is that what it's all about?

some time ago, a good friend came to me to lament and complaint about his gf. seems like they have a lot of issues with each other, but are always sweeping them under the carpet without resolving any of it. he even used the word 'hate' to describe the feelings he sometimes felt for his gf! on my part, i kept telling him to have a good talk with her, a real heart-to-heart talk that doesn't involve shouting, insult-hurling or blind accusations. just lay everything out on the table and analyse their r/ship in detail. of course, that's easier said than done, coz humans have emotions and r/ship is a particularly emotional topic as it involves matters of the heart.

but i kept stressing to him that they need to solve their existing issues before they bring the r/ship to another level. if not, it would only get from bad to worse. mind u, i'm not teaching him to break-up with his gf or anything. it's just that those issues would not go away by itself and as time goes by, more issues would pile on one on top of the other and matters would eventually get out of hand.

then recently, he told me that they're getting married. and apparently, he's too much of a coward to bring up their issues to his gf. so they're just gonna bring their issues into their marriage and probably would eventually hand it down to their offsprings.

so is this what marriage is all abt? just because a couple has been together for some time, their next step would be marriage? in my friend's case, i think their matrimonial decision is due to external pressure. a lot of eyes are on them... but still! does that justify putting our happiness on the line, just for the sake of how others are judging us? does that justify jeopardizing our next generation's happiness?

call me a hopeless romantic, but what happened to marriages based on LOVE?

it's still mine, after all...

dunno y, i've always felt funny pronouncing my BM name in full. feels so kekok... it sounds ok coming from my friends' mouths (yeah, sometimes we like to call each other's name in full), but when i myself speak it, it just sound so funny (as in funny-weird, not funny ha-ha). maybe i'm so used to introducing myself by my shortened name, that the sound of my full name sounds funny. gosh, i must be the only person in the world to feel alienated from her own name! so weird, right?

i really hate making official phone calls, such as to banks and government offices, where we HAVE to introduce ourselves in full. "Hello, I'm X___ Y___ Z___". urgh!

that's y i prefer places with answering machines. we just need to key in our details (id number, card number etc) and our info would all be there before we actually need to speak to someone. and since they oredi know who's calling, they just need to address us by our surname. "Thank you for calling, Miss C___". isn't that much more convenient?

as for my 'shortened name', i think it all started when i was in sec school. a bunch of my kk friends and i suddenly developed this penchant for calling each other by the first syllables of our given chinese names, adding the 'ah' in front for familiarity. it's so convenient, since most chinese names have 1 syllable of surname and 2 syllables of given name. eg: if your name is Foo Yin Mei, u'll be known as Ah Yin. or if your name is Khoo Hui Ling, then it's Ah Hui. it's as if we started out with full intentions of calling you by your given name, but got lazy half way and just stopped at the 1st syllable! haha...

anyway, i like my shortened name, so much so that i started introducing myself by that name in uni. it's short, simple, sweet and easy to remember. and i think it suits me. it's SO me!

how m'sian r u?

with merdeka juz ard the corner, it's time once again to ponder on the significance of our independence and what it means to be truly m'sian.

wah... so cheem (deep) hor? hehehe... on a lighter note, take this quiz to find out how m'sian r u. juz for fun lar... and tell me ur scores! i'm 73.33% m'sian ler. so proud! :Þ

the mediator

sometimes i really suspect the parents and the brother are staying in the same house, but at different times. have you seen 'the lakehouse'? if not, go read the sypnosis here. i'm too lazy to explain it here lar... go on, i'll wait for u. (actually i've not seen the movie, but i kinda know the story lar :Þ)

the reason i said this is because the parents and the bro are always coming to ME for info. i just don't get it. it's as if they don't see each other, even tho' they're staying under the same roof. for example, if there's an impending family trip coming up, the bro would be calling me and asking, "so tomorrow how?" or "what's the plan for our trip next week?" etc. or the mother would be calling me up and asking, "did bro update you on his r/ship?"

hello?!? don't they see each other, like EVERYDAY? why still need to go thru a mediator staying so far away (me)? sometimes, it makes me feel kinda guilty when the mother asked me something and i'll have to say i don't know when i do know. i mean sometimes, some of the things the bro confide in me are quite personal... so takkan i go blab everything out to the mother rite, even tho' the bro didn't say i can't? these kinda confidences come with an unwritten/unspoken rule of silence, rite?

rite?

or when the mother 'unload' abt the bro to me. takkan i go blab it all out to the bro geh mar... of course i must filter it and put it into nicer words before i 'feedback' to the bro geh mar, rite?

hmm... i wonder if all mother & son r/ships are like that? or is it just in my family?

different, but same also wat...

why is it that when people hear that you're doing part-time freelancing, they'll have this notion that u're loaded? or that u're so mata duitan (money driven - any better equivalent than this?) that one job is not enough, but u'll need to take on a part-time job to get more money?

and why is it that ppl don't take your part-time job seriously? i mean, part-time jobs are always not being given the respect as our regular day job. when u tell someone that u'll need to work late in the office, they'll respect that, and maybe kesian you a bit. u'll be seen as a responsible employee. but when u tell someone that u're so tired because u've been hard at work doing freelance, ppl would ask you, "really need to work so hard meh?", or "earn so much for what?" or "y do u need to do freelance?"?

i don't understand. the 1st reason most of us take on a job is because we need to earn money for a living, right? (note that i used 'most of us', coz i know there are some ppl who works voluntarily or accept minimum wage for causes they believe in). likewise, a part-time job earns us money for a living also wat. so why is it considered a lesser job? just because we don't put on a crisp suit, wear smart shoes and sit in the office?

discovered!

sh*t!!! my clg read my blog!!! argh!

she sms me today:
hi, i'm in klcc. din't plan 2 go ofis so i don't bring my laptop. but i need 2 access sap. can i use ur pc 4 a while? tq.

so what to do? have to give my pc password lar... and when i checked just now, i found that a computer from my company server has viewed my blog a total of 45 pages, in a span of more than 2 hrs!!! shitshitshitshitshitshitshit.....

hence the url change. have always liked the word 'rhapsody', so decided to incorporate it as my latest address.

wonder what secrets she has read. i hope she dun tell anyone of the things i've written, esp my boss!!! argh!!! *pulling hair*

update: hmm... how come after changing the url, i can't seem to access my archive?

update #2: oh, can oredi. forgot to republish the whole blog. hehe...

addicted

gosh, it's not even 10am and already i'm yawning my head off!

i think i'm addicted to coffee... tried to go without my usual cup of nescafe this morning, coz thought it'll be healthier to have soy milk (fresh, cold & unsweetened) with cereal. but looks like i NEED my daily caffeine fix!

*yawn*yawn*

need.

more.

caffeine.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

on another note...

how irritating is it when a guy much older than u kept talking to you in baby talk? what, just because i'm cute and always saying cutesy stuff (not trying to be perasan here), u think u should act cute in front of me issit? or maybe u think i can only understand languages fit for a 3 year old? how imbecilic can one get? *rolling eyes*

when i hear...

it's funny how sometimes, when we hear a certain song, we will be reminded of something, someone, someplace or sometime, even without our meaning to.
some of the things that pop into my mind when i hear (in no particular order):

wind of change - scorpions
my secondary school seniors... heard them belting out this song one day (the senior's block is just next to our form 1 block). since then, whenever i hear this song, i'll think of them.

summer nights (from grease) - john travolta & olivia newton john
the time where my bunch of friends and i presented this medley of oldies for teacher's day. this was one of the songs featured. i think we did snippets from 14 songs? forgot the exact number. now whenever i hear this song, i'll look back in sweet fondness at our innocent (albeit amateurish) love for putting on shows (we were such drama queens!). but eeeeaaak! quite memalukan also! :Þ

there you'll be - faith hill
i'm like a bird - nelly furtado
my very first job after graduation. instead of working hard, my friend n i spent our working time listening to amp radio (online) and kept sending in requests to play this 2 songs over n over again! haha...

wonderful tonight – eric clapton
when you say nothing at all – ronan keating
x. the 2 songs he sang most frequently to me, while playing the guitar.

hu tie fei ah (fly, butterfly)
hong ching thing (red dragonfly)
- both by xiao hu dui (little tiger group?)
my kk days... taking a respite between our drillings and music sessions, we'd all sit at the tepi longkang and sing songs, and most of our songs were by this group. ah, those innocent days!

bie pha wo shang xin ('don't be afraid to hurt me' or more literally, 'don't worry i'll be sad') - jeff chang
a certain lengchai (i don't even know his name!) from my guitar group. i think i was in form 3 or 4 then. one day, this lengchai kor-kor took out the chords for this song and requested our teacher to teach us play it. and everytime we play this song, i won't be playing... i'd be drooling at the lengchai kor-kor! kekeke...

well, there are more, but these are all i can think of for now.

can someone pls tell me why...

...guys are so 'fan-jin' ar? the more u ignore them, the more they try to get ur attention. urgh! trying to test my will power issit? get a life lar! i'm SO over you!

i don't understand.
i just. don't. understand.

one fine sunday...

*sms*

me: i siao liao, woke up today n decide i wanna go out. so spent 30 min think where to go. guess where m i now?
N: midvalley?
N: ice-skating?
me: eak! wrong! in 1u! n i went to trim my hair at the same place we went last time, but different stylist. now i look like good-good girl ler...
N: har? so u still at 1u now? u very the siao...
me: yeah, now having dinner, genki! i really siao hor? i also kenot tahan myself ler...
N: u go alone? y dun u just give me a call n ask me? maybe i wanna go ler. in fact, i really wanna go, coz the shiseido counter owe me a set of starter kit.
me: it was just a spur of a moment decision lar. i forgot u wanted to go also.
N: u really siao. u need a weekend bf!
me: kakaka... i think so too! any good recommendations? keke...

i'm a fainting queen...

N was telling another friend abt all my fainting episodes, and i realized i'm actually a fainting queen!

one of my most 'pai-seh' fainting incident happened when i was in my 2nd year in uni. it was a saturday afternoon and i'd just woken up. one of my housemates asked if i wanna go ta-pao lunch from the nearby kopitiam with her, but i was feeling so lazy and not particularly hungry. so i declined. but at abt 2pm, i felt really hungry. so i decided to go buy lunch from the kopitiam after all...

only the chee-cheong-fun stall was still selling, so i told the uncle that i wanna ta-pao. i was so hungry by then that i felt that i'm gonna faint. so while waiting for my food, i bend down halfway with my hands on my knees to try to get some blood to my head.

and the next thing i knew, i was sitting on a chair with a lot of activities around me, the vegetarian stall aunty rubbing my hands, the kopitiam operator's daughter trying to feed me some warm water with a spoon, the chee-cheong-fun's helper telling me that she's put my RM10 (that i was holding in my hand) into my pocket and voices asking if i'm ok.

gosh, it was so humiliating! since then, everytime i go to that kopitiam to ta-pao, i'd get an earful abt eating my meals on time and also a bigger portion of food! embarrassing!

and i find that the place i tend to faint most frequently is outside the toilet! this has happened at least 3 times! i would wake up and wonder why i'm lying on the floor outside the toilet door. ish... of all places!

hmm... wonder why i'm so prone to fainting... like so drama hor?

i want!

ks: u very tamak ler... everything also u want!
stargal: bwek! :Þ

things i wanna do:
1) re-learn japanese language
as said before here, been wanting to take it up again since leaving uni. took 2 semesters of it in my 2nd year but have forgotten most of what i've learnt.

2) take up korean language
seems like an interesting language...

3) take up photography
would love to capture moments and immortalise it. i believe a good photographer should be able to capture the character and feelings of his/her subjects, be it animate or inanimate. n i wanna do that. too bad the bro refuses/lazy/bz to teach me... :(

4) read more
have not had much time for reading lately... taking so long to go thru a book! *sigh...

5) travel more
see more of the world. for now, would love to do some backpacking...

6) learn sign-language
dunno y... seems interesting...

7) sleep more
been SO deprived of sleep! mostly i get less than 5 hrs of sleep daily (weekdays), so normally by thurs, i'd have turned into a zombie

8) get diving license
fell in love with the underwater world since my out-of-this-world guided diving experience in lang tengah in 2004. but still need to overcome my fear of big dark holes in the seabed and being gobbled up by unidentified underwater giant creatures

no more kankucho-ing...

been feeling pretty down in the dumps lately... everything seems so meaningless. dunno what this life is for also... it got so overwhelming that it finally overflowed when i was chatting with biow yesterday. funnily, things got better after a good (well, i wouldn't technically say it's 'good', coz can't really bawl my lungs out, but u get the idea) cry in the toilet.

neeways, biow pointed out that we're like 2 kankucho birds. complain complain complain, then resolve to do something abt it. but when the time comes for us to really 'do something', we'll forget abt our resolves, escaping by giving a million n one excuses. the next day, we'll feel miserable again and then start to complain again... it's a vicious cycle!

the story of the kankucho birds was told in the gosho letter to niike. click on the links to find out more... i borrowed the term 'kankucho-ing' from biow, who found it in brenda's blog after asking google for 'kankucho'.

after this realization, we told ourselves we can't keep going on like this. we must take action! we can't short change ourselves, especially when it involves our own happiness! so we'll start by accumulating good fortunes (again), coz all these while, we've been using up our good fortunes saved from last time but have not been depositing new ones... so of course we're running low lar...

and so yesterday, i've embarked on a new journey. will update my victory reports here from time to time!