just minishorts.

Again. I am 'off' for the weekend. Not like I've been saying much about the past week. Let's just say I feel rather… dilapidated. It's been the social de riguer over here to put on a blindfold and pretend I can see very well while leading a bunch of equally blind mice. And the irony of it… there's three of them! The blind mice, I mean.

I'm going home to Kota Bharu after a very, very long while. It's been some time and I wonder what changes are in store for me. I'll be hanging around my third aunt's place for less than 24 hours before catching the evening flight home on Saturday so that I can help the three blind mice polish the sunglasses they've wearing with hopes that the sun can shine its bright rays into their eyes *and hope they can see better than I do* again.

I know I'm crapping in riddles. But. Well.

I told you I was getting old.

Bumpity-bump-bump.

Fortunately I've had my good ole' daily serving of Mazola sprinkles to keep my end-of-the-day-evenings bright and chirpy. After-tens are always my favourite times of the day because that's the time I can finally let go of the day that was and pretend that my life is happy and happy and happy all over again. Actually, after-tens are always happy, happy and happy!!

Now I've just proven to you that to every upside, there is a downside… and likewise, to every downside, there is an upside.

Suddenly I realize it's already reaching the end of January and I sincerely can't wait for February 28th to dawn in on me.

Ah ha.

Pardon me if I don't make sense. I tried. I really did.

G'nite.

Was a month really that long a hiatus? It sped past me, and well, we are now in the middle of January and I'm already looking forward to February, March, April and the coming future. Suddenly I realize I'm already in my mid-twenties, and yesterday seems just a blink away.

I was picking up Eric's Pulp Fiction from Nick the other day and we were talking about this style I've come to pick up.

'Is minishorts.net different now?'
'You've gone all reflective.'
'Different, yeah?'
'Yeah, it's so… sigh… sigh… sigh… now.'

That's sort of true, I supposed. I've become more rhetorical, and the pragmatic in me is becoming more and more prominent. Sometimes, I tell my students how to prepare themselves mentally for examinations, and inwardly, I remember a certain History teacher who left the class gasping at his impeccable razor-sharp memory. Other times, when I walk past the unerased whiteboard, I stare at my own handwriting and I think, 'Gee, my handwriting's turned into the typical English teacher's scribble.'

I feel so young, yet so old, and I haven't a clue over whether I prefer being 15 or 25 anymore. I have lots of friends in their teens, and lately, I've begun to feel as if I'm getting too old to behave like that… my taste in jewellery have been reduced to wearing gold only, and I've been more enthusiastic about keeping my shoulders back and my arms at my side when I walk. I recall how, when I was 19, my first boyfriend was always nagging me over my inability to carry myself in heels (even 1 inch seemed so freaking HIGH to me), and now, I just feel nakedly short in flatties,I even loaf around the markets in heels now. I bet if PY could see me now he will prolly remember the time when he plunked in my inability to try to adjust to his 'needs' as a major reason to get rid of me.

The weekend was pretty much OKAY… I got to sleep more, on top of the unpaid overtime work I had to do (and the driving from my house to this terribly obscure place called 'Taman Saga', smacked somewhere in between Cheras and Ampang Jaya), time was fulfilled quite well… For the first time in ages, I brought my mum out to have Chinese 'tai chow' styled dinner (RICE is a taboo word in my family dinners…) two nights in a row and I feel terribly heavy today. Weight, as always, is an everlasting issue…

Yesterday was Movie Day, and Eric and I spent the first half watching 50 First Dates where I was reduced to 2 packets worth of facial tissues… now THAT is one very sad movie (watched it already?)… at night we went to catch my second serving of The Phantom of the Opera and after 2 1/2 hours I still think that The Phantom is far, far juicier than than Raoul. Every time Gerard Butler appeared I would go, 'OMG he is so damn leng chai' much to poor Eric's chagrin.

Anyway, like I said, Leroux's protagonist is called 'Erik', so…

I thought yesterday's blackout was a wonderful thing. As I was driving home from my office, five minutes after my boss gave us the greenlight to pack up and go home, my carpool-mate pointed out that there were lights in the shops lining up SS 15, and then we stared at each other and burst out in laughter!!!

'Boss must be damn pissed now…'
'Muahhahaha, lucky we left in time.'

Apparently, 15 minutes after the directive to go home earlier was given out, the lights came back on. Ha. Ha. Ha.

I'm an evil worker. Even knowing that I have tonnes of work to finish in the office didn't make me stop enjoying my surprise half-day leave. This sort of thing ought to happen more often. Heh.

It poured heavily in the evening. April came over with her lil' sis for mamak and we were almost drenched. Somehow the noise on the zinc rooftops made it impossible to crack silly jokes so we contented ourselves to gulping down the food. Though I must say that at the rate I'm having supper every night, it's highly likely that I'll have to start starving myself silly one of these days.

That should not be a problem since I've just been told that I'm expected to slave day-and-night over the next three months to meet deadlines.

Eric's off to Malacca for three days and I finally have time to myself. *Hooray!!!* Now let's see what I shall do?

Not eat so much.
Sleep more.
Take my mum out.
Shop for some CNY clothes.
Get my stash of sable-haired make up brushes.
Get the eyeliner and lipliner pencils ready.
That wedge sponge as well…
And the black coloured mascara from Bobbi Brown.

Yes I'm on a major MAKE-UP binge, and it's an expensive one, because my agency insists on only Shades, Bobbi Brown and Benneye as product lines. Apparently these are the only brands that work for photo shoots.

Uhuh. Someone verify that for me please? RM800 on day and night make up isn't exactly cheap, yeah?

Recently…

There's a lot of whispering going on in the air around me and the attention isn't exactly flattering. I don't like to indulge in speaking up for myself, though I must say I'm very tempted to do so. I know that I don't have to explain things for myself?the outcome of my decisions are always enjoyed/suffered by myself anyway.

But I still feel like saying this:

You don't know what happened. I haven't told you everything.
You won't know what happened. I won't tell you everything.

So. There. Mmmm.

I don't always enjoy what I do. Sometimes, I take a piece of work that belongs to another person, and then I get so edgy over the kind of material that I receive, I mash it up until it becomes almost unrecognizable. When this happens, people in the line call it 'rewriting'.

It's sad because I believe in preserving intellectual property, and it's always sad when a piece of work actually belongs to me but someone else takes the credit for it. But that isn't really the most depressing part.

The most depressing thing is how educated teachers can actually copy wholesale from previously published material and take ownership of these things, and then argue with me about authenticity and 'the author's right'.

The other thing I've begun to not like about my job is the fact that it's seeping into my daily habits. The other day I was reading a passage in somebody's research questionnaire, and I noticed the justification and setting of the text was completely off. Character spacing between words was so glaring that I had this rising urge in me to take a blue pen and mark up the text?and then I remembered that I was still a human being after all, and little mistakes in life here and there spruce things up to make life more interesting and bearable.

I realize that I'm going to be 25 this year, reaching my first quarter of a century on earth really is a fetching idea. Mum and me have also achieved a higher level of mother-daughter kinship, and sometimes, talking to her makes me wonder how I could have argued with her so much in the past?

Have I gone reflective lately? I was telling my high school mate Yuh Shan about the state of things in my life.

'This one is number what?'
'Number three…'
'HAhaha… when will you get to number 10?'
'I don't want to get to number 10… what makes you think so?'
'Don't know… you seem to speed through them pretty quickly.'
'You don't get it. Aiyoh if I can I really want to stop at number three and be content.'
'Hehehe…'

Then again, many of my friends have arrived at 25 without ever knowing what it's like to fall in love.

Haven't been online in a bit, haven't been chatting with pals in a bit, haven't been updating my blog with current states of affairs in a bit, and I haven't been me for a while, eh?

Actually I was hoping that the influx of photographs would be able to convince folks that things are okay, everything's fine… and maybe quit that, 'Eh, how are you?' question that keeps popping up to me in MSN.

Gah.

'Things are okay lah.'
'Okay only ah?'
'Eh what type of answer you want lah?'
'Don't know. Just tell me how you are lah.'

Like WTF? I just gave you the answer, 'I'm Okay.' Like, isn't that enough to tell you how I am? Ohhh… no I've got to go into the details, but when I talk about the details, wouldn't that bore the hell out of you.

So on to life. Let me tell you what's up. It's 2005 for heaven's sake, and I'm on to my first two Medical Cert-approved leaves of the year. I'm down with a flu, and it's getting better, yes, getting better, although I dread tomorrow when I go back to the office, to find, (I'm certain of this, yes)

- 1 stack of films awaiting checking and approval for press
- 5 chapters for a revised edition of the workbook I'm working on… waiting to be edited and marked up
- unlimited amount of reports to read and write
- an engorged list of spam in my mail box to sieve through…

I also, have a very, very bad hair cut. I now walk around like a rat came and bit off my hair, and what's left of me is really awfully school-girlish… this is terrible, terrible, because when I decided to let my hair grow out way back in 1997, I swore to myself that I would never allow anyone to coax me into sporting a boyish hair cut ever… but the hairdresser misheard my requests, and now… well… You can see the new me in Friendster… and no … uh… I don't look me anymore…

Gawd.

OK. I think the effects of my medication are kicking in… going to sleep now…. g'nite, folks.