Gnomed

The girl tells me she likes my “magically delicious” shirt.

I am gnomed.

Birthday card

Just received an email from the school today:

	At the IU Foundation, we believe our friends are worth celebrating. This week, we are celebrating you. View your special greeting here.

~

Wow. I’m amazed that the school cared enough about my birthday to give me the exclusive link to their special greeting for me which 4382431 students have seen before, probably.

Though it’s actually a pretty cool flash animation, I’d rather have a bottle of Coke, thank you.

38 minutes

So I’ll be turning 22 in less than 80 minutes from now. Here are the 21 things I wish I could have done better at, or should have done:

1. Spent more time with my youngest brother, Roy. Should’ve played all those games and sports with him when I was younger and back in Malaysia.

2. Meditate.

3. Called Dilly more often. Wrote her more letters.

4. Spent more time talking to my late grandmother when she was alive.

5. Continued my ballet lessons. And capoeira lessons.

6. Learned to swim better.

7. Ran more often in the Taman Tun park. I could have won many marathons by now.

8. Remembered to wear my retainers every night, not missing a single night.

9. Did my homework everyday in primary school. I was called “the laziest student” my Std 5 class teacher, Mrs. Wong, ever knew, and yet, I stayed in the express classes the whole time.

10. Rollerbladed more often. Cycled more often.

11. Gave those Cleo magazines to the orphanage near my house like I promised to, in person.

12. Stayed to tell those Interact Club members back in high school exactly what I thought of their activities, instead of walking away, leaving the meeting.

13. Introspected without self-judgment when I was in the psychiatric ward at UH, when I was 16, instead of thriving in the thrill from the attention I was getting from visitors.

14. Told the graduate student that he was shit when he told me “did you know that half the people here in this room, feels exactly the way you do?”

15. Spat at the psychiatrist who asked me “do you know what depression is?” after me telling him about the void I felt.

16. Continued group therapy back in UH. It’d prolly help distract me from my issues if I were to listen to the melodramas of everyone else. Then again, the only stories I remembered from my one and only session (I think) was some runaway case and some domestic abuse thing.

Nobody talked about the mind.

17. Be more sensitive and mindful of what my exes felt while we were still together. Some of them really tried to work things out. Oh well.

18. Bought a vibrator.

19. Kept the diary/journal habit. Wrote down the dreams I remembered first thing in the morning.

20. Wasn’t so stupid to encourage short-sightedness/far-sightedness by plastering my face to the telly when I was 7, because I believed in the aesthetic appeal of spectacles. In fact, I got mad when my parents refused to buy me the more expensive, nicer-looking ones.

21. Colored more often. I remember one of my first art lessons in primary school. It was an extra-curricular activity and was paid for.

One day the teacher wanted the class to draw the alligator she drew on the blackboard. Some alligator by the jungle river. Instead, I drew a farmer with a straw hat in a paddy field, mainly because I got bored and the alligator looked really complex to draw. She got so annoyed that she made me stay back after class, asking me to at least color the large print of Christmas stocking she gave me. Then she colored another sock while waiting for me to color mine.

I left the paper blank. She asked me why. I told her my sock was white. She said nothing afterwards.

So those were the 21 things I wished I did (better at).

~

As for the 22 things I want to do in less than 38 minutes, I think I’ll just go with the flow. I’ll start by visiting the girl down my floor. She’s been sick for a while now.

Facebook updates

From my 25 whatevers:

3. You know you’re an SL addict when you realize that you spend more time awake in SL than sleeping in FL. And you have dreams about SL. And you know what these acronyms mean.

Aside from that, here are some what’s-news:
1. I haven’t been doing my work. But I now have a clearer idea of what I want to do with my life. Perhaps this is the quote of the moment for me:

“We try to judge people not on how much time they waste but on what they accomplish over fairly long periods of time, like a half-year to a year.” – Les Earnest.

2. I am still in a relationship with the man I love. Hoorais.

3. I bought my first ever pair of rainboots. The are red with yellow ducks all over. Classic.

4. I still think Paddington Bear is the most adorable shit ever.

5. I am moving into a house for the first time in my life, with four girls, two of which are terribly amazing because they worship my legal age. It’s going to be sexciting.

No, it doesn’t involve orgies. Unless…, nevermind.

6. I have been on time for most of my classes.

Sequel to the prequel

I once said I’d talk about Collins and Disney. Let’s try this again, shall we?

A) I like Collins a lot.

B) Collins is short for Collins Living Learning Center (CLLC).

C) Nobody calls Collins “CLLC” here.

D) It is a Hogwarts-looking hippie dorm.

E) Why hippie?

1. Collins officially has the healthiest, vegan-friendly menu in their dining hall. And they serve good shits (sometimes).
   a. It’s pretty sad, actually, when I think about the dorm food of all the other American campuses.
2. We recycle everything from beer cans to assignment sheets, except leftover Panda Express.
3. We have courses where you can get credit for sleepingmeditating.
4. I’ll bet you all $1500 of my meal points that at least 50% of the residents here smoked pot at least once in their stay in IUB.
   a. If you lose the bet, you will compensate with actual cash.
5. Although most of us shower like most capitalists, some of us don’t support hair shampoo.
6. LGBT-friendly. (Officially, at least.)
7. Truth, beauty, freedom, love.
8. Etc. E.g. “Hogwarts Week Fall ‘08.”

F) Why Hogwarts?

• Why don’t you do a Google search or come see for yourself?

G) OfMontreal is in my good books. And so is Radiohead.

H) Pandora has the smartest radio ever. Not only does it kick Deezer’s ass at least twice, it can only be accessed in God bless Amedika, hah!

I) Ayam very excite about arriving in LONDON in less than twenty two fucking days, w00t!

J) I really should describe Disney some time before I forget what’s it like to be an adult-like child.

K) It’s raining snow here right now. I’m surprised that not enough people wore their Eskimo suits and popped out umbrellas on the streets, like I did.

L) I wonder why I don’t blog more often. There are many sexciting people around here to talk about.

M) Oh right, I have a 10-page thesis due next Monday based on a 350-page novel I have yet to read, and a 20-page short fiction to revise by the end of this week!

Crap, and a 3-page for my Capoeira final presentation.

I probably need to catch up with at least 10 of my readings as well.

And one fucking French chapter worth of homework.

I told you I have a Ph.D in Procrastination.

Highlights and lowlights

An extremely brief summary of how I’m feeling since I’ve last updated.

1. 0015, Nov. 5th, 2008: I semi-led a screaming mob from Collins –> IU Auditorium fountain –> Kirkwood –> past Trojan Horse (restaurant), in the name of Obama. Met his puppet/effigy somewhere towards the end of my journey.

It’s interesting how you can make new friends by having a common enemy.

And I am annoyed at the guy who took all the credits of leading the mob, without a mention of my original idea whatsoever. Whatever.

2. I salsa danced the last two-three weekends in a row.

3. On Halloween Night, I attended the Rocky Horror Picture (disappointingly not-so-live) Show in Buskirk-Chumley Theater. Nine fucking bucks for mediocre voiceovers and terribly limited acting from the Cardinal Theater Group.

Then again, I received a coupon for one large Pizza Express (worth $5? $6? $7??). Because I won the Orgasm Contest.

I don’t really want to elaborate on it because I sacrificed my laundry basket so that I could be a fucking Duracell Bunny (but wearing the goddamned basket is too clumsy for me to sit or run with. Fun.).

Oh, and nobody remembered the Duracell Bunny. Even with my fucking handmade golden cymbals. Apparently the Energizer Bunny didn’t need fucking shades and drum sets to be venerated by Americans.

So I was remembered as either the Energizer Bunny or Slutty Bunny (because I wore mostly only fucking Victoria Secrets, thinking that I needn’t part with my battery suit of a laundry basket).

4. I am still quite annoyed with someone who bailed on me tonight because of retarded text-communication.

5. I updated honestlydead.

6. I need to study for tomorrow’s French test. Mia prolly expected me seven minutes ago.

There goes my phone.

I can’t believe we’re approaching the last chapter already.

À bientôt.

From the refuge

I walk to class from my dorm at a quarter to eight each morning. I’d wish to be drowsy with leftover dreams from three floors above as I hurry past the nightmare on 9th and Park. And the other horror somewhere nearby. I don’t know if he still lives there.

Of course, that never happens in real life. Nightmares do what they do best in your waking life; they keep you awake with unwanted memories.

French classes and Amye are the only things that keep me sane right now. Dating was a terrible idea after all.

-

On a side note, pardon my lack of responses and updates in any of the blogs. I have been taking refuge beneath my blanket with my 15-year-old pillow. But in case you’d like to know more about what’s been going on here in school, do visit the RPS Photoblog (with your soon-to-be-varsity-kids/siblings/friends)!

Yeah, it’s part of my job.

Minor rant

I swear: One more email from my French class about course requirements and I’m going to lose it.

It’s just the first goddamn day, goddammit. You don’t need to email me 5 times to tell me about what I should bring.

Starstruck

Friday night; I met the most amazing music performer in my world.

She did not have the flair of Michael Jackson. She did not have the eccentricities of Bjork, or Prince, for that matter. She did not have the scandals of Britney Spears, the in-fame of My Chemical Romance, the hypocrisy of Avril Lavigne, the mind-blowing alto of Christina Aguilera, nor did she have the fame and glamour of Muse, Coldplay, Fiona Apple, Norah Jones, or The Beatles, to name a few.

What she did have, though, is a sense of humor; a psychedelic one, in fact. Not to mention one of the most ethereal falsetto I have ever…

…appreciated.

She makes you dream. Ask anyone who really listens to her albums and they can tell you that her music is upbeat, down-to-earth, romantic, sensual, morbid, and even downright depressing. At worst, she is a female version of Damien Rice; at best, she is just…

…Feist.

Friday night; I met the most amazing music performer in my world. After her feisty concert which did not fall short of amazing, we talked about and laughed at our quirks and wits. Most likely, nobody present, except for my friend Ian (and maybe Searle, Abby, Carolyn, and Carly), can testify for the amount of empathy we shared for one another, if only because we listened to our hearts, left them hanging out, and felt it all in that one evening.

She probably didn’t really know what Mushaboom means as well. Something random, she might add.

For all I care, her fans and management may testify me for yet another one of her million and one crazy fans, but frankly, at this rate, I would testify them to be in need of her kind attention. I have her email address and that is all that matters.

And then she asked for my name.

Blow my mind

There’s nothing quite as gobsmacking as having a young politically incorrect Black African American woman come up to you while you’re innocently strolling in the local mall after a smashing $22 hair wash and blow, to say these five haunting magical words to you right in the face with sheer awe:

Girl, you are so fine.