exhale

i'm very sorry if i've been off-kilter. very sorry i haven't been keeping contact. so very sorry.

i think it's a shame that i can't stand cheese(except for pizza and lasagne cheese and cheezels). i think cheese cakes are the prettiest cakes around.

finally have a proper date for AS results, they come out on the 9th of August. i will start worrying on the 8th. I've been a bit busy trying to get the cambridge application together, and, while it has been horrid at times, i'm kinda getting excited at the prospect of applying there. which is bad, since it'll be more of a blow if i don't get in, so i'm trying to temper the enthusiasm.

is it better to be blunt and honest with your opinions, or is it okay to tell white lies if it means reasurring someone else? i suppose some find it more honourable to be unforgivingly truthful in whatever circumstance, reasoning that a white lie just to comfort someone is unfair and might end up hurting them anyway. yeah. i guess that's true. but sometimes, i still wish someone would lie anyway.

i've read the new Harry Potter book, courtesy of Tesco, RM69.90. i won't say anything about it so as not to offend the not-yet-readers, and for those who have, we'll have something to gush about if we meet up, yea?

Thanx to kakak, i have a bunch of new songs to listen to. Belle & Sebastian, people. Listen if you haven't. oh, and hani lent me her Clash cd! i'm now an avid listener. i think it's fantastic!it's a greatest hits album, two cds. if you want to try listening to The Clash, i suggest 'Train in Vain', 'Rock the Casbah', 'London Calling', 'Should i stay or Should i Go'. Good stuff. And, it's cool how they're music actually makes comments on social and political issues.

nani, if you dare leave for canada without telling me your departure date i'll come and haunt yout.

i'm going fishing tomorrow with the family. must.catch.fish.

take a look/listen at this. acappella,yo.

i want to be the sugar plum fairy

i. went. samba. dancing.

HAHAHAHAHAHA!

it's pretty funny. if i were to list down weird habits, one of them would be imagining dance routines to music i listen to. and not necessarily choreographed, Wade Robson style dancing either. oh no, that wouldn't be worth daydreaming about. i would imagine dancing to The Killer's 'Mr. Bright Side' or Say Anything's 'Alive with the Glory of Love', in the style of jive, or perhaps west coast swing dancing. yeah. mane main normal hip hop dancing. that's like, so nineties.

so yeah, i went and join Sunway's dancing club. abaikan the fact that i'm in my third and last semester, have exams coming up in a couple months and that i'll probably be malas to go to practices after a few times, me and Hani joined and went for the first class tadi. not bad!at least we did learn some stuff, did some dancing. nowhere near like how i dance imaginatively, but still. baby steps.

my kakak's back, so that's good. she got me a bunch of stuff, among them Greg Laswell's 'Through Toledo'!!!!good stuff. very gloomy, but i like gloomy. perfect rainy afternoon cd. and she also got me my very first copy of Q magazine. great la wei, just great. i loved all their interviews. they even made Daniel Radcliffe sound nice and cool.

You know when you drive past a guardhouse with a palang, and they lift it open for you, you put your hand up as a gesture of thanks? well, I was driving back home the other day, and i had to pass through the guardhouse at the entrance of the neighbourhood where i live. there was a car in front of me, so the guard pressed the button to make the automated palang thing lift up. as the car drove through, i also followed la, and gave a vague glance at the security guard and lifted my hand up. when i did, i saw him wave back at me, returning my gesture. immediately after that, as i looked back in front, i saw the palang drop back down and ker-plunked neatly on my hood.

'Aah!', i yelped, and whipped my head back at the guard. i must have looked at him with some fury, because he stumbled around for a few moments before pressing the button to lift the stupid palang up again. i gave him another haughty look, and went off. and as i reached home and was parking my car, barulah sedar that perhaps he wasn't exactly returning my gesture when he angkat tangan, he was more likely siganlling at me to stop. patutla cam enthusiastic sangat wave die. oh well. in all fairness, selalunye when there's a couple cars at once coming in or going out, the other guards know how to keep the palang up instead of having to let come down, then press the button to make it go up again for the next car. but no worries, no damage done anyway, the palang has a rubber strip at the base that absorbed the impact, so it didn't dent the hood.

I like to hum Tchaikovsky's 'Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy' everytime i see theo the bunny prancing about. just like in the trailer for The Simpsons Movie.

You know, i've been tentatively listening to club music. techno, trance, electronic. just wanted to try it out and see how far my music tastes expand. of course, i don't know nuts and can't really tell one from the other. and i don't know any musicians related to the genre except the really famous ones, so i've just been checking out a few songs by tiesto and benny benassi. To be honest, i can't really see the difference between a good dj and a mediocre one, but for some reason, i'm growing quite fond of trance music. at least, some of the trance songs i've heard so far. somehow the repetitive beat, in all oddity, is quite calming.

My favourite threat to say to someone is 'I smack you then you know'. just the right amount of humor and violence put together.

Right now it's night time and it's raining. perfect. i'm going to while the night away by listening to Badly Drawn Boy and Kings of Convenience and doing some econs questions.

update: i didn't post this yesterday, so now it's afternoon and cloudy. not listening to anything, and still doing econs questions. go figure.

whipped into a frenzy

stop. pause. suspend. berhenti. red light. freeze. take five. whoah there, horsie.

third semester is just crazy, man.

not to say that the atmosphere is crazy, like we're all scurrying around frantically with disheveled hair, careening from class to class. because we're not. we're learning a lesser amount of subjects as compared to last semester, so my timetable this time around is in a way freer. but still.

Work is steadily piling on like nobody's business, and while it's not as if i didn't have a lot of work last time, i feel like i'm becoming a zombie. a 'belajar-makan-homework-tido-belajar' zombie. there's just no time to do anything else! well, yes, i can choose to do other things, like how i spent my evening yesterday finishing up my inaugural Artemis Fowl book kindly lent by Shao, but at the expense of slacking off my homework and resulting in a backlog of things to do the next day. in other words, i can try and stare homework down and watch as it backs away, snarling. but the minute i turn around it'll lunge and eat my head. bad analogy? ooff.

better write a checklist, just in case i forget. a weekend is approaching, and that's dangerous business. i can be easily lulled into complacency:
1.study intergration and differential equation and algebra for maths test.
2.tweak up econs presentation.
3.finish up vector homework.
4.find last semester's accounting homework. marginal costing, i think.
5.i know without doubt we'll be given econs homework tomorrow, so do that too.

My AS results are coming out on August 9th, gah. i don't see the point of prematurely worrying about it, but all of a sudden a lot is riding on these results. i can't apply for good unis if i get mediocre results, yes? (i can hear 'duh!' in the background).that reminds me, must finalise uni options soon and write personal statement draft.

the talk about oxbridge applications given by a rep from MABECS very much spooked me. candidates have to have a PASSION for the degree subject matter they're applying for. PASSION ah? candidates trying for economics should be well read on current economic issues, with The Economist and the business section of newspapers encouraged daily reads. business section? interviews are technical with in-depth questioning on subject matter, and interviewers may take you further and further in to see how well you think on your own feet. technical?think on your own feet?

too bad we have to be sincere and truthful when writing our pesonal statement. i would have added 'did a stint with Mercy Malaysia and Unicef after SPM' as well as 'speaks malay, english, french and conversational tagalog.'

there's this one scene in Grey's, second season i think, the part where Christina lost her pregnancy. there's this scene where she's still supposed to be off-duty, confined to bedrest, but she's all antsy and tries to sneak in some patients. throughout her whole ordeal with losing the baby she didn't shed a tear and kept insisting she was fine, but then at one point, after confirming she was right about something, she just burst into tears and couldn't stop crying, wanting to stop but sobs still came out.

that sounds very appealing. crying undeliberately and without control. not that there's a specific reason at the moment for wanting to do that ke ape, but i think we're all entitled to a little breakdown once in a while.

it's my party and i'll cry if i want to,
cry if want to, cry if i want to,
you would cry too if it happened to you!

acronym!not aneurism, which, btw, is spelled aneurysm. my bad.

Anxiety attack.

i just checked out the requirements and the process of applying for Cambridge. i feel faint.

As recent as 3 months ago, the prospect of having to choose and apply for universities seemed like something 'lambat lagi baru kene buat'. but now i'm almost at that junction, and it's quite overwhelming. All of a sudden we're talking about UCAS forms and personal statements and choosing the right unis.

ok, starting from here on down, in all honesty, it's going to be a boring post. so feel free to skip.

first things first, i must address the issue of self-doubt that is halting my uni-picking process. self-doubt really is a pain in the ass. the niggling voice in your head that screams 'what on earth makes you think you have what it takes to even apply for these places? you're not that smart, and you don't have any oustanding qualifications. 17000 people applied to that uni last year and only 2000 were actually accepted. what makes you think you're special enough to be one of the chosen ones?'.

yeah. sometimes i look at the odds and think 'who am i KIDDING?'. i check out cambridge's website, read about the interview candidates have to go through, and think 'i'm not a person who is cut out for this. i'm not good enough. i'm just not'.

i'm tired of not being good enough. sometimes it's tear-inducing to think of the number of ways i fail to be an outstanding, and i'm just sick of doubting my capabilities, thinking that if so and so doesn't think he/she can do it, what in God's name makes me think i can? i'm tired of feeling inferior to others, fullstop. i've spent most of semashur feeling that way(and whine,whine, whine, etc. you know the drill.).

but i can't be scared. not this time. kakak said i'm destined for great things, and she may just be saying that for reassurement, because that's what big sisters are for, but still. i can try. i can step up to the plate and bloody well try for great things. Atiqah m*khtar, you have to give it a shot. don't chicken out this time. DON'T CHICKEN OUT!.sure, the possibility of rejection is always there, it's breathing down your neck, and you know firsthand how crushing it can be, but regardless of that, you HAVE TO TRY. dengar tak?!it's time to stand up and kick low self-esteem in the balls. Ya Allah, please give me strength.

my original plan was to do a degree in accounting, or accounting and finance. since progressing through alevels, i've been thinking about economics. but at the end of the day, i think i'm sticking with accounting. I'll do my degree, than apply to do my chartered(hopefully with ICAEW) and become an ACA. i WILL be a kick-ass accountant, even if i die trying.

when i first started alevels, my long-term target was LSE. LSE and nothing else, it just HAD to be London School of Economics. i know, very extreme, that. But now i've realized it doesn't have to be LSE. it doesn't even have to be UK.

I'll have a choice of applying to 5 different unis. Cambridge? Economics? i'm going to give it a go. Sure, the interview part sounds daunting, and i may end up making a fool out of myself, but i'm taking a leap. plus, i just got an impromptu mini pep-talk from my collegmate Al Marzuki, so some degree of boldness and believe-in-myself-vibes have been re-instilled. LSE. i still put it as my ideal uni. my choices for the others aren't confirmed yet, i'm tentatively looking at Edinburgh, Warwick, Bristol, Lancaster, Birmingham. More research needed, plus consultation with the parents.

It doesn't have to be UK. my parents are very keen on the States as well. I'll have to take my SATs, but there's plenty of time to do that. Penn? or UC Berkeley, maybe? Columbia. or Northwestern. I'm aiming for the good ones, because there is really no point of getting on a plane for 20 hours straight to the other side of the world to attend a mediocre university.

And what about Australia? Much closer, and much more affordable. well, theoretically, i'm banking and praying on getting a scholarship either way, but still. cost of living is much more manageable. The majority of the Group of Eight have good accounting programs. Plus, intakes are way earlier than UK, wouldn't have to worry about wasting time. i was thinking maybe ANU, Unimelb, or perhaps Sydney? UNSW?*high fives all the malaysian aussie students, in particular her favourite ones, anna and aijud :P* RMIT and ANU's entry requirements are surprisingly lenient, as compared to say, UNSW, but getting ABB insyaAllah would more than suffice.

At the rate this is going, i'm going to be applying to 15 unis. Good God.

You know, i wish sunway had just forced us all to take IELTS. then i wouldn't have to worry about unis with IELTS requirements.

this had got to be a post with the most number of acronyms on this blog.

ok, dah, dah, enough about all that. moving on to normal everday stuff. i'm thinking about going to watch transformers this weekend. wasn't really planning on watching it, i don't particularly have an interest in morphing machines, but everyone else keeps saying it's great and transformerrific, i should go see.

Guilty pop pleasure of the week, Enrique Iglesias's 'Do You know(the ping pong song)'. Ok, for one, i really wish he hadn't add on 'the ping pong song' to the title, makes me think of a disney playtime show. and there's this part in the video, just a quick glimpse, where he taps his heart two times to the beat of the song. kononnye gaya yang cool la kot, but it's just so tak jadi, it makes me giggle. but still, i have to concede that the chorus tune is nice. darn you enrique iglesias, as mushy as your songs may be, they're still so catchy and nice to sing to. remember 'Hero'? and 'Bailamos'? and 'Escape'?. yeah.