5 Things I Can’t Do

Contrary to popular belief of the little people living inside my head, there are actually things that I cannot do. *gasps*  I know right, how shocking.

So here you go, 5 of several things that I have not been able to do to this day. Maybe sometime in the future, I will, but not today.

1. I can’t rollerblade. Most of the people I know can’t either, so I don’t feel very insufficient. But when your little neighbour who is barely 9 years old keeps whizzing back and forth at the bottom your apartment block on her bright pink skates, you can’t help but wonder how is it that it is so effortless for her. For what it’s worth, I ride a bicycle perfectly well. I’m quite sure that counts for something.

2. I can’t open a tin can. You know those kinds of cans that require a tin opener? Yeah. All I ever seem to do is pierce solitary holes in it. After another 20 minutes of wrestling with the tin opener and the offending tin can, I’ll either have to ask someone to help me finish opening the can, or I’ll stick a knife in that little hole and cut off the top. I remember my mum trying to teach me how to use one many many times. Over here, my house mate taught me twice. But I still don’t get it. Why can’t people make tin cans with the little tab, like the kinds you find on Coca-Cola cans? I learn how to cut through soft human tissue, not hard metal pieces, for crying out loud. Pfft. Go ahead, laugh. :P

Left: Model of the offending, super-hard-to-open tin can.
Right: The top of a Coca-Cola can. The kind of simplicity that should overtake the World of Cans.

3. I can’t play by ear. If you know music, you’ll know that playing by ear means that you can listen to a song and then play it out on a musical instrument without a music sheet in front of you, or chords, for that matter. I don’t mind it so much, but it does bug me a little when I tell people that yes, I’ve taken music lessons, I’m at a certain level, and then they expect me to hammer out Taylor Swift’s Love Story at that very moment. It’s kind of embarrassing to say “Uh, I, er, can’t really do that . . .” Awkward much. It’s still something I’m working on, because I really think that if I try hard enough, I’ll get the hang of it. According to a super ancient music exam for the organ that I took when I was around 7, I aced my playing by ear section. My hearing can’t have deteriorated that much since then, can it?

I’m talking about this kind of organ, not the things in your body that keep you alive.

4. I can’t draw. Oh sure, I can doodle and draw cute little piggies and stiff stickmen, but that’s about it. I have absolutely no idea how people can come up with crazily pretty things with just a pen and paper. The only artsy thing I ever remember being good at was tearing and sticking pieces of coloured paper to make pictures of flowers and such. In primary school, I’d spend hours hunched over a piece of paper to complete a tiny picture, because the smaller the pieces of paper, the prettier the piece. The tricky part was making sure that the white edges of the torn coloured paper aren’t visible. Once, The Twin and I made a picture of the bunga raya (each of us made one individually) using that technique and it was such a success that it went up on the school info board for the rest of the year. But that’s basically the only success I’ve ever had with artwork. Now, when I see people just randomly doodling and somehow producing some super awesome drawing, the only thought that crosses my mind is “What sorcery is this!”

5. I can’t solve your problems. Very frankly, I wish I had the solutions to everything that people tell me about, but I can’t. I’m not a god or an all-knowing being. I actually appreciate how some people feel that I’m worth talking to about the things that they go through, mainly because I tend to interpret it as me being trustworthy enough for them. The thing is, I’m pretty much your average Jane and like you, I have a whole mountain of things to learn and a sea of experience ahead of me. But I can listen and I can give you moral support, and so that is all I can offer: my presence and my word to pray for you. Because as my dad always says ever so passionately, “Pray and believe!”

And there you have it: the 5 things I can’t do. It’s actually just some random things my mind came up with to allow me to let off some steam. Finals are rapidly approaching and I have a whole stack of books to devour. On the upside, I’m getting closer and closer to going back to the land of Maggi Goreng, Teh O Limau Ais, Mee Rebus, Roti Canai, Roti Naan, kaya with butter, etc. etc. so yay for that! :D

And oh, I think the list of foods above should have some Chinese thing in it (what with me being Chinese and all), so here, have some Hokkien Mee.

Frisked

I know this is a long overdue post, but I’ve finally gotten around to writing it. I’m here! After all the preparations and meet-ups and everything else, I am here in the B-E-A-Youuuuu-tiful city of Krakow, Poland!

So. I was at Kuala Lumpur International Airport at around 4.30pm on the 28th of August, 2011. Dallied around a bit before checking in my luggage at 5.30pm. Remember how I said that my luggage limit was 20kg for check-in luggage and 5kg for hand luggage? Well, my check-in luggage eventually amounted to 24.5kg, hand luggage more than 10kg. Thank goodness they allowed us to bring a maximum of 25kg for check-in luggage, and they did not weigh my hand luggage. So guys, when you fly, just bring 25kg with you. XD

Between the time I arrived at KLIA and the time I boarded the plane, I received so many text messages, and as i later discovered, tweets, too. I can’t list all of you, but you know who you are, so thank you very much. Many thanks to Rachel, Lynton, Joan, Anna, Yee Jia and Bibiana for calling me. And how could I possibly leave out the people who came to send me off (apart from my parents) – Joshua, Deborah and I-Vonne. And most of all to my family who stayed till late at night just to see me off, and then drove back to BP in the wee hours. Thanks everyone. =)

We took a MAS flight from Malaysia to Frankfurt Germany. The flight lasted about 12 hours with the aeroplane reaching about 31000 feet. And as expected, I had to deal with a terrible bout of motion sickness. Aeroplanes have never been kind to me, but I’ve never had to rush to the bathroom just to vomit 3 times on a single flight before, probably because I’ve never had to take such a long flight. After we reached Frankfurt at around 6am (Central Europe time), we got our boarding pass printed by using the machines you see on the right.

We then proceeded to go through a rather stringent check by the custom officers. We had to remove our blazers and place them in little bins, take out everything in our pockets, take out our electronic gadgets from our bags and then put them through the scanner. As I walked pass the body scanner, I think my necklace set off the alarm and I had to wait for my turn to be frisked. No kidding. These people are serious. As the metal detector thingy went pass my neck it beeped like mad. I guess the officer was pleased with that (maybe because it proved that I didn’t have anything on me that wasn’t allowed in) so she just scanned a bit more and let me pass. Some other people even had to remove their shoes to be checked.

After that we rushed to the boarding area and got on a smaller flight to Krakow, Poland. I still wasn’t feeling too good from the previous motion sickness, so I didn’t eat anything at all on the second flight. The effects of motion sickness then plagued me for a little more than a day, leaving me feeling slightly sick and dizzy at times. I guess you can only puke so many times before your body goes haywire.

Despite all that, we arrived safely in Poland with our luggage intact. We were greeted by our seniors, Ming Lee, Charissa and Piravin, and two school office clerks, or something like that. They assisted us throughout our check-in at a student’s dorm, called OLIMP and took us around to introduce us to beautiful Krakow. It involved a LOT of walking, and I hope I’ll get used to all that walking soon, because the soles of my feet are begging to ride in a car instead of walking from one bus/tram stop to another.

For photos of the dorm, please visit this link. My room looks exactly like that. It’s small but nice. I’m hoping to find my own place by this week’s end, so just pray that everything works out fine.

So far I’ve seen several parts of Poland, and they are all beautiful. Absolutely love this place, but for some reason, no matter how breath-taking it is, I can’t seem to feel like I properly belong here. Maybe it’s because the people here look so different, or maybe it’s the superb climate, but I guess Malaysia’s still home. =)

EDIT: The link isn’t working. Methinks the webpage might be removed already. Too bad then, but it looks really comfy.

Pre-departure #4

So this is it.

This is goodbye, what I hope to only be an au revoir.

I know I’ll be back in Malaysia before I know it (or so everyone else says), but I can’t seem to get it out of my system. By ‘it’, I mean this ball of nerves coiled up somewhere inside of me just waiting to explode like a tightly wound spring, full of elastic potential energy. Okay, that was my inner nerd speaking.

But you get the point.

I’m not nervous, neither am I excited. I’m just not sure I want to leave although I know I have to. By now, I believe that if suddenly I was given one more month here, it’d never suffice. I’m guessing this has something to do with how we all experience a slight bout of trepidation at the sight of the unknown, which is in this case, a few thousand miles away from what I am so used to.

And from the people I love.

I cannot see myself being so far away from my family. Sure, they get on my nerves sometimes (don’t you dare say tsktsk, at some point you’ve probably felt that way too), but at the end of the day, they are most definitely the ones who will bend all the way back to be there for me, come hell or high tide. I’ve caught myself wishing that there are things about them that they’d change, but then again, no one’s perfect, and for them to love me the way they do, I really shouldn’t ask for more. One of these days, I’ll try to make them really see what I mean when I say I love them. I see a future filled with homesick moments. O the horror.

And of course, when I talk about the people I love, I simply have to include my friends. True, I do reserve more affections for some friends, but then again, you definitely do that, too. The way I see it, it’s not a matter of being pilih kasih or anything. It’s simply a matter of knowing who is closer to you and who isn’t. Some friends you connect with on a higher level, while others you get along just fine with.

Either ways, if I consider you a friend, I do love you. I understand that in this time and era the word ‘love’ gets thrown around a lot, along with the words ‘hate’ and ‘miss’. It makes me furious to see that happen, but the least I can do is make sure that when I use them, I mean every letter in those words. So now you know that I do love you, and I will miss you. I most likely already miss you, anyway. That’s how much you mean to me, even though everyone knows how fickle friendship can be.

Which brings me to my next point (cewah, like writing essay). Thank you very, very much. I appreciate all your effort, time, energy, money, resources, IQ, EQ, everything lah.

‘You’ in the sentence above refers to:

1. The people who nagged me while I was packing to make sure I don’t leave anything important behind.
2. The people who took me out to makan.
3. The people who spent money on me (mostly my parents).
4. The people who bought me gifts and wrote me letters or tiny notes.
5. The people who took photos with me, especially a certain Evonne who apparently hates being in front of the camera.
6. The people who rushed home from wherever they were just to have a few hours with me.
7. The people who made an effort to see me at least once, just to say ‘bye’.
8. The people who gave me advice on how to pack and manage my things into a little over 20kg.
9. The people who put up with my increasingly transient emotions and idiosyncrasies. Especially when I become all emo and irrational.
10. The people who have done anything at all for me, like that random text message or wall post about how I absolutely must be happy. Or whatever else you did.

I guess what I’m trying to say is it’s not exactly easy for me to drop so many things and get on that flight, but I’ll do it and I’ll be positive about it and I’ll try to enjoy it and make everyone back home proud of me. =D If all else fails, I’ll just be me.

Oh and please, please, do remember to buzz me every now and then, alright? Like I said in my first ever blog post, I’m not very good at keeping in touch, so try to play your part too. Please? =)

Before I fall asleep on my bed back home for what would most likely be the last time in a year, I’d like to draw your attention to the video below. Several days ago, I posted one here which was basically a call by this Malaysian on YouTube who was asking people to submit response videos. Below is the compilation video he made using those response videos. It’s sort of a Merdeka thing.

And then Evonne asked me to watch another video which was made for the upcoming Hari Raya Aidilfitri, but I felt that it was relevant regardless of the time of year, so here it is.

Miss me loads, yar. =)

Of Nasi Lemak & Gwai Loh’s

Before I was a JPA scholar, before I signed a legally binding contract which basically requires me to be a government servant for a minimum of 10 years, people used to tell me that I should get a good education in [insert name of illustrious nation] and then proceed to secure a good job there and settle down there.

Now that I’m a JPA scholar, and I’m pretty much legally-bound to fulfil my duties as a government servant for 10 years when the time comes, people don’t tell me that anymore. They ask me which country I’m headed to, and then pause for a moment to give me strange looks of pity which almost scream ‘too bad the scholarship comes with a bond’. Some have proceeded to put those looks into words and voiced them to me.

It puzzles me. It makes me wonder if they really think that the younger generation will have a brighter future in a gwai loh’s* land, and if their thoughts hold water.

But then I think further, and I realize that none of that should really matter. True, things aren’t always rosy on home soil, but this is the land of good Nasi Lemak (and a whole host of other amazing non-food-related things which you should know without me mentioning). Nasi Lemak in another country probably wouldn’t have that Malaysian zing to it, unless we bring the makcik who is responsible for the good Nasi Lemak we savour wherever we go.

Nasi Lemak aside, this is the land where we were born and bred. If all we’re willing to do is sit and gripe and complain and finally migrate to so-called greener pastures, then who on earth is going to make Malaysia truly ours? Who’s going to be the change maker if all the capable youths of my generation decide to heed the words of our uncles and aunts to “go to [insert name of illustrious nation], find a gwai loh, get married and stay there”?

Perhaps every person who has ever migrated from Malaysia had a very valid reason to do so, and perhaps it might not be worthwhile to question their decision. But neither should we decide to follow their footsteps based solely on their reasons, without turning it over and over again in our heads, verbally, on paper, etc..

At present, I am not the most patriotic person you’ll find in Malaysia, neither am I very capable of making mountain toppling changes which actually make sense, but I do hope that I won’t reach a point where I’d find a solid enough reason for me to move out, too. Because the idealistic me would like to believe that somehow, for every glitch that there is, we’ll find a cure. For every cloud, there’s a silver lining. And for every bad, there is at least one good.

Maybe I’m just a bit too naive and unrealistic, maybe my current perception will change with time, and maybe I’ll find the gwai loh’s land more breath-taking and charming, but as of now, I do hope that I am not alone in wanting to stand with this nation, give back where I can, change what I am able to, and actually learn to love Malaysia, flaws included. Even if the Internet speed here does give me headaches and import tax makes things so expensive (oh, my overpriced novels!).

In the words of Carrie Underwood:

Don’t listen to them when they say “You’re just a fool, just a fool to believe you can change the world.” The smallest thing can make all the difference. Love is alive.

from Change by Carrie Underwood

 

*gwai loh = quite literally, white person