one of the main reasons my mother doesn't particularly like my father's side of the family (all sisters) is that they're generally a rather naggy bunch, and great busybodies as well. this was really quite bad in the past, when they were younger and had more energy to nag and involve themselves in extra activities.
i realised over the past week that my mother still hasn't learnt how to manage them, even after 30 years. this year we were hosting the celebrations so everyone came over and my mother and maid did the cooking. my eldest aunt arrived the earliest and somehow found her way into the kitchen, where she started to help out with everything and quickly became the 'kitchen supervisor.'
she was nagging the shit outta them in the kitchen and it was really annoying even for me to listen to her, so i can't really imagine how my mother and maid felt. (ok i can imagine it because she would nag the shit outta me back when i was younger and when she had more energy and thus was way worse than now)
my mother was just there going along with whatever she was saying, so i couldn't figure out if my aunt was really being useful in the kitchen or what. it was only later when my mother started talking about it with my maid that i understood that they were both dying there.
at that point i was also getting annoyed so i did what my mother should have done right from the beginning: chase her out of the kitchen. it was surprisingly easy, i just told her to go sit down and we'll deal with the cooking, and she did, after some final 'instructions.'
this made me think that a lot my mother's problems with the in-laws could have been solved by some simple people management. it's not like she's some docile creature, but she just finds it impossible to assert herself with them and this lead to so many days of frustration and annoyance.
i think my mother finds all these chinese new year stuff to be a chore. me, i feel that it's alright, maybe because i don't really have to do anything except meet some relatives and collect money.
some people may think that it's a waste of time to meet all these relatives once a year and forget about their existence for the remaining days, but i think getting together once a year is better than never a year.
although we don't really have anything in common nor are we really important parts of each others' lives, we are still relatives, all related by blood. it's good to be checking in once a year to make sure everyone's alive and well.
anyway one of the things my relatives like to talk about is how much i resemble my father. every year without fail they'll be like "wowwww you look exactly like your father when he was younger! hey [other relative] come and look at him!"
i'll just be smiling politely while i'm thinking hey, is it really that much of a surprise that i resemble my father? hello? genetics? magic?
oh yeah my fart is so damn smelly now after eating all those new year goodies that i'm having a headache from smelling it.
i'm not a complete fan of his work because sometimes i feel that it gets a little too underwhelming and tedious to a certain extent, but oh my when he gets the right mix his songs are perfect.
the zombies were coming our way. they had overrun the entire city and there was nowhere left to run and no help in sight. we set up our last line of defence in the lobby of our apartment building. without any guns, all we had were knives and other makeshift weapons. what we could do was only to keep our barricades up and hope to last as long as possible.
i took my girlfriend aside and hugged her tightly in my arms. "no matter what happens, just know that i love you now." she seemed fine and pretty upbeat about our chances in this hell and it lifted my spirits a little too.
the horde was now closing in and the fast ones were already banging on the doors and windows, rattling our flimsy barricades. we rushed to the barricades and pushed against them, keeping as quiet as we could and hoping that the zombies would leave if they thought the place as empty.
it wasn't working and all the banging soon attracted an entire group of them. the barricades were falling and rotting zombie arms were finding their way through, grabbing at whatever they could get their hands on. some of our group got scared and ran away, allowing the barricades to fall and soon the zombies were climbing in.
we fought as hard as we could, slashing and bashing away but it hardly helped. more barricades fell as the men behind were swarmed by the zombies inside the building. the situation was hopeless and i gathered the remaining survivors into the lift and retreated to my apartment high up on the 21st floor. with any luck they'd leave before they found us, but otherwise it'll still give us some precious time to regroup.
from the look in her eyes, i could see that my girlfriend was losing hope and i felt worried for her. i held her and promised that everything would be fine, although in my heart i knew that our situation was dire. there was no way i'd let anything happen to her while i was still around and even if we died, at the very least i didn't want her last hours to be filled with such fear and dread.
the apartment didn't have a gate, just a lousy wooden door that was already falling apart. we started work immediately, looking for planks or whatever we could find to seal up the door. everything was going well. the top half of the door was done and i thought we were finally going to be safe when they came again.
it was much faster than we were expecting and it caught us all off-guard. they were banging at the door and i quickly sat against it to prevent them from pushing it open. i called out for them to bring more stuff to block the bottom part of the door but they were slow and the door was splintering.
hands reached in and were grabbing, clawing at my arms, my face. i couldn't move away because i knew that once they made their way through, we were all dead. i saw the horror in her eyes as my girlfriend watched helplessly. more hands snaked in and around my body...
i had a little 'holy shit' moment just now. my friend posted photos of us when we were in our final semester of poly and i was looking at it thinking "hey that wasn't that long ago..." when i realised that holy shit it was 5 years ago.
and also recently i was thinking about my secondary 1 and 2 days and holy shit it was already more than 10 years ago.
anyway last week i went to my brother's army pop ceremony with my family and his girlfriend, and i recalled that it was around this time last year when he first started his strange behaviour so i guess they've been together for about a year now.
my sister too has her boyfriend over all the time although she's the only one here that likes him.
i just found it a little strange that both my siblings seem so easily contented while i've been restless, or rather i've always been questioning things when it comes to such matters.
hopefully now that i'm older i'll have more answers to my questions.
it was a few years ago when high-waisted pants first came back into fashion. it was first picked up by a select few misguided fashionistas and i thought it looked so damn bad that they must've been wearing it solely for its kitschy appeal. they looked like maids for fuck's sake.
then as all diseases go, it slowly spread to the general female population. the problem with this pandemic is that these girls get influenced by the look of high-waisted pants on models with a certain body type. on the average female, it just doesn't work and it throws their entire body out of proportion.
it is probably the most unflattering piece of clothing ever. it shortens the torso and cuts the body at such an awkward place, right at tummy where there's flab on most people. it flattens the butt to non-existance and makes the thighs look thick in comparison.
i suppose it's ok to wear if you're one of the girls who doesn't bother about looking good or if you're trying to look as unappealing as possible for whatever reason. otherwise, i think it's fair to assume that you just haven't realised how terrible it looks and i suggest you take my advice and burn those pants.
i thought i'd start a new project for this year, something easy to accomplish and still interesting enough. what could i do? being so damn lazy i decided that i'll just take a photograph each day at exactly 6pm, of whatever i'm doing at that time.
i suppose it'll be fun for me to look through it at the end of the year, provided it doesn't end on 21 december.
so on the first day of the new year i was absolutely on the ball, glancing at the time since 530 because i didn't wanna miss it.
on the second day i looked at the time and realised i'd have to change my project to "i'll just take a photograph each day at approximately 6pm."
on the third day i was sleeping and fortunately i woke up in time to snap a shot.
on the fourth day my phone broke down but fortunately it still worked well enough for a photograph.
on the fifth day i sent my phone for repair and delayed it long enough for me to get a shot at 6pm.
now i have no phone and no other camera so my project is on hold. i'll have to wait an entire year before i can complete this project with all days intact. (again, provided the world doesn't end on 21 december)
considering all things, 2011 was quite a good year for me. a little boring you could say... nothing happened, but that's good.
there wasn't any time when my mood was really down or bad, but neither did it go up. no new loves and no love lost, no heartbreaks and no heartaches.
i guess 2011 was good because it was finally a year that wasn't bad. really for the first time in... let me count... 6-7 years that i haven't felt particularly bad at any point of the year.
the only thing i didn't like was that i spent 4 months studying. that was boring as shit.