Reading as a hobby

I am a newspaper reader until now, although my family don't buy physical newspaper anymore, I still subscribed (paid) to a Malaysian newspaper online. However, I only read during weekend or holidays nowadays, age caught up with me already, in my 20s to 30s, I could still read before I sleep during workdays. Now, I could even fall asleep while watching youtube on workday night.

When I was small, I stayed in a small town and the local book stores only had school related books, revision books, dictionaries and somehow cookbooks. My primary to secondary school leisure books were mostly from the book rental stores, I read mainly Taiwanese / Hong Kong romance, wuxia (武侠) and science fiction. You have to become a member of the book rental store, then for every book you rent, you have to pay an amount from 50 cents to RM2. 

Of course, there's the school library, but we were only allowed to borrow one book per week, I was a librarian during primary school, so I could borrow three books per week. Most of the books were educational one, the more "interesting" one was not there in school. Anyway, I read a lot of books from the library too, in school, the teacher would dictate what books to read that particular week, normally it would be a rotation, one week Chinese book, the second week Malay book, third week English book and returned to Chinese book on fourth week. 

Normally, the book rental store had racks of books, mostly in Chinese for the novels, some even had manga in Malay. Those that charged 50 cents are mainly older titles and very tattered. I even bought some for less than RM1 when the book stores are clearing out some torn old books. 

I spent a major chunk of my pocket money on the books. I started to read romance when I was in standard five or six, starting with 瓊瑤, that time, TV station started to broadcast Taiwanese dramas from the novelist 瓊瑤. And me and my neighbour found out that the books were available in rental book store, we pooled money and get a membership in a rental book store. And started to read novels. It opened my eyes to not just romance, I was even exposed to wuxia and science fiction. I read a lot of novels from Taiwanese writers, I think I even finished reading all novels written by 瓊瑤. Others are 张小娴, 席绢, 于晴, 楼雨晴, 古灵, 典心, 寄秋, 凌淑芬 and etc. I particularly like 席绢, I think her novel is the first that talk about going back to the past, I really admired her imagination. 

Other romance novelists that I read were from Hong Kong, 亦舒, 梁凤仪 and 岑凯伦. 岑凯伦 is a really productive writer, his/her novels could fill a huge book rack. I read in a forum somewhere that mentioned 岑凯伦 is a collective of novelists because the style was a bit inconsistent. I am not really a fan of 亦舒, 梁凤仪 though.

I feel that I am a very rational person from young. I know that I am not the heroine type in life, I am more like the sidekick. And I couldn't understand the way the second lead behaved in the novel. As I grew older, I found 瓊瑤 earlier novels to be very irrational and unethical too. Now many people quote from 瓊瑤's novel as a form of sarcasm. Like 'you only lost your legs, but she lost the love of her life!', people defended the third party, so horrible!

From the rental book store, I able to explore the wuxia genre too. 金庸, 古龙, 梁羽生 and 温瑞安 were the big four in wuxia genre. I read more on 金庸 and 古龙. For 金庸, I like "鹿鼎记" the most. Other than that, I also got hooked on science fiction series 卫斯理 from 倪匡. My imagination about aliens and galaxy came from 卫斯理. Most of the books from this series showed that it's well read (very tattered). One book around 50 cents to RM1 and I could finished in half day. I really spent a lot on rental books. For context, my monthly allowance during secondary school was RM50. I didn't go to canteen during recess. My school session was half day though. Just eating lunch at home. 

I don't really rent manga though. That's the job of my younger brother. He used his allowances to rent manga and I read the shonen manga that he rent. My favourite is "Hikaru no go ヒカルの碁". However, I also pooled money with my friends to rent shojo manga "Oke no Monsho 王家の紋章", I learnt a lot of Egypt history from this manga, LOL! This manga was very popular among us girls. I once came upon a whole series of "Hikaru no go" in a book store and it's around few hundred Ringgit. I was still studying that time and on a tight budget, so I didn't buy it, still sad thinking about it nowadays. 

I only started to seriously read English books around Form 3 in secondary school. I got the English books from the school or state library, but the books were mostly old titles, like Enid Blyton, considered quite tame compared to the Chinese books I read. I also read serious titles in Malay in secondary school, I read "tulang-tulang berserakan" by Usman Awang in Form 2 I think, it made me very upset. Maybe I was still too young then. 

I stopped going to Rental book store since university days. In university, there're so many libraries. I was in University of Malaysia. I normally frequented my own faculty's library only. However, only engineering related titles were available there, other genres not much. If I wanted to read novels, I would go to the main library. There're also Chinese novels in some other faculty's library, but I never ventured there. One of my university mates told me she found the libraries were the most important asset in the university, she was amazing! She studied economy and took ACCA part time, she got all the references and books for ACCA from the library and studied by her own. By the time she graduated in economy, she also got the certification for ACCA. I admired her so much for this, such determination. 

Back to the topic, nowadays for novels, mainly I read the China web novel series. There are so many genres there. I only read paper based books on non-fiction. I heard the book rental shop I frequented in my younger days was closed. It couldn't survive, one could find novels, manga online for "free" now. It's kind of sad. I once dreamed of opening of a cafe cum book rental shop after I retire. Well life goes on, happy reading everyone!

Citric Acid to Clean Kettle

I followed a Japanese blogger lately. And she cleaned stainless steel items with Citric Acid, it looks so amazing. So I bought one bottle of Citric Acid powder. It's a 500g bottle. First thing first, initially I thought it will smell like vinegar, it is not, it's odourless. Well, a good material property. 

citric acid powder

instruction of usage

Previously, I cleaned my electric kettle by scrubbing. I only did that when I feel like it. I didn't clean my kettle for sometime, and the water stain is building up. So here comes the citric acid. 

stained electric kettle

I boiled full kettle of water and add 2 table spoons of the citric acid powder. There's no bubbles forming. The instruction mentions 30 minutes. After 20 minutes, i checked and noticed the kettle's bottom is already cleaned. So, I removed the water. 

Well, The result is positive. Although some stains still visible, overall it's much cleaner than before. Yes, Citric Acid is useful cleaning agent. 

after 20 minutes of soaking

Soaked Orange Peel Water

I have to admit, my socks are smelly. I tried to soak in vinegar before and it's not working. One fine day, after I have eaten an orange, I looked at the orange peel and think of a reddit post I read earlier, some redditors said that putting orange peel inside smelly shoes can help to tame the smell. 

So I put the orange peel inside a biscuit plastic liner and add water, in no way I will use my food containers to soak my socks. The biscuit plastic liner is going to be thrown away anyway.

orange peel soaked in water

The next day, when I looked back, the water have turned yellowish. However, the smell is not that pleasant, a bit citrusy and a bit of decaying smell. Anyway, my socks are not that pleasant either.

colour after ~24 hours of soaking

dirty smelly socks

I bravely placed the socks inside the "concoctions" and planned to soak until the next morning.

soaking

Well, I tried this so you all don't need to try this. It attracted insects! See the 2 black spots on the sock? It's some insects, the one that come if you didn't clean up your rubbish for few days. 

insects after soaking in orange peel water

Upon discovering the insects, I hurried poured the orange peel water away and cleaned the socks. The socks still smell the same and dirty spot also same. Anyway, good experiment, now I know it's not working!

Active Oxygen Descaling Tablets

Well, I was so into cleaning videos lately and came across this active oxygen thingy. So when I found this "Active Oxygen Descaling Bubble Water Cup Tea Scale Removal Kettle Scale Removal Cleaning Tea Set Tea Cup Cleaning Effervescent Tablets" in Lazada, I bought it, it's cheap (I think), it's around RM1 one box (10 tablets per box). So a tablet cost around 10 cents.

Well, on the packaging, there's printed sentence "high efficiency bubbling tablets". Well, when I opened it, only 1 tablet that still somehow maintain the tablet shape, others all became powder already. I read the ingredients list, it has baking soda 小苏打, citric acid 柠檬酸,  active oxygen agent 活氧因子, cleaning agent 去垢因子(not sure actual is what chemical, just literal translate). The list sounds not dangerous, so although it has becomes powdery, I used it nevertheless. 

active oxygen descaling bubbling happiness

only 1 left that somehow maintain the tablet shape

one month before expiry!

Anyway, I kept 3 coffee / tea stained cups and intended to use this tablets on my stained cups. Actually I could still clean it with good hard scrubbing, but if there's a easier way, why not? Right?

stainless steel cup

ceramic mug1

ceramic mug 2

Well, I used the water from vacuum flask, it was boiled like 3 hours prior. The recommended temperature is above 80 degree celcius. Only some bubbles are formed and visible on the stainless steel cup. Other 2 ceramic mugs looked calm, unlike the illustrations on the seller page, the pictures showed a lot of bubbles.

only minor bubbles on the water surface

After around 45 minutes (the instruction mentions 15 to 30 minutes), I  removed the water and slight scrubbed ceramic mug 2, which was the dirtiest. The wall of mug 2 is cleaned but the bottom still with some stains. Ok, so I waited for additional time for two other cups.

cleaned but not totally clean (ceramic mug 2)

For the stainless steel cup, I cleaned it after 2 hours. The stains are mostly gone. However, if I scrubbed it, the stains are quite easy to scrub off too. Ceramic mug is harder to clean. 

most of the stains are gone (stainless steel cup)

Lastly, after 4 hours, I cleaned the ceramic mug 1. Well, the coffee stains are mostly gone, even the bottom part. But the tiny black spots are still there. I read in reddit, many commented that it was metal particles from the spoon from too much stirrings. Well, as long as it's not mold, I am ok with it. 

stains are gone but there are still some black spots (mug 1)

Conclusion, for this active oxygen descaling tablets, it is kind of useful to remove coffee stains. However, one can use also the clorox to clean it and don't need to use hot water!

Horrible Histories: Vile Victorians by Terry Deary illustrated by Martin Brown

After spending so much money on books, I felt the need to read some of my books to justify the spending, although my hobby is book buying! To avoid loading myself with some serious topics that will take some time to read, I have chosen a very thin book about Victorians. It's history and so long ago. So it won't affect my minds too much. Nowadays, I bought less novels, more on other genres. 

Horrible Histories: Vile Victorians by Terry Deary illustrated by Martin Brown

I read this on one Saturday while waiting to see the doctor during my checkup. Well, I was the number 7 in line although I reached around 7am, people woke up so early! I only managed to see the doctor on around 11:30am. I got to read around 80% of the book while waiting and finished it after got home. 

This book is actually kind of sad. It started with some facts about Queen Victoria and then some stories on Victorians lives. The child mortality rate was very high, living space was scarce. The book provides an example, "I have note of a locality where 48 men, 73 women and 59 children are living in 34 rooms.". Then there were some issues like insufficient food, child labour in coal mines, chimney sweeping, ribbon making that caused death or mutilations, etc.  

short sentences with illustrations

Next, about the schools. I couldn't imagine it. Although in 1870 the education bill was passed and every child between 5 and 12 years old had to go to school, Nicholas Nickleby by Charles Dickens was based on an infamous teacher that caused two of his students lost their sight. There were inequality back then too, in 1870, women teachers were paid 58 pounds a year, men were paid 94 pounds. That's a big differences. There were big classes too, around 70 or 80 students per class, well, I think it's still ok. When I was in primary school, my classes were around 40 pupils and there were 8 classes on my year. Nowadays, in the same school, I heard from my friend, there was only about 4 to 5 classes per year, and 1 class around 20 to 30 students. The birth rate is lower from year to year.

Then there are information on Victorians' games, literature, plays, transportation, sewage system (mmmm.......). Also there was also the bad working environment in the factory. Lifespan was short and for poor persons, often they had to share graves with multiple bodies. Two recipes were provided too, "candied carrots" and "half day pudding". Well, not a fan of Victorian food.

I thought Jack the Ripper was a character from novel, it is not. It is a killer from Victorian era. Another famous criminal was Mary Ann Cotton. She killed around 15 to 20 people (husbands, lover, children) and not get caught due to she changed name everytime she remarried and death was very common in that era. Sweeney Todd was really a character from the penny dreadful novel though.  

The author closed with quote from Charles Dickens "A tale of two cities". By the time the Queen died, there were electric lights and electric chairs, motor cars and crashes, very very rich and the very very poor. It was such the contrast. Actually the rick poor gap now is also there, and it's becoming worst. Ah.

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the season of light, it was the season of darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were going direct to heaven, we were all going direct the other way."