A Furball of Terrorism

My 3-month old son came to an air-conditioned room on 10 Feb 2010. The adoption process was completed on 28 Mar 2010 and he joined us (me and Sayang) as Rusty Koay. At first, he was this this saintly quiet puppy that wouldn't even move a feet beyond his nose.

2 months later, he became a furball of craziness that would burst into sudden dashes in the house, falling flat on his stomach and looking innocently at me. His sudden changes in behaviour from energetic to complete docileness is quite unnerving in the beginning. But being the dominant gender, Rusty showed boundless energy, love for tearing things apart, anything animated (which made me doubt getting another puppy).


Rusty loves terrorising his parents, a trait that both sets of grandparents noticed. Without the mommy and daddy, Rusty would be a lovely good boy, adored by all. Sometimes, I wonder if there is an Oscar awards for dogs, Rusty will be nominated Best Male Performance.

Besides delivering Oscar quality acting at home, Rusty is also known as Poo-Boy and Pee-Boy for the endless amount of excrement he produces. Favourite pooping ground is always the newspapers but if you leave your favourite magazine on the floor...then beware.

Paradise Worship

Moving,
Powerful,
Meaningful,
Moving,
Full of Love For God

Those were the feelings in me when I attended last Sunday's service when the Paradise Community Church's Worship Team took the worship session. I haven't heard a team like that for a very long time and it was amazing to know how God can bless people with gifts to touch hearts.

Stamps, For Real?

Many would describe me as an outgoing and extroverted person with a typical "bimbo" preference for hobbies such as shopping and movies. But to the surprise of many, I collect stamps. A hobby which started out unintentionally and purely from a need to find a hobby to present to the teacher as part of my primary school assignment.

Usually, hobbies don't last for long if it had started out without interest but during the initial years, I was racing with my friends to see who can collect more stamps. Naturally, I listed the help of my relatives to add to my dwindling collection. Grandpa decided to give me his stamps seeing that he had a few books and cousin Andy didn't know how to appreciate it then. I took the stamps and transferred those into a much newer and nicer album. Uncle Charlie gave me a small pile from his flying experience while Auntie Christine gave me her pen pal's stamps.

Yesterday, when I open my stamp collection because Cynthia gave me some, I was surprised to find that I have stamps which are older than me. Then, it struck me - I have stamps which are considered quite priceless in my collection. Not 1 or 2 old stamps but majority of it are very old.

Inspired by the value of the stamps, I am now resuming my collection by seeking help from Hoey Lit and Hoey Sheen to gather stamps from their international friends and travels. This would be my give to our Loo family in the future...a gift of history.

Election Fever

It's POLLING day and everyone is up early to vote for their fav candidate. I came back to JB to vote and being my first election, I was a little excited. Good thing someone sent me a "Dummie's Guide To Voting" earlier which portrayed a picture-by-picture step to voting. A good thing because I was taken aback by the formality of the voting process. Since my area is considered a new polling district, not many showed up to vote and as such, I was given undivided attention from the election workers. Quite saddening to know that I didn't have many choices and between the 2 parties, there wasn't much consideration required to choose.

Papa's constituency is in Tebrau and it was much nicer there cause there were so many people waiting to vote. Even the aunties and older folks were discussing their choice openly. Quite fun to see their discussion. Some were even asking whom to vote at this point of time. Wow...I thought the decision should have been made earlier for a better future and not at that point of time as a whimsical choice based on popularity (Malaysian aunties...an amazing breed).

Christmas 2007

Woke up today morning by mum and this Christmas is far the weirdest I have had. Spent a whole morning vacumning the inside of the car with Mum's new power vacumn cleaner. Didn't realise that the 11 year old Satria's inside is SO DIRTY! Had to change the vacumn cleaner's water twice and each time, it looks murky foamy brown water. Bro was the expert on using this new vacumn cleaner. Even the piano was not spared of the cleaning process. It received a new coat of polish (bright and beautiful now).

Then, Ah-Choo and her family came to make "tang yuen" (sweet balls) which took forever to make because her 2 children were more of a hassle rather than helping. I think good intentions in this case ended up in more work fore everyone. At the end, the "tang yuen" which took half a day to roll and cook, finished in less than 10 minutes.

Dad took to painting the scratch marks on the Satria (courtesy of Hoey Sheen as a new driver). Didn't realise the car had that many scratches. But now, the car looks as good as new through the workmanship of brushpainting cannot be compared to those of airbrushing.

It's 4.10pm now so I wonder what will happen through the day. Sheen is still at Pastor's house, cleaning the place after the Christmas Party for the youth last night.

Indecent Exposure

Yesternight, after having the instant noodle which I was craving for since Penang and while I was watching MTV, I heard thudding sounds from my backyard. Feeling lazy, I decided to ignore the sounds but it became more persistent. Finally, I turn my head to the left to see what was the source of the sound. My heart froze.

I saw a man throwing stones at my backyard window to get my attention. That wasn't the scary part but immediately, I recognised the familiarity in that man's frame and behaviour of throwing stones. This was the man who indecently exposed himself to me approximately 6 months ago at the same location.

Approximately 6 months ago, while I was studying for my LLB Part 2 in the dining hall which had a 3-frame window facing the backyard. With my back to the window, I was engrossed in my studies and suddenly, a stone whizzed past me and landed within a short ruler distance from me. I turned around to see a man throwing stones and calling out, "Mel".

Thinking that he was Mel's friend, I went to the backyard to open the wooden door to speak to him. His first words were, "Is Mel around?"

I said, "No, Mel is not around" which was a big mistake because I just revealed that I was home alone. He, then started to whank himself in front of me to which I promptly close the back door. My heart thumping and my hands shaking, realising that I am home alone and worried for my safety. I called Koko Mike and Mel to come home immediately which they did. Having searched the neighbourhood, they couldn't find him. No surprise, he probably would have bolted knowing that I made a call to friends.

Yesternight's incident relived that fear again. The fear of knowing that my sister is coming to stay with me and might be home alone freaked me out. Knowing that Mel will be travelling out most of the time and will not be returning early scares me. Realising that this pervert is observing my timing at home scares me. Bad enough I had a brush with a stalker not too long ago and now, I have to deal with a serial pervert which seems to be targetting my home.

So much for a boring life with all these happening within such a short time frame.

Learning To Trust Once More

When the heart has been wounded again and again in the same spot, each hit slices deeper into the same wound, making the wound impossible to heal. The wound bleeds continuously and one day, it bleeds dry and the heart dies.

My heart was wounded this way by someone I loved and after a year, I plucked up the courage to even considering dating once more. The final cut left an invisible scar which acted as a warning against loving. Till now, the scar remains and reminds me of the pain that I went through not too long ago.

Many advices came and left their messages imprinted in me. One of is that to love once more is to trust love again. How does one trust easily especially after the immeasurable hurt? There is no easy way out. Never to trust love is never loving again. And by doing that, I'm taking my own chance to find love.

"Take that step to love. You can't live your life avoiding trust and love. Make that baby step and with each step, you will learn to trust love more and more".

I took that baby step, only to find out that the baby step is not an easy step. There are so many hurdles that I have to face in order to leave my comfort zone of "not-trusting love". Its easy to say that I should trust once more but in reality, it takes a lot of emotional strength to face the fear of hurt. My first step is already wobbly - how shall I proceed with another step?

Family

While reading the article below, tears welled in my eyes to feel the truth of our own selfish ways. A simple truth - we don't show the people we love that we love them. I read this article twice and on both occasions, I cried because I felt so guilty. Guilty of doing the same to people I love. My heart wrenched in pain as I struggled to feel the hurt that my loved ones felt when I scolded them, vented my temper or frustrations on them. Innocent victims of our own selfish need to release our disappointment, frustration, irritation on something or someone. Why the people you love?

A reminder to myself - NEVER TO TREAT MY LOVED ONES POORLY

Family

I ran into a stranger as he passed by,
"Oh excuse me please" was my reply.

He said, "Please excuse me too;
I wasn't watching for you."
We were very polite, this stranger and I.
We went on our way and we said goodbye.

But at home a different story is told,
How we treat our loved ones, young and old.

Later that day, cooking the evening meal,
My son stood beside me very still.

When I turned, I nearly knocked him down.
"Move out of the way," I said with a frown.

He walked away, his little heart broken.
I didn't realize how harshly I'd spoken.

While I lay awake in bed,
God's still small voice came to me and said,
"While dealing with a stranger,
common courtesy you use,
but the family you love, you seem to abuse.

Go and look on the kitchen floor,
You'll find some flowers there by the door.
Those are the flowers he brought for you.
He picked them himself: pink, yellow and blue.
He stood very quietly not to spoil the surprise,
you never saw the tears that filled his little eyes."

By this time, I felt very small,
And now my tears began to fall.

I quietly went and knelt by his bed;
"Wake up, little one, wake up," I said.

"Are these the flowers you picked for me?"
He smiled, "I found 'em, out by the tree.

I picked 'em because they're pretty like you.
I knew you'd like 'em, especially the blue."

I said, "Son, I'm very sorry for the way I acted today;
I shouldn't have yelled at you that way."
He said, "Oh, Mom, that's okay.
I love you anyway."

I said, "Son, I love you too,
and I do like the flowers, especially the blue."

FAMILY
Are you aware that if we died tomorrow, the company
that we are working for could easily replace us in
a matter of days.
But the family we left behind will feel the loss
for the rest of their lives.

And come to think of it, we pour ourselves more
into work than into our own family,
an unwise investment indeed,
don't you think?
So what is behind the story?

Do you know what the word FAMILY means?
FAMILY = (F)ATHER (A)ND (M)OTHER (I) (L)OVE (Y)OU