By having this sort of wish, I may seem selfish and cruel. It almost feels like I’m turning into a cynic. Though I said I wanted to see her happy, because it would make me so, the truth is that when I do see her happiness now, I realised that I have been lying all along. To her. To myself. It’s what happens when you say things out of selfish emotions, putting aside your reason, your reality.

I wished for it. On that day, I wished for it. Again and again and again. Constantly creating reasons why it can happen. Why it will happen. And why it must happen. Though I have been unable to smile for her joy, I realised that I still cringe and suffer upon seeing her in pain. I wonder if she really is in pain right now.

And I am haunted by the guilt of my own selfishness. I should have listened to Hyde.

Well, I DO hope you people like my ‘Eggheads’ strips because I really loved making them. Although you don’t really get to see them as often as when they first started, believe me when I say that I haven’t stopped drawing them. For your information, I have been drawing several new strips just for you, but I haven’t really gotten the chance to colour them.

I would very much like to adopt a change of style, the current style is too fixed and rigid, and I’m contemplating on going back to classic newspaper stips with boxes in black and white. While that may sound nice, it’s not something that’s super easy to accomplish. After a few months of getting involved in comic art I learnt how addictive it can get, to just draw freely with no constraint of any rules whatsoever. However, I also learnt how difficult it is to come up with funny quote or ideas that I can apply into my comics.

It has brought upon me a renewed respect for the artists who drew the famous series like ‘The Far Side‘, ‘Baby Blues‘, and ‘Calvin and Hobbes‘. But rest assured I’ll take some time to bring you an Eggheads strip each week, as a complimentary gift for being such a wonderful guest in The Silent Room!

Spare me that guilt
Spare me that shame
Though it may seem like
I alone carry the blame

Fear claws violently at the bark
as the rotten fruit slowly dries in the dark
If the leaves of truth were hid from the light
No more fruits there will be to mark

Praise the wind as it blows
Its fragrance thrills the bloody nose
Oh, blow this pain away
Remove it now as you make me sway

Spare me some light
Spare me some honour
I need some fire to survive this fight
For I am left with no armour.

Push that blade in me
Push it in deep
I beg for death in one thrust
It is my sin to painfully lust

Pry the eyelids open
Let through a glimpse of heaven
If this is what it’s like to die
It’s far better
than to hear you lie

Curse me a loving soul
Bless forth the burning angel
Spread wings greet me with tears
As chains bind me with my fears

Cut open a door to my heart.
And let it free
For it has done its part
No more tears for me to shed
Just leave alone
the eyes that have bled.

Sigh. It’s the first day of the new academic year in MMU. Thank god for my transitions because Apollo was unforgiving today. The first lecture was Engine Maths, in a lecture hall stuffed with over 100 people minus the air-conditioning. After 15 minutes, a quick scan around the hall showed that everyone speaks the same body language. Ones that seem to yell ‘WRAP IT UP SO WE CAN FUCKING GET OUT ALREADY!’. Ah,… I can almost feel the silent screams resonating around me. The lecturer was probably affected by the poor ventilation as well, seeing how his words spluttered out of his all over the table.

So, basically, it’s back to what I always do. Sleep during lectures, study the notes, and ask someone who knows about the problem when I can’t solve it. Which obviously means, I just have to download the notes and tutorials online. That’s one of the perks of being an MMU student, having online resources, that is.

When I got home, I just logged on to MMLS [Multi Media Learning Centre] to download notes. For this, I must give credits to the CITS people for coming with a pretty good interface. There’s a ‘Fast Download’ feature that allows me to select all my notes or tutorials, pack all of them up into one ZIP file so I only need to download everything once. Which I happily did for each of my different subjects.

And believe me, if you’re not a university/college students yet, I will tell you that we have a SHITLOAD of notes to download and study, and we STILL have to fucking refer to textbooks when shit happens. Okay, for one thing, I don’t mind downloading notes, or that they actually drained 3 of my black ink cartridges [despite the fact that I printed on super economy with 4 pages per sheet!]. But frankly, nothing annoys me more, than being given a pile unsorted shit like this;

I can understand the fact that there are at least 3 lecturers working on one course, but the fact still stands that these people have a course coordinator. A fucking course coordinator! You will have to pardon me, but I really have to fucking bitch about this. WHY CAN’T THESE MORONS THINK OF SOMETHING AS SIMPLE AS TEAMWORK TO COME UP WITH A FUCKING NAMING CONVENTION!? I mean, is it so hard, to have a meeting [I'm talking to you, you lazy piece of course coordinator ass], and come up with a filename convention that EVERYONE IN YOUR FUCKING GROUP FOLLOWS?

Look, for example:

item:Electronics 1, lesson 3, part 2
filename:EEN1016-L3-2

Simple as that. And make sure everyone follows the convention. Why the fucking hell, do you have a goddamn course COORDINATOR when you guys can’t even coordinate simple shit like this? You are going to compile it all anyway, can’t you at least make it proper? I am sick of having my notes jumbled up because of a fucked up naming scheme AND I CAN’T FUCKING GET IT TO SORT PROPERLY! I had to go back to MMLS, and recheck which file belongs to which chapter so that they don’t get mixed up when I print them.

I’m done.

I will have to say that today is the best day spent to end my holidays. The blogmeet that Peter proposed turned out to be another really huge success. I got to see Peter and Wuan again when I first got there, and I took a seat next to Mr. eff Ooi himself after going around the table shamelessly introducing myself to everyone. It was nice to finally meet Michael [Eyeris] and Jayelle after having rounds of interactions with them.

A few minutes later, Leo arrived and we quickly got to work on exchanging anime. The whole group got livelier when our chief Redzuan arrived. Words and notepads were being passed back and forth as the noise gets louder and louder. And then Dave arrived, completely oblivious of my presence to a point where I just had to whap his back. He was really excited to meet Jeff seeing how nervously happy he looked when he approached his idol. I didn’t really notice it, but Sashi, Nilesh and Rajan reached the place about almost the same time.

Now, Peter as usual, was busy entertaining some people while Redzuan and I were making some small talk with Jeff and Sashi. Jeff, like his blog, chooses his words carefully and waits for the right time to say it. Just like the image I had of him when I first read Screenshots. And then, Jess got there, quiet, just like last time, lol.

About 15-20 minutes later Mack ‘The Man’ Zulkifli arrives and he easily built himself a little crowd around him. Now, he’s one of the major reasons why I really looked forward to the blogmeet. I have been following his blog since the day he wrote about being Malaysian on his ‘Looks Easy’ TypePad blog and I always had an impression that he would a serious intellect who would talk in a calm composed tone, just like Jeff. However, in Mack’s words;

“Fuck that lah!”

I’m telling you right here, right now, that MackZul is the bomb. His wild attitude and raw sense of humour totally blew me away. I joined in his little ‘chatroom’ at one end of the table as I overheard something about remote control cars. The way he tells his stories, the way he animates himself, it’s just totally awesome. Nevermind that the person and the blog are like heaven and earth, this is one guy who really knows his shit, and he knows how to talk his shit. I was impressed beyond words.

So much so that Penny, Loges, Kelvin and TigerJoe’s arrival was completely ignored by me. At least until these people showed up in front of my face, lah. Meanwhile, everyone’s busy taking photos of everyone else, and some people are taking pictures of people taking pictures of people.

Basically the crowd broke into two segments. A table full of guys, and a table with mostly women.

“And Jeff is fucking sitting in the middle. I tell you, lah…” - Mack

The guys’ table [Mack, Tiger, Leo, Me, Redzuan, Jess, Rajan, Sashi, Nilesh] totally rocked. Mack had everyone in stitches with his unbelieveable talent for entertaining crowds. Soon, his wife and kids arrived;

“So those are the brand new Malaysians, huh?” - Redzuan

They didn’t hang around for long, though, probably they went shopping. We then continued to talk more and more crap but by the time it was 12, people started to leave. First it was Dave, and then Jess, and Redzuan, and then Sashi and the gang. But that didn’t stop us from continuously laughing our heads off.

By 1pm, Leo and I got too hungry we just had to look for some food. So off Leo went off to look for some and he gave me a call.

Leo: Dude, I found ramen.
Me: Holy shit, you rock.

I secured myself a nice big bowl a Ramen with deep fried chicken cutlets for myself and Leo a bowl of beef ramen. The miso smelt sooo good it really makes up for a certain craving that I have been unable to satisfy for a few weeks already.[lament] So,..

Leo and Me: Itadakimaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaassuuu!!~~

We dug in as Mack and Tiger continued to chat right next to us. I was completely oblivious as to what they were talking about since all my 5 senses are fixed onto my bowl of ramen. After satisfying myself, we went back to laughing all over again.

Albert came much much later and sat with us. Penny joined us as well and continued to chat while Mack was busying himself with his lunch. We still had much and we got Mack choking over his rice, lol. Peter lowered the curtains when he decided to leave and Mack as well after he finished his food.

Leo and I also decided to leave to continue with our ritual of hole-hunting [which was done gracefully] and we continued with a little chit-chat before calling it a day at around 1630. Wah, tiring, I tell you. I’m too lazy to post up the attendance list. I’ll just copy them from anyone who has a complete list and I’ll link you guys to my photo gallery when I upload it later.

It was good to meet you guys, there, it was a real blast! Look forward to see you again at the PPS birthday bash!