Rumour has it, the weather was really hot and stifling the day I was born. Go figure, it was August. Summer weather. Temperature in the high 30's (Degrees Celsius, people, not Fahrenheit). When it came to naming me, my parents had a spot of trouble. Chinese name, no problem! My grandpa had it all set up. But Christian name? Uh-oh! Nothing in the lists! At last, after much deliberation, the folks settled on a variation of Catherine. That's a saint, by the way. Means "pure". I still laugh over it until today. Why? Because my buddies can tell you - I am the exact opposite of pure. Still, it's a nice name. Bit pretentious, but nice, nonetheless. So, hence I was christened, and then brought to a Catholic Church to be baptised. And yes, I am a Catholic. Proud of it. True, I don't always follow true to its teachings, but I am a Catholic. Well, technically, I'm what people call a "non-denominational Christian" (NDC). But I'll stick with Catholic. Easier than to explain why I'm a NDC. MUCH easier. So anyway, I was baptised exactly one month after I was born. At age nine, I took my first Holy Communion, St Ignatius Church, batch of 1994. Then, seven years later, I was confirmed as a practising Roman Catholic. Same church, same batch, different year, of course. In addition to having another godmother (I love you, Auntie Flo! *muacks*), I also received a middle name (original - no one else has it! *smug grin*). Now, I stand at barely five feet tall and possess a weight that yo-yos like a roller coaster. I'm 3 weeks shy of legalising my participation in local politics, though the day I hit the big 2-1 is the day I plan to thoroughly get wasted. I'm a second-year Communications major in Monash University, Malaysian campus, and rounded up my first year with a Distinction average. Man, am I a geek or what? Anyway, I'm done with my stint at the bookshop. As of 19th February 2006, I was a free agent again. However, as of 19th February 2006, I also officially became a freelance writer. I was given my first writing assignment from the editor-in-chief of a legitimate children's magazine, to review children's books, and - to my knowledge - it has been published. Kudos to me. ^_^ Love ya, Karen! *hugs* You gave me the opportunity of a lifetime! It's going to help sooooooo much when I apply for journalistic jobs in the future. * ~ * I enjoy literature of all varieties, any kind of art, movies that don't suck, television series that aren't lame and music that doesn't deafen me. I have a Grade A certificate in the Art of Eating, but sadly I have a Grade D certificate in the Art of Cooking. I unfailingly score distinctions in Sleeping 101, though my results tend to fluctuate in Creative Dreaming. When it comes to Whimsical Imagination, however, I pride myself in holding a steady place on the Dean's List, and I rank high in the honour roll for Absolute Randomness. I idolise James Blunt, Josh Groban, The Killers and Greenday. I fantasise about Hugh Jackman, Tom Felton, Seth Green, Sean Biggerstaff, Rodrigo Santuro, James Denton and all four singers of Il Divo. It shames me to say this, but I also harbour a crush on Daniel Radcliffe, Skandar Keynes - and Freddie Highmore is just so cute, it's hard NOT to like him. I'm a regular follower of Desperate Housewives, CSI: NY and House, and Dead Poets' Society remains, until today, the BEST - MOVIE - EVER in my book. And I'm a self-proclaimed supporter of animal rights, environmentalist movements, women's liberation front, liberalism in society and politics, and Harry Potter for Triwizard Tournament Champion. *huge grin* I collect stuffed animals, DVD's, books - and the dust that goes with it. I have a deep fondness for cute and cuddly animals, fresh flowers, the weather just before it's about to storm, rainy days, the Internet on a broadband connection, a comfy pair of jeans, T-shirts with weird sayings, funky and unusual silver rings, long and dangly earrings, a good argument and an intelligent debate. I'm also an amateur writer and an apprentice graphic designer, but here's hoping that with practice, I can promote myself to professional and master respectively. * ~ * The general consensus on me is that I'm sarcastic and cynical, with a dark sense of humour, a warped view of reality and in possession of a highly pessimistic opinion on life. A fair few tend to view me as temperamental and complicated, with a tendency to veer rapidly between the downright practical to the overly unrealistic. However, there are the occasional eternal optimists who adamantly believe that once you know which button to set me off, I can be as chatty and perky and wired as a head cheerleader on Ecstasy. God bless their lovable, but greatly disillusioned hearts. The truth is, none of them are really off the tangent. They're right and they're wrong. I'm all of that and a little more; simultaneously, I'm also none of that and everything less. Confused? Yeah, me too. If the authorities had their way, they'd be checking me into a mental institution for combination insanity and schizophrenia. *snickers* One thing that can be certain, though - I dislike people who try to fob their opinion on others, and force them to think the way they do. Word of the wise - don't ever try it on me. It's annoying, ridiculous and a baby step towards becoming a dictator. And frankly, I don't like dictators. I'm not a total racist, sexist or bigot, and I consider myself fairly open-minded, but I'll admit that I have certain prejudices. And dictatorship is among them. * ~ * A few of the (many) other things I don't like, falling under the category of safe and general, would include: advanced science subjects, certain types of food, shopping for clothes and shoes, the WWE, Malaysian drivers, lack of sleep, my dad's taste in music, not having the Internet, Malaysian movie and TV censorship, and studying (although that is unfortunately an unavoidable issue). Smoking irritates me, drug addiction disgusts me, murder disturbs me, rape saddens me, death of loved ones sends me into spasms of long-term depression and animal cruelty infuriates me. I have a particular loathing for corrupt politics, unaccounted prejudices, deep-set bigotry, human inequality and basic human rights restrainment. So there you have it, the lowdown - or something to that event - on my life. Scrape off the surface meanness, and what you wind up with is pretty much your average weirded-out-teenager-growing-into-not-so-mature-yet-adult. Welcome to my world. You - have - been - warned. * ~ * ** Blogging Buddies **
of Juha Harju. All rights reserved. Used with permission. Graphics by: Deanna
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Friday, November 17, 2006
Fear ... Mood: Disturbed ... Music: "Who Knew" - by Pink I had a nightmare last night. A horrid one. One so bad it had me sitting up in bed and crying for a long time. My country was at war. I won't say who're the parties involved, just that we were in a war. And there was killing. LOTS of killing. My days were spent living in fear now. I couldn't step out of the house without worrying I'll never come back. I could literally hear the sounds of gunfire ... I could smell actual blood in the air ... and the entire nation was trapped in this pink haze, result of all the disaster that usually follows when two conflicting parties decide they want to use violence as an answer. I was always in hiding. Every time I saw the enemy, I had to find some place to hide. I saw women, little girls - and even little boys! - being violently raped and/or gang-raped right in front of my eyes. I saw them struggling, and I was cursing myself for not being able to do anything about it. Then I saw the "enemy", whipping out their guns and shooting the women, etc. who they've just raped .... execution style. More blood. More gunfire. More death. I was feeling sick to my stomach. Peace seemed so far away. So very far away. Fear was practically choking me, but at the same time, so was this intense fury. Stubborn-minded bastards! They lived in luxury, planning away their next military strategy, while the rest of us civilians are forced to suffer. Greedy, corrupt politicians using their position and rank to avoid the violence ... by sending the rest of us non-ranking individuals to our doom. It's a bloody free-for-all for the conflicting parties, but the poor people who have nothing to do with it? They're forced to pay the price. I paid more than anything. My entire family, my friends, my lecturers ... everyone I knew and care about ... we were captured. Locked away in a cathedral, no less! And we knew none of us was going to get out alive. The slaughter was going to commence in a cathedral ... a mockery of religion ... and not just any religion, but mine. The irony was not lost on me or my friends. There was hysterical laughter ... a lot of tears ... general babbling ... there must have been hundreds of us trapped in that cathedral. Thousands. All crammed together like cattle, huddling against each other. I remember being squeezed in between my best friends, my parents just in front of me, my sister and brother on either side of them. I remember forgetting all the crap my family has ever done to me, and leaning forward for my mother's comforting hand. The level of fear had escalated, the tension so thick you could cut through it like a knife. No one was willing to go out this way. No one. I could hear people praying to God, asking Him to save them. To intervene. To just do something. But I could tell that no one really believed that would work. I could tell that most everyone was thinking the same thing I was. And all I could think about was, "God ... why have You forsaken us?" And then they came. They came with their guns. They came with their sneers. They came with the desire for bloodshed clear in their eyes. The screaming began then. So loud it shook the rafters of the cathedral. But the louder people screamed, the angrier they became. My family and friends huddled even closer together, forcing ourselves not to scream. We could feel the rage, could feel the itchiness of their hands to start shooting. Then their ringleader stepped forward. And I couldn't help thinking, "My God ... evil comes in such a normal face." And he looked normal. Like he was one of those people you'd pass in the street without so much as a backward glance. If it wasn't for the fact that he was holding this frightening gun in front of him, you might've even found him decent. But he was far from decent. There was a smile on his face, but it was a sinister smile. This man was insane. You could see it in his eyes. He was overcome by the mad need to kill and kill more. He walked up to this young boy ... young, barely older than eight ... smiled at the kid ever so calmly ... And buried a bullet right between the kid's eyes. That was the signal for the rest of his "army" to start shooting. People were lined up one by one ... and shot right in the head, Nazi-style. A few of them had brought machine guns with them. They aligned struggling victims at the altar, directly below the crucifix ... and began firing ... a final insult to Christians and Christianity. The smell of blood was thicker than ever. Mingled with the smell of gunpowder, and the stale sweat of the enemy, and it was enough to churn even the most iron of stomachs. I had to fight back nausea. How could these people be so cruel? And they weren't just men ... there were women doing the shooting, too. Women with every bit the insane look in their eyes as I'd seen in their ringleader. The cathedral was no longer a place of worship ... it was a place of death and destruction. Women and men alike were dragged aside to be raped, and then executed. The screaming never stopped, the crying growing louder and louder ... I could hear pleas for mercy, all gone unheeded ... My family and friends were practically trying to merge together, we were huddled that tightly. They hadn't reached our part of the cathedral yet ... they were still far away ... but all this while I was thinking, "We're not going to get out of here alive. Any movement to escape and that's the end of us. If we stay, we're dead ... if we try to run, we're dead too ..." So I turned to my mum and, for the first time in a longest time, I look her straight in the eye and say, "Mummy ... I love you." She smiled at me, her eyes brimming with tears ... and that was the last expression on her face before a bullet shot through her head. She collapsed onto me, all limp, blood gushing from the wound in her forehead. I couldn't help it ... I screamed. My mother! They killed my mother! I watched in horror as they began to randomly kill everyone I cared about. My dad went next, followed by some of my uni lecturers ... then my uni friends began to go down one by one ... Eleanor, Ann, Grace ... then they killed my sister ... my brother ... went back to my uni friends ... Pooi Yarn went down, so did Mindy ... the tears were coming freely now, blurring my vision ... the part of me that knew this was just a dream, JUST A DREAM, wanted to wake up ... "No more! NO MORE!" I could hear that part of me shouting ... no, SCREAMING. But I wasn't waking up. I was being forced to see the people who meant something in my life being brutally murdered right in front of me. Soon, there was nothing more than a pile of bodies around me. I was splattered from head to toe in blood ... their blood ... the blood of my friends and family ... My best friends and I were the only ones left now. Just us. I squeezed their hands tightly, silently telling them how much I loved them, how much they meant to me ... the ringleader stepped forward, his eyes more insane than I'd ever seen them ... he raised his gun at me ... I closed my eyes ... I heard the gunshots ... And my best friends went limp right beside me. Their hands slipped out of my grasp. I opened my eyes, saw the ringleader look directly at me with that vile expression on his face ... I saw something more than just insanity there ... and what I saw terrified me! I wanted him to just shoot me now! Shoot me before he does what I knew he was going to do. Why me? Why was it always me? He reached out for me, grubby hands ... I wanted to run, but my back was against the wall ... "NO!" I was screaming, out loud this time. "DON'T TOUCH ME! DON'T TOUCH ME!" His honchos grabbed me, two on each arm. I struggled even harder, screaming even louder. I didn't care if I died down, I didn't care if he shot me now ... death was a more welcome prospect than what HE was about to do ... I was right in front of him now. I could smell his horrible breath on me. I screamed so loudly I felt as though my lungs would burst ... he drew closer ... and closer ... * ~ * That was when I woke up. And started crying. Because it was so real, felt so real, I was so afraid that if I walked out of the door today, I'd find the country in total disarray and my friends and family gone. I know I bitch about my family a lot. But should anything happen to them ... and all in one shot ... I know I'll never be able to live through it. ESPECIALLY if my friends go down along with them. War is ugly. If anything, we should be living in a world where war shouldn't be the answer. Conflicts can be resolved without violence. Because violence only leads to more pain and suffering, and we should be beyond that. Peacemakers are rare and far between. If the world is smart, they should do something about that. Encourage more and more people that peace is what the world should strive for together. But the world is stupid. And the people in charge of them even more so. Cynical? Maybe. But that doesn't alter the fact that it might be true. Laterz! ~ Kat ~ Quote of the Day: "Heaven on Earth We need it now I'm sick of all of this Hanging around" ~ Lyrics to "Peace on Earth", by U2 ~ Posted at 02:01 pm by kat_tan
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