Tuesday, May 25, 2004
i am on one helluva low ebb today. Where is the serenity i sought when i promised to myself to make my world a more livable place to be...
Tuesday, May 04, 2004
Another friend of mine first started this trend. What trend, you may ask? You're trying to say you have no idea what the hell I've been saying and therefore are accusing me of a general linguistic disability? Why can't it be YOU with the disability? Why is it that when you can't hear something it's never because your ears are faulty but because he's talking too soft? Why is it that when the machine restarts it's never because you were, dead serious, keeping too many apps open at the same tiem but always because "stupid machine can't take the piss, can't handle the workload?"
Why do we Malaysians blame every single object capable of respiration within a fifty metre radius for our own mistakes?
Whether it IS our own mistake or not is irrelevant and beyond the point. The Malaysian psyche is that if it was my fault then I'm faulty and should NEVER engage in such activities again. Of course, and you can add "duh" where appropriate just for the nice ring it gives to weighty entries, you DO want to engage in such activities again.
Therefore, you blame something else.
Then you obtain peace of mind that the buck has been passed, the electron has been delocalized, the ball is in the li'l incompetent bugger's court. Then you carry on with whatever you screwed up, knowing fully well that the odds of someone else screwing up are too high for you to realistically consider blaming yourself.
Sometimes, it's simply because we are sentient beings and have a prickly conscience that we start pointing fingers.
Who doesn't want to feel the sudden swollen pride in being able to be "man enough to take the blame"? Simply because we are human and value the worth of our humanity and know OTHERS are valuing the worth of your humanity too, we realise we must NEVER be at fault. If we are ever at fault, we will lose our freedom to do the things we love so dearly SIMPLY BECAUSE OUR CONSCIENCE tells us that we're not competent to do it.
And if there were so many people out there in the world giving in to their conscience (is that word plural or singular here?), then - ominous moment alert - THERE WOULD BE NO PROGRESS. There would be NO EARTH AS WE KNOW IT, people doggedly sticking to the tasks that enthralls them or championing the cause they believe in or climbing the career ladder they yearn for.
Simply put - if we were always to succumb to social pressure and put the blame on ourselves and hold ourselves responsible for practically everything except for our own inauspicious birth, we would have too many ghosts to exorcise. We would have so many caveats and pockmarks to fill or (in most cases) hide we would never have breathing room to focus on the virtues we ALREADY have and how we could exercise them for the benefit of all humanity.
But then, isn't realising and amending your mistakes a prerequisite, if not a synonym, for progress?
Damn. I'm confused.
You inept excuse of a primate. You can't think. It's YOUR fault. Maybe you should just stop thinking.
Yeah, right.
Someone, anyone help me out on this or I'll blame everyone for no one's business.
Sunday, May 02, 2004
Just woke up and smelt no roses.
How can you sleep three point five hours, to two significant figures, and still be able to use the word significant in a sentence?
Many versions of the Kampung Ovai National Service Lost in Jungle fiasco have been circulating on the Net, the printed media, and the avid IRC community. Granted, it's a great effort at spreading the Good News, but let's put it this way, they all share one similarity - ALL THESE PEOPLE WERE NOT LOST IN THE JUNGLE.
I was.
Lame punchline, but then, I digress.
To begin in a most kitschy fashion, I still remember it like it was yesterday.
It was a routine expedition up a well-paved, well-oiled circular route that started and ended at the campsite. The trainers were confident to the brim. It was a mere formality, the first jungle expedition (to use the term "expedition" rather loosely). The path was practically an unpaved highway through dipterocarp jungle. It was wide enough to fit a marauding army AND their armoured elephants. In fact, as one trainer audaciously put it, "sempat balik minum petang tu."
As expected, half the camp couldn't be bothered to bring their water flasks. The other half couldn't e bothered to drink from said flask. The other half were ex-army men who, proudly, couldn't be bothered to bring ANYTHING at all. Not even an extra canister of water or a torchlight in case a solar eclipse suddenly transpired. Oh well...
Oops, I wonder what three halves add up to.
Many intermittent stops were made, presumably so all could start drinking from water canisters, thus reducing extra weight. Each time a stop was made, boys would remark where the girls were. And the girls would remark where the boys were. And both contingents would wonder where each other were and gleefully remind each other they were ahead. And both contingents were kept remarkably happy by the turn of events.
Soon, by five, the sky was shedding a few shades of crimson, and it was obvious "minum petang" would be a Kitchen Staff only party, for we were barely halfway through the route. Sadly, we learned of that turn of events in bad shape. Freddy had removed his appendix barely weeks before and was groaning in pain all the way. No sweat, we reckoned. After all, boys don't cry.
No, they just collapse in agony JUST at the exact moment the paramedic chooses to disappear. Frantic moments ensued as me, Jeremy, Yap, and all the Camp P33 inhabitants (quirky naming convention here: P stands for Kem Lelaki and L stands for Kem Perempuan. Go figure.) huddled around hurling abusive language at the non-existent staff member. Soon, he appeared, with a few jungle scouts (one William Kibin). Now they had the street (or in this case, path) smarts. They set to work building a stretcher out of tree trunks, roots, and natural whatnot. Soon, Freddy was safe and sound on a stretcher...and guess who had to carry him ALL the way back to the campsite.
With a grunt and a heave-ho, we moved in shifts. The people of P33 are VERY nice. All brawn and tans but with hearts of gold. We transported Freddy's stretcher in shifts...until our shortcut.
It seems the askar were worried we'd not make it back to camp on time if we took the big route. Therefore, they, against all tenets of common sense, forced us down a shortcut. DUMB AND DUMBER, LADIES.
My point is:
- Why NOT turn back? If we had turned back and retraced our original footsteps we would have got back to camp with ample bathing time to spare. Put simply, we came uphill, so we'd return downhill, and you don't need rocket science to tell that it's faster. Also, this time, going back would be so much more familiar, so we'd move faster. If that isn't enough to convince you, hell, the added IMPETUS of going back before dark can move any trainee faster.
Three point five hours is suddenly shutting my eyelids faster than you can carve eyelid on a pumpkin. I'm sleepy and the hour hand of the clock already seems to move faster than the minute hand and the second hand is reaching out and playing kaleidoscopes with my eyes and wait that's not a clock that's...
...A slip of the tongue.
I'll continue tomorrow.
Saturday, May 01, 2004
I have a funny feeling I disappeared behind my darned cool sunshades one 2001 morning and never came back till Form Four.
I have a funny feeling 2001 I simply ceased to exist.
I have a funny feeling I lost my personality in Form 3. In short, I moved school in Form 3, to All Saints, where if you're a novice, try blending in. Or, try watching pigs fly.
That year I know I pissed an absolute majority, if not two-thirds, of people off. By...doing nothing. By allowing myself to grate on everyone else's nerves on the way to bengkel, after PMR, during class painting, and on International Understanding Day, which FYI I didn't EVEN participate in.
That year I lost the bubbly me I had painstakingly developed throughout 2000, Form 2, the best year of my life, one that will always remind me how I used to trust the male sex and how the male sex used to trust me and how I used to terrorize the back alleys of Tshung Tsin with a formidable male clique and how I used not to be afraid of speaking my mind out loud and lawan cakap cikgu in class and leading the back-row-alpha-male rebellion every History, Geography and Art class and singing jiwang boyband music at the top of our voices throughout said classes and not giving a shit about it and saying shit whenever shit needed to be said and watching it all disintegrate before my very eyes as life dealt me a cruel blow emotionally and screaming soundlessly.
That year I had my pick of personalities - one day I was cerebral Nicholas Pang spouting names of digestive enzymes, the next I was Gan leading my pack of boys to the canteen, another I was Thong all responsible and grown-up, yet another I was Jaslyn all sweet and all smiles and all chatter and the life and blood of the birthday party, again I was Singh wacky and bubbling with misplaced sarcasm...
Tears cloud my eyes as I realise what I left behind.
And more tears trickle down my cheek as I realise that if I had not left all that, all the baggage of my childhood behind, I would not have grown up to be the focused young individual I am today, independent in spirit, always eager to do my best and beat the world, determined to beat the odds stacked against me and fight for what I love and cherish.
But it all pales as I realise that through it all, I learned to love. Through it all, I learned to care and to feel and to heal and to touch the hearts of others in ways beyond their imagination, to emphatize and connect and
Let's face it - I hated my Form 3. I HATED the whole concept of going to school and was insistent in dying a slow death of air pollution and heatstroke (two fans: 50 students).
Today, the paradoxes remain. I find it hard to convince the people who first knew me in Form 3 that I DO have a normal self and would like to stop being stuck-up and haughty and arrogant and a host of other nasty adjectives, thank you. I cannot keep up this act any more. My old self is winning, slowly, gradually, with the added advantage of maturity on my side. I wanna let go. I wanna be...good old me.
But there's a soft of mental barrier to breach, a little voice with a pseudonym in my head telling me at all times, you'd better shut up because no one the hell's listening to you anyway. Scream if you wanna go faster. No one's listening anyway. No one likes your crass and your genteel speech patterns and the way you put everyone else down. No one likes you dammit.
I dunno why I still feel like that after all these years. I dunno why.
But I'm happy now. I used to smile in photos when I was in Form 2. That TOTALLY ceased as events started picking and eroding and biting into my self-esteem and self-confidence, bit by bit, till all that was left was a misshapen plasticine blob naked on the terracotta tiles, waiting to be shaped and misshaped by anyone, anywhere at free will. But...for reasons best known to myself...by the end of Form 5, I was smiling in photos again. And I wasn't consciously smiling anymore. I wasn't flexing my face muscles to smile, smile, SMILE DAMMIT! I was SMILING because my innate nature was now to SMILE.
"So petty and emotional of him to see that as a major turning point in life," you may snigger. My say - To each man his own. I pick my own little route markers and milestones in life. You disagree, fine. It's your right, and I won't take your right to disagree with me away. I'm only accountable to myself and for my own actions. But I found that a
Maybe it's true that there's no moment like the present, but no lesson like the past. Maybe it's true that though the ghosts of your past may linger in the horizon, all they can do is haunt you silently as you take that brave baby step to live one day at a time, to savour one day at a time, to be happy, NOT with what you have, but DESPITE what you don't have.
I know my Form 3 did not go to waste. It was a little sacrifice in pursuit of the bigger picture. One that today has defined what I love and who I cherish. One that today reminds me that the world continues spinning slowly, time and tide waiting for no man, woman or child.
Time to...do my time and serve my sentence.
Aaron, I apologize for my refusal to talk to you in Form 3. Gan and gang, I know I was an arsehole back then. Please forgive me though it may be too late to salvage anything, first impressions being lasting impressions, I being expected to live up to my early stereotypes all my life. Adam, Chan, Khor, Lee, you guys were great guys. You guys kept me human that year. Gabriel, you rock.
I have a funny feeling I had no funny feelings throughout 2001.
Why do you ONLY start having funny feelings when the clock strikes twelve and everyone's sleeping and charging their phones and reproducing and you toss and turn and untoss and unturn and realise you have a funny feeling?
HALLELUJAH PRAISE THE LORD!!! DECK THE HALLS WITH MISTLETOE AND DRENCH THE PATHWAYS WITH AGEING CHAMPAGNE!!! It's another rainy Friday afternoon, not of any particular significance in the normal sequence of events, save one - we're going home.
Yes, that four letter word that implies, warm bed, soft pillow, home-cooked food, and above all, loved ones.
WE'RE GOING HOME!!!
It may seem like overkill but for anyone who has carved the days away on a prison wall, the moment of release is poignant in simplicity. There are so many ways to while away the many hours spent in prison garb. You can gripe, whine, party, slumber, or muddle your way through the programme, no questions asked, but once you're standing on the last step and the light at the end of the tunnel is mere fractions of a very small unit of measurement away, the one thought remains - Bolt. Bolt for your lives.
National Service, for all its trumpeted advantages and virtues, is a fanciful concept waiting to be debunked. It is the dream of educators and childminders worldwide - a broad-based programme conscripting thousands of young, aimless teenagers to serve the nation and keep the streets clean. Pipe dream, more like it.
The feeling of being OUT of NS is not to be copied by the average teen. NS doesn't just prepare you for the rigmarole of independent and/or university life - it throws you in the deep end and expects you to magically inflate the lifejackets by sense of touch alone while your lungs slowly kill you. NS - the Malaysian flavour - does NOT resemble any other life experience or stage in adolescence. There are NO parallels to be drawn, no fuzzy resemblances to jog one's memory.
Try staying in the same five-acre campsite for one month without seeing as much as a single motor vehicle. Try lining up for food for three months, mostly getting crushed in the process. Try gloomily realising every night that you know perfectly well what's for dinner and you know perfectly well that "choice" means there are two colours of meal tray to choose from. Try scooting down a hill to get your tummy filled, walking back up that hill, and realising that your tummy still hurts.
Try skirting, avoiding and walking on tiptoe around people you have no intention to be reborn as. Try having to carry your handphone everywhere you go, having to stick your hand into your pocket every other step, for fear one of myriad juvenile delinquents decided to relieve you of your assets. Try measuring every word in detail for fear it will give someone added impetus to bash you into pulp. Try conversing in a language you do not enjoy and do not want to speak and getting sniggers all around for every minute fumble.
Try having to talk yourself into sleeping every night because the pillow is made of a hard substance previously unknown to mankind and the bed reeks of piss, faeces, bedbugs, and every other known carcinogen to mankind. Try putting up with the stench of your own freshly washed laundry because hanging outside would almost be an invitation for would-be thieves. Try not wanting to open your clothes cabinet because, as above, it ALSO smells, but this time of molten plastic, and some wise guy already nicked the metal rod one hangs clothes on.
Try settling down at your writing table to put your thoughts to paper and watch your brain screech to a halt and whir slower...and s.l.o.w.e.r...now what was I saying a while ago? Try opening a textbook, peering at the constituent letters, and breaking out into a sweat at the sudden knowledge each word is not translating into a relevant concept in the mind. Try wanting to read a book and allowing your train of thought to be shattered by the blast of punk rock blaring away next door.
Try NS.
You'll be lost for words.
Then what is that crap you just wrote?
Simply that. Crap, destined to be swallowed by the sandstorm of time, to pounce on a substandard analogy, just pure crap, written by one, read by none.
...except search engine spiders waiting gleefully to index your every page.
I can't sleep.
This ain't my bed and this ain't my fan with pokey rotors that turn at the speed of fourteen fat friars and this ain't my pillow without pillowcase and this ain't my...
...life.
(Panics) What have I done with my life?
No, nothing. Your life has just taken a wrong turn and there's no turning back.
Maybe I'll wait till the nicotine wears off.
Damn I need to take a leak and the walk's too short and I'm not opening the required amount of doors and I feel out of place.
Maybe...I'll...wait...till...marijuana...honey...divisible...retrogade...compunction...variance...mom...arewethereyet...whatthehellisgoingonandwhyisfreedomsuchanemptyfeelingtolivewith?
