Long time..

I dreamt that an old friend of mine was sick last night. In fact I dreamt of this person 3 times. Each time I would wake up, go back to sleep and the dream would sort of continue or take place at a different place. In each dream my friend was not well, trying to be cheerful, but not being optimistic about his future. Not sure whether he had a disease or he had some internal organ failure. But anyway, he wanted to ask me for help or advice, I think, but since I kept waking up, he never really got round to it.

I kind of wonder if my friend is really okay. Have not met him in years, literally.

I imagined myself inviting him to my wedding, calling him long distance and asking him to fly back so he could be there. I imagine I would say, "Hey I'm getting married in a month's time. Do you think you could come back to KL for it? I dunno, you're the only thing from my past that was good, so I'd like you to be there."

Well, maybe saying he's the only thing in my past that was good is exaggerating it a little, but there aren't too many good things about it, but he was one of them.

Hope he's doing okay.

"Horror" weekend

Whew... my parents are visiting me from Aussie, and they arrived Saturday night. I spent the entire Saturday morning cleaning my apartment up and down, and when my mum arrived she still said my house was "untidy".

"What's so untidy about it?" I asked her.
"There's still things to susun-susun," she said.
I looked around and seeing as I have almost zero decorative items in my living room, and absolutely nothing to rearrange, I asked her, "What else is there to susun? I don't even own anything for me to susun!"
And she just said, "Got..."
I still have no idea what she's talking about.

Then on Sunday morning, they woke up at 4 am and made a lot of noise, which woke me up. It's because in Australia, it would already be 7 am, and time for them to eat breakfast. So I heard them banging pots and pans, opening and shutting drawers in my kitchen... and putting on the tv really loud... which cut my sleeping time short. But I managed to go back to sleep, but I finally woke up when I heard my mother commenting to my father right outside my bedroom door, "Let's wake her up and tell her we're hungry for breakfast" when it was just 6.50 am.

Man. So I dragged myself out of bed at 7. We left the house at 8 am, and I only reached home at 7.30 pm that evening. But I told my parents they could take the car, so they just dropped my tired self and continued on to KL til 11.30 pm. My parents are like the kids I never had. Thank God they're "checking out" of my place this morning and checking into their hotel room at the Regent. Finally I can get some rest!

Dark morning

Even though it's really gloomy and dark outside, I'm feeling pretty happy. :)

Still recovering from my company's annual dinner that took place last weekend at a beach resort in Kuantan. That was fun. I think I hurt myself during the tug-of-war, but it's still good.

It's good to get over the drama that took place last week. I felt so depressed cos I was sick, feeling low and there's this incompetent woman somewhere in the other office that keeps trying to push her work on to me that got on my nerves. And so as usual, the way I always am so blunt, I got mad at her and told her exactly what was on my mind (in email), and in the end I was reprimanded for it by her boss. Hahaha. It's funny now that I look back on it. I even got called into my boss's office, but that was only for a chat. I just hope the problem gets solved because I can't stand it when things are left hanging.

What else... oh ya, trying to avoid thinking abut the inevitable... my parents are visiting this weekend from Australia. I think they're staying at a hotel, but I'm sure they'll want to visit my apartment. It's a little messy... kind of dusty... well not really. It's clean but not that clean, you know what I mean? I hate doing housework at the end of a busy day at work, so I'll just have to wait for Saturday. But that's the day they get here. Argh.

My bf said I snored the other day. And I never snore, so I asked him to record it the next time I did snore...

die

I feel so depressed, I feel like killing myself. And I know no one could care less if I was dead or alive. Since everything I do is wrong, and everything I do is not good enough.

Oh and the worst thing is...

I woke up this morning and realised that my thighs have gotten bigger!
Argh... I hate being a woman sometimes.

Before the flight

Ugh... I always get these upset stomachs before I travel. This isn't the first time that this has happened. Or subconsciously, I always eat a lot the day before I fly off because I think I'll never get to eat the same type of food again, and then the next morning, when I'm due to fly, I get an upset stomach. I've been to the bathroom like 5 times already... yeah, I know, you don't wanna know right?

Anyway, I feel slightly nauseous too...

Marty's "Don't Change"

I heard Marty Casey's rendition of INXS's "Don't Change" on the radio. At least I thought it was Marty singing it... cos it didn't sound like Michael Hutchence... or JD. So I stood there transfixed in front of the radio in the kitchen, pitching my ears each to see if it was really Marty or not.

I love Marty Casey. He's like the best performer out of all those former Rockstar contestants. He's the one with the most potential to succeed with his own band or solo project. I'd love to meet him and just be his friend. He seems like such a normal guy. Like he could have gone to ASL with me or something.

ASL (American School in London) was a great school. It was so unlike all the other international schools I've been to. At ASL, everybody, the teachers, the students, even the parents encourage you, truly encourage you to find and achieve your true potential. It was great. It was a school where every single student could shine. And the thing about the kids that went to that school, every one of us was talented in some way. And everyone else was happy to watch the other ppl shine at their particular talent. I don't know, but that was how I felt. Like my friend Ayesha, she was really smart, and all the rest of us were just really happy to watch her succeed in every subject, etc. And then my other friend, Mark, he was a trumpet player... and like I really loved watching him perform, especially when the school band played jazz. Yeah. And other kids were really good at acting, and it was just fun to watch them do their skits and all the drama exercises (the ones that they now do on Whose Line Is It Anyway?). Yeah, we did those exercises in class even before that show existed. So I guess those games were taught at the FAME Academy or something. I imagined that FAME Academy or the New York School of Performing Arts or whatever those schools are called are exactly like ASL but specialising in Drama and Music.

I want to send my kids to a school just like ASL. Of course I can't afford to live in London just to send my kids there, so I'm hoping there will be a school just like it in KL. Children need to be stimulated. I really, really don't want my kids to do SPM. It's such a regurgitative educational system. All they do is memorize, memorize, memorize and then spit it all back out again for the exams. The teachers don't even teach the kids to think for themselves what the answer might be. They just teach the kids, "this is the answer, and you gotta write it all back down for the exams." It's such a stupid system. I hope Malaysia goes through an intellectual revolution in the next coming years so that ppl can change the way things are taught in this country, and you know, so ppl can just change their thinking for once. Change is good.

Strange dream

Ugh! I woke up this morning from having the strangest dream. I hate this dream. It's sort of recurring. Both my ex-bf's were in it, but no sign of my current one. Eugh. Each time I dream it, I'll say about my last ex to everyone in the room, "Yeah, this is the ex that I hate the most." I hate this dream. In this dream, my highschool sweetheart is being very controlling and keeps thinking that I am still his. And in the dream, I am so preoccupied with trying to get away from my other ex, the one that I hate, that I end up seeking refuge with my former highschool sweetheart. And at the same time, I'm looking and looking for my real bf, but he's not around.

Yeah, if you're thinking, "she's so corny, she had a highschool sweetheart," you're absolutely right. Cos technically, he was the only guy I dated in highschool, for two years. Then I went out with this nice guy for a month during A-Levels, and then after A-Levels and for the first 2 years of Uni, I dated that guy I hate, for 2 years also.

I've been with my current bf for 2 years too, and he's the best. :)
This one's a keeper.

I've got one more day

Today my parents took me out for a long drive in the early morning, and we stopped at this cowboy town. Well it seemed like one to me, what with the horses and the leather goods store that sold saddles and boots. I guess this place is full of those type of towns. There is so much farmland around here. It kind of makes me want to own a farm and live on it...

I had this bf once when I was around 16/17, he told me that back in Denmark his dad's family owned a farm and that before his dad came to Malaysia and became rich, he was just a farmer. I really liked that idea... I don't mind being a farmer's wife, as long as we were self-sufficient. I really admire a man that makes things with his hands... tilling the land, planting the crops, harvesting, that type of thing. Or even carpentry, or engineering... or you know, someone that was good with his hands. Someone who had productive hands. That was my ideal man back then, and I suppose it still is.

I always thought that I would marry a quiet, but talented man. A sort of dark horse. And he had an inner strength and power that emanated from him silently. And keeping my fingers crossed, I hope I will be marrying him sometime soon. Cos sayang, you are a quiet man who does not yet know his own talents. :)

No Direction Home

Did you know that I'm a big Bob Dylan fan? I call him Bobby D. As if I really know the guy personally. There was this documentary on tv about him last night. It was only Part 1, and I wonder when Part 2 is going to show. It was Scorsese's "No Direction Home". Oh I just found out that Part 2 is only going to be shown next week. :-( too bad, I'm not going to be around then.

But anyway, last night's show was the first time we see Dylan at the present time commenting on his life back then when he first started out. And it's so amusing to see that he himself didn't really know how to explain what was behind his lyrics. He just wrote them. He said he wasn't trying to be topical or political, it just ended up sounding that way, and I believe him. I think political bands that try too hard to be political don't end up being popular, or their message is lost. But what Dylan did back then with his songs, he had this magical way of making the lyrics last, and you can relate them to what's happening now as to back then.

My favorite part last night was when this interviewer was interviewing dinner about "A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall" when it was first released. He wrote it during the time of the Cuban missile crisis during Kennedy's time in office. So the interviewer says something like, "It's really something you singing about the Atomic rain..." and Dylan says, "No, no, it's not Atomic rain, it's just a Hard Rain." And I totally get what he means. It's just a hard rain, a really hard rain. The type of rain when it falls will hurt you.

I liked that part. Because being a poet, ppl will often misinterpret the things that I write. They'll think I meant it one way, when what I really meant was something different altogether. But it's okay. It's really up to the reader to interpret it any way they want, just as long as they don't quote me as saying that their interpretation is correct.

Tummy ache

Eating too much gives you a stomach ache. But I think for me, eating too many different types of food gave me a stomach ache. It's normal to get one during Hari Raya. It's only the second day, but I've totally lost my appetite. :(

Eid Mubarak

Tomorrow is hari raya. Phew! Thank God.

Today I made cornflake cookies, a chocolate cake and kuih makmur. From 7 am til 4 pm. Whew! That was a long time.

Now I'm tired. My feet hurt from standing all day.

And tomorrow I have to dress my best. Eid Mubarak!

Workaholic?

Am I getting obsessed with my work? Because I keep wanting to call the office and asking if everything's alright. But it is Deepavali today and a public holiday, so no one would be in. I think I'm getting to be a control freak. Or maybe it's just an avid sense of responsibility...

First morning

My mother woke me up quite early. Around 7 am Malaysia time, but it was already 10 am in Canberra. I woke up stiffly because it was quite cold in my room (the draft again), and then I told my mom that my stomach wasn't really feeling well so I couldn't accompany her to the butcher's. Now that they've only got one maid (instead of the usual 2), my mother has become the cook again. But she's got to work with Australian ingredients, and not Malaysian ones.

My maid is overwhelmed by the size of the house. The shape of the house is long, unlike the one in PutraJ, which was square. And I guess it's quite old-fashioned because it's got that "secret stairs" that leads from the kitchen to the upstairs bedroom hallway. The hot water pipes aren't hidden either, they're exposed against the wall of the tunnel of secret stairs. It reminds me of that old show "Upstairs, Downstairs". Have you ever seen it?

I never imagined an old house like this could exist in Australia. It's something that you take for granted in England. The house we lived in in London was really old. Everything creaked. I'm really sick of old houses. They lose their charm after awhile because for some odd reason they attract more dust than new homes.

Take for example of my new apartment back in KL. It's not as dusty as this place, and I only do dusting on weekends! Anyway... so boring... you don't want to know about dusting.

I just want to rest and take time reading a good book. It feels like I've been working non-stop for quite sometime and deserve a good rest. Nothing is on tv.

My first night here

The night is freezing. The wind is really being mean. I don't even think it's a wind, I think it's more like the temperature drops when the sun goes down. And you won't believe how dark it is outside. It's pitch black. I don't even see any street lights. Well actually there are street lights but they are very far away. Our house is surrounded with trees, so that's why I guess it's very dark.

I'm sitting in my brother's room, typing away while the tv is on. If I had known that this house has 3 of its own tv sets, I would never have allowed my parents to take away the big Philips set.

Anyway, the kitchen is huge. And reminds me slightly of the kitchen I had in London because the floor is freezing when you walk on it barefooted. And you don't need to store your food in the fridge because it's so cold you can just leave it outside.

My dad took me round for a drive and the place is very pretty. Very green and full of nature. The type of place I would like to live in, if only it was in Malaysia.

I'm wishing all my friends happy deepavali. It's tomorrow. I kinda wish I was in KL right now so that I can be a part of the festivities. I miss being at home.

Strange place

This has got to be the sorriest looking house my family has ever lived in. It looks like it came right out of the seventies. It's old and rundown, and has this um... cold air travelling through it. I forgot what you call those things... oh yeah, draft. It's got a cold draft. It's as if this cold air had legs and is just walking in and out of all the rooms one by one, and when it gets to the last room, it starts all over again.

This town my parents live in is a lot like Putrajaya, which is supposed to mean I would love it. But I haven't ventured outside the house yet because I'm feeling pretty ill. I had a turbulent flight over here from Sydney and when we landed I felt like I was gonna puke. And then when I got to the house, I showered and went to sleep cos I was exhausted. There wasn't really much time to sleep on the plane. Then I woke up a couple of times cos of the draft. Yeah, I'll wake up cold and then it'll get really warm again and then I'll go back to sleep, and then all of a sudden it's cold again, then warm up, and I'll go back to sleep etc, etc.

I'm saddened by the fact that this house is so not taken care of. Maybe it can be pretty. I know that if my friends were to see this house, they'd say it's pretty. They said that about my Putrajaya house too, but I thought it stinks.

Oh ya, this house has a certain damp smell I hate. It's such an old house.

No photos to show yet though...

So much to do!!

I've actually got a lot of work to do today. And I found out a new route to take to get to the office, and this morning I left home about the same time I do each day but I got to work in just 15 mins. Wow. That means I arrived here like 7.15 am. I've got a lot to do before I go off on my two-week vacation so might as well get to work early. It's not that I'm a workaholic, I just like to get my work done and go home early.

I rather come to work early than go back home late. I hate doing overtime. My boss says I'm famous for it.

But we had to take this overtime survey, and I actually put down that I thought I did an "adequate" amount of overtime. Well mine is seasonal. I wonder what would happen if I said I did too much overtime. That would almost be a lie because I only stay back late like once or twice a month.

Anyway... I haven't packed for my vacation. I leave on Sunday. I felt so sleepy this morning though, I didn't want to get up... but like I said I have so much to do.... so tata!

Yesterday's conflict

I got into an argument with this guy at work, at our other branch office... me and him don't get along cos our personalities clash. Anyway, I was so mad that I called him "Fool". He asked me to take it back, but I wouldn't. Kakakaka. I thought that was funny. He was being totally unreasonable, and so was I, I suppose. Neither of us would give in. And everyone in my office could hear us fighting cos I was talking really loud into the phone. Hehehehe. I have such bad etiquette.

I don't hate him either. It's nothing personal, just business.

Planning my trip

I was a little disappointed this morning to find out that the weather in Canberra is so cold at this time of year. It's meant to be summer there but I saw that the temperature's 11 degrees centigrade. And it's raining. :( Too bad the capital's not Sydney. Sydney's nice and sunny.

I'll be flying off on the 30th this weekend. And I've had to buy all sorts of stuff for my parents. It's like one whole bag is devoted to them. And I can only pack so much. We've got to change planes too, so I'm trying my very best to travel light, but how the hell do I do that when they keep calling me asking me to bring stuff? They're nuts, that's what.

Plus I am bringing the maid over there. My parents' maid just got her Australian visa. There was meant to be two maids going, but the other one didn't get a visa, and so I had to send her back. I bought her an Air Asia ticket for MYR 453, which is really cheap, and then she landed excess baggage charges of MYR 112 at the airport for being only 7 kg over the limit. Poor thing, of course I paid. I saw other ppl going back to Indonesia who had 5 - 7 bags with them, and in the end could only bring one! My maid only had 2 bags. This girl that was lining up in front of us had 5 bags I think, and then in the end she gave her employer 3 bags to take back while she checked in 2. I pity them cos they bought a whole load of stuff in Malaysia cos it's cheaper than buying it at home, and then finding that they can't afford to pay the excess baggage charges so they can't bring those things home with them anyway. What was the point of buying all those things? It's not like they can afford to DHL it all the way back to Medan or Jakarta. And I bet you their employer won't do it for them.

So I paid the MYR 112. Even though I gave her a bonus before she left. She spent a lot buying cute clothes for her children. I asked her what will she do back in Surabaya? Because her husband isn't allowing her to stay in KL and work as a nanny for my cousin. She said that she won't be able to get a job and so she'll just stay home and do nothing. It's kinda sad to hear all that because I know life is difficult for them there. Whereas in KL lower-income workers are working hard to save enough to feed their family for a month, in Indonesia, the lower-income group work hard just for one rice bowl. That's if you live in the city I guess, cos I would imagine in the villages you'd have your own little plot of land to plant vegetables. That's what I imagine, but I don't know if that's true. There are a lot of vegetables that my maids had never seen before coming to Malaysia. And they don't get to eat a lot of fish either.

Well I hope she does okay over there with her family.

Ugh I shouldn't have checked my APM mail first thing...

At work our email is called APM mail. And I should not have opened it first thing. I got to the office extra early because I woke up scared and wanted to get out of the house as soon as possible. Someone (or something) woke me up this morning at 3.30 am by knocking either on my window sill or on my bedroom door. The window was open, I left it like that before I went to bed. The knocking sound was really loud, and I knew it came from in the room. It's not an echo from somewhere else.

So I couldn't really go back to sleep properly, and after sahur, I tried to rest and then before my alarm went off, I was already showered and dressed to go off. So off I went to work. I drove really slow. But I still managed to arrive just a little after 7 am.

Yeah that's early. But I start at 8, and it takes me like 15 minutes to walk from the car park to my office building (cos I walk slow)... I was relishing the thought of just surfing the net before having to start work. Then I make the mistake of checking my APM mail and finding that the woman I dislike has messed up again! And she's making it look like it's my fault. Ugh, I hate it when it gets this way.

I'm a little tired, so I'll stay quiet today and not say anything at all. Let's see what my colleagues think...