Hermit crabbing

We have hermit crabs. From the beach of Similajau National Park of Bintulu, Sarawak.

My colleague RL had this epiphany while on the beach that we should pick up some crabs which are apparently sold for like RM20 each in KL and keep them as pets.

So now in our hotel room in a takeaway box (which www.hermit-crabs.com/ tells me is not quite the right crabitat but we'll figure something out), we have about 15 active crustaceans and a clam, which frankly quite shocked us by turning out to be alive.

We feed them all a diet of drinking water and Quaker oats which they seem to enjoy, and these guys have really been quite entertaining with their daily clambering and digging, and more clambering and more digging - it's incredibly peaceful yet intriguing to watch.

Some trivia, correct me if I'm wrong but it seems that hermit crabs:

1. Move backwards or sideways but never forward

2. Move their legs in circular breast-strokes, which sort of explains how they form those sandballs on the beach

3. Like standing on each other alot

4. Have one big and one small claw..

...and we're still learning.

I managed to cajole the hotel's housekeeping guy to feed the boys (we like to believe they are boys) over the long Labour Day / Wesak weekend. Apart from being slightly worried they might get out of the box and under the sheets, he's pretty game. Have I mentioned how great these Everly people are?

Reality bites..more like chomps away savagely at your guts

When I was a young-er person, I made several vows, if you like to myself i.e.

1. To always do what I think is God's work, and
2. To never forget what it feels like to be a child

Now these, while having served me well have also landed me in a fair bit of trouble. Trouble meaning?

Meaning believing unrealistically in the fundamental good of people, and expecting again unrealistically, that people should act a certain way because of how you treat them. And believe in them. And try for them. And of course the older and wiser will rightly expect, this has ended up in SO many disappointments to-date in this disgusting period of my 20s, where apart from crash landing on the hard tarmac of real life you're also supposed to find your place on it.

It's 12.45am and no time to be politically correct.

There is fundamental good in people. It's just that together with it there is fear, weakness, self-preservation instincts, priorities, whatever!else that push come to shove makes them act...differently from how you thought they would. And like a child, each time it happens I am still surprised - why would someone do that to me?

Work has helped. 4 years have helped me separate responsibility from commitment, and the understanding of how to meld the two again if I want to. It has made me see that sometimes there is a need to make bad decisions for some people in order to make a good decision for more in the end. More importantly, just because someone or something is the centre of your world does not mean you are the centre of theirs. And vice-versa.

So now....while I still think it's bloody hard to do God's work I do think that praying for clarity shows me the path to do what is right, objectively by everyone involved, and usually that is pretty much the best decision there is. And the other part of the pact? I'll take the wonderment, and but with some armory involved. You need it to keep it.

Back in Bintulu

for another month or so. Here;

1. The stars are really bright at night

2. There's a surprising amount of seamstresses around town - under staircases, in houses, near supermarkets, upstairs of shoplots - I've appointed a particular Shirley myself, whom I am currently overwhelming with bales of Japanese-inspired-Indonesian fabric and Project Runway dreams

3. Fruits are beautiful, wild and strange - thorny longans, pink starfruits, snakeskin fruit, sappy dates called dabai, and the list goes on.

Gray's Anatomy Season 3! is on tv - gotta go.

Wounded, Pruned, Shaken, Threshed, Sifted, Ground and Kneaded

On 24 March my two-years-and-a-week-shy-of-7 months relationship ended.

While this is one of the most private things to have happened, I feel that I should say something about it here since this is supposed to be about things that happen to me when they do, for better or worse right?

So.

A week ago I might've wrote something different. I might've tried to tell you what happened or at least what I thought happened. I might've tried to explain what it's like to not know what to think or feel about something that you thought you knew most about. I wanted to tell you about how somehow through this break-up I found myself again in the hearts of friends and family, who whether they knew it or not, nothing short of reached in and literally saved me. I am fine, because they tell me I will be.

But today I am going to tell you that it is a wound. A big festering thing for the past three weeks that, in a way exploded last Saturday night amidst too much Heineken and bloody Westlife. :).

Just like a gash on your head you dread each time you remember it's there, knowing that it will hurt to the touch. When you do accidentally brush against it - you wince and can't really believe it - then you remember in a rush of blurry pain how it got there in the first place.

I literally walk around like an injured person, my feet drag and my mind is semi-focused on just getting through the day. I pace myself because I have only myself to get through this with- this hurt which is ironically caused by the one person who was simply, my sanctuary in other times of pain.

But just like other wounds, i'm thinking the sides will start to dry out, the scab will grow and one day the centre - the red, bloody pulsating middle which just when you think will never heal, will.

Someday...I will be Saturday night. I just hope that when I do it will not take as much as I think it will to make me really smile again.

Where to Stay in Bintulu

If you ever come to Bintulu, Sarawak and need someplace to stay, choose Everly Parkcity.

It’s my favourite kind of business hotel - a little place which works hard and makes good choices. The lifts are efficient, porters are quick and use of space is smart.

The décor (newly refurbished) is not ostentatious and features are actually functional e.g. the pretty hanging things which you see from the lobby are lights for the sunken café. Unlike Marriot IOI Putrajaya, where the huge pillars and well, just…pillars…and have pineapple (?) motives on top of them for reasons only the designer him/herself knows.

The rooms are spick-and-span, water pressure is strong and the beds are GREAT; smooth crisp linen and pillows that are just-the-right height.

The food I would consider to be good, although there were some hits and misses at dinner, but that could be due to us ordering something out of the menu..haha. But the pizza, is really worth a mention. It stands on its own in competition with Itallianies or Pizza Uno, not just something you eat because you have to eat in the hotel, you know?

Above and beyond all, the people of Everly are its greatest charm. It’s not about the rehearsed welcome smile and niceties, plenty of that in KL where I come from, but it’s about just being in tune with what people really need when they need them and well, simply providing it. Maybe it’s because they’re genuinely good people at heart, or there's some x-factor in their training - probably abit of both, but Management, you should be proud that you’re doing something right and that your people really live your “Best 4-star Hotel in Malaysia for Service Award” status.

So if you do fly MAS, and do see the ad in the in-flight mag which says “Everly Awaits You..” believe it, and come. Let these people warm your weary, business-traveller heart and show you what a good hotel is really about.

Have you loved before?

"And with a great voice he said,

When love beckons you, follow him,
Though his ways are hard and steep.
And when his wings enfold you yield to him,
Though the sword hidden among his pinions may wound you.
And when he speaks to you believe in him,
Though his voice may shatter your dreams as the north wind lays waste the garden.

For even as love crowns you so shall he crucify you. Even as he is for your growth so is he for your pruning.
Even as he ascends to your height and caresses your tenderest branches that quiver in the sun,
So shall he descend to your roots and shake them in clinging to the earth.
Like sheaves of corn he gathers you unto himself.
He threshes you to make you naked
He sifts you to free you from your husks
He grinds you to whiteness
He kneads you until you are pliant;
And then he assigns you to his sacred fire, that you may become sacred bread for God's sacred feast.

All these things shall love do unto you that you may know the secrets of your heart, and in that knowledge become a fragment of Life's heart.

But if in your fear you would seek only love's peace and love's pleasure,
Then it is better for you that you cover your nakedness and pass out of love's threshing-floor,
Into the seasonless world where you shall laugh, but not all your laughter, and weep, but not all of your tears.

When you love you should not say, "God is in my heart," but rather, "I am in the heart of God".
And think not you can direct the course of love, for love if it finds you worthy, directs your course.

Love has no desire but to fulfil itself.

But if you love and must have desires, let these be your desires:
To melt and be like a running brook that sings its melody to the night
To know the pain of too much tenderness
To be wounded by your own understanding of love;
And to bleed willingly and joyfully.

To wake at dawn with a winged heart and give thanks for another day of loving
To rest at noon and meditate love's ecstasy
To return home at eventide with gratitude
And then to sleep with a prayer for the beloved in your heart and a song of praise upon your lips."

The Prophet, by Kahlil Gibran

It's long, it is easy to forget - I forget it too sometimes but I think every word is true.

Have you loved before?

Flight of Fancy

I took a plane to Penang last over the weekend.

While at the waiting bay, I watched two goofy sisters fall over one another, a rambunctious family offer sweets to a very keen little boy and his not-so-keen mother and a lady who did not look like she'd wear colour wearing colours in Bang-on-the-Door shades.

On the plane, I sat next to a pair of twins - grown men wearing yellow shirts, one in checks and the other in plain. They had round faces and both carried little bags for their size - a little backpack and a little carry-all. They spoke in that way that only twins can and understand and went to sleep in the middle of the flight - I felt like custodian of twiddleDum and Dee.

A little girl on the next aisle thought she landed the plane - as we were descending she pressed out her palms, kung-fu style. Afterwhich she told her mother very decisively that this caused the plane to stop. She had bright bossy eyes - her elder sister was so much more timid, and you realise how every little girl is different from the next.

Sometimes, it's nice to be on your own - your eyes see so much more when you're a fly on the wall.