Days gone by.
Posted by entwined at 02:40 PM on September 13, 2005.
My grandma has always lived with my immediate family, but my siblings
and I were never close to her. Relationship between my grandma and my
mom used to be extremely strained, to say the least. My mom told us
about how she was treated when she just married into my father's
family. When they were in Perak, my mom would have to handwash
EVERYONE'S clothes and bedsheets by herself. Basically, when my grandma
was younger, she was quite the ferocious tiger.
I guess the main reason why we're not close is because she isn't kindly
or loving or gentle like how fairytales grandmas are like - with white
hair all tied up in a bun and always baking cookies. Perhaps my memory
of her is somewhat distorted by what my mother tells me, but she always
seem to cut a haughty, forbidding figure in my mind's eye.
I am so used to seeing her strong and imperious.
But she fell very ill last year, and within a span of a few short
months, she has shrunk, in stature and otherwise. Instead of the sense
of arrogance she used to give out, I know only feel fragility and pity
and sympathy. She was the one who used to take morning walks everyday
just 2 or 3 years back. But now, she can barely walk to the toilet
(which is right outside her room) without assistance from someone.
Her movements are slow and she is so thin now.
Just now, I went to the kitchen to throw some rubbish and I would have
to pass by her room if I wanted to go to the kitchen. As I went down, I
noticed the light in her bathroom was switched on, so I reminded myself
to switch it off on my way up. As I neared the bathroom, I saw my
grandmother slowing making her way out. I have to admit, I was frozen
for a moment. I didn't know what to do.
I saw her holding on tightly to the toilet door and immediately, I
walked forward to give her an arm for support as I walked her back into
her room. For the first few seconds when she looked at me, I could tell
she was either very surprised, or she can hardly recognise me.
I was right.
It was an awkward moment, as I walked towards her and her looking at me
quizzically. In order to break the ice, I grasped wildly and seized
upon a topic to talk about.
I told her,
my classes hasn't started yet. It's only going to start next week.
She replied,
are you AhJin?Yes, I am.
Now you're such a big girl already. So tall and so beautiful.
I didn't know what to say. I just laughed it off.
She spents all her time confined in her room, because she is too weak
to move elsewhere. Even when she was healthier, we never really spoke.
I feel a keen sense of loss, for the grandma I never knew.
I remembered once, a long time ago, I went to her room to watch TV
because my bro wouldn't allow me to watch that show. It was 'The
Butterfly Lovers'. Everytime I watch that bloody show, I would cry
buckets, but that's not the point here. The fact is, there was a time
when I felt close enough to her to watch TV in her room. What happened
then? Are family politics to be blamed for the ever-widening gap?
I wonder if she feels lonely, with only 2 maids for company. Her
children and her grandchildren are all elsewhere (besides my family).
I don't know what to say to her, because the gap seems too wide to be breached.
I don't even know if I would cry when the time finally arrives, because we never really knew each other.
I want to salvage for lost time, to get to know my grandma, but where
can we start? I should go 'visit' her daily, if just to enquire about
how she is. I probably should and before something happens, and all
that is left is regret.
Currently feeling: melancholy
Ouch.
Posted by entwined at 07:23 PM on September 12, 2005.
It’s a horrible start to today
man. The whole night I couldn’t sleep properly because diarrhoea was
brewing in my tummy. I knew it, but I was so tired that I fell asleep
while reading blogs, so did you think I was going to wake up, trudge to
the loo and be in utter pain? Uh-uh. I’d rather sleep.
Then
this morning, the shit hit the fan 
My mom woke my sister up at 5.50
am and my survival instincts finally kicked in. I rolled out of bed and
went ‘stomach ache stomach ache‘
whilst groping my way to the toilet half asleep. Once on the toilet
bowl, I could distinctly hear my tummy or bowels or whatever churning
and growling. I would much rather it growled out of hunger, but sigh.
It’s in PAIN. PAIN. I hate PAIN.
My gawd. I’ve always
maintained that having diarrhoea is the worst pain ever (I might change
my mind if I broke something, or went into labour, though). I can’t
even ‘force’ the….urm…excuse my crudeness…liquidfied shit out, because
it was so fucking painful to cramp up my stomach. Oh man….hell. After a
few tentative pushes, I gave up and crawled to the DRY bathroom floor
and just laid on my sleeping shorts in a foetal position.
After
a few minutes of blessed calm, the pain started again. I don’t know how
to describe the pain man. It’s gripping and forceful as hell. Oh god.
And I had to go to the loo a few times today. How torturing is that
———-
After
my first session in the toilet, it was already 6.20 am. I think you
people should know that I rarely, if ever, spend more than an average
of 5 minutes whilst doing my ‘business’. Bathing and showering not
counted. So to be confined for 30 minutes is amazing. Even Jarod can’t
believe how fast I shit :D Hahahah. I’m very ladylike other times, okay? 
Obviously, once you kena diarrhoea, the first thing you would do is think - what the fuck did I eat that was so dirty and contaminated that it manages to cripple me to such an extent?
Let’s see -
- mixed rice with fried wonton, ‘gou lou’ meat (fried bite size pieces of pork with sweet and sour sauce) and fried fish fillet
Yes yes, very unhealthy I know. Moving on…….*whistles*- Indomie Kari Kapitan flavour
Mmmmmm….yummy!!! I prefer this to the normal flavour.- Macaroni bolognaise
Jarod and I made this together
We bought all the ingredients on Friday and just had to purchase the
beef yesterday morning. Mmm. The tomato sauce was a wee bit watery, but
it doesn’t really matter because we can drink it as soup. The only
thing was - never ever use macaroni for this dish. The pasta wasn’t
very suitable, because it was quite starchy and sticky once you chew
them. Yeah, and my fingers smell of garlic still, because I had to chop them up yesterday. Bleh. I hate garlic.
That’s all.
Since it was still 6.20 am (Jarod
starts work at 6.30am), I gave him a call to ask if he was suffering
like I did. Luckily for him, he had no stomach ache. This is a good
news, because it means whatever we cooked are edible :D
Hahaha. We’ve cooked together a few times before, and no problems, so
*phew*. He suggested that it could be the ‘gou lou’ meat, because it
didn’t look too fresh.
I was skeptical also, because I have
eaten the mixed rice from this shop for quite a while already, but
never had diarrhoea before.
THEN, my sister said she also
feels diarrhoea coming. Oh man. Confirmed! Confirmed! But the odd thing
was, my brother ate the same ‘gou lou’ meat but he DIDN’T GET STOMACH
ACHE.
So what’s the verdict? I don’t know, but most probably it’s the meat la. 2 out of 3 people falling ill pretty much confirms it.
But I still love food anyways 
.
-------
Being Poor
Posted by entwined at 09:06 PM on September 8, 2005.
Link lifted off Lainie, who seems to be the godmother of interesting links.
Whatever: Being Poor by John Scalzi
Being poor is knowing exactly how much everything costs.
Being poor is getting angry at your kids for asking for all the crap they see on TV.
Being poor is having to keep buying $800 cars because they're what
you can afford, and then having the cars break down on you, because
there's not an $800 car in America that's worth a damn.
Being poor is hoping the toothache goes away.
Being poor is knowing your kid goes to friends' houses but never has friends over to yours.
Being poor is going to the restroom before you get in the school
lunch line so your friends will be ahead of you and won't hear you say
"I get free lunch" when you get to the cashier.
Being poor is living next to the freeway.
Being poor is coming back to the car with your children in the back
seat, clutching that box of Raisin Bran you just bought and trying to
think of a way to make the kids understand that the box has to last.
Being poor is wondering if your well-off sibling is lying when he says he doesn't mind when you ask for help.
Being poor is off-brand toys.
Being poor is a heater in only one room of the house.
Being poor is knowing you can't leave $5 on the coffee table when your friends are around.
Being poor is hoping your kids don't have a growth spurt.
Being poor is stealing meat from the store, frying it up before your
mom gets home and then telling her she doesn't have make dinner tonight
because you're not hungry anyway.
Being poor is Goodwill underwear.
Being poor is not enough space for everyone who lives with you.
Being poor is feeling the glued soles tear off your supermarket shoes when you run around the playground.
Being poor is your kid's school being the one with the 15-year-old textbooks and no air conditioning.
Being poor is thinking $8 an hour is a really good deal.
Being poor is relying on people who don't give a damn about you.
Being poor is an overnight shift under florescent lights.
Being poor is finding the letter your mom wrote to your dad, begging him for the child support.
Being poor is a bathtub you have to empty into the toilet.
Being poor is stopping the car to take a lamp from a stranger's trash.
Being poor is making lunch for your kid when a cockroach skitters over the bread, and you looking over to see if your kid saw.
Being poor is believing a GED actually makes a goddamned difference.
Being poor is people angry at you just for walking around in the mall.
Being poor is not taking the job because you can't find someone you trust to watch your kids.
Being poor is the police busting into the apartment right next to yours.
Being poor is not talking to that girl because she'll probably just laugh at your clothes.
Being poor is hoping you'll be invited for dinner.
Being poor is a sidewalk with lots of brown glass on it.
Being poor is people thinking they know something about you by the way you talk.
Being poor is needing that 35-cent raise.
Being poor is your kid's teacher assuming you don't have any books in your home.
Being poor is six dollars short on the utility bill and no way to close the gap.
Being poor is crying when you drop the mac and cheese on the floor.
Being poor is knowing you work as hard as anyone, anywhere.
Being poor is people surprised to discover you're not actually stupid.
Being poor is people surprised to discover you're not actually lazy.
Being poor is a six-hour wait in an emergency room with a sick child asleep on your lap.
Being poor is never buying anything someone else hasn't bought first.
Being poor is picking the 10 cent ramen instead of the 12 cent ramen because that's two extra packages for every dollar.
Being poor is having to live with choices you didn't know you made when you were 14 years old.
Being poor is getting tired of people wanting you to be grateful.
Being poor is knowing you're being judged.
Being poor is a box of crayons and a $1 coloring book from a community center Santa.
Being poor is checking the coin return slot of every soda machine you go by.
Being poor is deciding that it's all right to base a relationship on shelter.
Being poor is knowing you really shouldn't spend that buck on a Lotto ticket.
Being poor is hoping the register lady will spot you the dime.
Being poor is feeling helpless when your child makes the same
mistakes you did, and won't listen to you beg them against doing so.
Being poor is a cough that doesn't go away.
Being poor is making sure you don't spill on the couch, just in case you have to give it back before the lease is up.
Being poor is a $200 paycheck advance from a company that takes $250 when the paycheck comes in.
Being poor is four years of night classes for an Associates of Art degree.
Being poor is a lumpy futon bed.
Being poor is knowing where the shelter is.
Being poor is people who have never been poor wondering why you choose to be so.
Being poor is knowing how hard it is to stop being poor.
Being poor is seeing how few options you have.
Being poor is running in place.
Being poor is people wondering why you didn't leave.
From the comments, I gathered he wrote this because people were
wondering why some New Orlean-ers (?) didn't leave even when they were
warned of the arrival of Hurricane Katrina.
As I read the post, I found myself imagining what it TRULY would be
like to be poor. Everyone I know are from the middle class to upper
class families, so we would never know the anguish to be poor. This
post has given me a glimpse into the other world, so to speak.
The comments are equally poignant.
Being poor is your kids getting excited on Dumpster-hunt day,
because that's the only time they get to eat "real food" like cookies,
fresh fruit and desserts.
Being poor is staying with a man who beats your kids because you
can't afford to keep them out of foster care without his salary.
Being poor means making decisions like "is stealing food a sin" outside of an ethics class.
Being poor is scrambling under the car seats to make up enough
change to get two happy meals to split between a family of 4 - and
everyone is ecstatic when you do so.
Being poor is realizing that heating and eating will probably be mutually exclusive this month.
Being poor is find that your landlord has tied $20 to your steering wheel out of pity.
Being poor is finally realizing that when your Mom says you can be
anything you want, she doesn't really believe it, but feels she has to
keep saying it anyway to keep the whole family from falling into
despair-based lifestyles.
Being poor is learning to live with condemned-quality housing
because coming up with the first and last month's rent, plus utility
deposits, you'd need to move is a pipe dream.
Being poor is discovering that that letter from Duke University,
naming you as one of three advanced students in your class invited to
test out of HS early into their scholarship program, is just so much
firestarter because the $300 it costs to take the test may as well be
$3 million.
Despair is finally realizing, at nearly 36 and with a
barely-afforded AA in English from a community college, just where you
could have been by now had you had $300, and what that missed
opportunity has truly cost you.
- By Soni.
Being poor is fighting with someone you love because they misplaced a $15 dollar check.
Being poor is stealing wood from Wal-Mart parking lot because it's cold and you have no money to buy some.
Being poor is a sick, dreadful feeling of your stomach dropping out
when the phone rings, because you know it's a bill collector and you
know you'll pick it up anyway on a one in a million chance someone does
want to hire you.
Being poor is laying down because it hurts to breathe and you are pregnant, but you can't afford to go to the hospital.
Being poor is crying when $50 bill you didn't expect gets taken from your paycheck.
Being poor is knowing exactly how many hours and minutes you'll have to work extra to make up for that bill.
Being poor is knowing that no matter how hard and how much you work, you still can't cover it all.
Being poor means never forgeting that the bills aren't paid.
Thank you for your post.
- By Ilona
Being poor means looking at life in such a different way that most people can't imagine it.
- By Cynthia
I agree full-heartedly with this one. So many of us have the luxury
to buy almost whatever we want, whenever we want it. Yesterday, I was
at MidValley and was agonising whether I should buy a t-shirt and a
skirt to add to my wardrobe. That was my dilemma of the day. But when
you're poor, you cannot afford to while away precious time on
inconsequential matters. We spend without a second hesitation, but
being poor means looking at everything with dollars and pennies in
mind. Everything hasl to be calculated down to the last cent, just so
that they can survive another month.
Being poor gives you the ability to look at supporting your still poor mother as an honor not a burden.
Being poor is worrying that someday you will wake up, find yourself
lying beneath a blanket in the back of that station wagon and realizing
that your escape and rise was just a dream.
- By James Goodman.
Being poor means not being able to take a better job because the shift
ends are after the busses stop running, and you don't feel safe walking
the two miles home after dark.
- By deja pseu
It's like a damned poverty trap, man. To get a job, you have to have
a car, but how can you afford a car if you don't have a job?
Being poor means learning firsthand the meaning of words like "eviction," "garnishee," "repossess," and "transient motel."
Being poor means paying the special poor taxes—parking tickets for
the old car in disrepair on the street because you have no other place
to put it, fines for the busted taillight or the expired license, fees
for cashing the government check, and so on.
Being poor means paying a premium on food and goods at local stores
that jack up prices for being in a poor neighborhood, or simply because
they can.
Being poor means buying bread at the "day old store" even though it's a lot older than one day.
Being poor means paying high prices for exprired meat at the bodega,
because there isn't a supermarket chain willing to open a store in your
neighborhood.
- By R.Porrofatto
I have never heard of the word 'garnishee' till today. No idea what
'transient motel' means, though. I agree on poor taxes. Kinda ironic
that you have to spend more, just because you can't afford it, right?
gar·nish·ee 
( P ) Pronunciation Key (gär
n
-sh
)
n.
A
third party who has been notified that money or property in his or her
hands but belonging to a defendant has been seized by legal writ.
tr.v. gar·nish·eed, gar·nish·ee·ing, gar·nish·ees
- To seize by garnishment: garnishee a debtor's wages.
- To serve with a garnishment: garnishee an employer.
(from Dictionary.com)
Being poor is having your best friend's mother compliment her for hanging out with you--shows good moral fiber, don't you know.
Being poor is losing your special lunch card and seeing the snotty kid
across the street find it, chop it up with scissors, and return the
pieces to you.
- By PiscusFiche.
Being poor takes time. Time to wait in line for the reduced-price
clinic while gathering all your paperwork, and hoping you have it in
order so you won't be sent home to get one little slip of paperwork.
Time to wait in line at the food bank, where people fight to get to the
one box of expired Entemann's first. Time that you spend walking back
home or waiting beside your POS car because it broke down for the
umpteenth time. Time that you spend at your minimum wage fast food job
after hours because you really don't want to go home, and the manager
might just feed you.
- By wyldmuse.
Being poor is eating no-brand hotdogs and the cheap ramen every day for
two months because otherwise you couldn't afford formula for the baby.
Being poor is really, really pushing your two-year old during potty training, because diapers are really, really expensive.
Being poor means that you laugh hysterically when you watch the
financial planning segments on the Today Show, because the thought of
starting a college fund for your child is so far beyond the pale that
if you don't laugh, you'll start to cry and you'll never stop.
Being poor means you sign every single free credit application that
comes in the mail, and use the 28% cash advance checks to get cash with
which you can pay the electric bill, and then wait for the next set to
pay the new ones off.
- By punkrockhockeymom.
Being poor means selling blood plasma and signing up for every medical
experiment they'll let you into, and breezing past the disclaimer form
because, really, are you going to give up $100 just because you may be
risking injury or death from whatever they're giving you?
- By mythago.
Being poor means being desperate to survive, in whatever means possible. Life sucks.
Being poor is being happy that your child is disabled enough to get you more government aid.
- By Scott.
Being poor means you can't afford to go to a job interview because you don't have transit money.
- By River.
Poverty trap again.
Being poor is rejoicing the fact you miscarried
Being poor is driving to a free crisis center for an abortion when you know you're pregnant
Being poor is hating yourself for having children when you can't even afford to look after yourself.
Being Poor with children means you know you failed at providing them a good life.
- By anon.
This is beyond sad. Reality can be so cruel.
Being poor is stealing food. From the grocery store, from the dumpster in back of the Pizza Hut.
Being poor is ketchup sandwiches. When you're pregnant.
Being poor is sleeping in stairwells.
Being poor is washing up in public bathrooms and sampling fragrances at the department store so you don't smell bad.
Being poor is becoming a stripper just to make the rent, and hating yourself for it.
- By anonymous.
Being poor is knowing 'Hot Water + free fast food Ketchup packs = Tomato Soup'.
Being poor is having the electricity shut off on Christmas Eve. You'd call the family, but the phone went off last month.
Being poor is paying for food and gas with pennies.
Being poor is stealing newspapers from the recycle bins to burn in your secondhand hibachi for heat.
Being poor is pounding nickles with a hammer to the size of quarters to fool older coin-op washering machines.
Being poor is rejoicing in the fact that after five years, the color of
your expired vehicle tags has cycled back around, and there's less of a
chance of getting pulled over for your 2001 tags.
Being poor is knowing that you can send free mail by putting your
own address in the middle and the intended address in the 'return to'
corner...
- By Dirty.
I like knowing the last tip 
There are a lot more brutally honest comments, and I think this post is getting too long, as it is. Do read the page and feel thankful that we have what we have today.
Who the hell said MONEY isn't important obviously haven't been in their shoes before.
Update - http://www.livejournal.com/users/nihilistic_kid/645843.html has more hard-hitting "Being Poor" stuff.
