Ramblings About My Life..

A Relatively Boring Holiday...

Yong Chen's "A Brief Series Of Mundane Days"
Unbelievable. Two weeks of holidays have just passed me by, just like that. I could almost swear that barely a few days ago, I had just alighted from a turbulence-hit flight-that-was-delayed-by-air-defence-maneuvers. Now, I’m packing my stuff, getting ready to head back to SS15 one last time. This holiday has been really really dull indeed, so dull that my days were smeared into a bleary time-smudge of sleeping, eating, and procrastinating on my studying. You could say that I was living the ideal babi lifestyle, and in fact, I was indeed living it! My pre-holiday plans to play tennis or squash, swim and to catch up on my studying seem to have been grounded to dust beneath the omnipresent heel of procrastination and blown away by the winds of laziness. Ah, well. C’est la vie. Well, at least my vie, anyway. It’s very characteristic of me to make grand plans for things that I want to do when I’m free and then forget about them the moment I have enough free time to carry them out. And now, viewing the final few hours of the aforesaid smudge from hindsight, I must say that my holidays have been a total waste of time. Here’s a brief summary of a typical day in my life these past two weeks:

Morning
Wakes up (approx. 10am), scarfs down breakfast, takes a bath, plays the piano for a while and immerses self in a book until lunchtime.

Afternoon
Puts down book for lunch. Resumes reading after lunch (if book has not been completely read – if book has been completely read, switches to another book). Switches on computer after reading and listens to music.

Evening
Plays computer games (mostly CounterStrike and SWAT 4). Looks out the window at around 5pm to 6pm and thinks it is too hot/it is going to rain/it is raining or some other excuse so that I won’t go down to swim/cycle/play tennis or squash. Continues playing computer games until dinner.

Night
After dinner, sits in the living room for a while, talking to parents or vaguely watches television (I’m not really into the idiot box). Retreats into room and continues reading until approximately 11pm. After that, either surfs the Net or listen to music. Stops at around 1am and switches off the computer (note – computer has been switched on since the late afternoon). Picks up another book and reads until eyes gives out at around 3am. Finally succumbs to Slumberland’s calls. Repeats the same itinerary the next day, with little or no variation.

On final count, I reread the entire Star Wars – The New Jedi Order series, the Lord of the Rings trilogy, five Dale Brown novels, the fourth and fifth Harry Potter books and two classics. I can’t believe it. I did it again. I went on a book-reading spree! And going on a book-reading spree doesn’t seem like a good idea when the A2 exams are so near I can practically taste them in the air, with each heartbeat reminding me that time is indeed getting short and each dawn reminding me that it is one day closer to THE exams. I need more self-discipline. Damn… If I was only this dedicated to my revision…

Visiting My Grandparents
On the other hand, I finally fulfilled my promise to myself that I would visit my grandparents at least once whenever I return home for the holidays. Last Sunday, I managed to visit my paternal grandma in Kota Tinggi and well, she’s still the same as ever. Good to see that she doesn’t have any more aches here and there, since she used to complain of having aches in her hands. I was beginning to worry for her health just last year, and it’s great to see that she’s alright! After all, I’m rather attached to her as it was she who took care of me when I was much younger. And just a few days ago, I visited my maternal grandparents. I drove my mum there, and after alighting from the car, I was immediately confronted by a hulk of a mutt. Now, I used to be on good terms with the previous dog that my grandparents owned, and after it passed away, I didn’t get to spend much time with the other puppy that they bought to replace their dog. Hence, you could pretty much say that, to the dog, I was fair game. Figuratively and literally. Standing on all fours, the dog’s muzzle could reach my stomach! The dog growled, and for a few moments I thought my life would reach an ignomious end as shreds of meat spattered all over the car porch of my grandparent’s house. Well…until Grandma came to the rescue, hauling the dangerously large mutt away and enabling me to scamper inside the house to safety. Once inside the house, I decided that it would be better if I befriended the dog, so to speak, and that was for two reasons. One – I will definitely be visiting this house again and the better terms I am with this dog of theirs, the less I will have to worry about being ripped apart after walking through the gates. Two – It usually doesn’t hurt being nice with animals. After establishing ‘diplomatic relations’ with the dog (done by persuading the dog to be patted by me and not chew my hand off at the first chance it gets), I faced another problem. The dog then decided that it would like to play with me. It tried to make me throw things for it to chased, and when I didn’t do it, the dog tried to jump up and knock me over. How do you say no to a dog that ignores the word and is too big to be shoved away without hurting it? I took a stick and pretended to throw it. It pretended to run, but gave me a look that said what am I, stupid? and tried to make me play with it again. Then only did I remember my grandma saying that the dog was very playful indeed. Groan… Giving up, I went back into the house and left only when I had to drive my mum and my grandparents to lunch. Even then, the dog tried to follow me to the car, but was restrained again by a word from my grandma. Pretty smart, that dog. At least it knows who’s in charge and it’s definitely not me. The rest of the lunch was rather uneventful. My grandpa asked me what I was going to study next time, and when he rattled off a few words in Mandarin, I just nodded and uhhed at random as I couldn’t really understand what he was saying. Then, at the end of lunch, my mum told me that he said that I was going to study something related to aerospace. What?! I thought he said medicine! Maybe my Mandarin needs polishing…seriously. Ah, well. At least now I don’t have to worry about getting mauled by a huge monster of a dog whenever I visit them again.

Outing With My Dear!
Yay! I managed to go out with my dear today! She came back from Bukit Jalil just yesterday, and we arranged to go out today. However, her best friend, Hui Ling joined us for the singing session in Red Box. Hahaha… Usually my dear will have to force me to sing, and as I can sing as well as I can breath underwater, I refrain from singing most of the time. And that somehow upsets her a little, as she thinks that I’ll be bored. But I’m not. Seriously. Hahaha… Anyway, I was let off the hook and wasn’t made to sing at all. Furthermore, I had free entertainment! Both of them were singing like crazy! After the singing session (tried to treat Hui Ling but she refused adamantly…saying that my dear will treat her during the next holidays as payment), me and my dear went to catch a movie at City Square. Something incredible happened at City Square as I was buying popcorn! As I walked to the line at the counters to queue up, a guy was looking at me strangely. Then, the girl he was with recognized my dear! Before I could ask her who that was, he suddenly turned to me and asked abruptly, “Do you recognize me?”. I raked my memory to piece a name to his face, but I finally gave up and asked him, “Uh, who are you?”. He then said he was William, from my Bahasa Melayu tuition class during Form 3! He looked so different from last time! And when I said that I couldn’t recognize him because of that, he said that I had changed a lot and that I looked very different now, that’s why he couldn’t recognize me at first! We ended up talking about school and the old times during tuition until it was time to go into the theater (turns out that the girl was my dear’s ex-schoolmate). Does this prove that this is a small world or what? Haha… After the movie, we headed for home and went out for dinner with my parents (Japanese food again…yum!). My dad persuaded my dear to try the raw fish in the shashimi platter, and to my surprise, she did! That’s a first for her, as she doesn’t like to eat anything uncooked, no matter how hard I try to convince her that the stuff is really really good! Well, she tried the raw octopus and some smoked fish, and she said that they weren’t bad! Good for you, dear! Hahaha…

Whew...what a long entry! Anyway, that's all for this time, I'll write again as soon as possible. Ciao!

posted by yong chen @ 6:44 PM