Before leaving Brunei, I was showered with really warm farewells. My good friends, all of them, cleared their calendars to make time to see me for a farewell coffee session, farewell dinner, farewell run at the stadium, farewell brownie bake sale. Some of these friends I’ve known all my life, some of them I just met not too long ago but all of them had put in the same effort. My sisters were also quick to point out how lucky i am to have this big(ish) group of friends that really cared.

I do have really good friends. So good, that sometimes i feel guilty for not being able to repay their kindness. You see, I may not be lucky in the love department but it’s good to know that i have friends that i can really rely on. Friends that i know who would be there for me no matter what – ada duit kah nada duit kah, lampoh kah kurus kah, bida kah lawa kah..bejagok kah inda kah.. ada bag chanel ka nada bag chanel ka..ada make up itu la..nada make up ini lah..babi kah barok kah… …

It took me a lot of trial and errors to get here but I have found my posse and I’m holding them close to my heart.

That’s the thing about meeting new people. You meet a lot of them, but it’s pretty rare that anything would come out of it. It’s either a hit of a miss. Most times it’s a miss. Anyway, being single and 30.. i realise how important it is to maintain these relationships exsp when you’re in a frosty weathered foreign country that gets dark by 5pm. loneliness definitely has a way of creeping in. Being in touch with my friends is just the thing you need to feel or fuzzy and warm inside.

Kan. God is fair like that. Yes i dont have a BF..but i have lots of lots of BFF who i can get in touch with at the touch of a button. kajap..aku bedoa dulu ah:

To my friends, wherever you are, I pray for your safety, for your health and happiness.

Three weeks into exercising and i have finally lost 1kg. A far cry from what i was aiming but I’m just relieved that I am still capable of losing weight. So relieved that I decided to treat myself to a generous spread of kaya on toast. So generous, i may have as well have doused the whole bottle of Kaya.

It’s true what they say, it is what you eat that matters. I am trying to wean off sugar and because i craved chicken rice so much i made a quinoa version yesterday – which was so good, i forgot to take a photo. I probably owe this week’s achievement to all the work related lunch/dinner/receptions i attended this week. European hospitality is ‘carefully rationed’ in a sense that for lunch you’d usually get served pieces of sourdough bread with some cheese on top and if you’re really lucky,a side of salad and some anti-pasti like cold smoked ham – which is ahem. haram.

Now that i’m on a diet and committed to losing all this weight i’ve packed in the last 7 months, I say BRING IT ON, kalau boleh banyak banyak lagi HAM please so that i can totally have a reason not to have anything haha. Ok.

Here’s a best kept secret that everyone should know about me: I DONT LIKE CURED MEATS. i hate anything smoked or aged. be it ham or beef or chicken. anything smokey i cannot have. i can’t tell you how many people i’ve offended due to this great distaste for ‘smoked-anything’..this is probably the only thing that i feel obliged to turn down. i cannot guys. sorry. other than smoked salmon everything else is….yucks. spaghetti with sausages? yuck. pizza topped with salami, pepperoni – yuck. hot dogs…- yuck. I don’t care if you guys says its nyaman, I AM NEVER GOING ANYWHERE NEAR IT. It’s my kryptonite, like nails on chalk board.. i cannot. absolutely cannot.

I was frying up my quinoa with what i thought was pure chicken fat yesterday when it started smelling like sausages. I ran to the fridge and got out the bag of what i thought was chicken lard.. true enough, it said ‘smoked chicken ham’ on the package..at first i was was against throwing good quinoa into the trash.. but the longer it was on the stove, the stonger it smelled of sausages..so i had no choice but to throw it away and started frying up a new batch of quinuo – sans chicken anything.

anyway. monday beckons.

good night.