The Asagi And The Second Dan
I'm back - after almost a month of not posting anything. To give you a brief overview of the state of affairs in my life, it should perhaps suffice to say that it has been a pretty hectic past few weeks for me. I did quite a bit of travelling when Hiromi came over to visit for a second time and this time we went on a brief tour of Kuala Lumpur in addition to a short weekend over at Cameron Highlands. To be completely honest with you, I've never explored the capital before as thoroughly as I did this time - my experience of the capital was mostly the shopping areas and my knowledge of the how-tos of getting around were limited to KTM Komuter, the LRT and the Monorail. So it was rather an eye-opener for me when I visited places located within the tourist belt that I had never been to even though I knew that they existed, by virtue of seeing them on the idiot box, textbooks, magazines, billboards, etc. Sue me for being a terrible Malaysian if you must. Anyway, we rounded up her trip by going to the Singapore Zoological Gardens - I had been there for goodness-knows how many times before, but since there wasn't many things to see in JB (I brought her to the Sultan Abu Bakar Museum, okay? So don't chew me out for being a bad Johorean!), we decided to spend a day in our little neighbour across the Tebrau Straits. After that, we spent another couple of days just staying in JB until it was time for her to leave for the UK.After she left, things at home became a lot quieter and I soon discovered that I was bored stiff. Did I touch my textbook that I dutifully lugged all the way back to Johor Bahru from Sheffield after deluding myself that I would actually do summertime revision? The answer should be pretty obvious to you even without me needing to type anything else. I guess I'm just not the type to do summertime revision - it is technically summer all-year round over here but I guess the statement still holds true nonetheless. I'm the blueprint for laziness - ever since my primary school, secondary school and college days I've been loath to do any revision in my free time. I know it's a pretty bad habit of mine that I need to change if I am to survive the next four years in medical school, but somehow I've still managed to stay the same. And damn it, it's making me feel guilty. Perhaps I'll just assuage this guilt I'm feeling by doing a bit of work for my assignment (which is due anyway a week after term starts). Maybe later. I still have tonnes of stuff I need to do before I leave for Sheffield this coming Monday. There's still things to be bought, stuff to be packed, matters to handle and various odd-jobs around the house that I will have to see to before Monday. I can't exactly explain this, but I want to return to Sheffield now that I'm back. Sitting around idly doesn't really seem to suit me - it's making me complacent, lazy and undisciplined. I really want to begin Phase 1B ASAP - and even as I say that it feels weird because barely three months ago I was really looking forward to getting back home and do nothing. Maybe after I go back to Sheffield I'll feel like returning home. Who knows? My mind works in an unfathomable way.
There's also been a new fish in the pond recently. My uncle recently "sourced" an asagi for my family because my dad told my uncle to keep an eye out for any nice fish in the market. However, this caused quite a lot of problems. Firstly, after buying a mixture of ten juvenile showas and kohaku plus one absolutely microscopic asagi (technically, the tiny asagi was given to us free) from a fish farm in the capital during our holiday up there, we thought that our pond was already overcrowded with over a thirty fishes in it. We initially refused the offer because we didn't think that our pond could handle another fish, and a two-and-a-half feet long asagi at that! However, my dad relented after my uncle told him that our pond had too many juveniles, and that we needed a "leader" fish to make the other fishes bolder and unafraid of us. So we drove all the way up to Kota Tinggi, paid RM250, collected the new fish and brought it back in the boot of my dad's car. The result? It proved to be the best buy we made. The new asagi proved to be completely unafraid of us and now it's leading the juveniles to be hand-fed by us. Even though it isn't and probably will never be a show-quality asagi, I still think that the new fish isn't too bad because I had expected a fish of it's size and price to be sluggish and discoloured but it was surprisingly active and the colours on it's body were still alright. The lesson learnt? Trust Uncle when it comes to fishes.
On a different note, I managed to visit Yih Seong today. He was injured rather seriously recently while playing a game during the orientation for the new year in his university. To cut a long story short and to avoid distorting the facts of the event (many stories surfaced as to how Yih Seong got injured, some so removed from the actual events that it might be plausible they saw another Yih Seong in a parallel dimension in a freak tear of the time-space fabric), he dislocated his knee rather badly and had to undergo surgery to repair the damage done to his patella and his ligaments. After the operation, he was ferried back home by his parents to recuperate in JB and I took the opportunity to visit him before I leave Johor Bahru this coming Monday. While at his place, we reminisced about the good old days in English College (our ex-secondary school) and Taylor's College and talked plenty of cock. It felt pretty fun to do that after so long, just talking about everything yet nothing - it sometimes make me wish that I had accepted IMU's offer and stayed here to do my degree. However, I've made my choice and there's no looking back. Everyone has a path they must tread and I have mine, even if that means I have to be separated from my friends for a while, then so be it. No one ever walked properly looking backwards - so I'll just look forward, to what the future brings.
Here are some pictures of my family's new fish-chieftain, Teh ub3r l33t a5ag! th4t pWned j00 -- I meant the new asagi -- and something that will make clear the meaning of the second part of this entry's title!
The newest addition to our pond, getting a salt bath in our "quarantine tub" after we brought it back from Kota Tinggi. The reason for the salt bath? My uncle informed us that it had some lice after he bought it from the shop but he had removed them. However, just to be on the safe side, we drained away the water that it was in, pumped in fresh tap water and added salt (to kill any lice eggs remaining) and gave it a visual and tactile inspection before it was given the green light to be released into our pond.
Not exactly a beauty, but we weren't planning on entering it in any shows anyway. We bought it to "lead" our juvenile koi and it has been doing a great job in making the other koi in the pond much less afraid of us. Some are also unafraid of being hand-fed already! However, as it was neglected in the shop, we hope to restore a little of it's beauty by letting it live in our pond with much better conditions. After all, asagi bloodlines have always been known to produce more or less good-looking fish.
It's finally official: I now wear two golden stripes on my belt instead of one. Somehow I don't really feel worthy of it - my footwork is still shoddy, my speed just average and my techniques neither here nor there. I'd better train harder to make my standards meet or exceed those demanded of the rank indicated by my belt. No more slacking off for me, then.
Well, that's all for this post. I'll just take this opportunity to wish Yih Seong a speedy recovery and the best of luck in redeveloping his "atrophied" buttcheek. Let me know when you've recovered, I'll get a bottle of wine for you to open - without a cork-remover. Well, I guess you're the only one who will understand this last part. Anyway, to the rest: take care dudes, I'll see you guys in December.
posted by yong chen @ 9:07 PM
1 Comments
