This is quite embarrassing. I find myself running through combinations of names and have finally settled on a few personal favourites.

This is quite a revelation. By understanding that you were probably the worst mistake I could ever commit in my life (not you, Cat, rest easy), I'm glad it was committed whilst I was young. And anyone else from now on can only be better.

This is quite exciting. I have all these things I WANT to cross off on my to-do list before October rolls around, and I'm determined that they get crossed off thank you very much.

This is quite.... I just know that I am happy and have all 10 fingers and toes crossed for good luck.

This is quite a surprise. Perhaps it is time to settle our differences. Or rather, for me to bury the past and reach out again.

If you're wondering 'Why the sudden spate of posts' in a once-defunct blog? Let's just say, it is all thanks to my new Baie Noire. I LOVE it and I can't stop my fingers from going clickety-clack all over it!! I still wonder to myself, why didn't I get myself into this technology sooner??

I'm feeling like quite a technological retard, but it's ok...the most important thing is that I'm here now, and that I have a teeny tiny computer in my hand. Perhaps this will be the answer and reason I need to get back into the habit of writing again.

Ok la, I just declined going out to Marble Bar at the Hilton Sydney with the Hongster, I'd better make the most of my time in tonight. I do feel like an old-fogey sometimes ( was telling my cousin some story today, and the words 'back when I was in my 20's..' Escaped from my mouth. Cue the biggest eye-roll I've ever received from someone) but I guess if I want all the plans that I've laid out so far to be successful, I shall have to work harder to save. Here's to Operasi Jimat Duit!

It appears that life seems intent on making me MAKE decisions for the near-future, something I've always had quite a distaste for. I might as well just say it now and have it out in the open: This little Missy is most likely (and when I saw 'most likely' I mean, like 87% positive) going back to Antarctica for a third (and hopefully, final) consecutive summer season. Yup. Who'd have thunk it, eh?

Without meaning to, I've become some sort of hack-job pseudo-Antarctic veteran. Although, I have to admit that I like that term, Antarctic veteran. Who knew that the cold-hating Marine Biologist from Kajang with no career aspirations would end up quite this far?? And to think, someone once asked me if I wanted to be a fisherwoman with my marine science degree.

All fine and dandy, but all this just means that I will MOST LIKELY be missing another christmas, Chinese New Year etc etc you get the drift. The good news is, this time around, I'm getting paid for my capacity as Aquarium Bitch and all-round science-slave on station. Not too bad, I guess, in the scheme of things. However, I still wonder if I might've, perhaps, rushed in to such a decision? I'll most likely come to regret it when February 2012 rolls in and I'm missing all my CNY delicacies I've not tasted for 3 years now.

Anyhow, more good news; as I will MOST LIKELY be going back to the southern wastelands, I have decided to come home to Malaysia for an extended holiday before I start the third season. It also helps that the end-lease date at my current place will coincide with when I want to leave. So, all's good with the world again, I guess!

Anyhow, stay-tuned for more Meladventures. For the time being, I shall be saving up as much as I possibly can. And perhaps complete the scarf I have been knitting for some time now, the only stable and constant thing in my life at the moment.

It is very quiet in the lab today. The other person that was in the office was the current Honours’ student, and he has already left for the day. I’m beginning to wonder if it wouldn’t be such a bad idea to walk out in an hours’ time too.

Recently there has been a bit of a debate going on about Generation Y, and how and why we were a bunch of lazy, slack-arse, mommy’s-boys and daddy’s-girls. The members of the other generations (mostly just Generation X) are worried about the outcome of the future, especially once they have to release the reins for us to take over. How will the World function??, they cry and wring their hands, eyes heaven-ward.

I can understand where they’re coming from. There are days where I feel like I’m the archetypal stereotype of Generation Y. I have no responsibilities apart from making sure that I deliver the rent to my cousin on time, I start my working hours as and when I feel like it because my job does not require me to be there from 9-5, and if I don’t feel like going in to work, I don’t. I work enough to make sure that I earn enough to keep me surviving in this harsh and oft-times vicious city (plus a little more for when I feel like entertaining myself), and I make sure I have a little to save and to tide me over till my next paycheck comes in.

Generally, I am usually awash with a sense of apathy. I don’t really care for politics, although that doesn’t mean that I don’t care about injustice. I’m not part of a Union, I don’t bay and hound for equal marriage rights or women’s rights to wear skanky clothes on the streets and not feel threatened i.e. SlutWalk (although I WILL sign a petition if you shove it into my face because, although I’m apathetic, I hate confrontation more, and I will do whatever it takes to get me out of any awkward situations, including signing petitions I don’t really believe in i.e. SlutWalk).

I don’t have a plan for myself for the next 5 years. Every time someone asks me what I want to do with my life, or where I see myself heading to, I just shrug my shoulders and say, Not Sure. Also, the frequency of people asking me questions of this genre seems to be increasing exponentially with increasing age. Are they trying to tell me something? Is it an indirect suggestion to get off my ass and find a full-time 9-to-5 job?

Actually, I lie. Every time someone asks me what my plans are, I say I want to work and save up enough money to go traveling, and then when I run out of money, I’ll return to whatever job I can find again. Is that bad? Then they ask, What about a PhD??? And to that I answer, It’s in the cards for the future, and leave it as ambiguous as possible. IS THAT BAD? At 25, should I really have some sort of Life Plan by now?

My parents were hard at work when they were 25, why is it that I don’t feel the same? I’m not trying to white-wash the whole Gen Y with the same Brush of Apathy. I know a lot of my friends who are hard at work earning beaucoup bucks. But I also know a few individuals who are of the same view as I am. We are just happy to subsist through this life with whatever that’s on hand, and to make ‘seeing’ the World our priority.

So, the main question here is: Is this normal? Should I start getting my act together and become a Responsible Citizen or do I still have some time to buy? How far will this 'Not Sure' mentality carry me?

For the past 2 weeks or so, Sydney has been receiving a hammering from the heavens in the form of bucket-loads of rain pouring forth from the sky. It was rain as you’ve never seen it before. So you can understand my amazement when, upon arriving home from an Ocean Acidification Symposium that I attended in Canberra, there was not a single drop of rain to be found! This amazing weather has been continuing for a few days or so and today was no exception.


Josh and Ben, who are 11 and 6 respectively...HOW TIME FLIES! I still remember them in diapers and now, they're fighting over chickens.

Today was a Good day. It was a Blue Sky day. It was a Not a Cloud in the Sky day. It was a Cool Breeze Sighing through the Tangles of Your Hair day. And it was amazing. Amidst all the gloom and cold and wetness of the past few weeks, the weather gods decided to bestow upon Sydney a last-minute glimpse of Summer.

I like days like these.

Recently, a rather interesting matter developed in my life. I may, perhaps, be given a chance to start a new life in a new city, depending on if I want to take that chance or not, of course. I am – naturally – quite excited about this new development as it has been something that I’ve always had my mind on. However, as you know with Life, one thing often leads to another and dreams and ambitions get left behind. Nothing concrete yet has been decided upon and of course, such a life-changing decision will require many different factors coming and working together. I will keep you posted though, and IF that self-migration does occur, you’ll be sure to know.


Labmates and I at the Ocean Acidification Symposium in Canberra.

It’s not something that I’ve told a lot of people, in fact, I’ve only told ONE person, however that person is the equivalent of CNN (or GNN, rather) hence the news has sort of leaked out a little. I guess the reason for my wanting to keep it quiet and on the low-down is that I do not want to attract too much attention to it and possibly have it blow up in my face.

Anywho, time will tell.

Today is a Josh Rouse day just because I feel like it. I have mentioned this in passing a few times before; I have a tendency to catalogue the history of Me into music. All it takes is a song to trigger a memory locked deep in my sub-consciousness and to have it push its up to the surface. Josh Rouse is no exception.


My first burst of colour in all its vividness proffered by Salamanca Markets after disembarking at Hobart.

I was introduced to him during my first year of university life by Nata "The Coco" Shariff and every time I want to recall those bleak, bleak times, all I need to do is put on Nashville and press Play.

Not that his songs are terrible. His songs are great! And I lie, first-year uni wasn’t bleak. It was mildly challenging at the worst of times and zomg-hand-me-a-razor-I-need-to-slit-my-wrists at best. That’s right. First-year was confusing, but it was exhilarating, but it could be pretty demoralizing sometimes, and yet still utterly, utterly amazing.

Magical mushrooms beckoned from the highest point of Bruny Island.

Life is good/Sometimes its bad/It has its ups /It has its downs/Sing a song and feel alright/That’s just life. Yup, as corny as that may sound, it kept me going when I was going out of my mind lying on my tiny little single bed in a cold cold foreign land after having to subject myself to a dinner of stir-fried bitter-gourd (Ok, I exaggerate, but not about the bitter-gourd though).

Rock and roll/You are envy I am/So uncool/Still I want to do the best I can/Let’s meet on the corner and act like we’re old friends. Who knew how true these words would ring today?


The Spit, Bruny Island. Separating the good from the bad, the old from the new, the past from the future.

Hello again to the real world! Sorry I have been missing for so long, but I'm sure we're all used to the fact that I tend to do disappearing acts these days. I wonder if it's something that comes with age and experience, but secretly I know it is a side effect of apathy.

Anyway, another season on the ice is now done and dusted. The way each day melts into each week into each month doesn't surprise me anymore. It didn't seem that long ago when I said goodbye to the world as I knew it 8 months ago, but here we are, it is the first day of June and half of my 2011 is already gone.

So much has happened to me and around me from the time I left right up till now, and frankly, I don’t even know where to begin. Sometimes I think that it must be a good thing, because it must mean that I am so completely lost in living Life that keeping track of it has become something of an impossibility, but I know better than that. I can’t pinpoint the exact moment when I lost the knack of writing the way I feel. I used to be so good at it when all this first started.

Perhaps there is no exact moment, and is more probably a culmination of little moments and tiny events that has led to all this self-censoring that I am gagging myself with. I started wondering who would be reading my words, and then the wondering became worry, and I started worrying about what people would think when they read what I wrote, and what conclusions they would draw without giving me the benefit of defending my words for myself. However, all this self-censoring is becoming very tiresome and I am sick of it. It is also starting to become a burden on my throat, this inability to express in words how I really feel.

I lost something very dear to me when I was on the ice. It was the fruition of five years of anticipation, moments under moonlight, glasses of wine, laughter and gags, promises, smoke-filled dancefloors, running into the waves at Legian, endless roads and music you can feel pounding in your ribcage. All this, interlaced with heartache and sprinkled with tears. I am sorry I lost it but Life goes on. And as in keeping with the WTF-ness that is Life, I have now found something new, something that I know will supply me with just as much joy and adventure as before. Already, the opening credits of Robot Chicken are looping in my head and refuses to leave me in peace, and the copious amounts of alcohol is still placed very firmly in the picture, Alhamdullilah Praise be to God.

Such is Life. A quarter of a century and I’m still none the wiser. Talk soon! Missing all of you.