Winter term, here I come!

Today I digress from my usual route of objectivity and indulge in a bit of narcissism.

Alhamdulillah, I have successfully completed the fall term at Laurier. Although the three-week winter break was badly needed after the end-of-term deadline rush, I was agog for the start of the next term. I have not felt this kind of excitement to go back to school and I take this as sign that I really have chosen the right direction in my studies. Although, being able to say so with definitive surety does come at a high price.

I have attended university at institutions in two different countries. Both cost my parents dearly and I can't thank them enough for indulging in my uncertain goals. The years that I have spent on studying for the wrong vocation never fails to fill me guts with choleric anxiety. However - at the risk of sounding corny and clichéd - neither one of those places gave me such a thrill to learn as I do now.

I still committedly attend to my duties of a student on a term break - lazing about to the nth degree - but now I welcome the coming of the new term with gusto instead of with lassitude and reluctance as I did in the past. I remember the night before the start of my second term in Australia. I was psyching myself up for the first day at school and looking through my courses and their syllabi. When later I had trouble falling asleep, I decided to call my parents back home. Out of nowhere (at least, no place I can identify) came a torrent of tears and anxiety and heartfelt 'the-last-semester-was-so-hard-I-don't-know-if-I-can-do-another-one'.

This time around, my winter break feels like it's moving far too slowly. I find myself mentally drumming my fingers for school to start again. Now, with only a few more days left of sleeping in, watching TV, gaming on Facebook and reading non-required readings, I still beckon the coming term with frantic waves of enthusiasm.

Winter term, here I come.

Hydrating without dehydrating the coffer

How many times have I faced the challenge of a half-empty bottle of lotion? Perhaps it is the fact that I come from a background of humble means that drives me to empty each bottle down to it's last drop. Or perhaps the saying 'waste not, want not' is so deeply implanted within my psyche that it has made me inherently frugal.

Even long after I have provided myself with a fresh bottle of lotion, I'd keep the old bottle upended for days so that gravity can work it's magic and coerce the last remaining drops down to the mouth of the bottle. I have thumped an empty bottle on the palm of my hand till it turned red so that I can be satisfied that I am not wasting a single drop. I have stuck my finger up the narrow mouth of the bottle and wiped the interiors clean. I have done everything short of cutting the bottle open to make sure that every last bit of moisturizing substance that I paid for gets utilized.

I sometimes wonder if my fiscal ingenuity is a mild symptom of O.C.D. I certainly hope not. However, hunting for the last, often more concentrated, drop of lotion has it's upside - it awakens my skin with 'a light burst of hydration, leaving it smooth and refreshed'.

Past, Present, Future

Our experiences of the past, the present and the future are perennially incursive upon each other, thus changing our perception of them on a constant basis.

History may remain in the past, unchanged, but our perception of it is contingent upon how we perceive current situations and the potential of the future.

Melancholics put the past on a pedestal, rendering the present as obstinately inferior and the future full of hope for improvement.

Optimists see the present as full of opportunities, filling the future with the highest of ideals and positioning the past as a reference point from which things can only be improved upon.

Pessimists look at the past with pity, sneer at the present with disdain and fill the future with cautious ambitions.

Which one are you?

On Wittgenstein and the Myth of the Private Language

The private language is a language that no one understands but oneself. It is communicable only to oneself. If Heidigger's theory on thrownness is true, then the private language functions as an indespensable tool. If, according to Heidigger, humans have no choice but to react to situations - not reacting or remaining impassive is also considered to be a form of reaction - than the private language is what communicates a person's earliest reactions to him or herself. The private language is what communicates a person's reactions upon encountering something - a sight, a smell, an emotion, a taste or something touched. The private language is uncommunicable, and remains uncommunicable, to other individuals due to the limitation of public language. The public language's seemingly infinite compendium of words does not correspond with what one feels or thinks.

In her novel Orlando, Virginia Woolf probes the limitations of the public language in communicating the private language. Woolf's protagonist, Orlando encounters Sasha, a Russian princess with whome he falls madly in love. Orlando was found at a lost for words to describe the fox-like beauty of Sasha and called her a myriad of things - a fox, a pineapple, an emerald, an olive tree - none of which hits the mark of what he saw in the Russian beauty. Yet, he fully understands the appeal that the Princess Sasha had.

Is the private language a myth? I think not. Upon encountering something, be it tangible or abstract, we undoubtedly experience an intellectual or emotional reaction. Whether or not that reaction can be translated into words differs from one individual to the next, and is achieved at varying degrees. A less articulate individual may be at a lost for words to communicate an emotion. Perhaps that is alleviates the mythical facade of the private language.

Kampung Kubur Kuda

I’ve never been able to determine what was the name of the village where my grandmother’s house is. Although a large part of my childhood is informed by my hometown, Kota Bharu, the official name of my kampung eludes my knowledge. I know it as Kampung Kubur Kuda. I loved that name because it furnished my childhood fantasy of one of the Sultan’s favourite horses dying at the heart of the village. The primary school built right behind my grandmother’s house, however, was named Sekolah Kebangsaan Kebun Sireh. When my mother met a lady batik seller at the Buluh Kubu Bazaar, she described it as Kampung Kebun Sireh bawah lembah. Due to my bad sense of direction I have, however, learned to describe to my fellow Kelantanese friends that the village, whatever it’s name is, is the one that abuts Jalan Hamzah, near the Sultan of Kelantan’s official palace.

Since 2004, I have been able to add another ambiguous description of where it is located. A grand mall has been erected about five minutes’ walk from my grandmother’s house. I remember the sense of disorientation I experienced upon looking out of my grandmother’s wooden atap house and seeing the massive concrete face of the mall building. The transition from the wooden window frame, across the bushes and coconut trees and the village cemetery to the sterile, facile construction was almost rude.

My impression of my kampung as an island of wooden houses amidst a sea of bitumen is now complete. The town of Kota Bharu, in it’s slow, languid growth, had completely surrounded my kampung on all sides. A ten minute walk from my grandmother’s house brings me to either one of the major city roads leading to the town centre. After being away for two years, I had not grown physically but somehow my grandmother’s house and, by association my kampung felt somewhat walled in by the presence of these modern constructs.

Is this normal? I go to sleep at night and wake up in the morning thinking about it. Every answer I come up with feels wrong and everyone else's suggestion never seems to fit.

I grew up among the millions of Malays who were either desperately trying to set themselves apart or blend into the masses. Most of those attempting the first either succeeded in the most superficial way or failed miserably and were relegated to the latter - conformity.

As I progress through The Writer and The World, I had an overwhelming - and frightening - feeling that I am what Naipaul terms as a renoncant: 'an excellent French word that describes the native who renounces his own culture and strives towards the French'.

I had always, growing up, embraced English to set myself apart from my peers. I grew up in a society where Malays proficient in the English language was a valuable commodity and for me - having grown up speaking the language - excelling above the rest was an easy task. Along with the other English proficient students, I was unofficially, and perhaps even subconsciously by some teachers, categorized as one of the 'smart ones'. In retrospect, that was what might have shaped my path. I happily accepted this elevated status given to me by virtue of my facility with the language and fulfilled my role as one of the 'smart ones' with ease.

I believe we are all products of one system or another. For an adolescent such as I was, the school is the overarching, overruling system that determined who I was and what I was to become. In my family, English had always been the spoken language. There was no applause for the correctly expressed thought. In school, the simple achievement of a spelling bee won me slaps on the shoulder and nods of approval from teachers.

There is no historical now

We pass the time of day to forget how time passes
Time moves fastest when we try to capture it
There is no such thing as an historical now
We take pictures only to remind us that a moment had passed
A photograph, a painting, a letter, a note, a pathological clinging
A preserved moment only reminds us of the past's pastness
The dead soul of a living past instilled in a picture
A permanent mark on our temporal existance
A constant reminder of something lost

Of Race, Ethnicity and Nationality

I had an interesting conversation with a close friend of mine and her sister. They are Pakistanis residing in Canada. Both expressed their dislike of being addressed as Indians. 'We're Pakistani' they emphasised - they were born and raised in Pakistan. 'So, what is your race?' I asked. Again, they answered, 'Pakistani,' with equal emphasis. I was puzzled. Pakistan as a nation came into being after the Partition in 1947. Prior to that, everyone within the borders of what is now Bangladesh, India and Pakistan were known as Indians - as a nationality and, for a majority of India's population, as an ethnic group.

Does this mean, addendum to my friends' response, that Pakistani as an ethnic group came into being alongside the creation of Pakistan as a nation? In that same light, is there a difference between Indian as a race and Indian as a nationality? Certainly for Indians in Malaysia, the answer is a resounding 'yes'. I honestly don't mean to poke holes in how my friends identify themselves in terms of race, ethnicity and nationality. I was merely intrigued by the similarity of conflicts applied to the problematic issue of the 'Malaysian'.

The idea of the 'Malaysian' implies a complicated synthesis of such constructs as ethnicity: Malay, Chinese, Indian, aborigines and other invisible minority groups; and religion: Chinese Muslim, Indian Muslim, Chinese Christian, Chinese Indian and a multitude of other race/ethnicity clusters. Malays, as the previously unquestioned original peoples of the country, reserve certain rights and privileges over the rest of the country's population. From my simple observation, there has been a stronger emphasis on the Muslim Malay since the controversy regarding Muslims converting to other religions.

As a Muslim country (an idea that is highly debatable in itself), Malay and Muslim is conceptually inseparable according to the country's constitution. This begs the question : What of the Chinese Muslim and Indian Muslim? Are they allotted certain rights and privileges by virtue of their faith? Or are they still to be deprived, by virtue of their race, of the rights and privileges allotted to their fellow countrymen who are of the same faith? Or are they to be allocated a (hybrid) class that gives them the benefits of one social group without the disadvantages of another? If a hybridised society is the answer, then Malaysia will be flooded with these hybrid gclassess due to the perennially developing social groupings based on race and ethnicity.

Maintaining one's racial and ethnic identity is at once purposeful and problematic. While homogeneity is clearly undesirably for an infinite list of reasons, preserving cultural diversity is often potentially divisive and exclusionary. It is at the heart of the Holocaust, Serbia's ethnic cleansing, Rwanda's genocide and Malaysia's own small-scale but equally tragic pogrom that lead to Singapore's autonomy.

Holiday Blues II

When the final weeks of the term were getting saturated with deadlines, my only motivation was the prospect of the coming break - the late night hours to be filled with reading the books that have been patiently waiting on my bookshelf, my empty blog that wants updating, the abundance of photos waiting to be edited and uploaded for loved ones across the ocean to see - the prospects are endless.

Now, 5 days into the break, I'm beginning to wish for school to start again.

Have I turned into a nerd?

Slacker Uprising

Starring Michael Moore as…the `Journalist`?

Michael Moore’s latest addition to his repertoire of satirical films about the US has caused as many tongues wagging and heads rolling as did his previous cinematic endeavours. Released less than 2 months prior to the 2008 US Presidential elections, Slacker Uprising was strategically placed on the election timeline to swing voters and carried a palpable message - vote the Republicans out of the White House. While the film has somewhat fulfilled its noble cause of propagating awareness among Americans about their responsibility as voters, some of the issues Moore raised in this film merit further scrutiny.

Throughout his tour to battlefield states, Moore consistently utilised a word to it’s full potential - ‘truth’. He fervently states that his film is not a propaganda. In the film, he chastised the press for letting themselves be used as a tool of propaganda by the government and that the American people would have opposed the US government’s decision to invade Iraq had they been properly and truthfully informed. ‘My movie exists to counter the managed, manufactured news which is essentially a propaganda arm of the Bush administration. My movies are the anti-propaganda,’ says Moore. This statement in and by itself is problematic. Slacker Uprising’s main objective was to influence public opinion, specifically from being for the Republicans to being against them. Propaganda, by definition, is exactly what Moore is spreading through Slacker Uprising. In other words, Moore is running a campaign of his own, just like the politicos he is criticizing. The only distinction here being his approach - non rhetorical and aimed at middle America at the grass roots level.

During an interview about Slacker Uprising on Larry King Live, Moore summarized the 2008 presidential race as ‘Obama versus ignorance.’ He theorizes that, while people who vote for Senator McCain may do so out their firm belief in him as a leader, a large number of people will vote for the Senator out of ignorance. What Moore is directly implying here is consistent with his stand conspicuous in the film - that the US public have been kept in the dark about matters of war, economy, healthcare and others. However, the undertone of that statement and, most obviously, the movie, connotes that followers of the Republican camp are largely ignorant. The film was saturated with clips depicting Republican supporters as painfully inarticulate and, despite their admiration for Senator McCain, were unable to even form one coherent sentence of praise. On the other hand, supporters of Moore and his campaign against the Republicans were consistently portrayed as passionate, discerning and enlightened about issues that concern the American public. This lop-sided portrayal of sources brings to question Moore’s integrity as a ‘journalist’ - as one who claims to be trying to clear up the ‘misstatements and untruths’ apparently spread by the American national media. His portrayal of Republican supporters can easily be seen as a conveniently ‘managed’ piece of information ‘manufactured’ to support his propaganda.

However, one has to question; is the journalist and the human being that he or she is to be kept separate? If the answer is yes then, how does one go about doing that? Linda Greenhouse, a Pulitzer prize-winning reporter for the New York Times, exposed herself to a barrage of criticism when she voiced her disappointment in the US government during a public speech. This, despite her clean record of unbiased reporting throughout her career at the Times. Ergo the question - when does the journalist get to voice his or her personal stand? The answer to that hinges upon the context within which the journalist is operating. Michael Moore the concerned, patriotic, somewhat left-wing radical citizen has every right to stand up for his convictions. But, Michael Moore the neo-journalist, illuminator of misstatements and untruths, holds the obligation to disseminate to the public information that is non-partisan and independent of his bias.

Israeli Apartheid

My lecturer Sue Ferguson wrote an article about the new apartheid - the Israeli Apartheid - some time ago and pitched it to several publications that were under the same media conglomerate. Due to the corporation's policies, the article was repeatedly rejected by all the publications. She finally managed to have it published in an independent magazine which has a relatively marginal distribution. I personally think this issue, with her article in particular, deserves more attention.

Read it here.

Looking back with humor

I need to pen this down so that if I were one day to reflect on this incident, it would still be with humor and not hate.

Let me begin by saying that the one hour gap bestowed upon my hectic Tuesday schedule was efficiently and peacefully spent catching up on my reading assignments in the quiet peace of Victoria Park. The Universal Journalist's Chapter 12 was a breeze, thanks to its abundance in anecdotes and case studies. I was obliviously oblivious to my surroundings until I came near the end of the chapter. There were some raised voices that was invading my realm of concentration. I looked up to see a couple - both seeming either a little intoxicated (or recovering from an intoxication) despite the cup of coffee they were each cradling - clumsily looking away from me. When I looked back down at my book, I found that I had completely lost my concentration so I decided to start on another assignment - listening in to an anonymous conversation and observing their habit in reporting speech. As I tried to inconspicuously listen to the couple's conversation, I found that it wasn't really that much of a challenge since their conversation was essentially aimed at me, as I soon discovered. The dialogue went something like this :

Lady : I saw him, I mean I SAW him and I thought to myself this guy is...is...(waves hand)

Man : Yeah...yeah...

Lady : Yeah...they had Ben Ladin on there...and I SAW him with his...his beard and...I was saying right under my skin, this guy is NOTHING but trouble...just WAIT and see...

Man : Yeah...yeah...

Lady : ...and a month later nine eleven happened...and I thought...I KNEW it! I KNEW it! I thought, why aren't you guys LISTENING...I KNEW it...it's all right THERE...

At this point I decided to close my book and move elsewhere. I was having trouble keeping my face straight. That lady was talking with an intensity that can only come from complete ignorance of what a fool she was making herself out to be. There was a sense of tragic humor in her patheticalness, her misguided presumption and her vapid speech. I imagine her to be one of the million or so self-proclaimed experts of the string of catastrophic events that's hit the world in the last decade. In my mind I saw her nursing her ego with visions of imaginary men in standard issue black suits and dark glasses knocking at her door saying, 'Ma'am, we've been made aware of your confounding abilities in forming conjectures based on as meagre sources as your basic hunch. Would you like to come and work for the CIA?' In her mind she would mostly likely gasp (or perhaps rasp) in surprise before reluctantly agreeing 'for the good of the country'. I don't know why I thought of the CIA. We're in Canada. 'It doesn't matter, Ma'am. The world NEEDS your expert misguided insight!'. Adios wackos.

I gave so much it hurt!

I gave blood today.

Hold the applause.

The many pit stops that were set up before one can actually leave the blood bank after donating blood actually proved to be useful.

I successfully made it through all of them and finally sat down at the last - a table full of juices, snacks and candy - to have the obligatory chat with the student volunteers for five minutes and collect my novelty button and 'Be nice to me...I gave blood today!' stickers.

At the first sip of my apple juice, nausea came over me. I asked if this was normal and was immediately rushed to the nearest cot - which proved necessary because my knees gave out just as my rump hit the cot.

The next twenty minutes involved the nurse placing and replacing cold cloths on my head and telling in a joking manner meant to conceal authority, 'OK, we're in charge now. We'll tell you when to get up.'

I was allowed to - slowly -sit up and finally stand for a few minutes to make sure the nausea had passed. I was also obliged to explain my journey home - a seven minute walk - to the nurse in charge in full detail (down so-and-so street, two blocks past the park, across the so-and-so Square parking lot, etc).

I headed home holding my bonus box of juice, making several wrong turns - despite knowing the entire way like the back of my hand by my second day of classes - and thus extending my travelling time to more then ten minutes.

All in all, giving blood is not nearly as romantic an occasion as depicted on TV. It borders on embarrassingly traumatic.

the CB Lab

Three hours to kill

The basement lab at the Carnegie Building is fast becoming my favourite spot to kill time. Hardly anyone is ever there because it's partially under construction and it's close to the Student Union Building where, for one reason or another, I often have to go. What really lures me to this secluded spot is actually its wide ascending stairs and fake Greek pillars and pediments that is reminiscent of an ancient albeit contrived history. Stepping through the front entrance brings me to a large domed foyer. Unlike the other buildings, the Carnegie Building seems to be endowed by a collection of tasteful artwork throughout its halls. I felt impelled to affect a certain amount of finesse with which to match its genteel decor. All of its offices are doored with thick heavy wood. The immense carpeted floors silences any trail of rude footsteps. I learned in class the other day that it is not simply a matter of having a past, but how we are acquainted by our past that informs who we are today. Perhaps borrowing from a favored past more than suffices when none is to be found of one's own.

Mining for jewels

...and I found one today!

7pm Iftar quickie

I'm at the WLU computer lab because my PC's not working because I forgot to bring the power cable for my monitor to campus. I don't really blame myself (or anyone, for that matter) because we have had a busy week and it being Ramadan somehow makes everything else besides ibadah seem unimportant. Anyways, I'll be going back this weekend so there's really no love lost. I'll just watch TV for now. Besides, I've already gotten five writing and reading assignments from my first day of class. I guess I'll just geek it up and start working on them. Speaking of which, we've been asked to start a blog where we'll be posting all our assignments and drafts. That means this blog is hitting the backseat again. I don't mind it. I love the structured training I'll be getting in return.

It's almost 7p.m. now so I'll be heading home to reheat the frozen dinners I brought with me from home. Note to self : Don't bring too much next week because after the first two days, the luxury of a (frozen) home-cooked meal wears off.

This is midnight quickie while I wait patiently for a rerun of 'The Deadliest Catch' - my most recent fad. Yup, a bunch of tough guys lugging it out on the freezing Bering sea is something to stay up way past midnight for. It is a drastic change from the domestic adorable antiques of 'Jon and Kate Plus 8' and a huge change of scene. I don't even mind the over-played father-son, captain-crew, crabber-crab drama. At least, not yet.

Hati ini rindu
pada terik matahari yang genting
pada peluh yang melekapi tubuh
pada hujan yang melecahkan bumi

Hati ini rindu
pada sapaan senyum yang gemalai si gadis melayu
pada tangan yang hangat dalam jabat salam
pada pelukan tenang tubuh di tepi tangga

Hati ini rindu
pada sesak metropolis mencuit langit
pada lorong-lorong padat berasakan enjin
pada kaki-kaki lima gudang warna dan cerita

Hati ini rindu...

Senyumnya

Entah apa yang ada pada wajah cilik ini yang buat aku tersenyum setiap kali, aku sendiri kurang pasti. Yang nyata cuma satu - setiap kali aku pandang bibirnya yang merah jambu, matanya yang jernih berkaca dan pipinya yang munggil itu, hati aku terasa bagaikan 'kembang mekar berbunga-bunga', bak kata penulis-penulis novel picisan. Lidahnya belum reti berkata-kata, namun setiap dengusan, keluhan dan tangisan aku rasa bagaikan bisikan yang hanya aku sorang mampu dengar. Mungkin disebabkan dia terlalu jauh untuk aku belai. Mungkin kerana dia satu-satunya pengalaman yang paling hampir dengan menimang anak sendiri. Atau mungkin juga kerana dia yang merubah kakak ku menjadi ibu, kakak yang bagi aku masih gadis muda dan sementah diriku. Mungkin. Yang pasti wajahnya yang kaku menggayakan senyum buat lensa kamera bapanya adalah wajah yang aku bawa bermimpi setiap malam dan wajah yang menyambut ku dari tidur setiap pagi.

Welcome, Ain Zahara

The past week's hectic schedule, the result of Mama's absence, has been tantamount to this. After hours in labor, Kak Nani finally delivered our little first flower safe and healthy.

Welcome home, little Zahara.

I look forward to meeting you in person.




Love, from afar,



Kala Lin.

Some Thoughts That Came at Once

Feels like the a story

you might write for yourself

Minus the dramatic mumbo jumbo
It's where love, the true kind, comes in silence
that looks like an old friend
None of that love-at-first-sight crap
sweep-you-off-your-feet nonsense
the kind that comes along
lace through your fingers
take you for a walk
long enough for you to realize that
this is what you've been holding
your breath for
and closed your eyes
in knowing anticipation
it's natural like finding an old self
so familiar it's almost taken for granted of
until you realize that it is
what you see, feel and breath with
like the step that comes before this
and must come after
no dramatic climax
absent are the tragic endings
the happily-ever-afters
just that resounding satisfaction
of having touched it
that it is yours
just that once.

Duran Duran says : 'I come undone'...

I hesitate to write about my life here for fear of it sounding 'kebaratan' and myself coming off like a 'mat-salleh'-wannabe (I really am not).

I hesitate to write about my efforts to preserve my Malay heritage for fear of sounding desperate to hold on to my roots and failing miserably at it.

I hesitate to write about myself at all for fear of coming off like a chronic narcissist.

I hesitate to write about the things that I like to do - cooking, gardening, crafting - for fear of coming off like the stereotyped housewife-blogger.

I hesitate to write about the things that I miss about Malaysia for fear of sounding like I'm reinforcing the fact that I am overseas - perceived by many back home as a luxury but is really quite the contrary.

I hesitate to write about my true feelings for fear of sounding weak/pathetic/sick/desperate.

I hesitate to write about religion for fear of sounding like an extremist - I've seen other people's take on Islam and to voice mine would definitely make me come off like an extremist when I'm simply being a Muslim.

I hesitate to write about my dreams and goals for fear of them never coming true.

I hesitate to write about serious issues for fear of sounding like pseudo-whatever.

I hesitate to write about the things I cherish for fear of sounding like a braggart (maybe on some subconscious level I AM bragging).

I hate exposing my insecurities but I feel it is necessary since they are some of the things that are clouding my brain. I read somewhere in O that it's good to put things on paper what you can fully understand. A good spring clean might prove to be just the psychotherapy I need....hopefully.

Mother Nature's Got an Apetite!

Monday Night's REM display

Reporter jabs his mic in my chest
'Do you care?' he asks
'Specifically about what?' I say
He jabs the mic into my chest
I took a step back
and fell into the sea below
Since the water was muddy
I thought it right to follow the current
My friend the whale finally swam by
He had a card that said he's my twin
I asked him 'How do you know?'
He said he didn't
But I might be too big for him to swallow
The only way for us all to know
is for him to let me go
and watch me grow
'If I do that, will you come back
and tell me "I told you so?"'
I told him I would
He gave me a ride back to the cliff
I climbed up into the news conference
Reporter jabs his mic again
'Do you care?' he asks
I don't know if I care
I might try to find out
if I care to find out
but now I have an appointment
with my friend the whale
the twin that gave me a ride to the cliffs

yours truly,
Lily the dilated pupil

2a.m. Biology Quickie on Aviants

The brown-specked bird I saw bobbing around our backyard yesterday is the song sparrow. The red-breasted one perched on the big silver maple in front of our living room window is called an American robin. The pairs of geese we see more and more often since the receding of winter is know simply as Canadian geese.

I know this due to a relic left in our house by it's previous owner. It's a wall clock with a native bird adorning each hour.

I remember the birds' names because of the ten-minute transition period I give myself upon waking up in the mornings during which I stare at the clock, count the seconds (and memorise the birds' names) and pull myself fully out of sleep.

I am not a bird watche. It's not an activity that's entirely pointless, but the point to doing isn't entirely justifiable to me. But then, the same could be said about watching t.v. so perhaps I should give it a try. Bird watching, that is. I'm already a master at t.v. watching.

Care to join me, anyone?

You, Me and An Eternity

I nervously drummed my fingers on my glass of cold water. The television blared at an annoying loudness while the weight of the heavy silence hung between us.

I realized I had started shaking my left foot. Out of nervousness perhaps? Then I noticed that his left foot was also wagging like a dog's tail. Was I subconciously immitating him or is it the other way around?

Such is the conundrum.

Anything I might venture to say will be infected by the awkwardness that this silence has become. There is no possible way to assume an air of normalcy once the period of awkward silence has imposed itself on our nervous presence.

I should not have let it begun in the first place, this awkward silence. The trick is to keep up an exchange, however banal or pointless, prosaic or preposterous.

I was going to comment on the way the great angasana tree in the yard was listing abnormally towards the house but I decided not to. I thought I might sound desperate for a conversation.

What a mistake that was. Now I really AM desperate to chat.

Write, for the love of God, Write!

Must start writing again.

Too many

internal conversations

clouding my thoughts.

Must put them into words

before they cause

further speech impediment.

Disconnected

My notebook has decided to turn the lights out on me. I was in the middle of sorting my pictures on my hard drive when the screen was reduced to about ten percent of it's normal brightness. The affect was similar to that of being in a dark room. You can basically make out the outlines of the bed and the dresser but you can't make out the details of the knobs and the handles. I found myself gently trying to cajole my notebook into normal mode, very much like a man would his favourite car. 'Come on, don't do this to me. Come on, you can do it,' I whispered. In a sense I wasn't totally off-course since my computer's gotten me to places much like a car would. (In fact, I think I've traveled farther than I would have with a car).I even stroked the screen several times in reflex as if there was a fog stopping me from seeing it clearly. I considered banging it several times on the table like you would a broken television but decided against it, recalling that banging a broken television does diddly squat to fix it. Now I'm relegated to gatecrashing other people's computer. In this modern day and age it may be insufferable to live disconnected from the internet. I've discovered that it's considerably worse to live disconnected from your own personal computer.

Old habits die hard.
Bad habits die harder.
Bad instincts die hardest.

Marilah Mari, Mari Mengundi

There is nothing that I can say about the GE outcome that hasn't been said (or blogged) already. Except maybe that the term 'winds of change' appropriately describes the post-election mood in Malaysia. I've been following the progress of the GE through bloggers' posts and online newspapers from the parties involved and form both alliances. It's good to know that despite the heavily biased media, there are still an abundance of unbiased and forward-thinking minds (I could heap more praise on them but then there'd be no end to it, would there?) out there who are objectively and unemotionally scrutinizing this historic period and giving their two-cents about it. Perhaps the country isn't in such dire straits as I imagined it to be. It's amusing how there are still individuals who succumb to their political fervor by invading people's blogs and unleashing torrents of insults thinly veiled by political righteousness. Surely anyone in their right mind can see how futile that is. Even more amusing is how these people hide behind fake names or anonymity, which corrodes what little truth or credibility their comments might have had to begin with. Part of me wishes I was back home to witness this momentous occasion. Then again, this could be the best (or proper) position for me to observe the turn of events around Malaysia.

The next five years is going to be an interesting ride, indeed.

Now all of you be-have

My self-righteous alter-ego has made another escape and thus threatened to jeopardize another one of my already-fragile friendships. My fun-mister self was out chatting with a friend about his latest excursion into the Malaysian wilderness. Offhandedly he mentioned some hanky-panky he'd gotten into. It was a harmless escapade and my fun-mister-self fully understood the reason for this revelation. My dear friend had simply wanted to share a personal anecdote and perhaps take a little pride in his fecklessness. Without realizing it, my inner-school teacher came out and was fast typing at the keyboard, literally wagging a finger, shaking my head and going "Tsk, tsk, shame on you!" I couldn't believe it. She'd jumped out of nowhere and I was helpless tugging at her sleeves begging her to stop. She finally ceased her chastisement when my friend announced that he had some urgent business to attend to. I know full well that it was code for 'That's it, I've had enough of you!". By then I knew it was too late to smooth things over and make amends. The school teacher was gone and in her place was little Miss Nice trying to think up an apology. If only I could hold myself together better - ALL of my selves.

Something's going wrong in the world

You have the opportunity to change it here. Will you do it?

Oh very young one

She trudged up the driveway with her little purple sled and contemplated the two-feet-thick snow. I watched in amusement as she tentatively stepped onto the snow and sank all the way to her waist. Some of the boys were already sliding down the hillside. Their ecstatic whooping propelled her to take another step further and she sank deeper into the snow.

"Rabiah, do you need a hand?" I asked, not exactly sure how I'd be able to help if she'd said yes.

She half turned her head and the pink hood covered her face. She had to turned her whole body around in order to address me. "No, it's ok," she replied. She looked down at her feet. "Yeah, it's ok," she repeated, I thought, more to herself than to me. Her head shook an assertive 'no', her eyebrows knitted in worry but her rosebud lips mouthed the words so emphatically I momentarily forgot she was only four years old.

"Are you sure?" I repeated. She came back with a firmer nod but with a hint of the same worried expression. I looked over at my brother. He laughed and gave a helpless shrug of his shoulders. Alright, let the girl be her own guinea pig.

I decided to hold my camera at the ready and followed at a safe distance. Inevitably I did have to pluck her out of the snow and carry her purple sled, which she soon forgot in her struggle and her haste to catch up with the boys.

Watching her advance towards the slopes, my face was frozen in a smile. What a perfect picture - the girl in her pink get-up, the purple sled, the clean white snow and the crisp air. Her cuteness, her innocence and her infinite confidence to venture fearlessly into the (relative) unknown unassisted filled me with something near-celestial. Was it happiness? Pure, pristine pleasure? Exhilaration? A state of transcendence? I couldn't be sure but if the scene replayed itself a million times over, I was certain I'd never tire of it.

I couldn't put a finger on what aspect of this picture that was putting me in a state of a natural high. The pleasure was so tangible I could almost taste it on my tongue. I did, however, discover a child's God-given shield against the malice of the world - their cuteness. At that moment I couldn't imagine anyone in their right mind who would harm a child. Such conviction amidst the fear. Such confidence despite the anxiety. And the prettiest face to go with all that.

www.woes.com

How many times have you entered the wrong username for the wrong email account?
How many times have you entered the wrong password for the wrong account?
How many times have you accidentally activated the capslock key when entering your password?
How many times have you forgotten to check the box for the statement of understanding?
How many times have you overlooked that pesty little word verification?
How many times have you simply given up because all that trouble is just not worth the precious little you had to say?

As part of their campaign, opposition party leaders are promising a smidgen of the freedom of speech - the freedom to hold public protests. I have to admit, superficial as it is, they've accentuated the key issue that is the most recent of public discontent against the government - for now. In the wake of the many recent protests that were effectively attenuated by false reports, this is the one issue that might stand a chance of swinging votes. It's a faint flicker of hope, but it signals at Malaysians' awareness on the importance of voicing their disagreements and taking action against injustices, be it social, political or of any other motivation.

What saddens me, though, is the near fecklessness of this promise. Take the US Presidential elections. All of the Presidential candidates, from both the Democratic and Republican camps, have been consistently pursuing issues that Americans are most concerned about - making education and health care more affordable, making health insurance more accessible, improving immigration laws, dealing with the situation in the Middle East more tactfully so their soldiers don't pay the price, finding alternative fuel solutions. I don't mean to glorify the Americans as the leading society of the world (as Obama puts it) , but I must applaud their discernment towards their rights and how to translate those needs into realistic demands.

As in Malaysia, these candidates' promises (or guarantees, as some of them prefer) is a response to what the American public are demanding for themselves. They want better health care, a better education system, a cleaner environment to live in, a safer country. They demanded that of their government and the candidates are wrecking their brains to come up with plans to fulfill those demands in order to stay in favor of the public. In a nutshell, the public gives birth to the kind of leaders that will best serve their interests, and vice versa.

The scenario we witness in Malaysia is similar, except that the issues that are gaining interest ones that will not go any further than a few months after elections. Year after year party leaders throw out promises of temporal nature and we lap them up in the hopes that they will lead us 'to a better future', 'build a better society', 'creating a "masyarakat glokal"' and all that nonsense. Year after year, the same places in the country are flooded during monsoon seasons. Instead of pushing for better drainage, flood victims are quickly pacified by local ADUN who stop by to hand out RM100 gift hampers on their way to the next luncheon. Every time the highway toll rises there's a public outcry and the newspaper's reader's section is filled with letters from disgruntled drivers. Sami Vellu feints concern with statements saying he will look into the matter and promises that the new toll rates 'will not burden the public'. With that the issue, with the help of the government-controlled media, is downplayed and we go back digging deeper into our pockets. For the rest of the election term, the Malaysian public pay the price for their choice in restless doldrums.

It paints a sad picture when a person is ill-equipped to choose what's best for himself/herself. I don't mean to incite public uprising and encourage people to overthrow the government. Countries that work on that system of anarchy are already paying a dear price. I think as Malaysians, our responsibility lies beyond the pickets and rallies. We need to arm ourselves with the more powerful tool - education - that would put the freedom of speech to good use. As a Muslim, I fully understand the responsibility to educate myself that is put upon me by God. We need to educate ourselves on the standard of living we so rightfully deserve, the equal opportunities that no Malaysian should ever be denied of, the right to formal education that no child should be deprived of. We need to demand to know where each sen of the taxpayers' money is going. We need to demand for a better education system. We need to demand that the impoverished of the society is not digging through the trash to make ends meet while we strive to build the biggest, the tallest the longest of materials.

We should make demands. Each of us has the right to do so. But first we need to enlighten ourselves on what those demands should be.

Travelers' Guide to the Worst Time to Visit the Falls

Tagged

THE LINKING TAG The rules :

1. List out five favourite links - the links can be of business sites, affiliate links or whatever that suits the blogger.
2. Tag five more people to share their links, so hopefully, at the end of the tag, we would be able to share good links with each other.
3. The links MUST be clean. No X-rated sites (which basically put my blog out of the running).
4. List out only FIVE links.
5. You MUST tell FIVE people you choose.
6. Provide the link back to the person who tagged you. Obviously, it should be an active link.

I'm relatively new to the art of tagging. I was last tagged by Nyonya, which happened to be my introduction to tagging, and I didn't exactly follow through with the swing either. Upon reading the rules for this one, I can immediately surmise that I'm about to fail at executing it. To start off, I don't follow people's blogs as religiously as I think I should. The blogs that I do follow are not ones you can actually tag (read my list of favourite links and you'll understand). The blogs that I follow, that I can tag, have already been tagged by my tagger a.k.a. Nyonya. So here's a half-way effort of what tagging is suppposed to achieve i.e. a list of my favourite links:

1. Jason Mraz's journals I find this guy to be a literary genius whose ingenuity happens to find an outlet through music. His quirky, almost arcane brand of music is hard to place in any specific genre. As for his writing, I'd best describe it as factual surrealism. An old major in front of his window is a tree, Times Square is the best place to absorb, lovers are chain-smoked to achieve a sense of stability. I love weaving facts with fantasy and Mraz sits way up there with Gabriel Marquez and Michael Ondaatje.

2. CNN For reasons I can't quite finger, I have been having suffering from a case of an increasing ardor for keeping up with the world. Of the many news networks, this is serves me prefectly.

3. Anderson Cooper 360's blog I came to know of Cooper through Oprah. His Planet in Peril report cinched the deal for me. I like his zeal and his team of young, fiery reporters who drop a tear at the sight of a tiny Amazonian lizard that's been displaced by deforestation. Plus, he's quite an eye-candy (closet-homo or not).

4. Amnesty International I don't exactly have the resources to adopt a child, travel half-way across the globe to help build a water system or petition for a polotical prisoner's release, so I figured, until I can do so, I'll keep up with the literature.

5. Dakwah.info You can't live without some sort of spiritual nourishment, can you?

Come to think of it, all the links on my blog are ones I visit frequently and are equally important to me. I listed the five above because I think they're worth sharing.

Unfortunately, there's only one person I can tag and that is YOU. Happy tagging!

Sweet dreams

I had a recurring dream as a child which left me painfully baffled until I learned what dreams are made of. Unlike the recurrent dreams of adulthood, this one is always pleasant. Towards the end of every dream, when morning light starts to penetrate my eyelids and my dad's voice begins to pull me back into reality, my dream would ebb away with a trail of candy. The feel of the little sweets in my palms causes my to hurriedly wake up so I can savor them. Of course, I'd see that my hands were empty and there was only the mute morning light laughing at my silliness. For a long time I tried to fathom the mystery of my dream candy. One moment they were there in my palms and I distinctly felt the crisp wrappers prickling my girl-child skin. Then I blinked myself back into the sphere of conciousness and they were gone. By that age I'd already undestood that dreams stay in that world you visit when you're too tired to deal with the one you're in. This one, however, got me chasing it because I physically felt the candy in my hands. Being five years old, I thoroughly understood the importance of candy and any candy left uneaten is almost as sinful as sin itself. I wanted so much to atone for that sin that I often tried to will myself back to sleep. That is, until the day intervened and play and bath and friends and dolls became priority and I forgot about the dream until the next time it came visiting, inevitably leaving with another trail of candy for me to pursue.

Question to self

Is active blogging a sign of a social life in dire straits?

MacBook Air

Yummy.

Discussions over pizza/random ramblings

It's always amusing to see what kind of hair-brained scheme the clowns in power will come up with to lure in votes come election time. One scheme for this year seems to covet the most innocent of voters - the infringed and impoverished minority susceptible to the meagre promises made by politicians. Parents of school children who are on the RMT will be called to school for a special ceremony to recieve certificates (of achievement?) in recognition of their child being in the program. FYI the RMT stands for Rancangan Makanan Tambahan - a supplementary food program to provide kids from impoverished families with a stable and healthy diet. (What kind of food these children are getting through the program - now that's a whole different can of worms!) But this is not going to be just a simple ceremony for according certificates. How can it be, when the local politician (or whoever holds the most clout in the area) will be invited, speeches given, food catered and served, buntings hung and loads of kow-tow given, all at the expence of the innocent John. Q. Taxpayer. What it will hopefully do is boost the image of the powers-that-be in the eleventh hour of campaigning.

Let's consider for a second the ingenuity of this magnanimous gesture of pseudo-recognition. If my child were on the program, yes, I would very much like to be invited to the school to be recognized. I would very much like to recieve a certificate that would remind me of my daily struggle to simply feed my children. I would really love to go up on stage and have a hundred people applaude me for unwillingly depriving my child of his or her most basic need. People like me, whose children are 'previliged' enough to be on the program, are majority working on a daily wage. If I miss a day of work, I'd miss out on the day's wages. But hey, this ceremony is such a big honour that I wouldn't mind leaving work for one day.

Really, I don't mind depriving my child of another day's meal because the powers-that-be are generous enough to put up a ceremony for me. The rest of my children will go hungry too because only one child per family is allowed on the program. But hey, the powers-that-be have a budget to work with just like me. They can't afford to feed all of my children through RMT, although they all go to school equally hungry. If they do that, then there'd be no money left to spend on the more important things. You know, things like the chauffer driven luxury car to transport the bigwig from his mansion to the ceremony. Or for tipping the local press so they'd make this event their cover story for tomorrow's print. Or the colourful buntings and decorations that someone will take home as theirs at the end of the day. Or the votes that this glorious occasion will garner for the-powers-that-be. Or the heavy, embossed, signed, and sealed certificate that I'll take home and...serve to my children for dinner, perhaps?

Rejection is...

...a hard pill to swallow.

Farther Apart, Closer at Heart

My family, immediate and extended, are going through a growth spurt. There was a pacific lull while all my cousins, including myself, were busy with school, varsity and then onto the shores of the Malaysian workforce. Then all of a sudden, within a few months of each other, they started getting married, one after another. Then, of course, the married ones began to actively procreate, my sister included, myself excluded. The pattern of reproductivity was so strong and contiguous that it almost seemed like an epidemic. When one of my cousins, the first one hitched, gave birth to a baby boy I could almost see the entire clan physically leap into a new phase - a phase where motherhood is a norm and organizing another wedding is simply a matter of repeating the previous one with minor adjustments here and there. We keep in touch through emailed baby pictures and the usual 'Oohs' and 'Aahs' over cute baby feet and adorable baby tooth-less gums. It was while we were drooling over baby-drool that I realized I have had very little to do with this new addition of the family other than to gaze at his photos. In other words, we're strangers to one another. This realization stood in contrast to the fact that my cousins and I practically grew up together. Suddenly there are these tiny little indivuduals appearing in this little circle that I've grown accustomed to. Now my sister's about to have one of her own. Since we're thousands of miles away, any relationship I would have with the baby will be through pictures. Here is a person who came from the same gene pool as I did and we're going to be total strangers. Now that is something I find to be quite strange.

Deduce this...

Children tell the truth,

Politicians were once children...

...see what I'm getting at?

too-owh-owh-eyt

So what has the waited-all-year-for 08 brought us thus far?

Malaysian State of Affairs

A satirical poem on the Malaysian state of affairs recently came my way. While it was amusing in it's cadence, it also painted a lucidly sad picture of how the government is being run. I won't go so low as to print the poem here, since there are already individuals who are at this moment rigorously circulating it on the net. Besides, every time I dare to venture into the topic of Malaysian politics I sound every bit the cynic I try very hard not to be. The issues so creatively purported in the verses were nothing new. They have been the bane of political debates for years. Suffice it to say that the body claiming to serve the people of the country are still only paying lip service to their oaths. While the unknowing partisans of our pseudo-democracy are busy applauding the likes of Siti, Mawi and the jokers on AF, local bureaucrats are free to dicker the public coffer amongst themselves. It saddens me that the independence our forefathers so proudly negotiated from the colonials without dropping a single drop of blood is now reduced to a few succinct stanzas of morbid humor. Picture a clown weeping and you'll get the picture.

Randon Ramblings #17

When the 25th of December officially marked the arrival winter, albeit having received snow weeks before, I sincerely thought we wouldn't see green grass or the yellow sun till spring shows itself. That's when I started worrying about becoming a couch potato despite the fact that we don't own a couch. I scrabbled around my head for some form of exercise that wouldn't require too much effort but yields drastic results (yes, I see that it doesn't make sense NOW). I settled on crunching abs with my brother's 10lbs weight. It was convenient enough since I could park myself in front of the teevo, no worries about changing into proper workout attire, and crunch away. It's fail-proof plan, or so I thought.

There's a reason why Dr.Oz came up with a contract you can sign as a pledge to carry out that work out regime. Apparently personal resolutions scribbled in that brand spanking new journal doesn't cut it anymore. Apparently you have to take an oath of obedience of sorts or at least tell someone about it as a support system to see you through the year. Otherwise it's goodbye treadmill and hello couch half-way through the first month. So true.

So...

I hereby promise myself to go out walking for at least 3o minutes everyday, be it to walk my brother to school or to go to the grocery store or to simply walk around the neighbourhood.

A week's gone by and the half-hour walks have done diddly squat to improve my figure. On the flip side of that my psyche has improved by leaps and bounds. I sleep better at night, I work more efficiently in the mornings and I spend less time in front of the tube downing crisps. Plus I find myself jumping out of bed every morning instead of walking in a cloud until noon time. Considering what a grump I am in the mornings, that's a huge improvement.

for amy

happy happiest 25th