In the trench and down the gutter.

Yeah, that’s probably where I’m heading, because I’m pooped and is under so many forms of lethargy (you have dog-tired, and omg-I’m fucked, and also damn, I’m dead?) that I’m feeling intricately like a plastic bag with no things in it.

I would sit here and wonder - hmm, ponder, - about the decidedly profound cruelty one boss could exact on his handful of interns, but I think I’m beyond that in the sense that everything is probably said and done and that interns are invariably, also inevitably, meant to be pushed around like they’re rock bottom in the hierarchy chart.

(Hey hey, we are rock bottom; even the janitor gets paid more.)

So I would go the simple way of saying, “Fuck you, work, and everything about it,” and they say simple sentences tell enough.

5 CM/S

I just had an ex-classmate from college who IM-ed me out of the blue (shark-like even, like I’m a lonely raft in the middle of the South China Seas), then pitching me an online wireless package that will allow me to go online anywhere, possibly even at my local mamak, and it will only cost me RM138 monthly and with no phone-lines to be hassled with. I said I’m sorry, of course, because I have no need for it, and she went offline quicker than a rabbit down its hole, and I don’t know whether to make for an irony of her connection or the fact that it could’ve been just an attempt to sell me an internet package.

Either way, at least I knew that she’s alive, and I wish her good luck in her work.
Many things happened last week, but it didn’t mean that I have more at work to worry. Handing two grants may be hard work, but afterwards there was barely anything to do, apart for being a dispensable office-chore boy, and I was bored all over. And at the end of the week things got busy again; the bosses gave me work over the weekend, which is now somewhat complete, albeit in an unsatisfactory manner.

Still, the weekend had been a peaceful one. Saturday had been largely occupied with chores, but chores that I found a reason to be enjoyable with, especially when the day was windy and the garden strangely inviting; scattered bougainvillea petals all over, tumbling around by the breeze, and it was painting-like. I would’ve wished the press release would’ve sounded nicer after that, but in the end it was forced and stale.

(It also sucks to imagine that if the press release DO actually get out and be distributed and that a fellow journalist course mate do happen upon it, they would look at it and wonder who is the darned bloke that wrote this, and somewhere in my office I would sneeze.)

*******************

It took me some time, but I finally found it.

The anime is Byōsoku Go Senchimētoru , meaning 5 Centimetres per Second, which is (as indicated in the movie) the speed of which a sakura petal falls.

It is directed by Makoto Shinkai, who I find is a very delightful movie-maker, who likes to repeat his storytelling mannerism and themes, but one who makes it work every time (3 times so far).

It is love story. A very simple one, told with wonderful pictures and words, and it’s not Romeo or Titanic or Fuishi Yugi. It’s simply about life and how easily things can drift away. Like sakura petals. Unpredictable and helpless, bore by the winds and weather.

Here's the movie's theme song, accompanied by scenes from the movie.

I don’t ask ‘what if’, or ‘what else’, but I guess there were train rides I should’ve run away from.

“Seven Apples on a Witch’s Tree…”

It has been like a damned jackfruit under my mattress for the past month, but now the grant application is done and submitted never to be heard off again, not at least until the pivotal call comes saying that it’s a sorry to inform you sir but it’s been rejected, or perhaps you could come and do a presentation, in front of a panel of judges, all whom have seen thousands of similar shirt-tucking idiots presenting mediocre ideas in all the same manner, and please wear a polka-dot bowtie because it would make a huge difference.

This week I’ve seen the completion of two grants, twice my puke swirling down the basin (hello McNuggets), and a wall graffiti somewhere in Petaling Street saying “Rape the wall, not the kids” (beside it is a very nice drawing of a toddler holding what I believe to be a spray-paint can).

I’m also addicted to a song, which is this one here;

(Yay, first vid on this blog)

The title is Ringo Hiyori ~ The Wolf-Whistling Song, by Rocky Chack (which, I think, is a Japanese snack food).

It’s the ending song to the anime adaptation of Spice and Wolf; a personal favourite now, mainly due to this song.

If you couldn’t catch it due to the horrible diction, here’re the lyrics to it;

Seven apples on a witch’s tree,
Seven seeds to plant inside of me (o.O)
In springtime I grew a magic song
Then skipping along, I sang the song to everyone

I look up the world through apple eyes
I cut myself a slice of sunshine pie
I dance with the peanut-butterflies
Till time went and told me to say hello while waving goodbye,

A thousand sugar stars
I put them in a jar
Oh and whistle ‘round the world
Oh and whistle round the world
I’m a little wolf inside a girl, you say
Off I go from June to May
Oh, whistle ‘round the world

(There’s also a full version, if you’re interested, and it’s here)

I’ve been looping it at work until everyone started raising an eyebrow at me, and by then Katatsumuri Ojousama (previously Mademoiselle Escargot, in truth Ji Lin) was already cringing every time it starts. I’ve even sang a variation featuring her, and soon she was performing trepanning whenever I started to sing.

*********

There was a card, I think.

Somewhere in the basket among the dust-collecting CD covers, and the wires, and of course, the dust.

It didn’t belong to me. My brother thinks it belonged to him, but he said ‘belonged’ in the way he made sure that it was a past-tense, and that now it belonged to someone else but is with us, forgotten and perhaps given away, but not the ownership at heart.

Just the card, the words and the picture hearts, red and wide and full.

**************

I remembered going into the 2nd year of my diploma course and hating valentines day.

I knew why I hated it; I hated it because I was lonely, bitter and missing someone. I think everyone who was alone, at some points at least, found reason to hate valentines day, and mostly because it’s like it was smack right in your face and you can’t turn away from it.

And then there were those times where a simple Happy Valentine’s greeting came and replied with a “I don’t do valentines. Not yet anyhow” with all the bitterness of mothball flavoured chocolates. It’s the sort of hate from emptiness, in a place where everyone is full and whole.

At some time people grow out of it (or, by fate, found someone to complete them); callowness die when we grow, and even if the that sort of silent mockery that permeates the air still remain, the condemning whisper whispered by oneself, I think we all end up understanding that staying soaked in bitterness feeling bitter is all and twice the torment.

I think we know when to take the lollipop when someone offers it.

And after all, it all never started.

It’s post Chinese New Year holidays and quite frankly I never expected to get an extension, but if you’re feeling woozy in the head with whatever’s left from yesterday’s lunch still stuck in your throat, you’d call in sick and decidedly choose to stay home, and that’s what I did.



It’s probably late for me to say this but Happy Chinese New Year, and may the year of the rat usher in a whole batch of fortune in the form of chewed up leather couches and missing Camembert de Normandies.


I feel like I was trying to avoid blogging for a bit; somehow being unable to post up the pictures of the wedding seems like a huge damper in continuity (that is, if continuity matters here), but then again perhaps I was just being lazy, not to mention uninspired, and what with the many sudden change of plans (thanks to a very generous mother, who in being so genial was being very ungenerous to me) I was more or less set to not to have time for myself.


Funny that I have to be sick to finally sit down and write, but I guess it is circumstances like this that return you to normalcy, or perhaps, set you back on something you’ve long stopped doing.
So it was CNY all over again, and all over again it was a sleuth of visiting and being visited and comparing the yearly changes that either embarrasses or enlightens or sometimes churn out the best in oneself, and in the end it was the same thing except that this time around my 6th aunt (whose wedding I had just attended) is now finally among those who will be handing out red packets instead of receiving them.


Four days of it feels pretty short, but in a way I’m glad it’s over; CNY was never my thing, in the way Scrooge will say humbug in Christmas.


(Well I don’t hate it. I’m just too lazy for it. I’d rather all of my holidays spent in undisturbed rest in my room, with a good book and good music and maybe some lemonade.)

***********

I was at work yesterday. It was boring.


Why?


There was really nothing to do. And when there finally were something, I was too sick and tired to do anything.


The bossman can be a funny person when arranging meetings; he arranged one with me but didn’t make one with bossman bro and at the end of the day there was no meeting and nothing to follow up, except for some old work, which significance escapes me.


I remembered wallowing in boredom, playing Yahoo! Pool and iSketch until the stupidity of it all kicked in, and what’s left to do is to annoy Ji Lin and feel sick.


It feels like being a failure of an intern, but when there’s nothing to do, there’s really nothing to do…

I’m ain’t dead.


Not yet, at least, and the Digital Death Clock said I still have another 10 years provided I didn’t overstuff myself with peanuts (which will set it back to 5 years) nor make myself too useful around the house (stress from work will set it back to 3 years).


I came back from a wedding, two wedding dinners (one for each part of the world, which is Segamat and Kajang) and some fine merrymaking, all which I would like to blog about but couldn’t until I get the pictures from my aunt, because she made me impromptu photographer and I didn’t manage to use my own cam.


Either way, the wedding was great, the dinners grand and it’s one more wedding I’ve seen and gone through, and perhaps proud to say, be a part in.


Between all the wedding rush, there was work and also there was a story I’m working on, which is now completely halted by just about everything, and I’m well determined to finish it.
I would’ve also liked to blog about the 2007 Doraemon movie, or Sweeney Todd, or Juno, or even Cobra vs. Python (in which I watched and cringed and laughed at), but as of now, I’m sleepy and there’re plentiful chores tomorrow.


But before I end this post, I would like to note:


1) Thanks to Sean for telling what Snakeoils and Wolftickets mean, and now one of the songs actually makes sense. Thanks!


2) Thanks to Pauline for rubbing in my face on the fact that she caught Sweeney Todd on the BIG SCREEN with pals Kelv and Vic while I was stuck in office moving mouldy boxes, but if there’s any compensation is that I could tell her that I’ve watched Sweeney Todd too, perhaps in a smaller screen, but at least I can watch it again and again and again and again and it also costs 8 bucks and it’s crispy clear =P.


All that is said and done, there’s only left the act of sleep, so bonne nuit all, and sweet dreams.