Happy Long Weekend!

Hello, all. So I hope you are all enjoying(ed) your long holiday weekend. From what I here, at least on the East Coast, summer has arrived early. Watch out for the sunburn!

Memorial Day weekend, much to his dismay, also often coincides with my brother's birthday (May 27th). This early summer weekend seems a great time to have a birthday, right? But alas, if you ask my brother it is the worst time to be born because apparently competing with the holiday that ushers summer in is a tough torch to bear. Many times throughout his youth and even into his adulthood he lost out to barbecues and weekend getaways. Not this year, I hope. At the very least, we are offering him a big public birthday shout out. Happy Birthday, Jeff! Hope you have a great celebratory day with a cake and all. I will spare you from announcing your age. Not quite old but you sure are catching up.

So today, Sven and I finally made it out of Bangi and into the jungle. This would not have happened if not for our awesome neighbor who finally got tired of hearing us talk about going to the 'waterfall' for the past couple of months but never actually motivating to go beyond the closest air-conditioned shopping center. This little outing took us completely by surprise because he is seemingly the last person to voluntarily head into the jungle for any kind of hike. In fact, he complains when he has to walk to his car and is the biggest advocate of shopping over any form of exercise or play. But it was him who piled us into his car this morning for destinations unknown and reminded Ben and I that we live in a jungle paradise. He surprised us in several other ways today as well -- jumping from heights without a second thought, heading right for the water when we came upon the waterfall, and taking a cigarette to the leech that was sucking the life out of his skinny little leg (though he did squeal a bit when he discovered the leech). Anyway, it was a lot of fun, the waterfall was beautiful, refreshing, and there were no scandalous encounters with young couples doing the nasty in plain view (this was the warning we had received from two of our teachers when we mentioned that we wanted to visit this park).

Ben was the only one of us who actually took advantage of the falls. I did not bring a swimsuit or any clothing that was appropriate (I did not know we were going to the falls after all) and Asmara had a '375RM' t-shirt on that he dare not get wet.

We also had the opportunity to practice our picture posing with a real expert. As Ben noted in the last blog, every Malay has a signature pose or two which they adopt as soon as they see a camera. No joke, it is like an unconscious Pavlovian response to the sound of a the camera lens opening. Asmara, our neighbor, is an exceptional example of this fantastic Malaysian quirk. He turns it on for the camera like no one I have ever seen (he also turns it on for every passing adult white male but that is a story for another time). Here are some examples, including a 'stock' photo of him and his partner in crime a few months ago.

So today, I thought we should all have a little fun in front of the camera. Seeing as I hate having my picture taken and am completely uncomfortable with photos, this was a particularly bold move. Even braver, I am now going to share these pictures with you all-- the scary, the ugly, the bad, and not so bad-- no censoring because they are too funny too hide. I will begin with the best of the bunch, by which I mean the worst but the look of horror on Asmara's face is just too classic for me to throw it away.

Though I probably do not need to even write it, since it is written all over his face, but his exact words were 'you have got to be f-ing kidding me!'

The second and third try, though better (anything was going to be better than that first butch pose), were also unsuccessful leading Asmara to nicely quote Tyra Banks, "I see a pretty girl in front of me but that is not what I see when I look at this picture". He also offered me some personal one on one lessons, so maybe I will have some progress to report in a few months.

Though I am not a natural, Sven seems to have what it takes.

They make a pretty pair, no?

Well, that is it. I am going to run quickly from the computer now before I have a chance to think twice about this post. Take care. StB