Living in a corner lot, there are plenty of land which one can make use of. Unlike the rich family, we do not have the capacity to maintain a beautiful garden with carpet grass and such. However, we do have the capacity to grow flowers and trees in the garden.

Plenty of plants and trees has been grown on this garden of ours. I clearly remembered that we had sugar canes, mangoes, papaya, langsat, and there was once, we were talking about having a durian tree since our family spends quite a fair bit of money on durians. The talk never did materialize because of the fact that the roots of the durian tree can uproot the house's foundation. So we had to put the topic to rest.

As the years went by, the trees that we planted, inspite bearing fruits and stuff, had to be chopped off. The sugar cane tree was removed as it was attracting a lot of ants. The papaya tree was growing towards the ground instead of upwards after i buried my dead hamster below it etc etc... And now, both the apple mango and the normal mango tree...

That sunday morning, the excavator came and took down the tree...Oh god...No more mangoes to go around..



The garden is now left nothing but a couple of vegetable plants like ladies finger which unfortunately, not one of the vegetables that I eat...

Well, not like I liked vegetables anyway...

Last Friday, I went and did something that I had no guts to do more than a decade ago. Don't ask me what triggered because I myself don't know. I was simply more brave to do it with the perception that I can mask away the physical pain and mental fear of the surgery, with all the emotional pain that I am going through. It was a simple procedure to be exact, but I had to do it the complicated way. Ideally, this could have been done under local anesthetic in a clinic but I decided to do it under general anesthetic in a operation theater.

Checked in the hospital on Friday morning. Performed all the necessary procedures and was checked in to a ward which is suppose to be my room. As much as I refuse to let fear overtake me, I won't deny that it was a 'balls shrinking' moment for me. If I wasn't afraid of these things, I wouldn't have waited for more than 10 years to perform this simple procedure.


But then I recalled Joey saying, "Think of the person you love dearest and you will forget about the fear and pain". True enough, I cannot afford to show that I was afraid, because then my parents would have been even more worried for me. My dad, he's got a lot of fear I know, but enough pride inside not to let it show. So I treated it as a joke. I kept making fun of it, till a point where I totally forgotten about my fear. It was even funnier when I had to change into the operation 'dress' (bareback) and was forced to put on the stupid shower cap (which I am not showing a picture of).


It was all smooth until the nurse pushed the wheel chair into the room. Then, fear hit me again. It was time to go. I was wheeled to the 1st floor and into the operation theater's waiting area. There I was, lying on the bed, waiting for my turn to be pushed into the operation theater, all the old memories start flashing by one by one. I know, it's not like I was going for something major. Neither was it a life threatening surgery. But you just couldn't help being emotional looking at those lying right next to you. They were all there for reasons not being made known to me.

Some looked pretty relaxed. Some looked like they were just waiting for God to call their name. I simply couldn't help feeling lucky, but at the same time sorry for them. Finally, '8b' was called. The anesthetist, came and push me into the operation theater and rolled me over to the operation bed. It was extremely cold in there. I was shivering. But I didn't knew if it was because I was afraid or because it was cold.

Here I am now, lying on the bed, staring at the big spotlights right above me, while the surgeons were drown away in their conversation on how to position me for the surgery. The anesthetist, trying to put me to sleep using both gas and injection. My mind wasn't functioning. I couldn't comprehend what was going on. But I was waiting..waiting for the double images, and the blurring noises before I get knocked out. Breath after breath of the anesthetic, I didn't go out. No double images, no blurring noises...

The next thing I know, "Boy, operation is over yah...".

Where's the tremendous pain I was waiting for? Where was the unbearable pain that will help me forget about the emotional pain I was going through? There wasn't any. Yes, the pain was there. But it was far from unbearable...

All I was left with is nothing but 3 'siham' which cost slightly more than 1k each.


So much for disappointment, I checked out on the spot...

Smyrna is practically a small town in Georgia. Probably one of the best town of my 3 visits to the state of Georgia. Not to mention that I freaking hate it. It was pretty cold in Smyrna too that time but I figured that it wasn't as cold as Reno. Practically felt numb after flying from east to west and west back to east and I needed a perfect room to rest.

Glad that the room was pretty comfortable. Big as usual (not that I needed the space) but it was pretty comfortable despite



As usual, comfy beds are the only thing that I look forward to everytime I am in a new hotel. After my bad experience in Fort Myers, I start to pay more attention to the beds I sleep in.


There was a lousy mall behind the hotel. But despite having a lousy mall, the best 2 restaurants are also right behind the hotel.

This was where I first had PF Chang's. The so called famous chinese food franchise restaurant.


And I guess the EGAP junior's team, or at least, my favourite Cheesecake Factory...

Wasn't expect to see any snow in this trip. Not too sure if the term to use is 'fortunately' or 'unfortunately'. I've never seen snow in my life. Or at least, not in this life, yet. Reno was cold. Perhaps maybe one of the coldest places so far as it was at a higher altitude. But not high enough to bring in the snow. As much as snow is concern, I am only able to see it from my room.


I remember that morning, I had to call the airlines twice to check if my baggage had arrived. I was super pissed when they told me that they will call when it arrives at the hotel but nobody ever 'wtf' called. So I called up the bell boy and they said it arrived this morning and I had to come down to get it. Now that was so going to make my blood boil. Who doesn't know that Calvin doesn't leaves the room until he gets his shower?

After the whole drama, I needed to get something to eat and this time, fortunately, after a month without proper chinese food, there was a 'wtf' DUCK HOUSE across the hotel.


Looking rather shady from the outside, inside is pretty much the typical run down chinese restaurant. The food was pretty okay though. I've come to learn soon enough that Reno has actually plenty of chinese restaurants.


Too bad, my stay in Reno was a mere 4 days. I didn't had time to go down to Las Vegas or take a trip around the area. All I had was time to walk around the hotel and visit the casino in which I lost, as usual...




My flight was 6am in the morning that day. Good bye Reno.