ugh. talentless!

*courtesy of the excellent xkcd.com



This week has been as fascinating as a piece of string. Apart from placing an online order for slogan tees and a half-hearted bidding attempt for a Chanel lambskin purse at eBay, I gave up the wondrous world of internet shopping. I'm old school, I like touching my potential purchases. Izzy has a theory that even though women exclaim over the ugliest handbag/shoes/pants in the universe, they still can't help but touch them as if feeling it up validates its existence as the ugliest handbag/shoes/pants in the world. He probably has a point.

One of the truly annoying things about living in Brunei is the payday traffic jam. I'm like whatdafuckwhyiseveryoneparkedatdabanktoday then of course, it hits me. It's time to hide at home until the first half of everyone's paycheck has well and truly been spent.

I wish I could write a rambling random good for nothing post that ends up somewhat interesting but really, I feel talentless at the moment. I read Fei's post the other day about the si-pandai attitude of some bloggers who die-die must be unique. Aiyo. Well you don't need to scour the web for those characters. Frankly I'm tired of people. All I want to do is go somewhere I don't have to make eye contact with anyone unless they serve me food.

A kingdom for a surfboard!

hati ini

Hello. We were a self-fulfilling prophecy, we were.

Loy Krathong

The thing that struck me most about the Loy Krathong last Saturday was the air of reverence among the people who gathered on the Damuan river's edge. Seeing these floats of incense,candles and flowers twinkling merrily on the moonlit river was just magic.

There were many Thai and Chinese people who took part in the annual festival and I have to admit, it shamed me a little to be so ignorant of this tradition that takes place right here at home. While there were heaps of people congregating around the area, it wasn't a noisy, nasty mass of humanity one would normally associate with public festivals. Fei and I wandered round the well-wishers taking pictures as discreetly as possible. A few of the floats burned down, having collided with each other on the river. It tickled me to see that some people also stuck dollar notes in their floats - hopes for prosperity, I can only assume.

We bought a float of our own from the Thai vendors who made the floats with fresh flowers on the spot. Fei and I said our wishes before carefully placing the float of pandan leaves, chrysanthemums, incense and a lone candle on the lapping shore. It was a Kodak moment; I am happy to say that our wishes were carried along splendidly by the current before it joined the other floats as another bright speck of light in the distance.

Compilation of Stupid Lines and Monkeys

The oft-encountered lines I hear when I'm out on the field:

At an event that has to be out on front page the next day: "I'll give you the press release next week" (Hey, welcome to class Basic Lack of Common Sense 101)

Someone died and made them Chief Editor: "I want this story on the front or third page"

A loquacious senior official enthusiastically speaking on a subject only to suddenly be struck dumb when I attempt to confirm their identity: "Uh...no need for names lah. No need to mention where I'm from lah" (After furiously jotting down 3 pages worth of facts and quotes)

Recently a bigwig told me, "You can add your own viewpoint to this story too" (Obviously people have no idea what OBJECTIVE REPORTING means)

And the frequent: "I want to see the entire draft before you publish your story" (Do you pay my frigging salary? Am I your bloody public relations officer?)

Or how about: "We expect you to do a good writeup for our company. We want at least three stories" (Again, do you pay my bills?)

Granted, there are circumstances where I have to be a corporate whore but all the above just does nothing for me except an difficult exercise in tact and possible high blood pressure before I hit 30. I am sick to death of the ignorance and frankly speaking, arrogance of these white-collar, paper-pushing, 9-5, senior-management-type officers. I just get so friggin' mad, y'know. Yet we still need to pander and indulge them in their delusions of grandeur.

It's a young industry. The masses require an education. Boy, do they require an education.

Welcome to a day in my world. And that's not even a particularly tough day.

zzzzz...??

so i couldn't sleep again tonight. i had my daily dose of Law and Order, a movie from Anna's collection, and my meal of the day. as you can see, i haven't done much today. i did get some reading done yesterday, and i'm letting the ideas cultivate in my head before i start on my paper. uhhmm. very accomplished indeed.

as of now, i don't know or care what day it is anymore. because my waking hours are so intermingled and consist of mostly night hours, i've given up keeping track of what day it is and what it signifies. my only target is saturday - when i need to clean up and prepare for civilization, and sunday - when humans decide to inhabit this town again. holidays are really bad for me. i turn nocturnal and sloth-like. my name is now sloth. sloth. sloth!

as i was saying, i couldn't sleep. by chance, i remembered people i used to have fun with seemingly eons ago. time sure flies in a new environment. i didn't realize it but i had forgotten the blog addresses of people i used to keep daily tabs on. thankgoodness for my attention on froufrou, i had a list to refer conveniently from: kambo, qin, SY, low&farah, eric. i also looked up qammie. well, as expected, some blogs were dead. a few were alive and kicking. its just nice to be able to see proof of life and existence of people i associate with. i'm just sorry for having such a short attention span (relative) that i forgot to keep up with the tabs. being international definitely means having lotsa area to cover.

its nice to see my friends flourish and grow in their respective environments. even though we hardly contact each other, we check up every now and then. the click is still there. its just the time and attention given that has shifted. its all ok. we need our own space to work with for now.

i wish that i could sleep the days away. i definitely need to plan my free time to include company in the future. don't think i could waste these precious days thinking inwards. carpe diem!

that is I

Too many times I've encountered tactless men and women who have questioned my racial background and automatically judged me by how I look/dress/speak like identity is that easy to dissect and inspect. Cina, Melayu, siapa sahaja kamu? I pretend to be whoever fits my purpose best - pending situation.

Too many times people forget that I am also the other when they bitch and moan about how lazy/delinquent/hopeless/disgusting the other race is. I've gotten over being frustrated about the racism and deliberate insults; I'm trying out this whole bigger-man thing and it feels good to pretend I'm better than bigots when I'm in fact, thinking about the 101 ways to publicly humiliate them.

Underneath this yellow skin and large eyes lies just another average person with a not so average upbringing. I think it's great that I've seen the best and worst of both worlds and I think it's fantastic I get to eavesdrop on people when they think I don't understand a word they're jabbering on in Malay/Cantonese/Hakka/Mandarin then I turn around and shock them when I reply in their language. (Ah hah! So much for badmouthing a total stranger) But most of all, I think it's fucking awesome to be a sino/melayu.

The kids at ugama school (that's religious school but imho it's an oxymoron) were the worst. Savage little jungle monsters, but children are cruel and they don't know any better. It's the people I meet these days who whip out a question point blank and shoot me in the face with remarkably stupid remarks. I don't know where it all came from because I'm betting at least 75% of these people are educated and have been living in a multiracial society their whole lives.

I swing between the two polarities because that's what I do best. It's not so bad being either. Or in my case, both.

I don't even know where this rant came from but I suppose identity has always been an issue that I deal with daily. So if it's not a biggie for me, why should it be for anyone else?

the oyster backyard or something like that...

There's a wide wide space out there that I want to run around in, fly over, wade through, swim under, call my own, get lost in, carve a spot, fight for, let go of and live in. Of course everything depends on the timing and the finances and all the practical nitty-gritty side of life that I truly detest but can't avoid.

Everything has been one big blur of rainy days and bland bland bland itineraries. But that's alright because I'm on a much coveted holiday. I've had a few workmates telling me they hate me, albeit very listlessly but subbing/writing/reading billions of articles can break the spirit sometimes (peace, friends!).

It's been lovely, I managed to spend my days
pigging out on jalapeno flavoured chips,
drinking soda till even my pee turns fizzy,
napping at various intervals of the day,
watching heaps of cable,
ooh'ing and aah'ing over previously undiscovered beaches, and
going on roadtrips to nowhere with him.

I haven't really decided what I'll be doing with the rest of my life just yet. I mean, I have trouble choosing which pizza to have, what more my life? Pepperoni or the hawaiian? Definitely the bbq. There's just so many things I'd like to try out but there's this nagging voice in my head that goes, you gotta save you gotta plan ahead you gotta *drowns voice out with a Daft Punk track* I don't know how I'm supposed to just go through the motions and settle down and just be.

No matter how much I try to fit into the mainstream, I somehow end up being the unconventional one, the odd one out and it used to bother me so much. But hey, my Fido Dido bookmark wisely pontificates: Normal is relative. I could try writing horoscopes for the local papers. Or own a cotton candy stall.

Either way, my lack of direction is bugging the shit out of me.

is it too much to ask?

This is not a confession. This is just me trying to not keep all this anger inside. There is no way for me to express it and it's ironic; I write for a living yet I can't find it in me to tell anyone how I feel. How do you transcribe so much rage into 400 words or more? How do you verbalize this sense of injustice and disappointment into a catchy paragraph?

I can't seem to strike a balance between the spectrum. It's either a) people get upset because I show that I'm upset or b) I keep it in and then someone tells me I should vent. There's no pleasing anyone. Thing is, I've kept it all in for so long I don't remember how to do anything else anymore.

Shit.
I was just beginning to be happy.

His literary effort.

Fun
by Izzy


Fun is being able to go to work barenaked.

i have been

its been awhile. i've been hanging around, bumming around, munching through our fridge, sleeping like a brick, having vivid dreams, talking to myself, typing my life away, wishing i had more brain cells, wearing mismatched socks, splashing water all over the bathroom floor unintentionally, getting papercuts, reading cultures, getting provoked by people's thoughts, shivering in the cold, waking up in the dark, laughing hard, living hard.

now, all i want is magical aces for all courses, good friends, tight housekeeping, automatic self hygiene and wunnerful aesthetic and intricate health.

I wannabe special

Truthful thought number 1: I want to take off my body and hang it up on a coat rack. Slide my skin off for one day and see where the moonsoon gusts take me. Maybe my soul could recognize other long-gone souls and ask them where they've been, what they've seen.

Truthful thought number 2: There was a boy in school that I used to like a lot. He was tall, very fair and had a lackadaisal approach to life that fascinated me. He broke my heart. I tried to break his jaw.

Truthful thought number 3: I remember being a ten year old practising how to smile in front of a mirror so that I'd be able to pose well in a photograph. I hate smiling too widely because I end up looking like a gummy grinner. But if you see me in a photo smiling with my mouth closed, you'd know I'm just faking being happy.

To the faithful

October has been an interesting month, if the following hodge-podge jumble of events are anything to go by. My birthday party came and went. Flew around the Kalimantan coastline in a chopper in a stinky coverall and back. Received a giant okra from an organic produce distributor. Had a magnificent Raya at home.

One of my interviewees insisted on letting me try out one of his fresh organically grown vegetables. He said they were grown on virgin soil, without chemical fertilizers and pesticides and "will shock you for sure". I was a bit puzzled at his logic but then he brandished an okra the size of a small dagger in front of my nose. I had a hard time trying not to burst into a belly laugh at the ridiculous scene. It was like a bad play. Plus a ginormous okra.



Fei and I scurried around the office proudly showing off my newly acquired vegetables. Most were rather impressed/intimidated by the size of the okra while some barely deigned to glance at it. Killjoys. I was absurdly happy with my pumpkin and okra. But that's maybe because it's one of the more memorable gifts I've ever received while on the job.

Then it was almost time to start dusting our fedoras and feather boas for the much anticipated joint birthday party. Guests received a verbal invite or this notice in their mail but some people unashamedly crashed the party anyway *grumble*



Some party people requested that I keep the photos private so the more interesting pictures will be available on request *giggle* Suffice to say, nearly everyone went to great lengths to dress up for it. Every pimp and hoe looked fantastic and some really immersed themselves in the role.

We had a geisha with neon blue eyeshadow, scarlet lips and a 5 o' clock shadow, a very possessive mama-san and her brood of disreputable hoes, a pimp who wore tons and tons of gold and a bodyguard with tatooed knuckles.

I loike.

There was an auction as well. We put some people up for bidding and the successful buyer will receive an hour's worth of grovelling/foot massage/coffee making/anything your heart desires in the office. Who knew auctions could turn into such a bloodbath. F-u-n. We raised almost $2,000 for a children's charity fund. Yeah, do it for the kids alright.



There's the 2 kg mudcake we devoured. Neo in the background looks pretty pleased with himself. Possibly because he was among the top 5 most expensive personal slave to be auctioned off that night.

voice.

This is what drives me to write.