The Last Chat?

Okay, I've finally done with my finals, killed one paper on last Friday and another one on Tuesday. Seeing that I've already done the best I could, I can now RIP (jkjk). Though I have no regrets, I don't really have confidence that I would get what I've been hoping for. Anyway, there's nothing else for me to do already, let's just wait and see what result would I be getting after, 2-3 months from now? Sigh.. I'm killing my time now blogging instead. As the title suggests, I'm not sure if there is a chance for us to catch-up in the future, thus I find it a need to at least TRY to remember some conversations that we shared. 

This post involves three persons whom I mentioned in my previous post:

Part I: TL

Part II: DC

Part III: Sky

Part I: TL

I was kind of down right after my finance paper in the morning. Ya, I was one of them who had the highest course-work marks, yet I wasn't confident enough to score an A for this paper. I scored the second highest in course-work marks too for my Marketing last semester, but I ended up with a B+. So I guess, I kinda have some phobia now, afraid that my performance during the 2hr10min duration wasn't good enough to achieve what I've been aiming for. When I received a SMS from him, which suggested to meet up right after my paper, I really wasn't in any mood to meet anyone. It was thus postponed to 3pm.

Our initial plan was to go for Tutti Fruity (ya, he owed me that). When we arrived, the yogurt machines were undergoing some maintenance which would probably end one-and-a-half hour later. He suggested some other places to hangout, including Baskin-Robbin, Alamanda and Ice-Room. I opted for the last one because it's the nearest and, he had to leave by 6pm. I ordered some peanut-flavour shaved-ice while he ordered a pot of Jasmine tea.

Sorry, my photography skill sucks.

The conversation started off as that of an informal interview, whereby, I asked him questions and he answered me. The scope basically covered his internship and his current relationship with his GF, MT. Well, as he promised to tell me everything I wish to know, means, I have all the right to ask anything I want! XD So, I quickly pulled out my notebook and got myself ready to write what he was going to say. 

First of all, his internship. His resumes had been sent out to ten companies and all ten of them offer him a position, some of which want him to work as a permanent staff. These ten companies, ranging from diversified conglomerates, accounting firms, companies from automobile industry, electronic industry as well as FMCG (Fast Moving Consumer Goods) industry, offer him a monthly salary of MYR 600 to MYR 10, 000. It sounds insane right? Tell me 'bout it. I've always known him as an outstanding and outspoken person who is capable of performing beyond expectations despite of the adverse stress and environment. Thus, I wasn't surprised, neither did I gulp, I nodded and jotted down on my note book because, deep down inside, I know he does deserve the salary offered. However, he didn't choose any one of them, he chose to work for INTI parent's company instead. His reasoning was, "They pay me too much, I want lesser." See how "sarcastic" he is?

So, I went on and "interrogated" him about his GF, MT. She had a crush on him when she was in Form 2 (she is three years younger than him). Both of them experienced two break-ups and thus, both have a common goal, not to hurt anyone and don't want to be hurt. Since last year May, they have been chatting with one another to "test-the-water" and one year later, which was two months back, they officially engaged in a relationship. He told me how she surprised him with two birthday celebrations and how he surprised her on her birthday. Though he told me quite a lot of things about her, I find three things which I failed to understand.

(i) He said they had been "testing-the-water" since last year. Why did he still "flirt" with me last semester as if he "intended" to salvage the so-called "relationship" then? If you are "testing-the-water", doesn't it mean that, you are interested on that person, wish to know more about that person thus proceed to "testing-the-water"? Since he was already halfway testing-the-water, why did he come and mess up with me? Fine, I admit, I was a bit indecisive that time, BUT nothing really happened okay? Everything is back to square-one now. (ii) He bought a super-duper-huge teddy bear for her birthday, which she named him as Tommy. It's exactly the same bear he bought me for my birthday last year, which I named him as Yuen Yuen. The only difference is that, T doesn't have a scarf around his neck but YY does. YY is under his custody now, means, whatever happened to him has nothing to do with me already. I actually asked him to give it to someone else but he didn't. Isn't it better to get rid of everything which would remind him of me? Yet, he rather spent another round of money to get a new bear. I know, giving current GF a gift returned by an "ex-GF" isn't really appropriate, but it does help to save the money right? (iii) I said, "I'm sure M is nothing like me right? Please tell me that, you don't see any of my shadow in her." His eyes gazed away, contemplated for a while, and said, "She is very much like the old you." I mean, c'mon, he dates a girl who resembles me? Why? Since he knows that "my-type" of girl is not suitable for him, why is he dating the same type of girl again? He went on and said, "Actually, she reminds me a lot of you." I was like, WTH?!!

What happened to guys nowadays? He is already in a relationship now with a GF, can't he be loyal to her? The moment when he said he still has feelings for me, I was like, "Does M know about it?" He said yes, and went on telling me what she told him about her principle on love. I mean, I don't care what principles they both holding to, the last thing I want, would be ruining others' relationship. He is my god-bro, of course he loves me and I understand that. But when he said he loves me more than a bro? Eh, that's too ridiculous! I have already got myself prepared to see this as our last conversation before he went off for internship. When he said he wishes to ask me out to chat again in the near future, I firmly rejected it. He should know the reason behind, okay? He reminds me of JC, who confessed to me when he is in, wait, I'm not sure is that a "testing-the-water" phase or an official relationship. C'mon, he is already in a relationship, what for asking "what-if"? He has a GF already, be loyal to her lar! I'm wondering, what has really happened to guys nowadays? Only when they are in a relationship/new relationship, will they realize that they have/still have feelings for another girl/ex-GF? Why can't they appreciate what they have now? If they really can't, what for engaging in a new relationship then? Here goes the saying, "Appreciate what you HAVE, until it makes you realized what you HAD."

I should have asked him on the spot right? But there is this thing with my brain that, whenever it comes to issues like these, it takes longer time to digest and analyse. Even my subjects, regardless theory parts or calculation parts also, it takes me relatively longer time to understand and apply. What more on personal matters which involve emotions and feelings? Sometimes, I really wish to upgrade my "processor" just so I wouldn't look like a dump when trying to figure things out (ya, I really do look like one when my face is blank, emotion-less and really into thinking of the reasoning). I really wish that whatever he told me, about his feelings for me and how MT reminds him of me and all, are just mere words which he made-up. Anyway, I guess guys nowadays are way too expert in multi-tasking between people already. They both have really enlightened me. Oh, some of you may think that my personal life sounds so messy and complicated and may even judge me. Just, judge all the way you want, okay? By all means, it's your right and I have no say in it. However, please bear in mind that, you are not me, you don't have a fair share of how did/do I really feel like. 

Part II: DC

He had been asking me out for dinner since last week, as in, before my Law paper but to no avail. However, seeing that this is his last semester here in INTI, I'll see it as some sort of simple farewell dinner then. Besides, look at the plus point, he promised to treat me for anything which I would order, no limits. Ha

So, we went to Aunty Aini's at 7pm, one of the famous restaurants in Nilai which offers mouth-watering food, including local and western food in her garden-like environment. I've been craving for rendang and would really like to try it out there (Note: Rendang is a type of Malay traditional food in gravy form). For your information, a British food-show hosted by Gordan Ramsay paid a visit there before to learn the recipe for rendang, and thus, I was so determined to try it. However, we arrived there only to find out that the restaurant has been fully occupied. Is it because of Ramadhan, thats why more people than ever went there to "buka puasa"? (Note: It means Muslims are now allowed to eat after fasting for one day) Or is it because of the TV show that the restaurant is now more famous than ever? Ishh

Link: Gordon Ramsay gets schooled by Malaysian aunty

We had to change our plan and went to Windmill. I ordered an ordinary chicken chop with black pepper sauce while he ordered some beef steak (if not mistaken), a bowl of mushroom soup and a lemon tea. While waiting for the food, the conversation started. At first, he was kind of shy to ask me about my personal life. Not what you think, okay. It wasn't much on my relationship but rather more of a friendship kind of talk. May be he thought that I would be reluctant to share my story with him that's why he didn't know how to actually start asking me? Though it started off pretty awkward, things were going on fine after.

He was curious on my friendship with my usual gang of friends. He knows about them, I mean, I had been with my gang ever since degree-year-one. Only from this semester onward, everything doesn't really seemed like making sense to him. He went on retrospecting from the beginning of the semester, how I took the initiative to talk to him on the first day of class, chose to sit with him on the second row in the class throughout the semester, how I "abandoned" one of my "ex-gang friend" to join his group for the group assignment and all. He wanted to know, what had really happened actually. Taken in a deep breath, I answered him, "道不同，不相为谋". It basically means, two men with different way of life can't get along.

This particular gang that I used to join, their way of life is different. How should I put it? Hmm, to them, they see this final year as something to behold in the future. When all of us graduated, it would be difficult to catch up seeing that everyone would be pursuing their dreams in different part of the country/world. So, their thinking is that, they should make full use of the time left to create memories. They went to hangout at places with great food, chatting, bonding and taking photos, stick with one another almost all the time, as if they will never meet again after our graduation. To me, final year is the only last chance to salvage whatever left, is the critical stage to do whatever I could to get what I want. I know my weaknesses, one of which is time management skills. If I were to join them for all the "food-trips", there is a huge possibility to flunk my studies, which is the last thing I want now. I'm not saying that bonding with friends ain't important, I'm saying that, it's not my current top priority. A wise man once said, "Time management is not really about managing time, its about managing your priorities". And I've never been clearer what my priority is at this moment.

There is this course mate named MY, a "banana" (Note: We call a Chinese banana when he/she can't speak mandarin) who is a year elder than me. She is a brilliant student who always scores among the highest for almost every subject. That's why more and more people starting to flock around her, in hopes to either improve their English or to catch up their course-work marks. Whenever there is a group assignment, the group members will always make her the group leader. I had been in the same group with her for some group assignments back then. But when I realize that, she will always be the group leader, I started to feel differently. I mean, everyone deserves to be the group leader, right? Everyone deserves to have the chance to train up their leadership skills, aren't I right? Why is she the one always gets to be the leader? Just because she scores higher marks, that's why making her the leader symbolizes higher possibility to score high marks for assignments? Frankly speaking, what I felt, was some kind of unfair treatment. Not that I was jealous or something. It has absolutely nothing to do with jealousy, its just that, I'm not a person who succumbs to whatever situation/environment that I don't find it in my favour. For that, I made a drastic move.

Last semester, I was the group leader for International Marketing assignment. I joined one of my seniors whom I added in FB (but didn't really chat before) and two of his friends. I would say, all there of them were kind of a stranger to me because, I didn't know anything about them. But you know what? Our assignment got the highest in the class. For my International Trade Law this semester, I had TL and this senior, MJ with me. MJ was determined to group with me because he admires my leadership, he wants to score for the course work as well. And you know what? Our assignment scored the highest as well, the only assignment which scored A. As for my friend, MY, her group assignment which consisted of four members (one member more than mine), scored only 66. I'm not saying that assignment without me as the leader can't score. I wasn't the group leader for my International Trade Finance (ITF) assignment, but we managed to score an A for it too. See? What I'm saying here is, everyone deserves a chance to follow, as well as to lead. No one shall forever be a follower, that's what I learnt from my IFT group leader. From my opinion, the success of leadership depends on the cooperation from the group members as well, especially their attitude towards accomplishing the tasks assigned. I'm glad that I have awesome group members who showed adequate, and at times, extraordinarily high degree of commitment as well as responsibility. It's indeed my pleasure to be able to work with different kind of people and had them in my group. :)

After I've done with my part of the "justifications" for my recent so-called "not-making-sense" behaviour, he had his fair share of the conversation. He told me a lot about Jack The Ripper (JTR), some maniac series killer back in the 1800's. He has this kind of interest in searching for places "worth visiting", all of which are those horror places. He said, he wants to visit all the places where the victims of JTR were murdered. He went on and described me eight victims of JTR, their names, where were they murdered and HOW were they murdered. According to him, JTR usually pulled out their insides, such as liver, lungs, and especially large intestines from the victims, either put at the side, as in nicely arranged, or brought them with him (I guess), because when police arrived, their couldn't find their insides. JTR had this exquisite talent in cutting out the visceral organ in no time, exactly precise to their shapes, and, peeling off their skin from neck to toes are nothing worth to be surprised. Besides, JTR, he talked about Ireland, about this particular place where the church buried the bodies. It looks like some kind of dungeon, but the interesting part is that, though all the bodies buried were not in coffins, they don't smell. There isn't any air-ventilation machine or anything, no matter how the bodies decomposing, you can't smell anything, which you usually do, over the dead corpses. So yeah, this is one of the places that he wishes to visit. *freaky wey*

Well, when I go for lunch or dinner with my friends, it usually takes one, or one-and-a-half hours to be the most, but this? We were there for two hours. Haha. Really enjoyed the stories that he shared with me.

Part III: Sky

He came back yesterday to collect his graduation gown for his convocation which will be held on this Sunday. I know I wouldn't be able to make it to his convo, so I insisted to have lunch with him. It seems like forever since we last talked. He has been working for his father and always has no time to chat with me over FB. Thus, we had a lot to talk about over lunch.

Unlike my two previous conversations, this one sounds more like talking about life. Few days back, I shared a post on his FB wall, regarding working in Singapore. Because I heard that he was planning to work there, so I kinda wanted to hear his opinion on this. Who knows, he questioned me instead and said, "Eh, its not easy for me to be determined to go there okay? Why are you sharing this with me? You made me hesitated about my decision now." I was like, "It's not that I intend to influence your decision, sharing is caring what. Just wanted you to think properly only, nothing much." If you are curious what has being written in the post, you may click on the link below (but its a Chinese passage).

Link: Is it a good choice to work in Singapore?

Basically, I kind of repeated what I told DC the other day, when he asked me how is my life going on. But this time was different, instead of plain sharing, I questioned him my doubts. I mean, ya, the reason why I couldn't get along with my usual gang is because we have different way of life, our thinking is different, our life plan is different. But what I'm curious about is that, they are my peers, aren't they going through what I've been going through all these while? Didn't they question themselves before, what does our life mean, what is the purpose of our life, what do we want to do to leave an impact on others, who we wanna be and how we gonna achieve that and many many more. I mean, our lives can't be just meant for studying, working, eat, work and sleep right? It gonna be more than that right? 

Actually, I kinda envious one of my friends back in foundation. It was a business class, and the chapter discussed about vision, mission, goal and objective. The lecturer said, instead of following the syllabus and discuss about corporates' vision and all, why not we talked about ours? She asked all of us to think about our life, what is our goal, what do we want to achieve in life. Of course, there were people who talked about their ambitions, be it being an accountant, broker, financial planner, some of whom talked about their dream to retire before the retirement age and all, which I would say, ya, all these sounded like goal of life. But there was this student, named Yeoh, who said, "When I died, I want people to remember me." I mean, okay, the answer was out of ordinary, it wasn't in any of our expectation, I would say. May be that wasn't really a goal of life, but more of a guideline towards being the person who he wants to be. It means, what should he do to leave an impact on others' life. Is it by sabotaging people, or by helping and motivating people? What kind of role is he playing in this world? We were only 18 back then, but his thinking has already far more mature than anyone of us, even the lecturer was surprised to hear him said so.

Though recently, especially in my final year of degree only I started to think about all these life issues, started questioning myself everything, my self-principle, my limits, my potentials, my interests, my directions and all, I would say, "late is always better than never". Though I started late, at least I've started. Sky looked unbelievable to see me talking about life, because all these while, he sees me as a little child, well, part of the reasons would be the way I behave, I guess. Because, I could be very childish and naive at times. But when I bombarded him about everything which has been bothering me, he said, "its easier said than done". Meaning to say, even you manage to develop your own life principles, then what? How do you know they worth holding on to? How do you know your so-called "principles" will bring you to greater heights instead of pulling your legs? You have not been to the world out there, you have been overly protected by your parents from exploring yourself, how do you know your principles will bring you good than bad? 

I would say, our conversation was relatively more mature than the previous two. He helps me think. Ya, probably because he is three years elder than me, what he has been through has certainly brought an impact to his life and his way of thinking. Being able to talk about such topic has really enlightened my view. Well, of course, he is not the only one who has been helping me all along the way. That's why, as what I've always said, I'll be forever grateful to have met them in my life. Well, let's put this aside first, I'm supposed to talk about my last chat with him. So yeah, only after my brain fused, we put the conversation to an end. Erm, he treated me lunch. Hehe. Then we went to Popular and bought some books. He bought the Chinese version of "The Five People You Meet in Heaven", while I bought myself two novels. Hopefully I could finish reading them during my semester break instead of watching dramas. Haha.

I said I wanted my head to look smaller,
so he is willing to be the "big-head-guy".. Haha..

Part IV: A Last Minute Thoughts

Ya, I never intended to write this but few days back, I read a post from my friend, the one who "challenged" me to have a blog of my own. And I realized, she was having some life issues too. I mean, its normal for people at our age to start thinking like an adult. Wait, we ARE an adult now, and that's why we have to start behaving like one, I guess. I commented on her post to motivate her. She is a bit like me, I used to be a negative person as well. But I'm not too sure what happened to me that I'm not very much the old me now. FYI, the old me afraid to be alone. I always hope that I'm surrounded by friends, eat together, sit together in the class, be in the same group for assignment and all. If my friends were lazy to go for some talks given by speakers from huge corporate, I wouldn't attend too. But the current me is different. If they don't, I will go alone. Why should I give them the power to influence my decision? This is my life and I will do what I want! Just because I'm alone, doesn't mean that I'm lonely. I know I have my family and a bunch of TRUE friends who have been there for me and always will. So, why should I care about what others see me as? Why should I follow others when I can pave my own path? 

My dear bestie, you need a dream and there is no need to follow others' footsteps. Do what you want and be who you wanna be. Nothing comes easy. Most importantly, be determined, think positive, have faith in yourself and never give up! We will go through this together. We will find out who we really wanna be in the future and thus, you are not alone! I hope what I said would be of help to you. Wishing you all the best, okay? Be strong! :)

'Till next post, cheers :D