yarra

heeeeeeeeey.

hello friends. strangers. or the imaginary people that read my blog. hello blog.

the fact that i'm blogging now makes me want to wiggle my toes and stretch contentedly. but let's skip that and move on to the blogging part. would have done so earlier, were it not for the fact that i'm still staying in my temporary accomodation and have to pay for internet access. but yes, moving on.

no,wait. nani, i'm SO sorry i wasn't online on the 22nd! i will make it up to you. re-set the date please?

melbourne,folks. wheeeeee.

ok, to be honest, when people ask me for an opinion of melbourne and the university and whether it meets my expectations, i don't know how to answer. i guess it's because this is really my first experience going to a foreign place for an extended period of time(mase dulu doesn't count, seeing as i was 3 and have practically no recollections whatsoever), so i have no expectations in the first place. i like that melbourne has lanes for bicyclists. i like that a lot of melburnians(why melburnians?why not melbournians?) bring their own bags to supermarkets. i like that australian stewards are macho, unlike malaysian ones.(on the sydney-melbourne flight, i saw solid proof that being a steward can be a macho profession).

the first two days we arrived, it was hot. blue-skies, scorching sun, no clouds kind of hot. i was starting to think 'la..cam kat malaysia je'. then on the third day, it rained, and it was cold. cold! it was like melbourne was trying to tell me 'i can be cold too, stupid'. lesson learned. the wheather and the temperature here is unpredictable.

i still have plenty to learn. like memorising which colour represents which denomination for money bills. and the coins!gah. must remember that 50 cents is the one yang cam ade petak-petak tu. and that the smaller, not the bigger one, is the 2 dollar coin. for heaven's sake.

i have a feeling i like melbourne. but i'm saying this tentaviely, cautiously, because it's only been a week. let's wait at least until orientation's over, yea?

God, i detest orientation. ANY orientation.

but, in the words of jia yee, "what can we do? we're new here".

one of us misread

good things today, good things.

me and mom(my mother and I, to grammar gestapo)went down to belah melawati sana to go pick up our baju kurung from the tailor today.

good thing 1:baju raya saya sudah siap. and only about 7 months early!
good thing 2: we went to go stuff our faces at the yong tau foo place in wangsa maju. The place is usually jam-packed, and parking spaces around there are never empty, but when we got there, hey presto! lovely little parking spot right in front of the restaurant. blessings.
good thing 3: I ate all the suay kow i could ever need.

Sidenote: ever since i confirmed the departure date, i've been sort of keeping a mental checklist of all the food i need to eat before going off. Nasi kandar-check. Goreng pisang-check. Nasi lemak with paru-check. yong tau foo-check. nasi beriyani-check. now if only i can somehow get durian somewhere so mom can make pengat durian and roti jala.

good thing 4: after lunch, we went to the jpj office in setapak(is it setapak?i'm not sure. but it's next to sek. men. teknik setapak. so setapak la kot) to replace my P driver's license with a regular one(probation's over, wheeeeee). we had to take angka giliran, which so happened to be 952. number currenty being served? 900. i was hoping to have the same fortune
Aman had when he renewed his license, in terms of dealing with an efficient jpj office, but no such luck. there was only one window open for 'lesen memandu persendirian', so in other words, i could have eaten a thousand suay kows and probably more in the time it would take 900 to get to 952. but! but! suddenly this chinese guy who left his stuff on the chair next to us and was coming back to retrieve them noticed us and and asked if we were waiting to renew our license. having replied the affirmative, he gave us HIS number, 906! apparently he was done or had to go, so he gave his number to us. oh, baiknye. oh, how unfair to the other people who had to wait.

sidenote:xie xie ni(or is it sie sie?), uncle. may the god of prosperity be smiling upon you always. terima kasiiiiiiiih.

today as i was sitting in the car, i saw this billboard, and it was adverstising something, can't remember what, but the model looks like my dad's friend's daughter. i was trying to recall her age, when i remembered mom telling me she's a year older than kakak.

well ok,kakak's......how old is kakak again?hmm...kakak's 3 years older than me..i'm....how old?nak masuk twenty..

in my mind i was already calculating kakak's age, 23, thus making dad's friend's daughter 24, but before i got there i had let out this involuntary snort at the idea that i'm going on twenty. HAHAHAHAHAHA. twenty? twenty? are you kidding me? the idea that i'll be twenty is absurd. I haven't even gotten a grip on turning 18 yet, much less 20. i can't be twenty. i'm too young. i can't cook. i'm scared of cockroaches. i can't even socialize properly, for God's sake. i'm still as awkward as i was at 15! i still depend on my mom! twenty? you're joking. i'm not old enough to be 20 yet.

oh, but i'm old, though. the pizza boy calls me 'kak'. aisy.

just a lazy night. just a lazy post.

i'm listening to 'Merry Christmas, Mr Lawrence' again, and i'm listening to Beirut's 'Postcard from Italy', and am just content to lie in bed. too lazy to get up to brush my teeth or go solat isyak, but we'll get to that shortly.

ah,yes. i'm leaving for melbourne on the 17th. if you just so happen to be in klia on that day around 5 or 6, give me a ring, and we'll meet up.

i took cough medicine just now, so wooziness is starting to set in. excellent.

you know, if i ever get into a relationship, i hope i don't turn into mush.

i have to go to the bank tomorrow. again. i don't like going to banks. and the dentist too. i have cavities.

which reminds me, must go downstairs and retrieve toothbrush and toothpaste.

when you hug someone, and you have to to that cheek-to-cheek thing? yea. i fail at that. at school dulu, whenever we did that cheek thing, it would be 3 times, left-right-left. kalau tak silap it's sunnah to do it that way. but some people do it only twice, left then right. i suppose that's modelled after the mat-salleh way of air-kissing when they greet people. either way, it's a hassle, and i wish there was just a standard way of doing it. moreoften that not, i embarass myself either by standing stock-still after the hug, thus the person hugging me has to pull me in to do the cheek thing, or, we've done the cheek thing, left and right, and i pull that person in for a third time, padahal that person's stopped at the second one. can u say gaffe?

by the time i'm allowed to vote, i won't know who to vote for.

i hope people read my blog because it's interesting. not because i update regularly. (this comment will come back to bite me on the ass, i have a feeling).

Verily, where there is hardship, there is relief.

too woozy to really think straight. good night.

fat face

i am happy today, because:

a)i saw syahirah!homie from way back in the day,yo.(i have to stop with the whole 'yo' thing)

b)saw a lion dance today! awesome, i-cannot-tahan-excited.


Beirut rocks. i've only listened to three songs, but they(or is it just Zach Condon on his own?)rock.

You know, i often worry that i am a generally disinterested person. i don't seem to be interested in anything in particular. well, yes, there's music, and there's books, and there's lion dances, but nothing i can assuredly say "yes, i am very passionate about this, and i.... (have a black belt in it)/(have been doing it for years)/(train every weekend)/(just love love LOVE it). i'm stumped whenever i have to fill out those "i am interested in" sections in any 'about me' form.

i don't think i can be considered to be interested in much because being interested in something connotes that you've taken steps to delve into that specific activity, does it not? that you've taken things to a further level? i mean, it's the same concept with bands. i don't think i can say i like a band until i've heard and adore at least one album. (well, beirut's an exception because i can tell i'll probably love the whole album once i get the chance to listen to). i can't say i like Cold War Kids because i've only heard 'Hospital Beds' and 'Hang Me Up to Dry', despite the fact i enjoy those two songs very much.

ah well. this is all a very complicated way of explaining the fact that i wish i could say i'm seriously into something exciting, like....molecular something something. or scuba-diving would do too.

je ne veux pas travailler.

i got this excellently cool sweater the other day when i went out with syefik. i brought it home, and showed it to mom. aisy. same response as with the the blue top with polka-dots. but this time it was actually worse, because i saw the direct reaction. that silent pause after i held up the sweater for inspection said it all. haha. no worries. i still love mom. and our diverging fashion senses.

tarik nafas lega kerna aku tak apa-apa

haaaa...can you tell what song that line is from? 2 points if you can.

I know, she knows, that i'm not fond of asking

Do you ever, every once in a while, get the feeling that you suddenly understand life? This may sound very dumb and naive, but there are times when i get this overwhelming sense of..i don't know, contentment?maybe not that, but it's as if you suddenly figure out that life isn't that hard to figure out, and it's easy to differentiate right and wrong, and that being a good muslim isn't all that difficult. You suddenly have this realization that you get it. and these moments of clarity are usually accompanied by happiness, to the point of being giddy, because things are no longer as complex as you thought they were.

For example, the latest time i felt that way was when i got rejected from cambridge. of course that sucked, but it was also(and this may sound bloody cliched) a turning point. Because, to be honest, the whole scholarship thing mase form 5 dulu kind of set something off. like a little bit of me hardened because i didn't understand why i couldn't get it. and then i got the B in AS, and that snowballed the whole thing, because i, in all frankness, was mad at Allah. i couldn't see past the B. and that sounds horrible and selfish, i know, but there you have it. so when i got rejected from cambridge, it really was a sort of meltdown moment, because the way i saw it, God was punishing me continuously. Here i was, thinking i was working my ass off but not getting the returns, and it just didn't make sense!

but then i got my moment. kakak's email made me think. and i know i'm making this out like some bloody chicken-soup for the soul story, but bear with me. You see, i think all this while, what spurned me on to try for a scholarship, or to get straight As, or to try for cambridge, was the idea that by doing so, i could prove to people(and i suppose myself) that i AM smart, and that i AM good enough, and that i AM special. at the point where high school ended, i thought that the people around me assumed i was dumb, and took me for granted as another average jane. so i wanted to get revenge by achieving the scholarship, the As and the good uni so that i could turn back to them and spit out "see? i CAN do it, you bastards".

ok,ok, let's cut to the chase. what i've realized is that i've been doing things with the wrong niat in mind. i wanted to prove myself to others. to my parents. to my friends. not getting into cambridge was when i finally realized that i don't have to. I think that's what Allah's been trying to point out. As long as i work hard, God knows it, I know it, and that's all that really matters. i know that's a pretty simple thing to grasp, and i'm the dumb one for not having realize it sooner, but that's life, yo. you don't always see the things that are so obvious to others sometimes.

but the thing about these moments of clarity ni, is that they don't last forever. sooner or later you face a stumbling block of some sort, and you forget about your enlightening realizations, and lapse back into your old ungrateful, narrow-minded self.

ok, i hear voices telling me to stop the emotional train of thought already. yeah,yeah, i hear you.

p/s:syefik, i can't stop playing simtower. i'm trying to figure out my elevator strategies,aisy. all my tenants are stressed waiting for the lift.

p/s/s:i've just figured out how to play minesweeper(all this while i'd just randomly press everywhere, thus resulting in every game ending with the mines blowing up), so i'm now addicted to that too.

oh!i completely forgot. GONG XI FA CAI! Happy chinese new year, yo.

p/s/s/s:(no more, i swear), i can't believe i never listened to 'Hospital beds' by Cold War Kids before!what was i thinking?!

le chat

What to do when your cat suddenly has this whitish obvious selaput covering almost half of both her eyes:

1. Carry cat to car in order to go bring to vet.
2. Sigh defeatedly as cat hysterically meows and walks all about the car before settling under the driver's seat(still meowing).
3. Once you've arrived at the vet's place, hold and stroke cat as she falls very quiet and meek, because she is scared of the vet.
4. attempt to comfort cat as she has a rectal termometer pushed up her butt and is emitting noises akin to a hen laying an egg.
5. Listen to vet's diagnosis(the cat's third eyelids has come out due to a flu the cat is having) and sigh inwardly when you learn you have to feed the cat medicine, which, from past experiences, has never been an easy thing to do.
6. Bring cat home, with several futile attempts to calm the cat as she meows hysterically again from under the passenger's seat along the way.
7. With the help of younger sibling, hold cat down while feeding the cat medicine, the first one being in liquid form, given to the cat using a feeder.
8. Give exclamations of relief as cat licks it down.
9. Hold cat down while younger sibling tries to give it the second medicine, in pill form.
10. Admonish the cat repeteadly as she spits out the pill whenver it is put into her mouth.
11. Resolve to crush up pill, take the powder and smear it over a piece of fish before serving it to the cat.
11. cackle triumphantly as she eats it.

Repeat steps 7 to 11 until the third eyelid goes back to where it belongs.