Nicknames

Having my name pronounced similarly to Daisy, although mine has a different spelling and totally different meaning to it, that was where all my many, many nicknames were inspired. Courtesy of people around us. Friends and foes. Widely used especially in primary school. You know lah, how we were when we were younger. Always creating nicknames for each other. Nicer nicknames are the ones we have for our dear ones. Horrid nicknames arise when you hate someone.. like the snobbish, spoiled and bitchy barbie lookalike or the egoistic think-they-know-it-all kind. Or just simply, some teachers (not all teachers are cruel).

Perhaps my most famous nickname in primary school was Flower as in Daisy flower and Margarine cuz there was a margarine brand Daisy. I hated the Margarine nickname at that time, but now I think it's pretty cute and funny. In fact, one of my primary school friends saw me the other day and called me "Daisy Margarine" out loud. And I actually answered. Hahahahaaa.

To whoever reading this, don't get any funny ideas.

I remembered the time in primary school when I referred to a particular discipline teacher as a white goose. I disliked her (obviously). Simply because she was so hard to like. What was there to like? She made me hate being a prefect in school. Once, she scolded and yelled at me in front of all the prefects. "Stupid girl. Give you simple task to do, why can't you do it? How can you be so irresponsible? Lazy. You don't deserve to be a prefect..." and bla bla bla. Did not give me any chance to explain.

The truth was that I did my duty every single bloody day. She saw me. But obviously, she didn't even give a damn about me since she doesn't even remember that. Instead, she choose to believe those two selfish idiots I was assigned with who claimed that they were on duty everyday and even dare accuse me of not performing my duty at all. I would have covered their asses if they asked me to. Goodness, I wasn't planning on telling on them at all! And what a five-star treatment I got.

"You should be grateful that I'm not going to fire you". That was what she said when she finished yelling at me. I should have just resigned on the spot. Perhaps I was too focused on losing my so-called position and reputation which all amounted to nothing compared to the respect that I, being an individual, deserved. And which was absent in that moment. How stupid I was. Then again, maybe I did the right move not to resign. But I did make a resolution to myself never to touch prefectorial board ever again. God knows the truth. And the truth will prevail.

OK. On with happier stuff. Prior to my return to Sibu recently, I've been hearing all kinds of stuff, particularly not too nice ones, about the new Low Cost Carrier Terminal (LCCT). My sister and I invented - now we sound like mad scientists with big frizzy Einstein hairdo - a new name for LCCT... Lousy, Chehkai and Ciplak Terminal. Creative or not?

Actually, LCCT wasn't that bad. The service was relatively fast plus we didn't have to endure a 10-kilometre marathon as we would have in KLIA in order to get to the boarding gate. See, even airport get nicknames. No one and nothing is excused from nicknames. This is an example of a nickname that was created for the fun of it.

Hmmm... Not many interesting nicknames from high school though. Had close friends like Norma, Ili, Zuhaili and Trnjit calling me Daes, short for Daesi. Some others, upon learning about my mixed heritage, nicknamed me Loh-jak (rojak.. mixed-up). Had a teacher whom we dearly nicknamed FanSu (sweet potato) cuz she was short, round and cute. When she found out she was not very pleased. We got one hour of lecture and half year of sour face. Oops. Our bad. We didn't mean it in a bad way. We still liked her.

Then came the time in Sunway MUFY 2003-2004, the nickname Miss Flowerhorn was birthed.. joint invention by Dayaa and Juwin. Fish for short. Almost everyone had an animal nickname. Piggy, Bear, Chimp, Rat, Orangutan, KingKong.. So instead of Monash University Foundation Year, we renamed ourselves to Zoo University Foundation Year intake. Come to think of it, I don't even remember how all these animal nicknames came about in the first place. Anyone remember?

Oh yeah. Mr Lee (Math B lecturer) nicknamed my gang and I as the kaypoh group, because we talk so much in class. Hahaa. But we made the class livelier what.. along with Adhi, Kelly and Budi. How can we ever get through the class without having fun?

And just when a friend from college AND my brother independently came up and added Cow into my already existing collection of nicknames, I got this as my really super belated birthday gift from Michele few days back.

Yes. It's a cow cell phone cover. And this cow is called Daisy. Haha. Seriously. Talk about freaky coincidence. Hahahaa.

The manufacturer/designer of this phone covers had to name all of their cows Daisy. Eesh. Why can't they name it with other names.. like Marigold? Why Daisy???

This time round

Note: Entry was written on 16 May 2006. Never published till now.

As most of you know, AirAsia gave away free airline tickets last year. My sister managed to grab five tickets for our family during Wesak weekend. So where do we go? Back to Sibu lah, of course. Where else would we go?

Things were slightly different this time round. It was nice kind of different.

This time round, it was the first time we went back to Sibu not during year-end school holidays.

This time round, it was our first time to the Low Cost Carrier Terminal (the newly built terminal that caters especially for AirAsia flights).

This time round, my dad went back with us after years long of him not stepping foot in Sibu.

This time round, it was also the first time for my siblings and I celebrated Mother's Day together with my grandma, mother and aunties. It was almost like a family reunion lunch.

This time round, we visited our paternal grandparents' grave. It was our first time since their funerals in 1996 and 1997 respectively.

This time round, we noted AirAsia's odd different way of organization and system.
(1) Firstly, they have no boarding passes. Just two sheets of paper stapled together which resemble receipts you get when you buy something from supermarket. What? No boarding pass? That's one mystery of cheap we'll never solve.
(2) Secondly, although we don't have the long 10-km marathon to the boarding gate, alternately we had marathon from the boarding gate all the way to the airplane. Well, this is no mystery. Things never come cheap without any facility cut. Good exercise wat.
(3) Sit anywhere you want like! It's practically like boarding a bus in Pudu Bus Station. Only difference is that, this is boarding an air bus. Literally.
(4) Jet fuel is being pumped into the plane's tank while passengers are boarding and/or are on board. Scary man... Never understand 'em, until logic is explained.
(5) Once seated in the plane, annoucement heard over the speakers "Ladies and gentlemen. Please do not fasten your seatbelt as the plane is still being refueled". Another mystery of cheap that we'll never get. Maybe so that we can run faster if the plane catches fire while refuelling. Hahahaa.

Lost in translation

My brother came back the other day with a trophy he won third place in a competition called "Perbicaraan kes buku yang membosankan". I tell you, schools getting creative in coming up with interesting competitions with bizarre names. And I'm proud to say this is the same high school I attended.

One thing though. "Perbicaraan kes buku yang membosankan"...... Perbicaraan tu membosankan atau buku tu membosankan? (did it mean that the competition was about criticizing boring books, OR that the book-criticizing competition itself was boring?)

Lost in translation. And interpretation. Sigh. It wasn't even an English-medium competition to begin with. Even the Malay version wasn't all that clear.

Just like how "Lord of the Rings" was translated to "Tuan punya cincin", "Star Wars" to "Peperangan Bintang" and "The fast and the furious" as "Yang pantas dan yang mengamuk". That's why I find reading subtitles hilarious sometimes when I come across wrong words used which totally change the whole meaning of the sentence itself, into something ridiculous. Either that, or the meaning is completely lost. And I also find them irritating if I was relying on subtitles to understand the show/movie in languages completely foreign to me (like Spanish).

No matter how good the translation is, there is no such thing as a perfect translation. The best, yes. But perfect, no.

quotes quotes quotes

"bacteria are like us. when under stress, they cannot grow properly." - my microbiology lecturer

"bacteria are very much like us.. influenced by our surroundings. always migrate to places where there is less stress, more ideal, less problems and more benefits. always run away from problems... true or not?" - my microbiology lecturer

"when jiejie mutates, she becomes big fat and ugly monster."
"when enoch mutates, he becomes a handsome, hunky and charming man."
".............. aarrgghhh, bei lei zha dou."
- an exchange between my younger brother and i once