... my ghostly school?

Some people are sharing their ghost stories! Check out Lina... and Foong (71 comments and counting!)... and here's me, from a few years ago.

My school has had its share of spooky happenings.

You see, during the Japanese Occupation, it is said that the building was used as a hospital, and that many people died there. Apart from Japanese soldiers, there have also been sightings of a headless nun, brandishing a bloody cross.

It seems that a few years after I graduated from high school, there was a case of mass hysteria at the school, where many students reported having seen these otherworldly beings. I can't help but wonder if I would have seen anything, if I'd still been there... but it's okay, I think I'll be fine having avoided that experience! :D



Back in the late 90's, there was a reunion organised to bid goodbye to the school building: the school was moving to Selayang, so the real St Mary's School building was going to be left empty, another victim of development. So a whole bunch of St Marians, from still schooling to yuppies to mothers to perhaps even grandmothers descended to 7 Jalan Tengah for one last time.

The event was due to start at like 8pm, and of course a bunch of us arrived early, and, with nothing else better to do, explored the buildings,,, and then one of us suggested to visit the old bungalow.

This old bungalow situated behind the main building is surrounded by old trees, and is where the Prefects Room was, where the small bookstore was, where the Sick Bay was, where Christian fellowship was held, where an old piano was used during said CF sessions, where the trumpets and clarinets of the school band would practice when not marching on the field with us drummers. It was also the location of reports of the piano playing when no one was around, of voices being heard but again, no one around, and other spooky stuff.



Turns out later that there were one or two sensitives/sighted people, who ~SAW~ the nun as we approached the bungalow: they tried to dissuade us from exploring the rotting building, but, well, we didn't know any better.

One step in, though, and I knew just from a practical perspective, that the building was unsafe. Like I said, it was rotting badly. One of the girls, though, was kinda running around exclaiming loudly at everything, and when we said to be careful, let's just go, she said, no lah it's safe, see? and started jumping up and down on the floor.

The floorboards broke, sending her through the floor!

Well, actually she was stuck about halfway. Thankfully! If she'd fallen all the way through?? Under the bungalow?? Where it has always been creepy even in the middle of the bright afternoon? And there we were at night??? Bleeaaahhh!! I got the shivers just thinking about it!!

Anyways, so we pulled her out, and got the heck out of there!

Okay so the above isn't a actual ghost story, but, as discussed recently among some of who had been there that night, it wouldn't be surprising if "the spirits" just didn't appreciate all that din she was making...

... who knows...

For the longest time, the school building lay deserted.

Those of us who worked in the area, or happened to pass by, would update us every once in a while. "So sad, it's just left like that..." "Can you imagine? The canteen is now a mamak shop?" "The school field is a parking lot!"

Someone reported about having gone to visit the deserted school, and having chatted with the pak gad (the guard / attendant) about having gone to school there. He then shared that "... he used to work till 11pm but, then, these days, he stopped at 7pm (maghrib time) because..normally after maghrib hours..he would hear people singing an English song in the hall (his table & chair is placed at the seniors toilet-next to the hall kan??) and sometimes, he'd hear books being flung around..."

Early this year, the news came: after lying deserted for almost a decade, the buildings were gone. Development had started. The image on the right is a birds eye view taken from the nearby KL Tower.

So sad! But the deserted building really was an eyesore, so I suppose it's good that things are finally being done?

... but word is they are going to build luxury condominiums there.

I kinda doubt there will be many, if any at all, former students from St Mary's who would be lining up to get a piece of that pie...

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The Fragility of Life

I am still reeling from the shock of the news that awaited me the yahoo email account devoted almost exclusively to my Malaysian schoolmates.

St Mary's Primary and Secondary School was where I grew up.

Where I made lifelong friends.

Friends who may not be in immediate touch, what with my lack of communication except for this blog, occasional text messages, and rather strict moderation of our Yahoo!Group. But we St Marians (and I make this statement based not just on my batch!) have been blessed with this community-mindedness, this cohesiveness, this friendship that continues despite the "realities" of adult life, including, as all too common in Malaysia, shall we say, racial polarization?

Aaaaannnnyway... what I'm getting at is I've always looked back on my time in St Mary's with great fondness. My last 2 years especially - Form 4 & 5 - was where I kinda joined my "gang" ... nothing gangsterly laaaa, more like, finally, a group of people with whom I actually ... belonged. Among the people in this gang is someone we fondly call Ojai. She was the more loud and outspoken one, dynamic, outgoing, and also the first of the gang to get hitched. Over thirteen years of the ups and downs of married life, some of which was shared with me the last time we met, and my that was one of those last-minute things that just kinda happened the night before my flight out, Neome and I met her at Bangsar and chatted for *how* long??!! :)

... and then ...

On Friday 5th September 2008, around 5:40 am, while having sahur (eating before the start of fasting), Ojai's husband complained of dizziness and numbness on one side of his body. Got him to a clinic, suspected a stroke, but that was eliminated.

A CT scan told the cold hard truth - a brain tumour.

A big one.

Like 25% of the brain was the tumor. And it was intimately involved in the blood supply to the brain, thus complete removal would not be possible. But removal needed to be done. He went under the knife on Monday 8th September. There were major complications during the op, but he emerged, and is now recovering better than the doctor's expectations.

I can only imagine, and poorly, how her and her family's life changed that day.

And it is with pride I share her advice to us, which reflects how she healthily she is dealing with what has happened:

Friends..please dont ever take ur health, ur life for granted... go for regular check-ups (it wont prevent the disease but it can help early detection & cure), maintain health insurance (at least have 1, small if not big) to assist u should God honour u with test such as this.

Most of all, Value your time with those who matters as u cant be sure of how much time u've got left.

Well... A lot may feel this is sad..but I feel blessed.. as God has given us...a second chance to make better paths in our lives...

Friends.. I'm taking this opportunity to thank all of you for your prayers/thoughts/support.... if I ever missed telling you guys, I'm telling u guys now... I'm glad to have friends like u... mmmmmmmuuuuuuaaaahhhhhhh!!!!!

-OJAI-

A sloppy mmmmmmmuuuuuuaaaahhhhhhh!!!!! right back at ya, dearie!
My prayers are with you and your family, Ojai.

/out

I was never a huge fan, but ...

... for some reason, the news that the Spice Girls are reuniting and touring somehow brings a smile to my face :-)

There was something so infectious about so many of their songs, they certainly burrowed into and claimed a [small] place in my heart :-)

Girl power, indeed!

My fave spice gal? Eh, I suppose Melanie C. [sporty spice] irritated me least of all, Lol!

Anyways... so above was Spice Girls at the height of their popularity... here's how they Spice Girls Women look like now:(L-R) Posh, Sporty, Ginger, Baby, Scary.


At least TWO have had their boobs done!

random memory

"mommy mommy is that snow mommy?"

rolling of eyes, exasperated sigh: "sure, yes, that's snow."

"ooooh snow! snow!!! Mommy mommy tell the pilot to stop the plane, we want to get off and play in the snow!!"

My brother and I were quite young then, maybe 5 & 7? We were in an airplane either heading to or from Switzerland. I remember we were quite active running up and down the aisles, eagerly exploring, excited at anything and everything as only young children can be. At this scene, we were peering out of the window in the 'common area" by an emergency exit, where the flight attendants pull down seats and buckle up for landing. Us kids, we were jumping up and down in excitement and joy at the prospect of snow.

Snow was this magical thing we got to play with only in Switzerland. So either we'd not gotten our fill of playing prior to us having to get back to Malaysia, or we were so eagerly looking forward to it that we didn't want to wait till we arrived in Switzerland? Either way, that blanket of clouds the airplanes fly over when they've gained enough altitude certainly looked like snow to us :-)

To our disappointment, mother did *not* have the pilot stop the plane so we could play in the "snow".

And it was only later did I understand why a fellow passenger had been greatly amused by our ardent request.

*flash!* a-ah!

At Moomykin's prompt, I've been giving some thought as to what my earliest childhood memory might be.

I don't remember many things, and the few I do remember exist usually as flashes of images, sometimes with the emotions relating to them.

** flash! **
my brother finding a kitten under a tree, naming it Luke Skywalker.

** flash! **
playing with kittens at my cousins' place, totally enamoured by the little things, not realising that by insisting on holding on to them as they struggled to get away, they were peeing and pooping on me, and my cousins saw but didn't say anything, and I felt so stupid and ashamed when my mother discovered me sitting there, clutching the kittens, covered in shit.

** flash! **
playing in the bathtub, taking a bath, with a cousin who was spending the night at our place.

** flash! **
falling and hitting my head against a drain - i remember the *clunk* of head vs concrete, and the circumstances leading up to the fall, but nothing afterwards.

** flash! **
drinking my father's beer, and liking it, so I partook of this drink often, to the consternation of both my parents [no idea how they "cured" me of this taste, but maybe that's why I don't like beer now?]

** flash! **

Any more? Hmmmm.... none that come to me at this time.

How old was I during the above scenes? Less than 5 years old is the best i can say.

How about you? What's your earliest memory?

shingle bells, shingle bells...

A long time ago, in a galaxy far far away...

... my brother and maternal grandmother were exposed to a chicken pox carrier at the same time; they both presented with symptoms that Christmastime: my brother proceeded to get better over the following few weeks, while my grandmother has been plagued with shingles [or, perhaps "postherpetic neuralgia" is more correct] ever since.

[Same virus, but different effect on its victim, depending on the victim's age.]

Two weeks later, the day before my flight back to Malaysia, those pesky spots appeared on *my* body! I took the flight back anyway, and hoped I didn't spread it to anyone on the plane :p

My bout of chicken pox was very very very mild: nothing on my face; most of the spots were on my torso. But there weren't THAT many spots. Sure, they itched, but I had it easy. So mild, in fact, was my late [i was maybe 16 y.o.] encounter with this childhood disease that I have always wondered if I really did build immunity to it. After all, I wouldn't want to be exposed to the virus when I'm old & grey, and end up getting shingles [or worse, the postherpetic neuralgia like my g'ma!] in my old age...

That's the story, as I knew it.

Until yesterday.

Yesterday on Yahoo!News i saw something about a vaccine for shingles now being recommended for Amrericans over 60 y.o. What I read has turned my assumptions upside down about the behaviour of the varicella zoster virus [and how we got the chicken pox in Switzerland].

According to wikipedia, shingles is caused by REACTIVATION of the virus that had been dormant in the patient, perhaps even for decades. In fact, according to that Yahoo!News article, about 15 percent to 30 percent of people infected with the chicken pox virus develop shingles later in life.

Yikes!

It seems that after we are hit with chicken pox when young, our body eliminates the virus from the system *BUT* the virus *also* hibernates for decades in nerve cells around the spine. Generally, the immune system will supress reactivation of the virus... but in the elderly, this supression might fail because the body's immune system does weaken with age.

And since the reactivated chicken pox manifesting as shingles is as easily transmittable as the regular chicken pox ... and since shingles presents first as pain before the blisters emerge... perhaps it was my g'ma who infected my brother with the chicken pox that fateful xmas?

Not that I'm assigning blame, don't get me wrong! I just have always been curious as to "how it all started"... and since my brother and g'ma {as far as I know} couldn't recall having interacted with a chicken pox person 2 weeks before they got those blisters... and based on the fact one doesn't "catch" shingles per se...

I am now mentally revising the chicken pox tale to reflect the probability that my g'ma was the root cause.

I am also revising my concern about "catching" shingles when older: I should instead be concerned about those dang dormant viruses getting reactivated somehow.. but about the only thing I *can* do to address that is to keep in good health and do what I can to have a strong immune system as I get older.

yay!

my handwriting, thru the years (kinda)

Kinda cool to see the "attitude" @ 12, and the experimentation with different "styles" between 12 - 15... and how different it all is from age 6!

Unfortunately, the college & work eras are missing since the relevant notebooks and stuff are packed away elsewhere (hence the "kinda" in the title)...

Analyses of the above are welcome, btw. *grin!*

Some images from my past...

Do you recognise any of these two items?

They were an important part of my (younger) life...

1. my musical watch

I remember it was a momentous event: for our birthdays one year, my bro & i were brought to Sg Wang, and were allowed to pick out a digital watch each!! Prior to this, with our Swiss "connections" we had always had the usual wristwatches with hands on the dial.

I picked out a Casio musical watch. Don't remember what my bro chose. Mine chimed the keys of the scale when going thru different menu options, along with being symbolised by the relevant note along the 5 lines on the top part of the screen. I could choose various melodies (some Beethoven, Mozart, etc) to be set as my alarm. Really cool! :)

My main memory associated with this: as usual, in my quest to be different, I chose to have the watch run on a 24hr basis, so 1pm would show as 13:00 on the screen. And that the rest of my schoolmates complained they couldn't tell time from my watch because they had no idea what 1300hrs was. Imagine that! Looking back I see the behaviour, in such young people!, of deriding things they don't understand... and not having the mental flexibility to "flip" from a 12hr to 24hr system! To be so mentally rigid at such a young age...

2. my Mr Challenger!!

ran on a 9V battery. It had all sorts of word games to build vocabulary and language skills. I don't remember much about it except that I played "hangman" on it, and that it made this funny noise when you got the answer right :) And that I spent hours and hours with it.

They'd been sitting gathering dust for decades... decided to bite the bullet & let them go to the rubbish bin... ... and just keep a picture for the memories...

and subject my readers to them, LOL!

... and so it begins ...

so here's the room I came back to vacate ===>

Do I miss it?

Nope!
... after all, I all I did there was sleep maaah!

I'd get up to go to work, leaving @ 7 / 715am, but of course would never head straight home after work @ 5pm; after all, just cos office hours ended at 5 didn't mean my work was done at 5.

Besides, traffic outbound from the KL city center is hell between 445pm and 8pm right?

So I'd head to the other side of town instead, and hang out at Coffee Bean Ampang Point until they closed, then only head back to this apartment to shower & sleep. By then it'd be maybe 1am. Then I'd wake up at 630am and the cycle started again :D

And weekends? Outta there as soon as I could, whether to just get away, or again to hang out at Coffee Bean maaaah!

Ya lah, at that time I had my laptop, Coffee Bean was a Maxis wireless hotspot, and me & Kosh were IMing at almost every opportunity.

Now? Coffee Bean no longer is a hotspot. If I *do* wanna do the coffee&surf thing I'm forced to go to Starbucks (ugh!!!). Sure, there are at least two relatively close by, but then again, I'm carless.... bleah :p

btw, already had "Strike One" incidents with BOTH parental units yesterday.

".... and so it begins..."

My output at Age 6 (Std 1)

From my Malay exercise book


From my "writing"(??) exercise book

I've improved since then... will provide proof later, LOL!

... back when I wrote letters via snail-mail to pen-pals...

Did you ever have pen-pals?

My best pen-pal was this girl from Sweden... not sure when we lost touch - probably around the time we both went off to university. Re-established contact briefly, exchanged e-mail addresses, but again - dropped out of touch. :-( I found her e-mail address late last year and dropped her a line again, but, no reply :-( I still know her original snail-mail address by heart, maybe I can drop her a line there again, and see if I can get anywhere... if ever I do make it to Iceland, I might as well include a trip to Sweden too, eh? Would be cool to meet up one day...

Another pen-pal was this girl from the U.S... she wasn't the best at keeping in touch, and wrote only occasionally, and moved around frequently. But when I got to the U.S. for studies, I finally did drop her a line at her most recent address. Which actually reached her!! She called me, but I was about to head out the door for a football game... got her number, called her back, got an answering machine, she never called back, I didn't follow-up, and now I would have *no* idea how to hunt her down. She may no longer be in the San Francisco area, and no longer with the same last name, cos I couldn't get very far searching the white pages... Bummer.

I might have been "assigned" others, but none ever caught on like Asa & Becca.

Not sure *how* I had gotten them... while I know I participated in a pen-pal placement agency that required payment in terms of an international money cupon or something, I think my main source of pen-pals was from writing to "Dear Pen-Pal" a service provided by the tv show The Big Blue Marble.

Anyways... after the Olympics in South Korea (1988?), I wanted a pen-pal from Turkey, all because I thought Naim Suleymanoglu was sooooo cute (hey, I was a teenager! it made sense to me then!!).

I got assigned a guy, don't remember his name.

So I wrote him, and as I usually did, enclosed a recent photo of me.

The photo was taken in ~1987? : Me leaning against the shelves in the corner of my room, garbed in a slim-fit purple-&-green (Wimbledon colours!!) "baju kurung" (the traditional dress of Malays); I was looking mischeviously into the camera, this half-smile on my lips.

Yes, I really liked how I looked: it was a great ego-boost for me to see a pic where I actually liked what i saw. So I wanted to share that photo, of course. Wanted the Turkish pen-pal to like me.

... but can you guess the result?

It really gave me the creeps:
Bad enough that the Turkish guy (let's call him Naim, shall we?) wrote back in very childlike handwriting... But the letter also contained crude stick-figure drawings of a boy & a girl holding hands, with captions like "Naim and Lynne together forever" and "Naim [heart] Lynne"!!

My reaction: *W*T*F*??!

I refused to reply Naim's letter. So what if I wasted some $$ in getting him as a pen-pal... didn't want to be exchanging letters with someone who claims to love you based on a photo... It had really freaked me out!!

Also, I decided that no matter how much I liked that picture, I'd just keep it to myself from now on, no need to "show off" to anyone.

.... aaaaaanyways.... I was just thinking, in this day & age... teenagers are no longer doing snail-mail pen-pal type communication... instead they are communicating in chatrooms, blogs and IMs... just not the same thing... there's no "physicality" to it compared to getting a solid letter in the mail, y'know? And then they are now falling victim to online predators, exposed to so many things too early in their lives.

.......... Glad I'm not a teenager in this day & age!

VD#3: interview blues

Reading Oreo's recent post about interviews took me down a few lanes of memory...

"Why were you holding back during the second half of the session?"

This question was asked by my one-on-one interviewer, after a day of "group interactions" with other Management Trainee candidates for this international consumer goods company (ice cream, shampoo, soap, cooking oil... u name it, they probably manufactured it!). We'd been put through two or three scenarios/case studies, and our interactions, opinions, conduct and whatever observed and noted. Followed by the final one-on-one interview with a high-ranking member of the management team.

So, for the first one or two scenarios, I was totally myself - leading, giving opinions, asking pointed questions, etc. But during that time, I could see that there were a few of us who may have been kinda overwhelmed by what was being asked of us, and had essentially withdrawn into their shells. I felt bad for them. I started to make it a point to draw out some of the quieter ones, by asking if they had anything to add, or what they thought of so-and-so's statement.

By the time we were at our last exercise, I'd pretty much taken the back seat, and only contributed when I thought the group was losing focus, or needed a different perspective on the topic at hand.

So, my answer to the question? Something like "I figured the observers would have already been able to get a good idea of me and my capabilities from the first half; I wanted to make sure the quieter ones would be able to show what they had to offer too."

A week later, I was offered the job.

Unfortunately, within a few days of receiving this offer letter, I received orders to report for an interview with my scholarship-provider (and I *had* a 10-year employment contract in exchange for that scholarship...). Not wanting to accept a job only to be forced to resign a few months later, I had to regretfully decline the job offer.

I still wonder how different life would have been if I'd said to heck with it and just taken up that management Trainee post...

Oh well...

"Hmmph, it's very easy to get a high CGPA in the U.S. if you know what easy classes to take"

I was taken aback by the attitude and tone of this interviewer. This time it was a two-on-one interview, again at the end of a long day of numerous modules of case studies, encompassing both individual and group activities. Having already gone through something similar a few weeks earlier, I wasn't too nervous about the proceedings.

But here I was, facing a middle aged man and woman for the final stage of the interview, two people who probably would have a large role in determining where I would be shipped to for my initial posting within the company that had provided my education scholarship... yet someone was being quite the unprofessional!

I think I had a 4.75 (out of 5.00) CGPA. Sure, I took some unusual (easy??) courses like tennis and bowling and Icelandic Literature and Italian and French, but on the other end of the scale I took a few graduate-level Chemistry courses AND did an undergraduate research thesis. There are only so many "easy courses" one can take, b*tch, in the end I would need to do well in both "elective" as well as my core Chemistry subjects in order to get such a CGPA, b*tch! Besides, she was making that statement based purely on the CGPA, NOT on the transcipt which listed all the courses I'd taken! Again: what a b*tch!

I thought it was very unprofessional of her to have said such a thing.

I don't remember anything else of the interview, not even my response to her pooh-poohing my results. I'm sure I answered in a carefully neutral manner, I instinctively knew better than to challenge her and her opinions at that time. I soon forgot the name and face of the b*tch, but I remember that situation well, since it gave me flavour of what to expect of the people I was going to be working with...

I've had a handful of other interviews thru the years; nothing outstanding tho.

I know I can look forward to a few different interviews once I'm back in KL,,, once I seriously start looking for something to keep me occupied and out of the apartment lah :p And while I know the main question I will need to rehearse an answer for would be "What have you been doing for the last 1.5 years?", it won't hurt to brush up on other typical/tough interview questions: the Random Interiew Question Generator from monster.com looks like a useful tool to use. Anyone else prepping for job hunts, see if it helps :-)

A defining moment

The year was 2004.
I was still in the rat race.
It was 7:00am, on a weekday.

I was in front of the *locked* gym doors.
They were supposed to be open by 7am.
I pushed & pulled on them, no use. It was all dark inside too!

I was pissed… after all, with the gym only opening at 7am, one can hardly get more than a 20min workout, then you have to cool down, shower, throw on yr office clothes, dump sweaty clothes back into the car then head up to the office. Good thing for me my project was kinda flexible, and so long we were in before 830am we weren’t really considered tardy…

But…. if I couldn’t get in at 7am on the dot, well, that whole sequence is shot to pieces!!

The gym is located in the basement of the office building. I take the escalator up in order to get a signal on my phone. I call the gym. As soon as someone answers, I snap: why are you not open yet? The fella on the other side says “But, we are open, ma’am! Where are you?” “I was in front of your doors 30 seconds ago!” “I’m sorry ma’am, the person who was supposed to be at the counter wasn’t there, but I rushed up when the phone rang, so I am here now, you can come in.” “Yeah, you *better* be open…”

I stomp back down, major frown on my face, scowl at the guy as he swipes my card; he apologises again, but I am very curt with him; I proceed to dump my stuff in the locker room and rush to the elliptical machine for my very rare morning workout.

My mood is kinda spoilt, tho…. I’m pissed off about how late I’m gonna end up being for work no thanx to the delay in starting the workout… but very soon my thoughts turn to how bad I felt about snapping at the poor instructor like that… what a way for *him* to start the day, eh?

It really bugged me that I knew I could get away with it: after all, I had seen so many people who think they are above the “mere” “lowly” gym instructors and give them a difficult time, not giving them any respect… so I could play the role of “outraged customer” and get away with it,,,, except that it was certainly *not* my style. Yet apologizing to him seemed, well, difficult. But it would be the right thing to do.

I made up my mind.

At the end of my 20mins, I got off my machine, went up to him, and apologized for how I had spoken to him earlier. I said something like “My being annoyed is no excuse for being rude to you, and I’m sorry for being so harsh earlier.”

Oh, the look on his face – it was totally worth it :-)

Of course, he pooh-poohed the whole incident, said it was no big deal, he understood how one would be annoyed not to find the gym open when one needed to be in on the dot, and how he’d dealt with so many different characters over the years as an instructor he’s pretty much built up immunity to their harsh words, so don’t worry about it.

But you could see that my apology had made a huge positive impact on him.

And the unanticipated side-effect: *I* felt good that I’d helped turn what might have been a bad day from him, back around. The high that I felt lasted quite a while – a sign that it really was the right thing to do.

And on my subsequent trips to the gym, everything went pretty much as usual – after all, me being the loner type, I don’t mix much with either the other customers of the instructors anyway. But me & him, ever since that incident, we’d always exchange smiles and greetings. I dunno what would pass through *his* mind when he saw me, but for me, I’d be reminded of the day I set my pride aside, and helped turn around a crummy start to his day.

Eating humble pie was such a small price to pay for making someone else’s day.
Why was this a defining moment for me? I can’t satisfactorily put it into words: it’s about reaffirming that one does not have to be a slave to pride and emotions; that genuinely putting other people’s feelings and welfare over one’s own is neither weakness nor shortcoming; that the more one gives, the more one does get in return.

You get my drift.

How about you, dear readers, any of your own defining moments you’d like to share? I’d love to read about them in your blogs :-)

Canasta fever!

What with Kosh busy most of the time with work/studies, we end up not going out much. While he’s out for the day, I pretty much amuse myself with blog/computer time, and/or reading, and/or workout. Once he’s back, and he’s vegetated in front of the tv enough to feel human again, we face the challenge of what to do with our time!

Magic: The Gathering
One of Kosh's fave games from his undergrad days... He taught me to play when I first came over here, and we’ve spent many an hour (and day!) doing battle… The timing was just right too, as they were releasing a completely new and different set called Kamigawa: we were both quite keen on exploring the new cards and testing out their capabilities. However, it is also a damn bloody frustrating game because so much of it depends on luck of the draw; it got to the point that playing was no more fun and actually extremely stressful for me, and for Kosh as being on the receiving end of my frustrations. We now rarely play this, and only if I’ve mentally prepared myself for it… :p

Scrabble
Back when I had my own PC, I had a scrabble game which I played quite often. It had tutorials and exercises for various techniques, including 2-letter words. I also got the official scrabble player’s dictionary. So while I may not be too strong in getting those 7-letter bingoes, I can usually get some pretty good points for some pretty awkward situations. Yes, I am a Scrabble fan. Kosh is not so much. And it’s understandably frustrating for him when I create words like AA or OE or XU. And our games tend to take forever cos we’re both referring to the dictionary to check the existence of possible words. So, this game also has become a rare occurrence.

...regular deck(s) of cards game...

First I gotta share a memory I have from primary school – probably Std 5 (5th grade).

It was after we’d taken some nationwide exam but before the end of the school year, so we pretty much had nothing but free time, but were stuck in the classroom. Someone (maybe it was me?) brought a deck of cards one day, and a few of us started playing gin rummy.

A while later, the teacher stood up in front of the class and announced that “Someone has reported to me that there are some of you who are GAMBLING! You better stop now, or else I will come and confiscate everything and you will be in big trouble!”

I was like “Omg, who? Who?” and looking around the classroom trying to see who Ms Babs was referring to.

And I couldn’t understand why my friends all of a sudden didn’t seem inclined to continue the game at all!

It was only later, once I acquired more knowledge in these matters, did I realize that Ms Babs was talking about us!

I’m amazed, yet not totally surprised, that I might have actually been hauled to the headmistress’ office on the charge of gambling at age 11. It’s not like we were playing poker, or for money!

What harm is gin rummy?

We might have been playing something as innocent as Go Fish too!

But did the teacher make any effort to find out the truth? Noooooo! She listened to her spy (oh, I *wished* I knew who of my classmates had squealed on us – young brown nose!), jumped to her conclusions, and as is common in school and elsewhere, used scare tactics to stop our “bad” behaviour.

Okay, so I have no idea if bringing a deck of cards was against the school rules. But seriously – to call what we were doing “gambling” just cos we were using a deck of regular playing cards?

Ah, how I DO NOT miss my days in the Malaysian education system...!!

Okay, back to the topic at hand:

I’m a fan of euchre, but it needs 4 players, boohoo! So we need another couple to play against with – that occasionally happens, but we’re usually just the both of us...

So Kosh taught me Casino, and a 2-player solitaire-type game called Kings in the Corner. That was fine for a while, but I wanted something a bit more challenging.

About two weeks ago, somehow Kosh suggested I teach him Canasta, since I’d mentioned to him I’d played it both as a 2- and 4-player game. Online (Yahoo!Games). And had no idea just how it would be playing the game “live” (you can end up with so many cards in your hand, seeing as you play with 2 decks include jokers = 108 cards!). Plus the scoring issues – it was so easy when playing online cos that was all automatically calculated for you, but I had no idea what things were really worth :p

Hunted down a set of rules, and proceeded to refresh my memory and educate Kosh at the same time. Red vs black canastas. Minimum points needed for initial melds depending on your current total points. What to safely discard in order not to feed your opponent the card they may need. How and when to “go out.” The significance of those red three’s… Aaaaaah, it was so great to be thinking that way again! After all, while I’m not a great strategist (I just cannot do chess!), I enjoy games that provide just the right level of challenge and strategy and risk-taking.

Maybe it was beginner’s luck, but Kosh totally kicked my butt that first round, getting a total of 6660 points (Kinda funny, seeing as we were in the Omen-watching mode around that time!). We’ve played quite a few individual rounds as well and full-fledged games. We both enjoy the game immensely.

The downside? A full-fledged game can take HOURS!

So we’ve yet again inadvertently found another extremely effective procrastination tool, LOL!

The Power of Programming ... and its consequences

I know of a Malay woman who just could not bring herself to eat ANY Chinese food, or even step foot into any Chinese restaurant. Why? Because her parents had raised her to think of all Chinese as dirty disgusting unclean non-Muslim scum, what’s why! And while this person had learned to function and interact fine with Chinese people, she just. Couldn’t. Eat. Their. Food. She’s tried – she’d puked. She couldn’t overcome her programming, despite being aware of it.

This is an example of Malaysia’s “racial & religious tolerance” the country boasts about.

Slightly over a year ago, I was discussing food with NS, a relatively close friend from my schooldays. She for some reason deemed it fit to advise me on what food to eat (the halal/haram issue) while I was going to be bumming around in the states. She said she was quoting her father, who is quite the religious type: “Eating kosher meat is fine. If you can’t find that, if you want you can eat food prepared by Christians or white people. But never ever eat anything by Chinese.” Me (incredulous, and immediately seeing so many holes…): “Oh, really? What about Chinese who are Christians?” She didn’t know. And had no opinion – couldn’t even say that maybe what she’d blithely regurgitated didn’t make sense.

I see this as an example of Malaysia’s practice of quashing independent thinking combined with the assumption that elders/parents always know best, and are not to be questioned. I was actually quite disappointed to discover from this interaction that NS was not the independent thinker I’d thought she was…

Don’t let the above examples give you the idea that I’m going to rant about the racial, religious and cultural “tolerance” (as opposed to the more effective, productive and peaceful CELEBRATION!) in Malaysia.

I want to talk about “programming”

It starts as soon as we are born, if not before….

In the Middle East, it is said that babies on both sides of the Israel/Palestine conflict are fed hatred along with mothers’ milk. … and while this continues to happen, is there any way to find some sort of peaceful workable solution to the situation? People are being bred to hate, to answer violence with more violence… but do they know what they are really fighting for? Do they understand what has brought the situation to the condition it is in today?

In Malaysia, with the convoluted situation of three main races (Malay, Chinese, Indian), practicing diverse religions (“there are no non-Muslim Malays”; Chinese = Taoist, Buddhist, Christian, some Muslim; Indian = Hindu, Christian, Muslim), the inbuilt discrimination for “bumiputera” (Malays, and the aborigine tribes which may practice animism, Islam or Christianity) within the Constitution, and the blurry status of how Indian / Chinese converts to Islam can become “bumiputera”… and resentment on all sides at perceived unfair practices, discrimination, etc etc… it’s not surprising that SOMETHING is “passed on” along with mothers’ milk! How, then, to achieve true cooperation among the many peoples that make up Malaysia??

But all that is talking about programming “against” “other people”…

What about programming against yourself?

I’m thinking about growing up in an environment that is harmful to a child’s sense of self-worth…

How about growing up with parents who call you “stupid” all the time?

And not just “stupid” but rather “styoooopid!” with anger, disgust, irritation, hate, sarcasm and/or venom dripping off every word…

I don’t care what the child has done, or how it behaves: when growing up, a child needs to be encouraged to learn, explore, question, make mistakes in order to learn from mistakes – not to get such savage blows to its self-esteem…

The child grows up all confused … it knows it’s not stupid: after all, it gets pretty good grades in school… do the parents hate it or something? Is there something wrong with it? Why can it never make them happy?

It grows up withdrawn, shy. Then the parents scold it for being shy, for failing to meet peoples' eyes when shaking hands with them, for staying up in its room when there are visitors... but what do you expect?

The child grows up with resentment and anger smoldering inside.

It starts to live a double life: on the outside it seems shy and withdrawn, but on the inside is a seething mass of emotions.

Fortunately, deep within the child lies an inner core of strength, which it finds and taps: perhaps despite of, probably thanks to, the anger and resentment within itself.

The child finds strength and belief within itself.

It also starts to observe its parents interactions, and realizes that its parents are actually really screwed up, and that a lot of how it was raised was a reflection of their dysfunction. It is amazed that they would actually take their frustrations out on their child that way. Did they not know any better?

While it is thankful there was never any physical abuse, it knows that what it experienced was a form of mental abuse…

…the scars of which exist to this day…

And the parents wonder why the now grown-up child is cold, distant and treats them with contempt. Sure, there are other factors involved, but still….

... what goes around comes around.

A point to ponder: whay is it that most people who were abused as kids end up abusing their own children? Why those who grew up watching their father beat up their mothers have a high chance of beating up on their own wives?

As much as they swore to themselves that they would never treat their kids/wife the same way, in the end, when they are in the same situation as they were 30 years prior, unless they have the highest of self control and self awareness, chances are high that they'll just perpetuate a terrible behaviour....raising yet another kid who's very likely to abuse its own child/partner in the future... and the vicious cycle continues...

I have always had grave doubts about ever settling down, and if that were to ever happen, whether I'd ever want to have kids - purely from the perspective of being to raise them is such a way as to NOT perpetuate the dysfunctions I'm probably programmed to carry out. At least now, Kosh and I, we both are all too aware of our families' dysfunctions... and we trust that we'll be able to "call" ourselves on any negative behaviour or bias or whatever we may inadvertently practice towards/around our future kids. We can do our small bit in raising kids who are true citizens of the world.

One time, back in college…

(Another installment of the 30 drafts)

A long time ago in a galaxy far far away, I stumbled across this MSN Encarta article about unusual courses offered by some U.S. colleges…. There are some veeeery eeeentereeesting courses out there…. Gee, I don’t consider myself a Trekker, but even so, I’d be one of the first to sign up for a course like Philosophy and Star Trek!

Unusual courses I *did* take during my college years:

Icelandic Literature

Descriptions so sparse that your mind fills in the blanks for you, leading to a surprisingly vibrant and vivid read. And these tales are based on real people and real events, so while some tales are really fantastical in nature, many in fact are histories of families still existing in Iceland today!

Also, did you know that the term “to egg someone on” comes from Icelandic? There was peculir code of honor among these menThere were so many tales of revenge instigated by wives or mothers who “egged on” their sons/husbands to redeem the family honor somehow.

Indeed, such a land of fire and ice – of volcanoes and glaciers – certainly spawned tales as gritty as the land itself. It opened a whole new world to me, such that Iceland is on the list of places I want to visit - and I mean a proper visit, no whistlestop type thing - before I die.

Norse Mythology

While most people took the huge class that dealt with Greek & Roman mythology, I of course chose the path less-traveled and opted for a teeny class on the Norse equivalent. Not only did we learn about Thor, Loki and many others, but this allowed us a peek into the psyche of the Norsemen. Seeing as I already got a good dose of this in the Icelandic Literature class, I probably enjoyed the class even more than the average person. I remember my term paper concerned Loki: but what exactly I wrote, I don’t remember. Bummer.

One take-away from the class was learning about common symbols, especially those fertility symbols like rabbits, and eggs… it got me thinking about the now less common practice of distributing hard-boiled eggs to wedding guests in Malay weddings – can you say “fertility”?

Arthurian Literature

This was actually a graduate class, but I challenged myself to take it, seeing as the previous two classes had already provided me with the proof that I “get” literature – so long it appeals to me. Ah, and how I “got” this topic too… prior to taking this class, all I had read of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table was from a children’s edition book plus some comics…. And my oh my, what an abundance of literature exists out there!! It was during this class that I picked up and read Marion Zimmer Bradley’s The Mists of Avalon – in addition to all the *other readings we had for this class – and my appreciation for her book was heightened by all the other tales we read and discussed in class.

I was particularly struck by the recurring theme of forbidden love: Lancelot & Guinevere; Tristan & Isolde, and the Icelandic version of Erec & Enide. Laying a sword between them as they shared the same bed, as a symbol of “no hanky panky”, is really amusing! Oh, and I saw a trailer for a movie of Tristan & Isolde, coming out in May? That will be interesting… I’ll wait for the reviews before I decide to catch it or not (unlike that horrendous King Arthur movie, ugh!!)

NOTE: all three classes were taught by the same professor! :-)

Bowling

Teeheehee! It was just one credit hour, but I got useful essons in the fundamentals, which I still use to this day (not that I’ve bowled more than once in the past year, sob sob!!)

Basic weight training

During the one summer I took classes, decided up mix a useful class along with the horrid Chem class I was taking. And like most females, I was intimidated by all the equipment in the gym – how to use, mah? So this class provided excellent overview of principles of weight training: techniques, the whole reps & sets difference for toning vs building, which exercises target which muscles, etc etc. Very useful stuff to know, even if I’m hardly ever utilizing free weights of machines right now

Tennis

This was the other fun class I took that one summer. I was kinda over-qualified for it tho, cos the class turned out to be for total beginners; oh well :p (The next semester, I signed up for the next level of tennis, but it was a totally different standard! I ended up dropping it after the first day, tho, due to scheduling conflicts… oh well!)

The rest of my classes? Apart from the required Chem & Physics, I took 2 years of French, 1 semester of Italian, Abnormal Psych... oh, and ovevr-achieved in terms of taking grad-level classes in organic chem (i *so* quickly changed that to pass/fail, LOL!!) and Quantum Chemistry (I surprisingly did pretty well in that, especially considering I was competing against grad students!)

Maaaaan, I miss being in college....

Gonna be looking into getting back into academia... maybe in a year's time? We'll see.....

Until then, i'll continue to bum aroun, blogging, LOL!

Books galore!

I’ve been meaning to get this out for quite a while now… this is one of those 30 drafts I’d mentioned. Just wanna take note of some books on my mind...

Books, unfinished:
Me and my voracious appetite, I usually devour all the books I pick up and read. There have been a few exceptions. Here’s a list of what I remember not finishing, in relatively chronological order of abandonment:

• Roots - Alex Haley:
  Can you believe I tried to read this when I was probably about 8 y.o.? The mini series was on TV, the book was on the reading shelf, and for some reason I wanted to sink my teeth into the story. Unfortunately I was too young, and really didn’t know what I was reading about. I remember Kunta Kinte being kidnapped, and a horrendous journey by boat. I’m not sure how much beyond that I got to before stopping. My only take-away: I learnt that “privates” were used to refer to “down there.”
  
  
• Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee - Dee Brown:
  I think I got a third of the way through before stopping… just couldn’t bear to continue reading about all those broken promises and horrid treatment of Native Americans during the U.S. expansion into the west. It was physically painful for me to read this book. The take-aways: just because something is agreed upon doesn’t mean both parties will actually honor the agreement, even if (or, especially if?) one of the parties is a country’s government… and they’d probably get away with it too.
  
  
• Sophie’s World - Jostein Gaarder :
  The draw of this book was the overview of the history of philosophy (combined with a supposed mystery), seeing as things like philosophy were never taught in school, and I hadn’t thought to take it as an elective during my studies. However, I only read about a third of it, because I got really bored at the mini philosophy lessons. Oh well… maybe it’ll be appreciated later in life? Or I can try it, skipping those mini-lessons?
  
  
• The Tower on the Rift (The View from the Mirror, Book 2) - Ian Irvine:
  One of the unknown-to-me series I explored during the time I was in a craving-anything-new-fantasy stage. Maybe I was in fantasy overload by that time? I felt Book 1 was fine all by itself, but Book 2 seemed to be a repetition of Book 1, or it just wasn’t going anywhere. Either way, I was NOT hooked. I may just give away the two books when I’m back in KL.
  
  
• Shadow (The Scavenger Trilogy, Book 1) - K J Parker:
  Very very very slow-moving book. It’s probably good, but once again, this was a bit too “deep” for me at the time – I wanted to escape, not have to think hard about what it was I was reading about. I’d struggled through the author’s previous trilogy that followed a man who went from forging swords, to bows, to armor: definitely a different style, which is why I risked trying another of his series. I’ll give this another chance; I think I may be more appreciative of the tale of an amnesiac god this time around…
  
  
• Wolfskin - Juliet Marillier:
  After totally enjoying her other series (The Sevenwaters Trilogy), I was all excited about exploring other works by this author. Unfortunately, this book so did not hook me that I don't think I even made it through Chapter 1!! Which is a real pity, seeing as it seems to be set in a Norse-like culture, which always appeals to me (more about that in another post...)
  

And a bunch of management-type books:

• First Things First - Steven Covey:
  I was really taken by Covey’s 7 habits (my A-HA moment was with Habit #1: the power of proactive vs reactive language, sphere of concern vs sphere of influence, etc), but I really had a problem with procrastination, so tried to get through his time-management-specific book.
  
• The Power of Simplicity - Jack Trout:
  This so appealed to me, seeing how everyone likes to hide how much they don’t know my making long and complicated presentations, for example. But I very quickly got reminded that there was only so much cutting through of bulls**t I could do by myself when the rest of the system is totally corrupted.
  
• Approaching the Corporate Heart - Margot Cairnes:
  This author resonated very well with the transformation effort being carried out in my ex-employer, but for some reason or other the con-sultan-ts had never made any mention of this book as a resource. It was via conversation with Allie that she recommended, and lent me, this book (i *have* given it back, right?).

For most, if not all, of the above “management” books, I abandoned them because it’s obvious very quickly that they all say things that are simple common sense. It’s all up to the individual to make it a point to do things differently. Of course, in order to make an actual difference, there must be a collective effort by many individuals in the same area, otherwise, well, either you do what you can or you get more and more frustrated…
Books, yet unread:

• Millennium (1999): (couldn't find this book online, LOL!)
  It was getting close to the new (false) millennium, and I very much wanted to reflect on what humankind has done to itself in the last 1000 years. I wanted a better understanding of things like the Israel/Palestine conflict, why the U.S. and the USSR had the Cold War, why it ended, the Crusades, so many other things! Fyi, I am someone who HATES history with a passion due to the horrible way it was “taught” in school, but by this time I knew that understanding of current events lies in exploring what had happened in the past. And since this book seemed to provide a comprehensive overview, which seemed just what I required, I went ahead and bought it. Unfortunately, I felt somewhat intimidated by the prospect of reading it, so in its plastic wrapper it remains to this day!
  
  
• The Magic of Recluse - L. E. Modesitt:
  Bought in 1999 or so, when I was looking around for some new fantasy books to read. Seeing as this author had so many books, I figured it would be a good place to start. Then, by some amusing series of coincidences, the book ended up packed away in storage, and I spent the next 5 years wondering what had happened to it. Found it the last time I was back in Malaysia. Rescued it. Brought it here to the U.S. Have yet to pick it up. May bring it back with me to read, LOL!
  
  
• Zen and the art of Motorcycle Maintenance - Robert M Pirsig:
  I’d mentioned this in an earlier post – given to me by my MD/CEO when I transferred out of that company to another post in another part of the organization in 2001. Meant to read it but was caught up in the new job. Then got transferred to a special project which mutated transformed into an organization-wide transformation program, had to live out of a teeny cubicle so non-essential stuff was packed away, including this book. Last April/May I made sure it got out of storage and onto my bookshelf. I’ll read it when I’m back this time around.
  
  
• Currant Events - Piers Anthony:
  If you like puns, check out this series. I thought this was going to be a "trilogy" of 27 books, the author keeps on churining them out... by this time, the books are really not that great, but I was so surprised that there was a #28 to the series that I went ahead and got it (and I see there's a #29 out too!). Anyways, so I bought it last October, but haven't had the "calling" to pick it up yet :p

Books, outstanding from my youth:

• Seal Morning - Rowena Farre
  A girl recounts her childhood, which includes major interactions with seals.
  
  
• Black Beauty - Anna Sewell
  The adventures of a horse… I do not remember any details, except perhaps that I learned what “blinders” are. And I think I cried at the end.
  
  
• My Side of the Mountain - Jean George
  Does every kid long to run away and live on their own somewhere? I know I certainly did. So this story really struck a chord with me: a boy who ends up living in a burnt out tree trunk, befriends a falcon/ eagle, and successfully weathers winter in his tree. While doing this post I found out that there is actually a trilogy for this book and the other similarly-veined Julie of the Wolves: may just check it out.
  
  
• The Outsiders - S E Hinton
  I don’t think I’ve seen the movie, but I read all about the new brat pack members who acted in it, thanx to all those teen magazines I read at one stage in my life. Curious about the tale, I managed to find & buy the book. Don’t remember much about it, but I’m sure I cried at the end.
  
  
• The Dr Doolittle series - Hugh Lofting:
  I was totally in love with this whole series and I think I own all volumes... hey maybe I should reread them, or at least scan them again... I remember being struck by a tale of all these birds who take a stone/pebble each and drop them into the middle of a lake, over and over, in order to build an island for a giant turtle in Lake Tanganyika. A giant turtle who had lived through the Great Flood, btw. Oh, and that birds/stones motif, I was surprised to later hear about a similar tale in the Koran where the birds defeated elephants in this manner... ... and what about the pushme-pullyou animal: was that the inspiration for Austin Powers' Japanese fans Fukmi & Fukyu, I wonder.... oh and please, do NOT judge this series by the atrocious movies with Eddie Murphy!!
  

Yeah, yeah, yeah – so most of the outstanding ones are those that made me cry… and why not? After all, it’s all too easy to make a tear-jerker movie with the swelling music, and camera angles, etc… but with books… so much of it must have been building in your mind’s eye, you need to have been drawn to characters that exist there only in the written word… it's a compliment to the author, and the indication of just how into the book you got...

Oh, and another note on these outstanding books of my youth: did you notice they are mostly about animals? I really really loved animals, and all I wanted to do when I grew up was to be an animal doctor. Then I discovered that I couldn’t deal very well with blood… and at age 12 or so, I decided that I would NOT be an animal doctor. (I wonder what my life would be like if I had not chickened out [pun intended] so easily… that’s a topic for another post, I suppose!)

And last but not least, a recently re-read book that again brought tears to my eyes....

• The Mists of Avalon - Marion Zimmer Bradley:
  The Arthurian legend, told from a fantastically different perspective... there are so many characters, yet you get to know them intimately... you get a peek into the life of priestesses of Avalon, of the Druids... and how the coming of Christianity affected the island of Britain. Explores the then-already obvious divide between Christianity as preached/practiced by Jesus vs Christianity as forced down throats by narrow-minded priests... It's a fantastic, thought-provoking read. I've read it three times in 10 years, and will probably continue to re-read it every 5 years or so - yes, it's THAT good. :-)

You know, all the above are just the tip of the iceberg.. there have been many books that swam in and out of my memory while I was working on this ... gosh, I wonder just how many books I *have* read in my 33+years on this planet... all those Enid Blytons, Trixie Beldens, Hardy Boys, Nancy Drews of my early youth would already bring the total to ovver 100, for sure! And I've read at least 6 (space tyrant series) + 7 (incarnations of immortality series) + 27 (Xanth "trilogy") = 40 books by Piers Anthony right there!!

I think this year I'll keep a tally of how many books I read, just to have some sort of idea of record out of curiosity. Will share that list at the end of this year :-)

Feb 22nd, 2006

I shudder at the significance of this date..

No, it's nothing to do with it being Thinking Day, i.e. the birthday of Lord & Lady Baden-Powell of Boy Scouts & Girl Guides fame... Now THAT was a waste of my time & life at school: the GG movement was just another society to join, and the only thing we did was organise a campfire every year which was our main way to meet boys. Spending the night at school was fun, but apart from that.. gee.. nothing significant ever happened...

But I digress... back to my shudder:

Feb 22nd is the day my sanity will start to be put to the test again.

I should be arriving in KL 7am that Wednesday.

Full-time exposure to dysfunction, here I come.

Somebody save me.

And on a related note: Many thanx to Samantha Burns who pointed me in the direction of this excellent product... It *so* resonates with me.. maybe if I get a matching "couples set" to be used as pseudo-voodoo dolls?

Oh, and were you wondering when I'll be back in the U.S. on a more permanent basis?
Well, that will all depend on hoops and paperwork and ted tape, oh my!
I'll try to stay sane till then....

A World of Whines...

Caught the movie Sideways many moons ago, and was quite disappointed... it was so painful to watch, I wonder why it was such a "runaway hit" when it came out... the only good thing about it was getting a mini education in the world of whine wine...

I know of someone who has taken wine appreciation classes, and has gone a few times to California for a wine-tasting holiday. While watching the movie, I couldn't help but wonder how they behaved compared to the folks in Sideways, teehee!

I've always been reluctant to get involved in the world of wine, because there is such an aura of pretentiousness around it... people who want to show off what they know about the type of grapes used, the ground in which the vines grow, the weather conditions for that particular year of harvest, the mixture of tastes that only a well-trained palate could discern, etc etc etc...

If it tastes good, drink it lah! No need to show off, eh?

Anyways, the reason I'm mentioning this is article How to order wine without looking like an asshole by Waiter Rant. Check it out, it's humorously blunt advice from a waiter on this topic :-)

~~~ And while I was typing all this, my mind ran away with me and I uncovered a long-buried memory of a tale I must have read decades ago...

it's about some nasty aristocratic wine connoisseur who visits a family, decides he wants one of the daughters, and sets up a wager: if he successfully identifies a wine that the head of the family gives him (and I mean identify EVERYTHING about it: year it was made, type of grape, etc etc etc), then he "wins" the daughter. Then this connoisseur proceeds to somehow cheat by sneaking off to find the bottle of wine in question, so he already knows the answer before the wine ever touches his lips... but somehow he is found out, so the "winning": of the daughter is invalid, and he is thrown out of the house.

So, does this tale ring a bell for anyone? If anyone can point me in the right direction to re-read this tale - author, title, whatever - please please please drop me a line in the comments, ok?

In the meantime... hope y'all are enjoying the last few days of 2005!!

Why a fire engine is red...

I'd like to share a very convoluted reason as to why fire engines (fire trucks to you Americans) are red in colour.

But first, here are some cool links I came across today worth sharing (thanx to Linky & Dinky):

• Play 20 questions. Topic = TV Shows. I tried Star Trek: Enterprise, and it got it on the 2nd try. Very simple set-up, and mildly entertaining...
  
  
• This I am afraid to check out too deeply: fanfiction.net, a place where fans create their own episodes of their favourite shows.... As I type this, Babylon 5 has 616 entries... I tried to look for which had the most submissions: i saw a few at 2000+, one at 4000+, but guess who's way out in front? Buffy the Vampire Slayer at 28,082! Oh my....!

And now for the feature presentation: Why is a fire engine red?

A fire engine has four firemen and eight wheels
Four and eight is twelve
Twelve inches make a foot
A foot is a ruler
A ruler was Queen Elizabeth I
Queen Elizabeth I knighted Sir Francis Drake
Sir Francis Drake sailed the seven seas
In the sea there are fish
Fish have fins
Finns live in Finland
Finland is next to Russia
And the Russian flag is red

so THAT's why a fire engine is red.

In case you were wondering, this is something I memorised / remembered ever since primary school, maybe ~1983 or so. Yes, even then I was already intrigued by unusual connections and plays on words... :-)