Curly Spaghetti

So the other day I went out shopping with triSh and we stumbled upon this curious little packet sitting nonchalantly on the shelves amidst a crowd of dried pasta and bottled sauces. If you know me, you know I like anything pasta, so of course I had to grab this precious little parcel of Curly Spaghetti. I mean, spaghetti in 4 minutes is really a very attractive notion, and it was only 1 buck and 80 cents, so I guess I thought I'd give it a try.

It was only tonight (oh wait it's past 2 a.m. now so that would make it last night) that I decided to cook it up. Y'know, it being Christmas and all I thought it'd be nice to have a little something tasty for supper. So I cooked up my packet of instant, "ready in 4 minutes" spaghetti. Even got out some cheese from the fridge to garnish, that was how much I was looking forward to it.

Really, all the signs were there, if only I'd bothered to take heed. Firstly, there's no way you can cook up a decent pasta meal in under 4 minutes. Okay, it's possible, but it's just not gonna taste as good as the real thing. Secondly, when I opened the packet and took out the 'pasta', it looked exactly like instant noodles (read: Maggi). Even smelled like it. Thirdly, I wondered how long the "yummy red sauce" (yes it really does say that on the packet) had been sitting in its little individually-wrapped packet. Convinced myself not to think about it.

Cooked it, drained it, mixed it with the aforementioned red sauce and my precious slice of cheese. Tasted it. Frowned. Hmmm... If you'd just cooked a packet of instant noodles, smashed up some Twisties (barbeque or tomato flavour) and mixed it with the noodles, you'd get something similar to what I tasted. The portion was very very small, and the smell wasn't right, and the taste was definitely nowhere near what I expected (ever so excitedly) but hey, it's quite addictive, really. All I could think of afterwards, with more than a pinch of sarcasm, was:

And I'm officially 24...

This is how I celebrated last night:

Happy birthday to me!

Welcome home, Lappie!

Saturday, 28th November 2009 - what a day to remember. I brought home my new friend on that beautiful day, and when I switched it on, it literally blew me away, I was so impressed. You might have guessed by now - the picture above is surely a great hint - that I'm talking about my new lappie. My old one has been giving me some trouble for quite a while now, and I don't see why not, after all it's nearly 5 years old (ancient by laptop standards), and although it's been a faithful friend, I thought it was time to put it to rest. Coincidentally, the PIKOM PC Fair was going on, so it was very convenient, no waiting around eagerly, albeit impatiently, for the postman to come with his precious cargo.

Everything's so fast, so brilliant, so shiny and new! I haven't even removed the plastic cling wrap that protects some of its surfaces! And best of all, I don't need to download various programs to open up my videos and stuff, in fact I can play my multimedia files using just one program! Shock and awe! And all this while I thought I was being so clever... All my technologically-superior friends must have been snickering and smirking behind my back. Oh the shame! And I got so used to going through long and winding procedures just to connect to the Internet, that I spent almost an entire day trying to figure out the same with my new lappie. I was so embarrassed when I finally realized I just needed to press one little button. Oh the shame, times two! And with my old lappie, it could take anywhere from 5 to 15 or even 20 minutes for Internet Explorer to be running smoothly, and some of the more 'advanced' games (the ones requiring fast action clicking) were practically unplayable, or would jam up the entire system; with my new lappie, it takes only 90 seconds for it to boot up from start to functionality, an additional 30 seconds (even less at times!) to get the Internet up and running smoothly, plays all sorts of games (hurrah!), has about 3 hours battery life when I use it like I normally would, and takes up only approximately 2 hours for the battery to charge up from dead to full (yeah I actually timed it all with a stopwatch, I was that enthusiastic and excited!). It's even got a webcam (so I can Skype now if I want to) and some strange hi-tech thingy called a FastAccess Facial Recognition program.

It's so mind-boggling at times I just sit back and stare at my new friend. I'm scared to press the wrong button in case it all disappears in a poof of smoke! I'm scared of clogging up the hard disk space and memory logs and rendering the lappie slow and obsolete again, so I'm saving most of my programs on my Maxtor external hard disk. Silly I know, seeing how my new lappie claims to have 320 GB of free space (I checked - it's really only about 283 GB). And the biggest - and most humiliating - lesson I've learnt from this whole adventure is that I'm really not that tech-savvy after all. Cheers!

Old Roommates

Well, my temporary job as a part-time language instructor at a local university has finally come to an end, and I have approximately 28 days left to enjoy whatever's left of my holidays. I'm still quite undecided about the next step, although plans have been set in motion and it's only a matter of time before I really have to let more people know.

All this thinking about my future really has me thinking about the past. Ironic, I know, but it's true: my thoughts wandered back to a time when life was more simple, just a matter of waking up, going for lectures, completing assignments, and sitting for exams. And to think I thought that stage of life was complicated. So I decided to meet up with my old roommates. Not that they're literally old, but they were the very first roommates I had when I first entered university. So on Wednesday morning, we met at Hartz Chicken Buffet at Sarawak Plaza for lunch. I ate to such a point that I thought my stomach was literally going to explode, and it took a good hour or so of walking around to finally get rid of that bloated-I'm-gonna-puke-all-over-the-pretty-floor feeling. We also did a lot of catching up, just talking, laughing and reminiscing over our mischievous antics back when we were younger and much more naive. It was a good thing the place was quite empty, or we would have annoyed them out of the place, we were that noisy. So here are some pictures from that day:

We've made some plans to meet up in about a month's time, in some very far-off and foreign place (relatively speaking). Here's to manic memories of the past and more exciting escapades in the near future! Cheers!

Update!

I can't believe it's almost 2 whole months since I last blogged. The lazy bug has really hit hard this time, and at times I've even forgotten that I have a blog! So I guess it's time for a short and sweet update.

My temporary job is almost coming to an end. It's been 4 months of working as a part-time instructor at a local tertiary institution, and at times I've wanted to scream and cry. Conclusion? I don't think lecturing's the job for me. Which brings me to the same old crossroads. What do I want to do next? And no, I still don't have the answer. And my mind's not made up yet. I still don't know if I want to pursue my postgraduate studies either. Remember the lazy bug I mentioned earlier? Same old insect. I've received offers of admission from three different universities and am still waiting for a reply from one more. Two of these would be quite improbable options without a scholarship of some sort, which leaves the other two. One of the things holding me back is the same question of what I would do after I complete my postgraduate studies, if I so choose to re-enter the university life. I don't want to come out two years from now - older and hopefully much wiser - and still have to face the same old dilemma that I'm facing now. It'll be like going back to square one after hitting the pause button for two whole years. And if I choose to work? That's a whole other can of worms. I'm still waiting for news of my posting, and the way I see it, almost everyone of my friends who have been posted have all been posted far away from their homes, in some near-interior region of their home state. And you know what a homebody I am.

So what to do, what to do, what to do? I'm still waiting for the next best thing. And I guess I'll just continue waiting. And I'll try to blog more often in the process.

Cheers people!

Reminder To Self

Must blog more often.
Must blog more often.
Must blog more often.
Must blog more often.
Must blog more often.
Must blog more often.
Must blog more often.

I can't wait!

I'll be officially graduating in less than 15 hours.

Ready or not, here I come!