I don’t know if it’s the fact that I’m no longer being brainwashed in the system that is the public education of our country, but once I’ve climbed up further on the rungs of the ladder of life (ie: entered college), it feels like a whole new torrent of broken glasses and veiled lies has unleashed and stormed my beliefs. I have been rendered less and less patriotic when injustices and such discordance kept assaulting me through published news or somewhere down the grapevine, and it’s a far cry from the previous me who had loved singing songs during my secondary school days like Setia (honestly, still my favourite patriotic song till now) or even to the cheesy tunes of Keranamu Malaysia.

And this seems to be reflected even more during a conversation I had with an uncle at Klinik Ooi of SS15 on Monday, who was sitting next to me while waiting to have his medical report translated into layman terms and deduced by the good doctor. And whilst I waited for nearly 1 hour and 45 minutes till my turn, time passed by quickly with him engaging in a conversation with me, when he spotted me revising for my Management Accounting mid-terms.

And it was a conversation laced with strands of complaints and pessimism that we can very well define as dissent—something that our government may be quick to quash. As a businessman himself, the uncle voiced his dissatisfaction over corruption that is rife in his line of dealings, and words like “their people” and “unfair” peppered many of his sentences, and I’m mildly shocked. It’s unlike before when dissatisfaction is swept beneath the carpet, and now, with the advent of the Internet, we’re more aware of issues affecting us, but afraid to do anything because of the government’s draconian ISA.

He asked if I’ve ever studied overseas, and when I nodded in affirmation, he voiced his pleasure and said that all of us should “taste some soap water” from abroad (apparently it’s some Chinese proverb). And it’s true—being in Melbourne made me even more aware of all that Malaysia isn’t and has no hope of improving because of how we’ve been raised to be submissive, petrified puppets who are generally apathetic.

Curiously enough, when I was at the gym on Tuesday afternoon and was the only one there, the owner came to me whilst I was resting from my bicep curl routine, and this time, phrases like “their kind” and “the education system in the old days is much better” flew out from his mouth. Have I missed something? If two near strangers rant about injustice to me in two consecutive days, surely it’s a sign of things to come.

The uncle from the clinic asked if I’ve registered to be a voter, and when I said yes, he immediately called to vote against the present ruling government, for their rule of more than 50 years, while has seen some progress, much has yet to be done. “Give the new opposition party a try,” he advised, and he needn’t even ask as I’ve a firm idea of who I’m going to be voting for in the next election.

But ah, enough of this politically-charged rant.

Melbourne, for some reason, is the source of much nostalgia to me, and I missed the city a lot. I could visualise every lane, every street, every tram, and Walsh Residence in my head, and occasionally the pictures I see from my Walsh St Boys’ Facebook albums forced a fistful of painful pining down my throat.

Also my Management Accounting mid-term was alright, except for a question that confuzzled most of us even though some tips have been dished out beforehand.

I also acquired Heavy Rain, a PS3 game, from Neo of GameOn from my work as a game reviewer, which is an intense, emotionally-charged game revolving around the mystery of the serial killer known as the Origami Killer. One of the most unique and fun games I’ve played in a long while.

Me, Ding, Andy, and Ryui Bynn was at Shawn’s house on Thursday night (at 11.30pm+) up till 4am as we drank and gambled and chatted away. Shawn was departing to France the next day, and I feel pretty happy for him—he hasn’t had a vacation (overseas much less) in ages, and despite this being education-oriented, it should be smashing for him too. He arrived on Tuesday night to pick up my backpack and I lent him my Lumix.

And last night, Sarah (who’s now working as a trainee broker) asked me out to mamak with Andy and Ding there, along with her friends Melissa and Kah Leong, the former whom she knew from Adelaide.

Financial health problems notwithstanding (a huge dip in advertising revenue is rather worrying), it’s otherwise a pretty good uneventful week.

Chinese New Year has always been a point of contention for me, not because of the occasional dull booms that linger in the atmosphere from the blasting of illegal fireworks from potentially rich persons, but because I dread having to visit the relatives. But this year’s CNY strikes me with mixed feelings, mostly because my grandpa suffers from a stroke that attacked him a few months ago when I was in Melbourne and he was subsequently left partially paralysed; and the way the people around him, including my grandma, seem to treat him oddly reminds me of that Leonardo DiCaprio movie I watched during my last few days in Christchurch in my guesthouse’s lounge room, The Beach, when a man who was attacked by a shark was eventually ditched by the circle of people around him because they couldn’t stand nor could they bear with that man’s suffering and his pain-reeked groans. That man was eventually dragged to a remote part of a jungle and was left to die, and that circle who was once his friends eventually forgot about that man and his suffering, and normalcy returns.

My grandpa, with mild Alzheimer’s, also expresses his wish of wanting to end his own suffering and die. Anyone who has known my stance with euthanasia would know that I support it, for why should a person who has little chance of recovering fully go through all the unnecessary pain and discomfort? This insensitivity is what I hate about my relatives sometimes, and my desire to visit them diminish with each passing day.

But my birthday this year falls on the 2nd day of CNY, and thus there wasn’t any celebration but gambling at Shawn’s house at night instead, after which we went to play Left 4 Dead 2 at FTZ SS15 (which was thankfully open even though it was CNY) that saw me, Shawn, Wai Hong, Ding, and Alvin (who left earlier than us) playing till ungodly hours of 3-4am. We proceeded to walk to McDonald’s SS15 and had an… early breakfast (while overseeing Shawn’s crazy antics of pouring a pile of sauces on our table), by when I reached home at nearly 5am. The start of a crazy sleeping routine, ah.

The following day, I was at Heng’s new house at USJ 11 gambling away with blackjack too (while avoiding the pizzas as I had forgotten to bring my Lactaid pills with me), and then we were at Sunway Pyramid looking for food, and ended up at Pasta Zanmai, as Shawn’s former workplace (Zanmai) was quite full and had a pretty long queue.

Laughing over some joke.

• Out of a pure stroke of chance, I’m currently writing game reviews for a small sum of money. It isn’t much, sure, but people have always said that if you’re working with something that you have an absolute passion for, then the money is quite secondary, even though it is what that motivates me to write.
• I’ve also been playing the entire Metal Gear Solid series in the past few weeks (MGS1 to 4, and just finished MGS4 a few hours ago on my birthday =D), which was what took up the profound amount of free time I have this semester (a consequence of having just three subjects left). But it feels great to be playing games the way I did all those years ago. HS and studying took up a large part of my time the previous semesters, so to be able to play and enjoy these innovative and incredibly entertaining videogames is admittedly refreshing, though I’m unsure if this would change again when I finally graduate.
• So. Turning vingt deux today, and at this point in time, it feels just like any other day. No celebrations because most restaurants and shops are still closed on the 2nd day of Chinese New Year, plus most friends are not around (and also because I’m just too goddamn lazy to organise one), so some gambling session or hopefully a Left 4 Dead 2 gaming session later tonight. =D
• Lately, it feels like I’m so much more rooted to reality than ever. I’m still undecided if that’s a good or a bad thing.

I honestly believe now, with every ounce of my being, that the essence of good writing is being able to detach yourself briefly from the realities of the world, and bathe the world in a dimly lit beauty of iridescence. I used to be able to sever myself and let my entire existence immerse itself into that briefly constructed universe, and the only connection between this world and the other are the sequence and emergence of words, phrases, lexicons. Shimmering, vague descriptions of this fantastic alternate universe, not unlike the current one I inhabit in.

What did I lose by being too entrenched and suffocated with the responsibilities and realities of growing up? Possibly my flair of English, after taking up three different languages, of which neither I’ve fully mastered. I’m hitting 22—is that number even real?—and it feels like I’m slowly crossing that threshold of no return. Wasn’t there a saying something along the lines of, youth makes us feel immortal and invincible? I truly have felt that way, but with a gnawing shock that dawned upon me only a few weeks ago, I’m slowly shedding away these bindings that I have once associated myself with.

And maybe, as a display of resolute and maturity, I’ll be doing something that I’ve been wanting to do for ages but lack the willpower and dedication to do so: I’ll be joining a gym, and hopefully make some noticeable changes to my physical outlook.

By the by, the show must go on.

In unchronological point forms, this is what I’ve done this month ever since I returned from Melbourne and Brunei:

– met up with the u8 gang at two Friday night mamak sessions at Tanjung. The first on the 15th was a small group with Jon, Ding, and Wai Hong (where we eventually returned to Jon’s house, played Left 4 Dead 2 on his laptop briefly with his new 40” TV as the monitor, and watched some HD movies like Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children Complete and Kungfu Panda), while the second (on the 22nd) was with a much larger group that it spanned three tables, with Andy, Sarah, Geok Leng, Jean Hwei, Shawn, Ding (who picked me up), Wai Hong, Esther, and Tony in the picture.

– Bought a 23” Acer H233H widescreen LCD monitor (in full 1080p HD too!) at the USJ 19 Digital Mall for RM660 on Sunday the January 17th.

– I’m really digging the PS3 that my bro bought in my absence (with my money too I may add wtf). Thus far I’ve only been playing games purchased and downloaded from the PSN (Playstation Network), partly because they’re bite-sized games, and partly because the other two games my bro has purchased (Metal Gear Solid 4 and Grand Theft Auto 4) were from a series I’ve yet to play. But Flower and flOw (which I managed to download for free, thanks to a good online friend of mine (from our old RO days), Shearn, who lent me his account) are exquisite, serene games. I’d even venture that Flower, a beautifully rendered game whose sole goal is to guide a flower petal towards its goal, has a certain degree of emotion sheathing it whole.

– In order to rectify the situation of not having played a single game in the MGS series, I briefly contemplated reading plot summaries off Wikipedia for the first three Metal Gear Solid games, but taking the advice from both Matt and my brother, I chose to start playing from MGS1, which my brother has conveniently downloaded from the PSN into our PS3. I finished the game in two days last week, and finished MGS2 on our PS2 in the span of two days: on Thursday I played for about 5 hours, while Friday saw me hooked to it for nearly 12 hours wtf. Words are hard to describe the intricate universe of the Metal Gear Solid series, which involved strings of conspiracies involving the American government, Russia, a nuclear fallout, etc. As I type now, I’ve only begun Metal Gear Solid 3: Subsistence, and I’m slowly getting the hang of it, even though I had thought these stealth games in the series would be incredibly difficult to get into.

– I only have three subjects in my final semester: Introduction to Organisational Behaviour, Risk Management, and Management Accounting—the latter is an elective which I took on the advice from scholarship arch-enemy Ho Sheng, who told me (as well as Estee) that you won’t actually learn anything of practical use from my other elective of choice, Small Business and the Accountant.

– Shawn, Ding, and Wai Hong came to my house for a short while last Saturday to check out my PS3, and then we went to FTZ for more L4D2 gaming goodness, with Jon and his friend as well.

– During our 2nd Tanjung mamak session, we discovered how about 6-7 of the attendees would actually be graduating sometime in the middle of this year. Sarah herself has already graduated and she’s looking for a job herself.. and it’s a prospect I’m not looking forward to.

– For some reason, I don’t really feel like blogging these days.