Mixed reviews

If my life over the last 3 months was a ridiculous overblown telemovie I suppose you could say that it was a coming of age story (but I'm too old for that right?) of a young woman wearing beige in a foreign land, battling corrupt officials and struggling with the devestating realities of poverty and environmental destruction, whilst looking inwards for answers and finding herself along the way.

Then again we could depict it through the metaphore of a teen movie. Effervescent frizzy haired girl lives with conservative religious family and tries to meet their expectations yet at the same time listen to loud music, have a life, not dress like a dork and occasionally let slip a four lettered word. She tries to appreciate the love and support of the family unit yet at the same struggles with finding her own space, tries to respect their beliefs but also find room to express her own.
I think they'd show that one on Hallmark channel and there's be a lot of door slamming, bad jumpers and kitchen hug scenes.

Finally, my life here could be expressed through an avant garde French Hal Hartleyesque film, where lots of people with cool t-shirts discuss random themes, in monotones, in almost indecipherable subtitle English, through cigarette smoke, whilst walking in parks or sitting in post apocolyptic punk parties. The tone would be cerebral, disjoint and contradictory, stylistically restricted, introspective but ultimately liberating.
The conversations could go like this
"I just don't think there is a moral imperitive for aid. The whole system is designed to perpetuate the construction of North-versus-South for the benefit of the big corporations. If you think about it, the poor are the last people to benefit from aid. So where's the moral imperitive? It is no more than westen capitalism beinfg forced down the throats of the hungry" 
 "Oh Jean, you cling to the deontoligical argument like a piper to a rat, why can not you just let it go. Is there no room for virtue ethics in your world? The snow does not blame the cloud when it lands in a field, you must open your heart to the giving"
[Enter Kiki] "Does anyone want to go running naked in the park? I grow so tired of all this intellectualism. You students don't know what it is to scream in the moment. You know that Adrienne has been taken by the police for his involvement in the movement, I cannot bear this place anymore. Are these your cigarettes?"
The End.

Or (ok ok last one I promise)...

hahahahahahahaha hahahahahahaah!

Ha! Essay is handed in! Finally. 2 whole subjects done. Done! Just like that. Now that didn't hurt a bit did it?

Yes the essay is going just swimmingly. But anyway, whilst I was searching for truly legitimate referencing stuff I came across this instead and it reminded me of the anti-crush discussion we were having previously on Merry Risa. (Apologies if I'm the last person on the internet to come across this - just goes to show I've been studying too much). It's a hatelisting website.

So, judging from this website there are people who hate people who hate Aragorn, people who hate people who hate Sarah Michelle Gellar, people who hate Daria (but only 3 of them) and people who hate penguins. Yes the bird.

Fun with syllables

Wow, there's a website for everything: SciFaiku . They even have a manifesto.
If you want to do your own there's alwasy this old classic haiku generator

pear emerges,

lame loose kingdoms hover,

glaciers ponder earthily

Saturday night in down town Selangor

I am sipping a bourbon and cola, writing an assignment and listening to the Vines through the muffled ringing in my ears thanks to last nights exploits at a new nightclub called Rush. My first actual club experience in Malaysia - woo hoo, I guess it was about time?? Seven of us went, had dinner first outside at Damansara (Hainese Chicken rice for me, definitely in my top 10 favourite dishes here). I was sporting a very very tidy slick blowdry, fresh from the hairdressers with a (ridiculously overdue) haircut. My outfit was a little bit on the conservative 'god only knows what counts as a nightclub here' side but I needn't have worried as two of the other girls were in (oh!) sleeveless. The club was great, absolutely packed, really quite huge, good decor and funky crowd. In heels I was one of the tallest there, and the three Norwegians in our crowd were the only blondes, needless to say we had our fair share of stares. The crowd predominantly Chinese Malaysians, some Japanese, one or two Indians. We were possibly the only group of Malays there. Imagine seriously sporty compact Chinese girls with attitude grooving at their tables, some excellent long art-house mullets with fringes walking by, one girl in a zany white padded dress, a few queer girls in baggy tees going off to hard house, some great giant chicken hair boys doing the 'I wear my sunglasses at night' thing, the barman with a face full of metal and an ear full of perspex, loud loud loud. My highlights (in terms of crowd watching) were the Japanese girl with the gorgeous Peaches style 'I'm coming now' open mouth lip curl, batwing mini dress and orange sneakers avent garde jerky dancing and her slouched indie pop boy doing victory arms alongside her on the narrow illumated lighbox stage, and the pair of tall tight tee boys with wonderful jaw lines taking me back to the Imperial downstairs bar. Music was house, RnB (thankfully not much), some hip hop. I met a nice enough boy, friend of a friend, instantly likeable smile, apparently cynical and clever, from Singapore but here now. He told me I should get a local boyfriend to practice my Malay - hmmm subtle. Have his business card and am weighing up the follow up call. I idly wonder whether the 3 day rule applies this side of the equator or is it like water down the sink and all reversed? Just think of all the interesting cultural insights to be gleaned...

The good*
Presents in the mail! It all started with a redirected Easter parcel of scrummy chocolates from Germany that got to Sydney a few weeks after I left. After ex-housematie kindly reposted it, it arrived in KL safe and sound with just a little meltage. Then there was a sampler CD from Adelaide - mmmm Australian Indie from the early 90's. Then various redirectings of mail complete with cards - yah thanks gals! Then, two packets of ridgy didge original tim tams and some new music from Newtown - straight to the office for morning tea ("can't you taste the difference?? Aren't these ones good??"). Thanks Risan and Copyboi. Now I have an offer from Mr Abstract Geometry of the last 12 episodes of the last season of Angel plus live Pixies, plus more sampler music, yah, bring it on. A big thankyou also to anyone who has dusted off their ball points and pulled out the nanna writing paper as well, I especially love love love the 'handbag of glory' card Miss Mango Mitsu... "such was the power of the handbag of glory that ladies wept when they saw it and those who touched it went straight to heaven". Indeed. 
 
The bad
I am having such a boring afternoon. You know those days when indicators and objectives or such like just sit there staring back at you neither of you will budge, no frisson whatsoever, they refuse to write themselves, you can't be arsed writing them. Standoff.

The very very ugly
Yesterday at a meeting at an esteemed university. It had a shoes at the door policy (argh, but what if someone steals my golden wedge sandals??) so...later, when two cups of nescafe with nondairy creamer worked their magic, I was faced with the ultimate of horrors - go to the loo in bare feet and face the wet floor of death. Add to this no paper and just the most primitive of garden hose style hose set ups - leaky at that. I. Really. Do. Not. Like. The. Toilets. Here. 
 
*noting that I have been erratic in my keeping in touch and apologies to anyone who has not recently been visited by the postcard fairy or the 'return your email with proper catch up or news' fairy - I concurr with B on the hazards of working at a screen and also studying at one and the impacts it has on electronic communication for pleasure. I blame the unexpected distractions of life in a new place and frequently send you all many nice thoughts instead!

New survey reveals that Database Administrators prefer The Smiths, Suede  . Cool.

sensational
 
I would rather be:
painting (but maybe not skirting boards like you my Adelaide and London rennovating buddies!) reading comics
licking someone's salted skin
swimming in a cool blue sea
feeling some dark drum beat through my body with lasers sweeping over my eyelids
biting someone
running down a hill so fast I think I'm going to tumble and collide and graze myself and stain everything green grass
 
anything but this grey, quiet, tinkling key office world. We are like sad grey battery hens in collars and cuffs under flouro lights, getting iritable and pecking each other because we can't feel the bite of the sun on our feathers or the grit of dirt under our claws. get me out of here.
 
(See earlier 'why I am a teenager' entry and now add ' because I am writing about how much 'school' sucks')

Oh lordy lord there's colour!
 
Who
Wouldda
Thunk
It
??
!!

Check out this Malaysian Blog - lots of pics and a great insight into 'what the kids are into these days'. I can't tear myself away, it's totally absorbing. Also check the food pics - like what I have for lunch every day.

How many chips would a miss miss if a little miss missed her chips?

Oooh.Just had a cellular flashback to a generic moment from my past: standing out front of some fish and chip shop, Adelaide, possibly Grange, choppy day, a block back from the beach, holding a warm bundle of wrapped chips in my arm, having a burst of batter and pineapple in my mouth. Yum! Can't you just taste the sugar grit chasing out the salt of chips, feel the slimey inner white bit of the batter, hear the cars slowing for the roundabout, see the shorts and thongs and pale sky and seagulls?

Home?

Back again after my 10 glorious days of lazing in Jakarta. Cashing in my squillions of silly monies at the airport and getting back into a currency I know felt like coming home. As did the clean lofty lines of KLIA with it's ridiculous spacious optimism about the crowds to come... one day.. any day now.

My holiday was

white sheets of plump cosy hotel bed
city noise on the other side of my window
hey mrs you want to buy a pen, nice wooden pen?
ridiculously, deliciously drunk at middle of the day expat champagne-fest
reading, nap then swim then nap again, singing in the shower, day dreaming
listening to the Pixies loud in the car and playing spot the air tyre filling dude stalls and wedding palm-frond hangy decorations as little towns wizzed past our windows in the dark
being ferried around by a driver and seeing museums full of things so old and beautiful they made my brain hurt
the sweet joy of old friendship like the grey soft light at the volcano that makes everything look nice
hanging out with a mum and her teenage boys from Brisbane and relishing the cat yowling vowels and brash jump in say your mind no nonsense approach that some aussies have, that I miss


*

I am now officially packed and ready for the flight tomorrow...except for uni stuff. Am ready to finish one tonight, that leaves one which is still unfinshed, unreferenced stream of consciousness. fuck. The one I'm about to finish should be good though, based on primary research including:

Had a field trip and interview today with 10 fishermen out at a tiny wooden community centre at their jetty about a truly appalling situation. What is interesting is that I was so excited to be there - I started off thinking, "look at me!! We're talking to people about real issues, look how rustic this is, I'm in a developing country, how *authentic*!!" I am such a complete dork. Then the excitement wore off and I became overwhelmed, humbled and angry in turns as I grappled with their situation and how fucked it all is. It got hotter and I got sweaty in that listless 'why bother sweating because we're in the tropics and there is no wind' way and bugs started to bite me and I didn't catch all of the conversation because I speak zilch on the linga franca and flies kept landing on my coconut juice in the shell... Plus not being able to guffaw or say "well that's fucked!" when they tell you stories but just having to frown or nod and take notes.

Officially this country is a democrary, but look it up on human rights websites and they'll call it an illiberal democrary, autocracy, psuedo democracy. Ask some people and they'll call it a totalitarian state.

The Government here (the same party in for the last 40 years) is barely distinguishable from business and there is no 'public' to be servants to.
Anti-government sentiment is not tolerated and people get arrested under a certain Act not disimilar to an out of control version of the anti terrorist laws emerging in the West. Under this (internal security ) law people go away and never come back - no charges, no trial, just gone.

So with these guys today it's a situation that can only be tweaked from the inside - if you know the right people (and they don't) the system can be played to save this one group - but overall nothing changes. I know what you're thinking - it's the same here, but trust me, it's not. It's really really not.

The other week at lunch someone scathingly said "everything can be negotiated in this country" and someone missed the point and replied proudly "yes that's because we're so tolerant".

Principles can choke you to death in this place.