Monthly Archives: December 2007

Pretty Good Year

Now is the time for reflec­tions, they say. An entire year’s worth, it seems, is now open to inves­ti­ga­tion and inci­sive analy­sis. Twelve months of folly and foibles, work and wor­ries, play and penance, all com­ing under the pen­e­trat­ing glare of a sin­gle eye, a kind one, I pray.
Let’s sit down first, and get com­fort­able. Find

The Family Dinner (Almost) Disaster

Nor­man Rockwell’s Fam­ily Din­ner
T’was the sea­son to make merry and to feast on the best (and the beasts, if you’re a car­ni­vore like me), to spend the warm and soft hours with your loved ones and to be con­tent and at peace. T’was the sea­son for fam­ily din­ners, joy­ous reunions not very unlike a

Season’s Readings

Hol­i­days. Year-end sales. Din­ners and par­ties and turkeys and wine and pies. There’s only so much of this one can wal­low in… Time for some sim­pler plea­sures.
When was the last time you snug­gled up in a comfy sofa chair with a really good book? Here are four from Malaysian authors, some­thing dif­fer­ent from the usual

The Happy Prince

 
From time to time, my friends may ask me what my favourite story is. “After all,” they would add, “you do read so much.”
(Which I don’t, not really, not any­more. I have become one of them Adults I feared so of trans­form­ing into when I was a kid; an Adult who had More Impor­tant Things To

Excuse Me, Do You Speak English?”

KL Mono­rail, Kuala Lumpur: 5 months ago…
“Excuse me, do you speak Eng­lish?”
Woken from my reverie on why pub­lic trans­port in the cap­i­tal city was such an abysmal mess, I realised I was being addressed by a cou­ple of tourists. A middle-aged cou­ple, Amer­i­cans, by their accent, per­haps even New York, though I couldn’t really be

Night of the Angels

Body­Bal­ancers: Ben, Rachel & me
Everyone’s been com­plain­ing lately that I’ve been turn­ing down their invi­ta­tions — to movies, wed­ding din­ners, vaca­tions, and of course, more Christ­mas par­ties than you can shake a snow­globe at. (Am I the local Scrooge? Am I so deprived of the jolly ol’ spirit of the sea­son?)
So it sur­prised not a few

Resolutions

Xmas @ Mid­val­ley Mega­mall, KL
Res­o­lu­tions.
You know it’s com­ing close to the end of the year when every­one starts draw­ing up lists. Lists of Christ­mas gifts yet to be bought (and hurry, while the sales are still on!), lists of friends and fam­ily to be invited to par­ties, lists of a year’s worth of achieve­ments at work