==tulip speaks==

It was different

First we were greeted with tonnes of rambutans
everywhere! On the first day of our arrival, we got excited. On the
second day, we were (well) still excited. Then, we started to be ‘fed’
rambutans in every house we paid a visit. On the sixth day, we got
fed-up even at the sight of the fruit!

We
stayed in a decent place this time. Thanks to my previous bad
experience with hotels, I am more careful in selecting a place for our
six days stay. Below is the pic of my room Nice huh?

My
room was a stark contrast from the rural households we visited during
the work trip. Below is one of such house. A typical Malay house with
poor lighting and air-conditioning. There will be couple more photos in
my flickr. Check that out too.

Besides
doing work (which I am suppose to do), I learnt alot about the other
side of Malaysia. Born and bred in Kuala Lumpur, I didn’t even know the
existance of a place called Trolak until I was told to pack my things
and stay there for a week. Next stop will be Kuala Selangor, and I will
visiting couple of oil palm estates there. It will take me probably
another 10 days to put up the next post.

I wish I could write down how much I miss everyone, but I couldn’t. Till my next post, a huge hug from me!

*kampung = village

I will be off to Trolak** tomorrow morning *sigh! That means another 5
days (maybe) without Internet. Literally meaning I won’t be able to
blog for the next 5 days. I will be back on 24th July, only to leave
again elsewhere on 26th. Then I will be away for good 10 days! I will
try my level best to update tulipspeaks whenever possible. No promises though.

Another news I would like to share with all will be my sister’s enrolment in the university. She has been offered a scholarship to pursue Pharmacy in International Medical University (IMU).
I just send her off yesterday. A little sad to see her leaving home,
but I know she will be back soon :). Guess both of us will be
contributing a lot to our telcos for the next 4 years! And hopefully
she will resume blogging *Amen!

I am so sorry leaving without
visiting any one’s blog. Its almost midnight and I have just finished
packing. Too tired to type anything more Just a freaking wallpaper
which I did in haste for everyone:

Click to download: 800*600 | 1024*768

We had fire drill emergency about two hours ago. This is one of the most amusing fire drill
emergency I have ever experienced. Well, the last one i experienced was
during my school days, when we will pack our bags in slow motion, get
in proper line and head to the football field. Now thinking back, what
IF there was a real fire? Will I have enough time to patiently do all
that? May be I would have charred to death by then!

Now back to today’s fire drill
emergency. First I heard some kinda buzzing noise via the PA system.
Thought they were testing out the system which cost the uni millions of
*ringgits. Then, a lady spoke in a sexy voice and asking us to evacuate
the building immediately and this is NOT a fire drill. And the
announcement was played over and over again. Of course, you were
reminded not to use the lift during emergency. So, I grab my handphone
& run down the staircase. Aha.. did I tell you I am in the 6th (and
top) floor in my building? Okie.. that was an exercise.

At the ground floor, I see a small crowd who has no clue what kinda fire drill emergency is happening. Mind you - we are still in the building vicinity and no one directed us to ’safer’ place - *blur.com! We waited for few minutes and then they let us in. Till this moment
none of us know if there was actually any fire or this is a fire drill.
About 10 mins ago, there was the same announcement again, but this time
it was followed by another announcement saying that the second
announcement was an error. I guess today can be officially declared as
Announcement Friday!
*ringgit - Malaysian currency *blur.com - just a remark reflecting how blurred we were.

Movie: Sivaji
Song: Athiradee
Clip: AR Rahman’s concert in Toronto

This
is (surprisingly) my fav song from the movie. I just found this clip in
YouTube & couldn’t watch it (me in office nah! :P). Hopefully this
is the right clip & its playing well. Do let me know if it is not.
Will check it out once I get back home.

The latest type of housing estates in Malaysia will be the guard-gated community.
You will be driving to a posh housing estate, only to be stopped by a
foreign security guard who speaks horrible Bahasa Malaysia & no
English, and asked for your driving license (or identity card). The
last thing I wanna do is to leave my MyKad* to
these suspicious looking guards and return 3 hours later to collect it
when I am exiting the place. I mean.. how safe is it to leave such a
precious item to these guards? First of all, what is the purpose of
having a security guard if he can’t even communicate with you? Will he
knows what is going on if someone shout "Tolong*! Tolong!"?For me, its like having a guard just for the sake of having one and fulfilling the developer’s obligation. Sighhhh…

Thats not the only concern I have on gated community. Those days, when we were living in a mere kampung* or
an estate setting, we didn’t need a guard. One may argue, there was no
cases of rampant house-breaking / snatch-thieves back then. True but it
was also a time which allowed people to ‘mingle’ with everyone. There
wasn’t a ‘gate’ to imprison us in a compound. You find harmony back
then. Now, does people who live in such enclosed enclave knows what
they are missing? I don’t think so, as most of them belong to small
nuclear family, where the parents work full-time and the kids stays at
the baby-sitter’s place for half-a day! For them, its security. Nothing
else. These people don’t even know who is living next door, I don’t
think it matters to them if they able to interact with outside world.

I
wonder if I could live in such narrowed setting - Nah! I will get
suffocated! For a person who lived in a joint household for 27 years, I
can’t even bring myself to think about living such isolated kinda life.
Not at all!

*MyKad - Malaysian Indentity Card
*Tolong! Tolong! - Help!Help!
*kampung - village

The preparation for Bloggers Buff 2007 is going on right now. Busy busy busy…

To those who already registered
thank you guys & see you all on Sunday.

To those who has the intention of coming but have not registered
please do so asap as only few more seats are available.

To those who has the intention of coming but could not do so for various reasons
hope you guys able to participate in other events we may have in line for bloggers

AND to those who has no intention of coming (or no interest to join)
too bad, you are missing alot here!

Update:
I had a hair cut yesterday & will be going for a facial today. Ah.. two of my needs been fulfilled! phhewww…

Movie: Mouna Ragam
Song: Nilave Vaa

Come on.. if you don’t like
know this song, I think you seriously need to head towards the CD shop
now. One of the best songs of the 80s & I would rate this movie as
one of the best in its time too! Personally Mohan is never my fav actor
but this guy is lucky to have most of the hit songs in his movies! Talk
about luck.. ish ish!

Hey guys.. Rames did us a favour by creating a poster for Bloggers Buff 2007. Check it out! Cool stuff!
And don’t forget to register by this Thursday!

***

I
have read soooooooooooo many reviews about Sivaji - The Boss that I
have decided NOT to write a review on it. Ah.. that doesn’t mean it was
not a cool movie. A pure entertainer! Director Shanker being "Director
Shanker" never failed to highlight the use of technology in his movies.
In this particular song, Rajini was basically transformed into
’someone’ else :p How was it done? Watch the making of oru kuudai sunlight here: