Category Archives: Uncategorized

Chakhobili, Kimbap and Chicken Tikka

  By judene | January 14, 2011 - 4:34 am | Uncategorized
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Normally I try not to write during exam season, but I seem to be breaking all my usual superstitions. For instance, I have yet to wear my lucky Oktoberfest hoodie, my nails are painted pink and I just trimmed my hair. Horrors! I MUST be trying to flunk this semester.

Truth be told, I’m supposed to start preparing for my next paper, called General Health and Healthcare (as translated by Google). Every time I look at the notes for this thing, I perceive them as God’s way of punishing me for fucking up my A-Levels..twice. The joke on the Russian students’ forums is that this paper is purely luck. You could write a lot and get a satisfactory mark, or you could pay for the paper..and still get a satisfactory mark.

While not everything has been peachy this year (I know, I KNOW. It’s only been two weeks), I see a lot of good things for the future. The Year of the Rabbit is coming about, which is a pretty good year for me. The last one was in 1999, which I believe was the year I pulled the cactus out my ass and decided to not drag my chin on the ground.

2011 is going to bring me Seungri’s solo mini album, for one thing. I’ve watched the teaser for the music video, and I’m swooning. Sure, he has that look that says, “you know you love, how could you not?” but his 39-second clip already has me dreaming about him.

Then there’s Jay Sean. I’ve been following him on Twitter and the dude is mad. Those who have Twitter, follow him. You will be regaled with informative and memorable panda “facts”. Plus he does really cute things like get easily amused and tweet about it. Oh wait, the idea was to express my excitement over his upcoming album. See? This kind of thing is called derailment in Psychology. Don’t take my word for it, though.

Well, what do you know? Only Seungri and Jay Sean are my highlights for this year. Goes to show what sort of priorities I have.

Happier post after February 3rd. I may blog before that, but be warned, they’re probably going to be bitchfits.

Baby, It’s Cold Outside..

  By judene | December 29, 2010 - 8:50 pm | Uncategorized
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Here’s a little update:

1. I’ve fallen twice and had a major slip once, all in the span of two weeks. I’m expecting the lower half of my body to be very, very sore. After the icing session over the weekend, I’ve decided to just fall whenever gravity pulls me.

2. Christmas was awesome and tiring. Here’s proof:

This MAY have been after the eggnog

Nothing like 'Christmas in a Cup' to start the day

Us Girls Being Fancy at Lotte Plaza

The Mandatory Party of the Bekker Family

See? FUN.

3. Classes are over, which means exams are around the corner. I have the pleasure of sitting for FOUR papers this winter. Don’t be surprised if you don’t see a post after the 9th of January.

4. November and December have been months of eating, drinking and being merry. In other words, I cannot fit into ANYTHING. Hopefully stress metabolizes all my jolly bits.

5. A new year will show up in a few days. Hopefully it starts with a bang the way this year did. A lot happened, but nothing I feel like mentioning now.

2010 in a (large) nutshell coming soon. Preferably before 2011.

Skating Rink? Where??

  By judene | December 14, 2010 - 12:30 am | Uncategorized
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Every year since 2005, I’ve been trying to prepare myself for winter. You’d think it would be easy after going through it every damned year, but no. Russia is a cruel bitch like that. Just when you think you’ve gotten the hang of it, something changes.

I know it’s not Russia’s fault per se for the schizophrenic weather. It’s all the crap people do to the environment. But to all the recyclers and hybrid users out there, I know and you know that we deserve karmic points of some sort.

I can’t exactly pinpoint when exactly winter began, but I’m assuming it’s the week the temperature decided to drop from +2 degrees Celsius to -16 degrees, without a hint of snow and wind blowing from every direction that can be pinpointed by a compass.

On the 4th of December, snow finally graced the streets of Moscow. Maybe not graced…more like bitchslapped. Point is, once it snows, it doesn’t feel so cold anymore. The weather is actually pretty bearable. What not many counted on was it to get so warm that the snow melted. Over the weekend, not only was the temperature back in positive numbers, it rained. The rain that would have been useful during the summer heatwave came upon us like a million elephants in the sky relieving themselves.

Here’s the thing about rain in winter: when it goes back to subzero temperatures, the water becomes ICE. Every single drop of water on the sidewalk is now a potential neck-breaker. There is now a layer of ice at least an inch thick EVERYWHERE.

Why have I decided to whine about this? Because whining is totally my thing. And I really don’t want to read about scarlet fever. Plus the damned ice made me fall on my poor (but fat) ass.

I’ve finished walking around my virtual New York and now I’m in Tokyo. Because of the weather and my recent flu, I’ve not been able to walk as much as I’d like to. Today, after class, I decided to walk home from the Metro station, just to see exactly how treacherous the path was. If it was alright, the plan was to walk to the Metro station every morning. It seemed fine, and my mind was drifting, thinking about a thousand things at once, telling myself that all geniuses do stuff that the rest of the world dismisses as ADD.

After about five minutes of walking, I reached a certain area where I thought, “hey, this is where I fell five years…FUCK!!!” Next thing I know, I’m sliding on my butt, legs in the air, looking like a tortoise on its back. Clearly, I don’t learn from my mistakes. I scrambled to get up and continued walking, hoping no one I knew was walking behind me.

You’d assume that I would get it in my head that it’s not really safe to walk until someone attacks the sidewalks with an ice pick. Humbug! I strutted (as much as a person with a bruised butt could strut) past every single bus stop. One stop away from my hostel lay about 3 metres of nothing but ice and scratch marks from those who had slipped before. I was literally at the bus stop, but I continued moving. My pride would not let me take the bus for one measly stop. I looked at the danger before me and figured that maybe if I made gliding motions, I could get across without too much trouble. Wrong. So very, very wrong.

I took my first step/glide and nearly fell. I tried to steady myself, but my feet just kept sliding back and forth without any actual movement forward. It was like a scene out of a cartoon. I don’t know how I did it ( sometimes the brain chooses to suppress traumatic events) but I got myself to the snow and trudged back home.

On the bright side, I got 95 Nike Fuel points and managed to cross the Rainbow Bridge. I also know that I had better keep my bus pass topped up till March.

The Death of Secrecy

  By judene | October 24, 2010 - 1:14 am | Uncategorized
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This post is too premature. In an ideal world, its date of maturity is close to never.

In a bid to be opaque, I’ve gotten pretty damned close to having a face full of eczema. I’m more vain than proud, so I much rather pour out my feelings than invest in steroid creams.

He does and does and does some more. Anything to make her smile. Anything for a sense of approval from her. He doesn’t want to rock the boat, for fear she may fall overboard. He can’t lose her, she has seen so much of him. No one has seen him the way she has.

Yet, he knows nothing about her. Her past, her future…nothing. To her, he is not worthy of such knowledge. He lulls himself by thinking that only a privileged few are enlightened to see the nooks and crannies of her soul. Unfortunately, most of the time, it feels like the whole world is privileged except him.

It gnaws at him when he sees her with others, without a care in the world. A needle punctures his heart everytime she sees others but never him.

He summons up the courage to make himself known, fights to open her eyes so she can see him. But all she ever does is dismiss him, shoo him away like the nuisance she perceives him to be.

He convinces himself that it’s the last time she steps on his pride, that enough is enough and he will move on. That conviction never lasts long. He loathes himself for clutching on to a foot that kicks his face.

Throughout all the pain and torture, the tears and the sadness, the longing and the envy of others, his one question is constant,

“Why do I mean so little to you?”

I Am Woman, Hear Me Roar!

  By judene | October 11, 2010 - 11:16 pm | Uncategorized
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Or at the very least, watch me grit my teeth while trying to mask the urge to grunt like a wounded wild boar.

(Now would be a good time to warn you that the details of this post are explicit and may cause great discomfort)

Ever since I turned 19, I’ve had an issue with hair. The strands on my head began dropping and the ones on the rest of my body were becoming more obvious. I’m not saying that I’m part lycan or anything extreme like that. In fact, I can safely say that I’m more fortunate than many women.

My problem/insecurities regarding body hair stems from the fact that the females from the maternal side of my family are a head of hair away from being this:

I was left to my own devices when it came to learning about wearing a skirt without making the general population cower in fear, since my mother knew close to nothing about it. Countless hours of research and copies of girly magazines later, I settled on using depilatory creams to solve my issue.

After five years of using the same old method, I decided to try something new. Give the follicles a bit of excitement, you could say. I was against the idea of shaving because I knew myself too well; there would be too many nicks and too little Band-aids in the world to save me from bleeding to death. Laser treatment was a bit much for the bank balance, so that one got tossed out the window as well.

That left me with waxing. I wasn’t really worried about the pain. I just figured it would take too much time to heat up the wax, and there was this paper thingy that is put on the wax-covered limb…all in all, it seemed like too much work.

Either way, I headed for the store that sold girly stuff and parked myself in the hair removal section. As soon as I got there, something caught my eye:

The Lazy Chick's Blessing

The box said everything I needed to see: no heat formula, perfect for first time users…caramel. I have NO idea why the thought of caramel scented wax appealed to me, but it did. Needless to say, I was sold. I skipped along to buy this miracle wax and rushed home to try it.

When I got home, I picked a spot on my body that no one gets a view of (in case of mistakes) and should be able to handle hair being ripped off. Armpits were the clear winner here.

Mistake #1: Putting on the wax BEFORE reading the instructions. Apparently, I was supposed to apply the numbing solution that was provided. While I am an advocate of manual reading, I got excited when I opened the jar. Not only DID it smell like caramel, it looked like this:

Yummy!

Oh well, what’s a little numbing solution? I slapped on the wax and put the so-called muslin strip on the wax. Finally, with manual in hand, I saw that it said there was no need to wait after putting the paper strip. Oh, joys! This is supposed to be fast, too? Excellent. One hand raised in the air, I yanked the bugger off my pits. There was no pain, and..there was no hair on the paper either. I was pretty sure that cold wax or not, this attempt was not successful.

Not about to be defeated by mere wax, I attacked my underarms again by slathering on the wax, plastered the paper and this time, I waited. After a few minutes, I yanked the paper off. I figured that I must have done it right this time around, because the pain was EXCRUCIATING. After I wiped my tears, I inspected my paper. There were about three measly strands of hair and a small patch of blood.

You’d think that something like blood would deter me, but noooooooo. I’m nothing if not stubborn, so I went for attempt #3. Since the waiting thing made a few hairs come off, I concluded that waiting longer, and letting the wax really bond to the hair would be the clincher. So, there I was, arms raised in the air, standing in front of my fan trying to marry off caramel wax with pit hair. I waited ten whole minutes and pulled. There were more tears, hairs and ( what I started to believe was obligatory) blood. Can you say, “epic failure”?

No way is that stuff making its way to my bikini area.

Screamers, Singers and CDs

  By judene | August 26, 2010 - 11:53 pm | Uncategorized
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Perhaps this is not expressed in my posts, because I bitch and talk about boys a lot, but I am a HUGE fan of music. It’s not that I forgot this little fact, but of late it feels like there’s not much music worth talking about. I mean, most of it are rehashes of old songs.

The urge to blog about music came about when I was going through my CD collection (yes, I still have one of those). I was reminded of a time when 80% of my monthly allowance went to buying CDs and most of my time was spent eyeballing MTV and Channel [V]. While I have tonnes of albums, which have now been chucked in a storage box near my mom’s bathroom (thanks to my nomad status), a few artistes are capable of giving me goosebumps, even after years of not listening to them. In no particular order…well, maybe in a little bit of an order:

1. Blink-182.

The First Poster I Ever Bothered Putting Up on My Wall

I owe a lot to these guys. Thanks to them, I got out of my ridiculous post-adolescent-chin-dragging-on-the-ground phase. Seriously, how could one not lighten up after hearing a guy warble, ‘we started making out, she took off my pants, but then I turned on the TV’? To top it all off, Travis Barker’s drumming took pop-punk to a whole new level. I’m no genius, but even I knew he’s a fucking ace with his drums. They’re the reason I told everyone that I wanted to work in San Diego, and go for the Vans Warped Tour. Their music video was the reason I told my friend to get off the phone when she was calling me from Johor via a payphone. In around 2004, they decided to go on a little hiatus. Was I disappointed? A little. But then, I preferred that they went away with dignity, rather than forcing themselves to come out what would ultimately be insincere crap. In 2009, Blink-182 announced at the Grammys that they were reuniting. Guess who was squealing like a little girl in front of the TV?

2. Jason Lo.

Kuching's Rockin' Mat Salleh Celup

Bloody fucker. That’s what I thought when I was listening to his last album, ‘The Fall’. He’s been so under the radar that I Googled him, expecting to find a friggin’ obituary. This guy was my hope for the Malaysian music scene. I was banking on him to be recognized internationally, I kid you not. Three albums, and I love all of them. From what I’ve read, he’s been working with the suits and ties these days. It’s a damned shame, really. Can’t blame him though, he’s got a family to feed. I will always reserve my biggest SIGH for him.

3. Jimmy Eat World.

Proving 'Emo' is NOT Synonymous with Eyeliner

I got my uncle to buy me their breakthrough album ‘Bleed American’ (which was  renamed to a self-titled album after the Sept. 11th attacks) from the UK because there was no sight of it in KL. I even patiently waited for him to return home with it. I only stopped short of rummaging through his luggage to get my grubby 16-year old paws on it. I was not disappointed. There’s something about their songs that strike a chord (pun not intended) in my heart. Must be their choice of words, abstract enough to relate to, but specific enough to articulate a feeling. Unfortunately, after coming to Moscow, I’ve not really kept up with their progress as artists, so I’m a bit out of it with them.

4. Linkin Park.

The Band That Screamed on My Behalf

My Additional Math muses. As I’ve mentioned before, I’m a complete sloth when it comes to Math, but listening to Chester Bennington screaming his lungs out made doing my homework less painful. More importantly, what I liked about them was their clean lyrics. I recall an interview with Rolling Stone circa 2001 where they claimed that the reason there was no profanity in their songs was because they wanted to express feelings with more than just ‘fuck’. Their concert in Kuala Lumpur in 2003 was the first concert I had been to, and it was on the night before my A-Levels Chemistry paper. My God, it was so worth it. Fast forward to 2007, and their album is littered with bleeps. My first reaction was, ironically enough, to exclaim, “WHAT THE FUCK??!” I was thoroughly disappointed. The band had mellowed down plenty musically, but I reckoned that was because of Bennington recovering after removing some nasty stuff off his vocal chords. Screaming can do that. This year, Linkin Park is releasing a new album, and from what I’ve been hearing, it sounds promising. I heard screaming sans bleeps, for one thing. I’m taking it as a good sign.

Seeing that my interest has been resurrected, I’m guessing this won’t be the last post about music. Yay!

Metro, Scrubs and Summer

  By judene | July 3, 2010 - 11:40 pm | Uncategorized
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Truth be told, I’m not out of the slump yet, but I’m running out of things to do. Well, things that I want to do, that is. I figured I’d give blogging about my summer practicals another shot.

So far, I’m only two weeks into it, but it roughly follows the same formula everyday.

9.00 a.m. I sit in for the morning conference while looking at my watch. Six hours left. Look at all the doctors pretty much not paying attention or dozing off, signs that they’re normal humans I suppose. The doctors on-call report new admissions and whatever needs to be mentioned. The doctors chairing the conference may or may not screw the reporting doctors. My conclusion is, in Russia life is a never-ending series of colloquiums. I try to pay attention, but it’s easy to give up when you’re right at the back.

10.00 a.m. Go to the department I’ve been assigned to, which just has to be Traumatology. Can you say, “dull as fucking a marshmallow?” I change into my scrubs and sit in the doctors’ office with another student, a Russian girl who uses any reflecting surface to check her hair and makeup. We don’t speak much, due to our poor understanding of each other’s language. If I’m lucky, some patient is either getting metal plates and screws either put in or removed from some limb. I’ve decided that to be an orthopaedic surgeon, you just need vodka and an IKEA toolset. While in the OT, I alternate between staring at whatever extremity which is being man-handled and the clock.

11.00 a.m. The surgeons have expertly done their work in 90 minutes, even minor setbacks have been accounted for. Damn. Four hours left. My pseudo-friend and I return to the office and get back to our task of sitting on the sofa, staring blankly at the doctors working. Occassionally, they look at us and make feeble attempts at conversation. After about half an hour of staring, I take out my book to read. If I’m lucky, Anna SMSes me from the General Surgery department to tell me there’s an operation going on. When joyous moments like that come about, I ask permission from my “supervisor” (inverted commas here because I eyeball her more than she does me). Naturally, she’s eager to get rid of me and lets me go. I mean, who wants some kid staring at them do work, right? So I put on my lead face and crash whatever procedure taking place.

1.00 p.m. Back in the office, now staring at doctors eating. They usually offer tea, but I politely decline. As they have their lunch that consists mostly of ice-cream and junk food, us students eavesdrop on whatever they’re talking about. Clock check; two hours left.

Some of you may be wondering why we’re wasting time in the office. Might as well go home if there’s nothing else to do, right? If you recall, I’ve mentioned the head of practicals that gets to 5th base with prickly sea creatures. She insists that we only leave at 3 p.m.

1.30 p.m. Read my book, and hope I get a message from Anna, or that someone is injured enough to perk my interest. Okay, hope that someone is injured enough for the doctors to say, “Come along, it’s an interesting case.” Seeing that this hospital is almost at the border of Moscow city, not much really happens. Clock check; 90 minutes left.

2.45 p.m. Slowly move toward the cupboard where my bag is kept. My supervisor looks almost relieved that I’m ready to get out of her territory. I say goodbye and almost break into a run to change my clothes. Then I begin my 70 minute journey home.

I’ll be honest, it could be worse. I could be with other students who pretend I don’t exist, I could be with racist doctors who don’t think I deserve to be educated, I could be without reading materials. Either way, I’ve got another four weeks to go, and at the rate things are going, I’ll be in Kuala Lumpur before I know it.

Where’s My Patbingsu?!

  By judene | June 27, 2010 - 7:30 pm | Uncategorized
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Apparently, if I can’t get to Malaysia for a bulk of my summer, the Malaysian weather will get to me in Moscow. The heat here is madness, and not having a fan is nothing short of torture. Get this, the hot water came back with the heat wave. How useful is that?

Unfortunately for me, I have nothing skimpy and comfortable to wear here, owing to the fact that my figure is not skimpy-wear worthy. Russians in general have no concept of sleeves nowadays. The women…Oh my God.  Bras nowhere to be found. I can’t BELIEVE I’m saying this, but if they’re not firm, round implants, do NOT skip on the bra. Really.

Summer practicals are weird. Everyone has something different to say about it. My hospital has this woman with a female angler fish stuck up her butt as the head of practicals. On the bright side, I have five days in this hospital before getting two weeks in another place and then  returning to this God-forsaken hospital. I’m hoping the next five weeks will breeze by.

All is not lost though. I don’t have to study my ass off for anything for now, so I’m free to bum around and gallivant without worrying too much about time. That is the ideal situation, of course. The truth is to date I’ve only been to one park and had lunch at a Korean restaurant which is walking distance from my hostel. So much for bumming and gallivanting, eh?

Well, that’s about it for now. Hopefully, I’ll get out of this crap-writing slump and produce better results.

No One Jumps Into a Pile of Books, Right?

  By judene | June 3, 2010 - 12:17 am | Uncategorized
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Am I awesome or what? My exams are in four days, I have 23 topics to study and here I am, happily blogging away for the five people who visit this place. I suppose I’m sort of due for an update, and blogging is a nice way to procrastinate.

  1. I took part in the student body elections that I found dodgy and boring. Don’t ask how, don’t ask why. All I know is that I’m the glorified letter-writer for the next 8 to 10 months.
  2. I’m done with my cycles for 4th year. I’m sure I would’ve gotten more done with proper time management and discipline, but 4th year has definitely given me more sleep-time than 3rd year ever offered. Imagine, I’ve had caffeine-free days this academic year!
  3. Hot water has been shut off for a week and will only return to our faucets on the 8th of June. I attempted having a cold shower, and now I am convinced my ovaries look like raisins. Thankfully, it’s warm now and there’s no need to boil large amounts of water to mix with the ice-cold water we’ve been getting.
  4. I am worried about my exams, especially Neurology. If Anatomy was my bane in 1st year, Neurology is my personal leprosy. My last resort is to offer my cousin Hera to the department as a research subject in return for a passing mark.
  5. Summer electives begin two days after my last exam. The hospital is in some God-forsaken part of Moscow, on my least favourite Metro line. No worries, ONLY six bloody weeks.
  6. Been having strange ideas relating to photography. Coming from me, this is silly because the only thing I’m worse at than photography is taking care of plants. Thanks to these ideas, I’ve been on Deviantart a lot. After all this browsing, I only have one question: why are most ‘Artistic Nude’ entries photos of either nude girls or nude girls making out with each other?

If we’re lucky, the next post won’t be all about me.

No Need For Pyramids To Be In Awe

  By judene | May 10, 2010 - 3:39 pm | Uncategorized
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Don’t some things just make you shake your head in awe? For instance, all the backup systems in our body to keep us alive, the way the flowers in Russia bloom in time for spring despite having about 5 months of cold and snow.. that kinda stuff. There are also people that never cease to amaze. I sure know of  a few!

1. My uncle who has some sort of built-in radar in his brain that beeps every time I sleep. That’s his cue to call me. It’s unbelievable, really. He normally calls me at 4 or 5a.m. on a Sunday just because it’s amusing. He’s all wide awake in Malaysia after Sunday Mass and he thinks it’s fun to call me to ask, “Hey! Are you sleeping?” While that is not an example of his radar working, I can find no other explanation for him calling me specifically on the day I miss class, when I’m still asleep. There’s also the time he called me when I was 30 minutes into my afternoon nap. Seriously? What is UP with him?

2. The Minkuses of the world. For those who don’t know what the heck I’m talking about, shame on you for not watching Boy Meets World. Fine, I’ll tell you. Stuart Minkus was this character in the show who spent about 60% of his time in class with his hand raised. I’m sure we’ve all had our share of them in class, the extremely eager kid who either wanted to answer every question within earshot, or wanted to question every statement made within earshot. You’d think that by the time a person reaches adulthood, they’d stop. Naaaah.

Everyone should try this sometime, either during class, or a meeting, maybe even during a seminar or lecture. This is a sure time-killer during boredom. Keep count of the number of times the Minkus in your gathering speaks out, be it to ask a question or to make a statement.

3. People who can express their festering hate for a person, detail for almost an hour about how they loathe the person, why the person deserves a slow, painful death and as soon as the target shows up, they’re the most beautiful, witty, fun, cool creature gracing the planet. Before you can wrap your head around what’s happening, plans for a shopping trip and a slumber party have been made. BFF for this life and the next seven, baby. Seriously, this doesn’t count as dissociative identity disorder?

I’ll assume that three counts as a few, and end here for today.