was bumming around at home on sunday after hatching hope (which was A MAJOR SUCCESS KUDOS TO EVERYBODY INVOLVED I LOVE YOU LOADS!), and in a fit of boredom, i decided to create a new blog @ wordpress.com! was all ready to pack my virtual bags and shift outta blogdrive. but after two days of it ... aiya ...i kinda miss my old nook la. :P blogdrive may be antsy and annoying and eat up my posts like a rapacious pac-man, but i still like it here. it s homey. :)

so yeah. the previously-new-currently-abandoned blog s nylusblogs.wordpress.com, in case anyone s interested. :D

today was interesting. was struck by a sudden case of fuzzies somewhere mid-morning. you know, fuzzies. when you get all bubbly and happy for no conceivable reason? it was weird! i was giggling all the way through mu chem monthly. inwardly, of course. im not that insane. :P but a pleasant diversion nonetheless. it s nice to be happy. laughter being the best medicine and all that jazz. :)

july in two days. trials in two months. :( waaah. time is whizzing past on well-oiled roller skates and all i can do is blink and cough in its cloud of dust. nooo this is insane! i want to enjoy my last year, for goodness' sake!

on a side note: harry potter in 23 days!! gaspgaspgasp!! catch me someone :D  *swoon*

HAHA. okay i so have to blog about this. :P

mum was on her way to pick me up from school this evening. midway through turning into setiabakti road, she caught sight of this HUGE FATASS LIZARD reclining serenely on the passenger seat of her beloved yaris.

now those who know me fairly well know that i HATE lizards. absolutely cannot stand the icky creatures. on my (extensive) loathe list, they re all the way up there with blue cheese and public lavatories. the point is:

guess what? i got it from my mum. :D oh yeah.

so the minute she saw the lizard (henceforth known as Larry Lizard, or Larry for short. cos it sounds nice, doncha think?), mum decided to make a hasty exit. slammed the brakes (gently, cos obviously the last thing she wanted to do was jolt the car and get little Larry all agitated), brought the car to a screeching halt somewhere outside joshua s house (you know the place lah, where everyone waits to be picked up after school), flung open the car door and evacuated pronto, leaving Larry to enjoy the air-conditioning and hitz.fm all by himself. :P

refused point blank to enter the car, opting to stand pathetically by the roadside clutching my books and bags going, 'NOOO MAKE IT GET OUT MA' so we were left with two options: a) to chase the pestilence out of the car or b) to abandon the yaris and walk home. latter option wasn t really an option because i was grumpy, tired and so not in the mood for a work out. soo we decided to try and lure Larry out!

one thing s for sure. mum and i are no steve irwins (god bless his croc hunter soul)after fifteen minutes of fruitless flapping of hands/waterbottle/car keys, Larry had effectively explored all the nooks and crannies of our modest yaris, including the headrest of the driver's seat and the driving wheel. basically that little git got everywhere except where we needed him to be, which was out of the car.

in the end, out of pure desperation, we flagged down this random dude passing by on his motorbike and played the whole damsels-in-distress card. surprisingly, he obliged and dismounted, which just goes to show there are some gentlemen left in the world after all. :D

of course, we tipped him handsomely.

but even he couldn t get that damn lizard out.

finally, at 5.30, we realized the futility of it all and decided to just brave the car ride home. lowered myself gingerly into the passenger seat, clutching my water bottle tightly (self defence okay) and mum started the engine. Larry was lurking somewhere behind in the backseat, hidden from our view.

mum: don t scream if you see him, okay? just stay calm and tell me where he is. i don t wanna get into an accident.
me: *through gritted teeth* just-go. gogogogogogogogogogogo.

i swear i have never seen my mum drive as fast as she did this evening. we practically flew down setiakasih, skidding round the corners, me hanging on to the dashboard for dear life cos i didn t dare put on my seatbelt (what if Larry had chosen to hide on the underside??) my mum the future taitai rempit. like totally.

arrived home in less than five minutes. tyres screeched, car doors slammed and we were out before you could say 'jeepers creepers'. kak tina was then bestowed the honour of turning the car inside out in search of our little hitchiking friend.

Larry was subsequently sucked up into the fathomless vortex of our vacuum cleaner nozzle some thirty minutes later.

wish i had snapped a photo of him. im actually beginning to miss the little bugger.
 

oh mein gocht. is official. i have the i.q. of a handicapped pigeon.

ks says males are more adept than females when it comes to pattern recognition.

:(

i hate general ability tests. 

so am blogging again. :)

a truly momentous occasion, this. everybody mark the date on your calenders! pop the champagne! release the helium balloons! years into the future, the entire planet will remember 1st june as the return of nylus to the upper echelons of bloggingdom! mwahahahha!

that, and the agong s birthday lah. but whatever.

been hurtling up, down, left, right, diagonally and backwards like mad hatterette these past few days. holidays schmolidays. what with chem classes, hatching hope, lit, accounts, imovie etc etc, is wonder hair has not started prematurely greying. or dropping out in clumps, like a certain someone s. hee. :P

secret recipe is morphing into regular haunt these hols, mainly cos it s so near the school, so much so that self can tell you straight off how much a slice of egyptian discovery/hi-fibre cheesecake/raspberry yoghurt cheese would cost. with or without gov. tax and service charge. gah.

yesterday, after dropping yen wei off at mcD's bangsar, mum decided to swing by tmc for a bit of grocery shopping. self being filial daughter (and having no means to get home otherwise) tagged along dutifully. was actually quite nice trotting down aisles aimlessly plucking stuff off shelves for breakfast next week. despite being all gross and unwashed in school uniform. haven t been able to do that for quite some time. meander aimlessly, i mean. not be gross and unwashed.

paused along the cereal section did a bit of reminiscing. but only for a short while. they didn t stock capn crunch either. >:( stupid farts!

struggled through front door weighed down with 1001 tmc shopping bags at 5 ish. earliest i d been back since the start of the hols. v pleased, decided to take advantage by treating self to long hot shower. then, wrapped in a towel (my hair, i mean) sank down onto the sofa in the parents' bedroom and got stuck into jonathon coe's house of sleep, which i bought ages ago from kino but never got round to reading due to horrid exams bah. ob. underestimated power of mr coe s written word; after two hours, was out like a busted lightbulb. not that it was boring or anything lah, was just reaaaally sleep-deprived.

woke up at 9.05 p.m. with my thumb stuck in between pages 201 and 202, famished and disoriented. trudged downstairs, wolfed down remains of family s dinner, along with two kitkat bars (comfort food la okay), then went online and crunched out the imovie script with e wah and banun for 4 hours straight. 

and that, in a nutshell, was my friday night. meh. it s a good life, people.

haha. nolaah. pseudo-grumpiness aside, im actually in a pretty good place this week. :) anyhoos. off to yen wei s in a bit for imovie filming and whole lotta starbucks love. wait for me, banana java frap!

omgosh omgosh how can this be?? mercutio gets wiped out in act III scene I!! is unbelievable. is injustice! urgh. romeo is such a noob. if he hadn t interfered, mercutio would ve kebabed tybalt and everyone would ve been happy. >:( now we ve got to endure another 2 acts of him whinging about his misfortunes and how he isn t fit to worship the ground juliet so lightly treads. what a wuss.

anyway, yes. i feel kinda tired today. well, not mondo exhausted, gonna-crash-any-minute tired ... just drained. like all my energy s been sapped by some unknown parasitic force of doooom. am i not consuming enough carbs or something? highly improbable. practically my entire diet consists of refined sugars as it stands :P come to think of it, my family does have a notorious history of diabetes. maybe i should start eating something other than egg tarts and peanut butter biscuits for lunch. *raps wood*

heroes is on air. but i am determined not to tune in, or there will be nothing to look forward to on sunday. must. resist. temptationnn. *glues butt to seat of chair*

today during moral, upon discovering that i am highly abnormal and follow the series star world pace, louis gleefully revealed that nathan petrelli turns out to be claire s biological father in episode dunno what. *^$*&^ the evil toad. >:( curse you bittorent junkies! people wanna enjoy at their own leisure cannot issit? must ruin suspense for everyone now lah! gaah.

okay okay. im off to do something productive now. this has been a most random post.

humans, i opine, are like gas particles in Brownian motion.

we zoom agitatedly all over the place in haphazard loops and spins and whirls, bouncing off the dynamic walls of Life. and every so often, Alpha particle throws out a lifeline to trip the unsuspecting; we collide with a fellow particle in concourse, and the force of this serendipitous encounter knocks the wind out of us. it leaves us reeling; panting in surprise and slight alarm at the unexpected intrusion. we pause and hover apprehensively for a nanosecond, rubbing our bruises gingerly; uncertain of what to do next. and almost always, before a word is uttered, before proper introductions are made and Van der Waal's bonds established, we nod once, smile at each other and hurtle off hurriedly in another direction, down yet another solitary path; putting a great distance between that other particle and what could ve been the beginnings of a beautiful friendship.

of course, there are exceptions. but then you d have to be a molecule. and i think many of us are resolute atoms, whether by choice or nature.

...good grief. i can t believe im using the kinetic theory of matter to analogize the inner psyche of man. :p gahhh! i hope you re happy, mr wong.

anyway! here s my question: are you an atom or a molecule?

i like to believe im the latter. :)

okay. i am officially peeling like a ripe banana. and feeling rather like one too. gah. i am jellyyy.

house deco was today. exhausting does not even begin to describe. and stop smirking, you twit. i d like to see you try hacking away at 25 pieces of cardboard with a blade the size of a straw. under sweltering conditions, no less! i swear it would ve made a lesser girl weep. or throw a hissy fit, at the very least. :P ahem. but not i! i merely readjusted my spectacles, wiped the sweat perspiration off my delicate brow and ploughed on! heedless of the sun and stress! there was a job to be done, and i was going to see it through, or expire in the process.

of course, irina s stash of tiger biscuits and zip bars may have helped in  sustaining said unquenchable spirit :D but only a little.

we could ve done better than third. but hey, at least we had fun :) presenting with irina was hilarious. talk about unleashing the inner diva! we were simply fab, weren t we dahlink? *airkiss* :P and anyway, i thought our beruang studio was pretty original. i mean, we had directors! and cameramen! and a walk of fame with paw prints! 

honestly though, was dr rizal the only one who got my ''bearamount studios" jibe? hmph. well, i thought it was funny.

anyway, yeah. props to seladang for taking home first place! ...again. *mumblegrumble* :P

came home and more or less passed out til dinner. ooh shoot. just remembered. i have more than a hundred yearbook pics to caption. aughgottago.

i would really love to start blogging again. i miss the bubbly feeling i used to get whenever something extraordinary or exciting or just plain different happened in my life and how i couldn t wait to get home and log on to www.blogdrive.com to share it with the rest of the world.

i want to be able to put my thoughts down freely and without fear. i want the freedom to express without suppressing anything. i want to be able to pour out my heart and soul without having to pause midway, reread my post and hit backspace wherever emotion runs too high and raw. but over the past month, i ve come to realize, through the the experiences of fellow bloggers, that exposing myself (figuratively speaking lah, you perve) so candidly is an overwhelming liability.

i don t mind sharing my personal thoughts and feelings with most of my readers; i think you know who you are. i hope you know who you are :P but the omnipresent risk of someone-to whom i wouldn t want the inner workings of my mind revealed- stumbling across my blog is just so off putting lah.

the platform im standing on right now is way too public and accessible for my comfort. and this signboard im looking at tells me i have three choices:

a) change blogs. which would be redundant, cos people in the blogosphere have an innate knack for tracing blogs. like cyber st hubert bloodhounds.

b) change my blog address. again redundant, and besides, i like my blogname. it s a tongue twister!

c) stop blogging altogether.

i need your opinions dudes! which option should i go for? :S

aiyo. maybe i ll just go back to keeping a diary.

okay, it s high time i stopped being all mopey. bad karma and all that.

*zen breathes*

right. rightrightright. i will now proceed to regale you all with tales of Operation Brunei!

brunei was undescribable. undescribable. when i boarded flight AK 797 on the first of march, i had this big twisty knot in my stomach; partly because i thought i d be face to face with formidable homosapiens with i.q.s of a squillion; bulging foreheads, vocabularies the size of dusty s appetite, snooty upper crust attitudes to boot, yada yada ad infinitum.

couldn t have been more off the mark. well, i mean, they were human, obviously :P but they weren t Scary Snoots at all! the ISB BGIC V conference was, if anything, a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to network with teens from all over southeast asia. and by golly, they were so much fun. there was arpeet, the footie-mad indian from indonesia, who had man-u stickers plastered all over his laptop to highlight his unwavering loyalty to the red devils; andrew, his bespectacled buddy who ate heaps at the breakfast table every morning; ella, my mixed english-bruneian co-submitter who prattled nineteen to a dozen in an endearing malay-british accent; nurool, the jordan delegate who told me chinese eyes were adorable and bemoaned her own oversized peepers; byron and mahesh, the lovable idiots who got us locked out of the hotel room twice consecutively on our second night; najib, the delegate of kuwait who sat next to me in committee and tickled me silly with his lame jokes and oversized elvis presley sunnies; charles, the hilarious cockney bloke from penang uplands international, whose sentences were liberally sprinkled with colorful invective...

and so so many others.

here, in no particular order, are memories of the Brunei mission; the bits and pieces of my trip that i intend to lock away deep in the nooks and crannies of my mind, to be taken out, dusted off and looked upon fondly, some day in the future when im old, saggy and reminiscent:

almost getting left behind on the first day. stashing mx s chem notes in the office, getting held up in the process by the nosy secretary. extracting myself with some difficulty ten minutes later, only to be greeted with the sight of an empty foyer. heart thudding, sprinting up the driveway to where the van was just about to leave the guardhouse, screeching 'wait for meeee!' i made it in time, thanks be to God and all his cherubim. i swear, that 100-metre dash would ve put marion johnson to shame.

brunei mornings. the mandatory wake-up nudge from tania at precisely 6.15 a.m. jolting me into bleary-eyed animation. grumbling under my breath in the bathroom whilst groping for the toothbrush. doing up my tie and laces, staggering out the door and halfway down the corridor. halting abruptly, feeling in my pockets, swearing and redoubling for my breakfast coupon. making it down at a quarter to seven, where ks and hsi yi are already on seconds. the twee little croissants, which i slathered with strawberry jam and dunked in coffee. nick ong s alarmingly verocious appetite.

the hotel. sprawling staircase accentuating the expansive chandeliered lobby. the 6th floor corridor, where we spent half an hour nursing a bottle of root beer and throwing dirty glares at mahesh and byron. the buffet line, which tara frequented regularly ... sometimes without her prerequisite coupon :P the gilded mirrors, conveniently positioned opposite the lifts, which precipitated much primping from us (girls) each morning/afternoon/evening before stepping into the elevator. the spas, which most unfairly were reserved only for the men. the dining table where we sat for hours on the last night of our stay, scoffing chocolate cake and cracking lame jokes with encik raphael and encik hisham. second night. the swimming pool on the first floor, where we sprawled on deckchairs and counted stars in the sky.

the convention centre as our van trundled up the slope towards its marbled steps on the second day. the muffled sounds our footsteps made as we padded along its carpeted interior towards our respective committee rooms. the opening ceremony. the grandiose entrance of the princess of brunei, accompanied by kompangs and a grave delegation of stuffed shirts ala the queen of sheba. the panel of environmentalists. david bellamy OBE, aka santa claus on spring break. waangari mathai, tree planter, activist and nobel laureate extraordinare. the scrummy egg tarts they served during five-minute reccesses. john saville, high commissioner to brunei and entirely british, right down to his endearing stutter. the secretariat general, comprised of hot-tempered sergio, cool cat kush, bubbly vanessa and ... crap, i can t remember the last girl s name. :P

nights. ambling back to my room after the usual tête-à-tête with kif, tara and vana. snuggling down into crisp white linen. listening drowsily to tania s levelled breathing on the other end of the room. hugging kingsley to sleep and shivering a little due to freezing temperatures. partly due to something else.

the last day. standing up and leaving the GA hall to resounding applause. people waving and smiling as we passed their seats. farewells cried out, a few tears shed. ubiquitous camwhoring with familiar and random people as we made our way out. traded emails/phone numbers. promises to keep in touch. leaning out the window of the van and waving to them one last time as it pulled away. ks raising his hoarded placard aloft jubilantly as we sailed out of the convention centre. fleeting dejection. encik raphael recording every moment.

the flight back. egg sandwiches and stale peanuts. turbulence, nothing major. touchdown at the lcct around 9 p.m. baggage reclaim, nick s suitcase back at brunei, minor kerfufffle. never mind, we ll contact the hotel and get them to put it on the next flight, come on everyone, let s head outside. vans waiting to take us back to damansara. squeezing in next to ks and taking pictures of the night landscape.

was the most amazing, most unforgettable 5 days of my life.

and then i come home to find this.

im tired and confused. part of me is still high on the brunei trip (which i promise to blog about as soon as), but another smaller part of me just wants to curl up in a corner and squeeze my eyes shut.

i don t know why im feeling so guilty; it s not my fault, i know it s not. but that doesn t change the fact that it happened. i know it s not a big thing in this day and age; you read about it in papers, hear about it from the neighbour two streets down. but it s completely different to see it unfolding right in front of you. to one of your own family, no less.

why do people make promises and break them so carelessly? is there no such thing as faith and trust anymore?

im looking at my bed right now. lying neatly folded on my pillow is a hand-embroidered duvet my aunt bought for me in the '90s, way back when she used to live in japan. that duvet s been in the family for ages. it s old and faded from one too many spins in the dryer, but it s there. it s kept me warm for the past 13 years.

i want to bury myself in my hand-embroidered japanese duvet; wrap myself in its comforting folds, shut my eyes and lie numb, blocking out the world. i want someone hug me and tell me it s okay, that things never stay the same and it s probably for the best anyway.

im gonna need more than a glass of water to swallow this pill.