the worst birthday

I curse the two thieves who stole my laptop!!! I curse them to hell!!! I wish they'd get hit by a car, get cancer, choke to death, go to hell, get raped, drown to death, and all the other possible causes of death would do just fine (besides committing suicide and natural causes, as that would be too easy for them). It happened on 11th of March, a day after my birthday. They came in wanting to take a look at the rooms for rent. Having seen the guy a day before, I opened the door to let them in. They stayed in the house compound for, I believe, less than 5 minutes. Yet 10 minutes after they left, I couldn't believe my eyes when I looked at the empty table, where I placed my laptop. My mind was totally blank when I answered the test paper questions. And after the test, I found out another bad news: my housemate, ChoyChing's laptop was also missing. Due to my stupidity and carelessness, two laptops are gone.We waited 2 hours in the Serdang Police Station to file a report. And when I checked my statement which was typed out by the policeman, I saw in the age column, 24 years 0 months. What an irony.

Lessons learnt:
1) Do not trust strangers.
2) Do not open the door to strangers, even if you have met the person before.
3) Ditch the thought that "The world is beautiful and people don't do bad things to each other." or "Bad things won't happen to me."
4) Grow up and stop being so naive.
5) It's never wrong to be too careful. Better safe than sorry.

To look at the bright side, I should be thankful that I had backed-up my final year design project report, two copies, one in each thumbdrive. And due to this misfortune, I had seen that many people care about me. There are a handful of people that I should thank:
1) Eric who lend me his laptop, indefinitely.
2) WeiJian who helped me format the pc, installing not only the basic microsoft offices, but also AutoCad, Visio, PPStream, plus songs, movies, pics, etc.
3) Lydia who helped me find part time job to cover my loss and expanses.
4) My roommate, ManYee who said:"Use my laptop. I've already written the password over there."
5) LingYue who is always ready to listen and help, unconditionally.
6) Julian and the Minlon people who expressed their concern and are willing to offer help whenever needed.
7) My family who offer financial aid and a possibility of a new laptop, but which I declined.

darkness, engulf me...

"Due to the darkness of the sky,
you can see the stars above;
The darkness is to set off,
the brightness of the stars;
And I,
I am just like the darkness."
~Takuya Kimura in "Long Vacation"~

all is dark
i am falling
refusing to listen, to feel, to see,
to care
allowing myself to be wrapped by the darkness
slowly, silently, numbly
until the end of time

i'm NOT an alcoholic!

Getting drunk is a good feeling. I feel happier when I'm drunk. And alcohol is good! But the hangover, it sucks! And the memory of the things that you've done when you were drunk, it can haunt you for the rest of your life. For those of you who had never get drunk all your life, trust me on this: you don't wanna try. To convince you I will tell you about an extremely embarrassing night I recently had. We went clubbing in Ruums because it was Lydia's birthday. Having to break one of my new year resolutions, the least I could do was to vow and promise myself:
1) Not to smoke
2) Not to get drunk

I only managed to keep one of the promises. I guess I just don't know how to control the amount of alcohol I take and my speed of drinking. I started by feeling a bit dizzy, by the time we got back from the dance floor and got down from the stage (we danced onstage, can you believe it?), I was as drunk as can be. I managed to walk back to our table and sit myself on the chair without support, but after that when the alcohol started to take over me, I couldn't even sit straight. I needed the support of two guys, one arm on one shoulder, in order to walk out of the club without tripping. And all I did was laugh, apologize for being so much trouble, laugh, tell my friends that I like them, and laugh.

As if this is not embarrassing enough, I puked when we reached the place where we ate dim sum, right on the tar road. The feeling was so unbearable. And I was so lucky that my friends were there to take care of me. I was half-dead when I puked again out of ManYee's car window on our way back. So Choon had to stop his car and come down to check on me while ManYee handed me the tissue and water. As I saw KokChiang cleaning my puke from the car door, I felt that I've sinned terribly. What good have I done to deserve these people as friends? I puked again when I reached home and the next morning. The hangover and gastric are the end of my physical suffering from the sins that I've committed, but the mental guilt goes on.

The only things that I've benefit from this incident were:
1) I got to hug people.
2) I got to sleep on LingYue's shoulder.
3) LingYue said I look prettier (for some mysterious, unknown reason) when I was drunk.
4) I got to watch people like LingYue and Julian dance onstage. (Ha!)
5) I discovered the fact that LingYue and Julian dance like clubbing kaki when they're slightly drunk.
And number 4 and 5 satisfied me the most.

crazy is just you or me... amplified

"Sometimes the only way to stay sane is to go a little crazy."
~from the movie Girl, Interrupted.

I'm reading a book by Paulo Coelho. The title is "Veronika Decides to Die", a birthday present from a friend upon my request. A weird and funny title, I know. The story is about a girl, Veronika, who seems to have everything she wanted - boyfriends, career, family, looks et cetera. But she's not happy. So one day, she decided to die. She took an overdose of sleeping pills but woke up in an asylum. However, though she failed to kill herself at that time, her heart had been damaged and she would die in few days. From there the story goes on to how she lived through her remaining time, things she uncovered, the meaning of life et cetera.

Like his every other book that I've read, I cannot quite grasp what message the author is trying to convey. What a shame... But there's one part of the story that I like a lot. The part where one of the inmates of the asylum told Veronika a story. The story goes like this...

A powerful wizard, who wanted to destroy an entire kingdom, placed a magic potion in the well from which all the inhabitants drank. Whoever drank that water would go mad. The following morning, the whole population drank from the well and they all went mad, apart from the king and his family, who had a well set aside for them alone, and which the magician had not managed to poison. The king was worried and tried to control the population by issuing a series of edicts governing security and public health. The policemen and the inspectors, however, had also drunk the poisoned water and they thought the king's decisions were absurd and resolved to take no notice of them. When the inhabitants of the kingdom heard these decrees, they became convinced that the king had gone mad and was now giving nonsensical orders. They marched on the castle and called for his abdication. In despair, the king prepared to step down from the throne but the queen stopped him, saying: "Let us go and drink from the communal well. Then, we will be the same as them." And that was what they did: the king and the queen drank the water of madness and immediately began talking nonsense. Their subjects repented at once; now that the king was displaying such wisdom, why not allow him to continue ruling the country? The country continued to live in peace, although its inhabitants behaved very differently from those of its neighbors. And the king was able to govern until the end of his days.

I was chatting with a friend on MSN and we were talking about weird people that we know. Now that I think of it, weird people are probably from that particular kingdom. Hahaha...

The Road Not Taken

One of my favourite poems. By Robert Frost.

Two roads diverge in a yellow wood
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth

Then took the other, as just as fair
And having perhaps the better claim
Because it was grassy and wanted wear
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no steps had trodden black
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way
I doubted if I should ever come back

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, and I –
I took the one less traveled by
And that has made all the difference