I’ve been trying to keep this blog light and fluffy. None of that soul baring nonsense that you normally find on the blogosphere. But then I thought what the hell, maybe I should jump on the bandwagon too and start doing that whole self centred emo-charged dialogue act too.

I am writing this on a plane at around 30 thousand feet above sea level on my way to a conference in the Netherlands for work. I’ve just had an extremely surreal experience about an hour ago. By sheer chance I ran into my first ex-girlfriend at the airport.

Some history may be required to explain the context of why this was so important ( to me at least).

About eight years ago, when I was a little younger and a lot stupider, not only did I break this girl’s heart but also I chose the worst possible time to do so. Her parents were in the midst of a divorce or something of that sort.

For reasons that I can’t fully understand myself, I had begun to feel somewhat trapped in the relationship and suspected that I did not really like her after all. She was the very quiet type. I felt I was not making much headway in terms of getting her to open up emotionally.

I panicked and pushed the eject button so to speak before I had to get too involved in her emotional/personal problems and pretend/carry out the great charade of being the good boyfriend.

Yes, yes, I was a selfish idiot, roll your eyes if you want.

After my rejection, she cut me off completely and honestly I can’t blame her. When I came to my senses shortly after and realised how callous I’d been and how tactlessly I handled the entire situation, I made up my mind to make it up to her. I even thought that if I couldn’t work things out, we could at least maintain a healthy long lasting friendship but she effectively ex-communicated me. I became a non-person to her, to be avoided at all costs which was awkward as we still had to sit in the same classes for a few more months until our pre-university course concluded.

My reconciliatory phone calls to her went unanswered. Letters were not responded too and basically after we went our separate ways for university, it became next to impossible to get in touch.

Since then I have a lot of time to reflect on my actions. For a period of time, I was carrying around a lot of penitent guilt of having done a bad thing and not being able to “fix” it later. I think it is fair to say that this event had a great effect on shaping my entire approach to relationships.

The influence of this event extends to today where I suspect that my stubborn ( and probably bordering on emotionally sadomasochistic need ) to keep in touch and be friends with my ex-s even if they are the ones who want to break-up with me is driven by this past experience.

I’ve had plenty of opportunity to imagine what it would be like to run into her again and I’ve played out the scenario a few times in my head.

When I finally did get the chance a little while ago, it was unsurprisingly very cathartic for me to a certain degree.

Frustratingly enough, my first ex has not lost that characteristic emotional detachment therefore it was, in fact, extremely difficult to determine how this impacted her, if at all. She seemed to be partly amused and partly uncomfortable by the whole thing.

We exchanged pleasantries, did the five minute where have you been all these years soliloquy and I am afraid that I may have weirded her out with my “prepared” apology speech which I’ve been drafting for a number of years.

She said that it was a long time ago and there was no need to bring it up again. So much for that. Anyway, she looks fantastic and seems to be doing quite well for herself. Apparently she works in the UK somewhere as a doctor in training.

I left her my business card and e-mail but it was quite obvious that she will probably not write back. She did not offer me with a way to contact her but then again, somehow, it felt right that way.

So I suppose (or rather I hope) with the new job, my recent break-up with my current ex (sorry, I know it sounds like an oxymoron) and this totally unexpected opportunity for emotional closure, things will begin to look up for me in the coming year

It’s been a while since the last blog.

Part of which was contributed by the fact that Blogger has been acting up ever since the quake in Taiwan about a month ago and partly due to my own laziness.

Thankfully, I think I’ve made this post just in time to keep to my promise of a minimum of one blog a month. Didn’t say anything about the quality of the blog though. Ha.ha.

So what’s new with you ?

I’ve finally swapped jobs. I am now working in the KLCC area doing some consultancy work. It’s not exactly rocket science but I am glad to have a change of environment. I think if I had to hang around my last job for any longer, I would have gone bonkers.

Then again, the new job location is a lot further from home than I’m used to and the fact that I’m no longer field based means that I can no longer have the flexi start times that frankly I’ve become accustomed to having.

I’ll be traveling to Holland for a conference sometime next week as part of the new job. Hopefully, it won’t be too cold and I won’t be too lost figuratively and literally.

So been listening to anything new lately ?

I’ve been keeping up with some of the local music scene. Earlier this week, I went to a gig at Laundry @ Curve featuring Lied, Citizens of Ice Cream and Furniture.

http://laundrybar.blogspot.com/

I think it is great that Laundry is making local music so much more accessible by having these sort of performances for free in a pub/bar setting in a popular shopping complex but at the same time, there are a lot of casual bystanders who happen to wander in and looky-see , instead of actual music fans who would come specifically for the music.

This brings me to the next venue I went the following night: KL Jam Asia at Desa Seri Hartamas. The first great thing about this place is get this : No smoking allowed ! This is fantastic news for non smokers like me who end up smelling like a bloody ashtray every time I go for these sorts of gigs.

I was supposed to be there a bit earlier but I missed most of the bands but I managed to catch Furniture again and Azmyl Yunor and the Sigarettes.

I’ve appended the myspace pages for the bands below and some short commentaries.

Lied : To be honest, I wasn’t so crazy over this band. Very goth but also very manufactured. Interesting but only if they try something a little different.

www.myspace.com/lied

Citizens of Ice Cream: They had some new songs to their line up. Not too bad. Check out my review at one of their earlier gigs. Still quite funny because they still get the “Huh, no words one arr this band?” from the audience.

www.myspace.com/citizensoficecream

Furniture: I quite enjoyed this band. The music sounds fresh. It’s a mix between twee pop and post rock. A lot of distortion driven tunes and wispy falsetto warbling but in a good way, which is why I went for their second gig the following night. Now if only I could get a hold of one of their albums.

www.myspace.com/earsofa

Azmyl Yunor and the Sigarettes : The music sounds very Americana at times but the lead singer Azmyl is no doubt a very seasoned performer who has no problems striking up some banter with the audience. I didn’t like the music all that much but I liked the style though. He had this whole pseudo soulful selamba mat rock thing going on.

www.myspace.com/azmylyunor

Watched any good movies lately ?

I finally got a hold of Borat : Cultural Learnings Of America For Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan ( Phew-That was a mouthful ) a few weeks ago. Sasha Cohen is a genius. A sick twisted type of genius but still very clever nevertheless.

http://www.borat.tv/

The odd thing about the movie is that I think it was funnier because I watched it in small measured doses. I had to watch the DVD in 2 or 3 parts as there was always something interrupting me but I think that sort of helped because I would have probably O.D’ed on the whole audacity of it if I watched the entire movie in one sitting.

Read anything new ?

I am about to start Paul Ormerod’s Why Things Fail sometime soon , probably on my long plane flight next week. I have long since given up the Neal Stephenson Quicksilver Trilogy.

I have however found this fantastic website that has a lot of scanned and translated manga so I have been gorging myself on Naruto and Deathnote.

http://media.unrivaled.info

Anything else interesting to add ?

Probably next time. I’ll try to snap interesting pics of Amsterdam and the Hague when I’m there to (hopefully) spice up this dreary little blog.