Got down to the cafeteria with my collegue and I took two donuts and a fried banana and place them on my platter without paying too much attention to them (because I was busy yapping away). As I put my platter on the counter, the cashier and everyone else around me started to laugh!
I wonder why!
I always associated Frank Sinatra with my father because dad used to play a lot of Sinatra’s music (along with Andy Williams, Dean Martin and show tunes) when I was a kid. He even had Sinatra’s 8-tracks in his car! I guess presenting him with a bunch of ‘Ol Blue Eyes’ (nick of Frank) CDs would be befitting for this year’s upcoming Father’s Day. I have a collection of Sinatra’s CDs but dad could listen to him with unnatural frequency as I would of Karen Carpenter’s over and over (and over) again!
So, Sinatra that’s it and I don’t think I would get a cake because most of it would end up in my gut and that would add to the already expanded love handles (and no one bothers to handle them)! The only trouble now is to find those discs! Since Tower Records officially closed its last outlet, I doubt if any other music stores would have a good selection of Sinatra discs. It is also too late to order from Amazon!
Years ago I bought him a Mattel Frank Sinatra figure but he was a little freaked out with it! His idea of a doll fashioned after a dead person regardless of his fondness of that person’s achievements, or body of work in his lifetime didn’t rest too well with my dad.
I gave the doll to my niece.
If only someone would make a Karen Carpenter doll..!
Had the weirdest dream on Saturday night – I was some kind of delegate in a posh hotel lobby waiting to receive some “president”. When he finally arrived, he turned out to be a black version of Harrison Ford!
Then, feeling hungry for a bowl of Asam Laksa, I headed out from the lobby to a street-side stall and you wouldn’t believe who the vendor was!
Ally McBeal!
I must have OD on milk before I went to bed!
Hardev Kaur once told me the discipline between report writing, and a novelist is totally different. She, being an award winning writer and a columnist for the New Straits Times could never have the discipline of a novelist’s. She prefers to dwell and research on a subject and get them all out through her essays or report within just days where else a novelist’s process requires intensive planning, time management and the obsession that could take months to years to complete.
At a recent Tash Aw’s talk on the process of a novelist, he shared a glimpse of his intensely routined lifestyle. His day would stat at 7am and after breakfast, he would write until 10 where he would “make a cup of tea”. Then he would resume writing and pausing for lunch. His work would end around dinner time but if he doesn’t cut himself off, he would and could well write into the night or morning. That’s passion (and obsession)!
My once creative writing course coordinator, Sharon Bakar was there at the Tash Aw talk last Friday at
Sunway University College. I enjoy reading her blog and she wrote of her experience on Tash’s talk here.
By the way, checked on Hardev Kaur to see if she was listed on Wikipedia but I got a, “No article matches” reply. I was instead asked, “Did you mean Hard Kaur?”
Sorry Hardev.
Tash (left) and Hardev (right).
Last Friday, I went to a talk by Malaysian author, Tash Aw at a local college (big mistake being a Friday evening and the location waaay across town and known to be a hellhole of traffic jams)! I headed out at 5pm from the office to the 6pm talk but could only arrive at 6.32pm! The jam was so incredibly bad that the only thing I could do was to entertain myself with a Barry Manilow CD, but after the 4th time of “Somewhere Down the Road”, I was holding back the urge to pee!
As I walked into the hall, Tash had to pause because I was obviously interrupting the flow of his talk. At least I got HIS attention! All eyes were on me for about the 6 seconds of fame! If I wasn’t too fucked, I would have taken a bow! I headed up to the end of the hall and slipped into oblivion among the other guests.
Then a mother with two teenage daughters walked in 5 minutes later, and had given me the misfortune to sit by me. Whatever Tash discussed, this lady would repeat after them to his daughters! When Tash said abut using simple language in writing, she repeated those words verbatim to her daughters as if they were either deaf or just plain dumb!
She kept on doing that incessantly until I gave them the “stare”. One of the daughters that were sitting next to me showed embarrassment on her face. By then, I was already struggling with my ears on Tash’s talk while the Parrot repeated Tash’s words: “An Old Man and the Sea…”. “The Illiad…”, “Romantic comedies…”, “Jane Austen..”, “Moby Dick…”
And I could almost hear myself screaming, “For fucking Moby’s Dick! Shut the fuck up already, you inconsiderate woman!!”
If the talk hadn’t ended there and then, I would have harpooned her!
Below: Tash signing two copies of my, “The Harmony Silk Factory” hard and soft cover. The venue was MPH and when he asked me where I managed to get the hard back, and I blurted out loudly, “At Borders!”. This time around, there were no hord cover editions of his latest book, “The Invisible Map of the World“ available locally so we had to make do with the large format paperback and I got my copy signed after the talk.
I finally met up with 2 of my former primary classmates last Saturday in
Ipoh. That was one of the two reasons that I made that trip and the other being my Mom’s older sister who was in convalescence after a short bout of pneumonia (and thank god she is doing fine).
The highlight of this trip was meeting up with two old friends from my primary days (read my last Blog entry, “reconnecting after 31 years”). I was very touched when emails started coming in and them being keen on meeting up with me.
I was very close to Onn (the one in black) when we were kids and we used to hang out a lot after classes. We obviously did almost everything of what boys of that age would – we caught fishes out of used mining pools, played baseball with makeshift sticks that we could find other than a real bat (because there weren’t any on sale then), playing pranks on people (and especially on one another), into airplane model kits (especially from the then popular “Airfix” brand, now defunct), constantly discussing the anatomy and the functions of the opposite sex, sneaking alcohol to “sip”, comics, movies etc. He used to be fair and a bit plumb when we were kids but now, he is tanned and fit as a fiddle for he runs 5km several times a week! He has two kids now and runs his own business in industrial machinery.
Alan, on the other hand, was the good-looking clean-cut goody two-shoes who was an ardent soccer fan (and still is). He was also one of the top students in class. Though the image above is NOT doing him any justice! He actually looks at least 20 years younger except for a few strands of white hair! I remember the argument we ever had was over how Burt Bacharach’s, “Bacharach” should be pronounced! We were 10 or 11 then.
Alan is a father to 3 kids and has his own business as well.
We drank and chatted from 9pm till 1 am. We would have chatted on if the pub wasn’t closing by 1am. There was still so much to talk, so much to recap! Alan was even saying we should make a trip somewhere soon…
Images:
Above from left: Onn, Alan and I (You can get a glimpse of these two when we were 8 in Std.2 on the black & white photo posted on my last Blog entry. Onn was the second kid on my right, and Alan was the fourth kid on the top row forth from the left).
Below left:
The last house that my family lived in before moving back to KL. I never liked this house! Dad bought it in 1972 (for then RM48,000)! It was sold to a farmer in 1978. There used to be a garden on the left where we had a huge bamboo plant. My brother and I occupied the upstairs bedroom with the balcony and my sisters next to it. The master bedroom (my parents’) is situated at the back of the house. 29 May 2009
Below right:
Our favorite coffee shop then and now (in Ipoh). It is always crowded but the food is heavenly! 29 May 2009.
Every time I return to
Ipoh for social visits, I would always make it a point to see my old school. By just driving by St. Michael’s Institution would suffice but I also find myself stopping outside the school to snap pictures or just to “feel” at most times. Even by doing that, my heart still felt so sort of heavy or half empty depending on how one would describe it! I would constantly think of my old friends or classmates – those that used to be so close you felt as if you were suffocating and couldn’t wait to show them that you were going off to greater things in life. Never had my young heart anticipated the regret that I would experience later due to that impatience. To me, the school would always be great, but the soul that lies within is the faces and the presence of those whom I have left behind from those formative years, and their letters I have somehow forgotten to reply.
31 years have lapsed since I last saw most of the guys from my primary and secondary years. I only managed to keep in touch with 2 former school mates since I left St. Michael’s Institution in 1978 (and I thank god that our friendship have lasted). Sadly, I have never in my adult life thought that I would somehow get the opportunity to be in contact with the rest of them again especially the ones whom I used to spend almost every weekday (and sometimes weekends) hanging out after school during our primary years and before we went to afternoon classes in Form1. I have to admit that I was the one who sort of abandoned them when I got to know some new friends in my second year of secondary class (yup, the 2 mentioned earlier and yes, that was definitely not nice of me to do that but being a kid..!).
Then about 6 months ago, a former schoolmate whom I didn’t know, took the great effort and started contacting every one that he knew to start a contact list. With someone always knowing some one else, a contact list with almost 70 – 80% of Michaelians of our year came into existence.
I put up an email and the image here to explain who I was. I never expected any replies especially from the ones with hurt and sad faces when I “abandoned” them and some when I left St. Michael’s!
Then the email started pouring in! These people whom I had done wrong to were the first ones to write me! Gosh, the feeling of elation was incredible (yes, yes, it was slightly emotional)! I know we have all grown and changed but I need this “closure”. I need to in my own ways tell them that I am sorry. I was young but I have never stopped thinking of them after all these years!
Yes, I am traveling up to Ipoh this weekend to see my Aunt (who just got out from the hospital after a bout of pneumonia), as well as meeting up with a few of these guys. I have never been excited for a long, long time and I am now excited! It would be wonderful if we could rekindle what we used to have.
Whether we would hit it off or not, I am glad for this second chance. Isn’t it incredible how life sometimes gives us second chances?
I was helping a friend out in recruiting staff of the establishment to attend a self-defense preview class especially aimed for the womenfolk. Before I knew it, I was part of the committee! Anyway, it was good meeting up with an old friend, Ruby who was also a former staff and my Tae-Kwon-Do training mate.
I am two belts away from my first black and I guess I would want to get it (two of my nieces and nephews have already gotten black belts) eventually. I am looking into my schedule and do not want to over-strain my body given the fact of its age and I go to the gym 5 times a week (used to be 6 or even 7). I am very keen on the 3-month self-defense course so I guess that would be the priority before I resume my Tae-Kwon-Do.
From left to right:
1) Finding weak points on my “attacker’s” neck (who happens to be the Master). He is so incredibly strong that with a single finger, he could throw me from one corner of the room to the other!
2) Sparring with my former colleague/Tae-Kwon-Do training mate, Ruby. With her cajoling, I am seriously thinking of finally getting my black belt!
3) Getting tips on some self-defense techniques. All images: 19 may 2009 courtesy of the establishment.
Last Sunday, the establishment set out a booth at the MIHAS 2009 (Malaysian International Halal Showcase) and it was my duty to man the booth for first half of the day. The fair/exhibition feature mainly food products and other services that are certified pure or clean for the Muslim community to consume and utilize.
I would hand out free pens to visitors to our booth. When they ask for any more freebees, I would tell them to take a simple test on the laptops to test their Islamic Capital Market knowledge (the answers were written all over the walls of the booth as part of the design) and I would “reward” them with a bag if they get all the answers correct. There were 10 questions.
One guy who was a staff of a bank that had a booth two doors away took the test. He had 80% but I couldn’t give him the bag because I was just following instructions to only give them to the ones who scored 100%. He gave the pen that I had earlier gave him back to me and said that my company was “so calculative”!
What a sore loser!
