A sketch challenge from a friend.

When I uploaded my first ever sketch (after gazillion years of not drawing anything) on Facebook, a good friend; a good sport and also an annoying bugger most of the time; asked me whether I was be able to draw this photo that he took of his village. A picturesque mount of Gunung Ledang overlooking the paddy field. It is a gorgeous piece of photography indeed.

So I tried and failed. LOL.

Think : Imitation is the best form of flattery.

Photo credit to Mr.Snots. Summer night in Sweden.

When I first heard of this phrase,"Your eyes are the windows to your soul", I seriously think that who ever came up with that was totally delusional. I can never tell whether people are being sincere or lying to my face just by looking at their eyes. The only thing that I would probably notice about their eyes is how captivating it can be.

You also can't obviously think of me as a very nice, warm loving person just by looking at my eyes, or that I do charity, and feed the homeless or carry grocery bags for old aunties. Right? But of course none of these are true. I am quite selfish and a bit self-centred at times. Then again, if you have been living your life alone for so long, why would you want to care or bother of what's going on with other people.

Talking about other people, there are countless type of people out there with different needs and views on life. You might have encountered some few annoying ones, good ones, or sometimes the ones you would love to emulate or imitate in life.

On that note, I once dressed up with a cap pull backwards, baggy jeans with an awesome soldier belt (because they had this camouflage print) and also my oversized t-shirt because I thought it was cool to be like TLC, especially T-Boz and Left-Eye. LOL. I also had multicoloured handyplast plastered on my face and on my hand because it was deemed up-to-date.

There's this time when I basically had NKOTB posters on my bedroom wall and was dancing to Linear's saving all my love.. saving all my love to you...., I cut my hair short and put on so much of hair gel and hair spray, I had caused the thinning of the ozone, above the path I had walked on. It was even cool to be a boy for a girl like me. Lucky I didn't end up being a lesbian. (not that I have anything against them, I'm just saying you know). I even put on a choreographed performance (each of us was in character, I think I was Jordan Knight haha) with my "gang" in school during the Teacher's day and boy, they were so lame, they really loved it. We were freaking lame as well, because we wore torn jeans and a black leather jacket. LOL.

Then I came to know a bunch of skateboarders and listened to RHCP, Ugly Kid Joe and etc. Now I remember that we were divided into 2 groups of skaters back then; those who listened to rap/hip hop music. This group was further classified into 2 subgroups - east side and west side. How freaking ghetto is that? We had Tupac Shakur and Notorious B.I.G wannabes. The other group, the rest of the brat pack, those (like me) who listened to rock/alternative rock songs that were on the rise back then. We donned the skinny jeans, t-shirts and the hi-tops shoes.LOL. This fashion has made a comeback, and now we have a bunch of teenagers with this fashion sense who associates themselves with all things Indie.

Growing up, one transformation after another took centre stage in my life, every time I discovered something new that I can totally relate to, or something I think I would want to become, or ought to be.

Luckily for me, at the end of my journey in search for so-called self identity (somewhere when I was 15), I reverted to my all time favourite; jeans, t-shirt and anything that I feel like wearing without putting any constraints on me - my comfortable self.

Since that point of time, I never had any urge to follow any trend, be it music, fashion, accessories and others.

These external changes influenced my image, my song choices, friends I mingled with, but deep inside I always feel the same. All I ever cared about was finishing up school so that I don't have to wake up way too early in the morning, my sports activities and try not to get on the parents' nerves because, this you guys have to agree with me, when they were much younger they were really mean and roarrr arrgghh *shows claws*, merciless towards us.

But life was so much awesome nonetheless.

Krabi Trip 2010 : Pictorial Edition.

We promise each other that we would spend time away every year together. I'm talking about my girlfriends here. Last year we made it to Bali, and for this year's trip - Krabi, Thailand. Did nothing much but lazing around, talked, shopped, read books, and whatnots. Good times!

I'm still pretty much obsessed with white fluffy clouds I guess.

What is it about these girls that I love so much anyway? We don't actually have anything in common except for enjoying each other's company. Each of us came from different background yet when we sit and talk, we can REALLY talk. I don't know, everytime I spend time with them, it feels as if am free of my worries. I can always count on them to be around everytime I give out a distress sms/email/call.

Sunset in Ao Nang beach.

We share stories about love, life, expectations and the lack of it, ambitions and everything under the sky. I have no idea why is it that everytime we meet each other, there's some kind of a magnet that attracted/extracted stories out of my chest/brain or something. I.must.tell.them.what.has.been.going.on.lately. or else I would curled up and die. Seriously.

The girls.

But that's the thing, I have other girlfriends but I don't have that urge to tell them anything. These four (it's five actually but one of them would only available whenever she wants to meet us; hehe - but we love her nonetheless) silly girls (or otherwise known as The Cacklers) would always have a special place in my heart.

The beach.

Thanks for the friendship and am looking forward to our next outing. Probably tomorrow, yes?

The books.

I lost a bet to them. Now I must muster enough courage to eat the most disgustingly foul -smelling (in my own book of course, I don't speak for others) Durian because the two seemingly cowards "I-am-afraid-of-riding-a-boat" had managed to spend two hours travelling from Krabi to Phi Phi. Blearrghhhh!!

I.must.not.give.in!!! BRING IT ON!

I met with my girlfriends a couple of weeks ago, after two years of not seeing each other. Last I saw them was a few months before my work took me to Europe.

Things have changed so much for them. Two of them are now pregnant with their second child, one is trying to conceive, and another one sounded extremely chirpy when she talks about her girl.

Me? Nothing has changed since, except for my expanding girth.

We have been friends since standard 1. These were the girls that I met and made friends on the first day of school, and we stayed friends until now. So we did quarrels, and I lost count how many times we had misunderstandings, how we envied each other and whatnots, but we stayed friends no matter what.

We have our ups and downs. But what strengthen the friendship was our honest feelings for each other. How we always hope for the best and happiness for everyone.

On the day, I decided to tell them that my application to another school was accepted, was the moment that each of us will remember our whole life. All five of us were crying. As if that we would lost each other's friendship, and that I would just forget about them. That moment, I knew that I want to keep them in my life, all the way until I die. We cried and we cried, then when we were tired, we ordered food and drinks.

There are a couple of questions that have been bugging them. I notice this during our conversation. Like how they sometimes feel that it is not nice to talk about their husbands or children because they don't want me to feel left out. But please, being single in this group doesn't mean that I should be left out on any juicy details on their marriage life. That is not fair. :)

Being girlfriends, I know that they are always concern about me. I'm the only one who is still single, and looks like there's no certain time in the near future that I would settle down, having my own family and breed children like them. But the thing about this situation with them, unlike with others, I can feel their sincerity, their honesty and they are not mean-spirited. They also want me to be happy, just like them.

They are not pretentious. They are not smug married. They know that their marriage is not perfect either and that they do have their own sets of problems, but they want me to experience what they have experienced. The joy and happiness of having a family. Their out of body experience giving birth to their first born. They want to be able to chat with me about all those memorable moments without me being in total lost. I know they meant well.

All I have to say is, I'm not sure what the future holds for me. I'm not sure that whether I will have my own family, or I am going to be blessed with children running around screaming in my house. I do not know whether my relationship now would end like how it should be (I can only hope for the best), but don't be so sad for me.

I am happy. Not all the time, but still, 70% of the time is still acceptable. I'm not saying that I don't need someone to make me feel content, whole, or what ever feelings that married people have. I do, just not the time yet.

They are also concern about my biological clock which is ticking faster by the day. If I get married too late, I might not be able to conceive.

Well, this part is not that complicated for me. My family is like Brangelina's brat-pack, but sans the multinational and multiracial genes. My grandmother had so many adopted children, she could rival Jolie-Pitt anytime. My aunties adopted a couple of children as well, even when they have their own.

We were taught to think that, if we can't have our own children maybe that means God wants us to help some unfortunate souls out there. Bring them into our family and make it our own. And all of those adopted childrens (my uncles, aunties and cousins) are our family, and I love them, as much as I love everyone else.

So that sorted already. If I can't concieve, I'll be like Angelina. Running around adopting children but still hot.

Don't worry too much. I'll be fine.

Dear Girlfriends,

Friendship is all about trust. But of course, being human, I've killed a couple of friendships I once had by betraying the trust. I was foolish, and you can say that I was kinda selfish as well.

Trust is earned by being a good friend, being there for your friend when they need it, and also the one that was entrusted upon you when they share their dark secrets, or just secrets.

People can easily blamed and judged their own friends when they thought that their trust and friendship were betrayed. That I fully comprehend. But when it comes to friendship, not all is lost. Some can be fixed given the time and space.

Different people have different perspective and needs when it comes to friendship. Some need it to keep them grounded, some need it as their support system. I need friends because I can't stand to be alone and also partly because I get to be myself when I'm with them.

I have always wanted to be accepted and to be loved unconditionally by my friends. I've always wanted the sort of friends that will be there during high time, and during the time when everything seems to fall apart.

I have that kind of friendship nowadays. Friendship which is more trusting. My friendship with you. If I could freeze those times when you were trying your very best to lift up my spirits when it needed some lifting, and when you were so concern about my well being and my health, and how happy you were to know that I'm happy, I would.

I can't say that I'm a good friend. But I will also try my very best to stay in your loop.

I will try my very best to contribute; be it emotionally, financially, or morally; when needed.

So girlfriends,

No matter how you think that the world is against you and all your surrounding comes crushing down on you, remember that you will always have me. You have given me so much within these past years, the least that I could do is to give you back that love and attention you once poured on me.

I realised that sometimes I can be so harsh. Although I didn't mean to hurt you, but you got hurt any way.

Sometimes I feel mad, angry and sad because I can't just take all your problems away from you so that you could be the person that you were before.

Sometimes, I feel useless because I can't do anything to help you get through any of your problems.

Sometimes, I feel that we should just team up and beat the crap out of everyone that would hurt you. Whether they do it on purpose or not is not the issue. But when I put my thoughts in order, most probably each of us need to beat each other up instead, because somewhere along this friendship, we might have hurt each other without us realising it.

But the best thing about friendship is, you forgive. You let go. Just pray that all bad experiences that we had encountered together have somehow taught us a lesson or two.

All's well, ends well. Trust me.

I love you.