Robber of the Ocean's Blue

O'er all the calm in the seas,
All the blue grows but bluer,
All the pain grows but truer,
O'er moaning under the breeze.

The grumbling sands seem to bleed,
Ev'ry breath it breathes unto,
Shells- husks of dead sink into
the sands, torn from their creed.

Beyond the silky, tear-rimmed shore,
Deeper still into the spray,
Lurks the dark and far-away
eye of the storm, pain grows more.

Within the heart of this all,
Lie shreds of hope, long since lost.
All are but lingering ghosts,
Which never let the storm fall.

Cry now in eternal grief, O'er the pain that keeps growing.
Sigh now but not in relief, For the gale that keeps blowing.
Found now, is this Ocean's thief...

Bowling: Singing Fingers & A Sore Butt

Monday. College. The new semester really took off today. My two other classes began today as well, which leaves me with a full week of classes. This short semeseter will get the best of me before I even know it. I have a lot of work to do, lots of studying to study and a body-clock to knock into shape (yeah right, fat-chance if you ask me).

I will not talk about classes unless I find it necessary to do so and I'm sure sooner or later the day will come when you will be able to make a course outline from all the details I give you about my school-work but until then, I shall avoid it till (as I've said) necessary.

Well, let's see where do I begin, ah yes, the morning. When I woke up to my irritating alarm. I snoozed it a bit too much and that got me out of bed at like, 5.30am. A restless night. I lay in bed from 2.30 till past 4 just trying to go to bed but my head wouldn't shut up (I know that's freaky, but yeah.). Thoughts just kept racing through my head, ethics of all things. Ethics!!
So yeah, I got up late and in a flurry, I had to leave the house after getting ready. I stood like an idiot being stood up there for about half an hour waiting for the retarded bus to come along so I could go and reload my phone so I could wake The Fuz up. By the time I'd done that, it was already too late to make the time we agreed on to meet JoA at the train station in Subang. She called and in her morning grace, decided that she would wait for us. We made it. Late of course, we can't really be naive enough to believe that the Malaysian public transport system. JoA gave me directions which managed to confuse the sleep-deprived Wayne. The Fuz & I ended up jay-walking to the other side of the main road only to recieve a call later from JoA further confusing the sleep-deprived Wayne and causing me to think that we needed to jay-walk back across the street. On reaching the intended rendezvous point, there was no sign of JoA or Daniel (her car). Then, I recieved a phone call and turned around to see a frantically waving figure of a girl on the other side of the well-trafficked road. The figure seemed to be on the phone screaming "Look over here, on the other side, I'm over here!". So we jay-walked once again, towards the car and yeah, that was the story of how I got from Klang to college today.

Between classes today, we went to check our results for last semester's examinations [insert suspense music here]. JoA, Stef & yours truly went over to the library to do this. On seeing my results, I was relieved and almost was about to say "yippee!" (no, I didn't do exceptionally well. I just got better grades than I thought I would) when JoA told me what she got and when I noticed how down she'd gotten. I immediately suppressed my "yippee!" and only made it known that I was relieved. I decided to try to cheer JoA up a bit, I decided to test myself while I was at it and challenged her to a few games of bowling after my class ended. In the meantime, she also kindly agreed to wait my class out by sitting in on it with me for my first class of Public Speaking (which was boring). I also managed to convince her to join in to help out with some ceremony which ARCCADE was holding on Saturday (yay).

After class, we headed to Midvalley megamall to hit the pins. Once we left college, it started raining cats and dogs. We could hardly see but we managed to reach megamall in 3 pieces (her, Daniel & Moi). We went bowling. It was embarassing. I used to play every week in the school bowling society back in the day. I was a decent player. That is no longer the case it seems. JoA ended up teaching me how to play. It was embarrassing no doubt but hey, we had fun. I was just glad to see her laughing again (so sue me). After the 2 games of being thrashed by JoA, her knee ached and we were going to meet up with The Fuz, Carment, Joel & Pearly for food. After seeing them, leaving my bag behind, losing them, wandering around and finally calling and finding them, we sat down to have a good and well-deserved stare at Carment and Pearly enjoy their Asam Laksa (food). Afterwards, we went to the food court where JoA & The Fuz had somemore food while the others and myself had dessert (I made one round of the food court and nothing caught my eye).

Soon, JoA had to go so she went. The rest of us wandered around a bit more (we seem to enjoy doing that) and then Carment & Pearly decided they should head home. After they did that, we thought we'd follow suit but on getting into Joel's car, he said 2 letters which sort of woke me up "CS". We headed over to Damansara Jaya and played some CS till about 11 something and then headed home.

It's been a day indeed. My right thumb, index & middle fingers were singing after bowling and my butt hurts. I had fun. I enjoyed myself. I hope everyone else did as well. Well now, I should make preparations for tomorrow. I don't want to snooze my alarm again in the morning (I hope not, Haha).

Welcome to Klang.

Yesterday, JoA came down to Klang and met up with The Fuz and myself. After she reached Klang, she gave me a call (which woke me up after I completely missed the first one) and asked me how to get to my place. The funny thing was that we had a little breakdown of communications and I - having just woken up - wasn't fully functioning yet. She got lost in the process (haha). After a few more directions and a U-turn, we discovered that she'd actually gone the right way and had actually overshot my place (haha again). After finally picking me up and getting to The Fuz's place, we went off to eat some Bah Kut Teh.

After the meal, we took JoA to do what she'd come down for: her guitar. The shop-owner was a friend of Fuzzy's and she was very hospitable and verbose. After JoA had chosen her guitar, we went hunting for JoA's bed-frame. We went around to a few shops till we finally decided that we could look into Courts Mammoth. On reaching the Mammoth, we spotted a furniture shop beside it and decided to compare prices and look for the best deal (what any other logical shopper would do when presented with more than one shop selling the same thing). After walking to both shops twice, JoA chose her bed and got a matress with it. After this, we went for some "sweet soup" ("Tong Sui") called "Aeroplane" ("Be Gi") or also known as Len Chee Kang. Haha, apparrently Fuzzy never had it before either. Well, I'm glad they liked it. After that, we were dropped home and thus ended a short yet fun-filled day.

The night wasn't near as entertaining as the day. Last night we were meant to sign up online for tutorials for our Social Psychology class at 9pm. We (Fuzzy, JoA & Myself) were there waiting at 8.45pm and just waiting for the time to sign up. When the clock struck 9, the expected happenned, the server crashed. There were what, 70+ people logged on and probably another 20-30 trying to get onto the site and it crashed? What a pathetic server. to make things worse, the geniuses up in the department decided to bind the tutorials for Social Psychology and Human Personality classes which made students who were doing only one of the two subjects non-eligible to sign up online and had to do so manually the next day in college. Such stunning efficiency, such sparkling logic... I was so irritated by this. Irritated by their insolence. I cooled off as fast as I'd gotten peeved. Besides, getting all aggro wouldn't make the server come back to life and magically make the tutorial sign up upload through all those 100+ students hacking away at the Refresh button. JoA and I decided that we'd sign up online first anyway, just so that we could reserve our slots in that tutorial. I just lay back and waited it out. Others really didn't take this well and I don't blame them. The server got back up at about 11-ish? That's like, an hour or two after the stated time. Sure the site died on the server but don't you think that if a server can't even support less than 150 users, it should be deleted and spoken bad about for the next decade or two?

Oh well, enough about that. Now, onto today. This morning, I dragged myself out of my bed at 6.25am, 35 minutes after the initial alarm went off. I just HAD to watch 3 episodes of Prison Break before i went to sleep (haha). I got myself ready and then headed out towards The Fuz's place. Sent him a message saying I was on my way. I didn't get a reply. I thought he just didn't feel the need to reply. I reached his house and stood outside and sent him another message telling him that I was at his gate. After waiting for about half an hour, I called him. He didn't pick up. I thought he was in the shower. I gave him 15 minutes and called again. He was asleep. After dragging him out of bed, we set out to the train station. We were headed to Subang today. We were going to rendezvous with JoA and from there we'd go on to college to settle the issue of our tutorials (read about it under Yesterday). We went up and discussed things with Jue Ying, an admin in the CFP (Center for Psychology) who set things right. I helped Stef sign up as well but sadly, Fuzzy couldn't make it into the same tutorial group as JoA, Stef and Me. Bummer. After that had been done, we went over to Lan's Corner to have breakfast (yes this was all done before 9.30am).

The horror, I ordered a cheese thosai (Fuzzy said it was good) which ended up not having a single ounce of cheese in it! The horror!!!! I will never order thosai (with the exception of thosai masala) ever again!

After the not-so-good breakfast, we were off, to Low Yatt Plaza. The Fuz needed to get his router checked, buy DVDs and get some speakers; JoA was out to find herself a pair of earphones, get her modem replaced and on the way, she got herself an FM modulator (something which allows you to transmit music/radiowaves to radios OR in English it means that she can play mp3s in her car with a pendrive); and myself, I was out to get a set of speakers for my babe Celeste (yes, I'm a geek who names his beloved possessions).

After walking about Low Yatt for a couple of hours looking into and comparing prices, we eventually got our stuff and then, headed towards Midvalley Megamall to meet with Sue Jern to spend our MPH vouchers which we won last semester during the Colloquium for our Ergonomics project. I just walked around the bookstore staring into books which caught my eye without the slightest intent to buy because I wasn't crazy over buying any books. As it is I have quite a few at home which I hadn't finished reading yet. Besides, I'd already promised my share of the voucher to JoA earlier on.

I wandered around some and then wandered somemore and then a bit more till I noticed I had lost JoA and I didn't see her at all through all of the 4-5 rounds I'd made through the bookstore. Initially I was looking for her to let her know that Sue Jern had finished choosing what she wanted and was waiting for us to get done. JoA's absence didn't really strike me at first since she enjoyed reading a lot, I thought that she'd probably wandered off somewhere I missed. I finally decided to call her because Sue Jern was just standing around and I felt that she was getting a little impatient. JoA didn't pick up. I began to worry right about then. She wasn't in the store and she wasn't picking up and didn't let anyone know where she was. I was worried. I made one more round of the store. Still no JoA. Called her again, she still didn't pick up. Just as I was about to call her again, she popped out from behind a book rack. Relief! She'd been on the phone and I guess she had her call waiting function on which explained why I could still call her. Well, we payed up and Sue Jern had to leave. JoA finished up her phone call and we decided that we would go to Klang again to eat. We did, we went over to Port Klang and went to this old school Chinese tea shop which served Western food (Coolness)! After that, we went to our homes again.

These two days have been really fun as this is probably one of the few times my friends from KL or anywhere else have come down to Klang (what's more twice in two days). Well, I guess this is just lots of fun which I hope will make getting through this semester easier.

In Response To A Response

Hope may be a two-edged blade but like a pen with multiple coloured inks, we can choose to ignore the other colours and use only the pink ink :)
Hope can destroy, hope can be bad, but then and again a con-man can be trusted to be dishonest.
Perspective is a powerful tool when looking at something. Perspective shapes countries, religions, families, heroes. Perspective can shape lives. Death can be seen as rebirth or the end of the road. It's all about perspective.

It isn't about which side of hope you choose. Nor is it about what you strive for. It's the choices you make along this journey. It's about how you choose to see things. Accepting one's fate for what it is isn't always the wisest choice nor is it the most adaptive decision. Our destiny is in our own hands and the only thing Man cannot control is Death. All things leading to the River Styx are our own deeds, our own choices and what choices we make are our destiny.

Hope is indeed a noun. Your definition of it? Your perspective. Your choice. Your destiny. Our hope.

Now, Back To Some Good Ol' Ranting : Reality Issues

Life serves us all our share of crap. Some get a larger plate, some get a saucer-full, some get a spoonful. Either way, all of us have to face our walls. Our walls of shit. When we hear about others' walls, we look at our own and ask ourselves, why am I so useless? Others seem to be faced with more than I am but they seem to be doing better than me. What's up with that? Some serious self-esteem issues follow, no doubt.
Why does it seem that some of us have to take blow after excruciating blow from life? If only life were like classes, where we finish one module and move on to the next. No, we have to take everything as it comes. Why?

I'm sure life isn't fair, I'm sure we can only make the best of life as it is and I'm sure I'm usually the one behind people telling them these things as they face their walls of shit but everytime I say that, my heart shatters for them. I may not be the best candidate but I do my best to support those who I've set out to. Having said that, there are times when I just feel like letting go of this silly role I've taken up as it seems so redundant but every other time, they just turn around and smile at me. They show me what I saw in them from the very beginning, the driving force that got me started. Hope.

Call me cheesy, call me stupid, call me redundant. You can't shake me. I'm going to continue doing what I love to do. I'm holding on. Even when you let go. I hope you'll do the same.

The Genting-Bentong Trip : An Extensive Account

Last Friday I received an invitation from Hui Munn, a classmate to join Bryan, Ivy, Hui Zhi and Shaun(hereafter addressed as Dong) on a trip to Genting and then onwards to Bentong. This sort of took me by suprise because I was never really that close to this group and only recently had I watched a movie with them (Mr. Bean's Holiday) and this was the first time ever I'd been out with them. Now the reason why we set out to go on vacation was centered around a barbeque in Genting at an apartment. Well, I was actually flattered by their invitation and after making some arrangements, I confirmed my attendance into their little party.

Sunday:
After packing up my stuff, I hitched a ride with my cousin to the Asia Jaya LRT station. I was supposed to let Bryan know when I would reach so that he & Dong could pick me up. When I reached it seemed that there were some complications on Shaun's part in getting his car. It seemed I had to wait a little while before my ride came along. I thank goodness for my MP4 player and JoA whom I could talk to (thru SMS). Although the music got me all emotional and I began my whole disconnection-with-reality thing and I would enter into that state and only emerged when I received a reply from JoA. After about half an hour or so of singing along to my MP4's music, Dong's car had gotten there and then off we went to Ivy's.

We first met up with the others at Ivy's apartment. Then we went grocery shopping for snacks and stuff which we would need for the BBQ and also some stuff to cook for dinner that night at Ivy's (and I just have to mention that I bought a big bottle of that yoghurt drink which I have lately been so into, it reminds me of Lassi :D). As I had insisted, Dong had brought his guitar. While the rest we were trying to get dinner ready, I (who could not really cook) stood aside and watched Munn Munn hack away at the chicken like a blacksmith melding a sword. I couldn't take it. I had to lend a hand. Afterwards, I decided to get to the guitar. After me and Dong messed about with the guitar for a bit, dinner was ready. Dinner was good. Bryan & Munn Munn were the chefs of the night and they made a great dinner. I don't know whether or not it was a compliment or just gluttony when I went for more rice. After dinner, we had some "tong sui" which was made by Ivy's relative. It was quite bland as apparently some of her relatives can't take sugar but it was still good. After that good meal, the gang began playing mahjong. No gambling involved, just wanted to mess around. While the lot was playing, I volunteered to wash the dishes as I didn't do any cooking. Dong helped me out and still I took ages to wash up... I still have serious speed issues when doing any chore. Well, after a few rounds of mahjong, Hui Zhi had to leave. We followed her out and then when she drove off into the night, we went to a mamak named NASA (note the very lame name =.=). We chilled out there and began to talk about many an interesting topic. At about midnight, we went back up to Ivy's and chilled there instead. Somewhere along in the discussion there was mention of alcohol which got me interested and the next thing we knew, we were having vodkas (yay!). We gathered around into a circle and began to chill (yes, once again). Dong & I began taking turns at the guitar which to me (being obsessed with the guitar) was probably the most central part of the night (other than the alcohol). We chatted (and I kinda played [the guitar]) the night away. Dinner in the making ala Bryan & Munn Munn

Monday:
Monday woke me up at about 9-ish with the voices of Bryan & Zhi in a conversation of which I cannot remember the content. While I had slept, Ivy had gone to pick up her Aunt's Honda City, Zhi had come back to Ivy's from her place and Bryan took photos of me and Dong asleep (the freak!). After a shower, we were ready to set out for Bentong. The ride was a rather peaceful one for me at least but I pitied the four sitting in the backseat (they threw me in front anyway, being the largest one there). We were headed for Bryan's hometown in Bentong. After about an hour and more we reached our destination, the small town of Bentong.
It seemed rather homely, a simple town with nearly everything a person could need (except for a cinema and I didn't really see any cyber cafes). I repeat that the ride was safe and also entertaining as we had Bryan & Munn Munn to entertain us (Zhi still fell asleep anyways). On reaching Bryan's abode, I noted how calm the environment he was brought up in was. We met his homies and after a brief respite, we went for lunch. Even looking for lunch was entertaining as Bryan seemingly couldn't make his mind up on where to take us and when he did, the group sort of rejected the place and we had to actually get up and walk out of the restaurant (haha). He then took us to another place across town and since the group had announced their intent to eat "dai chao", he wanted to take us to places where he thought that we wouldn't be cheated (apparently the locals there wouldn't hesitate to make a killing when they noticed that we were from out of town). The second place we stopped at was actually serving something else and directed us to a place we had already passed along the way if we indeed wanted to eat "dai chao". We made our way there with Bryan already stressed with the worry that the group was getting frustrated. What really didn't help was the fact that the place we were directed to was closed on that exact day. There was a big sign in Chinese on the gate reading: "Taking a Break - 23rd April". Just our luck. Well, Bryan had no choice but to take us back to around where the first place was to a restaurant where we finally ate. We found out that Dong had never had "Nga Pou Ham Yu Fa Lam Pou" (Claypot Pork Belly & Salted Fish) before. The horror of deprivation! Anyway, it was then that the gang commented on my being very busy with the handphone because I had been in constant conversation with JoA since Sunday. Oh well, misunderstand if you want. I would offer an explanation but that would require them to believe it right? No matter.
After lunch, we stopped back at Bryan's place to rest a bit while some of the others went out to buy the stuff we needed for the barbeque. When they got back, all was set and we were ready and with supplies in hand, we headed up to Genting (which wasn't far away from Bentong). Dong & I were to follow Bryan's car while the girls stayed in Ivy's. After a comedy-laden trip uphill (and another bottle of that yoghurt drink which we referred to as Lassi anyway), we reached our second destination in the afternoon (at about 3-ish pm). We checked in, moved our stuff into the car and then we headed up to Genting, or so we thought we would. The initial plan was to drive to the cable car station and take the ride to the peak but that wouldn't happen because we found that the station was closed for repairs (of all the days to do so they chose our day!!). After a few wrong turns and a total of 4 trips around that Police check-stop on the way up to Genting, we decided to go back to our place and just relax while we waited for the night. When we would begin our barbeque. It was at this time that the bunch asked what happenned to me (because I told JoA that I'd talk to her later and we stopped messaging each other =.=).
At the place, the gang began playing mahjong again while Dong & I got back to the guitar. Soon, I began playing mahjong as well. At nightfall, we decided to start the fire up but since it had begun to rain, we thought that we'd do it on the balcony. After setting everything up, I began to notice how hard it was to start a fire. Yeah, I'd been camping before and I had a cousin who started charcoal fires all the time but I'd always only watched them start the fire so all I had was the theory behind how to start a fire. Putting that into practice was easier said than done because it seemed that I was the most experienced one with fires there. After about an odd half an hour of trying to get the fire to work, Bryan and Dong decided to go on down to see if it would be better to get the thing done in the BBQ pit which was provided and it was. While they were gone, the girls and I were still trying to get the fire started on the balcony. We had resorted to using the gas stoves to start the charcoal burning (sheesh) and it was actually working till Bryan & Shaun came back to say that we should go to the BBQ pit and that was when the gas stoves ran out of gas... Well, we moved everything down to the BBQ pit which was well sheltered from the rain but we were running out of starters for the fire so we had Ivy & Munn Munn go out to buy some starters while we moved everything. I was still unsure how to get the fire started but I was determined to get this thing on the road. I was so embarrassed that I couldn't get the fire started and was pretty irritated that the cold weather there wasn't helping. Ivy & Munn Munn got back with some starters and some tips from a man selling roasted potatoes who had kindly provided them with some wood to help the fire start. With the information and wood, I started to try to get the fire working again. After some antics and about an hour or more later, we had fire. It finally began to work! I was so relieved that we finally got the fire started and that we finally were going to have the barbeque but I was still embarrassed it took me so long. The fun finally began, the girls were doing the cooking while we helped out and played the guitar and sang. Ah, the food was good. The girls did a great job :). By the time we decided to leave it was already way past midnight. We cleared the place up and then went back to our apartment.
We continued playing mahjong and the guitar. Again, I spent nearly all my time with the guitar. That was a truly fun night. I was happy I got the fire started and that we had a great time. It was fun to see everyone have so much fun even after such a tiring day. Ivy seemed to be showing the most emotion :). Well, by 4-ish, we decided that we should get some rest as the next day we would be going back to Bentong because the girls wanted to buy some things from there and we were going to have lunch/breakfast there. So we slept.

Here are some of the photos from the BBQ that night. The one with Bryan & I was funny, looked like we were having a moment. Hahaha.

Tuesday:
Woke up at about 8.30 in the morning to the sound of Dong's alarm. It was My Chemical Romance. I was like "what the fuck, not this and not at this time!" but yeah we had to get up. I was the last one to get ready (cos I just didn't want to get up haha). We took some photos and then we packed up and headed for Bentong. Again it was Bryan and I to one car and the rest in the other. We journeyed down the mountain towards the petrol station at the base of the mountain because Ivy wanted to refuel her car (and Bryan and I wanted to kene some Lassi!). Another fun-filled, interestingly conversed, 40-ish minute drive back to Bentong ensued.
In Bentong, we first went for lunch in this hawker stall which reminded me how some of Klang's hawker stalls looked like in the old days. It wasn't the most hygeine of places but it had that homely flavour. We had what Munn Munn was talking about since Sunday, some fishball noodle thingy. It was good. The prawns were big and fresh and there were like, 5-6 of them in each bowl! I actually gave my prawns away after having 2. The thing is that in Kay Elle, that bowl of noodles wouldn't have been that big, the prawns would have been smaller and been in larger portions and it would probably cost more than RM4.50 (can you believe it?!).
After a great meal, we went back to Bryan's place to return stuff and to rest for a bit. Kristy (Bryan's sister) suggested that we went to the waterfalls around the area and after saying our goodbyes to Bryan's family, we set off for the waterfalls. They were as expected, beautiful, but the waters seemed quite fierce and it was probably because of the rain yesterday. Munn Munn was the first to waddle into the water and Bryan, Dong & Ivy soon followed. I didn't want to follow suit because I was lazy to get out of my sneakers. The funniest thing happenned though, one of Bryan's sandals decided to take a trip down the river (haha). Poor fella had to hop across the tarmacked parking lot back to the car. After taking a few photos, we went back into town to let the girls buy some Bentong ginger (they said it was realy good, yech). After Bryan bought a new pair of sandals (haha), we decided to end the trip with some ice-cream from a famous shop in Bentong (Bryan told me they had Peanut Butter icecream and this had me smiling with glee since lunch). Having enjoyed that, we dropped Bryan back at his place and then we headed back for Kay Elle. The ride back was a bit more sleepy than the ride towards Bentong since we were tired but there were some bends on the freeway which had me at the edge of my seat because of the other stupid drivers around (Ivy was at the wheel, thus I was also worried since the poor girl was also tired). We reached Kay Elle in no time and were invited to have more "tong sui" in Munn Munn's place. After that refreshing drink, I was dropped off at an LRT station and I made my way home.

Here are some of the photos we took before we left Genting and at the waterfall

I must say that I am grateful that I was invited along on this trip and that I had an excellent time with these people. It didn't really matter whether or not we went up to Genting or not because all the fun we had was the time we spent together. I really had a great time and I am looking forward to joining these people for another fun and funny trip someday.
Cheers to the whole lot of you :)

P.S. - This is my longest post :D!

That's Me?

Your Scholastic Strength Is Deep Thinking

You aren't afraid to delve head first into a difficult subject, with mastery as your goal. You are talented at adapting, motivating others, managing resources, and analyzing risk. You should major in: Philosophy Music Theology Art History Foreign language

What Should You Major In?

So I tried it after JoA did. She says it's quite accurate but I say not everything there is true of me. Whether or not you want to believe in things like this is up to you but I'm saying that the answers to those questions they ask can be changed and in changing, they will affect your result. The same person within the span of 2 years might change completely and the professions listed may (or may not) be related to each other. Imagine a person who actually went and doggedly chased after one of the careers in the areas listed for him/her and tried the test and got a different set the next time round. That would seriously attack their security and wonder why they believed this thing at all. This can give you a little bit of insight, just an itsy-bitsy bit to what you might be suitable to go into but seriously, don't take their word for it.