The clock struck 12 midnight.
I was still at home alone. I had only just finished publishing my previous entry when I received CNY greetings via SMS from Adrian Wong and Geraldine. I was waiting for my parents and brother to arrive Perth Perth International Airport. My family decided to come to Perth partly because my father wanted to escape from the multitude of CNY visits. He appreciates friends’ and family’s concerns, but he needs his rest more than anything else at the moment.
Kim logged onto MSN Messenger. I told her that this is the first CNY that I’ll actually give angpow to my parents. Kim was confused, since she thought that its only after we are married that we would have to give angpow to our parents. I’m not too sure myself – my mother had told me that its the tradition to give angpow to our parents once we started working full-time.
Then it hit me. My mother is trying to to con an angpow out of me!!!
I picked the three of them up from the airport around 1:15am. My father has indeed lost more weight – the full cheek and rounded chin are replaced by skinny sinking cheeks. When at home alone, sometimes he would stare into blank space. I am not sure if he is waiting for people to talk to him, if he wanted something to read, or if he just wanted to be alone.
When I asked him what’s wrong, he said that its a combination of him feeling fatigued after the long plane ride, as well as the reaction from the cocktail of pills he has to take everyday. Its hard to describe how I feel everytime I see my father suffering. But if you can visualise my beating heart being twisted and wringed dry like a wet towel, then you’re pretty close to imagining how I feel.
My father and I spoke until about 2:30am. When my parents were about to go to bed, I went to their bedroom and presented my angpows to each of them. I gave them A$395 each, which isn’t much compared to what they had given me all these while and what they have prepared for me in the future. I had wanted to give them A$400, but the number ‘4’ is considered bad luck in Chinese – which is why I gave them A$395 instead in red and pink notes. The smile and satisfaction on my father’s face upon receiving the angpow lit up my heart. “Lau liaw loh! (I’m old already!)” my father said with a chuckle.
This morning I woke up to find my father sitting in the living room alone, my brother still sleeping and my mother cleaning the house – ignoring all Chinese superstitions. No one is in CNY mood! I changed into my red shirt to add a slight hint of CNY flavour for the day, bought the morning newspaper for my father to read, and went off to work just like any other day.
There were no hyperactive little cousins visiting. No noisy Chinese New Year “stars” (note quotation marks) shouting with their incredibly high pitched voices, with their two hands glued together in a “gong xi” pose… “stars” who happen to be unfortunate enough to have pathetic names like “Lung Piao Piao”. We didn’t even play any of those Vengaboys-remixed Chinese New Year songs or another over-synthesised number by the Thai group “China Dolls”.
We had a nice and peaceful delayed reunion dinner with the entire family member present. And that’s the way we like it.
So, how was your Chinese New Year?
Reflections on Perth – 2001 (The Student Leader)
Need I say more? Happy Chinese New Year to everyone! 🙂
Here’s the second half of me reminiscing the good old days of 2001, namely when I was an international student representative. Friends not from Perth will probably find these quite dry and uninteresting, so please bear with me. Friends from Perth can probably relate to what I write, as it is most likely through the ISC that I got to know you.
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Being the youngest in my family usually mean that my opinion aren’t entertained by others in the family. Its just one of those things that’s embedded in the traditional Chinese culture – always respect and obey the elders, and never question their decisions. Usually when I suggest to my elder sister, say, a different technique of doing something , her favourite reply would be the standard “Don’t ask questions. Just do what I say.” So I grew up taking orders and doing what other people tell me to do.
When I was elected as the International Student Committee (ISC) Convenor, I knew I was in for a different kind of challenge – the last leadership experience I had before this, was to babysit my little cousins when I was 12 years old.
Student bodies in Australian Universities are very different to those back home. The ISC is totally funded by students, the University has no direct control over its operations, and apart from social and cultural events, and the ISC Convenor together with University management has a role in the operations and directions of the Uni. All these sounded very boring and ‘tua liap’, but the fun comes in when you start meeting and interacting with new people.
I started the year with 7 other students. We organised an orientation trip for the new students and through simple projects like that, we bonded. You might have noticed that 6 out of the 8 of us are girls. For the record, I have tremendous respect for female leaders. From my experiences, I find that most male leaders want to be a leader because its a very big-ball thing to do – they want the power, the important-sounding title, yet they don’t put much heart into what they do. Female leaders tend to display the level of loyalty that’s critical the organisation. They can lead and be led, and their careful attention to detail to the job is something I am very impressed with. My recreation officer Connie handled a traditionally difficult position with relative ease – leading, training and educating many new volunteers during her term. My publication officer Huey Ying is one of the most outstanding, hardworking and relentless individual I have ever came across – she is one of those who put so much heart into her work, that she will not sleep until she gets the task on hand 110% done.
Anyway, after the semester started we recruited a few more volunteers (who also recommended their friends to volunteer for the ISC) which expanded our group from the original 8 person team to 40-plus active volunteers. After that, we built links with the many country/religion-based clubs on campus, and we got to know more students from Curtin. Through NLC WA (state-level student body), we met up with similar student organisations from other WA Universities, got to know even more students. If that’s not enough, around mid-year the NLC (national-level student body) held a conference and we got to know students from all over the country! 🙂
If Friendster existed back then, my friends list would probably cripple the Friendster network. Unfortunately it didn’t, which means I have to settle with less than 100 friends on my list now. 🙁
It was really great to get to know so many people so quickly. Forget about socialising in pubs and clubs, everyone should join a student association at University! In fact, I know a few people who actually met their current bf or gf that way. *cough*Chrissie*cough*Naomi*cough**cough* :). You can’t blame them though. We’re talking about a group full of young, brash and confident 20 somethings getting together and working through day and night to achieve a common goal.
One of the few perks of being a student leader is that you get to travel a lot. Every now and then there will be a meeting here or a conference there to attend. Being the international student representative from Curtin University, I need to uhh… meet with the decision makers who hold welfare of international students in their hands. 🙂 I got plenty subsidised trips during my time with the ISC. Usually we would attend meetings and boring stuff like that for the first few days. After all that is done, its all fun and games. So far we’ve been to…
Melbourne
Sydney
Canberra
Even Miri, Sarawak! I was there because Curtin University had just started its offshore campus. The student union in Curtin Bentley is concerned about the quality of services over in Miri, so I was sent on an ‘ambassador mission’ to touch base with the Curtin Sarawak Student Council and then report back to Perth. It was a simple job and it was memorable.
Looking back I reckon we did a pretty good job leading ISC. One of the most memorable events happened in the lead up to the Curtin ISC Pasar Malam – our biggest cultural event. The event was held on 12th September 2001. I wasn’t sleeping much at all the night before – I was glued watching the news on the terrorist attacks till 3am. The next morning at 8am I was called into an emergency meeting with the University’s International Office. The first thing that went through my head was that they were going to ask me to cancel the event (!). Of course that didn’t happen. 🙂
The Pasar Malam went ahead as planned. After talking to the University we figured that events like this celebrates our differences in culture, which is especially important in the aftermath of 9-11. During the Pasar Malam, there was an American student wearing American flag who approached the mic stand. He made a touching speech about staying strong and pledging tolerance. I later saw him having a chat and getting food from the Muslim Students’ Association stall. And I thought to myself “What the world needs is more people like him.”
New friends and free airplane trips aside, being a student leader is still no easy job. Try juggling assignments and running a student organisation and before you know it, you are occupied 18 hours a day, everyday of the year. I remembered countless times when I called Nicole, only to doze off with her on the other end of a very expensive international call. Sometimes I promised to call her but I didn’t call at all, which is like me tickling Saddam Hussein on the nuts – asking for a major ass-whooping.
Its a good thing she’s not in Perth though. During this period of time I did not have the time to visit the gym at all, and my weight ballooned. I didn’t have time to get new clothes, so imagine a fat Kenny wearing clothes two sizes too small for him and you’ll get the idea.
I earned the nickname “Ba Zhang” (glutinous rice dumplings).
Reflections on Perth – 2001 (Nicole)
21 days left.
Tomorrow is the eve of Chinese New Year. One of the traditions of Chinese New Year’s Eve is the “tuan yuan fan” (reunion dinner), where members of the family get together around the dinner table. Its one of the many times I feel thankful and blessed to be part of this family.
My parents and brother are touching down Perth tomorrow, so we can celebrate CNY as a whole family. Considering the circumstance, this very precious moment is something I am definitely going to cherish.
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I would be lying if I say 2001 wasn’t the biggest and best year of my teenage life. In fact its so huge that it will probably be best if I write it in two parts. This is the first part on my reflections on 2001, and details my how my relationship with Nicole started. GFCB (girlfriend censorship board ;)) has given approval to put up pictures of her. So please enjoy the pictures before she changes her mind.
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Anyway, this claim was found to be untrue. The Australian public smartened up and in the next elections, John Howard was voted off.
Oh not wait. What am I talking about? This is Australia! I mean John Howard was RE-ELECTED as the Australian Prime Minister!
Then on September 11th, two hijacked planes crashed into the twin towers in New York. 3,000 civilians dead. On October 7th, USA, UK, supported by Australia etc invaded Afghanistan hoping to capture Osama bin Ladin. The result – more than 20,000 dead on both sides. Osama bin Ladin must be laughing in his cave. In western countries, racism and negative sentiments against Muslims and Middle-Easterners surged almost immediately. This marked the start of a series of violence between the USA and poor developing nations, consequently changing the world we thought we knew, forever.
Enough world events. This isn’t CNN, this is Kenny’s blog dammit! 🙂 Its all about me Me ME!!!
My own life-changing event occured around January 2001. Nicole and I were still doing that online-chatroom thing. One evening, she asked me to pretend to be her boyfriend so she could ward off some unwanted guys who were going after her. We agreed to act it out for one month, after which we will just go our separate ways. So we began acting. The first few days were alright, and we talked to each other a lot all in the name of ‘research’ and ‘acting’, sometimes from 10pm till 7am the next morning. This online-chatroom-thing eventually turned into a phone-call-everynight thing. We were flirting with each other alright – we would call each other cutesy little nicknames that if I repeat here, would cause kennysia.com’s readership to drop by 90%. But we weren’t together because we were only acting.
One day before the one month expiry date is up, I suddenly felt this heartache inside me. I thought to myself "Shit! At first acting acting nia, how come now I got feelings for her?" I decided that I was not just going to let it end just like that! Once again I acted on impulse. Since these are all happening on the online chatroom, I figured I got nothing to lose apart from the size of my balls. So that night, I put on my straightest face and confessed my feelings to Nicole.
I wished I could tell you that beautiful words came out from me sweet like candy, and she was so touched that she cried and said that she secretly loved me all these while. But it didn’t. It came out in a mess. A total mess. Here’s what happened – after confessing my feelings to her, I asked her "Eh, can we don’t pretend to break up or not?". I could sense her pity for me when she replied "Ok lah! :)" when she probably meant "Stupid asshole. What a total failure trying to be romantic lah! You think I really like you ah? Dream on lah! I pity you nia, so I said yes just to make you happy."But I was still happy. Though now come to think about it, I never officially asked her to by my girlfriend. Oops!
This prompts me to question. Does a guy really have to ask a girl to be his girlfriend for it to be ‘official’? Can’t we just act naturally and assume that she is my girlfriend if we were doing everything lovers do? We’re not asking for a marriage proposal after all! I am interested to know how many boyfriends out there, like me, never bothered to pop the question because well… the answer is obvious enough!
The Cashier at Coles
One of the reasons why I love Perth so much, is the people of Perth.
I think Perth people are the friendliest, most laid-back and fun people in the entire world. Whilst there are exceptions, a majority of people in Perth are truly down-to-earth and nice people. Strangers would greet you when you meet them in the park, and you don’t have to be paranoid about them having harbouring some evil intentions. If you try to strike up a conversation with someone you never met, you can easily talk for a good 45 minutes and then part, knowing that there’s more to chat about next time.
A few days back, I had this conversation with a cashier at Coles supermarket near my place.
*Kenny places the groceries on the conveyor belt.*
Cashier (some young chinese girl, most probably Australian-born): “Hi how are you?”
K: “I’m good. Looking forward to the weekend.”
C: “Why? Got anything planned?”
K: “Nahh… just gonna relax that’s all.”
C: “Yea me too, weekends are the only time when I can go shopping myself.”
K: “Feels good to be on the other side of the counter, don’t it? Heh.”
C: “Yea, I can never get used to being on the opposite side of the counter”
K: *smiles*
C: *scanning 3 bottles of 2L milk* “That’s a lot of milk there.”
K: “I know. I have trouble producing enough milk myself that’s why.”
C: *laughs* “That’s worrying.”
K: *swipes credit card*
C: “Do you go to the gym?”
K: “In fact I do. How did you know? Do you go to the same gym as I do?”
C: “No, just that you look like someone who goes to the gym.”
K: “How do I look like someone who goes to the gym?”
C: “Well, you have that kind of body shape… People who go to the gym usually have that kind of body shape.”
K: *looks at myself* “Are you trying to say that I look fat?”
C: “Of course not! That kind of body look nice.”
K: “You can say that I look good. I don’t mind.”
C: “Yeah, you look hot!”
K: “Wow. Thanks, I’m flattered. I’ve never heard that from someone I don’t know!”
*Kenny smiles, takes groceries and leaves happily.*
All of the sudden I feel like a supermodel. Like this…
That made my day. After so many years of being called ‘fat’ (and other less hostile variations like ‘chubby’, ‘huggable’, ’round’, etc) by almost everyone I know, someone finally recognises my err… perfection. 🙂
And that’s the reason why I like Perth. Where else in the world can you find a supermarket cashier who scans your groceries, and then tells you that you’re hot?
kennysia.com is 1 month old!
kennysia.com was officially registered at 12:05am on the 1st January 2005 (Kuching time). Yes, when everyone else was in town doing countdowns and celebrating the new year, I was sitting in front of my computer. Since 2004 is a year I’d rather forget, I figured 2005 should be a time to start something new. Hence, the new site.
On the 4th January, after sorting out all the technical bits and pieces, I installed Movable Type 3.14 and published the first entry on my blog, thus officially starting kennysia.com. On the 16th January, I added some sponsored links on my blog, hoping to earn extra cash to cover the cost of the blog. Thus far, I have earned a grand total of *drum rolls*… 5 US CENTS. Thank you for your overwhelming support, guys!
I started this site on impulse and without putting much thought into what I want out of it. The way it stands right now, it looks like a rojak of things I have done in the past, things I am doing now, things that are fun and unusual, as well as an odd social commentary piece every now and then. Readership has been slowly increasing since I started.
Here are the 5 most popular entries in kennysia.com’s first month, according to the number of visits to the permalink of that entry.
- January 28 – Jenna Jameson’s “Moan Tone”
- January 24 – Letter of Resignation
- January 23 – The day I knew my father contracted cancer
- January 30 – I feel like swallowing myself
- January 25 – What happened when I tendered my resignation
Top 5 search key phrase from search engines:
- "jenna jameson moan tones"
- "tara reid in ralph mag"
- "lx700 mx1000 mouse receiver "
- "drinking beer birthday cards "
- "grappa kuching"
Jenna Jameson topped both lists? That’s ridiculous! Proves how many hornbags out there are downloading my moan tones. Geez.
Regardless, here are my personal favourite entries from kennysia.com’s first month:
- January 08 – United Colors of Benetton Condoms
Its the first unusual yet funny experiment I’ve taken! - January 13 – Think Happy Thoughts
I love interactions among bloggers, and this entry did just that… despite having only a grand total of THREE responses. 🙂
One of my favourite things to do each day was to look at my website statistics. It shows visitors from different countries that visited my site. Obviously Australia and Malaysia should dominate the list, since that’s where most of my friends are at, but there are a few surprising ones…
Well that’s it, I’d like to thank everyone for visiting my blog! Its nothing much – just a small piece of my life, but I hope you enjoyed reading as much as I enjoyed writing. Updating this blog sure helps me get through the one month that I have stayed at home alone, with no one else to keep my company except my computer.
How shall I celebrate this momentous occasion? Why, with a few bottles of alcohol of course!
Dear blog, we have our ups and downs, and we have been through a lot together. Yet, this is just the beginning of a long long journey. 🙂 Have a bottle of Cocksucking Cowboy, mate. Cheers!
Cutting Away Depression
This is going to be one helluva graphic entry and its not for the faint hearted. If you can’t stand blood, gore, and filthy images. Please bail out now.
Lately I have been hearing stories of how people (usually girls) cut themselves when they are/were going through bouts of depression. The ‘experts’ call it self-harm, self-injury, or self-abuse, which also includes all sorts of other behaviour that inflict pain and damage serious enough to cause scarring on one’s body. These are usually done to make oneself ‘feel better’.
I first learnt about cutting when I was really young, probably about 13 or 14 years old. I read in the newspaper how two lesbian lovers from St Teresa’s Secondary School carved each others name on their thighs with a pen knife. My reaction that time, predictably, was "Siao ah!".
I first saw the act of cutting when I watched Annabel Chong’s documentary last year. Annabel Chong, after falling victim to gang rape in London, and after being screwed by 252 men* free of charge in breaking the Guinness Book of Records, we see her as a nervous wreck. (*clarification: 251 who did it physically, plus the one director who screwed her out of the US$12,000 appearance fee, which was supposed to be for her University tuition fees.) I watched, as Annabel Chong used a knife and slitted the anterior of her forearm on camera. "I feel numb. I just wanted to feel… something." she explained.
The act of cutting has often been misunderstood. "They’re doing it just to seek attention lah!"
"They must be crazy to cut themselves." I doubt cutting is attention-seeking, because most cutters hide their wounds by wearing love sleeve or cut themselves in places not normally seen, like on the thighs. And also, it turns out that cutting isn’t something that only happens to crazy people. Lately, I have known perfectly sane people – people that I know personally – who cuts themselves as a way to cope with stress and depression. One described it as sad, yet beautiful in a way – beautiful because its something she can control, unlike her moods.
I don’t exactly know what triggered their depression and motivated them to cut themselves. Abuse by loved ones in the past is most likely a significant factor. One theory was that they were beaten up or abused when they were young when they did something wrong, so it would almost be like they expected to be abused when something overwhelming goes wrong in their life, although it might be things that are not within their control. They cut themselves to be in control. Of course that’s just generalising. There are teenagers who cut themselves simply because ‘everyone else is doing it, like smoking’. They did it for social acceptance.
Some people grow out of it, like a temporary phase in life that when you matured and you just stopped doing it. Unfortunately some people don’t. That’s dangerous because people who cuts themselves are usually suicidal as well. I guess it is important that people seek help when they find themselves self-harming. Talking to a trusted person or a loved one about it seem to help, and seeking professional help from a psychiatrist should definitely be considered as well. Consider taking up a religion (no, not those satanic ones) and start reciting prayers because that seemed to have helped a lot of people. Cutting yourself is a behaviour that hurts not only yourself, but the people around you as well. They are hurt too when you put that knife to your arm. You have already been through so much, and you have been hurt so much – why inflict more pain on yourself and on the people around you? I do hope you look at life in the face, grabbing life by the balls and show them who’s in control. And I wish you all the best in recovering.
The whole thing just make me cringe, yet I feel sorry for them. I wanted to help them but I do not know what to do. I tried to imagine myself back when I was 17 or 18, and the times before I met Nicole. I felt low because of a variety of reasons – I can’t find acceptance within my group of friends, I felt the pressure of keeping up with my studies, I felt tied up by the lack of freedom given by my parents. I remembered my bouts of ‘depression’ if you want to call it that way, and the thought of cutting myself never even once went through my head. Yet I pulled it through. Everytime I feel low, I go to the gym with a stomach full of rage and anger, armed with earphones filled with pumping music, and then I just take it all out on the weights, go home to bed with an body overdosed with endorphins, and wake up the next day with sore muscles all over my body. So, I guess I was abusing myself in a way – except I was injuring my muscles instead of the surface of my skin. 😉 Whatever doesn’t kill you makes you stronger – that’s true.
I’d like to hear from you. Have you ever cut yourself? If so, what was going through your mind when you do it? What triggered you to do it? If not, how did you cope with stress and depression when it hits you? Please leave comments, and remember that you may remain anonymous if you want. I would love to hear your side of the story.
I leave you with a quote, so gross yet so true, courtesy of the philosopher Kim. (That girl has been churning out quotes after quotes like Confucius.) Artwork by yours truly. Feel free to spread it around. 🙂
Life as a Fugitive
Today, my blog was discovered by my brother. He googled my name and found out my site.
Not good.
What I get later is a 30 minute rant disguised as a friendly advice, littered with words like ‘privacy’ and ‘family’ and ‘competitors’.
For those who do not understand what the fuss is all about, my family is a high profile family in Kuching trying to keep a low profile. Obviously they do not appreciate being thrown into the public limelight.
Although I started kennysia.com based on impulsive decision, I did think through possible consequences of putting myself on the online realm. I figured if people want to know what I look like, all they need to do is search for my name in Friendster and that sepia photo of me striking a pose will pop up. That’s provided they know my name. Why go through all the measures of “hiding” yourself like a fugitive. If people are smart enough, they can get any piece of information they want by any means necessary. Even high profile entrepreneurs like Steve Jobs (Macintosh) or John Carmack (iD Software) keep blogs.
In terms of respecting the family’s privacy, I took measures. I never mentioned the names of my family members, and I never mentioned the name of family business. So in case anyone googled, say, my father’s name, my blog won’t show up. Sure, if people googled “Kenny”, this blog would pop up. Then again, that’s provided they know my name in the first place. Even so, what I wrote here are things that I am happy to share with anyone. I am not ashamed of what I write, including the crude ones like the UCB Condom experiments and the Moan Tone. I tell crude jokes all the time, and if people want to judge me for that so be it.
Heck, I didn’t even put Nicole’s picture up on my blog because she requested not to.
I would like to think that I have control of my own privacy. I would like to think that I have control on how much or how little I want to tell people. For example, I will not tell people the size of my penis (its gigantic btw). I would never reveal any company secrets. I would never reveal my home address or anyone’s phone numbers. Try going to whois.com and query my site – you get nothing.
I would like to also think that I respect other people’s privacy. I will never put up unflattering photos of people without first seeking permission. I am not ashamed of putting my father’s picture up, because I am not ashamed to be known as his son.
Right now, my parents do not know about the existence of this blog. One thing for sure, if they knew, this blog is going down. So below are the counter measures I have thought through to protect this site.
- Deny all Malaysian IP visitors to this site. Sorry everyone! Obviously not, 90% of my friends are in Malaysia.
- Block my site off Google permanently. Allow no search engine to crawl my site. Therefore losing the ability to gain new visitors.
- Bask in the limelight of Google, but use a pseudonym instead of my real name. So instead of being known as Kenny, I shall be known as Kenny Sim. 🙂
- Stop blogging about my personal life, and start blogging about some mundane things instead, like book reviews. It will be like Mum-Mum, but for books. And the web address will be changed to http://www.tak-chek.info. Watch, as my readership free fall.
This is bloody ridiculous. I guess I’ll just have to deal with it naturally when the time comes. Meanwhile, if you do happen to log onto kennysia.com one day and find that it no longer exist – you know what happened, and I apologise in advance.
Reflections on Perth – 2000
28 days left.
I just got off the phone with my mom. My father has been losing more and more weight. Last time I was back, he had already lost a lot of weight. His clothes were clearly too big for him, and his big broad shoulders that used to be round was instead caved in. It pains me to imagine what he look like now.
Well here’s another instalment of my time in Perth. I got a digital camera around that time, so do enjoy the pictures. No more irrelevant image placeholders. 🙂
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Can we go to war please? Can we? Can we? Can we? Can we? Can we? Can we? Can we?
The year was 2000. At 12 midnight, the Y2K Millennium Bug struck, causing thousands of airplanes to fall of the air… wait that didn’t happen. 🙂
Something worst happened though. George W Bush won the highly controversial US Presidential Election against Al Gore, thus beginning his reign of terror. More conspiracy theories about Lady Diana’s death surfaced on Women’s Weekly magazine. And my all time favourite reality TV series – Survivor premieres.
I was 18 years old, which means I was finally legal. 🙂 It didn’t matter though because for the past 2 years, I had been successfully following my father into casinos without the bouncer checking my ID. They would always check my sister’s ID and sometimes my brother’s too, but never me. I don’t know if that’s a good thing or a bad thing.
Its my second year at University, and I was beginning to feel the pressure of keeping up my good academic grades thus far. The kiasu spirit in me was failing and I could feel it. When I was in high school it was easier to compete with other students, but its a whole new ball game at University. At Uni, the students here chose their course because they’re good at it and they like it, not because they are required to do it. They’re mostly DUXes, Best Physics and Best Maths students in their respective schools themselves. I was competing with the best of the best in Western Australia, and it was difficult.
It came to a point where I said to myself "Ahhh… screw it. I have had my peak. I was the DUX in my high school; I graduated in the top 0.6% of the state; I’ve achieved what I wanted to achieve and its time for me to enjoy life." And that was that. I began to take it easy, stop being so kiasu, get involved with the International Students Committee (ISC) more. And goddammit I need to change my nerdy image.
Thus beginning my transformation, for better and for worse.
THE BAD: As soon as I put less emphasis on my studies, my grades slipped from an 80 average to a 70 average. 🙁
THE GOOD: I finally have a life. 🙂
Instead of burying my head in the books as I did for the past 3 years in Perth, I began going to the gym, organising major social and cultural events on campus, and just meet lots and lots and lots of people. My social circle virtually exploded this year.
It was definitely a refreshing change for me. I had course mates who finished University after spending 4 years of attending lectures, go home and then study a bit more. They graduated Uni without meeting anyone other than their course mates and their lecturers, and they went through their young adult life without even having a girlfriend. Sure they get a scholarship offer and a first class honours in the end, but they’re missing out some of the best moments in life and social opportunities that they simply could not get outside of Uni.
As soon as I began to have more acquaintances, I began to go out more. And as soon as I began to go out more, I began to want to look good. The clothes that I got for free from some Coca-Cola promotion simply doesn’t cut it anymore. So I committed a sin. I began buying my own clothes. Nothing expensive though, just the average middle-priced range of clothing from Levi’s, ROMP and Just Jeans. That’s enough to put a strain in my AUD30 a week allowance from my parents. I did not have a AUD500 a week allowance or a gold Visa card that my friends had from their parents. And despite how I ask/beg/plead my parents, they simply wouldn’t budge. Money no enough. I need more money.
So what’s an 18 year old boy gonna do when he has no money? Work at McDonald’s? Wash toilets? Prostitute myself to rich housewives or *gasp* gay lords? No no no no no. I had to return to my nerdy roots. I rememberer how I tutored Wendy before and I enjoyed it. I decided to do it again, and this time round I will ask for $$$.
Kenny and Sylvia – WA Multicultural Week 2000 Opening Ceremony
I put up an ad offering tutoring services in Physics and Mathematics for high school students. It didn’t take long for a father of a Year 12 student to respond to my ad. My first client. Damn I was nervous. I was shaking when he called and spoke to me. This father was no easy person to deal with. He wanted the best tutor for his child, and he would accept no one without first asking for their resume. A resume?! I don’t even have a resume! I was 18 for God’s sakes! I hastily prepared one, listed all those big big awards I won and faxed it over to him.
Luckily he liked what he saw, and he asked me to meet him at his place so he can introduce me to his daughter, Esther Lee. Did I hear daughter? I was secretly smiling inside. The initial meeting went well. It was supposed to be a meeting to evaluate her progress in Physics so far, but to me it felt more like going for a matchmaking service. I was so nervous I trembled everytime I talked. It didn’t help the fact that Esther is Korean and looked naturally beautiful. We agreed to meet for 2 hours every week at Garden City library, and I charged her AUD20 per hour for the Physics tutoring. It was still the best job ever – I get paid to hang out with a pretty girl to talk about topics that’s second nature to me.
Then I committed another sin. I took my first pay, went to Garden City shopping center and bought a Tommy Hilfiger perfume. Then it became a terrible addiction. My next one was Burberry Weekend, then cK Eternity, then Davidoff Coolwater, then DKNY Man and next thing you know I have this huge collection of perfume in my bathroom and no money left in my wallet. I don’t even know how the heck I was going to finish using all these perfume. I think if I were to go into the coffin and it I still all these perfume left, I want to be sprayed with all of them first before they put the lid over me.
Guild Elections 2000 – Team eXpect
Anyway, near the end of the 2000, two life-changing events occurred. The first was that I ran and won the Student Guild (student union) elections for the position of International Student Committee Convenor (president), thus beginning my first serious step into student politics, and also marking the first leadership role I took. Just for the record, it wasn’t as bad or as boring as it sound. 🙂 But I’ll spare you from the pain and write about it in the next instalment. Heh.
The second occurred in an mirc internet chatroom #ironic which Wendy had introduced to me a while back. (Yes, in the olden days, there were no blogs and the only way for people to socialise online was through mirc.) I had been popping into this channel sporadically back then. Most of the time I was inundated with ‘asl’ when I went online and finished with a ‘gtg’ after 3 lines of conversation.
One day, I was helping a friend of mine do a survey, so I was privately messaging each chatter and asking him/her some questions. Unfortunately for me, I was mistaken as a pervert and subsequently banned from the channel by an operator nicknamed sapphire`LiL`aNgeL. I wasn’t happy. So I asked for mercy. She unbanned me, and strangely enough we began talking. I introduced myself as Kenny…
…And she introduced herself as Nicole. 🙂
I Feel Like Swallowing Myself
Recently, I offended a blogger. Judging by the depressing mood of her entries, its obvious she’s going through a hard time after a breakup. I’ve never met this blogger. In fact, I don’t even know who she is. I was just concerned that she treated herself unhealthily to get through it. So, smart Kenny left a comment on one of entries. I wrote “Its just a break up. Its not the end of the world.”
She shut down her blog the next day.
Its not the first time I offended someone I barely even knew. I have this stupid habit of saying something too honest and too frank straight out of my mouth, most of the time without thinking. Then straight after I said it, I regreted immediately. I just wanted to curl myself up into a ball, lock myself away and throw away the key.
I’m interested to know if any of you have a similar experience. Have you or someone you know said something that you immediately regret the second after it came out of your mouth? Something that makes you want to swallow yourself up. If you have, comment, or blog an entry on it. 🙂 If not, gee… thanks for making me feel bad as I am already.
When I was 15, I used to work at a local supermarket. As it was the festive season, my working hours stretch from 8:30am to 12am. By midnight, I was exhausted. I saw a middle aged man walked into the store. He wanted to buy a bag of rice, but he couldn’t make up his mind which bag of rice to purchase. So I watched him as he picked up a bag of rice, placed it on the electric scales, check the weight, put it back, picked up another bag of rice, and repeat the process. It was interesting watching him so determined to find the bag with the highest net weight. So I said to him jokingly, “Come on… there can’t be that much difference in the weight anyway.”
He calmly put that bag of rice back. Then he came up to me and he just exploded. “SO WHAT? WHAT’S WRONG WITH WHAT I’M DOING? I’M JUST MINDING MY OWN BUSINESS!” And with that, he stormed out of the store whilst I was standing there red-faced. I felt like shit for the rest of the week.
Then there’s another incident when I was 16. I was invited by Jasmine, a friend of Wendy to attend her birthday party. I have heard a lot about Wendy’s group of friends, so I was quite eager to meet them all, especially a guy called Michael who happened to be the birthday girl’s crush at the time. So there we were, 15-20 of us sitting around in a circle introducing ourselves, and I asked which one is Michael. Apart from me, there were only two other guys at the party. One was slouching on the sofa, hands in pocket and a cap over his head. The other had a shaved head, skinny physique and squatting on the floor in a gorilla-like pose. I pointed to the latter and asked “Is he Michael?”. Michael smiled, and the birthday girl said “Not bad…. you’re correct, but how did you guess?”. Without thinking I replied jokingly, “Well that was easy. Michael sounded like ‘Monkey’, and he looked like a monkey so I guessed it must be him.”
There was silence for 5 seconds, but it felt like a week to me. I immediately knew I said something wrong and I just wanted to swallow myself up and vanish from the face of the Earth. Obviously Michael wasn’t happy, the birthday girl wasn’t happy, and I felt like an outcast for the rest of the evening. We met a week later for dimsum and Michael still wasn’t talking to me. I felt like crap.
Since then I tried to watch my speech. Sometimes I just can’t help myself. I wanted to joke around sometimes, but people take me a bit too seriously and I ended up offending people I barely knew.
So if anyone of you are reading this, especially Michelle, please accept my apologies. My brain went on vacation sometimes and my mouth started to act on its own. I am sorry.
Jenna Jameson’s “Moan Tone”
Here’s an interesting tidbit. Legend porn star Jenna Jameson recently released "moan tones" for your mobile phones – ringtones that moan sexually when someone called! For US$2.50 a pop, you can choose from a variety of moans, and sexual noises all recorded by the blond bombshell. Source: CNN
I would download one and give it a uhh… sound check if I can. 😉 Since I don’t know where I can get one, here’s one I created myself. If your phone supports MP3 ring tones, feel free to use it and spread it around. And no, that’s not my voice in it. Haha!
This moan tone seems to be incredibly popular because its the most requested file on my webserver. As a result, a lot of my allowed bandwidth is consumed and I am starting to pay the excess bandwidth cost out of my pocket. 🙁 If you feel that I shouldn’t be paying for your “moan tone” entertainment, please support me by making a small donation. Even $1 is enough. 🙂 Thank you!
CHECK THAT NO ONE IS AROUND, THEN CLICK!
This is probably the only ringtone you wouldn’t want to set its volume too high! As much as I agree that it is a fun and novel idea to have some porn star’s moaning sounds in place of your standard polyphonic ringtones, I shudder to think of a few examples where having moaning ringtones would create an awkward situation.
You are running late to work, and your boss is waiting at the door staring at you furiously.
Boss: *cough* And so… why were you late?
You: Sorry sorry! My girlfriend suddenly asked me to do something for her urgently! I promise I won’t be late again!
*Moaning sounds*
Boss: What was that?
You are at the cinema watching Finding Nemo with lots of kids around.
Girlfriend: Hey, have you set your phone to silent?
You: Oh crap! Not yet… where did I put my phone?
*Moaning sounds*
Innocent 4 year old boy: Mommy, how come Dory screaming so excitedly one?
You are in the bedroom when your mom comes in and gives you an impromptu sex education.
Mom: Ah boy ah, now that you’ve grown up. Mommy want to talk to you about girls. You see hah, bla bla bla bla bla…
You: Aiyooo… not again!
Mom: So that’s why, you must not have sex before marriage, because if the girl become pregnant then very mahuan one! You are still young, and…
You: Mom, actually…
*Moaning sounds*
Gives a whole new meaning to your phone’s vibration, doesn’t it? Heh.
If you can find a better use of a moaning mobile phone ringtone, let me know. 😉