Saturday, December 04, 2004
I am home, but do not live here anymore.
About time that notion struck me soundly on the skull, normally the hardest part of the human body, but in my case, hard sometimes means stubborn. Or inflexible. The next person to figure out a thesaurus-level (or as Mr Fellender would say, "Internet-quality") synonym for "hard" wins a years' supply of Dining Hall coupons.
The math is demoralizing. I unleash the contents of my bag here for 11 weeks a year, which roughly corresponds to 3 months. That is the same amount of time one spends sleeping. But I digress, for you guys probably want to know what I've been doing awake.
P.S. Please add comments below whether or not you feel like it, if you don't know what to say email me for a comprehensive list of cliched buzzwords, currently in its 13th edition. They look good on anyone, most notably international standardized English exams.
Came home with my grandma, who spends most of her life cooped up in a motorcycle shed in Muar, Johor. You can imagine the exhiliration of being on a plane which is bigger than her own house. She nagged me all the way to KK, which meant I had to slip her a prepared antidepressant to keep her under heavy sedation. Of course, if you now imagine I run a flourishing illicit drugs trade, think again.
Yes, we arrived in KK safely, and first thing we went to the beach. Now, if you are a non-KK reader, landing at KK airport is death defying. The plane seems to veer headfirst into the sea all the way, eliciting highly repulsive screams from highly repulsive people, and at the last minute - a tiny sliver of land appears, runway inclusive, and the plane just about lands on the first bit of asphalt, eliciting highly repulsive sighs from highly repulsive people.
Melodramatic, but worth a try. Purchase your ride tickets now from - where else? - the ticketing booth for the tidy sum of RM 100.
So, we went to the beach, which, as you may safely gather, is near the airport. KK is unique in many senses, and I do not mean the entire State Cabinet living in domed tents made of camel hide. Point of interest - we HAVE a State Cabinet, a feature unique to our State and Sarawak. (JUST in case you are Malaysian and didn't know, all other states proudly sport State Executive Committees, which are what they sound like - overworked committees run by one man and a few typewriters.)
In Sabah, the State Cabinet Ministers have panache, they have PRESTIGE, my lord. They are the precursor to an entire bureaucratic workforce under them which includes many Departments with Stuffy Names, many equally stuffy Department Heads, housed in ACTUAL buildings. Yes, each Sabahan State Department has its own building, which translates into unnecessary duplicity - for each Federal Ministry there is a corresponding State Ministry that performs roughly the same tasks. Of course, with the airfare from KL still enough to buy some livestock, credence is lent to the statement that the duplicity is necessary. Thus, KK is in a sense, a mini-Putrajaya fiefdom of sorts. Every Sabah Cabinet minister has a nice building to clock into each morning. Compare and contrast with the average West Malaysian State Executive Councillor who has to juggle a minimum of 3 portfolios and does not have the added benefit of a partisan local press covering and glamorizing every little opening ceremony they attend.
Did I mention "local press?"
Guess I didn't tell you about my life after all.
But judging by the fact I was sufficiently bored to tell you all this stuff, I guess it's best I didn't tell you about my life since I got home. Suffice to say that it is a gossamer-woven load of Ecotrip crap.
My Eng Lit teacher calls that juxtaposition. I call it pretentious crap.
