Maybe not..

Sometimes it's really hard to find someone or even a space to share what you have in your mind.

One thing has been bothering me pretty much lately,

and maybe this is not a good idea to share something with such negative vibe here but this is like the only place I could find.

It will be a life changing experience. Maybe not very much in overall, but definitely a lot in the short run. I have to choose where I will be at for the next couple of years, what I'll have to do for most of the time, and who I will meet for most of the time.

I have never expected such things to happen to me. To many, they will think that I am lucky and I am bragging. But I wonder if they will say the same when they are in my shoes.

Maybe the problem gets complicated because of my personality. When I asked people, seems like most of them cared only about the magnitude. Sometimes I was thinking, won't it be better if I have nothing to choose from?

I used to think, I will take anything that comes, but definitely not for this time. It's hard to make decisions, and I realized the more you think, the further you are moving away from the topic. I just want to choose something that will make me happy. I don't know what will happen in the next couple of months and I shall avoid thinking about regret or even comparing.

This is my choice, and I shall fulfill it.

Random 2

One year after the random post by CK, so randomly I enter this blog. Hence here come the "Random 2" post.

Anyway, there is only one thing in my mind now -
ChengShouNans,Let's revive CHUISUI Coffee Shop!!!

Any ideas or suggestions?

RANDOM

This is a new post that appears like once in a blue moon. If you purposely/accidentally visit my blog and found this post, you are very lucky. Because this is a random post.

I accidentally clicked this blog's URL, and I felt like bullshitting.

I am sorry for my laziness in maintaining this blog. Too bad I am intern-ing now, and my time at home is limited. Hopefully I can write more when I reach back to Des Moines.

Coming Back to Malaysia!

Now I am in LAX, waiting for my very first flight back home since last year.

I am nervous, I am excited.
I feel weird, yet I feel happy.

There's never a place better than home but I suddenly miss my apartment back in Des Moines. It's so ironic.
But I am glad I will be back to meet my family, my futsal kakis and possibly get my very first actuarial internship.

Hey Malaysia! Here I come!!!..........

I will be back!

I will be back in Malaysia this summer.


Beware!

CK 点啦！

It's time to decide!

Yes or No

Go or not to go.

True or False

Dilemma is striking me. Right now, I would just want to calm down, think carefully and give myself a smile.
This wasn't what I expected last semester, why do I care about it so much now?! I am feeling weird now, I am acting weird now. Is the stress level that high? Should I do it or not? For what should I do it for? For who should I do it for?


ARGHHH!!!! CK 点啦！

#To those who are reading this post, no to worry, I am just grumbling to myself........It's not big deal....I am fine!

Let's see.....When was the last time I didn't celebrate Chinese New Year in KL?
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There seems to be no answer at this moment to this question. I have celebrated all my CNY in KL for all my 19.5 years as a Malaysian, and it seems like this year will be the first year I have to live that 1st day without my family.

Not a happy thing to happen, but I have to get used to it, because next year's CNY I am sure will be the same.

I miss the CNY's crazy suffocating hot weather in KL. I miss all the angpau givers. I miss going to relatives' houses. I miss lion dance. I miss my house's CNY open day with all the foods. Last year's CNY seems like it just happened yesterday, and again I felt how fast time flies.

I am still not sure what will be up in this particular festival week. Everyone seems to have their own plan where I am still clueless. Maybe I will just attend some of the celebrations by Malaysian Students Association or maybe the Vietnamese one.

Right now, I would just like to wish everyone Happy Chinese New Year 2009!! The Cows are rulling this year. MOOOO........

Year 2009

YAHOO! It's 2009!

Wait, wait. Is 2008 that bad to make me so happy that it's over?

Erm, I tried to recap some highlights of the year of myself, and I suddenly realized that this has been a very frenzy year to me, ever since the first few hours of the year.

Ups and downs, highs and lows, here and there, where and where, when and when, what and what, dids and didn'ts.......

It's been a year with large volume 'trades '. You get things, and you lose things. I might not be the person who likes high volatility, and it has been hard for me to accept all these sudden changes in my life. I finally feel like myself after a while and I am happy about that. Come on, bad things come and go, so take it and go!

I realized that I have disappointed a lot of friends back in Malaysia since my journey here in US. Many complained that I was too hard to be reached. I was really busy for most of the time. I am really sorry. I WILL do my best next semester(or now) to get back to all of you. Why? Because I miss you all.

I never do new year resolution. Never. Why? I am not the kind of people who likes to follow rigid rules. Maybe this is also the reason why I have been headless and aimless for all these years. However, I still like flexibility. And short term plannings have been my friends for ages.

I would just like to wish everyone Happy New Year 2009! May all your bad fortunes go away.

Love,
CK from San Francisco, California

Rubbish

Cyber space is a dangerous place to play with. Yes, you get unlimited resources from them, but be careful when you use them, cause you will never know what will happen to you.

To all of you who blog often, just hide as much information as possible. Just don't show everything you have. Don't play "show hand" in Internet, you'll get burnt.

I suddenly have the urge to post this kind of rubbish. I am sorry if this post disappoints any of my reader.

Chicago Trip during thanksgiving break!

I was in Chicago for Thanksgiving and I felt like I was back in KL for the 1st time in the states.
Lots of Asians there, mostly from China, and also African Americans.


You have to be alert every moment, and you will feel insecure too, because the crime rate here is pretty high, and just like what one of my professors said before, in a big city, you will see the good and the bad in it. Especially now with the economic crisis, high unemployment rate has a direct relationship to the numbers of beggars on the road. Traffic there is busy, just like in KL, (the 1st time I see traffic jam in US!!), and the drivers are all very rude. (compared to my peaceful Des Moines)

The good side of Chicago however, is to give you a glimpse of what a modern US city looks like. I watched 'Wanted' yesterday, and I found out that the movie was taken in Chicago as I recognized a few places in it. Another thing is there is a very big China Town there. For your information, there is no such thing in Iowa. The only nearest thing we have here is just an area full of Vietnamese with a few Asian food markets run by them. I tasted only 3 of the many Chinese restaurants there. One for dimsum, one for Chinese fast food (they serve food like Gasoline in Malaysia), and one for Hong kong style coffee shop food. They all taste pretty good, (of course very good compared to food here in Des Moines) as they really taste like Malaysian food, but what I disliked about restaurants there is that they demand minimum 15% tips, which is crazy high. They'll force you to pay if you don't do that. Our dimsum experience was nice until those rude and impolite gestures shown by the waitress (Auntie!) Not satisfied with her service, we paid only around 13% of tax and once she saw the tip amount written on the bill, she immediately said that they charge 15% tips for any meal and we must pay more. Omg, so she calculated how much we have to pay already lah! So why didn't she just give us the tip amount we are "supposed" to pay? This outraged some of us and we decided not to give her a single penny more than 15%. Lol.

In the middle of the trip, I joined Kun and his gang at the night before Black Friday. We went to Chicago Outlet Mall, the place where all bargains were. I wanted to experience the queuing up people did for grabbing deals, and of course I spent quite a fortune there. I bought mostly on clothings. Big brands like Coach has long lines which amused me. Are they that cheap? Sorry loh, I dare not step in in any of the famous brands because I know I won't buy them anyway. (No money lah!) What I can afford are normally premium brands like Gap, Timberland, but not Armani Exchange or Polo.

The next day, I met Alex Ong. And the funny part is in the next 10 minutes after I met him, we both walked into Macy's and saw one very nice jacket. Alex had been looking for a jacket, and so had I. We camwhored a bit in front of the mirror, and finally we decided to buy one each. Mine was slightly cheaper, but his was nicer I think.
We met kaiJie and his korean gf there, but we didn't want to be lamp post, so both of us dumped them and I had a IIT (Alex's University)trip after that. His dorm room was nice, especially that LCD TV made me feel like buying one for myself. He really miss all his heng dai in Malayisa (the Phoenixs! See photos on his desk). In summer 09, he might go back, so might I.

This trip is fun, and it let me took a break out of study, but the bad thing is I spent quite a lot of money for it. Out of budget you can say. I think I really have to work more hours next semester.

IOWA Food

I suddenly feel like putting some food photos in my blog.
Not ordinary food/dishes from some restaurants, but food cooked by myself here in Des Moines, Iowa.

You can hardly find any food with the Malaysian taste here. I once calculated how many restaurants we can go for meal after class, answer=4. KFC, Subway, McDonald's & China Place-a Vietnamese run Chinese restaurant. Sienzz! Of course there are a few more restaurants and coffee shops nearby unexplored.
You have little choices to choose from here around Drake. However sometimes lovely and generous friends will offer you meals at campus dining halls. They don't taste really well, but at least when you are out of idea on what to eat or cook, you get to fill your stomach. (for free!!)

This is why you have to be able to cook a variety of food, if not, you will bore yourself with your own cooking.

Of course, my cooking skills are improving day by day. Cutting, chopping, frying....No choice.
And I've got the chance to cook many kinds of dishes, some which I haven't even tried before but I was just amazed how confident I was when I was attempting them. None of them were really perfect, but at least edible. HOHO.

This was probably my 1st breakthrough. Chicken kebab aka American style Lightly Flavored Satay.
The chicken wasn't the very tasty and flavored satay we eat in Malaysia. My housemate and I was just inspired by the recipe card from Walmart and decided to cook it for our very 1st time for the Mooncake Countdown Potluck Night. Just put the chicken into the oven and DING! DOne!

I think they taste okay, but some of my friends are used to the "extra flavors" and found it a bit bland. 2816 continued cooking their trademark and specialty-Mushroom Chicken.
Then a few weeks later there's a Nasi Lemak Night which some of you might have seen from Facebook. This time, I was just providing the venue and I just cooked a simple ChoySum. The main dish that day was "Mr Kari" Sivabalan's NAsi Lemak and his extra spicy sambal.
They were really nice and everyone i think had fun. Maryanne cooked Fried Chicken, and Chiann cooked Minced Meat Tofu (I didn't take the photos of it, sorry!)
There are actually some more really special dishes cooked by us, but I didn't take photos of them. LOL. The most extravagant dish I cooked was Yong Tou Fu. Amazingly, we managed to make White Tofu, EggPlant, Taopok, Bitter gourd and Wantan. I think Justin took photos of them but I don't have any copy of them. I was busy for the whole night but to see all food finished was really satisfying.

And then, sometimes I cook special dishes for myself. I tried different combination of spaghetti and noodles, and the only photo I managed to take down is this special ginger soy peanut spaghetti.
I put some crushed red peppers on it and it was so spicy until I nearly couldn't finish it.

And then, just a few days ago, I cooked BAK GOR. Again, I don't know how to cook it, and I just simply cook it. it wasn't what I wanted, but at least it was again edible.

Next, and again a few days ago only, I cooked with 2816 (Kenneth, Brandon and Kun)and we managed to create a new specialty dish other than Mushroom Chicken under the name of 2816--KULUKAIYOK. it was our 2nd attempt and it was even better than the China Place restaurant.(photos not available at the moment!)

Hopefully, the list can continue to expand!

Finally

Finally i have the time and mood to shift this blog to this new template.

I am not very sure this new layout is code error free, since I just copied this template from somewhere else and made a couple of changes to it. I will try to make it perfect.

Just hope that this post is the first of many that will follow.
I am going to take some photos of my apartment soon and show off a bit but that will be after I finish my current "home improvement plan" with some furniture touch ups.

Meanwhile, just wanna tell my buddies in Malaysia, or even Australia and UK that I am fine over here! Drop me a msg if you can!

Love Love Love,
Khang Khang (Alessandro)

My apartment!

I think some of you might have seen some part of my apartment here in Des Moines in facebook.

I will just share some of the photos of the place I am currently residing in.