Thinking Under Bizarre Reasonings

What? No, no. I’m not the one cosplaying here.

I’m actually fascinated by OTHERS who go about cosplaying as their favorite anime/manga/cartoon characters. In fact, I would have the opportunity to go check this phenomenon out this weekend. How?

This weekend (8th - 10th August), the ANIMAX Youth Festival will be holding a festival (of sorts) at One Utama Shopping Centre’s High Street from 12 noon to 9pm in the evening! I may not be able to go on the first 2 days, but I will as heck go on the 10th of August because the cosplay competition will be held on Sunday

I’ll be bringing along my camera as well as my spirits to capture all the people who will be entering the event. This time, I’ll be brave and go up to them asking them to pose for me! How exciting! So be prepared to look at loads of colorful (hopefully) pictures of the event!

If you happened to be going as well, don’t be shy to look me up. The more the merrier

Happy V Day from me to everyone in the world.

Valentine’s Day isn’t just another day to appreciate your boyfriend or girlfriend, your lover, or your husband or wife. It’s a day to celebrate love with ALL your loved ones. Be they family, friends, relatives, boy(girl)friend, lover, or husband or wife.

As long as you love them, care for them, then by God, appreciate them today!

Here are a few funny quotes I found online for Valentine’s Day :

I don’t understand why Cupid was chosen to represent Valentine’s Day. When I think about romance, the last thing on my mind is a short, chubby toddler coming at me with a weapon.
By Unknown

Love is a grave mental disease.
By Plato

Valentine’s Day is when a lot of married men are reminded what a poor shot Cupid really is.
By Unknown

Love is like the measles; we all have to go through it.
By Jerome K. Jerome

As soon as the Chinese New Year arrives, everybody would get into the New Year mood!

This year, we ushered in the RAT year!

It’s the Year of the Rat

Decorations
Before we usher in the New Year, cleaning and decorating the house is a MUST because due to superstitious beliefs, if you sweep the floors on the FIRST day of the Chinese New Year, you will be sweeping all the GOOD LUCK away!!

As the Lunar New Year arrives, everybody will put on their new clothes and join the festivities!

Lion Dance
Some families invite the Lion Dance troupe as a symbolic ritual to usher in the new year as well as to ward off the bad spirits.

Ang Pau (Red Packets)
Can’t forget the Ang Paus now can we? Many packets a day, keeps the kids awake!

Money
What’s an Ang Pau without the money inside? Can you guess how much is there in the picture?

Firecrackers
Cover your ears now, for the cracking of the firecrackers will be ear-bustin’ and festive!

Fireworks
It may be illegal for Malaysians to play fireworks and firecrackers but it doesn’t stop Malaysians from playing them and making it a festive holiday!

Visiting relatives and family members are a must during Chinese New Year to pay respects to other family members and also to also tighten the family bonds. So remember to pay visits to your extended family just to say “Gong Xi Fa Chai”!

What is the Chinese New Year without food? NOTHING! So here comes the food presentation :D!

Saang Mein
My family actually call it Sou Mein or Sou Mien. It’s vegetarian so it’s perfect for the first day of new year since we have to be vegetarians for half a day :) Other than that reason, “sou mien” is also known as the “longevity noodles”. I’m sure I have no need to explain that by eating this during the Chinese New Year will hope for a longer life? Oh wait, I already did

Mandarin Oranges
Don’t go eating too much Mandarin Oranges, you only need 4 of them to get your sugar level high. Not only that, 4 mandarin oranges = a plate of rice!

Nian Gao
It may not taste that delicious to most people but it also has it’s own symbolic meaning! The reason people eat the Nian Gao is so that they can “Bu bu gao shen” in other words, “to rise with each step”, either in your studies, or the corporate ladder, that kinda way.

Bakkwa / Ba Gua
I have no idea about the significance of Bakkwa, so if anyone knows, just hand me a comment and I’ll put it up :) Bakkwa is Chinese salty-sweet minced meat, it comes in either pork or chicken and it’s truly a tasty delight not to be missed!

Lou Yu Sheng
A mixture of shredded raw fish and shredded vegetables, condiments, and a variety of sauces. “Lou” is to toss and “Yu Sheng” is a symbol of abundance, prosperity and vigor. On the 7th day of new year, you will see people piling into restaurants or at home tossing the Yu Sheng to mark the start of a prosperous new year!

New Year Snacks
We mustn’t forget all the new year cookies, chips and so on! To much of our delight, we are allowed to eat as much as we want during this time of the year. Thus gaining a few kilos is inevitable! You’ll just have to work hard on the treadmill after the 15 days of Chinese New Year ends

Have a GREAT Chinese New Year and I’ll see you all again when my tummy is full and my pockets heavy with cash

A happy Chinese/Lunar New Year to each and everyone of you.

This may be a late greeting but a greeting non the less. I haven’t had the time or energy the past few days to post my greeting post due to my being in my grandparents house celebrating the New Year

A note to all who have received empty SMSes from me, I’m sorry. Why? Because my little nephews have been playing with my handphone and they have accidentally sent a few empty ones to some of my contacts. You know who you are

Anyway, how is everyone on this good/bad/stormy/fine day/night? I hope you’re all having a blast the past few days and will continue to do so for the whole year.

I’m doing fine myself. I even got a fair amount of RED packets (ang pau) from my parents, grandparents, and relatives. Lots have happened these first 4 days of the new year. Do you want to read about it? No? Too bad, my friend. It’s my blog so what I say, goes.

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On the eve (Wednesday), we went back in the evening since my family had to do last minute decorating, cleaning, washing, and preparing before the year blows away with the stroke of twelve. After all the preparation, we all went to bath (individually, of course) and off we went to my grandparents house. Reaching there after about 20 minutes, we were greeted with the sight of a full house. It seems that everyone had arrived before us in the mood to celebrate. We were to!

What a lot of commotion my family makes. What with all the people grouping and chit chatting, the young people with the other young people, the older ones with the older ones and the little ones chasing each other. What a festive day indeed! Not to mention, everybody handed out and received their red packets on that day. I myself received a total of 10 that day myself

Approaching midnight, everybody started to get restless. Each and every one of us staring at the old grandfather clock which had seen us go through life, from infancy to adulthood. And when the hand strikes twelve and the clock started chiming, some of us looked out the window with index fingers hiding in our ears, the firecracker went off!

IT WAS SO LOUD THAT WE HAD TO SHOUT AT EACH OTHER TO BE HEARD OVER IT! EVEN THE KIDS GOT OVER THEIR FEARS TO TAKE IN THE NEW YEAR. AROUND THE HOUSE, FIREWORKS STARTED GOING OFF IN ALL COLORS. WHAT AN AMAZING SPECTACLE!!!!

And at last, the firecracker stopped making noise after it has coughed it’s last “CRACK!” With that, everyone started to say goodbye to my grandparents in preparation to go back to our own homes. As we stepped outside the house, we witnessed a BEAUTIFUL sight. A fireworks display was shown to us by neighbors where all sorts of different kind of fireworks lit up the night sky. Some were spinning, some split into a circle, some split into circles and split again after that. The fireworks went on for 15 minutes. And then we were off. Tired but happy we didn’t fall asleep before 12am (There’s this superstition that if we slept before 12am, our parents will have a shorter life span).

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Thursday - The first day of New Year! My family (my parents, my siblings, and myself), I woke up the EARLIEST today thinking that we had to go off early thanks to my parents saying that we were going to go back to my grandparents house again at 8am something we woke up early to take a family picture in our newly renovated part of the building upstairs. We all even wore new clothes to usher in the new year. After the photo taking session, we started moving to go to my grandparents house and we are of course, LATE!

So rush we did. But nobody really cared that we were late because we don’t start our house visits until late in the afternoon since we are the host at my grandparents house in the morning until it’s our turn to go visiting the guests (extended relatives) who visited us earlier. We also had glue (it’s a kind of sticky food with mushroom, noodles, and some other sort of ingredients that I paid no heed to). My parents said that the glue was a sort of ultra-super-ultimate-forever-kinda glue that would stick the family together. A tight bond that will never break.

Our first day visiting was a TRULY HOT day. Just like every new year in previous years, it was smoldering hot. Only visited two houses (5th grand-auntie and 1st grand-auntie) on this day. But it was good since we only get to see the extended family during the new year I have to say, my grand-aunties still looked as old as ever

After the visits, we went home early without dinner at my grandparents house since my dad was already exhausted. But of course, as soon as we went home, we were to awake to sleep, even my dad! So we gambled (yes it’s a tradition to gamble during the new year ) and sadly, I lost my pants! a whole lot of money and that was it for the 1st day of new year.

While on our way home, on the road, just like last year, we saw a COBRA in the middle of the road! It was smaller than last year but a Cobra nontheless. My dad said that since last year was the year of the Pig, the snake had to be larger since the cobra needed to be bigger to tackle the pig lol. And this is the year of the Rat so a smaller cobra is sufficient

Not a bad day either since I received another 5 red packets today.

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Friday - the 2nd day of new year is the busiest day like every other 2nd day of new year for my family since it’s the day where we go to all the houses we haven’t visited yet for the whole day! Altogether, we visited…mmm…6 houses (2nd uncle, 4th grandauntie, last grandauntie, my own house, 3rd grandauntie, 1st auntie)! We had 3 pit stops while visiting. The 2nd house where everyone had breakfast (satay!), the 4th house, which is my house for lunch (luckily my house is big or the family won’t be able to fit lol!), and the last house where we had dinner (KFC!! Yum!).

Received another 6 red packets today.

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That’s about all I can about about the interesting days. Today wasn’t all that exciting since all I did was stay in my room to do my research proposal. Also, I watched Rush Hour 3 and My Super Ex-Girlfriend. And…that’s about it

Well, have a happy lunar new year everyone and may this year be a good one for you and myself

Myself and WL was invited by CW to join his cell group for an early Christmas celebration. To celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ. I have never really celebrated Christmas before because I’m a self-converted freethinker and my family choose to be more of a Buddhist/Taoist family. So this would actually be my first Christmas party experience.

We were suppose to be there around 7.30pm and CW’s brother was going to fetch us at around 6.30pm I think but WL told me to go over to the MC at around 6 so she can show off her clean room to me. In the first place, I didn’t think I would need to go over to MC seeing as how CW is staying near me and his brother is going to be taking us there. So LOL, I went anyways. But by the time I reached there, it was already around 6.30pm? In other words, I foiled her plans *laughs* and she was damn proud of her clean room indeed. Too bad la.

So blah blah blah, we went outside MC to wait for CY (CW’s brother) to come. Eventually they did arrive, about 15-20 minutes or so. Kononnya 6.30pm fetch…The funny thing was, when we went into the car, we became confuse as to who was actually driving (yes, although CY is CW’s older brother, they can be mistaken for identical twins! Event the way they talk and laugh is the same!!). After a minute or so, we actually did realize that CY was driving

And in that respect, we went on a silent drive to the Youth House in Taman…Mayang…I think? It’s actually near the Grace church in PJ. WL and I went there, and got introduced to almost about everyone. The turnout was quite huge. It was so very pack there that it was impossible to find any place to sit if you didn’t already occupy one. For the 1/6 of the time, we had places to sit another 1/6 of the time, we were on the floor. But undoubtedly, the rest of the 4/6 of the time, we were on out feets.

The main purpose of WL going was to EAT. Her goal in life is to find good food, that is free/cheap. I didn’t really have a purpose of going there other than to accompany her. But it was okay. I have no complaints. After all the food was gone, it was time to play. Unashamed to say, WL and I didn’t participate much but we did contribute our laughter, claps, and walking to the events

The first event was the Carols event. All of us had to draw a piece of paper from a bag and on each paper was written one of the 4 carols (Silent Night, Jingle Bells, Feliz La Vida, and Deck the Halls). Being lazy bums as we are, we made CW draw for the both of us and both of them got Silent Night while I got the Jingle Bells. After drawing, we were suppose to sing at the top of our lungs the carols we got and go to each of our respective groups. But since no one knows any differently who took what, I became a self-proclaimed spy and snuck into the Silent Night team *winks*. This concludes the 1st event.

A Christmas event would not be fun without a Santa dress up. And that was the 2nd event. Each group was suppose to dress their group leader into a respectable looking Santa with only items that were given out to each team (rolls of toilet paper and newspapers) one would have thought, seeing from the ingredients that it’s time to march to the toilet to do some personal business *laughs*.

After 10 minutes, this was our group’s product :

Yohohoho! Check me out! I’m yo hip slim santa, yo!

He’s a very silly looking Santa really, he wasn’t fat enough and he had paper boats as shows hahahaha!! Not to mention that, he even has a tail, glowing hair band and hand bangle.

Step right up!! All Santas selling at a deadbeat price of RM1!!

And now, time for the judging of all Santas! The one in red resembles a Christmas Tree more than a Santa Claus hahaha. He just needs a star to finish up his pointy head. Whereas the one on the far left looks more like Santa in respect to his HUGE belly. Too bad he was wearing illegal items LOL.

These Santas are truly unconventional indeed. In what way? The picture below should explain it.

Behold! The crossbreeding Santas!

Creativeness seem to be stemming out from the Santa designers. What will they think of next?! A green Santa? Or, or, or, maybe a Santa Dwarf!! Miraculously, the group I infiltrated won the Santa dress up event (only because they didn’t find out we were also using illegal materials for our santa *points at the glowing sticks* shhh~!).

After the end of this event, the next event was the scavenger event. We were suppose to find the miniature pictures of people as well as live models for the scavenger hunt. To play, we needed cameras to take of the pictures and the models. CW, WL and I just walked around aimlessly doing nothing while everybody else was in the spirit of the hunt. And again, Silent Night group ended up winning. Surprisingly hahahaha.

That concludes the end of the events. We all trouped back into the house and some people shared their testimonials of their experiences ever since finding God and joining the Cell Group. The longest speaker was the supervisor who talked about Moses and his burning bush. Not surprisingly, CW and WL kept staring at me when the speaker spoke of how Moses demanded the Pharaoh to “Let my people go!” *shifty eyes* I’m innocent I tell you!!

Then we had caroling. The first carol was to be noted because of it’s uniqueness. The “12 days of Christmas”. We were asked to refer to the poster for the song. And this is how that poster looked like, with a little enhancement from me.

On the 5th day of Christmas, my true love gave to me…FIVE PA-PA-DAM!

Hahaha, unique isn’t it? Well, I have a part of their singing as well. But it’s not full since I only started whipping out my handphone in the middle of their song. So bear with it

Quality not very good I know but I don’t have a video recorder so excuse the lack of quality :x

After all the caroling, everybody just sat/stood around chatting with one another. We were no different. I even got myself more slaves friends *shifty eyes* and I could go on and on but that was about it other than everybody referring to WL as scary/gothic/emo/librarian/etc. There isn’t really much to tell anymore. By the time I reached home, it was about 11.30pm.