28-year-old mummy to an amazing 1-year-old baby Anggun who I secretly believes favor her daddy more than me but of course, I won't admit that to him. Entrepreneur, environmental scientist, go-getter.
Among other things that I found while de-cluttering yesterday was SMSs from my dad printed on paper as I was sure sooner or later something was going to happen to my phone and I was right. My favourite is this one:
That really made me smile, not in a sad kinda way though, as I remembered how I thought to myself at that time that it was probably the first time he ever used the word 'Achtung' in kind-of a correct way. Believe me, before this, the word 'Achtung' kept appearing in his messages at the most random places! Hahaha!
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Ramadhan is coming to an end and to tell you the honest-to-God truth, the prospect of being able to start the day with caffeine and have caffeine boost throughout the day again is pretty inviting, but I am also dreading Raya as it nears.
First because the change of plan, which obviously has affected the mood of dearie roommate about Raya and celebrating it which in turn affects mine.
Second is the fact that Raya is never going to be as fun as it used to be. Not this year. Not next year. Not even the next year. You see, Raya is about celebrating it with close families and when you take that out of the equation, it will be just like any other day except that two-rakaat prayer in the moring and that 'costume' you wear (new or recycled) that you'll probably only wear 2-3 times a year going to kenduri. That and lots of kuih raya and ketupat. What good will all that be without the chaos of relatives gathering together kat kampung? It'll be far too boring that I keep wishing friends around Alor Star to come back from wherever their kampung is and pick me up to hang out.
Besides, it's just too heartbreaking to watch Maktok's heartbreak playing out in front of my eyes. Last year she refused to wear her baju raya in the morning. It takes a lot of persuading before she finally, reluctantly agreed. This year Mom said they are going to spend Raya in a hotel with the best view there is in Batu Feringghi. Ayahsu and family will join later.
I know my Mom's intention is to take Maktok away somewhere she can forget but you can take her halfway around the world and still she can't forget.
Sometimes I feel like physically shaking those certain family members until some sense got into them. I don't know if anyone is ever man enough to man up and put an end to this. But you know. The damage that words cause sometimes are so severe it can't be undone. Itulah orang Melayu dulu-dulu cakap, terlajak kata badan binasa.
I just hope that time is forgiving enough to let Maktok has the chance to see her close-knit family coming back together like before again.
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I feel blessed. Sebab bila difikirkan my relation to God compared to what He had blessed and is blessing me and my family with, macam sedikit tak padan pon ada. For that I am grateful. Rasa nak cuba jadi baik sikit la lepas ni. You know, simple stuff like tak mau mengata orang atau berprasangka buruk atau menghukum, and if I can't help forming those nasty words inside my head I want to try not to say them out loud. Because being a bitch is so last season. Harap-harap bukan hot-hot chicken excrement.
Boyfriend told me he recently read my blog and found one post particularly funny, to the point that he said something like "never thought you were that funny". I should have been slightly offended and I actually did but I was still pretty flattered all the same.
So I asked him which post he was referring to. Later I found out he meant the one I wrote in Bahasa, in which I attempted to berpuitis sedikit. Which was never meant to be funny at all in the first place! Didn't he know I used to represent my school in Pertandingan Sajak back then and win? Darah puitis tu ada la kiranya sikit-sikit walaupun dah tak ditonjolkan sekarang. Heh.
Anyways.
I was sorting through my stuff, like really sorting through the clutters that I'm keeping to figure out which should be chucked out and which I need/want. Being someone who easily sees flashes of memories and emotional attachment in material things, it was pretty hard to let go some of the stuff I have. That reminds me of this TV Show calls 'Hoarders' which features people basically doing what I did today but their situation is 100 times more extreme. These people even got hundred thousands of dollar worth of fine from the state because the cluttering is so critical it might impose danger to the neighbour.
With that TV Show in mind, I shouldered on, tossing one thing after another into the bin bag, to proof that I am not mentally ill like the people on Hoarders. At the end of the day, the result was 3 giant bags of garbage and a huge stack of papers and magazines that stand a little higher than my waist. I didn't cry or slumped into depression afterwards like the people in the show did so I guess I am normal.
While going through some papers I found a poem printed on a yellow piece of paper, already frayed at the edges and torn at some places. I had this since my MRSM years! I used to stick it on the wall beside my bed, along with posters of Lifehouse and The Calling, which were later pulled down because a friend of a roommate told us someone saw a giant hairy thing hanging from the outside of the window of our room. Katanya sebab ada poster orang malaikat tak masuk bilik, so hantu pon suka la jadikan bilik tu tempat penginapan.
I remember thinking that the ghost that someone had described looks a lot like Yeti. I thought Yeti lives in the Himalaya?? Or maybe they are right, that Yeti/Bigfoot is really a makhluk halus after all, that's why despite numerous report of sightings (most of them are probably fake anyway) nobody ever captured that sanovebich? Pardon my French.
Back to the poem, there's a feeling that this thing is something ancient, a piece from the life that seems so distant now. So you can imagine I was feeling quite excited stumbling upon this poem again. A little bit of story behind the poem : I actually stole my mom's diary that she kept when she was 17. Nothing really personal in it, my mom just pasted clippings of poems she cut out from magazines. But I suspect that she chose poem which reflects her own feelings for each day which leads to some speculation on my part..whatever.
So this poem happens to be one of my favourite. Nothing of the deep, poetic kind but I like the message though. I thought I'd share it with you :
SLOW DANCE
Have you ever watched kids on a merry-go-round
Or listened to the rain slapping on the ground?
Ever followed a butterfly's erratic flight
Or gazed at the sun into the fading night?
You better slow down, don't dance so fast
Time is short, the music won't last.
Do you run through each day on the fly
When you ask, "How are you?" do you hear the reply?
When the day is done, do you lie in your bed
With the next hundred chores running through your head?
You better slow down, don't dance so fast
Time is short, the music won't last.
Ever lost touch, let a good friendship die
Cause you ever had the time to call and say "Hi"?
You better slow down, don't dance so fast
Time is short, the music won't last.
When you run so fast to get somewhere
You would miss half the fun of getting there.
When you worry and hurry through your day
It is like an unopened gift..thrown away...
Life is not a race do take it slower
Hear the music before the song is over.
18 August 2011
It could be strangers exchanging gestures on the street or a scene in a random movie.
You'll feel like somewhere some time in the future or in the past, you couldn't tell, you have seen the scene actually played out, and you are the character in the scene.
It could be a song, a smell, a sound, anything at all.
That transport you to that familiar place.
Better known as deja vu, but deja vu doesn't quite explain it.
Mo really puts the Mo in Mojo. You know how people nowadays use 'lol' as a punctuation when they have nothing left to say when really, they are just sitting there typing with a straight-face without so much as a chuckle coming out of their mouth? Well, in my case, if I said I lol-ed a lot while reading this blog, I kinda lied to. I didn't actually laugh out loud.
But I sure does chuckle. With a far higher frequency too than I normally would reading other blogs.
p.s : I doubt that the pickup lines he suggested would ever work in real life, but they are hilarious. Someone give this guy a show of his own!
Ini Hadi, bukan Anwar Hadi. Dia sangat cool. I swear I've came up with some quite clever sentences to describe his blog but I kinda forgot and it's late now I need my coffee. Silalah ushar blog ni kalau dah bosan dengan blog-blog lain. Cerita fiksyen dia lawak.
Yay to an unproductive Monday. I overslept, decided it was too late to go to the lab and deceived myself into believing that the time spent at home would be well-spent, in which I shall start on the write-up and now 7 hours later, not a single word has been produced in the yet to exist pages.
Half an hour before I should start cooking for berbuka.
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Do you know that India has 1 billion population, which is 1/6 of the world's total inhabitants? I still find it hard to wrap my head around the fact. In the heart of Mumbai, there lies what's supposed to be the biggest slum on Earth called Dharavi, in which 1 million people call their home. The majority of the household here do not have running water; they have to collect water from the main pipe every morning for their everyday use. Amazingly, almost every household has cable TV, with 150 channels. Takdak air takpa, Shah Rukh Khan kena ada.
Forgive my nerdiness, but all my favorite TV shows are on hiatus for the summer and I'm stuck watching documentaries for the moment.
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Few weeks back I watched Leon the Professional which is the debut film for the Natalie Portman. I was stunned by the beauty of the then 12-year-old starlet. I mean, she was not pretty the way a pretty 12-year-old should be; her beauty resembles more like that of an adult but with an air of innocence. Reminds me Nabokov's controversial character, Lolita.
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The world is coming apart at its seams and we still care of what our so-called friends on Facebook are up to.
But then again, what else should and could we do, right?
I wonder, which one is better; to be someone who cares about other people's feelings which makes us sometimes make promises that we might not be able to keep or be someone who simply doesn't give a royal eff?
Tough call.
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Oh and by the way, I stumbled upon this very interesting argument against Darwinism in one of Obe's blog's comment :
Protein cannot form unless the cell exists as an integral whole.
Darwinists can write as many deceptive books jam packed with formulae, produce as many false fossils as they like, make as many demagogic assaults on the scientific evidence for Creation as they choose or stick posters up full of fantastical illustrations and present these as exhibitions of evolution all over the place, but none of this will ever change the fact of their fundamental defeat. Because the worst nightmare for Darwinists is the very beginning of life. Darwinists HAVE NOT BEEN ABLE TO PRODUCE A SINGLE EXPLANATION of how just one protein came into being. This is an expression of the despairing situation into which, Dawkins, Futuyma, Tim White and all other Darwinists now find themselves. None of this demagoguery can resolve this great and stupendous rout in the face of a single protein. A SINGLE PROTEIN HAS TOTALLY DEMOLISHED DARWINISM.
This fact is of great importance in terms of the defeat of Darwinism:
- DNA is essential for a single protein to form
- DNA cannot form without protein
- Protein cannot form without DNA
- Protein cannot form in the absence of protein
- Sixty separate proteins are needed for a single protein to form
- Protein cannot form in the absence of any one of these
- Protein cannot form with no ribosome
- Protein cannot form with no RNA
- Protein cannot form without ATP
- Protein cannot form without the mitochondria to manufacture ATP
- Protein cannot form without the cell nucleus
- Protein cannot form without the cytoplasm
- Protein cannot form in the absence of a single organelle in the cell
- And proteins are necessary for all the organelles in the cell to exist and function
- There can be no protein without these organelles
I have been searching waiting for a scientific explanation against Darwin's theory. It's not that I was ever swayed by the theory, I know I am not of the primate descendant, but the heart and the mind sometimes crave for something more concrete. I haven't read the link but will do later. This shall make for an interesting discussion with any atheist/agnostic I might encounter in the future.
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One of those time when you stumble upon one of God's perfect specimen in real life who seem to have everything in life. And you begin to look into yourself in shades of grey.
But really, if you look closer, you'll realize that you do have everything too.
Kenapa kalau cakap dengan binatang peliharaan atau baby nak kena cakap manja-manja ala-ala babytalk? Mengapa? Bajet baby dengan pet tu boleh paham la eh? Kalau depa paham rasanya mesti depa annoyed dengan orang dewasa yang babytalk ni. Baby babytalk comel la, kalau orang tua? Meluga. Tapi nak buat canna, dah kira macam default dah, bila cakap dengan pet atau baby ja memang automatik akan keluar babytalk. "Olololo pandainyeeee dieeee, cubit pipi geramnyeeee..." SIGH.
Ish compare baby dengan pet, tak patut sungguh.. Tapi la kan, kalau cara orang tu handle pet boleh dikira pakai dengan cara dia layan anak nanti, anak aku nanti mesti akan spoiled gila. Semoga dia tak jadi Tanggang.
Sebelum puasa haritu dah terbayang-bayang tahun ni kena puasa 18jam, hah sudah, mau pengsan camni. Ask anyone close to me, and they'll tell me what I'll turn into when I'm hungry. Add lack of sleep into the equation, and I'll turn into a monster you don't want to have anything to do with. Tapi bila dah puasa ni, takdakla rasa teruk sangat sampai nak pengsan. Kalau kat Malaysia atau hari-hari biasa, kalau tak dapat makan tiga kali sehari rasa nak mengamuk. Bukak puasa sekarang ni pon makan nasi dalam portion yang sederhana. Kalau kat Malaysia, dah makan nasi dagang, murtabak makan lagi. Tu tak termasuk kuih-muih lagi. Haihh.. Semoga lepas ni boleh kekalkan pemakanan macam sekarang. Dan juga kurangkan aktiviti-aktiviti tak berfaedah yang menjadi kelaziman sebelum bulan Ramadan ni.
Sekarang ni tengah diskas resipi untuk makan hari raya. Sambil diskas sambil telan saliva. Haihh. Sedapnya tengok gambar marbled chocolate almond cookies. Sedapnya kuih peneram (kuih racist). Sedapnya apam balik nipis yang crunchy kat tengah dia manis masin tu. Just like that, we got sidetracked.
Anyways, tetiba terasa excited plak nak tunggu raya. Nak masak banyak-banyak jamu orang seantero doshland. Mak ai hahaha. Ntahla, rasa seronok plak get together ramai-ramai buat kuih raya sambil dengar lagu raya. Semua orang ada specialty sendiri yang nak dimasak. Tak sabar rasa. Oh dan harap-harap tahun ni boleh pergi sembahyang raya. Tak pernah lagi sembahyang raya kat sini.
Kanan difikirkan, kiri direnungkan, diri sendiri bertambah runsing.
Biar mereka dibuai empuk hidup masing-masing. Diri sendiri, biar diterbangkan arus semasa dunia. Harap akhirat tak lupa dikejar sama.
Tak peduli, tak bererti tak sayang, cuma melepaskan sedikit erat genggam tangan, kurangkan ambil kisah. Supaya perasaan akhirnya tak terguris, langsungnya diri tak menghukum. Paling tidak, dapat kurangkan sedikit catatan dosa yang berduyun-duyun di buku kiri, bukan?
"James Franco likes going to school. In fact, he still is, studying for his doctorate in English at Yale University, while fitting in movie and television appearances on the side.
He enrolled at UCLA as a freshman the same year he graduated from Palo Alto High School in 1996, but that didn’t last long, as he decided to give acting a chance.
That gambit worked exceedingly well, but Franco still wanted an education. He returned to UCLA in the fall of 2006, at age 28, cramming as many courses as he could into each quarter. His course load ranged from 20 to 62 credits per quarter (anyone wanting to do more than 19 a quarter needs special permission), all the while maintaining a grade point average of above 3.5.
He was awarded with a bachelor’s degree in English, with a creative writing concentration in June 2008, at which point he headed for New York and enrolled in not one or two schools but three: Columbia University’s M.F.A. writing program; Brooklyn College for creative writing; and NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts for directing.
He earned a masters degree from Columbia and then moved on to Yale, where he is now studying for a doctorate in English."
That, in between undertaking numerous roles in movies and other art-related personal projects. Franco, dude, how'd you do it? You make the rest of us average people feel like slackers.
His brother said while staying in his apartment for a period of time, he had taken over James' bedroom as he said James never liked to go into his bedroom to sleep, preferring to doze off amidst working on his latest project or studying. James said going to the bedroom to sleep is like 'surrendering'.
So next time we found ourselves on the verge of blaming the perpetually guilty enemy of ours, 'time', stop and think again.
One of the most expensive coffee in the world is Kopi Luwak, mainly produced in Indonesia.
From the picture above you can see that they are just coffee beans being stuck together with something gooey like honey or something. At least that's what I first thought when I saw it. But looks can be very deceiving they say, and in this case, that's an understatement.
This is where it gets interesting. Take a look at the picture again. Ready?
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You are actually looking at some shit. Poop. Turd. Whatever you want to call it.
Basically, these people in Indonesia, they feed these particular species of civets coffee beans and apparently the process taking place in the civets' digestive tracts makes the coffee taste better, don't ask me how. So whatever waste leaving the civets' anus, they collect and process to turn them into coffee.
Which arises the obvious curious question, how did they think about the idea of coffee made from a civet's excrement in the first place?
The civets are pretty scary looking in the picture below, not one of those animal that you'd think of eating anything coming out of its ass, come to think of it, I wouldn't want to eat anything coming out of anything's ass, no matter how cute the owner of the ass is!
I found videos on YouTube and these creatures are actually very friendly and playful; perfect candidate for a pet. What's more, their poop can be turned into one of the most expensive coffee in the world. Talk about being frugal.
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Back in primary school, I remember I have this two very close friends (let's call them K and F), whom I still occasionally meet up. At the same time, I was also close to this other girl (let's call her A), who is a member of a clique led by B.
To better understand the dynamics of their friendship, A and B are like Serena and Blair, leader of the pack, and in any pack you can't never have more than one queen. When they fought, they really fought like it's the end of the world, but no sooner than tomorrow, they would be best friends again.
Whenever A and B fought, A would always spend more time with me; we would spend recess together, go for toilet walks together, you know, stuff 11-year-old do. Which would result in me more or less abandoning my other friends K and F, or rather, not having much time left to spend with them. Soon as A made up with B, they would become inseparable again, and I would continue our friendship with K and F as usual. I thought everything was cool, you know.
This cycle repeated itself a few times before I received a letter under my desk. I still remember that it was written on a cute Space Jam's letter set, complete with printed envelope. F wrote that she felt used, that I kept switching between them and A, that they felt as if I didn't appreciate them enough. I didn't remember the exact words but it was something pretty poetic (as poetic as an average 11-year-old could be) about being treated like toys that you can pick up whenever you wanted and discard whenever they are not of use anymore.
Sayangnya beberapa tahun yang lalu, loteng kat rumah kena anai-anai attack, so semua surat-surat dan kad raya terpaksa dibuang. Kalau tak epic gila kot boleh baca balik surat zaman kanak-kanak ni. Lagi best kalau tunjuk kat orang yang hantar surat tu pastu gelak sama-sama.
It was at that point I first had a taste of how complicated relationships can be.
I think friendship is best kept without the complexity of a romantic relationship. It should be effortless. There shouldn't be guilt, shouldn't be jealousy, shouldn't be rivalry. Real gems in friendship are the ones that you can revisit time after time with ease. As if the time and the physical distance that had kept you apart never existed.
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First Time Ever I Saw Your Face by Kelly Jones
I never knew Kelly Jones did a cover of this song. It was *puts hand on shoulder, rolls eyes* nothing less than awesome, of course.
I remember the days when my mom used to play Celine Dion's cassette non-stop in the car's stereo and I would try to sing along to her powerful voice singing this song. Of course, I failed gloriously. No. We failed gloriously. But blasting the car's speaker at full blast, singing a song that is way out of your vocal range, pretending that the singer's voice is actually yours, is pretty therapeutic. We had a lot of fun. My mom wouldn't let me change the cassette anyway so might as well join her.
The lyrics of the song had always fascinated me. Coupled with a heartfelt melody, it is hard not to feel the powerful yet tender emotion that the writer must have felt towards that special someone when he wrote this song. Hearing this song again today, for some reason I don't understand, almost made me tear up.
Well, come to think of it, as of late, anything remotely emotional will make me tear up.
I want this version of the song to be played on ze big day.
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This is what I would like to see happening in Malaysia : People are allowed to have discussions about Islam with those of religious authority which includes questions being asked without any party being defensive and offended about it.
Our culture has trained us not to ask questions when it comes to the core of our religion and that we are expected to just do what we are supposed to do and that's that. Why? Are they afraid that they might not be able to answer the questions?
Just because some questions have no clear answers does not mean that there are no answers. And just because one asks, does not mean that one doubts. That's the point of discussing; to learn, to understand something better.
The way I see it, this culture of no-questions-allowed might have been one of the reason which has driven some people, born and raised as Muslims in our society, to believe that Islam is beneath their intelligence level. Which is not accurate and unfortunate.
For me personally, I don't expect to get concrete answers about some of the lingering questions I might have, but I would definitely appreciate the willingness of ustaz, ustazah, ulama to talk to me about what they do know. To respect my curiosity and not to quickly dismiss me of being an ungrateful servant of God by asking too much. Questions do not always equal to interrogation.
Tetiba terfikir, kalau kat Malaysia, mana nak belajar agama eh? Kalau pergi masjid dengar ceramah, tak boleh bertanya banyak-banyak kat ustaz sebab kaum perempuan duduk belakang.
Had a lot of heart-to-heart talk with my little brother lately. But none compared to the conversation we had yesterday. With his hair styling course coming to an end in another month, and his involvement in DJ-ing seems to be on to something, he was about to reach the end of one stage of his life, approaching the beginning of another; the timing which also coincides with mine.
He said everything is in place. During his last couple of visits to KL, he had made contact with an established DJ in KL who agreed to take him under his wings. All he had to do once he finishes his course is to move to KL and start his internship at a hair salon which would allow him to train his DJ-ing at the same time. But still, the thought of taking that big leap is scary, he told me.
And that is exactly how I've been feeling lately. What happens next? I know what I want to do with my life. I have this plan I've drawn in my head of how I should go about to do what I want to do. I've been thinking about it for quite some time now, filling in the gaps in the plan from time to time. I think given more preparation and 200% perspiration, my plan could actually work. But why does that sinking feeling keep coming back?
It's the fear of the unknown that keeps knocking at the back of your head, that tiny voice that is supposed to tell you 'everything's gonna be okay' but feeds you with doubts instead.
How are we ever to know that things will work out? We don't. We just have to strap the boots and take that first step, tackling each obstacle along the way as we go on and keep going on.
I shared this with him, my fears and my thoughts on it. I think it's the first time that he ever truly listens to my attempt at being the big-sister-with-the-wise-advice. Finally. I scored!
I pray that he would always turn to me in the future whenever he needs a little piece of advise, encouragement or just a pair of keen ears.
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On his involvement in DJ-ing. I admit that at first, I didn't like the idea. I don't like the lifestyle that's associated with it. Yes, I'm the prude, so-not-cool sister. Very kekampungan.
When my mom told me she was actually considering to buy him a mixer and the equipments, I was totally against it and I made it very clear. Which had resulted in quite a tiff between me and my little brother that I could feel we were starting to grow apart.
I realized than that to let the differences between my brother and I to pull apart our very small close-knit family to grow apart like that is just not worth it. I rather support his interest and have him close to me; so that I can keep a hawk-precise close eye on him. He told me to trust his judgement but a big sister will always be a big sister.
When I come back, you're moving in with me, brother.
