Marsha Maung: I write. I love. I live

Image credit I don't want to come off sounding kiasu (afraid of not getting the best, being the best, having the best, bonking the best, grabbing the best.....) but I have this thing about paying too much for parking when I'm in a place for 12 minutes. Near my place, there's this convenient little shoplot where I shop for the bare necessities. It's convenient and a stone's throw away. A couple of years back, they used to give patrons free parking if you bought more than RM30 from any single one of their stores. No parking fee....what a pull! And suddenly, with a new management (that gave the whole place a new layer of paint - BIG DEAL !), the free parking thing disappeared! Damn....but they retained the 10-minute rule. If you're in there for less than 10 minutes, you don't pay anything. Fantastic. So, here's what happens, I park, run in, check my shopping list and run through from aisle to aisle. It doesn't help that they keep trying to IM...

Image credit Don’t worry, this is not a perving post although I am consistently perving. That’s for the record. You can expect me to ogle my eyes blind if ever a cute guy walks past or flash abs across my computer screen. But this is not about perving….not today, anyway. Maybe tomorrow . Love is a very funny thing because it’s an all-encompassing emotion that can literally take over a person’s life and make all their decisions for them. For instance, you fall in love with a man/woman and you could be digesting your own stomach linings and not feel a thing. Oh Boy, and when you have a kid….oh gosh, it’s so all-encompassing that you don’t need sleep. EVER . I'm totally, totally serious about this! Grab a parent and ask! Even for those who claim to have waking up problems can hear their child’s whimper in the dead of the night. Love is an extremely crazy feeling. Come to think of it, it’s so crazy that you can love anything or anyone and they don’t have to love you ...

Image credit What are you doing? Reading Enid Blyton all over again?! How old are you? Why are you watching youtube videos about young celebrities? They’re kids, for goodness’ sakes! How come you visit TMZ and eOnline so many times a day? And I like Robert Pattinson, for your information, and some other moms actually think I am bonkers. That’s what I get, CONSISTENTLY , when I tell people what I do during my free time. Watching celebrity interviews, goggling and googling young, hot celebrities and reading children’s books…I’ll admit that it is not something that a thirty-something woman does with her free time. Well, you know what? I’ll continue doing it until I don’t feel like doing it anymore because doing these things makes women like me feel younger. It keeps things in a, sort of, dream-like state and takes us away from reality (if that is what one is looking for) because reality can be (very often) overwhelming. Outdoors and trying to feel alive The other thing th...

Image credit Ever since I was a young girl, I knew I was built to be a human antenna. I receive signals very easily. I prefer this word to the word 'sensitive' because when you say someone is sensitive, they see you as someone who gets hurt when you tell them that their ears stick out. Mine does, so don't tell me that. I deliver sucker punches. Anyway, as a kid, you're a bigger antenna than when you're bigger because you're grown-up, you can't act like a kid who kicks people in the b-lls when they tell you the truth. You learn that the truth builds your character and you become better. But this doesn't mean that it doesn't hurt, of course, it does....just that, the reaction is a little different now that you're an ADULT. A friend of mine asked me a few months back, 'Why does everyone's problem has to be your problem?' Here it is....in its full glory, I'm a human antenna. I absorb feelings and emotions very easily. If you hav...

Hiking is my thing these days because it is a source of strength for me. Each step you take moves you in the right direction. You MUST move otherwise you'll be stuck in the middle of nowhere. I am in a very trying mood right now and I will explain later but this post is not really about hiking or life in general. It's about something inevitable. So you start off the journey looking forward to finishing it and feeling of achieving something great in the end. Along the way, you get nice scenery. It's OK scenery but we take whatever we can get, right? This is life, you don't really get to choose all the nice things ALL THE TIME. In fact, sometimes you meet monkeys. You are scared that they'll grab or bite you but if you don't move, they might and you'll never get past them. So, you move on, one step at a time. Each lamp post that I go past marks an achievement. At this stage, I've walked past 32 lamp posts. Incredible, I think. I didn't ...

I wrote this post some time back and after much thinking, I've decided to post it anyway. I over-estimated my own importance. I will never do that again. Another lesson learned. Maybe it was because of the network of people who value me are not always within my vicinity, maybe that's why. This is a very emotional post for me because I was a little sad about my birthday turn-out. I invited very few people and VERY FEW made the effort to come. Some didn't even bother to wish me at all. It's not like I'm a child who's celebrating her Barbie Doll birthday event in McDonalds or something but I am trudging along on a little journey that I find more than a little daunting and they would understand. To me, it was a way for me to release stress and also prove that I have friends who are not 9 and 7 and who thinks I am the love of their lives. During this journey, I would need friends who value me. But I am of little value. Oh, don't worry, I'm not beating...

Every time I do this, you know I'm PMS-ing. I am usually quite sane and well-behaved. I promise you this. But..... After watching The Notebook, I am fully convinced that Ryan Gosling is not a man. He's sex. Pure sex. And love, of course. I knew that. I love Ryan Gosling whether he looks like he just woke up on an island.... ESPECIALLY when he's half-naked!!!! I love him even if he's kissing someone other than me (who he SHOULD be kissing) I love him even when he's got literally no hair. I love him eventhough without the beard thing, he looks like a schoolboy still growing out his pubic hair. I love Ryan Gosling to the core and then you tell me one other thing to make me fall in love with him even more! I feel signs of a mild heart attack already! He plays the piano . He sings . And he sings to KIDS for Halloween! I mean.....aawwwwww......how come we good women who are only sometimes a teeny weeny bit (and I mean really tiny bit ) bitchy ...

One great writer once told me that some people have it, some people don’t. And then you have Larry Bird, one monstrous, awkward cement mixer in the middle of the basketball court. He should be just standing there and get paid, you know what I mean? He’s an OBSTACLE not a basketball player! And yet, he’s one of the most amazing players known to man. Apart from that lithe speed-of-light Jordan guy. Phew!! Larry Bird who moves at a speed so slow, I could beat him to the net. I think…kinda hoping. Anyway, the point is this; someone great once told me that some people have it, some don’t. The same goes for writing. You think? The problem with most wannabes is this: they don’t know how to make everything come together as one nice piece of artwork. Like they KNOW how to write and put sentences together and stuff but when people read it….they go ‘And….the point is….let me read it again….er….oh, what the hell!’ Flow. Continue Reading here

I know how frustrating it is to write a story because sometimes, we get all excited about something and we don't have the time to write about minor stuff like the walls, the weather, the food, the people sitting around the characters. You can't wait to get to the good stuff. I've never published a book before (although I'm trying) but I read a lot of tips from other writers and authors. And when you're faced with such a situation, one of them said to continue with what you're thinking because you know what? There's always editing. So, go ahead and write it the way you're feeling it RIGHT THERE and THEN. And mark it down so that when you're going at it the second time round, you'll know where the empty spots are. Good advice. So, this is how I mark mine. See the highlighted stuff? Yeah, that's where I'll explain stuff later. In the meantime, the reels in my head are just spinning and spinning like a movie. I don't wait to e...

Do you even know what it’s like to let everything go, not care and worry about responsibilities anymore? Sometimes, when you take a good look at your life, do you sit there and wonder how amazing it would be if you could be a kid all over again? Kids have the best lives ever ! They need to know that and I tell my kids all the time - that they need to be carefree and not stress out of minor things. One of my kids refused to go barefoot and sit down on the grass while licking his ice-cream the other day….we were in a nice park. It’s not Central Park but this is as big and convenient as it can get over here. He’s concerned about worms and ants in the grass and that his pants will get dirty . Don’t look at me ; he got that from his father! What I did was push him to the ground and say, ‘ See? Nobody died. Now let’s eat this ice-cream and lie down on the ground and watch clouds after that .’ My other kid was laughing his head off. Now, this guy’s got everything from me. :-) The point ...

I miss school days. Boo hooo hooooooo.....

Usually, I am at work, at this table, by 8.15am or so. Today, I am starting out a little later than usual. Not because I'm lazy or am too sleepy (I was!!!) but because I found out that I've been making excuses. I've always thought that it was not possible for me to find time to exercise. But now I realize that it was just an excuse to be lazy. You see, when you want something done, you can. So, this morning, after sending the kids off to school, I dragged my sorry lazy ass to TTDI hiking trail and HIKED. Alone. It was spooky, scary, tiring and bloody ah-sohs (elderly women) and women with asses twice of mine can walk faster than me were intimidating me. Then someone warned me, 'Walk right. There's a snake on the left'. A WHATTTTT ??????!!!! So I stayed to the right. I'll climb the trees on the right if I have to....and be with the monkeys. Half way through, there was this woman in red sitting down drinking her water. I didn't know my direction so...

I just watched the Notebook the movie after reading the Notebook the book. And then I browsed around on the internet and found that....THIS is how you FUGGIN' receive the BEST KISS award. Is that not orgasm-inducing or what????!!! Ryan Gosling and Rachel McAdams really rocked. As much as I love Robert Pattinson and think Kristen Stewart can't act for shits, THIS is what they gave us. What the FUG right? Kristen's just such a freak. She should be in an asylum or something. Damn stupid girl. Come on! And they make it out to be like.....wow, what a fuggin' teaser. Teaser my ass.

Someone just sent me a song by Katrina and the Waves, Walking on Sunshine (Thanks, Vern) and this is what it felt like. Glooooooom. Gloooom. Gloooooooooom. Then. SUNSHINE !!! It’s time to feel good! Oh, yeah! It’s time to feel good!! Let’s say it again, It’s time, it’s time, it’s time, it’s time to feel good! Hhhooooooo Yeahhh Ooops! Embedding the song did not work. So, hang on. I'll post it up on youtube. Stay happy for now, ok? To continue reading , click here to MarshaMaung.ME

The color of hunger, to me, is oak. Oak is a combination of brown which represents earth, nature, a need and a desperate desire. Without nature, we’re done for, aren’t we? We need trees and earth to survive, as with all those little kids in those poverty-stricken countries who need food. With the color oak, there’s also a tinge of black and gray. Black signifies decadence, death and hopelessness. Gray is a anything in between. There’s hope in gray and yet gravity may at any point in time, pull you the other way. What I like about saying oak color is the color of hunger is because there’s always someone out there with enough humanity to help feed some of them. The lucky ones. The ones who are not destined to die, the ones who have a little bit more luck than others. There’s also a tinge of red in the color oak. Red signifies energy. We need people with energy, desire and passion to help drive hunger out of this world….without which there would be no compassion. Oak may be a very bo...

As opposed to a conventional copywriter who tend to mull over each comma, sentence, word or decimal point whenever they write, bloggers are freer and better at writing out nice little articles or blog entries that contains substance. The difference between what a writer produces and what a blogger produces is this – the length. The lengthier it is, the easier it is to lose your audience I don’t claim to be an authority of any sort in this respect although I blog AND I write professionally. Everyone goes through the same learning curve, and in all honestly, most writers-cum-bloggers will have to go through it. You get chided by clients who pays you to write tell you that you’re too personal. You get reprimanded by client who pays you to blog tell you that you’re too long winded. Sigh…. Bloggers are smarter than writers in terms of article marketing The situation is as such that bloggers are more web savvy….I know of a few exceptions but professional writers come with qualificati...

My new openzine is up. The M Life, Work Create Your OpenZine

I recently wrote about a perfume that ROCKED big time on my list of favorite scents and how it actually altered my age. :-) Hey, don’t blame me. You’ll do the same thing when you hit thirty, alright? Cut me some slack. Ageless Fantasy, despite the fact that I can’t get it here easily, is one of my all-time favorite perfumes in the world. And don’t hate me because I don’t like Kate Moss very much (sunken cheeks, bulging eyes and chopstick body could have something to do with it) BUT I love the Kate Moss perfume. I wish I’ve gotten some when I was in Hong Kong because it’s so much cheaper there. Intuition by Estee Lauder is really nice for clubbing night-outs as well. Anyway, I’m a stickler for perfumes and would advice you to visit some blogs or perfume websites before purchasing them. Trust me, it’ll save you lots of time instead of whiffing your nose off at every counter. There’s this little new perfume blog out there that you might want to check out. I get mine, when confused...

It’s sometimes very hard to explain what life is all about. It’s about, to me at least, being happy and alive . Being in the now . In order to achieve what we have set out to do, we have to work hard and smart. Why am I being so fuggin’ serious here today ? Because of this!! It happened some days ago but this is what happened. I wanted to eat LaLa. It’s clams….the small type, we called it LaLa over here but if you make a search on Google for LaLa, you might find something very interesting. Quite edible but not for gals. :-) Anyway, here’s what happened. I wanted only the meat, so, I quickly put it in boiling water, remove it and then peel them open one by one. It’s tedious work. One by one by one…. Life is tedious work. I had a couple of options :- Forget the stupid LaLa for crissakes! This is sooooooo not worth it. Take a break and come back to the LaLa a little later Soldier on!!! I WANT LALA !!!! To make matters worse, sometimes life throws shit at you. Funky, huh? Yo...

Try putting thick makeup on me and watch me poke my finger up in your face. I'm more of an au naturale girl, prefering zits, open pores, wrinkles and crinkles to Vampire deVille. However, a girl's still a girl. I do occasionally like the magical effect make-up can have on a woman. Maybe it's just something I think is special to women and women alone because MEN CAN'T HAVE IT. They have to live with what's on their face, whether they like it or not. Zits giving a standing ovation to the world, puffy eyes bulging like a sag of potatoes. Putting on concealer and a ttttthhhhhiiiiiiiiiinnnn layer of foundation to cover the flaws of a hangover makes you an instant metrosexual, you see. So....yeah, sometimes I'm happy that I'm a girl. If you don't already know, Mary Kay cosmetics is having this virtual makeover thing and suddenly feeling very girly, I decided to go try it out for myself....WITHOUT USING MY OWN FACE, of course. Egad. I would use one of t...

I went to Tropicana City Mall with the kids to catch Ice Age 3 recently and right outside, they had this games center. So, with the kids, we marched in and played some games lor. I've forgotten how timeless things can become when you have fun with all those games inside. Right at the end of the place, they have these dance-dance machines. I don't know what you call them but then you dance according to whatever the machine tell you lah. A long time ago, I used to do this, hoping around stepping on arrows as the arrow indicators came up. I have (ahem) quite good but I never did it in public. We had a Sony Playstation thing at home and I was queen of the world whenever I did it and people are often impressed. So, during the visit, I saw a group of girls standing around and giggling to themselves. I wanted to see what they were giggling about and saw that there was this guy going all out with this dance-dance machine. It's not the same kind that I was used to....no legs...

I have very little trace of inkling towards politics in my blood. I know who our Prime Minister is. And I know who I support. I went for steamboat to celebrate my birthday yesterday night and we were discussing how I would refuse to eat prawn or fish that are alive before presented dead on my plate. I would rather starve than give a fish a death sentence by picking them out from the pond or aquarium. That's inhuman and murder. I want to eat but I don't want to choose who to murder. When I prepare dishes, I make sure that both my kids get the same proportion. And they know it. No one will be treated unfairly in my house. Fairness and humanity. Human rights....that's important, isn't it? Yesterday was probably one of the stupidest and most unfair day in the history of my country. You see, we have this draconian law that says that if you look stupid, we can arrest you without putting you through trial. If you so much as fart in the presence of the King, they can...