Words.

“…will miss you loads, take care! I’ll see you in November!! Till then, *Hugs*…”

I remember shaking my head when I read those words. A part of me was incredulous; a part of me was exasperated; a part of me wanted to smile, a part of me wanted to cry. You probably didn’t realize it but the moments that you hurt me the most were the moments where you seemingly cared.

I didn’t want you to care because I thought that would be the best way to get over you. And I know I’m right. But you never stopped caring, and I never did get over you. And for that, I hated you. I tried distancing myself away from. I deleted all your sms-es from my phone except the one above. I erased all your pictures from my laptop. I tried not talking to you unless it was absolutely necessary. I stopped talking about you to other people unless absolutely necessary. And for awhile, it worked.

It worked magically.

Until one day when everything went horribly wrong. You said something you shouldn’t have. I replied in a way I shouldn’t have. And it ended in tears on my part…for your part, I’d never know. That was when I poured out everything to you. All you did was nod, sigh and offer your help, help which I did not need. 6 months on, I realize that that was the one most idiotic thing I could have ever done.

. . .

Maybe I’m being overly sensitive or just a tad too wishful. You never said you liked me or that you even had an inkling of feelings for me…but then, you never said you didn’t as well. It has always been me professing my feelings and you nodding and offering me help to get through it. But don’t you see? Help is not what I want from you. I don’t need your help, I just need a clear answer: Would you or would you not reciprocate my feelings? That’s something you’ve never told me. And if you did, even if it’s a NO, it would still be more helpful than leaving me hanging here in limbo.

Now I’m weighed down with all these questions that I want to ask you. I want to know why you did what you did that night. I want to know why you held my hand the entire time. I want to know why you keep apologizing. Are you apologizing for leading me on? I want to know why when you hugged me the night before I left; the hug went on for a little longer than it should’ve been. I want to know how you felt when I said all the hurtful things to you. I want to know how you felt when I poured out all my feelings to you. Did you not feel anything?

I want to know why you told her that I was like the fish that got away and that you thought you’d never do me justice. Did you ever think of asking me instead? I want to know why you made up my mind for me. What are you hoping for?

November’s not that far away, you know. What are we gonna do then?

Two roads diverged.

it is STUVAC now..(STUdy VACation) and suddenly i'm hit with the realisation that i've just completed my second year of university education. come 2007 and i'll be a final year student. here's the part where i go...now, hang on a minute..

it still seems really surreal. it still feels as though i've just arrived in Sydney. it still feels as though i'm a freshie in Sydney University. but now, here i am staring down the barrel of final-year-student-life. what happened to time?

i remember the opening speech the vice-chancellor of Sydney Uni gave to us international students during our very first day of Orientation. he said, 'University life will be the best times of your life'. and subsequently many people have expounded that belief to me too. however, i don't feel as though it IS the best time of my life. to me, it's just lukewarm. i have to admit that it there has been fun times. and weird times. but there were also many stressed-out times. and brain-numbing times.

and living so far away from the hub of all that excitement, sort of kills the mood for me too. ever since coming here, i've evolved from someone who did not really care about studies and whose main priority was just to pass the exams to someone who's a certified nerd. i've never studied so hard before as i'm studying now. and here i thought that the opposite should be happening..you know?

the beer-drinking aspects. the clubbing aspects. the sleeping-in-till-late aspects. the going-out-for-coffee-in-the-evenings aspects. partying, socialising, experiencing what life and independance is all about. all this did not happen to me. ok, i'm bitter. i'm bitter because i missed out on all the above due to the fact that i'm living with my relatives far away from the city. far away from all the above.

if i had one wish, i'd wish for another chance to do my whole university thing all over again. i'd never want to live in 5 Ruth Place. NEVER.

but as one road is chosen over the other, there's no way of turning back...and you can't stare down the road not chosen thinking how good it would've been (although that's what i've been doing a lot over the past 9 months). you can only stare down the road not chosen and wonder how DIFFERENT it would've been.

not good. maybe not good. but different.

definitely different.

A new start.

there...this calls for a fresh new start.

the reason i changed my site was to run away from you. i know. this is really childish. it's not something a mature 20-year-old would do. but i did it. and i don't regret it. there were so many things i wanted to pour out over the past 9 months (some of which i did) but i didn't dare, or didn't want to..because you would read it.

and then it would complicate matters.

which i did not want to happen. because if there's anything i did not need..it was complicating matters with you.

but either way...i think it's a good thing. the old place was getting too stifling and at times i felt as though i was compromising on the things i really wanted to say because there were too many people reading it...

ok..we'll build from scratch.

Take a bow when the lights go down.

This really should have been in the previous post, at least there'd have been more significance. Anyway, the previous post was Post #333 thus making this Post #334.

It's been a strange 22 months; some of you would've been readers since the start of this blog and for this i say Thank You.

you'd have been pseudo-present when i left my home for Sydney, read about how i coped without someone washing my plates after dinner, folding my blankets and ironing my clothes (FYI, i do ALL THAT now ok?), about my eventual respectable-tolerance for alcohol which only Australia could've nurtured, followed me in my countdown of days till i returned home, grimaced at my 3-month-stint back home where everything seemed like milk and honey. and of course (cross fingers), emo-ed together with me whenever my ke-emo-ness toook the better of me.

and for the fans of DeathCab, The Beautiful Girls, Dashboard, YouthGroup, Coldplay and AvA, maybe seeing photos taken rather amateurishly from the perspective of another fan may have made you love them bands even more.

i hope i've made you smile, laugh, yawn in boredom (hey, both ends of the spectrum is good), shake your head in disagreement and maybe, cry. i don't know...i don't have many tear-inducing posts in my archives...but if i did, i hope you did too.

ANYWAY. like i said, it's been a strange 22 months. it could've been 24 months thus making it a year, but...since we're already off-tangent with the whole Post #334 instead of Post #333 thing...might as well keep it that way.

drop me a line, and we'll go have teh tarik when i get home.

-Finis-

p.s. oh ho...my perasan-ness has gotten the better of me: if you've just started reading my blog, my heartfelt apologies. if there was any other way, i'd have done it. but there isn't. so i couldn't.

i just killed a scary looking spider. it was small, and compact looking, and i'm not sure if i'm being paranoid or just overly cautious, but it seemed to have a bit of red on its body.

i whacked it twice with my university weekly newspaper. now it's lying there in a pathetic heap of mangled legs on my room carpet.

ever since coming to Australia, i've learnt not to take my chances with spiders.

damn. i hope it doesn't have any babies lurking about in my room.

Angels and Airwaves on a Friday night.

ok...so the pictures are terrible. once again, the blame falls upon Olympus [mju:] 400 Digital. anti-blur system. voice recording. infinityX zooming lens. why have you forsaken me?

hmmm...i really should've been studying. or doing my assignments. yes. the assignments. the reports. they're screaming out my name with sheer bloodlust now, clamouring for the very essence of my soul. terrible.

4moreweeks4moreweeks4moreweeks.

yup folks. this marks the end of the live music season of 2006. i have forgone John Mayer...logic won over the powers of EFTPOS for once. and it is too near the exams...too dangerously near.

no actually, the tickets were sold-out. fuck.

so dan, i invest in you the power and authority to snap as many photos and to record as many songs as you possibly can of his concert..and send them over to meeee PLEASE!?

oh CRAP! this will be the 2.5th post about politics, the status of the country, development, growth etc etc...OMFGWTFBBQSAUZE! damn sien...if you're already bored please feel free to skim this post. i promise i shall resume posting camwhor-ish pictures and sordid tales of drunken escapades right after this.

anyway, i had a very interesting chat with someone tonight. which was totally unexpected because each time we talked the topics would revolve around alcohol, boys, why being single sucks, uni stress, more boys, clothes, even more boys...you get the picture...average bimbotic stuff. not that we're bimbotic...it's just *shrugs*..

so, she thinks Malaysia is a "freaking Third World country la" (kenny, you got another supporter). her logic behind it is that it's a dichotomy; either you're developed or you're third world. and because we're 'developing' and not 'developed', thus and only thus, we are third world...ta-daa!

so i said.."fuck off la". no actually i didn't. hahaha..

i asked her what's Africa and she says, Third World.

So, Africa = Third World = Malaysia, therefore,

Africa = Malaysia...?

and then things got interesting.

but what's even more interesting is how this whole classification of a nation goes about. according to Wikipedia (not the most reliable source around, Kids, don't use it as a reference in your reports), the development of a country is measured with statistical indexes such as income per capita (GDP), life expectancy, rate of literacy, technological advances etc. from a nation's SIs, it can be determined whether it's a First, Second or Third World country.

ok..here's a very boring list, you've been warned:

1. Malaysia total GDP (2005 estimate) = $290.7 billion which places us in 33rd position.
2. Life expectancy as of 2006 for males = 71.8 years and for females = 76.3 years (haha..pwn, girls > boys).
3. The literacy rate among citizens aged 10-64, in 1991 = 88.6% and in 2000 = 93.5%.

ok...keboring-an to the max. you can choose to take the stats at its face value and assume that it has not been tweaked or you can raise hell and clang the shackles and say "Screw you Department of Statistics of Malaysia!"cos that's where i got them from.

i dare say..we're doing pretty alright. does it warrant us being labelled as a Third World nation? i can't say i'm a voice of authority when it comes to economics and some such (because i'm a science student, not an arts student) but i can ask my mom, and i have friends who might have a better opinion or point of view. so lemme know what you think. or even if you're not doing econs but want to vent your spleen...please, do.

but back to the issue:

i said, Malaysia is NOT Third World else'd you wouldn't be sipping on your Long Island in Luna Bar flanked by the Twin Towers and KL Tower and neither would you be able to go shopping in Midvalley. she said, alalalala and sent me a link of pictures of South Africa with shopping malls. fair enough. (..law students, pfft)

and then she said, you're riled up about us being lumped up with poorer countries.

jeng jeng. is this the point where i've become elitist myself? admittedly, we're not First World. we're FAR from First World...like...a gap of thousands and thousands of still-unfelled rainforests (haha...cheap joke). but we DO have an adequate education system (no matter how fucked up you think it is, it got you into pre-u and then uni so STFU); we DO have quite advanced technology: broadband internet (which is also fucked up, according to some sources), electric trains, ASTRO (life-saver) and G3 cellphones; we DO have quite a sophisticated approach to culture: The Malaysian Philharmonic Orchestra, numerous art galleries, a strong and thriving performance and dramatic arts community and of course our own interpretations of all things culturally malay, chinese, indian etc.

and...we DO have quite a status-symbol thing going on there...check out the number of BMWs and Mercs on the road...and the occasional flashy sports car, the shops on the Ground Level of KLCC, the Bangsar/Hartamas district and the number of fine-dine restaurants. although these are only catered for a minute fraction of the Malaysian population, the fact of the matter is: it's there.

AND...we DO have our own car...we've even got 2 in fact, Proton and Perodua. you say it's crap, but it's serving me well, and i'm pretty sure it's serving a lot of other people well too; we DO have our own airlines system...MAS...which is pretty much up-there with the other big guns, and AirAsia.

so...do all these qualifications still warrant us as being Third World?

personally, i don't think so. i think it's unfair to call us a Third World nation after all we've worked to become today. calling us Third World would, imho, put all your parents and grandparents efforts to waste...because their years of hardship/labour/work to improve our country's situation, well...didn't really make an impact after all, if we're still to be considered Third World.

so how now?

i have no affiliations to political parties.

let's talk about governments. better yet, let's talk about corrupt governments.

we have, on our hands, a corrupt government.


Do you know this man?

a government that terrorises its populace. a government that takes every last drop/grain/cent of yield its people have to offer.


Is this a parallel scenario?

a government that disbands justice. a government that forbids freedom of speech and religion.


Are your thoughts your own?

a government that disseminates party propaganda. a government that witholds education.


Could you even begin to imagine?

a government that initiates ethnic cleansing through means of forced emigration or genocide. a government that cripples the economy. a government that makes sure its country is still nestled cosily within the Third World list.

i can drive home at 3 a.m. from Zouk or Luna Bar without the fear of being shot at by the military.


Whoa. A car full of girls summore.

i can afford to go shopping and spend my allowance on whatever that fancies me. i read in the newspapers about criminals being sentenced by the courts of justice. i am a practicing Catholic with friends who are Hindu/Buddhist/Muslim/Christian and i've written about my feelings about the burning of flags.



the only party propaganda that i've ever known is Keranamu Malaysia and Malaysia Boleh. i completed my 3 years of kindergarten, 11 years of public education, did 1 year of pre-university and am currently studying in Sydney (see proof below) with friends who are in Hawaii, the UK, Russia, Ukraine, greater parts of the US and Australia and even Singapore; i also have friends who are studying in UPM, UKM, UTAR, TARC, Metropolitan, LimKokWing, Sunway and Monash.


He's still watching over the town.

the Holy Family Church, St. Francis Xavier's and the really nice Hindu temple somewhere near Petaling Street is still standing and so is the Tin Hau Kong...and i'm not dead nor am i a refugee or anything but a Malaysian. The ringgit is gaining ground on the Australian currency day-by-day...ever-so-slowly but surely. we used to own the tallest building in the world.


We got pipped at the top by some Taiwanese building.

now, we own the second tallest building in the world.

you say our government is killing our country. i say our government has been doing a pretty good job thus far. you say our government is so corrupt. i say greed is inbred into the psyche of humanity and that nobody's perfect. you say the government does not help out the other races. i say that i have a friend who is studying in sydney on a government scholarship and he's definitely not malay..and he's not the only one. you say that you'd rather vote for the opposition party.

i say then, that you're just like those who you vehemently discredit; elitist racist scum (this is where 'racist' becomes politically correct...haha...politically).

so you think that if your party of choice ascends into power, your race will become the favoured one? it will be your era of glory to reap the bounty our land provides? do you hope that the roles will be reversed? are you trying to say that you want this cycle to repeat itself but with different players this time; those that are more towards your favour? are you forgetting that greed is inbred into the psyche of humanity?

are you trying to be hypocritical?

the police do their jobs. it is up to you to give them 'duit kopi' or not. the politicians state their aims and objectives. it is up to you whether you want to accept it or not. the government favours the malays. it is up to you whether you want to work hard enough to finally be recognised or not.

or you could take the easy way out: go to another foreign country and then whine and bitch about how you could not get a spot in national universities when, in the first place, you never even considered it as an option.

it's so hard to satisfy some people.

i don't think i have anything substantial to write about. my mind is too chocked with biology and plants and marine science; there's no space for anything else.

i WAS gonna comment on some malaysians who were not averse to criticizing their own country. those who say that the only direction malaysia is heading to in the future is a downward slide to damnation and that it will only ever be a screwed up place. frankly, i love my country. very much. i love the culture. i love its people. i love the city's lights and sounds. i love it because that's where i grew up, where i learnt my values and where it moulded me into becoming what i am now.

i'm not saying that those who have such low views of Malaysia are traitors or ingrates or 'tak kenang budi'. i'm just saying that they should not judge their own country so harshly. so our government may appear to favour a particular race over countless others. so meritocracy might be starting to slip away. so WHAT? this happens EVERYWHERE. not just in Malaysia but throughout the world.

if you cannot even bring yourself to love your own country, you'll never be satisfied anywhere else.

*sigh*

i DID say i wasn't going to comment on the issue, so i'm not going to. it takes too much time to think up valid, sensible and rational points.

ANYWAY...in the midst of my Elliot Smiths and Death Cabs and Dashboards and Panic! and The Fray etc...my WMP (on shuffle, mind you) flips to JT-Sexyback. oh, the travesty. oh the incorrigible truth.

that's right.

Sexyback makes me tap my feet (and at one point induced some sort of freak second-toe cramp which made my toes on my right feet prong apart). But ain't no where in Hell is JT bringing sexy back. if ever, it's gonna be papayas and not bananas (words drawn from a highly-esteemed blog).

Damn Right.

And, just to make this post completely pointless:

More pictures from the Geology fieldtrip where i carved my name into the rock of eternal glory; by building a fire, Man's (and i mean that in it's most literal sense) first and for most function since time immemorial.

bwa.ha.ha.ha.



My lecturer, Derek Wyman, famed volcanologist/geologist, owns a sweet-looking hammer.



Where eternal glory was soon to be mine.



5 more reasons why i'll continue doing Geology next year.

Ok, Peace Love and Cocktails.

[p.s. YAY NIKKI! now we can ber-aviator together-gether! HY, you know what to do...bwahaha]

whilst i was out jogging this evening, there was this fly keeping me company. and by that, i mean that as i was jogging, it kept buzzing around me, keeping pace with my strides. no matter how many times i flicked and waved it away.

it matched my speed, and it did my distance.

i can only think of two possible explanations for this phenomenon:

1. i was running fucking slow.

or

2. australian flies will rise to become the next super-species during the advent of the demise of the human race.

frankly, i've got my money on the latter.

p.s. yes. the flies are here.

What Hawaii Does To You.


Ignore the sleeping girl in the background.

What Sydney Does To You.


The reason for the grainy pictures is because The Noob Yap Yee Leng did not use the Fn+PrntScrn buttons. But in case you were wondering...yes..it should've looked something like the above.

We are so fucking cute.

Bwahahaha. Kajang Girls Power.

my initial plan was to post a slew of camwhoring pictures worthy of Vanity Fair. however my attempts were quelled when Elaine showed me a collection of someone else's (not to be confused with herself) camwhoring pictures. and i must say, i am humbled.

because i've seen what true camwhoring is...i now know that my pictures are mediocre...less than mediocre actually, if compared to hers. therefore, i have decided that it shall not go up after all.

However, me and Elaine just couldn't help ourselves. If we cannot come up with original poses, we'll damn well imitate hers.

Channel her qi! QQPower!

Coriander is The Enemy.


Lest we forget.

I disagree violently with steamed-fish garnishings, the Australian concept of 'Salad', the weak attempts to add some 'green' into tom yam soups, the risotto from Orange (although it would've been damn fcuking fantabulous without) and certain contents in a vietnamese prawn roll.

To force this upon me would just be plain cruel. Like sending sliced tomatoes drenched with tomato ketchup over to a certain someone.

Cruel.

*wink wink*

A few nights ago, I had a dream. I dreamt that I was in OBS and it was the last night where all the parents would come to see how their kid fared throughout the torturous 10 days, be entertained by mediocre performances and eat half-burned chicken drumsticks that smelt strangely of kerosene. Ahh..OBS. But that's another story.

Anyway, so I was dreaming that I was there, right? And my dad was there. Which was weird, because my parents have never been to a single BBQ Night and they always pick me up 2 days after. So I walked up to him, and found myself asking him where my mom was.

And you know, the good thing about dreams is that..no matter how real they are, there's always this little thing that's 'off' about it. Some little detail that tells you that you're in a dream.

Well, this dream was fucking real and there was
nothing 'off' about it at all.

So yea, I asked my dad where my mom was and he looks up at me and says, I don't know.

What do you mean, you don't know?
I don't know. I don't even know if she's still Mom or if she's already a 'Thing'.
WHAT? omg.

And in that moment, I knew my mom was dead.

And because the dream was so real, I started to cry. And I couldn't wake up. Because the dream was so real there was nothing for me to focus on to bring me back to reality. Because everything seemed so real. And everything seemed like reality.

And I cried.

And then I woke up.

And today, my parents flew off to Bangkok. I had this strange feeling throughout the day. Maybe it's just me being paranoid.

But I've always carried this fear of being an orphan...right through when I was a kid till now. The difference now is that I can rationalize.

I can ask myself, Could you handle it if it does happen?

And I think I can now answer, Yes...I could.

And throughout the whole bus ride home, I envisioned all these scenarios. Morbid scenarios. Scenes where I'm managing all these things. Scenes where there's all these people shaking my hands and telling me how sorry they were. Scenes where I'm packing up the house and selling the cars because we don't need so many of them now. Scenes where I'm reassuring people that I'm really truly fine I don't need your help please go away. But then I realised...maybe I couldn't handle it after all. Because in the final scene, I saw myself drinking shots upon shots of vodka and glasses upon glasses of wine...drinking away to numb the pain.

So please, you two. Don't go doing crazy things there. I know it's a bloodless coup sanctioned by the King...but...just don't go doing crazy things. I don't think I'm quite ready yet.

There are times when I dread going to Orange. And no, it's not because of the 3 hour-drive. or the lack of mobile coverage. or even the fact that i've gotta layan the nephew and then take in his attitude.


The two brothers. Seriously. We've got good great genes running through our veins.

It's all the eating that i'm terrified of. every. single. time. i. go. to. Orange. i. gorge. myself. silly.


He knows when to be demure and camera-shy...oh the little genius.

Antipasto spread. Camembert cheese. Pate. More cheese i can't remember the names. Rhubarb cake. Butter cake. Fu Chok Tong Sui. Chinese spread. Chorizo and scrambled eggs. Chocolates. Lollies. Steak sandwich. Hot chocolate. Risotto. 2 kgs of cooked tiger prawns. Roast chicken. Cake with dollops of King Island cream. and. it. was. the. thickest. creamiest. cream. evar.


And he knows when to win your heart over...with his teeth.

and the best worst part:

Wine for dinner, breakfast, lunch, dinner, breakfast, and then lunch.

And then..intersperse it with Heineken.


Isn't it wonderful how he's gonna be a leftie?

MMmm-mmm... i really should stop going to Orange.