Mortality

I am shamefully selfish.

Amidst two deaths of loved ones of the people closest to me, I cry over the fact that my laptop is gone.

I don't mourn people, instead I mourn some inanimate object that can easily be replaced with money (which I, unfortunately, don't have).

As I was walking behind the casket bearing Will's grandma's body with his family, I felt really sad that they had lost someone near and dear to them. But that night, as I lay down to sleep, I thought of my laptop, thought of all the what ifs and if only, cursing the fact that the only day I leave it downstairs is the day that they happened to break into my place, and if only I insured my laptop instead of my phone.

After I got the news that Sue Yen's brother just passed away in a freak accident, I continued on with my day, yes, feeling a bit sorry that he had died, yet still able to enjoy my day trip to St Ives, lounging by the beach and swimming with the gals.

Life for others doesn't stop when death comes and takes one away.

Its almost scary.

After you die, people will still go on about their businesses, still regret the thing they did or did not do, still worry about the bills, still enjoy their time with their friends, still eat that scrumptious blueberry cheesecake and plan dinner parties.

It's almost as if it doesn't make much of a difference.

Is this all there is, work and struggle through life, go through joys and sadness... go through a whole lifetime's journey... and it ends, just like that?

Happiness is...

When your boyfriend comes back early from work announcing that work got cancelled.

*happy grin*

So we went for a drive to Blockbusters.

Rented out 3 movies. And got a huge tub of Haagen Daaz's Strawberry Cheesecake for me.

We cuddled on the sofa, ate dinner and watched movies.

*total happiness.. it's rare that we get to spend so much time together*

It's the little things like this that makes it all worth it. Little things that keep you warm at night when you're home alone and missing him dearly. Little things that keep a relationship going.

You see, these little things are relationship staples. The kiss goodnight, the toothpaste left on toothbrushes, the helping out with the washing up, calling to tell that you're going to be late. And yes, those chill out movies that you watch, cuddled together on the couch.

It's not the big bouquet of flowers, or that wonderfully romantic trip, or even that really expensive gadget that you buy as presents. Those, well those are bonuses.

Because at the end of the day, it's the little acts of kindness and consideration that takes discipline to do, and remind them that they're not taken for granted.

Now thats priceless.

Tribute to what once was...

A little over 120 hours ago, my house was broken into. Among some of the things that were burgled was my Fujitsu S2020 laptop.

The thing is, it wasn't just a laptop. No, it was a lot more than that.

It was where I spent countless hours with my roommate Chewy 2 years ago, building our dream houses and families, indulging in our control freak tendencies through Sims 2.

It was the laptop that I wept over while typing my various assignments at the very last minute.

It was a medium through which I shared my joys and sorrows with friends and family through the likes of MSN and Yahoo Messanger... It helped me through bouts of homesickness and bleak moments of loneliness a student studying half the world away from Malaysia.

Its my only source of music and entertainment in the long winters at Marjon. Nothing like Enya when you're trying to sleep and Garbage playing on the background while you're trying to read books written by the likes of someone with the name of Zoltan Dornyei.

It's my Picasa album full of pictures of friends and family. Pictures that capture moments that can never be relived. Pictures of travels and adventures to foreign lands, or just pictures of a friend when she was still alive.

It was the video player that allowed me to view the footage of Odil, Alvin, Doreen, Nick, Raymond, Allen, Bansi and me having fun at the food fight we had last Christmas. And all the other footages of us, well, just being us.

It was my degree. A whole year's worth of thinking and brainstorming ideas for my dissertation. Months worth of research, interviews conducted through chat and quotations from books that I thought was bad enough to go through the first time, but now have to read through again.

Has anyone ever read 'The Little Prince' by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry?

That part where the prince talks about the rose, *his* Rose, rings true:

"You're lovely, but you're empty," he went on. "One couldn't die for you. Of course an ordinary passerby would think my rose looked just like you. But my rose, all on her own, is more important than you altogether, since she's the one I've watered. Since she's the one I put under glass. Since she's the one I sheltered behind a screen. Since she's the one for whom I killed the caterpillars (except for two or three for butterflies). Since's she the one I listened to when she complained, or when she boasted, or even sometimes when she said nothing at all. Since she's my rose."

Just like the rose, anyone else would think that it's just an ordinary laptop.

But to me its not. It's MY laptop.

Its the laptop I've painstakingly where I painstakingly sorted the files. Just the way I like.

It's that same one that I panicked over and called just about everyone I know from a few different continents in tears to help sort out, just because I had unwittingly pressed the num lock button.

The same one I routinely run a full system virus scan and ad aware programme every Sunday, and the one that I have to leave alone for hours to defragment.

The one that I would carefully put the foam thingy between the keyboard and screen, the very one that I would wince in pain if it got scratched.

All those years of love and experiences. My laptop has been with me through it all.

And now it's not.

And it's left a gaping hole in my heart where it used to be.

I believe that its the BEST laptop that Fujitsu ever made. Given the choice of ANY other laptop, I'd still go for my Fujitsu S2020.

*SIGH*

sudah jatuh ditimpa tangga...

Great.

I've just been burgled.

Bye bye my beloved Fujitsu Lifebook...

Bye bye one year's worth of dissy prep and work done.

Bye bye holiday pictures that were not backed up.

Bye bye great collection of painstakingly searched for songs, pictures and downloads.

Bye bye bitter sweet old memories.

Sigh...

*sam thong*

Great year, huh?

Bills, Bills, Bills...

It never ends, does it?

Its bad enough having to fork out £200 for my phone bill, I got suckered into joining not one but TWO bookclubs that are both demanding payment of over £100 EACH as breach of contract for not buying 4 books as written in the agreement.

I didn't even know that I was supposed to be buying 4 books from them. I thought the initial books that I bought for about £1 each counted towards it.

Apparently not.

So right now, I am approximately £400 in debt. All within a year and the worst thing is, I don't even have anything to show for it.

I could have gone on two holidays with that kind of money. Or spent a whole lot more on food and shopping in Paris. Or buy more useless souvenirs than I plan to bring back from the Grand Bazaar in Istanbul. Or more shoes than I can ever need from Italy. At the very least, I could have taken a taxi instead of walking from Selfridges to Harrods (it almost ruined my brand new heels!).

No.

Instead, I have to spend it all on bills and debt repayment agencies with a stupid name like Commercial Collection Services.

Arghh.

I absolutely hate having to worry about money. I wish Orange made a mistake with the bill, or that I read the smallprint and was wiser to know that if a deal sounds too good to be true, it probably is.

So here I go, struggling to pay the bills. I don't know how I'll go about it, but if its got to be done somehow.

So help me God.

HELPPPPPPPPPPPPPP!

whats the point?

Life really couldn't be better.

Everything I ever wanted I have. Amazing friends, the boyfriend of my dreams, an oppurtunity to travel the world.

I wanted all these and now I've got them. Of course I still want a lot of other things.

But you know those moments that catch you unawares, those horrible thoughts in your head that makes you wonder, even during the moments when you're supposed to be the happiest, 'whats the point of all these'?

Whats the point of making the bed if you're only going to sleep in it again?

Whats the point of showering if you're only going to get dirty again?

Whats the point of changing so many clothes when there's always more laundry to do?

Whats the point of living if for all that you do in your life, you're only going to die in the end?

These are extremely negative thoughts, I know, and I have no reason to be like that. Every day I try to push it away. I try to put on a smile and be happy and jolly and everything I have to be. And every day it becomes more and more exhausting.

I try not to brood. But day by day it becomes harder and harder to work up any sort of excitement about life.

Will keeps on saying that I have to take care of myself, especially after the accident. That now that I've had such a close encounter with death I should appreciate my life even more.

I don't even want to type the retorts that was going on in my head.

I don't know. I'm just too exhausted. Too tired to bother about anything around me anymore. I've lost that part of me that wanted to help people, fight for rights, right the wrongs.

At the end of the day, whats the point?

Perfect

I don't want to have half-hearted love affairs
I need someone who really cares
Life is too short to play silly games
I've promised myself I won't do that again
--- Fairground Attraction, "Perfect"

How many times have we settled for second best, how many times do we restrain from trying to get the best, be the best, because if we did, we'd lose the comfort and security that second best sometimes give?

Too many times, methinks.

But as Anais Nin so succinctly put it, "there comes a time when the ris to remain tight in the bud is more painful that the risk it takes to blossom". And yes, there comes a time when realisation that you've got everything to lose if you don't try to reach out and grasp whatever it is that you want moves you to take action.

Like walking away from a good, but problematic relationship into a better one. Risking everything for something you believe is worth it.

It's not that I'm advocating jumping ship whenever problems arise. Not at all. But sometimes, enough is enough, there is only so much that you can take, so much you can do to try to resuscitate it.

The worst of relationships don't falter because of the big things like infidelity, but rather it gets worn away by the little things - words left unsaid, unreturned phone calls, occational put-downs made jokingly. The image of someone, a Miss Havisham of sorts, sadly blowing out candles and putting away the wine glasses after spending the whole day cooking and anticipating the moment, of great expectations let down and futile hope, evokes heartwrenching pity. Swinging between hope and dissapoinment does take a huge toll..

But sometimes, its not that easy to walk away, especially when it comes to love. If someone came along and seemed to understand me, see through the facades and break through barriers to reach into the most sensitive part of my heart - made me feel special and loved and go all wobbly - I probably wouldn't know how to walk away from that.

Because that alone, that idea that someone understands, would probably justify staying with someone who's personality of Jekyll and Hyde, with moodswings and the ability to make you feel so so small, so damned, so taken for granted. Because for all the bad, there is the good. Its just a matter of turning a blind eye.

But the reality of the situation is that it's not about turning blind eyes to situations like these. Sooner or later it wears you down, you become something you're not, you ultimately lose yourself. And really, any unpleasant situation that is unpleasant enough to make you feel so depressed you want to die, is just not worth it.

And when you do take that difficult first step, everything falls into place.

All it takes is that one first step.

And hopefully things will be on its way to being, well, if not perfect, better.

Don't let it go downhill

Maybe I've hit the jackpot this time. Sometimes it catches me off guard, that sudden cognizance that I love so truly and thoroughly and am being so likewise loved in return.

He does meaningful little things like stopping the car by the roadside to pick wildflowers for me although he's allergic to pollen. Like getting breakfast ready while I shower every morning, and doing the laundry for me. Little things to bring a smile to my face.

They say it goes downhill once you start living together.

It doesn't have to.

It only goes downhill once you start taking the other for granted, whether or not you live together.

Its as simple as that.

Closure

103 days ago you visited my multiply site... maybe you thought you would just drop by and see how I was doing, what's going on with my life. Maybe you thought I'd never find out. Perhaps you were looking up your old friends. Maybe you were just curious.

But why?

We met 5 years ago... 5 years seems like a long time ago. They say time heals all wounds... but maybe 5 years isn't long enough. Because it hurt. My god, did it hurt. Even after all those years, even though I've moved on. It felt as if someone had just punched me in the stomach and the floodgates of memories rushed out and overwhelmed me.

I knew from the start it was wrong. But like a moth drawn to the flame I couldn't resist. How could I have? You were everything I wanted in a guy. Thoughtful, kind, witty, charming, you wrote poems that every 18 year old girl dreamt of getting - of course I fell for you.

And I fell hard. You were after all, the first guy I fancied myself in love with.

But as things like that go, there's only so much I could handle. I could handle you not being there, I could handle the 4 hour distance that separated us. But I could not handle you being with another. No, I wanted you all to myself.

You made a mistake. You never should have introduced us. We became friends, and guess what? Every time you forgot to call her, she told me about it. And every time you made her day, she told me about it. I don't understand why she felt such a connection with me, she said that I was the only one that seemed to be able to empathise on what she was feeling. And how could I have not? We were feeling the same things about the same person. I liked her, but I could never be a true friend to her, though we could have been.

A few months later she told me about what you did on your annivesary. I never felt so horrible before. How could I have even trusted you? How could I be such a horrible 'friend' to her? How could I listen to all that, knowing that you were stringing the both of us along? And so I told her the truth.

The rest, they say, is history.

You left a big gaping wound that eventually became a hideous scar. How could I ever trust anyone again after that? How could I ever let myself be so vulnerable again. I couldn't, wouldn't let anyone make such a fool out of me again.

Maybe I've cut my nose in spite of my face. Because I was so afraid of being hurt, I never let anyone close. I would find any excuse to distance myself from perfectly good people as soon as I could feel myself getting closer to them. It spilled over to my friendships. Unconsciously, I distanced myself from my friends, became callous as soon as I sensed that they might have the power to hurt me. I trailed along like a bird with broken wings, bitter that I would never fly as carefree as I was before. The song that was in my heart, was snuffed out by scar tissues.

It would have been a downward spiral from there... I thought I had became too cold to love.

Fortunately, someone came along and changed it all. Maybe because it was so unexpected, I didn't put up that strong a barrier between us. But slowly and surely I found myself down the path I never thought I would walk again.

It took me so long to realise that as long as I clung on to that hurt, I was never really letting you go. Today I looked at your pictures and wondered why. What I saw in you. Why I held on to that hurt for so long.

But thank you.

You taught me a valuable lesson.

And it made me appreciate the person I'm with a whole lot more.

Masquerade

Dear Dee,

Sometimes you put on a mask, a facade of what you want the world to see you as..

sometimes, you wear it for so long that it gels into you, like a second skin

and you get confused as to what's real and what's not;

and sometimes you wish you could just rip it off

but you're afraid of how others might react to you - the vulnerable you.

the 'you' you wore the mask to protect in the first place...

but sometimes you need to realise

is that sometimes, you need to take risks

to know that people do love you

for who you are

not who you seem to be...

...if only its as easy as that

There are always going to be what ifs..

what if the people you value the most can't accept it?

what if you lose everything that is precious to you?

what if...

what if...

the list goes on.

and the past always catches up with you...


I've seen what's beneath that mask

it's not as bad as you think.

*hug*

almost famous

the Marjon's promotional video is out and guess what? There's a short clip of me in it.

*bangga*

It's under the 'Student Years' and then 'Talking courses'....

mmmm...

must show mom.

^_^

belated birthday pics

Midnite Surprise Party (his friends)...

:: my friends organised another surprise party ::








.: and the grande finale :.

8 more days to go...

before I go back for the Easter holidays.

but...

I'm not prepared to go back!!!
*panics*

April seemed so far to go. And now thats its only around the corner, it scares me to think how soon December will come, and I'll have to go back for good.

But for now I'll not think about the end of my course. There are more urgent matters at hand that need to be sorted.

Like what pressies to get for family and friends.

Getting from Plymouth to Gatwick.

And then from KLIA into KL.

*sigh*

I couldn't wait to go back a few months ago. But now it seems that as the day draws nearer and nearer, I've come to realise that I don't actually want to go back at all.

Well, Will's probably one of the reasons why.

But theres much more to that.

I was so homesick....

but there's a nagging trepidation that I might go back and realise that the home that I was longing for isn't there anymore.

I'll go back and my brothers will have grown.

My mom will probably look a bit older than I remembered her.

My friends will have jobs and be married.

The quaint little town that I love will be different, a little more developed.

There will be a whole new bunch of kids hanging out in the places my friends and I used to hang out in.

But of course it wouldn't be the same, would it?

Nothing will be the same.

Maybe I'm just chasing shadows... maybe I'm longing for what used to be.

Maybe I'm just clinging to memories.

I don't know.

I miss home. But I don't know where 'home' is anymore.

backdate...

Remember those little buns and pretzels I made out of leftover meatball gravy?

Well here they are!

I thought I'd just post the pictures for u guys to enjoy.



And oh, I believe I'm the luckiest girl in the world...

Why?

Well stay tuned!

I'll write about it soon. ^_~

Chinese New Year Feasts

Open house on the first day of CNY. We had wayyyy too much to eat. Clementines, peanut cookies, ried rice, scrambled egg & tang hoon in salad parcels, spring rolls, wonton, the vegetarian thingies.. just to name a few, all hosted by moi.

And on the 7th day, I roasted a pheasant that Nick shot peking duck style to eat with pancakes, steamed some pau, and best of all, managed to lou yee sang! Plus Will had a proper introduction to my whole group of friends, which was really nice. Great to see them all get along so well.

And oh, was well impressed with the results of the homemade yee sang actually.. so easy to make and it turned out to be pretty tasty too... the tang hoon noodles were super long as well. Definately gonna live to a hundred la like that.

yee sang made of shredded carrots, cucumbers, radish, tang hoon, red capsicum,
spring onions, prawn crackers and of course smoked salmon topped with
roasted sesame seeds and honey sauce

red bean pau

peking style roast wild pheasant to eat with cucumber and spring onions in tortilla wraps

And I know I haven't been writing... I've been kept *ahem* occupied by a certain someone.

~_-

Xin Nian Kuai Le!

Gong Xi Fatt Chai!

It's been awhile... and so many things has happened since that while that there's too much to write about that I don't know where to start. So I'll start from yesterday - Chinese New Year's eve.

My first CNY abroad, but it was a really good celebration. 10 of us - Alven, Sonny, Raymond, Nick, Odil, Shin Yee, Alan, Doreen, Bansi and I, we had the most delicious 10 course meal at Wah Tin Restaurant. And also went for drinks and bowling afterwards.





What am I gonna do without them? Where would I be? Life would certainly suck without such great friends as these. And although the celebrations wasn't as meriah as it would have been in Malaysia, it was good - good enough to make me forget the homesickness, good enough to make me feel like i'm the luckiest girl in the world to have friends like these.

This outing was a wake up call to appreciate my friends more, to spend more time with them, and to really really treasure the friendship that we have. I have admittedly been spending too much time with The Boy that they've been feeling rather negnected - so neglected that they went to watch a movie last Saturday without me, which made me merajuk for a whole day...

Speaking of The Boy, he's not been formally introduced, has he? Well everybody, meet Will. He lives opposite my house and we spend most of our time together watching DVDs, eating and layaning each other's silliness. Which is a good thing because no one else layans my merengek-ness.

I was feeling totally hyper after the huge amounts of food, coke and chocolates that I bought at the bowling alley that he suggested a drive to calm me down a bit. Said that it works for him cos as a child whenever he couldn't sleep his dad would drive him around and put the music on and it seemed to work on him. So we took a two hour drive around Dartmoor, enjoyed the scenery by night, looked at ponies and wild rabbits caught in the headlights whilst trying to cross the road (he refused to let me take one home!) and basically had a great time enjoying the evening together.

^_^

Happiness. With people like these in my life, what else can I wish for?

A brief hiatus

I'm back from the hols, feeling surprisingly drained instead of rejuvenated from the vacation.

Talk about needing a break to get over a holiday.

And so, I am belatedly taking some time off to think about the year thats past, and the year to come. It's been a whirlwind of adventure, 2005, and I was sad to see it go.

I can only hope 2006 will be an even better year, a year to celebrate friendships, travels, new experiences and finding self.

Happy New Year everyone. And may you live 2006 in vivid technicolour. With love, joy, and fiery passion in whatever it is that you love.

Take care.