pelf-ism is contagious

Diana recently tagged me with a new meme she started herself, just a few days after she’d learned what a meme was. So here goes, 13 things that would turn my rainy day into a shiny day:

1. To wake up everyday knowing that I am loved
2. To see my grandparents smile and hear them laugh
3. A good book and some good music (who cares about the rain?!)
4. To receive a surprise email or a call from a friend
5. To be appreciated for the things that I have done
6. To receive a letter or a postcard in the mailbox
7. To successfully cook something edible without burning down the kitchen
8. To find a long lost friend in Facebook (no, I’m NOT addicted)
9. Sunny days, now that the monsoon has arrived (so that I can wash and dry my clothes)!
10. My boyfriend, J’s smile
11. To hear my Mum and sister’s voice on the phone
12. To see another person showing some respect for Mother Nature
13. To successfully upgrade my WordPress-powered blogs without screwing things up

So tell me, what would make your rainy, ugly day into a shiny one?

Remember Andy Bailey, the blogger who coded the all-star Commentluv plugin that I am currently using? Well, Andy recently tagged me with a photoshow tag that I thought was interesting.

What you need to do is to take 4 pictures of things — anything at all — that are within 100 meters from your home. Yeah, it’s that simple!

But unlike Opal @ VeganMomma, I don’t have a home with a scenic driveway and pretty front and back yards, so I’m going to show you what’s around the terrapin hatchery where we raise our river terrapins:

This is the Terrapin Head-starting Facility, or commonly known as the hatchery. This is where we used to incubate the terrapin eggs that we purchased from the villagers who stay along Setiu River. This is also where we raise our river terrapin hatchlings from the time they hatched until 3 years of age. All my feeding trials (for my Master’s degree) were conducted at the hatchery, except for laboratory-related works.

There are a lot of wild chrysanthemums by the side of the hatchery. As the name suggests, they grow in the wild and I only get them cut once in a while.

Right next to the hatchery is an open lab for plant research. Students who run experiments on plants, weeds or herbicides conduct their studies here.

And not very far away across the road is the netloft where we park our smaller boats. Bigger boats belonging to the university are docked somewhere at the jetty, but smaller speedboats with outbound engines such as these, are parked on campus and are only transported whenever they are needed.

DONE! For more photos of the university, please visit my Flickr album.

I’m going to tag the following bloggers because I’m such a busybody

• Wayne @ Wayne Liew Dot Com (he likes his URL spelled out, weird)
• Pat @ Broken Shield and Sword
• Sarah @ BlueJar
• Pearl @ Interesting Observations

If you’ve decided to play along, please let me know in the comments, or leave me a trackback so that I could go visit you!

I’ve got another meme, and this time it’s a “five meme” from Everyday Healy! I find it funny to refer to her as “Everyday Healy” because that definitely doesn’t sound like a name to me. But anyway, since I’m one of the five beautiful people she tagged, here goes:

5 things found in my room:

• A bed, and a couple of pillows of various sizes
• A study table that I never used, and a computer table that I never failed to use
• A colourbox that serves as a dressing table as well
• A wardrobe
• A ceiling fan and a table fan

5 things I’ve always wanted to do:

• Publish an autobiography
• Open and run a book store-cum-cafe
• Take fantastic pictures and run a photoblog
• Revive my turtle blog! I’m working on it
• Spend more time volunteering

5 things found in my bag:

• A packet of tissue
• My wallet
• My mobile phone
• A pen
• My student card

5 things found in my wallet:

• Cash
• Some coins
• Identification card, driver’s license, bank cards, insurance card
• Organ donor card
• A picture of my boyfriend and I

5 things I’m currently into:

• Campaigning for Blog Action Day @ The Giving Hands
• Campaigning for Pink for October right here
• Exploring StumbleUpon (my SU profile)
• Experimenting with del.icio.us (my del.icio.us bookmarks)
• My all-time favourite social networking site, 9rules was recently relaunched. I am still trying to find time to experiment with the new features (my.9rules profile)

5 beautiful people to tag:
Seriously, I think tags that are sent my way will most probably end with me. I don’t know how you will react to being tagged, so yeah, if you feel like sharing your “five” with me (and other people), let me know (by sending me a trackback)!