Christmas

Christmas Christmas.. Merry Christmas..

Ok. I know it's Boxing Day, but what the heck :P This is gonna be my Christmas post.

Interesting Christmas it was. Has everyone been to the new Boulevard Restaurant? When it was in.. well.. the Boulevard area, we used to go there every once in a while. Good food, good place. No complaints. The new place? Hmph. Never ever have the unlimited lunch. We were headed there for dimsum that morning (I woke up at 11.45am, morning no? :P) but decided (big mistake) to try the unlimited.

It's
A
Scam!

Service is slow, rude managers, not all foods are available and the most annoying thing was that they never bothered to inform us. We were waiting for half an hour for the last three dishes to arrive. They never did! It was the first time the whole family blew up! And it was the first time I loved blowing up :D Argumentative captain who was 1) unapologetic (which was ok at first) and then he got 2) rude. Geez.. nobody invokes customers' rights here?

What pathetic excuse was "Oh, we don't have duck, fish or deer"?

And after two hours you couldn't tell us that?! The "unlimited lunch" was basically unlimited veges. -.-" The meat, had conveniently disappeared. Spending 18 ringgit each eating veges?! Might as well go home and plant some. Heh.. It was like a diet conspiracy at hand.

Phew. Blowing off that steam was fun. :) Now, fast forward to the evening.

Zhungyi'd invited me to a Christmas gathering at his place. Truth be told, I was reluctant to go at first. Why?
1) Didn't know anyone there
2) Self-conscious
3) Self-conscious
4) Self-conscious

You get the idea :P
I presented this problem to Fen. Oh boy.. "Fresh graduate, self-conscious?" I actually wrote social phobia in my msn personal msg box, but the words were essentially something like that. Sigh. When am I allowed to be human? Graduate or not graduate.

Well, in the end I thought I'd better go. After all, it'd be rude to excuse myself for such a lame reason. Not going because I was AFRAID was pathetic. I just thought I'd better get over it, suck it up and go before I let my fears run amok. If I let this happen once, it's bound to happen again and again. Before I know it, I'd really end up with social phobia.

And so I went. Got lost on the way. How in the whole wide watermelon world (it's just Pujut really, but the world sounds better) did I end up in Pujut 1C instead of Pujut 2C?
1) Poor light
2) Lousy navigation skills
3) Distorted memory
4) Total lameness etc

Finally got there after gathering my bearings. Woah.. the moment I stepped in. This here is Auntie A, B, C, D, E, F, G and H. The only elders I remember from last night were Zhungyi's parents of course, Zhungyi's grandma, this colleague of my dad's named Whim Balen (sp?), their church's pastor (more about him in a sec) as well as Auntie Pictionary (she remembered my name and all I remember is her drawing skills and our somewhat telepathic connection).

I guess the main point was to meet Nicole, Zhungyi's girlfriend. And yeap, I finally met her. Can't say I gathered a lot about her personality, but as far as first impressions go - nice gal, a little quiet, looks like she could be wild (in a good way) at times, smart no doubt, soft-spoken and soft-hearted. What surprised me was her size. She looks smaller than I expected. But of course, touche :) I must've looked bigger than she imagined. LOL. Doesn't take a mind reader to detect that. Funny, I did not realize her siblings were her siblings until the end when they got into the same car. Did not even realize her parents were her parents. They all look very different!

Another unexpected bit. Other than me, Chaw Meng was the only other friend Zhungyi invited from outside church. Very surprised. Or maybe his other friends were not in Miri or they just couldn't come. Hmmm.. Some afterthoughts: I'm touched that he asked.

The night turned out to be interesting if not a little awkward at first. When I arrived, a group of people were playing scrabble. Under Zhungyi's orders to "Socialize!," I observed as they played. Interesting that they made up wacky stories as the words were formed. :) They must have lots of practice, these people were really good. In particular this guy named Terrence.

Then came the best part. The food. Just kidding :P But it WAS spectacular. The last time I'd seen a proper Christmas dinner was when we went to Rachel's Christmas Party. I think I was about 10. The table was laden with the works - turkey, ham, pasta, lamb, mash potatoes, salad, gravy, mushrooms, broccoli.

There I was, going for my first round (which turned out to be my only round) and the pastor (I feel like I should put 'P' in caps) started a pretty interesting conversation. It's my first time talking to a pastor. Don't know why, I felt like I had to behave. LOL! Of all things we started a discussion about self-esteem and self-acceptance. I know for a fact that generally (as far as the normal distribution allows) people who have some form of faith (not necessarily religious faith although the majority stands for it) have higher self-esteem. This is not surprising. Makes perfect sense doesn't it? But what is more interesting is, the fraction of people who don't have religion describe their source of self-esteem as a form of purpose. What is this purpose?

Measurement-wise, how do you measure self-esteem? It is based on how experimenters define self-esteem. But how about what people (general public) see as self-esteem? There's bound to be infinite definition. There's the question of dimensions too. I'm pretty sure most people fall in the middle of the line, and certainly, just as there are those who have very low self-esteem thus suicide, depression and the likes, there must also be those who have unwavering self-esteem. We know what feeds to low self-esteem, should we perhaps we exploring what makes high self-esteem and somehow put this piece of information to good use? Being proactive instead of preventive. I think that's important for psychology too.

The night ended with a game of pictionary. There was this little boy playing on the piano by rote. I think he was about 4 or 5. Then there was this not so little boy zonking out on the couch after a few glasses of wine.

Merry Christmas everyone!
It's time to think of New Year resolutions.

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Let's have a moment's silence in remembrance of the 2004 Tsunami victims and their families.