Weekend trip

Day after tomorrow I start work. Phooey.
In anticipation I have been brushing up on land law. I had as much fun as a turkey on Thanksgiving. So I won't bore you with details.

I had a lovely weekend where K and I traveled to his hometown of Malacca for him to renew his ID. The registration department there was practically empty and everything was done in less time than it takes to buy a latte. Nice.

Of course the main reason I tagged along was to have lunch and officially meet his family. Was I nervous? I bring your attention to the turkey on Thankgiving analogy again.

Before checking into the hotel we nipped into a ancient looking coffeeshop. Quite full of character. And as we were leaving the shop who did we bump into but K's aunty and grandma!

Dust encrusted, sweat layered and smelling charmingly of diesal courtesy of our bus, and compounded by my charismatic 10-word mumbled greeting - I am positive I created an impression. I just can't tell you what.

And after that close encounter, we bumped into them again while we were walking to our hotel. K's aunt has an uncanny ability to recognise the back of our heads. We waved as they drove past.

So we settled in our room at Hotel Puri - one of the better boutique hotels in Malacca. Very comfortable. So after much face scrubing and mouth muscles aching from too much smiling practice, no point delaying the inevitable, off I went with K.

And guess who we met? (again) We bumped into the same aunty and grandma on the same road. We were beginning to suspect conspiracy or at least very bad spying.

Eventually we caught a cab to K's place, almost certain we would bump into the dynamic duo again somewhere along the way.

Lunch was lovely. Again I am not sure who felt more embarrased and awkward. I did not get an opportunity to speak to his dad although I had a chance of exchanging small talk with his mom. And I did get a rousing welcome by the resident mosquitoes. Covered in bumpy kisses I was. And oh, the aunty did phoned his mom telling her that they have seen me. I wonder if they mentioned FOR THREE TIMES.

We didn't stay long at all. Less time given to me to screw up the better. I bet I will have more opportunities to meet them again in the future. I am still analyzing the trip to death. You know, things like whether should have I washed my plate like a good potential daughter-in-law should, or should I have not gone at the food like a pig. You know, life and death stuff.

It was a pleasant break. Only gripe was how unreasonable cab fees are in Malacca. It is daylight robbery.

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Mind, Body and Soul

The one thing I am grateful for in my three week work-free break is the luxury of just being still. I was literally fraying at the edges. Not doing anything sounds awfully slothful but it is really far from it. And I am always happy to spend time alone.

I am an anti-social git.

This break has given me time to contemplate, reassess and just heal from the daily grind. Revisiting thoughts that have been shoved on the backburner, getting odds and ends organized, doing a little soul searching and spending time with those important to me.

I am starting to sound like Oprah, aren't I?

Of course I am still confused like hell as to what I want in life and conflicting wants and needs make future trajectories less easy to plot. I suppose trying to achieve order in this chaotic world is akin to making a tuna sandwich while riding a rollercoaster.

I can't help it. I like to keep things in little neat compartments. Yeah, as Jo correctly pointed out, I am a Monica. (from Friends. Gosh that was long ago, innit?)

However being alone does have its challenges. I now find it a bit intimidating stepping out of my home alone. The unpleasant cacophony and uninvited gazes rudely imposed upon me, I feel violated! Strange sensation that. When cold hard reality embraces me again, I feel the serenity I worked so hard for, shatter into a million icy shards.

I suppose it is easy to find peace in the quiet refuge of home but the main quest is to find sanity in the outside world and not get swept by the maddening tide.

Great read!

I have just completed Jonathan Stroud's third instalment of the Bartemaeus series. It is set in an alternate reality where the ruling class consist of magicians who summon demons to assist them in their official and everyday undertakings. This trilogy follows the life and adventures of a proud and ambitious young magician whose lust for fame and power acquaints him with the djinni Bartemaeus who is scathing, sarcastic and so full of wicked humour that I instantly took a fancy to him on first reading.

Ptolemy's Gate is the brilliant conclusion. Brilliant story telling and great humour. So enthralled I am by Bartemaeus that I regard myself as one of the earliest in the country to have read this last instalment. Well, kiasu as I am, I booked, paid and read the book on the very day the shipment arrived at Kinokuniya. All the other bookstores have not got theirs in yet. I know. I called all the major bookstore chains.

So it was Potter on Monday and Djinni on Tuesday, so do forgive me if I am dreaming of having an Ollivander wand, a spotted owl and a best friend who is a 5000-year old demon who wouldn't shut up.

My favourite things

Simple pleasures that totally make my day.
So what's yours?


The smell of fresh linen


A tight squeeze


A backrub after a long day


Neck nuzzled by warm nose


Sleeping dogs


Nursing a cup of tea when it is raining outside

Hear my blood vessels go pop

I really cannot stand two types of people

1. dumbass front line staff who possesses zero customer relations
2. asshole taxi drivers

I don't care how deprived their lives are but how can anyone be rude to a customer? I think I have kicked up enough fuss in enough restaurants to know that here, good customer service is as common as snow in Bukit Bintang.

Another breed which deserves absolutely NO sympathy is cab drivers. There is now a trend among these half wits to not give you back change, taking it like it is due to them! They will insist on you paying them to the exact 10 cents but they won't bat an eye lid when it comes to fleecing you. Once I took a cab where upon stopping the cabbie quickly reset the meter and demanded 4 bucks when it was clearly $3.40. Like Hell I was going to give him that.

And another time when the two of us took a cab in the morning and my companion only had a tenner. The ride cost about 3 bucks. The cabbie just shrugged and said "no change!" and waited, expecting us to pay him the tenner. My companion wanted to just hand over the money but yeah, over my dead body. I dug out my wallet and paid the exact fee... in coins.

Also if you are ever caught at a mall where the cabs go by the coupon system, for the love of God, let the cabbie know which route exactly you want to use. The up-front price paid does NOT include toll fees and if you don't tell him which way, you can bet your bottom dollar he will use all the tolls he can find on route.

Oh I have enough stories to want you to swear off public transport forever. I have heard of sob stories and cabbies being murdered for fee disputes and I know I sound mean but sometimes they SO deserve it.

They will moan of how difficult it is to earn a living but when asked to drive to a destination they feel out of THEIR way, they will shoo you away. If it wasn't for the fact that I have no car, I would like to blow them all to smithereens.

Snake

As K and I were walking down the road along SS25 and there crawling from under a van was a black snake! Easily 1 1/2 feet long, it was slithering across the road when a car passed and it did a U turn back under the van. This was in a fully populated neighbourhood hence this snake was a surprised.

Wonder who was more scared, the snake or us.

Key word search: Teetottler

It is amazing what you find when you do a random search ....


Posted on 1 April 2004 @ 17:31:56 on a matchmaking service

Looking for a bride for my son age 31, non smoker, teetottler having properties over Rs 15 million. Educated and retired parents of Sri Lanka Administrative Service, vegetarian. Son is looking after properties. Looking for a non working pretty girl, kind hearted with a good character. Apply with horoscope.


oh dear.. gold diggers take note

Stupid Monday

I still cannot decide whether I want this blog to be a platform where I cry, and rant and generally unload my negative emotions (thanks Mentalf for bringing to my attention that I write as if I am "going to die like that")

OR

write about more positive things and actually entertain about my readers with my supposed wit and humour.

Boo.

I found out that TWO of my friends have gotten hitched. Wow, everyone is getting on with their lives. And I still don't know what to do with mine. It is normal to be approaching 30 and still have identity crises? I guess that is another reason why I am Batman! (see below) At least Batman is cool. But I can relate to the emotional dysfunctionalism. And I think black is slimming too.

I kick ass

Which Action Hero Would You Be? v. 2.0
created with QuizFarm.com

You scored as Batman, the Dark Knight.

As the Dark Knight of Gotham, Batman is a vigilante who deals out his own brand of justice to the criminals and corrupt of the city. He follows his own code and is often misunderstood. He has few friends or allies, but finds comfort in his cause.

Shake your booty

I miss dancing. Nothing beats gettin' it on with a bunch of mates without a care how stupid we look. I never made it to Ministry of Sound in London as Monica decided to go to Ibiza instead! Going to a club alone is just sad.

Grooving to Jamiroquai was so cool at one time. Now all I remember him as a bloke with a hat. Now the clubs are overun by collge kids and I feel so ancient and over dressed (= having on too many clothes. Club wear now consist of handkerchiefs, haven't you noticed?)

Top of the Pops

Not too long ago I got an invite to Retro Retro night at a leading club. A cd came with it and as I could not go that time, I chucked the invite and kept the CD.

Finally listened to it and whoa momma! I thought I remembered a lot of the songs of the glorious 80s but obviously I was wrong. In fact I don't know quite a big number of the tunes.

And all this time I laid claim to the 80s as MY time yet yesterday I had a brilliant conversation with a 36 year old who claims it for his own too.

So that got me thinking. In 1985 I was, lets see.. 8 years old! Gosh, I can't be that young! I remember so many TV shows of that era. So if I didn't belong to the 80s that would mean that I am actually a 90s girl. That's not bad at all in a kinda bombastic, romatic way.

Who is a 90s icon now? Let's examine 90s pop culture shall we? In no particular order
there's:

The Simpsons
The Wonderbra
Trainspotting (yeay!)
Hanging Tough (NKOTB)
Bungee jumping
Sinead O' Conner
Hammer Time
Teletubbies
Sonic the Hedgehodge
WAYNE'S WORLD
Quentin Tarantino
Vannila Ice
Fight Club
Pokemon
Ali G
Eminem
Robbie Willams (sigh)
Austin Powers
Tamagochi
Spice Girls

Shucks, I do have loads of good memories. On the BBC website listen to medlies of the 90s. Find them at http://www.bbc.co.uk/cult/ilove/years/

Damn nostalgic. Man, I miss the clubs. There is this great club called Bobby Brown's at Broad Street Birmingham. Fridays were best as it was stricly over-25s only, hence no drunk students crowds.

I don't know how our lot usually got in as we were no where near 25 at the time, but I count not resist the R&B.

It was there that I developed a taste for strong tequila.
(And it was there also that I got picked up by a gorgeous man who owned a garden centre at Longbridge. A 6-footer with blue eyes, high cheek bones and broad shoulders. He was just SO freaking hot. Nothing happened as I left for home soon after. Sheesh. So fucked up, right?)

Time to take a cold shower now.

Apology

Tis November.

This blog is 11 months old. I actually never expected that my enthusiasm would last this long.

I read somewhere that when men break up, they cope by dating other women (bastards, right?) or getting drunk. Women eat chocolates and write journals.

So 7 kilos and a reasonably decent blog later, here I am looking back at the experience. I am so glad that I have this little chunk of cyberspace to call my own. I guess the reason why it has for the longest time been a little on the negative side (i.e. oh a just tad bitchy) is because it was originally created as a platform to vent. (It's cheaper and healthier than Marlboro lights anyway.) It is quite cathartic for me although now that I have opened the blog to others, I sincerely doubt you feel at peace.

I am so sorry dear reader that you have to be subjected to such skepticism, cynicism and despair (and I have not even said anything about my sex life yet).

I have come to the conclusion that one's happiness lies only in one's own hands and that by delegating that responsibility to someone else, say a boyfriend, a parent or a peer, one is just setting oneself up for major disappointment. Nobody is going to ever thank you for being a martyr in this world.

So carpe diem!

Watch the Birdie

KL Bird Park
Taken with a Canon EOS 350D

Kvak

1/200, f/5 at 131mm

I am not plastic

1/500, f/6 at 168mm

Can I blink now,please?

1/400, f/5.6 at 200mm

I will put up more photos soon. Thinking of setting up an online gallery as resizing the images removes a lot of the details and does not do justice to the subjects.

Simplify, simplify

The last layout was just too spotty. Here is a new look to my blog which I do think is a little more pleasing to the eye. Simplicity is good. I hope to be putting up more pictures here so I think this works better.

Anyway I was supposed to start work next week but guess what? I called up my new boss to ask for an extension and she just remarked "why don't you come in December?"

YEAY! I am pleased as punch!
Because:
A. I have not recovered from my last job
B. I have not had time to myself
C. I have not caught up with the law
D. I have not called up my ex office mates during lunch time to tell them that I just woke up.

Soppy movies

I caught the movie Sepet on TV over the weekend. Alone of course. It is a sweet story about inter-racial love. Of course I knew it was a romantic movie. That was why I left my unopened VCD copy in my desk drawer for close to two months now.

I dislike love stories. They are in essence, sugar-coated candy-flossed tales that have so lost touch with reality. Plus they make me cry like a school girl.

I scoff at the tissue waving, eye dabbing chick flick fans. But then again, when I think about it I am not really that different.

When women watch love stories, we examine it against our own relationships and we weep bitterly over its utter wretchedness/death.

Yet through chick flicks, we continue to live in hope. Not unlike men with their porn collection. Somewhere in our fantasies we hope our Brad (or Keanu or Johnny) in shining sports car will sweep us off our Bata slippers with roses and champagne. But of course the chances of that happening is about the same as most men scoring with their favourite pornstar.

It will be a while before I watch another love story.

Where are the sitcom moms?

I have disappeared for a while to go home and visit my mom. If you have been keeping up with my incessant complaining, you would know that my parents' marriage is at a turning point.

And like a wooden stake lodged into a vampire's heart, this trip back drove home one point - I can't live with my mom if I am to remain sane.

Her values and approach to life is very old-school, not that I have a problem with that. But she has a very hot temper and a tongue to match.

She never really fancied me. My childhood years were miserable ones. Affection and attention deprived, I don't know how to explain to the men i date why I am so emotionally screwed up at times.

Mother has mellowed down through the years although my dad had to bear the brunt of her frustrations a lot as my brother and I exited the nest. And now it appears even dad has given up.

My mom is all sweet to me now and as much as I try, I cannot help but wonder if it is because she has no one left on her side. Now with this problem she is having with dad, I try to be supportive but on our trip home, my brother and I ended up on the receiving end of my mom's fury. Sigh.

I am trying so hard to be understanding but it is proving to be difficult. Perhaps it is also because I have not forgiven her for a lot of the pain and heartache I was put through.

Who would have thought that being fillial would be so hard.