Sick & Tired

Listening to: One Crowded Hour – Augie March

Currently Reading: The Painter – Will Davenport

So today was the first day of uni. My Genetics lecturer was as quick as lightning and very very German. Meaning: he’s brilliant, but much too quick for a bunch of third year students who had just learned how to roll out of bed for their very first lecture of the year. Thank goodness that was 50 minutes and then I was done.

My homesickness is minimal at the moment; it helps to have some sort of a routine. My aversion to all food Australian however is, weirdly enough, still sticking around. Maybe it’s because I was a Mean Malaysian Cuisine Eating Machine for three months.

My friends who had been together for a year and a half(ish) just broke up and it was just so painful to watch him try to aimlessly go through the days and nights. I’m terribly proud of the way he’s been handling it because I know if you had flung me into his position, I’d be a messy pile of bawling female - completely incapacitated. It reminds me of that one time last year that it seemed as though it was Breakup Season – almost 5 couples I knew had broken up in succeeding weeks and it had made me a little worried.

It’s funny how it seems perfectly natural on what to advise a grieving friend but if we were ever in the same position, every law in the rulebook is automatically null and void. It would be as though nothing made sense anymore and although somewhere inside you, you know they’re being practical and honest, there is an external side of you that doesn’t seem to be able to grasp that fact. Or at least, doesn’t care.

I’m afraid that sometimes, when a friend needs me, all I will be able to muster for them would be sympathy, when all I want to give them is my empathy. Does that make any sense?

Can you truly share a friend’s grief if theoretically you’ve never been in an identical (if not similar) position before? Does that then make the intention (however honest) less genuine?

Sigh. I’ve had to deal with a lot of emotional baggage, especially since leaving home, but at least I know when I want to bawl and cry, I would appreciate any shoulder, regardless of whether said shoulder was missing home too or not. To me, it isn’t about whether they understand or not. It’s that they cared enough to listen. Everybody can’t understand everything anyone goes through. We compile our experiences from bits of our own lives and pieces from everyone else’s.

Certain experiences like death, desperation and disappointments are inevitable in our lives. I suppose the ability to emerge from those events determine whether we become stronger and more capable individuals, both emotionally and mentally. We all experience a rock bottom point in our lives and that is perfectly normal; I guess it’s how we pick up the pieces and move on that makes the difference.

I guess it’s time to get over missing home, open my curtains and let the sun back into my life.

“I’m sick and tired of being sick and tired” Fannie Lou Hamer, American Civil Rights Activist.

Might as well pull up my socks, put on my game face and assert myself.

And how are the rest of you coming along? 

Anywhere But Here

Listening to: Taking a Chance on Love – Renee Olstead

Currently Reading: Would You? – Deanna Kizis

I wish I was in Mauritius lying on a beach with a good book;

On a gondola in Venice;

In a flea market;

Christmas gift shopping;

Watching a Friends marathon with my mother while having tea and goreng pisang;

Snuggled in bed at home while the rain pours outside my window;

Lying in a bath tub listening to Corrinne Bailey Rae;

Arguing with Barath on whether to have steamboat or sushi for lunch at OneU;

Jamming a new song with Joshua and watching Prison Break2;

Gossiping with the Gombak Gang or playing Charades;

Having a Caesar salad with Sash and G at Pizza Uno;

Watching the sunset at Barbados;

Listening to the fireworks on the fourth of July;

Sipping a mocha frap at Starbucks;

Making snow angels in Japan with my parents;

Baking cookies with my gran;

Anywhere but here in the blistering heat away from home, two days away from the start of uni and the worst year ever.

Woohoo.

Prayer to the Holy Spirit

Granted for my request to do well in my second year finals.

Holy Spirit, you who make me see everything and show me the way to reach my ideal. You who give me the diving gift to forgive and forget the wrong that is done to me and who are in all instances of my life with me. I in this short dialogue want to thank you for the everything and confirm once more that I never want to be separated from you no matter how great the material desires may be. I want to be with you and my loved ones in your perpetual glory. Amen.

Say this prayer 3 consecutive days without stating one’s wish. After the 3rd day, your wish will be granted no matter how difficult it may be. Promise to publish this once the prayer is granted.

The First Day

Listening to: ‘Til It Happens To You – Corrine Bailey Rae

It feels as though I have been awake since forever and maybe I have. It’s only 3.20pm Adelaide time right now but I have been awake since 4.30 a.m. because MAS believes that a Continental breakfast is best consumed during  the night flight at such an hour.

It was an uneventful flight – it started of with a crying baby which is the second most annoying to fly with but she/he (it?) stopped eventually. The woman in front of me decided that the best way to fly was with her seat pushed back so low that she was almost resting in my lap (most annoying thing to travel with). The movies weren’t too good as usual. The Marine (don’t ever watch it), Flushed Away and things like that. I watched Daredevil seeing as how I had never seen it and Malaysia had heroically banned it from theatres for being too violent (has anyone watched a Tamil film lately??).

Daredevil = engh. Enough said.

Dinner was pasta and fish. Well, it was dinner for the rest of the passengers anyway, I had never lost my apetite so quickly, ever. Maybe it was because I was feeling a teeny bit homesick; either that or the sight of that crumbed fish was more than I could handle at 11.30 p.m. (Yes, night flights have odd meal times).

The one thing I enoyed the most throughout that entire flight was the Mini Magnum they gave us for dessert.

Mini Magnum = Y.U.M.

I slept fitfully for the bext three or so hours and made it through customs alive. One of the things I dread most about airports is having to hoist my almost 30kg suitcase from the baggage carousel unto the trolley. Most days, I just fumble under its weight and it inevitably falls on someone’s foot. Today however, things were peachy. Thank God.

I cabbed it home with every intention of unpacking and maybe crying a little. When I saw the state of my room, all intentions of tears, even sniffles, disappeared. My landlord had converted my shared bathroom into an ensuite (so sweet!) and thus had moved some things around – everywhere (but arrrgh).

I have a love/hate relationship with my landpeople. They are so completely devoted and parental that it is easy to feel secure with that. On the other hand, it was stuff like this, that explains the other facet of my annoyance.

I was tired, hungry, bitchy, sleepy, sweaty and grumpy (did I name all seven dwarves there?) but I knew I would not get a wink of sleep until I had cleaned out my room. That is my OCD. And so, in sweltering 30 degree weather I vacuumed, dusted, arranged and rearranged.

Once that was done, I knew that my body odour would probably go against every law of nature unless I bathed it. And so I did.

Peeve #2: No shower screen was installed yet. Brilliant me, fails to notice this and bathes with my bathroom door open because if it’s too hot it tends to get stifling with my bathroom door closed.

No shower screen + spray jet of water = wet bedroom carpet floor.

Decided to ignore that, slopped a rug over it to soak up the water, towelled off and hurried off to Coles (equivalent to Gombak’s Wasbudi) to get food. Ended up accidentally leaving the most essential thing i.e. bread – in the  sanitary pad aisle when I knelt down to shove everything into my shopping bag and in my haste to leave my bread unkemeked, I literally just left it there. When I walked back again – because what is any sandwich without its bread? - I picked up another loaf and sureptitiously avoided looking at the prevous loaf left standing next to a packet of Whisper Wings.

Failure to find knife; ended up biting into raw tomato instead of previously intended dainty thin tomato slices.

At this point it was only 2 p.m. and it had felt like ages. My kind old landlord called and said he was going to come install the shower screen and he profusely apologised for everything which made me love them again. I was just being a grumpy cow after all; who wouldn’t prefer their own bathroom as opposed to a shared?

It was only when he came in did I realise I had left a pair of underwear hanging on the railing of my bathroom to dry. Can you say Black Granny Travelling Underwear? (you wanna be as comfortable as possible when you travel!)

He’s old, I reasoned, I’ll wait for him to look away and I’ll grab it. He comes in smiles and says, “meet the contractor”. And one burly man comes into the bathroom with his ruler, followed by another and he was followed by another again! Three burly male Australian contractors standing just metres away from my black underwear!!!

Oh, slay me now! They just went in, one by one. and stood around taking measurements and drawing layouts. I had only one choice. When they looked away, I walked in quick as flash, grabbed my shower cap and the underwear (together – you see the disguise?) and threw them carelessly into my laundry hamper. Of course, it would all have meant nothing if they had noticed my underwear in the first place. Like, why, would anyone WASH their shower cap? Sigh, but it was the only resort I had left. And I think if I had heard a chuckle I would have to be the first person in history to die of embarassment.

Which I didn’t.

My kind landlord apologised again, fixed my limping table (it was missing a bit of it’s fourth and second leg) and left with his Cohort of Burly Men. Which still leaves me tired, demotivated and still, unpacked. But my room is somewhat in it’s normal state and for that I am happy. I’ll go read awhile.

Still 4 p.m. huh? Lucky Malaysia – I can’t believe it’s only 1.30 at home.

Home = miss.

Thank God the hard part for this chapter is over. The ass busting is yet to come but when it does, you’ll be around. 

4.25 pm so badly wanna sleep but can’t. Damn jetlag.

Leaving on a Jet Plane

Currently Watching: The last episode of WWE Raw for the next 10 months

I’m leaving on a jet (air?) plane tomorrow to head back to Aussieland.

I’m going to miss home and everyone here when I leave it but I’m grateful for a good three months, something a lot of other people were not as privileged to experience.

And there is not one thing I regret about it.

Watch this space. Just because I’m no longer “in the neighbourhood” does not mean my blogs won’t be.

Thank God for technology.

Take care guys. Till I see you from Australia – cheers.

Offline messaging at its best

Barath/Bryan; the names sound alike..almost..right? I cannot be the only one to confuse the two.

Here’s an offline message Bryan sent me two days ago:

Bryan sent 2/16/2007 4:03 PM:
ok chun

Note I did not get this until I signed in today, which is one of the reasons offline messaging is really cool. However when I wanted to check if Barath’s computer issue was going on well but he appeared offline I sent him an offline message along the lines of

Felicia said:
hows it going love

which was when Bryan’s two day offline message appeared on my screen

Bryan sent 2/16/2007 4:03 PM:
ok chun (which I thought was Barath’s reply to my message)

to which I continued in Bryan’s textbox

Felicia says:
haha
Felicia says:
i wuv you so much baby
Felicia says:
i misssh you

which was when I realised that there was a separate box on my taskbar with Barath’s name on it which only meant…it wasn’t Barry I was talking to *horror dawns – MORTIFYING MORTIFYING* … and the only way you continue on from there is…

Felicia says (to Bryan) :
hahahaha
Felicia says:
OMG
Felicia says:
i tot you were BARATH!
Felicia says:
LOL
Felicia says:
cuz i was msging him at the same time
Felicia says:
sorrrrry

Felicia says:
but i DO love you
Felicia says:
and miss you
Felicia says:

Felicia says:
so .. no.. not the wrong window
Felicia says:

Felicia says:
ciao

In other words, no, there is no way you recover quickly from something like this.

And funnily enough this is not the first time a potentially embarassing message has not reached its  intended recepient.

It cannot be possible to die from embarassment because otherwise I would not be here, writing to you now.

I don’t know whether it’s a good/bad thing that Bryan was offline at the time that this happened.

Tom, Jerry, Doraemon & Hannat (not a misspell)

Went out with the gang last night for dinner at BK, not all the gang unfortunately

It pretty sucked that I didn’t get to meet up with Gan, Paul & Navin as well last night but at least we had a good meet up for Steamboat Saturday and I am happy for that – quick note to you guys – I miss you and all the best okay!!??

Cheryl pretty much summed it up but we talked of almost everything under the sun but harped more emphatically on things that included Hannah T’s sexual orientation (unbelievably she has her own page in Wikipedia and her own website) and the current situation of Hillcrest’s debate team.

So we just talked about things that most people would term senseless. I’m 21 already; I think the time will come when all I will have to talk about is boring old important topics so why give that up now? Rest assured as long as I have friends that remind me of how it feels to be young – I’ll be okay

It poured non-stop today…Murphy’s Law insisted that I have a dental appointment at the same time. I spent most of my morning at the dentist’s office watching old reruns of Tom & Jerry cartoons, which I thoroughly enjoyed , while waiting for my turn. Turns out I have no cavities but I do have minimal gingivitis – roughly translated – gum inflammation. I had to shell out 10 bucks for some special gum toothpaste. Haha, I normally would never blog about something as mundane as a trip to the dentist and the state of my gums but there’s a first time for everything.

I am now going to continue on my trip down Childhood Lane and read a Doraemon comic book – remember those??

Haih life is currently so nice…

Gong Xi Fa Cai to everyone – I wish you lots of happiness, wealth, health and prosperity. And bulky angpows…..

What Women Want

Listening to: The Sweet Escape – Gwen Stefani (and no I haven’t succumed but I really like this one)

They say aim to please. But how far?? How much of what you want to do is because other people demand it of you and it is just a subconscious act of pleasing?

For instance, can I wear my heart on my sleeve and do as I please if that’s what I feel like? Do I have a right to let someone know I am upset with their actions? Can I just let it go? Should I?

I get reeeeally pissy when I’m all PMS-like and most of this won’t make sense tomorrow. I go around in circles and just spout (In retrospect most of the stuff below is way overdue).

Example – I don’t think Women really know What they Want when they voted both Talha and Nicholl out in one week! (re: What Women Want is a Bachelor-like show that airs on 8tv on Thursdays at 10.30pm). I think Christian and Sham are far more ninny then Tal and Nic. Less cute too. So… what? Are they looking at substance then? What – the panel of judges think it’s far more worthy of a guy (Sham) to leave his teammate(Christian) stranded in a jungle when the rest of the guys worked together?

I think intentionally leaving someone in the damned jungle and not bothering enough to really look for him is grounds enough for elimination. It shows disrespect, selfishness and just an all round non-caring attitude. Instead they keep both the leaver and the leavee and eliminate Talha and Nic for not being romantic enough the following week??!??

Let me tell you something; I would rather have a man who was caring and attentive and loyal than a man who would serenade me with flowers and chocolates from my below my balcony every day and then leave me to be mauled by Taman Negara tigers. Thank you very much.

Do you know what I believe is the main problem with What Women Want? The women who vote for what they believe are the best men for the job every week are a panel of judges who, every single week, come across as being pretty frustrated women. The men are human, for goodness sakes, so they’re not perfect but don’t interrogate them like bound captives! Some of them are pretty nice men.

Maybe it’s the aim of the show to have judges that are firm about the way guys should act and stuff but I believe that it’s okay to make it light and humour infused and still get your point across. Believe it or not, all guys don’t automatically know how to act in order to please a woman. And sorry fellow women, but because of the diffuse amount of overly romanticised material we read and watch on TV we have a fixed stereotype of the Perfect Man. Heads up, he doesn’t exist. Note, and neither does the Perfect Woman.

Maybe the panel has such an interrogative style because it’s better for the ratings (re: the Simon Cowell type judging style) and maybe I’m just upset because my favourite two are out but I still think voting two men out in one week for not being romantic enough is hardly a reason. Moving on.

So I missed last week’s show because I didn’t believe it was worth watching with two of my main men gone but curiosity got the best of me this week and apparently Christian got eliminated. Can anyone update me as to why?

My favourite pick to win is Hafiz – he’s sweet. And Charles is rather dishy . Okay Sham’s alright too but not my favourite. I can’t be biased in favour of Tal and Nic…I hope none of them get one of the judges as a twist surprise prize though. The judges seem pissy enough. They (the guys) should hold out for Hannah T (the host) – she’s hot.

Righto, sorry for the pissy entry.

And for using the word ‘pissy’ one time too many. :-S

I’m off to watch What Women What! (sigh it always gets the best of me)

Update: Sham got eliminated. Hafiz & Charles are in the final two. *big smiles everyone*

East/West

Listening to: Gravity – John Mayer

So allow me to be honest.

In one week’s time I’m going to be leaving home to go abroad for the fourth time in three years. The days of bumming around the house watching cable TV in my pajamas until 2 pm is soon to be over. At that time, I cannot expect lunch to be ready; in fact, meals will have to be planned and prepared. Broadband will once again be too expensive, laundry a fortnightly affair and cheap food all but a dream. Don’t even get me started on my biological clock – it has no idea that six am is an official time of day. All it has ever known is midday.

I can rest assured that the first three days will wring every emotional bone in my body; I will be able to provide for half of Australia’s rainfall in the first day alone. I have always been a homebird, being away from home again after such a long siesta is going to be almost unbearable (and since we’re being honest here, I can admit that ). No more Tuesday night RAW with Josh and Shawn Michaels, no more getting driven around by mom and dad, no more grandmotherly pampering…

And then there’s my other half…can I even begin to verbalise what being away from him is going to be like? :-S

However like everything else, there are two sides to the same (damn) coin. (re: Bryan)

Freedom will be my sweetest reward. Unaccountability, another. It’s terribly confusing to have to be an adult for three quarters of a year and then come back home and be a kid again for 3 months – the body and mind does not deal well with such transitions and when I have the time and any of you need to be comatose I will indulge you with that episode in my life.

Plus after being such a bum, I think it would be good for my mental health if I went back to using it again for something more complex then figuring out how to tie the shoelaces on Joshua’s Adidas‘. I’ve been eating like a pig/bull/buffalo hybrid these three months and I know my stomach is pretty much ready to give out – although to be fair, the reason I have been engorging myself is because I’m going to away from good food for ten months or so; I’m going to assume that that cancels itself out.

I managed to do quite a lot this time around. I met up with most of my friends, rekindled some friendships, gained new insights on old ones and balanced all of that with good quality time at home. Had steamboats, dates, a healthy dose of charades, jamming sessions, barbeques, a sleepover, multiple dinners, birthday parties, minor food poisoning, new shisha experiences, a themepark expedition, Blastoff performances and some pretty major discount purchases. All in all, a pretty satisfying trip home.

Oh, and a new blog.

At least when I get back all of my friends will be there and I’m really looking forward to kicking it with them before uni starts, God knows, life’s pretty great with them around.

Here’s to one more week – thank you God for such a beautiful three months home. I guess this only proves, east west home’s best.
Kisses.

p/s: Happy Valentine’s Day honey. I know we promised we wouldn’t succumb to the commercialism but celebrate it with an emphasis on the special… I think being with you accomplishes the second part. Love ya babe.

Have a GREAT V/Day everyone.

New year, New blog

How’s this for a new year’s start?

Testing, testing…

1…

2..

3.

Why does everything seem so short? Am I supposed to type for a looong long sentence before the entire thing extends to make a complete page?

I am so uncomfortable with this new thing..

At least the SNAP thingie is cool.