the navel gazer monologues

low days

2006-08-29T07:08:00.000-07:00

There’s always ways to find out where your old classmates have gone. The little kids you used to play with in the sandbox? You’ll probably meet them whilst walking around in Mid Valley some crowded Saturday. Ex-es can be sniffed out and spoken to, relationships can be mended. Bridges, though burnt, can always be replaced, somehow.

As long as the people you’re looking for, the people you miss are still there. I’ve never felt as low as I do today every since I got back to KL about 2 weeks ago. I’ve got no more tears left to shed, probably because my reserve was small to begin with, but also because this grief isn’t the kind which resolves after a good bout of crying. This grief is unending, unquenchable. I don’t see a way out of this now, I don’t think I ever will. Some wounds don’t heal.

I don’t need your advice on how I should do things, you brought me up well enough to be able to tell the difference between what you’d see as right and what you’d see as wrong. I don’t need the security of an adult watching over me like you did. All I want is to be able to talk to you. I want to tell you how my day was.

the bald and the average looking

2006-08-27T00:36:00.000-07:00

Even though I have no hair, I just got me a haircut. I'm dead set on keeping my hair short. I've been called 'sexy' more times in the past week than I have in my entire life; enough reason to keep my hair like it is - very very short.

When told of my decision to stay pseudo-bald, my mother wasn't particularly pleased. She said that it would serve as a reminder to not only myself, but everyone around me of his passing. I was adamant. I like being bald: there's no need to worry about what my hair looks like when I get up in the morning, I spend that much less on shampoo and I get attractive women rubbing my head all through the day (without me offering to pay them).

If my dad could see me now (i'll happily assume that he can, thanks), he'd flip. He never approved of my short hair and used to squeal with delight (almost) when I returned home with hair long, but with my heart set on getting it cut. He thought that the long hair made me look more 'handsome' and that by keeping it short, I spent way too much money on haircuts and looked like I was mourning the loss of something.

I kinda am. It's a reminder, and I don't mind being reminded. I don't want to forget.

Now call me sexy.

what i need

2006-08-08T21:34:00.000-07:00

to get my life back on track is not what i have right now. What I have right now is heaps of time with my own thoughts, time to piece together every signle event that has taken place and try to make some sense out of it. Time to overcome my grief and convince myself that life is still in fact worth living, contrary to my current belief that at the end of the day it doesn't add up, and life isn't worht the effort. Time to take things slowly, to heal before i don my aromour once again to face the world. I don't need this time.

What i do need is a dive right back into how my life used to be. Deadlines, the pressure of having to perform, the rushing, the 6 hours of sleep a day. I don't want all this time that I have. Judging by where I am right now, I should be immersing myself in prayer, leaving all my fears and worries at the feet of God and convincing myself that He will take care of everything, that he will make it all okay.

The problem here would be the fact that I don't know where I've left my faith. 10 weeks of hoping that He will shower his grace, that He won't let us down brought me this: close to 30 days of grief, close to 30 days of unfathomable grief and quite possibly a lifetime of unanswered questions and an insatiable sense of longing.

We've had our faith come to us easy. We've never had our faith tested as it is being tested now. A side of me knows that to blame God would be useless, and thus I choose not to blame him. Cancer is a blameless crime, in most cases at least. But what if your father never smoked once in his life but had to die of lung cancer? Isn't there anyone to blame? Shoudln't He give me the answers I seek? Is there any way that i will EVER make sense of this? I seek, and yet I do not find.

What I need is not something to believe in. What I need is not the time to develop my belief in something either. What i need, is to get back to the wheel, and wrest myself into living life again.

For the first time in my life, I'm afraid.

hard truths

2006-08-03T00:52:00.000-07:00

I was going to blog about how hard it is to come to terms with the fact that I've lost a parent. I can't seem to put my thoughts into words, I can't seem to get me thoughts in order. This problem isn't restricted to this blog post alone, but to the whole experience as well. 22 days later and it still hasn't hit me like I thought it would, it's far too much to stomach.

when terms and conditions do not apply

2006-07-27T00:31:00.000-07:00

Taken from a post i wrote on the 20th of April 2006:

'That's the problem with you, you're always in a rush,' he says

When i get stressed enough that i'm convinced that there's no more room on my plate, that the world is falling down around me ears, i call my dad. There isn't at actualy reason behind it, it's almost reflexive, and 30 seconds into the conversation i am reminded that there really isn't a point to calling him seeking comfort. My dad can be unbelievably optimisctic, and i'm a pessimistic bitch. So for the 15 minute or so conversation, we'll be at loggerheads about how life isn't made up of good events, and shit can happen (he says shit happens, but you'll be fine at the end of it all), i say that maybe, just maybe, god (or the powers that be, whatever your inclinations) may let us down (he says that He never lets us down). You get the drift, it's like a tennis match. Backforthbackforth for 15 minutes.

Yet somehow, at the end of what is supposed to be a draining conversation, I feel ready to put my pants back on and face the world. I'm attributing it to the fact that regardless of when I call my dad, even if i'm hitting 30 and desperate, his advice to me will still be the same. That kind of constancy is hard to find. And when you do find it, it's the best possible reminder that all is well with the world. When you can go running back and realize that some things stay right where you leave them. As long as my father keeps dispensing advice that i'll never listen to in entirety, i'll be fine. I love my dad.

You accomplished so much in so little time. Looking back, it seems like you were the one who was in a rush Pa.

I miss you.

that's all

2006-07-02T03:32:00.000-07:00

I'm so troubled i'm incoherent. Hence, I shall blog no more. Not now, not in the near future and quite possibly, not ever. Nothing to see here, move along.

a place in the sun

2006-06-18T00:38:00.000-07:00

mini opinion poll:
guys in scarves. how?
comment!

crippling boredom

2006-06-16T19:43:00.000-07:00

I’m exceedingly restless. After yet another failed conversations with my dad (he’s never listened, now he’s got justification not to), I’m forced to return to reading what is quite possibly the worst book ever written: letters to a young doctor. Absolute crap because drawing parallels between greek mythology and medicine is not my cup of tea. I’ve had my mug of coffee, and it’s failed to make me feel like the world is a better place, I’m craving for my second mug. I’ll reach for it soon enough.

I’m listening to swing in a foreign language and my fan is dusty. After my exams in 3 weeks I’ll find me a stool with which I can reach up to it and get it cleaned up. My sheets need laundering but the machine still has my housemate’s clothes in it. I hope they move soon, my sheets need laundering, and so do my clothes. My room is an absolute mess, I could go about cleaning it but the only reasons I have to justify my not getting down to do it are a) I don’t have nice music to listen to while I clean my room and b) there’s no real point, I think I’ve outgrown my room.

I’ve said it countless times before and I think I’ve reached breaking point. I have far too much stuff, and I need sunlight (considering the current circumstances, having something to look out on, something that isn’t a laptop screen or a page of text would be very, very welcome). I’m considering the move as the year draws to a close, but I’m too lazy to consider a change of environment, let alone actually force myself through one, so I’ll probably bitch and moan for the next year and a half and still do nothing about it.

I’m lazy. I doubt I’m going to do anything about it. And I’m bored, but considering the fact that I’m lazy as well, I’m probably going to bored for quite a while. I think I’ll have me another coffee.

Oh, and I could bring myself to study. But I’m a bad medical student. I’d rather force myself to read a really bad book. But I’m still getting me coffee first.

changing plans

2006-06-15T16:48:00.000-07:00

Going home for the weekend was supposed to be the actual change of plans, considering I had stuff planned for the weekend (study, study, and fete de la musique). But it’s still a change of plans if you deviate from the initial plan, and then eventually return to it. I’m not going home for the weekend, and for some weird reason, I’m quite disappointed.

My parents arguments as to why I should keep my ass put here are valid: they’re coming down to Nilai on Monday and they’ll be here for most of the week. Which means I’ll be there most nights of the week (and the tiredness returns, not like this week, with them at home, has been any less tiring). So when I’ll be seeing them so soon, why bother make the trip back to Ipoh, complete with two bus rides and an almost guaranteed lack of sleep?

It’s probably some weird attempt on my part to remind myself that things are okay, some things won’t change, and that I’m still capable of having fun (albeit this is a solo experiment). I’m pretty sure I’ll come to terms with the first revelation soon enough: that things will be okay, because we’ll slip into the rhythm of things, find ourselves a new equilibrium to subscribe to. I’m doubtful about the last bit though: the one about having fun.

I’ve always drawn a clear distinction between fun and happy, for some weird reason. The latter, for me at least, has always been a quiet satisfaction that comes with knowing that I’m in control, I’m doing something that I’ll look back on with pride and smile about. Fun has been a non-existent element, and even if it was experienced, it was in small amounts and extremely short lived, because having fun deviates from being ‘happy’. I think I’ve got me ideas mixed up, and the scary bit is that I’ve probably had them mixed up for a very long time now.

And in an action movie like sequence where the numbers on the ticker of the bomb get smaller and smaller, the perspiration on my forehead increases, and I have to rewire some fundamental trains of thought, for fear of blowing up in my face.

grey

2006-06-14T04:10:00.000-07:00

My dad is supposedly fine albeit he didn't sound particularly fab when i spoke to him on the phone yesterday, or the day before. I get as far as 'have you eaten?' and 'i'm alright' before he gets tired, and i get tired of having to finish his sentences for him.

He sounded much better today, and was speaking in full coherent sentences. Apparently he's been having visitors, but he makes sure he keeps a distance, physically. I get as far as how my day has been before he stops listening. I know because I can hear him ushering someone into the living room. He grunts for me to continue speaking and I do. I reach the bit where I go 'i've got CSU tomorrow' and he goes 'okay, i'll speak to you tomorrow. Bye'.

He has visitors. I don't know if i'm glad that he's fine or if i'm sad because I had to take a back seat. I just don't know sometimes.

on having time to spend

2006-06-08T18:19:00.000-07:00

After all that machismo that they so generously throw about, it’s weird to have your parents sound a little hesitant, almost sad when you tell them that you might not be able to make it today because you’ve got things to do. I have work to catch up on and a medical student veneer to keep shiny. I have wished at times that I could take a break from whatever it is that I’m doing and just be with them, helping my mum, easing her burden and at the least, making sure she gets a full 8 hours of sleep at night.

It bothers me occasionally (this being one) that I can only do so much. I was talking to a friend the other day, albeit it was during class, and she asked me if I’m tired, making the trip down almost every other day. I said yeah, pointed at my now not so prominent eyebags elaborated further: I don’t really mind, but it’d be nice to be able to think straight beyond 7pm because my mental faculties are still very much awake. Status quo, unfortunately, isn’t so. My eyes redden beyond 7 and thinking straight is a luxury best left to 11 in the morning.

I got up about an hour ago and my brain just clocked in. Java’s a little late to work as well. They’ll have to work double time for the next 4 days or so. Have things lined up that I’m not exactly prepared for and deadlines which are almost incredulously nearby. To top it all off, my moral faculties have been in use extensively since Tuesday and they’ll probably be running overtime for another 3 months or so.

From now till then, I’ll have to make do with the little time I find myself having. I wish I spent more time with my books: there’s nothing I’d like more than to sit at a desk all day, surrounded by medical texts, ensuring everything that I read fits into a bigger picture and makes sense. I wish I had more time to read up on issues which affect the world. I don’t do anything to directly influence world events, yes, but having to debate about them kinda makes you want to know about them a little more in depth than the average Star reader. I wish I had dance lessons twice a week.

More importantly, I wish I didn’t have to disappoint my parents by having to 'prioritize'. I hope I’m prioritizing right.

the abnormal quilt

2006-06-05T19:21:00.000-07:00

Since I don’t discuss the idiosyncrasies of my family as openly and as frequently as I used to, not many know the truth. This is the truth: we’re a weird family. Extremely weird. We embody love-hate relationships and on the surface, we don’t look, sound, or act anything like each other. Me and my brother joke (not occasionally, but quite frequently), about how we were all (the fours of us) excess members from families which had their quotas filled. And since God doesn’t like to waste (as he has proven and teaches us time and time again), he put the last remaining bits together and made a new family that he could send out into the world. On a surface it’s seemed like a good idea to Him: 2 people get to spend the rest of their lives together and their 2 kids will grow up in a healthy home environment, provided for and watched over. All in all, we were supposed to function just like any other family in a milk powder advert (minus the cows, we don’t have one. That was the generation before).

Sound enough plan? Not necessarily so. As I said earlier, on the surface, we’re all on 4 different ends of the same spectrum (yes, it is possible. We do it everyday). There’re various reasons why when things are supposedly normal (no one individual member has pressing problems, no child is facing major exams or puberty) we still fight like kids. There’s probably an explanation as to why we’re extremely nice to each other during times of adversity. I’m fully aware of the fact that it’s probably the other way round it other families because when adversities come a knocking, tensions rise and tempers clash.

Weird as it is, the total opposite occurs. When tragedy strikes, the stitches between the four of us somehow tighten and everyone carries their own weight. We don’t usually impose ourselves on each other (except occasionally, when the quilt is being pulled in two or more directions) and we come off as a pretty united front.

The current circumstances have us acting very differently from our normal (*pauses to laugh*) selves and I for one, have been apprehensive as to how we’ll be able to adapt with my dad’s condition being a part of us now. Will we still act like we used to? Will there be extra considerations when we use humour around each other (in those rare events that we do)? And the one question underlying all of this, the one question which brings about the most sadness and confusion: will things ever be the same again?

The paper I sat for yesterday was surprisingly manageable, not as tough as I expected it to be, and for that I’m thankful. I will admit that it was a close shave, and when I visited my parents yesterday, my mum was more than willing to shove it in my face. And blame the close shave on HER (I wish I was referring to Keira, but I’m not, I’m referring to Debate). Needless to say, we had ourselves a pretty little argument in a hospital room. I shouldn’t be too pleased about it but that’s the point of this whole post and the point I’m getting across now. I am pleased about it because in that heated exchange, I realized that things won’t necessarily be the same again, but some things will never change. Our arguing only occurs in time of normalcy, and it’s always done with the reassurance that we’ll always be there for each other, regardless of how much we want to throttle each other (dark humour, it’s really not that bad la.)

We’re learning to cope. We’ll make it through this.

two sides of a coin

2006-06-03T18:49:00.000-07:00

I woke up, sat at my table and tried working through my notes. I couldn’t, I called my brother (more like got him to call me back) and we spoke for 40 minutes. It helped to speak to someone who’s so alike, who doesn’t need pity and doesn’t think that I need it either, to someone who understands that dark humour isn’t out of place in our current scenario, but welcome. We’re funny people, we need to laugh, and our greatest gift (I think), is the ability that we have to laugh at ourselves, and our predicament. Yes, there is that inescapable element of gravitas to the whole issue, but laughing at it makes us seem a little bigger, even though we know that we may full well get slaughtered when we charge in and face the beast.

It felt good while we talked, I miss him. It’ll be fab to have him back, I won’t have to charge alone. But even after 40 minutes on the phone, I didn’t feel as great once I got off the phone. I was happy for 15 minutes or so, managed to study for a bit. I went out and ate me an apple, and as I sat eating the apple, I began considering the implications (not of eating the apple itself, but of the Predicament) and I began feeling low again. I washed my hands, stepped back into my room and didn’t have the heart to work past the slides which had ‘Is cancer treatment possible?’ as their heading. When in doubt, go to sleep.

I slept for a little under an hour, although it felt like much, much more (thankfully). And now that I’m awake, I do feel better, a little more optimistic. There’s two ways for me to approach the whole issue. The first was the way I was feeling before I went to sleep for a bit. I can choose to see this as an inescapable situation (technically, it is) and that optimism is a waste of energy and indubitably leads to disappointment. A logical extension to that thought would be to not put as much effort into anything, and be completely bitter. Sure, I have enough justification to hole up and be an ass and paint my nails black. And not study, and do just enough to pass my exams.

I went to sleep, and got up. Here’s how I feel now, and it’s the other way I can choose to see the situation. True, it’s a trying time, but I will indubitably outlive it (I pray I do, at least) and so will my rationality. It will suck to have to look back on this period and see that I didn’t make the best of it. Because even though I’d like to sit balled up on a landing somewhere and cry (so that everyone can see me), the world still moves on, and so do the opportunities for me to grow, and make me whatever it is that I’m meant to be. The best possible outcome, and the one which won’t induce guilt when I’m older, is the one where I make the best of the current situation, where I don’t deny myself the things I think I’m capable of, actually keep scoring in my exams and yet still make the best of the time I have with my dad.

I don’t know if the days are numbered, they’re extremely vague about these things, and unlike an episode of House, one week isn’t enough for us to reach a resolution to the issue. But if Dr. Wilson (House’s oncologist best friend) had a show, they’d spend a whole season dealing with one patient. And have a lot more drama in the process.

Two sides of a coin, and I’m floating back and forth between the two ways I can deal with this. I need to stick with the second approach until Monday evening.

Did I just spend a whole blog post stating the obvious? I probably did, but then again, dealing with situations is entirely different from adivising people on how to deal with situations. I’m dealing with it, and I just advised me.

on Monday

2006-05-31T17:15:00.000-07:00

My dream question this coming summative would be something like this:

a) Define 'populism' and name two examples
b) Why haven't economic sanctions worked in the Iranian context and what measures can then be taken to curb Iran's supposed nuclear threat?
c) What does China say about Japan's bid to join the UN Security Council? (bonus:name the other members of the G4)

Unfortunately, the questions i'll be answering won't be remotely close to my dream question. I'll be answering questions about snails and schistosomes, and leishmaniasis, and as one lecturer jokes: about subramaniasis. Ha ha.

I'm fully aware of the fact that I panic way too much when exams are around the corner. I lose sleep, get high on coffee, study all day and agonize all the way to university. I then sit for the paper, agonize for a further 2 minutes and act like it never happened. Until I get my results and realize that there was no need to have agonized as much as i did. That formula has been in use for years now and it has never failed.

I'm quite convinced that it's not going to work this time around. I'm surprisingly calm, and convinced that I'm going to pull this off one more (last?) time. I've got enough reasons stacked up against me, millions of excuses i can resort to if i disappoint myself but i don't think i'll settle for those. I'll do what I can.After all, it's all I can do, really.

So I sat by his bedside, at a slight distance (for fear of getting him infected once again). He's talking a little more today, but coughing up every 3 minutes or so. He compliments me on my sweater (the purple one I was raving about before I left to Manila. It was supposed to be my ticket to action, what with it being so cool and all, but I kinda forgot to bring it along, so now you know why I came back..unsuccessful? :P), and my mother, standing on the other side of the bed, compliments me on the price I got it for.

I tell them I'm worried about how i'll perform for my summative examination on Monday. My mum says that it's ok if I don't do well this time around. The trip to Manila and all the running around (SRC, Nilai) are just enough explanations if I don't do too fab. In other words, my mum kinda implied that i might screw up, but it's okay if i do.

My dad waits for my mum to finish (something which they very rarely do), and then tells me that He'll never let me down. That He is always with us, guiding us every step of the way and making sure we get our As. And he says, once again, that He's never let us down. If he was fine (not bed ridden), i'd click my tongue and tell him that i have my beliefs and that i'll manage fine without his consolatory message. But this time, words like this, coming from a man who's had so many bad cards dealt to him, I listened. And I believed.

Thanks, pa. I'll do what I can.

tide

2006-05-30T17:31:00.000-07:00

and when one of the little heel nippers get a foothold(haha), they gnaw and gnaw until they get a big enough bite. They then send a signal back to home base, and before you get your shoes on, they're all gnawing on your heels and toes. The problem with, err..problems, is that when one that's big enough manages to get in your way, the other smaller ones tend to gang up on you as well. That's when it gets complicated, because you're pretty darn sure that if you don't deal with the whole lot of them, there'll be those that keep coming back. Unfortunately, not all problems can be dealt with, not all situations can be tucked away, swept under the carpet, kept in cold storage. Some problems don't bother getting you at the heels, they get up and look you in the face. And snigger.

He came in weak last night, couldn't move much on his own. He hasn't been eating well, his appetite is almost non-existent and that explains the weakness. I had to move him back onto the bed myself, he couldn't balance himself too well when he was left on his own two feet. As I leaned closer to get a better grip I could feel the heat beneath his skin. His fever: a new acquisition (no thanks to whoever it was that thought that praying over someone who's undergoing chemotherapy is perfectly safe, and doesn't help transmit infections. After all, you're just..praying over someone. Faith is an effective enough barrier against infections isn't it?right). After weeks and weeks of convincing myself that i'm the man because it's yet to hit me, because i'm still here and smiling on the surface: it hit me last night.

I had to take a break, sit on my haunches and gather my thoughts for a bit. I'll be gathering these thoughts for years to come.

bouncin' back

2006-05-26T17:02:00.000-07:00

it's exactly what i needed: a week away from the incessant running around in IMU, all the intellectual stimulation one could possibly want (and more) and the hot philipino women. Yeah, i was in manila for the past week, am back now and although i'm glad to be around people of varied skin tones once again, i have to admit that i left with a heavy heart and although i can't point a finger at one specific thing that would make me feel this way, i still feel something tugging me back towards manila. But if i was forced to pick, it would be the women. Dayumn.

Before i delve any further, i confess that it is hard to actually fill in the gaps after having not blogged for so long, but you guys are smart enough readers anyway. If you know me personally, ask me questions, give me candy and i might tell you something interesting. If you don't, go tell your friends how you found this really cool blog on the net. There, i've apologized for not being an assiduous blogger and plugged my blog in the same breath, so we can move on.

The Asian University Debate Championships turned out to be much more than what i expected to be. It seemed like eons ago when we were young, fresh faced medics in IMU (that doesn't seemed to have changed though), new to the world of debating and completely bowled over by the fact that we had the opportunity to debate in a foreign country. We talked about it, we fantasized about it, we didn't prepare as much as other participants would have.

But the time came anyway, caught us with out pants down, made us pay for overpriced tickets and took us to manila. In all respects, Manila doesn't seem very different from any Indian city of decent size. People and dust line the streets, the roads are bursting at the seams with traffic and fast food chains seemingly dominate a large chunk of the economy. By the end of the trip, we came to understand the people's penchant for fast food: something i won't discuss ask here. Say the words 'philippines' and 'food' in the same sentence in front of me sometime soon and watch me launch into a tirade.

The tournament itself was fab, undoubtedly the best one i've been to thus far. There were things that could do with improving, but it cannot be disputed that the organizers did their best to keep us insatiable debaters happy. And happy we were. Most of the IMU happy came from the fact that we actually achieved what we came there forr. We're still quite young on the scene and we still lack some essential things that other institutions have, but we're proud of our achievements, but also disappointed that we couldn't go further.

'tis true, we did break, and we did rank highest among the malaysian team. So if you see me grinning about the next week or so, you know why.

But yeah, after sounding like absolute crap in my past posts, i finally manage to write one that doesn't make it seem like i'm grappling with drug addiction. I'm optimistic, the break worked, i'm feeling a much better. Them little heel nippers don't know i'm back.

Her

2006-05-08T23:46:00.000-07:00

amidst all that is happening, i am reminded as to why i want to marry Her. Behold, proof!

*snivelgroveldrool*

morning coffee

2006-05-08T17:30:00.000-07:00

6 hours of sleep is as much release i will allow myself every night, if not less. On weekends i'm going to reward myself with a slightly larger slice of death: 7, or if i'm feeling generous with myself, 8 hours of sleep. Sleep isn't restful anymore, although it's a great excuse to lie away from everything else, curl up, and come back out 6 hours later, grab a mug of coffee, fully convinced that it is a new day, and with it's dawning, a whole slew of opportunities are made available.

I'm not too sure about the slew of opportunities anymore. It's not getting tiring per se, but a tad tedious, having to explain things to people, they're reactions afterwards and how they don't think you're capable of a normal conversation or any form of normal interaction after. They do my feeling bad for myself for me, which technically leaves me not feeling bad for myself. Not that i was feeling that way to begin with, but they're er..removing negative karma for the great karmic bank in the sky?

I'm learning how to cope i guess. But it is getting a tad tiring, and i don't know how long i can keep this up for. I owe IMU1 three motions(2 cases each, which brings me to a grand total of 6) now, and i will get them researched and form opinions on it by tonight. And 3 hours are a given at a place i'll be seeing more and more often. But this happy little band called 'Panic! at the Disco' is making things alot better. They're like Fall Out Boy with that little electronic edge they could've employed to make themselves sound a little more interesting. I wouldn't file them under my 'obscure' or 'sophiticated: quote to impress semi-hot women' categories, but they're fun. Really.

I need retail therapy.
I want an ear cartilage piercing.
I don't want sleep, although i wouldn't mind more hours in a day.
I want to ccuuudddllleeee :)

And i shall now go make me my coffee. And with that mug, i shall be indomitable.

not just yet

2006-05-07T17:21:00.000-07:00

i considered taking down the blog last night. I sat staring at the Blogger window, running possible scenarios to explain the death of my blog, or my will to blog at least. I don't know if someone i was talking to online convinced me to keep it up (he's bad at clarifications, i'm not sure what he was convincing me to do). But at some point, i was convinced that maybe, just maybe, the blog will help me manage.

Established fact: i'm a bitch. But i've still got my restrictions when it comes to airing my dirty laundry in public. Which is probably why you won't know when i don't like you as much as the next person, because my smile will be just as wide, and my handshake just as warm. The only difference would probably be the amount of wit i employ, but then again, that might just slide past the top of your head, not ruffling your hair as it passes above you. I digress. I'm not keen on airing my dirty laundry in public: which is probably why people are still wondering why i do some things the way i do them. And also why people are wondering why prasad isn't as happy looking as i used to look.

Not going to explain that here. But i will let slip that i'm not having the best of times. Which is probably why i considered taking down the blog. If i'm feeling melancholy most of the time, my posts will be increasingly pensive, and i won't attract the 50 unique visitors a day i usually attract (i swear i don't have that many friends, which probably justifies the existence of..stalkers! :P). So, for fear of writing on a whiny blog, i thought i'd take the blog down because i'm gonna be in a whiny mood for quite a while.

It was called the 'navel gazer monologues' for a reason. 'Monologues' because i used to get 2 unique visitors a day (not an actual statistic, rough estimate) and 'navel gazer' because my posts were supposed to be born out of moments of boredom, and after long hours spent contemplating the beauty of my umbulicus. I now no longer have the time or mental capacity to stare at my belly button and come up with posts which might interest 50 rabid fans. And my belly button isn't that pretty after all.

But considering i'm a lazy arse, i went to bed, the blogger window still open. Woke up 6 hours later (sexy eyebags and all) and i'm typing this out. I'm not taking the blog down. I'm hoping i'm right when i think that the blog will help me through. I hope it will at least serve as a reminder as to who i was, and how i sounded before all of this. It's a life changing experience, but no one said change is a bad thing (and neither is outcry :P)

I'll be fine. I'm becoming half the boy, but twice the man (or i'm trying to, at least).

oh, and look at the sidebar! vote vote vote!

brick

2006-05-03T18:02:00.000-07:00

am too lazy and disorientated to write, or spell properly. But since i'm a drama queen nonetheless, i strung words together and look: amateur(read: bad, sucky) poetry! something tells me i'm going to regret this once people actually read it, but what they hey, i've got bigger fish on my plate.

run run
arms folded, held akimbo
now fraying, soon asunder
the looming clouds
the grunt of thunder

things to do
amidst explanations due
deadlines nip
at heels bruised and bleeding
rationalities slip
as thoughts scurry past

chins to keep propped up
amidst constant questioning
and whispers not malicious
concern and worry
all in a flurry
puzzled looks in crannies and nooks

buses to hop on
charts to pour over
decisions to be made
in light grey and ominous
staring down the wall
straight in it's face
now bare and threatening
stripped of linen and lace

that rush you give me

2006-04-30T17:49:00.000-07:00

fortunately, it's not to get things done. it's a different kind of rush altogether, the kind you wanna get in over and over again.

I don't know why i started in the first place. I know i started in form 2 and i haven't looked back since (i had a fleeting affair with the better looking but not as smart sister for a while: public speaking). Someone probably told me that debating pulls chicks* or summin along those lines. That seems to have been the only thing which would have convinced my then shallow (still shallow) mind to make a pact with the devil and sell my soul to debating.

No two debates are ever the same. The different motions, the different adjudicators and their views on who should take the debate home, the different cases put forth by the teams, the different teams themselves: where they come from and who they comprise of, the words debaters say, the gestures the adjudicator makes. And last, and possibly the least, the non-existent audience.

True, varsity debating maybe an elitist sport: which probably explains why not many people come to watch. But it doesn't take any fun out of it. High school debating was different in that sense i guess, that was more of a spectator sport. Some adjudicators actually based their decisions on crows response and how well you got the house rooting for your side. I wasn't particularly comfortable with this cirterion for judging because boys from my school came to debate tournaments alright, but they naver came into the rooms to root for us. Thet usually got lost in the hallways of the hosting school, or if they had a chance to justify themselves, in the eyes of some semi-attractive member of the opposite sex. Since they were in too deep, the couldn't find their way out and didn't show up. Which meant there was no girlish screaming when we cutted and thrusted in the debate. Which meant that even though our case was left standing, the other team almost always won. High school debating was a spectator sport, you needed 3 brain cells for the 3 speakers and the reserve was usually entrusted with carrying those 3 cells and a dictionary around.

I'm glad varsity debating is different (you're allowed to scoff at those who carry 'em dictionaries apparently). The main difference, and what prolly still keeps me going at it is that it's different all the time, and 3 brain cells get you nowhere. Losing is taken with as much grace as winning is (maybe a little less? a microscopic amount?) because each round is (usually) a learning experience. Which means you come out that much better, that much wiser, and that much better of a debater with each round.

It does suck that it's one of thise things where experience is almost proportional to your chances of winning, which means not everyone has an equal chance. But when egos are concerned, sometimes it's alright to let the larger ones blot out the sun for a while. And while you stand in the darkness, you silently hope that you'll have your back to the sun one day, enveloping all the n00bs in darkness. But for now, that rush it gives me will do. Much more than any member of the opposite sex, any fall off a tall building, any amount of fermented coconuts.

This declaration of love is long overdue. But debating, i love you.

*last i checked, it doesn't pull chicks. Debating pulls you with that promise and forces you to sleep with IT and no one else. damn. she's tough in bed.

throb

2006-04-28T07:08:00.000-07:00

there's absolutely no way that headaches come in this size. They're hardly enough DHL trucks which could fit one of thise size and deliver it straight to my head. And since service is absolutely fabulous, they (DHL - your headache delivery guys?) sent it to my head and left it there. They didn't check if say i wanted to actually RECEIVE the frigging package (headache) and whether i know who the fuck it's from. My hunch is that it's a collective gift from all the things, the people, the situations that make life such a ball (witness my amazingly skilled and thus confusing sense of irony). The distill version of the paragraph for those who think i've been sniffing coke: i've got a massive mofo of a headache, i don't know what causes headaches of this magnitude, prolly all the shit that can cause headaches combined. And i just popped some panadol.

It can't be what i happily consumed when i got home from uni. That's supposed to make me happy isn't it? (and it did, just enough happy to convince me that maybe i'm not sleepy but i do have trouble keeping my eyes open :P) or maybe it's the lack of sleep? But without the non-sleep i've been getting so much of this past week, i wouldn't have my fabulously sexy eyebags which everyone seems to be talking about (wah! you look like shit! so cool!)

Causes aside, i still have a headache. And i'm blogging. With a headache. Am i the only one who seems mildly impressed? Probably. Because nobody comments anymore.

The room needs some serious cleaning up. Something which i'll get to doing once i'm convinced that I don't want to put my head into a microwave and make me a TV dinner. wargh.

run run run

2006-04-27T02:00:00.000-07:00

You'd be quite surprised to know how many songs share that same title, and almost all of them sound absolutely fabulous.

But if i were to look for anything else to describe the state i'm currently in, i wouldn't be able to think beyond the title of the post: run run run. The only reason i'm writing this is because i'm bored between typing random document after random document and i figured that i haven't blogged in a while (i have a frequency that i like to think i stick to. Prolly explains why this blog isn't dead yet, unlike this one) and also because as i walked in to the computer lab to get some stuff printed today morning, i happened to chance upon Ivy reading a blog that looked very familiar, mine. Aside from reminding me that i had a miniscule fan base that i have to cater to, she also pointed to a line from my last post.

It went 'prasad will be back on monday, ta'.

It's thursday. And i'm still run run running. Not hating it one bit except for the times when you feel that you're faced with the task of achieving something which at first glance, seems almost impossible. There are many ways to implement change, and if you narrow it down, you're left with two: from the bottom up, and from the top down. As much as top brass would like the change the mindsets of the rank and file, it can't do so if they don't fall into step.

Kinda reminds me of the time when i used to command parade, way back when: orders were dilvered right, at the right volume and with the right intonation, but they served no purpose whatsoever because the kids usually weren't listening. Even if they were, they probably didn't know how to respond to that particular command. The parade ground doesn't only exist in schools, but in other institutions as well. Change works when people play along and people are welcome to the idea.

It's not exactly impossible if they're not, its just alot harder. That makes you want to stop shouting and give your throat a rest. But parade doesn't happen if there's no one willing to get a hoarse voice at the end. I'm fine, and i like all this running.

boredom induced psychobabble

2006-04-21T18:22:00.000-07:00

when i'm bored (of studying, in this case), i blog. Which probably explains why i've been posting on an almost daily basis. And this always happens nearing exams: me getting bored, then blogging, studying, and getting bored again.Which means that when my exams are approaching, you're bombarded with an endless flurry of banal, circuitous and obscure blog posts. Kinda like this one.

I've never actually wished that there were more hours in a day. 24 seemed like a sizeable amount to have to trudge through when i first found out, and i haven't been convinced otherwise since. Although now i find myself secretly longing that i had more time to spend sleeping, reading over coffee(which does nothing to me anymore, water has more kick. damn.) and doing the stupid things i used to do to make the 24 hours that i had to go by.

Unfortunately, i now have not-so-stupid things to do. Which means that all the time i spend doing stupid things (blogging is another good example) has a direct effect on the time i have to do the not-so-stupid things, forcing me to rush through those things which probably will have a bigger effect on my life than blogging ever will. An example of a not-so-stupid thing which i'm now forced to spend excessive (relative term, library flora will beg to differ) amounts of time on is studying.

Something which i will now get back to doing. Prasad will be back on monday. Thanks for listening, ta!

The kids in the backseat are getting impatient

2006-04-20T05:54:00.000-07:00

'that's the problem with you, you're always in a rush' he says

When i get stressed enough that i'm convinced that there's no more room on my plate, that the world is falling down around me ears, i call my dad. There isn't at actualy reason behind it, it's almost reflexive, and 30 seconds into the conversation i am reminded that there really isn't a point to calling him seeking comfort. My dad can be unbelievably optimisctic, and i'm a pessimistic bitch. So for the 15 minute or so conversation, we'll be at loggerheads about how life isn't made up of good events, and shit can happen (he says shit happens, but you'll be fine at the end of it all), i say that maybe, just maybe, god (or the powers that be, whatever your inclinations) may let us down (he says that He never lets us down). You get the drift, it's like a tennis match. Backforthbackforth for 15 minutes.

Yet somehow, at the end of what is supposed to be a draining conversation, I feel ready to put my pants back on and face the world. I'm attributing it to the fact that regardless of when I call my dad, even if i'm hitting 30 and desperate, his advice to me will still be the same. That kind of constancy is hard to find. And when you do find it, it's the best possible reminder that all is well with the world. When you can go running back and realize that some things stay right where you leave them. As long as my father keeps dispensing advice that i'll never listen to in entirety, i'll be fine. I love my dad.

But sometimes it does get hard to handle. I feel very half-assed today. Not in literal sense, but just..incomplete. Which brings me back to my dad's quote at the start of the post. He said it in reference to my wanting to grow up so fast, and how i can't rush the process any further. I wish I could, for some wierd reason that i can't pin point.

On days when i'm particularly ambitious, i act like i've missed out on a childhood that everyone's seem to have experienced. I've never been silly. But i'm not adult enough to be an adult. I like to think i'm not stupid, but i'm not a genius either. I don't have horrendous grammar, but i don't have a Booker to my name. I fill up 7 minutes of a debate speech, but i don't win tournaments. I want to be a nerd, but i'm too busy being too many other things. I want to do so many other things, but i'm too busy trying to be a nerd.

Kinda reminds you of Miss Spears's 'I'm not a girl, not yet a woman'. The song may not apply to me in a literal sense (i'm pretty damn sure, now don't you DARE pursue the matter), but it's the general feeling in this part of town: we're heading somewhere, we're not heading there fast enough, and we're getting impatient. If only I had the credentials to look back at myself and say 'You've come a long way, baby'.

banalities

2006-04-18T09:57:00.000-07:00

'can you raise your baju a little higher please?' the way she said the last word made it pretty damn clear that she wasn't messing around. She would've hit me on the head with the training stethoscope if i didn't comply withing the next second. And thankfully, by 'baju', she meant my sleeve, nothing more. Phew.

We were learning how to take blood pressure at clinical skills today. Pretty fun stuff, aside from the fact that i've got extremely low blood pressure (I'm attributing it to the lack of breakfast)

After 'talk to me boy', that line (about raising my shirt) would probably be second on my list of 'things i'd love member of the opposite sex to say to me' (yes, there IS list, ask me about it sometime. better still, say something off it). But the way she said made my want to put my lab coat back on and go running to the cafeteria lady (she screams when your food's ready) for a hug and a teh tarik. It doesn't matter what you say, it's all about HOW you say it.

Other things she said include:
'i don't like people with long finger nails'
'you'll need to practice, you're not as good as i am'
'you should come back to practice, we don't BITE'

but you probably scratch, kick and take rectal temperatures. right.
Nurses can be scary. True, not all of them are. But the ones who are make Chucky want to go running for a blanket.

And after Clinical Skills i jet off to lectures (missing out on a teh tarik on the way. i need a stimulant, any sort). Thankfully, some lecturers make more sense than others, and better still, there are those heavenly souls which actually don't speak more than they need to. They get the message across, deal with any doubts that have arisen, and tell you to get lunch.

I want to be library furniture. It must be the best feeling in the world: knowing what is being spoken about in lectures and PBLs (I don't think i'm that stupid, well not yet at least. i have a rough idea?) and being able to add obscure, almost unnecessary facts to the discussion. It must be cool not hitting yourself on the head in the midst of conversations then rushing off to see someone else about work that you just might not need to do. Keyword in that last sentence: NEED.

But it's fun. It's a rush, seeing if I can pull it off, not being library furniture but trying to make academic ends meet. It's gonna be a tight fit on monday.

headphones

2006-04-14T19:36:00.000-07:00

it's probably an MTV influenced habit: when i get very very angry, i listen to loud music. Back at home and when i was pre-pubescent this meant me locking myself up in my room, sitting myself down in front of the stereo and turning up the volume till i could hear the windows rattling along with the bass lines. And with Fieldy's slap bass, they rattled along pretty damn well. There was not only that rush, the waves of sound rushing towards you (maybe even literally, so much sound prolly CAN cause little shock waves) but there was also the little bit that reminded me that i was still pre-pubescent: the possibility that i just might be pissing my parents off with music turned up that loud. And nothing says 'i'm pissed' like getting Johnathan Davis to do it for you.

I like to think i've grown up, I don't lose my head as frequently as i used to. My brother aptly described my adrenaline induced reveries as 'flying off the handlebars'. I hang on tight nowadays, and even though i like to describe myself as 'short, angry indian kid', to the general viewership, the former adjective rings more bells that the latter. In fact, when i pursued the matter with the general viewership, I was quite surprised to find out that they assume that i'm actually quite calm and serene about things. And that alot of them haven't seen me angry before.

I'm torn between how I view myself and how people view me. I really do like to think I've grown up and signs do point to yes. But days like today make me feel 14 again. I don't get angry per se. I get peeved, things irritate me, but nothing enough to make me want to go about breaking bottles and jump up and down. But some things still have the ability to do that to me i guess. Which probably explains why i've got my headphones on so loud i can hear the brain cells screaming in agony as they die, one by one. Which also explains why my anger is being fed by my apparent lack of 'angry music'.

I stopped listening to Korn when I 'grew up'. I wish i hadn't.

Way too many decibels for one pair of headphones. But my hands are trembling, a little bit. A substitute for the windows, i'll feel better in a bit.

[edit] ohmigosh! angsty teen bitch post. i HAVEN'T grown up :(

rolling with the punches

2006-04-12T09:06:00.000-07:00

sometimes it takes effort, to not let the little things gang up on you. But in a world where we're blessed enough to not have big things weighing us down, it's only fair that we let the little things gang up on us once in a while. Stresses which you usually dismiss without much hesitation begin to collectively nip at your heels with their other little, annoying friends.

Sometimes the little buggers manage to nip the heels of people you usually consider indomitable. And when the titans begin to quiver, you've got every possible justification to start running with your tail (and your knickers in knots) between your legs. It gets much harder to roll with the punches when the lactic acid starts building up, when the sweat gets in your eyes, when it seems that the crowd isn't rooting for you anymore, and especially when you're faced with more than one opponent.

there's this miraculous contraption which the wise speak of. i believe it is called an..organiser?

the little things

2006-04-10T17:09:00.000-07:00

faith is a particularly iffy issue. It causes more strife than any woman measuring 36-25-36 ever will and it's not going to change anytime soon. I doubt i've got any authority to give my two cents on what faith really is, but i'm in a strangely optimistic mood so i'm going to discuss mine :)

If i were to illustrate my idea of faith to you, i'd liken it to a deciduous plant: it withstands the seasons pretty well but it doesn't look the same throughout. Other people's may be like large timber trees which end up ending the lives of faithless lumberjacks everywhere, but then again, everyone's entitled to have their own tree, or in the case of those with slightly more evangelistic leanings, a whole forest reserve they can lease out ;) But on most days, i'm Neo: i believe that we're to some extent in control of our lives, fate is for those who aren't in control and faith is for the weak.

As i said, i'm strangely optimistic, so i'm tempted to direct any fortuitous incidents upwards and giving credit to a higher power (which one isn't an issue here: i'm Hindu, i'm spoilt for choice :P)

I hopped on a bus back to Ipoh last week. The ticket said it was to leave at 10 so i planned to slip out of bed at an unbelievably early 7.30 so i could get me my mandatory (on long days) 2 mugs of coffee before i braved the shit hole which was pudu raya. But my luck (combined with my utter stupidity of going to bed at 3 the night before) was such that i got up at a very convenient 9.10 or so.

Seemingly, there isn't any real problem. But factor these into the equation: i hadn't packed, i needed to hop on a train to pudu and the train ride takes 35 minutes (on a good day), i have angry parents (who will skin me if i came home any later than the promised 1pm) and you realize that what i had myself in was quite a quagmire. Some people have pulled through with closer shaves before but god knows i'm unaccustomed to Indie-like(of the Jones fame) escapes from the jaws of death. Which is probably why i ended up giving him the credit for everything that went right.

At times of great distress: i pray like tomorrow depended on it. And i somehow manage to believe that higher powers (all 330 million of them) will see me through.

I got dressed and packed faster than i was ever abled to. I wanted to hop on a cab to pudu thinking that i'd get there faster, but when i walked past the taxi stand on the way to the train stop, there were none there. I was forced to take the train, i didn't have much time. I bought me a ticket and skipped down to the platform to find a train waiting to leave. I don't know if the trains do go that fast in the morning (they definately don't later in the day), but i got to pudu in 25 minutes. It was 9.55 when i got on the bus, and i managed to grap a couple of buns (the eating kind, which i later ate on the bus. you perv :P) before i got on.

And it's the little things that add to this whole warm fuzzy feeling. Coming home and suddenly having a very vivid mental image of having left your keys back in uni while you reach in to your bag, and then feeling the reassuring clink of the bunch. Agonizing about how you may have lost your thumb drive, only to find out quite safely evading capture in your pencil case.

A seemingly fortuitous chain of events, but i'm optimistic today. So instead of my usual 'fuck, that was close', i responded with a 'damn, god IS good'. Sometimes, faith rocks.

meme? youyou!

2006-04-06T09:55:00.000-07:00

I don't really like memes. But the one lishun did was pretty damn awesome, and she tagged me. I wish i could refuse but i don't seem to have much of a choice :P

---

go to your music player of choice and put it on shuffle.
say the following questions aloud, and press play.
use the song titles that come up to answer each question.
NO CHEATING.

how does the world see me?
rage against the machine - calm like a bomb
i always thought i came off as pretty calm and collected (if not uptight) except for those rare moments when i break out into song and dance :)

will i have a happy life?
nivea ft. jagged edge - don't mess with my man
and if i do get women telling other women to stay away from me, i'm pretty sure that i'll have a blast

what do people really think of me?
jewel - what if god was one of us
he would be me? that's some deep stuff. i blaspheme, but i also believe in the highest tenet of hinduism

do people secretly lust after me?
joss stone - killing time
'you better stop what you're doing, before you do it all over again' and lets hope she's singing about lusting after me :P

how can i make myself happy?
jamiroquai - talulah
huh wha?

what should i do with my life?
V.E. - party like this
i'm supposed to sing along, spend a bit of money. after which i should dance all night till the break of dawn..i think i may be able to live with that :)

will i ever have children?
matchbox twenty - disease
err..maybe not

what is some good advice for me?
usher - burn
'it's gonna burn for me to say this, but it's coming from my heart'. damn.

what do i think my current theme song is?
michael jackson - you rock my world
err..right.

what does everyone else think my current theme song is?
the kooks - she moves in her own way
and by 'she' i like to think that i'm the one being referred to

what song will play at my funeral?
mogwai - team handed
never a better song. unless it's 'bitter sweet symphony' by the verve pipe. but i'm not complaining. give mogwai a listen!

what type of men/women do you like?
bloc party - she's hearing voices
yes, seemingly crazy women are amazingly attractive. AMAZINGLY attractive. Val should know what i'm talking about :D

what is my day going to be like?
britney spears - boys
yes, i do wish i was surrounded by more women :(

why am i here?
the pussycat dolls - don't cha
to steal your boyfriend woman! that's why! :P

what will people remember me for?
alicia keys - you don't know my name
aww..but i thought it only happens during pbl sessions? but i know they're names now..hehe

what song will i get stuck in my head tomorrow?
coldplay - clocks

are there people outside waiting to take me away?
incubus - summer romance
'we rondezvous at quarter-two, and make sure we're alone
i think i've finally found a way for and I to finally fly free
when we get there, we're gonna go far away
making sure to laugh; while we experience anti-gravity'
:)

what will this year be all about?
kylie minogue - spinning around
i really should start atudying: microbiology makes my head spin

---

good stuff? good stuff! i just lurve how the songs fit some of the questions so so well. As a rule, i don't really like memes, and tagging people but this one's really fun. so here goes: Val, YP, Jade and Joanne closet reader : you've been tagged! now do the melbourne shuffle!

original yo

2006-04-02T01:24:00.000-08:00

i remember the time when i started Form 4 with a brand (spanking!) new backpack from Timberland. Back then, Timberland was all the rage amongst us school kids, Jansport was too far from reach (what with us living in Ipoh and all) and we settled for the best we could. Unfortunately, as with almost everything original and in this case, branded, you end up having to pay more for what you get. Prices were an issue and presented the perfect opportunity for pirates to kick Timberland in the nuts.

Pasar Malam stalls were ridden with 'Timberland' backpacks/satchels/boxers made from the same stuff (and almost definately the same people) that the 'Nike', 'Adidas' and 'Alien Workshop'(now where're these guys nowadays?) merchandise was made from. And these backpacks, aside from being very unconvincing dopplegangers of the real stuff, were sold at very affordable prices. Which means that before you could say 'piracy is the roxxor', every kid in school (except yours truly) was proudly sporting a 'Timberland' backpack/satchel/wallet, claiming it was original yo.

The little tree symbol was usually put under much scrutiny, the straps would be tugged at and material felt between discerning fingertips before quality control would declare 'babi..yang ni pirated laaa'(you pig, this is fake/pirated). So when i walked proudly out of the Timberland boutique, clutching my unquestionably original Timberland backpack, i was pretty damn confident that my pack would make the cut. The quality inspectors would be put to shame.

It was blue and black, the tree was in orange. They felt the material between their discerning, and unfortunately, grubby fingers. They tugged at the padded straps with not a little contempt. They felt the orange tree. They decided, unanimously, that i got mine from the Pasar Malam. One word filled my head, and my mouth for a fleeting moment before it came out thrashing: cheebaaaaaaaaai!

I had a receipt at home to prove it's authenticity. Heck, I didn't need to produce a receipt to prove that it was original, they probably knew it themselves. But sometimes, admitting something means losing a bit of yourself (more specifically, your ego) and that's hard to do.

I've got something against stuff which have the words 'authentic' or 'sport' emblazoned across the front/back/side/bottom/random noticable location. I've always thought that if somethin really were authentic, and worth as much as it was supposed to be worth, then it need not scream 'authentic' as loudly as it can to justify itself. Understated elegance has always been the way to go and most authentic products believe so too. Now try and ignore the fact that Nike has crap quality and tends to be a tad flamboyant at times, just show me your receipt. There are exceptions to the norm but for the purposes of discussion, let us consider them anomalies and treat them as such.

My Timberland pack had one tree on it, not more.

Which brings us to the whole issue of human authenticity. It's hard to tell how genuine someone really is. They may claim to be by repeating the fact countless times (NIKE!), they may act different around different people to justify different levels/types of authenticity. But I guess it's all up to the discerning fingertips to decide. I wish we had more sensory neurons.

And for the record, my Timberland pack was original yo. babi. :P

rat bottoms

2006-03-31T05:11:00.000-08:00

warning: pensive post ahead

It’s hard to care. In some instances it’s almost as if passion is a luxury which only those with time and the amazing ability to give a rat’s ass can afford. And by ‘ability’ I mean time, money and mental space. I have blogged about volunteerism and my fear of the ominous signs pointing towards it’s inevitable death. Thankfully that didn’t (hasn’t?) come to pass. But with the benefit of hindsight and more experience, perceptions change.

Many causes around the world need championing: democracy, free speech, human rights, womens rights and with so many rights needing defending, it isn’t surprising that some get left behind (you can stop laughing now). Which brings us back to the whole issue of how many people can actually afford to care. The number of people who are being marginalized and need help outnumber those who have the capacity to help, and further outnumber those who actually care about the specific form of suffering that they’re undergoing.

If I were to be pessimistic I’d say that there’re too many issues to be dealt with and that we live in a bad, bad world: a world where people suffer more than live can’t be called much else. I am pessimistic.

People do have the capacity to help, but why should they? If we’re too caught up with rising petrol prices and making ends meet, why should we bother about an AIDS sufferer in South Africa? Should everyone be left to their own problems, to champion their own causes in whatever way they can? At which point do people decide that it’s time to cross the line and actually help other people? Nameless, faceless people that they will probably never meet?

And crossing this line, deciding that maybe the lives of other people are just as valuable as our own is where the tough bit is. Giving a rat’s ass/steaming turd/flying fuck is easier said than done. One off charity is the perfect salve for a guilty conscience, it helps people sleep better at night. But actually giving a damn is the hard bit.

Should we or should we not? Maybe it’s the realization that life exists outside our circles of control, the ability to care, that separates the mice from the men.

the swing of things

2006-03-29T01:37:00.000-08:00

when the pace of things continually changes: you're tempted to wonder if there's an underlying rhythm to all this chaos. And if there is, when did is start? and will it end? A little bit of psychobabble is always good at the start of a blog post, it makes people think that the blogger is one of immeasurable profundity and posseses truckfuls of intellectual sex appeal. I just blew my cover. Balls.

It's funny how first impressions are almost always wrong. I don't know if it's just me being more sociable or me not studying as much as I used to but i'm meeting a whole lot more people this semester. The internship did throw me off a little bit: it was a month spent listening to pink floyd and selling tickets to naive theatre goers (the kind who ask 'is the show really good?' AFTER they've handed you their money/credit card) and my normal routine consists of trying to make sense of medicine. I am in a university which has a policy of self directed learning. When I do give it some thought, it feels like i'm in an open university, except that I don't have a day job to warrant my being in an open university in the first place. Quite a quandary.

But I digress: first impressions fall flat on their fallible faces. I'm pretty used to other people's first impressions of me being disproved. When I first went to college, everyone assumed that i was either Bangladeshi, so fresh out of India i smelt of curry or that I'm an absolute pompous arse. The only thing i'd probably agree to would be the third one but not unless they've known me well enough first. Another thing that people used to assume was that I was from an international school and that I couldn't speak any Malay. That was until i started speaking in malay, and afterward i'll throw in a 'maccha' and the authenticity would throw quite a few people off guard. ho ho.

Now that i'm in IMU, the number of people who assume that i'm from South Asia has decreased. Instead they assume that I'm from Singapore. SINGAPORE! I've got nothing against the country or its people, it's just that around most Malaysians, the word 'singapore' or worse still, 'singaporean' tends to draw negative reactions. People tend to look at you differently, and hold on to their wallets a little tighter than they usually do. So it was quite shocking when i was told that some people thought i was from singapore. But still, no harm done.

Once I clarified that I was actually Malaysian, they guessed that I was from KL. ho ho. I'm from Ipoh really, so when people assume that you're from a bigger town than the one you come from, there's no reason to refute them.

It's nice to be back in the swing of things. As people discover more about you, and you discover more about other people, you get the added yet most important benefit of learning more about yourself :)

the mountain

2006-03-27T05:09:00.000-08:00

Do try and ignore the fact that Val is holding an ear ring up to my longer than average ear lobe.

Instead, look at the picture and take a moment to consider this: Do i look gay?

The leather cuff I occasionally sport has been associated to 'looking gay'. But every time it is, i shrug it off and not think about it for much longer after: i'm convinced of the uber coolness of my leather cuff. But when a rational person who never says things without much prior thought (i'm referring to a certain Miss Adeline Gong) tells you one two separate occasions that you 'look gay', any sane person would be tempted to give the idea some thought.

Homosexuality is fine in my book(and for the record, i'm heterosexual). It's not for a lot of people but that's another issue altogether. What I fail to realise is what makes a person 'look gay'? According to Adeline, wearing jeans and tops that fit, along with the occasional leather cuff makes one look gay. But i thought that was just being semi-fashionable? Last time i checked, wearing clothes that fit was still in and wearing oversized t-shirts was only allowed to those who're from Compton yo(which disallows me from resorting to the latter option). Upon further investigation, floral shirts and short hair are also part of the 'gay' ensemble. Forget the fact that generalising like this is wrong and almost discriminatory, I like my floral shirts! And i just had a haircut! I've got nothing against being accused of being gay, but once this becomes a favourite past time this side of Sri Petaling, I do have reason for concern: my chances with the ladies are seriously diminished.

But I'm cool with the whole 'looking gay' bit. There's no way of ascertaining if I do, but either way: a little bit of scandal never hurt anyone.

Finally watched Brokeback Mountain the other night with Sue. Good movies are those where the performances are so convincing, they make you feel for the character. They make your stomach flip, they make you want to cry, they make you wanna go out and kill someone(not the director). GREAT movies are those that make you think. Cerebral activity is always welcome. Brokeback Mountain was almost fabulous because the movie made you feel AND think. Aside from the provocative imagery(me and Sue were trying to change the angle of the laptop screen to get a clearer picture of what was happening during the tent scene :P), the provocative issue at hand was dealt with well and put in a light which probably softened the hearts of even the most ardent homophobes.

Thank you Malaysian pirates for always making sure that we've got good movies to watch. And thank you Malaysian censorship for pointing us in the right direction: the movies you ban/cut up are usually the ones worth watching :)

hey jude

2006-03-24T09:39:00.000-08:00

'We're going to call you Paul', she said.

'Paul who?'

'Paul McCartney, silly'

The decision first came about when i realized a growing love towards all things old school coupled with my playlist's affinity towards 'Let It Be' and 'Hey Jude'. By 'old school' i don't mean straight out of Compton(that's still relatively new actually, relatively), i mean The Beatles. What struck me about The Beatles other than the music, was the fact that they had style. Heaps of the stuff.

Now I'd like you to pay close attention to Mr. McCartney's hair. That was the look I was going for when I decided to not cut my hair for ages. It was quite a drastic change from the short hair that i usually wear but I figured change would be good. I was going to be an intern at The Actors Studio for a whole month after which I'd start my second semester in med school: there never seemed to be a more opportune moment for a hairstyle change than now.

And so the wait began. After my last haircut(and by that I mean massacre) at the trusty(*chortle*) indian barber back in Ipoh, i let time take her course and let my hair grow to a suitable length. And it did. Coupled with a mean side parting, the only thing I lacked before i became a McCartney doppleganger(a rather convincing one, if i may add) was a bass guitar.

People received the change in many different ways. Some got it right when they exclaimed 'The Beatles!' and others came pretty close when they went 'So retro! Phwoar!'. Some just missed when they screamed 'Ringo!', but I won't hold it against them. In most pictures, the only one who seemed to have a distinct hairstyle(ie. not exactly the same as the remaining bandmates') was Mr. Lennon.

And then there were those who kept telling me that my sideburns were far too long, and it was high time a get a haircut. I swallowed my pride and said that yes, I will cut my hair..eventually.

Whether you liked it or not(I know i did), we shall now have a moment of silence to mourn the loss of my McCartney hair, for it has been cut.

human rights violations

2006-03-21T21:45:00.000-08:00

even when perpotrated with good fun in mind, is not particularly fun to partake in. Or even to watch.

There are many things which go on in IMU that you wouldn't normally associate with medical students, or university students even. Orientation isn't fun, even in when you're not part of it. But i don't have anything against it anymore, because having been through the whole process and coming out on top(and somewhat triumphant) i can boldly attest to its benefits. It does wear you in, destroys any kind of presumptious belief that you might have about yourself as you enter university and helps build you from the ground up.

It's an established fact that a common enemy bands people together more effectively than say a common interest, or a common goal. So, by the end of orientation week when it's pretty obvious that the battle is between the freshies and the seniors(all of them, quite a formidable force), spirits are quickened and all delusions of grandeur are destroyed. Thus, as much as possible, we're given a clean slate to start varsity life with. This works for those who don't hold anything against seniors and for orientations where malice isn't a factor in the equation. Conclusion: orientation works. It's succeptible to abuse, but when done right, it works. Thus, it can stay.

But one thing i don't get is the whole idea of slave auctions. Not an IMU trademark, i'm sure, but that only makes it a more dispicable act. For those unfamiliar with the whole concept, slave auctions work like this: there's usually a bunch of people who want to raise funds for some undeserving cause(in contrast to other more needy causes of course. and that's if you even consider the existence of other causes outside your own) and to make quick money, they 'sell' their friends off to other friends for a price, after which the buyer has free reign to do whatever he/she wants to with his/her newly purchased slave for a day.

In theory, it seems like a pretty workable concept, considering the fact that you can make money without having to produce anything in particular: you just sell your friends. And there's quite a bit of money to be made(the current record is RM450 for a lunch date...which eventually didn't happen). But look a little closer and you'll realise that what you have on your hands is a full scale human rights violation and if the world didn't have bigger fish to fry, the UN would clamping down on university student(slave) auctions everywhere.

The starting price is usually RM10, and if you're on auction, it'd be wise to entrust a sizeable sum of money with your friends before bidding begins and get them to buy you when it does. But some aren't as fortunate as others and are sold off for a mere RM10. It does wonders for your self worth that, being sold for RM10. And this is where slave auctions get insulting: by attaching pecuniary value to PEOPLE, you allow them to be placed above/below each other, based on how much they're 'valued at'. If this isn't the biggest insult anyone can receive, i don't know what is.

Another factor to consider: are all the slaves on auction out of their own will? Not only does a slave have to fear how much they'll end up being worth, they also have to give in(if they didn't volunteer initailly) to the whole process in fear that if they do resist, they'll have to suffer labels until they step out of the venerable institution.

Insulting people is never fun, even when done in good spirit and without malice. Doing it for monetary benefit doesn't make it any better. There are many other ways to raise funds, selling people was one way that went out of fashion ages ago. yeesch.

riding the chocolate highway, then having to get off

2006-03-19T03:12:00.000-08:00

my tussle with memory and the idea of reminiscence continues: my meory is such that i won't be able to give you or even myself a comprehensive idea of what happened over the past couple of days. But i guess that is where the ironic beauty of reminiscence lies; how the few evnts that we do choose to remember supercede the other minor ones, giving you a more contrasting picture of what happened. Psychobabble, i agree.

It wasn't the trade off i expected but i'd be a sinner(an even bigger one than the one that i already attest to being) if i said that i didn't have fun. I had a whale of a time, and i've never felt more motivated to go in there and find out (in the words of the oh-so-quotable Deborah) 'who this Hamas guy is and what he has to do with the Palestinians' :) I'm glad to have the assurance that the fun doesn't end here, and there is a whole lot more that awaits us if we choose to keep at it. And keep at it we will.

If debating can be likened to giving birth, post natal depression will hit me soon. The cold turkey, the 'hear hear'ing in lectures, the incessant urges to currect people who aren't politically correct. But like a mother who's just given birth and still reeling from the whole ordeal, it's somewhat calming to find that my room is in the usual post-debate mess it finds itself in after a tourney. The magazines filling in for the bad parquet which refuses to stay glued to the floor, the countless sheets of A4 paper with point scrawled all over them, the bed unmade and mugs smelling of coffee but not containing anymore. It's satisfying, in a very odd but undeniably big way.

Once all is said and done, the time for silence prevails. The need to sort through days of laundry emerges and the sudden desire to be alone, in silence.

p.s.
to Vas and Hai Liang: good show guys, never had this much fun in a tourney before. Let's keep this going yeah?
to Debo: I really hope that u don't take anyting personally, you truly are genuinely funny(we laugh AT you at times, but the fact of the matter is that we laugh, and that can't be bad now can it?)
to Eng Ann: stick with it!
and to Lishun: we're sorry if we coerced you into this. I(and i can safely say we) sincerely hope that you had fun :)

a brief respite

2006-03-14T18:13:00.000-08:00

i've been living away from home for a little more than 2 years now(the month long holidays don't count; i'm officially attached to somewhere else and no longer operate from home :P) and everytime i come back , i live out of a suitcase. I no longer use my cupboard in my room anymore, it holds clothes which i no longer use. Unfortunately, my mum secretly hopes that i will shrink sometime within the next couple of years: the perfect opprtunity for my mum to give me heaps of clothes to wear, again.

For these two years i've always considered myself immune to that affliction which bothers most kids who leave home: having to miss it. I miss my brother all the time(he's been away for..err..*counts with fingers* close to 6 years now) and my parents occasionally. I can sleep comfortably in most beds after a couple of nights or so(my window opens out onto a fire exit with an EXIT sign which shines gloriously all through the night and this no longer bothers me). Being away from home, other than the financial constraints isn't particularly hard. Or so I thought.

My immunity is wearing off. I enjoy the drives home(not the bus rides). They give me an opportunity to have Jamiroquai induced highway epiphanies and i know that i have a few lazy days back at home to poke over them. I used to dread the drives back to KTJ(where i did my A-levels, n00bs :P) because it signalled an end to life in languor and a return to routine. Now I dread the drives back to Bukit Jalil because when I arrive, I'm forcefully reminded that I'm not home. Home has become much more than a comfortable bed, a cupboard I don't use and mildly annoying parents. It now represents air circulation, good food that I don't need to pay for, a comfortable bed i don't bother sleeping in much, and parents who care and want me to be with them as much as I want to be with them.

I dread having to go back earlier than I should. Holidays last till sunday but I leave today for a debate tourney awaits us this weekend. I hope the trade pays off.

gostan

2006-03-11T20:19:00.000-08:00

The origins of the word 'gostan' were initially uncertain to me, but they were made clear to me a few days ago. but in a more practical sense, 'gostan' simply means reverse, go backwards. It does not exclusively belong to a particular language but it's just one of those words us Malaysians pick up and throw about, quite usefully in fact. There are many other words which have unclear origins but are almost ubiquious in the average Malaysian's vocabulary. I hate to sound crass but 'puki' would be another example(if you do know the origins of this word, do leave a comment. Don't bother telling me what it means though; like the word itself, the meaning comes along rather miracuously :P).

In the Box Office at The Actors Studio, we drink from these white disposable cups. To prevent us drinking from each others cups, we label them. Last Friday, my cup was labelled 'last day boy'. The internship has ended. Thankfully, things DID pick up after the first week(during in fact) and looking back on the month i spent working there, i have nothing but happy memories.

The thing with memories(useful as they be) is that both happy and sad ones, when looked back upon, induce a kind of sadness. Happy memories(even not so happy ones, made to look much better than they really were with the benefit of hindsight), when looked back upon, cause a feeling of longing and eventually sadness: you're not there anymore. Sad memories cause a similar effect: reminding you that times were bad, and in some cases, bringing back along with it the actual sentiments you felt at that point in time.

Which makes you wonder if there really is a point to gostan, and look back on how things once were. It'd be absolutely fab if we could gostan in entirety, and go back to experience our memories once more, not have them play like movies. And like celluloid, memories fade too, becoming disjointed, fantastic and not entirely true. Sometimes you find yourself doubting if certain things happened in the first place.

But it's nice to look back on things once in a while. Happy memories are called what they are for a reason: they're a reminder that good things do happen, and that it's those very things that are worth working towards.

Goodbye The Actors Studio. You were fun while you lasted.

And 'gostan' comes from the term 'go a stern', which literally means go backwards, reverse.

at work

2006-03-08T18:23:00.000-08:00

i bite into my still hot curry puff thingy that Val dropped off this morning and i begin to feel the slightest pangs of guilt. If it's one of those road side curry puffy things, i wouldn't be feeling like this. This one's from Delifrance yo. Thanks Val :) and Dora came by yesterday with a shopping bag full of these miniature mandarin oranges which taste like heaven. It's a pity they only come in that size though. Tania's dad sent her to work yesterday laden with curry puffs and nasi lemak for her underlings. Notice that all the people we're talking about are chinese. All this food and eating going around is definately something to do with the chinese. But i'm not complaining, as long as there's enough to go around :)

There's an Indian classical dance(bharatanatyam) programme running the weekend at a venue that's not ours(i'm talking about the other place that's owned by the same person which owns ours, the one in Sentul). I got a call yesterday morning by an Indian lady(judging by the thickness of her accent, she's probably fresh off the boat or the effect of her curry breakfast hadn't worn off just yet) enquiring about the show. So i deftly turned to look at the poster behind me so I could answer her barrage of impending questions regarding details of the show. As I was looking at the details printed at the bottom of the poster, what she asked me about was something i was unprepared for:

'I read an article about the performance in the papers today, and there was an accompanying picture which i thought wasn't very nice'

The expression on my face at this point was very similar to : o_O and in my head i was thinking: but what's this got to do with me? i just sell tickets when i've got nothing else to do around here..yeesch

'MY question is: why are all the fat dancers in front?' she doesn't let up. 'I sometimes watch these dance shows and i like that all the dancers are pretty. But for this show, i notice that all the fat dancers are in the front row and the thin ones are in the back. This is not right, Bharatanatyam dancers should not be fat'

Quite obviously, I was unsure of what to say. Thankfully she didn't sound pissed off or anything, or maybe Russell Peters was right when he said that Indian accents are best at diffusing tense situations. When i think about it now, she sounded quite amusing actually.

Having overcome my initial shock, I was tempted to check if I was hearing her right, 'I'm sorry ma'am but did you say FAT? As in large, chubby, plump, BIG?'

'Yes, yes. That's exactly what I'm saying'

I decide that i've gotta get a little more cerebral with the lady. 'Ah yes. I'm sorry but i don't t hink we can do anything about that just yet ma'am. But rest assured, the next time I see Mr. Ramli Ibrahim, we'll remind him to get his dancers to lost some weight. Thanks'

Placated, she hangs up.

'tis true what they say, you meet all sorts of people when you work in theatre. Definately a larger variety as compared to med students :P

moose

2006-03-06T22:02:00.000-08:00

Mr. Tarantino believes that Uma Thurman is his muse. She inspires him to be as creative as he can be. So when Uma is on the set, Q is usually on a roll.

I need one of those too. I've got heaps of writing to be done(for what purposes exactly, i shall not discuss) but i can't seem to get to writing properly. The whole needing inspiration thing isn't really the issue. I do have the inspiration(though not the muse) but what I do not have is the will to get things done in entirety. The will to blog, the will to think things through, the will to move my sorry ass.

gastronomic delights

2006-03-05T19:16:00.000-08:00

second time i'm writing this, lost the post the last time :(

A few points to clarify before we dive headlong into the oh so interesting world of my newly lost Dim Sum virginity. I'm not much of a food person. The little money i have(for I make none) i spend on books, blothes and shows. Your observant self will notice that food is nowhere on the extremely short list, but if i'm with people who are willing to pay/share the bill, food is probably on the lower end of the not so long, extended list of things i'd spend on.

I've also not had Dim Sum before. OR anything that's related to Ipoh's gastronomic landscape other than White Coffee(goodstuff) and Ngai Choy(taugeh la, but i'm not too sure if i got the cantonese verison right). I've probably had a surfeit of the latter because when my mother sets out to make her unmistakably Indian Chinese fried noodles, she ends up making fried taugeh with the occasional(but definately rewarding) strand of mee. One last thing: Ipoh women are fair skinned, but they're not as hot as everyone thinks they are.

Ever since i started working at The Actors Studio, Val, better known as CHiQ, who works downstairs has been popping by often enough to say hi. And on occasions she pops by with food and gives me some. For FREE. Yes FREE FOOD. Sushi included. And then when YP popped by she brought 6 egg tarts for company. Egg tarts, FREE, with PORK. *grins* At that point I was hard pressed to figure out why anyone would want to give a short, angry and emaciated looking Indian boy free food, so I asked Val what her intentions were. Food and it's closely associated activity: eating are apparently a very big part of Chinese culture. And so they just heap food on me. I ain't complaining, food does taste much much better when it's FREE.

So, I missed out on an invite for a seafood dinner at Klang(I was working), a steamboat porridge dinner(i was..err..working?) and a Dim Sum breakfast(wasn't working, kinda stupidly left my phone in the car and got the invite after breakfast ended). Thankfully, good things happen a second time around, almost like comets :)

I lost my Dim Sum virginity this morning, and boy was it a memorable experience :) I want to live forever in little towers of pork filled goodness with prawn inhabitants(Siew Mai la). Something tells me(my stomach probably) that i'll be needing a booster dose very very soon. And if all goes well, i won't develop immunity, an addiction would be much much better.

Oh, and Val will probably have pics up over at hers :)

it's been a rather slow day at work and as i write this, one of my colleagues is trying to find where wea re on Google Earth. Pretty nifty stuff, that. In a way it's fun to look at where you are(geographically), on a map. At other times, it's quite a humbling experience, looking over the big picture and realizing, in those rare moments of clarity, that you are part of something that is a lot bigger than just your thoughts, your feelings, your life. Google Earth shows Kuala Lumpur as a mass of badly planned roads with highways criss-crossing the landscape, but it doesn't give you an insight into the lives of the people which inhabit it. But people watching through the windows of the box office does. And when I do look out on the people who walk past: the Datins, the high school kids with their first boy/girlfriends needing some alone time after school, the expats, the security guards and cleaners who've left their homelands for greener pastures, I am humbled, but much more than when i look over on KL city.

Just yesterday i picked up the Cambodian performers in Photographs from S-21 and their road manager and drove them to the venue. As it rained and I drove into the unavoidable knot(i have a tendency to understate things) of cars that was KL post-work traffic, i was bitching to the road manager(the only one among the three who conversed in fluent english) about how i hate KL roads.

In the passage of the converstion, he asked me how old i was and i told him I was 19. He was taken aback for a bit, and said that i looked alot more mature than my real age. In Considering Photographs from S-21 was about looking back on the tyrannical rule of the Khmer Rouge, I asked him if he ever experienced life under Pol Pot. He hadn't: he was 25, born 2 years after the regime lost power. I then asked how old the actors themselves were, and he replied that they we're in their late 40s, approaching 50: they lived through the Khmer Rouge, and they were in the back seat of my car.

At that very moment the shameful realization that the world has bigger fish to fry hit me right in the face. Humbled, I drove on in silence. I guess it's noce(albeit a tad shocking) to be reminded that things happen outside your life as well. Sure, we read the news and feel for those who are suffering around the world. A few even get off their asses and decide to do something about it. But sometimes, there's a sense of detachment when you're helping the people that need helping, i guess. At other times, that detachment goes away, and you stare the world right in the face, and it reminds you that you are your life are a part of something much, much bigger.

It helps to have a bird's eye view to put you in your place.

androgyny

2006-02-25T21:07:00.000-08:00

originally a song by garbage, and the first time i herd the word used in a sentence.
Garbage chooses to define the word as: 'girls in the mens room, boys in the girls room'
when i do give the idea some thought, i realize that i'd absolutely love to be androgenous, because bloddy hell, people who look ardrogenous are absolutely GORGEOUS. think Keira Knightley for instance. protruding chins and strong jaw lines are traditionally characteristics considered beautiful on males, but keira has those and if those add to her allure, i doubt anything else will. and for those who notice, she has rather prominent eyebrows as well. they're quite a far cry from the pencil thin lines that most women sport above their eyes. but she's not entirely masculine in features, the lips are still very feminine(she supposedly had an upper lip augmentation?) and her eyes are those of a doe. put together characteristics from both sexes and you get yourself the waif like beauty who has been voted the sexiest movie star of all time by the readers of Empire magazine.

my belief that androgynous women(i'm redundant aren't i?) are the most beautiful was reaffirmed the other day when i met a women of such properties the other day. A prominent jaw line, protruding chin, big eyes and a very very short hair, which was probably growing back after having been recently shorn(this was probably the most ambiguous feature of all, i never found Sinead O'Connor particularly attractive). steady relationship or not, i do not deny myself the luxury of appreciating beauty around me.

As an afterthought: sure, Boy George and Michael Jackson are celebrities who are considered androgynous as well but i'm turning a blind eye to them and Marilyn Manson. i'll stick with Keira, thanks :)

new blood

2006-02-23T16:43:00.000-08:00

so after dropping some of the TAS staff(mah bruther!) at Nasi Kandar Pelita, i drive back to where i live and decide to walk up to the Ramlee burger stall to get me some dinner. yeah, there's this whole bird flu thing going around but damn, obstaining from eating chicken is as good as trying to not eat rice. for the average uni/college/out-of-home student, chicken is probably the most easily availabe AND affordable source of protein after eggs. and i'm one of the rare few that think that eggs should remain on the tops of walls and not half cooked on my plate.
but i digress, the bird flu and how it affects my already unhealthy(watch my brother reprimand me when he comments) diet.

I noticed there was a huge, and somewhat noisy crowd around the stall(it's a van which opens out into the stall, and i'm guessing it was the inspiration for the new musiccanteen truck :P) and they had BANNERS. i added up what i saw in my head and it could only mean one thing..as i walked closer i got a clearer picture of what really was going on. now with a better view, i notice that these kids(hahaha) are covered in flour and eggs: proof that this batch has just been orientated.

considering i'm now in sem2 and on rare occasions i take the initiative to be nice(this being one of them), i decided to say hello. when i proceeded to speak to one of them, i noticed i could actually SEE his face:something that really shouldn't be. i'm no saddist, but orientation is fun in that way: you can't see because your face is covered in eggs/flour/fish water/oyster sauce/rotting bananas and your clothes are bundled up in your hands because they're not fit for use anymore(at this point, they're just wieghing you down). after i interrogated him for a bit, i found out that they're from the new Pharmacy batch in IMU. which probably explains why they dare walk around unprotected at night and still have clean faces.

unfortunately, that won't be the case for the new med kids when they join in next week. the circle draws upon itself :)

on good timing

2006-02-20T07:58:00.000-08:00

yeesch..it hurts to have to say that i'm from Perak: visit Jabatan Mufti Negeri Perak
Read more about it at Lainie's
Remember folks: vote 'tidak setuju'

there's never been a better time to wear this:

lessons learnt

2006-02-19T16:15:00.001-08:00

some things you don't and can't learn when you're surrounded by medical students. and when you do learn these things in the rare situations when you find yourself surrounded by those not of the medical profession/line(*Gasp!*), they kinda leave a rather large impression on you.

some people don't know what they're doing, and it's easy to pick these people out in a stressful situation: they're the ones getting on everybody else's nerves
knowing famous people tends to make normal people think they're famous too. unfortunately, fame by association is worth so much less than real fame and makes one look bad when they use it to get things done. a classic example would be starting a conversation with 'i know *insert semi-famous-malaysian-person's-name-here* you know? in most cases this just makes people go 'so?'
when dealing with the ignorant, be impervious to their comments on your performance: ESPECIALLY if they're normal people who know famous people
at the end of the day(or more specifically, show) the best measure of how things went is not the applause(performers bring in homies:an element of bias that's hard to factor out) but your own conscience. this comes in handy because good shows don't get filled up sometimes, and that's definately not a fault on the performer
mutual dislike brings people together much much better than mutual interest can. a practical example:saying you hate bush in a crowd will probably win you more friends than saying you like football.(they're both quite sucky if you ask me :P)

i ended my week with the technical department yesterday, and even though i started out rather slow it ended on a good note. i had fun working the past two days, and it kinda peaked when my tech supervisor told me i should quit medicine and become a sound/light technician. under normal circumstances, i'd interpret this as a slight towards my prowess as a medical student, but since these circumstances aren't exactly normal, i'll take what he said as a compliment :)

now playing: the intern

2006-02-15T18:25:00.000-08:00

everytime i tell someone that i'm interning at The Actors Studio i get one of the following reactions(the primary difference between the two is the choice of word on which emphasis is placed):
1)you're interning at The Actors Studio?
2)you're interning at The Actors Studio?
and when i tell them that i'm a first year medical student, they repeat the question with a slightly larger dose of incredulousity. sure, there is no salient link between manning the various positions at The Actors Studio and medicine, but no one said that a link was compulsory(in fact, IMU prefers it that there wasn't a link at all). it seems i'm the only that doesn't find it odd that i'm interning at The Actors Studio, but i'm guessing that's probably because i made the choice myself *shrugs*

though not salient, the performing arts and medicine(i believe) are inextricably linked. genuine concern is almost impossible(for some) and take time(for all) to foster, and in the mean time, it isn't illegal to feign concern. The better you are at theatrics, the better the doctor people will assume you are. Not exactly the best thing to do(feigning concern), but we're all human beings, and that means all of us aren't equally likeable.

work has been alright(considering this IS the first time i've actually worked). on my first day i delved and uncovered the long unsolved mysteries concerning the making, sorting and use of light filters. so when you guys see coloured lights on the Actors Studio stage, i might have had a hand in making some of those(if you haven't noticed, i'm trying desperately to console myself). i'm pretty sure the Technical Supervisor was dumbstruck when he was told that he was to have an intern under his wing for a week the main problem being that on non-show days, there isn't much for him to do, even less for an intern with no marketable skills whatsoever. and thus, the two of us find ourselves discussing pressing issues(the treatment of cancer, methods to control the spread of AIDS, drug addiction and the ills of smoking) over an incredibly long tea break. see, the fields are inextricably linked :P

faced with a lack of things for me to do backstage, i'm temporarily attached to the Box Office(i've got a whole week with them next week) where i learnt what i believe is probably the most marketable skill EVER:the arcane arts involved in manipulating the credit card machine! which means i can apply for a job(to man the cash register at least) at any outlet which accepts credit cards. take that IMU!

things should pick up from now.I am looking forward to the upcoming shows(when i'll be reattached to the Technical team to help out in whatever way i can with lights and sounds), my time with the Box Office(the people are quite a riot once you warm up to them) and my stints with Production and Publicity. *crosses fingers*

explanations

2006-01-11T19:46:00.000-08:00

this post is written almost in its entirety for me. yes, i admit to reading my own blog. and like you, i happen to find it heaps of fun as well.

so, i came back to ipoh with chicken pox on saturday. but i'm fine now, recovered much faster than the expected one week i would take. i'm left with scabs and the temptation to pick at them with my long nails(i need a nail clipper, mine's back in kl). i don't have a fever nor do my lesions itch. i feel just fine although i don't look too fabulous(not trying to imply that i did before i got chicken pox).

looking back on the episode i realize that i've lost 5 days of studying. and quite a bit of studying can be crammed into five days. i've still got a sizeable portion of studd to cover before my exams and if today were to pass by without much studying done, i'll have 3 days to better my predicament. i don't need to be quarantined during the period of my examination because i'm apparently no longer infective(you can give me hugs, light kisses are ok too :P). and i'd rather not skip this sitting and sit for the resits as my first attempt: i forfeit my safety net if i do. and so i brave me exams on monday feeling disadvantaged.

here goes nothing

you know you're stressed when you..

2006-01-06T05:29:00.000-08:00

keep falling sick like a waltz: fine-sick-sick, fine-sick-sick
have blisters all over your body, for no understandable reason
can't talk about anything else except your impending examinations
can't sleep because you can't stop thinking about your impending examinations
wash your car to make you feel better
dance to Franz Ferdinand's 'Do You Wanna' because washing the car didn't take you to your 'happy place'
your life hangs in the balance: End of Semester examinations in 9 days!

*keeps dancing*

[edit]i got up feeling worse than i did when i went to bed, my skin is absolutely horrid(pimples attack!) and i had a dream about moving a magic dumbell which offended evil spirits..i'm SO one sandwich short of a picnic right now..

*dances desperately*

goodbye 05

2005-12-31T02:01:00.000-08:00

It’s that time of the year again: (it always seems to be a certain time of year doesn’t it?) when I get all moody and morose, and think about all the things that have happened, the things I’ve missed(in a good and a bad way) and the things I will miss. What follows is a soppy, not-so-chronological attempt at charting the highs (and some lows) which mad 2005 what it was for me.

But a thought before we begin: doesn’t it all seem like it happened so quickly, and in a very short time...yesterday?

Going back to ktj: I did this several times this year and somehow, the dread wore off..i still remember the days when my heart used to drop(almost literally), when we took that last bend in the road and the cricket pitch came into view. But this year the sadness wasn’t there, and I looked forward to heading back, knowing that with every subsequent trip, I’m getting closer to what would be my last trip back(not a good thing)

Forensics: So yeah, least year’s forensics rocked and this year it rocked even more. 2 golds and the Anne Russel award. Who cares if it’s an almost unheard of tournament? It’s an excuse to be away from boarding school for 3 days surrounded by the sirens of ISKL, and win a few things along the way. Good show Jared, Rahat, Hui Shurn and Jonathan

Fusion Fest: Literally ended up living a dream here(no, I don’t mean watching James Baum perform) but performing in a rock band: absolute coolness. Thanks Mars, Shereen, Praveen, Zarif and Rahat. Effervescence..pfft!

Rounding: Not an event per se but several, and this time around I realized how much fun it can really be, in a non NYPD Blue kinda way. For the uninitiated, ‘rounding’ is part of a Prefect’s duty in boarding school when they grab a couple (ideally ONE other) prefect friend and walk around the school to just generally keep the peace. Yeah, we know we overdid the ideal person limit but we sure had great fun along the way, proof that it’s never what you do, but who you choose to do it with

Meals: always fun, especially dinner with the boys and lunch with the buddies. (try not to get those two mixed up Praveen :P)Westside forever!

Prom: Sure it had a crappy theme (Masquerade? And you make us pay to buy masks just to GET IN?) but still heaps of fun, albeit a little dark(maybe it was where I was sitting, facing Adam and behind him, a wall). The company was fab and looked even more so and regardless of what happened after prom for every one of us, I’m sure we all had fun ;) but it did have a very sad tinge to it considering this marked the beginning of a period of goodbyes, I started saying farewell to people I might not see again in a long time

A-Levels: Once again, a time period instead of an event per se. ‘twas the reason why I was in ktj in the first place but somehow I don’t think I studied as hard as I would for any other examination (SPM preparations still top my list) but we all came through in the end. Stressful and drawn out, but still great fun considering I was still in school *lastday003

Speech day(and the days leading up to it): Sure, they got the best emcees in school to handle the job once again(go me and jade! I still don’t have pics dear) though the performances weren’t as fab as they were the year before. Although ‘Let It Be’ kinda became the theme for the day and that whole period actually, which is kind of ironic, considering now they’re only memories, and the aforementioned song title is about all I can do. We pulled it off well, impressed royalty and cried (the girls did) when we hugged each other for the last time in uniform. It sucked because a lot of us weren’t there (Petronas?why?) but farewells were still said. Oh, and the boys cried later in the day, all alone in our rooms.
Packed my bags and cleared my room for the last time and made my final trip to Ipoh. My last day as a student of KTJ: something I will always, always miss. *last day me and Praveen

lavan comes home: brother back from the UK, ‘nuff said

moving in: so I’m the only IMU student who painted my room before moving into it but damn hell it was worth it, I live in a nice blue box which opens into the fire exit, do you? But what made it so worth it wasn’t the wall shelves for IKEA or the gorgeous paint job but the process of working on it. Lavan, I had heaps of fun, I hope you did too. We should spend more time together, it’d be absolutely fab if we could

orientation: so I come to IMU, and they greet us with this. I was wearing pink on the day we ‘met out seniors’ so I guess I was obvious choice for IMCC, but what the hey, being an IMCC is worth it(if you win that is). And the hair’s grown back, thanks for asking

National Health Sciences Debate 2005: first foray into varsity debating: it was all Miss Foo said it would be and more. Met amazing debate society seniors who quickly became more that just that(seniors) but grew into amazing friends as well(I hope you will let me get away with saying this o seniors). Met Vasan who is a killer team mate and absolute fun to debate with; the seemingly endless list of similarities and breaking into the semi finals didn’t hurt either. Although not breaking into the finals did

Debate: generally, including MMU Open and all other training sessions. So much fun! Albeit a little stressful, but still so much fun. Thanks for making MMU Open another contingent success Hai Liang, hopefully this is a partnership we can build on J and Italiannies!

And so many other events which made 2005 the year that it was. Thank you to all the people who made it what it was as well, and for those who aren’t here(a good chunk of those who made it happen), I’ve only got this to say to you: summer 2006 baby!

‘Every new beginning comes from some other beginning’s end’ – ‘Closing Time’, by Semisonic

just so you know

2005-12-30T20:04:00.000-08:00

http://www.inkyhands.net
have a look around :)

brakes

2005-12-27T01:17:00.000-08:00

i'm listening to the verve pipe's 'bitter sweet symphony' now. it's a song i associate with elaborate, grandiose suicides and also endings of the melancholic variety.it's odd being home and this time it's hit me in the face pretty hard. usually it's vader syndrome or the squabbling parents but this time it's purely me. true, i have been away from home for close to two years now, and these two years have indubitably been the ones in which i've grown most. the person whom i was when i finished spm in 2003 bears only slight resemblances(i think) to who i am now: teetering at the precipice which is 2005, waiting to plunge headlong into the unexpectedness which awaits me in 2006.

i now view these walls and these rooms which were once so familiar in my earlier years through the eys of a foreigner..there's a certain transcience attached to the way i view my stay at home because i know i'll be leaving soon, although i'm not sure if i want to. it is now that i'm reminded most of the fact that when i left, there was not real coming back to be done,my life has taken it's course and i'm behind the wheel.

this feeling has various triggers which unleash it out into the open: listening to music which is more than 2 months old(i associate songs to events and periods in my life), watching old video clips on MTV,and most of all, when i come home..

but i guess the feeling is made worse this time around because we're approaching the end of 2005.i won't say it's been a fabulous one but it's been one filled with opprtunites to grow(most of which i think i've taken) and successes and failures(both equally appreciated, but i'm still sore).i still hate to see it go, because it serves as another reminder that times past can never be reclaimed..

torn

2005-12-25T21:54:00.000-08:00

for those who don't know, the 'i' in ipoh stands for 'indolence', but don't ask me what the other alphabets sdtand for though, i really don't know :P

but after GI problems which culminated in extra pyramidal symptoms(think selma blair in the exorcist, or better still, ask me for a demo :D ) and sitting through summative 2, i was brought home for a weekend of indolence. thank the lord it's a long weekend..hehe. been trying to get tickets to watch King Kong for the past 3 days but it's fully booked EVERY DAY. this is Ipoh goddamnit, a year ago i could buy tickets for a movie 5 minutes before it aired..blergh. i want to watch king kong! :(

regardless, i have to get to studying, but the temptations are numerous(Kong being one of the many) and i'm torn between the variety of things i can do at home..

heaven

hell

the dilemma! lecture notes everywhere!

delayed gratification

2005-12-14T22:00:00.000-08:00

had lunch with Yih Seong, Deborah(read:lowly semester 1 students, like me) Adeline and Grace(read: intellectually superior semester 5 students who have just finished their End of Semester examination, literally) and during the course of our meal we were visited by various other euphoric, intelligent beings(read:semester 5s), namely Yee Pei, Sheena, Rahman, and Rajinder. sure, you must be wondering what the names have to do with the post. in reality, absolutely nothing..just felt like mentioning people..haha.

so yeah, over lunch, other than being visited, we realized that the near-orgasmic post examination joy isn't illusory but does exist in real life. and we also realized that once we were done with examinations, we'd get to have a taste of it as well. summative examinations are next friday and whether i'm as prepared as i'd like to be is a non-issue. they shall be dealt with by means necessary and after that i'll get to enjoy myself(for a day or two, until i start preparing for my end of semester examination)..can'twaitcan'twaitcan'twait

the elated seniors and something which Dr.V mentioned in her lecture today('you should be happy, you're already at the end of semester 1!') made me realize that yeah, semester 1 is almost over. in a little more that a month i shall be done with one fifth of my stay in IMU bukit jalil. and it also means that a whole bunch of people that i just met(4 months ago?) will also be leaving and moving on to another phase in their lives. to the seniors:all the best and godspeed..you guys were absolutely fabulous and i don't know if the subsequent semesters will be able to fill your shoes, but i do know that big shoes are always a great legacy to leave behind.

our moving up as a semester and the departure of another just makes university, and life itself seem so..transitory.

and to facilitate the transition for another set of people, i have decided to become an Orientation Officer. fine, i haven't decided per se, but i'm seriously considering it. if i do choose to become an OO, it means that i'll have to brave another week of eggs, flour, margerine and fish entrails but this time i'll be allowed to keep my hair on. *sigh of relief* i'm still a tad apprehensive about the dates itself and what i've heard about M1 orientations aren't doint a fantastic job in convincing me to take up the responsibility but i still think i will..my decision shall be made in due time

cold turkey

2005-12-12T04:48:00.000-08:00

symptom no.1 - as i walk out of the bathroom and back into my room, i'm talking to myself(as i always do) and then i find myself saying 'mister speaker, sir'. i pause, and then reprimand myself for getting carried away..

symptom no.2 - i'm sitting in the auditorium and it's break time in between lectures. nearing the end of the break, the lecturer walks in and asks the batch if we're ready to get back to work and without looking up from my notes, i hit the table twice with my palm and say(softly, thank god) 'hear, hear'..

symptom no.3 - i keep using hand motions when i talk and when i speak, i try to 'flesh my points out'..

yeah, these are the tell-tale symptoms that i(and i'm pretty sure i'm not alone) suffer from post-debate tournament. a weekend of debating in cyberjaya and then i'm thrown back into being a medical student with 2(less!) weeks left to study for my summative examinations. it's at times like these that i rethink my decision to do medicine, but i'm guessing the withdrawal sypmtoms aren't helping.

back to work it is then..

in her shoes

2005-12-07T01:06:00.000-08:00

right: so here's what really happened. in the last issue of the IMU newsletter, the IMU Hernia, there was an article by a certain disgruntled member of the opposite sex which put the entire male populace of the IMU in a bad light. although i did mention earlier(somewhere in the blog, comments probably) that some men aren't worth defending, i was asked(yeah, what with my being the epitome of masculinity and all..pink towels dah-ling!) to write the reply to the aforementioned article. it was also stated, and reiterated(countless times) that my article would have to score one for the guys. i don't know if it did, but i do know that the new issue is going to be out soon(now appropriately called The Orifice? :S ) and my article is in print. have a read bretheren, and feel proud for we have scored one for the team. *victory dance*

in her shoes

The allegations are numerous and ever increasing: we ogle only at pharmacy girls whilst members of the fairer sex in medicine remain chaste and unlooked at; we molest helpless mice in pursuit of the few fleeting seconds of near-orgasmic joy we get when we pwn adversaries in DOTA; and the one which is possibly the most insulting of all – that virility, chivalry and all the cowboys have gone.

While many of us lunged for dictionaries in desperation, a few did realize that we were under attack and as much as we’d like to take these allegations lying down (it’s indubitably quite refreshing to have the women on top once in a while), our sons would never forgive us if we didn’t get off the couch and change the channel fight back. And as any self respecting, intelligent woman will know, it is never wise to make a man have to get off the couch and fight for his dinner.

Let us take a moment to ponder: what is it that women really want? Aside from 6 pairs of Manolo Blahniks, designer bags and a garden wedding (in a Vera Wang, nothing less) is a fairy tale romance. Whether you choose to blame Walt Disney for making life a lot harder for us men is totally up to you, but it’s undeniable, regardless whose fault it is, that girls grow up on a very healthy diet of fairy tales; almost all of which end with the princess and prince charming living happily ever after, ruling over subservient people and having a kid or two in the process (there’s not much else to do now that the dragon has been slain).

Fairy tales as stand-alone objects are quite harmless, but the real trouble begins when impressionable young girls put themselves in the shoes (or shoe, in the case of Cinderella) of the fairy tale princesses. I’m not too sure if these aforementioned princesses wore Blahniks as they pranced about, longingly looking over the horizon awaiting the arrival of their prince charming but one thing is for certain: they always got the men of their dreams. Unfortunately, character development and sequels are somewhat recent developments in the art of storytelling and as a result we were usually given a very vague picture of what these prince charmings were really like. Were they always tall, dark and handsome? Since the dragon was dead, did he resort to watching football on Sundays and did he spend Friday nights at the local tavern with the rest of the boys?

Now that we’ve made several laps around the mulberry bush, we can get to the point: maybe the reason why we’re all lonely in medicine is simply because we expect too much. Dashed hopes and expectations are usually the precursors to any (if not every) failed relationship. They’re also the dastardly duo which prevent people from getting together and living out their fairytales. Luckily for Jasmine and the rest of the lot (the Swan Princess included), they got what they expected and all their chaps were tall, dark and handsome.

Remember that nameless princess who had to endure the ordeal of kissing a frog to get to her prince charming? I am in no way suggesting that us guys look/sound/smell/taste like frogs (quite the contrary, we’ve got our very own Mr. 2-Hot-2-Handle in our midst) although I am suggesting that in most cases, you never know what to expect. And it’s in situations like these that it is best to proceed with caution: don’t expect much and pull out all the stops: all in the name of love (or desperation, depending on whichever of the two floats your boat)

Never compromise on compatibility because the first frog you kiss doesn’t have to be the one you settle down with (especially if he carries on croaking and doesn’t magically transform into a man upon being kissed). If you want an intelligent man, IMU may not be the best place to find him but at least we’ll all have steady jobs when we graduate (IF we graduate). It may not be much compensation, but in the future I’m sure it’ll add up to a bit.

The verdict: it’s not our fault we’re unattractive (although some of us might bear slight resemblances to frogs and the like, sorry guys), maybe you just expect too much. What you probably don’t know is that we do ogle at batch mates (in between lectures, DOTA and trips to the MMS) and in our eyes, every single on if you can be fairytale princesses.
If we had to, we would willingly don suits or armour, learn how to ride, do battle with minions of evil and slay dragons to win your hearts.

Unfortunately, we’ve just never been kissed.

whatdya think?

meme: first contact

2005-12-06T01:26:00.000-08:00

after asking veterans of the blogosphere(YP and CHiQ) what a 'meme' actually is, and after being tagged by Siaw, Sid AND Chu Kin i have decided to not back down like the pansy that i really am and tag back! aha! take that! (that's enough fake bravado for now..)

7 Things You Plan To Do Before You Die
1. Write a bestseller, get published
2. Graduate from Medical School, specialize
3. Save a life, with my bare hands
4. Get married and not have kids
5. Live in the apartment of my dreams
6. Travel the world, or a large enough chunk ouf it at least
7. can i save a slot? just in case?

7 Things I Could Do
1. study
2. matter load for debates
3. read the increasingly large stack of books i keep telling myself to read
4. learn how to cook
5. study more
6. get myself a six pack(this has been around since the ktj days, it'll happen..i hope)
7. not win a debate tournament :(

7 Celebrity Crushes (in no particular order, they're all beautiful)
1. Asha Gill
2. Maya Karin
3. Jessica Alba
4. Sarah Tan
5. Paula Malai Ali
6. Janet Khoo
7. Aishwarya Rai
-->notice my affinity for Asian women? and count the number of Malaysians on that list..Malaysia Boleh *grin*

7 Often Repeated Words
1. fish sticks!
2. wei..
3. balls
4. Nerd! (whenever i see an IMU student who's not me)
5. what the fuck?
6. jom!
7. sorry i didn't reply/call/call back, i kinda ran out of credit :S

7 Traits I Look For in the Opposite Sex (in no particular order, and i've given up listing what i want because lists don't work, i still forget sometimes)
1. intelligence (this is topping everyone's list it's stereotypical :S)
2. the ability to talk sense
3. ambition
4. empathy
5. hips
6. a self depriceating sense of humour(any sense of humour will do, the best kind being the one where u can laugh at yourself)
7. honesty

and my 7 tags go to..
absolutely nobody! this meme has been going around too long(i got tagged by THREE people before i got down to doing this). and i'm doing my bit to stop this from terrorizing bloggers everywhere =)

ah..ONE tag is over and done with. YP, i'll get to work on the childhood food memories tag soon enough, once i get my background research done that it(i've got a horrid memory so i'm asking my parents and my older brother) so just hang in there k?

the sudden increase of traffic to the blog is somewhat startling(especially all the IMU people), and this would be the best time to..link to more people! Good reads, all of them, especially Edwin(last name is Sumun..yeah, him!)

batu arang and back

2005-12-02T03:32:00.000-08:00

and so it came to pass that a 2 girls from Sri Lanka, one from the east coast and a boy from Ipoh(the latter two pretty much foreigners themselves) were summoned to make the dangerous trip to the as yet unheard of town called Batu Arang. armed with nothing but their wits and a plastic bag, they braved the trunk roads of Selangor in a Sunshine cab and arrived safely, sat through speeches and returned to the safety of Vista Komanwel, never to be the same again *jeng jeng jeng*

it was great fun, the company was good but the trip itself served to reinforce my beliefs that volunteerism is a rare commodity. and in the case of the cause we visited in Batu Arang(the Welcome Charity Home), so is funds. even though i wanted to do more to help i couldn't help but get the feeling that there's only so much one can do. multinational corporations and international coalitions may do their part(as rightfully so) and yet the job will never be done. the needy will always need, and that just means that those who can must continue to serve. a tad depressing if you ask me(there's no end in sight!), but extremely humbling as well.

and i've got to come up with an article defending the plight of the supposedly unattractive males of IMU..suggestions?

i stand corrected

2005-12-01T03:15:00.000-08:00

on a lot of fronts, but it's all good.

over the past few weeks i thought i was witnessing the death of volunteerism(yes, the value, there's no such rock band/website/energy drink, well not yet at least). after repeated announcements and calls for help, people(except for several who seem to be afflicted with an excess of the aforementioned value) just seemed to refuse to lend a hand. but i'm glad to note that as the fear mounted gradually, it also came crashing down in the last couple of days.

the thing about charities is that in alot of cases, there's not much(or much variety) in what you can do. it usually boils down to contributing one(or if you're really generous, both) of two things: funds and man-power. and thus most charity organisations end up doing things centred around a)raising funds or b)making visits to where the people/non-people/animals who need charity are(?)

i'm of the school of thought which believes that in alot of cases, b) is actually quite useless and that sometimes, in the excitement of getting a) done, people usually get so carried away that they are no longer aware of the cause involved. this may not be true of every person who volunteers but it's an observation. and when people get carried away, the bickering and other related menaces begin(but that's a musing best saved for another day).

why do i say b) is quite useless? when i mean useless i don't mean it in an absolute sense, but just not as beneficial as the other things u could possibly do which involve man-power. for example, a one time visit to an old folks homes does wonders because you get to cheer them up, have a meal with them and maybe sing a couple of songs before going home with clear consciences. but not many stop to wonder about the plight of these old folks after that? in what way do they expect a single visit to change the lives of those old folks? have they considered that maybe the old folks themselves would feel rather piqued that they're reduced to a state where they're visited by strangers more often than anyone they know personally?

though we long to do as much as we can when we involve ourselves with charity work, we also have to consider things like the sustainability of our projects and how much benefit we can derive from(in this case, GIVE) them. because if we ignore these questions, we will always resort to volunteerism when we need a quick way to clear our consciences and absolve ourselves of our sins(got naughty over the weekend? :P)

but as i mentioned earlier, i was glad to see that i judged too soon. people do care, maybe the reason why it seems like they don't is because everyone(i hope) has causes that they feel for and those may not necessarily be the same as yours, and the ways in which they choose to contribute don't have similar either. and when you come to think about it, this isn't really a bad thing, because even though you may find yourself with a painful lack of man power(or funds), you can rest easy knowing that somewhere out there, the rest of the world is being cared for as well.

it's World AIDS Day today: spread the love, don't discriminate

oh, and if i sound self righteous: i didn't mean to, but aren't we all self-righteous in our heads? :)

aren't we HIP!

2005-11-24T23:51:00.000-08:00

and in the video(which we all are guilty of watching, some of us repeatedly), he does a little jump to the side while he says the line(look up) with an indian accent. come to think of it, for a large bit of the whole performance he speaks in an indian accent which comes somewhat naturally to us indians(and does a great job at defending it too). oh, how we laughed.

russell peters was some good shit, but we all(damn i hate sweeping generalizations.fine, some of us) realized that it got old when everyone could recite it out loud, TOGETHER. that doesn't mean he wasn't funny anymore, it's just that as with all good things, russel peters can't last forever. and tonight, i witnessed malaysia's answer to russel peters: jit murad

i still remember pining to go for 'jit happens' when it happened(haha) about a month before i came to kl, but since i wasn't here, i missed it. and God, being the benevolent creator of the universe that he is, decided to answer my prayers this month by giving me(and many other people who probably were as unfortunate and prayed just as hard) 'jit happens..again'.

i've heard far too much about jit murad's stand up so i just had to catch this one, and i did. and i laughed. oh, how i laughed. jit murad is some very good shit. now if only we could all learn to recite his routine out loud :P

but there was one other difference between jit and russel(the main one being that jit is way funnier): i left the show thinking about alot of things. true, the show was satirical in nature(the best bits really) but i left with totally different opinions on what patriotism and social responsiblity is all about. and that's about as good as comedy can get:hilarious AND thougth provoking.

all things said and laughed at, 'jit happens..again' was a riot, and if u can(u've got 3 nights left), watch it. or just hope and pray that somehow, you'll be able to download it off the internet :D

and she said..

2005-11-17T00:41:00.000-08:00

that i was an amateur. when it came to blogging that is..

the butterfly defeated

2005-11-11T15:10:00.000-08:00

not at being a lesbian(there's no yardstick dears) but at being a bitch.

point:this post is not written with the intention of proving to the world that i'm not one(bitch, not lesbian)(and i revel in the fact by the way, it really takes quite a lot of confidendce to pull it off) but to show the world(or the people who happen to drop by at least) that bitching is in fact an art form and is not to be taken lightly.

as Thinesh eloquently said at lunch today, bitching and dirt(what u talk about when you bitch) are essential if you intend to rise to the top and become the Godfather himself. bitching is more than just a double edged sword, it's more like explosives: it has a decent blast radius and regardless of how well you aim/plant one, you're almost always going to have collateral damage. although there is a little mess involved, bitching, like bombs always gets the job done.

i was somewhat appaled today by a display of bitching without finesse, which is no different from holding on tightly to a cudgel with one hand, alcohol in the other and putting the two together: not a pretty sight. at that point i was made to come to terms with the truth. everybody does have a right to bitch but the reason it's so deadly is because there's a certain exclusivity to it. dirt only proves leverage when a few people are aware of it. but tell it to everyone you meet and you just end up painting a bad picture of yourself..

bitching is bad, i admit. but we all need some form or release and although equally as dangerous as other forms(read: alcohol, weed, women), it somehow seems to me that it's easier to exert control over the form in question. at least, that's the case for some =S

canapes anyone?

2005-11-09T22:33:00.001-08:00

sweet lord this page took so long to load that i almost lost the will to blog. and that's the reason why i haven't posted in the past week or so: the will to blog has been fluctuating. it's that condition all of us bloggers have: we experience/see/hear something extremely blog-worthy, form the posts in our heads but when we're faced with our Blogger windows(if they load in tome goddamnit) we just can't get it out. or even if we do, it comes out halting and just doesn't have the flow or the finesse the post did when it will still it our heads. if only we had USB ports behind out ears or something, it'd save us the trouble of actually typing out our blog posts, more like waiting to get them typed. bleh. but the will is strong to day, and i have succumbed.

over a coke float in food avenue today i was talking to a senior and was rather surprised to find out that he blogs. which made me realize that my following assumptions are probably correct :
1) many people blog
2)there are many people in imu
and if those two assumptions prove correct, than it is probably safe to assume that many people in imu blog =)

due to the fact that bloggers are truly one of a kind and the very obvious lack of anything better to do in bukit jalil(more the latter than the former), this idea popped up in my head: why not have an IMU bloggers meet? i voiced this thought out to the person i was talking to and he took it a step further and suggested starting a society. now that's truly is a step further, and definately a step too far. with organized groups comes monitoring, and somehow i wouldn't want the dean of student affairs reading about how much i truly believe it IMU's philosophy of lifelong learning..

but it would be cool to have a bloggers meet, even though half the people we'd meet would be those we are close to if not those we've met before, it's the perfect excuse to burn 5 hours of our lives on a friday night with good company(definately), punch and quite possibly(with a large enough budget)..canapes!

[edit] canape - a small biscuit or piece of bread with cheese, meat, fish, etc. on it, usually served with drinks at a party

on a totally different note, a blogger whom i absolutely adore will be at a show which i will also be at sometime later this week..should i say hi? and risk being labelled a stalker for the rest of my sorry life? *in a dilemma*

mixed bag

2005-10-30T20:01:00.000-08:00

home is like a mixed bag, you never know what u're gonna get next. at least that's what it is for me. it's both good and bad, and everything can be lumped quite easily into those two broad categories, with a small(very small) number going into the 'peculiar:to be thought over later' bin.

good:i'm just so much more confident on ipoh roads, i swear the parking lots, and the roads themselves are much wider. and the drivers are a lot less antagonistic..both facotrs combine to make driving in ipoh almost quaint. and honestly, it is quite fun to drive in ipoh. 2 months of driving around kl made me wanna stop driving altogether, ipoh gave me balls again :P it takes all of 30 minutes to cover our largest(with only 2 miserable floors of quasi-decent shopping) mall and look for new stuff. unfortunately, there isn't too much good stuff, but there's enough to get me by the next week at home *grin*

bad: if my house was kashmir, my mum would be india, my dad pakistan and me: an earthquake victim. vader syndrome just hit real bad and it's almost depressing(who am i kidding,it IS depressing). all through lunch today i was contemplating contracting a wasting disease that will kill me off by the time i hit 21. home isn't really a very happy place. sorry, dirty laundry, i know. =(

ooh ooh ooh, and in my half an hour long reverie at the mall, i saw seven collar t-shirt's 'drones'. i wanna buy! it 25 ringgit, which is alot cheaper than other malaysian competitors(ie. too phat's new double album: what the hell??) and sounds MUCH better..must get!

and in a somewhat related matter, i am no longer impressed by t-shirts. i haven't discussed this with anyone before really, but its been a downhill slope which has probably lasted all of 3 years and now i find myself completely disillusioned by t-shirts. in the past 3 years, i haven't seen a t-shirt that has made me salivate enough to make me want to fork out money for it. shirts still do that(very often, my presence at G2000/Topman/phenomenal requires a clean up after i leave). but t-shirts just don't. someone care to explain why? designs aren't that great, colours are so..limited, and slogans emblazoned across chests are just excuses to get people to look at your chest or just tell the world how immature you are..shirts are the way to go!

although one t-shirt i'd just LOVE to have is the new CrusAIDSers t-shirts. yes people, when they do go on sale after the break, do buy. support an AIDS victim today!

the bitchy butterfly

2005-10-29T12:30:00.000-07:00

it was the week before sumatives and i walked out of the library and was headed to the e-Labs to get something printed..and then i heard the laughing. trust me, it's impossible to not miss. so i turned around to see my housemate and his girlfriend coming down the stairs(finE..escelator, but it doesn't work, so i call it the stairs lor) from the rooftop.

so they come rushing towards me and tell me that they now have a new nickname for me. which made me wonder if i had an older one(my name isn't easily converted to anything shorter, or cuter, or anything that isn't my name)

'we're going to call you the bitchy butterfly'

after which they prance off to the auditorium for their second lecture, leaving me standing at thenotice board, positively flabbergasted.

later at home i decide to ask my housemate for an explanation. i'm not exactly annoyed or angry but more curious than anything else. and then i got the explanation(which made me wonder if i was better off without it)

bitchy - is in reference to the fact that i am one, and i also do it..pretty self explanatory yes, but do i partake in the activity often enough that it warrants me getting a related nickname? =P
butterfly - is in reference to the fact that i'm a lesbian. i'm not easily surprised(scared, maybe =P) but this one caight me offguard. i'm used to being called gay, or bisexual but this was the first time anyone ever called me a lesbian(i'm male see, something is seriously wrong when someone decides to call me a lesbian). my housemate then elaborated: i'm a woman stuck in a man's body with an affinity towards other women. .

alot to stomach yes, i'm not sure if i agree..but the nickname has been given, but not used since the incident. an experience not exactly traumatising, but bewildering, definately.

the importance of being..nice

2005-10-25T10:43:00.000-07:00

the past week and a half of ossification(an elementary step towards fossilization, which isn't happening..rejoice!) have shown me many different things. some of which i will blog about in what i hope will turn out to be a long, somewhat pensive but not entirely meandering (albeit funny) post.

summatives turned out alright. not as anal as i'd expected it to be and i'm guessing i made a fair amount of muck ups here and there. am keeping my fingers crossed in hopes that i'll do well. but the sheer nice-ness of certain people during trying times is quite overwhelming..

we all know that seniors, regardless of how much they rag you during orientation(there's no correlation see) have the innate potential to be nice. we all do, we all become seniors eventually. but why people so much higher in the food chain would choose to care as much and actually go out of their way to help you is really on the fringes of comprehension..here are a few examples:

the debate seniors organized a little QnA thingy for us semester 1s about an hour after their CNS exam. an average person couldn't be arsed to help anyone within 24 hours of sitting for a nerve wracking(haha) exam. and this just goes to prove that they're not average(further on this later) but they did. and it was useful, very much so. but what was most beneficial was the fact that i(of not all of us), went home feeling a little better about our prospects and just generally..better. the sheer portions that we had to cover was getting to me nearing friday and the session did wonders to ease the tension
from sunday night onwards, i received numerous messages on me phone wishing me luck for summatives the next morning. from the parents(who've stuck with me for eons) and friends and some very unexpected people. thanks so much guys =)
again on sunday night, i was up going through my nutrition notes and was about to get to bed when YP messaged me asking if i wanted chocolates or ice cream for luck. and i really didn't expect it(still am very much overhwhelmed and touched) but she took the effort to drive down to vista C, come up to my place and deliver chocolates. once again, not something the average person would do. thanks so much YP, u really are a darling, along with the rest of you(you know who you are)

the sheer nice-ness, as i said earlier, can be overwhelming. but here's the problem: it's not average. there have also been several experiences in the past week(some as recent as the night before) which have shown me a stark contrast which in every sense is eqully overwhelming. it's really quite amazing how people can be exceedingly incosiderate and really just plain mean. it's not good to air my firty laundry in public thus i won't elaborate further, but it'll suffice to say that for ever nice person that exists, there are prolly 500 who aren't. which is very disturbing..

isn't it supposed to be an intrinsic quality? being nice, kind, considerate, giving, caring? one doesn't necessarily need to be friendly and throw him/herself around offering help but it really is the little things that add up. and i'm a firm believer that one can still be whoever they want to be(a bitch, perhaps =P) but still endeavour to be nice.

a little more effort is all i need, that's all. i'm not as nice as i once was..

curtains

2005-10-13T19:54:00.000-07:00

i finished my AIR topic thingy in a quarter ot the time everyone else took(i took one, the others took four). this is in no way me singing praises to my superior intellect(no need to justify, look also know edy =P) but it's actually kinda got me worried. yih seong read it and said it sounded like something that wasn't plagarized, although he did mentioned it had similarities to his(want to join my club is it?)..but again he took longer than i did.

who actually bothers to sit themselves down and read through 190+ summaries about THE SAME THING. and since there's not much leeway when it comes to the terms we use(actions potentials are PROPOGATED..what else can they do?take the train?hitch a ride?), i'm guessing that after about 20 articles or so, all of them begin to sound the same(again:the same topic).bad english can only give you that much variety wei..i really don't see the point in this AIR stuff..just another ingredient in IMU's inexhaustible(but oh so delicious) alphabet soup. bleh.

i need new curtains, desperately. they looked so cool when i bought them but little did i know when i agreed to move in to my current place, thay they're be rendered pretty useless. if i haven't whined about it to you before( i usually mention this within the first five minutes of my talking to them), my room windows look on to a fire exit and a huge KELUAR sign, the only source of light in that little corridor. thus, regardless of the time of day, light streams into my room and i am constantly overcome by the urge to leave my room(get it? get it?).

the curtains don't do much to keep the light out, and since there isn't much proper light to be let in, they're drawn, all the time. making my room look like a blue box straight out of IKEA. =( i want a view, or for the meantime, darker curtains..

optimistic without reason

2005-10-12T22:57:00.000-07:00

there's something almost surreal about driving in kl at night. maybe it's the fact that i'm from ipoh and most roads are deserted a little after sunset, the only ones still reltively(i repeat, RELATIVELY)packed are the ones feeding into hawker centres. maybe it's a combination of the city lights, the right amount of cars(not many) on the road and the bends. oh, the bends =)

i miss ipoh, i honestly do, so much. but i'm guessing can learn to like kl. poetic ammo painted very vivid(blue, read and green hair) pictures but it boils down to what you(i) make of it. and in this case i hope it's the best.

globalization? pish posh!

2005-10-10T22:13:00.000-07:00

a topic favoured amongst primary school public speakers. i stil remember the time at the national levels when we(the secondary school level participants) chose to speak about more..abstract topics(windows, and i chose to speak about cabbages..ask me about it sometime), the younger ones were vehemently speaking against globalization, war and cruelty to animals. quite the role reversal, we felt like the primary school participants.

in their 6 minute prepared speeches they spoke of how the borders between countries would cease to be of any significance and that eventually everybody would connected to each other thanks to the leaps and bound in telecommunications..standard run of the mill opinions about globalization and how we're all screwed as a result. but it can be quite interesting if given more thought..

friendster aims to prove that there are only 6 degrees of separation between everyone(you didn't know? it's original aim wasn't to let you hoarde testimonials =P) and believe it or not, 'friendster' situations happen in real life..

we all find ourselves in conversations where we find out we're linked to people like this:-
you-->so and so--->so and so's friend which u *might* know
those situations, though freaky at first, become quite routine as your social circles increase in size.

and then there's that other scenario where you're off 'reading other people's friendster profiles' and u find someone whom u know from before. and then u find out that things like this happen in real life..ie. me finding out that i know Adeline from a phone interview she conducted. and she knows sara! damn it's a small world =)

hello again adeline! told u i was funny *grin*

swinging both ways?

2005-10-08T11:26:00.000-07:00

over a series of conversations with adeline the past couple of day's i've been forced to defend my sexuality more than h've ever had to in the past month.(i can't use a longer period of time to give you a more stark contrast because i'm forced to defend my sexuality quite often) and it's a little disheartening to have to defend your sexuality when yours is about the same as almost everybody else's : straight.

thats right chaps(and adeline :P) i AM straight. but it's also interesting that people take notice and are concerned that i may not be. after all, social outcry is something which is almost quintissential to the process of change itself, the change in this context being not that of my sexuality, but the mindsets of the people around me. (aha! defense!)

the average male doesn't really care about what they're caught dead in. those of us in the 'doubtful' category are quite picky. we'd like to die in something stylish, and when i near 25 i'm getting my first bespoke suit made, the one i'm gonna be wearing in my coffin. i'm dying in style baby. and this point helps to illustrate the fact that image plays a very important role in our lives, for women, and more so for metrosexuals.

but we're still straight.

we just dress well, understand women better and are unafraid to admit that orlando bloom can be quite good looking and that gavin yap has intellectual sex appeal. we're definately different, can be quite interesting..and are definately straight.

oh, and somehow being linked as 'swan princess' might confuse people who actually get here..but i don't mind. we all don't. we don't usually take offense, we love you guys the same :P

attempts

2005-10-05T20:07:00.000-07:00

i should, but then

2005-10-05T18:50:00.001-07:00

i've got my lecture notes in front me, summatives are in a little less than twenty days. i hate to say this but at certain times i couldn't be arsed to study.instead, i choose to think the following thoughts:-

i'm hungry;damn it would be fun to be a girl;i wish i was filthy rich;with a swimming pool of money;i want to rob topshop;hmm..threepointsix seems to have interesting clothes, how much do they cost?;will i meet edwin sumun when i do my elective?;i want hair like gavin yap;but you need high cheek bones to be able to pull off long-ish hair;*looks at mirror*;i miss chili's;i wanna go shopping;isohaem..wha?;i need to get darren's number;damn i'm hungry;*ruffles lecture notes* isohaemaglutinins!

god save me

on dealing away with orphans altogether

2005-10-01T19:46:00.000-07:00

IMU cup was fun..and i swear i'm not being ironic. i guess debatinghas proven to be fun, even if the outcome isn't always what you want it to be. but considering the fact that the one person i'll be answearble to for the rest of my life(me) is ok with my performance(or so i think) i'll be able to sleep well tonight. but of course i'm tempted to think that the situation was a) not irrepairable and b)we could have done something about it, i will try to let the issue lie. we did what we could and in a tournament proper, the situation would have ended up similarly : with a crappy final.

it was quite sad really, watching the more experienced debaters trying to bring the debate back to where it should have been, the whole effort can be likened to flogging a dead horse : pointless. and once again my theory on there being two kinds of humour still stands, this debate(a humour round according to some) was obviously of the latter sort: the kind that makes you cry, bypassing the laughing which usually occurs in initial stages.

me and yih seong have clear consciences..and we're happy. in a way. seniors do rock, because for all the excretory fluids which flow downwards, they do hand you much-required tissue when you soil yourself =) thanks yee pei, sheena, adeline, vasan. absolutely fab =)

but regardless how bad debating has always been to be, right from the Miss Foo days to today afternoon, i guess the one point Pui San(i don't really care if i spelt wrong =P) got right was that i'm not gonna quit this.it's just too much fun.

glad you're not having trouble on the buddy department Kak, but your other half doesn't seem to be doing as well as you. and praveen, the article was about US primarily and others who may be in the same boat. not just you you perasan lil bugger. =P oh, and this is gonna sound very wrong but i had an odd dream about actually missing Zarif last night..hehehehe. the rest of you KTJ peeps who read this, get back to me!

pizza party at 9.30! yeay!

on handouts and urinals

2005-09-29T23:42:00.000-07:00

thanks for the printing advice yee pei, but that's what i did. somehow it didn't work. i was pretty puzzled meself. and thanks for the offer to come down to the cal lab to help, i might actually follow up on it sometime. thanks senior =)

boarding school makes friendships alot easier. proximity helps by helping people bond alot faster than they would in normal circumstances but i guess the bit which sets it apart from the real world is the fact that it's almost like a superstore in itself. u get a myriad of people(foul mouthed koreans included) you can choose to meet and spend time with, and spending time in itself is made a whole lot easier becuase you live with these people. damn we had it easy back in ktj. but for those of you(us?) who may be having issues on the buddy front, chin up yeah? guess we've all forgotten how much effort making friends really requires. and don't bother mentioning the amount of time that needs to be invested..i want to be library furniture, it just seems so much simpler that way.

praveen, and jade, if you guys still read me : miss you guys HEAPS!

Saturday approaches, and i can't really draw a clear distinction between us winging it and us trying to prepare for the debates...it just seems so..inconsequential. we're screwed =( oh and for the record, i don't know who made me unofficial contingent leader yih seong, but obviously enough people have been off making decisions on their own now haven't they?

for whom the bell tolls

2005-09-29T11:09:00.000-07:00

bloddy freaky as hell. the increased public scrutiny isn't as fun as i would once hoped it'd be.

Just showed this girl from Sem 2 how to access her I drive and print out her lecture notes in handout form but somehow it didnt trun out right. the printer kept printing out slides..now i feel sorry as hell for having screwed a senior over, not intentionally of course but she went away displeased. i don't want to get pissed on, please forgive me senior =(

was nice to see sara online today morning, and yes dear, keep in bloggin'! will try to do the same here, but(look up) increased readership can make one nervous. i'll try k?

for the people

2005-09-14T18:04:00.000-07:00

thats right chaps, me is still very much alive, just haven't blogged in a bit..sorry?

i just deleted a whole paragraph of stuff i typed right here. the beginnings of a bad habit?maybe so..

'the life' at the moment officially consists of the following ingredients:
medical lectures-sleep, lots of it-shirts n ties-dried chili chicken-varsity debating-a red proton satria-the kesas highway-2 roti bom, 1 teh ais-driving-sleep, or lack of-best friends

=)

fifity-fifty..more like twenty five-eighteen

2005-08-15T20:10:00.000-07:00

put a twenty five year old next to an eighteen year old and what you get, like the numbers show, is not equal pertions.a few examples!:

a) when the 25yearold and the 18yearold are forced(of course we were!) to share the same queen size bed(which, by the way, when split right down the centre can provide enough space for the two), one is forced to suffer because the other decides that sleeping diagonally is in. i suffer. and i mop the floors as well =(

b)when the 25yearold and the 18yearold are forced to share the same satria, the older one gets the cake because, as the universal laws of the younger-gets-it-in-the-ass dictate, the older one(obviously enough) has more things to do than the younger one =(

we demand equal portions! and by we i mean me alone, because i dont take that much space(literally, metaphorically) *runs away*

the man-maid strikes again!

2005-08-13T12:02:00.000-07:00

to those who pay attention(i.e. me, and not many else), there's a counter on this page now(bottom right jackass). the purpose of this magical multi-coloured, and thus uber cool counter, is not to measure/keep track of the increasingly large amounts of traffic this page gets, but to prove that this page, like it's namesake(duh) is a monologues, and thus the only one who visits is me =P i'm a bitch, i know. tell your friends! hehehehe

lavan thinks the opening bit(why do i lie to myself. that bit that goes on and aon all through the song) of 'Get Right' by Jeniffer Lopez is cool but she screws the song over by singing on it. for the first time in hostory, Jeniffer Lopez is way more bearable than the hook. that hook/loop/piece of shit is part of a government mind control project. on the alternative to chinese water torture. and the pulling of leg hair, one by one.

yeay!

the beautiful letdown

2005-08-09T14:09:00.000-07:00

somehow it just seems like i've taken the scenic route. no places where i have to stop, pay me dues, incur losses. a gorgeous view all the way, the fleeting condifence that i'm doing things differently, straying from the beaten track and having a whole lot more fun along the way. yet, at the end of it all, eyes teary, unable to comprehend the beauty of the journey now behind me, i stand at the same place i didn't really want to go. different from where i left, both geographically and metaphorically, but still the same. i've ended up where(i have a nagging feeling) i'm supposed(?) to be. so much for the scenic route. it was fun while it was lasted.

to those who care, worry not about consoling or convincing me otherwise. as with many things i initially was not used to, i will cope and as i have some instances proven, learn to like(i.e. KTJ, my being short..hehe). in time. and with space.

but due thanks have been given. and a celebratory roti bom shall be had(i hope).

congratulations jade, lavanya, zarif, fadzrul and yiing ting. for those whom i haven't heard from/of yet, congratulations as well! see you guys next thursday =)

as of june next year:
Prasad Palani Velu, A Level Examination, currently studying at International Medical University, Kuala Lumpur
ahh..*title*

man-maid

2005-08-03T09:54:00.000-07:00

heya chaps. the navel gazing has ended, only to be replaced by more..tangible(?) pursuits, i.e. mopping floors and doing the dishes. and thus the lack of time for thought and consecutively: intellectuality and the fruit of that most amazing property which few posses: posts. =)

got a little more than two weeks before uni, need to(fine, want to) start shopping..like right now!

feeling bored? dowload:
1) hard-fi - hard to beat
2)fall out boy - sugar, we're going down
3)baby badh ft. akon - i'm back

don't ask about the third pick.

the bigger they are..

2005-07-29T18:53:00.000-07:00

some of us grew up on healthy portions of Dragon Ball and Doraemon.(no Naruto for me thanks, i'm in dire need for an addiction but no, that just don't cut it =P) and in the latter of the two, one gadget kept popping up often enough. Doraemon had this flashlight which could enlarge things, thus making them larger(obviously) than they originally were. he also had this other flashlight which worked antagonistically to the former, bringing us to a grand total of two very cool flashlights.

what Nobita(and his friends) and the rest of us failed to see that to blow things up, or to cut them down we don't really need a blue cat(who in reality is a robot, sans ears) with a pocket full of gadgets. unless that's exactly what we find in our heads.

maybe it's intrinsic, part of us, of our nature to not view things as they are. it would help if we all calmed down once in a while but we're addicted to the drama and thus, we tend to blow things up. bigger=better. until bigger can't keep it up any longer.

we all do it with situations(blow things up) but i'm guessing its alot worse when we do it people. when we make them seem alot larger than they really are, give too much respect, give too much creedit and in turn, set standards for them, which no way it their normal, no enlarged states they achieve.

and thus the people around us come crashing down. and where once gargantuan statues(in valiant poses!) stood, now lie piles of rubble, which when measured, are just as high as you are. when it comes to it, the same wisdom doesn't aply to everyone. you may be what you amke yourself out to be but for other people? right now, it doesn't seem like it's of much worth making them out to be more than what they really. they rarely live up to what you amke them out to be.

and the bigger they are, the harder the fall. and your hopes(maybe theirs as well?) are dashed.

a little overdue

2005-07-28T19:25:00.000-07:00

but honestly, for a band without a guitar, keane rocks!

come on home

2005-07-27T20:09:00.000-07:00

is the title of a franz ferdinand song(thus highly attractive and very very good)

and also what twilight makes you do. all them doting grandmothers do make sense when they tell you to not do stuff during the twilight hours(clip fingernails, wash hair, take a crap). somehow twilight brings along with it, both the darkness of night and a sense of urgency. it's almost as if the darkening sky goads you to find shelter, it warns of coming dangers, it's almost ominous.

come on home is also what my father did. glad he did though, after having called twice in the whole two weeks, it's not that hard to allude that he's discovered things more worth returning to than us(impossible!). but he's home.

lavan, come on home.

skinny dipping!

2005-07-25T20:44:00.000-07:00

it's odd how intimate blogs really are. and how brazen people tand to be about them. sure i don't document every single thought that arises, or every deep dark secret but still even thoughts are intimate. i don't think many realize the endless potential of a thought, or a spoken word. how we have the power to influence others and the world around us by our actions. and how by every action, we allow the world room to attack, to influence us in return. blogs are..dangerous. blogs are exceedingly intimate..blogs breed stalkers too. =P

random

2005-07-19T11:42:00.000-07:00

-when my brother comes home, i will have a bed to sleep in, but i doubt i'll be placed in a room i'd actually like to be in, that's in mantin.
-which means,i might have to sleep in a cupboard. bloddy potter boy returns to haunt us all, regardless of how
-after having left school and spending two weeks at home, i have the attention span of a dung beetle
-but i have as much patience that one would expect a man seated high atop a mountain(loin cloth, ant hills, meditation included) to have: quite a bit
-i.am.bored.to.bits .thankyou.
-i have no(fine, almost none) friends here, never had too many in the first place(bloddy hell) but suddenly it seems to bother me
-placebo isn't that great a band. all you angst ridden teens on livejournal can have a cucumber each
-just because i skip songs on winamp it doesn't necessarily mean i don't like the songs on my playlist..i'm just..temperamental? *chortle*
-when it comes to kuching, i always miss out. the first time it was at, the second time it was on.
-did i say i was bored?
-a year long membership fee for a month's worth of lessons(four!) at the perak academy sounds a little..unreasonable. but attractive nonetheless
-i want to make my charmbracelet, preferrably today
-i wish star wars:republic commando had more levels. and i wish we didn't have to lose 07
-i thought the phone just rang. it didn't. i wish it would, more often at least.

colour me bad

2005-07-14T15:14:00.000-07:00

I got out of the car in the sweltering heat. Like a Star Wars special edition, my memories have been made more visually pleasing with vapour making it’s slow journey upwards from the hot tar of the road. The unnatural heat was the fault of some Nino or the other but regardless of who was to blame, it was doing a very good job at keeping the place warm.

Thinking that it was an apt time for a nice, refreshing cendol(sans beans), me and my brother take the car for a short spin, down the road to the compound of our neighbourhood mosque. The initial excitement at the thought of cendol was marred a little bit when we were greeted by not only the cendol man and his shiny new truck-cum-stall(probably the inspiration behind the Music Canteen portable stage =P) but a whole slew of thirsty, sweaty people, all lusting for their own share of the good stuff.

Something I would eventually notice due to its being brought to my attention, was that everyone there was malay. I pride myself in not having noticed the fact myself at first, but I regret that I was forced to notice. If courtesy truly is the Malaysian way of life, I’d think that I was being served by a foreigner. And I still like to placate myself by thinking that I was, on certain days at least.

I walked up to the man, my little treasure: RM1, safe in the impenetrable fortress which was my left fist. A smile spread across my face as I knew that my current inedible treasure will in a few short moments be traded in for what at that moment seemed to be the ultimate prize: cendol.

I used my ‘big man’ voice, the one which usually seemed to attract more attention, and asked for a cendol, nervously unclenching my left fist, dropping guard on my fortress, showing him that I would pay in return for his cendol. He nodded. I handed him the coin and waited for him to prepare my cendol.

The wait was usually never a long one. I was usually a happy customer within 2 minutes of my stating my order. But it was different today. There was a new variable in the equation: the crowd.

20 mins after getting out of the car, my spoils, unfortunately, do not include two plastic bags of ice cold cendol. Instead, I’m still clutching my dollar coin, waiting for the proprietor to acknowledge my sorry 11 year old existence. Maybe if I was a little thinner, almost emaciated he would’ve given me some attention and come rushing to my aid with cendol. But I wasn’t, and neither did he.

Being on the receiving end of racism, regardless of whether it’s the in-your-face KKK kind or the more discrete (*chortle*) Malaysian variety, isn’t a wonderful experience. Having been out in such a situation makes you wonder if you are a racist yourself. I do know that that very incident made me lose my what at that time was insatiable craving for cendol, but also made me realize that innocence was lost, a small portion of it, albeit a very important part when the whole is being considered.

To realize a particular fault in others, one must possess that very same fault, even if it is in the most miniscule of amounts. We’re all racist now aren’t we? Every time we fill in a form and have to check one of the three (or the fourth followed by a dotted line) boxes next to the word ‘race’ we are reminded that we have our differences. Differences are well and good, but in our race to identify ourselves and in the search for individuality, the colour of our skin, their associated stereotypes and the reactions they bring in tow aren’t of much use, they just make what was supposed to be a 2 minute wait a whole lot longer.

The queues are not just found at cendol stalls nationwide. Government departments and tellers and police stations and shopping centres alike. Every time someone gets ahead of the line (for a reason we don’t usually know), there’s always someone (usually further down in the queue) saying, even if under their breaths, that race was a very big factor in that one person getting away. Rarely do we consider that maybe someone had an emergency they had to attend to. We’re all guilty, in varying degrees yes, but guilty regardless.

Every single time we take pride in the fact that we are a multi-racial country living in harmony, we are reminded that we are of different races. When we take notice that we are different, the seeds of racism have been planted. Sure, each race comes with its own package of stereotypes but I have met many a Chinese person who isn’t good at math and many a Malay person who doesn’t rely completely on the government but is self sufficient and many an Indian who doesn’t cudgel his wife.

Race: a necessary evil? I’d like to think not. But as I mentioned earlier, every time we take notice, we succumb to the call of what will develop into a greater evil. An unnecessary one. But we’re guilty now aren’t we?

best of you?best of me

2005-07-13T00:37:00.000-07:00

isn't happening now. everybody has their hang ups. it'd be nice if i was old enough(it has to be because of my age, i can't be denied it this long without proper reason, or a silly one, like age) to have my own hang ups and get away with them. we're all flawed. and we're rarely beautiful because we err. we are ugly. but if that is what we're meant to be, we might as well make a bad job of it. no one really tries do they? i don't see why i should. heavy assed fuckwits.

the best of me:definataly not now.not coming soon either.

solace

2005-07-11T22:20:00.000-07:00

with much trepidition i walk up to the stall. the faint glow if the well lit 7-11 behind me is in an odd way,reassuring. almost in contrast to my now source of comfort, one tubelight is all he needs to illuminate his work place. by the way he dresses i'm guessing that he does something else in the daytime, play in a band or something aong those lines. the converse trainers and the trucker cap : giveaways.

i read the menu. comic sans ms on yellow paper, laminated. no grammatical errors, no prices above RM5, no words in french which you nor the waiter can't pronounce. i look up once again at the man, deftly breathing new life into the patties. not a hint of a condescending glint in his eyes, only sweat on his brow.

after a brief wait i claim my prize, first clutching it, then letting it hang from my two fingers, cradled in a plastic bag. it nestles close to my thigh, spreading it's warmth, not only to my thigh, but it now wells up in heart as well.

the drive home is to franz ferdinand's 'take me out'. i crane my neck to the right and notice i line of kancils in front of me. behind the wheel of my satria, i feel lke a king. the smell of my prize wafts into my nose. it's warmth on my thigh has ceased, it now lies on the passenger seat. but it's warmth has left an imprint.

joy comes from the simplest of things : burgers. proton satrias. franz ferdinand. air conditioning. puma trainers.

whoever was commissioned to design our planet must've been a bleeding genius. either that or by some amazing stroke of luck must've caused him to design the earth as a sphere(or something like it). regardless of who or where we are, if we choose to think about it, we will come to realize that we can always choose to be on top of the world. if we choose to.

and with further thought, we can also consider ourselves to be over the moon. if we choose to look at it that way.

and sunlight breaks through the clouds

2005-07-11T12:29:00.000-07:00

unlike what was asked for, not glints of silver, but beams of gold

When I find myself in times of trouble
Mother Mary comes to me
Speaking words of wisdom, let it be.
And in my hour of darkness
She is standing right in front of me
Speaking words of wisdom, let it be.
And when the broken hearted people
Living in the world agree,
There will be an answer, let it be.
For though they may be parted there is
Still a chance that they will see
There will be an answer, let it be.
Let it be, let it be.
YeahThere will be an answer, let it be.
And when the night is cloudy,
There is a light that shines on me,
Shine until tomorrow, let it be.
I wake up to the sound of music,
Mother Mary comes to me,
Speaking words of wisdom, let it be.
Let it be, let it be.
There will be an answer, let it be.
Let it be, let it be,
Whisper words of wisdom, let it be.

i smell..

2005-07-11T11:06:00.000-07:00

alcohol and cigarettes..no, really.

silver

2005-07-11T10:59:00.000-07:00

and that is in reference to my voice which comes in only second to jade 'is liked more by miss lee' lim. miss ya loads dear. bug me when u get back from kuching!

about a week and a half since i've been back in ipoh and already i feel so rotten. somehow i think that having your parents think(aloud at that) about going to india twice in a week weighs down on you, in an odd way(assuming that, like i do, you don't really fancy india, not for now at least). but i do think it's all about timing. it bothers me how much of a 'here and now' person i've become. i refuse to look back, which is good. i don't look forward too much, everything seems(fortunately enough) pretty settled for now and there's not much else i can do about what is yet to happen.

which leaves me with the gift of now(the present *dub dub dush*). unfortunately there's not much i can do with the present. can't watch jit murad, not much of a point in bringing it up with my sponsors either.

i need to be somewhere else. fine, i want to. don't need to. save me?
as i look up i fail to see the reassuring glint of silver in all this grey. show me?

one missed call

2005-07-06T23:52:00.000-07:00

is the title of what i think is a bad korean(or some other form of asian, except south?) horror movie. and also happens to be what i'm waiting for right now =)

if paper thin models make fat girls feel the way they're supposed to(i'm evil! see you in purgatory), MTV makes anti-socials(like me) feel lonely. And uncool. After much deliberation i have decided that i need to be one, if not all, of the following three

cool
famous
a writer

i'm guessing that when one of the three comes crashing in through the window(with apt timing!), the other two will not be very far behind. Doubt my logic? Consider this: If i'm famous/cool, it doesn't matter if i write absolute rot, i'd still be read. And i shall thus become a writer! AhA! I doubt i'll complain much if i happen to be shelved together with other fellow writers(of the cool variety) like Victoria Beckham. But i just might change my mind. I probably will.

the end of rock stardom

2005-07-06T00:00:00.000-07:00

from effervescence to human value songs. and the need for a best friend to help figure out chords. i'm coming out of the closet, i'm no lenny kravitz or slash, but i played with Rahat Hussain =) miss ya loads you little Bangla.

sound the alarm

2005-06-30T10:36:00.000-07:00

I can hear the ringing of the school bell. I wish we could have a fire drill right now. I wish we could have one in the middle of the night, at the frequency we used to have them when we were in lower sixth. If there was one thing imran could always be proud of was the speed at which me make our great escapes. Minimum time, maximum noise. We’d always know there was going to be a fire drill when Mr. Jackman mentions how the house ‘can burn like a tinder box’ during house meetings on Wednesdays. Certain Wednesdays. I’m guessing we were the only house which didn’t have regular house meetings. In a very odd way, imran did a lot of things differently. But Mr. Jackman’s words will always ring true: it’s all in good fun.

It’s been great fun. It’s been a whale of a time. As puerile as it sounds, it sucks to have to leave. Goodbye Mantin, you shall never have to be confused with Seremban or Nilai anymore, al least in any conversations I’m a part of.

I should get to packing now.

in good company

2005-06-29T11:42:00.000-07:00

Doesn’t happen very often but I guess it happens to all of us at some point. Here I am with a bunch of people, a couple of them are talking and I’m thinking to myself ‘what the fuck?’ I guess there are times when you feel that you don’t want to be part of certain conversations. But people can get tiring. This probably isn’t a common malady but having to deal with people takes effort, it does for me at least.

It’s never a matter of what you do albeit it IS always a matter of who you’re doing it with. And although I’ve been reminded (rather brusquely I think) that not everything can be considered kinky, I’m sure that last statement can =)

to have it and to eat it too

2005-06-27T10:13:00.000-07:00

In tamil he asks his son to get the water ready for his shower when he gets home at midnight. He hangs up. The only light in the taxi now is the faint blue glow of his handphone screen. His headlights aren’t switched on. He knows the road too well. As the wind blows on my face from the open window of the taxi, I realize this will probably be the last time I come back to school, off a train and fresh out of the big city in a cab. The 11 ‘o clock curfew will mean no more. Odd, it never meant a thing to Damien every since he came to school we miss you Damien. And the rest of us who leave will be missed as well, dearly.

But in times like these one realizes that we do have the cake. And we do get to eat it too. The hot water, the handphones with colour screens, the ability to be able to do something different(even slightly, the meals count) everyday. The privilege of being able to have the cheek to ask for more, even after being given all that we have. In varying degrees, we all have our cakes: large, small, blueberry cheese and chocolate regardless. But the point when we shove it down out traps is the point when we ask for more, and we know that we have a chance, even the slightest, to get what we want…eventually, with effort of well timed strokes of luck.

We are fortunate, no point in denying that. There’s no point in denying that we want more either. We have our cakes, every single one of us. Those of us ahead in the race to the pearly gates have shared (at some point at least) and are probably still handing out slices. Care to share?

a johnny?

2005-06-23T10:56:00.000-07:00

i'm pretty sure i had my head tilted back,slightly(if not wholly) off the pillow and i had my mouth open. and in my head, i was stuck in a seminar room chock full of indian people. some dude who looked alot like the father of this annoying lil' munchkin bitch was speaking on the mike and was asking questions, sort of like this quiz thing. and i answered. can't remember what the question was but i know what i said:industry. i knew it was the right answer, he knew it too. but he just said 'wrong' really loud and the crowd breaks into fits of laughter. which turn into cackles. and applause. and he came to me and said 'i pulled a johnny on ya'.

the combined effects of boredom, coffee and dostoyevsky? very much so

nobody's home

2005-06-20T11:56:00.000-07:00

stupid avril song.we should've performed it hong chan =)
its crappy being in school when no one's around(bye yen chong!) and having 10 days left.with absolutely nothing to do.no internet access also(nouras i love you!), not in the comfort of my own room at least.how i envy them four internationals.every single one of them with their laptops and internet access.porn addicts.blergh.
it sucks to be a product of the mould sara, it really does, but i doubt i'll regret it. not later at least, and definately not for long(me fingers are crossed). and by the way, me wants to spend the week over at your place =P call me!

baffled

2005-06-17T11:49:00.000-07:00

ohmigosh! 'tis true! there's only 6 degrees of separation between anyone. trust me, i counted, real life experiment some more! fooyoh!

but killing the bafflement are several thing which are currently nipping at my heels.annoying bitches.

MSN Messenger won't connect so i can't check if either jade or sara is online so i can share my amazing discovery with them (you won't believe who this involves jade! here's a clue:perfume /underwear brand! =P)
the AirAsia website is screwed so i can;t check if i can get the maid a ticket to jakarta.amma won't take this as an excuse.i shall be screwed along with the website
topper(me laptop,yes HE's been named,even though he's not here yet) isn't here yet. will prolly have to wait until later today before he gets delivered..waaa

bosaaaaan..sara,i'm sorry for not being able to keep you awake last night, kinda had some other stuff to do?the excuse prolly doesn't cut it but i'm sorry either way.msg when u read this =)