曾经有人告诉我，“追逐爱情就像是狗儿在追自己的尾巴，狗儿越是追着它跑越是追不到，可是当狗儿不再追着它时，它就跟着狗儿走。”听到的时候，真的还蛮觉得有道理的，给了我无比信心。

可是今天的我，没有办法完全赞同这个说法。狗儿生出来就未必有尾巴（完全没爱情运可言），或是尾巴让人砍了（被人截了爱情）等等的说法，都不可能成全“当狗儿不再追着它时，它就跟着狗儿走”。

我开始相信，我是只没有尾巴的狗，一直在追逐着不存在的东西，还以为自己是有尾巴的。如果尾巴存在的话，为什么连影子也看不到、个边也摸不着？我又试着“不再追着它”，可是每次回头都不见有什么跟着来啊！是谁这么无聊作出这么一句来安慰（欺骗）灰心的人呢？

我看着我凝视的焦点，一直尝试着甩开眼光，可是就是不知道为什么别的东西都是朦朦胧胧的，只有我凝视的焦点是清楚的。一直在对焦着，考虑到距离、酒精作用、周围的吵杂声、灯光、烟雾。没有尾巴的狗儿只能远远望着、注视着美。

我想真的是醉了，竟然将自己比作狗儿了。

This is an all-word post so if you get bored easily with long word-only posts, it’s best to skip it. Else this is how I would detail a typical con man with lame excuses. No names and photos will be included as the situation has not evolved to a need for these at the moment. However should it deteriorate, I will do so as I see fit. For those of you who knows the whole story, please do not put any names and identities as well for the characters if you would like to write a comment. Keep things anonymous, for now.

It all started like 1.5 years ago. A friend of mine met this guy in her previous company. This guy was exceptionally charming and caring. Everything was so perfectly smooth, as quoted from my friend’s word, they were (note, WERE) so compatible that they never quarrel at all. The relationship went steady almost immediately. He was described as so caring, considerate and patient that I felt like I was a slime of mud from some backwater place in a swamp.

Being this is not a happy ending story, of course, something happened. Just right after a couple of months into the relationship, my friend trusted the guy well enough to entrust him with her ATM card to help her withdraw money every month for personal usage and for household maintenance. That was the first stupid move that gave this guy a chance to take advantage of it. I’m sure you all know what happened then. Right, he withdrew all but RM15.00++ of her money out of her paycheck drawing account and he withdrew it in small amounts like in RM3,000. She never knew what was happening behind the scene. Until one day when Cinderella woke up and decided to do some chores for herself for once to get money for herself and the household for that month, baammm… she didn’t even see it coming, at all. Imagine if you think you have almost RM20,000 in your account and then one day you check and found out what’s left of it is just RM15. Describing it as “hit by a truck” is just peanuts.

Then they went through the turmoil of asking for explanation, giving lame excuses, denying, pretend to tell the truth, asking for more details, some more lies, some hipocritical explanations, more lies, ignorance, and then, FORGIVEN. YES! FORGIVEN, for no concrete reasons and apology, at all!!! Of course being the good friend I am, I did injected some comments and references and ideas and opinions here and there, but she just wouldn’t listen. Maybe because the guy was too over-handsome that made her lost her judgement. Or maybe ok, she loves him a lot. So fine, I told her to be warned that if this incident is being let go easily, it will definitely happen again. I said, mark my words. For another 1.5 months, he gathered a lump sum of RM15,000 and returned it to her, and she wasn’t even allowed to ask questions like where he got the money, and what was it used for and other questions like that. Omg, how could you trust such a person??!!

Well it was her decision afterall, and it wasn’t something that I can influence much as well. So they just went on on their path. MARK MY WORDS, again. 2 months later, she found out that her online bank account was barred due to limit reached for wrong password invalid login attempts. She confronted him and he wouldn’t admit at first. Then it was only after at least 24 hours that, he came up with some lame excuses (AGAIN!) and admitted to the attempt to login to her account discreetly and intending to transfer her funds. He said he needs to use the money for his mum’s medical fees and his brother’s tuition fees. For all we know (including her), she has never met his mum or brother or for the matter of fact, anyone from his family! And you call this a ‘relationship’? This is totally hillarious! She also told me that prior to this, she has already lent him money for his job which he has to fork out money first before able to claim back from the company. And to add to the list of ‘trust atrocities’ he has committed, again he used the ATM trick and got another extra RM3,000. Everything totals up to at least RM10,000.

It’s been 2 months since the last transaction and there’s still no sign of money returning, not even for those withdrawn without permission and those borrowed. Frankly saying, I think this relationship has long ended before the second con attempt. It should have stopped at the first attempt. But she is in such a serious state of denial that she isn’t willing to let go of the relationship based on all the ‘crimes’ he has committed only. She wanted the so-called truth behind all these. I wished her good luck. I can only say I will lend a helping hand when she needs a friend. But I can’t make her realize that she is taking yet another huge risk of being cheated again, that she is giving him another chance to betray the trust that she bestows upon him. She can only realize this by herself. And to make matters worse, he’s actually using her car 24hrs. If he IS a con man (which I think he is, conning both money and love), think of all the tricks that he could pull to make it ‘disappear’.

At this point, I still think there’s nothing much I can do. If anyone makes it until this part of the post, please tell me if you have a different opinion on how I can ‘help’ or help my friend. I have given up talking the sense into her or reasoning with her. As a good friend, I just don’t wanna see her sink.

一遍一遍重复着“白色风车”这首歌，我渡过了一个人的圣诞平安夜。我尝试不夸张，我只是写出真正的感觉。回到家，我不开灯。寂寞与空虚就像黑暗，蔓延到四周。也许是故意，也许是无心，营造了制造孤单的必备素材。空虚入侵心房，挤出了宁在心头的泪，积了好久。心，锈了。泪，却停在眼眶里。哭不出来，没有理由哭，更多人比我惨。郁闷着。我的眼泪，为什么这么复杂呢？

曾经的快乐，时间太遥远了；心头里的时间，仿佛停滞不前。每天忙碌，以为自己好了，原来还是damaged goods。每逢如是季节庆典，就可以测得出，自己还有如此问题没有。

读着别人部落格上的幸福、悲伤，此时的自己好像真的很容易就感染到字里行间的情绪。幸福、悲伤的气息，仿佛从压缩它的文字里，被解放出来了。心情，起伏不定。

也许你读着，会觉得很可笑。我只能说，每个人有自己的问题，我是不会取笑别人的问题的，希望你也将心比心。对没有丝毫取笑之意的你，谢谢你。

敲12点钟了，进入圣诞节了。“白色风车”，一直绕梁回旋着。平安夜，好像很长。睡不着的心情，在等待着黎明，在等待着永远。我，又无病呻吟了。

It’s a long holiday ahead for me. With a few of the public holidays squeezed into this last week of 2008, it took me just 4 days of annual leave to get 11 days of off days from work. Don’t think that I’m going on a long holiday, ‘cos I’m not. To think of it now, I really can’t figure out why did I take leave. I’ve got no where to go, no one to share with, nothing to do, but I took leave. Guess I only want to be on standby just in case there’s any where to go or someone to go with or something to do. I’m just so self-contradicting.

It’s Christmas eve today where everybody get together with their loved ones and cherish the moment. But when you can’t be with or don’t have any loved ones to share the joy with, or not sharing the moment with the ones you wanna share with, the miserable exponentially increases, or maybe it’s just me.

Anyway, first thing in the office everybody is asking everybody where are they going for celebration tonight. I seem to be the only one without an answer. Maybe not until hate, but I’ve always resented meeting people who will ask you where are you going on these kind of festive seasons. Let’s just say I have a weakness of being pointed out as someone with no life and no one.

I blatantly wished for the same ‘present’ every year, but it somehow seems that some divine power decides that I don’t deserve it. Yet I still blatantly wish for the same thing every year. I won’t deny that I want it so badly.

Hope I get it next year.

Just had dinner cum supper with my colleagues after finishing work at Modestos. Had a very delicious Fettucine Salmone and some tasteless Carlsberg draught beer. I’ll talk about this some other time ‘cos I couldn’t remember the names of the other dishes the guys ordered.

Back to something related to the topic. I’m not sure about other countries but actually in Malaysia, Thailand and some other South East Asia countries, we have night markets (hereinafter referred to as ‘pasar malam’) almost everywhere. Its stalls sell products ranging from food, hardware tools, toiletries, beverages, groceries,

On my way home, I passed by the pasar malam near my residential area. For a moment I thought I was by the outer perimeter of Philipines’ rubbish dump site. Not that I’ve been there but I’ve got a friend who has been there for charity works. He sent back some photos, so I know. Their ‘tallest peak’ in the dump site is like few stories high. So the outer perimeter should resemble this, which was taken at my area’s pasar malam.

All variety of rubbish can be seen everywhere. Sugar cane remainings, plastic bags, straws, paper/plastic dishes/cups, cardboard boxes, polystyrene, vegetable remainings, tissue paper, etc. You name it, they’ve got it.

I took time to wound down my window and took photos. Immediately I was ‘attacked’ by the strong sugarcane juice+soya bean milk+cow/goat/horse/chicken/fish remainings+frying oil+crap water+wutcha-ma-call-its water odor. My nose went postal instantly and started to sneeze. Hence I could only take 2 snapshots. Unless if someone pays me for a million bucks ten thousand bucks, I’m not gonna do such foolish act again. Decreased the age of my smell sensory cells by a million minutes.

Though so, I’m really quite disappointed with the Malaysian culture. Totally like not civic-minded at all. Although there are some city council cleaning personnel there doing the clean up, it’s not really an excuse to litter everywhere as you make your purchases in a pasar malam isn’t it? I can say nothing more. Can only conclude that Malaysians still have a lot of years to catch up in terms of maturity, civic-mindedness and sense of responsibility. It might not be only Malaysian night markets that are like this. Maybe the night markets in our neighboring countries are also like this. But it’s really no reason at all to point the finger at them and say “there, they are also like this, so we also nevermind la”.

These 2 photos, this situation, I can’t really say I’m proud to be a Malaysian. Anyone beg to differ and say they are proud of this?