News Flash #1
Since December the 18th, I've been busy with a whole lot of things, the first and foremost my Masters. I am now in my fourth year and I have finally got down to the last part of it. Remember when I had to start my masters from scratch, now my bench work (experimentation in the lab) has been over and done with and I have also completed another prerequisite for the submission of my thesis. It's all about getting that sucker called thesis done and I am done!
Note: The last time I was out of the country was in December 2000 when my parents took us to India for a fourteen day trip. I traveled out of the country again this year, 12 years later. TWICE!
News Flash #2
First time I ventured out of Malaysia was for a joint seminar with a certain Thailand university for the exchange and discussion of information regarding food and biotechnology; updates and new discoveries. We stayed in Hatyai. Thailand to me is a land of wonders. When a cousin of mine asked me how it was like;
Cousin : So how was Thailand la?
Hdaran : Awesome! I wanna live there!!!
Alcohol is CHEAP even in 7-Eleven!
Nothing in the Internet is censored because I tried accessing, first a gay online dating site and then a gay porn website using the hotel's wireless connection.
People are OPENLY gay! LGBTs are just another fragment of society in Thailand!
And pork EVERYWHERE!!!
I LOVE!
I went there with a Muslim university lecturer and Muslim friends so I had to refrain from indulging in alcohol. But I made it a point to try out the pork burger in MacDonalds. The Samurai Pork burger as Cookies and Cakes told me. "Porky goodness la! You must try!" and so I did. When we were allowed to do some shopping alone, I sneaked into the MacDonalds at Lee Gardens and had the Samurai Pork Burger!
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| Serious awesomeness! |
News Flash #3
The travelling to foreign lands did not stop there.
Next up was Srilanka.
This was exciting not because it was Srilanka but mostly because of the reason I was there.
The dance school I am affiliated with has branches in several other countries besides Malaysia (4 branches in Malaysia; Coimbatore, India; Perth & Adelaide, the latter being the latest addition, Australia; Singapore; and; Colombo, Sri Lanka). Some might have already guessed which performing arts institution I am referring to.
Annually, the birthday of our founder is celebrated, in turns, by one of these centers in a spectacle so beautiful that one would be lucky to be a part of it or even witness the event. This year the odissi group was chosen (over baratanatyam and other performing arts groups) to represent the center I am currently affiliated with. I was chosen alongside 5 other female dancers. Only 4 of us actually made the trip. And we were in mostly Colombo, the largest city in which the capital of Srilanka, Sri Jayawardenapura-Kotte is situated.
We hardly had time to indulge in sightseeing, but managed souvenirs shopping.
We took in what we could inside the vans and mini-buses that were assigned for us within the distances we traveled.
I saw colourful auto-rickshaws, abundant Buddha statues, churches, throngs of people in a wet market, their horrible traffic conditions and sometimes narrow roads.
I also saw deliciously gorgeous Srilankan men and equally beautiful Srilankan women, high-end restaurants, bars, lounges and clubs which bear testament to the night life of their rich and well-to-do, KFCs, MacDonalds, Pizza Huts, shopping malls, all were sights not unforeseeable yet still managed to excite us.
We spoke to the locals there whom were more than merely surprised at our command of the Tamil language.
They were also surprised that we have provisions in our country (which for them was a far away land called Malaysia, hardly seemed like a place for Indians let along Tamils to flourish) for preserving our Tamil/Indian heritage.
We were surprised that they spoke more Tamil than we had anticipated.
And that they spoke it so beautifully it could have been carefully scripted.
We were surprised that they dressed more in pants, T-shirts, shirts, skirts, shorts, rather than dhotis, sarees and Punjabi suits.
But we could always tell who were foreigners (us) and who were locals (them).
It was an experience I would treasure for the rest of my life.
Our odissi performance received rave reviews.
I was a stranger upon entering this foreign land with even the Malaysians presents there being foreign to me BUT when I was done with the group performance, I ceased from being foreign to everyone who witnessed us.
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| The plane back to M'sia. |
I think I'll leave it at that.
I've still got Pseudo Miss Sunshine's wedding story to get through and can you believe all this happened in the first half of 2013???!!!
