One of the few things that keep me going :)

Lyrics: You will never walk alone

Along life's road
There will be sunshine and rain
Roses and thorns, laughter and pain
And 'cross the miles
You will face mountains so steep
Deserts so long and valleys so deep
Sometimes the Journey's gentle
Sometimes the cold winds blow
But I want you to remember
I want you to know

You will never walk alone
As long as you have faith
Jesus will be right beside you all the way
You may feel you're far from home
But home is where He is
And he'll be there down every road
You will never walk alone
The path will wind

And you will find wonders and fears
Labors of love and a few falling tears
Across the years
There will be some twists and turns
Mistakes to make and lessons to learn
Sometimes the journey's gentle
Sometimes the cold winds blow
But I want you to remember where ever you may

Jesus knows your joy, Jesus knows your need
He will go the distance with you faithfully

   It all started when we had to do Kerja Amal for Moral. To you lucky souls who don't know it, it's this program the education board uses to force goodwill and kindness into us teenage marijuana smoking generation. It involves offering our services to the needy and turning them into poor unfortunate victims (poor and unfortunate only bcos of us). The best part is, after all this extremely sincere show of care, we will shove a paper into their faces and make them sign it. Yea, the form is to show that we really DID go there and no, we didn't just shove old ladies into the streets and picked up them up again. This very vital form has to b signed by the caretaker or organiser who by now knows that it wasn't done from our little black hearts & that we really are marijuana smoking humans porbably threatened by the school to haf our butt rings removed if we refused to do charity. Sign... What's a little love and trust in the world?

   While the other students took the easy way out and posed next to brooms and forged signatures, we posed with old ladies and forged signatures.

Here's how it goes...

   I got to hear of this Mary Old Folks' Home (name changed for privacy purposes) that needed volunteers to talk to the residents, so, guess where we went?

   On the 2nd of June, we terrorised my mother in the car... Yea, rite, please! More like she verbally abused us all the way there.

   Ok, first let me make this clear. I imagined "Old Folks' Home" to be this brightly painted mansion where friendly SANE old ladies will come greetin us with flowers and biscuits. I imagined sweet smiles saying again and again wat beautiful ppl we are. Then we reached.

   The first caring thought in my mind:"Wrong house. Turn back." But no... we drove right in and parked on this small patch of green stuff that was supposed to b the garden. Then my mom decided that we cudn't sit there til the nice old peopl came to greet us, so, her theory:" If I shout really loudly at Valerie to go in, I can drive home and abandon her." So, me, deaf in one ear, stumbled out of the car into the lair.

   When I bonked into the door, I was greeted by my first kind old folk, a man who looked at me like I was some kinda terrorist and hollered "WAT YOU WANT". I decided that if I answered, he mite hit me for answering back, and if I didn't answer he mite hit me until I can't. So I asked him if it was the correct house and he shouted that it was.

   As we stepped into the home,we saw a few old ladies just sitting there, and when they saw us, looked as if they wanted to cook us, slow. At that point, I was just going to scream and run out, but the old man was behind me, making sure I wasn't carrying any weapons. I ran in.

   We sat around at one corner of the room, mortified. The old ladies sat in the other corner, terrified. As we (the old ladies and us) sat around glaring at each other, us thinking "If we run now, we can still make it", them probably thinking "If they run now, means they've planted a bomb". and many other warm thoughts. I decided to be the first to establish a harmonic bond before we started showing our (us) teeth and (them) gums.

I went up to the least fearful old lady hu was on a bed, and this is how it went.

Me: Hi

She: *Ignores me*

Me: HELLO!

She: *glares at me* I don't like it here

Me: Why not?

She: Here nothing to buy one.

Me: Really? Where were u last time?

(silence...)

Me: Wat's your name?

She: Here ah, nothing to buy one, SS3 better.

Me: Where did you live?

She: I got 5 dollars also cannot use, nothing to buy.

Me: What do you wan to buy?

She: Last time got ice-cream man one, then got police come and CASH (catch) him!

   Here, I was near hysterics, but still forcing myself to keep a straight face. Probably looked like I was ectastic to be talking to her, and asked "Wah, wat happened?"

   She never got to answer. The whole room was silent, everyone was listening to us. Until, suddenly, in the midst of this pin-drop silence, I heard snorting, "die lah" I thought. There it was, someone (hint hint Cuping) was laughing. That did it. I exploded into the old lady's face, and gasping for air, attempted to catch the words she was throwing at me. After 2 rude minutes of honking at her face, I glared around until the laughter died, and continued.

To be continued...

f I write too much now, no time to reread and correct mistakes. So, continuation next week :P

Hehe, someonne suggested that I write this down on my blog, and since it's been a slow news week, I thought, why not?

Some time, back, my parents dragged me to New Zealand for some PR thing and I had to study there. Actually it wasn't a bad thing, in fact, after you got used to the smell of sheep.

Anyway, against my wishes, I was enrolled into an intermediate school. And upon hearing I was Malaysian, the next question was "Do you REALLY live on trees?" (Yea, I live on trees, in fact I wear leaves and I'm afraid of the ground, it's so... BIG). No, before I was branded "tree-freak" or something, I went against my monkey nature and told them that I lived in a HOUSE, yes, yes, the one with DOORS, and for water supply, we haf these really modern buckets to carry water from the river. As they asked me and gasp with wonder, they may have been wondering why the new girl was biting her tongue, two-thirds preventing myself frm saying something a lot of people may regret later, and one-third, attempting suicide.

I thought the students were knowledgeble, read this...

Class soon started, and we were all given an English worksheet to, my first thought "Uh oh..."

Til I saw "Change tomato into plural form" "change bring into past tense". Hehe, with a huge grin, I finished everything and sat there looking like a stupid show-off human, which I didn't know the teacher interpreted as without the show-off part. Lemme tell u about the the teacher, she is one of those with grey curly hair and warts on her warts, she smokes and her breath stinks, not to mention she's all skinny and old. Well, this kind helpful lady, seeing an uneducated tree creature sitting and staring around the class like some kinda illterate caveman decided to play the role of "helpful, patronising" teacher. She grabbed an English book the size of 3 encyclopedias and plonked herself next to me, then came the smell...

Anyway, she turned open the page to one with an ugly little cartoon of a human with a speech bubble "What is your name?" Then she read it out, real slow "Repeat after me. WART...IS...YOUR....NAME" (No, Wart is YOUR name, not mine, Wart is also the name of your warts) So, I opened my mouth to let her know that I haf been educated at some point of my village life, but she intereupted my "But-" probably thinking I was gonna speak another language and hollered "REPEAT! WART...IS...YORR...NAME" I had a feeling I wasn't gonna get out of this, so, to amuse this little menopausic creature, I said "What is your name" perfectly pronounced

She opened her eyes really wide and said: GOOD GOOD!

She: Now, say "GOOD MORNING, MY NAME IS VALERIE!!." (she can't talk, she chouts)

Oh, God...

Me: Good morning, my name is Valerie.

She: wow... you are improving!

From wat? Improve from WHAT?

She: "I AM 15 YEARS OLD" (No, you're like a century old, WAY past your expiration date, so, go do wat u do best, die)

This is dead embarrassing, she is shouting loud enough for the whole state to know that she is 15 years old

Me: I am 15 years old

This disgusting ritual went on for around 20 minutes. By then I was suffocating. It's bad enough you excrete smell from every pore on you body, but you don't really have to attempt to hide it with the smell of your breath. There she was, smelling like some monsoon drain and yelling sentences at my ear, at the pitch she was screeching in my ear, it's like she was screaming obcenities at me. By that time, every little kid in Egypt would have known my name, age, homtown and English teacher's voice. If I didn't stop breathing, I'd probably die faster than if I were to stop. So, I covered my mouth and turned away to "cough" and when I turned away I took large gulps of air.

Finally, after monotously repeating sentences and filling up the blanks with "a" and "an" she said, "wow, your English is ok!" (YOU THINK!?!?!?!?) Then she closed her book with a triumphant show of her pearly browns and stalked off.

Why is it that things like that only happen to me?

Next time we go somewhere, I sit in the airport and count floor tiles, it hurts less.

I just returned from my hometown, Penang.

For those who have read about the sad little torture lair my parents keep there, you 'd know how happy my holidays really were.

This time, in the name of loving family, my parents decided, o' so wisely that we spend all the time we can at my maternal grandparents' home. That would be a rather warm cuddly thought for you fuzzy people, but if you knew my cousins... If you knew my cousins...

I step in my grandparents house, like every average citizen would, and give my grandma a hug, while I still have the vital anatomies, before....

"WHO CAME? WHO CA- BAWALI!!!! BALALI!!!! BALALI!!!!" (my name is Valerie, either you gotta have no teeth or be extremely dyslexic to call me "Bawali" and "Balali", but sad to say, my cousins were neither)

There are 3 miniature cannibals in that home and all of them came pounding towards me screaming "BAWALI" at the top of their little vocals chords I had once dreamed of taking out and hanging in the desert.

Well, no, no the journey does not end there, noo... Fate isn't THAT nice to me

The 1st blood sucking leech (eldest) comes up to me, and starts to jab me in the ribs, she also trails me around while poking me. Ok, young one, I know maybe it's very intriguing that SOME of us feel pain, but stabbing me with your ugly crooked finger isn't much of an experiment.The 2nd carnivorous maggot bounces up to me and yells, "LEMME PLAY YOUR HAIR!!!!! I WAN TO TIE!!!!!". Then, before I could go jump off a building or something, she runs into her little cave and takes out this mini comb (oh, btw, my hair is sensitive to combs, I only use brushes, combs get stuck in my hair and I end up with more hair on the floor than on my head) and A LOT of little ugly rusty flower hairclips. As I turned to flee, I almost tripped over this tiny thing that has been screeching "KEHWI MEEEEE!" at my knees ever since I got ambushed. With a heavy black heart, I carried her off the floor and walked her around the house, miraculously still alive with all the finger stabbing which soon turned into pinching, while the 2nd little parasite hangs on to the back of my shirt almost in tears, pulling me to sit down so she can mutilate my hair.

The little creature I was carrying started pulling cheeks apart while asking me to walk faster. Thank you, thank you so much, I'm sure every hip teenager wants to walk around with swollen red cheeks that smell of American chocolate cake, thank you, you sinister zoo resident.

While all this activity of abuse goes on, my father finally musters the courage to honk "VALERIE, STOP ACTING SO CHILDISH!"

What are fathers for if not to throw stones into the well you are drowning in?

Chinese New Year is here again. Whee.

I was happy.

I was supposed to get new clothes.

Not anymore.

I happily asked my mom "When will we go shopping for new clothes?" at the dinner table just now and was cruelly informed that there will be none this year. So after sputtering around enough to drown the dining room, I asked why. My mom reminded me of all the clothes that I have in the cupboard, those clothes that could still be re-worn, especially those pretty little frilly ones I've blessedly grown out of. I remind her, tactfully that all I have are t-shirts and jeans, and going to my grandmother's house for a gathering when everyone else wears pretty little new clothes, I'd look like some road sweep coming in off the streets. I'd look like some gangster whose gender God is still afraid to determine, I'd look like I dressed to paint the house, with blood.

To make matters worse, new clothes were supposed to be a compensation to what I go through every-single-year. I'd walk into the already people-congested little hut of my grandmother's and the first thing I'll be greeted with is "WAH, your sister TALLER than you already! Wah, so short one you!" Then there'll be comparing me with the floor and I'll grind my teeth and wait for the money. After insulting me in the many dialects to make sure I understood just how short I am, the philanthrophist takes out the much awaited money and with a big smile shoves it at me. The insulting ones usually give more.

To rub salt into my short wounds, they'll sit around the steamboat meal thing and holler about how pretty my sister is, how TALL she is. I only sit there in all my short glory while they go on about all sorts of remedies to salvage my situation. They'll say "Eat long beans lah!" then look around to make sure their joke is fully appreciated, and roar with drunken laughter, while I smile feebly and pretend that I have not heard it forty times already. Then they teach me how to jump to bcome taller, wat games to play, like basketball, of course they have to add "You can be the ball, HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHA!". They treat me like some deformed child, like I were some dwarfed hobbit or something.

I once had some lady, drunk on crysanthemum tea, at a baby shower, yell "WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU? WHY ARE YOU SO SHORT?" Thank you skyscraper lady (honestly, she has the same height as me, what was she shouting about?), I think the jungle kids somewhere in Zimbabwe didn't hear you, why don't you shout louder? Then she does JUST that, so that some fossiled people in Alaska know just how short I am. She then glares at me with evil venom and to make sure I heard it the last ten times, roars "WHY ARE YOU SO SHORT? HUH? WHY? WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU?!?!" like it was MY fault I grew so short, like I wanted to grow short, like I gave birth to myself after skillfully planting short genes into my genetic make up just to grow shorter to spite them.

Ah well, tomorrow, I'll be donned in my house painter's attire and leave for Penang. To spite them, I'll wear black t-shirt and black pants. No, no, my realtives'll strip me and make me wear leaves or something.

Or I'll just walk around with my finger in my nose the whole day, change the topic a little.

There has been nothing worth my royal attention during the past week, therefore, there will be no long monologues about my royal miserableness. But... for you literate souls out there, here are the few things that haf happened.

1. Just last Saturday, I was reading a really entertaining book about world domination, (in the end everyone finds out they are actually frogs) when my father says "I'm going out to get something from Glenmarie, wanna come?" So I ask, "What are you going out for?" Whereby he asked my sister to come instead. So, thinking it was this really important trip, I rushed around getting ready. Just as I stepped out of the house, I asked again, "Where are we going?" And, ok, first let me tell you, he wasn't being sarcastic, he meant every word he said. In a little maniacal voice, he informs me "We are going to buy grass."

Anticlimax: I walked very calmly back into the house and mumbled something about drowning fish and they drove off to buy grass. Yes, they came back with grass. No, it was not expensive.

2. Last Wednesday, I asked the nice canteen slave for a plate of nasi lemak, and his intellectual enquiry: "Untuk makan?"

No, little man, I am not buying a plate of rice for my consumption, I am going to take this plate of rice and and die on it.

3. Then, there is the nice one of dear dear friend Adila who came behind me, and poked me. I turned around. She walked backwards. Walked into Jasmyn. Fell over.

I love me.

4. I also have another nice friend to speak of. The one with the canivorous teeth and deathwish. This Tan Ping Pong came over to my house, sat there and spat on my floor! She just squirted nasty water all over the place. Out from her mouth, and her nasty nose. You've made your point dear watery one. Tsunami wasn't that disasterous.

Anyway, I'll be on my way now. If you wan more interesting things in my life, MAKE IT!

Just out of general interest, today we had a "Stab your finger day". Nice little people attempted to draw blood out of their anatomies by jabbing at them with metal bits. Then they proceeded to drip their blood on a ceramic slab. No, it is not a blood fest, it is called "The Biology Period".

It was the first week of school.

On the first day.

   Excitement mounts as I pathetically drag my school bag up to the school gates. With a beautiful smile plastered on my somnumbulistic face, I bouce elatedly to the prefect who was possessing the entrance to my beloved jailhouse. As I finally manage to haul my bulk in and shove my nails at her for her perverted extra curricular activity, I was told happily that my nails were too long, and would I cut them. I didn't think no was an option, so I kidnapped her nail clipper and proceeded to mutilate my fingernails with her blunt instrument. After succeeding in destroying my nails on the first day of school, I spiritedly ran in to the building where I was told to hurry because assembly was starting. One word, maroon people, one word: Bluff.

   As I sit in the hall with 600 other victims, we were told that we had to zip up our lips while we sat there withering and glaring lovingly as the teachers took their seats. Then the educational monologues begin. I will not bore you with the speeches, I mite die or grow old typing them out. But there was one very inspiring speech by the great lady herself. Our beloved. It went something like this.

"You all are no longer preensesses. I will call you all stoodens of Sri Aman. I tink that preensesses are spoilt and i dowan u tubi spoilt. Remember what I told you about the four "M"s? *Pauses as she waits for our non existent reply* Remember? Tell me wat they are? *Pause again, silence resumes...* The M's are...Malas... Come on... Manja... sumore sumore? Monyo... Tell me tell me.... and wat is it I hear? (Your own talking?) Yes yes... Malu. I want all of you to always be smiling, then people can say, Sri Aman girls are so comel! And remember, I DOWAN you all to be lazy! Last yr the PMR results are 100% pass! *pauses to prompt us to start clapping, we clap, a few dust mites died* So, hear that?( you've got the mike, you are talking at the top of your voice, no, we cannot hear that) Dis ees a Noo Yerr! And later, some important Nazis will be visiting us. Nazis have never visited our skool beef-ore, I invited them here (I'm darn sure you did). The Nazis will be walking around school, they want to know how our school is being run. I want u all to behave and look nice when the Nazis come."

*It was "Nazirs"

That sums up the first day.

I love school.

Hehe... thanx to dear Adila aka Akira, I shall now unwisely post my New Years Resolutions too!

1. Don't get any fatter. Any fatter and I probably cannot breathe

2. Smile less to strangers, who knows when another paedophile mite be around

3. Be nastier to the opposite species. I'm so sorry, I really was nice, but nuthing good came out of it.

4. Study well.

5. Do everything with my all. I actually mean it. Prankstees, BEWARE.

6. Dun worry too much about getting any less plump cuz I am happeee!

7. Have more faith.

8. Play with King's more often

9.  Blog less

10.Judge no one

11.Help many many many more people than I have

12.Dance more

13.Play more piano

14.Thank my parents more

15.Think less about SPM than I do life

16.Don't get angry often

17.Grow old slower

Hehe... don't roll your crossed-eyes people! Haha, I love you all! I might not say this so often later, so treasure what you get

Does a man who chats up little girls constitute as a paedophile?

I was grocery shopping in Carrefour with my mom just now, and she odered me to go retrieve the mushroom soup. As I was there, talking to myself, and trying to figure out the price, a 6 foot, moustached, balding, sunglassed, around 50 something year old aunty man came up to me and asked "So, when are you going to start the sampling?" So, in my usual self, I happily told him that no, I was only a shopper and haha.

What I didn't know was that what he said was supposed to be a pick up line...

Man: So, where are you from?

Me: I'm not from any company, I don't work here.

Man: No, I mean where are YOU from?

Me: I'm from around PJ

(Getting cautious now)

Man: Oh, what work do you do then?

Me: I'm still studying.

Man: What college?

Me: I'm still in secondary school.

Man: Upper six? Lower six?

Me: No, I'm still form 5.

Man: Wow, but you look so big (what does that mean?), how did you get so big? Take a lot of good vitamins and proteins?

Me: Er... No...*I am edging away*

Then he proceeded to tell me about himself, his origins, his hometown and his sad, lonely miserable little life with no partner, and that he was SINGLE (this, he practically roared in my face, oh, the subtlty just oozing out from his 6 foot high pores.

Man: How about YOU? Do you have a boyfriend?

(No, do you?)

(For those who know me, you're gonna haf fun.)

Me: errr... Yes yes *nodding my head vigorously*

Man: Oh, then I have no chance.

(A 50 year old balding man is trying to "have a chance", and me, you know? Me! Mister, If you don't have four legs and a wagging tail, there ain't nothing to speak of )

Me: Haha, err... ya ya

Man: How about any of your friends? Any single friends u can introduce me to?

(In my mind, vivid pictures of him calling my mom flashed by, all graphic.)

Me: Err, no... they all have boyfriends.

Man: Oh, how did you all get boyfriends? You in an all girls' skool?

(Like I'm really telling a potential stalker)

Me: No, I'm in a co-ed school

Man: Oh, then you would have a lot of boyfriends there.

Me: (Anything you say...) Yea, yea, I do.

(I sound so lowly)

Man: Assunta school?

(Want to test and see if I'm lying izit? Think I stupid ah? I've got a pHD in lying)

Me: No, that's not a co-ed school.

Man: (Brightens) Do you have any connections there?

Me: Err, no, I don't mix around very much. In fact I don't have many friends, at all.

Then, he continues this academically beneficial monologue by raising his voice and telling me how girls should give a guy a chance, and that every girl he has ever met never even gave him a chance or even accept. C'monlah, Mr Attacker, if this is how you talk to people, don't blame them. He also says that at least us girls who *uh hem uh hem* aren't single, have an excuse, (I wanted puke and die right there). Then his voice bcomes a few notches higher and he starts berating "Those-girls-who-don't-give-him-a-chance-or-even-help-by-introducing-their-friends"

Man: I see you edging away, you're one of them aren't you?

Me: (If I disagree, he'll think I'm helping him in his fruitless search, if I agree, he'll kill me) Oh, look! *I point at a random scary-looking lady* My mum! Let me introduce you to her.

Man: Oh, oh, it's ok, I cannot talk to you then, bye!

Then, I RAN back to my mother, and stuck to her. This is the first and hopefully last time I am saying this...but, "I WANT MY PAPA!!!!!"

I am never going out alone

I am never walking without a friend

I am never wearing things I cannot run in

I am never going anywhere (except into the toilet cubicle) alone

I am never telling any old man I am single

I was and am so scared... These things are traumatic, funny as it may be to a reader, I am petrified. Anyone who is thinking "karma" will fall off their chairs now.

In fact, at the very moment of the aforesaid incident, I was thinking the most banished thought in my mind: New Year's Resolution: Get a guy.

But I never keep my New Year Resolutions, so, boo me.