Underappreciated

Two Saturdays ago, I moved from somewhere in Hartamas to somewhere in TTDI. Now for those of you who've been to my house, you'll know how crowded with furniture it is, and how heavy they look. Let me tell you something, in this case, looks are certainly not deceiving. My mother-in-law has a fascination for teakwood, bulky, HEAVY furniture, and the house is FILLED with it.

Thinking it should be enough, she rented out two two-tonne lorries, which, to our horror, turned out to be really really tiny. Luckily, around 5-6 movers came with those.

The point of this post is, the movers managed to cart all the heavy furniture to TTDI on the same day. It's really not an easy feat if you've seen the amount of furniture we have, and a part of me was thinking that we probably should appreciate these people more.

Among my movers that day was a teenager whose voice hadn't even cracked yet and an old man who looked like he should be at home, watching tv or reading the papers with a pipe in his hand. But together with four other men, the grunted and lifted and pushed that tremendous amount into the lorries. Look at it this way: If we had only rented one lorry, that one would have made 7 trips to and fro alltogether. SEVEN.

Watching them do their thing, I marvelled at how coordinated they seemed. Not only do they have to manouver those wooden dinosaurs around the crooks and crannies of the house, they also had to have good space coordination and arrange the furniture on the lorry so that it took up as little space as possible. And that's not even counting the heavy lifting itself.

I don't think many of us would resort to a job as gruelling such as that, and my take on it is that there is a lot more to movers than we think. So the next time you move and you think the movers are charging exorbitant prices, think again. It's not easy.

Exhaustion

I'm moving today. I don't get CNY off. So there goes my weekend. Geram.

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Let me tell you a little bit about my cat. Her name was Isabel, she was a mother of two. When she was a kitten, her mom was sent to the vet to be neutered. When she came back, she decided to shun her three adorable kittens and the poor little ones were left heartbroken and confused as to why their mom hated them.

So when Isabel got kittens of her own and my uncle sent her off to the vet for the same procedure as soon as they stopped depending on her milk, we were worried sick that she was going to neglect them just as her mom had done to her.

Apparently, we were wrong. Isabel came back tired but she still loved her kittens as much as she did before she left. It was as if she was determined that she wouldn't walk in her mother's footsteps. To those who don't like cats, that may seem silly, but those who do and have at least one, you'll get what I mean when I say that cats have personalities once you've been around them long enough.

Anyway, his went on until her kittens grew up. One died, but the other two are still alive and very much active. She'd let them eat first even when she was hungry and she'd give them little baths although they were far too old for them.

Her death came as a shock because she was healthy. She was just found lying there in our compound, with just a bit of blood around her, but otherwise, there were no other signs of injury.

I'm horribly allergic to cats, but I loved her to bits.

Isabel

My uncle's cat died yesterday. She was kinda my cat too. She's the third cat that I (metaphorically) buried in the last 4 years.

My sister was on her way home from Terengganu. Isabel was always her favourite.

I give up on cats. For real this time.

From the Mouth of a Bonafide Idiot.

"The Israelis have every intention of living peacefully side by side with the Palestinians. However, Hamas wants to kill every single Jew in the Middle East".
- Some Total Retard-

As of Wednesday:

The death toll of the Palestinians : 1,010, among them: 315 children, 95 women
Israelis: 13

1,010/13= 77+ Palestinians die for every 1 Israeli death.

I did the math for you.

Need I really say more?

Friday Friday Friday

It AMAZES me how much more I appreciate the weekend now that I'm working, especially since I'm not getting CNY off. That's right, I'm working on CNY. The news still go on durin public holidays and SOMEBODY has to monitor them.

Ah well, at least I'm getting an allowance for it. =)

News Anchor

How do you pronounce b-i-o-f-u-e-l?
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Well, according to one radio news anchor, its "beeyoofoower"

biol la kau. Saja nak susahkan keje aku ek?

Boycotting

I think I wrote about this ages ago in my old blog when people kept sending me e-mails telling me to boycott Danish products. Believe it or not, those e-mails are still circulating today. My husband just got one a few days ago from a friend of his.

Here's what I think about it: Boycotts don't work. Why?

Because:

When the economy goes down, who are the first who goes down with it?
The poor. Definitely. The rich may get annoyed that they're not getting as much money, but they'll still have a stash of it somewhere. That's why they're rich.

So stupidly, when you boycott a certain country's products, you're actually making it worse for the poor. In Denmark's case, where the muslim population is a minority, you might be making it worse for your own people.

Of course, some ignorant people say it's alright to do this as long as you get to the rich. Hello? So what you're saying is, collateral damage is fine right? So when you get a gun and see a rich Danish or an American in Malaysia, you'd shoot and not care if the guy was innocent?

It means that all those things that happened in Iraq all those years ago where innocent bystanders were killed in bombings and attacks is fine, as long as the militants that were aimed at dies.

Also, go here for more reasons.

Leg Cramp

Last night, while I was sleeping, I stretched my legs and then I got a horrible cramp. I woke up and started crying out in pain and my husband sleepily made it right again through my cries.

It brings back memories about how my little sister used to wake up yelling in the middle of the night because she frequently got cramps. I was a tween then and I used to be so annoyed whenever it happened, because I never got any. I really didn't know why there was the need to yell so loudly whenever it happened. I dunno, now I think that I was just stupid and selfish because it hurts! Believe it or not, this is the first time I've ever gotten a cramp on my calf. After it got better, I started getting sad because of how I felt all those years ago.

I still have a lot to learn apparently.

A quick, incoherent one

So many things have happened just over the past week and I'm really lost for words right now. I owe some people explanations over my 'mysterious' deleted post, but then tired and takde masa lah bebs. I promise I'll update you guys as soon as the weekend comes sebab I'll finally be able to get a breather then.

Anyway, sometimes I think I'm too gullible. My husband tries to convince me that I'm just someone who likes to think that people are basically good and can be trusted, but it's still a nice way of saying that I'm too gullible. LOL. There's only so far optimism and idealism can go, but you're still gonna have to wake up and smell the manure some day, and apparently, I prefer to have rude awakenings again and again, because this week alone, it's been happening a LOT.

Then again, I remember that I'm entering a new (EXHAUSTING) phase of life where these petty things don't really matter anymore (except when it suddenly happens at the office, god forbid)and I leave it behind at home while I'm there working my butt off. And I suppose for a while, everything's okay again.

And then I go home.

It's an endless circle that I can't seem to break, but I'm pretty sure I will someday. I just need you people (you know who you are) to stand around (kalau jauh2 tu pon takpe nak stand around. Nak sit pon bley, for the one who's expecting tu, hehe) and be patient while I try to let go of this phase, like you always do.

Appraising the Past

The year 2008.

A year of brand new experiences and responsibilities.
Of disappointments and new discoveries.
Of pleasantness and shock

Of friendships started anew
A year of enemies remade
Of treachery and knives
stabbed in backs

Of seeing things through new eyes
of taking away stereotypes
and putting on new ones.

Of strife and heartache
of new opportunities and luck
Of realisation and welcoming
A year full of challenges.

We got through them anyway.

Gravity

Something always brings me back to you
It never takes too long
No matter what I say or do
Still feel you here till the moment I'm gone

You hold me without touch
You keep me without chains
I never wanted anything so much
Than to drown in your love and not feel your rain

Set me free
Leave me be
I don't wanna fall another moment into your gravity
Here I am and I stand so tall
Just the way I'm supposed to be
But you're on to me and all over me

You loved me cuz I'm fragile
I thought that I was strong
But you touched me for a little while
And all my fragile strength is gone

Set me free
Leave me be
I don't wanna fall another moment into your gravity
Here I am and I stand so tall
Just the way I'm supposed to be
But you're on to me and all over me

I live here on my knees as
I try to make you see that you're
everything I think I need here on the ground
But you're neither friend or foe
Though I can't seem to let you go
The one thing that I still know
Is that you're keeping me down

Keeping me down

You're on to me, on to me and all over

Something always brings me back to you
It never takes too long

-Sara Bareilles-
______________________________________________________________________

Congratulations. You had me fooled.

Nova Familia

When I entered this new family of mine about a year and a month ago, I was filled with insecurities, nervousness and low self-esteem about how I was going to adjust and fit in. True enough, I had a difficult time adjusting since the family was so different from my own.

While some values are the same, they go by certain different principles, have different expectations for their children and, ultimately, their children's spouses (I'm using the term "children" loosely to refer to offspring, young or old).

People I thought I'd be able to fit in with turned out the other way around and those who I thought I'd never be able to get close to are now the people I care very much about.

My earlier days were filled with attempts at small talk that just, in the end, dwindled to awkward silences, despite my husband's attempts at making light of the situation.

In lieu of current events, though, I've become much more comfortable with the family, valuing little chats and conversations that I have with my mother-in-law in her attempts at educating me with the ways of the world.

I'm glad that I can now sit downstairs and feel at home nowadays, since it makes me feel like I'm finally part of the family. It took a lot of unexpected events(both good and bad) and a whole year for me to feel this way, but I'm glad that I finally, finally do.