I woke today hearing the lizards making weird chirping noises that sounded like a drowning bird; hearing Lanna barking at something I assumed to be a toad that lumbered into my yard; but not hearing the usual blaring of my alarm clock.

My first thought was that I slept pass the Ain’t No Holla Back Girl alarm tone (which never usually fails to wake me) and that I was most likely late for my photojournalism exam paper, but the dark sky outside and the lingering cold air of early mornings told me otherwise. I settled back hoping to sleep until my actual waking time, and I did.

I dreamt that Michelle was offering me a packet of biscuit waffles, which I politely declined. Isaac then appeared wearing like he did during our Introduction to Drama presentation act, and with his Pickering voice told me that that was no way to treat a lady. He proceeded to stuff my mouth with the biscuit waffles. I was shouting “Don’t ruin my diet!” over the thick vanilla crisps, only to spew them onto Mr. Yusof, my photojournalism teacher, and he failed my paper on the spot. I had to pay my monthly allowance for a re-sit, and while doing the paper the guys appeared and laughed at me. It turned out that add-maths was required to calculate the balance between aperture and shutter speed for the perfect camera exposure, and since I forgot fishes about additional mathematics, Mr. Yusof failed me again. I was yelling at him only to find myself yelling at a Jurassic Park arcade game. Then I thought, why not? I rolled in a token and blasted a few raptors, zombies and Cloud Strifes, who told me that I didn’t equip his materia properly, and now he’ll get PWN-ed by Sephiroth. I told him to shut up, because I was cold, and I was supposed to be asleep…

Calling this morning a cold morning wouldn’t be entirely true, nor was it entirely an understatement. It was cold, for one, but perhaps not as much colder than I had to undergo. My morning shower almost send me into a shivering frenzy, and approaching my car parked lopsidedly at the lamppost outside my house I was greeted by a wind perfect on warm days but nasty in freezing mornings. Thankfully on mornings like this I get chee cheong fun to warm me into blissful satisfaction. It feels that the chee cheong fun store at the market has become a makeshift bar of sorts, and aunty have become my makeshift bartender (that serves up a hot plate of chee cheong fun and yong tau foo in chilli). And I’m like a workman who needed his alcohol fix after work, downing a few shots of whisky or whatsits while leaning over the counter to chat up the bartender. At the stall I would plunge myself into utter awakening as the chilli toils warmth in me stomach, and aunty would tell me all sorts of things, from milo being too sweet when served outside to people who sell flowers despite a diploma cert in their hands.

Still, the morning proved too cold even for aunty’s best chilli and soup to remedy. The train was freezing. The LRT was freezing. The college bus I took was freezing. The CIT lab was freezing, and doubly so when some idiot found it hot in there and fanned himself with a bunch of papers, so that I get the wind too. And during my paper I had the misfortune to sit underneath the air-cond, which froze the heck out of me halfway through my second essay question. I had my windbreaker on, but it could only do as much as to keep the chilly winds from directly hitting my skin. I even had my hood up at times, like an Eskimo taking his A-Levels in a refrigerated igloo.

You know you’re in trouble when your start wondering if your question papers would make a good bonfire. Add in a couple of dry figs and diesel and I could have several charmanders crawling from their burrows to bask in its warming glory.

What’s a charmander?

(OMFG Pokemon).

After the exam and lunch over at the college canteen (in which I ate in the company of ladies thick with conversation that I could never seem to participate in, even when I’m practically brought into it), I slept my way (yes, slept) to Berjaya Times Square and subsequently Sungei Wang to check on the modem routers. Literally lost in Sungei Wang, I spotted the familiar, small built of a girl carrying the ever unmistakable orange-and-black bag, with her bespectacled face among the crowd of shoppers (a look which I could distinguish miles away while wearing spectacled coated with cooking oil). And Amber’s look when she finally saw me was as priceless as a Mastercard advertisement.

“A large mall as this and I could still run into you,” said she, in her strangely amusing Cantonese.

Coincidence could only come so far, mon ami. The rest is all misfortune and tough luck on your part.

Well, she was kind enough to point and walk me the correct way to Low Yat, after I aggravated her enough with a multitude of things. I still owe her a few meals.

Miss Amber Ng, what would you say to Death Note 2, my treat?

I owe you more than that ;)

Goodnight people.

There was a wind tonight.

It was a strong wind, the type which you wouldn’t probably constitute as merely a wind, like a squall, perhaps, yet it wasn’t powerful enough to for you to deem it as something as intimidating. Still, it was strong enough to shake the branches of trees, to bristle the leaves and blades of grass so that the night became a symphony of rustles and silent wails, and it was gentle enough for you to feel comforted under its breath. There was a certain air of eeriness to it, though, largely because the trembling branches threw shadows on the walls, but if you’re one that doesn’t fear the shadows and whispers of winds, you’ll probably find yourself in a solemn hall of melancholic breeze.

Just like me (but the shadows did creep me out a bit… don’t tell anyone).

If you realise, or took time to realise, you should probably know that winds whispers things. Something inaudible, something that you can’t decipher under the gusts and rustles and whistling, yet you’ll feel as though it is trying to tell something to the world, and the most you can get from it are gist and feelings you sense. You’ll know if the winds are telling a happy tale, or weeping a sad song, or yelling a torrent of anger (you should grasp by now that angry winds are those during storms and hurricanes and whatnot). But then, of course, one as sane minded as you won’t find yourself coming to conclusions such as this; you know, that winds whispers and speaks. Mental. Yeah, I don’t normally deny my state of sanity, so let’s just leave it at that.

Tonight, the winds whisper melancholy and morose.

Perhaps it is my thoughts, my toiling of emotions and sentiments, which most usually find themselves lodged between glum and obliviously cheerful, that made me think that way. Still, there was something about that warm yet chilly gust of air that brought out the depression in me, and I found myself standing in the middle of my lawn, just after managing my pet dogs, and letting the wind wash over me and my gloom.

The song that I sang minutes ago, when I tended to Max’s bowl of rice, seemed to echo with the wind, singing itself in its own tune.

But only love can stay,

Try again and walk away,

But I believe for you and me

The sun will shine one day,

So I just play my part,

And pray you have a change of heart,

But I can make you see it though,

That’s something only love can do…

The feeling of helplessness surfaced, clawing at the walls of my chest and decided upon itself that it should clog my breathing just so I can feel miserable and alone, thus fulfilling its purpose which it was set into when the were the Words at the beginning.

What am I playing at?

Why can’t I just stand up and act, ignoring the fact that I can’t do anything or something worthwhile… worthwhile enough to aid in the soothing of a troubled heart?

The one heart I worry so much about…

I stood there for a while, pondering those things that you know better to place in your own concern, yet can’t help but feel that you ought to worry about it.

It’s not your business. There’s nothing much that you can do.

Nothing much… perhaps.

I turned to walk into the house to liberate myself from the descending knowledge that I was making myself a very easy target for mosquito fodder.

The winds blew again.

Something seized me, something rash and irrational, and I turned and said;

“Can you tell me, then… how do I help her?”

And I stood there, watching as the winds died down, I lingered there on my spot, waiting for an answer I know will not come, yet under the ensuing silence I could almost feel that an answer would, eventually, whisper itself to me, through the winds or the rustle or silence or the roaring cars that pass by.

The winds didn’t return. I felt stupid.

And I walked into the house, feeling as helpless as I ever had, and has, felt.

It feels tiring, everyday. And I thought ever since I got the photojournalism assignment out of the way I would have considerably less hectic days. Well, not that these few days have been anywhere hectic (save Saturday, which I will get to later), but everyday came and went with a weighty sense of lethargy sinking in and numbing the mind.

Ah, the photojournalism assignment… I haven’t, in all my honesty, ever attempted something which I’ve undeniably poured in galleons worth of attention and effort. I have Michelle to thank, because if we didn’t decide to labour on this together as a makeshift team I wouldn’t have an ounce of the motivation needed to complete this exhausting but excessively enlightening (and fun) assignment.

Blink a few blinks, and I found myself liberated from insane the trudging through the many places we had to visit just for that few photo shots of old people eating wholemeal bread with a mug of coffee… yet, in a way, I wonder when I’ll be able to delve myself into another experience that was last month’s, and the thought of it makes me miss it already.

It felt as though I’ve flitted through a month of running around seeking leads, of having to face harsh rejection despite the immense trouble, of placing ourselves in the company of the lonely elderly and taking shots of them whilst listening to the exact definition of ‘grandmother stories’, of paying a visit to an orphanage and having fun there (well, I guess I’m the only one having fun there; Michelle was practically petrified by the culture shock). The prominence of the month had settled with weight on my shoulders; the exhaustion, the lessons, the experience… what a month. And great quality time with Michelle. What more can a single, un-obliged 20 year old guy ask for?

Then the presentation night, which was - if I may be permitted with a little pomposity – greater than I can ever expect. It wasn’t GREAT great, and I was journalistically wrong, but at the end of it I felt the effort pay off, the risk worthwhile and the experience priceless. And my marks for my photo essay wrap it up nice and warm. Cheers J.

Now I face the merciless, ferocious beast that is my semester finals, and it’s very safe to say that I’ve been dutifully vigilant with my continuous procrastination and carefree lazing, so I’m now wallowing in intense guilt while hovering close to the edge of failure. In my defence, however, I can say that the past weekend (especially the Saturday I mentioned earlier) was very unforgiving and willing to allow me some precious study time (most which are normally squandered under daydreams and Final Fantasy 7).

Saturday was a crazy day. Full stop. I was close to the brink of death, and no I’m not kidding, just exaggerating, and truly, Saturday was tiredness of the past month combined together with a year’s worth of social work and lawn-mowing. But the reward was good… no, wait, the reward IS FUCKING AWESOME. What’s the reward, you ask? Why, it’s hard to say it without the risk of bursting into an enthusiastic hysteria. Still, well, you did ask so I’ll just say I GOT MY OWN ROOM! WOooHOOoo!

Finally, after 20 years of my short life, I get to have a room of my own. Which means I have a sanctuary of full-privacy, complete freedom to do whatever I want and a bed I don’t have to share. Banzai! What’s left is a modem router, and soon I get to have an Internet connection without having to undergo mortal combat with my brother for it.

It’s not much, my room, but it’s perfect enough. I have a single bed, a study table which is over 15 years old or so but still fine, my novel collection right beside me, my laptop and a TV (which I haven’t gotten around to fix up, and it’s a sadly old TV, so the PS2 can’t work with colours on it). My only qualms are the large mattress that we had to hitch in our room, since there isn’t any other place to put it, and the mattress is taking up the wall room I intend to stick up some posters, and that bugs seem to manage to find their way into my room. Well, it was the maid’s room (and partial storeroom, for the little stuff we have no room to squash into), and heaven knows how well she takes care of her abodes.

There is something, though, about sleeping alone at night, and the fact that I’m sleeping alone makes me feel rather lonely. Not the sort of drastic lonely, like ones where people realise that they’ve drifted so far away from company and friendship, nor to the point in which I wake up and cry into my blankets and talk to my Wilson volleyball, but it’s a peculiar sort of loneliness that keeps my mind on it for a while before I shrug it off for sleep. I’ve been sleeping with my brother for years now, taking the top bunk of the 2 double-deckers we shared, and while most nights ended with either one of us uneventfully sleeping first, there were those nights where we found ourselves chatting into the night… chatting about everything and anything, from girls to anime to what constitutes a fuck. Now that we sleep apart, I wonder when those conversations might occur again.

I miss her, especially during those lonely moments, even though we aren’t intimate or exactly very close. But I find myself thinking of her, then hoping that she’ll be fine, and trying to shake off the discomfort of the cold truth between her and me and what we may ever be. And I wonder if she feels lonely, because she never does seem to be so, but she is one, whom I observe from time to time, project such loneliness that it would shroud me for several moments. I worry about her, but I try not to worry too much, because I know that, perhaps, I don’t need to worry about her so much, as she has the world that worries for her. She doesn’t need me, but there are times when I felt she does, and too many times already I needed her.

So here’s a goodnight for her, and goodnight to you too.

Goodnight people.

If I ever could describe today in words; any word at all, I would say that it is a peculiar day, and how very peculiar it is indeed, though peculiar would only graze the lowest touch of it’s vastness of strange tidings and utter abnormality. In other words; today is a strange day, and I don’t know why.

Today (my apologies for the insensible repeating of this word) is cumbered with an unsettling shroud of dissatisfaction, as though I’ve descended upon a phase where I would never feel the warmth of complacency, and that my stomach was a void that has never known satiation, so I ended up being in silent mode throughout the rest of the day. Not that I’m completely silent, mind, just preferring the contention of being quieter and less conversationally inclined. I spent the train ride to college mostly delved into Neil Gaiman’s Stardust (of which I’m most delighted to have purchased last Friday) and under the placid deluge of my Mp3 playlist, talking very little to Pei Ling whom I had rather coincidentally met at the train station.

Dinner also ran in a similar way. Sitting at a hawker stall just across the college hostel gates, I placed myself in the company of Michelle, Diane and Isaac, and had talked just as much as a tinkle of salt into a plate of salted fish, occasionally distracting myself with passing cars or straying cats, and feeling rather frustratingly jealous of things that are completely idiotic to feel any spite for at all. All I did was sit, nod, reply dim-wittedly, nod, fork my lacklustre noodles and drank in the sour dregs of lime of my drink hoping that it’ll just dull me into utter senselessness, so I wouldn’t feel like a fool sitting in a table of well conversing scholars.

Everything felt morosely empty. The noodles that I had devoured unenthusiastically rested disdainfully in my gut, further elevating a sense of perpetual nothingness that crept ever so annoyingly everywhere. The only thing I could feel thankful of is Stardust and my Mp3, and with them as company on my lonely travel home time seemed to past considerably faster than usual. It was raining when I got home, first a scattered curtain of drizzle, which slowly grew into an all out cat and dog analogy. I bought a packet of steamed peanuts, the heat of it warming my palms and stomach as I slowly ate them on my walk to the car, parked pitifully alone under the shadows of the walls that made the front of the New Era College and away from the streetlamps that threw amber light onto the wet streets, so that wet roads too were amber. It was a beautiful night, and had the rain not steadily grow harder over the minutes I would’ve spent a few moments by the car feasting on peanuts and watching as the world flit past.

Now I’m here, at home, feeling the same sense of discontent that had plagued my day, wondering whatever could’ve made it so devoid of anything (but the pathetic feeling of misery) and anything so devoid of it, apart from pondering why the heck I’m here whining like a talking donkey harassing an exasperated green ogre. Sigh, best not dwell too much in these sense of idiocy. Perhaps a good sleep will clear it up, and I’ll attend college with the usual veil of glum and dull, colourless shades, but at least being able to feel contented when I get to.

Goodnight people.

What is the difference between love and hate,

When it stems from the same thing?

Affection is best of us, and the very worse.

7 a.m., sharp.

I woke.

Just like that.

Initial and foremost reaction; snooze alarm, wait till the next ring 9 minutes later, get arse off the bed and prepare to spend the day in a boring stupor and render myself completely exhausted once again…

Only that I didn’t arm the alarm, and it was Saturday. Means no class by default, and no motivation to attend replacement class at 9 a.m.

Back to sleep I went. Woke up 3 hours later.

The lethargy took time to sink in. Halfway through the curry noodle breakfast I could feel the clawing, scuttling ascend of laziness creeping into the muscles and seeping into the bones. By midday I’ve subjected myself to curling up comfortably in my room, avoiding any dodge-able chores and complacently satiating my fan-boyism by downloading a buckload of anime wallpapers.

I deserved this break was vividly hovering in the mind, justifying my irresponsible loafing and lazing. Conscience made a futile tug to get me into working mode; the photo assignment’s not done, and I’m inches away from the finals without any revision whatsoever. But what the fuck? I’m tired out, thanks to the past 3 days, with yesterDAY doing most of the tormenting work.

But I did spend a considerably large amount of time alone with Michelle. That almost made it all worthwhile. Almost.

Well, it’s VERY worthwhile, if I’m being honest. Look at it this way; I get to spend hours upon hours, alone, with a hot and pretty gal that literally is so randomly bizarre it made her nonchalantly eccentric. Fun? Not even close. Bliss describes it with utmost precision.

We’re both supposed to do our photo essay on Pudu Prison, currently Hang Tuah Police Station, and we went miles around to know enough of the procedure that’ll get us in to do it. It’s actually simple in sound, as according to the beefy corporal at the prison, all we have to do is get a permission letter from the college, get it chopped, diced and verified at the Dang Wangi Police Headquarters, bring it back and Open Salami! Snap some pics, trade them with each other and home we go with the biggest pain in the ass gone and done for good.

So we got the letter, which was done on Thursday, and flitted down to the Dang Wangi Station, only to find that office hours are up and the head is back home to screw his wife or whatnot. Alright, nevermind, we have tomorrow. Go home, tired as an ass dragging his farmer’s obese aunty on a tow-cart, to rest up and head for college tomorrow.

The next day, we head down to the station once again to discover that we’ve made a mistake and that the headquarters, similarly named according to its area, is a few monorail stations away. Yeah, thanks police-lady at the counter, and if you’ll be kind for us again please tell the policewoman we met yesterday who oh so conveniently neglected to tell us that we were at the wrong station to go eat a boxful of stale doughnuts. Helps clear the bowels, you know, only painfully so.

So we head down to the Dang Wangi police headquarters, and was instructed to meet with the Chief Inspector. Only that the Chief Inspector decided to go have her morning mamak fix. Dia pergi minum. Mmhmm. Think of the impression that it gave.

Well, we were spared for waiting like a fool at the place by a portly, friendly policeman who told us that we need to get the authorisation at the Bukit Aman headquarters, since Dang Wangi is under it anyhow, and then bring it back here. Aw crap. But whatever. So we paid a taxi driver and he got us there in a jiffy.

Bukit Aman is huge. It reminded me of those royalty residential grounds, up in the hills amongst the thickest jungle growth you can find at the heart of the city, and you have to drive through some fancy winding road to get to its brazen gates boldly intimidating with gold and static bodyguards, so you’ll turn away and leave them be. To get to the department we were directed to go we had to walk down the path, past the armoury, police quarters, logistics building and criminal investigation department, into the tall building, change our visitor’s pass to Class 2 (or something like that) and wait for the clerk to buzz the department’s head. Michelle said this feels cool. I couldn’t agree more.

We couldn’t meet the department’s head in person (away to minum, I assume), but the authorisation got through in a matter of moments. We were just asked to sit at the waiting hall, approached by an officer asking us our purpose of the assignment and before we knew it the letter was signed and copped by someone. Good. Our prospects were growing better and great expectations were flaring up to maximum optimism. We returned back to the entrance gates, got our ID checked out for the 4^th time of the day and luckily enough managed to hail a cab the moment we walked down the main road.

We stopped by the Heritage Hotel to get Mich’s bus tickets back to her hometown, and headed back to the Dang Wangi headquarters. It was almost noon by then, and apparently the chief inspector wasn’t back yet, so we sat and waited for her return. Past noon, and we approached the office. Everything did seem fine when we were asked to sit by the chief inspector, a woman in her late 30s by my guess. I stared at the stars at her shoulder, pinned to her uniform. 3 stars. Chief Inspector, according to the chart on the wall, which showed which ranked are which based on the stars on the uniform.

I was too busy with the dazzling stars to be concerned with her face. Too late.

The face practically spells HEAD BITCH: I’M HERE BECAUSE I BITCH. GOT A PROBLEM WITH THAT?

Well, apparently we needed to submit the letter of permission at least 2 weeks prior, in order to get it properly authorised so that when we get decapitated by a madman criminal at the cells, the responsibilities can be sorted evenly.

1) No one told us that, not even Mr.

Beefy Corporal,

2) we needed authorisation from the District Head Police, who was on duty someplace else (no one told us that either) and

3) HEAD BITCH could be nicer when telling us that (while we can’t deny the fact that she’s HEAD BITCH), but instead she chose to make us feel like juvenile idiots that doesn’t know the ‘common’ in common sense.

So she flitted between being bitch and dastardly bitch, stern and intimidating, sounding angrily exasperated and slam-dunking a load of crap on our head as though it’s the most obvious thing to do. She then grabbed our letter, said that she’ll file it to her boss, not guaranteeing that he’ll see it, and then passed it to her secretary. I had the impression that it was the last of daylight our letter would ever see. It’ll stay moulding under some drawer somewhere until some cockroaches feast on it.

We had REJECTED slammed at our face. After all the stinking trouble. And by HEAD BITCH.

I’d chucked the stapler at her face if it wouldn’t get me pounced on by a dozen of roti-canai-and-teh-tarik-filled coppers and whisked into the lock-up cell where I’ll get my nuts under therapy of a very eager buzz-baton.

I didn’t mind the utter shittiness of it all, but disappointing Mich was the last thing I wanted to do. We came under a stunned dazed, and spoke little. I had the urge to punch every car at the parking lot, and Mich was buried so deeply into her cell phone that she was in danger of becoming car fodder without even realising so until she went to heaven. It took sometime for us to calm down and not drift off on our own. We took the monorail to Times Square and had KFC.

What happened after was a couple of unperformed ideas that we cooked up, a lot of ranting, a tonne of frustration-wallowing and enough sighs to fill a whole new planet with carbon dioxide. We stayed for an hour or more at KFC, where our discussions shifted from worry to love predicaments (funny how it went that way).

In the end, we couldn’t do anything about it at the moment, so we headed to Borders to grab 3 Neil Gaiman novels (it was on promotion). Then we went around looking for the boots that Mich had her eye on during our previous outing there. Things calmed down considerably there, and it was good to see Mich smiling again when she tried on the boots and looking at herself in the mirror. She looked good, but insisted that she wouldn’t know how well the boots will go until she’s wearing a skirt. Then to Sungei Wang to hunt for some DVDs, but piracy raids were on and the shops switched to their legitimate counterparts. So we just walked. And talked. It was great.

I watched Michelle board the train to the KL station, where the bus will take her back to Penang. She waved a small goodbye in the throng of passengers. I went home and got myself stuck in traffic. It rained like mad. I had to drive dad and bro to the restaurant for our dinner, in which I got nagged and accused of driving like a madman (which I do). Dinner wasn’t all that bad, nor was it any good.

I slept at 10 at night.

It’s Sunday morning now, and Arsenal is playing Liverpool in the FA Cup as I type this, wondering how to end this entry. I guess I better settle for the usual.

Goodnight people. Pardon the mess of it...

Ever the same.

I began the day hoping that it wouldn’t come. And sure enough, my prospects were considerably good. The sun was bright, warm and strong enough to dry the laundry, and though there ware the few distant glooms that hovered ominously over at a distant; the afternoon was completely dry and positively hot.

Perhaps it may never come. Perhaps this New Year would’ve been different.

Perhaps things may be different for a change.

But came it did. The rain.

I was out to buy tonight’s dinner, and just before exiting my mosquito netted door I saw the tell-tale signs of imminent shower. The damned grey sea of clouds, the rumble of muffled thunder, and the cold winds that whip chills to the face. I managed enough sense to grab my cap before heading out to the food courts.

It wasn’t a heavy rain, and a drizzle might not even be a proper description of it. It was more like a scant, falling curtain of mist, and with an occupied mind one might not even notice that it was raining, until they realised that their clothes were damp and dew were caught at the tips of their fringes. I’d prefer something like this during quiet evenings at home. But not now. Not during today.

Thus, walking back to dad’s crummy old Land Rover, the usual stuff took hold once again. Looking up at the dull sky, feeling the droplets of water tap onto my face, and wondering why it has to rain again this New Year. Then wondering about myself, or what I’m going to do, etcetera etcetera…

It’s another New Year under the rain.

I’m 20 years old now.

Well, technically speaking. I’m still 3 months and 3 days shy if we want to be more specific. 20 years old. Funnily enough, those figures hit me just as hard as guilt does to conscience. I’m 20 years old now, one year away from emancipation, and one year apart from teenage frolic.

Why does being 20 makes you feel like a worthless piece of crap, decaying under a decadent stretch of barren junk?

Thinking back, it feels as though time had passed relentlessly quick, and yet the memory feels the sagging weight of gathered reminiscence. Almost 2 years now, 2 years since I began bounding towards a foreign, new life on a train everyday, meeting new people and facing new experiences that rendered my naivety more profound and obvious. Finding courses in life, understanding passion and dreams, falling in love… 2 years now, since I last called Jansen, or chat up with Albert, or spend quality time with Chin Liang and Yuen Ho and catching up with each other.

2 years… what have I achieved, and what have I lost?

I haven’t change, or rather, I did change, but the changes were insignificant as they are irrelevant. I’m still fat, and short, with a love to do things that I can never do well enough, perpetually stuck with a mentality and intelligence befitting an oblivious 12 year old. I haven’t been striking mutual discipline while handling things, and still the slacking procrastinator that does nothing and goes nowhere. My love life… well, let’s leave this out.

Things did change, however, only that I’m not changing with it. It feels like standing in the middle of a revolving room, where the walls rotates and distorts, shifting and changing into various whatsits, while I’m rooted at the middle watching it change. I see how my brother steadily grows into an adult, whilst maintaining a mischievous shadow that bears his childish demeanours. I observe my friends, and how each new revelation makes them seem older, more matured and disciplined. I gaze as my younger cousins slowly embracing their teenage years, learning new lessons and gaining new experiences.

And all the while I stay in the middle of it, idle and never moving. Never changing, never learning, never living.

Today, I had the choice of accepting a pretty gal’s invitation to go on a new year’s night clubbing, or saving the cash and buy myself 3 new novels. I chose the latter. They say that people regret more of what they didn’t do compared to what they did. I sit here, somehow regretting not grabbing my jacket and flaunting down to Bangsar to some random club, tasting cocktails or dancing off into the night, or maybe even observe some development between me and a certain someone. And after, heading off to some Mamak stall and replenish ourselves with whatever we can feed ourselves all the way until morn, then head home with a heavy head and insufficient sleep.

Instead, I had chosen to save the cash and head out to Borders the next time I’m able to, and grab 3 of the Neil Gaiman novels that I want, and after spend every possible idle time I have delved deep into it, ignoring the world and ignoring myself.

Does it mean that, inevitably, I have once more chosen to stay within my circle of safety rather than head out and feel something else?

20 years old…

And things still stay the same.