tom yam-my

My mum brought me out for brunch today. We had Tom Yam somewhere near my office. The lady who took our order was nice enough and we were real friendly (polite and smiley). My mother is never unfriendly. The Tom Yam wasn’t great (too ‘asam’) but we finished it anyway. We get done and my mom asks this lady (same lady who took our order) for some ‘tissue’ (you know la Tom Yam, the corners of my mouth were orange, I think). Anyway, the lady points to a box mounted on the wall a few feet away. My mom and I are like ok (so damn full), maybe later on the way out (at this point I’m thinking it would be nice if she could grab a few for us since she was standing close to the box, she doesn’t of course). Two seconds later, she looks for something behind the counter and places it on the table to our left. Voila! A new tissue box! The people eating at the table look up surprised. Ok, whatever. The bitch goes back to the counter and grabs another box, walks right passed us and places it on the table to our right, and again the people eating look up surprised. I roll my eyes up and look at my mum confused. She just shakes her head and tells me she is as shocked as I am. I ask, “why?” My mom doesn’t know. Who knows? I really don’t understand some people, the things they do for no particular reason. It’s so weird. I’m thinking that maybe when my mum asked for tissue, she realized that none of the tables had any. So she decided to place some boxes randomly and assumed that we already had/didn’t need tissue anymore. Or maybe she just wasn’t thinking.

Thoughts On A Monday Morning

Guess what! After all that ‘preparation’ I ended up sitting on my ass at home watching re-re-runs of Beach Retreats on Discovery Travel & Advenchure (Ian wright style). Shoulda gone, shoulda gone (shake head, shake head). Mondays never get better do they? Today is Shannon’s 1 month birthday. She is the cutest baby her daddy ever seen. I nearly bought Wally Lamb’s, I Know This Much Is True just because its in Oprah’s Book Club. Did you watch Oprah Prime Time last night? Damn it. Never have I cried so much while watching TV. It was the episode with John Travolta and Joaquin Phoenix (Ladder 49). Remember Mattie Stepanek? He died in June 2004. He got an official fireman’s funeral. They had his mom on the show. She spoke of his last few days, how much he’d suffered. He held on for 2 whole weeks because his mother didn’t want him to leave her. The moment she said he could ‘rest’, he died. Everyone was crying. Real crying, not just damp eyes, but rolling tears and wiping of eyes. So sad. You know how when you cry during a sad scene in a movie and you try to hide it? A pretend cough or an itchy eye? We (myself, my mom and Meriel) cried so much we didn’t bother hiding it (as if we could). It hurt my throat holding in my tears.


Did you know that going to church gives me such peace? Only recently have I felt this way (the past year or so). I feel it even when I am half asleep on the pew, even when I try so hard to concentrate on the sermon and I still cant, even when I’m there but really I’m not. I realize that this isn’t really the way that I should be attending mass but I am only human after all (and some priests are really not gifted in holding a crowd). I must say Father Nicholas keeps me interested all the time. He is full of passion and it rubs off.

Did you know that you can renew your passport in a day? I remember the days when it took close to a month before you get your new passport (send KL-process-back to KK). Did you know too that you can get an Australian visitors visa within 20 seconds online for only AUD20?

Mental Preparation

Yay! I am going running today at Tun Fuad Park! It’s great and I love it. Working out has never been so exciting. Even when my body just cant take it anymore, I keep going because its so much fun. Just when I think I am about to collapse and my heart is pumping so fast my veins might burst, I tell myself just a little bit more. The sweat running down my face, and back, and chest and legs feels too good for me to stop. The muscles in my thighs about to cramp up and the stitch growing in my stomach wont bring me down. The air is fresh, the scent of the forest and the sound of the jungle bugs; so peaceful and relaxing. I keep coming back, three times a week, asking for more. The hills are extra special. The wonderful feeling upon reaching the top, you think you’re going to die and whaddya know, the downhill slope is there to accelerate you back to life. Once the running is all over, I have yet another fun event waiting for me. Crunches. They are great. You know your tummy is doing the work when every other feeling is numbed by the ache round the center of your belly. Yay! I can’t wait. It’s going to be great.

Jewel

Jewel by Brett Lott. I got this book at Pay Less Books for RM6. It has a place in Oprah’s Book Club (for all you Oprah fans). Even after putting the book down for a break, I felt like the book was alive around me; the story was still going on. I could feel it, the lives of the characters so vivid. Its like the story was happening in real time somewhere but I couldn’t see it, just feel it. The characters (the Hilburn family) felt like real people. No one that I knew, but I just felt like their story was real. So real. Their lives followed me wherever I went; the feeling was quite amazing. Jewel is set between 1940 and 1960. The epilogue is set in 1984. Brett Lott writes like a woman, I love it. He seems to know exactly how a woman feels. Jewel is an amazing story of one woman’s life. The story of her husband and her children and one very special child (a ‘Mongolian Idiot’) that is God’s way of smiling down on their family. I admire Jewel for her courage, faith, strength and determination to make things work for her family, with the help and support she sometimes got from her children and husband. The story is true to life.

I enjoy reading books that follow closely the lives of people, the hardships they have had to go through and burdens they have had to carry. I am motivated by their success to rise above it all and their ability at the end to look back and see just how much they have learned and achieved and loved and lost. No regrets. Reading is an escape for me. When work gives me no sense of achievement, when the only content in a paper worth reading is the horoscope, everything else is too depressing, when I realize that most people don’t give a shit about each other, when there is nothing on tv because Astro sucks, when my family isn’t exactly annoying but I just need my time alone, when I feel closer to the people in the pages than real people around me, when it’s ‘bulan tua’ and I am broke, when I think of the human race and how shallow, materialistic and superficial we are becoming, when I wish I could just inject evil people with love, when I wish I had my dream job, when I wish I knew what my dream job is, when I wish I was not such a chicken shit, when I wish I have more self-confidence, when I wish I had narrow hips and longer legs, when I wish I could find the perfect hairstyle for me. The list goes on. I like happy endings. It doesn’t mean that no one can die/be heartbroken/suffer etc (that would be plain boring). I just need a little note in the end telling me that even though all that shit (death, heartbreak, suffering) had to happen, they got over it, know what I mean? I know it’s pathetic. I need the encouragement that is all. It sounds depressing I’m sure, but really I’m not depressed. Just been thinking that’s all.

All I want is to be happy. I’m sure that is all everyone really wants. We are always looking at the people around us and we see the ways that they make our lives unhappy/difficult. It’s so hard to look in the mirror and see that our happiness is in our own hands. Things happen to us for a reason. It is not important ‘what’ happens to us but ‘how’ we deal with the cards that we have been dealt. I feel like I have been handed pretty good cards so I guess there is a lot that I cannot understand. Even so, I think we have to be determined to help ourselves. No wallowing in self-pity. You can’t change other people but you can change yourself. That is why I admire Jewel Hilburn so much. She was one determined woman and she got everything she wanted. As determined as she was though, she never let herself be blinded. She always took the time to stop and look to make sure that she wasn’t fighting for something she didn’t need. She really is an amazing woman. I believe in finding a balance in everything. I don’t believe in extremes. I believe in the power of God and prayer and faith. Above all, I believe in love. So to all of you who are reading this, I LOVE YOU! Drama queen oh drama queen.