Week 28 - Merdeka la, sayang.

i really wanted to write something incredibly funny and witty yet somewhat prosaic and reflective almost bordering on melancholic about our independance day and what it means to me - but i failed. i failed miserably. i went through three different opening paragraphs yet scrapped them all because it didn't feel like it properly described what i wanted to say. also it was rather try-hardish. so i binned it!

anyway, 5 years ago, i was an apathetic malaysian. but now that i'm living overseas, i've transformed into this flag-waving country-defending ultra-patriotic citizen. now that i can't be in malaysia 24/7, 7 days a week, 52 weeks a year, i've come to realise just how good home can be.

however, i do know that home isn't perfect and as the years go by, you come to understand and realise that there are less and less things about home that you can be proud of (lee chong wei - what a shit outing at the world championships...no la, actually what i'm trying to say is...ALTANTUYA!). it is always very disheartening to go into thestar.com.my and read about all the shit things that politicians and small-minded shit-stirring people are doing IN MY BELOVED COUNTRY! it makes me very very angry because these people are fucking up the country that i want to grow old and rear my children and be buried in!

sigh.

now that it's been 52 years since we last sang God Save The Queen and replaced it with Negaraku, i'm hoping that situations will get better. i wish someone would tell Najib that his OneMalaysia plan is a fucking farce and that he'd better think of something more original before shit hits the fan. and all those different factions within BN all trying to outdo each other when they should be working together to improve the nation. the but then again, the opposition are pretty shit too now that they're all fighting against each other - what happened to September 16?! so i guess the bottomline is: we're screwed.

Selamat Hari Merdeka, you guys.

if i were you, i'd go watch all those videos posted on 15Malaysia. it can't really do much to save the situation but at least it'll make you feel better and to acknowledge the fact that there are some really creatively talented malaysians out there. we're not all about pirated dvds.

Week 27: More picture spam time ala Malacca!

the week i landed in malaysia was about the same time as when swine flu started to tighten its grip on the nation. the day i arrived, there were 3 deaths and three weeks after when i left, the death toll had shot up to >60. amazing huh? so naturally, there was a lot of hype, fear and prejudice against dear old A(H1N1) a.k.a. hini and everyone who exhibited its symptoms.

enter, ms. yap yee leng.

for about the whole of the first week, she was coughing and sneezing and just feeling all kinds of hini that we started dubbing her as ms. hini. it even caused her to bail on our malacca trip hence we dedicated our entire day there to her and her sickness. at the end of the day, we were just trying to increase public awareness to the dangers of hini.










anyway, malacca was shitloads of fun. food is always good, and food that you can't always get IS EVEN BETTER! oh yea, i finally managed to try the greatly elusive yet highly talked about and sought after satay babi. it was alright. perhaps i'd raised my expectations sky-high because it definitely did not meet it. the sauce was a bit weird (70% pineapple, 20% peanut and 10% lain-lain). but alright, nonetheless. at least, now that i've tried it, i'll feel less inclined to drive around lost and blind hunting for the damned shop.

Week 27: Picture spam time!

it's been awhile since i last posted any pictures! anyway, here goes the first part of my trip back although i reckon most of you would've already seen it on my facebook page in its raw form. i guess i need some colour back into this blog of mine. wordiness depress me and, i guess, to combat it i shall spam myself with loads of toothy grins and vivid willy wonka-ish hues!

please don't get the impression that my 3 weeks back in malaysia was just spent doing alcoholicky activities. it just so happened that, when we were doing other things, i didn't bring my camera out with me. i know genePOP has a penchant for whitewashing me with the alcoholic paintbrush, but i'm here telling you, THAT AIN'T TRUE!

Week 27: It's a long road from here on, babe.

it feels like yesterday when i was boarding the past-midnight flight back to KL and now i'm ensconced once again behind my desk in the Byrne Lab. i actually wanted to blog more when i was back in malaysia but couldn't due to time constraints so i figured i'll just backdate them and do it now. here are 10 more things i learnt since being back:

1. Never underestimate the power of Veet - it is true what they say; Veet can remove ANYTHING.
2. Boys can bake cheesecakes too.
3. Kuon-lou beefball noodles are the best things next to pan mee with extra anchovies.
4. Never wait more than half an hour for someone to show up. If you waited for three hours, you've just been taken for a ride.
5. Daniel Radcliffe is amazingly hot...for a 19 year-old.
6. If all plans fail, head over to a McD's drive-through, grab some coke and nuggets and hustle over to the park.
7. You need shitloads of ginger to make chicken rice.
8. One flaming lamborghini is good but TWO flaming lamborghinis is BETTER.
9. Pain can come in all forms when you least expect it.
10. Never underestimate the power time - you can never win because you're always holding the lesser cards.

time.

my time will never be yours or yours from now on till whenever i think is right.

maybe pictures tomorrow!

Week 25: Sine curves.

hello there! for those who weren't in-the-know, i'm in kajang now and have been for the last 2 weeks! everything's fine and peachy except for the haze, which probably accounts for more health problems than the dreaded hini.

anyway, i give you the top 10 things i've learnt since coming back:

1. time may pass and 16 years may have gone by but, people never change.
2. "We cannot put you and baby together because when you guys gang up, the force becomes ultra evil" - Lola (2009).
3. 'hini', as a word, is more taboo than 'incest' when uttered around some one.
4. you can never have too much of pan mee with extra anchovies.
5. vomit can find its way around ANY obstacle if it wants out.
6. girls can definitely qualify as F1 drivers too.
7. if you climb up next to the statue of St Francis Xavier, people around you will stare.
8. pork satay is actually pretty good.
9. the botanical gardens in Putrajaya is, surprisingly, worth a visit come rain or shine.
10. starbucks is still the place to be for high-speed broadband internet.

and with that, i shall now leave you with more sombre jottings. life can't always be happy, you know.

. . .

Perhaps it is really because I’ve been away for far too long. This most recent trip back to the Motherland has finally struck it deep within me: I am the ‘Outsider’, the one who glances about quizzically during moments of inside jokes and back-of-the-hand muffled laughter. [However, it would be unfair if I white-washed my entire company of friends with this not-so palatable brush: the above-mentioned scenarios occur only when I’m with a select few. So, if you think I’m pointing my finger at you, chances are, I am not – don’t worry].

It feels odd. I feel displaced yet I know I shouldn’t be. But more often than not, I’m left wondering if I made the right decision to pick up my phone and dial your numbers. When I am with you, you and you, I find myself struggling to keep up with the conversation because everyone is moving through topics at the speed of light that I cease to comprehend what the subject is about after awhile. I sit there with this look that says, ‘Hey, I’m confused and can someone clue me in?’ but no one ever does. Then, cue inside joke and everyone laughs…but me.

Times like these, I feel like I don’t know you, you and you anymore. The ‘You’s I know were the ‘You’s that you once were. You are a new you, and I am a different me. Times like these, I feel sorry because what we once had is now entrenched in the past and I can’t possibly begin to decipher the ‘You’ that you have now become. It is probably something inevitable, something wrought by passing time and geographical space and it’s something that neither I nor you can do anything about. It probably just happened. Like how shit happens.

Right now, I guess I’ll just pretend like nothing’s happened and let time take its course. All of us know that, in time, we’ll just be someone we used to know to each other.