The Gathering of MC Comrades

Sunday started well enough, with me having a hearty breakfast once again. Having buffet everyday for every single meal, bar clubbers (supper) and afternoon tea, really makes you lose perspective on how much you actually can eat. Long gone are the days of eating set meals and then ordering dessert. Here, dessert comes first, then the main course followed up with the appetizer. The richness of food really gets to me sometimes.. Needless to say I am going to put on weight pretty soon. Which is why I have decided to join the hall's football team! (Aussie football) But this is a story for another day, since practice is tomorrow morning at 6.30am.. 0.o

Anyways, a group of us left the hall at around 11.00 am to go support our team's football team against the overwhelming favourites, St. Mary's. Totally sissy name for a football team, but nothing so sissified in the way they kicked our ass from all corners of the field. In this twisted amalgamation of rugby, soccer and American football emerges a totally vicious game. In short, you play with the intensity of American football's tackling and slamming minus the safety gears. Go figure.

Basically this is how the game works; there are two teams consisting of more than 10 players (dunno how many) wearing jerseys of contrasting colours so they can differentiate between allies and opponents. On two polar ends of this field that they play in is a set of 4 poles stuck into the ground which are roughly equidistant from each other. The center poles are taller than the other two. And they're white in colour. Anyways, the way to score a goal is to basically kick it through any of the poles. Getting the ball with a kick through the center poles gets you 6 points. Getting the ball with a kick through either side of the center poles earns you one point. Getting the ball with a kick anywhere else besides a teammate's arms gets you unadulterated profanity that would even shame Samuel Jackson. "Get that mother-f*cking ball through the mother-f*cking poles!"

Anyways, that's the gist of it. So how did our team do? Well, we lost by 100 something (lost count) to 1. We scored a miserable one off-target consolation goal. You would think if a team could score 2 decades of goals against us we would have been able to fluke at least one in. I sincerely believe we would have stood more of a chance if we blind-folded ourselves and kicked the ball at the relative direction of goal. Sigh...

The boys having an inspirational team talk before they got their asses whooped. Pardon my French.

Then again, who am I to complain so much? Judgement day comes in a fortnight's time, in which I would most probably play a part in. Then we'll see just how 'easy' it is to fluke one in. Hehe. I should stop before I embarrass myself further.

Well, the actual purpose of this post is to tell you guys that I have made contact with the other ex-MC inhabitants. We agreed to meet at Uni of Melb at 6 pm. It felt really good seeing everyone (in context) again and catching up with lost ground. There were 8 of us, Jonathan Yong, Jessy, Chiu Jin (or Chew Jin, not too sure), Wei Lynn, Tze Shin, Ben Shane, Melissa and me. We ate at some restaurant along a street renowned for its delicious food. Everyone is just as how they were when we left MC/WMS 2 years ago. Melissa still the evergreen blonde (to which she happily acknowledged to, until she realized it was about her). Jessy still the enigmatic chick. Jonathan still the same in most aspects, but obviously much much much more happy after he finally got Lee Na. Yeap, he got her, after 6 years of unrequited love and perpetual depression. Ben Shane is still.. Ben Shane. I didn't really know Wei Lynn and Chew/Chiu Jin so I can't really say how they were before this, but Tze Shin has changed considerably since she left for Australia in Form 4. And I am still hopefully the same Daniel from before.

Girl in white is C Jin, then there's Melissa (duh) and Jonathan.

Food-wise, it was excellent. Ben Shane and I shared this huge-ass 1kg steak which was unsurprisingly sumptuous. In total randomness from Ben Shane, "Hey, you know what, if I'm 50kg, and I eat 500g of steak, that means I will be 1% cow!" . Unbelievable. And he's wrong, because it's slightly less than 1%. I should shut up.

Ben Shane with the cap, and Jessy at the far end. Wei Lynn and Tze Shin were opposite me, but Wei Lynn didn't want her picture taken so she's not in the photo. 0.o

There was a sense of nostalgia as we started talking about MC/WMS (duh), and the hilarious stuff that happened during our tenure. There is one that still sticks in my mind. It was in form 1 (En Li, you should know this one), and we were having History class with Miss Hajah Ainon. For a reason that escapes me, she sent me and someone else (Clement I think) out of the class. 10 minutes later, she shouted, "Okay, monitor, please get those donkeys back into class!". After a few minutes of awkward silence from the class and Miss Hajah Ainon screaming for the monitor repeatedly in her scratchy husky voice, someone finally said, "Er madam.. The monitor is outside..."

It's funny how you remember random incidents that happened to you, significant or not.

Anyways, we departed the restaurant to Jonathan's house to 'lepak' some more. As the night wore on, we bade goodbye to Jessy, Tze Shin, Ben Shane and Melissa in tandem. Since it was really late at night, C Jin and I decided it would be a better idea to stay over at Jon's place instead of walking back to our homes. It was nice to be friends with C Jin after 5 years of only knowing of each other. For the next couple of hours we just did what most slumber parties would warrant. Mindless banter, philosophical spiel, intimate confessions, a good amount of insulting and bitching, uncontrollable laughter and lastly, Indian Poker.

It was quite a shock that Jon and C Jin never heard of Indian Poker, of which I was glad to teach them about. For those 'katak di bawah tempurung' Indian Poker is basically taking a card face-down and placing it on your forehead without seeing its value. Obviously you get to see everyone else's cards. So, by looking at the cards and reactions of the others, you have the choice of filling up a glass with any amount of alcohol. Usually there's a limit to how much alcohol you can pour in though. Everyone takes turns to fill the same glass. Then everyone has the opportunity to change their cards, again without looking at the card picked. This is followed by another round of alcohol pouring (and lots of guffawing and chortling). The person with the lowest denomination bottoms-ups the whole glass. A very simple game, but extremely entertaining!

Of course, we didn't want to get ourselves drunk on the same day we had uni, so we used water instead. I know it sounds pretty lame in comparison to alcohol, but after 5 huge glasses of pristine water I started to realize that water isn't much of pushover as I thought it was. By glass 10, everyone was pretty much 'drunk' and disoriented. Jon's toilet was practically our best friend that night.

Jon and C Jin resting momentarily.

So yeah, that's the story of our mini-gathering of the MC people. As trite as it was, I really enjoyed the company of friends, both new and old. Maybe it's the connection to Malaysia, or maybe it's the ease in which we communicated, but whatever it is, it really showed me how much I miss having me close buds around. Ah well.. Looking forward to more gatherings then!

The freedom that I possess is really quite exciting and intimidating at the same time. Can anyone imagine Daniel making impulsive decisions to sleep in people's houses and waking up one hour before class to go back to his own home for lunch and a well-needed bath? The same Daniel who couldn't go out with his friends because he had to be back before 9 by LRT or didn't obtain permission from his parents. Hehe, how life has changed..

I have to go sleep now, got football practice tomorrow, so goodnight peeps, and see you guys around!

An Eulogy to the Harry Potter series

Before you guys start crying and remonstrating note that I said Harry Potter series as in the end of the story, not the person.

I must say, that I am truly impressed with the last book. A fitting end, and magnificently written indeed. Needless too say Rowling has sent all her detractors into hiding with their tails between their legs (never saw the sense in the idiom, but who cares).

I can truly say that Rowling has outshone herself in 'the Deathly Hallows'. Even with the breathless pace the story was unraveling itself Rowling has managed to intertwine the plot together quite beautifully. I really enjoyed how she seamlessly brought back incidents from the past books into the fray, which evoked nostalgia and furtive smiles of recognition.

I was also satisfied with the way she handled the controversial scenes, always letting the sinking feeling settle but never over-sensationalizing the episode. Pretty brilliant in my opinion. In retrospect, I now understand how the precursors of 'the Deathly Hallows' worked to set up a veritably grand finale. All of my dissapointment towards the 5th and 6th book disappeared completely upon the realization of the part they played in this wonderful journey Rowling has taken me.

And so the fairytale comes to a close; that much I can divulge. A big thank you to JK Rowling for a wonderful adventure into the realm of mysticism and magic, as well as being a substantial part of my childhood. I can never forget the amount of happiness as well as 'sorrow' it caused to some of us, most notably when someone shouted the ending of book 6 to my ex-classmates, which made quite a few people burst into tears. En Li and Shannon sure know what I'm talking about, :) .

To acknowledge a true icon in the literary world, I hereby toast The Boy Who Lived!

The Deliquescing of Memories

I've always had this fear that as the days go by I will lose hold of the memories I have of everyone, as if time is slowly shredding them into oblivion.

Isn't it sad? To slowly lose the only connection between recognition and acknowledgement. I truly fear the day the faces of my dearest friends start to blur and fade away.. I wonder, does anyone truly remember the way I look or is it just a vague silhouette that resembles me?

Close your eyes for a moment and try to recall the face of that once-thin-now-pudgy guy who has left Malaysia not too long ago.. Scary isn't it?

I believe that this poem embodies the trepidation I feel about the path that I am travelling on.

There to Here by Lauriel Mariondatter

You ask me how we got from there to here, And you tell me you can't remember, And so I'll answer it for you, Though perhaps not the way you want me to. We got from here to there on the back of a unicorn racing through our dreams, We got from here to there when night's silence thundered between us, We got from here to there believing a song to be stronger than the worlds pulling us apart. And we were right. We stood in good relation to the earth, We stood in good relation to the gods, We stood in good relation to all that was beautiful, You see, we were Alive We got from there to here when we believed reality to be stronger than love, We got from there to here when we forgot to look up and believe that gravity held no hold on our souls, We got from there to here when we left our storybooks for some other distracting play, And now I do not know my world, And I cannot find my God, And beauty dies, Shut out in the cold. And I believe we can get from here to there if we just believe, And I believe we can get from here to there if you'll take my hand, And I believe we can get from here to there - if only in our dreams, And when you're dancing across the sky, Somewhere between the stars and the moon, Look for me by your side, I'll meet you with hands outstretched, We'll go - from here to there, there to here, and back again.

Statuesque Beauty

Hello there everyone!

En Li gave me a good idea about starting a blog. Though I'm not really a blog person I guess there's always a start to everything right?

So.. I did mention about my Dad's friend's daughter right? Well, in all honesty she does closely resemble to my description of her. Of course I'm not saying that she's the reincarnation of Audrey Hepburn but she is undeniably attractive. I would really love to post a picture of her but unfortunately it is not in my possession at the moment. However, my dad brought a camera over that day so the pictures are with him. Would probably ask him to send some pictures over. =)

She got her eyes from her mother (obviously) who is a very genial person herself. Instead of having the generic sharp features of a Caucasian the Chinese blood in her gives her a more mellow face shape. Kinda difficult to describe actually. Plus she has a great smile too. But, we all know that Daniel won't fall for that kind of superficial stuff. Hannah (her name duh) has a really good character as well!

Unlike the typical obnoxious Australian teenager I would say that I'm quite impressed in the manner that the whole family has been brought up in. Needless to say Asian values are still better (in certain issues anyway). My parents have actually met up with them few years back when my sister came to Australia and they have been raving about her since then. They were hugely impressed by Hannah, especially when they saw her helping her mother get ready dinner, setting the table and tending to the dog and such. The family as a whole is really good-mannered, and it really feels genuine, ostensibly or not. For example the children (4 of them) will sit in the living room while the grown-ups sat on the dinner table. During dessert a few of us tried to ask them to join us but they politely declined.

So, Hannah's beautiful and well-mannered. I'm not done yet though. She is really good in sports too! She is in the school sprinting team, and plays basketball as well. That said she doesn't really have a figure to die for. More of a slim build, but I'm definitely not complaining! But the best part about her is that she's shorter than me! Buahaha! She might still grow though, being only 16 and all.. (I'm not a paedophile!)

For the girls, you can stop rolling your eyes. Her brother is good-looking as well, having similar features to her. At 14, he's already as tall as me, and will definitely tower over me in the coming years. His name is Tom I think. The even younger brother is Nicholas, and the last one I forgot.

Well, she's finishing high school this year. Her father graduated from Melbourne University so hopefully she will take her foundation studies in Trinity College, which is 5 minutes away from where I currently live! Haha.. Wishful thinking is quite satisfying..

At the moment they live in the suburbs of Melbourne, so it is quite troublesome to visit them. Besides, who the heck visits other people for no reason? Or reasons that cannot be evident to the parents of certain people?

On an unrelated issue, I doubt I will be able to log on to MSN much. Janet Clarke Hall (my residence) conveniently failed to expand on details regarding internet access on their website. And so me being the typical Malaysian expected unlimited internet access when they posted "Internet access available in all rooms and around the hall" or something remotely close to that at least. Instead I get a limit of 1GB per SEMESTER! What the hell man! This is actually one of the worst deals ever.. People like Jonathan and Jessy (from WMS) pay around $80 a month for a limit of 40GB a month. That's still expensive but reasonable. I, on the other hand, managed to find a residence hall that has internet technology as old as the hall itself, which is pretty old considering it is a national heritage building!

I think I've already used a few percent of it writing some e-mails and this blog. MSN would just eat the 1GB up like En Li to Snow White Prawns. Heck, I can't even click on the back button without feeling the pinch. Instead I have to resort to typing down the desired website's URL. Life's really tough in Melbourne man.. Internet cafes charge like $6 an hour, so it's not much of a help either. However, there are computer labs everywhere in the campus which is free of charge, at the price of privacy and spyware.

Well, that's it for my first post. The cold is really getting to me now. Have to go sleep; got loads of stuff to do tomorrow! I'll talk more about Janet Clarke Hall and the unfortunate incident in the co-de toilet next post.. Signing out!

Oh, do check out my future girlfriend! ;P