This Is For You, Michelle

Short talk: It took me several days before I managed to start writing this entry. Each time I clicked on the new draft button, I find myself lost for words and didn't know how or where should I start with. I kept on pressing on the backspace button when my first sentence was almost complete and this was repeated times over times.

It has been more than one-and-a-half year.

That is how long we have got together, but within that period, we only managed to spend roughly twenty days together. This is what we called long-distance-relationship, or LDR in short. On this day last year, she was away for her Marae camp, but before she left, she surprised me with her post, in which she posted up a picture of her writing on the sandy beach of Sumner in New Zealand. This is our second Valentine's Day and yet again, we don't get to celebrate it together, physically. As we are kept apart for most of the time, I guess we have got used to this hard fact.

Due to my finals which has only ended last Tuesday, I practically don't have that time to think or look for something for her. It usually takes roughly one week for my stuff to reach her in Christchurch, so I know I won't make it on time. Yet, knowing that she won't be getting anything, she got so emo that she swore that she will never give me anything ever again for the next ten elephant years. I know I will have to face the consequences of failing to send her anything this time, but at least I managed to come out with this simple post. You guys can help me in this you know? Praise me kao kao about how good and romantic this post is (although it is not at all =.=) and hopefully, she will be brainwashed by all the comments.

Early Valentine's present.

Actually, it was the opposite. Last Monday night, when I was still in the mist of my finals, I received a package out of the blue. Prior to that, she had promised me to send me my lucky black Adidas t-shirt that I left in her house but she wasn't sure if it would reach in time, before my finals ended. It did, and I wore it on the last day of my finals and guess what? I breezed through the two papers with ease. Was it just a coincidence, or it's true that that t-shirt is my lucky t-shirt? I'd say it's the latter. Now, I understand the reason why she told me she was going to the post office to post something a day before she left for New Zealand. Thank you so much, baby!

It was not just the black t-shirt that she sent me, because there was a handmade scrap book inside the brown envelope as well.

Our first time dressing up for an event - at her cousin's wedding dinner in Malacca.

The title was "A Story of Calv & Mich". I somehow broke into tears when I was hafway taking it out and have not even started reading it. I flipped through it and put it back into the envelope on that night, because I wasn't able to take it anymore. I decided to read it only after my finals had ended. A couple of days later, only I took it out and read what's written in the scrap book word by word, line by line, page by page, on my bed. This time, no more tears (haha, sounds more like Johnson & Johnson baby shampoo tagline), but only happy smiles reminiscing the moments we had together last December.

I came to know a few new things about her that I didn't know before this from the scrap book. She wrote that she used to own a sticker book when she was in primary school, and now I understand why whole of the scrap book is full of stickers lol. Everywhere space available is occupied with stickers of Bugs Bunny, Pluto, Garfield, Odie and a lot more which will be endless if I list them all here. When it was heading towards the last several pages of the scrap book, the font grew bigger and the are so many space in between the lines. The reason? She realised that the scrap book has too many pages and she had no more idea on what else to write =.=

Taken at the jetty near the Portuguese settlement in Malacca with her Pluto sticker on the left.

Nevertheless, she was smart to keep the best for the last, because the last page is the part that I like most It's kinda personal and I don't think it will be a wise idea for me to put it here. Otherwise you guys will start to tell me I make you guys puke or contracted diabetes. Anyway, there is this line in which I find it interesting. Not very long ago, she asked me to teach her some basic Japanese and I agreed. I will blog on the details on this Japanese lesson we had in another post. Anyway, after some time and since she already knew how to write a few Hiragana characters, she applied it in the scrap book.

However, I spotted an impairment. This is the first time I saw someone mixing Japanese characters with Roman alphabets, and that really gave me a good laugh session.

LOVE YOU. Zutto あいshiteru (dunno the rest of jap. word =p)

Lastly, Happy Valentine's Day to all, especially to you, baby. Ich liebe dich =)

A Crap Entry

Short note: Told you I won't be updating until my finals is over. I had my final two papers yesterday and provided there aren't any papers for me to re-sit, then my 4th Year in Kosen (technically speaking, it's equivalent to 1st Year of Uni) is over =)

A record was broken recently. Since I started blogging two years ago, this is the longest period I have left my blog not updated - eleven days. There was a period more than a year ago, when I made daily updates. But that pattern slowly took a change and my usual frequency nowadays is an entry in two to there days. A lot of stuff happened during the period I was missing-in-action, but I will try and squeeze all of them in this entry, and I suspect it would be a long one with minimum pictures, which is rare to my standard. Read on if you don't mind reading a whole bunch of craps from me.

My finals? I would say it went quite okay, although it could have been so much better. I won't rant or mention much about it, but what I can say was that luck was clearly not with me for the first two days. It could sound that I'm such a superstitious person, but the true fact was that I was unable to wear my lucky black Adidas t-shirt, as I forgot to bring it back and left it in Michelle's hometown in Malacca. This is another example to prove that the theory that I will always leave something at somebody's place is a proven fact.

How messy it can get when it's the exam season (picture courtesy of the mess made by the Japanese kids)

Some might find it weird how a black and not a striking red t-shirt, can be a lucky t-shirt to me, but that is true. The last time I wore it during my mid-term exams, I got full marks for all but one paper. Coincidence or not, I don't loose anything for continuing wearing it when I sit for my exams, do I? Not that I'm trying to boast myself here, but I think it was just pure lucky. As I won't get to wear the black t-shirt anymore for my finals this time, I tried with a pink one. But it was disastrous, for two straight days. It could just be another coincidence, but I dare not take any risks and I changed to a white one on the third day and the paper I sit went much better than the previous ones.

Okay, moving on to the next thing. I wasn't only kept busy with my finals that I didn't get to update my blog. Let me reveal a secret here. I was kidnapped by a group of Japanese, brought to see the head of the yakuza, and was asked to jump to another religion. They even offered me a huge amount of cash, so much that I guess it's enough to support three generations below me. Without thinking twice, I agreed and when this was made known to the public, it appeared as if the whole nation was against my action. But I didn't give a damn about what they think, because the offer was too good to resist.

I think by this time, you should roughly get to guess what I'm trying to point it out here, unless you don't follow the latest development back home. When I left Japan in January 2008, my Menteri Besar was Tajol Rosli; then it was Nizar Jamaluddin when I was back home in August 2008, and he was still the Menteri Besar when I left for Japan in January 2009, but the next time I'm back, I would get a new Menteri Besar, whom I think he looks more like a mamak roti canai. Is there anyone who disagree and thinks that he looks like somebody else, say a teh tarik uncle, perhaps? It looks like the way they change the Menteri Besar in Perak is as simple as how easy it is when we are changing our clothes. I won't comment any further on this topic, because there are so many other better sources if you are interested on this, but it will be interesting when I am casting my vote for the first time in several years time and I am really looking forward to it. Don't know if our PM-to-be will share the same feeling with me though. Just one thing. You guys better don't get me into trouble by reporting this entry to the authorities. If I'm charged with sedition, then this would be the last entry from me and you guys will not get to read my writings, or should I say, crapping?

Anyway, forget about the local drama, which to me is good enough to win a first Oscar for Malaysia. Two nights ago, I was browsing through the blog of someone whom I know. I shall keep the identity of this person anonymous. Most of his latest entries are those mushy lovey dovey type, and being such a busybody on other people's relationship stuff, I continued to read on. That was until I came across one entry dated December 26, 2008, in which he dedicated to his girlfriend. The entry has such a sweet beginning, and I carried on reading it even though I was halfway studying back then. The more I read, I began to sense that the entry was so familiar, and it didn't take me long before I realised that it was plagiarised from my entry on July 30, 2008.

I can afford to give him the benefit of the doubt if there are several same lines. But what I saw was an entry which is a carbon-copy of mine, line to line, paragraph to paragraph. The only difference he made was the personal experience part. For instance, I wrote that I ran back from my class because I couldn't wait to chat with Michelle, and to replace that part, he wrote that he ran back from the LRT station to his house because his cellphone had ran out of battery and he wanted to SMS his girl badly that time. There are still a few parts that he changed, but I can tell you more than three-quarter of that entry was exactly the same as mine.

If anyone who thinks that I am making this story out to gain popularity, think again. Although my exam has finished, I am not that free to make an attempt to gain cheap publicity. It's also not my intention to let the whole world know about this, but this is about integrity and being a gentlemen. I wasn't furious because he copied my entry (okay-lah, I felt a bit angry when I first knew it), what pissed me off more was how he denied it when I approached him about this. He told me it's a COINCIDENCE.

Your joke is very funny-lah, uncle.

If it's a coincidence, why he took it down that entry one day after I came to know about it? Common sense tells you he felt guilty of doing it to his girl, and more importantly, he was afraid that his girlfriend will find out about it one day. Imagine how would you feel if your boyfriend dedicate an entry to you, only for you to find out later that it was plagiarised from somewhere else. Currently, I cannot give you the link of his post to prove my point because he had deleted it. Nevertheless, I managed to show that entry to a couple of my close friends, in which one of them was too smart to spread it to three of his housemates lol. I didn't mean to talk bad about my friend; I'm already kind enough not to reveal his identity here, but now I have know the true colours of this guy. He has apologised to me for his action. Forgiven, but not forgotten.

By the way, one of my friend tried to be funny with me by suggesting that this guy and me could have gone and copied that entry from one same site, hence the coincidence happened. He then blamed me for simply accusing my poor friend for copying my entry. Haha! What the fish, right? Stupid theory!