Missouri meets nasi lemak.

I'd promised Elisa and Elie nasi lemak even before I came to St. Louis. No, wait. Let me correct that. I'd tantalised Elie and Elisa with descriptions and pictures of nasi lemak even before I came to St. Louis.

Upon hindsight, it wasn't the smartest thing I've done. Setting the expectations so high was asking for trouble. The pressure that came with cooking the best possible nasi lemak (well, the best nasi lemak a bachelor living in a foreign country can cook anyway!!) had me in a dither for more than a week.

Even organising the dinner wasn't easy! Everybody's schedule seemed to clash and we couldn't seem to find a single night when everybody was free. Somehow, we finally decided on last night and the only casualty was Jeff, Elisa's husband. Those who could make it were Elie, Repps, his wife Stacey and Elisa. Also present was Derrick, the guy who was repairing my computer. But since he was allergic to shrimp and couldn't eat, let's not count him.

So, anyway, I got lucky on Monday, when I found pandan leaves, some decent looking coconut milk, lemongrass and even banana leafs (to line the plates with) for my Malaysian meal. It seemed that I had every single thing I needed to make the dinner a success and I decided on shrimp sambal.

But, the omens didn't look good from the moment I woke up today. I went online early in the morning to read up on background for my assignment today. Then some stupid software update came from my Internet service provider and the bloody thing just lobotomised my entire operating system! Kaput! My whole computer died! Finito! Adios amigo!

I freaked out! My songs (there are 19,000 of them now!), my pictures (God knows how many thousand of them I have!), my videos, my documents, my files....I could see them all disappearing in a puff of smoke in the shape of the Internet explorer logo.

And that was just the beginning. It just went downhill from there. I got lost three or four times on the way to Ballwin (a nearby city) due to highway closures. I reached there only to find that the place I was aiming for was closed. Then I got lost three or four times on the way back. Embarassingly, I ended up in the same place I got lost on Monday when I was shopping for food. So much for the convenience of GPS...

There were other speed bumps during my day as well, and all these led my superstitious heart to believe the nasi lemak dinner was doomed.

In the beginning it seemed like everything was going to be alright. The nuts and anchovies turned out fine (but then again, if I can't even fry the bloody things right, I've got no business attempting nasi lemak!), the eggs were boiled perfectly and the cucumbers were just on the right side of crisp.

<--- (The rice looked absolutely fine BEFORE it was cooked!)

And then came the rice. I had bought the best possible quality of rice and the best possible coconut milk i good find. I estimated how many people would be there and decided that 4 cups of rice would be enough. Which meant 8 cups of milk. Only prob was, that would take everything right up to the brim of the rice cooker.

Against all the alarm bells jangling in my head, I put it to cook, the edges of the milk coming crazily close to overflowing from the cooker. I said a little prayer and left the rice to its own devices while turning and addressing the shrimp.

The shrimp sambal was a little tricky, coz the lime that i used as a tamarind substitute turned out to be too sour. But, nothing I couldn't balance out with a dash of sugar.

I hadn't even finished with the sambal when I heard the pop of the rice cooker button and knew my coconut rice had been shot to shit. One look confirmed it. Instead of a beatiful, moist and rich bed of pearly white grains, I saw glob of crummy-looking, 1/4 cooked crap which was basically inedible.

Btw, Derrick the computer guy was on hand to watch me freaking out.

So, a little McGyver action was called for. I chucked out half the rice (oh how it hurt me to waste the Thai jasmine rice like that!) and put the rest back on to boil and quickly decided that if it got screwed up again I'd just make normal rice.

Thank God, it was okay the second time around. I decided that if that wasn't enough for the gang, I'd just make another batch later.

The next problem was the flies and the smell. The shrimp paste (belacan) I used stank up not only the whole house, but also the whole corridor of the 5th floor and the whole elevator for good measure. The stench attracted a swarm of flies (the first flies I've seen in St. Louis!). Arrghhhh!

Stashing all the food where the smell wouldn't escape, I went on a merry run around the house trying to chase the flies out. Have you ever tried herding flies? Not the easiest exercise around, let me assure you. In fact, I would not be surprised at all to find that I have one hardy soul still clinging on to the edge of my couch or something.

Even more embarassing was that when I was going down to pick up Elisa later, I bumped into one of my neighbours who was bitching about the smell in the place. She said it smelled like "week-old Doritos" or something.

I nodded sympathetically and said, "Thank God my apartment is okay. All I get is the smell of the food I'm cooking." (!!)

Ultimately though, everything turned out fine. The guests at my fancy dinner party (did I mention that everybody had to bring their own chairs coz I didn't have enough?) enjoyed the food, even though Elisa was worried at first about the smell (her exact words were that "it smelled like feet.") In the end, she even packed some home for Jeff, who's a big fan of spicy food (and whose Mexican chilli, which I ate a few weeks ago, actually made me sweat!)

<--- (The final result sure looks good though!!)

And so, I now am looking forward to cooking more for my friends without so much fear of messing up or not doing justice to Malaysia's awesome cuisine.

Ob-la-di, Ob-la-da...life goes on....

The Beast that is Blogging

I've always viewed blogging with equal amounts of trepidation and contempt. Trepidation because it mainly seemed to be a hotbed of malice, spite, bitching and backbiting. Contempt because most of what passes as "news" on blogs is a combination of hearsay, rumours and fairytales.

Yet, it's undeniable that blogging has caught on and irreversibly changed the Internet and the newspaper industry. Publications that at one point turned their noses up at blogging are now desperately trying to get onto the bandwagon, while papers that embraced it are now looking for the next best thing. Most have realised that blogging, coupled with proper journalistic ethics and principles, can be a powerful tool in reaching out to your audience.

One of my main aims when I came to the Post-Dispatch was to explore blogging and online journalism. While it's embarrassing to admit that the New Straits Times is still in the stone age when it comes to our online presence, it does mean that there are a lot of innovations which other papers have successfully implemented which we can cherry-pick from.

And so, these last couple of weeks were notable for the fact that I was stationed at the editorial page desk and churning out at least one editorial blog a day.

The experience has been fun and illuminating, and has raised just as many questions as it has answered.

What have I learnt? Well, mainly, and most importantly perhaps, I've learned to develop a thicker skin. Almost every blog written by the editorial writers, including myself, has been subjected to a barrage of criticism and complaints. This is even in cases where the blog entry is one which is, say, about the necessity of having a helmet law, or the need for stricter control regarding texting in vehicles. What appears to be a matter of safety and common sense for the writer can be a totally different issue for some people and they will vehemently, passionately defend their rights not to wear helmets or to text while driving.

This raises a very interesting question. If much of the blogging receives such a negative response, does that mean the writer is out of touch with the common man? Has he become too highfalutin for his own good? Or does it mean that it's only the crazies and the ones who have something bad to say that respond? Do the ones who agree with the ideas just read the post, nod and move on? For my own sake, I hope it's the latter and not the former. To be out of touch with your audience is to hasten the demise of your career as a journalist, methinks.

However, the blogsphere is amazing because it gives you an interactivity that you've never had before with your audience. Done properly, it can engender great discourse with a great flow of ideas from all sides.

I've experimented with this notion, both in the tone and in the content of my blogs. Unlike the other editorial writers, I am not an expert on any of the subjects debated on in America. As such, the tone of my blogs is that of a person who is seeking answers and asking questions of the audience instead of telling them how a thing is or trying to "educate" them on a certain issue. I've noticed that people seem to respond well to this. Maybe they feel good that their opinions are being sought or that their ideas seem to count to the writer. I don't know. But it is something which I'll seek to delve into more fully when I get back to Malaysia.

Blogs are also useful when you want to gauge what people's sentiments are on a certain matter. For example, I've been curious about the ethical debate surrounding undercover reporting in the US ever since I came here. But, most of the opinions I got were from journalists and pseudo-intellectuals who were dissecting the issue and I wasn't sure how attuned they were to the sentiments of the reading public.

So, I just put the question to the readers and got some pretty candid and revealing answers - which were quite often, totally different from the views of the people who dreamed up this notion of ethics.

Blogging is also as much about new techniques in presentation as it is about new techniques of communication. With blogs, you can include pictures, sounds, links, animations, videos and all manner of multimedia. It's an amazing playground for a journalist as it enables him to exercise his creativity to the fullest. While I haven't had much time to explore a lot about this element of blogging, I have a rudimentary grasp of the basic ideas and fleshing out this skill is on my wish list of things to pick up before I go home.

Tempus Fugit.

My oh my, how time does fly. Caught between settling down in St. Louis and my orgasmic throes of self-pity at being given the chance to experience what most people can only fantasize about, I almost missed the fact that it's been close to 2 months since I came to the United States and a month since I landed in St. Louis.
A lot has happened since then, some good, some bad and some pretty ugly.
Most of what happened in the first two weeks of May have already been addressed in my entry of two weeks ago. Here's what's happened since then.
Most importantly, I got my first few stories and bylines out in the paper. The first was about the Annie Malone parade - the second largest African-American parade in the country. I covered the parade as well as some violent clashes which occurred shortly after it, and which seemed to be a yearly ritual, as one look at the paper's archives showed me. (And by violence, I mean the bust-a-cap-in-yo-ass kind of violence!)
The next day, I assisted reporter Doug Moore to find out why this parade is plague by this kind of unseemly behaviour. My task was to call the CEO of the Annie Malone Center and do a quick phone interview, which I did. The guy was quite defensive, despite me trying to point out to him that the intention of the story wasn't to put any blame on the foundation. But, he wasn't really keen on listening. The good thing though, was that the story generated a huge amount of buzz online! Talk about making a quick impact!
What really took my by surprise though, was that the next day the bugger actually held a press conference to denounce the paper and me specifically for being racist!! He said the only reason we covered the story was coz it was a black parade! Crazy! It amused me and pissed me off in equal measure. Amused me coz I think he thought I was a white boy (another reason to hate my name!!). Pissed me off coz I'm not racist! A line-up of my ex-girlfriends would resemble the bloody United Nations for crying out loud!
So, now I have one angry brother to join the legion of anti-Marc Indians from Malaysia. Great!
My story on an Indian temple project which never took off was also published, and it made the front page of the community section, I'm happy to say. :) That piece too generated quite a bit of buzz.
Unfortunately, things just kinda died off after that. I was asked to do a piece on Sri Lankans in the US after the fall of the Tamil Tigers, but i couldn't manage to find any Sri Lankans in St. Louis.
After that, I had a fantastic Memorial Day weekend in Atlanta with my uncle's family and felt even more depressed to come back to an office where everybody seemed to be working except me.
I began to get pretty depressed and agitated, not having anything to do. You know...idle minds being the devil's playground and all that jazz.
Happily, the week ended on a better note than it began. I had a meeting on Thursday with Elisa and my editor, Christopher Ave. There we thrashed out what my goals for the training would be. They included:
1) Improving my skills in writing columns and editorials
2) Working on investigative journalism
3) Working on photography and video skills
4) Improving my interviewing techniques

Ave and I both immediately got to work. I linked up with investigative reporter Joe Mahr, helping him out on the groundwork of a story he's doing. It gave me a chance to see how useful database management software can be for a data intensive story.
Ave hooked my up with Adam Jadhav, who'll train me on video later this week. He also set me up with the Editorial Desk, where I reported for work today. I'll be here on and off this week, and all of next week. And already I'm having fun. I did a piece today on abortion, which is sure to generate me oodles of hate mail. I doubt they can be any worse than what I received at the height of my infamy, but we'll see...
So, all in all, it's been a topsy-turvy two weeks. And something tells me the rollercoaster ride ain't over yet.

The Atlanta trip.

I went to Atlanta last weekend to visit my uncle. A friend from Malaysia was coincidentally also there to attend a biotech conference. Deciding to kill two birds with one stone, I brought them together. It was a great success as they hit it off immediately. We had a lovely time, visiting many places, eating some great home-cooked food, drinking some fine single-malt whiskey and staying up late at night every day to chit-chat. We visited Tallulah Gorge State Park, Lake Acworth, Coca-Cola Museum and Georgia Aquarium, among others. I stupidly forgot to charge my camera for the Coke and Aquarium trips, but here are some of the pictures from the lake and the park. Enjoy!

The photographer, bright-eyed, bushy-tailed and eager to get on with the job.

One of the many stunning views of Tallulah Gorge State Park. 

The leaves on the forest floor make such a lovely pattern.

They were soon running for cover. It started raining cats, dogs and horses. 

Presenting Tallulah Gorge State Park..

And to think we Malaysians actually pay money for pine cones during Christmas. 

Wildflowers are planted all along the highway. Too bad I couldn't stop for a proper picture. :(

I just had to take a pic of this fence! Okay, I'll admit it. I had to take MANY pics of this fence!

Lake Acworth was stunning, to put it mildly. 

My new toy.

Well...I finally did it. I went out and blew a shitload of cash on something which I've always wanted for a long time. A really nice camera. To be more exact, a really nice Nikon D60, 10 megapixel machine, with two lenses - a 18-55mm lens and a 55-200mm lens.
Elie, who took me to buy it and acted as my consultant, said that with this purchase, I will not need to buy another camera for years.
Funnily, actually just holding it in my hands gives me greater ideas about taking pictures, including composition, lighting and so many other things which I never even thought about with my old point and click Olympus.
I went on a walkabout at my neighbourhood yesterday and here are the results, along with the mighty machine that made it possible.

The table and bench look so dark and lonely compared to the greenery and brightness outside.

A fountain in front of a Jesuit Church. 
The flower though pale and colourless is nevertheless still beautiful.
I was told that this part of town is colourful, flamboyant and full of murals like this one because it's a gay district. If that's the case, I think we need more gay districts around!

I love how the bicycle melds into the scene so beautifully.

The Angel of Harmony sculpture at the Cathedral Basilica of St. Louis. It's a beautiful piece, and the stuff that makes up its wings are actually chimes.

Another beautiful sculpture/fountain at the cathedral. Elie said the pic would have been better if there was somebody sitting on the bench on the right.

Straub's is the place you'd run to if you're living in the West End and need to urgently buy something for the kitchen. Shop there often though, and you'll find a pretty sizable hole burnt in your pocket.

Purty, purty fountain.

This is the most happening part of the Central West End, where I live. It's the intersection of Euclid and Maryland and this is where all the bars, restaurants and cafes are. A really cool place. Elie and I went for an afternoon mojito at one of the bars here last Saturday! :)

And of course, the thing that's made it all possible...

Bedding in at St Louis.

Well, it's my second weekend in St Louis and I'm beginning to settle down quite well. The going was tough at first, what with having to deal not only with a new job in a new company but also a new town, a new country and new friends. But, as time has gone by, I've begun to get more comfortable in my surroundings. The turning point, I think, was a potluck party (pic below) we had in the office to welcome me to the Post-Dispatch (It also turned out to be a surprise birthday lunch!). The party let me sit down with some of the people I had been introduced to previously and have get to know them better.

The next day, I went to a barbecue at one of our photojournalist's homes. That too was a good icebreaker, especially with the younger batch of reporters whom I'm expecting to meet more on a social level than I will many of the older staff.

And of course, there was a lovely dinner at the home of my mentor, Elisa Crouch last night. I'm not sure what I enjoyed the most - the food (spicy Mexican chilli!), the beautiful home or the enjoyable company.

But, this blog isn't about my skills as a social butterfly. It has to, as Katie said, answer three questions. These are:

1) What I did during those two weeks.

2) What I learned—any difficulties or triumphs I had.

3) How what I did and learned relates to my training plan and goals for the fellowship (or how it taught me something not in my training plan.)

Well, I shall proceed to try to answer these questions now.

Well, the first week was extremely slow. Most of the time, what I did was go out for lunches with various different editors. Though it was interesting (and flattering!) to have such attention lavished on me, it didn't translate to me actually getting to do any work at all for the first few days. I was basically just loitering around in cyberspace, checking emails, chatting, and playing silly games on Facebook.

At one point, it seemed like I had finally found an opening. This was when one of the editors, Kurt Greenbaum, took me out to lunch. The discussion we had led to me writing a blog for the paper which was generally well-received. Doing the blog was also an educational experience as I could see what editing tools they used and how much more control it gave you over the blog than just a normal posting software like the one you'd find on blogspot.com.

So, I thought that things would start flooding in after that and I'd be able to start rolling.

They didn't.

This got me even more frustrated and by the end of the week, I had begun to start feeling useless and depressed. Part of me understood that the editors would naturally be a little wary of giving me stuff, considering how I'm a strange dude from a strange land. Yet, the other part felt like screaming that I was just as capable as any of the people on their payroll and I would prove it if they just gave me a chance!

I wasn't being a complete vegetable though. I had a working lunch with the investigative reporter here, Joe Mahr. I threw some ideas at him and he seemed to think some of them had merit. He also took me to the county courthouse at one point to show me how he digs up court records to help him with his stories. This, I would say, was the single most useful thing I've learned since coming to the Post-Dispatch. It's something that just isn't done in my country and I'd like to go back and find out if it can be used as a journalistic tool. It also dovetails with my hopes of learning more about investigative journalism here.

Yet, it didn't detract from the fact that I still wasn't doing what I'd come here to do - which is to write.

However, my mentor/guardian angel was working feverishly behind the scenes to try to get me something to do. She buzzed about and put the word out to her fellow reporters that I would be glad to do any stories which they wouldn't have time to follow up. This paid off as one of the Jefferson County based reporters, Christine Byers, then tipped me off to a controversy regarding a Hindu temple development in that area.

Glad to finally start doing something, I pounced on it. I worked on it for a couple of days and sent it off to the editor overseeing me, Christopher Ave. I was feeling quite a bit of trepidation at this point, wondering if he would find it acceptable or below-par. Thank God, he didn't. He told me that except for a few minor things, it was pretty okay. It comes out on Wednesday and I'm totally excited to see it in print.

I think he might have also been glad to see that I wasn't totally hopeless and designed to merely be a passenger in the newsroom for the next five months, because he immediately assigned me to cover a massive parade on Sunday. It's called the Annie Malone parade and it's the second largest African-American parade in the country. There're also scenes of violence and murder there every now and then and it looks like it's going to be anything but boring. I'm really looking forward to attending it tomorrow.

Just me.

Sometimes a cliche says it best. In this case, the cliche that would best describe my situation would be time flies.
It seems like only yesterday that I was boarding the aeroplane to America with such trepidation in my heart. In reality, more than a month has passed.
In the past month, I've learnt many new things, made some friendships which I think will be lifelong ones, and had quite a few experiences.
Yet, looking at the big picture, I guess you could say that I've barely begun. One month has passed, and five still remain ahead of me before I return to home and hearth.
I've come to the business end (my how easily the cliches flow) of the fellowship, where I actually knuckle down to work.
Things are slow right now, with the editors at my new paper trying to feel me out and get a rough idea of my skills, attitude and aptitude. Or at least, that's what I think. If not, it just means that they have no idea what to do with me!
It's a little frustrating because I'm feeling quite underworked and useless. And with every passing day that I don't do something productive, I feel the lethargy growing, like some odd species of vine that has clung to me and is now enveloping my body with its creepy tendrils.
There's also the lack of a social network and support system, something which I always thought I never needed - until I came here.
Back home, I always prided myself on being independent and not really needing anybody to really mollycoddle me. In my more fanciful moments, I imagined myself to be some heroic lone wolf character.
But, being displaced to a strange city in a strange country full of strange faces, I realise how important my social network is to me. I didn't feel it so much back at the university because I at that point had my comrades around me.
But now, as I come home to four grey walls and listening to the thundering silence of my mobile phone, I am beginning to understand loneliness.
Being so alone makes me realise how much the people I gather around me mean to me. Family...friends...without these people, it feels like I don't really have an identity. It's as if I cease to become myself when these people are no longer beside me.
Yet, it's also beautiful in a way. But it's a kind of terrible, consuming beauty. Why? Well, this solitude leaves you with nothing but your thoughts. And if a person can't live alone with his thoughts, then that person is damned. But if he can, then he is truly at peace.
Soon, I'll start knuckling down to work. Soon, I'll start making friends. But for now, I'm alone and it's an interesting experience.

My Year In Review

2008 was more than just 365 days connected to each other by virtue of their places in the calendar. It was, as all other years before it were and as all other years after it will doubtlessly be, full of drama, full of joy, of sadness, of pathos, of tragedy, of excitement, of dullness. In short, it was life.
Many things happened, naturally. But the one defining moment that stands out above all the rest was the passing of Kuldeep. His untimely death brought into sharp focus how fragile and tenuous life actually can be. Now, months from the actual incident, not a day goes by when I don't think of him, or miss him or wonder if he's really gone.
His death, and the subsequent devastation in wrought on his widow, Manjit, made me think of what would happen to me, of how I would react, when the time came for my father to slip the mortal bonds of earth. He's the most important person in the world to me and if I could, I would want him with me forever. But, that is not the nature of things and he too eventually will go. But, the thought of being orphaned, of losing his wise words or ready smile terrifies me. It really does.
It was ironic that Kuldeep died exactly a day after I went bungee jumping. The moment I jumped from the platform and into space, trusting only the uncertain hold of a bungee cord, was one in which I felt utterly exhilarated and completely joyous. The uncertainty of it all - the possibility, however remote, of a messy end, was like an intoxicant, an aphrodisiac and it was a sublime experience and made me alive as I'd never felt before. And the next day, my friend died.
In terms of work, it was a year of new experiences, both good and awful. While not exactly covering myself in glory, I acquitted myself reasonably well and worked my pants off to try and bring in the best stories I could. Of course, everything good I did was marred by one moment of arrogant idiocy, marked by a published piece which was greeted by a righteous torrent of abuse from the not-so-adoring public.
After that, whatever I did seemed to be an effort to make up for that sin, to purge that stain on my record and on my soul. Yet, nothing ever seemed to do it and I'm slowly resigning myself to the fact that it was a very precious lesson learnt at very high a cost.
2008 was also a year of friends gained, friends lost and "friends" discarded. Besides Kuldeep, I lost two of my best friends to totally differing fates. Taran got engaged in mid-year and will be getting married later this month. We've grown from boyhood to manhood together, known each other for 15 years and have seen or spoken to each other almost every day of our lives. I'm happy for him - that he's found his soul mate, but am a little melancholic in the knowledge that nothing will ever be the same again.
Dominic, on the other hand, has become a sailor. This is the same guy who helped me through some of the toughest times in my life, and who's become my pillar of strength and my source of advice. Suddenly he's gone and it's as if I'm floundering without a rudder.
Yet, life is nothing if not balanced. While my two best friends slowly fade to black, others step up to take centrestage. Lovely people like Jacky and Melissa, like Audrey E, like Leslie, like Eve, like Darshini, like Ranjeetha - these people have become more important to my well-being and my sanity. A lot of people flit in and out of our lives, seasonal friends who are good for that period of time. I don't know and wouldn't presume to say that these people are above being just seasonal buddies, but I have a good feeling about them.
As for friends discarded, what need I say? Life's too short to waste on people who have no respect for you, only come to you when they need something or only use and abuse you to feel better about themselves. Naturally, this category would include people I wouldn't care to name. It's easy to feel pissed off about it, but I'm trying to take the high ground and just think that it was good while it lasted.
Finally, we come to the issue of l'amour. Always one to bedevil me, this year has seen it taken to new and more ridiculous heights.
From having a blazing row with my family (simply because of my own stubbornness) over somebody who was patently wrong for me and over a relationship I knew would not last, to going against my usual nature and falling deeply in lust with somebody and engaging on a torrid affair despite knowing the damage it could cause, to finally rounding up the year making an amazing connection with somebody and probably falling in love with her only to be buggered by the problem of "bad timing" - 2008 has thrown a lot of curve balls my way.
But, that was in the year past. It's 2009 now, and we're at the tail end of the first decade of the new millennium. And what have I decided to do?
I've decided to look internally, and to the higher power, for the answers and not just float along with the tide.
I've decided to be in more control of my emotions, to guard my heart with greater care.
I've decided to save my time, my energy and my love for those that deserve it and to be cleverer with how I handle the "hi-bye" friends.
I've decided to try to curb my negativity and self-destructive tendencies.
I've decided to use my 6 months in America to learn as much as I can, experience as much as I can and come back a better man.

New Year resolutions have a way of being routinely broken, which is why I hesitate to lump these decisions under that category. So, I'll just call them things I need to change about my life, for my own sake.

~ Live well, laugh often, love much ~ Italian proverb.

Christmas and other ghosts

It's the same story every year. As Christmas swings slowly by, I begin to get into the mood by blaring out carols on every available music player. Throughout Advent, the excitement and anticipation builds up, thanks in no small part to the frenzy of shopping, music and parties.

But then, as the day itself dawns ever nearer, the delightful mania loosens its grip and is replaced by what can best be described as a hazy sense of melancholy.

Christmas can be the best of times and the worst of times. The best of times because that is often when all that's good about a person's character comes to the fore. When peace and goodwill become more than mere words. When giving is indeed better than getting. When we truly take pleasure in other people's joy.

Come Yuletide, my mind always trudges back to the Christmases of my childhood and my early youth. Half remembered images from when I was a toddler - like the trip to Sungai Wang in 1985, where i took a polaroid with Santa on his sleigh.

Crystal clear memories of the preparations we would undergo when grandpa was still alive. The records that would be playing. Andy Williams, Jim Reeves, Ray Conniff, and always on the night of the eve, - Christmas Bells.

The fun we kids would have when opening up our presents on the day. The bread pudding Aunty Nicole would make, rich and dripping with brandy and with creamy caramel coating the sides and bottom of the pudding.

In my teens, it would be the excitement of midnight mass, when all the plain Janes from Sunday school would magically transform into lovely swans and how we boys would go around, huge foolish grins on our faces, wishing all and sundry a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

I still wonder when exactly everything changed. When that sense of innocence was lost. When the real world started intruding on Christmas. And with the whens come the whys, the hows and the whats. Each question breaking the heart a little more that the one before.

The tragedy of every passing Christmas for me is the knowledge that as I grow up, grow older and grow wearier, the magic of Christmas dies a little bit more. As I see how everything around me - from the people, to the memories, to the world itself - changes and becomes a little more cynical and a little more bitter, I long for the past and wonder if the future will bode better or worse for me, for my loved ones and the world.

A Moment to Cherish

Somebody once said that life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away.
As I was driving to work today, I experienced one such moment. A moment of simple, yet breathtaking beauty that made me just glad to be alive.
I was in my car, making my way along the inner roads of Bangsar to the NST office. It was simply pouring down and visibility was simply terrible.
And then, as I rumbled up a little hillock, the rains began to abate and the skies started to clear. What happened next was surreal, beautiful and strangely hypnotic, all at once. The skies around me were all still a dull grey, but up ahead the evening sun was poking out through the angry clouds.
Shafts of radiant light began pouring out, each one clearly defined and illuminating the city below it an a soft, heavenly glow.
All around me, drops of rain were still pattering down. But, what was just moments ago furious drops of stinging water had wound down to steady drizzle. Water splashed off my windscreen, every drop splattering into smaller and smaller droplets.
It throbbed on my roof, a calming, hypnotic drumbeat, the rhythm much like that of a heart. All around me, the world seemed clean and fresh and magical. The rainwater seemed to have had an almost divine cleansing effect on creation.
The world too seemed to be in a slumber, the roads mostly empty, what cars there were crawling by at half pace and hardly a person to be seen anywhere.
It was in a word, beautiful. And coming as it did on the back of a pretty lousy week, where the ugliness of humanity once more made itself painfully apparent, it was a welcome and appreciated reminder that things are more than just about humans and human relationships.
Sometimes, man can be an isle. Sometimes, it is better to seek solace in the inanimate, or in nature, than it is in your fellow man.
Sometimes, it is better to be alone and cherish the solitude.

Welcome to the Jungle

When I joined the NST, a friend warned me that the politics here is akin to nothing I've ever seen before. Whatever I've experienced in the past, she said, would pale in comparison to the sheer nastiness of the bitching which goes on here.
It's a been a year and some since I stepped through these doors and to be frank, it's been the most fulfilling year of my life, career wise. I've improved myself, proved my worth to the team, made some great friends and generally learnt a good deal since I joined.
And yet, recently those words of my friend are starting to prove ominously prescient. And all because of damn promotions.
Always a bone of contention, promotions are bound to please some and piss others off. But, that's the way the dice rolls, isn't it? Sometimes you get what you want, sometimes you get what you deserve, sometimes you get shafted.
But, here it seems that the frustrations felt by some at being passed over are translated into bile-filled online blog entries bemoaning the fact that some people are being promoted because they're the bosses' "machais" and favoured ones.
They don't seem to realise or take into account the fact that these people who are promoted come in to the office earlier, stay later and come in on their off days in order to do their stories. They don't take into account the fact that these people work their ass off to bring in their own stories. They see only what they want to see. They see these people's ability to get along with their bosses as ass licking. They see these people's hard work as currying favour.
What they seem to want is for everybody to drop to their level, to be as sad, as dead and as demotivated as they are.
Instead of doing their own work and looking to be assessed on their own merits, they'd rather spend their time worrying, moaning and bitching about how others are being given a better deal than they are. They'd rather spend their time tearing others down instead of getting on with their lives. It's just sad. Sad, pathetic and funny in a perverse sort of way.
But, whatever la. If those of us who actually want to work and enjoy their work waste our time reflecting on the meaningless venom of these bitter people, we'll just end up like them.
I'd rather just go on doing what I do, chin up and heart light, secure in the knowledge that whatever I get, I get on my own merits and through my own hard work. And for those who think otherwise, God bless you anyway.

The Art of the Mixtape

It ain't easy, let me tell you that.

It came upon a midnight clear, this wonderfully Christmassy idea. Or should I say, IDEA.

I was lounging in bed, once again unable to sleep, when it dawned on me - the perfect Christmas gift for my family and friends.

I thought that this Christmas, I'd (instead of leaving in their stockings presents, two front teeth or promises I don't intend to keep) make my near and dear ones a compilation of wonderfully unique, unusual and relatively unsung Christmas tunes - a merry mixtape, if you will.

So, as they say in the snooker parlour - set biji sepuluh! Game, set and match. After all, how hard can it be to burn an Xmas CD, right?

Pretty hard, as I'm finding out now.

You see, the art of the mixtape is all in the setting of the tempo. The tempo of the tape, or CD in this case, determines all. It determines how successful, or not, your offering is.


Do I start fast and gradually wind down? Or do I start slow and progress to a grand finale? Or, do I start slow, build up to a crescendo and then taper off towards the end?


If I start too fast, the risk is of an anti-climatic ending. If I go too slow, the danger is that they will lose interest too soon. Problems, problems! Everything has got to be just nice, the perfect blend of fast and slow, upbeat and mellow, religious and commercial, frivilous and profound. In a nutshell, it has to encapsulate Christmas and all the emotional, nostalgic bric-a-brac contained therein.


I've already cooked up in my head a list of songs I want to have. None of this stupid Jingle Bells or Silent Night shite for me (unless of course it's the Bing Crosby version of the former and The Temptations' take on the latter).


My mixtape is going to be full of unknown, but beautiful numbers.These are the contenders for the final list, in no particular order (since the order is my biggest problem!):



The Most Wonderful Time of the Year - Andy Williams


Pretty Paper - Roy Orbison


Little Altar Boy - Glen Campbell


Senor Santa Claus - Jim Reeves


Sarajevo 12-24 - Trans Siberian Orchestra


Happy Christmas (War is Over) - John Lennon


O Holy Night - Tracy Chapman


Ave Maria - Connie Francis


Hallelujah It's Christmas - Roger Whittaker


Merry Christmas Baby - James Brown


Santa Baby - Madonna (or, preferrably, Eartha Kitt, if I can find her version)


Christmas Bride - The Ray Conniff Singers


White Christmas - The Drifters


Auld Land Syne - Kenny G (I'm still very iffy about this one. Not only does Kenny G just scream corny, but the interspersed dialogue is just to Americana-oriented for me)


Kids - Kenny Rogers


I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus - Jackson 5 (I'm iffy about this one too, coz I always thought the kid must have been a mean trouble causer to want to tell on his mom. And not to mention dumb for not knowing Santa was his dad..)


The Fairytale of New York - Ronan Keating and Marie Brennan (I don't have the original and superior Pogues' rendition, sadly)


Christmas in New Orleans - Louis Armstrong


Little Drummer Boy/Peace On Earth - Bing Crosby and David Bowie


Silent Night - The Temptations


Blue Christmas - Elvis Presley


Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas - Judy Garland


I'll Be Home For Christmas - haven't decided whose cover I'll get for this one






Yes, I know I said it's going to be full of unknown songs. Yes, I know that most of these songs are known songs. So, let me rephrase what I said earlier. I want it to be full of my favourite Christmas songs and everybody has no choice but to like them. So there!


After all, what is Christmas without Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas or I'll Be Home For Christmas? And anybody who's listened to Chapman's soulful take on O Holy Night will definitely fall in love with it. Also, the songs by The Drifters and The Temptations both just beg inclusion, being such unique renditions of terribly overdone numbers.


And last but not least, how can we celebrate the arrival of the Kid without a song by the King?

Idle-fitri thoughts

I always used to think that its only the incredible losers who stand in line for hours to shake hands with cabinet members and eat free food at open houses. Similarly, I used to think that politicians only did it to appear beaming and magnanimous.
This year, I've begun to look at it a little differently. Perhaps it's because of the bad news that's been floating around all year. Perhaps it's because of all the racial and religious strife we have been embroiled in. Perhaps it's because we have never seemed more divided than we are here and now.
But, as I watched the people milling around me at the PM's open house in PWTC, I suddenly found it immensely refreshing to see smiles, laughs, goodwill and togetherness in place of spite, mistrust, anger and loathing.
The rakyat seemed happier and the politicians too seem less cagey. Most people, with the exception of the protesting crowd who had an axe to grind, seemed to genuinely want to give out and absord positive vibes on the day, which was as mild and as pleasant as the mood it seemed to engender.
On the street and in cyberspace, Malaysia, for the most part, took a break from its problems for a day or two at least. It was refreshing and in fact, wonderful, to see wishes of peace, goodwill and forgiveness on Facebook status messages instead of the usual curses and rants posted everyday. It was lovely to see the toll booth attendants smile and respond to my Selamat Hari Raya wishes instead of just ignoring me. It was awesome to hear old friends replying my festive greetings, even though the promises and pledges to meet up and connect again rang hollow most of the time.
This is the Malaysia I know. This is the Malaysia I remember. This is the Malaysia I love. But why does it only come out on one, two or three days a year?
Because most of the time, we, led willingly by "leaders" who are only too willing to exploit us, prefer to look at what divides us and at what makes each one of us different from the other. Our days and our lives are poisoned by greed, envy, malice, inconsideration and hate.
I refuse to believe that's who we truly are. Call it naivete, but I sincerely believe that the average Malaysian, the Malaysian on the Len Seng omnibus if you will, is a decent and tolerant person, not a racist, supremacist or bigot.
My Hari Raya wish is for all of us to look for and find that Malaysian within us. Selamat Hari Raya Aidilfitri. Maaf Zahir Batin.

Blogging

There seems to be a problem here. I find myself unable to write about deep, intelligent issues in the written equivalent of a sonorous baritone.
Don't get me wrong. I still think magnificent thoughts and come up with potentially world-changing ideas all the time. The problem is that all these wonderful pieces of inspiration usually come to me when i'm driving, taking a dump, in a state of extreme inebriation or in that hazy space between sleep and waking.
Once I am in front of the pc and looking down at the dust-lined (and God knows what else!)keyboard, all these marvellous schemes just drift away like gossamer spiderwebs torn apart by a stiff gale.
Oh well...I'll just write total rubbish then la. Like what I'm doing now. :P