She's Craaazy!

I came across a stack of old notebooks the other day and it reminded me of how nuts Monica used to be hehehe. We used to be serious tv addicts and churned through so many video tapes a week. There was a stage where Monica would watch the episodes while furiously writing the synopsis on scraps of paper. She would then re-write the whole thing over again in prettier handwriting in these books. I told you she was nuts. But that's not all.

 She would draw the titles of each tv series we watched according to the graphics on the tv series's poster and write out the cast list too.

She would also stick on any relevant newspaper clippings she could find. Haha

 Pages and pages of the storyline.

Last but not least, she would also write out her review of the tv series.

Bahahahahaha.

Who is the fairest (heaviest) of em all?

Spent a few hours looking through all our photo albums today and I came across our old report cards from primary school and secondary school. The curious thing was that there wasn't any of Monica's lying around. She probably hid them out of shame.

They tracked our height and weight in primary school. This was Melinda's height and weight when she was 10 years old and in Primary 6. Yes yes, she was a chubby genius. Don't think the height was right though? 40.5 cm would be tragic for a 10-year-old.

My weight and height. Note that I was 2 years older at 12 years old and only half a kilo heavier than Mel. Heheheh. Like I said, Monica's report card is nowhere to be found. Tsk tsk tsk.

Fiona the skeleton was the skinniest at 36 kgs.

I couldn't find Vivien's Primary Six report card so this was her weight when she was 7 years old, haha same weight as Fiona when she was 12.

Jennifer when she was 9 years old... awww our baybeeeeeeee.

We will never know how heavy the 10-year-old Monica was.... probably 80 kgs already heheheh.

Some Things Never Change

apart from the weight..... sigh

Sibu: Day 20

It was a Sunday so we went to the church in town (next to the old International School) for a change. 

HUGE space..... look at how tiny the huge tv screens looked.

The church is very steady. Worship started with a group of choir already seated on the stage.

The adults choir then came on and led the worship.

Check out the grand piano and the drums on the mezzanine floor.

Then there was a procession with the pastor and the young adults choir and they walked up to the stage as well. 

More singing.

Instrumental music by yet another group during offering time.

It was a music-themed worship session which was why there were so many different music programmes. Next up, another group sung but dressed a lot fancier. This church obviously has a huge budget.

I've lost track of what group this is by that stage..

Last but not least, the youth choir.

Church finished with the procession walking out again.

After church, we went on a tiki tour to samba and had lunch at our usual restaurant.

Super salty fried noodles

Super salty tofu soup

Super salty milian

Super salty lak kian veges with eggs

Super salty steamed fish

Dad then drove to the high school he attended and also worked as a teacher at.

Dad worked at the private section of the school which no longer existed. The public school was still there.

There used to be a pier at the end of this walkway but it is now overgrown with shrubs. Dad went out to have a look and reminisce about the good old days.

Mum visiting the very same spot forty years or so ago.

We used to take the ferry here for a tiki tour when I was in high school, i.e. twenty years ago.

Mum said this would have been the house of a rich family back in the days.

I saw lots of these buildings dotted around the countryside... they are specially built buildings for swallows to build nests in. People then harvest the birds' nest and sell for birds' nest soup. No more risking their lives climbing high up the caves to harvest nests.

Another one being built.

Whose House Is This? Part II

So many memories here... especially of Ah Pei falling off the balcony and landing on the cement ground floor. I still stick by my story that she climbed up the railings herself. heheh.

Definition of A Grown-Up

For those of you who don't know, Dad is a lawyer. When we were younger, we used to love going to his office to muck around. From walking past the busy grocery shop downstairs with the strong exotic smell of fresh coffee being ground up to venturing up the scary dark staircase that led to Dad's office, everything seemed like such an adventure.

Dad's office was the epitome of grown-upness (it's a word!) with the stacks of papers and Dad's special way of filing (triangle of yellow paper clipped to the corner so that the agreements don't crease) and Dad's funny wig and robes (No he does not have a dress up fetish.. it's for court appearances, ok?!). Come Christmas time, there were always stacks of diaries and desk planners for the new year gifted to him from the likes of American Express and what not. He would always give them to us for use and we would feel very grown-up and self-important because of it.

Well looksie here... Hello, world. I am officially a grown-up. Voila, gift from one of our suppliers.

Regression Back to Childhood : Complete

So for the last 4 months, I've been slowly regressing back to childhood.

Step 1: Resign and go back home to Malaysia.
Step 2: Get fussed over by Mum and Dad everyday.
Step 3: Only eat, sleep, eat, sleep, eat, sleep everyday.
Step 4: Get pocket money from Mum and Dad.

The transformation is now complete. My hair is the exact hair I had when I was 15.

Monica and I "rowing a boat" in a man made lake on Genting Highlands. "Rowing" because we couldn't get the boat to move except in circles (I swear the oars were broken!!!) and in the end, Dad had the lifeguard go and tow us back with his motorboat. Oh walk of shame!!

New haircut by some Sibu hairdresser.

Childhood Games

Growing up with 5 other sisters each aged 2 years apart meant that going out when we were young was always a logistic nightmare. I get a mental breakdown just thinking about it now. Poor mother. As such, we didn't venture out much. I think we went out now and then for food but someone invariably would spill a drink within the first 5 minutes (ok, usually me o butter fingers!). Good thing about 5 sisters is that we are each other's best buds and each other's best partners in crime.

The world's our playground (well, within the fenced gate of our house anyway) with a little bit of imagination in a time when computers hadn't been invented and barbie dolls hadn't reached our kampung (village heheh):
- we would space a few chairs out and then drape a big blanket over it and then huddle inside our "tent" for hours;
- we would cut up bits of paper and use the "money" to buy stuff from the "shopkeeper";
- we would drape towels on our heads and pretend to be "princesses" - towels equal long hair, you see.

Other games we played involved this:


When our house was being built, Mum had the outline of a badminton court tiled on the grounds so we could play badminton. Mostly we used it for our creations such as our own version of Human Pacman. One person would be the ghost and chase after all the others but you can only walk on the tiles and the four corners of the court are safe havens. Or there's the game called Eagle Catch Little Chicken - one person is the eagle and the others line up in a row hands holding onto each other. The last person in the row is the little chicken and it is the aim of the eagle to catch the little chicken.

We also used to bike round and round the court. I learnt how to ride a bike here actually. The badminton net post would be up and I would get on the bike by holding onto the post and then peddle really quickly after letting go. I would then go one loop round and then come back to the post. I stopped by catching hold of the post. No wonder my braking skills are still nonexistent.

The other game we played was a bit R18 now that I think about it. Mum designed this bar area and it bears Dad's initials if you look closely enough.

H C S

The wall display always had quite a few bottles of alcohol on it and among them were these miniature bottles of alcohol. We used to sit at the bar stools and pretend to be customers. Someone would pretend to be the bartender and "sell" us these bottles of alcohol. Budding alkies!

My favourite ones!

The other favourite game of ours involved this cookbook. We would flip through the pages and each person would bag a dish, i.e. I'm eating that bbq ribs. Heheh no wonder I like me food and cocktails. Poor cookbook lost its covers a long time ago:

Our least favourite page back then - greens. Bleh:

Pranws! MINE:

Even back then, my favourite pages were the desserts pages in the back. All mine!

That caterpillar cake had always fascinated me back then:

Drinkies!

Last but not least, we used to play with these things called Blowing Balloon. They were dirt cheap, maybe 5 cents a piece:

You squeeze the insides out and it has the consistency of super glue:

Wrap the gooey goodness around the straw supplied:

Put the straw to your mouth and BLOW:

Once ready, just take the straw out and seal the hole gently with your hands. Ta daaaaa a diy balloon for your enjoyment:

My balloon in actual:

Once it starts deflating a bit, we used to just put our mouth to the balloon and poke a hole. Blow some more air in and seal it by just closing our lips and then the balloon would be sealed up again. Check out the little scar on the balloon now:

Poor balloon is deflating:

My balloon is doing an awesome impression of a rolled up gladwrap. Bravo!

I'm pretty sure it's quite toxic because it's pretty much melted plastic. Oh well, I'm still alive and kicking albeit missing a few brain cells. Heheh

What games did you use to play when you were young and innocent?