Prose & Poetry

Visit From A Mamba

2011-08-10T01:58:00.003+08:00

A fire is always a welcomed friend on a cold night in the savannah. Sitting here was I outside my tent with the metallic mug I used earlier to brew my tea now warm in my hands. My ears remained wary throughout the night, picking up the occasional laugh of distant hyenas disrupting the ever-present, ever-tranquil, songs of the crickets that sang to the soughing winds that came about by the minute. Occasionally, I would stare off into the scenery filled with the silhouettes of bushes and trees all under a sea of stars that belonged to something much bigger. I permitted my mind to wander off while I stared into the flame. I had no reason to be here, yet strangely, that gave me all the reason to be here at the same time. It was the comfort of being in a home of a natural kind, the kind that made me feel I was meant to be here. Lost in thought, a sudden, meek voice calling for my attention drew me away from my musings.

"Excuse me, sir," the voice called, its owner nowhere to be found when I looked for him. "Excuse me," the voice parroted, this time letting itself be known that it was close to the Earth's bed.

I looked to the caller, the yellow ring of its black pupil catching me in its circle. Its grey scales glistening with the light of the fire reflecting off its long, slender body. I realised that my visitor was none other than a black mamba.

"Please, don't be frightened," the snake reassured after I had jumped from my spot in shock, somehow managing to keep my hand stable enough not to spill my tea. He lowered his head courteously and backed away from me to give me the comfort of space.

The display of docility calmed me down as I returned to where I sat. The mamba remained where he was, content with speaking from there.

"Thank you, I hope you don't mind me here," he said softly. It was because of the tone of his voice that I somehow knew that he meant me no harm.

"No, no, you just startled me," I replied accordingly, "what brings you here?"

The mamba's head slithered about, a little flustered to confess his purpose.

"I caught the scent of a brewing lavender while I was on my way with my journey North. With the warm fire and the lavender tea, I was wondering whether I could... rest here for a while." He requested as gently and sincerely as he could, "and I was hoping that you would be willing to... share your tea as well," he added shyly.

I didn't think of it too much before I smiled warmly and invited the mamba closer.

"Wait here," I instructed, "let me go get another mug just for you."

I stood and returned to my tent, keeping an eye on the mamba to see whether he would drink my tea. He stayed where he was with a content smile on his face, happily enjoying the fire's warmth. Getting another mug from my bag, I returned to his side and poured some tea from my own mug, and set his mug down in front of him.

"Thank you!" He excitedly said, resting his head at the rim of the mug and sipping the tea from there.

We enjoyed the taste of the tea and the warmth of the fire in silence until we were done drinking. Still in the comfort of the burning wood, we took this time to exchange a few kind words.

"Where are you from?" The mamba asked me, his black eyes set on the fire.

"I came from the city." I replied, trusting this new friend of mine further to open up, "I just felt that the time was right for me to move on to a new place. That place was eventually going to be the death of me." I chuckled, folding my legs and locking them with my arms as I rested my head on my knees. I was going to go off in a reverie again until I realised I should probably ask the same of the mamba. "Where did you come from?" I asked, "and you mentioned you were going North. What's going on there?"

He turned his head to me, "I've been around, moving from place to place. I've been doing that for a very long time," he replied, "this time, I just feel the need to go North. That's where life is at this time of year, so that's where I need to go." He explained further, "it's a long journey, and I have miles to go before I sleep."

I noticed a trace of melancholy in his tone when he voiced his last sentence.

"Are you going with anyone?" I inquired.

The mamba, after a few pensive thoughts, smiled wryly.

"No," he replied.

I thought about it for a while before coming to a decision.

"Why don't I go with you?" I offered, "I don't have plans on where I'm going, I don't mind tagging along with you."

The mamba was surprised by my offer, stammering at first, "A-Are you sure? It's a long way to go and with what you have with you now, I wouldn't want to trouble you." His voice cracked out of surprise over my sudden suggestion.

I laughed heartily into the night, greatly amused by his character.

"Yes, I'm sure," I nodded. "Did anyone ever tell you that you're a gentleman?"

The black mamba slithered his head away, embarrassed by the compliment. It wasn't long until he turned back to me, a look of slight urgency written on his face.

"Very well, but you won't be able to bring what you have now," he said.

"Why not?"

"It's a long journey and if you follow me, such things will only slow you down." He informed, "are you sure you want to give them up?" He said, looking at my tent.

Once more, I was put in the position where I had to think. But, remembering how this wonder of nature has been doing this for a long time, I was sure his experiences knew better than my thoughts ever would on this new journey that I was uncertain of. So, I nodded my head.

The mamba smiled warmly.

"We will leave shortly," he said, "and... thank you."

Upon leaning closer, the mamba raised his head and planted a soft kiss on top of my hand. It sent a small tingle through my body that came as soon as it went, it was probably his breath brushing through the hairs on my hand. The mamba returned back to my side and we stayed that way for as long as we could to enjoy the fire for one last time.

It wasn't long until we stood to embark on our journey. The mamba and I started walking after he had pointed to the North Star as indication to where we were going. With my new companion, I started on my journey North. Taking a brief moment to look back at my tent, my now dying fire, and my aged body, that I was leaving behind as a present to the Earth before I continued on with this new life of mine.

A Black Mamba (Click to Enlarge)

The Work of An Artist

2011-08-02T13:14:00.001+08:00

The artist takes his brush and paints his scene,
Of a winding road down the forest green.
With a shaky hand dealt by old age,
A new life is breathed into the foliage.

He takes his time with the strokes of his brush,
Knowing that art is a life never rush'd.
For the wasted lives of hurried talents show,
That rushing a tree will never make it grow.

And the artist will rest when he tires.
Even an android needs to cool its wires.
As he gazes down his own winding road,
On the many nights in his warm abode.

Time passes and the painting now lies drawn.
The artist lowers his brush, his war now won.
Though it won't be long til' he fights his next one,
For the work of an artist is never done.

Music Box

2011-07-24T21:51:00.000+08:00

I sat in my living room

With my tea on the rocks.

Staring at an heirloom

Of an old music box.

It was on my birthday,

When I had just turned nine.

The timeless instrument played

And entered this life of mine.

The melodic brass chimes

From the wooden trinket.

Sounding sweetly sublime,

It became a favourite.

In time, decades soon passed

And the world came to know

Of a toy meant to last,

thus came the radio.

By then, I forgot my gift.

It was left all alone.

For my life took a shift,

what happened was I had grown.

And now, I have grown old.

I had a crude thought struck:

That the radio gone cold,

Never had songs that stuck.

Only then did I see,

Sitting there all aloof,

The friend who's been with me

Ever since my youth.

So I opened the old thing

And found after so long,

My music box still singing

My one favourite song.

Chessboard

2011-07-19T16:19:00.003+08:00

I was in the study

of a friend one day.

Admiring a chessboard,

dusty and alone it lay.

It gave the room life.

That small touch of flair.

How that odd pedestal,

brought a vintage air.

The owner came with drinks

he set upon the table.

"I don't play that game,"

"I'm just not that able."

So the chessboard sat there,

accompanied by neat books.

Serving forever just to

complete the room's looks.

I was called to the house

much later in time.

Something terrible happened,

that seemed almost a crime.

The study lost its feeling.

That flair no longer present.

For on the chessboard there

was one chess piece absent.

Though my friend was unchanged,

he expressed he was annoyed.

He knew very well that

a new piece won't fill the void.

I returned home that evening.

Realizing in that instance,

how one missing chess piece,

can make all the difference.

Twenty Days Without You: Day Nineteen

2011-07-19T12:38:00.001+08:00

What do you do on your last day?

Get ready for the next day.

End of Day Nineteen.

Twenty Days Without You: Day Eighteen

2011-07-18T17:27:00.002+08:00

I've come a long way. My twenty-days are almost up. Somehow, because of a few things, I'm not really contented with myself. I feel I could have done more in places. But for eighteen days so far, I've done a lot. And while I feel really disappointed and upset that I haven't done everything I wanted to do, I cannot deny that a lot has happened throughout the week.

My week started off with me going to the University of Nottingham in Semenyih to finish everything I needed to do for my university application. It's now official that I will furthering my studies there. The place is big and it's in the middle of nowhere like an isolated island from the city life of KL I'm accustomed to. I'll be living there in my own dorm room by myself. I'll try to come back on weekends, not sure if I could considering the amount of work I might be facing there. This makes me feel like I'll be embarking on a Robinson Crusoe experience albeit with a few differences. I'm fond of that idea. I'll have to remember to submit to them a transcript of some sort that proves that I've taken Malaysian Studies and the Malay language so that I wouldn't have to repeat in university; can't stand the way that subject is taught half the time.

Midway through the week, I found myself traveling to my grandmother's place more often. Still, my cousin's absence is very noticeable. I've begun to fill in that gap by understanding my grandmother's thick Terrengganu dialect better. She and I had an exchange on how to cook which involved a lot of garlic and onions. That's intrinsically the Malay way. It was in that same period of the week when my uncle-in-law passed away.

I still remember the scene vividly: I'm in the back seat of the uncomfortable Nissan X-Trail, facing out the right window and listening to Wrap it Up by Whitey. My dad, as usual, driving with the radio off and exchanging idle chatter here and there with either my mom, my sister, or me. My mom gets a call and she answers. From her happy and sociable expression, there was then a sharp change of shock and confound betrayed in her tone of voice. She puts the down the phone and turns to me first for some reason before disclosing the news of my uncle-in-law's passing. A strange feeling is what it is when someone you should be close with suddenly passes away. It's not dolor. The dolor came when I saw how bereaved my favorite cousin was. Back to the strange feeling though, it's a feeling of absence in the way life just goes on and that absence makes a notable difference on one's perspective for a while.

That was not the only gloomy conversation that took place in that very car on that very day. Just before the news of the passing, my mom was going on about how she had met a family friend whom she hasn't seen in a while. That friend's children were people I grew up with albeit not as best friends but more of acquaintances yet there was still that connection that comes from growing up together. One of those children in particular now being the source of my mother's friend's grief. About this child: She's a girl, standing about five feet and eight inches and a few years older than me. She mixed between her mother's Malay blood and father's German blood. Inheriting most of her father's blood, she grew up to look very pulchritudinous. She's very sociable and approachable, a social animal would describe her right. Alas, she also has the characteristic of being headstrong.

She fell in love with a person that used a be drug dealer eight years ago apparently. I haven't met the person. People say she met him at her job as a model. The mother didn't like the person and would often fall into arguments with her. Ergo, one day, she just left home and refused to come back. They found her sooner or later, high on marijuana strolling a shopping mall. Brought her home, sent her to rehab, and still she is now going out with the same guy and still fighting with her mom. Kind of seems perpetual the way they are going at it. My mom said, "no one can talk to her now." It was because of this I stopped judging her. I used to think she was naive and gullible. Now I just think it's because she has no one to turn to save for him. It's not that no one can talk to her; it's that no one is willing to listen to her. I hope he treats her right either way.

Out of this, I got two poems. I'm working on one right now that will pop up here eventually.

Onto the end of the week. The week ended for me pretty much on Saturday, July the 16th. I'm sure a lot people know that Urbanscapes 2011 and Bon Odori happened on the same day. While this happened, I went up all the way to Janda Baik in Pahang for a barbecue lunch. The roads were windy and when we were nearly there, the scene of an urban jungle switched to the scene of a real jungle. Real trees and real hills were all that surrounded the main road. My family and I almost got crushed by a bus there on our way up. A thought came to mind that if I died, no one would hear from me for weeks or maybe months because of how isolated that place was. It was a pleasantly depressing thought.

I was plagued with depression on that day. It was partly due to Urbanscapes and Bon Odori that I felt so. Here I am, twenty days doing something by myself with no one to see my progress. I've learned how to cook, sew, polish my shoes, maintain my car, write better and analyze things better; my body has gotten stronger and my knee is healing well because of my body conditioning; I've finished reading a couple of novels as well as writing a couple of better poems, and I'm coming close to understanding myself a lilttle better. Yet, looking at myself, then looking at people I know who are out there having the time of their lives regardless of how little time they spend for themselves. I just felt at the time that everything that I've been doing up to that point just surmounted to nothing. I imagined in my head. I pictured my friend Joyce going to Urbanscapes then to Bon Odori, having so much fun and taking the experience in with all her friends. All of the friends that I won't have because of how much of a creep I am. Then I look at myself, just working on making my lumbar better at the time. It just made me feel so pathetic. I can't blame people though because they are who they are. To ask them to be spend time for themselves for the sake of my content is selfish and I did choose to do this instead of just breaking this project to attend the two events. So, like everything else that I'm involved in, getting depressed because of that… was my fault… like how a lot of things are.

The main reason though to why I was depressed on that day was because of a relapse of the stupid mistakes I've done- and there's a lot of them- coming back to haunt me. I don't move on well but I do eventually. However, later in time I would get these guilt-laced memories clawing back into my head and it would make me feel terrible because of how it would echo the message that maybe I just don't belong in society and how I should just keep away from people for my own good. Thinking about it now, in some ways, it's the reason why I don't move on well in the first place when I fuck up. For in that moment in time, all those painful recollections just somehow magically resurface so vividly just so that the latest one can be piled on. I would get on and recover from that feeling as I did later on that day. But when it hits… it hits hard. The worst part is that no can really help because it's something I can only get out of by myself. I'm going to make it a point just to avoid talking to people when I'm depressed.

Sharing this thing is hard, I'm feeling heavy-hearted again.

I'm still trying to find that reason lying within to why I can't move on from things easily. That part to me is still a mystery. I believe I came close at one point but the idea was too vague for me to determine well enough. I can take comfort in the fact that I do move on from things easier now though.

Anyway, the day ended with a grand feast at home with guests for dinner. Containers of delectable nasi lemak and a platter of homemade grilled chicken on behalf of the guest who attended were just among the other viands that were there. I got to talk to an old friend. We had an interesting conversation about the generalization that one's understanding of English would be better when we read more. I find now that, after reading on English Composition, this isn't necessarily the case. You don't really learn more about English by reading if you don't know what to look out for when you're reading. I know, this is obvious to some people. But it wasn't for me. It's the reason why I became deluded that I could write. Figuring that I've read and understood the classics I read, I would assume like I did that I would be able to write. And for a long time, I thought I had. It wasn't up until college that, a brilliant teacher imbued that one virus that slowly ruptured my state of literary delusion. Unless of course, one is a prodigy which I'm not, it's hard for people to look at a paragraph in a story and recognize the coherence and unity that lies within the composition. I doubt the common person even goes through a book with the thought of the type of sentence written in mind. I doubt it ever occurs. So, it's important to know what you're looking out for in English to get learn more about English. The fundamentals I suppose.

So, onto today, nothing much. I've devoted today to writing. I'm currently working on my next poem and if you've noticed, I've finished the first part of a story I'm rewriting, and I wrote this. So yeah, see you around. Whoever you guys are.

End of Day Eighteen.

No Sex For Ben - The Rapture

Another Excerpt I'd Like To Share

2011-07-17T18:57:00.000+08:00

This one comes from an interview on Inside the Actor's Studio where James Liption, dean of the Actors Studio Drama School, interviews comedian Dave Chappelle:

"The worst thing to call somebody is crazy. It's dismissive. 'I don't understand this person, so they're crazy.' That's bullshit, because people are not crazy, they're strong people. Maybe the environment… is a little sick."

Just sharing.

An Excerpt I'd Like to Share

2011-07-13T07:07:00.002+08:00

I'm just going to share an excerpt I picked up from one of the sites I follow on Google Reader. I found it something worth noting down and something worth sharing with people. It's from a book written by Nina Sankovitch entitled: Tolstoy and The Purple Chair.

I was in my forties, reading in my purple chair. My father was in his eighties, and my sister was in the ocean, her ashes scattered there by all of us in swimsuits under a blue sky. And only now am I grasping the importance of looking backward. Of remembrance. My father finally wrote out his memories for a reason. I took on a year of reading books for a reason. Because words are witness to life: they record what has happened, and they make it all real. Words create the stories that become history and become unforgettable. Even fiction portrays truth: good fiction is truth. Stories about lives remembered bring us backward while allowing us to move forward.

The only balm to sorrow is memory; the only salve for the pain of losing someone to death is acknowledging the life that existed before.

Anyway, Nina's blog can be found here.

If you're thanking me for the music Joyce C., then it's no problem. Sharing music, thankfully, is an effortless process today. Otherwise, disregard the last sentence.

Dead Space 2 Is Not Scary

2011-07-11T11:16:00.057+08:00

Firstly, let me start off by providing a summary on what Dead Space 2 is courtesy of Wikipedia.

Dead Space 2 is a survival horror third-person shooter. The player controls Isaac Clarke from a third-person point of view, looking over the character's right shoulder. The game features no HUD, relying on holograms projected from the player character and his weapons to show information such as messages and ammunition count, respectively. Player health and stasis are shown by visual indicators on Isaac's back. Isaac must fight an alien organism that infects and takes control of human corpses, turning them into "Necromorphs", mutating their bodies. Necromorphs must be dismemberedas the alien organism controls host bodies via tentacles extending into their limbs. Other, larger types of Necromorphs that cannot be dismembered will often have yellow, glowing pustules, indicating weak spots. Occasionally, when an enemy gets close enough to Isaac, they will grab a hold of him, and the player must repeatedly press a key to fend off the enemy, with failure to do so leading to death of the player character. The player acquires two modules; a "stasis" module, allowing the player to slow down enemies or objects, allowing for otherwise insurmountable moving obstacles such as active heavy machinery to be slowed down, allowing Isaac to safely pass, and the "kinesis" module, which allows Isaac to manipulate objects, machinery, and panels obscuring important circuitry, which Isaac can then tamper with in order to open doors and gain access to otherwise restricted areas.

And here are some of the pictures of the necromorphs.

Slasher

Puker

Divider

Crawler

So now that you, the reader, are acquainted a little bit with the video game. I can now say that for a survival horror game, the game is not at all a horror game compared to the first Dead Space instalment. This is due to a couple of a reasons. The main ones being that the game relies too much on the monsters to provide the scares, the monsters are just as weak as the protagonist, Isaac Clarke and are easily dispelled by the tools at hand; and that they gave Isaac Clarke a personality that we cannot relate to as well as a personality that quells horror rather than instil it. I'd like to say beforehand that while I'm not much of an expert in the horror genre, I do know a certain number of things that aid towards making scares authentic.

In Dead Space 2, there are elements where the game builds-up the horror by using the essential tools needed in the horror genre. Mainly the creepy, unnerving atmosphere, the psychotic dementia episodes that haunt Isaac Clarke, the disturbing scenes of insane survivors committing gory suicides or sane survivors being brutally mutilated by the necromorphs, and of course, the necromorphs themselves. So it's in a survival horror game that the thing which can directly affect you, the player, would arise as the climax of the build-up which would be the monsters, which in this case, are the necromorphs. The problem with Dead Space 2 is that a lot of the build-up is dispelled by Isaac's nonchalant and superhumanly brave personality, which I'll get to in a sec. Alas, it makes the game rely on too much on the necromorphs to provide the scares. I'll admit, there are moments in the game that startle but that's it. A brief jumper moment before you proceed to dismember the monsters in horrible ways may work the nerves the first time but would just become a vexing process after the twentieth time a player's done it. The game attempts to keep this method alive by adding in new monsters as you can see from the pictures but in the end it just becomes a new, different challenge that eventually becomes the same old pattern of chop choppy. If I were to point out a game that did it right, Silent Hill would be one of them. In the first Silent Hill, you play as Harry Mason, an average person who stumbles into the creepy, foggy town of Silent Hill and is forced to live through its horrors. The monsters were, at times, scarce and it would be instead replaced with some really unnerving locations to tread through along with some startles that aren't caused by monsters but by the twisted nature of the place. As far as startling moments go, a startling moment that isn't followed by the presence of a monster is much more effective than a startling moment of one that is because it heightens the unnerving feeling to the player with the imagination of things to come. Dead Space 2 had this at certain points in time of the game. But it is mainly because of Isaac personality that dispelled this effect as well and that's what a big part of what horror relies on for the unnerving build-up to work: The main character.

In horror games, when monsters are involved, there will always be a way to survive them. In most games, it's by killing with weapons. In other games, it's by hiding from them. These weapons are viewed as tantamount to the light that would scare the boogeyman away and offer the feeling of security. It would be the climb-down after the climax so that it can prepare the player to proceed to the next build-up. What it provides though is that sense of achievement or accomplishment of surviving the climax. The problem with Dead Space 2, is that the weapons are so potent and the enemies are so weak that the monsters are dispelled rather too quickly and too easily for one to feel the full effect of the climax and there's no sense of accomplishment because it's too easy. It's like facing a boogeyman that will easily flee as soon as it saw the faintest and dimmest source of light from three football fields away and you have in your hands a military-grade torchlight that can illuminate just about everything in its path. In Dead Space 2, The Slasher can be killed by using your first weapon, the weak, upgradable handgun, to chop off one arm and one leg which would be just four shots as a whole. Now, since that is easy, take into account the other more potent weapons you'll have in the game. Now, an argument against this would be that you could just raise the difficulty of the game and make the ammo for the weapons harder to find as well as the enemies deadlier. But it shouldn't have to be like that. The game should offer its thoroughness in its battles and let the sense of achievement be accessible in all difficulties. A game that works well in this area would be Fatal Frame where your weapon is a camera used to capture ghosts' souls into the camera. The process to capture a single ghost takes time and it allows the player to indulge the battle with just one ghost thoroughly even though on easy difficulty.

The main character in a video game is vital and essential in providing the immersion to allow the player to be connected to the world presented by the video game developers. For that to happen, we need to be able to relate and understand the main character even if it is just to a certain degree. Would The Exorcist, SAW, Psycho, The Ring or even JAWS be scary if the main protagonist of the story was Neo from The Matrix, Frank Martin from The Transporter, Blade the Vampire Hunter or Napoleon Dynamite? No, it wouldn't be scary because these are characters that we cannot relate to because they are not ordinary people anymore in that situation. The Exorcist was scary because it happened to the common, family woman. A woman that we could relate to because she was just like us. So when she felt unnerved by the build-up, we felt unnerved by the build-up. That's how the climb in horror works. You need to have a character that you could relate and have that understanding connection with so that when they feel a certain emotion, you feel that certain emotion too. Thus having us arrive at what I find to be the biggest reason why Dead Space 2 wasn't scary at all: The main protagonist. Isaac Clarke is an average space engineer working for the Concordance Extraction Corporation. It is a corporation that specializes in solar mining or 'planet-cracking' in its colloquial terms and this means that no one in the CEC would have the training that a soldier has. So therefore, Isaac Clarke should be an average joe just like us all. I admit, in the first Dead Space, it was due to the fact that Isaac was a silent protagonist that made his killing of the necromorphs an authentic attempt at survival through a hellish nightmare filled with sheer terror. We used our imagination to fill in the gaps and to picture the emotions that would be going through Isaac as though we were standing in his shoes while we killed the necromorphs for him. It allowed ourselves to be immersed in his world and experience the fear for what it was. But the main problem is that in Dead Space 2, they gave him a personality and a voice that no one could relate to. He was nonchalant, cocky, fearless, and just had a, "I don't give a shit," attitude towards just about everything that wanted to kill him and that was out for him. This included every small build-up that the game threw at the player to psyche the player up. But it was in vain because of a protagonist who, you, the player, would know reacts differently. So while we may find the sudden alarm clock in some random, bloody room to be a startler, it is upon recalling the generic, improbable nature of Isaac that shrugs off the feeling of any growing trepidation. Realistically, even a space soldier with adept combat training who goes through the fighting the necromorphs who used to be his friends then later survive for three years to go through it again wouldn't be able to function as effortlessly as Isaac does without suffering from the trauma. But Isaac, the common space engineer, does it just fine.

Dead Space 2 is an entertaining shooter that serves more towards the survival part and less towards the horror part when it comes to the term of 'survival horror' because of a huge character flaw among other things. And since it's not scary, I would like to say that it has piqued my interests in writing a Dead Space fan fiction that would hopefully be able to capture the horror that is living through The Sprawl prior to, and during the time of the infection.

Time to go chop choppy.

Twenty Days Without You: Day Ten

2011-07-10T19:50:00.000+08:00

It's been ten days. Somehow it feels like an effortless ten days of just time passing by but I know that a lot has happened. This will be my last entry pertaining to noting down my days. From here on now, I will only put up mere ideas that I want to share or maybe excerpts from books that have piqued my interests. I would like to leave my last ten days as a mystery; it's nothing dramatic though.

Woke up around 10:30AM. Was watching a program on TV about ancient civilizations and alien technology with my dad in his bedroom. I forgot the program was called, sadly. It presented Pumapunku which I will read further after the day is done. It also presented the enigma of the pyramids both in Giza and somewhere in the Americas built by the Aztecs or the Mayans. The History Channel is wont to make their programs so dramatic and less informative unfortunately. They also don't show much of the other side of the spectrum for I wanted to also know about what the skeptics thought. But, skeptics were not shown.

Before I slept yesterday, I had an exchange with someone on YouTube about the BERSIH rally that took place around KL yesterday. It was on a video about Al-Jazeera reporting the Malaysian peaceful demonstrators being gassed by CS. The person was responding to another user's comment who stated that the U.S and British do not practice clean democracy as well because of their invasions in other people's nations like Iraq or Libya, etc. So, the person asks, which country has clean politics. I intervened and told him to, "define clean first and see which country comes close." I don't know the mentality of certain people. I think he took it as an opportunity to go on the platform and rant which he ended up doing. He first started off by saying there was none before going into this huge rant.

"this protest IMHO is gay, if u talk about 1 malaysia then better do it more than just lame words!! Make equal rights in the constitution, any Malaysia (ok fine, born in malaysia) can b the prime minister of the country, n not just a Malay or a Muslim…how bout that, equality for all, Loan schemes, Study loan evaluation, everything… then come up with 1My, and not such ridiculous rallies, where nothing gets done but more lameness." Shounakg, the user on YouTube I had the exchange with, replied.

So I said we got off on the wrong foot. He asked, first of all, which country had clean politics. And so, my reply was as such. But then going off onto the rant on 1Malaysia, I got kind of appalled just how dim some people were. Reading it again, it sounds like he believes that the common public are tantamount to the political decision makers in parliament. Oh well, it saddens me. It saddens me sometimes it's because of people like him that I just feel like we don't deserve the freedom we are asking for because we won't know how to appreciate it just as much as a lot of the people I know don't and won't.

My knee is in worse shape then I thought. I figured that yesterday, after all the conditioning I've done, that it would allow me to start just doing some breakdancing or something. So, I did do the former. Today, I can't walk right because my right knee is killing me. I need to look up some proper exercises for the knee.

I'm expecting a phone call from the staff of Crumpler in KLCC. I'll be going through my Stage Two Verbal Qualification Exam. It's called the second interview. But I prefer Stage Two Verbal Qualification Exam because it sounds cooler. If I think long enough, I can come up with something better. I don't know what they want in my second interview. I guess they just want to evaluate my personality and my communicative skills.

Speaking of phone calls, I got a call from Arab and Wei Han. Of course, I didn't reply. Arab wants to invite to go out and watch the last installment of Harry Potter while Wei Han would want to know whether I would like to keep my World Issues textbook in return for the TI calculator he leant me. I want that World Issues book back. I hope he reads this. As far as the former goes though, I wouldn't want to go to Harry Potter 7, Part 2. Harry Potter was never my thing.

I wrote something for Joyce C. last night. I spent the hours past midnight just working on it in my dimly-lit room. It is, what I declare to be, the cherry-popper to the drawing block that I bought yesterday. I'm really happy with it. It has that space that I need to just plot everything out and let me insert the little doodles that I can just store at some space in the side. I have that beauty of a big canvas to design my stories and poems on. I am very content with the way things have turned out. I'll be posting what I wrote soon enough though. But, I'm confident enough now that I can start writing again.

I'll be going to by grandmother's place today in Sri Petaling. She doesn't have long in this world so I'd like to spend most of my time with her. At this point, our presence in her home makes her happy and if that's what it takes, that's what I'll do.

It's a quarter to eight in the evening now. I sent Mr. Tan an email earlier containing a poem I want criticized. It's different this time. When I sent my poems to Mr. Tan, I always couldn't bear to face the criticism because there was something in me that just couldn't face it. But after putting myself on the rails of learning, it's now that his criticism to me are like pots of gold to which I treasure greatly. So I was happy with the response I got and I'll just spend the time analysing it and integrating it.

I won't be posting up my entries starting tomorrow. I'm letting the next eight days be a mystery. My phone has been and will be locked in a safe from this point on and I won't be answering any of my emails. See you in ten days, world. I'm off to live.

End of Day Ten.

Twenty Days Without You: Day Nine

2011-07-09T23:27:00.004+08:00

A lot happened today. For one, the BERSIH rally was today which resulted in a lot of roads being blocked off in KL which in turn caused the roads to, for once, be empty. I'm pretty sure there are plenty of people who'd agree with me that the sight of empty streets in KL is indeed a rare one. But throughout the whole time I was out in KLCC, I never saw the demonstrators at all, despite the fact that I was wearing a blue and yellow striped shirt. I forgot that today was the rally until my sister pointed it out when we were already out of the house. It didn't matter though; Barisan National's colour was blue so I just excused myself as being the referee. Hah.

I went out with my parents for lunch today. Dim Sum at Mandarin Oriental. Joining the family for lunch was my dad's friend, Terry. Terry is a French man who once worked with my dad and was once upon a time my dad's fishing partner as well. Both mentioned activities no longer being associated with my dad as much as it was with Terry. He's funny, entertaining, and very approachable. But what strikes me as very distinct about him is that he has a very sharp mind on money. After asking my dad to elucidate the BERSIH rally, Terry commented in his French accented English, "I'm pretty sure the Ringgit is flying in a few directions while this is going on." It was an interesting characteristic to observe.

Speaking of Dim Sum, my dad shared a tale about how Dim Sum was once food for the poor in China and as time went by, it became a popular and rather expensive delicacy. Very ironic.

In Kinokuniya, the bookstore, I bought myself a drawing block today. I wanted something big like a drawing block to do the outlines of my poems and short stories from now on. I've now pretty much converted it into a storyboard. It will serve me well, I hope. Currently working on the frameworks for how I'm going to design my stories from now on, we'll see how it goes.

This close, this close was I to buying a ticket to this year's Urbanscapes. Alas, I had no money, my brother said he wouldn't take me, and going to Urbanscapes would go against the purpose of doing this project of mine since I know for a fact that a lot of people I know are going to be at Urbanscapes. It was because of this that I bore a sudden yen to go back on Facebook, to dig up my social life, and call this whole thing off. But, nah, I'm actually quite happy with what I'm doing now.

Oh, another notable mention was that today I was forced, by psychological pressure, to apply for my first part-time job. Walking somewhere along the West end of KLCC with my brother and my sister, we passed by this store called Crumpler which specialized in backpacks and messenger bags. Looking through the glass panel, the small, A4 notice advertising vacancy caught my brother's eye and immediately he turned to me, pointed his podgy finger at the store and demanded that I apply solely for the positive boon of a store discount. So, I did. At the time I walked in, the store looked rather empty. But, considering that today was the rally and most of KLCC itself was as desolate the streets, it's best to think that it'd be different on any other day. I'll be planning to work there after the 20th of July until probably the end of August. They wanted me to work everyday which means I'll be having a lot time spent just getting into the work life. Can't say I'm excited but I'm not nervous either.

Will be having dinner tonight with Terry. I'll try and get a picture with him and put it up on the blog.

Here's are some videos:

Police Beatings

Malaysian Information Minister Interviewed

One of The Manliest Scenes in the Film Industry

And I'm surprised that this face popped up at the rally:

A. Samad Said: "Agong is expecting our petition."

The guests are now here. They've been here for quite a while actually. I'm just taking a break. I might as well post the pictures up now before I end the day.

Terry with his son, Dillon

Dillion and I, him trying on one of the helmets

Terry's second wife. It's a digamy.

Terry describing a crane

End of Day Nine.

The Hollies - He Ain't Heavy, He's My Brother

Waking Up

2011-07-09T00:21:00.004+08:00

I dreamt of walking before.

'Twas a rekindled yen to me.

For I had lost my legs in a war,

and with it the meaning of glee.

I skipped for a thousand miles

and yearned to run on the sun.

To climb mountains by the pile,

I wanted to never wake from this one.

I was in the sky walking proud

when the floor suddenly broke.

It was then I fell from the clouds;

it was then that I awoke.

I once had a dream of walking,

before waking with no feet.

I caught myself staring at me, gawking,

because of the reality I refused to meet.

Twenty Days Without You: Day Eight

2011-07-08T07:54:00.004+08:00

"There's no substance."

These three words is probably the most concise, critical criticism I'll ever get. It kept me up until three in the morning last night and, for the more observant readers if there are any, it's the reason why all of the short pieces and poems are gone from the blog. Thanks to the English Composition book, I can now understand and appreciate what those three words mean. It means that writing the first thing that pops up in one's head or writing what just sounds good and hoping for the best is not natural talent but more of an abysmal attempt at an expression of an idea because it's premature. I've been a flop. A crap writer. A joke. Reading my poems and short stories, they're all exactly like those three words described and I wrote them as such. A majority of my poems were written based on how I like them to sound, there was never really any thought given into what I wanted to say. That's what I always felt was missing but something that people, save for this one person, never pointed out. In the end, while it may sound 'good,' it becomes as vapid as a Justin Bieber song. I will write no more. I have a lot to learn first before I do. My poems and short stories have been an insult to the literary world. I suck.

Admittedly, I was hurt. Not due to the bluntness of the critique but because of the realization of how deluded I was of feeling that writing was my trump card to show off, when in reality, I couldn't write at all. I picked myself up pretty easy from that one, getting my mind out of the bog. Now it's just a matter of going back to the basics; the act of starting from square one. And the thing is, I've been spending my eight days doing just that. But it was this one critique that made me wake up to the horrors of my past. So because of that, with all I've went through, I'm giving myself an initial attempt of writing one more poem. This time, I spent a lot of time making an outline, re-reading the poem and made it go through a lot of change. This time, I put effort in my writing.

In the book, it said that the best thing to write about is something that the writer would know very well by experience. So, this one is about the one thing that I've just went through: Getting my heads out of the clouds and waking up to face reality.

Waking Up

I dreamt of walking before.

'Twas a rekindled yen to me.

For I had lost my legs in a war,

and with it the meaning of glee.

I skipped for a thousand miles

and yearned to run on the sun.

To climb mountains by the pile,

I wanted to never wake from this one.

I was in the sky walking proud

when the floor suddenly broke.

It was then I fell from the clouds;

it was then that I awoke.

I once had a dream of walking,

before waking with no feet.

I caught myself staring at me, gawking,

because of the reality I refused to meet.

I just hope, regardless of whether people like the message or not, that this poem has or had substance and was written well. I just need that one sign that I'm heading in the right direction.

End of Day Eight

Fistful of Dollars Theme - Ennio Morricone

Twenty Days Without You: Day Seven

2011-07-07T21:16:00.000+08:00

Today was a glorious day. It marked the start of me getting into the habit of staying up from five in the morning on a daily basis. What it also marked was the day I started learning how to sew and my first attempt at making Roti John. A side note to the friends who know: I will be learning how to make Milo soon enough so be patient. I would have written this entry sooner had the house not experience a power outage twice. As I type down this entry, I can't exactly assure myself that another power outage won't occur. So I'm hoping for the best.

My morning was divided into two: Installing and playing Dead Space 2 and resuming my main quest of painting the steel frame of my house's front gate along with some other railings that made the 'notable mention' list. A quick note on the latter was that it's surprising to see how much dexterity one can develop overnight thanks to the muscle memory or so I think it's called. I'm thinking about writing another separate entry on Dead Space 2 and my dissatisfaction about survival horror video games but I think I can let it slide for now.

I spent my afternoon without electricity. It was so uncomfortable that I couldn't even read because of the heat. As sad as it is, yes, I've become dependent on fans to carry out living in my own home. Woe is me. After it did come back though I played more Dead Space 2 until my sister came home which was then my mum proceeded to teach me the wise arts of sewing. My fingers are nimbler now than I remember it to be because getting the thread in the eye of the needle was a lot easier this time compared to the time back in college where I had volunteered to make beads. I managed to sew back the top button of one of my shirts in the end with the help of my mum who guided me all the way through. I learn faster like that. Wouldn't be surprised if a lot of people were the same to be honest. It was after my mother left to send my sister for tuition that my father, as surprising as it was and still is to me, opened up like a fountain of words on sewing tips. There's so much about my father I don't know. Will make a note to find out more.

Body conditioning today was tough. Thinking I felt better today with all my muscles no longer aching, I decided resume my training session. The result? Could just barely manage one proper pull-up. I managed to do everything else though. Just that pull-up. Looking at the bar right now, it looks like it's mocking the current state of my body right now. But I'll get to it eventually. And when I do, I'll be the king of that pull-up bar. Hah.

Random Question: How do you pronounce Gengkhis Khan in Japanese?

Answer: Jingisukan. Not joking. Wiki the dish.

Anyway, I failed my first attempt at Roti John. The taste turned out okay but the shape of it turned out odd and I forgot to add a pinch of salt and pepper to the egg I beat up with a fork- yes, I'm a terrorise eggs with a fork. Not that I'm sad or anything. One, I was doing it alone; and two, it turned out alright... I just need to get that shape right.

Yeah, that's pretty much what happened today. Oh, Miss Nancy, my ex-World Issues teacher, SMSed me informing me that she has a book she would like to give me. I know what book it is. How to Write Poetry. Pretty funny considering how I'm reading a book on English Composition right now. Will need to remember to pick it up from her next time I'm in college.

That's right Mr. Tan. I'm working out my English too.

End of Day Seven

Neil Young - Out on The Weekend

Twenty Days Without You: Day Six Again

2011-07-06T23:27:00.005+08:00

It's 11PM and I'm feeling better so I'm deciding to do a proper entry. It's hard to do one though when there really is nothing to say. I felt terrible this morning with the illness listed down in the initial entry, refusing to wake up from bed because of it. It was a rude awakening though when I had to wake up due to a mother's phone call suddenly asking her son to get ready to go out in five minutes. I'm never good with those last minute rushes, always will I find myself ending up late either being caught in the shower too long or just taking a long time picking out what clothes to wear.

Like a woman you say?

With that out of the way, all that happened was just a simple outing to go collect my sister from school and to go shopping for some table in Great Eastern Mall.

Skipping the sister part and going straight to Great Eastern Mall, we ate lunch in a place called Cozy Corner or something like that. Had a funny exchange with my sister where we looked at our drinks, mine being my pink drink strawberry milkshake and hers being iced Milo:

My sister: You know, somehow I think it was meant to be the other way around.

It's not my fault that I grew up just liking strawberries a lot. I like how they taste.

Strolling around Toys'R'Us, I can't help but go past the board games and molest the plastic sealed box of Risk. I've always wanted that game ever since Siraj, an old friend of mine, introduced it to me when I was eleven... or twelve. It's now RM139 on the shelf. I think I'll buy it some time soon. I'm always a sucker for board games. It's a good way to past the time if I can just find people to play them with. Otherwise, I could always pretend I was Player One, Two, Three and Four which would not work when it came to Twister unfortunately. So a note to self on board games to buy: Risk, Cluedo, Arkham Horror.

As stated in the initial entry, I saw someone who used to be my sophomore in secondary school. She was older than me by three years. On the ground floor I saw her, briskly walking to the party shop for something. She was with her father which suspended any attempts of mine to go strike up a conversation with her. Walking in her blue, floral summer dress and her square shaped sunglasses on her head like an improvised hair-band. We made eye contact a few times but seeing how she didn't even bother an eyebrow raise or a smile or something, it's safe to assume that she forgot me.

Now, remember when I said that the reason I had to tag along with my parents was because they wanted to buy a table of some sort? Well, the table ended up being two wooden chairs purchased due to the aesthetics. Sometimes, sometimes, I just wish my parents would just stop buying so much stuff.

Anyway, Urbanscapes 2011 is coming up around the corner. I heard now it's sponsored by TMnet. I hope it doesn't turn out like Youth 2010. Horrible, horrible thing that was.

End of Day Six

Working Day and Night - Michael Jackson

A link I want to remember: http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2011/7/1/nation/9011073&sec=nation

Here's my current wallpaper:

Twenty Days Without You: Day Six

2011-07-06T17:25:00.002+08:00

I seem to have contracted some sort of illness. Don't really feel too good right now and I slept late last night because of it. My joints hurt, I have a vacillating fever and I'm really lethargic. Other than that, nothing much to say. I'm in pain right now. That's all.

Saw a girl I used to go to school with. She's my sophomore, older than me by three years. She didn't recognize me.

Anyway, Urbanscapes 2011 is next Saturday. I won't be going. My friends will be. Hope they have fun.

End of Day Six.

Twenty Days Without You: Day Five

2011-07-05T16:53:00.002+08:00

July 5, 2011

Day five, alright! It's already one quarter of the twenty days and the days have, as predicted, been passing by smoothly for the most part. Waking up in the small little world that is my room, this time I had one of those dreams that became instantly forgotten upon waking. While still dressed in pajamas, I took the liberty of walking all the way to the empty kitchen, passing my mother who informed me that she had brought home roti canai. It's something rather common nowadays to have roti canai for breakfast. My mom and dad would often go for their routine morning walk after sending my sister to school, stopping at some local stall to eat breakfast then pack some for the kids at home. All this happens of course, while I'm still in my bed enjoying what's left of my sleep.

So, I ended up doing something new today in which I made myself a bowl of half-boiled eggs to go with the roti canai as a dip instead of using the curry that, I found in the end, is a much better compliment to it than half-boiled eggs that had a little bit of soy sauce and pepper. So, note to self, don't do that again and do take care when handling roti canai, it may contain sharp edges as I recall from Helen's status update on Facebook so long ago.

I spent the afternoon with my mom painting the steel frame of the front gate of my home. It was a good way to spend the time with a lot of moving and it trained dexterity. But brushing aside the video game brouhaha, I find that my dad is a much better teacher than my mother. Painting the steel frame as an example, my mother would give me a brush, tell me what to do and expect me to do it flawlessly without fail while she do her part of the gate before glancing back at my side of the gate to find that I've done it totally wrong even though I've pretty much followed her every instruction… dun dun dun. My dad however, would show me a simpler way and then would supervise me first until I get the hang of things before either teaching me more advanced ways to do it or letting me do things on my own. Either way, it was pretty fulfilling in the end. Even if we only did one side of the gate.

My muscles are still sort of sore from the body conditioning session I had a few days ago… I can't recall right now and I'm currently too lazy to check back at the previous entries. But I'll assume it was one or two days ago. Getting to the main point though, it struck me as surprising how out of shape my body was. Not out of shape in the sense that I am fat… which I find myself to be regardless. But in the sense that, my triceps and biceps may have shape but trail down to the forearms and find that the forearms look like a stick compared to the biceps and triceps. Something I'll have to work on. Speaking of the forearms, I'm major happy that I found a simple workout with it that only required a full one liter bottle!

Just got a message from Kishya, thanking me that I introduced her to Ray LaMontagne. No problem, anytime. Speaking of music, that reminds me to note down how I've just rediscovered a song: Flowing Destiny - Maiko Horisawa. Unfortunately, I can't be proud to say that I've heard it first after playing Zone of the Enders. I heard it while playing Metal Gear Solid 4. The song can be found in Outer Haven, Alaska if I remember correctly. It was such an awesome song to be playing against Crying Wolf, the boss. That aside, I do strongly recommend anyone with a working PS2 to pick up Zone of the Enders and Zone of the Enders: The 2nd Runner. You won't regret it. It's one of the best mech. games that I've ever played that's for sure.

Anyway, I'll be signing off for today. Will update if there's anything else to update, if not, well here's a good night in advance.

11:39 PM. I feel like I'm falling sick.

End of Day Five

You're My Best Friend - Queen

Here's a wallpaper, click to enlarge:

Twenty Days Without You: Day Four

2011-07-04T05:59:00.005+08:00

July 4, 2011

5:50 AM. I just woke up from one of the worst dreams ever. It's been a while since I've had one that could shoot me awake in bed and just start a breakdown that involved a lot of tears and a lot of snot. I don't want to go into describing the dream but it was one of the most dolorous dreams that I've ever had to sleep through. What a wake-up call... I'm sort of afraid to continue sleeping.

I could see what the dream meant though. That's all.

It's kind of left me shaken up. I'm not sure whether I'd like to continue this little project of mine or not without breaking the rules and having me make at least one dire phone call. Somehow wishing now that I had a shoulder to lean on... but then realising that all I got to do is just move on and keep myself busy generally. But that's the million dollar question: Do I want to move on?

11:22 in the night and I'm ending my day with only but a few interesting things to jot down. I went to my grandmother's place today. Getting older by the day, she doesn't appear to have much left in her as saddening as it looks from the lethargic expression she now dawns on her wrinkly face. I found myself slightly disappointed that I didn't get to sleep over at my grandmother's place due to my cousin being in university already. The boy, University Malaya studying a diploma of Chemical Engineering and living in a dorm room with two other people. I hope he is okay. Was never good at socialising much with strangers, nevertheless, I can only hope for the best.

I've gotten over that dream I had last night. It's made me realise one thing and that thing is that some things are just inevitable. I also know now the answer to the million dollar question and it was answered in the dream just as much as it is being answered by my own thoughts right now. It's the reality that my wants were never really relevant in the first place when it came to something like moving on. It either happens or it compels one to make it happen, regardless of which side of the fence that person sits on. Just like being tied to the tracks in the path of an oncoming train and still taking the leisure to internally debate on whether one would still want to be run over by a train or not; or when one's dead wife lies in the living room where the stench will eventually compel the husband to do something about it. And such is the case, regardless of whether I want to or not, I would eventually move on in the end. Before I do though, there's just one thing that I would like to do. A final farewell, a proper burial to something that never stood a chance of living except only in wistful dreams. I won't say what it is. It's still in the planning process and I have a lot of time to plan it out until then.

Why am I ending this entry so late? I spent the hours from nine to now watching the original 1963 version of Pink Panther that starred the late Peter Sellers in it. It was a great film with plenty of Pink Panther humour as I would remember it to pertain from the cartoons I used to watch on Cartoon Network in the 90s via Astro. There was one thing I couldn't help but notice and that Peter Sellers, despite his sublime acting, appeared so depressed in the film. From where I watched in front of the iMac where the file of the film played was a stunning 720p resolution that I owe a big thanks to the internet, it just seemed like a renowned clown doing his star routine while appearing to be the same ol' funny but just barely hides his otherwise melancholic interior from the less observant members of the audience. I don't know, I just read it from his face. I could be wrong.

I would go into other things like how I'm just hooked onto SWAT 4, the video game, or about how I've just started reading Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck but my eyes are dreary and I have things I would like to do before I sleep. So it is here that I end my entry.

End of Day Four

Roads - Portishead

Here's a bonus random wallpaper:

Twenty Days Without You: Day Three

2011-07-03T12:01:00.008+08:00

July 3, 2011

Some mornings can be the worst. Of course, this includes soldiers being crudely awakened by the sound of artillery shells or bullet fire or maybe Frodo being awakened by Smeagol who attempts to steal the ring. Mine is less dramatic or intense; it's more of what one would expect from a common man. It's just the feeling I got this morning when I just stayed awake and remained apathetic to move but staying in bed was just too melancholic to do because of a bad case of over-thinking.

Now I'm up and it's 11:34 in the morning. I've eaten breakfast already. A nice plate of scrambled eggs, toast and a fat chicken sausage stuffed with cheese. Double entendre not intended in regards to the ultimate edible item. I've gotten into the mood of body conditioning as of late and my interest in Parkour has been rekindled. This is hugely owed to this one video on YouTube which I find to be the closest video that shows the fundamentals of Parkour, cutting out all the flips and appealing aesthetics of body movement. It's nice. But I'm not looking for that just yet. I'll get to Parkour in a moment. For now, I want to expound a little on my fascination with body conditioning.

I find it perplexing and vexing at times when it comes to working out that it's hard to get in the zone to work out. To have that mood where I can feel the blood pumping throughout my body and where I do what I do with ease. I do warm up and I do stretch but at times I still cannot muster that control and strength that I need. Will need to investigate into that further. Another side thing I want to note: Do not drink water until after working out. Also, breathing is very important in body conditioning.

What really interests me about Parkour is that freedom of movement with the surround environment around me. It's that ability to go where I want to go and how I want to go there. I guess, if Joyce C. is right about me, that it's my kinesthetic wet dream I suppose. But if there's one thing that I must do, it's probably working on my stamina. Sigh, I can see her with her eyes widening a little bit and going, "yeah," concurring with me. I wouldn't mind doing it with her though. Frankly, I would rather do Parkour than jogging. It doesn't have to be over buildings and et cetera. But it's like building blocks. Start small and slow before piling up everything else.

It's half past three now. Today was my first time polishing my shoes. I'm pretty sure it's not that big a thing though comparing the way I live to the way some of my friends live and seeing how I can't even make a cup of milo right… I'm pretty sure polishing shoes is not something worth celebrating since most of my friends already do it on a regular basis… I think.

I lost five pounds!

Anyway, one idea that came to me this afternoon was when I was taking a shower. I'm always procrastinating to get into the shower. I won't say why because I myself am not sure when it comes to procrastination. However, when I get into the shower, I get too lazy to get out. It's the nice feeling of a warm shower that I find addictive, which is the idea I'm coming to right now. It's the idea that a warm shower is nice because somehow it's just vaguely the same feeling of having someone's warmth skin on yours.

Also, out of boredom:

Now that it is at the end of the day for me already. I guess I'll just finish up by saying nothing much happened. I have an idea that on the tenth day I would just stop writing about what I did today and just put down the ideas that come to my head, just to let my last ten days become a mystery. But there's still seven days away. There's plenty of time to kill when one is no longer attached to one's social life.

Oh, there is something to put down after all. Sabby does have a problem with her radiator after all… along with her sister unfortunately. So… two cars down.

End of Day Three.

Song for Day Three:

Deerhunter - Agoraphobia

Twenty Days Without You: Day Two

2011-07-02T10:30:00.010+08:00

July 2, 2011

I just woke up. It's 10:27 in the morning right now. I just wanted to jot down a dream I had. It was a pleasant dream that involved hugging, tickling and cuddling. Lots of cuddling. It was a happy dream until I woke up where things were different. Much like the line of the poem I was working on:

I had a dream where I was walking,

until I awoke with no feet.

Anyway, time to live out my day. I'll be attending a wedding later.

It's now ten to six in the evening. The wedding will be in another hour and a half. I will be wearing my traditional Malay clothing there: The Baju Melayu, outfitted with the songket and all. Did a little bit of body maintenance a while ago, will be continuing after this update but there's something I want to share. Two ideas popped into my head while I carried out today's agenda.

The first idea is something that came from a statement in a video game called The Suffering where the main antagonist talked about some people feeling safer in the light and others in the dark. I found it to be an intriguing idea. Personally though, I'm one of those people who would feel safer in the dark generally but there are instances where the light offers more security than the dark. It's mainly because of a thing regarding how close to invisible we can become. Like fire and water, they are both inseparable though. They both have their pros and cons. But still, it's something to ponder upon.

The next idea is more related to what's been happening to me throughout the years. It's the sinking feeling of somehow not being in control of your life like being in the car that controls my fate yet being in the passenger seat while someone else is behind the wheel. It's a weird feeling but somehow the more I think about the things that happen to me the more I feel like I have no control over what happens regardless of whether it's something I do or something I don't do.

Also, here's a good song that motivates me to work out: UNKLE - Lonely Soul. I first heard it when it was used in the trailer of the first Assassin's Creed game and I guess it stuck with me as a song that represents a certain kind of strength in loneliness.

Here's the trailer.

Anyway, time to get back to body conditioning.

It's now 7PM. I just wanted to make a quick note for myself that Nottingham University still hasn't sent me any email now that my application has been accepted unconditionally. Most likely due to it being a Saturday today and they are closed but if it doesn't arrive by Tuesday I will probably end up calling them again to affirm myself that they do indeed know my e-mail.

Just came back from the wedding. Even though it's past midnight now, I guess I'll just recap on the wedding. So yeah, went over to the Grand Imperial Hotel tonight for a wedding of my father's friend's son, Mohsein. Had a mini photo-shoot with the family before leaving for the hotel. I noticed that I was the only one in the family and in the whole hotel that had his songkok tilted to the side.

Click to enlarge.

And it's not wrong to have one's songkok tilted, just ask Tunku Abdul Rahman.

O.G Style.

I think now it is mandatory that every Malay wedding now would have to have 60% of its attendees to be dressed formally, 30% semi-formally and 10% casually. I could point out at least three or four people there that were wearing a shirt and a pair of jeans to the wedding… along with sneakers. Not that I'm offended, I've gotten used to the sight.

At the wedding, I met with the groom's younger sisters whom I've been friends with for years now. Munirah and Mahirah, M&Ms. Surprising question:

"I'd like to ask you, how do you know Matt?" (White Myvi Matt)

Apparently the both of them went to the same primary school as Matt, described as loud and boisterous. An accurate and apt description. I will be going out with them again to The Curve on the 23rd of July to the Tenshi Cafe. Considering bringing someone else along… if Sabby can handle it.

End of Day Two.

Here's a song to go with Day Two:

The Shins - Saint Simon

Twenty Days Without You: Day One

2011-07-01T22:43:00.002+08:00

July 1, 2011

Today is the first day I've isolated myself from the outside world of my friends. I woke up in a funk this morning. Primarily because of the events that happened the night before which now compels me to change the way I am to live someone who is dear to me. It's not bad. We're still best friends- or we've stepped down the ladder to be at that level. But after the things we've done for at least three or four months, it becomes a miniature situation when Red in Shawshank Redemption was final released from prison on parole after forty or fifty years. I became 'institutionalized' with the way I had lived. Unfortunately, I could not help myself but to make that emergency call, and now I'm glad that she is okay.

That aside, today was a test day. Since it was the first day, I decided to assess how much free time I would have now that I didn't have to pay attention to my social life. It was surprising. I spent three hours just playing a video game and I still found myself with plenty of things to do. That spontaneous slot that used to be spent on either being on the phone with Joyce or on Facebook sharing links with Matt or chatting with Helen or Steph now became a gap that needed to be filled. So, I didn't find it surprising that, deciding not to get started with anything to day and being bored, I decided to fap. It passed the time. But I still had more time to kill.

Spent my afternoon going through Friday prayers alone. I decided not to go with my dad this time. I just didn't feel like it. I still felt a little sore over doing this and I just wanted to be alone I suppose. After that, I just spent my time eating lunch with my dad at the dinner table and downloading a list of movies that was left by Elly yesterday before going back to playing video games on my sister's desktop.

There's something wrong with Sabrina, my car. She's heats up while I drive her. I'm pretty sure it's not her being turned on but I have a guess that there's something wrong with her radiator… again.

Ate dinner, parents are out collecting a broken watch. It's 10:35PM now while I write this I'm now starting to get used to being without people. And I'm sure for one of my friends, I hope she is getting along fine without me. She probably is; she's a strong girl.

It's always like that isn't it?

The first day is always the hardest. But by the end of it, you start to get used to it. By the second day, experimentation starts with how I'm to cope with spending time. And by the third day, time will be flying by until I reach the twentieth day in no time. Looking at it from the outside though, my friends- save for the ones who will continue reading this I presume- will feel odd about my absence. But by the second day, they start adapting to my absence and by the third day, accepting my absence just becomes normal. A crude bet of mine would be that on the fourteenth day, my acquaintances like Audrey and Chermayne would have just forgotten about me already. Haha.

Anyway, enough fooling around for today. Tomorrow, I'll start with that 1911 English Composition book.

July the 19th… I think I can make it no problem.

Twenty Days Without You

2011-07-01T22:18:00.000+08:00

This is a project of mine simply called Twenty Days Without You. For twenty-days, I will be away from my phone, my Facebook, my MSN and other forms of communication possible. All this while, I will be jotting down my days on this blog rather than on my own personal journal where it should be. It seems like a fun idea. As a result of this, my social life will now just cease momentarily throughout these twenty-days.

Why am I doing this?

I don't know. I guess I'm doing it to have some time by myself to understand myself better and to take the time to learn and grow. Now, I'm not really sure about what I'll be doing for the next nineteen days since today has officially been the first day. However, I'm sure I'll find some way to pass the time. Much like Andy Dufrense did in The Shawshank Redemption.

I'm not referring to anyone by the title of course. The 'You' in the title is just my social life or my friends. At the same time, I know that there's someone who will, upon reading this, feel like that they are the 'You' I am referring to. And to that person, yeah, I am without you aren't I? Chuckle chuckle.

So, for those reading and find themselves uninterested by my life. You're free to stop reading. For those who do continue reading. I hope you do like what you read. And for what it's worth, these entries to me will be no different than the entries I would normally write in my journal.

Announcement

2011-06-30T20:45:00.000+08:00

No worries.

Wallace the Lion

2011-04-12T19:44:00.005+08:00

Based on an illustration drawn by Joyce C.

Wallace is a lion with a heart of a lion.

He spares the rats

and sit on grass mats.

It is adorable to see him just lyin'.

A cunning round face with pointy ears.

Call him a cat,

but not one that is fat

for this lion knows not what is fear.

His courage is something which persists.

With a mane as a hat,

And his close friend called Matt,

the rainy cold weather he easily resists.

Wallace is a lion and I am that lion,

my head you pat

though I'm not all that.

But hey, couldn't you say at least I'm tryin'?

Write my eulogy please

2009-10-27T13:49:00.010+08:00

Tidings all, as the title may innocuously suggest, I'd like someone to write or rather deliver my eulogy in the event of my premature/untimely demise. Reason for all this you may ask? I had just read about a most depressing and tear-bringing tale of an old man who couldn't live long enough to tell his son that he had forgiven him for his misdoings of the past, and he had been diagnosed in Parkinson's, hampering his ability to write. Of course, you questionable wads may ask 'Well, he could've asked the staff of the hospital he was in the write it couldn't he?' Well, dismally, no. He was verbally impaired as well. And all of this made struck me like a Y2K going at optimal speed on the Autobahn. Who the hell's going to deliver or give my eulogy? No one at the time of inquiry.

So, as a favor or errand, I'd like someone to send me off with a bang, and without regret, because quite impartially speaking, I hate to see waterworks from people, especially when commemorating a fellow man's death. Play the good tunes and bid Auf Wiedersen.

Play this track at my funeral/wake, whichever may be applicable: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qwW4Vvp1YnY

P.S- I'm carbonated, highly commemorated, the most celebrated.....let your creative synonymic rhythm fill the next line. Also, screw you jingoist American! We don't need 'liberation', in fact, truth be told, this whole world'd be an utopia without you American 'patriots' who demand a 'well-trained and armed militia'. To quote Don King 'Only in America!'

Band From TV

2009-08-16T19:09:00.002+08:00

Here's something that you guys might have not seen before- OMG, ITS DR. HOUSE PERFORMING LIVE!

How Education Works! The Final Touches.

2009-01-06T21:12:00.004+08:00

Now that I have shared my part to solve the main problem, it compels me to make an effort to solve the minor problems as well; it is to say that one fixes the cracks in the wall after he fixes the hole. But the ones I am going to press on are just the problem with the lack of teachers and the constant cases of juvenile delinquency that every parent fear to see with their children.

I think it is only fair that we have an increase of quality in the teachers and not the quantity, as I have heard teachers under the government receive low wages, I fear this only made teachers take their jobs for granted as teachers would eventually fall into apathy due to the lack of materialistic benefit in their jobs. A teacher should have the same status and the same pay as a judge, over here; judges are considered to be a highly respected for whatever reasons they do. But is it not the teachers who raise the students to be judges? When it happens, the more people see how much teachers are respected in society; the more it inspires people to become teachers. Thus solving three problems; money, quality and quantity.

When school life is fun, when the students are properly given the benefit of the doubt of their actions through the means of education and when the thirst of knowledge is restored; the problem with juvenile crime will slowly but surely resolve itself.

And that is it, a big hold fixed along with a few cracks in the wall, I am sure there are still plenty of challenges that remained unsolved but for now it was vital to shed some light on one of the biggest challenge for the students, for we will be the future generation that will carry through at the rate of how many students are falling into apathy towards school.

How Education Works! Subject Alterations

2009-01-05T21:29:00.005+08:00

Moving on, there's something that could be improved on is the subjects themselves; for me, there is always room for improvement if one looks in the right places as there are several subjects that are not well-thought, some are imbalanced compared to others, et cetera, et cetera. Some subjects hold the potential to be altered into more interesting subjects and others have room for expansion. So here are the few subjects I believe could be or have to be altered:

The first is English or Malay, it is either one of these because of the imbalance between one another. It is every year that we, the students only have to read a short, abridged novel or a few selected short stories on poems(depending on the forms). While Malay on the other hand would have the students memorise the analysis of selected songs, poems, plays and other traditional literature; and to top it off, they give us a full, unabridged novel, mind you, this is every year as one progresses. So the choice is: one either adds content to English or one discards content from Malay; personally, I would go for the latter. Even though I find the questions in the examinations a bit perplexing, but I am making envisioning the school system as the one I am attempting to illustrate at the moment. Of course one may ask: Where is the patriotism? To emphasis on English; we are in Malaysia, people must speak Malay and we should test them as well otherwise we wouldn't know for sure whether they can speak Malay! If our sons and daughters fail, then we always have tuition that we would gladly pay for.

That is why I said it would be fair if Malay would still be taught but to choose on whether one would take it in an exam such as SPM or not is optional, and the format on how Malay is taught is compelling them to speak 'ye olde' Malay, which no one does in any other language; case in point, no one speaks Shakespeare with one another these days, only in plays; should we subject ourselves to such a thing in our daily lives. Furthermore, if it is so important, why is the Malay language spoken by the common Malay fused with English words in some sentences when they are talking; if it was a slang, why are even the people who are aged thirty, forty and above doing the same on television? It is already confusing enough that there are a number of Malay words that clearly came from the English language: televisyen, internet, bas; it all sounds too familiar.

So, the next subject would be Civil Studies, at first; I thought of Civil Studies to be a redundant subject that the government brought in as a form of propaganda to desperately attempt again to give birth to the patriotic spirit into the Malaysian teenagers of our generation. During the course of Form Four, I realised that some of the syllabus included civil law. So, from what I realised by this; the subject of Civil Studies itself was not useless after all, but it could be useful for students who are interested in Law. All that needs to be done is to remove the parts that actually contains actually syllabus regarding Civil Studies and move it into Moral Studies; then alter Civil Studies into Civil Law and make it an optional subject to take. Then Moral Studies can be added with some Socrates, Confucius and Plato which would result in Philosophy and it would no longer have to be for non-Muslims only as it would be for everyone and it would be optional.

Islamic Studies is a matter that I have to press on, I am not sure if anyone in the country notices but Islamic Studies is cluttered. There are five sections every year and each five sections has five to ten sub-topics, so one would end up having to memorise and understand: several passages in the Koran, several laws of Islam, traditions, important people, the hadith, the history, the creations and moralities; all crammed into one textbook. There is even an additional thing called PAFA which is a list of actions a Muslim will do throughout his life and it teaches one how it is done, the contents will not appear in examinations and it is useful. For those who would know, the Tilawah section could be separated from the textbook and be dealt like PAFA. The point of Tilawah is to teach Muslims how to read the Koran and understand the general meaning to the passage, to question the meanings of a few words in the passages in examinations is better left to the people who take Arabic as a subject. This would leave plenty of room for additional content or maybe none at all as the amount of things students would learn even without the Tilawah section in examinations would suffice.

I was discussing the matter with my friend regarding Science and Mathematics in school, while the content in Science is already as good as it is, all it needs is really just a minute modifications; I mean, to replace the PEKA* report we students have come to know. Instead of conducting an experiment twice in a year, experiments should be done on a monthly or even a weekly basis and reports would still be done but PEKA itself would be concerned with a detailed research of a topic or a theory with the student's own input, bonus credit would be to pose new questions or theories behind the topic. Mathematics and Additional Mathematics would be mixed together and the syllabus in mathematics in grade school would be more advanced, in example would be to start integers with the sixth grade and so on as the whole word studies mathematics as a whole, so why can't we?

These are just a few subjects that could be altered, although some might disagree; I'm willing to accept any criticism on it, as that is how one learns as well isn't it? By taking the good and bad into consideration, finding solutions for it and perfecting it.

How Education Works! The Format.

2009-01-03T10:44:00.004+08:00

The way the education system is currently functioning will not grant the goal of what I wish to accomplish but to change it is also a process is not the easiest the thing to do, it is to change the format of how school has been carried out for years and years, but perhaps now is the time for change as we can see the current format is not running as smoothly as it once was; it is the process of adaptation we humans are known for. The first move in this issue is to abolish a few of the existing examinations: PMR and UPSR. I never saw the significance of having those in the sixth grade to sit through an 'important' examination where the will still advance to the seventh grade or Form One whether they fail or pass. PMR which was meant for the ninth grade, but it is to decide whether one is eligible to enter the certain streams they wish to enter, I would remove them and let the decision of what stream they would be eligible to be in much better left being disguised as the End Semester Exam or Peperiksaan Akhir Tahun.

But that is the thing, the way exams need to be run should somehow include the method of production and integration, whereas twenty percent of it is based of what we learn, sixty percent based off questions which requires our own opinions or thinking and twenty percent on how we relate it to our life. But another alternative would be to have part of it done on the examination sheet and the other few parts would be done on research work which has been a minority that has been taken for granted hitherto(i.e Kajian Tempatan Geografi). While it may not be the most efficient way of taking exam, the main point is that there needs to be a better solution to deciding an individual's future aside from depending on his or her memory capabilities, that; under constant pressure to ace all the subjects, focusing intently on copying whatever is written on the book and putting on paper when the time comes without ever having to think about the contents of the topic, how it could be put to use or even improvisations on the matter, in short; what is learnt regrettably becomes a mere tool in a competition against fellow man and against an illusion of success that may never come. As the way school works now, no students really get the chance to truly think for themselves- to think that every answer to every problem can be found in a book. Perhaps it is in school but when we finish school and move on to university or moreover work, the conundrums we find in life are those that are not in the book unfortunately and it is those conundrums holds the potential to our future.

Also, I would liked it if there were only four subject examinations that are mandatory which is: English, Mathematics, History and Science(Biology, Chemistry, Physics or General Science). The rest shall still be taught but to choose whether one takes the exam for it is optional, as a multiracial nation; one simply cannot subject oneself to force a language onto another and have it mandatory test him or her on it, the main point of having schools teaching Malay is for us to communicate amongst the Malays and the vocabulary standard that Malay is spoken in today is no different than the level of how English is spoken in; today.

How Education Works! The Process of Education

2009-01-03T02:07:00.005+08:00

It is one of the rarest of times I find myself subjecting to my blog intended for the poetry and prose I write in life, but since now I am in the direst of times; perhaps it is time I shed some light and give my opinion on the matter that seems to govern everyone's concerns regarding the new generation with all the juvenile compromises and mishaps, and that is; education. I speak for the education system in my country and my country alone- so if you're a reader outside of Malaysia; please do not misunderstand the message I wish to convey. To start, the elusive conundrum behind the lack of morality and civility of our current generation is really mainly due to the 'lack' of education in the first place. One might stumble upon the thought: What about school? Isn't that where we go to get an education? The school my sons and daughters go to are prestigious schools in the country, so there shouldn't be any problems but I still find them subjecting themselves to the things only delinquents would do. Well, that is the thing, the problem is not in the type, the status nor the entrance fees of the school; but the problem solely in what all schools have in common: the education system.

There are three factors that governs the process of gaining knowledge: Absorption, Production and Integration. Absorption is basically the only thing our education system has adopted so far, it is the process of 'learning' where we attentively listen to our teachers, force ourselves to sit through a whole session of referring to referral books and textbooks or the constants drilling of exercises on the subjects that are being focused upon. Production is the process of 'putting what we have learnt to use', it is simply to describe what we make or create using the knowledge from absorption, whether be creating new theories out of the existing ones or to pose more questions to the ones there are today, in example: How would we manage Karl Marx's idea of communism to fit the needs of man? This is important as this is the key to how we, the students, get our opinions shared amongst the masses and the basis on how such an answer to a question like this should be marked should be based upon how liberal or how big the idea is of one's answer, the narrow it is; the less marks one gets or posing more ideas on how Chaos Theory can be applied. This is important as it is the way we; the students, share our opinions with the masses and to be able to actually 'think' for ourselves, that way we do not feel restricted to only memorising facts, sentences and formulas in the books as the proverb goes: "To learn what any fool can look up in a book,". Integration is the process of 'relating what you have learnt to everyday life', it is simply the process of making sense of everything we have learnt and finding out how it is applied in our daily activities; like incorporating a mathematical subject such as statistics into our daily lives. This ensures that we would know how to use the knowledge we have gained from school in the distant future, to ensure that the particular topic will be forever carved into our brains willingly.

That being said, if one takes the time to analyse which one of the three governing factors our education system upholds; you will find out that it only emphasises on absorption, neglecting the second and third factor. Making the process of learning; a process of copying and pasting from the books to the examination sheet, this repetitive method is probably the major factor behind the reason students find school to be a dull and mundane place worse still making the reason of gaining knowledge worthless, discarding the desire for wisdom because of the misinterpretation of how one gains it; without wisdom, man would slowly slip into a world without morality and we would wind ourselves back to the dark ages. But wait, are there not signs of the younger generation already slipping into this void? If so, why are we not doing anything? That's a rhetorical question I'm hoping you folks will solve. As the way I see it, if learning was such a thrilling and fun experience as it was back in the age of Reconnaissance, I'm pretty sure the amount juvenile delinquency we all are facing today could be halved or would even cease to exist.