My exams are over, and this is my first blog post in 2008! Woohoo!

Despite a relatively uneventful New Year’s Day countdown last week (because it was – of all days – on the first day of our final exam week!), a new year has come, and I am looking forward to a great 366 days ahead!

Some very interesting events happened during the last two weeks or so, let me recount a few of them!

Remember the murderous rabbit incident? In which Jon’s rabbit Kei Kei killed her own baby? Guess what, she gave birth to another pack of five little babies roughly two weeks ago!

But this time, there is no killing!

They are so insanely cute! They can’t walk properly yet, even their eyes are still closed!

This time, it appears that all five babies are going to survive because Jon said that the ‘dangerous period’ has passed, it is the period in which the mother might freak out and slaughter some of the babies.

I don’t think Jon’s rabbit compound will be able to accommodate Mummy and Daddy rabbit plus their five children once they grew up. Jon said he’s probably gonna have to give them away…

We couldn’t think of five names for the babies yet, but I’ve got the feeling that Jon’s going to follow his rabbit-naming convention of giving names that repeat a particular Chinese word, like the mummy rabbit – ‘Kei Kei‘, and the daddy rabbit – ‘Pom Pom‘ (I dunno how to translate this to English, but it sounds something like that).

On the other day, when Jon was buying food and grass (hay) for his rabbits at Pets Wonderland in Midvalley, I got myself a crab.

Yes, a crab.

Haha, I’ve always wanted to have something alive other than myself in my room (other than stupid mosquitoes and microorganisms and other stupid creatures), so I got myself a pet crab! A bit more specifically, it’s called a Rainbow Land Crab.

It is very small, not like the ones you happily eat at seafood restaurants. It is actually small enough to fit completely in a palm! (Not that I’ve tried before, still quite scared of its sharp double weapons…)

Now, don’t think it looks stupid or scary in any way, you have no idea how cute it is when you see it moving!

It is so cute when it is trying to find food from under the pebbles using its pincers; it is even cuter when it rubs and massages its eyes with its pincers (yes, it does! We’re very worried that it will accidentally cut it off! ); it is cutest when it simply stares at you, occasionally blinking its eyes (the eyes actually ‘drop’ into the shell like a car wiper when it blinks), and gurgling bubbles in its mouth! (It does it all the time – imagine the Pokemon Krabby in the cartoon! )

Hah!

What’s more, my crab always disturbs my study and sleep by consistently knocking on the glass with its pincers and making the distracting gurgling sound with its mouth…

When I decided to buy the crab, I was wondering what I am supposed to feed to a pet crab. Insects? Small fish? I really had no idea…

After asking a shop attendant, I was instructed to buy this:

CRAB CUISINE!!!

Dictionary definition of ‘Cuisine’:

cui‧sine / kwɪˈziːn / [uncountable]
A particular style of cooking
- French cuisine, vegetarian cuisine

So, this product is either – special food cooked in crab’s style, maybe prepared by a huge red crab wearing a chef’s hat; or – ‘crab’ is the main ingredient of the ‘cuisine’, like an 8-course meal served with different varieties of crabs and shellfish.

I can imagine my poor crab looking up at the words ‘Crab Cuisine’ with its huge popping eyes and visualizing itself on a steaming pot being cooked.

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Alright, back to some of my new year’s thoughts…

I am turning 20 in a couple of weeks’ time, and I think that leaving the ‘1x’ age range is really an unsettling reminder that I really need to start getting in strict control of my life, focus my mind, and head towards accomplishing something realistic.

All the while it’s just been just talks, imaginations and bold statements of how happy and successful I want to be when I grow up. But confidence aside, I sometimes wonder – is there real action being taken? Are there specific and realistic goals that I’m, more than just talking, but seriously working towards?

Sadly, there seems not to be.

Is there any concrete foundation on which my personal principle – to live a happy, successful and purposeful life and bring happiness to the people whom I currently, and would later, hold most dear – is to be built on?

No, I think not.

Some might not see it as so, but currently, my life is essentially a mess. A mess that is not really physical, but more ethereal, or perhaps – psychological. No, it does not involve drugs or any criminal stuff, just a jumble of problems that other people might actually consider trivial.

Trivial stuff, but in no small amount. Summed together, it is only too apparent that they would become painful obstacles to my future. Nonetheless, To make this change, to turn back to the path where I should be heading – is indeed something that is not too comfortable to imagine, and rather frankly, I’m quite scared to walk alone.

Dear 2008 – May you be the year in which great things happen; from which I depart into the next year, not carrying the thoughts I expressed in this article.

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Wishing a very, very belated happy new year to James-Chow.com, and to everyone!