Happy New Year Shout Out

Lots of folks out there like to describe the passing of a year as a blink of an eye. Well, it certainly wasn't like that for me, it was a long year, filled with all kinds of emotion for me... Both the joyous and the gloomy ones. So now at the end of the end of 09 and the beginning of the beginning of 10, I'd like to reflect abit on what happened this year, and what sort of resolutions I should attempt to achieve for next year.

Firstly, alcohol was my downfall this year... I think I must have got overly drunk more times this year than the past few years combined. Thinking back, it surely is something to be ashamed of. One of the most significant distressing moment of my 09 was that in my drunken state, I accidently outed myself to a few friends. That caused more than a few problems for me, because obviously I'm pretty closeted... I tried to amend the situation by making the people I told not to out me, but it was slightly too late people started talking behind my back, and even started asking my housemate to scrutinise my every move to verify that I am gay.

That brought me to one of my happiest moment in 09, in an attempt to get the support of my housemate, and to ensure that he doesn't become a 'spy' for the people trying to find out about me, I outed myself to him. It was something I've been wanting to do for a long time now... And because of that circumstance, I decided there was no time like that moment, so I just pulled the trigger and came out to him (I was sober then, mind you). It was a most memorable moment of the year because he turned out to be okay with it, he is absolutely straight by the way... Lol I already know what some of you are thinking. So now at least I don't have to live a lie and pretend to be straight around my bestest bro.

I guess this year, I've started to make a lot of new gay friends, and my circle of gay friends have increased quite a bit, that is a happy thing for me, because I can be my gay self in front of gay friends... I don't have to put up a facade and pretend to be straight like when I'm around my straight friends. Its not that I don't like hanging around my straight buddies, coz I love and treasure them to shreds and would do anything for them, but sometimes its tiring hiding the real me from them all the time.



Anyway, knowing lots of people also means going out a lot more, and because of that my grades have suffered and took a plunge. I regret to say that this certainly is another thing I ain't proud of. My parents spend a fair bit on my education, and I really shouldn't repay them with bad results. That’s already 2 bitter sweet events of my year.

The final thing worth mentioning is that I've started to hit the gym more this year, this year I go at the very least once a week. I can feel that I'm a tad bit healthier, but certainly I have yet to lose my baby fat, haha yea I think of them as baby fat (despite my age) coz I'm hoping they will go away when I grow up (as in grow older), lol.



Anyway, my resolutions I hope to achieve are closely related to my downfalls of 09. Firstly I will try my best not to get overly drunk anymore... Drinking socially is fine, but I think I've learned that drinking is not only bad for your health, but when you're overly drunk... You might do silly things, like unnecessarily outing yourself. The next thing is that I wanna make sure I find the right balance between my social life and my study life. A balance meaning a lot more studies than social, because ultimately my profession is a student, so yea... Since its my last year of uni, its really time to put my head down and make the final year count.

Finally I also hope to be able to maintain a 3 times a week visit to the gym, and my goal isn't to build bulging muscles like them body builders, but my focus is to tone up, lose all my baby fat (yes, I've already decided thats what I'm calling them) and get fitter. I guess since I've made up my mind to pull up my grades... This also means there isn't going to be much time to hunt for a mate, so that is going to have to wait. I'm not saying if my other half shows up in front of me I'm not going to accept him - I will if the right one appears, its just that for now I wont actively be searching.

With that, I'd like to wrap up my last post of 09. I'd like to thank everyone reading Finding Relevance for taking a few moments every week to check out my blog, thanks for your support and comments :) lol, keep them coming. And finally I wish ya'll a very very Happy New Year, and may all of your New Year resolutions be fulfilled. Hugs.

Signing out.

Censoring Censorship

I recently got into an unpleasant disagreement with a friend over one of our intellectual exchange of ideas last weekend. You see, she was very upset about the Malaysian media censorship board because apparently they broke an age old tradition. In the past, most of the censorship of the media (mainly movies and T.V. programs) were done by an older more elderly group, probably 40s or 50s, of censor officers. But recently instead of up holding the age old tradition when the older batch of censor officers retired, the board instead hired a bunch of young (I mean to say the following term without stirring any racial issues) tudung clad fresh grads to man the censorship board. By the way for all non-Malaysians, tudung is the local term for the head scarf that Muslim women wear.

So anyway, my friend was livid and felt that these fresh grad girls weren't experienced enough to actually work on the censor board. I think she was hoping for me to agree with her and start criticising the powers above that broke the age old tradition. I on the other hand decided to criticise something else, and that was what got us into the heated argument, err I mean intellectual discussion in the first place. The reason? Instead of questioning the appointment of the supposedly inexperienced girls, I questioned the existence of the censorship board all together and also their role.

In my humble opinion, I think that a censor board should be monitoring and categorising films based on age groups but what they are doing now is far from that. Nowadays anything remotely sexual (a mere kissing scene) or violent gets totally edited out from the film or T.V. program before the general public can view it. I question this act because I feel it may be a little over doing things and is quite very much so unnecessary. Do you mean to tell me that even after putting a Rated-18 or Rated-21 tag on a film, it still need additional censoring? What the heck... Are our adults in Malaysia really so immature that they cannot tell what’s right from wrong and need the help of a censorship board to edit out sexual and violent scenes? Maybe.

Certain people I spoke to recently are of the opinion that scenes containing sexual references or violence need to be censored because there is a chance that the public will watch something on screen and then follow suit to do it in real life. Hmm... I always thought monkey see monkey do was a kiddie thing? Thats why we have age ratings for movies, right? Once again I ask... Are our adults here not 'adultish' enough to tell right from wrong and will imitate what they see on T.V. Maybe.

But to edit out scenes from a movie is a desecration of art, if I were the director or an actor/actress in the film, I would find this act of defilement insulting to all the hard work I've put into making the movie. I mean lets face it, if 'Sex And The City' is rated 18sx, and the word sex was in the title, would it still be appropriate to censor out the sexual scenes? Ain't this is an adult comedy for adults... Does it really need censoring? Apparently.

I can only imagine a documentary on T.V. about the great Michelangelo, he was gay apparently, and the documentary was about all his greatest work done in his creative lifetime. But guess what, the segment about David was censored out because the sculpture was naked... It would have been a blasphemy to Michelangelo. But in reality that is something that can happen here.



It is sad that there are people whom feel our adults aren't grown up enough to tell right from wrong, but it is even more sad if they were actually correct. Did we go wrong in our decision on the scope of power and portfolio of the censor board? Or did we go wrong in the moral teachings of our people? I guess the censor board are always going to continue doing what they are doing today, whether the reason is politically motivated or the reason is to keep crimes such as sexual or violent assault cases down. So I suppose illegal DVD peddling is always going to be around as their goods need not go through the censorship board. Should I 'sigh' out or 'sign' out...

Signing out.

A Merry Merry Christmas

Someone asked me if Christmas started becuase there was once a fat guy that got into a car accident on a snowy night and became santa clause. Huh??? I was like... you cant be serious mate.

Christmas is the day Christians celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ, so like any other cultural or religious celebration, its about family because of the birth of Jesus Christ and its about a time for giving, because the Lord gave us his only child. So it doesn't matter what religion you are, you can still probably take this time to appreciate our loved ones around us and spend more time with our family.

A Merry Christmas to everyone from Lucas.

M
E
R
R
Y

C
H
R
I
S
T
M
A
S

Signing out.

Bending A Straight Twink

So last weekend I went out clubbing with my friends... I was firstly at Zouk, but then ended up at MarketPlace, lol. Mind you it was with two different groups of friends... The straight ones at zouk and obviously the gay ones at MP. Luckily I didn't have to pay to go into Zouk, because MP had a hefty charge of forty ringgit that night... I could really feel the pain when handing over the cash to the bouncer...

Usually mp members are allowed to bring one guest in for free, so I usually don't pay to go in. Anyway, that night mp had some guest dj from Sydney... So members weren't allowed to bring guests in, and I had to pay for my own entrance... :( the guest dj was very normal, he or she, played mostly latest hit songs as well as RnB hits. I generally think Malaysians (both gay and straight) are very easy to please. You just have to play us a lot of latest songs and RnB, and we will be very satisfied, and think that you're the best dj ever. Well obviously dj-ing is not just all about latest hits, but most of us are clueless about these things. So anyway, that dj was supposedly great, so that’s why I had to pay the expensive entry fee just to enter.

Not much happened that night, I really don’t know why I paid so much to get in. I like to dance, even though I cant dance for nuts... But that night the dance floor was soo packed, it was like sardines packed in a can trying to dance. If any of you ever take public transport, imagine trying to dance in the tram, train or bus during peak hours when everyone is crammed into one tiny compartment, if you can imagine that, then you are already picturing the mp dance floor that night. Not to mention everyone was sweaty from the heat (temperature) and the dance movements.




One interesting happened that night that really got me thinking... You see a friend's friend actually brought two straight guy friends with him to mp. Why he decided to bring them along - I don't know; but the more confounding question would be why did they agree to come? Even for me I was rather reluctant to pay forty ringgetoos to go in, but these two straight guys paid to come in? Wtf? Okay I really shouldn't complain because one of them was rather cute and I wished he was gay. This brings me to the main issue I want to talk about. The behavior of some of us that night (me included in thoughts), could be the very reason why straight guys dislike us.

You see a number of guys there were like, 'woah your straight friend is hot’ 'you're sure he is not gay?' 'watch me convert him'. The two of them also went to the over-crowded dance floor, and some guys were totally grinding in to them and trying to dirty dance with them... Assuming that they really were just two regular open minded straight guys that followed their gay friend to a gay club, the sort of behavior from many of the guys there that night might have scared them away from gays for good. I feel that we gave them an impression that almost all of us just wanted to get into their pants, and seriously... If I were straight, I would be terrified.

By trying to 'feel up' or attempting to 'convert' every open minded staright guy we meet, we're just painting them the image that we are sex hungry creatures that cant keep it in our pants. And that is the very image we don’t want the general population to have, cause that will only breed misunderstanding and fear of gays into their minds, I recall a wise man once said, fear leads to anger, anger leads to hatred, and hatred only leads to suffering. So these gay fearing straight folks will only turn into homophobic bigots and that leads to our suffering.



So maybe next time we see an open minded straight guy hanging out with a bunch of gay guys, we wouldn't be in such haste to try and convert him, because that might give us a bad image. Of course I am assuming both the straight guys there that night really are straight and just very open minded, some may argue that they could be curious, bi or even closeted, but lets give them the benefit of the doubt. So remember to think twice about trying to seduce or convert a straight guy, because if he really was straight, then these sort of actions would make him scared of us, and he wont be so open minded anymore; but then again if he was really curious, bi or closeted, then it would be a wasted opportunity not to do so, lol!

Signing out.

A Blue Moon Post

I’m now back in Malaysia for my so called holidays, but in essence I would be working for most of the holidays. I have previously applied to work at an engineering related company for an internship position, so that is what I have been doing for the past two weeks back in Malaysia. I’m quite happy I decided to do this because I get to meet a lot of new people and learn new things on the job. Of course the down side is that I don’t actually get any free time on my holidays.

I have to work 5 days a week all the way up until Chinese New Year next year. So my work schedule or rather my life schedule is now pretty routine. I wake up at 6:30 everyday so that I can shower eat and drive to work. It is quite a drive away and that’s the reason why I have to wake up early and also leave early. I have to leave before 7:20 otherwise the traffic build up can be quite bad, and I could be stuck in the traffic.



After a lot of hassle I have finally gotten a gym membership at the True Fitness for a three month period. At first they were very reluctant to give me a three month membership, and told me that the minimum contract period was four months. They offered to suspend my final month to a later period when I come back to Malaysia the next time, so that I can use it then. I was however reluctant to do that because it goes against my financial learnings to pay for something o wouldn’t be using in the near future.

So at first since True didn’t allow me a three month membership, went to Fitness First to enquire about their prices. I think the two gyms must be in cohort or something, because they wanted me to sign up for four months as well. However the difference with First is that they have a passport system, whereby I can take my final month with me back to Melbourne and use it. First is also slightly cheaper than True but the nearest First branch is a pretty small branch compared to True.

I went back to True telling them if they gave me a three month contract I’d gladly sign up, but still they refused… and there even was some mi- understanding, cause at first they offered the three month contract, but when I was about to pay, they switched back to four months. So obviously I was a bit annoyed and left without signing up for anything. However surprise surprise, the evening of that night the guy called and agreed to give me a three month contract.

Yay! So now I drop by the gym 2-3 times a week after work for some fitness workout. I am a fairly chubby person… I like to think I’m born that way (lol, blame the genes). Anyway, hopefully these gym sessions will help keep me on the healthy on the inside and better looking on the outside. I ain't greedy, I just hope to look like one of the guys down there :P



I'll be trying to update my blog more often, now that I have gotten in to a work rhythm.

Signing out.

Bloody Discrimination

Before going back to Malaysia I bought the December issue of DNA :) it was a cool issue because they had many pages of swimwear models to usher in summer in Australia. Anyway, an interesting article appeared in this issue of the magazine… and the debated gay topic is whether or not gay men should be allowed to donate blood.

Apparently in Australia, just before donating blood… you have to answer a series of personal health questions and one of them for men is “Did you have sex with a man in the past 12 months”. Well if you did, then you are not eligible to donate blood in Australia. This has sparked widespread anger within the GLBT community in Australia, particularly Tasmania… where by the GLBT community there has tried to take the case to court under the anti-discrimination law.




I cant say that I’m particularly pleased about this form of discrimination between blood donors, but also I guess I’m not as offended by it as some other gays because I personally hate needles and wont be donating blood anytime soon anyway.

In fact there is another story about me and a blood bank that infuriated me more than reading that article. You see once, sometime last year, when I was walking around campus I was approached by this man asking me to fill out a survey for the Red Cross. As usual I expressed my disinterest in the matter and tried to politely walk away, but he was quite persistent in saying that it would take less than a minute for me to fill out. So I thought to my self, I guess filling in a form wouldn’t take long… and would do much harm anyway… so I filled it in.

Well silly me I filled in some personal details as well such as my hand phone number and e-mail. You know what happened, roughly a week later, a nice lady gave me a call and said that I can just pop in anytime in the next two weeks to donate my blood at the blood bank in my suburb. I was like, ‘WTF!’. I mean I know donating blood is good and all, but I hate needles… and I don’t fancy donating my blood. I was actually quite angry at that phone call because I never agreed to donate any blood in the first place, and I calmly (tried) told her so. She replied saying that I filled in this survey form agreeing to do so. That brought be back to that shifty guy that ask me to fill out the ‘survey’ in uni. So I sort of gave her a piece of my mind saying that they cannot just ask people to fill blood donating forms in disguise of surveys. Well I guess at the same time I knew it wasn’t her fault… and it was probably just that shifty guy profiting from selling information of ‘donors’ to the blood bank. I mean seriously, I’m Malaysian and I don’t even donate blood in my own country, why would I donate blood in a foreign country. I hate needles, period.

Thinking back now, I should have just told her that I was gay and had sex in the last twelve months… hahaha that would probably have deterred her… anyway…I guess in the bigger picture it is unfair that gays cannot donate blood. I mean the reason behind it given by the Red Cross is that gay people are more prone to catching HIV and other sexually transmitted disease. This maybe true with some gays that sleep around, but isn’t this the same with straight man and women that aren’t choosy in their sex partners? Coz I know some of them that sleeps around just as much. Not allowing gay men to donate blood is really just a form of discrimination.

Hmm… the Red Cross’ explanation is that they do not discriminate homosexuals, because apparently lesbos are allowed to donate blood… only gay men aren’t allowed to do so. Erm in some ways I can understand why the GLBT community is offended… its not really the Red Cross discriminating homosexuals and not allowing them to donate blood. But rather it’s the Red Cross stereotyping gay men as sexually charged individuals that sleep around. This is most certainly not the case for most of us (definitely me) so I guess the blood donation ban does infuriate me in that sense.



Oh well, why donate blood… as a friend of mine says, the blood bank is just a sophisticated organisation run by vampires to harvest their food. And if I may say so myself, this fact seems to be strongly backed by quite a few literature, particulary the Twilight series. And I’d just like to add that Jacob is sooo fucking hawt!

Signing out.

A Matter Of Pride

Hmm… since its important to have pride in being gay, its important to know what our gay pride flag stands for :)



Hot Pink stands for sexuality
Red stands for life
Orange stands for healing
Yellow stands for sunlight
Green stands for nature
Turquoise stands for magic and arts
Indigo stands for serenity and harmony
Violet stands for spirit

The flag was originally invented by Gilbert Baker, the flag was first used in the 1978 gay pride march in San Francisco. However the eight coloured flag was soon reduced to a seven coloured one with the Hot Pink removed. This was because at the time, hot pink wasn’t a commercially available colour, and so to mass produce the pride flag, the hot pink had to be officially removed.



In 1979 a year later, indigo was removed from the seven coloured pride flag and then there were six. This was done so that during that years pride march, the colours could be equally divided on the marching street.

Whats the reason behind all this pride? Well I recently watched a recorded version of the 60th anniversary for china… apparently my parents thought it was good for Chinese all over the world to take pride in china’s achievement so far. And while watching the anniversary at Tien-An-Men Square… I was utterly shocked when I saw the pride flag embedded in the marching colours of the Chinese anniversary ceremony. Maybe China is more open than we think, and we should give them more credit.






I assure you that none of these pictures have been doctored in any way whatsoever. They are as seen on the recording I saw. Amazing right?

Signing out.

Measure Of A Man

So its been a long long while since I last blogged. Basically my exams is to be blamed for my absence in the blogsphere. Anyway, that’s all finally over and I’m actually back in Malaysia now… for my summer holidays. So something I noticed in some of my fellow bloggers posts were mention of free range chicken and free range eggs. I choose to take no side in the debate on whether free range livestock are better, but I feel its important that some people understand what they are fighting for.

I’ve heard somewhere before that a measure of a man is not in how well he treats his peers, but of how well he treats his inferiors. Haha, yea that’s what the title is all about… it isn’t really about measure any body parts in particular. So yea, I guess in some obscure sense… our live stock are considered our inferiors, and the way in which we treat them is a measure of how good a person we are.



I’ve seen scary pictures about livestock being mistreated, how they are confined to a small space… some barely moving more that a foot a day, and they are also supposed to be pumped full of medicine. The rational behind this is both evil, but understandable. How issit understandable? Well for one thing, our modern society has come to a stage where by eating meat as a form of protein has become a norm. This is certainly different from the stories I hear from my parents’ generation in the past. They always told of stories about how happy they were to have been able to eat chicken only during festive season… and apparently that’s less than ten times a year. Nowadays, we consume a lot of meat, particularly I think Malaysians consume a lot of chicken, because its not only cheap, but it also doesn’t conflict (much) with the halal issue- as most chickens are slaughtered the halal way in Malaysia anyway.

So imagine with the rising number of chicken consumption… is it actually practical to condemn commercial poultry farming and only go free range all the way? Let conduct a little thought process… suppose half the Malaysians consumer an average of two pieces of chicken a day, half of 20 million people is 10 million… and so lets say we averagely consume 20 million pieces of chicken a day. And the standard chicken is usually cut into nine pieces… so 20 million by nine is 2,222,222.22. So lets assume that its 2.2 million. So on average we eat 2.2 million chickens a day which comes up to a grand total of 1.7 trillion chickens a year. And remember this is just ‘if’ half of Malaysia eats an average of two pieces of chicken a day… I’m willing to bet that this amount estimated is probably less. But anyway, with such a huge number of chicken requirements, I guess it only makes sense to grow the chickens commercially.



And the rationale behind keeping the chickens confined and fully pumped with medication is simple, if they are kept confined its easier to round them up when its time to transport them to the slaughter house. I’m not sure if any of you tried to catch a ayam kampung (village chicken) before, but it is very difficult. Imagine how hard it would be to catch 2.2 million free range chickens a day just so that they can be sent to the slaughter house 0.o and the reason why they are pumped full of medicine is to make the grow faster… we would definitely need a lot of space if we wanted to only harvest chickens that grew at a normal rate. I think commercially farmed chickens nowadays take only 45 days to grow, but a supposedly normal growth-hormone-free chicken takes more than 3 months to grow? (correct me if I’m wrong here, cause I’m not too sure of this figure). So commercially, if we farm poultry the ‘cruel way’ we would need to have at any one time 2.2 million times 45days of chicken alive. But if we did it the free range way and not spurt the growth of chickens with growth hormones, we would need to at any one time have 2.2 million times of 90 days of chicken alive. That’s twice the amount. And thing about it… that’s 198 million chickens alive at any one time… cause it takes time to let the chicken grow from the egg stage to the slaughter stage. Imagine free range wise, if there were 198 million chickens alive at any one time and we are to give them one square meter of space to run for every chicken, that would be a grand total of 198 million square meters. Wow… a lot of space if u ask me.

Vegans would fight the battle a different way… instead of requesting farmers to not farm poultry the cruel way and switch to free range techniques. Their solution is much more extreme… and that is we should all give up eating meat all together and just eat vegetables. It is technically possible because we can get our protein requirements from the bean family. So whats the problem here? Apart from the fact that most people aren’t willing to give up meat (me included) there is also the fact of a possibility of a shortage of vegetables if everyone switched to just eating vegetables. Imagine if everyone only ate vegetables, would we have enough space to plant all the vegetables we need?

Space aside, vegetables also bring the huge problem of herbicide and insecticide usage in commercial vegetable plantings. Commercial use of these chemicals in the plantings of vegetation is very harmful to our planet, rising the concern of further polluting our (already quite polluted) water source and also the threat of hastening global warming.

Also a lot of commercial vegetables farmers in the world are now switching to planting crops related to biofuel, and there are mentions of a possibility of shortage in vegetables in certain parts of the world because of this. This is because its more profitable for farmers to plant crops for biofuel, such as sugarcane and corn. These crops are much higher in price due to their demand in making biofuel. So if everyone in the world switched to eating purely vegetables… would there then be a global shortage of vegetables?

My advice is simple, and haha frankly quite rational. As it goes now if you don’t feel bad eating meat (eggs included) farmed the ‘cruel’ way… then you most likely wont be swayed by anything you read. So my advice is for everyone to carry on as they have always been- remain status quo. Because not everyone can afford free range chicken and eggs, and not everyone can switch to just eating vegetables. So… haha I guess there isn’t much meaning to this post, but just to raise awareness on both sides of the debate of free range farming. Personally, I eat free range stuff but do not condemn the supposedly ‘cruel’ way some farmes grow their livestock. Hehe, I like to always remain politically correct. Cheers.

*the figures used in this blog is only based on my own thought process on the number of people eating chickens in malaysia. I did not consult the Malaysian poultry board.

Signing out.

Of Outings and Punk Asses

Its been exam season lately, so that’s why I haven’t been posting anything new here on my board. Well Saturday night was a friend’s birthday, and he was one of the first few gay friends I knew… so I totally felt obligated to attend his birthday outing despite it being the middle of exams. Well, I think after all that revision, and the occasional slacking, I deserve a short break and a night to let loose.

So the birthday plan was to have dinner at this fancy restaurant on Chapel Street, then head down to one of the gay bars that had a drag show, so that the birthday boy can be dragged up the stage :) and after that, we would all hit Commercial Road, where the Melbourne gay scene is.

Well needless to say that since it was a birthday, there was quite a turn out for the event… there was an entourage of 13 people around the birthday boy. Well if a crowd is that big, there is bound to be people you like and people you hate, right? And yup, there was someone there that night that I really disliked. And I think it was the fact that he was around that I couldn’t have a proper good time. With him around, I cant totally relax and have to put up a shield around me so that his hurtful comments wouldn’t get to me. Its not only tiring, but annoying at the same time. Gosh I wish there was a button you could push and a hole would open up in the sky and sucked all these punk asses in.

Anyway as we were hitting all the gay bars and clubs last night, there were a lot of hot and cute guys around, and I’d be lying if I said I didn’t feel attracted to them hot ones. But… I know the limit of my own attractiveness and if I only go for the big fishes, the beautiful ones, this lil bear may never end up eating anything. So, yea I do go for the averagely cute ones as well, just because I know my own capabilities and don’t wanna bite more than I can chew.

Biting more than I can chew :P

But you see, with Mr punk ass around… I feel obligated to only approach all the super hot and super cute guys, because I don’t want to hear him say things like, “is that all you can do Luke?” so all night I tried to hook them big fishies… but failed miserably. Sigh… I should have just been myself and went for the ones that I can hook…. Right? But no… I didn’t wanna look weak and like a loser in front of punk ass… so I had to put up an act.

Gosh… it was so annoying having him around. Its like having to pretend to be straight around my straight friends, just that I’m pretending to be a gay ‘A-lister’ when I most certainly barely made B-list… Sigh… maybe next time I should just tell my friends that if they want punk ass to tag along with them… don’t invite me. But then again, what kind of a person would I be if I made my friends choose like that. Sigh.

What oh what can I do? I guess I could just pretend that he isn’t there and be myself even with him around. Although the last thing I want is appear to be weak around him. Because he isn’t like a real friend that would take sympathy on your sad stories, he is like a savage lion that pounces and attacks anything weak. Grrrh…. I hate people like that.



I don’t know, I guess yea I can pretend he isn’t there and just be myself, or… I can hire a hit man and take him out… put the world out of its misery (of him) once and for all… WAhahahaha!

Signing out.

Twee Vaders

Woah, the weather in Melbourne has been unbearable lately. The day before it reached a top of 34 degrees Celsius… and I don’t have air-conditioning in my old apartment building. Sigh, how sad.

Well the one good thing about the weather is that people are now wearing less and less :) Lots of guys are just wearing shorts and singlets on the street. Great eye candy :P



Well, today’s post is on a heart touching video that captured my heart, quite a while back. I just recently watched it again and it melted my heart again. All I can say is that after watching that video, if I ever grow up to be a father… I would certainly hope that my child would be as proud of me and his other dad like that kid in the video.



I wonder if this day would ever come for Malaysia, whereby a kid can sing about his/her two dads or moms… By the way if you guys were wondering, the video was from Holland.

Getting A DNA test

With exams just round the corner, I decided to de-stress myself a little… so I went out and bought my very first gay magazine – DNA. It is Aussie’s best selling gay magazine for gay people :)



Well, I must commend myself for my bravery in actually purchasing the gay magazine, as you can see on the cover of the mag… there is a very hot guy there, and I think a picture is worth a thousand words, that cover really screams “Gay Mag!” I was a bit embarrassed when paying for it, luckily it was a lady… and she even asked me if I needed anything else… haha a pack of condoms please? LoL

Here’s a few more snap shots of the magazine I took with my trusty hand phone.






Signing out.

A Clean Room

Its been a busy few weeks lately… What with all my assignments due over the final few weeks of this semester. And now its study break, called ‘swot-wac’ here in aussie-land, whereby we get a week of holiday between the final day of teaching and the first day of exams. So yea, exams start next week, and once again I’ll be pretty caught up these few weeks with my revision stuff… or rather I should be pretty caught up…



Revision period is when I realise I procrastinate the most… for example, yesterday I rearranged my wardrobe and also cleaned out my room, something I haven’t done in ages. Yes, I’ve noticed that its become somewhat of a trend… my room is always cleaner during revision period: because that is the period in which I always find other ‘more important’ things to do so that I don’t have to do my boring old revision.

On the other note, I decided to do a sort of ‘voice-over’ of my previous blog entry… reading out what I write. I guess my English has very much deteriorated since I left high school… whereby we were made to write much more creative essays, not just boring engineering and experimental report which is pretty much all I write of late (for school).



Well, I decided to read out my blog mainly because I felt that I wasn’t using my punctuations properly. Well… my blog is more of a verbal conversation (in writing) rather than a passage written for plain reading purposes. So yea, I decided to read it out so that u can visualise, or rather ‘audio-ise’ how I’m trying to make my entries sound :) Hopefully that worked out great, LoL.

Signing out.

White Lies

Telling a white lie sometimes is good isn’t it? I mean, if you can lie to another person for a good cause… isn’t the lie justified then? I always believe in white lies… but at the same time I also believe honesty is the best policy. Sounds impossible to work out both ways… well I’ll tell you how it works out; I believe in white lies when I have to tell them, and I believe in honesty in the sense that other people should always be honest with me and never lie. Hahaha… How hypocritical right? Sigh… I guess that’s just me sometimes.

I was recently lied to by a friend. It was sort of a while lie, cause he didn’t want me to worry about him and ask him a tonne of questions. Anyway, the story goes like this… this friend of mine was suppose to go on a holiday trip out of town to 2 different cities. Before he left, we met up briefly for some drinks… and he told me that he is meeting a ‘friend’ in the first destination, and then they would be travelling together in both the first and the second city. Btw, just to clear things up, this friend of mine is gay of course, and when I say ‘he was meeting a friend’ I meant someone he met online.

Well, that was his story before the trip… and even during the trip when I sent him some text messages… this ‘friend’ of his was mentioned a few times. And then all of a sudden after his trip, when we caught up for coffee, his story changed to, “oh, I was living with family in the first town, then went to the second town alone, oh I had a great time!”

I was thinking to myself, you had a great time? That’s mighty fine, but in the back of my mind I kept wondering why is he changing his story, and why is he lying to me??? So he has a boyfriend, so he went on holiday with another guy. Fine, I know he doesn’t like his boyfriend very much anyway, and they aren’t getting along well… but it just kept playing in my mind over and over again while we were having coffee ‘why did he feel he had to lie to me?’

Anyway, not one to let things rest when they don’t seem right… I approached him on msn a few days later and tried to clarify things with him honestly. I told him I honestly don’t like being lied to, and honestly feel that I’m too young to have my memory fail me at this stage in life. So I asked him why did he feel the need to lie to me about the before and after details of his trip.

We had a very honest conversation, and he told me that he changed the story for everyone else as well (not just me) because he didn’t want anyone judging him. He was still with his boy friend, and they were on the rocks, so he needed time away. And he didn’t want other people judging him for going on holiday with someone else, someone he technically only knows online. So yea, I sorta understand where he is coming from… but I told him that he can be honest with me, and don’t feel that he has to lie to me just because he feels I will judge him :) I’m glad we had that conversation though, cause now as friends we are much closer.

So guys out there, honesty is important and so are white lies… but when u accidentally mix them both up and cant remember who you were honest to and who you lied to… things can get pretty complicated. Luckily I was just a close friend of his… not his boy friend… LoL

Signing out.

OMG! Thats So Gay!

Recently I did come out to one of my best straight male friend that I am gay. And err, so far almost everything is as it was before I came out, not much has change. Which I guess it’s a good thing, it means me being gay really has nothing to do with our friendship at all… everything is just status quo.

However, one thing that remains status quo that sort of bugs me is that he still uses the term ‘gay’ for something bad. For example he would still say things like, “Omg, that lecturer is so gay… she gave us such a hard assignment for only 10%!” or he would say “I can’t believe they charge so much for a cup of coffee, that’s like soo gay!”

Well before I came out, I guess we did use the term ‘gay’ to describe bad situations very often… and it seems that now even after I have came out, we’re still using that term… or rather he is still using that term. Sigh, I’m not sure if I should feel relieved that me being gay isn’t a big deal at all, so much so that his attitude towards me, including his usage of the word gay, hasn’t changed; or should I take offence that even though he now knows that I am gay, he still uses the term ‘gay’ to describe something bad, which in some sense is derogatory to me… since I’m gay.



Anyhow, I haven’t said anything to him… coz like I said, I am pretty relieved that our friendship is still status quo, even after I have come out to him… which is a good thing… :)

Signing out.

Oops I Did It Again

It’s the last four weeks of uni, and as I have mentioned before, its when all my assignments and reports are due. Last week I had two reports due on the same day, and it was very stressful. So I did it again… I accidently left my USB stick at the computer lab… AGAIN.

How did that happen? Well you see, my reports were due Thursday, and so from Sunday night till Thursday, I barely could squeeze in more than five hours of sleep a day. By Thursday morning I was operating on Zombie-mode, I actually finished and printed out my reports by five am Thursday morning, then managed to crammed in 3 hours of power sleeping… After that I headed in to uni for my nine am class and also to hand in my assignment. All the while in the lecture, I couldn’t wait to be merdeka (free) of my reports and assignments. After my nine am lecture I had one more class after that, and then I would be free to go home and sleep like the lazy bum that I am.

But… yes, there always is a but. But, while sitting in the lecture, I suddenly realised a mistake in my report, and had to go to the nearest computer lab to correct it. So like a zombie, I went to the closest computer lab I could find, which incidentally happened to be a post graduate lab. Us undergrads aren’t allowed to use those… but screw it, my assignment is of much more importance than some silly undergrad-postgrad rule. So I went in… remember I’m still operating in Zombie-mode, I plugged in my USB stick made the changes to my file, and printed out the error page. I’m not too sure about other uni’s, but at mine, we put money into our student id cards, then slot the cards into printers to have the prepaid funds deducted out when we need to print anything in uni.

Guess what? Low and behold, I did it again! But this time I out did the last time I left stuff in the computer labs. I not only left my USB stick in the computer I was using, but also my student id… T.T

And I didn’t even realise I left them there till that night, when I was shopping for groceries and realised that my student id wasn’t where it was suppose to be (in my wallet’s card compartment). So I was very depressed, coz students lose ids all the time, and they cost a whooping twenty dollars to replace. And up untill then, I didn’t even realise that my USB was not with me. I only realised that it was missing Friday morning, when I was going into uni to search for my id that I left behind.

Anyhow, if there are any Devine beings up above that governs the regulation of lost-and-found, they were really shining brightly on me. Because Friday morning, a whole 24hours later when I returned to the computer lab, my stuff were still there, sitting at the corner of the printer. Side by side, my card and USB stick were there waiting for me to come back and collect them. All I can say is thank you whomever that was kind enough to not take my stuff and left them there for me. Oh well, I should really learn from my mistakes and be less clumsy about leaving stuff behind in uni.

Signing out.

Im Still Relevent

Hey, just thought I'd drop in a post to validate the fact that I'm still relevent and here :P I've been tied down with assignments lately... and its seriously annoying. I had 2 major assignments due last Friday and another 2 due this Thursday. The 2 this Thursday is even more annoying, because they require me to use engineering simulation packages, which are only available in the engineering computer labs... hence I've been camping at the labs till late at night everyday.

The camping is bad... I've been eating irregularly because of the work. Ate at 9.30 Sunday nite and about 10 on monday nite... horrible I know, but I have no choice. I have to complete both assignments by Thursday.

Oh... And did I mention that I freaking hate engineering simulation packages... because they are so freaking unstable and frequently crash ,partly due to shitty computers at certain com labs, which incidently are the only once that are always available... the labs with good comps are always full, as its assignment period for everyone. Apart from the constant crashing, the simulation packages need to be accurately specified, otherwise it wouldn't do what you want it to do. And I thought computer were smart... Bleh if the program annoys me too much... I wont have anymore mercy for it.



On a lighter note, there are a lot of cute engineering guys in the comp labs. Of course they are also camping there to completer their assignments. Hmm... I must say tho, not all students doing engineering are nerdy... some of them are really quite muscly and hot. Of course I'm also pretty into nerdy studious types... so whenever I get too sick of the computer simulation package... I start looking around :P

Signing out.

A Nice Dose of Karma

NEWS FLASH

Melbourne 2009- The residents of The University of Melbourne were shock to have discovered a rare incidence or good karma happening on their campus. This rare occurrence was reported to have taken place in the Baillieu Library on the evening of Thursday the 15th.

A student by the name of Lucas was said to have left his USB-stick at one of the computer labs, and when he returned to claim it almost 2 hours later, the USB-stick was mysteriously still there. This has been labelled as a rare case of good karma because on the very same day, Lucas actually returned a USB-stick he found from the engineering computer lab in the Old Engineering Building to the lost and found office.



It is unclear as to what the actual USB-stick Lucas found was, but it was believed to be a pricey 4-GB Imation Atom USB-stick. It is usually priced at around AUD30.00 and is considered fairly expensive by the tech community. However the USB that Lucas left behind at the computer lab and subsequently reunited with its rightful owner (Lucas) was supposed to have been a cheap regular 4-GB USB-stick.

Library staff at the Baillieu Library acknowledged this as a rare case of good karma as electronic equipment frequently gets lost or stolen in the library. The staff reveals that many valuables get stolen or lost on a weekly basis at the library. When asked why the library doesn’t install more CCTV cameras to curb this loss of precious student belongings, the staff simply respond by saying that having CCTV at every corner of the library is hard to implement without going through a lot of bureaucratic work, as the CCTV violates student privacy rights.

Our reporters have managed to track down Lucas in his busy schedule and asked him a few questions regarding the good karma that was bestowed upon him. Lucas says, “I never really thought I would be able to be reunited with my USB as things frequently get lost in the library.” Lucas says he believes so because last semester he had had friends who have lost their notebook-PC and I-pods in the library. When asked, Lucas says, “I may not always believe in good karma, but I guess this case would make me rethink my beliefs in karma.” Lucas also mentioned that he was very thankful to the forces above that made it possible for him to reunite with his USB-stick.

This maybe a rare sighting of good karma, but maybe the general population of the university would start seeing this as a sign and treat each other better, so that they would have good karma returned to them.

Signing out.

Noble Peace Out

I was never really convinced about the guy when he was elected as the president in one of the more important nations of the world. I mean I personally always found him to be too much of an actor, its like instead of a world leader… he was more of a celebrity, the way he spoke, the way he talks and the way he acts. I do not doubt that he is an excellent public speaker, certainly heaps better than any of the politicians we find back home. I mean, quite a number of our MPs can barely give a good speech in their own mother tongue, be it Chinese, tamil/hindi or malay, let alone give a public speech in English as eloquently and with such charge as Barrack. But, we aren’t here to criticise our politicians, because I know that they are trying to do their best back home (what??? Its not as if I’m only adding that sentence so that my blog doesn’t get shut down… I’m quite sure I really mean it…)



Well he recently won the Nobel peace prize, congrats Barrack… but hmm, I wonder how peaceful is he really is? I mean, sure he shut down Gvantanamo Bay, but that just means he doesn’t like some ISA established by Georgy-boi right? He could very much have something similar somewhere else in the world that is hidden…

Ok, ok… I know I sound pessimistic and critical of him, but I think he has yet to have done something exceptional. Sure, some of his decisions have helped cure the global economy of its ill health, but in economic cycle terms, after about a year and a half… economies usually do recover from extreme financial crises anyway. So, yea nothing exceptional I suppose.

The one thing he probably did that I would raise my cup to is his stand on gay rights. Well he has always claimed to be a traditional Christian so he cannot in his on religious views stand for gay marriage. But despite that, he has manage to try and please us gays by supporting full civil unions that give same-sex couples legal rights and privileges equal to those of married couples. I guess that’s a pretty good start, if the gay people cant have a legal marriage, at least they can still be legally acknowledged as a couple in civil union. That once again much more than we can ever expect back home. Barrack also mentioned that he has no objection to state governments themselves legalising gay marriages, and this is already the case for 5 states in the US: Massachusetts, Connecticut, Iowa, Vermont and New Hampshire :) Thumbs up to the voting people there that made it possible.



Barrack is also in favour of abolishing the “don’t ask don’t tell” military ruling, whereby gay soldiers are allowed to openly serve as gay soldiers in the military. Currently in the US, if you are enrolled in the military… you’re actually not allowed to ask if anyone else is gay, or tell anyone else that your are gay. And that ruling is in place for the entire time in which you are enlisted in the army. Any breach of that ruling can earn you a dishonourary discharge from the military. Boo!

Well, through all his traditional Christian views, I’m happy to see that Barrack has in some ways been accommodating to gay people in the US. Allowing civil union but not gay marriage is still discriminating in some sense, but at least it’s a start isn’t it? Anyway, I’d just like to say once again congratulation Barrack in winning the Nobel peace prize this year, and may you prove me wrong in my pessimistic views on your policy and ‘celebrity-like’ actions. Please don’t just turn out to be a celebrity president and suddenly feel pressured to start adopting African or Cambodian babies.

Signing out.

Awkward Wall of Silence

I actually went on a date lately… someone from fridae :) and enjoyed myself quite a bit. It was a lunch date, a plain lunch date… not lunch with sex on the side, just plain lunch by itself. Now as I said, I thought the date went pretty well, the liking for each other’s company seemed to be mutual and we had quite a bit in common between us.

But despite having many things in common, the date still came to a point whereby there was the deathly awkward silence and lost for words. I guess its like any normal first date isn’t it? Once you get pass the pleasantries: What do you study? Where do you stay? Where do you like hanging out? … When we’ve exhausted all the usual first date topics, we approach the wall of silence, where there is a period of awkward silence.

If you’re lucky, you would have got pass most of the meal and can then ask for the bill, then part ways after that… or head back to someone’s place to fuck your brains out. If you’re unlucky… then the awkward wall of silence would have hit you only half way through the meal, and you would have to endure sitting through the other half in that awkward silence with building anxiety and uncomfortableness… that sometimes is even enough to ruin sex after the meal… if you were planning for any.



Anyway, thankfully as I said we seem to like each other… at least I think I liked him… or rather found him pleasant. And thank all of the heavens above, because as we were staring at the wall of silence for a while… feeling the silent awkwardness building up, we suddenly found another mutual topic to talk about… we both actually went to Sydney at the same time over the school break :) Well that opened up a whole new list of topics about the places we visited and liked..

Silence maybe be golden, but I sure ain't a freaking gold digger.

All I’m saying is that silence may be golden, but on a date, especially a first date, gold is seriously the last thing on my mind. All I want is for the date to go smoothly… and for me to have a good time. So I’d like to wish good luck to everyone on their first dates, in their conquest of overcoming the awkward wall of silence.

Signing out.

Murphy I Hate You

It’s a bit silly how you can try as hard as you may to avoid somethings from happening, but in the end it happens anyway… lately my life has gotten a bit more complicated than it should be, because some of my straight friends have started to suspect that I’m gay. These are straight Malaysian friends, more conservative than usual Malaysian friends… so I’m no where near ready to come out to them yet.

Anyway, they have been very nosy lately, and from my knowledge they have even asked my housemate to snoop around and find out if I’m gay. Sigh, I wish they would just leave me alone…

Well something bad happened today that would further raise their suspicion that I’m gay… and I think its all my own fault. See I met up with a gay friend for dinner tonight, and we decided to go to one of the restaurants in Melbourne for dinner. This was a simple Chinese restaurant that had 3 branches in Melbourne. My friend insisted we went to branch A (lets call it), but because I know my friends usually go there to take away or to eat, I insisted that we went to branch B instead. Had a light argument about why we had to walk to the further branch, but he gave in at the end.

Guess what happened? After ordering our food and sitting down… there were my friends, the very same group that were suspicious of me… WTF!!! I tried sooo hard to avoid them, and there they were, in the branch that they never go to. Well, I know they never go to this branch because they hated the waiters at this branch (rude waiters), that’s why I picked to come here. BUT there they were.

Sigh, now they are going to suspect that I’m gay even more because I was having dinner with a cute Caucasian dude that was wearing shorts (only end of winter) and was a bit 'fabulous'. I tried to salvage the situation by saying he’s a uni friend, but I’m really not sure how much of that they bought. FML!

Oh its called ‘Murphy I Hate You’ not because one of my over suspicious friend is called Murphy… rather I’m sorta making a reference to Murphy’s law, where by it states that anything that can go wrong will go wrong.



Signing out.

Awkward Telly Moments

Its been a long time since I updated, but I was actually a bit tied down due to the fact that my parents visited me over my second week of school break. So basically I had to play tour guide and bring them around the city. They’ve been here a couple of times before, so it wasn’t like we went to any tourist-type of destinations… but I was more a tour guide for bringing them around food and shopping.

They didn’t stay in my apartment when they were around, which was good, because I still get to have my own privacy and own space :) instead, they put up in a hotel a few blocks from my apartment, which was convenient for me to visit.

Anyway, something awkward happened when we were watching telly in their hotel room. There was this program showing called ‘GLEE’, and there was a few scenes with a gay kid and a gay teacher (separate scenes of course) in it… it was freaking awkward and weird when I was watching it with my family. And this isn’t the first time I got that awkward feeling… I got that a lot too when watching ‘Brothers & Sisters’ with my mom. Well as most of you would already know, there is a gay brother in ‘Brothers & Sisters’.



Why issit awkward? Because sometimes I think my mom sorta partially-maybe-possibly suspects that I could be probably gay. So when these scenes come on, I sometimes feel she is scrutinising my actions and reactions to see how I react to the gay scene being shown on the telly screen. And I find that situation very awkward. I wonder if anyone else feels the same awkwardness I do when watching harmless gay scenes that appear on tv with their families.

Signing out.

Sweethearts

Something I always regret not having is a high school sweetheart. I went to a co-ed school, and a lot of my friends ended up having boyfriends and girlfriends with people from the same school, that was something I couldn’t have and truly envied them for it. I guess like now, back in high school, I was never a very attractive guy, if I had to criticise my high school demeanour… I was always over opinionated and also always overweight. So because of these unpleasant qualities, even though all my friends slowly one by one paired up with each other… I never really got a girlfriend.

I guess more importantly the reason I didn’t get a girlfriend (like the rest of my guy friends) wasn’t because the girls weren’t interested in me being over opinionated and overweight, it was more so because I simply wasn’t interested in them. DUH, I was more interested in guys of course. And since it was Malaysia, there was no way I was going to come out of the closet to look for a boyfriend and expose myself to the chance of being alienated by all my other school friends when they find out I’m gay. So throughout my high school in Malaysia, I remained single despite the fact that I always dreamt of having a high school sweetheart.

After high school life in Malaysia, I did a few years of high school in an Australian boys’ school. Wow! Lots of eye candy indeed. But even though Australia is a much more liberal and supposedly non-discriminating country, I remained in the closet and didn’t come out in search of a high school sweetheart. After all I was just an outsider cutting into their school for the last few years of high school. I very much wanted to just blend in and be accepted by the students there, the last thing I want is to out myself and risk being ostracised by my new found friends.

This finally brings me to uni, where I started seeing guys from other unis and some that were even working. I actually never once dated a guy from my uni. Hmm… if I can’t have a high school sweetheart, then the least I can do is get a uni sweetheart right?

What is my idea of a high school/ uni sweetheart? Well it would be someone from the same uni that I go to, that would be able to catch up with me in uni during lunch breaks and eat cheap yucky canteen food together; or wait for each other’s lectures to finish so that we can walk each other home; or to meet up in the library to study together for exams; or just to sit down in one of the many cafes in uni for coffee between lectures. That’s my fantasy idea of a high school/ uni sweetheart, someone you date that shares the same education life as well as life outside school with you…



I have yet to fulfil this dream of mine and as usual, time and tide waits for no man, gay or straight. And I have but one year of uni left to fulfil this fairytale fantasy of mine. With the final year always being the toughest, I wonder if I would have the time for a uni sweetheart this late in life… Nonetheless I can truthfully say that if the chance does present itself, I would gladly grab it regardless of how busy I am. Who knows, maybe I can study better when my uni sweetheart is by my side :P



Signing out.

Back From A Getaway

So after a few days in Sydney, I’m finally back in Melbourne in my own sweet apartment. Sydney is a great place for a holiday, but probably not so suitable for staying long term. The city is very messy, and the traffic there (both human and vehicles) is really chaotic. Nonetheless I really enjoyed my stay in Sydney, and I’m thankful to all my friends that were hospitable to me when I was in Sydney.

I was only there for a few days, so I didn’t really get to see much of Sydney, but I did visit all the ‘Tourist-Must-See’ spots. Places including the Harbour Bridge, the Sydney Opera House, the Rocks Area, Bondi Beach, the Fish Market and the Blue Mountains. Here are some pictures taken of the places I visited.






Well, now that I'm back... I'm hoping to get more posts up soon :) Oh and I forgot to mention, I did manage to take a stroll down Oxford St., which is the Gay street of Sydney. It was a Sunday night and some of the clubs and bars were open... But I didn't really step into any of them. Nonetheless, at least now I can claim to have been to Oxford St. in Sydney.

Signing out.