Hmm. I’ve disappeared from the radar for some days now. Just extremely busy initially, then extremely not later. Let me explain.

Slumber eluded me like a mermaid last Friday night. Prolly due to a heavy supper of Econs for Managers. (Gawd, can a class be any more boring?) Woke up crazyearly Sat morning for me usual swim. Dead exhausted from lack of sleep. Did not swim well. Relaxed a lot once I stop moving and just floated by the side, chatting with a very dry Phoebe about languages and language discrimination. I love the fact she loves Mandarin so much, the first Chinese-educated person I know who rather speak to me in Mandarin than English.

Meanwhile, Nana was busy persuading us she was drowning despite having more than enough body fat to keep floating indefinitely. (Ooh, that was unkind. But, alas, true.)

Then, post-post-swim-shower, I was supposed to be studying before heading out for me date. No such luck. The library was closed and then I got drawn into a Women’s Debate as a rather unreluctant spectator. Actually, the lady coach from Thailand remembered me from my glorious debating past (okay, so I am embelishing just a tad) and asked me if I could phantom adjudicate her newbie girls. Hell, yeah!

Right, the topic of the debate was “That we would hang rapists.” (You can tell it was a women‘s debate.) Honestly, the debate I went for was more than tiresome to sit through, what with everyone giggling whenever the word “penis” was mentioned. It did not help that one of the girls got it into her head that castration meant lopping off the poor guy’s schlong. Hello, chemical castration, anyone?

Still, was worth it, just to coach two pretty Thai girls later who were very appreciative. Wonderful advertisements for their tourist industry, that’s all I’ll say.

Finally, after all that was over, I realised I was almost late for me date with Shwugirl. Some frenzied driving later (and I’m thanking Marco for a useful vocabulary), I’m at Sunway Pyramid (a Egyptian-style shopping mall, ala bad-taste Vegas). She’s still in the middle of a Christmas shopping frenzy that, quite nicely, leads me to me over-a-year-old ‘Daredevil: Yellow’ comics amazingly still intact (just need to find me receipts else have to pay for the damned things all over again) and the special limited edition of Tori Amos’ “Scarlet’s Walk” (will torture you people about that in a separate entry).

We took great pains to find her a pair of fangs for her fancy dress company seminar (yes, those words exactly, go figure) but she wouldn’t let me see her with them. You would think Morticia would be less shy about her looks. Ladies. (And she ended going as Ming-Na Wen from ER anyway, so shucks.)

Dinner was brief (I had lasagne and a lassi, but she would only have the lassi). Then I drove us to Dataran Merdeka (translated: Independence Square) for the drama comedy, “Funny Money.” It wasn’t by professional theatre actors but a group of bankers cum Toastmasters, but it was absolutely hilarious. Very local humour though, with the Malays, Chinese, Indians, Punjabis and whatnot being made fun of mercilessly.

I came away with the impression we were all very greedy people, though still a notch above the evolutionary ladder from the Singaporeans.

Great night, but the next day was horrific as I had to wake up by eight for six hours of a replacement class of Organisational Behaviour. Worse still, the professor was very good, so I kept awake throughout and only had me head fall onto the desk whenever he stopped to take a breath (which was not often).

And then I spent Monday and Tuesday in a kinda funk I can’t explain. And I haven’t eaten a thing since last night. I think I’ll be growing some horns next. Antlers, even.

Just in time for Chirstmas.

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Copyright © 2002 Kenny Mah Ying Fye.