Who Invented This Thing Called Tag?

100 TRUTHS

001. Real name : Caleb Ho
002. Nickname(s) : Carrot
003. Age : 17 (Ha! Ha!)
004. Zodiac sign : Aquarius
005. Male or female : Male
006. Elementary : Bunga Raya
007. Middle School : Sri Inai Klang
008. High School : ACS Klang
009. College : Hmm... where do I start?
010. Hair color : Or tau you
011. Long or short : Short
012. Loud or Quiet : Can be both.
013. Sweats or Jeans : Give me Levi's anytime!
014. Phone or Camera : Make every shot, a Powershot.
015. Health freak : Healthy - YES, Freak - NO.
016. Drink or Smoke? : Neither. I can't understand why people do either or both.
017. Do you have a crush on someone: Maybe...
018. Eat or Drink : Why choose either one when you can have both!
019. Piercings : Ugh!
020. Tattoos : Never thought of having one.
021. Social or Anti-Social : Super Social!
022. Righty or lefty : Righty

FIRSTS
023. First piercing : Never
024. First relationship : 25
025. First Best Friend : Joycey de Superior
026. First Award : Yamaha Kids Colouring Contest (First Prize) Hee hee!
027. First Kiss : Ooh... sensitive ni...
028. First Pet : A dog
029. First Big Vacation : Taiwan (when I was way too young to remember anything)
030. First Love at first sight : 1993
031. First Big Birthday : The one I can actually remember? 21
032. First Surgery : Never.
033. First sport you joined : Badminton

FAVOURITES
034. Orange or Apple juice : Apple (Funny how I don't like eating it but love drinking it)
035. Rock or Rap : Rock it baby!
036. Country or Screamo : Country
037. NSYNC or Backstreet boys : S.H.E. (Hah!)
038. Britney Spears or Christina Aguilera : Mandy Moore (Hah!)
039. Night or Day : We love come to come out at night... the stars all shine so bright...
040. Sun or Moon : Moon
041. TV or Internet : Internet
042. Playstation or xbox : You can PLAY on my STATION anytime baby!
043. Kiss or hug : Both
044. Iguana or turtle : Iguana-what?
045. Spider or bee : I'll take my chances of becoming Spiderman.
046. Fall or spring : Fall
047. Limewire or iTunes : Pasar malam pirated cd stall.
048. Soccer or baseball : Liverpool

CURRENTLY
049. Eating : Air.
050. Drinking : My saliva.
051. Excitement level : 6/10
052. I'm about to : go to bed once I'm done with this.
053. Listening to : Wang Lee-Hom
054. Plans for today : Class... class... class...
055. Waiting for : my one true love.
056. Energy level : 5/10
057. Thinking of someone : Yes... very much...

IN FUTURE
058. Want to get married? : Must I?
059. When : Perhaps 4 years from now.
060. Want kids? : A little scared.
061. How many? : Maybe 2?
062. Any names in mind? : Ho Leng Chai and Ho Leng Lui
063. What did you want to be when you were a kid?: Hollywood actor
064. Careers in mind : I already have one.
065. Mellow future or wind : What wind? Wind from your ass? No thanks!
066. Something you would never try: Smoking and commiting suicide (which is basically the same thing, really)
067. When do you want to die? : After I've done my part and enjoyed the best things in life.

IDEAL GIRL
068. Lips or eyes : Eyes
069.Romantic or Funny : Romantic
070. Shorter or taller? : Shorter
071. Protective or Caring : Caring
072. Romantic or spontaneous : Spontaneous
073. Nice stomach or nice arms : Both please.
074. Sensitive or loud : Sensitive
075. Hook-up or relationship : Relationship
076. Trouble maker or hesitant : Neither please.
077. Muscular or normal: Normal lah of course! Who would ever want somebody abnormal?

HAVE YOU EVER...
078. Kissed a stranger : Tak de
079. Broken a bone : No
080. Lost glasses/contacts : Don't wear either (but I've lost tons of other stuff. Haha!)
081. Ran away from home : Nope
082. Held a gun/knife for self defense : Hopefully never.
083. Killed somebody : Does imagining it count?
084. Broken someone's heart : Sigh... yes.
085. Had your heart broken : Sigh... yes.
086. Been arrested : Never
087. Cried when someone died : Surely the human heart cries.
088. Liked a friend more than a friend : Oh my... bad memories...

DO YOU BELIEVE IN
089. Yourself : Yeah
090. Miracles : Yes
091. Love at first sight : Not too sure if you can call it 'love'.
092. Heaven : Yes
093. Santa Claus : What? Do you think I'm a kid?
094. Sex on the first date : Hmm... sounds interesting. Haha!
095. Kissing on the first date : This is a tough one...
o96. Angels : Yes

ANSWER TRUTHFULLY (So, I've been lying all along?)
097. Is there one person you want to be with right now : Yes.
098. Are you seriously happy with where you are in life :Yes
099. Do you believe in God : Yes
100. Post as 100 truths and tag 10 people : This is not a question.

TAGGED by Bev and it ends here. Haha!

In Rememberance

Last Friday, I did something which I'd not done for a long time - go to church. Over the years, I've somehow lost the desire to go to church and I really don't know why. I do believe. I just can't practise the habit of going to church every Sunday morning.

As I remember Jesus' sacrifice on Good Friday, I can't help but remember my beloved grandparents who were also Christians. Grandma especially, was a faithful believer and I used to admire her habit of going to church every Sunday morning; even when she was very old.

I go back to my dad's hometown every year for Ching Ming and re-unite with my relatives but this year was special. Somehow, my family managed to convince my dad to follow us back to Tanjung Malim. He doesn't like to travel long distances because of his illness and he's not been back to his hometown for 5 years. So, it's especially meaningful that he went back this year.

Borrowing from my student, Jia Yin's trademark phrase on her blog, "Let the photos do the talking."

I drove my family back to my dad's hometown late Saturday morning as we wanted to avoid the crowd. This is the grand overhead bridge at Sabak Bernam, just before turning into Tanjung Malim.

One thing I love about going back to Tanjung Malim is the grand view of mountains and beautiful cloud-filled sky. It gives me that authentic 'kampung' feeling and the breath of fresh air, away from polluted city air.

My grandparents' not so 'kampung' house. It's actually a nice old-fashioned semi-d house with a huge open balcony on the upper floor. We used to shoot 'rockets' into the sky from the balcony during Chinese New Year.

Standing in the garden of my grandparents' house. These were planted by my grandma many years ago.

The neighbourhood playground which my cousins and I used to play at, all those years ago... it looks so empty and quiet now without us.

At the cemetery, preparing to clean and decorate grandpa and grandma's graves with sunflowers and daisies.

My grandparents' graves are among the handful of Christian graves in the cemetery.

Helping to cut the flower stems to make them shorter so the flowers will fit nicely into the vases.

A stalk of daisies on grandpa's grave, laid with our memories and thanksgiving prayers.

After a sun-soaked afternoon at the cemetery, my uncle took us to this new restaurant which serves pretty good dishes. Here you can see, (clockwise from the top) sweet and sour wine vinegar pork ribs, pork with yam and 'kangkung belacan'. The tom yam steamed fish and steamed tofu arrived later.

After lunch, we rested at our grandparents' house. By evening, my uncle and I drove my cousins and siblings to nearby Proton City to visit the beautiful man-made lake.

The Ho cousins 'bai leng-ing' on the bridge over the man-made lake at Proton City.

On our way back to town from the lake, we passed by the famous Yik Mun pau restaurant. The pau here became famous many years ago (some said even the sultan used to buy pau from here). However, that was many, many years ago. Today, Yik Mun paus are no longer as good as they were before. Since they stopped hand-making them and used machines, the pau quality has dropped. Strangely enough, Malays still love to eat the pau here as they are halal, although they are made by a Chinese!

Once we reached the old town, my cousins and I headed for the night market. I haven't visited the 'pasar malam' in Tanjung Malim for many, many years and was surprised to see the modernisation of the stalls. Just check out the pizza oven here operated by a Malay pizza stall!

Check out the modern kebab-grilling machine. Canggih betul sial! The Malay pizza stall I mentioned earlier is behind me, complete with the Italian national colours on their menu.

I found this hilarious! 'KENAPA TAK PERCAYA'! I bought 5 pieces of my favourite crispy 'apam balik' and told the Malay girl, "Saya percaya." Then she laughed! Haha!

My brother noticed this strange phenomenon and pointed it out to me. It seems the people in Tanjung Malim like to throw rubbish just like every other Malaysian but amazingly, they like to arrange the rubbish neatly by the roadside! We should learn from them! Wakakaka!

I couldn't help buying my favourite fruit - mangoes! Here, they were selling them for only RM 5 for 2 kg. That's cheap man!

My cousins and I made one last stop at the 'pisang goreng' stall before going home. You can see how happy we were with all the food we bought. I hope it's this fun every time I go back to Tanjung Malim.

(All photos courtesy of Timothy)

A Fool In April

Today was the first day where I would have to face those four empty chairs in front of my Form 5 class... and as I found out a few days ago, yet another chair would remain empty in the corner.

I've had enough with the 'down' days. It's time to go 'up' in spirits and what better way to do it than celebrate April Fool's Day! Being an adult who's last school prank came more than 10 years ago, it's safe to say, I'm a little rusty when it comes to spotting pranks coming my way. Who'd have known I'd fall prey just 10 minutes into April Fool's Day? (Shaun Lee! I'll get you one day!) :p Then, the first call I got in the morning at 10 was another shocker! (Ng Jon Theng! I'll get you one day!) :p

I tried my best to avoid being fooled but got fooled anyway; and quite easily too. The worst was when I got fooled in class and it came so unexpectedly (Bruce Lee! I'll get you one day!) :p The mood in class after that was quite funny 'cause I kept being on guard against any question or comment my students would make. It was a very 'dangerous' day in class! Nevertheless, it was great fun indeed.

Later that night, after my last class ended, I decided to fool two of my closest 'heng tai'. Unfortunately, one took the joke mildly while the other didn't take the joke too well. Maybe I caught them at a busy time or they were tired after a long day at work but it's sad that adults seem to lose their sense of humour as they grow older. Call it stress or whatever but I think a healthy dose of humour goes a long way in making sure you don't grow into a grumpy old person.

Feeling dissatisfied, I decided to trick some of my older students whom I didn't teach today. I wasn't sure if my pranks would prove successful at first but one by one, they fell for my pranks. It was such a fun and satisfying moment as I called them up and texted them. Hearing and reading their responses of "Teacher! You ah..." and "Wahlao A teacher..." simply cracked me up! My victims were quickly adding up. Muahahaha! Some were totally cool however (Chang Mein Yie, you are good!) ;) Sure I got fooled by some of them in return (Khoo Kiat Yap! I'll get you one day!) :p but most importantly, none of them were angry with me. Even one of my students, whom I truly apologise to for waking her up, didn't show her temper. It made me think again of the difference between teenagers and adults...

Does growing old really have to mean we become serious and lose our sense of humour? Has stress at the workplace and monetary burdens robbed us of our ability to laugh? What happened on the way to adulthood that made us such boring creatures? I shudder to think that I'm an adult myself but I guess it's my good fortune and great blessing that I'm surrounded by teenagers who truly know how to be happy.

Meanwhile, I'd better brace myself for some in-coming rockets from my students tomorrow. Hmmm... maybe I'll just cancel class.