Her convocation

It was held at Wisma MCA.

I was there at around 11.30 am. The place was sure packed as hell. Almost everyone had a bouquet of flowers at hand. The florist must have made a fortune supplying flowers to convocation-goers. But people are getting more innovative nowadays, we even have bouquets of soft toys and chocolates now.

A bouquet of piglets

I waited for Voon Siew at the main entrance. But it was so crowded that we had problem finding one another. Although both of us were waiting at exactly the same place, we had to call each other on the phone to specify the exact location. In the end, I resorted to standing under a red Secret Recipe umbrella so that she could easily locate me.

Me & Voon Siew

Voon Siew was my classmate of 2 years, Form 4 and Form 5. Throughout those two years, she sat beside me in class and it was ever so stressful. She was 1st in class and 3rd or 4th in the whole school, pretty, writes printed kind of handwriting and was always the teacher's favourite student. I was however, pale in comparison.

Can't believe she has already graduated. Gee, how time flies. Now she's a Mandarin and Geography teacher in Kuen Cheng high school, and she's also the ... discipline teacher.

Voon Siew, the soft-spoken, quiet girl from Confucian, now a discipline teacher ? Hard to believe huh ? Can't imagine her holding a cane in her hand and whipping students with it. Seems like a picture that is so wrong.

Estelle, Voon Siew, me and Jian Feng

~

While Voon Siew was busy greeting her other friends, I took a look around and guess who I saw ? My primary school friend ! What a coincidence. I walk towards him and ask him, '你还记得我吗?' (Do you still remember who I am ?) He took a moment and said '敏仪 !'. It has been such a long time since someone last called me by my chinese name.

Me & Guang Hao


Ooh, and I got snap of Tun Dr Ling Liong Sik.


The convocation has been a great time for me to catch up with my friends. Looking forward to my very own convocation April next year.

A heartening thought

Without the night, we will not see the beauty of the stars and the moon.



Without the rain, we will never see the colors of the rainbow.

Without the thunder, we will never see the splendor of the lightning.


~Try seeing the cup as half cup full instead of half cup empty~

Letting go

Gee, 3rd post in a day. Yes, I know you are starting to get sick of me.

What to do, I have too many thoughts that I'd like to share with the cyberspace. You see, the problem with me is that I can never keep my thoughts to myself. I need to say it out loud so that I could stop thinking about it.

Well, today was not a happy day for me, which occurs almost everyday. As you may have already noticed, I'm extremely sensitive and I'm kinda pessimistic too, a trait I reckon I've inherited from my mom. (Shhh ... don't tell her alright, she hates it when I say that)

So whenever I'm moody, my head overflows with thoughts and I find it hard to focus. Even in class today, during Mr. Kambing's class, my favorite lecturer of the semester, I found myself drifting away with thoughts.

And now, my attempt to revise today's topic completely failed, as I can only read without understanding. Therefore, I decided to turn on the computer. But I've already read all the recent posts of the blogs I kept interest on. Desperate, I decided to stalk my sister's blog.

Reading her posts, I realized how much she has grown up. From the way she writes, I could see that she has certainly matured, and now has a mind of her own.

Recently, I have had heated arguments with her. She claims that I'm being a control-freak, that I'm being more like her mother than our mother. She also said that should she have an opportunity in the future, she'd rather not live with me.

This of course hurt my feelings. Because of all the things I did, it's because I care.

To illustrate,

I've noticed recently that her results were beyond satisfactory. When I question her about it, she claims that her lecturer says that it is only natural to perform badly in the tests given. But she will be taking her A-levels May this year, which is only about 2 months from now. This concerns me, as I am afraid that she is in denial. I'm worried that she would regret later, when it is already too late. Just like how badly I felt when it was time to take STPM.

Knowing how lazy I have been and still is, I don't want her to follow my footsteps. The feeling of never trying my best, of not being good enough and of being a failure haunts me everyday.

And then I see her spending her daytime either watching the television or sleeping or doing something other than studying. And she would study in the night, with music blasting in her ears. I mean, how is she supposed to pay attention ? And studying till almost dawn when she has classes the next day ? How to focus in class ?

I could almost see myself in her.

Thus, I became a nagging, controlsive and uncool sister.

But now I realized she is an adult now. That I should let her do what she thinks is right. Occasionally, I could advise her, but whether she is willing to accept it, I should leave it to her own judgment.

There was one thing she said to me that is very meaningful:

'You should not let your results define you'.

Sometimes I think that she may actually be more mature than I am.

喜欢

我曾听人说:"喜欢并不一定要拥有." 我自问就做不到了.


到底喜欢是什么一回事呢?

喜欢一个人能让你心跳加速, 也能使你心跳似乎停顿下来了, 感觉生命已失去意义.

喜欢也能使你失去理智, 你的世界就只围绕着他走. 任何事情都变得不重要了.

喜欢也免不了妒嫉, 吃醋. 一种使人变得小气的感觉.


喜欢而不拥有,
好听的可说伟大. 只要能使对方开心, 就算是只以朋友的身份为他做事都无所谓.
难听的可说自作多情. 毫无目的地支持一个根本不懂得珍惜自己的人.

所以说做人好难.
又要烦感情, 又要烦学业, 又要烦前途. 总而言之, 样样都有的你烦.

Your tongue

Keep your tongue from evil and your lips from speaking lies. (Colossians 3:8,9)


Certain things should not be said beyond a certain point.

Beyond this point, there might not be a turning back.

Besides, you might have misunderstood.

'宁愿人负我都不愿我负人'

Lie

Have you ever lied ?

Ok, I'm totally asking a stupid question. Of course you have.

Well, lying used to be such a big deal to me, as I was brought up as a Christian. Back when I was an innocent, little girl.

It was like, God will punish you if you lie. You will go to hell after you die and sorts.

But now, I think I lie every now and then. Usually, my lies are white lies and sometimes I lie because the truth seems too absurd or stupid. Occasionally, I lie because I had to hide my true intentions.

Ah, the complexities of adulthood.

However, I'm not a good liar. I can never lie with a straight face. And normally, I would avoid eye contact. There, dummies on 'How to tell when Moonie is lying'.

I guess there is some justification to the principle of 'not to lie'. It kinda hurts when the truth leaks out. Of course from the perspective of the person being lied to. I couldn't understand why people could not be truthful to me.

Maybe I should learn to respect other's privacy.

How about white lies ? What would you say to a plump girl who asked you whether she looks fat ?

Honesty has its price.

覆水难收

也许她说得没错.

做了的事情, 就是做了. 不会有挽回的余地.

不该说的话, 说了, 就算是后悔, 也太迟了.
伤害已造成了, 如何补救伤痕都依然存在.

从此以后, 做任何事都要三思, 不能再让自己后悔了.
也不能让懒惰两个字再害自己了.
记得, 为了懒惰而放弃的是你的前途呀!

Tagged

Was tagged by Naoki ... So ...

1. At what age you wish to marry?
Never ? Ideal age would be 28 I guess.

2. How many children you wish to have in the future?
Depends la. But better not have any, very troublesome.

3. What do you think about love?
Love is the feeling to want to care for someone.

4. Where is the place that you want to go the most?
None actually. But to name one, Paris I guess.

5. If you can have 1 dream to come true, what would it be?
To be a boy ? Very troublesome lah the life of a girl.

6. Do you believe in seeing a rainbow after the rain?
Yea I do. If you meant it metaphorically.

7. What are you afraid to lose the most now?
People in my life.

8. If you win $1 million, what would you do?
Pay off my loan, get a car, treat myself with a shopping spree, give some to dad & mom, allocate some for sis's education and graduation trip on me.

9. What is the coolest gift you ever get?
Er ... I guess it's the picture of me in lingerie.

10. List out 3 good points of the person who tagged you.
Great listener: always there to listen to my problems. Great companion: just give him a call and he'd be out with ya. Great friend: one that lets me speak my mind without worries, makes me feel at ease and makes me feel like it's ok to just be myself.

11. Pick either one: Money or Love?
Money.

12. Which type of person do you hate the most?
Arse-kisser, hypocrites, self-praisers, people who thinks too highly of themselves and rude peoples.

13. What is your ambition?
To have a great career.

14. If you have fault, would you rather the people around you point out to you or would you rather they keep quiet?
Point out to me.

15. What do you think is the most important thing in your life?
Family and friends. It'd be meaningless to have the world without anyone to share with.

16. Are you a shopaholic or not?
Nope.

17. Which do you rather be: a giver or a taker?
I'd hope that I'd soon have the ability to be a giver.

18. Find a word to describe the person who tagged you.
Expressive.

19. If you have a chance. Which part of your character you would like to change?
My egoistic nature.

20. What is your favourite fruit?
Mango.

I am tagging no one.

Moving towards 8th year

Happy Birthday !

Can't believe we're already moving towards the 8th year of our friendship. Wishing you a blessed birthday and may happiness shine upon you always !

Grace Abundant

What would you do on a typical holiday ?

~ Chill out with friends, relax or be a couch potato ?

Well, that's me at least and it was fine by me till I came across the blog of a friend of mine. His friends had actually came together during the holidays and created a Christian album named Grace Abundant.

Go ahead and click on the image to download the album.

And they were actually quite good. My personal favorite is the song entitled 'We are the reason'.

If you happen to be a Christian, go ahead and take a look. For non-Christians, you are very much welcomed too.

Scenes I love

胸襟

也许我需要的是胸襟吧.

无论以后她将如何对待自己, 都应该以'退一步, 海阔天空' 的态度来面对.

只要知道自己所说的没错, 只不过是怱动了一些, 就不需要大家的认同了. 应该抬起头来, 理直气壮地走进课室, 没有半点的恐惧或遗憾.

Ms Redd 说得很对, 如果她打算以后针对我的话, 只证明了自己是多么的幼稚.

所以林敏仪, 勇敢地面对吧!

***


其实, 这件事让我看清楚了自己身边的朋友. 到底谁是真心关心自己, 我心里有数.

本来躲在厕所里, 而既然没人慰问, 感觉很难受. 所以她当时送来的短讯很重要. 虽然只是简单一句: "你可以告诉我你在那里吗?", 对我而言, 已经是拥有圣大的意义了.

其实我的人呀, 不需要甜言蜜语, 只要心目中重要的人, 陪伴在自己身边, 一句话都不需说, 已经很足够了.

Burst

Today, I had the worst control over my emotions. I don't know what got into me, neither do I know where did the courage came from.

Remember how I've always related about the Golfer ? Well, she's a lecturer in my university. I've never been a fan of hers. Long story short, she spends half the lectures bragging about herself and her teaching sucks. She is over-confident and never fails to bring us down. Always commenting about our English when she herself makes frequent grammar mistakes.

Yesterday, she threw a fit over how bad the results of the elections were. As if we are the only ones responsible for it. Ya I know she's disappointed and all but how does this relate to our syllabus ?

Today she threw another fit on us because we weren't able to answer simple accounting questions. She asked us: "What's wrong with you ? Tell me how can I help you ?" Some of my course mates related to her on the flaws of our education system. Indeed she was right to be disappointed, no arguments on that. But instead of throwing a fit each time we weren't able to answer and leaving the question unanswered, she could give us the answer or guide us through.

But no, very often, she would ask a question and when no one answers, she would just leave it as it is. And when she does answers, her answers are vague and all over the place, making it hard for us to grasp the gist of it.

And it was this moment that I decided to open my big, fat mouth. I wanted to relate this opinion to her in a nice way, but it came out bad. We started raising voices and before long, she decided to not teach us anymore. She called the Head of Department straight, asking for a meeting, right in front of the class.

Obviously, she wanted me to know the seriousness of the situation. And to show me I was no match to her. At that moment, I realized the impact of my actions. I had not only brought myself trouble, but also to the entire class.

Feeling guilty, I started to apologize. I told her it was me who said it, and that I should bear the consequences. I told her I could leave the class and join another, as long as she continued to teach. I didn't want to jeopardize my other classmates.

But to no avail.

As I continued my rounds of apologetic attempts, I saw the uglier side of the adult world. Such hypocrites we can be.

Some of my classmates said things like 'you are the best lecturer I've ever encountered'. When I can tell you with almost 100% certainty none of them felt so. But I don't blame them though, this is the reality of this world. One can never survive this world if he should be true to his feelings.

I was stupid, naive and irrational. I should have had better controls over my emotions. Guess I still have the 'child' within me. I should have known better.

Actually after the incident, I wasn't at all worried about what she could do to my degree. It would be much better to learn from another lecturer, and should she try anything funny, I could raise the loudest voice my university has ever heard. I believe I have the capabilities to do so should it come to that point.

But she wanted to quit the entire class, and that makes me feel so guilty. The whole class has to bear the consequences of my actions. How am I to face them in the future ?

I have never felt so insecure ever in my life. When I left the classroom, I couldn't lift my head to look at them. All I wanted to do was to find some place to hide. And that I did.

I could almost hear what they would speak behind my back.

Anyway, I gathered my courage and apologized in front of the class. Don't know whether it meant anything, but that was the only time I've ever put my ego so down in the depth.

But something pleasing happened though. A classmate of mine, a foreign student, came to me after class and told me it was okay, that some things I said are actually quite true. And that was the best comfort to me.

About the lecturer, my other classmates continued persuading her and she finally succumbed to the continuous pleas. Now the problem is, how should I face her next week ?

Malaysian Dreamgirl

Just watched episode one of Malaysian Dreamgirl. Don't know about you, but there's something about the name that sounds so wrong. But I can't pinpoint where it went wrong. Just wrong.


Anyways, for those who have not heard of Malaysian Dreamgirl, it's a model-search competition that is aired on the internet instead of the conventional television. To date, two episodes have already been uploaded and I reckon it was quite good.

Guess who's on the judging panel ? Our very own famous blogger, Kenny Sia. Along with model extraordinaire Elaine Daly and stylist Lim Jimmy. (Shouldn't it be Jimmy Lim instead ? No idea.)

So, I've only watched one episode and I'm already hating Kenny Sia. It seems to me like he is a Simon Cowell wannabe. Like so mengada lah his comments. Maybe it was done intentionally to make it more interesting. But well, not working for me. At least I liked Simon Cowell despite his nasty comments.

I'm sure most of us know Kenny through his blog. In writing, I think he seemed to express himself very well. But, in speech, I can't hear a single word coming out of his mouth. It's like he is mumbling or something.

Another thing to note is, he seems like some 'hamsup lou' (horny guy) in the show. You gotta see his reaction when some hot chick enters the room. Though he must have done it intentionally to be funny.



So, I'm totally lurrving Elaine Daly right now. Liked how she said "the whole thing screams out 'lala'.

Lim Jimmy seems to know what he's doing. He is kinda nice actually.

All in all, one entertaining reality based-drama series we've got here.

My Condolences

To the Lee family:

My condolences. Just got the news from Kak Mainah.

May 婆婆 be with God.

Courage

I guess we've all receive the email about the Parang Hi-jack incident in One Utama right ? I've personally sent it to some of you. (No ? Then you must be some pathetic bastard with no friends. Joking, joking. Haha)

Anyway, for those who have not seen it, here you go:

***

Dear all,

You must have wondered why I asked of Carrie's help to send the following message to all of you. Please take serious note in what I am going to tell you here. I would say that yesterday was a lucky day to me, if not, I wouldn't be here alive to send this email out to you or to celebrate CNY open house to some of you who will be coming tonight.

I went to One Utama Shopping Mall yesterday after Tesco. Time was around 1pm. I parked my car at the old wing, B1 level near the Arena food court. I did a reverse parking and my car was indeed very near to the food court entrance. Those shoppers who went in and out can see me in full view. Exact parking location was D4, in 3rd or 4th plot where the car turn in. It was indeed very close to the entrance.

As I came down from my car, I saw these 2 malay young adults walked towards me. I did not bothered at all cos I thought they were shoppers who want to collect their cars. I then went to the trunk to check on a bottle of clorox i bought in Tesco cos I was afraid the liquid may be spilt during the driving. It only took me a few second to put up the clorox bottle and then I closed the trunk, I had not locked the car yet.

Suddenly the 2 malay came very near me and took out a 1 foot long parang and pointed at me. I gave them my handbag. But that was not enough, they asked me to unlock the car and wanted me to go inside the car. They said "jangan bising, masuk kereta, cepat."

At that point I was struggling, the car was actually still unlock. They commanded me a few times to unlock the car, so in the moment of confusion, I pressed the button and I actually locked the car. They repeated their sentence asking me to unlock the car, and one of the Malay with parang was pushing towards the driver side. In panic, I pressed the remote, this time the car was unlocked.

The malay with parang then opened the car door trying to push me in. I looked at the situation, due the driver's side car door was opened and there was another car parked beside my car, I only had a very narrow path to escape. Worse of all, I was afraid that half of my body might bang the car door and instead of running forward and out i would actually be pushed back to the robbers who stood beside me.

I prayed very hard in my heart. Canny Ong's case came into my mind. I can't go inside the car, I kept telling myself, that was the worst thing to do. I prayed and prayed then I looked at the robber with parang, I noticed that he was looking down somewhere, the other robber was standing next to him. I saw the narrow path, I knew I must somehow get myself out of the path.

In a split second, I seized the opportunity and run, thank God, somehow I managed to squeezed thru the gap and run out towards the crowd. I did not know how I did it.

Many people saw what happened to me. There was a lady grabbed me and tried to calmed me down. I do not blame those people for not doing enough to help me cos everyone was in panic and with a parang the robber can harm me in situation like that.

***

Can you possibly believe that no one did anything to help ? It seems a little absurd now, but given the situation I cannot deny I could have done the exact thing. In fact, I actually did something like that.

I think I've related to many about this incident. It happened behind Sungei Wang. A group of people was hitting this guy with sticks and I did nothing but walk by.

You could imagine how I was near to terrified. I could not help but wonder what would happen to me if I so much as utter a word.

However, I recall another incident which happened during Form 3. I was having tuition at Martin tuition centre, Jalan Pudu. As I walked down the stairs after class, I saw a group of samseng boys hitting a student. Everyone was stunned to the point of doing nothing.

Then I think a lady driving across the road stopped and alighted her car, shouted from across the road : " Oi, what are you doing ? " in canto. And immediately, the group of samseng broke off and ran away.

I guess sometimes we need to gather the courage to do something. Just a yell that says you're calling the police could possibly scare the jerks off. I mean, they are probably more scared than we are, as they are committing a crime in view of so many people. They are just working on the psychology that we would not dare do anything.

Anyway, this is just saying. I'll never know whether I'd have the courage when it happens to me.

Random thoughts

Dasar buka pintu

Observe more and speak less

Smile