Panthera Sapiens Ellipsis: The Blog

I met Wolf on Saturday. He's on vacation at the moment, and according to him, very bored, so he invited me out to some place called Aquaria, near the Twin Towers. (As a matter of fact it's very nearly in the same compound.) Anyway, we arrived at the Twin Towers via the subway at about 9 a.m, and then only did we find out that the place opens at 10. (The souvenir shop opens about ten minutes before the rest of the place--typical.) We spent the extra time having breakfast and catching up, more or less. We didn't talk much about what we've been doing over the past months or so, since those topics were covered during the ten-minute trip on the subway. (Unlike females, neither Wolf nor I see any point in analysing every detail of the past few thousand seconds.) My own breakfast that morning was a bowl of oats, eaten in my hostel room; Wolf's was a cup of hot Milo and a peanut-paste bun. Unfortunately, the label read Peanut Bun and consequently led to a most unfortunate ...

My sister greeted me last Friday with the cheerful news that one of my cousins is dead. Not that I knew him very well, but it's still unnerving to know that one will never see somebody else again. Not during this earthly life at least. He was a hunchback, and apparently he went to Taiwan for a straightening procedure. I hope he read the medical documents and contracts properly, because if he did then maybe there's a way to get compensation out of the doctors. At least his family deserves a refund of the operation costs. However, it's just another strong reminder that if one's body works, there's no real reason to go and alter it just for cosmetic reasons. I mean, he was just fine as he was. He may have been a tad short, but his weight was normal, he could probably lift weights with one finger that I couldn't with both arms, and (as far as I know) nobody ridiculed him about the curvature of his spine. Unfortunately, he went for the surgery all the same, and now h...

There's no real reason to put up a title on the posts I write now, since my template makes sure that the title never appears until it goes into the archives. Another reason to dislike HTML. Fine, hate. I hate HTML. Are you happy now? I know, I know, I sound rotten. I've probably been ranting or making other people rant for quite awhile by now. And it's not like I've got any excuses: everything's been all fine and dandy for, I don't know, ever since I got back, I suppose. The weather's perfectly rainy, my room-mate's a really OK guy, my sister is here, I have access to the Net. So what's with my grumpiness? Gene would love to know, I'm sure. I've been noticing him trying to avoid me for the past two weeks. (Before then, we were on holiday so... yeah. Never mind.) Maybe it's a side-effect of me shutting down my own feelings--I find myself increasingly insensitive to those of others. It's practically a skill of mine by now, to start off ...

16/12/2005 12.56pm I am now sitting in the first peace and quiet the house has known for some time. A family from my church in Patience is touring China, at my father's encouragement, and so the family is currently sharing the flat with my own family. I'm used to crowdedness, but 14 people in only 190+ square meters is a bit much, don't you think? Still, I'm not complaining: it's very pleasant company. Unfortunately it does mean that around bedtime, the two bathrooms get rather traffic-clogged. I haven't had a bath in ages! Anyway, they've been here for about 3 or 4 days, and we've taken them shopping every day. [Post-note: Their luggage was 40 kilos overweight when they went back to Patience.] So far I think they've enjoyed it a lot, especially the shopping: but they're starting to dread the word 'walking'. So am I: my feet are getting seriously sore. At least I can sit in the house now and recuperate while they go traipsing all over...

I am going to post everything I recorded in the Big S, beginning with this. Since school life is boring anyway, even the first day of it, you'll be much more interested in this than in how my sister is now in KL with me and studying the same course as I. But I digress. 10/12/2005 10.20am I arrived in the Big S on the 7th, some time in the afternoon. I was a little travel sick since I had just gotten back from a church camp the day before. It was a 5-hour journey by bus, nad the driver was under the impression (or delusion!) that the bus worked best at any speed above the legal limit. At least two people vomited on the way, not including me. (I was probably more than a little green in the face when it ended, though: I didn't have a mirror handy.) The flight wasn't the most enjoyable one--the company was apparently trying to cut down on expenses. There wasn't any in-flight entertainment--no TV or games or radio--no extra food (peanuts included)--bad service--and since ...