This Heaviness...

I've been picking at my emotional scabs again today, and damn it hurts. Look, they're bleeding.

Work is good. Gives you satisfaction. Got a major task ticket tackled this morning and I'm going to look into some shitty requirement document right now.

And there's this heaviness on me that has been there since a few months back. A burden. How to say....it sits on my shoulders and it makes me slump forward when I walk, and brings about sighs and groans when I'm alone. Does anyone understand this? I'm not fully casting my burdens onto Him. I don't know how to. I seek release. God hears me, and I can connect, but I can't help but still eat chocolates, because the shadow of that burden is still there.

I discovered a way to play with Cookie. I turn her on her back and rub my face on her tummy. First time I did it, she was entranced. She loves it. And I'll start kissing her little head, and she'll lick me back. I feel sorry for her. Her mom never got the chance to do that enough.

Ugh...but the heaviness...sigh.

Slow-mo

Remember that I said I broke up with the boyfriend. From then til now (that's about 2 mths), I have not felt anything at all. I tell you, nothing; and I went on with life without him merrily, just like that without hurting at all. It's like sawing off a chunk of frozen flesh, no blood.

But since 3 days ago, I'm starting to hurt. Why? Strange, isn't it?....like I went into slow-mo mode and has finally thawed myself out. This is so weird. So these few days it was excruciating. I think about him and I get upset. I clean his room and I get upset. I come across his stuff and I get crazy upset. Adoi. Mercy, Lord!....Hurhhh... but I'm not surprised. Kinda expected it to happen this way. There is no way on earth you can end a 7 yr relationship without shedding a tear.

And Pei saw me looking so gloomy these few days that she took me out for lunch today. She's so nice! :) We wanted to go for Karaoke but it was fully booked, so off to The Curve we went! After much careful analysis and survey of all the restaurants there, we decided on ThaiExpress. Frankly, I'm not the biggest Thai food fan because I'm not keen on sour foods, but since she's buying, I left it to her to decide.



There's a huge crowd when we arrived and we're glad we managed to get a seat inside. So hot outside o_O;



The crowds were big today, due to the hot weather and it's holiday today. So I guess it's an okay lunch. Have to say it's depressing to go out when you see couples hanging around everywhere you look. Hm...I'm slowly turning into a one of those cliched single women who makes cliched remarks about married people or lovey-dovey couples. Guess I'll have a BigMac for dinner tonight and complete the transformation by turning into an overweight belching slob. Oh so sad. :(

After that we headed home and I cleaned my room and Keat's. Cookie made me mad by peeing on the floor I just moped. I have to go down on my knees and clean up the mess again with water and disinfectant. I swear, I'm so stubborn sometimes. Someone should've whacked my head with a big blunt metal bat when I said I wanted to get a dog. A dog I did get, with a bunch of fecal messes and frustration and violent outbursts too.



I mean, like look at the photo above. Note how Cookie got herself a nice single eyebrow. It's actually car grease that got smeared nicely on her forehead when I was taking her for a walk previously. Idiot. It couldn't come out no matter what. All these kinda things just happen, you know, and this is still kinda cute. But wait til she shits on your sofa and turn around to give you that uni-brow look. ARGH! *head explodes* It's like she's saying, "Catch me if you can! I shit where I f-king well please!"......

T_T I think imagining a dog talking to you is a sign of mental disorder.



Oh anyway, I still love Cookie to bits, and she loves me too. How could I tell? Well, she told me with her beady eyes. We have this human-dog link. I know she loves me. Yeah yeah, I know what you're thinking. Okay, she has to love me, cuz I feed her and I play with her and I slave over her fecal matter. At least she appreciates me!

Boy, am I getting delirious.

Christian Webcomics?

I've been thinking about what Geejay said about doing a webcomic regarding my Christian faith. He's thinking about heading that way and has been toying with some ideas and even posting awesome-looking preliminary design sketches. Wow, I think he really got something going there! :O

As for myself, if only I know what story to tell. Illustrating bible stories (with my manga-style) is too juvenile and most of the public will not be able to relate to it nor be touched by it....But today, I think I kinda got it. See, I'm thinking about doing a punked up version of The Pilgrim's Progress in manga form. I was reading it in my STEP Reader and I find myself very much fascinated with John Bunyan's approach; and even as I went along, the story is moving in animated inks and all modernised manga-goodness in my head... o_O;; And it really can work.

And I think it really really CAN work. One man's pursuit from a dying world. So desperate is he, that he trustingly follows a faint light, that leads him further and further away from his home. It just begins, with him running and running, never looking back. ....and you thought Run, Lola, Run was good. :) My only problem is copyright, and how it would affect the rewriting to modernise and mangafy it. I figure if The Pilgrim's Progress could be found free on the internet, it wouldn't be much of a problem? Hmm... and I definitely can't do this alone. Don't want to single-handedly deliver this project to the devil.


"At the town there is a fair kept, called Vanity Fair."
Oooh, found a bunch of lovely illustrations of The Pilgrim's Progress here.

People have this aversion to religion because they think its folly to be bound by hypocrital rules and whatnots, and that it denies them their fun, creativity and freedom. :( I'm sad it must be perceived in such a way. Christianity is not about law and punishment, but rather about God. We could do well without all that stuff and misunderstanding in between. But, if this is how it must be, then let it be.

Webcomic Update - bLEARgh!!

It's here.
Last page of the scene YES! You could tell that I was pretty lazy while drawing this page. Everything's empty and there's totally NO backgrounds. Thank heavens for Photoshopped-comictones.

I'm going to rescript the next scene to shorten it; make it more dynamic. We'll see dear boy San running to his bestmate for help, Az. Goody ^_^. Knowing Azman, it'll probably be like the final nail to San's coffin. And when there's Az, there's Andrea - up to her old tricks as usual. So the new scene will be in a nightclub in city centre. San will be needing to be disinfect himself after this. XD

Chapter 7 should end with another scene, wrapping up the San-got-a-imaginary-gf miniplot. After that we get back to some Girish action at Black Dahlia. Weelll, let's not spend too much time talking about future scenes. I will just try my best to get there. Update's been really icky nowadays, with about a page only in a month. I just can't squeeze in the time to draw. There was an update yesterday because I skipped work to catch up with sleep and ROMB. And I was sick too then. But don't go prayin' and hopin' that I get sick now, y'hear? T_T

I've been reorganising my life, waking up at 6.30am and sleeping by 11.30pm, and it's going on pretty well. I'm way ahead time and I'm no longer late for work. After prayers in the morning, I will go downstairs to clean up dog poo and talk in a soft goosebump-inducing voice to Cookie for about 20 mins. Then I come right back up and change for work, having also the time to mentally prepare myself for the tasks that I will have to perform as soon as I step into the office. Sometimes I even go for breakfast. Ah, bliss. :D

I believe I've discovered the secret of happiness and well-being. It's called "Sleeping Enough". How much is enough? I believe it's 7 hours. Too much makes me sluggish and too little transforms me into a zombie in the office. So, until next time, make sure you get enough sleep, boys and girls!

Simee Market in Ipoh

Some pictures I snapped using my cellphone when I was back in Ipoh last weekend. Was accompanying grandma to the market in the morning and everything in there is so interesting to me. Funny, how I absolutely abhorred going to the market when I was a kid. I was so convinced that the dirty Simee Market just 10 minutes walk from my house is the awfullest vilest smelliest place on planet Earth. Haw, now I jump up at every chance to go, be it to get breakfast or to buy vegetables. >_>

Growing up/old sure does strange things to your brain.


Quest for Ikan Bilis (anchovies?). Grandma wisely bought the type of ikanbilis that is the best for making clear soups. Her mode of operation includes interrogating the shop keeper about the origins of these tiny dead dried fishies, smelling them, and ridiculing the supposed-overpricing. Shopkeeper had pretty formidable skills himself, cuz he skilfully "taichi"-ed everything back to her.


The Chinese apothecary: you find all sorts of knicks-knacks and dried foodstuff. Most important thing is, this is where all the Chinese herbs are sold too. Those guys behind the counter, they're all well-versed in ancient art of Chinese healing....as well as the bargain price of a bottle of Ribena.


The younger brother behind the counter, skillfully dispensing eye-clearing herbs for my Grandma who have had a cataract-removal operation. I bet he knew it through super mindkungfu that I'm taking pictures of his shop too.


Pails to put dirty dishes, wet floor, clanging of wok, heavy smells of food. This is obviously one of the awesomest part of the market. A plate of anything from any shop here tastes miles better than anything you can probably find in decadent ol' Kuala Lumpur.


Making Murtabaks, an Indian pancake thingy that's stuffed with meats and vegetable. Yes, carcinogens galore. Best served with thick hot curry chicken/mutton sauces and a cold glass of milk tea.


Interesting arrangement of items. Besides the potatoes and the onions, the rest are stuff that I've seens before but never cooked with. How sad for my next generation.

He that is in me, and he that is of this World

I ask myself, why am I not blogging and updating ROMB as I used to, and the answer is almost scary. It's not as interesting as it used to be, and everything seems to glimmer down into soft comfortable lights. You might think, yeahyeah you're busy with life and after a while other things do come along to replace your initial passions that once burned so beautifully bright. But it's not like that. I just lost interest in most of these stuff that I used to enjoy so much. Like I used to need a shoujo/romance fix every few days, like I used to watch so much TV and dramas, like I used to blissfully kick monster-ass in RPGs. To me right now, they're just tasteless Ajinomoto-stingy soup.

But on the brighter side, ROMB still, at least, though not as much, gives me a healthy amount of joy. I hope to update more, but i lack the time and energy.

I'm so consumed by the touch of the Holy Spirit nowadays, that everywhere I look I go, I see people struggling in spiritual darkness and they don't know it don't believe it. God, they don't know Him think they don't need Him. I speak up to some of them and they look at me like I need psychiatric help. I know what they're driving at. I totally, totally get it. I used to say those words myself. You know, like Apostle Paul...stoning Christians at one time and getting stoned as a Christian in another. Of all the things, I bet he never saw that happening. Humbling, ain't it?

1Jo 4:4 Ye are of God, my little children, and have overcome them: because greater is he that is in you than he that is in the world.

Back to the Land of the Dead

The weekend in Ipoh passed quickly, and I'm once again back in KL. As I checked my email this morning, my inbox practically puked out all the 60 unread emails. Checking through them one by one took me almost 2 hours. But I'm glad for the work waiting to get done here, for idleness is my greatest enemy. I get depressed when I'm idle, because somehow it gets to me that nobody needs me to do anything and I'm actually "tak laku" lah. Talk about superbly low self-esteem.

But anyhow, I'm quitting gym today, if i manage to find the time to stop by Fitness First. Haven't been there for so long now, since February, and my muscles have quickly degenerated to its original flabby selves since. I guess I don't have to look THAT good as long as I'm healthy and I don't mind looking less like J-Lo. With working out, it's like a constant struggle uphill to maintain and fight the inevitable depreciation of muscles tone, involving a hell lot of guilt-trips and self-torment (while paying through your nose for all this). Not my cup of tea. I've decided to go brisk walking once a week for a few hours, and watch my diet.

Ah, well.