Saturday Night Reverie April 28, 2007

Here I am facing the screen on a lovely Saturday night. It use to be that Saturday night was the usual time for night-outs and harmless revelries. Nowadays, they are just like any other weekday nights – staying home, doing paperwork, watching the idiot box or chatting online. Were I to compare my life with a particular season – I’m probably caught between summer and autumn. Not totally absorbing the fun heat of life nor prepared against any possible chills. Of all the Saturday nights I’ve had, somehow I remember a particular one ages ago:

It was a week or so after graduating from college that I started my first full-time job as an office secretary. I rented a room in an apartment across the campus which was comforting because I hadn’t really weaned from my college chums. For the first few months I stayed alone in the two-room apartment but felt fairly safe… Till one night.

I didn’t go anywhere that then. Just stayed home and enjoyed being the perfect recluse. About 11ish there was a knock on the door. I was already getting ready for bed and wondered who’d it be. I looked through the peep-hole and saw a man. He looked Chinese, wore spectacles  and his durian-look-alike hairstyle seemed familiar… Aaah, SY! One of my college friends. What did he want at this time of night? Thinking it must be something urgent, I opened the door. And immediately regretted it - a little too late. He reeked of beer and he did appear a little groggy.

“May I come in?” he said but then he was already inside. “What’s wrong? Are you sick?” I asked pretending to be innocent. Maybe he was busy fighting gravity’s pull; he didn’t answer immediately.

Finally, he said with a slur, “Jua-niii-taa… I like iy-ou, know.” That’s when I felt a tiny shiver up my neck. Here I was alone with an intoxicated man who probably got drunk because he was bored or depressed. I told him that he was not in his right mind and that he needed to get home. Thinking it would dilute his insanity, I offered him warm water to drink. Instead, he asked where the toilet was. Err… toilet?? I pointed the way and poor dude, I could hear him barfing and throwing up whatever it was that he consumed earlier. A few minutes later he appeared, a little sheepish and I knew he wouldn’t hesistate leaving if I asked him to, again. Well, eventually he did after taking a shower.

After that incident, he tried calling me up a few times. By then I had housemates – which was relieving. I don’t know whether he wanted to say sorry or to reiterate what he had said. I couldn’t know because I kept avoiding him. Yeah, it was a cowardly thing for me to do. Well, the last I heard, SY is happily married to a Filipina girl he met in Palau.

As for me, I’m still a coward and the universe is still trying to teach me a lesson (whatever it is ) even years later.

What’s your Saturday night reverie?

I Saw My Baby Today! April 25, 2007

During lunch, I went to the workshop where my Kelisa is kept at the moment. When I saw him I felt like hugging him tight! He still looks handsome except for the ugly tear on the left side of the front bumper. I’ve never felt so sorry for an inanimate thing before until I saw him in such a sad condition. He’s been such a faithful, dependable part of my life for exactly a year now and just remembering the way he looks lying so helplessly inside the longkang the other day just pains me. Ita, Ita… Why lah you so careless!

The workshop guy told me that it’ll take about one month to fix him back to his old self again. Man, I really miss my car! In fact, come to think of it, I love him no matter how sleek the others look, or how fast and powerful the others go, or how spacious the others are. Wait till you’re in my arms again. I’m going to decorate you like a Christmas tree and make you feel proud to be a car! Hehehe.

That Wouldn’t Happen To Me… April 24, 2007

Detached, ignorant and complacent… those were my reactions whenever I see someone in a car accident. That would never happen to me, I thought. Somehow the past two weeks I frequently witnessed accidents that thankfully did not involve the loss of lives.

Last week a truck nearly banged me from behind because he was going too fast and he didn’t realise that the traffic was still slow even when the lights had turned green. Luckily he made a sudden swerve to the empty lane on the left which saved me from becoming a sandwich. Gosh! It was indeed a close call.

I think there were many instances where I would have claimed it was my being conscientious as a driver that saved me from getting involved in an accident.

 Until last night.

I was driving home around 9pm and I was feeling very very tired and sleepy. The past few nights I’d been sleeping quite late and I guess that contributed to my feeling of fatigue. So I was driving back from Kepayan after a piano class. Still OK. Then made my way towards KK. Still OK. Towards Menggatal and Telipok I was slapping myself and shouting like a maniac just to make me stay awake. It helped for a little while. Switched on Radio FM 90.7. Berungis… Ahhh almost home. I was driving close to 80kmph and I thought by driving faster I could reach home safely. In Telibong I started closing my eyes for a second or two. Suddenly I realised I was driving onto the road divider and could feel the rough jolts. Boy, was I awake! I quickly steered to the left and that’s when I lost control of the car… It was like trying to stop a running St Bernard on a leash, you have no choice but to be dragged by the leash. I rammed the tip of a concrete wall of a bridge before landing into a ditch full of kangkung and God knows what. For what seemed like a dream, I tried to make sense of where I was and how the heck I got there. The radio was still playing ridiciously loud. And the engine was still running. I was badly shaken but was unhurt. Then the kampungan 911 chaos began. I could hear voices from up above and I could see people – mostly men without shirts. They smelt of beer and cigarettes but they were my saviours.

“Mana sakit? Kau tidak apa-apa?” (Where’s the pain? Are you OK?)

“Saya OK. Jangan susah. Tiada juga apa-apa ni.” (I’m OK. Don’t worry. I’m quite fine.)

A man helped pull me up. They kept asking if I were alright and I keep telling them yes. I called my parents. Then a friend, my brother. The police. More people came. Finally parents came, Ma and Pa looked more shaken than I did (or so I thought). Sheeshh… What the fufu was I thinking?? I was troubling all these good people from their sleep, their drink, their noctural activities.

Even as I write this, the episode of my swerving and landing, swerving and landing like a hero gone bad kept playing in my head. I can list down all the precautions that I could have heeded to avoid that stupid mishap. Despite what I’ve written a few months ago, here’s another regret to marr my wonderful life thus far. I could have died last night. But I didn’t because my angel was working overtime.

“That wouldn’t happen to me.” But it did. I’m not sure if I want to drive again. Boo-hoo-hoo.

Sunday in 5 April 22, 2007

1.  Spent a typical Sunday. That is, an 8 to 6 schedule with piano students from various levels, attention spans, musical abilities and inabilities. Although I don’t really have problematic students but it never fails to drive me up the wall when they come unprepared. Grrrr.

2.  I think my Gingergirl is pregnant! She’s a tiny mutt (a mixture of silver fox, dachshund and kampung dog) just triple the size of my cat. I worry she would not be big enough for her babies. Saw her mating my neighbour’s half-blind kampung dog some time ago. She was literally up in the air because of her size… Poor kid. 

3.  Reminder: I have car insurance renewal, car payment, credit card, phone, water and electricity bills to pay – all due April 25/26. Matilah. Got to rob a bank tomorrow.

4.  Looking forward to three public hols this week and next week – inauguration of Yang Dipertuan Agong the king (April 26), Labour’s Day (May 1) and Vesak Day (May 2). Going to use ‘em to finish my translation project due February 15, 2007. Heh.

5.  Gotta sleep in 30 seconds. Long day tomorrow.

Which Type of Photographer Are You? April 20, 2007

T H E    A N A L Y S T

 T H E    D E V O T E E 

T H E   S N O O P E R

T H E   P O S E R

T H E   B U T T – C L I N C H E R

T H E   G Y M N A S T

T H E    S N I P E R

T H E   S C R U T I N I S E R

Saturday Sunset Cruise April 17, 2007

Debbie kindly invited Melly and I for a sunset cruise with some of her colleagues last Saturday. Lucky for us, this was a familiarisation trip by the tour agency so it was free of charge. Normally the price ranges between RM100-125 per person depending on the food you want on the menu. I can vouch that this is worth the price… not because of the food but the whole experience of watching the sun disappear into the abdomen of the ocean minute by minute. For two relaxing hours you are being pampered by nature – the lulling movement of the sea moving beneath you, the cool evening breeze, the freedom you feel just being under the spacious firmament and the ever-changing hues of the wounded sky as her lover, the majestic sun, slowly slid away from her… Wohoo, the Shakespearean in me is certainly awake!

I was a bit sad that I didn’t have a camera. My Nikon FM10 hasn’t been in its tip-top condition for the last few years (entirely my fault for ignoring it) and when I tried it just before the trip some of its features were not functioning. So quiet disappointing that I didn’t take any pictures of the sunset myself. Though Deb was kinda enough to let me play around with her point-and-shoot digicam but we both know we need a better shooting weaponary soon. Very soon! The world is passing by fast and I don’t want to be left behind in appreciating and capturing the little wonders of life and our natural world as much as I can.

Some pictures for the record. Courtesy of the lady in red!

         

(Sutera Marina jetty; the marina; girlfriends)

 

(sepia candids)

(this is just an amazing sight!)

13 Things Today April 13, 2007

1.  How lucky to be alive on Friday the thirteenth!

2.  Red letter days – Day 1.

3.  Fried noodles and sour pineapple cutlets for breakfast. Together.

4.  Three more weeks and the semester will be over.

5.  Overwhelmed with three deadlines due – last month. WARGH!!!

6.  Need a new monitor for my desktop PC at home. My old one has rippling screen after 30-40 minutes. (Flat screen, please!)

7.  Sat at the longest meeting I’ve EVER attended.  4 1/2 hours! I gave the shortest report but still had to suffer the remaining 4 hours and 25 minutes. Man, all the papers I could have marked!

8.  Had lunch after the meeting.  At 6:15pm. Haaha!

9.  I’m starting to bond with my two-month old kitten. No decent name yet. Just called her Meow.

10.   Found another source of irritation, PT. I hate it when he comes up to my cubicle when I’m engaged with a lot of things and tries small talk. Is he blind???

11.   Heard from Deb she found a shop that sells Canon 400D for RM2899 with kit lense. I want.

12.   I’m going to sleep late tonight. I miss sleeping late. I miss my own quiet time.

13.   I miss him. And I know I shouldn’t.

This is a Great Day April 9, 2007

If it seems you’re having a difficult day, that’s not really the case. Though today you may have experienced certain difficulties up to this point, those difficulties do not have to define the day. The rest of this day will be what you make it. You can choose right now to make it positive and productive.

Those difficulties and frustrations that had you thinking this was a difficult day can quickly be left behind. You can in fact make this a truly great day.

Take a deep breath, and be sincerely thankful for the experience and the wisdom you’ve already gained today. Then point your energy in a positive direction.

Choose to make this moment a turning point. Instead of allowing random events to control your attitude, select an attitude that will move you forward.

This is a great day. Beginning right now, you have what it takes to live that reality.

– Ralph Marston –

* * * * *

Hmmm… I’m suppose to be motivated by this? Heeeh. Even right now I can imagine the faces of the difficult people I will be meeting today and major tasks that are so unfinished because I keep getting interrupted with other “urgent” tasks. Sometimes I wonder if I’m incapable that’s why there are still many unfinished business… or maybe I’ve been too imbecile to say ‘yes’ to everything that comes my way and have ignored the fact that I really don’t have the time. Even right now, what the heck am I doing on wordpress when I should be doing some more translation?? Haiya, Ita. Shoo… shoo… go to work!

Discovery of a Father April 7, 2007

I’m currently rereading Philip Yancey’s “Disappointment With God” in which he explores the three major questions that perturb many people especially Christians: Is God unfair? Is God silent? Is God hidden? It’s not so much that I ask these questions that I’m reading the book because I believe despite the injustice we see around us, the pain, the hurt and the disappointment that we so often go through life, God is still the unseen force in men’s existence – whether or not we choose to acknowledge Him, that’s a different story. But for whatever reasons I picked up the book for in the first place, I find looking at God from a different lighting. I have never seriously thought of Him as One who is desperate for our attention, our affection and our love. Or seeing Him as a parent to a self-centred child.

I’m almost at the close of the book and I think I should share the author’s true story, an experience about his own father which basically summarises the underlying theme of the book:

      One holiday I was visiting my mother, who lives seven hundred miles away. We reminisced about times long past, as mothers and sons tend to do. Inevitably, the large box of old photos came down from the closet shelf, spilling out a jumbled pile of thin rectangles that mark my progression through childhood and adolescence: the cowboy-and-Indian getups, the Peter Cottontail suit in the first grade play, my childhood pets, endless piano recitals, the graduations from grade school and high school and finally college.
      Among those photos I found one of an infant, with my name written on the back. The portrait itself was not unusual. I looked like a baby: fat-cheeked, half-bald, with a wild, unfocused look to my eyes. But the photo was crumpled and mangled, as if one of those childhood pets had got hold of it. I asked my mother why she had hung onto such an abused photo when she had so many other undamaged ones.
     There is something you should know about my family: when I was ten months old, my father contracted spinal lumbar polio. He died three months later, just after my first birthday. My father was totally paralyzed at age twenty-four, his muscles so weakened that he had to live inside a large steel cylinder that did his breathing for him. He had few visitors – people had as much hysteria about polio in 1950 as they do about AIDS today. The one visitors who came faithfully, my mother, would sit in a certain place so that he could see her in a mirror bolted to the side of the iron lung.
     My mother explained to me that she had kept the photo as a memento, because during my father’s illness it had been fastened to his iron lung. He had asked for pictures of her and of his two sons, and my mother had had to jam the pictures in between some metal knobs. Thus, the crumpled condition of my baby photo.
    I rarely saw my father after he entered the hopsital, since children were not allowed in polio wards. Besides, I was so young that, even if I had been allowed in, I would not now retain those memories.
    When my mother told me the story of the crumpled photo, I had a strange and powerful reaction. It seemed odd to imagine someone caring about me whom, in a sense, I had never met. During the last months of his life, my father had spent his waking hours staring at those three images of his family, my family. There was nothing else in his field of view. What did he do all day? Did he pray for us? Yes, surely. Did he love us? Yes. But how can a paralyzed person express his love, especially when his own children are banned from the room?
    I have often thought of that crumpled photo, for it is one of the few links connecting me to the stranger who was my father, a stranger who died a decade younger than I am now. Someone I have no memory of, no sensory knowledge of, spent all day every day thinking of me, devoting himself to me, loving me as well as he could. Perhaps, in some mysterious way, he is doing so now in another dimension. Perhaps I will have time, much time, to renew a relationship that was cruelly ended just as it had begun.
    I mentioned this story because the emotions I felt when my mother showed me the crumpled photo were the very same emotions I felt that February night in a college dorm room when I frist believed in a God of love. Someone is there, I realized. Someone is watching life as it unfolds on this planet. More, Someone is there who loves me. It was a startling feeling of wild hope, a feeling so new and overwhelming that it seemed fully worth risking my life on.

Around the World in 354 Years April 6, 2007

Happy Good Friday! Aah… Just the needed break from the crazy pace at work (: If I didn’t have the translation work to finish up I would have been somewhere near the mountains by now enjoying the cool, crispy air or animal-watching at Lok Kawi Zoo which just recently opened.

Anyway, just the other day I was surfing about the top places to visit around the world and I have compiled my own little list. The list is not exhaustive but that can be added along the way. Alternatively I visited this wacky site www.twisty.com/misc/50places to see how long it takes for me see visit the 50 most recommended places. Check yours to see if you too have to live as long as Methusaleh or Abraham in order to complete your trip around the world.

Well, here’s mine as of Good Friday 2007 in no particular order:

1. The Grand Canyon – USA
2. South Island – New Zealand
3. Golden Temple – India
4. Taj Mahal – India
5. Canadian Rockies – Canada
6. Uluru – Australia
7. Machu Picchu – Peru
8. The pyramids – Egypt
9. Maldives – Maldives
10. Great Wall – China
11. Victoria Falls – Zambia/Zimbabwe
12. Haiwaii – USA
13. Auckland – New Zealand
14. Iguassu Falls – Argentina/Brazil
15. Paris – France
16. Angkor Wat – Cambodia
17. Himalayas – Nepal/Tibet
18. Galapagos Islands – Ecuador
19. Rome – Italy
20. Sri Lanka – Sri Lanka
21. Barbados – Barbados
22. Iceland – Iceland
23. Terracotta Army – China
24. Zermatt – Switzerland
25. Bali – Indonesia
26. Bora Bora – French Polynesia
27. Ulaan Baatar – Mongolia
28. Danum Valley – Malaysia
29. Hanoi – Vietnam
30. Phi Phi Island – Thailand