‘Power’less

Just so you know, this story is quite old. Just only gotten around to write about it.

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The craziest thing happened last week. After getting my glasses readjusted on Monday, I was in this constant state of vertigo in the couple of days that followed. My head and eyes hurt so bad, I was seeing things. Not those things, more like, I saw the windows swirling.. Felt the ground uneven. I had to hold on to things to keep myself balanced. I knew it was all in my head but things became so bad that it appeared to be real. I could feel the room moving. The nausea was bad till I threw up a couple of times. At night, as I lay to sleep, I needed to talk myself “The room is not moving. The windows are not swirling!”.. Even as I told myself that, I shut my eyes, afraid to look but I could see in the darkness. Or felt the movements. Pretty spooky.

Ok, enough of Twilight Zone.

From experience, I know this happens because of either two things. A second Junior is on the way, which was not possible since hubby’s on the other side of the continent. So that leaves one other thing -My power (eyes, power) must’ve changed. Being in the UK is so different from home. Back there we could easily go to any England Optical (the irony of England back home) or Optik Timur and get our eyes checked for free. Here, you have to pay to get your eyes tested. It’s only free when you’re on one of those benefits group, which I’m not. And the NHS card takes forever to reach us. And this is an emergency, so can’t aford to wait that long. Unless I wanna be the fourth member of the Blind Mice..

Went to see the optician on Thursday (What? You were throwing up like crazy and only visited the ‘doctor’ days after?? This was the cheapest place to get an eye test. So by default, it’s fully booked and that was the earliest appointment I could get myself into). My optometrist was this very nice lady, who happened to be very pregnant too. Being in the dark room kinda reminds me of the tests I took back home. Everything’s more or less the same.. the only difference is that at the end of the test, she gave me this small print book to read, at about an arm’s length distance.

So what’s up with my eyes??

My powers have decreased. Quite significantly, I might add. That’s right, even she was surprised. It never happened to me before, so I was secretly thrilled. No wonder my glasses were killing me, it was too strong. Kinda like, shoving someone else’s eye sight on top of your own. She asked me if I was on any prescriptions that might’ve caused the improvement in sight. Nothing, I said. It didn’t seem appropriate at the time to mention my non-stop hours of You Tube.. Perhaps it’s in the British water. Or those late nights working on my research design.. I’d definitely recommend anyone wanting to reduce their eye powers to do a PhD. Hehe.

After the eye test, it was time for glasses prescription. The optician was this nice man who could sense my budget, so he explained the difference between the thickness of the glasses and their respective costs. Again, nothing new. Only this time they’re in GB pounds. In the end, I opted for a not-so-thick lenses (but nowhere as thin as my old lenses) to be fitted to my old frame. He was so taken by my plastic frame, saying that Malaysia is faster in keeping up with trend ‘cos the Brits have only recently been swept by the ol’ skool look. While my main intention of getting plastic frames was actually cost-induced, if someone says I look cool in it, why not eh?

So now I’m with no glasses for about a week. Work requires me to kiss the computer screen.. Cooking is doable, just that I don’t fancy slicing onions close to my nose. If it’s not for my Supers meeting today, I would’ve hibernated at home. Still, work is work. I better leave the house an hour earlier.. Takes a while for a blur person to reach her destination.

Supernatural

A superstition is the irrational belief that future events are influenced by specific behaviors, without having a causal relationship
-Wikipedia

How many of us are superstitious?

Avoid walking underneath a ladder.. Don’t sing in the kitchen, lest you marry an old man.. Hold your breath as you go past a cemetery.. Knock on wood to avoid misfortune.. Avoid breaking a mirror or glass to prevent misfortune..

Obviously, as a woman in this new-age, it would appear uncool to be superstitious. That attitude simply puts you with any Makcik in the same league. I don’t think I’m superstitious, yet at the same time, I won’t say that I’m not either. When my bestfriend wanted to get married three years ago, naturally she asked me to be her bridesmaid. But I declined for the silliest reason -I had already been a bridesmaid twice and if I succumbed into being one again, it would be my third and that, according to the unauthored Book of Malay Superstitions, may cause me to marry extremely late or worse, not marry at all. Horror, tak?

Looking back at my comical behaviour, I’m surprised that we’re still bestfriends. But what surprised me more was that she actually went along with it! Not only was she quite, er, how should I put it, supportive of the idea, she immediately looked for another person to replace me.. Guess she’s superstitious as well. Then again, it may be due to the fact that I was single and perhaps, slightly desperate to make a new relationship work (thankfully my crazy behaviour paid off. I did marry the guy). At the time, I wasn’t prepared to jinx my good fortune for accidentally knowing him, and as the bestfriend anyone could ever wish for, she didn’t want to jinx it either. We were so funny back then.

So what’s the worst superstition have you followed?
**For the record, the girl who replaced me as the bridesmaid, was actually doing the honour for her fourth time and she ended up getting married just months after me. That proves to show all this is rubbish. But maybe it helped that she’s gorgeous, wealthy and super nice…

Shopoholic

The World Bank book was very informative. It will definitely provide some guide to my field work later, though not entirely similar. I may need to get a copy of it for myself, and if I do, it’d be the second from Amazon this month. Yep. Next to eBay, I’ve been ‘Amazoned’ too! But y’know, the prices are real deals. After converting to the ringgit, it’s still cheap.. And I don’t even need to go out, get lost finding my way to the shops or face the cold. The only downside is that it may arrive a bit late. My last book came after nine days. But I guess that was unavoidable given that I bought it around the Bank Holidays.I woke up late this morning.. Syuruk is just so, so early at this part of the planet. You will not catch me waking up at 4.30 in the morning back home! So it’s off to snoozeville again for me lah.. Much to our beloved Islamic way of life (Al-Furqaan, 25:47). See, told yah I’m putting academic writing to practise. Oh, back to my morning. As I stretched my umpteenth time in bed, feeling not as fresh as I would’ve after sleeping for more than 8 hours, my house mate knocked my door. “You have a package!” She says. It just felt great, waking up to a gift-wrapped package. Only I had to pay for it. Hmph. Bought this long cardigan (picture below, obviously) a day and a half ago.. the seller’s really quick to react to my note to her/him. It’s from Next, not something I could’ve afford back home. Brand new without tag though.. Smelled like the kedai some more. I desperately needed some other cardigan to wear. It isn’t as cold as I first arrived here -spring has finally reared its head. And besides, the coat that I brought from home is soo overworn. We serious postgrad students need to look presentable too. Hehe. Looks like something I can wear back home too.

In a related news, I’m going to carboot tomorrow. It’s been a while since my last visit to one. They weren’t kidding when they say carboots are great to hunt for stuffs. Depending on what you wanna hunt lah. We’re going by bus, so need to limit our purchases. Gotta get hold of myself. Jeez, I’m not nearly this shopoholic back home. It must be the British air.. Yeah.

Dr.Music

Been YouTubing myself lately, much to hubby’s dismay. But there isn’t much to do here really.. Okay, so there’s those heaps of articles and 2-inch thick textbooks to ‘get involved with’, but I’d go crazy if I delve into those now. Thought of giving myself a break after the meeting I had with my Supers on Monday.

I finished the entire Full House series. It’s this really funny and sweet Korean drama starring singer/actor Rain (that fella who just did his concert back home) and the very beautiful Song Hye Gyo. They have the most amazing chemistry ever. Don’t blame their fans for actually wishing they have romance off-screen. I watched the series two years ago when it was aired on 8TV but there were episodes that I missed. So what the heck, let’s watch it all over again! That’s around 16 hours with constant stops of course ‘cos each clip is only about 10 minutes long. But the entire series is there (love that person who uploaded them).

Still smiling after their funny yet heart-warming love story, I decided to check out what’s up with their latest whereabouts. Rain’s at the end of his world tour. For someone who doesn’t sing or speak that much English, he sure is going places and raking in money! He was even voted among Time’s 100 most influential person in 2006. If you’ve nothing better to do (like yours truly), can checkout his rendition of “Just Once”. Yea, you gotta be confident to actually sing a James Ingram song! Minus the pelat, he’s ok lah. Song Hye Gyo, on the other hand, is waiting for her latest film Hwang JinYi to be released this June 2007. It’s a period drama about the most famous 16th century ‘kisaeng’ (something like the Japanese geisha). Truly different from her past roles, this one’s gonna be challenging to win over her fans. Hm, wonder if I can catch that here.

Full House aside, I thought of updating my iTunes library. So off I went downloading songs that fancied my interest back in school.. in college.. during my university years. That led me to organizing them into new playlists so now I’ve got different playlists for different phases of my life! There’s “School Favourites”.. “College Years”.. “American Idols”.. “Siti Songs”.. Aah, not to mention some K&J Pop (mainly Rain’s songs). Hubby would be soo ‘proud’!! Hur hur.

There’s a downside to this though. As I sat and replayed my “College Years”.. listening to Backstreet Boys and NSync (shut up, don’t laugh. They were BIG back then), my thoughts went “Oh my gawwd”.. I actually listened to ‘em stuffs??!! “You’re all I ever waaaanteddd..” “Get down, get down & mover it all around..” Ayoo. Cringe big time. Suara kepek Nick is haunting me. Not to mention J.Timberlake’s then tak pecah punye suara.. Then again, his voice is still like that now. BUT you have to agree he has distanced himself from those boy band days. I kinda dig his music nowadays, lagi hip and R&B gitu. Then there’s also the good side of my song searching endeavours. I managed to korek Tina Arena’s (remember her?) Chains. Jewel’s “You Were Meant For Me”.. Natalie Imbruglia’s “Torn”.. Sister Hazel’s “Change Your Mind”. Even got myself a copy of Canadian Idols’ version of True Colours. It’s pretty good.

Looking at my ability to dig deep into songs and anything musical or movie-related, maybe I should be doing a doctorate on this stuff. I’ve already a thousand over songs in my collection, that would be great as a literature review. Heh. Oh well, that’s not gonna happen, is it?

Alrighty then. Enough fun for now. Come here ‘World Bank’ book you..

My Way Or.. My Way?

One thing they don’t tell you before doing your PhD is that, your supervisors will never disagree with you. I’m not sure which is more worrying, having someone who always criticize your idea or someone who follows your flow yet never actually tell you you’re on the right track. It’s like, their sole reason for being is to supervise the blind.. an inch to the left.. a bit to the right.. just don’t masuk longkang. Maybe this is what PhD is all cracked up to be. Hah -get it? Cracked up? Ayoo.. Just a month in this thing and my sense of humour’s demented.

When I did my Masters, I was blessed (or cursed, depending on my mood) to work with this ancient of a man -72, frail but with the ‘Beautiful Mind’ minus the schizophrenia. Not once did I ever see him referring to a book during our fortnightly discussions. He could recall things that he learnt as a student, things that even I can’t remember just two years before. He’s powerful with dates (as in day, month and year).. names of articles together with their main findings. Now that’s a true Professor. Once, he even wrote one of my reference for me, just to be perfectly sure that I got the style correct. Talk about being spoonfed. If he sensed that I was drifting, he’d suggest some ideas. He was constantly breathing down my neck to meet deadlines at least a week earlier, to the point where I didn’t have enough air to breathe. “Write to me in longer paragraphs”.. “Give me the second draft next week”.. “Where are your latest references?”.. “You submitted the proposal cover and not tell me???!!”.. You get my drift.

My current Supervisors, on the other hand, are quite the opposite. They’re laid back (well, at least one of them is) and a lot younger. Not only are they different from my old Professor but they are also different from each other. Together they form an odd pair. One is the nicest stranger I’ve ever known. Imagine, just meeting him once and the next day at our induction he was already waving (not the polite, wussy kind, this is the “Hello there!!” with arms fluttering kind) at me and calling my name from the other side of the room. Not many Assoc Professors actually bother knowing your name that soon. He’s warm and friendly, even the support staffs love him. That proves to show how amiable he is. We could talk about the weather, like, it’s the most common thing you talk about when takde idea kan?.. Basically, I don’t really feel stressed out lah when I’m talking to him. The other guy, is also a nice man but very straight to the point. Within 5 minutes of our first meeting, he was already asking me SuchandSuch about my proposal. No talking about the weather with this fella. But I kinda suspected that, as he is the one with more expertise in my field of work. He’s the younger between the two, but he has written a lot of stuffs pertaining to my area. Plus, he’s German. So it’ll be “Heil Hitler” from now on I guess.

Despite their differences, I think they complement each other.. which works for me. While the other may keep me constantly on my toes -Dr.German has already made me read a book and I suspect I should be discussing its content tomorrow during our next meeting, the other can make me relax a bit.

Now don’t get me wrong. I happen to like and appreciate my current supervisors. In fact, I’ve never felt so lucky. Compared to some horror stories that I’ve heard, how some supervisors actually throw proposals out of the window.. or into the dustbin. Yell at you. Some even demand you do a completely different set of literature review when your deadline for submission is less than 24 hours away. Chilling. Compared to them, my guys are way, wayyy better. Even if they don’t give me definite answers. Hehe.

Creative Me

With Black K around, I’m on a roll. Hehe.. Every chance I get, it’s snap snap snap.. Or should I say, click click clickkk?? With all of its buttons, and each having at least two seperate functions, I get more confused with it than my journal articles. So, as a tribute to Black K, here’s my first attempt at being creative. Can-ah? Can lahh..

From left: swiveling chair, bed, hanging coat

Savvy?

Neah.. not talking about the Proton car. More like, I’ve got it!!

Remember the story of me getting all excited over eBay? And how much I’ve been longing to get my hands on that brand spankin’ new K800i? I did my bidding.. and was outbidded, again. So after a while I realized why not just bid next time when I’m not in a hurry. As for now, I really need that phone-cum-camera. There are just so many scenic views, I can’t stand not being able to click and show. After much deliberation, I decided to ‘Buy Instantly’. It’s another option of purchase where buyers don’t get to bid and must pay the price set forth by the seller. The pros: buy instantly, save the disappointment and heart attack of being out-bidded. The cons: may be slightly more expensive.

Having weighed the above, after all, I am studying economics, I decided to go for the Buy. Inclusive of postal charge, my ‘baby’ costs a lot less than buying back home. Somewhere in the range of APs. In fact, the price didn’t differ much from the prices on bids. So I’m pretty happy. Then of course, there’s the anxiety of “What if the guy posts it late?”.. “What if it gets lost in the mail?”.. “What if the phone’s crap, or worse, used??” (erm, should get my priority right over there).. “What if there’s NO phone??”.. All the negatives flooded my head. It didn’t help that I was living with fellow non-savvy people who aren’t convinced with all this buying online thingy. So I hoped.. and prayed. Like for the birth of a real child. And yesterday -wallah!! K800i was royally mailed to my doorstep, exactly before 1pm, as promised on its stamp. The great relief.. Then there goes the opening (that’s tearing) of the package. Ahh.. velvet black. Call me boring, but black’s always good. I inserted my Sim card and started playing with the little gadget. Then something went wrong. “Aiyaa.. why can’t call out one??” There’s this message ‘emergency call only’ and a symbol of a gagang telefon being crossed. “&%$@ punye Alex”.. was my initial curse to my virtual seller. The phone must still be locked, contrary to what he advertised. Stormed to my neighbour’s, as she also uses the same brand, and asked for help. She said it’s still locked but no worries, just go over to any phone shop and buy the unlocking code. That word annoyed me -buy? BUY?? I just bought a bloody phone, which is, supposed to be unlocked. Felt cheated.. “Tu lah, sapa suruh beli online”.. my other conscience snickered.

Wanting to drown my sorrow temporarily, I went on Skype and chatted with hubby. As always, he’s calm and collected in times of crisis. “Takpe, nanti u ask lah the fella. If the response is bad then just buy the code. Not that expensive.”.. I did email the guy 5 minutes before, just waiting for his response. In the mean time, my camera’s working perfectly.. snapped my horrid-looking self and through the webcam, hubby instructed me how to ‘bluetooth’ Black K (that’s his name. My phone. Shut up, don’t laugh) with my Mac. I’m pretty hopeless when it comes to IT, so it took a while for me to get it. 10 minutes and several biscuits later, the pic was transferred. So now Mac and Black K are married! Hur hur..

After we logged off, Black K’s still not able to call out. Huu.. Such a beautiful yet useless thing. Alex replied and said the sign should be gone in a few minutes and that the phone is unlocked. But no, still not happening. So I viewed my literature.. Bloghopped.. Glanced at it every 5 minutes.. nope. Nada.

When I came back after dinner, the sign’s gone. Oh, a miracle!! I ‘tembak-tembak’ my housemate to double check. Yes, it works! I texted hubby, tho’ he’s prolly deep asleep at home -it went through. Am happy. Very, very happy. Emailed Alex to tell him everything’s alright. Kesian pulak mamat tu. We exchanged like 6 emails that afternoon, trying to resolve what happened. He even assured me to refund my money if the phone really ain’t working. made me feel guilty for (inwardly) cursing him. To compensate, I wrote him a nice, positive feedback as a buyer. More brownie points for him in the virtual market place.

As for now, I’m snapping away.

The Art of Cooking

Why is it different to make cekodok ikan bilis over here as compared to home?? I put in exactly the usual ingredients (duh, like how hard can making cekodok be?).. I used to make it all the time. It was like, one of our official tea time kueh apart from fried bananas (‘cos I don’t know how to do anything else). Hubby used to finish the whole plate all by himself. And my sister likes them, even ‘Lil Tash loves them so much. Crisp on the outside, soft on the inside.. Unlike this morning. Crisp on the outside, too-soft-like-tak-masak kinda inside! I did several trial-and-errors. Fried a bit longer.. lowered the heat.. raised the heat.. added water.. lessen the water..

But it still wasn’t the same like home. It’s a good thing housemate A said they’re “OK-lah” and ate them anyway. Housemate B commented “Macam tak masak”.. “Ikan bilis you pun macam tak masak”. That’s just awful. Especially when it’s over nothing elaborate. But in the end, having remembered that housemate A prepared a similar cekodok lembik last week, she concluded that it must’ve been the flour. “Lain kot tepung kat sini”.. Can like that, meh? Or is it me yang tak reti masak??

Two weeks ago we invited several Malaysian girls (our former hosts) to our home for dinner. I served them nasi ayam. As much as I tried to emulate my meal back home, it just doesn’t taste the same. Nor did my masak kicap or masak lemak on other nights, for that matter.

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Cooking used to be a taboo subject for me, before I got married, that is. I was hopeless. The only thing I could do was fry an egg.. and perhaps relish it with some onions and kicap. Nasi pun kadang-kadang lembik, or too hard. When I got married, realizing that it’s not possible nor is it acceptable to feed my husband Maggi every weekend when we meet, I decided to turn over a new leaf and learn some cookin’. Admittedly, hubby was never one to force me to cook. He was happy eating anything with me. But maybe that’s because we’re newlyweds. Come five years, he might be wailing.

Anyway, with some effort (a lot, actually, as I was pregnant at the time and stayed home alone with my sister who was on shifts 4 days a week) I cooked. I started with the easy, non-smelly stuff like chicken. Fried, souped, masak kicap, masak merah, ..Then I broadened my horizon with meat. Similar fashion. After several months of chicken and meat, I got tired of it (hubby was too, only he was kind enough not to say anything), so I braven myself to try fish. Then prawns.. And later squids. I remembered the first time I siang ikan. Mami.. cam nak pengsan! All the gore and blood.. the insides.. the SMELL. Makes me wish I had an assistant just to do the cutting for me. But I learnt. Slowly, yet I did.

After ‘Lil Tash was born, I stayed with my mother-in-law during confinement (yeah, spooky) but it has its blessings. I learnt to cook some more. She is a terrific cook, with capital T. And a housewife. So you can imagine how well-fed all her kids are. I guess she must’ve cried every night at the thought of her dear son eating nothing but telur goreng every weekend with me in KL (thankfully, she didn’t object to our marriage solely on that reason). She was a great teacher, by not directly teaching. She never made me cook, as I was still wearing my barut and socks, but she knew I was watching. Despite my miserable attempt at being nonchalant, she knew I was looking at the steps, or ingredients. And she let me look. So that was how I learnt. Through observation, while helping her dice and slice.

For those who know better, cooking is not something you can study or watch -you simply need to DO IT. So when I resumed work, I knew I had to put my newly acquired ‘knowledge’ to practise. We’ve already had our kitchen refurbished during my confinement, so I had an extra motivation to do so. I tried those recipes that I observed.. masak lemak, masak kurma, asam pedas, kari. Not much, but far better than my initial state. Soon my parents- and sisters-in-laws started to pay us visits. Guess it’s their way of checking up on me, now that I’m a mom. Some time later, I attempted other recipes that are simple and not suicidal in the process. I tried nasi ayam, soto daging (bergedil and all). I even managed to cook crabs, though they scare the hell out of me. For deserts, since we don’t own an oven, I could only do stuffs like trifle, frozen cheesecake and kek batik. Boleh-lah..

Now after our second anniversary, I can safely say that my husband and little girl will not starve to death. I can do a bit of this and that.

But then, this morning happened. Ugh. The tension. Am I losing my touch? If I ever had any in the first place. Huhu.

My Superbly Cosy Home

The past few days have been quite unpleasant. My cosy home is falling apart.. I’ll summarize them for you.

» Our bathroom light went kaput, just a week after we fixed the living room and my bedroom lights. While it was relatively easy to fix the bulbs ourselves for the first two rooms, it wasn’t easy replacing the bulb in the bathroom. For one, we can’t even get it off the darn ceiling. It’s like, cemented there or something. I could dangle from the ceiling simply by hanging on to it -that’s how strong it is. Calling our agent is prolly no good as they failed to deliver the wardrobe to my friend (who’s occupying the living room) as promised. They even asked her to buy railings instead. So to help ease ourselves at night without opening the door, we used this small lampu tekan-tekan that we got from Asda for GBP 2.98. But guess what? Even that broke down two nights ago (hence, ‘used’). Baaad quality. Now we’ve resorted to using a candle. It’s cheap, reliable and extremely sad. But hey, we get to save on electricity.

» A day later, our dining light went dead. Since we’re occupying a rather small house, our only source of light in that area is the kitchen. So now we have nightly candle-lit dinners. Yep, the same candle we used in the bathroom.

» Once in a while, we experience power trips too. When that happens, one of us will need to go down the cellar, go to the fuse box and flick the switch back up. Now, how many of you have seen English haunted stories where there’s always a cellar that looks creepy, dark and chilly? That’s about how I can describe our cellar. Guess that’s why none of my house mates ever volunteer to go down there.

» As if it’s not enough being in the dark around half of the house, the heaters are dysfunctional too. I’m quite certain that ours are electric-based, rather than gas ‘cos there are individual plugs for each of our heaters. And besides, they don’t look like the ones operated by gas. Period. Kat (she’s our agent’s ‘fix-it’ woman) said we had to leave our heaters on 24/7, otherwise there won’t be any heat input from day to warm us up at night. Thing is, while we had the heaters on, as instructed, we’re not feeling any warmer. And I bet the bill’s still running. So we decided to swith the heaters off at the dining hallway towards the kitchen (where currently there’s no light) and the rooms upstairs. So now, not only are we having dinner in the dark, we’re shivering! Perfect set for any spooky films.

Lucky for me, I bought a portable heater from ‘carboot’ two weeks ago, so that ‘lil guy kept me warm. And if the cold becomes unbearable, I bring it down when we have our dinner. My friend in the living room is not doing too bad since she’s having the fireplace all to herself. I’m not sure how the other girl’s surviving her nights. Her room is across from mine and despite my repeated offers to share Mr.Portable, she refused kindly and preferred to stay in her room, all bundled in her duvet, doing her literature reviews. Wow. She can definitely stand the cold. Told yah, PhDs do things to us. Hope we don’t see things soon.

(Almost) eBay Junkie

Among the ‘new’ things that grabbed my attention here is the addictive world of ebay. Yup, being almost 29, and while the rest of the world has, probably, already bought or sold some item online, I have just joined the bandwagon. A bit sad, but better late than never. It never occurred to me how enjoyable bidding can be. Of course, it’d be a lot more enjoyable (and extremely fulfilling) if you win that item you bid for. My current state is not looking too good: I’ve been out-bidded five times, all in the span of two days. Either I suck at this thing or I’m just not ready to part with my money yet. So what am I bidding for?

Well, I’m eyeing that brand new and unlocked Sony Ericsson K800i. Before anyone starts labeling yours truly to be the typical Malaysian student abroad – typical, as in getting gadgets before anything else in the first month of settling down, my case is genuine (honest!). I don’t own a camera and quite a number of my friends have done nothing but shriek when I told them I’m here -in the UK- without a camera. However, I hate the idea of actually carrying the device everywhere I go, but that’ll ultimately make me miss visual-worthy moments. So the next best alternative would be to get something that I’ll normally carry with me at all times i.e. a mobile phone, that has an in-built camera. Plain and simple. Just a bit pricey. Hence the eBay. Of course there are the worries about being cheated or the product ain’t as good as advertised. But from the looks of it (and several testimonials from real life people that I personally know), think it’s a good deal.

Now hopefully I get to own that piece of smart phone. Then I can start taking impromptu pictures and upload my Flickr. So bidding, here I go again.