Journal of Miscellany
Concerning the developements of Jacob in this strange and unpredictable world.
1.6.07
March-April-May 2007
It nearly drove me mad, mad I say! And I am, as usual, powerless to do anything about it. I now believe that it is the time to confess everything that I have done for the past ninety something days or so. Chup- chup, e-hey and no more delays, with every substantial somethings told, and every little bit counted in, do or die or I shall count myself guilty for operating a blog like this without substantial clippings of my life, as required by the norms of blogdom.
I'll begin at early March, with summaries I've salvaged from my manually written diary entries. I'll try to keep everything short too so as to prevent whatever readers I have out there from being bored to death from my ramblings.
So here it goes:
The first week of March was uninitiated. I still haven't found a job yet and I don't have a clear direction of where I'm heading. I tried to work as much as I could on my wuxia translations but without someone else to read it for me and guide me, it is impossible for me to gain much of a headway with it. I've just barely managed 2 meager pages before giving up temporarily due to time constraints. (It was nearing the end of April when I started to resume my work again, and updated at the end of May.)
From then on I dabbled in a little of this and that. Learned some, but not much. Some things were self taught, while others did not come in so easily. But there's absolutely nothing wrong with that, is it?
Then came in the bid for Dark City and Elarti. Suffice to say, I gave up on Dark City while waiting for more news from the Editors of Projek Elarti.
Not long after that, the people from the State Library called me, summoning me for an interview I've applied for three months ago. Feeling lethargic and sick of the whole job seeking thing, and thinking that it might be a deliriously long full time job with not much of a salary, I rejected it.
It was only much much later that I got my hands on the original summoning letter by snail mail, stating that the job that they might want me to take is actually a part time job with quite a decent wage. I realized then that I could not have made a bigger mistake in my life. But its too late to go back now, isn't it?
By the second week of March, I've gotten myself a new cellphone, renewed and reinstated my bank accounts and finances and bought myself a life insurance with a 30 year coverage. These expensive moves, coupled with the fact that I did not have any way to sustain myself monetarily had left be poorer that ever before.
With the exception of my deplorable stash at the bank, I have no other notable sources of liquefied assets readily available for my immediate use. Needless to say, I'm flat broke for the first time ever in my life.
By a scant few days later, my STPM results came out. It looks something like this:
Miserable results really, and now my arrogant dreams of becoming a doctor or a corpse cutter seemed so distant now.
My hopes were dashed and my fears were made so real. With no other alternatives, I've to put law as the first 2 choice courses for local university entry. But that too seemed to be a fanciful and wishful thing, as I've learned out the hard way after the applications were closed.
Currently, I felt that it is as if I'm trapped in a forced and rigid deadlock, with no way out. The only way for me to escape would be to apply for courses at local private universities first, but that seemed to be a very redundant choice.
What if I somehow got admitted into a public university? Wouldn't that waste me a lot of money? Applications to private universities aren't cheap, you know, even for local Malaysian ones near you, and I'm quite reluctant to draw on my bank savings, which are literally my life savings accumulated from years of self abdication and miserly acts.
These things caught me in a stranglehold at that point, and the back of my head is now strewn with highly unmanageable white hairs as a result of that. The yearly talk the MCA gave for pre-U students at the Teochew Association didn't help that much either.
It was nearly at the end of mid March then. I've since attended several(2 to be exact) gatherings between the old school chums. It was jovial and loud and festive, in a crippled and lonely sort of way, and the faked enthusiasm of some people there made it even more grief inducing. Naturally, not being the best of friends with them back then, made me felt even more cut off and distant from them now. Hell, they can even sense it back then. Alienated, disappointed and feeling left out, I selfishly turned my backs on them.
At the 29th of March, Sandakan's biggest supermarket, aptly named Giant Sandakan of the Giant Supermarket chains fame was officially opened to the public.
And I actually had the nerve to go there on the opening day, alone. I got manhandled, squashed, cursed, stepped and spitted(on the right leg, just below the thighs, and I couldn't see who did it). I got trapped there too, for three very trying hours just for trying to reach the exit. The number of lost kiddies were astonishing, as was the looting and thievery. The waiting lines extended up to the frozen goods department a long distance away, all nine of them, and I can see the enormity of the human nature itself then; the willingness and the endurance humans displayed can really explain how far humans could go to get their hands on ten cent items.
You could still say that I'm still stupid, and very much still naive. A few days later, I went to Giant again, and this time accompanied by my mother and aunt, and it was a lot better then. Less people, but not any more cheaper than what we had originally thought.
That day(it was probably the 3rd or the 4th of April), I had the nerve to ask my aunt of the possibility of me going for a hunting trip, for this particular uncle(out of the many that I have) is a professional freelance hunter. She laughed at this pathetic idea and said, “we'll see.”
My uncle said the same thing as well.
And then we went for that hunting trip on Good Friday. I became mosquito feed that day. On Saturday my back started to feel tingly, like something with long soft fingers stroking my back...slowly. On Sunday, nothing happened.
By Monday, the cold prickly feelings intensified a bit, but I dismissed it as nothing.
Come Tuesday morning, a killer headache seized me shortly after breakfast, and I've not been able to get out bed again without support for nearly about two weeks long. It was only on the third visit to the doctor's excruciatingly cold clinic that I learned of the true nature of my malady.
“Typhoid”, my doctor(contact no:089-213418) said.
Ha-Ha. Serves me right, right?
"Matikau!"
It felt like hell. My head hurt so much, I can't even focus my eyes properly. Jumbled thoughts ran through my mind like a train. I saw things in my half sleep, maddening things, things I can't explain, everyday conversation pieces, intents, many people talking and talking and yet not really talking to me but referring to me, just like that, and even that was not often done. Then broken and nearly faded black scenes, like a film, running over and over again in my head, but not quite the same every time.
Feverish, the body heating up, sweat covering my body and clothes, and once it's dried, the cold came, unbearable, nearly. The cold began at the tip of my toes, then it slowly work its way up knees , and then it would start to tremble. My teeth will start chattering soon after, after my heart feels like quitting, that is.
In fact, it was colder still at the doctor's waiting room. My mother thought that I was really dying at my first visit there.
Maybe I would have died back there and then, if not for the Paracetamol(500mgX2 a pop) the nurse gave me.
But perhaps I have exaggerated, maybe to gain some desperate sympathy, or a little bit of attention; but I'm sure that as I snap my eyes open and look at what had happened through and through with not so seeing eyes, and remembering the times when it's so difficult just to carry on breathing.
But perhaps I did not.
I can't eat, and I can only drink a little. Whatever I take in pass out even more. There were no normal stools to begin with at the early stage of the disease, just yellow semi-liquid masses, and then it slowly evolved with time and diet change into just a thin black colored liquid. Earlier on, I had thought that these were blood, but apparently they were not. At the first few days, I never felt so drained in my life.
I took prescription Paracetamols until I feel sick of it, and subsisted on thin gruel like rice porridge(mainly liquid, made with a little rice and lots of water, shredded pork/chicken and salt), 100Plus and Excel.
I tried some coconut water to break the monotony of my poor fare, and the stuff burned down me hard but nothing nasty happened. In fact, I think it even did me some good, like drinking straight from an IV drip bag solution or something.
Eventually I got better, and of that I've much to thank for, especially my parents.
But I think I can forget about continuing my aikido lessons anytime soon. My body is still weak, and it is thinner than ever before. My stamina had never been good, and I'll have to recover slowly, I think.
Time wore on.
I waited. April floated pass like a foolish and utterly forgettable dream.
I brooded. I stalled. I worked some, and rested for some more. Disheartening rumors came and went, but still nothing much happened.
I began to fear. My cousin started to question me, for he said that he is waiting for me at KL, should I go there for my university studies. I cannot give him a good answer, not yet, and I still don't know if I'm going to a public university or not.
In fact, I am not sure of what I'm going to do, for the longer I waited, the more unsure I became.
I know that I need money. I know that I'm poor, so poor that I couldn't even afford to see myself in a better state. I wanted so much to believe, that I can see things in a better way than it was, than to live in uncertainty, to anticipate everyday not with good hopes, but with dread and despair. I pretend that all is well, I tried to gather my strength.....
For I want to see myself as being capable to protect those that I care; and be able to watch over all that I love. There are still many things that I want to do, many more things that I want to accomplish, and very many foods and beautiful things that I've yet a chance to try out.
A good life, good friends, a lifelong partner, a garden, an sizeable estate, a library, a lab or maybe more, so much more....
I don't want it to stop, please don't let it be so. I don't want to see it all terminated in front of me.
I you want to, please help me(your pathetic and lowly excuse of a human), Dear God, please help me so.
I'll begin at early March, with summaries I've salvaged from my manually written diary entries. I'll try to keep everything short too so as to prevent whatever readers I have out there from being bored to death from my ramblings.
So here it goes:
The first week of March was uninitiated. I still haven't found a job yet and I don't have a clear direction of where I'm heading. I tried to work as much as I could on my wuxia translations but without someone else to read it for me and guide me, it is impossible for me to gain much of a headway with it. I've just barely managed 2 meager pages before giving up temporarily due to time constraints. (It was nearing the end of April when I started to resume my work again, and updated at the end of May.)
From then on I dabbled in a little of this and that. Learned some, but not much. Some things were self taught, while others did not come in so easily. But there's absolutely nothing wrong with that, is it?
Then came in the bid for Dark City and Elarti. Suffice to say, I gave up on Dark City while waiting for more news from the Editors of Projek Elarti.
Not long after that, the people from the State Library called me, summoning me for an interview I've applied for three months ago. Feeling lethargic and sick of the whole job seeking thing, and thinking that it might be a deliriously long full time job with not much of a salary, I rejected it.
It was only much much later that I got my hands on the original summoning letter by snail mail, stating that the job that they might want me to take is actually a part time job with quite a decent wage. I realized then that I could not have made a bigger mistake in my life. But its too late to go back now, isn't it?
By the second week of March, I've gotten myself a new cellphone, renewed and reinstated my bank accounts and finances and bought myself a life insurance with a 30 year coverage. These expensive moves, coupled with the fact that I did not have any way to sustain myself monetarily had left be poorer that ever before.
With the exception of my deplorable stash at the bank, I have no other notable sources of liquefied assets readily available for my immediate use. Needless to say, I'm flat broke for the first time ever in my life.
By a scant few days later, my STPM results came out. It looks something like this:
PA:A-
MT:B+
BIO:C+
CHEM:C
MT:B+
BIO:C+
CHEM:C
Miserable results really, and now my arrogant dreams of becoming a doctor or a corpse cutter seemed so distant now.
My hopes were dashed and my fears were made so real. With no other alternatives, I've to put law as the first 2 choice courses for local university entry. But that too seemed to be a fanciful and wishful thing, as I've learned out the hard way after the applications were closed.
Currently, I felt that it is as if I'm trapped in a forced and rigid deadlock, with no way out. The only way for me to escape would be to apply for courses at local private universities first, but that seemed to be a very redundant choice.
What if I somehow got admitted into a public university? Wouldn't that waste me a lot of money? Applications to private universities aren't cheap, you know, even for local Malaysian ones near you, and I'm quite reluctant to draw on my bank savings, which are literally my life savings accumulated from years of self abdication and miserly acts.
These things caught me in a stranglehold at that point, and the back of my head is now strewn with highly unmanageable white hairs as a result of that. The yearly talk the MCA gave for pre-U students at the Teochew Association didn't help that much either.
It was nearly at the end of mid March then. I've since attended several(2 to be exact) gatherings between the old school chums. It was jovial and loud and festive, in a crippled and lonely sort of way, and the faked enthusiasm of some people there made it even more grief inducing. Naturally, not being the best of friends with them back then, made me felt even more cut off and distant from them now. Hell, they can even sense it back then. Alienated, disappointed and feeling left out, I selfishly turned my backs on them.
At the 29th of March, Sandakan's biggest supermarket, aptly named Giant Sandakan of the Giant Supermarket chains fame was officially opened to the public.
And I actually had the nerve to go there on the opening day, alone. I got manhandled, squashed, cursed, stepped and spitted(on the right leg, just below the thighs, and I couldn't see who did it). I got trapped there too, for three very trying hours just for trying to reach the exit. The number of lost kiddies were astonishing, as was the looting and thievery. The waiting lines extended up to the frozen goods department a long distance away, all nine of them, and I can see the enormity of the human nature itself then; the willingness and the endurance humans displayed can really explain how far humans could go to get their hands on ten cent items.
You could still say that I'm still stupid, and very much still naive. A few days later, I went to Giant again, and this time accompanied by my mother and aunt, and it was a lot better then. Less people, but not any more cheaper than what we had originally thought.
That day(it was probably the 3rd or the 4th of April), I had the nerve to ask my aunt of the possibility of me going for a hunting trip, for this particular uncle(out of the many that I have) is a professional freelance hunter. She laughed at this pathetic idea and said, “we'll see.”
My uncle said the same thing as well.
And then we went for that hunting trip on Good Friday. I became mosquito feed that day. On Saturday my back started to feel tingly, like something with long soft fingers stroking my back...slowly. On Sunday, nothing happened.
By Monday, the cold prickly feelings intensified a bit, but I dismissed it as nothing.
Come Tuesday morning, a killer headache seized me shortly after breakfast, and I've not been able to get out bed again without support for nearly about two weeks long. It was only on the third visit to the doctor's excruciatingly cold clinic that I learned of the true nature of my malady.
“Typhoid”, my doctor(contact no:089-213418) said.
Ha-Ha. Serves me right, right?
"Matikau!"
It felt like hell. My head hurt so much, I can't even focus my eyes properly. Jumbled thoughts ran through my mind like a train. I saw things in my half sleep, maddening things, things I can't explain, everyday conversation pieces, intents, many people talking and talking and yet not really talking to me but referring to me, just like that, and even that was not often done. Then broken and nearly faded black scenes, like a film, running over and over again in my head, but not quite the same every time.
Feverish, the body heating up, sweat covering my body and clothes, and once it's dried, the cold came, unbearable, nearly. The cold began at the tip of my toes, then it slowly work its way up knees , and then it would start to tremble. My teeth will start chattering soon after, after my heart feels like quitting, that is.
In fact, it was colder still at the doctor's waiting room. My mother thought that I was really dying at my first visit there.
Maybe I would have died back there and then, if not for the Paracetamol(500mgX2 a pop) the nurse gave me.
But perhaps I have exaggerated, maybe to gain some desperate sympathy, or a little bit of attention; but I'm sure that as I snap my eyes open and look at what had happened through and through with not so seeing eyes, and remembering the times when it's so difficult just to carry on breathing.
But perhaps I did not.
I can't eat, and I can only drink a little. Whatever I take in pass out even more. There were no normal stools to begin with at the early stage of the disease, just yellow semi-liquid masses, and then it slowly evolved with time and diet change into just a thin black colored liquid. Earlier on, I had thought that these were blood, but apparently they were not. At the first few days, I never felt so drained in my life.
I took prescription Paracetamols until I feel sick of it, and subsisted on thin gruel like rice porridge(mainly liquid, made with a little rice and lots of water, shredded pork/chicken and salt), 100Plus and Excel.
I tried some coconut water to break the monotony of my poor fare, and the stuff burned down me hard but nothing nasty happened. In fact, I think it even did me some good, like drinking straight from an IV drip bag solution or something.
Eventually I got better, and of that I've much to thank for, especially my parents.
But I think I can forget about continuing my aikido lessons anytime soon. My body is still weak, and it is thinner than ever before. My stamina had never been good, and I'll have to recover slowly, I think.
Time wore on.
I waited. April floated pass like a foolish and utterly forgettable dream.
I brooded. I stalled. I worked some, and rested for some more. Disheartening rumors came and went, but still nothing much happened.
I began to fear. My cousin started to question me, for he said that he is waiting for me at KL, should I go there for my university studies. I cannot give him a good answer, not yet, and I still don't know if I'm going to a public university or not.
In fact, I am not sure of what I'm going to do, for the longer I waited, the more unsure I became.
I know that I need money. I know that I'm poor, so poor that I couldn't even afford to see myself in a better state. I wanted so much to believe, that I can see things in a better way than it was, than to live in uncertainty, to anticipate everyday not with good hopes, but with dread and despair. I pretend that all is well, I tried to gather my strength.....
For I want to see myself as being capable to protect those that I care; and be able to watch over all that I love. There are still many things that I want to do, many more things that I want to accomplish, and very many foods and beautiful things that I've yet a chance to try out.
A good life, good friends, a lifelong partner, a garden, an sizeable estate, a library, a lab or maybe more, so much more....
I don't want it to stop, please don't let it be so. I don't want to see it all terminated in front of me.
I you want to, please help me(your pathetic and lowly excuse of a human), Dear God, please help me so.
Labels: 100Plus, Allianz, Dark City, Dr Thian, Elarti, Excel, Giant, Paracetamol, STPM, Typhoid
6.1.07
Random thoughts about 2006
Four days ago, I chanced upon a dying kitten lying on the roadside. It seemed apparent to me that this little creature was yet another hapless road kill.
It was raining that time, but not too heavily. I saw its jaws opened wide, its tongue quivering ever so slightly. Its black rimmed eyes were opened wide, so wide it seemed that I thought it was going to pop out.
I could not bear to watch it go any further, slowly…so I turned myself away, but not before seeing it lift a trembling forepaw in a jerking fashion, a testimony of the confused pain that it is suffering.
There was no blood, but this is perhaps due to the blackness of the wet road that obscured the lighter red. A kitten so small would not have much blood anyway.
But I see myself in that kitten, a fraction of that pain reflected in my eyes. The very pain and joys that yesteryear had brought for me.
For you see, many things happened. I’ve tasted the bitterness of betrayal by someone who used to be close to me. Now all that’s left of that incident were just these flawed plans, alongside several letters and documents filled with preposterous statements and swindling facts.
If things had not happened the way it did, I would have kept several of my relatives and live a bit more comfortably. I might even be able to single-handedly fund my way to a good university (and be able to give better gifts to my friends).
But such a fool I am! How very optimistic, how naïve! Truly, the closer they are to us, the deeper so can they stab us and turn against us. There are truly no limits for the stupid and closed minded.
It is to be so, and I am wrong, in more ways than one.
With my better options and possibilities in life cut away, I have little choice but to work with what I have left.
Schoolwork, last year, was like a slow plodding journey through a jungle with no ending in sight. Life is spent at a frantic pace, with not enough time to rest and do anything else in between. Emotional and energy drains are prevalent.
My life is stretched in a continuity in which the only way forward is a downward spiral. My studies suffered, my eyesight weakens, and my overall concentration faltered.
I seem to regard myself an even greater fool in the presence of others. People jeered at me, looked down at me and make mindless jokes at my expense. I was aware of that, but selfishly, I tried to pretend that, and all of my other problems never existed. Pretentiously, I masked myself in a mask of incredulity and feigned ignorance. I tried to comfort myself, but I knew that all I did was just an extended and elaborate mockery upon myself.
I kept trying to struggle, to resist and to fight on. Never once, have I considered on giving up. But still foolish, still naïve, I’ve let myself be injured in a far greater way than I could have anticipated. I dared to love, and thus I dared myself to be wounded with a perilous wound. I loved, but I knew that she would never love me back, ever. Thus, I have defeated myself, and tortured myself for yet another time.
I think all that I’ve experienced is insignificant compared many others before and after me, but I did what I did. I was diminished.
To stave off a bit of the tides and to distract myself for a little while, I immersed myself in my crafts, but all I could produce were unpresentable. I think this is due to the fact that I would love to indulge myself freely in what I’ve been doing, but I would have loathed to face the same thing everyday without a break.
I continued my work, I studied and I did all that I can, and I tried to repair my weaknesses. I can still spend quality time with my family, and find company and fellowship whenever I need them.
As yesteryears gate closes, I dealed with my blood poisoning, and I spent time with my gang(Jason, Thai Ming, Ah Loon, Nicholas, and Ah Bing)(the Poor gang).
Time passed interestingly every day, though challengingly so. I plodded and crawled on; I tried to be strong, but to what end?
STPM seems to resent me, and I think any views I have concerning are pretty useless anyway. Still, I crawled on.
As the year ends and a new one started, I began to wonder, what did I do wrong last year? Or is it still about this year’s dead kitty?
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