On the up: Ladrangs
On the down: The lack of exposure and understanding of what it's all about (no, it's not just for JP Thong to feel important about himself)

Oh this is so neat neat neat! Go see Go see!

Rinpoche is a STAR (needless to say) and so is our good friend Empress Thong. Notice how she takes to the role so easily as queen of the household!

Okay folks, the ladrang is not just some place where the Lama sits about all day long. It's the heart and soul of every Dharma organisation (or monastery) and it is from here that all projects, activities and work are initiated and overseen.

It's like the head, and everything else is the body. And without the head, there ain't nothing else that's gonna work properly! This is it, this is key and this is actually what makes the whole of Kechara tick tick tick.

A big curtsey to the Empress and her Ladrang team . We love you all muchly muchly x x x

On the up: Brand new starts!
On the down: Exhaustion hangovers

After the hectic weekend, I feel like I am starting everything all brand new again. Suddenly, there is a big blank slate - my diary is BLANK! and I have weeks and weeks ahead of me to write and edit and finally finish my book before Joe and Susan and JJ and the whole KMP building come crashing down on me.

I've been trying to eat healthy again, ditching the McDonald's fried chicken for yoghurt and museli instead. I've also tried waking up early to go swimming - this was great, I was all bouncy bouncy, bright eyed and happy to be in the pool at 8am.

I then went to work, ate a healthy breakfast - all cereals and fruit! - and did lots of work.... although, most of it involved cleaning up someone's sloppy work, AGAIN. Let it be known that KMP editor's don't actually do any of their own work. We're forever trying to tidy other people's work because they just can't seem to be arsed to be thorough!

In any case, I'm very proud of the tutorial I did manage to salvage, I mean REDO. It was oh-so-professional and very pretty considering it was the first time I'd ever done something like that.

Then, by 3pm I got all sleepy and had to go for a nap while at work. I hid among the cushions and tried very hard to disappear so that nobody would see me slacking on the job. I said, "20 minutes, I just need 20 minutes, I'm exhausted."

It turned out to be more than that, of course. Eventually, JJ loomed over me and bellowed,

"OH MY GOD, 20 minutes turned into 2 hours!"

I think I'm still suffering from the exhaustion hangover from after the weekend. Chin Li has decided that this is whole genre of hangover on its own - the kind that doesn't need any alcohol whatsoever but still makes you feel totally like crap for days after.

Today, I was determined to wake up at 8am to clean my house. I set my phone alarm, it rang at 8am, and I hit the snooze button every 10 minutes until 11.30am. At which point, I decided to just turn it off and sleep.

At 1.30pm, I stirred away and prepared to go in for our 2 oclock meeting. I was idling in bed answering all my SMSes first, when JJ texted, "Where are you? We're starting soon."

I texted back, "coming soon! 2pm right?" then jumped out of bed and headed for the shower.

When I got back and checked my message, the only one from JJ said, "No. NOW!"

I got there. But really rather late.

FAIL.

Anyway, I've also decided to stop living in a pigsty and CLEAN MY HOUSE.

I stuck my cheesy Rihanna CD on and swept the living room, mopped three times, cleaned the kitchen, wiped off the stove which was covered in about 3 months worth of grease (and I never even cook), aired out the whole house because I don't the windows have ever been opened in the last two months, and did all my offerings.

I'm so good, I know!

I'm wondering why it is that even though I'm only ever home for a few hours each day to sleep and shower (and maybe, just maybe, eat some toast), I'm still the only one who is cleaning the house and paying all the utility bills *grumble*

But okay, whatever. We're off to a good start so I shall let other people deal with their other-people karma.

And tomorrow morning, I shall be up by dawn to go walking in the hills.... I hope!

On the up: Good writing
On the down: Bad advice

Recently, I went to one of these book talk things organised by one of the bookstores. Always good to go poke about and see what's happening in the local writing scene, seeing as I'm such a wannabe, try-hard sort of aspiring writer myself.

There was a panel of four writers, one of which was a really good old family friend who I've known since I was knee high. Lovely lovely, always good to go support your writerly friends.

Unfortunately for me, because I didn't wake up in time, I missed my good old writerly friend's bit of blurb. By the time I got there, it was some obnoxious lady's turn to be gabbing away. She had a sort of ridiculous pen name, that may just as well have been Xena, Warrior Princess - it was so cringeworthy and ludicrous, it was hard to get past the name enough to actually want to read what she'd written.

But okay, a rose by any other name, etc...

Perhaps I would have given her another chance, IF she hadn't started saying
- that all stories and novels have a formula
- that the first chapter must always start with the main event
- and that the next few chapters would then give background to this main event

She stressed several times that all stories must follow this formula.

Obviously, she hadn't read any Daniel DeFoe (who pioneered the novel in the 18th century), any Gustave Flaubert, any Hemingway, any Steinbeck, any Hesse, any Gabriel Garcia Marquez, any Salman Rushdie, any Henry James, any Roald Dahl, any Edgar Allen Poe, any Evelyn Waugh... oh I could go on for hours.

If indeed, she had taken some of her time to actually read proper writing by some proper old greats, she sure wouldn't have come up with this farcical theory that all stories must follow a formula.

Really, as if calling herself Xena the warrior princess wasn't bombastic enough, she had to go dig herself into a bigger hole by advising all aspiring writers to write formulaically. Really, does the world need any more formulaic Jeffrey Archers, Dan Browns and Danielle Steeles?

If that's what it means to take advice from an "established" writer, I think I'd much rather piddle on with my bad, unformulaic writing thank you very much!

On the up: Calm
On the down: Working under immense pressure

The weekend, the wedding and the Chinese New Year dinner came and went. The good thing about land mines exploding all the week long before hand, meant that the whole weekend went by like a breeze - no landmines, no surprises, not even a pip squeak of a sound. I sailed on by, the wedding was a hit, happy tears were shed and everyone was a jolly dolly.

I rewarded myself by sleeping for 14 hours, arising only at 5pm because I felt bad about keeping Sharon waiting at KMP. Nowadays, there is little I ask for, except prolonged sleep time. Even better when it's accompanied by good dreams, which I had lots of during those 14 hours.

Now life goes back to its normal calm. There is time to edit my never ending book - the one I told Joe I would complete by July last year and which is still yet to be finished. I am appalled at my total inability to get it done. JUST FINISH IT ALREADY, I hear the dakinis scream as they float by and jangle their damarus and bells extra loudly in my ears.

Also, time to start eating properly and finding time to exercise. The last week of hecticness, stress and a severe lack of time to do anything, has meant that I have been surviving on fizzy cokes and MacDonalds. Nowadays, the first thing I think of when I wake up is what I would like to eat from MacDonalds today. Worrying.

But things resume, like I said. We shall get back on track with life.

As for wedding planning and the like - it has made me decide quite certainly that when and if it's ever my turn, my wedding will only ever involve a giant beautiful cake which I shall eat all by myself, lots of good sex and happily ever after. The end.

On the up: Energy
On the down: Fatigue

I am feeling so very tired (and not in that way!). For a change though, I'm not actually saying this as a complaint, but more as a kind of adrenaline addiction because I realised recently that I'm actually enjoying the exhaustion. I think I'm getting rather used to this distinct lack of sleep and developing a strange ability to be very productive and happy anyway, in spite of it.

Sometimes it *does* feel like there is too much going on, especially in the last two weeks. You've only got so many hours in a day, so mang legs to run, and so many hands to type articles.

BUT, *tada!* I have gained a very important realisation of late which is that, in spite of popular belief, I am not actually a typewriter.

This has made me feel much better about myself and the work I'm trying to get done. Now I suddeny realise *blink* that there is such as setting boundaries so that you can actually accomplish the things you need to accomplish without allowing people to ring you up every half an hour to ask you how to write a sentence/draft a letter/ produce a press release / proofread their work / spell check / write their articles for them.

There is nothing wrong in writing a sentence, drafting a letter, producing a press release and all the rest of it - actually, I quite enjoy it because it's so easy peasy lemon squeezy, but when there are also newsletters to produce, books to conceptualise, write and edit, scripts to plan and documentaries to film, you sometimes, just sometimes, wish you could have just ONE teensy weensy quiet little week to sit in a void to do what you need to do.

But, like I said, I know now that I'm not a typewriter, and that makes my world a little bit happier!

I can't believe I actually went home halfway through work to change my clothes.

Well, it was hot, okay, and I hadn't realised when I got dressed this morning, just how tight my skirt actually was. Evidently, not quite as slender as I used to be. And high heels doth not convenient footwear make for traipsing up and down the hostel to run errands and the like.

And such is the luxury of working less than 2 minutes away from home. You're never short of anything - a change of clothes, running shoes for a workout after work, lip gloss for when your lips dry out in the office airconditioner. All it takes is a 5-minute time out to hop back home, run upstairs, grab what you need, and be back in at your desk before the bosses can even say "blink."

Really, what must it be like for those poor sods who actually have to wake up early and sit in traffic jams to go to work. Aw...

On the up: Getting news
On the down: Land mines

I'd never had so many land mines explode in my face in one day as I did yesterday. It was constantly BANG

bang

BANG BANG BANG

BANG BANG

BANG

By midnight, all I could do was go sit in a very quiet, dark corner by myself and drink a Coke. I was hoping that if I stayed very still and nobody noticed me, then there would be less chances of another BANG going off.

I mean, c'mon, there's only so much bad news a girl can take in a day without it affecting her nerves some how! It this was the 18th century, I would have exhausted all my smelling salts by now.

JP was the last land mine of the day. That one exploded, and set of another 20 smaller explosions so it just bang bang bang bang bang bang bang banged incessantly for a good 10 minutes, which is quite long when it's that consistent.

It was him telling us that SP was now temporarily Rinpoche's personal attendant, which suddenly threw a whole lot of things off balance. Now, not only was I panicking, and thinking of how I was going to assuage all the bitchin' I would most definitely get from the Rest of The World, but JP also kept repeating the fact.

But he's Rinpoche's personal attendant you know.
He's Rinpoche's personal attendant.
Are you going to take away Rinpoche's personal attendant?
He's Rinpoche's personal attendant, you know?
But he's Rinpoche's personal attendant!
Do you want me to tell Rinpoche that you're taking away his personal attendant?
He's Rinpoche's personal attendant!
But he's Rinpoche's personal attendant!
He's Rinpoche's personal attendant though.
But he's Rinpoche's personal attendant.
How can you take away Rinpoche's personal attendant?

It went on and on.
bang
bang
bang
bang
chitty chitty BANG BANG.

Even as we tried to put out the fire and solve the problem, he was still reminding us that SP was Rinpoche's personal attendant just in case we hadn't heard it the first 11 times.

I SCREAMED as only a banshee would. "OKAY ENOUGH ALREADY You don't have to keep telling us 50 times, I get it, I'm trying to solve it already!"

At which point he told me I had to deal with it and have more patience.... at which point it was all I could do to reach over and strangle him with his own shirt.

Land mines are still bearable.
As is the fact that he repeated the land mine about 12 times in under 5 minutes.
BUT condescension and self righteousness will NEVER sit well with this girl.

Eventually, I did a spot of driving very fast down the LDP and then went home to sleep finally, at almost 5am.

Sure felt good for the land mines to stop exploding for just those few hours. Mondays are never good news, after all.

On the up: Being silly
On the down: Shallow materialism

JJ said I'm getting too shallow but I can't help it.

And it seems to be getting worse too. I don't understand. I'm supposed to be getting more siddhi-fied, more renounced, more unattached!

First, there was that thing about Joe's car, and how I thought he looked hotter now that he had a nicer car (although, truly, you wouldn't be very turned on by the bashed up, dusty tin can he was driving around before)

Then yesterday, I was walking around 1Utama with JJ, past one of those ridiculous pink shops filled with enough cushions to suffocate an orphanage to death. I said, "I want someone to love me soooo much that they'll buy me a pink heart cushion."

JJ just looked at me, sighed and said, "Oh my god, what happened to you, why are you so shallow?!"

I walked past La Senza and proclaimed that I absolutely must have one of those new seamless bras. JJ looked at me, sighed and said, "I don't get it. It's just underwear!" (Oh ho ho, not just any underwear, my dear!)

Later in the evening, I decided that I absolutely have to go find myself some terribly rich boyfriend who adores me so much he'll just throw tens of thousands of pocket money at me every week.

Think of all the Dharma stuff I can do - the statues! the offerings! supporting the Ladrang! helping the Gaden monks!

And of course, let's not forget: the occasional shopping spree at Pavilion! lots of branded makeup! dinners everywhere! holidays in Bali!

I want a rich boyfriend. I WANT.

Then, there was this terribly lomantic story about some wedding rings about somebody I know some more! which me go all "awwww" and "ooooh" and "ahhhhhhhhh" and *blink blink*.

And now, I like SO want someone to fall trulymadlydeeply in love with me and buy me a big fat diamond ring and marry me so I can have a big fat wedding.

Okay, not really. These are just things you think about when all you really want is to take someone (a certain someone?) home to bed and languish for hours underneath the covers teehee.

On the up: Food!
On the down: Hunger

Chin Li, JJ and I went out and ate all night last night. I think we could actually have fed a small nation with what we ate.

And you know how it is when you eat a lot the night before. The next morning you wake up and you're HUNGRY AS.

Still, I took myself off to the pool to swim off some of the extra xiao long bao I ate yesterday (before I start to look like one myself). I swam and swam and swam and swam and now I feel like a sports illustrated front page model.

Okay, not really. But at least not a xiao long bao.

I was thinking all the way through all those laps about the nice marmalade on toast I would have for breakfast when I got back (part of my current obsession with oranges).

I got home, showered, got dressed in my brand new clothes, packed my bags for work and went down for TOAST!

Then found out that the bloody bread was mouldy. ARGGGGG! how is that possible! I only just bought it a few days ago AND put it in the fridge!

On the up: Normality
On the down: That big "to do" list

Well, I sure am glad we can get back to business already. The whole big fuss over Chinese New Year is just way overrated and the biggest bloody bore ever. Sometimes, I wish we would just do away with it altogether and not bother.

But you know lah, you have to be proud to be Chinese and celebrate their biggest festival of the year blah blah blah.

Anyway, I'd been so happy as I was today that it was Monday. Finally, we can just get on with it.

Then again, I did only get to sleep at 8am this morning. By the time I woke up, it left only about one hour to do work, before I had to sort out the furniture at Drakpa House. It's just getting ridiculous - we moved in 4 months ago, and there is still half-arsed, half-assembled bits of furniture around the house, curtain-less windows, and the sorriest altar you've ever seen.

Empress JP came round to help move stuff because I'm half crippled and have sworn not to try to be a hero and lift heavy things anymore. We shifted everything around and now all the Buddhas are sitting squashed up together, like they're in a foam party.

Really, the people of the house are far outnumbered by the Buddhas - which is pretty jammy, I suppose. Maybe all the enlightened attainments they embody will seep through into my head over time.

We really MUST sort out this house. I don't want to feel like I'm living in a cardboard box anymore, thank you very much!

On the up: Boxer briefs
On the down: Boy panties

As far as selecting the right kind of boys goes, I think I draw the line at guys who wear those awful tighty briefs. yuck.

Fortunately, I've never had the misfortune of actually coming across one of those while in the throes of passion. I wouldn't quite know what I'd do if I did.
a) Feign illness and take the next taxi home?
b) Grit my teeth and see past the ugliness?
c) Tell him off for such bad taste?

I hate to be so shallow, but only boxers or boxer briefs cut it (not that I should be so picky at this stage since I'm not even getting any!). Briefs do not a sexy man make, and look appropriate only on prepubescent boys. It doesn't flatter, it's not manly in any way and well, it just looks like a bigger version of a panty. They're like speedos, you know, and nobody ever looks good in a pair of speedos.

I remember I was in love with a gym instructor once (so was Lannie, my adorable dolly-looking friend)... that is, until he wore white shorts one day and we could see through to his tighty whiteys.

She screamed down an SMS at me "Did you know he wears little white panties?!!!!" That ruined it forever. Lannie went off him straight away, and it made even lusty me think twice about flirting with him next time we went to his class.

Recently, whenever I entertain the thoughts of drugging boys and bringing them back to bed with me, the Reality Checker, JJ, pulls me back to earth with the most ugly, but timely reminders that MAYBE, what if he wears boy panties? That's enough to put a girl off sex forever.

Okay, so I must stop being so damn picky. Perhaps I should just pick b. Some is better than none, after all eh?

On the up: Chinese new year
On the down: Not having anywhere to go

I am bored bored bored! Chinese new year is just a big fat vacuum. On the up, this means I can sleep in and eat without feeling any morsel of guilt; on the down, this means I am bored bored bored. Everyone's gone away, the shops are all closed and there is nothing to do except look at myself in the mirror.

Today though, I thought I would make the effort to go visit Steven and his family - do the whole nice Chinese new year visiting thing. I resolved to get up early in the morning, bring along a pretty box of oranges and make it there in time for the lion dance.

I woke up too late, missed the lion dance and forgot the damn oranges.

Never mind, I made it all the way out to his big beautiful house to say hello (empty handed, the shame). I met Steven in BodyStep and while at first I was determined to dislike him because he was taking over from an instructor I adored, I now love love love LOVE LOVE him.

See, I'm really not into that whole surburban marriage thing at all but with Steven, I really really want to marry him in one of those big traditional weddings, have like a zillion kids with him, live in a beautiful house in Mutiara Damansara and go shopping on the weekends at Tescos. But hello! reality check. He is so not into me. And won't be. Ever. I must stop barking up the wrong trees!

The other thing that makes me feel annoyed and moochy when I meet up Steven is my not being able to dance up and down like a BodyStep bunny. Since he's an instructor, the mere sight of him reminds me of those good old loud, jumpy days when I was thin! beautiful! fit! and a total expert at every BS release from 55 to 63. Since screwing up my legs, I'm now fat! not quite so beautiful! and can barely remember how to hop.

Steven, because he is darling and caring like that, made me promise him that I'll go do an MRI on my legs SOON. I think I must. It's been 2 years and I really must sort it out before I drive myself nuts with the pain.

And now, I'm going out to Pavilion to go burn some cash and actually have a life. Sometimes I forget that I do actually have friends. happy noo year, moop moop.

On the up: Kink On the down: Not getting any JP has been putting ideas in my head again and because I'm so easily influenced, I let those ideas actually seep in and take root. The most recent idea has been the SP one. Recently, I saw SP get mad and almost-shout at someone and since he never EVER reacts to anything, it was all WOW! what a turn on! my heart beat a little faster, thud thud. Then, today, when I had a huge long nap (oh the joy of Chinese New Year), I had this super kinky dream about SP and how sick, I actually enjoyed it. I surprise myself. When Joy rang, I told her about it. She laughed and laughed (in horror) and said, "OH MY GOD PARIS! I think we really have to find you a man." I texted JP to tell him that he should fricking get out of my head already but he seemed very chuffed with himself about the whole thing. Like, wow, he'd achieved something. Oh dear, I think this is a sign that I really should give it all up and just renounce already. It is but a sign of the times when we get far too carried away by our lusty loins and emotions of desire. Kaliyuga, indeed.

On the up: KMP!
On the down: The end of the week

Having just started my proper working days at KMP (as opposed to working while lolling in bed at home), I've suddenly realised, quite perversely, just how much I LOVE GOING TO WORK!

I woke up well early today - 9am is very early by my standards - and even had time to reinstall my curtain railings (again, because they keep noisily crashing down in the middle of the night, in the middle of night dreams), pack my (new very trendy leather) bag and eat breakfast.

THEN (and this is the MOST fun), I got dressed up for work!

Proper trousers, and a proper shirt.

Okay, no, not really. They're slouchy slacks, and a very frilly almost-Elizabethan ruffled shirt but it's a change from the usual gypsy skirts and my disintegrating Miss Sixty jeans.

David even sent Rinpoche a Paris-wardrobe-update so it must have been enough of a transformation even for David to notice.

There was no where to for me to sit though, since everyone is now sitting on top of each other in KMP now. We can't help it that we're just so well-loved and growing at such an enormous rate, that we're running out of space!

I shacked up temporarily on a sofa, which suits me fine.

And wow, it's just quite amazing what can be accomplished in just one proper working day. Transcribing, interviews, proofreading, writing, nmc and lunch - all in under six hours! There was even time to gossip on MSN and plan a trip to Bali.

I also spent time trying to plan a writing workshop that I'll be doing with Dory. I know, the audacity of me doing a writing workshop. But believe it or not, I did go to university, I did get a degree and I have written professionally for publications. The standard of this blog, obviously, doesn't quite reflect any sort of intelligence, but I promise, that there are still remnants of some, somewhere deep.

So far, it's not going very well. I'm not sure how I'm going to convince anyone of anything.

Very random sorts of people kept walking in and out all day and declaring very random sorts of things. It was very distracting of course, but provided much-needed entertainment for the easily restless like me.

Every few minutes, JJ skipped (yes, skipped) into the room and declared, "I WANT TO GET MARRIED". He even speaks in Caps.

Su Ming came around and bounced around the office and we talked about things that we probably shouldn't be talking about at work... but oh well, a girl needs to keep herself entertained.

Okay back to editing nmc. It's the bane of my life! For my birthday this year, please send me a very gorgeous, fair, hairless boy who will not only sleep with me, but also volunteer to take over nmc forever.

On the up: Rinpoche!
On the down: His illness

We all went out to play on Friday night with the Buddhas!

I had just finished eating my very healthy dinner of roast chicken and steamed fish when I got a phone call from Beng. "Rinpoche would like to invite you out to eat Mexican. We're going to town!"

Two things always happen when I'm invited to go out with Rinpoche:
1) I am on a diet and am trying not to eat, but we will, always, inevitably, end up going out for really evil, nasty, DELICIOUS fatty food
2) My hair is an oil bomb because I hadn''t washed it that day

That day, I was
1) on a diet but would not be able to get out of eating delicious Mexican food
2) very very oily

But never mind, the Buddhas are compassionate!

Then BK told me that I'm supposed to drive Rinpoche that night which of course is totally scary because I keep bashing up my car and I'm the worst driver in KL and when you're driving around someone-no-quite-so-ordinary, you sure as hell better not go anywhere near bashing up anything. Also, my car was starting to look like the insides of Joe's old Kelisa, what with the piles of snotty tissues, old water bottles and enough supplies to keep me alive for a month.

We traipsed into town and I didn't get a single scratch. Rinpoche, the rest of the troop and I arrived unscathed and healthy!

We went into Times, where David, JJ and I crowded around the Buddhist book section and talked very, very loudly about JUST HOW GREAT Tsem Tulku Rinpoche's books were. There was a lady who was trying to browse books there and we stood all over here, passing KMP's books back and forth and making lots of noise.

Then, Rinpoche came up to us when the lady left and told us how crap our acting actually was. Oops.

It was still early, so we raided Parkson and looked at very beautiful work satchels. Rinpoche got JJ and I modelling lots of very lovely leather work bags and we looked HOT, baby!

Eventually, he told us that he wanted to buy those bags for us (and for Sharon), as a gift for our work for the Coffee Table Book. I CONFESS! I totally had my heart set on the bag already because I knew knew knew it would just look so so so perfect with my brand new shoes and my new grown up, working wardrobe. So when he offered the bag to me, I just sort of stood there and looked dumb and ridiculous, and totally unshocked, like I had expected it, which is partly true, but very embarrassing. And as the Buddhas are always perceptive, he knew straight away that all my shock was all feigned. EXPOSEE - I really am a materialistic, greedy monster.

As we went to pay for the bags though, Rinpoche reminded us again of this totally wonderful meditation to do where all beautiful things are visualised as offerings to the Buddhas - to cut our material attachments, and to generate the motivation that all we use may be to benefit others through our spiritual work.

See, even a beautiful leather bag can be Dharma!

To celebrate all things weird and wonderful, and the VERY FANTASTIC COFFEE TABLE BOOK, we went off to eat at the crazy new Mexican place down at Pavilion. Poor old Rinpoche got harrassed and picked up on again by some strange bald dude who started telling him his whole great philosophy of life. JJ and I were thinking, Well at least he gets picked up! We try everything also cannot! hah!

At some point, we realised just how obvious David's nipples were showing through his very transparent Transformers tshirt. It was like roadkill, you couldn't HELP BUT NOTICE. I had to tell him eventually, "David, you know you can REALLY see your nipples." Aiyo Poor David lah, he can be SO CUTE when he wants to be, currently is not quite so.

At some other point, Rinpoche pointed out how JJ and I looked like a couple, at which point we looked at each other and screamed quitely in our heads. I pulled a face and said, "But but but that's so INCESTROUS, Rinpoche!"

He said, "No! I'm not asking you to sleep with him! I'm just saying you look like you could be a couple."

JJ and I still silently screamed.

We were all bouncy bouncy fun fun fun, so after gobbling, we squeezed in a movie. Maaaan, this would not be such a big deal if not for the fact that the last time I went to see a movie was Superman (when?! what? Yes my dears, it was that long ago). How exciting it is to go watch a PROPER movie, especially one with the gorgeous Cate Blanchett who is ethereal and beautiful even when she is caked in a million layers of white powder.

After all the glitz and glamour of Pavilion and 17th century Elizabethan extravagance, we went down to schmooze at Jalan Alor - nothing like drinking fizzy artificially flavoured drinks in a greasy oily KFC in the middle of the greasiest, oiliest street in the world. Everyone there looked horribly drunk, or like they were about to snatch your handbag and run away. We also spotted a very pink Russian-ish peroxide-blonde who looked exactly like Paris Hilton.

And before we knew it, adventures with the Buddha were over. It went by *snap* in a flash, and soon it was time to take our inspiration-filled heads home and sleep on our aspirations: because all really feels totally possible after a few hours with Rinpoche, the Buddhas, and all the lights in the world.

No matter how silly, or samsara fun, or crazy it seems, it's all like a little piece of Enlightenment that you take home with you.

On the up: If not now, when?
On the down: Bad spelling

Our new book is OUT! It is PERFECT and anyone who doesn't like it... well, too bad for you! Read all about it on our new, pink Kechara Media and Publications blog

I decided to go out and have a life to celebrate the book, so I went out to meet the most fabulous person under 30, Vera, at a new salon/boutique launch in Bangsar, Replacement. And boy is it SERIOUSLY SEXY!

Everybody there had amazing hairstyles - really, you never thought it was possible for there to be so many people with such great hair in such a small place. Lots of short crops on the girls, a nice bloody change from all the boring long blah blah dos. See, I was all RIGHT about short hair being far more stylish than Rapunzels. And totally cute orange and grey retro dresses.

BUT, the whole place had turned into a giant smoke bomb and Vera and I started to feel seriously like we were being gassed, so we went for coffee instead.

THEN, Vera asked me to come along with her to go see this shop, ELO. I was all "No! I want to go home and sleeeeep" but okay, it's not everyday I get to see her, so we went.

AND OH MY GOD, it is the most amazing shoe place I've ever seen in Malaysia. Beautiful shoes everywhere, and all in my size! I did the proverbial dying and going to shoe heaven. So I bought! A giant pink bag, white pumps and very sexy grown up peep toe grey heels. Chinese New Year always justifies buying plenty of new things that you never need.

Anyway, like I've written in Kechara pub, JJ sent me a message about the book halfway through me slipping on a 3-inch pink pump. So then I got real damn freaked out that Joe (and Buddha) would be waiting there big spears to poke through my ears.

When I got back, JJ said, "Oh, we found another mistake" which was a missing comma. And I am completely obsessive compulsive about commas so I freaked again.

Then I plucked up the courage to go say hello to Joe. scared scared!

But Joe was happy and was so Rinpoche, so if the Buddhas and dakinis are happy, then I'm happy. (Or happier anyway, cos I'm still stressing about the comma).

I got all bouncy bouncy and happy and WIDE AWAKE and didn't want to sleep anymore, so Su Ming and I decided to go buy slurpees for Shin.

Shin told us they don't do slurpees are night.

WHAT?! How can they not do Slurpees at night? We were determined to prove her wrong so we went. THEN, Joe even offered to drive us there in his brand new hot wheels! I told him he suddenly got way hotter now that he's got this super sexy car - that's shallow mallow but SERIOUSLY, THE CAR IS SO DAMN HOT! Su Ming and I danced around and then took turns to sit in the front.

On the way back, we had a discussion of what it is to be chubby. He said Su Ming is chubby. Su Ming is nearing a size 6, how can she be chubby, What are you on Joe?!?! I said, "Su Ming isn't chubby!!!!!"

So he asked who is?

I said, "I'm chubby, but Su Ming definitely isn't!"

Then (the idiot!) said, "Yah! You're chubby. Yup, you're definitely chubby, You're chubby alright, you are chubby."

I had to jump in and say, "Okay! Enough already, you've already said it four times!" gee!

We went back to KMP and I was still bouncy bouncy so thought I'd stay up and play with the ladrang people. This inevitably means that I will end up editing an article (how is it possible that there's so many articles to edit all the time?).

I sat there and watched dinosaur JP spend about an hour attaching photos to his 2-paragraph article. Then I tried to edit it, although what can you really edit out of 2 paragraphs? I told him he needed to expand it. So he spent another 20 minutes looking at the screen, and he looked so pathetic I couldn't tahan anymore so had to take the laptop away and write it myself.

He was very happy about that, because then he could sit around and talk about how he was going to marry off Jenny and Su Ming and SP and everyone else in the world to rich people. I have NO idea how he knows all these people and all this gossip but he is the human version of Hello! magazine. REALLY.

So we've decided to
- wrap up Su Ming in a box with a big ribbon, to be offered up to Teh Hong Piow
- marry Jenny off to one of JP's rich but very short friends (Jenny asked if he can wear platforms) and
- sell off SP as a gigolo (although we're not sure he quite meets the criteria yet or if there's really a demand... hehe)

We REALLY need to come up with more viable fund raising schemes.

At some point, Jenny shouted across the room, "EH! You put on A LOT OF WEIGHT huh? Your face lah! So round now."

Leave my weight alone, yo!

In any case, I *am* trying to get a bit healthier and fitter and reduce the blobbiness in time for the wedding. So this involves no snacking, and a return to channelling the energies of St Tropez as I go swimming under blue skies (plenty of those these days). This also means no evil Chinese new year cookies (which, let's face it, never ever taste as good as they look). I have resolved only to eating oranges!