twirl and swirl

School Reunion.

2011-06-27T15:05:00.011+08:00

This morning I received an invitation to a school reunion on my Facebook.

Owh how I cringed.

Why, you ask?

I'm not the type that will agree to social around with a bunch of people am not comfortable with, worst, with those whom I have had issues with; now or then. I will not be able to adjust myself to a crowd of people I haven't met for years.

I know that whatever that had happened in the past should not be the reason that dictates the way I think of them now. I don't particularly care about any of them at all. It is just, I don't really need more friends at this point of time.

Sounds smug isn't it? But that's the truth. You will come to a point where, you no longer need a large number of friends in your life. I treasure quality more than quantity.

Let me tell you about my high school experience. I mingled with the same crowd ; those I liked and hated; since primary school. It was only natural that we progressed from Primary Convent to Secondary Convent, because both schools were located within the same compound.

-____-

Boring.

I befriended and de-friend-ed the same crowd for almost 10 years of my life. Out of hundreds, I stayed friends with only 5 of them. These are the girls I knew since I was in standard 1. We don't actually keep in touch or see each other as much, but deep down we have a common understanding that if we miss each other or long for company, we are just a phone call away.

In my book.. that is friendship.

Ok. Let's get back to this reunion thing.

We all know that Facebook is the culprit that brought all these unnecessary reinforcements in our life and causing inevitable consequences. It is hard to stay positively cheerful when people you don't fancy poke you and expect a poke in return. I had received a friend request with a message, "You still single? How come? Can't be!!". or "Eh fat now ah?". This message was coming from someone I hardly know and probably met for a few minutes 20 years ago. Of course I was skinny back then, I didn't even have boobs yet. pfth!

So with all these bad rapports that I had been receiving on Facebook, countless numbers of pokes and re-re-requesting friend notifications from acquaintances ( some I really can't recall), do you aspect me to attend a school reunion? Haha. I don't think so.

I know some of them were really genuine in getting back on the friendship wagon, but you must admit that there are a few quarters that would love only to catch up on all the goss and make stupid comparison on life's achievements.

I never practice this and I will certainly not let anyone practice it on me.

Unfortunately, in this close-minded circle/society, our achievement in life is based on how many children you have managed to plop out. Since I have yet to plop one out, I better not give them anything to talk about or making jokes like "Owh your standard is just too high, men are afraid of you" crap straight to my face. Not that they haven't started gossiping about me already eh?

If I want to stay in contact or catch up with them, they should have already received a private message from me by now.

Photos I love I

2011-06-03T10:53:00.004+08:00

Under the Mirabeau Bridge.

2011-06-01T13:03:00.007+08:00

Mirabeau Bridge by Guillaume Apollinaire

Under Mirabeau Bridge runs the Seine
And our loves
Must I remember them
Joy came always after pain
Let arriving night explain
Days fade I remain
Arm in arm let us stay face to face
While below
The bridge at our hands passes
With eternal regards the wave so slow
Let arriving night explain
Days fade I remain
Love goes like this water flows
Love goes Like life is slow
And like hope is violent
Let arriving night explain
Days fade I remain
The days passed and the weeks spent
Not times past Nor loves sent return again
Under Mirabeau bridge runs the Seine

Translated by William A. Sigler

***

I braved the cold and breezy autumn weather of Paris and walked several miles in search of this beautiful green bridge; just so I could take this picture and email it to him with the caption

- I found the bridge mentioned in that poem you once gave and read to me. -

Love,
Lina.

***

Our Favourite Place: Langkawi Island.

2011-05-27T16:02:00.021+08:00

Both of us have this itch to get out of KL every once in a while so that we can clear our cluttered mind since we are unable to clear our cluttered desk and life. We are always looking for some place near that is within an hour drive or flight away. Just for a quick getaway to get our quick fix of each other ... (heh corny I know, sorry can't help it)

Our list of preference is quite short and simple. We are pretty boring couple, I have to admit. For a quick getaway, we don't really do extreme sports/activities or have plans of any sort; all we need is to wind down and spend quality time with each other. No shopping, no sight-seeing. This would usually involves - a comfortable sea-view chalet with low density of tourists and a tortoise-paced area.

The one perfect place that fit all these requirements at that point of time was Langkawi's Frangipani Resort and Spa.

Yeap, for the first quarter of this year, we decided to go back to Langkawi island. We loved it so much from the last time that we were there, we made a pact that we should go back to this island again, probably every year for as long we are together. This time around, we chose to stay at this resort.

Entrance to Frangipani Resort & Spa

From Agoda, we knew that this hotel is nestled somewhere in Pantai Tengah which is pretty quiet compared to Pantai Chenang, so that's a plus point. But when we were surfing around for more information, there weren't much reviews that described the hotel well with maybe a few broken links. A bit disappointed but we decided to give it a shot anyway. We booked the hotel and the rest, they say, is history. We spent 4 days and 3 nights there and came back fully refreshed and rejuvenated. All ready to take on the world again.

*flex muscles*

I love this resort so much, I was really eager to blog about it. That is not something that I would do. I suck at giving reviews. I can never find the best word or sentence to describe anything. I also would go on and on and on about it. People get bored by reading an unstructured nonsensical review. But I will not pass the opportunity to blog about this resort.

*takes out an imaginary sword and points it out to the sky*

But of course, knowing me, I put the word PRO in procrastination. It has been almost a month and Mr. Snots was constantly reminding me of this 'responsibility'.

Aih.

Ok back to this update.

We spent 4 days of doing pretty much nothing. Every morning, Mr. Snots, after his rounds of jogging (he's boring, see?) forced me out of bed so that we can have early breakfast... whilst enjoying the morning breeze and view. I resented the fact that I had to wake up early there, but what's not to love about this eh?

After breakfast, he then forced me to walk the food off. Pfth! Walking about in the shade of these fruit trees and flowers what were planted all over the resort was just extremely relaxing. It reminded me of my dad's village. The staff there were so friendly, they even offered to climb up the tree and pick mangoes for us. As much as I was extremely flattered with that offer, but I wouldn't want to eat unripened mangoes.

Again. what's not to love about this?

Frangipani Resort & Spa is an eco-friendly resort. They have solar panels installed for all the chalets and recycle bins can be seen all over the place. They actually practice the art of recycling and produce their own organic compost and use it to fertilise their garden. They walk the talk; something that is rare in the management of big hotels and resorts.

We spent the rest of the day relaxing by the beach, reading books, swimming and played ping pong. I should have known better you know. Playing ping pong or any sorts of sports with him is kind of suicidal. He is extremely competitive. He will never give up; not at least he gets better at it.

Here's the thing. At first, he was really bad at playing ping pong; the score was around 21-1. Seriously. He was so bad that I was able to beat his ass in about few minutes. LOL. But what made me feel suicidal was the fact that, he just REFUSED to give up. He constantly bugged me to play like 3 rounds of best-of-5, and got exponentially better. It started with 21-1, then slowly catching up to 21-10 then to 21-19 until he won one or two games. Even thrash talking did not bring him down. Talking about determination, I tell ya or bruised ego, probably. Heh. It was fun, but it was also damn tiring. He got the stamina. I don't!

Daily activities - pretty much nothing.

Then at night, Mr. Snots drove me to Kuah Town to enjoy the best and the cheapest seafood in the island. Tourists were always fooled to think that the best seafood is in Pantai Chenang. They were fooled alright!!

This is the restaurant that we usually go to for our seafood. The food is sensational and it's cheap. The first time Mr. Snots took me there, I took out around RM150 to pay for the bill, but it came up to only RM40. I was like WTF, must eat here every time and every day. Like that. I took this picture because, like Oprah, I also like sharing my favourite things with everyone. If you ever have cravings for seafood in Langkawi (and if you don't you must be crazy or something), this is the place that you should go to. It is located near the Bella Vista Hotel.

After dinner, for like every night that we were there, we chilled at the Coco Jam Beach Bistro (in the resort itself) and listened to the live music and enjoyed a drink or two, probably three or four and did a couple of shots. The booze was cheaper than mineral water man.... might as well order beers.

We've made many friends during our stay there. The managers and the staff were extremely accommodating. There was this one particular gardener that entertained the guests at night at the Coco Bar. He always introduced himself with, "Hai, I'm Kamal, gardener by day, rock singer by night." He was extremely good belting all the rock songs. Because he is quite old so expect rock oldies from this man. But since we are old too, that was our type of music as well. He had this one thing that he did every time before he went up the stage --> got himself drunk. LOL. He can only perform in front of the crowd if he's drunk enough.

Funny that old man.

Gosh. Typing this update makes me missed my time in Langkawi. I love every moment that I spent there. Well, except maybe for the ping pong part (still annoyed about it).

After our holiday in Langkawi, this time around, we've made a new pact, Mr.Snots and I. We will come back to Langkawi every year for as long as we are together and back to this resort to rekindle our love and trust in each other just in case we get strayed off the path of happiness.

Love,
Lina

The Speed Dating Guidelines.

2011-04-25T10:00:00.008+08:00

I recall talking about this with my girlfriend, Toots. It was some time last year when she brought up the issue of speed dating.

How do we go about it?

Do we need to go in with the intention of getting ourselves a man, or two..or we should join just for the fun of it. To be honest, my idea of fun doesn't really include giving a crash course of myself within a span of 5 minutes and repeating the same excruciating process again for the next few hours. Or to convince a guy that I'm the one that they are looking for. It's tiring enough to convince a guy that you fancy or in a relationship with, how do you tackle such issue for a few minutes with a complete stranger?

But that's me I guess. I was already taken aback by the speed dating approach when she first explained on how it works. Come to think of it, am not a good sport really. Hehe. BUT!! I was willing to accompany her if she decides to join the speed dating "fun".

We talked further about how we should strategise the whole interview bit. How do we get to know a man within that 5 minutes span, grab the attention and make some impact.

So I laid out the OSI Model Plan.

Open System Interconnection model, also known as OSI is basically a standard or protocol used to sub dividing the communication/networking system into several different layers. Basic Communication 101. Ok that's that. I'm not going to explain about the protocols because; first -I have totally forgotten about it; second - who cares anyway. We are here to talk and understand about what can be sampled from this Model for our 5 minutes speed dating rules.

Ok, the OSI Model, the old one; contains 7 layers of which within each layer, one or more entities implement its functionality. Refer to the diagram below.

Well, we talked about this and decided that it was just too complicated to adopt this concept and make it work for 5 minutes. So we decided to combine few things that are supposed to work together for this exercise and came up with this guideline.

i. Physical Layer.

We admit that we are a bunch of shallow people. For any equipment to communicate with each other, physical connection must be in place. More so for mere mortal like us. Physical attraction is of course the most crucial aspect of this exercise. There's no point of going to the next level if we can't bear the sight of our err prospect let alone sharing our personal information with him. First 10 seconds should be used to scan physical attributes that make them stand out from the rest..If there's nothing much that we can work with, one should consider to spend the next 4 minutes and 50 seconds to try to get away from that awkward 'interfaces'.

ii. Data Link / Network.

This is pretty much about his career and his affiliations. Does he bear any sort of title to his name like Dr, Ir, YM, ABC, WTF and etc. Scan his business card discreetly if he hands it out to you. Listen carefully - if he name drops any known celebrities, VIPs, VVIPs every now and then when he talks about his achievements or the lack of it. Of course, people think that this should not be an issue, money is never an issue. But hey, you are not there in search of starving artist or a poor poet. Be realistic. You can't expect to be fed with poem when you are hungry. I'm just saying.

The thing about this is, it boils down to your preference. You want his money and his associations, or you want his money but you also want him humble. At my age, when a man talks about how much he makes, he is just being cheesy and I don't really fancy cheese.

iii. Transport.

Self explanatory. He must at least own a car eh? But if you prefer to date someone that spends half of his time saving the planet by taking the public transportation, be my guest.

iv. Session and Presentation.

It is all about image. Baggy jeans, oversized jersey, cap pull backward screams lame or stuck-in-the-moment-he-can't-get-out-of. If he took the time to look presentable for the session, he must worth some sort of acknowledgement from you. But if he looks better than you (and you are looking your best that night) you might consider the possibility that he carries a man bag everywhere as well. Judge the book from its cover. Because what ever that he is covering can be judged through his appearances. ;)

Last but not least;

v. Application.

This would only come to play when you have decided to hand over more than just your number. Application and performance are the only two aspects left for you to consider whether he is worthy of your future headache and sorrows. Set your standard high because low expectation is easily achieved. ;)

So there you go. The adaptation of speed dating rules based on OSI 7 Layers Model, courtesy of Lina and Toots. Have fun and don't be too naughty.

p/s: Whether we have realised this or not, all of us are guilty of using the same method to gain access to a friendship or relationship.

Sunday Project.

2011-04-24T19:08:00.006+08:00

I'm always looking for something to do on Sunday; things that I can tweak around the house. Since Saturday is dedicated entirely for Mr.Snots, so that automatically makes Sunday a "Me Day". Doing chores and running errands are definitely apart of the itineraries. But of course, not every Sunday is spent doing those things. I alternate my Sundays between doing normal boring house chores and art projects.

Since I was out of art supplies and my creative juice wasn't flowing well last weekend, I did something for the apartment instead. I painted my work area; because to be honest, I kinda feel bored with it already. So here's the before and after picture of it. It is actually quite small but am not complaining.

Next project --->the wet kitchen. :)

Saturday Morning.

2011-04-16T10:00:00.003+08:00

Waking up early on a Saturday morning isn't really my style. My time is usually around 10am. The excuse I would usually use is to enjoy the luxury of sleeping in during the weekend.

But this morning at around 6am, my sleep was disrupted by a phone call from the office saying that there had been a lost replication of data. I said, "OK, will fix it later", hung up the phone and tried to sleep again. After much tossing around, I was sure that I was not going to fall asleep again. :(

So what's a girl gotta do other than forcing herself out of the bed, make a cup of coffee and switching on the laptop to connect to the office VPN. This is life when your company pays you a standby allowance; meaning that you should always make yourself available at any time during your turn. And to be honest, the allowance is not that great.

My weekend routine is very predictable and it has been like so for the past few years. Saturday is also the day I get to spend the whole day with Mr. Snots doing things together; groceries shopping, watching movies and take turns cooking for lunch if we are not lazy enough. He would usually come by at around 1030 am... but since it is raining today, I reckon that he's going to be a bit late than usual. So am taking the time to update my blog.

Will update more if time permits. Chao!

DIY Artsy Fartsy stuff makes me happy.

2011-04-11T13:00:00.013+08:00

Every time I'm down and feeling like a helpless sod, I'm always looking forward to go back to my apartment. My bed awaits me to plunk my lazy body onto it and no matter what happen, it will be there to comfort me. If things are still fucked up, I would turn to the other parts of my small apartment. I would lie down on the sofa with the TV on but don't really bother to watch what's on it (I just need the background noise so that I won't feel lonely), and walk back and forth to the kitchen; rummaging the fridge to snack on sweet things to calm me down. My relationship with my home is the best I've ever had. - ___ -

I'm such a loser. I don't even know how to comfort myself when I'm down. Seriously. It has always been a struggle to put bad things behind me. Drama, I know.

Since am tired of having to sleep off my shitty days away, I'm searching for things to do to so that I wouldn't spend so much times lamenting and thinking about my problems again and again. Just to take my mind off things, you know.

Growing up, I remember that I spent hours assembling and creating crafty projects for my art classes; weaving straw into hats, sewing batik pants, wooden pots, paper mache, collage and others. I remember the feeling of joy and satisfaction if I manage to get it done, no matter how hard it was for me and no matter how many times I had to redo it to make it perfect. (to my own standard of course; and my OCD kicked in quite early I must say heh). My parents were always around to help me out; Mom teaching me how to use the sewing machine, and how my Dad did a demo on how to cut those blistering wooden planks for my wood class. I would do anything to feel that kind of feeling again. That sense of accomplishment and satisfaction.

For years I have been buying and collecting crafty stuff like ribbons, paper, felt and etc thinking that one day, I would have the time to use and make something out of nothing ; to be able to get back on doing things I once loved. But surprise surprise, I never really make the time for it. pfth!! I'm always so tired after work, I'm always not in the mood to do anything and of course other excuses I've managed to use to sabotage my own "happiness". LOL. You see, I've got all these fabulous papers and whatnot.. all boxed up and just laying there, untouched.

Thanks to Pinterest, I've started to do small projects to get myself inspired again recently . I surely hope to continue this and create more interesting projects in the future.

Project 1: Transforming a shoe box into a more fun storage box.

Project 2: Turning a boring scratched Ikea desk into a fun rainbow coloured one for the niece.
I don't usually play with so much colour but at that time I was thinking, why not? Do something out of the ordinary might be the one thing that will guide me out of my rut.

Project 3: Paper eyelet and pearl bracelet.

I love bracelets. Thanks to my overly sensitive skin, I can't wear non-gold earring and necklace, but am thankful enough that I can still wear any type of bracelets. Since I love them so much, I've started to learn how to make them and I can always style them in any way I want. *kisses wrists*

So there you go. Stuff I made when I'm down and out and bored.

Much Love.

Things of late.

2011-03-13T10:51:00.005+08:00

I'm sitting in this workshop waiting for the car to be fixed. Total body service and the aircond as well. As I was browsing through all the blogsites to kill the time, I was suddenly reminded of my own blog. Funny when there's so much things happening lately, I have totally forgotten about this space. Some bloggers ignored their blog because they spend more time fiddling with facebook or succumbed to the temptation of twitter. I did none of the above. Lol. I'm just lazy.

I have been down with fever and cough for the past 3 weeks or so. Been to 3 different clinics that prescribed all sort of different medications for me. Since my condition was on and off, I was immuned to it and grew to live with it. I know that I needed to get myself a thorough check by a specialist or some sort, but it could wait.

Work is a major concern now. It is beyond control. But what I learned from my past experience is that work will never end. It will keep on coming in. and no matter how much effort I put in, some are just not worth for me to devote my life to it. I'm taking things easy, and by 6 or latest 7pm, usually am already at home. Small things if appreciated, could change the whole perspective on how we look at life. Without shame, I asked for an assitance in a form of a minnion so that I can teach him/her to take over simple but tedious task, so that I can concentrate on more crucial tasks and projects in hand.

For this year alone, I have few things lining up. But what I love about it is, it gives me the opportunity to grow a nd learn new things and those newly acquired skills will make my CV looks good. Not that i'm looking around for another job. Well not anytime soon atleast. I can't just leave my projects behind. Got a lot of people counting on me. And at this point of my career, it is nice to know that I have many colleagues and bosses that actually believe in me and would do anything to help me out.

Till later.

Oh..now I remember what has been taking so much of my time. Am obsessed with Pinterest.com nowadays. And also learning to make jewelries and art projects. Duh.

I would say YES to this.

2010-12-29T11:59:00.008+08:00

Picture from Etsy.com

p/s: It is not hard to make me happy.
Although it seems simple but truth is, am as complicated as the crocheted sterling ring above. LOL.

How to organise your PC desktop.

2010-12-11T11:31:00.019+08:00

I'm a great believer that, managing your every day's clutter is the best way of freeing your mind. It's therapeutic for me.

One of the easiest space to de-clutter is your desktop PC. There are a few awesome organising widgets that you can use to organise your stuff. No longer you need to rummage through your directory to find those missing files and to keep on rearrange your icons all the time.

Here are some of the links of the widgets that I have been using to organise my own desktop.

I like my desktop to be as clean and simple as possible.

Well, everyone knows that I'm still using XP. It is the most stable OS that Microsoft has churned out and most of the applications am running, currently have no fix and doesn't support the usage of Windows 7. An old hag, but still very much reliable.

OK. Let us begin.

1. Organise your icons.

The one that am using above is called Fences. If what you need is to organise your icons accordingly, you can download the free version. It gives the illusion of fencing and segregating your icons according to how you want to organise it.

All you have to to is, once you have installed the app, launch it and drag your icons to it. Simple as 1-2-3.

2. To-do list.

Oh come on, you know you spend more time staring at your computer than going out socialising. LOL. What better way to remind yourself of those errands and chores that are just waiting to be done? Sticky notes on the fridge is way outdated. What we need is a virtual stick-on-note.

There a couple of options out there. If you are using Yahoo! Widget, then you can download the widget.

But what am about to recommend is something a bit more awesome than that typical sticky notes that are abundant out there. I use HottNotes.

Why? Because you can scribble on it, create a check-list and if you still prefer the old sticky plain note, they have that too. Most importantly it is created by Joel Riley, a student at Virginia Tech because he needed to list out things and I just love the fact that he shared this with the world.

My very own hottnotes!
(As you can see, my niece is quite demanding, and annoying too)

3. Yahoo! Widgets or Google Desktop.

What differentiate the two? Well for me Yahoo! Widget is more cool and fun. It is so fun, sometimes the widgets don't really serve any purpose and being fun with a large consumption of RAM is just a big NO for me. I chose Google Desktop because I depend on them like an addict depends on crack. LOL.

Since am using the grand daddy of Android Phone (T-Mobile G1), I occasionally sync my calendar, email and my contacts to Google cloud. So it is just practical for me to use Google Desktop anyways. I got my RSS feed, bookmarks, Google reader all from there. So it's cool but most importantly, it serves me perfectly. So choose wisely on what you want to use.

psstt! I've managed to root my G1 and had updated it with Froyo 2.2. But that's another story for another day. :)

4. Zune.

I've been using Zune for PC since the first day they published it. I kinda have a love-hate relationship with it. I hate their full version. It is just way to crowded for me. I like the fact that we get some sort of history about the artist, their music and everything but I usually need my music to be a background noise when am doing work. I don't really read those historical information and whatnot. The simple minimised version is totally for me; it doesn't really take up so much of space because my screen is not that big.

What? Winamp? Itunes? Oh come on, who uses that anymore? LOL.

P/S: If I download anything for free and if I like their application, especially programmer like Mr. Joel Riley, I usually paypal-ed them some money to show my gratitude and appreciation. We should always do that. As a developer myself, giving out or sharing free stuff is one thing, but to be able to know that someone appreciate what you have invented, the feeling is just too awesome, we might want to do more great stuff for you.

So be kind, donate some. :)

So True.

2010-12-10T13:59:00.009+08:00

A friend (an Iphone user) emailed this to me. I laughed my ass off when I first saw it. I'm guilty of passing the same judgement. I'm an Android girl. I'm guilty of thinking and seeing Apple user as nothing more than just a poser and somewhat a cult follower that worships Steve Jobs and the closed-uptight path that he walks on. LOL.

Hello everyone, my name is Lina. I'm a Smokeaholic.

2010-12-06T10:38:00.009+08:00

Today marks the 3rd day of my 105th attempt to quit smoking. As far as it goes, it hasn't been messing with my head, yet; like causing anger or turning me grumpy all the time.

Why the sudden change?

That's because I felt lethargic lately. At the same time, I was thinking that maybe I should quit since am not even smoking as much these days. A box would usually last me a couple of days and it became stale most of the time. Last Friday, I told Mr.Snots that *this* box would be the last box for me.

This is not cold-turkey. I have been reducing my intake for so many months. It is just normal that gradually lessen ciggies intake would eventually becomes no ciggies at all.

To be honest, I hardly smoke during the office hour because I'm usually too engrossed with my work. I don't like to smoke during hot days. The only time I smoke was usually at night when I had nothing better to do or when I was driving back from work.

This should not be hard as I have yet to develop any sort of urges or suicidal thought. So I'm hoping that this attempt should last me longer than the last time.

Things that kept me feeling positively cheerful!

2010-12-04T19:37:00.016+08:00

Synchronised Steps.

Trying to feed a lazy cat.

Catching sunset while stuck in the traffic.

Good-hearted friends.

Holidays with loved one.

p/s: The thing I love about December is, it is the time of the year where I get to pack my things, shove it in my knapsack and run away from hectic life into doing two of the things that I do best, seeking adventures and taking pictures.

House of Harlow : BF Competition!

2010-11-18T10:50:00.005+08:00

From left : Toots "Pothead" Ismail, Lina "my-ass-in" Mohd Yassin, Shai "sunshine" Jeyabala.

Thisis not something I normally do. Aside from the fact that I love the online shopping site, Thepoplook, I actually submitted a photo (above) for their House of Harlow: Best Friends Competition.

I had this picture for years and every time I look at this, I have this warm and fuzzy feeling inside of me. A picture of me with two of my best girlfriends.

We were supposed to create some sort of caption to describe our friendship. Told Toots about it, and we managed to came up with something that truly captures our closeness.

"We hang like monkeys on tree. We scratch each other's back and get rid of each other's ticks"

Haha. All because of that poor-pixelated-camera-phone-pouting-like-monkeys-picture!

So, without shame, if you think that we deserve to win, go HERE and click "LIKE".

Ossum Possum!

Lazy Ass.

2010-10-22T16:55:00.003+08:00

Today I wanted to be lazy. There's no point of rushing deadlines when I had already been away from work for the past 1 1/2 days because I attended some lame ass course. 1 1/2 days off work means more work are piling in. Work will never stop and why bother slaving around while I can choose to enjoy the remaining days doing nothing but browsing shits on the internet and bought some cool global warming comic painting for just 100 bucks.

I decided to hang in the office rather than at home, well at least when my colleagues come over to my cubicle, they have something to entertain them and at the same time, create a bit of awareness. I guess.

They complain that I always ignore them. When I do my work, I put on my mp3 player and immediately am in my own world, oblivious of my surroundings.

So there you go chaps, some global warming awareness comic for your blardy entertainment!

I hate disclaimer or anything that sounds like one.

2010-10-19T23:20:00.005+08:00

It is like saying, you have this awesome shit going on but when it doesn't go your way it, it's not your fault.

Or you own a blog and championing the freedom of speech and expression, but when people practice it on you, you slam them openly and ask them to fuck off.

Or, your blog header's description is a harsh way of welcoming readers. i.e.
"This is my blog, I write what I want, if you don't like then you leave".

Or some shit like that.

When you own a public domain and you seek the attention of strangers or the public to read it, make sure you are tough enough to not care of what people think of you.

People are mean by nature. That is something that is beyond our control, but to "manage" their reaction to your blog content (if there's any); moderation of comments, putting up tonnes of skimming and filtering process; is the exact opposite of freedom of expression. You are your own blog police.

I think the idea of expressing oneself is by far, only limited to what they like to hear or what they want to hear. Which is crap. In order to be fully receptive of this idea, it needs to work both ways; the incoming is as important as the outgoing.

Of course people are not enjoying the negative comments about themselves, but if the negative comments are nothing more than a bunch of bullshits, then the commenter is the one that is making a fool out of himself/herself. Stand for what you believe in but be open of what others have to say about it.

I'm just saying.

Some sense of Decency.

2010-10-19T16:37:00.015+08:00

I'm contemplating about raising this issue because I wouldn't want to be seen or called as insensitive jerk and what not.

But here it goes..

I'm always against PDA - Public Display of Affection. It is not so much about being on a higher pedestal of moral conduct, but it creates an uneasy feeling and can't help but to feel ashamed when you encounter with one. (oh well maybe it is just me). The affectionate display between you and your spouse should have some limitation when you are out in public. Of course we are not talking about holding hands or a quick peck on the cheek but full blown French kiss with squeezing or caressing. Uneasy is one thing, but when you doing it wrong and rather raunchy, it is just disturbing.

You want to be indecent in your own private place or behind closed door, that is totally up to you. I have nothing against it.

Then comes the breastfeeding in public.

How should I put this? Yes, we understand the need to feed the newborn baby every few hours and am sure most mothers could vouch that the connection between mother and their baby is an out-of-this-world experience, but doing it in public? No matter how much you are trying to cover your tops as appropriately as possible, for me, it is just not appropriate enough.

I've seen young mothers doing this in the shopping mall, at the park and other public places with careless conduct. I even asked my mother about this and she said, never once she lifted up her tops in front of strangers or relatives to feed any one of us. For her, there's a place that she can do it comfortably and it is called "home". Privacy is the main key here.

If you really really really need to get the hell out of your house and taking the baby with you, doing shopping or whatever, I suggest that you find somewhere secluded with not so many people to do this business. I think all the shopping malls' ladies are now well equipped and their management actually provide facilities for this. Heck, they even provide comfy sofas for it.

Just think about it. Popping out the breast (even if it is used to feed a baby) will attract unwanted attention from all walks of life and most importantly, it makes people cringe!

I wonder how the husband would feel like seeing the wife breastfeeding his baby in public? Because whenever I saw a mother breastfeeding a child, I didn't actually see any glimpse of the husband standing/sitting besides her or anywhere nearby.

I'm just saying.

Fighting the "Shortcut Virus".

2010-10-18T13:20:00.009+08:00

There's nothing that can make me feel more suicidal than hearing the first thing that come out from my colleague's mouth when they see me stepping into the office; beaming with smiles because that day I've managed to get in earlier than usual;

"The shared directory is no longer accessible. I think it's a virus"

*sighs and walks heavily*

There goes the thought that I had earlier on about how it's going to be a great day for me.

So I stuffed all of my "stuff" in the locker...I was once told by my boss that I would probably be the only "girl" in my company that is so technical, I need to carry two extra bags consisting of - laptop,network cable, tester, my test pen, external hard disk, thumb drives, CD installers and what not, just to satisfy my technical side.... and dragged my flat feet straight to the server room - Only to found out that I left my server room's key in my handbag and had to walk all the 100m back to my cubicle but at the same time trying to look as if I was actually running around trying to fix the problem.

On my way back to the server room, I bumped into a door,my leg hit the edge of the table and shoulder a wall. Man! Talk about poor estimation of space and opening.

Bruises aside, I finally got into the server room and started doing some troubleshooting.

*

"Shortcut Virus". It hides all the original folders and files in the directory and creates false shortcut of them, hence the name. Man! The genius behind this virus must have been so bored with his life living in the basement of his parent's house. I use the word "his" because, come on, you know woman can never screw up things and make it as haywire as this. :)

Back to the "shortcut virus". Unfortunately, the Anti-Virus software for my company is fucked up. Can't even detect the existence of it, even it is constantly running at the background and "pretend" to be apart of Windows system process.

So what a system-admin-that-thinks-she-is-awesome-but-actually-has-limited-knowledge-on-virus-fighting-regime's to do? Go online and google for it of course!! I spent few hours trying to find the best solution for my server that is currently running on Windows Server 2000 (haha yeah I know, it's damn old but we are in the middle of migrating it, so spare me the lectures) that is also our AD and Web Server. So this is a critical server for our daily operation.

p/s: Beggars can't be choosers you know. I have to work within my means. Combining everything in one server could be seen as poor, but damn, when it comes to OPEX budgeting, WE ARE POOR! so beat it!

After a couples of trial and error attempts, I resorted to the SUPERHERO scheme. Track it down, and put it out manually myself! *shred shirts and wears out-tie underpants*

So if any of you suffer the same predicament as I did, use the following steps as guideline in getting rid of the "Shortcut Virus".

1. Unhidden your hidden stuff!

As mentioned earlier, this virus hides all your stuff in the directory. So first, in order to make sure that all the data is still there, you need to "see" it.

Go to the folder options under the View Tab, check on the Show Hidden Files radiobutton, and uncheck the Hide protected operating system files (Recommended) checkbox. This will enable you to see all the files available under the current active window panel.
Do not try to unhide it by using the option under the Folder Properties individually because it is a hassle, and also most of it will be disabled.

2. Identifying the Virus Files and Ammunition.

Let me tell ya, this virus was solely created just to piss the hell out of you and messing with your head.

It thrives on autorun.inf file available in your folder.
It usually created 2 *.exe files under some random name that doesn't make any sense to you. In my case it was, taasmex.exe.
Then there's, thumb.db. This file is usually automatically created by Windows when you are viewing the picture using the thumbnail options. But the thing is, original file under Windows is named THUMBS.DB. With an "S".

3. Killing the background process.

If you are lucky enough, a mere task killing process can be invoked via Task Manager. But most of the time it didn't happened that way.
If it is difficult for you to kill the bugger, then download HijackThis. A product from Trend Micro that would enable you to force-kill a running process.
After you have downloaded it, install it on your server/pc, trace the process and kill it.
Delete all the files mentioned above. I suggest that you Shift-Delete it rather than move it to the thrash bin. You never know that you might "accidentally" restore it back.

4. Delete all the shortcuts made by the virus and change the attribute of the directory or folders to unhidden all the hidden folders and files.

Go to Start Menu - Run , type cmd. This will call the command prompt window.
cd to the location of your infected directory. Let say its in E:\ then type this.

C:\> E:\
E:\> attrib -s -h /s /d *.

5. This command will make your folder to appear again before your very eyes.

If all the above mentioned steps do not work for you, then please email me so that I can bang my head on the table and try to hang myself on the ceiling fan.

Good Luck!

Love is never my friend, my dear friend.

2010-10-03T19:48:00.007+08:00

I'm a hopeless romantic when it comes to love and when am so high up on the clouds, at times I forget that in real world, things aren't always as it seems to be. Especially when you are in a relationship with someone of a different race and religion.

You want to build your life together but there's a major barrier that prevent it from happening.
Deep within you, you know that you have to come to realisation; in order to make the relationship works, you need more than love. You need blessings from your family and the courage to face what might come your way, together.

We know when we first ventured into this territory, we might have to face the risk of having our heart broken. We shove it aside with a hope that when the time comes, we'll be ready.

We are here now and still we are not ready.

I know by doing this am putting him in a crossroad but believe me when I say that this has to be done.

I love him so much but to have hopes with no certainties just give me more pain than happiness. I can't pretend that I love the idea of having him around few hours a week when there's a possibility of having him besides me all my life. I can't pretend that I can deal with the fact that he's afraid to acknowledge me as his partner when he's around his family.

I'm hurting myself more when I had the courage to bring this up. Now the ball is in his court and he has to make the decision.

But here's the thing. I know this day will come. Deep inside me I know am going to lose him at the end of the race because I know him too well. As much as he loves me, if things aren't on our side, there's nothing much that we can do. I have to accept it and move on. I know that.

That being said, am still a wreck. I haven't stopped crying and I haven't been able to sleep. The vicious cycle has begun. I only have myself to blame because am the one who put myself in this situation in the first place.

I just want him to know that I would never ask him to leave his family for me. I would never ask him to change anything about himself. I would never ask him to put me before anyone else. But if he really has to let go of this relationship, please tell me that he has put some effort in trying to save it in the first place. At least I know that am worthy of something; even if it was just for a brief period. At least I know for the past two years, I have been loved.

Eid Mubarak.

2010-09-08T16:54:00.005+08:00

Few people came to my cubicle, shook hand and asked for forgiveness. Greeted me with Eid Mubarak, wished me well and asked me to drive carefully tomorrow. Some called me on my office extension, some called me on my phone. Some sent email to me and some dropped comments on my fb page.

I'm driving back to my hometown tomorrow with my brother. Well, I'm pretty sure he's going to do all the driving instead.

This week has been a bit hectic. I never ever leave my office with my work unfinished or unattended. I would feel very guilty.

This is actually the first time in years that I'm going back the day before Eid itself. Usually, at this time am already at my parents' place helping them with the Eid preparations; helping mom cleaning the lawn, the house, paint the wall, change the curtains and anything that she wants me to do. This year, a bit of sacrifices has to be made. I will be on-call and on-standby for the next few days. I've setup the VPN client with a hope that if there's any problem, I would be able to settle it remotely so that I don't have to drive 2 hours back to the office in the middle of Eid chaos.

I don't actually feel any sort of urgency or looking forward to celebrate Eid this year. I feel a bit complacent about the whole thing. I don't know. I just know what's coming my way; the family gathering, the questions, the endless whining and complaints; I think I'm done with that. But am going back anyway, for the sake of my parents.

So for those who came across this blog and have remained following my updates, best of friends, friends, strangers, loved ones;

"Here I am asking for you to forgive me for all my wrongdoings and all the mistakes that I have done.; those hurtful words that might have affected your emotional well being (intentionally or unintentionally), those bad jokes that weren't even funny most of the time, those endless rage and angry updates that fuelled this mundane page, my limited vocabulary and poor choices of words that might leave anyone in confusion and all the unimaginable things in between. Being human, more over a woman, my updates were mostly based on my endless hormonal raging cycles that never seems to end from month to month, or sometime day to day. I realised that my thoughts were sometimes scattered and jumbled up in a nonsensical sequence, I feel that most of the updates didn't even make any sense at all. So for having to make you suffer reading nonsense all these years, I humbly seek your forgiveness. Thank you for staying and I am wishing all Moslem a blessed Aidilfitri and the rest, enjoy happy holiday!."

Sincerely,
Lina

Think: United state of confusion.

2010-09-07T10:44:00.005+08:00

I know am not really a good Moslem to actually give out any advise or dictate what other Moslem should or shouldn't do. I also know that am not in a position to say whether certain things are right or wrong, but I always believe in the freedom of expression; having your voice heard and giving out your opinion on any matter, be it religious or not.

I refuse to touch on this matter in my blog before because I'm afraid that I won't be able to put my thought sufficiently and clearly. But with what has been happening lately, I don't think I can hold it any longer.

So here I am, jotting down my opinion, trying to state clearly of what I think about the latest conundrums that have been happening lately in my country of which has stirred some confusions and rage within the Moslem community and other races as well.

First about the racial issue. Let me make it clear that I am a Moslem first before I am a Malay. In this country that am living in, Malay race is being regard as superior or (or so they think), as we are considered the founder of the land and has been granted all sort of birth right privileges. If you are keen with Malaysia's political scenes, you had came across how this issue had and still being manipulated by the political parties, left or right, and had caused some unpleasant confrontations between the people. The minorities are against the majority and vice versa.

Unfortunately, this has also caused the people to become further segregated. We are now back to where it first begin, after 53 years of claiming our independence. I feel ashamed and most importantly I feel sad. This continuous-never ending shenanigans made me stop reading the newspaper and watching the news on TV for years. I just couldn't bear the thought or the feeling of humiliation, degradation and stupidity every time I hear the politicians contradict themselves within the same sentence, when it comes to religion and race.

I'm not just talking about my own race, but others as well. The seed of hatred has been planted, and sooner or later we are going to witness a tragic ending to all these, unless we do something about it.

It is just ONE thing AFTER ANOTHER and am just sick and tired of it.

I remember studying hard to be where I am now. I don't even remember my parents telling me that since I am a Malay, I don't have to do anything because the "Government" will help the Malays. Seriously, have you ever heard that from your parents?

I studied hard and be as competitive as I possibly can to excel in everything. Why? Because I wanted to further my study in a tertiary education program and I wanted to get a good job. What about scholarship? I was interviewed just like everyone else and I would like to believe that I was selected fairly. First two years of my undergrad study, I was fully supported by my parents.

So when someone says, "Owh it is easier for you because you are Malay" I'd say, "FUCK IT!"

And for the Malays, don't be such a smug and keep on claiming this land as our own and labeled others as immigrants. How do you even dare to use that term when our forefathers fought side by side to free the country. To be fair, every each one of us are immigrants. So when you point one finger towards other people calling them names and whatnot, you have another four pointing back at you.

Whatever happens to friendship? We do not identify each other through race. We form a clique because we understand and like each other. Gosh am so full of anger now.

And about being a Moslem.

When I was young, I was sent to a religious school to learn about our religion and to embrace the Qoran and Islam. I was thought how to pray, to follow the Sunnah (compilation of our prophet Muhammad (PBUH) acts and practices to compliment the Qoran), how to be respectful of people regardless of their religion, be humble and etc. And am sure, any other kids growing up in other religions experienced this as well.

Now we have NGOs that looked more like mafias to me, and those of higher power, suddenly transformed into Islam's champions and make a mockery our of the teaching of Islam for their own agenda.

Case of point: Non-Moslem MP entered a Surau (chapel).

There was a big hoohaa about this. To make the long story short, these so called "religious" monkeys asked responsible religious council to punish the non-Moslem MP just because she attended an event held in a Surau.

My God. The thing about why I hate them so much is they are putting out ridiculous image on other Moslem. Stop it already!

Is my faith and belief that I have nurtured since I was young, things that I have learned and loved about my religion can be easily threatened by petty stuff? Don't they realized that false representations and making false statement on religion are more damaging that anything else?

We need to come together. Stop playing both the racial and religious card. It would just make you look more pathetic.

A year older.

2010-08-27T12:35:00.006+08:00

Photo: Aged 1 year old, 30 years ago.

Today, at 2.20pm I will officially turned 31. The impact of seeing a significant change in the first number in your age only hits you really hard when the second one starts to change as well.

Happy birthday to me. Many happy returns.

Think: We are the less fortunate ones, but we will support each other no matter what.

2010-08-11T13:32:00.023+08:00

Photo: My dad's cat.

I called my mom yesterday's evening to wish her a blessed fasting month of Ramadhan. When she answered my call she sounded normal; well normal like how a mother would be, soft spoken but a bit irritated because she probably had to slowly waddle or stretched/pushed herself to get to her phone.

I asked her my routine sickeningly structured series of questions that came in a predictable sequence ; consisting of health - how is she feeling , wealth - did she strike any number today, about love - is she still annoyed with my dad's constant whining and last but not least her favourite activity - what's special on the menu today.

It was a normal mother-daughter day to day phone conversation, until she said, "wait" and then she was talking to someone at the back, "it's ok, it's ok, don't cry anymore."

At that moment I knew something was wrong.

When she finally turned back to me to resume our daily exchange of self-loathing and boring bits of our lives, I asked her who was it that she was referring to. She explained that all the while I was talking to her, my auntie was crying at the back and immediately her voice turned sombre.

My auntie (Auntie Lah) is one of the closest to me. We grew up together because, age-wise, we are not that far apart. It was heartbreaking for me to have listened to her soft cries.

My mom continued telling me that she discovered that her boyfriend of 5 years, has been married for 9 years. You can't imagine my disbelief and how shocked I was when I heard that bit of a news because it just doesn't make any sense at all.

Let me explain.

We've known him through a family friend who introduced him to my newly divorced Auntie at that time, 5 years ago. We've met his family, nieces, nephews and he came around to our family's house mostly every week, but all this while it was never brought to our attention that he is actually a married man. Not from OUR family's friend, not from HIS family. It is just totally dumbfounding. It is like a conspiracy theory. So, to found out that he's married AFTER 5 YEARS of being in a serious relationship with my Auntie, is a complete electric-kaboom-shock!!. Things just don't add up even when I tried very hard to gel them together.

It is out in the open now and it is better late than never. There's nothing much that we can do about what had happened and it is just a waste of time to lament about it over and over and over again.

I told my Mom to just let her cry until she can't cry no more -until she wears herself out, until she no longer has a voice and has completely drain all her energy out. Just like the last time when she was dumped by her then husband because he was having an affair with a younger woman. I know, just like the rest of us, she is strong and she will rise again from this tragic fall. She will emerge stronger than ever.

But for her to do that, she has to endure this painful phase. She has to go through this on her own and we must make known to her that she has our love and support no matter what. My mom was angry albeit sad by this whole episode. She's the biggest supporter of my auntie's relationship and knowing my mom, am sure she felt a bit responsible towards what had transpired.

I SMSed my auntie before I went to sleep last night.

"No matter what happen, you know you'll have us until the end of time. We love you, and you should love yourself too. Call me when you are done with the crying bit."

She was there for me during my meltdown from my previous relationship and I was there for her after her devastating divorce, and we will continue to be there for each other even though it seems that this cycle of tragic relationship ceases to end for all the women in my family.

Left: My mom's. Right: My dad's.
(How do we differentiate the two? My mom's cat is a cam-whore and my dad's cat is very shy. He never really looks directly at the camera)

Tweak: Bali, Indonesia.

2010-08-10T14:28:00.008+08:00

Think : Imitation is the best form of flattery.

2010-07-23T13:59:00.021+08:00

Photo credit to Mr.Snots. Summer night in Sweden.

When I first heard of this phrase,"Your eyes are the windows to your soul", I seriously think that who ever came up with that was totally delusional. I can never tell whether people are being sincere or lying to my face just by looking at their eyes. The only thing that I would probably notice about their eyes is how captivating it can be.

You also can't obviously think of me as a very nice, warm loving person just by looking at my eyes, or that I do charity, and feed the homeless or carry grocery bags for old aunties. Right? But of course none of these are true. I am quite selfish and a bit self-centred at times. Then again, if you have been living your life alone for so long, why would you want to care or bother of what's going on with other people.

Talking about other people, there are countless type of people out there with different needs and views on life. You might have encountered some few annoying ones, good ones, or sometimes the ones you would love to emulate or imitate in life.

On that note, I once dressed up with a cap pull backwards, baggy jeans with an awesome soldier belt (because they had this camouflage print) and also my oversized t-shirt because I thought it was cool to be like TLC, especially T-Boz and Left-Eye. LOL. I also had multicoloured handyplast plastered on my face and on my hand because it was deemed up-to-date.

There's this time when I basically had NKOTB posters on my bedroom wall and was dancing to Linear's saving all my love.. saving all my love to you...., I cut my hair short and put on so much of hair gel and hair spray, I had caused the thinning of the ozone, above the path I had walked on. It was even cool to be a boy for a girl like me. Lucky I didn't end up being a lesbian. (not that I have anything against them, I'm just saying you know). I even put on a choreographed performance (each of us was in character, I think I was Jordan Knight haha) with my "gang" in school during the Teacher's day and boy, they were so lame, they really loved it. We were freaking lame as well, because we wore torn jeans and a black leather jacket. LOL.

Then I came to know a bunch of skateboarders and listened to RHCP, Ugly Kid Joe and etc. Now I remember that we were divided into 2 groups of skaters back then; those who listened to rap/hip hop music. This group was further classified into 2 subgroups - east side and west side. How freaking ghetto is that? We had Tupac Shakur and Notorious B.I.G wannabes. The other group, the rest of the brat pack, those (like me) who listened to rock/alternative rock songs that were on the rise back then. We donned the skinny jeans, t-shirts and the hi-tops shoes.LOL. This fashion has made a comeback, and now we have a bunch of teenagers with this fashion sense who associates themselves with all things Indie.

Growing up, one transformation after another took centre stage in my life, every time I discovered something new that I can totally relate to, or something I think I would want to become, or ought to be.

Luckily for me, at the end of my journey in search for so-called self identity (somewhere when I was 15), I reverted to my all time favourite; jeans, t-shirt and anything that I feel like wearing without putting any constraints on me - my comfortable self.

Since that point of time, I never had any urge to follow any trend, be it music, fashion, accessories and others.

These external changes influenced my image, my song choices, friends I mingled with, but deep inside I always feel the same. All I ever cared about was finishing up school so that I don't have to wake up way too early in the morning, my sports activities and try not to get on the parents' nerves because, this you guys have to agree with me, when they were much younger they were really mean and roarrr arrgghh *shows claws*, merciless towards us.

But life was so much awesome nonetheless.

Tweak : Fixing the Firefox.

2010-07-22T09:57:00.015+08:00

I have a love-hate relationship with the Firefox internet browser. I know it is one of the safest if not THE SAFEST, most convenient, well organised and all the features that would make a geeky worm goes gaga over it. Well, I am one of those unimpressed geek.

The only issue I'm having an emotional flip-flop with Firefox is the Add-On/Plug-ins feature. Why? Because it is always being automatically downloaded and once it is installed, it always search for updates. I don't need all those extra features because I prefer the native add-on free browser. Disabling it won't exactly put my mind at ease.

Although I always refuse any sort of additional downloads, sometimes I do overlook certain updates. Especially when it comes with a DEFAULT configuration.

The CULPRIT is Ask.com Toolbar. I hate it with passion! And for the past few days, it has been giving me hell.

One thing I need to remind the fans of Firefox is, when you remove your Ask.Com Toolbar, just make sure that you perform this step.

--> Go to C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\components and remove the AskSearch.js file in that folder.

Because although you think by performing uninstall task and everything will magically goes away, in reality, sometimes it doesn't really completely remove all the components of the add-on/plug-ins, and these "containers" that were left behind will cause your browser to go haywire.

Example:
You will get this every time you enter any URL on the address bar. The browser freezes for few seconds and will later produce this error message. What triggers this? It is the damn AskToolbar (I would rather refer to it as Ass TooBAD). It leaves behind the file I mentioned above, and still the browser will try to call it. Stupid or what?

All you need to do is just to remove the AskSearh.js and things will go back to normal. Trust me. It is still a pain in the ass, but it is a curable pain.

One more issue.

If you are a fanatic internet user; say, you use internet 24 hours a day and browse almost all the available pages in the virtual world; you might want to, once in a while clear your cache and browser history. That what we were told to do right? and by doing that we would think that it will be gone, deleted, vanished, cleared, thrash-binned, and whatnot.

Wrong.

You need to perform this instead.

1. Go to your Start Menu, navigate to Run and enter this %appdata%/Mozilla/Firefox/Profiles/.

2. You will then be diverted to your mozilla profile folder (oddly titled with an extension .default) that housed all your configurations; like bookmark, historical data and so on and so forth.

3. Open that folder, search for this file, places.sqlite . This file contains all your browsing history for as long as you have been using your Firefox browser. The size won't become smaller just because you constantly clear your history.

4. Rename this file place.sqlite.bak or you can delete it if you want (but I would recommend you to rename it, it is always a good practice to do backup). Because this step will force the Firefox to create a new file and will give you less headache every time you want to type in a URL and the browser would "SLOWLY" trying to search for the recommended site for you, based on your browsing history.

There you go. Hopefully it is all clear now. Even the greatest and the awesome-st browser is flawed.

Think : Somber and Suicidal.

2010-07-15T13:05:00.008+08:00

Photo: Standing still.

I received an email this morning from Mr.Snots asking me why the tone of my writings is somber and suicidal lately.

I said that I didn't realise it at all. Then I came back to this blog, browsed through the archive and I finally see that I do sound a bit suicidal. I noticed that my choice of songs have changed dramatically as well. Keith Urban, Eagles, Joshua Radin and Paolo Nutini is on top of the playlist now compared to Stone Sour, Kiss, Kinks, Papa Roach, Three Days Grace and Nine Inch Nails a couple of weeks ago.

So here I am, updating this blog with a hope that as I compose this entry, I might discover what had influenced this transformation in me.

Before this post is published, I have taken a couple of breaks in between, to analyse what's going on. Few things that I understand now, and most important one is the fact that what I write is a reflection of my emotion in that frame of time.

Emotionally, I have been a bit under the weather lately. I don't know how to elaborate on it, but I know that I do feel empty. It felt like - I could have done more with my life and maybe the outcome will be different. You know? I don't feel happy or maybe because am PMSing. But not to forget the fact that PMSing actually emphasize the state that you are in. Things that you think is petty, no longer seems to be small and irrelevant. Things always get blown out of proportion, just like all these stupid chaotic hormones.

Well, let see if after I've done with this rollercoster ride of hormonal chaos, I will be able to atleast not sound so suicidal. For the mean time, bear with me.

Sew Myself Shut.

2010-07-14T16:04:00.010+08:00

Photo: Enjoying the sun.

Photo: A nice lady feeding the lil birds on a bright sunny autumn day.

I have a tendency to keep everything to myself. Something that should be out in the open, sometimes is left unspoken until it is forgotten. I have an attention span of a 5 year old, and a memory of a flushed-down-the-toilet goldfish. Things that have been forgotten will not be recalled or remembered until it is triggered by some tragic incident. Most of the time, none of it will ever be remembered at all.

I don't blame it on the ageing factor, or for having too much of interesting things to remember. My incapacity of remembering anything started since I was very small and my life ain't that interesting. I think it is somewhat due to the fact that, I am able to block any undesirable experience at the blink of an eye and can easily pretend like nothing ever happened. So, for having to process so many "hide" function for the past 31 years of my life, my brain can't differentiate between manual intervention and auto clean-up anymore. It basically disconnect everything that seems insignificant.

I have a lot of things that I have been meaning to say to a couple of people about a couple of stuff, but somehow I feel like there's an invisible hand holding me back from pouring my heart out. One shitty fact about me is, I can never find the best or suitable word to describe any of my resentments, sentiments and predicaments. I'm easily misunderstood. *sigh*. So I rather keep my mouth shut than to say something totally out of context or or could bring any sort of confusion towards other people.

Bitter truth.

2010-07-13T15:44:00.013+08:00

I have always been in a relationship. I've started my journey very young and every time I fell out of it, I picked myself up, and believe that my Mr.Right is somewhere out there. Although sometimes Mr.Right ended up being Mr.Right Now, but as they cleverly put it, it isn't so much about the destination, but the journey towards reaching it.

I had my first boyfriend when I was just 10. We were in the same circle of friends and both of us played hockey for our school. Funny to think about it now, because having a boyfriend back then was just a school girl's way of making a statement and something to brag about. He didn't serves much function/purpose in my life and vice versa. Nevertheless, I had one at the mere age of 10.

I moved on to another boy a year after, to another one not long after, and the other one right after, until I met (who I thought back then) the ONE. Since both of us were in a different situation and under some circumstances (being a bit older and whatnot) it lasted for 12 years. The breakup shattered my heart in gazillion pieces and at that point, I never thought that I would be able to make it whole again.

Then I met Mr.Snots. It has been two years, and we are still together.

The recap of my journey in search of unconditional love is not because I want to portray or make anyone think of myself as someone who can easily get a man. What I want to uncover is the side of me that I think hasn't changed since I started this journey, 21 years ago.

I have always wanted the same thing. A partner who wants to be with me as much as I want to be with him.

Some people had it easy - fall in love, get married, build family and fall prefectly (or unperfectly but still) into the sequence of events that usually follow suit. Unfortunately, am not one of those people. I don't know how to take my relationship to the next level. Most of the relationship resolutions will dissolves itself without any further action from me.

I'm actually scared to bring up anything about "marriage". Although it had been conveyed every once in a while, but I was more scared than excited when talking about it. I think I was afraid that I have to face the possibility and the probability of it not happening, and I think I still am.

You see, it is not that I want to get married tomorrow but this thing will always be at the back of my head. It will be nice if I could talk comfortably about it.

The only thing that I can tell my mom is that I'm not thinking about it, every time she asks me about my future/relationship. The truth is, I lied.

Work from Home(town).

2010-07-02T14:24:00.020+08:00

I love this picture. It was taken by a friend of mine, candidly. Didn't notice the love symbol carved on the wooden door before the photo was captured. It turned out great though. I was sitting because was too tired from too much of walking LOL.

I'm planning to go back to my hometown this weekend. Since it has been a long time since I last went back, I applied for another 3 days of leave next week so that I can extend my stay a bit longer. I will be packing my work stuff with me because although the idea of spending time with my parents and aunties, doing nothing ;except for endless talking and eating; is my top priority, but *sigh* work is work and deadline is just a bitch. I'm still struggling to finish reading all the SIRIM standards to come up with a report. That book is like a sleeping pill, every time I open it, I fell asleep.

So my mom asked me yesterday, is Mr.Snots tagging along this time around? Much to her dismay, I said no. I know that she's probably wondering why on earth that, I've been with this dude for 2 years but everyone in the family (except for my brother who is living with me) only met him once. I don't know how to explain this to everyone. The situation is a bit different with this one because every time we make an arrangement to go back home to meet the parents, that usually means that we meet our OWN parents at our OWN hometown, separately.LOL.

I always believe in this perception about doing things (certain things pertaining family) separately. If you are involved in a committed relatioship; married or unmarried; you can and should be able to still spend time with your family without your other half. There's no such thing as - if I go back to my parents' you must come as well or else - kinda arrangement. You don't have to follow me every where I go.

Also, the problem about being single for too long is, you have somewhat developed these routine "activities" that you do together with your family every time you (in this case, it is totally me) go back home. Like I would want to take my mom and auntie out shopping, and take her anywhere she wants to go. I also think that they would be more comfortable talking to me about "family" issues alone, without my bf nearby. But of course, there's always time allocated for family, time for relationship and most importantly for both, probably at the same time , next time.LOL. Just need to make a bit of arrangement every now and then, so that everything is well balanced and everyone is happy.

Krabi Trip 2010 : Pictorial Edition.

2010-07-01T11:54:00.013+08:00

We promise each other that we would spend time away every year together. I'm talking about my girlfriends here. Last year we made it to Bali, and for this year's trip - Krabi, Thailand. Did nothing much but lazing around, talked, shopped, read books, and whatnots. Good times!

I'm still pretty much obsessed with white fluffy clouds I guess.

What is it about these girls that I love so much anyway? We don't actually have anything in common except for enjoying each other's company. Each of us came from different background yet when we sit and talk, we can REALLY talk. I don't know, everytime I spend time with them, it feels as if am free of my worries. I can always count on them to be around everytime I give out a distress sms/email/call.

Sunset in Ao Nang beach.

We share stories about love, life, expectations and the lack of it, ambitions and everything under the sky. I have no idea why is it that everytime we meet each other, there's some kind of a magnet that attracted/extracted stories out of my chest/brain or something. I.must.tell.them.what.has.been.going.on.lately. or else I would curled up and die. Seriously.

The girls.

But that's the thing, I have other girlfriends but I don't have that urge to tell them anything. These four (it's five actually but one of them would only available whenever she wants to meet us; hehe - but we love her nonetheless) silly girls (or otherwise known as The Cacklers) would always have a special place in my heart.

The beach.

Thanks for the friendship and am looking forward to our next outing. Probably tomorrow, yes?

The books.

I lost a bet to them. Now I must muster enough courage to eat the most disgustingly foul -smelling (in my own book of course, I don't speak for others) Durian because the two seemingly cowards "I-am-afraid-of-riding-a-boat" had managed to spend two hours travelling from Krabi to Phi Phi. Blearrghhhh!!

I.must.not.give.in!!! BRING IT ON!

Lost and Found II

2010-06-18T12:39:00.010+08:00

It takes quite an effort to produce a well organised and constructed post about programming codes, I tell ya. I am about half way done compiling the code and with all the print-screens but still I don't think it is sufficient and it will never pass as a good post. So, until I am fully satisfied with the content and be really sure that people who reads it will understand what I was trying to show them, I will work on it some more.

Tomorrow, Mr.Snots and I will scout around for tables. I need a small yet nice console table for that little work space I have created for me in my apartment. It is right at the corner of my living room. Just perfect. I can watch the TV and do work at the same time. I hate to work in a quiet and empty room. I need some background music or anything that I could immediately turn to whenever I’m bored with my work; like watching TV or DVDs.

I found these two pictures and am not sure whether I had published (uploaded for friends to see of course) or not. And am just too lazy to check on facebook either.

Crystal Mosque in Kuala Terengganu.

Picture of a subway tunnel somewhere in Belgium (if am not mistaken)

I took thousands of pictures, some might be overlooked during the selection/editing time. But am sure I got a lot more hidden somewhere in that "ALL JUMBLED UP PHOTOS" folder of mine. But one thing for sure, I do have a lot of photos of the sky with all sort of clouds formations. *scratches head*..I must have loved looking at the sky before, but I must stress that I rather work indoor nowadays; less sun exposure, less rashes to scratch.

Standardisation.

2010-06-02T13:56:00.007+08:00

I just got back from SIRIM for a work group meeting/discussion. Unfortunately, I can't disclose anything because we were requested to sign a confidentiality agreement.

I was just a stand-in for my boss actually, but somehow they want me to return as a permanent representative for my company due to my background and experience in cyber security issues before.

I was really lost at first because it was my first time joining this meeting, but once I get my momentum, everything appeared interesting although I must say the refreshments - two types of kuih - tasted like paper. I also met a couple of familiar faces from other CNIIs (Critical National Information Infrastructure - woah that's a mouthful). It was good catching up on what's new.

I will be doing a lot of reading on these documents to come up with a checklist, do some cross reference check and to produce a report on it. Analysis phase is upon me. I haven’t done this kind of task for so long. I was always on the technical side of everything, so it is expected that I spend hours on reading and understanding the concept and flow of standardisation process.

Lost and Found I

2010-06-01T17:34:00.016+08:00

Found a couple of interesting photos when I was trying to free some space in the external hardisk. These were taken during a short trip to Rome. Took it with a point and shoot, and in a moving train. Didn't tweak, didn't make any colour adjustment or whatsoever. I remember it was a bright shiny day and everything that was captured was pratically awesome in the sense of levelling and lighting.

I miss taking random photos of whatever.

Egged Out!

2010-06-01T16:17:00.006+08:00

Can't help but to be totally egged out now that everyone with nuffnang sponsored ad is currently doing their bit promoting whatzername egg. Can things get more original than this? ;)

I bet Toots would love this. The last time we had an outing she ate like 3 eggs in one seating!!

Junk or Treasure?

2010-06-01T12:09:00.009+08:00

Well, it is true that one's junk could be another's treasure..and nowadays, it comes with a price tag.

I have came across so many preloved websites, or blogs that offer their "old seldom used" stuff, or "impulse purchase" at a dirt cheap price. Ok it is reasonable if they offer you their designer's handbags that you can't afford to buy directly from the boutique even if it is on 50% sale; given that it is in good condition, well maintained, comes with the dust bag and a warranty card; but old used clothes? I don't want to be presumptuous to say that people are surely desperate for money or being judgemental, but I think it is better to give it away than to sell it for RM5 or RM10.

There are still a lot of poor people out there that could use a set of new clothes or two; and am sure by doing that you help to put a smile on their face too.

When I was young, every year my dad would collect our old but still wearable clothes and took it with him to work. Since his work required him to travel to the very nook and cranny of my hometown, so whenever he came across a poor family especially the ones with many small children, he would approach the family and gave them our clothes. He even once took me to that area and asked me to give it to them myself and since I was really young, stupid and selfish, I couldn't appreciate it as much because at that point of time I think all that I care about was either this girl or that boy would end up wearing my t-shirts, of which some of them I still fancy.

Nowadays, from time to time, we still collect our old clothes and ask my uncle to give it to anyone who needs it. I guess my dad's act of kindness has influenced him to carry on with the good deed all these years. He will make sure that we don't give out anything that would look better in a thrash bin rather than on people and still in good condition to at least hold well for few months if not years.

I know there are organisations out there that provide temporary storage and collect clothes, food, baby supplies and other stuff and would then help to disseminate these collections to those in need.All you have to do is to google them.

I’m not so much of a big charity drive person nor would I organise any charity event, but I guess whatever that we could contribute in making this world a bearable place for them to live in, means something.

Conversion.

2010-05-31T16:16:00.008+08:00

I woke up late this morning because the alarm clock was not ringing. I have yet to confirm that theory though, because I haven’t checked the alarm function yet. But there’s a major possibility that I didn’t set the alarm in the first place or I dismissed it unconsciously.

Mr. Snots is in Stockholm right now, probably wandering around aimlessly; exactly like when he was in Amsterdam; or searching for an open air market or shop that sells water colour paintings and talk with the painters/artists for hours exchanging views on their passion for art and their favourite subject that most probably revolves around horses, boats and sceneries. I guess he wants to transform his condo into an art gallery or something. What ever that strikes your fancy, honey; as long as you are happy. I just hope that he got me those fridge magnets I’ve asked for. Talk about how easy it is to please a woman eh.

We chatted until almost 4a.m this morning, hence the excuse for my half-day emergency leave.

Ok.That’s that.

Regarding this blog; I have this plan going circle in my head for quite some time now. The plan is that I want to transform this blog into a “techy/geeky” blog and post about what I do best, Application Development and all things IT/System Integration. I’ve started this dotNET journey with zero knowledge, and now I can safely say that I’ve emerged a “hero” or somewhat (talking about an inflating ego the size of a planet). I have gained and learned so much from other developers through their weblogs and their contributions in the forums, I want to pay it forward.

I will share whatever that I have learned (anything that I have managed to get it to work to my advantage, my cheat-sheet, my little code manipulation tricks, things that I have successfully tweaked, from the simplest of example to the most complex algorithm) through out my journey with all the newbies searching for fast solutions and help in this area. I do hope that when they search for that certain keywords, they will be diverted to this blog and they can get something out of my post; exactly like how I started. I was like a virtual scavenger rummaging through piles of garbage before I found what I was searching for.

But I wouldn’t want this blog to be entirely geeky though. This is my space, where I share that little passions that I have in my life; my work, my friendships, my hobbies, my rants and all the things that mattered to me. I would probably label and organise it properly so that people won’t get lost and get confused.

But first, I need to get rid of all the historical posts and delete all the unnecessary. I need to make the layout more user-friendly; I don’t want it to look so depressing anymore. Enough with that already, if I got tired of it myself, I am sure people who stumbled across this blog would think that I’m suicidal or something.

So, here's to a new beginning. *cheers*

2010-04-01T09:45:00.017+08:00

Waking up early is not really an ideal way to kickstart my day, ever since I was a wee toddler. You will probably think with all that years spent waking up in the morning for schools and classes, by now I should be able to wake up as early as 6 a.m. I guess my mom had a couple of tricks up her sleeves because somehow she managed to pull me off bed, bathed me, clothed me and sent me off too school with me still very much in my slumber. Most of the time, I only realised that I was awake when I was already in my school compound. Even now, every now and then, I'd be on an auto-cruise mode. Tiba-tiba dah sampai ofis; bila bangun, bila mandi and jalan mana ikut gi ofis pun tak perasan.

But seriously, I have no freaking idea why I can't bring myself up that early. Tried it and failed miserably at it.

If Mr.Snots let me sleep in by not calling me too early in the morning just to spite me (smses tak jalan) during the weekend, my body alarm will automatically wake me up at 10a.m.

This brings me to the next section in this crappy post; so every day for the past 7 years of my working life, I have been deprived of sleep for hmm, let me calculate.

Bangun tido at 7 the latest, so 10 -7 = 3 hours

3 (deprived hours of sleep/~~day~~) x 260 (~~working days~~/~~year~~) x 7 (~~years~~)
= 5460 deprived hours of sleep.

From the calculation above, we can see that it is only fair that tuan punya badan, should be compensated with 5460/24 = 227.5 days of leave for this 7 years that she has been ~~slaving around~~ working for this company.

With that much leave days in hand, I think I want to pack my bag and hmmm go travelling. The cheapest way of course; backpacking and stuff.

Why am I talking about this again? Owh yeah, I was just wondering what should or will I do if I was given a year off because my friend has just started working after being in sabatical leave for a year.

Since taking a sabatical is akin to killing your career in Meleisia, so verangans lah. At least until I manage to devise an ingenious plan on how to trick your company in giving you your deserving sabatical leave.

Imagination. Berangan. Tada salahnya.

But ntah-ntah a year off work in this office, will cause me to pile up on side projects pulak. Or silap-silap take up knitting, or sewing.

One thing for sure, I will replace balik all the missing hours of my ensem sleep.

2009-10-25T21:28:00.005+08:00

I was doing my annual splean clinging (sic), or to all the normal people out there with normal tongue; spring cleaning; yesterday to toss out some of the unnecessary things that had been piling up all these years in the storage room.

While I was filtering through every single things, I found a couple of pictures and letters from my past relationship. It's funny to think about it now, because if I were to discover these stuff back then, when I was still in devastation, I would probably cry my eyes out. But yesterday, I felt different. I was actually laughing and thought that my past relationship was really naive and innocent, (well maybe because that pictures were taken when we were about 18 or 19 years old, of course we looked naive and innocent). But that's not the point.

The point is, I had moved on. I no longer feel all hung up on my past. I let it passed, and I've passed it. I tore up the pictures and threw away the letters, and filled up my nice lil boxes with new love letters from Mr.Snots.

I felt rejuvenated. I felt relieved. As if a big burden had been lifted off my shoulder. I always knew that I no longer feel anything for him and that whatever that I have with Mr.Snots is what I've always wanted in a relationship; The bond, the attention, the things that we share, the trust (still working on that, apparently it is really hard to establish a trust); But the reassurance that came unexpectedly in a form of crumbled papers in dirty old boxes, relieved me from my past.

You know what they say about this, yesterday had passed and today is what matters now, it's a gift that need to be cherished, that is why they call it present (or some shit like that).

Fun Weekend.

2009-09-05T23:21:00.003+08:00

Pfth!

2009-09-02T09:53:00.008+08:00

I was back in Muar for the long extended weekend.

Drove back with my cousin and her boyfriend, and picked Adik up in Melaka before heading back to Muar. Adik wanted to spend the remaining of her school holidays at my Mom's place.

My family was never a big sahur family. Yes, when I was young and was just started fasting, we were forced by Mak to wake up for sahur, but since we are all adults and mementingkan tidur dari makan, the only obligation that my Mom has this fasting month is to remind us to eat something before we sleep, or the very least, get up to drink glasses or bottles of water to keep us hydrated.

But this time around, with Adik in the house, my mom has specifically instructed me to kejut Adik up for sahur, and make sure that Adik has plenty to eat.

Since I was the one responsible of taking care of her (well, dah bawak dia balik kenelah jaga), so I have no choice but to agree.

I set my alarm clock at 4.30 a.m and knowing my laziness, I gave myself a time buffer of 15 mins to roll about before I finally get my lazy arse up.

Sunday morning, at 4.30 am sharp, surprisingly I woke up almost immediately after I shut the alarm and watching Adik sleeping beside me so soundly, I tiptoed out from the room, washed my face and brushed my teeth. Pergi dapur, panaskan the chicken soup and rice from berbuka time, fried telur mata kerbau, then only I woke her up.

I asked her to wash her face, brush her teeth and teman her for sahur. After she had finished eating every bit and pieces of the nasik and telur, although reluctantly, I asked her to turn on the TV and wait for the food to settle in her stomach before going back to sleep. At the same time, kejut Mak and Ayah for their sahur drinks, kemas meja, basuh pinggan, masukkan baju into the washing machine, and by the time I’ve done with all those things, it was almost 6 a.m and Adik was already asleep infront of the TV.

This is my first time taking charge of the sahur time, making sure everyone is good to puasa the next day.

And all I can say is, NOT BAD!!

2009-08-23T09:26:00.003+08:00

This is my first time updating this blog through my handphone. It makes me feel hip and techy. Coolness. Hehe. Or should I use the word Poyoness instead.

About yesterday. I've managed to scratch off a couple of items from my to-buy list. So this morning, am going to search for the remaining items, and quickly come up with today's list.

Am going off to Ace Hardware to get the all the things to finish off my mural today. We'll see how ugly it turn out to be. Later.

Why I do this.

2009-08-06T13:32:00.008+08:00

I've been cutting down my expenditure due to the economic crisis. Really.

I've set up a to-do list, and also manage some financial planning and expenditure scheme, to help me stick with it, just in case I forget or stray away from my future plan of having a financial freedom (ewah!).

So what are the things that I've managed well for the past one month?

1. I no longer buy expensive coffee (starbucks, coffee bean and etc). I save up RM45 per week, because I usually spent close to RM15 for the grande sized coffee atleast 3 times a week.

2. Limit my expenditure to what is necessary. I list everything out, and prioritise it according to its importance. So instead of buying mineral bottled water from the hypermarket , somewhere around RM12/12bottles 1.5L x 2 (RM24) per every month, I would masak air sendiri before tidur, and top up the bottle bila dah sejuk the next morning.

3. Changed all my light bulbs in my apartment to energy saving bulbs. I spent more on the upfront, but hopefully it will provide me with a high ROI in terms of electricity bills.

4. I don't wear "branded" (middle range) stuff anymore. No more online shopping for Victoria Secret undies/undergarments, no more ZARA jeans (well I restrict my ZARA jeans purchase to 1 helai setahun, during bonus time). For shoes, I love Clarks because it is comfortable and it usually lasts me longer than any other shoes. But my craving for shoes is restricted to only 1 Clarks every year, or until I wore the old one out (which ever comes first). Untuk kasut kerja, I found one store that offers superb collection with low price. SUMMIT. Freaking comfortable and you can send your shoes back if rosak and they fix it for you for free!!! Get the member card RM15 for 2 years, and you'll get 15% off for normal purchase, and if there's a sale, 15% off on top of the reduced price. Baju, back to FOS and Padini Chain Store. For padini, since the cycle of their collection is really fast, I don't purchase my baju kerja at normal price or new arrivals, but tunggu sebulan, then they'll give 50% or maybe 70% off during the clearance.

5. For handbags, I made a promise to myself that I will use all the bags that I currently own; all the purchases from Paris and around Europe (which is more than a year dah) and Bangkok; sampai sekarang ada yang belum pakai. No more purchase sampai semua koyak rabak.

6. Before this, I spent almost RM100/month on my reading materials; books and magazines. Women Health, Easy Living, Apartment, Glamour UK and all those fabulous imported mags. But now, I buy them one month late. It makes no different really, except that I get to purchase it at RM9 per mag some even RM5, because it is outdated and the store need to clear it out asap. Favourite mag store - Sun Mag @ Cineleisure. Books; tunggu warehouse clearance.

7. Store canned and dry goods. Like mee hoon, spagetti, all kinds of pasta, sardines etc, so that if am at home, and I am hungry, I can just cook something simple and filling. Tak payah keluar beli or buat delivery. I've been doing that for almost a month now, and it works. I hardly spent more than RM50 for food every week during workdays. Now, my mission is to make and pack my own breakfast / lunch to the office.

8. I want to learn how to bake. Nak buat cookies and keep it in a jar, and belajar nak buat bread (Still trying to mintak Along to sponsor me my breadmaker, so mahal tak mampu beli sendiri). So bila my niece and Mr.Snots (both are known to be avid snacking creatures) datang, we don't need to buy tonnes of snacks. It will be healthier too. Both need that extra nutrition because those two babies are still growing. Hehe.

9. I have this small irritating and membazir habit of letting the tap running when I'm in the kitchen or in the bathroom. Sebab pemalas nak bukak tutup air. Sekarang dah tak buat dah. Although the bill was never more than RM20, basically free, but it is just a bad habit.

10. Buy perishable items when necessary. Beli bila nak masak. Instead of simpan lama-lama and bila tak pakai, then ended up buang.

11. Spending lesser time at the shopping malls actually help me to curb my shopping habit to the extreme. I was never a crazed shopper pun, cuma I usually spend money unnecessarily. Now, I only go if I need to buy something, or nak tengok wayang.

Honestly, I know am not so much of a big spender before, but I never think that I can actually save up more than I ever did. All I need to do is to control and monitor my spending habit.

So proud.

2009-07-10T01:44:00.005+08:00

It's 1.44 AM and I am still wide awake.

Normally I would go to sleep somewhere around 10.30 to 11 PM and most of my friends know that I'd be cranky if I don't go to sleep on time.

But that has certainly changed now hasn't it?

I have just finished working on an assignment for the Business Management Course for my quite-close-but-not-that-close friend who is also my ex-clerk yang currently taking up a part time Bachelor Degree Course in OUM.

I have been helping him out with assignments for the past 2 years; mainly on assignments that require much research and analysis; because I know for the fact that he can't manage to do all the homeworks that have been assigned to him and to complete it on time.

He is almost 35 years old, married with 5 kids. I'm obliged to help him. I want to help him. Why? Simply because he is a good man, and he had strived his way up to where he is now by being patience and nice to everyone around him.

When he started working, he had no high school qualification or whatsoever. A drop-out. Now he is already half way of completing his degree. If that is not aspiring then I do not know what else is.

He is a hardworking man, in my opinion, it is just that sometimes he can't juggle too many things at one go. Well, it is given that man totally sucks at multitasking innit?

Alah, lagipun not all the assignments that I have been helping him with is really that hard to complete. Some might requires me to spend more time than I usually do on research and reading, but then nothing beats the rush I have inside of me on learning new things, something that is out of my comfort zone and territory. It is a good exposure I may add, because I've always wanted to do my MBA and working on his assignments and from all the research I've done, I think I can do well if not great.

Being an engineer my whole working life, my brain has been trained to think structurally, calculatively and imaginatively (not artsy fartsy imagination but the fact that we learn things that we can't see or touch like the flow of electric current, electromagnetic field, F=M*A , A=(v-u)/t and all those engineering stuff) so it was always difficult for me to churn out big , pseudo intelligent words ;) and also business jargons to describe and to elaborate on all things business and management. Hell, I can't properly goreng and make my gorengness believable even when I was doing my karangan.

But now, I can proudly say that I can goreng a bit. Not really THAT good, but at least when people ask me about the concept of management and whatnots, I won't sound too dumb or look blurred. Kan?

Kene bunyi pandai walaupun tak berapa sangat.

I think this year alone, I have acquired more knowledge and pick up a few new stuff in comparison with past years. Ok lah not bad. Probably my next target is to read one technical book a month. (Tiru this habit from my ex-Deputy Chief Engineer and he is so knowledgeable and basically considered an expert in anything)

Sounds boring eh? But I don’t know. Just a plan anyway. If tak jalan, then just cover a few chapters is good enough. Just for a refresher course, so that the neurons in my brain could store and hold on to the information longer.

Gosh am so hungry. It’s time to find something to eat, and force myself to sleep. It is going to be a long day tomorrow.

Good nite.

2009-06-29T09:39:00.009+08:00

You know, taking up this project would not only make my body system goes haywire, but it could actually put my career at risk. I never thought of it that way, because I take pride in what I do. But that's the truth.

What ever challenging tasks they have been given me to work on all these years, I always take it as that, a challenge. I'm willing to open up my already cluttered brain, to make space for new stuff; new programming language (not new new but new to me); and learn it all by myself through online journals, joining geeky forums and also techy books. Not even once I requested the department additional trainings although I do deserve it. But I wouldn't want to waste money and time, to sit on the beginner-intermediate-expert courses, which usually covers the basic stuff, although they advertised it differently.

I'm always keen to learn new things. Although in this company, people wouldn't appreciate it, but at least it would add colours to my bland looking CV, that has not been updated for almost 5 years.

I was warned by Mr.Snots and few others that if I fail to deliver this project, then my head would be on the line. The ones approached me to save them from failing to kick-start this project in the first place, would put the blame on me, just because I agree to help them deliver it on time.

I have faith in me. I always think positively when it comes to my work. Anything can be done as requested by the technical specifications. I just have to dig deep and not afraid of making as much errors so that I could learn more and more every time.

That's how I learn anyway. I'm willing to make as much mistakes so I can create what they want and as they want it.

All that being said, it is still tiring to work in an environment where, after all these years and your contributions, people still want to see you fail.

That is why I work alone; minding my own business trying very hard to make something out of nothing. I want to show them that I have the capability to do it, and save the company a lot of money.

Although sometimes, I always feel left out, even in my own unit in this department. Most of my peers share the same ground of work, working together most of the time, but I work alone. Because whatever that I do now and the skills I have acquired through this working years, I acquired it on my own initiatives.

Orang melayu kene belajar jangan asyik bersifat dengki.

Orang melayu jangan asyik nak jatuhkan orang melayu lain.

As much as I love what I do, but don't think that my life revolves around this office and my work life. You can put me down, make up stories about me, I don't care.

Ayah selalu pesan, kalau bekerja biar ikhlas. Kalau asyik nak mengharapkan habuan, sampai ke sudah kita tak tenteram.

That's why, when the management promised me that I will be promoted if I manage to deliver this project, I just laughed it out. Trust me, as much as that promise would make an excellent reward, but it is not the one that drives me every day to wake up in the morning and to complete this project on time. I have Ayah's words lingering in my ear and at the back of my head.

That is the main reason why I do what I do. I want Ayah to be proud of me. I want him to think that, I also have the drive and sincerity for my work, as much as he takes pride of his contributions and his undying loyalty to this company.

2009-06-26T14:11:00.005+08:00

Kalau sesiapa yang pernah jumpa Ayah, memang tak akan boleh mengagak yang Ayah aku pernah melecur separuh badan akibat dari terkena kejutan elektrik. Aku adalah generasi ketiga dalam keluarga yang bekerja dengan Syarikat Elektrik Che Khalib. Nasib aku baik kerana ayah memberikan peluang pendidikan yang cukup, jadik kelayakan aku membolehkan aku bekerja dengan pangkat yang sedikit lebih tinggi darinya; hanya duduk mengangkang depan komputer tapi bergelar jurutera. o_O

Berbalik kepada kisah Ayah.

Ayah mula berkerja seawal umur 18 tahun. Cita-cita asal mahu menjadi tentera laut. Tapi ditentang hebat oleh Arwah Atuk kerana tentera laut bekerja berdasarkan kontrak. Jadi, masa depan tidak terlalu terjamin. Arwah atuk yang ketika itu bekerja dengan Syarikat Elektrik Che Khalib, terdahulu dikenali sebagai CEB, membawa masuk Ayah bekerja sebagai buruh. Ketika itu CEB mengalakkan pekerjanya membawa masuk ahli keluarga untuk bekerja. Jadi, hampir keseluruhan adik-beradik Ayah aku bekerja dengan CEB.

Jawatan pertama yang dipegang oleh Ayah adalah merupakan jawatan Buruh Kasar. Mengangkat tiang-tiang elektrik setinggi 15-20 kaki and membanting tulang menanamnya sekitar daerah Muar. Gaji permulaan hanyalah sebanyak RM90. Ketika Along lahir, gaji ayah hanyalah RM110. Dan pada ketika itu, dia bukan hanya menampung Along dan Mak, tetapi juga Amie, dan adik bongsunya. Ayah juga membawa arwah atuk dan nenek tinggal bersama di kuarters CEB yang menjadi tempat kami membesar.

Selama beberapa tahun bekerja sebagai buruh, Ayah dipindahkan pula ke unit substesyen untuk kerja-kerja senggaraan.

Kejadian berlaku ketika Ayah membuat kerja-kerja senggaraan di low voltage distribution board. Cutout dicabut tanpa mematikan bekalan dan menyebabkan percikan dan letupan berlaku.

Bahagian badan termasuk tangan dan kaki, abis disambar api. Ayah bernasib baik sebab auto-refleks bertindak pantas dia sempat memaling muka ke arah yang selamat. Ayah dibawa ke hospital untuk dirawat dan syukur, kerana tiada sebarang kecederaan dalaman.

Ayah tidak bekerja hampir 6 bulan. Aku masih ingat Mak bercerita, katanya, "6 bulan Mak mandikan Ayah, cebukkan dia, suapkan makan. Sikit pun aku tak merungut. Ni nak suruh pergi kedai sekejap pun malas. Ayah kau ni memang!"

Okay mungkin ketika itu Mak aku bukan bercerita, tapi merungut. :)

Tapi apa yang Ayah buat segala luka dan kesan akibat dari kejutan elektrik dan kebakaran di badan Ayah hilang?

Disebabkan pekerjaan Ayah memerlukannya berada di merata kawasan sehingga ke pendalaman, Ayah pernah berjumpa dengan orang Asli yang mengajarnya untuk mengunakan buih yang keluar dari kayu yang terbakar untuk mengubat parut-parut dan pelbagai penyakit kulit. Dari petua itulah, hari-hari Mak dan Ayah akan bakar "kayu bakar" untuk ambil buih yang terbentuk, dan Ayah akan sapukannya pada parut dan bekas-bekas terbakar pada kulitnya tanpa jemu.

Sehingga kesemua parut tersebut hilang.

Aku hanya tahu cerita ini ketika umur aku lebih kurang 15 tahun. Masa tu, aku memang terperanjat sebab tak sangka Ayah aku pernah berdepan dengan maut.

Tiga pengajaran yang aku peroleh dari cerita ini:

i) Mak memang orang yang penyabar. Aku tak dapat bayangkan macam mana tindakan aku kalau aku dalam situasi yang sama.

ii) Ayah aku dari dulu memang pemalas sebab banyak kali aku dengar Mak aku merungut benda yang sama sampai sudah.

iii) Mana aku nak cari kayu bakar untuk aku hilangkan bekas-bekas jerawat ni?

2009-06-25T08:12:00.004+08:00

The first time I spoke of Mr.Snots to my family member, it was to Along; and his wife, and his son, the FIL, MIL. Well, I was there to pick up my birthday present from him. Approximately a year ago.

Upon hearing that I have a new man in life, and I've ditched the Ex, he immediately turned into some Pak Arab, clapping his hand in joy. They asked me a lot of questions about Mr.Snots. You know, the usual suspects. Where he’s from, what does he do, how old is he….blah blah blah. My SIL was sitting quietly looking all engrossed in her thoughts. So we continued talking about him, and Along extended the invitation for our family BBQ nite at his place to Mr.Snots. He wanted to meet him; and it was supposed to be a simple meet and greet session. Towards the end of the conversation, my SIL suddenly came up with a suggestion on what name we can use if we have kids. She came up with Suraya, and asked me to keep Mr.Snots' middle name and make it a family name. Out of no where. Tetiba jer. So malu.

So that's that.

On the BBQ night, Mr. Snots was introduced to Ayah, and the rest; Auntie Lah was there as well. If I can recall correctly, he was interrogated by Along's MIL. He was in the house sitting through a rapid fire session, and I was in the lawn BBQing. Then he accompanied my dad and my Along during dinner. Abis satu chapter.

The latest one took place last weekend when we went to his place to visit my new niece, Along's new daughter. Named Nada Zahra (makna: embun pagi yang berseri). While we were there, Nona was on the air, and they were showing the wedding ceremony between that AF judge and his bride.

So Along said, better not waste money and have this lavish wedding.

So he asked me to invite maybe 20 of my friends, and our family member, and we can rent his place for RM500 per day(then he laughed at it). Nikah at the nearest masjid, and cater the food for less than 100 people. Really simple and intimate wedding. Mr.Snots and I were smiling, but unwillingly. So he basically plan my wedding, without my consent. Great. My sister in law was giving suggestions as well.

Malu sial.

If both of them continue doing this the next time we see them, am sure Mr.Snots would end up having a cold feet and ditch me.

2009-06-19T14:32:00.003+08:00

Sometimes, when you think everything is going fine, things start to fall apart again. It is weird on how every elements that contributed in making you happy before are now going against you.

2009-06-19T09:26:00.004+08:00

Of late, I have been really busy and stress with work. Taking up a RM300k project and doing it alone, gives me constant headache and drains my energy. I have been putting on weight and I do blame myself for not managing my stress well and for not being strong enough to stay away from munching every time it kicks in. Last Tuesday I had to demo the first of four modules of the application I'm currently working on, and I can say that it was a success. Everyone seemed impressed and they sure did ask a lot of questions.

At the end of the day, everyone was satisfied with the final product, and I can start working on the second module.

I have a couple of art projects in mind for the apartment, such as, mural for the dining area’s wall and some plastering work for the kitchen, unfortunately I can’t seem to get myself interested in kicking-off any of the project. I have been procrastinating, and I do not know why. Coming back from work late every night doesn’t really do any good, but it does keep me in bed longer during the weekend (This is only true when Mr.Snots isn’t around. Because if he is, then my weekend would start as early as 7am; depends on what time he wakes me up)

He always says that early bird catches the worms; although I do think at that point of time, even the worms are still asleep. But never mind that.

This month is our anniversary month. We don’t get to spend it like other normal couples do on their anniversary, but it doesn’t matter; like how my dad used to say, First things first. The stars must be aligned the first time we said Iloveyou to each other, because none of us actually thought that we can make it last this long. Both of us have strong personalities, and both are hardheaded as well.

We didn’t seem to glide through every single fight we ever had easily. It gets harder and tougher every time. Sometimes, even the smallest glitch could put us in a lot of pressure. But I do miss him no matter what. So that’s love, no? If not, then I don’t know what love is.

So baby, Happy Anniversary.

2009-05-22T09:16:00.006+08:00

The storm is approaching Koh Ngai Island.

I have a lot of things to say about our current political scenes, but I would just shut my potty mouth for now.

Outsourcing is a bitch. Especially for small businesses and you can see it for yourself in Phuket.

I just came back and I swear that I would never go back there again. It was not even worth my time and money. It was a pleasant stay for me 5 years ago, but now, everything feels as if they are trying to leech out every cent off the tourists.

Some of it was pleasant, but most of the encounters were horrible.

Most of the shops are now manned by either Nepalese or Bangladeshi. Before this you can only see or hear them screaming and telling you that you need a suit or two, maybe pants, shirts and also tie, and they can tailor made it for you in 24 hours. Right? Now they have ventured into other businesses; selling all those nice craftworks, pretty dresses and bags, souvenirs and whatnots. The business owners, usually the locals, have outsourced it or hired them because they speak better English. Like what the fuck right?

I miss bargaining with a Thai girl; all panicking and blushing when I asked for too low of a discount. I miss that warm accommodating smile that welcomes you to their shop.

Most of these Nepalese and Bangladeshi salespersons were rude, arrogant and condescending. They think they run the country and they are the engine that moves the economy or some shit. Their mere existence irks me.

Tuktuk experience was even worst. My friend wanted to go to the Hard Rock Café to buy a shot glass for her collection. Since we weren’t too sure about the location, we flagged down a Tuktuk, asked him to send us there. He sent us there alright. The fucked up thing was, it has been closed down; yet he charged us 200bhatt for a 7-8 minutes ride? Felt like someone just punch me right on the face; might as well kick me in the gut while you are at it.

That felt like renting a chauffeured Mercedes with a fuckwit as a driver. A pretty fucked up arrangement. He should have just mentioned it to us that Hard Rock Café was no longer in operation, easy as that.

Blardy leeches I tell you.

2009-05-12T16:43:00.006+08:00

Sometimes, when I look at all those little kids running around screaming in the shopping mall, I always ask myself whether I’m capable of being a good mother.

How does it feels like having little ones at home waiting eagerly for you to come back from work, and hoping that you would bring back something for them.

I know I'm not so much of a perfect example if I were to be one, but am sure at some point in life that thought crosses their mind; at least before they are blessed with their little ones.

Life has been so weird lately. There are so much of things happening within a short period of time, I'm not sure whether I should be grateful or should I be scared of what's ahead of me. I know that life is unpredictable like that; but when it keeps on throwing you that curveball, you can’t help to wonder what the hell is wrong?!!!

I also can't freaking grasp the ideal way of how I should live my life. I know I have been telling people that I want to live my life as I want to; but I don't exactly know how. Should I have a plan? Should I live it dangerously? Or meticulously?

If the answer is yes for any of the questions above, then I guess am screwed.

I don't exactly have a plan. I don't actually take risk. (Not willingly at least). Most of the plans I have somehow always seems to revolve around places to eat or clothes to wear.

I want to be able to have something to look forward to; and at this point of time I don’t have any of that.

Work has been so fucked up. I have been telling Mr.Snots that every time I step into the office, I would immediately feel the stress pounding on me. My shoulder would feel strained, and I always end up with migraine at the end of the day.

The weather is so damn screwed. I can’t stand the heat wave; and sometime it makes me feel like killing someone. It is weird that I was known to be a beach bum and I can blardy stand the scorching hot sun burning my skin; but now I can’t even lie down on the sand for too long because I’d get burnt real bad plus rashes. Everything is taking its 180 turn on me.

and;

On mother's day, I was asked to watch this one Hindi Movie titled 'Taare Zameen Par' on Channel ZEE by Mr. Snots (hehe i know) about a dyslexic kid; and through out the movie, I was crying like mad. I was a mess. I guess, I'm still my father's daughter because he would cry also if he watches Hindi movies, especially the oldies.

I'm going off to Phuket tomorrow. So play nice.

2009-03-24T14:44:00.012+08:00

I can't wait for my Bali trip with the girls.

But kesian Mr.Snots. His birthday is on March, 30th and I'll be flying off on April 1st. This is supposed to be his first birthday that we are going to celebrate as a couple, and I was thinking of spending the whole week with him, but I had purchased the ticket even before we started seeing each other.

Speaking of trips, I have been travelling around lately. I work hard, so I balance my life with a good quick getaway to keep my mind sane.

This month is the only month that am not on any vacation or some sort. Eh but then, I was in Terengganu for 5 days, so can I consider that as handling a business and mixing it with pleasure? Not really a vacation but sort of. At least, I got to stay in a room facing the wide open sea. So oklah.

Next month, I'll be going to Phuket, with Mr.Snots and a bunch of my colleagues and most probably Pulau Perhentian in June.

People think that I'm like the super rich person that's why I can afford to go on for a vacation every month.

What people do not know that I'm a savvy traveller, and I travel cheap; oh and also a charitable Along that is easily melted everytime I tell him that I want money and I love him. Haha.

But seriously; I travel cheap.

I don't spend so much money on shopping (unless am in Bangkok).

I rather spend my time taking pictures and learning about the places am visiting.

Lying on the beach reading books, getting a traditional massage, or whatever that can help me calm myself.

That for me is a heavenly getaway.

2009-03-24T13:49:00.003+08:00

I suck at finding a matching and catchy title for my blog entry. From now on, it will be deemed irrelevant and unimportant. Why bother when people can just read the entry straight away.

2009-03-23T19:34:00.005+08:00

I met with my girlfriends a couple of weeks ago, after two years of not seeing each other. Last I saw them was a few months before my work took me to Europe.

Things have changed so much for them. Two of them are now pregnant with their second child, one is trying to conceive, and another one sounded extremely chirpy when she talks about her girl.

Me? Nothing has changed since, except for my expanding girth.

We have been friends since standard 1. These were the girls that I met and made friends on the first day of school, and we stayed friends until now. So we did quarrels, and I lost count how many times we had misunderstandings, how we envied each other and whatnots, but we stayed friends no matter what.

We have our ups and downs. But what strengthen the friendship was our honest feelings for each other. How we always hope for the best and happiness for everyone.

On the day, I decided to tell them that my application to another school was accepted, was the moment that each of us will remember our whole life. All five of us were crying. As if that we would lost each other's friendship, and that I would just forget about them. That moment, I knew that I want to keep them in my life, all the way until I die. We cried and we cried, then when we were tired, we ordered food and drinks.

There are a couple of questions that have been bugging them. I notice this during our conversation. Like how they sometimes feel that it is not nice to talk about their husbands or children because they don't want me to feel left out. But please, being single in this group doesn't mean that I should be left out on any juicy details on their marriage life. That is not fair. :)

Being girlfriends, I know that they are always concern about me. I'm the only one who is still single, and looks like there's no certain time in the near future that I would settle down, having my own family and breed children like them. But the thing about this situation with them, unlike with others, I can feel their sincerity, their honesty and they are not mean-spirited. They also want me to be happy, just like them.

They are not pretentious. They are not smug married. They know that their marriage is not perfect either and that they do have their own sets of problems, but they want me to experience what they have experienced. The joy and happiness of having a family. Their out of body experience giving birth to their first born. They want to be able to chat with me about all those memorable moments without me being in total lost. I know they meant well.

All I have to say is, I'm not sure what the future holds for me. I'm not sure that whether I will have my own family, or I am going to be blessed with children running around screaming in my house. I do not know whether my relationship now would end like how it should be (I can only hope for the best), but don't be so sad for me.

I am happy. Not all the time, but still, 70% of the time is still acceptable. I'm not saying that I don't need someone to make me feel content, whole, or what ever feelings that married people have. I do, just not the time yet.

They are also concern about my biological clock which is ticking faster by the day. If I get married too late, I might not be able to conceive.

Well, this part is not that complicated for me. My family is like Brangelina's brat-pack, but sans the multinational and multiracial genes. My grandmother had so many adopted children, she could rival Jolie-Pitt anytime. My aunties adopted a couple of children as well, even when they have their own.

We were taught to think that, if we can't have our own children maybe that means God wants us to help some unfortunate souls out there. Bring them into our family and make it our own. And all of those adopted childrens (my uncles, aunties and cousins) are our family, and I love them, as much as I love everyone else.

So that sorted already. If I can't concieve, I'll be like Angelina. Running around adopting children but still hot.

Don't worry too much. I'll be fine.

Things I don't do anymore and I've become.

2009-02-27T15:21:00.004+08:00

I don't watch news on the local TV any more because I'm seriously tired of being bombarded by the politicians images and their endless worthless tireless dramas.

I don't read the newspaper no more because I'm tired of its lop-sided and false journalism.

I don't iron all of my clothes diligently on Sunday any more like I used to back then, because I'm tired of my old self, and my old routine.

I don't go on any shopping spree or spend my money carelessly like how I used to when I was younger, because I realised now that I don't have to own so many things to make me feel happy. I only buy things that are needed and when only necessary. And I would rather spend my money travelling.

I don't drink alcohol at home.

I only buy perfume to replace the finished one. I don't have perfumes collection any more. One in my place, one in Mr.Snots' place. The one that is in my home is depleting fast. *hints*

I don't tolerate well with drama queens and kings. I shut them out more easily now.

I put myself first before everyone else.

If I don't feel like going out, I just tell my friend that I don't feel like going out. Before this I used to try my very best to make the time. Now, am just tired.

I only keep few appreciated ones in my small circle as close friends. Others are just considered as acquaintances, that don't really need my company or attention, vice versa.

I'm more vicious towards my selfish unworthy brothers. (not Along)

I don't care if people are pretentious towards me, because I don't care about them too.

If people talk shit about me, they are going to get it there and then. No more mercy. I have been nice for so long, it is time to stand up for my self.

I feel neglected.

I feel unappreciated.

and most of the time, I feel lonely.

Dear Girlfriends,

2009-02-20T18:27:00.012+08:00

Friendship is all about trust. But of course, being human, I've killed a couple of friendships I once had by betraying the trust. I was foolish, and you can say that I was kinda selfish as well.

Trust is earned by being a good friend, being there for your friend when they need it, and also the one that was entrusted upon you when they share their dark secrets, or just secrets.

People can easily blamed and judged their own friends when they thought that their trust and friendship were betrayed. That I fully comprehend. But when it comes to friendship, not all is lost. Some can be fixed given the time and space.

Different people have different perspective and needs when it comes to friendship. Some need it to keep them grounded, some need it as their support system. I need friends because I can't stand to be alone and also partly because I get to be myself when I'm with them.

I have always wanted to be accepted and to be loved unconditionally by my friends. I've always wanted the sort of friends that will be there during high time, and during the time when everything seems to fall apart.

I have that kind of friendship nowadays. Friendship which is more trusting. My friendship with you. If I could freeze those times when you were trying your very best to lift up my spirits when it needed some lifting, and when you were so concern about my well being and my health, and how happy you were to know that I'm happy, I would.

I can't say that I'm a good friend. But I will also try my very best to stay in your loop.

I will try my very best to contribute; be it emotionally, financially, or morally; when needed.

So girlfriends,

No matter how you think that the world is against you and all your surrounding comes crushing down on you, remember that you will always have me. You have given me so much within these past years, the least that I could do is to give you back that love and attention you once poured on me.

I realised that sometimes I can be so harsh. Although I didn't mean to hurt you, but you got hurt any way.

Sometimes I feel mad, angry and sad because I can't just take all your problems away from you so that you could be the person that you were before.

Sometimes, I feel useless because I can't do anything to help you get through any of your problems.

Sometimes, I feel that we should just team up and beat the crap out of everyone that would hurt you. Whether they do it on purpose or not is not the issue. But when I put my thoughts in order, most probably each of us need to beat each other up instead, because somewhere along this friendship, we might have hurt each other without us realising it.

But the best thing about friendship is, you forgive. You let go. Just pray that all bad experiences that we had encountered together have somehow taught us a lesson or two.

All's well, ends well. Trust me.

I love you.

Twisted Tongue.

2009-02-19T20:39:00.003+08:00

I have a difficulty in pronouncing certain catchy phrases in English. Especially the ones that could twist your tongue to the extreme.

Like this one;

She sells sea shells by the sea shore.

Usually it came out as;

Si shell si shell by the si sor.

Retard. I know.

I can't even pronounce Fish Sauce properly. It came out as Pis Chos instead.

Or;

She saw a saw under the see-saw.

U get the drift right?

My tongue would go numb everytime I have to pronounce the letter S or H, or S and H together in the same word, or S and H within the same sentence.

Cilakak betul.

And since Mr.Snots has somewhat realised this, he would bug me until kingdom comes.

"Dear dear, please make my day and pronounce Fish Sauce! Cepat!"

Bongok!

Some things are better left unsaid II

2009-02-05T13:33:00.005+08:00

"Ina!"

"Hoi" aku jawab balik.

"Wah makin tembam kau sekarang!"

"Aku yang dah ada anak tiga nih hah tak gemuk-gemuk! Kau bertambah bulat!" dia sambung lagi.

(Dalam hati: Babi)

Some things are better left unsaid.

2009-02-05T11:14:00.005+08:00

True.

Especially when it comes to the matter of heart.

Mak selalu pesan, " Kenapa nak kejar benda yang tak tentu dapat, dan tak pernah nak bersyukur dengan apa yang ada".

Auntie Lah selalu bising. " Orang lelaki time dia orang tengah gila bayang dengan kita bukan nak masuk minang, time kita dah bosan dengan dia baru nak terhegeh-hegeh".

Profound indeed.

Family aku memang selalu macam tuh. Dalam-dalam mencarut dan gelak ketawa, banyak benda yang boleh dipelajari.

(Dalam Hati: Well atleast auntie aku dah kahwin dua kali)

*

Semalam Syu ada tanya. " Kau dengar Hot FM tak pagi tadi?"

"Tak" aku jawab, "Kenapa?"

"Pasal orang bercerai pasal hal yang tak masuk dek akal?. Ada orang cerai sebab tak tahan laki dia tak picit ubat gigi dari pangkal tiub"

"Ah serious?" Aku tanya.

"Yeap, caller tuh yang mengaku dia cerai dengan laki dia sebab dah bertahun-tahun dia cakap tapi laki dia buat tak peduli"

Dia sambung lagi,

"Kalau benda tuh pun dia tak boleh nak buat, benda lain lagilah kan?"

(Dalam hati: Banyak benda yang kene bertolak ansur. Kalau itu tak boleh nak buat, daripada nanti bercerai baik tak payah kahwin langsung!)

Tertinggal Keretapi, Katebang, Bot dan Sampan.

2008-11-27T10:07:00.012+08:00

Shot was taken in Putrajaya Power Plant, formerly known as Serdang Power Plant.

Banyaknya benda yang jadik masa aku tade idea nak update apa. Aku terlebih malas sebenarnya. Punyalah malas, sampai aku dah janji nak masak spagetti utk Mr.Snots, pun boleh tarik balik. Tak ker keji. Sib baiklah dia tuh baik. Kalaulah aku jadik BF aku sure aku dah tinggalkan aku. Dahlah pemalas, nak bangun pagi pun susah.

Apa-apa pun alasan, satu benda yang paling kecoh sekali ialah bila blog dah jadik padang sasar, tempat mengutuk dan mengeji. *Takut*. Kalau salah langkah, boleh masuk gaung. Nyaya. Banyak istilah keji yang aku belajar dari baca blog panas tuh. Banyak benda yang tak pernah tahu, tetiba leh jadik subject matter expert, sebab information overloaded. Baca entry tuh kira setakat baca mukadimah jer, all the raunchy details semua leh dapat dari baca komen. Terus aku boleh mengaku yang aku kenal betul si simpolan bin simpolan tuh. Walaupun sebenarnya tidak. Hehe. Kelakar pun ada; walaupun aku rasa sometimes melampau tahap cipan gaklah cacian orang-orang yang memberi komen. Bukan lah aku kata aku baik, cuma ngeri baca orang boleh sampai tahu hal-hal dalam kain sampai macam tuh punya detail. Sekali kau dah kene featured dalam blog tuh, sampai sudah orang tak abis bercerita. Nasib baiklah blog aku ni blog bangang.

Cerita pasal keje, aku baru balik dari course 3 minggu. Course yang company bayar dekat usd6000 semata-mata untuk dapatkan professional certificate. Bagus jugaklah aku kene pilih. Banyak exposure yang aku dapat, dari goverment office sampai lah ke private sector banyak lubang dah aku korek untuk test market.

Aku ada dapat 2-3 offer utk keje. Kenaikan gaji tadelah banyak mana. Tapi aku masih kene timbangkan betul-betul. Ni time recession, silap langkah bungkus aku jawabnya.

Cerita pasal family pulak, Angah baru balik Sabah. Cuti 10 hari, bawak anak balik rumah Mak, sebab anak dia, Kak Long, (anak sorang jer tapi dah panggil Kak Long sebab kononnya train awal-awal untuk dapat adik kata Angah aku. Podah!!) dah rindu betul dengan mak bapak aku. Maklumlah aku rasa dah dekat 3 tahun dia orang tak balik. Kak Long tuh cucu kesayangan Ayah aku. Mau taknya.. kalau orang tua tuh bawak dia pergi shopping mall, dia tak pernahnya nak pergi toys section. Selalu carik buku, or barang sekolah. Itu yang Ayah aku makin sayang. Dahlah kaki bodek. Walaupun umur baru 8 tahun, dia punya kipas bapak aku, mengalahkan kipas bersaiz industrial.

2 hari lepas, Ayah transfer duit kat akaun aku suruh bagi Ajak untuk belikan cucu kesayangan dia laptop. Mak Aiiiiii. Baran jer aku dengar. Kecik-kecik dah dapat hadiah laptop. Aku dulu, umur 8 tahun, kalau dapat pencil case baru itu pun dah kira bertuah. Paling hebat hadiah aku pernah dapat pun ialah basikal Le Run. Tapi itu pun masa umur 11 tahun.

Tak patutlah aku nak rasa jealous ker apa. Tapi tak payahlah Ayah nak belikan laptop, sebab dia tuh kecik lagi. Angah aku memang kaki freeloader. Diamkan jer semua. Orang bagi jangan tolak itu rejeki katanya. Aku rasa cam nak lempang jer. Tapi takperlah. Aku tahu Ayah memang sayang betul cucu dia yang sorang tuh. Dahlah anak sedara aku tuh pandai amik hati, pandai belajar, baik dengar cakap. So okaylah, she deserves it. Aku jer yang jealous tak sudah.

Mr.Snots cakap aku ada sindrom anak bongsu. Can't help but to compare what ever that I have with everyone. He also asked me to count my blessings. Yelah yelah. Tak syior tau. Nak mengada skit jer, asyik kene tarik telinga balik ke jalan yang benar.

Pasal hubungan kelamin (haha cam siak), i mean pasal lovelife, next month banyak betul plan nak berjalan. First week, since Mr. Snots will be working in JB, amiklah kesempatan nak menyeberang tambak. Family aku tak sambut raya haji, so bila dia offer nak pergi Singapore, apa lagi. Angkat skirt lah aku kan? Yahoo.

End of december, we'll be going to East Java for 10 days. Itu pun aku tak sabar, sebab dah lama plan, tapi sampai sudah tade confirmed itenararies lagik. Banyak sangat tempat yang nak pergi, sampai tak boleh nak decide mana nak start dulu. Tapi takper, ada lebih kurang sebulan lagi.

Pasal rerakan, can't wait for Babe's birthday getaway. It has been a long time since kita ada weekend getaway ramai-ramai kan? Tak sabar nak jumpa and spend masa dengan korang. I'll bring the WINE!!!! Toots cakap dia nak bawak beer just for the sake of it, walaupun tempat yang kita nak pergi tuh tade fridge. Tapi aku nak suggest letak dalam sungai jer. Kejap jer sure sejuk. Hehe.

Oh, one last thing before I go, Bangkok huru-hara. Jangan pergi sana. I'm sure semua orang dah tahu, tapi since aku baru tahu, so aku beritahu ler. Aku tahu sebab Mr.Snots pagi-pagi dah beritahu aku sebab dia tahu aku tak tahu. And since aku dah tahu, aku rasa obligated untuk beritahu. Tahu? Tahu kat pasar.

Later fuckers.

Things I have realised along the way

2008-10-28T12:23:00.014+08:00

*
Virtual.

Blog is one of my not so many channels to pen down my pent up frustrations. Maybe yours too. I have to confess that I do have friends, but I don't confide in each and everyone of them. Few special ones (or maybe just one) that were (was) considered as trustworthy, would get the nitty-gritty details of my sucky life. But in blog, we can't really say anything inappropriate now can we? Because if we do,you never know that one of these days, some wacked out fella might come across it and put nasty label on you. And as much as you think you don't care of what they call you behind your back, or you don't give a fark of what they think about your online persona, and no matter how many times you have given the assurance that you are a better person in real life; but as mere mortal, deep down it hurts. Even for the first few seconds before you manage to recollect your composure and finally decide to let it go.

This is, my friend, the main reason why I don't link my blog to any site meter or to what ever gadgets to monitor my readers (if there's any) because I don't need to know who is reading my blog. All I needed is a space where people don't judge me, which I think is absolutely the in-denial side of me, because of course they do. People pass judgement all the time. But I don't hold any grudges against them. Because I judge them too. Hehe.

That is what life is all about.

We get what we give. And since I sometimes judge people, I know sometime others judge me too. I can live with it, as long as I do not know what they talk about.

But if I know, not that I have much to say anyway lah kan. The most that I could do is to tell my girls about it and that's it. It is definitely easier to mend virtual wounds. You can just erase it from your mind.

*
Hardcopy, Real Life.

I don't understand people. Malays especially. They have the tendency to humiliate others without realising it. I have been called alot of names, just because am not the typical Asian petite sized woman.

I know Malaysian prefer their woman to be small, quaint and can be held in palm and placed in pocket, but do you have to be nasty towards the bigger size women? You think we don't have feelings ker?

And am not really THAT big and tall pun. Just because they are smaller than me you know.

Is it really necessary to pass derogatory remarks about God given attributes? So yeah, you are blessed with small features, and you are only 4 feet tall, and the only big about you is your ego but that does not gives you the right to dictate people's life.

I can be nasty to them back, but what's the point you know? Cakap dengan katak bawah tempurung. They have never been exposed to the real world where people come in different shapes and sizes. They think their size is the ideal one.

Or maybe, in my opinion, they are just jealous for not having long legs which would look good in skinny jeans.

Or maybe, in my opinion, they are just jealous because they have to shop in kids departmental stores.

Or maybe, in my opinion, they are just jealous because they want what we have, and they only way that they know how to deal with it is to condemn it.

But of course, in real life the wounds and remarks stay a bit longer than in virtual world. We tend to feel a bit wary because it does affect of what we think of ourselves. Although we might not agree with it, but it scars no matter what.

Cinta dulu-dulu.

2008-10-15T16:24:00.005+08:00

Masa kat rumah Mak arituh, aku ada tanya dengan Auntie Lah, macam mana Ayah mengurat Mak ek?

Auntie Lah adik bongsu Mak. So kiranya sure Mak jadikan dia umpan untuk tipu Atuk aku kalau nak pergi dating. Sama macam Auntie Lah selalu gunakan aku masa dia bercinta dulu. Aku selalu ikut dia dengan ex-husband dia dulu pergi bercinta sebab Atuk tak kasik dia keluar berdua-duaan.

So aku tanya Auntie Lah, caner Ayah mengurat Mak.

Auntie Lah pun mulalah bercerita.

"Dulu masa mak muda-muda, dia suka tengok wayang yang 'open air' kat Club House kat belakang dewan Jubli Intan tuh."

Aku mengangguk. "Abis tuh?"

"Mak selalu lah pergi sana tengok cerita hindustan malam-malam dengan kengkawan dia. So masa kat sana, Ayah ngurat Mak lah" sambungnya lagi.

"Yelah, ngurat camana?" Aku bertanya.

"Ayah baling kacang kat Mak dari belakang"

Masa aku dengar baling kacang tuh aku dah tergelak besar. Tapi masih boleh control lagi.

"Abis tuh?"

"Mak marah. Mak tak suka. Tapi kawan Mak yang syok kat Ayah pulak"

..dia sambung lagi....

"Masa tuh Ayah hensem. Tapi Mak tak suka sebab dia mengurat cam budak kecik."

(Now I know from where I inherited that trait from)

"Dah tuh, camna lak tetiba Mak boleh suka kat Ayah?" aku tanya lagi.

"Sebab Ayah tak berenti-renti mengurat. Last-last Mak bosan, terima jerlah"

Masa nih aku dah gelak berguling atas lantai (literally sebab masa tengah bercerita kita orang tengah baring melepak depan tv).

"Wah, sakan betul Ayah. Tak sangka."

"Memang saiko apak kau tuh! Sekarang baru tahu?"

Dua-dua terus gelak besar.

*

Orang dulu-dulu nak mengurat baling kacang jer. Kalau orang lelaki sekarang mengurat ikut style macam tuh aku rasa dah lama dia orang kene tapak kasut.

Hujung Minggu Bersama Ayah

2008-09-16T09:24:00.005+08:00

Sudah lama aku tak pulang ke kampung. Aku mahu memberikan alasan bekerja, tapi kalau nak diikutkan semua orang pun bekerja. Aku mahu berikan alasan kesesakan duit, aku tak sampai hati. Aku mengambil cuti yang panjang untuk meluangkan masa bersama Mak dan Ayah di kampung.

Ayah tak berapa sihat kebelakangan ini. Selepas dijangkiti demam Chikugunya minggu lepas, aku perasan Ayah dah semakin lemah. Tenaga dan kekuatannya sudah tidak setara jika dibandingkan dengan keadaannya sebelum dijangkiti demam tersebut.

Ayah pun semakin sensitif. Pantang ditinggikan suara (walaupun sebenarnya secara tidak sengaja), Ayah akan merajuk dan masuk ke bilik menyendiri.

Mak pesan, "Adik, kalau Ayah cakap, Adik iyakan ajer. Nanti dia merajuk. Mak sekarang biar jer apa Ayah nak cakap. Kalau tengok Ayah merajuk cam budak kecik".

Aku mengangguk.

Bila dia sudah puas bersedih, dia akan keluar dari bilik dan duduk di depan TV tanpa bercakap, atau bertutur walau sepatah kata. Ia boleh berlanjutan sehingga ke malam hari.

"Adik ada duit?", tetiba Ayah bertanya.

Bulan ini memang aku sedikit sesak. Banyak bantuan pesakit luar dihulurkan kepada rakan-rakan dan sanak saudara yang lebih memerlukan. Sesak tak sesak, telefon aku bulan ni jer dah 3-4 kali kene potong. Sebab aku bayar sikit-sikit.

Sepanjang 30 tahun, belum pernah lagi aku rasa sesak sebegini.

Tapi aku menidakkan, walaupun aku rasa jauh disudut hati Ayah dia tahu dan sedar anak bongsu dia dalam kesusahan bulan ini.

Aku masih belum gentar walaupun aku tiada duit atau kekurangan duit. Aku gentar kalau Mak dan Ayah susah hati sebab aku susah.

"Betul Adik ada duit?" Ayah seolah tidak berpuas hati.

"Ada. Kalau tada orang mintaklah nanti ok?" Aku menjawab, dan aku terus ke dapur.

Dulu Ayah pakai seluar bersaiz 40. Badan tinggi dan tegap. Tiada siapa yang mampu untuk mengurut badan Ayah tanpa rasa sengal-sengal di otot-otot tangan. Sekarang, semakin lanjut usia, badan Ayah semakin susut. Saiz seluar dah turun ke saiz 36. Badan pun dah semakin berkedut, dan sentiasa duduk memegang dada.

Doktor pesan untuk bawa Ayah ke hospital swasta, agar pemeriksaan terperinci kepada penyakit jantungnya boleh dibuat. Tapi cuma Tuhan jer yang tahu, betapa degilnya dia. Puas semua adik-beradik, makcik pakcik aku memujuk.

Kalau sakit atau demam biasa, nak pujuk ke klinik pun susah. Inikan pula, penyakit-penyakit yang kritikal.

Aku kadangkala terpaksa bertindak seakan mengugut semata-mata untuk membawa dia mendapatkan rawatan.

"Ayah kalau tak ikut Adik pergi klinik, lain kali orang tak balik lagi. Cuti pun tak balik, raya pun tak balik" aku mengugut.

Selalunya, taktik ini menjadi.

Tapi kelmarin, "Ayah tak nak pergi klinik, Ayah penat. Sakit dada. Bagi Ayah tidur dulu" , ayat ini menyebabkan aku mengalah dan bersedih sepanjang hari.

Aku biar Ayah rehat dulu. Pasangkan penghawa dingin, letakkan sebotol air mineral di sebelah katilnya, dan juga pil-pil yang perlu diambil.

3 jam Ayah tido. Ayah tak pernah tidur sebegitu lama.

Dikala itu, aku sedar, Ayah sudah tidak seperti dulu. Ayah sudah tua. Keringat dan tenaga kederatnya sudah dimamah usia.

Spontaneity

2008-08-21T15:36:00.005+08:00

I was hunting clouds.

What was supposed to be a surprise birthday bash planned for me was canceled at a very last minute due to someone's excitement for knowing that this coming weekend is his semester break.

"Jom! Let's get out of KL!"

"Huh? You are crazy!"

He had totally forgotten about the plan he made with my darling girlfriends about my surprise birthday party. But since this is the only window of opportunity that we have to spend time together, my girlfriends let him go (with warnings of course!) and reschedule the not-so-surprise-anymore party to a more feasible time. Thanks girls, I love you guys! Thanks for being so understanding.

..sebenarnya takut bf kene kutuk ...hahahaha

So yeah, am taking a leave tomorrow because someone decided to give me an early birthday treat (as if! am sure he has something in store for him too :P), and am off to some place nice and relaxing to chill for the weekend.

Back to the 'old faithful' where it all started. ;)

The old faithful.

Stuffs.

2008-08-20T09:13:00.014+08:00

picture taken with EOS 350D, Location: Cameron Highland, Pahang

When I first started this blog, initially I wanted to make it some sort of a gallery for me to share my collection of photographs. The idea was stunted by the fact that after doing so much of scrutinizing, I don't think any of these pictures can be considered good enough for public view.

Takmaulah orang cakap orang nak amik gambar dia pun sibuk nak amik gambar. Tapi nan ado katanya... (haha tetiba bahasa fefonen..jgn marah)

But lately I have been getting good reviews from my flickr page and emails saying that I should give a photography a serious try. Some of them were really impressed with my "good eyes".

(matilah sebenarnya rabun ayam tapi tada siapa tahu? :P Gambar amik tada angle, sekali jer snap sesuka hati.)

Those supports and admirations somewhat injected me with a bit of confidence, and force me to think, maybe I can do this. *berangan tahap dewa*

So here I am. Back to the initial plan. I'll start to publish one or two pictures per entry, although it is not related with the entry of the day. Ok?

macamlah ada ramai sangat orang yang baca blog ni.

Taken with Nokia D60, Location : Batu Caves, Selangor

*
I now pronounce my brother a divorcee. They have officially separated on the 6th of Aug. Adik(Nasri) and him planned to have a joint celebration (Adik's birthday was on the 5th Aug) to commemorate his new found freedom.

Since after the separation, he has been taking Baby (his daughter) to my place every weekend, so that they could spend time together. I love having both of them around.

Meriah skit rumah.

So on Saturday, I'd be spending quality time with my niece while Mr.Snots can go and attend his classes. It's a win-win situation.

My fave niece. ..Baby and her cat, Kucing. *rolls eyes*
Shot was taken by point and shoot SONY DCS T5 , Location : Old Apt.

All of my nieces and nephews called me Uchu, being the youngest in the family. But Baby can never say it correctly. Most of the time she'd be calling me Achu. Close enough. But there's this one time she called me Tochu :O

Sib baik bukan tauchu. hehehe.

Her fave sentence is "Ini Baby punya". Once she blurts that thing out, don't even think of taking that stuff away from her. Even my new TV now belongs to her.

kalau tiga hari dia duduk rumah, tiga-tiga harilah kita orang semua tengok reruns of Lion King, Barney, Teletubbies and Dora. o_O

Loved and Overwhelmed.

2008-08-19T09:25:00.014+08:00

Disclaimer.
This entry is so keji. You might want to puke or feel like killing yourself after reading this post, so consider yourself warned. Proceed with a plastic bag in hand if you will. You can choose to barf in it, or strangle yourself with it.

Pic was taken by Canon EOS 350d, location: Cameron Highland, Pahang

It has been two months since we first said iloveyou to each other, and I have officially shed tears for 16 times and counting; I am pretty sure there's a lot more coming my way looking at the rate of it. Tears of joy and love, most of the time; and tears of anger, for the rest of it. Anger triggered by my past, jealousy, miscommunication; you name it, most likely we have gone through it. We are still in the stage of getting to know and adapting towards each other, so we are certainly bound to make mistakes, lots and lots of it.

When I'm my normal erratic self (and this happens not just during the time of the month!!) ; I get pissed off, annoyed and feeling all sensitive easily. Thank god for the past two months, he has been coping with it quite well if I may say so. I can be so hardheaded at times, I am sure he sometimes do feel like pulling his hair when we are in that situation. But being cool and macho, most of the time, he would just kept quiet.

It is always so hard (no pun intended :P) between us, because although we share the same passion in life (read: gigantic power transmission towers perched all over the country, MatLab coding, boring engineering stuff, photography) we are totally on the extreme opposite side when it comes to everything else.

Firstly, he is more "Malay" than I could ever be. Even if I am the "Malay" one in this relationship, and he is not. He loves his ulam, like how i love my coffee. He knows every name of the ulams, rebung, pokok-pokok, like how the cows know its grass and grains. :P

He cooks, and I eat.

When we argue, I would like to talk things out, come clean and sort it out there and then, but he would prefer to be left alone. Just let him be for few hours, and then feed him. He'd be okay after that. (and that was his exact sentence mind you).

While I am more of the organized type, he is more hippie in a way. Everything with him is quite spontaneous.

While I do think more and need time to rethink the situation again and again and again..he acts on it.

He is the morning, early bird type and I'm just too lazy to wake up way too early regardless of whether it is my working day or not.

We do complement each other if you wish to see it in a different angle, but knowing me, am sure am going to make it hard for this relationship to work. I don't adapt and change my anally-retentive-strict-for-no-reason self that well. Here in this post, am giving my assurance that I am learning as I move along with him.

Certainly, there are moments that I would treasure my whole life, and keep on using it as an excuse/reason for me to work things out and go forward with him, no matter how difficult the situation might be.

There's this one time, it happened somewhere in June, when he was helping me out moving stuff from the old house to the new one. After chucking all the stuff in, we sat in the empty living room taking a breather... he reached for the guitar and started singing one song after another.

(He has this tendency of bursting into songs, using the words we use in our daily conversation as cues *looks at Leen* *Aries!!, rolls eyes*)

Then he sang me this one particular song from the Everly Brothers called Let it be me.

(i know, he is such an old soul trapped in a not so young body. He is ancient when it comes to his choice of music)

He sang it with such passion and feelings, both of us were totally overwhelmed by it. I was looking deep into his eyes, and he was looking into mine..digesting and absorbing every single words coming out from his mouth. Suddenly both of us cried, and we couldn't stop. It was such a freaking waterworks display.

That song touched us like nothing else can. We were totally absorbed into the moment and lost in oblivion. I never really cry for something so sappy and romantic, so I put the blame on the gloomy weather and the emptiness of the apartment area.

We were laughing and crying and alternate between the two like a bunch of hyenas. It was so embarrassing. *malu*

For the past 6 years that I have known him, I never once see this side of him. I don't know whether this kind of things happen to you guys out there often, but not to me.

I realized at that point of time, I want him in my life and for the first time, I feel that I've made the best decision to be in a relationship with him.

My early birthday present.

2008-07-22T10:31:00.011+08:00

Sms sent @ 08/07/2008 to Along.

"Happy birthday old man. Hope ur life is blessed with good health, wealth and love from your loved ones. Especially me"

Reply received @ 08/07/2007 from Along.

"Belum lagilah"

Oh shit yeah, I wished him 2 days earlier than his actual birth date.Nak cover malu I sent him another sms.

"What did you get for yourself this year?"

"Merc E240. Am kaya what"

*scratches head*

Why did he needs to get another car for his birthday, he already has 4 of them.

"Why Merc?"

"Why not? Come next week you can test drive it"

At this point am sure he's going to brag about him being able to buy anything he wants in this world and harassing me about being poor. So I quickly sent this.

"Yeay!! Ok."

And I saw a window of opportunity to "politely" ask him to buy me my "expensive birthday gift". My birthday is next month anyway.

"I want gelang kaki for my birthday can? I want exactly like the bracelet u got me from Tiffany NY"

Few minutes later.

"Ask your bf to buy it for you lah"

"Kenot, nanti he runs away; Still very early to ask for anything"

He didn't reply. Either he was too busy with work, or just simply too lazy to entertain my antics.

*

Conversation on 12/07/2008

Few days later, when I was with Leen.

"Why didn't I ask Along to buy me the camera ek? Why would I want a gelang kaki anyway?"

I immediately smsed him, there and then.

"Dowan gelang kaki lah, I want camera Nikon D60. Pretty pleaseeeeeeee."

Tunggu punya tunggu punya tunggu, member didn't reply my sms.

"Kenapa dia tak balas ek sms aku?" I asked Leen "Usually kalau dia tak balas kan, cam few days later nanti dia call and ask me to amik at his place"

*mencebik*

*

Three days has passed, and he didn't even reply my sms yet.

On the fourth day, he called me at the office.

"What is Nikon D60?"

"It's a camera"

"How much is it?"

"Last I checked it was priced at 2,399"

"What the fuck!!! Blardy expensive"

*chuckles*

"Can buy me ah? You got yourself a Merc. I can't afford to buy it lah Along.. Pleaseeeeee."

"We see lah how"

*

Last Friday...

"Come and meet me in Park Royal tomorrow. I'm staying there for the weekend"

"Why are you staying there? Your house is in Subang!!!!!"

"Simply. To lepak-lepak and relax"

"Huh? Tak kisahlah. Kenapa you want me to datang there?"

"So you can take your camera"

"Ah??? Serious????? U bought it already?"

"Not yet, am going to get it tomorrow."

"Yeayy!! Thanks Along...Sayang Along!!!"

"Come by after 4, I see you at the restaurant. We go for hi-tea"

"Okay"

*

On Saturday.

*

P/S: I love my Along.

P/P/S: Next request : Toyota Rush .... hahahahhaha right...!!!!

Unplanned

2008-06-27T18:08:00.011+08:00

Someone said this to me recently,

"I can easily see that there was something different about the way he talks to you, every time. Even a blind person could easily feels and detects the vibe. But I guess, you refuse to see it all and treat him nothing more than as a friend."

It is painfully stupid to admit, but I have to say that it's true.

I don't fall in love that easily, hence the 14 years of courtship although it ended rather disastrously.

I'm not trying to be a smug bitch too when I say that, I have my fair share of men, thinking that they are in love with me, or I am the one, after a brief 10 minutes of dancing. It is really tiring to convince them that I am not.

For me, a man with crush is like a dog with a boner. Give them something else to play with, he'd get off from humping your leg. All they ever needed was some sort of a distraction, then am out of the picture. Easy peasy.

But when that crush lasts for more than 5 years, I guess, that is something really worthy of my time, to actually sit and contemplate on it.

In a way, I know I have hurt him so much without realizing it. I was not aware of his feelings, and couldn't care less to actually think before I speak, or do anything a friend would do, like calling him Bongek, Bongok, and says Keji to his face like all the time. At that point, although he was one of my close friends, but he was still just a friend. Nothing more, nothing less.

But I see him differently now. I could see and have finally realized that ...

He was always there for me for the past years. He was wiling to hear me whine, complaint and entertain my mood swings with a wide annoying smirk on his face. He was always trying to make me laugh every time I was sad. He admitted that he would do almost anything so that he could see me, and that kind of explain the short 30 mins course on stupid programming I was helping him with.

He said he tried to forget about his crush for me, but it was so difficult. He has been in and out of relationship so many times,but the only thing that he could think about was me.

I was flattered, but at the same time I was scared. I don't think I'm ready to do this once again.

He's trying to convince me that he would willing to give me all the time that I need; to move on, to regroup; as long as I would wiling to consider giving him a chance to make me happy. Just once. He had waited for me for 5 years, and he doesn't mind doing it for another 5.

*sigh*

This love thing works it ways mysteriously.

Sakit pinggang.

2008-04-28T15:29:00.004+08:00

Aku sakit pinggang dan err punggung for the past 3 days. muscle strained sebab main futsal, badminton, pingpong dan berbalik ke futsal 2 minggu berturut-turut. Start dari hari Jumaat lepas, aku pening kepala sebab sakit pinggang. Pening sebab, minggu nih aku nak kene buat network utk ofis baru. Perlukan kekuatan fizikal. Aku perlu angkat barang, tarik kabel, panjat tangga dan ye, tiada lelaki yang akan offer kekuatan mereka sebab ini memang tanggungjawab aku. Kalau setakat aku panjat meja, panjat kerusi, itu adalah sesuatu yang biasa ditatap oleh lelaki-lelaki dekat ofis aku ini, tanpa sebarang komplen. Pbfth!

Keduanya, aku perlu pergi ke Giant untuk memenuhkan isi perut Adik(Nasri) aku sebab supply makanan dah susut dirumah, and mencari bahan untuk aktiviti berkelah pada hari Ahad. Aku tak larat. Nak jalan pun kene berpaut pada kerusi, almari, apa-apa yang boleh aku capai, untuk membantu aku bergerak dari seinci demi seinci.

Pada waktu macam nilah, aku bersyukur sebab aku bawak kereta automatik. Kalau tak, alamatnya, lumpuhlah aku.

So, nak tak nak, kene pergi jugak beli barang sebab aku dah janji dengan geng aku. Aku takkan tarik diri dari jalankan tanggungjawab. Aku arahkan adik menjadi runner. Aku cuma berpaut pada troli Giant yang besar. Dengan list dalam tangan, aku tolak troli dengan perlahan dan Adik pergi dari satu aisle ke satu aisle, mencari barang yang diperlukan.

"Adik pergi carik arang and fire starter untuk BBQ" aku arahkan adik.

"Ok. Jap" dia memang sentiasa jinak mematuhi.

Lama aku tunggu kat bahagian hardware. Dia tak muncul-muncul. Aku bongokkan badan, merapati troli sebab pinggang aku merengsa kesakitan.

"Kak ina, dari belakang bila bongkok macam tuh, dah macam Mak Long" adik menyerpa.

Mak Long tuh Mak aku.

"Sebijik. Tinggal lagi tak gemuk jer. Kalau gemuk, mesti orang ingat Mak Long" dia masih menyambung.

Aku cuma diam. Tak larat nak maki hamun balik. Aku sibuk menahan sakit. Rasa macam nak cabut keluar pinggang dan ganti dengan yang baru.

Bila Adik cakap macam tuh, aku tak berhenti fikir pasal Mak.

Kalau berjalan, Mak memang kene berpaut. Jalan dua tiga langkah berhenti, sambung dua tiga langkah berhenti lagi. Aku selalu ingatkan Mak, jangan selalu sibuk nak mengemas rumah, nak memasak sebab Mak bukannya larat. Tapi biasalah, memang pantang orang tua-tua, Ayah hanya berselera makan kalau dirumah. Jarang sekali makanan dibeli. Tapi kalau ada kecemasan, seperti Mak sakit, Ayah pula akan amik alih tugas masak memasak. Tapi setakat itu jer lah. Aktivit berkemas, membasuh akan diserahkan pada Auntie Lah.

Aku baru sakit 3 hari dah rasa macam nak mati. Mak aku dah bertahun-tahun gagahkan diri bangun untuk melayan karenah keluarga, walaupun rasa sakit tak pernah susut.

Bila fikirkan Mak, aku rasa sedih. So semalam aku call Mak.

"Mak tengah buat apa?" aku tanya. Soalan pemula yang standard.

"Mak tengah basuh pinggan, baru lepas makan nih." Mak menjawab. Tapi suara masih lemah.
Aku tahu walaupun sakitnya dah reda selepas jatuh harituh, sedikit sebanyak sakit tu masih lagi dirasai.

"Mak masak ker?" aku tanya dengan nada risau.

"A ah. Kesian Ayah dah berapa minggu asyik beli makanan, asyik masak. Mak pun dah tak larat nak makan kedai lagi".

"Ok. Mak kalau tak larat janganlah masak. Tunggu dah sembuh betul-betul". Aku cuba nak menasihatinya.

"Jangan risau. Mak ok" .....kemudian Mak sambung..."Harituh Kak Yin ada balik. Balik-balik menangis sebab bertekak dengan Along."

Kak Yin adalah akak ipar aku yang sulong.

"Kenapa?" aku tanya.

"Ntahlah, susah. Mak tak nak masuk campur rumahtangga anak-anak ni. Tapi kesian pulak." Mak sambung perbualan dengan rancak. Bercerita pasal sebab musabab Kak Yin balik mengadu.

Aku diam. Aku tak suka sesiapa mengadu masalah dengan Mak aku. Sebab Mak aku tak sihat. Dia tak perlu nak runsing pasal hal anak-anak. Aku pun jarang mengadu pasal masalah aku pada Mak.

"Mak ni Adik, selagi Mak boleh dengar, mak dengar. Mak kuat lagi nak tahan semua masalah ni. Mak kuat lagi untuk runsing dan risau pasal hal anak-anak."

Aku sayu.

"Macam-macam Mak dah lalui. Mak kuat lagi. Mak boleh simpan semua masalah Mak, dan masalah anak-anak".

Airmata aku mula menitis dan aku diam.

Aku sedar. Tabiat pendam masalah dalam diri sendiri, dan semua kekuatan yang aku ada, semuanya dari Mak. She has been through alot. Cuma dia pandai sembunyi masalah dan kerisauan dengan senyuman. She's my hero.

Kalau aku boleh mintak pertukaran, aku dah lama duduk Muar. Tapi Mak tak bagi. Mak nak aku rasa hidup ketika masih muda. Balik Muar tiada apa-apa katanya. Kat KL banyak benda boleh dibuat dah dicuba. Dia masih boleh menjaga diri sendiri, dan Ayah.

Aku tak tahu kenapa kalau aku terkenangkan Mak aku sayu. Sama macam kalau aku terkenangkan Arwah Abah.

On the way ke Air Terjun Tekala, aku drive agak laju. Menyusuri jalan bengkang-bengkok dengan laju. Adik mula bercerita pasal Amie dengan Leen.

"Amie kalau bawak kereta laju tau kak leen. Amie memang terror. Tapi kalau Abah yang bawak, mesti Amie bising. Sekejap-sekejap dia tengok meter, sekejap-sekejap dia jerit." riuh Adik bercerita perihal Abah.

"Adik kalau perasan Amie dah tidor, Adik suruh Abah pecut kereta laju-laju." dia sambung.

Gelak aku mendengarnya. Tapi jauh dalam hati, sayu sebab banyak pengalaman dengan Abah yang aku rindu. Aku rasa Adik pun rindu pengalaman macam tuh.

Good times.

Call me, stupid.

2008-04-04T16:15:00.000+08:00

Bosannya tak tahu nak letak apa. Tulah orang nak blog, kau pun sibuk nak blog. Pastu cam orang bangang tak tahu nak update apa.

I've been blogging for a while now, but since the words don't come that easily, and events escaped me all the time, i hardly had any words to describe the whole shebangs of my dull life. Keluar masuk balik-balik itu jer lah, bak kata orang johor. Pi mai pi mai tang tu bak kata orang pulau pinang. Gohead gostan bak kata mak aku.

Speaking of Mak, hari tuh dia jatuh lagi. Kali nih dah 145 kali dia tergelincir sebab lantai licin. Nak aje aku tukarkan lantai jadik kayu, tapi takut kene selumbar pulak katanya. Haha. Bukan kayu tu lah mak, kayu lain.

Mak aku semalam suruh aku balik. Lama dah tak balik kampung. Kopi cap 434 pun dah nak abis. stok dah makin sikit, nafsu minum plak tiap-tiap hari bertambah. Memang nak kene baliklah pun gamaknya.

Boss pulak baru datang suruh aku keje esok. Ingatkan nak balik kampung, nampaknya nak kene tangguh lagilah. Kalau balik rumah mak bukan boleh sehari semalam. Nak kene berhari-hari jugaklah. Rumah nak kene kemas, lantai nak kene mop, rumput nak kene tebas. Siapa lagi nak buat kalau bukan aku.

Tadi call Ayah, tengah ader meeting membincangkan hal-hal negara kat kedai kopi si ah seng. Call makcik aku, belum balik keje lagi. Sejak mak sakit makcik aku jadik bibik sementara. Tolong mak ngemas rumah, basuh baju. rutin die hari-hari yang sejak dari minggu lepas. Sebab tuh aku sayang makcik aku. Tak pernah kisah kalau nak tolong sesiapa. Dia ada sms tanya nak balik bila tengok mak. Aku kata nanti, kononnya esoklah. Abis dah kene keje, tak tahu macam mana nak explain. Kalau aku balik sehari aku tak puas hati. Banyak mende yang tak boleh nak buat. Nanti bila aku balik sini balik, bontot aku panas tak senang duduk, berfikir tak sudah; tak sempat potong rumput, tak sempat kemas bilik Ayah, tak sempat nak bersihkan kipas.

Semalam aku mimpi aku beli nombor 3482 and menang sejuta ringgit. Terus aku call Mak, mintak tolong ayah belikan nombor kat magnum dan toto 4d. maklumlah aku mana pernah nak mimpi-mimpi benda-benda macam ni. Sekali sekala dapat kenelah cuba nasib.

Aku ingat lagi 4-5 tahun lepas. Masa hari jadik makcik aku yang ke 35. Ada satu sistem perjudian kat Muar ni orang panggil nombor ekor. setahu aku kat tempat lain tade. Cuma kat Muar jer, sebab orang muar ramai yang kaki judi. Termasuklah semua ahli keluarga aku. Main suka-suka jer. Bukan betul-betul. Kalau kene alhamdulillah, dapatlah cousins aku yang kecik2 tuh makan aiskrim sorang sebatang.

Sistem judi dia senang jer. Pilih nombor yang dijual. No 1 sampai 36. Kalau beli seringgit, kalau kene boleh dapat 30 ringgit. So kalau beli 2 ringgit, bila kene pulangan dia adalah 60 ringgit. Faham? Sebenarnya kalau tak tolak kamsin agent cina yang tukang amik nombor, 32 ringgit. tapi kira dua ringgit tuh dia punya upahlah. So tinggallah 30 ringgit jer.

Ok cerita pasal nombor ekor ni, result akan keluar dalam pukul 7 malam. Hari-hari ada jual. Bukan macam magnum and toto, ader certain hari jer akan bukak kedai. Belilah nombor apa-apa pun. ikut nasiblah kiranya kalau kene.

Setiap nombor ada makna tersendiri. Bak kata cina tongkang sebelah rumah atuk aku (agent die lah), "kalau lu beli satu nombor, lu kene beli kawan die maaa". Mula-mula dengar rasa nak cam nak lempang jer cina ni dok mengajar aku perabih duit tak semena-mena. Tapi betul jugak. Tips pencachai nombor kene ikut. Kalau tak menyesal.

Contoh die, kalau beli nombor 1 (representing ikan) kenelah beli nombor 5 sebab nombor 5 maknanya air, ikan kan hidup dalam air (logiknya lah). So kata dia lagi "Kalau lu mimpi tangkap ikan itu malam, lu beli nombor 1 dan nombor 5 lah. Balu besar itu kebarangkalian mahu menang"

(dalam hati, siak nya cina tongkan, sebut baru jadik balu, tapi guna perkataan kebarangkalian..hehehe tapi since tokey ni baik dengan arwah nenek aku dulu, so aku diam jer lah)

So anyway, aku ingat lagi 4-5 tahun lepas, masa hari jadik makcik aku yang ke 35. Masa tuh dia marah-marah aku sebab terlupa hari jadi dia. Masa tuh aku kat kampung. Lewat wish. Orang lain dah sms, telefon ucap selamat dari pukul 12 malam, aku baru sedar hari jadi dia lebih kurang dalam pukul 1o pagi. Itupun mak yang ingatkan. Aku call lah dia, cam biasa makcik aku meroyan...

"Ah pepeklah ko, dah terlambat"

"Oit giler ker baru kul 10 pagi lambat apa. Baru abis romen ler penat tahu tak?" aku balas

(ni memang cara kita orang cakap. korang tak payah terperanjat)

Aku tanya die," ni hari jadi yang ke berapa? Jadik sekali tak cukup ker? tiap-tiap tahun nak menjadik-jadik jer?"

"Ah babi, pepek ah ko" die jawab dan sambung lagi, "Kau tahu semalam aku mimpi pontianak datang nak mintak nombor kat aku hahahhaha"

(by this time aku dah gelak besar dah)

"uish, jap jap" aku jerit kat Ayah. "Ayah, kalau pontianak nombor ekor berapa?"

"35", dia jawab dari dapur. Dalam kepala aku dah compute baik punya.

"Auntie nyer birthday ke berapa ni? 35 ker 36?

"35", makcik aku jawab. "Pehal? kau nak bagi aku hadiah ker?"

"Taklah orang nak chai nombor ekor nih ..hahhaha"

(orang = saya = aku)

"Bangang punya anak sedara, seposen tak guna", dia meroyan.

"Isk betul ler, auntie nyer umur 35, pastu hari ni hari jadi pulak, semalam mimpi pontianak, ayah cakap nombor ekor 35 tuh pontianak. auntie perempuan and pontianak selalunya perempuan, and asyik lagi tadi marah orang pepek jer, so pontianak, perempuan, pepek semua tuh 35. Kene beli nih..." Aku explained. "Tokey giler tuh tutup kul baper?"

"Sempat lagi nak beli nih" Makcik aku dah start excited.

"Ah belikan lah dulu, kalau nak tunggu orang datang mana sempat"

(aku masa tuh kat rumah mak aku, cina tongkang jual nombor ekor dekat area rumah atuk aku and makcik aku ada kat sana masa tuh)

For the first time that day, aku main nombor ekor. Selama nih tukang tengok and gelak jer bila pakcik makcik aku dok chai nombor petang-petang masa lepak kat depan rumah atuk. Aku beli no 35, 3 ringgit, and tup tup kul 7, tokey cina tongkang declared result nombor ekor untuk hari tuh adalah 35. Aku menang 90 ringgit. Hahahaha cun.

Aku amik duit, beli aiskrim untuk semua orang, beli rokok untuk aku and pakcik-pakcik aku, beli selipar baru untuk nenek aku (sekarang dah arwah) and balance aku buat main tikam. Layan adik-adik sepupu aku enjoy tikam dapat hadiah. Sampai duit habis.

So sekarang aku tengah tunggu no 3482 aku naik tak first prize kat toto or magnum. Esok baru boleh beli sebab toto and magnum bukak esok. Hari ni tutup. Kalau tak dapat grand prize, dapat consolation pun jadiklah.