Pain has kept me company for the past week or two—my undesirable oral surgery in which two of my wisdom teeth on the left jaw were removed, and I underwent a minor laser procedure to remove a wart on my finger and a cyst in an unmentionable area—and strangely I occasionally relish it. It’s a reminder of my existence, my being, and perhaps I can understand why some people physically injure themselves—it reminds them that they’re alive.

I am slowly and surely recovering—if time can mend a broken heart, it can surely mend my wounds.

The past few weeks have been a blur of medical-related cocktails I had to endure—a dislocated shoulder (that quickly healed and wasn’t that painful), a bump on my head (blame the wine), an excruciatingly bad diarrhoea no thanks to Chilli’s Empire and perhaps that can of 100 Plus taken after a badminton session was to be blamed, followed by several days of constipation, then the oral surgery that render my face semi-paralysed and a hole in my left index finger.

To be honest, amidst my Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood gaming (where I totally rock with the multiplayer component) and work life, I’m not exactly sure what exactly I’m looking for this year. There’s a growing disconnect between me and the real world, and what I love to do.

I can see myself wandering off on a Working Holiday Visa to either Australia or New Zealand few years into the future.

I can’t see what any of these mean anymore.

The second day of the new year ticked into being and there I was, standing on the 25th floor of the Berjaya Times Square Hotel by the glass window as I peered at the lives that ticked beneath me, snaking past the creases of a quiet Sunday morning when the crazy KL traffic eases with nearly the majority of the denizens reel from the hangover of the new year. There is a quiet contentment nesting in me—the world is quiet and room 2505’s guests slowly departed into their real world: Jeremy had just left, Mei Ling and PY were swimming at the pool, leaving me and Choy behind.

I’ve never realised it till now, but Kuala Lumpur is a walking example of the disparity between the rich and the poor—not unlike my experiences in Cambodia. From the towering heights of the luxurious hotel room I was in, I could see the haphazard zinc rooftops beneath me and the egregious condition the buildings are in.

There is something awe-inspiring about staring and zoning out of your hotel room window, shielding yourself from the unbearable heat and noise and polluting stench of the city while you remain in the security and comfort of your room, thinking about the several cans of beer drunk, a dislocated shoulder popped right back into place, Twilight and Finding Nemo watched the night before and Confessions of a Shopaholic (movies that I’d never dream of seeking out to watch, with Finding Nemo as the exception) the morning after. It has been a wildly awesome night, as excellent company and alcohol and inane laughters would bring.

Oh the shenanigans we were up to. I wish we will never grow up.

It’s already the 21st of December—nearly the end of 2010 of our imperfect Gregorian calendar, and time and everything else absolutely whizzed by like a harried storm. Exactly a year ago I was about to celebrate a warm Christmas in Melbourne, perhaps even awaiting Esther’s arrival with her aunt while I tried to get into a routine post life with the Walsh St Boys, when Ethan and Desmond departed from Melbourne and I found myself hanging out with Ivan a lot and kept each other company.

(And speaking of harried storms, I was right smack in the middle of one last New Year’s Eve on Walsh St—and it was every bit spectacular and awe-inspiring.)

I still find it amusing that my life’s goal (that I made as a teenager) of documenting every single thing about my life has pretty much dissipated when there are far more important things to do ahead of me. Back then, all I had was time—now, all that I lack was exactly it.

Apart from making a critical mistake at work by not sending out invitation e-mails to companies (when it’s a wee bit too late by now, and I’m not going to go into detail since I don’t know if it’s because it slipped my mind or no one told me about it), work has been going along fine. Despite the punishing hours we had to work on every 2 months—on our extremely busy days, we have to work 7 days a week, 9 to 9—I think the travelling prospects to countries I’ve never been to would be absolutely amazing and my workload is still quite manageable.

Two nights ago I had one of the best Christmas dinners/party I’ve ever been to, as far as my terrible memory can attest to. It was held at Choy’s Puchong Lake Edge house, a gated & guarded community (not your typical forced-upon gated & guarded concepts employed by several USJ neighbourhoods here with a sleepy guard twiddling his fingers while allowing any Tom, Dick, and Harry in wtf) that feels extremely cosy like a resort—they even have a clubhouse complete with a swimming pool, gym, etc (of which I didn’t visit). It was quiet when I got there (at around 8.30pm, I was stuck at the guard house for at least 5 minutes when they tried to phone Choy’s house in order to ascertain that I can indeed be allowed in wtf, that’s how strict the guards are there compared to the ones utilised by say, Goodyeart Court apartments or the USJ 21 guards wtf), and as I alighted from my car, there were two kids of foreign descent (Middle-East maybe?) cycling around.

It was all very Zen-like—peaceful, serene and quiet, and I didn’t give much thought before on how my dream house would be like.. until now. Even though it’s not in Subang which would be my preferred place to live in, still if it’s in Puchong it’s still near enough even though there’s that annoying toll to pay…

New target in sight: Puchong Lake Edge!

(Edit: Actually I should just scrap that, just discovered that the cheapest house available is around RM700-800k and above FML.)

But I digress.

As I wasn’t at all familiar with Puchong (my homeground is Subang yo) and have the worst sense of direction, I enlisted the help of my trusty GPS in my phone (which must be more than 3-years-old now incidentally), entered Choy’s address (which my GPS’ Malsingmaps could recognise but Google Maps didn’t) and went my way, using the non-tolled route it crafted out for me.

Right before that Puchong toll of RM1.60, I turned left and ended up at some empty marketplace where I was supposed to go straight, but what prevented me was like dozens of trees and some fencing. I found the sign Jalan Jurutera which I thought was where I was supposed to be headed, went through the tunnel and ended up at an extremely remote villagey area, furnished with claustrophobic narrow roads and assorted bumps and potholes. After circling the area a few times I finally gave up and concluded that my GPS was incorrect and decided to use the tolled way instead—still, it was an experience and I learnt something new.

On arriving, I went inside Choy’s house and found a bunch of familiar faces around, some (mostly the girls wtf) were preparing our Christmas dinner in the kitchen while some (all the guys wtf) were hanging around the dining table chatting, with PY using the laptop and Jerm playing some game on his iPad.

The dinner was a succulent turkey prepared by our resident chefs along with the stuffing on a separate bowl (don’t think I’ve ever eaten turkey in this manner in decades), garlic bread, mashed potato, and beef meatballs (!!).

The subject of mortality and how it’s indiscriminate regardless of age is rather surreal—we’re at that age when we feel like we’re all immortals, and those clumsy, tiresome old-age diseases like heart attack, rheumatism and lord knows what else are still decades down the line. Yet a good friend of mine, Jon—my web designing partner and online gaming friend right through our secondary school years—gave all of us quite a fright just yesterday when his lungs collapsed after a valve in his lungs broke.

His condition has stabilised now thankfully, but I can’t help but feel that the spectre of death hangs closely more so than before—its visibility cleared and it’s now on everyone’s radar. It reminds me in a flurry of succession how absolutely fragile life is despite how healthy your lifestyle is, and how—as clichéd as this would sound—we should all live every day as if it was our last. That we should take time to enjoy the rest of our days the best we can, that sometimes it’s okay not to delay gratification, and that time shouldn’t be wasted in drowning yourself in despair and depression.

Don’t delay life.

In the meantime, I wish Jon a speedy recovery.

In this desert of broken hearts I stood and walked on the broken pieces, dragging my feet over the shards, purposefully and frivolously bleeding, puncturing the epidermis. Everything is fine: I’ve a good job, partner (albeit several continents away), family, friends—yet something is profoundly missing. I’m uncertain if I’ve immersed myself into the dark, beautiful world of Torchwood for far too long at nearly obsessive levels, or.. fundamentally there’s something else I can’t quite place the words.

I’ve been so jaded by my general working life and my recent constant questioning on the meaning of life—all hallmarks of the big, great D. And I feel absolutely powerless to do anything about it.

And so I continue to walk in this vast yellow terrain alone, and allow myself to bleed from my open wounds.

Last Sunday I picked PY up from her place in Puchong and together we went on a journey to Seri Kembangan, a place that I’ve never been in my 22 years of living in Malaysia (no shit wtf, and I’ve explored nearly every other South-East Asian country and the South Island of New Zealand but not a suburb about 30 minutes away from where I live). I first heard about The Big Bad Wolf sale when I was still studying in Melbourne last year, and I lamented over the fact that I was missing it.

And so we were in the South City Plaza, full of mediocrity and reeking of average-ness that it reminds me of a larger version of The Summit.

I remember telling PY this exactly (or I was just thinking to myself): “OK I’m just gonna get like 5 books max and that’s it.”

As I turned over the first book I came across, I saw the price tag of RM8 on a perfectly good condition, reasonably new book and my jaw dropped (metaphorically). Let’s put things in perspective: books like these don’t usually sell for RM8, they cost anywhere between RM30 to RM60 for a paperback book.

And as I walked I saw hardcover novels on sale for only, yeah, RM8.

After I had like 3-4 books in my hand, I knew I wasn’t going to stop so I returned to the counter near the entrance and requested for a cardboard box.

3 hours whizzed by so quickly, and I finally ended up with the following:

AA’s Orlando popout city guide – RM3
AA’s Boston popout city guide – RM3
Footprint – Thailand handbook – RM10 (gift)
Footprint – Malaysia & Singapore handbook – RM10
Bradt – North Korea – RM10
AA – City Pack Guide & Foldout Map – Melbourne – RM8
AA – City Pack Guide & Foldout Map – Singapore – RM8
Two Sydney books I bought for my mum

Roy Jacobsen – The Burnt-Out Town of Miracles
J.M. Coetzee – Summertime
Peter Steiner – L’assassin
Geoff Herbach – The Miracle Letters of T. Rimberg
Duane Swierczynski – Severance Package
Edmund Crispin – The Moving Toyshop
Nicholas Hogg – Show Me the Sky
R.J. Ellory – Candle Moth
Roger Protz – World Beer Guide (gift for a friend)
John Smelcer – The Trap
James Lee Burke – Two For Texas
Robert J Wiersema – Before I Wake
Peter Ackroyd – The Lambs of London
Ann Cleeves – White Nights
MJ Auch – Wing Nut
Jacob Polley – Talk of the Town
Hemingway – The Old Man and the Sea
Adam Foulds – The Quickening Maze
Andrew Leci – Once Removed
Jon Clinch – Finn
Aryn Kyle – The God of Animals
Ron Currie – God is Dead
John Grisham – The Associate
Alan Furst – The Foreign Correspondent
Mark Haddon – The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time (borrowed this from Jon’s bro before IIRC and read it, but I felt like actually owning it this time and re-read it again)
Natsuo Kirino – Real World
Natsuo Kirino – Grotesque
Ian McEwan – On Chesil Beach
Alice Hoffman – The Ice Queen
Paul Auster – Man in the Dark
John Grisham – Ford County Stories
Emma Donoghue – Room
Lorraine Adams – The Room and The Chair

Yeah no kidding, I think I bought like 42 books in total and they cost me a handsome sum of RM300+. Way above my expected RM200 budget, but I think these books are going to last me for the next 5 years or something. >_>

The way I go about choosing books follows a usual methodological route:

1) Look at the book’s cover and title (yeah I do judge a book by its cover sometimes, so sue me)
2) Refer to the back cover and/or the first few pages of the book for accolades
3) Leaf through the book and see if the language/content interests me.

And that’s how I ended up with 42 books wtf.

So I started off with Mark Haddon’s The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, and as my memory of things such as plot of movies and novels and TV shows often fade away very quickly, it’s like reading the book again for the very first time.

---

I’ve been rendered partially deaf in my right ear lately no thanks to an accumulation of wax in my ear canal (in both ears actually, but it’s better in my left ear than my right). The good doc prescribed me some ear drops to soften the hardened wax in my right ear before he could flush it out, and this would only take place next Friday.. which means nearly 2 weeks of waiting in a state of deafness. -_-

But really, putting ear drops in my ear seems to make things worse as the liquid clogs up my ear and I’m even more deaf than before, as I find myself having to increase the volume of my laptop and I’m finding it hard to listen to what the other party is talking about.

---

I was introduced to the TV show Torchwood by an Australian KGB buddy, Scarlett, and after watching the first episode of the first season I was sold. It’s a Doctor Who spin-off, and the name Doctor Who is synonymous to sci-fi geekdom (of which I’m not that interested in)—but it still managed to captivate me all the same as I became attached to the characters like a raving fanboy and all the episodes have been unique, non-linear and non-stereotypical, and often take a side of humanity and thrusts it to the forefront to be questioned.

I’d recommend it to anyone who even likes sci-fi remotely, or if you’re not, for its extremely entertaining quality. These days I find myself looking forward to watching it at night after work.. as a little sad as that sounds.

Days like this I feel like I’m completely, utterly displaced from this part of the world, or this world in general—like my soul is trapped beneath the shadows of Nevermore. That I feel all hope and faith I had in humanity had dissipated, snatched away by the caws of Nevermore to carry forth whence it came.

The national pedagogy of being skeptical of strangers rang true for me when I was in search of the New Paris restaurant at SS2 two Tuesdays ago for a goodbye dinner for Tomoko, who was here for a while to resolve some of her visa issues. My electronic soulmate, the GPS that’s in my current cellphone, has not been working properly for a while now, and I was left in an even dire state when it wasn’t working on that fateful night as I wasn’t at all familiar with the area, despite the fact that SS2 was a mere 7-minute drive away from my office if Google Maps was to be believed.

After exhausting all measures of finding my way there (using both my GPS and the Google Maps in my cellphone as I had subscribed to a 2-week data plan at the time), I finally called May Yee who passed the phone to Jerm, and after hearing Jerm’s directions halfway I knew I wouldn’t be able to remember everything.

I spotted an Indian man who looked like he had finished jogging with his ears sealed in with his headphones outside the perimeter of the dark, lamppost-less park, so I edged my car over, wound down the window on the passenger’s side and began saying, “Excuse me…” which was when his walking speed accelerated and he merely only glanced at me out of the corner of his eyes.

Exasperated, I moved away and entered another lane of the housing area and spotted this young Chinese guy, prolly around the same age as I am, who had just shut the door of his MyVi too. I stopped my car right beside his, wound down my window and waved at him to get his attention before asking for directions for said restaurant. He asked me if I knew where the SS2 Mall is, and I told him that I’m aware of its existence but I’m not entirely sure where it is as I’m generally unfamiliar with SS2 and its immediate surroundings.

And what he did next warmed me heart. He told me that since he was going somewhere nearby there anyway, he’d bring me to it.

And Mr. Good Samaritan did exactly that and even stopped by the roadside with a questioning thumbs up when we arrived to ensure that I knew where the place is.

I’m indebted and thankful to this guy who went all the way for a complete stranger whom he’ll probably never see again.

Some pieces of that night (horrible quality from my Lumix cam disappointingly :/):

#1 It was funny to see nearly everyone dressed in their work clothes.

Amidst my working routine that I’ve suddenly eased into despite being apprehensive at first prior to entering the working adult’s world, it dawned upon me I had dreams and aspirations that were never fulfilled in light of things that rendered my situation to be different—like those three words. Circumstances thus changed and priorities thus shift, and my grand post-graduation plan to travel to Beijing before taking the Trans-Siberian train, the longest railway route on the planet from Beijing to Moscow, never materialised. I had then wanted to make my mark against the ever-elusive Europe too before deciding what else to do.

Grand plans, they were. And I love the idea because it’s unconventional and not the usual thing that “normal” people would do, and all my life I’ve always been against the norms, whether voluntarily or otherwise.

This post is to remind me I do have seemingly otherworldly dreams I still wish to fulfil hopefully before I turn 30, before I drown in the tide of the working life and mediocrity and be one of those typical drones who continue to work their ass off without truly living life.

Enrique, the Miami guy whom I met in a social ballroom dancing event organised by him in Melbourne, is one guy I truly admire. His blog, which I’ve been following, regales his tales of adventure (and misadventures), and the manner in which he travels and live his everyday life on a shoestring budget is.. absolutely admirable. I don’t know if I could ever have the same courage as him to just get up and leave and do the unthinkable, but then again my backpacking days through the mainland of South-East Asia (particularly Cambodia, Vietnam, Laos, and Thailand) made me realise that quite a few people do actually do that.

And yet again I have to say, Melbourne is probably one of the best things that has ever happened to me. The only way I can describe the experience is the fact that not knowing anyone there at all has, pardon the cliché, set me free and allow me to truly be myself—no façades, no pretenses. I’ve never felt freer then despite the trials and tribulations of everyday life—it’s like being the new kid at school again, where your past life has been wiped clean and you’re off a new person.

But sadly while today I’m all passionate and impassioned about doing something to my life, tomorrow I may very well slip along onto the same river in which everyone else cruises on.

I hope I’ll never forget that I still have dreams.