The colour grey

There's something that I can't quite figure out. And I don't like not being able to figure something out. This is the situation. This is of course an analogy and a simplification of the facts.

Miss Red always wears red clothes to work. She drives a red car, the upholstery and stuffed toys in her car are all red, her coffee mug is red, her pencil case is red, her mouse pad and mouse are red, her backpack is red; in short, almost everything she owns is red. She has outwardly shown her dislike towards other colours on numerous occasions - black is too bleak, yellow is too cheerful, pink is too girlish, etc.

One day we are all asked what our favourite colours are. Miss Red announces that her favourite colour is green. 

Green! This of course catches me by surprise. Almost cheated even. When I asked her about all her things being red, she says it's just a coincidence. She didn't mean to buy red things, but somehow all her things ended up being red. In fact, she doesn't even like the colour red.

My point of view:

(i)   At best, she unknowingly created the impression that she liked the colour red.

(ii)  At worst, she deliberately created the impression that she liked the colour red.

Miss Red's point of view:

(i)   She never told me she liked the colour red. (This is true.)

(ii)  It's my fault for assuming that she liked the colour red.

I can't decide whether it's my fault or not. I know it's wrong to assume. But in this situation I genuinely believe that any reasonable person would come to the same conclusion as I did - that Miss Red's favourite colour is red. 

I'm trying hard to give Miss Red the benefit of the doubt. This must be one of those 'grey' areas that my friend Reuben keeps harping on about. I don't like grey. I like black and white. 

This situation is making me see red. No, wait. Grey. 

Miss No Change

I know you can't change anyone. Change must come from within. But consider this.

Miss No Change had always walked to Destination X for years. As a result, she always arrived late. This would not pose a problem if Miss No Change was working alone on her own time. You see, Miss No Change was unfortunately part of a team. And her late arrival caused the other members of her team to pick up her slack in her absence.

There is a solution to this problem, which is a free train ride to Destination X. This free train ride would ensure Miss No Change would arrive on time, at no cost. It was certainly more efficient than walking.

But no. Miss No Change insists on walking because that's the way she had always travelled to Destination X. To take a free train ride would be tantamount to changing her character and upsetting the balance of her otherwise perfect life.

So she resists the free train ride. And her team members continue to pick up her slack. But to her, it is more important for her team members to work harder at her expense than for her to make a simple switch from walking to taking a free train ride.

This is how I look at it. You don't have to change for anyone. But the day your behaviour negatively affects the people around you, is the day you seriously need to ask yourself difficult questions and if necessary, change. 

As the saying goes, the only constant in life is change.

The unimportant colleague

I have a colleague who thinks he is God's gift to the company. As if the company would go bust if not for his contribution. The kind who will come to me at 6.00 p.m. when I'm packing to leave because he has to tell me something so urgent it simply cannot wait till the next day lest the world would come to an end. 

And that something would be:

i) that he will be passing some documents for me to look at tomorrow for my further action; and

ii) something that he has been sitting on for months. 

I have no idea why he can't just pass the damn documents to me (during office hours) instead of giving me this drama about passing me documents in the future. And what is so urgent about telling me he wants to pass documents to me in the future that I have to delay going home for? 

And here's the best part. The documents will not come as promised! It will only come to me when all hell is about to break loose, so that I won't have any choice but to drop everything I'm doing and attend to this matter which could've been sorted out earlier if Mr. Self-Importance had gotten his act together and given the documents to me earlier.

But he never learns, and he genuinely thinks everyone should dance to his tune because we are, after all, all just there to serve him. Which means I work according to his schedule. Which means I should drop everything to sort his mess out. Which, I suppose, makes him feel all important and significant. 

Sometimes I think God put people like Mr. Self-Importance in this world just to test the patience of ordinary people like me. Well, ordinary not very patient people like me.

Corduroy by Pearl Jam

The waiting drove me mad

You're finally here and I'm a mess

I take your entrance back

Can't let you roam inside my head

I don't want to take what you can give

I would rather starve than eat your bread

I would rather run but I can't walk

Guess I'll lie alone just like before

I'll take the vermin's path

Oh, and I must refuse your test

A-push me and I will resist

This behavior's not unique

I don't want to hear from those who know

They can buy, but can't put on my clothes

I don't want to limp for them to walk

Never would have known of me before

I don't want to be held in your debt

I'll pay it off in blood, let I be wed

I'm already cut up and half dead

I'll end up alone like I began

Everything has chains

Absolutely nothing's changed

"Take my hand, not my picture," spilled my tincture

I don't want to take what you can give

I would rather starve than eat your bread

All the things that others want for me

Can't buy what I want because it's free

Can't buy what I want because it's free

Can't be what you want because I'm

Why ain't it supposed to be just fun

Oh, to live and die, let it be done

I figure I'll be damned, all alone like I began

Zen Quotes

1.     To understand the essence of things and find out one's actual nature is something that can be done by oneself. People often, so to speak, ride the donkey to search for the donkey, and the further they travel the more they go astray.

2.     To hunt and kill for the sake of livelihood is only a temporary solution to the struggle of living. To shoot down the delusions within oneself, on the other hand, is to have a total solution to the cares and sorrows of life.

3.     One's pristine nature becomes contaminated because of conditioning. Not to fall into the duality of good and evil and gain and loss, is to see one's original nature and perceive the absolute.

4.     Cause and effect give rise to gain and loss and thus sorrow. The meaning of life is not to be found in the outcome of events, but in each and every moment. 

5.     To have a realisation or none depends on a critical moment. That critical moment is to take a decisive step just when one is about to give up hope.

6.     In becoming self-reliant and not dependent, we hold our destiny in our own hands.

7.     In pointing out the errors of others one may not realise that oneself may be the source of errors.

8.     A life of Zen is to perceive at any time the beauty of the moment. Mind and body are always one; when eating, eat, and when sleeping, sleep.

9.     Everything has a bright and dark side to it. Those who see only the dark side of things bring sorrow and pain upon themselves. To those who are able to see at the same time the bright side of it, every day is a good day.

A song of despair

Why do flowers wither?
Why does it have to rain?
When the grey wind blows hither,
Why does my heart feel so much pain?

To hear but not be heard,
To see but not be seen,
To love but not be loved,
It's as hard as it has ever been.

I do what's right but it turns out wrong,
I do what's expected but I fall short,
I live in shadows dark and long,
Where pain is the norm, happiness nought.

Down the winding twisting path I go again,
The happiness of yesterday long forgotten,
I live in vain, I'll die in flames,
A life of misery, forever forsaken.

When is a problem not a problem?

I have a tooth that aches. 2 dentists have told me there is nothing wrong with it. 

I have a stomach that is perpetually bloated. 2 doctors and a specialist have told me there is nothing wrong with it. 

And yet, the pain is real. The bloating is real. Or maybe it's just my imagination transcending the psychological realm into the physical realm.

By analogy, if I laugh, does it mean I'm happy? Or is that, too just a figment of my imagination?

Shiny happy people

I now know 2 people who are just sunshine, blue skies, sugar, spice and everything nice, happy happy joy joy people. 

It's just impossible to be sad around them. It's not that nothing bad ever happens to them, they also go through the hardships of life that everyone goes through. But somehow they seem to have the ability to mentally block all that is bad, ugly and evil in the world and only soak up all that is good, beautiful and right in the world. It's an endearing quality. They exuberate the kind of positive, happy energy that is contagious and heart warming. 

I wonder how they do it. I can't stop all the bad that happens around me. But what I can do is try and block or ignore it so that it doesn't affect me negatively. I have no idea how to do this.

Blasts from the past

Recently I have been contacted by people fom the past that I used to know  - a primary school friend, friends from university, friends from my chambering days. The way I look at it, if someone was important enough to stay in my life and vice versa, we would've stayed in touch even after going our separate ways. And for those who I did not keep in touch with and vice versa, it just means that for whatever reason, they were not important enough for me, just as I was not important enough for them. This is despite the fact that for the period when our paths crossed we may have had fun, exciting and good times. I think saying goodbye is just a part of life.

So I don't understand this need to suddenly get together and meet up after years of absence. The problem with that is that they may not be the same people they were, and because we were not in touch in the interceding years, we did not have the opportunity of watching each other grow as individuals. This, I think, can be pretty awkward. 

What I'm trying to say is that there are times when one forms alliances and bonds with other human beings, and then the circumstance warrants that we go our separate ways so that what we once shared will remain only as memories and nothing more. 

I, for one, being anti-social and a Lone Ranger, would like to keep it that way.

When there are no explanations

I remember a particularly upsetting period in my career when I had to deal with a particularly difficult personality. 'Difficult' is actually an understatement. 

I used to get all upset and flustered and spent many days and nights wondering why anyone, particularly this man ("Mr. L") would behave the way he did. Short of labelling someone mad (in which case that is all the explanation I need) my brain likes to rationalise situations so that it can understand the actions and decisions that some people make. But I could find no explanation for Mr L's actions, so Mr. L continued to plague my thougths.

And I remember one of my then colleagues telling me that sometimes there are just no explanations. Sometimes people just do strange, mean or hateful things for no reason at all. She said that life would be much easier and simpler if I didn't always try to understand other people's actions.

She was right, of course. But as usual, I couldn't let it go. I used to hate Mr. L with a vengeance, and it took me a long time before I could finally forgive him and set my mind at peace.

It was perhaps a year or so later that I found out that Mr. L did not only target me but he targeted others as well. I now honestly believe that Mr. L is mentally unhinged, unbalanced, unstable, walking on the border of sanity and insanity. So I had my explanation in the end. And all that time I spent wondering why why why, were all wasted.

I just have to accept the fact that there are some weird, mentally deranged people out there in this world pretending to be normal. I'm sure Mr. L is not the only one.

In fact, I know that one like person is reading my blog right now.

Spanner in the works

Most doctors I know (including my brother) will say that depression, whilst caused by various factors, results in chemical imbalance in the brain so that it can be cured by medication.

Personally I think depression is a state of mind - if you do not deal with the root cause of what is making you sad, even if you are not sure of what it is that is making you sad, no amount of medication will be able to help you.

I'm no expert of course, but having been on the fringes of mortality at my own hands and coming out of it in one piece, I think one has to start with oneself. Learning to love and appreciate yourself above all others is the best medicine you can give yourself.

So this year, my New Year's resolution is to love myself. I want to stay focused on my long term plans, I want to spend more time with my girls and with my family, and above all, I want to spend more time with myself. This year I want to love only myself. I want to give myself more time for my heart to recover, for my wounds to heal, for my mind to be rid of any negative thoughts about myself. There are still some lingering remnants and I want to be completely free of them by the end of the year.

But of course, life always has other plans. I think I'm in love. With someone other than myself. Oh, dear. 

Anything else?

As of March 2015, I have:

1.   a CPU that had crashed

2.   a car battery that died

3.   a bed that broke

4.   a fridge that broke down

I'm still trying to be optimistic here, but I can't help but wonder - what next??

What a colleague said

A colleague asked me the other day what kind of guys I am attracted to. I said I am attracted to guys who are fit but not overly so, and who look bad ass, tattoos, piercings, the meaner the better. She then asked why. I said that guys like that give me the impression that everyday will be a surprise or an adventure, and that they are rebels who never follow the rules, and therefore life will never be boring if I went out with someone like that.

And she said that it may be that the reason why I am attracted to men like that is because there is probably a part of me that is adventurous and rebellious but not courageous enough to show to the world. I thought about it and agreed; although I do believe I'm courageous enough but the circumstance is never right - I can't dress like a rock star to work, can I? 

And she asked me wouldn't it be better if I did all those impulsive, adventurous, rebellious, naughty stuff myself - and if I did that, then I open up my mind to the possibility of being attracted to more types of guys?

She maybe has a point. 

Blessing in disguise

I've always wanted to be a boy. I've said this a million times to my father, who always tells me that he, for one, is very thankful that I turned out to be a girl. When I asked him why, he said if I had been a boy, I'd probably be in jail by now. 

The scary part is, I think he's right. Yesterday as I was driving to work, I passed by this stretch of road that was under construction, with the result that there were re-drawn lines on the road so that I wasn't very sure which exact lane I should be on. Let's assume for purposes of this story that I was on the wrong lane. There was a guy with a family in the car who honked furiously at me and as he overtook me he showed me his middle finger very aggressively and for a split second I just saw red.

The only thing that stopped me from over reacting was the fact that if I got into a physical fight with this moron I would lose because I do not have any weapons with me, I do not have any kind of fighting skills, and yes, because I am a woman and therefore physically weaker than a man. Had I been a man, however, I would probably have over the years sufficiently equipped myself so that the man who showed me the finger would have lost it for good. Or more.

This is just one of many, many times that I saw red for a split second - enough to hurt, maim, kill, demolish, destroy. But I never acted on it. Because I am fully aware of my physical limitations.

So I guess my father was right. It's a good thing I turned out to be a girl.

Lost love

I know I am imperfect and so is he. I know that together, we make a formidable team. A team that works. A team that can take on the world and still have energy left to laugh about it over beers. Together, we are a perfect team. I suspect that he knows it too.

But he says he doesn't love me anymore. 

What do I do? What can I do?

Give me your best shot

The way I look at it, there is only one of two things I can do - fight or flight. And I plan to flee all right, but that requires meticulous planning and a considerable sum of money, so while that takes place, I guess in the meantime I have no choice but to fight. 

And so I say to the world - bring it on! 

One chance left

One of my oldest friend, after reading my blog, told me that I dwell too much on the past. This is probably true. It explains my fondness for history in general. I like looking back at things, reminiscing, wondering what if?

I believe in learning from your mistakes and the mistakes of others. And in order to learn from mistakes one has to every so often look into the past. Today I thought of the past and wondered what it would have been like if I defied my parents in particular and society in general and joined a rock band? Where would I be now?

I look at the bands that I have been following since I was a kid and see them still doing the thing they enjoy doing, with the same passion and zeal as they had 20 years ago, and I think maybe I should have fought just a little harder, maybe I should have been a little more courageous, maybe I should have just run away and lived my own life. "If I fail, if I succeed, at least I did as I believe".

But it's too late now. It is what it is. I have one more thing left spilling over from my childhood, one more ambition that is still not too late for me to achieve. And this time, I will be strong and brave enough to achieve this ambition before I die. This time, nothing and no one shall stand in my way.

Angst

I have already concluded that it takes me 3 days to get over an unwarranted remark. The problem is, too many people have said too many things over the past 2 weeks to piss me off, with the result that there is an overlap of remarks in my mind, with the consequence that I am perpetually angry or pissed off.

And it affects me to the extent that I have had nightmares (although I can't remember what they are about) and I sleep so restlessly and intermittently that I wake up feeling exhausted.

I don't know how the mass majority of people do it. I can't. I can't just let people get away with making nasty remarks. I can't just let it go. I used to think that I was not good enough for the world. But now I know it's the other way around, as it always had been. The world is not good enough for me. I am too good for this world. Because I bloody care too much. 

Doubts

There were days when I woke up next to Philip and when I saw him sleeping peacefully like a baby without a care in the world, I used to think that everything was going to be alright, I can get through life no matter how difficult it got, because I had him beside me.

And now? And now, I see myself in the mirror and tell myself that everything is going to be alright, I will survive like I always have. Sometimes I believe it. Sometimes, like today, I don't. 

When is a friend not a friend?

Slash is coming to Kuala Lumpur again! And I can't find anyone to go with me. Not one soul.

There are those who have things planned (it is on Valentine's Day of all days), there are those who have no idea who Slash is, and then there are those who I didn't even bother asking because some people are just not suited for rock concerts, no offence intended.

But then, there are those who are free, and who know how important Slash is to me, but who just won't come with me. Now, if the roles were reversed, and one of my friends was a die hard One Direction or Taylor Swift fan, and they are not able to find anyone to go with them, I would go with them, no matter how much I hated the music. 

I think it's only fair that as friends, you make certain sacrifices for the sake of your friends. But when it's my turn, the favour is never returned. So. Why do I need friends again? The thing that a lot of people don't realize (sometimes I am also guilty of losing track) is that I can survive on my own. 

I don't see the point in having friends when they won't come to my aid when I need help. All I can say is, they won't see any help from me either. In fact, they won't see me at all. I am very good at cutting people out of my life and never looking back. I am ruthless that way.

Best Friend No. 2 always tells me not to expect people to be like me. And why shouldn't people be more like me?? The world would certainly be a better place, rock n' roll and all. 

The best Valentine's Day gift I can give myself is watching Slash in action. With the pleasure of the company that is my own. Because nobody can be a better friend to me than myself.

Complaints, complaints, complaints!

Over the last month, some people have told me that I complain a lot. This is true. And this last week I made a conscious decision not to complain, and just go with the flow. But it's just impossible. 

There are too many people who do or say too many wrong things. And it affects me. And it takes me 3 days to get over that. So I complain. 

I've already told those people who said I complain too much, to in the first place tell those who are making unnecessary comments and irritating my life to stop doing that, because they are the ones who are the cause of my complaints. If everyone just minds their own business and does their own work, surely there will be nothing for me to complain about.

And they told me that they can't stop people from saying or doing what they want to say or do, so it's better if I just accepted that and deal with the situation.

What hypocrites. I am to stop complaining but other people can go on saying and doing what they like. Where is the logic or justice in that? 

And why is it that when I complain, I am being childish but when others complain, they get sympathy and encouragement? This is the double standard, unjust world that I live in. 

And yes, this is a complaint. This blog is all I have left as a forum to air my complaints. 

A situation

It has been 2 days since I discovered that at least 2 people are struggling as an indirect result of me leaving and travelling the world. I know I shouldn't feel responsible, but I do. If not for me, 2 people would probably be happier now and be able to grow in their fields. I like these 2 people, very much so, and as with most people I like, I always wish the best for them. So it is heartbreaking to hear that they are not doing so well after my departure.

But then again, they are adults and I can only be responsible for them up to a certain extent. At the heart of it is this impossible question - should I have sacrificed my own happiness so that 2 other people can be happy? Sometimes I feel I have done an incredibly selfish thing just throwing everything away and galloping into the sunset. And yet again, sometimes I genuinely feel that it was necessary for me to do what I did for my own sanity, selfish or otherwise.

How many times have I heard people say that suicide is not the answer - there are always solutions. And yet, when I embark on a solution nobody seems to understand. And more appallingly, what I do to try and achieve happiness is never something in a vacuum, it inevitably has effects, one way or another, on the people around me.

The wall of certainty and self confidence that I so carefully built over the past 6 months is already starting to crumble after just 2 weeks of entering into society. But I still have another day. According to my experiment I need 3 days to get over a situation. 

I hope tomorrow, Day 3, I will have the strength to decide that what I did was what was best for me, and in the final analysis, as selfish as it sounds, that's all that matters.

"Rover, wanderer, nomad, vagabond, call me what you will!"

I never really wanted to have a career. At least, it started out that way. And then, the better I got at what I did, the more I thought that a career was what I wanted all along.

When I resigned, the question I asked myself was whether I could see myself doing the same thing I had already been doing for 10 years, for the rest of my life? And the answer was a resounding NO. 

I take more pleasure in telling people tales of my travels than tales of my work. That should mean something. I do not want to become fused with my profession so that if I am suddenly without a job or if I retired, I would be a nobody because without my profession I am nothing.

Knowing now for a fact that I could have had a career is sufficient for me. I do not want to be known for my trade. Some people end their lives being the top persons in their fields. Good for them. It's not for me. For me, a job is just to earn money to do what I really want - to explore the world. It's a means to an end. 

I want to be more than just the work I do. I want to be a real person. A citizen of the world, so to speak. Maybe I lack ambition. Maybe I'm a dreamer. Maybe I'm just burnt out. Maybe I am looking at the world with rose-tinted glasses. But if I am happy being this way, am I wrong?

4 things

I brought my mother to the supermarket last week to buy cheese cake and I waited for her in the car. I took the opportunity to blast rock music and sing at the top of my lungs with great panache as if I was the front(wo)man of a rock band and I was so engrossed with my role that I failed to realize my mother knocking the window and asking to be let into the locked car.

Upon which I did some thinking and as we drove home I mentioned to my mother that there are 4 things from my childhood that I still practice till today and that is 1) listening to rock music 2) reading books 3) devouring detective and crime stories 4) loving animals. To which my mother promptly replied, "you forgot being mischievous".

Leaving her observation aside, these 4 things are all that I have left of my childhood. I had many other interests as a child but as an adult I didn't always have the time to continue practicing all my interests. Work takes up a lot of your time, and in due course I had to give up a lot of the things I enjoyed doing, including doing nothing at all. 

Somehow I managed to cling on to these 4 things which to me are more than just things I enjoy doing, they are remnants of the person I was, and the person I like to be. They give me great comfort, as they always did. I feel like if I could only continue holding on to them, I would be ok. The day I stop doing these 4 things is the day I am not me. 

The long drive back

The last time I drove back to Kuala Lumpur, I was a bundle of nerves. The future was so uncertain. I was about to embark, for the first time in my life, on a solo journey half way around the world, a non-English speaking part of the world. But it was a good kind of nervousness because all fears and worries aside, I actually really enjoy travelling and in many ways I was looking forward to what was in store.

I drove back to Kuala Lumpur today also a bundle of nerves, but for diametrically opposite reasons. I start a new job on Monday. And this, to me, is scarier than my solo journey across the seas because whereas the latter brings me closer to my true self, the former tends to change me into someone else. The change is an evolutionary process so that you don't really realize that it's happening to you, and then one day you wake up with wings instead of arms and you ask yourself how the hell did that happen and how come I never noticed it before? 

To alleviate my fears, I keep telling myself that I can quit my job anytime, the moment one feather appears on my arm I can quit and do whatever else I want to do. The problem is, I told myself that 10 years ago too when I started my first job. And then I stayed 10 years. This really scares me.

"Forgive your enemies. Nothing annoys them so much."

I conducted a small experiment the other day. Someone pissed me off with their comments. It took me 3 days to get over it. 3 days!

This is definitely something I have to work on. I realize that I'm too sensitive, that I get too easily affected by people's comments, warranted or otherwise. Whenever I hear something I don't like, 3 things may happen. 

One, is that I accept what they are saying because I know it to be true, and even though I don't like what they say I am calm, accepting, perhaps apologetic if the occasion so requires it. This is not a problem.

Two, I get angry because I know the statement to be untrue and my emotional white blood cells go into overdrive, rendering me seething with anger or disproportionately defending myself by way of a counter attack. This is something that I have to work on, but it does not concern me that much because I have actually become more patient over the years. The smallest thing used to send me into the mightiest rage and like a tornado, there was no stopping me until I had my revenge. I hardly do that now (that is to say, I still fly into rages, I still plot and scheme my perceived enemy's downfall, but I hardly ever execute - which I think is a step in the right direction) thanks for the most part to the teachings of Buddha and Confucius and "Before you embark on a journey of revenge, dig two graves" and forgive all your enemies and all that. But this is not my immediate concern because it rarely happens these days, so for the most part I think I have it under control.

My immediate concern is Situation Three. Which is, when someone says something to me, solicited or otherwise, warranted or otherwise, and I am not sure when it is said whether what is said is true or false. Then this statement remains with me for (according to my experiment) 3 whole days. Most of the time I decide I am right, but it is by then too late to tell the person off or justify myself to the person. Sometimes I decide I am wrong (very, very rarely) but it is too late to do anything about it. And sometimes I decide it doesn't really matter what they have said. Whatever the outcome, I hate that it takes me 3 days to get over it. In those 3 days, I would ponder, eat, sleep, breathe, chew, spit, regurgitate the damn statement before I come to any form of decision.

I know I have to learn to let go. But I have no idea how. Anger is easier to deal with, sometimes I just have to run in the park and it goes away. But Situation Three is much more tricky. I think it is to do with confidence. I should have conviction in my own actions and words. Which means that I should think more carefully about what I say and do before I say and do it, so that when I say and do something and someone tells me I am wrong, I am immediately able to justify what I said and did because I had actually thought about it, and I was convinced that this was the best possible thing to say and do at that particular time. 

It takes a lot of practice I guess. But I have to start somewhere. I really don't fancy taking 3 days to get over a statement, especially if said statement is unwarranted or untrue.

The (in)significance of New Year's Eve

To usher in the New Year this year, I had planned to have a quiet evening alone with a good book and my new bottle of single malt whiskey which I bought in KLIA upon my return from South America. I had recently read in a book, a story of detectives working in Ireland during winter time, that there was such a thing as a 'hot whiskey'. I have no idea what a hot whiskey is nor have I tried it, so I was planning to experiment, and perhaps imagine that the cold bout of rainy weather we've been experiencing here is winter time in Ireland.

Until very recently, I thought that it was pathetic to spend New Year's Eve alone. Now, for the first time in my life, I was looking forward to spending New Year's Eve by myself. "To love oneself is the beginning of a lifelong romance," said Oscar Wilde. I am 36 years late. But better late than never.

Unfortunately it was not to be. I was, and still am, stuck in Kuantan due to the closure of the East Coast Highway as a result of massive floods in the East Coast. I never knew highways could be flooded (I thought they were named HIGHways for a reason); the only way back to Kuala Lumpur are convoluted, pot holes-ridden trunk roads that requires a 7 to 9 hour drive. How dreadful. And yes, I don't mind 26 hour journeys, as long as I'm not the one driving. If I'm driving, 3 to 4 hours is the limit of my patience. Anything more, I become restless. 

But it was a pleasant New Year's Eve anyway, eating ikan bakar petai with my family (of course, it could've been better if my younger brother was there too, but I'll take what I can get). It just goes to show, that sometimes the best laid plans can come undone by forces beyond your power. And sometimes, that may be a blessing in disguise.

List of books - 2014

My annual list of books read (and re-read) in the year 2014:

1.     Broken Skin - Stuart Macbride

2.     Cross and Burn - Val McDermid

3.     The Wicked Girls - Alex Marwood

4.      A Room Swept White - Sophie Hannah

5.      The Other Typist - Suzanne Rindell

6.      Lord of the Flies - William Golding

7.      The Metamorphosis and other stories - Franz Kafka

8.      After the funeral - Agatha Christie

9.      The Grave Tattoo - Val McDermid

10.     Wire in the Blood - Val McDermid

11.     Lovely, Deep and Dark - Amy McNamara

12.     Little Face - Sophie Hannah

13.     The Cuckoo's Calling - Robert Galbraith 

14.     The Torment of Others - Val McDermid

15.     The Salem Witch Society - K.N. Shields 

16.    Hurting Distance - Sophie Hannah 

17.     Life After Life - Kate Atkinson

18.    The Secret of Chimneys - Agatha Christie 

19.    The God of Small Things - Arundhati Roy

20.    And the Mountains Echoed - Khaled Hosseini

21.    Guilt - Jonathan Kellerman

22.    The Point of Rescue - Sophie Hannah

23.    A Long Way Gone - Ishmael Beah

24.    The Ocean at the end of the lane - Neil Gaiman

25.    Sorry - Zoran Drvenkar

26.    The Goldfinch - Donna Tartt

27.    The Telling Error - Sophie Hannah

28.    Veronica Decides to Die - Paulo Coelho

29.    Portrait of a Killer - Patricia Cornwell

30.    The Body in the Library - Agatha Christie (re-read)

31.     Lexicon - Max Barry

32.     A short history of the Argentinians - Felix Luna

33.     Broken Harbour - Tana French

34.     Sharp Objects - Gillian Flynn 

35.     In the Woods - Tara French

36.     The Last Temptation - Val McDermid

37.     The Farm - Tom Rob Smith

38.     Andrew's Brain - E. L. Doctorow

39.    The Secret Place - Tana French

40.    One Two Buckle My Shoe - Agatha Christie (re-read)

41.     Evil Under the Sun - Agatha Christie (re-read)

42.     Dark Places - Gillian Flynn

43.     Death on the Nile - Agatha Christie (re-read)

44.     A Little History of the World - E. H. Gombrich

45.     Mrs McGinty's Dead - Agatha Christie (re-read)

46.     Murder on the Links - Agatha Christie (re-read)