This morning, I woke up freezing.

I had a weird dream. I don’t remember the details, but it was vivid enough to make me sleep on my hands, so I had to spend a couple of minutes flexing it to make it feel at least relatively like hands, and not tofu stuck on bones.


It was cold the way that it bites, and latches, temporarily, until you rub it off or take a few minutes under the blanket. It must’ve rained prior, else it wouldn’t be so cold.


I think I like these sort of mornings. I wake up and I feel obliged to return to my cosy bed and sleep through it; somehow it felt like the only plausible thing to do. And if I couldn’t, the cold will nag me awake and I’d feel more awake than usual, Goosebumps all around and the stubborn tingle down the spine.


The cold stayed the whole day, and by evening it ten-folded and turned into rain, one that stayed into the night and would probably remain a drizzle till morning.


I said today that I’d it like to rain. I regret it now.


It probably shouldn’t have rained. But it would, and it did, because it’s that time of the year. It’s that season, and it’s that rain that comes after a long bout of dry days fraught with the hottest sun. I guess I could say that it’s inevitable. But I reserve the right to say that it shouldn’t, and I say that yes, it probably shouldn’t have rained. It should be done with after the morning chill and yesterday’s torrent and as the right equivalent balance this evening should be dry and warm with a touch of wind. And in that way, I’m being childish.


But that’s the way of the world; when it folds on you, the only way to fight back is to demand that what happened shouldn’t have happened. It’s a lost fight, but as fights can sometimes do, it may make you feel better. I guess it’s a consolation, somewhat, that sometimes after a fight you sit down and you cry, you bawl perhaps and shout, but at the end you tell yourself you lost, and it’s ok, really. It’s ok. You didn’t make it lose. You simply got bested.


It probably never worked like this. It probably worked differently and harder than this, maybe. I wouldn’t know. I’ll find out eventually, and that’s the sort of bridge you cross when you come to it.


I can only imagine, and what I’m imagining now, is that it worked that way, only that it’s real, and really, really painful.


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


I don’t know what I’m writing. I was hoping that it’d reflect of what I felt after receiving some rather sad news, but the way I see it, it’s a hazy mirror behind a fog.


I’ll keep it at that, and I’ll keep it here, so perhaps one day I’d come about and get reminded of it. And then maybe it’ll make more sense than it does now.


And for now, I’ll go to sleep.

Two round things, and lines.

I’m still amazed, roughly 48 hours later, of what Wall-E did and still could do.

It’s an amazing movie. It’s the perfect amalgamation of the simplest and best of storytelling, of presenting visuals and music and sound and emotions, and at the of it even manages to throw a few rather serious matters into our faces (a world we can destroy so easily is one, overtly obese and hover-chair reliant humans are another).

But what got me the most is how utterly astounding it is to stoke the heart, evoke comfort and love and sadness, with just two coloured lights for eyes, a heart-wrenching “No..No..”, and a small gesture of hand.

That, I think, is the biggest achievement in animation history.

Bravo, Pixar, and Thank You.

******

I hope I’m not hyping it up too much.

But I feel that Wall-E had tapped on both the epitome and the deepest root in animation; if you can remember what Disney used to be able to do, then you’ll understand what I mean. For that reason itself, I can say that Wall-E is one of the greatest animated movies ever made.

(I’m not going to go into the other parts of the movie, namely the visuals and the music and the utter cuteness of most everything, because if you read just about any other movie review about it, professional or not, they’ve practically touched on it enough to wrinkle it and make it shrivel.)

It’s just a movie, and I think to some it’s probably nothing special, but how I see it, we’ve all forgotten how easy it was to be touched and transported by a simple movie of simple proportions.

Right, that’s about it. I’ve talked enough about Wall-E and if I start talking again I’ll be writing a thesis on it.

I find it peculiar. Curious, and somewhat precarious, but in a sense that I cannot place.


I don’t know why I think about it, anyhow.


I wonder, sometimes. I harbour a sense of unwonted romanticism and let myself be harkened back, unnecessarily, to that time where I made what I feel was the wrong choices, thronged with the what ifs and whys and come what mays that sat there smoking cigarettes and glare at you distinctly, harpies of the bygone memories.


I always think it’s stupid, but I always do it. I guess you can say that I can’t help it, and in that sense I’m hypocritical; I always believe that we can pull away from the mud and the muck, and go ahead. But still, there’re stains that never go.


So I guess it’s all that pondering that made me stand where I stand now, feeling weird and stupid about it, watching revelations after revelations tumble-weed down and away and thinking, man, isn’t this really odd? Ever asked yourself if things had happened differently and why the painting never materialised?


And then, I thought, the painting had always been romantic. Optimistic. Happy ending happy beginnings, you know? Not reality. No surprises. Surprised me, still.


I know it doesn’t make sense. Nothing ever will, not even to me. You’ll do better ignoring it. I do, too.


But still…


I find it peculiar.


I find it fascinating.

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

CSA. Is. Done.

*Confetti!*


I had worried over it. I had dreaded it like I’ve dreaded it like I’ve dreaded dad after I accidentally broke his favourite teapot. Now it’s done, perhaps not very well or very satisfying, but it’s done and done and to hell with it, good riddance, sayonara sucker and bye bye babalu, it’s been a pleasure, yes sir-ree.


Now, to Media Ethics, Media Planning, BEC, Newspaper Management x2...


You don’t get a more hectic end-of-semester assignments rush.


I’ve been slaving ahead with the Creative Strategy Advertising assignments to the point I had to disregard everything else. We were largely behind schedule, rather messed up, confused and mostly up to our necks with other assignments.


Somehow we pulled through, I guess, as best as we could. At least it was considered so-so and not bad in general.


I can breathe easier, at least.


Nothing new lately; I vaguely remember classes anymore because I either spend my time spaced out trying to figure out better ad executions (not much different of an act as compared to daydreaming; largely imaginative) or trying to doodle myself into sense (which is like doodling normally, only that I do it in a notebook instead of the table).


I play a lot of cards lately, too. Somehow I managed to.


Roughly two weeks or so before the exams arrive. Dear god, I still don’t know half of what that’s taught in class.

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

I called it a dynamic storyboard; I recalled unused Ratatouille storyboards that the developers bundled into the DVD release, which is sort of a pseudo-animation thing with actual music and voice acting, and in a desperate bid in trying to make a better presentation for CSA, churned this thing out;




It’s largely experimental; I spent an entire evening figuring it out while doing the chores. It’s simple, really. And it took 8 hours, mostly because I had to draw the slides with the mouse.


(I kick myself every time when I think about it; this is unnecessary work brought upon to myself by myself.)


No more. Not for last-ditch assignment situations, at least.

Teru no Uta




From Studio Ghibli's Tales From Earthsea (Gedo Senki), Goro Miyazaki's directorial debut and arguably weakest Ghibli movie produced.

The song is performed by Aoi Teshima, who voiced Therru (Teru) in the movie. You can check out the scene here, too.

Cheers

“No, no, I beg to differ, quite honestly; I don’t believe that cheesecakes are it. Black Forest… now, that’s the sweet stuff,” she said.

“Someone told me that it was the cheesecakes,” I said.

She shook her head histrionically, her tomboyish hair tossed around like a weird variation of a shampoo commercial.

“Cheesecakes are cheesy. You need… exquisiteness. You need… subtle, sublime charm. Passion. Mystery.” She smacked her lips.

“It’s just a cake,” I said.

She winked. “A cake to go somewhere. Think about it.”

And then she was a fisherman tossing the day’s catch into a wicker basket, yelling “4 KILOS!”. And after that, she was gone.

* * * * * *

My dream didn’t go exactly like that. It’s roughly like that, and I can only say roughly, because it’s a dream (my dreams are the type that are built like film reel badly edited and horribly cut; it jumps and stutters and most of the time the sound is out of sync), but I did remember that I was talked to about Black Forest cakes.


(I am also pretty sure the fisherman yelled 4 KILOS, but it might’ve been mandarin sounding like that. It might’ve even be German.)


This harkened back to a long, long time ago to that dream where a girl told me about cheesecakes. I think I might’ve written it down somewhere, but I forgot. It was the weirdest dream I ever had (this also accounting the other scenes the dream jumped into, one of them about ghosts and a frying wok), and I sort of forgot what the cheesecake was all about. I don’t know if anyone can remind me.


It’s funny when I dream about cakes. I don’t like cakes.


I do, however, to a certain degree, enjoy Black Forest cakes.


**********


Now, yesterday was a peculiar day.


You see, I woke up at 9.45 or so, and the first thing that struck me was that I was late for class. The second thing was the fact that both my father and my brother had left for work and outing respectively, and I was literally stuck home with no transportation and no company. I third thing was the several trucks rumbling into the front of my house, most of them with ladders and men, one of them a large wooden cylinder with huge wires twirled into it.


I went outside and asked the nearest uncle what’s up. He said that there’ll be a power-line wire upgrade for the street and that power will be out until 4 in the evening. He said that there was a notification prior. I walked back into the house, looked at the fridge and found the notification.


I said, oh shit.

I walked down to the shoplots and bought breakfast and lunch, and by the time I returned home the power had already been cut.


When the power’s out, my house is as dark as hell.


The power didn’t come back until it was 5. By that time, I was already mossy and the cobwebs had settled and the termites had eaten through.


This was what I did during the 6 hour power outage;


1) Play solitaire (with actual cards, of course) at the front door, where there’s a little light.

2) Do as much work as I could until the laptop battery ran out (1 hour and a half, with music on).

3) Go talk to the dogs. Lanna talked back. Marley slept.

4) Took the rabbit Happy out, petted him for a few seconds, and placed him back.

5) Found a gecko in the garden.

6) Read a book in the porch, but the mosquitoes annoyed me out of it.

7) Practised the Coin Matrix trick with 10 cents coins. Practised the coin drops absent-mindedly for a bit.

8) Raked leaves in the garden.

9) Shot at some birds with the BB pistol (intentionally missed; just to scare them off from stealing Marley’s leftovers).

10) Lay on the floor and thought of sleep.

11) Ate lunch at the porch, beside Marley.

12) Grabbed a bunch of manga from the store, settled down at the porch and read with the music playing from the phone. Made 3 books when the father came back.

13) Read the newspaper.

14) Retreated to the room to lie down and hope to sleep.


The first thing I did when the power came back was to turn on the PC and play Assassin’s Creed until it was time to feed the dogs.

Surprisingly, it wasn't quite a long day.

You have to do it, one way or another.

Ah, to be honest, this post took several tries to finally get up. Mostly it’s because I never actually got around to finish it, and whenever I did I forgot to post it up (it happens, because I type it down on MS Words and forgot to save it). And when I’m finally adamant on completing it, like tonight (and I’m sure I will), I realise that I have nothing much to tell.

The week was busy and hectic, and the aftermath was a tense, constricting air of anticipation; how it works into anticipation, I guess I wouldn’t able to describe. But there was, certainly, a bated breath of worry and wonderment, of which that seem to sprout out, raven like, to latch on a tree and watch wordlessly.

It’s like we’re all waiting for something bad to happen, or something to give reason and stand and shout and lob mash potatoes at one another. Like we’re waiting for something to blame.

(This is, of course, the stupid things I thought I felt and mostly best to do away as nonsense).

And the workload never ended. What ended, however, was the urgency of it. And I’m certainly not feeling it, aside from the way it settles down the gut like guilt (for all in the world it is), but heck; I’m supposed to be swamped and buried, but I’m here and I’m blogging and I have two tabs featuring Naruto and Slam Dunk.

Tomorrow! I swear, tomorrow I’ll get it done… tomorrow tomorrow tomorrow tomorrow row row row rowrowyourboatgentlydownthestream…

******

I was food-poisoned on Tuesday.

Or rather, my epicurean self did. He insisted that his unrelenting thirst for epicure demands that I purchase that roadside nasi lemak I’ve eyed for a week, to be consumed for dinner. He said if I didn’t, I would forever feel the wrath of not having passion for good food (dear heavens no!), for he controls that side of my longings, so I gave in and bought it. I ate it for dinner.

And after I washed it down with water, I felt this feeling that went sorta felt like, oh shit. And the epicurean self, he was looking away shiftily and starting whistling.

And then I was feeling all rumbly-tumbly, as Pooh may have put it after some bad honey.

And then it was like the Brazilian Fire-breathing Troupe was performing for the Queen of England in my gut.

So I went to bed early and thought I’d sleep it out…

Then I woke up at 4 and barely left the toilet.

So I took Wednesday off from classes (impeccable timing, really; I had quite a lot of work and it needed to be tended to immediately). I gained a lot of reading time, and at one point I thought, wouldn’t it be great if the toilet had a drink stand and some sun so that I can read and drink lemonade? (this point, I knew I was seriously f-ed up).

But it wasn’t that bad. Least I didn’t go until I had to crawl around with shivering knees and the loss of all hope of living. In fact, come dinner, I was strangely full of appetite, but the parents forced porridge on me and told me to lay of the spice and fry-ies for a few days.

I thankfully still got the work done, and it’s thanks to me group mates who stayed around and helped.

As of now, I’ve given the epicurean self a good lecturing, and he promised no more roadside nasi lemak aside from the ones I trusted. I said, good enough. No more new roadside ones.

He grinned at me, and said, so, what’s for lunch?

I asked dad, and he said, rojak stall down in Sg. Chua.

Ah, noodles vegetables egg tofu bean-sprout cucur udang aaaaand sotong.

I’ve noted as I go, the way I would not know,
But hey, Why not stop?
The daisies are blooming.
Perfect day, perfect place
For picnicking down the mountains.

(Lalalalalala…)

A quick one before I nip away.

I’ve gotten some work done and is pretty proud of myself for finishing it before the strike of 12, and while the night is young and still brimming with the virginal, untested calls to write something unrelated to work, perhaps I can sneak a few words here before nicking back to the remaining workload.

(I can already feel Pauline glaring at me, sour lemons and venom of disapproval.)

I’ve bought a new PC. I figure that I should be thanking the person who helped me out all the way here in Big Bold Letters; so

Thank You Bryan

He had provided me the specs to look at, then fetched me around to Low Yat to get a deal and finally help fetch it back home with me; in the process, being late to fetch Li Mei home. I’m eternally grateful, and the man still chuck games at me to install; I guess I’ve repeated it too many times already, but I seriously can’t thank you enough, man.

The PC is a sweet deal, and I’ve set it up to be a gaming machine (don’t tell mom and dad), and managed to pay that half of it. At one point I call it the Black of Death, for the heck of it, but somehow I started calling him Bod and it’s something that’s gonna get stuck if I keep doing it.

It’s won’t be until sometime when I can sit and use it entirely as my own; it’s in the brother’s room, where the old PC used to be, and he’ll be using it until he leaves for the UK and takes this laptop with him.

I see a long future ahead of us, Bod and I.

Post, in which you’ll find nothing. But nothing is something sometimes.

Erm.

(I’m supposed to try to work, but for the whole night I’ve been pestered by a series of calls for help that every time I settled down to start a sentence, I get blasted off as though the chair is made with a catapulting mechanism. And now when I can finally get to work, I couldn’t. Bloody. Think.)

Hmm.

It’s one of those nights, where I feel the half of my brain missing, and the other half clinging on rusted hinges that will break anytime. And when it does break everything goes rumbly-tumbly; those would signify a good couple of hours staring at a spiralling world. But that probably wouldn’t happen. Not tonight, anyway, but half of my brain is missing anyhow, and as much as it seems like a wimpy-ass excuse not to do my work, I can’t get it started.

It’s one of those nights where I hate myself; curse you, brain!

(Warranty does not cover loss or theft, and therefore I cannot request for a new half.)

But as I’ve come to learn myself over the years of unrequited acts of dimming down, half a brain is more than sufficient to write a blog post filled with utter nonsense. It just takes away a bulk of my vocabulary, which is already limited in the first place. I have no idea what a nonagenarian is now, and a synonym for Idiot? Thesaurus, please?

The good thing about writing with the free reign of making up nonsense, and the unabashed act of actually posting it up (at one point of being a writer, amateur or aspiring or whatnot, is that you’ll eventually learn to be very stubborn with your work and wouldn’t try to care too much, but still require that priceless feedback) is that I can cook up something anytime. And as it is on par with any form of nonsensicality, it doesn’t even need to make sense.

For example, I can write something like this;

I’m a watermelon. A cannibalistic one. Most watermelons, or even fruits to be general, do not understand the requisite importance of cannibalism. In this world, we’re all parasites. I don’t care if the scientists categorise us as something else, but in truth, we’re all leeches that stick to one another and suck each other dry. We eat each other in order to survive. It’s a fruit-eat-fruit world, and when you think of it that way, if you consider that as truth, as much as it is one to me, you’ll see that the literal interpretation of that phrase would serve to your best benefit. Therefore, do not judge me. I cannibalise to survive. I deserve that right to live.

Now, allow me to digest. The last dude had a lot of seeds.

And as you may observe now, I post it up shamelessly. Inevitably someone will call me an idiot and say “This is the suck”. But I will relish in the fact that I get a feedback of a sort, and knowing the own nature of my work, and what it is meant to be (utter nonsense, or nonsense passing of as something with more intellectual value), I would even be happy that my nonsense is good nonsense, since it sucked, and by heavens that’s the right way things go, isn’t it?

(Dear God, what I writing now?)

Simply put; nonsense, in some ways, is essence.

(Therefore, you will come to understand that this entire post, down to the very last pixel generated by the initial act of me tapping on the keyboard, is complete nonsense. And by Styx and Valhalla, get the hell out of here!)

La li lu le loo. La li lu le loo. La li lu le loo…

(It’s ironic when a self-proclaimed holiday starts with you having a the-world’s-a-swirl headache, which pretty much renders you a groaning, moaning zombie, but it is slavery when an actual holiday begin with chores and moves into chores and almost, quite almost, ends with chores.)

Insensate

Perhaps it’s due to the headache, or the subsequent stretch of wooziness, but I’m in such an insensate state today that everything I did practically ended up with a good nag from the dad or a disdainful omg-what’re-you-thinking sigh from the brother. And like walking with a girlfriend in the annual mega-sale, it piles high and heavy and eventually it falls, and the nags and sighs come in tirades.

I’m so blur today I didn’t know what to do with a packet of coffee I was supposed to make for the dad. I stood there wondering why I had the packet in hand and why I would think of drinking coffee, when I realised that the dad wanted a glass of it, iced. Then I almost forgot the ice.

I smacked my forehead so many times now it’s actually red.


Lux Aeterna



Or its re-arranged number by the people who did it for the Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers trailer track (re-titled as Requiem for the Tower). Composed by Clint Mansell for the movie Requiem of a Dream.

You’ll agree that it makes everything epic. You will.



The Dark Knight

Hmm.

I don’t know how to put it.

Like Batman Begins before it, I can never understand why I find it so awesome.

It’s awesome.

It’s a good example of how to have a lot in a movie but not make it clogged up or dumb down.

It’s a class of it own.

I’m not going to attempt to review it, because I know I can’t.

I just know that I sat through the 2 hours and a half run time glued, interested, kept guessing and at the end of it, impressed and wowed.

Despite all the hype I got, I’m still amazed. It’s a truly awesome movie.

(Right, I’ve repeated ‘awesome’ so many times now I figure I’ll stop and leave this section of the post alone).


There was once…

Upon a time when a fight among friends was resolved by simply dragging oneself to face each other and saying sorry. Hands will be shaken and smiles will be exchanged and the next second it was as though nothing ever happened, and the end of school will be accompanied by hands on each other’s shoulder, with jokes and laughs and the packet of sweets from the roadside peddler.

That was once upon a time, and as it goes, today is a different matter. Today things are overcomplicated and no one would leave enough room for pride and ego and recklessness to move aside from judgement. Today, we always justify the grim state of things with it’s complicated.

I won’t deny that it is. What I’m just trying to point out is that we forgot how easy it used to to come face to face and settle things, and how tumultuously horrid the thought of not apologising used to sound; as though the grimmest state of things is an apology not said.

Once upon a time, things were simple.

Never forget that.

Tis the Season of Durian.

The house just managed to rid of the lingering, omniscient scent; the fridge, however, will take another few days, provided the dad didn’t buy any more (but he announced to me, after the 5th purchase, quite about durian 12-15, that he already had enough and anymore would breach the wall of safe and comfortable consumption). No more durians, but I guess I can say happily that I’ve just eaten my fair share for this season.


Now, for the next, and the next, and the next till the side of death.


(For the record, I like durians.)


* * *


I like opening durians too, but I suck in it.


I’d get one or two open but my speed will eventually force my dad to sigh and snatch the knife away, with which he will proceed to use and open durians at a pace that would rival the peddlers with their machetes. My brother fared better; he managed 5 before dad took over. My mom, she just stands and eat and screams if there’re worms.


Durians are a family thing. We’d sit around the porch, open them up, eat a few and dump the rest into a Tupperware (to be stored in the freezer, making them ice-cream like). We’d comment on the taste, sample some to the dogs and scare my mother with faux worm-alert. It’s been like this for 20 years.


Back then, when we were still living in PJ, things were a little more merrier. Since we lived together with an uncle and his family, we always had a wicker basket of durians (or multiple, almost tearing plastic bags); everyone will be at the porch eating as much as they can and wash it down with mangosteens. Sometimes we drink salt water from the skins, but I don’t remember what it’s for. The kids will stamp cockroaches when we’re not eating, and I remember a lot of talk. Sometimes other relatives will join us. It’d almost feel like a party.


Now the durians are less, but in Chinese new year, the frozen durians are still relative favourites.

* * *

All the world’s a stage.





This is my first full-length flash animation. I’ve been dabbling with flash for a year and only managed two test animations, all of them incomplete and utterly stoic.

It was for my group’s Culture and Communication presentation on Monday, the topic being Shakespeare’s quote All the World’s a Stage and the Men and Women merely players.

Animation is rough and patchy, and I butchered the music. But I didn’t want it to stay in my hard disc after a mere 30 second appearance in front of an audience, so I posted it up.

Music: Cherry Sky, by Sotte Bosse.
Done in: 9 hours (435 frames)

Done with a mouse and a lot of passion for nonsense.

Mild Surprises.


I think my biggest delight this week so far is the discovering of a rather obscure and utterly refreshing band/artist known as Sotte Bosse. She’s/they’re Japanese, and is/are unknown enough that the fine act of Googling yielded little information; as you can probably tell by now, I don’t even know if she/they is/are a band/artist. But the music is done - quoting someone from Youtube - in a bossa nova style approach, quite rightly Jazz with a mix of light samba. And maybe because I was not partial towards bossa nova type of songs before I picked up a slow but growing liking towards Jazz which is why I’m so darned addicted to them now.


She’s/They’re simple, sigh-to-the-spring sweet, like a day out by the hillside staring out at daisy plains and listening to the wind.


Note, though, they she/they does/do cover songs; whether entirely or just mostly I don’t quite know, but from what I found, I learned they did the cover for Yamazaki Masayoshi’s One More Time, One More Chance (incidentally, I actually posted Bosse Sotte’s cover some months ago, which should be about the 5CM/S anime movie), SMAP’s Sekai ni Hitotsu Dake no Hana (and made it sound nicer) and some Fish Leong song which I recognised from tune.


Two of the songs I have are entirely hums or sighs with music. Sweetness.


(Like the kisses goodbye, the smiles from afar, the remnants of a hug in the creases of the sleeves, the most beautiful eyes…)

*******

Hellboy 2: The Golden Army, is a good movie.


Unfortunate as it may be with a story that didn’t quite develop into something away from regular (it felt like Fantastic 4: Rise of the Silver Surfer; it doesn’t quite suck, but it’s… normal), it makes up with some rather stellar action and some of the most imaginative creature designs ever, making it a world behind the curtains that is as bizarre as it is enchanting.


(Del Toro was given free reign, apparently, and didn’t waste any time implementing the best of Pan’s Labyrinth into this.)


It’s funny too. But it’s humour that I can’t place. I just can’t help but laugh like a moron.


Verdict is; Goodness. Watch it, and it’ll be a favour to yourself.

********

Sitting at the back of the car with Bryan is an… erm, interesting(?) experience.


It also somehow manages to traumatise Pauline to no end, who had no choice but to call shotgun or sit with us (an act that, no doubt, will have her end up both lobotomised and discomforted all the way to 1 Utama since Bryan’s huge and I’m a walrus).


Ah… I don’t know what else to say about it >.>

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

Funeral, and a Poor Man’s Dinner.

It was at the crematorium in Kampung Tunku, strangely just a little way off my brother’s old, old primary school back when we were living in PJ.


It was an aunt’s… my father’s cousin, to be precise. I wish I can say something nice here, but the truth is… the truth is, really, that I didn’t know her name. I knew she was 60 plus and she was never married. When I was told about it yesterday, I couldn’t remember how she really looked. I’ve seen her almost yearly when I went down for Chinese New Year. I know to call her Ah Boh (Hainanese, for elder aunt). I remember that she would serve us drink, ask us to eat cookies, chat with my parents and my relatives. I heard that she was a good daughter and she took care of her mother. I heard that she had been coughing since last September and that she was very, very sick, but chose to hide it. I heard these from the conversations that took place around the crematorium.


The fact remains, however, is that I never really knew her.


Not only until I saw her picture in front of the alter, golden drapes hung flanking it in an air-conditioned room that - in spite of everything, reminded me of the sports complex lobby in Taman Melati, did I actually recognise the face, the quiet demeanour, the serenity in her looks that I would know, would remember, but would forget; perhaps she was too distant, and maybe once a year wouldn’t commit her to my memory… but what excuse do I have? I haven’t one. I know that myself, at least.


So I chose to walk up to her coffin for a final glance; I was the youngest to do it. Some of us wouldn’t, because for them it’s rightful that the last memory of her would be the smiling, ever placid face we see year after year, rather than the face in the casket. My memories of her would, regardless, be her, so I felt that I should see her before she was cremated. She was peaceful.


Then there were prayers. Her nieces and nephews did it, since she didn’t have children. It was a traditional Chinese send-off, so the elders - the ones senior to her - aren’t allowed to do it. We sat and watched and listened to the monk’s chants, her bells and cymbals ringing in a definite resonance, like trance, dreamlike and distant. Then we paid our last respects, and bowed. Three times we had to turn away and look downwards, as respect, I hear, or so that the spirit wouldn’t feel the overbearing sadness of departure; once was when the coffin was closed, once when the coffin was moved to the entrance of the crematorium, and lastly was when she was finally departing. I only heard the bells and whispers.


And then, that was it. I simply hung around and observed. Among the relatives were funeral service personnel, for all in the world dressed like waiters in a wedding dinner, doing what they do. “Death is a good business,” my brother said. I agreed, quietly. Death is a business; you stake your life with it all the time. It’s a fair trade, mostly.


Somewhere between the words exchanged among each family member and relatives, the faint smell of joss sticks in silent whiffs, we bade them farewell, and left for home.


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


Here’s something you can do if the rich, ever over-fulfilling taste of rich food made you wish for something so simple it’s almost a meal of body-cleansing properties;


Boil rice with a whole lot of water, of which you’ll acquire something like congee, which is in fact TeoChew porridge (don’t forget some salt and big chunks of ginger for a slight, gentle tang).


Hard-boil a couple of salted duck eggs, and crack a few Century eggs for good measure.

Put 4 pieces of fermented bean curd (otherwise known as fu yi in Cantonese) in a saucer.

Fry up some salted fish (whatever should work, but I forgot the name of the best type). Oil and frying pan will do. Fry them with ginger slices, preferably.

Open up a can of Fried Dace with Black Beans (godliness in a can). Mircowave it.

Open up a can of braised peanuts and a can of luncheon meat (best cooked with egg over a pan first). Fry a salted-carrot omelette.

(Note that each of them, save the porridge, is optional, but this is the culmination of the best things. Other stuff might include fried anchovies, fried peanuts and the sometimes preferred pork-leg thingy, either canned or cooked).

Once you’ve assembled all of them, you get what I call the cheapskate dinner, or the Poor Man’s Dinner. It’s TeoChew porridge with the best stuff you can buy for oh-ban-me-for-life cheapness. You might get hungry after several hours, but at the end of it, it’s a dinner so pure it felt like sip of Himalayan spring water.

Don’t, however, visit one of the many restaurants serving porridge like this. Unless it’s buffet type, you’re wasting your money.

Now then, I’m already hungry.

Stepping out is easy.

Goodness gracious me, it felt like a hiatus. And when it didn’t feel like a hiatus, it felt like a long forgotten hobby that was left behind as things picked up and the world moved ahead.


It’s done now, the freelancing thing. Or, at least, it’s done until it comes back from the evaluation with additional demands of things to add. But I wouldn’t be so tightly wound until then (it being work in the nature of financial remuneration will hold a position of higher priority and focus), and that means I’m a freer man to read what I want to read and write what I want to write.


I already feel like I’m kilograms lighter (in spite of the throngs of assignments awaiting my tender warmth and care, of which I’ll leave until tomorrow…)


So. Nothing really happened for the past 10 days. I did get a lot of work, though. Somewhat. Work which I tackled with small doses of manga and vids in between. I am such a fucking arse, haha.


I don’t know; perhaps I’m rather stoned from lack of sleep, but I can’t seem to remember much about the past 10 days. What that was done, what that had happened… an early sign of senility, perhaps? I remembered an exam that I didn’t do well and another that was strangely fun to write (I wrote it as though I intended to rewrite Alice in Wonderland with as much fun as possible), and somewhere between those two days I bought a tube of Mentos and finished it in class.


Oh, and I think it was yesterday that I secretly drove straight to university because the trains had a hiccough and delayed for a good half hour. It wasn’t a very advisable act, firstly because it is expensive (tolls and petrol consumption would aggregate a good 15 - 20 bucks spent driving to-n-fro) and secondly, the traffic at 6.30 a.m. in the morning is not particularly friendly; I had to perform emergency brakes every minute to keep from hitting cars that ducked into my lane without warning, and a few times I went on the wrong lanes and had to wrestle cautiously back into line.


It was a very short drive for mankind (40 minutes plus detour), but a giant step for J-E.


That’s about it. Everything else wouldn’t come to me now, so I guess I’ll have to wait until they do.


I’ll be going to sleep now, but before that I’ll put up something here that’s rather interesting.




This is One Man Band from Pixar; I hold this as my favourite Pixar short of all time. Musical harmony and comedy! Enjoy.

Goodnight people.

Where stickmen bleed like fire hydrants out of their eyes.


Lately…


I’ve been busy.


Sort of.


You know.


Assignments and all.


Not to mention some freelancing stints.


(All for the future; coins in the banks as well as words in the brain).


And now.


Surprisingly.


I have time!


So gee, if I’m going to spend it properly, I should at least write something here.


(Know that the previous post was written after one part of the freelancing stint is done, and by then I’ve been staring at the computer for at least 9 hours and it was after midnight and I was, at my own right, so completely arrested that everything I spewed out sounded crazy).


So, yeah. Right. Let’s see…


Well lately… I’ve been busy.


Sorta.


You know, assignments and stuff. Same old same old (plus some freelancing stints).


But it’s not quite entirely the type in which I barely had the time to think of using the bathroom (the math can be done; if I walk outside of my room, open the toilet door, close it, use the lavatory, flush, wash, open the door, close, re-enter the room, I use roughly twice the time I can do with a 7-up bottle). I’ve taken the liberty of working and erm, catching up on things at the same time.


That is, to say, that I work alongside surfing the net and reading One Piece, or streaming Youtube vids, or read some blogs. It’s sort of a 3:1 ratio in work balancing; 3 to work and 1 to be blissfully distracted for a couple of minutes.


This works, somehow, but I get the job done slower than usual. But I get the perks of not overheating or going into cardiac arrest.


And that’s just about it. Nothing new in life, except for that odd beetle I caught in my room, which I kept in an old toy capsule for one day and then let it fly the next morning. It was the size of a 50 cent coin, but the doofus me didn’t remember to take a picture, so there’s nothing I can show about it.


The weather’s been cold. It didn’t matter if the afternoon offered some hours of heavy sunshine; there was this definite chill that lingered, and the air hung in this lazily heavy manner, like an invisible fog. Atmospherically it almost felt like London as we see in pictures, the way its chilliness clung to every window and door like a drape.


And there was rain. Short ones, long ones, and yesterday, a full-day shower.


I think I’m enjoying this cold.


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


Now, having been streaming vids for almost the entire duration of an afternoon whilst working, it didn’t mean I couldn’t find a couple of neat things.


First off is Don Hertzfeldt's and all of his randomness, here in the Academy Award nominated animation short Rejected.




And also Genre, which I enjoyed the most.




This is Mater and the Ghost-Light, Pixar’s short from Cars.




Daniel Greave’s 1991 Academy Award Winner Manipulation (which, I guess, inspired Genre)



And this one is something for gamers everywhere, myself included, who haven’t heard of the great news from Blizzard and haven’t gone to watch this.





Cheers!

Work Work So many WORK Muahahaha

There’s so much! Too much! Oh dear me daisies and lollipops the work comes and goes and comes and goes and some I take, some I don’t take, but some I really take and now it’s a lot, piling and stacking and it’s too much…

Assignments! Part time freelancing! Grants documents media monitoring research analysis journals mid term pop quizzes creative brief advertisements type type write write DRAW, yes draw quite rightly draw sketch.

And it’s unmanageable, not without proper planning and time dissemination; allocation to perfection, balance of work and rest and play possibly; the equilibrium must not break, the chink must not appear in the armour

(too much too much)

And the flow cannot be impeded. I’ve gotten it planned out, I think. I think if I

(piling stacking pop quizzes mid term creative strategy)

make sure that I keep to the book, stay within the line of act, keep myself in check

(DRAW!)

I’ll surely be able to handle. This is not the first time it’s happening. I’ve handled worse. I’ve made it through all the time. Assignments grants freelance work I’ve handled them, I’ve taken them before with lesser time, I’m sure I can do it.

The victor is always the victorious.

What’s left what’s left media monitoring e-commerce business website chop assignment research grant 1 grant 2 pop quiz tutorial report mid term creative strategy advertising brief…

Well, something happened. Something.




I had spent the whole week mulling it in my mind. At best it felt like a joke that happened over Halloween, foul eggs over heads and ah well-diddly-doo it‘s just misfor-tune. At worst it felt like a nagging frustration, and after awhile it was everything the flustered facets of life that come even if you don’t call for it. Sometimes I go WTF and sniggered (because, if you look at it, it’s pretty darn funny). Sometimes I go WTF and felt WTF. The sort of trouble that you go whatever with, partly because you don’t care, even if it’s stupidly clung.




But the weirdest part is, when I think of it, is that I haven’t really felt angry. Frustrated and jived up, yes, but angry… erm, no, and it’s starting to feel like an anomaly. These were the things in life that made you feel angry, the ones that punches you like an uncalled swing of the fist in the midst of the crowd. I mean, by right, if you’re in my shoes, you’d most likely be feeling pissed. I’m not pissed. I’m strangely calm. I’m just wishful that idiotic things like this wouldn’t come, and damn me if it isn’t idiotic; I think the thing that frustrated me most is the fact that this is downright the stupidest damn thing ever.




This was what happened, and I’ll lay it straight down on the table; I’ve gotten into trouble with a lecturer.




I hear the ay caramba! It felt a little familiar. Very familiar. *CoughTMJCough*




But here’s the real punch line; I haven’t done anything.




It didn’t mean I didn’t do anything wrong. I had played Hangman in class and wasn’t being too subtle about it, but I wasn’t being anywhere near distracting either. But I had played, and I think to her (the lecturer’s eyes), that was enough to land me under the neon limelight. She probably didn’t have a good day, because she went on an outburst. The type teachers get when they’re agitated, when they felt they weren’t appreciated well enough; it was almost standard procedure (my apologies to teachers worldwide; such generalisation don’t do your dedication justice, but for that we have teachers day and a genuine thank you if you’ve been great).




And then the lecturer had yelled at me, and shouted that I’ve been demoralising and disrespectful, and that I still have the gutso to smile through all that (I’ve been looking up at her with my head rested on the table, and by heavens I didn’t know she was staring at me, hinting that I’m the one, I’m the one, and suddenly I was accused of smiling). And then she said that anyone who doesn’t enjoy this could’ve just signed attendance and leave. And then she shouted for me to leave. I left.




And suddenly I was back in Form 3, looking up at Puan Faridah, her eyes bloodshot and brimming, overflowing with maddened craze that that was strewing her hair, roughing her voice, and her pupils just told me, shouted at me, I’ve got the authority, kiddo; I’ve got the crown and the throne and the position and if you’re going to do something, DO IT. I DARE YOU.




I remembered feeling a little angry, and a little shaken. After that it felt pretty funny (I was smiling? Dear goodness gracious was I really smiling or do I look like I was smiling or maybe I should just really shaved the moustache). After that I was alright.




Here was the simple explanation that I’ve realised after my exit from the class; she was having a bad day, I wasn’t being a helpful student, and it was just a big misunderstanding, the bit about smiling and being deliberately oblivious and disrespectful. It was all a bloody misunderstanding. I can live with that. Maybe it’ll blow over. Maybe I’d apologise.




But it didn’t end.




The next day was her tutorials. I went in and kept the low profile (it isn’t hard; my profile, aside from the bulk minus the height, is physically low already. I’m generally more prone to daydream or doodle away than to be participating in class). I got a nice wallop of a jibe at me, which I just smiled to myself. Leave it be, and it’ll die down. Most battles are won without fighting.




And then I went out of class to answer a call. What happened in the class after that was, according to classmates, the lecturer stating that I seemed like a very successful businessman, leaving class to answer the phone so often (turns out that it was the first phone call that I had in her class that I tried to answer, and somehow once was a couple of times). Kelvin wasn’t happy with the jibe and left. I went in and got yelled at again. And then she said I got an attitude problem. And I might get a letter from the dean for disciplinary action. And she hadn’t been unfair, she hadn’t sent me out of the class yesterday (apparently, I left on my own account after she ‘hinted’ who she was displeased of), and that why people like me had to go and ruin her day and trouble everyone and disrupt everyone’s studies…




The only thing I said to her was, “excuse me?” when I entered the class and she asked (yelled) if she should apologise to me.




Oh, right, I hadn’t even made a single retort. I’ve officially pissed someone off by doing nothing at all. Someone pass me a cert. I’ve graduated.




Then I thought I’d go and just apologise, because this is getting ridiculous and my friends are starting to get the heat (great friends as they are, they stood by me… thanks). I called her a few times but she refused to look up. I dragged Pauline out and left.




I won’t meet her until next Monday. I don’t know how I’m going to manage in class without another episode.




You see, back during TARC and the TMJ incident, I had brought it upon myself. I had launched a personal catapult, yelling Fire in the Hole and dove head-on like a brainless moron. At least, back then, I could justify to myself that the trouble I got myself into, I got myself into. My shit is self-collected and scattered around to be stepped. This time, the shit was knee deep and I sat right into it.




I don’t know. Now I’m in a dazed limbo. I’ve gotten my pals in trouble; they had stuck up for me and they’re getting the heat. I don’t know if I should really just walk up to her and call her a paranoid bitch. I felt that I could swallow the shit and go and apologise, provided she’d listen. The biggest part of me now is saying Fuck it, you did nothing wrong, she can’t do jack-shit. But it’s like I said, really. The reason why I’m aggravated is because this happened while I did nothing to incur it.
Ah, yes. Injustice. That’s always a hard thing to stomach. Wherever, whenever.
I think I’ll do that. I think I’ll Fuck it, I did nothing wrong, and she can’t do jack-shit.
Whatever.

*********************
I think, kind reader, you deserve an apology.
I finally got this incident out of the system. For a better use of a horrible analogy, it feels like after one’s done the end bit of diarrhoea, felt shaky for a day or two, and then felt the lightness of the body after a purging. Right. My apologies again.
The trouble of being a writer is that, at the light, sight and blight of everything, one will feel the need to write it down, limn it, mull it over and over and then leave it out in the open. At the end of it, even if one is not particularly satisfied or proud, at least the thing’s out of the system.
I got this out now, finally. And I’m feeling like I’m kilograms lighter.
Thank you, and Goodnight People.

And so said the Man in the Canary-Yellow Tweed (to a dark-skinned individual named Calendar who waters his corn and sometimes massages his legs); “Laughter is a medicine best served with Lamb Chop grilled medium-rare with mash potatoes at the side.” And so, like prophecies made by not being made in purpose, it became true.

I’ll tell you what was fantastic this week. I may not tell you what that was not so good or, in some cases, just preposterous, but I can assure you that things haven’t really gone down the drain, or impeccably ludicrous, or somewhat shambled over a tirade of disasters as it does sometimes (the oh-heavens-this-can’t-be-happening things). Things’ been good, I’m happy, and maybe that’s just what the fuel to life is all about.

What’s fantastic this week is;

The Nintendo Wii, god bless them people of Nintendo, and subsequently my 6th Uncle (or Uncle Raymond, who married my 6th aunt) for buying it back in China when work got him down enough to seek life’s aspirin which is the Wii, and then taking it back. Now it’s in my grandmother’s house, and I get to go over anytime to play (and also find people to play with, because my 5th Aunt and Husband is addicted). The only setback is that here in Malaysia, you can’t find the good games. I’ve been looking, but no Super Smash Bros. Brawl, no Twilight Princess, and no RE4: Wii Edition.

(These are, of course, the *ahem* games we’re talking about).

Kung Fu Panda, and this one you bless the people of Dreamworks for not going with the very, very old and stoic Shrek formula and make something that’s entertaining, genuinely funny, is seriously (if not mildly) heartfelt and have a great few awesome fight scenes thrown in for good measure. Nice. Better than Iron Man, even.

LEGO Indiana Jones: The Original Adventures; this one I thank Travellers Tales. It’s a game, in case you’re wondering, following the same formula of TT’s previous LEGO titles revolving around the Star Wars movies (great games, by the way), though this time you play the Indiana Jones movies. There’s still something really, really fun about punching LEGO tribesman with the classic Indiana Jones theme rousing in the background.

And lastly, the Dude on a Retarded Journey's birthday lunch, held at Chilli’s in 1 Utama.

Kelvin did not use Durex. He now finds his birthday celebration interrupted by some rather disturbing news.

It was good. We laughed. We gave him a Starsucks Coffee T-Shirt. We had fun.

The picture says it all. Notice the thumbs up?

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

And so said the dark-skinned individual named Calendar to the Man in Canary-Yellow Tweed: “What that ascends as facets of truth, taking place in the stands before the Eyes of Men, are merely facades that show enough but never entirely. These becomes the truth, the shell of the story, and this is what that protects it from being seen as the blight in the Golden Valley.”

(To which the Man in Canary-Yellow Tweed responded in being confused, then proceeded to search the dark-skinned individual named Calendar’s shack by the corner of the side of the corn field for books and, finding none, laughed and sat by the fire nursing Whisky that was not on the rocks.)

In a Bizarre Turn of Events...

I am now typing this on my brother’s computer, which is close to as slow as the Apple Lisa, with a keyboard that I can’t get used to and a mouse that has a population of dust (and the stuff that live with them, such as the Dust Mites and Dust Faeries) underneath.


This PC has been with us for… good god, quite about 7 years now, give or take. Back then it was the hotrod; the mean machine, built for gaming and for gaming only, the other PC perks tagging along as minuscule, overlooked and secondary applications. Now the gaming is gone from it, its hard drives overcrowded, its motherboard switched twice (now a run-of-the-mill cheap substitute) and its graphics card turned from a GeForce4 (the super-power accelerator back then) into a bargain price 3D Integrated Card.


And the fight is out of it, too. Lately I noticed its hard-disc spaces seem to disappear themselves, and the Ethernet card just decided to go kah-poot. It’s taking longer than usual to start and sometimes it wouldn’t start at all, and had to be reset a few times before the windows would run.

Old buddy, I think it’s time to go. I think it’s time to rest.


I’ve been taking time to look at catalogues for a new PC, which should come when my brother leaves for the UK with the laptop. This one will live on, in some ways; I’ll be transferring its hard-disc memory into the new one.


7 years have been a long run. A great run.


****

There’s something wrong with me head. I think it has to do with a mushroom.

Or a toadstool, perhaps. Possibly poisonous.

The mushroom is growing in my head and is taking up space, all the while tossing the left side of my brain into the pits of oblivion, and soon I believe my logic, reasoning and altogether my memories will be wiped-out cleaner than any slate.

It’s a daunting, almost horrible idea, but I think the mushroom has tampered with my means to feel the creeping tendrils of impending brain-death, and has left me in a prolonged state of contentment, littered with the occasional whim to go and dance in the rain.


If you think that I’m merely imagining all these, or perhaps had just jumped to an early, rather preposterous conclusion, then I wonder, good sir/madam, what do you make of the weird symptoms that I’ve been experiencing lately?


I’ve summed up my reasoning and, with the compiled data over the course of a week, came to the decision that a mushroom growth beneath the cranium is only too obvious. These are the symptoms that I have been experiencing;

1) Vivid dreams of a red mushroom, not unlike the ones you can find in Super Mario Brothers, looking at me with eyes as old as the rocks that formed the earth, eyes that carved into pity and slight resentment that said the words; “grow-up power-up!”


2) Lost of memory, like where I might’ve placed that damned camera battery or what are the classes on Tuesday.


3) Lack of reasoning and thinking abilities, like how I can’t figure why the battery would go missing or who might’ve taken it or whether it could’ve just got up and walked away from a life of abject monotony (wait, I haven’t figured that possibility out yet).


4) Unstable and inconsistent state of mind, which is sort of like being smart in one moment and in the next instant, completely stupid. This is determined from the Short Circuit Incident. It goes like this;


Instance of Brilliance.
I was nursing a headache at home and was watching National Treasure 2 when the electricity went off. Apparently the jumper went down, as it does sometimes when the lightning is too assiduous, and it would snap itself down whenever I try to flick it. Confused, I asked the neighbour and it’s apparent that I’m the only one with electricity down. It is undoubted, then, that the house is experiencing short-circuitry.


I noted that I’ve never been taught on how to handle a short-circuit situation and was about to think of calling for help like a helpless little girl when I figured that, why not? Perhaps it’s possible to trace the source of the circuit and isolate it, if you can consider that that the circuit is caused by a defunct application or object. It is only a simple matter of turning off every switch in the house and flicking up the jumper to see if the electricity comes back, then test each switch one by one.


And it worked. I’ve isolated and identified the source of the circuit to the large refrigerator in the wet kitchen (used to store large amount of meat and dog food). I’ve checked and concluded that the plug and its switch has not malfunctioned, therefore the fault must be the refrigerator itself. I’ve moved it out and was preparing to check the motors when I noticed the floor was wet. The wire providing the fridge with power goes all the way to that bottom part of the fridge. The water was causing the short-circuit. Good. It means that the fridge and its motors are functioning fine.


I dried the floor and even took time to clean it up the year’s worth of lizard/bug/rat droppings at the bottom of the fridge, and then I tried to the switch again. The jumper didn’t jump. Everything was fine. I felt pretty proud of myself.


Instance of Stupid.
Of course, there’s always a cause to something. Obviously the water couldn’t have gotten there unless the ceiling was leaking, but it didn’t rain and there were no signs of a leaking ceiling tile (you can tell if there’s a dark grey patch). The fridge has a hole at the corner to for water to flow should someone decided to clean it up, but the hole is at the other side and away from the wire, and the floor that side was dry. It didn’t make sense. Where did the water come from?


So I had to check.


I felt the side of the fridge and found it wet. It flowed a little from the side then. I searched the place where the dish-stand is. It was wet there. I searched under the stove and saw water there. Water had dripped onto the floor from where the dish-stand is. Then I realised; the whole place from the dish-stand to the stove was wet. And then I saw the packet of soup. I’ve bought soup noodles for the brother for lunch. I’ve propped the packet of soup at the dish-stand and never bothered to tie it securely after I was done transferring some fishballs. It had managed to fall sideways a little and a good 80% flowed out.


The soup had caused the short-circuit. Oh my god.


(Oh, and the camera battery I can’t find? My father had taken it out from the charger and had placed it at the top section of my book shelf so it was easy for me to see. I was too busy searching under my bed and concocting conspiracy theories to notice. That makes a DOUBLE STUPID.)


5) Lastly, some headaches that come out of nowhere and from no apparent cause. It would just happen. Mostly when I turn during my sleep, and it would blossom out into a full-fledge brain-numbing-dumbing migraine. How do I put it? It’s like having a chasm in a part of your head, and when you turn, you feel your mind falling into it, falling and falling into the emptiness, but then it’s still attached to the other part of the head and what it could do was just tumble and swing like a pendulum, and the world swings with it too.


There. I have a potentially fatal mushroom growth from within my head. My only way of curing this without having to spend millions at the next money-hungry neurosurgeon is to attempt self-trepanning. This can be achieved with the power-drill and the toilet mirror. A box full of Panadol soluble should work as anaesthetic. It all comes down to how much shock-trauma a patient can take before he kills himself.

God have mercy on my soul.

It started with a morning call.

But it didn’t happen while I was asleep, which would’ve been the type of situation where one wakes up, bleary and still occupied with the tangling tendrils of pre-wake drowsiness, to answer the phone in a voice that cracked and sounded 30 years older, wondering who it is and whether a beating is impending (and then the good/bad news will come and one would sit up to make sense of all the tumultuous info).


No, this time I was wide awake and was actually discussing with my brother the fundaments and delicacy of the Wing Chun art of Self-Defence (an interesting, rather applicable bit of Chinese Kung-fu, and yes I discuss something like that with my bro. Frequently) when Pauline called and told me that the results for the Industrial Training thing was out.


(She got an A, by the way, which is very good, and particularly more due to the worry she exhumes over. Some moments later, though, she buzzed me online and we both discovered she had contracted some Spyware and suddenly she was back in the pits with the snakes and the closing-in walls, and just now she had just told me her brother saved the computer. Wow, I wonder how many times you can fall in the pits and get back up all in one day.)


So I went online and did whatever a self-respecting student of the University would do in the light of discovering his/her internship results by getting all tensed up and mildly aggravated, and you gotta have to feel that way if you’ve just spent the good of three months getting up in the morning and doing something both unrelated to your studies and personal gain only see that, in the end, everything fucked up.


The webpage displayed an A for me. Holy fuckshit.


You can say that a whole lot of load on the shoulders took flight to the sky in a flurry of feathers and white.


But I guess I’m lucky. Lucky that my work evaluation came high, thanks to the ‘small-company’ status it holds; as Ji Lin might’ve put it very well, they probably need interns badly and would give a good evaluation so long you do fine as a good worker. I was an OK worker. I did my job and tried my best. It was a fish-out-of-water situation but I guess I managed to scrape through. Got rewarded with something good, yet then again, too good; somehow, there is the injustice that would be hard to swallow, especially when knowing that a whole of other slaving students out there who probably didn’t get what they deserved.


I think I just lost my right to complain, that I didn’t get what I wanted, that I didn’t get what I actually need to learn in order to know what journalism has in store for me.


It was back to the old question again, the one I asked myself throughout the months of January to April; was I unlucky, or lucky?


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

There were many things that happened this week.


There was the first class of the new semester, and boy was it boring.


There were the other classes as well, some good, some abysmal in the sense that I’m starting to have premonitions as to how I’m going to spend my time in these classes and not contract ennui.


There was the Safety Campaign, which might’ve been disastrous but -- thank goodness -- was rather OK considering the utter impossibility of it.


There was the grandee who walked, talked and balked and didn’t know how far he was threading into the lake in the utter darkness.


There was the moment which I would dub in my life story as The Moment I Received Pan-Mee (Noodles) Enlightenment; courtesy of Bryan (and indirectly, Pauline). Restaurant Kin Kin’s original spicy Pan-Mee is -- oh bloody hell -- like the beacon of power and excellence that shone and drowned all other Pan-Mee in blight; so good and utterly unique it is, other Pan-Mee (be it good, bad or passable) shall fall into the rims of the sideline as merely indifferent.


There was the new camera my father bought, recklessly impulsive he is when it comes to buying unnecessary things.


And there was, last but not least, rain the evenings. Sometimes, if you’re lucky, you see the faint outline of a rainbow barely visible under the scanty, post-shower drizzle.

The ants on my table doesn’t know the dangers of marauding into my table-top waste basket; an expedition into perilous grounds, most probably suggested by a delusional worker that believed of the world of discarded candy wrappers found under and between crumpled paper of flustered miswritten words.


Ah, the foolish band. Only a single line, not accompanied by the occasional diligent soldiers that would’ve been something more impressive a sight perhaps. Up they march into the unknown, with the scant promise of sweet, sweet food for their brethren, disregarding danger, waving away the rationale of safety in larger numbers, or safety away from the sitting giant, now watching them with some sort of fascination stemmed from ennui, itself rooted in oh-holy-macaroni the marvels and wonders of a university-night, and heavens help me that it’s only the first week of the semester…


Down comes the wet cloth, like a yellow and coffee-stained tsunami. Micro-fibre qualities of the cloth ensures their entrapment, and subsequent slow suffocation, should they remain in it for long. Into the sink they go, water carrying them down the pipes and into the sewers and into the dark dank world of eternally pungent water.


The giant laughs maniacally and shuffles back to this room.


********


Oh holy macaroni. I’m bored.