exaggeration and tall tales galore

Sunday, January 28, 2007

Malapetaka

The malapetaka of unorganized homework, strewn papers, and other paraphernalia. In a crisis like this, your bed must double as extra working space. Never mind that at night, when you're too malas to clear everything up, your sleeping partner turns out to be your maths textbook and accounting file.
Songs i wish were in my ipod:
  1. Belle and Sebastian - 'White Collar Boy'
  2. John Mayer - 'Hummingbird'
  3. James William Hindle - 'Silence'
  4. The Shins - 'Kissing the Lipless'
  5. Anggun - 'Selamanya'

Does anyone happen to have any of the songs?kakak?i can't download anything at the moment, limewire won't work.

The last song on the list, Anggun's 'selamanya', is particularly moving. If you've watched 'Cinta', you'd notice it was playing during the scene where they bury the sister, the one who died because she went and sedekah a kidney or bone marrow or something to her brother (haikal ke name die?i've forgotten) so that he could live. I came across it on youtube, you can watch it here if you want, she sings it as an intro, about two minutes lebih from the whole thing. I'm not sure if that's an abbreviated version or what. either way, i find it spectacularly soulful and haunting. pay attention to the lyrics (if you decide to take a look at the video).

Saya bakal membuat pembentangan tentang sumbangan tamadun islam dalam bidang Sains dan Teknologi untuk kelas Kajian Islam saya pada 7 hari bulan Febuari. Kemungkinan besar saya akan melakukannya dalam Bahasa Melayu. Oleh sebab itu, memandangkan saya sudah lama tidak bertutur dalam Bahasa Melayu secara formal (disebabkan pembelajaran saya secara kesuluruhannya dilakukan dalam Bahasa Inggeris), saya berpendapat bahawa saya perlu berlatih mulai sekarang agar pembentangan dapat dilakukan dengan lancar dan supaya saya tidak memalukan diri saya sendiri.

ha.ha.ha. Apakah?(heh, i have no idea what relevance this word has to whatever i'm saying, but it just seems amusing to say it, having heard people like izzat and aina say it before)

Tuesday, January 23, 2007

Random things i just felt like telling someone. Does your blog constitute as a someone?

Other movies i am anticipating to watch:
  • Stranger than fiction
  • mukhsin
My youtube is back to normal!don't know about you, but all this while i haven't been able to load any video, so now that it can load quickly again my youtube exploring fire has been ignited once more, heh.
I can't get enough of this particular video. More precisely, i can't get enough of the girl in the video's singing. the video itself is just plain, but man, her voice is beautiful!plus, she's singing this song by john mayer, if i'm not mistaken it wasn't included in any of the albums. awesome stuff. i watched/heard her sing it before i actually watched a clip of john mayer himself singing it, and to be frank, i think i like her singing better. listen.(you might have to turn up your volume a bit)



john mayer's music still thrills me. i've just recently found out that i like his song 'city love', from his first album, very, very much. oh, and i've also just found out out that the kings of convenience actually came to singapore last year in march and did a concert. Why didn't they stop by here?! well, back then i wasn't into them yet and probably wouldn't have wanted to go to their show anyway, but still.

on the day after i put up the post about movies, i came across the sitcom 'extras' on the bbce channel, i think it was channel 25. 'Extras' is the latest offering by ricky gervais, the same guy who starred in the original british 'the office'. Anyways, on this particular episode, who should guest-star but Daniel Radcliffe. Ironically, he seemed to be a better actor in 'extras' than in all the potter movies. he even made me snort(in a good way) at some parts.

i bought my father mitch albom's 'the five people you meet in heaven' as a present for his upcoming birthday.(i'm pretty sure dad doesn't read my blog, so i think i can mention this safely). is it any good? he really liked 'tuesdays with morrie', so another book by the same author couldn't hurt, could it?(actually it could, if the book doesn't turn out as good as the previous one, but nvm). Besides, there's a quote from Amy Tan at the back: 'This book is a gift to the soul'. Ha. Gift to the soul lagi tu. what more could be a better birthday present? I wasn't much of a fan of 'tuesdays with morrie' myself, (the pessimist in me was rolling her eyes through the whole book-same thing happens when she reads chicken soup or any other self-help book) but i think(hope) dad will like this one.

I used the remains of my duit raye to buy agatha christie's 'Poirot-the Complete Battles of Hastings, Volume 2', which comprises of 4 mysteries. I'm currently reading the 3rd one, and i must say, all 3 mysteries that i've read/am reading are all good. I'm not exactly the type to analyze and verify whether dame agatha provided believable plots or genuinely logical alibis, but i'll say that i am definitely entertained by her mysteries and am always intruiged to read until the last page. I also bought 'Back to the Future' cds , all three installations. Found it for 12 ringgit each at the times book fair. hurrah!

I was walking with my friend to class that day, when i saw someone waving wildly at me, and who should it be but Alif Ijud! surprise, surprise! all this while i thought either:
a)he was ignoring me or was too segan to acknowledge my presence
or ,
b)he didn't recognize me not wearing tudung sekolah putih or tudung prep hitam.
Guess i was wrong. He was in fact, quite friendly. That was cool. It's nice to bump into someone and find out that your former perceptions of him were actually quite mistaken, and you're glad that they are.

i am extremely happy for my friends who got accepted into their respective universities. A toast to new beginnings and new experiences in new places, cheers!

I never knew it would cost so much to take my AS exam.

I have to go do my homework. After spending some wonderfully therapeutic time typing out random stuff here, it's time to continue my(futile, i believe) attempts at balancing my accounts. Bah.

Friday, January 19, 2007

I prefer chips to popcorn as a movie snack

2007 seems like it's going to be a very good year for entertaining movies. All the obvious third installations are coming out (Shrek, Spiderman, Pirates of the Caribbean), a very intruiging(in a sense that I'd never thought it would be a spielberg-produced movie) Transformers will hit theaters, not to forget Harry Potter, but i doubt Daniel Radcliffe's(sp?) acting will have improved much(sorry, no offense to anyone who's a fan), there'll be charlotte's web, but i don't think it'll be able to beat the original animation, 300,plus a whole bunch of other movies.

There are two movies i specifically want to mention, that being 'Bridge to Terabithia' and 'The Other Boleyn Girl'. Terabithia is actually based on a children's book of the same name, has anyone else ever read it? I'd never even heard of it, till i came across a blog whose author mentioned it as a favourite. Fortunately, i found it at pay less books' stock clearance. It's a great book, i must say. made me cry,surprisingly(the last book to do so was when i was 8 and read an enid blyton story where the gnome had to miss out on the prince's party because he didn't mend the hole in his sock. yeah. moving stuff :P).

The story's about [SPOILER ALERT!]a boy who befriends this girl, and the two get along despite their differences. When they play together, the go to this hidden place in the forest or something where they make believe that they are the rulers of a magical kingdom called Terabithia. Anyways, to get to the place where they main ni they have to cross a brook by swinging across it using a tree vine or a rope ke apetah. So to cut a long story short, one day the boy comes home from an outing with his teacher and finds out that the girl had gone off by herself to Terabithia, and when she swung across the brook(which had swelled into a bigger stream because of heavy rains), the vine had snapped and she'd fallen and drowned.

Right, it sounds sad --> cue crying, but the book it still great. I think the author managed to portray the characters so..camne nak ckp..humanely, i guess. i'm crap at describing stuff, you have to read it for yourselves. At the end of the story the boy builds a rough crossing over the brook, the bridge to terabithia.

I love the book, i love the human aspect of it. When i heard the movie was coming out i was moderately surprised. I thought it was going to be something like another 'My Girl'. But then i took a look at the trailer. Argh. Disney seems to have turned it into another fantasy epic. True, Terabithia WAS a mystical kingdom with magical creatures and all but that was just a minor portion of the story. It mostly concentrated on the boy's life and how he discovered himself when leslie entered it. Haisy. Now disney is using it to make another narnia. it'd better be as good (though the trailer seems to show otherwise).

The other movie, 'The Other Boleyn Girl', is also based on a book, by Philippa Gregory. Aah, this one i TRULY anticipate. It tells the story of the infamous King Henry the 8th, during the period of his courtship of Anne Boleyn, and it's told through the narration of Anne Boleyn's sister, Mary, who was the king's mistress before he turned to Anne. I read the sequel to the book,'the Queen's fool', quite some time ago since my sister has it, but i've only recently read 'the other boleyn girl' (thanx shao for lending it to me,muchos grazias)!, and this one is just as brilliant. I think Phillipa Gregory is a really good writer, and the fact that the core of the story is based on actual events makes the book even more fascinating.

The book is great, and i think i have reason to believe that the movie will (hopefully) be as stunning. Why? Natalie Portman, Scarlett Johansson, Kristin Scott Thomas, and Eric Bana(yummy!). What better cast could there be? Portman will play Anne Boleyn, Krsitin Scott Thomas will be Anne and Mary's mother, Scarlett will be Mary, and Henry the 8th will be played by the amazingly hot(excuse my air-headedness) Eric Bana. While i was a little surprised at the choice of actors in their respective roles, nontheless, i'm convinced that they'll be able to pull off their parts with aplomb. i hope.

The only bad news is that:
a)though they say it'll come out in 2007, the realease date hasn't been confirmed yet, not even in the states. There's not even a trailer yet. so ntah2 it'll come out in Malaysia only in like what, 2009? tahula how we are sometimes ketinggalan in movie releases.

b)for all you know, it won't even be released here. Or else it'll be censored to a point were half the movie's gone.

Hmm.

Well,anyhow, i'm still looking forward to watching the movies that are heading this way. And though this year is major-exams-to-determine-next-course-of-education year, i'm optimistic towards the thought of me being able to go see them anyway.

Right. So who's up for teman-ing me to go see them? anybody? no?oh. jomlah.

Saturday, January 13, 2007

Half-full glass

I was in a particularly foul mood the other night, for no apparent reason. The type of bad mood that makes you want to pick something up and throw it at the wall, heh. My mood saver? 'Vincent' by Don Mclean. You know how there are some songs you like so much that when you hear them, you get goosebumps? yeah, well this song does it for me, particularly at the part where he sings:

For they could not love you,
But still your love was true,
And when no hope was left in sight,
on that starry, starry night,
you took your life as lovers often do,
But i could have told you, Vincent,
This world was never meant for one as beautiful as you.

Aisy. Goosebumps ah wei.

I link-surfed the other day (read someone's blog, clicked on a link on his page, read that blog, then subsequently clicked on a link from THAT page, and so on), and came across the blog of this girl, maybe a couple years younger than me. Her blog sounded interesting, and she updates regularly, so she's now more or less on my list of frequently visited blogs.

Here's the thing. Practically every post she's published is about her complaining on the latest 'injustice' she's had to suffer through. Example? having to endure long boring assemblies, strict teachers, how she's so fat, having nothing to do and dying of boredom, that sort of thing.

For God's sake.

ok, i know that your blog is your web journal, a place to pour out your problems, what you're feeling, it's YOUR right to publish anything you want on it, and as long as it doesn't hurt other people's feelings, alrighty then. And besides, who am i to judge a person whom i've never met based on just the words of their blog?

But when you read a blog that is practically entirely focused on a person complaining suffusely on her 'terrible' problems, problems that are actually not that terrible, you can't help but feel extremely irritated, wanting to shake her by the neck, and screech 'THOSE ARE NOT EVEN EFFIN' REAL PROBLEMS!!'.

I've been thinking about it lately, and i've realised(so belatedly) that i am actually an ungrateful arse. I complain(internally and externally) about stuff like being introverted, not being able to make friends, about feeling disappointed in myself, about not having confidence in my abilities or my brains,etc practically all the time.

A couple weeks ago it dawned on me( i had an epiphany of sorts, heh) that i'm just making all these problems up for myself. What problems i have, i tend to blow them out of proportion to make it seem like i'm a damsel-in-distress type, i REVEL in having something to be in despair about. On the day i realised this, i also realised how unthankful to Allah i've been for what i have. All this while i've been looking at my glass as half empty, not half full.

I have both my parents alive and with me, parents who take the time to ask me how was my day, and how's my studies, and can have a laugh with me. I'm smart, i speak english well, i have my own room, a car, i've got great friends, i was born in my faith, i look quite ok, i have all my body parts intact, i've never had to endure war, or cancer or a hurricane, i can see, i can hear, i can taste, damn it, i'm alive, and so far, my life's been pretty great.

heh, please excuse the paragraph above, i'm not trying to blow my own trumpet or anything, i'm just trying to make a point. Some people tend to forget that they have so much to be grateful for, and merely focus on what they term to be the injustices of their lives. I'm no exception. Even as i write this, i know that there will still be times when i'll get upset over something and forget to stop, take a breath, and remember that compared to what i have in my life, that something is actually trivial in comparison. There will still be days where i want to throw something at the wall, and there will still be days when i think 'this is so frickin' unfair'.

But hey. At least now part of me will remind myself that life IS fair, it's been more than fair to me, i'm just not seeing the big picture.

Our glass is actually half-full, no?

Friday, January 05, 2007

2nd semester of college

My first half-week of college has just ended. Some changes have occured, most notably in our time table. If before, one period lasted for half and hour, meaning that the longest sitting we'd have for a subject would be an hour, if it was a double period class. Currently, one period is now one and a half hours long. Hah! I laughed in disbelief when i first heard the news about the change, thinking 'no way!'. In class, i (of the short attention span species), concentrate at the most for about 45 minutes before i start fidgeting and glancing repetitively at my watch. Oh well, i'll look on the bright side. at least there's no double period classes. Can you imagine 3 hours of accounting? I can't. And if i do, i involuntarily shudder :p

The new intake for A-levels enrolled a couple days ago. Heh, whenever i see the new students wandering around campus during breaks between their orientation session, carrying those plastic welcome files sunway supplies them with, i can't help but snort and feel high and mighty in a hah-i've-endured-all-that-already sort of way. Anyone who has juniors, i'm positive you must have felt the same way, however minimally. But i feel for some of the students who haven't made friends yet and tend to wander alone. I know how they feel! Oh yes i do. I wish i could approach the stragglers and reassure them that this is just temporary, that they'll be making friends in no time. Heh, the PRS in me roars. Proud of it, babe! :D

I got my exam results a couple days ago too. Have you ever felt the rush of pleasure as a result of confirmation that you were meant to take these subjects you've chosen, and that leaving the science stream was indeed the correct decision? Have you ever felt joy knowing that yup, i'm meant to be here? Have you ever felt grudging happinness because finally, FINALLY, you see the hikmah you've been straining to look for ever since 7 different institutions rejected your scholarship application? (tak habis2 dgn my scholarship disappointment,i know, sorry. it stops here and now).

*Grin*. Alhamdulillah.

But it's only my semester exam. Still got my AS and A2 looming up. yikes.

All in all, despite the fact that the toll charge at sunway went up a whopping 60 cents to RM1.60 (curses!), it's been a pleasant start for the new year.

WOOT!(i still am not sure of the correct usage of this term :p)

Monday, January 01, 2007

Contemplation

So there you go. Another year gone. Right. I suppose i'm obliged to say how quick time has passed and note down what my resolutions are and hope for a better, more prosperous new year. The general cliches and all that jazz. But oh well.
How did I spend new year's eve? well, lets see. I spent the morning and the afternoon helping my mom entertain our many relatives for raye haji. So my day was spent pretty much doing that. And just now, during the final hours of 2006, i spent them lazing on the couch with my little brother sprawled on me (note that i said ON, not beside) watching CSI miami. I was chatting with 9 a couple days ago, and when he heard i had no plans for new year's eve, he said i was lame because i(still) had no social life.
Well, that may be true, but i'll tell you this much. As the clock struck 12 and everyone on tv started screaming, my dad, my brother and I went outside to see the fireworks display(courtesy of Mr Goh from two houses down). When that was done, we went back inside, where my dad gave my brother and me big new year hugs(mom was asleep already, she doesn't believe in curtailing her sleeping pattern for new year celebrations, heh). After that, i grabbed a glass of juice and went upstairs to my room, but not before stepping out on to the balcony. Mr Goh's fireworks were over, but not everyone elsewhere were done! Standing at the balcony, i could make out 2 major fireworks displays from different places in the distance, and i could hear a third coming from a different direction. It was kind of awesome actually, the combined noises sounded like thunder and gunfire put together.
I grabbed my camera and started taking pics of the sparks. And as i was taking them, i contemplated what 2006 had brought me, and pondered what 2007 will bring.
I don't believe in making resolutions. I don't feel any spark of renewed vigour or enthusiasm in conjuction with the new year. Nothing will have changed, except for the fact i'll have to start reminding myself to write 7 at the end of the date instead of 6.
But what i DO know is that i am thankful for having ended the year with my health, with all of my family members safe, and with nothing actually major to complain about(what is sholarship rejection compared to REAL problems, like cancer, or poverty, or the death of a loved one?). And i am thankful for the fact that maybe, just maybe, the year i change into a better person has finally arrived.
Happy new year, everyone. And selamat hari raya haji too.