There and back again

Last Thursday I was alone on the first floor of our rent house. All the housemates took the opportunity of the CNY break to balik kampung and spend the long weekend with their families. I did not, for a few reasons.

First of all, I didn't plan to return to Terengganu in February after my last trip home in January.

Even if I was to go home it would be by air. No way I would buy a bus ticket and spend more than 9 hours sitting on my butt while being trapped in a traffic jam at Karak. Worse, most of the time I had to hold my pee in for hours until the bus finally reached the old and rotten Putra Terminal. I think if I go through that for maybe a couple times more I would soon find stones in my kidney. Buying air tickets in this time of the year means I'd have to sell a kidney.

After all I have planned my trips home for this year and my next flight home is on 14 March. With mess in my finance department I don't want to spend much on things of less priority. Then there's that trip to Singapore to see the airshow. Heck, I haven't even booked a hotel room. I can't spend all my money at once here. There are still 10 months to the year so swallowing all in one bite would mark an impending disaster.

Hence I stayed back. I did have company though, a friend who came over because his housemates also all went home but he recently had an accident and suffered some pains in his legs so he couldn't go out. Thus I had to be his runner, like buying food for him. 

So when I was about to swing into a slumber suddenly a loud bang shook the room, and that was the first of many. I wouldn't lie, I almost soiled myself. Not because I was scared but because I was dead shocked.

Going on for a few minutes, my half-awake self felt so annoyed. I took the pillows, banged them on the floor (I was pissed off my sleep was disturbed), and then took them downstairs on the couch where I slept for the whole night, since the noise of the firecrackers exploding in the sky was a bit muffled at ground floor.

Seriously engaging pyrotechnics in a terrace neighbourhood isn't something figured out of common sense. No racial issue here. Last time during Hari Raya some smart s's burnt the firecrackers of the same magnitude at our house street too. We were playing badminton and one of the firecrackers rocketed towards the court and exploded just feet above us who were running away like scared cats. That was perhaps the closest we got to Gaza or Fallujah.

Moving on to the next topic. I learnt this afternoon that Philip Seymour Hoffman had died at age 46. He reportedly OD'ed. I'm quite sad. He was actually one of my favourite actors. I liked him the most as that DJ in The Boat That Rocked. That movie rocks. He really excelled in bringing that character to life, like he was a star DJ himself. Seriously Mr. Hoffman was that good in my opinion, and it should be noted that I've only watched like 4 of the films he had a role in. I read some tributes and messages for the late Mr. Hoffman and some fans are angry and mad at him because he knew where addiction would bring him to yet he succumbed to it, causing him to leave us prematurely, taking along his great talent that we still haven't had enough with. So long Philip Seymour Hoffman.