Spell-It-Right Challenge, organized by RHB Bank.






I have heard of this competition many times but I just have never got round to criticizing it. This competition, is a spelling competition. It offers a multitude of cash prizes to the winners, in exchange of observing your capability to probably spell "androgynous" or "asphyxiate", among other somewhat hard words.

I have seen a share of weird words myself. I have taken this test; a English language test that is organized by a university from Australia, all in the name to prove my English prowess to my mates, and to the foreign organizers as well. Took the test I did, and I could've sworn right there. The entire paper was dotted with so many new English words that made it seemed I was taking another foreign language. Only the presence of the standard English grammar made me realize it was the Queen's language I was being tested in.

So therefore, it is important for students to attend such competitions so they could learn bigger, better, and more complicated words. So they could apply for such ridiculous tests that could cost up to RM100 per paper.

That's what the competition is about. Through the same friend of mine (let's give her a name, and it's Nadia), she got tested on words so ridiculous that you'd swear it was made up. I remembered asking her about what words she was tested on.
They are:
Flosculous (Flowery),
Illatration (Barking at someone),
Pyknic (a person who has a round belly and tend to put on weight) 

If you heard those three words consecutively and ask to spell each, what would happen?
I'd stutter that's what will happen. The last word, God knows how it's going to be pronounced - peeknic? Puy-nick? - would knock me down like a sack of onions being dropped by a van on a Sunday morning from the airport. Our onions are mostly imported from India or China these days.


Hearing those words blew me away like how a fart would do to my roommate. I felt pity for her though. I didn't think that such borderline foreign words would be used in this competition.
I heard the winner was some dude, who probably burnt the latest edition of Oxford's and mixed it with his cereal every morning. He'd probably slept with headphones on, an 8 hour long audio dictionary playing in his year. For a week.

This competition may have the right intentions - improving English vocabulary and extending the word ranges for students nationwide. The cash incentives offered are quite the nice bonus, too.

 But hey, looking at students stuttering over words such as "incinerate" or "creole", is probably what this competition is all about. Were I part of the audience (there is an audience watching how it's being played out), I would probably snicker or chuckle every time someone messes up their spelling.

Competitions, in nature, are entertainment for the masses. It is often touted as a place where people test their mettle for prizes. Most would aim for the grand prize, though. And they would battle it out, be it with each other or with something else; the Romans used lions and sometimes elephants for their gladiators.
So what I'd like to think is that this whole spelling competition is created with the intention to please some higher ups in the News Straits Times or in the dark corridors of power in the RHB Bank headquarters. Probably there is some fun in watching children being pitted against words that are enough to make an average English speaker's tongue bleed with confusion.


I'd love to write more but alas, I am afraid to bore my readers any more. Do await a part two though - there's quite a bit more to write about this competition. More things that doesn't make too much sense but would probably provide an interesting read, mind.



Until then, toodles!

The smell of burnt leaves wafted in the air. I shakily took the half burnt blunt from her and smoked it with the gusto of a virgin smoker. The taste of the smoke was, well, smoky. The inhalation passed through the throat and into my lungs, and I held it there for a while. Then I exhaled, leaving a slight stinging sensation in my lungs and a smoky aftertaste in my mouth.

Well, it’s a first time for me I guess. Normal, or chain smokers wouldn’t be so much as bothered as to write such a colourful or a detailed chronology of the first time nicotine touched their veins.
Much less, marijuana.

She was laughing in front of me, in that restaurant. I passed the blunt back to her, feeling somewhat disconcerted. Must’ve been the calming effect that I am not really used to, or maybe it’s me well, being me. It’s a habit of being anal over small things, minor details and such.

Two other friends of mine, guys, sitting on the side, stared at me. They’re probably waiting for something to happen. Waiting for me to say something stupid or just looking at how long until it took for my eyes to be glazed – an indication that I am already, high.

“Damn, it was… not unpleasant. Tasted like burnt lalang though,” I ventured.
The two dudes were staring at me, nodding their heads in agreement.
The guy on my left, dark skin and of Negeri Malay descent, reached for the glass cup of iced tea and sipped a sliver of the brown liquid, smiling. “ No one said it smelled of roses, you know.”

His gifted talent for sarcasm, starting to peek it’s way through the cracks of his tired exterior.

“It is grass in a sense.” He said, making a reference to the tall, sharp bladed grass that’s referred as a plant pest, a weed – the lalang – as locals call it in the native Malay language.
“Why do you think we call it weed, then?” He tabled the glass. “Names like that don’t invent themselves.”

Bald guy on my right, born and raised in the metropolitan life of Kuala Lumpur, Malay descent as well, cut in. “Well, how are you feeling right now?”
He seemed to be more interested on how I, a virgin smoker, would feel after popping my breathing cherry after the first time I took in smoke to my lungs. Willingly.
I gave a confused look. “I feel… nothing. Or I just haven’t felt it yet. How long would it take for it to work?”

The girl, a hybrid of Chinese and Indian; answered from across the table. “Not so loud, dumbass.”
She took another puff of the blunt, now burnt to a quarter in her fingers.
“This is your first time smoking, right?”
I nodded.
“Then it wouldn’t take too long. Your lungs would do the job of passing the chemicals to your head pretty quick. You’d start feeling everything’s starting to progress more slowly now.”
She tossed the blunt aside and grabbed an idle cigarette box for a cigarette.
“Also don’t think too much about well, getting high. You are not supposed to think. Just relax.”

As soon as the words escaped her lips, my mind is beginning to experience something that is completely unusual. I looked at the iced coffee in front of me and stared at it.

Dark skin dude started to chuckle. “There you go. Look at his eyes, he’s blazed.”
My eyes swiveled to him. “Sam, you know I…” I couldn’t get my mind to think of what I was supposed to say as I would’ve wanted to.
Samir, my roommate, my friend, partner in crime, just stared at me and reached for the iced tea and began nursing it. 

The Chinese Indian girl across me also managed a wide smile as she looked at me. Maybe she’s somewhat stoned by the blunt she’s smoked and feeling the inclination to smile, I don’t know.
The bald dude on my right also was looking at me, in a curious manner.

I am apparently being quite the show.

“Han, hey…” I started to say something towards the bald dude but I couldn’t. I just somewhat forgot what to say.
Han, or Farhan Aziz, a mutual friend of mine and Samir, a musician in the underground clubbing scene of Kuala Lumpur, continued to stare at me.
He waved a hand in front of my face. “Babe, you getting any of this?”

As always, it has been a great long while since I posted anything noteworthy for anyone to read.
If there's anyone reading.. that is.

Melancholic moment of writer's low esteem aside, I want to say something about a certain matter about a fear of mine.
It resurfaces itself once every so often when I am at my most relaxed state. Naturally, when you're relaxed, your mind tend to wander on it's own; and you can't exactly direct where it wants to go. Once you already started to think of something, it either gives you a wide, knowing smile, the kind of smile that makes people would think you're half mad or being high on a substance.
Or you could think about thoughts that would drop you into the deepest caverns of despair, ones that would chain itself unpleasantly, linking to more and more grievous matters and outcomes and dreams. And these are the ones that would ruin your mood, and makes you feel indifferent to concerns that are not your own. Words and music are just sounds to your head, colours seem to morph to gray, and your taste buds will no longer recognize taste. You will be rigged to those unpleasant thoughts, until it eventually blows up and everything's normal again.

I feel the latter.

It was a regular night, and I just had a four hour conversation with a long time crush of mine. Bidding each other adieu and goodnight, I switched off the computer and turned to my bed for a short slumber.
Then as I lied down, relaxed as I am, my thoughts drifted about her.
Smiling, thinking about unlikely outcomes and scenarios between me and her.
But pretty soon, these thoughts gravitated into a living nightmare, a waking dream, as invasive thoughts start to pry themselves inside.


I thought of having a relationship with her, with my crush. Should she accept, I know I would be stoked, euphoric, jumping till my head hits the ceiling euphoric.
And that's when the invasion of facts and sense began; they were already forcing their logic on my fantasy. I would then think that my relationship with her would be impossible. I would then think that even if she had felt strongly for me as I did for her, it would be a fruitless endeavour.

Then my mind projected different pathways - all leading to a somewhat sad ending for the both of us. In relationships, things always don't go as we would like it to be. Theories and articles about maintaining a perfect relationship would die in this reality - such words are only cold comfort.
I imagined what would happen if we fought, would it be as bad as the ones I had with my ex years ago? And if it turned out really bad, what would then happen? Would we break up?
Then what about the friendship that's built in the past? The solid 10 years, a friend that I very much liked, a friend that I shared so much opinions and thoughts together. Also a friend that offered me so much support and encouragement when the chips were down, and a friend who, literally, possesses the same arguments and opinions that I do on most things around the both of us.

Would it be brittle and then shatter? Would it be then swept away in the cruel wind of time?
And then we would be strangers, with all the beautiful memories once shared, becomes a wound that would never heal. A scar would be between us, an ugly, painful scar.

As much as I want to be in a relationship with her because of similarities, and her overall great personality and looks, I am afraid. Of what would be of our friendship.

If I give that up,
I'd be giving up the only friend that actually gave three flying fucks about me.


And the male instinct programmed into my genetic code since my birth insists that I should be with this girl, because there is no other female that matches her in terms of, well, everything. She would be the perfect person to grow old with, the perfect girl to be a lover and a best friend at the same time.



Or maybe I am just thinking too much....?

Maybe that's it.
I am over thinking things.

You know, I always thought of myself, being an amateur writer and all, I could read people's emotions.

I thought I could tell from the tone of most conversations, or even the body language of who I am speaking to, whether he/she is pleased or just irritated or bored.

Perceiving emotion is a gift that, I'd daresay, is only available to the ones who participate in the science of creation - artists, writers, musicians, singers.. the list just do go on. These people, their brains are wired in such a way by the language they write, the music they compose, or the pictures they paint, that they could grasp the source of creativity - the human emotion.

I might be blustering a whole lot of hot air here but bear with me, would you? Although I am an amateur, I could at some degree, look at people's conversations be it in phone or paper and tell how they are feeling at that moment.
And more often than not, I am quite right. I have steered away a great many sad and boring conversations that way. And saved a lot of faces.

But reading people, by singling out their characteristics at a first glance - is something I cannot do.

And I thought I did. And I slept with the wrong sort, while antagonizing the ones that I call friends.

Let's just say,  that I made enemies of a friend (or friends?) that were just speaking out their views. I detracted their opinions and countered a not so sharp riposte - and that provoked some sort a feral reaction of sorts.
And while the ones I should be staying away from, I responded in a sweetness that would even make Willy Wonka swoon. I apologized, I said nice things; I typically was in the same bed as my enemy.

Sure enough, I was being manipulated by the being I call my enemy then. And got insulted in a way that I never would've thought possible.
When that derogatory statement hit my ears, I realized what a fool I was. I ignored subsequent calls and messages from the offender, as I slowly reconsidered my past actions.

But yeah, I learned from that incident. I am no mind reader, nor I am a good people reader. But at least now I know which shoes I should trod on, or at least walk together with.


Sheesh.. what a confusing episode this all had been..


*2 blog posts in one day... damn I am good.*
**2 posts huh? What about that little story project?**
*Darn!*

Unless I promote it vociferously - or in such an aggressive manner that would shame most telemarketers -, she would quite not. Or unless I just, you know, pop this post up like I did the other day in an innocuous conversation. She read it and gave one of the posts quite the glowing review.

As usual, I would just downplay it and think it is not up to standards. As always.
I spotted a few grammatical and spelling errors in there, and I saw the structural placing of most of my sentences were more than flawed - it was a disaster. Reading that post was like looking at my backyard; so many plants, so pretty plants, but they're all over the place and surrounded by weeds of different shapes and sizes.

Anyways,

My self-shooting literature review isn't something that I want to discuss here.

I just want to say that little gesture, the offer to read what I write, could make me happy. Really happy. Ten bottles of different liquors from different countries with petai sambal while in a BMW happy. I was ecstatic.

But I always have been happy whenever she even remotely, talked to me. Or just  spoke, briefly.

Ah world,
If only she realize how happy she makes me feel no matter when or where she messages me. Yes I admit, I still have more than just feelings for her. Always has been for these 12 years.
Like today, when I saw the messages, although short, was enough to send me on a mad jumping dance around the house. Or that message earlier! Although short, again, fireworks were doing the "Carnivale" in response to that.


Yeah I am abit exaggerating but honestly you guys.
I missed that feeling of being excessively happy from hearing from her at all.

Pathetic huh?


Oh well. Hardly she ever traverses this part of the internet - at least she won't read this. This whole thing is a  sad mess, a sombre attempt to engulf my emotions in words.

Criticism and opinions are like the buttocks, the gluteus maximus, our profound rear in which we sit on. We all have it.

All of us have an opinion about something, be it the car you're sitting in, the man you're talking to, or even the very air that you breathe. And more often than not, being average humans, we criticize almost everything that we see and hear or taste today in our lives.
Come now, don't lie to yourself. I am sure you have commented something about the food you had for lunch today, or even the waiter that served you being too rigid or leering, or even maybe the surroundings of where you place your sweet rear on; hot, smelly, humid - common traits of the Malaysian monotonous weather.

But opinions, you may have realized, are something that is offered quite freely and without restrain, to the nearest person next to you. Opinions are often the starter of most conversations, and for some, a joke - something to be taken lightly, a pinch of salt. And opinions are quite ever changing - no one means exactly what they say, and it means almost nothing to anyone at all.

But criticism, however, is an evolved form of opinions. Criticism, unlike opinions, it is meant to spur the change of someone and something, in regards of what is being criticized. And things of art, like literature, paintings, songs, are the ones that is often brought to the critics' kangaroo court for their appraisal and judgement. No holds barred, without bias, that's how should criticism be.
I have read lately, a newspaper article written by a critic reviewing a book. The entire gist of his article was mainly about caring about others' feelings while doing the review, and what about the sympathetic quality so common in Malaysians' affecting the quality of literature and art and movie produced. An example was where he said that he was given a bad book to review by a friend - he offered no help and asked him to take it somewhere else. The critic was afraid, that he would hurt the budding writer's feelings if he said if it was really bad, and all that.

What I think that is - and in agreement with aforementioned critic - the critics of this country should lock up their emotions when it comes to reviewing anything at all. Have they not considered about the quality that has been coming out lately in the film cinemas, the overstocked abundance of Malay love novels, and the obvious lack of Malaysian English novelists? Why do the critics would want to feed hopes to a shitty novel, and in result, a less than average quality literature being stacked in the shelves of national bookstores.

I would argue with them about this and I would get a response that is all too similar: "Don't be so harsh la.. They are good, after a few reads, their work would grow on you! They have potential! We need this kind of up and coming writers", etc.

WRONG.

You tell a builder building a house made of sand that his work is good, and he will keep building houses with sand and one day kill himself with it.
Same goes for anyone. Why pull the Asian parenting treatment in this sector? Why aren't you harsh and intimidating to them? Why don't you go all Donald Trump on their proverbial asses, and tell them that their work is not worthy for even the dustbin, toilet material even?
Why the lot of you, encourage the growth of such material, and not stick it to them that they should write/produce/compose better movies, art, literature, etc?

We are a sentimental, emotional, sympathetic lot, that's why.

For me, I want my work to be subjected to criticism worthy of Spartan discipline and cruelty. I want to know how bad did I do. I want to know how horrible my grammar, my sentence structures, my story premises; the aspects of a novel or any writing work of mine.
I get a lot of honorable mentions of my articles; like, publisher quality material, made with the essence of a trained, experienced writer, weaving emotions like a skilled romantic novelist.. the list do go on. Yes, I am not exaggerating.

I just want the raw form of criticism, the unadulterated, watered down, sweetened excuse of an opinion that only serves me no good to improve my writing quality.


Now I know why most local movies are of even lesser quality than our Thai or Singaporean counterparts.