Skip this one, it'll snore you to Death
There’s nothing like the end of a year to make one want to write a whole lot of gibberish of things they’ve learned and come to realize or of wisdom obtained from that very year. Or to put it in milder terms, there’s nothing like stress and the causation of the inability to fall into deep slumber no matter the meter of exhaustion obtained on a flight. Or waiting for the Board to call you in for your presentation.
This year, I’ve decided to forgo the J Yum Yum List of 2009. Instead, I’ll write from the heart instead of masking whatever it is I really want to say with LMAO postings.
As the age passes and the sands of time trickle by, I find that December increasingly becomes more and more difficult month for me to face. It used to be a month of joy, as the momentum builds up to everyone’s favourite time of the year, Christmas; it also builds up to my birthday. I remember when December used to be a full two weeks of birthday engagements with various friends; then a full week of drinking and partying with various social cliques, then it used to be long weekend getaways and being pampered by whomever I was dating at the moment; and this year, when my darlings asked me what I wanted for my birthday after declining their generous offer of buying me my very own African egg eating snake; all I really wanted was another Jess is an awesome Loo calendar which I got last year.
That calendar had all the photos of every adventure I had with the ladies and also quips of why I was an awesome Loo. 2009, was a year I was preparing to go work in a different country, and all I could think of to bring with me besides my clothes was this Awesome calendar as well as my Starbucks architectural blueprint Los Angeles coffee mug.
In retrospect, standing in line waiting to check in at the airport today, it’s silly of me to think that all I would bring was my calendar and coffee mug. Looking at the three pieces of luggage I had with me, I keep wondering since when did I turn into the girl that carried with me 2.4kgs of toiletries. Where was the girl that used to rough it out in India? I used to love carrying my black laptop backpack whenever I travel for meetings, as it reinforced the zealous architect look I was going for ala Bjarke Ingels and Micheal Rojskind.
Alas, time and strained shoulder blades and back muscle problems saw me buying for myself, a black professional (as in old timers) laptop and document bag on wheels and more in line with ala Kengo Kuma. I do resent the race of men at this moment, sloping around with their broader shoulders and stronger back muscles. It doesn’t even stop here. Instead of opting for my usual 16” laptop screen, I’ve opted for a 14”, but was given a 13” lightweight lappie to help reduce the weight of my document bag. Yes, the sands of time do trickle on. God forbid the day when I have to turn up at work wearing formal blazers, tailored shirts with cufflinks and polished leather pumps.
I am currently restocking my wardrobe as I have snapped out of denial and admitted to the 2 new kilos I have added on. I blame it on the two whole months of ambassadorial-ship I went through in March and April in UK and the vacation time I took in Europe. The thing is this, when everyone asked me what I wanted for breakfast, from the very first day of touching down in London, I said I wanted the usual English breakfast and was promptly given black pudding, toast with marmite, eggs sunny side up and bacon. At the sight of bacon, I yelped a great big cheer and asked them if it was PORK BACON. The mama and papa chef of the moment looked at me as if to say “Is there any other kind of bacon?” to which I quickly explained to them that Malaysia was an Islamic country very hard to find pork bacon even in hotels and please if you don’t mind can I have one more strip of fried crunchy death to high cholesterol bacon please please please? (and if any of you know the speed at which I can talk when I get really really excited, you can guess the chefs reaction to my gibberish)
So then it dawned on that the tiny Malaysian girl loved PORK BACON (they soon found out that tiny doesn’t equate to the noise level at all) and before I was handed over to the next county and brand new mama and papa chefs, they would be on the phone, exchanging National Geographic notes on Jessica’s (nobody would call me Jessy there, they kept insisting it was a boy’s name, how quaint is that?! I just love the Brits) sociological behaviour. Somewhere in the lecture notes would be Jessica LOVED HER PORK BACON for breakfast. Believe it or not, the in the opening lines of greeting me, would be “So I hear you love your pork bacon.” It got to a point that it became a running joke within our small 5 man ambassadorial team that I should be nick named Porkie instead.
It wasn’t just that strangers welcomed me with no prejudice into their homes and cooked for me, but some would go all the way out to stock up on bacon and REAL HOT COCOA for me. Yes, after finding out in the mornings I was easy to appease with real pork bacon (I cannot stop saying that line- REAL PORK BACON) I was easy to appease with REAL HOT CHOCOLATE at night before bedtime. It was a quaint match to their habit of having tea before bed. Lunch, I was left to the mercy of whichever firm I was with or whichever formal site visit and presentation venue I found myself at. To me, their kindness, hospitality and generosity were the highlight of my short stint. I don’t know if the life of an ambassador is one that I am cut out for, but it was a time in my life that I re-learned how easy it is to love people you’ve just met for three days, or on the spot, or for one afternoon. The smiles I gave away were as easy as the tears that flowed at the Manchester airport.
The sands of time trickle and I find myself growing more and more reclusive and wanting to be more alone. I think I spent a whole lot of time this year travelling, but also wandering in shopping malls, bookstores and cinemas alone, wanting no one to talk to but myself. So imagine, to my horror how easy it was to talk to so many Brits about my life and my personal experiences. The dogs and pets they kept constantly captivated me, and taking strolls in national parks became a social experiment. I would coo and gush at the dogs that were with their owners, take pictures and talk to the owners. It got to point when I was at a lighthouse point in Ulverston (the birth place of Arthur Stanley Jefferson, or more famously known as Stan Laurel of the Laurel and Hardy duo) with Mike and Charlotte Wells and we kept getting stopped by other dogs wanting me to take pictures with them. Mike and Charlotte got to know the entire dog owning county by the end of our two hour hike. Mike was grumbling good-naturedly at the meetings and coffee houses about my one thousand photos and catalogues of every dog in Lancashire.
I’ve learned about balance. I spent 30% of 2009 in an extremely moody persona to which RY could probably attest to (the amount of times that women keeps asking me to go out and the amount of times I told her I just wanted to stare at the rotating blades of my ceiling fan must have drove her insane). So when fate dealt me with a rejection in February (which added to my moody aura) I learned that fate deals you something better when one is patient and one month later I flew off for a whirlwind of experiences in the UK. I learned to listen to CT when she keeps telling me it wasn’t that I was not good enough, it’s just that I wasn’t right for the moment or job. I also learned that I can show up on time for presentations and official functions if I operated out of Malaysia.
But then again, everyone around me would probably say i lost my balance in the last quarter of the year. It’s been ages since i took a proper rest, instead of catching snoozes in taxis, plane rides and at my desk. Or more embarrasingly, next to my translater in the conferance room while he was trying to translate my power point.
Why Accrington Stanley WW asked me. Heh.
To explain my support for Accrington Stanley, my two day stint at Accrington and Rossandale saw me making friends with a man whose establishment is the main sponsor of the Football League 2 Accrington Stanley. He read from my blog about my visit to the Theatre of Dreams (ok, I admit, Ol Trafford is really small, but impressive in terms of stadium layout, spatial requirements and passive anti-riot measures) and my breakdown of what I was taking notes of, and he was trying to pull strings for me to get the some of the footie team (it was off season or something like that) to meet me and take me on a personal tour of the Accrington stadium (oh be still my beating drooling heart) and also to get me an autographed jersey. Although I didn’t get to tour the stadium grounds, but the behind the scenes thought and effort he tried to pull for me was really great, considering he only got to know me through my blog and for only two hours of chatting.
My footie adventure did not end there. Somewhere in the second week of my tour of duty, Jamie and I met Sir Tom Finney, who in his prime football days was considered the Eric Cantona of his time. Believe me (and I hear your ‘Sir Tom who?!), I wiki-ed him as soon as I got to an internet access. It’s true, I met a football legend with a heart of gold! I met him at the charity centre where I was doing my rounds, and turns out he was a big spokesperson for the centre. The very next morning, Paul Gaywood took me to the Preston National Football Stadium and Museum and lo and behold, I came face to face (and many digital photo snapshots later) a bronze statue of Sir Tom based on the infamous photo taken during one of his games. The bronze statue and water feature is entitled The Splash, named after the infamous photo in 1956 which was declared the Sports Photograph of the Year. Now, this is what I call real immortalisation.
Paul Gaywood. I’ve never met a man so charming in a Sherlock Holmes kind of way. He wore a tweed jacket with leather elbow patches and had an air of professorship about him. He was the president of his chapter of the Philatelic Society of UK. The depth that he could talk to me about history, postal routes and his side love of cartography made me feel that I need to find a passion just as great as his love for this often mistaken field that people call ‘stamp collecting’. He showed me with much pride of his valuable collections, and recalls tracing postal routes of the yonder days. The only thing that I was disappointed was that he didn’t smoke a pipe, or had a friend called Waston or wore a tweed cap, but made it up by being the owner of the most rounded belly collie named Molly.
I was asked the meaning of my Chinese name, and politely asked about his family name in return. He said he managed to trace it back to a really small village somewhere about in England called Gaywood. He explained that he knew his name Paul was from his grandfather and previous generations, and back then, people with skills often travelled from one village to the next offering their trade. So a very long time ago, a Mr. Paul decided to heave ho and skedaddle off his village for a small adventure, and pretty soon the travelling farrier or better known in England as blacksmiths; was known as Paul of Gaywood. And he knew this much information because when he chanced upon the village of Gaywood, he found a small chapel that acted as the village’s record keep. He went through musty books only to find the original person named Paul. A blacksmith.
How many of us truly know where we came from and how much do we know of it?
I’ve never thought much about the origins of my family name. I’m pretty sure somewhere in the clan there was at least one person who was in love with real pork bacon. A certain CEO (to be remained annon) named Lee (darn it!) once told me that he decided to trace the origins of his clan cause he thought there must be an important general in the family (from which he inherited his ‘natural leadership skills’ he self-mocked in jest) but all he got for his efforts was that he came from a long line of ……(drum roll)……… farmers. I burst out laughing uncontrollably in the restaurant as he grumbled about the time and money he used to trace his genealogy.
Sometimes we have to live with the fact that there isn’t a Genghis Khan in the family heritage.
And sometimes you have to live with the fact that no matter how much you don’t want to admit it, but your romanticism stems from generations of insane big gestured romantics. It’s a burden really. One walks around hating romantic comedies, love songs and dedication sessions on air but every so often when the moons are aligned one leaps into a great BIG GESTURE. It’s a terrible affliction, of most which gestures and thoughts I’ve come to regret. Ah, such is life
Over and Out
J
