Dah-dee And His Version of Vacation

Just a few weeks ago my dad asked me to drive him to Westport; the spooky-looking place where he works. We went there together with mom to bring back my little Perodua Kancil that daddy borrowed from me a week before. It was quite strenuous to drive all the way from Seremban to Pulau Indah and drove back home to Seremban again. We did make a few pit stops – at Giant to have lunch and searching for Kenari (for my sis) at the second-hand car sales.

After that we went to the new Mydin outlet at Terminal 2 for some window shopping. But I already feeling exhausted and my feet had turn red by walking and the long-hours’ driving journey thus I didn’t really interested in looking for anything. Mom and daddy on the other hand were very excited touring around the mall; kept wondering how low are the prices of some goods like neck tie, clothes and health products. There’s something that caught my eye precisely; a beautiful set of cosmetic product. Unfortunately I doubted its unheard of brand and its weird packaging. Yeah, I’m truly cautious at choosing beauty products as my skin is in the sensitive category.

After the Mydin ‘trip’, we had our dinner at a Siamese restaurant. Then we got back home. And mom kept complaining about the short vacation we had that day. I do agree with mom as we’ve never been on a holiday together since . . . I don’t know. But as I could remember our last trip is during my semester break – freshmen year. We went fishing at Tasik Bera. Not accurately ‘we’. Mom kept making noises and read her books with seriously-looking face so that she could tell us how bored she is. The other vacations only involved me and my mom. And once in a while; my sis.

At my present age I’d certainly not really excited about going on a holiday as I have toured too much when I was a kid. Except if mom took me and my sis to a handbag or shoes sales; and I still felt delighted if my parents brought me to the Underwater World. I love fishes and turtles very much so every time I went there I was very grateful. The same goes to the zoo and animal museum. It makes me feel relaxing. Oh yeah, I also love Books Fair, so does mom. But not for daddy.

Daddy might be good at maths, science and art but he hates reading and hardly ever spells words correctly. Mom conversely really bad at maths, not into science stuffs, love art but can’t even draw a basic figure or do any art activities, love reading and very gifted at Bahasa. I’ve learned some basic Maths tricks from daddy when I was little and it helped me a lot these days. And also Art and technology talks we had together, it’s superb. We shared a lot of things although sometimes daddy wouldn’t understand it and I had to repeat myself. We do discuss about football, it doesn’t matter I’m a girl.

Well to me, having such sweet times with daddy is much better than going on a holiday. I’d never experienced these things with my real dad who rarely exists in my diary of life. Daddy also gave me something  that others hardly to offer that is; trust.

Mysterious New Neighbours

In about two months ago, a family decided to rent the empty rooms next to my house. I really didn’t care at first as we never had a real deep conversation with any of our neighbours before, no matter where we live. But my mom seems to be comfortable chatting with the one who lives at the right side of our house, a Javanese housewife with a lot of little kids making noises around. Maybe because of the free times she had as she’s on cancer-recovering leave for one year.

Anyway, back to our new neighbours’ topic, I started to notice their existence when mom told me to close the main door and never let it wide open. It is actually because of the awful smells come from our new neighbours’ cat they kept in the cage. The funny thing is; their cats are the one that we called the ‘kampong’ cats, not a special cat, Persian or any kind of high-priced species. They deserve to be out of the cage and play around the house but I’ve never seen the cats being freed.

The cats’ owners are really a mystery to all of us; Taman Warisan Puteri’s residents. We only got to know the faces of the two little kids in the family. They’re a pair of a boy and girl with such cute smiles. However, their mom would always get angry when she realizes her kids especially the boy talked with the neighbours. The Javanese auntie’s daughter claimed that the boy was beaten by his mom after being caught talking to her. Some people including mom then told me if the boy’s mom ever see us outside at the neighbourhood, she would quickly run into her house. Well, sounds weird enough for me.

None of us know how many people live in their house. They seem to be afraid of others, particularly the adult woman. I’ve never really interested to know more, it’s none of my business at any rate. But mom and the Javanese auntie are really into it. I don’t know why, maybe mostly because of the unpleasant odours the new family gave us as a welcoming ‘gift’.

My mom and daddy kept arguing about their thoughts and theories; of course on the subject of the new neighbours. Daddy had this theory which is a little bit Cerekarama and sounds more realistic plus makes sense that mom’s. He said the woman next to our house might be a ‘popular’ lady in Seremban; which actually means she was a GRO or night club’s singer or pub’s favourite girl before. He made this conclusion as he saw her wearing a skirt. Yuppers, short skirt, gentlemen! Anyway, nice try Daddy. That’s one brilliant logic.

Mom on the other hand, thought they are an alien family. Um . . . yeah . . . that’s an awesome thinking, mom . . . Very terrestrial . . . Her other theory is better although it is still far from common sense; an assassin family anddd any other crimes she could think of.

My theory? Hmm . . . I don’t want to play along but I’ll give it a try. I once thought the kids’ mom had some kind of illness, you know, when someone couldn’t look at other’s face. I saw it on an English TV series not many years ago. That’s all what I was thinking, never weirder than mom’s. 

‘Early-Marriage’ again?!

The 12 years old bride

What ?! This topic for the 2^nd time ?! Well, not to worry dear readers . It’s not like I’m going to tell you the same story twice . I just want to share with you concerning to the hottest issue nowadays ; I bet some of you already knew about . . . the 12 years old girl who was married to . . . hmm how old is the groom again ?

So , 12 years old . . . I have a little cousin who’s 12 . Yeah, I did say ‘little’ because she’s a little girl , a cute one but she’s more mature than any other school kids today . You would know what I meant if you have a chat with her . I could conclude that she’s like a 50 year old grandma trapped in a petite kid’s body . By looking at her , I wondered and still wondering how the hell someone at her age could get married happily – you should see the wedding photo , the girl was smiling like a whale .

As for me , when I was at that age I did have a love story ( Please don’t laugh , it’s true and I feel so damn embarrassed ) . But it’s not what you think it is . It’s just ; I had an admirer . He kept bugging me and told the others that he likes me . That’s just freaking stupid . We were 12 , man ! I didn’t expect this kinda thing’s coming . What I actually cared about at that time were only UPSR and playing . If you’re the same age as me , did you remembered the fun games such as cop tiang , teng teng  , polis sentri and doktor-doktor ( it’s actually a role-playing game , other kids usually play ‘emak-emak’ but we prefer this one ) . See ? 12 is the number of innocent children spending times on outdoor activities . What on earth has happened to the kids’ world ? The shocking news has ruined my childhood memories .

But then after I read more articles on the topic of the 12 year old marriage ; I came to understand a little bit . She caused a problem , what can I say more about these days major problem ; girls running away from home with boyfriends . Before this outrageous case, there was a school girl’s wedding on the news but she’s in between 14 to 15 as I remembered . Young teenage marriage is quite rare in Malaysia and some other countries . Of course , except for at the age of our grandmas’ before Merdeka .

For the kids out there , please enjoy your life as a kid . I do have a friend who’s having love affair with my senior when we were in primary school . As an ending , the boy left my friend crying on her school desk with broken heart . Me and the other kids were laughing at her secretly , yeah I know it’s mean but once again ; we were only a kid . And I tell you , nothing’s funnier than this love story . And nothing’s good came from it . 

Would You Like To Share?

Drinks , cakes , or ice-cream ; do you usually eat these foods together with your friends and family? I mean by sharing the same spoon and cup . I bet most of you did. But it goes different with me .

I’m the youngest in my family and I have only one sister ; which means when each of us wanted something, we would get it separately . We didn’t regularly share our drinks or foods except for snacks like chips . I was the worst ; I can’t even touch my ice-cream if someone all of a sudden took a bite from it .

As we both grew up , my sister had no problems doing the food sharing things but not for me . I was having a hard time just to get rid of my friends from constantly trying to ‘steal’ my foods and drink . Some of them already knew I couldn’t bear anyone take a sip from my drink or want to taste foods using my spoon . 50% would leave me alone and the rest were the evil . On purpose , they would suddenly drink my coke and ‘taste’ the ice-cream from my hand so that I would give it to them eternally , for free .

During Biology class in the year of 2008 , one of my classmates kept drinking from my other classmate’s bottle and after that she gave it to the next girl – I was in girls’ school . It’s like what they called ‘sharing is caring’. Then the Biology teacher , Mr Ravi made a gross look . He did agree with me that sharing drink is disgusting and the bacteria from our saliva will transfer from one to another person . He also added , (it’s just a joke , don’t take it personally) “If your friend has HIV you’ll be dead soon . For God’s sake go buy your own bottle of mineral water la”. My friend patted me on the back and said loudly , “She’s with you, Sir! She didn’t like to ‘share-share’ too!” followed by the laughs from the whole class .

When I entered campus life , I was a little worried . I was afraid if others thought I’m annoying or stingy . It is because at university , I didn’t get into the same one as my best friend was and I didn’t recognize anyone . And they didn’t know the strange side of me . So I tried to study a little bit about other people’s way of living .

However , nowadays I could use to this ‘share’ thing . Well not fully but at least I’m able to drink and eat from the same cup and spoon with my mom and a few people close to me . But still , I don’t truly recover from ‘sharing’ allergy .