Recalcitrants

On Friday Arif and I went to OU to watch "I, Frankenstein". It was a pretty snazzy movie. The best part, aside from the hot angel/gargoyle named Gideon, is when the angels/gargoyles shift from their angel/gargoyle form into the multiracial human form. Of the main six gargoyles there were the queen - a caucasian female. the top gargoyle commander - a caucasian male, a middle eastern/south asian female, two middle eastern/south asian males and an east/south east asian male. That make up was very interesting...The commander has this weird "I don't agree with you, and I know I'm gonna piss you and the Archangel off, but I'm gonna do what I think is right, but if you raise your authoritative voice at me, my presumedly existing balls will shrink by 65% along with my manhood and my insubordination, and I will keel over and listen to your orders anyway like the little but super hot and muscular puppy gargoyle that I am" relationship with the queen. It was interestingly bewildering and confusing.

I invited another friend from high school  that I haven't seen in over a year. I had no idea what he has been up to,but the last time we met he was unemployed and seemed to be searching for a job. I found out that he is now running a business where his company fixes lightbulbs. I'm sure it is more that just changing lightbulbs and he did tell me it is on a big scale, i.e. he has a contract with a municipality to fix/install lightbulbs for the municipality's street lights and properties. That's a big deal I think.

The thing is, I am not even one bit surprised that this is the path he has chosen. The boy was simply one of the smartest guy in my class, albeit just like me, he didn't care to put his best efforts in school. Nonetheless he got a scholarship and got his degree in engineering from New South Wales.

"Can you imagine me working under a manager or supervisor? Furthermore what if that manager or supervisor is incompetent?" I nodded furiously, if its even possible to nod so. "You know how we are, Fadzrul". I found myself concurring with his point. I knew where he was coming from.

He and I were once sent to the assistant principal's office for not turning in our essays on time. Our english teacher reported that "she had to beg for us to turn in our essays so many times that it took a toll on her emotional wellbeing". We got a few strokes of rattan on our asses and walked away from the douchebag's office laughing. For one, the dickhead assistant principal was feeling me up a little bit too much before he hit me, apparently "to make sure I didn't have any paddings in my pants". Yeah right. The other reason why we laughed was because we thought the whole damn thing is trivial as fuck. Who gave a shit about an essay? Who gave a shit about some non-existing emotional effect that our incomplete essays may have caused to the drama queen. Who gave a shit about a few strokes of rattan when you studied in a boarding school and had gotten worse punishments from your seniors? My friend and I didn't care for the pompous display of authority but we had nothing else we could do but to play along.

On the way home, sitting next to him in the car, I wondered - have we changed? or we are pretty much the same persons? I have actually stood up against my manager last year and gave a riposte that made her cry. People know me for being vocal and for not taking shit from others. Yet, I'm sure it's not necessarily an admirable thing in their eyes.

I may still have that stubbornness in me. But the fact is I'm at the bottom of the bureaucracy layer cake. I let myself take instructions from incompetent people. I bitch about it. I fight. I get tired.


I exited his car, said goodbye and walked towards home thinking... I wanna open a restaurant.

Imagication

Today from the train station I decided to take the 40 minutes bus ride instead of the 10 minutes cab ride home.

The bus was packed but it was the fact that there was a long line of immigrants flagging every cab that passed by that drove me to take the bus. God forbid they were going my way and offered me to ride with them. I like immigrants and even more, courteous immigrants. I just don't like sweaty, smelly, vagrant-looking immigrants.

I managed to score the last empty seat on the bus. David Sedaris time~

...oh wait, I left the book at the office.

I don't quite remember the train of thoughts - it involved some images of hot air balloons...and some fried chicken wings...and I think... a hot Turkish man in thin cotton loincloth scrubbing me as I lie on top of a marble table in a middle of what seemed to look like a garden themed bathhouse- but it made me wanna go somewhere.

I suddenly has this urge to leave KL and just fuckin' go somewhere. But I did not know where. I thought of somewhere where I should be going - Melbourne. And then images of fine cuisine and me chocking and slapping a scrawny, skinny jeans-wearing Melbourne hipster came flashing in my head. I don't like hipsters. I think I broke his glasses too.

"Josh wants to go to Australia too...maybe I should go somewhere he doesn't care for...China!"

I looked out the window and the bus was passing a huge Chinese restaurant. The kind that sells everything from Bak Kut Teh to human fetus. We got China here. Surely it couldn't be that different.

30 seconds later, the bus drove by a poster of Messi. BARCELONA. That's it. I'm going to Barcelona.

But I hate people... And Barcelona is like tourist central. and gay central.  And I haven't even recovered from the tan I got in Phuket which was exacerbated in Okinawa... Nahhh... no Barcelona.

As the bus got closer to my stop I slowly came back to reality. I was on my way home. I was entering the mean streets of Selayang. I got off the bus and ordered some pisang goreng and karipap kentang from the hawker stall next to the bus stop...

Sure Melbourne, Kunming, Guangzhou and Barcelona would be nice... I will get to meet Syahir in Melbourne, get fat in China, and hating while drooling over the hot guys in Barcelona...but when I took the first bite from the karipap...I felt at home. My head didn't go anywhere far. It tasted right and it definitely, wholly, felt right.

Obligatory New Year's Resolution(s)

I thought long and hard about what to aim for this year. What to do, what to change, who to do, etc...Apparently I need to come up with a list of all that. Or some say I may just need to have one resolution.

I have always wondered if there was actually a history to this whole New Year's resolution thing. Who thought of it? Or it's really just so ingrained in us, socially, that whenever a dawn of something new approaches, we promise ourselves to be better for it. whenever a new baby is born parents make promises to themselves that they'd be better parents. The same as athletes at the beginning of a new season or students at the beginning of a new semester.

Most people just decided to improve themselves here and there at the end of last year as we ushered in the year 2014.

Why?

I told Josh once that it's hard for me to make wish lists for my birthday and christmas because if I want something and I could get it, I would have gotten it instead of wishing for it. If I couldn't get it at the point when I first wanted it, people can bet that I'm working on it.

As far as I can remember I do not ever have a New Year's resolution.

I decided that I need to start going to the gym as soon as my pants gave up on me and ripped in the middle of a mall.

I decided to travel more because I now make my own money from slaving myself as a desk jockey...so I deserve some Fuzz time.

I intermittently decided to eat healthier because I got some plans coming up. i.e. Summer vacation, visits to Seattle, a hot date, etc...

I decided to be a better partner because the distance has given me time to reflect on how I wasn't a great partner to Josh during our first few years.

I decided to spend more quality time with my family because I realize that I may not have that much time left to enjoy their love  and the headache they give me.

I didn't wait for January to start something. I make a decision as soon as the fact hits me. And sometimes the decision is to, simply, not do anything...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N_sZQP36bt4

Bitch it's Karma

I'm down with the flu+sore throat+cough+fever combo.


It's been a while since I was sick. I always go to the doctor at the slightest sign of a headache or stomachache and ask for sick leaves. Now, I'm actually sick, it feels like shit. So this weekend I did absolutely nothing other than pigging out and watch TV.


I watched the entire season of Shinzanmono, 10 Promises to My Dog, The Guillotines, The Blind Side, and Hitchcock over the weekend.

It's pay day!!!

I hope a discussion with doc tomorrow will be a productive one since all the ones before are sort of like this.

How a discussion with Doc really feels.

Ubertension

Yesterday at the clinic my BP reading was rather high. The doctor said my BP indicates that I MIGHT have hypertension. 

I told my Deputy Director today that I'm suffering from hypertension. He said he has it too. I said "wow, you're totally not self-inlvolved... I'm so sorry Doc..."

To address this, I need to be mentally positive. It's hard to do that when you're a hater. Everything around me is wrong. Everything my manager asks me to do annoys me. Attractive people tick me off for being attractive around me.Tele-marketers send me off the edge with their incessant calls offering great deals I don't need. A sandwich that is not generously filled makes me upset - stingy cafeteria workers. What the hell? It's not like they own the cafeteria. Urghhh.  These people seriously have issues...

I stress too much. 

When I'm stressed out I eat. When I eat I get fat. Fat me feels stressed out. Stressed out and fat, I eat more. I get fatter. I feel like no one likes me anymore because I'm fat. I get stressed out because I feel lonely. So I eat more...

Next week I will tell my Deputy Director that I don't wanna work with my manager anymore. She's killing me slowly, if not with her attitude and incompetency, it's with the stress she's been causing me.  "Doc, do you wanna see blood on your hands?? DO YOU? No? Then lemme work with someone else." 

Let's see how Doc handles that kinda pressure on him.

Acid Rain on a Drought Stricken Land

Me and my coworkers agree that there is definitely a shortage of attractive men at our workplace. We just don't understand - just because all of you guys are intelligent (arguably) that doesn't mean you all can't be attractive. Is management intentionally picking mediocre-looking people to hire?

The very few attractive guys we do have at work were probably unattractive when they were hired and then blossomed into a yummy visual treat for me and my friends. But there are VERY few of them who get the unanimous stamp of approval. Dian may say that NJ and I wear desperate goggles when she doesn't see what so attractive about some of these guys. NJ would tell me that I like them boyish and that's why sometimes we disagree on either a guy is cute or not.

We are not self-appointed arbitrators of good looks but in a place where people talk about monetary policies and financial market expansion and growth... finding an eye-candy or two to serve as a distraction would be a nice escape from the soul-eating mundanity that is our job (mine at least).

Sure ogling in general is fun and I am shameless and unapologetic about doing it blatantly at work. I don't know if they feel flattered or just creeped out when I stare at them walking into the cafeteria, but I'm sure they look good for people to look at them, or else why bother getting those bodies all toned and begging to be sprung on. Don't want me to stare at them, then stop wearing slim fit shirts. hmmph.

This is also why I go to the gym in the morning. Because after work, the gym is filled by these guys. Incentive: Eye-candy feast. Disincentive: Barely working out. Yeah... I rather work out.

I do notice that there is an influx of slightly more metrosexual guys joining the organization. Years of studying abroad may have rubbed some fashion sense and appearance awareness on these guys. They look leaner and fitter than the guys who have been around here for a few years. Expensive hair cuts with products applied. Fitted shirts and matching ties and shoes. BUT unfortunately, they appear to me as rather snooty. They walk around acting like they're the shit. They walk around the place like it's a fashion runaway and they are modeling Gaultier's winter collection.  It is not a je ne sais qoui feel that they're generating. Je sais ce qu'est il! It's icky and annoying and I detest it.

I so wanna put them in their places. It's sort of what I do. Civilize people. Making the world a better place. Satisfaction.

Maybe I will get to. Maybe I won't. But by heavens I will definitely try.

Wigging Out Over Nothing

From Monday to Friday I will wake up at 6.00 a.m. and leave the apartment at 7.00 a.m. At 6.35 a.m. I will be presented with one of the biggest challenges of the day - "Should I do my hair or not?"

At 7.05 a.m. my brother comes to pick me up and send me to the train station. I hate having to wear the helmet, but I guess it's the law. So, if I need to wear a helmet, what's the point of having a perfectly coiffed hair with a magnificent bouffant that takes 15 minutes to set? Yet if I don't do anything at all and just blow dry my hair, then at the train station I would look like a homeless person who just robbed some fashionable guy and stole his work clothes.

Then there's the gym.

Upon arriving at the office at 7.30 a.m. I quickly turn on my laptop, scanned through emails to confirm my held belief that nothing important gets emailed before 8.a.m. and then I would rush to the gym downstairs.

Naturally after some work out (if it even qualifies as that), I would hit the shower. If I'm going to shower, what's the point of having a semi-okay coiffed hair with a half destroyed bouffant (damn you helmet) that takes 15 minutes to set? Yet if I don't do anything at all, it would look like I come to the gym un-showered with all the out-of-bed nastiness. People would certainly think that about me if they see me with unkempt hair at 8.00 a.m.  I know I think that about some of the people at the gym. I mean it does make sense. Showering twice in the span of 3 hours is not very optimal. But it's not like I can just leave the house without a shower just because I will shower after my work out.

In the end I still haven't decided what my standard operation procedure is. Some days I deck out in my fancy work clothes but decided to go with the hobo hair do, no product no comb. Some days I do my hair twice in the morning because I don't want to appear in public looking like I just got done giving a quick head to an aggressively handsy guy.

I don't even have a standard hairstyle. Sure I would like to think that after spending 15 minutes doing my hair I would crown myself a perfectly coiffed hair with a magnificent bouffant. I like to think that I walk around at work with an amazing pompadour that is the envy of the office. The reality is probably isn't that colorful. I have been told that my hair looked like a hair of a Yakuza member when I combed it slick back. I have been told that my hairstyle belong in the Vatican where I should be an altar boy. Once someone asked me If i was chased by a dog on the way to work because on that day I tried to experiment with a ruffled hairstyle. Sigh~

I should just pull a Sinead O-Gonner. God knows I'd save so much on hair products and time. But especially, I would save my brain power and attention from worrying and thinking too much about something that in reality no one cares about, except me.