waiting and waiting

A few days ago, Lucyriver read this book, 雪地里的天使蛋卷 by 张小娴, borrowed from a friend. xue di li de tian shi dan juan by zhang xiao xian

It’s about a girl, who after a break up with her boyfriend, meets this man, who by the way is the girl’s girlfriend’s boyfriend. She’s a Mathematics teacher while he is a cartoonist for a newspaper column.

The girlfriend breaks up with the man right in front of the girl when she brings her to meet him for the first time. The girlfriend ‘s explanation is since the girl like the cartoonist so much, it will be the first and also the last time she can introduce her to him.

Two broken hearts people console each other and that’s how the relationship develops till the girl moves in to stay with him. He buys her her dream bicycle and paints a Christmas tree on the wall because the apartment is so small that a tree can’t fit in. He joins her class to be with her and to understand why she says numbers are romantic. Their lives are happy...

The man loves the girl but he loves his freedom as well. When the girl asks for commitment, he sinks in alarm and runs away, leaving her waiting in a few occasions like meeting her parents and buying engagement rings.

When finally he intends to make it right by hiding a ring in one of the pages of his new book for the girl to discover, she doesn’t turn up.

The girl thinks she has waited for him all this while so he won’t be angry if she doesn’t show up for once. She disappears with the bicycle.

One day he receives a big package. He opens it and it is the bicycle that he gave the girl fourteen years ago...

The package is from Finland, thus begins his journey in searching for the girl...

Lucyriver will not tell you the ending in order not to spoil your mood and chance in reading a perfect story.

Lucyriver like the ending though it is an ordinary ending. There was a prick in the heart when Lucyriver came to the final pages. Lucyriver can really visualize the scene in the last page.

The themes in this books are love, waiting, commitment and food (oh, yes, you got it right, food). There are only a few characters so it won’t give you headache to remember who is who and who is who. The scenes are brief, arrows aimed straight to the target.

Lucyriver digest the book in just half a day. Lucyriver has never read 张小娴 ‘s books before though Lucyriver always come by her books.

monkey jogathan day

The kingdom of the flower fruit mountain organizes a jogathan this morning. Many monkeys are participating. It is divided into ten men and women categories with a category which has no participant at all. The shortest distance covers 4km while the longest is 10km.

The prizes are trophy, medal and a hamper for the place of number one, two and three for all categories while runners in places number four till ten receive medal and hamper. Now, what do we have in the hampers - bottle of soft drinks, packets of biscuits, milo, peanuts as well as maggi mee.

When it comes to the lucky draw, Lucyriver totally had no luck. So there goes the mouth-watering hampers to their lucky owners one by one as the lucky numbers are announced. 1247, oh my 1247 where are you, my ‘lucky number’!! Guess Lucyriver is just not lucky!!

As for the outcomes, the kingdom of the flower fruit mountain raises close to twenty thousands bananas with the efforts of all the monkeys and the monkey trainers. Hopefully, the bananas will be made into good dishes.

monkey tail

Look at the sushi lucyriver made for lunch. They are a bit sour because the sugar added into the vinegar is not enough. Anyway they satisfied lucyriver craving for sushi for now.

One monkey made lucyriver angry today so lucyriver cut off his tail. Another collection of lucyriver souvenirs.

The monkeys asked why thank you is pronounced as ‘thank kiu’ but not ‘thank yu’. lucyriver explained because of the link of the two consonants k and y. lucyriver told them they may use thanks in informal occasion and surprisingly, when the training ended, they stood up and said ‘Thanks, Monkey Trainer.’ For once, their monkey brains spun fast.

holidays = candies

Holidays are like candies. No matter how many candies you have, the moment you pop them into your mouth, they are going to melt gradually until no more, leaving you with only the after sweet taste. How lucyriver wish holidays are like never-ending candies where no matter how hard you chew or suck them they’ll not gone. But, we all do know good things don’t last, don’t you agree. Even the after rain rainbow will disappear after the wonderful display of seven arch colours.

Returning to the kingdom of the flower fruit mountain, lucyriver will always think that lucyriver am going traveling and adventuring while training the monkeys. In that way, lucyriver will not be feeling so down and stressed.

The monkeys are cheeky today. Cheeky, cheeky monkey. No matter how cheeky they are, lucyriver will not go mad. lucyriver believe lucyriver can suppress all the anger for another three weeks before the long year end monkey holidays. Therefore, today lucyriver am all smiles with the monkeys. The monkeys are happy but still lack the enthusiasm. This is where lucyriver got to step in to make their spirit high and bright. No matter how dislike lucyriver am for some of the monkeys, lucyriver still want to see monkey year five do well in their MONKEY ASSESSMENT next month.

lucyriver monkey pet

adopt your own virtual pet!

pasu sarawak

lucyriver don’t know if it’s the cold weather this morning or what but the monkeys are so unresponsive. They look like beautiful vases in the training rooms, decorating the interior, well, if lucyriver am getting vases, then they must be beautiful, good handiwork vases. These monkeys, well, sorry to say, they are the rejected ‘pasu sarawak’.

The monkeys say:

firework = fire flower (a species of flower that breathes fire)

football = foodball (yumyum, sounds delicious compared to fishball)

chicken = ciken (birds that eat ciku)

souvenir = hand fruit (fruit that you eat ‘with’ hand)

it's all about bananas

A filtered water is provided for the monkeys’ drinking as previously they drank tap water but lucyriver guess it is really like presenting a flower to a monkey cos they use it to wash their face, hand and feet. The more hilarious thing is the monkeys say that the water is tasteless and colourless, unlike the tuak (a kind of fermented wine). That’s why they don’t like it. If that the case, just let them have the tap water (tuak) then.

Our kingdom of flower fruit mountain is planning to beautify the kingdom landscape with trees, plants and flowers. The vegetation we have now is obviously not enough to feed the whole population of monkeys. san zhang has announced every sun wu kong has to bring a pot of orchid, lucyriver was surprised cos this was not discussed earlier. Wasn’t this san zhang’s own project. Why do sun wu kongs have to involved in it, lucyriver really couldn’t understand. Unless we want to have an orchid garden but it’s not an easy task. Even the orchid garden near the waterfront couldn’t maintain its survival after a few years, what a pity since it’s really a nice place with a variety of pleasant-to-the-eye orchids. What more to say if we want to have one in the kingdom of flower fruit mountain.

Now, where the hell do lucyriver get a pot of the anggerik, wild orchids perhaps, as it is usually in abundance along the roadside on the journey home. Or go home and see if there is any leftover. Money saved.

lucyriver thought after raya holidays will be weeks of relaxing but obviously lucyriver am wrong. There’ll be loads of activities; Monkey Prize Giving Day, a Jogathan, etc…Looks like lucyriver have to sell bananas these holidays to cover the donation for the Jogathans, selling at least fifty bananas.

aarrrgggghhhh.....monkeys

It’s been countless times since lucyriver told monkeys not to eat during lesson, be it sucking a sweet or chewing a gum or littering on the floor. lucyriver’m real sick of all this. There’s no improvement at all. One monkey ate a sweet in the class and lucyriver asked him to spit it out and stand on the chair. Then, he deliberately threw pieces of paper at other monkeys with lucyriver standing in front of him. lucyriver promoted him to stand on the table. lucyriver told him to stand properly or else he and lucyriver are going to end up in the headlines. Well, it did manage to send the whole room laughing. He’s not a bad monkey just naughty and cheeky.

In other training room, yesterday, lucyriver didn’t let three monkeys enter the room as they were late after recess. lucyriver was late for five minutes and they were even later than lucyriver. So they stood at the doorway until the lesson almost finished. lucyriver told them if they are late again, better they don’t show their monkey faces or else. For the first time, they really listened to lucyriver! lucyriver didn’t see them until five minutes before the end of lesson. Stood at the doorway, again, and then gave lucyriver the most hilarious reason. Two of them accompanied one of the monkeys to do his ‘big business’ in the toilet. lucyriver sent their names to be punished. lucyriver really didn’t want to do that but lucyriver don’t want them to climb up lucyriver's head.

praises don't cost a thing

lucyriver’ve never really knew that a compliment from a monkey can really brighten up the day and livened up the spirit. A monkey says that lucyriver’m beautiful, well, it doesn’t matter that in reality lucyriver am not. lucyriver have no idea that it really touches lucyriver's heart.

lucyriver too must learn to praise the monkeys when they have shown their effort. A praise could really bring something to those little hearts. Moreover, praises cost lucyriver nothing yet they are priceless.

Have you ever been praised by your monkey trainers? If you do, do you still remember how you felt at that time.

past tense verb game

lucyriver played a verb-past tense game with the monkeys. lucyiver was real disappointed when some couldn't define the meaning of some simple verb like sell. One even asked lucyriver if it is related to red cell or white cell. lucyriver could have passed out. What the hell was lucyriver teaching them the past one year and a half. lucyriver feel real pity for them and lucyriver's heart sinks whenever they ask something that lucyriver presume their standard would have no problem understanding it.

One more thing is, no matter what lucyriver do, they still talk to lucyriver in local dialect which most of the time lucyriver couldn't decipher the meaning. Gosh, like gorilla and kingkong talking to each other.

Lately, lucyriver have been a bit strict with them. lucyriver can just feel they are starting to climb up lucyriver's head so better break their fall first before they make it to the summit. The male monkeys, lucyriver have to keep reminding them to tuck in and button their shirts and not to put their legs on the chairs. Some will carve or better lucyriver say draw motives on their hands or arms. Well, what lucyriver am to say about that. That's their tradition. Tattoes on the body. lucyriver will just threaten them that lucyriver will practice lucyriver's drawing skill on them too if they do so, with permanent marker pen. lucyriver was thinking, Hello Kitty will surely look cute on the monkeys.

spring cleaning

Our kingdom of the flower fruit mountain was having a big clean-up today. Monkeys get to go home earlier. Some had ‘homecoming’ while others chose to stay. Those went home; particularly the female monkeys must be having the phobia of staying at the monkey hostel since the sad tragedy of the two monkeys where their boat capsized last week still shrouding the atmosphere. lucyriver admit, lucyriver myself for the first two days were thinking of them as well as the light went off. lucyriver was wondering if they would appear outside the windows or would they show up at the library, returning their borrowed books, well, just lucyriver's freaky imagination, they didn’t borrow books anyway.

Browsing travel pictures, lucyriver's feet have gotten so itchy that lucyriver wish so much to just pack lucyriver's bag right away and fly. England would be really nice, lucyriver’d always wanted to go there. Paris, Hokkaido, Nepal, Tibet and even Bhutan, the lists are endless. Yet, the money sign $ will always be the thing that relinquish the desire, and not only that but time and companions.

Finding a travel companion who has the same passion as you have is more difficult that climbing the mountain. If you ever have one or you travelled with one before, count yourself as a lucky person. When friends are together, talking about going here and there is so easy but when you intend to put it into action, everyone has his or her own reasons for not being able to make it.

Money to lucyriver is something that lucyriver don’t have luxuriously. However, if you, lucyriver's friends, invite lcyriver to a trip, lucyriver will break the piggy and go with you right away. To lucyriver, if you wish to do something, do it now or else you won’t do it. Or you might miss the chance.