Like a Phoenix that rises from the ashes...

YES. I HAVE RETURNED.

I have to be honest.

Firstly, I had always wanted to use that phoenix metaphor in conversation or in writing :) .

Secondly, I didn't actually plan to stop blogging, it just sort of happened. I started work at Kinokuniya, and all of a sudden it was the end of 2009 and I hadn't posted a single blog post since the end of August. So maybe I can blame it Kino :) .

Oh, hold on. I can blame it on Kino. Now I remember the reason I stopped blogging was because I didn't want my superiors to know what I really felt about them and the bureaucracy at the outlet. I remember always reading about those articles about employees being fired from their jobs because of the stuff they post online. So I decided to be a good, diligent employee and completely separate my professional life from my personal. Which resulted in the utter abandonment of this unfortunate blog. Which was a pity, because I had a lot of 'interesting' experiences while working there. Maybe if I remember I'll blog about them.

I feel old in the AUP. Almost all of my seniors were born in 1991, making me older than them. And almost my entire ENL101 class just finished their SPM, which made me realise that it had been two years since I collected my own SPM results o.O . And most of them are still 17, which made realize, not for the first time, that I would be 20 this year *shudders*. The good thing is that my birthday is in November, so I still qualify as a 19 year old. It's not really the fact I'm turning 20, but more to do with that I don't feel like an adult at all yet. Even though I can legally smoke, drink and drive without getting arrested. But done separately, of course.

And I plan to get a camera! Honestly, life in university has changed me. I was looking through some Facebook albums the other day, and it made me realise that I want to keep a visual record of my life. And also I realised that I'm getting a little forgetful @.@ . Another cause for self-pitying depression.

So does anyone have any recommendations for affordable, yet good quality, cameras? Please be reminded that you are dealing with someone who doesn't understand fully the concept of pixels, so please use non-technical language. :)

On a side note, does anyone know how to change blogskins? I am so tired of the monotonous blogger blogskin (hey, alliteration!). Again, I don't really know the difference between html and http, so please use non-technical language. :)

Merdeka

I am not a patriotic person. Never have been, probably never will be.

This is Malaysia, after all, where the police force are so corrupt that they would actually ask for bribes.

Where our politicians, our so-called leaders bicker in parliament like kindergarteners and live off the people's taxes.

Where there is supposed freedom of speech, but where respected journalists are imprisoned and peaceful demonstrations are dispersed by tear gas and deemed seditious.

Where there is supposed freedom of religion, but where religious leaders feel that their people are so stupid that they can't even discern between their own teachings and teachings of other religions.

Where the education system is such a mess where students are treated as guinea pigs for the governments innovative experiments.

Where there is supposed to be no racial bias but where scholarships are decided mostly by race.

Where there is ISA. Which is why I should stop writing :)

But yet, I still care for Malaysia.

After all, this is the country where its people can somehow converse in several languages in a single conversation.

This is the country where most people of many races and religions mix and get along well. Most of the time.

This is the country where food is uniquely Malaysian and always delicious.

This is the country that produced the no. 1 in squash and badminton.

This is a country where we can still be connected to the rest of the world through the Internet.

This is a country whose people are fairly prosperous and can sleep peacefully in their beds at night.

This is the country where I have almost all of my family and friends.

I am still not a very patriotic person. Malaysia isn't anywhere near perfect. Very, very, very far, actually. But I couldn't imagine my life and home anywhere else.

Happy 52nd Merdeka, everyone!

The Book of If

So A level results are out! And here is what they look like:

Bio - B(!)
Chem - A
Maths - A
Physics - B

Alright, I know that before results came out I may have said that I would be happy with just passing. Haha. All the bad spots in exams just kept running through my head when I said that.

But I have to be honest. I'm not really that happy about my results. Well, physics is ok, but I was really hoping for better with bio. In fact, the kiasu side of me thinks I should have the subject rechecked and remarked. Sigh. The extremely kiasu side thinks no respectable university would want to give me any kind of scholarship because there are too many people better than me.

I hate to admit it too, but the egotistical side has been slightly bruised, even though it has no business to be. Even worse, how I feel right now is much due to people's perception of me. What will people think when I only got 2A's for my A levels? What will they think when the A I originally got for bio for AS has been downgraded to a second-grade B? I've looked down on others before, what would stop them from looking down on me?

Sigh. It's all just in my head.

I suppose, looking back, there were many things I could have and should have done better. I think if I had worked just a little harder I would have been able to get straight A's. But there's a lot of ifs. It could fill a book. In fact, The Book of If would be the longest ever written. And it would never be finished either.

But now I digress a bit. As I write this now, I'm congratulating some of my friends who did pretty darn well. And I'm truly, genuinely happy for everyone that did well. Being happy for them makes me feel a little better about myself. But there is a small, bitter part of me that wonders, how did they do better than me? But then, I only know how hard I worked. I know I didn't do my best. I think everyone else probably worked pretty damn hard to do well. But in the end, it's only me that's putting myself under this stress. Absolutely no one I know has ever hoped for me to do badly at something. So I'm very thankful to be somehow surrounded by people that are terrifically encouraging of me.

Perhaps with A Levels well and truly a thing of the past, maybe I can go on with my life. I feel like my life has been in some kind of limbo while waiting for my results. If only I did better for bio, I'd be as happy as a clam. If only, right?

Ah well. It'll take a while for me to close that book. It's over and done with. Time to move on. The laidback side of me thinks I'll be ok.

(I still feel like I should send bio for rechecking. Even if it comes back the same result, at least I'll be sure. Or maybe that's just the denial speaking.)

A Few More Hours

That's right, A Level results will be released in just 9 hours! I thought I would be able to prepare myself mentally, emotionally, physically, spiritually and whatever other aspect, but it's been somewhat unsuccessful.

Then I tried to downplay the importance of these results, but then I realised it wouldn't work either. Denial may bring bliss, but it's temporary bliss.

So I guess I'll have to take it as it comes. Nothing else I can do, right?

Except to toss and turn all night and think about what I could have done better.

Sigh. I think it might be a long night.

The Much-Fabled Bukit Tabur

So this morning I finally climbed the much-fabled Bukit Tabur, which I've been wanting to do so for quite a while, along with Alicia, Andrew, Daryl, Elise, Jen Lyn, Phraveen and Vishal. To those who don't know, it's the hill/mountain behind Melawati where people can go hiking. Yes, I know that's a most accurate description.

This was actually my first time hiking/mountain-climbing/jungle-trekking. So this was something completely new for me. Heck, this was probably my first time doing anything this outdoorsy. Well, there was that Gua Tempurung trip in Form 1 (which was quite fun), but that's a whole other story.

I think I seriously underestimated the difficulty of the trail (and probably overestimated my own fitness as well. Haha.) I'm not quite sure which was the most physically taxing; going up the steep, rocky trail which left me an unpleasant combination of slight nausea, mild cramping and numerous stitches in my sides; climbing up and down near vertical rock faces; or descending the slippery, earth-sodden path which made me highly value the flexibility of my knees and ankles. Not to mention I got stung by a bee for the first time. Heh.

Alright, so the experience was long (3 hours 45 minutes), exhausting (the legs ache pretty much everywhere) and quite, quite painful, but I actually really enjoyed the whole thing (not so much the bee sting though). Maybe it's my dormant sense of adventure. Hehe. My Aunty K would be proud.

Next up, Mount Kinabalu! Woot!

That Sneaky Time

It's been more than month since A Levels finished, and it seems that pretty much everyone that finished the same time me has pretty much their futures sewn up. Alright, so perhaps that's a slight exaggeration, but a definite academic course of action seems to be already etched on one's own life plan. People are shooting off to the States, the UK, other unis around the country.

Incidentally, I didn't plan on waiting for my results (just 10 days away!) before making any actual inquiries or applications to university. Somehow it was already exam time before I realised it, and now almost two months has passed and I haven't really done anything for my academic future. Somehow I feel that so many others are able to make things happen for themselves, but I only seem to wait for things to happen to me.

But I manged to tell myself this counter-argument. That the time I spend not applying or inquiring into various universities could be spent for self-discovery instead. Which I find most appealing, because I'm still not entirely decided on what course I want to study. I don't want to rush into studying into some random thing just for the sake of studying. Maybe I could spend the time doing my research, trying out new things, get a job.

The one small hole in that lovely theory is that I haven't done much of those either.

So I guess that leads to my first argument. That I should take action instinctively. Without hesitation or fear of change and/or failure. But I think it's mostly change. My life has been quite so safe and comfortable up to now that maybe I'd rather not change.

But to be honest, it's getting rather boring. So maybe that will galvanise me into action. That and the prospect of my A Levels results (*gasps and shudders simultaneously*).

And then there's driving too. Dammit la. What the hell am I doing with myself?

The Actual Aftermath

I feel a little lethargic. Maybe it's because of the sudden abundance of free time I have now that A levels are done and dusted. Or maybe I was just so used to the stress that I didn't how to get on without it. That sounded both strange and rather sad.

But it felt great not to no longer have the pressure of studying, nor the fear of the consequences of NOT studying. For a while, anyway. It's been only a few days, but these few days have made me feel like I should be doing something more productive, instead of sitting at home all day long.
But that's more or less what I've wanted while I was still studying. The freedom to not do anything productive whatsoever.

There, I'm ranting again. Not sure if it made any sense, but who the hell cares, right? Well, not me anyway. But this should not be mistaken for me wanting to go through all that insanity. I'd rather become part of the furniture. But yes, activities need to planned for myself. Not to mention my academic future. But that's whole other story.

OK, I don't really have much time, because I have to leave for church before 5.30. And then later tonight I'll be leaving for Redang with the collegemates. Muahahaha. Perhaps a good holiday will get me out this slump. So I really need to start packing right now.

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Rest in the peace of Christ, Mr Dass. I meant to post something on you but I really couldn't think of what to write. So I hope this would suffice.