1. you think you love Christmas, but you really just love the Starbucks’ Christmas special.

2. you think you love John Mayer, but you really just love how he came up with the right songs at the right phases of your life.

3. you think you love “Hey Jude”, but you really just love how it was the song that made him come over to say how it was his all time favorite song and he thinks its cool that you’re listening to it too, when in truth, you had no idea how the song got into your playlist and you think the lyrics ridiculous.

4. you think you love San Francisco, but you really just love that one intersection, Haight and Ashbury because that was where you realized that you’ve been taking life too seriously.

5. you think you love dancing to spice girls, but you really just love how it reminded you of the friday nights you used to have with the girls, staying up like the morning was never gonna come and that there were nothing in the world to worry about.

I was given the finger a few days ago by this sweet looking lady in the next car. At least I can imagine her looking sweet if she wasn’t muttering something in hatred looking at me with her middle finger waving all over the place. If only time would allow, I would’ve told her that she didn’t have to wave so much when she’s flipping someone off. It’s distracting, very inefficient way to say “f- you”. She should have just put her middle finger up, and I’d get that she’s pissed. That aside, I deserved it, both kinds, the wavering and the firm kind. I find myself driving like a very distracted person these past few days. 

Now that I’m trying to remember what went on during the three hours I spend on the road daily, I realized that there were a lot of honking going on and maybe… just maybe, one or two of those honks were actually meant for me. There might have been a few occasions that might have resulted in the honking, if those honks were really meant for me that is. Again, I’ve been a little inattentive these past few days, I might have just imagined it all.

Smart tags are one of the little things in life that I am truly grateful for. Such an amazing device and once used, it will completely change the way you look at the act of paying the road toll. You’d start to imagine what life would be like if there’s a smart tag for everything. And why haven’t everybody converted to Smart Tags yet? It’s mind boggling how some people just refuse to make their life better. “You, yeah you queuing up to manually pay for your toll, it’s time to move on to the fast lane buddy. Be bold, take over your life, live like you were dying! Oh wait, it’s my turn, I’ll get back to you later” as I fumble to find the smart tag I keep on the passenger seat……And then, the worst nightmare all Smart Tag users are afraid off happened, “Tiada Smart Tag” on the screen that is suppose to show your balance. I go “WTF do you mean ‘Tiada Smart Tag’?! Smart Tag’s right here in my….Oh…”. I was stretching out my work ID instead of the Smart Tag (Cue honks).

So it’s monsoon season. It’s raining every evening and traffic gets really bad. You take one hour to get out of a stretch that usually takes 10 minutes. A girl gets bored sometimes…and sleepy. Imagine being stuck in static for hours, what to do hmm, what to do. You look in the rear mirror and its all foggy. So you turn on the back wiper, ahh much better. You look back to the front, no body is moving, the traffic is at a complete stand still. What to do, hmm, what to do. You look at the rear mirror again and smile as you start to realize how much you love back wipers for not making the rear window foggy on a rainy day. You look to your front wiper, ahh, wipers are awesome. But wait, you noticed something. Your back and front wipers do not synchronize! Utter madness, you say. So you turned the back wiper off, counts to the beat of the front wiper and tries to predict when to switch it back on so that the front and back wipers synchronize. Damn it! The back’s 2 seconds too early! So you try again a few times till they both turn left and right like two perfect synchronized swimmers’ legs about to win gold in the Olympics. You give yourself a pat in the back, looked up and there’s a 10-car gap between you and the front car (cue honks). The traffic is finally moving, you thought and the driver behind you is such an asshole for blinding you with his/her high beams, you add further. I might, I dunno, maybe have attempted to make the front and back wipers to synchronize and might have caused traffic to delay longer than it had to. In my defense, it has been raining so much and I needed to make sure my windows don’t get fogged up; one of the most crucial safe-driving practices if you didn’t know.

So I apologize, if it was me you were honking at. To the lady who flipped me off, I really had to make that exit because I don’t know any other route to get to work. Sorry lah.

I’ve had about ten years of experience, so that practically makes me an expert in the subject. If all of the below applies during a particular time of the month, then there’s about a 73% chance of it being the emotional symptom of PMS. That is considered pretty high, since…it’s 23% more than half the possibility. If you are in the remaining 27% category, then that just means you’re…well, a bitch. Where do I get these numbers from? Again, 10 years of experience, expert level.

1. Easily agitated.

An annoying ring tone from the stranger that sits 2 tables away from you in a crowded fast food restaurant makes you want to punch someone. A comment/pointless phrases/ uninteresting stories from friends make you wanna stare at them with scrunched up eye brows and squinted eyes emanating judgmental emotion. Also, you are convinced that everything that is wrong in the world has got nothing to do with you. Thus, the blame is on every one else, which makes you even more pissed at people, including the ones you don’t know.

2. Excessive cursing.

Your reply in curses is faster than anyone can say “fuck”. Your tone for every word in your sentences regardless of what the context might be, makes them sound offensive and vulgar. However, the expressions of your face will remain calm and collected while your replies are anything but becoming.

3. Sudden lack of care for the news

For one week, on a monthly basis, you realize that you can’t keep up with any conversations that revolves around current events that are happening in the world. You would rather listen to the ridiculous songs they play on the radio than catch up on the morning news update. During this time, your knowledge on controversial lyrics of the latest songs they play on air will increase by 200%. This is probably due to the fact that nobody gives a fuck what stocks are plummeting when the lining of the uterus is shredding.

4. Random need to cry

Nothing in particular will trigger it and  you do not necessarily need to be in tears or go on a sobbing trance. You will simply feel like crying. No further explanation needed.

At times like this, it is best to avoid:

1. Annoying over crowded places.

2. Contact with people to reduce the need to curse.

3. Discussions on world politics.

4. White bottoms.

5. Chuck Palahniuk novels (feel free to finish them after this phase is over).

P/S: Also, it is best to always have an emergency chocolate bar at hand. It temporarily fixes point number 1, 2 and 4.

So okay, the working life ain’t all glitters and rainbows but I am starting to learn a lot of things about the real world that college never really prepared me for. So here are some of the things that I have learned thus far.

1. Everything seemed funnier.

I admit that I’m easily amused. The lamest jokes tickle me but I find myself even more easily amused since I’ve started working. I’m starting to think that it’s due to the contrasting work and after work environment. The people who are your colleagues during office hours are very different people during lunch breaks and after office hours. Having to adapt to a let’s-be-serious-and-very-focused-because-we’re-dealing-with-a-very-important-client environment to would-you-date-a-girl-with-a-hairy-chest-or-hairy-armpits-trivia environment. Tell a joke during office hours and no matter how funny it is, you’ll only get a nod and a pat on the back. So all this restrained laughter will start building up and you just somehow need to let go once you step out of the office. A friend told me a joke through g-chat once while I was sitting across my manager and I could feel my heart about to explode trying to restrain myself from laughing. The torture I had to endure was unimaginable that 5 hours later, once work was done, I just burst into laughter for 5 whole minutes and by then, I couldn’t even recall the punch line of that stupid joke which put me in so much pain. So if you see me laughing at random things or at your lame jokes, it is probably partially coming from last week’s laughter.

2. You learn random facts about life.

Did you know that drinking too much coffee will reduce breasts size? Did you know that by having garlic under your armpit for a certain amount of time will give you flu symptoms? How does these facts help with life?  I’m not very sure actually. But it’s something you get out of small talks at the pantry while waiting for your coffee to brew and something to fill up the awkward silence while waiting at the photocopy machine. But yeah, apparently there is a correlation between coffee and breast size.

3. Last minute is all you got.

Whoever told you that you need to start early, never procrastinate and do not do anything last minute because it’s not a good habit to keep was trying to screw you over. In the working world, it doesn’t matter that you just graduated two hours ago, they expect you to be able to join the sprint team. Everything is usually due the next day so there’s really no time for you to take your own sweet time, have a cute scheduling book out and fill them up with your neat handwriting of what to prioritize first. If you have never done anything last minute back in college, you better start to learn on how to do that because in all seriousness, last minute is all you got.

4. When you desperately need a favor, you find yourself ready to agree to almost anything (Note the italic “almost”).

And you actually really thought that your economics professor was just kidding when he said that there are no free lunches, back when you were still a naive-over-optimistic college student? Wait till you get to the real harsh world because nothing rings truer than that phrase especially when your deliverable are very dependent on the other person’s input or knowledge. “10 bucks for that email you want” “Do fifteen jumping jacks if you really want me to tell you how to do that” “Eat this 5 day old donut if you want help with that”. With the kind of due dates they’re giving me, I notice that I am actually more than ready to  be willing to pay double the asking price, do cartwheels between jumping jacks and eat molded donuts if that’s what it takes. Only in the real world, the things people ask for in return are not necessarily materialistic or an attempt to publicly humiliate you, which I sometimes find myself preferring that it’d be that way.

The time have come where repressive laws no longer hold. We are indeed living in an interesting time where everyone is challenging every single thing that restrains them from.. anything actually. The masses have somehow woken up from a really long slumber and realize that nothing can stop them and that the sky is the limit. The level of optimism have somehow increased at an alarming rate where everyone have stopped being skeptical of change. They have somehow gotten an epiphany that no amount of authority power is threatening enough and no written laws and regulations can keep them quiet. They have finally realized that authority is a myth, laws are simply words and power has a limit. Anarchy is slowly becoming the next form of government.

The voice of the people have finally been loud enough to be a wake up call for all leaders of the world who thought they had us fooled. We have the ISA on the brink of being repealed but we also have drug lords in Mexico dumping bodies to send a message that nothing is frightening enough. People are coming together to hold demonstrations from frustrated pointless provoking ones like the London riots to the ones like Occupying Wall Street in New York. We have taken this one step further as we no longer allow selected group of people to be the only ones to have supreme power. Pride build the pyramids for the self-claimed almighty but it now seems like every one is fighting for a monument of their own.

Looking at the conflicting rate of how optimism is increasing from the constant frustration and how every one have just gained a hundred pounds of courage, the idea of worldly omnipotent and absolute power will only be further challenged from here on out.

I’m not gonna get all philosophical and deep, Raya have never really had that effect on me. This year is a little different since I am back for good, I’ve gotten over my jet lag and I’ve got no place to rush to when it ends. So I’ve been doing a little pondering, if I could choose something, what would be the best thing about Eid?

The best thing about Eid..

…is when the delicious kuih raya that your mum have always, and I mean ALWAYS buy from is no longer in business. So you wait till it’s a little later in Ramadan before you accept the fact that the stall will never re-open. I know you’re going, what’s so great about not having your favorite kuih raya stall open? The fact that you will have to find a new kuih raya stall, that’s what’s so great! You get to eat EXTRA kuih raya because your mum will be going to places, taking down recommendations and coming back with bags of different types of kuihs. Nothing is awesome-er than having cases of sweet, sweet pastries. So, no, its not about the pastries itself, its about discovering amazing new pastries you never knew existed. It’s about moving on to something better, taking the chance to try something you’d never try before because you didn’t think anything was better than what you already had. It’s about getting yourself up and trying to find a replacement to move on. It’s about coping and living without(<— I really am just talking about pastries). It’s about… for the love of pastries, I can go on forever but something happened tonight..

Here I am, set and stone about what I think is the best thing about Eid this year before I met my little cousins who came over for dinner. Not having met me for so long, they were shy at first before I sat down with them and asked them their names (I really did forget their names btw). Before night fall, they wouldn’t leave me alone. Asking me if I had fireworks, wanting to play with my blackberry, touching and combing my hair telling me to do one of those hair ads they saw on tv, touching everything and asking me what it was, pulled me to go outside and play on the swing… It has been a while since I had to deal with little kids, so I was a little overwhelmed. But what made my day was when my six year old cousin told me to sit down and said, “kak lina, I wanna show you something”, and he started to sing “everyday I’m shuffling” and started doing crazy stuff with his feet. OH MY GOD IT WAS SO ADORABLE I DECIDED THAT THIS HAS GOT TO BE THE BEST THING ABOUT EID.

Selamat Hari Raya, folks!

Oh my God. I got it. I totally get Black’s “Friday” now.

For real.

For someone who is not musically inclined and far from being able to create profound lyrics, I came up with the same exact lyrics as Rebeca Black’s infamous first single at my first attempt to express the joy of Friday. I get how Friday could inspire such a song for the less talented. She took the words out of my mouth and made it into a horrendous song but I totally get what she meant and I have come to appreciate this song so much more now. Sometimes you just gotta recite the days to keep yourself going.

Kids, if you think Friday’s awesome, wait till you start working. It gets a million times better.

“fun fun fun fun

lookin forward to the weekend” <——  Can’t say it better myself, Rebeca! *tears of joy*

“England expects that every man will do his duty” - Lord Nelson

“Never was so much owed by so many to so few” - Winston Churchill, Battle of Britain

“Workers of the world unite, you have nothing to lose but your chains” - Karl Marx

“Give me liberty or give me death” - Patrick Henry

“Come back with your shield or on it” - Spartan warriors’ mothers

“The weathaarr is cleaarr, so let’s go and play raga” - Tuanku Abdul Rahman