An attack of high spirits. Who do you call?

The past week has been eventful in the way everyday life is: head-banging fun for me, mind-numbing boredom for the rest of humanity.


It's funny how some things never change. The world, for instance. It never changes; it just stays the same, only more so. But that's a story for another day.


In this instance, what doesn't change is Life at College, or more specifically, Life at The Little Outpost In The Jungle between two Pinnacles of Civilization (Sg & Kl) that is Sunway College JB.


Yes, nothing ever happens around here. We don't have a futsal court. Some people did turn up for our expos, though I'm not sure they really count since you could count the number of people who came with one hand. There is that Masquerade ball what came up in three weeks time 20 days ago. Odds on at least two-thirds will crumple, trod on, break or otherwise forget to bring their masks tomorrow night. And I don't have a date. Boohoo~



It's not all fun and games though. Everyday is a struggle to make ends meet, playing silly buggers in class, holding races to the mamak stall at lunchtime, skipping M'sian Studies for DotA and fooling around with the door sensors on the only working lift on campus. Mucho stressful indeed. I only hope all this effort won't go to waste during exams.


But Life at College has pretty much settled down here and had kids. What with all the rumors of couples, gangbanging on birthdays and table graffiti; it's like high school all over again. Only with cars, bad fashion sense and much, much cleaner toilets.



Speaking of cars; last wednesday, instead of his Vios, Adrian brought his venerable Wira.


The sms Prasad sent to him after test driving it says it all:

Ur car is the best car on earth man. It rocks. Sumre d oil metre nt wrk. Who needs a radio for ur car wen ur car gt AWESOME sound frm the exhaust pipe. Den pleasant perfume frm d car! Cool seats wif dusts!!Best power steerin car which turns dam smoothly..D car dam safty cz wen u lock d car frm inside it cnt unlock.Bumper is well-modified til no place to stick ur num plate!! I luv ur car bro!! Thnx for d drive mann! Sure ur vios ntg compared to d wira!*

- Prasad Unrated, July '09.

*A bit of clarification for those born without sarcasm detectors: Steering was quite heavy, turns for only 1 full revolution and a half, and gets stuck at all the wrong times. Perfume in question was exhaust fumes from the back. Aforementioned radio was missing - like a mad cybertronian dog had bitten a huge chunk out of the dashboard and ran away sniggering.



And for those you who like the pictures on this space, thank you. Sorry for none today, but vacations are like weddings - you get them every few years, once a year if you're lucky, and even when you do they're so full of a maudlin commotion that when all's said and done mostly everyone is happy, and happy mostly because it's all over and done with.

Wedding nights, on the other hand -




But that's another story.

Cheerio~

Look.

It would seem an odd coincidence that nihilism and contentment, while being opposite states of being, both involve the doing of very little: If probed, neither would be remotely interested in doing anything remotely interesting. Yet the difference is in the underlying reason: the former won’t go to the movies because it is pointless, the latter because it doesn’t need to. But isn’t it funny how getting from one point to the other involves quite a flurry of activity in between?

Curious.

"Slowly walking down the hall
Faster than a cannon ball
Where were you when we were getting high?
We were getting high
We were getting high"

I'm all for champagne against drugs

And smoking.



In the earlier years I was taught the evils of this weed, indoctrined against it quite thoroughly by beloved Moral textbooks, subliminal messages in my tv and the gruesome posters they always put up outside the school toilets. In secondary school it was lumped together with the other cardinal sins: drugs, unprotected sex, criticizing the government. By association, people who indulged in such debauched practices were viewed in the same light, so hardly any of us cared to have a go -virtually all our school days were spent smoke- , scandal- and riot-free. For all the crapload of crap they crapped on us, the MoE really did a good job of safeguarding their future generations against immoral practices.



So I never really wanted to try out smoking. Curious, maybe, yet not enough to overcome my fear of addiction. But obscure memories of my grandfather lying on his wicker chair dying of lung cancer beckoning me with his voice like sawblades asking me to try pulling his finger off sonnyboy (which wasn't funny at all O_O ) probably didn't help either.



Funny then, how it seems perfectly natural for two colleagues to light up after lunch at the mamak stall, how the smoke billows out in breaths of rose-tinged pungency, how the rest of us politely ignore the smell and carry on as normal. Certainly it's not that bad. There are worse things than chowing down next to a chimnley. Like not being able to spell chimnley right. Daww


Maybe I won't mind as much when I'm older. I might even take it up like her.

If I lived that long I would try to hasten the dying process too.


In other boring news I've just seen Half-Blood Prince; and my, how stunning Emma Watson has become over the years. Too bad can't say the same for Lavender and Ginny, though Ron and Harry even it out by looking more or less like pasty-faced siew pau - Edward Cullen got no dope on this :





So I did my turn for Hollywood; and to be honest I thought it was okay. Disappointing at times but hardly boring. Camerawork was lousy. Transition between scenes were a little disassociated, weird angles, etc. Many comical moments in this one, most of which fall flat, but watch out for the Liquid Luck sequence. No customary battle at the climax (?!) but Dumbledore dies. (I suppose I should've put a SPOILER ALERT before that last sentence, but I guess it's too late now.) Acting was decent but not outstanding, yet I really expected more. Doesn't less action = more character development? Oh well.

BM translation was impeccable as usual; Dumbledore's words when he was craning into the basin of enchanted water in the cave were immaculately translated into "itu mestinya mabuk." *long exhalation of air* Makes you wonder if the decision to revert Science & Maths was a farsighted move after all....

Saving Gandalf from the nasty Gollumses




Quickie: JB Westley's Annivesary Dinner was fun. Venue was Peking Restaurant near Sutera Mall so the food was nice. The good thing about 7-course meals is they allow you to digest your food before the next course, so you end up feeling quite, quite satiated. Met with some old chums over free dinner and a show. Not bad for a church we've been AWOL from for 4 years.


Not much else of note. 'Cept I've been thinking about halting this blog. No one reads this space, and anyway it takes around 3-4 hours to write a post. Not least 'cos of all the distractions Youtube and the internet brings. =(

Until (much probably much much) later -

Part III of the Boring Holiday Photo Montage

It is apparent that no one can feel 100% secure. The christians find their security in God, atheists in their self-righteousness; but where then does that leave the agnostic?



For some time now I’ve been feeling like an anchorless sampan, carried hither and thither by the currents of an uncaring sea. Should I divine my future in the stars, or scry my fate in the swirls and eddies of the water?



It’s really really cold in the ferry.



So we spent a night in Tioman. Would’ve been the standard two, if not for your typical Malaysian timing, which involves a mad rush of packing on Saturday after procrastinating about it for the whole week, leaving at 10am the next day, two hours to dock, 12pm, wait for ferry, two hours to board, 2pm, bump and grind in freezing boat, two hours to Tioman, 4pm.



Total time, 6 hours. Would've been bearable enough, if not for your typical Malaysian love of a certain spiky fruit with a distinct pong, the aroma of which enveloped us and refused to go away, not even when we got on the ferry, haunting us like a jilted lover's ghost with gastrointestinal problems.




But like everything one goes through, it's an experience. Better than staying at home playing Happy Farm on Facebook. Better than vegetating on the couch, or bumming around CS, wasting hard-earned money on b-grade action flicks you can get 10 for 3 at the completely legal I assure you dvd seller beside the hawker centre. Nope, definitely better than that.

"I dreamt I was a paper boat
who wanted to be free;
I cast off from my
harbor and sailed the seven seas

I had some great adventures,
a scrape or two, or three;
But then i found i was alone, adrift upon the sea

I relished the open space at first
As far as I could see;
The sky above,
the sea below
A perfect symmetry.

Yet 'ere I gazed upon the view
I yearned for something more
another boat
to share it with
a comrade oar in oar

I scoured the seven seas again
though all I looked around
The companionship I sought for
was nowhere to be found.

Till now have I searched fruitlessly
a futile quest it seems
Mayhap I'll always be this way-
Oh well. It's just a dream."

~Toodle pip!