sitting in front of stack of notes that are never-ending, I miss Cambodia more than ever.
I miss Nepal too.
and I wish that I was there right now.

a vulnerable emo-mo-mo moment.

I think I just need an eidetic memory.
that's all I ask for.

of Sushi-ness

(i meant to write this post-Sushi's-visit.)
it was a great, hectic, slightly chaotic one week visit.
I'm glad that Sushi and her mum came.
It's been ages since we last hang out like there was no tomorrow, what with her being in NUS and us having different semester breaks.
and through her, I saw Melb in a different light.

Sushi and I have always been inseperable throughout primary school. I think the fact that we both have the same birthdays was a pull factor that got us together in the first place. that and the fact that we live one street away. When you were in primary school, things as simple as those are enough to make a best friend out of anyone.

Secondary school was when the differences mattered. We were stil as close as before, but in a different way. We did do the whole drift-apart-and-get-back-again charade a few times throughout 5 years. because the bottom line is that even though we were born 2 hours apart on the same day at the same hospital in the same ward by the same doctor (our delivering mothers were feet apart from each other in the suite- Sushi's mum still remembered my mum being wheeled in! lols), we have different personalities. We went for different things in school. She was and still is the introvert, the rock, the voice of reason, the calming presence. I was and still is the extrovert, the flighty one, the spontaneous one. We both have the same values in life (family, friends, morality). But we had different groups in different activities and we were brought up differently in different family backgrounds, despite the fact that both sets of parents are still great friends till this day. But I guess it speaks volumes about the fact that we still call each other a sister-from-another-mother. We seldom call each other best friends anymore.

We go to different unis, have different goals in life. But ultimately, the moment I touched down in Malaysia during breaks, the second person I would message would be her, the first being my parents. We have different lives now on different continents. But at the end of the day, we get together for lunch and it feels like we are in primary school again. Girlish giggles abound.

It was an awesome week together.

of Starlight, star bright

Starlight Day was great.
I had fun selling flashing star wands and squishy stress balls that looked like stars.
and I was carrying the pouch full of moolah so everytime my fellow volunteers made a sale aka made a deposit, I felt the pouch getting heavier.
and we did really well. Half of the stuff we brought were gone in 2 hours!
but then again, we totally had our selling strategy down pat.
lols. we had like battle plans for strategic standing locations to sell our wares and strategic conversation starters.
and I looked really young compared to the other volunteers, so I had to smile sweetly and looked at the elderly couples strolling around with big innocent eyes and go "Would you like to help the kids today?". lols.
it's part of the "hook, line, sinker" strategy that we had going on.

it was great fun manipulating the shopping masses.

but I did notice that most of our buyers seemed to be in the middle-income/elderly/family group. they were just out on a Saturday, enjoying Bourke St mall and happened to chance upon our Starlight Children's stall and decided to get a few things to help the kids.
some even came specifically up to our stall to buy merchandise as they knew it was Starlight Day.
whereas those young adults/teens who were toting Sportsgirl/Esprit/Supre shopping bags with annotook a cursory glance and stalked off. it was totally infuriarating. and I seriously do mean that 95% of them just walked off.
if you have the money to buy clothes, couldn't you spare 5 bucks to buy something from us?
and if you already spent all your money buying short Supre dresses, i'm quite sure that you had some spare coins in your pocket from all the shopping right? so just drop some change into the donation bucket then.

this may sound like an overstatement.
but behind the facades of skinny jeans, poofed-up hair, statement tees, oversized shoulder bags, branded luxury items, there really is not much going on in the generosity department.
don't they know that they were kids once upon a time?