Hey Big Spender; and other stories

Hey big spender
One thousand and five hundred bucks gone in less than a week. Granted, it was a series of long overdue, necessary spending, but the drastic dwindling of my bank account figure didn’t quite sit well in me.

Samsung, the jack of all trades but master of none
Precisely why I will never buy another Samsung. My Samsung external hard disk drive decided one day that it is not to be recognized by any Window computers. Six hundred and forty gigabyte worth of storage space gone, and everything inside, from songs and movies that I’ve been painstakingly downloading over the months but haven’t had the time to listen and watch, are irretrievable. Yes, Samsung is a reputable brand. They build ships, design chips, and manufacture TVs, but I think I’ll get a Western Digital hard disk next, which is more of a specialize brand.

Those strings of As
So recently the Malaysian high school leaving certificate (or whatever name it was called) result was announced. As usual, newspapers were plastered with pictures of a couple of disable students who “had overcome tremendous physical challenges and excelled with X amount of As”, a few students from poor rural areas “who despite poverty managed to score with flying colors”, a bunch of teenage boys tossing their friend (presumably the top scorer in the school) up in the air, a few drenched in tears over a certain elusive A. Government officers will, as usual, compare this year’s result with that of last year and the conclusion is, our students are better off this year. Yay. And of course, of course, this is a “testament that our country has world class education system”.

While I do respect people with disability or poor people overcoming adversity, excelling in an education system so rotten to the core, so deeply politicized, and more importantly, planned by a bunch of mediocre minds, is not something to be proud of.

While I am at it
While I am at it, my sister too, was a candidate of the examination, and she scored all As. Naturally, my mum, being my mum, has got to be part of it, along with my mum’s dad, whom I used to call grandfather, who immediately called up from his place to speak to my sister, which was really causing some slight guilt in me because the only reason he’s now all over my sister is because I am “always not at home” when he calls, to recollect my gestures to those who pick up the phone, or in the unfortunate event that I am at the receiving end of the call, I am always, you know, busy doing something and oh, gotta work, gotta hang up soon, okay thanks bye. The reason I’m doing this is because at every point of our conversation, he tried to figure out my salary numbers, create the perception that being a musician is demeaning, convince me that I really should be going to university and that I should be an accountant or engineer to have money. True, it is reasonable advise the first time one hears it, but he apparently lacked other issues to talk about such that I had began to avoid talking to him altogether.

Should I get a car?
I thought I shouldn’t, as I wrote on this blog before, thinking that instead of working towards a car, why don’t I work towards moving to another city/country, with better public transport system. But lately the urgent need for a car began to arise. I have work assignment in Bangsar regularly and I’m beginning to feel reluctant to commit to it. Bangsar is of course, a posh neighborhood and people prefer to commute in their Mercedes Benz than in a RapidKL bus.

The other day I took a train and had initially planned to take a cab to my final destination in Bangsar. THERE IS NO CAB. I ended up walking for about 2 km. Haven’t had dinner. It was cold and drizzling. And unfortunate for me, the topography was in a condition such that I have to walk uphill. Before I reach my destination, I had to sit at a nearby bus stop for a good 15 minutes to dry myself up before arriving at work. I don’t like the situation and I thought I was so pathetic. It’s like, going for rock climbing before going to work. And after I’m done, my dad came to pick me up. Naturally it hit my ego a bit, feeling like a failure for my dependency on him for transport. Should I get a car? Is it better to bite the bullet, shed the ego, and wait for a few month or maybe a year before I get the hell out of this place?

And you wonder why Malaysian art/music cannot flourish?
Look at the price of music equipments. I needed a midi controller to progress further on my music project. The one that I had my eyes on cost a whopping RM4000. And in other places, in US for instance, it was just US$700. Yes, the financial journals in the country has been all over the issue of Ringgit being the best performing currency in Asia against the greenback. It has appreciated to the level of US$1 = RM3. In that case, can I have that for RM2100? To be fair, the high price that I have to pay is a combination of several factors, but I just want to blame everything on the government. I’ve met many people who wanted to learn to play music instruments and the instrument cost is way more than their monthly salary. There is a serious issue of economics in this country. Inflation is kept artificially low, income levels are low, import duties are high, productivity is low, economy is slow, purchasing power virtually nil. So to those who manages the economy, f*** you.

I tried make up
Yes, on an occasion of aberration, I was seated before a make-up artist as he spread, rubbed, and brushed my face with whatever that he thought would give me a makeover. I must say, I looked.. awesome. I was quite please with the result. My skin looked absolutely flawless and my face had more depth. The danger of all this is, once I remove the makeup my self-esteem drop to a record low, my flaws, even if they are just as petty as some barely there acne mark, seemed so noticeable. As they say, (actually more like I made that up), once you put on make up, you’ll always want to have it on. And price of the make up kit for men was quite reasonable (look who’s talking) and needless to say I was tempted to reach out to my wallet. But I think I’ll focus on improving my skin condition and complexion for the moment to prepare my skin for the future stress applied (pun intended) by make up. My skin will need it.