I just realised how the same weather that ran throughout the day gave me such different feelings and emotions. It was basically gloomy and rainy from morning all the way till nightfall, and although my day started out kinda blue, towards the afternoon I sort of enjoyed that it’s raining because the air was cooling to the point that today might probably be the only day I didn’t sweat in the office.

Rain is sometimes taken for granted. Some people wished it didn’t rain because it feels very gloomy and depressing, or it makes the temperatures unbearably cold to some useless weaklings, but I guess when you’re living in places like Australia which has low water supplies, rain is something that people look forward to eventhough the Aussies don’t enjoy the cold weather either that comes with rain.

That reminds me of my first week in Aus for uni. It was sweltering heat one moment that mum and I had to immediately go and buy a fan or else we’ll die from exhaustion, and then one day it rained in the morning and suddenly it felt like winter just flew in. I just loved it the moment you can feel the cold crispy fresh air. It’s one of the things I miss the most about my time in Aus, the lovely weather and clean fresh air.

I hate to feel nostalgic, but I really do miss the time I spent there. I think I’ve said a couple of times in this blog recently about how I usually don’t feel things like this or wish I could relive past experiences, but I think my time spent in Aus sort of broke my nostalgia-virginity and nowadays I’m always thinking back about the good old “innocent” uni student times with the assignments and lectures and tutorials and my days where I do nothing but wake up, eat, watch computer, go online, and sleep.

Growing up sucks doesn’t it? I think being bitter is part of adulthood.

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!