so be it

dear jess,

theres a strangeness in the air. if you care too much, you self destruct, if you dont, you will self destruct too. we really know the things that we only grow up with, and we usually end up thinking that they are right. life pattern, religion, sexual preference, violence, love, freedom of thought and speech, anything and everything.

very rarely do we break the role that we have been predestined in by people who bore us, or are friends with us. breaking the role, means breaking familiarity and that scares the hell out of us. very rarely, indeed very rarely are we allowed to truly be free to be ourselves.

who are you have you asked? if without someone telling you you shouldnt, or you couldnt? who am i, have you asked, and will you be surprised and perhaps disappointed?

and the after a few seconds of questioning those fine wonders, you and i go back to the masquerade because in the end, fighting takes too much for too long and that too is self destruction. when will we be our true selves and be loved for it?

yours,

jess

bEst kEpt sEcReTs oF tHe sOuTh aNd mAdNeSs oF tHe miNd

dear jess,

I know you will believe me when I say I don’t want to come back. Its only a couple of hours away but still.. I suppose being away makes you feel that for once you don’t have to live up to everyone else’s expectations.

We do so many things to please people. family, friends and the ever saying yes to easter plays so that the confrontation of finding a better excuse other than “I don’t feel like it” won't be too awkward.

But when you’re away, all people expect of you, is to enjoy yourself. And sometimes, you realize that people back home, all they want you to do, really, is what they want. Or what needs to get done.

As usual. Just like the degree I majored in, I have more questions than conclusions.

Here’s my take on the best kept secrets down south, some i've discovered for the first time too, and well some other madness that kept me sane.

i have gladly drowned you with pictures after pictures after pictures..

yours,
jess

mosT exoTiC raNgE oF sEafOOd

needless to say, im still in shock and wondering what meal a snail the size of my palm with polka dotted body is cooked into? all the food displayed is still alive and moving. a stall at settlement, some of the delicacies are only available when the tide is high.

huge, and i mean HUGE snails

this is the king crab (horshoe crab) placed upside down, it will attempt to turn itself with its tail (see video). the crustacean is really a part of the family of the scorpions (!) and is baked on fire, and the front part open to reveal eggs aplenty. when caught its always in pairs, a male and female and the male thrown back in because there arent any eggs to eat in them. in malay, it is known as the belangkas, when the name is used on you? it means ure just to freakin sticky to your boyfriend or girlfriend. haha. all in all. its a MUST try for everyone. what an experience..

this is how it looks like cook, check out how much eggs it has!!!

huge living mussels

tHe LeSS poPuLar poRtuGuesE fOrt

up on saint john's hill, lies the fort that was built to keep out sultan mahmud, and it did for he never succeeded till his death and many more battles after. it also had a church. as usual, the stone steps are made of the original ancient stones. best way to see a fort without many, or in my case, any other tourists.

bEsT exCusE

you definitely cant say anything if the food is bad. it was ok though its been said that the quality has dropped.

tRadiTionAL deSSerTs

at the saturday ice cafe, the ais batu campur has been the same way it always has, red syrup, biscuits and all the usual, of course u can add ice cream.

mOdERn deSsErTs

locally packed ice lollies!!! that come in the flavours of assam, lime, orange, red bean and the blue one that taste like hacks sweet. i had fours sticks at one go because it was served at a steamboat buffet. im a pig and proud of it :)

tHe beSt bAr

my vote for the best bar goes to 'tribe- the house,' better known just as 'house' is a bar with exquisite furnishing of all white, shoes off on the fully cushioned sitting area. the furnishing doesnt beat the 'invited guest list' only where only frens or frens of frens are allowed in, therefore eliminating issues such as 'bar fights.' after all, you probably know everyone in there. definitely more delicious than most places in kl!

beSt scRibBLinG

grafitti stricken walls all over tribe and nearby lot areas, all hire the same guy to do the work on their shop too

wElcOme tO thE juNgLE!

my weekend of extreme madness.. game face didnt work this time

boYs - "iDioTs" u caNt livE wiThout!

so you see, for some reason they had "rules" to this game they called, "gladiator"

then next they put their heads to the paper (i mean weapon) and spin.. well i guess the smarter ones cheated

and this is how it goes.. using their 'weapons' they just beat the hell out of each other! apparently its something theyve always wanted to do. of course, for us girls it was entertaining..

the punishment for those who cheat was not pretty....

pErHapS i SuCk aT tHis

dear jess,

have you had one of those days where you doubt what you do? where you reckon that you werent meant for this; perhaps? i have those doubts, every week, if im lucky, if im not, more than one time every week.

i reach a point where i ask myself, maybe im not meant to teach. maybe i actually suck at what i do.

that's what a job where you dont sit in a cubicle does to you. it makes you wonder. thats what a job when you cant gage satisfaction, amount of work done does to you. thats what you do when you decide to live on passion. thats how you will pay.

im not a disciplinarian. i dont know how to tell these idiots what they should and shouldn't do. maybe i'll learn someday and until then i will have to feed my depression by eating three meals after eight when i doubt myself.

i just needed to tell someone. and now that i have, i'm off for a holiday.

yours,
jess

i wOnDeR wHo rEaDs tHiS aNyWaY..

dear jess,

i guess its true they say you cant teach old dogs new tricks. i played with the thought of "advertising" my intentions as a post, and instead i ended up writting a letter to you. i don feel it is right if i betray my style now and advertise. ill probably just fit it on the sidebars instead.

i hate to gloat. ops wait, who am i kidding, maybe i do like to gloat. who doesnt? at least im honest. you know how sometimes you meet someone and they have a glare at you that goes "so what are you doing with your life now?" and they subsequently go on to say how well off they are and what big shot jobs they have? well my challenges in covetousness come from people who go "have you seen my play?" and i slowly creep into my hole knowing i auditioned for it, failed and now i have to watch some idiots (i say this lovingly) performing the damn thing. perhaps i think i like to gloat is because i have nothing to gloat about.

regardless. i've forgotten the point.

yes, advertise. i was going to "advertise" something but i've decided to just include it into the sidebars. as for the gloating. well i have to wait a year for the launch of what i shall perhaps aptly name "making my mark in the world."

yes. like as if you hadn't realised already how strange iam.

yours,

jess

doNt RoCk tHe bOaT

dear jess,

i went into the treasure of a chest bookstore, silverfish books, the only one place in this country where you can find malaysian books, scripts and films by theatre practitioners, activist and the independent, non popular and forever controversial works of such people.

my aim and idealisation, like everything else in my life was to acquire a malaysian film so that i can be the first to show an independent malaysian film to my students and perhaps inspire them. i brought home amir's dvd instead of james lee's and watched six shorts. i had to cancel out two of those short film because they had bad words, and still include one with a prior "kids theres an f word in there, once" and hope to death i don get fired. and then out of the few that i pick. and as i watch i wonder what will a person of this race think if he watched. will he get upset and claim that im putting this up as a way to cause some form of uprising and brain washing? i decide to take that risk.

as i watch some more i find it brilliant in the simplest way. you know why? because someone is telling the truth. ill be damned, it isnt me. as i watch i think about several people who will appreciate it, the discussion of the identity card, amongst others.

iam apparently on my way to being a postgraduate in performing arts. this is my first time i am watching an amir muhammad film. his latest, lelaki komunis terakhir has been banned here, but not in our neighbouring country. the dvd i have includes an interesting excerpt of the post discussion of community leaders on the film, and the issue of it being banned.

you see.

someone has made films just by telling the truth.

i am simply showing some of those to a bunch of my kids so that i hope that someone will in turn try to make things better by telling the truth.

so how come its not me?

fear is power,

jess

i reckon that we live in denial. me included. we live here and yet we dont count ourselves as being here. how many local literature, tapes, cd, dvd do we own? we are so quick to say that nothing good can come out of our own country. and then quickly complain about our neighbours and how they rely on us for water.

bLacK hOpEs anD reVeLatIoNs

dear jess,

does it feel like you are rotting inside while outside you remain inhumanely fresh. does it feel like you have nothing left in your soul or your heart and that you just hope its a feeling that will past. does it feel like you're standing on trial and everyone, if not now, soon enough will betray you.

sometimes i let myself stay in guilt, so as to be able to punish myself and to tell myself that i dont deserve any better. and then there are days i never knew when i wake up and think the feeling will past but it doesnt. look over my shoulder, think of ways to avoid it, wonder what ill do and end up knowing that im helpless.

i have become a bitter repurcussion of me. i did this and iam this. and every once in a while i feel like im being eaten alive inside, piece after piece till this is all iam left.

yours,

jess

flyin the flag for everyone to see..

the life chapel's 40th anniversary pictures on jess'sflickr taken by the new and long awaited love of her life, which she has named joaquin ;) enjoy!

HaveNt cHaLkEd mY shOes yeT aGaiN

dear jess,

you know how it is, when sometime in your life, you meet people you havent seen for years and it comes back like a sweet gush of memories when we all sit down and talk about the boy who had a big hole in his pajama's, the girl who in university broke the egg for the 'egg test' during orientation, the boy who actually got up and sang 'lemon tree' with actions and it just goes on. and on.

everyone has that high school or university memory. and it will always be sweet.

then after more than several years meeting people in your past is like a moment when you feel that you want to be so much a part of their lives again, to relive the past and the moment is slowly overcomed by the sense that maybe in the present we dont have anything in common, except the past.

perhaps sometimes its because we like to live the past memories nicely in tact and then once every few years when one of us gets married, we can open the box and relive them. i guess that gives us assurance we'll always have material to talk about.

i was the one where the boy with a hole in his pyjama's wrote me a song, entitled little brown girl. and if that sounds like its suppose to be touchy, mushy and sweet, its not. i know what it is. its the sweet past that we wish we can still hang on to today, and yet we know it cant happen so we dont hope for it too.

for what its worth, it was definitely some of the best years of my life.

yours,

jess