You are currently browsing the monthly archive for January 2007.
With CNY songs playing at ultra-high decibels, who wants to work? Celebrations just seem to come by earlier and earlier every day. We seem to start preparing for one, months before it arrives. In Malaysia, we celebrate Hari Raya, CNY and Christmas for 2 whole months. That leaves the rest of the 6 months for other tiny celebrations like Valentine’s, Anniversaries, National Day, Deepavali, etc. Indeed, we build our everyday through celebrations. Or rather, holidays. It’s only when we get a break, that we are able to plan for our lives.
We humans, like to do countdowns. We get excited, when we know that it’s almost 5.30pm. We get excited, when tomorrow’s Friday. We get excited, when we hear that next Thursday’s a holiday. All we ever do, is just wait around for the perfect moment to come. When it does arrive finally, it passes by so quickly that we have to look towards the next big thing that’s coming by. Seizing the moment, enjoying the present? Nah. We won’t know how to do that.
Okay now, I must pose this question. How do you avoid someone, without telling them that you are avoiding them? If someone wants to hang out with you, but you just can’t stand the sight of him, what would be the best thing to do? I have already tried avoiding for 3 days, but he hasn’t gotten the message yet. Plus, he made a point that we must invite him along the next time round. How exactly does one have the horn effect so early on in the relationship? Is it the way he looks? The way he talks?
Yeah, definitely the things he talk about. His pulsating ego, something that I can’t stand. When someone has an opinion on everything, it’s not necessarily a good thing. Especially when that opinion counters yours. Or takes up the supreme position over yours. When they think that saying something, anything at all, is a good thing.
People fill up the spaces with words. Even if they don’t mean anything constructive. Like when they ask you why you cut your hair. Which means that they’re implying that you look terrible in it. Well, if you don’t have anything nice to say, then it’s not going to hurt if you stay quiet. I mean, why do people even ask why you’ve cut your hair? Isn’t it the same reason that makes you cut your nails? (yes sis, you have a point there).
Statements are rather different from questions though. Like when somebody says: hmm, the sky’s really bright today. That’s kinda different from when you ask: what have you been doing in the toilet for so long? You know, filling up the spaces with words of nothingness is a-okay. Filling up the spaces with words of nothingness that still manages to irritate, is not good. But why some people still insist on carrying on that way, puzzles me indefinitely. Perhaps they find comfort in hearing their own voice. In their mind, they only hear “just say something, say it now damn it, just say it”. And so they do.
It’s almost 5 now! I really hope that I can get my hands on some lipsmacking lobsters. Although I wouldn’t know where to start. Heads or tails? Think I’ll have it medium rare. Nope, chilli sauce will do. Less onions? No, no onions please. As you can see, I know nothing about lobsters. Except that they are red, with huge clippers. In fact, I think they’re not even red when they’re raw. Hmm.
Dragonflies are scary. Some think they are the most beautiful creatures on Earth. We adorn ourselves with dragonfly earrings, hair clips, tattoos. And yet, the sight of it still freaks me out. Don’t get me wrong, I do not deny it its beauty. But the way it flies. The way it dips and just want to smash into your face if you so much as walk close to it is highly unacceptable. Unlike animals of the warm blooded kind, creepy bugs just seem to inch closer to you when you try to scare them away. How many times have you stomped your foot at the cockroach 2 feet away, only to have it crawl in your direction out of shock and fear? It’s like they’re attracted to noise and movement or something. Cats, on the other hand, will be long gone before you even find out upclose that their eyes are actually blue green.
So what is it about these creepy crawlies that make them never understand that people don’t want them around? Hmm. The more you swat the fly, the more it’ll fly. Around you. The more you run from a flying cockroach, the more it’ll try to touch your head. These creatures just won’t ever get it. Unless you use Baygone, Ridsect, the works. It seems there’s no chasing them away. Except than to make them disappear. Perhaps I’ll do just that. Unless I can stand ignoring them. And end up being exactly like them? No way!
Perhaps I’ll just leave them in my dreams. And pray they won’t wake up with me.
I’ve just been updating myself with the latest in show business. I want to watch everything! There’s Babel (which I can’t pronounce), Pan’s Labyrinth, Volver and everything that’s something for someone!
The only Best Picture nominee I know about is The Departed. And that sure as hell won’t win the Oscar. But it’s cute how Mark Wahlberg got nominated for portraying a foul-mouthed prick.
There’s also this movie that I want to watch, Inland Empire starring Laura Dern by David Lynch. His movies are almost always conjured from his dreams or something, so I should expect nothing less from this. It’s suppose to be a movie
“where events really do transpire in multiple locations at the same time (or multiple times at the same place), observers are anywhere and everywhere at once, and realities are endlessly duplicable, repeatable and tweakable. This is a digital dimension where, to paraphrase Jean-Luc Godard, there’s no difference between ketchup and paint and light and blood: On the screen, it’s red.”
That just makes me SO want to watch it. Probably because I can’t understand the basis of one thing from the paragraph above. Heh.
Which fits in to my career path right now. Living in a parallel universe, where things would’ve been different if I’d only taken the other road. Have you ever been annoyed going to work? Annoyed that you have to do the same things that don’t mean anything, at the end of the day. When you work till 6 am without complaints. And have someone complaining that you’re taking your own sweet time. Under-appreciated? MOST DEFINITELY. A simple thank you is no longer enough, when you know nothing about encouragement, staff motivation. PR skills won’t get you anywhere, if you don’t have people skills. Or living skills! After all, this is life. If not for you.
They knew I didn’t have enough sleep. They knew I worked hard for the whole week. And yet, they didn’t even have to think twice to make me run an errand for them. Lunch, for God’s sake! Better make sure you get your own the next time around. Or there’ll be more than just onions in your sandwich. Heh.
I’ve always been amazed at some people’s ability to ignore someone else. Especially when they are strangers. Like when you walk past, and don’t even bother saying hi. Come in for work late, no hi. Leave early, no bye.
Where’s the courtesy? What’s politeness to you? Where’s the love, yo?
Maybe some people are just born with sour faces. And their moms taught them to be selfish, especially when it comes to smiles. To them, success in life is this. My, oh my.
I’m tired of going around in circles. Finding excuses for this world that I work for. Asking for advice from people who love it more than me. My life is mine. If I am not happy, because I spend more than 9 hours a day, 5 days a week and even the weekends worrying over whether you will be in a good mood or not, then I guess it’s just me, not you. Sick of you, sick of you, sick of you.
I watched this lovely anime yesterday, Only Yesterday by Hayao Miyazaki. It was the only missing piece in my collection of beloved tales. You know how some people will do exactly as they are told, without any self-improvisations? When you think that there’s no room for creativity, because there’s too little to do anything? Well, this girl did the total opposite. She had only gotten a very small part in a school theatre performance. She had only one line. When she tried to ad lib, the teacher told her to stick to the script. And so she tried again. In another way. As Village Girl #1, she shined. Acting, after all, is more than just words. Body language. She used actions to make it all the more believable. It was beautiful, watching her effort. Even though it was just cartoon. But it seemed so real. It gave her an edge above the rest. Which also made me realise that you should do what works for you best. If you don’t feel comfortable with saying something just because she told you to say it, then say something else. Because when the words come out, responsibility is yours alone to deal with. It’s your mouth, after all.
Fever’s hitting the top. And I’m still blogging at 4 am! One of the few days I felt cranky. At work. At people. At me, for being cranky. Blame it on the fever, I guess.
You remember how I always thought it was weird that people reading your blog would think that you writing about them? I think I should stop saying that. Because I think I’m becoming one of ‘em! It doesn’t help too, when you have confessed to me once before. And I find it creepy that you’re writing about me in every other blog! There, there I go again. Thinking that the no-name character in your fictitious blog is me. I can’t help it. I didn’t get the perasan genes from my Mom for nothing.
It’s so weird that you don’t even have the courage to ask me how I am. Heck, we once laughed at everyone and everything under the sun. That you are one of those people that don’t say hi, when someone’s not returning your eye contact. Are you afraid of me? Afraid to tick me off? Honestly, just be whoever you want to be. I am disappointed that you can’t be more. That is my fault. That I compare. But the thing is, I don’t think any normal person would do the things that you do! Come on, you’re suppose to be ‘macho’. Even if it was you that coined that term for yourself. Indeed, I believe that you’ll never get well, if you don’t ever plan to get out of your shell. Why I don’t take the initiative anymore? Because it’s time you did. And if you never do, that’s your fault. If someone gives up the reigns, and leave them open to the world to touch, it’s clear that ‘up for grabs’ is the right term for this. Seizing the day. Carpe diem or something. When you never, never do anything about something, nothing is what you’ll get. Although I haven’t been feeling like my old self lately. I have been happier. Complaining less about the important. Perhaps, any thoughts of spending time with you reminds me of those bitter moments. Withdrawal symptoms, again. And I sorta decided that it works well for me, if I spend more time catching up with my old friends. Those that I don’t see on a day-to-day basis. This way, at least I won’t be caught up on unhealthy gossip that you could back me up on.
Why do I find people like you creepy? Because I don’t feel the same way about you, as you do about me. Clicking is one thing. Stalking is another. After all, stalkers don’t always have to be obvious.
Just a few days ago, this conversation made its way to my January.
Am I mature?
“Hmm. Ya. I suppose so.”
What about childish?
“A little bit.”
You think I’m childish?
“Not exactly childish. More like naive.”
Naive’s not childish!
“Yes it is. When you think the world is good and all.”
Hmm.
Painting a pretty picture of the scene. Confident that I can make it there out of harm’s way. Living in my own beautiful world, really. Self-absorbed? Perhaps. Innocent? Maybe.
Inspiration came to me yesterday. When I realised that I could write in so many different ways. Telling the story right. Stealing lines. Making them my own. If I can’t conjure any, might as well look at the existing.
And I’m glad that she’s grown. Together, we have. Now, there is a structure. A common goal. It’s beautiful, the way we laugh at “taking it further”. There is progress. Especially when we keep asking questions. Talking aloud. There is comfort in working with her. Because of her openness. Her willingness to listen. Her strive to always do better. Without giving up on me. Together, we have shared complaints. Late into the night after Mr. Gary, we’ve raced against time. Giving her a headstart of 10 minutes with the telephone. Estimating that my dad will almost always arrive first, before her hubby. Admiring her for her strength. Her ability to still stay awake, after working till 5 am. I slept 3 hours earlier, and here I am writing in circles.
“Will you come with me?”
All you have to do is ask.
Indeed, the most beautiful thing in this life is to love and be loved in return.
I’m caught in the dark. Silence was a luxury, until my dad decided to crank up ze generator. The trustee motorbike-sounding electricity provider, when TNB can’t do more. I’ve got a fan blowing on my back. This light from DELL is hurting my eyes. And yet I continue to type on, because there’s absolutely nothing else to do. But wait.
I hope the light comes back on soon. It’s getting late. I haven’t even sat down to think of ideas for tomorrow. No cold shower for me. And my grandma, she needs us.
I was contemplating just now, amidst the mosquito bites and reckless doggie barkings, whether I should be selfish (because I’m tired). But then I realised that, if I were to be, I’d be just like all those people that I didn’t like. Or wanted to be like. I’d be like the grandchildren she loved, but never loved her. The son that she’d die for, that wanted her dead. The daughter she wanted to talk to, that silenced her with sleeping pills. Why do they not care? Do they not know that life is fragile, and that she is indeed like life itself? For all those times she spent with them, and not us. Why my friends talk of their grandparents so lovingly, and I have yet to know mine.
I’m 23. And last year was the first time she called out my name. Even asked, for us to visit her more often. The hope in her eyes no longer burned in their direction. Now, they brighten in ours.
I’m stuffed. I don’t think I’ll order that brick of a bread for lunch again. I saw a child eating from it the other day, for God’s sake! It can actually fill up a whole team of hungry KG fans. All I could taste was the pee-nut butt-er. Somehow, it’s my fault I didn’t stop sawing into it. 2 and a half hours after lunch, and I still feel like I won’t be having dinner tonight.
Anybody who knows me well, will know the flyaways flying about from every corner of the top of my head. I don’t notice it too much myself. I only really remember whenever people asked me if I had forgotten to comb my hair. It means that I’m not anywhere near balding okay! They are my overactive baby hair, waiting to join the rest at the end of the stream. I have no idea how to keep them at bay. Frizzy, is what they are. I need a good haircut soon. Am actually embarassed about the way it makes me look. Like I don’t know how to spell ‘conditioner’ or something. Help!
*asking for help does not give you the excuse to snip my head off when I forget to lock the door at night*
Have you ever had someone tell you that they “hoped to spend more time with you”?
Or asked you to take an MC the next day, so that you could both play truant and spend even more time together? Or offered to let you drive their brand new car (actually, encouraged) even though they know you can’t drive for nuts?
Ahh. That warm fuzzy feeling. That’s why people say that “life is beautiful”.
Indeed, it is. And I’m glad to be living in the midst of it all.
Life, must surely be beautiful. Otherwise, those that are leaving, why would they feel so sad? Nobody really wants to die. Because we know that heaven, is where we are at now. This is going to be as good as it gets. Heaven or hell, they say. Live or die, I suppose. Nothing gets better than life itself.
“Some say that dreams are only real as long as they last. Couldn’t you say the same thing about life?” This quote, I learned from a great friend whom I had watched Waking Life with. I’d always wanted to know how to describe this film’s style to another. And so I’ve decided to include this description here:
Waking Life is a digitally rotoscoped and animated film. The entire film was shot using digital video and then a team of artists using computers drew stylised lines and colours over each frame. This technique is called Rotoshop. The name ‘Waking Life’ is a reference to George Santayana’s maxim that “[s]anity is a madness put to good uses; waking life is a dream controlled.”
Okay. Let me repeat that last line. Sanity is a madness put to good uses; waking life is a dream controlled. How true, how true. Which goes to show that everyone’s a lil’ mad up there. It’s how we control this madness of the everyday, that makes us seem normal and saner than most. And because life is really like a dream (as it is real only as long as it lasts. are you following me on this?) then the difference between life and dreams is that you can control one of them. Your life, in your own hands.
Many walk through life as if in a dream. They say that everything is set. Fate. Destiny. God’s wrath. They think they have no control. They can’t change things. They can’t be who they’re not born to be. They have big dreams, but because they’re born small, they just remain as dreams. They never bother to link those dreams to the extended version of dreams, which in this case would be L I F E. They don’t understand even, that dreams can be controlled too.
If this is life, and it’s beautiful, like a dream that we can control, then why aren’t we living like we should?
Okay. I know I have not been filling up my blog with anything concrete. It’s just something that I had to get over and done with. Listing all the things that I liked somehow makes me remember. Who I am.
Who, you may ask? Who is this person that refuses to go for a breakfast break, even if the boss is not around to keep track of my disappearing acts? Who is this person that furiously dries her hair when she bathes late at night to ensure that she doesn’t get rumour-tism in 10 years?
Well, she’s the girl you know. The one you’ve always known. And hopefully, the one whom you’ll always want to know. More about.
I can’t believe it’s Thursday already! Imagine, I made no plans whatsoever after work this whole week, because I thought I’d have to work late to catch up with Round 2. Luckily for us, no rush had to be done. Since Round 2 is scheduled for later next week.
I was so bored, I actually tagged along to an empty club and downed some Ribenas and Coke. I seriously think that high ceilings are pretty important in locations. That place last night, seemed dark and stuffy. Congested. Old. Even without people. Not my kind of place. But hey, at least they played some good music. Just about 10 mins before we left.
I’m craving to have a good conversation this week. Everybody’s been so busy (and me being super un-B doesn’t help either). My only social life was on the phone. But that too, I only talked about drama series that I had never watched before. I rather enjoy it though, when people take the time to tell me about their day. Even if they’re only whining! Nobody’s ever told me that I’m a good listener. Ever. Well, maybe I’m not. At least, I still have people treating me like I am. Who cares about words, when you can experience the real thing?
Many hold on to the importance of words (can you hear the philosophical Me emerging?) because that’s like black and white for them. Or maybe, insurance or something. Once it’s said, someone must’ve meant something. Like how Agony Aunts always advise the women species that it’s not a-okay if the original neanderthals don’t say I Love You if you think they do.
What’s been said, can never really be taken back either. It’s like a signature on a document. You can’t really white it out or something. You can, if you really wanted to. But there’ll be this stain, you see. Over time, maybe it’ll blend in with the surface. But over time, many things can happen too.
So maybe it’s better to just keep quiet, if you don’t really mean what you say. Although nobody really knows if they mean something unless they say it first. After all, you’ve gotta have first-hand experience before you can decide what’s really good and right for you. Luckily for us, mistakes are meant to be forgiven. If not, nobody would have created the words ‘mistake’ and ‘forgive’.
Alrighty. Time to get back to some serious work. Or rather, something that I can look like I’m seriously doing.
A Clockwork Orange Anthony Burgess
Nineteen Eighty-Four George Orwell
If Tomorrow Comes Sidney Sheldon
Rage Of Angels Sidney Sheldon
Tell Me Your Dreams Sidney Sheldon
The Other Side Of Midnight Sidney Sheldon
Memories of Midnight Sidney Sheldon
Deception Point Dan Brown
Davinci Code Dan Brown
My Sweet Audrina V.C Andrews
Flowers In The Attic V.C Andrews
Petals On The Wind V.C Andrews
A Dangerous Fortune Ken Follett
The Third Twin Ken Follett
Eye Of The Needle Ken Follett
The Five People You Meet In Heaven Mitch Albom
Tuesdays With Morrie Mitch Albom
Absolute Power David Baldacci
The Winner David Baldacci
The Christmas Train David Baldacci
The Kitchen God’s Wife Amy Tan
The Hundred Secret Senses Amy Tan
April Witch Majgull Axelsson
Like Water For Chocolate Laura Esquivel
The Melancholy Death Of Oyster Boy and other stories Tim Burton
The Little Prince Antoine de Saint-Exupery
The Party, The Dance, The Graduation Final Friends 1 Christopher Pike
The Magic Christmas Francine Pascal
The Carnival Ghost Francine Pascal
The Evil Twin Francine Pascal
Return Of The Evil Twin Francine Pascal
It would be nice, if this blog had a sidebar widget thing that let us update the movies and songs that we’ve recently gotten acquainted to. Alas, there is no such thing yet. And so this post serves its duty (keep a watchout for this space).
Dejavu
The Brothers Grimm
The Departed
Match Point
Silent Hill
A Clockwork Orange
American Beauty
Shawshank Redemption
Donnie Darko
Cinema Paradiso
Talk To Her
Empire Of The Sun
The Joyluck Club
Infernal Affairs
Spirited Away
My Neighbour Totoro
Princess Mononoke
Grave Of The Fireflies
Chocolat
Chicago
Blade Runner
The Green Mile
The Devil Wears Prada
The Banquet
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
Hard Candy
The Exorcist
The Shining
8 Femmes
Delicatessen
City Of Lost Children
Amelie
My Life Without Me
Betty Blue
Se7en
Pay It Forward
The Negotiator
Fight Club
Ocean’s Eleven
Snatch
The Truman Show
Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind
Titanic
Catch Me If You Can
A.I.
As Good As It Gets
Matchstick Men
Adaptation
The Weather Man
The Family Man
Charlie And The Chocolate Factory
The Nightmare Before Christmas
Corpse Bride
Big Fish
Moulin Rouge
The Others
The Sixth Sense
Eyes Wide Shut
Vanilla Sky
Rain Man
Minority Report
Tootsie
Runaway Jury
Being John Malkovich
Identity
Contact
A Lot Like Love
The Butterfly Effect
Sleepless In Seattle
Unbreakable
Troy
Click
Spanglish
50 First Dates
Scream
Ever After
The Prestige
My Sassy Girl
Il Mare
