Farewell To Our Friend

Today, we said farewell to our dear friend Aaron L, who's going to Perth to study at an anglican boarding school. Term starts on 4th Feb and he left to KL to spend CNY with his family and then onwards to Perth. A few of us planned to go send him off at the airport so this morning, Jenny, Rachel, Hannah K and I got up early (ooo.. we were joined by one of our old gang, Waltson who just came back from KL last night) to have breakfast first. Halfway to the airport, Hannah received a sms from Aaron that his flight was delayed, so we turned back and bummed around at my office until it was time again to leave for the airport. Hannah told him that we were all busy to send him off so we could surprise him.. and when we got to the airport, we hid behind the stall waiting for him to get to the departure gate..

There weren't many words as we said our goodbyes, although there were some tears and advice. It's always hard to say goodbye to a friend. Distance may separate us, but our friendship will continue. We will miss him sorely. So Aaron, study hard, enjoy the experience, don't forget us, and until we meet again, God bless, take care. May our good Lord bless your ways, watch over and protect you and may you continue to walk closely with Him.

Cure For Home Sickness - The Bad & The Ugly

Sorry if it has taken me a few days to continue this series down memory lane. I have been thinking what kinda stories I wanna tell. Some are disturbing, I mean, this is the category of the bad and the ugly after all. Maybe this post should carry a remark; 'reader's discretion is advised, disturbing scenes may follow?'.. you be the judge..

Cheap Thrills
There used to be a lot of mini buses plying KL roads and they were all painted a ghastly pink. Seeing them zipping around just made my head spin sometimes. One bad thing about these mini buses is that the bus conductor will pack everyone in like sardines, sometimes even telling you how you should stand so that they can put more people in. Safety and comfort of the passengers... what's that? It was in this kind of condition that I took a bus ride from KL to PJ one hot and steamy Saturday afternoon to a friend's place to stay overnight so I can attend church on Sunday.

It was already packed and uncomfortable when halfway through the journey, it started pouring (those of you who've been in KL would surely have experienced the thunderstorms there before) and all the passengers started closing the windows (no air-con lo this.. natural air got lah) and suddenly bus ride became free sauna! Wait.. it becomes worse.

So imagine this, packed, stuffy, sauna, haven't arrived at destination when suddenly, I felt something poking me at the back. I turned my head to see this elderly uncle pushed up against me. That something poking me? That ain't his umbrella ok? OMG! Can someone save me from this? If it wasn't pouring so heavily, if I was familiar with PJ, I would surely have gotten down. To this day, I still think the uncle was having a cheap thrill and rather enjoyed the sardines condition! Lousy uncle! Arggggggghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh..........

Having to wait for the buses were really a pain in the neck, especially during rush hours. One time, I had waited for ages when the bus finally lumbered up. Of course everyone rushed for the bus. Oh ya, I should mention that when you rush for buses, you have to stay far far away from old people. No, not because they are fragile and deserve respect (well, they do lah) but because they do not care if they poke you in the eye, or step on your toes or elbow you in their haste to get a seat. So by the time I let the elderly and the whole world get on the bus, I was left with no space.. but rather than waiting for the next bus, I got my foot onto the step, put my hands on the handle bars and hung on for dear life! My backpack and I were hanging out the bus. Talk about cheap thrills!

Movies
Like all students, we go watch movies when the tickets are cheap and that means afternoon shows. I normally go watch shows alone (I love my own company, hehe) so one nice afternoon, I bought a ticket, got in the cinema and settled down to enjoy the show. About 15 minutes into the show, I had that feeling that someone, or something was looking at me. It took my eyes a while to adjust to the darkness to look around and find the source of the bad feeling. Suddenly, I saw a pair of eyes looking at me from the row in front of me. Oh, the eyes were real, they belonged to a creep looking for cheap thrills (I should categorise this under Cheap Thrills huh?). I quickly moved seats. CREEP!

Another time, another movie, a guy was on the next seat. I was enjoying the show and didn't pay him much attention when suddenly I realised something heavy was near my waist. I thought my backpack had fallen to the side so I moved my hand near my side and touched a hand.. not my own! Another creep! I flung his hand away and I should have shouted at him when he just got up and rushed away.. Believe me, I couldn't sleep that night thinking of his hand on me! Shudder...

Bad Move
Being a girl has its disadvantages, especially when it comes to personal security. I went to an evening service once and I took a short cut, walking through a dark lane, over the train tracks with the surrounding area full of lalang and deserted. Even though it was only a short distance, so many things could have happened. Once I got through that path safely, I scolded myself for taking such risks. That was the last time I ever walked that path.

Another time I had gotten out from the LRT station and decided to take a short cut back, again through the side lanes. Normally there is a light there so it wasn't that dark, but that time that I walked through, the light was switched off and I walked in darkness. Another bad move.

Conclusion
So there you have it, the good, the fun, the bad and the ugly of my time away from home. I must say there were many occasions when I could have fallen into danger, but I thank our God for His protection and care, and I'm left with happy memories of my time in KL. In all my time there, I never fell in love with KL. It was just a place I had to be in and I tried to make the best of it.

Like I said earlier on, we may not like the place we're in right now. Whether we are studying/working near or far, think about those who are not able to afford an education, think about those who're jobless and be grateful that you are where you are. Suck it up, strengthen your resolve, pray harder that God will give you strength to endure through this season, build your character, enjoy the scenery, enjoy the change, live life to the fullest as how God intended it so that at the end of your life, you won't look back with bitterness and regret.

Cure For Home Sickness - The Fun

I could go on and on about the good food there, but I think I'd keep getting hungry, so I'll talk about the fun stuff that happened there.

Rats ~ Now, because of the restaurant downstairs, it's obvious that we'd get rats. So one time a rat got into my room. My cousin and my bro tried to get it out and after much jumping and huffing and puffing, we finally banged it and gave the rat a concussion. Obviously no one wanted to touch it so in the end, because he's the youngest among us, my cousin had to put the rat in a plastic bag. Instead of putting the rat down the rubbish chute, we decided to throw the rat overboard.. I mean over the balcony. Did I mention I lived on the 3rd floor? So.. with much laughter, we took the dazed rat to my bro's room and "bombs away!" But would you know it, as the rat fell, the plastic bag opened and became a parachute for the rat! We groaned and thought "rats, the rat escaped" as the bag drifted gently onto the ground. Just as we thought the rat will escape, it fell into the cluthes of a cat, who had obviously seen the rat as it parachuted down and pounced on it. Ah.. all's well that ends well. Hahahahahahah..

Yet another rat story, there were a lot, you see. I caught a rat in the cage one day and decided to kill it. Don't squirm, nobody catches a rat and lets it go, believe me, that only happens in movies. So I went to the kitchen to boil water in a saucepan. Would you believe it, rats have brains, because as soon as I poured the boiling water on it, it started running around the cage, and because I thought my aim was very good, I didn't boil a lot of water. My water was finished, but I'd not done the 'job' correctly, I'm left with a half scalded rat and an empty pot. I had to go boil some more water to finish the job, I didn't know whether to laugh or to take pity on the rat. Hai...

Rubbish ~ One time I decided to throw rubbish from the balcony to the other block's rubbish bin. Rubbish as in in a bag, not a sweet wrapper. So we switched off the lights, took aim and lobbed the bag about 20 feet into the air and it fell sweetly into the rubbish bin.. yeah.. I scored! Then another time I tried again, same protocol; switched off lights, took aim and lobbed the ammo.. and BANG! The rubbish fell onto the roof of a shoplot on the first floor. Ooops... sorry.. we scurried for cover..

My smart bro decided to throw some cardboard down the rubbish chute but unbeknownst to him and everyone else, including the tenants downstairs, it got stuck inside the chute and as a result, all the rubbish piled up inside. After 2 weeks, I noticed that as I threw the rubbish, it didn't fall down to the basket below as it normally did. So being curious, I decided to investigate and found that the whole chute was full of rubbish till the 2nd floor! My goodness... I found an iron rod and managed to free the load of rubbish and boy.. I lost my iron rod in the downpour of rubbish bags. Haha.. imagine diarrhoea? Ah.. u get the picture. I stood there laughing at the amount of rubbish raining down.. and pity the DBKL workers who had to collect them.

Music ~ One of the downside about staying in shoplots is the din that comes from your neighbours. The guy staying directly under my brother's room would always blast his stereo on loud every night and it gets annoying especially when we're trying to sleep. So my bro would always bang on the floor with a metal bar to shut him up.

My cousin came stay with us once and he started talking on his handphone on the balcony at 12 midnight, disturbing our neighbour on the opposite block with his loud chatter. In anger, our neighbour, the next night, played his Boney M (who? you're wondering, right? It's ok, hehe) cassettes very loudly and we had to put up with his 'One Way Ticket' song blaring for ages! Ooooo.. payback ah uncle?

to be continued... The Bad and the Ugly still to come...