More pics of the magical time i had there..

Garden reception before the dinner.. ;-)
Gala Dinner at Magdalene College hall..
Me n the girls..
work that stairs!
an incredibly talented string quartet to entertain us!
speaker george pickering with successful hair implant!
candlelit gala dinner... no electricity in this ancient building. :-)
what gorgeous stained glass work!
traditional english summer pudding with seasonal berries and cornish clotted cream.. mmmm
slow roasted rump of lamb with roasted shallots, carrots, petits pois and potatoes with rosemary.. delish!
patriotic or what?! he he
how beautiful is this??
Carol from Longman... the woman who made it all happen!
me in the heart of cambridge
striking a pose... watcha think?
It was a really insightful lecture by Jeremy... takes a real man to wear pink! he he

More of Amazing Minds!

The Great Man Himself: Jeremy Harmer, god of the English Language Teaching bible. haha.. how all of us english teacher trainees used to quote him to death in our assignments.. !!

3 hot babes!
Amazing Minds Asian Chapter.. from right China, Thailand, Indonesia, West Malaysia, Korea. !!
Fantastic Jazz Band, we danced till we dropped.. almost!

'Bookstack' carved out of an entire oak tree trunk. purty! we had a lovely BBQ garden party with a famous Cambridge Jazz Band entertaining us. was fabulous!
Me n Anna from Argentina. A lady smaller than me! hehe
Posing in one of the many gardens in a college in town..
The round church, for obvious reasons. ;)
Gorgeous buildings everywhere!
Typical english pubs with lovely potted flowers hanging around.. how pretty!
Me with the brazillian delegate.. lovely woman. the upside down longman reference she's holding was free for every one of us, the most common 3000 words in basic english. ;-)
Garden on the roof of Longman Pearson HQ, Harlow.
Me n the hot men on this course, Kristof (Hungary - he says in his country the average class is one teacher to 12 students.. bloody amazing!!!), Marek (Poland) and Rene (Lebanon).
Me on the rooftop garden with the rolling hills in the background. ;-)

Cambridge so far... ;-)

Group piccy! 30 countries represented.. old n young, all amazing minds!
View from the river while punting.. king's college chapel i think..
hot polish guy telling about the bridge.. sides of bridge all sealed so ppl cant jump off n escape, replica of the one in Venice where they would lead the criminals to prison. in cambridge, this bridge connects the students to the exam hall so same difference! hehe
how gorgeous is that! too bad abt the ugly red thingy.. a juxtaposition of old n new i guess..
hot mr polish guy tour guide again, i couldnt stop drooling at his muscles working the pole as he punted. lol...
Us on a punt punting along river Cam.. ;-) a metal bridge behind
Other delegates getting onto the punt. ;-)

Life Long Learning equates to Infinite Knowledge... go figure!
Mt Kinabalu as the background of my presentation. Martin took this gorgeous shot, had time to promote Sabah tourism! hehe
Lovely Zita n me.. ;-) met some really nice folks.
my buddy thorny from thailand.. ;-)
i love this bench!
Learnt a new skill.. can now juggle! weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!
Flowers in bloom.. weather doin good!
George Pickering used me as his monkey model.. haha
basket of fruits n goodies, n the lucy cavendish sunday roast beef dinner menu..
my neat desk! hehe...
has even a comfy seat by the window.. ;-)
my comfy bed in the college room.. reminds me of my room in st mary's hall so long ago.

Cambridge is lovely... as expected.

Been havin a great time here in Cambridge.. the weather is a bit drizzly (it's england remember!) but sunny at times too so that's great. been going wild shopping.. ok not that wild, but did buy a few choice items from M&S for me n kids and at Ann Summers mostly for me.. ;-) i love it! hehehehehe.. size does matter, esp when i can actually fit stuff! hehe
The course itself has been lotsa fun, we had a 'taste of britain' food and booze tasting session before having a 3 course english roast beef dinner with delish raspberry tiramisu.. yummy! hehe, there goes my diet. but i'm countering that by walking like hell. everyone walks everywhere here as most of the streets are closed to cars. my calves really really really hurt but the shopping n sightseeing are worth it. hehe..
will be putting some pics here soon as i download them. ;-) miss my lil cherubs but a mommy's gotta do what a mommy's gotta do! hehe
anyway, here's some pics from the last download, before i left for cambridge..

best 5 ringgit motorised toy yacth spent! hehe.. bes had lotsa fun with it.. for abt 10 mins. hehe
My girl playing her big sis role impressively! hehe

Khai Ma Aloysia (Lanner's godma) n Besra just before i left KK. awwww

Cuddle me quick! i'm soooo adorable!

Daddy n baby girl at our beach.. lovely family time spent combing the beach.. ;-) she's wearing a cap with the words 'lil miss magic' embroidered specially for her.. its from a jimmy buffet song, one of martin's favourites.

Somewhere out there..

Hey guys, back home it’s about 2.30pm Saturday 11 July but right now I’m writing this from the skies above Pakistan in a plane on the way to Heathrow.. It’s been a real hectic run-up to this point as I’ve been so busy with my girls (school debate team). As most of you would have known by now, I was writing 40 debate scripts for them for 5 rounds of debates. They got a bye for the first round (8 scripts down the drain) and debated the second round but lost. They did put up a good fight and like Miley Cyrus says, sometimes you gotta lose. All in all, they used 4 out of 40 scripts.. lol.. ah well, at least I have a corpus of debate material that I can use in the future. ;-) It was still a fun experience for me cos I got to meet up with many chummy ex-debaters and English teachers always have a riot when we get together.
Anyway, back to the point, I’m really rather excited that I’m actually on a plane to Cambridge for the Longman ‘Amazing Minds 2009’ English Language Teachers’ Conference. When Ivan the Longman rep of Sabah encouraged me to fill in the form, I didn’t expect, although I greatly hoped, that I’d be Malaysia’s ambassadress to such an international convention, all expenses paid! Also couldn’t believe my luck that it would be in Cambridge, at the Lucy Cavendish Ladies’ College where great women have been born, mostly to wed great men from Cambridge Uni! LOL.. hehe.. plus the fact that I get to meet the ELT God himself, Jeremy Harmer. Brings me back to college days when we had to write papers after papers and dissertations quoting him so it would definitely be nice to shake his hand and put a face to his prominent name.
But that’s just the Cambridge end, I’m also super looking forward to going to the opera and globe theatre with Beatrice when I get to London. ;-) What can beat a Shakespearean play (As You Like It) and a famous opera (The Barber of Seville) although I was considering going for a concert but honestly don’t think I have the time to squeeze that in. ;-) Will just see how it goes, go with the flow… hehe, oh and lingerie central, here I come! finally, things that fit and don’t look like granny owns them! Won’t be shopping much except for cheese sauces and gotta eat a Steak Bake from Gregs! hehe.. and take millions of pictures! Anyway, will stop babbling now and try to get some sleep. ;-) still have 7 hrs to go.

Home sweet home... almost

This is home, and home is where the heart is.. as you can see it's almost done, still waitin on the electrician and the windows and sliding doors to be installed.. but we're getting there. ;-)

this is from the front balcony looking in. three rooms on the right , a study, nursery, common toilet n kitchen on the left.. very spacious and the breeze if fabulous.. ;-)

View from back of the house out into the riverview.

My kitchen, my pride and joy... looks better in real life of course.. ;-)

View of the river, part of which we own, from our bedroom.. mmmmmm

My very own bathtub.. sighs.. counting the days when i can finally sink into the millions of bubbles in my own home. ;-)

Martin's work in progress fish pond.

Martin standing along our 360 balcony.

below: side balcony view facing our mango tree and river.