The Kooky Jar

When odds are against you, when even you yourself doubt your own sanity - you suddenly realize the people who stand by you, who are there to assure you’re not going to a mental asylum anytime soon.

Family, friends.

Last night I had a great time catching up with some closest friends of mine.

They couldn’t stop coming up with loads of jokes and funny ideas of this new venture of mine.

And when we were serious, they said, “Of course! We totally support you.  If you need help, just call us anytime.”

I was so quiet throughout the entire talk, something unusual for me.  Because at that moment, I was silently thanking God for providing me with such wonderful people.  Sometimes it takes a big step to see the the people who are helping you lift your foot.

To Mom, dad, bro, Jane, Steph, CC, Muna, Natasha, Yu Jean, Michy.

To those of you who are willing to stick around when the time comes.

Thank you.  From the bottom of my jar heart.  I will do my best.

And to the dreamers.

Dreams can come true, if you can live your dream even when you’re awake.

Announcement:  This blog will now go into temporary hiatus.  I will be back with something bigger, I promise.

Who wouldn’t remember this infamous phrase by Martin Luther King Jr?

I think it’s unfair that only he got famous because he had a chance to declare that sentence in front of hundreds of media, which then brought an impact to the world.

But thanks to him, that phrase introduced possibility.

I have a dream too.

I mentioned it before, that The Kooky Jar is more than just a blog.

What if I say that, soon, The Kooky Jar will embark on a new phase to explore possibilities, and hopefully touch lives?

Will you think I’m crazy?  Will you laugh at my naivety?  I’m only 19, what can I offer the world?

Maybe I am crazy.  I certainly am inexperienced.

I don’t have much, really, just a dream, and a heart to make it come true.

Is that enough?

I wonder.

Welcome to the planet
Welcome to existence
Everyone's here
Everyone's here

You see light for the first time.  It feels unbearably cold.  You hear joyous exclamations, and you hear happy sobs.  For one moment, you feel welcomed.

“I can do this.”

You don’t have to be a genius to know what that means.  Humans have been instilled with survival instincts the moment they were created in their mothers’  womb.  A skill we all underestimate.

Everybody's watching you now
Everybody waits for you now
What happens next?
What happens next?

You feel the heat down your neck.  It’s your first major examination, and you feel like choking the person sitting right next to you.

It’s your first job interview, and you want to impress your interviewers.  They ask you a question that isn’t in that script that you’ve rehearsed hundreds of times.

You fall in love for the first time.  But until you speak, you remain invisible.

I dare you to move
I dare you to move
I dare you to lift yourself up off the floor
I dare you to move
I dare you to move
Like today never happened
Today never happened before

So you have it all.  A high-flying career and every single person in town wants to get to know you.  You have someone who wakes up beside you every morning.

You wonder if that’s how it plays out for everyone.  School, degree, jobs, family, bigger family, and six feet under.

You have money, you can have your ashes scattered at the highest mountain or across the most beautiful lake like they do in the movies.

Welcome to the fallout
Welcome to resistance
The tension is here
The tension is here
Between who you are and who you could be
Between how it is and how it should be

Not all days are good days.  You’ve failed your exam before.  Few months ago, your best friend passed away.  Yesterday, your partner betrays you. Today, you spilled coffee onto your pants.

And tomorrow.  What about tomorrow?  Sometimes, you don’t want to know.

I dare you to move
I dare you to move
I dare you to lift yourself up off the floor
I dare you to move
I dare you to move
Like today never happened
Today never happened

You open an old notebook you used to scribble in when you were in high school.  Your best friend and you wrote of things you both wanted to do when you grow up.  Out of the chunk of dreams and hopes, you realized you have only fulfilled one:  Get a good job.  You didn’t get to marry that handsome football player because you realized he’s too fat now.

Things change.  But you wonder - have they changed for the better?

Maybe redemption has stories to tell
Maybe forgiveness is right where you fell
Where can you run to escape from yourself?
Where you gonna go?
Where you gonna go?
Salvation is here

You go to your ex-partner’s place to have a cup of coffee.  You didn’t say much.  But as you are leaving, you give that person a pat on the shoulder and say,

“I forgive you.  Nice coffee.”

You return home to your family, and you hug each and every one of them.  You have planned to sky dive for the holidays, and you want to rebuild your business from scratch.

For the first time, you ask them if they want to join you.

Your little one whines.  First major exam tomorrow.  You smile.

I dare you to move
I dare you to move
I dare you to lift yourself up off the floor
I dare you to move
I dare you to move
Like today never happened
Today never happened
Today never happened
Today never happened before

You no longer want to have your ashes scattered over the most prestigious places.  You want to see all of that before you die.  And when you do turn to ashes, the only place you want to be is where you can have a scenic view of your loved ones.

I dare you to move.

Yes, the HTC Diamond took my breath away.  My brother uses a HTC Touch, I always thought it was a nifty gadget, and I’ve played countless times of Bejeweled on that little thing.

I never really liked PDA’s.  They are powerful gadgets, but they’re not really small.  Plus, they looked kind of ridiculous when used as a phone, as though someone is holding a stack of drink coasters to their ear.  And those stylus thingamajig - not good for careless people like me.

Then came along the iPhone.  I wouldn’t buy one because they still lack certain functions that would have otherwise made it perfect - but I have to admit that they pioneered the whole touch-screen technology.  They are slim too, hence turning touchscreen gadgets into sophisticated, sexy little beasts.

But the HTC Diamond.  It’s small, slim, sexy, and full of substance.  Oh, it’s steep too.  I don’t think I’ll get anywhere near to this phone except at the displays.  Or if someone elses buy it.  For me.  Hehehehe.

Yes mom, finally, I have to agree, diamonds are a girl’s best friend!*

(*as defined by this article. Terms and conditions apply.)

People keep asking me, “So what did you do during the holidays?”, and when I say “Work.” they ask me, “What work?”, I always find it a bit hard to explain.

But nevertheless, I’ve been working on some things that I’ve never done before.  And maybe, one thing will lead to another and hopefully the pieces will be uncovered soon.

For now, I’ll leave you curious souls with this:

And the Kookymonsta skips away with glee. 

Quotes Coldplay:

“When you try your best but you don’t succeed
When you get what you want but not what you need
When you feel so tired but you can’t sleep
Stuck in reverse.”

There’s no right side of the bed this morning.

School Days, Penang, 1995 - 2005

I spoke with an American accent.  I was brushed aside because I seemed arrogant with my ability with words.  I copy the way you speak, and it seemed acceptable - hence I started to make friends.

Acing everything was very important to me, therefore I was an overachiever.  I scored in my subjects, I took great pride in my gift of gab, stamped my mark in a land I’ve never been before with trophies, and carved my name for being one of the most influential people in school.

You greeted me every morning with a smile I see on the saddest faces, and spoke hurtful words in my shadow as I faced the sun.

I was as arrogant as you described.  I deserved all that you said, but also, I deserved a second chance.  Which you didn’t give me.

But I love you anyway.  Because I grew up with you, and I just want to remember when things were great.  When things were right.  It’s easier on the mind.

National Service, Kuala Nerang, Kedah, 2006

You may be good in a language, yet I stutter before I can utter a complete word.  I seem quiet because I dare not speak.

But then you told me you wanted to teach me.  And in return, I teach you my language.  We laugh at our first failed attempts, but later on, we grew accustomed to each other’s mispronunciations.

You wore a head scarf under the boiling weather, prayed five times a day and you look at me as a sister.  I was the only one who didn’t look like the five of you in our room, nor spoke like the five of you.  But you reminded me it didn’t matter.  There was no five of you - there were only six of us.

I read my Bible before I go to bed.  You asked me to tell you a story from it.

I smiled.

Working Days with Arts-Ed, Penang, 2004, 2005 and counting.

I was afraid at your spontaneity.  You were so brave, and so outspoken.  You spoke so loud you made my scream into a whisper.  But you spoke of joyous things, and a world with no borders.  I liked that.  I dropped the mask I once put on and forgot to remove.  You told me I had no imagination.

My mission was to prove you wrong.

You put me into the most random places in the street, and ask me to befriend the city.  It’s noisy, dusty and scorching hot out there. How can I talk to old houses?  How can I talk to old people that I don’t even know?

I didn’t have to.  I just needed to listen.  They all had stories.

They were stories about you and me.

University Days, 2006, now and counting.

I dislike the place.  And you.  You didn’t speak my language.  You seem to be very proud to be fluent in your mother tongue, which I’m not.  So I can only write my name in that language, and maybe recognize a character or two, but you cannot write a complete essay spontaneously either.  You have been stuck in that small town all your life, and I’ve seen so much already.  You’re no better than me.

You lend a hand to everyone who approaches you.  You don’t grumble, but you offer the most sincere smile I’ve ever seen.  You tell me stories of that little town of yours, I may have seen and heard stories from afar, but I’ve never heard of yours.

Your focus in what you do is marvelous, when all I want to do is get out of where I am.  Your church is the smallest I’ve seen, but you stand out when you sing and pray.  Normally, I just let myself drown in the crowd of the church I used to go to.

I’m no better than you.

Life as It Is, Today, and counting

I recognize you.  You were from my School Days.  But you’re different now, and so am I.  I see your smile again, and it’s different too.  It made me want to smile back.

I miss you, the one from National service.  You taught me a lot of things.  I was as narrow minded as I perceived you to be at first, but now, because of you, I know that being different does not mean being less than who we are.

We are made different.  You and I.  So getting along can be tricky.  But I guess that’s the whole point of it.

Thank you, whoever you are, for opening my eyes beyond colour, beyond gender, beyond language, beyond sight.

Sometimes our vision may be clouded by ego and personal judgment.  But hey.

We try, don’t we?

Over and over round the river bend,

Deeper and deeper no one understands.

As I’m typing this I’m roughly 15,000 feet above sea level, on my way back to Penang via Firefly.  I took out my camera and started snapping random photos of the things I see.

One of my subjects was this bright eight year old boy, Leonard.  You can view a better photo of him and his cute brother here.

He noticed that I was snapping photos of me and his brother being in awe because it was their third time on the plane (yes, he told me that much).

“Do you like taking photos?”
“Yes, I love taking photos.  Do you?”
“Yes.  My mother says I’m very good at taking photos.”
“I see.  Do you want to be a photographer when you grow up?”
“No.”
“What do you want to be then?”
“I want to be a soldier.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know.  I just like it.  Which hotel are you staying?” (He’s eight!  He’s eight!)
“I’m not staying in any hotels.”
“Oh, so you’re from Penang?”
“Yes I am.  Are you from KL?”
“My father, my brother and me were born in Malacca, and my family moved to KL after that.  We live in Semenyeh, that’s very far, I believe.”

We spoke about the tiny little ‘islands’ that we could see from above, how pretty the contours look from bird’s eye view, and he gave me tips on how to get free online games.  Tip from Leonard:  Go to www.transformers.com and then I don’t remember anything much that he said, something about ‘click the small button here and there’.  It surprised me a little that I could relate so much to an eight year old, but I guess somewhere inside, we never grow up after all.

Oh, he just asked me something.

“What are you writing?”
“About you.  Nah, just kidding.”
“Are you writing an email?”
“Er…some sort.”

I like talking to kids who show an incredible amount of curiosity and boldness - something I hope he doesn’t lack when he grows up.

“I like planes.  I like to fly.  Do you like planes?”
“Yes, I love planes.  I like being way above ground.”

I smiled to myself as I said that.  There was something in that sentence that meant much more.

“Me too.  Why don’t they serve free drinks here?”

Haha, you’re in Firefly, boy.

“It’s just a short journey, so I guess they don’t.”

I decided I shouldn’t pollute his innocent mind with such criticism yet.  He’ll get a lot of that in years to come.

But like I said, he’s bright.

“They do in Air Asia though.”
“They just do things differently here, I guess.”

Silly, I found myself lost for words to an eight year old.

“Are we reaching Penang?”
“Yes we are.”
“How long more?”
“About 5-10 minutes.”
“Wow, that’s fast.”

Yes, Leonard.

Time flies too.