Does anybody have any tips on controlling laughter? I seriously need to learn. I mean, we know laughter is good for the soul, laughter is the best medicine, and all that jazz, but sometimes uncontrollable laughter can be a real embarrassment tau tak.

Last Sat we had our family gathering. My aunt just came back from Saudi Arabia so she and my uncle decided to sing a hymn to thank God for His goodness. I think the song was Turn your eyes upon Jesus. Before that he gave out cards printed with the lyrics of the song. My uncle damn semangat one la. He's the one who buys expensive bibles and then wraps them up with old magazine pages so the beautiful bible cover is completely obscured and looks like a school textbook instead. He's the one who prints out inspirational quotes and laminates them for the whole family. He's the one who semangatly writes bible verses or song lyrics on papers using a RULER so the lines would be straight and then distributes them to everyone. He's the one who buys back HUGE packets of dried shrimp and Malay keropok and weird paste and other funky foodstuff on his travels around Malaysia. He's also the one who passes on old computers to us to get rid of them. So that day he gave out lyrics handwritten in neat, perfectly straight lines aided by a ruler pasted on an old diary cover to us. I was sitting right beside my uncle and then he started singing. In this robot-like voice. Not out of tune, just very static, emotionless and robot-ish. And laughoutloud funny, of course. And I felt my belly start to rumble from deep within. And then I lost it. I started to laugh silently but uncontrollably. And it got worst when my aunt joined in and started singing in this operatic voice. I kid you not. OPERA voice. I literally shook with laughter, but the worst part was having to be completely silent and act nonchalant and keep myself from - God forbid- SNORTING in between breaths. Beside me, May was twisting and turning in her seat in an attempt to hide her face while trying very hard to look nonchalant, but she failed miserably. At least I had my lyrics to cover my face with, and I shook my legs to the beat of the song to minimize the appearance of my entire body shaking with laughter. I tried to make myself think emo thoughts to stop laughing, but I couldn't. I ended up laughing even harder instead. Silently. I don't know if anyone saw it, but I'm sure they did, because I had the misfortune of sitting beside the star of the show.

And i felt SO horrible after that. I didn't mean to be rude or disrespectful. I just couldn't control it. And that brought back memories of the other times I couldn't control my laughter and ended up paying for it by feeling guilty.

At cell group a few months ago, a beloved cell member was talking about doing something that her parents weren't PLEASED with. (It was a rather serious conversation then) But she said something like: "What I did wasn't PLEASURABLE to my parents." One seconds, two, three. I had done a good job at keeping it in so far. But that was it. I turned, buried my head in the couch and started to shake with silent laughter. Beside me, Bawanie and Grace, the more composed ones, lost it too. And the worst part was, we SNORTED. The rest of the cell were just kind of looking at us wondering what was so funny I suppose, since I was too busy trying to compose myself to worry about what the other cell members were doing when the three of us were writhing around on the couch.

And of course, I felt so bad after that. Beloved cell member, if you remember this incident, know that this post is purely for entertainment and reminiscing purposes only. I still love you ok =)

A few years ago at a wedding, the bride, who is terribly tone deaf, decided to sing to her groom (a slightly better singer though still quite out-of-tune). The song was of course, a nice slow romantic song supposed to make us smile with emotion, not shake with laughter. But that's exactly what I did. The song was so hilarious I bit my lip so hard to stop myself from laughing. When that didn't help I rested my head on the chair in front to conceal my face. And I laughed harder still.

So terribly inappropriate of me. And I felt horrible. But I just couldn't control it.

In form two, we had this rather nice computer teacher who spoke ATROCIOUS English. It wasn't just cinapek English. He practically suffocated the English language with his inability to roll his R's, as well as his tendency to add in bombastic words inappropriately in his sentences. And when he spoke, his eyes focused to the top and he spoke haltingly, making him seem as though he had memorized but forgotten a script and was trying hard to remember while reciting it. The first lesson with him, I shook with siilent laughter. I thought I'd never laughed so hard in my life. The whole class was laughing away too. The poor poor guy. His full name is immortalised in our memories. Once in a while during sixers sleepovers we still speak of him fondly and have a good laugh. He was really such a nice guy la. Poor thing. There was once when he tried to say "rules and regulations", only it turned out sounding like "lu-les and lezulesens" or whatever la, and i tried so hard not to laugh. But Chris, ever the lurus seperti pensel one, turned to Nic and asked, "huh? wat rulers?" And I couldn't help it. I hid my face behind my book and started shaking with laughter.

Laughter is good, I just need to figure out a way to control it when it springs up at inappropriate moments.

By the way, who IS Maya Angelou?! It's like the third time in two days I've seen her name randomly, quoting something or the other.

I need to do my court structure now. Why do I always choose inappropriate moments to blog? I'm supposed to finish up the ASSignment and go sleep lah.