"I was watching BET one night, and they were interviewing a man about jazz music. He said jazz music was invented by the first generation out of slavery. I thought that was beautiful because, while it is music, it is very hard to put on paper; it is so much more a language of the soul …

The first generation out of slavery invented jazz music. It is a music birthed out of freedom. And that is the closest thing I know to Christian spirituality. A music birthed out of freedom. Everybody sings their song the way they feel it, everybody closes their eyes and lifts up their hands."

"I never liked jazz music because jazz music doesn't resolve. But I was outside the Bagdad Theater in Portland one night when I saw a man playing the saxophone. I stood there for fifteen minutes, and he never opened his eyes.

After that I liked jazz music.

Sometimes you have to watch somebody love something before you can love it yourself. It is as if they are showing you the way."

[via donald miller, blue like jazz]

read the book on the way to shanghai (oh btw i ended up bringing two books for the hol, despite the 'ambitious' tag. am thankful i did :D the flight was about 5 hours, by which time i almost finished with one book.

this was easy reading, much like reading a blog, but it left me wanting by the end of it. like how he has described jazz music, the book didn't resolve. maybe the hype of "more than one million copies sold" got to me. maybe it wasn't meant to be. ah well. appreciate his honesty though. a lot of us are jerks but we wouldn't admit it, what more have it published and publicized. also i could relate to his "in my own world" thingy -- not the best of traits by any measure, but it's just who he is. heh - he feels like a friend now. the book's gonna be made into a movie -- wonder how it would translate on screen. it would not likely be shown here, so here's to torrents and downloading.

happy friday!

duke ellington & john coltrane :: in a sentimental mood

happy 8th, hubby!

:)

i know what love is
i bask in its splendor
i balk at its sacrifice

and i pride myself of these things
sometimes

but who am i kidding.

He is jealous for me

loves like a hurricane

I am a tree bending beneath the weight of his wind and mercy

when all of a sudden

I am unaware of these afflictions eclipsed by glory

And I realise just how beautiful You are

And how great Your affections are for me

And oh, how He loves us so,

Oh how He loves us,

How He loves us all

We are His portion and He is our prize,

Drawn to redemption by the grace in His eyes,

If His grace is an ocean, we're all sinking.

And Heaven meets earth like an unforeseen kiss,

And my heart turns violently inside of my chest,

I don't have time to maintain these regrets,

When I think about, the way?

#1
saw this gorgeous sky from the putra train, after work, on the way to meet jazz for a dinner of fish head noodle in bandar puteri puchong. didn't get the name of the restaurant, but it serves salmon sashimi and even cod in place of the normal fried fish with the noodle. a bit the pricey though, but yummeh!

back to the pic, my hat off to the awesome Painter. =)




#2
my siblings came back -- on separate trips -- a couple of weekends ago. sis came back first w her bestie ah jane, then kel, then mel with his gal liyani and her dad, so there were some wonderful meals with a lot of catching up. heart! brought mel+liyani+L's dad to putrajaya for a night tour after one of the dinners. it was my first time there (at nite as a tourist) as well.. :)

oh well, they've all gone back down south. and i reawwy, reawwy miss them. :(












#3
this was after dinner w hubby at an indonesian restaurant in taman desa. i had some kinda nasi with fried chicken (not unlike ayam penyet) while hubby had the same with fish (not unlike otak-otak). food was decent -- definitely will be back for second round cos i spied sambal petai udang on its menu. yums.

was too full after dinner so walked around -- there was a korean shop (not unlike lotte mart)(yes, there are a lot of 'not unlike' in this para hehe) in the neighborhood so we dropped by and bought some korean ramen perisa sotong (we had two steaming bowls of them by the next day - nice!) -- before settling here at hailam kopitiam for coffee. =D



#4
saturdays are made of these: pampering and good food. hehehe. since i fell sick (on a weekend no less! grrr..), i self-prescribed a pedi to make the days easier to bear. and not surprisingly, ww also shared my sentiments, so there we were, sniffling and coughing and wrapping paper wantons away as our feet were washed and nails trimmed and painted. oo-ee! haha.. was supposed to have lunch thereafter w another friend but she ffk-ed me last min, so ww and i just cont'd the afternoon with lunch at woo pin fish head noodle restaurant (very near that indon rest in #3)(i wuv fish head noodle, can you tell? hehe). it was my first time eating the sang yu (un-fried fish) version of the noodle. bunchabones aside, it was goood, and i finished all my soup. hehehe..

spent the rest of the day at my mom's place, sewing away. whee! got all six pillow covers done, and just started on the curtains. just gonna close one eyes to the senget lines. hahaha..

admiring my pedi on the new quilt sheet. you can't see it here, but the shade on one foot is darker than the other. i couldn't decide which one i liked better, so i had one on each feet.




#5
that's my nephew eu jin (BIL's baby) -- so cute! he turned one (obviously) recently. was supposed to have a small party yesterday but he was down with the flu -- the poor thing -- so we just had a simple cake cutting ceremony. the jelly cake was nice and ohsoprettyiloverainbow, but i could only take two bites as i was really, really stuffed from our banana leaf lunch w chongy, whom i've not seen since forever (a month?!). well, hubby was already asking of her whereabouts, which means that it's been too long. too long, ya hear! don't be a stranger ok. and have an awesome holiday!! :D

kitty looks on approvingly.

#6
one of the harder decisions to make when going on a vacay is "which book to bring?" something too deep and my brain will hurt (more likely that i won't be interested), too simple and i'd be done before the plane touch down at the destination. bringing two books would just be too ambitious and unnecessarily taking up space meant for holiday loot ;), but not bringing any is inconceivable. urgh.

well, i've gotten it right before, but i've also experienced lugging along a hardcover book which i didn't even flip through, so it's all touch and go when it comes to such decisions.

anyways, that book came in the mail today. i literally squealed when the mail room guy passed the envelope  to me. hahaha.. wouldn't you?! at 239 pages, it should be just about right (if i don't start reading now la). so yeah, grandfatherland, here i cometh.

happy birthday, sis!!

30 years of sisterhood. this is surreal.

...

don't really know what to say. hahaha..
just this: love & miss you lotsss!! :D


[sorry a bit the late, but i've backdated this post :D]

hey [sister], do you remember when

we used to play outdoors

'till the light was absorbed by the night.

hey [sister], it was an innocent time.

we used to laugh 'till we cried,

but still [girls] on the inside.

(I wanna do it again)

first time staying out all night.

last time that we got away with lies.

I can hear it in the back of my mind.

over and over again.

(I wanna do it again)

late nights and early lights.

never thought it would come to a goodbye.

I replay it on the back of my mind

over and over again.

(I wanna do it again)


anberlin :: younglife

Hellowwwwwwww, did anyone miss meeeeee? :D

the date of my last post was 7 September -- i think that was about the longest (in?)voluntary break i've ever taken from blogging. heh. oh well, it's been a busy month, but in a good way cos despite the long hours, i kinda love what i've been doing -- but i do hope that by the end of next week, i'd be clocking shorter hours again. can't wait.

some random pics since i last posted (won't gonna be bothered with chronological order:


church camp at cameron, early september

 

#1
dimsum at the famous foh san in ipoh with the entourage going up



#2
i forgot what the joke here was already. seemed funny then.



#3
strawberry moment cafe - weiwen - strawberry strudel



#4
mamak session opposite where we stayed (cool point hotel)
there's a starbucks a few shops up.oh the commercialisation of it all.



#5
kea farm, near equatorial hotel -- auntie arul buying vegetable




#6
i saw a guy woking his rubik's cube on the train ride to the office one morning
and i thought to myself
hey i wish i could solve one of these like u know, one thing to do before i die kinda thing
so i got myself one
and it's in the corner collecting dust
some day.




#7
eggs, asparagus, tomatoes & some intoxicating mushroom -- everything fresh from cameron (eggs fr supermarket though) -- our first meal home from camp. major YUMS.

 


#8
dinner w hubby at zang toi's west 57th cafe
it was a convenient but ended to be a very poor choice
its banana chocolate cake is still to die for
but the food quality was terrible



#9
no. 8 was supposed to be a bday dinner but it failed so bad so i made it up
food here was the yums
cost about the same as the above, but we loved this!
went to the j. ampang branch -- quiet, lovely ambience -- there was hardly another soul there, save for another table

 


#10
farewell lunch for the brainiac couple
debbie's off to nottingham for the year to complete her masters degree in law
while yingks would be finishing his PhD in about the same time
i hope they'd catch some good musicals and visit those old castles they like
best wishes!




#11
the office tower in which i work
waiting for hubs after work one night




#12
hub's friends from tawau - ps george and his wife - on a 3 day stop by KL en route to china for a 2-week missions work
hope to visit them next year!



#13
yumcha after lunch on sunday
this was at K3K in kuchai


#14
at glad tidings, jalan gasing
two of hubby’s friends were ordained recently – congrats rev Joel & rev Tryphena!
rev joel, ps george (from #13) and hubby first knew each other from our recent trip to lahad datu and struck a quick friendship
life's like that sometimes.


apology for the poor captions
it's a lazy Saturday afternoon so please don't hold it against me
i'll try to fix them later if i could
i proofread two annual reports back to back yesterday
so i'm really zoned out
thank God for the weekend