Irrational fears

Yes, I know I promised to put up those dang graduation pics of mine last week or so. But my internet wasn't working for a couple of nights, then I got busy... and then something else has been bothering me greatly which I kinda wanted to blog about, but kinda think it's not appropriate coz' it's issues with my boyfriend. So I won't go into the details, but it does kind of remind me of an episode of Desperate Housewives, where one of the housewives, Lynette Scavo has a domestic issue with her husband, Tom. The story behind these two is interesting, because in the show, before they got married, Tom was with another girl and cheated on that girl with Lynette. Of course, they eventually end up getting married, but in the marriage, Lynette eventually becomes so afraid of her husband doing the same thing by cheating on her with another woman (what goes around comes around, they say), that she demands that Tom goes to get a vasectomy so that he can't have anymore children with anybody else. Now Tom is a house-husband while Lynette goes out to work, so while he wants to make Lynette happy and agrees to do the vasectomy, in the end, he can't do it because he feels his virility is the only thing he had left that makes him a man. So he doesn't do it. And the thing I remember most about this episode is that when Lynette makes her demand to Tom, she says that people in a relationship should calm each others irrational fears. Her irrational fear was that Tom would cheat on her, so she demanded he get the chop. But then when Tom comes back and tells Lynette he couldn't do it, he throws it right back at her and tells her about his irrational fear of losing the only thing left that makes him a man.

Now my situation is nothing like that, but the similarity is that he and I both have our irrational fears. And of course, his fears seem ridiculous to me, but at the same time, I feel my fears are justified but he also poo poos them. But when I think of Lynette and Tom's situation, I believe that neither of them is right or wrong to have those fears.... so I don't think I should look down on my bf's insecurities. And neither should he look down on mine. But right now it boils down to the question of whether or not we are willing to change ourselves and the way we think to calm each other's 'irrational fears'. Quite frankly, if I had a friend in the same situation as me, I would advise her to leave and not take the risk of having her fears coming true. And indeed, a few people have agreed my fears are justified and have given me that very advice. And I was actually on the verge of taking that advice. After so many days of thinking and stressing about it to the point where my colleagues can see something is wrong with me (and I'm usually so good at keeping problems to myself such that no one will know unless I tell them. Yeah, not a healthy thing to do, I know, but such is Carol), I actually thought to myself that I knew exactly what I should do and I would do it. And I was going to do it.... til I met him online and we talked. And I was so angry and so hurt that I wanted him to see just how it felt, which I know is a silly thing to do, but that's just how bad it got. But it didn't work, and so I told him again how I felt (coz' I did tell him once before, but he just didn't get it) without trying to put things nicely to avoid hurting him feelings, coz' I'd had enough of being patient. And I thought, if he just says one thing wrong again.... just one thing.... that would be it. I'd be done with him. I wouldn't have to stress about this issue anymore. It would be such a relief.

But he didn't screw up. He didn't say anything wrong. This time, he actually said what I needed to hear. And now I'm left with the agonizing decision again. And I have sat here for a whole hour thinking about it and I still have no idea what I should do. And I just wanna go to sleep and make it go away, but I know tomorrow when I wake up, I will still have to make a decision. And it's a decision no one else can decide but me. I don't want to get hurt again.... but I know that pain is part of every loving relationship, and cutting it off is taking the easy way out. I don't want to commit to something I might regret later on in life.... but I also don't want to give up easily without trying to work things out.

Good grief, why on earth must relationships be such a pain in the butt? I'm just going to sleep now and let tomorrow be another day.

My new camera, and pics of A Famosa Animal World

It's been another busy week for me, and I have some long overdue pics to post here, coz' of my little trip to Malacca last week to visit my darling Gerald and also coz' of my recent graduation (Woohoo!) last Wednesday. Also, I finally got sick of my Kodak camera which has gone pretty much haywire since I came back from Aus. Everytime I load it with fully charged batteries, it only lasts about 10 minutes before it shuts down as though it has run out of batteries. I think it's because the camera couldn't handle the snowy places I took it to in Aus, and it decided to go bonkers. So after putting up with my crazy camera for the past couple of years, I finally bought a nice new Canon Powershot A430 yesterday, and it's a hot hoochie mama in my fav colour, RED. Isn't it just hot?

And if the looks aren't hot enough, the price sure was! It's a 4 megapixel camera and it came with a 512 mb memory card, mini tripod and screen protector, all for only RM539, which is soooo superbly cheap! And even though it's got all the standard auto modes, some of the settings can be adjusted manually too, which I like coz' sometimes I like to take super closeup nature pics and other pics that require some fiddling around with the settings. Ok, so it's a old model and they've discontinued it to make way for the newer models, but I don't care. Me thinks I got a pretty good deal. And it has a mode to take pics in the snow, so I hope that means it won't go haywire like my Kodak did if I ever happen to go back to a snowy country. But that won't be anytime soon anyway. The only downside is that all the different modes are represented by icons that I have to memorize the meaning to. So it's not a camera I can just give to anyone and they can instantly figure out how to use it...which is a problem when I need someone like my dad, who was already hopeless around my old camera, to take pics for me coz' his head would spin just looking at all the icons! Oh well, nevermind. I just have to try and keep it simple for him. I still love my new camera. :)
Well anyway, as I was saying before I started ranting on about my new toy, I had some pics to put up of my trip to Malacca (which I took with my all annoying camera), and so I shall (my graduation pics, I shall save for tomorrow... or whenever I work up the energy to put up those pics). Well, all of the pics Gerald and I took were from A Famosa's animal world, which is where he and I went for a day trip. Some of the pics are from a multi-animal show, which is my opinion, wasn't all that good, though there were a few interesting things like a cat moving across a beam upside down, and a dog that jumped through a ring of fire!





Below is some pics of a poor malnourished-looking sunbear doing some stunts like balancing on a barrel and riding on a scooter. Made me wonder if they actually feed the bear properly, and if they even abuse it to get it to do their tricks. I sure hope not!





In my humble opinion, the bird show was considerably better, even though I'm not a big fan of our feathered friends. They had the usual silly things like birds riding on bicycles and playing basketball and doing somersaults on hoops (goes to show just how many animals shows I've seen in my life.... so much that I know what to expect!). The good parts were when they were collecting funds for their bird feeding program and they got a couple of birds to fly up to the audience and collect the money from people who wanted to donate. They also had a toucan that could catch food in midair, and they finished it off with a bunch of 'ssexy ladies' or flamingoes gracing the stage! Now that was pretty cool. :)











Here's some other miscellaneous pics of animals we saw around the zoo.





















This elephant was very photogenic, coz' it stood right behind the rope for quite a while as people took pics with it and bought food to feed it. So Gerald and I had pics taken with the friendly elephant.





Here's a pic of me with a species of chicken that apparently has the longest tail in the world. I wonder how to poor blighter walks around with that tail. I also wonder how long the crazy people at the animal world keep the poor thing in that glas enclosure, coz' there's no space for it to move, and it's forced to stand there until they take it out! Nutty people....



Me and a camel!



And last but not least, me and Gerald waiting for the ferry to get us off Monkey Island...which was a pathetically small island with pathetically few monkeys.



To sum it up, I think the Malacca Zoo is definitely more value for money, even though it doesn't have any animals shows (which is good in a way, coz' you dunno if the animals are abused or not, and I don't quite trust locals to take care of our captive wildlife all that well). But Gerald and I also went to A Famosa's Water World, which in my opinion, was way more fun. It even had a 5 storey high slide where you go down on it with nothing but yourself! Gerald swears that it's actually 10 storeys high and didn't dare go on it. :) It's ok, I still love you. I'll just drag you to Sunway Lagoon one day to practice going more on these rides. Bwahaha! Kidding. Anyway, all in all, the rides there and some were different from Sunway Lagoons, though there wasn't as many.

So that's my Malacca trip in a nutshell. More pics coming soon!

A good bloke gone forever....

*Sigh* It is a sad day today for animal lovers everywhere. I'm sure anyone who doesn't live under a coconut shell would have heard the news.... Steve Irwin a.k.a. the Crocodile Hunter was killed in a freak accident when a stingray attacked him as he was shooting a documentary. The barb from the stingray's stinger went right through his heart and probably killed him instantly.
Actually, it probably wasn't a freak accident, I think the stingray meant very much to do that. Heh, lame joke. Well, he was a humourous guy, so I think he might appreciate a lame joke. It's kind of ironic that he faced all sorts of much more dangerous animals in his life like crocs and snakes and venomous spiders and whatnot.... and the one that got him was a usually harmless stingray. Apparently his death is only the third known fatality due to a stingray in the whole world! Their stings usually aren't fatal... but he had the bad luck of getting pierced right in his heart. What a bummer. Well, at least he died doing the very thing he was passionate about, instead of wasting away in his old age. The really sad thing is that he left behind his wife Teri and his two young kids, Bindi Sue and Bob, who are only 8 and 3 years old respectively. It's such a shame his son will be too young to remember much of his dad when he grows up. And Bindi Sue is so much like her dad already. I could tell when I went to visit Australia Zoo in 2004 and I saw her doing a commentary on how to feed Galapagos tortoises. She really sounded and acted just like her dad! And when I wanted to take a picture with her and her Teri Irwin, who was also there, Teri told me that Bindi just found out that a koala had died and she was crying so she couldn't be in the picture. Man, I can only imagine how much she must be crying now that her dad is gone. *Sigh*... such a shame.

I was in such a shock when I found out today at work. A colleague just came up to me and said "Do you know the Crocodile Hunter?" I said "Yeah." Then he said "He died already" And my jaw dropped and I was like "What????" I almost thought he was joking. And he couldn't explain to me exactly what had happened to Steve coz' his English ain't too good. He just told me that something went through his heart while he was diving, and I though a piece of wood from the boat fell off and pierced him or something. And my dang office doesn't have internet after 10am, so I couldn't check the news to see for myself. So I was itching to find out more, which I did as soon as I left the office. I heard it on the radio, and I saw the news on CNN as soon as I came home. And then my mum had to go and say that it bound to happen to him sooner or later, seeing how he always took such risks. Not that I disagree, and yeah, he probably did take a few too many risks, but he was one of the few brave people who actually had the guts to step out and do something to help the animals no one could care less about. And he was a guy with real passion. You gotta respect that, at least.

Well, the whole world is abuzz with this news, and a lot a lot of people are saddened by it, myself included. I even tried to get into his website but couldn't get into it, probably because it's flooded with other people trying to get onto the website. Then I went to visit wikipedia and was surprised to see that the article on Steve Irwin was already updated on his death, and his life was all described in past tense. Like, that was super fast. And I think at least 8 people on my MSN messenger list have a message next to their nick about Steve Irwin.....including one that said "That irritating Aussie is gone! I dunno whether to be happy or feel sympathy". Hrmpph... I shall deal with that fella when I see him! Oh well, love him or hate him, Steve Irwin definitely made an impact. He will be missed. Rest in peace, mate.