Home of Jules

Jules hates it when people act like smart asses and pandai-pandai disturb my things without my permission, thinking that they’re helping me but when they’re actually doing the dumbest fucked up things ever, and this pisses me off! Cause like, who the fuck asked you to do THAT?? Acting smart!

You know how I said in my previous post that Goliath is acting all weak and old, right. Well, this morning I came into the office and found a bunch of orange-coloured biji scattered all over the tank. First reaction : What the hell?! What are these??? It’s unlikely that the fishy would poo that much overnight, so I guessed that it should be food pellets. Now, who’s the culprit? I had my suspect, but I needed to interview a witness…

True enough. My superior. After I left office last night around 8.15pm, I dunno why he was at my work station. He saw Goliath being his usual old self of not moving much. And dropped in the food pellets to feed him.

Rule #1: Do not, I repeat, do NOT ever ever EVER feed my fishes anytime as you wish without my permission. Only Miss Owner knows how much they’ve eaten how often, and control the feeds just right. Your meddling could overfeed them and this could actually kill them. Because fish do not know when to stop eating.

Rule #2 : NO MEDDLING WITH MY PETS!! Period!

I only feed Goliath about 5 pellets a day. This morning I found at least 30 rotting pellets at the bottom on the tank. I’m already upset and very cautious with him now that he’s old and sickly. This has forced me to do another water change when it’s not time yet. Furthermore in his weak condition, Goliath can’t take too much handling (I scoop him by hand and transfer him into a temporary tank during water change). In fact, I intend to do only 50% water change now instead of the usual 100%, so that I don’t have to remove him out of the tank. Today, it took me twice as long to change the water because there was too much pellet wastes. See this, can you believe it???

How stupid can some people be? Do you think a small creature like that can eat that much at a time? Being left in water filthed with rotting food overnight could make any healthy fish sick. Nothing came from this “random act of kindness”, cause I am NOT appreciating this “deed”, plus it did more harm than good. Throwing in mosquitoes is one thing, thank you for the treat, but overfeeding with way too much pellets is another. This must not happen again, so I find my next action completely necessary:
 Get the hint?

Goliath is my very first betta fish among the whole lot of them. He was a spunky one, that little red veiltail. He would just flare up his gills at the littlest things, as simple as a person watching him close up. I especially like to play with him with a bright lime green mechanical pencil, he would go crazy at the sight of it. Flaring his gills and chasing it, and even jumping at it. I don’t know why, but green seems to be the only colour that makes him react like that. Blue and red had reactions too, but only very briefly. With green, it would provoke him on and on. He would also actually know when it’s feeding time. Since he’s on my office desk, there’s a lot of movements around when I work. But he ignores most of this, unless I was reaching out for his bottle of pellets. Then he gets excited as I opened to bottle to feed him. I seriously have no idea how, but these fishes know!

I’ve had Goliath since November 2008, and being my first precious, he is meaningful to me in that way. Despite being a super common veiltail worth 2 bucks. He was already quite adult when I got him, already fully grown, so it was kind of expected that I wouldn’t be having him for very long. No, he’s not dead! Yet. But lately, he’s been acting differently. He used to self-entertain by swimming round and round, and jumping in the tank ever so often. But it’s been a while since he jumped. Most of the time, he’d be just lying at the bottom of the tank. Not responding to previous methods of provoking, I hardly see him flare up lately.

I checked him over. Physically, it doesn’t seem like he’s infected with any disease. He’s just acting lazy and tired. Lack of energy. Sometimes he ‘faints’ and had trouble staying upright, and just tilts sideways. Takes him a while before he realises there’s food dropped into the tank, and he eats it so slowly. Goliath is old! And the old age is catching up with him. I changed his water this morning, weekly routine. Now, being spunky, it’s usually quite a challenge to catch him for the water change. He would become restless and escape from the catch. But today? It was almost too easy… I scooped him up and he didn’t move one bit! Didn’t even flip or try to jump like he usually would. Omg, I have a bad feeling that I’m gonna lose him soon

You know, I’ve been thinking. People these days use up way too much time in their lives on hard work to gain success and/or wealth. Well, great, you know, that these people are ambitious to achieve their dreams. However some of these people are not chasing dreams, but instead working just for the sake of earning money. Workaholics, you may call them. I find it a bit sad. Even after working hours, even on weekends, even on holidays… They still think about work, and sometimes they even DO work in the middle of what is supposed to be their leisure time. Oops, in this case, “leisure time” is non-existent. Life is all about work work work. Should that be the way? Isn’t there a phrase that says, “Life is Short”? Sure I have my dreams too, but still I would rather have an easy and simple life than to spend all my time chasing that high ambition that could cause major stress. In other words, I suppose I am perhaps more of a family oriented person rather than a career driven person. Was on public holiday few days ago, and I was home all day for once. I wasn’t just shaking my leg around and doing nothing, mind you. I was busy! Clean my room, water change for the fishes, pack my stock for the upcoming market… And there went my day. I reckon it wouldn’t be too bad if in the future, I was to be a housewife while keeping my passion by doing some freelancing fashion/design jobs. 

I’m getting tired of working. Maybe not “working” per se. Perhaps it’s this job? I don’t know. Always takes up so much time. You know how I sometimes stay back to work til late at night, and how I’ve brought home some work to finish up, and how I’ve even worked through the weekends. THAT is tiring. Free time? I rather rest and sleep! But how can I sleep so much when I have other commitments to manage during my spare time? Some of you may heard from me before that I don’t have as much personal time as I need/want. I’ve decided to list down here, WHY the heck do I need so much personal time for?

*Family*
I have dinner at home most of the time on weeknights, so I guess that’s ample time enough for my parents.

*Friends*
I see my colleagues everyday and my dancemates every week. But gahhh, you have no idea how often I see my BEST friends! Our get-together this weekend is our first since… Gosh I can’t even recall! With my pet brothers, it’s even worse. I only see each of them once in a few months. Sigh, miss them all a lot!

*Boyfriend*
The relationship is still fresh, so meeting up for dating at least once a week is a must. No less, or else I think it will hurt the bond. Also, spare some time to be on Skype dates with him. Not that I’m complaining, I’d love to have more time with him. But somehow it never seems enough.

*Pets*
More and more fishies are coming in, and I WANT to have more. But as it is, I almost do not have enough time to care for all of them. I love them long tailed types, and they require daily water change to keep the tails from damage. Separate tanks, yo! Plus, the adults can go without food for days, but the little ones must be fed daily. Speaking of which, I have to culture the babies’ food too. Microworms, brine shrimps. Who says pet fishes are low maintenance lol.

*Dance*
Weekly classes on Wednesdays are a must! Rehearsal time at home, however… Sigh. All I have lately is 10 minutes every other day, just running through the choreography to mark the steps to avoid forgetting. I used to dance the routines for at least half an hour everyday. I want a whole hour everyday! This is my only form of exercise… Lol.

*Music*
My fingernails are long, my guitar is collecting dust. I’m not too happy with the fact that I still have the same beginner skills as I had 9 years ago I need to practise daily to improve, but do I even have that time? It’s not only just practising, I need to learn how to read tabs smoothly without confusing them for notes. And here I am saying that I wanna play electric when I can’t even handle the simple accoustic lol.

*Buibui*
Oh man, I’ve been slacking off my business for months. Give me time! I have ideas! But, time!!! No I don’t need to strike it rich with my business, I just want to do what I like in my passion. My biggest problem is that my daytime job takes up a lot of my time, and sometimes it even takes away the ideas and leaving me with none for Buibui. That’s the thing about the day job being in the same industry as the part time business. Sometimes they clash >.<

*Others*
I have 2 blogs, and it’s a duty to update the blogs lol. I’ve been blogging for about 4 or 5 years now, I think, so it has become quite a habit :P Ok, so maybe one can do without a blog, but I love to write because this is my outlet of sharing my thoughts. I don’t like to pent things up inside. Even if it’s too personal to type in the blogs, I handwrite it in my private diary. Yes, I have a traditional diary in the form of a book and pen lol.

Anything else that I might have missed out?

First of all… My spawn died. All of them. So upset! 100% death rate on my very first spawn And it had to happen when I was away on a trip. Gahhh what happened that made them die overnight??? Strange too, that not all the dead bodies were there. I’m sure there were more than 100 babies, but the corpses? Barely even 50. Why why why??? Sigh… Nevermind, I’m preparing to get the female heavily pregnant again for another spawning try.

Anyway, was on a trip to PD’s Tiara Beach Resort with Darling over the weekend for the Raya holiday. It was alright, the place was not as great as we thought it would be. Kena tipu by the pictures on the website la The waterpark seemed to be big, but in fact it is really quite small only. Check out our blog for the longer story lah, lazy to type again http://raysandjules.wordpress.com (ask me for password).

Thursday, 27 Aug 09. Had sort of a big breakfast on this day. Mom prepared for me hehe. Honey cooked ham and fried egg on a big toasted sesame bun, yummy~

Then off we go to Box Hill, the market. There’s a sweet shop there which sells really cheap candy, cause the stuff are either very close to the best before date, or already passed the date lol. $1 for a Lindt bar! So cheap! The catch is that the best before date was due 2 months ago lol. We bought one anyway, it was still in quite good condition, and NO we did not get sick haha. I got sweets for my Darling, besties, and colleagues here too. Parents bought a huge bag of a dozen boxes of macadamia nuts to give out to random people (like our neighbours for helping watch the house and cars).

After we were done in Box Hill, we got to the car and moved on to Westfield Mall for lunch. Initially, we were supposed to have chinese lunch here:

But we got there a little late and the lunch hour was over already. They only have yumcha dimsum to serve, but we didn’t want that, so Sis decided to move to the food court area downstairs. “Food court” indeed, it was nothing like the food courts in KL, not even like KLCC’s Picnic. The food they have are actual franchises of eateries! Like Grill’d! I was still full from the breakfast, so all I had for “lunch” was this:
 Gelato!

Yup, ice cream lol. 3 yummylicious scoops of chocolate, hazelnut, and cookies.

Window shopped a bit with mom before we left for home. We followed Sis to walk the dogs around the neighbourhood before settling back at home, where I became the kitchen assistant to Chef Mommy lol.

 Kailan, sweet’n’spicy pork, fried chicken…

And my favorite…
 Braised mushrooms and peanuts and chicken feet!

Ok so I don’t eat chicken feet, but I looove mushrooms and peanuts ^^

After dinner, was online with him as usual. On this night, I shed a few tears because I was seriously missing him a whole damn lot! Was already counting down the days til I see him again…

Was finally cleaning out my closet today. Clearing out the old stuff and adding in the new! Well, actually I took out more stuff than putting in More the reason to get more new stuff? Lol.. It was kinda fun, I rediscovered some stuff that I forgot I had. Some, I don’t even remember why I have it… Some were the stuff that I had during my punkish style and gothic cosplaying days ages ago… For instance:

Still keeping those things… Though I don’t know for what. Thought it made come in handy some strange day

I took out this much clothes:
<—Tops …. Bottoms—> 

And after my wardrobe is done with the clean up, I still have this much:

Random: Look at my gay panda imitating MJ lol:
Black or White lol…

Wednesday, 26 Aug 09. Had trouble waking up on this morning due to continuous dreaming that wouldn’t end. I guess I missed Darling that much, sigh. Was feeling a little worried about his health and I prayed that he’s doing alright. Seemed to be quite a cold day, so I wore extra layers because we were supposed to be outdoors most of the day. For the top, I had a long spaghetti top, then a long sleeved t-shirt, then a vest, and then my jacket and shawl. For the bottom, full pantyhose, knee-length socks, then my pants. But guess what? It wasn’t quite enough haha. Ah well…

Picked up Bro from uni, then we went to….

Yeah! We went to the Melbourne Zoo haha! Exciting, yippee! Visit the zoo on a cold winter’s day, how lovely lol XD this zoo is like so cool, you guys! Not extremely LOADED with animals, but it’s big, and most importantly, it’s CLEAN. We had lunch in the zoo itself. Wow, there’s more than one choice of places to eat. And it doesn’t even seem like it’s in a zoo! Really proper like any cafe on the street. Zoo Negara should offer such selections! Still can’t believe there’s no more KFC in the so-called national zoo… Anyway!

After lunch, continued to see the animals. I’ve seen kangaroos and koalas before during my Brisbane trip 9 years ago. But in this zoo, it was my first time seeing a real wombat!!! No clear photo tho. We saw it in the burrow, and I had to snap without flash, and the wombats keep moving. Blah… Nevermind, I saw it! So round and cute hehe. The only koala we saw was sleeping in between the branches, so we couldn’t get a photo at all. But we did see more than 1 type of kangaroo!
 A small one…

 A bigger one… “duuuuude…”

Oh, I also loved the Butterfly House. It’s like a big greenhouse to keep the temperature warm for the butterflies. So many fluttering around freely! Wheeee~ That was quite the experience ^^ But nothing beats the experience of the grizzly bear… At first we were like, oooh! Bears! Cute! Then the next thing we saw, made us pause and go, “…oh”. What was it? Warning: Do not look if you have a weak stomache:

Ready?

Here it is:

Heh yeah… It’s eating a… goat or something… We will never know O.o And there I was thinking that bears only eat fish!

We left soon and went to the city, Sis parked the car at Crown. While Dad was resting his motion sickness indoors, me and my siblings went outdoors to the late evening and camwhored in the cold streets of city night lol. Does that even make sense Anyhoo, this is me showing off the city night beyond the Yarra River:
 Ta-da…

Soon Dad was ok again, and we walked a few blocks away to the dinner place. We had korean BBQ this time!
 Seafood pancake, few pieces taken lol.

 The BBQ pit.
The shadow in the middle is from the hose that connects down from the ceiling, it’s the smoke sucker lol.

 Kimchi soup.
This was so spicy, dude… Ended up pouring the soup into Dad’s bowl, and I just had the kimchi flavored tofu lol. All in all, it was a good meal. But then again, I’m not exactly a great fan of korean food It’s alright, I guess XD

Walked back to the car all the way in Crown. Brrr so cold… Stopped by a bit to watch the hourly fire fountain thingie. Ahem, I mean… the MIGHTY FIRE FOUNTAAAAIIIN~!!! Konon lah lol. It’s hard to capture a shot of the towers spewing out the flames, but just for you to get an idea:
 Terrible photo =_=

Got home and online as usual. Chatted with Darling for a bit when I suddenly got disconnected, not sure why. I couldn’t get connected back. I’m guessing that the problem was that Sis’ prepaid internet ran out Oops lol. Oh well, early bedtime then!

Tuesday, 25 Aug 09. Had a different sort of breakfast on this day. Mom made french toast hehe. There were no plans for the day, so we just went to Chadstone Shopping Centre to hang out for a few hours. Had lunch at Pancake Parlour, lovely! Lol, lovely indeed, I didn’t know that pancakes can be made in so many flavors. I had the “Chicken Sliders”, they called it. It’s fried chicken pieces on a potato pancake, served with salad.

Sis added a short stake of pancakes with icecream, and we poured maple syrup on it too, yummy!

After that, we went to window shop around. My mood sucked, cause I saw many things that I liked but couldn’t buy cause I was kind of broke Only halfway through the trip, right. What was I to do la? Use my card? I was trying hard not to. And I’m proud that I didn’t come to have the need to swipe any purchases

Went back home, it was rainy and cold. So so glad that Sis’ home has a heater! So I lepak a bit, taking a rest before heading out for dinner. We went for italian dinner at Sofia’s restaurant. Omg, the pizzas! Like, wow, ok. Let the pictures do the talking k?

 Oysters with bacon bits.

 Seafood pasta.

 Pizza: Sofia’s Special, with capsicum, anchovies, mushrooms, olives, etc.

 Pizza: American Style, with salami, salami and salami.

Are those pizzas huge or what eh? The toppings are like the bomb, alright. So much toppings! As opposed to the ones in KL lol. Guess what? After that huge meal, we still got room for…

 …gelato dessert!!!
Yup, count ‘em, 5 flavors, baby XD Bottom to top: Chocolate, coffee, hazelnut, pistachio, vanilla. Yums…! So super full after this meal, I felt reeeally fat by then lol. What a freezing night, the heavy meal didn’t even help! Miserable weather that night, it was wet and windy and coooold. Hurried back home to the comfort of the heater.

Waited a bit for Darling to get online but there was something wrong with his connection, so he couldn’t get online. What to do? I just spent that time to type posts for both blogs. Then it got a little too cold, and I longed to be cozy under the blankets… Bedtime!

I was about ready to give up today because I did not see any fry yesterday when it was supposed to hatch. I also did not look too close, so that the male wouldn’t see me and feel threatened or stressed. It’s kind of taking too long for the eggs to hatch, so I told myself today: If I don’t see any fry when I get home today, I consider the eggs unfertilized and spawning attempt failed.

I went home, and first thing I did was check on the spawning tank. OMG! The fry is already free swimming! Meaning they are at least 1 day old! So exciting, wheeee!!! Immediately I removed the male and put him back into his own tank, and fed him a little after having not eaten for a few days (almost a week?). Then back to the spawn. Placed in the water plants that we bought yesterday, and started to roughly count. In one corner, I roughly counted up to a 100 already! OMG how many is there in total?? Too small, hard to see, hard to count. Notice the white specks, those are the fry:

How many can you count?

Ok, this is a critical week, must keep them fed on time daily! I guess this means no mamak session after street jam for this week?

Monday, 24 Aug 09. Sheez, throughout the trip, the battery on my camera runs out pretty quickly lol. Naturally, right? Since I snapped photos of every damn thing lol Good thing that I invested in a spare battery pack. Hmm the headache from the night before was gone, after a good deep sleep. The day seemed to be a little bit warmer on this day, finally. Less windy, at least, and the sun was shining warm. After getting ready, we all went out to visit Bro’s uni. He studies at University of Melbourne. Aaand I dunno why the heck we were visiting campus =_= This photo was quite unneccesary, in my opinion. But it was a shot that I couldn’t say no to, so… Yeah, here it is:

Anyway, the campus was HUGE! Of course it’s huge! It’s Uni of Melbourne, duh! My college seems so absolutely pathetic compared to this lol. My college is probably just a sorority/fraternity house to them Anyway it was pretty cool, I guess. With the old buildings and big lawns. Felt a bit like something out of Hogsworth or whatever lol.

Bah… the warmth didn’t last long. It got colder and super windy again >.< Also again, I got headache from the cold wind. Gahhh would this be considered a brainfreeze…? So glad to be back into the car, protected from the wind. Then I can warm up a little. When to the city area and had lunch in a HongKong style cafe. I had such a typical Hongkie meal lol. I wanted something hot, to warm me up from the “brainfreeze”. And so, nothing beats a filling meal in hot soup:

Went over to Melbourne Central and walked around a bit, window shopping and what not. Was kinda broke by now, so I didn’t really put my heart into shopping lol. However! When I was accompanying Mom shopping and we were in ValleyGirl, I spotted this really cool short jumpsuit thingie. I’ve seen lots of these in KL but it’s either in skirt, or long pants, or cheap-looking. But this one, loved it! Short pants, with zipper up the middle, with a wide hooked belt, in quality fabric. I tried it on for kicks, and loved it even more. B-b-but, gahhh broke! So what did I do?

“Mommyyy… My birthday present from you this year….” XD

After shopping, we took a train back to Chadstone. Omg it was rainy, and needless to say that it was extra colder. Heck, I can see my breath in the air, how cold do you think it was?? Since we couldn’t walk back to the house, we waited for Ben Gor to come pick us up, and yippee, back to the warm house *cuddles in blanket*.

Mom cooked dinner at home again, this time it was nasi lemak. Just because Sis wanted her tasty sambal ikan bilis, and she made Bro learn how to cook it lol. So he was Mom’s kitchen assistant that day I also helped a bit ler, I chopped the onions and garlic XD I scooted out of the kitchen when the cooking started, cause I can’t stand the smell of strong chilli… Didn’t take too long to cook, and soon we get to eat a good meal of Mom’s nasi lemak. Complete with peanuts and anchovies and egg and cucumber ^^

And this was my plate… I know, pathetic amount of sambal lol. I don’t take spicy food at all, ok?? This was an improvement! XD