Colourful life...

Life (work wise) becomes too depressed since 2 weeks ago. I don't know why but all us us feel the same..I think not because of the work load but more on the working environment. I simply don't like people keep checking on me-what I've done, what I'm doing, what I'm going to do..hellooo, give us some credit, we are academician with high integrity. We know exactly what we are doing and how serious the mission is. Hmm, don't know what to say anymore, but somebody already 'burst' last week. I hope they learn their lesson not to fool around with us.

Life wise, yeah...I'm so happy. Yesterday I went to Indian supermarket at La Chapelle. So good, I found lots of my favorite stuff e.g. rendang flavour Indomie instant noodle..The first time I had it was in Invercargill NZ few years ago..I don't think we can find it in Malaysia though. Also, I manage to get soy source-kicap manis made in Indonesia. Besides kicap Kipas udang, I can live well with kicap manis Indonesian.. I thought I have to go to London to get kicap hahahaha....I can cook my favourite 'masak kicap' after this. Also, I found anchovies (ikan bilis)..I don't think I should talk about the price, I just say 1 to 1 in RM-meaning that those we can get RM3 in Malaysia expect to pat 3 euro (~RM15) here...:-)..

I will go again to that supermarket to get more stuff later e.g. Lingam chilli source...


































My friend Tulip provoked me with her RM 1 nasi lemak. End up, I cooked nasi lemak for myself on Sunday hehehe..We in fact compared the nasi lemak RM1 in Malaysia, with nasi lemak in Qatar RM48, and home cooked nasi lemak Paris in facebook hahahaha...Economy wise, I think nasi lemak Paris should get the credit..I put some effort to cook it, but both Tulip and Aris just 'tunjuk' their nasi lemak..hahaha...no offend Tulip if you read my post hahahaha..

nasi lemak with sambal, telur goyang and ayam goreng masala..A bit of herbs are important to keep ourselves warm during winter..















This week, I've been busy planning my Christmas and New Year holiday. For now, I've booked return ticket to London to celebrate boxing day hahahaha...Still thinking if I should go to Brussel and Amsterdam during New Year..Or else, I can visit my friend in Germany and later go to Luxemburg..still thinking about budget...Anyway, I don't plan to become rich so I don't have to worry..hehehe...



**It's freezing cold out there-snowing...

Space flight participant

I never hide my feeling on how much I never supported the space flight participant. In fact, I posted about the payment he received in this blog ages ago. When Harakah came out with the article about his charge RM8k/hour, I was not surprised at all.

It is so unbelievable if MOSTI find out later he is not guilty...I wrote about his charge in August, and the matter was asked in Parliament just last month (October/November). MOSTI only requested the proof 2 weeks ago..Unless I have some power, then only I could be influenced by media. I'm afraid in Bolehland there is no way we can get fair justice. He is the UMNO's 'mascot' so read my lip-he is NOT guilty even after proven guilty...lots of things can be swept under the carpet...

Shopping spree

It's long weekend this week-Saturday to Tuesday. In the first place I thought I should go
somewhere out of Paris. Since I did not plan properly, by the time I checked the train ticket was so expensive..So I decided not to..

What did I do? Finally managed to get my belated birthday present from Lafayette gallery. On my birthday this year, I stranded in front of Prefacture (immigration) here-something to do about my working permit. I felt like Bangla or Indon-such a long Q. We waited for 5 hours for nothing..Back to the story, I spent more than 3 hours in Lafayette gallery. So many things to see and yet are so expensive...jamu mata je la...window shopping. After that, I walked to Champs Elysees for another window shopping session. I went inside LV boutique this time but I did not buy anything. For me, like Zaidah said, "LV is so Siti Norhaliza"..I will try to convince myself at least to get an LV handbag before I go back hahaha...not now..Also, I went to several shops, but I was not in my shopping spree mood anymore...

A friend of mine showed me a blog about factory outlet here..yeah La Valee Village. The place is outside the city or 1 stop away from Disneyland Paris. Last week I studied about the place since I never took any train outside Paris city..I simply could not resist the temptation hahaha...Yesterday, even though the weather was not so good I went there..First challenge was to buy a ticket from a counter. I showed the guy a map..:-) easy huh...the stop called Val d' Europe, which is zone 5 from Paris city.

RAR A4: only take the train if the light is on..or else we'll definitely go elsewhere




























La Vallee Village




























As a 'shopperholic', I really enjoy the place..La Valee Village has more than 75 international brand shops/boutique e.g. Salvatore Feragamo, Nike, Dunhill, Polo Ralph Laurent, Lancel, etc...Price wise I would say at least 30% cheaper than buy it in Paris city..When I went there, in fact there was sale in Nike shop, the third thing I bought was charged 1 euro only. I settled with 1 jacket and 2 jumpers with saving 29 euro for the 3rd jumper. Also, I bought myself a nice Ralph laurent sweat shirt. waa...I don't remember the
price but I know there's no way I can afford it in malaysia or NZ hahaha...that's the whole story about my shopping spree week...Took me several weeks to write about it hehehe...

Sabar..

Bila sebut perkataan 'sabar' tu sendiri terasa macam meredakan tekanan darah. :-) mungkin gak untuk diri sendiri boleh digunapakai. Dalam masa seminggu lepas, kesabaran seakan-akan teruji. Terasa macam the whole world goes agains me..(lama tu je la kot blh guna Malay, then I found myself lost of the right words to say..)..I was a bit disstressed since last week, work wise. I did lots and lots of mistakes. As I always said, always learn from every single mistake. I was blamed for all those mistakes, so what?? Things happened, nothing I can do about it so why should I bother about it in the first place??

I did convince myself, it was part of life, part of learning process. Make mistake and learn from it. I in fact I said to 'the person', "hello, I'm not going to repeat the same mistake 10 times. If I do that again, I'll drink PpIX"..oh yeap, PpIX is a dye, if you have it in your body and expose yourself to light or sun, then your skin colour will change-almost like vampire hehehe...I don't take panadol or sleeping pills...

Berkat kesabaran (passionate), the result was amazing or much better than I expected. Most of important thing, allow ourselves to make some mistake so that when we have problem in the future we know how to deal with it..We cannot solve everything by reading..There are so many things that we can only learn by experience.

Life is to short to restrain ouselves from doing this and that...as long as we know where to stop..

Maid in Putrajaya get Datukship??

What could be more ridiculous than awarded datukship to Shah Rukh Khan?...now, somebody else also got Dato'...I still wonder, what was her contribution to the nation? She can't even wake her husband up from such a deep sleep...sigh...Malaysia Boleh!

not in a good writing mood

this week is just not a good week to practice my 5-10 minutes free writing here...just being busy so many unnecessary things..catch me on my facebook la...

Thinking

What are the criteria to be a good researcher, graduate student, PhD candidate, PhD holder etc..??? These are something we always fail to recognize, or even sometimes fail to become one. .The main criteria to become one of those are we should be able to think, generate new idea, recognize research risk, layout the idea nicely, and the most important thing is capability to make a wise decision.

Sometimes, I simply do not blame anybody of failing to become one of those. If we somehow do not have kind of environment that support creative thinking and free flow of idea there is no way we can nurture research thinking. By end of the day, we will only produce research technician who do everything by SOP or manual-without thinking. I would say we actually producing robots that do everything that we program..

In research, we need to allow ourselves to make mistakes. Then, we learn from our mistakes to improve our outcomes. If we are too afraid to make mistakes, we surely will make more mistakes or serious mistakes beyond our imagination. Give ourselves enough space to think, arrange idea, and also don't afraid to try!

Doc Childre and Bruce Cryer, From Chaos to Coherence
"Flexibility and adaptability do not happen just by reacting fast to new information. They arise from mental and emotional balance, the lack of attachment to specific outcomes, and putting care for self and others as a prime operating principle. Flexible attitudes build flexible physiology. Flexible physiology means more resilience in times of challenge or strain. Staying open—emotionally—insures internal flexibility".

More pictures around Paris

Here are more pictures around Paris. Some of the places might not interest many people but people who read Da Vinci Code definitely love to see them :-D..hehehe...e.g. I went to Madeleine just because this church was mentioned in DVC...Anyway, that was not the only church I ever been. I just love to see arts inside out-that's all.

I've been to Galerie Lafayette, but it was closed on Sunday. Might try next weekend although I'm very sure I can't afford to shop there :-D..

Gare St Lazarre was another place mentioned in DVC..


Part of Galleries Lafayette














Madeleine














Gare St Lazarre














Place de la Concorde














Opera house

Du Louvre museum-monalisa's house

Like other people, the main reason I visited Du Louvre museum is to see Monalisa portrait. Today is the first Sunday of the month so free for all, or else I would have to pay 9 euro :-) I arrived there quite early so the queue was not too bad. This museum is full of arts thingy including paintings, sculptures, crowns, etc..Name it from medieval to 1990s. To date, they have Pablo Picasso exhibition, so I have seen his work from sketch to real paintings. My personal view, most of the arts during that time was based on human anatomy. No wonder most of them end up being excellent scientists. Oh well, naked is part of art, so expect to see lots of naked sculptures or painting in this museum or Paris in general :-) . I took lots of pictures but there's no way I can upload all..

Here are some pictures:




























Crowd to see Monalisa




























Monalisa




























Coronation Crown of Louis XV














Venus de Milo















































Pablo Picaso exhibition
























































The winged Victory of Samothrace

Square Louis Michel

This is another tourist attraction close to Anvers metro station. Hmm..quite a good place to get cheap souvenirs as well.

Update..

I just got internet connection at my apt this evening. Well, not really mine though, actually I kind of share with my neighbor-using his wireless account. Somehow, my old landlord just simply don't know how to get re-connection to landline, internet and cable TV. Thank God at least he arranged something for me so that I can do my usual business at home :-) If you know what I mean...

Life here getting harder each day. Work wise, so many things to learn and easily make mistake during lab work. A simple mistake sometimes very annoying-no turning back but to repeat all over again. Nextweek I have to work with mice serum yarghhhh...I'm a material researcher, I never thought one day I have to touch those kind of things. I hate the smell..I simply hate touching living cells...hehehe...

Weather here getting colder each day. Few days ago, the temperature was about 3C from morning to evening...not even winter yet! My surviving rate getting better but I found it's hard to leave here compared to English speaking country. Although I managed to do grocerries shopping, mostly using sign language..hahaha..To buy canned food in supermarket also not that easy, I simply find it difficult to read the ingredients. How do I know/remember all terms in French??Surprisingly, lots of food contains beef or pork flavour including pasta source. Really have to be careful before buying food. To date, I remember quite a few French words in order to help me during shopping.

Wet weather this weekend. I wish I can visit museums tomorrow because of free entrance every first Sunday of the month. Not that I'm into free ride or something but I already paid almost 3 months allowances to the landlord and the agent. We are still waiting for the company to review our allowances and reimburse some settlement allowances, which God knows how long we have to wait..For me the current allowance is enough for me to live comfortably here (not JPA rate).

Champs Elysees

This street is famous among tourist, and locals (for window shopping-including myself) :-)The street is full of designer boutiques, just name it! Most restaurant or even side walk stalls sell food at incredibly expensive price...Champs Elysees is also suitable if we like to walk. As for myself I walked from 1 end to another end, which is from Arc du Triomphe to the Royal Museum DuLouvre-but a long walk! I would say nearly 1 hour..hehehe...either we love sightseeing or simply stingy to take metro, then we can walk. When I passed through this street, I chose to walk since I need to know my direction. I was not good at taking metro at that time. If I'm going again in the future, I will take a metro...aha..I may have to go again during Christmas sale hehehe...I would like to see any discount in LV boutique..

The street facing Arc du Triomphe














Some shops














LV boutique














Sape punya lamborghini ni parking situ..hehehe...














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