JYSim for jobless-yokel Sim

Prologue: Firstly please accept my apologies for some delays over this blog. I have nothing solid to give as an excuse, so let’s just say I ran out of inspiration. Secondly, I found out that the friendster blog is losing some of its most inspiring and talented bloggers (leaving behind those…(fill in the blank) ones). Well, in my opinion, friendster wouldn’t be fun anymore without blogs, as the profile and silly testimonials thing is well past our age. So I’ll keep blogging on friendster until, let’s say, the blog turned real slow to load, friendster scrapped my blog (again), or friendster closes down. Thirdly, this is actually a very personal post, let’s just assume you’re privileged enough to know that my family quarrelled with me yesterday, and, as usual adolescent-parent quarralls do, justice is never justified. I know Mum would never read this blog (what is a blog hah? Aiyo! Blog ar, bloggers very dangerous you know, will get caught if they break the law!).
About not informing Mum and Dad about receiving the TCU International Student Scholarships:
Jun Yi received an e-mail informing him about being successful in the application of TCU International Student Scholarship on Wednesday, 11pm. The e-mail was in fact sent on the same day ar around 3.30pm. However, judging by how tired I am, and Mum being asleep then, I decided not to break the news until the next day. After all, what’s the big deal? Yes, getting a scholarship is supposed to be grand and glamorous, but then again we’re still ordinary people (it’s a different thing if we knew Malaysia won the World Cup or a Chinese get to become PM of Malaysia), no need for banging the gong and informing the whole village about such a small matter.
Then, on Thursday 7.30pm, I logged into Gmail again. Suddenly I remembered a situation more grave than publishing an ad on The Star announcing that I got this scholarship - arrangement and plans for the Jim Brickman concert held less than 48 hours away. So I hurriedly skipped and hopped to Mum’s mobile phone (as mine ran out of credit), transferred MYR 3 to mine, and SMSed Benjie. At the same moment Dad returned home. As usual, his first question would be ‘anything from TCU?’, i replied ‘yeah’ aimlessly, waiting for DiGi’s authorisation. Dad continued ‘the scholarship?’, and I replied ‘yeah, I got it,’ more aimlessly this time, because DiGi wants me to re-enter the phone number.
Consequently, Mum and Dad decided that Jun Yi is not being sincere enough as Mum and Dad have to literally question him for the information of the scholarship. Jun Yi, being a sensible, matured and university-bound boy should automatically inform his parents upon knowledge of the receipt.
About not willing to show Mum and Dad the e-mail about TCU International Student Scholarship:
After dinner, Mum requested to have a look at the e-mail despite Jun Yi repeatedly telling her it’s just a brief note saying ‘congrads, you got this scholarship, regards, whoever’. She insisted on reading and I told her I’ll access my mailbox upon finishing my PA studies, then she can have a thousand copy of the notes and send it to everyone in Penang. She turned on the computer, clicked on the gmail bookmark and accessed my mailbox (and it’s supposed to be personal). I reluctantly clicked the mail TCU sent me, and, after reading 37 times, and completely believing that it’s just a short note now, she deliberately opened my other mails (I was then quite absorbed in Rancangan Malaysia Ke-4). ‘This e-mail, a girl wrote to you ar? This is Jieyang’s mail loh right? Why you guys mail so short one? And what’s this…this word?‘.
I was relatively upset by then (as Mum deliberately accessed my hotmail account once too, and read all the mails inside). I softly accused her of tresspassing private ‘territories’ and swiftly closed the gmail tab. ‘Haiya, gotta print out the note mah! What’s the matter with you?‘.
Once again I offered to print the note AFTER I finished the stupid Rancangan-Rancangan Malaysia-s and it’s her turn to be mad this time.
Consequently, due to Mum’s inability to respect privacy as well as my short temper, Mum and Dad accused Jun Yi of not being respectful enough. Since Jun Yi will be leaving soon, he should act like a saint and teach Mum and Dad about using MSN and other computer programs so that they could communicate with him later on (and trust me, having Mum on MSN is no fun at all, I experienced it during my time in Italy).
About wanting to take the F6 first-term test and thus neglecting ‘duties’ and spending quality time with your family:
This is Jun Yi, even if there’s no test, he’d still study (maybe not as hard) and treat schoolwork seriously (heh, not boasting though). Jun Yi never take exams to prove anything, and in fact, Jun Yi hates exams because it kills everything, including inspiration for blogs. Jun Yi studies because he’s a little worried about not being able to catch up in U.
Secondly, kill him as you might, Jun Yi is a person who finds joy in following schedules, planning and sticking to plans and living another productive day. He’s not a genius, and thus he cannot, I repeat, he cannot dump everything at an instant and take your place cooking dinner just because you feel you deserved a break today. He actually appreciates it if you leave him completely alone while he’s studying and only bother him about the 10-m stack of books in his room after he finished studying.
And due to the fact that Jun Yi is paying more attention to studies and not spending enough time with his parents and sister (and he’s leaving for Mars soon, for God’s sake, and I don’t know when he’ll come back again), Jun Yi is accused of not being thankful, appreciative and whatever. Maybe I might feel homesick when I leave, but that’s up to me to handle the situation and no amount of pre-preparation will help. It actually worsens it.
About attending the concert in Genting and spending a lot of money which could be used to your shoes, shampoo etc etc:
As an introduction, let’s meet Mr. Jim Brickman. I get to know Mr. Brickman from the radio when they used his song for a counselling session background music. Then one day I ran through Dad’s CD collection and was so delighted to find that particular song (Angle’s Eyes). I’m gonna deny the fact that I downloaded a lot of his songs from Kazaa and LimeWire eventually, but then I did buy some of his originals, and frankly his music healed me from the weariness of Form 4 as well as endless school politics. I found peace, which has left me after I started F4 with the very-cunning prefect with WF as initials and KK as the 4th (unofficial) class monitor. In early Form 5 I bought his book, Simple Things, and that eventually became the one and only book I’d proudly mention as my favourite book. I got my book prize cert stuck to it.
So Mr. Brickman is coming to Genting for a performance, and though that’s not one-in-a-lifetime, it’s a good opportunity to catch as ticket prices are relatively cheap (from RM 40 onwards), and I incidentally found some friends who are willing to come along.
Dad saw the ticket price (well, we bought the RM100 ticket) and said no rightaway. Appearantly his son has never been to other concerts i.e. Jacky Cheung’s will cost at least RM150, and those handsome Taiwanese will cost well above RM200. Dad says it’s the 7th month, and it’s unsafe to go. Well, coincidentally, I’m leaving for Taiwan on the 7th month also, and is it unsafe to go?
Then Dad says the money can be put into better use i.e. buying things you need after you reach Taiwan. I do not deny his idea, but let’s agree that’s a little lame to stop a 17-year-old from spending to see his, yeah, idol, right?
Well, acomodation is a problem, I do not deny this.
So judging by the conditions and faux pas Jun Yi committed in one-shot yesterday, Dad decided it’s his best chance to stop him from going there and then.
And once again I have to apologise to Benjie for my irresponsibility. I will compensate the MYR 100 to you and please do count me in the next J. Brickman concert 10 years later, I’ll definitely come rain or shine.

Epilogue: This is not a complaint or rant, even though it sounds like one. Jun Yi tried his very best to make it look more like a series of explanations from a misunderstood guy, and hope you’ll forgive him least you find it’s too personal and friendster is indeed running out of talented bloggers.

This entry was posted on Friday, August 4th, 2006 at 9:24 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.