CIRCUSITCH

The week before I got married, I did the only one thing that felt right to me: I tuned everybody out.

I told my parents I had a week long conference so no wedding leave, and I didn’t tell anyone, even my office mates, my plan. The plan is that, I am going to spend the last week of my single days only by myself. I was already on leave from Tuesday. Even my then boyfriend didn’t know this.

What I did: woke up, worked out (of course) and then just laid on my bed watching the SATC reruns. I only stopped to pray or to eat or to pee. If I got sick of too much SATC, I read back issues, or books. Come dinner time I met my boyfriend or friends, feigning tiredness from an all day ‘conference’. When my mom or sister called, I put the laptop on mute, and muffled my voice… as if I was talking inside a conference room. Nobody gets to disturb me, and I mean it.

I did this until Friday morning. And by that time I have already enjoyed the company of myself so much that parting is a bittersweet thing. I was reluctant to leave this calm and pressure-less haven of being with books and no-brainer TV shows, but I was also excited for the preparation of the event. The whole Friday was spent with my bestfriend in a spa, and then doing hair, and doing the nails. This wasn’t so much for the wedding but really was for me. I only arrived at my parents’ house near midnight. People were already past wondering where the bride was.

For me, that one week off everything was one of the best things in this world I’ve ever felt. There wasn’t much thinking or reflecting done at all; I enjoyed going through the day with a static buzz as thoughts. I laughed and cried with the characters of the TV series, or the books, and worked out my body until it was too tired to even process movements. When the massage session came on Friday I was mentally and emotionally ready for it. The wedding itself shrank in size in terms of intimidation.

Needless to say I was a weird bride. Or maybe a worrywart. I was too nervous about what the future might bring, about the ‘doom’ that married couples will face after honeymoon period ends. Therefore the most expensive thing I spent for my wedding was for the video. I still haven’t got the finished product. It was RM1600, and gone now, perhaps. My photographer was a friend starting out, RM500. My dress (2 of them) cost me RM400 to make, and my veil was RM10 from Jalan TAR. My wedding sandals was RM40, from this jinjang brand at Midvalley called Viss. My hantaran was a joke by a Bridezilla’s standard – shoes I bought from a shop cart in Empire that cost me RM40 as well; everything else was contributed by relatives (thank God!) My makeup was free, done by my bestfriend. My dais was also expensive, but wasn’t paid by me – it was RM500.

With a very cheap wedding I had a great time nevertheless. My marriage so far is doing ok – although we’ve faced a couple of reallllly bad storms – but we’re not counting on it until we both reached 50 years old. We haven’t framed our pictures, or even gone through them, I think my mom is much more excited for me than I ever would be over them. One thing we both agreed on was this – our honeymoon pictures were even better. Especially the ones with us and surfboards, in the sun.

How inconsiderate could you be? I don’t know the answer. Inspirations still come to me once in a while, mostly during conversations, but I am so consumed with being that I had somehow discarded musing. My thoughts come and go in my head, and I am lucky if I could capture them in my journal. I do feel a bit of a loss over the things or feelings I didn’t get to document, fearing that it will be lost forever. For example, a conversation with someone in the past that evoked some bittersweet reactions in my heart. Maybe that too, will be lost after a few weeks, when something new takes its place in my memory. I’m pretty sure there’s a good reason for certain things to go, because although you still have your baggage and your rental over there, the past is not a place you would want to go often.

Because I think this event needs more hype and publicity: If you have nothing to do this Saturday, please come to The Pet Project Malaysia 2012!

“The Pet Project Malaysia is a 12-hour “Get Active” marathon comprised of dance, fitness and sports-based classes taught by internationally renowned presenters along with performances from Malaysia’s most promising young talents.

Aside from the MAIN EVENT (our master classes and performances), participants can also visit our sports carnival, playground, silent auction, rock climbing wall, rugby drills, a 2-hour workshop by Jojo Struys, self defense classes, animal welfare talks, football nutrition talks, face painting, Asia’s largest football card montage, food & beverage stalls, sponsors & partners booths, merchandise booths and of course our NGO booths.”

I find this event to be highly refreshing. Charity events usually don’t get the highlight they need because the public tend to find them boring and only cater for specific interest groups, but this effort by the Petfinder and the animal welfare groups should be applauded. To combine the concept of getting active while giving back to animals – these two things really really appeal to me. I only found out about this yesterday and was surprised that I didn’t know about this before!

I think this would be a fun event to go with your kids or if you’re an animal lover and really really are concerned with the plight of these animals or just needed a cheap way to learn something new (one class or pass to a class is only RM 25). Believe me, no one paid me to advertise, I just feel strongly for a good event like these.

Some of the NGOs are PAWS, SPCA, S.C.R.A.T.C.H, etc. These are good people who really really gave their time to save these animals. Of course, I have a personal affection for PAWS. I volunteered there a couple of times during uni. It broke my heart seeing those cats, but I was glad I did it.

So let’s go!

In the writing class I went last year, I remember mentioning about one of my favorites. Over time my interest over his writings waned as I realized he had become a little bit needy of our approval without caring about what others were writing about. I realized the pressure – to churn out one good piece after another – that you become completely absorbed in yourself. You had no time to dissect other people’s writings.

The last class we went to it was his turn to read out his piece. I had expected myself to be immune to his very eclectic writing style but I was blown away. I have NEVER met a piece so fresh and familiar at the same time, especially coming from someone who had poor grammar and writing skills. True, his English sucked and he couldn’t even pronounce certain words and the structures needed tune-ups, but his idea, his voice, completely obliterated all the ‘constructive criticisms’ we were to hand out at the end of each student’s work. It was a great piece, because it was obvious to everyone that his spellings needed serious help and the sentences were jumbled and despite all that, we all LOVED it. He wrote about his journey in discovering himself. The first day of class he introduced himself by saying he suffers from a mild depression and Google told him that being creative might help him to cope. Hence, creative writing class.

I consider myself to be a fairly average writer. Sometimes I totally fell in love with my work and sometimes I can wipe it all out with one single button without any remorse. But most of the times, my writings have shades of whatever I have read in my life. I believe reading makes me write better. In this lifetime I have only become envious of only 3 local writers in my life and I don’t really know all of them. One lives outside of Malaysia, one stopped writing, and another well, he writes in and out. I am jealous of their voice – their own and not influenced by anything they’ve read. It’s the same envy I feel with this guy in my class, who only writes because he wanted to cure his depression but ended up to become a completely witty, sharp and brilliant writer. To me he’s like a cross between David Sedaris and Chuck Palahniuk on crack.

I got to work now.

Late night post invites all my good friends of the past. Things like hiding under a blanket wiping tears off my face, like that. I love the feeling of complete sadness when you are totally happy. It is like a trip where you can always return. The best present for me is a gift of sadness that you could take back.

This trip is bought to me by a song an estranged friend of mine and I shared the love for. I remember the moment she shared it with me. Not a music lover by choice/nature, I was hooked. My friend thought that this was the sickest, coolest song in the sickest movie she absolutely loved. She had a very eclectic, violent personality. We couldn’t be friends now, but I have lots of good memories with her. One being talking on her bed the whole night until the sun came up. I think we were discussing about which was better – giving head or getting head – and we saw the sky turned pink. We panicked, and immediately tried to go to sleep. Her room always smelled of sunscreens and the beach. She had magazines in the bathroom; the only time she reads is when she’s taking a dump.

I am currently in the midst of my 2 weeks holiday. When I say holiday it is actually being off of work. I work out a whole lot. Catch up with the list of movies and books I had waiting for me at home. Haven’t been thinking anything at all except that I am grateful that I lived to see 11 months go by, and that I still have the love of my wonderful family. December always makes me melancholy and wistful. Oh, December.

At work, there’s this thing that is called a PVT data. It stands for Pressure Volume and Temperature, and it is a crucial piece of information. Without it, there’s not much you can tell about the well we are eyeing on; we do not know whether it will have a waxy produce, or whether it has a high pressure flow. Pipeline engineers can’t design pipelines with the absence of PVT.

I find it interesting that humans can also have their own PVT. You can classify people according to these three characteristics – whether he is a highly strung, high Pressured (with high cholesterol count too, I bet) manager, or a timid, mousy, bloated clerk with too high of a Volume, especially at the middle area. High Temperature people I regard as someone warm and welcoming, with a nice smile and nice perfume on. They can also be hot tempered, it is up to you to view the PVT as you wish. Now, whenever I am in a big group of people, especially in a meeting, I like to do some reassessment myself; scan each person one by one and try to determine their PVT.

Everybody is loving the 2011 because it has been kind to them. I totally understand the joy, but it makes me wonder if things didn’t go the way we want them to in 2011, would we still love it as much, or do we want to give it a hasty goodbye, like, yesterday.

I find that I learn a lot more with a bad year than a good year. But over time the definition of bad year and good year sort of merge together. Bad or Good is usually relative. It is a bad year if it makes you even more negative, and makes you spiral down and makes you depressed or defeated, or fatigued. But if will be a Good year if whatever comes your way makes you go towards the positive. A friend lost his career – not job – and he turned it to a self discovering new career leap. What could have took him down the Bad 2011 way has actually made it to a Good 2011.

My own 2011 has been wonderful, just like the past 5 years. Everything played its part, even things I don’t understand – like being humiliated by my boss when he wanted to know if my degree was bought or earned. Occupational Hazard right? But I took the time to sniffle in the privacy of my room. I am not an Iron Lady. My knees will never get better, choosing instead to sing the blues every time I have a race coming up. I work around my knees now, knowing when to ease up and when to just run, embracing the pain. I have crossed off a few things I have on my list, and God knows I am so proud of them, as I’m sure you will be if you’ve crossed off yours.

December is always a melancholy month for me. Just for the reason that I have to bid it goodbye. I am never never ok with farewells. Something about letting go still gets me to the heart.