Hey... Chinese New Year upon us once more, and inspiration floods my soul...

First of all, the car trip, yes let's talk abou the car trip.

The eight hour car trip.

In the car.

With my family.

In the car.

With my family.

Family.

We started the most enjoyable journey.

At 8am my dad was stomping around the house screaming "TIME TO GO!!!! HURRY UP!!! I WON'T WAIT!!!" into our waiting faces. Then he went, "Oh, ready already." and went upstairs in his sleeping baju to go bathe. Honestly, I love my father.

Ok, the car trip wasn't all that wonderful, EIGHT hours ok? By the end of it, my parents had managed to argue about every subject known to man. Here're a few  liners.

*car is silent

Mum: EW!!!! ARE YOU DIGGING YOUR NOSE?

Dad: DIGGING MY NOSE?!?!? I SCRATCH MY UPPER LIP ALSO U SAY DIG NOSE!

Mum: Wah, VERY smart to make excuse ah, your upper lip inside your nose one ah?

Dad: WHO said my finger was in my nose? PEE-PUHL nose ITCHY, u shoulc know, your nose got big mole.

Mum: MOLE?!??!?! WHERE GOT MOLE? U ASK ME GO CHINESE DOCTOR POKE OUT WAT RITE?

hence... that covered quite a while

*silence in the car...

(the song "To Be a Better Man" suddenly comes on the CD track)

Dad: Ooh! (presses "repeat track" button)

Mum and Dad: SEND SOMEONE TO LOVE ME.. !!!!

(need I remind you that shouting is their default volume?)

Dad: I NEED TO REST IN ARMS
Mum: I NEED RAISE IN ARMS
(at the same time)

*Mum and Dad look at each other

Dad: Eh, it's "REST" la, don't simply sing!

Mum: WHERE GOT SIMPLY SING? YOU CANNOT HEAR AH?

Dad: YOU TONE DEAF ONE AH?

Mum: YOU THINK YOU ROBBIE WILLIAMS IZIT?

Dad: AT LEAST I DUN SIMPLY MAKE MY OWN WORDS

Mum: IT IS RAAAAAAAAIIIIIIIIIISE!!!!!!!!!!

Dad: OK!!! WE BET! YOU LISTEN!!!!

Then, they listen intently to the next twenty times the song is replayed, and every time that word comes up...

Mum: RAAAAAAAAAIIIIIIIIISSSSSSSSSE!!!!!!!!!!!
Dad: RESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSTTTTTTT!!!!!!!

At the same time, with the same level of decibles...

Hence... The trip gets longer...

*silence in the car

(someone on the emergency lane)

Mum: Stoopit bugger! Dunno how to drive. I hope he gets knocked down.

Dad: SO violent! What are you teaching your children?

Mum: TRUE wat! These people deserve to DIE

Dad: You ah, a true Hitler!

Mum: HITLER? IF ANYONE IS CAPABLE OF BEING A HITLER IT'S YOU!

Dad: HUH! ME? YOU SHOULD LOOK AT YOURSELF!

Mum: DON'T TALK NONSENSE! YOU'RE THE ONE WHO IS SO MURDEROUS!

Dad: MURDEROUS!!! YOU'LL BE WORSE!! THE JEWS WOULD WANT HITLER BACK!!!!

Hence... the car trip is extended by another light year...

Suddenly the car is silent...

My mum is sleeping...

Dad: Hear that lah, sleeping also want to make sound

...To be continued...

            Heyho… ok, when I said I was gonna blog everyday, I guess I lied :P.

            Last Thursday, the bunch of us were weaving spastically through the racks of Nicchi on the way out. Suddenly, the sight of a muscular Arnold Swarchenegger look alike lady caught my cocked eye.The first awfully discriminating impulse that bonked my mind was "Man or woman?", but I didn't acknowledge the aforesaid brain burp cuz, I mean huge women can be muscular too…

Apparently, I wasn't the only one with this gender analysis crisis and sure enough, Suenz started abusing my arm while hollering "Eh, eh, eh, Valerie!!!" into my cochlea. "That one girl or boy ah?" Having made up my sexist mind, I told her confidently, it was a woman, duh. But we were interrupted by an opinionated Sham saying, "No! It's a man la…" having being in these categories of intellectual discussions before, rather than stand around a dress store debating on the gender of some testosterone induced female or Klinefelter stranger, I tactfully suggested that Suen should subtly take a peek at Mrs. Man's face.

Before I knew it, I was dragged along by the aforesaid mad female on her odyssey of discovery. Being a queen of human behaviour, I just went to a rack opposite Mrs. Man and looked at the clothes there.

Meanwhile, the Suen Xin I had been wise enough to abandon was faring so much better than me. While two pairs of beady eyes turned towards her creeping majesty in horror, who apparently decided that the best way to identify a human secretly was to terrorise Mrs. Man into a coma. The cacated psychologist stalked right up to Mrs. Man with her head down and when she literally almost embedded her skull into Mrs. Man's erm, chest, she lifted her head up in her version of subtleness and STARED right into Mrs. Man's face. To emphasize her emotions, she whipped around and RAN to me, now with three pairs of eyes on her (two pairs still in horror, one probably murderous), and frantically beat my arm trying to get my already fully turned on attention. Edging away from her in a futile attempt to disassociate myself from this schizophrenic hysterical poultry, I tripped over a rack and succeeded in attracting more loving attention. At the same time, Suen had not yet given up trying to kill me and was still hitting me vigorously, this time hyperventilating while whispering "It's a man! It's a man1" at the top of her voice.

Wanting to salvage the situation before we were arrested for the disruption of peace and  discrimination of operated people, I tugged at her sleeve trying to drag her silently away without gaining more much-needed publicity. Too late.

The watching Sham aka the other pair of horrified eyes, amazed at what she perceived was a glorified success had snapped out of her vegetative state and bounced right up to us and was gesturing frantically while racing around the both of us, with me already attempting suicide from embarrassment and Suen still in her broken recorder mode of "It's a man! It's a man!". Before I could hiss "Sham! He's WATCHING us, MOVE!!!!" into her hyperactive face, she had started congratulating a fascinated Suen while yelling "Oh my God! You were SO obvious!!!! HAHAHAHAHAHAHH!!!! How COULD you??!?!? MAN OR WOMAN?!?!?" May I remind you, that they had gathered to conference at the place I stood, which was the rack OPPOSITE him? May I ALSO point out that I am short-sighted in one eye, and therefore stood at a rack almost right in front of him to see him better?

At this point of time, our reputation as citizens part of a society full of acceptance and mutual understanding and as individuals of high integrity and self-dignity were non-existent. Before he could study my features to identify me to the ISA, I turned and strode hurriedly off with my head down, leaving the two screeching maniacs behind. Of course, all good things must come to an end, and in two seconds I was caught up by a red-faced Suen Xin who shouted "Eh, VAL!!!" throughout the entire path she took. Thank you, thank you so much Suen, now the pretty man doesn't have to remember my face anymore, the whole department now knows my name. In fact, why don't you just advertise me to the entire mall? I don't think the security guards in the other end of the car park heard you. And she did just that. Seeing that I didn't hear her, which was mainly due to the fact I refused to acknowledge her presence and have anything to do with her, she opened her face cave and practically screamed "VAL!!!!!" (It's a good things she rarely calls me Valerie, probably too hard for her to pronounce), thus ensuring that every little deaf child in Madagascar knew my name.

            The other two, Shal and Becca came to us as they saw us leaving the store snorting and crying with mirth and naturally started interrogating us. My fruitless whispered yellings of "Let's get out first" were drowned by Sham's conspirational public-speaker voice of "Look at that person over there, now does it look like man or woman…" as we passed under the reproachful glare of a salesperson.

Oh, the salesperson is a man. He is wearing mascara, eye-shadow and lip-gloss. He has also has beautiful nails. Yup yup.

Inside every man is a woman, screaming to get out.

I'm normally not a preacher, but I recently recalled the most amazing thing that happened to me a few years back.

            I think this happened seven years back…

            My grandfather (grandfather for dad's father, grandpa for mum's) was on his deathbed, in fact, he was in a coma which was the result of a recent heart attack. He didn't have much chance of living; yet, he didn't seem to be dying either, and we didn't want him to, not yet.

My mum's side of family were ardent Christians, strong in the believe that one should live and die by Christ, and of course the failing of that would result in an after-death in a fiery furnace known as hell.

My dad's side of the family were unshakable Taoists, believing without a doubt that my grandfather was going to hell anyway, just like everyone will. Of course their perception of hell vastly differed to the one Christians know.

My mum's side of the family were persistent in the fact that my grandfather should die a Christian; My dad's side had not a doubt my grandfather would be getting a Taoist funeral.

Between these two sides, the only thread that connected them was our family.

            Having my mum's entire hoard of relatives tromp into my grandfather's ICU ward to preach to my unconscious grandfather would of course spark a quarrel because my dad's side believed that whatever decision this vegetative man made would be entirely out of his drug induced state and he would not be able to fend off a whole crowd of people from what y dad's family feel will be "forcing" him into a whole new religion.

            Every night, a few church members sat by my grandfather in the absence of my dad's family and talked to him, explaining to him about God and about Christ. They even brought in woman to talk to him in Hainanese which was his dialect.

            While all these happened  in Penang, I was here in PJ. My mum and I prayed every single night for my grandfather. I was not ignorant enough to pray for his life as I hugged my snoopy, for learning to let go has been a sort of survival skill for me, but I prayed with all my might for his soul. In every prayer my mind shaped, it was always the same, it was always for his soul, and I always cried. I don't think it was crying though, tears just fell, not out of sadness, but out of prayer.

            One night, I stayed up extra late and prayed extra hard; I did not know though, why I did so. Why on that very night I had felt powerful enough to succeed yet helpless enough to pray with all my strength for that stubborn man who had never believed in anything else.

I did not know that at the exact time, a mass prayer in my aunt's church was being conducted for this frail man, and seven people including the Hainanese lady was in his ward, holding his hand, once more speaking to him the word of God and praying.

            On my bed at home, I forced out as much prayer as I could, changing a few words every now and then, so as not to bore God but always repeating the same message: Save Ah Kong's soul. As I was praying, an image kept appearing in my mind, it was almost intangible but with every word of my prayer, it got clearer and clearer. Thinking I must be falling asleep and succumbing to a dream, I continually attempted to shove the picture out of my mind, determined to focus on God. Try as I might, I could not. I was never more awake and it wasn't a dream. Probably imagination then, I thought. The image consisted of a group of shadowed people I could not identify and they were standing or sitting around my grandfather whom I saw clearly lying on his bed. These people I could tell, were praying for him and they were silent, but maybe only to me. Then without warning, my grandfather sat up on the bed and his eyes flew open, "Yes, I believe" he said. An angel, or rather, a glowing person in a robe appeared before him. My grandfather looked at the angel in awe and immediately laid back on his bed and shut his eyes. This slide show kept repeating itself in my wary mind, giving me immense peace and before long, I drifted to sleep.

            The next morning, as I was going up the stairs, I caught my mother coming down. She had been making phone calls all morning and it sounded rather important. Remembering what I saw the night before, I thought "Is he gone?". Of course saying something like that might sound callous, so instead, I related what I saw to my mum. As I spoke, tears welled up in my mum's eyes, and at the end, her tear-tap was turned on to the maximum. Shocked, I thought, " Shit, die already ah?". But apparently it was much more complicated than just that.

            Still weeping, my mum asked me what time I saw everything, and I told her, around ten-thirty at night. In Penang, at the same time, this is what happened… Seven people went to my grandfather's room that night to pray to him. They then asked him in Hainanese, "If you truly accept Christ into your life, give us a sign. Either grip our hands, or just open your eyes.", both of which were impossible feats considering my grandfather was in a coma and under sedatives which kept him unconscious (dunno why since he was in a coma). Suddenly, my grandfather gripped their hands, opened his eyes and sat up on his bed, and just as suddenly, he laid back down.

          Two days later, my grandfather passed away. Don't worry, it was peaceful.

           Amen.

Someone prank called me yesterday. It sounded like some ancient dude and he spoke really slow, pausing to absorb his voice after every word

The conversation went like this...

Me: Hello

It: Hello, Valerie?

Me: Yea. (sounds like a man, I thought maybe some formal call)

It: How.old.are.you?

Me: Erm... How old are YOU?

It: I.am.twenty.one.years.old. How.old.are.you?

Me: So... who are you?

It: My.name.is.Djsdlfnsjka (at least that's what it sounded like). How.old.are.you?

(The dude's obssessed with how long I've been alive)

Me: How did you get my number?

(aaand this, my friends is where close scrutiny will show you it was a prank call. Look closely, only very very close observation will give the game away)

Djsdlfnsjka: I.got your number.from my.dream. God.give.me.one.

(see what I mean?)

Me: Ah... I see... so, God gave you my number?

Djsdlfnsjka: Yes.God.give.me.your.number.one. How.old.are.you?

(Ask God to gif you la)

Me: So God gave you my number in a dream?

Djsdlfnska: huh?

(poor single celled organism)

Djsdlfnska: Uh.ya.ya.I.dream.god.give.

Me: Good for you...

Djsdlfnska: How.old.are.you?

(sigh... poor poor senile male)

Me: sixteen.

Djsdlfnsjka: oh.you.SIXTEEN. ah?

(I wonder who he's shouting the sixteen for...)

Me: Yea, sixteen

Djsdlfnsjka: You.got.boyfriend.ah?

(In my amazement at this conversation and at the immense intelligent just oozing out of the earpiece, I let my guard down.)

Me: No.

Djsdlfnsjka: Oh.Ok.I.call.you.back.another.time.ah?

Me: Yea... ok

apparently I had nothing to fear)

Someone... please smite him.

...continuation of the last entry...

     Ok, to feed the beetle, we took our science books out and there was this chapter on symbiosis, mentioning something about ladybugs and teritips. We came to the conclusion that a beetle was probably really close to a ladybug, and armed with this knowledge and encouragement, when the bell rang, we bounced to the nearest big tree in the skool and begin staring intently at it and muttering teritip related sentences as though we expected some teritips to start prancing around singing "Eat me". After growing a 3 foot beard but still getting no teritips, a voice chimed "How does a teritip look like?" Wow, good one, how does a teritip look like… We stood there like some kinda spastic old women staring at each other and talking to a tree before we realised that little flaw. Being the people we were we started roaring with laughter and pounded at the trunk of the tree sobbing happily before we realised we could be pounding the teritips to death. Anyway, out came the science book that described the teritip as some really ugly little creatures living IN the bark of trees.

            Armed with this knowledge and encouraged, we looked around for tools to scrape the bark of tree with. Seeing this really nice girl, I asked to borrow her cloth scissors (I didn't wonder at that time though, why a form 3 girl was stomping around skool with a pair of cloth scissors in her pocket) and after waiting patiently as she faded out of sight, I proceeded to mutilate the tree bark with it.

            After 20 minutes of murdering the tree, I almost gave up. We got our science books out again, and looked at the picture really hard, and saw the words… "Tidak dapat dilihat oleh mata kasar"(cannot be seen with the naked eye).

            Ok, let me see, I just spent 10minutes peering at a bark of a tree to realise that teritips live IN the bark. Stole a pair of cloth scissors to scrape the bark of the tree, did that for 20minutes, and found out that teritips CANNOT BE SEEN. I was probably scratching at a whole city of invisible teritips and they could be crawling all over me shopping in my hair, BUT I CANNOT SEE THEM.

            Anticlimax: The stoopit shit-look-alike beetle was gonna die anyway

I think this is a teritip...

Remind me again why I'm in school...

ps. nope... not teritip...

You know, I think school is a place parents put the children they're bored with.

Anyway, that's where I was, roasting in the khatulistiwa-ish weather while the class was being dominated by a woman talking to herself. I was admiring her bushy moustache, when "plok!" something landed on my desk It looked like a lonely piece of lizard shit, so I let it sit, and looked for my friend's ruler to help it along its way. As I turned back to it, I noticed it had apparently moved itself to the other end of my table. Looking at it in awe, I started on my own scientific theories about the laws of horizontal gravity, when suddenly, the piece of shit started walking. To say I was shocked is an understatement, I mean how often do u see faeces taking a stroll on your table? With wide eyed terror, I hysterically begin stabbing all the other sleepy people to life, while gasping breathlessly about walking shit and the world ending, until some really observant creature said "beetle".

            When the impulse finally bonked on my mind and my world made sense once more, I stared at the forlorn little bug hobbling around my desk looking like it was going to start crying out of its ugliness. Feeling guilty and filled with a sense of maternal love and 99 percent boredom, I decided to adopt it. Just as I was thinking of a name suitable for a shit looking beetle that wasn't profanity, my teacher (yea, that was the monologue-ing moustached lady I mentioned earlier) said "Ah, yes, Valerie, so what is the formula?" Formula? I didn't know English had formulas... By the way, did I volunteer? What do you mean "Ah yes, Valerie"? Did I look like I was waving my arms dying to answer your question u little cross eyed troll? "Er…the pi times the-" "The jejari kuasa dua times the tinggi rite?" she croaked. Hello? You just gave me the whole formula, and what? You expect me to start shaking my head and go "NO, it's all wrong. Please ask me the whole formula again, PLEASE ASK ME. In fact, ask me to read the whole textbook, ASK ME NOW!" No, I may be the human who spent ten minutes glaring at a beetle and wondering how shit could travel, but I'm not stupid. Anyway, I nodded my head profusely beaming in pride at how smart she was and sat down. Of course by now, you would have realised that that was the formula for a cylinder and I was having math, and so… My beetle was called "Cylinder"

            By the end of the period, everyone around me had fallen in love with the beetle. We had even stabbed holes all over MY container to put the beetle in. We were talking to it, taking it out, playing with it, planning a future for it, etc. We had even put leaves in for it to eat and flooded the container for it to drink.

            At the end of the day though, we realised a depressing thing, it didn't eat the leaves. Sure it walked around and around and tried drowning in its water. When that didn't work, it just stopped moving and glared up at me, but it.did.not.eat.the.leaves. Almost thinking that mayb I had really adopted a piece of shit after all, I had a realisation… "BEETLES DON'T EAT LEAVES"

   My grandparents are here again. And remember what I said about how much I love my grandma? Hehe... This is good...

   Yesterday, I had Accounts tuition at my house with Jasmyn and Ling Jin. The teacher came early and was setting up his board, yes, he brings his own board, a really big one. In fact, the first time he came to my house, he and the board both got stuck at the door. My helpful maid stood behind him stifling her laughter and mimicking him while I, who was in front of him had to helplessly take control of my natural reactions. And after watching us honk laughter at his unfortunate state, he defied all laws of Physics and got himself out.

    Anyway, he was setting the board up and suddenly Ling Jin started poking me frantically, like trying to ram her finger back into it's socket or something. When I finally got the message, I saw what she was abusing me for. Behind my teacher who was still unaware, there it was, my grandma creeping up behind him. She then stood behind him and jabbed her finger towards him, mouthing o'-so-subltly "who is this?" really loudly, yes my grandma is the only one in the world that can mouth words and say them out. Finally, my teacher turned around and caught sight of my grandma's finger at his face. Before my anatomies seized functioning from want of bursting into maniacal joy, I hopped up and attempted to direct my grandma to the living room where everyone was.

Me: Hi, Ah Mah! We're having tuition now.

She: WHO IS HE?

Me: Our tuition teacher, we're having tuition now.

She: TUITION? THEN WHY IS HE HERE?

Me: He's the tuition teacher. We're gonna haf tuition. The rest of the family are downstairs, why don't you go joi-

She: I KNOW, I KNOW, BUT WHO IS HE?????

Me: He's our tuition teacher.

She: (opens her eyes big big) SO YOUNG AH?

excuse me...?

Me: (dazed...) Errr...

She then goes up and pokes the teacher.

She: *poke poke poke* You very young hor?

He: Err, haha, no lah auntie.

She: WAH... HOW OLD ARE YOU?

He: (mumble mumble mumble....)

She: WAH! SO YOUNG! CAN CALL ME "AH MAH" ALREADY!!!

He: No lah auntie. How old are you?

She: EIGHTY ONE!

He: Wah, still so strong ah!

She: (With an air of a weight lifter who has just lifted Puan Teletubby, she flexed her arms, yes, my grandma just flexed her arms, you know, the way muscle muscle men do to show their muscle muscles) YA! I DO SWIMMING ONE!

He: Ah, yes yes.

   And the conversation went on. The poor embarrassed teacher with a face the shade of a hemophilic chicken that just broke a toe, and my mini, 4-foot high grandma poking him and telling him he looked so young over and over again after asking him who he was, over and over again. If she didn't look so genuine, I'd think she was terrorising him on purpose. I gave up pulling at her arm to lead her away from him and joined Jasmyn and Ling Jin in their crying symphony. We sat there sobbing and watched as the teacher answered the same question for the 40th time before we exploded and roared with mirth again. I don't think he'll ever forget who he is.

I love my grandma.

I believe the day a person almost dies is very significant.

Strike that.

The day a person is almost murdered is very significant.

I also believe one should reveal their murderer.

Yesterday, I almost died.

Suen Xin was the murderer.

    For moral period, the whole class was commited to slavery in the editorial room. Yes, we actually haf an editorial room. No, I didn't know that either. It's the one with the ant nest on the sign that says "Tanggalkan Kasut", next to the canteen. You won't find the sign anymore. I took it out and the ant nest fell on my face.... Shaddap. Anyway, when the teacher opened the door, I realise why the school doesn't open the room to the public 
 
    Imagine you were in a cave. And at one corner of the cave there is a pile of wood, this, they so laughingly call "table", and beside this pile of wood, underneath some dead spiders, you unearth another pile of wood, and this, they call "shelf". Admist these piles of tree corpses, u see dust, and in the dust there are things that live in dust, called "shit". And this is the story of a room.

 Anyway, back to the sob story....

    To avoid sweeping the floor, Suen and I volunteered to go fetch screwdrivers from the KH workshop. The aforesaid screwdrivers are soon to be the murder weapons and also the cause of my ant nest-y face.
 
    We actually wanted to go in the first workshop to get our tools, but as I stepped into the classroom, I saw the shape of a stunted-at-birth turkey aka Madam Rip Off teacher. And to avoid her before she sees me and starts squawking at me, I scuttled away to the 2nd workshop. Leaving behind a cacated Suen Xin who stood there braying "WOI, VALERIE, SHE SAW U RUNNING AWAY FROM HER WEI!!" into her face.

    To cut a long story short, we collected the screwdrivers and returned to the room. I was walking in front of Suen and she was dragging herself along behind. We were walking into the room til suddenly I heard a squeak. I turned around, and saw something clutching 2 screwdrivers falling towards me. The teacher, thank you so much dear teacher, when I burn the skool down, I make sure the ambulance gets to u first, caught her in time and there was a screwdriver at my throat and one at my face. Now, a little arthmetic will show that there were not one, but TWO screwdrivers at my face, TWO to make sure I would really die, while the rest of the heartless peasants in the room were moved to tears from laughing. Talk about love.

    When I brought the subject up again in class, she finally understood what she almost succeeded in doing and said "Oh my goodness, I almost commited a murder..." Wow, real observant... The only thing I'm thankful for was that she probably wanted to kill me on purpose, if it were on accident, she might have succeeded.

I, Queen of the World do hereby proclaim that all suspected murderers be thrown into a room with the 2 million chickens until they confess. If they confess, they are to be turned into monsoon drains and used. If they do not confees, it will prove that they are guilty, and they shall also be turned into monsoon drains.