Jason, point blank, said, "You are not coming to dinner tonight."

Mean. I don't like my brother very much now that he's a full fledged adult, with his own car and his own disposable income. He's downright jerk-ish these days.

So now, I'm left scrambling for my little black book, to see if there is anyone I could drag out for Chinese festivities tonight. Considering the late notice though, I doubt it.

Happy Chinese New Year, y'll. I wouldn't mind a red packet or two. Not to mention some of Mei Ling's mother's fried spinach leaves, the curries, the satays, dried pork strips, kueh lapis, etc. In fact, Chinese New Year care packages will go down very nicely this weekend.

A girl I tutored at Summer School emailed and said,

"Anyway, I just wanna say, that despite what everyone said, I think you did a great job of tutoring us.  I mean, with a girl like DEBBIE in our class who was SO rude to you - that is one BIG achievement. Yeah, so even though I made a TOTAL fool of myself as I tried to complete "15 Stupid Things to do in Chem.", e.g. running around like a gas molecule, playing the "statue" game, making a conga line, and so on - I still had a smashing time!"

I'm all warm and fuzzy inside now. However, to my eternal shame, I only have a vague memory of her - Steph, not Debbie. You always seem to remember the one who talked back.

What is it about the start of a possible new relationship that makes you go all giggly like a fifteen year old? It's very ... icky. I can't believe I'm giggling like this.

Pete made me feel very small last night. "There must be more to you than SALP. There must be."

Damn leadership program has taken over my life. "It sounds like a cult," he had said. The way I've been marketing it, it sure as hell sounds like a cult.

"Point taken. I will stop talking about it, and I will stop trying to convert you."

"Good. Haven't you have any non-SALPie friends? I'm not going anywhere with you, if there are SALPies around."

Good grief, giggling is so eight years ago. Insomniac better get back soon. I need a girly chat.

Now that I've finally lost enough weight to fit back into my original dress size, I'm a little nostalgic about my hips. Then I look at my almost flat stomach and reckon, nah, I don't really miss those hips. But I reckon I should not be losing any more weight. My brand new jeans, which fit perfectly three weeks ago, is now a little too loose.

In other news, this happened to my old high school, two days ago. It's heart-wrenching, considering the classrooms were just refurbished very recently.

"Wanna hear my super crazy mad idea?" I said to a bunch of people last week, as we were heading off to coffee after a long day of tutoring. "I think I've gone completely insane with this idea."

"Let's hear it," said Matty, our super duper Welfare Officer.

"I've gone completely crazy! You know how I have kinda been muttering how busy this year's going to be for me? What with teaching rounds, my internship in July, research or honours project, work, communications, being Faculty Rep, community service and all that sort of thing?"

"Yeah ..."

"Now, I'm thinking about applying to be a director of Summer School next year."

"What? Like co-ordinating everything and everyone?"

"Yes."

"Woah."

"Exactly."

"I don't know, Liv. You might be the perfect person for it, " said Cat, earnestly.

"It's a big job. You'll be very busy."

"I KNOW," I wailed. "I've gone nuts. I won't see my family, I won't get any sleep. I'll be eating lollies all day so I'll be on a high, and you know I'm trying to avoid sugar!"

"Liv, you live for that sort of thing."

That stopped me in my tracks. I ho-ed and I hum-med. "I'll sleep on it. Where on earth are we going for coffee?!"

A week later, I've slept on it and it's looking mighty appealing. The money's crap, but it is my sort of thing. And as Nye said, "It will differentiate you from others when you're applying for jobs. How many graduate teachers can say they've actually co-ordinated a school?"

I'll sleep on it some more.

VCE Summer School is over. I know not what to do with myself until I have to report at school for my third teaching round in two weeks.

I suppose I could double my efforts to convert the Gentle Giant to "the dark side". Every third person at Summer School was a member of the leadership program at uni, and everywhere he turned, there was another trying to convince him to apply to the program this year. I am so passionate about it, he dubbed us "the dark side" ten minutes after I launched into my marketing spiel.

A group of us watched The Princess Bride last night, after we got kicked out of the pub. I smirked and laughed at all the corny lines while he massaged my shoulders. He had said his fingers were getting fidgety and so will I please present my shoulders to him for a massage. I obligingly did.

Oh my gosh, like, it so eww today. I mean, like, it's so smoggy and everything. Look at the state of my top, like really, look at it. It's ew and like, disgusting. Oh my gosh, it's like, soooo retarded. Oooh, look at him. Oh my gosh, he's like, cute.

[Cyn's camp blonde bimbo thing is so getting to me. I think I'm spending way too much time with her.]

Oh my gosh, like, look at the time. I have to go, bubs. I have to meet Michael, like, for lunch and everything. Muah, muah. Byeeee.

I've read of periwinkle eyes, but never really knew what it meant until yesterday. The Gentle Giant's eyes could be called periwinkle. But as I said to Jill last night, "I like him. A lot. But I'm not going to do a thing about it. I'm still a little raw from the break-up, even if it was six months ago."

So, when I woke up this morning, I decided to be temperamental and shallow. I'm going to round up Cyn and Kell and we are going to be like the sixteen, seventeen year old girls we have been tutoring for the past two weeks. We will talk of fashion and jewellery, and the prettiness of our shoes. Then we will sit around and discuss, very seriously, the charms of various pretty boys, flicking our hair back sassily at the said boys.

Or we could sneak onto the movie set [an American film is being filmed on campus at the moment] to google at "that guy from Dharma and Greg", and to be spotted by a talent scout who will want to take all of us to Hollywood and make us starlets.

That'll be an easy way to avoid the Gentle Giant.

I've met a Gentle Giant with beautiful frank eyes.

"Don't take this the wrong way or anything, but have we met before? I swear I've met you before, " he said, two days ago.

It wasn't a pick up.

I like him. He's ... solid, steady, and he has the cutest way of getting my attention. He nudges my foot gently. Or he leans close to speak softly. Or he just gently gestures.

I like him.

Don't you just hate it when you know you need to cry, but you just can't bring yourself to shed that first tear?

I want my Mommy.

I have tan lines.

"No you don't. Those are burn lines," cried Elizabeth, one of my Chemistry students.

"They don't hurt. They're tan lines," I said.

I do look somewhat like a half-baked lobster though. So, perhaps I am a little sunburnt.

[I took Adeline to St Kilda Beach yesterday to have a gander at the crafts market on the esplanade, before meeting up with Jill at Luna Park. Needless to say, it was the quintessential Melbourne summer day - endless blue skies, and an intense Australian sun.]

"We didn't know what we're doing, but by George, we're going to do it anyway"

"I'd like to end by telling you about Noah's Ark. I'm not religious or anything, but it's a fantastic story and it illustrates my point perfectly. For those you don't know, Noah built a huge boat [that housed his entire family, and two of every animal that lived on the earth] that survived 40 days and 40 nights of fierce storms and raging waves. He was an amateur. The Titanic, my friends, were built by professionals."
- Matthew Albert, 22, co-founder of SAIL, 15 January 2003.

I ran into Colin, the brother of an ex-classmate of mine at uni yesterday. He said, "Woi, did you know Adeline is in Melbourne? She's staying with us for the next 2 weeks."

I said, "WHAT?!! Sharon didn't tell me?!!!"

He said, "We didn't know you were back."

I said, "Oh."

Then I said, "OMG. I'm so going to ring her now."

Colin said, "You do that," and walked off with his lunch.

Yeah, so Adeline is in town. I saw her last night. That girl is so feminine, I felt like a complete klutz next to her.

Oh, Robert Jordan's tenth book in the Wheel of the Time series, Crossroads by Twilight, will be available to Dymocks readers next month.

Woo hoo.

Tutoring at VCE Summer School.
Busy.
Hacking cough.
Busy.

Summer highlights

Has it really been 7 weeks? By all that is cliched, that sure was quick. Here are some of the highlights.

• The Atkins diet.
  
• Hanging out at the 'open air market' with Jo and Superduperglorious Friend, eating siow bee and gubak mee and ais kacang.
  
• The loss of a friendship that meant a lot to me.
  
• The support of wonderful girlfriends as I dealt with the loss.
  
• Jo's Harry Potter ringtone, which I desperately want.
  
• Opting out of a carol concert a week before the performance because I could never get comfortable with the group.
  
• 3 days in Kuala Lumpur, shopping till I literally dropped in exhaustion.
  
• The alarming population density in Kuala Lumpur's shopping centres - it rivaled Chadstone in the week before Christmas.
  
• The credo of drivers in Asian cities seem to be "Every man for himself" or "Get out of my way, you moron. What, your license kopi-o one-kah?!".
  
• Being devoured by mosquitoes, as usual, when I was in Bintulu.
  
• Listening my cousin-in-law discussing politics with my dad and thinking "He's such an ass", wondering pettishly if he only married my cousin because of our family's political 'connections'.
  
• Feeling relieved and proud of Dad's decision not to take up politics when Granddad retired some thirty years ago.
  
• Watching a miring or blessing ceremony, for the re-naming of a child during our overnight at Dad's longhouse.
  
• Hearing the shrieks and laughter of my cousin's daughters on the evening air as they bathed in the brown river that runs past our longhouse.
  
• Watching Granddad, who's really quite frail now, relishing his food, to the point of ignoring the conversations around him.
  
• Making Granddad pray pray with us.
  
• Rediscovering long-forgotten Iban words as I struggle to communicate with my grandparents.
  
• Basket weaving lessons with my step-grandmother.
  
• Spending oodles of time with Mum, Dad and Darren, but still feeling as if I barely spent any time with them.
  
• Taking Darren to see Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, and watching VCDS with him.
  
• The Two Towers.
  
• Conversing with Darren in Mandarin, and pestering him for the correct translations for specific words.
  
• Helping Darren colour pictures.
  
• Being obsessed with Reese Witherspoon's hairstyle in Sweet Home Alabama.
  
• A week of uncharacteristic snappish behaviour. I told Mark, a long time family friend, to "get out of my kitchen, for one thing" when he offered his help the one time he was over to see Jason.
  
• Discovering family history, and trying to place everyone we met in Bintulu in the family tree. "This is your cousin. He is the son of *eh?*, who is the son of *eh?* who was married to *eh?* who's daughter is cousin to *eh?* who lives in the same longhouse as your father's grandmother." !!!
  
• Alison's wedding.
  
• Running into John H., of all people, when I was having drinks with Alice and Jon in a mamak shop in Bangsar.
  
• Petaling Street and pirated VCDs.
  
• Malaysia.
  

I swear I'm going to cry when I get on that plane tomorrow.

In an email to a friend, I wrote, "Wahlau eh, everyone so grown up one." [I can speak Manglish (Malaysian English) with the best of them.] "So embarassing-lah!"

It's embarassing because I'm not in the least grown up. I only pretend to be.

Darren and I were bouncing on the mini-trampoline a few days ago, having our own brand of fun, speaking in our own specific language. "Bounce, tap, tap. Tap, tap, bounce."

Dad, who was reading the paper, suddenly said, "Woi. You still a little girl-kah?!"

I laughed and said, "Why, cannot-kah?"

"Your sister has gone bonkers, " said Denning to Darren. "What is 'bounce, tap, tap'?!"

Darren got self-conscious and hopped off the trampoline, leaving me to bounce alone.

Party pooper.

True gold at rainbow's end

There is such wealth of stories from both sides of any family. Isn't that so? Truth be told, I've only just begun to discover my own family's stories. Stories of Chinese immigration from my mother's side. Stories of headhunters and river travellers from my father's side. Everyday stories we enact at the dinner table, on the way home from work and school. Stories of my own remembered vague childhood which I have retold to Darren. He finds it fascinating, hardly believing that I was ever young, hardly believing there were no such things as computers or VCDs when his brothers and I were growing up.

Do you suppose that is the purpose of writing? To find a commonality in everyday stories? Or perhaps, it is just an outlet for everyday stories.

Darren likes it when I tell him of days gone by. I think it gives him a sense of belonging, and makes him feel loved. There is also a feeling of a escapism, a sense of adventure, romanticism for him. Remember how, when we were children, we loved to be told a story? People in stories always seem to lead terribly exciting lives. It was as if, when we sat quietly to hear a story, we could borrow a little of that sparkling excitement to brighten our tiny existence, never thinking that our lives had its own sparkling excitements.

My late grandmother has been on my mind a lot in the last couple of days. I was sure it was to be something profound - a message from the beyond, perhaps. But no, it was merely a jumping off point. Once I started to articulate the memories, and the emotions that were behind the memories ...

Everything happens for a reason. One stroke of the brush will lead into another naturally. You only need to let it flow. This time round, the brush stroke is absent-minded promise to someday weave the stories of my family into some kind of story. One day. Some day. When I grow up.

I leave for Melbourne on Saturday. It is always a wrench to leave Mum and Dad and Darren, even though I know Melbourne is waiting for me to resume my life. It is especially hard, this time round, because I'm not sure when I'll be back again. This summer has somehow been a definite crossroad in my life, even if nothing stupendous happened. I can no longer long for days past. I can only go forward on my own, now.

I am terrified.

I wam mitherableth. My nothe ith thuffed and I cannot thmell a thing - apart from the hideoth durian Denning inthithed on eating after dinner. I can't thleep, too.

Mitherable.

My throat is semi-itchy and sore. So is my nose. My voice is husky - quite a change from the normal soprano shrill. Water isn't quite quenching my frequent thirst. I don't feel too great, and I'm snapping at everyone in sight - more so than usual. [Shut up, Dave. I've acknowledged it, okay?! Get out of my head.]

Do you suppose I'm sickening for a summer cold?

I can hear Mum now. "See? All those toxins! You should have gone on that cleansing diet! Clean out all the poisons in you. Have you been taking your vitamins? No? Aiyoh, why not?! See-lah, your immune system is down."

No biggie. Now is a good time to be sick.

Sometimes, when I get too complacent about my faith, I listen to this song.

"Why", This Mystery, Nichole Nordeman
we rode into town the other day
just me and my daddy
he said i'd finally reached the age
and i could ride next to him on a horse
and of course was not quite as wide

we heard a crowd of people shouting
and so we stopped to find out why
and there was that man
whom my dad said he loved
but today there was fear in his eyes

so i said, daddy why are they screaming
why are the faces of some of them beaming
why is he dressed in that bright purple robe
i bet that crown hurts him more than he shows
daddy please, can't you do something
he looks as though he's gonna cry
you said he was stronger than all of those guys
daddy, please tell me why
why does everyone want him to die

later that day the sky grew cloudy
and daddy said i should go inside
somehow he knew things would get stormy
boy was he right
but i could not keep from wondering if
there was something he had to hide

so after he left, i had to find out
i was not afraid of getting lost
so i followed the crowds to a hill
where i knew men had been killed
and i heard a voice come from above

and it said, Father, why are they screaming
why are faces of some of them beaming
why are they casting their lots for my own
this crown of thorns hurts me more than it shows
Father please, can't you do something
i know that you must hear my cry
i thought i could handle a cross of this size
Father remind me why,
why does everyone want me to die
when will i understand why

my precious son, i hear them screaming
i'm watching the face of the enemy beaming
but soon i will clothe you in robes of my own
jesus, this hurts me much more than you know
but this dark hour, i must do nothing
i've heard your unbearable cry
power in your blood destroys all other lies
soon you'll see past their unmerciful eyes
look there below, see the child
trembling by her father's side

now i can tell you why
she is why you must die

A year on

January 22, 2002. I know where the heart lies.

"When are you coming home for good?" Relatives are very fond of asking this.

"Oh, not for ten years, at least." I grew tired of shrugging and smiling inanely.

"That's what she said last year." Mum is dying for her chicks to come home for good, but Jason and I have other plans for ourselves.

"My standard answer, Mum. If you ask me the same question next year, I'll still say ten years." My roots are here. I will always need to come home to nurture those roots, to ensure a strong foundation. But the ever growing leaves and branches of my life - that's in Melbourne.

"This place is too small for me and my dreams."

"You could do something about it. Make it bigger to suit you. Change it."

"No, I don't think so. This town is at home in her skin. I'm just not at home in her skin. Why should I make her into something she isn't, into something utterly pretentious? No, my vision of myself is at odds with this town. There is no place for it here."

"Dad, is that wild rice?"

"Wild rice? What wild rice?"

"There! On the hillside!"

"That one lalang!! How come you think it's wild rice. Silly girl!"

I blushed. "Cause it was in uniform lines? It doesn't look like grass! I swear it's wild rice."

"No such thing as wild rice."

My face turned an unbecoming shade of red. My father and my brothers laughed their heads off. "Okay, padi-lah. I didn't know okay. City girl, what."

"Wild rice. Hahaha. There, another patch of your wild rice. Silly girl."

There were rice fields in patches all along the State Highway in the Bintulu District. I sat at the window, peering intently forward to catch sight of rice field after rice field between uncleared areas of the Borneon jungle as the car whizzed past. The fields were green with life, lush and fertile. So much so, I expected each field to burst into golden ripeness right before my very eyes. It was cool.

"Look, che! Your wild rice!"

"Ha. Ha. Very funny."

"Haha! Che che city woman!!"

"Aku paluk kepalak dik, baru nemu dik. Anang ketawa!" I threatened to bonk Darren's head, hard.

Was I supposed to reflect on 2002, and outline my plan for 2003? It seemed like everyone is doing that. I can't be bothered. I'd rather tell you stories.