Week 30: I am like fucking Naruto Shippuden.

like a filler, i mean. this post is like a fucking filler that's been going on in Naruto Shippuden. i don't mean i am, like, fucking Naruto Shippuden because that would be wrong on so many levels. he's still a minor, for one. and i never liked Naruto anyway, i'm more of a Shikamaru or Kakashi person.

but if it were possible, HOW AMAZINGLY AWESOME AND COOL WOULD THAT BE!?

"many have proclaimed aloud, but few have delivered."
Billy Corgan

so this is like a filler. i currently have nothing that i want to write about. yet i still feel this pressure to have something new for you guys to read. i know that feeling. when you go into someone's blog and you see the title of a post written from the times of the first Wall Street financial crash. it's like, aaaww what the fuck? what a lazy fucker...will you fucking update already?! geez man, what the fuck!? i know how it feels...i do it all the time. and i normally end my inner-monologue tirade by banging on the keyboard or rolling my eyes and giving out a long exaggerated sigh.

those were some photos i took whilst extremely bored and pumped up with hormones and other shitty stuff women get when they are going through their personal pre-menstrual syndrome. i was curious to know how many ways i could spruik up a black-background-with-white-alphabet square before i took a gun to my ovaries...very much like those darlings in the previous post!

i hope this brightened up 5 minutes of the your mundane existential life. it sure did for mine!

today, i am very happy!
HAPPY!

so here are some stuff for you to happify yourself with!
someone out there understands me!


That's pretty much how it works...FOR SOMEONE I KNOW!
I'm looking atchuuu, Miss Western Australia.


Jeff Goldblum is watching you menstruate. Sweet.


I dub thee.......Mr. Menstruation!
see the joy registered in their faces! validation for point #2!

Week 28: Clover fields forever.

Spring is here!









small and delicate. unassuming. unpretentious. incredibly precious.

Yesterday of last year, my grandmother passed away.

Isn't it crazy how a year flies by? Before you know it, you're remembering the anniversary. I can still recall the events of that day vividly. I guess all I have to do now is to wait for my memory to blur itself out of my consciousness.

I'm sorry I couldn't be there. I hope you know that I've been feeling guilty about it ever since.

Week 28: Dreamscapes and nightmares.

a few nights ago, i had a sort-of nightmare. i call it a sort-of nightmare because it had none of the horrific and terrifying fantastic elements. there were no monsters, no running away, no nothing. it was just a normal dream where i dreamt i was doing normal average every day stuff - but when i woke up from it, it terrified me. immensely.

you see, i dreamt that i was back in school. i was wearing my bright blue school uniform and i was in class. it was English and we were all required to read out passages from a book. now, my bright blue uniform would indicate that my dream took place in secondary school, however, the English teacher sitting in front at the desk was none other than my standard 5 English teacher, Miss Lee. she always reminded me of Elizabeth I, for some odd reason. maybe it was her heavily powdered face, or extremely fair and white hands, or her incredibly curly (kerinting like maggi mee) shortish hair, OR THE FACT THAT SHE WAS SINGLE. she was very fierce, but somehow i was always in her good books. i remember her praising me for my fluency in English, and how i was adept in the language - and mind you, to an impressionable 11-year-old keen to please and impress, this was extremely high-praise. especially coming from someone who seemed like Elizabeth I.

back to the dream, we were sitting in class and reading out passages from a book - and suddenly she says, Melanie, i want you to read out the next 3 paragraphs (Ed: now that i'm writing this out, i remember one of the exercises she made us do during standard 5 English classes was to read out stories from a book - WHICH I LOVED). the person that had been reading before me handed me the book, but it fell out of my hand and i lost the page.

suddenly, it felt like i had an anxiety attack. i couldn't remember the page number yet i was too embarrassed to raise my hand to ask Miss Lee which page we had been on. and so, i started to fumble and flip pages over and over. all i could remember was the last sentence the person before me had read out - That Bastard Was Blue. i start flipping the pages over and over and scanning each page for those two words - Blue and Bastard, but i couldn't find them!

after what seemed like forever, Miss Lee raised her eyes and looked at me and said, Come on, read it out. and then i eventually muttered something like, i don't know what page we stopped at, teacher. i could feel the disapproval in her eyes and suddenly i felt like i had failed her. however, she quickly righted me back to where i was supposed to commence reading, and so i started.

and that was when tragedy struck.

to my horror, i could not read the paragraphs at all. the words seemed to blur into each other, some of them were half printed and most of them were just incomprehensible repetitive sounds. i faltered and started stuttering and stammering through the text, just trying to make out what each word was. there was no structure and no grammar to each sentence - they seemed like a mash of words hastily put together. and here i was, reading them out like a 2-year-old dyslexic learning to talk for the first time. to put it plainly, i was horrified. surely this stammering, stuttering and faltering incomprehensible fool could not be me!

all this while i was conscious of what was going on. my cheeks were burning red and the embarrassment was so acute that it actually felt real and not something occurring in dreamscapes!

as i finished reading out the last word, i woke up. and by god, was i terrified! there aren't many things constant in my life - everything is fluid and changes beyond my control. money comes and goes. happiness comes and goes. health comes and goes. friends come and go. situations. opportunities. experiences. even my parents, who are the most constant things in my life, will eventually go, therefore, i can't say that they're constant after all (paradox). but my grasp of english, along with my love pillows, is one of the constant things in my life. my ability to speak it, to understand it, to use it whenever and however i want to, to impress, to amaze, to make myself coherant, to convey ideas. in that dream, it felt like i've lost one of the very few things constant in my life.

and that to me, is the most terrifying thing of all. that very moment when i was stuttering my way through a simple 9-line paragraph was the most helpless i've ever felt myself to be.

Week 28: Mish-mash.

every cloud has a silver lining.
and above those silver-lined clouds are blue skies.
BLUE SKIES!

. . .

why so happy mel?
ahem, well, remember when i told you i was damn sick?
yea, i remember that. why what's up?
well, when i was sick, all i ate was a bowl of cereals and panadol every day for 5 days.
you're kidding right?
NO! i'm not lying okkkk?
WHY!?
dono la, i got no energy to cook - i was too busy trying to die. so i ate cereals only lor. the panadols were a supplement.
wtf.
SO ANYWAY. hanne bought a weighing machine.
..okkk.
andandand..I WEIGHED MYSELF TODAY! after like, err, 8 months of not weighing myself?
..okkk.
andandand..guess what?
what?
I AM 52kgs NOW! you know when was the last time i was 52? when i was 14 ok!? so sad.
err..aren't you abit too tall to be 52kg?
yea..whatever la stop dousing me with cold water wtf can you just express some joy for me?!
..okkk.
so anyway, i can eat junk again! ok no, i mean, i can eat junk IN MODERATION now SO HAPPY!
..okkk, bye you nutcase.

. . .

and it was my dad's birthday yesterday! the day anwar was supposed to takeover the country (Dad: apparently he's giving me a birthday present) but he missed the deadline. oh well.

Best Daughter In The Whole Wide World: Happy Birthday! You are 58 today.. which is really old haha.
Dad: Thanks for reminding me.
BDITWWW: HAHAHA! No problem..just doing my job.
D: Ok.

i guess that's where i got my sarcasm from. and sorry about revealing your age to the world. i hope uncle maniam bought you a really nice dinner lol.

. . .

when my mom called, i could hear my dad talking in the background - he was saying something about me forgetting his birthday last year (apparently he called and said, My birthday today and i replied, oh shit i forgot...why am i so good like that?!) and thank god that i remembered to wish him this year cos IF NOT I WOULD HAVE NO HOME TO GO BACK TO! or maybe i'll suffer a broken leg. or my credit card privileges will be suspended. i'm not exactly sure what it was but it was definitely some form of a threat.

and then i could hear him say - *translated from canto* why so disgusting write about all your period, big-second-aunty, stuff coming..EVERYONE CAN READ OK!? and what not sexually active? ma you know she wrote saying she's not sexually active WHAT IS THIS!? so not nice to see (literal translation).

sigh.

oh oh oh! and the aussie dollar is falling! THAT IS AMAZING NEWS! it means i can go shopping and feel less guilty about it now!

. . .

what a day. maccas waffle cone for breakfast tomorrow HAHAHAHA!

Week 28: Hello Blade, meet Wrist.

there's a change in the weather.
it is soft like a not-too-distant memory i had intentionally buried.
yet sharp and short - this change penetrates its way into my bones.
the corners of my photographs have begun to bend and peel back.
i tried pressing them into place.
it defies me and springs again - what am i supposed to do?
i remove them.
and you're tearing up your photos cos you want to forget it's over
the ones attached only at one corner i take away from the wall.
they were always too colourful anyway.
sometimes they hurt my eyes.
i still listen to all my old songs though because each one conjures a specific memory.
Granddaddy told me to aim towards the sky
fly away far away far from pain
and i see my back on the floor with my mind up in air in an empty house on Ruth street.
The Academy Is everything we had
you saw for yourself the way it played out
and my head is resting on the marble-topped dining table back home.
Damien's album O
like time, there's always time on my mind
and it's november 2005 with my stomach against those impossibly hard cushions of the antique chairs.
the christmas tree winks at me with its christmas lights.
he sings to me that it's the same old scenario, the same old rain.
it was always rain.
now it is heat.
but i guess i don't really mind.
the heat reminds me of last november.
i remember december
of nights that melted into day - a transition i was a witness of.
idle talk is something i've not had for awhile now.
how did i not anticipate its departure?
if i had known, would i have been kinder?
your stomach's filled up but you're starved for conversation
tomorrow my country holds its breath.
mildly anticipating* the fulfillment of a promise.
if it happens, it happens. if it doesn't, life goes on.
i am still holding my breath.
in my enthusiasm, i fail to realise
that i am now blue.
what am i, darling? a whisper in your ear, your biggest mistake?

*Liew Eu-Gene, 2008.

Week 27: Period. Literally.

Fair warning: I'll be talking a lot about period, the red tide, aunty-coming, datang haid, 'lei-yeh', eeeyer or whatever else you want to call it. leave now if you get squirmish around blood. [bolded and in red to stress how serious i am]

[Edit 12:31 am Sunday - at the bottom of the post]

girls, don't you just hate it when you're about to menstruate? i don't know if this phenomenon is universal, but each time it happens to me, logic and reason is thrown out the door - and along with it, my sanity.

for a week prior to menstruation, i become highly stressed over the littlest things - like cooking, or sleeping, or work, or words. and highly irrational. and my head is swamped and done in by a thousand thoughts - all of which are unimportant and none of which i should be thinking about.

and just when i think my mood swings can't get anymore worse because they're already spinning at 153253249820634924320 rpms, it pulls a Large Hadron Collider-esque stunt ala 10 September 2008 and completes a full swing. and then my heart plummets because the vortex created by the swinging emotions draws my heart down down down into the pseudo black hole in my psyche.

and when my menses DO arrive (e.g. like, today!), my sanity and ability to reason and rationalise returns. yet, although i'm no longer a raving yet sullen (oxymoron) female, i am not happy! i hate getting my menses because my next 3-4 days is all but written off due to cramps and curling under covers. i have not met a girl who rejoices in getting her menses - however, do keep in mind that, being naturally introverted and suspicious about the fairer gender, i don't really meet a lot of girls anyway.

i can only think of two reasons why a girl would rejoice when she is menstruating:

1. masochism.
2. she is sexually active yet not ready to have kids.

i am hardly masochistic. i prefer to see myself as slightly sadistic or displaying schadenfreude-ic tendencies. but masochistic, i am not. when i am writhing in pain because my uterus feels obliged to knot itself up and rip itself out of my body already weakened by a loss of blood, i remember and think about that paternal sperm who carried the X-chromosome and not the Y, and i curse and swear. i do not revel in the pain as, i assume, a masochist would. instead, i pump myself with panadol and naprogesic.

and since i am not sexually active, i have no reason to rejoice and be thankful that my uterus will not be implanted by a fertilised egg when my menses arrives. hooray! yet another month saved! i think not. maybe, when i finally become sexually active, i might appreciate my menses abit more, but for the meantime, i can't think of anything except PAIN!

. . .

on a side-note, is that what's happening to our government at the moment? is it undergoing its own little pre-menstrual syndrome experience? because for the life of me, the decisions that they're making makes my irrationality seem like 500-page dissertation on the role of interneurons in the development of bladder control of neonates. something smart and sane and rational yet incredibly boring like that. my dissertation, not their decisions.

. . .

i have decided to share some delightful anecdotes of when i had my period. maybe then you can understand the infinite store of hate i have for it.

Anecdote #1.

when i was in early high school, i was at the peak of my period cramps. one day, the cramps were so damn bad, i actually vomited all over the school padang, in front of the people playing basketball AND the love-of-my-then-life, Chooi. fucking embarrassing ok? then my friends hauled me down to the public telephone booth to call my mom so that she could come pick me up (pre-handphone days). again, i vomited all over the ground near the booth. my friends decided i was in no shape to be holding a conversation and forced my mom's number out of me by sheer will. after the call was placed, they hauled my ass back into the classroom, where i once again vomited all over. however this time, since all my solids had been up-chucked in the two previous times, all that came out was water - thank god.

by that time, i didn't care about embarassment anymore, all i wanted was enough money for a sex change and hormone injections. everyone was staring at me like i had contracted some sort of disease and i fell asleep. then my mom came. hooray. i get to go home and lie down and sleep and drink sirap bandung and eat panadol while you guys have to sit through maths and moral and SEJARAH! fucking subject that sapped me of my life force (no la i just hate Form 5 sejarah oni).

Anecdote #2.

my family and two others (Ho and Wong...and Ho) went to pulau ketam for seafood cos apparently it's the shit there (LITERALLY HAHAHA OMG PULAU KETAM IS AN EYE-OPENER!). anyway, it was my first day and that's normally when my cramps are at their worst. i guzzled panadol for precaution but the long train ride to port klang and subsequent boat ride (foul air and rocking motion) was too much for panadol to handle. the moment i got off that damned boat, i hurled myself to the side of the jetty and upchucked my breakfast. then the exciting part happened!

for the first time i actually felt faint and blacked out - but not really blacked out it was more of like white-out. cos my vision slowly became brighter and brighter and finally i couldn't see anything except light! and i couldn't walk! and i was thinking omg damn cool i'm gonna pengsan first time WOOT! then my dad hauled my ass over to the restaurant and uncle fizzy hunted down panadol and pumped me full with it again. after which, i fell asleep and when i woke up all the seafood they were having were gone! what the fuck damn sad.

ok la enough suffering for tonight. seeing the amount of panadol i consume, i think i'm qualified to be a spokesperson for them.

it's been raining for 31 hours straight as of now (4:26 pm). it is damn annoying because i had all these great plans for the weekend but i abandoned them and crawled back under my comforter after realising that the sun was nowhere to be found.

it is quite depressing knowing that the sky is grey AND that i have no work to be done because i've completed my draft and am just waiting for the review on monday. so i have no work and no place to go thanks to this rain.

bah.

of late, i've noticed myself getting more and more reclusive. i don't like checking my emails anymore. i don't bring my phone around with me anymore because i can't bear the thought of someone calling me. i don't really sms anyone anymore because i've got nothing to say. i don't really go out much anymore unless i absolutely have to (birthdays, friends ajak etc). i don't feel the need to IM anyone on msn - unless i get IM-ed. and even then, i won't really layan unless it's a select few. I DON'T EVEN GO SHOPPING ANYMORE so you can see how severe my condition is lol.

i'm not being lansi ok? i just don't feel very sociable anymore..HAHA. all i want to do is sleep, type and finish up my thesis be damned. and stuff my ears with my headphones and float in a sea of Sigur Ros...which, at any luck, will drown out all the static. even my blog scene seems to have quietened down...which is good because i feel like it reflects the current mood i'm in.

i hate noisy chatty people; girls who talk too much and guys who laugh too loud. especially girls who talk about makeup and boys and other girls. and guys who laugh like hyenas - emitting short sharp staccato HAK HAK HAK laughs even though there's nothing funny to laugh about. someone, JUST KILL ME NOW. my ears hurt and my head spins each time i'm in their company. if only everyone became that little bit more reclusive then the world would be so much more peaceful.

or be like me, just talk with typed words and not so much with sound.

i think i've finally fucking cracked it man. this rain is intolerable.

Week 26: The perils of marine science.

at first i wasn't sure if i wanted to talk about this on the blog. reason being, i didn't want my parents to go all ape-shit crazy and start calling my ass every single day (not like they don't do it anyway HAHAHA!). but then i thought to myself, what the fuck...just tell la, maybe people will sympathise with your sorry state. so hear i am, telling you what happened.

if you have me on msn, you would've noticed that since sunday, i have been expressing my distaste for oyster beds (i.e. i fucking hate oyster beds). here's the story behind it.

last sunday, i went out to collect some abalone with eunice and hong. it was a pretty bad day, i had woken up at 7.30 in the morning (something i haven't done in months!), it was wet and windy and cold, i was still coughing like a bitch and here i was dragging myself off to parsley bay. but it was cool, i was up for it and 3 girls in a car can only mean good times.

so we arrived at parsley bay, and the wind still hadn't eased up. we did some recon work around the bay because none of us had ever been there. we approached the water and it was BLACK. yes, the bay water was as black as cincau and at that very instance, it made me so thankful that i had Little Bay to go collecting urchins in.


Little Bay: Oh limpid pools of crystal clear waters!

we were told by maria that abalone could be found around the rocky edge so we walked over. after much poking around we came to this area between the sand and the rocky shore which we had to cross and it was completely surrounded by oyster beds and slippery lichen-moss. hong went first, and she slipped but managed to right herself instantly. eunice went next, and she too slipped and stumbled but managed to maintain her balance.

at the back of my mind, i admit i sniggered a little and thought to myself, no way will i slip like them. and then it was my turn to launch myself across that treacherous stone and over to the other side. as i stepped over, i felt my foot slide beneath me and give way. the next thing i knew, i was flailing around trying to keep my balance while my left leg slashed its way through the oyster beds.

pain! embarassment! humiliation!

i quickly righted myself and scrambled over. i inspected my left foot and it seemed ok so i shrugged it off and continued ambling off albeit in a slightly awkward gait. 5 minutes later, eunice turns around, stares at my foot and shrieks, WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOUR LEG WHY IS IT RED!?

huh? red? what?

i looked down and there it was in all its glorious vermillion - BLOOD! forming streams and streams of rich crimson sanguine running down the sides of my toenails and down my toes. and then the all-powerful omniscient moment that does not discriminate between persons and strikes without warning: the OH SHIT moment.

i quickly hobbled back towards the shore (blood trails = shark attack = oh my god!) and when i got to that treacherous stone, my heart stopped and i thought, shit, to jump or not to jump? then i took a deep breath and leapt across. THANK GOD I HAD PRIOR TRAINING ON THE BIG STEP FROM OB! i then washed up my foot and bemoaned my sorry state.


the Big Step as shown by Jote. you step off that red pole and onto a platform 230469234m away (ok la 1m).

ah the perils and dangers of marine science. there is a running joke in the byrne lab that one of us students will slip and die on the rock pools and rocky shores from a broken neck. and i can tell you that thought crossed my mind when i slipped on sunday - IZ ME! if only i had armed myself with a calculator instead of a snorkel and mask to face this big world. kinda makes me hate marine science sometimes HAHAHA!

yet, little things seem to materialise to steer this ship away from hate back to love. little things like this..WHOO HOO!



to-be-published BAYBEH!

lord knows i'll never call myself tolerant - i'm the least tolerant person by far, quick to anger and highly impatient. yet i often find myself tolerating the most inappropriate behaviours, actions and situations and for the life of me, i just can't seem to understand why!

however, there's one thing that i DO NOT tolerate at all, and that's when my time gets wasted either by myself (yes i launch into anger tirades against myself too) or by someone else - whether it be my friends or even my mom (unfortunately, she has a tendency to 'waste my time' sometimes too).

and so, here's a tip. you are wasting my time if you:

(a) are on the verge of telling me something and then you cut it and say, Oh never mind la, it's nothing.

or

(b) initiate a conversation (hello) and then disappear. and then when i get tired of waiting and tell you that this is shit i'm leaving now goodbye, you say, oh ok, bye without any further explanation.

i have to say that i am guilty of indulging in (a) occasionally because i can't help this streak of mischief in me - i like to cause mild frustration because, c'mon, it's healthy to get the blood pumping a little! and i always end up telling after 2 seconds of saying oh nothing la anyway.

HOWEVER, i have never ever EVER been guilty of committing (b) but lord knows i've had it committed to me plenty of times. plenty. and each time someone does that to me, i wish the person a thousands deaths by a thousand cuts and they subsequently lose a little bit of my respect and esteem that i hold them in too. each time it happens, that loss of respect builds until finally, i have no more respect for you and you cease to become a friend, and nay, not even an acquaintance.

so here's another tip to complement the first tip: if you want to initiate a conversation yet you know that you can't expand upon it because you have to run away, slipped and knocked your head unconscious or just can't be fucked to talk anymore, DON'T. save yourself the hassle, and save me some of my time.