a tribute to Tina ...

today, after lunch with one of the most colourful and fun characters in my life, i've decided to dedicate this blog post to her...presenting : a tribute to Tina Kooi...

i first met tina when i was in first year of uni...we met at the LF that used to be held at the arts fac...she was a quantity surveying student from 'alam bina' fac and my, she talked loud and fast and non-stop, putting even someone who once won a 'talk-non-stop' award to shame...but we did get on like a house on fire, and have remained good friends since. :)

we share this love of eating and free samples from supermarkets, and one of our special joys would be going to carrefour or giant or jusco and trying all kinds of food and drink. i will never forget how shocked tina looked when i ate some Rusky instant noodles-curry flavour and then choked when the curry went up my nose, and an awful woman started to laugh. apparently my face turned red, and my eyes watered...then tina laughed and she still remembers i can't eat curry up to today...

the days when tina, drina and i went out together, i will never forget how tina got me to join her and drina to watch a midnight movie at Midvalley in second year, and that was when i had an admin tutorial which i had barely prepared for and my first oral training session for Jessup the very next day...it was Phantom of the Opera, an excellent movie. the movie watching experience was fun, except when tina nudged me midway and asked, as if it were the most amazing thing in the whole wide world, "pet, you sobbing ah?"...
and during alexander, a horrendous turkey of a movie, she nudged me again "pet, you sleeping ah?"...in the same tones. for the record, i did both of those things she asked me about...

tina is very good company, fun to talk to, chock full of humourous and witty quotes and is extremely sensible. if you want fuss-free, no frills and down-to-earth practical advice, this is the person to look for. also a great friend to shop with, yeah...the lesson of the woodcutter's son, no?

but the one thing which will always touch me, which i will definitely never forget is how she came to support me during Jessup in second year...how she sat there and watched me and horkee moot against the UKM team, and then i took her all round the fac and that's when she told me about red bricks (she truly has a passion for what she's doing, she always shares with me about construction stuff etc)...how comforting she was after we lost, and how we went back to watch a tennis match between lleyton hewit and marat safin, and later i pontenged law nite to watch 'national treasure' with her...if not for her presence and her advice and words of wisdom, i would not have been able to get over everything that happened. thank you...:)
she met some of my coursemates and seniors, and of course, she had interesting things to say about all of them...:) hahaha. and don't forget 'pada keesokan harinya'...oh how kecoh she can get, even in a place foreign to her...

i will definitely miss her when she graduates next year, but the good news is that she will still be around as she is working in kl. so, yeah, we can still continue our gallivanting around expeditions, our own jalan-jalan cari makan which we have been doing since first year.

thanks for the memories, and for the laughter...because as they say, laughter is the best medicine. and yes, tina has a gift for turning even the saddest and most perplexing problems into something you can laugh about, and then it's only a step away from solving the problem. i have benefitted immensely from this gift, and i would share some of her quotes, prize-winning ones all of them, but for the fact that they are also very personal...:P

there's a lot more i can say, this is only a beginning...take care, and i know tina will go far in the future, she's got her head and her heart in the right places. God bless you!