:: The Adorable Cookie Monster ::

I know that you will never read this..
Which is probably good.

Happy Birthday.. and travel home safe tomorrow.

So, I got back my train of thoughts today.. here goes.. Communication can be a bitch sometimes. *arrrggghhhhh*…

Sometimes we take the art of text messaging for granted. I’ve always been a phone person cos I hate waiting on replies.. but there were points in my life where I realised that text messaging is convenient and necessary, especially when you’re in the midst of trying to get to know someone. Calling sometimes is a bit too much. Text messaging is convenient as people can reply when they’re free. but.. you’d also have to master the art of patience if

a) they take ages to reply.

b) they’re soooo not into text messaging.

When i got to know this person I really like, I took for granted that everyone text messages these days. That was my fault, for assuming. Now, I know that to this certain someone, text messaging is usually an important question, or a statement.. but never an ongoing conversation.

So, upon dealing with the hassles of the early bit of a relationship (or dating or anything similar to it).. figuring out whether it’s okay to call or whether you should be the one to call first or if you should wait for the other person to call you instead.. this high-tech IT savvy world just has to add-on these other traumas by adding text messaging and emailing to our dilemma.

The point of adding text messaging and emailing, i reckon, was to improve levels of communication.. to keep up with the speed in our lives where everyone seems to be on-the-go a lot. It is supposed to allow us to get the message across effectively.. and they even added the feature of delivery reports so that we’d KNOW that they DID receive your text.. should it drive you nuts, did they get it? did they not? did it get lost in tele-space? OMG! maybe, just maybe i should send it AGAIN.. you know.. just in case.

*shakes head*..

Delivery reports man.. at least you know they got it. If they choose not to reply to it immediately, then maybe you can go a little loony.. I know I do sometimes.. haha…

Text messaging and emailing has got to be the biggest barriers when it comes to communicating effectively with your possible partner. You would have thought that having these advantages to our so-called communication would simplify our lives… haha.. sureee.. the reality of things is that it has led to breakdowns of exchange.. left too open to interpretation or translation. Even so, text messaging has superseded phone calls as the most common form of mobile phone communication.

Sometimes it is so much easier to send text messages, in my case, ultra long ones cos I hate to express myself via phone or face-to-face especially when I have a lot to say & I know I might choke on words. Sometimes you’re scared of rejection or scared that the person might not actually be listening to you.. sometimes it’s easier to just send something without engaging in an actual conversation..

Text messaging itself can be misconstrued.. and boy have I learned that well in these past few days.. there is no tone by which humour can be expressed.. no emphasis which could indicate annoyance.. yet so many texts can be read as such. On a normal day, a playful "whatever" would be viewed as funny.. on a day that is not going so great, you’d probably be taken aback and view it as "what the hell??"

Oh, while I’m on this subject.. another favorite would be the text messaging under the influence of alcohol.. there’s even a specific name for it.. intexticating.. haha… This is almost as damaging as drunk dialing.. so, if you’re prone to drunk dial, for the love of your pride.. delete those people from your phone book.. it’s a bit of work for you to drunk dial a string of numbers by memory instead.. and IF luck is on your side, you might, just might send what could be your pride-going-down-the-toilet-bowl to a wrong number.. Thank your lucky stars if that does happen.

There’s also email etiquette. I hate abbreviations unless you use those commonly accepted ones.. other than those that are widely understood, I’d appreciate it if people didn’t butcher their text messages OR emails as it sometimes takes me longer to understand what the hell the person is trying to say in the first place. What cost you 10-15 cents now costs me more than a buck, cos i need to call you up to say i didn’t understand your text message. if it was via email, it would be easier (and free) to just tell the person off though.

Whoever thought that only between men and women, they have always found it difficult to keep the lines of communication open. That’s not true. It doesn’t get any easier between the same gender too. The added technology of text messaging and emailing has made it more complicated.

Oh, don’t even start on Caller ID. Whoever thought it would be a good idea to invent that? If she doesn’t pick up, does that mean she’s busy? or still mad at me? or uninterested to speak to me? or ignoring me?

Two to three hours later you’re going INSANE.. like seriously insane, asking yourself WHY THE HELL HASN’T SHE CALLED BACK?!! (of course among other cronic questions you have running through your mind at the time…)

I say, make a phone call.. to a line without Caller ID. haha..

My favorite drink other than coffee is Gatorade. I think some people might have already known that if they read past bulletins I posted up during my Friendster Q&A sessions..

Well, Dr. Robert Cade, who invented Gatorade died yesterday of kidney failure. He was 80. I think Gatorade is a brilliant drink. I just had one 2 nights ago upon my attempt to study at 7-11. (Do not ask me why I tried to study at 7-11)..

Anyway, thank you Dr. Cade for coming up with the best sports drink ever.. Gatorade is like "totally awesome", even on days when I’m not doing the whole sporting bit..

I’m gonna have one later today in your honor.

Rest in Peace, dude.

My poor head is throbbing. I have been trying hard not to let the runny nose and the continuous sneezing to bug me but the throbbing head is a tad too much for me right now. I can feel my system weakening and that’s not good at all. I need the time today.

I wanted to blog about communication today.. but my head is throbbing really, really bad.. i don’t think my brain is up for reconstructing sentences. Malam-malam sikit kot.

We’ll see.

I have this huge knot in my chest right now. Aku rase sesak dada gile cos aku miss dia tremendously right now. -aku rasa ni gak but aku dah x tahan aku nangis

A very close friend of mine sent me this text this afternoon, while I was trying to sleep off my misery. The first part of the text is the text that i originally sent her 2-3 days ago.. she sent back my own text to me today and added a line of her own to it.. cos she was feeling the exact feeling i was feeling about a certain someone. *sighs*.. somehow these people will never know the actual affect they have on us.. no matter all the words in an Oxford dictionary put together.. it is still inefficient and inaccurate in explaining how a huge knot in the chest feels like, when you’re tremendously missing a person.

I questioned my friend, why was she letting go of something / someone she wants sooo bad sooo easily? It upset me a great deal actually.. I told my friend.. "If the person is worth it, one would fight to be with that person. Regardless."

She replied saying that "hmm the feeling should be mutual kan?" and also gave me that ridiculously cliche line of "if you love someone, let them go.. if that person doesn’t come back to you, then it was never meant to be"…

ooh.. that was a BAD LINE to throw me.. because I don’t agree with that line.. AT ALL.

Okay.. firstly, about "the feeling should be mutual" bit… Individuals work differently. That is why they are called individuals. They have a mind of their own and it works differently than how we would approach a certain matter. There’s also the factor of thinking with your heart and thinking with your mind.. (another friend made me discuss this with her a few weeks ago.. i might blog about it one day).. Keeping it simple, generally, thinking with your mind is based on reason, facts and logic. It’s usually straightforward. Only black or white, yes or no answers. You wanna do something wrong, you think with your mind and it generates this "Emm.. this is wrong. Don’t do it. Full stop." and the matter is dropped. When you think with your heart.. all sorts of grey areas are touched. You do think with reason, facts AND logic as well… however all these are also followed by a justification on WHY you think you should do / not do something.. and usually when you think with your heart, it usually has something to do with love cos love is the ultimate reason why people do crazy, stupid, foolish things..

So why people don’t necessarily have "mutual feelings" to fight for something could be based on those heart / mind thinking factors.. They find reasons to justify their reasons for having a reason about something in the first place!

*sighs*

Which brings me to the second part.. the part i feel soooo strongly against. "if you love someone, let them go.. if that person doesn’t come back to you, then it was never meant to be".. haha forgive me for saying this, in case anyone termakan cabai.. (hit a nerve).. but a person who just lets another person go, without a fight is really stupid.

Being the optimist that I am.. Nothing is impossible. If you want something or someone real bad, you can obtain em with the right strategies applied. It’s just a case of how bad do you want that something and how far are you willing to go for it. You know how people say, "Jodoh ditangan Tuhan"..? (fate is in God’s hands) well, I believe that if you don’t work for it, jodoh is not gonna drop down from the sky for you.. and lets just say, even IF it does.. it may not have been the very best that you could have had anyways.. same thing goes for "kita bertawakal je laa" (to leave the rest of the fate to God).. I think that is WRONG. one should only bertawakal only after working hard for something, doing the best that they could possibly do to obtain whatever it is that they want THEN they are entitled to bertawakal.

You want an A for a paper which you don’t study for at all. You sit for the exam thinking you’re a freaking genius (which you’re not) and you simply say.. oh, bertawakal je laa.. if you were aiming for an F, you most likely would achieve it.

You want to date a girl sitting across the room that you think is freaking amazing.. you don’t introduce yourself. heck, you do nothing and by the end of the night, she still probably doesn’t know that you exist. "Jodoh ditangan Tuhan"..? pleaseeee…. if you mustered up the courage to talk to her, to get her number, to call her up time and time again after that first meeting.. at that point, you can probably leave it to fate cos you did try all sorts of things leading to a possible date. Only then you can say, if it happens, it happens.

So, my dear friend.. your case is something rectifiable.. but only if you guys choose to stop being stubborn, stupid and egotistical.. then you might be able to find an actual solution.

In my case, I am fighting a losing battle. No matter how amazing and fantastic I may appear to be, I still can’t win.. or maybe I can’t win, just yet. Even in my position I find that I’m still fighting for what I want.. maybe it’s indirectly but I’m still fighting for it, one way or the other.

So.. how do you win a losing battle? haha… trust me to come up with strategies.. (of course I have strategies..) When the odds are against you.. there isn’t much you can do. You are likely to lose but just by being on the losing side, you have certain strategic advantages that might make all the difference.

I’m only gonna mention one.. cos laying all my strategies ain’t really smart either.. haha… don’t be afraid to leave things as it is for a while if you don’t have a good way out. Patiently wait for an opportunity to rise. (i guess this is where the whole patience is a virtue comes in).. when your destruction is pending.. secure equilibrium in the confrontation and you’ll still be in the race.. any changes that follows are more likely than not to be in your favor.

…and IF my strategies do fail me, at least I tried.. and at least I thought it was worth fighting for. No regrets.

Grouchy.

Tonight I feel grouchy.

Just grouchy.

I even have my Oscar The Grouch boxers on tonight, just to prove a point that I feel grouchy.

Why am I grouchy? I’m not too sure why.

Maybe I do know why.. but I don’t know why I should be grouchy.

I’ve not had my breathing attacks in a while now.. I had one though earlier in the day.. and as usual, I always never have the inhaler when I need it.. so, I had to just calm myself down, slowly.

There’s been this huge knot in my chest since morning. It was a sense of missing. A terrible sense of missing, actually. The feeling was too immense and I could feel my heart aching like crazy.. just consumed with thoughts that I was terribly missing someone.

The knot in my chest did take a few hours to calm itself down.. and I felt better for a bit.. then my mood changed from missing to grouchy. I hate it when I have mood swings..

My train of thoughts have abruptly stopped.. I feel miserable, crappy and grouchy. I guess that’s the only point that i’m trying to make tonight.

but… what’s the point? heh..

Someone from a neighboring country sent me a message today.. saying that i express myself pretty well and anybody can relate to how i feel at that particular moment.

If you’re reading.. Salamat!

I had a fantastic day today. Unproductive work-wise but fulfilling all the same. My day was priceless.

My stomach churns at the idea of weird food. *urgh* heck, i don’t even eat paru (fried cow lungs), limpa (liver) or chicken gizzards (hati).. gulai tunjang (beef tendons in mild spiced curry) …or any spare parts for that matter!.. I don’t even eat fried puyuh, duck or mutton curry, k.. yes, i know.. i’m boring (so i’ve been told) i am adventurous.. just not when it comes to the stuff I eat. All the more reasons why I shouldn’t have a Kelantanese or half-Kelantanese partner as Kelantanese are well-known for utilising the spare parts into all sorts of food. The funny thing is, out of both relationships I was in.. both of them were half-Kelantanese… ha ha ha… *roll eyes*

Which brings me to this.. I watched the Amazing Race Asia tonight.. they had to eat 8 balut eggs?! Duck embryo with feathers popping out and the crunchy beak? *shivers* I would have done it but probably my stomach wouldn’t have survived it. I swear it wouldn’t!! but I found one incident entertaining.. (i think it was Edwin & Monica) in the cab, the guy was expressing how he had eaten 5 balut eggs and his gf looked at him and said, "Why did you eat 5?!! I ate 4." the guy’s face was unable to draw up an expression.. hahaha… it was fucking priceless.

Ended my night with my all-time favorite movie, Gladiator.. it was shown for the millionth time.. and i’ve watched it for the millionth time as well.. I think I may have quoted the movie in one of my past blogs.. it’s okay.. for Gladiator.. I’d gladly quote you again..

Commodus: What is your name, gladiator?

Maximus: Gladiator.

[Maximus turns away..]

Commodus: How dare you turn your back to me.. Tell me your name!

[Maximus slowly turns and removes his helmet...]

Maximus: My name is Maximus Decimus Meridius.. Commander of the Armies of the North.. General of the Felix Legions.. loyal servant to the true emperor.. Marcus Aurelius.. father to a murdered son.. husband to a murdered wife… and I will have my vengeance.. in this life or the next…

oh, here’s another few favorites of mine..

Maximus: I once knew a man who said "Death smiles at us all.. All a man can do is smile back."

Commodus: I wonder.. did your friend smile at his own death?

Maximus: You must know.. He was your father.

[Maximus looks at images of his wife and son..]

Juba: Can they hear you?

Maximus: Who?

Juba: Your family.. In the afterlife.

Maximus: Oh yes.

Juba: What do you say to them?

Maximus: To my son.. I tell him I will see him again soon.. To keep his heels down while riding his horse.. To my wife… that is not your business.

Lucilla: My brother hates all the world and you most of all.

Maximus: Because your father chose me.

Lucilla: No..because my father loved you…and because I loved you.

Speaking of love.. love hurts when you’re together, love hurts when you’re apart. It’s hard living a life where you have to live day-to-day and things are a big mystery.. the surprises life has to offer can be overwhelming and heartbreaking. i don’t know why i’m holding on to someone who’s unavailable.. maybe it’s because deep down i hope for things to change.. maybe i’m just too optimistic and full of faith that one day, things will be different. or maybe i’m just foolish?

Missing someone is the best worst feeling there is.. The feeling of missing someone can be nice, especially when you’re happy, smitten or for that matter, in love. However, sometimes when you miss someone immensely, someone you haven’t seen for ages or spent quality time with in a while.. the nice feeling of missing that person somehow can turn ugly within mere seconds. Yep. Seconds.

A minute ago, you were telling that person how much you miss them.. how you can’t wait to see them.. and suddenly, BAM! out of nowhere.. you’re screaming at each other and slamming down the phone. (In my opinion, fighting via cellphone sangat tak best cos pressing the End Call button doesn’t just quite give the same satisfaction as slamming down the receiver.. no, not that I practice it.. i’m just sayin’.. heh) Well, i guess most people fight via cellphone these days.. so to make up for not having the "slamming-down-the-receiver" option.. they just turn off their cellphone.

*urgh* that’s even worse k!! Especially if your cellphone isn’t registered as a private number.. Imagine after they hung up on you and here you are calling back like 150 times.. the minute that person turns on the phone, they will get a message saying.. "You have 150 missed calls from the number 0..1..2.." *gasp!*

Somehow, i don’t think they will think of it as an "awww sweet gile tau dia.. dia call aku 150 kali masa aku off phone".. instead, they’d probably call you back to say "you gile ke call i 150 kali?!! you psycho…" haha… yep. It’s a good case of Damned if You Do, Damned if You Don’t..

Okay, let’s say they hung up on you.. and you tried to call them back.. and the phone’s turned off. So, you think to yourself.. "Hmm.. takpe lah, bagi dia cool down dulu"… 17 hours later, this person turns the phone on and they get that notification text saying that you only called ONCE! That one time pun was right after you turned off your cell… I can bet that you’d say something like, "See?!! Dia dah tahu I marah pun, just can’t be bothered to call me!! I knew it that all along memang dia tak pernah kisah pasal I.."

*sighs* I love the feeling of missing someone… it’s even better when you know that the person is feeling exactly the way you do.. missing you back… but not to the extent of where we end up fighting. If you put in a little thought to it, you’d realise that the fight was initiated only because you immensely miss that person. that’s all.

Whatever the case.. Missing someone and fighting because you miss them are not feelings that you should be alarmed about. They are good feelings. Feelings that tell you that, you know what? the feelings you have for this person ain’t no teeny-bopper crush. It’s big. Well.. it was big enough to make you fight and bothered in the first place, bothered that you are fighting.. and the fact that it managed to put a strain on your emotions for the day.. so that’s gotta count for something.

I think that you should be alarmed when you’re away from someone you think you should miss and you end up not missing them at all. I think that’s when you should worry.

You are my baby love, my baby love
You make the sun come up
Ohh boy (ohh boy..)
You’re my every everything that I could ever dream of

Upon listening to this song, i smiled to myself..

It’s been a while since I felt butterflies swoofin around..

There’s still an ache in my heart though..

Maybe it’s the pain of missing, maybe it’s just due to how this song makes me feel… but this kind of heartache, I don’t mind.

I dedicate this song to my Baby Love…

whoever/wherever my Baby Love may be..

P/s: Nicole Scherzinger makes me drool.. I wonder why we ever broke up, love… *sighs*

I never realised that I missed playing music til today.. Perhaps given the fact that I’m supposed to be studying, so of course TODAY would be the day that I start missing something like PLAYING MUSIC?!!

*sighs*

yes, in this reluctance to study, here I am missing the one and only instrument I know how to play.. the violin. Lets see.. growing up in Illinois, i picked up the instrument for the very first time at the young age of Three. Ms. Gomez, who I studied under told my parents to let me be.. to let me fool around with the instrument.. and see if she could mould the interest in me.. i guess she did a pretty good job cos I fiddled away til I was six.. then it was time to step my feet on Malaysian soil for the first time.. well, first time being the fact that I didn’t learn how to walk til i was a bout 8 months.. and by then, I was already living on US soil.

Anyway, after FINALLY picking up the Malay language.. yep, i didn’t know a word til i got back here and I was teased the whole freakin time i was 6.. cos i took mengaji classes and couldn’t speak a crap of malay.. which felt horrible!! my ustazah at the time must have thought, gile berlagak budak mat salleh celup ni.. hehe.. Thank God I was sent to BBGS cos there, it was more than normal to be conversing in English, full time. *phew*

So one day, when I was 9.. my dad tells me he’s found me a new violin teacher.. I was like.. oh crappp… that would mean i would have to spend EVERY DAY practising my violin by hook or by crook! I hated anything that had to be done constantly.. (except for bercinta perhaps, but that was 21 onwards.. haha)

Anyhow.. I took lessons from this jovial Chinaman, Mr. Boey.. who I still keep in touch with from time-to-time. I know deep down that I am one of his fav students even though I was lazy as hell. He always said that Terence (another joker friend of mine, who i have lost contact with over the years) and I are talented and that we have it in ourselves but we’re not as hardworking as we should be.. as opposed to another friend of ours who he thought was not as talented but she was hardworking as hell.

I think the fact that he thought I was "talented" dah buat I rase poyo gile kot.. haha… I took exams after exams at a fairly young age.. I was done with my Grade 8 exams by Form 1.. and completed my Diploma in Music when I was in Form 3.

I was 13 when I joined KLSO (the Kuala Lumpur Symphony Orchestra) under the guidance of Dr. Takahisa Ota. I was also the youngest musician at the time, with my friend and coincidentally my classmate, Poh Kim. It was amazing. Those every-Sunday practices were the ONLY practices I enjoyed when it came to practising.. in fact, it didn’t even FEEL like practice to me.. i played cos i liked it, and nothing else. I used to love how after every section has played their part and when we all play as one.. the beautiful music made together.. that was something that always touched my heart. I remember how Petr Tchaikovsky touched my soul with one of his greatest classics, The Swan Lake… and same goes with Schubert’s Unfinished Symphony.. i remember the ache in my heart, how jiwang I felt while playing these two scores in particular..

I was also temporarily part of a local Youth Orchestra but was too busy between KLSO and school so I had to give it up.. I had the chance to join NSO (National Symphony Orchestra) as well but I was to be present for practices all 10 nights before the orchestra.. the upside? i would be PAID every night! (yes!!) the downside? I was also a young student who couldn’t drive.. so depending on my dad who was a very, very busy businessman at the time, was out of the question.

At 16, I was chosen out of thousands that auditioned to represent the country, to play a night in Latvia. To see my face in NST back then for that was.. awesome. I have been asked numerous times to join my teacher in Maestro Woon Wen Kin’s Penang Symphony Orchestra even til date.

Even though my best years was playing with KLSO, however, I found the chance to be the first batch in joining Universiti Malaya’s Symphony Orchestra. At first I joined only to wheeze my way out of taking a co-curricular activity.. why rush to find a spot for some sport or activity that I couldn’t give a crap about when I had the choice of doing something that i know?

So, those were the final years that I picked up my now, 16 year old, violin.. It was different as I was not accustomed to Dr. Nasir’s idea of First Violin scores at the time.. In fact, i thought that they were way too easy for me.. Surprise, surprise.. being the true Melawatian Musician he is.. Marcus joined UMSO as well.. and I have many nice friends from there, a few who are in my Friendster’s List today like Lydia and Tetkun. I also wasn’t used to playing scores from the late P.Ramlee’s tunes or Siti Nurhaliza’s songs.. but I guess it worked out well.

I played for 2 years in UMSO. It was memorable indeed. I played during convocation the year my school teacher Puan Parimala was accepting her Masters’ scroll. I also graced the newly rebuilt DTC (Dewan Tunku Canselor) Hall after it was burned down a day before the PM, Tun Dr. Mahathir was to officiate a forum in UM. Fire being coincidental? I still don’t think so. The new hall is beautiful.. and it was wonderful being able to play there that night. All those Monday practices.. My ex would have dinner with me, and study / do homework there while waiting for practices to finish.

I haven’t touched my violin ever since those days in UM. It’s found a permanent resting spot in one of the cabinets in my room.

Out of all the music I have ever played in the world, there is ONE that is my ultimate favorite.. the one piece in the world that I love to play ever so much.. it is Fritz Kreisler’s Praeludium and Allegro (In the style of Pugnani).

I played it for the first time in front of shitloads of people when I was 16 years old, during a music competition we had in school.. and Marcus (budak kelas sebelah) was my piano accompanist.. in all nervousness, I broke a string even before I started. (P/s: I still won first place.. heh)

So, upon missing this insanely beautiful music, I can understand how this girl in YouTube must have felt when she screwed up the score right before entering the allegro molto moderato section.. nevertheless for her flaw.. with confidence, she started over and played her way thru with poise and great emotion. I love this piece with all my heart.

Well, this is the clip, if you’re interested in hearing what I might have sounded like eons ago.. haha.. assuming if i was any good laa.. haha…

Enjoy!