Mad is for Nomad
I continue from the last post; Darth Bo came back to the room just as I was typing so I returned him the LAN cable, which makes it sound as if he were imposing on me when it's really the other way 'round... In any case he's out at classes and I'm in the room so I'm using it now.
In any case... Well, the Gorillas are moving, and I (along with a couple hundred thousand other people) will miss them greatly. But the eulogies can come later, since for now I'm going to detail the activities of that week in KL, maybe follow it up with a detail of what I've been doing in Spore for the past few days, and then I'll get to the eulogies. This is just so you know where to scroll to if you want to skip all the dry details, or any of them.
I arrived in KL on Monday night, having left the University around 1pm since I had to return the room keys to Darth Bo (who was very intermittently in the room then). The bus trip was nothing special since the bus rides back to KL are always easily gotten and so I arrived there to find the Gorillas' house looking rather like my room before I'd got it cleaned up, except 100 times worse since they've got 5 people there and they've had the house for close to 20 years. And so I slept on the sofa for two nights, which was actually comfortable since I've been sleeping on the floor.
The only problem with that was that the Flowery Backpack wakes up very, VERY early--circa 7am usually--and when he wakes up, he sings. Now singing in itself is perfectly okay with me, as long as you don't wake me up with it. He did, once, and in my half-asleep state I somehow thought he was my kid brother and told him to "shut up, Z'han". Yes, I run my siblings' names together. I suppose he didn't hear the last word, or maybe it was too garbled, but it was a pretty odd thing to do, and I was a bit embarrassed about it when I actually woke up a few hours later.
Other than that... well, packing. The Gorillas have made arrangements to dispose of an insanely huge amount of items, and I helped move stuff like tables and stacks of books when help was needed. Tuesday was spent in relative leisure; Wednesday, much the same. Thursday nothing happened except that we packed up more stuff and I repacked a few bags, some of which to leave in the Coconut's keeping and some of which to bring back to Spore... oh, and I went over to the Coconut's for dinner. Very nice dinner it was too.
Friday was when the tiring madness began; there was a PC fair that weekend (including Friday), so the Coconut and I went to see it, and I'd made previous arrangements with Cheeky to meet up there too. So I and the Coconut went to the fair around 2pm, walked around and admired what we saw here and there, and I got myself a LAN cable and a laptop USB vacuum that has given me buyer's regret since it doesn't seem to work at all despite it being quite the noisemaker. Cheeky and a bunch of his classmates? friends? acquaintances? showed up around 4pm after their classes; the first thing he said when he saw me was "Getting fat, are you?" or words to that effect (I usually speak Mandarin with him).
The Coconut left shortly after because she was tired and she had nothing more to do there anyway; I remained to catch up with Cheeky, and we both left the fair around 6; he had had classes and wanted to rest, while I had duties to get to.
That Friday, you see, was the night of the official church-held farewell for the Gorillas; there was a potluck at church and after that a prolonged session of people sharing how they'd miss the Gorillas and thanking them for the twenty-odd years of stuff they've been doing for the church. It was, as Mrs. Gorilla later said, like a funeral except that the people being eulogised were still alive and present. I'm pretty certain a lot of people cried or at least sniffled, even though at that time the Gorillas still had a couple weeks to go before really leaving. (They now have 6 days.)
For some reason I don't think I'll miss them terribly. Don't get me wrong here: I would infinitely prefer them remaining in KL to them going off to New York, and I have much to regret that they're moving off; in fact I would like them to always remain in KL and for their children and grandchildren and descendants to the nth degree to remain there too. But being the way I am, I don't see this leaving as quite so horrible as it could be. I mean, they're going on God's orders and so it can't turn out all that bad; and for another thing the Internet allows webconferences and stuff and we can chitchat still. It won't be the same as sitting across a table and gobbling roti canai or whatever the latest good food is, but we must make do with what we have. For another thing--and this is one of my favourite parts about Christianity--when we meet in heaven again, there'll just be more to catch each other up on. So while I'll miss the physical contact and the food and fun, as long as there's still communication going on, I won't miss them very much. Of course, the Gorilla has Facebook so photos are going to be quite the demanded medium of communication.
I rather think I'll miss the house more than the people; since you can have a reunion with people but once a house is gone, it doesn't tend to come back.
The morning after the reunion, I attended the first ever wedding where I've known the participants personally. All previous weddings I've ever attended involved people that my parents knew and I didn't, so I'd just tag along in uncomfortable clothes (these were the days when I still lived with my parents, mind you--at least 6 years ago now) and sit around being bored until the after-wedding reception when my siblings and I would gorge as a sort of reward for not dozing off.
That Saturday morning, I woke at 7am--the same time as the Flowery Backpack--and left the Gorillas' house, arriving at the church where the wedding was held at around 10.15am. The marvelous (in)efficiency of the public transport system occasionally amazes me; though to be honest I actually arrived at the station at 9am and spent 45 minutes waiting to be fetched from the station to the church by carpool. It was a very nice wedding, more so since I actually knew the couple and so was interested in the proceedings; I met them both in the RBS, when he was one of my mission team's advisors, and she was one of the general staff.
It was very sweet, and I agree with the pastor who said that their kiss (after the unveiling and the "You may kiss the bride" announcement) was interesting, because he swept her off her feet in a rather dance-like move. Then again I suppose it was a good way to lift the mood after she nearly broke down in tears while exchanging the vows...
Unfortunately the newlyweds have a horde of other acquaintances and I got maybe two photos with them... as compared to maybe 20 or 30 that I have with a bunch of other RBSians that also turned up (16 of them if I remember aright). It was a nice reunion, but somewhat odd that when you go to a person's wedding, you get maybe 20 seconds of conversation with them and then spend a few hours talking to the other guests. Still, I don't see how it could've been any different, the convention being what it is.
I returned to the Gorillas' after the reception and a long ride on the public transport and a lot of promises to the other RBSians to stay in touch, and then Mrs. Gorilla and Claus were horrified that I'd been wearing a t-shirt emblazoned Eat Sleep Eat Some More on the front (because I absentmindedly didn't bring any formal shirts to KL on this trip), while I was walking around with my hands in my pockets because I hadn't brought a belt either and my jeans were loose (I always buy my clothes at least one size too large just in case I get fatter in the near future). Not exactly the best way to look when you turn up at a wedding, but oh well.
The Gorilla promptly gave me a new shirt to wear to church the next day.
That evening was the church youth's farewell to the Gorillas, and it didn't have a potluck, though Free Tea's mom baked a cake with generous amounts of icing. We had a bunch of videos taken of the youth saying goodbye, and then a large cloth banner on which to write stuff and that we told them to hang in their foyer or living room or anywhere it would be noticeable.
I don't think anybody cried this time, though it may have been that everybody was striving to keep the mood upbeat. Still, it was nice, though Soul Sounds, who made the video, had many self-criticisms after it: the camera wasn't the best, there was a lot of white noise, etc. But it was still good in my opinion (if a little jarring every now and then).
After that farewell service, I and Claus and Master Teacher went to the Gorillas' to help with stuff. More specifically: the Gorillas decided to have a garage sale to get rid of all the accumulated stuff, and they chose Sunday afternoon to do it. Hence, Saturday night, we were there deciding what prices to put on stuff and then carrying it out onto the porch to display. This led to a few interesting occurrences when we under- or overpriced some things, or when we took things out to sell that weren't meant to be sold: like bags and good badminton rackets. Mrs. Gorilla has a lot of bags, and Claus commented that she had better not sell some of them considering the kind of trouble she'd gone to to get them in the first place: one of them involved the Coconut, Claus, and myself struggling against a horde of angry old ladies during a sale to get a particularly limited edition of a bag... but I don't even remember the brand name of it now, just that we got one of the last ten bags.
We finished around 3am, had food, and went to sleep; Master Teacher woke at 6.30am, I woke at 8, and Claus at 11am (and so he missed church entirely). I left for Singapore at 1pm from the Gorillas' and made it as simple as possible so as not to disrupt the garage sale, and very fortunately I got a last-minute bus ticket to Spore and was on the bus at 2.30pm...
And so now I'm here, in Spore.
In any case... Well, the Gorillas are moving, and I (along with a couple hundred thousand other people) will miss them greatly. But the eulogies can come later, since for now I'm going to detail the activities of that week in KL, maybe follow it up with a detail of what I've been doing in Spore for the past few days, and then I'll get to the eulogies. This is just so you know where to scroll to if you want to skip all the dry details, or any of them.
I arrived in KL on Monday night, having left the University around 1pm since I had to return the room keys to Darth Bo (who was very intermittently in the room then). The bus trip was nothing special since the bus rides back to KL are always easily gotten and so I arrived there to find the Gorillas' house looking rather like my room before I'd got it cleaned up, except 100 times worse since they've got 5 people there and they've had the house for close to 20 years. And so I slept on the sofa for two nights, which was actually comfortable since I've been sleeping on the floor.
The only problem with that was that the Flowery Backpack wakes up very, VERY early--circa 7am usually--and when he wakes up, he sings. Now singing in itself is perfectly okay with me, as long as you don't wake me up with it. He did, once, and in my half-asleep state I somehow thought he was my kid brother and told him to "shut up, Z'han". Yes, I run my siblings' names together. I suppose he didn't hear the last word, or maybe it was too garbled, but it was a pretty odd thing to do, and I was a bit embarrassed about it when I actually woke up a few hours later.
Other than that... well, packing. The Gorillas have made arrangements to dispose of an insanely huge amount of items, and I helped move stuff like tables and stacks of books when help was needed. Tuesday was spent in relative leisure; Wednesday, much the same. Thursday nothing happened except that we packed up more stuff and I repacked a few bags, some of which to leave in the Coconut's keeping and some of which to bring back to Spore... oh, and I went over to the Coconut's for dinner. Very nice dinner it was too.
Friday was when the tiring madness began; there was a PC fair that weekend (including Friday), so the Coconut and I went to see it, and I'd made previous arrangements with Cheeky to meet up there too. So I and the Coconut went to the fair around 2pm, walked around and admired what we saw here and there, and I got myself a LAN cable and a laptop USB vacuum that has given me buyer's regret since it doesn't seem to work at all despite it being quite the noisemaker. Cheeky and a bunch of his classmates? friends? acquaintances? showed up around 4pm after their classes; the first thing he said when he saw me was "Getting fat, are you?" or words to that effect (I usually speak Mandarin with him).
The Coconut left shortly after because she was tired and she had nothing more to do there anyway; I remained to catch up with Cheeky, and we both left the fair around 6; he had had classes and wanted to rest, while I had duties to get to.
That Friday, you see, was the night of the official church-held farewell for the Gorillas; there was a potluck at church and after that a prolonged session of people sharing how they'd miss the Gorillas and thanking them for the twenty-odd years of stuff they've been doing for the church. It was, as Mrs. Gorilla later said, like a funeral except that the people being eulogised were still alive and present. I'm pretty certain a lot of people cried or at least sniffled, even though at that time the Gorillas still had a couple weeks to go before really leaving. (They now have 6 days.)
For some reason I don't think I'll miss them terribly. Don't get me wrong here: I would infinitely prefer them remaining in KL to them going off to New York, and I have much to regret that they're moving off; in fact I would like them to always remain in KL and for their children and grandchildren and descendants to the nth degree to remain there too. But being the way I am, I don't see this leaving as quite so horrible as it could be. I mean, they're going on God's orders and so it can't turn out all that bad; and for another thing the Internet allows webconferences and stuff and we can chitchat still. It won't be the same as sitting across a table and gobbling roti canai or whatever the latest good food is, but we must make do with what we have. For another thing--and this is one of my favourite parts about Christianity--when we meet in heaven again, there'll just be more to catch each other up on. So while I'll miss the physical contact and the food and fun, as long as there's still communication going on, I won't miss them very much. Of course, the Gorilla has Facebook so photos are going to be quite the demanded medium of communication.
I rather think I'll miss the house more than the people; since you can have a reunion with people but once a house is gone, it doesn't tend to come back.
The morning after the reunion, I attended the first ever wedding where I've known the participants personally. All previous weddings I've ever attended involved people that my parents knew and I didn't, so I'd just tag along in uncomfortable clothes (these were the days when I still lived with my parents, mind you--at least 6 years ago now) and sit around being bored until the after-wedding reception when my siblings and I would gorge as a sort of reward for not dozing off.
That Saturday morning, I woke at 7am--the same time as the Flowery Backpack--and left the Gorillas' house, arriving at the church where the wedding was held at around 10.15am. The marvelous (in)efficiency of the public transport system occasionally amazes me; though to be honest I actually arrived at the station at 9am and spent 45 minutes waiting to be fetched from the station to the church by carpool. It was a very nice wedding, more so since I actually knew the couple and so was interested in the proceedings; I met them both in the RBS, when he was one of my mission team's advisors, and she was one of the general staff.
It was very sweet, and I agree with the pastor who said that their kiss (after the unveiling and the "You may kiss the bride" announcement) was interesting, because he swept her off her feet in a rather dance-like move. Then again I suppose it was a good way to lift the mood after she nearly broke down in tears while exchanging the vows...
Unfortunately the newlyweds have a horde of other acquaintances and I got maybe two photos with them... as compared to maybe 20 or 30 that I have with a bunch of other RBSians that also turned up (16 of them if I remember aright). It was a nice reunion, but somewhat odd that when you go to a person's wedding, you get maybe 20 seconds of conversation with them and then spend a few hours talking to the other guests. Still, I don't see how it could've been any different, the convention being what it is.
I returned to the Gorillas' after the reception and a long ride on the public transport and a lot of promises to the other RBSians to stay in touch, and then Mrs. Gorilla and Claus were horrified that I'd been wearing a t-shirt emblazoned Eat Sleep Eat Some More on the front (because I absentmindedly didn't bring any formal shirts to KL on this trip), while I was walking around with my hands in my pockets because I hadn't brought a belt either and my jeans were loose (I always buy my clothes at least one size too large just in case I get fatter in the near future). Not exactly the best way to look when you turn up at a wedding, but oh well.
The Gorilla promptly gave me a new shirt to wear to church the next day.
That evening was the church youth's farewell to the Gorillas, and it didn't have a potluck, though Free Tea's mom baked a cake with generous amounts of icing. We had a bunch of videos taken of the youth saying goodbye, and then a large cloth banner on which to write stuff and that we told them to hang in their foyer or living room or anywhere it would be noticeable.
I don't think anybody cried this time, though it may have been that everybody was striving to keep the mood upbeat. Still, it was nice, though Soul Sounds, who made the video, had many self-criticisms after it: the camera wasn't the best, there was a lot of white noise, etc. But it was still good in my opinion (if a little jarring every now and then).
After that farewell service, I and Claus and Master Teacher went to the Gorillas' to help with stuff. More specifically: the Gorillas decided to have a garage sale to get rid of all the accumulated stuff, and they chose Sunday afternoon to do it. Hence, Saturday night, we were there deciding what prices to put on stuff and then carrying it out onto the porch to display. This led to a few interesting occurrences when we under- or overpriced some things, or when we took things out to sell that weren't meant to be sold: like bags and good badminton rackets. Mrs. Gorilla has a lot of bags, and Claus commented that she had better not sell some of them considering the kind of trouble she'd gone to to get them in the first place: one of them involved the Coconut, Claus, and myself struggling against a horde of angry old ladies during a sale to get a particularly limited edition of a bag... but I don't even remember the brand name of it now, just that we got one of the last ten bags.
We finished around 3am, had food, and went to sleep; Master Teacher woke at 6.30am, I woke at 8, and Claus at 11am (and so he missed church entirely). I left for Singapore at 1pm from the Gorillas' and made it as simple as possible so as not to disrupt the garage sale, and very fortunately I got a last-minute bus ticket to Spore and was on the bus at 2.30pm...
And so now I'm here, in Spore.
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