The Guardian

Since everybody's blog is in a festive mood, I might as well join the pack and talk about CNY. This year I've been entrusted with the one-in-a-million opportunity to be the jaga of the Lee Mansion in Pandan Perdana while they are back in their hometown.

Initially I thought it'll be cool and there's nothing to be afraid of (I'm man enough to take care of a house rite?) until my mom started talking about it to my uncles and aunties during a "pai nin" session. Things got worse when my aunty started to add in some juicy stories about the many burglaries and robberies that were happening around KL. As if she was a CNN newscaster, she went on and on telling one story after another: "Neh... just the other day mah, one of the houses in front, the man got robbed off his Rolex watch and a few thousand ringgit" "This house also, burglars came in through the roof and ransacked the rooms, they left a parang on the bed some more." (She is just a typical aunty who seemed to have a postgraduate in robbery/burglary/theft stories. I liked her though, she always made CNY more interesting, but this time, the stories lingered in my mind as I was home alone in the Lee mansion on the third day - Had Tim/Kah with me the first 2 days)

It also doesn't help to have such nice friends like these (I understand your concern though... haha):

LionHeart says:
Yeah im the latest resident of pandan perdana... do a huge welcome party
*********** says:
u staying in pandan perdana now?
*********** says:
alone or what?
LionHeart says:
haha yeah
LionHeart says:
why? wanna yum cha?
*********** says:
not SCARED ar?
LionHeart says:
dont rub it in
*********** says:
no, SERIOUSLY?!
LionHeart says:
hahaha (clearly a chickening out reply)

Living in a whole house by yourself is quite scary. I went on to have OCD (Obsessive Compulsive Disorder) on whether I've locked the doors, activated the alarm etc. for quite a while before I can sleep, thanks to the above contributing factors. My only comfort seemed to be in the form of "Woofie", err "Woofy" (ok, I dunno the spelling) knowing that she'll bark at the sight of strangers lurking around. No wonder they say that the dog is a man's best friend. Not even my homo sapien friends/acquaintances can compare to it when I'm in the time of need.
Woofie, you're the best. Seriously serious.

I did enjoy my short stint in the Lee mansion though! The happier CNY postings are in incogneeto's and racont3ur's pages.

I know, I'm so teruk

Was in the Gombak Hospital last Thurs and taking history of one of the patients. Then I proceeded to ask the young lady who was together with her some questions hoping to get some additional info:

Me : Cik adalah kakak dia ke? (referring to the patient)
She : Ya, dia adik angkat saya.
Me : Oh... Cik bangsa apa ya? Melayu? (She looked Malay and speaks good BM)
She : Kita orang asli.
Me : Oh, orang asli kaum apa? (Why did I even ask this?)
She : Saya kaum Seman. Dia Jakun. (Saying as-a-matter-of-factly)

My eyes went big... Staring at her trying hard to not show evidence of me wanting to laugh and also not to burst into laughter, but in my mind was already "Jakun? Hahaha")
At that point, my friend who was standing next to me asked me again "What kaum?"
That was the final straw. Thank God with all my strength I paused for a moment, managed to contain myself and just said "Orang asli".

I'll try to never use the word "jakun" again when talking to other people just in case this situation happens another time. We're so comfortable using it to tease other people (like "Wah, you've never seen that before? So jakun!") not knowing it's actually the name of one of the orang asli tribes:

Jakun (Ja-kun)
1. an aboriginal tribe under the orang asli race in Malaysia, especially in the Peninsular.
2. a sarcastic term commonly used to refer to someone who has no knowledge of something that everybody knows of.

So be careful when using the word, you'll never know when you'll meet a real one.

UniFest '09

I saw these props in the administrative block and was immediately attracted by the creative publicity (guess I'll be the prime target to be vaporized, since I'm trotting around carrying books most of the time, yeah... call me a nerd), so I decided to check out the event that they're promoting. UniFest '09 was a day-long celebration + concert organised by the Student Council to celebrate the transformation of UCSI into a university which included performances by local artistes, bands and our own Faculty of Music. I dropped by for a while and managed to catch Juwita Suwito performing two songs and wow... she's good! Didn't know UCSI could be quite happening!

The car park transformed into a carnival-like atmosphere

Thought for the New Year

"How many friends do I have?"
Caption: "Zhu pang gao yao... without the gao"

We (Me, KevLee, Adele, Matthew, Andy) were just sitting in the mamak today talking and the subject of friends came up. I found out that I actually classify the people I know to be either friends or acquaintances. And I kinda made up my mind without knowing it.

A friend is someone I consider that I know quite well; that is, we can talk, joke, laugh and are comfortable being in each other's presence. Doesn't need to be really close and stuff but just close enough to be on talking terms.

An acquaintance is someone with whom I think I have to constantly squeeze my brain neurons to think of a conversation to talk about, there are uncountable ackward silences in between conversations, and err... in short... I've got nothing much that is good to say about this person lah. Quite comfortable limiting it to a "Hi-Bye" kind of a relationship I guess.

Oh... and according to me, you can downgrade from a friend to an acquaintance if let's say we have not met each other for a long time and things become "acquaintance-ish" when we meet again.

Haha... didn't think such deep stuff could come out of a mamak session but yeah, I do hope I'll be able to get more friends this year, and prevent any of the current friends from downgrading!

I'll leave you with these thoughts... are you my friend or acquaintance? And how many friends do YOU have? Hah! Scary isn't it?