EBD

excessive blogging disorder.



everyone and everything in thise video just looks bloody cool. Albert Hammond Jr looks hot.

I've a question for anyone who plays guitar(read:aman and shao, since you guys are the only people i know who play guitar who may read this question,heh), is this song hard to play?if you didn't watch the video, i'm talking about 'Reptilia' by The Strokes. I'm not really one to pay extra attention to the arrangment and details played specifically by each instrument in a song, but for the past couple days i've been scrutinizing 'Reptilia', and i've just really noticed the..watchamacallit...(riff?melody?) played by Albert Hammond Jr(the one with the white guitar), especially heard/seen during parts between 2:07 to 1:51 in the video. usually i'm just focused on the trademark riff that plays at the beginning of the song, after that i'm off mumbling along with Julian, but as of late i've been concentrating on the guitars and the solos in it. i know nuts about guitars, but it sounds awesome and complicated. is it?

people to meet during the holidays. i have this vague feeling of dread that if i don't meet a few of these people during this holiday, i might not meet them again after(i'm not saying that anyone will DIE, i'm just saying that we'll drift apart from one another).
1.make plans to meet sal,ina,asiah.
2.make plans to meet dee,
3.make plans to see syefik.
4.make plans to see kak dila.
5.nani, miss salmi, kak farhana.

2 subjects down, 2 more to go!

i keep forgetting what coutry Hugo Chavez is president of. Cuba? no, cuba is fidel castro, if i'm not mistaken. Venezuela? My general knowledge is in the dumps. must check on wiki kejap lagi.

oh, you know what? my college's Triple A night is coming up soon, about a week after exams. In others words, prom night(sounds so much more social-butterfly-ish, yea?). Hmm. nak pakai ape ah? Let's aim for OUTRAGEOUS! with glitter make-up, sequinned dress, the works. yeah, right. if past proms/social events are anyhing to account for, i'll probably show up looking like a wallflower. Must learn to incorporate some va va voom into dressing and style.

OMG!i just found a video of the strokes featuring regina spektor. hell yeah.

i am rambling on incoherently, i'm aware.

must.stop.blogging.must.go.STUDY.(but for some reason, i feel like won't).

the signs said stop; we went on whole-hearted, it ended bad, but i loved what we started

are my posts too goody2?

i always thought i was the cynical, pessimistic link in my family, but as i read my old posts yesterday, i thought 'wow. i can be quite the fluffy duracell bunny when not writing the sombre, moody posts'.

um,i may have complained of this before, but at that moment it just felt again like i'm not really quite that certain of my own personality.

If ie ever won this special contest that allowed me to run through a good record store, grabbing whatever CDs i could reach for free, i'd snatch up:
1.Greg Laswell- 'Through Toledo'
2.Fiona Apple - 'Extraodinary Machine'
3.The Kooks - Inside in/inside out'. *i actually bought this cd for luis, but when i came back again to the same store to get one for myself, it was sold out. shoot.
4.Snow Patrol -'Eyes Open'
5.Ray Charles - a greatest hits album or whatever
6.Billie Holiday - have always wanted to listen to her
7.Pete Yorn- 'musicforthemorningafter'
8.Louis XIV 'The best Little Secrets are Kept'
9.Arctic Monkeys - both albums
10.By this time my time would probably almost be up, so i'll just grab armloads of whatever cds that's nearest.

kakak,come home quick. it may not be obvious sometimes, but we do miss you, you know.

During tea just now, my parents were talking about figures and yearly estimations and stuff that i couldn't understand. my mom caught sight of my puzzled looked and explained they were talking about retirement funds, and launches into a lecture about how i should start saving early in order to have an adequate retirement fund when i'm 55.

'That's why a lot of people prefer to work for the government, so that they'll have a pension. like daddy ni, once he retires, he won't get a pension(just a lump sum given straight off)'. If you earn around RM3000 a month, by the time you're 55 you should have around RM700k in order to survive on a daily expense of around RM3500 a month'.

While i'm trying to juggle the process of taking in the information and at the same time thinking 'woh, mom's really got this down', dad chimes in that once he retires he'll turn really stingy and he and mom, in typical fashion starts jesting about how they'll cut back on electricity, save up rain water, and only flush when they do number 2,heh.

Then dad continues, 'when people retire, they have to depend on their children for income.' On cue, they both looked at me silmutaneously, and we laughed about it. but i've just realized something.

My parents have always seemed larger-than-life to me.i've just realized that they are growing old, and it's inevitable that as people grow old, they grow frail.i'm growing up, and soon they're going to rely on me to support them, financially, emotionally, physically. i know it's a natural part of life, and is bound to happen. but i look at myself and think 'i'm not ready to grow up and be responsible'. it bloody scares me that as i grow up i'm going to have to stop leaning on my parents for support, and instead, have them lean on me and trust me with taking care of them. i'm not ready. i'm 19, but at this moment, i still see myself as a kid. i don't want to think about my parents getting old. not yet.

so for now, i'll just join mom and laugh about how my dad is psyched over his new tv and satellite dish. it looks like a kuali sitting out there on the lawn, but it's cool,yo. we can watch channels from france, taiwan, singapore, etc. never mind the fact we can't speak any of their languages. it's the visuals that count.

Blu Skies

i can't cook. like, seriously.

i've yet to read Sophie Kinsella's 'The Undomestic Goddess', but that seems like an apt nickname. i really am a dud when it comes to house-keeping. i hardly help my mom with the cooking, except during raye, when she need the extra (wo)manpower to chop up bawang and daging and stuff. i have, at regular intervals, asked myself, 'what makes the kuah gulai/masak lemak yellow in colour?' and 'what makes kari into kari, besides santan?'. I cannot verify any type of fish at the supermarket except maybe bawal and ikan pari, and catfish. Whenever mom asks me to go ambik some daun kunyit from its plant we have outside, i have to ask 'daun kunyit yang mane satu ah?'.

yikes. i never planned on being a career woman who depends on her maid to cook food for the family, but at the rate that i'm going, i'm going to end up one of those people who sets the stove on fire whenever she attempts to cook. note to self: must learn the workings of the kitchen pronto.

music. As recent as 2 years ago, i don't think i really appreciated the aesthetics of music back then. i don't know how people like my sister or Kye source out their music, but at least i'm related to one of them, because if not my knowledge of music would have been limited to fallout boy and nsync. Kye, kalau anda baca ini, terima kasih banyak2 for recommending to kakak Greg Laswell, i looked him up and went on a downloading frenzy after. Thank you. if you come over for a sleepover again i'll let you have the good piece of chicken. Good music works like a drug for me. I don't know if this is dangerous, but i can literally drown in a song. You know when you find a song that just fits your mood perfectly, and the lyrics uncannily reflect what you're feeling?Aah. Sometimes you get the feeling you just want to float away with the tune. You play it over and over again with hopes that every time you hear the song, your problems(however trivial they are) just chip off and away. Sometimes i'd choose music over company.

I have a one week break before my next paper, and another week of break after that before i sit for my remaining papers. The Cambridge Board people are either very generous, giving us a lot of last-minute cramming time, or they're vey diabolical and want to prolong the agony of exam season.

note to self: don't analyse the papers i've sat for already. dum-dee-dum. think happy thoughts. SMILEY FACES GALORE. yeah. happy.happy.joy.joy.


Saw this on this week's batch of PostSecret cards, and i echo the comment that was sent in respond to it:i wish more desperately than anything, that this postcard was for me.

krispy kreme

Once again i pay tribute to what may be my most favourite song(or at least one of my favourites):


Ooh, check out Snow Patrol's new song 'Signal Fire', which is part of Spiderman 3's soundtrack. wicked. video is very cute as well. i've yet to see spiderman 3, is it any good? i'm much more looking forward to shrek 3 and pirates of the caribbean.

i've had a few bad incidents happen lately, but good music is an awesome way to just drown everything out. and, pardon the pessimism, but now i know i have a valid reason and example for not telling other people about things i think are problems. it just doesn't make a difference, yeah?

Listen to Snow Patrol's 'open your eyes' as well.

I watched the video that lim kit siang posted up, that showed the incident where the Kinabatangan and Jasin MPs gave those stupid bocor remarks. i have come to two conclusions:

1. our parliament debates are like having chickens and ducks squabbling in a reban. i remember someone telling me there's a reson why we never air parliament sessions on tv, except for clips shown during the news. now i can see why.

2. The kinabatangan MP thought he was just oh-so-witty when he hollered the remark. and watching him, you're left thinking: these are the people who are representing the rakyat? bloody hell.

I wish i was doing this:


here's something random. you know how we(not, everybody, but a lot) eat with our hand? but when we go to a fancy restaurant, or a hotel, we usually eat with fork/spoon/knife. if you go somewhere really classy, there's no way we'd use our hand to eat. use untensils, and God help you if your chicken flies off your plate as you try to hold it with your fork and use your spoon to tear pieces of it off.even at school dulu, remember how whenever we had like makan beradab ke ape, for a really important occasion, the wardens would remind us to bring our own fork and spoon? why ah like that? it's as if using your hands to eat is a common thing, a manner not to be displayed at fancy dinners. i think it should be the other way round. we should upgrade the general perception and make eating with our hands part of high-class dining etiquette. All restaurants, no matter how expensive, should provide those teko things yang selalu nampak kat kenduri tu to provide diners with water to wash their hands with. kalau fancy restaurants yang snobbish tu, use teko made out of silver or platinum or whatnot. i mean, eating with our hand is part of our culture. there's no need to think it's inferior to western perceptions of proper dining, right?

i would like to try krispy kreme doughnuts. sedap sangat ke?

Brianstorm(no it's not brain, it's brian)

it's been the first time in a while that i haven't blogged 3 days from the last post. what a difference college makes!

so yeah, classes have started, and my AS is in less than two weeks, but my brain is still recovering from the mush it had become during the break. gotta get into gear, man.

i snooped around the collection of cds in my parents room, plucked the greatest hits albums from The Beatles, Simon and Garfunkel, and Fleetwood Mac from the rack. Why oh why didn't i listen to them before?

Rain is getting more scarce these days. Recently, on a few days the weather has been glorious!(minus the heat factor). I'm talking CLEAR blue skies, the kind with practically no clouds, and makes you walk around with your head tilted up because you're dazzled by all the blueness.

My grandparents anniversary is coming up. 58 years, i think. So we're having this family gathering on sunday. To be honest, i'm not a big fan of family gatherings. not because i don't like my extended family ke ape, i should be so thankful to have them. But it gets tiring to explain to your uncles for the umpteenth time that you're doing a-levels, and yes, you'll probably major in accountancy for your degree nanti, and no, you're not interested in science, and smiling sheepishly when they admonish you for wasting your SPM grades and not going into medicine. I'm not close with most of my cousins, so there'll be the struggle of thinking up stuff to talk about after the general 'hi'. as a matter of fact, the most standard question after the greetings is 'kakak camne?', which refers to my sister who's studying in London. and of course, the pre-requisite after that is 'bile die nak balik?'. yeah. got in down with a pat. aisy. note to self: must learn to stop being so awkward around family. their FAMILY for God's sake.

it will be nice to see nenek though. nenek is the only one who finds my jokes funny :p

The alarm hasn't been effective in waking me up the past few days. i use my phone, so whenever it goes off in the morning, i snooze it a couple times, then switch it off while lazing around for a while before finding enough conciousness to lug myself off the bed. however, on wednesday, i snoozed it, switched it off, and failed to regain conciousness after that. woke up when mom called me over the intercom at 7.45am. 7.45! i'm usually out of the house by 7.30! cripes. And then this morning, jangan cakap about snooze, i slept through the alarm itself. the alarm tone couldn't get through la-la land to wake me up. i find this worrying. i'm going to be one of those people who has to set 5 different alarm clocks to ensure that i'll get up early.

Refer to video:

Brian, top marks for not trying,
so kind of you to bless us with your effortlessness
we're grateful and so strangely comforted.
and I wonder,
Are you putting us under,
Cause we can't take our eyes off the t-shirt and ties combination,
Well see ya later, innovator.

sentimental contemplation

Today we had the parent-teachers meeting at sunway. so mom and i loped off to college tadi, got most of my results.

i'm thankful for my results, but let me just say this here and now. if the General Paper was a person, i'd wrap my hands around his(i assume it's a he) neck, and squeeze as hard as i can. May he asphyxiate. Wargh.

Anyways, yesterday i couldn't sleep, so started thinking about some stuff. soundtrack of that moment of contemplation:


I love this song so much, i've played it 81 times. in a row.

So anyway, i remembered something yesterday. I used to have this classmate during form 2, very peculiar person. He once asked another classmate of mine, this cute girl, to go steady with him. she said no, so that was that. A couple weeks later, he asks a different girl(another classmate, mind you) to be his girlfriend, and she also declines. Yet a few weeks later he asks a different girl(STILL in the same class) to be his. Third time's a charm? nope. she said no too.

Well then, he was heartbroken about the whole ordeal for a while, having scored a hattrick in rejections. But did he learn from it? nope. a couple months later rumors were flying around that he was pursuing this girl from another class. wah. very perseverant ah? Yeah. at least she wasn't from the same class.

There was quite a few people like that in school. rather than liking a certain person whole-heartedly and therefore pursuing them, it's as if they only like the idea of having someone they can call their boyfriend/girlfriend. it doesn't matter who it is, as long as that person is partially attractive and isn't anti-social. as long as ade someone, sudahla.

i wonder if that's something you outgrow or are those people still the same?

i've said before in a previous post that i've never had a boyfriend, and i'm not looking for one. proud of it, babe :p anyway, i also mentioned some of the characteristics i hoped my partner would have, if i ever found him. but yesterday, i thought about it, and asked myself, am i expecting too much? am i subconciously hoping and expecting, in a way, a Mr. Perfect to show up at my doorstep someday?

Because if i am, than that's just stupid. there's no such thing as perfection. isn't it the imperfections of a person and how they deal, cope and define themselves with it, isn't THAT what differentiates one person from the other and therefore makes them attractive to us? isn't that what makes us truly love someone? Because i think to love someone, among other things, is to accept their flaws as well. right?

i think there are also some people who concentrate too much on finding that perfect someone. That's why when we meet somebody who has the potential of being that perfect someone we've been looking for, we tend to portray them or see them in a certain light, perhaps even deluding ourselves into believing they have certain characteristics or qualities. then, when you finally see that they're not perfect after all, and that they're actually different from how we expected, we just end up disappointed.

It's quite a conflicting matter, actually. on one hand, you've got the people who don't care how their partner is, as long as there IS a partner. on the other hand, you've got people who are so intent on finding that one true love(excuse the cliche), that they reject anyone who fails to live up to their standards. I mean, this is if your talking about extremities la. In reality, i guess most people are somewhere in between.

I just have to ask a question. where do you draw the line between having certain standards for your potential partner and not being too uptight or picky?

uh. right. this may have been a little too much contemplation,heh. but i really just had to get it off my chest.

i guess that in general, i think that now, at 18 going on 19 years of age, i put a lot of faith into the whole soulmate thing. this may sound corny, but i really do think there IS someone out there for each of us, and it's just a matter of time and God's permission that we'll find him/her. even with all the divorces flying around now, i still believe in this. i don't know. just optimistic, i guess. Besides, isn't our jodoh already pre-ordained by God? so yeah. no worries.

hark at me talking about jodoh and stuff. bukan main lagi, ek?

here and there

this post will be scattered all over the place, so bear with me if you're actually willing to read through it,yea? lol, i'm sorry.

i spent quite a lot of money over the span of this holiday. in all honesty, i spent my allowance surplus as if dah abis A levels terus, sedangkan belum habis second semester pon lagi. but it was so much fun! in truth, this holiday feels like one of the best i've ever had.

not to say that i did anything special or go somewhere exotic, because i didn't. in fact, i spent most of the time at home. but that's the whole beauty of it! i did all the crap i wasn't able to do before because of homework or studies or classes. i bought 2 cds and actually had the luxury of just lazing around on the bed listening to them while checking out the album cover and reading the lyrics. i went out and had BLUEBERRY PANCAKES WITH ICE-CREAM with an old friend. i stayed up all night to WATCH TV. i played a few pieces on the piano. i washed my car, giving it the full works, vacuum and all. there was time to read the papers!

I went out with me mum yesterday, and we bought this bag at 50% off, the bargain being half the reason i'm happy with it. the thing is, on the bag there's this design made out of gold bolt-head thingies, studded into the bag. i thought it was some sort of random design, looked a bit like a flower. skali tgk(mom had to point it out to me), it's actually in the shape of a tengkorak. a skeleton head.

right. i bought the bag, which is moderately large in size, to alternate as a school bag, and also to use when i go out with friends on a day trip so that i can stuff in my telekung(i've had enough of using the telekung available in places like midvalley, or klcc). now that i think of it, i'm going to be carrying my telekung around in a bag that has a tengkorak on it.

yeah well, whatever. what difference does it make,anyway? i'm not superstitious, am i? no, i'm not. pfft.

but starting from now i'm seeing it as a big smiley face on my bag. that, or it's a picture of a wrestling mask.

oh, i watched this v-log of an autralian woman on youtube, and she said that many austalians like tim tams, the way americans like oreos. betul ke aijud/anna? have you guys been aussified enough to have developed this habit too?heh. so, based on her video and the comments she got, there's this thing called a tim tam slam, where you bite off each end of the tim tam, and use it like a sort of straw to suck up the hot beverage you're drinking(coffee/tea/milo/whatever), then, with the tim tam softened, you pop it into your mouth. i was so curious about this that i bought some tim tams that day from the supermarket. they even had intructions on how to do it printed on the packaging! so i tried it out. it's quite good. a tad bit messy though, since the chocolate coating the tim tam will melt and slide around and leave smudges on your fingers/mug/lips.

i want to watch Blades of Glory. Nothing like a good Will Ferrell movie to laugh to.

I really should start remembering that my AS is coming up.

one more thing. i cry too easily when watching movies. if someone dies in a movie, i cry. if someone's cat dies in the movie, i cry. if the movie is about some ants on the sidewalk getting troden by a shoe, with proper panning and a good soundtrack, i WILL cry.

how the heck do i overcome this?

let's talk tunes

when i was younger, i used to find it embarassing to admitt to my sister that i liked hilary duff's 'so yesterday'.

Some people who are into rock scorn people who listen to pop(no kakak, not you :p). Some people admonish others who go crazy over top 40 hits and think its better to listen to unmainstream music. well, that's all bollocks, i think. it's almost inevitable to like pop, simply because pop it's an abso-freakin-lutely humongous genre. And what should it matter whether a song is mainstream or unmainstream?

But wait, let's evaluate here. There IS a good reason why some people would scorn pop. There was this one time in GP class, we were discussing music, and my teacher was mentioning how some portions of pop music can often be a bit too simple, and quite empty-headed in terms or lyrics. I agree. I recently heard the new song by Vanessa Hudgens, which had lyrics like these:

When you call I don't know if I should pick up the phone every time,
I'm not like all my friends who keep calling up the boys, I'm so shy

BWAHAHAHA, who makes up this stuff? it's bad, and i bet they used it only because they couldn't find any better line to rhyme with the first one. And of course, you have Paris Hilton, whose music is mostly made up of synthesised studio alterations built around her, ahem, voice. Yeah, well.

You know who i think is a perfectly adequate example of quality pop? Mariah Carey(or is she r&b, i don't know). I personally think the 'Emancipation of Mimi' album should have won more Grammys. Oh, have you listened to the song 'Breakdown' from her old album? That song alone accounts for why i have her listed under my most played artists list.

One of my pet peeves concerning songs is when people who don't actually have a good voice sing songs that i like. Prime contoh? cassie(ala, yang nyanyi lagu 'me and you' tu). I don't like that me and you song, but i do dig 'long way to go'. It's catchy, nice beat. could do with better lyrics, though. anyways, the song is ok, but she can't sing! She keeps in tune, yes, but her voice is so weak, i don't understand. is she sengaje tak nak show off her vocal capabilites or is it that she really can't sing powerfully? Why did they sign her up in the first place? Sebab die lawa, is it? Bleargh.

I have more respect for people who write their own songs, but then again, if we only depend on artists to write their own songs, who will sing the nice songs songwriters who can't sing come up with,ey? yeah.

Oh, and about the whole mainstream thing, i think there is a certain appeal to listening to unmainstream music. for one thing, there's a whole bunch of superb songs out there that you probably won't find on the radio and have to look for yourself, so when you find one, it's extra nice, a personal treasure. And it's twice as fun when you find another person who knows the song too. Mainstream music can get annoying when a song you like becomes a song everyone adores and becomes the most overplayed song on the radio until whenever you hear it, you run away screaming. yeah. but really, at the end of the day, it doesn't really matter, does it. if you like it, then listen to it. habis cerite.

I was, and probably still am, a bit of a teeny-bopper. After the disaster that was Beyonce's 'Dangerously in Love', my teeny-bopperism fell a bit, i guess. but still. you'll catch me crooning along to Jojo whenever it comes on the radio. But please, don't confuse me with someone who will sing along with Akon and ask people to smack that or do tai bo or whatever. I despise that song. or any song by Akon, for that matter. but that's just my opinion.

oh,oh! and what about the whole malaysian music versus indonesian music thingie? hot fm was criticized once for playing too much music from indonesian artists rather than malaysian ones. hmm. well, all i can say is, indonesian bands have better videos. i'm not a fan of the drippy malay band songs with the singer singing in the really, REALLY whiny voice moaning about lost love and the video always shows them kat tgh2 padang or tempat berpasir and all the other members look like their playing their instruments semi-comatose or what. How come local music videos(save for a handful) usually have dreadful quality that makes it look so tacky? is it that we can't afford it or what?

Yeah,well. whatever. just listen to whatever you want to, ok? don't be intimidated by other peoples' musical preferences, and don't let other peoples' opinion of what constitutes 'good music' deter you from liking any song whatsoever. i'm saying this as a reminder to myself too, go figure.

well anyhoo, i am currently crazy over this song. the yeah yeah yeahs are cool. a bit weird.

Doi-headedness

If you're a doi-head like me, you're bound to do some really, really, REALLY stupid stuff now and then.

My recent doi-head moment happened yesterday when I was SUPPOSED to be in genting. tak jadilah. aisy. no matter. my cousin syefik came over! so that was fun. syefik, you'll laugh when you read this one.

My dad uses a laptop, which has a slot where you can directly insert your SD card or multimedia card. I usually use it for my handphone's multimedia card, to transfer songs or whatnot.

well, to cut a long story short, yesterday, i went and put my sony cybershot's memory stick into the slot. Ironically, that very same afternoon syefik had asked me if a memory stick could fit into it, and i had answered no. but for some reason, i forgot all this, and, thinking that the memory stick was the same size, went and slot the memory stick into the SD card slot.

Exhibit A: The SD/multimedia card slot


Exhibit B: Comparison between an SD card and a sony memory stick.


So i went and slot in the memory stick. and it went right in. the whole thing. If it's an SD/multimedia card, it would partially stick out when you push it in, but not this one. uh-uh. the whole thing slid in, and it stayed in.

So i thought, 'oh,crap', and i started poking at it to get it out. which, of course, inevitably ended up with it sliding in even further. and after that, it got stuck. wouldn't budge.

Panic hadn't set it yet, so i tried jiggling it even more. Then, with rising apprehension, i took a pen from the jar on my dad's study table and tried to pry it out.

10 minutes later, with all efforts futile, mild panic finally came around and i resorted to lifting the laptop with the slot faced downwards and started shaking it with hope that inertia would lend me a hand and make the darn thing fall out.

Nope. no can do. Freaking-out was just around the corner, but i maintained a sort of silent(albeit a bit hysterical) composure, and starting to cabut all the wires and cables out of the laptop. subsequently, i proceeded to stand up, lift the lap-top, and did my next course of action, which was to shake the thing even harder. Maybe inertia was asleep and needed a bit of a wake-up call.

Ok, the thing still wouldn't budge. setting the laptop back down on the table, i was silently cursing the sony corporation under my breath, cursing them for making different sized memory sticks instead of the standard size all the other companies make. I concluded it was all part of their evil marketing conspiracy to make sure people had to buy other sony equipment to accomodate the stupid sony memory-sticks. In short, it was part of their plan to dominate the world.

My mind flashed forward to the near future, when dad would come home from work and i'd have to tell him that the daughter he had invested his money in to do A-levels in Sunway with hopes of following the footsteps of his eldest daughter went and slide a memory stick into his laptop and got it stuck there. AAH! somehow, that image got me panicking even further, and i started trying to get the thing out frantically. It was sorta like having to dismantle a bomb, and finding out that the clock, which was set to [5:00], meant 5 minutes, instead of the 5 hours you initially thought(a classic mistake only a doi-headed person would make,btw). You get frantic.

I was even examining the laptop to see where the screws were in case i could unscrew it, remove the outer shell, and get the memory stick out(when you get frantic, your inner McGuyver wannabe personality comes to surface).

In the end, it came down to this.

Exhibit C: The tools


A nail-clipper, a letter-opener, and a stationery blade. uh-huh.

Ceh, macam ape je. Nolah, i used mainly the nail-clipper and the letter-opener. I went and insert the letter-opener's tip into the slot so it was pressing on the memory-stick, and i used the nail-clipper handle and pushed it in so that it was UNDER the memory-stick. Then i kepitkan the two things as hard as i could and used it to pull the memory-stick back out.

Amazingly enough, it worked. i'm a bit in shock myself. common sense doesn't occur to me often, so when i do something and it actually works, it's quite a surprise. I call the technique i used the 'chopstick manouvre'.(indulge me by layan-ing my petty McGuyver/spy-work fantasies, ok?)

Well, thank God it did. I tested my memory stick as well as the slot again with a proper-sized card, and both worked fine. Nasib baik.

So kawan2, the moral of the story is, don't by sony digicams.

Nah,just kidding. the moral is, don't main sumbat je a memory-stick into a mysterious slot in your laptop. or, better yet, boleh sumbat, just make sure you've mastered the choptstick manouvre.

tri-coloured

don't you hate it when people give one word text messages?

it sounds so curt. you type this nice moderately long msg, with quips or small jokes inserted, and you're chuckling with delight by your own cleverness at typing a good message. skali tgk when the person replies, it just says 'nope', or just the word 'ok'. aiie! you feel so cut up short.

yeah well. some people would argue buat ape nak bazirkan tenaga type banyak2 when one word would suffice?pfft. well buat ape nak waste a 10 cent message with one word when you could get your value for money and type 10 or even more,huh?HUH? ah well. needless to say, i still don't like one-word messages. give at least 5 words la. make that 7. or ten.

This morning i woke up late, as i usually do when there's no class. my brother was banging on the door and handed me the phone when i opened. well,it wasn't a call for me, it was this guy from an elecrical company asking for my dad. apparently my dad won something(he was supposedly chosen 'randomly' to win) and has to go pick it up in shah alam.

this company's called a couple times before already. my dad thinks its some bogus scam thingie so he doesn't want to go pick it up. the last time they called(which i answered), they said the deadline for him to go pick his prize up was a couple weeks ago. skali tgk dieorg call lagi.peh.

so i answer the phone, still groggy from sleep, and the guy on the phone asks if i could salin an address and calling number to pass to dad when he gets back(he went to johor today). i didn't realise yet that these people were the same ones as dulu, so i asked him to hold while i grabbed some paper and a pen.

i was looking for a pen, phone crooked against my ear and shoulder, when i heard him talking to his colleague. 'ni anak die, nak suruh dile salin alamat. baru bangun tido!' *chuckle,chuckle*. ppft.

so i curtly asked for the address, and he starts reading it to me. skali i realised it was the same people so i told him that dad doesn't want the gift.

'la,kenape die tak nak?ni barang die kat sini.'
'saye tak tahu, dah die tak nak ambik, kenape nak paksa pulak?'
'tak,sebab ni barang die, suruhla die datang sini bawak ic dengan nombor rujukan untuk claim.'
'yelah, nanti saya ckp dgn die'.
'ok,itujelah. skarang adik pegi mandi tau.'
'HAHAHAHA,kelakarnye!bye.'

that kind of humour or know-it-allness rubs bad against you when you haven't had breakfast yet.

it's a nice day. all blue skies with fluffy white clouds. and yesterday, i had the delight of seeing this.



orange and purple and blue!

ain't no mountain high, ain't no valley low, ain't no river wide enough

my bad for becoming the emotional ranting chick in the last post, sorry. oh well. a sudden lapse of cool calm intellect(not that i have any even when i'm not ranting around)could happen to anyone, or so i'd like to think.

thanx to those who gave words of encouragement. highly appreciated.

my mocks end tomorrow and therefore am in a highly pre-celebratory mood :p i'll have a week and a half of holiday starting tomorrow! not that long, but a week without accounting and econs would be nice. nani, want to catch a movie?

so you've probably heard about the virginia tech shootings. damn. i was thinking it couldn't get any worse after columbine, but i guess not. and it's sad the way some screwed up people are getting mad and skewed against asians just because the shooter was south korean. just read some of the comments at youtube and you'll see what i mean.

what's going to happen to the world now?

oh,for fellow muslimins, you should really check out this series of videos by the user 'ummahfilms' on youtube. check it out!really good stuff. even though the guy who's in the video is a muslim convert from the states, the things and situations he talks about just click with muslims here too. and he presents it in way that isn't intimidating or over my head. i came across it the other day, ntah camne it was linked on the homepage. it was good timing, i must say. very good :) my favourite is the one about ramadhan and also the one about distractions in solat. watch the one where he talks about how he converted too.

My friends are planning to go to genting this monday, so if nothing gets in the way, i'll go too. one of the extra perks of being in semashur is getting to go genting if your're in form 3 or form 5. for those yang tak tahu, genting highland was right smack in front view of our school. every morning during assembly you'd see the awana hotel or whatever it's called right at the top. yeah,man :p

i asked jia yee if she would go on the space shot, and she emphatically shook her head,heh. isn't it awful how when you go on that thing, it slowly brings you to the top, then it stops for a while and in that complete silence you're freaking out with the suspense of waiting for the darn thing to drop? and then there's a 'whoosh' and then it PLUNGES down and you want to go'AAAAAAAAAAAAH!!' only wait, you can't exactly scream, because your stomach and its contents have all gone up in your mouth, and you're slightly aware that your butt isn't touching the seat and you have that swooning feeling in the pit of your stomach like when you go down a hill fast, but here it's a 100 times worse. then the thing bounces and you're heading back up, your stomach is back in the right place, your throat is unclogged so you can start screaming, but then it goes back down again, and even though it's not as bad as the first time, it's still pretty horrible. and your stomach misplaces itself again, so your scream gets cut off. 'AAAA-'.

heh. should have just stuck to the gondola thingie with the plastic gondolier in the indoor theme park,eh?once you go on the space shot, the roller-coaster in times square seems so...tame. ahah, don't you think so?

anyway, cheers to a happy time, for you as well as me. let's think sunny thoughts.

you know how since high school musical's been out practically every school wants to emulate it and bring out their inner vanessa hudgens and zacharias smith ke ape tah name die? yeah. i was just thinking, if our college ever does a musical, and for some mystical reason i was starring(the inner workings of the brain conjures up scary mental images), i'd want the climax of the musical to be this song:



i'll be tammi to your marvin gaye! :P (don't snicker)

Go ahead. be all awkward

we do a lot of things to impress other people. well, i do.

Both consciously and sub-conciously, i think we channell a lot of energy, emotions, thinking, and feelings towards what other people think.

Honestly?

1. i have acted a certain way to blend with others.
2. i have questioned my beliefs and my faith.
3. i get worried when there are no comments for a post.
4.i feel stupid when i extend a hand of friendship and it seems like the opposite end isn't responding.
5.i do not like it when the neighbours dogs bark a lot and wake me up from sleep.

some of you, when u read this, might think 'tah papenye', or 'i can't believe she thinks about stuff like this', or 'sume nak complain'. well i'm tired of tempering my posts accordingly to make sure i don't sound too selfish or self-centred.

6.i wrote an email to a guy i barely knew. i read his blog, and for some reason, i got up the nerve to email him. i, being the overmaginative creature that i am, had these fantasies that we'd end up as friends, that i would be able to talk to him.
well, he emailed a reply once, and that was it. so that's fantasy's down the drain. it's no one's fault. i was too over-expectant. got carried away with bloody fantasies and daydreams again. i should have realised it wouldn't work out. they never do. they never ever EVER do. i'm just too stupid to realise that.

7. i have too many imaginary conversations.

8.i still have this feeling that i don't know who i am. who the hell am i? what exactly are my opinions, what do i think of, am i the type who would swear in her blog or do i not do it so as not to offend/shock other people?

i don't know.

If you've read up to this point, maybe by now you think i'm pathetic. looking for sympathy.

well damn u.

9.i don't want to post about things that are cheerfully optimistic or have lots of smiley faces and exclamation marks in them at the moment.

10.i'm sick of fair-weather friends. where are you when i need you?

is this too much?

i'm putting this dowm to exam stress(if there is such a thing) an unstable hormones. maybe by tomorrow this will all be a bad dream.

maybe by tomorrow i'll wake up and this will all be gone.

Random

Random thought. A large portion of the students studying in the UK are taking pics of the Eye of London, while all the local students here are taking pics of the Eye on Malaysia. and now students in Singapore are going to be able to do the same. pendek kate, it's going to be a trend. everyone wants a giant ferris wheel.

Random activity. If you guys have nothing to do, go look up your old copy of Harry Potter and the Philosophers' Stone. Flip to the page where Harry first comes across the mirror of Erised. Read the phrase that was inscripted on the mirror(the itallic text that sounds like some kind of elfish magical language). Read it backwards. You'll have to piece a few letters differently(i don't mean switch it around, just attach the letters together a bit differently), but you should be able to read it. Die-hard harry potter fans would know about this i guess, but i didn't sampaila a week ago.

Random songs. this time, it's not just a suggestion, it's an order. Evryone MUST listen to THE KINKS!!!Particularly the song 'You Really Got Me'. I'd never even heard of them before, sampaila hari tu. It was tickling to find out the song was realeased in the sixties. Oh, and on a less enthusiastic but still encouraging note, try listening to Rivermaya's 'Balisong'. Everything about the song is mushy, from the lyrics to the tune to the singers' voice, but still. it's nice to chill out to.

Random thought number 2. Really should head for the books now.

Senang hati

i feel a bit tired.

either that, or i'm exaggerating so as not to feel guilty about diverting time that could have been spent studying towards blogging instead.

i went to badminton club practice on monday night with shao and tai. it was in the multi-purpose hall at college. anyway, usually the hall is reserved for the badminton club for practices, but on that day the students from monash were also using it to practice for their cultural night. there were quite a number of people, most of them seated on the stands on the upper half of the hall. so we played on as usual, using three courts.

When we started playing, i realised i was feeling nervous. i was playing on the third court, smack centre in the hall. i remembered how it was back at school. i'd never dare to play in front of a crowd, especially a crowd with guys, because they wouldn't hesitate to scrutinize your mistakes and laugh when you played wrong. i remember playing tennis at the courts and a couple of guys were clearly annoyed/amused and considered me as wasting precious court space because i wasn't terrer and couldn't hit properly. that ended up with me flushing with embarassment and giving up the court to go to the practice wall instead.

that monday night was a hallmark for me because i realized it was the first time since school finished that i wasn't nervous or pressured or bajet control just because a lot of people were there and could see if i made mistakes.

it was the first time i realized that finally, i didn't give a damn at that moment about other people and what they might think of me. main je la. kalau u miss a hit, just pick the shuttle up and play on. and i stopped being so self-concious. no one was watching anyway, they were rehearsing. and even if they watched, so what? macamla they've never slipped up in public before themselves. AND, even if they DID catch me slip up and commented on how i played with mean remarks, seriously, who gives a sh**?

all feelings of apprehension just vanished when i realized that. and badminton practice became a helluva lot more fun.

i know i've been bashing semashur life a lot, and i'm sorry about that. i'm not saying that semashur didn't teach me anything, because it sure did. it taught me tons of stuff.

but as days pass on i am beginning to fall in love more and more with life OUTSIDE semashur. it's like i'm learning confidence(screw all those motivation camps and ceramah that told us to be berkeyakinan diri) all over again.

yelah, life isn't peachy. there are still bad mood days. i still complain about stuff, (mostly just self-centred thingies). there are still days where i put '3 libras' on and curse a lot. i'm nowhere near the person i'd like to be. but in general, secare kesuluruhannye, i think i'm actually HAPPY. happy in a way i haven't been before.

at least, i think i am. Alhamdulillah. i'll take what i can get.

Roz, my succulent little garden snail

a bump into nani at the stairs kat college after class tadi led to us gallavanting off to pyramid to catch a movie. we originally wanted to watch mukhsin, but when we found out neither of us had watch 300 yet, we decided to watch that instead.

300. whatever you've heard about the movie is pretty much true. Great graphics, a little bit of a mystical/fantasy aura to it, very nicely done, and tons of half naked guys with six-packs running around everywhere, woot! it's no wonder that iranians are mad about it though. the movie's portrayal of the persians was just plain freaky.

Anyways, i'm itching to type, so thought i'd post a commentary about the 10 movies that I think are great. i'm definitely not a movie buff, there are tons of movies i should watch but haven't, and i'm not particularly good at analysing plots or performances or whatnot. but still, just wanted to mention some movies that are pleasurable to watch. the type of movies yang no matter how many times they show it on astro, you'd still watch them over and over again. let's see if we have any in common, yeah?

in no particular order:

1.My Little Bride

Back in school, i had caught on to the korean movie fever(thanx to sal, aiman, anna, chim and the rest,heh). i don't keep up with korean movies anymore, but back then i came across this movie, and bought the vcd. one word to describe it. SWEET!(as in the cutesy-girlie sweet, not the sweet like how ashton kutcher said it in 'dude, where's my car?). I just find it such a charming(if a bit illogical) movie. Moon Geun-yeong was the epitome of cute.


2.Finding Nemo

I defy anyone not to like this movie. How can you NOT like it? it's hilarious. Finding nemo, in my opinion may be one of the best childrens' movie EVER(is this too strong a statement?).


3.The Italian Job

I've never watched the original one, the one starring michael caine made in the sixties tu, so i can't really compare and determine which one is better. But either way, i think the movie is fun. i guess it's just average in terms of plot, nothing specacular about it ke ape, but i enjoy it immensely. i find it tons more entertaining than other movies that are similar, like ocean's twelve, for example.


4.Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

One of those rare movies where jim carrey acts normal. The soundtrack rocks. i like this one because honestly, who wouldn't want to forget someone and erase them out of their life at some point?


5.Alice in Wonderland

'"The time has come", the walrus said, "to talk of many things. of shoes and ships and sealing wax, of cabbages and kings, and why the sea is boiling hot and whether pigs have wings"...(the last part i forgot/couldn't understand). There are a few adaptations of the story, but i like the disney animation best. I like how there are biscuits and sweets that can make you really tall or really small. plus, a sly fat purple-striped tabby is always interesting.


6.Pride and Prejudice

This movie appeals to my secret, deeply hidden, rarely seen(or so i'd like to think) jiwang side, heh :p Besides the fact that everyone's accent is lovely, i guess it's interesting because it manages to give a prim and proper yet touching portrayal of the classic tale of falling in love surprisingly with the person you thought you hated. sountrack is brilliant.


7.Dracula:Dead and Loving It

funny,funny,funny! Watch it, if you've yet to do so. Full of obvious and blatant humour(what else can you expect from Leslie Nielson?), this one memang rocks my socks off.

funny scenes:
1.Renfield: [running after Dracula]Master!MASTER!......I mean, mister,mister!
2.Jonathan Harker:[talking about Lucy, who got bitten by Dracula] She's alive??'
Van Helsing: She is Nosferatu.
Jonathan Harker: She's Italian??

Heh. maybe only those who have watched the movie will get why it's funny.


8.Amelie

Kakak's favourite movie, kalau tak silap. i haven't watched it in quite a while, so i've forgotten a chunk of scenes, but the movie really is lovely. Audrey Tautou plays her part superbly, and Mathieu kassovitz is cute. i completely encourage anyone who hasn't watched it yet to do so. It's poignant!


9. Back to the Future(all three installations)

Christopher lloyd and Michael J Fox are the perfect combination. Don't need words to describe it.


10.Monsters, Inc.

The other best kids' movie besides finding nemo. I dig the originality of the movie(in terms of the whole monster-in-the-cupboard adjoined to a whole monster city concept and using screams as an energy source, etc). Billy crystal was fab.

Mike Wazowski: Roz, my tender oozing blossom, you're looking fabulous today. Is that a new haircut? tell me it's a new haircut. It's got to be a new haircut. New makeup? you had a lift? You had a tuck? You had something? Something has been inserted in you that makes you look like a....listen, i need a favor.

So there you go. Movies i would very much like to watch but haven't had the chance to do so:
1. The Breakfast Club
2. The Shawshank Redemption
3. Kill Bill
4. Lost in Translation
5. The Godfather

Any other movie that should be added to the list?

Shiny, shimmery, splendid

i went to the UK edufair on saturday, spent about half an hour there. the rest of the afternoon was spent accompanying my classmate Chris on a shopping/browsing expedition. You may think this sounds perfectly ordinary, but trust me, it isn't. Have you ever went shopping with a guy whom is on first-name terms with all the salesgirls at the Chanel and Dior counters in KLCC? It was an experience to remember. there i was, fumbling through the price tags, internally reminding myself not to shriek in disbelief at the expensiveness of everything, while he was going in an out of changing rooms and lamenting the fact he didn't bring enough cash to buy the exquisite(and jaw-droppingly mahal) jacket,etc. ahah, i had fun though.

So anyway, the real highlight of my weekend was on sunday night. i went to the '3 diva' concert at bukit jalil. Diyana won two tickets for it(through a question and SLOGAN contest, fuh. slogan contests are so demotivating for me) and she invited me along! that, i must mention here, was a tremendously nice gesture, and i am VERY happy and grateful for it. THANX AGAIN DIYANA!!(if you're reading this). it was my first ever concert, i might add.

For those who may be out of touch with what's going on(ahem,cue aussie or other overseas students,heh), the 3 diva concert was a gig given by kris dayanti, ruth sahanaya and titi dj.

I must honestly say, i didn't know any songs by titi dj, and by kris dayanti and ruth sahanaya pon tahu yang famous je la. but seriously, the concert was great. you have to respect their voices. true divas, man. they blended together perfectly. harmonies were no problem for them. Plus, the arrangment of the orchestra was terrific la.


A lupe-nak-pasang-flash, not to mention senget pic of me and dirs. i still like it. we're both smiling good :)

We were sitting on the upper tier of the stadium, so it was quite a distance from the stage, but at least we were seated in a position directly in front of centre stage. plus, they all wore really shimmery costumes, so we had no problem spotting them :p


The only slack thing were the malaysian performers. dayang was good vocal wise, but i don't think nurul or that other woman sang that well. plus, their outfits were too much. nurul wore some backless short number, that other woman wore some kind of multi-coloured toga wrapped around her diagonally, while dayang wore what frankly looked to me like pajamas(albeit a sexy one) made with labuci. geez.

but still. For a first concert, i think '3 diva' was a really good one.

Concerts i will try my darndest to find the money and the company to go to if these people ever decide to come here:
1. John Mayer
2. Kings of convenience
3. the fray
4. Louis XIV(though i doubt very much if they'll ever come)

Heavy

Doc Emmett Brown: "1.21 GIGAWATTS?!1.21 gigawatts!"

Marty: "What the hell's a gigawatt?!!"

*******************************

watched 'Back to the Future' again. How can you not love it?

So anyway. I'm home alone for the next couple days, my parents and my brother went on vacation. I nobly opted not to join for the sake of not missing class. Drats. on the bright side, mom stocked up the pantry and fridge with lots and lots of frozen pizza, maggi goreng, instant chicken chop, fresh bannanas, crackers, cereal, boxes of brahims', seafood spread, bread, oldtown hazelnut white coffee and other delectables for me to gorge on. yummy.

Random staff i want to ramble about. Did you read in the papers about the girl who was rumored to have scored 19A1s(but didn't)had actually wrote two books about her 'success' even BEFORE she got her results? Pfft. Kudos to her for getting 18As, with 14A1s that includes all pure science subjects(damn terrer wei), but still. Pfft.

Did you read about the legal dispute between the publishing house and the author who had written the book for Mawi's now famous ex-fiancee, called 'Catatan Duka Diana Naim'?

Catatan Duka Diana Naim? ape BENDE ni?

In my opinion, this whole mawi/diana naim thingie is ridiculous. I have no right to judge, but i personally quite dislike mawi for his actions of just dumping his fiancee, and at the same time, i dislike this Diana Naim person because i think she's taking a little too much advantage of the 'injustice' that's supposedly been done to her. But that's just my opinion. Either way, the whole affair has been blown out of proportion, and everyone should just shut up about it, and start being concerned with more important affairs, like how muslims, MUSLIMS, in the yala province in Thailand shot a vanload of buddhists execution style. That's just not right.

And yet newspapers(especially malay ones with sudut hiburan or whatnot) still love to wash other peoples' linen in the gossip columns. and why is that? because tons of malays out there still love to just lap it all up.

I have said a few times before to some people that i deteste typical malay mentality. but now, as i ponder this, i ask myself, what exactly IS typical malay mentality? what are the characteristics of people who possess this mentality?

All this while, i had a picture in my head of a typical malay person. A person who goes and watch SENARIO tapings, or goes to akademi fantasia concerts. Someone who enjoys watching yusoff haslam movies and goes to karnival sure heboh every year. The person who spends practically their WHOLE life surrounded by malays ONLY, and rarely if not never attempt to actually make friends with non-malays. To them, non-malays should adapt to the ways of malays, and not vice versa. A person who doesn't read ANY books except those novels by Alaf 21 or comics. A person who doesn't attempt to read newspapers and doesn't know at least the gist of current issues but instead is busy screaming whenever mawi comes on tv.

I spent 5 years in school in a batch that was 100% malay, and no offense to anyone whatsoever, but when i think back on those 5 years, a large chunk of it is recalled with either shame, venom, or a lot of hate. I developed the impression that 90% of the guys at my school had typical malay mentality. the type of mentality yang membuatkan dieorg slambe badak gune language that was purely ugly and disgusting, to anyone, even girls. to them, they had the frickin' right to say ANYTHING they wanted, and my God, were they ego like hell or what. they wouldn't hesitate to embarass a girl or insult her to the max if it meant saving their own face. They made shameful, hurtful remarks about anyone and didn't even have the damn dignity to at least keep it to themselves.

And the girls? for me, the girls(myself included) just subjected ourselves to the boys' way of thinking. none of us, save for a few ,dared to be different, to be bold or more daring or retaliate. at school, we had a lot of muhasabah diri. A LOT. each time involved us being reminded that we should work hard, treasure the sacrifices our parents have made for us, and be a better person. Ok, fair enough. we all need to be reminded of our faith and our duty to Allah, as well as to our parents. But there was this one time, during a muhasabah diri, a senior pulled me over to a corner and asked nicely if i had ever felt like my prayers weren't answered by God. I obediently answered yes. And she answered, 'nak tahu kenape? sebab adik tak pakai tudung'.

I don't think you guys would understand, but let me just tell you why her question angered me. it wasn't because i was rebellious to the fact she wanted me to wear a tudung, no, not that at all. i was just pissed off by the way she did it. Who is she to know why or why not God answers or doesn't answer my prayers? but still. i try to remind myself that she was just trying to give me advice the most effective and nicest way she could think of. She just didn't have the tact to phrase is it in a better way.

Ah. i'm going off on a tangent here. sorry. Anyway, back to my point. hmm. what exactly IS my point? i'm not exactly sure myself.

I just feel like sometimes, when i look at some malays, i can't help but feel like they, or maybe me myself, come from a different planet. i tend to pass judgement on some malay people and brand them as having typical malay mentality even without knowing them properly first.

racism is considered evil, senseless, and stupid. how about discrimination against your own race?

sparks

Taking my cue from Aijud,(hark the orange blog!), i decided it was time to change the colours for my own blog. Hope it actually looks ok, i'm quite crappy when it comes to matching colours nicely. Yet another awesome way to waste time.

my ideas for blogging, if before were quite abundant and ever flowing(i had lotsa stuff to babble about,heh), are now gradually drying up. I find that any idea for a post seems either too self-centred, petty, artificial, or just plain stupid. I want to blog, but dread thinking up the content.

In fact, i'm currently starting to detest practically anything i write. Whether it's for my blog or for GP class(bagi yg tak tahu, GP class is considered my english class. We don't learn normal stuff like grammar or comprehension or whatnot, but instead we discuss current issues and write essays), i teeter precariously towards hate whenever i (reluctantly) read over what i've written.

I absolutely DID NOT want to read the essays i had written for a recent GP test, and with good reason, i tell you. Every sentence seems immature, unlearned, and sometimes even pathetic. Aisy. I'm supposed to be constructing clear sentences that are concise, knowledgeable, and straight to the point. I'm supposed to write like an A level student.

I'm still writing like a high school student. I still crap around on a point for 10 sentences when i could have explained it with just one.

Back in sekolah menengah, i was quite confident(ahem, vanity alert,sorry) with my writing. Not saying my essays were spectacular ke ape la, but i was pretty sure my compositions met the requirements for getting an A.

But here in college, it's a whole different ballgame. and i keep striking out. or i hit the ball but can't run fast enough to get to first base safely(my ballgames take on the form of baseball :P).Suddenly my writing skills are just not adequate enough. And i'm TRYING to improve with each test, but i still can't seem to be able to think and express logical evaluations for the topic i'm writing on!It's frustrating, oh yes it is. I've yet to get an A for GP. Bloody hell. How come kakak could get an A? wait, don't answer that.

Aisy. pushing that aside, i went to a birthday get together today. it was fun :) i won't babble about it much, but it involved birthday boy being dragged by the shirt(as he pulled on someone ELSE'S shirt in an unsuccessful attempt to save himself) and pushed into the pool. priceless.

Music recommendations(for all the imaginary people who actually take heed of my suggestions):
1. the stills - of montreal. Love the beat and the guitars. Lyrics make no sense at all.
2. cold war kids - hang me up to dry. the video was featured on youtube, maybe it's still there. the singer's voice rests on a fine line between uniquness and just plain screeching when it hits the high parts, u decide. The bass line is addictive, even though it's just a couple of notes.
3.coldplay - sparks. for good ol' beautiful, sad music.

And for a little bit of nostalgic cheer:

a box of secrets

It started with the magnetic mini-notice board mom bought me from ikea. It's finally up above my table, mr.Lo (the handyman) came over and drilled all the necessary holes and whatnot to put it up. I had stuck a list of maths formulae and a couple of pictures on it, but besides that, it was pretty bare. so last night i spent some time rummaging around the room for things to decorate my board with.

That was when i suddenly remembered the box that i keep in my bedside table cupboard. It's been ages since i looked through it. So i went and took it out, set it on my bed, and started going through the contents. The box is an old shoebox from when my mom bought her sneakers(circa 1997 or 1998, i think). I swiped the box from my mom mase tu and started storing everything i considered 'important' in it. I still do.

Practically every birthday card i've received is in there. Letters sent to me from friends. Letters i wrote but never sent. Every diary i've had since stadard 3. Pictures that mean something to me. Emails from special friends i had printed out, because i loved them so much and so i printed and brought them to asrama to me, since we didn't have much chance of going online there. My form 4 results slip. A few messages i got from those request thingies we had at school. My sekolah rendah nametags. My tunas puteri badge. My gigi susu(yeah, i kept 3 of them in a jewellery case. weird,yes). The speech i had to give out during sekolah rendah as KP sempena the retirement our my Guru Besar. My standard 6 choral speaking poem.

To say that this box is valuable to me would be an understatement.

So i spent my time going through eveything again, one by one. Ahah, it was bloody fun and sad at the same time. Seeing these things make you recollect and reminisce and think about what has happened since the moment you put it in the box. I found a card someone had sent me via post for my birthday, and i practically gasped, because i had completely forgotten about it. and yet there it was. That card brought back memories of me being happy as a clam when i received it, happy because that particular person had sent it.

I reread my old diaries, and some parts made me laugh out loud in disbelief at my childishness and immaturity. I was melodaramatic even when i was 9. I used code names for my crushes, and now i can't even remember who they really were. In my standard 5 diary, i wrote about my classmates and gossiped about who liked who and penned(or tried to) poems and mispelled dozens of words,plus, my writing was still atrocious. I reread in my first diary the fact that my very first email was created on january 6th,1999, and my password was 'diary', while the answer for the question in case i forgot my password was 'pistachio almond'.

And then there were the things that made me sad. My exam results during form 4 that showed that i still wasn't getting a grip on add maths or physics. The birthday card from someone who signed it as 'your best friend', and then a year later wasn't. The letters i wrote to my imaginary friend during form 2(i couldn't have had imaginary conversations, that would have just freaked everyone out, so i wrote letters) that talked about me feeling depressed and sad, and just wanting to bail out.

I reread all my diaries, and i've come to a conclusion. Our insecurities stay the same. Over the years we might change and mature or develope a different personality from when we were younger, but i think the things that make us insecure, the core of our sadness, remains the same. All of my past diaries, and even the journal i own now, have the same underlying theme when it comes to the sad parts.

When you read the wrtings of your younger self, you can't help but feel affection for the person she was and exasperation at the mistakes she's done, and you feel heart-breakingly sad for the problems she's going through and the insecurities she has. sometimes you want to reach out in time and knock some sense into her head and stop her from doing something stupid, and sometimes you just want to hug her and wipe her tears and tell her it's going to be ok, because you know that no one else will.

This box holds proof that i was happy or sad at some point in my life. If there's a fire (God forbid), i'm going to save it first,heh.

On a different note, i'm reading kazuo ishiguro's 'never let me go'. brilliant! reminds me of 'the giver'. as for music, for anyone who trusts my taste, i highly recommend 'illegal tender' by the band Louis XIV, and also 'look after you' by the fray.

Happy March!if i recall correctly, this is the month of a lot of birthdays.

The world's greatest patronus

I started my activities for the day by doing my banyak-gile-tak-siap-lagi maths homework(intergration for quotients by partial fractions). I got stuck at one question, and from then on my day was spent doing nothing.But it was enjoyable nothing! There are 2 ways to waste time, one is by doing nothing productive and later on mourning the loss of time you could have used to do something worthwhile. The other way is by doing stuff not exactly productive in the sense that it's something your parents would approve of, but instead you accomplish things that while not exactly useful, give you a feel of satisfaction and pleasure. I did just that. I changed the mp3 files that have been stored in my phone since forever, replaced my ringtone, messaged a bunch of people, chatted with nani for a while, read john mayer's blog, and now i'm updating mine. half the day gone just like that. but i'm not complaining.

It was while surfing the net i suddenly remembered something I've wanted to blog about for a long time. It's a story. a true story of an incident that happened back in the days I was a debater(heh, bunyi cam veteran lak). This is the kind of incident I will always remember and think of with a smile on my face. It's the kind of story i'll tell my children, if any of them become debaters.

Ok. the year was 2005. The debaters were laeeqa, nani, me and ash. So the debating season that year started off with the UIA debating championship. For those who don't know, for most government boarding schools, there are two major debating events in a year. One is the annual Universiti Islam Antarabangsa(UIA) championship, and the other is the Piala Perdana Menteri championship, which is only for boarding schools.

So anyway, like i said, we started off with the UIA competition. And it was during this time we went up against a certain all-boys boarding school that i will not name here. We met them in the 2nd or 3rd round, i forgot. and it was during this meet with them i suffered a terribly embarassing moment that makes me cringe up until this day.

I was the 3rd debater, so my job was to rebutt all points given by the opposition. I can't remember what the motion was, but what i DO remember was that i was nervous as hell, and i ended up talking crap and not really adressing their points at all. So when it was over and done, the adjudicator(there was only one), announced that we lost. ok. that was blow number one. I was feeling bad enough already because i felt so disappointed with my speech. But it didn't end there! The adjudicator commented on each speaker's performance, and when he came to me, he specifically mentioned that I was a key reason our(the government's) case started to crumble. Ya Allah, i was MORTIFIED beyond reason.

It was bad, it was horrible, but what made it even more terrible was the fact that the debaters from that school were so cocky! Maybe they tried not to be, i don't know, but it was as if they looked down on us just because we weren't some elite school and were without any debating credit to our name. In short, we were just another lame science school, a minor obstacle on their path to debating glory.

So i walked away from that debate feeling crushed and ashamed. If i had to choose the lowest point througout the times I've debated, that would be it.

A couple months later, it was time for the PPM championship plak. my fellow debaters really worked their asses off. I guess the effort paid off, because we won the group round and went on to the quarter-finals. In PPM, there is a group round, whereby each school will be placed in a group with 3 or 4 other schools. Those who win all or most matches in that round will be group leader. After that, a drawing will be done, and group leaders will face off each other in the quarter-finals.

So, imagine my mixed feelings of shock and dread i got when i heard we drawed against the same all-boys boarding school for the quarter final round. Unbelievable. I was so nervous, i practically freaked out. I even remember our motion, it was "Malaysians have Become A More Caring Society". I remember the night before the debate, i was so frustrated and nerve-wracked, i had to call my mom for emergency counseling. When the morning of the debate came, we went to the hall to draw sides, and we got the opposition. During the draw, the debaters from that school were there too, and my, they looked tremendously pleased with themselves. I guess they figured since they whipped us(me) before, they'd be able to do it again easy-peasy.

And then came crunch time, the actual debate. I don't remember exactly what happened throughout the debate, but i do remember this. I remember feeling damn proud of ash and nani, because they gave great speeches, and they rebutted the governments' points well. I remember the boys from that school looking increasingly uncomfortable as we numerously POI-ed them with difficult questions. I remember the 2nd speaker from their side trying to impress judges and the audience with fancy phrases and actions. I remember nani clapping me on the shoulder right before it was my turn to speak, giving me courage. and I remember growing increasingly confident and not afraid of their POI's as i spoke. and i remember, to end my speech, i said 'and i am proud to oppose', and i knew that at that moment, that was the absolute truth.

When it was over and done, we waited while the judges gave their decision and went out of the room to pick the best speaker. I recall smiling at miss salmi and miss zil, and just feeling relieved it was over, and happy that i didn't do such a crappy job like how i did in UIA.

Then the judges came back in, and then we had to go through some excruciating moments while the chief judge gave her commentary, where I had to act like I was really listening and noting her comments down for future reference. Then finally, finally, it was time for the results.

Alhamdulillah, we won. I heaved a sigh of relief and started grinning like crazy. And best of all, the icing on the cake, was when the the chairperson announced that the best speaker was the third speaker from the opposition.

Sorry, not trying to berlagak ke ape. i just wanted to share how i felt at that second. I felt...like it was retribution, you know? I felt such deep satisfaction, because finally, for the first time ever, i managed to prove to someone that i'm not as lame as they thought and that they shouldn't take me for granted as an easy opponent. I felt vindicated! If i had to conjure a Patronus at that time i'm sure mine would have been the world's greatest, a rhino or a great white shark or something.

Alhamdulillah. i'm glad i've actually tasted a feeling like that. i hope you guys do too, or if you already have, i hope you get to feel it again and again. The feeling of satisfaction, euphoria, and the rare, hard-to-attain feeling of being proud of yourself and who you are.