Friday, July 01, 2005

Time spent with dad

Time spent with dad

It has only been 9 days since exams got over, and I feel extremely bored. In the past 9 days, I have indulged in a few tubs of ice cream all by myself, arranged my books about 75 times , played about 576 tunes on my guitar, slept for more than 12 hours a day, watched 24 episodes of "The OC", made 7 power point presentations for fun, watched all the movies that I missed during exams ( A series of unfortunate events, hitch, the English patient, be cool, etc...), caught the primere of "War of the Worlds" on the first day of release not to mention excellent seats from advanced bookings, played "Cat Woman" at a movie character walkabout, ate waffles with my cousins, browsed through the classifieds, and spent quite a bit of time with my dear dad.

I never realized how much fun time spent with dad could be. When I was doing my A-levels, I pretty much crowded my life style with books, college, hanging with friends, getting my car fixed, etc... I was always out of the house. The only time I did see my dad would be in the morning, when he would be drinking his black coffee in front of the TV watching market shares on CNBC, or during lunch when we would have a quiet lunch, just the two of us. Those little moments was enough for me to call time spent with dad. However in this past 9 days, I spent more time than I usually did with him. He isnt well, and has been instructed to take strict leave for about 3 weeks. He sits mostly in front of the tv either watching a movie, wimbeldon, news, or searching for his missing DVDs.

We went down to Hartamas Shopping Centre and did a bit of shopping. Shopping with dad meant gadget shopping. All electronic goods, plasma screen TVs, Hi-fi systems, notebooks, hand phones, digital video cameras, kitchen goods(where we bought a toaster), etc... As a bonus, we hit times bookstore, where I had dad searching for the newspaper and after he found that the newspapers were sold out, he tried desperately to pull me out of the literature section where I was totally lost in the books. The only way to pull me out of the section was to get me a few books which he did. I have something to read now, Women in Love by D.H. Lawrence. *Sigh*
there is nothing better than burying yourself in a book, except ice cream off course.

We had spent a whole 2 hours in the mall. Yesterday, I drove him to bangsar where we bought dinner, and 11 DVD's to keep dad occupied. The roads were a little jammed, as I squeezed the steering wheel tighter, knowing that this is one one the few times where dad has sat in a car which I was driving. All the anxiety, not wanting to make a mistake. I had to live up to his standards, his expectations, and that meant good driving, skilled. In the end, he never commented, so I take it that either it wasnt bad driving, or he just couldnt be bothered on how I drove. Perhaps something else was playing in his mind.

There is so many things I want to talk to dad about. My view of the world, how things work, my hopes, dreams and maybe even my love life. 3 weeks may seem like a short time, but I'll use every minute I have. Besides, I will be working with dad handling legal matters ( at least learning about it) starting next week for about 3 months. So looks like I do have more time. Ah, skip it, I just love spending time with my dad!