He ain't heavy..

I'm talking about my brother. I love him to bits. And I'm so proud of him that he's graduated from college & starting his PhD in Cognitive Psychology.

Beneath his tough, macho exterior, he has the softest, kindest & most compassionate of all hearts. Even nicer than me. He's the one who will think of the homeless, he's the one who will think of feeding the hungry, he's the one who will make me feel guilty about shopping when there are beggars outside Macys, Bloomingdales or anywhere.

I confess to doing horrible things to him when we were kids. Ermmm....beating him. Just absolutely hating him for I-don't-know-what reasons & I remember a time when I hated him because I thought my parents loved him more.

Oh yeah, I hated having him hang around with me. I remember once, a very, very long time ago, Mum wanted me to take him to the old National Library. We stopped by McDonalds at YMCA. Silly boy insisted on having a packet of extra large fries. Obviously, he didn't finish them because he couldn't. I remember feeling very irritated back then & was rather tempted to leave him behind there & scoot off without him. But you see, I'm really nice :)

Our last major fight was when he came to visit me in Leeds in my 1st year. For some reason, I blew my top at him & it annoyed him. I dared him to get lost & he did. I panicked when he didn't come back after a few hours. And when he did, he actually bought some stuff from Morrisons. I was so relieved & we haven't had any major fights since then.

Hur hur! OK, Boy, you can kill me now :p

But I can think of more happy things than nasty things & memories I shared with this great lad.


Ikea I must have mentioned this before in a very early post. Our parents took us to Ikea when it was still in Katong. I was in primary school then & it was a Saturday evening after we visited our grandparents. This wonderful boy threw up his dinner in the ballroom & they had to close the ballroom, make an announcement for all parents to claim their children because the ballroom needed cleaning. Well done, lad! I know it's not meant to be happy because poor boy puked but really, this is one incident the family never stops laughing at.

Hide & seek One of our favourite games we played with the other kids in the old neighbourhood we lived in ages ago. "POM" was what we called it because that was what we had to say each time we hit base without being caught by the catcher. Poor boy had to hide with me & some other kids:
(i) in the ladies changing room in the basement of the swimming pool
(ii) inside the dustbin
(iii) next to the electrical box that was hidden among the bushes
We still remember the stupid things we did with our neighbours back then - keeping fighting spiders, eating/sipping the dew from the ixora plants by the swimming pool, going around in our BMX bicycles & waiting for the Indian man who came by at 5 in the evenings with his confectionery (my chocolate bun & his favourite sugee biscuit).

Voice recording He loved the sound of his own voice, especially when he discovered that it could be recorded. I remember coming home from school, sometimes to find him, still in his kindergarten uniform, in front of the mini-compo (that's what we called those stereo systems back in those days) & singing or talking gibberish into it. Sometimes, even using whatever things he could lay his hands on, like keys & adding them as sound effects in his recording. He doesn't sound so cute these days anymore. I would be worried if he still did.

Police Academy This is our favourite film of all time. Or rather, it's our favourite film where we would say our favourite lines of our favourite characters. We still do it today. I can't believe it. And our parents think it's hilarious :)

Failure years Hahahaha!! This one is our secret. I'll hide all evidence of that.

I haven't mentioned that we planned to celebrate our birthdays together on one year. Our aunts & Mum lovingly spent time buying paper, stickers, etc & making the invitation cards to be sent to our relatives, friends, etc. And the lovely had to happen. He came down with chicken pox!!! The party had to be cancelled & guess what? I got the chicken pox soon after :p

I don't know when but I think the turning point when I decided to be nicer to him was when I was in Sec 4 & he in Pr 6. If I remember correctly, we both screwed up big time in our mid-year exams & were afraid that our parents would skin us alive. So we both started crying at my study table in my room & promised each other that we would study hard. Look at us today :)

From that point onwards, I got to know him better & he was no longer the irritating kid who annoyed me. In fact, we started hanging out together, like watching Chingay parade rehearsal one year at Orchard Road. And I became his chaffauer after I got my driver's licence. We were listening to cool music (heh, retro music was hip at one stage - our national anthem: Erasure's A Little Respect) . But of course, his music taste is way different from mine. He's into the Paul Van Dyke, Above & Beyond, etc kind of 'tuum-chuk-tuum-chuk' music while I'm more Top 40s type of a taste. In case you didn't know, he's got his hands on a set of Technics turntables & is looking into upgrading to CD-tables. Any sponsors out there? ;p

One thing that really touched me was just before I left for Leeds, he cried. I remember him saying, between his sobs, that he's sad that I won't be around. My ego got the better of me then so I acted real cool when I was really touched. When I came back during Christmas, I saw, on my study table in my room, a note he wrote which was dated the day I left for Leeds & the time he wrote that. Up till today, there's a mirror in one of his cupboards that has strands or stubbles of his facial hair (I hear all the 'yuuucckksss' & 'yyyeeewwwwwss' now) all plucked & stuck onto that mirror while I was away. Don't try to imagine what that mirror looks like :p

Today, we're far apart but close together in heart. He's certainly grown & is a lot more mature, perhaps even more mature than I am. And I think he's a better cook than me becase he's more willing & more patient to stand around Mum when she's giving instructions for cooking, while I'll probably be in front of the TV with Pa, just to escape cooking duties. Hahahaha!!

To all you Earthlings out there, think twice if you are considering any form of disturbance or annoyance in his life because you aren't dealing with him but with me *ROAR*

So, Boy, thanks for being my brother. I couldn't have asked for anyone better than you. Love you heaps!

We are the Siblings Chan...don't play-play! *ROAR*