Happy birthday

Happy 1st birthday mynameisikmal.blogspot.com!! :DDDDD

Just a dose of awesomeness

Today i taught my American friend, Nick how to cook Malaysian food.

He said it was awesome :) As for me, it almost felt like home-cooking :)

I couldn't believe how fast you can learn to cook when you're left to fend for yourself. No more lauk magically appearing under the tudung saji. No more self-cooking rice. It's when you're all alone you realise then someone actually works hard to prepare your meals. Really hard.

So we made ayam masak halia and stir-fried braised vegetables. It was actually the first time i had vegetables here. Maybe chickens have all the essential nutrients, just maybe.

So that took a full 2 hours, cooking and eating and washing. The implicit cost of cheap food is a full 2 hours of not doing any readings. Or maybe it would have been 2 hours of facebook. Just maybe.

things that talk

Its really really cold, even as im writing wrapped in my duvet. Now i know what it feels like to be a Good Day chocolate milk *refer to previous post*. If they feel anything, that is. We humans have a tendency to give character to animals/plants/inanimate objects. I learnt that in anthropology. Its called to 'antropomorphize'. Just look at cartoons. The most popular ones are talking animals.

Sewer mice on the tracks of Holborn station? Gross. Talking mouse wearing red pants and white gloves? Nice.

Dressing mirror? Dull. Talking mirror praising your fairness? I'd want that.

And it goes on and on and on.

Which brings me to the Good Day example. Taken to the extreme, you could feel pity for the milk carton, forced to stay in 4 C like, all the time. Then you'd start to fight for the rights of the milk. You'd ban fridges, which would yield unintended consequences like now you've got nowhere to store your milk so you won't buy milk so farmers won't produce milk and so no Good Day.

Now imagine instead of a milk carton, its an actual 'innocent-looking' guinea pig. Awwwwww. Environmentalists use this appeal so that you'd want to fight for the rights of the guinea pig to live in wherever they live, so no cutting down trees. So no more 2B pencils. This is vital so we can conserve animal species so we can do research on them so we know where we come from. Bullcrap. We don't come from mouse. Not even glove-wearing ones.

My Title Seems Incoherent with the Text, But Thats just OK

Hate the KY internet. Eventhough we (i say we, i mean Bank Negara, sorry) pay more per year compared to locals studying at LSE (RM 30000 per year compared to just 3000 pounds=RM 17400 +/-), connection is frustrating.

I know this because......you don't really need to know why :)

4 C in London. That's like being in a refrigerator. I know this because of Good Day chocolate milk cartons. 'Store beneath 4C'. So i deduce that fridges must have that kind of temperature.

And Steven Levitt, author of Freakonomics beamed and said 'thanks a lot' when I said 'that was a brilliant lecture'. I know this because i actually said it, and i got Professor Levitt's autograph on my book too.

I suddenly realised the potency of blog posts to keep people updated, if you're interested lah. Otherwise if people just read for enjoyment and say 'that was a brilliant post' i'll beam and say 'thanks a lot'. But its mainly to post updates. I know this because connection is frustrating.

I should learn to eat more slowly

Had a painful stomach this morning. Must me the tikka @ lamb @ aloo gobi i had last night. Definitely not the scrumptious samosa @ kofta kebab @ chapati i had at mr mehmood's house.

You know you have a stomachache when you start having repetitive dreams which are really really weird. So i woke up. 4.30. Wasn't even subuh yet.

Good thing i brought along chik kit teck aun pills. I used to hear their ads on the radio, and i thought it was kinda funny sounding. 'Pil Chik Kit Teck Aun, melegakan perut anda!'

So i took a sachet, and there were like 20 pills inside. ????? you actually have to down the whole thing. It doesn't taste bad though, as far as traditional chinese herbal medicines go.

And then i couldn't sleep, it was like New Year's party in my stomach. So i skyped a certain someone *ehem* and after 2 hours finally slept. Woke up at 12 and the New Year party people had either slept or exited. Alhamdulillah :)