Thursday, January 01, 2009

New Year's celebration + First Drama of 2009

Happy new year 2009!

It was a wonderful day (night?). After 4 years of not celebrating it in Malaysia (which I actually did not even celebrate annually before I went to Ireland), it feels great to be part of a celebration which is done Malaysian Style. Don't get me wrong, of course it was lots of fun celebrating it in Ireland, but the culture was unfortunately quite incompatible with my values, so I couldn't appreciate it fully.

Anyhoo, we (which was around 13 of my Choir Team family members) initially went to 1 Utama to usher in the new year, but unfortunately the concert was held in Chinese, and unless the entire concert had fun songs like the "See So So See So So" where the language is irrelevant, I doubt I could appreciate the concert fully. Fortunately a few others shared my view and/or maybe they preferred to see fireworks, that we decided to separate from the rest and head over to Mutiara Damansara for the fireworks. For reasons still obscure to me it eventually ended with the entire group heading off to MD on foot, which was actually quite fun, since we had to make checkpoints to make sure everyone didn't vanish.

Anyhoo, over at MD, we basically had two choices, stay at the back for a better view of the fireworks display, or go near the end of the street for the concert. While everyone else lounged about and purchasing stocks of snow spray, I roamed ahead and watched the concert partially. Faizal Tahir was one of the performers. He surely goes to the same places I go.

And a couple of minutes before midnight (according to my watch anyway, which I thought *was* on official national time) The fireworks began. The thrill of watching pyrokinetics that close was great, and it's nice to be in a homely setting for it. Here's to more fireworks in my future (God Willing)!

And then comes the drama. Or rather, a great learning experience.

On our way out the parking at 1 utama, we had an awestriking, flabbergasting, absolutely shocking, death defying collision with another car at the exit, which left a priceless, heart-thumping causing, adrenaline pumping, panic strickening... uh... scratch, on both of our cars. A scratch (and in their case a broken light, which was probably not our fault) that the users of the other car made to sound like we nearly killed them with a purposely hate-filled passion. As I said, it was a scratch that was hardly noticeable.

And to be downright honest, while I inched slowly into the exit (we we turning right to the exit at a crossroad), the other driver (that was driving straight on to the exit) zoomed in with no care in the world, and whose actions clearly said "I ain't givin you way, bitch!" as opposed to the more preferred action of "Oh, he's already inched out far enough that I can't squeeze in further. I might as well give way", or the even nicer action of "Oh, a car is asking permission to go to the exit first, I'd happily give em way". Typical drivers. I've got a better track record than you, maam.

At this point, I'd like to give great thanks to Allah for protecting us from harm, and a great huge big thanks to Ashley for keeping calm, thanks to Nyon for recording a couple of evidence (just in case), Soo Yee for being an awesome debater and countered every argument, point-for-point, Mandy for working hard to be reasonable and trying to calm the situation and Wai Teng for the support. <3 y'all! :)

So yeah, it was a great night overall, and thank you guys so much for taking me on board and sharing the joy and happiness of having friends to enjoy things together.

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