A Night Out

It's been ages since I last went clubbing. I'm not the type who would fork out a large sum of money every weekend to dance and drink but once in a blue moon, it's a really nice feeling to let down the hair a little and just enjoy myself. Last night was Ladies' Night in Zouk and since Jo and I have been itching to go clubbing weeks ago, and also since Rachel's gonna move to her aunt's place thus revoking her full freedom, the 3 of us including Desree decided to go have fun and dance out hearts out.

Rachel wasn't sure of the way to Zouk. Thus, I ended up being the driver of the night, driving Rach's car down to KL even though it's been ages since I last drove down there. With some intuition and some pre-journey direction from my bf, I finally got us to Zouk safe and soundly. Rach, Desree and I enter the club first cause Jo was with her bf's brother at some Lampe Berger meeting. After Jo met up with us, we waited a little while for the dance floor to fill up before we started shaking out booties to our hearts' content. It was fun, it was wild, it was everything exciting. It's really been ages and ages ago since I last dance til my legs cramped up, literally. Unfortunately, Jo was not really in the mood because she was sleepy and tired at the same time. No matter how much we tried to get her in the mood to enjoy and dance with us, she was just standing there, barely moving most of the time.

There was one point of time when Desree and Rach wanted to get a drink while Jo and I remained in the dance floor. Jo was still barely moving and I was barely moving myself either because of leg cramp. After a while, I started dancing again and all of a sudden, a b**** just pushed us apart and danced in between us, as if we're invisible. It did not help that her hair was freaking long and she kept turning and turning around and her hair kept hitting my face. Jo was pretty pissed off with her and started dancing and pushing her around while I kept avoiding getting my toes stepped from that b****. Before I knew it, the bass was right behind my back and I couldn't move anywhere else because it was just so crowded. And the b*** kept moving towards me because her girl friend just had to choose to stand in front of me.

As I try my best to avoid her, I kept bumping into a Nigerian/African guy who was standing on my right. I guess he must have somehow misinterpreted the accident cause when I stepped a distance away from him, he smiled at me and gesture with his hand for me to stand beside him again. I knew at that moment that if I was naive, went and stood beside him and continued dancing, he will take it as a sign that I agreed for him to hit on me. So I declined while smiling back at him. I may have overanalyse the brief situation but prevention is better than cure. Or, maybe I'm just trying to flatter myself to think that someone would hit on me while I'm out clubbing with my friends. Hehe...there's even a possibility that I'm testing to see if I have some level of attractiveness in me that will catch a guy's attention. But then again, with majority of the ladies there dressing outrageously sexy, I don't think I will stand a chance.

Overall, the night was fun. I really got to dance my heart out. And I really enjoyed dancing with Rach and Desree. I was just a little upset with that b**** that spoiled the end of my night. Ok, I was really pissed off with the b**** but one small insignificant person did not spoil my night after all.

Never Judge A Book By Its Cover

Everybody must have heard of the saying 'never judge a book by its cover' at least a gazillion times before. And even though it was relentlessly ingrained into our minds not to judge a person by the first impression, we still tend to do so because it's just part of our nature. We tend to avoid people who gave us a bad first impression. As for those who gave us a rather good first impression, we would like to get to know them better. I read about a research done on first impressions (can't remember where I read it before) and the researchers found out that we tend to have good impressions on people who are good looking, neat, dress well and anything positive that we can find about that person. However, if we feel that a person gave us negative first impressions, we would do our best to avoid that person, shunning him/her even before we got to know that person well.

Nobody could escape saying that they've never judged a book by its cover before. I don't deny the fact that I sometimes do tend to trust my first impression on a person rather than getting to know that person well enough to pass judgement on him/her. I've always avoided getting to know guys from my hostel because my first impression towards them were not positive. I was stereotyping them, being judgemental and trusting my first impression rather than giving myself a chance to get to know them better. I tend to shun them, prefering my own company most of the time. But mixing around with Jo made me see a better picture of those guys in my hostel.

I was rather apprehensive hanging out with the guys in the first place because of the feelings of prejudice and stereotype in me, which I'm not proud to announce. But after hanging out with them for a few weeks now, I find my apprehension towards them, my prejudice towards them, my stereotyping towards them, slowly dissolving into the thin air because the guys are actually really nice people. Even though their skin is darker than mine or their dressing is typically 'Ah Beng', they are actually really, really smart guys who are doing courses that even I wouldn't dare dream of doing. They are also very caring people, always asking me how am I when they found out that I was sick for a whole week. And frankly, hanging out with them do make me laugh more often these days. I find myself not wallowing in self-pity so much these days and I found myself slowly accepting the reality that Granny's not here anymore even though it feels surreal at times.

But most importantly, by following the saying 'never judge a book by its cover', I found myself much happier these days amid the stressful situation that I face everyday in the college. =)

Being Irresponsible

"You come in tomorrow just in case la"

That's the very words I saw in the SMS he sent me. He happens to be a friend of mine, who happens to be the president of the club and he is currently not doing a very good job as a president, in fact, he has not been doing anything that he's suppose to do, instead pushing all the responsibilities for me to do just because I'm his vice.

We were suppose to have a meeting with the head of department tomorrow to discuss about our reluctance to merge the club with the diploma students and why it's utterly impossible to do so at the same time. I've been sick for the past couple of days, am still sick as I'm typing away on my keyboard right now. He was suppose to find out the time we were to meet the head from our club advisor by evening. He sent me a message in the afternoon saying that the advisor's unsure of the time to meet with the head tomorrow and said he'll keep me updated. By 8pm, he still hasn't updated me about anything and so I messaged him asking if it's still on. He replied saying that our advisor didn't tell him anything. And that got my mind reeling. If the advisor didn't tell him anything, isn't it his duty to question her or remind her just in case she forgets? If I'm able to do that; asking my advisors issues concerning the club or reminding her to do something for the club, when he's not around at all, why can't he do the same? After all, he's the president and have full authority to execute any plans for the club without anyone questioning him. Why did he have to wait until after dinner time to call and ask our advisor about the time for the meeting? Doesn't he knows that she doesn't like to be disturbed unless necessary when she's at home since she has so little time to relax these days? I couldn't help feeling that the least he could do was to be a little more understanding about her situation and also instead of being lazy and dragging his feet, try to ask her for a confirmation of the time whenever she's free, just in case she forgets.

I'm thinking that if I did not ask him to ask our advisor if it's still on tomorrow, he would insist that I still come to college and find out then if the meeting's on. I could have easily picked up the phone, called our advisor and ask her instead but I choose not to. Why? Cause it's time for him to do some of his job. And since the meeting's off, I might be coming for absolutely no reason at all. I don't even have any classes tomorrow and I had to come in for a meeting that wouldn't even be on?! Let's see if he would do that on a day that he doesn't have class. And I already know the answer to that. He'll probably said that he's busy or he doesn't even have class on that day. I keep asking myself this: Why am I so bloody nice?!

I really don't like complaining about him to others but seriously, he's too besotted with his darling girlfriend to do a proper job as a president. When the orientation was suppose to be on, he's suppose to do all the planning for it with me assisting him. But no, that's not what happened. He asked me how's the planning for the orientation going on and I went, "WHAT?!" Inside me, I kept thinking that it's not my job, it's his! And frankly, he didn't tell me any of his plans for the orientation either. So how am I suppose to assist him in the first place? Take the other instance when we were having a meeting in a class and later on we had to adjourned our meeting outside the classroom. There were still details to map out and discuss about. He left his bag with us, told us he had to go check out something in the radio studio and didn't come back until much later. And when he did, he only came back and sat around for less than 5 minutes and then he's off to the studio again. I was conducting the meeting the whole time he wasn't there. Even after we're finished with the meeting, he's not back yet and I was kind enough to bring the bag down to the studio for him. There were so many things that he's suppose to do as a president but didn't. Instead, he asked others to do it for him ie getting a friend to get the constitution of the club from our ex president, asking that same friend to announce that orientation's cancelled, etc. I even had to planned a date to meet up with our advisor a few weeks back and asked everybody if they can attend it. I planned the date for the meeting, not him. I planned it and asked him to ask our advisor if she's free that day in the afternoon. He did jackshit on planning for the meeting. In fact, I'm rather sure he didn't even think of having meetings.

Sigh...I'm really sick of all this so-called bitching from my side. He's my friend, a good friend to boot. But he has changed tremendously ever since his girl got back for Ozzy and I don't like that change a bit since it's turning him into an irresponsible person who sits around on his lazy bum doing nothing while expecting everybody to do things at his bidding. And I'm not the only one who's not happy about this change. All of us in the group doesn't like the change one bit and so far, we're just too polite to say anything right into his face because he's still our friend and we don't want any awkward situations between us. Hopefully when the time comes for the bitching session, which our advisor planned on having, he'll be able to receive those criticism and not keep it inside him even after the session. *groans* I hate confrontations. >_<

I Can't Stand Her Anymore

I'm referring to my housemate,a 19 year old girl who also happens to be a genius when it comes to her studies. But frankly, her attitude towards housekeeping leaves a lot of room for improvement.

She only cares for her own hygiene and the cleanliness of her things but anything that has to do with the flat, she just plain ignore. Take for instance the electric kettle provided to each unit of flat from the hostel. Before I left for my 3 months holidays last year, the kettle was still in tip top condition and was still happily boiling water for everybody's use. But 3 months later when I returned from my holidays, the kettle can't even boil a litre of water anymore. It's easy to conclude that the kettle want bongkers during my holidays but does she even bother to bring it down to the guardroom and report about it? Of course she did....NOT!! She just left it as it is on top of the refrigerator and instead of bringing it down to report it so that our hostel supervisor can get it fix, she rather walk 4 flights of stairs down to the ground floor and use the water dispenser there to fill up her supply of water. One would thought that she would have walked that 4 flights of stairs down to report that the kettle was spoiled but nope, she rather fill up her water bottles rather than report it. I was so mad and fed up with her that rather than reporting it myself, which will result in the kettle getting it fix and she would also get to use it, I went and get myself a new electric kettle that I only I alone will be able to used it. I purposely didn't offer her to use it and guess what she did a week or two later? She bought herself an electric kettle too! Exactly similar to the one that the hostel offers! Can you believe it?!

I'm not being petty here or anything but I'm really fed up with me making sure the place is clean or neat all the time without her help. When my ex-housemates were around, I still have another 2 person to help me clean the place up a little. But now that both of them had moved out, it's only me. And it's no use telling her or asking her to help cause she wouldn't. Asking her to throw the rubbish bag out everytime it's full is already a chore to her, asking her to help clean the place? I think she rather disappear for a few hours rather than sweep or mop the place up. There were several times when I saw the rubbish bin full and didn't want to throw it out because I want to see if she would. Instead of tying up the edges of the bag and throw it away, she rather force her rubbish into the bin that is obvious very full and couldn't contain anymore rubbish. And the times when the lights went off or the light bulb just blew. She can't even be bothered to fill in the maintenance form so that the hostel supervisor can do something about it. I had to do it each time. She's just so bloody lazy to do anything for the goodness of others who's living in the same flat as she is. Or maybe she only cares about herself. When she spill water on the table, she doesn't bother to wipe it dry, leaving puddles of water on the table.

For someone who has a full scholarship from the Government, she sure has a bad attitude in housekeeping. I find her selfish. Oh, did I even mention the way she hoards the whole fridge with only her stuff? We have this unspoken rule where we have a certain amount of space in the fridge and we don't leave our stuff in other people's space unless we get their permission first. If she's able to abide to this 'rule' when my 2 ex-housemates were around, I simply don't understand why she couldn't continue doing it after they moved out. I have quite a lot of stuff my self in the fridge and cabinets but you don't see me leaving my food stuff all over everybody's space in the house. And she kept cramming her stuff into my space and I kept shifting her stuff to her own space. Argh!!!!

15th March 2005

I'm Struggling

It's been over 3 weeks since Granny passed away but it seemed like to me like she's gone for a very long time now. I'm slowly but surely getting better as each day passes by. Of course there are times when I still cry thinking about her but it had begun to cease day by day and now, I try to store every good memory I had of her in me so that sometimes, I can take them all out and smile instead of cry when I think of her again. I have a picture of her, Mum and I when I was three and everytime I look at it, I find myself smiling slowly instead of breaking down and cry.
Eventhough I'm slowly getting over her death, I still find myself struggling everyday to finish my required readings for the all 3 of my units. I find them extra dry compared to last year and whenever I think of the assignments that we had to finish, I shudder. My confidence in me and my studies, confidence about the fact that I'm good in my studies are slowly breaking down, dissolving into nothingness. All my insecurities, worries and low self-esteem are slowly seeping into my life. I find myself being ultra sensitive at times towards my friends actions or words eventhough I know deep down inside that it's actually only a small matter. I find myself constantly worrying if I've offended any of my friends and if they'll desert me or start ignoring. At the rate I'm going, I'm really afraid that I'll go back to the old me. The me who was a wallflower. The me who was submissive to everybody. The me who everybody can push around easily. The me who constantly wants to please everybody to be accepted.

The last couple of years, I've changed quite a bit. I may be quiet at times or at the beginning when I first get to know people but those who know me well would testify without hesistation that I can be loud and fiesty and out going if I want to. I thought that I had finally gotten rid of the old me but I guess I was wrong. She was hiding around behind the new me, lurking, waiting for the right time to come out. I'm struggling behind closed doors right now. Struggling to get a hold of myself. Struggling to stay the way I am now. Struggling to improve myself. Struggling in my studies. In short, I'm just struggling for everything.

I did not tell anybody that I'm struggling because I do not want to burden anybody. If somebody shows me kindness, no matter how tiny that act is, I'm really touched and happy. But how often do one come across kindness? Thus, I'm slowly sinking into depression that I don't even understand and I'm struggling against it. I do not want to be depress! It's depressing to be depress. There are so many things that I want to accomplish. There are people who depends on me, namely my Mum. Yet, even with this knowledge, I find myself wishing that I could die. Then I would no longer have any worries or problems. But then again, death doesn't solve everything. Death is not the solution to everything. How often have I said that to my friends I do not know. But my own words keep haunting me that eventhough I wished for death to fall upon me, there's still a rational side of me, a small little voice that's telling me to be strong, that everything will be all right.

Somebody...anybody...please help me........

4th March 2005

A Time Of Grief

I have not blog for ages. But then, there’s a fairly reasonable reason for it. First off, for those who do not know, I’d been working during the holidays in Uncle Andrew’s company as an administrative clerk. Pay’s pretty good considering that I’m just a clerk but then, I guess that’s the perks of being the boss’s niece. Everyday after work, I was just too darn tired to do anything. All I did when I reached home were to have my dinner, take my bath, sit around watching tv for an hour or two and then I’m off to bed. Travelling to and fro Penang everyday is very, very tiring. Especially more so during peak hours.

Another reason why I’ve not been online and blogging was my Granny. Granny’s gotten pretty sick for the past 1 or 2 years and somewhere in October or November last year, she was even admitted to the hospital for a couple of days because her sugar level dropped drastically one day. It gave us all a big scare, especially me in KL cause I couldn’t see her at all and I didn’t know how she was doing. Thank goodness at that time, she got over it and was back to normal within a week. After that scare, I started to prepare myself that she won’t be with us for long. But deep inside me, I was still praying that she’d be able to last long enough to witness my graduation. But no matter how hard I prayed, God just didn’t want to answer that prayer cause two weeks ago, 21st February to be exact, she was taken away from us forever.

Before Granny got admitted into the hospital recently, I was spending most of my free time and weekends with her and mum. Taking them out for meals, taking them out to shop for Chinese New Year stuff, basically just spending all my time with her. I brought them to the new Secret Recipe outlet in Autocity because Granny’s never been there before. And even though she complained that it was expensive, it was worth spending my money there because she was enjoying her food and digging into her food happily.

Granny was admitted into the hospital a week before CNY. I was on my way back home from work on a Wednesday when Mum called and said that she’s sending Granny to the hospital. When I met up with Mum in the hospital half an hour later, she told me that she found Granny gasping for air when she reached home after work and that Granny was disorientated and could barely recognise her. When the doctor came out from the emergency room, he promptly informed us that Granny’s heart was beating pretty weakly and that caused water to fill her lungs. Thus, the gasping for air. He told us that she needs to be admitted into the ICU so that they can monitor her condition closely. Surprisingly, she got better that night and the next day, she was up and about even though she still has to use the oxygen mask to help her breath. I spend several hours accompanying her during the day and she was talking to me, gossiping about people. Later that night, Mum and I were there to accompany her and we were even joking bout stuff. When two of my cousin sisters came, she can even rebuke what they said and made all of us laugh.

Unfortunately, from the third day onwards, her condition deteriorates rapidly and caught us all unprepared. She didn’t want to wake up or even bother to open her eyes when we went to visit her. We tried feeding her and she will open her mouth for us to feed her food but she still refuse to open her eyes. She just continued sleeping and Mum and I brushed it off that she was very tired for not sleeping well for the past two nights. But that night, alarm bells rang in my head when I noticed that she’s not moving her right limbs but I brushed it off as being paranoid. What I suspected came true on the fourth day of her admission. I asked Mum to question the doctor during his morning visits and after sending her for CT scan, they confirmed that she had a stroke because there were brain clots on the left side of her brain. My heart constricted badly when I heard the news but Mum and I ploughed on bravely. There was even a physiotherapist who came and taught us how to exercise her limbs and we diligently moved and exercised her limbs throughout the day.

On the fifth day in the morning when Mum went to the hospital to see Granny, Granny’s blood pressure dropped all of a sudden and her oxygen saturation in the body dropped to a low level of 60% and continued dropping. The doctor came and said that she wouldn’t last long and asked if Mum wanted to bring her home since old, Chinese tradition depicts that old people rather die at home than in the hospital. After questioning all the options, Mum finally decided to send Granny home so that she could passed away peacefully cause that’s what Granny really wants. However, when she got home, instead of her condition deteriorating, it improved. Yes, she was still having difficulty breathing and all, but her right limbs that she couldn’t move at all was beginning to move a lot. And she got stronger as the day passes by without food, oxygen or drip. At the end of the day, we decided to send her back to the hospital after she had a look at everybody who rushed back to see her thinking it was her last day.

Granny spent the next two weeks or so in the hospital before Mum transferred her to an old folk’s home because there was nothing much to do for her except to give nursing care. We can’t send her back home because Mum’s working and I’m here in KL studying. Basically, there’s no one at home to make sure she’s ok or give her any care. That’s the disadvantage of having an only child. Anyway, when she was discharged from the hospital and admitted into the home, her condition was improving and we expected her to hold on for a couple more months. But on the third day in the home, she just took one last breath and left us forever. When I received the news of her death, I didn’t break down and cried like I expected but rather, I felt numb all over. I was incapable of crying then, I couldn’t feel anything except for numbness, I was restless, I was basically just in a state of shock for the whole night. The only thing that I was grateful and happy was the fact that Granny passed away in peace. Without pain and discomfort. It’s just one last breath and ‘bye bye world’.

When I got home and saw her lying in the casket looking so peaceful, I finally broke down and cried. At the same time, I thank God that He made sure that she was at peace when He decided to take her away from us. The rest of the week until Granny’s funeral passed in front of me in a state of blurness. I barely ate anything and I was tired everyday, not from crying but from staying up late every night sitting beside Granny’s casket and burning joss paper. I was also tired and irritated, not to mention frustrated with some of my aunts who had nothing better to do than to gossip and create all kinds of politics and arguments during that week. As if Mum and I do not have enough in our hands to handle, we had to act as peacemakers and sometimes, we ended up being the villain in their ‘war’.

After Granny’s funeral, after everyone left and only Mum and I were at home, I can’t help feeling at how quiet the house is and in a way, how lonely it is. When Granny’s around, she’ll always on the tv loudly or else, she’ll be gossiping or complaining about someone. Or if she went to bed early, I can always hear her bed creak loudly whenever she turns even though I’m out in the living room. All of a sudden, I just miss her so much, so dearly that it hurts deep inside and I just start to rebuke myself for the times when I was rude to her, for the times when I answered back whenever she reprimand me, for the times when I was impatient with her, for the times when I argued with her, for the times when I showed my disrespect towards her…I knew that it was no use for me to regret about the things I’ve done and I knew that no matter how naughty I was, she’ll still always forgive me and continued loving me. Yet, I wished I could turn back time and treat her a little better than before. That is why whenever somebody asked me how am I regarding Granny’s death, I always tell them that at least, I did spend all my free time accompanying her, taking her out when I was back home or else, there would be an even bigger guilt and regret in me now.

I wouldn’t say that I’ve stopped crying or that it doesn’t hurt anymore whenever I talked or think about Granny. It still hurts a lot and I still cry if I’m alone, but I’ve slowly accepted the fact that the next time I’m home, I won’t be able to see Granny anymore or take her out for her favourite food. I’m still grieving over her death but time is slowly healing my heart…time…that’s what I need…