Loser Like Me

Several years ago, Glee made its first appearance on TV.
The show was an instant hit!
By second season, it garnered up to 11 million weekly views in the U.S. alone (The Sue Sylvester Shuffle episode had a staggering 26 million!).
Many people considered the show a lifesaver, or at the very least, a decent, positive and entertaining musical.
Glee appeared. Glee exploded. Glee became a worldwide phenomena.
Teens were crazy for the show.
Heck, even the girls in my class tried to create a glee club (unfortunately, the school wasn't so keen on having another singing club).
Although the club never made it, it was still a pretty good indication of how influential Glee had become in the span of 2-3 years.
I mean, who could forget the end of Season 3 when [SPOILERS] the New Directions finally won Nationals and become popular at McKinley? Rachel going to NYADA and bla bla everyone else doing other stuff [/SPOILER].

Season 3: The New Directions celebrating their victory at Nationals, while "performing" Tongue Tied by Grouplove.
Taken from fanpop.

What happened after that was... less pleasant.
If I took a drink whenever someone said "They should've ended it at Season 3" or "Things have went down since Season 4", I would've been through countless liver transplants by now.
Viewership (again, in the U.S. alone) essentially got halved by the end of Season 5.
People attribute the show's downward spiral to the new (but uninteresting and unoriginal) cast members, affectionately known as the Newbies.
Not only that, the storyline was getting stale and writing got sloppier by the seasons.
Factor that in with the insane amount of screen time Darren Criss/Blaine got (he's sung almost as frequently as Rachel, the main girl of the show), and insanity ensues.
Oh and who could forget the untimely departure of Cory Monteith, which caused the story to be hastily re-written.
Yes, sh!t happened.
And fans think Glee just isn't good anymore.
At least that's the impression I'm getting from the community (bar Tumblr, because that place is cray).

Season 4: Finn (played by Cory Monteith) singing Don't Dream It's Over after the New Directions (seemingly) decided to split up after losing Sectionals. Taken from Metatube.

Okay, maybe my sources aren't that reliable.
After all, the only places I've been to are the Youtube comment section and Glee's fanmade Wiki page.
I wouldn't know why the show suddenly started to su*k.
If you don't know me personally, you wouldn't have known that I've never watched Glee.
If you DO know me personally, you probably would've thought that I was struck by the "Glee effect" too back in 2010.
I wasn't a fan of Glee back then.
Everyone was totally into it (well, just the girls actually).
I would've never watched a single episode if my brother didn't have a couple of episodes on his computer at the time.
After that, I kept track of the plot loosely.
Not the convoluted love stories, but major events that one simply cannot avoid, like how the whole world (well, just the girls actually) jumped up with glee when Klaine kissed or when Vocal Adrenaline finally got "pwned".
Ahhh good times.

If you're still keeping up with all these things after six seasons, good job!
Taken from Glee's Facebook Page (yup, even they admit things are all over the place).

The last time I checked up on the show, they were entering Season 6 - their final season.
"Oh dear" I said to myself.
The fans must be pretty sad, I thought.
Well, looks like it's the exact opposite.
The show's had its 15 minutes of fame, and now it's ended up in gutter.
Although stuff like this happen everyday, it really saddens me to see it happen to Glee.
Fans of the show hate it now. That's harsh.
I checked out the summary of the final season, which appealed to me.
Similar to how crap Glee has became in reality, almost everyone in the Glee-verse has hit an all-time low in their lives.
And you know how much of an underdog supporter I am!
I couldn't help myself. I started watching, the sixth season onwards.
And I loved it! (You can laugh if you want)
I'm not a big fan of the original cast, contrary to the rest of the fanbase.
But I really enjoyed the new characters that were introduced into the show, labelled the New Newbies.
Too bad the writers were still focused on the original cast and only used the New Newbies as seat fillers for the glee club.
Fortunately, this week's episode of Glee featured the New Newbies 100%.
To make things even better, Kurt and Blaine did not appear all episode!
Another thing I love is how the characters are poking fun are making meta jokes, like how Rachel knows nothing about the New Newbies (because the show's always too focused on her).
Too bad the show's only 4 episode away from ending now. *sad face*
I just really hope they don't screw up the series finale!

Season 6: Introducing the New Newbies/New Direction. From left to right: Mason and Madison McCarthy (a.k.a incest twins), Jane Hayward (a.k.a token black female; no offence 0_0), Spencer Potter (a.k.a post-modern gay) and Roderick *last name to be announced* (a.k.a fat kid). God, I love them! Taken from Michael Hitcock's Twitter page.

To recap, I started watching Glee because:
a) I love/support the underdog.
b) The final season started with everyone leading miserable lives. #underdog
c) I find the New Newbies likeable (because they're underdogs?).

P.S. I ship Mason with EVERYONETHING!

Season 6: Mason McCarthy (played by Billy Lewis Jr.) being bossed around by a manic Brittany while helping her set up her wedding venue. He was sporting the same jacket as her twin sister, Madison. Oh look, my first GIF on this blog.
Taken from billylewisjrrps.

Listening to It Must Have Been Love - Glee Cast

Underdog since 1994,

TK

Staying After All

It's almost that time of the year again!
Chinese New Year!
Because a single new year is just not enough for us Chinese people.
Our egos demand a two new years.
Double the celebration, double the fortune, luck, money, prosperity (burger).
I really hope I don't get any negative feedback for writing like this.
But what can I say?
I've neglected this blog (yet again) and am in need of some venting.
And what better way to vent than to be completely polarising, racially-offensive and radical.

I've had lots of things to think about these few weeks.
My visit back to my hometown has given me much to feel joyful about.
Seeing old friends, driving my old (but trusty) car (which I've decided to name Vernie) and let's not forget about the one thing us Malaysians love the most: FOOD.
The food here is great.
But most of all, it's soooo good.
I mean who'd wanna pay $30 for a plate of roti canai when you can get it for $1 here!?
I promised myself I'd blog more frequently, now that I'm out of uni.
But it looks like I've let myself down...AGAIN.
Well, if you read my blog (and enjoy reading it), I must apologise for my apparent laziness.
May you and the rest of my readers have mercy on me.
Truth be told, I've been wanting to blog for quite some time now,
but we all know the hardest step to blogging is typing out that first sentence (or even the title)!

The reason for my absence in cyberspace is simply because... I was having wayyyy too much fun in the real world.
Spending time with real people, instead of hammering away on my keyboard.
Hopelessly wishing for more people to read my blog.
But enough about my selfish neglect, I've thought about some other stuff lately.
Malaysia (or to be more specific, Sabah) is such a great place to live in.
Sure it might still be a developing country,
with infrastructures no match for that of Australian standards.
But I've come to realise that I am Malaysian,
and like it or not, I've grown up in a Malaysian environment.
I live and breathe the Malaysian culture (subconsciously, of course).
When I landed here, I found myself alienated.
I felt like a foreigner returning to his favourite vacationing spot.
I couldn't speak their language, I just pointed.
I couldn't understand them, I just nodded cluelessly.
But with time, my (cultural) identity came back to me.
I guess I never lost it in the first place.
It just took some time and lots of confrontations to bring out my old self.
Not that my old self is someone extremely social and all that.
But its good enough to feel at home here.

So much so, that I've spoken to my parents.
I expressed interest in staying here.
Not for another week, not another month, not another semester.
I told them I wanted to move back here permanently.
I'll start all over again.
Do my A-levels here.
Hopefully do well enough to get into a university here.
Public? Private? It doesn't really matter.
As long as its here, where I belong.

Don't get me wrong.
I don't mean to diss Perth or Australia.
It's a great place.
My uni is awesome and all that.
I've met some really great people there.
And I do think I can experience the world better there.
Or at the very least, experience a different world.
But Perth is missing something, can't quite put a finger on it though.
Something that I can only feel when I'm back home.
There's just something about this place, I guess.
Not just the friends or food (though the friends part was a huge determinant).
I just feel more at home here. The smell of the place.
Waking up to a beautiful scenery.
Hearing my high school bell ring every morning,
followed by the national anthem being played shortly after.
That and so many other small things I barely noticed.
Things I think we, as Sabahans, take for granted.

To my utmost delight, dad agreed.
Mum was a little hesitant but I promised her I'd try hard to make this work.
This is where getting good grades really help with convincing parents.
Everything is set.
The gears of fate is about to start spinning again.
Looks like I won't be back at UWA for my second year,
though I'll probably still drop by around there to visit friends.
I'll head back to Perth as planned.
I'll pack up my stuff.
And leave after a month or so.
More than enough time to say goodbye to everyone.
And just enough time for the mid-year intake for A-levels.

Changes are scary, even when change is what you want.
I'm grateful to have a friend with me while I'm going through all this.
And just like me, it seems like she's changing a few things too.
I guess I'll leave things here for the mean time.
This is all quite a bit of news to process, especially for those who know me personally.
And ESPECIALLY to all the friends I made in Perth.
If any of you are reading is, it's not you; its me.
Perth is great and all,
but home is where the heart is.
And my home is here.

Menara Tun Mustapha a.k.a Yayasan Sabah Tower.
The tallest building and symbol of Sabah.
Complete with a restaurant on the 18th floor.
Did I mention the 18th floor also rotates around 360.

Listening to Tongue Tied - Grouplove

Homeward Bound: #obviouslie,

TK