I was at Food Foundry in PJ a couple of weeks back. Nice decor with great food and awesome mille crepe! But of course the prices are rather steep so be prepared for that.
I will be doing a write up on Merdeka soon. In the meantime, Happy Birthday Malaysia! Hope you get hotter as you grow older. May your citizens flourish and succeed always :-)!
Thank you, readers, for reading my humble blog. I am not particularly good in writing (and this is said with sincerity, I am certainly not fishing for compliments or assurance), but I try my best. After all English Literature was my best subject in school (followed by History which explains my fascination with events of the past) and writing was my passion. At one point, I even believed it to be my destiny. I dreamed many nights away that one day, I would live in Manhattan and I would write life changing stuff, inspiring an entire generation to make the world a better place.
I am not too sure what shattered my hope and dreams. Maybe as you grow older, you stop having faith in yourself, that you are capable of great things because you no longer have time on your side. When you are 16, the whole world is at your feet. Life is full of infinite possibilities. When you are 28...not so much. You wonder what you have done the past 10 years, how life had come to this - this dark, dismal tunnel of disappointment where each day is a carbon copy of the day before. The mundane brutality of everyday life in the city all in the name of survival. Thousands of people converging to the city, to their respective office cubicles, deluding themselves that their jobs are important, gives them dignity, self worth when all it does is to erode their soul even further. I strongly believe office cubicles are places where dreams, real dreams come to die.
Apologies for deviating so far away from what I intended to say. I am truly appreciative of the time that you take to read my wannabe philosophical ramblings and I am even more grateful to those of you that comment with insightful remarks. It is not easy to be an interesting blogger when you do not have an interesting life, much like myself. People are attracted to beautiful photos of beautiful people and locations. I am just another Malaysian, attempting to colour my life and erase my dark and bleak reality. But I guess the only thing that keeps me blogging is my strong interest and passion for the written word, however inadequate I may be and the knowledge that someone out there identifies with my struggles and fears of being merely ordinary, never achieving any kind of greatness. This itself makes me feel a little less lonely.
I have been discontented with Malaysia for a while now, losing hope and faith in my country of origin until the 2012 Olympic Games kicked in. Having witnessed Lee Chong Wei and Pandelela Rinong's recent performances in the Games, I was completely blown away by their spirit of sportsmanship and loyalty to our nation. The thing that impressed me most about these two athletes, notwithstanding the fact that they won medals, is their humility, attitude and courage. Diving into 16 feet deep pool while doing acrobatic stunts mid air is something I could never possibly do in this life, and at 19 years old, Pandelela from small town Bau, Sarawak did just that and has a medal to show for it as well. She defeated worthy opponents from developed nations such as Australia, Germany and Canada to win a bronze medal at the Olympics, the biggest sporting event in the world. How is that for awesome and respect?
And Chong Wei, from sleepy town Bukit Mertajam, with the pressure of the nation on his shoulders to deliver the nation's first gold demonstrating grace in the face of defeat at the hands of arch nemesis Lin Dan. For that one moment at approximately 9.30pm Malaysian time, he successfully managed to both win and lose at the same time. He won the hearts of all Malaysians across the world but lost the gold medal he had hoped and worked so hard for.
I suppose that is the harsh reality of the sports industry. Just as there are winners, there are bound to be losers. Only of course, he was not. None of our Malaysian contingent at the Summer Olympics are losers really, despite not wining anything. Malaysia is a country of 28 million, relatively small compared to the giants like China and America. With higher budgets, better resources and infrastrcuture, I have no doubts we can do better at Rio in 4 years' time. To me, what's more important than winning medals, is playing the game to the best of your ability, never giving up, showing resilience, quiet strength and humility. God knows Malaysia has too many arrogant, talentless, pretentious hacks running around Kuala Lumpur with Nikkon around their necks and Converses on their feet pretending to be cool and accomplished when their only claim to fame is playing guitar in some pseudo indie band.
Tomorrow, Malaysia's Lee Chong Wei will be playing against China's Lin Dan in the Olympics badminton final (men's single). Our nation will be united, more than ever in our common quest for gold - the first for Malaysia since the inception of the Games. I can already feel the excitement in the air across every street in the country and I know tomorrow will be an emotionally charged night for every true Malaysian. Let us put our differences aside for one night, let us forget about race, religion, politics, rising crime rates and housing prices - for tomorrow, we are all on equal ground with only one goal in mind - gold and glory for our nation.
Where will you be tomorrow night 8pm Malaysian time? Make no mistakes where I will be - in front of the television cheering on for my country.
I had exactly One Hundred and Forty posts on my now defunct blog. For the past three years, it was my coping mechanism - the blog saw me through many broken friendships, one unrequited crush and several other failings in life. As much as it pains me to whine on my own blog no less, I was hurt, for the longest time. I questioned my diminishing faith in God and concluded that God was merely an inactive observer whose presence (or absence) is irrelevant. I acquired a whole new wardrobe, in hopes that beautiful dresses and smart shirts would fill up the missing gaps in my life. It did, for a while, whenever I pranced around in something new and shiny, I felt on top of the world until someone even more stunning came around. I tried reading 19th century literature only to almost never finish them, I watched hundreds of DVDs thinking that I will learn from characters in movies, I listened to songs with melodies so melancholy and lyrics so awfully sad, I felt even worse than before.
Eventually I recovered. The retail therapy (but of course!) continued but I stopped blaming the rest of the world and it's 6 billion population for all of my woes. I accepted things for what they were and came to understand that most of the unfortunate events in this universe were beyond anyone's control. Bad things happen to good people and vice versa. Pain and suffering do not discriminate and we are all at Nature's mercy. Somewhere along the way, I grew a conscience and compassion; I tried to treat all men with the respect they probably deserve and started to be nicer towards my fellow humankind. Of course, my efforts were often thwarted, instead of appreciating my kind words and genuine concern, I was blatantly ignored in favour of other people who were not as forebearing as I was but who were prettier, richer and definitely more successful. I think I was like this annoying bad tooth that would never leave.
Anyway I deleted the fucking blog. I do not want to have any kind of reminder on the person I once was, so eager to please and desperate for acknowledgement. I am a changed person today, not quite sophisticated enough to be completely emotionless and cold hearted, but definitely more indifferent. It's okay if they hate my shoes, think I'm a disgust to society or if they just don't like me, I no longer care. At some point, you give up and live only for yourself.
