necessary exams to be licensed to practise medicine here,
• I have an darling extended family ( in David's family ) that are such an eclectic group,
• I have had the opportunity to catch up on things that I have neglected,
• I finally learnt to cook and have become not-half-bad,
• I have travelled thru 24 of the 50 American states,
• I have had to look more into myself and to God for strength,
• I got a chance to spend so much more time with my brother, who has been in the states for 7 years and
• I found out that although I thought I was resilient, I was tougher than I gave myself credit for.

I was not going to make any resolutions this year - they either get neglected or forgotten thru the months - but I've decided that what I would like for this year and every year is that I continue to grow as an individual, not depriving myself of any more experiences just because I'm cranky or "PMS"ing, but to absorb and learn and continue to better myself, to challenge myself in ways I have always shied away from because it was too embarrassing or seemed unsurmountable and in that journey, find that not everything is about me me me and that there IS a larger picture in the whole scheme of things.

Here's wishing everyone a wonderful year ahead.