Sanny's Blog

Tuesday, April 05, 2005

Missing + Names sanny @ 2:26 AM

Section 1: Missing!

Help help help! I'm terribly missing these precioussssss

1. My 2 yrs old++ spectacles
(left:-2.75, right:-1.75, Yuri Nitani, Gold & Green trimmings)
Last seen: On the sofa at home, after watching The Contender

I've so far survived almost one week without my specs, so I can't really be bothered actually. Lucky for me, tutorials are all over but one (that interactive marketing one in which I have one more presentation left). But the thought of the ol' specs being crushed by my siblings' butts or thrown under the sofa with all the boggarts makes my eyes, oops, my heart, ache quite a bit. By the way, The Contender is the best new reality show to come up in years; it's got heart and even though I'm no boxing fan, the drama is understatingly real and touching. Plan B: Do eye exercises everyday and hope that my myopic eyes get a good healing (yea right)

One good thing: I automatically blur out all the ugly faces I have the misfortune to lay sight upon, including sometimes my own blemishes. The world is a bit (a bit only!) more beautiful with blurred vision. It'll be better if I miraculously regain perfect eyesight (Auntie Yayan's testimonial after Lasik: "Beda loh, dunia diliat dari penglihatan sempurna! Hati jadi enteng pisaaaan"...how I miss my perfect vision days before coming to myopia-inducing Singapore). I have automatic eye-filter for eye candy anyway, so yes, perfect eyesight pleeaase

2. My 2 month-old cheapo fountain pen (compared to other fountain pens)
Last seen: On a plastic container in James' 'hotel' room

Actually, I bought this fountain pen ($29) as a replacement for my previously lost Zebra comic pen ($5), which I use to write in my diary, called Moo. More on Moo later. I simply love the sight of wet ink drying as I write my words down, huahahaha (very morbid fascination). I remembered getting so excited when the first water-based gel ink pen came out (Pilot G-pen?). And that's also why I'd been using penciltic pens (so cute! where are they now?) before the water pens come out, instead of using oil-based, water-resistant ink pens, which were used by most people then. Anyway. Why must I retrieve this fountain pen? Because without it, I won't write in Moo, in which I write my innermost thoughts, no holds barred. Yes yes very weirdo behaviour. My poor Moo must be feeling so neglected now. So yes the fountain pen has got to be found (I've still loads of unused ink catridges)! Or if someone wants to buy me Mont Blanc, that would be greatly appreciated, may you live a long and prosperous life, amitabha, amen.

Vincent explains: Crap. People normally give their diaries names like "diary" or "sweets" or some fancy name but "Moo"? Apparently, Sanny's diary is of The Story of Moominvalley series, so being the uncreative git that she is, she just nicked the diary's name from there. Besides, she argues that she likes the sound of "Moo" as compared to "Meow" or "Mbeeee(goat)" or "Quack" or even "Woof" (Chocobo's "Kweh" is a close second though). Must be those milk ads with the herds of cows.

Section 2: Names

First of all, I am, like many others, quite affected by the news of the Pope's passing on. I'm no Catholic or Christian but I used to study in a Catholic school (I miss St. Ricci I!!!! Such fond memories). My earliest recollection of Pope John Paul II was seeing him often in Tempo magazines and of course we(the students) knew him through agama(religion) lessons (I always scored 9 and above, hoho). He made a lasting impression on me, not because of his many achievements but rather due of a surprise test by my teacher on general knowledge.

I miss those fun days. It's a wonder I never found school nor tests a chore whilst I was studying at Ricci. You wouldn't believe it but we students actually look forward to surprise tests despite our 'complaints'. Maybe we're knowledge-voracious children then but I doubt that's the reason for our boundless enthusiasm. I love all my teachers there, except maybe Ibu Sukimah (Primary 2), who often pinched me(so painful!) because I was forever yakking and influencing others to yak non-stop (see? I'm much more subdued in Singapore, I dunno why).

Anyway, back to the surprise test. So everyone was surprised as usual (predictable) and there's a cloud of panic all over everyone's heads because it's a general knowledge test (i.e. no answer found in textbooks). It came to this question(surprisingly, there's only 1 other question from that memorable surprise test which I remember to this day). The question was, "Name the present Pope". You might think it's easy but actually as fickle-minded children we forget these kinds of names very easily because there are so much more information vying for a space in our puny brains. I myself was at a loss and seeing everyone's faces, I knew they weren't faring any better. But in the end, I managed to write down the correct answer. Not too many people got this one correct, I recall. How could I have remembered the info then? Well, coincidentally, my deskmate's name is Paulus. Pope John Paul II in Indonesian is Paus Paulus II. See? Then and thereafter the name of the late Pope stuck in my mind. Oh, and the test results? Everybody failed except me and probably some others, maybe not(muahahah). I got a shabby 52 marks (if I remember correctly) anyway. Till this day, that was the only surprise test I remember (I can't remember how old I was then though). And the other question was about atomic bombings by the way. So, the Pope's departure triggered all these bittersweet memories for me, which would've collected dust otherwise. I cried a little when I was reading all those moving reports but in turn, he brought a smile to my face again.

By the way, the boys who became my deskmates always share names with famous people, I have no idea why. And the weird part is, normally famous surnames become the names. There's Darwin (after Charles Darwin), there's Paulus, there's also Marzuki (after Ismail Marzuki). Maybe Indonesians just love naming their sons after famous people. Weird. Aunt Mimi, my mom's friend, named her first son Clinton and her second Charles (after Prince Charles). My mother suggested she named her third Saddam to complete the set. I think eventually he was named Louis (after some King). And even more bizarre? My first crush, who's Indonesian, also had a famous surname as his name. I can't remember how he looked like but I do remember the name because it's famous. One of my fave actors, Leonardo DiCaprio, also had his name derived from you-know-who. What's with famous names? My siblings' names are also derived from famous names (not mine though-mine's just a weird name

)

Edric (after Eric Clapton, hence we always call him Eric even though it's written as Edric)
Marissa - Marissa Haque, a famous pretty Indonesian actress at that time
Niki - Originally named after Nicky Wu (huahaha) but because my parents favoured a 4-letter word, it's modified to Niki (and so it sounds more feminine).
James - Originally he's to be named Boris, after Boris Becker the tennis player but in the end my parents thought James of James Bond would be cooler, because Boris and Boros(frivolous in Indonesian) sound alike.

Next time I'm going to name my belongings after famous names too instead of stupid ones like Moo (but I like Moo).

comments

sanny said...: 5:15 PM

♥ Put your finger in the pie ♥