RACONTEUR-ESQUE SCRIBBLINGS

This is not a plea for any wish to come true... Instead, I just finished watching A.I. on TV3 (Gasp! I actually don't care for this station eversince they decided that their station is the best, but Friday nights I ignore the fact and try to catch movies that were in the theatres years ago) and could not sleep. It's been awhile since anything related to science fiction caught my attention (must have been the attempt to read the complete and unabridged version of war of the worlds by H.G Wells which was packed with so many technical words that I spent more time looking up the words in the dictionary instead of reading the actual book. That was 10 years ago. Or more. But 10 is a nice number. If I said 12 years, it would seem odd somehow. So 10 it shall be.) I suppose the movie dealt much more with the human emotions aspect compared to the sci-fi part, which made it appealing. It was also slightly sickening to note that the humans behaviour towards the robots (or mecha as th...

You tend to do things you don't usually do when you're bored. take for instance this incident ages ago, so long ago that I can't remember if it happened in 2004 or 2005. I was online, and was logged on to YM, among other things. Emails were read and replied, and so on. The music playing in the background began to bore me, but I still wanted to hang around. I ended up in the music chat channel. Rock: i think. I don't usually chat on chat channels, because they have not always turned out to be great experiences. For instance, this one time many yonks ago, after a torturous organic chemistry paper my friends and I decided to go chatting - you know, to release nerves and to celebrate the so called end of a horrible subject. I ended up in a chatroom with a whole lot of people I couldn't relate to... It ended up that there was this only one person whom I did end up chatting with, and it was none other than my roomate. (we didn't use proper nicknames and were sig...

Another dream that left me shaken... It was another normal day, in any other normal sense... except that my workplace was having a 'family day' where family members were allowed into the workplace (hahahahaha big joke!) The place was almost deserted except for a few of us who happened to have some work to do, and those of us who lived pretty nearby. The family members were waiting at the office and I recall being a bit annoyed at this person who was occupying my seat and doodling on my desk... My sister and parents were near the back door of the office talking with some people whom i didn't recognise, and some songs were playing in the background. As I was heading towards the front door, I saw a familiar face... it was my grandpa (who had passed away about 10 years ago!) He kinda said hello and i pulled a seat and chatted with him as I hadn't seen him in ages... we were talking about things in general when te song in the background became slightly more audible.....

My friends and I had this conversation about colour coded caps 1 day less than a month ago. There are 3 people. One is a white cap. One is a blue cap (almost purple, so she says) and one is a red cap (with danger written on it, she claims) Anyway, the day of pure relaxation and bliss was about to happen for these three... on a yatch ride named Relax... (the ride, not the boat... will any of the three please stand up and help me with the name of the boat?). It had the promisings of a great day, you know... the soft morning sunlight (albeit a little bit cloudy) & a nice hearty breakfast. The only thing they didn't do was to sing any happy journey type songs (most probably they didn't know any, and they were not exactly morning people) What would you do if you were stuck in the middle of the ocean (a rough one at that) and had nowhere to go... It's raining, you're feeling icky although you've downed the so called sea sickness prevention tablet (that stuff do...

A long and winding road drive later, we were headed towards Mt Batur, the volcano which is still active... apparently, at one time when it erupted, the whole island was blanketed in darkness for a day! The weather from hot and sunny turned to rainy and slightly chilly. I suppose if we weren't so excited as we were the change of weather would have been rather depressing. I initially thought that we were going to hike up the mountain (yeah, right!), and was wondering as to how we were going to pull that off in the middle of the afternoon. Thankfully, all we needed was a drive to the side of the mountain to one of the many restaurants there for lunch (Ha! Ha!) and a view of the mountains... Sometimes, words cannot describe how you feel about some things... This was one of those occasions where I think it's best to be left as it is... We continued our journey back to Ubud by passing some of the more beautiful areas... Had a small stop at the coffe and herb plantation... It was...

After a somewhat laidback day on the first day, day 2 seemed to be a considerable rush... images from the Amazing Race once again comes to mind. The positive thing out of it was that none of us would be eliminated. (Sounds scary, but who cares?) The day started pretty early (for people who are actually on a holiday)... Before anything started, though, we had to first reattain our 'millionaire' status... hehehe only to return to normal, non-millionaire status at the end of the day. Fair enough! The batik place, aka Galuh was our first destination. Obviously, batik and all sorts of sarongs and clothes were sold here. It was evidently a tourist destination judginom the number of tour busses (or bis pariwisata) around. An attempt to get hold of a ready made local costume was unsuccessful... there goes my chance of getting another piece of garment that will most probably never see daylight (or moonlight, for that matter). An hour later saw us at the silver place (or celuk)... I h...

On the left of this page is my Happiness graph. I created it this morning after I realised that life is cruel... (well, this was one of those many mornings, woke up, everything was blur, had to gulp down coffee to keep awake, while dreaming of caramel frappucino) What has it got to do with anything? you may ask. The answer is, a lot. (all the disgruntled people out there can definately relate to this) If you notice the graph tendency, you can see that the happiness factors decreases with time. It always does no matter who you are. If you're normal, it shall not dip below the point of better off dead, because then, you really really need some help before it's too late. And if you're lucky (which happens to even the most unlucky of us occasionally) then the graph moves up again, until the happiness all fades away into an ugly plateau, or dips below to levels that may endanger health. In the third week of April I was at my happiest. Things were going great, I was on a ...

Ha! Ha! Ha! I finally caught the movie "bug" on tv on Saturday...

EVEN THE BEST LAID OUT PLANS CAN…. Watching dolphins swim at an unearthly hour… snorkelling in the deep blue… delusions of a tourist! As my friend said, ‘our visit to an island is not complete if we don’t go to the ocean!’ True, very true…. Instead we spent the day totally on dry land. (Aside: I know what I’m writing here has got nothing to do with the Bali trip, but for now, my brain refuses to do justice to the trip. i.e. I have the points but the flow of words are just not right. (even this sentence and the stuff I wrote for Day 1 seems so crappy). I suspect it’s due to someone’s blog I stumbled across (I didn’t really stumble upon it by accident, though, I searched for it – my fault!… grapevine is, the blog’s pretty big, and famous and stuff), truthfully, I don’t get what the hype is about, it’s disgustingly self centred and rather mean, but it seems to have disabled me from going with the flow as I usually do. It’s seriously a terrible thing as I found the trip to be tremend...

Ahhh… No introduction…(refer to airport drama) That is so unlike me. But I couldn’t help it, the ideas were literally popping out of my head, forcing me to succumb to pressure and write, not that I didn’t want to, but thanks to the days off that I took, workload has increased : ( and of course there was (still is) a Japanese test that I’m supposed to study for. Well, truth is I had a short but happy break in Bali, about 2 weeks ago… (that long already??!!) so, the airport drama post and the following few have all got to do with the trip (for posterity… and I suppose and just for the fun of it). AIRPLANES, ARCHITECTURE AND ???? The flight… seated in a row… thanks to good negotiation skills by friend : ) View from the plane: c’est magnifique! Ha! Ha! Now I know that clouds cast shadows that can be seen on land (or sea for that matter). Looking back though, all I can say is “duoh!” Why else is it shady when there are clouds in the sky? This goes to show that a high level of exciteme...

AIRPORT DRAMA Have you ever had an experience where the adventure begins even before it’s supposed to? On the day of departure of the forever waited for holiday, such a thing happened to one of our fellow travellers. Her passport had less than 6 months to expire, and she was cautioned against going by the airline staff – for fear that she may be stranded in the country we were going to… (of course, she was not aware that her passport was expiring that soon, seeing that she booked for the ticket yonks ago!) The following is reminiscent of scenes from the amazing race, minus the background music and Phil’s voice, of course… 3 people (ahem) racing to the counter where our friend was trying to negotiate an alternative so that she could fly without getting stranded. She was forced to get her passport renewed… while she got some details straightened out, we got her a cab to the nearest immigration dept. Said our farewells, wished her all the best and hoped that she’d make it for the 4 o’...

A thoroughly non-researched, based on 1 subject study abstract on fictional characters and their role model appeal to the subject Anne Shirley: (From Anne of Green Gables, etc)First active fictional role model that I came to know... first through the movie and then the books. Although the movie did not move me much, the books did. I cried with her when she cried, and laughed with her when she did. She was one of the first who inspired me to try writing... (she wrote a whole lot in the books and crammed as many big words as she could in one sentence). I used to wonder why she hated her red hair, when I thought that anything but black would have been reason for contentment. Most of all, she dared to dream... Jean Louise (scout) Finch: (From To Kill A Mockingbird)This character was much to young to be an active role model when I read it. She was 8, I was 18. We were in different eras, in different places, and different situations in life... I have never in my life punched any of my co...

A long time ago, a society consisting of a particular group of students (all from the same cultural and religious background) organised a gathering which they fondly named bhangra night... what the organisers didn't care about was that some of the friends of the people involved in the society was of a different cultural background. What happened was that they made their members come up with performances, to be performed for their members at a hall in a neighbouring neighbourhood. Others were not allowed to buy the tickets for the event. Due to some persistent members who would not hear of such a thing, (and a threat to boycott the event, i think, and a very nice president of the society (quite different from the organisers) the other friends were allowed to attend the event ) Woo hoo The night finally arrived, the food fantastic, and the performances ok - obviously the medley performed by the friends of those who were initially not allowed to attend was the best performance ...