Blow It

Excuse me, but what is it with the hoooo-fucking-haaaaa about this doctor we just blasted into space?

And some are even refering to him as an astronaut. Asfuckingtronaut, people!!! Oh, I'm sorry...the word should be angksawakan. Sorry. Ang-kas-wan-nan. Nope...doesn't sound right either. Angsku...ahhhhhh, fuck it!!!

But seriously, an astronaut??? If you didn't know, Yuri and later Neil, Michael, Edwin and those other men and women who made it on board the first Apollo, Vostoks and successive space crafts...these men and women are the real deal astronauts/cosmonauts. They come with titles like Space Commander, Space Commander Backup and other really fancy titles. Not 'Flight Participant'. Do you remember the teacher who was on the ill fated Challenger? She was never referred to as an astronaut. Just simply a 'teacher in space'.

Amazing!!!

But lets cut the guy some slack shall we. The guy we just sent up there, we can just call him our very own Malaysian angwaskawana. It sounds better if we call him that. Lets not confuse ourselves. Not an astronaut but an angsawakan. Why, you ask? Simply because we don't have a word for 'space tourist' or 'space traveller' or 'space flight participant'...yet.

And because it wouldn't be right to refer to him as a 'pelancong angkasa' now, would it? Wouldn't do for a person who will be soon conferred the English equivalent of a knighthood, now would it? Wouldn't go well if you so choose to proudly tell your friends that we have just sent our very first space tourist in space because that just wouldn't do. Besides, 'pelancong angkasa' doesn't have any scientific ring to it.

Maybe we will have a proper word for a space tourist in the very near future after we spend another MYR95,000,000 on the next very qualified individual. Because by then, we Malaysian would have evolved. And calling the person a space tourist would be alright.

And I was told that he will be doing some research up there too.

That's right. Conducting some sort of research, I was told. For two bloody weeks. I mean, come on!!! Research??? Two weeks???

For MYR95,000,000!!!

I suddenly feel sick.

I forgot. He's also going to introduce one or two of our very own culinary delights to the real astronauts while he's there. On top of that, he is to play traditional children games in zero gravity. One of which will be gasing.

O.K. Now I need to go and puke.