the diary of a girl named joanne

hilarous!

psst… yes i promised doria and tsongki that i would post this up on my blog…

heary, heary, people of the world. YAN WENT INTO THE WRONG TOILET!!!

yan (real name izyan; male), our friend, entered the wrong toilet, the female toilet in Arked Kolej 11, without even realising it. he even had time to use the facilities inside there. there were quite a few people who saw him go in; one of them was me. well, i was quite far away, too far away to inform him about his mistake, so i just let him. and he came out from the female toilet so coolly and was taking his own sweet time walking back in my direction.

he was only shocked and went all bonkers when i told him. couldn’t believe that he’s gone into a female toilet, i told doria and tsongki - dinner mates - about his unfortunate event. he was red-faced!

the weirdest thing was: how can he wrongly enter a toilet of his ARKED KOLEJ 11, his OWN college’s food court??? moreover, there’s a big sign informing you that it’s a male or female toilet… a 3-year-old kid even knows that.

well, the morale of the story is: please always check the toilet sign (female or male) before you enter a toilet. otherwise, you’ll end up like "someone" or even worse, get beaten up or chased out by the users in the toilet. save yourselves the embarrassment.

to yan: luckily there were no girls inside the toilet. otherwise, you’ll be saman for purposely peeping in the girls’ toilet or for being a pervert! if there were, i’d have died there and then.

yes doria, laugh all you want. that’s the response!

taking a vacation for awhile… away from writing in this blog. giving myself a lil break first before continuing writing again. sorry, readers… miss you guys a lot!

15th february 2007

the morning didn’t start right away with emily. but instead i got up at 6 something in the morning to be my mom’s driver because i’ve promised her the day before to drive her around town to buy CNY stuff. we were still in the wet market at 10.30am and we still had tesco on our map. right after tesco, with the back seats of the car packed, it was already 1pm and i was supposed to meet emily at 2pm. but i still got to bring mom to buy ice for the ice box as the refrigerator was already packed with foodstuff for the new year and the price of ice was going to increase (was mentioned in the newspaper). then mily called at 1.20pm and said she was on her way to my house… so "pai seh" with her cos she had to wait for me to shower and dress-up when i finally got home.

at Queensbay Mall, we ate at the laksa shack. asam laksa cost us RM7.90 each excluding the govt and service taxes. wow! taste quite standard but price too high… after food, we did what girls always do best - SHOPPING! i was buying and buying til there was nothing left in my purse! emily on the hand didn’t buy a single thing… wow she’s so admirable! found ourselves at nichii (not again!) and we were there trying out dresses once again in the fitting rooms. we really enjoyed ourselves to the max (haha!!) snapping pictures of ourselves in those dresses but ended up buying none! it was really really fun and de-stressing!

we got bored of shopping after that, emily invited me to have a drink. we sat down at Old Town Cafe and chatted about a lot of buddy things (psst…). Penang is indeed a small world especially for emily (hmmm…) we met many familiar faces. we met henry, matrika, cheng lit, kah nee, etc while we were at Old Town. after coffee, we decided to call it day and were supposedly leaving when we accidentally bumped into our fellow georgians… what a happy family reunion coincidence! took a pic together.

though it was really tiring… non-stop since morning, but it was really fun hanging out emily again. buddies’ day-out! thanks emily for the rides… oh the coffee and toasts too! alamak, your money!

walk down the street, you see shops decorated in red or pink, some with big couple teddy bears, some with a big red heart-shaped furry pillow that says "I LOVE YOU". you walk into a florist, you can the smell the fragrance of love - flowers. but the most prominent all of all in the florist is of course the roses…

yeah, roses. it’s Valentine’s day. roses, as usual, in popular demand. a dozen of roses on V-day, can easily burn a hole in your pocket, what more a bouquet of it, to be presented to your lover on this day. but why roses? just because everyone is giving roses to their special ones, you’re doing the same, following the norm. do you know the meaning of roses? do you know that every colour of the roses has a meaning behind it? do you even know that there’s also a meaning behind the number of roses you give away to someone?

true, we turn to flowers when we wanna express our true feelings in a personal manner. roses can sometimes say more than a thousand words; they can apologise for you after a fight when we feel miserable and tongue-tied, and they can offer consolation at a funeral when words are not enough. tell you more…

WHITE ROSE: perceived as pure and bright. means "you’re heavenly" or "i respect and look up to you" to your object of affection

RED ROSE: means everlasting love.

PURPLE ROSE: symbol of love at first sight and enchantment.

PINK ROSE: general symbol of refinement and elegance

DEEP PINK ROSE: means gratitute and appreciation

LIGHT PINK ROSE: means sympathy.

ORANGE ROSE: means enthusiasm and eagerness; a new beginning.

PEACH ROSE: means something has gone well or a deal has been reached.

DEEP BURGUNDY ROSE: means "unconscious beauty" or "you are beautiful without even knowing it".

GREEN ROSE: means fertility or fruitfulness.

BLACK ROSE: means death and new beginning.

HYBRID TEA ROSE: means "i will never forget you".

BLUE ROSE: means "you are mysterious"

YELLOW ROSE: means "try to care"

A BOUQUET OF RED & WHITE ROSES: symbol of unity

A BOUQUET OF WHITE ROSES WITH RED EDGES: means loyalty and kinship or "you and i are one" or "we stand united"

ROSEBUDS: generally symbolizes youth and innocent love.

RED & PINK ROSEBUDS: mean "you are young and lovely" or "i love your youthfulness"

WHITE ROSEBUDS: mean "too young to love"

MOSS ROSEBUDS: mean confession of love

A FULL BLOWN ROSE PLACED TOGETHER WITH 2 ROSEBUDS: signifies secrecy.

WHITHERED WHITE ROSE: means "beauty is fleeting"

TWO ROSES WIRED TOGETHER AS A SINGLE STEM: signal of engagement and coming of marriage

A CROWN OF WHITE ROSES: symbol of purity in weddings

A CROWN OF ROSES: symbol of virtue

ROSE LEAVES: mean hope and optimism

SINGLE ROSE: symbol of simplicity.

SINGLE RED ROSE: means "i love you"

COMBINATION OF A RED ROSE & SEVERAL YELLOW ROSES: means joviality or invitation to join in the fun

So these are few examples that tell you a lil about the language of roses. so next time, when you decide to present roses to certain someone or occasion, be sure of the message that your rose carries or roses carry.

HAPPY VALENTINE’S DAY!!!

when things don’t go your way, what do you do?

when the cake overbaked in the oven,

when your favourite dress is accidentally stained,

when your girlfriend dumps you for no reason,

when your parents are fighting over a petty issue,

when your car is involved in an accident,

when your bank account suddenly runs dry,

when your close friends are backstabbing you,

when your secrets have been revealed,

when your grades aren’t as good as the last time,

when your garden birthday party is ruined by the rain,

when you suddenly realise you put on 5 kg,

when you feel as if there is no one left in this world for you,

when you feel as if the word "i love you" is over-rated,

what do you do???

chuck, my friend, wrote a short and yet meaningful entry in his blog about love… i read it and personally thought that it was enlightening. maybe some of you might wanna go check his blog out ’cause he certainly has got many interesting things going on there. the link: http://chucksagacious.blogs.friendster.com/a_tint_of_idea/

as valentine’s day is approaching, i thought it would be appropriate to write something on love (probably in addition to what chuck has written in his blog). i’m not an expert in this affair nor am i a love guru who can counsel you when you face a relationship dilemma. this is simply just a piece of my thought that i would like to share and hope that it might, in some ways, great or small, help those who are going thru tough times in their relationships.

to some of you, love is in the air and you’re enjoying every single bit of it in your relationship… tasting and savouring the goodness that comes with love. but to some others who are less fortunate, love isn’t as sweet as it used to be. they can’t seem to find the way out. the only thing (they think) they could do is just sit around and wait or simply go thru the motions and let time decide the course.

well, relationship is never always a bed of roses but it is also never always a garden of thorns. you may be going thru a hard time in your relationship and just don’t know how to deal with it. you and your partner are both lost in this complicated maze of love or are both stuck in a long dark tunnel of which the end of that tunnel you cannot see from where you both are standing right now. but this doesn’t necessarily mean that your fairytale has to end here. take it as a trial or a test that both of you are put to go thru. you’ll learn something out of it whether you survive the test or not. what’s most important is that this test will help you in your future and make you or your partner a better, stronger, more mature person. it will prepare you to be more expectant of what the future has in-stored for you. so don’t just sit there and do nothing about your relationship. there is always something that can be done to improve the situation. you just have to try harder. the trick is: DO SOMETHING! if you never try, you’ll never know. try your best to save the situation. even if you don’t succeed, at least you’ve given your best shot to make things work out… you actually feel satisfied that way.

what you can do to improve the situation is all up to you. no one can suggest to you the best or most effective way to save your relationship… it all depends on you. only you know what is best. you gotta observe, study and understand the whole problem you’re going thru. take responsibility in all that you do. your relationship is in the hands of both you and your partner. the only thing that we’re sure of is the foundation of all relationships: LOVE. when there is still love, there is hope. if you still love him/her or if he/she still loves you or if you feel that there is still love radiating from your relationship or if you feel that it’s still worth the while saving it, don’t give up just yet. no matter how tough the situation may be, no matter how deep the cut is, no matter how serious the problem may look or no matter how terrible, horrible, bad, ugly, hard, sad etc the whole thing may sound or look, you’ll pull thru…if you still have love running in your blood, because at the end of the day, all of us know that LOVE CONQUERS ALL.

no, it’s not WORLD FRIENDSHIP DAY or NATIONAL FRIENDSHIP DAY (do we even have or celebrate this day in malaysia?). it’s just me… yes plainly me. i just suddenly thought of you guys & girls and wanted to write something to be dedicated to all of you. oh well, yes, it’s also partly because i’ve got nothing to write in my blog for the moment… but wait, hang in there, what i’m gonna write out here is really from my heart. here goes:

EMILY: my best-est buddy in the world. we hang out together, talk about anything under the sun, even our deepest secrets, both of us love fun fun fun and nando’s chicken too… this girl can really sms at the speed of light. she’s a real digi fan, a real penang-spirited girl (yes, she’s born in penang, is still living in penang, will marry in penang and build a family in penang too, teach her kids to be also penang-spirited, grow old in penang and die in penang too… erm, i’ll leave her after-death part to you *shivers down the spine*). oh yes, she’s also very updated in practically everything about other people. and she also has a flare in arts - this girl here is really creative. she’s very into NS issues (woi emily, what happen to the ******* who contacted you thru the article huh?). very experienced in BGR stuff… aiya, still got so long to type, save it, you wanna know more about her, contact me lah… we can sit down and talk a week (or maybe more) about her.

ALISH: met her last semester in AIESEC and we started clicking like we’re the closest girlfriends the world could ever have. she’s also crazy like emily (no wonder they clicked right away after i introduced both of them to each other during NLDS and the both of them actually ditched me!). it’s true, birds of the same feathers flock together (with the exception: doesn’t mean i’m crazy too though i flock with both of them). alish is this super girl who does not need to sleep at all 3 days straight! she’s really workaholic when she wants to. did i tell you that she’s a real flirt? my goodness… especially with et***. she can talk about anything, from sex to studies. oh yes, she doesn’t look like a girl her age; people actually say she looks younger than me (so much for a "compliment") and she’s loud. in a room full of people where everyone’s making noise, she’s the most outstanding one alive and you can never miss her. i love her! (sisterly love… dun think otherwise).

XIANG LING: the girl-next-door in UTM. she’s sweet and pretty and most of the time, innocent. she’s the kindest girl in the whole of AIESEC UTM. kinda vulnerable at times (girl, sometimes you just got to stand up and fight for yourself). i thought she was really quiet or always acted cool in a way the 1st time i saw her. but her 2nd impression came to me as a different one altogether - quite the contrary to her 1st.

MICHELLE: the most innocent girl around. but now, she’s not that innocent anymore… time and tide have taught her to accept certain things which she, before this, considered "too much" for her. now she’s more opened to "things" that we, the ultimate AIESECers (we are always open to ANY KIND OF SUBJECT) always talk about. if given a hallow and a pair of wings with white robes, she could easily qualify into heaven as the most beautiful angel. she seldom (or never) gets angry. i’ve never seen her raise her voice or throw tantrums before. everything i could remember about her is her sweet smile and the smiling squinty eyes of hers. she’s also the almost-direct opposite of me… she’s the GOOD, i’m the EVIL.

DORIA: hahaha, doria = organised. there is no equation as perfect as that. this girl ar, i tell you, is the most organised person in our gang, from the way she packs her stuff in her cupboard (though i’ve never even peeked into your wardrobe, i can imagine how your things are packed in it) to her lecture notes. she’s also very passionate about issues that involve the less-fortunate. she looks mature, maybe because she has this motherly nature in her that all of us look up to. i know, i make it sound as if she’s very serious and a no-joke girl, but she actually has a unique sense of humor (i love her laughter, you shud listen to her) and she actually has a soft spot for **** *** (secret sealed!).

SIMON: big brother, friend, buddy, big bully, senior, orang jahat… (to be continued). but seriously, he’s the coolest and nicest senior i’ve ever had. this guy here may be small in size, but never, never, i repeat NEVER underestimate his capabilities. you can really learn a lot from him. he’s funny, cute (especially when baru bangun tidur and forgot/lazy to gel his hair) and kind (although i sometimes kena bully from him kaw-kaw). he always say that i only talk or call him when i need to "use" him… haih, very hurt deep inside lo. but it’s okay lah… guess he’s just kidding.

LEM: this guy here is knowledgeable… you can ask him anything and he’ll try his best to answer you. very gentlemanly (guys pls learn from him), humble and one-of-a-kind. this is the guy who can give you lotsa opinions when you ask for it. very helpful and concern about others (especially to …ehem).

KAR TECK: the worst gang-member to have around. this guy can create a storm for you and at the same time can flow calmly in the river with you. he’s sort of the "life" of the gang… okay, please, kar teck, jangan SS (Syok Sendiri) again. this guy actually adores no other people but himself and jay chou. he’s jay chou’s no. 1 fan. karteck always take pix of  himself with funny, wierd, crazy or whatever poses a normal person does not do. he craves attention!!! someone pls help him. i think he’s experiencing some kind of syndrome. doctor, pls diagnose his sickness… dunno what’s wrong with this guy. but honestly speaking, this guy has his charms too. without him, the gang just dies away. he’s really a good company to have with you. gentlemanly??? erm, only sometimes.

IZYAN: erm….

doria’s latest blog entry was kinda inspiring. kudos to her! yeah, like usual, i went "poking my nose" reading other peoples’ blogs - updating myself on what’s happening in their lives lately. but doria’s entry actually left a mark in me… it made me think why people wanna make new year resolutions (it’s a trend every new year) and why they wanna strive so hard to fulfill them. i was really impressed with what she wrote in that entry (though i teased her for some of the things she wrote… can’t help it again, doria).

writing resolutions for ownself every time a new year dawns is very not my "thing". i’ve tried writing before, about things i wanna do, improve or achieve for the new year… got really excited and inspired about fulfilling them but at the end, it was really "hot hot chicken shit" (hangat-hangat tahi ayam) and everything started going kinda low-key.

so that was the story… the whole idea. resolutions never worked for me. i’ve made many resolutions before like try being nicer to people, to talk less  & listen more, to be more lady-like, to control my temper, to sleep less & study more, to reduce my craves for chocs etc. all these, i never achieved. resolutions just simply never worked for me. no effects…

i truly admire those who really state down their resolutions, work hard to fulfill them and finally succeed. these are the ppl with great determination - something i lack. they really strive hard to achieve what they’ve set for the new year for self-satisfaction. wow…

WARNING: if you’re reading this blog, please dun try to talk me into making another try for resolutions… believe me, i’ve tried a billion times and never succeeded!

but as i grow older, i learn that one does not need a new year to make a resolution or even resolution itself. if you really need or want to improve yourself in something, set your goal, pick a timeline and just go ahead. but again, i’m not saying that those who do make new year resolutions are wrong. i’m just talking from my point of view. do whatever you think is right… follow your heart. you dun have to agree with me.

the simple truth: resolutions are not for me.

today started with a low key - solemn, quiet, slow… as if time didn’t want to move at all. there are times when you wanna freeze the moment and make it last forever… but there are also times when you dread the moment and wish that it would just pass as quickly as possible. and today is just that.

enough of what i had to go thru yesterday night… and thought it was all settled… (though people just can’t leave other people alone). slept like a baby thru the night and hoped the night would be longer. got up in the morning quite reluctantly (maybe because it’s monday… i always find it difficult to "start my engine" on monday mornings). but i got up anyway. waited for the bus outside the college… but all the buses that passed me by this morning were packed-sardine with people! so i had to walk to another bus-stop at another junction in hopes for an at-least-emptier bus… please! thank God, i got to my class right on time…

well, couldn’t concentrate in class (partly because it’s macroecons… and partly because michelle told me about something which made me feel uneasy). NO… michelle didn’t hurt my feelings (she’s an angel; she wouldn’t even hurt a fly). but it’s the news she reported to me which made me uncomfortable… yeah, it was really thought provoking, which made me think again. so there i was "half in class listening to Dr. Aziz and half inside my own head". eventually, the thinking evolved into confusion into lethargy… there i was slowly dozing away in class, not because i was a lazy student who refused to listen to lectures but because i was getting tired of thinking…thinking about whether things ought to be corrected, about whether things would work out and about whether i was on the right track.

tired.

and i guess, i chose the easy way out - ignorance. that’s what i always do… ignore if you’re not sure you know how to deal with it… quickly think of something else, take your mind away somewhere else. play cool til it hits you.

playing cool now.

the most beautiful woman in the world is a woman in love…

an old chinese saying. at least that’s what she felt about herself.

well, if you really ponder about the saying, you could somehow eventually see that there’s some truth to it. look at her, she’s all glowing, her eyes twinkling, her smile so sweet, her hair wavy soft tender and so fine – as black as ebony… there seems to be a “light” about her… that mysterious light that outshines the rest.

i guess when you’re in love, you will feel as if you’re on top of the world and there’s no one else as high or above you. what can make you happier than being with the one you love? what can make you prettier than having someone who loves you, tell you that you’re the prettiest thing the world could ever have? what can make you more satisfied than knowing there’s always someone who sticks by you day and night under any circumstance? whenever she’s with him, the whole world seems so calm, as if the world’s the safest place to live in. and above all, when he says “i love you” to her, the world just stops at its pace…so still…feels like they are the only humans in the universe, if only they could freeze the moment. she sleeps like a baby in his arms, so warm, so cozy, so comfortable.

she’s beautiful because he loves her. not many people can understand this simple yet profound sentence. all she needs to feed on and live is his love. and she’s more than fortunate to have him, who loves her more than she does him. that’s what most girls want in a relationship – a guy who cares for her, a guy who thinks about her day and night, a guy who dreams of her when he sleeps, a guy who would go the extra many miles to make sure she gets what she wants, a guy who adores her, a guy who worships her like a goddess.

there’s indeed nothing better than these.