Saturday, March 29, 2008

Turning 21

“… Time flies when you’re having fun,
You wake up another year is gone,
You’re TWENTY-ONE…”
- “Happy Birthday”, The Click Five
2.17pm tomorrow, somebody’s gonna turn twenty-one. Twenty plus one years old. That’s 662, 256, 000 seconds of breathing and being alive. That’s twenty one years of having the chance to be better and wiser.
The past year has been a blur. What have I achieved so far? What did I do that I can call my 20th year of life experience worth remembering for the rest of my life?
Let’s see.
Last year this time, I was excited waiting for the family sans the big brother to come to town and celebrate the passing of my teenage glory into the world of two-oh. Excited because I got to see them on my birthday, not because I was getting older. Celebration was simple, but memorable. I had quite yummy dinner with the family in the coffee house of Vistana here. There was no cake, but I had a special ‘compliment from the chef’ birthday nasi goreng Vistana, instead of a birthday cake. And as the ‘present’, I got to order whatever I wanted for dessert. I can’t remember what it was, ‘tho.
After dinner that night, we just sat on the hotel beds doing nothing. The parents kept saying how they couldn’t believe that their baby girl was already turning twenty. The brothers weren’t that gushed and proud that they have a big sister who’s finally one year closer to voting age. The baby girl/big sister was reluctant to turn twenty, but couldn’t wait to turn twenty-one. Turning twenty means you’re no longer a teenager and get to act kiddy, and twenty-one means you’re officially an adult. Well, in this case, an adult in the sense of being responsible for oneself, but still entirely dependent on the parents (financially) and friends (sanity to live in this hell-hole).
So, what do the year between twenty and twenty-one meant to me?
A couple of things happened that made me what I hope a better person. Family, besides friends, is everything you have in this world. When they are all you have, sacrificing your own daily pleasures should come easy, although you would have to endure not-that-painful hardship. It’s like you’re a boarding school student who has a mobile phone in the year 2000. Not having it wouldn’t be that big-a deal, because there’s plenty of public payphones around to call home or to call that snotty ‘other half’. Difficulty of having to let go of something you’re used to have for quite some time should not be incomprehensible at all if loved ones need it more than you do. Sure, the first few weeks is unbearable, but you learn to be okay without it in time.
Material stuff aside, being strong for them is even more important. When push comes to shove, putting on a brave smile and being all sunny and confident that the best is yet to come is better than any sacrifice you have to make, be it your car and with it the freedom to go anywhere you like within driving distance at the drop of a hat, or that care-free money spending up to hundreds of ringgit every month, and this excludes food stuffs. Just the fact that you’re there for them in times of need is enough. A couple of words of encouragement (and probably more) thrown in should make them feel like they have somebody to turn to and it should make you feel better as a human being too.
Many other things happened this past twelve months that I could mention here, but the paragraph above is what I think of as the most important thing I learned, that family is everything.

HERE’S TO A GREAT YEAR OF BEING 21 AND FABULOUS.

What I wished for my 21st birthday, among many other things:
Can anybody wrap him up in a box with a big ribbon bow for me?

Wednesday, March 19, 2008

Fab Heels

Some women (and Miss Jays of the world) can't live without their heels, while most men and some women will be glad to see these bunion-causing invention face extinction.

Why do some people hate heels?
  • they can cause foot pain
  • they can create foot deformities, including hammertoes and bunions
  • they can cause an unsteady gait
  • they can shorten the wearer's stride
  • they can render the wearer unable to run
  • The altered forces at the knee caused by walking in high heels, may predispose to degenerative changes in the knee joint.
However, to an experienced heel wearer, heels are a god-sent, because:
  • they change the angle of the foot with respect to the lower leg, which accentuates the appearance of calves
  • they change the wearer's posture, requiring a more upright carriage and altering the gait in what is often considered a seductive fashion.
  • they make the wearer appear taller
  • they cause the wearer's legs to look longer
  • they make the foot appear smaller
  • they make the wearer's glutial muscles more defined while wearing tight pants
(FYI, these are not my words. They're from Wikipedia. I would never use words like 'gait' and 'glutial'.)

For me, heels should only be worn when you're not going to spend the entire day walking in them. This invention which originated in France as male footwear around 1500s, can cause you to lose your footing when you've walked around in them for 6 hours straight. Trust me, I did stumble for a bit somewhere in MidValley a while back after I've spent the entire shopping trip strutting in them. Well, at first, I could say I strutted. But, after the fourth hour, I wobbled. No amount of sitting down every 10 minutes could spare me the pain in my soles that throbbed like crazy.

The heels should also be of a perfect fit with both sides of your feet. Everyone knows that one foot is always bigger than the other. Your big toes and small toes should not be squashed closely to each other e.g. one toe is on top of another when you don your heels. For a while, it may not feel like a toe is being cut off, but over time, your feet will suffer. And remember, when your feet suffer, you suffer too. And it might be obvious to other people around you that you're hurting.
Never, ever buy heels (or any pair of shoes for that matter) because the design/color/brand/embellishment/whatever caught your eye from afar, but when you try them on, it feels weird. Forcing your feet to fit into those babies which are one size smaller is not going to do anything good to anybody, except the store that sells them. Go with your guts and feelings. If they don't feel right, they're not right for you. They're not the pair for you. Let some other girl (or Miss Jay) have them.

But for the time being, I like flats more.

Tuesday, March 11, 2008

BSB Concert & Random Facts Tag

Waa. It's been 3 months since I last posted anything here. Damn lame. Truth be told, it's all because I was bloody busy. Even if I wasn't that busy, I was damn lazy to go to the CC or computer lab. Hehe. Same old, same old. January was the usual, classes, more classes and labs, although I'm only taking 3 subjects this semester. February, same lah. But, at the end of that month, I crossed out my Number 1 'To Do Before Turning 30' list, that is:

GO SEE THE BOYS LIVE.

28th February 2008 is the date I'll always remember as long as I shall live/don't suffer from diseases affecting my memory..

I arrived at Sunway Lagoon Surf Beach at 6. It was raining heavily. I had to run to the Surf Beach entrance where there was already a superhuge crowd. People were brandishing umbrellas and some were wearing raincoats. Where did they get the raincoats?? I brought a big umbrella (umbrella for golfing-kind), coz I didn't have a comel one.

I waited for like 2 hours and soon people were chanting 'Let us in! Let us in!Let us in!' and some boys who are friends with my friend's cousin made us grumpy crowd laughed a little when they started chanting 'We want Kevin! We want Kevin! We want Kevin!'. Haha. Sangat lawak. Then, when the gate started to open and the organizers (and Anggota Rela uncles) started to let us in, people started pushing. No, more like shoving.

To make matters worse, they (the ticket screeners) opened a new gate for the people at the back who came late. That was when the crowd got really angry. 'It's not fair! It's not fair! It's not fair!' I could still see those smiling faces yang dapat lepas the ticket inspectors. Their lines were moving thrice as fast as our line! Mane aci! When a guy complained directly to one of the organizer people, he said 'The crowd is too big. We had to open up a new line!' Now you tell me, was that fair? Was that fair to people who came at 2 and stood at the entrance since (a girl I asked said this)? Sangat melampau. People at the back sangat tak berpuas hati, shoved us in the middle to go forward. The problem was, there was no where to go! People in front yang lepas sangat la sikit, and us in the middle were squashed, worse than tin sardin. A Chinese guy behind me who's quite lembut were shouting to his girl friend beside him, 'I can feel anatomy. Male anatomy!' Imagine how I felt. I'm a girl, standing directly in front of him, a guy. Go figure.
When I finally passed the ticket inspector after being carried forward by the crowd (I actually don't remember my feet touching the ground and I moved forward), I rushed to the concert place. I had to leave the umbrella behind. It was my brother's. Takpelah, I'll buy him a new one. Ngehe.

That was a magical night, because I saw my Nicky performing on stage, along with the rest. He was a bit buncit and sombong (he did not interact with the audience much), but, as the rest of his fans all over the world would agree with me, Nick Carter can do no wrong. Brian and AJ smiled and waved at us the drooling audience frequently enough so that we were whoo-ing all the time. Howie was being his flirty self, winking cheekily.

Girls (and some boys) squealed whenever AJ/Howie/Nick/Brian wiggled a part of their bodies. I expected to see a 90% female crowd, but boy, was I wrong! Guys made up about 45% of the people who showed up that night. This one Indian guy standing beside me throughout the whole concert kept shouting 'AJ I Love You!!!' I saw a group of Chinese guys with super-long mohawk hairstyles, the ones where you have to use a whole lot of hair gel to put them in place, were grooving to the opening song, Larger Than Life. I also saw a bunch of Arab guys with bodybuilders' rippling muscles swaying to I'll Never Break Your Heart and Incomplete. Girlfriends brought their boyfriends, kids brought their parents (I strongly believed that the parents had to come because they were the ones who paid for the tickets), and I even saw a little American girl who's about 6 pulling the mom's hand towards the concert place. My sightings proved that The Boys' fans are from all ages, ethnics, genders, etc.

The big black curtains covering most of the stage were dropped to reveal The Boys wearing shiny boxers' robes and they were introduced one-by-one, each shuffling about in one place. The first song was Larger Than Life, and it was one adrenaline-pumping number.

Their dance moves were smooth (although not as slick as before). That Thriller-esque move from the Everybody music video is still there and new moves were incorporated into their dance routine for new songs. Their singing brought back sweet memories when they started their musical journey back in the 90's and early 2000's. Their perfect renditions of Show Me The Meaning Of Being Lonely and More Than That made my heart went aflutter. The first was performed while they were sitting down around a table, where they played cards, smoked cigars, and drank 'wine'. They didnt' even have to stand and move about to make the crowd go wild! The latter was performed while they were sitting on stools positioned in the middle of the stage, each having their own mic stand. That was the highlight of the concert for me. Their frequent costume changes were cool, from boxers' robes to snappy suits. They really know their stuff. Kevin's absence didn't dampen my Backstreet pride that night. I'm not that ga-ga over him, really.

By the end of the 1.5 hours concert, my ears were ringing badly, my throat was sore from all the screaming, my neck ached from the looking up all the time, and my legs hurt from constantly standing on my toes and jumping during the fast songs. But all that were nothing, because I've seen them live, although I couldn't reach out and touch them.

But I can tell you this.

That night, I was in a state of euphoria.
State of bliss.
State of ecstasy.
State of blessedness.
State of extreme giddiness.
State of perfect contentment.

Need I say more?


Now, I can work towards making my Number 2 thing on the list, Meet Them Face To Face, a reality.

p/s: I recorded some videos during the concert, but the sound quality were off because the place where I was standing was right in front of the speakers! Some of them were shaky. What do you expect? They're the Backstreet Boys, and I'm a Backstreet fan! Stills were impossible to capture, because of my constant jumping and screaming. I'm currently in search of the concert videos/stills. If you know anyone in possession of them, please let me know!

And oh, I've been tagged by Gen of :: escaping to the dream ::.

6 random facts about me.

1. I still love A1, the UK boyband after all these years. I even have Ben Adams on MySpace.
2. I'm crazy over mayonnaise. And Goober's peanut butter and jelly stripes, although I hate peanut butter.
3. I never lipat my blankie when I wake up in the morning. I fold them only in the afternoon when I come back from class.
4. I just became environmental-conscious not long ago, and now, I try not to put my styrofoam containing my lunch in the pink plastic bag the cafe provides. I print my notes on both sides of paper too.
5. I think I never have enough money to spend. Even if I have pocketful of them, I still think it's not enough.
6. I think my shoes:clothes ratio is like, 5:1. I need more clothes.

RULES OF THIS TAGGING BUSINESS:

- Link to the person that tagged you.
- Post the rules on your blog.
- Tag six random people at the end of your post by linking to their blogs.
- Let each random person know they have been tagged by leaving a comment on their website.
- Let your tagger know when your entry is up.

Now I tag these guys:

1. Zaki of apa yang aku fikirkan...
2. Ayu of ayumin's incoherent ramblings
3. Arifah of Finding Myself
4. Jamie of Kim's Drawing Blog
5. Neneque of of this and that
6. NadiaWani of Luck Be A Lady