Although I had set my alarm for 5.45 am, my auto-response (of turning off the alarm while in semi-slumber mode) caused me to over-sleep until it was 6.40 am. When it finally dawned upon my brain that I had overslept, I literally jumped out of bed and started preparing to go to work.
When I was finally on the road, a glance at my car's digital clock showed me that it was 7.20 am (bearing in mind that it's actually 4 minutes slower). I don't know why but for the past few days, traffic has been erratic and it was already starting to build up near the bridge exiting my housing area. I had to inch my way all the way out. Another massive blockage was at the stretch of road near the CSR factory (Cane Sugar Refinery, not Corporate Social Responsibility!).
It was 8.06 am and I was still stuck in Shah Alam! I started praying, switching off the radio to garner full concentration. Asking Him to please please clear the roads so that I won't be too late (being late was inevitable at this stage...).
At first, there wasn't any change in the traffic. I started thinking that maybe God wants to teach me a lesson for sleeping late. After threading through Glenmarie, I reached the NKVE at around 8.15 am. There were quite a number of cars on the highway but not enough to hamper me from sailing up to 100 km/hr on the straight stretches of the road (speed limit is 110 km/hr). When I reached the damansara toll, I was surprised to see it quite empty. Usually it'll be jam packed at that hour (around 8.26 am). Then it dawned on me that God had answered my prayers, which I had hastily said while driving in Shah Alam!
The realisation of this answered prayer really made my day! And although I was 10 minutes late for work, I was glad that I wasn't later than that. This morning miracle started me off on a happy note and that set me in a good mood for the rest of the day! I must confess that I can be a very moody person at times (ok, ok... most of the time)... but I don't go scolding people, I'm more like a clam-up person when I'm not in the right mood.
Praise the Lord for my morning miracle!
Thursday, February 19, 2009
Sunday, February 15, 2009
The Driving (Mis)Adventures of SM
although i've been driving for about 5 months now, i still consider myself new to the sport. i only drive when i have to - that is to work and back. it's because i've developed a phobia of parking lots and the art of parking in whole. another thing i'm still edgy about is transporting people in my car! i just don't get it why i feel so nervous when someone else, besides me, is in the car when i drive. i can't drive like when i'm alone and end up proving to my passenger that i'm just bad at driving. when on my own, i think i'm quite ok... considering that i really hated roundabouts when i was taking my driving test 5 years back - my examiner had to break for me!
one thing i hate to admit is squealing a lot on the road. thankfully, only one person has witnessed this - my colleague/friend from uni. i think she was quite shocked by it and kept asking me to stop it! hahahaha... that was hilarious! the more she chastised me, the more freaky i became! i kind of get a kick out of annoying certain people... that's sadistic, i know. but i do it in jest and not with malice.
so, the other day after banking in some cheques at maybank and ambank in damansara utama, i took the wrong lane and ended up heading towards the sprint highway. since the only u-turn i could take was near phileo damansara, i decided to take the federal highway instead of going back all the way to the ldp... BAD CHOICE.
i went through jalan universiti, it was a little congested. however when i turned down to the federal highway near amcorp mall, i screamed in shock! never had i in my minimal driving experiences encountered such traffic jam! i had to nurse my car inch by inch through the congestion, putting up with other impatient road users who kept squeezing into my lane from the left and a few seconds later deciding to throw caution to the wind and speed off on the emergency lane. to my satisfaction, i saw traffic policemen at the end of the flyover, booking those who illegally took the emergency lane. sometimes it is unexplainably satisfiying to see aggressive road offenders getting caught... it reassures us that these bullies don't get away scott free all the time!
i finally turned up to sunway and while turning to the stretch of road in front of pyramid, i nearly got hit by a rapidkl bus! that was scary... i've realised that sometimes you need to drive a little recklessly in order to avoid getting crashed into - if that makes sense...
another thing i've noticed is that drivers of 'old junk cars' tend to drive more recklessly than other drivers (let it be known that this is an objective observation, not biased by discrimination towards old junk cars - as i can personally attest to growing up with my fair share of old junk cars with not so reckless drivers at the wheel). i suspect it is because they feel that there's nothing much to lose even if they crashed their car, so they drive like there's no road rules. of course there's the exception of some drivers, particularly the elderly drivers, who drive their "old as their souls" cars carefully and slowly - these cases are just adorable!
another category of road users are the big luxury car drivers. they tend to push their weight on other cars of lesser value. not every luxury car driver adopt this attitude, but most of the big flashy bmw drivers tend to have this attitude pattern... and just a couple of notches below this category are the heavily modified car drivers. they tend to go "vroom vroom" at every traffic light stop and then proceed to exhibit their heavily modified car's inability to accelerate (due to whatever engine modification they did in order to create that bassy gutteral rave sounds). sometimes i feel like giving him a chummy pat on the back and say "dude, you're overtaxing your engine... " (although i know nuts about car engines)
now, back to another habit i have while driving. i tend to pep talk to myself... "girl, don't drive so fast... slow down, slow down girl... let that aunty pass, ok... girl, don't let that idiot chase you... girl, faster cut that car!... say thank you, girl... ". what can i do? i'm always driving alone... it gets abit lonely at times. so as a defence mechanism to prevent my idle brain from going bonkers, i need to entertain myself by self communication! ahahaha... (you must be thinking that that's one lame excuse for talking to myself! and you're right!)
one thing i hate to admit is squealing a lot on the road. thankfully, only one person has witnessed this - my colleague/friend from uni. i think she was quite shocked by it and kept asking me to stop it! hahahaha... that was hilarious! the more she chastised me, the more freaky i became! i kind of get a kick out of annoying certain people... that's sadistic, i know. but i do it in jest and not with malice.
so, the other day after banking in some cheques at maybank and ambank in damansara utama, i took the wrong lane and ended up heading towards the sprint highway. since the only u-turn i could take was near phileo damansara, i decided to take the federal highway instead of going back all the way to the ldp... BAD CHOICE.
i went through jalan universiti, it was a little congested. however when i turned down to the federal highway near amcorp mall, i screamed in shock! never had i in my minimal driving experiences encountered such traffic jam! i had to nurse my car inch by inch through the congestion, putting up with other impatient road users who kept squeezing into my lane from the left and a few seconds later deciding to throw caution to the wind and speed off on the emergency lane. to my satisfaction, i saw traffic policemen at the end of the flyover, booking those who illegally took the emergency lane. sometimes it is unexplainably satisfiying to see aggressive road offenders getting caught... it reassures us that these bullies don't get away scott free all the time!
i finally turned up to sunway and while turning to the stretch of road in front of pyramid, i nearly got hit by a rapidkl bus! that was scary... i've realised that sometimes you need to drive a little recklessly in order to avoid getting crashed into - if that makes sense...
another thing i've noticed is that drivers of 'old junk cars' tend to drive more recklessly than other drivers (let it be known that this is an objective observation, not biased by discrimination towards old junk cars - as i can personally attest to growing up with my fair share of old junk cars with not so reckless drivers at the wheel). i suspect it is because they feel that there's nothing much to lose even if they crashed their car, so they drive like there's no road rules. of course there's the exception of some drivers, particularly the elderly drivers, who drive their "old as their souls" cars carefully and slowly - these cases are just adorable!
another category of road users are the big luxury car drivers. they tend to push their weight on other cars of lesser value. not every luxury car driver adopt this attitude, but most of the big flashy bmw drivers tend to have this attitude pattern... and just a couple of notches below this category are the heavily modified car drivers. they tend to go "vroom vroom" at every traffic light stop and then proceed to exhibit their heavily modified car's inability to accelerate (due to whatever engine modification they did in order to create that bassy gutteral rave sounds). sometimes i feel like giving him a chummy pat on the back and say "dude, you're overtaxing your engine... " (although i know nuts about car engines)
now, back to another habit i have while driving. i tend to pep talk to myself... "girl, don't drive so fast... slow down, slow down girl... let that aunty pass, ok... girl, don't let that idiot chase you... girl, faster cut that car!... say thank you, girl... ". what can i do? i'm always driving alone... it gets abit lonely at times. so as a defence mechanism to prevent my idle brain from going bonkers, i need to entertain myself by self communication! ahahaha... (you must be thinking that that's one lame excuse for talking to myself! and you're right!)
Wednesday, February 04, 2009
The cats in no black tie
lately, it has been raining every night. it did so on saturday, sunday and even on monday. it was pretty peculiar for me to arrive home last on monday after work - even after LK. and it was even weirder that i thought i heard LK ask me whether i wanted to go to No Black Tie that night. i brushed it aside thinking that he was just informing us he was going out and so we needed to hurry our preparation of dinner.
however after dinner, he asked again... and well, since i've not been to No Black Tie before, i said ok. there was a slight drizzle when we left home. we were going to watch LK's friend's band Cats in Love perform two sets that monday night.
when we were on the kesas, it started to rain like there was no tomorrow. and unfortunately, we were running late... LK was speeding (using my car!) and i was trying my best not to tell him off! i managed to survive not yelling at him to slow down!
we reached there half way through the first set, which comprised their original compositions. i must say that their music is quite diverse: they had rock, jazz, mambo; songs about love, politics, gardener (grass-cutter)... hahaha
and compared to the last time i've seen him perform (that was with samarkand), he was totally wacky! at one point he was asking the crowd "anyone from ipoh?" and then added something that sounded like "ipoh mari kencing tara bunyi" !!! on stage! hahaha
the second set were cover songs - mostly from the beatles. this set was more lively as the bulk of the crowd had come in and everyone was feeling abit more rowdy! hence encouraging the band to rock on harder!
below are the photos i managed to take, they're quite bad as the place was pretty dark and my handphone camera sucks at night shots.
lohan - lead singer, guitar, zul (behind) - bass, reuben - drums
christine - keyboardist
overall, their performance was really tight. i didn't really notice the technical errors until LK pointed them out. and considering that so far i've only heard some of their rough recordings from studio practice sessions, this was really good!
however after dinner, he asked again... and well, since i've not been to No Black Tie before, i said ok. there was a slight drizzle when we left home. we were going to watch LK's friend's band Cats in Love perform two sets that monday night.
when we were on the kesas, it started to rain like there was no tomorrow. and unfortunately, we were running late... LK was speeding (using my car!) and i was trying my best not to tell him off! i managed to survive not yelling at him to slow down!
we reached there half way through the first set, which comprised their original compositions. i must say that their music is quite diverse: they had rock, jazz, mambo; songs about love, politics, gardener (grass-cutter)... hahaha
and compared to the last time i've seen him perform (that was with samarkand), he was totally wacky! at one point he was asking the crowd "anyone from ipoh?" and then added something that sounded like "ipoh mari kencing tara bunyi" !!! on stage! hahaha
the second set were cover songs - mostly from the beatles. this set was more lively as the bulk of the crowd had come in and everyone was feeling abit more rowdy! hence encouraging the band to rock on harder!
below are the photos i managed to take, they're quite bad as the place was pretty dark and my handphone camera sucks at night shots.
lohan - lead singer, guitar, zul (behind) - bass, reuben - drums
christine - keyboardistoverall, their performance was really tight. i didn't really notice the technical errors until LK pointed them out. and considering that so far i've only heard some of their rough recordings from studio practice sessions, this was really good!
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