I suppose love is like going to a French restaurant with only 25 bucks in my pocket. I’ll sit down, look at the menu and be confused. After all, love is mostly a mystery to us.

So I’ll stare at the menu for a while, check out what others are ordering, try to figure out the menu with my limited or  otherwise hamstrung French.

Perhaps I like chicken meat more. Eureka! I see the word poulet! French for chicken. Cordon Bleu? Sounds like a weird color to me. Keeping in mind my budget and realising that there exists dishes that are just way out of my league, I try to catch the waiter’s attention.

The dish comes, and after a while it doesn’t  seem like what I thought the menu stated. Then again, I didn’t understand the menu much too. As I dig in, I start to wonder if I can order another one? I’ll start to lean over to the table next to me and compare, I’ll stare at my perfectly good dish and pick out the most preposterous reasons why it isn’t as good as I expected. That somehow since I haven’t paid, I deserve something better.

Some of us may have spent half of our “budget” for a dish, that’s your fault for not making a better choice. Some may have overspent, you’d have to wash dishes afterwards to pay back. Some of us spent exactly what we have, and some haven’t spent anything cause they just aren’t hungry.

Whatever it is, I ordered something to the best of my ability, the dish before me is prepared skillfully by the Chef, and the dish has willingly come into submission to me (I’ll be the dish from my partner’s point of view). Don’t waste the food, finish it up and savor every part.

Cause like it or not, I still have to pay 25 bucks in the restaurant. In real life, I pay with the rest of my life cause that’s how long I promised to love the one I marry.

“I’ll have zis pleaz… merci beaucoup!”

29 October 2009
10.20am – hmmm… breakfast

10.23am – Danny ask Cheng Yee play in band. Suggested song: Just Once. Cheng Yee don’t want to play that song cause it’s boring. Danny then suggested Michael Jackson’s Beat It. Cheng Yee listened to the song on Youtube… and said yes.

10.30am – Pack guitar, effects, lappy bag and bass. Listened one more time to get the guitar parts.

10.50am – Left for music department.

11.05am – Reached music department, set up guitar, tune.

11.15am – Practice

11.55am – Stop practice, found out that we are the last in the programme list

12.00pm – Lunchtime Recital Starts

12.37pm – BEAT IT!! BEAT IT!!! WOOOHOOO!!!!

We played the instrumental version of Michael Jackson’s Beat It. The plan was: verse, chorus, then piano starts improvising with the verse chords, when he’s done, I’ll improvise, then go back to chorus again. I had FUN!!! I WAS SO HIGH!!!

The upshot of our performance is that I made the classic electric guitarist mistake of thinking that the world revolves around me. Mainly because I’m so used to jamming with Danny that I’ll just erm… shiok sendiri… and when I’m done I’ll look up. Apparently, after the song, they said that I improvised for too long, so long that my band members were trying to hint to me to stop by glancing at me frequently. And apparently the audience picked up what was happening and began laughing. This performance was suppose to feature the pianist, but, ahem, in the drummer’s words,: “You over-shadowed the player…”

I would have stopped had I known what was happening. Erm, but I didn’t. Cause I was in my own world. And erm, I found out later, that I was too loud, I was behind the speaker, so, to me, it was happening, man!

I AM SO HIGH NOW. I keep hearing the beginning guitar part in my head. Sigh, this is the most fun I’ve had since I started music programme in UPM. My first time playing a Pop Rock song. BEAT IT!!!!

“Great men have the worst weaknesses and are nothing without them”
~ Cheng Yee

It’s not how high you can jump. It’s whether you keep jumping. After falling. After cramps. Even if you were born handicapped. Weaknesses always exist in a fallen world.

But greatness doesn’t. Greatness is choosing to rule over your weaknesses and not have your weaknesses rule over you.

This bus dreams to be more. But it may never achieve its dream.

Yet it will still be great. Because of the hundred thousands of families it has united, workers it has moved and countless others it has provided a means to become great. The price for its greatness: being an ordinary bus – huge, heavy, always on the move, stuck with strangers and always overworked.

It may not have saved the entire human race. But it has done all it can and more to bless everyone who comes on board.