neurolinguistic concerns

i have been detecting some phonological flaws in my speech lately. and i am not sure why. i have been detecting slur and syntax condensation especially at the end of sentences. completely unintentional. i have also been detecting some auxiliary construction errors which is kinda irritating because my grammar is perfect.

the problem is speech and not written. motor functions are okay. the linguist in me has this gut feeling that it may be neurological. i am a little worried.

it’s getting hot in here. so take off all your clothes!

i used to be able to tell for sure that malaysia has two well defined seasons: one that is wet, and one that is wetter. this was the reality for this sun-kissed country right on the equator (because i also have people asking me where malaysia is). that’s how you used to describe a tropical south east asian country – by the rain.

but things really are not the way they used to be. you have no idea how saying that makes me feel so old. but it is just a few years ago when i can say that the first half of the year is hot and the second half of the year is monsoon. and i really should not feel old about it because crazy weather changes are not supposed to happen in just a few years, right? i mean, it is one of those millions and millions of years kinda evolution kinda thing or something like that. rite?

and so, people ask me what i become concerned about the weather and the environment and carbon these past few years. and it is not something that happened over night. but suddenly, i find that if i want to go diving in july, it might rain at the east coast islands. and then there are times when i want to go to the islands in september, the corals are experiencing bleaching and so they turn white. and die. and here i am trying not to get my feet torn to shreads by broken corals.

and then there are flash floods in kuala lumpur. which means traffic jam. and i know that a lot of people blame city planning, but i bet the city planners did not count on it raining so heavily all of a sudden all year round.

but that’s what’s happening. it’s raining like crazy all year round now.

i was in europe a few months back. it was supposed to be spring. by calculation, the middle of spring to be exact. and paris rained on me. like three days straight. so much for seeing anything from the effiel tower.

and from there, i travelled to barcelona, which is just south of france and got seriously baked in the sun. it was so hot, i have not seen so many sun burnt people walking in a single town in my life. i was burnt and peeling. someone tells me that there is something weird in the weather. it is not supposed to be so hot in spring. it is summer come early. people are already heading out to the beaches. dude, if this is spring, i cannot imagine how hot it would be in the summer.

the weird weather is not easy for the traveller. it affects the nature of the entire trip. when to go. what to do. what to pack. oh my god, you have no idea how hard it is for the poor backpacker, especially, when you don’t pack the right stuff.

and so i am hosting a series of events come the end of the month. and my delegates are already asking me what the weather will be like in KL. and i would like to say that it will rain and pack your ponchos and brollys. but is it just me or has it just been ridiculously hot in KL these days? like the kind of heat that makes you want to take a shower four times a day kinda heat.

hello? rain?

so here’s the deal. even if you don’t care about the environment, you got to face the reality that all this crazy weather that we’re having is something that is so totally menyusahkan. i cannot function as well. i want to travel but all my travel plans can be washed out just like that because it is too wet or too rainy when it is not supposed to.

and i know people out there that say that it is one of those things that we cannot significantly do anything about. well friends, i would go down fighting, man. i refuse to sit here not doing anything. even if i don’t achieve anything, and really, what can one girl do to save the world, i would sleep better at night knowing that i did something. anything. and i did all i could.

and one day when my children’s children ask me what i did, i will have stories to tell them. i am a writer, see? :) stories about the places i have been and people i met. stories about all the crazy adventures i had and experiences of growing up in the 80s and living it up in the new millennium. most of all, i would be able to tell them that i tried to save the world. and i really do.

i am trying to save the world. ain’t that something.

there is enough for everybody’s need. there is not enough for everybody’s greed. ~ gandhi

in my social circles, i have been listening for months now how badly our economy has been crippled. how bad times are. how people got to tighten their belts. how companies are retrenching and jobs are hard to hang on to. bla bla bla.

and here’s what i say about it: all of you saying that the world has gone bad just don’t know what bad is. and i have a very easy way of proving this to you. go to any gerai makan or mamak or food stall or even fancy restaurant. that is how you can tell for sure. because as long as people don’t finish their food on their plates, that is as long as we are NOT in some sort of crisis.

people say times are bad, but we still put more food on our plates than we can finish. we still put too much rice. we are still greedy with our food portions. we still push away plates of half eaten food when we are done. and we continue to do this over and over again day by day by day.

seriously, man. you know how much you can handle. if you are not able to finish, then don’t take so much in the first place.

and i am not saying there is anything wrong with eating a lot. as long as you know that you can finish the food, go ahead and heap it up. nothing wrong there. i have an ex that ate rice by the mountains. i am serious. but he always finished his food. because he knew he could.

and don’t give me that crap about dah kenyang so cannot makan any more. then don’t take so much in the first place, DUH! and don’t give me that bull that you can’t help the portion. everywhere i go, i can tell the mamak or the makcik at the gerai to kurang nasi. or bagi nasi setengah. and they are too happy to oblige.

you want to know the biggest nonsense i have ever heard? when someone takes a big portion of food and claims that they nak rasa saja. just to taste? you need to take a heap of the thing and all you want to do is nibble a taste of it?!

there are one billion people going hungry in the world everyday this year. i bet you did not know that. i bet you don’t think of them when you are pushing away your half eaten plate of rice and half eaten piece of fried fish and the vegetables that you say don’t taste so nice so you won’t eat them. i bet you don’t know that more than half of the one billion hungry people in the world everyday are asians. our neighbours.

so here’s some food for thought on this rainy tuesday morning. lunch is in about two and a half hours (for some of us, anyway). think about this on your way to the cafeteria this afternoon.

i know what you did in ipoh

was away for the weekend on one of those trips you wish you did not have to come home from. good friends that i’ve known forever. good food. a car. a pool. a sauna. a freak detour to kuala kangsar. and a pit stop in gopeng.

i feel obliged to provide an explanation for the photos. but come to think about it, a lot of this pictures either cannot be explained, or i myself have not figured an explanation for yet.

¡nosotros vivimos para comer!

someone told me today that people with different blood type are encouraged to eat different types of food. and i’m intrigued. it actually does explain why different people are affected differently even if they eat the same kind of food.

and so i did a web search and found out that our blood have evolved differently through time, depending on the human evolution. it starts with the people with O-blood type. this is found to be the oldest blood type in the world (evolved around 40,000 BC). think cavemen. and they are meat-eaters. they need high protein, meat diets and low carbs, low wheat products and low dairy products. mana ada cavemen makan roti and minum susu? get it? :)

the A-blood type is the next stage in evolution. evolved between 25,000 and 15,000 CC. they are agrarians. farmers. petani yang maju. apparently, these people usually cannot take too much mean ad have low tolerant for lactose products. the classic vegetarian diet works best for them. think whole grain. legumes. fruits. veggies. cereals. and pasta!

and then, somewhere between 15,000 and 10,000 BC, the B-blood type was evolved. and this blood type people found a balance between eating meats and veggies. they can take anything. but of course, you cannot simply belasah any kind of food. you need to try to avoid gluten based, wheat based and wheat germ based foods because they can cause a drop in your blood sugar level. B-blood type kinda people have to strike a balance in the food they eat because they can and must.

and then there is the AB-blood type. here’s some quick fun facts: it only evolved about a thousand years ago and only about five percent of the population have this. you see, the world evolved. people with AB-blood type enter the generation of processed food and need to be very careful with balancing their diets. especially where meats are concerned. it is also recommended that they take supplements to help digestion.

macam interesting, kan? i got O-blood type. i have been a blood donor for years. i’ve always wondered about why O-blood type people can donate to others but can only receive from fellow O-types. the whole evolution thing makes sense – everyone else is mutated!!! :P

i am 35% daffodil :)

… and i’m talking DNA-wise too. this is according to the book what it means to be 98% chimpanzee by jonathan marks (university of california press, 2002).

i quite like knowing that i’m more than one third a flower.

oye, por favor, ¿donde esta mi cama?

esta mes, yo tengo mucho actividades dentro de y fuera de la oficina. hay muchas acontecimientos. bodas. fiestas. acontecimientos de trabajar. la acontecimientos esta divertido. pero no gusta duermo tarde para siempre.

logic will get you from A to B. imagination will take you everywhere. ~ albert einstein

cupcake explosion at home. my sister is on a baking frenzy for an assortment of flea markets and sales. supposed to be all the rage right about now. and my office is one of those riding the surf.

we did a colour mixing experiement in the kitchen to come up with the purplish base icing. it came out a lot nicer than we thought it would. the only problem now is, we don’t know the exact proportions to get this colour again next time.

my sister says she’s got to get one of those kitchen syringe.

twelve states of being

someone told me that you could actually tell a thing or two about the state a person is in by the songs currently on their mp3 player. so to ascertain this hypothesis, i thought i’d share twelve songs on my current playlist.

• blessid union of souls – i believe
• bon jovi – these days
• dave mathews band – the space between
• death cab for cutie – marching bands of manhattan
• dire straits – brothers in arms
• green day – 21 guns
• journey – faithfully
• linkin park – shadow of the day
• nirvana – smells like teen spirit
• pixie lott – use somebody
• the script – the man that can’t be moved
• tracy chapman – fast car

so what can you tell about me from this list?

… because your mom said we could!

poor RC. always victimised by the akurians. kena again on the last day of this bachelor-hood last weekend.

and this time, we went beyond water. kena tepung lagi.

see the happy lady laughing kat belakang tu? that’s RC’s mom. such a wonderfully sporting lady. pakat with us for the first two pranks on RC dulu. makes way for the tepung extravaganza pulak. aunty, you rock!

only thing is, this time, my plan kinda backfired. UNCLE TK PUNYA PASAL. i found out that he went to send a text to everyone to get to me also. did i hear “revenge” somewhere in the conversation? YOU’RE SO ON MY HIT LIST NOW.

before i knew what was going on, my vision was clouded by a bucket of water bearing UNCLE and a puff of tepung. i wasn’t really reading labels when i bought the tepung. only later, aunty told me that i had acquired six kilos of sticky chapati tepung.

so UNCLE, you have officially validated a string of strange and unusual forms of surprise gags that can and will cause several levels of psychological disorders. ask RC. he’s a long term victim. since he’s married now, maybe we might not kenakan him too much anymore. we are on the lookout for a new victim.

in the words of an accomplice prankster, permission to go point blank! consider yourself warned.