Hello, It's been a while.

I lead a very busy life.
Everyone who knows me well knows that.
And with this busy life comes consequences.

There are many things I sacrifice to accommodate other priorities.
Things, people. A lot.

Do note, I am not at all complaining about my busy life.
In fact, I love it.
I love the feeling of doing something all the time.
I love looking forward to something during the weekend.
I love doing SOMETHING.

But through this perpetual journey of life till I die, there will be things I am going to miss, friends I'm going to lose, potential relationships wilt before it blossoms.
But I'm not going to regret, cause regretting are for losers who always look back.
Instead, I'm going to cherish the memories I made and am making and am going to make in the future.

Though I will not regret, there will always be that one thought at the back of your mind going, what if?
What if I went for the party instead of camp?
What if I sneaked out of my house instead of staying in my room?
What if I didn't met you?
What if I didn't go debate that day?
What if I didn't join debate at all?

Everyone has their what if moments. But I guess the sad thing is that it is just left like that.
What if. Nothing else.

I am not much of a literature person but there is one poem that really reflects this what if moments.

The Road Not Taken by Robert Frost.

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim
Because it was grassy and wanted wear,
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I marked the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I,
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

So,
I'm going to life a full life that when I die, in my memorial service, people will go thinking, wow. Rachel led a good life.
Or, wow. How long will I live? I should live a life fuller than how I'm living it right now.

I want to leave this world with good memories for everyone to remember me by. :)

So till then, I shall go make some memories.
Wanna join me?



You've read Rachel.

I've heard of Dr. Dre, but I've never knew how awesome he is.
Until recently.



I was at Melanie's house and I found her in her room at one corner listening to her iTouch.

But her earphones were not the iPod earphones provided with every iPod bought.
Hers was different.
Hers was the oh so famous,

Beats by Dr. Dre.

OH. MY. GOODNESS.

I was wondering how awesome can it be till she allow me to see it for myself.
I put it over my ears and ohmygoodness it is semi noise cancelling.
It isn't 100% noise cancelling.
But I guess that's what you get for paying only 800 ringgit for it.

The price, sadly, is the killer here. :(

For 800 ringgit and you only get semi noise cancelling.
To get the apparently better one,
the 100% noise cancelling one,
the larger one,
the one used by celebrities,
you gotta pay 2k.

OH. MY. GOODNESS.

Why must Dr. Dre be so awesome and evil at the same time? :(



I told you celebrities use them!

Oh I want one.

And according to Johan Shah, they sell it in Malaysia now!

You've read Rachel.

Why not?

I am a person who thinks a lot.
Like really.

I don't know whether this started after I became a debater or it was in me all along.
But anyhow, I think a lot.

More often than not, for almost everything I do, everything I say, I think about it.
I do not know is it just me or does everyone do it as well.
If someone does, do tell. :)

And the questions that always come to mind whenever I think about what I did or say will be,
'Is it necessary?'
'Why am I doing this?'
'Should I say that just now?'

Not only that, being a typical third speaker, my mind ends up, naturally start to answer those questions. Trying hard to justify myself to myself.

I have a very complicated mind.

One day, I do not know what I was doing, probably pondering about this, it started to dawn on me.
You know what?
I know exactly how to answer those questions.
And the answer is,

Because I can

All the time, I try so hard, for who knows what reason, to justify myself again and again.
And it can get really frustrating at times.
I do wonder at times why on earth do I have such a complex mind.
Why can't I just not care and take things as it is?

So yea. It hit me one day.

'Why?'

I'll tell you why.

It's because I can.

So next time, I try to care less, of course it's not something I can do after a moment of epiphany. But I'm trying. :)

I don't have to have a reason for everything I do anymore.
I don't have to answer to people why do I want to do this.
I don't have to justify my acts yesterday night.
I don't have to care about what people think.

I do all those things,
Because I Can.

So to refer to what Brendon Urie sang in the song I Have Friends In Holy Spaces, 'Take a chance, take your shoes off, dance in the rain.'


Sure. Why not?



I have the sudden urge to do this right now.

You've read Rachel.

Do you ever wish you are a kite?

So really.

Have anyone ever look up the sky, saw a few kites flying high, and thought, man I wish I'm a kite.

Today, I was walking to the playground near my house and I saw kites soaring in the air.

It then dawn on me, how awesome would it be if I were a kite.

I mean, think about it.

From an optimistic point of view,
You get to soar high in the sky.
Feel the wind in your face.
Feel the air surround you, upholding you, not letting you fall.
Feel the freedom there is up there.
Feeling all carefree.
No anger.
No sadness.
Just blank.
Nothing.
Freedom.



Sometimes really. Complications are caused upon ourselves.
Of course, influencing factors are the people around you, your environment.
But at the end of the day, you yourself caused these things to influence you in the first place.
You only have yourself to blame.

But then again, if we really just want to not care, do whatever we want, living in a world that consist of only the things you want, you can never go on in life.
You can never succeed in life.

In other words, the whole world runs of self pressure. Be it good or bad.

So the thing to master here is,
How much self induce pressure is good?
And how much is too much?

So at times when you feel like it's too much to handle,
besides praying,
think of yourself as a kite.
Soaring high up in the air.
Without an ounce of care in the world.

That, besides praying of course, is the closest we can get into feeling that calm, serene feeling in you.

Of course, there are other instant, man made and short term happiness available.
But I don't recommend it.
Not in excessive use anyway.





By the way, this isn't ciggs.

You've read Rachel.

What about now?

It's exactly 1:09 AM according to the time on my laptop and I am updating my blog now.

Why exactly? Because Johan Shah whatever his other names are ask me to do so.

I said give me a topic and I shall write. And the topic, I don't know why, is regarding children in Africa.

Maybe he read about Africa, or Jacob Zuma's visit to UK or Angelina Jolie wanting to adopt again.
I don't know what he read, but it must have triggered him to ask me to write this.

Every time someone doesn't eat finish his/her food, someone will most probably say, hey, think of the children in Africa.

But before I go on, let me correct everyone who ever said that sentence. Africa, is a continent. Not a country. Many people get that confused and assume that the whole of Africa is in poverty with majority of the population having AIDS.

That is not true. South Africa is not a poor country. In fact, it is quite rich. It is a place filled with many fair skin people actually and for goodness sake, the world cup is being held there.

Do you actually think the world cup will be held at a country with most houses being made out of sun dried mud?



See the country at the bottom? That's south Africa.

So to actually be more accurate, people should say, Think bout the people in EAST Africa.

Anyways, back to the children.

People know that the children there live a very hard life.
But that's all they know, they do not know it in detail.
They do not know exactly how bad and sad and torturous their lives are liviing there.

On the point of food,
Do you know that chicken is considered luxury food there?
And after so you still gotta kill it yourself and pluck the feathers out.
Their daily food consist on green bananas and some thing call Posho made from corn flour. Daily, they have to to and buy a plastic sack of milk and it has to be bought and drank immediately or else it will go bad.

Here, chicken is a daily meal and only endangered animals are known as luxury food. And even that we sometimes waste it still. :(



Imagining grabbing this and killing it and plucking it!

Do you know that 20% of African children do not even get to live pass the age of 6?
And here we have all the emo people lying around cutting themselves going, I wanna die. I don't wanna live. Why? Cause my girlfriend dump me.

The children in Africa want to live but they do not get the chance and here you see people jumping off buildings and overdosing on sleeping pills.

Next time, think of the children who wants a life while you are so willingly giving it away to the road 29 floors below.



By the way, you do not go to heaven. You go to hell. And it's illegal to commit suicide so if you phail to die, you get charged. And if you do die, your property gets seized if I'm not mistaken. Then what about the people in your will who gets your property? They will be left homeless.

Do you know that school is expensive there?
Even when a new law has been passed in Uganda giving children free education for primary, many still do not go to school.

This is because the mother has to pay the teacher extra just so that her son can sit at the front of the class and pay another extra to make the teacher mark the son's papers?
And here we are complaining about going to school. A school that has fans in classrooms, air conditioning and a sports centre for our leisure.
Imagining yourself in a classroom with about a 100 students with probably no fans and then start to think whether you wanna complain.



Okay. Our school don't look exactly like this. But you get the idea.


The only way to get out of the slums is to get an education, which is not very easy here or be like your Aunt Maria who goes around making friends with the rich white men around in hopes of them taking you in as a live in girlfriend.

Basically, life in East Africa isn't good. It isn't enjoyable. It isn't fun. Life there basically is terrible. Young girls get gang rape, children die, children get infected by Malaria which is the number one killer in East Africa.

Life there sucks.

So next time before you want to complain, think, there is always someone else way worse than you.

It's 2 :05 am now.
I hope you enjoy this Johan.

You've read Rachel.

There are 4 types of whales people catch for certain reasons.

Hey people!

I, have no idea what to blog about.
Blogging is quite dull now as there really is sometimes nothing much to write at all but at the same time, you just feel like writing something.

So what should I write about.

I can write bout:
a) My birthday
b) What I did last week
c) How I wish all teachers are like the GLEE teacher whatever his name is

I know.
I shall talk about me getting my licence. :D

I have not gotten my licence yet. :(
I have not even gotten my L yet. :( :(

This is why I really really really need my licence, I can:

a) Go to Sean's house without taking a cab.
b) Stay at my own house when my parents are not around instead of staying at my aunt's place.
c) Go to more places without hassling my parents.
d) Go to more places without hassling my friend's parents.
e) Go out more. :)
f) Go on more spontaneous trips. :):)
g) Go explore the whole of KL. :):):)

See why I really need my licence?

However,When I do reach the stage of my driving test, I am and shall not bribe.

This sentence is particularly aim at a certain friend of mine with a very beautiful car. :D

I may fail, but at least I fail with integrity. :)
Instead of passing by cheat.

On a random note,
I very very like David Guetta.



Even if he may look slightly geeky in the Memories video. :)

You've read Rachel.

Serious Talk Force Unit

The Lord helps those who help themselves.

The above statement has justified many events in my life and the most recent one being the Dato' CQ Teo Debate Competition.

I was being selfish.

My team did not practice at all for 2 whole weeks due to first term exams and there I was praying and hoping we win it.

I thought well, it isn't our fault we didn't practice. We had exams! We do not have a choice.:(

I thought God will still help us win this thing cause it's not like we DIDN'T wanna practice, it's that we can't.

But it never occur to me until now that just cause we didn't practice, that does not mean no one else did. It does not mean that Sri Permata didn't work their ass off training and it clearly does not mean KGV didn't train hard for this competition.

So for me to actually ask God to give us this win, is to actually deprive other schools who obviously worked even harder than us, a chance to win.

Which is very selfish.

So I came to accept the fact we didn't win, I came to accept the fact that we didn't break.

God never wants the worse for anyone and so I know that this competition is just a lesson. A lesson telling us and teaching us that you can't and won't go far without training, without practicing. If you want it badly, you've gotta work hard for it.
And God will do the rest. :)

So this competition isn't the end, it is merely a learning process.

I, we the team, we Catholic High School Debate Team as a whole, pledge, okay, we didn't really pledge, but sort of made a personal promise, that we will do well the next competition.

We will put in our tears and sweat and if needed, blood to the next competition.
We're not going to slack off.
We're not going to find pathetic excuses to not practice.

We're gonna do all that we can, and God will do the rest. :)

Since new year is a little too far off, my birthday resolution?

Be smarter.

I believe that after all the sacrifices and time I put into this whole debate thing, it will be a terrible waste to not achieve anything.
Sure, we did achieve a few things which we truly are grateful to God for, but we can do better. We must do better.

So,
Never am I going to defend status quo as Government or be dumbstruck by a topic such as THBT the NATO should not interfere with Kabul.

I'm gonna read up, research and remember all that I've read till I can have a one hour long conversation bout NATO alone.

I'm gonna do this.
I'm gonna do this.

You've read Rachel.