crazy...crazier...craziest...

These past few days have been quite crazy for me, and no I am not talking about ugly Malaysian revelers. Heck, I was not even in Penang during Christmas' eve. Little did I know there was more than enough residual Christmas season craziness leftover when I did come back.

First off, I had a dinner appointment with my old Sixth Form Graduation Magazine committee, in of all places, Juru. Before your eye's fall out from surprise, we didn't go the Juru the sleepy town, we went to Juru Autocity aka the most flashy bling bling greatest gift to motorheads and petrolheads and lovers of fine dining, or at least that's what I think the people who first thought up the concept wanted it to seem. Oh, and did I mention that Juru happens to be on the other side of the pond and is located in some godforsaken place, and we had to make do with a two lane Penang Bridge. Ok to be fair that area really wasn't so bad, since it used to be heavily forested, key words being used to be. To be honest, I experienced a bit of a shock to the system when we drove into Autocity because I minute I have cars passing me by while gazing into a verdant horizon, the next moment I am looking at cars passing me by against a desert backdrop. Even wondered whether I got abducted by aliens and got transported to a different world. No kidding, passing it by while traveling on the highway is one thing, being there is another. My first impression is that I am looking at Tatooine from Star Wars, except the buildings were more 'squarish'. Which brings me to my second observation, I felt like the whole place was a gigantic toy city, what with all the super expensive sportcars and 'exuberant' look of the buildings there. Well, at least there were sportcars.

Gripes about the place aside, I was actually looking forward to meeting my old mates, that is until I forgot that my friends were not the only ones in the committee, and there were some other dates brought along too. Nothing I can do about that though, so I spent the time cracking crude jokes every chance I got. You never know when I am going to see them again, so I might as well give them enough crass humour to last them for the road.

Having survived the initial shock, I finally got a look at where we will be dining in. It appeared to be quite funky, although I still couldn't make out what kind of cuisine we will be feasting on. Blame the ignorance on faddish fine dining on the lack of money and adventurous palate. Another question immediately came to mind though, since we did travel so far for this, and that was whether the restaurant had a branch on the island. Surprisingly they do. At least, I had more time crack my jokes.

By the time we got to dig in, I had finally came to the conclusion that Sushi King isn't the only chain of Japanese restaurants available. With the question about the type of cuisine out of the way, it was time to do justice to the all you can eat package that we paid for. And eat we did, with plate after plate after plate of Japanese food heading for our table, with Ling Wei my fellow editor providing colour commentary on the prices of the food heading for our gut. All the hand to mouth action required to stuff the food must had tripped something in my brain because halfway through I did something most thinking lifeforms will not do. I chucked a dollop of green, mean wasabi into my mouth.

Jupes decided that I can't have the title as the sole insane wasabi swallowing kid and proceeded to top me by consuming an even bigger dollop. With the gauntlet thrown and more food down my throat, I accepted his challenge with 3 dollops...which he duly replied with 4. All this nostril stinging, palate killing action wasn't in vain though as we managed to establish the Wasabi Law (provisional only until we find a better name), the amount of food consumed in close proximity of wasabi is directly proportional to the degree of craziness you exhibit.

Everything must come to an end though, even nights coloured green by wasabi. The sole consolation from my exploits with the green stuff seems to be that my full stomach didn't feel so full already on the way back. Oh wait, that is supposed to be a bad thing...

In the line of fire

Bloggers have drawn flak for being political or controversial, sometimes justified but just as often unjustified. In Malaysia, this blogger-authority conflict has escalated to the point that bloggers are vilified just because they blog. The thing is though, the more controversial blogging about politics become, the more people will follow this path.

Personally, I feel some blog for the wrong reasons. They blog because it is 'in' or because their friends have blogs. Most of the time, this can be seen in their content, or presentation of their blog. But by blogging about politics and controversial issues, they present a measure of gravitas and notoriety to their writings. Unfortunately, a lot of them just regurgitate what they read on other more established blogs, being just mere carbon copies, albeit of poorer quality. In my opinion though, plagiarizing is still better than spinning lies. Even though, blogging is not a formal form of media, we bloggers owe it to our readers to at least present the truth as best as possible. Just because a story sounds good in a certain way doesn't make it our right to bend the truth towards that way. Of course there are those that feel that the truth is whatever they assume. There is nothing more I can say if that happens.

For me, I will probably not blog about anything controversial or political anytime soon. Blogging is an escape for me, besides, there are already so many blogs that dwell on weighty issues, I might as well let them do what's best.

(If this post looks rather out of place, it's been a slow blogging day, and I want to get some issues out of the way.

Nocturnal drama

I have been experiencing some nightmares these past few days. Well ok, maybe not exactly nightmares, at least not in the conventional psycho horror movie type, but they were disturbing to me in a funny kind of way.

It started about 2 nights ago. The setting seemed normal, nothing out of this world or dimension, just your typical boring daytime Penang. For seasoned dreamers though, most will know that the more mundane a dream is, the more ominous it will turn out to be. That's well and obvious when you are reflecting on it wide awake. Unfortunately, I was in the usual catatonic mental state induced by slumber and logic processes would have made Salvador Dali proud. Like in many previous pseudo-nightmares before, I was suckered into tagging along for the ride.

The first dream was about me returning to school, despite not knowing for what purpose. One moment I was blissful stupor, the next I found myself standing outside the classroom I took my STPM in. Turns out that I wasn't alone, all my friends were there too. No one really knew why until someone mentioned that we were supposed to take a Chinese exam, which really got me panicking. Fortunately, my heart didn't have the chance to beat dangerously hard for this dream ended immediately afterwards.

Respite wasn't exactly the order of the day though, as I was bombarded by the sequel, err prequel, ermm reimagining perhaps? I just don't know how to define it. It was about me preparing for another STPM paper. Yup this paper was, drumrolls please, Chinese. Oh I was doing some last minute preparation, as in 1 hour before the start, and get this, I was at home. How the hell do dreams really work anyhow? That must be the most unrealistic plotline ever. No way in hell will I be caught at home 1 hour before an exam, and so will most of my fellow exam sufferers too, unless their house is next door to the school. Anyway enough of the digression, the images of me studying my 'Ming Ju' and idioms really seemed like old footage from the SPM era, retouched with cutting age CGI of course. Half an hour before the exam, I finally realise I have to be at the exam centre to actually take the exam and frantically gets Mum to drive me to school. Whaddaya know, the dreaded worse case scenario happened on the way, Penang killer traffic jams, leaving me late.

Thankfully there was no more similar dreams following that. The next night, last night, did throw up another drama though. This time around, the dream was really similar to the first one, down to the appearing outside the classroom and seeing friends details. The subject was different though it was equally outside the scope of what I really did study for the STPM. The subject of the night turned out to be Bahasa Malaysia, which didn't really induce as much fear, which is possibly why the dream didn't stop there and then. I managed to grope around my bag for my pen and pencils, and even retrieved my ID from my wallet and took my seat before the dream ended.

Now the reason I wouldn't really classify them as nightmares is because I didn't even know that they were nightmares when I was having them. I only knew they were pseudo-nightmarish upon thinking about them after waking up. Sometimes I just wish that I would dream about pretty girls all night like everyone else...

Post school blues

Today I had to return to my alma mater, ostensibly to claim my leaving school certificate. In addition it seemed like a good opportunity to catch up with some of my old teammates and hand over something to my friend. With that thought in mind, I woke up at about 7 am to slightly ominous weather. Regardless, I was hopeful that I might be able to sneak in a run.

After mum dropped me off, I proceeded to wander around the school premises, who knows what interesting happenings one can bump into on a bleak school break morning. Unfortunately, things didn't turn out as planned and the bleak weather complemented the sleepy atmosphere. I did bump into one of my friends, Jupes, and he did waaaaay better than any of the notices present, or rather absent, in telling me where & when the cert collection is on. Apparently, I was early by about 2 hours as the typically unorthodox school administration decided to start at 10 am. Whatever happened to standard operating hours? Maybe they foresaw the rainy weather and thought everyone was going to sleep in. I guess government schools are like government departments, inefficient.

That news certainly didn't lift my already dark mood, so I had to find a way to kill time. Enter Plan B, hanging out with my mates. That and also the gym room will be a whole lotta warmer. The moment I stepped into the room, I just felt a blast from the past. The teammates who showed up were still mostly the same faces. It certainly takes perseverence to train through the holidays, something which I find increasingly lacking among the incoming students. I guess our winning tradition will be dwindling to an end.

Midway through catching up and goofing around, I received a call from the friend I was supposed to meet. I had wanted to tag along with him for a morning run, but the inclement weather and other factors put paid to that. Nevertheless, we had an interesting chat. Talking with Larry will never be boring for me, because he will have an interesting take on things, and his delivery is just hilarious, no matter whether he intended it to be that way or not. Meeting up with him will also inevitably bring back a tinge of nostalgia. Memories of my time with Frenchy, yheushen, JR, and Larry will always come flooding back.

My trip down memory lane over, I trooped back to the gym, more than an hour left to kill. The other objective on my agenda, meeting my teacher/coach, was up next, just awaiting for him to arrive. And arrive he did, though he was rather late by his standards, at the tailend of the team's workout.

I managed to discuss a bit of my future training before he had to leave. With that, my whole reason for being in school this morning ended, bar the cert collection. Walking around, I managed to overhear some sleepy-eyed fellow cert collectors saying that the desk will only open at 10.30am, which will just deepen my annoyance towards the school authorities. Recent complains from some of my friends about problems in their curricular marks didn't help my mood. In the mean time, I decided not to wait beyond 10 am & called my dad to pick me up. 10 am did come and there was no sign of any collecting being done, so I left. Screw the bloody cert.

Finally its over

I remember when I started blogging, the night before my last paper in the SPM. 2 years on, my commitment to blogging has not been as firm as I would hope. But fret not, despite the somewhat misleading title up there, I will not be pulling the plug just yet and will try to post as regularly as possible.

What the title really refers to is another big kahuna of an exam, the SPM's big brother, the STPM (with the extra T for terrible, torturous, tepid, trivial, tumultuous, 'tulan', ... insert your own suitable adjective), which has been sucking way too much of my soul these past 18 months. It is with no small measure of relief that I can finally close this chapter of my life.

The tile may also be apt to in reference to my days in my school uniform. From white shirt and dark green shorts, to white shirt & pants, the differences between the times in each uniform has been as drastic as the colours. However, it is with great regret and sorrow that I leave the gates of my school as a student. For 7 years, I have worn any 1 of the 4 school crests in rotation. Those school crests have been with me since the very first few months of my time as a Chung Ling student and will continue to be with me with pride, save 1 which I lost right after my last paper, when the shirt it was on lost its hold on the car radio antenna it was flying high on. At least it went out flying high. That crest will be fondly and forever remembered.

Anyway, long winded posts tend to bore my readers, so I will end my post now. To quote Star Wars 4: Return of The Jedi, I hope this will be the first of the new, not the last of the old.

Gym Chronicles: Gym Creatures

About 3 months ago, I decided to finally go to the gym. After all, it is not easy to say no when faced with the combined goading and persuading powers of mum and aunt. They needed a gym 'kaki' to keep them company and I was just about to start my year-end school break. So I decided to take the plunge and give being a gym rat a shot.

Onwards to the present, I can say that I have never regretted that decision and am now firmly entrenched as a regular gym-goer. Besides working out, I admit that the gym is a good place to observe people, from a purely intellectual perspective of course. In fact, I would go so far as to say the most important things in a gym is not the weights or equipment but the people there.

From my observations I have grouped my fellow gym-goers into a few loose groups.

1)Mr. Universe - People that fall into this category are probably the most easily noticed in the gym. Hey, who would fail to notice a huge guy rippling with muscle, capable of bench-pressing a Kancil easily. To qualify as one of them, you need to follow certain characteristics, like consuming protein supplements, buy bodybuilding magazines, group your gym workouts by major body parts, and spend half the time scrutinising your body in the mirror. They also workout for the sake of working out. So far, there is only one guy who strictly falls into this category, as he competes in bodybuilding competitions. There are a few other non-bodybuilders however who can qualify under this category, even if it is more for the mirror observing. But honestly, all of them are really decent people, and they do know their stuff and are humble about it.

2)Gym rat - Most people would consider this group identical to the previous one, in fact I would have thought the same 3 months ago. Upon closer inspection and immersion in gym culture though, I really do feel there is a difference. They are not as hardcore about working out, though that is still only a relative comparison. They are not as specific or particular about their workouts, though also relative since they do seriously workout and have decent form and technique. Perhaps the biggest difference between the two though, is that gym rats regard working out as a secondary activity, more as a tool to help them in other sports or to gain fitness. I would consider myself as part of this group, along with a few other swimmers (my gym is at a swimming club), and some older guys.

3)Normal people - For lack of a suitable adjective, I feel normal is the best way to describe this demographic. They are the casual gym goers, who are quite laid back about their workout, but are really trying to make the most of their time in the gym. Most do not utilise free weights in their routines, preferring instead to use weight machines, treadmills or stationary cycles.

4)Slackers/posers - Unfair or not, this is the group that grates on my nerves the most. They live in their own world, going through the motions yet feel that what they are doing are beneficial. I do not mind this however, as whatever happens is none of my business, but the thing is that they take up space, literally. Due to their aversion to moving fast, they occupy the limited number of equipment available for unnecessarily long periods of time. It is no big surprise that they are also the most straining on the eyes, another one of my pet peeves. Their sheer glory of their appearance are the single biggest distraction. Ironically, they would probably be the first to ask why the gym workouts do not seem to be helping them physically. hmmmm, tough question, maybe they will read about it in the magazines they peruse when they workout.

So there, a rough idea of the people who frequent gyms. Do note however that they are loose groupings and many of my fellow gym goers fall under more than one category.

One last ride (or rather run)

I did not actually plan to write today, but I bumped into a friend online, who was about to write another post in her blog, so I guess I got temporarily interested again, merely by association. Having decided on that, I also actually wanted to write something serious today, due to the events of the past week. But what the hell, I would rather write about something that I like that use that chance to get back at someone.

Anyway, back on topic. In less that a week, I will be lining up at a race. Probably the last official race representing my school. That statement sure sounds depressing, and the setting of this race will back that up. To be exact, I will be lining up at a location far away from home base, shivering because of the early morning cold, eyes squinting at the surroundings, lest a foot gets twisted even before the race starts. This is my date with destiny, this is how I always envisioned my most crucial race yet will be.

As cliched as it sounds, I feel like a man possessed this past few weeks preparing for this. School seems like a blur, and no, I am not saying I blank out during lessons. It is like whatever happens in school, like school orders, politics etc, does not matter anymore. School activities outside of lessons become insignificant, and I am prepared to flout the rules with abandon. All that I have in my mind's eye is that single crucial race.

To overdramaticise, it will be the definitive point in my career as a school runner. Whatever I did before, which is not much, will not matter anymore. It will be my redemption for my mediocrity, or it could be the nail that seals my failure. Whatever the fallout, I have never felt such hunger.

I have always been a dreamer, but I hope for once, this dream will not turn into a nightmare.

Happy New Year II

We did bump into a few people from school, but they were not our targets. From them though, Kenneth extricated information on the whereabouts of his classmates. Following the lead, we dove into the crowd again, hoping that pure serendipity will lead us to our quarry.

Just when we were about to set off on the hundredth time around Mount Gurney, we caught a break. As we took a breather to prep ourselves for the next sortie, Kenneth caught sight of his elusive mates. With that, our party increased though Kevin decided it was his turn to set out on his own to find his friends.

By this time, countdown time was coming. We evaded the crowds to get to the stage. Along the way, we had to traverse Uprockylands, a very bumpy strip of earth pocked with fallen tree trunks. It is understandable that people stumble and push, but I got annoyed with a man pushing a baby stroller. He kept forcing his way through hitting a few of my friends. When I was about to climb on to the pavement he kept bumping into me. I decided to tell him to be careful. I don't know what's his beef but he stared at me in an antagonistic way, so I repeated my warning again, and continued up the pavement. The guy seemed to be itching for a fight though, and grabbed my sleeve and pulled me down.

I can say this was the first time that I really got into an aggressive confrontation, and despite my knowledge of Aikido, I admit that my mind was temporarily at a blank. I did notice one thing though, that guy was alone and his stroller was even empty. On hindsight, I really find this very funny because I have a huge group of my schoolmates behind me who were a little stunned by this. Anyway, the guy berated me in an unknown language, and from his looks and semantics, I assumed he spoke in Japanese. I basically told him off and turned away. The arrogant prick displayed terrier-like qualities though and dragged my sleeve again, and kept on jabbering in his language. I generally do not have any beef with Japanese, but one thing I can not countenance is someone shouting at me in his native language expecting me to understand. This smacks of arrogance to the max. He then motioned me to take it outside. Knowing he's a tourist, I retorted with the corniest line ever, something to the tune of, 'this country has laws and police', and I told him he cannot do whatever he wants, complete with a sprinkling of an American accent. I hate to be querulous, but I am glad to say I got the last word in, shouting 'Fucking Japanese' as he turned away.

Shaken but not stirred, though I doubt he would end up the better if he did try to hit me, I went back to the small matter of ushering the new year with a few thousand other revellers. The momentous second passed by so fast, but it proved to be the start of our troubles. Despite being present at the past few countdowns I did not have the good sense to leave while I could. The next thing I knew, I was locked in a shoving match with, oh what, the very same number of people I was counting down with. Ironically, in stampedes like this it is good to be in the crush, which basically ensures you won't get ensnared in the other crush downstairs.

15 suffocating minutes later, we more or less made it out in one piece, though our group has been splintered. Thankfully Kenneth's classmates have arranged for a rendezvous point at a nearby hotel. The rest of the night, er morning, passed uneventfully, save for one last fisticuff. I don't know whether they were drunk or not, but 3 guys (or gals, I couldn't really tell) were really going at it, complete with haymakers.

Ah well, I guess all the signs point to a year full of aggro.

Happy New Year

After a long hiatus, part of it enforced, it feels good to be back, soaking in radiation while cogitating whether to use 'ubiquitous' or 'common'.

Anyway, what better way to usher in the new year than to write about the very second that 2006 gave way to 2007. While it is no way as momentous as Y2K, these moments before a new year is born will linger in the memory, for a few months at least anyway. Since my memory seems to take unauthorised shut downs every now and then, blogging is probably the best way to make good on what my previous sentence predicted.

Like nearly all fun-craving youth, I am particularly attracted to any party like atmosphere. That points to one very obvious locale, Gurney Drive. Since the past few years, it has been the site of one of the biggest New Year's countdowns in Penang. It should be enough to keep me awake.

Unfortunately, for some apparent reason unknown to us mere mortals, the mobile phone services always become dodgy just when there is a hint of festivity in the air. Consequently, I had difficulty contacting any of my friends to plan for the night. Just when I have resigned myself to escorting my mum and aunts around for the night though, I got my second break. I got a text from Kenneth, and so we are set to go.

With Kenneth's bro, Kevin tagging along, we set out on the trek to El Gurney, er, Gurney Drive. I had warned them beforehand that things could get a little too 'bubbly' and raucous at bashes like this, and to my chagrin was proven more than right. Upon arriving at Mount Gurney, ooops, Gurney Plaza, we were greeted by a sea of humanity wider than what Moses had to cross.

Our hardy party knuckled down and tried to force our way through. In spite of our best efforts though, we were finally barred by a row of massive barricades wrapped with barbed and electrified wire. Taking stock of our situation, we decided that a small pass on the other side of the bohemoth was our only hope of reaching the other side.

After taking the long detour, we were greeted by the sight of ... a massive battle. Though the white of soap suds have taken the place of the red of bloodshed, we did not doubt the lethality of this skermish. Saying a final battlecry and promising to meet on the other side, we dove in. Sharp reflexes that will make Spidey proud proved to be the best defence against bloodthirsty nemeses.

We survived this battlefield a few more times the remainder of the night as we walked to and fro to kill time. As time ticked towards 2007, Kenneth decided to look for more of our schoolmates. With the huge crowd, this seemed to be worse than looking for needles in a haystack...

To be continued...