Which direction is Oregon?

It’s been four days since she left.

I miss her.

Actually I’ve started missing her since I watched her walk into the boarding area with her lou kong.

Yet, I’m happy for her ^.^ At least one of us gets to go to the USA.

She’s gonna be awesome there, I’m sure. She deserves to be awesome there, and anywhere else for that matter.

She deserves the best, because she is the best. At least, in this heart that once occupies an awkward, chubby and bewildered body (still apply. dang!), she is the greatest sister one can ever have.

Chin up! It’s the land of dreams, a place where people make their dreams come true. Enjoy the snow, enjoy the people, enjoy the cool malls you’ve told me about, enjoy Obama!

Still miss you, though =)

Midnight Musings

Only a writer knows how great a loser she is.
Only a writer can foresee how lonely is her personal journey into a world constructed with strokes and syllables.
Because the writer knows that no matter who she brings along with her, no one can truly share the same experience. Same ride, same conversation, even. But never the same landscape. Their eyes, not hers. Vice versa.
Because the writer would brush off all compliments and confidence in her ability, as only writers can.
Because the writer thinks she does not deserve it. She, who has no bridge between a fleeting inspiration and a perfected tale. No message between the scrawled outlines to the typed full-stop.
Because the writer wants to believe that they have the hardest job in the world.
And, from one writer to another, I recommend the movie “Adaptation”.
It begins with flowers. It ends with flowers too. Orchids, actually.
And in between, you get frustrations. Self pity. Guy with no front teeth. Confusion that guy with no front teeth can be so dashing. Nicholas Cage. Two Nicholas Cages, to be exact – both with bad hair. Meryl Streep, very messed up. Blood. Gunshots. Brotherly love. Funny lines. Sex. Porn.
Your average Hollywood movie, save for the fact that it isn’t.
It’s about adaptation, in a world so, I quote about everyone in the movie, “f***ed up” (asterisks added. Adaptation, you know).
It’s about not being able to write. It’s about false starts in writing. It’s about more false starts. And then, the writer gets desperate. Everything starts to sounds good. Then, everything starts to sound bad.
And then, everything starts to sound simple.
Pardon my inability to make anything clear now. My mind is still processing this dark comedy, and this usually means my thoughts are synapses having private conversations - arguments, even. Somewhere in the midst I thought I saw a flying chair.
So let me make this clear. Don’t waste time reading me. Go watch the movie. If you love it, let’s have coffee. If you hate it, go watch it again.
Or, just try to write something.
I just love it because in its attempt to not preach anything, it preaches about everything.

I'm alive and running.

Note: This is supposed to appear last week, but hehe was a bit slow in churning out the pics. Here ya go!

Note 2: Some pics, when seen in original size, can be grainy and blur. Pardon my shaky hands and faulty flash. =(


Confession: I love Sungai Wang.

Okay, now you can hit me over the head several times with those huge bright gold handbags with polka-dot ribbon thing.

Well, admittedly I don’t LOVE Sungai Wang. I particularly don’t love any bit of Sungai Wang that hung la-la clothing, which was pretty much the whole of Sungai Wang except the bit which hung that white summer dress I was drooling on. And that nice LBD. And that sexy green, cheongsam-inspired minidress. And another summer dress. And the smart-looking shirt-dress. And that funky belt. And those “70% SALES!” signs…

Wants and money-in-wallet imbalance = hormonal imbalance = more wants.

How do we put a stop to this vicious cycle? YOU can make a difference.
*Open wallet big big*

Go on, whack me over the head again, if it makes you feel better. I’m having such a massive headache that I probably won’t even notice.

* * *

Until recently, I’ve never ran a marathon in my life.

It was one of the many reasons why I still have a life.

I was never a runner. In school, my 400 meter run was a disaster. The 100 meter dash was better – it was a shorter disaster. If I had any stamina, I probably exhaust it dragging myself out of bed in the morning. If I run at all, I was probably catching up with my breath.

And goodness knows why I decided to join the Canon Photomarathon Asia. I mean, come on, a marathon is still a marathon even if it’s attached to the word photo! Just because one probably goes Photomarathon Asia doesn’t mean there’s no footwork involved!

Well, thank goodness it’s probably the slowest marathon in the world.

I mean, we were given a couple of hours to walk from Timesquare to Pavillion, and another couple of hours from Pavillion to KLCC. And then back to Timesquare again. If you were busy looking for photo subjects all the way, you practically bump into your destination. I was like “WTF? Walk to KLCC?! Kanasaitamadesibatposibatkongchaofankungfuchao eh we sampai already wor.”

It was a hell lot of fun. Wearing the bright red Canon Photomarathon t-shirt gave me the license to shoot, with my cute little non-threatening Nikon compact camera. And I just literally take pictures right in front of people’s faces. It’s so funny, some actually posed! Some just smiled, some pretend you weren’t there and your camera was just an illusion, and an old ah pet on motorbike laughed at me and say “yeng meh? (“take what take?” in Cantonese).

Amused

Most people were polite. No one chased me with a mop. A few even tried to run away from me.

It's one breath-taking graffiti. Rebellion is beautiful.

This one confirm Malaysia.

Fortunately, this too, confirm Malaysia.
(The mural at the back was composed entirely from F&N cans!!!)

I just heart her bag. And her short pants. And her nonchalance when visiting Pavillion.

But after seeing this, my heart sank.

Old sweeties.



For irony's sake.


We are famous for our confusion-causing signs.
Topped with our Engrish, of course.



Meleleh.

Why do I get the "semangat terkobar-kobar" feeling watching him drink Milo?


Okay okay. So I have a thing for little girls in tudungs. And kids gobbling up their food. Sue me.

On second thought, please don't sue me. I'm perfectly straight, and I love big, strong guys.
*drags Sayang out*

Eh, that sounds wrong too.

Oh, and photographers make the best photo subjects.

We've got photogs who looked up.


We've got photogs who searched low.

We've got Malaysian-traffic (roughly translated as "death") defying photogs.

We've got hungry photogs.

We've got emo photogs.

We've got oblivious photogs.


We've got maverick photogs.


We've got selambe photogs.

We've got naughty photogs.
( I took a pic of the Pavillion manager telling the photog not to take pictures in the premise. The manager must have had a field day trying to restrain us from clicking our cameras.)
We've got sneaky photogs.

We've got lonely photogs *play er hu*

Oh, I didn’t win, of course. Else you would have heard me scream from Berjaya Timesquare. But it was good fun.

And I realized something – I LOVE photography, and no amount of blur, grainy pictures could refute that. Even if I went home empty-handed, and had to fork out RM15 to join the competition (because my little Nikon is not a bulky mean Canon XD), and had to wait for about 4 hours for the results, and had to be enveloped by idiotic smokers who thought that they can get away with puffing in the middle of a 1000 strong crowd, it was all worth it. I look back now, smiled and tell myself, “Blardy hell let’s do it again!”

And next time, I’ll stuff the idiot’s cigarettes into his DSLR. Pity (the DSLR), but necessary for the good of the common lungs.

And a great big thanks to Chew Mong for giving me free rides, and be my "voice" for the day. I was muted by my violent coughs that poor CM had to read my lips the whole day and helped me answer phone calls. Muaks!

**MORE PICS UP SOON IN MY DEVIANTART! ^^*

Nothing is perfect

For the most part of today, I did absolutely nothing.

It feels great.

It seems that I’ve been too busy living life lately. Or at times, helping someone else live their lives (directing your Sims to go toilet, go sleep, go mop up their own pee, go woo hoo, go grab the maid’s butt, stop signaling me to shove something down their throat and go woo hoo some more, is strangely addictive *shrugs*).

For too long a time, I’ve been doing things. All sorts of things. Some I like, some I love, some I hate, some that almost killed me but made me stronger, stranger but on the whole, suicidal. I occupy myself, or I let life occupy me. If there’s nothing to do, I’ll feel like a lump. A very anxious lump.

But today, I let myself go. I played no games, I napped for goodness knows how many hours (usually I’ll painstakingly set the alarm clock lest I waste too much precious breathing moments lying down), I watched an eye-candy of a teen drama about basketball and hot dudes, I chatted with my mum for a bit, I’m sitting in front of the computer and blogging.

It’s like spinning around madly in the circuit and finally finding my brakes.

People have told me that I take things too seriously, on more than one occasion, in more than one way. Passion and zest and ambition and dreams are all great, necessary, even. But sometimes, it’s good to just slump forward into my bed. Let the world move on, I’ll catch up later.

Don’t confuse procrastination with rest. I believe that we do the former all our life, but always forgot about the latter.

Trust me. I, with my ignored pile of work, would know.