The Train Ride

I wrote this in during my 24 hr train ride from Connecticut to Chicago!

The time is 7.21pm on the 27^th of December 2007. I am writing this out of complete boredom. I feel crippled without the internet. My laptop is reduced to a typewriter with an MP3 player. Damn that POSLAJU! Useless Malaysian Postage system… Had they successfully completed their task of delivering the package Ramesh sent me, I’d be happily sitting on the comfortable seats of the Amtrack train and watching a few good movies or playing FiFA. Instead I am here staring into the laptop screen which has only the words I have typed on Microsoft Word.

Well here’s how I planned my trip to Chicago. Under normal circumstances I would have just flown to Chicago from New York or Boston, but since I went for Christmas at my uncle’s place in Connecticut, I decided to take the train as there was no direct flight to Chicago from Hartford. I also thought that in my 24 hour ride I would also be rewarded with the beautiful American landscape. The prices of tickets tend to be pretty reasonable if one purchases them early on. For those of you who know me you’d know that when it comes to travelling, I travel cheap. I purchased all my tickets in early October. One aspect of the journey that I did not take into account was that I was travelling in winter. It gets dark anytime between 4 to 5 pm. Mega Bummer!!! That means I have been staring into the dark for the past 3 hours…

The only thing keeping me from going crazy is my new Sennheiser Headphones. I have been considering a getting a good pair of headphones for a long time now. So when my uncle asked me what I’d like for Christmas, I told him that I wanted headphones. Jason’s (my cousin) excellent taste combined with my uncle’s willingness to spend has got me these great headphones. I was never really into the whole presents exchanging thing during Christmas simply because I wasn’t brought up that way. But hey… when in America be American. I received quite a lot of awesome gifts from family and friends… Let’s just say I will never be cold again with all the stuff I got. I must admit I have been shopping more than I ever have because all the people who used to shop for me aren’t here to do it for me. The desire to consume is over whelming in this country. They say the Jews are thrifty but to me thriftiness is a gene and I have it! Hehe… I sort of missed going to church on Christmas morning… But I got over it. (I am self admitted hypocrite when it comes to God and religion)

Well the time is now 8pm… 40 minutes have passed… Wee!!! If only I had some Math to do… Time would pass really fast. Have been on a train for 11 hrs now…. Around 13 more to go… Will see Brindha (my cousin) and Mei Ling in Chicago (Assuming Mei Ling’s flight doesn’t get delayed) Air travel tends to be unreliable during winter… Especially when it rains heavily or snows! I am looking forward to spending New Years with them… Ah well I hope I post this before New Year’s Day!

So proud that I posted this!!! Woo Hoo!!! Kudos to myself.... Im now happily in Chicago with my cousin Brindha and her boyfriend... They're excellent hosts... Damn Ive been so lucky in the US so far! With the exception of my grades everything has been going great!

Happy New Year!!!

Life is Boston... Super Sox

I’m kind of frustrated. I think I failed my first exam! MACROECONOMICS!! Yes... Its killing me... I mean under normal circumstances, I would not think too much of it. Ahh well what’s done is done... Anywayz... It has been an eventful week... I watched "No Country For Old Men" which my friends and I found ridiculously stupid and aggravating, mainly because we had to go all the way to Coolidge Corner and brave through the cold to watch it. The reviews on the movie however, disagree with me. I guess I don’t appreciate stuff that’s "classic and entertaining". Sorry guys for dragging you with me.... Next time you choose the movie.

The day before was also fun. I was at Coolidge Corner to get tickets with Sean, Abhi and Jai but they were sold out. Its official, you don’t really need a good product as long as you market it well. We ended up eating some good Japanese food, pretty decent Unagi. The food there was probably better than the stuff you get in Malaysia. I mean I never really looked for good Japanese food in Malaysia but I have eaten in Shogun and Sushi King. My taste buds never really learnt to enjoy sushi back home. We then headed back home to play FIFA. Abhi and Jai went home. Sean and I continued to play FIFA until we both felt pretty hungry. So we decided to get Chinese food at 1230 am, in Chinatown. Micah came along. We had to sprint to catch the last train. Yes, I can run… LoL… After Sean took us to the restaurant that’s apparently open until 4am. We were served by the waiter, who didn’t exactly seem happy with our presence there. Maybe it was just the time. It was full of people coming back from clubs. There was a group of attractive ladies right in front of us. The food was pretty decent and the eye candy didn’t hurt either. I thought it was fairly priced and reasonably good. We had duck, nothing compared to the one in Taipan that I use to frequent when I was in Malaysia. Not as good as the one in 4 seasons, Bayswater, London. That Heng Kai, pandai cari makan (very good at finding food). Aikz I'm distracted again. Back to story... The worst part of the day then began. We didn’t know the way back. Actually all of us thought we did. As the roads converge all over the place, the probability of all of us being right was probably pretty high. However, we did get slightly lost. At 130 am, we were 3 popsicles dragging our butts as fast as possible back home. We were dying. The fatigue was just adding to the agony. SOOOO COOLD. The good news is I’m actually getting accustomed to the cold. Let us hope it doesn’t get worse in winter. I actually considered just staying in the lobby of the Sheraton. Hehe…

Well this might be a little late but congratulations to the Red Sox, new champions of World Series 2007. I was at the riots (the day they won the World Series). Fenway is like 10 minutes from where I live. It was awesome. So many people were there, jumping from traffic lights and screaming their lungs out. A few days later, I went for parade. I didn’t really get to see it but I saw the masses coming back and met Steve on the way back. Here are some pictures.

The Red Guy and I

Andrea, Diane, Alex Lee and I

Hey its Elijah Wood!!! Ahhh... Its just Alex

Steve, Chris, Tamy and Andrea all exited!!!



Tangam go rock the UK and ure looking as gorgeous as ever. Miss ya!! Stay cool!






Mayee... U will be missed by all of us. I still hear you're "melodious" laughter in my dreams. (Kinda Scary)

If you are wondering why there are pictures of Tangam and May Yee in a post centered in Boston..... Well they(May Yee) actually requested to have their pics posted on my blog. Tangam gets all the nice crap because she said " Gopi I'm sure ull write something nice about me, because ur a great guy." What can I say? She learnt from the best. Mayee just complained and told me how incompetent I was, thus greatly offending me... Haha ( Im sensitive when it comes to my close friends). Haha lucky I was kind enough to put some nice pics instead of some of the Genting pics lol... Love u people... Miss the gang sooo much!!!

Happy Blessed Birthday to Caryn Foo Poh Yuen, Jeremy Loh Tze Wei, Andrea Rodriguez, Kevin Cheetham and Sathyaseelan Subramaniam. Seelan I will write something about the BERSIH rally in my next post... I'll link some of ur videos too.

Cheers... Gopi OUT!!!

Opulent October!!!

October has been pretty awesome and expensiveFor me at least, and I'm rather glad I didn't go to San Diego... For those of you who do not follow the news but actually read my blog, there are raging fires in California burning a lot of homes and making life pretty bad for the people living there. I hope they pump some money to the restoration of the beautiful state. By the time i get my brown butt there they better have that place fixed up. I LOVE CALIFORNIA. And its getting cold here... I might end up wishing for fires here as well pretty soon... Today 3 degrees Celsius... Arghh...

Well this month I have had so many exams. Midterms killing me, assignments being rushed, I still hate AutoCad (got a C for the quiz)... My dream of getting an A in engineering design is all but lost. Must go talk to Prof Rappaport, he is one cool dude, hope he will be lenient with me. Well as much as I want to say it was all work, I had quite a bit of play as well. Watched 3 movies: Stop-loss, We Owned the Night and 30 Days of Night. I also had a few nice meals, maybe too many nice meals, now that I think about it. Checked out the harbor and Quincy Market... A must visit if you are in Boston. I actually went shopping 3 times and bought stuff!!! Whats happening to me??? Must be the weather, damn I must start acting like a good Malaysian again!!!I also bought my tickets to Chicago... Woo Hoo. Aniway I'll just talk about the movies this time around.

Stop-loss was by far the best, it was a premier screening that was offered to college students mostly (I think). They made us fill up like a review form after the movie, obviously being the lazy person that I am my review only comprised of ticks and crosses. The movie was about a bunch of American Soldiers in Iraq who come back home as heroes. Initially they’re all pretty happy to be back, but the psychological effects of the war catch up with them and sort of screws up their lives. It gets worse when one of them finds that he is stop-lossed (Guy serves country for the required period and comes back thinking he is done, but because there aren’t enough soldiers guy gets a letter saying he will be sent back to war). Obviously the bugger goes ballistic and causes himself and other people a lot of problems lar ( lar = Malaysian slang to make things sound better and to stress the obvious in this case) . Well the movie is really good and would probably be played near the elections, in order to stress the detrimental effects of the war. Thank Tamy for inviting me and giving me a free ticket… Appreciate it!!! Lucky me… Got to hang out with 3 pretty ladies…

The 2nd movie I watched was We Own the Night. Despite boasting famous names such as Mark Wahlberg, Joaquin Phoenix, Robert Duvall and Eva Mendez, I thought the best part of the movie was the beginning. Yes, when Eva Mendez exposes her boobs… Seriously, the movie was pretty slow and I did not think it was worth the money. Should have watched Michael Clayton, heard that one was pretty good. Well at least we had fun making some jokes about it. Initially we wanted to go watch another movie, because we can do it for free, illegally of course, but as it was getting late and since Tarun had an injured ankle and we didn’t want to make the poor guy walk home. So yeah 9 bucks for 1 movie… Cibai, (a profanity in Hokkien) back home could have watched 3 movies, theoretically can lar, but you know what I mean… Overall the outing was fun, got to know Sean, Tarun and Tryphena. I have since played quite a bit of Fifa with Sean. Will kick his ass with Arsenal someday but for now I will be continue to be thrashed with ridiculous scorelines by any team of his choice.

Yesterday was really fun… Since everyone was in the Halloween mood, we decided to go for a movie. Yes 30 days of night. Dumb show (I refuse to call it a movie), not worth watching. We were initially supposed to go for a Halloween party. They wanted me to be a bear. Where does this sound familiar? Diu… (Profanity in Cantonese)
Since we did not have a bear costume and only two people had costumes, we decided to go for a movie. So much fun… People here go crazy on Halloween!!! A glimpse of some of the weird costumes can scar one for life. I saw a guy in yellow underwear walking around. He also had a cape and very little chest hair and probably weighed 50 kgs. I almost lost my appetite (key word being almost), there should be a dress code in all public places. Though there were lots of chicks in skimpy costumes to make my day… Anyway great fun… Had Tamy and Christina all scared in the SHOW. More fun than the movie itself, Tom officially accepted being called a lady. He is from California so you do the math. Andrea and Diane were going crazy. They now call me bear. WTF? Fun day out came back at 3am to hear my dad tell me something really crazy. That’s private though. What a day!!! Haihz.. Well I’m off to do homework and my economics paper… Adios…

p/s : Happy Birthday Ose!!!

MurderBall

If u guyz are thinking about Rollerball and wondering if its a sequel or something, well your far away from the truth. Google Murderball if you dont already know what it is... Of course im not going to explain what it is... Dats just not me... Niway those guyz are awesome... I actually felt moved by those guyz!!! Yeah, theyre dat awesome... Google it people, get the movie if u can... Ur in for a treat.... Well i wanted to write bout somtin else as well... Bt il do dat some other time...

Moving to America

As we grow older, we see things from a different perspective. Our beliefs change, we take different stands on various topics, we learn new things and we meet more people. One might suggest that we get wiser. Much can be debated of that statement, but that is a topic for another day. The people whom our paths cross with will always have an impact on us, no matter how big or how small, as Newton proved, every action has an equal and opposite reaction. I have been fortunate in Ive met so many different people in my life, my only regret is that I didnt get to know some of them as much as I wanted too.

Just recently I was asked if Id like to go back to the past and change anything, I thought about it and well no I wouldnt. Lots of things didnt work out for me... But thats what makes life so interesting, nothing is certain. I wouldnt want to live a life knowing the outcome of everything, I love the exitement of hoping and praying. Well I dont realy pray, but hell Im always hoping for this and that to happen. Then again, dont we all? If we knew for sure, there wouldnt be any exitement, nothing to make us really happy, relieved or heart broken. Sure, no one likes to be heartbroken, but I say its worth it because if you dont try, you dont know. No matter what it is, it might be just talking to the hottest girl/guy in your class or applying for a high position job in a multinational company. The phrase "What doesnt kill you can only making you stronger" is one of my favourites.

All my life I have been waiting to get out of Malaysia, dont know why, just wanted to get out and see the world. I am privilleged to have such great parents who gave me the opportunity to do so. I have a family who have always been supportive of me and a group of awesome cousins who are always there for me wherever I go. I have the best friends a person can ask for... Rocking my world. The day I left, it striked me that I will only miss the people. I thank god for the events that took place that made my departure so easy. I had no second thoughts about leaving and was ready to leave for good. I am now on a mission to find home. I always thought of America as the place to be, and well it is, to me at least. Its just so much livelier though I suppose different people have different tastes.

The internet is probably the my favourite invention of all time. Through it people worlds apart can be connected(for free hehe). Oh yeah for all u guyz who did so much for my farewell and all. I love u all. Thank you so much, I was really touched. I have to admit that only people can make other people feel really good (not sexual lol though when put like that it kinda applies too) or bad.

Well here are some pics well 2 pics, im not into the whole picture thingy....

From left: Seelan, My dad, Julie, Jason and Me

What my peeps did for me. U guyz are just so awesome! All of U!!! Thx!!!

Well it took me 3 hours to post this... I got distracted and went to a party sorta thing in my building... Im older so ppl like me, lol, its weird bt i suppose its better than not being liked. Haha.... I just hope I'll be able to make real friends over time. So far its all good though... Gopi out!

Im Back!

I havent blogged in a while but Ive decided to breathe new life into my blog. Hehe. Working at DiGi was great fun. I love being shouted at by strangers... Not really strangers because I could see all their particulars but they weren't aware of that so yeah.... The only reason I quit was because my dad offered to send me to Europe for a month. Initially it was a hard choice, as I really liked my job but after coming back I would say that I have no regrets.

For the first time in my life I was on my own. Im not trying to sound macho but I wasnt perturbed at all. This was my chance to prove to my parents that I can survive by myself. Well all didnt work out as planned, but then again things never go as planned for me.

I was prepared for the worst and was ready to live the rough life. However, I found out that my friends really do love me. Whether its love or sympathy I do not know, but I'd like to think they love me. As it would take a long time to write about the whole trip in one post, I have decided to write my take on all the cities I visited.

Life is only as good as U think it is!

I realise that I am extremely talented at complaining, I am harsh n crude, especially when I want to get things done.... Life is ironic... Now i am a customer call consultant!!!

I applied because the pay was good.... Really Good. I had no sense of respect for DiGi( company that I work for) before this. All i did was complain that their services were substandard. Now, I am in awe with this company. It has :
1) excellent working environment
2) Really nice trainers (
3) Free drinks( Drank 5 cups of Milo KAU KAU and 1 Nescafe today)
4) Foosball table <----- PLAY FOR FREE
5) Ping Pong table and basketball court.( Right beside where I work)
6) STAFF BENEFIT LINE!!!!!! Aint this the bomb!!!!
7) Dressing is CASUAL

However, there is one downside.... There are DiGi customers who arent as polite and patient as I would like them to be..... But I dont mind... I know how it feels to be deprieved of something I have paid for...

It disgusts me that I have to take insults I dont deserve( maybe i do but still....) I have to maintain my composure and be PATIENT! I was pretty unhappy at first and tried to figure out how I could make the life of the customers difficult (This is actually pretty easy). Then it struck me! I am being paid to learn patience.... All my life ive paid for education but now its the other way around... Lakshen is there with me so we make nasty remarks bout this and that but thats just to destress.

I actually think that God gave me this job. I did not have a resume. All i had with me was the fictitious story in my head. I admit i am arrogant and abrasive. A taste of my own medicine. I dont like it.

This month has been great.... Tomoko left.... No lar... Tom i miss you n im just kidding.... Adnan n Brunei left as well.... Gona miss those two as well... Mayb not Brunei... hehe... SOB sent me a message with 6 F**Ks before he left. Hope all of em settled in well.

Aniway Fifa is fully installed.... Time to go wack MAN U!!!

Enjoy LIFE!!!