2020 and covid19

I know no one reads my post, so the reason why I am moved to write here today is because I need a medium to write whatever is happening in my life also known as "mizah is bored, she needs to channel her energy somewhere".

Hi, it has been more than 2 years since I last written anything in this good old blog. If it wasn't for covid19, I wouldn't even be moved to come back here. I have been working from home since mid March, it is definitely a challenge because as a person I feed on the energy of people around me and working from home means I got no one to feed on and I'm hungry for that.

But lets not move away from traditions of this blog..lets reflect on what has happened in the past 2 years.

 Life is still good in Brunei, this year marks the 10th year back in Brunei after Australia. I didn't expect that I'll stay this long here but I managed. Traveled quite decently for the last 2 years, went back to Sydney twice last year, celebrated the 2019 new year in New York,  ate loads of good food there, went to EMP for dinner and then visited Miami - fell in love with the street arts and Orlando for Universal Park and of course Houston cos my good friend Fina was there. Also did a good round of Turkey for my birthday last year  and ended up in Amsterdam for King's Day! If I decide to continue blogging, I think I have enough material to talk about few destinations.

Moving on to health and fitness, my mission on becoming healthy and fit has been there since university times. Every year my resolution has always been to get slimmer and all those unrealistic goals and I knew at the back of my head..my targets are realistic but I won't be able to reach them because I can't be bothered with being disciplined enough to reach that. So I have stopped wishing that I am going to lose weight, instead I choose to listen to my body, eat healthily, exercise at least 3x weekly, limit alcohol intake and most importantly stretch and practice mindfulness. The result = controlled weight +/- 3kg which I am not too bothered.

Work updates: Moved to another asset, so I have practically done 4 out of 5 subsurface departments. So now I sort of know where my next move is going to be, but lets not discuss it here cos uncertainty is so large in the field that I'm in.

That is it for now, I need to do the home quarantine exercise name challenge. Its crazy but I'll manage!

2017

Yes this blog is dusty.

Nope, not going back to blogging but just want to put out what my thoughts are at the moment.

Damn its 2017 already, my birthday was almost 3 weeks ago.

I am a believer that in the end secrets will be out no matter what, I do have secrets that I kept to myself and I hope when these secrets do come out, it doesn't matter anymore.

Just like a secret about something that was totally related to me few years back and I found out about it today. But hey its okay, it doesn't matter anymore, if I found out about it few years back I would be affected.

Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.
Lets forgive but not forget.

Xx
bish

All is good

maybe I'll just update this blog once every six month since no one is looking at it anyways.

Just came back from Europe last week. It feels good to be away for 3+weeks. I feel recharged and inspired. few things ticked off

1) new countries - Norway, Denmark, Czech Republic
2) tomorrowland - Yes!
3) surprisingly felt jet lagged in Europe and no jet lag when I came back. Strange, used to be the other way around.
4) met my mate from Uni! Haven't seen him for 6 years long!
5) experienced the long summer days...it is sooo effing awesome.
6) I feel like I wanna move to Europe now, people are cuter there heehee

Xx
R

Random post when your mind is still thinking at midnight...

2016. 

Happy new year.

Counting my blessings..

1) got another cat, female, scottish fold plus maine coon

2) got transfered to a different section at work, very happy to be there, finally felt that I can utilise my skills and improve on time management

3) still alive and healthy eventhough i didnt work out that much but found crossfit(again) in Q4 💪🏽😌

4) traveled to 2 countries - oman and dubai..love love love oman. New places - Siargao Island

5) finally managed to do a proper push up (or was this already achieved in 2014?)

6) got a work promotion, no longer junior but still younger than a senior petroleum engineer

7) finally restrained myself from buying a new handbag for the whole 2015! but i got a givenchy clutch for my birthday :-) i know I am loved.

I think that sums up my 2015. This year's focus would be 

1) 5 unbroken pull ups, 10 unbroken double unders, reduce body fat by 5%

2) visit at least 1 new country/place

3) go back to oz for the 2-yearly sentimental visit 

4) makeover my room

5) maybe meet a new someone

xx

bish

Weekend escape - food diary

Last weekend, I went to Singapore to watch Cirque Du Soleil Totem. At the same time we were lucky enough that the 4xfour pop-up was at White Rabbit. You can read more about it in their website 4xfour.sg

Anyways, our chef was Davide Scabin, a 2 Michelin star chef from Restaurant Combal Zero, Italy. This is not my first michelin star cousine but all in all this is as what I expected!

When we landed, we went to Jin Fine Dining in Amoy Hotel. Good food, fresh ingredients! Highly recommended. Good customer service by the lady named Viola, not sure if she's the owner but she is very friendly and she really knows her Japanese food. She even treated us Shirako(cod sperm sac) tempura and the rice that was prepared for 5 hours with japanese chestnut.

 

Wagyu chirashi (Saga Beef)

Sashimi (Otoro cut in squares because its nicer to eat in squares, yellowfin, snapper, scallop, prawn and salmon)

Otoro chirashi - if you know me enough you would have known that I am crazy with otoro to the moon and back :-)

My trip would not be complete without....

Oyster omelette from wisma atria foodcourt

And their kuey tiaw

Clinton St Baking Company

Before flying back, tried this cafe..good breakfast but come before 9am, we were lucky that we came right on time, 10 minutes later we saw the queue outside the restaurant.

Salmon benedict

Blueberries pancake

I dont know what is this called but it has beans, guacamole under the eggs

Ok i think that is all my food diary that I want to log haha

x,

R

Oman and...

Mountains, beaches, wadis and desert.

Oman is....beautiful. I've never been to a place that has the mountains, blue beaches and desert dunes in one place. I think it has so much potential for luxury tourism. The whole country is just getting ready for it, they're building a new airport, the roads are in tip top condition with a scenery view and the location of Shangri-La is just ahhmazing! Even the wild dolphins are friendly compared to the ones I saw in Nelson's Bay.

Let me show you guys some photos...

Sultan Qaboos Grand Mosque- impressive interiors

Fourth Largest Yacht in the world, Al-Said

Wadi Bani Khalid- freshwater, super deep 

Camels resting, Desert Nights Camp, Wahiba Sands. The dunes at the back are around 4-6storeys high!

Shuwa - slow cooked lamb over basmati rice! They cooked the lamb for 2 days buried in the sand..NYUMSSS

One of the inlets by Shangri-La Barr Al Jissah.

Till next time!

R

P.s. Due to some circumstances had to cancel Melbourne trip. Sorry Leen!! Next trip will be Singapore in 2 weeks time and Manila/Siargao for new years!

Can't sleep

And I don't know why.

There's no one here to stroke my hair and no hand to rub my thumb on..

I guess I'm gonna be a zombie at work tomorrow

I don't want what I wish for anymore

Sunday, 20th Sept

Woke up at 9:30am, that is already quite late for the past 20 Sundays..did not sleep late last night, I think it's just my body recovering all the lost sleep I have been accumulating. I am quite sure that I can sleep in more but got awaken by a weird dream. I dreamt that I was wrapped by someone and was asked where am I going to in the next few months and I told that person that I am not telling and that person went crazy.. I am sure I woke up with elevated heart rate, hence the increase in today's resting heart rate in my Fitbit! In reality, I have not spoken to this person for a while, which is so weird because all these while I never thought that person had any influence on my travels pffffft

Anywaysss, hello September! 3 months to 2016, pretty excited for Oman in 3 weeks and Melbourne in  1.5months! See ya Leena!

Upgrade or downgrade?

When one moved on from one relationship to another... Is it going to be an upgrade or a downgrade?

R

June

Mayn its already half year already! 2015 is super ffffffast

Today i did a round shaped manicure..hmm not too bad maybe i'll keep this shape for a while! 

Excited for 2015's one year one new country in the next few months!  Dum di dum~

Oh yeah, let me introduce my new female kitten, Oreo. :-)

29

Tomorrow.

Plan to have a quiet one this year. 

I got a new kitten, another Scottish fold thinking of calling her Oreo cos she is black and white with mitts. Do is handling her well just like how a big brother should be. I think he's a bit jealous initially but he's accepting that he is going to be a big brother now.

R

Today must be a good day because

1. I was not sleepy throughout the day

2. Managed to learn how ecms and kamikaze probes work

3. Did 5 strict push ups in one go (never able to do this until today!! It took me 28yrs to get enough upper body strength for proper pushups!!)

4. Discovered few favourite songs iggy azalea - beg for it and shila amzah - masih mencintai

Indeed it was a good day! And oh! HAPPY NEW YEAR BITCHESSSSS ;* and happy belated real birthday!

Oh December!

Last post was in July, how busy could I be?

Currently, in the last days of my 3-week long work leave..very well rested = one happy engineer :-)

In this post, I would like to do a lookback on 2014. I know I am 19 days too early but what harm can it do.

In conclusion, 2014 has been.....

1/ the year I have added a stackpile of acquaintances; you know from meeting one person to his/her group of friends yada yada yada... I feel that I have not explored my own town yet.. (Brubru is a very small country you know!)

2/ the year I travel less but explore many new places; Manila, El Nido, Taipei, Macau, Penang. I would put El Nido and Penang as one of my favourite places after Sydney and Rome.

3/ the year I have eaten many yummy, and sometimes pretty, cakes; we have found a good fondant cake maker..Bambi chocolate peanut butter cake, Chanel Boy crunchy chocolate cake, Olaf(from Frozen) red velvet cake,  Shisha bong blueberry cheesecake.....also Sue's cakes are to die for.

4/ the year that I did not do well on fitness...well I sort of got sidetracked on whatever. To be improved in 2015

5/ the year Doraemon started spraying EVERYDAY until I decided to castrate him. Its for my own sanity. Please don't judge my action.

6/ the year that I started to question why the F am I working so hard, I feel that not much have been spent in developing ourselves and everyone up there have their own agenda.

7/ the year that I visited Sydney after 3 years; so happy that Sydney is still like how I remembered it! Even the owner of the Italian restaurant (that I used to go all the time) in Kingsford remembered me!! That was one of the highlights of my trip :D. Brought 3 guys to Sydney, they said they enjoyed the trip, one even said yes he doesn't mind moving to Sydney hahaha!

8/ the year that I went to 3 music festivals; steve aoki/angger dimas in Sunway, FMFA in KL(short lived due to deaths during the supposedly 3-day fest) and lastly Stereosonic in Sydney

9/ ...i am out of ideas, will continue if I remember something!

Cheers,

R

Raya, Summer, fasting, taiwan, macau...

Its been a while...tomorrow is eid or better known as Raya here..so this will be my 5th raya in Brunei after spending the previous 4 Eids in Sydney. Man it has been 9 (hijrah) years! How time flies..

Obviously before raya, we practice 30 days of fasting which I am terrible at..started my fast only at the third week of Ramadhan due to *ahem* travels and the inevitable period. So technicaly I only fasted 2 weeks this year(not proud)

So what am I gonna do this Eid? Basically work and work. Going to morning meetings tomorrow, to the rig on the 2nd day, pumping job expected from 10pm to 5am..then the next 2 days some well commisoning yadadidadidada...

And with summer.. I plan to go Sydney in November! Dont know the details yet..so not gonna travel now till then, need to save money..probably KK in October for my friend's belated birthday treat.

Taiwan and Macau, was the reason for not fasting...well that include singapore too hehe Had dinner in Osteria Mozza so that was good. Went to meet Lib and  Hazel at wine connection cheese bar, that was awesome too! Went to Bar stories well that sucked, we had a rude waiter...my drinks were good though but not the waiter..

Highlights of my Taiwan trip was bubble teas hehe nyumssss! We also went to din tai fung at Taipei 101..well my imagination of Taipei 101 is totally different from what it looks like in real life so it was worth the trip for me. We also went to south of taiwan called kaohsiung, practically the same like taipei but I think Kaohsiung has its own charm like pineapple cake and also street of wedding studios, so I think we were at wedding city of Taiwan haha! One particular moment I shall remember is when we had foot massage where my masseuse said my 'circulation' is bad and my friend misinterpret as my bowel movement is bad and I told my friend to tell her that I poo everyday and she snapped and said I meant she rarely sweats! She meant my "blood" circulation is bad...oh well, maybe she is right -_- I am not the healthiest person in the world.

For Macau, hmmm let me just say if the people are more polite and less stressed probably it would be a better experience for me...the city itself is beautiful, it has a soul.. the portuguese side of Macau not the casino areas..i also like their portuguese tart. The only highlight worth mentioning is probably the spa services in Sofitel So Spa...really good, I got sucked into buying the massage oil..but its so calming and who knows it might improve my blood circulation hehe

Had breakfast in the mansion, how posh! 

Anyways, I think this is long enough to be a blog post. Selamat Hari Raya all, hope all your prayers have been answered.

P.s. Let me talk about work on the next post! My next big step.

Xoxo

R

Winning and letting go

Today I won a $20 shopping voucher for answering a quiz. In fact, I like answering quizzes or riddles and I usually win something  from it. Just for the gist.

When I looked back and reflect, I realised that I like winning. I think this is due to the nature of being an only child, everything has to be my way(if possible). I also realised that I don't necessarily like winning if the task is difficult and the prize is not worth all the effort...

This comes to the second part of the title, which is letting go. I am not risk adverse, but my approach to winning is only go for it if you think you can...like 99% sure that you can win and not 50-50. And for that 1% chance of losing it must not induce any emotional and physical disgrace. 

All being said above, being human, I do let myself go away from what I set for resulting all the consequences of not winning a.k.a losing. Two days ago I told myself its time to move on. I decided that I need to move on and set myself for positivity in life. So yeah no more sad post. ; )

bish