Ahem!

Yea… super ugly FAT brainless fish. Joo, do you regret asking for a drawing of it?

Once, I told Mee Mee that I write a lot of nonsense on my blog, and Mee Mee said the way I write makes nonsense don’t seem like nonsense. How flattered I felt… so let’s see if I can prove myself in this post. <warning> It is going to be full of rubbish, no head or tail, nor direction or objective. Just rubbish. </warning> Enjoy!

Once upon a time, neil and sen sen drew a fish. The fish has big eyes, so big that there was no space in its head for brains, hence it was called brainless fish, with cacat fins.

Soon after the debut of a sot brainless fish side-view masterpiece, neil decided to give it a full-face front-view perspective. It took quite a while to visualize how it would be, but in the end, it materialized.

One day, brainless fish stood right up for a full-body front-view portrait, wearing lots of make-up and an itsy bitsy teeny weeny yellow polka-dot bikini, carrying a durian-on-a-stick for keeping monkeys under control.

neil said "oi! look like chinese opera make up la!" and sen sen was delighted, and so taken by the idea that all subsequent drawing of brainless fish had such make up. Sometimes, brainless fish felt very sien, like the time when it graduated with a fishy degree…

One day, poor brainless fish ended up being steamed on a plate, with the usual ingredients - mushroom, ginger and tomatoes.

Thereafter, brainless fish had been spotted numerous times with its trademark durian-on-a-stick, mushroom and / or ginger. With the ever-increasing popularity of brainless fish, neil and sen sen decided to make it the mascot of workday moods, representing the 5 working days of the week.

When Bee Ree came to know of the brainless fish, she asked to be allowed to post them on her blog. Well, no problem my dear… here’s the whole lot. You’re posting one per day? Cool. You actually wrote on your blog that Nee Lee and friend drew those fish pics?! Well, probably your readers don’t know who Nee Lee is anyway. They can guess, Bee Ree said, since they knew Nee Lee was a roomie, and she didn’t have that many before - just Mee Mee, Nee Lee, roomie#3, roomie#4. So few? In all my years in tertiery education, I’ve had close to 10 roomies! Nearly 30 apartment- and house-mates! Wow, Bee Ree said, I must be very adaptable. No, not that - it’s the way life is in college - people come and go, fish swims here and there…

… even if it’s damn ugly.

In 1996, Dr James Watson, one of the discoverers of the double helix structure of DNA and winner of 1/3 of the Nobel Prize (in Physiology or Medicine) in 1962, came to KL and gave a public lecture on "DNA & Life". I heard about the event on a radio announcement and wrote in immediately for invitations. They were free for students, and I got three. So I went with my brestfriend and another friend. I was exhilarated beyond reason - meeting a Nobel laureate whom we have in our textbooks! A Nobel laureate who discovered the structure of DNA, and is still alive! I was so excited I made my bestfriend bring along her tape recorder, and I actually recorded the entire lecture (yes, I still have the tape… although I don’t know if it will still play). At that time, I was obsessed with Nobel laureates (fondly cherishing a hope that I will be one of them one day…but no chance la)

the invitation

Needless to say, I enjoyed myself immensely throughout the lecture. My bestfriend followed it tolerably well, but our other friend was all bored out. Quite a number of the audience were bored - some were sleeping, some were talking or walking out (so damn rude! beh tahan!) At the end of the lecture, I convinced my friends to stick around so that we could get an autograph from the man himself - Prof Dr James Watson. And we did! In fact, after we got his autographs, we asked his wife for autographs as well!

the good Nobel laureate Prof Dr Watson and his wife autographed our booklet on his profile page

This booklet and the invitation card have been my treasures since (as is evident in the above scans…) On Friday, I was having dinner with my bestfriend and I mentioned this (very significant) event to her, and proudly said that I still have the autographed booklet with me. And she said, with a careless laugh, that she’s thrown hers away. @#$%!!! I can hardly believe it! (are you reading this, bestfriend?)

Any readers out there been to the same lecture in 1996? If you have asked for autographs like we did… don’t throw them away!

Up for a joke?

Proper job placement:

1. Put 400 bricks in a closed room.
2. Put your new hires in the room and close the door.
3. Leave them alone and come back after 6 hours.
4. Then analyze the situation:

If they are counting the bricks, put them in the Accounting Department.
If they are recounting them, put them in Auditing.

If they have messed up the whole place with the bricks, put them in Engineering.

If they are arranging the bricks in some strange order, put them in Planning.

If they are throwing the bricks at each other, put them in Operations.

If they are sleeping, put them in Security.

If they have broken the bricks into pieces, put them in Information Technology.

If they are sitting idle, put them in Human Resources.

If they say they have tried different combinations, they are looking for more, yet not a brick has been moved, put them in Sales.

If they have already left for the day, put them in Management.

If they are staring out of the window, put them in Strategic Planning.

If they are talking to each other, and not a single brick has been moved, congratulate them and put them in Top Management.

Laugh la; laugh loud loud. There.

The restaurant was full, and they don’t give numbers to waiting (potential) customers, so one friend stayed there to wait for a table to become available, while another one and I walked over to a bakery at the opposite side. The breads looked really good, and I decided to buy some home - for tomorrow’s breakfast or whatever la. I took a tray, heaped some bread on it, then waited in line at the cashier’s. My friend didn’t buy any bread, so she stood a little behind me, out of the way of the line. I stood with my back facing the front of the line because I was engaged in conversation with her. A short while later, I noticed a kwailo standing next to my friend, tray in hand, seemingly shouting at me. No, I thought, he must be addressing his female companion, who was lingering nearby. And I continued talking with my friend. However, the shouting went on. I looked at him.

"DON’T LET HER PUSH IN FRONT OF YOU!" Pointing to the left side of me with his tray. "DON’T LET HER PUSH IN!"

I turned and saw a Malay lady, holding a tray, in a suspicious position at the side of the line, as if attempting to cut queue.

"OK," I told the kwailo, and took a step closer to the person rightfully in front of me.

"DON’T LET HER PUSH IN FRONT OF YOU!" He went on. "SHE TRIED TO PUSH IN FRONT OF ME… OH WELL, SHE’S ALREADY PUSHED IN FRONT OF ME!"

At this precise moment, the Malay lady turned, smiled at the kwailo, and gestured him to move forward to take his place in the queue directly behind me, then walked to the end of the line. I turned to the kwailo and smiled.

"I guess she heard you."

"OH REALLY?! I DIDN’T THINK I WAS THAT OBVIOUS!"

Not obvious? Well, I had nothing to say, "Haha", so I just laughed "Haha".

Yesterday was my rooMie Mee Mee’s birthday ( *click* to read a special birthday post dedicated to her by Bee Ree) and I thought it would be nice to spend some time with her last weekend, with a slice of cake maybe. Since it was such a last-minute thought (yes, unfortunately, at times I may be very "no heart" until the last minute…) I hadn’t prepared anything - not in the least a birthday present (the 3 CDs of Phuket photos don’t count ya… I’ll get you another present later…). Anyhow, on Friday night, we decided that I would meet Mee Mee near her place for something (undecided at the time) on Saturday. I had a slightly runny nose that day, and by Saturday, it had developed into quite a full-blown cold! I took supposedly non-drowsiness-causing medication, but ended up feeling drowsy and lethargic all the same. I don’t think I could drive all the way to her place, I told Mee Mee, could she come instead? Yes, she said, any place I know that sell nice baju kurung?

Mee Mee started driving around 4.30pm and half an hour later, she was at somewhere else about 25km from my place, due to a missed turning. She finally arrived at half-past 5, and we went for dinner at close to 6pm, as Mee Mee declared she was so hungry she couldn’t wait anymore. While we were waiting for food, Mee Mee told me how she is always very happy at meal times and how she gets impatient and cranky if the food takes too long to arrive… (Mee Mee had been my rooMie 2 yrs, but I’ve never noticed this in her, probably because all that time she was never in want of food - our room was always full of food: maggi, milo, crackers, snacks etc.) After dinner we went to town, and I showed her some baju kurung shops. She was so impressed with what she saw at the first shop that she tried on no less than 7 or 8 sets of baju kurungs and ended up buying 2 (I myself managed to buy 1 too… though I didn’t have the intention to buy anything!) I told Mee Mee she really should stay the night at my place, as it was getting late and dark, and was also somewhat rainy. It was definitely not a good idea to drive home by herself. She agreed.

Back at my place, we viewed some photos, watched some tv, talked lots and went to bed at last at 1+ am. We didn’t actually sleep until 3+ am though, because we were still talking… At times we were talking with our eyes closed because we were so sleepy already - but still we wanted to talk! It was so like what we used to do - all 3 of us (Nee Lee, Mee Mee, Bee Ree) - in our hostel room. We’d go on talking endlessly, after the lights were switched off, and we’re laid comfortably in our beds. Those were the good ol’ rooMie days!

On Sunday morning we had a healthy breakfast of milo and crackers, while watching Mickey Mouse Clubhouse on Playhouse Disney Channel (Mee Mee wanted to watch cartoons because her own subscription does not include cartoons wor…) Mee Mee left at 10+ am, and found her way home safely. What a great time we had! I wish I could end this post pleasantly here, but no - this isn’t the end. Yesterday, Mee Mee informed me that she fell sick (viral fever wor…) on Monday! Could’ve been from my flu virus lor. *sorry*

I really enjoyed spending time with my rooMies, and Mee Mee and I should crash into Bee Ree’s place one day (when her bf’s out of town, of course), and eat and talk and eat and talk… but not when anyone of us is sick!

p/s:
Bee Ree said that my previous post was very long but the photo of the hunk at the end was great. She skipped through the whole post and stared at it only. And I said I shall thereafter upload a photo of a hunk at all my posts to increase number of visitors. But sorry la Bee Ree… no hunks punya photos with me at the moment so this post will have to do without

Charles Dickens’ David Copperfield is somewhat based upon the author’s own childhood, and in the author’s own terms, his favourite (my favourite from him too!). The book itself I have read and re-read numerous times, but recently was my first time watching a film adaptation of the book. This movie was made in year 2000, starring Hugh Dancy as the adult David Copperfield (Notice in the image on the left that his name appears third, after the lady who plays his Aunt Betsey and the man who plays James Steerforth. I wonder why - no sarcasm here, I really wonder why!). When I first saw him, my reaction was "Wahhh… sai mm sai sooo lengcai ar?!" He is so, so, sooo handsome!(Curious or anxious to know just what type of men I consider handsome? Click on the link, or simply scroll down to where I have posted a photo of him… ) But well, handsomeness aside… ahem, I found the film tolerably well (meaning you won’t get as much negative stuff as you did in my Pride and Prejudice)

The film begins with beautiful scenery, the handsome adult David rowing a boat, then walking, then being in a coffee house having a man flip a table on him, then running home to begin writing "The Personal History and Experiences of The Younger David Copperfield" (‘the younger’ because his father was David Copperfield too). The narration begins with the first sentence of the first chapter:

Whether I shall turn out to be the hero of my own life, or whether that station will be held by anybody else, these pages must show.

The narration goes on to the night David was born, a "post-humous child". He introduced his Aunt Betsey Trotwood, who was "mortally affronted" by his father he marrying his mother without first presenting her to Aunt Betsey for inspection and approval. In the book, the reason was David’s mother was "a wax doll". She was sure that David’s mother would have a baby girl, and she would be the baby’s godmother. Anyway, I quite like the lady who plays Betsey Trotwood - I think she portrays the character rather well, and despite her gruff eccentricity, she is very likeable. David’s mother, Clara Copperfield, is almost everything that is described of her - very young, very pretty, timid and easily scared. I was looking forward to the scene where Aunt Betsey aimed a blow with her bonnet at the timid doctor, Mr Chillip’s head, when he told her that the baby was a boy, not a girl like she wanted. However, it didn’t happen in the film, and I wonder why! She simply stormed out into the storm and muttered "A boy! Hmmmph!" and went into her waiting carriage.

Peggotty (Clara Peggotty, always addressed as Peggotty because Mrs Copperfield’s name is Clara as well), the servant, is quite alright, except that I’d have preferred a younger actress in the part. The boy who plays young David does very well too, I think - cute, innocent with intelligent eyes. Mr Murdstone, however, is not as he is in the book - a gentleman with beautiful dark hair and whiskers, but instead, one with brown hair, no whiskers, and looks overbearingly hateful rather than fearsome (which I’d expect a character like him to look).

David follows Peggotty to Yarmouth for a fortnight, during which his mother married Murdstone (and was later bullied to death by him…). Most of the characters at Yarmouth are great. I really like Mr Barkis, and the way he said "Barkis is willing!" Peggotty’s brother, Dan Peggotty looks every bit like a seasoned rough fisherman and Ham (their orphaned nephew) I daresay is really six feet tall, as described in the book. Little Em’ly (their orphaned niece) however, in my opinion, is not quite a pretty girl enough (the grown-up Em’ly is not pretty either *sigh*). In the book:

… by a most beautiful little girl (or I thought her so) with …

One can argue that the beauty was in young David’s eyes, but then again, it would really help to let us see through the said young David’s eyes by casting a girl that would likely appear to be "most beautiful" in everyone’s eyes. They have the same man play Ham in David’s childhood and also adulthood when he returns to Yarmouth with James Steerforth, which I find rather unrealistic, especially for the fact that he looks almost the same, while the children around him (David and Little Em’ly) have grown so much. Mrs Gummidge has very little screen time, and none of

"I am a lone lorn creetur’ and everythink goes contrairy with me."

which is something I really enjoyed reading.

Of David’s schooldays, very little time is devoted to. Salem House school (where he met his ’saviour’ James Steerforth, and lifelong friend Tommy Traddles) portayal is minimal and almost nothing of Dr Strong’s school is shown. In fact, a lot of the characters have less screen time than I would have liked - that is the price to pay for having to make the story told in a loooooong book into a 3-hr movie.

Agnes Wickfield, David’s childhood friend and guardian angel, is quite overlooked in the movie, unfortunately. The great influence and importance of Agnes in David’s life is hardly felt, although I quite like how Agnes lets her emotions (feelings for David, that is) show, whereas in the book, her love for him is disclosed only at the very end. Dora, David’s first wife, is also not quite pretty enough, but portrayed the child-wife part rather well.

The one person who has a lot of screen-time is Mr Micawber, played to perfection, except for a little bit of over-acting here and there. Uriah Heep is also played to perfection (in the sense that he makes you feel that you really want to slap him). Mr Dick is great - extremely adorable!

On the whole, I thoroughly enjoyed watching this movie, despite it having some scenes I really didn’t like - the young David fainting upon reaching Aunt Betsey’s house after walking for day (it is comical in the midst of serious heart-rending, so it’s quite cacat); Aunt Betsey’s shouting "Donkey! Donkey!" in a sing-song manner, with the exact same low (Don-) and high (-key) notes every time (it sounds really, really fake, and damn cacat); Peggotty, delivering the news of Steerforth’s shipwreck to David in a serious, gloomy manner, suddenly turns dramatic and poetic "And the wave, like a high, green hillside *stretches her arm up high* … ahh *swings her arm down in clenched fist*" (that is sooo out of place and seriously cacat).

I still wish there is more on Agnes and David at the end, but I guess I should be happy that I am thoroughly happy with a film adaptation of one of my favourite classics - it doesn’t happen often

Hugh Dancy, who plays David Copperfield

This is a post I promised Bee Ree some weeks ago. First, let’s see the place I left behind (*click on the photos to view them full-sized*):

And this is the new place:

Well, it does look new, doesn’t it? It’s not strewn all over with things; no stacks of paper and envelops; no cockroaches and rat droppings. (I loooove the toilet at my new place - so extremely CLEAN compared to the old, always well-supplied with toilet tissues, and stays clean throughout the day!) Of course my old and new place differ not only in terms of cleanliness (I haven’t been there long enough to mess up my new desk), but in a lot of other non-work-related matters.

The most significant is the fixed lunch hour. The good side of it is that I get to eat at the same time everyday, which *supposed* to be good for my digestive system, and the bad side is that I’m always hungry a couple of hours before I can eat :P  Many have said that I should keep some food at my desk, so I can eat whenever I’m hungry, but I’ve been thinking - if I did that, wouldn’t I be putting on weight like nobody’s business? No, I wouldn’t like that.

In the old place, I climb a lot of stairs - most of the time 4 flights at a go to reach a class at level 5, sometimes several times a day. Now, here, I just sit at my cubicle all day long, except for toilet breaks and lunch break. (I wonder why I can get hungry admist this inactivity)

The air circulation in the new place is great. People do make hot drinks, like coffee, in the office, but I never smelt anything. (The only smell I ever got was from the guy-next-cube after he had his cigarette break. *choke*) It makes me kinda miss my old neighbour, Mr Kopi, and his at least 4-5 mugs of hot black coffee per day. :D  Although I don’t use it often, there are free-for-all coffee, Milo and tea in the pantry at the new place, so all’s really quite well.

Are you happy with this post, Bee Ree? *if you feel that this post somewhat ends hanging in mid-air, well it’s because I don’t know what else to write for now*

Not Enough Homework

Bee Ree and I were discussing pseudonyms (that’s my preferred word for ‘nickname’, or in this age of the Internet, ‘userid’ or ‘username’) and I said I gave Mee Mee her "Mee Mee", she gave me my "Nee Lee" and we both came up with "Bee Ree" for Bee Ree. After some ’s, I told Bee Ree that I think <our uni> did not give us enough homework, that we had time to be do such silly things. Bee Ree agreed with me - we had time to go dating, have supper at <a town 30km away>, play Sims, 8 about everyone and everything, dance in the room, peek at dating couples from our windows (our room strategically looks out to the <infamous dating spot>)…@@ On top of that, Bee Ree added, Mee Mee and I had the time to record a few songs and even create a music video (not to mention my spending numerous hours every week on martial arts training and choir… no wonder my grades suffered so!) Not enough homework ya? (I think in my case, it’s not enough enthusiasm to spend more time on the homework!)

Extreme Multitasking

I think most of us multitask most of the time, to a certain extent - listening to music or talking to others while working, singing while studying, reading while eating (I looove to do this, though my papa always said it’ll give me indigestion). When driving, the only other ‘task’ I perform is singing (day-dreaming doesn’t count ok). Though I rarely do, these days most people talk on their handphones while driving.  Despite the law saying that only hands-free are allowed, I still see many (men, especially!) driving with one hand on the wheel, and one holding a phone. I vaguely remember once seeing a man driving with one hand holding his phone and the other holding a cigarette, alternating between the wheel and his lips - effectively multitasking his hands, his mouth and his brains. However, that’s still not as bad as composing SMS while driving, because that combination takes the driver’s eyes off the road. Yesterday morning, I saw what must be the ultimate - this man "driving" a van, reading a newspaper spread across the steering wheel, holding a pen in his right hand over the newspaper, as if about to note something (!!!!!). Mind, the traffic was not sparse nor slow - it was going-to-work time, and we were traveling on a highway at the average speed of approximately 80 - 100 km/h. What’s worse, the driver was not alone, there were several passengers in the van, each holding his own newspaper (can’t one person just read aloud the oh-so-important news to everyone else?) That had got to be the most extreme I’ve seen so far *pengsan*

"You miss uni lar, that time only play Sims" Bee Ree said to me this morning. It took me a few seconds of intense cognitive processing to realise she was referring to my previous post. I told Bee Ree I don’t want to write about Sims anymore, as I had previously written panjang lebar about them (here, here and here). But Bee Ree managed to convince me that she loves to read about the Sims - so here I am.

We first got started when Bee Ree brought the game CD back to our room. Nee Lee was the first to install and play, Mee Mee and Bee Ree followed suit shortly after. We started by running into disaster after disaster, but slowly, we learned many tricks and even cheats and got so absorbed, for a long time, it was the only game that we played, the only thing that occupied us whenever we didn’t eat, pangsai, bathe, sleep, go to class, do last minute assignments, or go out paktor. It was one serious addiction.

Soon, we were obsessed beyond reason. Each of us created characters of ourselves. Both Mee Mee and Bee Ree made families consisting of themselves and their then bfs and I created a family with 3 of us. We’d make stories, share stories, share tricks and share Sims photos. After a while, we even started speaking Sims to each other: "bwera bwera lar", "go mendz dalar", "taba gu chia", "shum shum", "deg deg" etc. @@

I must say the extreme obsession with Sims brought the 3 of us very close, and I believe we shall remain very close for a long, long time to come, although we had ceased playing Sims together for many years. So, I won’t say I am sorry for whatever harm the Sims may have done to my uni grades. What a great game it was!

From left to right: Mee Mee, Nee Lee, Bee Ree