Yet another year.

back when i was still a little kid, the tiniest, littlest, most banal of things would be sufficient enough to amuse and entertain me.

one such occasion that i can think of is the great air-conditioner. i used to sleep in my parents' room when i was little and there was this air-cond set. it was some weird sort-of dark swampy green, and it made a lot of noise, AND it had no remote controls...just a little control box with one green button to start it up and a red button to stop. to adjust the temperature, you'd have to climb up to the set itself and manually twist the dial-buttons. occasionally, it'd flood my balcony too...because the hose was so cracked that water just spills out.

yep..it was THAT old.

everytime my dad announced that he'd be "turning on the air-cond tonight", i'd go into fits and frenzies. see...being able to sleep with the air-cond on was a BIG thing for me. it was fun. it was exciting. it was COOL (no pun intended). i'd jump into bed with my Pampers on (protection la, see? and i don't think there was Huggies then) and snuggle under my comforter and lay with eyes wide open...listening to the sounds emitted by that old cranky machine.

and like Pete Doherty on crack, i'd be addicted to it. i WANTED the air-cond to be, possibly, turned on every single night. andy used to sleep with the air-cond on EVERY night and i'd tell him how lucky he was...

"waaahh...you sleep with air-cond every night ar??"

sheer awe.

anyway, years rolled by and now i don't really care too much about air-conds anymore. the humble green air-cond though, it's still there, sitting in my parents' room. it does it's job. it hasn't serviced me for about 10 years now though..(haha..somehow that sounded a bit wrong).. but i still have fond memories of it. it's unassuming, see? but it still played a vital role in my life.

very much so like my (home) country.

you're so accustomed to it that you hardly know it's there..you do not register its presence. you may even sometimes take it for granted. just like the humble green air-cond set.

but, if you ever find yourself in a foreign country, maybe...JUST maybe...you might hear yourself echoing such sentiments...

there's no place like home.
damn right.

Selamat Hari Merdeka, guys!