Give me Love and Money, I have the rest already

Tailing behind Wang, I try hard to keep him in my sight. With so many signal lights blinking in my face and so many cars trying to weave, I was having a hard time. Wang is a sensitive driver. He locates me in his rear view and throttles down to the left lane so that I can play catch up. It’s easy for me cos I just have to look for a red car plate. As I approached him, all I needed to do was to push his backside a tiny bit (ong xiu xiu in cantonese?) and he already knows that I am ready to go faster. He is the only other person (besides my brother-in-law) to be able to wow me with his driving skills. Sometimes when I sit in his V-com position, I can’t help but be impressed. Of course, having the wow factor absolutely means that he makes some risky manouveres. Probably also because he’s driving a stick shift (sorry for the americanisation), he looks good behind the wheel.

I miss the old Civic. It’s been more than a year. It had a damn stiff clutch, dirty upholstry seats, and a problem starting in the morning. But I still miss it. It did what I wanted it to. I could scratch the rims against the curb and not feel a thing. I could aim for the left hole in the left filter coming out of Alameen, and drop my left wheels into the hole (aka Takumi drain technique). Now…this yellow car….it’s easy to drive no doubt. But I don’t want to downshift on the expressway. I just want to close up the gap between the car in front. And the stupid chip controlling the gear shifts, it just doesn’t know what I want. No matter how gently I coax the pedal with my right foot, the RPM shoots to over 3000 and I surge forward with the unnecessary power. I bet even Jenson Button can’t do it right with my yellow car.

The big pile of clothes that’s waiting to be ironed continues to sit in my basket. It comes as no surprise, that I chose to laze in bed rather than to wake up and do my pressings (and even now I’m choosing to watch Naruto and blog rather than press). Until my old man woke me up to follow him to Mackenzie to drive his car back. At Tan Chong where he was meeting his friend, he was walking away and I wanted to tell him about his overnight coupons in his car. What came out of my mouth was "EH there’s only one left ". On my way back home behind the wheel….I was thinking…have I come to the stage where I can’t call my father "Papa"? You know when I was small I always wondered how come my father don’t call his father "Papa". And before I know it, I’m doing the same thing. In my mind he’s always my father but how come the words don’t come out the same? I even have problem calling my sister "Jiejie". Only my mother’s left in the "Book of affectionate addressation" I have no problems calling "Mamee". I wonder….is this the same reason why couples start to call each other "oei" after many years? Picture your parents, calling each other "dear dear", "sweetie", "honey". Is that weird? Or it that what it’s suppose to be?

I ended up being too early for tuition and so I dropped into my grands’ (this is so shameful right? Popping by not with intention but because I was early). My ah ma was ever so delighted to see me. And we went through the same questions they had to ask me every time I visited them. "When graduate? Where is your school? Did you drive here? Have you finished NS? Don’t wear black clothes next time lah……" And then it was my ah ma’s turn to tell all her stories to me once again. She can rememeber so many things…what happened during our kampong days…who and who were not nice to her…what and what were her favourite places to visit. But she forgot my sis’s name! Sigh…and my ah gong just sat there with his eyes closed…occasionally scratching his head with the wooden claw…recently he’s been saying "lang lao liao, jiak(3) pa(4) tan(2) xi(4)" I haven’t heard it for myself but my Da Gu says so. I feel so sad…that the winding down of life has to happen this way. I don’t always understand what my ah ma’s saying but my nodding of my head just encourages her to go on talking about history.

I remember when I was in primary school and we stayed at my grands’ for a period of 2 years or so. My mother had a difficult time finding a good opportunity to cane me (Yes I was a very child who needed constant reminders of who’s boss). My ah ma was always protecting me, and whenever my mother took out the cane I would just run into my ah ma’s arms. She would shield me and say "Gin na buay sai pah eh". Wah lao I got so arrogant…haha…Till one day I was taking my bath and my mother slammed open the door and then caned me naked. I was screaming for my ah ma so loud…but when she finally arrived, it was too late. Ah ma…"You’re a little late…I’m already torn…" In years to come…my sister’s going to cane little Minyi and my mother’s going to take on the role of my ah ma. "Gin na buay sai pah eh"

See! She can sit on a chair now! Wahaha! What a cutsie.

Ever saw chimpanzees help to groom each other before? How they rummage the fur and scrutinize…looking for ticks which serves as a light snack for them? I manage to catch a live show in Canteen A today. One guy was sitting, the other standing behind him. He was doing exactly what the chimps do in Animal Planet…rummaging….tossing and turning the hair…picking here and there…(no he did not put what he found into his mouth though). I squirmed at their actions. Then I looked at Mr Long and said "Brokeback in the making?"

We watched Dangerous Minds today. Michelle Pfeiffer….Mmmm..*slurps*. What a babe. Then I heard the theme song. Haha! "I’m an educated fool with money on my mind…got my ten in my hand and a gleam in my eye" To think I sang this song into Hai’s voicemail in JC (remember? The small yellow Memo Jazz?). What a joker I was.

After an overdose of sashimi at BentoBox today, we were heading home when this girl walked very fast and stopped right in front of us. lol…Jiamin…still as funny as before. Then she started telling me agitatedly about how I appeared in her dream last night. Something about Soo Seng and her friend Peiling being an item and me scolding her for introducing Peiling to Soo Seng and breaking up Soo Seng and Limin. Wah Seh! Since when did I become so righteous? Dream of me last night and then meet me in JP today? What’s the probability of that man? Let’s do some Maths again…Just kidding. She and RH (the legendary fighter pilot) bought a flat opposite JP….another girl hitched.

In view of how time flies mentioned in Shan’s blog, let’s take Dreamlover as a benchmark. Think about the youthful Mariah…the flannel (fannel?) shirt she was wearing in the MTV…the skimpy denim shorts…the hot air balloon….Now think about which year was that in.

1993.

What year is it now? 2006. You do the Maths. I’m tired.

625am and I was at the bus stop, crossing my arms with my hands tucked inside close to my chest. The truth is, my hands are always so cold because I have sweaty palms. It’s so bad that I can always see glistening lines of reflection along the lines on my palms when I shine my palm against the light. Most people know that I have them. Some don’t. I’m not particularly proud of them.

Amazingly, I arrived at the SRC at 7am. It only took me 35 mins. There were already a handful of people showering. I stood in queue for my turn. The water sprinkled down and I lifted my head so that my face could be massaged by the water….nice feeling. Then I walked to the side, rested my goggles on the diving platform and stretched myself. The drops of water on my body evaporated quickly, using up all the heat energy generated by my fats in the process. By the time I was down to ankle rotation, I was shivering cold. Jumped into the pool and the water was so warm! It felt good….relieving….Last week when I went at 8am, there was a girl wearing bikini swimming next to me. This time at 7am, there were many aunties, no bikinis. Who says the early bird gets the worm? Liar…haha.

26 laps…and the pain in the shoulder came again. I was looking at the pool underwater, how it looked so familiar, how dirty it would be if there was no water inside. An empty swimming pool, there would be so many things we could do with it. Like film a ghost story. haha. Ok time to go to school. Anyway, chlorine is a bleaching agent right? Wonder what it’s doing to my tattoo.

I’ve always thought that my rampant bowel activity in the mornings are a result of coffee. In my mind, there’s always this equation where food is on the left side of the arrow, and shit is on the right. Sitting on the arrow would be coffee, as the catalyst. But I guess I was wrong all along. Cos this morning, shit happened before coffee…hmmmm…

The weather’s so freaking hot, I couldn’t stop perspiring in Dorea’s room. I was sitting there, with minimum movement, but still the sweat beads trickle down my belly until where they got absorbed by my underwear. And everytime I zip in and out of the library, I feel like I’m put through a thermal cycle. Hot and cold, hot and cold. If I’m cold blooded then I wouldn’t be having this problem eh? Today Dorea was her usual, playing with whatever she can find. She was sewing this fish look alike shape with green thread on a piece of paper. Then she started trying to poke me with the needle. The more I want to siam the needle, the more excited she got. In the end I just put my hand there for her to poke, that’s when she stopped. We always want the things that we can’t get the most. And when we are presented with it, the interest subsides. Human nature? Can’t speak for everyone eh…but I think it’s something like that.

Report writing has drained me. Quiz on Nano has drained me (FYI, after nano is pico, after pico is femto, so look out for these models from Apple/Creative soon). And ANSYS project, GE project, 480 quiz, FYP presentation….there’s just no way I can say "Alright after I complete this I’m going to take a short break". No way. It’s forever a combo. You know? Like Marvel Superheroes arcade game? Once Wolverine kicks you up with his heavy leg, then you can take your hands off the joystick liao. Cos it’s all the way to a 99 hit combo. So drained.

I want to tell a story told by Zig Ziggler. Here goes:

A man was walking by a river (or was it sea?) when he saw a fisherman pulling in his net. The man stopped to check out on the fisherman’s catch. What he saw left him bewildered. The fisherman was keeping all the small fishes and throwing all the big fishes back into the sea. The man could not keep himself in suspense any longer and called out "Why are you throwing the big fishes away?" The fisherman replied, "Cos all I got at home is a small small frying pan. There’s no way I can cook the big fishes."

I thought it was a very interesting story. So how many’s guilty of being this fisherman with the small frying pan? How many have pushed away opportunities thinking "Nah I’m not good enough for them…they’re looking for someone of higher calibre…" Time to get a new frying pan I guess. I’m totally a small frying pan fisherman. Tomorrow go Giant buy frying pan ok. Jio all my friends along.

This week I read in Chronicles there’s one article that mentioned, blogs are nothing but a vanity project. How true. Everybody wants to write swee swee…put photos in blogs ( must be those damn happening one…like take at Balcony or MOS then can put…other than that not worth mentioning). And then if a friend or reader leaves a comment, WAH damn song man…got people read my blog leh…*smirk*

I have picture to show too! The title of this picture is "180 vs 50". Haha. So lame.

I simply must blog this down.

Sitting in Lee Wee Nam Library, at one of the computer workstations, whipping my ass trying to finish my FYP report in time for the deadline. I have my Zen plugged in, my cool chews handy. One China Chinese guy comes along and sits beside me. Great. I know he’s China Chinese because his websites are all in Chinese. It’s amazing how they can type Chinese. I don’t think I can ever learn. Through the corner of my eye, I saw his actions akin to nose picking. I turned my head left by approximately 10 degrees. Yes. He was using his pinky to fuck his nostrils. I mean…nothing wrong with that man…I do that all the time. I use my 1st finger though. Then….the ultimate climax came….he extracted his pinky and flicked the gold he so proudly dug…ONTO THE KEYBOARD. Suddenly, I can understand Hitler.

End of story.

Isn’t she cute?

We went to Alameen last evening to have dinner and we met Lishan and Mr Fox there! After the cheese naans, chicken masala, roti john, tom yam soup, nasi goreng pattaya, mushroom cheese prata…all washed down with Teh-cino and Ice Milo, Alice and I were recounting the event. Really, what a coincidence. Being the mathematicians we were, we started to calculate the probability of the coincidence. Out of 10 times we go to Alameen, only once do we go there for dinner (the rest of the 9 times is supper). Out of 30 days in a month, I only get to drive my old man’s car to school once. Out of 100 times we go to Alameen, the probability of meeting Lishan there is once.

So 1/10 x 1/30 x 1/100 = 1/30000. Plus we have not accounted for the probability that we were parking our cars next to each other when we discovered it was really us. haha.

The next time you’re thinking if your friend might show up right next to you, don’t be surprised.