Chasing Dreams

“So do you think it’s worth it?” I ask.

“Sounds really awesome, I mean, look at all the people in the office,” he says as he takes a deep breath and ready himself to finish another bowl of Wanton Soup.

As hesitant as I may be, “You know, what he said to us earlier when we were having our discussion made perfect sense. I mean, the first step is always the hardest.” We gorge down our Wanton Mee.

“I hate to admit it, but,” I paused to take a sip of my drink, “One of the things in life that I’m afraid of is change.”

But yet again, to some extent, aren’t we all are? Afraid to lose ourselves, afraid that we’d turned into the demons we hate. Afraid of death. ‘Cos, if you think of it, it is quite similar. It happened to me once. It wasn’t the change that scared me, but the fact I did not realized. I was just like everybody else. No flair, not unique just stereotype.

My life since day one has been one accident after another. I can tell you, I have never once though of venturing into advertising in my life, not even once, until I enrolled for a design college. Though I’ve always had a thing for art with the ability of finishing mom’s huge stack of A4 in just about a day.

From wanting to be a garbage truck collector (‘cos when you are four years old, those trucks looks so damn cool with all the mechanics and well, other stuff) to being a pilot, businessman, network engineer and so on. But I finally landed myself as a graphic designer.

Now that I’m in advertising, to be frank, for once, it felt right. The work, the stress, the joy, the heartache and everything else in-between. It could be a test, it could be my get-out card. It could be anything, really.

“Aren’t we all afraid of change?” he continues, lighting a Dunhill, taking a drag, “I’m afraid of it too,” he concludes and puffs out a cloud of smoke.

“So what should we do?” I asked, dropping my Marlboro and stomping it, “I’ve got something to lose, it’s harder for me to take that first step, you don’t.”

In the end, I guess it’s a test of intention, true intentions. Because you can’t spend you’re entire life chasing money. You won’t catch it. So, solution?

You make it.
Which you could make it, at any job, at any time. It’s just a question of loyalty and faith. And also determination.

Bright Idea

Why is it that ideas always come to me when it’s too late? I mean, for god’s sake. How hard was it to come up with this idea?

I could have just left my name card on the table. She knew I was checking her out almost every time she passes our table. I knew she knew I was so checking her out.

But why didn’t I leave my name card? I tell you why. Because I’m an idiot. Sigh.

Oh screw it. I’m going there again tomorrow.

Good Day, Bad Day

You know one of those mornings when you wake up, even though nursing a somewhat weighty hangover (from being to ambitious with merlot), you know it’s gonna be a sweet day.

It was.

But when I arrive at me work place, I signaled the guards to let me in. Then…

“Lu punya kawan ah, chin chai park kereta ah, mana boleh?!” the brown hair arrogant looking sonofabitch guard says to me.

“Lu ingat saya siapa? Bapa dia ah? Tell him yourself lah,” I snapped. Having realized my good day has been tarnished. I mean, come on lah. I have not parked my car anywhere, whenever I pleased. So at least give me some benefit mah.

Of course, I had to spend the rest of the morning trying to fix my good day. Days like this don’t come by often enough.

But of course, god forbids. While lunching with Ju, the niece, the boss calls me up and tells me that my design for one of our clients had been rejected and they demand a complete revamp. What the fuck is their problem? Sure, 3 months ago it was cool and unique, 3 months of sitting on it and doing absolutely nothing about it after having me slugging it out infront of the computer for 2 weeks and now you tell me it sucks because your sales slumped. And when sales go up, we don’t even get a “Thank you.” What the hell, how fuckin’ hard it is to approve an artwork for print? I’m sure it doesn’t take 3 months. I’m so sick of this.

The whole day was fucked again. After I finished ranting to my boss and hang up, “Woa, you’re stressed face came up wei!” Ju pointed out.

What stress face? I have a stress face? According to her, apparently I did, “Well, I am stressed now,” I mutter while I extinguished my cigarette on the ash-tray, “Let’s cabut to KL and party the stress away!” I continued. She agreed.

Even though now, I feel Langkawi would suit me better.

Windy Windows

So what am I suppose to do?!

I Just Want to Sleep at Night

Since when buying insurance has to be so damn financially complicated? Whatever happened to the good old days of:

“Wazaaaaa…!!!”
“Wazaaaa!!!!!”
“I want to buy a medical insurance policy.”
“OK, here’s a list of the coverage and the monthly premium you’ll have to pay.”
“Hmmm, I like this one. This package uses fancy colours.”
“Sign here.”
“Peace out insurance-dude!”
“Peace out!”

Now…
Apparently, they no longer offer you medical coverage only. Yeah, well, at least for Prudential they don’t. Not only you have to take up the medical plan (which is what I only want), but you MUST sign up all these other “side packages” as well.

Like it has to be bundled with a Life Insurance policy as well. Heck, I’m only 22 (until August), why would I want my life insured? Maybe I should, but I don’t have a wife and kids that need this lum sum to carry on when I well, accidentally, moved on. *Choi!* So in my opinion, it’s not a real necessity just yet.

And it also comes with this investment link thingy which I have no idea weather or not it should be considered as savings as well. I mean, will I get back my, I quote my sis, “The principal amount,” back? Or it is just purely investment. In which case, what if another ’98 Soros scenario happens? Habis lah! Argh! I need certainty! Don’t rob a poor man lah. Damn poor already, and my Kancil ain’t growing up to be a Mercedes (or Mini Cooper).

It seems that sometimes, I intentionally stressed myself out on Tuesdays so I can work up enough anger or frustration to have it all vented out on the pitch. Yeah! Futsal baby!

Maybe it’s just coincidence. But heck, I’m now RM150 poorer every month.
And I notice I can rant faster on a black keyboard.

Bomb in a Dress

Am I being prejudice?
‘Cos every time when I have a puff outside the office on this bench I’ll see this giant Arabian dude dressed in his usual white robe (or gown), I get the impression that he might just explode, at any time.

I’ll greet him with a faint please-don’t-blow-us-up-because-I’m-Chinese-and-not-American smile.

Tan, Tan and the other Tan

After going on a 2 month hiatus from indoor footy, yesterday Zach invited us for a game with his Church peeps.

“Dude, it’s kinda like Heaven vs Hell, us being from Hell, of course,” I told Ryan.

Apart from having an 30ish (or maybe 40ish) Indian cheesy knock off version of Eugene Gan on my side, who of course doesn’t realize the significance of passing, it was an awesome outing.

“Eh, isn’t that like…Zach’s dad?” I said as I pointed to the general direction of where Mr. Tan was standing with his flashy white and gold Adidas Predator boots.

“I really, really think so lah,” says Ryan.

Then the cliché happened, it had to. Scenario was like this:
I hit a low strong thru ball to Ryan on the left flank from the right, being him, one of his most practical attribute is his out of control speed, he received the ball and started dashing towards goal. He made it look effortless, zig-zagging his way thru the entire defense. But Team Heaven had one more trick up their sleeves to stop the unrelenting Sri-Lankan look-alike from driving the ball home. It was the Tans.

Father and son defense pairing. Zach initiates the first tackle, stalling Ryan long enough for his dad to come to aid. With Jr. and Sr. on both side of Ryan, all attempts to escape was futile and I was left waiting for a cross that never came. And to add insult to injury, Tan Sr. made a simple pass diagonally to the left with Zach dashing thru the center pulling our defenders away for their striker to drive it home and score.

“Wah, kanneh, kena from Father and Son, man,” he says, panting wildly, “No chance to escape.”

I ended up on their team at some point. To complete the unbeatable Tans. Father and son pairing plus the tall Tan who has no blood-relation.

And like I said Ian. I would score twice. And I did :P

King of Burgers

Here’s something that I swear will try to avoid next time. A day trip to KL.

Drey was supposed to go; after all, it’s her project. But thanks to Big Tree, it scared the hell out of my boss with copious amount of guidelines and requirements. Five to six pages in size ten texts. And the mathematics that came with it, I swear, it was my worst nightmare. How on earth did math came into Design?! Aaaahhhh!!! Tidak!!!

And while my boss and our KL colleague did their math on the white board in the conference room, I was sitting in front of the damn air-con at full blast, begging the laptop to perform faster. “What did you guys have for lunch?” one of them asks.

The classic answer, at least for me everytime I visit KL, “Burger King!”

“Eee yer, nice meh? There’s tons of other food around you know.” she says.

I want to tell her that food in KL sucks, unless it fetched a hefty price tag, but I realize I’m a Penangite, all I have to say was, “I’m from Penang.” And they’ll go “OoOooOoO…”

Yeah, you can’t compete with our food.
And I need a break.