Just woke up bout an hour ago, completely exhausted. This has been a long and somewhat unanticipated type of weekend. I was quite gung ho bout using this weekend to work on my attachment proposal, manuscript and put in some extra lab hours, since I got some pretty good results on Friday. Let's rewind...

So I was sitting there as prettily as can be just doing work in the lab when a friend suggested we meet up in SS2 for the night. So I thought *fine*, since I have a whole day tomorrow to catch up on work. Unfortunately, as I was driving by on the right lane on the stretch of road of Jalan Universiti (I think)-SS2 which is really dark, and I went over a really, really deep pothole. Like seriously, and I was like *oh shit*. I could hear the sound of something sliding off below my car and next thing I know, there is a loud rattling sound as I continued driving. Immediately I pulled by the road side and checked briefly. The tires looked fine, and well it's not like I can slide in under my car to take a look.

So I took a deep breath and considered my options - get the car fixed right now or continue driving. Option 1 is a little hard as I'm not sure where is the nearest workshop, and whether it's still open at this hour. So hoping for the best and crossing my fingers, I chose option 2. So then I drove a little bit further, albeit very slowly and the rattling sound getting extremely with any speed increases, I reached SS2. And as I parked my car, I realised the reverse gear wasn't working too well; I need to step on the gas to get the car to move in reverse. Anyway I met with my friend and asked if he could put me up for the night and and then next morning I could find a workshop. Thankfully he was totally cool about it. And me being me, I could only snatched a few hours of sleep before giving up and surfing aimlessly online.

Which led to some workshop-hunting this morning. The ones we saw at SS2 weren't open, and then my friend suggested one near KDU which luckily was open. All the while I was really worried about the cost of repairs, me imagining the gear box/clutch/what-nots thingamajic being severely damaged. Turns out that the suspension, car chamber etc was damaged...and it cost around RM250. Well, I guess (sorta thankfully) that it's not a huge amount, but it's still a dent in my pocket. And one of the tyre rim was also damaged and needs to be fixed, or worse, replaced, and that cost is still not known.

Sigh...as if I'm not broke enough already with getting a new monitor. And here I was so glad that this month I was running on healthy surplus and meeting my budget.

So sad...and so broke. Just spend around 500 bucks to get a new monitor. My old one just upped and smoked last night. I found out that monitors usually come with 3-year warranties, and mine just expired like 2 months ago. The unfairness of it all!! Though I'm quite enjoying my new monitor and all - a 17" LG LCD monitor, which is larger, sharper and more vibrant than my old one.

And I also realised how dependent I have been on my comp. Without it I was feeling bored pretty quickly, and the bright side would be I managed to be quite productive without my a computer screen staring in front me.

Song: Say It Again - Marie Digby

Unless you have been stuck in an underground bomb shelter, chances are that anyone who's a citizen of this fair country would be aware of the massive changes in our political landscape. Most notably, BN has been denied its 2/3rd majority in Parliament, and 5 states are now being governed by the the loose coalition of DAP-PKR-PAS. This has also gotta be the most exciting election ever, with it being my very first one, heh. I was logged on to Malaysiakini and following the updates by the minute - XXX leading in area YYY; Opposition in trailing closely in state Z. It was pretty damn exciting, I tell you! And exhilarating too, as one by one the states fell - Penang, Kedah, Selangor (!). I followed till 2 am, with the final breaking piece of news of Perak falling into the opposition.

The local mainstream's seemed to have a (poorly) hidden agenda of provoking the loose coalition and painting it the most negative light possible, while at the same time giving (undue) positive spotlight on the BN. So lately I've avoided reading the local newspapers like The Star/NST (though The Sun is one of the few independent ones), and choose to source my news from sites like Malaysia Today and KTemoc Konsiders.

Perhaps some of you might be wondering the rather dearth mentioning of the general election prior in the last few weeks. Well, I sincerely doubt that but I'll go on anyway. As much as I do try to keep somewhat abreast of the political happenings locally, at heart I'm not a political activist. Sure I might mention it bits of politics and social happenings here, but I'm a pale comparison to individuals like Daniel and Shi Jun. I guess I'm more concerned with the environment, and perhaps one day I might actually take up the mantle of an animal/enviromental activist.

But on to myself, things are just generally alright. I've been making some progress in my lab research, so at least I'm moving forward. Nothing else of interest happening lately, other than the recent St. Patrick's Day which originated from Ireland and now is just a good excuse for people from other countries to drink themselves silly. Here's how a high-profile local 'celebrity' celebrated it.

Song: Bleeding Love - Leona Lewis

Sometimes we forget how the little things can rankle you for a disproportionately long time. Like yesterday night when I wanted to refill supply of drinking water at one of those RO water vending machines that's getting quite inconspicuous these days. So I brought along my bottles and a slightly larger amount of coins than needed.

There were 3 of those machines side by side, and luck would have it that the one I picked happened to be spoiled that very day. It swallowed in my coins but won't discharge any water. And I have with me 3 empty bottles with few coins left. Hating to return to my room just to get more coins, I decided to change a RM1 note which I happened to have with me.

So I went into my college cafetaria. Sitting at the counter was the owner, a near middle-aged guy, chatting with a young lady worker. And so I asked if I could change some coins. "Duit syling tak ada," he answered gruffly, when it was in plain sight that even a naked mole rat could see, was large stacks of coins lying in the opened cash register. I was quite annoyed, and asked again, "Seringgit pun tak boleh?". He then decided to liken my existence to an annoying gnat and just looked around in a nonchalant, bored way. I stared at him and then to the lady worker next to him, who at least had the decency to look slightly embarassed.

I mean I can totally understand if he doesn't want to change, something along the lines of "Oh, kami nak guna syiling untuk esok" or even a short "Sorry, tak boleh tukar duit syiling" would have been kinda acceptable. But to blatantly lie , rather rudely, and then ignoring me was seriously in bad taste. What ever happened to customer service, or even decent manners?

Well, I've never been much of a fan of this new cafetaria management that took over this semester. The previous management was quite good actually, lots of food variety and quite tasty too. This current owner had less than half the variety of food, poorly stocked bread/snacks/drinks, and just alright food. Like during lunch hour, it will be packed and semi-packed during dinner that I usually plan my way around the crowd if I want to go to the cafe. Right now, it barely picks up the few stragglers here and there. With this kind customer service, I won't be sorry at all to wish its speedy demise.

Current song: Teardrops On My Guitar - Taylor Swift; Stop and Stare - One Republic

Came back home this weekend to grab some stuff and go out. Strangely I've been in a rather... whimsical mood this entire week, for lack of a better word. There are tons of better things I could do, but I just took it rather easy and just went along, tacking bits of work here and there.

And oh, the first general election has just been anounced. Yay, my first election ever! Hehe, can't wait to exercise my citizenship right and civic duty.

And on another note, there's a movie that looks quite interesting to me. Generally I avoid spoof and parody movies, given that Meet the Spartans got thrashed and beaten to a bloody pulp by critics and movie-goers. Case in point, Mafia remains the worse movie I've ever seen in a cineplex. However, this trailer does look promising - staying away from the current trend of parodies of just spoofing nonsensically without any coherent storyline, and it features Drake Bell. Who was a child star with an early exposure on Nickelodeon, and co-starring with Amanda Bynes on The Amanda Show. (Yes, I admit it - I do watch Nickelodeon and Disney Channel). Click on the trailer below.

A bit late, but Happy Chinese New Year folks.

CNY this time wasn't that bad. I took leave on CNY eve (Wednesday), and also the following Monday and Tuesday. I've kinda forgotten how relaxing it has been to just chill for a long period of time, guess I've been racking up too much overtime in the weekends. And the usual CNY delicacies of course - like pineapple tarts (from Malacca), long yuk (dried pork), and love letters. And my dad even took us out on sushi. Yay!

Was thinking this time CNY would be quite boring and lonely, but didn't turn out so bad. On the third day, went out with a friend who was visiting her aunt. Ended up with choc-fuls of well, chocolates. Apparently her aunt had came back from UK laden with lots of chocolate. Got to sample lots of delicious chocolate - including large chocolate coins, chocolate with rum and lots more. And here I thought Ferrero Rocher only comes in one flavour - the dark chocolate with slight mint was excellent.

The next day, went to another friend's place again, and bumped into an old friend who was seeing one of my friends there. Damn, it has been what, 4 years since I've seen him? I seriously hate being reminded how old I am, and still amazed at how much time has passed since I stepped out of form 5.

Anyway I watched them played mahjong for a while, me never learning how to play myself. Watched them for a few rounds, and the rules and even the aims of the game still escapes me though I can sorta get what they're trying to to to win. After that we played gin rummy (I think that's how it's spelled) which I've never played before but watched my dad did a long time ago.

With all four of us of the same age, it was 4 rats squaring off. Which one of us would emerge as the top rat? Turns out I was the under-rat of it, as I lost more than 10 bucks after a couple of rounds. While my friend managed to loot more than 10 bucks (with me as the major contributor), plus an additional 10 bucks from the previous mahjong rounds. Sigh.. Maybe a red Mickey Mouse underwear would have done the trick to up my lucky star.

Anyhow, me back to work already right now, and am greeted with the sudden news that one of my colleague is leaving by the end of the week. Yikes! Now the lab's gonna be even more desolate. Not to mention she was the most senior one around, so we usually ask her stuff and its whereabouts and how-tos. Guess I'll have to take up bit more work from now on.

Here's me going to stuff myself on some CNY cookies I stowed away to my room.

The Hitcher

No, not the horror slasher movie of a couple who picked up a psychopathic hitchhiker. But I was in car with a complete strange. Just the two of us. For about 20 minutes...

So it goes like this. I pulled some extra work at my lab yesterday, and came back to my college around 6 pm. I had just turned the engine down and was putting up the sunshade when I spotted this guy walking near my direction. A Chinese dude, but doesn't look local. Likely from the batch of students from China that recently came to UKM. (And I just realised that 'Chinese' here has multiple contexts - foreigners use it to refer to people that came from China, I use it to refer to the stereotypical fairer-skin/slit-eyed populace in Malaysia).

Anyway, I was about to get off my car when suddenly he knocked on my window. Thinking maybe he needs some direction, I just opened the door. And then he asked in, in Mandarin obviously,

"Might I trouble you to give me ride to KTM station to buy some food?"

Though likely I'm making up half the sentence, since my Mandarin's like really bad, and I could only figure out that sentence by the words 'trouble', 'KTM', 'buy' and 'food'. And there were some other things he mentioned afterwards which I couldn't get. Anyway, near the KTM station there are some Chinese mix rice, which is quite popular among the Chinese students in UKM as it's rather near and cheap.

So anyway, I was faced with a decision. A complete stranger asking me to give him a ride. Stories of psychopathic killers, muggers with knife briefly flashed my mind. But he does look like a regular guy and harmless. And I'm partial to helping out people who need a ride as I was in their shoes not too long ago and know how inconveniencing it is. And it really has to take a lot of guts, not to mention pride, for him to actually ask a stranger for a ride. In his mind, I in turn might be the crazed killer (though from what 99% of friends tell me, I look too innocent to be considered a threat). After careful deliberation for a few seconds, I obliged and he got into my car.

And so we chatted, sorta. Have I mentioned that my mandarin is bad? And on top of that, his Mandarin also has a slight accent to it. But somehow we managed somewhat with my badly-pronounced and grammatically-erred Mandarin. And most likely half the time I was understanding him wrong and spewing nonsensical Greek to him. If I did, he played the part of a gracious passenger and responded appropriately, even feigning surprise when I told him that I don't really know Mandarin and I speak mostly in other languages.

Bits of conversation which I can state quite confidently as indeed being spoken about include: the course he's studying (IT), his intention to buy car, and him not adapting to the cafetaria food. When we returned, he thanked me profusely for the lift. I just smiled and assured him it was nothing. Ah... it certainly feels great to do a good deed. And that my instincts weren't wrong on giving him a ride.

Edit p/s:
My short encounter with him also made me realise how different, contextually, we are despite sharing a common racial descendant. He asked me whether both of my parents were Chinese (probably because I suck in Mandarin) and whether they were born in Malaysia. I'm not one for tracing my family tree, but I vaguely remember mentions of my grandparents or greatgrandparents arriving in Malaysia. So technically I'm at least the second generation being born and bred here, and he was slightly fascinated by this.

He also asked me whether the food stall was opened by a "China-ian (?)" (pardon my lack of han yi ping yin, what he said chung-quo-ren ". I was slightly surprised, and I replied by a "Yeah, by a Chinese (hua-ren)". Again, the context of the word "Chinese" is vastly different between me and him. As far as I know, no Malaysian Chinese refer to him or herself as "chung-quo-ren", but as "hua-ren" regardless of the many types of clans and dialects available. Likely because the former has a connotation to China, despite both words also means Chinese (the stereotypical definition of fair-skinned/slit-eyed people across Asia).

I guess subconciously, the majority of the Chinese populace of Malaysia was brought up and grew here, mingling with other races and embracing the culture here. That we've diverged so far from the first settlers who arrived here that we no longer identify with China or it being "the great motherland" or something like that. Which is what really angers me when a few years ago, we were labled as "pendatang" and told that "kalau tak suka, baliklah China". Which is insulting, as it implies we're not considered full citizens here. There is no other place to go to, no homeland which we harbour a secret desire to return to. It's time politicians and everyone in Malaysia realise that we're all Malaysians, irrespective of skin colour; and that we're all here together, for better or worse.