I have never liked winter, I could never stand it, all the years of living in Germany.
When I fly back to KL next week, I will be glad that I’m leaving this awful weather; as much as I complain about the heat and humidity back home, I’m immensely grateful for the sun and all-year summer season.
On another note, we’re all so relieved that papa’s getting better. I will miss my family though, it’s almost a heartbreak all over again when I have to say goodbye.
I’ve been putting up sad posts since my grandmother passed away, and have neglected to write about my daily life, which is what this blog was set up for, initially. I’ll no longer use time as an excuse – for anything anymore, for that matter (I figured if I don’t sleep or ‘socialize’ that much, I’d have more time for myself…not quite sure if the latter would be possible). Plus, if I had managed to blog at Livejournal for almost 10 years before, I shouldn’t have a problem to do the same with WordPress now.
Anyway, a huge chunk of my life revolves around work. I breathe, eat and sleep work – even my family and friends have accepted that. Apart from answering hundreds of emails every day, talking to my team, meeting up with people for possible collaborations, overseeing the sites, etc., I also have to attend some events. Most (90%) of the invites I get will be passed on to the team though, ’cause sometimes I can’t afford to leave the office.
The trip to Johor Premium Outlets was one of the first videos that we shot for Lipstiq.com (check it out here). It was a one-night media junket where I bumped into Nazrul, whom I got to know when I came to KL four years ago.
Doing the ‘azn’ pose with Uzair at the first adidas Breathe and Stop Tour at Stage KL, one of the funnest hip hop events I’ve been to. We also got to meet Ali Shaheed (A Tribe Called Quest), DJ Maseo (De La Soul), and DJ Shortkut (Triple Threat) – read up about it on Lipstiq and Hype.
I flew to Singapore in August to interview Nelly Furtado and boy, was that one of the toughest trips of my life. I got really bad food poisoning (I assume it was from the Macces breakfast I had at LCCT, it was the only thing I ate the whole day before falling sick) and I spent the first day puking my guts out. Basically missed the press conference and couldn’t eat dinner – wait, I couldn’t leave my room even – but thank goodness I was strong enough to go for the actual interview the next day. I met up with Nessa and Sam at the showcase, but felt dizzy again after that.
One of Singapore’s top clubs, Butter Factory, decided to open its doors in the heart of Kuala Lumpur, and Stephen’s team at Arcis invited us to interview the DJs and cover the launch. It was too packed, I slipped on the dance floor, the door bitches were being a bit uptight…so we left (okay, so I was also drunk). But the good thing was before that I actually had fun with my girls Simone and Lainey, and bumped into the gorgeous Nadia Heng, so we all basically just danced and laughed until the drinks ran out. The photo above is of Stephen (owner of Arcis Communications), myself and Nadia taken by Kelvin Sing photography.
The next day after Butter Factory’s private media/VIP launch night was the grand launch of UNITY KL, which both Xu and Leonard invited me to. In all my hangover glory, I went there, said hi to friends (KL is small and you always meet familiar faces everywhere…which can be a problem. It can get boring), walked into Unity to see Simone and Lainey shoot videos/interview and a guy came up to me and said, ‘Hey I know you from last night…’ It was N’fa Jones! MC N’FA was one of the headliners at Butter Factory KL’s launch and he remembered me from the night before…maybe it was my tattoos…or me dancing like a fool when he was performing but hey whatever, right. He’s such a friendly person though, and he’s a huge fan of Kota Kinabalu so…for that he’s already automatically on my good side.
That’s N’FA on the left and Xu TAG on the right, and you can find more pictures from UNITY KL’s pretty awesome launch party on their Facebook fanpage. Excuse my hideous hangover look.
I decided to be a feline this year. It’s actually the first time I’ve bothered to dress up.
The guy in the picture above is Naem from Vertigo Club KL – rad costume, right?
Last year I just bought a pair of bunny ears to go along with a white tube dress. Like I said, I never bothered with costumes before.
Time passes by too quickly (this is something I say way too often…), and it’s scary how I can still remember what happened at Halloween a year back, as if there weren’t three-hundred-plus days in between.
Gosh. Before you know it….I’ll be turning thirty…
Simone sent me this picture of Johnny the other day – she and my housemate Arlyne are helping me babysit him while I’m here in Germany. They’re really superbly awesome for helping me with Johnny, no words can express how grateful I am for their kindness; they know how much I love him and this trip back was a last-minute emergency.
I really miss my baby.
I initially got Johnny Gonsalez from TJ, who found him in front of his then office. Since TJ wanted to keep Pistol Pete, my first rescue kitty, I decided to take Johnny off his hands because that time it wasn’t possible for him to have two cats.
He was such a scrawny kitty then, with bald patches all over his body due to a skin infection. The vet gave me some lotion, and the rest of his infected fur started to drop off to make way for new, healthy fur.
Now he’s a super naughty boy who keeps me awake most nights…and I miss him so.
“Life is a series of pulls back and forth.You want to do one thing, but you are bound to do something else. Something hurts you but you know it shouldn’t. You take certain things for granted, even when you know you should never take anything for granted.
“A tension of opposites, like a pull on a rubber band. And most of us live somewhere in the middle.”
Sounds like a wrestling match, I say.
“A wrestling match.” He laughs. “Yes, you could describe life that way.”
So which side wins, I ask?
“Which side wins?”
He smiles at me, the crinkled eyes, the crooked teeth.
“Love wins. Love always wins.”
-Tuesdays With Morrie, Mitch Albom
‘What good did it do, after all, to remember, she said, to hold on to the past, if the most crucial events in life could not be changed? What good did memory do if one could never make amends?’ -Certainty, Madeleine Thien.
We were sitting down for breakfast when my mum told us she had dreamed of my grandma, her mother. In this dream, grandma was as old and frail as before she passed away, except her eyesight was functioning very well. My mum was walking towards her and grandma was so happy to see her, held her arms open and hugged her daughter.
Five months ago, my mother nearly missed the nailing of my grandmother’s coffin. She touched down at the airport during the funeral mass, and according to a cultural ritual, the coffin has to be nailed shut before noon. We left the church halfway to pick my mum up, and when we came back, everyone witnessed how my mum came out of the car and practically ran into the church to the coffin. There are a few heartbreaking memories that embed themselves in your head, and the picture of my mum running to touch my grandmother for the last time, of her caressing my grandmother in the coffin, is something that will always render me to tears.
My mum is an extremely strong woman. Practical and objective, she has hardly let her guard down throughout my whole life. She had, for a few years, come to terms with my grandma’s illness and old age, she had always told me that she’s prepared for death. But, no matter what you say and what you do, you can never really let go of someone you love. Our lives will always be connected by an invisible thread, even if one has passed on. Some sadness and regret will still linger on.
Maybe dreams are there to also help you to come to terms with grief.
dreizig 