Can’t believe I neglected this blog over the weekend. My streak fizzled out just like that, and now I’m back to 0 again. Sheesh…

Working in a non-aircond environment is starting to take its toll on me physically. I’m getting my allergies again because of the sweat from wearing long pants in a hot and humid environment. They tell me I can choose to wear shorts if I want to, but I guess it just feels a bit weird going to work in shorts. Plus I still have to wear shoes, and I don’t have the best dress sense so I have a feeling I’m going to end up with a very salah mismatch attire of some kind of top with my very few shorts, socks and one of my 3 shoes.

And speaking of socks, a lot of my socks have gone missing now that I remember. I bought quite a lot of socks during my first 2 HK trips some 2-3 years ago, and I just realised I have no idea where they are now. I’ve been wearing my Melb-bought socks all this while, which although serves its purpose, are all in the same black colour and thus would further contribute to the salah-ness of my overall outfit.

And oddly enough, I was thinking of HK on my way back from work today. I’ve been visiting HK each year for the past 3 years already, and this year it seems quite likely with the little time left that I won’t be able to fulfill my “religious” obligations. Sob sob… my hui lau san. And of course, wu yuen san oso la. God knows the wrath that would fall upon me if I forgot about her.

I wonder how my holidays are going to be like now that I’m working. The typical long holidays such as Christmas or CNY will change for me now that I don’t have the luxury of being away for too long. Well, if I were to have stayed in my current company they’d probably be flexible about it, but as I’m switching to a big one that has more procedures and approval processes it might get tricky. Who knows the people might already be pre-booking their CNY leaves and I’m pretty sure they’re not gonna let EVERYBODY take leave so I might get left behind along with the non-CNY-balik-kampung people. Sob sob again.

Dunno what’s wrong with my life now. Like some sad drama story. Hopefully got happy ending. Then again, whatever the outcome whether good or bad, if I’m happy, then I guess it constitutes as a happy ending regardless. So it’s all about how you view things people! If you see shit as shit, then it’s shit. If you see it as an opportunity, then you might need to get your head examined.

It’s the last week of October, and I’ve been officially back in Malaysia for 4 months. That’s one-third of a whole year, quite a significant amount of time that is worthy of some reflection.

My free time nowadays, as limited and precious as they are becoming, are often spent wondering about how things are right now, and where they’re probably headed. A lot of them end up with question marks, and then there are some paths which are not yet as apparent, or not well lit enough for me to feel comfortable enough to walk on. Yes, it’s those dreaded analogies again. Deal with it.

I think life would be near perfect if we had a chance to see into the future to solve all our “if only” quandaries that many people are so fond of, just so we know if we’re doing better or worse because of the choices we’ve made. It’s a bit sad that a lot of people, myself included, rely on comparisons to feel better or worse about our situations because sometimes, there’s no point feeling good about something just by forcing yourself to believe that it is what it may not be. It boils down to that whole lying-to-yourself shenanigan that I blogged about a while back.

I’ve been bugged with these thoughts for a while already, more so with the whole job thing that has become somewhat… perplexing. Perhaps it’s all part of growing up, and that one day I will come to understand why all this happened and what I have to learn from it.

Maybe life is about learning lessons, and not wondering about all the what-ifs and what-could’ve-beens that more often or not just sags your spirits because nothing in life is so simple and straightforward. Maybe it’s about moving forward and onward, and making sure that these things don’t happen again.

And who’s to say moving forward doesn’t involve going back to the way things were, since the way things were would be a change from the way things are now. It’s all these little technicalities that fuck up the world we live in.

And there you have it. Bitch.

I wonder sometimes who came up with the whole need for formalities? Why do we need to dress a certain way, to write stuff using certain choice words, to behave in a certain manner, and to some like myself, to “turn on” this whole other persona that befits a particular type of situation that calls for it?

People who know me well know that me wearing formal attire is something very rare, and to some people, think it’s something that never happens for me. But yet, there are situations that call for me to dress formally, much to my dislike, simply because it’s what people expect you to be like. It felt a bit artificial to me, because I was pretending to be something I’m not. I’m usually quite informal and casual, and to some extent sometimes callous, because with some people I feel comfortable being that way and sometimes I expect them to just “know” that I don’t mean ill but rather it’s just how we sometimes usually talk to one another. But situations change, and suddenly, it becomes inappropriate and we have to become somebody else, to adapt to this new situation that requires a whole new “you” that really isn’t “you” you.

Yet, this whole need to behave in a certain manner is so embedded in many of us that the lack of it in a setting we expect this formality to take place sometimes just feels a bit inappropriate, much to my surprise when it hit me recently. I realised that my dislike for having to be a certain way that I usually don’t like to associate with, is something I am starting to appreciate now that it’s not there anymore. It’s yet another one of those things where once you don’t have it only you start appreciating it. It’s sad, but it happens.

Thankfully sometimes there ARE opportunities for a do-over, although they are never so easy to accomplish. But I guess if you really want it, sometimes these troubles are worth it. The whole, suffer now enjoy later mambo jambo that we have all been brainwashed into accepting as facts of life.

Sometimes I wish life wasn’t so complicated. We could just make simple choices, and have simple consequences, and live happily ever after. Maybe that’s why people invented formalities. So there are these set guidelines that hopefully everyone follows, and everything will work out properly and we’ll all live happily ever after.

Dang!

“Not having me anymore makes you realise how much you miss me.
Not having you anymore makes me realise how much I’ve missed.”

Working week #2 begins with a bang, literally. Got into a little accident on the LDP yesterday when the 5th or so car ahead decided to suddenly stop on the highway, resulting in all the cars following it to halt immediately except for the car behind me that didn’t manage to stop in time and bumped me forward into the car in front of me.

Now my car’s a little dented in the front and back, and my rear sensor is totally out of whack, though the whole car is still totally usable. Thankfully the fella who bumped into my car is a very very nice person who willingly claims all responsibility and now it’s just a matter of figuring out how to settle my car repairs, either through insurance claims or from his own pocket.

Anyway, there’s nothing much to detail. Will just leave you with some pictures of the damage:

That’s all. Gotta go sleep cos have to go to the workshop tomorrow morning to assess the damage and all that. The person most likely doesn’t want to claim from insurance and will end up paying out of his own pocket instead, so guess we’ll see how it goes. Hopefully all this bad stuffs will be followed by some good.

Karma, now’s your time to shine!

Still in a funk mood. Have started work, and it’s been alright I guess. I can’t divulge too much cos I can’t risk being Googled by colleagues or bosses and have them find my pot of gold to use against me. There are so many articles that warn people against doing things like that, and I’d like to think I’m well aware of things like that.

I guess, like everything that has been happening since I came back from Aus, all the ups and downs, from H1N1 to holidaying to job hunting to catching up with people to finding a job to being in this new uncertain place that I’ve been in, has been somewhat overwhelming, and somewhat undecided as to whether it’s a good thing or a bad thing, or a nothing. We’re just all too obsessed with extremes, pitting one against the other. People who ask for both are just too greedy.

My colleague (cheyyyy!), who also turns out to be my old highschool form mate (as in same form, different class), was telling us during lunch about how she chose to go to Wollongong, NSW of all places because she wanted to throw herself into an environment unlittered with Asians, specifically Malaysians. It’s not that she hates her own kind, but rather she felt that if she was going to pay so much to go overseas, might as well fully enjoy the experience as true as it possibly can, mixing with the locals and all that. Which she did, and which she enjoyed, and which she most likely wouldn’t want any different. That’s good.

I on the other hand, chose to go to Melbourne because I knew people there. And that it was an urban area. And I guess I also thought about my food options. And I figured, it’s still Australia, eventhough it’s overrun by Asians. Granted, I mixed with Asians practically the entire time I was there, but I honestly do not regret any bit of it. We were still from different backgrounds, and we had significant differences in terms of thinking process and even openness, but I guess it’s sort of like going through “challenging” times together through this racial bond that makes things a little more enjoyable and easy. Had a lot of good times, most of which I do miss every now and then when I’m feeling lonely being the only one back here.

At the end of the day, life is something you can’t undo and if you love what you’ve done, what choices you’ve made and its outcome, then that’s fantastic. If you hate it, regret the hell out of it, wishfully hoping to find an undo button hidden somewhere, there’s really nothing much you can do other than try to improve the situation. Then again, sometimes it’s not that easy. Someone posted on Facebook recently saying, “life is very simple. It’s other people who complicate it.” I guess that holds true to some extent, because people sometimes complicate our lives because we probably did the same to them. You may notice it, you may not, but I always believe what comes around goes around, karma, and all that.

I guess at the end of the day, if you can live with yourself and the choices you’ve made, and realise that it’s not THAT bad (a la schadenfreude), then sometimes all these externalities don’t really matter that much anyway because ultimately only you can make your ownself happy by changing your outlook in life, and your perspective on how marvelously shitty your life is!