just minishorts.

I'll tell you a little secret. Each time it rains with the whole shebang, lightening, thunderstorms, strong winds and all, a part of me shrivels in fear. When I look out of the window and see the trees swaying in the howling winds, I automatically go into a silent prayer, 'Spare me, spare me…'

Things have changed recently, its either I've gotten more sensitized to the weather and the things around me… or the afternoon thunderstorms have become a little more violent these days, and sometimes when the wind blows, I fear it would be the end of me, the end of all of this.

Then again, the great Krakatoa hasn't erupted yet, so maybe, just maybe my fears are unfounded.

And these are just the problems with the weather.

…

Eric and I have decided that we won't be buying a house. Of course the main reason why we've decided to do this is mostly due to a lack of economic funds… right now we're just unable to commit to a long term loan that would require us to put aside over a thousand ringgit a month. The price of food has risen so significantly that we both can now feel the strain. We had Chicken Rice yesterday, Eric had to pay RM12 for two plates and two glasses of herbal tea. Just five years ago we could go on a simple date for RM8, and have additional money to spare for the car park. I don't understand how come we can have the expensive galleys at Star Hill Plaza, Pavillion and The Gardens, or how afternoon buffet lunches at hotels like One World and Le Meridien can go up to RM80 per person. I wonder who walks into these places to get those expensive bags, or how can anyone keep affording to spend over RM50 on lunches every other day — I work in Bangsar, I see the rich every other day and I just cannot understand this spending…

The gap between the rich and the poor, its so obvious if you're driving to work each day (where I work) that you begin to understand the fear of the people. Amidst the better tarred roads along the Jalan Jalan Pantais, where there are exclusive kindergartens housed in bungalows (the school children get chauffeured to work and there are guards taking the kids in and out of Mercedes Benzs and Alphards), just one or two kilometers away there is the vastly overpopulated crazily crowded low costs flats and the hidden dirty slumps of Bangsar… This is where I work, a place where the gap between the rich and the poor is most glaring… and you can see the fear and selfishness in the eyes of the well-to-do (I am not generalising, its hard to walk along Jalan Bangsar and smile to a stranger and get smiled back at)…The shops along Jalan Telawi (1, 2, 3) they say, fetch a monthly rental return of over RM20,000 each, but we know the urban poor live not too far away below the foothills of Pantai Hillpark.

In the papers, you read of riots in Indonesia, and impending lifting of subsidies in so many other countries… you read of the Junta putting restrictions on outreach programmes to victims of the cyclone, and then you read of the Chinese struggling to start over whilst mourning for their lost… then you flip to the Metro sections or even Pages 5 and 6 in our main papers and you see the orang kaya-kaya Malaysia who stand with each other in their expensive suits holding a printed mock cheque in colourful bold headings. They donate money and they want people to know they've given.

Its sad how the rich are so good at demanding and yet so lousy at giving.

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