The lamb was hot

I’ve just finished feasting on a lamb steak dinner. Such a meal is a rare occasion, especially when it’s home-made, and we began dinner at an early 6pm.

The moment I sat at the dining table mum began telling about their lamb shopping spree at Carrefour, which began dismally when my parents discovered there was only a slice or two left of lamb ribs. They asked the manager if there were any lamb left in the kitchen, he replied none, but took pity on my parents when they lingered a bit and stared longingly at the miserable slice. So he ordered his staff to cut some lamb shoulders, marinate it and gave it to my parents. Original price was RM60+ per kg, but for some reason they wanted to charge my parents cheap for only RM19.90 per kg, and my parents bought 2 kilos.

So we were dining on an RM120+ home-made food.

The moment I sank my teeth on the lamb, a familiar sensation took over. A second bite plunged me into Spicy Hell’s 7th floor as my ears went blocked, throat burned and drowned myself in icy cold water. Mum, who was a cancer survivor and because of radiation’s side-effects, couldn’t take spicy stuffs at all, took the worst. Even my dad and maid who could all very well handle spicy stuffs complained the black pepper used to marinate it was too concentrated.

There went the RM120+ lamb. I had to wash the sauce off my lamb and poured some BBQ sauce on it. All the while my mum was gushing how the lamb looked good and leng (beautiful, literally) when they all looked the same to me: old, wrinkly, and full of fats.

The cold potato layered with butter was absolutely delectable the moment it melted on my tongue. Campbell’s soup was nice, as usual, and it ended with half a glass of red wine.

Yum.

Unrelated news aside, I’m supposed to write this down after being ‘tagged’ by Suet.

15 February 1988: 17 years before

Most of us are here against our will, heh. That was a nice catchy title from an equally nice book, but do you think so, too?

I looked wrinkled and ugly the moment I was born, but then again, so do every other newborn babies who looked awful. Apparently I did turn purple at one point, parents panicked and had to call for an ambulance but I turned out alright in the end. Nothing much to say about my early formative years seeing as I don’t remember a thing.

1995: 10 years ago

I remembered as a Standard One kid, and during my pre-school days I was a pretty smart, likeable kid. I remembered particularly being good at my Chinese, got 1st for handwriting (god knows why there’s such a thing), and I also remembered the principal telling me I’d make a great teacher in the future. Heh.

I also remembered one of my kindergarten teachers, whose face I forgotten, visiting my old house in Cheras one day talking to my old maid. I remembered her words clearly, as some words do when they’re meant to knock some jolt into your life, “Don’t be sad if you can’t get first next time, as life always has ups and downs.” She prolly said that because I seem to be getting first in everything, and if I get poorer results I might not be able to handle it? Or something.

I remembered enrolling under a Mr Seow (if you know Chinese, you’ll get the joke) for Mental Arithmetics (I forgotten a bit what was taught by now, but I can do simple maths in my head pretty well), and did quite well until I was close to the Advanced level and he too decided it was time to close shop. He was interested in… clowns, performing magic tricks and such, and I suppose he’s pursuing something he likes. That’s good.

Standard One at 1995 sees me at a primary school horribly named Sekolah Kebangsaan Jalan Pasar I & II. An all-boys school, I remember myself running around a lot on its extremely large field with a bunch of friends, even with a Standard 6 prefect. I remembered being detained by another prefect for talking during an after-school assembly and hated him for it.

I also remembered how ugly and dirty the school was, in spite all, and during a compulsary pay-RM1-to-watch-a-movie screening, I remembered being forced watching a silly horror show on rats against my will It also had a part that caused great cheer to the male-populated students when the lady had her clothes ripped by rats, which in the end had to be censored manually by the teacher in charge (they were using a projector, you see).

I also remembered peeing in my pants, my most embarassing moment during my early years when the bloody teacher refused to let me out from the hall to go to the toilet. XD Well, it’s his bloody fault and the hall was at least left with a little memento from me.

Standard 2 saw me shifting to USJ 14/1 and studying at SK Seafield. I remembered an Alicia Mun May May (whatever her Chinese name was) holding my hands and it caused quite a stir among my classmates. We were both trial prefects, and me being so damn innocent, I’ve no idea why she did that nor why my classmates were acting that way.

I remembered years later, my other plumpish classmate from that 2 Tanjung class told me, “I can’t believe I used to have a crush on you.” I can’t believe that either. In fact, I was a centre of crushes and I used to look good. Heh.

And Geok Leng was my first friend when I shifted to USJ. I remembered after my first day at school I asked what her name was and being so damn innocent (expect that phrase coming more often), I tried to memorise her name. And failed. And had to ask her again the next day.

I also remembered sitting next to Wai Hong, who incidentally shifted to USJ the same time as me and was living quite near to my house (and still is).

And get this. I used to sit in the same bus as Matthew (Victor) and an Indian Jason, IIRC, and was bullied by them a lot. Being a stupid nerdy Chinese kid, I couldn’t very well do anything except cursed silently they’d die a horrible death and have their heads smashed by falling coconut trees. No, I no longer bore the resentment.

2000: 5 years ago

It was only 5 years ago but I can’t really remember what happened exactly. I remembered being backstabbed a lot at this point, but that’s life’s way of giving you experience to prepare for further ugly human behaviour in the future.

I remembered telling my crush I liked her, and she admitted the same over the phone (a nice surprise!) but that was it. I remembered the awkward silence when she said that and her asking, “What’s next?” That was after UPSR, and we were about to split into different schools, and we were really the most naive person in the world. So that basically ended any budding of a relationship (as stupid as that sounds), but she still remained as a close, good friend at USJ4.

2002: 3 years ago

Form 2. Nothing much, probably still going through the most depressive years of my life due to stupid puberty and some equally stupid sexual reawakening. I got hurt pretty easily by the slightest remark, and was darned rebellious. Overall the transition to secondary school saw a new me.

Distant relatives and friends of my parents who rarely saw me said I still looked thin. That’s genes for you, people.

2005: this year

All of you would’ve known me by now. From a darned shy kid, I no longer feel the same except with utter strangers – that, I’ve no idea why. The idea of using expletives, that used to shock my naive mind, no longer seem the same. Years of spending time with Shawn especially, master of expletives, and Heng Li, made it seem it’s only natural to do so when you’re trying to stress a point. It isn’t so vulgar to me anymore; and if you think I’m simply affected by the beautiful company I keep, it’s up to ye to think.

I’m still a naive kid, at heart. Shock me.

2006: next year

God knows where I’m heading. Form 6, college, whichever – I want to pursue Arts, this time, and you won’t see me taking Science anymore, maybe Maths. I like Maths. If I get to pursue what I like, it’d be taking up Japanese language, linguistics, journalism, or mass comm.

Failing that, I might try out this new course, “Mobile computing”, which sounds interesting but only available at APIIT, from what I see so far. I am absolutely not interested in medical (gores me out) and other science-related fields. Engineering doesn’t interest me much.

2015: 10 years ahead

Hopefully I might see myself in a career I like, probably sitting comfortably in an office writing stuffs for a magazine or a newspaper. Or (this is unlikely) I’d be in Japan somewhere, battling against the high cost of living as I do translating stuffs for big videogame companies.

Or maybe even joining venture with Shawn to open a restaurant, or something. That sounds so fun. I might be doing the accounts, or a website for it (haha!), or publicising, whichever.

I might go steady with a girlfriend, I don’t know. Hopefully I don’t have to turn to writing love-aching issues in my 10-years-from-now blog posts. Or I might just be a bachelor, it seems like a pretty free and easy life, living with a bunch of mates.

And hopefully, I get to be invited to some weddings from you people and see you guys off to a new married life. ‘course, do hope we’re still meeting up with each other, catching up with each other’s lives, whether through a meeting at the local mamak or through blogs.

That said, I can’t imagine reading this 10 years later and compare what we’ve written. It’d be good fun.

I tag (whoever wants to do this shit for fun in your free time):
1. Heng Li
2. Jon
3. Shawn