Hi people!

Here's what I'm writing to my friend EC:

I'm currently praying that my internet line keeps connected. It's SOoooo hard to connect from my Seremban home. I missed writing so much, in fact I don't care if I can connect thru. I'll just send this out later.

Just like you, I'm a writer person. And I'm a listener type too. Most of the times, I think I'm a lousy conversationalist but once in a while I surprise myself. Anyhow, I'm glad about writing. I feel I always manage to say what I want and mean it the way I want. When I talk, I'm also consciously hoping that the other party don't think I'm a bore. And when I try too hard about coming up with a topic for conversation, I end up, well, a bore. I'm never quite used to phones due to the fact that I don't have privacy at all when I'm at home with the phone. And I have been friends with letters and emails for a long time. But still, I wish I could write like you, like Anne or like the couple in You've Got Mail. And I'd like to write like Dina Zaman in her column Dina's Dalca in NST (I think it's either Friday or Saturday issue). But I guess writing from the heart is most important of all and today I'm definitely doing that!

The Deepavali weekend has been an awesome busy time for me as I'll slowly unfold my days' events to you.

Gui's Birthday
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Even on Friday, I knew I was in for a rollercoaster ride - without a safety belt. By 5pm, my mind was already full of stress thinking of the pile of work to do and I know that I can't manage the work even if I had the full week to do it. But thanks to the book - "Slowing Down To The Speed of Life", I'm not so concerned about the impending work. It also helps when you have Sally's (of the Peanuts strip fame) attitude/philosophy - Who Cares?

I was thinking whether to skip one of my follow-up presentation skills session at 6.30pm. It was Gui's birthday and I thought I should go back early, have dinner with her, get the birthday cake before heading to the discotheque. But lo..., during lunchtime, one of my colleagues asked me - "So, you're going to the presentation skills tonight, right?" - in front of my project manager who just got news from the director that he was concerned on the high absentism for the follow-up sessions. So, there goes my plan.

At 6.30pm, while driving back to the office, my head was conjuring excuses on why I didn't do my homework - that is preparing our 3rd presentation speech. Telling the truth was easy - I was real busy to be bothered on preparation but I don't think the instructor would buy that. Actually, I did want to prepare for the speech but somehow I forgot to copy the slides from my home PC.

I told the instructor that I have a bad news for him - he thought I was leaving early (which was another part of the bad news). Of course, he looked disappointed that I didn't do my homework, but then during class, seeing that a few others (altogether 5 in class) also mentioning of being unprepared, he said, we have to present something - like it or not. Okee... so, I did present after all - on something which I had actually presentation while working at Astro. The thing about these skills training especially this presentation thingy is that other than overcoming your fright in public speaking, it's about a good speech preparation. Which was why I thought of skipping the class in the first place.

Managed to excuse myself by 8.15pm and was like zooming back to pick up Gui and friends. It's a bad thing to do but I had to run my cake-buying chore with Gui along. But then, one of her friend was driving, so it was great - I'm getting the cake alone and later picking up Ching Ching at UM - that's where I met you.

We went to the Viva discotheque at Eastin Hotel - certainly birthday celebrations are a tad more expensive than our schooldays. The cover charge is $30 inclusive of one drink. Wow, come to think of it, I might be on the verge of bankruptcy - $48 for a wedding gift, $20 for funeral money, $50 for a wedding angpow, $25 for previous birthday celeb, $30 for the fireflies trip and $94 for another wedding gift.

It's my first visit to this nightclub and the place seems cozy with ample sofas and cushions besides the bar area. We had our cake and shot questions at Gui - most of which is regarding the dream guy thingy. No answer means a gulp of beer! One of the best questions I would say is when someone asked if Keen Wu or Chin Tiong was to invite her to dance, who would she choose? She had to drink to that!

At 11.30pm Lai Kuan, one of our kaki boogie, initiated the dance. Keen Wu sportingly invited Gui who reluctantly would dance if all of us joined in. I'm no kaki boogie but after paying that $30, I'm not gonna waste it over just for an ice beer. So yours truly also boogied alonglah.

Don't quite enjoy the songs over there which was very much like at Sunway's Arena where it's a lot of techno music. There were only few occasions of groovy sounds like Diana King's Fly Guy and Britney Spears's Crazy that got us shaking more enthusiasticly. We left at 1.15am.

Had supper (at 1.30am?) and I reached my rented room after 3am. After a shower to get off my stinking smell of a day's work and also the disco's smoke, I plopped down comfortably on my bed to enjoy your Emily of New Moon book.

I'm beginning to enjoy Emily more and more especially when she writes to her departed father. The errors in spelling certainly adds to the belief that it's written by a child. The name calling by Ilse during fights between Ilse and Emily can be hilarious. I shamefully admit that I flipped a few pages forward to discover that Aunt Elizabeth had found Emily's letter bills where she writes her "diary" and read them, only to apologize to Emily later. Now, while reading, I also look from the point of Aunt Elizabeth if she was reading it and how she would feel about Emily writing about her. I also wonder whether Teddy or Perry will later pose as a love interest in future Emily's books. EC, you would definitely be hearing from me to borrow them books!

Kampung Kuantan's fireflies
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The next day, I woke up at 7.15am, amazingly fresh from yesterday's hectic events to prepare myself before going to Shah Alam to work. Yep, lots of work and I didn't have a good conscience to "play" unless I reduce the workload a bit for the coming week. Worked from 9am to 3.30pm before driving to Amcorp Mall. There I waited for my elder brother at the Taman Jaya LRT Station. Both of us waited for Doreen and her boyfriend to pick us up before heading to Kuala Selangor.

We started our journey nearly 6pm with Doreen two colleagues, David and Chee Hon, as well in another car. There was a massive jam all the way through Sungai Buloh area due a pasar malam (night market) at one of the village area. 1 and half hours later we reached Kuala Selangor's town (another pasar malam there).

We had our dinner at one of the seafood restaurants which overlooks the river. Unfortunately, it wasn't a scrumptious dinner as the kangkung vegetable dish was mostly the stem part, the crab, and prawn were normal (I couldn't take them due to allergy), the fish was normal too, the fried cuttlefish wasn't crunchy and the rice was a bit dry.

We joked that it was lucky that we weren't eating in daylight. That way, we would be exposed to a non-inviting scenery of the river which looked murky.

Next, destination Kampung Kuantan. Upon reaching after 10pm, we found a number of cars parked outside the ticket booth. Luckily, the queue wasn't too long and we rented two sampans (boats). That's $40 a sampan for four passengers. We let/voted that Doreen and Kin Han (her boyfriend) should go for a love cruise while the rest of us took the other boat. Chee Hon joked that the complimentary snack food (drinks and small cakes) that came with the boat ride was actually meant for the river God or for the crocodiles.

During the whole trip, I guess I wasn't much of a conversationalist. Maybe I was trying too hard to think about things to say or maybe I just wasn't in a talking mood. Anyhow, I was definitely looking forward for the encounter with the fireflies.

We stepped into our boat where our boatman was an old man. A strong old man. He was considerate too as he rowed the boat very near to the mangrove trees. When wee got our first glimpse of the fireflies, it was an enthralling sight. Imagine Christmas trees lighted up naturally on both sides of the river. Imagine enchanting lights flickering in symphony. Yes, it is a romantic and wondrous sight.

We joked that some of the trees were belong to certain families. For example when we passed a tree with many fireflies, we'd say this must be the Tan family. For a lesser one, Chee Hon said that it could be the Siew family (his).

Our boatride lasted half an hour. I didn't take any pictures because no cameras were allowed.

We left for home soon after. My brother and I continued our journey back to Seremban where we arrived nearly 1am.

Deepavali weekend - Sunday
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The next day, I visited my ex-primary schoolmate, Nisah. A long-time pal we are and I was delighted to go to her house to look at her engagement photos. It was nice to hear her story of meeting her life-partner and she says their relationship developed more through email!

I went back to catch a bit of the Hindi show where Shah Rukh Khan acted in. But the real wait was for the Tamil blockbuster movie, Jeans. Haven't watched an Indian movie in ages, so I took the opportunity to do so. It was an enjoyable movie - funny, feel-good and with the usual songs and dancelah.

The Sixth Sense experience - Monday
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(warning - please don't read this if you haven't watched the movie, it'll spoil the enjoyment)

Yes, the best part was the amazing twist to the ending. I'm not gonna do a review on the movie as I'll just be echoing the views of the critics. This is one movie where I enjoyed watching people acting. All the cast did a great job and yes, I agree that Haley is one child actor to watch out for. His performance was amazing for one so young. If I'm many years younger, I would have "fallen" for him! I just read about him in the Star newspaper and it says he's got a collection of reptile pets and plans to donate money for zoology studies. What a dreamguy!

I think Toni Collette did a good job too as Cole's devastated mom. She was the main actress of Muriel's Wedding which was a funny movie. She definitely looked better in this movie. I can't commend much about Bruce Willis acting because I thought a nice script like that, one can do no wrong.

After discovering the ending, it's true that one feels that one can go for a second watch just to see how one could miss all the clues that led to it. I realized what was happening when I saw Bruce's impression when he learnt the truth about himself while holding his wedding ring. At first, I even thought his wife had died and he was seeing his dead wife all the while!

Rewinding, I thought at the beginning of the movie, the psychologist managed to survive the gunshot ordeal and was pretty frustrated of the way his wife kept ignoring him!

This was supposed to be a horror movie, but I cried most of the time! I think I cried most when Cole told his mom that he sees dead people and related what his grandma wanted to say to his mom. I admire that his mom always had faith in his child no matter what. The movie sets a very good example of mother-son relationship.

A very satisfying movie ever since The Matrix.

Take care.

Regards,
Li Li