Curls & Twirls

Haha. I had a really funny dream last night and decided to put this down in writing. It’s just so funny, weird & twisted. I reckon it’s because I was watching Oprah just before falling asleep and was thinking about how mean Brad Pitt was to cheat on Jennifer Aniston!

Ok well, I’m leaving for Dubai/Jerusalem tonight so gotta just give a brief idea of the whole thing - so I’ll keep my creative juices minimal, aight?

So, it starts in Oprah’s studio and I’m sitting in the audience next to Jennifer Aniston. She doesn’t know who I am (like duh) and although I’m a fan, I seem to be very calm and relaxed sitting next to the famous F.R.I.E.N.D.S. star. I look over to the back and somewhere in the furthest row of chairs is Brad Pitt. He takes out his handphone and dials a number, puts it to his ear, while smiling at me.

Suddenly my handphone starts to ring and Brad Pitt’s name flashes on my Nokia 6230. (OK ppl, I can’t really remember if I actually had my dearest 6230 in my dream, but I’m adding some spice and pepper to keep things interesting! I can’t  suppress ALL my creativity!) And in my dream, I don’t know Brad Pitt personally, but for some weird reason his name is saved into my phone!

So I answer the call and have a brief conversation with Brad Pitt - which hardly lasts a minute. I don’t quite remember what we talked about but the conversation was rather business-like and straight-to-the-point. Also, for some weird reason, I felt a slight hostility towards him which I think stemmed from his scandalous activities with the sexy Angelina. (In reality I don’t really care what Pitt does with Jolie as I’m a fan of neither, but this is my dream…!)

So well, the conversation ends without much commotion. Nobody in the audience seems to be aware about our little chit-chat session, which I presume is because they’re paying attention to Oprah. Then suddenly Jennifer Aniston is overwhelmed with grief and nostalgic memories of Brad Pitt (which may have been induced by his presence in the audience - although, I can’t quite recall if she noticed him or not!) So she takes out this really high-tech phone of hers to do a little snooping. Don’t play with her phone ! - it can track the last call that Pitt made on his mobile!!!! *Lol* So she clicks a few of her keypads - and suddenly my phone starts ringing!

Ok - now in my dream, I’m a serious fan of Aniston! So I’m confounded and terror-stricken! She starts shouting, cursing and accusing me of infedility through tears. Between her sobs, I try to defend myself and explain that the phonecall was brief and hardly flirtatious - but no no no, she won’t listen to me! I try desperately to articulate the whole scenario - that I don’t know Brad Pitt and I don’t know how he got my number - but of course it seems stupid when it all comes out. It looks even more accusing when she grabs my phone and scans through my phone book - only to find the multi-millionaire’s name saved under B. It all ends with Aniston glaring at me with angry, tear-stained eyes before accusing me of disloyal and unacceptable behaviour. Then she storms out of the studio through the stage, into the "door" where the stars usually come out from… (for all those of you who watch Oprah, you know what I mean…)

*Sigh* What a twisted dream eh? When I related it to my brother this morning, he told me this: "You’re subconsciously a Brad Pitt fan" and "I think you’re supposed to be Angelina Jolie in your dream."

Hahahhaha. I never thought of that. So perhaps the character I was playing  was a mixture of who I am and Angelina Jolie. I mean, I really doubt Jolie would feel hostility (like in my dream) towards her sweet lover?

Given a chance, I’m sure psychologists would analyze this dream and conjure a weird diagnose of my personality! So Qian, Andrea, Shak…and any other psych-students… you guys have any comments ? Of course, non-psych students are also welcome to give their opinions. But don’t expect me to take it too seriously… I don’t really buy into this kinda psychology! (partially due to bad previous experience… when Chrisender tried to interprete Sinthi’s dream with his "dream interpreter"… * laughs at the incident* )

So I’m off to Dubai for 2 days! (Yippeee…one of the favourite places I’ve been!!!!) and then to Jerusalem on a holiday cum family pilgrimage. It’ll be fun, I reckon, especially to have John & Chingi around too. Then I’m back for a day on the 23rd and then leaving on 24th (which is, btw, Sinthi’s b’day!) for Singapore…staying till Friday there which is the 30th and then coming back to home sweet home… Aish..oklah, I know you guys don’t really care about the dates and itenary…but you do care that I’m going off, right??? Don’t miss me too much!! Hehe.

Hey you all…it’s been so long since I updated my blog - and yes, I have had no inspiration to write anything although exams were over about a week ago. I realize my enthusiasm to write is rather sporadic and inconsistent - hmmm…so perhaps a career in writing is not something for me?

Anyway, for ONCE, the self-centered part of me has given in to the not-so-self-centered part of me and I’ve decided to write abt something outside of my life :  African Poverty. I don’t know about you guys, but it was not something I really cared or thought abt until recently - thanks to all the Live8 concert, TheOne Declaration, Make Poverty History campaign, etc, etc. I guess in my sheltered little world, Africa seemed so far away that it almost didn’t exist.

The irony behind it is that I did go to Africa when I was 16. I know after returning from my trip to Zimbabwe & South Africa (although South Africa isn’t really poverty stricken), I felt a deep sense of gratitude and thankfulness for the life I lead. Too often we take for granted all the luxuries we enjoy and focus on the teeny-weeny bits that we miss out on. The fact that after I visited 2 countries in Africa - which, you can consider to be richer than the other ones in their continent - I felt moved…. what more if I had visited really poor nations such as Ghana and Ethiopia ???? And yet…a few months after my visit, I don’t think I gave 2 hoots about Africa. I settled down back into my complacent life and my biggest worry (then!) shifted back to what many 16-year-old Malaysians were focused on - trying to understand Add Math. *Sigh*

These are certain memories that I have of my visit:

1. When we got down the tour bus, a swarm of men would encircle us to try and sell their goods which were mostly carved figurines (correct word?) from wood or stone. They would accept cash or goods in exchange for the figurines. I know that whenever I used the excuse "I’m a student, I don’t have any money!", they would simply point to something that I had instead. (Which was often my shades or my cap!)

2. If any of your figurines were damaged, any of the men would be happy to fix it, whether it came from their "shop" (if you can call a carpet spread under the sun a ’shop’) or not.

3. Victoria Falls was simply BEAUTIFUL!

4. On a lighter note, there was this African lady who walked around wearing just a bra and a piece of thread-like material on top - and yet none of the African guys seemed in the least interested!

Oh well, I know these distinct memories don’t exactly potray poverty - but you have to be there to really understand it. But my experience is nothing to what I saw on TV when Chris Martin (from Coldplay) visited Ghana. I don’t think an explanation of what I saw is half as good as watching it yourself - so go tune in to MTV whenever it’s showing again. I’ve caught it a couple of times already!

So well…I did a little research on Africa and here are a few facts that caught my attention:

30 000 CHILDREN (not inclusive of adults!) die daily due to extreme poverty

The "The One Declaration" only asks the US government to increase it’s budget for African Poverty equal to 1% of the whole US government budget. Seriously… if they can fund a war on Iraq…this must be peanuts..!

50% of the people in Sub-Saharan Africa survive on less than USD1.00 per day .. (and here I am complaining that my allowance is too little!)

In the poorer African countries, more money is spent on repaying debts than on education and health.

One in six children die before the age of 5

Of the 49 least developed countries in the world, 31 receive less aid today than they did in 1990

The annual dairy subsidy in the EU amounts to $913 per cow per year; EU’s aid to Africa is $8 per African per year.

I know it seems like we’re helpless in this situation - there’s not much the average Malaysian 20-year-old (damn…I can’t use the word ‘teen’ anymore!!!) can do unless you have friends in high places. But there are a few things you can do (besides praying) that might push the leaders to taking this matter more seriously:

Sign the "The One Declaration" . Unlike what you may think, it is not only open to citizens of the USA. Visit http://one.viewpoint.com

Send your photo to the "Make Poverty History" campaign. They don’t want your money - just your support! Visit http://www.makepovertyhistory.org

Learn more about the Live 8 Concert and what’s it all about. Visit http://www.live8live.com

And if all else fails - just google "African Poverty" so that you’re a little more aware about the plight of our African neighbours.

As one of the artists on MTV said (can’t remember who lah..hehehe),
"If anyone thinks they’re too small to make a difference, they better be smaller than a mosquito."

"It’s like going up to President Bush and saying ‘I know I’ve caught you at a bad time, but could I just have that twenty dollar bill?’ "
- Daniel Beddingfield