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