Marsha Maung:: Freelance graphic designer and writer

I know I’ve like disappeared from the face of the earth or something. I know, bad girl, bad girl. But I have not.

Am busy trying to concentrate on staying alive. Trying toggle between washing, cleaning, bathing, feeding, cooking, working, watching my favourite TVB series of all times, and STILL remember to breathe!

But I received an email from my cousin (Jamie) with the following and thought it was pretty funny.

Indeed, as you will see (if you have not seen this before), English is so damn easy!!!

Thanks, Jamie!!

***

Fill in the following blank with "Yes" or "No"

______ , I don't have a BRAIN.

I was reading the papers today (which is rare because I think newspaper is a bearer of bad news) and read something that struck me as ironic. Remember the song ‘ironic’ by Alanais Morisette some eons ago? That song about how you find a fly in your Chardonay, rain on your wedding day, a man who was afraid to die die in his first plane ride…etc?

Well, today, a cancer patient died on his way to the hospital. It’s probably like God telling him, “Hey, here’s a gift from me to you. Die quickly instead of slowly”.

Cancer, as we know, is a very slow and cruel killer. If one was to die, one would rather it be quick and relatively painless. Well, for it to be completely painless would have to mean that you die when you’re already dead. Make sense? No? Too bad. But the thing is that if human beings had a choice between dying of cancer or dying in a car accident, I suppose many would rather die in a car accident. Choi Kor Lei Tai Kat Lai See (Cantonese Touch Wood)…I know.

But suppose this man had a chance to live? I wonder what the report would say after the checkup? Would the doctor say, “Mr. so-and-so, sorry but we made a really stupid mistake. There’s nothing wrong with you. The report we gave you belongs to someone else”.

But I guess we’ll never know now since he’s dead before he made it for the checkup. Ironic, eh?

His name was Fleming, and he was a poor Scottish farmer. One day, while trying to make a living for his family, he heard a cry for help coming from a nearby bog. He dropped his tools and ran to the bog.

There, mired to his waist in black muck, was a terrified boy, screaming and struggling to free himself. Farmer Fleming saved the lad from what could have been a slow and terrifying death.

The next day, a fancy carriage pulled up to the Scotsman's sparse surroundings. An elegantly dressed nobleman stepped out and introduced himself as the father of the boy Farmer Fleming had saved.

"I want to repay you," said the nobleman. "You saved my son's life."

"No, I can't accept payment for what I did," the Scottish farmer replied waving off the offer. At that moment, the farmer's own son came to the door of the family hovel.

"Is that your son?" the nobleman asked.

"Yes," the farmer replied proudly.

"I'll make you a deal. Let me provide him with the level of education my own son will enjoy. If the lad is anything like his father, he'll no doubt grow to be a man we both will be proud of." And that he did.
Farmer Fleming's son attended the very best schools and in time, graduated from St. Mary's Hospital Medical School in London, and went on to become known throughout the world as the noted Sir Alexander Fleming, the discoverer of Penicillin.

Years afterward, the same nobleman's son who was saved from the bog was stricken with pneumonia.

What saved his life this time? Penicillin.

The name of the nobleman? Lord Randolph Churchill. His son's name?

Sir Winston Churchill. 
  
What goes around comes around.
Work like you don't need the money.
Love like you've never been hurt.
Dance like nobody's watching.
Sing like nobody's listening.

Forget the mandarin oranges, they stink up a car or lift. Forget the ang pows, they’re nothing but $2 worth of red paper meant to be thrown away, anyway. Forget about the cakes and cookies, they make you fat.

Now, lion dances…. THAT’s what Chinese New Year is all about. I don’t know whether I’ve written about lion dances before or not…like last Chinese New Year but every year, they awe me. These young blokes dressed in tight shirts, long baggy pants looking all prancy and loose are something. They’re really something.

The Lion Dance dates as far back as the Ching and Haan Dynasties and they are performed to bring ward off the evil, bring good luck, prosperity, health and happiness to the people who gather around to ‘ooh’ and ‘aah’ at them. I have to admit that I am one of those who gasp when they perform something tricky. I am also one of those who clap loudly and cheer like a kid when their leap is as high as a two-storey building! No kidding. I mean, my sister-in-law was telling me that last year, the front guy into the air and the head of the lion hit the bottom of the second floor bridge and both fell off the poles. But thanks to their Kung-Fu training, they know, better than anyone else, how to FALL properly.

The grace and agility of those lion dancers are absolutely magnificent. There’s nothing easy about the way they leap from one pole to another, balancing like a ballerina (only more masculine, rougher and faster) crouch and STILL remembering to move those ears and eyes. A lion dance is more than just a display of agility and strength. It’s drama too. The lions express fear, apprehension, anxiety, happiness, jubilance and anger. The lion dancers skillfully and artfully control the lion’s actions without forgetting where to jump to next.

Many people were busy throwing ang pows at the lions and picking up mandarins when I saw a few of the troop members come up with extra boxes of mandarins behind the dancer on the back. They were running out of mandarins to throw out. So, these members pass the oranges to the back person and the back person passes it on to the front person. And the front person throws the mandarins out of the lion’s mouth!

And did you know that there are different types of lion dances? I didn’t but I DID notice that some lions are different.

<the Southern Lion> 

The Southern Lion Dance and the Northern Lion Dance. I personally like the Southern Lion Dance better. Although it’s not more realistic but because of the way the lion is shaped and designed (with as few restrictions to movement as possible), the performance is always more amazing! The Southern Lion may ‘look’ more realistic (I don’t know about that – I’ve never SEEN a dragon before, have I?) but the Northern Lion merely prances around and is often have limited capabilities. And they’re just not as pretty.

 <To the right, the Northern Lion>

My favorite part of the whole Lion Dance performance is usually the time when the Lion is trying to grab (albeit, eat) the choy cheng. That’s the payment for the lion dance, by the way. For those who are unfamiliar, among all those poles, one of them has some vegetables and red packet containing money (payment for the performance) in it. The Lion will take the payment by ‘eating’ the vegetable (and the payment). Hee hee! But that’s not what I am interested in. I am more intrigued by the drama that leads to the ‘eating’. The Lion will climb the poles and see the ‘chow cheng’. And then approaches the ‘choy cheng’ very carefully and apprehensively. Many times, the lion will stop and look around, wonder if it’s safe or not to take the ‘choy cheng’. It will hesitate, look around, turn around, jump back, come forward again…etc, just to be sure that the ‘choy cheng’ is safe to take. And then the Lion will perform a very special ‘3 star’ routine to be sure that no one is there to take the choy cheng from it, ward off others who may be nearby and then grab the ‘choy cheng’.

Such drama. I love it!! There’s one at my new condo tomorrow. I won’t miss it for the world.

Things I learnt after moving out of the safe confines of in-laws’ home and my own home.

1. When using plastic gloves to wash dishes, you lose the use of your touch (feel) faculty. Use eyes when washing dishes.

2. Dust is not only on your PC. Dust is EVERYWHERE.

3. Ants are hateful creatures. Worse than vultures! And worse yet, they are also very vengeful. Kill one hundred of their brothers (or sisters), a thousand of their kind will come raid your kitchen and dustbins. Thankfully, ants are not very smart creatures. They don’t know and can’t remember what a mortein (insect killer) can looks like.

4. It takes so painfully long to cook, and very short time to eat (spill, throw, stuff in fridge)

5. Each component in a cuisine (albeit dish) is delicately handcrafted by an art master. Read: Have to cut carrot, potato, onion, garlic, vegetable, and whateverelsethereisinthedumbdish each one individually one meh? Cannot cut all at one go?? Someone should design something like this.

6. There’s a very important reason why knives are made sharp – they CUT!!! Wash and use carefully.

7. Clothes don’t wash, dry, fold and return themselves to closet without human intervention

8. The toilet don’t flush, wash and clean itself. Keep soap at safe height.

9. One can actually get bored of canned food. (amazing discovery here. I thought we could actually feed the kids canned food until they are 18)

10. Food doesn’t grow in fridges and freezers.

Book Review: Demon Seed

Let me start this book review by saying that I am a Dean Koontz fan. I used to be hardcore, but ever since having my kids, I dropped the Koontz books and opted for Miriam Stoppard instead. But now my kids are a little bit more independent, I am back to Koontz. Now, the book….Demon Seed, eh?

Hhmmm…an artificial intelligence program gone awry. A psychopathic, maniacal computer malfunctioning causing mayhem within the house that it (he) controls. A woman spending her life trapped and abused by men…and then now, a computer (also a man, it seems to believe).

I admit, the concept of a psychopathic computer trying to manipulate the feeble human race is nothing new. There has been movies and books…and songs written about it. The concept itself is intriguing – although at times laughable, I assure you. But it’s all in good fun. You’ve just got to leave everything behind, logic, facts, doubts, everything behind. Pretend you’re not smart at all.

Demon Seed is indeed revolutionary by virtue of the fact that the book was first published when I was born…(that’s 1973, by the way) and when I was born, the smartest computer probably weighed about 10 tons! So, for Dean Koontz to write something like this in complete detail is probably quite a bit of a challenge. But Dean Koontz rewrote it in 1997, 20 years later, adding some newer gadgets and technology bits into it. The Internet, intranetworking systems, genetic engineering…blah blah blah…like I know the difference.

The most interesting thing about Demon Seed is that Dean Koontz wrote this in the first person voice. Which means to say that the entire book is a narrative from the computer. Often you’ll find the psychopathic computer trying to reinforce a point by repeating itself…like I am a kind soul. I am a kind soul. I really am a kind soul. I am a really, really, REALLY kind soul. Pretty much the way a psychopathic computer should act – I suppose. Or perhaps even child of 2 who is trying to get an extra lollipop. Who knows?

But the fact that the book was written in the first voice is very fresh and interesting. It gives us a very refreshing look into the purported behavior of a computer that malfunctions and begins to develop what it (he) thinks are feelings and emotions. However, this advantage is also the DISadvantage. Miss Susan Harris, the lead female character in this story, lacks a voice. Very little chance is given to the female lead to tell us, the readers, what is going through her mind except through the computer’s narrative about what he sees.

The innocence and confusion of the computer is also quite intriguing. In fact, its attempts to be sexy and as humanly as possible is hilarious! I don’t want to spoil your fun but then there was a point where the computer wanted to appear sexy (duh!?) to Susan and the only data it (he) could gather on sexiness is from books and whatever that is published on the Internet. Therefore, he often said things like…. “I think your breasts are really pretty”. Guffaw!! Guffaw! Choke! Ssssseeeeexxxxyyyyy…….

I have very few complaints about this book but one of the biggest complaints about it is the fact that the ending was so rushed I didn’t have the time to absorb it, no time to feel anything apart from….it’s ended? When? My suggestion would have been for Dean Koontz to have given the last few paragraphs or the last chapter to Miss Susan and tell us her side of the story.

It would have been perfect then.

It would have been perfect.

It would.

Really, it would have been perfect.

Simply perfect.

It continues to bug me, despite my best efforts, that my kids are not avid readers. It bugs me BIG time! How come, how come, how come? You see, ever since I was very young, I’ve always read a lot and if you can’t find me, it’s because I am hiding somewhere reading my novels at high speed fantasizing and immersed in my own world of princes and princesses, thanks to a heavy dose of Enid Blyton. I sincerely believed that, at one point in time, if I wished hard enough, I could actually make a bed fly and whoosh around. I honestly thought that goblins and fairies DID exist. Oh, the countless times I sat outside in the wee hours of the morning looking out of the window wondering if a fairy was slumbering under closed flower petals.

And yet, why oh why can’t my children find the same joy I did when I was a kid.

It seems that Joshua (in particular) is a very visual person. Ask him to sketch something out and he would, without much hesitation, ink out a picture of whatever it is that you’ve just mentioned – be it flying dragons or triceratops-robot-cars, whatever! He’s very cartoon-ish in his drawing as well – with those tell-tale signs of clouds behind someone who is running very fast, and bubbles around wrongly-spelt words to show that the character is thinking or talking.

English. A very funny language indeed. With Chinese, you recognize the character once and for all – and that’s that. No two ways about it. With Bahasa Melayu (Malaysia’s national language), B-A is Ba (as in goat and sheep Baa Baa), P-U is Poo, T-O  is Toe…etc. But with English, it’s a little bit more different.

You see, it’s hard to explain to a kid how come things are different all the time. Sometimes you have double Ts and sometimes not. sometimes you need two Ss and sometimes you don’t. sometimes Chair and Mare rhymes but they are not spelt the same. How come you add a T at the end of ‘Go’ and it’s not ‘Goat’. This is the problem I have with tutoring Joshua.

It’s sad because, as a writer, I am thinking to myself, ‘Teaching my own kids to read and write in English should be a breeze because I am like such a PRO (Cough! Cough!), right?’ PRO-fectly wrong. I am not a PRO, of course, because I make so many mistakes in my grammar and writing that I wince, sometimes, after writing some stuff for my clients. I am particularly bad with punctuations and I think it will be a challenge in the future if I decide to pursue this tutoring thing with my own kids. I am not the best English teacher on the planet – no, wait. I am not teacher material – period.

Or maybe I am a good teacher (because I used to tutor other kids and did a credible job at that) but just not to my own kids.

Or maybe it’s best that I just teach whatever I DON’T like or have NO passion for…like maths instead of something that I like so much – the English Language. Bah, I think I’ll just teach my kids how to enjoy life, have fun, live with wild abandon and shun responsibilities. Hhhmmmm….I think I won’t have a problem with that at all.

I wonder if I am the only one on the planet that feels like holidays are…such a complete waste of time. Admittedly, I am one of those workaholics who cannot sit, stand, lie or squat still for a very long time. No, not a hyperactive person, but I do like being useful or doing something.

Therefore, holidays are always a bore to me. Strangely enough, when I was in school, I would end up going to school just to play or practice something. You know, in school, we always have this extra-curricular stuff going at one point or the other. And when I was working, I would end up spending more hours in the office during holidays than during the normal working days! Strange creature…me.

And it’s no different now that I am a mother and freelancer.

Having the kids home with me all the time is god-send. I mean, this is what I want – to have them with me and I have all the time in the world to spend with them, tickle them and play catch with them, enjoy their laughter and also to break up their fights. But heck, when in the world is the holiday going to end??!!! I have to get them out of my hair soon otherwise, I am never going to get any work done at all!

Sadly, even during the Chinese New Year, when just about every single Chinese in the world is taking a holiday or enjoying themselves, I am here, mulling over websites, articles and brochures!

Am I the only person in the world who doesn’t like holidays?

In fact, I spend so much more money during the holidays because I have to take the kids out all the time – they get bored pretty easily sitting at home, it seems. So, there we go strolling aimlessly around every shopping mall nearby and breaking every see saw and swing in every garden we find, stuffing our faces with pizzas, spaghettis, lasagnas and other out-of-the-budget food during the holidays is….well, something I can do without.

I can’t wait for school to start so that they can have their life back (they might disagree with me) and get off Astro Playhouse Disney and Cartoon Network and I can get some things done here. Otherwise, my clients are going to have my sorry behind for dinner!