It's finally done! Granted I didn't get everything I wanted (like a WYSIWYG editor in Firefox - yes, I'm still hung up on that! :P) but everything else is fine. And for that, thank goodness!

Now, what's left to do is P A C K !!! And quick! It's September 1st already and I leave in 2 weeks' time! Also need to reply many, many, many, M A N Y ! emails - there's so much to write all my pals about everything! :)

Anyhoo, it's 4AM now and I'm still wide awake - it's the adrenaline high I get after I finally achieve something that keeps me awake and as bouncy as a bunny.

Plus, my cold (miraculously) receded - I can breathe! (I'd better not speak too soon, though.) And the sore throat's gone. Whew.

Itinerary for today:
Going for a buffet high tea today at the Hilton with my mom and her friends. Actually, I don't really need to go but my mother thought it'd be good to try and fatten me up a little just before I leave.(Seems that I'm a little on the thin side according to her, although I beg to differ. :P) But, it'll be nice to spend some time with her. Okay, fine and also that the fact that my brother told me that Hilton allows one to make their own ice kacang (malaysian delicacy of shaved ice, rose syrup, sago, jelly i.e. very sweet dessert that can just about send one into sugar shock if made right) and I intend to make it right! :)

Also, need to buy contact lenses, saline and lens solution for the next 6 months too. Oh, and the latest dibs on the optician that screwed up my glasses? Well, now they apologized and want me to pick a new frame. In the past few days, I've visited at least 8 different outlets in search for THE frame but their plastic frame selection's horridly small that I never found anything I like.

My brother decided to get a pair of frames too and he wants metal ones of which this optician has an abundance of. Since I've paid the cash for my broken plastic frame, and those meanies don't wanna give me back a refund - my brother's going to replace my order with his. And I'm going to ANOTHER optical shop (hopefully better) (here's hoping they don't let me down!) to get my plastic frames.

Confused about the story? Never mind. :) E.Optical sucks. 'Nuff said.

Is it normal that I don't like packing? I hate packing. Really, really, really hate it. I hate trying to fit everything I own into one little boxy like bag and lugging it around. Maybe if I do a little everyday, then everything won't seem so huge to me. Yeah, I might do that.

Kay, so this will be the last post here at blogspot. For now. :) I'm moving back to PureDew now. Since it's ready and all. So, update your links if you've made them out to be here and I'll see ya back at my journal! :)

Phish.

O V E R W H E L M E D ! ! !

That's how I'm feeling now. I bought my suitcases yesterday with my father - nice, big 'uns - all empty and waiting to be filled with the lunk of books and clothes sitting on the floor & bed of my room. Have not done that yet 'cos I'm being stubborn and working on my journal.

Am getting irritated too - 'cos although the editor works in both browsers, it somehow screws up my CMS in Firefox, causing pages to be blank. I've searched on forums, google, and everywhere else trying to see if anyone else has had a similar problem. But, nooo. I'm the only doofus. Gah.

Know what? Scr*w it. If I can't get it to work properly, then I'm leaving it alone for now. Packing's way more important especially since I need to share out my books in my parents' bags too so it's not overtly heavy.

And there's the issue of my glasses. No, I'm not in the mood to talk about it. E.Optical sucks. 'Nuff said.

On top of everything else, now's the perfect time for me to come down with a cold. Wunderful, wunderful! Got a blocked nose and a scratchy throat. Ish.

Alright, I've been working on my journal the whole of Saturday. It's up and running at journal(dot)puredew(dot)com and I've removed quite a bit of images that were on the sidebar to enable faster page loading. I put those images in a separate page with a link for those interested to click on it.

So far, so good. :)

Now, it's layouts. Right now, it's 3AM Sunday morning and I'm tweaking the layouts of my journal when I should be sleeping. :-/Somehow, I'm having trouble with my images - need to fix it before I can sleep. I didn't reply many emails - just a few. Still got so many more people to write to and I haven't had time to read many blogs. Let alone post comments. :(

Anyway, things to work on in my journal after layouts:
1. Try and add a WYSIWYG HTML editor for blog entries and comments
2. Tweak Comments template so anonymous unregistered visitors can leave a name and email/URL when they comment
3. Update my daily blog reading list - I've got a couple more blogs to add on.
4. ...

I can't think of anything else, really sleepy...

Yesterday - 28th August - I cut my 2nd birthday cake at home, this time with my family. We took some photos too and then, we went out for a buffet supper at the PJ Hilton. Yes, at 11PM - we were stuffing our faces. But, the conversation was better than the food. :)

Oh, and my sis took me for a M.A.C shopping spree! It was über cool! I had a makeover done by a professional M.A.C. artist and got a concealer (NC42), and M.A.C. LustreLipGlass (Beaux) too. As it was a promotion, they also gave a li'l bag, eye makeup remover and demiwipes with it. And my sis is way, way, waaay knowledgeable about makeup - she was as good (prolly even better!) than those M.A.C. makeup artists.

I love playing around with makeup but I practically never wear much on my face. In fact, up until last year, my makeup skills were pretty much limited to face powder, an occasional dash of lipstick and if it was a formal thing, then a little mascara on my eyelashes and blush on my cheeks. Finito.

But, after she introduced me to M.A.C. and their wonderful colours of eyeshadow, there was no turning back. I probably will never be as good as her in putting makeup on (I don't have much patience!) but if I could learn some tricks on getting it to look natural, that's good enough for me. :).

Today, I've got to go and collect my glasses. The optician never called back. grrr. So, I'm gonna give 'em a call tomorrow and find out what's the deal with my glasses. They better be not stringing me along. I'm so sick of it.

And also, I'm going with my father to Tesco/Carrefour tomorrow to get my suitcases. I really have not an inkling on how to choose luggage. They all look the same to me - how on earth can you tell if it's good and sturdy? If it were up to me, I'd just get a Samsonite or a Delsey and make sure that it was of a nice colour. :P Since my dad's been buying the suitcases all this while for us, I might as well ask him to teach me how to choose 'em.

I think I'll go to bed now. I'm re-uploading my layouts via FTP to my journal. And it's gonna take awhile. So, I'll leave it uploading while I catch some zzzz's..

Back!

Good news! Good news!

I'm back home! Yes! With high speed Internet - I'm surfing through webpages with the speed of light (299 792 458 m / s) and enjoying it too!

I reached home at about 6PM and spent a couple of hours settling in and unpacking, calling up pals on the phone and informing them I was back. (Btw, I have loadsa pixes to upload once PureDew's up and running!)

My brother wanted to take me for this Jazz Festival at Mont Kiara so we went at about 9Pm - which was a little late. The music was alright but I was rather tired after staying up late the night before. So, the loud jazz music wasn't exactly what I wanted - I was thinking more along the lines of soft jazz music playing in the background while I had dinner.

Anyway, I left for home early - 11PM. Checked my email and my blog. I was pleasantly surprised by Rishi's birthday present to me! :) (See previous comments in last post to know what he got me) Thank you so so soooo much, Rishi! I loved it! I was wondering what lay behind that link and after I clicked on it, and saw the beautiful e-greeting you sent me, I was like, "Oh, wow! It's so gorgeous!" And yes, my site's back up. Almost. So, don't worry, Rishi, you'll get my daily blogs right from the source itself. PureDew. :P :D

I've moved from http://puredew(dot)com/index.php to http://journal(dot)puredew(dot)com

I just thought that it sounded nicer compared to boring index.php and so, it's moved. The old site is still there and I've added a link to take everyone to my new home. I'll be updating my site little by little - certain things will be moved to someplace else so my site will load up faster. Expect nicer templates too! It'll have to be done slowly as I'm gonna be busy in the next few weeks - only 2 weeks before I leave! And suitcases aren't bought yet, altho' the stuff to take have been prepared and kept aside waiting for my spanking new suitcases!

Oh, and J called me today to wish me a Happy birthday. Her exams just finished so I might be able to meet her up in Kuala Lumpur this weekend. If not, I'll visit her in Seremban just in case she gets kinda busy. They don't have holidays after exams - starting immediately into the next semester, which is way crazy. But, then again whoever said medical schools had to be sane?

And pressies - I got The Key, as you already know, from my grandmother. And my aunt took me to the jewellery shop and insisted on buying me a ring too. Also cut a chocolate cake in my grandma's house before I left and took photos with my cousins and everything.

My sis is taking me out for a M.A.C. shopping spree - I'm so looking forward to it! :) And I treated myself to new clothes too - got a couple of new tops, pants, skirts and nighties. Very reasonably priced too. And my mother's promised me an MP3 Player - I'm still thinking of an iPod - newer versions have come out and I plan to keep the money she gives me for it until December or later and buy it then. So, I get the latest! hehe.

I wanted a drum set actually - but hmmph! no one wanted to buy me a set. My parents don't think it's a nice instrument for a girl to play (who cares? I still want to learn how to play the drums!!!) and it's also expensive. Oh well.

I'd better not write too much here, I'm supposed to be getting my site up ASAP. And reply mails too. Plus read up all my daily blogs - I bet I missed a lot!

Happy Birthday, Thushara!

So, I'm finally 21. Don't feel any different though... :) right, well, I was expecting this feeling of profound wisdom and enlightenment to overcome me and then, I'll understand life and why we go through stuff the way we do. But, um, nope. None of that.

The clock struck 12 midnight 43 minutes ago - and I didn't turn into a pumpkin. Dang. I was wondering what it felt like to be a pumpkin. ;)

Still in my gran's place - so it's slow dialup. I have loads to write but no time. I'm coming back today though - prolly reach home at 4PM. My grandma gave me my birthday present - yup, you guessed it.

The Key.

A really sentimental moment for me - my aunt was there and they were hugging and kssing me and advising me about what not to do and what to do in Glasgow when I leave. And to always remember them and to come visit them in December when I'm back. And my cousins, Bel & Kel - they were so sweet. God, I love my family!

When I'm back home, I'll definitely blog. Stories to tell, pictures to plog. And to all of you who sent me e-mails, e-cards in my inbox, messages and those wonderful phone calls and SMSes at midnight - thank you! I feel so blessed. I'll write you all soon individually when I get home!

Nothing planned for my birthday as yet. A tentative dinner with my friends and family planned when I arrive home but we'll see. I did initially wish for a barbecue (it's been aeons since I had one!) but it's on way too short a notice, so maybe another time.

My cousin's calling me (yep, she back!) so we can have an all-night gossip marathon. 'Nitez! :)

Oh, and happy birthday, Thushara!

Am here in my grandmother's place. well, there's bad news - my cousin sis couldn't come back in time to see me (we planned for Tuesday but at the last minute, she had an additional assignment and had to stay back at her uni to finish it up.) She can only make it back to my grandmother's on Thursday and I leave on Thursday. Not sure yet if I can lengthen my stay 'cos I have a LOT of packing and shopping to do.

On the other hand, I'm still living it up with my two madcap young cousins. One's twelve and the other's six. They keep me constantly grinning with their antics. Belle (the 6 y.o.) drew my portrait just half an hour ago and then my sister's too (although she's not here). LOL - seems that because my features were "boring" to her, she took the liberty to add me a moustache and beard on my portrait. :)

Well, it's 11PM now and I'm dead, dead, dead tired. I'm going to bed and it's definitely guaranteed I'll sleep like a log. 'Night y'all.

Psst. Will answer comments later - dialup's just too slow for anything. Sheesh. :S

Leaving now.

In 5,


4,


3,


2,


1,



z-e-r-o....

And ladies & gentleman, thushara has left her home. (well, thanks to wireless Internet, I'm in the car and just outside of my house. :)

Will blog soon!

ReAL time is NO Time

I just realized that the times of my blog entries are screwy. I've no idea what time zone my blog's in but I'm pretty sure I'm still 8 hours ahead of GMT (Greenwich Mean Time). Unless someone's changed Malaysia's time zones and forgotten to tell me.

So, just for the sanity of my mind, my watch is currently telling me that it's 5:30AM Monday morning. G'morning, Thushara. Where's my coffee? Dang, I so need a caramel latte right now. Mmmm... latte.

I wonder if 48 hours of no sleep can cause temporary brain mess up.

A record for me - I didn't sleep tonight either. That's 48 hours with no sleep. The good news is that I've restored my journal to its original state. It works fine but I just don't feel an urge to write there yet. I still have some things on my mind to do with it - just that I've been working on it for so long that I'm kinda fed up with looking at coding and figuring out the why's and how's to make it work.

It's Monday morning - I just packed my clothes in my bag for my 5 days, 4 nights stay at my grandmother's. I'm so so so so so soooooo looking forward to seeing my cousins! We've planned a couple of things to do while I'm there - stuff that I haven't done for like aeons! Yep, my cousin and my brother and I have our traditional MF's (midnight feasts a la Enid Blyton) when we visit each other. Basically, it's staying up the whole night with loadsa junk food - crisps, chocolate, sugary sweet soft drinks - and lotsa entertainment planned - the Nintendo Gameboy, ghost stories, gossip, sharing of secrets, board games. Stuff like that. My brother isn't coming though - he's got college so it'll be me and my cousin reliving out our childhood memories.

I've already made her promise to take me to ALL the great restaurants in that li'l town in Perak. It's gonna be awhile until I eat Malaysian food after I leave for UK. And shopping too - if there's anything nice. I love my grandma's place - it's so peaceful and quiet though, very unlike bustling, noisy Kuala Lumpur. Although I never much liked the nights - with the inane buzzing of mosquitoes. The croaking of the frogs don't bug me much unless I go out of the house and then have a frog jump right over my foot or past me.

I made those cookies for my cousins - the other 2 little runts - K & B - are gonna love 'em. They turned out well - very soft, chewy chocolate chip cookies. The brownies weren't so bad either - I used the Pillsbury Mix of Fudge Brownies. Since I didn't sleep the whole of yesterday, I was dead tired on my feet while baking. I kept needing to drink sugary sweet drinks to keep the glucose buzz up so I could finish on time. I made pizzas too for dinner - they were yummy. Mmmm, carbs. Those people on the (F)Atkins Diet seriously don't know what they're missing!

Leaving in another 4 hours time - so I guess there's no point in me sleeping now. I think if I did fall asleep, it's gonna take two whole herd of elephants to stampede past me to get me to wake up! Just remembered - I have to pack my camera too. And Thushee. And my mobile/cell phone charger. My toothbrush. Toothpaste. My contacts & lens solution. Some mags and a book or two.

I need to re-pack.

Waiter, there's a thought floating in my (soup)head.

Oh, and I had to gripe about something else. This thought was floating around in my head. And instead of letting it float around, I decided to grab it and nail it on my computer screen so it could shut up and let me think about more important things.

Thanks to the lack of sleep, I can't wear my contact lenses. My eyes are just wayyy too tired to let me put on a little plastic skin over it.

Yes, I had to complain about that. :)

I didn't sleep tonight. My only consolation to myself for the lack of sleep is that my journal has been upgraded. I've begun the slow task of reinstalling the plugins I've used in the latest version of my journal. I've set a target for myself - my new journal MUST be up and functioning before my 21st birthday.

If I fail, well, let's not think about that. I shan't fail. 'Cos I never allow myself to.

There is a monkey wrench thrown into my plans. Unfortunately, it is one of my own doing. So, I've got no one to blame except myself. I'll be visiting my grandmother this coming Monday. She stays in a town far away from where I stay. This town is not quite rural, but it isn't Kuala Lumpur either. From her house, the town (and where all cyber cafe's reside) is at least 20 minutes away. If I were to bring along Thushee (my Toshiba notebook), I'd have to use dialup to access the Internet and everyone knows not very much can be achieved with dialup.

Soooo, I had better install and do up most of it before I leave on Monday morning. And that's where yet another problem arises. Today's Sunday morning. I'm supposed to go shopping with my mother today and I've got to bake chewy chocolate chip cookies and brownies today afternoon to take with me to my grandma's house. (The kids always love my baking. And who am I to deny them of that? ;)

So, it's in between of these two planned activities, I have to find time to get my journal up. Spit spot. What a feat! Do I get into the Malaysian Book Of Records for this? :P

Yesterday was my best friend's - J - birthday. I wanted to call her up and wish her but I couldn't get her mobile phone. So, I text messaged her instead and she replied that she was at home (home for her is very far from me, and her phone line at home is difficult to get at times due to the rural-ness.) I wish I was there to celebrate her birthday though.

I got my first two early birthday wishes from my Orkut friends - Mithun and Wes. Somehow, I never expected any wishes from people I knew from Orkut. After all, they're ones I never met. But, it was sweet of them. I was touched. Especially since Wes knew that I'll be visiting my grandma's house and he wasn't sure if he would see me online on my birthday.

I'm rambling on now, aren't I? But, what the heck. I have the right to ramble as much as I like. My blog, my talk. Glasgow sent more letters - some of which are forms I have to fill and send back. They included a long booklist and details on what the first semester would be like. It sounds challenging - I'm looking forward to it.

I just realized I know of so many friends of mine - both blogging and non-blogging who are going to start school with me this September. It makes me wonder whether all of them are as nervous and as excited as me. Whether they're wondering if they'll find nice friends and if they'll fit in. If the lectures will be tough.

I wonder a lot. My mind's constantly flitting from here to there. I'd better get back to work and install another plugin. That'll keep it occupied for awhile.

I checked my mail today and it seems someone found my lost money and wants to give it back. The sender's name was "Your Lost Money" and the title of the email - "We Found Your Money". It's rather interesting how they could find my lost money on the Internet and email me about it, 'specially since I don't recall losing any cash lately. Unless you count the twenty cent coin that fell away from my fingers and down a rather dirty drain where I had to leave it. Somehow, I doubt that the email was about my lost twenty cents. :)

And no, I didn't open it. Deleted it straight away along with other emails telling me I needed a penis enlargement (I wonder how that's gonna happen when I don't have one, to begin with!), firmer breasts (I like mine just the way they are, thanks), and a Christian advisor for my debts ( I was not aware I had debts!). Junk mail - what would we do without 'em? Probably have a cleaner mailbox. :D

Anyway, I slept late. This morning actually. Was up the whole night with my webhost as he installed a new version of Geeklog for my friend and upgrading mine. Mine had some problems - as I wanted to use my current database (not a brand new one) and I wanted to move it from boring ol' index(dot)php to journal(dot)puredew(dot)com. He said it could be done and we were working on it.

Unfortunately, he was also busy with some other stuff and my eyes were all puffy and tired from keeping awake until 5AM - we decided to do it later on. So, I'm in the midst of the transfer/upgrade and instead of writing more entries in my journal and backing them up every single time, I might as well blog here. :)

And here I am.

I quite like Blogger actually. It's so easy - and the WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) editor for posts is such a breeze to use, I'm enjoying blogging here. I'm almost tempted to give up on Geeklog but then again, I think back on my friends-only posts and the other security features I have there and it just becomes a paradox. I suppose I could write friends-only posts under a pseudonym but I love posting pictures too and that's difficult to post under a pseudonym, especially if I'm in 'em.

So, I'll just juggle both blogs and keep 'em both anyway. :)

Oh yeah - remember my glasses? The one I was taking an eternity to find/buy? Well, I collected them 3 days ago and it's screwed up again. *sigh* If you don't know the story, here it is in a brief version.

1. Thushara decides to buy new spectacles.

2. She goes to the shop and after a long, long, long time dittering on what to choose, she picks a green and black plastic frame. It feels nice when she tries it on, and she's happy with it.

3. She tests her eyes and the optician promises to do it within a week.

4. A week passes, optician calls back and delivers bad news that frame is accidently broken. Optician tells Thushara that it's the only frame in the shop and there's no other stock in other outlets too. Thushara is devastated. Optician suggests she look at other frames.

5. Thushara visits the shop again and tries on more frames. Nothing fits her fancy. (They don't call Thushara fussy for nothing!) Optician suggests she look at other branches and see if she can find something nice there and they'll take the frame from that outlet and make her glasses for her.

6. Thushara agrees. She visits 3 other outlets but still, nothing tickles her pickle. She returns to the optician and as they see how badly she likes the first frame, they offer to call up the headquarters to check if there's any more stock.

7. A week later, they call Thushara and say her glasses are done. Thushara is suspicious. She thought there was no stock? But, she comes anyway. After collecting her spectacles, she realizes she can't try them on as she's wearing contact lenses. So, she takes them home.

8. She tries them at home and the moment the glasses are on her face, she gets an isntant headache. Something is wrong with the lense. She can't use it at all - the headache is too much to bear. Also, when she looks down at the floor, the glasses just slips off her face and would have broken into many splintery pieces had she not caught it in her hand. Definitely, glasses need to be readjusted. Aside from these 2 defects, she notices the shape of one side of the frame is deformed and the lense is actually sticking out. Thushara is using a glass lense and it's dangerous for a glass lense to be like that. If anything were to hit her face, that lense could shatter because of its improper placing in the frame and shards of glass go in her eye.

9. She returns the glasses back to her optician and shows them all defects. Optician doscovers that the lense was not made right, according to specifications. Thushara's eyes suffer from astigmatism (although it isn't a very high one) and the angle corrected on the lense for it is about 5-10 degrees off - which is what's causing her to have the headache.

10. Thushara gets upset - so many defects, this optician isn't a good one, she surmises. But, what choice does she have? She's paid the cash. Optician realizes she's disappointed with their services, they apologize and say they will replace the frame, and lense for her at no extra charge. (Of course, at no extra charge! If I were to pay any more, it'd be crazy!!!) They request for yet another week until they get the job done.

And now, I am waiting to see what will happen. I thought the frame had no more stock? And I actually suspect that the frame they made my glasses in IS the same broken frame. Anyway, I'll give them the benefit of the doubt and just wait.

What a situation. :S

Are you having a fun weekend too? :)

Backup Blog

Hi there! This is my backup blog for my site - PureDew ~ Pure Thushara. So if you've come here from there, that means my site's down. Bummer. :(

But, that doesn't mean I've stopped blogging altogether or disappeared from cyberspace. I'll still be blogging at this spot so you can check back here for updates. (Also, this is a good way to see how often my site goes down and for how long. That way, I know when it's time to move to a new webhost.)

Anyway, since my journal's not having an outage right this second, you can go back to it by clicking here. :) See you there!