Woohoo, I'm back after another 5 day stint in Indonesia for work. Didn't have to endure any dangdut videos, and the guesthouse provided by the client for me and my Indonesian colleagues was lovely and had a huge tv with all the same channels as Astro and more. So while I was internet-deprived the whole time, as least the tv helped keep me sane.
I usually pride myself on being easily adaptable to other countries. Most other countries I've been too, the worse problem I usually have adapting to the new place is coming down with a bout of sneezing... and since most other countries I go to have better air than Malaysia, even that is rare! And this isn't even my first trip to Indon... but for some reason this time round, my body developed an unusual sign of rejecting this place and wanting to be home.
On the second day I was there, something about the food I ate didn't quite agree with me coz' I came down with a bout of food poisoning and woke up in the middle of the night to puke (made it in time to the toilet!). That was not cool. After that, the rest of the time there, I had no appetite for the food, even though the food served at the guesthouse was actually pretty good... rice with Indonesian dishes that are not too different from normal Malay cooking. But then again, back home I don't really fancy Malay cooking either, so that was probably another thing that made me put off. During breakfast time, the food looked really good, but was also really oily (fried rice, fried chicken, fried eggs!) and I'm used to eating only fruits or bread for breakfast... so on the last few days, I ate really little of it and thought the the oily-ness of it all was putting me off. The dishes served during lunch and dinner, however, were oily AND spicy, and the spicyness was putting me off too, even though normally at home I have no problem with spicy food. I ended up eating much less than I usually do at home coz' my tummy just kept feeling weird and didn't want to take in the food.
Very strangely though, on the last day I still had no appetite... until I got in the plane heading for KL... then it was like something triggered in me. I got SO hungry and was hankering for a bowl of noodles. I was even willing to pay a ridiculous price of RM7 for the Maggi hot bowl they serve on the flight... and when the air stewardesses serving the food were so slow coming to my row, all I could think was "C'moooon....moveitmoveitmoveitmoveit!!!!". By the time they came, the flight was almost about to land (it was only an hour flight) so they didn't want to give me the hot bowl as they were afraid I wouldn't have time to finish it, and since I REALLLY wanted noodles, I opted to wait. Which was even more torturous. I was almost ready to hijack the plane and make the pilot land right in front of a noodle shop. After I landed, I found out my dad would be late to pick me up, which was a relief to me coz' it meant I had time to eat at the airport. I ended up eating Ipor Hor Fun at Old Town White Coffee... which mostly consisted of lots of noodles in soup, a few lousy pieces of chicken, a couple of prawns and that was it. A typical ripoff Malaysian meal... but at that point it was like heaven. Aaaaah....
Since then, even though I've been having a bout of diarrhea and running to the loo once every hour or so (which means I actually did have food poisoning and am purging myself now), I'm happily eating my normal Malaysian oily and spicy food with a healthy appetite. So I figure, it wasn't the oilyness or the spicyness of Indo food. It's just that for some reason, my body decided it didn't want Indo food. In confirmation of my theory, as soon as I got back home after eating my ripoff but heavenly airport meal, I opened up a box given to me by my client, which was a souvenir from them.... and found a big pandan cake and some other Indonesian cakes inside. It looked yummy... but the smell of it immediately made me feel like throwing up again. Hmm... very strange.
Well, not sure why my tummy decided to go on strike in Indonesia. The place does have it's fair share of good food... like the super extremely spicy Mi Acheh we had at an outdoor stall which I twittered about.... it was basically instant noodles made it this super spicy red soup. It was so spicy, it did something along the lines of making smoke come out of my ears, tears well up in my eyes, and snot drool out my nose. Every bite had to be taken slowly, and finishing the bowl was a test in endurance all by itself.... but I did it! Unfortunately I didn't get a photo of that masochistic meal, but I did get a photo of another common Indon food, 'bakso', which means 'meatball' in Indonesian.
That's a bowl of bakso noodles they served which costed only Rp7000, which comes up to less than RM2. And you can count NINE freakin' meatballs in there. Two of them are extra large! Good grief. In Malaysia, if you ask for a bowl of meatball noodles, you'd be lucky to get more than 4 meatballs... and it would come up RM4 or so. *Sigh*
Well, I hope next time I go back to Indon, my tummy will function normally so I can actually enjoy their food. ;)
Actually, as I type this out, the whole of America and a good part of the rest of the world would already know who the new AI winner is.... but I'm not American and I like to be kept in suspense, so I diligently steered clear of all websites that smelled of American Idol headlines, shushed all my colleagues who had already 'cheated' and read the news online, and got annoyed with a friend on Gtalk who supposedly revealed the winner on his Gtalk status... but since he's not a reliable source, I technically still don't know who won... and right now I'm enjoying the finale and loving it!!...well, most of it anyway. Here's my short take on this year's finale.
- Show starts off with the compulsory Judges-Fun-Poking Session. I'm wondering why they didn't make fun of Paula's tendency to sound like a broken record player. - Moves on to the compulsory performance by all 13 finalists, singing 'Rock Star' from Pink. Boring zoring. And few more performances from them later on with some famous singers like Jason Mraz, Queen Latifah, Rod Stewart (???) and Santana (whoop!). Yadda yadda yadda. - Outstanding Male Performance went to none other than Normon Gentle! Not really a surprise but I'm glad he won it. Plus the whole pretending not-to-know-what's-going-on act before ripping off his clothes to reveal his Normon Gentle outfit and break out into song was lame but funny. Still love him! - The Best Attitude award (or something like that) went to that annoying Bikini girl, wearing another teeny bikini in which her boobs are threatening to pop out. Was laughing my head off when she started singing and people in the audience were audibly booing her down. Was laughing even more when Kara Diguardi popped up halfway through the song and totally upstaged her by singing MUCH better. And then Kara rips her dress open to reveal her underwear and upstage Ms. Bikini even more! And Ms. Bikini girl stood there looking all huffed about Kara stealing her thunder. LOL. I have newfound respect for Kara Diguardi (whom I think is the better female judge *whistles*). - What the heck is that Adam is wearing??? Oh, he's performing with Kiss. I guess they were trying to make Adam look relatively normal. - Oh dear. They gave Tatiana Del Toro the Outstanding Female Performance award. And she sang that song again for the fourth time. Thank God the producers were smart and gave her all of 2 seconds of stage time. *Whew!* - Adam Lambert and Kris Allen rocked it out with Queen (or rather, the part of Queen who are still alive), and the Adam so freakingly reminds me of the late lead singer. Would've been REALLY cool if Adam announced "Ladies and gentlemen.... Freddy Mercury!!". Now THAT would made a historic show. - The winner's being announced! The winner of American Idol 2009 is.......
ooooohhhh *sh*T*!!!!!
Kris Allen won???
Holy cow, I'm shocked. It sounds like the audience is in shock. What a shocker. Kris What's-his-name came out of nowhere and stole the crown out from under Lambert and Gokey who were expected to be in the finals! Wowowowow. What a fascinating finale
But it's all good coz' I don't have to listen to Adam sing that corny Idol winner's song. Rock on Adam!!!
... and here's why: Their first single. The first single of the new American Idol is of course the third song they both sang during last night's performance show, 'No Boundaries' written by one of the judges, Kara DiGuardi and a bunch of other people nobody really cares about. Now Kara has written a bunch of songs for a lot of famous singers which went on to become big hits...so you would think the song she would help come up with for American Idol would be better than the fluffy attempts at being inspirational that previous American Idol winners had to churn out as their first single. At least I hoped so. Unfortunately, the producers still haven't learned from the criticism of previous seasons and decided once again to go down the fluffy inspirational nonsense road. I heard some deejays complain over the air that the song was even worst than all the previous Idol winner first singles. I wouldn't go so far to say that. I think it's just as bad as all the previous Idol winner first singles.
So as usual, both the finalists had to have a take at the song... and as always, with inspirational fluff-type songs, the more 'conventional' singer will perform it better. In this case, Kris Allen performed it better, while, Adam Lambert, being a wonderfully entertaining performer but certainly not conventional, looked totally out of place with that song. Adam's the rocker dude who can take any songs and rocker-fy it (that word should be in a dictionary somewhere), somewhat mangle it, yet still be entertaining (case in point, what he did with Johnny Cash's Ring of Fire). But on a song like THAT, even the way he performed it last night, you could kinda see the look of "Save me from singing this song!!!" all over his face. And the screaming that he usually does in his songs sounded more strangled than usual. As such, although I've been rooting for Lambert all this time, and I still think he's most likely going to take the crown, I hate the thought of hearing Adam singing that song as his first single... and with American Idol being so commercialized and all, if he won, Adam would have less freedom to go down his own creative path, at least for the first couple of albums or so until he starts to take the reigns like what Kelly Clarkson did... and he's a performer who needs his freedom. Kris would be fine going down the commerlized path, and to his benefit, he actually performed all his 3 songs last night really well, even better than Adam, IMHO. But at the finale stage, people need to look at the performances of the finalists throughout the season, and based on that, Adam has been rocking the whole time (except for that one week when he was in the bottom 3, his performance was less rocking and I wasn't too surprised). Kris is a genius in his own right in that he knows how to take a song and make it totally different from the original, but in such a good way that he managed to rope in enough votes to get him to this stage. But in terms of his voice and and style, there is nothing else that makes him stand out other than his ability to do great covers of other people's songs. Would he do superbly performing a bunch of his own new songs? I doubt it. Perhaps he should just stick to doing covers of other peoples' songs for the rest of his life.
So win or lose, I don't really give a hoot now. Adam will still rock on.
Totally love Lambert, but Kris Allen should be the new American Idol
Always on the lookout for the coolest relatively unknown (mostly rock) songs, and thanks to the wonderful world of Internet radio and the wonderful invention of headphones I can wear at work, I have now officially fallen in love with Nevertheless, a Christian band from Chattanooga, Tennessee. The first song I heard from them, 'The Real' was what got my attention, but the two cool songs I'm playing on the loop now are 'When I'm Alone' and the following called 'Sleeping In':
I luuuurve how they work the piano and I luuuurve even more the lyrics of the song, which talks about how sometimes you just feel like 'sleeping in', not wanting to face the world and blocking out the people around you... and you think that you're the only one on the whole dang world of over 6 billion people (totally overpopulated, I say) who feels like no one understands you, but obviously there are plenty of peeps who feel the same way and you're definitely not alone. And in the end, the singer is asking God to help him stop 'sleeping in' and help him face the world outside. Doesn't everyone need a bit of help with this sometimes? ;-)
Interesting fact: The band got their name from Luke 5.5 (the part when the disciples were fishing and Jesus told them to cast their nets at the side of the boat:
"But Simon answered and said to Him, "Master, we have toiled all night and caught nothing; nevertheless at Your word I will let down the net."
... is now (or rather, was a few days ago... you know how I am with procrastinating) officially closed! Based on my earlier post on overpriced McD's, my poll question and options for answers were:
Are you still happily eating at McDonald's?
A) Yes! They're so good, any price is worth it!
B) Sometimes, but I ain't happy about it
C) No, I refuse to pay for overpriced junk
D) Ronald McDonald's must die!!!
No one voted for option A, while 40% of voters each voted for option B and C, and 20% voted for option D (my personal favourite, just coz' it's fun to be pretend to be a sadist). That was out of grand total of FIVE votes!!!
Yeah well, hopefully one day when I become a famous blogger earning tons of dough off writing nonsense like Kenny Sia, then my poll numbers will be a bit more impressive. Heh. I can dream, people, I can!!!
In line with the fad of everybody wanting to stay connected to everybody else and even people that they don't know, I've decided to join Twitter today. If you haven't heard about Twitter, well, it's pretty much a souped up site for people to put up their status updates for whoever is interested to read their status updates (ie. followers), whether it be something interesting like a new place you just visited or an eureka thought you had, or something super boring like how you just picked a gigantic booger out your nose. You can pretty much do the same thing on Facebook... and MSN Messenger... and Gtalk.... and just about any other chat device or networking site out there.
So actually I don't quite get what the hype is about yet and I'm just joining for the heck of it. So far me thinks the only real cool thing about Twitter is that I can update my status from my phone through sms with no extra charge other than the normal sms rate. So whenever I'm overseas without internet access and really bored, I can waste my sms money telling people what's happening with me with my phone. Another cool thing is that some real celebrities actually use Twitter, and you can become their follower and get real updates from the real deal. However, there are many fake celebrity accounts, so I'm wondering if Paul Hewson a.k.a. Bono's account is the real deal or some faker. Haven't added him to my friends list yet.
However, since there doesn't seem to be a way for my friend's Twitter updates to be sent to my email for me to read, I suspect I will just end up never bothering to log into Twitter to check out my friends' updates. Which kinda defeats half the purpose.
So anyway, if you're interested, you can check out my Twitter page, and if you're already a Tweeter, you can become one of my minions....*ahem*, I mean, followers, or you could just check out my Tweets on the sidebar of my blog.
Ah yes, the joys of staying connected without even talking to anyone. :P
I felt like doing something random today. I was just so bored at work and bored of the prospect of going home, watching American Idol (still rooting for Adam Lambert, though it's down to the final 3 now and they're all really good, so anything can happen now, but he'll still rock on even if he gets the boot so I really don't care) and then thinking of the prospect of spending another night bumming around at home was so boring. So I started thinking of what would be a good random thing to do for a lone person who's too lazy to go too far and doesn't want to spend too much. Few thoughts passed through my head:
- Go to Subang Lake with a mat, and lie down on the grass to look up at the stars... or just up at the sky, knowing how stars can disappear in our KL sky.
- Round up some gal pals and go visit a cheap karaoke joint along Old Klang Road that plays nothing but old songs (did that once, but it wasn't random!).
- Go to Sunway Pyramid, find a nice open place to sit and just watch everyone that passes me by.
- Visit a gay bar and see what gay people do there. And maybe pretend to be gay, if I feel adventurous, and run away as soon as things get too weird.
I might have gone for the last option except that considering I'm pretty straight, I have no idea where to find a gay bar (although someone once told me there are some around Subang... hiding... somewhere...). Instead I 'almost' decided to opt for something more normal, such as watch Star Trek and then play some DDR afterwards at Summit, just coz' I haven't played it for while. Still, the thought of going alone was also kinda boring, so I tried my luck to see if any of my friends were in a random mood as well, as posted my plans on my Facebook and Gtalk status.
Well, I didn't get any takers for that plan, but one friend did call me up after he saw my Facebook status, and coz' he'd already seen the movie and had just come back from work pretty late and going for dinner, I ended up going to hang out with him instead. Which is somewhat normal, but random in a way coz' while driving to meet him, he still hadn't decided where to eat even up to when I almost reached where he was, and we were blabbering away on the phone for a good 10 minutes or so about where to eat and other miscellaneous nonsense while I was driving from my house to his location around SS15. Yeah, the indecisiveness might have been annoying on other days, but today was fine coz' it filled my need for randondomness. :) We finally ended up going to good ol' boring Asia Cafe.
I suppose in the humdrum of everyday life, which can get rather repetitive and boring, a little spontaneity every now and then is refreshing. And my act of small randomness has sort-of inspired a bit of a hair-brain idea... which I'm not sure if I'll actually carry it out since it's new and usually my hair-brained ideas lose steam after a while. We'll see how it goes if I actually carry it out. ;)
I did mention somewhere before that I wasn't going to blog about politics, but the way things are in Bolehland, it's too hard to resist. So I take that back.
Here's a scenario for you to kickstart your imagination, especially if you are someone sitting on your high horse in the Government. Imagine a father with a bunch of rowdy young kids, say about 5 to 10 years old. One day the father tells his kids they're going to stay home and eat, but then all the kids band together and rebel against their father, saying they want to go and eat overpriced McDonald's instead. The kids continue making a ruckus and refuses to listen to their father, so to punish them the father throws them all into the basement. And doesn't let them out. The kids' friends beg the father to let his children out, but he doesn't budge. The neighbours and everyone who hears about it protests against the father act of locking away his children, but he still doesn't do anything. The kids are stuck in that basement until, let's say 17 months later. Then the father decides to finally let them out to freedom and see all their friends again. And then the father smugly declares, "See! I've let them out! That's shows that I'm not cruel!".
Here, you have a case where a group of people fighting for a cause (in this case, a bunch of kids fighting to eat overpriced junk) are kept locked away for standing up for their different opinion, albeit in a loud, noisy and annoying manner, but in no way being a real threat to anyone. Anyone with half a brain would know that in the case above, the father should be charged with wrongful imprisonment and abuse... even if he had released them later. At the most, that would lighten his sentence (Any lawyers out there, please let me if I'm wrong!).
So today as I was having my dinner while reading the weekend's Star newspaper and saw on the page 14, the headlines "PM: Release of ISA detainees shows Govt isn't cruel", I had a hard tough keeping my half chewed mouthful of food from spewing back onto my plate.
After some waffle about how the new PM has signed some papers to release the detainees, he is quoted as saying "I think this goes to show that it's not true that the Government is carrying out a cruel and repressive policy as claimed by the Opposition, and that we have tried to stifle individual freedom." Another article on the same page also quotes the equally infamous Samy Vellu as saying the Government showed concern and humility in releasing them.
In another comment, the PM also says "Please. what do you want? Even if we release them, we are (seen) to be wrong."
Err, yeah, because locking them up in the first place was wrong. Keeping them locked up for 17 months and causing the families of the detainees suffering was more wrong. So just coz' you decided to do ONE 'right' doesn't erase the the 17 months of wrong wrong wrong. It's like wiping the butt of a dog who pooped all over the house doesn't change the fact that it had pooped all over the house.
Mr. PM, this is your mess to clean, so if you wanna 'try' and clean it, please do so without spouting fuffly nonsense in the hopes that Malaysians will be incompetent enough to believe you.
Most Malaysians would've read this sad story in the news, but if you haven't, check out it out here for the full story (with photos), updates and info on how you can help the dog rescuers.
If you wanna donate anything, please remember every minute of procrastination is another minute the dogs are marooned there with lack of food and water and eating the carcasses of other dead dogs. And more than half the dogs are dead already. So hurry along to your banks now.
By the way, according to their blog updates, the dog is the photo above has been rescued. Yay! But still got more to go!
I mourn the death of freedom of speech and right to protest in this country.
I mourn the misuse of a draconian Incredibly Stupid Act by people who hide behind the excuse of maintaining 'peace' and 'racial unity', when in fact the sole purpose is to instill fear of arrest and detention in people are simply asking for a better governance.
I mourn the fact that the people in power are suffering some sort of serious inferiority complex to think that the colour of one's clothes pose a threat to national security and racial unity.
I feel like being national threat today. Be scared now, people! OoooOOoooh.....
As Chris got into his car, he chucked his briefcase onto the passenger seat and yanked the car door shut. The door slammed loudly, and at most times, he would've freaked out at the thought of possible damage to his door. Today, he really didn't give a damn. He was too busy seething over the conversation he had just had with his boss.
"I'm sorry to tell you this... but we have to pass you over for promotion this round." His boss's words played over in his head. "Your last presentation to the client just didn't cut it, and with the number of absences you've been taking, well, I just don't feel you are committed to this job."
What the heck?? I told him ages ago that I need to take it easy from work more often since my dad's accident... I've been home making sure my dad gets through the physio without any problems, and my moron of a boss thinks I'm on vacation??? I've been working with that client for ages too! Just because of this one time... ONE time, they decide not to go with my idea, he thinks I don't cut it for a promotion??
"Arrrgh!! I need the money, for crying out loud!!" Chris thumped his hands against the steering wheel and hit his head against the car seat head. His father's medical bills were starting to pile up, and he had been banking this promotion, and the raise he was 'supposed' to get to help pay for it. But now, with a car loan to pay off and plans to get a new home, although he wasn't struggling yet... he was starting to worry that he wouldn't have enough to stay afloat.
Chris turned the car key and car revved to life. The radio started blaring out a song he'd heard a few times before. The song was loud and sounded pretty angry. Chris was tempted to crank up the volume, but instead switched the radio off, preferably to continue mull and seeth over his conversation with his boss. As he reached the booth of the parking lot operator and stretched his hand out to pay the operator, the dark-skinned girl smiled at him, as she did every day, and said "Thank you, sir. Have a good day!". Chris returned a wry smile before he drove off. A little too late for that now, he thought to himself.
His boss had given him a lot of other excuses why he didn't deserve the promotion. Chris had turned up work later than usual a few times. (Because the dang physiotherapist's office wasn't open on time!) And then there was a report that Chris wasn't getting along well with some of his colleagues... an issue that irked Chris even more.
Those fellas were supposed to help in my presentation, but instead they turned up late and I had to cover for them. So I tell them that it's their responsibility to turn up early next time, and for that, they rat on me to the boss as being uncooperative! And the boss didn't even bother to find out MY side of the story just coz' that rat of a colleague does a good job of licking his boots. Hrrmph!Maybe instead of spending 2 weeks on a presentation, I'll take the time to go shopping for some nice smokes for the boss instead... maybe then I'll cut it for the dang promotion! Chris let out a snort of cynical laughter as he pulled his car to a stop at the traffic light 3 blocks down from his office, and mumbled to himself "Sigh... so that's the way the cookie crumbles..."
Chris's cell phone rang. He clicked the button on his bluetooth set.
"Chris, dear!" It was his mum on other side. Chris drew a deep breath to sooth himself and replied as if everything were hunky dory. "Yup, mum?".
"We're having a small dinner this Saturday, around 7 o' clock, since your father has been making a good recovery recently. Do you think you can make it, or is your work going to take you away this weekend again?"
Screw the work, mum! Chris stopped short of saying that out loud. "Yeah, I can make it".
"That's wonderful! Oh... and why don't you invite Jenna over as well?"
Chris paused. "Um... She can't make it this weekend, mum." Chris paused again. "Well, actually, we've been going through another rough patch lately". The traffic light turned green, and Chris turned the first left onto the highway.
"Oh, I'm sorry to hear that, dear. Well, if you can... patch things up again, then she's most welcome to come for our dinner."
Chris sighed to himself, deciding whether to explain it to her or not.
"Ok, mum. We'll see what happens. Bye, see you this weekend." He clicked the button to turn off his bluetooth set, and Chris' seething subsided and it was replaced instead by the feeling of a sinking heart. Jenna was... different from other girls. He knew it. And he loved her for it. He loved the way she laughed just a little too loud every time he made a joke... even a lame one. And he loved her spontaneity.... like the day she dragged him outside in the middle of a rain shower, just to enjoy the feel of the raindrops on their faces. He loved the way she would try and sneak a tickle to him while he was off guard... and they'd usually end up getting into mad tickle fights... which would then lead to them hugging each other, laughing like children before their lips melted into each other. Chris had loved every minute of the 2 years they'd been together.
Well, almost every minute.
Jenna was always happy, or always seemed to be happy. And anytime she was upset, angry or sad about something, she wouldn't complain about it. Instead, the first thing she would do was dress up and hit her favourite night club, with or WITHOUT her friends... and dance the night away... probably taking up a few drinks in between. Usually she would do that for a few nights before getting back to 'normal'. But on those few nights, anytime Chris tried calling her, she wouldn't answer since the loud club music drowned everything out. And anytime she didn't answer his call a few times, Chris dreaded going to her place the next day coz' knew he was likely to find her suffering from a major hangover.
This time, Jenna had been at it again for it for past couple of weeks, which seemed to be a new record for her. Chris had left voice messages on her cell phone, asking her to stay at home instead, or at least go out with him somewhere else... anywhere but the club. He even sent her an angry sms telling her about immature and silly she was behaving, hoping that would bring her around. But she never replied, and still never picked up her phone. Chris had no idea what was wrong with her, and it killed him.
3 days ago, he finally managed to find her at her place, just as she was heading for another party. He had wanted her to just tell him what was wrong... but she continued insisting for as long as she could that she was fine and just felt like 'having fun'. The words exchanged replayed in Chris' mind as he sped along on the highway.
"Look, Jenna! Every day for more than a week now, I haven't heard a WORD from you, and I come here in the morning to find you stoned from another night out. Do you have ANY idea how worried I am about you?? Anything can happen to you in that kind of place!" Chris yelled.
Jenna was just looking on the floor, looking as though she wanted to say something else to try and convince him nothing was wrong with her... but she bit her lip and stayed quiet instead. Chris's voice softened as he held her shoulders.
"I want to be there for you, Jenna. I want to understand what's wrong. Why can't you just stop pretending and talk to me? I'm sure this isn't you..."
Jenna was still looking at the floor and took a long time to reply "You don't know half the crap I've been through, Chris. And you can't change it... I am what I am."
Chris had took his hands off Jenna's shoulders and instead threw them up in the air in frustration "C'mon, you mean the problems you had with your folks as a kid? Do you think you're the only the person in the world whose parents messed up? I'm sure there are plenty of people out there who's went through worse... and they don't hide behind partying and booze!"
Jenna finally looked up and glared at Chris, as though she wanted to argue. But what she said next had totally threw him. "I know, Chris. I've tried to change, but... well..." Jenna's eyes turned to the floor again, before she looked pointedly at Chris again. "You deserve someone much better than me, Chris, so if you want to go, just go."
Chris was stunned. And anger flared up in him again "Fine. FINE! I can't love you anymore. Not like this. We're done." Chris had stormed out the door, slamming it behind him, and hasn't seen Jenna since.
Seeing that the highway was clear, Chris slowly pressed down harder on the accelerator, feeling the adrenaline rush as his car sped faster and faster.
A relationship isn't going to work unless you trust her and she trusts you, Chris told himself. If you trust her but she don't trust you enough to tell you what's going on, then it can't work! You've tried everything, man! EVERYTHING! But she's such a tough cookie to crack... Really... you can find someone better.
Chris had been telling that to himself for the past 3 days... in between the times he had been slogging over that dang presentation and worrying over how to save up enough to pay off his car installment this month. But again, he knew he was kidding himself. He still loved her, even with her crappy past and strange behaviour,... and he only told her otherwise coz' he needed to protect his own feelings. And in a way, he wanted her to feel as unloved as she had made him feel.
The speed dial on his dashboard was hitting 120km/hr, and Chris was so focused on the road in front on him, that the car next him suddenly cut in front of him. Chris reacted by swerving slightly and his hand automatically slammed down on his car horn for a good 3 seconds.
"Yo man!!! Where the heck did you get your driver's license from? There's a reason why they invented the SIGNAL LIGHTS!"
The car in front in him sped off as if in defiance, as Chris slowed his speed to gather himself again. "Yeeeesh!! Thank GOD I'm almost home and I don't have to deal with NUTTY drivers again... at least til tomorrow!!"
Chris turned off the next exit, and within five minutes, he was pulling up to the driveway of his house. Chris turned off the car engine. And he turned off his headlights. And he just sat there, in his car, in the silence, alone, seething.... and thinking.
He was angry at life. Tired. Frustrated at his boss. Wanting to quit his stupid job. But he couldn't quit. Worried about his dad. Worried about money. Sad about Jenna. Angry at Jenna. Guilty that he broke up with her. Wondering how he would do without her.
His hands were still holding on to the steering wheel, although he wasn't going anywhere. And he didn't want to step out of the car. Coz' he didn't know what to do after that. He sat there for 10 minutes, just seething... and thinking.
Finally, Chris took another deep breath, turned his car key one notch to the right and pressed the button on his car radio, hoping that another loud angry song would blare through his speakers.
*Bzzz*
"....ood evening and you're listening to Joey Cook on the Drive Home Show! We've got another 2 hours of great music for your listening pleasure, and this right here is Reliant K with their classic single "For the Moments I Feel Faint".
As the final chord of the song played, and the radio dj continued to jabber on excitedly, Chris turned off the car engine, and the radio became silent once more. He was thinking... but no longer seething. No longer angry. Though still a little tired.
In the silence and darkness of his car, Chris said out loud... "Thank you, God".
A smile slowly spread across his face as he opened the car door and stepped outside.
I think this song from Katy Perry (not the one about kissing girls!) called "Thinking of You" is a pretty nice song. Some time ago, I heard it played over the radio, and after the song, the radio dj commented on how some people were dedicating it to their boyfriends/girlfriends, but actually they shouldn't be. So the radio dj replayed the chorus of the song, where Katy sings "But when I'm with him, I am thinking of you...", and the dj goes on to gleefully tell his listeners "Don't dedicate this to anyone, coz' she's singing about CHEATING on her lover!".
I kinda regret now not calling up the radio station and telling the guys to LISTEN to all the words of that song before jumping to conclusions... coz' if he did, he might have figured out that she is totally not singing about cheating. Her video makes the meaning of her song even more obvious:
I shall not insult your intelligence by pointing out the meaning of the song after all that, but the point is that this is a classic example of how people can have the wrong understanding of a statement simply because they didn't bother to find out the context.
This is also a very common problem when it comes to reading the Bible.... or just about any other book. You cannot take one sentence out of the book and make a conclusion on the meaning of that sentence without reading it in context... coz' it most likely would end up being the wrong conclusion. It's aaaallll about the context.
You go to a well-established fast-food restaurant for a meal, where the prices of most meals have increased by 20-25% over the past few months. The restaurant has also just recently taken some of your favourite food items off the menu, and when you order something that should already be ready made, especially since it's dinner time and it's a FAST FOOD joint, you are asked to wait for it coz' it's not yet prepared (you also noticed that there is nothing much else on the racks ready for serving either). In addition to that, you find that the time taken for the people at the counter to serve everyone in line is significantly slower than it used to be. And when they do serve you the burger you ordered, right after you pick it up, all the shredded lettuce spills out back into the container.
Actually, I'm sure most of you don't have to picture it coz' you've probably experienced this yourself at this very well-established fast-food restaurant. Can you guess which one I'm talking about? . . . . . . . La dee da dee da... . . . . . . . . . .Yes, my friends, I'm talking about non other than everyone's supposed favourite fast food joint... McDonald's!
C'mon dude, the price of a so-called Value Meal is now an average of RM10 (except if you go during lunch time, which is when the prices are lowered... but I don't how long this promotion will last). They took out my favourite Chicken Foldover from the menu, so now the only thing I really like there is the Spicy Chicken McDeluxe, French Fries and the Chocolate Sundae, which are all overpriced. And the last time I went there, the service was slow, it was dinner time but there was almost nothing on the racks to serve customers, and the burger I got was quite a mess.
Therefore, as of today Carol officially declares that McDonald's sucks, and if it were not for their Spicy Chicken McDeluxe lunch time offer, French Fries and Chocolate Sundaes, I would only eat there if I were dragged kicking and screaming.
Do you agree or not agree? I made a poll on the right just for fun (these Blogger gadgets are pretty cool!). Poll ends on 16th of May 09!
Hi, I'm Carol, I'm a Malaysian female who likes to 'write long long', which is Malaysian mangled English for writing a heckuva lot. ;) I started this blog, previously named 'Read in Red' with the intention to post about miscellaneous stuff that interests me. My topics these days focus more on Malaysian current issues, but still can be pretty much whatever I feel like writing about, which usually includes dogs (I love 'em) and any funny stories or musings I may have.
That's a bowl of bakso noodles they served which costed only Rp7000, which comes up to less than RM2. And you can count NINE freakin' meatballs in there. Two of them are extra large! Good grief. In Malaysia, if you ask for a bowl of meatball noodles, you'd be lucky to get more than 4 meatballs... and it would come up RM4 or so. *Sigh*
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