'But you must be some kind of Superstar...'

sang Jamelia.

And my 8-year-old chubby brother, Kevin.

O_O

I am in shock.

----------------------

I've been feeling particularly bitchy today and hated almost everyone that crossed my path or those who just happened to be in the same shopping mall.

It didn't help that I've not had lunch and was having the bloody monthly curse.

And so i sms-ranted at a friend about all the things that were pissing me off.

Like the lack of chocolate. And all the ugly things on sale that made me want to cry. And the craving for a Choc-A-Nut waffle from the Waffle Stop but there isn't one in Kuching.

And then I went to McDonalds to get myself a vanilla cone and a pie to ease my demented self.

The queue was long, the air-conditioning wasn't working and there was no ice-cream because their machine broke down.

I was not a happy girl.

"There's so many people here, why do they all have to be here now?"

Now an illogical question like that is usually ignored. But this was his reply.

"Hmm. They're probably all there because the ever beautiful Kim is out and about. Tis true. Same thing happened while you were here in KL.*" said his sms.
(I complained about the crowd when I was there too.)

And the horizontal crack on my face spread ever wider, and there was peace in the world again.

Front Page Tragedies

both make me look and make me look away in disgust.

Accidents, rapes, and mutilation.

I am intrigued by the details of how it happened, why and who the victim was.

Death sells.

When an occurence of the mentioned sort happens, I imagine dog-eared journalists do as they would when they hear their calling - with ears perked up and their senses alert.

They can't help it really. Neither can self-proclaimed ethical readers like myself who sometimes scrunge up their face in disgust at the thought of the violation of those victims who have just been hurt, and yet read on while we click our tongues disapprovingly.

Justification says that newspapers are helping them gain sympathy, and to give attention to the issue at hand. To create public awareness.

I remember when I first found out that a friend's father who was a government official, was tragically killed in an accident.

They put pictures of the crash site. Justified. Of her father's face. Justified. Of her family grieving and crying over his casket. There is no justification there. There is only so much that is the public's business, so much that they need to be aware of.

I know a picture tells a thousand words, and none can tell it so well when the photos are blown up, printed in full colour.

And despite my disgust, I still look; transfixed.

Is the media to blame for the grotesque news reports that people see, or is it the public's morbid fault of loving these news pieces that force reporters to write this way?

Because Gmail Sucks

So I am posting this here for Em to see.

RM10, Lot10 Kuala Lumpur.

I've never been one for extreme danglies (Yes, I consider these pretty elaborate) and have always gone for 'plain' boring silver rings or butterflies and such. But I loved seeing these type of danglies on others (my uni mate Jay and also the fashionista Alli) so much that I'm gonna start wearing them too.

Now I only need to get myself more pairs. Donations welcomed.

Highlight of wearing these:

When you shake your head vigorously,
they make a tinkly sound that feels like magic.

Benefactress: Mic a.k.a. Aunty, from Dorothy Perkins.

Now I've never been one to wear pretty dainty things too, because I am far from being a dainty person and it doesn't quite usually fit my outfit (which Em pointed out several times - resembled Britney Spears - I can't help it if shirts here are too short!).

Highlight of wearing these:

I feel prettyyy..oh so prettty..
I feel prettyyy and witttyyy and gayy!
And I pity, anybody who isn't me todayy!

Guess who met up for coffee one Friday night?

A night of Caramel Ice Blended: Rom, moi and Mic at Bings!

*evil cackle*

*blocks jealous looks from Alli, LC and Lily*

-----------------------------------

Edit:

It's Saturday morning, 9:30am and I've just brushed my teeth.

I sit here (duh) trying to recap why I was so keen on meeting Rom.

Rom, who is ever ready to provide amusing stories and to hear you out when you've got a problem.

*looks wistfully*

Rom, the one who gives sound advice, but is also ever ready to laugh at all the silly things you present to him, and download the music you force upon him.

*wipes away a tear*

Rom, the artsy-fart who talks like how he writes.

The meet up was not at all awkward, as one might've thought - being strangers. And yet we probably knew of each other more than our daily friends do (xanga protected special people ma), and that is the beauty of it I suppose.

Who would've thought that virtual friendship can be so real?

And that brings me to repeat this question.

Rom, are you really sure you wanna go to haunted Damai beach?

This is the story of a girl..

who took 'knowing where to go' too literally. Way way too.

Now this girl, made a date with her gorgeous friend to meet at Memories Cafe, which this girl said she knew.

It is pretty much forgivable that she doesn't know the roads of Kuching very well, as she HAS been away for quite a few years.

The date was set at 8:30pm to give each other enough time to shower and don up a bit.

At 8pm, this girl's gorgeous friend, lets just call her Aku, called this girl (whom we shall tag Aunty) because she had a sudden revelation that Memories Cafe had dodgy parking (the type with dark alleys and shadows lurking in corners) and wanted to suggest that they meet up elsewhere.

Aku, "Eh, are you ready yet? I think we better not meet at Memories lah! The parking not safe."

Aunty said, "I know! I just got back from there, I drove out to see the place."

"...."

"But I'm meeting you in a bit?! You drove there to see if you knew how to get there, only to drive down again in a while? Oi. You don't know about the oil hike ha?", Aku exclaimed.

Aunty giggled and said, "Can I meet you there at 9 instead of 8 or not?"

Aku lapsed into one of those Japanese sweat emoticons.

=_=;

White Love

I've always known you were there.

I've always known that there would be one for me.

Mine and mine only.

But despite knowing all that, I'd never have thought it'd be this good. This satisfying.

That warm, fuzzy feeling that seeps in from your toes and plays around with your mind.

I close my eyes as all romantics do, and I relinquish the taste of your love.

Never, ever leave me.


White Maltesers.


Dr.Mic TTT, Thanks tons for the choc (Started eating them after your phone call) It made my night! (Plus your company lah of course =)

To Hear or To See?

Now my brother has been down with flu for a while now, and this has caused his ear to ache over the weekend in which he woke up in the middle of the night sobbing in pain.

Today, mom brought him to an ear specialist to get it checked out.

The doctor said that it was good of us to bring him for a check-up, as people usually just ignore their ailments by taking a panadol or two.

He told us that if things had gotten more serious, there was a probability that my brother would be deaf.

I cannot imagine being deaf. Neither can I fathom being blind.

Someone once asked me a question, that if I were to be born lacking, which would I rather be? Deaf or blind?

I can't remember my answer. Maybe I didn't.

But that aside, here's my question for YOU.

Which would you rather be, deaf or blind? And why?

(Mystery gift awaits winner with best answer.)

Little Monsters

The little girl's Jade, and the other one's Little Joe.

They both terrorize my desk on a daily basis.

The moment the photos were taken, Little Joe was imitating the biscuit he was eating which was in the shape of a Tiger which I insisted was a cat.

Jade came up to me and asked me if I was trying to take a photo of her.

Both of them raid my lower desk drawer freely which is full of tiny cute biscuits, candy (which they kindly told me was too hard and they preferred chocolate ones).

Joe feels it his duty to give me instructions on how to draw and such.

It went something like this, "I want a house with windows and then many many windows and then and then got grass got tree got mountains behind tall tall mountains and then and then I want flowers many many flowers and also I want people what is that (i drew a cloud) oh I also want many cloud why you draw one cloud only and then i want got sun and also many many people and ice cream and chocolates and ..."

Yesterday, he drew some fruits (a bunch of circles and lines) on a paper plate and practically forced me to eat some.

So I pretend to eat lah.

Jade on the other hand, sweet as she is, keeps on giving me scraps of paper that she cut with scissors. Squares, rectangles that look like squares, triangles that look like squares. And she insists that I keep them and put them in the glass cabinet.

She is also a very persistent little lady when it comes to manners. Often, I call her over to give her candy and she totters off happily to show her mummy. After what seems like quite awhile has passed, she comes back to say thank you. And when she leaves to go home, she'll go by every single desk in the office regardless of whether if she knows the person or not to bid them a cheery goodbye.

Sometimes I hear her singing to herself in that squeaky off-tune voice that children have, and am somehow comforted by it.


Oh dearie me. I sound like a mummy wannabe.

The Cleopatra of Diversions

If I want to tell you something of much importance, I will tell you in an e-mail. Or an SMS.

I cannot for the life of me be confrontational. Nonsense and questions I can handle. But the 'real thang' I can't handle for fear that I'll get all emo and burst into tears.

It is the curse of a woman.

And so as not to plague people with the guilt of having to comfort one who is seemingly in devastation, I create diversions to avoid discussions or immersion.

Immersion into one's feelings makes them temperamental. A person who feels too much is quick to anger, sadness and all the different levels of emotional highs and lows.

We must therefore all retain some form of self-control and stay neutral. We must not show. We must be strong.

Being emotional is a sign of weakness. It is letting your heart getting to your brain, and that is taboo to my world of practical rationality where happiness is a matter of the mind, and not of the heart.

And so when the going gets rough, the mind starts wandering.

"Don't dwell on the problem, Kim, find instead the solution."

"All sadness will come to an ending, with time it will fade."

"Crying never solved anything."

"God has a bigger plan for you than you have for yourself."

"There are worst problems in this world than your not getting your way."

And for a while, it works.

Like Double-sided Tape and Super Glue

I am clingy.

I can now imagine faces cringing, crowds running away helter-skelter like they do in Ultraman movies when hideous plasticin-made monsters roar their terrifying roar.

But I am (clingy), as much I'd hate to admit it as it is a typical trait of being a woman. And God forbid that I am a typical woman. We are after all striving to be oh-so-individualistic.

Clingy is being possessive; from the YouMustReportToMeEveryHour type to the IfYouBreakUpWithMeIWillKillMyself type.

Clingy is needing someone so badly that during his or her absence, you feel like you've been abandoned. And when the person returns, there are rainbows over green meadows and butterflies again.

Clingy is bad. Or has always been portrayed as being so.

Like all the things I do, I justify it to myself. There MUST be rationale behind the things we do.

(Exclusion clause: Rationale does not cover areas of purchases, e.g. shoes, pretty things, excessive consumption of sweet stuff...)

I cling because I have no life (for lack of a better reason at the moment).

I cling to GoodFriends, MoreThanFriends dan kawasan-kawasan yang sewaktu dengannya (those in the same area) because it is hard to find people you like very very much.

But we musn't cling, must we?

Clinging shows that we are dependant, that we are desperately holding on to someone or something that is not ours to have.

Clinging shows that we are weak, that we can't Standalone and are in constant need of a Network.

Clinging is a need.

Like how fish need water, and how beauty pageant contestants need world peace.

Needing isn't bad. It is how you act upon that need that is.

Needing shows that we are all frail. I AM frail.

Very much so actually because I am needing a hug right now.
(Except that I pretend that I don't because it's not cool to need things like that)

. . .

I'm gonna go get my teddy now.

And in a faraway place where music comforts,
Guns N' Roses sings,
"...everybody needs somebody, sometimes."

Something has ended.

But I can't remember what.

Graduation was surreal. Not how Utopian magnificence and good chocolate is, but more like how you ate fantabulous sushi yesterday but can't remember what type of fish you had; whether it was salmon or unagi.

Fishy things aside, I really can't remember much.

I remember sniggering at the person's (whoever he or she [can't remember gender] was) speech on how our university has served us, and how monumental their 'sacrifice' was.

I vividly remember the person quoting Mahatma Ghandi and Nelson Mandela, and then thinking to myself - the person who wrote the speech must've been an Indian because he quoted indian men.

I remember remembering that 'Oh yeah, Mandela isn't Indian' and had a bimbotic spasm in my head then and there while the whole ceremony was going on.

I remember cheering very, very loudly for one particular friend who hurt her leg, and had to use crutches, painfully limping across the stage to receive her hard-earned RM30,000 piece of paper.

I remember thinking, "She's like a war hero, celebrated for surviving." then feeling a tad jealous that my cheers weren't as loud.

I remember not going to the toilet because it was too difficult to lift all those layers of clothing up just to pee.

I remember flashes of camera lights, and being made to raise my scroll up into the air for photographers.

I remember trying to catch a cab and seeing people pose for photos outside the building that wasn't even our own.

I remember blurred figures in batman costumes as the cab sped by.

But I don't remember having said goodbye.

Sleep

Oh weary mind,
Sleep and leave it all behind.
All your regrets,
many of your heartbreaks.
Only if for forty winks,
Only if for tonight.

Oh weary eyes,
That have seen too much,
too soon,
too much.
Rest,
tomorrow worst things there will be.
Rest,
pray renewed eyes are granted thee.

Oh weary child,
Innocence;
thy youth's blessing.
Yesterdays are yesterdays,
No burden,
No weight.
No hoping for forty winks,
To forget your regrets,
many of your hearbreaks.

Frosty-Lipped Sisters

The KL trip was great (though very, very exhausting)! Thankfully I had my sister to take care of the shopping burden which is known as Mother, who refused to go home even after the shops were ready to close.

Thanks sis for making the below possible.

It was fun to frolick around town with Em and Lisa with her boring beige sandals, as well as Moobs who keeps on feeding me, and Mich with her tingly laugh.

It was equally delightful to be pounced upon by Mel, a college buddy of mine who used to do daily sexy renditions of Leaving On A Jet Plane while propped on the table in class.

Tania, you are so lying about being semi-vegetarian. Okay, I know I am seemingly putting everyone's names in here so that I seem like I know everybody and am popular and shit (like You-Know-Who), but well I do. Know everybody, that is.

I so miss you, and you, and you you you.

This trip over there has proven to be very bad for my work motivation.

I need my Dunkin Donuts.


P/S I think we spotted a blogebrity!

Wading in Blogwaves

It is hard (yet possible) to group blogs and their readership.

There are the insightful ones. Ones that make you want to be strong like Yvonne, and admire her for her courage and optimism to live well.

Then there's Huai Bin, one of my personal favourites whom so many friends have also vouched as the best Malaysian blog ever, and should've won the PPS awards. Why is he good? Because he just is.

It's like one of those questions with no answers, e.g. why is salt salty?

I am of course not saying that those who won, did not deserve to win.

Some like their bloggers serious, like Jeff Ooi, whose readers are always angry and ready to voice out against the many injustices in society.

Some like them bitchily ranting at the whole wide world, and I shan't name names as they already get enough hits as it is.

Some like them incredulously funny and random, like Kenny.

I like mine to relate to my female sensitivities. I don't care if we're irrational most of the time and that it probably wouldn't do to have people support your murderous thoughts.

I like wit combined with self-depreciating humour, or this one which I have no idea what to tag as.

And with the multitude of bloggers that you admire, the ones you read more religiously than the news; that you await eagerly in front of your computer and addictively press F5 (refresh button lah) every half an hour or so, you really wonder what your own writing is worth.

And then you get sad like me, a journalist/writer/columnist wannabe.

Mega Sales, Here I Come!

Oh yeah, my convocation too.

I'm going off to KL tomorrow, and will be back on Sunday.

Many things I have to do, and hardly enough time to spend.

Thursday, will be meeting up for dinner with dear, bald Uncle Mike whom every single friend of mine thinks is very cool because he has a tattoo of a rose on his scalp.

Friday - have been coerced into going for rehearsals in the morning to listen to dear Emily's 'I Love Utar' speech. After that hopefully I get to spend some quality time catching up with her and Lisa, I won't be seeing them again anytime soona after this.

University convocation is on Saturday morning, and will apparently be attended by the Prime Minister of which I have not much interest in.

We will go, we will sit. They will talk. We will strain to keep our eyes open. We will mock lecturers who're up on stage looking like Batman fans and strain our necks to see who is it that is getting a particularly loud applause. We will secretly send smses with our silenced phones to friends outside who've been waiting for at least an hour.

And then it will be complete. Final. An official end.

And a burst of sunshine will shine upon the earth once again, and I will be meeting Moobs who has been oh-so lonely *Akon song plays in head* and go frolicking in bookstores with him.

So exciting ya?

"A shopping I will gooo.. a shopping I will goooo...
Hey Ho the merry-o a shopping I will gooo!"

Fuggernuts

My frustration increases every extra day I stay at home.

I need to leave.

I need to be on my own.

It's not that my parents don't understand me.

It's that I don't understand them.

Just A Thought: On Love

They say it is better to have loved, than never to have loved at all. That a moment, that moment, is eternity; broadcasted on a mental channel re-run whenever you want it to.

But is it worth it?

The warmth of an embrace is fleeting. And when it's gone you try to sum up whatever's left that seeped into your core.

Is it not a very selfish thing to do to love someone momentarily, and leave them to grieve the next?

Is it not a self-gratifying act when you give someone hopes of the stars, when they are in fact unattainable?

Love is selfish. Love gratifies the person who loves as much as it does the person on the receiving end.

Love is not sacrificial. People do not die because they want the other person to feel better. People die because they want personal release. And the one whom the person 'died for' bears the guilt.

Married couples pray that when they are old, they will leave before their better half.

Is this not wishing grief on another?

The best thing we can hope for is that our promises hold out, that we will love in sickness and in health, til death do we part. And when that happens, ideally it be like the ending of Robin Williams in Bicentennial Man.

Love is blind therefore we do not see all the deragatory things that love brings.

But we are fools, we are.

For love we still do despite all the pain it brings.