Dear Alex

Was reading (her) blog. It started with ' Dear Alex, ... '

As I read on, I wondered who she was talking about. Suddenly, it dawned on me. Read (Madagascar) to understand.

***

Dear Alex,

It indeed made me smile while mesmerizing those days that we once had. I must admit, I miss them a lot. I miss you even more. It's sad that now I'm typing this, I have to use the word "those days". Those days when we all did silly things together. Those days when we had pillow talk and share our hearts, although we weren't cuddling any pillow =p Those days that we were so spontaneous with our actions and teasing each other with names without fearing being offended as we're known to be "thick face" *smile* Those days, you accompanied me through my tough times. Those days when we hunt for yummy food together. Those were the days .....

I'm sorry, this word that I long to say to you. I'm sorry for not showing my gratitude on what you've done for me. Not knowing it until I loss a true friend who will go miles just for me. For I never really had a true friend before, I'm so embarrass to have forsake you. I'm truly sorry and I want you to know now and always will, I appreciate the things that you've done. Picking me up even before dawn breaks, giving me surprises, making me giggle and laugh my last high school years away.

I did remember, last month was your birthday! All along, your birth date had been set in my mind and my phone. Knowing that, I did not call or greet you happy birthday. I wanted to, but taken aback. Knowing you had even better times now without me.

If only I could........ I will surely........ (I guess everythings too late that now you hav...)

Happy Belated Birthday Alex!!

With love,

Gloria

***

I feel like crying.

Less Critical

This month I couldn't stop thinking about all the unwise decisions I made and my clumsiness that resulted in me spending unnecessary money.

To begin with, there was that incident about photostatting. Then I bought some stuffs I didn't need which turned out to be a defect and I ended up throwing it. I also bought those yarns extra expensive. If only I had just open my mouth and ask.

I also dropped my right contacts which I had just started wearing a few days only. I couldn't stop counting the number of times I've dropped them and the amount of money I've wasted.

Yes, I'm crying over split milk. But I just can't help it. I need to be less critical of myself.

***

Watched this in the newest season of Boston Legal. Love this argument. Couldn't have put it better. It kinda ignite my old aspiration to be a lawyer. Should let Dad watch this.

"Everybody in this room knows somebody, who has fought this same battle and died this agonizing, brutal, excruciating. But emotion has no play here.

Michael Rhodes was 11 years old when he started smoking. It was 1948. At that time,there was no known risk, and even if there were,at 11, he certainly lacked the capacity to assume it. And after that,he was addicted.

They manufacture them to be addictive. In just the last few years, they've increased the amount of nicotine in the average cigarette by 11.6% to make them even more addictive. Recently,we learned that tobacco companies have been adding an ammonia-based compound to cigarettes for years to increase absorption of nicotine. It's basically the same principle used in crack cocaine.

And let's look at the obscene strategy they've employed here. 'Smoking may cause cancer, but it didn't cause this particular cancer. It wasn't our cigarettes or it was genetic or asbestos or a paper mill.' Never do they take responsibility, ever.

And god forbid-- If you sue them,they'll bury you and your lawyer. They might even depose your doctor to death for good measure.

All their insidious methods and cunning corporate tactics aren't just history. It's what they continue to do now, today, because the tobacco industry is like a nest of cockroaches. They will always find a way to survive. They still go after kids with one strategy after another. They put up brightly colored ads at kids' eye level in convenience stores. They hire gorgeous twenty somethings to frequent popular venues and seduce young adults into attending lavish
corporate-sponsored parties.

Cockroaches will always find a way. They can't advertise on tv, but they've hired PR Agencies to hook them up with the film industry, and it's worked. Researchers estimate that smoking in movies delivers nearly 400,000 new adolescent smokers every year.

Every time you try to kill the cockroach, it finds another way. It has to, because when you make a product that kills off your consumers, you have to find a way to recruit new customers.

They've now got a new feminized version of the macho camel brand, using slogans like, 'light and luscious,' uh,with hot pink packaging. Uh, Virginia Slims advertised their "thin" cigarette. "Allure" magazine did a whole spread on the cigarette diet.

They use social and psychological profiling, targeting potential smokers by gender, ethnicity, sexual preference, socioeconomic groups. Cockroaches don't discriminate.

Their C.E.O. comes into this courtroom gloating over their anti-smoking campaign, which is designed to get kids to smoke. In 2005, they spent more than $15 billion on advertising and promotion. That's a 225% increase from 1998, and they have the audacity to declare they're trying to discourage smoking.

This is not how corporations with a conscience behave. How in god's name are cigarette's even legal? Can anybody tell me that? They are a deadly concoction of carcinogens that damage every single organ in your body. Why do we not ban them? Because it's a free country? Because freedom of choice is an American ideal worth somebody dying every six seconds?

How can any company, especially one with such a conscience, no less, knowingly manufacture a product that poisons its users, and make that product look cool and hip and sexy and fun so they can get children?

How can any attorney defend a company that would do such a thing? And how can any society tolerate it? But we do.

There is no conscience at big tobacco. There is no conscience in Washington, which has been bought and paid for by this industry. Conscience has to come from you,the jury. If real regulation is to happen, it has to come from you.

People are smoking day after day after day and dying and dying and dying, and the tobacco companies keep getting richer and richer.

Last year alone, they made $12 billion in profits. How can that be? How can that be? "

My Recent Addiction

is ... not some drama series. But ... oh this is gonna come as shocking ... It's ...

Knitting !
(I wonder whose beautiful hands are those)

The addiction began last Wednesday. It was so addictive that I stayed up till 4 am knitting. Thus, I showed up half-dead for class on Thursday. As if that was not enough, I even knitted on my journey to class too !

I got my equipments from Macy, Petaling Street. My gosh, the yarns are so GODDAMN expensive. One roll cost RM 18.00 ! And you need around 6 rolls to make a scarf. So, deciding that I may regret it, I got only 2 rolls.

And then when I consulted my aunt, I found out that she has many yarns back at her house. Aih, should have asked earlier. Collected from her place just now.

I took a closer look at it and ...

My aunt got it at RM1.50 per roll only ! With the money I spent, I could have bought 24 rolls ! Such a rip off !

Now, after 5 days of almost nothing but knitting, I only managed this.

Yes, I know that's too little for 5 days, because I totally sucked on the first day. Building up the foundation, namely casting on itself was such a task to me. I used the simplest method, which caused the knits to be really loose. Thus, in addition to my clumsiness, after knitting 2 rows or so, the knots slipped off the needle and I had to start over again.

Basically, the first and second day I almost managed nothing. It was cast-on, knit 2 rows or so and start over. I tried a different method and finally, I got the ball rolling.

However, I think I've got to abandon this project and start over. There are several mistakes I made. As you can see from above, there are loose knits at certain parts and uneven sides. No worries though, I'll take a rain check for now, and resume this project of mine after the exams.

Lots of mounting work now. 2 assignments and a thesis !

Madagascar

This would be a going-down-memory-lane post.

Just the other day I came upon the cartoon Madagascar. It was one of those animation movies in which I did not fell asleep watching it in the cinema. Yes, I have a tendency to fall asleep watching cartoons. Particularly, I remember those being Finding Nemo and Robots. Though I reckon it was because I was just overly tired.

Anyway, Madagascar was a cartoon Sook Yee kept talking about. Finally, the four of us went to watch it. I was Form 6 then, and we kinda formed a clan, the four of us, after a particular incident best not mentioned.

Kai Pyn, Alvin, M00nie and Sook Yee

We then named one another by the characters.

I was Alex the Lion, Sook Yee was Gloria the Hippo, Kai Pyn was Marty the Zebra and Alvin was Melman the Giraffe. From then on, we sometimes refer to one another by those nicknames.

The act of nicknaming one another kinda gives that bit of intimacy. A mark that shows we belong in one group. And then ocassionally, when such memories resurfaces, it becomes something I could smile upon.

Aspiration

As I'm writing this right now, the backdrop rumbles of thunder and heavy drops striking ground. These couple of days, evenings were enveloped with such unusual darkness that it seemed like my emotions has transcended to the unknown that controls all, being depicted unerringly.

My attempt to a melancholic post. Obviously, a failed attempt. Anyhow, feelings of sadness has always been my muse. I can never write a happy post which flows smoothly through my mind into words. Unless it's super happy thoughts like getting laid or something. Which should be left for another day. Joking !

At some point in my life, I had aspired to be a writer, which my Form 5 English teacher had crushed unsympathetically. You see, I've always been confident with my English. In fact, I have felt that I best all of my classmates, except for Benn de Silva I guess. But then, I started getting many many red circles and lines on essays I handed up. Apparently, it was laden with several past-tense, present-tense confusions. You can't blame me though, coming from a confused school. Well, I don't know whether I'm still 'past-tense, present-tense' confused, I sure hope not.

Then, I felt like I'm very much misunderstood. I wanted others to feel and see from my perspective. I wasn't aspiring to be a full-time writer, but I wanted to publish a book and I think I named it 'From my Perspective' or 'The Diaries of m00nie'.


Anyways, yeah, these two days I've been pretty depressed, for reasons pretty much the same. I've told myself times and times to handle things differently, to look at things differently, but when come the same situation, I tend to stick to my old ways.

So, umm, yeah, that's me for today.

Hey !

... I can be hard to live with too.

As Mum's birthday falls on the coming 14 Oct, the aunties decided to take her out for dinner. Since yours truly is the beloved offspring, of course I was invited. We went to the Royal China Restaurant, Jalan Ampang. They are having this great promotion. For a 6 course meal for 10 pax, it only cost RM 128.90 ++. After adding the etc etc, the bill came up to only about RM 173. Cheap huh ?

Anyways, back to topic. Now, it has been common knowledge that aunties love to bitch. (well, actually all women love to bitch) Since I am now officially an adult, they were quite open in talking about several things in my presence.

One such thing they talked about was the hardships of living together. From different parties there were different perspectives. Listening in, I realized there are so many issues surrounding individuals living under the same roof.

Sometimes, I would say "I can never live with this person, because ...", but I have never stopped to evaluate myself. Perhaps with friends I could be a considerate housemate, but with my family, my true-self surfaces. Things has to go my way, I am emotional almost all the time, I never admit my mistakes, I dominate the most comfortable sofa and eventhough my sister may have got on it first, I still dominate the sofa.

I guess I can be hard to live with too.

Moth

This morning, as I opened the door to the bathroom, I nearly got the shock of my life when a moth came fluttering out towards me.

"Don't kill it, it's 'popo' (granny on mum's side) coming back to visit us", my mum would always say whenever a moth comes into our house.

Funny, whenever a moth appears in our house, it would linger around for days. And then, as mysteriously as it emerges, it mystically disappears too. Although I feel that mum is being superstitious, I cannot help but to associate moths to something other-worldly, something unfathomable.

Perhaps sometimes I'd like to believe that there are somethings beyond scientific explanation, beyond our comprehension, something more about our life other than to grow, reproduce and then die.

***

Have you ever thought about death? Sometimes death creeps into my dreams turning them into nightmares. It feels so real that I'd find myself awoken with tears rolling down my cheeks and a sore in my throat, those from really deep cries.

Occasionally I wonder about my own death. And I question my beliefs.

What if there is no heaven or hell? What if death meant the end and nothing more ?
There would be no soul emerging out of the vessel, no moving to the gate where you would be judged upon your doings on earth. It's just *pooof*. Nothing, no more, naught.

The thought's kinda bleak, ain't it ?

A number of Thoughts

With every passing year, Christmas is becoming increasingly bleak. No longer is it attached with that magical feeling. Or is it that I'm getting older ? It's just that no one seems to be enthusiastic about Christmas anymore.

This coming Christmas, the only cousin that shares the same sentiments about Christmas as me would not be here. There you go, one less person for this Christmas gathering.

About this cousin (you know who you are), he is the only elder cousin that is ever willing to 'play' with the younger cousin. Yep, although I'm 22 this year, within the 10 (now 11) closer cousins of mine, I'm among the younger ones.

Whenever the elder cousins are going out, the younger cousins would NEVER get to go. I know how they feel, they didn't want to bring us 'kids' out. But this cousin of mine (though he is one of the elder ones), he would always bring us along. He would ask us out to movies, cook for us (he makes the best spaghetti bolognaise I've ever eaten), take us out for supper and makes it a tradition to watch every Harry Potter movie with me twice.

During my younger days, it has been a practice for us cousins to live at my granny's during the school holidays. Most of the time, my dad would not be able to fetch me there. Instead, this cousin of mine would come to pick me up. Sometimes, he would just come to get me and my sister to stay over with him just for the weekends. We would just enjoy each other's company and I get to use his computer. (That was the time I was super-addicted to Final Fantasy 8 and my home computer was too ancient for it)

So dear cousin, I hope you are reading this, THANK YOU for being such a wonderful cousin !

***

As we age, pride seems to play an integral part in the way we act. A child would never hesitate to proclaim his affections towards a person he likes and really mean it. However, adults are more reserved towards expressing their affections.

Perhaps the more we care for a person, the more we have to lose. The more we are afraid of being hurt, rejected, unappreciated and taken advantage of.

Maybe we need to be a little naive to be happy ?

***

Words of encouragement to myself:

Overcome your weaknesses, live life as you would judge yourself and not how others would judge you.

Did you know ?

that it costs RM 0.50/ page for black and white prints and RM 1.50/ page for colored prints in a photostat shop ? I sure didn't know.

Thinking I could save my printer's ink, I brought my thumb drive to the photostat shop. Besides, how much could it possibly cost to print 47 bloody pages ?

I sure thought wrong.

My bill went up to RM 30 just to print those bloody pages ! I could have used my whole ink cartridge and it would still cost less than that ! ARGHH ....

I could even photostat a whole book for that amount. ARGHH ....

Moreover, I gave SPECIFIC instructions that I wanted black & white prints only. That stupid shop-owner printed some in colored prints !!!!!!

Stupid m00nie, STUPID ! I'm sure going to skip dining out for a week.

Gee

... it's Monday already ? The Raya holidays sure did went by quick.

I've been really busy reading. Surprised ? Not academic books though.

For more than a week, I've been devouring more than 700 pages of this.

Brisingr, is the 3rd book of the inheritance trilogy. It was meant to end at the 3rd book, but somehow Paolini decided to extend it to a fourth book. Well, I certainly welcome that prospect. Gives me another book to look forward to, since Harry Potter has already came to its end.

The inheritance trilogy is a must have if you have been a Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings fan. In fact, I reckon it is much better than the Harry Potter series. It offers a more logical explanation as to the source of magic and also refreshing ideas onto how magic can be used and manipulated. Paolini wanders into regions of magic you would never have thought of in your wildest imaginations. Though Seng Cui considers the trilogy childish, which is preposterous.

By the way, did you know he started writing the 1st book when he was only 15 ?

***

I sure took long to finish the book. Because, at intervals, I've also been catching up with lots of drama series and sleep too. I kid you not. You'd be shocked to see the way I live my life.

But I can't help but feel proud though, for within these 4 months, I've read 5 books ! Which is a lot, considering I usually don't even read a single book in a year.

To show off a bit, these are the books that I've read:
1. Snowflower and the Secret Fan by Lisa See (a good read)
2. Peony in Love by Lisa See (kinda boring)
3. Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen (most recommended)
4. The Memory Keeper's Daugther by Kim Edwards (wasn't exactly a page-turner, was slow in the beginning yet a good read nonetheless)
5. Brisingr by Christopher Paolini (must have for fantasy/adventure fans)

(smiles in satisfaction)

I better get to bed now.

The Moment

The moment only happen once, after that it becomes the past. So why do you continue to live in the past, wondering what could have, could been, when you could relish the present ?

Daddykool's Surprise Party

October 3rd would be Daddykool aka my Godpa's 60th birthday. Although he believes that he is much younger than that. He has started back-counting his age since his 50th birthday I think. So he should 40 this year.

Technically, Godpa is my father's eldest brother. You see, we have this inter-family god-parenting thingy.

So how did he became my godfather ?
When I was a baby, I don't know why but I was super-cute. (Not the ugly but adorable kind)

Naturally, no one could resist my charm, including my godfather. He loved playing with me. One of his favourite games was balancing me on his right hand. (??!!!)

My parents, noticing his undying love for me, decided to god-parent me to him. So there you have it, my god-parented story.

Ok, back to the surprise party.

We had been planning this for weeks. My inbox was totally flooded with emails from the LimClan. The plan was this, those involved in prior preparations had to be at granny's place by 5pm. Sis was in charge of preparing streamers while I was supposed to be the DJ.

Everyone had to wear red. But there was a dresscode breaker.

As a result, she had to wear a red-tie on top of it.

Instructions were given to park our cars at the back-lane, so as to not raise any suspicions. The protocol for the surprise was:

1. Godpa comes in
2. Everyone shouts SURPRISE !
3. Throws confetti
4. Drops 'Happy Birthday' banner
5. DJ plays 'Congratulations' by Cliff Richard
6. Speech by the star of the day
7. Go down memory lane with powerpoint presentation

Birthday boy man


By God's blessing, everything went as planned. We managed to surprise him !



His Speech


Jelly Birthday Cake

After that, it was all about mingling around and so I took pictures. There were some caught-on-the-act pictures.

Eww ... We've got a PP scratcher in the house.

On the left, is my 'Dai Soh' (my eldest cousin's wife) and on the right is my Godma.


I love this pic.

So bad lah my youngest cousin Ashley. No matter how long I persuaded her to take a picture with me, she kept running away. Hmmph.

By the way, I was super clumsy and forgetful today. And I almost spoilt the surprise.

1. On my way there, I forgotten to bring my handbag ! And so I had to turn-back to get it.
2. After getting it, half-way through I realized I have forgotten to bring the birthday card I bought too. It was already too late to turn back.
3. During the surprise party dry-run, I did not play the 'Congratulations' song in time.
4. 5 minutes before my Godpa's arrival, I ter-press the 'play' button and the song blasted damn loud. Nearly spoilt the surprise.
5. I nearly became the cake-dropper AGAIN ! When Serene was putting on the candles, I ter-kick the table. I am never going near cakes anymore.

Happy Birthday Godpa !

My Family