Denial

Came across this post on reddit written by a cancer patient. It was about him finding out he didn't have much time to live, and proceeded to advise everyone to not waste time doing stuff they didn't like.

I immediately closed that tab, not wanting to open up that part of me again.

In all honestly, whatever career path I've been looking at has been mainly focussed on the potential of making more money. I've reached a point where my mentality is "if I'm not going to do anything I like, might as well do something that makes more money".

Sometimes, I wish there was a restart button.

A visit to the nursing home

"What plans do you have today?"

"Don't think I have any, why?"

"We're going to visit your uncle."

My father's eldest brother has been paralysed for many years as a result of a stroke. Since then, he has been in a nursing home, wheelchair-bound, unable to utter a single word and only communicate exclusively using a variation of sounds and single-handed hand gestures. 

Upon our arrival, my uncle was seen sitting in the front porch of the nursing home, staring through the gates as if he knew that my dad was coming. The sad reality is that he probably was waiting for my dad, knowing that he would visit about once a month. The only thing we don't know is how often he does that.

My dad had to tell him straight away that he won't be bringing my uncle out today. You could almost see the disappointment in my uncle's eyes. He even had his going-out-slippers on. 

The rest of the patients were in the living room, consumed by whatever that was on the TV. Come to think of it, that would probably be a better option than waiting.

We sat around the table in the porch and my dad started talking to him while he had the KFC that my dad bought. It's a good thing my dad's pretty talkative in nature, since the conversation consists of him talking and my uncle just reacting to whatever he says. With my mom around, it was vaguely reminiscent of the days when our whole family actually had reunion dinners together with the conversation of family and relatives.

I respect my dad a lot, because other people in his shoes probably wouldn't do the same. My uncle wasn't particularly helpful back when my dad just got to the city. If anything, him and his wife were pretty condescending as they were pretty well-to-do, whereas my dad was the poor younger brother he had. My dad would go on and on about how his eldest brother did not even bother to call him up to see whether he was alive. I could only imagine how much heartache he must have felt.

Now, my uncle could only shake his head when asked whether his ex-wife or his kids visited him. Somewhere throughout the conversation, he did express that his son hasn't visited him for about a month, which was actually better than what we had expected. My mom would keep saying that it's the children's responsibility to take care of their father, but you can't really expect that of people in this day and age, regardless of how much you think it is the right thing to do. 

We left after several hours and the only thing he could do is wait patiently for the next visit.

Reverse culture shock

It's been more than two weeks since I've returned to the land of the hot and humid. Almost immediately, I've settled back in the house I call home and got accustomed to not having to cook or clean. Not that hard, really.

Things have changed over the past few years. For one, espresso bars have popped up everywhere. Heck, some even offer hand-brewed coffees that I thought I would miss dearly after having left the UK. Unfortunately, it's priced way beyond something that could be consumed regularly. That pretty much sums up the "reverse culture shock" I've been observing: everything is bloody expensive, and I don't understand how Malaysians can afford them.

It seems to me that Malaysians love to consume imported goods in the manner in which people from countries where the goods are being imported from are consuming. Say for instance a fresh graduate with a salary of £2000 spends £2.50 on a cup of flat white, whereas the fresh grads here with a salary of RM3000 spends RM10 on the same thing. Of course there are the lot that do not go for such luxuries, but take a trip to such places you'd see young people enjoy these cups of heaven that I wish I could have every day ...

Eating out becomes ridiculously expensive as well. The difference is that there are cheaper alternatives here, whereas the cheaper alternatives in the UK aren't that far off. A cheap meal here costs RM10, whereas it could easily go up to RM50 and above if you go for something slightly better. In the UK, a cheap meal would probably cost £5, but a lobster is just £20. I guess I'm just trying to make fair comparisons in my head, but it's really hard.

Take electronics for example. It seems that we Malaysians spend a significantly larger proportion of our income on the latest flagship smartphone whereas in Western countries, it seems much more affordable considering the money they make.

If I did Economics, I would probably do my dissertation on the comparison of consumption patterns. Of course it would be extremely challenging, but I no one's going to hold my word against me on it so it doesn't really matter.

It's great that I have a blog that virtually no one reads, so I have a place to write down my unsubstantiated observations and thoughts.

It seems like a good decision to take a break before getting a job. I'm slowly recalibrating my brain into the right state of mind. I'm so whiny I annoy myself sometimes. I'm glad my dad's there to listen to all my whining.

-Kritz

My last day in London

My day started as I headed towards the Prince of Wales Theatre to enter the Book of Mormon lottery for the 8th time. At this point I was already fed up with my luck when families of four managed to score two pairs of tickets while I've yet to get my hands on a single ticket after so many attempts.

I should never, ever gamble.

Lo and behold, my 8th time turned out to be as fruitless as the previous seven. Filled with rage, I decided to just get face value tickets. Although there was the option of getting cheaper seats, I just went for the best one because ... why not? Who knows how many more years will it be before I get an opportunity to catch a musical or even step foot in this city again.

With a ticket for one of the best seats in the theatre, I left and went for lunch at The Palomar, continuing my sinful splurge with the excuse of it being my last day in London. Sitting around the bar watching the chefs do their magic was really quite entertaining.

The musical did not disappoint. It was funny and crude, but in a way that wasn't funny because it was crude. I was a bit worried that some jokes might go over my head because some ensembles in musicals like Les Misérables and Miss Saigon can be a little hard to understand with all the singing over each other, but it turned out fine.

I headed over to the TKTS booth to see if I could catch something else later that night because I didn't want the day to end just yet, and I was glad that I did. Got a cheap ticket to see The Woman in Black.

I then took a tube all the way to South Kensington to buy an éclair from Maitre Choux and back to Covent Garden for dinner before heading to the Fortune Theatre for the play.

Dinner at Barrafina turned out to be life-changing, but not because of the food despite the food being great as well. I'll leave that for another post, but if it weren't for that meal I had there and then, the decisions that I've made right now would be drastically different.

The play was quite good. It wasn't the type of west end show that most people would go for, but I thought it was worth every penny that I paid. Amazing how the two actors could pull off an entire play.

And with that, my last day in London was concluded. I want to say I vowed to be rich enough to do something similar to what I did before visiting London again, but I'm do not like having to go against my word ...

I hope the next time I visit London again, circumstances would be different.

-Kritz

Now what?

I'm back from my Krakow-Rome-Naples-Istanbul trip. I'll have to admit that I was a little apprehensive at first, worried that travelling alone might not be suited for me and that I'd regret my decision halfway through the trip. Now that I'm back, it felt as if I only had a weekend away when it was more than 2 weeks. Met quite a few interesting people along the way. Of course there were times where things didn't go as well, but I can honestly say that those minor setbacks weren't that significant.

Anyway, results are out.

Don't know why part of me still has that little hope of getting a first class for my degree, when in reality it's very, very unlikely. Hoping some miracle would happen and I would somehow, miraculously achieve the bare minimum for a first, hah.

I posted that on the 23rd of May, and guess what? A miracle happened. It was pretty much "bare minimum" too.

I guess I would say that I'm happy, but not as happy that I'd expected. Looking back, I really did screw up my first two years and I could've easily scored better. Then again, I hated the modules then with a passion.

Relatives have been congratulating me, and this makes my getting a first more of a relief than an unexpected surprise. Makes me wonder what sort of a response I'll be getting if I got a second upper instead.

It's nice to end my tertiary education on a high note. Now on to the next stage.

-Kritz

I think I'm ready

Before I get into that, I just wanted to describe how awesome I ended my last paper. I left a one-and-a-half hour exam 15 minutes early because I couldn't stand waiting for another 15 minutes. It was the first time I left the exam hall early.

Being the first to strut out of the exam hall felt so good. It felt like a good beginning to and end.

Anyway, that was about a week ago. Now, I'm all ready to begin my four-city trip. I feel like I'm in the right state of mind, ebooks all loaded up (both fiction and travel guides), tickets and boarding passes all printed, everything packed, ready as ever.

-Kritz

Coming to terms

Day 9 of my 10-day break between my previous paper and the LAST PAPER OF MY DEGREE. So what have I been up to for the past few days? Well, I've spent more than 80 hours playing Final Fantasy X. I wish I knew someone who shared the love I have for this masterpiece of a game that was released back in 2001. The story, the soundtrack, the characters, the whole Spira/Zanarkand universe is just amazing, to me at least.

Immersing myself into the game has helped me to temporarily forget about all the things I should be thinking of, which is great in a way, but really I should be solving them instead. Escapism at its finest, I guess. Thanks to the days I've spent having nothing on my mind other than the game, I am now not as excited and motivated to do anything post-exams. All I want to do now is just sulk. Time to get my mood back in line.

I wish I had the brains to do the 4-year version of my degree, at least then I would have another year to spend here. I've grown so accustomed to this way of living here that I dread thought of having to return to my home country. Don't get me wrong, it's not that one is more superior than the other, but things are different. Maybe it's just because I have been home for such a long time that I don't remember how great it can be.

Last night, I chilled out listening to the first act of Les Mis on my headphones and lots of chills were had. Same thing happens when I listen to Phantom of the Opera. Who knew I'd be the type to enjoy musicals? Some people I know just go to musicals just because everyone who comes here to study do and they don't want to be "missing out" (just like travelling) -- which is a phenomenon which I would probably write about in a post by itself -- but I genuinely adore them, so much so that I feel sad that I would probably never be able to attend another one of these performances if I were to go back home.

I guess I've never been the type to face adversities and overcome obstacles to come out stronger. Despite having great results in pre-university education, truth is I've never really worked hard for anything. If I were to be honest to myself, I would say I'm a coward. I would read aspiring success stories and be all "there's no way I could possibly do that". Studying hard is one thing, but living in harsh conditions to tough it out while trying to make it is an entirely different story. Unless I had no options, I can't see myself willingly putting myself in such a situation. Why bother going through all that hardship if I could always fall back on a much easier way out?

Writing this post has been somewhat therapeutic. I can slowly feel the urge to do something about everything coming back to me. I honestly feel like such a loser at times. At this point in life, I can't foresee myself achieving any form of success in the future, and by success I mean reaching a point in life where I could be proud of myself, and not just in monetary terms. Hope this isn't just delusions of grandeur.

-Kritz