She sings. She smiles. She laughs.
She harmonizes. She hums. She strums.
To her fingers, the strings dance.
To her rhythm, the keys bounce.
The microphone, I envy,
the first audience to her symphony.
From the heart, she sings:
the emotions raw, the feelings true
She is art.
She is Audrey.
– F. 03.09.21
You know what holidays are like, don’t you? You’ve definitely been to school, or you might even still be schooling.
Well, what does everyone in school look forward to? (Brace yourself for an overgeneralized stereotypical answer.) Everyone looks forward to the holidays! Spring break, or summer break, or winter break, or semester break, or June holidays, or whatever you call it from wherever you are from.
Well, I know I love my holidays. But there is a catch.
I study abroad, away from my parents in Malaysia, living on my lonely lonesome in a hostel in Singapore. Holidays carry a special meaning to me. They mean that I get to finally go home.
But home is never what I expect it to be.
Here’s what I expect it to be: Home should feel like those commercial houses near the beach that people rent out to Spring break people to party in, with unlimited wifi, unlimited food, no curfew, no lights out time. Basically, no rules. Do whatever you want.
It’s the least I can expect from parents who have not seen their little baby for months, isn’t it?
But noooo, here’s reality:
“Fred get off the laptop.”
“Fred, study.”
“Fred, how come I never see you open a book?”
“Fred, how come you spend the whole day in your room?”
“Fred, when I say get off your laptop, it doesn’t mean you can use your phone.”
“Fred, how about I send you to tuition classes?”
“Fred, go write an essay.”
Frankly, it feels worse here. I rather stay put in my hostel on my lonely lonesome than come back to a hellish home. I feel that my parents has lost their understanding of the concept of ‘holiday.’ They should be sent back to school.
How about you? Were holidays always what you expected it to be? Did you spend your holidays being a complete internet potato or did you go all out with wild parties? Did you enjoy the extra face time with your parents and siblings? Or should your parents be sent back to school as well?
In response to a challenge posed to me by my buddy e, (gee it rhymes) I am going to name ten things that I love and ten other that I hate. Recently, I have also gotten a simple job of serving sandwiches at Subway (a fast food chain if you are unaware). Thus, these things that I love/hate will be from this working experience.
The Rules:
First off,
How was that? For me, I learnt that I hate my job more than I love it. Anyway, for the nominations:
Victoria from Raindrops & Fireflies
Babs, Host of Mondays Finish the Story
Looking forward to all your responses soon!!
PS: I took a while to respond to this challenge because I was accumulating work experience to write for content.
50 things that make me happy
1) Knowing that I’m the smartest person in the room
2) Pulling off a trick successfully in front of a friend/friends
3) When I know I will have an uninterrupted afternoon all to myself
4) Completing a song mashup on FL studio
5) Getting lots of likes on a post. (A great big thank you to all my readers and likers and followers! )
6) Proving other people wrong, especially when it makes him/her realize he’s/she’s been living a lie
7) Nights where I stay fully awake until the next morning and 8) Finishing half a season of Castle/Arrow/The Flash/Awkward/Faking It/How I Met Your Mother/Big Bang Theory etc. and 9) I sleep through breakfast and lunch after that, waking up because I suddenly have cravings and 10) Getting dinner right away that satisfies those cravings then repeating 7-10
11) Having a girl/girls laugh at my original pickup lines and admitting that they’re not bad
12) Getting compliments that I’ve never heard before
13) People praising my writing
14) Understanding jokes on TV that no one else understood
15) Chopping onions without shedding a single tear
16) When I smell the aroma of fragrant cooking (normally Chinese dishes)
17) When I cuddle with a certain someone
18) When I cuddle with my bolster and snuggle in a warm blanket, just my bolster and I, in an air conditioned room.
19) When I guess something right.
20) People recognizing for my talent, if any
21) Completing some form of handiwork e.g. fixing my own bag’s broken zip, patching up a hole in my jeans etc.
22) Finishing a damn good book
23) A girl texts me first for casual reasons
24) People show up for the outings I plan
25) People making life easy for me
26) Getting along well with people that I didn’t expect to get along with well.
27) When I wake up few minutes before my alarm sounds
28) Perfect weather when I need to go outdoors
29) When my muscle aches on the next morning after I gym
30) Getting looks and glances or even stares from strangers.
31) Make friends on the airplane
32) My food order coming quickly
33) My Instagram pictures getting many many many likes
34) Friends who understand my sarcasm and build up on my jokes
35) When things go right just the way I want it to especially after I am super chill about it when I should be worried and stressed about what to expect
36) When my username is not already taken
37) When my computer starts up fast
38) Being surrounded with people who I’m comfortable with
39) People entertaining my random and ridiculous ramblings
40) When I kill flies and mosquitos with bare hands
41) When something I toss lands right into the dustbin
42) Pleasant dreams
43) When I remember the pleasant dreams the next morning
44) When I can operate my computer with only keyboard buttons and shortcuts to surf the Web
45) When I tear A4 papers into perfect halves
46) When I see a paper aeroplane glide like it’s riding an invisible pegasus
47) When I think of alliterative clauses
48) When I recall an Internet joke to use at the right time
49) Knowing all the lyrics to my favorite song and nailing the singing perfectly 😀
50) This blog makes me happy.
There! 50 items that make me happy! Are there any that you could relate to? Writing this list was helluva fun! Feel free to try it! I also want to nominate my followers who haven’t yet done it, to do it too! See your responses soon! 😀
The Brotherhood of the World Bloggers Award!! If it isn’t an honor, it is certainly a mouthful. My gracious gratitude extends to Ameena k.g, blogname of Randoms by a Random, who nominated me for this award. It was originally the Sisterhood of the World Bloggers Award, but it has apparently undergone a vast transition, leaving me confused as to who are eligible for the nomination. So, I’ll move on to answer the questions Ameena left for me.
This is an impossible question. I am an avid reader and every time I seem to have found a favorite, I discover another. I am also the type that never reads a book twice, so I cannot determine my favorite book based on criterion ‘Number of times read’ either. But here are a few of my favorites book series. Skulduggery Pleasant, Septimus Heap and the Harry Potter series. Skulduggery Pleasant is an octalogy, while the other two are heptalogies.
Well, this blog is merely four months old. And the reason behind this blog in those four months has been a simple ‘to pass the time’.
Love is a confusing amalgam of contradictions that complement each other. Its a relationship based on trust, yet there is obligation to keep no secrets hidden from your partner. It’s a give and take; a relationship of tolerance, yet there will be the unadulterated gestures of love, the sacrifices of divine proportions. It can be beautiful, and also the source of heart-wrenching agony. So what is love? It cannot be defined. Or perhaps it’s happiness derived from another individual that you inexplicably, yet immensely care for, if you were to allow me to be blunt and crude.
Unarguably, unquestionably, undeniably, fiction. It has more opportunities for humor as compared to non-fiction. Poetry is definitely more potent and beautiful, but it’s very difficult to write. I am not a man of little words.
Quirky, independent, intelligent, romantic and humorous.
No, life is another Titanic. It makes for a great movie, but in the end it’s going down.
As of now, Jeffrey Archer, because Sons of Fortune gave me the biggest thrill I had in a while.
I would love to be known as The Crazy Uncle, as someone who is respected for his wisdom and advice, as someone who can always be counted on to hype the party, and most of all, I would like to be an inspiration.
Babso2you – Host of the Mondays Finish the Story Flash Fiction Challenge
Amanda Lyle of Inside the Life of Moi
Chow Kim Wan of caress.possess.music
PricelessJoy – Host of the Flash Fiction For Aspiring Writers Challenge (yeap, I know you’re award-free but you deserve recognition!)
Victoria Iskak from Raindrops & Fireflies
Hope to hear your responses soon!
Cheers,
Frederick
🙂
A great galloping thanks to Izzy-grabs-life for my second WordPress Award Nomination!! This is my second award, and it happens to also be a Creative Blogger Award!!! The first time round, I did not really adhere to the rules, (not my fault, they weren’t stated clearly) so this may possibly be a divine intervention offering me a shot at atonement for my ‘sins’.
The Creative Blog
ger Award
Hmmmph.
PS: How do pingbacks work? Do the 15 (recently buffed up to 30) links I painstakingly included above count as pingbacks? ( I included one to the blogger’s home page, and one to a post, in hopes of the pingbacks working.)
Today’s Prompt: Tell us something about your favorite childhood meal — the one that was always a treat, that meant “celebration,” or that comforted you and has deep roots in your memory.
~
I used to be a very weird child. All because I love my veggies.
For me right, the best meal is the one with three type of veggies. From where I’m from, a typical meal consists of rice and three sides, usually one meat, one veggie and one egg. But my mom knew I liked veggies so she would cook three veggies instead. Sometimes she would cook some egg too.
(Noticed the awkward ‘right’? Well, that’s a habit of mine when I speak colloquially. It sounds much better spoken than when it’s written down. Oh well.)
Got this one time, my primary school form teacher asked me something. I forgotten what, but I replied, “I’m a vegetarian.” Then she sort of freaked out and her expression became very very shocked. Her eyes became big. Then she said,” Ha!? So young vegetarian ah!? Cannot one eh! Eh, you still growing up, you need your nutrients, your proteins, your everything! You have to eat meat one!”
(Brilliant grammar here eh? Haha!! I’m kidding, pardon me. I know the grammar is horrible.)
Of course, I didn’t really know what a vegetarian is, last time. I just thought a vegetarian don’t like meat. So I say I’m a vegetarian. I didn’t think the teacher will react like that.
Okay, everything above was me trying to imagine how I would actually phrase the sentence when talking aloud, then penning it down here. Yep, folks, that’s how I talk.
It’s my voice. I’m Asian and that’s how we roll. Or rather, itsliddat! (it’s like that)
Loss? I could write about my loss in several things. The loss of my innocence, when I learnt how cruel the world is. The loss of the love in my family, that’s juicy for sure. The loss of my grandfather and great-grandmother last year, which I am not feeling as much as I should. The loss in insignificant competitions, that would not be juicy or even interesting to talk about at all.
The world is indeed cruel, wouldn’t you agree? Do you still remember the hopes you had as a child? The hopes that were crushed the minute you gained epiphany on how evil the world’s inhabitants are, do you remember?
I was a shy boy (believe it or not) and I wonder if it has ever left me. But as a consequence, my interactions with others were next to none. I kept to myself and my books, and games, believing everything I read. I believed that people were kind and the bad ones were taught a lesson and do change for the better, from Enid Blyton’s books. The Disney fairytales always taught me that there will be a happy ending.
I don’t quite remember when I lost my innocence/ learnt the harsh ways of the world.. and I don’t remember either if it was immediate or a transition. But what I know is, I’m not an optimist like I used to be. I became pessimistic, constantly worried, paranoid, and stressed, and all these happened unconsciously. I hate the person I’ve become. I like being optimistic. It’s really gloomy to look at the world from the gray perspective. Whenever I comfort my friends that ‘everything will work out in the end’, I feel like a damn hypocrite because I know it’s a lie and life will swallow us up. When I expect my examination results, I am somehow hoping for the worst. I became pessimistic even towards myself; I doubt my own capabilities to score.
Something is terribly wrong with the world. I wouldn’t want my future children to lose their innocence the way I did. Heck, I want them to remain bright and sunny for all of eternity, unlike their father had been. Sometimes I wonder if it was my own parents who made me this way. They never seem to be happy of me. Never proud of my achievements, and always doubting me. Negativity is infectious, and soon I began to doubt myself, and I was on a scholarship back then, where I would be terminated if I did not get consistently stellar results, thus the doubt from both me and my parents culminated in a great deal of stress for me. My father once advised, “Never let yourself understand what stress is.” Ironic, isn’t it, that my father was partially responsible for teaching me what is about?
And that brings me to my family issues. I feel like I grew up in a typical Asian family. (Truth be told, I don’t believe in stereotypes, but for the sake of conveying my meaning in the least words, I used ‘typical’. You get what I mean, don’t you? See, it works!) All the telltale signs of a typical Asian family are there, the musical classes, the demand for ‘A’s, all with incessant nagging and excessively strict parental control thrown in with a bonus. The only missing factor was that they did not demand for me to be a doctor.
I hate this kind of parenting. There is no love. To them, a son is merely a product that has to be polished to become the very best. So polish they did, and there is no love required in the process. Somewhere along the way, my father lost his love towards my mother. He even hates her. Hates, present tense, mind you. He grew distant and my mother was the only one I kept in contact with. It is absolutely ridiculous to have a father figure available, yet being forced to grow up without one. For the last six years, that’s what it felt like. I traded no more than an hour’s worth of conversation with him in the past six years. He lives in the same house as I do. My family is dysfunctional, to say the least.
But things only got worse. Since my father became distant, my mother grew moody as well. She developed tantrums, which was compounded by her lack of patience and short fuse, and exacerbated the entire family dysfunctionality. (created a word there.) She began declaring that I am her burden and could not wait to get rid of me once I had a degree which is capable of landing me a job. I don’t know how truthful it is since she blurted it out only during her tantrums, but it hurt me nevertheless.
So, I have no father figure, and I have a mother who does not care for me. I have no siblings, and my other relatives are more distant than (I don’t know…. insert your own sarcastic simile here please). You can’t count on your friends, since they are not obliged to stick with you through thick and thin….. and that leaves me with no one. I am my own rock. I guess that was when I hardened and believed in the worst in people, the worst of myself and the worst in what the world has to offer.
(Does this count as depressing? I sure hope not. I couldn’t care less anyway)
Today’s afternoon was a wet one. But it was the cold, soothing, stay-inside-and-nap-all-day kind of afternoon.The sound of the rain falling itself was enough to make the entire atmosphere peaceful and tranquil. It made me forget about time and made me just want to sit on the front step and stare at the rain together with my dad, and my dog.
Then my father said something that somewhat spoilt the mood. “I wish I can listen to this kind of rain all day.”
Of course, to anyone, this sounds completely innocent. But no one knew the suffering that my father goes through everyday. He has a condition called tinnitus, more commonly known as the “ringing of the ear” illness. He describes it as a high pitched screech that goes on and on and he’s the only one that can hear it. Kind of like a mosquito trapped behind your eardrum. He wishes to listen to rain all day because it can drown out the ringing.
He has other chronic conditions too. Consistent neck aches, scoliosis, numbness from the neck down, short-sightedness, poor memory, and so on. It pains me to see him wearing all the medication, ointment and various other things he uses. He says it comes naturally with old age, and there’s nothing I can do to prevent them. There’s no miracle food I can eat and no miracle life habit I can practice to prevent them from coming to me. It runs in the family, he says. My father had scoliosis, and so did his father, and probably the father before that too.
Surely with all the advanced technology and science, there must be some way around this? Like, extract the DNA that causes these ailments and vanquish them. Or produce a gene that counters aches and tinnitus. Someone could design nanorobots that help to promote blood circulation and prevent numbness. And let’s hope that these solutions do not cost me an arm, a leg and a kidney.
If they do, then I hope I live a short life so I’m spared from going through the suffering. Maybe I will commit the greatest sacrifice and save the rest of the Tan generation from suffering by choosing not to continue my lineage.
Yours faithfully, in support of birth control,
Frederick
My A level results are thoroughly satisfactory, to say the least. Sometimes miracles do happen.
fredtotherick 
