If you are a Malaysian, I don't have an accent. If you are a foreigner, I can imitate your accent pretty quickly. All I need is to spend a day or two with you, eat, sleep, play, talk, watch shows, have coffee, go for drinks...and I can imitate your accent.
Anyway, today is a Sunday and I am done reading Harry Potter the last (sob sob) installation - the Deathly Hallows. I. AM. IN. NEED. OF. BOOKS. I don't know a time when I don't have an unread book with me. I always have one. ALWAYS.
So, I start panicking. OK, the kids are out to watch Avatar which is, as funky as I think it is (and I love the trailer), it is not exactly for me.
Sigh...when you watch movies with me, you'll know why. Here's a quick illustration.
My dad's at the computer and he's going through all those brain-bending graphics which tricks your mind, right? Right. So, he calls out to me, 'Hey, Marsha. You wanna watch some human brain stuff?' and I was like WTF for??????!!! But I replied, 'Huh? Got blood, I don't want.' My dad clucked his tongue and shook his head, 'There's no blood, Marsha. Just images.' Images of blood spilling out of cracked skulls fill my head.
'No, thanks,' I said and went back to TV-watching.
My dad is still staring at me, 'Marsha, there's no blood. You can trust me.'
'No, thanks'
He sits there with his mouth open, 'Marsha, it's just tricks, OK?' and I think, yeah like tricking me into thinking there's no blood and then in the end, there's blood.
Again, I said, 'No, thanks'
He sighs and I got up, dragging a pillow with me, putting it in front of my face. 'OK, fine. Show me the thing lah!'
My dad still can't believe I am actually his daughter. Hahahaha. I think he's still shaking his head till today...and it's been a week.
Anyway, so Avatar is sooooooooo not for me. So, I go to the book store. After grabbing my books, I am thinking...what to do? I need Christmas presents. I am bored shopping for kids' stuff so I decided to pull something off. At the expense of someone else, for my own pleasure.
I walk into this beauty shop and was actually interested in this peeling/moisturizing lotion. Using my most convincing British-American accent (I don't know. One moment I am American, the next, I turn into British with the whole bollocks exclamation).
I tried not to laugh as I watch the girl trying to describe to me the way it works. Hey, it pays to look cap palang a bit (mixed ethnicity).
'This, this...all this things here on your hand (she's demonstrating the exfoliating process) is part skin. Meaning, it come out of your hand. Not sand or dirt. (weak laughter) After you doing this, no need to put water. Just take the...the...the...this thing (cotton pad) and wipe it,' she tried to painfully describe it to me, trying to make a sale here.
I am slightly amused now so, I say to her in that accent, 'Holy Mackerel, are you sure these remnants aren't just a result of all that scrubbing that you were doing? You were putting up quite an effort a moment ago, trying to take off a major number of layers of skin, weren't you?'
'Huh?' she panics! The poor girl.
Hehehe....OK, I let her off the hook and bought the thing. It's not illegal, it's free and it's pretty darn entertaining!
I know. I am mean. But I didn't think she minded because at the end of the day, she got the sale and she doesn't have to know I speak Cantonese.
I was kind of a little sad when I read the news about this - there will be no live-in Indonesian maids in Malaysia anymore.
There are pros and cons to having a live-in maid, as with everything else, but for us, we enjoyed more pros than cons. Back then, when my kids were little, we brought in a family of maids to help with...well, just about everything, and we were like two families merged into one. They ate what we ate, we sleep, they sleep, we shop, they shop, they joke, we laugh, we joke, they laugh...for me, the maid I hired was more like a sister and side-kick to me.
For that few years, I was dependent on her to mind-read my schedule and when I need or don't need help. She picked things up quickly and we ended up having lots of moments whereby we were in sync. Today, two of them are on my Facebook and we were gleefully chatting over Facebook Messenger since they've just discovered the wonders of the Internet and Social Media.
Since we were more like partners in crime, I f…
There are pros and cons to having a live-in maid, as with everything else, but for us, we enjoyed more pros than cons. Back then, when my kids were little, we brought in a family of maids to help with...well, just about everything, and we were like two families merged into one. They ate what we ate, we sleep, they sleep, we shop, they shop, they joke, we laugh, we joke, they laugh...for me, the maid I hired was more like a sister and side-kick to me.
For that few years, I was dependent on her to mind-read my schedule and when I need or don't need help. She picked things up quickly and we ended up having lots of moments whereby we were in sync. Today, two of them are on my Facebook and we were gleefully chatting over Facebook Messenger since they've just discovered the wonders of the Internet and Social Media.
Since we were more like partners in crime, I f…