Mixed salad à la « me »

Hungry? No idea what to eat for dinner? Or are you scared to have dinner because it will make you fat?

A salad can be perfect diet food. It may sound boring and tasteless, but actually it can be an interesting meal by experimenting with vegetables, meat and salad dressings. Here’s my salad recipe that I would like to share with you:

Ingredients
Lettuce leaves (torn, rinsed well and spun dry)
1 large potato (peeled and cut into cubes)
1 hard-boiled large egg (quartered or sliced into pieces)
1 slice or 2 slices of smoked beef (sliced into strips)
1 teaspoon olive oil
Butter
1 teaspoon fresh lemon juice (if desired)
Cheddar cheese (grated) or parmesan cheese
½ cup Thousand Island dressing or mayonnaise

How to make
1. Heat olive oil in a frying pan to medium heat. Add smoked beef. Fry until it is golden. Add butter as a flavour enhancer.

2. Cook potato in a saucepan of boiling water until it is tender. Drain. Or you can also steam the potato until it’s tender; drain, peel and cut it into cubes.

3. Place lettuce in a large bowl. Pour lemon juice over the lettuce. Add potato, hard-boiled egg and smoked beef. Toss gently to combine. Pour dressing. Top with grated cheddar or parmesan.

Voilà, dinner is ready and you shouldn't worry about getting fat anymore. Bon appétit!

What does "losing your virginity" mean to you?

An interesting question for women: what does it mean to lose your virginity?

Firstly, we have to know the definition of virginity. Virginity today has far more sophisticated definitions than before. “Never having had sexual intercourse” may be “the new definition” of virginity nowadays. It’s no longer “cleanliness” or “purity”, but “engaging in a lot of different kinds of sexual activities without intercourse”. Someone who has oral sex, anal intercourse, or other kinds of sex is still considered as a technical virgin. Many girls usually take this easy way out by using the loophole to get the pleasure they desire. In this way, the girls usually want to stay a virgin until they’re married or losing virginity before marriage is against their religion and strictly taboo.

People may define “virginity” differently, but we still have to revisit what it means to stay a virgin. In the new millennium, losing virginity is not something new among teens. Sex has no age limit. Sexual images in the media such as TV or the Internet are blamed for promoting teen sex. Condoms, birth control pills, or other kinds of contraceptive pills become preventive options for teens. And abortion becomes a way out of the undesirable pregnancy.

I know it’s not easy for girls to keep their virginity because of peer pressure and their boyfriends. Most guys today have already had sex. Sex is very important in a relationship for men and they will look for it elsewhere if they no longer get it from their girlfriends or wives. The ugly truth is: there are three things that every man needs – support, loyalty, and “The Cookie”. Some girls are pressured into losing their virginity because of “The Cookie”. Men. Need. Sex. They just love it.

Nevertheless, we (girls) cannot blame the media, our friends or boyfriends for losing our virginity. At the end of the day, it’s all up to you. One thing you have to remember is: love is a matter of trust and sex is a matter of lust. It’s your body, it’s your life and it should be your decision whether to have sex or not. If you’re not ready for it, tell your boyfriend and don’t let him pressure you into doing something you do not want to do. But if you are ready to give it away, make sure that you will do it with the right person at the right time.

First time sex is always going to be unforgettable. You cannot get your virginity back once it’s gone, so you must wait until you’re truly ready and fully trust the one you want to do it with.

Stay safe! :)

Source URL for the image above: http://www.paulaltott.com/blog/

A Weekend Getaway to Penang

O.M.D (Oh Mon Dieu)! This blog looks dead because of the lack of updates. Most my previous time was taken up by working, dating, clubbing and hanging around. But after I went back to my home country for good, I’ve just spent my time lazing around at home and watching an idiot box. I feel so jobless now (sobs). That’s why I’m gonna start updating this blog again with current posts and photos. Like a girls quote: “It’s the good girls who keep diaries; the bad girls never have the time.” And now I’m one of the good girls again (grinning).

A couple of weeks before I went back home, I found some time to go on vacation with my close friends: Rohini, Pash and Rubee. We decided to go to Penang Island as a destination for our weekend getaway. Rubee did a little bit of digging to find cheap flights for all of us and made a hotel reservation.


Penang has a lot of temples. When we arrived there, we went straight to visit two of Penang’s famous temples such as Wat Chaiyamangkalaram (the temple with one of the longest reclining Buddha in Malaysia) and another temple which I forget the name. We also did a little shopping at Gurney Plaza and Little India, and finally walked along the Beach Street and stopped by Fort Cornwallis (the largest intact fortress still standing in Malaysia) – but too bad we couldn’t enter because it was closed.


The following day, we went to Batu Ferringhi (a top beach destination in Penang). I couldn’t wait to enjoy the salty, sea air with my beach bums – have a hot time lounging on the beach, draped in my super-sexy bikini (woot woot). Even though the weather was sizzling hot, we still had fun in the sun – sunbathing, strolling along the beach and feeling the sand and seawater beneath our feet. Another great excitement we didn’t miss there was horse riding. It was my first time riding on horseback; it was scary, but so much fun.



Too bad we could only stay there for three days. Even though my skin turned darker because of spending too much time in the sun, I didn’t care a damn because it was worth it. I “heart” Penang.


P.S. Some of the photos were taken by my friends, from their cameras.

3rd Homecoming

I was beginning to run out of patience while waiting for my flight to Balikpapan at Jakarta’s Soekarno-Hatta airport. The wait seemed to go on forever. It was my third homecoming, but felt like the first since I was away from family for nearly 10 months. My longing for home couldn’t be resisted anymore. So I took my camera out of the bag, looked out the window, and snapped a picture of Garuda Indonesia Airlines to distract myself.

My arrival home was something Mom had been hoping for since I was still in Kuala Lumpur. When I saw her standing in the airport waiting area, a welcoming smile was carved on her face. I locked my arms around her and pressed my lips very lightly to her forehead. She was just grinning and gave me a bear hug. It wasn’t quite an emotional homecoming; it was just because we missed each other badly. When I arrived home and met with my family again, I was thinking, “Gosh, this is my happy home, full of love.”

Nothing much happened in the first week I was there. I only went to some of my favourite eating places with Mom by bike – well, yeah, most every girl in my family knows how to ride a motorbike, but I’m scared of riding downtown now because I haven’t ridden in such a long time. Our neighbour invited us to her garden in a suburb for picking rambutans and cempedaks. I’m not a lover of tropical fruits, but picking rambutans sounded fun for me and I could eat as much as I’d like for free, so I just smiled my agreement.

My 3rd homecoming.

One of the best things of returning home is a high-school reunion where I can meet and mess around with old school friends. We went for a movie and karaoke-ing, and played pool. My girls and I went swimming at a water park and slept over at one of their houses. We were reminiscing, gossiping and laughing ourselves silly while snacking all night. I really enjoyed myself – so did my friends.

Karaoke-ing and pool-ing with my friends.

Swimming at a water park with my girls.

Splish...Splash!

It was a pity two of my girls had an accident. They fell down from a motorbike while we were riding to a pool place. One of them got seven stitches on her tummy. Thank God, they weren’t seriously injured so that they could go home and took some rest. All of us were traumatised before – so were our parents, but later we laughed the incident off as just our silly recklessness.

Now, I can’t wait to come back to Kuala Lumpur and my mindless routine (doing assignments) when college starts again. At least I will still meet my college friends and hang out with them again. Spending a lot of time with them gossiping or just chilling out somewhere can be real fun. That’s why I miss them greatly :)

Is public display of affection (PDA) OK?

I was eating pizza in a fast-food restaurant with a friend. I looked around, and then shot my eyes to a couple standing beside a mall’s guide map near us. The girlfriend wrapped her arms around her boyfriend’s neck, and the boyfriend started to kiss her. It wasn’t a quick kiss, but a prolonged one with.....tongue. I knew it was rude to eye them, but what would you expect me to react? It was no longer private when done in a public place, right?

It wasn’t the first time I’ve seen such a display in public areas. Every time I see public displays of affection (PDA), I feel like telling the couple, ‘Get a room, please.’ I am sure this is something uncomfortable for most everyone. It is also something inappropriate in front of children.

I don’t want to sound so old-fashioned or naïve and act as if I was an old mama. But can you imagine, a couple near you getting hot and heavy while you were so focused, trying to pocket the black ball on a pool table? OK, fine. It is a poolroom, but may still be something uncomfortable for the average guests.

In Europe, Canada and the United States it is normal to see people holding hands, kissing (french kissing) and caressing each other. In places such as bars, nightclubs, and strip clubs, acts such as grinding (dance erotically) and french kissing are common. I don’t find the public display of affection inappropriate in those places. It can still be tolerated. What meant here is PDA can be such an unacceptable behaviour in public places such as restaurants, malls, offices, schools, campuses – and particularly places where children are around.

In our lax society, privacy today may be unnecessary, where the practice of making out in a bedroom is dead, replaced by the practice of treating a packed mall like their bedroom. Is it very important to show other people that they are unconditionally in love? Let’s not get silly about this. Holding hands is OK. But kissing (french kissing) in public is a big no-no. You will do the right thing if someday you ask a security guard to handle such a situation (LOL).

Best Things of Being 'Alone'

I like to go out alone sometimes, shopping around or just window-shopping in a mall. The best thing of shopping alone is no one will complain to me if I spend hours looking around for the best deal. The worst thing – no one reminds me to control myself when I enter stores and can’t stop buying things, since I’m such a big spender (I seriously need to kick this bad habit).

I also eat out alone sometimes. Some people tell me they feel uncomfortable when eating alone at restaurants. They always feel that other people are staring at them or it just feels weird to eat alone in public without any companion or anyone to talk with. But me? I don’t mind. I usually bring something to read or listen to a music player in my cell phone to avoid feeling that people are giving me a weird look. I just don’t give a damn.

What you need to have is just confidence. You will find yourself in an awkward situation if you always feel worried about what other people around you think – whether they are staring at you or not. It just makes you look weird. I always think that we were born alone, we die alone. At the end of the day, it’s up to us to do something alone.

People need to be alone to find themselves – who they really are. Or people need to be alone because they need their own personal space. So, will you dare yourself to wander alone in the wilderness of a big city? Because there’s nothing wrong with being alone sometimes.