Week 31: It's the last day on Earth!

so, yesterday i woke up to what i thought was the end of the world. you know how, even though you have your eyes shut, when you look into a light source or the sun, you 'see' this orange glow through your eyelids? perhaps see isn't the best word to describe it, it is that warm orangey glow you SENSE.

so anyway, i was asleep and for some reason, i could sense this orangey fuzziness in my dreams and opened my eyes blearily at around 6 am. what i saw outside my window was the most WHAT THE FUCK moment of my life. everything outside was orange I KID YOU NOT. it felt like i was on the set of Dune or some other low-budget sci-fi movie (HAHA ok la Dune was pretty awesome - apologies to all Dune fans out there).

and so, there i was, laying in bed, staring outside my window and going what the fuck over and over again. however, even pseudo-apocalyptic events such as these didn't warrant enough clout to make me get out of bed, take a photo and therein record the event for future referencing. after about 30 seconds of wtf-ing, i went back to sleep, because, armageddon or no armageddon, sleep takes top priority.

therefore, the pictures that you see here will have been shamelessly stolen by me from the great interweb. what actually happened was that there was a freak sandstorm that blew into pretty much the whole area of New South Wales up to Brisbane covering everything in a thin layer of red dust.

to those people whose photos i stole, if you're reading this, I REALLY APPRECIATE THEM and they're gorgeous.

i shall now prophesise that:

1. the New South Wales car wash industry will experience an infinity-times increase in business. seriously, there has not been a single car that i saw that is not covered in red earth.

2. Jehovah's Witnesses and Seventh-Day Adventists all around the country will have their 5-minutes of fame for having faithfully proclaimed that the coming of the end of the world is nigh. IN YOUR FACE, NON-BELIEVERS!

3. tomorrow, i will STILL be blowing my nose and discovering that there's red dust on the tissue. i slept with my windows opened the day the world ended and was too lazy to wake up to shut it. to be fair, i didn't know what was happening because if i'd known that it was actually really fine-grained particles of dust, i would've so totally shut it. FML. no i totally deserved that.

Week 31: Two years, the life of Safran and numbing pain.

Like a thief in the night, it creeps up silently behind you; catching you unawares till the very moment that you were informed that it has already been two years. Two years? Wow. It sure doesn’t feel like two years because I can still remember, with extreme vividness, where I was at, what I was doing, who I was with and the myriad of emotions I felt crashing down on me, two years ago. Two years ago sounds like such a long time, but two years ago feels just like yesterday.

How do you measure time spent in two years?

1051200 minutes? 17520 hours? 730 days? 104 weeks? 24 months?

Do you keep track of two years by the number of sunrises? How about the number of sunsets? How many times you smiled or laughed out loud without a care? Perhaps it is the number of times you cried. Joyous events? New people you meet? Holidays? Personal accomplishments? Tragedies?

Are these all measures to help dampen the effect, to blur the memory? By living our lives everyday and overloading the senses, is it, perhaps, an inbuilt mechanism to help us get through or deal with the fact that it has already been two years? Are we secretly trying to forget even though we repeatedly assure ourselves that, yes, I want to remember and I want to keep that memory alive and burning in me?

Sometimes, I feel like I don’t want to forget, yet, I feel like I can’t not forget. Every day that I remember is every day spent feeling guilty, of wishing that I could have done things differently, or spending more time, or calling back more often, or having more photographs to look back upon.

It’s been two years, and I’m still waiting for my memory to blur itself out of my consciousness.

. . .

Excerpt from Everything Is Illuminated. Adequately sums up how hard losing memories can be!

He had also lost a wife, not to death but to another man. He had returned from an afternoon at the library to find a note covering the SHALOM! of their home’s welcome mat: I had to do it for myself.

But his wife was his first and only love, and it was the nature of those from the tiny village to forgive their first and only loves, so he forced himself to understand, or pretend to understand. As for the note, he couldn’t bear to keep it, but he couldn’t bear to destroy it either. So he tried to lose it.

He left it by the wax-weeping candle holders, placed it between matzos every Passover, dropped it without regard among rumpled papers on his cluttered desk, hoping it wouldn’t be there when he returned. But it was always there. He hid it like a bookmark in one of the novels he most hated, but it would appear several days later between the pages of one of the books that he alone in the village read, one of the books that the note had now spoiled for him forever.

He couldn’t for the life of him lose the note. It kept returning to him. It stayed with him, like a part of him, like a birthmark, like a limb, it was on him, in him, him, his hymn: I had to do it for myself.

He had lost so many slips of paper over time, and keys, pens, shirts, glasses, watches, silverware. He had lost a shoe, his favourite opal cufflinks, three years away from Trachimbrod, millions of ideas he intended to write down (some of them wholly original, some of them deeply meaningful), his hair, his posture, two parents, two babies, his wife, a fortune in pocket change, more chances than could be counted. He even lost a name. There seemed to be nothing he couldn’t lose. But that slip of paper wouldn’t disappear, ever.

. . .

by the way, my left arm hurts like shit! who knew that the after-effects of injections on your forearm could be so devastating?! for a moment, i was really worried that the vaccines would throw up all plans of having the best weekend and subsequent week EVER (in terms of R-OH consumption), but apparently, i have nothing to fear. TWO MORE DAYS TWO MORE DAYS!

Week 30: Raya la, beb.

besok raya la! bosan..dah lama aku tak celebrate raya. aku rindu sgt kuih yg dibuat oleh mama Nata Shariff. aku rindu sgt bihun goreng dan kari ayam yg slalu dihidangkan kat rumah pak cik aku. dandandan oh tuhanku, aku rindu sgt duit raya! taula walaupun aku bukan minah tapi disebabkan pak cik aku kahwin melayu dan masuk agama islam, maka sebagai anak saudaranya dapatla i ber-benefit masa duit raya diedarkan! dan bukan main duit kecik taaauuu - jumlahnya besar!

bosan. dah 5 tahun dah tak sempat berhari raya. dan untuk meng-make matters worse, geng aku kat kajang berbuat planning nak pergi roadtrip. kau kata sial tak?! dandandan untuk meng-make matters WORST, diorang sume dapat cuti hingga selasa minggu depan! sial. knapa takde cuti semacam tu kat australia? percentage orang beragama islam yg menyambut hari raya kat negara ni pun agak besar jugak, knapa tak diisytiharkan cuti awam?? sial. diskriminasi la panggil tu. hanya tau christmas je...yg tak beragama kristian tu, takya kisah issit?!

bosan. sial aku terfikir bile hari isnin menjelang, geng aku akan best berseronok cuti main mabuk sial. aku plak kena pergi disuntik untuk vaccine hepatitis A + B dan tetanus la, booster la apa-apa sume main datang. benci. dahla aku dah meng-expect-kan sakit, lagi nak terfikir mereka yg berseronokan di malaysia. bosan.

selamat hari raya in advance. ingatilah aku yg kesian kat sini tanpa kuih-muih, kari rendang, cuti awam dan duit raya. ah tapi yg paling best yg aku TAK RINDU LANGSUNG - bunyi mercun. sial budak-budak tu sume yg slalu main kat padang belakang rumah aku sampai tido pun tak lena!

Week 30: Hannah Montana is our inspiration.

the way my workload has been cycling these days is equivalent to a woman going through PMS. there are moments of calm and order where everything's chilled and relaxed, and then suddenly, something primordial kicks in and everything goes into a frantic frenzied overdrive. and it's really starting to give me the shits because i'll have a few slow days where all i ever do is surf youtube for episodes of ghost hunter (of which i'm HIGHLY EXTREMELY ADDICTED TO) or go on facebook and spam people's photos with random comments. and then, when i've gotten into a routine of bludging, suddenly i'm dumped with a whole load of work and no directions. all i want to do is watch ghost hunter in peace!!

yesterday was a bad day. today is a slow day, hence, a good day. therefore i've decided to forgo some ghost hunter hours and blog instead.

i'm just gonna be putting up photos of the most recent trip back just because it's nice and happy and cheery and PINK. it was abby's 23rd birthday, aptly themed Hannah Montana The Fuck Out. it's true. we love the little cyrus - or, in any case, abby does!








and so ended my 20-day stint back in the motherland - in full pink gloriousness!

p.s. baby, if you're reading this - USE THE FUCKING BAG ALREADY! don't make me go back and tear up your rempit bag to shreds. you know me and elaine won't hesitate.

Week 29: Kinda like a bucket-list, but not.

inspired by a friend, i have decided to come up with a list of things that i want to do/accomplish before i leave for the ice! in no particular order:

1. go for a sushi all-you-can-eat/buffet.
2. get pissed drunk till the point where i have to be carried into bed (justification: gonna try not to drink while on the ice, in case i slip into a crevice).
3. spend a day at the beach and soak up some sun while it's still warm!
4. visit glebe and paddington markets.
5. have dinner with all family members currently in sydney.
6. play with nephews.
7. mussel pot at belgian bier cafe.
8. PORK and mango beer at lowenbrau.
9. VISIT MELBOURNE!
10. watch a movie (possibly Sherlock Holmes if it's already out before 30 Oct).
11. play poker.
12. win money at poker.
13. chocolate fondue at max brenner (actually, fuck la, chocolate ANYTHING).
14. meet up with wai king (because he's being fucking anti-social i don't know why).
15. meet up with everyone else who i can possibly meet up with.
16. go for major dim sum session.
17. have copenhagen ice-cream at darling harbour. at night. when all the lights are out.
18. perhaps more alcoholic-like activities, but don't need until i have to be carried to bed.
19. mussel, oysters, sashimi, salt and pepper squid and lobster from sydney fish market.
20. miss marples scones at dandenongs (hint: ALBERT!)
21. spend a day at mornington peninsula (also hint: ALBERT!)
22. take photographs on the steps of parliament house, spring street.
23. have a picnic.

ok la, 23 things for my 23 years. i'll probably add to it when i can think of more things to do.

Week 29: From the Book of Recurrent Dreams

There is this book that I want to tell everyone about. It’s called Everything Is Illuminated by Jonathan Safran Foer and it is the one book that truly drove home the saying to ‘Never judge a book by its cover’ for me. Not that it had much of a cover because it was a Penguins Paperback publication (think: orange like Guantanamo Bay), but, by the above saying I mean that the story unraveled into something completely different from what I’d initially expected. It started out as a comedy, a joke, but turned into tragedy at the very end.

It is a story about fate and chance and love and choices given and decisions made and, ultimately, consequences and loss.

Without giving away too much, there are two main arcs in the story: one set in the past and one set in the present trying to discover the past. It is about a young American Jew who journeys to Ukraine in search of the woman who saved his grandfather from the Nazis. There, he meets a young Ukrainian native and his grandfather, both of whom acts as his translator and guide/driver. After you’ve gone past the first two chapters, there’s no turning back. The characters are extremely sympathetic, past and present, and there’s so much to relate to in the words.

It is possibly one of the best books I’ve ever read. And I’ve decided to put up a few of my favourite passages from the book whenever I feel like it – just so that I may tempt you to give it a chance too.

4: 525 – The dream that we are our fathers. I walked to the Brod, without knowing why, and looked into my reflection in the water. I couldn’t look away. What was that image that pulled me in after it? What was it that I loved? And then I recognized it. So simple. In the water I saw my father’s face, and that face saw the face of its father, and so on, and so on, reflecting backwards to the beginning of time, to the face of God, in whose image we were created. We burned with love for ourselves, all of us, starters of the fire we suffered – our love was the affliction for which only our love was the cure.

Week 29: The great icecapade!

right. so i'm not sure how many of you already know about this but i was telling a few of you rather tentatively when i met you. it's all finalised now though: i'll be going to antartica from the end of october and only returning back to non-iced soil on the first week of march!

ye? did you get that? i'm going to antartica for 4.5 months! the trip to the ice will take 10 days but the return journey will be about 3 weeks to a month. yup, a month on a ship.

at first i was kinda hesitant about wanting to commit myself to the research trip just because there were so many uncertainties plaguing my mind! just the thought of being stuck on the ice for 4 months is enough to kill my enthusiasm because i'm so intolerant to the cold. i'm not made for the cold! i'm made for warm tropical climates! also, i wasn't too excited about missing the lab trip up to one tree island, christmas, new years' eve and day, my cousin's wedding, my mom's birthday (which also happens to Valentine's Day - but who am i kidding, Valentine's Day is dead to me) AND chinese new year (oh man, the angpows)! basically it's gonna be a whole year-long of winter because i've just missed all of summer! and then, not forgetting the logistics of it - having to buy clothes worthy of sub-zero antartic temperatures AND finding someone to take over my room or else having to pay empty rent for 4.5 months (i did the maths - it comes up to $3600).

all these cons were enough to make me not want to go.

but then, IT'S FUCKING ANTARTICA FOR FUCK'S SAKES! how many people can claim that they've been to antartica!? not many, that's how many! how often would i get the chance to be invited to go for an antartic research expedition all expenses paid?! not very often, no sir, not at all, that's how often! not only would it be the trip, nay, the EXPERIENCE of a lifetime, but it would also be a great opportunity for me and my future budding scientific career!

so i did the math again (now i know why i did Specialist Maths in SAM - it comes in handy during times like these), and realised that i would be a total fucking idiot and complete tool if i turned the chance down. what's $3600? something that i can work for and recoup later in life - but could i recoup another chance at going down to the antartics? i don't think so! and what's summer and missing the lab trip up to one tree island, christmas, new years' eve and day, my cousin's wedding, my mom's birthday (Valentine's Day - YOU ARE STILL DEAD TO ME), chinese new year AND ang pows? things that'll come around again the next year (except for my cousin's wedding la - sorry!). but, trip to antarctica, will you come around again? no. no i highly doubt so.

and, apparently, that's what everyone had already caught up on except me. everyone who i ever tentatively spoke to was way more eager and excited and enthusiastic than me! ye, even my parents when i told them that i could potentially end up like rose dewitt bukater ala titanic. their response? BUT IT'S ANTARTICA OF COURSE YOU MUST GO ON PAIN OF YOUR LIFE (ok they didn't actually say that, but something of that extent)!

so ye, i'm going! i'm going! i'll be leaving possibly before the 30th of october for tasmania so if you feel like visiting me one last time before i leave on this voyage for the great unknown, DO COME! you have less than 2 months to do so! who knows, the melanie that comes back will be a melanie with one less finger or toe, or god forbid, no nose, due to frostbite! or even worse yet, NO MELANIE ANYMORE! ye, i'm trying to turn this into a guilt thing too...SO COME AND SAY GOODBYE TO ME! soon.

p.s. who am i kidding? no nose = WOOTS!

Week 28: Too morose for the first day of spring? Yes? No?

Every time I take notice of the date, I am surprised that it’s still 2009. It feels to me as though it’s been a very long while since I saw the fireworks exploding over Mont Kiara heralding in the new year. Yet it is only September. It is only September and already I feel like too much has happened. This year has overshot its quota for ‘Sensational Happenings, Unbelievable News and Things To Do’ and I don’t know what I should do to return things back to normal – back to the way it was when things were boring, predictable and safe.

I have never been good at handling sorrow, grief, hurt or pain. To say that I’m horribly non-confrontational would just be repeating what I’ve said a million times over in my writing. When presented with something that I can’t find ways of dealing with, I tend to run away. Or buat bodoh. Yes, I am truly the queen of buat bodoh buat tak tau sometimes because more often than not, there is truth in ‘Ignorance is Bliss’. But when I can’t run away or buat bodoh anymore, my last drastic measure is to cut whatever that’s troubling me from sight, mind, memory and life.

Of late, I have been doing just that. I did try to run away but it didn’t work. I tried to buat bodoh, but you can’t really buat bodoh about anything if it’s hanging over your head day in and night out with the same insistency of a dripping tap drip drip drip all night long. So, running out of options, I succumbed to pressure and have been living my life in a very Lacuna Inc-esque manner. I can’t say that it’s fantastic but it certainly helps.

If I don’t see, I don’t think, I don’t recall or I don’t know, then it ceases to exist. And when it becomes non-existential, well, all properties associated with it will disappear, pain included. It may seem harsh or even severe to some people, but this is the only way I know to do it. If you can think of debilitating problem memories as a kind of toxin to your soul, the best approach for a cure would be just to purge it out of your system. Therein lies the magic and wonder of Lacuna Inc.