I really don't know what to say..

I would just like to announce to the whole world that i'm finally through with Physics..yes..!! for this year and hopefully for the rest of the duration of my course...YAY!!! as some of you might know, i sat for my physics exam today...a 3-hour paper..how i miss those 3-hour papers... anyways, yes, i'm done with it, i can relax now....YES!!

There's so much i wanted to say...i just can't seem to remember it right now...

my nephew has been a conundrum so far...he's just so cute but really exasperating sometimes...and funny too..i think it's hilarious the way he acts around me..sometimes. he came over to Cherrybrook to stay about a week back i think...and the whole week he was acting really mean...hahahaha..let's just say i occupy the lowest rung in his social ladder of hierarchy...anyways, one morning he turns up to me whilst i was brushing my teeth and he goes,

"Auntie Melanie, today i'm going to be your friend ok?"

wth? i was laughing so hard that i nearly swallowed some of my toothpaste... then i go,

"You mean you weren't my friend yesterday?"

and he goes,

"No, but i'm your friend today ok?"

hahahaha...cute...i think he's gonna grow up to be a psychiatrist.

and then he called tonight and we were just talking when all of a sudden, out of the blue he says,

"Auntie Melanie, even though i'm not your friend but i still love you ok??"

the cracked me up.. i mean seriuosly..that really did...and he kept repeating it...!! hahahaha... what an angel..what i devil...well... he's coming over tomorrow for a week and i'll be looking after him on monday...can't wait!

i just realised that i've about finished my first semester of uni...i'm just one paper shy of that...but the time will come this tuesday..oh, please speed it up. the thing that's getting me worried is that although i've finished 1/6 th of my tertiary education, i don't feel as if i've learnt enough to qualify it to be 1/6 th of my tertiary education... ok, take a deep breath and read it again if you didn't get it the first time....and another very real fact that's been breathing down my neck is that i still can't believe that i'm here in Sydney...in Uni of Sydney... actually studying there.. i never thought i would make it here..i mean, yea, it was kinda like a thing i had, telling people that i wanted to come to Sydney Uni but to actually be here..?? whoa... it's like... far-out.

another thing i'm i'm currently doing is to build a little library...a mini version of the one i have back home...right here in my room...so far my collection of books stand at a respectable number of 13....i bought 4 new ones today...really awesome!! one of them only cost me 1.95 aussie...!! how's that for good value?? and i've already finished reading it..it's called...'The Man who eat a 747'....and it's really good. it's kinda like a love story, about this man who ate a Boeing 747 to prove his love to a woman...really interesting..a good light read. anyways, the fact is that i finished it in one day...

my brain has been so saturated with notes and past year papers that i think it starved for something of a more literary nature...the book was a really good help... oh. and i watched two movies in a row tonight... Chicken Run and The Wedding Singer.

it's funny how i used to diss Chicken Run and thought very VERY lowly of it but actually watching it tonight...i just realised how good it was... cudos to Chicken Run fans! gawd...can you imagine that those poor chickens had to live in concentration camps? when i first saw the opening scenes and didn't know that it was actually CR, i thought,

oh no..not another movie about WW2...i didn't know dreamworks made any WW2 movies?!

and the wedding singer was just awesome. i now have a terrible infatuation for Adam Sandler.

haha

awesome.

ooh... and some news for you. i'm suffering from indigestion at the moment...eating a 'jong' (chinese dumpling?? you know the prism-shaped one with glutinous rice?? hahaha) and then eating seri muka (malay kuih with santan and glutinous rice) really plays havoc on your intestines...you've been warned.

That much closer to being a free woman.

hello once again...

it's the exams and i really SHOULD be reading up for the Geology paper tomorrow...but since it starts at 2 and me being the perfect procrastinator that i am..it can wait.

funny thing, really..ever since blogging about Felicia, i feel reluctant to blog anymore...there's just a part of me that keeps saying, "enough...you've done enough already"... it might sound weird, but that what i feel...and just to say if i made any of you cry, i'm truly sorry, it was never my intention to do something like that...but thanks again...i don't know what for, but it just feels good to say thank you... yes, once in awhile, i TOO would like to play the good kid and not always be stereotyped as a spoilt bratty only-child... hahahaha... THANKS!

today has been good to me though...had to sit for Calculus today, but it was good..i mean, heck, i've done the best that i can..and now, i'm just hoping for the best....hahahaha..i'm not gonna be picky or choosy, all i'm asking for is a high distinction...nothing more.

haha

i'm joking. i need to get the humour back in me...i keep replaying the song 'Hold on' from Jet over and over again.. it lulls me into this semi-stoned-semi-relaxed-semi-peaced-out kinda state...it's nice. i recommend it to everyone...

ok, back to today...i did some really good non-academically-related work. i cooked and i baked. yes, seriously..i did!! for the first time in my life..i made biscuits, all by myself...i never had to luxury to do something like that before because back in good-old malaysia, we didn't own an oven...yea, don't laugh..cornflake cookies, ULTRA sinful...it has 250 grams of pure butter and 300 grams of white sugar in it...absolutely lip-smackingly delicioso..!

mmm... biscuits. i remember the very first time i made cookies/biscuits...it was back when i was in std 4-5..i forget. anyways, it was with this bunch of girls, we formed this thing called the Sapphire's Fund Club...don't ask why it's Sapphire and not Ruby or Emerald or something-or-other...i forget. anyways, our club would meet up every Saturday at one of the girls' house... it think her name was Nadia or Natasha...i think it's Nadia..Nadia Baharin...

anyways, one day, we made cookies and it was really fun! mixing flour, beating up the eggs and sugar and everything else that goes along in biscuit-making..and then, *pop* in it went into the oven...nice. could hardly wait for it to be ready ... *anticipation on the high* ...

and in comes Nadia's older sister..and she asks us what we were doing and we said that we were making biscuits...then she goes, oh..nice! then she walks towards the mess that comes with every baking-adventure and looks at the flour on the floor...then she squints and squats down to examine the flour and stand up laughing...do you know that there's worms in the flour??

it was a shocker! not so much as the possibility of us eating worms cooked at 180 degrees if she hadn't told us, but more of the idea of us having mushed up all those wonderful batter with our fingers! ultimate gross-out. i think that sparked my fascination with worms.

haha

i'm just teasing.

about my fascination with the worms...

anyways, i wonder what happened to Nadia and her family? i remember her quite vividly now... she was the one who introduced me to the Lord of the Rings, the novel...back when Orlando Bloom was still an unknown bloke struggling to get through acting school...and she had horses in Fraser's Hill...and she gave me this book on volcanoes, which was really nice of her...and we'd congregate at her house every saturday and we did this silly recording and taped all oour conversations for the whole day...cos her mom taught at the university and wanted to lecture about the speech habits of kids today...

i wonder...what happened to her? she move away from our neighbourhood and we never kept in touch anymore...maybe i've gotta scout around friendster ... it's worked pretty well so far.

hmm... yes, maybe that's what i'll do now..

peace out..!

Her Life 1987-2004

Everyone's been asking me about my second friend. As much as i'm grateful for your thoughtful wishes and sympathy, i'm a bit tired of re-telling the story over and over again...because everytime that i do that, it reminds me of her and my last memory of her wasn't especially perfect... Therefore, for the benefit (or whatever you want to call it) of all... i'm just gonna tell her tale one more time...hopefully it'll explain all your questions that you've been meaning to ask me...or just give you a little insight into her life...or just make it a good read and help you appreciate the little things in life...like having a good and well-functioning heart.

Her name's Felicia Yuen Sook Yuen and she's a year younger than me. When i was little, i was put into the care of my babysitter and Felicia happened to be her granddaughter. we'd play together when we were children, because her family was literally one of the only families i knew.. and since i was an only child, she was about one of the very few friends/playmates that i had. when i was 10, my mother told me that the doctor said that she would not make it past her 20th birthday.

She was born with two or multiple holes (i forget how many) in her heart...and as an infant, she went through many MANY operations to fix that defect...but it never really cured her, it just bought her time. as a kid, i always remembered being warned by my babysitter not to play excessively or too rough with her...she's frail, fragile, perpetually with blue lips and fingers because blood could not reach to those extremities, she would gasp for air after about 20 minutes of play and she'll always be looking out from the windows watching me and her sisters and cousins play. that's how i remembered her as a kid.

time and time again, i would arrive at her house and ask for her, just to find out that she's in the hospital undergoing some surgery. back then, i didn't think much about it because to a kid, operation means 100% recovery...and when she came back she would proudly show me her scars, her marks of honour as she would tell me...and it all became a game. the last i remembered, there were 4 all together.

we grew up together, from primary school, to secondary, playing, me helping her with the homework, eating young green mango with the gooey sticky black sauce, going to the markets, brushing our teeth together, playing computer games, watching chinese serials and cartoons, riding bicycles outside the house; me cycling, she being the passenger, talking about boys, she being in Convent and me in Jalan Bukit, a co-ed school...going crazy over SweetValley novels and Westlife (ok, SHE was crazy over them) ... there was just so much that we did as a team, she and her sister were like real life sisters to me.. sisters that i never had.

when i finished Form 5, i stopped going to her place... occasionally we'd meet each other in town or at church and talk and laugh just like old times...then i entered college and she went on to Form 5, and we never saw each other again. life does that to you...when you're chasing after your own dreams or purposes, you lose the things that you once cherished and found comfort in.

then one day, after i came home from college, someone rang my doorbell and i looked out and saw her uncle, her 2 youngest siblings and cousins. somehow, i just knew something was wrong. i thought that maybe my babysitter's husband (my babysitter died when i was in Form 1, but i still continued going to the house) died, or something bad had happened to him. little did i know that it was actually Felicia. it seems that she was coming home from school yesterday and missed her mother's car and was running uphill to chase after it...over-exhausted herself, collapsed in the afternoon, died at night.

it came as a shock. i didn't know what to say. i couldn't say anything. all i could do was register what he was saying whilst my mother enquired about the funeral times, the wakes, the cause of death etc. the whole while, i could only stare at Felicia's brother, feeling myself going numb. then they went away.

for awhile, i couldn't feel any emotions, i was just shocked, numb, i couldn't think i couldn't feel i couldn't do anything. i sat, staring at the tv while my mom started crying. and i was thinking,

why are you crying?? of course it's not real, i must still be sleeping cos i normally take an afternoon nap when i come home from coll yes that must be it i'm still sleeping and when i wake up my mom will be in the kitchen cooking dinner and singing to herself yes please wake up please wake up now and everything will be alright and i will tell her about the dream that i had and both of us will laugh over it and she'll tell me not to be silly and why do i have such morbid dreams and then we'll forget about it come dinnertime and everything will be alright everything will be alright.

haha...if only life was like that. to wake up from a seeming dream whenever you're faced with such events.

i spent the whole evening crying in front of the computer, wanting to disbelieve but knowing that it's all true, crying because she was still so young, crying because she was a really smart girl and had her whole life in front of her, crying because i didn't even get to say goodbye to her, crying because i didn't even get to SEE her when she was still alive, crying because it all seemed so unfair, crying because i had just lost a friend, crying because it was the only thing that i could trust myself to do.

at night, we went to her wake...i didn't want to go..i begged to be left out of it but my parents said no, you HAVE to come...there were so many people there...i can vaguely remember seeing Dominic there. i remembered hugging her dad and he telling me that i had lost a friend and he had lost a daughter. i was still feeling composed then, i had told myself that i wouldn't cry, not in front of everyone else... but when we stepped in to the house and for the first time since what felt like forever, i saw her, lying there, inside the coffin.

it was just terrible. the feeling you get when you see someone you know, especially even more so when the person happens to be a close friend, a peer, someone your own age, lying composed inside a box with a sheet of glass over it. it hits you right in the stomach and all doubt that you had before is just knocked away. the cold hard truth is there, sleeping inside the box.

i remember thinking, telling her to wake up, expecting a miracle to happen, please wake up she's awake and her eyes are open and she's breathing and ALIVE and i'll start screaming and tell everyone that she's alive for god's sake can't you see that..?? smash her glass cover open and get her out please she's still alive can't you see that her eyes are open please someone take her out of that glass box!!!

nothing of that sort happened, she just remained sleeping...and it was then that i started crying, bawling, tears streaming down my face like i've never cried before. my mom was quietly stunned, she told me later that she never thought that i was capable of such emotions (nice mom)... i just cried and cried and then i saw her sister, Constance who made up our little band of three...a band now broken forever... i think she too was just stunned beyond belief because all she could do was look at me and hug me...mechanically. numbed.

when we got out of the house, the whispers began to start...people left right in front of me were telling each other how young she was, how she died, that she was sitting for her spm this year..oh dear, how her parents are taking it, how she shouldn't have acted impulsively or else nothing like this would have happened...the whispering just went on and on and i felt like i was going crazy just sitting there listening to them talk about her. come on, we know she's young, we know she's smart, we know she's dead..talking about it won't help her parents or her siblings or her family or me. i know, it's irrational but that's what i felt then and i stand by what i think.

after what seemed like a long while, we went home and i went straight to bed. not speaking because words would just make me cry all over again, not thinking because at this stage, thought didn't really matter, not feeling because feelings hurt.

the next day was the hardest day for me...having to go to college and pretend that nothing happened, trying to keep it all quiet, trying not to let it affect me...just dwelling upon it silently to myself...

it's been more than a year now since her passing, people say that time heals whatever hurt or grievances that we might experience...but i can assure you that it's not over yet for me...when i think about her, i start crying, thinking about her being all alone wherever she is.

Wanna know something ironic? Although Felicia and I have been friends for 17 years, we’ve never taken a picture together. I don’t have a picture of her. Nope. All I have is just a memory of her face, of how she looked, how she sounded and I know that that too will fade in 20, 30, 40 years? One day, she will just slip away from my memory. maybe then, time would really have helped...

for so long i've kept all these feelings in me...it's finally good to let it all out...maybe writing about it WILL help me to get over it...i don't know, we'll just see... an Asian culture is not a forgiving one upon self-emotions and expressions, sad to say. probably it was one of the reasons why i never told anyone about it, not even to TPL or Elaine, except as a passing remark, because it would make people think that i wasn't strong...or something along that line..i don't know how to put it..i can't explain..but hopefully you'll understand.

Trials and Tribulations of Honest Studying..

It happens everytime. as long as the laptop is not anywhere near me, i have these crazy conversations with myself and make up paragraphs and witty comments and remarks that would look really good as a new post in my blog.

once i'm here, actually attempting to put up a new post, my mind goes blank...and i forget what i wanted to say, what happened to me throughout the course of the day...everything..goes out the window....

is it possible to get blogger's-block?

anyways....i think i remember what i wanted to say. it's exam season all over again..i'm beginning to wonder when will i be able to break out of this vicious, energy-sapping, sleep-depriving cycle. haha. ok. that was meant to be a joke. sad to say, exams have never been a near-death experience for me like what most of my high school friends felt or went through... i wonder how that feels?? ANYWAY, not to diverge anymore...what i'm saying is that it's the EXAMS (if you weren't concentrating a couple of lines ago) and mine starts next tuesday. what the heck am i doing blogging instead of reading up on the Laws of Planetary Accretion, or about the Principle of Uniformitarianism, or about Centrifugal and Centripetal Forces (oooh..i HATE physics) or about Doublel Integrals and Hypothesis Testing or about Darwin's Theory of Evolution??

haha..ok, that was just to impress you. but seriously, that's what i had to go through this semester and i THANK GOD that it's coming to and end...in oh, say, 2 weeks?

ok, the point is, i went to uni today (WHAT...?? NO...REALLY??) to look up a certain lecturer about ... yes... double integrals. the good thing is, i know how to solve it now and an even better thing, the double integrals question is what separates high distinction scorers from distinction scorers... DOUBLE WHAMMY!! i'm loving it.

well, anyway, after that really informative and soul-satisfying session, i went to the library to study... (WHAT..?? NO...REALLY???) and believe it or not, i couldn't find a single cubicle to sit... it was ALL FULL!! on all floors of the library and there's 3 floors dedicated to quiet solitary studying, mind you. it was all taken up...!! amazing. i never knew Sydney Uni students studied.. i couldn't comprehend it..i mean, there had to be at least 300 cubicles and it all contained students...

finally after about 15 minutes i managed to find a spot...heck, what does it take to find a place to sit down and get cozy with From Stones to Stars...? things were going well at first, i was full-on concentrating and writing down notes and reading, when this couple came and occupied this seat beside me...and started kissing and making all these little noises.

ok, i'm not an uptight prudish person...hey, i'm all for you showing affection to your loved one...but please, not when there's about a million people studying around you and another million people standing around trying to look for a place to sit and actually make full use of the cubicle to do some good honest work...come on...how inconsiderate was that?? not to mention that my entire stride and momentum was gone right smack bang...

well, the whole tete a tete lasted for maybe half a freakin hour...AND THEN, the girl said,

"i can't concentrate here...there's too many people..let's go somewhere else.."

haha...

hahahaha...

can you believe that?? amen...that's all i can say. wherever they are, i hope that they're having a good time and may god bless them...and i hope they know what protection means... haha

it was just too funny.

so ok...exams! first one in the ring, Biology:Ecosystems to Genes...!! WHOO HOO!!
but yea, i seriously have to start hitting on those dastardly books...or else...it's char kuey teow seller at Mee Yoke SS15 for me... hahaha

Sunday sunday...

Ikea truly is the bane of poor-international-students-struggling-to-pass-each-day.

why the sudden rant? nothing much really.. it's just that today i followed my cousins to that dastardly place with the intention of helping her pick out some stuff for Joshua's room... it turned out that in the end i bought myself items that amounted to $24.95 in total... a laundry basket, some photoframes, a teddy, a children's mobile and a few boxes... it's all Ikea's fault. they had a massive sale and everything's slashed...SLASHED! i just couldn't resist.. i was powerless...! i kept walking on.. cos you know how once you step into Ikea you have to do the whole walk to get out... so yea, i passed a lot of nifty items... ooh... i just couldn't help myself... if only they were not so colourfully tagged with their reduced-prices written in 84-size font.

dang it.. so now i'm $24.95 poorer.. there goes my lunch in uni...

and i'm not done yet.. there's still these really cute tealight holders selling for 2.50 for a set of 4...

oooh!

and i HAVE to show off my nephews.. hahahaha.. benjamin's 3 months now.. and he's so changed! fat and round and white! and NAUGHTY!! hahhahaah.. has to be carried around at ALL times.. hahahahaha.. silly little nitty witty...


Benjamin!! cutie pie...OOH!


beautiful...

101 things you may already know about me. Don't bother reading it.

this is with response to karen's 101 list... hahahaha..check out how many things i hated.

1. It has always been Daddy, Mommy and Melanie.
2. If I were born a boy instead, my name would’ve been Benjamin Ho Swee Jin.
3. I was a devil when I was a kid.
4. I bit my cousin who’s 7 years older than me on his tummy when I was 3 in Sydney.
5. It drew blood.
6. He wouldn’t let me play with a racing car game…or whatever it was.
7. I bit him again on the way to the airport.
8. My dad used to chase me around the house with the feather duster.
9. I could run very fast back then.
10. I’ve gotten my fair share of hairbrushes too.
11. My parents said that I was not afraid of anything.
12. I walked off to Mini Malaysia alone when I was 5 because no one would accompany me.
13. I broke my mom’s friend’s guitar strings.
14. And my neighbour’s crystal wine glass…when I wasn’t yet even in kindy.

15. I studied in Tadika Pelangi, off Jalan Bukit.
16. I studied in Sekolah Rendah Jalan Bukit (1)
17. I studied in Sekolah Menengah Jalan Bukit
18. I spent my 14 years of schooling along Jalan Bukit…one after the other in succession
19. I broke the spell and went to Taylor’s College instead of New Era College (which was right beside my high school)

20. I knew my first friend 19 years ago.
21. I knew my second friend 18 years ago.
22. My second friend is now dead.
23. I cried so hard when that happened.
24. I still haven’t gotten over that incident.
25. I didn’t get to say goodbye to her.

26. My first friend in Primary 1 is Abby.
27. We got to know each other because she came up to me and asked me if I liked this certain
girl in our class.
28. I said no.
29. Both of us used to climb up trees and put the girl’s hairband right on top… or on top of fences.
30. SHE used to throw our water bottles into the dustbin.
31. It was war.
32. There used to be a group consisting of 5 of us… me, Abby, Andy, Muhindra, and Vignes.
33. We were a strong clique and used to play pretend Power Rangers.
34. I was the Pink Power Ranger, Kimberly.
35. I hated it.
36. I used to fight a lot with Vignes till our parents had to meet up.
37. I fell in love in Primary 3.
38. I had a major crush on him right till Form 1.
39. When I was in Primary 4, I went to my first camping adventure.
40. I didn’t last the 3 days there… I went home on the very first night itself.
41. I had another shot at the camping thing again during Primary 6.
42. This time it was a success.
43. When I went to Form 1, I met another clique of friends.
44. One of my GOOD friends, Tan Poh Leng…I didn’t like her at first.
45. I thought she looked like a frog.
46. She was quite mean at first too.
47. I can’t remember how we became as close as we are today.
48. Another of my good friends is Elaine Yap.
49. She was from SRK Jalan Bukit (2)…the enemy school.
50. The first day I saw her in my class… I went, “oh no! what’s she doing here?”
51. Our favourite pastimes were making prank calls on our seniors (boys), playing kejar-kejar at 52. the padang, double-daring each other, talking to the trees in our padang.
53. When I was in Form 1, I fell in love again, with a different guy.
54. He was…different.
55. I still think of him sometimes.
56. When I was in Form 3, I hooked up with the boy whom I had a crush on when I was Primary 3.
57. Isn’t that funny? It came full-circle.
58. I broke up with him after 16 months…for reasons that I won’t write here.

59. I used to learn ballet when I was 4 up till when I was Primary 6.
60. I loved it cos I had a whole cool bunch of friends there.
61. They started leaving one by one.
62. Then I hated it.
63. My mom forced me to take up Yamaha JMC lessons when I was 5.
64. I hated that too.
65. My mom and I used to have SCREAMING sessions every time it was time for class.
66. In the end, she gave up and I stopped going.
67. Then in Primary 5, Abby convinced me that I had to take up piano lessons
68. We had classes together.
She dumped me in the end.
69. I’m still playing till today
70. I regret stopping during the Yamaha JMC years.
71. Then I picked up the guitar…
72. Went for lessons for a year, then I quit.
73. I just realized that I am in fact a quitter…first ballet, then Yamaha…then guitar.

74. I love OBS.
75. I love the feeling I get whenever I see the school and the wooden dorms on the hill side.
76. I love everything about it.
77. I love reading too.
78. I’m a self-confessed nerd.
79. My dream is to have a library as extensive as the Fisher Library in Sydney Uni.
80. That’s where I run to every time I have a 3 hour break.
81. My ultimate nightmare would be a world without books.

82. I used to have a navel piercing.
83. I loved that too.
84. I had to take it out because my skin was thinning.
85. However, I’m determined to have it…it’s healing now and Zoo Body Art is just waiting for me to come home.
86. Like Karen, I want to get a tattoo too… but at the nape of my neck.
87. How sexy would that be??
88. A dream-catcher design… that’s what I want.
89. I love Coldplay.
90. I love anything that isn’t Britney Spears and commercial-candyfloss pop.

91. Sometimes I feel very dissatisfied with myself.
92. I’m a procrastinator… big time.
93. I think my nose is too flat… and a rhinoplasty would do the trick.
94. I feel that my face is too round…TOO ROUND!
95. I think I’m fat.
96. I think I have too little hair…I wish I had a thicker mane of hair.
97. I feel awfully stupid sometimes.
98. I’m afraid of growing old.
99. I’m quite insecure of myself at times.
100.When I was a kid, I’d always ask my mom why I didn’t have siblings but everyone else had siblings…I’d get terribly lonely.

101. It took me a heck of a long time to write all this down.

it's not as good as karen's.. i must admit... but hey, coming from someone like me.. it's feasible..
hahahahaha... d'oh!

Paranoia is the way of the 22nd century.

today was a bizarre day.

this morning, i caught a bus to uni from the city...and it was a scary bus. the bus driver greeted me!

~Welcome! you're travelling with the State Transit!~

what?? bus drivers never greet you...they're always grumpy old men...i mean... most of them are. anyways, this particular driver was...unnerving. and the bus was empty except for another man...grubby looking, obese...and a friend of the driver...further back behind the bus, there sat another old grubby looking man.

seriously, my heart sank and i started thinking all these awful things that could happen to a female commuter on the bus. anyhow, it was just me, and the three men. made my way to the back and then suddenly the old man spoke to me.

i was stunned. not to be rude or anything... but my heart began pounding and i went .. 'oh shit'... and to make matters worse..his first question was,

~where are you going?~

what could i do? i answered him. i mean, he was an OLD GUY! i didn't want to be disrespectful... so we talked... and i found out he's this Italian man from Naples and he immigrated to Sydney in the '60s....he came by boat and it took him 1 month and on his way he passed Sri Lanka and Indonesia...and in Indonesia, he told me that there were these boys and men that would sit in little rafts beneath the ship when it was in dock and they would wait for them to throw down cigarrette butts..and occasionally, someone on board would fold up a piece of paper that LOOKED like a cigarette and throw it overboard and make the poor Indonesian dive after it... and earn himself a shake of the hand and the middle finger from the unlucky Indonesian.

no joke. he told me all this. and he's been to Malaysia, Kuala Lumpur and he thinks that the Twin Towers's really cool.

now isn't that bizarre? only in sydney can you find an old man who's willing to tell you a quarter of his life...it was...nice.

then when i was in uni... i met this guy, whom i met before on the very first day of uni...during the international student orientation...i think he's from Denmark or Sweden... or somewhere from there... anyways, yea, we met on that very first day then went our own way.... until today, the 2nd last day of the semester did we meet up again... isn't that... bizarre? i think it's really funny how life plays such little tricks like these on you. i mean, what's the odds of meeting someone on the very first day of uni...then meeting them again on the very last day? .... it felt... nice.

when i came home, my mom called and the first thing she asked was...

~how's your grades?~

how bizarre... she NEVER asks me how my grades were before...so yea, had to do some reassuring..

"yes mom, i've been studying mom, don't worry mom, your daughter has officially become a nerd mom...no sweat mom, everything's good mom"....

right after the phone call, my cousin decided that i needed a .... what would you call it? stimulation? anyways, she hid in the living room behind a huge tv, the lights were all off and the front door was opened... once i walked out from the kitchen, she jumped out... and i'm not ashamed to say that i screamed... YEA I SCREAMED! hahahahaha.. that episode successfully shortened my life by 7 years.... don't ask me why 7... i just like the number 7. yea... heck, i thought an intruder was in the house...

and i'm officially now a certified paranoid android.

yes, ever since coming here, i've been real paranoid... cos this wasn't the first time that may decided to give me little surprises... hahahahaha...

but i have to say it was a damn good trick.

tomorrow's the last day of the semester!! oooh.. i can't believe it.

Random days

today is another one of those random days that's been getting at me recently.

i cut my finger last thursday and now there's a nice little scab forming. how did i do it? i was chopping up some onions to fry with my german sausages... nicely slicing away..*chop chop* when, what do you know??!! it just slipped and *whammy* blood oozing outta my finger... to tell the truth, i was stunned, not from the pain but from the blood. then i panicked when it just wouldn't stop flowing, even though i had a tissue wrapped tightly around it. ok, i'm not a St John's member... tell me what to do in cases of emergencies like this. anyways, a plaster in the end worked the trick and i can't believe how fast it has healed! hahahaha... finally, an injury i can claim from my culinary skills.


Can you just make out the tiny little cut on the middle finger...? hahahaha.. strain your eyes people!

my current ambition however, is to fry the most perfect of all perfect fried eggs. the type where it's crispy and brown on the outside and inside, the yolk is still wet and raw... yummy... mmm...fried egg.

this week is the last week of uni before the exams and i went camera-happy again. ok, maybe not that happy... hahahaha.. but at least, i did take some pics. the first one is me and amelia, this indonesian girl who sits beside me in MATH 1015-Life sciences Statistics. hahaha.. the one person i count on for notes when i skip lectures. the next ones are of my biology laboratory group... libby and ShuFen, the girl who looks like Linda. hahahaha.. they're the best and i reckon the closest ones that i'm with. having biology with them is SO funny.. there's still another 2 more girls but they ran off before i could take a picture of them... hmm.. the reason being that i'm not sure if i'll ever see them again in uni.. i mean, it's HUGE!


Me and Amelia


At the bio lab...washing our hands clean after handling dead parrots... seriously.


Me, Libby and Shu Fen... !! gonna miss em!

now, i'm suffering from the worst period cramps ever. no amount of Naprogesic or Panadol can help me... it's so bad today.. i feel like curling up, crawling into a hole and die. THE WHOLE DAY! i can't stand it.. why must girls feel all these pain? period pains, labour pains, de-flowering pains... etc. it sucks.

then i bought this awesome chess set. i can't remember if i've said it before... but yea, it's a shot-glass chess set. alcohol and chess... AWESOME!



ooh.. the pain is bad... argh!

have i ever told you about Krispy Kremes? ooh... you must hear this out. it's a doughnut and before you start going... "ala.. donut oni"... it's one of the best that i've ever eaten. i'm ashamed to say this, but, kripy kremes are the best.. it's fluffy and light and when you bite into it, it just collapses into your mouth. bottomline, it's not dense. mmm... krispy kreme...


Fen, Libby and me.. dividing the spoils of krispy kremes after a long trip to the State Library.

yes...randomness at it's best.. once again.

The Worldly Traveller that I am.

I want to talk about Alex Alexander today. I’m sorry, that’s the only name I know. Hahaha…

Ok. He’s a Alex from Nepal originally from England who’s May’s friend who worked in a monastery in Nepal teaching English to monks. That about covers all that I know about him… not extensively at least.

He’s 19 years old, 1 month 10 days older than me…and the differences between us two 19-year-olds are as wide as the Atlantic. Alex from Nepal has been to, well, Nepal, India, Thailand, Singapore (ok, I’ve been there too… but judge it based on the number of countries that he’s been), Japan, France, Australia, stays in London and sometimes in the great US of A, was going to New Zealand and wants to go to Tibet, South America, Morocco etc etc. He amazes me.

Can you imagine the experiences that he’s gained? He’s done everything that I could only read from storybooks and watch from Travel Discovery and Adventure and dream from the Bank of Melanie’s Dreams. It’s insane. It’s crazy. I’m damned envious.

Here’s my point. He’s a guy. I’m a girl. Never in my entire life, until I hit the age of 30 would my parent’s ever let me travel all alone (yes, he traveled by himself) and even if I could travel then, it’d be too late. The novelty and excitement and stamina that you had when you were a 19-20 something-year-old would be lost forever. Girls have always had it harder. Don’t do this, don’t wear that, go out with a group or else you’ll get kidnapped, raped, murdered and dumped at the side of the road. Yea, girls always get the worse-case scenario. Not that I have anything against advice like that. It makes sense and probably has saved many a girls’ lives. What I’m trying to say is that I YEARN for the kind of freedom that a boy would get.

Second point. I’m asian. The asian mentality has always been,

“Study. Work. Make money. Hoard it in the bank. Pass it to your kids. Watch the cycle reiterate”

There is just no time for play, for discovery (other than discovering which bank gives you the highest interest rate, or which job pays the most). It’s always study first, play later. Asian mentality. Not that I have anything against that either. It’s just that I would prefer to take some time off for myself and not rush into anything, like uni for instance. A gap-year, like what Alex is doing now would have been great for me… I’ve even proposed the idea to my mom long ago, but all she said was,

“Don’t be mad.”

Yes, to jeopardize your education is a hint of craziness and must be crushed instantly from the abscesses of the consciousness. The sooner you enter university, the earlier you finish your course, the faster you get work and join the rat race, the quicker you earn cash. Thank god I’m in marine biology. At least it’s something that I love to do.

Point 3. I’m an only-child. No way, and I mean, no way in hell would my parents let their one and only, apple of the eye, precious little baby darling out into this wide world, to travel, even though it may be with a group of friends. Nope, nada, no way, mai non. Not gonna happen. There’s always a perverted traveler out there preying on young women travelers. And once again, you’ll be trapped, kidnapped, raped, murdered and dumped, but this time, at the side of some foreign street where they’ll bury you in some unknown graveyard and no one will ever come and visit your grave. The worst case scenario all over again. The feeling of protectiveness over an only child is great… you people with brothers and sisters will never imagine or even come close to it. So stop thinking that being and only child is THE best. It’s not… ok, maybe sometimes it is. But only when the loneliness does not get you first.

So there you have it. Why I’m envious of Alex Alexander from Nepal May’s friend who’s traveled nearly the whole world and I don’t think I’ll ever be able to match up to him.

*sigh*

It’s true what they say. You can’t beat watching Everest from your bedroom window in some guesthouse along the many trekking trails in Nepal compared to watching Everest from your couch with a glass of coke and a bag of chips on Discovery Travel and Adventure.

May’s lucky. She’s watched Everest from some guesthouse along the many trekking trails in Nepal. LUCKY GIRL!

One day. I would like to go to Austria and Germany. And visit the Louvre and gape at the Mona Lisa and eat spaghetti marinara in some Italian café along the cobbled paths and climb the mountains where Heidi lived and see the ruins of the Incas and the Aztecs in South America and ride a camel and crawl into the pyramids and pluck wild flowers from the magical sylvan forests of England.

One day.