exaggeration and tall tales galore

Saturday, August 25, 2007

ode to nani

Oh farah hanani
awak sudah pergi
saya rasa sunyi
di sini.

heh.

but yes, farah hanani shamsuddin has officially left the peninsular. off to canada to study and do what canadian people do. and i think juwa left today, and afiqah is leaving tomorrow. people are flying off like...flies. sigh. best of luck to all of them, if they read this.

here's a thought people:life's just waaaaay too short to worry about trivialities. this may sound like complete crap, but ever since i got the B for my paper i've adopted a somewhat cavalier, eff-it-all attitude. i mean, in a good way. at least, i think so. i've stopped sweating the small stuff, to some extent. just go for it, in whatever you're doing, and for God's sake, stop worrying about the petty stuff.

and the perfect song, at this very moment, is 'no cars go', by Arcade Fire. i love this song. so simple, but it's just perfect. you know how there are some songs that make you close your eyes and think about taking off running down the street, just running, not wanting to stop or think about where you're going?yeah.

i think it should have been made mandatory for all of us to learn mandarin in sekolah kebangsaan.

oh, and I'm currently listening to the Arctic Monkeys first album. haha, i was reading some random chick's blog, and she tends to use this expression, which may amusingly be appropriate in describing my admiration for the Monkeys:'LOVE,LOVE,LOVE GILE FOR LIFE!!!!'.

oh,oh!and i was driving back home the other day after picking up my sister from kelana jaya, past the sunway toll, and we saw rainbows!notice the plural. one bright, FULL-ARC rainbow, and another fader one to its right. we were so excited, me and kakak(well, kakak mostly) spent several minutes gesticulating to all the other drivers around us, shouting 'rainbow!tengok rainboooow!!'. tapi no one noticed, and one driver just looked at my sister somewhat suspiciously. yeah. traffic jams suck the soul out of people.

i'll quit rambling now.

one more thing. ratatouille is good. pixar has yet to fail me.

Tuesday, August 21, 2007

those are my parents



The pokok kelapa on pulau redang are so pretty.

A lot has been going on lately. i feel so busy, hee. i have no business blogging now, i really should be doing my backlogged homework, but what the hell.

my parents took the family off to redang for the annual kakak-back-from-overseas-so-must-take-the-opportunity-to-go-cuti-together2 holiday. we were supposed to go kuala terengganu first on thursday, since dad had a function there, then ferry off to redang, but i had completely forgotten the fact that i had my ielts writing test on saturday. so the parents and the little brother drove up first, me and kakak followed by taking a flight up on saturday.

sidenote 1:air asia stewardesses punye baju is just so...sikit kain.

went to redang on sunday morning. stayed at this really nice place called redang kalung. in terms of snorkelling la kan, i think tioman still wins. but it was still lovely. redang kalung is cosy. the amenities are perfectly adequate, and the environement is just nice, without any of the overloaded commercialisation you'd get from the bigger resorts, like berjaya or laguna. i mean, this is a place where siestas can be taken lying in the hammock outside your chalet overlooking the beach with pokok kelapa shading you from the sun. no hassle, no noise(except for the occasional boat passing by), just swaying palm fronds and gently lapping waves. yeah,man. a place where you can hear youself THINK.

sidenote 2: the beach had too many sea cucumbers. i don't like sea cucumbers. i'm aware that they are harmless but i just don't want to accidentally step on one. i couldn't go swimming/frolicking on the beach because i was too paranoid about stepping on a freaking sea cucumber.

yesterday night, after packing up my stuff, i couldn't sleep(thanx to the three hour nap and a cup of coffee i drank earlier), so i plucked my ipod and laid down outside the chalet, facing the beach. ah.AH.AAAAAH. can i convey the perfection of that moment?(that sounds cliched, i know, but just bear with me) the moon was out, and the stars!!!!God, i can't remember the last time i looked up at the big dipper and orion's belt and whatever other constellation.

i wanted to use that opportunity to think about things. you know, about God, and about my studies, and about people. bile lagi would i get the perfect setting to organize my thoughts? but the night and the music and the beach all just melded into this one pleasant experience, and this pleasant experience didn't require me to think. just go with the flow. just look out at the sea and the twinkling lights from the ferry boats.

sidenote 3:banyak tol mat salleh kat redang. while i was lepak-ing on the beach that night, there were a bunch of italians chatting and lazing in the hammocks some feet away. it was actually kind of comforting to hear them murmuring gently in italian in the background.

a ferry boat ride and 9 hours in the car later, i'm back in my room. with alarming messages about homework i missed and a test tomorrow coming in. gah.

aside from that, i am in love with this song. i can't stop singing it. listen to The National people.


and on another note, shao min invited me to go to a charity dinner last wednesday!(thanx again shao, i had a lovely time :D). siti nurhaliza was there to perform, and phua chu kang. my summary of the night? phua chu kang is damn funny la wei.

sidenote 4:siti still hasn't mastered english. which is a shame. she's still super sweet though

i won't put up the pic of siti, simply because....um...i think the pic of me and shao, who looked resplendid in her kebaya, is more worth putting up. hee :)


oh!oh!and i know this is already old news, but a couple days before the AS results came out, my class had a party. without a doubt, A-levels A1 class of July '06 intake, is the most memorable class i've ever had. our party was called the faque party, which is the derivation of [fantastic + unique=faque], get it?if it sounds rude, it's supposed to, but we don't emphasize the pronounciation that way :p

we did a lot of stuff for the party, but i think, in a nutshell, this sums it up:

Sunday, August 12, 2007

had a bad day again

so...yeah.

my results came out the other day. in case you couldn't tell by the tak-tahan-sorrowfulnye post below, i wasn't happy. i got a B for accounting. i got As for the rest,(even GP!haha), so alhamdulillah for that. but ooff, i felt like i got socked hard in the stomach when i found out about the B. in accounting. ACCOUNTING?!

it's ironic. ironic in a couple ways, being that:
1.i wasn't so much worried about accounting as i was for econs or maths.
2. i'm supposed to become a kick-ass chartered accountant, and here i am starting off with a B in accounting at GCE AS level. looks very ominous.

so i found out about the B, and things pretty much went topsy-turvy after that. i skipped class and went home, and the crying jag just exploded. it came to a point where i secretly thought i was hyperventilating, and if not, i hoped i would. i WANTED to go into spasm or have a nervous breakdown. anything that would prevent me from having to be angry or sad or question 'why?bloody fucking WHY?'.

which may sound a tad bit overreacting to some. it's a B, not an F, and it's not the end of the world. yes, i am aware of that. sigh. but getting straight As this time around meant a lot to me,ok? a lot more than you'd think.

so, it's that time again(and this is a deja vu moment), where i try to cast around and see where the hikmah lies in all of this. and i realize that i sound a bit cynical and sarcastic, and i'm so sorry for that. a part of me realizes that i've become a bit weary and less inclined to be optimistic, but perhaps this is just temporary. once again there's that internal tug of war between trying to remind myself that i didn't get cancer and nobody died as well as feeling sorry for myself and just wanting to scream out 'i have the fucking right to be sad, even if it IS just because of a measly B!'.

but if there's one good thing about all of this, if there's anything that i'd want to remember, it's the hugs. after i first got my results, i literally, quite literally burst into tears, right in front of my accounts teacher and the rest of the classs. come to think of it, that's downright embarassing. some friends were awkward about it, as any normal person would be. but not others. jajar, without any hesitation at all, immediately hugged me and held on while i sobbed. which is quite amazing. i can't remember the last time i cried in front of someone(muhasabah diri sessions don't count :P), let alone have someone try and comfort me. and i remember Bo Eui giving me a hug too, telling me not to worry. it's weird. i remember leaning on diyana, with her hand around my shoulder. and i remember shao marching over to my side.

my family was awesome about the whole thing. awesome. i'm thankful to have them. and i'm thankful for my friends, too.

so...yeah. i'm ok. i'm dreading the thought of going back to class and back into homework, but i think i'll be able to pull cheerful off. sure, i have no doubt i'll run into awkward moments, be it doubting my capabilities all over again or explaining to someone my results or wondering what to with my cambridge application. but still. i'm trying to take this one step at a time.

one feeling down song. 'Bad Day'. contrary to pop culture, my favourite 'Bad Day'-titled song is the one by Fuel.


p/s:thanx again nani and anna and aijud and shao for your reassuring comments. i heart you guys, haha :D

Thursday, August 09, 2007

and the saddest part is, i don't know what i'm supposed to be feeling anymore.

i wanted to be angry at God, and scream 'i've gone through this!i thought it was supposed to be MY time now!'. but i guess i deserve this.

i know i don't have the right to complain much, it's just a B after all. and i'm so sorry i'm being so self-centred and melodramatic. but i feel broken, somehow.

people are telling me to look on the bright side, and i'm trying to, but i can't stop crying. and i can't stop thinking that it was wrong to think that maybe, this time around, i was special enough to be outstanding. maybe i'm not special at all.

i was wrong to think anything.

Sunday, August 05, 2007

cheers

one of those times where you want to blog, but can't really think up substantial blogging material.

homework load wasn't so bad this weekend, so i wasted it mostly doing nothing much, and it was quite delightful. though now i feel a little guilty having done nothing productive. no matter.

ok, everyone, indulge me by thinking up some current small pleasure at this very moment, no matter how nonsensical it is. for me, it's the fact that my pony-tail reaches the base of my neck(it's never been this long,see. or if it has, i can't remember). i can't stop shaking my head from side to side so as to feel it gently brushing my neck.

i've been keeping up with spinner.com's daily updates on the Lollapalooza music festival, and just seems like a lot of fun. hmm. a lot of fun. fun to a point where i'm wondering if i'd ever get the chance to go someday.

i'm an unsociable creature, and most of the time i'm perfectly fine with that, but once in a while i start to wonder about it, and think 'am i overdoing this?'. is it weird if i don't get messages from various friends everyday and use my phone mainly for functional rather than social purposes? is it wrong that i'm starting to lose contact with friends from school? should i scrabble to keep in touch and bombard them with testimonials on friendster and text messages, or can i just accept the fact that we're drifting apart?

*swishes hair around*

on another note, went fishing the other day, and caught quite a lot of fish, mostly talapia. if you're coming over for a sleepover anytime soon, i'll tell you straight off, i'll be feeding you talapia. talapia goreng. talapia masak lemak. talapia masak sambal. sweet and sour talapia. steamed talapia. talapia everything. in short, i'll stuff you with talapia until you can't quite take it anymore. i'll sumbat you with talapia until you'll be screaming 'TALAPIAAAAAAA!' in your nightmares.

i like funny commercials. but i also like the one by Sonyericsson for their walkman phones. it just makes perfect sense.


cheers, everyone, for no reason whatsoever. it's been pretty uneventful, save for a significant occurence or two, but i have a feeling things are going to spice up.