Almost Done A note to end 2003.

I can give you more than cookies. Many things are lost for want of asking.

So what will you do?   ¶ 20:38

  Here's The Weekend Report

My little impromptu X'mas party wasn't all that bad. We had wine and chicken, and lots of other foods. A little kid was singing 'All I Want for Christmas Is My Two Front Teeth' on my hi-fi, and the load of us were roaring with laughter because See Wei kept telling the truth in 'Cheat' and thus, kept on being forfeited. Oh the food was marvellous marvellous... now if only we had cooked a little less...



Nice of Huey Wen and Daryan to pop by within thirty minutes of me calling them... and the night went on and on... After the policemen caught the murderers (thanks to confused winking and electrifying stares) Yin Lam went on to prophesize the future for us men-hungry girls...



What do you see in the cards?

'You've got an uncle here, and an uncle there... oh goodness...'

'Sounds like incest to me...'

'Well you might want to take this guy, even though he's far away from you but see, his heart is close to you...'

Hrrrmmmmmmppppppph!!!!!!

The guys said it was superstition, but See Wei still sat down attentively to learn the rules of the game.



Don't you just love this time of the year? Everyone's usually in such a jovial and partying mood.
  ¶ 14:10

  Song for a Winter's Night



Eh... don't get any ideas okay... you really, really must listen to this song.... its really, really amazing....
  ¶ 00:21

  Happy Christmas!! Derek sent me the following photos of X'mas in Birmingham... eeeeeeeee so pretty... now I'm jeles. And I want that little dangling snowman in the pretty glass bubble... should look really pwetty at my work station in the office...



You know what? We all need to deck the halls with happy thoughts. Screw them nutcases who are trying to give me a hard time. I'm happy and you can't do a thing to make me unhappy. Well, even if I'm unhappy I can afford to pretend to be happy for Christmas. And yada yada yada... Christmas is fun, so that's what I'm going to do.

  ¶ 23:07

  Don't Leave Me Out Cold What happens when a very dear friend suddenly shuts you out of his life? What do you do? You try to find out what's wrong and all you get is a 'Everything is different now. There's nothing you can do.'

Sometimes you have to understand that the tiniest things you say, those which you think don't really mean a thing, will hurt the people who care for you the most. And then when you feel the doors closing shut on you, you're left out cold, not knowing what to do.... You feel as if you've done something wrong, but you really don't know what.

*sniff*

But then again, thank you for taking me through the morning, even though we're miles and miles apart, the e-mail tags keep me through these times of foggy blindness. If ever there were a guiding light to light my way amidst my petrified confusion, it must be you. And I am eternally grateful.

What Ed would place in the list of 'Weirdest Ways To Ask A Girl Out':

Him: Hey
Her: Yeah?
Him: When are you getting married?
Her: Huh?
Him: You know? You said you were getting married?
Her: Huh? Like when? To whom?
Him: You told me what.
Her: Since when?
Him: You know. That guy you've been going out with since high school. So long already, don't waste time lah!
Her: HUH?? Eh, I've been single for almost a year already?
Him: Oh is it. Like that settle lah. Since you free now, what you say you, me go on a date this week, go catch Infernal Affairs III...?
Her: HUH??? You and your gf bo liao meh?
Him: Yeah end story.
Her: I think you just broke up and suffering from relationship deprivation lah...
Him: Choi... you think me damn desperate going to ask you out meh? Okay fine, never mind. I will wait another year and ask you out again. OK.
Her: HUH?
Him: You think about it lah. Got to go... bye.
  ¶ 09:09

  I Think Its Probably Better To Be... Cuddly and cute. Sweet and petite. Feminine and absolutely agreeable. All of the time. Better to be likeable than hateable. Better to be fake than real. Better to be blonde, blue-eyed and a complete closed book.

As the pages turn, you unveil more and more of you and suddenly there's no longer the mystery. You become an open book and you know what they say about open books?

Nothing interesting anymore.

Hiaks, that's probably why I am finding it such a problem getting a guy who wants to kiss her on the lips. With feeling. And some emotion. And some intention of being commited.

You know I suspect its better for her to do a day by day report of what happens, then it would more safe and comfy. Rather than doing mind to blog posts every other day and crapping crap half of the time. Cryptically understandable, thus its not really cryptic.

Did I take a photo today?

No I didn't. but I went to Mid Valley the other day and got lost in light-o-wonderland. They reused last year's decorations, and made a few modifications. Still very pretty.



Oh you were there too??? Yay!!!

  ¶ 16:45

  Okay, So I Have More To Say And when that happens, I do it again.

So somebody said I'm intimidating. A male coursemate gave me some 'sound' advice. 'Quit studying. The better you are, the harder it is for you to get married.'

Like, WTF? I suspect its because I did better than him in the past semester. And on most of the papers we sat for.

So we're stuck in a pseudo-new-age void where concepts are still jammed in that patriachal mode of thinking: WOMEN SHOULD STAY AT HOME AND BREAST FEED THEIR BABIES?

What cock bull is this?

I've got nice clothes, nice shoes and a nice haircut. And so what if I do get a better salary and a better education than most guys out there? If someone says that I need to be stupid and uneducated to get married, then I'd rather be clever and educated and not married.

Someone please correct the 'friends' out there and tell me its fine to continue furthering my studies. I mean, its perfectly all right for a female to have an education.

Right?

Okay, now I'm confused. Gaaaaaahhh!!!
  ¶ 18:29

  Need To Make More Sense That, I absolutely need to practice. I'm beginning to hear myself speak in chunky phrases.... everything just spills out before I could actually gather my senses. My aunt noticed that today.

'Hoi. Swallow your saliva lah.'

WTF?? *mumble mumble*. Nods furiously.

'You must remember to swallow your saliva everytime so that nothing spills out.

'What?'

'Your words lah. Like water fall. DHjiissssssshhhh.'

Okay. I know lah I sound like that. Bleh.

I'm absolutely certain that this post, for instance, makes no sense to you. Haw haw haw.

Going off. Later, folks.

  ¶ 17:51

  Another Friday Another two-hour lunch past. Another week of have hads, another weekend of what's going to be to look forward to. And then, soon it will be Christmas, where we won't be decking the halls with boughs of hollies, at least, not in this part of the world. We might, however, be meeting up somewhere in the middle of jam-struck KL, dancing the night away till we do what's fashionable: be drunk, be mad and be freaking loud and obnoxious.

Tomorrow's a big day at my alma mater, and the whole family's going to join me in the festivities. My ex-supervisor said it was good to have me back, and I could only stare at her, a plastered smile and seething inside, 'Your manuscript is 5 months late, dearest.'

We're all hypocrites, being hypocritical is a survival skill and if you're honestly that honest, why, are you sure you're human?

Hi Minishorts, its only Friday, and tomorrow will be Saturday. Cheer up and the world will smile with you too.

Right. That's what she wishes, of course.   ¶ 14:17

  Isn't It Strange? That when you're friends, he's the greatest person alive, how much you can trust in him and give him all your knowledge and share every single thing with him? That when you're apart for short spasms of 'time', you can miss him so much and think that oh never mind cos he's going to be back for you?

And now that you're apart for real, broken up because of irreconcilable differences, you keep going on and on about what an asshole that shitful of crap is because he's a shitful of crap because of the way he's decided to handle what could have been or could not have been.

I thought its strange. I met Minishorts the other day and I asked her how she felt about things.

'Does it matter?'

Minishorts told me that in April maybe it did but now its December well, maybe because last Christmas they were still by the piano playing Santa Claus Is Coming to Town and O Holy Night. But Minishorts says she misses Santa Claus more than she misses him because, 'Heck do you know I actually spent RM 79.90 to buy that cutie for myself and I passed it to him so that he would keep it for me and it was because I thought I would see Santa Claus again... and you know what? I'm broke shit and I still want that Russ Santa toy, I want it bad because I really bought it for myself except he doesn't have the tact to return something that he knows I love more than he does.'

I thought Minishorts wasn't answering the question so I asked it again. 'Does it matter?'

I thought Minishorts was annoyed. She snapped at me, 'Of course it matters. The money matters, dearie!! Its a bloody 80 ringgit toy and looks really cute and its prolly the only Christmas cuddly I ever bought. Besides, which stupid idiot male doctor student likes cuddly toys anyway? I'm pissed that you even ask. What a cheapskate. I mean him. Not you. Okay, I am a cheapskate and I want my pressie this year okay? And I want that Santa cuddly... but its now a limited edition thingy I think... Last year I walked several stores just to get it .... and now its with HIM and he doesn't return it to me. Okay okay, so someone said he's never seen somebody wail as much as I did over a guy. Anyway I thought she was sooooo right...now if you ask me I don't know what I cried about. Maybe I was so shocked that I could have been left out cold by someone like him that I could not take it? Or more of the things that I knew he would never return to me but the fact that he could still have the cheek to call me up to ask for things from me. That things could be put down in a calculator and listed down in some bloody fucking list. "I want my stuff back this this this." And then when I wrote him 3-4 bloody fucking mails to ask for my important stuff back like my Halliday and Resnick Physics books and some CDs and my Santa Cuddly toy he ignores me outright. That must be it. '

Okay. So now I know. Now I know what the heck happened.

The other day again, I saw Minishorts and I asked her. 'See I read your blog all the time. Hey you don't get freaked meh? I think there must be people out there who read your blog and speculate lots of things.'

'Oh yeah? I try to pretend that I don't care, quite long ago. Of course I care. I have no idea who reads my blog. I mean, maybe he reads my blog and he glowers at the amount of posts I post about him. Maybe the next him reads my blog also and all the posts about the ex puts off the next him. I trust that current hims read my blog and that's also the main reason I put them off. Of course I care. It scares the shit out of me. Heck, this blog is probably causing the failures in my life. I suspect maybe some of my family members read this blog as well... there must be all sorts of dust flying around out there about me. But they've got to realize this is of my own free will and well, practise some sort of self-control and self-initiated intelligence. And when you meet me, you read my blog and know stuff about me please do me a favour and pretend you don't know okay? And so I brainwash myself to remind myself that I don't care at all. I'm not doing so well you know. And I suspect its because of this stupid thing I've cleverly called minishorts.net. Oh well. What to do. I've put myself in enough shit already and might as well get in it deeper. '

I found out a lot of things about you Minishorts. I thought you ought to know.

'Yeah? I found out lots of things about you too, today.'

Good for her. Good for her. You you you if you know her and you read my blog and sometimes you think I'm writing about you you, well you watch your thoughts because you're not her and you don't really know the bulls I shit and the crap she pisses. You're not her anyway. How'd you know? Plus you don't have a right.

That's the point of it, you see. That's just the point.


  ¶ 13:35

  Bear No More Can't. Ever. Take it. Just stop it. Enough means enough. What did I tell you?

She's twenty three!! I know about the roads with the evil men and the charkueyteow that gives out trans and what ever fats that piles on the calories and puts that extra bit of flesh on her hips. Its her. Look if he cares she can be Lydia Shum and he would still care. If he doesn't care I can be Nicole Kidman and he would still not care.

Plastic cling wrap works wonders around the waist.

Hold your tongue about what I can, or I cannot do.

You know I now realize why they relish in being unable to speak their own mother tongue. Upper middle class society all speak English anyway. Does your mother tongue really matter?

Shen me dou wu shuo wei, wu shuo wei.

So what? I may be a banana but at least I'm not an Ah Beng. You put two plaits on her head and she still doesn't look like an Ah Lian. Define them: Ah Beng vs Ah Lian. I would bet that we're all bengs and lians in their eyes.

She's lost touch of her sanity and I don't want to give a damn. What are pronouns anyway? They don't really matter.

BTW if you're proud of your stupid sense of humour, it sucks and oh boy can I attest to it because she knows she vacuums pretty efficiently. And all the dirt is gone.

Be nice, tap a little and walk the road happily. La di darrrrrrrrr I forgot what I was supposed to be. Hey, hey! It rhymes. Claps. Skips. Does a little jig.

Faints.
  ¶ 23:10

  OK Lor... ....

Right.

....

Up to you lah.

....

Then I see what happens.

....

Can.

....

Ok.   ¶ 14:40

  You Know I'm Saying This To You Who gave you right to label someone that you don't know at all 'pretentious'?

Who do you think you are?

Why don't you head on over and try me out?

Don't go all judgemental on me.

Yes Ed, I know I'm a judgemental b****. I admit it as much. And I know being judgemental sucks. Just got a taste of my own medicine I guess.

How shall I remedy this?

Say it to my face and don't go making judgements about me on another person's comments box. And then you can decide for yourself if I'm pretentious.




  ¶ 21:44

  Do This Exercise Rewrite the following passage by placing the punctuation marks and capital letters where necessary.

i hope you are having a headache reading this because i am having a horrible headache reading through scores of passages for punctuation exercises i dont get all these punctuate the following passage exercises they have in all those english books like what is the point of it any way in real life people place punctuation stops all over their sentences and they make perfect sense i hate it when authors send in punctuation exercises and do not send in the answers to the exercises leaving me to fit in the capital letters commas full stops exclamations colons semi colons and other obscure marks you would normally consider normal like hell lah next time when i tell you to write a punctuation exercise please please please send me a copy with the answers dont leave the job of punctuating the passage to me can or not i am not a guinea pig i have tonnes of things to do and i dont like spending my mornings trying to figure out where a sentence begins and where it ends this is shit crap

I'm so sorry. And I mean it especially to you, you, and you. Good luck to you and you. Congratulations to you and you. Welcome back to you and you.

And you!!! Think of all the nice things that I can say to you. Dream it up and it will come true.

  ¶ 10:51

  This is Not Meant for You I warned you.

I so hate hate hate people who go out and boast 'I wrote this book bla bla bla bla yada yada yada yada ... oh I was a writer yada yada yada yada....' Bull shit lah. Where is your fucking proof? And then you come and tell me, 'Oh when I was writing so and so and so ... bla bla bla bla' my ear gets this screeching pain and I just want to tell you to SHUT SHUT SHUT SHUT the FUCK up. I don't give a bloody fucking damn which book you wrote before. That was BEFORE BEFORE BEFORE ... Now now now, since you claim to be so smart so clever just prove it to me. All I know at this point is that's all cock and nothing but cock.

WTF you are like 1 month behind your pounding deadline, it is not my job to call you up every fucking day to tell you to check your bloody e-mail. I spend 5 hours cleaning up your stupid work of shit, spend 60 kilometres worth of petrol driving all the way to your stupid house to help you plan your book properly, and you haven't even sent in your manuscript yet. Not like I want the full book anyway, I just want the first 16 pages.

All I fucking do is call you up every day to remind you about your stupid royalties which are pending and will not be sent to you until you work on that manuscript. Plus I'm not earning a single cent of your royalties. I help you get your book proposal approved. And you bitch behind my back telling people that I'm a pest? You know or not? I'm not your silly student wearing a school uniform with your school's badge; I'm paid to work like a dog so that you get to earn your royalties and see your name on the front cover of 20,000 odd books and you're telling me I'm rude. ALL I FUCKING DO IS CALL YOU EVERY DAY TO REMIND YOU TO WORK ON YOUR BOOK. Its your book, your book, your book, not mine.

I don't have to fucking care about whether YOUR book gets published or not. It it YOUR dream to get published. Not my dream. YOUR idealistic fantasy, 'I'm an author of bla bla bla bla.' You nutcase. I don't give a damn if YOUR dreams smash into dust. Dust dust lah not my fucking business oso. If this book doesn't get through to me its just another casualty on the list.

Don't bite the hands that feed you you idiot.

Every one who dreams of writing a book should work on getting their deadlines right and don't use bloody meetings as an excuse to not write. It takes discipline to be a writer. Learn it up before you even try.

Oh one more thing, you ain't a writer until I say so. And you ain't a good writer until I say so. And if your work needs cleaning up as much as it does now, it means you ain't a good writer at all. I'm just giving you a chance because you seemed nice in the first place.

Oh you if you don't like me and my curses get the fucking out of here. I didn't invite you to say hello anyway. Get out.

Add on: Phoooh.... I'm in the design section. Phhooooh... I should have left that wet look template on. That would probably push me up to number one. Phooh.... bulls*** lah minishorts you think you very clever izzit.

Yes lah. Or else why am I adding on this crap?


  ¶ 11:28

  Recap on 2003: Rather Early, But Then Again I've been thinking about the past year.

I've been reading my beginning of year resolutions and you know what? In about 22 days or less, the year will be over and soon it will be 2004.

I just needed to be reminded of such trivial things as resolutions I guess... yes. This early in December.

In the beginning of the year, I resolved to...

1. Be nicer to my parents. >> I think I achieved this
2. Be nicer to my boyfriend. >> I know I achieved this, but he ran out of me before I could complete the task .
3. Earn more money. >> Since I already am working....
4. Spend less money. >> Since I have more money, nope....
5. Make more friends. >> Alright, this one I'm there and far in front, I hope.
6. Get closer to the older friends. >> Yeah well, I hooked up with the BRATs again.
7. Get those idiots from hi-school who do not want to remember hi-school to remember each other. >>No comments lah.
8. Earn better grades. >> Yeap. On the way.
9. Graduate on time. >>Right. Right on time.
10. Get 1st class honours. >> Got here, along with the faculty prize!
11. Get a good job when I graduate. >> I have a job. I'm not complaining.
12. If I don't (11) , then get a place at a good university with good financial backing for my postgraduate studies. >> Well I'm in UM now.
13. Get that digital camera. >> Achieved.
14. Do more charity. >> I think I do more social work now.
15. Don't be so fierce to people I don't know. >> Not sure about this one...
16. Smile more. >> I'm sure I smile a lot more these days.
17. Learn how to be more 'girly' >> Having developed a craze for shopping, would that count me in as more feminine?
18. Get a new hair cut before 2003 ends. >> I got 3 hair cuts, each shorter than the previous.
19. Lose 3 kgs and 18 inches off waist, hips, arms, thighs. >> Lost 9 kgs and regained another 4. Means I lost 5 kgs. Achieved. But can be improved.
20. Redesign my blog at least 3 times. >> Proven record. Bimonthly design updates, at least. Plus shifted my blog three times this year.
No promises they'll all work through but at least I swear to try....

So, apart from #2, 4, 7 and 15, I have passably achieved most of my resolutions. Having 20 resolutions in a year is a long list!! I have to work on my 2004 resolutions now... Really need to plan them out properly.

Why am I talking about all this so early?

When you make resolutions, you are supposed to keep them. I'm just freaked that the year is soon coming to its end and I'm still groping around in this void, waiting to be picked up by somebody who could really care about me without wanting me to behave in a way I cannot force myself to behave. I've been strong, though. That, I'm sure of.

The next few days will be busy, busy.

  ¶ 15:08

  Have a Meal

Ryuu and April were hanging out at my house doing the Salsa last night, and we thought this photo would look rather appetizing. Note the size of the fries and the burger.

We had just arrived from a rainy dinner at the Medan Selera Kuchai, after sneaked in Kenny Rogers' chicken drumsticks and cheesy macaroni at Starbucks@Sentral, fresh from juicy bloggers' stories at the inaugural Book Swap Meet where we had met IreneQ, Wena, Nicholas, Albert and You Is Stupid's Graceshu.

I have lots of books to read for the next two month. Yippee!!  ¶ 08:53

  And then... ... you suddenly realize what a tiny place the globe really is.

EVERYBODY KNOWS EVERYONE ELSE!!!

And its not just friendster or what nots. Its also the blog, and random chatroom encounters, random literati! sessions and long e-mail lists you read off forwarded mails from your cheeky colleagues.

Its so scary how you can hold a conversation with a fellow blogger whom you've never met before but because you read his/her blog so often, things just click easily. After a while you realize how little or a lot you have in common but the biggest thing you have in common (that you own a blog) also helps you come up with chat topics that revolve around prominent bloggers.

And then you realise... OH SHUCKS!! Everybody knows everybody.

WTF?

I just lost my privacy.   ¶ 20:33

  I Don't Want To Do This I keep having problems with my friends. I keep developing feelings that I shouldn't develop. I used to be in control, then once i slipped and let lose. It was good for a while. But then it burnt up, and here is Minishorts again.

And then when the festival season comes, I remember the friends I used to end up holding hands with and sharing a single ice-cream cone with.... and I think ...

'What the hell went wrong?'

I cannot shake off that image of him sitting beside me as I played and sang Christmas carols on my piano. Damn it. Go! Go! Go and sing your own song alone.

Minishorts will control herself and will not fall for her friends again. Or if she does, she will keep it quiet. No more history repeating itself, please.

  ¶ 00:18

  Quiet Time I think I lost control. I want to be me again. I do the minishorts thing. Its me. But somehow its not me. I go very sincere here. Its me. But its not me.

I lost my voice.

*Ack!* ACK!*

That's not me.

I'm going to go out for a bit and see what happens from there.

Maybe some random crap will do me good.
  ¶ 23:59

  December's First Post My professor, M.A. Quayum once told me something like this

'If you want to be a real writer, try not to enter journalism. Become a journalist, and lose that stylistic strength.'

In preparation for one of my Malaysian Literature in English course presentations, I wrote to Kee Thuan Chye, writer of that play We Could **** You, Mr Birch! and asked him what he felt about what Prof Quayum had said. Kee is a journalist, and is currently the editor of Section Two's 'Mind Our English' columns. Kee agreed: Don't go on the journalistic path if you want to become a real writer. The concept was this, when you become used to writing to reports, you just might lose your imaginative self, and it will take forever for you to actually finish a 368-page novel.

I had always considered journalists as real writers until those lectures and projects. When I sat in those classes, I had already been meeting up with youths and people in my quest 'to become a journalist', and I've always thought, 'What fun! What great joy!! This is what I want to do for the rest of my life.' And having two established figures telling me that journalism kills the writing bug, well... I certainly have some thoughts against that.

I mean, heck, journalists write, for the papers. They are real, unless those people I meet in the newsroom are all walking mannequins who just happen to walk and talk like real life people.... I just did not get the term, 'Real Writers'.

Mind you, it was really a wet splash on my bursting ego, wanting to have my very own book published someday and always thinking that I was on the right track, and then two important experts are telling me to 'Get The Hell Out Of Journalism!!'

So well, I got out of journalism for a while to concentrate on my studies. And then I started this blog thinking that, apart from the legal and perfectly excusable motive to gloat and indulge in how terribly clever I am , I thought that blogging would be a very good way of practicing good readable writing because all that academic report work was molding my writing into a very mundane and boring academic-type genre.

Recently, as I returned to writing for the papers after a 1 1/2 year hiatus, several very boring academic submissions, daily scrutinizations of past year papers and book-blurbs, and almost-daily blogging, I found it extremely difficult to open my articles.

I used to be pretty good at writing article-openers. It was always the ending that gave me the problems. The openers would just appear like magic on my computer screen and my problem was always with ending the article... I usually wrote too long and forgot the original way that I had intended to end an article in. But this time it was the other way around, I could not even start my article. Every time I wrote a paragraph, I would look at it, and it looked merely bloggable, not readable. And it definitely was unpublishable.

Hence I have come to this conclusion. It is TERRIBLY, difficult to switch from one style to another as you get slowly accustomized to one method. And blogging may not necessarily be a good way to improve your style of writing, if you want to be a good real writer.

That is, if you take the definition of a 'good' and 'real' writer to be one that publishes good novels. Someone like Hemingway, Steinbeck, Bellow or darling Rowling.

But then, I think if that first novel is going to be something in the lines of Sue Townsend, Ros Asquith or Helen Fielding, blogging would definitely be a fantastic method of honing your skills.

On a lighter note, I finally met the notorious Edrei and his beautiful girlfriend Milee yesterday, along with fellow blogger Albert Ng. And you know what? Edrei doesn't look and talk notorious at all. Milee is amazingly petite and sweet, and Justine thought right; Albert is quite a looker.

That's very good news.
  ¶ 15:40