(a song to accompany this post:)

It’s a melancholic night in exactly a week after I turned 23 in the company of people I love most. Just a week, but feels like forever ago.

Reading status updates of my eager juniors in college excitedly talking about first days of classes, discussing what to wear to the infamous annual major party, bitching about schoolwork. Graduation was 3 month back, but feels like forever ago.

Saw your face upon arrival, suitcases scattered all over the place, handbag slipping off weak shoulder, you smiled your warm glowing smile. I was so in love, but feels like forever ago.

Drunken night by the lake, throwing pebbles off the dock, freezing my ass off in the company of similarly happy tipsy people, exchanging scandalous stories and ambitious life goals. Can remember vividly how hard I partied but working just as hard in the library the day after, but these memories feel like forever ago.

Eagerly awaiting your Skype calls, sour conversations, dim yellow light by bedside, pouring my entire heart out to a pixelated image on my computer screen, falling asleep and waking up to see that you’ve left. I used to do this everyday, but feels like forever ago.

We used to laugh and love so hard, cry and scream, hurt and be hurt, promise and break promises, smile and hope. We used to be happy, but it all feels like forever ago.

Kept trying, fixing, mending, building and destroying and rebuilding and redestroying. We both knew we couldn’t continue fixing what’s already been broken, but we exhausted ourselves and kept trying anyway. I thought I could fix you, and you me, but we came out of this more damaged than ever. The promises of a better tomorrow still ring in my head, but they feel like forever ago.

Today all the forever agos came to me like rude uninvited interrupting guests, their presence so heavy and yet so unimportant, so abrupt and yet so planned. I was certain that if I stared harder into the distance and pretended that I was no longer thinking about them then they’d leave. They didn’t. Then I stopped trying to pretend, and they left as swiftly as they came.

I’ve had a pretty tough few weeks lately, but I’m quite glad that’s all over now. I’ve been quite emotionally traumatized and upset about several things, so maybe someday I’ll blog about it (but it’ll be a very very vague and cryptic post).

For now, I have some backlogged pictures to post! (especially from my birthdayyy, which will have to wait for another day)

Two weekends ago, I followed a friend to Kuala Kubu Bahru with the EPIC team to help build a house for this orang asli family! I’ve been doing nothing on weekends so I thought I’d better do something productive and not while my life away watching more TV shows and spending more useless hours in the mamak.

I was quite nervous at first cause the last time I really roughed it out was yearsss ago and I’ve been such a girly feminine girl since, how to build house and carry bricks and bathe in rivers?? But I’m really glad that the entire experience was so amazingly positive that I would definitely do it over and over again

The team had been there two weekends prior to this to build the basic structure of the house, so this was what greeted us upon our arrival on Saturday morning!

Ibu Biah’s (not in pic) old collapsing house. She has many daughters, sons and grandkids and the small house is clearer way too dilapidated and small for them.

So we began working!

Our team was tasked with fitting the doors and windows, and because the power drills were not working, we had to manually screw each bolt and screw in. IT WAS TERRIBLE. but not impossible so we screwed and screwed away.

Jason’s an expert at screwing now.

River time! Extremely rewarding 20 minutes.

Back to work we went. We worked from 8am-6pm both days *flexes biceps

The old house and the toilet next to it (the outdoor one with white cloth)

New house! 60% done

Just keep painting, just keep painting

This dog’s name is Chicken!

Tired but happy, I can paint for a living now

Inside, after day 1

Our view from our dorm

Day 2! Break time with ice cream uncle!

I’m also awesome at hammering. Seriously awesome. Awesome giler. Awesome until don’t know what. Too awesome can die. Awesome is my middle name. I’m awesome. Awe-some.

The inside!!!

Almost there!

The back kitchen area

Very proud of the drain Triffany and I painstakingly shoveled in the rain *flexes biceps again

View from the hill behind the house!

Ben drilling with extreme focus and concentration

7 pm, almost thereeee!

Group pictar!

8pm, giving moral support to those who were installing the last panel!

9pm – DONE! Inside the house.

And then we went for dinner, the end wtf.

All in all, it was a very VERYYY tiring weekend, but every single effort, every single sweat drop and aching muscle was completely worth it when we saw the smiles on Ibu Biah and her kids’ faces upon completion of the house. I would never have thought I could ever build anything other than Ikea shelves, what more an actual real house.

EPIC aims to make the world a better place, one home at a time. If you have the time and energy on your hands, do volunteer to help them out but make sure you remain committed! I always believe that the best charity is one that is consistent and not just done on random spurts whenever you feel charitable.

Even if you can’t volunteer, do spread the word and hopefully more people would sponsor such an amazing grassroot initiative!

I was very pleasantly surprised at how amazing the people I’ve worked with that weekend were. Everyone had either a full time job or was studying, but still took time off the entire weekend to slave their asses away. It’s not easy AT ALL to build a house from scratch and it’s great how everyone worked together as a team despite the varying levels of experience and skills. Malaysians are so amazing *tear wtf

———

*Advertorial*

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Details of the party:

: 22 Oct 2011

: 7pm – you want to go back

: At Helipad, Sepang International Circuit

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More info on all XPLAY parties here: http://xpax.com.my/promo_xplayfuture.html

I have very exciting news to share! I’m getting married!

Right…wtf. Couldn’t resist hahaha

But this piece of news is actually even more exciting than that! Yesterday, I found out which school I’ll be placed at and which subject I will be teaching!!!!!!

I was in the gym when Shannon from Teach For Malaysia called me, so I said I’ll call her back later. She called back after 5 minutes and said SUET I CAN’T WAIT FOR YOU TO CALL ME BACK, I need to tell you that you’re placed at SMK Teriang Hilir and you’ll be teaching English! Hahahahha she’s sooo cute!

So yes, I will be at Simpang Durian, Jelebu, Negeri Sembilan for the next two years! I specifically told them I want a rural school over an urban school because I thought if I’m trying something so unconventional already as it is, might as well go all out and do something I will never ever get to do again! Live in an area that is so far from home, a part of Malaysia so unlike my comfortable suburbia life.

I don’t think I’d feel right being in my poverty-stricken school dealing with people from low income households, only to drive 15 minutes back to my comfortable home and privileged life after that. I feel like then I wouldn’t get to immerse myself fully in what I’m doing, that there’ll be such a huge disconnect everytime I leave the school and the kids.

I know it does sound quite noble to want to relocate to a very different place and environment for this, but of course I do fear how incredibly challenging it’ll be too. I’ll be around very different people than those I’m used to, doing completely different things and living a vastly different life. Funny how it’s only going to be 2 hours from Klang Valley, but I’m sure it’ll be quite foreign to me. But I’ll always remember that if it’s not challenging then it’s not worth doing!

So, about this place! Some people from the team have visited the school and kept raving to me how beautiful that area is. I google imaged it and true enough!

Credits to Momoc Blog for that picture.

Simpang Durian is actually famous for its durian, which is bad for me cause I LOVE DURIAN TO DEATH. I don’t want to OD on it T___T

And I’ll be teaching English! Quite unexpected actually, I kinda thought I was going to teach Math and Science but it’s a good pleasant surprise still Need to start thinking of creative ways to teach a completely foreign language to these students.

AHGHHH I AM BEYOND EXCITED! (and scared) BUT MORE EXCITED THAN ANYTHING! I can imagine myself going to this place and frantically taking pictures like a tourist already wtf. Actually! my parents want to take a roadtrip there so they can check it out first before I go. Hearing this makes me happy cause it means they’re finally supportive of my teaching job

I really hope I’ll have internet connection still though..I can do without the general comforts of life (okay maybe the much younger me could, but I will learn to adapt..) but I need my internets! Broadband will have to do I guess.

Alright that’s all for now, this weekend I’m following a bunch of EPIC folks to Kuala Kubu Bahru cause they’re building a house for an Orang Asli widow. Thought I’ll try it out so I can get used to rolling my sleeves up and roughing it out wtf. I’ve been such a girly put-makeup-wear-a-dress-girl for so long so I hope I can get used to this fast!

Oh also, Happy Malaysia Day! Spend this weekend wisely

I don’t normally put song lyrics up, but I’ve been listening to Pink Floyd’s songs on repeat the past few days and I realized that I will never find another band that has such brilliant lyrics ever again. Then I got very depressed and emotional, as I always am, because that means I have to resign to the fate of our current generation and listen to crap music for the rest of my life.

This is from their song “Time” :

Ticking away the moments that make up a dull day
You fritter and waste the hours in an offhand way.
Kicking around on a piece of ground in your home town
Waiting for someone or something to show you the way.

Tired of lying in the sunshine staying home to watch the rain.
You are young and life is long and there is time to kill today.
And then one day you find ten years have got behind you.
No one told you when to run, you missed the starting gun.

So you run and you run to catch up with the sun but it’s sinking
Racing around to come up behind you again.
The sun is the same in a relative way but you’re older,
Shorter of breath and one day closer to death.

Every year is getting shorter never seem to find the time.
Plans that either come to naught or half a page of scribbled lines
Hanging on in quiet desperation is the English way
The time is gone, the song is over,
Thought I’d something more to say.

Don’t know about you, but the lyrical poignancy left me feeling quite dumbstruck for a few minutes. “Noone told you where to run, you missed the starting gun / So you run and you run to catch up with the sun but it’s sinking”

Anyway, aside from mulling over deep meaningful lyrics, I’ve also been bawling my eyes out watching Grave of the Firelies. It’s a Japanese animation about two orphans during world war II and it’s extremely depressing but very very well made. I highly recommend it (if you’re not on the brink of suicide, cause after watching it you’ll definitely feel like you’re not worthy of living T__T).

I also rewatched a few Miyazaki films recently – Princess Mononoke, Totoro, Castle in the Sky, Kiki. All his movies, despite being cheerful and meaningful, always leave me feeling…nostalgic and blue. It’s weird, I think I’m just a very emotional person deep inside, which is weirder cause I used to be such a cheerful person. Maybe got bad fengshui wtf

Since I’m currently bumming around, I thought I’d spend some time stimulating my brain so I don’t fall into the dark abyss of being unintelligent and un-opinionated, and started watching some video lectures by this Harvard professor. It’s a series of lectures on Philosophy, so if you’ve always been interested in issues like ethics, political philosophy and justice, then this is a great start!

Even if you’re not interested, I still think you should watch it. We should definitely do away with subjects like Moral and Civics in school and start teaching Philosophy, so that we are taught to think for ourselves and to nurture our own moral principles, instead of TELLING people how to be a good person and a good citizen.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kBdfcR-8hEY&feature=relmfu – Have fun!

That’s it for now, feeling melancholic a bit hard to blog unless I start churning out some boring serious post again..and I think we’ve had enough of that for now.

Hello from the Cat City! I’ve been here for about 5 days now and I have really begun to fall in love with this somewhat sleepy town I think I’ve probably walked every street near the waterfront and my legs are going to fall off any minute now.

I’m also going on a crazy food hunt to find the best food in Kuching! Almost every Kuchingite I’ve spoken to tells me that their food is the BEST but frankly I’ve been quite disappointed kolo mee is pretty awesome because it’s such a homely comfort food but everything else is just..meh. Maybe I’ve gone to the wrong places!

Anyway I’m going to leave Kuching for Damai tomorrow so let’s hope I find better food today!

Will definitely post the pictures later, need to do more exploring today. I kept thinking to myself that if I do continue teaching in public schools, I would definitely choose Sarawak or Sabah as my next destination. There’s just this very strong charm about Borneo that appeals to me. Sigh I love my country so much *suddenly get all teary and patriotic wtf

Also, today I’m alone! What’s the best thing to do in Kuching when you’re traveling alone? I have the whole day until Alex returns tonight! Contemplating either venturing into the other side of the river to the Malay kampungs to walk around but I heard it’s a little unsafe? Maybe I’ll just do the museums and souvenir-shopping today. Or find a nice cozy coffee place and read.

Have a great day ahead everyone!

Yes, I finally decided to do something about my incessant complaints about my weight gain and went to the gym for the first time in months yesterday! Woohoo!!

While I gingerly pressed the buttons on the treadmill in the gym (I live in an apartment), I noticed a girl staring at me from afar. She was by the door, curiously sticking her head in to get a small peek at what I was doing. I smiled at her while she walked nervously and stood right next to me. She was one of the cleaners, as I noticed from her uniform. I didn’t know if I should continue running, or ask her if something was wrong, so I said hello kak, sihat?

She was taken aback but asked if she could stand there and watch me, for she has never seen how the machines work before and has never dared to ask. I said sure, but inside I was getting a little annoyed. I mean, how am I going to run when someone’s watching me?? After two minutes, I was already panting and sweating and there she was, still staring wide-eyed at the treadmill and me.

Then there was a man’s voice some distance away and she scurried away immediately, mumbling something about how she’d better get back to work. About fifteen minutes after when I’d moved on to lifting weights instead, she came in again, this time with another cleaner friend in tow. They both smiled widely and stared at me pulling the handlebar down, and gasped when it made a somewhat loud clang when I was done with it. I asked if they wanted to try too, and told them how it works and which muscles I was using. They got excited when they heard me speaking in fluent Malay, and started chatting with me while I moved on to the other machines.

It was a short conversation but I couldn’t believe how fast they’d warmed up to a complete stranger who was merely trying to tell them how to lift weights! The other girl was 17 while the first one was my age, and they were both from Kelantan. They came to KL because they were lousy at school and they thought there wasn’t a point in continuing anyway. “Buang masa je kan kat sekolah, mak bapak kata baik cari kerja”. I told them very cautiously that going to school increases their chances of getting a better job, to which they disagreed politely. “Ramai kawan kite orang habis sekolah pun sama je, buat kerja sapu sampah, cuci tandas semua, asalkan dapat duit lah. Kite bukannya macam orang KL, pandai cakap English, pandai jadi doktor”

Here I was lifting my 20-pound handlebar, listening to these two girls telling me their stories so candidly, and I was left completely dumbfounded. The younger girl had to go back to work, and before she left she said “akak ni baik dan peramah lah, biasanya orang tak layan pun, nanti kite borak lagi ye” which hit me with guilt like a ton of bricks. I usually never speak to the cleaners before, and this was only because I was getting uncomfortable with them staring at me!

Meanwhile the other girl was still accompanying me while I continued running on the treadmill. I had gotten used to her, so I was still chatting with her while I almost died climbing a hill at 6km/h. Sweat was dripping everywhere, I was panting like a dog, my eyesight was blurring up, and there she was saying “cepat sikit! boleh lagi! 5 minit lagi!” T______T what did I do to deserve such kindness and moral encouragement from someone I just met an hour ago?

When I was done, she wiped the machine clean since I had obviously deposited a lot of bodily fluid all over it wtf. I told her I have to go, and she said bye cheerfully and asked me when I would come to the gym again. “Insha’allah esok!” but I never went today cos my legs were too sore and I was busy

I just wanted to jot this down because it was probably one of those AHA! moments for me. Aha! I knew I was doing Teach For Malaysia for the right reason, how can people think that kids in KL are smarter, and that there’s no point to school because they will still work as a cleaner after anyway? Aha! I might have wasted more time talking to them than actually working out, but it was a conversation I will never give up for anything. Aha! being fluent in Malay comes in handy after all

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I really hate to be overselling Teach For Malaysia, but I wholeheartedly believe in their cause and mission. As someone who comes from a somewhat more privileged background, from a middle-class family that lives in a pretty adequate suburbia that’s within driving distance to everything I ever need, it’s easy to bitch about what the country is lacking and to nitpick on every flaw we have. But I also realize that we have grown so far apart from many of our fellow Malaysians who live in this very same country we’re in. Malaysians who are barely surviving, and here we are complaining while we drive nice cars and have meals in restaurants.

I think this dawned upon me the most when I was google mapping the school that I’m going to teach for the next two years. I’ve been an ardent google map user, but I’ve always only used it to see how I can get to Bangsar, or Damansara. I realized that zooming out of Klang Valley, there really isn’t much and roads become a lot less connected (in fact, only one main road in Gemas). So, when I say the government should do this and that for me, am I thinking about people from these places? They are Malaysians too, but who is speaking out for them? Do we know what they want, or do we even care? Frankly, I have never thought of that before. I’ve been so self-absorbed in this whole pursuit of a better country for ME, for people who are like ME, and it’s so easy to entrap ourselves in this Klang Valley bubble. (sorry I’m digressing a little here)

I’m really interested to know why these two young girls said there wasn’t a point in going to school, was it because they come from families who didn’t think it was possible to be successful? was it because they don’t have someone to look up to? Most importantly, was it because they had teachers who never once told them that despite where they come from, they can achieve success, just like the “smarter people in KL”? (remind self to ask them tomorrow when I go to the gym, which I WILL BE *gung ho)

I have heard first-hand teachers saying that about their students. “There’s no hope for these students, the best thing we can do is keep them out of trouble”. No, there’s no hope for them because no one told them that they can do it. No one has believed in them, or told them that there’s no excuse to not do well because of their origin and socio-economic background.

I have had the privilege to not just go to a university, but a university abroad nonetheless. Many many other Malaysians out there might not even go to a university (in fact, 4 out of 5 working Malaysians are only educated up to SPM level) so education inequity is definitely well and alive. Although I have not seen it in my bubble, I know it’s there so it’s about time I acknowledge it. To be honest, if anything, I feel quite ashamed. Ashamed because I had wanted to leave this call of urgency behind, leave my country behind.

Ok I realize it’s been a long post, and to you it might have been a whole lot of fluff and nonsense but it’s something I believe in so just entertain me lah haha.

On a completely different note, I wonder how I suddenly became this serious person that I am. I was reading my old posts and I used to be so funny T__T. My resolution for the next few months is to get back my sense of humor, and I’ll start by googling for jokes so watch out for a funny post next wtf

And my sister is now a graduate too! very proud of her *sniff

Although her favorite phrase ever is “yeah I’ll never be as good, I’m a lousy kid who has the middle child syndrome”, she’s really a lot more mature now and I’m so glad that she’s extremely happy too! She’s going to be looking for a job in Leeds and would probably stay there for some time though

That concludes my trip here in the UK, will be heading home tomorrow. I’ve only been away from home for about 9 days and yet it somehow feels like forever! When I get back, I have to figure out what I want to do for the next 3 months before my training starts.

I’m going to be volunteering at a school but my mom is not happy that I’ll be unemployed without income, so looks like I’ll have to work part time somewhere too. Know any job that gives you quick income legally? wtf

last night i was so tired from walking ten hours straight that i collapsed immediately after i showered. i slept extremely soundly for the next 12 hours or so in my dodgy hotel room near king’s cross, and had one of the best dreams ever. i dreamt that i was standing in front of 40 or so 13-year olds on my first day as a teacher. the day went surprisingly well, everyone was so eager to hear what this bright-eyed young teacher had to say, everyone paid attention when i told them that i was going to establish rules and my first rule is “hormat-menghormati” and everyone was in agreement when i said we should have mutual respect for each other. they put their hands up when i asked questions, and answered very happily and proudly. and only one kid was sleeping.

i woke up with a smile on my face and told myself that that’s exactly what i would say on my first day in my classroom. except that the kids in my classroom would probably walk out even before i write hormat-menghormati on the board.