Part-time jobs and weddings (a title that meant little over this post)

I would’ve very much be familiar with moments where my aunt would make a call on a gentle weekday evening, announcing – in her often-than-not tired tone – that there is a part-time job opportunity for me in the weekend helping out my uncle (her husband) in his excess amount of shooting assignments; and when such moments came in a sudden (but not entirely unpredictable) manner, I would go through with a very regular answer;

“I’ll have to make sure my dad hasn’t a thing for me to do in the weekends.”

I carry truth in saying that in 4 out of 10 weekends, my dad would have something specific for me to do. Another 5 would be things that come on the spur of the day, at the breakfast table, over a nice bowl of curry noodles and roasted pork. 1 rare weekend is all I have to peacefully indulge myself in the busy and (at best) uninterrupted art of lazing.

But this was a rare weekend; there wasn’t a thing for me to mow, or cut, or to take to a particular shop somewhere with grease and black smudge. And I said “yes” to my aunt, who sounded lazily delighted, and I have myself something to do in the weekend that overpays (mostly) and, at the very least, guarantee that the rancid monotone of the holidays is broken and carpeted by fresh scent of pine.

And up at 6.30 in the morning I did, yesterday, a Saturday per se, and donned a polo T with denim trousers (the standard clothing for a professional event cameraman, and the only choice for his assistant) with much aplomb over Hey There Delilah.

It was the first wedding video I’m assisting my uncle with, and I don’t mean the wedding dinners I’ve mostly helped out to shoot; this was an actual Chinese wedding ceremony where the groom has to go over to his bride’s house with his gang of loyal friends and brace through a series of barriers (upheld and fortified strongly by enthusiastic friends of the bride, armed to the brim with unmatched meanness).

Think of the barriers as tests for the groom in his quest to fetch his bride; he’ll be asked to pay the guards, recite the Matrimonial Terms of Agreement, consume some nasty food (wasabi filled baguettes) and sing as loudly as he can, so that the neighbours could hear, his bride’s favourite song. After that they groom gets the bride back to his house, where they did prayers, and serve tea to the elders, and a merry luncheon would follow.

I’ve been through this sort of ceremonies. Once. In fact, this very uncle’s, whose equipment I have to watch over and batteries I have to recharge, so I know enough to anticipated the flow of events. But oh, weddings are such jovial places to stand, even if you’re sweating profusely and trying to keep your arm straight while holding the light that illuminate all and save the video from turning into a complete shadowy flop, and there’s something about smiling over the happiness of others and wondering when you’ll be there, as the couples were, nervous and excited and cheerful.

The groom was a fat man with an equally fat appetite for joy, but the oddity of him is the out-of-place patch of greying hair at left temple, which was either purported or something that happened over nights of insufficient sleep, and it must’ve been considered as something cool or something superstitiously amazing; because something like that looked pretty ridiculous at most. His bride was almost his size and almost his height, and almost someone a shallow man would cock his eyebrows in a very condescending “oh”, but that day she was the most beautiful woman in the world, with the most beautiful smile, as most brides do on their wedding day.

I tell you this with every conviction and truth; weddings (or Chinese weddings, to be more specific) are sweaty affairs. Whether or not the perspiration is warm or cold is left to be considered, or guessed, by onlooking people, but what I’ve come to know is that the bride and groom would be bathed in sweat when the prayers and tea-serving are over. This particular wedding was because of a badly placed altar which sat under the fan, and for fear the candles would extinguish, the fan was left still and silent, and the audience and couple were baked in the crowded hall in a stuffy afternoon.

Despite the sweat, the wedding was excellent, and the teas were drunk and gifts given and the lunch was merry with laughter and friendly jeers. The next night the bride and groom would be toasted to and praised with roars and liquor, over tables of cold hotel food. Someone would say, “May the bride and groom be showered in fortune and wealth, and blessed with good children and grandchildren,” and everyone would drink to the married couple, and if things ought to be left at endings we considered best, then I say this is where we should ever think about the married couple again.

There was another shooting after the wedding, but perhaps I will tell of it another day. That is, if I ever tell of the many things I wish to tell of the month of September and the whole lot of it, and by golly, my brother is home and is kicking me away from his computer.

Goodnight people.

September, and a whole lot of it

saw mostly gloomy mornings presided over by sweltering afternoon that bow down when the evenings come with rain and cold, and it’s every bit the September I think I know, only more morose if I might add, and that’s the general picture

It’s nearing the end of it now, and – pardon the cheesiness – I’m going to have a lot to reflect back this particular month.

So, in most gloomy mornings I wake and worry about the Exams, and to the usual norm, worrying did little to make me neither revise intently nor stifle the roaring pits of procrastination. (nothing may stifle it… think of it as a volcano that would survive the Indian Ocean poured into it, but would, quite possibly, give off a few blows and die out eventually).

So, in some of the gloomy mornings I’d thought I can prevail over everything by attending a study group, which I would say helped me considerably. Yes. Results showed that I actually learnt something out of the study group this time, and admittedly it did little for the actual exams, but on the whole; my insults list doubled and there’s a whole lot of manic laughing. By golly, you know what those can do for your exams.

(They make you think about web-zipping Spider Whales destroying a city in a single-swing, including scenarios where people get smacked around by a massive pendulum tail, and about Robot Chicken and about blobs and walruses and insults. And you think about that with 15 minutes left in a paper and you have another essay to write and four other more questions to go back to.)

(They make you survive the contaminating air of examinations, with all your sanity intact.)

But sigh; I don’t think I did too well, and the procrastination gets another blame.

I guess, sometimes, it’s all about the madness of things. The blight nature of minds, the dark convulsive inevitability of thought that, like gathering immensity of storm clouds, is ominous and grim. The way we discombobulate, disintegrate and diminish in our own thinking, wallowing in the mess of defecated thought, and tumbling and haplessly scraping at the mud-built walls that crumble under our desperate grasps. We’re all but helpless, but there’s more to helplessness than meets the eye. It is said that in helplessness we are humans, the way to say that we’re mad because we’re people, and a more complex mind with untapped potentiality that is buried by utter idleness is, by far, the undeniable reason why we’re all crazy and demented.

In insanity is where we feel like shit, and when we feel like shit we’re humans. That’s what we’re meant to be; wallowing swine in the mess of our defecated thought.

And all of the above, goes to say, that Exams Week 2 is making me a nuthouse, and since I’m already hands-full trying to ward away squirrels that try to make away my macadamia set, placing an extra pair of problems on my shoulder wouldn’t help.

I wish my dad would understood, at least. I need a break.

(Not that I really need one; I’m still slacking and procrastinating as ever, but it’s the exams and I get to whine and that’s the gospel truth of truths).

I’m typing this in the brother’s room, and it’s been a long time since I actually spent time typing at the table I used to argue with my brother for, under a fan that have kept me cool in the reign of my brother’s tyranny (I exaggerate, but in a sense I’m not quite doing so). It brings back memories. Of 8 months ago. And times before that.

How I don’t miss it (muahahaha).

I’m here because the laptop is in repairs, which rendered me completely entertainment-less, and while I’d admit that it is the best thing to happen during my examinations, it sucks. No freedom of when to surf, what to surf (admittedly there are things I can’t surf here, some due to lack of software) and where to surf (no surfing and gaming on bed… bummer).

The exams end this Friday, with a paper I’m actually clueless about. And I only have a day to prepare. And it has something to do with maths.

Maths.

Shit.

(Ah, for a change, this is a better screen, better keyboard and very much better connection in the manner of ‘slightly’ and ‘possibly-faster-if-you-look-at-it-positively’, and it’s University stuff, so I’m glad and satisfied and dead bored anyhow).

Last week contained:

A downed Internet connection, due to a functioning modem that didn’t work.

Three exam papers that I would, given the ability, break into the school office to alter its results because if I don’t, they go on the net as model answer for the perfect sort of idiocy.

Lots and lots of procrastinating. Jolly.

This week starts with:

An Internet connection, revived from much fire and ashes, in the form of a brand new modem that is marble white and looked like a pita pocket bread with black jam as its fillings.

A mistake, which led me to wake at 6 in the morn, sardined in a delayed train, and humiliating myself, because I thought my exam starts at 9. It starts 2, with me here, wasting time like overflowing buckets of water.

A broken down laptop. I grieve.

Ah, but then again, it’s Exam Week(s), so if bad things come in throngs, it’s because that’s the way the world should be, with the sky up and the earth down, where fire burn and water drown, and where sometimes things ought to go right up the viridian alley where it hurts and stings.

The Callous Comments of the Careless Guy and his Magnificent View of the World

(aka Mars V2, because we pretty much screwed up till we look like it),

Brings you, with his immense and undeniable wisdom;

A word about the World today:

“Cactuses will prick your finger.”

And there you go, folks! Important words, by important voices. Remember it till the day you die.

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

Ah, my apologies for the above.

I figure that since I haven’t been posting for some time now, someone somewhere might’ve just figured that I’d gone loony with mascara and wigs and sitting in a sidewalk giving people words of wisdom. So that was to tell them that yes; I was at the Masjid Jamek sidewalk (by the McD’s, you couldn’t have missed me if you were there Monday evening), giving people very, very prominent words about the World (Mars V2, not Earth) for 50 cents a piece. Dressed liked Madam Gypsy-Prophecy-Giver and her many copycats.

Hey, I couldn’t really rely on my parents for tuition fees, right? So bugger off somewhere, if you’re there with your eyebrows raised and tut-tutting, and read between the coughs.

*coughcoughcoughnumbskullcoughcoughcough*

Ahaha… right, I’m officially loony. Where’s my stress-ball?

But what I DID do for some extra cash on the sideline, is writing for The Star RAGE @Campus whatsit. Thanks to Pauline for the opportunity, and my apologies for the last minute and head-tearing submission. I didn’t write well enough, or rather, had some ideas that didn’t seem good enough but passable according to the standards Last-Minute Work. So went ahead with them, and they hadn’t been rejected yet, so I guess it’s ok.

Busy week, but not the busy which involves a lot of work and little sleep. Busy with having fun before stepping into the looming blight of examinations, more like, and the exams couldn’t have come more sooner.

So in the midst of this busy-ness was Rush Hour 3, which – like most sequel sequels out this year – bombed and disappointed and wasted my 8 bucks, and I won’t count the good but unfulfilling lunch that day (13 bucks, and the 10% discount card I had that day only cut away the service charge. Bastards). I watched it with a cousin, and he enjoyed it at least, so it ain’t so bad.

Last Wednesday was Hat Wearing Day, which was a little thing me and some classmates made up just for the heck of it, and I came to class wearing the Russian fur hat (complete with the Star of Moscow) and we took some pictures.

(From the left: Pauline, as a Forest Guerilla, me as Comrade Commissar, Kelv-ster as Terrorist PC80594 according to the tag on his shirt, Joshua as Perajurit Negara *benchwarmer* and Mekz as Peace Girl).

Class that day ended early; so early that we actually found time to go to the cybers, and played a lot of Battlefield 2142, some Jedi Knight 2 and some Quake 3, and had lunch at SS2, and went back to university so that I could do some work. What with a gentle afternoon, with some good companions and an empty classroom… great day.

Thursday was the Motherload, because we had badminton, and badminton here, at UTAR, with these bunch of people, is crazy. Nutmeg, I tell you. People don’t collapse halfway through a game making snow angels on the court and having the rest of us throwing fits of laughter, or throwing tantrums half-naked because of a missed shuttlecock. I had to commit sepukku with my racquet. It was insane.

It was also great fun. Damn it.

**********

It took me a trip to the market to buy my chee cheong fun breakfast and some army transport planes roaring past to make me realise that it was Merdeka, and that Malaysia is 50 years old.

A lot of other things are 50 years old, too. Dad is 50. His temper is 50, and temper doesn’t work like wine; bottling up for 50 years may make it more bitter, but losing it every minute makes it makes it Bordeaux 1957, and it pounds into your head like hell (but yeah, I admit, he’s less inconsiderate these days).

50 years now, independence. And being a journalism student and out of a distinctively more carefree age of secondary school, one starts to wonder about the term of Independence, about the country and about the state of things that we have to choose whether to hail or to condemn. By right I am on the fence. By other rights I have to choose. And what do I choose? Stay on the fence. But I’m not one to discuss such things. It’s not who I am, even if I’m expected to be.

Sometime ago I wrote something like this, in a failed story:

I think most things at the age of 50 would be entitled to such a question; what have we achieved?

And the answer is, well, not something that we can find from asking, nor is it something we seek by doing the naiveté and saying that answer lay in ourselves, that sort of thing. No, the answer is just simply There, if we look at it closer, if we look at what it meant, if we discard away whatever praise or creed or love or hatred and had just looked at it, because the answer is simply what we had done and what that happened afterwards. Our actions, our consequences, and whatever you make of it; your pride or your shame, is what you had chosen, and in the end it doesn’t matter because it had happened and what you felt doesn’t mean others did. What it is, it is there.

And by golly, 50 years now, and surely, we’ve achieved something. Hadn’t we?

(The story failed because I wrote something like that, and I didn’t understand what it meant).

Yesterday, I woke up to the Plitter-Platter Melody of Rainfall, and had gladly turned myself over knowing that along the Plitter-Platter Melody comes the great and immensely hailed Music of Excuse, which rhymed and rang as the greatest reason for me to skive class. The Music is so great that it was expected of me to sleep in, without any interruption deemed unimportant, and if I happen to be awake I would be requested to sleep in, because it is raining heavily, and that I’ll get soaked and ride the train half-drenched and then catch a cold afterwards, so off the bed you go, and wait till the rain abates.

So sleep in I did. Or tried to. Because I was up realising that it was the 22^nd of August, and that it was Mom’s birthday, and I hadn’t gotten her anything like I’ve promised myself to in this year’s Resolution: A must follow. I was reminded of Neil Gaiman writing Sunbird, a short story, for his daughter’s 18^th birthday. And then an idea came, which I wrote down, and in the afternoon I typed it down in four hours, printed it and gave it to Mom, who looked delighted, and promised to read it when she’s free.

The story is titled 22^nd of August, and it is bad when I reread it after printing, though I gave it to mom anyway. I’ve uploaded it to Monochrome Smogs, and here hoping someone would comment and tell me how I can fix it.

Today, however, the Plitter-Platter Melody came in the afternoon, during class, and this time it brought it the Music of Cold, Blizzard, and Hypothermia, so I was resulted to trying my best to warm myself through many various means; trying to light my desk on fire with a pencil was one, and hoping that I’d dream about Kim Ah-Jung snuggling into a sleeping bag with me was two. Three was trying to fall asleep and hope that I can dream of the above, but it was so cold I gave up and resulted to actually listen to the lecture. Which I gave up 3 minutes later.

Cold, Blizzard and Hypothermia didn’t go away when I boarded the number 12 bus to KL Central, and it didn’t go away when I was walking to the station trying to huddle away from the drizzle and keep myself dry. It went away when I was underground and waiting for the train, but then it was the Music of Hot, Sauna and Sizzling-Noodles-with-Egg, which I stood 45 minutes in waiting for a delayed train, and another 45 minutes waiting for the delayed train to reach my station and I can walk out.

At Kajang it rained like half-assed shower taps that either ran or shut itself looking ominous and wet. I got home, finished up the animation for Josh, then went out to dinner with Aunt 5 and cousins Ivan and Chee Zhen. Then home to arrange my room and prepare for the repainting job tomorrow.

But it feels so light tonight. So free of weight.

So sleepy…

Goodnight People.

(I’m here with a slightly brighter screen, a slightly better keyboard with a slightly better mouse and a slightly worse Internet connection. But hey, university stuff, so I leave the complaints under the pile of books and coasters and know that one day they go down the incinerator).

What brought me here is a class that wasn’t quite a class which ended an hour early, and now that I have an extra hour to spend I thought, why not? Let’s blog, now that I’m having quite the cheerful day.

There is much reason for today to be a cheerful one; one reason being an excellent movie with excellent people who make excellent and immensely funny things out of all that is random; and that movie is Ratatouille, the people being Kelvin and Pauline, and the immensely funny things are not quite properly justified if I were to type it down, so in the memory it stays, and I’ll imagine myself chuckling to it from time to time.

Another reason is the somewhat irony of my Interpersonal Relations assignment marks, which I just received shy half an hour ago, earning itself 72.5% despite being rushed, pathetically thrown together and hurriedly planned in just under 6 hours. Solo work, by the way, while other teams have 7-8 people at the most. Not that I’m proud of it, but it’s quite an unexpected score. That’s not all that’s best, but the best now is also mingled with guilt and several bad decisions, and I think it best that I forget it.

And I think the elation is making me hungry, or perhaps I’m just particularly more voracious this evening, which is something that happens 4 days out of the 7 per week.

Ah, but there’s still work to be done tonight, and I’m set to forsake sleep a little bit.

****

I was awake this morning long before my alarm, and it’s odd to be amidst the morning air (not to be confused with early morning and immensely early morning, where the sun don’t shine and I’m as sleepy as hell) and the chirrups and the mother preparing for work when I’ve slept at 2 a.m. after a very interesting group conversation online and Higurashi Kai ep7. I had ample time to cook some noodles, watch some anime and hog the bathroom from a sleepy and deranged brother. I caught the train I wanted, got a seat opposite a man with really long legs and watched as teenagers flock in and out of the carriages in their multitude of colours and fashion disasters (which is sweeping across the nation like they were fashion miracles, and in no time a fashion norm, and I will kick myself in the shins then).

Met Kelv at Sentral, bought the movie tickets and chilled at Kinokuniya a bit until Pauline came. Then watch movie. Given a different sort of screening I’d give a standing ovation, but when I applauded a bit and no one did, I knew better (haha). A note to all, though; try not to watch the movie feeling hungry, because you might come out starved and somewhat tormented.

Lunch was a slightly undercooked roast chicken at Cold Storage, with a cold pizza as a side dish. But all in good jolliness, and all in good price.

What’s left now is a tutorial until 6.30 p.m., and I have a dinner with cousin Ivan to look forward to.

Ah…

Merry Good-day, people.

I found that lately, I haven’t been thinking a lot about things.

Or, rather, I’ve been thinking just as much as I do, just that things never do seem to flesh further than grey, ignorable photographs about something that meant nothing.

I remembered when I used to think about everything, down to the last second spent with someone, and letting the music of muse wash over and drown everything else. And then I’d paint a bigger picture, and paint even bigger ones as I go, and finally the pictures grew big enough to be comprehended fully.

Perhaps I grew bored of thinking. Perhaps, after having seen things repeating itself like cogs, and knowing that, like cogs, repeating is both inevitable and necessary, and submitting is quite rightly the thing to do.

But I refuse to fall into that. Not yet, anyway.

******

I missed a certain someone tonight. For something she said to me, once, a long time ago, and though I stand in every position to rouse her company (albeit company in the form of digital messages sent online), I think time have propelled me past my rights to do so.

Sometimes, I guess, not knowing things makes you a better person.

******

Today’s word, at the touch of midnight, is Masticate.

1. To grind or crush with or as if with the teeth in preparation for swallowing and digestion; to chew; as, "to masticate food."
2. To crush or knead (rubber, for example) into a pulp.
3. To chew food.’

It was entertainment, really, to watch the pitiful man trying in desperate vain to masticate the plastic fruits and wondering what it would taste like. .

‘Long time no update’

and it has become a testimonial evidence to my deteriorating English, and I thank this to a large number of literally mind-numbing occasions.

I admittedly harbour a placid form of hatred towards updating after a hiatus; there’s one thing to decide on what to say, and the other is wondering how to say it.

Not that anyone would care anyway, but I try, at the very least.

Let’s see…

I was sick. Very sick. Sort of. I had fever coming down on me in an on-off basis, like continually reheating your soup and putting it back to the freezer. It will escalate into something dreadful, then tone down and eventually cool into blissful normality, and blink an hour or two the heat is back. Rinse, repeat for 5 days.

Maybe I’m not in place to justify things like this, but this fever caused me a lot of trouble in trying to keep up with assignments. At the end my assignments were, thankfully, completed with the appropriate amount of hassle. But there are things that happened in the way, and I figured then I’d just grit my teeth and get through it.

A whole week now, my teeth are sore and things got a little better, but still, there’s that spot of cancer in the left cerebrum, which I figure won’t go curing itself in a while. Or maybe never. I leave the future to decide itself.

But if there’s one thing to be proud of, is that my group assignment newspaper got done without too much of a nerve-wreckage, and this I owe it to my excellent group members. Jerry in particular; his software skills saved us all from pandemonium. We had a group picture with the finished product, which perhaps I will upload into this when I get home.

Ah, right, I’m sitting in front of a century old monitor that refuses to brighten its display, typing on a keyboard that is worn with use and using an internet connection that reminded me of the good old dial-up days (the memories came back relentlessly; flashes of cruel and frustrating moments, pinnacles of my lost in mental control. Tis sad, tis sad indeed). But University stuff, so I shan’t complain.

I brood and scowl, so I guess it’ll do.

The bulk of assignments have gone down to… 3. Yeah. And this is the last week of deadlines.

After that is jolly jolly jolly exams...

**********************************************8
The Spinto Band
Mountains

I've got mountains of problems.
They all catch me off guard and
start when I'm not looking.
They make noise when I'm sleeping.

I've got mountains of mistakes.
They all come back to haunt me.
Every fork in the road I didn't take
has never once cut me a break.

So I'm leaving you for the man in the business suit.
My priorities and views are beginning askew.

Got a new code of ethics
used to think was pathetic.
Now I'm reaping benefits
Out of all my new conquests.

Got a new way of speaking
think it's rather ingenious.
[I'm in a mountain of three syllables
or less you really want to sound modest.]

So I'm leaving you for the man in the business suit.
He'll make all my dreams come true
since I've got nothing to lose.
I've got nothing to lose.

Oh, I don't understand you weren't invited but you came.
And I can't comprehend how she still don't know my name.

It's still the same, nothing has changed.

I'm leaving you for the man in the business suit.
My priorities and views are beginning askew.
I'm leaving you for the man in the business suit.
He'll make all my dreams come true
since I've got nothing to lose.

I've got nothing to lose

The overly slow evening (which began with a disturbed and uncomfortable nap in the middle of lecture) was met with gloomy clouds and a heavy downpour, quite possibly the first shower of the month, and while I was desperately trying to get to dad home before it got heavier, couldn’t help but feel a little glee.

But it was a troublesome rain, as rain goes in the late evenings. It meant that dog feeding is hindered, not to mention delayed and increasingly aggravating as wading into the sloppy garden quite literally translates as an act of self-muddification (I just made a new word. Someone call Oxford). The wind had whipped the draping cloth off the rabbit’s cage, and getting it back on made me drench the back of my shirt, takes to some untimely squalls.

And perhaps because of this, or perhaps because of other possible but more meandering factors, I’ve somehow developed a slight fever. Not that I feel the heat of it; but there’s a dull throbbing in the head, which the parents have concluded as a clear sign of fever (also, some increment in the body heat, which is professionally confirmed with a hand over the forehead).

Ah, but Advertising Copywriting midterm tomorrow!

Nuts it, I’m going to bed after some panadol.

Goodnight people.

P.S: The rabbit young-uns have opened their eyes, and now genuinely resemble tiny baby rabbits in a variety of coats. I’ll guess that they’ll be eating solids in another week, and then it’ll be double the chores as (I assume) the droppings will increase 5-folds. But they’re adorable little things. Brother hinted they’ll taste good on a stake over some burning coal. I called him sick, but quietly agreed.

Word of Today is Brackish:

1. Somewhat salty.
   2. Distasteful; unpalatable.

Can be used in; the merging heat; the brackish taste of her virgin sweat; I falter before Lust, and the blissful pain it entails.

Something Odd happened a few minutes ago, and it had left me flabbergasted and nervous, and by heavens I wish I’ve just misinterpreted things like I always do.

And by golly, I think I did. Possibilities and probabilities can never rake up to this level of preposterousness. What are the chances? Nil? Negative nil?

Ah, the frustrating agony of assumptions and uncertainties.

It seemed like I’ve just finished a pizza pie and found myself at the start of August, where the sky would gloom over a constant tirade of rain and I would find myself most idle and unsupportive. It’s unnerving, in a sense, to see the year creep past at such a pace. It brings on much of looking back and wondering, wondering, and regretting the fair bit of what that’s done and undone.

But look at it in jolly spirits; it’s August, and I’m doing alright at uni, well safe and secure from suicidal thoughts or the need to indulge in lung-degrading delicacies (of the inhaled type). I’ve come to know great people and great friends. There’s Joshua, who helped me loads. There’s Kelvin, who’s the biggest joker I’ve had the pleasure of knowing. Mek Zhin, who scares me but otherwise a fun person to be with. There’s the Unpleasant Mr. Sean, who seems to walk in an air of mystery so thick it obscured him. There’s Bryan, whom I don’t know very well, but on every occasion I find myself with him, there’s no one I can find more random and explicitly pervasive.

Yes, there’s also Pauline, whom I think deserves a whole paragraph to herself. You’d think that a person born in the same day as I couldn’t have had anything more in common… well, we have the same peculiar tastes in music, same preferences in books, mostly same opinions in movies and a whole lot of other sames. I owe her a ton of favours, not to mention books and movies; she has intro-ed and lent me a bunch of great reads. And music. Most of my new songs are from her. I can never thank her enough.

It’s undoubted that I’ll look back one day to see August gone in fleeting billow of colours, like confetti fluttering pass a roaring train. Soon it’ll be September to take the chair and tell his story, and soon then perhaps I’ll have more stories to tell.

August is a special month, because it’s Autumn somewhere.

A time for the world to shed the blooming growth of the year, so that it may reborn after the passing of snow.

The Word of today is Stasis.

1. A state of balance, equilibrium, or stagnation.

Yeah, I pretty much think so.

Goodnight People.

I guess it have to take an anime movie, a handful of pistachios and a teacup of garbage to remind me that I hadn’t been blogging properly. But of course, there’s the matter of proper blogging that comes to question, and I daresay there’s no actual definition of a proper blog entry, not to mention a proper everything, so maybe it’s not for me to say what’s proper or not. I figure that it comes down to what you feel about it, and quite honestly, I’m not very well committed to the previous posts… something about lethargy brought up to it, but ah well, things are dandier now.

In the light of many a things, which is about as bright as a couple of suns put together, I guess I’ve been blinded into forgetting a lot of stuff. One of them was a promise I made, but as far as I look at it now, the promise is now as good as ashes scattered into the ocean. It buggers me to see that I haven’t been fulfilling my promises, though, watching things from afar now, perhaps things are better off without my dipping in, or perhaps things might just never gets better.

Another thing I forgot was a bag of fried rice I placed in the fridge with intentions of re-consumption. I put it in a month ago. Constant increments of other stuff had shuffled the bag around until it found the corner and stayed there until today. I daren’t open the bag when I found it; the contents seemed to have turned a mossy green. Down the rubbish can it went.

I’ve also forgotten that my days used to be enlightened by words that deliver themselves to me, complete with definition and proper pronunciation. Opening my e-mail inbox I realised the many words that I missed out. Today’s was Coruscate, which can be used in; Her eyes were alive, burning and flaring in radiance of coruscating stars.

If there’s something coruscating about today, it had to be the amazing way the Sandman graphic novels are told. I had the fortune of reading a fair bit today, courtesy of Sean from class (who is, quite incidentally, an avid Neil Gaiman fan, and also quite the morbid individual). The graphic novels cost a whopper; I could get the entire Abhorsen trilogy with one single issue. No, not in my lifetime… I’d probably stand a chance if I marry a rich woman/man, but that also rely on my standing chances of being able to marry in the first place.

Ah, but whether I’ll be able to have a jovial matrimony… it’s something best left unquestioned for the time being.

Goodnight People.

Companion Lost.

Don’t it always seem to go

That you don’t know what you’ve got

Until it’s gone?

- Joni Mitchell –

I complained. I pointed out that it was close to obsolete, that it was a product that would’ve shamed anyone when compared to another. I’ve told everyone, on first mention of it, that it was a crappy, useless thing, and only something I stuck to for lack of another choice.

Now it is lost, and it seems to me now, as I glance back in reminiscence, that it was more than an instrument. It was a companion, a friend, a dutiful and unrelenting crony that has accompanied me through thick and thin.

Now it is lost, due to my carelessness. Perhaps picked up by someone, though its purpose would only last the duration of its battery; which can only be charged through its very own USB cable. Perhaps it lies somewhere between the grass and rocks, embracing rain like the entities of its surrounding, and sometime later the rain and dew and winds will mould it into something else entirely, serving a different purpose, or housing life, perhaps, if life is indeed as minute as I think it can be.

Now it is lost, and I could only lament, and thank it for what it has done for me. The golden frame, the shimmering clothes-clip attached to it; it will down in memory as a companion. A companion lost.

Farewell, my Mp3 player.

Sorry.

Mess

Not the type you can sweep away, though my room could do with a couple of sweeps by a super-robot programmed to clean, and mother’s been hawking at me to arrange my scattered notes, which has now assembled itself (somehow) into ancient Mayan-temple structures complete with residential silverfishes.

But it ain’t only messy in the humble abode. Assignments like carnival popcorn and confetti hurled with fireworks, meetings and greetings and chores and tasks set around like bowling pins that tumble into a crazed toppling frenzy. And then promises. Too many made, too many to answer to and too many to reject. No, don’t get me wrong; I’m not that popular. Just happen to be asked at very wrong times.

The rabbits have surpassed my expectations; having lived longer than I first assumed, they have now managed to give birth to a litter of 5. I was quite sure the placid, immensely passive male (Lucky) would never brave the guts to hump the incredulously nutty female (Happy), but voila, come Saturday yesterday, bro found the litter when he ran through his morning chores.

Initial and foremost family reaction:

Dad: Yay

Mom: *Shriek*

Bro: *Shriek* + *Curse* x Damn-there-you-go-more-liabilities.

Me: Heavens be damned, Lucky is actually capable of humping something + *sigh*

What’s troubling is that the female, or the inappropriately named Happy -should’ve been named Grouchy or Depressing-Syndrome, is rather inept at taking care of the litter. We’re now tasked with feeding them every morning, afternoon and night until they’re less susceptible to being trampled by their dear mom.

I’m dying to get my hands on The Deathly Hallows, which now sits between my brother’s lap, who is very sure that he’ll finish it by tonight or he’ll just have to skive work tomorrow. A few hundred people have already pounced on the trade of threatening me with spoilers they’ve managed to procured (they don’t read the books. They just spend their miserable time googling the ending and feeling proud of it). I ignore them and kindly asked that they give me a call 10 years later.

Somehow in the cascade of everything going wrong, my external DVD drive has broke. Just out of the warranty date. I am hated.

Oh damn every holy cattle in the nation of Zanzibar… I need a trepanning fix.

There was once when I used to care. I used to care a whole lot. Now I realised that I didn’t. Or rather, I didn’t seem to want to. Weariness is a burden I cannot bear for long. I’m tired – leave me be.

Leave.

It was a week of Sighing. There were Sighs of relief, and there were the decadent and confounding Sighs of hate, and somewhere between the both of them were Sighs of Nothing; Sighs that were merely empty breaths I huffed just for the heck of it.

I Sighed because of assignments. I Sighed because I had an argument with a friend, which now resulted in her pouring me bucketfuls of cold shoulders every time I saw to try and be friendly, and now I’m starting to not give a damn at things. I Sighed because the strain of travelling is piling lethargy on me relentlessly, and I’m missing the small enjoyable sweetness of life. And I Sighed, most importantly, because I’m a whiny idiot.

Sometimes somewhere I wonder if pride had a lot to do with everything, and apparently it does. Sometimes I wonder if venerable words like Honour and Righteousness are merely products of immense pride and they serve nothing more but to histrionically emblazon someone into a status of He-Manship. Honour and Righteousness. They sound as fake as masks on mannequins.

Yet I find myself abiding to the laws one create to maintain the Law of Conscience, in which it quite clearly places implicit priority to the so-called value of Righteousness. It’s quite something to walk around with Russell Peters’ ridiculous Chinese accent repetitively chanting “Do the right thing. Do the right thing. Do the right thing," in your head. Then came the part where I decide which form of friendship I have to abide to.

Do the right thing. Do the right thing. Do the right thing.

Be a man.

Doo da rite thing.

Sigh.

People never understand the other side of things. Sometimes they do, but they chose not to, because there’s the impenetrable wall of pride that would constantly loom and intimidate.

We are here now because of pride. And there’s little way to set aside it.

The question now is:

To remember, or to blame?

What a hard one to answer.

There was once when I used to care. I used to care a lot. Now I realised that I didn’t. But it wasn’t because I was weary. It was because I started to hate.

But hate can be a product of anger.

Anger is a product of Impatience.

Impatience is a product of Wait.

I’m not waiting for something to happen.

I’m waiting for someone to get something happening.

But I guess that wait may never end.

Never.

Long and tiring week

But not nothing we haven’t heard of, eh? It seems that I’ll never wake up to a peaceful week as long as I have to haul my ass up for class. It’s needless for me to say that assignments come in colourful plethora; confetti that you can never seem to collect as it falls. And the travelling. 4 hours daily of commuting in mundane routines that diverse only as much as trains were to stall (even that won’t make a day any better).Yawn.

Needless for me to say also, that this is the perfect time to question the lost of student bliss and where the phrase of Campus-is-the-Sanctuary-of-my-Life comes in.

Of course, I complain. Wait till I work, and I assure you that you’ll never see a blog so immensely whiny.

Today was a fair break from the usual sweltering heat. I walked out of the room at noon to find the sky a gloomy canvas that was – in inconstant rare occasions – welcoming. A few minutes later the rain came, along with the wind, and within the hour I had to rush out several times to prevent any more flowerpots from toppling and making sure that the large parasol is safely closed.

What followed was a chilly day, in which I spent trying to work when there weren’t any lightning or just lazing around with a good read. Dad was asleep on the couch, and mom had ventured out beginning with a weekly breakfast with grandma which turned into a full day’s outing at the new mall. Bro wasn’t around to flex his hulk of bully, so I was peacefully unperturbed and unworried, with a cup of Lipton as company. Watch as the rain curtained the view of my kitchen window, a colourless blurring of red roof tiles and distant mountains. Listened as the howling winds ebb away as the walls filtered into muffled whispers. And musing, as the droplets thinned into gentle drizzles that were in fact purported feigns, because the rain thundered down again moments later, catching the world unawares.

I was remembered a dream, which occurred a few days back. In that dream I was walking towards a cake stand with a girl I didn’t know. Or rather, she was a girl that I would’ve known if she wasn’t a product of the randomness of dream; because every time I looked at her I would be reminded of different people. But it was a dream, so I wasn’t bothered.

We approached the cake stand and browsed through the selection, which, in the manner of strange dreams, consisted entirely on Ebony and Ivory cheese cakes. Round, immaculate things of dreamlike perfection. We stared at them for sometime before she turned to me and said;

“The bridge and key to a woman’s heart is from Cheese and Starch.

“Jee, do you have cheese?”

I said something incoherently, and then the dream shifted into something that eluded my memory. I recalled sitting for a tattooing session; I was sitting on a chair with my sleeves folded up to my shoulders and bracing for the pain, while the tattooist does his work on a piece of paper. But anyway…

The words she said seem to weigh a certain something; weighed enough to sit on my head and constantly poke during ponderings. Prophecy? No, I never bothered myself by thinking (hoping) that it was a miraculous construction of otherworldly properties that foretells my true love. Though it does seem tempting now to walk down the street with an E&I cheese cake and asking everyone if they love cheese and starch.

It was a dream and it was random, but it’s there; here, and I can’t help but think on it.

Hmm…

* * * *

Kodoku no Kakera.

What does it mean?

I don’t know, and I don’t want to know just yet, but it plays and it’s nice and I’m enjoying it as repeats over and over on the laptop. Compliments of Pauline, who is giving me great songs every MSN session here and there. And great anime. And GREAT books.

Thanks, Pauline. *raises a glass*

I sit here now basking in this excellent song, and being pestered by a pack of dastardly mosquitoes that found their way in.

Fly, my electric powered mosquito swatter!

Goodnight people.

Umph.

How do I begin?

It was a long week.

7 days and all. 24 hours multiplied by 7, and between it, Time manages to cast Slow and I go through it with a lot of looking at the watch and tapping at my feet.

But it wasn’t so bad as to compare to the brief spell during college, when I would head out at 5 in the morn and return home short of midnight. Those days were lobotomy. I barely saw anyone at home, and I flittered around like mist to wind.

This time I had it easy. It was only one day of staying back at uni for assignments, and one night without sleeping for work (total: 2 hours and a half of sleep within 48 hours).

Sunday was the testing slab of steps leading to the peak of sore shoulders and pained muscles, which I will write about when I get my pics. Possibly tomorrow. Or the day after.

Provided I do not face another long week… which pretty much seems to be a certainty.

Goodnight people.

There was once a horse, which is always tethered to the back of the wagon, rather than on the front of it, like his companions. And this horse wasn’t a bad horse; he could run, he could sprint, and perhaps even out-sprint, but tied to the back of the wagon and perpetually led and dragged along, he forgot that he could run. He forgot that he could rear his legs, and stare down the horizon and the lands beyond (for horses can always see beyond everything, and beyond everything is where they run) and plunge into a gallop where freedom brings fleet to his feet and the rushing air are trails of his wings.

In time he forgot that he was a horse, but a single entity that follows where the wagon led, which in turn is led by his companions, which in turn are under the reigns of Men.

It was the same everyday. He would wake, and eat, and follow where the wagon went, staring at the wooden frame, occasionally looking at the passing scenery at his sides, but never anything ahead of him. He would just walk, and walk some more, when the noose around him tightened and tensed. And all the while he could only hear the clop-clopping of his march, sometimes the calling of Men, but everything else that enters his ears are merely distant echoes of familiarity; dull shades of the past, or of canvases that he had never seen but had always known to exist.

It was the same everyday. Wake, eat, walk. Clop. Clop. Clop. Clop.

Clop.

It rained one day. Heavy, relentless and malicious. For once the horse didn’t hear the unending clopping, drowned by the thunderous claps the dark, toiling visage above that saw fit to brew calamity. But it was there in his mind. Clop. Clop. Even when his hoofs struck mud more than solid earth. Even when the winds howl, and the lighting flared, and the thunder boomed and doomed and loomed.

In his mind it was Clop. Clop. Clop. In front of him was the wagon, perhaps blurred by the curtain of rain, but still the wagon, wooden frame and all, wobbling and tumbling occasionally.

Clop. Clop. Clop. Clop. Clop.

Clop.

Boom.

The sound of thunder; loud, shuddering, shattering. It exploded in the horse’s ear.

Silence.

Clop. Clop. Clop. Clop.

Boom.

It wasn’t distant. It wasn’t an echo. It wasn’t a deep rumble brought from far away by the winds. It was loud and crashing and near.

Boom.

And the horse reared. He kicked; he tore and pulled. He yanked and tugged and lashed. The wagon skewed. His companions neighed, and the men yelled. The horse pulled and pulled and pulled and pulled.

The rope snapped.

And the world exploded.

It wasn’t clopping anymore. There weren’t wooden frames that wobbled ahead. Everything that passed at the side is blurs and sweeping lines of colours.

It was thunder as his hooves struck the ground. Massive, immense, powerful. Free. Ever-changing, ever unpredictable. And the winds that howled are the trails his wings leaves behind to the world that can never catch up.

Ahead was the horizon, and everywhere beyond it.

And that was where he ran.

* * * *

Perhaps I should’ve placed it in Monochrome Smogs, but I typed it down when I was trying to blog about today, and it was another product that came to be with a random sentence written down for no apparent reason.

Another nonsense, but it feels good to write something spontaneously. Perhaps I might get a more substantial plot in the future, and possibly something for the short story competition I saw tacked on a notice board (which deadline is this Saturday).

Goodnight People.

Length has nothing to do with it. It has nothing to do with anything.

Let it be a known fact that if you put two Very Cool People and a newbie of the class together in an air-condition hall full of noisy people, the results will be The Most Hilarious Game of Hangman ever Played.

And it was. God, I haven’t laughed so much in a very long time.

Let it also be an undeniable course in reality that ‘3 guys and 1 hot chick’ at work on a story (where each person will write 3 words and pass on to another) will inevitably give birth to a story of utter randomness, complete with Depressed Hamsters, Prosthetic Sexual Organs ™ and a rock named Tom (which had nothing to do with the story at all, apart from being mentioned twice, and that was the extend of it).

Amen to that.

And, lastly, let it be an undoubted truth that a can of mayo tuna left opened and untouched in the fridge for approximately 4 weeks should never be eaten at all, lest you wish to die a very agonising death on top of a porcelain seat in your toilet, and this writer here assures you that there are other less painful ways to commit suicide.

(I didn’t die, but I think I almost did; there was one moment where I saw myself drifting across a plain of ice until I arrived to an Eskimo fishing at a hole with a bamboo rod. He looked at me, cocked his head, made a sucking sound and said, “It’s not your time yet”. And then I was back in the toilet.)

* * * *

Dad and bro left for their vacation yesterday, on a trip to China in an eating tour (where they take you to feast on popular dishes, with plenty of sightseeing in between). Like any other ride to the airport, there was the familiar loom of farewell melancholy. It was nothing big, them leaving, but the loom was there, and it made me fiddle with it for a while, not unlike the manner of a boy absently picking at a ream of the sofa.

So I watch them heave their backpacks into the terminal in the rearview mirror (I drove the way home, with mom as navigator), and felt something stirred, though I don’t know what it was.

It was the second time I drove on a highway stretch, and the longest distance I ever driven. From KLIA to home.

But it was a cool drive. Mom and I chatted, with DJ Simon genially giving us good music on Light and Easy. I was a tad nervous; my legs were somewhat tensed, but it was alright after a while. And quite something to drive at night. The serenity, the subtle dance of unnoticed beauty. Rain drizzled onto the road and the windscreen, turning the streetlights into hexagonal ambers that lit the way home. It was gentle fun, and I liked it. I have to do it again on Thursday, when dad and bro reaches home.

* * * *

When facing the prospect of having a dad-free and bro-liberated week, know that:

1) There won’t be anyone to feed the pets when you couldn’t make it home in time.

2) If you have a punctured tyre, you’re going to have to deal with it alone. It didn’t matter that you’ve dealt it yourself before in past incidents, because this time around there isn’t any assurance that if you fucked up you can still call dad.

3) The fishes are under your utmost and complete responsibility. The ecology of the aquarium and tanks are under your hand; the distribution of food, the management of popularity, the care of the diseased and the deceased and, most importantly, the state of the water.

4) You do not have to make coffee every night.

5) You do not have a brother to massage, and thank the week for that.

6) The brother’s room is a Class 5 No Entry unless required, which you know you don’t have to obey provided you make it seem like it wasn’t intruded upon.

7) You’re free of the 80% of the nagging in the house.

8) The TV is technically yours to command, unless mom decides that she wants the captaincy, and if this happens just retreat to your room and pretend you didn’t hear what she puts on.

9) You’re locking all the doors, so make sure you do it right.

10) You’re going to have a dad-free and bro-liberated week. DO SOMETHING YOU DON’T DO ALL THE TIME. Like singing Beyond the Sea in the living room with a broom and plastic teacup as your hat.

If you understand and acknowledge the above, rest assured; you’ll have a fine and safe week.

(JEOpardy Self-Help titles are not to be held responsible for any damages caused. YOU READ OUR STUFF. WE DIDN’T ASK YOU TO. DON’T BLOODY BLAME IT ON US.)

* * * *

………

………………….

…………………………….

Goodnight People.

It is the innate capability. The fundamental working of things; the intrinsic nature of behaviour. It’s all about attitude. Beliefs. The things you tell yourself.

Optimism.

Pardon me; I’m never that good at the limning of things, if you can call that limning. I try to make things comprehensible, though by right it is very comprehensible to me and the hand in which I hold my pen (or type the words), but at the end of it, it boils down to the known and undeniable fact that being a writer and a teller of things, it is whether the message is understood or not.

(So if you’re reading this, scratching your head and deciding that a bottle of chicken stock and all of its so advertised power to enhance the thought should come in handy right now, take a sit and relax. I’m not worth the understanding).

Today was a day where everything seemed to go wrong. I wouldn’t call it a Disastrous day, or Catastrophic, or even Bad at that manner; but it was pretty obvious that Lady Fortune had decided to mar my day by pouring a bottle of Very Slippery Detergent Sludge down my alley.

I don’t have the energy to relate every wrong thing that happened today, but lets just say that it includes a lot of malfunctioning devices, a fair few of “What the fuck are you doing?”, a considerable lot of “Sometimes I don’t know what the fuck you’re doing…”, the usual “You just had to PISS. ME. OFF! *flails arms angrily in aggravation*”, a lot of cash gone and the most despairing, most dejecting of them all; the Sigh. A lot of Sighs. The ones you get when you’re doing nothing right even if you wish it right. Condescending, and riddled the sort of belittling pity.

Argh.

To cap it off, I burned some toast. Which the dog didn’t even want to eat. So I thought it’d make a good Frisbee of sorts, and decidedly spun it out of the garden. I watch it disappear into the darkness, across the road where the light couldn’t reach, and judging by the way the toast spun towards the left, I think it landed on the neighbour’s roof.

I just hope that birds like toast in the morning.

Happy Birthday, Mich. I hope the flowers are fine.

Goodnight People.