I’m lovin’ it!

Decided to post one of my favorite ads this year  (still love the Snickers commercial with Betty White!).

I fell in love with this one ’cause it struck a nerve. It feels like deja vu even, in some parts of the ad. Not to mention, I noticed some similarities in physical traits between the boy and me.

Kudos to McD’s (at least the one in France) for creating something so bold and sweet. I’m not a fan of fast food but I’m willing to put some of that unhealthy oil in me if that means you’ll continue to come up with advertisements like this.

I’ll mark my discovery of FML with my first FML.

I was back in Penang for the holidays. Forgot my multi-purpose contact lens solution. Decided to use my sister’s solution instead. The next morning, rinsed my contacts with her solution and expertly slid it up my right eye. Stung like a b**ch! The label read ‘This solution contains 3% hydrogen peroxide. Avoid direct contact with eyes’. FML

It has been exactly a year from today since you left us. I felt the strong need to write to you tonight. I think I have finally come to terms with your passing and there are a few things I want to tell you. Truth is, I have been feeling guilty ever since you died.

I want to apologize for the way I acted in the days leading up to your death. I am sorry for forsaking you in times when you needed me most. It’s just that I was terrified of the disease, worried that I might contract it from you somehow. It got so bad to a point I didn’t know how to help but to watch your health deteriorate.

I should know better. I should have done more. I can never forgive myself for leaving you that night when all you wanted to do was to talk. I made up some silly excuse that I was busy with work. And now I’m left with this feeling of regret and how I wish I had more time to spend with you. But if I had one wish, I wish you didn’t have this disease in the first place. I know it is pointless to think about stuff like that. However, I am glad that we got the chance to spend a little time together. We really have come full circle, haven’t we?

We celebrated D’s wedding yesterday. It was like a family reunion, everyone was there. I know how you like family reunions. Auntie Anna was there too. She was surprisingly nice to me. She even stood up for me a few times, especially when people were interrogating me on my single status. She gave me a few knowing looks a couple of times but she did not once advise me to abandon my current lifestyle like how you said she would. To be perfectly honest, I don’t know if she’s truly happy with her lifestyle choice. I would think with a husband and daughter, she’d be happy.

And now, I am having second thoughts about my lifestyle choice. It’s funny considering you were the first to know about me. That was when I was 12. It has been 18 years since then and I still have my doubts. Though not so much now but I’ve always wanted a family. Maybe the feeling is stronger today in the aftermath of the wedding. I know what you’ll say. You’ll tell me to do whatever makes me happy. The truth is, I don’t know what makes me happy.

I am beginning to think we are so much alike eventhough we’re not family by blood. We are both egoistical, arrogant and stubborn in our ways. Highly ambitious and materialistic. Sometimes I wonder if I’m destined to the same fate. Well, I hope not. Because I’d hate to think that after so much pondering, contemplating and decision-making, I would arrive at exactly the same place you did. I am hoping that with all the advice you gave and lessons you have taught me, I would not repeat the same mistakes you made. However, there’s one advice which I refuse to take. You once told me there’s no room for love in our world. Chances are you’re probably right. But I think I’ll give love a try. And when I end up heartbroken and alone, then you can say to me, “I told you so”.

God, I miss your sarcastic humor.

I’ll end here. I really hope you read this. I miss you and I hope we’ll meet again in time to come. I believe there’s a place somewhere for a reunion.

Your nephew,

Kenny

What I do is read clinical papers all day. I get scientific journals delivered to me everyday on various drugs. Some new, some old. Some in the infancy of their development, some crawling to their graveyard. Some born in Europe, others duplicated in India. Yes, sounds like these drugs have a community of their own.

What I also get are the latest updates of my products (drugs) “under my care” sent to my inbox everyday. So, what I do is I read them, organize the information clearly and concisely in the form of presentation slides (Powerpoint format, mostly) and go all around the country speaking about the scientific aspects of the product(s) to healthcare professionals.

Not to sound modest, but I am one of the best speakers in my company when I actually know what the hell I’m talking about. But that doesn’t happen very often ’cause half the time, I make things up as a go along. That being said, I’m not exactly a basket case. I do understand a thing or two about the human body, how disease come to be and how drugs act the way we want it to act (aka to treat) and sometimes how it does a lousy job in leaving unwanted trails behind (aka side effects).

I do have some sort of liking for science. After all, I have been taught, trained and surrounded by science for the last, I don’t know, 10 years (excluding my time in high school). Science itself is like a drug to me now. It courses through my veins and cannot be weaned off.

But the truth is, I always found science to be boring and frankly, I am embarrassed to sometimes talk about it. The Arts, on the other hand, is something I find fascinating. Talent is a gift from God while Science revolves around the understanding of the mechanics of God’s creations. Can you get creative with facts?

If there is anything Artsy about me is that I do love story-telling and well, who doesn’t love a good story. That is probably the reason why I am a fairly good speaker.

Through the years, I’ve learned to mesh the two together. I’ve learned to tell a story through science. What I’ve also learned is to let my nerdy side out, nurture and develop what I have and turn it into something productive and positive. So, I’ve added a new category to my life, called “Life and Science” to dispense my pearls of science wisdom.

Mary Midgley once declared in her book Evolution as a Religion: Facts will never appear to us as brute and meaningless; they will always organize themselves into some sort of story, some drama.

Fuse facts with story and drama. This is what I will do.

I have undoubtedly broken the cardinal rule of blogging, that is, to post frequently!

I could have posted something sooner but this is what happened.

Two-thirds into my post on the Origins of Chinese New Year and Valentine’s Day, I had a sudden writer’s block.

After reading the post over and over again, the more I read it, the more I realized how tiresome and uninspiring the content was. I was beginning to doubt my own writing skills. Was I not able to cleverly fuse the traditions of Chinese New Year with the emotional gooey-ness (sic) of Valentine’s Day?

After reading the post for the umpteenth time, I sent the post to trash and decided to turn to the Writing Gods for help, just like how I would turn to Lord Buddha if I needed spiritual guidance.

Virginia Woolf once noted, “The way to rock oneself back into writing is this. First gentle exercise in the air. Second the reading of good literature. It is a mistake to think that literature can be produced from raw”.

So, I did just that. After a few deep, controlled breaths, I began my search for lifestyle blogs similar to mine, in hopes of uncovering some good literature. You know the similar lifestyle blogs I mean; Disturbed boy in cold city with nothing but his thoughts.

I was shockingly surprised to find that there were a number of blogs almost identical to mine. I said almost. Theirs were better!

I frequently get comments that my blog has too few pictures in it, my writing isn’t descriptive enough or that I was concealing too much information and now I finally understand what they meant.

Some of the posts on these blogs were well-written, quite expressive and thoroughly researched.

One blogger had used his blog to describe his sexual conquests (which was every other day), his love for the gym (he would insert little remarks of his conspicuous pectorals in almost every post) and his admiration for his youthful looks (he’s 29 but apparently looks like he’s 24).

Another blogger had listed down all the latest hotspots and great clubs to go on his sidebar, had a post in the form of a dialogue which takes place in a club (in the end, he concluded that Malaysian men were idiots) and he had  published a series of erotic short stories.

Granted that these blogs were extreme examples of a typical lifestyle blog, the essence of it is the same (I had thought of writing an erotic short story for my next post).

It is in times like these that I wonder, in a world filled with people with different personalities and unique characteristics, are we more alike than we think we are?

Perhaps we are only varying versions of a few definitive set of traits. After all, how many of us can lay claim to having a truly one-of-a-kind talent? Why the need to feel to goddamn special all the time?

You can call this post a rambling but it helps to ramble to rock oneself back into writing.

Everytime that I am back home, I’d take a tour around the house, taking in the little changes that usually occur during my time away. There would be either a new piece of furniture or something that was broken and being left there in its sorry state for everyone to see.

This visit, I had observed that we had a new electronic gate and they’ve tiled the driveway and painted the front porch white (I’ve heard about the minor renovations and my mom’s constant arguments with the construction workers for weeks now so I had anticipated this change), the shower was broken in our main bathroom and was left unfixed, one missing dog (my dog ran away from home and has not been back for a few months now) and the kitchen cupboards were refurbished with white tiles on its surfaces.

I walked around the living room always amazed at how much furniture we had (that was the problem with people who were unable to part with their material possessions) when I spotted a round device that looked like a glorified electronic weighing machine.

“What’s this?” I yelled to my mom, who was in the kitchen fixing lunch. I started to put one foot on the grey device as she emerged from the kitchen to see what I had meant.

“Oh this,” she said, pushing me roughly aside and smiling. She pressed the start button on the device. I noticed that she was pleased to have the opportunity to impress me with a piece of technology that I hadn’t known about let alone seen.  As soon as my mom pressed the button, I could hear a low humming noise as the machine sprang into life. It popped out from its dock and began moving around, bumping into the furniture and off the walls. “This is my new broom cum vacuum cleaner,” my mom proudly proclaimed. She continued, “It goes around cleaning the floors by itself and will go back to its house (I think she meant dock) when it is out of battery to recharge. My Robert gets rid of microorganisms as well.”

That was cute. I didn’t know which was cuter. The fact that my mom actually gave it a name or that she could pronounce ‘microorganism’. I had my first tamagochi when I was 15. I had named my tamagochi “Tamagochi Jr” and she had rolled her eyes. I’m never good with naming pets and objects. I usually name them after their original names like “Baby MacBook” or “Ms Piglet”. It was now my turn to roll my eyes.

I was suspicious about my mom’s new boyfriend. So, I did a background check on Robert.

Apparently, all that my mom said was true. This was the real deal.

Robert was actually quite intelligent (in an artificial way, of course). He looked like something out of the movie “Wall-E”, only that it did not have mechanical eyelids and can’t fall in love. But my mom seemed to have fallen in love with Robert. Wherever Robert went, my mom would be moving the furniture out of ‘his’ way. I know, weird.

So, throughout the weekend, Robert would be humming away ’round the house , sucking hair, dust and occasionally ants. Sometimes, it would get stuck in between the dining room chairs and would be spinning around hopelessly. I would scream for my mom to come save Robert and she would rush out from wherever she was, move the furniture aside to let Robert out, sighing and saying affectionately, “this stupid Robert.”

Sometimes, I would feed him some strands of hair or thread I found or I would put my foot down on Robert whenever he passed by, trying to stop him from moving. In some perverse way, I’d be thinking i was actually torturing him.

Now that I’ve returned to Kuala Lumpur, I’m actually beginning to miss that little bastard.

Oh, by the way, his real name is PicaBot which when translated, literally means “a robot that loves to eat junk”.

I stared out of the large glass windows that span across both sides of the room, each rising from about 2 feet from the floor all the way up to the ceiling.

“…you can see all of Kuala Lumpur from here…”

My eyes darted along the Kuala Lumpur skyline, scanning through the various buildings before settling on a small, white apartment along Jalan Tun Razak. It was only weeks ago that I was there, on the balcony, staring out into the night. My heart sank as I recalled what had happened between Jeremy and I.

“… and there’s a helipad on the roof and as you can see from here, the new Hilton is on our right…”

I fished out my phone from my pocket and began twiddling it in my hand. Should I call him?

I began scrolling my forefinger down the contact list in alphabetical order, searching for his name. A, B… D… H…

“Kenny? Kenny?”

I spun around and I saw a short, plum woman standing a few feet away from me. She and a group of people were staring at me, waiting for an answer.

“Erm, yeah… what’s that, Mummy?”

I swallowed the bitter taste that was forming in my throat. I always get this uneasy feeling calling someone else Mummy. Her real name was Molly and her official title was Senior Administrator. But we all know that she really was the eyes and ears of the Managing Director. There is one of them in every company. They are like roaches, hard to kill and they never truly die (they leave a successor behind). Somehow they have managed to survive any corporate restructuring or management change. She prefers to be called Mummy (eventhough she tells people to call her by her name) and for anyone who was willing to utter the dear word would receive “protection” like how a mother would protect her children. Only in this case, the “love” was conditional. Her loyalty lies with her boss.

“What do you think of the new office?”

We were on the 58th floor of the 62-story Vista Tower, the fifth tallest skyscraper in Kuala Lumpur and what would soon be our new corporate home in April.

I looked around the empty room. There was a lot of work yet to be done. Room partitions were not set-up, there was a need for carpeting and there wasn’t any furniture in sight. Not much to think about, really.

“The space is smaller than I had imagined,” I replied.

“It’s just slightly smaller than our current office space but it still is a better place, don’t you think?” She looked at me expectantly. There was only one correct answer.

I obligingly took another look around the room and caught a glimpse of the Petronas Twin Towers. It really was a beautiful structure with its circular layers of alternating steel and ocean-green glass. There is something exceptionally appealing about duplicates, in two’s to be exact. Maybe our minds are so used to processing single objects that it almost seems refreshing when we view doubles as a single entity.

“Yes, the panoramic view from here is simply spectacular, makes up for any loss in office space ,” I said, not taking my eyes off the Twin Towers.

Sensing her small victory, she added, “And there won’t be a building that would block our view for many years to come.”

I peered down at the cars going about their usual business.

They looked like miniature toy cars from where I was standing.

“How did I get here?” I thought to myself.

I looked around. There was no one I knew in sight. The guy my friend had recently introduced to me was standing awkwardly beside me. Our conversation was going nowhere. I could not find a single common interest between us.

“What am I doing here? I could be back home sleeping or watching a DVD movie,” I thought. Then the other voice in my head said, ” Yeah and while you’re watching your movie, you’d be wondering why aren’t you out on a Saturday night.”

Just as I was about to bid my new friend goodbye and call it a night, a man in a hat smiled as he walked past me. He was one of those guys that had the kind of smile that could warm your heart. He stood beside me and after a few minutes, turned to me and asked, “So, you’re here alone?”

“No, I’m with a friend but he seemed to have gone missing,” I replied, knowing that I was telling the truth but had the feeling he didn’t quite believe me.

“Oh, I see.” He smiled as he said this and I could feel my heart melt.

A few more minutes like this and I would have melted into a pool of puddle on the floor.

I realized at this point that the music was so loud that we had to lean over and speak into each other’s ear.

“What’s your name?” he asked.

“My name is Kenny,” I said sheepishly. “What’s your name?”

“I’m Jeremy,” he replied, rather confidently.

“It’s nice to meet you, Jeremy.”

“Likewise.”

He looked at me and smiled again. Then he leaned over, so close that I could smell him, and said,

“So, what’s your sign?”

A genuine interest in trying to gain an insight into my character or just a corny pick-up line?

Before I continue with this post, many blog experts have said that you should only write about what you know. As I am no astrologer or Chinese fortune-teller, I am basically walking into unfamiliar territory here when I write about horoscopes and zodiac signs.

But since Chinese New Year is around the corner (everyone is talking about what animal year it is) and I constantly feel uneasy whenever I read my daily horoscope, I thought I’d write about it and hope it gets clearer in my mind.

I’m born under the Taurus/Gemini sign. Another one of those confusing statements that can only be found on your blog, you might say. You can only have one Star Sign. Well, true but then again, not-so-true.

Your Star Sign is based on the location of the Sun at the exact time and place of your birth. But I’m also told that the Moon and other planets are in your birth horoscope too. These objects represent different parts of your psyche. This leaves me pondering, are you a true Taurus if the Moon and other planets (like Venus and Mars) are not aligned in your ‘Taurus zone’.

To further complicate matters, in astrology, the start and end dates of astrological signs are not set in stone. There is something called cusp dates. A ‘cusp’, in astrological terms, is an imaginary boundary line between two Signs. Because your Star Sign is based on the position of the Earth relative to the Sun (and we all know that the Earth does not take 365 days to move around the Sun – it takes a little longer), your Star Sign dates actually differ from year to year. And this is a headache for people (like me) who are born near the boundary.

But there has to be an answer. Am I a Taurus or a Gemini? With the availability of the World Wide Web, the answer is bound to be somewhere in cyberspace. According to a site I found (even though I question the authenticity of the website), after inserting the year in which I was born, I am indeed a Taurus. Problem solved. Another identity crisis averted.

Wrong.

Have you ever examined your Star Sign and thought, ” Geez, this sounds nothing like me or how my day went!” or “I seem to have traits from both Signs!” Is that possible? Well, yes.

There is this thing called your Rising Sign. This corresponds to the time (or exact hour) of your birth. Your Rising Sign is how you appear or subconsciously want to appear to others (aka your outward appearance). 11 out of 12 people have different Star and Rising Signs.

After some rough calculations and chart navigation, I discovered that I am a Taurus trapped in a Gemini’s body. And since adjacent Signs like the Taurus and Gemini have very different sets of personalities, I have this tendency of sending mixed signals. Finally, an answer to all my unanswered questions! Why do people always think I’m confident, talkative and brave when I’m actually a lost boy inside? Different Star and Rising Signs. Why do I appear to be a slut when I’m really an Angel inside? Different Star and Rising Signs.

As far as Chinese zodiac signs are concerned, I am born in the Year of the Phoenix (Fenghuang), also known as the “Rooster”. I prefer the former term as (1) I believe there shouldn’t be a sex denotation to the animal signs (just like I prefer to call it the year of “Ox” instead of “Cow”) and (2) if there’s going to be a Dragon Sign, there has to be a Phoenix Sign to balance it out (Yin and Yang). In Chinese astrology, animal signs are based by year in contrast to Western zodiac signs which are by months. No problems here. Pretty simple and straightforward. Apparently, I was wrong again. There are different animal signs assigned by month (known as your ‘inner animal’) and by hours of the day (known as your ‘secret animal’). After connecting the dots, I again realized that I am no single animal. I am a Snake trapped inside a Phoenix who secretly thinks It is a Horse. Pegasus, the flying horse?

To sum it all up, I am a hybrid of an Ox (Taurus) and Snake stuck in a chimeric Gemini and Phoenix body and have a secret identity of a Horse. And these Signs all have very different characteristics and personalities.

No wonder they say human beings are such complex creatures.

My late grandmother never talked about it and forbade anyone from even mentioning the word “adoption”. She loved my Dad and treated him like her own child. It was one of the many unspoken truths in the family but it was painfully obvious to the naked eye that my Dad looked nothing like his siblings.

Sixteen years ago, my grandmother passed away. We were clearing up her things when we found my Dad’s birth certificate. How in the world did my late grandmother manage to make another birth certificate for my Dad is beyond me. But then again, it was the 1940’s and with the British army battling the Japanese troops back then, I doubt anyone would scrutinize minor stuff like the issuance of birth certificates.

But from the document, we discovered a few more truths. My Dad is actually 2 years older than what he is now with a different birth date. And his biological father’s family name is Teo.  This means for years we have celebrated my Dad’s birthday on the wrong day, he was always the eldest in his class and he had misinterpreted his star sign for the last, umm, 40 years of his life! I will leave him to comment on this identity crisis in his own blog.

So, what has changed for me, his offspring? Nothing much, really.

Only that I am a little confused with regards to my name.

Is my true family name the one stated on my birth certificate? Despite the fact that it can be easily duplicated, birth certs serve as an official legal document of your identity. And I have been using this name for ages, it is everywhere. My report cards, my passport, my driving license etc. I can’t change that and therefore, it has to be my true name (though I am sure there is some sort of legal procedure somewhere if I really wanted to change it).

On the other hand, the Teo family name does carry some valuable genetic information. My lack of family history makes my medical history somewhat incomplete. Do I have a history of diabetes, cancer or Alzheimer’s? Or worse, a history of depression. Yikes, did I just compare Cancer to depression (I should know better)? I can’t change my genetic make-up and therefore the Teo family name has to be a part of my identity and should be true too.

I shouldn’t dwell too long on this subject. After all, there’s the famous Shakespeare quote “What’s in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.”

And Gertrude Stein once wrote, “Rose is a rose is a rose is a rose”. Things are what they are.

I chose to use the name Teo as it is a better representation of myself in relation to this blog. This blog represents who I am on a genetic and molecular level (I have this theory that sexual orientation and personality traits are linked to genes) as opposed to who I ought to be in the society.

Now, should I go on a search up the Teo family tree against my parent’s wishes? I have a whole family of aunts, uncles, cousins and nephews yet to be discovered. Who knows what hidden gems I might find. A billionaire grandfather?

Or will I open a can of worms?

Each year, I would spend more time reflecting on the past year than making new resolutions for the immediate future. A simple, logical explanation to this is that events of the past year are events that actually happened and had made an impact on us somehow and therefore seemed more real, memories that we can hold onto. Making resolutions for the new year is more of an abstract process. Everything is uncertain and unpredictable. Kind of like feeling your way in the dark.

Every year, New Year’s Eve is traditionally spent with my closest friends at that time (close friends are here one year and absent the next/close friends who became public enemies and therefore uninvited to spend New Year’s eve with the rest of us). We would get in a circle and recite our new year’s resolution(s). Resolutions were usually met with sarcasm and for those who did not have any resolutions were branded ambitionless or hopeless. I usually choose the lesser of the two evils, throwing in a few half-baked resolutions in hopes of generating a few approval nods to acknowledge the fact that I am indeed trying to make myself a better person. Needless to say, my resolutions never made it past the first quarter of the year.

Having said all that, I am actually looking forward to this year. It is also the dawn of a new decade. This year doesn’t feel like I’m walking in the dark. Rather, I feel like I’m running up a green hill, eager to see what is just beyond the horizon.

This year, I feel like I have finally figured out how to live my life. After years of experimenting, years of finding out my likes and dislikes, years of trying to be comfortable with myself, I think I have come to a stage where I am ready to experience life and play an active part in it. That’s my New Year’s resolution.

And if 2009 is anything to go by, this year is going to be quite an interesting year. I can just feel it. I already have a few things I look forward to (a few trips locally and abroad, new job prospects, a wedding (not mine), a renewed relationship with God and new hobbies) and a new attitude towards life. Yes, all new! The saying goes, your attitude determines your altitude in life. I take that as having a positive attitude takes you to elevated heights of life (Heaven? State of Nirvana?).

It may not turn out to be an extremely eventful year but it will definitely be a different year. Ah, and I have a new blog to document it all.  I anticipate 2010 to be a year of ups and downs (there will be tears), filled with fun and laughter, deeper self-discovery, exams (yucks), drugs, alcohol and sex (FYI, this blog is rated R) and last but not least, lots of love.

So, I bid 2009 goodbye (good riddance!) and welcome 2010 with open arms.