Of Handcuffs, Blindfolds, and a Countdown Timer

First off, get your dirty minds out of the gutter. Nothing kinky of that sort going on.

Anyhoo, today was my first time at Escape Room. I know it's been pretty popular for quite some time, but this was my first chance to try it out. Anyway, I went to the one in Setia Walk(Puchong) with my younger brother and sister. They've done a few different ones with their friends and cousins, but today we were going to try out the Dungeon of Doom. (The difficulty was rated 4 out of 5 stars.)

The Secret Lab; CSI; Kung Fu; UP; Dungeon of Doom; Fear Factor

Apparently our cousin tried that and failed, and there were two groups of people before us who also did the Dungeon of Doom and failed. As we stared at the two groups who had to take the "loser" shots, my sister and I were thinking the same thing: 1. We don't want to lose. 2. Damn embarassing wei. 3. Seriously memalukan.

Basically we had 45minutes to escape from the room we were sent into. Before we even went in, we were given blindfolds and instructed to form a Choo-choo train by holding the shoulder of the person in front of us. The girl then led us into the room and asked us to put our hands behind our backs before she handcuffed each of us. So yeah. Blindfolded and handcuffed in a dark room. The moment she left the room we were allowed to start moving. Lots of wiggling ensued whereby we helped each other out of the blindfolds, then we eventually got our handphones out and turned on the flash for some light. Finally.

First off, getting rid of the handcuffs. I have no idea how my younger brother did it, but he somehow forced his open while trying to bring his hands to the front. Anyway, he found the key and helped me with my handcuff before I helped my sister with hers. For some reason we just left one side of the handcuffs on for the remainder of the time even though the dangly half hooked onto a lot of things.

There was a bed and some chains and skulls, a rope, and a wall with graffiti of math equations..? A grill door separated us from the other half of the room which had four boxes and a wall of clocks and other things. I won't tell how we opened the door or solved the obstacles (in case any of you guys decide to try this one day,) but we wasted two of our hints on really easy things so we had to figure out the hard ones on our own.

I'll just come out and say I was really useless in the beginning. I had no idea what to look for or what to do, and my two younger siblings couldn't be bothered to layan me and my "What am I supposed to do?" and "I don't understand this game!" I could feel my sister being fed up with me at one point (after the game she admitted to feeling like just slapping me, LOL) and pandai-pandai decided to go to the other side of the room until we made more progress.

BUT, I was really useful in the end! :) I solved two of the last padlock/codes. I still have no idea how the alphabet lock worked, but hey, I pandai-pandai worked backwards and with the help of elimination and some sly thinking, got the correct answer.

The last obstacle was nerve-wrecking because of the time left. We tried a few variations but nothing worked. I saw glimpses of a pattern and on a hunch, began cracking the code. Overhead, the timer was counting down the final ten seconds.

We knew it was the last obstacle because the code we punched in would open the door and we would be free so it would suck so very terribly if we made it through all the earlier obstacles only to fumble at the last one.

I held onto the UV light and yelled numbers at my sister while my brother held the white torch light to give my sister normal lighting so she could punch in the codes.

The door lock flashed a green light and opened as the timer showed 44:59.

HOLY EFF.

Anyway, the three of us just lingered at the door. Did we win or lose? Did the door open because the time was up or did we actually open it? I saw the green light which indicated we had the right code but the time was so close I wasn't really sure.

So we just waited like jakuns until someone came to the hallway and came to check on us. We had to ask him if we won or lost and he was pretty blur as well and asked us our time instead. Anyway, he said he'd give us that one second and we got out anyway meaning we must have successfully broken the code, SO WE WON. YESSSSSSS.

I now know what Castle must have felt like when he yanked all the cords and dismantled the dirty bomb at the last possible second.

He then laughed when he saw the handcuffs dangling from our arms and we finally removed them before heading out to take our Winner pictures.

Adrenaline rush to the max. 

I insisted on jakuning and taking another picture with their props.

Thats us (4th place) on their weekly Hall of Winners!

SUCH A CLOSE CALL!

This was the polaroid they gave us to keep. Such pretty borders! And in the back you can see the wall of losers. Haha. 

Our achievement brought on a Power Rangers moment. (Please excuse my tanned hand and feet.)

Riding on the adrenaline high. (Little Bro pulled out a poker face at the last moment - too cool liao.)

Anyway, we grabbed Starbucks on the way home (which normally isn't worth mentioning, BUT, we tried the new flavours.)

My sis tried the banana frap and I had the strawberry cheesecake. Hers was really weird (IMO. I mean, banana and coffee???) but mine was really delicious. Haha. Really loved the cookie crumbs they sprinkled on top but it's a tad too sweet for my liking.

Die. Just... DIE.

Holy mother of everything. Is no one in this household considerate?! Honestly. One stays up half the night watching tv; the other wakes at a bleeping ungodly hour to watch tv; and everyone watches at a volume that's too damn bleeping loud.

You don't even understand Korean. The fuck are you doing, blasting the tv at i-want-to-sleep o'clock?

It's fuck-you-I-didn't-get-to-sleep-last-night-so-i'd-like-to-sleep-now o'clock in the morning, the fuck are you doing, blasting the tv so fucking loudly?

And why the hell am I the only one in this household getting eaten alive by mosquitos? (Okay, i'm probably just exaggerating, but i'm feeling every damn bite right now. Not helping. At all.)

Now that I'm not facing jet lag or running myself rugged to the point of exhaustion, my dear old friend, Insomnia, is back. And my parents already think I'm lazy enough as it is that I can't even take naps in the day. I LIE IN BED PRETENDING TO SLEEP BUT I'M GETTING NOTHING HERE.

DO YOU UNDERSTAND WHY I AM SO PISSED AT HAVING MY SLEEP ROBBED UNNECESSARILY?!

Now, I'm too damn pissed to sleep. I'm too damn pissed to write. I'm too damn pissed to do anything and I'm holed up in the study instead of the nice air conditioned bedroom because guess what, I'm actually considerate enough to not want to wake anyone else with the smashing of my keyboard.

sakhfdkjldshadkl;fnfdsakjlk;;s

Home is where the heart...

Phew. It's been 10 days since I've been home and I might need a break already.

It's not that I don't love my family or spending time with them, I'm just not used to interacting with other humans 24/7 for so many days in a row.

Yes, I've had my fill of talking my family members' ears off, but I am officially exhausted despite not doing much. I just want to curl up in a corner and be left alone to my own devices to recharge and regroup. Is that too much to ask?

Yes, spending family time is important and nice and all that, but I need me time as well.

At The Ballet...

Ahh. Ballet. The one constant in my life ever since I was 3. We've been through our ups and downs; the phases of likes and dislikes, then the appreciation comes along followed by the abrupt withdrawal and ensuing nostalgia, leading to an even deeper love for all types of dancing.

Anyhoo, I'm deviating from the point.

I've danced my fair share of ballets (My Fair Lady, Getting To Know You, Swan Lake, Dancing in the Rain, Les Sylphide, Waltz of the Flowers and La Bayadere to name a few,) and I've been lucky to attend a number of ballets live as well (Men in Tutus, Sleeping Beauty, Giselle, Swan Lake, and as of today, the Nutcracker.)

As my friend pointed out, I've seen all three of Tchaikovsky's balllets.

Sleeping Beauty, Swan Lake, and the Nutcracker. I saw all three at the Kremlin, so I guess it's safe to compare them with each other as they're of the same par.

Everyone goes crazy over Swan Lake. Personally, I never "understood" the hype for Swan Lake. The only parts I really really loved/looked forward to were when the Black Swan appears (Act 3) and of course her 32 fouettes. But watching the full length ballet live, I came to really enjoy the jester dude (Benno?) and all the formation changes as well with the Corps.

Sleeping Beauty. It was the first ballet that I saw in Moscow. I went in not really expecting much, but thoroughly enjoyed myself.

And, the Nutcracker. I've been looking forward to the Nutcracker for ages and ages. I don't know why but it's always been a favorite in my mind even though I've yet to see the ballet performance live.

I finally watched it earlier today, and I was... disappointed. I don't know if my expectations were too high, or if my mind just built it up to this magical number, but I left the ballet feeling... robbed/cheated.

I enjoyed the first part well enough, but found it to be really short (only 1 hour). But the second part was the one I was really anticipating. I loved the five dances (Spanish, Arabian, Chinese, Russian, Danish) but found them to be way too short. Surprisingly, I recognized music for four out of five of the numbers. (I've never seen the full ballet before this.) Sorry Spanish dance. I'm really trying to think of the positives before I move on to the negatives but it seems most of my memory has been tainted :-/

Oh well. On to the negs.

The costume was pretty enough, loved what they wore in the first scene. I though the Sugar Plum Fairy's outfit could be more... more. But omg what the Corps wore for Waltz of the Flowers, I can't. I'm sorry, but the costumes we had for our concert was nicer than what I saw today. Whats the thingy thingy crawling on one arm? What's with the tutu? It was split into four quadrants and I really didn't like how it looked when the dancers did certain steps. Like, No.

But the backdrop was pretty. The backdrops and props are always pretty, but I think Sleeping Beauty wins for the general look of the stage while Swan Lake wins with effects (I really really really loved how they made it look like the swans were swimming across the lake.)

On to the dancers. Hmm. Sleeping Beauty and Swan Lake's Corps didn't irk me as much as Nutcracker's did. I've seen YouTube videos and the leads of all three ballets can't really compare to "top tier" soloists (i.e. internationally famous ballerinas,) so I guess that was a bit of a let down. It's not Bolshoi, but hey, it's still Russian. And tour groups come to the Kremlin to watch these ballets! (There was a Chinese and an Italian group today.)

Watching ballets used to be all about "OMG so cool" and "Wish I could learn to do that one day" or "I wonder when my technique will be good enough to pull that off" and "how do they beat/turn so many times?"

I used to look at the Corps and go "Yeah, I'm not as good but I'm pretty sure I can pull of some of those moves" but now I'm looking at the leads and going "Yeah I used to be able to do that" and it's such a let down! I go to the ballet to be amazed and awe struck. Maybe it's time for me to scout out other theaters as well.

I think it might be hard for Nutcracker to pull off a higher technical difficulty level because of the children involved as well, but omg there was this one Corps girl who was so terribly sesat with her timing for Waltz of the Flowers that I just couldn't concentrate on anything else. What gives?! And it wasn't just once - her sesatness continued into a lot of that particular number.

The formations were messy too. I sat in the center, so it's pretty obvious when something is lopsided or a different distance upstage/downstage. If Swan Lake got a 9 (I'm a tad OCD), then today's performance earned a 5. I really didn't like it. :(

And. I had a problem with Clara's hands. It's hard to enjoy a ballet when the lead ballerina's hand irk you.

The jumps weren't really there for the guys, and generally you could tell the dancers were probably getting tired in the second half. I was pursing my lips on the inside going "I can see you thinking". I don't expect perfection, but people are paying to watch this performance. Guess I expected a little more quality-wise.

For the very first time ever, EVER, I had a problem with the orchestra. Someone messed up big time during the Sugar Plum Fairy's dance. The celesta was definitely way too loud in the opening bar and the conductor probably overcompensated with the whole orchestra in the next phrase which made it even more glaringly obvious. (Kudos to Clara for continuing as though nothing was wrong.) I don't know what was going on with the percussions, but it wasn't good either for some of the numbers. And oh god that piccolo. Someone do something about today's orchestra.



My final verdict? Sleeping Beauty was my favorite ballet at the Kremlin. I'm like a kid, so give me elaborate, colorful costumes rather than the bland white swans; and today's Nutcracker just wasn't on par with their technical difficulty.

So. I'll probably give Nutcracker another chance with another theater and hope that one will deliver better. Until then, there are still a lot of ballets out there to be seen. :)

Black sheep.

I'm not a nice person. I know that, you know that, the world knows that. But guess what. I DGAF. Why bend over backwards trying to please people? Why suffer in silence for someone else's happiness? The world can think whatever it wants. What's it got to do with me?

I'm in my twenties, the world is my oyster, right? Daddy's little girl all grown up, ready to face what's out there. I'm in my prime, oh so ready to race to the peak. Best friends standing side by side, us against the world. Young, mostly fearless, just the right amount of reckless, invincible. Raring to carve our way; make our marks; trailblazing through life.

Let me make my mistakes. Let me fumble and fall. Let me do the stupid things that I will come to regret. Let me dive into things that I know for a fact are toxic. Let me grow.

I'm way past my teenage years, and yet I'm unable to let go of this rebellious streak, I can't put this phase behind me. All my friends have gone through it. They're mature and more level headed and know to steer clear from foolish decisions. I know a bad choice when I see one, yet I'm still inexplicably drawn to it. I seek the thrill when I know that I should shake my head and roll my eyes.

Why can't you just let me properly crash and burn through this year or two? Let me have my fill and get some closure so that we can all move on? Heaven forbid I give in to my rebellious side when I'm in my late twenties, when I'm too old and cannot afford to waste my life away.

Let the world think what they want. Let them come for me. Let them try to hold me back, or to chase after me.
I'm at peace.
I'm happy, perfectly peachy.

I'm fine.

Relativity.

Holy eff this semester just flew right pass. Seriously, how am I almost done with fourth year already? Where did all the time go?

What have I done since the beginning of this year? I remember wrapping up KB-DTA in January and Charm in April. I remember flailing and submerging myself further into the fandom. I remember doing the dance thing for the inter varsity games and subsequently clubbing and getting to know the most sohai, fun, and colorful "kids" ever. (IMO 3years is plenty seniority for me to call them kids.) I remember fonting - not the Caskett kind, but - oh so much fonting. I started keeping a journal and I've been to a piano concert and an 18+ musical. I've gotten hooked onto new shows and learned when it was time to stop watching a show.

Academically, I've finished two cycles, and I'm about to be done with the third one in a few days. Got some shit done; but didn't manage to finish some shit (for now). Even surprised myself by how interested I was in some of the "useless subjects".

There was that brief highlight of receiving my first genuinely anonymous "love letter" followed by the disappointing letdown of months of inactivity. (Your loss.)

There was also that night in church that basically guaranteed my one way ticket to hell.

Birthdays and celebrations have come and gone.

I've learnt when to say no and when to say fuck all, let's do this.

One last month; one last cycle (the hardest one yet!) before I go home. Let's make this worthwhile.

a love letter of sorts.

So I stumbled upon this thought catalog article, titled: 15 Big Ways You Love Your Little Sister. And while most of their articles make pretty good reads, I totally related to this one. I've included screenshots of parts of the article for those of you who are too lazy to check out the full article. So yeah, dungu, this one's for you. 

Okay fine, so my sister was the Kelly to my Barbie dolls. She was the little princess and I was the crown princess/queen. I got to be the leopard while she was the puppy/kitten/pony. But there were four of us so we rotated roles pretty well. Yeah, I pretty much bullied her into roles that I didn't want. But 'tis the way of life! #sorrynotsorry

Confession time. Remember when we went to our kampung in China for the first time back in 2006 and had dinner in the ancestral home and you wanted to sit but the bench "moved" and you fell on the hard slabs of granite floor? Yeah, after seeing how painful it was I quickly said it was an accident but I actually moved the chair out of place because I thought it would be funny. Turns out... Not funny at all. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. (But more than thankful we're almost halfway across the world from each other right now so you can't kill me when you read this.) I've been plagued by this guilt for 8 years! That's punishment enough, right?

 

 This one's really unfair but true because my sister could put on a sack and look nice. Thanks to her height, she can put on 5kgs without it being noticeable at all. All cuts are flattering on her. Dresses are designed for people like her. Pfft. So Jealous.

 I found number 4 hilarious because: No, she doesn't. I don't think that girl plays any sports at all! BUT. She friggin' climbed Mount Kinabalu (aka tallest mountain in South East Asia and ranked 20th in the World) and made it to the friggin' summit. Got a certificate and all to prove it. You go, girl who doesn't exercise!

 

I never had to worry about her grades. My baby sister is like so friggin' hard working. And disciplined. I could NEVER do that. #respect

 It sucks to be half the world apart, and I feel pretty useless at times, but that girl can handle herself. Right?

 We have the longest, weird ass conversations. We talk about everything, and I mean Everything. 'Nuff said.

 Like when did all these cool activities crop up in Malaysia? It's as though the moment I left for Russia my sister finds all these cool stuffs to do. And I'm like: I want also :(

Ahh yes. We're the sakai Ooi sisters. Zhin Ie and Zhin Han together = dungu squared. Our Ooi and Alikazin relatives can attest to that.

 This shit applies to all my siblings. My direct family, to be precise. No one talks shit 'bout them, except for me.

 Thank you for all the times you quip "Liars go to Hell." My sister has no problem whatsoever telling me that my mom actually meant that I looked FAT, not fair (even when my mom was actually saying that I've gotten fair/light skinned.)

 When did her clothes get so cool and chic and classy?

 Okay, so what if I introduced drinking games to my siblings? I don't trust their friends to do the corruption so I might as well do it myself.

 I don't care if you've been jokingly saying for the past 5/more years that your ambition is to be a "rich housewife". You are graduating with a degree and you're gonna be an independent grown ass woman with her finances in order before you get married. (Unless you find the perfect pair of rich brothers for the two of us. Dibs on the smarter one!)

How are you already 20 this year? How is it possible for me to leave a girl who cried herself to sleep four years ago (I'm NEVER forgetting this!) only to return to someone who has stepped up in my absence and taken over the adult role?

But that's okay. Because for every mature, grown up thing you do that makes me proud, you follow up with three ridiculously dungu actions. And then you're my baby sister again. :)