+oranje grove+

Canadian economy off to a lackluster start in 2012

2012-02-01T11:10:00.002-05:00

Prime Minister Stephen Harper once again reaffirmed his goal of whipping the Canadian economy into shape by implementing more austerity measures, but economists worry that this may lead to further decline in the country's GDP. The energy sector is to blame for November 2012's sharp drop in GDP. The drop followed a pattern of no growth in October.

This page is now Occupied

2011-10-26T16:36:00.006-04:00

by Lin Abdul Rahman

Photo by Deanna Budgell

The Sputnik, Fal 2011, Issue 6

On September 17, a group of protesters set up camp on Zuccotti Park in the Wall Street financial district to demand a reform to the US financial and economic system. Over the next few weeks, the number of campers swelled, media attention grew and the movement’s influence began to spread.

Although criticized as being leaderless, the movement’s goal of ending corporate greed and lobbyist control over government policies resonated across the globe.

On October 15^th, 900 cities around the world staged their own “occupations”. In Malaysia, over 200 people “occupied” Dataran Merdeka. In Spain, over 46, 000 people “occupied” Madrid Square. In Toronto, over 1000 people gathered at the corner of King and Bay Street and marched to St. James Park. Later, “occupations” sprang up in Vancouver, Ottawa, Calgary, London and Windsor.

Despite the movement’s growing popularity, authorities have shown little sympathy and no sign of acquiescing to occupiers’ demands. The occupiers, meanwhile, show no signs of leaving. Mainstream media attention has been largely pessimistic while critics question the movement’s ability to sustain itself. After all, these occupiers are just rabble-rousing anarchists and hippies without clear objectives, right?

This image seems to be at odds with the movement’s growing influence and my curiosity was naturally piqued. I decided to visit St. James Park myself.

It quickly became apparent to me that a lot of planning and organization had occurred even before the October 15 March took place. As soon as the contingent arrived at the park, various areas were cordoned off for specific purposes. The camping area came with family-friendly and female-only sections. The Sanitation Committee had prepared rows of port-a-potties and hand-washing stations. The Medic Committee put up signs saying “no photos” around the medic area, as would be the normal procedure in medical facilities. The Media Committee kept occupiers and everyone abreast on everything occupation-related. There was also a “free occupy library” with free reading materials and an occupation “must read” list.

There was no shortage of what society calls “hippies” but they were mostly involved with the basic mechanisms that kept movement running smoothly. There were trained marshal teams patrolling the park in the evening to keep it safe. The Sanitation Committee keeps the park clean. The Facilitation Committee keeps discussions going and ensured the movement remained as participatory as possible.

There was little semblance of anarchy at the park, except maybe for the multitude of signs hung on trees and tucked among bushes. – signs that cleverly and clearly articulated the need for change.

These signs highlighted problems regarding a myriad issues: inadequate health care; rising tuition fees and student debt; lack of citizen participation in government; infringement upon native, minority and immigrant rights; violation of workers’ rights; a failed capitalist economy; increased military spending; the list goes on.

To the movement’s critics, this underscores its lack of focus. To me, this illustrates one simple fact: there are so many things wrong with our system today that it’s hard to pinpoint one single problem that can be easily addressed. The global economic and political system has become so corrupt that it is harming rather than serving the interests of the people, also known the “99%”.

Evidently the Occupy movement’s slogan, “we are the 99%” is not an oversimplified concept designed to appeal to the lowest common denominator. A research team at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich developed a complex model which demonstrates how a few transnational corporations (TNCs) own disproportionately large chunks of the world’s economy. Simply put, there is a small network of 1318 corporations worldwide, each owning several other corporations and businesses, each of which have ownerships in several other businesses. This multiple ownership gives these corporations control over 60% of global manufacturing revenues.

This means that most of the world’s wealth is going to top tier of this network, which largely comprises of financial corporations like Barclays Bank and the Goldman Sachs Group.

Hence, it makes perfect sense for the movement to begin on Wall Street and spread to Ontario’s financial hub on Bay Street and elsewhere on the globe. Our political and economic systems are closely linked and the problems we face are multi-faceted. Instigating change, therefore, will require a global effort.

While the movement has mobilized people from diverse backgrounds, it appears to attract a lot youths in particular. This is not surprising as the younger generation’s future hinges precariously on the stability of today’s economy, whether they are entering post-secondary education or the job market. Nonetheless, it is contingent upon society as a whole to ensure that there is an economy for youths to graduate into.

Students in Chile took this to heart when they protested against increasing privatization of universities and rising tuition fees. Over 80% of Chile’s population responded in support of the students, forcing the government to replace its Minister of Education, negotiate terms with the student movement and reform Chile’s education system.

Perhaps it’s time for us to do more than just gripe about our own rising tuition fees and increasingly unsatisfactory educational experience. If there’s anything we can learn from Chile and the Occupy movement it is that we all have a voice and, when we speak in unity, that voice will be heard.

Hello Kitteh!

2011-08-21T15:39:00.009-04:00

The little fella showed up at our house about a week ago looking scrawny and mangy. It's fur is the colour of charcoal with little specks of yellow. It must be about five or six months old. It hissed at us but didn't retreat completely, as if to say, "I'm coming close so you can be nice to me but you should know that I can be mean too."

We gave it a few pieces of crushed keropok that were gobbled up within seconds. We left a few more for the night, alongside a bowl of milk.

We've since gotten some proper catfood for the little furball and a regular supply of milk. We don't see it more than once or twice a day but the bowls are usually emptied within a few hours, which is a good sign.

Cautiously eyeing the bowl of milk. Hakim sprinkled some catfood on the floor to encourage it to eat.
(PC: My brother, Hakim)

Yesterday the little kitty ventured up our back doorstep and took a few cautious steps into our kitchen. I guess it's trusting us a bit more. I try not imagine what it must have gone through to have become so edgy and fierce.

I brought the food bowls from our front porch and refilled them. Mama and I continued cooking while the little kitty enjoyed its dinner. Since Mama is mildly allergic to cat fur, I didn't let it get any further than our kitchen door. It seem to get the message and lounged on the steps, hissing whenever I came near but never leaving its perch.

I think we might actually have a pet. It's time to investigate 'it's' sex and choose a name now.

Sniffing out its new spot.

Getting comfy but still giving me attitude.

Settled in and chillin', finally.

Simple pleasures

2011-08-15T22:31:00.006-04:00

It's day 14 back in Canadialand. Yes, I'm still counting the days to remind myself of lessons learned.

I draw pleasure from simple mundane things these days, like Popeyes fried chicken for example.

In my two-and-half months' stint as a jhr intern in Ghana, I only ate meat once. (Well, I might have unknowingly ingested bits of meat on several occasions, but I only knowingly ate meat on one occasion and it was halal.) Consequently, I not only craved meat in general but I also longed for the greasy, MSG-laden crispiness of Popeyes fried chicken. So when Abah suggested we break our fast at the only Popeyes outlet in Brantford, my head automatically bobbed up and down in agreement.

Now, fast-food-chain fried chicken is hardly our typical Ramadan feast. But then again, I’ve been lucky enough to see happiness in people who have a lot less than I do (to say that they have nothing at all would be a gross exaggeration, if not a sign of ignorance). I’ve seen people carry heavier loads, walk farther distances and endure hotter suns in a day than I have had to endure in my entire life. I find it a little bit harder to complain about things now. Too bad I had to go on a $5000-internship half-way across the globe to learn this but I suppose every lesson has a price.

As I write this, I can’t help but see how inconsequential this seems. But then I remember feeling absolutely contented on the drive home from Popeyes; the most important people in my life are alive and well, I’m doing what I love most in life, my belly is full and I have a home to go back to. My happiness is the sum of little inconsequential parts and I’m thankful that I have the capacity to recognize them. I hope I stay this way.

The sun made a beautiful display of receding elegently behind the funeral home across from Popeyes as we were leaving. The day couldn't have had a better ending.

Back in Canadialand

2011-08-08T20:03:00.008-04:00

It's 6.30am on day 9 back in Canadialand.

During the early hours of a day like this, Ghana feels like a lifetime away. The pangs of sadness that accompany every thought of those I left behind are slowly fading. My eyes no longer well up whenever I think of my office mates at Luv/Nhyira FM. I no longer get choked up whenever I think of the people I see every morning on my way to work - Ahmad Musa the elderly security guard at our guesthouse, the old lady selling roasted plantains and coco-yam, and Mable, the ten-or-so-year-old girl who helps her mom at her little breakfast stall. Yup, I was that emotional during those last few days in Kumasi.

I haven't shed a single tear since I came back but I still use the exclamation mark extravagantly whenever I chat with my friends from the Gold Coast. I still miss them terribly and the feeling is bitter-sweet. I'm glad to be back on my home turf surrounded by all my creature comforts but it still hurts a little to grow so attached to some people over such a short period of time and then leave them.

I miss my morning routine of catching a tro-tro to work, getting let off in the middle of traffic (sometimes) and dodging between cars and motorbikes to get to my office. I miss walking into the lively newsroom at Luv/Nyhira and setting up my laptop at the 'international desk' - the side of the newsroom reserved (or relegated, depending on how you look at it) for those of us with our own laptops.

I miss the way people greet each other so wholeheartedly with a 'good morning' and a heartfelt handshake, as though they haven't been meeting one another every single morning. I miss the way every visitor to the newsroom goes around to acknowledge every person with a greeting.

I miss the way my single-syllable name gets played around with or discarded completely;
Saeed: Shazleeeeeeennn!
Ohemeng: My Lin. Our Lin. Their Lin. Lin Lin.
Kofi: Lin hu shuu!
Kwabena: Miss Abdul Rahman.
Kate: Oieebo!
Benji: Obruni!
Dela: Lane!

I could go on and on with my list of why I miss Ghana but I won't. As much as it saddens me that these things have to be in the past in order for them to be cherised, I'm thankful to have had the experience. I must have been asked a hundred times if I will return to Ghana. My response was initially vague or ambivalent; now I can say with resolute certainty that I want to go back for another visit. Ghana, Kumasi and every one I met there will always have a special place in my heart no matter how many times I return to Africa.

My last day at Luv/Nyhira FM. I brought everyone some farewell gifts so they rushed out and got me a kente-print dress and some beautiful wood carvings in 'retalliation'. I was, and still am, deeply touched.
From left: Freddy, Zarau, Kofi, Cynthia, Eric, me, Gloria, Ohemeng, Kwabena.

The high point on a roller coaster ride

2011-06-09T11:23:00.006-04:00

It's day 28 in Ghana.

We discussed the emotional roller coaster that accompanies culture shock during our pre-departure training in Toronto. We'll go through emotional ups and downs and plateaus during our stay in Ghana.

I can firmly say that I am at an emotional high right now, especially so today.

I feel great walking to my tro-tro stop in the morning. I wave good morning to the security guard Ahmad Musa and Alhassan. I wave to the lady selling roasted yams outside the guest house where I'm staying. I wave down the tro-tro that I take to work. I wave to the security guard at my office and greet everyone on the news room with a happy 'good morning.'

I get amazingly restless at work at times (I don't always get assigned work to do) but I feel great going home from work all the same.

My biggest gripe right now has to do with food and the less-than-hyginic conditions of my living quarters. If I were living here for a longer time, I'd get a place with a kitchen where I can cook and a bathroom that I can clean whenever I need to. Problem solved.

I can fully imagine myself living here for a longer spell. Let's see how I feel in two weeks' time.

Bracing for boredom, embracing slowness

2011-05-30T06:11:00.006-04:00

It's 7.52am, day 14 in Kumasi and I'm waiting for my breakfast at the guesthouse's cafe. Both of the cooks are gone, mostly likely to get the eggs for the omelette that I ordered.

There is almost never any rush here and I’m starting to embrace the languid pace at which things inevitably get done. I never realized that I have this inert compulsion to rush things until I arrived in Kumasi.

‘Fast food’ here means ordering fried rice from a street vendor, then taking a seat on his wooden bench and spending the next ten minutes or so fielding his questions about my order – beans? No beans? Cream (mayonnaise)? No chicken, just veg? Eat here or send?

It’s been ten minutes – yes, I checked the time – and the cook with the sleeping baby on her back has returned with a package and heads straight for the kitchen. My stomach is growling from last night’s meagre dinner of instant noodles and a mango.

During the pre-departure training in Toronto, we were warned by previous Ghana interns that entertainment, especially by way of internet, is scarce here. We should stock up on books and movies because boredom and monotony will inevitably set in. At this, I felt a surge of panic.

My confidence at living with scarce – not completely without – internet for two months started to waver. My Dell Inspiron Mini – the one that is so portable and compact – doesn’t play DVDs. I never realized this before because I’ve always streamed movies and videos from the internet. I needed to stock up on the other alternative means of entertainment – books.

Interestingly enough, I stumbled upon Carl Honore’s “In Praise of Slowness.” In it Honore talked about the maddeningly fast pace at which the first world lives in today and its dire consequences. He talked about the growing ‘slow’ movement sweeping across Europe and parts of Asia which involves everything from slow foods to architecturally-structured slow cities to slow work out. I read the book throughout my flight here and I felt my panic subside. Perhaps this rush-free existence in languid Kumasi wouldn’t be too hard after all.

As I’m writing this, both my friends are out of town. Chris is en route to Paris and Leah is at a press conference in Accra. To make matters worse (perhaps better), it’s my day off from work so I have even more time to contemplate the passing seconds. I now remember what it'slike to have all the time in the world.

My to-do list for the next 2 months.

Note: I have since gotten myself an external modem so that I can go online whenever, wherever. However, the connection is never fast enough to stream videos and I have to ration my usage since I'm on a pay-as-you-go plan so, technically speaking, I'm still on a strict internet diet.

From Ghana with Love

2011-05-19T17:18:00.005-04:00

It's day 3 here in Kumasi, day 2 at Luv FM and day 7 in Ghana.

I'm still adjusting to the heat but the move to Kumasi has certainly made things easier. The heat was constant and high in Accra. Here in hilly downtown Kumasi, the air is mostly cooler and drier.

My first day at Luv FM was full of excitement (at least, for me it was). I got to meet the lively staff at the station and two inspiring journalists who have done some amazing human rights stories.

The first is Ohemeng Tawiah, a small, soft spoken and somewhat shy guy. He showed me a video documentary he produced about a girl who was involved in a car accident and had had both her legs amputated while the driver of the car remained free. Thanks to his work, the driver has since be charged in court and the girl's family was awarded 6000GHc in compensation. Talk about power of the pen.

The second journalist is Kwabena. I was told by the station manager, Saeed, that I will be working with Kwabena as a start. Kwabena wasn't in the office at the time because he had gone to Agogo to investigate a story about Fulani herdsmen who have been ravaging local farmlands with their cattle. The Fulanis came from the Sahel region and are hired by influential Ghanaians to herd cattle. They graze their cattle on farms run by Ghanaian farmers, destroying acres of crops at a time. Locals can do little as these herdsmen are often armed with guns and AK47s. They also pollute water sources and have been known to harass and assault local women. Local authorities, in the meantime, have done very little to help.

Having heard all this, I imagined Kwabena to be a giant of a man. The person that walked in at the end of the day instantly reminded me of Malcolm Gladwell with glasses and darker skin. He did not look like someone who would be seeking out men with AK47s. But he is. He reported that he had to take a bus to Agogo, and then had someone transport him on a motorcycle to get to the farm that had been hijacked by a group of Fulani herdsmen. Whenever he needed to record sound, he and the driver would pretend that there was a problem with the motorcycle. The driver would pretend to fix it while Kwabena discretely held out his recorder.

He's planning to speak to the Chief District Officer of Agogo tomorrow. It will be an hour's drive out of Kumasi and he warns me that I might not be able to handle it. I can't wait to go.

The High School Diva

2010-05-13T10:16:00.000-04:00

What am I to think when my old high school's diva decides to get chummy with me? I'd be skeptical and somewhat suspicious if she were simply attempting to reconnect after over ten years apart. However, given the fact that we never even spoke to each other at school, I am downright baffled. It took me a while to even respond to her "Salam. Pekaba?". Of course, after several borderline awkward exchanges that spanned over several painful weeks, her motives for contacting me became clear. Her intentions, now that they are clear, are no surprise to me. However, I will not discuss them here as they are hers alone and I am no one to judge.

It goes without saying that she was not exactly my favourite person at school (I mean, I call her the 'diva' here for a reason) but I did my best to put the past where it belongs and behave like an adult (that I hope to be). I might have let some sarcasm past my guard but I think I did a pretty good job at being civil. I know this because she saw fit to pour her heart out to me after our third or fourth conversation. (Another matter which I cannot discuss here since I assume they are private).

And this is where I make one of my stupid mistakes.

I agreed to meet up with her when I come to Malaysia for a visit. We exchanged phone numbers and I promised to give her a call - as soon as I land, none the less. She wanted to 'catch up', talk about her life and how her current state could be changed. Up till now, I still can't explain what it was that compelled me to offer my shoulder for her to cry on. We had nothing in common then and, upon viewing her profile on Facebook, I'm convinced we still exist on different planets today. Meeting up with her will be, at best, awkward. It will be at a place I don't want to be, at a time not commodious to me and among people I am absolutely uncomfortable with.

Naturally, it took me several days to realize this and regret my actions. I took the coward's way out and stopped responding to her messages. But I suspect I will call her because, having made the promise, I will feel like scum if I don't. I think she's completely oblivious to the internal conflict that I'm suffering through right now.

(Darwin, if you're reading this please be assured that I'm not talking about you.)

Stuffed mushrooms

2010-04-20T19:33:00.005-04:00

When I was growing up, I had always craved for mushrooms. For some reason, the only mushrooms I encountered (mostly in my mom's cooking) came in small portions; they were minor accompaniments to chicken or beef in soups or to veges in stir fries. These little bites never satisfied my craving and I bugged my mom to try an all-mushroom dish. (I later discovered that there is a myriad of all-mushroom dishes in the Malay cuisine. None of them, however, are part of parents' native culinary culture.)

One day, my mom finally acquiesced. I distinctively remember looking at the bag of mushrooms sitting on the kitchen counter; they looked like freshly-mined gold. My mom sliced and sauteed them with some garlic and oyster sauce. I remember spooning the mushrooms onto my steaming hot white rice. I remember the taste of the oyster sauce but what catapulted me to ecstacy was the texture; the mushroom is disctinctively rubbery, spongy and chewy at the same time. It was heaven.

Everyone else in my family weren't too keen on the dish so there was a lot left over (which probably explains why my mom rarely makes an all-mushroom dish). I took the liberty of finishing it, literally licking the bowl clean. It's not a pretty picture but it felt like the right thing to do at the time.

Later, when my family was settling down to an after-lunch siesta, I started feeling nauseaus. I started getting sudden bouts of light-headedness. Then, before I could even tell myself to start running, I was running to the bathroom. What happened next was, again, not a pretty picture. Suffice it to say that I developed a, what I like to call, psychological allergy to mushrooms.

After that incident, even the sight of mushrooms made me nauseaus. I would get a tingling sensation on the bridge of my nose and my throat would well up with imaginary bile. This went on for several years until I was in junior year at UTM. I had friends who were big fans of mushrooms so I started eating them again in small portions, making small increments until I finally graduated to all-mushroom dishes.

Today, I had that craving for mushrooms once more so I made this and refrained from overdosing again.

How do you break up with a friend?

2010-04-20T13:12:00.006-04:00

Or, even more challenging, how do you break up with a friend and still be on good terms with him or her?

First of all, is that even possible?

In a romantic relationship, both parties mutually enter with a commitment, either explicit or otherwise. A friendship, on the other hand, supposedly comes about organically through casual encounters and shared interests. There is no official point of entry into a friendship; it therefore stands to reason that there can be no easy point of exit either.

What if, after several casual encounters, one party in a friendship finds that the mutual interest that the parties share were merely superficial; they were not substantial enough to sustain the friendship over the long run.

Brief, temporary friendships naturally dissipate over time when both parties feel that they no longer have much in common. However, when one party still feels that the friendship can and should go on, things get complicated.

Hence, my current dilemma.

I have a friend who is determined to keep the fire burning, so to speak. I, on the other hand, would rather staple my tongue to the floor than go out to the movies with her one more time.

The reason I feel this way is due to her personal attributes but I will not discuss them here. Let's just say that our personalities are not compatible. How do I explain that to her?

Even in the best possible scenario imaginable, she will take it as a personal rejection. Worst, she will be plagued by the fact that some of her attributes are unfavourable. Not just to me but to other people as well. That is a tragedy I am not willing to inflict upon her. There is no kind way to explain that we are simply not compatible and that those attributes I find unfavourable might in fact be attractive to other people. Simply put, I should just say, "It's not you, it's me."

However, given the way that statement has been used in the history of breakups, I know it will only bring more harm than good.

So the conundrum lingers. In the meantime, I have a trip to the cinema to weasel out of.

Old People

2010-03-14T14:01:00.000-04:00

I love the old people I meet at work. They often come up to the counter so quietly that I don't even realize they're there. I'd look up from what I was doing and there they would be, smiling patiently even though they might have been there for a while. They always greet me with some form of pleasantry. They are seldom in a hurry since a majority of them are retired. They are hardly ever grumpy as old people are often depicted in the media. Sometimes they take a little longer to come up with the right change for their purchases. In return, they smile patiently whenever I make a mistake at the till. Some of them even try to joke in what I think was an attempt to ease me nervousness. The shopping carts that they push in front of them are meant more as a walking support rather than to carry their purchases. Often that's how I realize one of them was at the counter. They'd lose their balance or control of the shopping cart for a brief second and the cart would make a slight bang against the counter. No matter how gentle the collision, they would always apologize profusely, jokingly blaming their age and weak back. I love the old people I meet at work.

Of Dreams and Yearnings

2009-12-15T23:23:00.004-05:00

i was at a farmer's market pushing an empty shopping cart. that must be from Food Inc. The producers recommended that we shop at local farmer's markets rather than at large supermarket chains.

there were samples for tasting in the bread aisles. i tried the babka and it was mildly sweet. that must be from looking through the bread section in McCall's Cooking School manual before i went to bed.

i looked in all the bread bins but there were no babkas left. somebody said they must be sold out. that must be from work. anything that goes on sale on friday is sold out by sunday.

someone came up to me from behind and grasped my shoulders. i didn't know who it was but i let her hug me and touch her cheek to mine. i felt the familiar softness of my mom's skin. i smelled the gentle perfume of her night time lotion. i felt my chest squeezed by how much i miss her. this must be from reading a text message from her the day before.

i don't know who this person is but she feels just like Mama so i let her hold me.

i turned around and it was her. Mama. between sobs and tears she tells me that everyone is back. we walk arm in arm down the street. my twenty-nine year old sister at age twenty came towards us. her husband and daughter doesn't exist and her cheeks had the blush that only innocence can give.

the men of our family waited by the car. it's a familiar scene. it's one of those nights when we're just returning from a special dinner somewhere. everybody is satiated and longing for bed but reluctant to bring the evening to an end. we jostle into the backseat, hear the engine hum to life and doze to my parents' quite conversation on the drive home.

this distant memory of a childhood ritual somehow made it into my dream last night.

Furniture

2009-12-07T12:26:00.002-05:00

I assembled some furniture this week. Three five-tiered bookcases and a two-tiered shoe rack, to be exact. It's amazing how liberating such a simple task can make you feel.

I attacked the first bookcase with much anxiety and an overdose of attention to detail. I read and reread the instructions. I checked and cross-checked the diagrams to make sure I had all the pieces in the right position and that I used the right screws. My throat was dry and my heart palpitated as if I was going on stage. It's ridiculous how afraid I am of making mistakes.

The second bookcase was less of a challenge. I was familiar with all the pieces and how they fit together. I tried different maneuvers to see if the task could be made easier. It was a right decision in some instances, wrong in others. No matter. I told myself that perfection is for God. We humans settle for a lot less.

The third bookcase was a breeze. I hardly glanced at the instruction sheet. The wrong maneuvers were avoided, the right ones were repeated. My fingertips were sore and red. My pyjamas were covered in wood dust and wood chips. The bookcases seemed to be leaning against one another.

No matter.

I have assembled three bookcases all on my own. Now I feel as if there's no limit to what I can do with my little orange screw driver.

The Dream

2009-10-15T22:12:00.002-04:00

I had a dream about some family friends that was as disturbing as it was mind-boggling.

In the dream, the father was mercilessly kicking the wife, who had her arms around her daughter in a protective hug. She resolutely stared at the floor, grimacing with each blow but not making any attempt to run away from the attack. Her stance had the certainty that the assault would end soon. All she had to do was to weather it. It will be over soon.

I stood at a distance as one witnessing a dirty family secret finally being exposed.

That family I saw in that dream resembled nothing of the family that I know in real life. The father is most loving and the mother has the vocal disposition of someone who shall and will never stand passively in the face of violence against herself or her child. The dream was completely false and I know that.

Yet it disturbs me so much. I felt as if I’d been divulged a secret through that dream. Although it was completely false, I felt as if it was inspired by some measure of truth. I can normally trace every aspect of my dream to some occurrence I had witnessed or experienced during the day, even the ones that didn’t make any sense.

Had I witnessed something that hinted of abuse within the family? A discrete shove, a secret glare of disapproval or a quick ducking behind someone’s back after a wrong doing? Is there a truth to that dream that’s hiding somewhere in the recesses of my mind? Are there pieces of a puzzle that are waiting to be put together?

Perhaps this is just a matter of my brain firing off the wrong signals in the wrong sequence. Perhaps there is a truth to that dream that evades me. Perhaps its truth is too ugly and my defence mechanisms kick in whenever I come close to uncovering it.

So much time, so little to do

2009-08-30T15:57:00.004-04:00

I'm missing some people so terribly I'm rendered inarticulate, blog-wise.

My days have suddenly been flooded with time and space again. No amount of cooking, cleaning, organizing, facebooking, sleeping and praying can fill the hours graciously allotted to me each day. At the risk of sounding like a nerd, I will say that I can't wait for school to start again.

Exams, assignments, deadline pressure, stress and quick, inadequate lunches - YUM.

Summer dear, I'm thoroughly done with you.

My Twilight Years Abound

2009-08-16T13:24:00.004-04:00

I finally managed to force myself to watch 'Twilight'.

For the entire duration of the movie, only two thoughts recurred to me. The first was that this was just another teenage-vampire-love story. The second was that the reason I can't relate to the media frenzy that it's caused may be strongly related to my distance from my high school days. I feel so old.

Summer Project

2009-08-08T18:50:00.004-04:00

Sprout your ornaments!

What you need:
1. A decorative pot of your choice
2. Any bean of your choice - you can even make your own mix of sproutable beans!
3. Water - preferably in a spray bottle for easy application

How:
1. Spread beans in a thin layer at the bottom of your pot - just about enough to cover the base of the pot.
2. Soak the beans over night in water - they will expand up to twice their original size. You will need roughly once cup of water for one table spoon of green beans. Adjust the amount of water according to the size of beans you are using.
3. Drain the water and spread the beans evenly in the pot. Place the pot where there is enough sunlight for the beans to sprout.
4. Spritz the beans with water periodically and toss them gently around to make sure they are evenly coated in water - do NOT drown them. Ever.
Note: if the beans start to smell funky or if fungus start to appear, simply rinse the beans in cold water and be gentle so as not to damage their sprouts. Once they are fully grown as seen in the picture, you can water them regularly once a day.

Time required : You should be able to see green leaves as shown in the picture in approximately two weeks's, depending on the type of beans you use.

Going off on tangents a la Sebald

2009-07-04T11:02:00.026-04:00

It's one of those nights again.

My body's dead tired but my mind refuses to stop. Odd thoughts visit me when the lights are out and there's nothing for my eyes to focus on.

For some reason the memory of my long-deceased friend comes back to me. While I replayed bits of what I can remember of him, my mind goes off on a tangent. I tried to decipher the reason I am suddenly thinking of him. Maybe it isn't so sudden. The day has been filled with the news of a famous pop icon's death. Maybe that's what's gotten me to thinking of him. Amongst those that I've lost, his was the hardest one for me to deal with. Perhaps it's because he was especially close to me compared to the others. The fact that he was my age was certainly a factor. It seemed like a great injustice for his life to have ended while mine was still laid out before me. But I will not go there. Allah knows best and from Him come the best decisions.

The loved ones I have lost were almost all in their golden years or had been suffering from some illness or the other. Their deaths were expected, even presaged by the incessant visits by relatives and friends who would not have otherwise presented themselves so gravely under normal circumstances. Amongst my earliest memories of witnessing the coming of death took place in my hometown of Kota Bharu. The daughter of one of my mother's cousins was in her final days after a battle with kidney disease. I must have been six or seven years of age. I remember listening to the somber tones of people talking about her condition, giving a wide berth to the reality of what laid right before them. The dying one's sister described the difficulties of feeding her with an apathetic helplessness I couldn't understand. My mother suggested cooking some porridge, the kind we often make when someone was too sick to consume anything else. They talked for a while on how it was important for her to get the daily required intake of food and how best to achieve that. Porridge was the answer- it's easy to digest and easy to prepare.

I remember feeling confused. Was she not dying? Is it not inevitable at this point? Were we not there to say our farewells, pray for her soul and comfort her family? I couldn't understand why they were carrying on the conversation as if she might regain her health in a week or two. The talk was curiously optimistic, as if to keep at bay the grief that was sure to come. In the meantime she laid there, her chest feebly rising and falling while her eyes roamed the room half-open, staring at a future visible only to her dying gaze.

I remember looking for some ominous sign of the coming of the angel of death. Perhaps something dramatic that I would be able to tell my friends in our callow explorations of such weighty topics as death, divorce, evil spirits and the significance of birthmarks. I watched the bleak walls, the worn curtains dancing on the windows, the pale green linoleum floor and the furniture that were all pushed against the walls to make floor space for whoever came to visit. It was as if the sickness had spread its arms amidst the clutter in the house to make way for death, the same way a bodyguard parts a crowd to make way for a celebrity to pass through.

News of her death came several days later, alongside the news that my aunt's train was stranded on the tracks and that the coronation of the new Sultan of Kelantan is postponed indefinitely due to the rains that portended another wet monsoon, much to my pleasure.

MJ passes on

2009-07-03T02:07:00.006-04:00

When news of the king of pop's demise reached me, I was initially amused. My first thought was, 'Is this another hoax?' Of all the bizarre and oftentimes ridiculous pieces of news that surface, this is not much different. After the news was confirmed and recapped more times than I care to mention within the hour, I began to feel sad. Not so much for his death, but

more for the tragic life that he has had in the public eye. From dangling his baby from a hotel balcony to his ranch being repossessed by banks, every bit of detail about his life seems to slide on a scale of peculiarity. And the media (and the public) never fails to lash on to story and bleed them for what they're worth. When news program after news program featured his demise as their headline as a 'tribute', all I saw was a damaged life that began with so much promise and potential. I felt sad - not for his death but for the life that he'd had to endure in the public eye.

Until I sat down on the pink runway in a clothing warehouse cum model agency downtown on Canada Day. My friend who is a seasoned bargain hunter was busy bargain hunting while another friend and myself spent the time trying to puzzle out the rational behind the irrationally pink runway that ran down the middle of the warehouse. The store's proprietor blasted loud MJ hits in conjunction (I'm assuming) with the singer's departure from this world. When 'Heal the World' came on the loudspeakers it hit me as to why I should feel sad about the singer's death. I was never into the MJ mania although I was a fan of his ingenuity and creativity. Listeing to 'Heal the World' reminded me (naturally) of 'Black or White', 'What About Us' and the likes. Those songs were more than just entertaining. They carried a universal message about love and peace that were reminiscent of the 60's cultural movement and have been somewhat neglected in virtually every musical genre except maybe in gospel music. And to boot, virtually every one of his singles became worldwide hits and unwittingly dispersed their message into the subconscious of millions around the world.

It was at that point that I thought, 'Yup, his death is a loss to us all.'

Writers' block

2009-06-19T00:59:00.001-04:00

-noun

a usually temporary condition in which a writer finds it impossible to proceed with the writing of a novel, play, or other work.

Summer gardening project 01

2009-06-14T18:38:00.003-04:00

Overgrow your sprouts!

Spring is here

2009-04-19T12:45:00.007-04:00

It's only natural that the weather started getting sunnier right after I've bought myself a lighter jacket for these winter-spring transmission period. I managed to utilize the knock-off military-green jacket for a whole day before I started feeling sweaty and realized that my deodorant-free days are over for this year. Au revoir winter!

I've gotten so used to layering for so many months that to step out of the house with a single layer of clothing leaves me feeling almost naked. To think that in the midst of winter, when it takes me a full fifteen minutes to get dressed, I was longing for the days when I can leave the house without being weighed down by thermal underwear and coats and gloves and scarves. Now that they're here, I've realized that I have developed a sort of inferiority complex about my body. If felt good to hide behind all that fabric and appear as one enormous bulk of cotton and flannel and wool. The clothes that I wear underneath my coat has become my second skin and I can't bear to let others see it.

It is for this reason that I pray for the temperature to drop so that I can put on my coat again and hide while I go out in the open. It is for this reason that I am grateful to see some other beings similarly bundled up despite the mild weather, even if they are people of old age and probably can't stand anything below 30 degrees.

I still am looking forward to stepping out in flip flops and a single layer cotton kameez. I just need some time to get used to the idea again.

Current Addictions

2009-03-20T21:19:00.005-04:00

Things that can keep me hooked for hours:

1. Facebooking (of course)
2. Recipe search on Allrecipes
3. Videos of my niece
4. Youtube videos. This week's fad: Baby videos and Baratsandbereta
5. Reading people's painfully attention-seeking wallposts on Facebook.
6. Sorting through my email accounts
7. Shoeboxblog
8. Freecell
9. Facebook's Word Twist in Ladder Mode

Of Tardiness

2009-03-17T21:59:00.004-04:00

I missed my bus to work last Saturday and had to pay $9.60 for a cab. That's $9.60 more than what I normally pay for my bus fair.

Today I set my watch five minutes ahead of time in order to trick myself into being punctual. It worked. I managed to make it to the bus terminal well before the bus did. I even managed to grab a cup of coffee for the bus ride.

As the bus took off through downtown I settled in my seat with the warm feeling of having achieved something significant. Along the way I saw the apartment that I was going to move into in a few months' time. I hadn't noticed this before although I've taken the bus to work for the past two weeks. Funny. All the same I thought, 'How convenient. I'll have to make a note of the bus stop and the schedule.' I peered through the bus window to look at the street name and noticed that we were on a different route.

That's when I realized that I was on the wrong bus.

Hello...or perhaps not.

2009-02-28T21:27:00.003-05:00

I'm not overly friendly with all of my classmates. I'm not a social butterfly.

I'm friendly with maybe five percent of them.

I can start a random conversation with about seventy five percent of them.

The remaining twenty percent I simply can't relate to.

I speak from experience. I was once thrown into a group discussion with a portion of that twenty percent. My naively enthusiastic 'So, what do you guys think?' was met with downcast eyes and mumbled responses. I was at a lost for the first five minutes of the discussion. Despite their individually buoyant personalities, they turn reticent when it comes to one-on-one interaction.

I was driven to wonder, 'Do these people think they're still in high school?'

When they were in high school, did they actually listen when their mothers tell them not to talk to strangers? They certainly don't look the type.

I had the misfortune of running into these recalcitrant barely-eighteen-year-olds in the bus on my way home from work today.

I saw one of them looking at me with a nervous glance when I boarded the bus. All the seats were taken and I was left with the one right across the aisle from the conversationally-handicapped-stubble-chinned. Much to my chagrin, the person seated next to this one was another member of that tight-lipped 20-percentile.

What an awkward situation. The moment passed for either one of us to civilly acknowledge the other's presence. No one said anything while I tried to imagine a way to break the silence. Finally I decided we were all party to this snobbishness; them even more so since they had the advantage of each other's company.

Even though I maintain a resolute gaze forward, our proximity in the bus enabled me to observe their behaviour without the intention to observe their behaviour. It was similar to watching synchronized diving, except there is no water and the participants were bundled up in winter wear instead of clad in skimpy briefs.

They simultaneously (perhaps even instinctively) brought out their respective iPods/iPhones/escapist gizmotechs and began to (perhaps arbitrarily) tinker with them. Next came the foot-tapping and nervous finger drumming on knees or handle bars, depending on where they're seated. They did a terrible job at masking the awkwardness of the situation by looking around the bus. There's not much to look at in the bus accept for ad campaigns to get children excited about homework or to stop them from being abused (perhaps by forcing them to do homework).

This situation is either too ridiculous or too awkward. Good thing the collar of my coat goes all the way up to my nose. It gets hard to repress a smile in the cold. I've learned that pursing your lips doesn't help. It just makes you look like your trying not to yawn. There's nothing wrong with repressing a yawn except you look twice as ridiculous compared to when you're trying to repress a smile.

Meanwhile the silent duo was studiously examining their gadgets again. They must have detected the threat of a friendly greeting.

Whatev, people. Whatev.

Another useless bit of information about myself

2009-02-24T16:46:00.007-05:00

...that is useless even to me.

I've recently discovered my dislike for walking in the dark. Note that I do not say that I'm afraid of the dark. I'm not. I just don't like to move about in the dark.

Alongside my eye-sight-debilitating habit of reading in bed, I've gotten into the habit of turning on my reading light prior to turning off the ceiling light.

During the few occasions that I was so tired that I was rendered partially dysfunctional, I'd perform the switch-on-switch-off routine in reverse order. Hence the discovery.

It takes only five steps to get to my bed from the light switch. It takes only about half a second for me to realize that I've made a mistake in my light switching routine and that it's no big deal.

But in that short distance and brief period, while my eyes adjusted to the light and shapes start to become clearer in the darkness, I never fail to see a big, solid, looming figure standing in front of me. Just for a split second. The sensation is similar to that of blacking out. You know, when your eyes are wide open but all you see is black?

This occurrence is alarming enough that my mouth would open for a beginning of what might develop into a dramatic gasp but it was brief enough that by the first intake of air, I was already walking to my bed and reaching for the reading light switch.

There. This bit of information is so inane that I can't even think of a conclusion that would cleverly warrant this entry.

Hobi lama

2009-02-19T09:37:00.004-05:00

...resepi baru :D

Let me in!!!

2009-02-15T22:37:00.006-05:00

I was locked out of my house today. For about of 15 minutes.

My front door lock has always been cranky but it decided to test my limits by refusing to unlock altogether today. The icing on the cake came when I couldn't get my landlord on his cell phone.

I had just returned from attending an opening of a cafe galleria with a friend. The bright sunlight that saw my departure earlier today had waned and temperature was dropping below zero in anticipation of dusk.

When my key wouldn't turn, I felt the the usual mounting of irritation in my guts. When my fingers began to go numb and started pulsing, I began to panic. None of my housemates were home, it was getting cold and dark and I hadn't done my Asr prayer.

After trying for a whole ten minutes, I finally decided to call my landlords. It was Sunday evening and even though Paul and Anna have been indescribably nice to me, I can't help imagining how I would be ruining their Sunday evening with this single call.

I was spared the discomfort of inconveniencing my landlords when my call was picked up by their voice mail. Have you heard of how the final try is always the one that yields success? Well, the same applies to random acts of kindness.

Just as I was leaving a voice message, my neighbour across the street came and asked if I needed some help. He'd noticed that I was at the door when he came home and saw that I was still there ten minutes later. (this observation somewhat implies that he might have been watching me, which opens up a host of other possible scenarios but, what the heck. I need help with the door).

At this point I was near tears on account of the cold and, by consequences, my throbbing fingers, especially my right thumb. He kindly asked for my keys, inquiring as to whether or not I was trying the right one. He proceeded to try the lock. After several tries, voila!, the key turned. I was so grateful that all I was able to say was 'Thank you SOOO much', a phrase which I proceeded to repeat five or six times as he quickly descended the front porch and returned to his house (almost seemingly desperate to get away, now that I think of it. Nevermind).
Now I'm trying to decide what I should bake to send over to my kind neighbours as a token of thanks. Somehow the gravity of the situation seems to have abated. I should hurry up and decide before I completely forget how miserable I was when the old man came to my rescue.

I think some banana bread would be nice.

Rain

2009-02-11T19:42:00.002-05:00

Getting soaked from the rain is fun until you step into a dry place.

The Coming of Spring

2009-02-11T16:29:00.002-05:00

I never thought I'd ever be so happy to see snow dissipate into swirling pools of ice cold water.

Papercuts

2009-02-04T00:13:00.002-05:00

I've come to realize that the number of paper cuts one receives is proportionate to one's age.

The older one gets, the more responsibilities one shoulders, the more paperwork one produces to manage those responsibilities, the more paper cuts one receives in sorting out those paperwork.

Oh, joy.

2009-01-24T19:29:00.002-05:00

Nothing works better as a wake-up call to adulthood than a financial crisis; or the absence of parental-financial support.

2009-01-08T16:51:00.002-05:00

I'm finding a lot of hair on my garments that do not belong to me.

2009

2009-01-02T03:25:00.005-05:00

I haven't been blog-surfing for the past two days because I know what I'd find. We've marked this day on the Gregorian calendar as momentous and, as a result, people are often compelled to mark it's arrival, and sometimes, even it's departure. The most common and painfully clichéd totem would be the countdown of the best/worst/most this-and-that moments through out the year. This genre of compressed historical countdown is probably the most overplayed and it's over-usage, to me, renders even the most uber-icon as banal.

The second most common would probably be the new-year's-resolution marker or, for the less courageous, a revamping of the previous year's resolutions. Oprah got a head start on this one in this month's O magazine where she 'opened up' about her fall off the healthy-wagon. She plays the whole issue around how to get back on and keep your rump from falling off again. The scenario's quite similar with when she first decided to 'take control' of her health. Yup, very original.

I was very tempted to set a marker of my own but I've given up on the new year's resolution several years ago. For one thing I go by the Hijri calendar so January 1st has less impact on me than it does for other people. The other thing is, I find that there aren't any tangible difference from the day December 31st 2008 and the day of January 1st 2009 except for the change in the year. The weather varies as it always does, the sun rises just as beautifully, the air still fills my lungs and the clock still ticks one second at a time. Worst of all, probably, is the fact that the current economic crisis is still threatening to simulate the Great Depression of the 1920's. From the way merry-makers were partying on new year's eve you'd think that the crisis would miraculously fix itself at the stroke of midnight and we'd be able to defy gravity for one day, at least.

The question came to me when I was watching the news coverage of the fireworks celebration around the world. 'What exactly ARE we celebrating?' The best answer that my dad and I can come with was that we were celebrating the change of a digit. Everything else seems to be the same. Except for maybe a little less cash from buying booze with nothing to show except a murderous hangover.

Perhaps what gets people so excited about the change in that last digit is the fact that it signifies a fresh start and the hope of something better or improved, the result of which is not readily tangible and may only come in time. Perhaps the significance of the new year is what we make of it in our minds. In that case, then, I can choose to mark the new year at any time of the year.

Winter term, here I come!

2008-12-30T14:01:00.006-05:00

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

2008-12-28T22:40:00.005-05:00

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

2008-12-24T12:30:00.005-05:00

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

2008-12-20T23:44:00.005-05:00

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

2008-12-17T22:48:00.001-05:00

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.

2008-12-16T10:50:00.003-05:00

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

2008-12-12T23:53:00.004-05:00

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

2008-12-05T00:45:00.005-05:00

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

2008-12-02T23:05:00.004-05:00

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

2008-10-29T13:38:00.002-04:00

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

2008-09-27T14:55:00.002-04:00

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

2008-09-23T23:43:00.003-04:00

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!

2008-09-18T14:35:00.004-04:00

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

2008-09-18T10:17:00.004-04:00

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

2008-09-17T14:50:00.001-04:00

...and I found one today!

7pm Iftar quickie

2008-09-09T18:48:00.002-04:00

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.

2008-08-17T01:55:00.002-04:00

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.

2008-08-01T23:38:00.002-04:00

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

2008-07-28T13:51:00.005-04:00

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

2008-05-26T12:29:00.000-04:00

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

2008-04-28T22:56:00.004-04:00

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'...

2008-04-24T12:07:00.002-04:00

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!

2008-04-23T22:09:00.007-04:00

Monday Night's REM display

2008-04-15T09:09:00.003-04:00

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

2008-04-14T07:57:00.005-04:00

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

2008-04-08T16:38:00.005-04:00

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!

2008-04-03T11:36:00.003-04:00

Must start writing again.

Too many

internal conversations

clouding my thoughts.

Must put them into words

before they cause

further speech impediment.

Disconnected

2008-03-11T15:06:00.002-04:00

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.

2008-03-07T23:12:00.001-05:00

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

Marilah Mari, Mari Mengundi

2008-03-07T20:49:00.001-05:00

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

2008-03-06T22:43:00.004-05:00

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

2008-03-04T11:40:00.002-05:00

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

Oh very young one

2008-03-03T23:53:00.005-05:00

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

2008-03-03T14:55:00.004-05:00

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?

2008-02-20T10:53:00.004-05:00

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

2008-02-19T18:58:00.003-05:00

Tagged

2008-02-18T21:44:00.004-05:00

THE LINKING TAG The rules :

List out five favourite links - the links can be of business sites, affiliate links or whatever that suits the blogger.
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.
The links MUST be clean. No X-rated sites (which basically put my blog out of the running).
List out only FIVE links.
You MUST tell FIVE people you choose.
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

2008-02-14T12:47:00.002-05:00

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

2008-02-12T21:27:00.000-05:00

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

MacBook Air

2008-02-11T13:20:00.000-05:00

Yummy.

Discussions over pizza/random ramblings

2008-02-09T20:21:00.000-05:00

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...

2008-02-08T18:54:00.000-05:00

...a hard pill to swallow.

Farther Apart, Closer at Heart

2008-02-06T18:31:00.000-05:00

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...

2008-01-29T12:22:00.000-05:00

Children tell the truth,

Politicians were once children...

...see what I'm getting at?

too-owh-owh-eyt

2008-01-26T00:32:00.000-05:00

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

Malaysian State of Affairs

2008-01-14T10:48:00.000-05:00

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

2008-01-10T20:11:00.000-05:00

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

2008-01-01T15:15:00.000-05:00

happy happiest 25th

To argue or not to argue, that is the question.

2007-12-30T17:53:00.000-05:00

My dad and I often bump heads over a wide range of topics. This is due mainly to our clash of principles since my dad is a natural orator and I am essentially an introvert. We often disagree on many fundamental issues mainly because, in my opinion, we came from explicitly different backgrounds despite coming from the same gene pool. My father grew up in Penang during the 60's and 70's when the imprint of British colonization was still fresh on the state's economy, social and education system. 90% of his career in human resources was forged in American-based companies. I, on the other hand, grew up on something I'd rather call 'a healthy(not perfect, mind you!) cocktail' of various elements which could be honed to be better in the next generation. Thus the clash of principles.

Recently we visited the Revival of Islamic Spirit Convention (R.I.S.) at the Toronto Metro to patronize the exhibition booths. Unfortunately we discovered that the $50 per person fee applied to everyone wishing to take part in the convention - even if you simply wanted to visit the booths without attending the seminars and lectures. The gift-bags were pretty snazzy but we wouldn't have minded forgoing those. We walked away shaking our heads. The guest lecturers are probably paid by the organizers but the exhibitors are the ones who stand to profit from potential customers like ourselves. This is an unfortunate hindsight on the part of the organizers. Instead we explored Danforth Avenue's middle-eastern community for some undeniably good food and religious reading materials.

On our way there my dad theorized that if this keeps on, the exhibitors will eventually lose interest in the R.I.S. because they don’t stand to profit from it financially. I concurred. I, too, was miffed by the entrance fee since I was hard-worn for some new scarves. Then my dad ventured one of his pseudo-maxims:"You see, that is why those who are successful are those who stand to benefit financially from their endeavors. " That did it for me. Now I HAVE to step in and set things straight so I said "That's not necessarily true." I was thinking of Islam's propagation of selflessness. The religion does not propagate principles that do not accede to the human nature therefore money is not the natural motivation in our acts of charity. "Oh?" he said, "give me an example." I promptly replied "Mother Theresa," instantly thankful that it was an icon outside of our faith, otherwise my dad would have pounced on my argument as being religiously idealistic. My dad's counter argument came back on the axiom of every hypothesis - Mother Theresa is ONE person. His theory is based on general behavior. If every exception were taken into account, all theories would be rendered obsolete. So I decided to pick on something closer to home - our local patriarch of the Toronto Malay community lovingly known as Aunty Rahidah. (She's made it her life's mission to get Malays in Toronto in touch with each other and help families relocating to Canada start their lives here with greater ease) After only two months here, I discovered that her weekend clambakes are something I sincerely look forward to. "I'm sure Aunty Rahidah's not making any money from her weekend get-together," I said, trying to sound nonchalant, very aware that my dad holds that lady and everything she does in high esteem. "Hmm…" he ruminates, "I don't know, maybe you're right…" Aha, jackpot baby! Nothing gives me a higher high than beating my dad at his own game. Even more invigorating was getting him to see things my way for a change. Although my dad sometimes agree with me, I know he does it just so I'd stop ramming my head against his.

Still high on victory I felt relegated to further elaborate on my point. So I said, still trying to sound nonchalant, "I'm just saying, individuals such as them proves that it's not impossible to be completely selfless. That it's not entirely fruitless to strive to be that way." By this time I'd fully turned to him with my hand raised for supporting gestures and my face completely animated, eye brows raised and everything.

But my dad's always-wandering mind had already wandered to other matters and he'd probably lost interest in the debate since his theory has revealed a drawback and obviously needs further scrutiny. He gently patted me on the shoulder with that trying-hard-to-look-serious-and-not-smile look and told me to calm down. "Yes, but…" I groped for something substantial to say besides embellishing my winning statement. He laid the next line on me like a carefully laid mouse trap,"I know you're planning to be a journalist but take it easy on me okay?" he broke out in a chuckle and that chuckle grew into a laugh. All I could do was sigh and roll my eyes with the words, "Quit while you're winning" ringing in my ears. I tried to look sulky but I ended up trying to hold back a smile too.

Salam Eidul Ad'ha

2007-12-23T00:06:00.000-05:00

I bite my tongue on this one.

I've always been adamantly opposed to prejudice, racism or any form of bigotry. Don't even get me started on women's rights (although that implies a certain amount of bias, ironically). What i never realized was the inherent prejudice I'd been carrying with me for longer than I care to admit. I would love to point the finger at some element as being the root of my bias - upbringing, education system, religion, etc. - but at the end of the day, it's up to me to form my own principles.

At the Eidi Adha gathering we had last night, I encountered some individuals whom I casually dismissed as those whose company I don't really favor i.e. 'not my type'. Due to the usual mingling principle of mingling at a party, I ended up sitting next to said individuals and found myself pressed to initiate a conversation, which I promptly did (I've discovered from experience that the longer you let the initial awkwardness linger, the harder it is to start chatting, thus the more awkward it gets). After the first few exchanges I inwardly admitted that these individuals weren't too bad. As the conversation progressed, I found them to be quite engaging and we ended up talking for quite a while.

The final straw that won me over was the discovery that not only did we share the same passion for reading, but that we've also read the great literary works I labeled as my all-time-favorites. Rarely do I find people I can easily talk to about my book-dependency, even rarer do I find people who've read the books I have.

The night ended with the exchange of hugs and contacts and promises to keep in touch. Sounds a bit corny but I think we were all under the sweet ephemeral effect of new alliances so cut me some slack, please. I'm sure the effect will run off in a few days. In the mean time, I'm enjoying the absence of ludicrous stares when I mentioned 'Beloved' with my eyes wide as golf balls. That and I'm biting my tongue still, of course.

Another reason to quit

2007-12-16T13:31:00.000-05:00

"If you don't succeed the first time, try again. Then quit. There's no point in being a fool about it."

- W.C. Fields

(O Magazine Jan 08 Issue)

Studies have shown that trying too hard to be successful in life can lead to poorer mental and physical health.

Brilliant.

It's time for a nap then.....

Flannel Romancing

2007-12-10T14:27:00.000-05:00

I have fallen in love.With my flannel pajama pants.

If I didn't think it was an erosion of my self-discipline, I'd have worn them all day, from the moment I climb out of bed till the moment I crawl back in.

It's made of all-cotton flannel in the warm hues of maroon and navy blue and hangs loosely without pressure on my body to get into better shape. The secret, I think, lies in the fact that I bought them from a maternity store (my pregnant sister has an exact pair). It's a great store to go to since everyone treats you like you're an expectant mother. I also get a huge kick from the strap-on fake bellies supplied in every fitting room. This may sound perverse, but those bellies, strapped on, make excellent built-in bongos. Ha ha.

Back to the beautiful mom-to-be flannels. Instead of an elastic waist band that constantly screams "you're out of shape!", there is a wide band of cotton and spandex that stretches so beautifully without making you look like Ali Baba with his forty thieves tucked into his back pocket. In fact, you could probably fit ten Kate Mosses into one pair of these magic flannels. Yup, that's what I'm going to call them from now. Magic flannels. What a beauty.

Ah my love, I'm counting the hours until I can crawl into bed with you again (pun intended).

Grandma entries

2007-12-03T20:04:00.000-05:00

Our daily routine usually begins with my grandmother waking me up for prayer at dawn. During my early days I believed I could pretend to sleep and she would leave me be. But her gentle, cajoling calls never failed to make me rise and sleepily fumble through the mosquito netting that enclosed our bed and head for the bathroom. I would rush through my prayer and fight to salvage what little sleep was left in my eyes. It was always a race to fall back to sleep before the light of dawn crept up from the horizon and filled the sky. Often the voice of my grandmother, still on her prayer mat, chanting her zikr, would be my lullaby. Soft, rhythmic, soporific, her voice had a hypnotic quality and often I would fall asleep thinking I was still awake, listening to her prayers.

I miss jambu batu

2007-12-02T12:11:00.000-05:00

sweet, green, paper-thin skin
succulent, crunchy white flesh
pink, hard-as-rocks seeds
oh apek-jual-buah-tepi-jalan
slice me a piece
sprinkle it with asam boi
and send me to the seventh heavens

2007-11-30T21:35:00.000-05:00

"the pieces of my broken heart are so small they can pass through the eye of a needle..."

2007-11-23T09:28:00.000-05:00

Colour Me Clueless

2007-11-22T00:01:00.000-05:00

It's a few minutes past midnight and I can hardly close my eyes. I've just had a final discussion with my dad and we've decided that I should go for it. Of all the momentous decisions I've made in my life thus far, this one in particular has kept me up nights the most. I'm excited at the prospects of pursuing my life's passion.

But.

It scares me witless that I am leaving the field that I've been immersed in for the past seven years. ( I can't believe it's been that long!) And I probably won't have anything to show for all those years of toil. I can probably psyche myself up for one final year but I'm worn out from the struggle to do well at something that I clearly have no aptitude for. It is probably wiser to stick to something that I am thoroughly familiar with, passion or no passion.

But.

All the years of watching Oprah and real life-changing stories has taught me that it's never too late to make a change. (Take that principle to another level and it's never too late for anything, really!) So now I'm going to make the first tentative step into a field I have no knowledge about but has been a passion all my life.

But.

I'm paralysed with fear, at times, at the thought that I might fail again. My reason for leaving architecture is because it's never been my passion. I was divided as to where to head for my future when my sister came back from her first semester and told me how exciting it was and I thought, heck, I can manage that. Writing's always been my passion since childhood. It's something I've always excelled at. Somehow it never crossed my mind to seriously pursue it. Rather, I never had the guts. This is something I'm passionate about and if I fail at it, then what? I'd be beyond devastation.

But.

Someone reminded me that failing is good. That this is something I am good at. It's the one person who saw right off that this is the right decision. (Boy am I glad to still have friends like that!) My mom was cautiously encouraging. My dad was initially reluctant but I know he's mostly concerned about my future well being.(I must have gone through a dozen vocations before finally settling on architecture.) I'm so blessed to be surrounded by such smart, supportive and loving people. I'm so blessed to have God on my side, i'Allah.

So here goes nothing.

Mok

2007-11-19T22:35:00.001-05:00

I was browsing through my sister's wedding photos when I came across one of her. The camera caught her unawares when she happened to look up so she had a somewhat dazed expression on her face. At that moment I felt nothing but sadness for her. She's been showing early symptoms of Alzheimer's for a while now. I kept thinking of how confusing everything must seem to her. How nothing makes any sense anymore. I wish so much that I could be by her side making things easy. Right now I'm overwhelmed with guilt that I'm a thousand miles away chasing my dreams and she's a thousand miles away, ailing in old age. She's surrounded by people who care for her and are fully capable of looking after her well being. But still, there's no way to justify my absence from her side. Now the wheels are set in motion and I'm headed in a different direction from home. Worst of all, I'm afraid I don't have the guts to simply drop everything I've planned for my future and return to her side.

Mok, I miss you so badly right now.

It's 'Singles Week'

2007-11-10T21:55:00.000-05:00

My parents were never the type to compare their children to other people's children and they weren't the type to compare their children to one another either. I never felt I had to do better than any of my siblings. The pressure to live up to my sister's achievements came from my dad telling me that I can, if I ever chose to.

But that all changed when my sister got married.

During the weeks leading up to her wedding, I must have thought about suicide at least a dozen times.

All my parents had to do was to keep asking me who my boyfriend was and right away I'd feel like a loser. Add to that the dozens of relatives who keep asking when my lucky day was going to be. (not to mention the dozens more who thought I was the elder sibling and why on earth wasn't I married yet!) They had the passive-aggressive method down to a T!

I later discovered that lots of my friends were going through pretty much the same thing. While it may seem like our society has come a long way since whenever(KLCC, Sheikh Muzaffar, Putrajaya), pretty much the same mindset still applies to the average human life cycle.

Get born, grow up, study further (or not), get a job, get married, have lots of kids and live happily ever after (or not).

I'm not one of those picketing women's lib fanatic demanding for equal rights all the way down being able to walk around topless. I admit that I do want to find my 'other half' and share at least a few years of bliss before kicking the bucket. I'm just disappointed to know that our society still sees a woman as being incomplete so long as she walks around without a ring on her finger.

Our society's definition of success is still a tad shallow, I think.

There goes my childhood

2007-11-08T13:30:00.000-05:00

Memories are always too far away to reach into. I have just recieved a sad news - the plot of land where I cultivated the best of my childhood moments is about to be bought over for development. The urban crawl that has for years embraced my kampung on all sides has finally decided to take over. I can get all melancholic on all the happy moments I have had with my cousins there but I won't - that's for another day. My relatives co-owning that piece of land are about to becoming overnight-millionaires. I hope they make good of the financial fortune that's about to be bestowed upon them. I hope they appreciate the invisible sacrifice that's about to happen.

get me outta this funk

2007-11-06T13:52:00.000-05:00

I've been trying to catch the frost for days now and have successfully failed to do so. I used to be a very light sleeper. Even the 'gembala kerbaus' that frequented my window could easily wake me up. Nowadays I wake up to my mom already clanking away in the kitchen or tapping away at the computer and Kimi already gone for school. I blame the chilly weather. It's caused the comfort level of my duvet to rise exponentially. All the hours I spend on the computer is also making me want to go out walking more and more to burn off some fat. Considering the steadily dropping temperatures, I can safely say that my sudden urge to be active has a rotten sense of timing.

where to now?

2007-11-02T14:07:00.000-04:00

The winds are picking up and the chill has settled itself comfortable on the lawn. The autumn hues that greeted my arrival are slowly fading. Leaves are leaving the withering branches and more nests are comng into view, its inhabitants almost done with scampering around for food and spending more time at home. Kak Nani and Abang Isyak have gone home and I've waved goodbye to that ship. Their departure signalled the end of our holiday. Now it's time to get back to business.

I am, once again, unable to make up my mind on where to head for my future. I hate that phrase sometimes. MY FUTURE. Sounds so big and conspicuous and forboding. One wrong decision and I'm screwed for life. In reality getting to 'my future' consists of a million humble little steps that would probably measure up to nothing when accounted on their own.

Give a person the luxury of choice and he (or she, i.e. me) will never make up his mind. So much to choose from, so much time to spend ruminating on the choices and such heavy consequences weighing on each one. How, oh, how is one to choose?

The winds of change are pulling at my sleeves and I have indecision holding my feet firmly to the ground.

Toronto Day 1

2007-10-12T09:27:00.000-04:00

Yup, the weather's sufficiently cold.

Jetlag's wearing off.

Raya's here.

All's well.

P.Ramlee says : Selamat, selamat Hari Raya...

Beijing 2008

2007-10-11T06:40:00.000-04:00

Have I ever left home on a trip without feeling like I'd forgotten something?

Sleeping bag, vitamins, lotion...thank God they're all thing I can temporarily live without.

Beijing airport has to be THE most user-unfriendly airport I've ever been to. Our initial excitement at setting foot in China for the first time soon gave way to panic and distress when we started to feel the effects of lack of sleep and our search for a likely place to nap came to no avail. Everywhere we went there were throngs of people headed in the opposite direction. Everyone we spoke to either didn't speak English or spoke it with an accent which rendered their English competency pretty much useless to us. Despite the lack of proper seating and hoards of people milling about, no one ventured to simply camp out on the floor. We had a drink at a cafe where, instead of chairs, there were sofas strewn with illegally-comfy throw pillows. While it was tempting to simply crash there, we continued our search of a good-sleep place. We found sprinkles of painted metal benches where Kak Nani tried to sleep on but ended up cramping her arms to keep from sliding off. By then we were in a lousy mood and our heads were swimming with everything Chinese. We decided to leave the international terminal and head out to the open waters. Our 10-hour transit was down to six when we finally found seats where we can properly rest our bottoms. By then it didn't matter that we were nodding left, right, front and back because our eyelids were adamant on staying closed. It didn't matter to me that every time I opened my eyes there was a different row of strangers (all Chinese, of course) staring at me with open curiosity. I simply stared back until my eyes shut themselves once again.

The remaining two ours of our transit I spent reading and snacking, Esyaque went off with his camera and Kak Nani continued sleeping (as usual). Our spirits picked up once again when check-in for Air Canada opened and we were finally welcomed into the more comfortable zones of international departure. Despite further hassles of being body-searched another half-a-dozen times and the prospects of a 13-hour flight, I was practically skipping into the cabin. I might be couped up in the same piece of flying metal for a long period of time but at least the reclining seats are mine,I don't have to keep a hawk-eye on my carry-ons and everything is explained in a language I can comprehend.

I must sound terribly snobbish at the moment but I really can't see how I could have enjoyed that 10-hour turmoil. China reported to have amped their hospitality to make the country tourist-friendly in preparation for the 2008 Olympics. Well, they've got a few more months to go and all I can say is fellas, good luck.

Eid Mubarak

2007-10-01T02:00:00.002-04:00

I saw the Lake House. Profound. That's it, I'm giving up reading reviews.

The two 'gembala kerbau' chirped at my window at precisely 7.30am today. They usually save me from oversleeping but today I turned around and gave them a grin thinking, "Ha!I beat you guys today!"

I'm rereading Beloved and I'm still spellbound by the language. Guess I found my in-flight literature. That, the load of mp3s and in-flight movies should keep me occupied for the next 24 hours in the air. I hope.

I was tempted to get something new for raya. Of course, I changed my mind the moment I saw the throngs of people flooding the Kompleks PKNS hungry for baju raya, kuih raya, everything-raya. Imagine squeezing between clothing racks standing shoulder-to-shoulder and sales girls and other customers trying to pass through dragging hoards of meandering offsprings. How anyone is expected to make wise purchasing decisions is wonder to me. I hate raya shopping. Happens every year.

The last time I spoke to Hakim on the phone his voice sounded different. I hope he hasn't made the transition into manhood yet. I'd like to enjoy my little Kimi for a bit more before that happens.

I'm praying to God (seriously, not literally, not metaphorically) that all my luggage go through customes smoothly. The way my mom ordered food from home made it seem like they were starving over there in Toronto. Turns out they really are Baba's and Alagappa-dependant after all.

Eid Mubarak to all (yes, yes, all two of you reading this). And to further reinstate an overused but still meaningful phrase, I have to say....Maaf zahir dan batin. :D