So it was almost 9PM. My brother and I drove out to a nearby McDonald’s to buy back dinner. We found plenty parking space in front of the outlet, so we parked the car right in front of the entrance. We got inside, ordered our take-away at the counter, and 15 minutes later we were back in the car.

But the engine wouldn’t start.

Weirdly enough, I could start up the radio and the air-conditioning (at the first turn of the key ignition), but the engine just stayed dead. I gave the ignition a few go’s, but no luck, and I was like, ‘Oh shit we’re fucked.”

Then I called my dad and basically went, OMG DADDY WE’RE STRANDED IN FRONT OF MCDONALDS COME RESCUE USSSSSS!!!!!1111111 /le dramatic much

Then I got extremely pissed and moody, because I absolutely HATE being the damsel in the distress.

So my bro and I munched on hot, crispy curly fries while we waited for the rescue. I had this funny feeling that the solution to this whole damn problem was gonna be rather obvious, like, right-in-your-face-but-you’re-too-dumb-to-notice obvious, and probably so simple it’d be kinda stupid, too.

Finally Dad came with my other brother, and after some assessment amongst the male trio (one which I was excluded because due to my double-X chromosome I’m genetically unable to grasp the mechanics of automobile components), it was deduced that the battery was conked out. So Dad parked his car next to ours, got out the good ol’ jumper cables from the boot and initiated good ol’ fashioned manual jump-start, car-to-car. Still no luck, though. All three XY-chromosomal brains were stumped. And because they had no other clue as to what the problem was, Dad finally gave up and called up AA’s Search & Rescue (lol what a reassuring name).

We waited in the McDonald’s; ate our Prosperity burgers. Dad got bored and played Bejeweled on his phone. The brothers were still hungry after the Prosperity burgers, and went to get another McChicken set for themselves each, them pigs.

Finally the AA mechanic arrived, his van parked on the other side of my car. This dude with a huge beer belly came out, armed with a battery booster, and dude was like, “Don’t worry, I got this.” LIKE A BOSS. So dude got the hood up, got the battery charged up, and before connecting the crocodile clips to the car battery, without warning, he linked the clips together, creating sparks that scared the shit outta me and I literally YELPED. Dude gave a smirk, and I was literally, D: SHOWOFF.

battery booster hooked up to the car

So once the battery booster was hooked up to the car, Dad tried kickstarting the engine, but YET AGAIN, nothing happened. Even dude was just so puzzled, the look of puzzlement on his face was almost comical. Then dude went over to the steering side, and I had no idea how he did it because I was too far away and was busy tweeting about my misadventures, but my brother said that – apparently – all he did was push the key into the ignition REALLY HARD, and started shaking the key ignition around REALLY HARD, and suddenly the engine was alive! MAGIC.

As it turned out, the problem wasn’t with the battery; it was with the loose wiring in the key ignition that took a few shakes to get them working. Dad was so meek, that he went, rather abashedly: “Well, that was embarrassing.” LOL poor Dad, I think his masculinity felt questioned. Remember that funny feeling I got, earlier? WELL IT HAPPENED FOR REAL. Oh god I can’t believe I was actually right. How amazingly scary. And Oh god, such epic fail.

One thing I’m glad, though: That I decided not to wear my pyjamas to drive out.

And one good thing to come out of this whole crazy supposed ‘crisis’? I got to see the jumper cables and the battery boost in action up-close! YAYYYYY! \o/

Happy turning the big 3-0, you lovable chipmunk. I miss you and your moments of epic shophail (such paradoxical awesomeness in contrast to your supreme Keio intellects); I miss your sexy deep voice, your amazing, suave Sakurap, your chubby chipmunk cheeks, your random Engrish, your nade gata. Oh, screw it, I miss your EVERYTHING.

ilu and stay awesome forever, bb ♥

Here’s wishing you had the most joyful new year
and may the Year of the Dragon be a healthy, wealthy, prosperous and FIERCE year for you!

It’s already the 2nd day of the new Lunar Year… but still, better late than never. I shall blog more about my Chinese New Year adventures later, mannn I just gotta rant about the epic house-visiting shebang my parents got ourselves into. We actually visited relatives of the extended family, all around Klang Valley, EURGH.

But like I said! LATER. It’s 25 minutes to the 25th… in other words, MY BABY SAKURAI SHO WILL BE TURNING 30!!!! I wanna be right on the dot when I spam the birthday hastags on Twitter, hohoho.

 Mom & I @ birthday dinner ♥

My first day as a 21-year-old started in the late morning: I picked my brother Daryl up after school, and we went for lunch at Kimchi Haru! At first we agreed on Mexican food at Frontera, but then I remembered about my week-long craving for Korean food, and I was just dyinggg for some kimchi, so I pulled my autocratic birthday-girl card and dragged my brother over to Kimchi Haru, for the sake of feeding my kimchi obsession.

This is the brother showing his ultimate possessiveness over his bulgogi bibimbap:

I had pork bulgogi (wanted the usual kimchi jigae so badly but eurgh, I’ve had that in the last 5 times I was there, so I wanted something different for once):

with my favourite banchan!

After that, we went to check out the Hush Puppies clearance sale (we were on the way to the carpark when we saw the sale, and we totally sidetracked). I bought myself a new Hush Puppies handbag… for just RM60! WHAT A STEAL, don’t you think? The stingy/thrifty-Nino in me is very, very satisfied.

Having satisfied my shopping fix, we finally got home – with the kimchi jigae we bought home for Mom’s late lunch (weirdly enough Mom said she was craving for exactly just that; in her own words: “I was just thinking the whole time you and Daryl were out, ‘How nice would it be if you ta pau for me kimchi jigae’… AND LOOK!” - Guess mom’s craving was relayed to us humble servants via Lvl.99 telepathy LOL). I did some chores around the house before I got ready for the birthday dinner with the family! We were gonna leave the house at 6:30pm and I was already in the shower by 5:20pm – that gave me plenty of time to do my makeup. Just a simple makeup: BB cream, pressed powder, eyebrow liner and some fancy-schmancy black liquid eyeliner (which, considering I had just upgraded from pencil to liquid, took a considerable amount of time on trial-and-error and lots of cursing).

So, right – the birthday dinner. We went to Tony Roma’s at The Gardens! Since I was officially a legal adult, I ordered myself a cocktail – a Strawberry Mango Swirl Romarita. I’ve no idea what the hell a romarita is, I actually Google’d it and found nothing enlightening. But all I know is, IT WAS DELICIOUSSSSSSSSS. The strawberry/mango/alcohol mix (we were debating if it was vodka or gin) was just heavenly when sipped with the sugar that coated the rim of the glass. And my brother was having such fun squeezing the lime and the orange slices, lol.

and where’s the fun if I don’t camwhore with my first 21st-birthday cocktail?

and yes, my sister and her boyfriend just had to photobomb my shining moment:

also, it’s not a birthday dinner without pics of the birthday girl and the family! So here’s me with the bane of my existence brothers… MAH HOMIES! :Dv

here’s me and the most amazing woman who brought me into this world! ♥

and then there’s me with the sister and her boyfriend (yay at our goofy smiles and the sister’s BF’s lame nerdy pose!):

and a portrait of the ladies of the family:

and of course, with the parents. ♥

As for the dinner, I had a New York Strip, medium rare. It was so bloody and so juicy and sooooo good; I felt like such a carnivore as I ripped into the meat and blood oozed onto the plate. My brother had the Filet Medallion – he ordered medium but it came out borderline-rare! The steak had to be sent back to the kitchen, not once, but TWICE before it was cooked exactly like how my brother wanted it. In the first round of waiting, the head waiter gave my brother a bowl of beef soup, FREE, and then after the second round of waiting, when the steak finally came out right and my brother was already chowing down, the head waiter came over to him, patted him on the back, and said, “Boy, your steak is on me. It’s what I can do for making you wait so long.”

I was like, DDDDDDDD: HEY I’M THE BIRTHDAY GIRL Y U NO GIVE ME FREE STEAK?!?!

I swear, it had something to do with my brother pulling that adorable, pitiful puppy expression he’s so good at, and he always gets away with. And, my dad was more ecstatic about the fact that he saved RM60 on premium steak.

Speaking of my brother… as always, he’s got the most awesome lulzy expressions whenever a camera’s pointed at him!

such a shame that I’m forbidden from uploading all these awesome lulzy-face pics on Facebook! THEY’RE JUST PRICELESS. According to him, he has a reputation to uphold, and I’m only allowed to post these up here on my blog because no one he knows, knows the existence of this blog. Uh-huh.

Anyways, the dinner ended with a special chocolate brownie (topped off with the most scrumptious vanilla ice-cream and chocolate syrup) – on the house for the birthday occasion. At first I thought it was unnecessary to sing me a birthday song, more for the fact that someone else happened to be celebrating THEIR birthday, too, and DAMNNNN the way that bunch of people sang ‘Happy Birthday’ would’ve put me to shame. But the waiters insisted they sing it anyways, so I had no say in it. *le sobz*. There were a couple of waiters who asked my name, and after I told them, they were like, “Ohmigod! ‘Natasha’ is suuuuch a beautiful name! It’s a Russian name, right? So beautiful!” I swear, they were gushing in the most uncharacteristic manner that I literally cringed. That just creeped the hell outta me.

So that was it! After dinner, we walked around Mid Valley for a bit – bought gelato and a box of Japanese mochi as snacks – and then we went home. And, of course, I spent the last remaining hour of the 13th of January responding to each and every birthday wish I got on Facebook and Twitter. They were all just made of love. ♥

Overall I had an awesome birthday – probably one of the best I’ve had over the recent years! I won’t deny that it was pretty low-key and boring. I mean, I guess people usually celebrate their 21st birthday by throwing the hottest party, or by going out clubbing and drinking the night away with their friends… right? Well sorry but I’m just not that kind of person. I’m the kind of person to spend the special occasion with the people I love; I’m the kind to say that nothing beats celebrating my birthday with my family. ♥

-
and now, I can cross ‘Write a Fashion Breakdown on Personal Outfit‘ off my bucket list.

Things started off simple, that is, putting together the perfect outfit befitting my comeback to civilisation (i.e. my social life at university). Okay not. I just wanted to wear something that would portray my new image as an older, wiser, more mature 21-year-old. But then at the end I absolutely fell in love with the whole outfit, that I just had to take a vanity shot and do a small fashion breakdown in a blog post.

Notice the Photoshop effects? I just had to make my first (and probably last) vanity fashion shot more, hmmm, fashion blog-worthy! This is srs bzn, I tell you.

(And yes, even I am surprised – and a little scared – by all this randomness.)

Fashion awesomeness aside, classes today were meh. First class of the day – Introduction to Journalism lecture – and already things were going out of whack. How out of whack? The lecturer herself was M.I.A. and the admin officers could not give a single legit explanation. Talk about an amazing, positive first impression. But on a better note, my classmates were absolutely awesome about my getting into President’s List. They congratulated me, and were genuinely felt happy for me (at some point  I swear I saw some Sho-mama-worthy pride). Then the whole bunch of us went to lunch together, and they sang a belated birthday song for me. It was such a sweet, touching moment. ♥

Also, random: while we were heading for our 11:30AM lecture, one of my friends suddenly came up with a revelation. She said, “Natasha, I think you’re gonna get a boyfriend this year,” and according to her, it has to do with me dressing up all ~mature~ and ~sexy~ now. While it was all a joke to tease me (because they’re mean like that), I had this weird feeling in the pits of my stomach that told me it might actually come true. It felt ominous, like it was a premonition. I could be a little delusional, but boy, was I slightly unnerved after that. Especially since my crush was being more chatty than usual with me today.

it’s killing me majorly because, believe it or not, I had been soooooo damn excited all week for the new semester to start… so much that I was texting/FB-ing my classmates, telling them how freakin’ excited I was to go back to school and how I could NOT WAIT to see them.

eurgh, this sucks.

well, at least I’m making an effort to cheer myself up: I’ve got Summer Splash playing on loop on the media player right now. God knows I need some gay rainbow and sparkly awesomeness in my life sfm rn.

Oh, and birthday update: I had an awesome time! Thank god the Friday the 13th jinx escaped me. I celebrated my 21st with the family, which was absolutely lovely and made it all the more memorable. ♥ I will blog about it – soon! Hopefully tomorrow. I actually planned to write it on the post-birthday morning, but being the usual lazy fat ass I am, I procrastinated… and now here I am, wasting my time away instead, bemoaning about how much I don’t wanna go back to school. Ahhh, brings back good memories of primary/secondary school years.

Good news though – my classes end at 1:30PM tomorrow! It’s probably the only reason why I’m not absolutely and utterly miserable right now. So, yay! At least I could sign off this blog post on a happier note.

Goodnight, my lovelies, and hope your Monday is an eventless, smooth-sailing one. (:

I mean, come on. As much as everyone makes a big deal out of it as ‘The Big Moment’, it’s not like I’ll go through an instantaneous transformation the moment the clock strikes 12.

The Natasha as of 11:59PM, Jan 12th 2012 will be no different from the Natasha of 12:01AM, Jan 13th 2012.

In fact, if you ask me what I’m gonna be doing the moment I turn 21, I’d most likely be lost in Skyrim, shooting arrows at city guards in the knee, shouting DOVAHKIIIN! DOVAHKIIN! because I’m just an incorrigible nerd like that :Dv

It’s been great being a kid, and it’s been great having the excuse to be stupid and immature. But I’m ready to grow up now.

My awesome darling of a friend Camy was one of the first to wish me happy birthday, even before the birthday itself. I asked her for a birthday advice, since she’s much older and wiser and just plain fabulous, and she said this:

3 things.

Live the way you want to live,

love the way you want to be loved,

and never stop creating things
the way you envision.

Hugs and kisses, and stay awesome, everyone. Guess I’ll see you on the other side?

SO I FIGURED – since I already did Sho’s colour (Sakurai-wifey represent, yo!), I should move on to the next Arashi colour because it is only appropriate to exhibit inner fangirlism, mm-hmm. Yellow/Blonde is like a been-there-done-that kinda thing, since I already did the combo of brown dyed hair and blonde highlights years ago after I left secondary school. Green is a little… hmmm, unsightly? LOL IDK. I had awesome tweeps on Twitter giving me suggestions (Kitty was all for blue and Azureen thought purple would be awesome), but because the hair salon didn’t have blue dye, so at the end I didn’t have any other choice but to go for purple/violet. But it’s all good, though! Purple is an awesome, badass colour, and like Azureen told me, it’s Matsujun’s colour and it’ll give me a good excuse to go full-on DoS mode :Dv

So I endured the torture of sitting in a salon chair for almost 4 hours. I’m just as bad as a 5-year-old with ADHD – I get restless easily, in fact, just the state of not being able to move freely is a huge nuisance to me. I was constantly crossing/uncrossing my legs, flicking through past-issue magazines, tweeting/texting from my phone, or even stoning away and staring into empty space (I think I got weird looks from the junior hairstylist, haha).

AND NOW. Pictures, aye?

Yes, the purple isn’t very obvious unless at a super-close distance (see above), and yes, I still have my old reddish-brown streaks (not sure if the hairstylist did a sloppy job of bleaching it out, or she purposefully left it there). I don’t know if it’s a good thing or a bad thing… but either way, I just think the whole new look is AWESOME! The purple/brown combo is actually pretty awesome itself, too; it gives me a faux rebellious look, fuck yeah. Would you say anti-hipster? I would, just for the hell of it because it sounds cool. LOL! And while the purple isn’t obvious, the hairstylist did say that the dye is deeply concentrated and that it takes a couple washes to get the colour to ‘strike out more’ (don’t see the logic in that, but then again, I’m not the trained expert).

Now what I’m really looking forward to, is going back to school next week. New semester starts Monday, and while I’m pretty excited for that itself… I CAN’T WAIT TO SEE THE LOOK ON MY CLASSMATES’ FACES WHEN THEY SEE MY HAIR. Oh mannnn it’s gonna be so hilarious. They’re gonna be thinking I’m just beyond insane. How exciting is that?! :D

(yes, you must be thinking I really am insane, but hey, don’t be hatin’ yo!)

AND I AM NOW LISTED IN THE UNIVERSITY’S PRESIDENT’S LIST.

OH DEAR GOD.

You thought I didn’t really notice. But I did. I wanted to high-five you.

Yesterday I had a pair of brothers in my store. One was maybe between 15 and 17. He was a wrestler at the local high school. Kind of tall, stocky and handsome. He had a younger brother, who was maybe about 10 to 12 years old. The only way to describe him was scrawny, neat, and very clean for a boy his age. They were talking about finding a game for the younger one, and he was absolutely insisting it be one with a female character. I don’t know how many of y’all play games, but that isn’t exactly easy. Eventually, I helped the brothers pick a game called “Mirror’s Edge.” The youngest was pretty excited about the game, and then he specifically asked me, “Do you have any girl color controllers?” I directed him to the only colored controllers we have, which include pink and purple ones. He grabbed the purple one, and informed me purple was his FAVORITE.

The boys had been taking awhile, so their father eventually came in. He saw the game, and the controller, and started in on the youngest about how he needs to pick something different. Something more manly. Something with guns and fighting, and certainly not a purple controller. He tried to convince him to get the new Zombie game “Dead Island” and the little boy just stood there repeating, “Dad, this is what I want, OK?” Eventually it turned into a full-blown argument complete with Dad threatening to whoop his son if he didn’t choose different items.

That’s when big brother stepped in. He said to his dad, “It’s my money, it’s my gift to him. If it’s what he wants, I’m getting it for him, and if you’re going to hit anyone for it, it’s going to be me.” Dad just gave his oldest son a strong stern stare-down, and then left the store. Little brother was crying quietly. I walked over and ruffled his hair (yes, this happened all in front of me). I said, “I’m a girl, and I like the color blue, and I like shooting games. There’s nothing wrong with what you like. Even if it’s different than what people think you should.” I smiled, he smiled back (my heart melted!). Big brother then leaned down, kissed little brother on the head, and said, “Don’t worry, dude.”

They checked out and left, and all I can think is how awesome big brother is, how sweet little brother is, and how Dad ought to be ashamed for trying to make his son any other way.

— Kristen Wolfe

Brotherly love, you’re doing it right.

Filed under: Internet Tagged: faith in humanity is restored, gender stereotypes, good things can happen, I WANT TO MARRY THAT OLDER BROTHER, inspirational story, it's okay for boys to like girls stuff, tumblr ]]> http://vanillacherryice.wordpress.com/2012/01/09/my-faith-in-humanity-has-been-restored/feed/ 0 Tashii daddy's proud nod [GIF]