je ne sais pas

what do i want to say?

in one of my Agatha Christie books, i think it was 'Death in the Clouds', Poirot says the very thing that will give the murderer away is his own words. because humans, inevitably, just love to talk about themselves. something along those lines (i'm sure it was a lot less dramatic than how i put it).

it's a thursday night, and it's one of those times where there are a whole lot of stuff i want to type down here, but it's all a blur of ideas, and when i focus on one topic, it loses its intrigue and i don't see where i'm going with it.

like how when i heard the imam reciting the surah lailatul-qadr as i was leaving the masjid just now, it just seemed to sum up everything that's beautiful about ramadhan.

and how i'm starting to worry all over again whether i'm talking too much about myself in my blog. am i supposed to stick to general stuff like music and books? is it too emo or cliched of me to rant out again and again about things that i feel down about? would that be hypocritical? am i having this warped perception that a blog can act as an emotional crutch?

and that at the moment, i'm feeling a certain amount of content. i remind myself not to sweat the small stuff, and it works. it actually works.

and i'm thinking over my choice of accountancy for my degree major. despite everything, the B in AS and the horrendous marks i got for my mock exams, i'm sticking with it.i like accounting, no matter how bad i am at it. i take comfort in the precision of accounts, and despite all my grumblings, i enjoy it. so i'm sticking with the plan. degree in accounting, chartered, masters in economics. i did a reality check, and i still get that tingly feeling that says i'm happy with what i'm learning. so all systems go.

and the fact that i finally found a good music widget to put in the sidebar of my blog after going through countless of useless ones. the one from lastfm actually scrobbles efficiently, tracking all recently played songs and providing snippets you can listen to if they got the song in their database. and i want to put up a big announcement on the blog saying 'hey everyone click the play buttons on the widget!!', but then 2 seconds later i remember that other people might not actually give a damn. nevermind. i enjoy clicking them all the time, so i'll do it.

and how kakak's going back in a couple of days and part of me thinks 'oh no. i can't remember how i did it without her here'.

at the end of the day(and this post), the blur will just remain a blur until it fades away or is replaced by new things. in between i'll just settle for re-reading the silence of the lambs until i fall asleep and then wake for sahur.

signs

I adore BBC's remake of The Taming of the Shrew. They were showing a rerun of it on Hallmark the other day, and i must say, i just find it immensely enjoyable.

i left a bunch of accounting papers on the dining room table. i, being the lazy ninny that i am, left it there for the past few days. funny thing is, whenever i needed a certain paper from that stack i left on the table, i'd come down from my room, get the paper, and yet leave the rest of the stack lying there. i'm that kind of lazy. anyway, this morning, i came downstairs with my stuff to do some work at the dining table, when i saw that the stack was gone. we're having guests over tonight, so i figured our maid must have cleared the table and kept the papers aside or wherever. so i tried looking at all the usual places, but takde. so i asked kak nikki where'd she put it? she gives me this kind of stricken look, and said she'd put it in our storeroom. the same storeroom where we keep all our old newspapers. the same storeroom where today, of all days, the orang surat khabar lame had come into to collect all those all newspapers. in other words, my stack of accouting past year exam papers were sitting in a truck destined for a recycling plant. wonderful way to start the morning.

oddly enough, and it IS odd because i wasn't pms-ing or anything, i started bawling. well, not bawling, but crying the same way i cried when i watched Armageddon for the first time. must have been some inner nerd in me mourning the loss of undone past year exam papers. tragic. i called up my mom and she confirmed that Kenny, the surat khabar guy, had taken the newspapers, and that he'd probably taken my papers too. but mom was onto damage-control in a flash. she called up Kenny and then rang me back to say that Kenny was on his way back and that i'd have to dig through the papers in his truck.

so 20 minutes later, sure enough, the truck arrives and i go swimming in surat khabar lama.

kidding,not quite. our stack of papers were lucky enough to be right at the end, so i was able to just pluck out my papers without any hassle. fuh. Alhmamdulillah, i'm just glad to get them back. this is a sign. a 'Janganlah malas sangat nak angkat barang tu' sign.

sign taken.

i want roti john tomorrow

among the things i get to eat only when it's ramadhan:
1.ayam percik
2.tepung pelita
3.murtabak
4.roti john

a belated merdeka pondering. i don't like it when during official merdeka celebrations, they make the VIPs get up and wave flags while singing along to 'Keranamu Malaysia'. that's just bollocks la. the VIPs mostly look bored to death while half-heartedly waving the flags from side to side. what does waving small flags have to do with patriotism anyway?

am i patriotic?probably not. i wouldn't put up a flag on my car. but again, does being patriotic mean you have to flaunt your love for the jalur gemilang and sing along enthusiastically whenever they play 'Keranamu Malaysia'? Sometimes i just don't get it. In previous years, there'd be that annual merdeka concert at KLCC. the difference between the merdeka concert and a normal concert?the singers would all crowd on stage towards the end, singing patriotic songs once the clock struck 12. this year, there was a sunway lagoon beach merdeka party(beachwear only). what do freaking bikinis and frolicking in the water have to do with merdeka?

i think, at this point, merdeka has just become an excuse to throw a huge party. which bloody defeats the purpose, innit? i thought we were suppose to be remembering the fact that after having to face a lot of crap by being colonised by practically every tom,dick and harry, we'd finally regain our right to rule our country, our way. it's been 50 years, and in that 50 years, i personally think malaysia's come heck of a long way and we should celebrate that, but at the same time we have to remember that it was only 50 plus years ago our grandparents were being killed and opressed by the japanse. i mean, c'mon people, it's not all just about fireworks!

gah. dah start berleter plak. sorry. i may be being hypocritical here since whenever i myself watch merdeka fireworks i'm more concentrated on the pretty bursts of lights rather than remembering what Tunku Abdul Rahman did for the nation and all that, but yeah. merdeka should be more than just the annual public holiday.

and i don't like it when i come across people who go on about how they'd rather emigrate to Australia or Switzerland or wherever than suffer the God-forsaken conditions of Malaysia and malaysians any longer. like,wtf? ok, so there's a lot of stuff that's wrong in this country, like corruption in the government and the gross behaviours of some malaysians, and our apalling driving skills, and the really pathetic music videos we come up with, but still. i think it's just a bit sad they'd just ditch the the country they came from and move to a kononnya superior country. why not stick around and actually try and upgrade Malaysia to what you want it to be? but yeah. this may all sound incredibly naive. Maybe you can't change Malaysia. maybe that's why so many students sent overseas just stay there.

ok, enough of that. save it up for next year's merdeka. since the theme seems to be Malaysia in this post, just gonna pop in a quick mention about some local music. i must say, the local mainstream music scene has perked up la. i don't know much about malaysian bands or singers, but i recently came across these two songs which i particularly like. the first is 'Pagi Yang gelap' by this band called Hujan. an indie band, if you will. People here are dubbing them local The Strokes, but i think their music is more melodious. check that song out, kalau rajin. the second song, surprisingly, is by Kaer. remember Kaer, the finalist in season 3 of Akademi Fantasia?don't cringe!haha. i'm really not a fan of AF-born artists, their songs usually aren't great(i DESPISE any song by Adam) and their popularity tends to die out faster than a speeding bullet, but there you go. apparently, Kaer had to self-finance his debut album, which is too bad, but this song is good. As far as pop music goes, especially pop music by Malaysian artists, i think this is a good tune. dengarkan:

the weekend's over, people. time to get cracking.

we all live in a yellow submarine

the wombats.

click play already.click. CLICK DAMMIT!heh.

let's dance to Joy Divison,
and celebrate the irony,
everything is going wrong,
but we're so happy!

an excerpt from The Wombats' 'Let's dance to Joy Division'. how appropriate! i've pretty much bombed my mock exams, but things are just dandy. let's dance to Joy Division!though technically, i only know one Joy Division song, and it's not even that danceable too. oh well.

things have been a bit hectic lately. after we'd done our econs paper, as we were walking out of the exam room, diyana gestured to her head and said, 'nampak tak asap coming out of my head ni?', which describes perfectly how things have been going. on overdrive. but i'm on break for a week and a half, wheee. and happy ramadhan,y'all. i find it extremely reassuring to think satan's in chains at the moment.

have you ever gotten that feeling where you have an issue with someone, things go awry, so you try to solve it, but at some point, despite your persisting unsatisfied
feeling that things are unresolved and you still want to say something, you know that inevitably, whatever you say will just make things worse? yeah. i don't like that. but i've learnt, the hard way, that it's just better to shut up and act normal.
and there's really not much point worrying about it, so don't.

a couple pictures:

a bunch of college friends came over for a kenduri we were having, cheers for that. a lot of my aunties were commenting 'lawanya semue kawan kakyang dari sekolah', haha.

and finally, a recent and decent family picture. we all actually look normal here!

i haven't gotten any offers from the australian unis i applied to, but no matter. i'll leave that to Allah. things WILL work out, i am honestly starting to re-believe this. plus, i bought a bright yellow t-shirt with 'The Beatles-yellow submarine' emblazoned across it with a cartoonish picture of a submarine, and new headphones too. you shouldn't be worried when you're wearing a bright yellow t-shirt, listening to The Wombats on your new headphones. it just contradicts the nature of sadness.

haha, you know what?i got a couple of backdated issues of Galaxie magazine for free hari tu, and i'm flipping through them. and they have those 'get personal' pages at the back, where you can send in your address and details to which they'll publish in that section so that you can look for pen-pals!haha, i didn't think these things still existed. do they actually work? can you REALLY acquire proper friends through this channel? i'm reading the 'about myself' lines the people attach with their details. 'Sophisticated, open-minded, decent and simple Malay guy seeking friends from all over the globe. I'm into Feeder, MCR, Muse and BSB too'.
Right. 'Sweet and adorable Malay girl seeks friends from around the world'. There, we have a match already. My favourite is: 'let's just day hello and become friends'.

sigh. i'm going to have to head for the books again soon. not yet though. take a break, everyone. go singgah bazaar ramadhan.