M A C V A Y S I A

So today I’m 32 years old.

Yeterday I made a pre-birthday wish: I wished that today we’d have water and electricity. Sounds silly, but it seems we have less water every day. I remember having to take a shower with bottled water once in Malaysia and how it seemed so crazy. Now it’s becoming a daily routine. Thank God the bottled water dispenser outside our room has hot water. As for electricity, this being Friday I figured it would probably be off all day like it was last week and many other Fridays since my arrival here last year.

This morning when I woke up I was able to have a shower. The water went away soon after that and has been off for most of the day, but at least the electricity hasn’t cut out. Happy birthday to me!

Well it has indeed been a happy birthday. Leen leaked out to some students that it would be my birthday today, and I’ve been getting birthday wishes from them since last night. This morning some of them called me to their classroom in between classes, and when I got there a whole class of about 50 students sang Happy Birthday to me as loud as they could. One of them lit sparklers and handed me one, then he tried lighting what looked like fireworks in his hand. Couldn’t be, I thought. Well they were fireworks, which I figured out when I noticed the girls in the first few rows cowering in their seats and covering their ears. The student held the first stick of whatever it was away from his body and suddenly the room erupted in a shower of colourful sparks that shot towards the ceiling and bounced off the blackboard, raining down on things that miraculously didn’t burst into flames. As smoke filled the room the student used the last seconds of flame to light another one, while I marvelled at the fact that the posters on the walls hadn’t already caught fire. I guess he knew what he was doing. After all, the Chinese did invent fireworks.

After morning classes I went to the listening lab to get Leen. She wasn’t feeling well at all today because being pregnant has really dealt a blow to her immune system, making the usually annoying allergies severely annoying. She hadn’t really slept well last night because her eyes were itchy and swollen, and this morning when she was calling out the attendance she suddenly burst into tears and had to leave the students with someone else. By the time I got to the lab building she was back and feeling a little better, but she still looked like she’d gone a few rounds with Laila Ali. She said we had to go to the office first, and this being my birthday I was a little suspicious, especially since I’d been told earlier by a teacher with a giant silly grin on her face that I should go to the office at lunchtime for reasons that weren’t clear. When we got to the office I was ushered away from the main room while people scurried about behind the door. After a few minutes of people stalling me with small talk, the assistant head of department then said to me that I should go into the main office so everyone could surprise me because today is a special day. Very smooth.

When I walked into the office I was greeted by a huge birthday cake and lots of other goodies. Sure, I wasn’t surprised, but I was absolutely delighted. Leen presented me with a big birthday card (signed by everyone) that she’d made herself, and then one of my colleagues presented me with a piece of birthday cake that was so big it could have been a cake all on its own. We all laughed, posed for pictures, ate snacks, and had a great time. Sure, it’s been cold and rainy all day. Sure, there’s no water, today and every day. Sure, the politics, miscommunication, disorganization, and a host of other problems leave me exasperated and swearing like a sailor at the end of some days—like yesterday, for example (that’s a story for another time). But it’s all good. I had a lovely birthday. This evening we went into the city with my good buddy Ice and had steak at our favourite restaurant, where they suddenly have English menus because we once suggested it (and perhaps because they noticed we always kept ordering the same dish—curry with beef—because we had no idea what else they had). My ‘well done’ steak was pink and not quite like the steak back home, but it was still called steak and did resemble steak, so there. There were even french fries. And Ice gave me a really nice set of chopsticks for my birthday, flat ones, because he knows I hate the round ones. I’ll still use chopsticks when I get back to Malaysia. Really, I will.

So today I’m 32 years old.

This morning, before my shower, before Leen got out of bed, I stood there in front of the bathroom mirror and looked at my face. I looked at the deep furrow in my brow, the one that doesn’t go away even when I don’t really frown or squint my eyes. I looked at the lines on either side of my upper lip. I looked at the lines on my forehead. More lines this year. I’m not getting any younger.

I won’t get depressed about that. Got a life to live. Got milestones to pass. Got goals to achieve. Maybe God will give me just one more day. Maybe many years. I have to keep telling myself one more day will do, and live that day right. Of course, today my goal of starting to eat healthy was dealt a staggering blow when I had cake for lunch and a still-bleeding steak for supper. But it’s all good…I’ve got plans, and tomorrow is another day. One more day.