Don’t ask. Don’t tell.

Americans waste a lot of time with the “Hi, how are you? I’m fine thank you, and you? Good, thanks for asking”. Now, you might not THINK that’s a long time but imagine walking down a corridor and you run into three people separately. Now imagine repeating that exchange over and over. THAT’S A LOT OF TIME!

 I have to maneuver through that at least 4-5 times in the morning before I get to my desk. First there’s the security guard on the corner. Smile. Hi How are you? good. how are you? good. thanks. bye. walk into building, there’s another security guard. Smile. wave. Hi . How are you? Great. Yourself? Good. thanks. walk through main doors of office. There’s the receptionist. Good morning. Good morning. How are you? Good. thanks. how are you? good. thanks.  walk to corridor towards desk. here’s a colleague. Hi Bob. Hi Jolin. How’s it going? Good. thanks. How about you? Doing good. thanks. (I’m exhausted by now. Smile cracking at corners) need coffee. There’s Joe and Sue in the kitchen. there’s no turning back now. Hi Jim. Sue. Hi. Morning. How are you? good. good. thanks. how ar eyou? good. good. thanks for asking.

 for crying out loud!

Who really cares to know anyway? NO ONE!!! No one reeeeally wants to know that you’re feeling crappy because you didn’t get enough sleep last night because the rain was so heavy and you haven’t fixed that leak in your roof and you were terrified all night that your ceiling would collapse on you in the middle of the night. No one REALLY wants to know.  SO WHY DO THEY BOTHER ASKING?!!!! argh!!! and if by chance someone DOES rant on about their life story after you ask them (you DID ask…) then you waste even MORE time listening to their boring stories (about some lame leaky roof. why couldn’t it just collapse on her and save you from this wretched story?) what a waste of time.

 Why can’t we just get along with a nod of the head when we pass each other in the hallway? Or even a simple good morning. good morning. exchange would be MORE than sufficient!

My new home

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home, originally uploaded by jolinjojobeans.

Of all the experiences I had through my little european holiday , the most startling part was the return home. yes. home.

There are many times when I realize my life has changed but there seldom is a defining moment.. however, this time this time I can literally pinpoint when it happened. The moment when something changed and I felt like “whoaa.. hey. This is now home”. very banal but it was at the last leg of my flight into Philadelphia when the air crew handed out arrival forms. I’ve filled out those white slips dozens of times over the past 5 years and it’s always been the same. This time though i found myself lingering over the box for “Country of Residence”. I’ve always put down ‘Malaysia’ without batting an eyelid but this time I was hesitant.

It wasn’t the fact that I pay rent here, or that I have bills in my name here or that I have a job in this country. I’ve had that for 5 years now, all that. It was something else that made me hesitate. I guess you could call it finally growing roots. Finally finding that maybe, yes, I belong here..or am finally begining to. That I’m finally not straddling two worlds, splitting myself between two places half the world apart and trying to negotiate them both for the short periods I am in either.

It felt good, no, GREAT to know that I was coming home to something here in Philly, that there were friends and familar faces I realized I was very excited to return to. There were those before too but I guess my heart could never leave Malaysia fully to embrace my life here. It always felt a strong loyalty and reluctance to let go of my life pre-Philly.

Now though I finally feel a strange sense of comfort, of content.. which I guess I relate to the idea of “home” here in Philly. I never thought I’d end up here… or feel settled here.. but yet, here I am.

Country of Residence: USA

And glad to be home.

postcard perfect me

postcard perfect me, originally uploaded by jolinjojobeans.

What a poser. Quite shy to post such a deliberate attempt at looking sweet but I'm smitten by how adorable I turned out. *pats self on back*

For those who realized I was gone for a couple of weeks, this is where I was hanging out. Hello Amsterdam!!! This city has made it to the my list of top 5 favorite European cities.

LIST:
1. Rome
2. Istanbul (hald european, half asian since it straddles both continents)
3. Prague
3. London
4. Amsterdam

Sorry Munich, you got bumped to number 6 but I still love you. Better luck next time.

Actually I'm judging Amsterdam based off more of what I saw traveling around Holland. We visited some friends in two smaller towns a couple of hours out of the city, traveled through a lot of polder land and cow country. oh, such pretty cows. They're famous for their black and white Freisian cows. The keep brown cows only for chocolate milk (joke told my tour-bus guide) yeaaa, my mom insisted on taking one of those day tours on the bus and I have to admit it was quite worth it. Unless you have friends living there, it would be a pain to rent a car and figure out directions to cheese farms, windmills, fishing villages etc etc on your own.

The main drawback is that you get like 5 minutes at one spot instead of having the luxury of taking your time. This is why i HATE organized tours. Especially the ones they have from Asia. When we went on a tour through the West Coast in 2000, we had to wake up at the crack of dawn every day to cram in as many places as humanly possible, stopping only to take a photo of some famous building (as proof that you've been there) and then scramble back onto the tour bus. That's NOt a holiday! AND all we ate was chinese food. WHO WANTS TO EAT CHINESE FOOD WHEN YOU'RE VISITING A NEW COUNTRY???? (unless it's China). To top it off, all the rest of the peopple on tour with us were from Malaysia too. So basically you meet other malaysians and eat regualr malaysian foods… they mollycoddle you and try to make it as much like "home" as possible, thus negating the whole experience of travelling. *throws hands up in exasperation*

Anyway, I digress. But those of you who've been on tour-guided holidays know what I'm talking about right?

So Amsterdam.

We – oh, I travelled with mommy dearest by the way (more on that later) – spent three days there doing the whole walking around thing, soaking up the atmosphere. The city's GOOOOORGEOUS, and I say this having only skimmed the surface of Amsterdam since we spent 2 days out of the city proper. Mom has friends out in the small town called Hengelo and we went to visit them on their farm, soaked up some real Dutch culture, ate some desserts with very bad names (!!) and I picked up some Dutch from their 4 year old kid.

I think we covered only a third of the city. I didn't even get to go to the Rembrandt museum or savor the nightlife because by the time we were done each night we were exhausted!But that's okay because it's worth another trip.

Speaking of "trips" I didn't manage to get my mom high on pot like I planned because the "coffee shops" (as they're called) were too shady. I was expecting happy touristy type pot shops but there were only greasy looking men in the ones I saw. Not enticing.

The other letdown was the redlight district. Maybe it's because I've seen more hardcore stuff in Bangkok (or MTV…) but the shock value was just not there. Sorry Prossies, you aint badass enough.

Top 5 favorite things about Amsterdam (and countryside):

1. Walking through the city and along canals- uber romantic ( note to self: bring SigOther along next time). Mom and I wandered around through the winding streets until we got lost.

2. Canal boatride – again, romantic but to be done with SigOther. The houses are all lit up and you can peek into them and see how they live

3. Maraken – small fishing village we went to on our tour

4. EVERYONE'S SUPER TRENDY!

5. The Friendly Dutch (hopsitable countrymen are underrated)

There's obviously a ton more stuff I could write but that sums it up for now.

Next up – my continuing journey to Paris and London. Stay tuned!

The Da Vinci Code.. sort of

I know everyone out there has this problem too, I have too many damned online accounts that I keep messing up my passwords and IDs. My solution is to write them down "somewhere" where only I can find them. Inevitably, these get lost or I cannot remember where I hid them so those accounts 'die'.

option two is to ENCRYPT the passwords via tricky only-i-can-unlock-the-answer type of multiple questions. Like when is your birth date, very simple.. except that… when I sign up for these things I usually lie about my age and naturally I can't remember what imaginary date I cooked up for myself for that system…which means I can't access the NEXT trick question, what's your mother's maiden name (which i also usually lie about anyway)

 what's brought us down this path of thinking is the fact that i cannot for the life of me get into my flickr account. yeah.. so that means I can't attach a photo to this post.

so yeah, going through my travel photos and found a couple of good ones but that'll have to wait til my password/ID memory returns.

 ps: i went travelling.

Sappy Jo makes an appearance

boysboysboys!, originally uploaded by jolinjojobeans.

SigOther was one of TWELVE groomsmen at his friend’s wedding this past weekend. TWELVE. T-W-E-L-V-E. Good grief! And I thought eight bridesmaids at my old roommate’s wedding was a lot.

This gives you a small insight into the personality of SigOther and company though. They’re huge social animals and like it or not when they roll, they roll deep.

This was the first time I got to meet all his old childhood friends and their families and respective girlfriends/boyfriends/husbands/wives etc all at one go. Maybe the right word is “bombarded”. It brought back memories of secondary school, cramming for SPM sejarah exam – Sultan Muhammad Shah was son of Sultan Mansur Shah who led the Minangkabaus against the Bugis in 1421 and married Puteri Lelong Murah , eighth daughter of the Javanese King Mugatu…

Luckily for me, all Americans share the same pool of 8 first names. If ever you find yourself in a potentially embarassing situation where you’ve forgotten an acquaintances name, try Jen, Amy, Sarah, Stephanie, Jim, John, Mike or Steve, You’ve got a 1 in eight chance of getting it right. 1 in 4 if you can determine what sex they are beforehand.

I think I scored an A- on the popquiz after the wedding. There were some off-the-beaten track names like Stu that slipped under the radar.

Names aside, it was a gorgeous gorgeous wedding. I’d never attended a garden wedding before this and it was like stepping onto a movie set (minus Ben Stiller setting the wooden altar on fire). All very fancy with cocktails by the pool and a 12 piece band in the dinner tent. Candles and bouquets all around.. aaah…

Wonderful as it was watching SigOther have a ball with his old friends it also reminded me how far away I am from my own set of old childhood chums.

I wonder if I’ll get the chance one day to be with all of you again and be a part of YOUR bridal entourage.

*sniff* sniff*

Weddings bring out the sappiness in me.

*slaps face back to stone hearted self*

much better.