Problem with having a blog for so long..

.. is that reading past entries makes me wanna cringe and punch my old self. why? why? of all the vanities do we keep blogs?? 

 

“All roads lead to Putrajaya”

That’s what S. said when I asked for directions to the nation’s federal administrative center. He was very pleased with his cleverness that he repeated the phrase again, and again.

Luckily I’ve been to Putrajaya several times so driving there was a piece of cake. It was trying to find a certain precinct in Putrajaya that proved to be such a pain. When I finally found the Ministry of Finance, parking proved to be another puzzle as I drove around in circles in dingy basement, looking for visitor’s parking. The god of parking stopped yanking my chain after a bit and I found a spot that was neither here or there. It led me to an unmarked door, where I wandered around in the empty floor, down two flight of stairs before I found my way to people. It amazes me how easy it was to sneak into the Ministry of Finance, with a car possibly filled with god-knows-what - wander around the floors with no guards/staff in sight to a meeting place where the Prime Minister was chairing the budget consultation for 2009. It is so not post-9/11 in Malaysia. I rather like it.

I am pleased that they speak more English than I thought in an official government meeting. Hee. PM’s speech in BM went over my head although I was earnestly listening (ok maybe not quite) but everyone else spoke in English (to which the PM would reply back in English too). Do they also speak English in Parliment?

Heading back was more of a nightmare because the evil highway signs made me so confused - I ended up paying four stupid tolls I kid you not. So not a happy camper. Basically my route was: Putrajaya - Puchong - Sunway - Bangsar. Yes I know that there are better ways of heading home.

All roads lead to Putrajaya but fewer roads lead to Bangsar.

 

sometimes..

i miss the tranquility.

 

Small little glories

I’m currently reading Disinherited by Han Ong, a Filipino-American. It’s about a middle-aged man who returns to the Philippines after the death of his rich father, and tries to find worthy candidates to give his newly inherited unwanted wealth. This was a chance find in the discounted bookstore, Books Xcess where cheap gems could be found if you had the patience to search. Han Ong is the youngest recipient of a MacArthur Foundation ‘genuis’ grant, and intriguingly listed as a ‘high school drop-out’ in his brief bio in wikipedia (not exactly the paramount of true facts but well, it has its uses). In an online interview, Han Ong also reveals that in his fiction, he tends to write about characters who don’t fit in, and are always looking from the outside. It’s funny how little I know about this author and yet his life fascinates me (or maybe it’s just the allure of online mystery that surrounds this guy). From ‘failure’ to being one of the youngest recipient of a sought-after grant. A migrant from the Philippines who freely admits that he himself feels like an outsider “twice over”, because of his ethnicity and sexuality. He also says that the outsider perspective is a gift, although only in the perspective of art, and not life.

So I was thinking about him last night, when another Southeast Asian migrant author popped into my mind – Wena Poon. I had the pleasure of meeting her very briefly about a month ago when I got a copy of her book signed – no more than four brief words exchanged as I unoriginally said, “I enjoyed your book..” bleh.

Wena Poon is an articulate, opinionated, gorgeous writer. And she seems like someone you could hang out with. Her life sounds so accomplished as well – she finished her first novel at age 16 (but she never got it published but oh what a precocious story of a girl in school uniform trying to convince Singaporean publishers to publish her novel!), went to an Ivy League university, works as a lawyer in San Francisco and according to an interview, she “loves her day job” that it’s unlikely that she would quit her job to write full-time. However, at the same time, she’s a prolific and pretty darn good writer, having published a collection of stories, and various other fiction on the way. In the same interview, she talks about how she’d come back from work, and write fiction because she’s all fired up with work energy. Geez, when I come back from work, the only energy I have is to click on the telly to watch American Idol. Have I also mentioned that I’ve started to neglect my yoga classes? Ok fine I’ve neglected yoga a long time ago.

Wena Poon would write on almost anything writable that she could get her hands on, including backs of receipts. Myself, I never really did finish the writing exercises from my class. I talk about how when I’m done with such & such and have more free time, I’d do this, and that and this (writing falls into the wish-list) but really, I know in my heart of hearts that I’m a non-writer: he (or she) who talks about writing, and what they want to write, but the best they could do is to blog about it (!!). Ah well.

The gist of my green-tinged ramblings is that.. people like Han Ong inspire me more. Ok, somewhere along his life, he kinda screwed up, or rather decided that high school wasn’t for him. But then he found his niche, something that he’s very good at and wins a coveted grant. It’s not that I’m aiming for awards in my life (although accolades are also very nice) but rather the comforting knowledge that we do screw up from time to time and that life always doesn’t happen the way that we had hoped for. But in some points of our lives, we find that one thing (or two) that we’re good at, and we can relish in this small little glory for a while before the mundane takes over once more. Small little glories, that’s all I’m after.