The Loudmouth

It feels a little odd, because yesterday night, my room was still a little squeezy from two people living in it. Yesterday night, I was sleeping on the floor while mum slept on my bed. Tonight my room feels empty because she flew back home this evening. The kitchen is kind of quiet because there’s no one cutting fruits in there, and the clothes-hanging thingy is off duty, because while she was here, she would wash a ton of clothes at a time and I’d complain there wasn’t enough space to hang them as I put them out to dry. Gosh I miss mummy.

I sent her off at LCCT today because I was worried she wouldn’t manage all that luggage on her own. I wanted so bad to board that plane home too, going to LCCT for the first time, without luggage and not boarding a flight feels odd. I took the KLIA transit back and had someone step on my nerves on my way back. It was a man that was in his late 30s or early 40s and his wife sitting behind me. They were probably going on a vacation and his wife’s parents were sitting on the other side of the shuttle bus from LCCT to KLIA.

He pissed me off because of the way he spoke; typical loud mouth and a brain that is barely there and yet without a filter. He was outright rude his mother-in-law, in front of his wife and the whole freakin bus. All she wanted was a meal and a short break in KLIA and he was yappin away and telling her they were in a rush. He spoke with sarcasm about his mother-in-law to his wife. The whole journey he was complaining about the poor woman, along with Air Asia and Tune Hotel, without even making an effort to hide what he was saying from her. Along the way, he even told her to shut up, sort of, when she opened her mouth. When she spoke (I think it wasn’t even to him, but to her husband) he told her to keep quiet if he didn’t know, said something like “people say you also say. Don’t know then don’t simply say lar, later get laughed at.” Yeah, convert that to Cantonese and make it sound 15 times harsher, that’s exactly how it sounded. Apparently, smartypants knew everything he was talking about. I guess the only thing he didn’t know was that he didn’t sound very clever either.

I was angry at him, but I was angrier at his wife. I was angry at how she let him bully her parents and not say a word. I was pretty sure this was not at all the idea of a holiday for the elderly couple – a trip with their disrespectful, loudmouthed son-in-law. Perhaps, they were the ones paying for the holiday and the two ungrateful bums were only tagging along. I’d refuse to marry such a man. I’d have boarded the flight with my parents without him. But owh well, I am pretty sure karma would run its course and bite that bastard hard in his arse and stick a durian up his asshole.

However, above all, I did learn a lesson today. Humility is indeed important, because no matter how awesome you think you are, there is bound to be someone more awesome than you are. The loudmouth today must’ve thought he was smart, complaining about anything and everything, and taking about things as if he knew everything. But I was pretty sure that at least half the people in the bus who understood Cantonese were laughing at him. Either that, or they wanted to tell him off for the way he treated and elderly woman.

And now, off I go to bed. Entering Week 4 of the academic year, and I haven’t really had time to waste. I’ve been playing pretty hard since the exams ended, and coming back to uni hasn’t stopped me. However, if Week 1 to 3 was a sentence, I guess Week 4 is a comma, that is, until the bf comes over.

Cycles of no cure

Lately, my thoughts have been scattered and the ideas come in little bits and pieces, like the little islands of the Philippines, rather than er…. Borneo? There’s all this philosophy about growing up and people and life racing across the mind, and this explains why I am unable to come up with a composed and tidy post to put up.

It makes me wonder if I would judge my thoughts the way I judge the writings in my diary I wrote back at 14 years old when I read them now. I felt so mature then, and that I understood life. However I now feel that I was just naïve, and perhaps, this is what growing up is all about. I wonder if eight years from now, I’d be feeling the same thing about me now. But I guess the fear of appearing silly shouldn’t stop us from doing things huh?

People age I guess, and with experience they grow. It isn’t easy to stick to your opinions anymore. You would think that perhaps, there was a reason behind every action. The line between right and wrong, black and white becomes even more undefined. Everything happens in cycles, and in the end, no one party is to be blamed, but we come up with a more general answer for it (because we’re rational and also because we are afraid) and say the clichéd “it is everybody’s responsibility”.

For example: as I dropped a RM1 note into the SSPCA donation box today, I thought  to myself, that being led by a new woman, perhaps SSPCA will now be more successful in terms of getting volunteers and sponsorship and publicity. I think SSPCA have come a long way from before, as I see that they now have a Facebook page to keep people updated, donation boxes in major shopping areas and adoption campaigns everywhere. I eventually decided that perhaps this new leader was better than the old, no? but after walking for a while, it hit me that perhaps the old leader was just tired or working and working and not getting much of the public to get involved, and therefore she got tired and gave up. The public, on the other hand, judge her, in a sense that there was news circulating around about her ‘swindling’ the shelter’s money and all. The public therefore got wary and became more distant. This woman then, instead of working harder to change perceptions, moved further away. In the end, nothing got fixed and matters became worse. This is what I mean by cycles. No one party is to be blamed. But one negative action from one side leads to another negative action from the other side.

Another example – a married couple. Husband and wife recently got married. Wife suffers ‘culture shock’ from moving in with the in-laws. Squabbling happens. Husband is stuck in between. Wife expects husband to help but husband does not help. Wife gets angry and becomes resentful. Husband gets angry at wife for acting that way. Wife gets angrier and becomes very self-centered because she believes it is ‘every man for himself’ and therefore keeps all her money and uses husband’s money as much as she can. Husband realizes and holds money ketat ketat. Wife and husband squabble over money because wife feels husband is not carrying out his responsibility to provide for the family. Now in this situation, could you decide who was wrong?

I don’t know, maybe I truly am focusing on the wrong things here, by finding the person at fault. And while there may be no one person that is to be held responsible, there will always, always be someone that falls victim to these situations. In the first case, the animals that stay in the shelter, and in the second case, the children to the crumbling marriage. Theoretically, the solution would always be to talk it out, compromise, communicate. But at times, when situations of these ‘cycle’' have already gotten this bad, I don’t quite see space for any talking and sharing to happen, hence the cycle continues.

And here’s another random thought: ignorance is bliss, which is why we would rather ignorye everything. And when we’re unable to ignore it, we live in denial, because denial enables us to continue living in that fairytale we spin up. But what happens when the truth explodes right in front of your face? Well, different people handle things differently. Some cry, some go insane, some go for retail therapy, some explode themselves. As for me, I think Life Café’s spicy noodles and milk green tea and a long bath worked wonders today. =)

Thoughts from Pre Audit

 

No, no, this time i’m not procrastinating. in fact, i do realize the urgency of getting my last minute audit revision done before i sit for exam at 9am later. i’ve been itching to write, with a gazillion things going through my head.i shall make this a quickie.

first, i’ve been so overwhelmed by exams, that i did not realize that i’m like 11 FREAKIN DAYS to home, to Bullet, to Hero and the should-have-been-there Rifle that i was looking forward to. about that next time, and perhaps a theory about how money makes the world go round, and building the perception of people towards pets, specifically, canines, maybe?

secondly, i think exams, studying, aren’t really everything. i mean, if i really failed at studying, say i couldn’t graduate, i could always go home and learn to cook chicken rice huh? what really is the point when you’re supposed to memorize everything, when in the actual fact, you’d actually have books to refer to when you come out to work? and, besides, from what i hear people that come from the outside of my tempurug katak say, working is a completely different thing. really, students should just pay tuition fees in order to come out and experience life and grow up and have fun before they proceed to live a dog’s life in the working world. i mean, studying, it’s not entirely fun fun fun-you do learn things. i learnt not to leave my cups soaking in the sink since i came over the south china sea. and i now understand how it has annoyed the heck outta my mother.

and thirdly, suiee told me that sleeping with my phone beside me is bad. radiation, something like that. kills brain cells? cancerous? something like that i assume. so here’s a sadistic thought. if i put my lappie on top of a food container i recently saw ants crawling on, would i get to kill those annoying creatures? or maybe cause them to crawl around with a bulbous cancerous head? sorry, so much for the love of animals.but then again, they’re insects. =P

okay, quickie done and spirits lifted, now back to auditing.

Motivation

“….Think of it as your only chance, take it, use it and achieve your goal. When you’ve done that, you can do whatever you want. And when you don’t like what you’re doing, you can always do other things….”

Drama queens

Yes I notice you, yes I do.

When you giggle like a bimbo,

And attempt to speak English like a pro.

Yes I hear you, yes I do.

When you blast the latest tunes,

And croak to them s’if choking in fumes.

Yes I see you, yes I do.

When you use without asking,

And leave it after dirtying.

And yes I feel you, yes I do.

When u’ve this urge to climb that social ladder,

And your need to look hotter.

But no, I don’t get you, I really don’t.

Where’s the filming, when’s it airing?

I’m getting a different message.

For what’s there left for watching,

When I’ve a ticket to backstage.

All day long you practice your script,

To stir up envy, for the world to seek.

I wish I too, could be audience,

But it’s too bad, u’ve given me a sneak peek.

But we owe you, I guess we do.

Thank you for boosting her confidence,

Thank you for inspiring me.

I guess it’s a test of patience,

And a mirror to what we should not be.

The life cycle of ambitions

When we were young, we had ambitions all noble and great and action packed. I remember writing "cita-cita saya adalah untuk menjadi seorang doktor" during BM class in my karangan book. I remember writing the same essay, with different jobs, and they involved being a nurse, a police (I didn’t know about corruption back then, so yeah, they were noble), a firewoman (such thing?), a teacher… I enjoyed drawing these people in my exercise book, next to my karangan.

Then i grew a bit older. I started liking to draw - women, dresses, pretty hair, and pretty faces. We started having bigger dreams that were glamorous, and preferably ambitions that would earn us money enough to buy a big house and hire 20 maids for our mother. Fashion designer topped my list. I think actress and architect was somewhere there.

Then, secondary school came. The big dreams still hung around, but things started getting more practical. For instance, the fact that u are not going to be an actress and get to act with Leonardo DiCaprio is starting to sink in. I started participating in debates and considered being a lawyer. The fashion design thing hung around for a few more years. But in the later years of secondary, somehow it seems like childhood is ripped outta us together with all those big glamorous dreams of how we’d want to live our life. We struck out ‘glamorous’ from the ambitions and focused on dollar signs instead. Survival in the real world started to sink in. we looked for professions that would earn us higher income – maybe we didn’t want 20 maids anymore, but a nice house and car and wardrobe full of clothes topped the list. We wanted professions that would get us out of this country where we ‘immigrated’ to.

I could barely make up my mind. I considered being a dentist. I thought about law. I thought about dietetics. Architecture. I remember how much I wanted to become a vet because I was passionate about animals and I hated being helpless when they needed help. I flooded myself with options. That was, until I came face to face with the terrors of STPM.

I wasn't one of those people who know they were born to become something, but only now has it occurred to me that I am doing accountancy, something that has never occurred in my list of ‘cita-citas’.

 It proves just how much reality is a bitch. You can’t go for your big dreams when you were little because they just aren’t practical. Then, when you have decided on something, there’s a gazillion things standing in the way, money, being the biggest of the gazillion.

But it’s okay. While I used to fret over what to do after the horrendous Form 6 experience over the little options I was left with because I was a lazy bum who sat on my ass all day not studying hard, I guess i am now able to see that there’s no one way in getting somewhere. Provided the world doesn’t end soon, I guess I can still do things I like to do because there’s no way I will allow myself to slough in an audit firm working late nights and growing white hair.  But for now, I should keep in mind that when I’ve decided to do something, it’s only appropriate I do it well.

This is emotionless, blur writing from 4.50am when I decided I need a break from tax assignments. Penned down because I started wondering how I ended up here, doing this – searching up case law after case law, taking up accounting. But I can’t really imagine doing anything else. =)

The power of desperation

Came across this sometime ago when I was back home. Either it’s awesome innovation, or I am a sakai for never seeing another one before.

The picture speaks for itself.