A Very Sober Christmas

Or maybe the title should be 'A Very Sobering Christmas' since 'sober' might give off a different connotation. But Christmas for me has never been a time to be induced with heavy liquor anyway.

What was sobering was my reality. The past couple of months in Singapore (I know I promised to blog about that but I had my reasons not to, and maybe I'll just expound a little bit on my 4.5 months there later) had sort of been a little getaway from the real life, my real life here in KL. And now that I'm back, I've had to land with both feet on the ground immediately.

This year, I spent a quiet Christmas with my family. I didn't go to any parties, nor organized any outings or meet ups or lunches or dinners. But this year's Christmas was the most resonant for me.

I spent Christmas with my grandmother. She's mostly bedridden now, a little bloated from water retention. She's still alert and conscious, but gets tired easily and sometimes is in pain. She puts on a smile for me and the others who come to see her, but in the quiet moments where there are no visitors, sometimes she struggles to expel her phlegm and I've seen her grimace in pain. Sometimes, I sit next to her and tell her about my day while she holds my hand. Other days, she asks me to scratch the bits of her skin that are itchy. The other day, I learned how to feed her through the tube. I told her "you used to feed me last time, now it's my turn to feed you" but she couldn't hear me without her hearing aid.

I wonder how long she has left. Some days her symptoms remind me of what my grandfather went through in the short time he had before he passed. Other days she shows me that she's not as bad as we think. Most of the time, I feel a little emotionless from all this, which is odd for me because I am the emotional type. My heart goes out to her with compassion, but I worry that that is all I feel - compassion, rather than love. I do love her I know that. Just sometimes the fact that I don't feel it makes me wonder if I really do.

This year, Christmas reminded me of my purpose and place. I know being at home and being in KL is where I am meant to be. My fulfilment isn't in the glory of another country or my independence; there's no glory in fact, just a sense of purposefulness through the people that make home 'home'.

My last week here in KL

As said, I've never been a last-minute type of person. Not planning something or not foreseeing something and then planning for that thing is an unforgivable for me. I accept that accidents happen, but if somebody tells me that they couldn't finish something because they didn't foresee something, it would really bug me.

Anyways, it's the end of my last full week being here in KL. Lots of people have been really nice, asking me out for meals and drinks so that they can catch up with me before I go; some of family members gave me angpaus as well - and the whole thing has just made me feel very loved (: I realize that on both sides of the family, I am the first one to sort of 'go abroad' as it were to study on a long term basis so it's been really nice being the pride of the family for a while haha. Plus, it's a scholarship too.

What can I say? It's just God's wonderful grace and blessing towards me. For the non-believers who knew about my going away, they keep telling me that I'm very 'lucky' - but I know my God, and I am not a recipient of mere luck. He has been planning this for me even before I knew anything of that sort. My God is wonderful.

You see, I love the way things have turned out and how God has led me to study English Lit at UM. That in itself is a whole blog-post worth of a story, but I digress. Anyways, I'm proud of the prestige that comes with being in the country's premier public university but with all that tradition also comes a certain amount of conservativeness and lineage that is difficult to break away from. Nothing flashy, nothing unnecessary, nothing controversial or too contemporary for a University that's been the best since its conception a hundred years ago.

So when I read of stories from American universities with its student-led and student-oriented activities, crazy purposeless but fun traditions initiated by students and all the other parts of liberal education that UM doesn't provide, I'd always wonder how my university experience would be like outside the starchy walls of UM. And now, God has graciously answered my heart's desires and provided the opportunity for me to experience university life apart from UM. It's been such a blessing to be selected and given a place and to be funded for by a scholarship - yes, God is and always has been orchestrating my life and He is good.

Thus now, I've done some parts of my packing and one round of editing. I initially thought the luggage bag Pearly lent me was too big, but now I think it's too small. I'm thinking of bringing six pairs of shoes there and I know it's crazy but ah I'm a girl. I thought of bringing a curling iron too, but I've no space now so I've got to stick to my unfussy routines. On my last weekend here, I will be having multiple dinners, lunches and brunches with lots of wonderful people (who will miss me despite my being only gone for 5 months) and I will enlist the help of the expert packer who lived out of the same suitcase for a year in the UK. Yeehah.

Maybe my next post will be tips on How and What To Pack.

Box #1 - Stationery!

): This will be my last full week at home, in KL, within my figurative and literal comfort zone with people, things and places that I know so well. I'm about 9 days or so from my departure date and I've had my 'farewell' party already over the weekend so I'm really starting to feel all sappy and sentimental about going.

Anyways, I've taken to packing already. I know what you're thinking: still got 9 days what, pack so soon for what? But I have never been and never liked being a last minute person, and besides, it's only when you start packing that you start realizing the things that you need but don't have, so I'll have time to stock up on whatever last minute items I need. Also, cos I'm a little paranoid-type so I'll pack and unpack and pack everything a couple of times, arrange and rearranging things until I'm happy in case I forget something. Sometimes, I'd wake up in the middle of night suddenly, going 'Omg toothpaste!' and realize that I had indeed forgotten to pack toothpaste. My subconscious mind is pretty genius.

I've broken down packing into a few phases I guess. Today's phases is boxes. Particularly, the stationery box because it's prolly the easiest and funnest and I won't be using any of the stuff within the week so I can chuck it all into the huge luggage bag Pearly has so kindly loaned me and focus on other more important items.

Leave me in a stationery shop and I can be pretty happy.

I had a drawer full of stationery items like pretty paper, origami paper, crayons, colour pencils and pinking shears and what not. I love stationery btw. In this particular box above were all the odds and ends that were surely to go missing in that huge drawer and cause me a lot of frustration when I can't find them in time of need.

As you can see, the top left corner are these cute little alphabet stamps Pearly got me from the UK. Next to it is a spool of embroidery thread I bought when I needed to hang up the paper cranes, and next to that is a bottle of red glitter. I love this bottle because if you unscrew the cover, the top of the bottle looks like a pepper pot top, enabling proper distribution of glitter over a large surface area.

In the box, there's also a super powerful blade, a coil of white ribbon, cute paper clips and those coloured book-marker things. I love those haha.

Anyways, I had to fit my whole stationery drawer and all the essential stuff into a box like this:

The box was part of a birthday present many years ago from my  third uncle and aunt on my dad's side. It had a pretty top and a tiny bottle of perfume. Don't ask me how I can remember that.

So I had to do some serious editing. Anyways, I shortlisted everything and finally came up with a box like this:

Only the essentials. No pretty paper, but practical useful stationery. And bookmarks too of course haha. I rescued these from the shelf last minute.

So my stationery box, Box #1 for this week, now consists of these:

I apologize for the bad lighting. It was a dull morning and this was taken with my Samsung Galaxy W.

 That's two boxes of reinforcement rings (one transparent, one white), a crazy assortment of paper clips, post-its because I like them, those mechanical pencil lead refills because every Malaysian kid MUST have those, my super powerful blade and more of those coloured book-markers. Funny thing about the book-markers - I bought my first set (?) years ago and have yet to finish them but I kept losing that so I got tired of looking around for them and bought a new set. Then I found the old set back. And then a friend of mine did some house-cleaning and found a new unused set and since he didn't really use them, he gave them to me because he knew how crazy I got over colourful things.

My next box would most likely be the first-aid kit (how fun. Or interesting). I'm using my last week here to meet up with some essential people before leaving. It's funny how when I'm here, there were so many things which weren't necessary or urgent but now that I'm going to live away, they suddenly become super important. And also how when I'm here, I always take meeting these people for granted, but now I suddenly want to meet all of them before I go. Although I'll only be gone for 5 months. I'm so sappy.

What is 'Milo Panas Please'?

As of yesterday, it would have been exactly two weeks til I'm due to leave for the lovely land down under. Not Australia, mind you, but Singapore. Clean, sterile, systematic, punctual, public transportisized Singapore (: I've been there once, and I enjoyed myself. I was with a couple of school friends and the best - and I mean, the best - teacher in the whole world; and we would have been able to enjoy ourselves anywhere but we won a competition and got a free, entirely-sponsored trip to Sg.

And so, I digress, for the purpose of today's blog post is not to highlight another aspect of my pending departure for Sg, but rather a further elaboration and explanation of the blog, its title, its contents and most importantly, its author haha.


Well like I said, I decided to start blogging because I felt I needed a medium to sort of capture this whole particular phase of my life. I initially experimented with different hosts (wordpress, tumblr, just Instagram), but I couldn't find one that I was happy with - so I came back to blogosphere because 1) I am wordy and 2) It was the easiest way people back home could connect with me still.


Why I chose MPP: For those who have yet to figure it out, MPP stands for Milo Panas Please. Why milo panas? Literally translated, it means hot milo. Figuratively translated, I just like hot milo. I used to drink a mug of hot milo every morning when I was attending kindergarten and although the ritual got dumped once I started attending primary and secondary school, hot milo has always been a source of comfort for me. I don't drink coffee (to me, coffee should always be ice blended and covered with a mountain of whipped cream), neither do I drink tea (iced Chinese tea, or 'suet cha' at your regular coffeeshop does not count) so hot beverages always mean Milo to me. Or hot chocolate. About the same. Go figure. Anyways, I'm hoping that as I brave my way through the streets of Singapore, MPP would be a source of comfort and nostalgia for me the way hot milo has been throughout my growing up years. 


That said, now I will now explain the author of MPP (yours truly) in less than an academic paragraph:
If ever there was a verse in the Bible which I can lay claim to, it is this:

'But let patience have its perfect work, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing.'
James 1:4 (NKJV)

I used to be like a puppy that had yet to be house-trained, and not in a good way; I would bite and snarl at unfamiliar/uncomfortable situations, pee and poop in the most unconvenient of locations and nibble everything in my path to destruction. Then one day a fairy godmother came and gave me a good whack with her magic wand and I grew out of my snarling, biting and unceremonious pooping and have gracefully blossomed into a rhino. 


Still a full-time student (which I'm pretty grateful for on most days), and in my future home, I would love to have 1) a large pantry well-stocked with wunnerful things like pancetta, dijon mustard and mint chutney; 2) bookcases filled with books that I have/will read; 3) a wall full of shoes and; 4) a huge couch and plenty of cushions. Oh yes, and 5) air-conditioning. I am really afraid of cockroaches, being stuck in an elevator and also waking up in the middle of a surgery despite being anaesthetized and therefore am unable to show the doctors I'm awake.

So, although nobody really knows the existence of the blog yet, I hope you'll return to MPP soon as I continue to divulge tales and trivia to you on my way to distant lands. Ta-rah! (:

The Preface

This time, it's not so much for expression or free speech, but rather for posterity and nostalgia - two things which I uphold very highly haha.

I used to journal a lot when I was younger, in the primitive, analog way: I had a diary (which could only be opened with a secret code, how cool is that) where I wrote down most of my feelings. I suppose I was very angst-y then, and was filled with a lot of misplaced anger and many many school crushes. I also had horrible writing.

When I evolved into online journalling, at first I kept at it pretty well because the whole 'blogger' thing started to get really popular but as the trend died down and exams came round (that rhymed), my blogging mojo died along with it. Tried to resurrect it a couple of times but people kept getting the wrong ideas about me from my writing so I decided that there was no point in blogging.

But now, I'm not doing it for the sake of catharsis but in a couple of weeks, I am about to leave home for a not-so-distant land. It sounds pretty lame actually, compared to moving away to Europe or Australia or the US, but I suppose it is as distant as I will ever be from home on a permanent basis - for now. And although the primary purpose of Milo Panas Please is to track the journey I've made in Singapore, but MPP would also serve as an avenue for communication - I wouldn't have to send mass emails to unwilling recipients of what life is like as a student in Singapore. Instead, if friends and family wanted to find out how I was doing, they could always refer to MPP (:

As of now, I am almost exactly two weeks away from leaving my home, my family, my friends, my church and my country for a semester. It will be 4.5 months of living, eating, sleeping Singaporean while completing a credit transfer at National University of Singapore. It is slightly daunting, but it's a privilege to be able to study in one of the best schools in the region and the world. I've always wanted to know what it was like to experience university life away from the staunch, traditional and conservative institution that is University of Malaya and though NUS may not be that much of a deviation from UM, it will be interesting to see how things happen down there.

Til then (: