Friday, July 22, 2011

Money Talk

Today I am going to talk about something which is so relevant to all of us, that is money. Money had always been an issue to us humans, whether we have too little of it, or too much of it. It's always gonna be a problem.


They say... money can't buy your happiness.

I say... 'but, money can decrease your sadness.'

They say... more money, more problem.

I say... 'no money, no life...'

They say... money is the roots of all evil.

I say... 'I agree... but many people do good deeds with money, such as donation, dana, etc.' Oprah is one very good example, don't you think so?

If you and I think carefully, actually money is not the problem. Money is just an object. When you let money control you instead of you control the money, it's from there that the problems exist. Humans, as hypocrite as we are, we blame money for everything when in actual, the greed, stinginess, insecurity and materialistic behaviour inside us which create problems out of money for us. If we put our priority well, we won't have money issues. If we put money as priority, we will easily be insecure when we run out of it. 

I hope that I can practice what I am posting now. I myself had a weird relationship with money. Sometimes I love it, sometimes I hate it. But then I realized, money isn't the problem at all. It's the way I handle them. 

I hope I can practice what Jesus said. "Don't worry about what you eat or what you drink. Even the stray birds are fed, what more to say you as the children of God." Erm I know this is not the exact saying but the gist are there. Hehe. I am not sure too from which chapter it is taken. (-_-") 

But the thing is, don't let yourself be the slave of money, instead let money be your slave. Ok?

Wednesday, July 20, 2011

Wake Me Up When September Starts...

After this coming September, another picture will be added on top of my baby picture.

I am still not excited for my convocation. Maybe because I am slow in receiving that excited vibration or maybe because I just don't want to disappoint myself if I planned so much and they don't work out.

Or maybe I am already in Penang that I thought I had the rights to be slow in planning.

Or maybe because I was so worried about financial state for my coming postgraduate studies.

Anyway, here's my unchecked check-list.

1) Photo shoot, haven't decide where, which studio.  (  )

2) Clothes and shoes for convocation, haven't buy. (  )

3) Hairdo (  ) [yeah, I  had to do something with my messy hair this coming convocation. Gotta change my hairstyle again lo...]


All this can't go on because of no 4...


4) Budget (  ) No budget yet. (-_-")


Well, anyway, the most important thing is that, my family are gonna be happy with their coming convacation. Apart from that, the rest are just minor things.

Tuesday, July 5, 2011

The History of a Practising Prankster

I LOVE to play prank. I used to play a lot of pranks on people and  sometimes even on my pets. I am not sure if this hobby had something to do with the fact that I was born on 11th April (which was dubbed as double fool day by my sista) but I guess my family loooove to prank people, especially me and my siblings. 

I remember one April Fool's Day, when my eldest sister Michele was still  12, she played a prank on her friend by presenting him with lizard's dropping wrapped in a bunch of papers. (-_-") Her friend was really disgusted. Score!

And my second sister Melissa was very good at shocking people and also keeping a straight face when making up stories. She always tricked me by popping in front of me out of nowhere with her long hair covering her face - gosh I always jumped out of my skin whenever she did that. Besides that prank, she tricked a lot of her friends too. One memorable prank that she played on her friend was the one where she made up stories about herself trying drugs before, and her friend somewhat believed her. (-_-") He believed her to the extend that when she confessed that she was actually lying, he wouldn't believe her confession. Backfired prank huh? lol. 

My mother was also quite a prankster. She played a prank on me when I was still in Form 6 by asking me to try a pansuh that she received from her colleague. "It's chicken pansuh" She told me. I was skeptical of her statement but since there's no harm in eating something your own mother brought home, I just tried it. I was clear it was not chicken, but it did not taste like fish either. 
"It's actually snake's meat," She told me, smiling. (-_-")

Besides this light prank, there was one time, circa 2002, my parents and my cousin Mary played a prank on my cousin, Agnes. My cousin Agnes is my adult cousin who was already a mommy that time. Agnes's family and our family wanted to go back to Dalat, so for security, Agnes placed her family car at our home (because we had gates and they didn't). So Agnes, her husband and children went back to Dalat by water transport, which was a speedboat. Since our family were using car to go back to Dalat, Agnes placed some of her things in our car for us which we promised to pass to her that very evening when we reached Dalat. 

We went on with the road trip as planned, but when we reached Mukah, which was about one hour from Dalat, we stopped at Mary's house (PS: Mary is Agnes's older sister), and from there the idea to play a prank on Agnes came up. Mom called Agnes up and told her that we didn't go on a road trip as planned, we were still at Sibu and would only go to Dalat the next evening. So that very moment, Agnes was very angry and disappointed so she called her sister Mary up (who was my mom's partner in crime in this prank) and Agnes told and shared all her disappointments and rage with Mary. After Mary hung up the phone, we all broke into laughter~!

When we reached Dalat that evening, Agnes's husband saw us and was very surprised. He, looking tired, told us that Agnes was very angry and asked him to buy back all the things that she put in our car at the shops. When Agnes found out that it was actually a prank, and her things arrived safely at Dalat with us, she was quite angry but not as angry as before. She just said that "Eee, this prank is just too much! Don't do it again."


Okay. Enough about my family's prank. Let me tell you guys about my own prankster experience.

Yeah this was how Madam Meenon looked like. Sorry for my horrible drawing. (-_-")

When I was about 8 years old, I played a prank on Sharon, my cousin, who was also my  closest playmate during my childhood. We always played downstairs at my old house. One fine day, I was extremely bored, so I decided to play a trick on her. While we were playing, I told Sharon to wait for me downstairs while I ran  upstairs, went to my parents' bedroom and quickly dressed up in my mom's old dress. I wrapped a towel around my head just like a headscarf and wore a pair of sunglasses which I took from my parents' dressing table. Then from upstairs, I shouted my cousin's name and asked her to join me upstairs. Slowly, Sharon climbed the stairs and then she saw me in all those funny clothes.

I quickly approached her and tell her "Hi, I'm Madam Meenon, Maureen's not here." Sharon was speechless. Until now, I think she actually believed me or maybe she thought that Madam Meenon was my alter ego lol. So that moment onwards, she would call me Madam Meenon whenever she sees me in funny clothes and glasses.

When I got older, my prank got nastier. I was about eleven or twelve that time. I shared the same room with my sister Melissa while my eldest sister shared the same room with our cousin Pamela. Pamela is our cousin from Dalat who used to live with us to help out with the house chores. So one day, when Pamela was  showering, I entered their room when nobody was there and hid under their bed (PS, their bed were combined together). When Pamela came in the room alone to change her clothes after showering, I put out my left hand from under the bed and frightened her. Thank God she did not scream and her reaction was merely  "ISH... Baby padu..!" in quite an annoyed tone.

After feeling satisfied with my prank, I planned another prank - now on both Pamela and Michele. Muahaha!

One fine night, I pretended to have a fight with Melissa. Then, I pretended to be really upset and announced to the whole family that I would sleep earlier that night, and locked the door to our room. Actually, I had informed Melissa beforehand that I would lock our bedroom's door for this prank. So after pretending to sleep, I tiptoed to Michele and Pamela's room and let my bedroom's door stayed locked so that nobody would be suspicious. I hid under their bed. There was a gap between their bed and it was that gap that I planned to carry out my prank. Muahaha..!

So, my plan for the prank was this:
This was more or less how my fingers looked like that time.
 I stick the plasticine on my fingernails so that they would look scary. I planned to scare both of them by popping up my hand through the gap between their beds from underneath. Muahahaha. But then, not all prank would go smoothly as planned. While waiting for both of them to come to their bedroom, I fell asleep under their beds.

In the middle of the night, I was suddenly awake. I realized that I fell asleep and I heard both Michele and Pamela were still having a conversation on the bed with the lights off (you know, the before sleeping conversation). So in the middle of their conversation, I popped up my hand from  the gap between their beds and trying to make a scary sound but since I just woke up, my supposedly scary voice was hoarse instead. 

"What??" Both of them were kinda shocked. To my disappointment, they didn't scream  loudly like how I imagined they would. 

"She did it again!" Pamela said and both of them asked me to go back to my room and sleep. I went back to my room obediently, and although the outcome of the prank was not as good as I imagined it would be, at least  the outcome of the prank was quite a consolation.


During my university years, the pranks that I played were merely like hiding somebody's branded bag uhuk Joe uhuk, hacking someone's facebook status uhuk Mark uhuk, pretending to quarrel with Melissa during April Fool and uhuk Step uhuk Ebeth uhuk believed it lol. These were the pranks that I played and  I still think that they weren't enough.


But pranks do have a few rules. One, we cannot simply play pranks on people without knowing their health condition, whether they had histeria, heart attack or something. Two, we have to find a suitable prank for different people, according to their personality, their history etc. Maybe on my future post, I would share with y'all about the rules and regulation (sounds formal, right? adui!) of playing a prank on people.

Wow this sudden craving for pranks made me miss Ashton Kutcher's Punk'd episodes. I wish I could have a camera to record all the pranks I played before. MUAHAHAHA.

 So be ready people.. Till the prankster strikes again...! ;)