Tuesday, November 29, 2011

T-MINUS ONE DAY.

Freedom, they say. I don't know what they're talking about. I mean freedom, defined quite literally, is the ability to do whatever you want, whenever you want without anyone or anything stopping you. Of course, for some people that might be true. Unless I can run away to New Zealand to finally witness live sheep bleating about and nomming on grass, I am not on of them "free".
But not being free is alright.
I mean, Tony Pua and Lau Weng San's dialogue is within 5 minutes walking distance and so conveniently after my last paper tomorrow. What a wonderful opportunity to get a first-hand answer on why he and the rest of the Opposition buggers in Parliment didn't even stand up for us today.
Now we have a sick-ass opposition to match our sick-ass government. Disgusting.
But besides the obsessive studying that I have yet to do after tomorrow, I must
  • go shopping. Alone. No one should have to suffer the terror of shopping with me. Have I said that before? Well I should warn you again. Do not attempt to shop with me. It would be better to have me kill you first because you will (have to) survive a shopping spree with me and you will live to regret it.
  • go watch a movie or have lunch with people I might never see again, like Jamie and Rachel. Shopping is just out of the question. Even more out of the question than part 1 of Breaking Dawn. But I'd rather see 50/50, and not just for Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Seth Rogen. Okay, maybe just for Joseph Gordon-Lewitt and Seth Rogen. Let's go. :)
  • get a job. Because as much as I want to go shopping, financial stability is way more attractive than a new pair of shoes. That and new acquaintances and more waffle to dump onto my CV and the experience...I think.
  • READ INHERITANCE. NEED I SAY MORE.

Thursday, November 17, 2011

Truth.

Now it seems to me, some fine things
Have been laid upon your table
But you only want the ones that you can't get

You ain't gettin' no younger
Your pain and your hunger, they're drivin' you home
And freedom, oh freedom well, that's just some people talkin'
Your prison is walking through this world all alone

The exposure made me almost not want to look up the words. Almost.
You better let somebody love you, before it's too late
It's not. Right?

Sunday, November 13, 2011

Adat Sezaman (Budak Sebelum Peperiksaan)

Memandangkan saya akan menduduki peperiksaan Bahasa Melayu SPM pada pagi esok, hanya munasabah saya bercoret dalam bahasa tersebut pada saat ini. Tiada setitik kegentingan pun di penjuru sanubariku (okei, saya mungkin melebih-lebihkan ) seperti kawan-kawanku yang begitu gementar dan merasakan keperluan yang teramat untuk melafazkan kecemasan mereka di Twitter. Walaupun begitu, hal itu cukup untuk merunsingkan fikiran saya.
Heh, saya bergurau je. Saya masih tidak merasai apa-apa. Mungkin apa-apa tekanan yang masih terhinggap di celah-celah hati saya saya rasa sebelum ini telah hilang ditelan pembersihan bilik saya tergesa-gesa pada pukul satu pagi ini.

Chua: A logistical nightmare to vote from overseas
Saya tidak memahami mengapa mereka masih ingin menerbitkan pernyataan-pernyataannya yang menyerupai jenaka itu. Saya sudah muak dengan nya yang tidak masuk akal. Bukankah warganegara Malaysia yang kini menetap di luar negara boleh mengundi dalam pilihan raya umum? Jadi setiap kali kita mengendalikan pilihan raya umum, SPR telah mencapai kejayaan yang begitu monumental, kan?
Saya setuju dengan penyeruan Ambiga bahawa setiap orang yang memiliki kewarganegaraan berhak mengundi walau di mana pun mereka berada dan kita tidak patut merampas hak ini daripada mereka. Malah saya berpendapat bahawa masalah ini harus diperlihat sebagai satu cara untuk memantapkan lagi sistem pengundian negara kita. Kenapalah kita mesti bersikap negatif terhadapnya apabila hal ini merupakan peluang kita untuk memajukan negara kita lagi?

Ada kalanya saya berasa begitu kecil hati terhadap matlamat dan wawasan yang telah saya putuskan untuk masa depan saya. Ada kalanya saya ingin berputus asa dan tak sanggup meneruskan perjuangan ni. Adakah saya mampu mengubah keadaan yang membelenggu kita pada masa ini? Tapi bila saya saksikan apa yang mereka sanggup lakukan, saya rasa semuanya berbaloi. Mungkin bilangan kecil ahli politik ini tidak boleh mengambil alih pentadbiran seluruh negara (seperti yang kita harapkan ni) tetapi mereka masih menabur segala tenaga mereka untuk meningkatan kualiti hidup kita. Walaupun usaha mereka kelihatan sedikit sahaja, mereka masih mampu mengubah keadaan rakyat bagai peribahasa yang berbunyi Apabila saya menyedari hakikat itu - pada masa itulah yang saya berasa bangga memiliki cita-cita begitu, walaupun saya tahu bahawa saya tidak bolehlah begitu yakin dan perlu berkerja sampai mati untuk sampai ke tahap yang diingini, bak kata pepatah pengayuh sayang dibasahkan, sampan tidak akan sampai ke seberang.
Yang kecil jangan disangka anak, yang besar jangan disangka bapa. Tunggulah saya.

Saya tidak akan menjemukan kamu lagi dengan catatan saya yang cacat ini (kalau kamu tidak berpendapat begitu, keajaiban itu hanya disebabkan saya disambung kepada alat sihir saya, Google Translate), tetapi lebih baik kamu membaca tulisan saya daripada mendengar saya bertutur, slang saya teruk sekali.

Monday, November 7, 2011

Fragments of hopes

#IveAlwaysWantedTo is trending on Twitter and like all other Tweeters in Twitterverse, I've jumped on the trending bandwagon. But as it always is, a 140-character limit is nowhere near enough for me to meluahkan isi hatiku, narcissist that I am. So here I am, back to my narcissism-saturated blog to update yet another post about...me. :)

#IveAlwaysWantedTo...
  • Climb a mountain. Then climb a snowy mountain. Jump into a sparkling clear blue ocean. Get tired by actually swimming. Trek to a waterfall. :) Experience snow. Jump into a pile of freshly raked autumn leaves. Realize it's hailing outside. Watch a sunrise on a deserted beach. Play hide and seek in a sea of sunflowers. Run around on a deserted prairie. Sleep on a deserted prairie. Somersault into a waterfall pool - once I actually learn how to somersault into a body of water. Dance around in the rain with Awakening by Switchfoot playing as background music like it does in the movies. Spend time in the wind.
  • Attend mass in St. Peter's Basilica. Spend a day in the Sistine Chapel and another in the Louvre. Attend a philharmonic concert with a full orchestra and classic symphonies, concertos, sonatas, everything. Listen to Gregorian chant live. Tour the Hagia Sophia. Be sprayed by the Yellow River. Get caught in a thunderstorm in the Grand Canyon and come face to face with a lightning strike even though Mr. Stephen forbade us to try it when he told us about it happening to Mrs. Karen's friend. Visit a vineyard in Napa or Italy, the Colosseum.
  • Run around with a bunch of sheep and a sheepdog. Have a tarantula dance across my hand. Watch a Basilisk run across a river live. Ride a horse (again).
  • Shave my hair off. All of it.
  • Break someone's nose with a fist. Break any bone in someone's body. Be threatened enough to break someone's bone because I believe violence should never be the answer unless my life or the life of someone else is in danger and violence could save it. But oh how badly I want to break someone's nose!
  • Cry in the rain after someone with background music playing. Blast some music and dance in an empty studio before a full-length mirror covering one wall. Go there every week. Sit on stage, strum a guitar and sing a love song to an empty hall. Write a bestseller and have a book signing session where I smile and say thank you and ask people for their names and sign for them until my right hand feels like it's about to fall off and I never want to write another book again.
  • Actually get into an actual romantic relationship, which I have never done before nor even seem capable of doing in the near future. I will get there. One day. I think. Maybe. Hmm.
    If I don't, I could always join a convent. :)
  • Eradicate a nation of backward beliefs. Give speeches, write articles that could widen narrow mindsets. Go around arguing with people - not to win, just to show them their way isn't the only way. Rid the country as much as possible of corruption and other various social ills. Teach them proper grammar! And then turn the nation into a forward, globally-revered country. :D
  • Go to Africa on humanitarian missions. Play with impoverished kids in the middle of China. Work in a soup kitchen. Volunteer at an orphanage. Give tuition to the needy (because every kid has a right to a supportive education) and watch my students get better grades for English. Experience being one of those extremely touched social workers. Inspire others to strive for their own heart-warming experience. Be heart-warmed until I feel like I have no more heart to warm and can die empty.
That isn't the end; I don't think I'll be able to do all of them before I die and I don't intend on doing most of the first half. Those are mostly just bits and pieces of dreams and odd desires that have clung on through life. But I do want to work in a soup kitchen, an orphanage, the PIHD free tuition scheme. I do want to show certain people that there are better ways to think things through. (And that if you're gonna call DAP unconstitutional for wanting PPSMI as an option you should have just shot down Najib, Mahatir and PAGE for good measure, Prof. Dr. Abdul Aziz Bari.) And if the situation permits, I would love to be able to go on a pilgrimage to Rome one day.

Listening to: Bedrich Smetana's Die Moldau, The Devil's Trill by Vanessa Mae and Sergei Rachmaninoff's Rhapsody. Mm.

Friday, November 4, 2011

Citizenly rantings.

Greece. The eurozone crisis. World economics. The Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The latest in the Arab Spring. The junta in Myanmar. World politics. How secure is Android against hackers now? The Holocaust. The Inca Empire and its downfall. The Boston Tea Party. Vietnam, Cambodia. All of world history. Theology of the Body. More on the Hagia Sopia, Allhambra, Angel Falls, Stonehenge, the Yellow River, the moai. (Real) Malayan history. Gila monsters, Jesus Christ lizards, red-eyed tree frogs, flap-necked chameleons, salamanders, sloths (these creatures are incredible). The state of migrants and refugees in Malaysia. Leptospirosis, osteoporosis. Winston Churchill. Mozart, Beethoven, Chopin, Tchaikovsky. Shakespeare, Oscar Wilde, more Robert Frost, Mark Twain. Hamlet, Julius Caesar! And brands. Dorothy Perkins, Ducati, the history of them all.

That isn't even near half the list. Oh, SPM. Just come and go already so I can begin to fill my brain with knowledge that actually counts instead of "moral values" and intergration of graphs that I will never apply.

But I am studying Sejarah. This will totally come in handy one day in not making me look stupid like: A law minister who doesn't know the law
A law degree?! Someone please send Nazri Abdul Aziz back to FORM 5. Sejarah Tingkatan Lima, m/s 163 clearly states "semua jenis undang-undang yang bercanggah dengan Perlembagaan Malaysia adalah tidak sah." It does not take a genius to figure that since the court has ruled Section 15(5) of the UUCA as 'unconstitutional', the act is totally invalid now.
Lesson of the day: do not take your high school education lightly else you want to end up looking the fool like this de facto law minister. Not even if it's a Sejarah syllabus you don't completely believe in.

Enough of this.
Way to go!
by Raya Petra Kamaruddin

Sometimes I wonder whether Hitler could have been right after all. He took action against gays and Jews and so do we. He dreamed of a national car and so do we. He wanted the tallest, biggest, longest, etc. building to be erected in Germany and so do we. He believed in Ketuanan German and so do we -- Ketuanan Melayu. Nazi Germany and Malaysia are almost like carbon copies.
Comment written by malsia1206, November 04, 2011 19:07:33
Maybe, maybe not. There are 2 glaring differences. Hitler sports a moustache. Not Mamak. And Hitler never utter "apa nama" during his time.
And look at Germany after 50 years of devastation since WWII. Compare with Malaysia after 50 years of "Merdeka". The comparison is indeed humiliating by any language.
THIS. What a way to view our situation.

But then you get people who, while are totally entitled to freedom of speech, come up with things like:
Chua, ask Umno why M’sia is already an Islamic state
It's not that it isn't reasonable, it's just that...well, I'm sure certain points could have been sent across a leetle more eloquently and without such...crudeness. Tsk, these citizen journalists so lack ethics.
Oi. Mengata dulang paku serpih, mengatakan orang dia yang lebih. Heh.

But more citizen journalism can wait for a while. SPM really is only nine days away, even if I don't care. Back to state papers it is. -.-