Voila, la deuxième tentative.

Each blog post is just another instance of revealing just a bit more of oneself isn’t it? Huh. That just hit me. Thought of making it the title, but that’d just be a bit, well, giving you one more reason to think of me as a dunce, wouldennit?

Here’s what I have for this time around:
We (making reference to
myself here, is that the royal we I’m using?) have a tendency to forget
(ok I’m going to stop writing really OBVIOUS prefacing sentences
starting now). I was on the bus tonight, on my way back from the
world’s largest social sciences library (hawhaw), and reading Charles
Townshend’s "Terrorism: A Very Short Introduction" (my next essay
that’s due on Monday’s on terrorism…go figure)  — when a picture
(yes that book has pictures in it as well, me likey very much!)
depicting an act of terrorism (bombing) suddenly brought flashbacks of
memories that I hadn’t remembered in a long long LONG while.

Back in the early 90s when the first Gulf War was going on, I was
barely almost 10, back then my entire family still slept together on
the same bed at night (it was a huge bed if I remember correctly - it’s
funny how things are so different in perspective when we were kids, no?
I’m sure I’m not the only one)…and I used to have a fear of building
collapsing. I’m quite sure that’s partly due to the fact that at that
time I’d just learnt about landslides, and we lived at the foot of a
mountain on a sloping road, and also that was about when I first saw
images of bombs  going off at night and the destruction that they
caused, and the impact it had on people (thanks George Bush Sr and
cronies. I
pray for you that there’s no such thing as retribution in the afterlife
because you’d be SO F*CKED if there were)…Anyways, I remember nights
of thunderstorms and lighting storms…those were the nights when I
would wonder how my parents could sleep so soundly….and worry my
little head to the point where I’d insist that everyone sleep in a
particular direction so that just in case a boulder dislodged itself
from the hill to the north of our house and came tumbling down along
with a lot of earth down our road and crushed our house we had to be in
a position where we (literally) could roll with it (i.e. be
perpedicular to the way slope/road) as opposed to being in a position
where we’d get crushed head on, nevermind that the ceilings would come
crashing down on us first…which is why, I think (do this big leap of
logic with me, aight….hup!) to this day, I sleep with a pillow over
my head, and if that option is not available, with the covers pulled
over my face. Twisted, childhood logic that has become so much a part
of me (apologies to Katia who used to walk into the room we shared in
college unaware that I was in the room, asleep, under the covers and
pillows…and would get startled out of her wits when I moved or woke
up and spoke to her).

Isn’t it funny though, how we forget so many formative things that
subtly influence the way we are today? And how things that happen to us
today will shape the us of later?
I know, I should logically go on
to talk about the evils and the impact of war/terrorism etc etc…but
not today. I’m going to have to write a paper on whether poverty can be
considered to be a reason certain groups/individuals resort to
terrorism (answer: Uh, NO) anyway….

Life’s been crazy busy of late, but I’m grateful for having all of
it, the days that go by so very fast, if they were solids they’d have
evaporated in miliseconds before your eyes, the list of things that
keeps growing despite my attempts at whittling it down, the many loved
ones in my life whom I have been dismally not been keeping in touch
with as much as I want to be…. oh. and on a different note, Malaysia’s 12th General Elections are underway…polling day = March 8th.

I had to scratch my head and think where I was the last time the
elections were called, also in March, of 2004. I had just turned 21 the
September before, and that winter was the first time I hadn’t been home
for Christmas, because I was going to France that next semester, so I
didn’t get to register as voter…and at that point in my life
exercising my Constitutional right to vote in a General Election was
very well quite the last thing on my mind… I remember struggling with
mastering the French language (i remember when being able to figure out
how much change I should be getting back at the patisserie being such
an accomplishment! or having the bus driver understand which
destination I was asking about..ha), trying not to piss off my French
host mom, negotiating the invisible and often unspoken rules of French
culture, dating a French fellow - negotiating that often complicated
terrain, struggling with accordances and le subjonctif (joke)…and
now, four years later….well, lookie where I am now.
How Life does go on.

Anyways, much as I’ve consciously tried to keep the contents of this
blog along a certain vein, here’s me doing some show and tell today.
Just because. Here’s my account of pursuing that elusive right as a Malaysian citizen to vote. And here’s a more flaming account courtesy of a fellow M’sian course mate. My legs are kicking the underneath of
my metaphorical desk to the point where its joints are about to fall
apart already at the thought of what the results of this election could
potentially turn out to be…I’m SO crossing my fingers. Man, this
current ruling party coalition
better not be getting any
landslide victories or otherwise at the expense of my
(seemingly probable) disenfranchisement and that of the many other
people abroad…stay
tuned on that front.

Somewhat related to this, a conversation with my darling parents
(when in perceived good daughter mode/in *rare* instances of total
concurrence, the parental units aren’t referred to as just "parents",
they are referred to as "darling parents"…) earlier today boosted my
spirits. For all the frustration (and confusing contradictory feelings
that come with it, this is the same woman who brought me up to be the
seemingly unorthodox, against the grain, independent to the point of
being self-destructive person that I am today) that fills me when my
mum asks me to "Talk to Daddy, he’s the one who knows best" when I ask
her stuff like "So who are you going to vote for hey, Mum?" (YOU HAVE A
VOTE OF YOUR OWN, DAD DOESN’T GET TWO JUST BECAUSE HE’S MARRIED TO
YOU!)….it’s absolutely heartwarming to see my Dad break into a cheeky
grin when I pop him *the* question and to hear him say "Well, you know
lah girl. We have to do what we have to do…" and I know what he means
exactly (vote opposition. to keep the govt in check if nothing else)
and realize that my mum just wanted me to hear that from him. (note:
Read this if interested in such stuff)

Well, to end on yet another different note, one of my little pleasures of life tonight include
being able to eat a fresh peach with Onken biopot yoghurt (mango papaya
and passionfruit). oh.to.salivate.for!

love,
~m.