I decided to put together small stories/thoughts worth taking note of and just putting them into one blog post. Something short and sweet to update you with some of the not-so-big yet still fun-to-talk about bits of our daily expat/diplomatic/normal life here in KL. 🙂

Winning the hubby lottery

Okay, I said this on Twitter earlier but I’ll just type it here once more for posterity’s sake. My husband is a very practical guy. But I love how when it comes to me and our marriage, he can totally morph into a cheeseball every now and then. A couple of nights ago, I asked him what’s the next ‘occasion’ this year so we can plan maybe a quick getaway or a special date. (He’s been so stressed with work lately as there are so many things happening in KL right now – ASEAN Summit, meetings, visits, etc) “May 3”, he said. I just gave him a generic reply. Like “Ok” or something. But to be honest, I was really giddy and a bit over the moon. May 3 is our first date and I just find it so sweet that he would still want it celebrated when we’ve already been married for over a year and we have our actual wedding anniversary in October. He didn’t promise a major celebration but to me, him saying that our first date is still that important to him makes a world of difference. Romance doesn’t die with marriage, people. Believe me on this. 😉

Painting woes

Yesterday, our building’s painters finally reached our side. You see, our building is going through a facade makeover. The painters left a good amount of dirt on our balcony which left me rather miffed since yesterday. They’re still coming back tomorrow to do 2 more coats on our balcony’s walls so it would be rather useless to clean it now, right? But the dirt was just there and it was bugging me. So I got our floor cleaning brush with this really long handle and started pouring water on the balcony and brushing. My husband came home from work and found me struggling. In the end, he had to help me out. I’ll have to admit – when it comes to cleaning, my husband is better and more patient than I am. I’ll stick with cooking and the laundry, shall I?

Bye bye birdie?

The same painters also took out the bird’s nest that was in the corner of the upper part of our balcony wall (right underneath the balcony above us). It’s a nest that has been there long before we moved in. Alvin and I joke about how the bird is our tenant and how we should charge him RM200 a month for rent. I tried to stop them, frantically at that, with one thought in mind – where will the bird sleep tonight? The painters were foreign workers who couldn’t speak much English and knew only a bit of Malay. So with a mix of English, Malay, and lacklustre charade skills, I tried to stop them from demolishing the bird’s home. They didn’t get it and they actually looked like they were trying not to laugh. I know I do kinda look ridiculous when I try to mime things. Come evening and when the painters have finally left the balcony, Alvin and I saw the bird fly back to where his nest once was. Then it did several trips flying to the ground floor to get twigs to rebuild its nest. This, while chirping loudly. He sounded angry to me. I just hope he knows that it wasn’t my fault and that I tried to defend his home! Later on, there were two of them flying back and forth to rebuild his nest. Glad to know our unofficial pet has a friend to help him out.

It’s a small world after all

My friend KM came by to visit me earlier this week. I was a bit down with the flu and she dropped by with healthy mango-based desserts from Hui Lau Shan. Heaven! <3 We got around to talking about life in KL, her school (she’s an MBA student here), and the DFA. Turns out she went to the same primary/high school with someone I only know of  (my friends told me of this person who I don’t know personally but was discrediting me to some people after she was fooled – err – befriended by a person who has extremely bitter feelings toward me). After I was told about this person’s childhood I started to feel sad for her. I guess all of use have our own reasons why we act the way we do. I never responded to any of her and her ‘friend’s’ attempts to discredit me mainly because it’s a waste of energy to fight back against people who are good in making up stuff about you. Those who matter believe the truth anyways. Why ruin my happy vibes over their personal issues which they like deflecting on others? But these people need understanding and then be ignored. I hope sooner or later they also find happiness so that they don’t have to do what they do anymore.

Reunion

Speaking of primary school, my friend Khumille whom I’ve known since the 4th grade was here in KL over the weekend. It was a great opportunity to catch up, show her around, and reminisce about our childhood. Which wasn’t as thrilling as some people might think. 😉 I wasn’t that friendly during primary and secondary school. Mostly kept to myself and maintained minimal interaction with my few friends (Khumille, among them). To be honest, I was much busier with books and hanging out in the library (I even wrote in an autograph book that our librarian, Mrs Guevarra, was my best friend). Khumille and I weren’t the type to attend or throw soirees just to meet boys. (‘Eeeew!’ We’d say.) I was told of students coming from all-girls schools would even throw their own parties at home just so they can have boys over. ‘Boy chasers’ was the term we used. We left all that craziness for the girls who were too excited to meet boys then have boyfriends. My dream guy was Harry Potter and that we’d go on a date in Hogsmeade when I was 18. Puritanical, I know. I was also doing some modelling on the side during high school but I only saw that as a means to earn extra money. The boys I met there never even measured up to Harry. (God, I was a crazy nerd/fan girl) In college, when we finally developed our social skills (and my interest in beauty and skin care) and started making more friends and ‘actually’ dating boys, we started to fondly recall our younger years and refer to ourselves as former shrews. Call us late bloomers if you must but nowadays, I think that our behaviour has always just been age appropriate. 😉

NCCA Dinner

Last Monday, I got a text from my husband telling me that the Ambassador wants me to be at the welcome dinner for the Chairman of the our country’s National Commission for Culture and the Arts (NCCA). I told him I know about it already and that it was scheduled for Tuesday but I got the shock of my life when he told me that the dinner has been moved and I only had 10 minutes to get dressed for it. I was in the middle of re-arranging my closet and was not dressed nor prepared for it at all. But thank goodness I was able to dress up, fix my hair, and prep my face (I finished my makeup in the car – something I’m used to after my experience as a TV reporter). We arrived in the restaurant just in time. Whew! Of course I left our room in shambles but that can be fixed up later. 😉 The dinner went great. The Ambassador and the NCCA head were able to discuss how they can bring more Filipino artists to Malaysia to showcase our culture. We also had an animated discussion about linguistics (Alvin had so much with word etymologies) and my current passion – Filipino ethnic groups. Particularly their clothes. I’ve been toying with the idea of modernised ethnic fashion but I’ll talk more about that later.

That’s all for now, I guess. More later. 😉

Love,

Carol

March 16, 2015