We Can Go Anywhere

While Amanda was touring, touching and tasting the REAL City That Never Sleeps, we poor leftovers Malaysia-bound dwellers here had to make-do with our improvised version of  NYC, something our vivid imagination and my sugar rush had no trouble with.

(Photos are re-arranged to suit my make-belief story of our delusional visit to the Big Apple)

Started the day with our crossing of the Manhattan Bridge by foot. Nothing beats ogling at HBT (Hot Blonde Things) to fizz up your brains in the morning. Plus, the fresh air was a desperately needed change after the stale, non-circulatory conditioned air we (at least me and Eu Chern) breath in day in day out from the hours spent in college.

Then, with the ratio of HBT against OBT (the 'O' stands for Old or Obese) turning alarmingly imbalanced, we decided to feast our stomachs instead. So, we had a picnic on the MET steps, a fusion breakfast of Roti Canai (thanks to Eu Chern) and self-service scone-sandwiches (courtesy of Jing Hua)! Me and Joanna topped that up with packet drinks and Chipsmore!

Of course, it ain't complete without some pests.

Especially pudgy ones.

After a disturbing encounter with magpies, aka magpees, which were probably attracted to my grainy voice we left for Central Park! Before entering the grassy lands, we saw the Fountain of Youth (pretty ironic considering the touchy topic that day)! Attempted to emanate my exotic drinking aura through the camera. Failed miserably, evidently. Captured an authentic exotica, eh-zho-thee-kah as Angelicious would pronounce it, in the background instead, much to Jing's delight.

And so we laid down on the dewy green carpet in heart of the park.

At peace with Mother Nature and thankful we still had each other (:

Sometimes, it was okay to just screw the rules. The whistle-blowing guards were merely strung puppets with uniform who scoffed at people who did things they didn't. Live life.

Interpret at your own risk Be a free-spirit.

Release your inner child.

Spice things up.

Most importantly, cam-whore. When memory fails, photographs don't.

Our imaginary New York City trip did live up to our expectations, didn't it?

P.S. Stop calling me Teri Hatcher! I want my voice back!

P.P.S. Thank you, Lucy of England for the Christmas card! Me loves the sparkly snowmen!

Come on, paint me a rainbow so I can follow it

Honestly, second week is barely over and half of us are plagued with diseases. Classes are beginning to become hosts to a series of symphonies of coughs and sneezes. God, even I sound like my viola, with a sandy touch, thanks to my inexplicable sore throat. Ugh.

Thus, the lot of us (me, Wen Dee, Song Lin, Eunice, Wai Kit, Jia Wen, Rachel, Kevin, Carmen, Audrey, Zi Ming, David Chiok and Rou Yen) decided to go on an impromptu trip after choir to some stall by the roadside for some nutritious Tong Sui.

I was kind of abducted there, after standing and staring blankly while the meter in my mind fluctuated wildly and struggled to settle on either joining them for Sugar Water or ditching the whole bunch for Buddhist talk. I was shoved into the car before the point could swing close to any one of the two. Fine. I lied. I really intended to head straight to the talk but the scene of a merry crowd of 4 cars buzzing to go for a drink swayed me. Shhh. He’ll kill me if he finds out (I’m crossing my fingers he wouldn’t read this post).

Ended up walloping a bowl of thick, steaming peanut soup instead. Oooh la la. There, a solid argument against my guilty conscious of choosing sinful indulgence over religious teachings. At least for the first hour and a half.

Arrived at the classroom at 9pm, out of breath and weary from lugging my viola and an unnecessarily heavy metal water tumbler, with an overweight bag slung across me and a book made up of half a ton of paper AND racing around the ground floor of Block C to locate it.

Was greeted with feigned-disappointed look and a shake of the head from Wei Kit. So much for a welcome.

Slumped on my chair like a rag doll for the rest of the talk, which dragged to 10pm. I gave up warring with my guilty conscious and attempted to concentrate on what the person was saying, while fastidiously ignoring my itchy throat.

Guess who was forced to introduce herself to the mass audience? Ugh.

All I had in my head was sleep and recharging my batteries for tomorrow’s classes when Wei Kit asked if I had my dinner. I was suddenly aware of my skipped meal. Screw the peanut soup, that was liquid.

I was seriously fine with missing dinner once in a while, but he was like, “I can teman you makan.”

Cool. Makan it was, then.

I had vegetarian spring rolls. YES I KNEW THEY WERE FRIED AND THEY WOULD JUST SORE MY THROAT but there was nothing much left on the menu. He suggested Ala Carte dishes. Ugh. At 10pm?! He didn’t find that an issue somehow. He thought it could help train my metabolism (?!)  Male species.

Sat and chatted there till the waiter had to shoo us out. Whoa, a record. Had never been asked to leave a restaurant before, albeit in a polite way. Was walked back to the hostel by his friend who passed by Samosa then joined us for the last 15 minutes.

Damn, I feel highly giggling-prone now. Must be that hot chocolate drink.

P.S. So so sorry, Brother, for not calling you to cancel the practice! I promise I’ll practice with you as long as you want to next Monday to make up for it!

I feel like an idiot to the highest degree

Band is no laughing matter.

You SHOULD NOT

WOULD NOT

DO NOT

screw up your band.

Not with 4 or 5 people's lives marks teetering in a delicate balancing act.

You mess up, consequences are...
instant death
instant death
and instant death.

Hello, Grim Reaper.

I'm boxed in, but I'll survive.

After making a couple of painstaking changes to the original time table, thanks to the Fruity Boy, as Juan called you-know-who, not to mention a much grueling job of scheduling for mutually available band practice-time slot, may I present you our (those in Degree 3) life semester sentence.

Monday

HAMM 2                                  10.00am-11.00am

Band practice                              4.00pm-5.00pm

Tuesday

Improvisation Skills 1                 10.30am-11.30pm

Ear Training 2                             11.30am-12.30pm

Song writing 1                               3.00pm-4.00pm

Popular music history 1                 4.00pm-5.30pm

Band coaching                              5.30pm-6.00pm

Choir                                            6.00pm-7.30pm

Wednesday

HAMM 2                                    3.00pm-4.00pm

Viola class                                   4.00pm-4.30pm

Thursday

Ear Training 2                             10.30am-11.30am

Improvisation Skills 1                  11.30am-12.30pm

Band practice (depends)                3.00pm-4.00pm

Popular music history                    4.00pm-5.30pm

Choir                                           6.00pm-7.30pm

Friday

Master class (occasionally)          10.00am-12.00pm           

Recital attendance                        12.30pm-1.30pm             

Modern Band Ensemble                 2.00pm-4.00pm

Note: my individual piano lessons and the 3 additional hours of accursed choir sectional practices have yet to be included.

We are literally LEFT FOR DEAD.

I'm still feelin' the rain fall, bouncin' off my skin,

How long do I have to wait for the sun to shine again?

Exhale the stress so you don't come unglued

Unbeknownst to outsiders, we Contemporary Music students seem to have an unwritten mutually agreed policy: college does not commence, at least not in OUR reality, till the Modern Band Ensemble band list is released and stapled onto the notice board for all to see.

Honestly, for the last 3 days of self-declared-extension-of-freedom, we had been warming up our fingers not on the piano keys or the fretboard but on 6 particular keypads of the keyboard: the letters ‘W’, ‘A’, ‘S’, ‘D’, ‘E’ and Spacebar. Oh. And vigorous exercise for our right index finger on the mouse too. Not to mention vocal training, what with the screeching from the onslaught of multiple Tanks AND the special defected Hunter, Boomer, Smoker and Spitter all in one shot. We could have made Vincent Kang proud.

With us lost, mentally, in the virtual world of zombies’ goo and slashing claws, classes and ASSignments seemed so surreal somehow. As if between sessions of L4D, we were just wandering blindly through a forest, the assignments a bunch of fallen leaves which we shrugged or brushed off as we stepped out of the green realm.

The bliss of being insouciant.

But then, *peels of thunder roar* Thursday came. So did the band list.

My God, the killer-suspense. The fear. The drama.

Within 10 seconds, a face could morph from a pale mask of dread to one of sanguinary like Jia Wen, or of satisfactory like Andrew and Emmanuel, or a look of relief like most. The power of names, or in some cases, a single name. And trust me, that piece of paper could very well determine a person’s mood for the rest of the semester.  No kidding. I could think of a certain someone who could testify to that.

But no matter. What has past is past. Wearing the frustration and anger again is so last season semester. Highly unfashionable.

Anyway, I see grey skies above. Soon it would be a thunderstorm of band practice scheduling, song choosing and tons of jamming. *Sighs in defeat* The key is turned, the lock secured. Back to school, peeps.

You made me crazier, crazier.

Barbaric Audacious adventures we used to have throughout our synthetically sweetened childhood years of growing up together:

- A luxurious camping trip in FRIM, our 5-star bivouac nested comfortably in the midst of a tame forest on sandy grounds, furnished with toilets, shower stalls, a cement campfire pit and a raised platform for after-dinner-football-match-in-pyjamas. I had never loved nature so much.

- Being offered as sacrificial subjects to the mouth of Gua Tempurung. Nah. We were supposed to be dazzled and mesmerized by the gallery of limestone stalagmites and stalactites (It was breath-taking alright. I could barely breathe, the bat dung stench was overwhelming), but all we could remember were the endless climbing and descending of steps, the steep slide down the smooth face of a rock, and the waddling through an underground passage submerged in dark waters up to our necks, with our packs either perched on our wobbling heads or hugged close to our chins. I felt like a drug smuggler.

- Yet another camping trip. The ugly truth unveiled. We had to prepare, set up and pack away EVERYTHING, from tents to foldable tables and chairs to electric cooking stoves, with our BARE HANDS. Not that we kids suffered much, we just had to make sure we did not drown ourselves in the gushing current of the Ulu Yam waterfall/river.

- Impromptu day trips to Pulau Ketam and Morib beach, both in disastrous conditions, as far as tourism was concerned.

- 6 weeks of ice-skating lessons. From 15 slips and falls in one class to none in the last, I had survived them and savored the experience. I was proud of my bruises and blisters, a personal journal of how much I had learnt and how hard I was willing to work my ass for it. The more the merrier.

- Taman Negara. The leech-infested jungle treks, the dangling canopy trail, the short dips in icy pools, the mosquito-swatting night walks, the midnight maggi feast…

- Snorkeling at Pulau Lang Tengah. Just as the jungle trips had been excruciatingly exhausting and draining of energy, vacations at beaches had been a blissful stretch of relaxation in an exotic paradise of our own. How could anyone not enjoy getting dumped in the middle of the sea and making your leisurely way back to shore, all the while hovering hundreds of feet above corals and millions of sea creatures?

Trust me. These are just to name a few, the tip of the iceberg, so to speak.

10 years down the lane and we are now all post-emo phase, though still hormone-raging, teenagers. We have matured so much, compared to then!

Gavin

Joelle and Cecelia

Parody of the photo above

And I'm supposed to be related to him

Nyam nyam nyam!

Mouth full of food

We're like flies attracted to the dung in the toilets.

Great minds think alike

The interesting thing about our dessert, was that 3 pairs of siblings ordered the same food without realising it. The thaumaturgy of blood?

Cecelia and Cassandra

Gavin and Joelle

Me and sis

We got yelled at thrice, by 2 different restaurant slaves workers. First for grabbing without permission 7 extra crab-hammers so we wouldn't have to pass the sole hammer around. Second for simply swaying the swing, knocking against the rock placed there to limit the arch of the swing.
"Eh! What are you all doing? The swing is not for you to play! You all want to spoil the swing only satisfy, is it?!" The selfish obese female dog spat in Mandarin. Our ears bled.

None of us bulged. None of us moved a muscle. Sorry fat lady, we speak no Mandarin.

As for the third, we had no idea what our crime was. The androgynous-looking waitress of the restaurant where we were having dessert just screamed at us to get out of HER way.

"Go out and wait. Don't stand here and block the way!"
"But we need 8 places and this table is leaving soon..."
"I know! Just tell me the number of people and I'll prepare the tables for you! See! You're now blocking people's way!"
"But we've been standing outside for so long and no one sits us..."
"If you didn't tell me the number of people, how would I know how many tables to prepare?! Just stand outside there and wait!"

We spent the whole time reminiscing about how much we missed Swenson's Volcano Ice-cream and making faces and disgusted noises at the menu. We were all ranged from 15 to 19 years old.

How's that for a reunion?

I'll start my year with you in a rain of silly strings

Things only got a wee bit way lunatic after the countdown. The hour before was spent on loitering in a much deserted One Utama with its lights being snuffed out section by section, desperately distancing ourselves from the throng of minions streaming towards the, God forbid, Taiwanese and Hong Kong groups-infested concert at Central Park. Clams were abundant. The stench of rotten seafood was in the air.

Time to leave this contaminated vicinity.

So we picked our way to the road intersection through the maze of parked cars and, trusting my unpredictably horrendous sense of direction, the 4 of us trudged, while Qian Xi star-jumped, towards the blazing spotlights of the Curve, since a certain sibling of mine decided that slowing her and her friends’ pace to guide us would dilute her adrenaline rush thus appearing less appealing herself to that specific him someone. Talk about ho over bro.

But no matter. Me, Joanna, my bro, Qian Xi and Jia Wei made the most out of each other’s company, though, like I had mentioned, we didn’t go psychotic till AFTER it was officially declared 2010.

The 3 guys warmed up by spraying empty silly string cans at the back of people’s heads, and blowing wind out through gritted teeth for the sound effect, until the victims patted their still-dry hair and twisted around to stare annoyingly at them. Only to find no guilty/apologetic faces but 3 ROFL freaks.

Then, pissed and fired up by my sister’s lack of cooperation to display her new object of infatuation, we sped down the path of insanity.

We began screaming HAPPY NEW YEAR at random pedestrians and drivers alike.

I don’t know. The claustrophobic press of bodies, the screeching of innumerable hoi polloi, whose very existence a crime, the interminable monotonous droning of some local singer on the stage, the over inhalation of aerosol or whatever ‘breath-taking’ carbon emission-contributing chemicals compressed in the silly strings and foam sprays and the unfortunate revelation of the passing of another year somehow COMPELLED us to shriek at EVERY FREAKING PASSERBY all the way home.

The ritual started off with the 3 weirdos lolling about and acting nonchalant by the elevators in IKEA while waiting for one of them to fill up, then when it did and just before the doors slid shut, they jabbed the open button viciously and planned to shout the 3 words at the poor souls. Note that I use the word ‘planned’, coz like all schemes of evil doings, it would take more than one try to get them done. Not that the 3 succeeded in any.  

Failed and disgruntled, we moved on to other more vulnerable targets. (Oh, did I mention a cute guy asked me and only me us for directions to Petronas? After which we proceeded to gap at him blankly until my bro blurted out, “Erm, you mean the Petronas petrol station?” HAHA. Retards.)

Hence, the rest of the 20 minute journey home was a blur of roaring and hollering either in passersby’s faces or at cars crawling beside us and sugar-rushed giggling and hyena-cackling. I remembered us crossing an empty street to the jammed side that was oozing its way out of the Bandar Utama area, and running zig-zag through the lines of vehicles to yell HAPPY NEW YEAR at them. Qian Xi and Jia Wei even squashed their faces against some of the rolled up windows to hurl the greeting through the glass. Sometimes I question my acquaintance with these people.

But the most demented part was, as if beckoned by his friends’ derangement, my bro succumbed to schizophrenia as well. And brought it up a notch. We approached a bus, intending to spread our well-wishes, when my bro spotted the bus driver busy talking to a boarding passenger, took the opportunity and climbed onto the four-wheeler, ran through the length of it squealing HAPPY NEW YEAR and flew down the steps to land on the pavement ahead of us. We could have died laughing.  

Qian Xi got it all on tape (a figure of speech).

Ah, such sweet delirious moments.

The crowd at the South Entrance

What they thought about the fireworks.
Why, Jia Wei, what a long tongue you have!

Jia Wei, my bro and Qian Xi

Ooo! The Law of Attraction sided us once again! We reached the house just in time to escort some of my sis' friends to the nearby 7 Eleven, including the BB (code name for her newest specimen)!

Awww....how matching. So cute.

HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE! 

LIVE FREELY AND UNTAINTED BY ANXIETY FOR THE WORLD AIN'T GOING TO END yet!