i had a long and meaningful chat with kailan tonight..and we've come to the conclusion that..

if ever..EVER..

anyone tells you that..

"It doesn't matter...and I'll always be there for you.."

you run away.

you run far far away.

run like mad.

you run as fast as you can

you run into the woods.

over the hills.

to the sea.

up the tree.

anywhere.

as long as you're far away.

A lot of people have asked me why I return to OBS year after year after year (repeat infinity times) and my answer has always been ‘The People’. The people are why I return to Lumut.

Somehow you build this bond with the people that you meet in OB. Ok, maybe not with EVERYONE but more like with your own watch members. There is something unbreakable about it. You KNOW your clansmen when you see them.



-Irau 2002: I'm still best mates with Natasha and we occasionally have a chat-up with Tim. And then Alien found me! How awesome! *waves to Alien* But I wonder what happend to Brian and Sanjay? And everyone else for the matter? I know Khim's in Russia...hmmm...people..damn fail la we all-



And then...of course there's that bond you build with your fellow CAs. I'd dare say that the bond between CAs > bond between Watch members..although just by a very tiny little fraction. This may be because we're united behind the belief that the children are a necessary evil and that our sole purpose is to humble them and show them how awesome and macho their CAs can be.

Take Eugene for example (haha).


Ya..I know. Damn poser right? And my bangs SUCK.

I knew him from my pre-CA days because he was one of the people in my Group..but not in my Watch. Anyway, inter-Watch rivalry was rife then and we weren't particularly close...because Jerai was lansi and Irau was just weird. But then when we became fellow-CAs..well..everything changed. I now know that he's got a rather unique belly-button, for instance.


2003: You guys blew me away. The fireworks. The off-light sessions. The hardcore-full-on-lipstick-TaiDee. Wun's fatty yet lansi face. Nothing compares.


2004: The slipper on nose incident..hoho. The high ratio of guys to girls (which resulted in torture for the fairer sex). The 'discussions' in the girl's dorm. Hair biting. You guys rocked.


2005: Who can forget the red eyes? Coming back a second time for the same course just strengthened the bond we built the year before..

And of course I can't forget my participants la..(the necessary evil we were discussing before). I *heart* you guys too...it's just that I don't have any pictures with you guys that are in digi-form. And some of you have even made the transition from minion to colleague. Haha. Well done.

What I'm trying to say is, if you go to OBS, you make friends for life.

*waves at Alien and Nat*...hello guys!

AAaahhh...i adore all you peeps. and i'm not being stalkerish here.

I know I shouldn't say this, but I will anyway...cos I find it highly amusing.

They've voted unanimously against you...for reasons that are yet to be disclosed. Maybe I'm missing the bigger picture here.

BOOM.

Be a cow and adopt the herd mentality or.....?

insight.

just in case i've ever sent out the message that marine science is fun and cool and exciting...well, here are some pictures to affirm that idea.

This was done at Narrabeen Beach...on a lovely Saturday morning. Bright sunshine. Clear skies. Cooling breezy winds.


First you put the coring apparatus in.


But then you realise that the cable isn't long enough...and your lecturer's yelling at you to come back outta the water..


So you move the tripod in to wrench the core out.


Finally all goes well..you've got your core..it's already wrenched out..your lecturer assumes a relaxed pose.


Bring the core up on land and prepare to collect whatever 6000-years-old sediments that may be contained within.


If you really wanna know...90% of that core was just very-fine-grained mud.

Ok...maaaaaybe it's not all basking on the sand in bikinis and swimming with the dolphins. But coring is super damn fun...handling a piece of equipment which is capable of vibrating its way down layers upon layers of strata and soil (the core is 6metres long) gives you a certain sense of inexplicable POWER. you've basically gone back in time...geology-style.

Oh..yea. and the white and yellow hard hats make you look damn fucking sexy too.

I just realised...

Why when it comes to relationships and finding my "True Love"...

it's been on a downhill roll since last year..

Cheeeken rice and shiitake mushrooms.

I should'nt have deleted all those forwarded messages and emails.


-Quick!-

-Forward this to 1943858377124930 friends and you will find your true love!-

-Forward this to 1943858377124931 friends and your true love will call you and say I Love You!-

-Forward this to 1943858377124932 friends and you will live happily ever after!-

-Break this chain and you'll die an old maid!-

Smashes head on mini Dell Inspiron 700m keyboard.

Great Mel...just great.

The Onion.

Just continuing what Waiking started...

yesterday, i was chopping up onions. i've been chopping onions into half-rings on a fairly regular basis ever since arriving in Sydney. my uncle likes cooking those bastard onion omelettes for dinner, hence the need for a lot of onion half-rings.

the onion half-rings that i chopped up yesterday was no different to the 1943582348292177 other onions that i've massacred thus far. each time the knife slices through the waxy translucent green flesh, they bring tears to the eyes. and they're not easy-no-fuss-no-drama sorta tears. these tears HURT. these tears SMART the eyes.

from very early on, i knew that these onions would mean nothing but trouble. everytime i peel away the hard orange exterior skin, i would assure myself that after all my past experience with chopping onions, THIS will be THE ONE that will NOT HURT. THIS will be THE ONE that will NOT bring TEARS to the eyes. that's because i've done this so many times...i naturally assumed that i'd have acquired some form of resistance to onion juice.

and each time, i am proven wrong...at that very point when knife-edge-meets-onion. to assume is just to make an ass out of you and me. or rather...just me.

but even though i know chopping onions will be detrimental to my health in the long run, i still find myself volunteering each time there is an onion that needs cutting up...or whenever bastard onion-omelettes are on the dinner menu. it's a seemingly vicious cycle that i just cannot break.

for the meantime however, i've secretly thrown out all the onions...ok..maybe just that last one. there's no more onions in the house. ok...no. there's a whole BASKETFUL of onions...i'm just gonna ignore it. and pretend i do not know of their existence. and maybe run away when my uncle reveals his onion-omelette cooking tendencies. just for the meantime.

but, i just KNOW that if in the future, someone needs an onion chopped...i'll be there.

First time evar..!

Hallo Pa.

I was actually planning to send you something over the week..like last year. You know, stuff some Australian-made golf tees into the envelope and then mail it over. But then...this year...errr...no money la. You know. Inflation. Increasing gap in the exchange rate. ETCetc.

(hinthint)

And then...i was thinking maybe i should just call you instead. But...cos no money, so i'll do my normal trick i.e. miss-call you and wait for you to call back. I mean...it's cheaper la...you know..the rate of phonecalls in Sydney is so damn high. But then..i remembered...tmrw i have another field trip so sure no time wan...

SO HOW?

make you famous la over the internet.



Because of you...I have a respectable tolerance to alcohol. At least you can rest assured that your daughter will never be made drunk and taken advantage of...bwahahahaha.



Because of you...I have a roundish-square face, dark complexion and a semi-flattish nose. It's the Ho genes...can see the blatant Stamp.

Because of you...I have a rather warped sense of humour. But hey..as warped as it is...both your antics and mine make people laugh...so we must be doing something right.



See our smile? Damn alike ok? Not like Mom's one...cannot see the teeth.

I've never said this before but:

1. Thanks for carrying me upstairs to my your room when i was leeetle every time we come home from Klang. Actually..90% of the time i was just pretending cos i was too damned lazy to wake up and walk up by myself.

2. Thanks for throwing away my dead terrapins early in the morning before i woke up...and telling me that they crawled away..(or something like that)..so that i didn't have to see them myself.

3. Thanks for always suggesting that we go to Bali or Phuket or Langkawi or ANYWHERE for the matter.

4. Thanks for making me the Captain of our Treasure Hunt team. I knew you would give credit to talent when you SEE talent.

5. Thanks for buying that Matrix.

6. Thanks for buying the Bombay Blue Sapphire and Absolute Citron/Kurant/Orange too.
-HongYin, Nikki and WengYew says thanks too-

7. Thanks for always cracking jokes. At least i have some material to use when i run-out of my own stuff.

8. Thanks for swapping handphones with me because yours had the camera function and mine didn't. And for not yelling when i emerged from the Metro Kajang toilet crying because my handphone fell into the toilet.

OK la..i have to sleep edi. Don't cry ok? Must be macho sikit.

HAPPY 56th BIRTHDAY PA!

ZOMGWTFBBQSAUZE!!

damn old wei...

First crush V.2006.

Do you remember the first time you had a crush on someone? Maybe when you were 9 or 10 and still running around in Primary School? You remember that giddy feeling everytime you see him/her from afar and your face just breaks out in blushes?

You want to run away...but you can't. Because you won't know when you'd get to see him/her again. You're rooted there...till he/she passes you, at that particular moment in which you frantically pretend to act non-chalant and cool about the whole thing, looking left right up down but never straight on.

Then your friends tease you about it. They run up to that special someone and say..

".... likes you"

and then they run away, patting themselves on the back for a job well done.

You hate them. Of course you hated them for doing what they did. For announcing to anyone who would care to stop and listen about your feelings. For scribbling your initials on the table/blackboard framed in a heart. For hollering down the classroom corridors everytime they see him/her approaching. For teasing you incessantly.

You hated it and you wished the feeling would go away so that those bastards would just leave you alone.

But then...everytime you saw or thought about him/her...you break out in smiles and grins again..like a fool. You start feeling giddy, light-headed and flushed...

It's all very innocent...you see.

I haven't felt that way for a looong time.
-But it's minus the pesky friends now-

I forgot to mention this.

I know some of you are genuinely distraught *cough* over the death of Steve Irwin and you paraded your grief to the whole world by putting a turtle beside your msn nick. but please la, to the greater majority of you, it's damn lame, ok?

If you're doing it because everyone else on your msn list is doing it
If you're doing it because you don't want to be left out
If you're doing it because it means you'd look cool and seem in touch with what's going on...

don't.

Because chances are..you're just making a fool of yourself.

And what part of a turtle resembles a sting ray apart from having eyes?

1. Oh..you know..he works with reptiles and a tortoise is a reptile.
2. A tortoise is aquatic and so is a sting ray.
3. He had the oldest Galapagos Island Tortoise in his zoo...Harriet...which died not too long ago. So it seems like a befitting tribute.

#1: ..uh-huh..but what has it got to do with his DEATH?
#2: Tortoises aren't aquatic.
#3: I made this up. And it's the most plausible one. Losers.

I can't help but roll my eyes whenever someone signs in on msn..and this little box pops up at the lower right hand corner..and there's this little green turtle at the front/back/middle.

damn annoying.

i'm pretty sure that most of you...before his death...would've downloaded and watched parodies of him from youtube or something. and now that he's gone...everyone's crying foul and eating sting-rays.

...not on purpose anyway.

Stop persecuting sting-rays!

I just realised...

Dah lama aku tak ber-emo.

. . .

I admit...during the first few months after the conception of this blog, i fervently hoped that it would gain an astronomical readership like those that KennySia and Xiaxue were garnering. I've always liked to write and being incredibly narcissistic (but only occasionally), i have always taken great pleasure when someone compliments me on a particularly good piece of work.

It's been more than a year now, and my readership HAS increased. But before you roll your eyes, shake your head and mutter..."Damn perasan la you, mel"...i can explain. Ok, so maybe the readership hasn't grown to astronomical heights..but there are now sufficient readers to make me feel uncomfortable..i can't really write about a lot of things now. because of some people. and i especially hate it when someone goes...'oh hey..! i read your blog..quite interesting..' and my reaction would be .. 'oh shit..did i ever diss him/her on it???'

maybe i should start learning how to block ip addresses. or change to livejournal or something. or just delete this damned thing.

but cannot. i sayang it too much.

. . .

BaH!

how la? to type or not to type?

. . .

Ah fuck it.

. . .

bahbahbah..! sometimes i hate it here. ok..not sometimes. most of the times. i hate having to wake up at 6.30 in the morning for classes. i hate having to take the 1-hour bus trip into the city. i hate having to pay AUD30 a week in transportation fees. i hate having to switch buses from QVB to the city and looking out for those pesky transport officers (because i'm currently ripping off their system, that's why). i hate how i have to think twice and doubly hard whenever i want to buy something...even if it's food. i hate how everyone's so much taller than me. i hate the weather. i hate those fucking ABCs in uni and their trying-too-hard-to-be-white-bois-and-girls attitude. i hate their accents. i hate their brown-near-death Gum trees. i hate this drought. i hate how everyone keeps calling me about assignments, tutorial times, lecture times, notes etc. i hate the biased australian news. i hate Home & Away. i hate not being able to commit myself to ANYTHING because i'll be leaving this damned place in a year's time. i hate hate hate it all!

fuh.

the only redeeming points that sydney have are the AMAZING bands who come this way. the fact that my nephews and cousins are here. the beautiful beaches. the awesome hiking tracks in Blue Mountains. their fantastic Victorian architecture. and their wide range of flowers.

. . .

see pretty pictures of flowers. calm yourself down.

. . .

oh man..that was darn vitriolic-like.

but i feel so much better.

Hands down, that was the best day I can ever remember.

dash·board
n.
A panel under the windshield of a vehicle, containing indicator dials, compartments, and sometimes control instruments.

con·fes·sion·al
adj.
Of, relating to, or resembling confession.

n.
A small enclosed stall in which a priest hears confessions.


dash·board con·fes·sion·al

MIND BLOWING.


Chris Carabba in all his awesome-emo-full-hotness.



I wish i was a HIS guitar.



TheBeautifulGirls was pretty subdued. Youth Group is all a blur to me now..for reasons i shall not cite here. Coldplay was AWESOME but the only damper was that i had to watch from afar. Death Cab brought it to greater heights but the crowd was so darn polite and so were the band and everyone respected everyone's need for space.

However, Dashboard Confessional was in a class of its own. it has to be the most pumped-up gig thus far that i've been to. everyone pushed up to each other to get closer to Him. everyone emanated heat. everyone sang at the top of their voices. everyone was JUST SO DAMNED IN TO IT!




And finally...



We stood out in the rain waiting for him to emerge from the exit...i was still riding high from my encounter with Death Cab and thought FOR SURE i'd be able to shake hands with Chris this time. I mean, come on...i've developed sufficient stalker tendencies...ask HongYin or Waiking.

BUT!

he didn't come out. and so we were wet. and cold. and shivering. and pretty darned miserable. and Vincent couldn't light up his damned cig because his lighter ran out of gas from being waved about in the air in the concert.

but just because he's Chris Carabba and he's hot and talented and he drowns you in emo-ness AND he has the same name as Chris Walla...all is forgiven.

and you kissed me like you meant it
and i knew
that you meant it