From The Bottom Of My Heart

This is the third day of the first week of the new semester. It’s been so exhausting the last few days because of all the cleaning that needed to be done.

Upon stepping into uni, there were so many aspects of it I noticed changed, after three and a half months. The period was too long for a holiday but was darn short, I thought, for so many things to look different.

Now, the two used-to-be largest lectures halls have been splitted into two smaller halls each, to cater to the growing number of students populating the campus.

The people I haven’t seen for that duration also have taken on new hairdos and fashion style. What I find the most hillarious is the fact that fats also have their own karmic cycle. Some have shed the extra weight but there are those too who have put on a few pounds. The nice thing about this cycle is that those who have lost and those who have gained the kilos, both look gorgeous the way they are now. A few were even too pretty and handsome that I couldn’t recognise them.

Everyone’s fine, Kath’s still wonderful to talk to, Gowri’s as cheeky and a good story-teller as ever, Kok’s always ’syioking’ everyone, Ah Liang’s still sweet, Ah Sing’s straightened her hair, Sook Ting’s growing taller somehow (funny how she’s still elongating), Gary Foo’s always sleepy-looking still but Hon Mun’s been missing in action these few days. The others have mostly changed their hairdos, I see many colours nowadays.

Anyway, the environment has changed for me again but thankfully I’m recovering fast from the environmental shock.

However, there is one issue that disappoints me. I need to learn to be cruel to be kind, or else I myself will crumble. I’m grateful that the Mum, the Dad and the Bro have been very supportive. That’s all I need for now I guess.

…**watching the leaves sway in unison**…

Eating more than your stomach can contain is an awful feeling. Whenever I do that, I can always almost conjure up an image of my stomach yelling woefully at me to stop stuffing anything more down.

I’m glad though, that I’ve finished the last remaining pieces and pot of pasta and spaghetti sauce that were prepared for the New Year’s Eve makan and karaoke sleepover at my place just a few days back. I’ve been having spaghetti and pasta for lunch and dinner for literally 1 + 3 consecutive days, mind you, nothing else but the spiral-shaped flour pieces and orange-coloured-tomato-tasting broth with meat and mixed vegetables. If there is any award being given out to the person who ate the most pasta in a week, I would be more than vain to step out to receive it.

Anyway, speaking of New Year, what was suppossed to be a countdown at some place in KL turned out to be a KAsheRAOKE-ing in of the new year. My Klang gurls and I were thinking of going some place to countdown like what we did the previous year at Bukit Bintang but Sien came up with the idea of having a sing-out countdown at her place, which eventually ended up in my house.

So, I told the Mum about the plan when the gurls and I were out planning for the next day, and that we would prepare some spaghetti, potato salad, fondue and ice blended-whatever on our own. A while later, she sent me a message suggesting steamboat. Okay, fine, I thought it was just a suggestion.

When I got home, a quarrel almost broke out between the Mum and I because I suddenly realised she had called my uncles and aunts and their children too for steamboat. It was such a panic-attack because I worried about the time-constraint, how we were to cook up so much for so many people, the tables, the chairs, and our home karaoke plan.

Thank goodness the cooking was fine, the Mum got her spaghetti and bubur-cha-cha ready all by herself with help from Kak Irma, and the Dad got the chairs and tables in time. But we gurls had to purchase our stuff from Tesco before heading to Pau’s place to prepare our potato salad and coleslaw. Thereafter, we brought all the stuff to my place for the fininshing touches as well as set up the fondue chocolate using a pot and a heat-resistant bowl.

The guys turned up to eat and chat, and even though it was exhausting running all over the place for this and that that I felt bad for my bowl for always abandoning it, the efforts paid off when the clock struck 12. I felt so young again throwing water balloons and getting wet and stuffing confetti into the balloons.

The highlight of the new year was Sim Mei getting herself into something. I wasn’t there because I ran upstairs with Pei Sze. When I got down, Kam came to me asking for detergent because Sim Mei had her leg (can’t remember which side) stuck through a slipper. It baffled me to see her entire foot through the slipper and she couldn’t get it out. The others were pulling and tugging at the slipper but her foot remained through it. We were laughing and pulling at the same time. Nevertheless, I started spraying water at her foot and someone managed to set her foot free again. LOL!

The singing started after midnight and we started eating again at 4am, but I’m just relieved that none of my neighbours screamed from their windows to ask us to shut up.

Anyway, the new sem will be starting next week. Everything has been fine and the holidays have been great. I miss SDTC and the people, I miss talking with Yuan Ni (my project mate, sentimental mama-kai), Wan Yee (pure mama-chu, loses stuff most times and finds them in my presence), May Juin (confident, ‘just do oni la’, she can sing!), Yik Lim (ngap, looks serious but can laugh at things, knows his stuff well), and Surain (doesn’t believe in love but always talked over the phone with a girl), I miss laughing with Muthu (chu-ah-neh, ’sot’, immitates well, good story-teller), Tian Tian (she laughs at everything, very naughty), Cammie (very cute this one, managed to pinch her cheeks) and Alicia (’sampat’, cheerful, innocent, cute, can persuade just about anyone), I miss the pig and the chicken families, I miss having lunch with Chee Lay (’meet you at [time]‘, noisy, cheeky, can talk very fast), Sook Theng (Theng Sook, my niece in denial), Chia Yen (my first love, loves pink, ‘puteri lilin’-her skin cannot touch sunlight) and Eng Kong (he can eat 5 pieces of chicken and 2 plates of rice for lunch!), I miss the Monashians, Kian Huei (blur all the time, always sleepy and tired, loves having no tasks at hand, quite knowledgeble), Alexander Putra (I like his name, very silent but extremely cheeky), Suzan Saidin (Ah Sai, quiet too, but cute, my grandniece), I miss the toilet gang, I miss doing spore counts, I miss Anusha’s and Chin Ming’s reactions when I looked tensed, I miss the DeepaRaya event, the Christmas Outfit Day, Secret Santa Day, Shogun, BioMalaysia, shopping at The Curve, singing carols in the lab, making noise until Chin Ming put her pointer finger to her lips asking us to hush a little.

I remember being in the office one afternoon when it flashed on me that all the chatters and laughters that came from the lab could be heard very clearly in the office. Anusha and Chin Ming (my two supervisors) said, "Now you know what we’ve been hearing". LOL!

I was dumbfounded yet tickled. We had been chatting so freely and gleefully, especially at the spectrophotometer placed right next to the office, that I think everything said could be heard from inside. Come to think of it, some time at the end of my training stint in December, I came across Lee Sim (another supervisor from BPT) having headphones over her head. I guess they were to drown out the noise that must had been annoying them.

There are so many events that I can recall having gone through in the lab and every one of it holds wonderful memories.

The new semester shall be starting soon. I’m half excited, half dreading the heaps of reports. Hopefully everything will be better than the last semester, and may peace prevails among everyone. I do not wish to be in the middle of so many different quarters, yet I know the differences are inevitable.

…**BOO to shallowness**…**HOORAY to substance and wisdom**…

There are frustrations I would like to vent here now. They are about how people feel inferior when others around them somewhat do better and have finer things. Isn’t that just insecurity that almost everyone has to a certant extent in themselves?

But what gives them the authority to degrade the ones they feel inferior to openly? Sometimes when you are placed in this situation, don’t you just want to slap these people who are too loud with their words but do not comprehend what respect means and what being tactful is all about?

I sometimes feel helpless because these are the very people who can be very close to you but make you feel betrayed once they slice you too viciously with their insecurity. If they are feeling insecure, why should you feel the pain anyway? Why should you be the one accepting all the nonsense when it’s through no fault of yours in any way? Won’t you want to get away from these people and be with those who can share your joy and pain? Not just with people who brag too much about their successes and trample on you when you just so much as have that one moment of euphoria.

It is pitiful though, these people with the thoughts that go about their minds. All they ever think about is doing better than those around them when the world needs more sharing than challenging.

Being a notch higher than others gives satisfaction no doubt, but only the temporary kind. What happens to long term inner peace then? The kind that gives you the pleasure of glancing back and smiling at moments when people get together to share and laugh, not compare and sulk.

Anyway, I have naught energy left to be pained by those who would at the end of the day, be just an embarrassment to mankind. We are given the opportunity to choose, so we shall select wisely.

….Appreciation is a test of patience….