khairi mm

2010-10-05T10:49:00.000+08:00

Assalamu'alaikum, peace be upon you.
And Allah sets forth, as an example to those who believe, the wife of Pharaoh: Behold she said: "O my Lord! Build for me, in nearness to Thee, a mansion in the Garden, and save me from Pharaoh and his doings, and save me from those that do wrong" [Surah At-Tahrim 66:11]

Asiya, being the wife of the Pharaoh, had pyramids and castles and anything she could have ever asked for in this world. But she prayed for a mansion in Jannah, that is situated close to Allah, and denied and prayed to be saved from Pharoah the owner of all the material goods of his world. Subhanallah, how enlightened she was; unblinded from the fact that in her material richness, she was poor. And that while being the wife of a mighty ruler, she was in need of saving from her wretched state.

Dear Allah, unblind me from the deceit of the material richness of this world. Do not allow me to take coal for gold and do not allow me to chase signboards instead of the destination. Make me fantasize about gardens and mansions and springs and thrones and fruits and rivers and serenity and Your Face; the ni'mats promised to dwellers of Jannah. And remind me constantly that the house with a lap pool and purple crawling flowers and heavy good wood banisters and rocky-finished walls is nothing in comparison. For truly, your humble servant is constantly forgetful. Amin.

2010-09-29T23:11:00.000+08:00

Assalamu'alaikum, peace be upon you.

Today on the bus home, mulling and digesting all the stories heard and told today, i realised that noone has ever done something wow for me. as in like, for example, you can buy someone a bday present, a really expensive one or something the receiver really needed/wanted, but its unlikely to be something wow. what determines a wow action/gift is if it takes an outstanding amount of effort, and if it was done just to make the person happy, without said person having to ask for it. so anw, yes, initially it was a bit the very sad to not be able to think of anyone, like anyONE, not a family member or guy or girl, who did anything wow for me. bt then i realised tt theres hikmah in tt. cos noone can deny the special sweetness that comes from a first time. first time of anything good. even if the subsequent times are better, you can never replicate tt sweet tangyness of a first time. so yeah, im glad my first time of getting something wow hasnt occurred yet, cos when it does, i want it to be from someone utterly special. n it'll be sweet and pure. yes, PURE, cos it wouldnt be contaminated with residual thoughts of the other time u got something wow from someone who used to be special but is no longer so. n this is not sour grapes talking ppl, cos i really am convinced by this.

Talking about fantastical futures, i've been recently re-hit with a bout of "i want a house with a lap pool and purple crawling flowers and heavy good wood banisters and rocky-finished walls and an expensive husband to maintain all that."

Now wouldnt it be awesome to get para1 and para2 together? hehehehe.

2010-08-24T01:32:00.000+08:00

Assalamu'alaikum, peace be upon you.

Sometimes, the thing u've been looking for, or have been desperately needing but were too down and out to search for, turns out to be right in front of you. such is the generosity and ingenuity of Allah. Just a few minutes ago, i googled my name out of boredom. n came upon a friend's blog which mentioned my name. It was recently restarted, just like mine (except that she didnt relose steam so soon after, haha). n as i was reading her entries, i felt two things:
One, what a lousy friend i've been. To not have been approachable enough for her to have confided in me. Not tt i happen to have a perfect solution on hand, or tt im an awesome listener, but to atleast, i dont knw, be there. To say "what a lousy friend ive been" probably carries the implication that i was once a good friend, but you shldn't go away thinking that. really, ive never learnt to be a good friend. never been one. though i suppose, not tt ive never been given the opportunity. its like never taking a module though its always been available. yes, ive always been socially retarded like that, except today, im actually quite ashamed of it. You may think that Allah has given you something bad, but it may be that it is good for you, Allah knows and you know not. The ayat in baqarah goes something like tt. n my dear friend's blog reminded me of that. very applicable here because im thinking that the reason why Allah took away the "ONE" from me for now is to force me to take the friendship module already! instead of saying "i'll pass!" for forever.
Two, that that's exactly what im feeling, thinking, worrying! n more important than just feeling connected and not so alone (which is a big thing in itself), i find myself forming responses, advices, pointing out the loopholes in her argument and the silliness of her worries. padahal2, i once/still feel, think and worry about the same things. like wow, is this why ppl have friends? to lend them perspectives when they lose their own while swimming in their problems? eureka moment to the max.
Coincidentally (i must sooo find an islamic equivalent to this word cos u knw i dnt believe that awesome things just randomly happen, which is what "coincidentally" intrinsically implies), im mtg up with the friend tmr for buka and terawih. it remains to be seen if i'll have enough guts to do what i shld and have to, or cowardly withdraw with an F grade from this module. Allahulmusta'an.
i do know that my privacy is far from secured in this blog. that some ppl still have my link on their blogs and that its easily googled intentionally or accidentally. n im definitely not too comfortable with the prospect of mtg an acquaintance and somehow reading it in their eyes that they secretly knw more abt me than i think they do because they've literally read me. tt said, im still going to keep blogging openly here. who knows if 'coincidentally' reading my blog will make someone else feel less alone, and even better still, if it lends clarity and perspective to aid them in resolving their own issues. this is my contribution. may Allah in his infinite Wisdom use me for his purpose.

On a different note, ramadan has lived up to its blessed name thus far for me. Went to first lady with the dad baby sis and mum the other day to get baju raya shopping done and over with. i was also looking for baju biase2 to wear to masjid and sch and stuff. i picked out a jubah which was a little ex for its normal design but fits me, which is rare, and asked daddy his opinion on it. being practical, he asked if i'll wear it and how often. told him i'll wear to mjd and madrasah and prolly to sch but shhh dont tell ibu, hehehe. you see, my mum has been quite critical of my recent reversion to an 'overly' conservative dressing style. prolly partly because it makes her look bad and partly because she sincerely thinks tt im being too extreme. bt because im pretty stubborn, n she knws tt she is too, and tt tts a potential recipe for a huge fight, other than the occasional snide remark before i go out the door for sch, she has restrained herself from asserting her opinion on my dressing, and i've been, against my inclination, occasionally dressing 'skimpily' to prevent her from a full explosion of unsolicited fashion advice. anw, back to the story, i didnt get the jubah in the end cos its overpriced and i thought tt was the end of that. bt a few days later, my mum came out of her room with a few hangers of long and loose dresses and blouses that i hardly remember her ever wearing. n one by one, she asked me if i wanted them, citing that shes grown too fat to fit in them, and telling me how pretty they'll look on me. if ur not getting the significance of this, u missed the key words "long and loose'. heh. to top it of, while showing me one of the blouses, she said,"this one if u wear with beige or white pants nice..but u dnt wear pants eh, i think wear with white skirt also nice, u have white skirt right?" if i wasnt too shocked by it all and still very much socially retarded, i would have should have hugged her right then. it was awesome to hear those words from her, this time without the usually unmistakable stink of a snide comment. n then to end it off, that is after i accepted all her bajus, she said, "ok, now u dont need to shop for baju for sch anymore ah. see, i saved u so much money, u shld give me ur tuition money for this month, hehehe!" which makes me conclude that daddy must have told her what i said to him. which is awesome cos half the time i feel like daddy doesnt really listen to me, and for the other half, misses the underlying significance of what i tell him. n to the max awesome, is how after decades of marriage, my parents are still successfully shaping each other into better ppl. do u have any idea how hard it is to change someone? what more someone with my stubborn blood? Dear God, drop me a good boy who'll make me better please.

2010-06-22T00:35:00.000+08:00

Assalamu'alaikum, peace be upon you.

Of all the redundant slips, stacks, and files of papers ive kept for ages, why did i lose the slip that tells me if im immune to the Hepatitis B virus? Today i had lab induction and part of the process requires that they verify that i'm immune to HepB and tetanus. apparently im at risk of catching those two when i start working on blood samples. i found some docs in my health booklet stating that i took a tetanus jab in pri sch and that my parents were advised abt hep B. advised? can u get any more vague, heh. remembering that in sec3 i took a blood test, I searched all remotely possible places for that letter containing the screening results verifying that i dont have to be vaccinated for HepB because im already immune, but couldnt find it anywhere. So tmr morn, im gonna troop down to the uhc to ask the doc if im immune. haha, i can imagine the nurses at the reception being perplexed upon hearing that, considering that im supposed to be immunised before or upon entrance into nus, not 3 years after. oh well, at least i'll be sure and besides, i need to check if my more than a decade old tetanus jab is still valid.

Im beginning to believe less and less in coincidence nowadays. like seriously, of all the docs to lose? also, just last week, the prof specifically asked if i was ok healthwise. he insisted that i look anemic and suggested i go for a checkup. i just laughed it off then. it really was funny, cos i thought it was just a case of a bit too much powder and forgetting to wear lipcolour. besides, i went for Apex camp just a few days before and i felt fine. but coincidence... makes me wonder if i shld go for a thorough check-up, considering that i will already be at the docs office.

Rollercoaster

2010-06-01T01:29:00.000+08:00

Assalamu'alaikum, peace be upon you.

Today i woke up to happy news. sms from NUS announcing the best SAP i've ever had in my NUS life. haha, but no A+ or anything dean's list worthy yet. oh well, who needs to be perfect?

So then i trooped out and immediately emailed the Prof who had tentatively offered me an honours project more than a month ago, reminding him that i still exist and to remind him to register me officially as his honours pupil and to tell him that i can start work next work. All this not before i checked on the science intranet that my file for graduation (FFG) status is set for honours project, taking this as cue that ive been allowed to do honours.

Then i accomplished, very analy, step 1 of cleanign my room, which is vacuuming every single dust bunny including those in the aircon. All this while taking due precaution of wearing a daiso facemask to keep the dust mites from my allergic rhinitis nose. but of course how much can one expect from a daiso mask. So i collapse on the couch upon completion of step 1 trying to distract the nose from sneezing and trigering a full blown rhinitis attack that will last for days. n yet my mother wonders why i procrastinate cleaning the room.

So after a few naps and lots of TV, rhinitis attack was averted. only to be greeted by news of the attack of the aid convoy en route to Gaza. God, thats super sad. and ridiculous. like it was just a few days ago that the news showed the same convoy all geared up and praying on board the boat. i remembered thinking wow, its wonderful to still have wonderful ppl on this earth. well, last count, theres 19 fewer of them. n no, i do not remember being cynical or even afraid for their safety. silly old me, says cynical new me. I wonder if cynicism is a type of spiritual heart disease. hmmm, i suppose anything, when at extremes, is.

And then i went on fb to see how the community is responding to the attacks. surprise2, only one local friend, pol science student, had a fb status expressign his concern. on the other side of world, at York however, my friends' fb statuses are publicising an emergency protest on campus for the following day. emergency protest dok! im jealous or what. n is jealousy such a rawly wrong emotion for this scenario or WHAT. also, other unrelated fb photos on newsfeed also brought feelings of haiz-ness. yeah, i really dont think its jealousy, though tt would be reasonable. just haiz. haiz cos they lend evidence for my previous suspicions that someone really isnt what i thought he is. that he was just pretendign to be something hes not, probably subconsciously (does this count as husnudzon?), to 'win' me as some sort of prize. haiz also cos it makes me wonder if my principles in life have been too strict, too extreme, too terpedaya dalam agama. also haiz cos its wedding season and ive been praying for God to drop a good boy for me. heh. but its a good kind of haiz i guess. the sort that i would rather have now than 20 years down the road when im too old to be married what more have kids. i wish i had someone to talk to about this. a confidant. yeah, a confidant would be nice.

And the trigger for this blog entry is an email i just read from NUS, simply stating that ive FAILED the file for honours project. no reasons stated, no suggestions for the predicament. however, i strongly suspect its cos my credits during SEP have yet to be transfered. which is ridiculous since its been a whole semester. but not so ridiculous considerign the mother had been nagging me to nag them about it for ages. God, please remind me to listen to the mother; she has an uncanny ability to be right. so now im all filled with dread. not cos im genuinely worried tt i cant do honours. i mean i meet all the criteria! but dread-filled cos this is dejavu of all the other admin run-ins ive had, especially with nus. bleargh, im so more than mentally-prepared for solving this issue; loads of time-wasting from tracking so and so and being pushed from here to there to get some redundant form signed and in the process get more things to settle cos all the time-wasting throws me off from the deadlines. and who gets the blame? khairi. like come on, can ppl who are paid to do their jobs just do them already without outsourcing them in ridiculously time-wasting fashion to other ppl who pay them for their services? i mean at risk of sounding elitist, im an undergrad not an office staff.

and so this is how the fb status of the day announces my frustration with the nus admin to potentially the world. i think ppl resort to overdramatizing the small things as a compensation for having to trivialise the big things due to cowardice.

2010-05-25T03:13:00.000+08:00

Assalamu'alaikum, peace be upon you.
Thoughts after reading a number of old entries:
1. im such a GIRL. haha, thats a note-worthy statement cos its surprising to me. i've always had a self-schema that im a pretty non-girl girl. but the fact is that a significant percentage of my entries are about matters of the heart.

2. ive learnt so much. really, i really do feel more learned after 3 years of uni life. yes learned is the word. educated? yeah, but i didnt get educated as much as ive learned. n of course a consequence of learning alot is also changing alot. yeah, im a different person. so guys, if u couldnt stand me before, guess what, its time to try again! hahaha, ok, thats so funny yet so disgusts this most recent me. haha, God knows i crinch reading my witty cracks about checking out hot guys and such. like honestly, i never do and never did check out hot guys. but its just funny to say things implying that i do bother. though now it simultaneously disgusts me to think that i think (i still do!) that its funny. hmm.

3. i wish i'd been more specific in my entries!! like so far ive read like two rather landmark entries which im now not even sure what they're about! like was it this guy or that guy or was it a girl?? but i guess thats good in some ways right? it means my brain is function normally; refusing to remember all the details of painful memories. but u knw, reading one entry, which i assume im understanding in the correct context (we'll never knw will we?!), i found myself thinking Ooooh yeaaah, so tts why my current relationship with so and so is like this. haha, which is kinda worrying cos if i hadnt reread that entry, i would still have continued living a lie of sorts, totally convinced/clueless about how things have turned out the way they have.

4. i face the same issues and dilemmas over and over again. just in slightly different manifestations and each time just seemingly slightly more complex than the previous. does that mean that i should repeatedly make the same decisions cos so far im still alive? that i havent figured out yet.

khairi is still undecided if she wants to do exco next academic year. argh. interview is on wed.

People, this is gonna be fun

2010-05-24T03:32:00.000+08:00

Assalamu'alaikum, peace be upon you.
Its 3am and im restarting my blog. im more zen now, more than ive ever been in my life (i think). by zen i just mean minimalistic. really. as such, i simply clicked on a new standard template. gone are the now mostly redundant and non-functional links and tag board and music. n the old template tt ive always never quite liked anyway. oooh, tag board, i still want that. haha, mebe i'll relearn how to use the intrinsic comment function here. oh n if ur insulted tt i didnt give a second thought to deleting u as a link, dont be, its nothing personal. i'll relink u back, if its tt important. but all the old entries are still here, all intact, all the precious memories of my weak and flawed old selves. blog, ur a wonderful invention.

Its 3am and im restarting my blog. GOD, THIS FEELS GOOD. to be blogging again. to be talking to myself again for an extended period of time, beyond just to ask what i want to eat for lunch or how i wanna go home. to be able to retrace my words and delete and edit and read it all back..WOW. why did i even stop to begin with. oh wait i know why. heh, i just reread an entry a few entries ago. oooh, come to think of it, tt entry also tells me why im back! haha, blog, are u useful or what?

I guess its also cos for the first time in some time i really have nothing to do or on my mind to do. like seriously, for the past few years, its either sch or a preplanned relatively packed sch holiday. dnt get me wrong, its not like i planned for this hols to be free. nono, come june, its back to work, on the biggest work yet: honours project. but yes, for the next week or so, nothing at all, other than madrasah exam. oh and the visions article i just told hasan i'll write. and the exco interview i agreed to only because i was feeling too lazy to think about whether i shld go and she said reply ASAP whaaat. oh bother. it seems that freedom of tasks just eludes me. but i suppose tt is better than watching cable on the couch all day and feeling soo urgh when all the entertainment channels are playing something lame or something ive actually watched before because i was watching the cable all day the previous day. whatever happened to watching the education channels which was the raison d'etre for getting cable anyway? oh right, i discovered the entertainment channels which came with the package.

and it seems ive forgotten how to write a good blog entry. focus on the interesting thought provoking bits, NOT every single thing tt passes ur brain! blog skills in need of polishing.

i'll try again tmr. this time i'll remember to focus on Exco again next year?, What do i want to do with my life?, and my present state of being. dont hold ur breaths though. i might get distracted by oh i dont know, cleaning my room, hafaling surahs, trying to make fudge without a candy thermomenter? but for now, the redundant sleep (yes, sleep gets redundant when u dont need it to do all the nothing thats awaiting.) awaits. but not before a final bedtime treat of a random reread of an old entry. People, this is gonna be fun!

Quotable Quotes

2009-08-03T13:40:00.001+08:00

Assalamu'alaikum, peace be upon you.

Quotes accumulated in the past few weeks that should be written down because "sometimes people forget":

"If someone sincerely wishes to contribute his time and energy for a noble cause and for the pleasure of Alllah swt, no matter how seemingly incompatible he is, who are we to reject him?"
"If you choose someone to be a leader, and he turns out to be incompetent (whether you previously suspected it or not) is it his fault that he is incompetent or a failure?"
[therefore those who chose leaders are jus as responsible for the success of the task as the leaders who were chosen]

"We have accidentally and continually inherited a culture of arrogance."

"The best advice an army officer can give to a civilian regarding leadership: Don't lead like the way we do in the army."

"Don't look at where or what a man is now, for you have no idea what his journey was like. Look at the next journey that you can lead him towards."

"Do not underestimate the power of just mixing with the right people."

"What is money but just a tool; for ease of daily transactions, and for syaitan to tear brothers apart."

*Quotes are either adapted directly from wise brothers/sisters (whose names i shall not reveal as Only Allah swt may reward them sufficiently for the sharing of their knowledge) or were derived indirectly from enlightening discussions with even wiser brothers/sisters. Allah knows best.

2009-02-08T23:07:00.002+08:00

Assalamu'alaikum, peace be upon you.

وَمِنْ آيَاتِهِ مَنَامُكُم بِاللَّيْلِ وَالنَّهَارِ وَابْتِغَاؤُكُم مِّن فَضْلِهِ إِنَّ فِي ذَلِكَ لَآيَاتٍ لِّقَوْمٍ يَسْمَعُونَ
And among His Signs is your sleep[] by night and by day, and your seeking of His Bounty. Verily, in that are indeed signs for a people who listen.
[Sura Ar-Rum, 30:23]

and so khairi will listen. no more overnighting in school. My day in school will start no earlier than 6.30am and end no later than 11.30pm. Hear that world, for once, khairi is listening.

but im still going to do everything before i settle down and do nothing.

2009-01-05T23:00:00.002+08:00

Assalamu'alaikum, peace be upon you.

So i've really been abandoning this blog. n i've also been avoiding random msn convos. i'll be honest [cos tts what ppl are supposed to do on their blogs, believe it or not.], i knw the reasons why. its cos if previously i didnt have any person i trust enough and who is interested enough to let out to, now i do. so now i have not as much need/want to talk to myself via this blog. n well, random msn convos intrinsically annoy me waaay prior to any of this. ive just been more open about it now. its simple really, if it doesnt make me happy, i've got other better things to do. like watching scrubs on youtube, haha. also, if i havent been really genuinely busy lately, my tolerance level for random msn convos would be much higher, so stop there before accussing me of faking the (busy) status on msn. about the (appear offline) thing though, hehe, honesty still taking top priority here, yeahyeah, i've been an antisocial moth. oh go ahead and label me, i really cudnt care less. now, tts brute honesty.

anyway, back to the point about having lesser need to blog, well, theres still always things that are let go/analysed/rambled better on blogs rather than to a person, or God for that matter. ok wait, i'll take tt back, cos God, U knw i know tt im really using this blog as one of those means to figure what U want me to do.

my future. yes, the most perennial blog content since time immemorial when i started blogging, or talking to myself in the shower for that matter. but u knw the thing about growing up is that the closer u are to the peak, the more pertinent the fundamental qn of "what will make me happy?"gets. like seriously. i mean, i always thoguht that as u get closer to being grownup, u no longer ask the basics, u would have already gotten the basics done, that u would start obsessing about the how to get there and the details. but no...u really do start obsessing about what is it that u really want. or atleast i do.

so like recently, by recent meanign a few months now, i've decided on a personal yet firm basis that what i want out of this life is to graduate, get married, devote myself to bringin up great kids and live happily ever after. im serious. i have absolutely no plans of getting a moolah-paying career of any sort. Now, obviously the majority of the friends are either just waiting for me to get over this ridiculous phase, or jus have their eyebrows waay too up to allow their brains to think of a coherent response. why? because khairi is the smart one, the overachiever, the gogetter. shes not the submissive housewife. she always gets wat she wants, no matter how hard it is. how can she want something so easy? so possible.. so mediocre... but u know me, i really never give a sh*t to what my friends think, sorry to those of you who always assumed i did. i just do what i think is best for me and what i think will give me long-term happines. so the qn is, what do i really think?

Recently, i read a blog entry which stated smthing along the lines of "getting the psc scholarship is really important to me cos that would mean winning a first class ticket to my dream career of working in the uptheres of civil service". n i was like seriously? i wrote that? like i seriously forgot tt i was ever that serious about having a policymaking career. tt i was ever tt serious about rolling up my sleeves and putting the community right. i forgot that once upon a time i wanted to start my own Mendaki cos Mendaki is beyond screwed up to be refurbished. n tt was like jus a mere 2 years ago. u knw they say that the mind remembers what it wants to. n im wondering if my mind is playing mindgames with me. i mean, i knw tt i only recently confirmed that i dont wanna work, but tt was based on this idea that ive always wanted to not work, just that i never previously dared to come out with it. but maybe...ive never always dreamt of tt. maybe this really is jus a temporal " i is happy beign mediocre" phase.

recently, i started my UROPS. urops may as well be called thisistheshituhavetotgetthruifueverwanttobeagoodresearcher. ppl never do urops for fun. they do it to get a headstart on honours project. which they want to ace so tt they can win a phd scholarship. now, no part of my get married and hav kids dream include studying for a phd. so why am i still doing it? i tell ppl tt its cos its a usp requirement. now tt is jus dumb. cos i dnt have to do usp anyway since im not aiming for a job with a nice paycheque anw. im really doing it because 1) just in case i decide i do want a career. 2) i wanna do EVERYTHING before i settle down because then im quite serious about doing nothing. 3) in jc, when i was interviewing to score a research attachemnt, i told the interviewer that i've always dreamt of findign a cure for cancer, or one of those horrible diseases. which is why i signed on the dotted line with this urops; we're aiming to find the root causes of asthma.

recently, as evidenced on facebook, i visited ISTAC while on the KL study trip. the moment i stepped into the building/mansion, the first thought that hit me was "Dear God, this is what im giving up." Nono, im not talking abt giving up studying at a place like istac, im talking abt giving up ever owning a house as grand as that. n then i saw the carved hardwood banisters and i remembered that when i was 10 and we shifted out of the masionette, i promised myself tt one day my house will have banisters and stairs just like the ones there. i promised myself.

recently, i was also reminded that in sec sch, i already envisioned my bungalow house with a lap pool by the side. yes, a lap pool. its basically a pool thats the size of about 1 lane of an olympic size pool. n it goes like in an L-shape formation around the back of the house. n then there'll be a mini patio and very tall bushes with purple climbing flowers so that the neighbours dont see me in my bikini. yes, my dreams come equiped with downtothebikinis detailing.

n tts precisely it, MY DREAMS. if growing up to a happy life is about living your dreams, then what am i doing beign so determined about just beign a homemaker?

wat im doing is im prioritising my dreams. im shelving them in accordance to importance. the more important one in front, n the rest can be boxed and shoved to the back, only taken out at the annual springclean. so i guess its important to me that i give my full devotion to my husband and kids. i dont want to risk messign them up. i dont want to try to balance work and family. cos then they wont ever get 100%. i believe that can grant me happiness. but enough happiness to make up for the lap pool, istac banisters and satisfying career?

then theres the qn of 100% of what? my mother gave me 100% when she broke her bond to take care of me and my siblings. but its an open secret that shes never been very happy. n we all carry abit of emo damage growing up in such 100% of unsatisfaction. n u knw every woman intrinsically aims to be a better mother than their own.

in the initial stages of confirming that i jus want to get married and have kids, i could still hang on to the comfort blanket of the possibility that my husband will be rich a** and as such i can still have my istac banisters, my lap pool, and to an extent have a satisfying career of helping the community taitai-style. but reality bites, n gets u saying things like "Dear God, this is what im giving up" at the entrance of Istac, heh.

in the initial stages, and even know, i also hang on to the comfort blanket that what i dont get in the world, i'll get in the hereafter. n which is why i shld work towards getting to heaven. tt tt shld be the main aim, not happiness, but jannah. to an extent the decision to getmarriednhavekids and lead a mediocre inexpensive life is my attempt to find the shortest route to jannah. i mean come on, as a mother, u get heaven at the bottom of ur foot! haha, but seriously thinking about it, things are never that easy really. mebe i shld atleast try to juggle a satisfying career and family. because if the kids are not enough to get me to heaven, i'll have the cure for cancer and/or the effective Mendaki to earn me extra browniepoints with God.

so in conclusion, im just letting u guys knw that the next time u wanna strike a random msn/real convo with me startign with " So, what do u wanna be?" i'll tell u that im still asking the fundamental question of "What will make me happy and get me to jannah?" n then i'll settle into the awkward silence afterwards. cos what im certain of is that random convos still annoy me. that said, i love ppl who tag my board, haha.

2008-11-23T17:13:00.002+08:00

Assalamu'alikum, peace be upon you.

Because i should be mugging, here's a story for the rest of us who also should be mugging. haha, khairi's principle is "If ur going to be distracted, better to be distracted by the best book of all time, rather than books such as facebook, online autobiographies (aka blogs), and youtube (not a book, but the mother of all distractions! haha)." Enjoy.

An excerpt of Sura 18 Al-Kahf:
You can access the Quran in its original script and language here. This is an english translation by Dr. Mohsin.
Then they found one of Our slaves, on whom We had bestowed mercy from Us, and whom We had taught knowledge from Us. (65) Mûsa (Moses) said to him (Khidr) "May I follow you so that you teach me something of that knowledge (guidance and true path) which you have been taught (by Allâh)?" (66) He (Khidr) said: "Verily! You will not be able to have patience with me! (67) "And how can you have patience about a thing which you know not?" (68) Mûsa (Moses) said: "If Allâh wills, you will find me patient, and I will not disobey you in aught." (69) He (Khidr) said: "Then, if you follow me, ask me not about anything till I myself mention of it to you." (70) So they both proceeded, till, when they embarked the ship, he (Khidr) scuttled it. Mûsa (Moses) said: "Have you scuttled it in order to drown its people? Verily, you have committed a thing "Imr" (a Munkar - evil, bad, dreadful thing)." (71) He (Khidr) said: "Did I not tell you, that you would not be able to have patience with me?" (72) [Mûsa (Moses)] said: "Call me not to account for what I forgot[], and be not hard upon me for my affair (with you)." (73) Then they both proceeded, till they met a boy, he (Khidr) killed him. Mûsa (Moses) said: "Have you killed an innocent person who had killed none? Verily, you have committed a thing "Nukr" (a great Munkar - prohibited, evil, dreadful thing)!" (74) (Khidr) said: "Did I not tell you that you can have no patience with me?" (75) [Mûsa (Moses)] said: "If I ask you anything after this, keep me not in your company, you have received an excuse from me." (76) Then they both proceeded, till, when they came to the people of a town, they asked them for food, but they refused to entertain them. Then they found therein a wall about to collapse and he (Khidr) set it up straight. [Mûsa (Moses)] said: If you had wished, surely, you could have taken wages for it!" (77) (Khidr) said: "This is the parting between me and you, I will tell you the interpretation of (those) things over which you were unable to hold patience (78) "As for the ship, it belonged to Masâkîn (poor people) working in the sea. So I wished to make a defective damage in it, as there was a king behind them who seized every ship by force. (79) "And as for the boy, his parents were believers, and we feared lest he should oppress them by rebellion and disbelief. (80) "So we intended that their Lord should change him for them for one better in righteousness and nearer to mercy. (81) "And as for the wall, it belonged to two orphan boys in the town; and there was under it a treasure belonging to them; and their father was a righteous man, and your Lord intended that they should attain their age of full strength and take out their treasure as a mercy from your Lord. And I did them not of my own accord. That is the interpretation of those (things) over which you could not hold patience." (82)

A lesson for all in buruk sangka (=su'udzon) perhaps for those of us who are quick to accuse others of having done Munkar. And a bigger lesson on sabr for those of us who feel that injustice has been done to you, when in essence, Allah is the Best of judges. Be patient and soon enough, God-willing, you'll realise that you're better off with a hole in your sampan or a murdered son, for God knows best.

2008-10-21T22:51:00.002+08:00

Assalamu'alaikum, peace be upon you.

When i think of how pissed i am at ppl
who take what others do for granted
who tak tentu pasal nak marah2 orang
who should take a good look in the mirror
who are blinded from rationality by their selfishness
who are just asking for a slap to Wake Up Your Idea!

i think astaghfirullah (May God forgive me),

how many times have this weakling acted in the same horrible way to others?
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:
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Currently, enjoying Tuesday Crime Night. I totally don't deserve this weekly TV treat. i have been a very lazy girl. but on my defence i think i've come to the stage of stress where i find comfort by detaching myself from the world. i have no idea how i got here. bt i believe, whereever here is, God will provide.

2008-10-05T10:48:00.002+08:00

Assalamu'alaikum, peace be upon you.

The day before yesterday, i had a loong chat with my dad about my Physics Term Paper. Yesterday, i stayed home instead of going to school. Yesterday, i watched Bujang Lapok instead of doing my readings for Physics esssay assignment. Yesterday, i chatted online till i lost track of time.
I believe, Yesterday, i finally broke out of the cocoon.

and yesterday, i finally got started on my MS work that i've been neglecting. (altogether now) Alhamdulillah.

n i love Bujang Lapok, the very first one. Love how its so cleverly done, n yet underlyingly simple. SO pandai how they weave all these small2 stories highlighting the social problems at that time without making it preachy.
*sshhh suddenly terase macam nak buat drama lagi sshhhh* bt sesungguhnya i've sworn off acting. ok...i shall pendekan anggan2 ye.

Physics essay, onward!

Btw, i got it!! im going dotdotdot!
(hoho, due to certain reasons i cannot say what it is now. maybe if u ask me i'll tell.)

2008-09-30T20:54:00.002+08:00

Assalamu'alaikum, peace be upon you.

I've been anti-social. haha! understatement of the century or what? Lets see, for the past month or so i've:
1. Been mugging alone, in particular, Spent 3 full days of recess week in complete solitude mugging in school.
2. Not chatted with a single soul online.
3. Partially abandoned my blog.
4. Opted to buka outside instead of heading home.
5. Gone for minimal PR iftars, and didnt bother to socialize when i did.
6. Refused invitations to terrawih at Masjid. (I only went to the Masjid once this Ramadan, where a funny story happened. haha, ask me if u need a laugh)
7. Opted to terrawih in school alone more often than at home with the family.
8. Been going to bed before finishing sms convos.

I dont know why i've reverted to my old social moth habits...just when i thought that that was nothing more than a black speck of the past. I wish i could simply conclude that im innately like that, but how then can i explain the long spurts of anomalous social butterflyness of the past few years? Haha, maybe im just like that; i come in spurts. Like how i've been dealing with MS work. Short intense spurts producing good quality stuff, insterspersed with longer periods of near complete inactivity.

And yes, eversince the MS Iftar, ive been in my cocoon of inactivity. And then after reading the following, i felt immensely guilty....but somehow im still not moving, hmmm. maybe after the interview and two tests and essay assignment, i'll go into another spurt. insya'Allah.

سُوۡرَةُ الاٴنفَال
يَـٰٓأَيُّہَا ٱلَّذِينَ ءَامَنُواْ لَا تَخُونُواْ ٱللَّهَ وَٱلرَّسُولَ وَتَخُونُوٓاْ أَمَـٰنَـٰتِكُمۡ وَأَنتُمۡ تَعۡلَمُونَ (٢٧) وَٱعۡلَمُوٓاْ أَنَّمَآ أَمۡوَٲلُڪُمۡ وَأَوۡلَـٰدُكُمۡ فِتۡنَةٌ۬ وَأَنَّ ٱللَّهَ عِندَهُ ۥۤ أَجۡرٌ عَظِيمٌ۬(٢٨)

Sura Al-Anfal [Quran, 008: 27-28]
O ye that believe! Betray not the trust of Allah and the Messenger nor misappropriate knowingly things entrusted to you. (27) And know ye that your possessions and your progeny are but a trial; and that it is Allah with whom lies your highest reward. (28)

سُوۡرَةُ التّوبَة
يَـٰٓأَيُّهَا ٱلَّذِينَ ءَامَنُواْ مَا لَكُمۡ إِذَا قِيلَ لَكُمُ ٱنفِرُواْ فِى سَبِيلِ ٱللَّهِ ٱثَّاقَلۡتُمۡ إِلَى ٱلۡأَرۡضِ‌ۚ أَرَضِيتُم بِٱلۡحَيَوٰةِ ٱلدُّنۡيَا مِنَ ٱلۡأَخِرَةِ‌ۚ فَمَا مَتَـٰعُ ٱلۡحَيَوٰةِ ٱلدُّنۡيَا فِى ٱلۡأَخِرَةِ إِلَّا قَلِيلٌ (٣٨) إِلَّا تَنفِرُواْ يُعَذِّبۡڪُمۡ عَذَابًا أَلِيمً۬ا وَيَسۡتَبۡدِلۡ قَوۡمًا(غَيۡرَڪُمۡ وَلَا تَضُرُّوهُ شَيۡـًٔ۬ا‌ۗ وَٱللَّهُ عَلَىٰ ڪُلِّ شَىۡءٍ۬ قَدِيرٌ (٣٩

Sura At-Taubah [Quran, 009:38-39]
O ye who believe! what is the matter with you, that when ye are asked to go forth in the cause of Allah, ye cling heavily to the earth? Do ye prefer the life of this world to the Hereafter? But little is the comfort of this life, as compared with the Hereafter. (38) Unless ye go forth, He will punish you with a grievous penalty, and put others in your place; but Him ye would not harm in the least. For Allah hath power over all things.(39)

In light of Hari Raya Aidilfitri being here already (why does it creep up on me year after year?), and in light of my recent state of anti-socialness (chances are, i'll never work up the botheredness to apologise in person), i'll like to take this oppurtunity to apologise for my lack of tact, my outright rudeness and bad bad jokes. Not forgetting my failure to bother to acknowledge your presence or/and entertain your conversations when im feeling lazy. Do forgive me for when i purposefully and unintentially hurt you with my extreme indifference or extreme passion. And im sorry if this apology sounds insincere because im in a cant be bothered to edit mood right now. (Hey, atleast my apology doesnt contain any vulgarities, hehe)

2008-09-25T01:01:00.002+08:00

Assalamu'alaikum, peace be upon you.

Sura Al-A'raaf [Quran, 007:189-192]

هُوَ ٱلَّذِى خَلَقَكُم مِّن نَّفۡسٍ۬ وَٲحِدَةٍ۬ وَجَعَلَ مِنۡہَا زَوۡجَهَا لِيَسۡكُنَ إِلَيۡہَا‌ۖ فَلَمَّا تَغَشَّٮٰهَا حَمَلَتۡ حَمۡلاً خَفِيفً۬ا فَمَرَّتۡ بِهِۦ‌ۖ فَلَمَّآ أَثۡقَلَت دَّعَوَا ٱللَّهَ رَبَّهُمَا لَٮِٕنۡ ءَاتَيۡتَنَا صَـٰلِحً۬ا لَّنَكُونَنَّ مِنَ ٱلشَّـٰكِرِينَ (١٨٩) فَلَمَّآ ءَاتَٮٰهُمَا صَـٰلِحً۬ا جَعَلَا لَهُ ۥ شُرَكَآءَ فِيمَآ ءَاتَٮٰهُمَا‌ۚ فَتَعَـٰلَى ٱللَّهُ عَمَّا يُشۡرِكُونَ (١٩٠) أَيُشۡرِكُونَ مَا لَا يَخۡلُقُ شَيۡـًٔ۬ا وَهُمۡ يُخۡلَقُونَ (١٩١) وَلَا يَسۡتَطِيعُونَ لَهُمۡ نَصۡرً۬ا وَلَآ أَنفُسَہُمۡ يَنصُرُونَ (١٩٢)

It is He who created you from a single person, and made his mate of like nature, in order that he might dwell with her (in love). When they are united, she bears a light burden and carries it about (unnoticed). When she grows heavy, they both pray to Allah their Lord (saying): "if Thou givest us a goodly child, we vow we shall (ever) be grateful." (189)
But when He giveth them a goodly child, they ascribe to others a share in the gift they have received: but Allah is exalted high above the partners they ascribe to Him. (190)
Do they indeed ascribe to Him as partners things that can create nothing, but are themselves created? (191)
No aid can they give them nor can they aid themselves! (192)

And finally i truly grieved.

Pimples happen

2008-09-05T12:33:00.002+08:00

Assalamu'alaikum, peace be upon you.

I have a mega pimple on my nose. If you wonder why its there, the official answer is that harun has been working me too hard*. but unofficially, well, pimple (shit) happens.

*its a joke btw. laugh.

Ramadan is here once again! and once again it started without any conscientious goal-setting on my part. nurzaihan will be so dissapointed in me, heh. but seriously, dang! if nani needs to stop procrastinating paying her debts from last Ramadan, i need to stop procrastinating planning my welcome party for Ramadan.

But time waits for no man right? So yesterday was my 'first' day of Ramadan and i was set on fulfilling my goal of terrawih-ing and quran-ing before leaving school. heh, naturally that was overambitious of me. i ended the meeting late (i wanted to say "the meeting ended late", but i think that'll be a half-truth cos i was inadvertedly responsible for that.) and took the bus home.

But heres where the nikmat of Ramadan comes in; upon reaching home and momentarilly falling asleep on the couch, i got up and terrawih-ed. heh, thank you God for chaining up all the syaitans. But i guess syaitan is only the first obstacle to the ideal. Cos i didnt quran. heh. i blame it on my humanly nafsu and need to sleep. I always wondered why God bothered chaining up syaitans when we will still inevitably sin due to our notty nafsu. It occurred to me yesterday night, as i struggled to finish witir without zonking, that God can't remove our nafsu, even for a month, because then we will forget that we are weak. We will forget that as weaklings we should worship and ask for help from the only omnipotent God.

And we will forget that as weaklings, pimples happen.

2008-08-19T22:42:00.002+08:00

Assalamu'alaikum, peace be upon you.

Today while ploughing through physics readings in the sci lib, i had a sudden intense craving to shop for clothes. Knowing that i was experiencing preliminary symptoms of a full-blown impulse shopping episode, i smsed someone expressing my anxiety. The someone told me to go ahead and shop. seriously. dang, u should NEVER choose someone who wants you to be happy no matter what to be your sponsor when attempting to quit a habit. hehehe

And so i packed up, rushed maghrib and went shopping. I came home with a dress a little too short for my liking (yes, i have a tendency to underestimate my own height. weird huh?), pyjamas which i dont need and a portable telekong set thats of a really strange purple colour.

Quiz time! Where did khairi go?

2008-08-10T17:35:00.002+08:00

Assalamu'alikum, peace be upon you.

[Heres the 'severed fingers and compartmentalisation' post i promised. getting it done and over with before my 5days 10-8pm weeks begin.]

The other day i attended a whole day safety workshop. Towards the end of the day, when everyone was pooped and full with lunch, the speakers started getting creative in their bid to catch and maintain our attentions. One particular imsofunnydontyouagree speaker decided he'll keep us awake by flashing gruesome pictures of badly burnt torsos, severed fingershandsfeetleg, bodyparts blackened by cold nitrogen burns, and punctured eyeballs amongst other things.

and that was when i realised sesungguhnya, khairi, you have lost your ability to compartmentalise. because i swear i was reduced to being a squirmish shuteyesearsCANYOUSTOPITALREADY giiiirl. heh. i've never been a fan of horror flicks and i've always been the sort who would autocover my ears at the scary parts [strangely, i dont have the reflex to cover my eyes though] and i always cite my fear of seeing badly injured people under intense pain as one of the reasons why i never considered Medicine, but boy, i dont remember ever being this squirmy. heh.

and its just like how i dont remember ever being SOO affected by what ppl think/say about me.
so linking these two recent incidents together, i conclude that i have lost my ability to compartmentalise. to think rationally even when experiencing intense emotions. to separate the intense emotions from what needs to be done. to stop overreacting. to not perasan berlebihan. to not be such a girl. all of those, i have lost. dang.... you dont know wat you've got till its gone. thats all i can say.

i dont know what has caused me to lose this ability. although i admit i have changed a lot in the past few years. for the better mostly. so maybe this inability to compartmentalise came as a package with one/few of the other changes. i dont knw. in fact, come to think of it, i'm quite sure, there was once upon a time, when i actually asked God to make me more affected, as in, more sensitive and more empathetic. maybe i got what i prayed for?
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:
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but after a lot of thinking, i think
Sesungguhnya it is only human for us to see that the grass is always greener on the other side.
And No, God isn't an evil genie who twists your wishes before granting them all wrong.
God is good
And it is our weaknesses that impedes our ability to see Him as He eternally is; Good. fullstop.

On a very different note, if you're ethnic chinese [i mean 1 whole chinese. haha,no halfs, no quarters and no eights (tts me by the way)], please visit http://freeallergytest.blogspot.com/.

And i lost 2kg. i have no idea where from.

2008-08-08T00:19:00.002+08:00

Assalamu'alaikum, peace be upon you.

I have tiny pieces of tissue stuck to my fingertips. dang it. khairi used super glue today. i swear the few moments before i opened that tube, i was SOO sure that this will be the day; the day i manage to use super glue without getting any on myself. heh, so much for the power of confidence.

i think theres a chemical tt is commonly found in labs that can be used to easily dissolve super glue. if only i knew wat it is[padahal2 google is like only a touchpad-click away eh..], then i can cope tmr.

talking abt lab. yes, im still very much goin to lab. eventhough my special sem is over. [which reminds me tt i still have no idea when the final grade is goin to be out]. Im currently hmm. i have yet to think of an elegant way to put it despite already explaining it to a number of ppl. well, basically im doing saikang[hoho, so much for putting it elegantly!]. haha, unpaid, uncredited work. for a lab. yup. attached at a genomics lab doing research on allergic diseases, mostly asthma. thing is, im not attached through formal means like urops. im just there, haha. the idea is to just get the experience and then do a one year urops nextnext sem and then i'll be quite prepared for my honours year. yup. as u shld knw, khairi is a super slow learner. so im very intimidated by the idea of going straight into a long-term graded lvl3000 urops. so this is my idea of a gradual transition i guess.

haha, khairi bebual as if i've planned it for years. but honestly, subhanAllah, its all been God's grace. only He fully understands what i can't seem to express even close to concisely. lets just say this really is turning out to be quite a pleasant surprise.

n im excited for MSA/W tmr! haha, seemingly so random, but its cos i jus remembered tt i hav to wake up early tmr for lab, n so i shld really go to bed cos i dont want to have heavy eyebags for MSA. heh, been a while since i've felt excited abt smthing as redundant as MSA. hoho, cant wait!

n i just rembered tt i wanted to blog abt smthing INTERESTING (ada org tu perasan tau, jgn tak perasan) but sesungghnya super glue led me astray. nehmind, just remind me to blog about severed fingers and compartmentalization.

ok dah. nunight!

2008-07-26T10:10:00.003+08:00

Assalamu'alaikum, peace be upon you.

When something(s) too good to be true happen(s) to you,
You better believe that its happening for a reason.
What is the reason?
Only God knows.
But you can bet your lucky underpants that it is for a good reason.
And eventually you will know what it is.
But for now
Appreciate
Appreciate
Alhamdulillah
Make full use of the unexpected blessing(s),
The unexpected ease,
The unexpected 'coincidences'
In your journey
down the Righteous Path.
Because that's the best way to say
Alhamdulillah.

Letto - Sandaran Hati - Letto

2008-07-17T21:49:00.002+08:00

Assalamu'alaikum, peace be upon you.

[where do i %#^&@$!% begin??]

ok first up FOC Refuge Zero Aid. It was a smashing success if i may say so myself, muahahaha! but after the comfortable feedback session we had [aizat bans us from using the phrase 'post-mortem' cos he doesnt think anything died. i beg to disagree cos i feel like something died and flew to a better place after this baby of a project was over], i conclude that it could have been unbelievably BEST if we had paid the same amount of attention to detail and perfection to subevents like the HortPark concert and Ministerial Dialogue and the narration of the plot, as we did to say the SouthernRidgesTrail. in any case, i think every comm member is sufficiently satisfied with how the camp turned out. many2 happy faces alhamdulillah. it was all worth it.

see! it pays to take a lot of pride in one's work. it pays to invest in anal-ity when the stakes are high. it pays to be pragmatic and it pays to get things done properly no matter the cost. cos in the end, the value of success will make it all worth it. hah! and with that KHAIRI MM IS BACK! yup. heres letting the world know that i've finally officially and long-termly jumped out of the Depressed bandwagon and back on the road to making this world a better place one baby project at a time. no more being overly affected by the words of others. no more self-doubt. no more second guessing. no more guilt. and dear God, no more tears, please.

[heres also a disclaimer that despite the overly anggek tone of this entry, khairi still seeks to be a better and more humble servant of God. give me a break just this once lah can... sm1 just got her mojo back. ]

then theres Pesta Pantun Finals. supposedly my last ever event. haha. Na'im was grining crazily from the start of the day to the end. it definitely is his last ever event. me? i found it hard to manage a smile. haha, was freaking jealous at his ability to find so much joy in finishing off this event. i suppose maybe its cos its not definite yet whether it'll be my last event ever.
In any case, the finals was filled with hiccups here and there, but nothing too major alhmadulillah. but kesian ada org tu kena lari ulang alik...tapi takpe..memang dah sah tugasnya diberi nama 'runner' buat sebab2 yang tentu lagi obvious. glad the deserving team won the competition though i would really appreciate it if they had better work ethics [Wak Tanjong, you still owe khairi your pantuns!]
The 'edisi khas's that me and Na'im came up with was meriah and entertaining and im sure the contestants had fun playing. there were some lobangs in one of them though and they allowed one team, i shall not mention who [HINT: it doesnt pay to mess with khairi, hehe] , to repeatedly main busuk. fixed that problem by tweaking the point system at the last moment.
And after it was all over, we went to solat at mjd sultan where i noticed girls looking at me. haha, but i was lentoking by then, so i didnt think too much about it. turns out they were kids from the camp. orh..makes sense. but what didnt make sense was why they hurriedly and sheepishly walked past us when they bumped us again at a subsequent busstop. haha, apeni segan2? kite tak makan org dok. lain kali cakap 'hi' yer...

and then, theres LSM2202. hoho, i realised that i never officially announced that i managed to get this special sem lab module afterall! its been totally awesome thus far. other than the fact that i came out near the bottom of the class for the first 30% CA. haha, but i shall take that in stride cos i know i didnt give my best, having been busy with FOC [the test was on the 2nd day of camp dok!]. what matters is im enjoying myself.
i've found myself some LSM brothers! hahaha, more like bra-ders. it all started with khairi coming late for the first lab session and being randomly paired up with whichever poor soul who hadnt yet found a partner. that poor soul who is now my lab partner is part of this close clique of highly motivated yet fun chinese guys. the sort who are not arrogant nor stingy with their knowledge. alhamdulillah, for the continued existence of ppl with such attitudes. and then theres this pair of super senior slack jack guys on the same bench who also click well with us. and so there u have it, a 2/3 bench gang, with khairi being the rose amongst the torns, muahaha! u should hear all the lame jokes these guys tell. totally cold, but i think i started it with my 'tearer-ist' joke [ask me n i'll tell].
anw, i made it a point to document my new found friends because i believe these are the first few real non-Malay/Muslim friends i made through my major. hahaha, padahal2 dah satu tahun sch! ok, khairi shall so take more initiative to make real friends next sem.

ok, i think i covered everything...oh wait! theres the Secret Project i started on once i was done with FOC and PP and was sufferring from withdrawal symptoms. haha, completed tt yesterday night and i think the product was very much appreciated. yup, n i totally was at peace doing it, so i think it might turn into smthing longterm to help me cope with my anal urges. yup, but dont count on it, cos u knw lah...semangat spuluh saat.

so now, the future. argh, why cant the present last forever? im basically at this state where im not only undecided but also malas nak fikirkan. sm1 pull me out of this rut, puh lis.

Reunion comm mtg and Muslimah Night tmr. mebe tt'll help.

unhappy, lost and unwell

2008-06-29T00:42:00.003+08:00

Assalamu'alaikum, peace be upon you.

What if you woke up one day a totally different person?

And everyone who once hated you starts liking you.

Will you be happier?

OR will there begin to appear another group of people who can't stand you.

What if you woke up one day a totally different person?

And you cant stand the person you now are.

Will u never be happy again?

If the grass is always greener on the other side,

And you're always headed towards the greener side,

Wouldn't that make you forever lost?

unhappy, lost and unwell.

2008-06-07T22:04:00.003+08:00

Assalamu'alaikum, peace be upon you.

i've been rubbing my eye for the past hour or so. I think i got an eyelash into it again. haha, n im too dem lazy to move my butt and wash it out. heh, which reflects my attitude for the past few days/weeks really.

the other day, i stayed home the whole day instead of going to school for meeting (as what has become per normal). And i actually stayed put at my desk the entire day. haha, n i only realised it when daddy curiously asked me at night: khairia tak sekolah kan...so..kerja apa khairia buat satu hari?. haha, i was doing pantun stuff. not tt there was tt much to do...but u knw how it is in the hols, when u no longer have to rush to school or finish tt assignment or lab report, u just tend to take ur own sweet time. i wouldnt call it dillydallying though, cos i wasnt distracted by anything, but yeah, ur pace just kinda slows down.

so pesta pantun has been hmmm. i believe the word is trying, haha. lets just say in the span of more than 1 academic semester, we've gone waay downhill from the initial ura2 plan of bringing pantun to TV to having just 7 teams competing. haiz. bad timing? lack of accurate focussing of efforts? just plain old bad luck? i dont know. but this is one post-mortem that im not looking forward to. not because there will be a lot of mistakes to be discussed regarding what let to (sh)it, but rather because of the lack of anything to discuss. Its like (sh)it just happened for no good reason. heh. someone recently said that i take a lot of pride in what i do. yeah, its tt part of me that cannot tahan this situation. Its like, i dont mind flunking smthing so long as i can pinpoint what went wrong. haha, i get just as much satisfaction from being able to pinpoint what went wrong as i would if i actually succeeded. so yah, pm will suck.

but anyway, i've invested way too much passion, energy and time into it already. but most importantly passion. if u know me, u'll know tt im not a passionate person. i dont have a favourite food/game/show/book/etc. so yeah, put in waay too much passion into this. So, im not goin to let it go just like tt. so far, saringans have been pretty good considering. for one, i think we totally nailed the whole changing the whole concept of pantun from formal-bahas-like, to santai-tepi-pantai-like. hoho, i liiike. will try to end it with a bang, insya'allah. but even then...doubt i'll be satisfied. heh, so how? do pantun again next year? muahahaha! right...

And then theres FOC. the OTHER BIG THING im doing currently. But alhamdulillah, the programme has taken quite a concrete shape, and boy do i love it. absolutely sukeeer how everything fits sooo nicely together. now its just a matter of turning paper into reality. n if ur working with khairi, thats problematic because im very unprepared to compromise the pretty ideal paper for ugly but practical reality. it just doesnt make sense to me; like u already put in soo much brain juice into coming up with a pretty ideal paper plan, how can u give up making it into reality without a fight??n im like tt because i take pride in my work? haha, who would have thought that that one liner comment in your pri sch report book would actually haunt you later in life. but yup, im prepared for hard work to get what i want. i suppose the problem lies when others dont want perfection as much as i do. n the problem really gets sucky when i attempt to fix the earlier by doing stuff myself. so how2? wo bu zhi dao. (walid, nadia, correct my hanyu pin yin hor.) but khairi shall go with the flow lah hor...take things one at a time. ultimately, its just a camp kan...(and of which i wont, cos i cant, be attending half of it pun.)

recently, i also spent quite a bit of time replanning my academic plan for the next 3 years. yeap. REplan. cos shit happened. like not being able to go exchange in yr 2 sem2. not being able to do lab mod in special term. not being able to cope with 5 mods per sem. yup. so now, im all set for the new academic year. with a clear plan of how im going to go about getting what i want.

Only problem is, being simultaneuosly busy with pantun and foc and planning my acads leads to thinking about what i havent been wanting to think about. my non-acad plan for the next 3 years, or the next acad year atleast. haiz. this one i really dont know. really having second, third, fourth and so on thoughts about you know what. shucks, i dont even wanna say it. haha, but smhow i just feel that im going to end up doing it anw. its just a matter of how much im goin to really enjoy it, and how much others are going to enjoy having me doing it. oh well, we'll see lah hor.

Just stop it lah! Stop being arrogant with your intelligence. Truly, our view of the future is, analogically speaking, as narrow and naive as a five year old's as compared to God's view.

2008-05-25T19:08:00.002+08:00

Assalamualaikum, peace be upon you.

yes, i realise its been a ridiculous amount of time since i last blogged properly.

i dont know, just no time and inclination to blog recently. haha, now im beginning to understand how ppl can just suddenly decide that they no longer have a need for a blog and just delete it. but nah, dont think i'll be doing that just yet.

ive been amazingly busy eversince the exams ended. Like much busier than i anticipated. haha, to think that i was dreaming of lazy days at the cl/sci library slowly reading those lovely books and films that i can never seem to find as easily at nlbs, and just letting the day go by, leaving at night feeling a little more enlightened and a lot more curious than when i came in in the morning, aaah...

haha, okok, those days will come eventually, i hope. prolly when im done with all those projects and settle down into my special sem. but why do i get the feeling that special sem is going to just fly past and the new sch year begins? n that once/before im done with my current projects, i would have signed on to new ones. heh, im soo never going to get around to making full use of my school fees, muahaha! but seriously ppl, u should go make use of the school library while u still have free membership. [i like should so join the library club...haha...hmm, i wonder if nus has a library club...]

so, anw, i was saying that ive been more busy than anticipated. Thats cos i thought that the only things i'll be occupied with this hols is pesta pantun, madrasah exams n special sem. but im now in ms/pbm foc progs, so heh, thats like just a truckload of work, before adding the fact that its happening super early this year (7-10th July) n so im just swamped n mentally drained.

but its mostly the good sort of swamping. other than the few moments when i get overwhelmed, that is. but even so..i dont know, i guess im used to having such moments of overwhelmness, so i dont think too much abt it. haha, its like yeah i dont worry too much about it cos i knw im just digging my own hole cos of my analness. so if it really gets too much, i know that i can crawl out anytime. n i like the excitement lah...the adrenaline rush frm being a workaholic...yup, like it as much as i like lazy couch potato days. that said, definitely still appreciate ppl's concern for my stressness, though i insist tt im not [self-denial kot, haha].

hmm, i wanted to blog abt ayat2 cinta. but tts like soo basi already. even so, i cant resist but mention that after watching the movie for the first time with the mother, we both totally agreed that the moral of the story is veh simple: "Don't so gatal help soo many girls!...n then act clueless when they all fall for u somemore... tsktsk. like come on..u think ur the victim here? u were soo asking for it lah. " hahaha, me n the mother are mini feminists that way.

ok dah, i shall get back to work. woots!

The Mother's cupcakes

2008-05-10T15:40:00.020+08:00

Assalamualaikum, peace be upon you.

Ok, this is the long overdue post on the mother's cupcake mini business. or shld i say, the long overdue enforced Advertisement, hehe.

So yeah, this is like so breaking my err tradition/self-enforced rule of not putting pics directly on my blog. im a proponent of authentic traditional blogging [if theres still such a thing, hahaha]; just words.

So lets get on with it.
The mother sells the following cupcakes by the half-dozen (packs of six) at $6 per set (ie, $1 each cupcake ah). Minimum order of $30. The cakes come in 5 main flavours: plain vanilla, chocolate, chocolate chip, oreo and orange. Special flavour requests are entertained. Similarly, requests can and should be made regarding the decorations on the cakes. Self-collection at my house or cck interchange only. Tag or email me if you're interested. At least 3 days in advance, please. Yup, i think thats all. I'll let the pics speak for themselves n enjoy!

For a 10-yr old girl's birthday party

Pink, flowers, swirls and hearts.

Same diff. Decorations made using creamy icing and jelly icing and this marzipan-like dough thingy, hahaha.

Carebear chocs! haha, its the white and black bears. Other types of characters can also be made using choc and other flavoured and coloured candies. N the hearts veh cute right? khairi make one...muahahaha! puji diri sendiri keper...

And i made these ice-creams too. yesh, they look a bit cacat. what to do...dulu kindergarten art and craft tak pass...haha. But do appreciate the detailing in the wafer cones.

Ok, the mother loves the one on bottom right. psychedelic, she says. hehe, sooo hippie.

Butterfly!

More butterfly!

And this is how they all nicely stack up for ease of transportation.

Into the bag and you're ready for the party!

For a wedding

Many2 layers of cake after cake! All stacked up nicely in a box. 300 odd pieces in all. Arranged on a tier at the wedding for guests to help themselves to. Sorry, dont have pic of that tier though.

Classic, neutral designs.

Close up. And another.

And im out of pics. hehe. hope none of you are/were on a diet...

Baqarah 286

2008-05-01T22:55:00.003+08:00

Assalamualaikum, peace be upon you.

ok, ive been, as daddy puts (n kept putting) it, literally melekat (=stuck) to the couch in front of the tv today. Eversince i woke up, its been movie after movie after movie. Haha, watched this Indon movie on RTM1. i think its called smthingsmthing Vin smthing. hehe, yes, im so clever n helpful i know. But the point is it made me feel terase. Haha, lets just say the plot, where the main character grapples with her lifelong issues with fear of attachment, trust, being loved...just basically letting ppl into her life, just made me feel terrrrrase sangat2. especially how it was all due to her traumatic childhood with her mum...hmmmmm. ok nehmind. moving on! [haha, sm1 also nds to learn to not run away]

Then right, i watched a tamil movie. cos right smone say i neh watch enuf hindi movies. but this one tamil...but nehmind, close enough, haha. This one, the name i remember, haha. Its called Kaloori=College. This one also veh best seh. Also made khairi terase sangat2....but on a different issue. About maintaining the sacredness of friendship, to the extent of even forgoing any other forms of love that accidentally develop. But the ending was argh such a plot twister. gah... i was banging for a happy, or atleast anti-climatic ending...last2 climatic in a bad sad sense. bleah, made me feel so wasted for watching until the end.

so then, it was just on time for Dodgeball. hahaha, so i watched tt too. n no, this time takde terase ape2 ok...hahahaha. just pure entertainment.
Kikik (my 'baby' sis): Abah, 'sudden death' to ape? ( in relation to the game)
Me: "Sudden death" tu kan, kena hit opponent dier nyer telinga. muahahaha!
Abi: Stares blankly at me.
Me: eh, laugh ah..funny wat....
Abi: funny? wats so funny? its not funny at all...
(a few mendak seconds later, n the ball actually hit smone's ear)
Me: Aah kan! kik tengok! sudden deaf(th)*points to ears*...muahahaha!
Abi: haha...not sudden deaf lah...sudden death (pronouncing it exactly the same)!
Me: *PRETENDS to tak faham*
Abi: Sudden death tu ....
haha, yeshyesh, i knw my sense of humour veh salah..even my daddy doesnt understand.

n no, im not done with exams yet, still got 1 stats paper next tues... i just felt lazy today. n yesterday's mini nightmare with getting a bus home after 5pm exam at mpsh just made me really tired. such tt i woke up late today. n u knw khairi, i get very2 malas to do anything when my day doesnt start off perfectly. well, i figured i can afford to waste a day.... key letters here being figurED...hehe, now im not so sure. n i feel a bit the very bad also cos right some ppl dont have so much luxury as i do as to be able to spend dayS on end just mugging for one paper. yup, so im not being grateful for this ease that God granted me. And so, tomorrow khairi shall wake up early n mug hard.

In the time being, i shall make full use of my inertia to start studying by sharing another mini epiphany. this time even mini-er ah, but nehmind, may sm1 get sm benefit from this, insya'allah.

لَا يُكَلِّفُ ٱللَّهُ نَفۡسًا إِلَّا وُسۡعَهَا‌ۚ لَهَا مَا كَسَبَتۡ وَعَلَيۡہَا مَا ٱكۡتَسَبَتۡ‌ۗ رَبَّنَا لَا تُؤَاخِذۡنَآ إِن نَّسِينَآ أَوۡ أَخۡطَأۡنَا‌ۚ رَبَّنَا وَلَا تَحۡمِلۡ عَلَيۡنَآ إِصۡرً۬ا كَمَا حَمَلۡتَهُ ۥ عَلَى ٱلَّذِينَ مِن قَبۡلِنَا‌ۚ رَبَّنَا وَلَا تُحَمِّلۡنَا مَا لَا طَاقَةَ لَنَا بِهِۦ‌ۖ وَٱعۡفُ عَنَّا وَٱغۡفِرۡ لَنَا وَٱرۡحَمۡنَآ‌ۚ أَنتَ مَوۡلَٮٰنَا فَٱنصُرۡنَا عَلَى ٱلۡقَوۡمِ ٱلۡڪَـٰفِرِينَ
On no soul doth Allah place a burden greater than it can bear. It gets every good that it earns and it suffers every ill that it earns. (Pray): "Our Lord! condemn us not if we forget or fall into error; our Lord! Lay not on us a burden like that which Thou didst lay on those before us; Our Lord! lay not on us a burden greater than we have strength to bear. Blot out our sins and grant us forgiveness. Have mercy on us. Thou art our Protector; help us against those who stand against faith." (286)
-Al-Baqarah [2: 286]

I find it very 'wow, thats soo clever...!' how God teaches us how to deal with the uneasiness of learning that "...it suffers every ill that it earns." Right after He teaches us that, He teaches us to pray.

I think psychologically (based on my layman's knowledge, n having watched The Secret), prayer has a great effect on one's mental state n thus one's general well-being. I suppose traditionally, ppl say tt yeah, u shld pray n ask God cos tts the only thing that can really essentially help u. But if u think abt it, prayer plays an important role of reassuring n reaffirming n strengthening our faith, n thus gives us the renewed energy to keep living.

I mean u just look at this ayat alone. It says "On no soul doth Allah place a burden greater than it can bear." n in the same ayat, comes the prayer "Our Lord! lay not on us a burden greater than we have strength to bear". It just shows how God is so wise to know that Man is so weak in faith, such that he needs to pray even for things that God has guaranteed. n this weakness, is not necessarily a bad thing, smthing that will lead to Man's inevitable doom. but rather just simply an innate nature of Man that God understands n has taken into account; By teaching us to pray to Him. To constantly reassure our naturally doubtful, n wanting to give up self. Yup, God is compassionate n fair that way...doesnt penalise us for what He created us to be. We just got to listen n do as He teaches us how, cos being our creator, He knows best how to help us deal with it.

I guess, if u like analogies, its like how we religiously download that Microsoft or anti-virus update just cos the Big guys who created those things says tt its good for u. n u just unquestioningly trust them, cos they, being the creator of these things know best. though there will be some knowitall geeks who will argue on sm IT forum tt those dwnloads are useless or bad or whatever...n i suppose u can analogise it to the majority of us who will occasionally get carried away with our perceived intelligence n logic n knowledge, n doubt our faith. which is why smtimes i feel that the best of us are those who are least smart, or believe that they are the least smart, those who are most innocent, who just have undoubting faith in things, people n God. like young children. how a child sincerely prays to Allah to help her find her lost Barbie doll..

ok, im being long-winded. shall stop here. but not before i point out to all u Fitna watchers, n those along the same lines, that the part "...help us against those who stand against faith." should be understood in context.
The Quran is free for all : http://www.quranexplorer.com/quran/.

ok dah. btw, khairi just sharing her uncertified, unregulated, and uncensored thoughts hor...

2008-04-24T13:39:00.002+08:00

Assalamualaikum, peace be upon you.

Just because i really like how this song sounds. And just because i think the lyrics, despite its simplicity, highlights succintly the many deep, heavy,and poignant underlying issues. And mostly just because i need a short distraction to stop myself from entertaining thoughts of how im so done for this sem.

Jika ditanya tentang cinta
Macam-macam lah jawapannya
Ada cinta yang membawa ceria
Ada cinta yang sanggup merana
Sanggup berkorban apa saja
Hilang kawan hilang keluarga
Lebih baik cinta pada yang ESA

Hidup ini penuh pancaroba
Kiri kanan terpaksa alah saja
Janganlah derita kerana cinta
Kerana cinta bahagia
http://www.free-lyrics.org

Kalau benar cinta itu buta
Siapakah jadi mangsanya
Kalau cinta itu cinta setia
Nangis tertawa sama
ha... ha...

Kalau kita boleh beli cinta
Berapa pula harganya
Alangkah indah jika dicinta
Kerana hidup lebih bahagia

and there shall be no more invisible messages. hah!

2008-04-17T13:22:00.003+08:00

Assalamualaikum, peace be upon you.

!!! :)
Never thought i'll feel this excited upon creating a wiki article. but i do! haha. ok, if ur sick of mugging, read a random wiki article! haha, i mean, read MY wiki article: Madrasah Al-Irsyad Al-Islamiah

N no ppl, im not so free as to have randomly created a wiki article. This is my final project (30% dok) for one of my non-examinable mods. The project is to create a hitherto non-existing wikipedia article about anything to do with Singapore. Btw, i so have to credit Encik Md Na'Im B Sa'Dollah for taking those photos.
Really appreicate it awak.
hehe, ok dah, khairi is now down to 1 biodiv lab report, 1 USS term paper, 1 biosem term paper, 2 madrasah presentations and 2 exams. whew!

A'Alaq

2008-04-04T21:59:00.002+08:00

Assalamualaikum, peace be upon you.
i love how we unintentionally inspire each other to know ourselves better and strengthen our relationship with God.
i had a mini epiphany today. so the story goes that someone confided in me about his mediocre grades for a test. n in comforting/encouraging him, I was reminded of my own experience with mediocre, if not plain awful, grades throughout my ENTIRE jc life, up until the actual a-levels. The thing is, when ppl, or when I question myself why is it tt such a ‘miracle’ happened, I just say tt im grateful to God tt it did. Grateful for enabling me to make it when it really mattered. N then when they/I dig deeper, my standard answer was “oh, im a superslow learner. So I take a very long time to understand anything. But when I finally do, I really do. So maybe thats why the effort doesn’t show in the grades until the very last moment.” Well, theres much truth in that explanation, but I personally never found it satisfying enough. It didn’t make enough sense to me.
So back to the story. In the midst of thinking of what I could say to put my point across that the fight aint over till its over, without having to quote my ‘miraculous’ experience, Al-‘Alaq came to mind. Ok, if once upon a time, I was obsessed with Al-Insyirah, guess what ppl, Al-‘Alaq it is currently. Relisten or read on [khairi’s blog caters to both audio and visual learners!].

96:1 Proclaim! (or read!) in the name of thy Lord and Cherisher, Who created-
96:2 Created man, out of a (mere) clot of congealed blood:
96:3 Proclaim! And thy Lord is Most Bountiful,-
96:4 He Who taught (the use of) the pen,-
96:5 Taught man that which he knew not.
96:6 Nay, but man doth transgress all bounds,
96:7 In that he looketh upon himself as self-sufficient.
96:8 Verily, to thy Lord is the return (of all).
96:9 Seest thou one who forbids-
96:10 A votary when he (turns) to pray?
96:11 Seest thou if he is on (the road of) Guidance?-
96:12 Or enjoins Righteousness?
96:13 Seest thou if he denies (Truth) and turns away?
96:14 Knoweth he not that Allah doth see?
96:15 Let him beware! If he desist not, We will drag him by the forelock,-
96:16 A lying, sinful forelock!
96:17 Then, let him call (for help) to his council (of comrades):
96:18 We will call on the angels of punishment (to deal with him)!
96:19 Nay, heed him not: But bow down in adoration, and bring thyself the closer (to Allah.!

So I finally found a satisfying answer in the verses I highlighted. If God always gives me the grades I think I deserve, based on the effort I put in and my opinion of how smart I am [oh come on..EVERYONE has a perception of how smart they are], then I will always tend to, ok heck, I will just always think that whatever grades I get is due to my own efforts. That im self-sufficient. N to extrapolate and analogize tt, I will treat knowledge like sweets from an infinitely huge box; something that u simply pick up, and the more effort u put in, in terms of the number of times you put ur hand in the box, the more sweets u collect. But it REALLY isn’t like that. As God says, He is the one who teaches Man. He is the one who distributes knowledge, in the same way he distributes rezeki. So when ur seeking knowledge, ur not picking sweets from a box, its more like opening up ur palms and begging for sweets to be dropped into them. Which explains why u still have to put in effort into studying despite knowing that effort alone doesn’t guarantee anything. To get sweets, you still have to beg. Noone is going to just throw sweets at you. Just like no one is going to give you sweets every single time you raise your palms.

Ok, it makes perfect sense to me lah. But I can understand if ur wondering along the lines of what the heck do sweets have to do with anything. hehe, afterall, not everyone gets knowledge from God all the time..

2008-04-02T09:49:00.004+08:00

Assalamualaikum, peace be upon you.

Yay! one response paper down! Just 1 more response paper, 1 USS term paper, 1 biosem term paper, 1 film essay, 1 wikipedia project, 1 stats test, 1 biosem test, biodiv quizes, biosem quizes and 1 biodiv lab report to go...before exams! 'Just' eh...haha. so ppl, next time you ask someone who is only doing 2 examinable mods how many exams he has, catch yourself before you say "eh, best nyer...not fair!"

ok dah, khairi shall get back to her pile of work. its so overwhelmingly a lot, but nehmind, im loving the fact that its only 10am and so i have a whole day to go. if i continue to be such a good girl, i doubt i'll be doing much blogging in the weeks to come...hehe, but you know me. but in any case, all the best people! eat well, sleep well and mug well!

n dont miss me...hehe

nah,amik kau 1

2008-03-28T07:42:00.003+08:00

Assalamualaikum, peace be upon you.

nah, amik kau.

Ku teringat hati
Yang bertabur mimpi
Kemana kau pergi cinta
Perjalanan sunyi
Engkau tempuh sendiri
Kuatkanlah hati cinta

Kekuatan hati yang berpegang janji
Genggamlah tanganku cinta
Ku tak akan pergi meninggalkanmu sendiri
Temani hatimu cinta

Ingatkan engkau kepada
Embun pagi bersahaja
Yang menemanimu sebelum cahaya
Ingatkan engkau kepada
Angin yang berhembus mesra
Yang kan membelaimu cinta

Ku teringat hati
Yang bertabur mimpi
Kemana kau pergi cinta
Perjalanan sunyi
Engkau tempuh sendiri
Kuatkanlah hati cinta

Ingatkan engkau kepada
Embun pagi bersahaja
Yang menemanimu sebelum cahaya
Ingatkan engkau kepada
Angin yang berhembus mesra
Yang kan membelaimu cinta

As much as your loved ones are with you when you feel all alone in your struggles, God is infinitely closer.

2008-03-23T01:43:00.003+08:00

Assalamualaikum, peace be upon you.

By blogging right now, Im like so risking a mendak-ing of my current momentum of completing work for all my fast-approaching deadlines. But its ok, i got a good feeling on this Momentum. like, im actually getting all jumpy drafting my National Museum essay for SS! haha.

but only as jumpy as my back allows me too though... the constant dull ache at my lower back [the pinggang area, haha, where my lovehandles would be if i ever get them, muahaha] and the on-off intensifying of the pain is worrying me. And everytime i rukuk, the pain gets sharp and i actually wobble from the strain.

I only started noticing it on Thurs and just brushed it off as a temporary consequence of falling not once but TWICE at forum the day before. But the knee which i also hurt during the fall has since recovered plus there are no bruises on my back, so im doubting its due to that. As gad suggested,it could very possibly be due to the fact that i've been backpacking to school for more than a week. But that would be such a strange reason cos i used to backpack much heavier bags from pri sch all the way to jc.

n it'll also be very ironic since i recently switched to backpack to save my shoulder, posture, hehe and also for the general health of my laptop which has a habit of slipping off my arms. n also because for certain recent reasons, ive become more confident of ditching fashion/style/need to conform for practicality and COMFORT.

bleah. maybe if i try not to think about it, the pain will go away...

2008-03-18T01:39:00.002+08:00

Assalamualaikum, peace be upon you.

I just wanna say that i feel cheated. best part is, i feel cheated by my own body, hurhur. So it seems the whole "eh? its 4.30am already? hmm, im hardly sleepy..." and "wow, i slept for 2hours yest n im still functioning very well" was an ANOMALY. because i'm just as pumped up with caffeine as i was yesterday, n yet im lentok-ing away. not good because someone hasn't finished studying for her biosem test. bleah. will wake up at 4 and attempt to finish mugging.

khairi has got to start acing her tests. cos it seems that my cap last sem is pretty indecent. n i thought i was doing ok... well, the vice-provost should know better than me right? so i'll take his word on this. n i shall spend my scholarship money on special sem mods. n hope that my grades will get more decent with a 4 mod workload, insya'Allah.

n i realise that as much as i try to brush the whole incident off, i really am affected by it. strange... since when did khairi give a dem about what ppl think about her grades? oh wait, i knw the answer. since my grades stopped only reflecting who i am but also the community i represent. [I so think that they should like write all these implications in fine print in the contract. saves people the trouble of reading between the lines.]

And im reminded of the Dean's blatant question at the interview: "Do you feel discriminated as a Malay?"
My most updated answer: "Yeah. But i think i bloody deserve it."

and whats up with these deans and provosts, and being in-your-face-ly blatant? tsktsk, they should take a leaf off the Malay kias tradition.

2008-03-12T21:17:00.003+08:00

Assalamualaikum, peace be upon you.

Just a quick one from the Forum musollah.

So after, the Islamic Finance seminar, me and izy went to the ladies where i took wudhu'. As usual, i went into a cubicle and placed my laptop and hp on the wall edge thingy above the water tank of the bowl and hung my bag on the hook. After wudhu', as i was picking up my hp, it slipped off my hand, but i managed to catch it by sort of slamming it against the wall as it fell. ouch, a few more scratches for my hp. but alhamdulillah, because it would have ended up in the water-filled bowl if i hadn't done that. 5 secs later. As i was arranging the stuff i was carrying, the laptop in my thick cushy laptop case slipped off. n again, i managed to catch it; this time by gripping the cushy edge of the laptop case. Imagine me now standing with the laptop just a few inches off the ground. Such relief. And then it just had to slip away frm my grip and fell onto the hard tiled floor, landing on one of its corners. N i was speechless for a bit while izy commented, "wah, so loud! so scary..." "How many times have you dropped it before?" "Err, None, this is the first time..."

And then i kinda laughed it off. because i was running late for class and have yet to solat. after solat, i took it out of the case just to be sure that it was ok. heh, it must have been my confidence that it was ok that made the damage seem much worse than it really is. because i saw the distorted erm catch of the open-close clasp and the wide open cracks on the left front edge of my laptop where the memory stick drive thingy is and i was so traumatised that i shut it and briskly walked to my class. n throughout the class i couldnt concentrate as i kept thinking of all the implications of that part of my laptop being damaged. like thats where the fan is and the hard drive[ i think...cos thats the part that gets the hottest when i use it long] and probably where the bluetooth and internet connection thingy is too.

hoho, but as it seems from my ability to happily blog, my very first laptop only suffered superficial wounds. Which doesnt look so bad now that i kinda clicked the open wounds into place. n the memory disk drive eject button still seems to work, n even if it doesnt, it doesnt matter since i dont use it anyway.

but yesh, too many close shaves for the day. I think this means that its high time i be less picky and get a school bag that can fit my laptop and a waterproof-ish hp pouch like i've been meaning to for ages. n i have the perfect oppurtunity in the form ofa shopping trip with Amirah at Bugis before goingMegacarnival this sunday. [which reminds me that i have to start thinking of something creative to wear on sunday. creative cos its hard to think of smthing that can wear to both madrasah and shopping]

ok, dah. say it with me ppl: ALHAMDULILLAH.

lying lonelily

2008-03-08T02:13:00.002+08:00

Assalamualaikum, peace be upon you.

So like im lying on my stomach on my bed typing this out right, n im like shucks this is uncomfortable, n then it occurred to me tt the reason y im in this position is because it seemed like and probably was a comfortable position initially. n im thinking i must have experienced this cycle [ooh bed, lie down on stomach-->ok, uncomfortable-->hmm, too lazy to budge lah-->ok, oww, stomach cramp-->gets off stomach-->ooh bed, lie down on stomach] hundreds of times n yet i still do it. strange.. n i remember i had this habit since i was young. in fact, i used to also raise my legs n swing them n the air. i remember the mother used to say something like "Jgn baring ngan goyang kaki cam gitu...nanti setan dtg.[=Dont lie down n shake your legs like that...later satan come]" i used to wonder and still do wonder whats the underlying rationale of that. sometimes, she would say "Oi, lantai tu sejuk lah...nanti masuk angin tak tahu eh...[= Oi, the floor is cold...later air come in {literal translation keper! haha} how?]". and only then i would get off my abdomen and almost instantaneously, i would feel the 'masuk angin' sensation. heh. so it seems, even then, i was more inclined towards rational and pragmatic ideas, though i would only be deluding myself if i said that im unaffected at all by irrational things.

so that was the random para of the day. an alternative to the cliche 'quotes of the day'. hehehe. jgn terase yer...tapi klau terase pun takpe, hehe.

SO, i actually wanted to save this post for this Sunday, when it would be like exactly a week frm the previous post. but yeah, i couldnt wait. hehe. This week seems so long yet so short. on one hand, it seems long because its always a struggle to acquire a new habit, to change something that used to be so intrinsic in one's life, simply because you don't knw how long you can keep it up, as much as you want to. N the week seems short because to be honest, it wasn't too hard a struggle. not that there were no temptations to revert to the status quo, but there could have definitely been many more. n the whole transition kinda took place relatively without hiccups. similarly, there could have been lots more. Alhamdulillah. n so this is where khairi takes the cue that shes on the right path for her [bolded because im really NOT a fan of shoving things down other ppl's throats. neither am i fan of those who shove things down other ppl's throats {read:mine}]

n SO it occurred to me that i went home after isya' in sch every day this week except wed when i had tuition. hoho, operation 9pm successful keper! but i think on top of the more effective mugging, its the peace i get from a little qt between maghrib and isya' that keeps me deciding to go home late. i used to think that i prefer to stay til late in sch just because i hate peak hour crowds so bad, but after a few comfortable bus rides to tuition during rush hour, i realise that thats not a valid reason. n no ppl, dont buruk sangka, hehe, i TRY not to kahwinkan my maghrib and isya' ok...

but really2, this week has really taught me the value of being alone.[i wouldnt use the word lonely because that word in itself already brings to mind 'negative' connotations] Other than maghrib-isya' qt, i realised that for like 2 days in a row ive spent the whole day in school alone. as in, i go for lects, but u knw me, im a drifter, i dont exactly have friends in my non-core lects, just acquantainces. n it really taught me what ive been missing out on for months now. like, when you are alone, you can actually hear your own thoughts. like really, do you even realise that its harder to 'hear' your own thoughts clearly when you constantly have to interact with people and process their thoughts together with your own? n being alone gives you the time for yourself to catch hold of yourself. to truly rest. n catching yourself is important because its a lot harder to grab a hold of yourself once you've fallen into the river of other people's thoughts. n theres no better way of learning to not care about what people think of you than to eat lunch alone.
ok, this week didnt teach me per se lah, as much as reminded really. because if you know me long or deep enough, you'll know that i used to be a social moth and i still have vestigial organs lying around. n its ironic since i thought that the change would be difficult due to the having to be 'alone' factor.

i cant help thinking that even if this mendaks or just doesnt work out, it wouldnt be too sad/wasted/regretful an affair because the process, while it lasts, really does make us better people, makes us closer to Allah. n that is something that can never be seen as sad/wasted/regretful. aah, the beauty of it all.

The Beginning

2008-03-02T19:57:00.002+08:00

Assalamualaikum, peace be upon you.

I deleted the old tagboard and made a new one. lets just say tt i needed to delete a tag made by an irresponsible someone asap and figuring out my cbox account info [assuming i was the one who created it in the first place] would have taken too much time. please feel free to tag still. haha, i promise im not tt anal about my tags. like really. the drastic measures i took today was a very rare anomaly. [omg! i sound like PAP insisting that Singapore encourages free speech. hehe.]

but even that inconvenience could not ruin my mood.

i havent felt this light in a long time.

Alhamdulillah :)

its going to be tough. but

إِنَّ مَعَ الْعُسْرِ يُسْرًا

Verily, with every hardship comes ease!
[Surah Al-Insyirah 94:6]

2008-03-01T23:17:00.002+08:00

Assalamualaikum, peace be upon you.

last entry on this page
So i attempted a binge session today. key word being attempted. because for some unknown reason i lost my appetite. Like you know i was very hungry after Apex and it makes sense because i didnt have breakfast. so binging seemed like a very good idea. but for the first time, i lost my appetitie barely into the session. weird.

so after struggling through the meal [and deciding to tarpau some leftovers], i went home and slept. Like for hours. n then i woke up for a few hours and couched and joked around with the whole family.[hmm, i love these rare moments when all of us are spontaneously slacking together.] n then when the parents left for syarahan, i felt REALLY sleepy. so i slept for a few hours again. n since im in no mood to do anything, n so do not want to screw up my clock even more, i shall go sleep after this entry. n i doubt i'll have too much trouble falling asleep despite already having slept way too much because it seems that sleeping is my own body's au naturale defence mechanism. you know like how you learn that all animals have this 'fight or flight' reflex mechanism when faced with a discomforting/dangerous situation. yeah, well, i just kinda sleep. heh. though i suppose i would categorize it under 'flight' if i have to because its essentially running away from the problem.

i cant believe i have yet to think about it.

Random:
bro: Aya, nampak baju nj ammar tak? abah salah letak kat cupboard aya lah.
mother: baju nj? sejak bile ammar ade baju nj?
bro: ammar beli... pe tshirt size M, same design dengan aya punye.
abi: oh... really?
me: *remembers that she saw the nj shirt in her cupboard this morning. looks down. oh! im wearing an nj shirt. dengan senyapnye, checks the tag, it says M.* hehehe, size M...patut ah macam longgar.. ingatkan dah lose weight, hehe.
abi: apelah aya!
mother and abi: LOL!
me: alah, ur fault also what, siape suruh beli size M? belilah size besar2 sikit, L ke, XL ke... mane ade lelaki pakai size M seh...
bro: *malas nak layan. but veh amused.*
aya: *hmm, its actually veh comfortable* *buat bodoh tak nak kasi balik baju.*

n yes ppl, i really do speak veh Malay at home. especially when joking around.

Science of moons

2008-02-29T15:31:00.002+08:00

Assalamualaikum, peace be upon you.

So bobo [i have no idea why u choose to tag my board with tt nick, but i shall follow through for the sake of uniformity.] enlightened me that the reason why i havent been able to see the moon nowanights is because it has moved/revolved to a different position. So from the few places where i usually try to spot the mooon, its probably blocked by some buildings. Whereas, from his house, its just sitting there looking all pretty waiting for cameras to attempt to capture its essence.

[hahaha, nampaksa khairi bebual MOON macam faham tapi tak faham langsung. nehmind,the science of moon and planets is one thing i've conceeded to never being able to fully grasp. alongside other imagination requiring mechanics like engines and motors and the thing that uses magnets to make electricity.]

to be honest, im not convinced of bobo's arguments, but im too unbothered to think logically about it. all i know is that sunsets are much more reliable. the sun always sets in the west. find a nice spot to watch sunsets and you can be sure that it will remain a nice spot for years to come. n the sun ALWAYS has to set, sometimes the colours are prettier, but the sky will always confirm chop2 change colours. ok, khairi needs to find a nice spot in nus.

So it seems that im not the only one who has issues. not the only one who is indecisive. not the only one who is confused. n not the only one who is frustrated and just wishes that someone can read her mind and do as her mind tells you to. in fact, i think in the midst of trying to resolve my issues, i might be the cause of other ppl's frustration.

wouldnt it be funny if this whole seemingly disordered and confusing and complicated business of issues is actually very ordered, understandable and simple? Like the science of moons and planets. But its just that we are too bloody dumb to conceive of things differently.

n so until i get less bloody dumb, i shall have to be satisfied with watching sunsets and attempting to catch glimpses of the moon, while wishing that my issues resemble sunsets more than moons.

[ok, raise your hands on the tagboard if you even vaguely get the cohesiveness of this entry.]

2008-02-27T23:04:00.002+08:00

Assalamualaikum, peace be upon you.

The past two nights, i couldn't see the moon. I reckon it was too cloudy yesterday night. But today, i saw stars, but no moon. i should still be able to see a crescent right? Since it was full just a few days ago. hmm...

oh and today, i tried to spot the moon while waiting to jaywalk, and guess what, random ppl who were crossing the same road followed suit and looked up too. [dengar2 kereta leh datang dari atas] heh. i bet in their hearts, they said "Siao Charboh..." upon concluding that there is nothing strange about the sky tonight. heh. but seriously, who is stranger; the one who stares at the sky for no apparent reason or the one who follows suit briefly and subsequently condemns the former?

n im randomly watching American Idol. omg! i LOVE Danny's hair. n like, wow, i realise its been a long time since i have such a strong positive reaction to someone's looks. i think its got to do with me feeling ugly today.

So i've been telling people, that i've been mighty busy helping people with their issues the past 2 weeks. All seems to be ending/beginning [i think that in life, in general, endings are paradoxical since it implies at least a potential of a new beginning] well. Alhamdulillah. and i really do mean it; all thanks to God.

Someone finally came down and got his application essay done just in time. haha, i still cant believe you forgot about the application deadline, and that your friend quietly submitted his, without reminding you! I guess there is hikmah in all the times you bimbotically cancelled on me, hehe. n dude, i was joking about the 10% commission...but i was dem serious about the 1%, ie 0.5K. muahahaha!

The brother's dramatic episode with the PAE has ended on a satisfactory note and he is finally able to begin assimilating to ACJC taking 4 H2. yes ppl, the brother, my parent's only son [heh, the parents kept saying "he is your only son, you know" to each other whenever they wanted to emphasize the seriousness of the issue. n i kept taking offence and said "hello, one of your 3 daughters here." hehe] got kicked out of njc. I did my most thick-skinned best to get him back in. But we all need to know when to stop struggling against God's will. In fact, come to think of it, this whole huha is very dejavu of my own episode with the admission system, which ended with me in MGS. And we all know khairi wouldn't be half as good a person/Muslim as she is now if not for that experience. Insya'Allah, the bro will quit resenting soon enough to reap the benefits of a Methodist school experience. And yes, khairi has to quit being overprotective of her parent's only son.

Alhamdulillah, the friend has made the first big brave step towards Heaven. and all on her own, or so she says... haha, n no, im not resentful that my opinion wasnt the deciding factor. I actually love the fact that you're brave enough to quit listening to people and yourself and just listen to God. n im proud of her. I really am. And as i've repeatedly said, this is a hugeass turning point, not just for the person directly concerned, but also turning points, in some other and perhaps seemingly faroff personal ways, for everyone indirectly involved. Thank you for catalysing this cascade of positive change. Im excited! To see where the sharp turns will lead each and everyone of us. never have i felt so strong before, that we were destined to meet each other at this point in our lifes. n never have i felt so strong before that God knws and planned out every single bit of my life and will continue having a Big role in it so long as i dont push Him away.

which is why, i am currently quite at peace with my own issue. I'll just keep waiting and listening and looking out for his Signs.

Hah. funny seh how i ended up helping myself more than i helped others.

2008-02-25T01:19:00.002+08:00

Assalamualaikum, peace be upon you.

i found my answer today. in bits and pieces nonetheless. but the main take-away: khairi! PC-ing keper?! stop it lah can!...

n tmr, the 5 odd pillows will be wet again.

n one day, i'll laugh at my stupidity and wonder "Where and why did i leave God behind in the midst of all of that?"

2008-02-23T23:45:00.002+08:00

Assalamualaikum, peace be upon you.

khairi peeeenat sangat.

i need to unload.

i need somebody to unload to.

no, i need somebody to force me to unload. to force me to stay PUT and embrace my OWN problems before running away and kaypoh-ing on other ppl's problems.

n no, i don't want that somebody to be a chocodaddy. no more chocodaddys for khairi. she has to learn to grow up.

but i wanna keep it pure.
i really do.
n i doubt u really understand what that means.
in fact im pretty sure that you don't understand what that means to me.
because i'm not sure myself what it means.

n im beginning to think that the whole 'keeping it pure' 'dilemma' is a khairi construct.
subconsciously constructed to buy me time.
simply because i dont want to have to decide and commit now.

im hating yet loving the limbo position that i am at now.
somebody give me a deadline.

and i can't help feeling like its already a lost cause, that im not attempting to prevent a leak, but simply attempting to mend the hole while pretending that it doesnt exist yet, that it started out wrong in the first place, that God was never in the equation.

can't help feeling that im already broken.

and what does 'cinta KERANA Allah' mean anyway? like seriously.

2008-02-22T23:57:00.001+08:00

Assalamualaikum, peace be upon you.

The moon is full and bright and so pretty tonight. did you notice?

2008-02-20T11:27:00.003+08:00

Assalamualaikum, peace be upon you.

Two nights ago, lying down on my bed, just before i fell asleep, i had my quiet time with God. nothing unusual about that. been doing it for years now. except that the session lasted more than the typical 5 minutes. n except that i found myself sobbing to sleep. it all started when just as i was conversing as i usually do, this intense feeling of fear just leapt out of my heart. A fear that my 5 odd pillows and thermal blanket could not comfort. i wont deny that there was no trigger. there clearly was. [im just not going to say what it was.] i just never expected it to personally affect ME in such a major way. but its a great sort of affection. really2.

وَلاَ تَقْرَبُواْ الزِّنَى إِنَّهُ كَانَ فَاحِشَةً وَسَاء سَبِيلاً
And come not near unto adultery. Lo! it is an abomination and an evil way. [17:32]

[bold-ing mine. n no, tt ayat was not the main trigger]

you know, im taking this super challenging yet interesting mod this sem: biosemiotis. which basically just means signs[semiotics] in nature[bio]. funny how its made me not just more observant of signs in plants and animals, but also in Signs of God. im not just talking about "oh, look at that beautiful flower and bee! that can only be a sign that God exists and is omnipotent!" sort of signs. im talking about Signs that God is up there and he knows that I exist. n He hears me. n Signs that i feel is specially meant for me to interprete, or rather, events that different ppl will confirm chopchop interprete as Signs differently, but only because God wants to communicate different things to different people. [n i have drifted far]

anyhow, i went to school yesterday dressed in grey. it was a very subconscious decision, i feel. n i realise that throughout the day, i didnt feel the need to pretend to be ok. i really was very ok. which is weird considering how hard i sobbed. is this what they mean when they say that those with God in their hearts, will constantly experience peace and calm, regardless of whatever? or is it just me being hmm, escapist?

n i prayed for a clear mind, strength and guidance.

Of Star(buck)s and moons

2008-02-14T22:59:00.002+08:00

Assalamualaikum, peace be upon you.

Some random thoughts before i attempt to test if a) Starbucks indeed has twice the amount of caffeine than any normal coffee and if b)caffeine has even a slight effect on khairi's ability to stay awake. But since a fair test would require only 1 variable changed per trial, this will not be a fair test. n even if it is a fair test, there are way too many confounders to make a decent conclusion. n even if a decent conclusion is made, one cant ascertain for sure that the association neccessarily connotates the causation that was presumed.

[if you hadnt realised yet, ive already started on the random thoughts. n i have SO been paying attention during stats lectures.]

so i just ate the mother's nasi lemak with sunny side up fried egg [mata lembu dok] and my all-time favourite vegetable: french beans [hmm, ok actually i also love kangkong and spinach and baby carrots...and are mushrooms considered vegetables? they're not plants tts for sure. ive been paying attention to biodiv lects too. hehe]. n im thinking wow, i remember the days before leaving for afternoon primary school, i would be so happy to just eat plain rice and telur ceplok [tts what the mother taught me to refer to telur mata lembu...maybe its a jawa thing] with kicap ABC for lunch. nowadays, i need a megabites set meal with a large cup of ice lemon tea and frozen yoghurt dessert to even get near to such a degree of contentment. so complicated i've become. im SO on my way to evolving into a tai-tai.

n while walking home with a Starbucks in hand, i saw the half moon. yest, it was still a crescent. n i felt blessed. God blessed me with such clear skies and nice moons whenever i walk home late at night. n i remember that in njc, i used to feel the same feeling of blessedness as i watch the skies actually changing colours as the sun sets while waiting for maghrib in school. so im thinking next logical step would be for me to feel blessed to be able to view the sun rise. i refuse to imagine what levels of busy-ness and stress would have me experiencing such a im-so-blessed-inducing feeling. heh. on another note, i realise i have yet to view the sunset in nus. which is a good thing i suppose since it means tt ive stopped kahwin-ing my asar with maghrib [hehe, i have since converted to kahwining my maghrib with isya']. but dang. i miss sunsets.

n today i got a brownie and a muffin for valentine's. a sunset would have gone well with them. but a supppose a perfectly half-moon would have to do.

tak bisakah

2008-02-08T21:40:00.000+08:00

Assalamualaikum, peace be upon you.

khairi wasted another good day lagjak-ing today. didnt get any work done at all despite all the intention. hmm, at least theres tmr? haha, typical seh...

anw, i've been so tired and sleepy today. i slept in again. but only because i was exhausted from yest's night cycling outing to Sembawang Park. hoho, to begin with, i slept at like 3am the night before the outing because i went lepaking...with the family. hahaha. we went for the supper buffet at Royal on Scotts. well, the food wasnt worth the moolah, not that i expected otherwise, but atleast we had fun [??]. haha, ok, nothing beats lepaking with friends, but what to do, khairi wants to be a good girl, so lepaking till late with the family would just have to do. hehe.

so anw, the outing was tiring mostly because of the running around while playing captain's rugby ball. hahaha, yesh, khairi is very unfit that way. but despite the impressions i give with what i say with regards to sports and exercise and the like, i really do enjoy the occasional good yet merepek game with good company. yup, but my unfitness really shone through man. haha, like only 10mins into the game, i was already so shocked by my breathlessness. hahaha,i knew that i was bound to pancit, but like no so fast can..

so like, i now feel inspired to bring out those running shoes and start jogging regularly. afterall, i am going to go climb stong in a few months time. oh, n im blogging this to put it in err purple and white so that i dont back out/change my mind/lose the will like i did the prev errrm 3-4 attempts to go climb ledang. hahaha, yes, khairi shall climb a mountain! but aiyer, jogging so boring leh...[semangat spuluh saat keper!]

n so back to the outing, by maghrib, i could already feel the sting in my eyes and ache in my bones. my body was really poop-ed lah, but i was still not done having fun. so off to dinner with the rest i went. hahaha, only to have second thoughts while walking to the not so near al-ameen after discovering that banquet was closed. but due to general inertia, i stayed on n figured i'll ciao after a quick meal. but in typical *i cant seem to remember the appropriate expression here* fashion, getting a meal wasnt as simple as tt. so there were no tables and it took forever to tarpau food and the drinks counter refused to layan us *cough* omar and the ppl in the flats whose void deck we attempted to colonise stared suspiciously and my mee goreng was WAY too pedas for me. haha, but admist all that negativity, i still had fun belting out of tune britney spears, spice girls, m2m songs with the girls and getting ppl to help me figure out jiwang songs that i really love but never took the effort to remember the titles and attempting to figure out whether im tone deaf, pitch deaf, simple cant sing or cant be bothered to sing properly and finally succeeding in nudging/irritating fahmi to play and sing Kau ilhamku. n yet i was home before 12am without resorting to cabbing. hahaha, improvement ok...

n so in conclusion, the company was awesome and sporting, the weather was great, the games were best until they got mendak, the picnic spot could not have been better, and the venue could have better toilet facilities. so, facebook for a more pictorial account frm my camera-togging friends, n i end with a not so random [cos i currently sorta feel it and plus the music video jus played on suria, haha] jiwang song.

Tak Bisakah
Artist: Peter Pan
Hatiku bimbang dengan tetap pikirkanmu
Selalu-s'lalu dalam hatiku
Kumelangkah sejauh apapun itu
Selalu kau didalam hatiku

Ku berjalan-berjalan memutar waktu
Berharap temukan sisa hatimu
Mengertilah ku ingin engkau begitu
Mengerti kau didalam hatiku

Tak Bisakah kau menungguku
Hingga nanti tetap menunggu
Tak Bisakah kau menuntunku
Menemani dalam hidupku

Ku berjalan-berjalan memutar waktu
Berharap temukan sisa hatimu
Mengertilah ku ingin engkau begitu
Mengerti kau didalam hatiku

Jangan Kau mencari hidupku
Kemana Kau tau isi hatiku
Tunggu sejenak aku disitu
Jalanku jalan menemukanmu

Tak Bisakah kau menungguku
Hingga nanti tetap menunggu
Tak Bisakah kau menuntunku
Menemani dalam hidupku

khairi PC-ing keper...

2008-02-06T17:18:00.000+08:00

Assalamualaikum, peace be upon you.

So i finally got my alone time today. the day started off with me rolling around in bed after subuh, in and out of sleep, in the wonderful weather, till about 12nn. hahaha. it feels good i tell u to be able to sleep in. its been a loong time. ok fine, the sem has hardly started, but yeah, ive been deprived of my used-to-be atleast once weekly sleep-in ok... bleah, all because of Apex and madrasah on the weekends. [hahaha, ok, tt sounded so tak ikhlas.. but i am ok!] anw, then i rolled over to the couch and tv-ed for a bit. n yeah, its been a while since i tv-ed. n then it was finally off to the showers. 45mins worth. hurhur, dont ask hows tt possible. it just is. n then more couch-ing n random tv. attempted to start on my The Messenger DVD, but its still in its wrapper like its been for the past week or so. hoho, n na'im, obviously i have yet to start on pp stuff. :P . hahaha, all tt discussion for nothing...sorry. but yeah, i'll get to it...soon enough.

n now im freaking late for tuition. but its fine. hoho, i've got my peace back ppl! the rock is still on the head, tts for sure,cos i havent really been thinking about it. hehe, yeah, i know the alone day was supposed to spent on thinking, but i kinda secretly knew that i'll never be done thinking no matter how long and hard i try. this is one of those things, that khairi, the brain-obsessed and the affectionophobe, admits cant be solved by thinking it through. so yes, the rock is still atop my head, but it weighs a lot less now. n hopefully, the head is now more receptive to whatever Divine intervention that will be needed to get me fully out of this vicious cycle. insya'allah.

2008-02-03T21:39:00.000+08:00

Assalamualaikum, peace be upon you.

the physical pain of the headache is gone but im soo drained. mentally, physically, emotionally. n worst of all, i feel like i have a hugeass obnoxious rock sitting atop my head. oh, the burden. n i hate tt i dont have the time/energy to attempt to remove it by thinking things through. n i super hate tt by not removing the rock, i cant concentrate on comm/tut/test work, which are the very things im conserving what remaining time and energy for. heck, i cant even sleep right. gah, i hope i dont dream-think about all those stuff tonight.

i can't wait for tues to be over. for the cny hols. i need some me time bad!*

*this is where you ppl take the cue and leave me be alone this hols unless ur very sure tt i'll really enjoy and benefit going out with u ppl.

ok, im soo lentok-ing now. [hoho, for all its worth, khairi learnt a new word today.]

gah, i feel so dumb n like so padan muka

2008-01-31T06:31:00.000+08:00

Assalamualaikum, peace be upon you.

"...gah, i feel so dumb n like so padan muka...n i just dnt feel gd abt all this rushin..hmm, i think im goin to go cry 4 a bit."

shit. the tears wont come. i hope i dont ter-breakdown in sch later. tt would be way too early in the sch sem for that.

n i feel ugly too. like literally. i've set a personal outbreak record.

n i feel guilty for not actually feeling guilty. 5 days in a sch week n i've been reaching home past 11pm for the past 3 days. n i shant bother to count prev weeks. whatever happened to "oh come on, i only hang out til late with my friends during holidays.." n yet, i dont feel any propelsion to change my contradictory ways.

sure, mon was the pioneer execution of Operation 9.30pm, but whats the point of studying hard for just one day? n then procrastinating for the rest of the week? [argh, the tap is still so not opening.] in any case, it was totally useful. FINALLY, for once, i came into biosem class relatively confident and came OUT feeling a little smarter. i realise that despite readings being READings, im still a very kinesthetic learner ['very' in this case emphasises the fact tt i just suck at other types of learning] so i have to like make comprehensive notes the way i do when i mug bio [btw, biosemiotics is soo not like traditional bio mods] in order to get anything in my head. n so Operation 9.30pm shall continue.

n above all, im wondering what's up God? what r U trying to tell me? what's Ur plan for me? like seriously, wats with the breakout??? hahaha! hmm,ok, not funny.

this is so dejavu. i feel the same sort of frustration i felt when i realised tt there is no reasonable way i could go study overseas despite actually finally getting those dem alevel As just because i didnt apply early enough, just because im a late bloomer and so didnt get the As before the alevels. history has a funny way of repeating itself. but right now, im so not laughing. though im confident something good will come out of this apparent misfortune. in time.

im thinking maybe this is His way of telling me that until i can get my priorities right[right now its Operation 9.30pm cum 10 mins of contact with family over Mug at home cum 3hours of contact with family]; until i can confidently say that i'll get as emotional as say walid at the airport when i take off to leave my family and friends, until then, im not quite ready yet to go.

The thing about being a free-spirit with wings is that when you're flying, you forget that your wings are held together with wax, and so when you fly too high, too close to the sun, it'll start to melt. and as you fall, you'll think

"gah, i feel so dumb n like so padan muka"

2008-01-25T22:39:00.000+08:00

Assalamualaikum, peace be upon you.

OMG! i SOO wanna blog about nigt cycling like ALL the other cen comm members [who have blogs] have. but its like SOO mendak already can... :( khairi wonders why she took so long to blog. hmm, i think ive been too hardworking. muahahaha! more like lazy and procrastinatory can... argh. im actually quite irritated that my plan to mug in sch till 9pm every possible day n go home just to sleep has not been accomplished even once this sem. And its already been 2 weeks of school! hoho, khairi wants a 5.0! hahahaha. okok, i shall stop procrastinating and get on with the post.

NOSTALGIA
Today has been an incredibly nostalgic day. First up i finally bumped into my primary school close friend at the nus coop. Finally cos i've known for weeks that shes currently on attachment in nus, but have yet to make lunch plans and such to catch up. wait...i still havent. hmmm, haha, procrastinator keper!

while i was waiting for asar at yih, one by one, night cycling comm ppl started streaming in. n hoho, it felt really good to talk/argue with abg safe and joke with/be teased by fahmi and chat with the ever easy-going syamim. its nice to still bump into these ppl despite night cyclign being over. im going to miss working with this comm. prolly one of the funnest yet effective comm i've worked with. haha, i cant say for sure cos im like Dory when it comes to memory.

N then, this GIRL [y is it in caps? klau tak tahu takpe..] went down to Saff perdaus at Bukit Gombak to help na'im return the safety vests and gloves. Going down to Saff cum tuition centre by itself reminds me of monsieur and youknwwho [again, klau tak tahu takpe] and i still consider Bukit Gombak my hometown though i've lived in CCK just as long as i did at gombak. i dont know, theres just something about older mature estates that makes me feel so belong-ed...or maybe its just bcause i spent my relatively carefree childhood there. n then on the walk back to the mrt, i didnt feel like taking the train just yet. like i just had this need to walk around a little longer, do a little neighbourhood shopping... hahaha, but thank god my laptop is heavy.

then at lot1, i bumped into 1/4 of the PPGs, safiqah! hoho, i think my friends get prettier with time. im glad she still remembers me enough to bother to say hi and chat for a bit. its nice to know that u've had such an impact on ppl's lives, despite knowing them for just a bit.

n then when i got home,i read the articles abt the top olevel scorers. n tt was dejavu too. hoho, reminded of how bh writers just love to squeeze drama out of nothing. oh n btw, the bro [the one who designed the night cycling poster ppl! haha, another publicity effort tt i have to refuse credit for.] got 9pts. Insya'Allah he gets to stay in NJ. n no, im not blindly patriotic to my alma mater. act, i dont particularly want him to go to NJ. its just tt im a bit the very perturbed by his 2nd choice. so yes, i hope he stays in NJ just cos i dont want him going anywhere else. n did i mention before tt he is soo becoming like my twin? its freaking creepy how he decided to join hockey [without any prior formal training in it] and considering indian dance without any of my input.

So smart can...
I've been feeling very dumb lately. Specifically, everytime i walk out of biosemiotics class. like really2 dumb. usually the feeling starts to dawn about the time i attempt to do the quiz and my mind draws a complete blank. but the dumbness really cumulates upon stepping out and realising that shucks despite all the ahah! moments during the class, i still wont be able to articulate what i just learnt, and thus i really didnt digest anything. n so in the lift down i'll pat myself on the back and tell myself that khairi, ur smart, just slow. n i promise to spend more time on the readings. but tt never happens and so the whole cycle repeats. I should SOO start on tt 9pm thing.

Night cycling had also made me realise how dumb i can get. i still feel so guilty for giving away the food meant just for cen comm members. especially when i found out tt na'im didnt have anything to buka with cos of tt. it was a misunderstanding tt was so preventable if only i took 1 more sec to think about the consequences of my actions. n i feel even dumber for confusing and then expressing my guilt with anger and frustration at some1 whom i actually wronged. khairi officially swallows humble pie. n then, i also feel dumb for focussing my efforts on making participants happy rather than on keeping a neat account. hoho, im sure nadia is having a nasty time trying to account for everything. sigh, dont u hate it when ur dumbness makes life difficult for other ppl?

affection-ophobia no more
khairi and izzati is proud of khairi! hoho, this week has been nothing but one emotionally taxing event after another for me. like it started with the erm touchy-feely confrontation [??] initiated by izzati. i swear i THOUGHT she started that oh so terrifying [for me lah.. im socially inept that way] convo on purpose just to teach me how to open up. but it was actually all real. n it really wasnt that scary afterall, just a bit the veh strange still.

n then someone actually chose to broke down on me! to be honest, that surprisingly felt more good than scary. still scary shit, but definitely more good...like veh honoured like that you know...to actually be significant enough in someone's life such that he/she is confident that u can make them feel better. now i FINALLY understand why ppl like to be 'the shoulder to cry on'.

in spite of all the movement in the right direction, im still finding it VEH hard to get used to recent developments that has made the daily grind of going for lects a little less bearable than last sem. bleah. khairi still finds ppl's openess to affection strange....or mebe the big J word applies here.

LSGirlsChalet'08

2008-01-12T13:04:00.000+08:00

Assalamualaikum, peace be upon you.

Ok, so heres the long overdue post on the LS girls chalet. It was just as i had hoped it would be. loads and loads of laughter. loads and loads of girl talk. loads and loads of teasing each other. loads and loads of kental-ness. loads and loads of losing of inhibitions [withOUT the aid of alcohol or any form of drugs...despite how scandalous the pics with ppl holding on to lighters and WHITE stuff may seem] Oh the pics will be on the links on the right btw. but veh few pics cos we were cooped up tudung-less in the chalet most times, and thus i obviously cant put the pics up here.

N yes, we were cooped up in the chalet most times. haha, i think we only got fresh air for a brief few hours. And it really wasnt the plan. haha, the plan was really packed with all sorts of things, but i think im more satisfied having done much less and lepaked much more.

so we started the first day with nothing much but preparing for the bbq at night. n we were on our best anak dara behaviour, hahahaha. i swear i've never been to a chalet/hotel room that is still soo neat and spick and span despite it being a few hours after checking in. all thanks to the sarah and faqee for being so proactive.

The bbq was great. the turn out was ok i think... i mean u cant expect all whom u invite to turn up right. but somehow there was still so much food left over. i was all up for being on grill duty all night, but i ko-ed barely into the bbq. bleah, the smoke got to me. haha, so bimbo i knw. heh, never knew i could get headache and nausea so easily. anw, i think the fun really started when we surprised nur [or is it noor?] sarah with her birthday cupcakes and started wacking the pinata. actually, initially the pinata game was quite mendak also, but it got really funny when we got MS pres and PBM vp to have a go at it together. guess who 'won'? haha, n guess who helped in the 'win' by being soo corrupt TWICE! tsktsk, pinata battles bring out the worst in ppl, hahaha.

so after cleaning up, which was amazingly fast, again, thanks to the 2 anakdaramithalis [hehe, jangan marah..]. we played some card games using the treasures of the pinata and played hotseat and the spent the rest of the nigt asking random questions till we drifted to sleep. oh wait, i think the last part was just me. hurhur. again, obviously, im not allowed to reveal anything from the night. but yeah, for me, personally, it was refreshing. to clear out any doubts/misconceptions/misunderstandings i had with these dear ppl before the new sem starts. n refreshing too to be forced to analyse my current err status quo.

the next day we all woke up late. i blame it on the nice-to-sleep rainy weather. n even then we kinda rolled around the bed while waiting/delaying to get in the shower. n then we got caught up with the tv and bidding. haha, so in the end we finally left the room after zohor for a hot slow lunch. Walked to Pasir Ris Park. where i was sooo jakun. haha, i neh knew there was a 'maze' there. or such fun playgrounds. lame attempts at photoshoots and sliding down the slides later, we were pooped. haha, n it was soo funny how i was the only one who could manage a decent slide down the slide. n i refuse to admit tt its due to my weight, or lack thereof. it was my plastic-y track pants! haha.

n then the highlight of the evening was eating innovatively heated up leftovers frm yest's bbq. haha, i however decided to have a desert dinner. ooh, n the glitter tattoos! haha, which are really good, surprisingly. the one i got is still very much intact and glittery on an unamed part of my body. hahaha. n then for some reason things got quite mendak so we attempted to watch dvds. i survived through heartbreaker [minus the parts tt deemed it R21 ok...haha] n slept [and apparently snored! haha] through shrek 3. while most of the rest didnt even bother for shrek3 i think.

n the next day, was just checking out. so it ended on quite a mendak note really. but im totally satisfied with that one fun night tt we got. n i cant wait for next sems/years chalet with these bunch of girls. :)

on a side note, night cycling is getting pretty overwhelming response. so do be unMelayu just this once and sign up ASAP k. cos places are really running out fast.

Mediocre vs Significant

2008-01-05T13:25:00.000+08:00

Assalamualaikum, peace be upon you.

i cut my hair. finally. it feels good. haha, n i dont mean just in terms of comfort. u see, cutting hair has more significance to me than just erm, cutting hair. haha, its usually to mark the start of something new. to let the heavy old rest and to begin the new with fervour and a lighter head [err,literally too i suppose, haha].

funnily, this time, im not sure what exactly im laying to rest or more importantly, what exactly im beginning.

i suppose if theres only one word i could use to describe what im leaving behind it'll be mediocrity. dont get me wrong, it was fun while it lasted but this whole being mediocre thing is growing old fast. when exactly did the mediocre thing start? it wasnt a fully conscious decision really. i think it occurred around the time i was 'proven' brilliant and noone wanted to think otherwise. i just didnt and dont think i am. nono, rather, i just didnt want everyone to be so sure. i hated how everyone was so sure. i suppose thats when i decided enough is enough. i wouldnt say i worked hard at being mediocre. hahaha, that would be Really rebelious. i just kinda lost the will to be more than ordinary. n it was fun. really. fun to see and experience things from a different perspective. it was nice to not have ppl expect so much from you. nice to see ppl pleasantly surprised when you do a little better than average. pleasantly surprised is good. better than bitter disbelief. n other than the academic front, it was fun being mediocre in other ways too. or more specifically, mediocrely unidealistic. like in terms of involvement in societies. nice to take on ONE project at a time. n have just a small yet significant role in them. n to see things from down here rather than up there. on the personal front,it was fun for a while to put aside the whole keeping it pure thing and just go with the flow, making err mediocre choices along the way.

but as i said, it was fun till it got old. n it got old because i realised what it really meant to be mediocre. it means to be powerless. i suppose if you dont have idealism, being powerless wouldnt be such a big deal. or rather, maybe you wouldnt even feel powerless. but its hard and frustrating to have all these ideas on how to make things better n not be able to do anything. n i really dread the day i get so sucked into being mediocre that i forget the power of idealism. the power of hope. the possibility of better things to come. n the thing about being mediocre is that, as ironic as this may sound, its difficult to be insignificantly mediocre. u cant jus mind ur own mediocre business and think that ur not affecting anything. cos u are. ur adding to the problem by just doing nothing. so its this or that. no sitting on the ignorant fence.

Its the beginning of something new. A Newly-rejuvenized will to be significant. i wanna be significant. i just cant decide how yet.

[hehe, i think this would have made a great new year's post.]

Will-2-Wheel Night Cycling '08

2008-01-03T00:42:00.000+08:00

Assalamualaikum, peace be upon you.

CLICK HERE

2007-12-31T22:57:00.000+08:00

Assalamualaikum, peace be upon you.

Its less than half an hour to the new year. n im sitting on the couch half watching the unentertaining countdown show on 5. haha, wats new.

im really not the sort who celebrates things.i just like to let them go past me. same here this new year i guess. i havent made any resolutions. or any particular effort to reflect on this passing year. BUT!

i finally started my Alhamdulillah book. haha, i've been wanting to start one for years. haha, i remember blogging about wanting to start such a book here but never got around to it. until like a few days ago. oh, an Alhamdulillah book is just a little physical diary with entries that begin with 'Alhamdulillah,' instead of 'Dear diary,'. u knw in our everyday lifes, things are happenning all the time, little things big things, that just make u feel so blessed and just really feel God's presence in your life. n at tt point in time, u think "God im so happy that i'll never forget how good You've been to me today." and then you forget. haha, n u know u've forgotten cos a couple of weeks later when something seemingly bad happens you think "God, why??!!" instead of remembering that God has looked out for you sooo many times before and thus will always be. so, i thought its a good idea to have such a book that i can like physically flip through when im feeling down u knw. so yay! it now exists! n its magenta and shiny and glittery and comes with a matching pen. hahaha, bimbotic, i know. who says u cant pen deep thoughts in a bimbo book?

ooh 2 minutes to the new year.

2 entries already in tt book.

1. thank you God for helping me keep things pure.
2. thank you God for the CAP.

ooh, Happy New Year ppl!

haha, that was abrupt. n this is such a lousy entry to end/begin the year with.

an apology, sort of

2007-12-25T23:47:00.000+08:00

Assalamualaikum, peace be upon you.

As much as khairi has changed for the better in terms of her sociability these past two years or so, one thing i recently realised i still am: conflict-avoider. a mega one at that.

Im not sure if tts the most precise term to use. actually, im pretty sure it isnt. cos i dont jus avoid conflict. i avoid other emotionally-taxing stuff also. like goodbyes. making up with ppl after fights. clearing out misunderstandings. consoling crying ppl. [u can ask ppl who have known me long enough. they'll tell u, as much of a pretty normal friend i am most times, im the last shoulder u wanna have to cry on.] attempting to undrift drifted friendships/relationships.

i just avoid situations when i cant use my brain but rather have to rely on my heart. i may be smart, but im really pretty dumb when it comes to matters of the heart. God is ever fair, i suppose. heh. i basically just allow things to stagnate. a stagnation that only becomes otherwise when initiated by the other party. most often, if the other doesnt do anything either, i seriously dont mind if it gets swept under the rug, ie, as if the whatever never ever happened. in fact, i think sometimes, i catalyse the sweeping process. n when the other party initiates smthing other than a sweep or quick and clean make up, i just hate it so much and i avoid it. i just...dont like fighting or talking it out or thinking it through or discussing a compromise or whatever. i just dont. in fact i think its more than just dislike. its more of a fear. the sort of fear that belongs to the same family of my fear of crying in public for whatever reasons. i dont knw whats the origin of this somewhat innate and yet idiosyncratic fear. i wouldnt be surprised if its got smthing to do with my childhood 'experiences' with the mother. whatever it is... gah. i need to do somthing about it but im too lazy to be proactive.

ok fine, not lazy. im scared. you happy now that you've got that out of me?

argh. cant.believe.i.just.picked.a.fight.with.my.blog.

to you, syg,
im sorry for the misunderstanding. can u do us a favour and just forget anything ever happened? u knw u have ur idiosyncratic weaknesses. well, guess what, i have mine too. its only fair [in a weird yet logical way] that we both tolerate n accept each other, no?
i hope we're still on for that haircut.

2007-12-20T00:40:00.000+08:00

Assalamualaikum, peace be upon you.

I duely note that its been a while since i last blogged. n i regretfully admit that its not because ive been dem busy. haha, funny how i kinda wish tt tt is the reason. [know any workaholic annonymous anyone?] well, i havent been doing much really. but not to the extent of spending day in day out half awake couch potato-ing as i had done during previous holidays. haha, im glad my social life has developed much ever since those my-life-is-school days. anw, my point for this para was meant to be that i have had all the online time in the world but just didnt have much inclination to blog for some reason. n even now, i think im blogging jus cos its been some time since i did.

so lets get on with it the easiest way i know how; chrono. hoho, boring i know, but oh well, u shall be grateful!

so yest was lagjag-ly spent with Izzati. u know i love being lagjag, just lazing around doing close to nothing. n i think i love doing it more with company. just one company to be precise. haha, n since khairi here recently re-swore to keep things pure, a girl would have to do for now and Izzati syg, ur one of my favourites, haha. we basically spent the day at bugis area. first a slow lunch at banquet.n then it was party supplies galore at Concourse. haha, i suggested we went there on the pretense tt i needed to find cheap lightsticks for night cycling. haha, which is true, but really, i like goin there cos it reminds me of the few carefree childhood days tt i can recall.

when i was reallyreally young, like kindergarten, before the parents found out my ability to top the class, when my birthday neared, we would go to the basement of a complex at Bras Basah tt had shop after shop selling party supplies at wholesale prices, and my mum would let me loose and choose stuff to give to my classmates for my birthday. n along the way i always managed to get a few cheap yet fun knickknacks for myself. n now, i think that complex has been torn down and the shops moved to Concourse. not as many shops now though..either tt or it jus seemed tt way since i got bigger, haha.

[funny how i spontaneously referred to her as 'my mum' instead of the usual 'the mother' when describing my happy childhood.]

anw, so i still got all excited at all the stuff there. but u knw, had to maintain cos like im no longer a kid, haha. but right, i still want a piniata!! smone get me one for my bday k. actually, no need wait all the way till my bday lah, can get for me now just to say how much u love me, muahaha.

and then, it was off to masjid sultan for zohor. hoho, i like, no love, the fact tt they finally did some upgrading. like FINALLY, someone had enough sense to do something abt the girl's toilet entrance which used to be in full view of the random dude passing by the masjid. n they now hang the telekongs, but not all of them, which is weird. but im sure they have their reasons. so now, masjid sultan falls under the list of masjids i enjoy going to rather than dread having no other choice but to.

then the rest of the day was spent at coffee bean reading Dr Tatiana's sex advice to all creations the definitive guide to the evolutionary biology of sex. if it sounds familliar its cos ive recommended the book before. which means tt im reading the book for the 2nd time. which is sooo rare for khairi to do so.

ooh, n then, long story short, i went to airport to have supper cum sahur with the family at the newly halal HongKong restaurant TSC. hmm. to quote the mother who is a fan of Sito's Makansutra, this place is die die DONT try! haha, in other words, its SOO overrated seh. haha, but maybe its jus tt we all happened to order the horrible things on the menu. but restaurants should have the decency to only put stuff tt are nice and worth the money and the trip down on their menu no?

so tts yesterday. Sun n Mon was spent at Kampung Ubin, or previously known as MCC, which is a chalet cum club at ubin. i have to say i didnt have much expectation for this family trip but it turned out to be one of the more memorable family vacations due to the amount of simultaneous group derived happiness. haha, ok, what i mean is usually when we go to like KL or smthing, we all enjoy ourselves but for various different un-family-ish reasons. like for me its the free shopping for my own stuff while for the mother, its for being free of her domestic duties and for the sister, its the food and u get the idea.. but when we were at ubin, we all enjoyed kayaking together, cycling together, stroling at chek jawa together, playing monopoly together and omg 3-a-side-tablesoccer! hahaha, we discovered the joys of tt there. i swear we were addicted. n im particularly amazed tt i enjoyed it cos u knw me i dont understand soccer and i generally dont enjoy games due to being 'uncompetitive'. n daddy wants to get a tablesoccer set. haha, n its soo going to look weird in our home since the closest to soccer fans u can find in the house are the parents and they only watch like important stuff like sea games and world cup.

hmm, other than that, before ubin, we did a 3d2n JB stay where we shopped and got good food. didnt shop enough though, which is such a waste because i dont have much moolah to shop using my own money this holiday. n then theres night cycling mtgs and work. n oh! haha, spontaneous impulse expo-ing with gad. dem funny cos the plan was just to attend hilya's bro's wedding but ended up shopping since we were already all the way in the east. [which is such a bimbo reason, really]first time i shopped at a mega sale at expo. went to the John little one. i spent abt 50 bucks. hoho, would have spent much more if i had more time and hadnt recently discovered tt i soo need more closet space.

well yah, thats abt it really. now im soo looking forward to Pondok 2000 this fri with gad and izzati. hehe, mostly cos of alfian sa'at. but im not bimbotic because i like him for being intellectually stimulating. though the bad boy thing is a major turn on too. n if u think abt it, who am i to say tt liking sm1 for being smart is any less superficial than liking sm1 for being good-looking. okok,fine, khairi is a bimbo.

2007-12-04T14:14:00.000+08:00

Assalamualaikum, peace be upon you.

ok,ironically i've been putting off writing this entry. haha, i just feel that i must sit down some place clean and comfortable, with a full tummy and hands all itching to type before i begin my INAUGURAL ENTRY AFTER SURVIVING MY FIRST EXAMS IN NUS!

but at the woohoo rate im going with being rebelliously totally the opposite of disciplined, organised and senonoh, i dont think that situation is going to happen any time soon. hahaha. so im just going to start rambling while half-sitting half lying down on my couch, my hair still drenched and prata breakfast still in its packaging. :)

so lets start with the ehem. dont remember the ehem? then go here and scroll to Nov 10th. ehem *jengjengjeng* is just this 30% weitage suicidal paper that i had to do for my writing and critical thinking module which has no exam. n no, its not a paper about suicide, rather its a paper that made me this close to thinking of suicide while doing cos i wanted SOO much to get out of having to do it. it was jus dem hard lah. anw, so i went to collect it after my last exam yesterday [risking ruining my whole celebratory spirit mind you] and i got a B.

okok...before all u ppl who had to put up with my suicidal thoughts hooohaa start whatthehecking... let me explain. this is the sort of paper that can only go a limited number of ways, ie, either u get something decent like A or B or something totally pornographic like an E or F. n u knw i literally monetarily speaking cant afford an F due to the scholarship. so yeah, i had valid reasons for being close to suicidal ok.

but nonetheless i think a B,despite being less glamourous than an A+, is enough to qualify that indeed there is hikmah behind all the hoohaa. for one, im now a firmer believer of the following:

Surah Al-A'raf (The Heights)007.042
YUSUFALI: But those who believe and work righteousness,- no burden do We place on any soul, but that which it can bear,- they will be Companions of the Garden, therein to dwell (for ever).

Surah Al-Mu'minun (The Believers)023.062
YUSUFALI: On no soul do We place a burden greater than it can bear: before Us is a record which clearly shows the truth: they will never be wronged.

Surah Al-Baqarah (The cow)002.153
YUSUFALI: O ye who believe! seek help with patient perseverance and prayer; for Allah is with those who patiently persevere.

for two, im reminded of the true value of friendships because i would never have gotten through it without the help of those who kept me sane and yet pushed me to test my limits. Thank you for listening to me ramble and complain and fret [gad], for just keeping me company when i was at my lowest [Izzati], for actually attempting to literally help with the paper [na'im], for pretending that nothing serious was going on when i didnt wanna think about it and keeping me company when i was spending way too much time on it towards the end [Nani], and thank you most of all for SCOLDING me for wanting to quit [Walid]. haha, every one of you, your actions have been greatly appreciated. im grateful that u guys ploped into my life especially at a time when im upgrading myself by becoming less social moth and more social butterfly and less sombong, and less anggek...u get the idea.

ok, im done with ehem.

about the exams, i dont knw what to expect. i really dont. i mean after what happened for the olevels and alevels, i dont quite dare to complain that my results are going to stink because hurhur, ppl are so going to be pissed if they unexpectedly turn out great. but yeah, my wish is simple, i jus want a 3.5 and happilly though mediocrely maintain my scholarship. tts all.

yest, i spent the immediate hours after the paper running errands and the night listening to mrbrown and internet bible-ing [haha, go ask nani what that means] with the mother. today, im spending the day at home cleaning up the exam mess and tmr, im goin for a shopping holiday to jb with the family. tts like a LOT of home and family time. i think its to make up for the guilt ive been feeling for spending 12 of my waking hours in sch almost every day of the week for the past what, 2 weeks? yeah, i've so lost touch. like, i discovered, accidentally mind you, that the bro put acjc as his second choice and he didnt consult me, the one who ALMOST went there! n tt was prolly cos i wasnt there to be consulted. thank god he had enough sense on his own to put njc as first choice though, hoho. n i recently heard that one of my bro's work will be showcased at Heeren as part of Noise Singapore. n i havent even seen the work yet. n hes not helping with being all step-designer-ishly reluctant to show us. gah, i so need to reconnect. which is why im paying him serious moolah to design the poster for the night cycling event. hopefully then he'll seriously think abt freelancing, which i've been bugging him since forever to try.

ok, i shall abruptly end this and start cleaning my room!

Keep it pure

2007-11-25T10:17:00.000+08:00

Assalamualaikum, peace be upon you.

so this is the song that's been stuck in my head the past few days. yes people, dayS. cant seem to find it on imeem though. cant even find the lyrics. n i caught myself humming the "Oh mengapa...cinta kita berubah? Oh mengapa...cinta kita didusta?" part while walking out of the exam hall. weird... dem weird. first of all im no fan of err pop/rap songs[?? i have no idea how to describe this 'genre'. well,acutally, to be crude yet succint, i'll describe it as a matminah song.]. in fact, im not a particular fan of music. plus the meaning of this song has no particular significance to me..i think. n yet its been the ONLY song thats stuck to me these past few days.

but if i were to force a link, i'll say its because i've decided that i wanna keep it pure. dem pure. back then, it was a waste when things changed. i would be lying if i said things changed only cos we didnt keep it pure, but contaminating it totally didnt help. so lesson learnt. i'm keeping things pure. u should too ['u' referring to people in general]. we dont wanna find ourselves singing the above song, n yet deep down knowing the reason why, now do we?

n no, i didnt decide to keep it pure cos of this song. haha, though the merepek-ly short and ugly dress the girl in the video was wearing might have edged me on. [oh guys, sorry if u had to view that..hehe, i really couldnt find it on imeem]Funnily, i think the decision was made when i saw this pretty girl at the mrt platform yesterday. She was wearing like this very labuh jubah and socks and loose pants underneath and like her tudung was folded such that its very big and long and yeah, basically the ustazah look ah [though i dare say, many ustazahs dont dress to such a conservative extent nowadays]. n i thought she was pretty, very pretty. n it reminded me of the time when i soo wanted to own and wear a purdah outfit cos i felt that there is something very feministically liberating about it [not that i no longer do, haha, i still want! but it falls under the wishlist of outrageous things that i wanna do but the mother will kill me for.]. anw, the point is, it reminded me of how idealistic and strong-minded i used to be, and also that there is much beauty in purity. n that heck, if that pretty girl can wear that outfit day in day out, i can keep it pure too.

n i suppose.. to give credit where its due, that "keep your boundaries...cos thats what i like about you" line helped a lot too. :)

Coincidentally [god, im beginning to hate this word because it implies that events in this world occur by random chance..hehe, this is what doing an evolution mod does to u.], yesterday while waiting for isya' at the musollah, i was 'randomly' reading the quran and this was what i read:

"Thy Guardian-Lord hath not forsaken thee, nor is He displeased. And verily the Hereafter will be better for thee than the present. And soon will thy Guardian-Lord give thee (that wherewith) thou shalt be well-pleased." [Surah Adh-dhuha 93.3-5]

TEMPT 1,2,3

2007-11-21T10:06:00.000+08:00

Assalamualaikum, peace be upon you.

I would love to be able to say, "ok, just a quick post and then i'll start mugging." but yeah, that'll be just self-denial man..but i think ive been a relatively good disciplined girl these past few days so i'll give myself a treat. hurhur. oh btw, its exam period in nus now.. but i end on the 3rd! so ask me out ppl! for lunch, dinner, breakfast.. anything, haha, i need to gain back the weight.

anw, at this point in time, i have yet to decide what i want to blog about, or rather how much i wanna share. so yeah, we'll talk about other things first and then we'll see how this flows..

hmm, ok, i change my mind, lets just ram straight into it. muahaha! but as usual i shall be cryptic. though i'll be a little nicer and provide u with a clue into what the heck im talking about: scroll down to Nov 13 bt skip the 2nd para.

so basically, something happened, or rather, i let something happen and its so dejavu of that incident 2 years ago. n im feeling more hypocritical than ever. n im kinda semi-disappointed in myself. semi because like the prev time it happened[ok, i make it sound like ive done it only twice. heh, nah, im not such an angel],or rather the first time it happened, nothing bad came out of it.. or atleast nothing obviously bad.

okok, i shall backtrack and clarify. so it started with a temptation of the not so sinful sort. only 'bad' thing about it was me sacrificing my books for 2 hours or so. n i followed it. no biggie, done it a few times before. [i realise one's idealism and values get eroded with age.. but thats another story.] Then came temptation number 2, this time a big jump up the scale on khairi's 'sinful' scale. n so i thought for a bit and decided to go ahead with it, and prayed in my head "ok god, this is the right time to give me a sign if u think i shouldnt do it." Then i smsed the mother who unexpectedly replied "where? with who?" instead of the usual and expected "ok." finding it hard to reply to that sms, i thought "shucks, thats one good sign alright." and rethought my decision regarding TEMPT2. And then, the strangest thing ever happened; i had the exact same strong awful feeling in my gut that i felt on Nov13'05 on the way to the movie. Very strange since khairi hardly ever gets gut feelings and what more the sort that she actually feels like following [im more of a go with the brain than the heart sort of person] and furthermore, the sort that is EXACTLY the same as what shes felt before. STRANGE, i tell you...and freaky too. good thing i was alone when this whole shebang happened cos i must have had the weirdest expression on my face. Anw, so being all freaked out, i decided to not go with TEMPT2, though it was a pretty hard call and i was sulking with myself afterwards. So, Hurray for khairi right?

nah, things are never that easy. Then came TEMPT3. which is very simillar to TEMPT 2 i suppose, though in my defense, i had a shorter time to think about whether i should go with it. This time khairi spontaneously went ahead with it. and as i said, nothing bad came out of it, though khairi knows that she shouldn't have done it in the first place and that its bad in the long-term. more importantly, its like that song; 'I went under the bus, i got hit by a train..' hurhur, whats the point of conquering over one's temptation and then falling prey to approximately the same one less than an hour later? stupidstupid khairi.

n so we have established that khairi is a hypocrite and therefore, you really shouldn't ask for or listen to her opinion on things since she doesnt listen to herself at the most crucial times.

u know how they teach us in sec sch cme[ok,im not sure if this is a unique mgs experience], that u should refrain from the little things since the little things tend to lead to big things? n if u were as critical as me, u would have sat there listening and thinking how the heck does going out for lunch constitute the first base where the homerun is pre-marital sex? like thats just so illogically conservative.

but i think im finally beginning to understand. Thinking about it, if i hadnt succumbed to TEMPT1, TEMPT 2 and TEMPT3 wouldnt have happened. my rationale for going with TEMPT1 was that despite being near the edge, it was still within the boundary of what i feel is ok. it didnt occur to me that being at the edge puts me in a precarious situation where its easier for me to see the seemingly beautiful beyond and fall over. i guess the baseball analogy is pretty good; you either start the game or not at all.
Its time khairi reverts back to sitting on the bench.

I leave you with a quote from Ustazah Rahmah,"Jangan desperiiit!"

truckload of baggage

2007-11-14T20:27:00.000+08:00

Assalamualaikum, peace be upon you.

why does it seem like for every one new thing i learn about him, i learn another about her?... urgh. i hate baggage. especially if its not mine. haha, but who am i to hate baggage? when i have a truckload myself. which is funny since many of my principles are based on the aim of keeping the baggage minimal. shrugs. hmm, come to think of it,i do parade quite a bit of it; not as much but yup i do and to an extent, i enjoy it. gah. someone should invent some pills that erases baggage, or at least stops you from subconsciously thinking/talking about it.

im watching titanic now. u know, i dont think i've ever watched the whole movie before. which is probably why i never understood whats the big huha. so the movie is up to right after the nude potrait scene (giggles) n im beginning to see why its such a great story.

which reminds me of them. nono, not the nude scene.hehehe. the story,duh. i think they're very sweet. n i hope they last. like really2 long. i have no idea how thats feasible, but lets hope when it does come out, its just the beginning rather than an ending. n we all know the power of positive thinking. hehe.

it also reminds me that im becoming more cinderella by the day.worse part is, i think im beginning to like it. like really like it. hmm, n the disgust is fading. god, im such a girl.

n it just occurred to me that if this doesn't last, its just going to add another bag to my truck.

ok,enough thinking, i shall mug chem now.

ehem

2007-11-10T11:25:00.000+08:00

Assalamualaikum, peace be upon you.

Yesterday. wow. hmm. it was a good and bad day. but lets not dwell on the bad. n especially the bad that is still ongoingly bad. i shall be patient and wait till the hikmah comes out of all of this and then i'll blog about it. n then people can read my blog and get their own hikmah out of the hikmah that i wrote about. nani, MULTIPLIER EFFECT dok! hoho.

So, the good, i passed my biochem test. i know because he immediately read out the answers to the mcq section. how well i passed, hmm, thats a different question. but the main point is that i studied as much as i possibly could with the burden of ehem[i told u already that i dont want to dwell on the bad just yet] on my brain and study plan. so, im thinking maybe, just maybe, i am cut out for this. maybe i can handle the stretch and not break. i should so learn to trust more in the fact that God won't place a burden heavier than i can handle on me.

After the test, i met up with Izzati. did a bit of research on how to overcome ehem. it didnt go anywhere, so we went to have a lunch session. n we talked about stuff. n for that hmm, how long did we eat?, i didnt think about ehem at all. n she told me something that is close to her heart. n im very honoured. really,i am. that someone could have so much faith in me, in our friendship. n yesh! i shall work on closing that gap, girl.

Then i went to forum all geared and artificially cheered up to meet kj who was crashing. n i made him get icecream to help me keep up the cheeriness. Came to forum n bumped into nani. n i think she asked if i was going for the perbayu outing thingy, n im like erm no. n everything about ehem came out. hurhur, so much for wanting to be artificially cheerful.

but then she gave me like omg, one of the best/heart-touching/sweet b'day present ever. i dont think anyone has ever like MADE me something for my birthday...oh wait, i dont trust my memory.. but yeah, i was touched that she spent so much time and thought on it. n ok, it was from nani AND KJ, but knowing how much of a bum he is, haha, i think it was mostly nani whom i know can't exactly spare tt much time. yes, this will be one bday present i'll treasure forever.

n then when i got back to forum, the people there were talking about the term papers that they just got back. n naturally smone asked me about ehem. n out it came again. i should so learn to say no to ppl's queries. because he said something along the lines of, i feel so sad for you, i really do. n god, i hate that. as in, not hate perse, but yeah, i dont like bringing ppl down with my problems. i mean i admit it, i do like telling people about my problems because i feel slightly better afterwards, but then a while later i dont feel good because i feel like i've burdened someone else with negative emotions and like im causing a multiplier effect of the very negative sort. i miss the days when just telling God was enough to make me feel better.

Then kj finally came and so after a short icecream session where Omar stole him from me most of the time, we headed to yih to watch the Secret. Hmm, many4 things to say about that. n i did say a lot of it at the discusssion afterwards, though a lot of the more personally poignant stuff i kept to myself. im glad that my life, our lives, are planned by God the all-knowing. because if kj hadnt wanted to crash, n nani didnt have a crappy timetable and hadnt wanted to watch the secret, i would so have gone home and like fret over ehem instead of watching it. n u knw wat, instead of just helping me emotionally and spiritually, the session yesterday might just about help me practically with ehem. well, we shall see how that goes.

n then supper! the 3 of us went to al-azhar. n they now have spin drinks! haha, i had the longan spin which turned out to be pretty much the same as ice longan [shaved ice with longan syrup] except that the ice was purple! hoho, so gimmicky can.. like what does purple have anything to do with longans? n we found out that 'azhar' means prawns/shrimps in some language because when we ordered murtabak special al-azhar, we got a murtabak filled with nothing much but that. muahaha,n e thing is im allergic. or supposed ot be lah, though i once ate a whole plate of purreed shrimps and nothing happened.

anw, aside from the food, as usual we talked about tons of stuff which i cant really remember, haha, but yeah the point of such lepak outings is to lagjag i feel, so that was somewhat accomplished. though nani corectly pointed out that we didnt end on a good note when i decided we shld leave. n i think it was partly my fault because halfway through i just didnt feel physically good anymore. it was getting too hard to filter out ehem from my thoughts.

hmm, i cant wait till the next time i blog. n hopefully i'll have a hikmah to share.

Birthday post

2007-11-05T20:10:00.000+08:00

Assalamualaikum, peace be upon you.

ok, im going to spill a brief one and then maybe continue when i get back from swensons, or maybe another day...

First of all, i think whether or not my family decides to celebrate my birthday depends greatly on whether they are craving for anything. haha. this year, the mother called asking me to go home quick so that we can go get icecream at swensons. i come home and theres a polar cake on the table. hmm, maybe they changed their minds, i thought. haha, turns out we are still going sensons cos the mother still wants icecream despite having bought the cake, which i think was my sister's idea [and craving] since shes insisting we cut it before leaving for swensons.

Today i got lunch, two packs of chocolates, a frame/mirror thingy and a flower [daisy? geranium? i always forget whats it called..though its one of my favourites.] of oh just the right shade of magenta. khairi is happy and grateful for friends who take the effort to get me something despite only having known me for a few months.

on the bus back, i was thinking about stuff that was inspired by the giggly chat with izzati just now, when the cinderella song [by rajaz?? haha, i can never get the name right]came on the radio. i think i have a cinderella complex. n initially i was feeling smug for coming up with that [haha, typical khairi] but then the more i thought of it, th emore disgusted i got with myself. Eeeewww, khairi ur disgusting..

n that thought is still bugging me up till now. ok, i shall cut cake now. n laugh at my brother who is struggling to get the stove on to light my candles. muahahaha, god, he is really struggling... this is soo funny.

hmmm, khairi still disgusting...

asymmetrical monsieur

2007-11-02T23:27:00.000+08:00

Assalamualaikum, peace be upon you.

i woke up today and my left eye [the one with the once invisible stye] was slightly swollen and the stye highly visible. n it hurt so bad. i forced myself to go to lab. after a grueling 3 hours, i went to the washroom and realised that not only was my left eye still slightly swollen, but there was also a bit of discolouration, i looked like i have asymetrical eyebags. hurhur. but yeah, it doesnt hurt that much now because it has finally started draining. hopefully my eye will be as good as new by monday.

which is my birthday btw. muahahaha! khairi tak tahu malu[no shame]!

so after lab we had the first p3 [pertandingan pesta pantun] mtg. it was more like a ta'aruf [get to know]session really. omar made us play the hotseat game. properly this time, hurhur. n the basket asked me about monsieur again! n that got someone else veh interested. i told the beginnings of the story and then when we were interrupted, i had second thoughts about telling the whole story. so i decided that i wont continue unless he brings up the subject. [doesnt make sense, i know.. but it seemed logical enough then, haha.] n of course, this being khairi's life, he did bring it up and i blabbered everything. n im still wondering if i should have done that. im not sure i'll like the way he views me now that he knows this relatively hidden part of me. btw, im quite amused/amazed/perplexed by his strong interest about it, n naturally, i have started hypothesizing about possible reasons why. :) of all the possibilities that ive come up with, i hope the first one i thought of is the right one.

oh, btw, i had dinner at macs with fahmi,hanan,na'im and yusri [alphabetical order ok..haha, no favourtism here] at engin macs aft the mtg. totally impromptu, but totally fun. they were telling me jokejokejoke after jokejokejoke [repetition intended] and hoho, yeah, i just love funny guys. n i guess one thing i like about hanging around with groups of funny guys is that there is less awkwardness.. as in, though ur relatively new to the group,like cos ur only close friends with one of them, they dont make u feel awkward or be extra friendly or formal to u or things like that. so yeah, that was fun. n yes, again, it reminded me of my njmats. haha, but im beginning to relate them less to the nj mats, so i guess thats good.. as in, im beginnign to enjoy their company for who they are, rather than always 'comparing' them to the nj mats. haha, understand? nehmind if u dont. oh n i think they will now think of me everytime they see or drink iced nescafe.hahaha! [inside joke]

hmm, oh dear, i feel old. this is anticlimatic i know.. but i cant help it. i really do. 19 is so old. its like the last year of being a teenager. i dont think i'll be in any mood to be teenager-like knowing that its the last year i can ever have a valid reason to be that way. so this is going to be a hard birthday. to leave the realm of 18hood and face emminent reality of no longer being young.

ok, my swollen eye is closing in on me...

stylish eye

2007-10-30T12:27:00.000+08:00

Assalamualaikum, peace be upon you.

I think i have an eye infection. of the stylish sort.

hurhur. seriously though, i think i have an eye stye. on the outer edge of my left eye[where the tear duct is(??)]. The problem is, there is no visible bump but i can feel like slight pressure and pain there when i blink. so i think its an internal stye..if there is such a thing. so in this modern age, everyone who has a decent internet connection can be a doctor, haha. according to the websites,styes should disappear by themselves in a few days and so i will not do anything about it.. i think.. because i get very anal when it comes to the health of my eyes, having perfect eyesight and all [yesh! im proud of it.]. but going to a gp on acount of an invisible stye seems kinda of paranoid.

hmm, it just occurred to me tt im in the sci/med library...

hahaha! okok, i shall start mugging like im supposed to.

yesh ppl, this post is close to pointless.

forum irama

2007-10-27T10:35:00.000+08:00

Assalamualaikum, peace be upon you.

im still in my pjs sitting on the red couch recovering from a temporal sugar high induced by a whole piece of long john's chocolate cream pie. malasnye...[so lazy] to bathe and get this day started proper..

So yesterday was another relakjack day just like last friday. 'wasted' yes. oh btw, if u scroll down to my last entry, i was SUPPOSED to mug hard last weekend. but i didnt. hahaha. i got distracted by VOIP! haha, after i discovered that my laptop has a mic! the discovery process was quite slenger really cos a friend 'called' me over msn and i was like, eh, i got no mic ah, why u call me? i think he was being boliao cos he was like, nehmind just answer the call. i talk, u type. so okloh. he talked, i typed. and guess wat, he could hear my typing! hahaha, again, khairi is such an IT bimbo.

anw, back to yesterday. so after a really short lab session, i had a lunch session with dear izzati. notice the use of the word 'session'. haha, cos meals with izzati is never just a meal. for one, she eats slower than me. [amazing, i know! haha, considering my speed.] and for two, she enjoys talking while/instead of eating just as much as me. so yeah, slow relaxing lunches are great fun.

then, the idea was for me to start research for my evolution term project. which is basically reading harunyahya's online books on rebunking evolution for creationism. but i got pissed by his full-of-himself-ness plus i was soo sleepy. i think it was a late after effect of the cram session on wednesday in preparation for thur's org chem test.so i slept in the sci lib until so nyenyak[fast asleep] and accompanied by a bit of dribbling. hehe, no need shy abt admitting that i dribble lah.. everyone does that, its as natural as peeing. hahaha. then gad came. and she was soo pretty! khairi so wanna go skirt shopping and learn how to walk in skirts! then we tarpaued lots of food, desserts mostly, from megabites and picnic-ed at as6 with nani before solating and heading for np for forum irama.

n oh, we were late. cos we just missed 151. but they started late, so nothing missed. n it wasnt as full house as what someone gave the impression that it would be, so we had pretty decent seats.

The event [its such an 'innovative' thingy that i cant put a term for it.. forum? syarahan? concert? so lets just call it event.] reminded me of MGS compulsory weekly chapel service. u knw, i used to really enjoy them. but ive never admitted that fact to anyone before because ive always felt guilty for truly enjoying a service that is meant for worshippers of a different and somewhat rival faith. but i did enjoy the singing of the hymns, though i never joined in, n yet would still have the song stuck in my head for days after that, and i enjoyed the sermons afterwards. it was always spiritually enriching and oh refreshing. i always walked out of the audi/chapel feeling rejuvenated to be a better person and servant of god [MY God, that is] than i was the previous week. when asked by intrigued ppl [everyone gets surprised to hear of a Muslim girl going to a Methodist school] about how i feel abt being forced to attend such services, i used to say that well, since im forced to go, i may as well make use of it and try to learn somethign from it. afterall, all religions are universal in the sense that they all inculcate good moral values. but truly, i didnt simply 'try to make the best of the situation', i really did benefit immensely from those services. i would even go so far as to say that, i dont think i would be as strong in faith[ISLAM, people, dont get confused.]and steadfast in my beliefs as i am now, if not for the unique experience. not that im sayign im all that strong.. but you get the idea.

ANW, my point is that, all these years, ive always wondered why Islam doesnt have similar spiritual centred erm events. i mean, when you think of Muslim religious practices, its about going to the masjid to pray or listen to very practical-oriented syarahan [concerning halal-haram issues] or blind recitation of the quran [blind because most class ngaji dont emphasise the importance of undertanding what the heck u are reading].u dont think of the word spiritual u know. unlike when u think of Methodist, or any protestant church, religious practices, u think of menusuk jiwa [moving] weekly services with singing of hymns, spiritually oriented sermons and deeply personal youth group discussions and bible study sessions. i must make it clear that ive never went as far as to feel that Islam is not sufficient a religion to provide for my spiritual needs. i always knew that it is sufficient, just that i guess the norm here in Singapore is to focus on the more practical aspects of the religion. but that doesnt mean that i cant personally take the conventional socially accepted way of worshipping and 'modify' it to fit what i feel is more satisfying for me. like, for instance, i have a thing against [ok, not strongly though] long doa reading in arab only. like whats the point of blindly amin-ing whatever the imam is asking god for, when u can ask god for whatever u want urself and actually understand what ur asking for. so yeah, i make it a point to say my own doa, on top of just amin-ing.

okok, really, my point is, yesterday's event was satisfying because it was spiritually rejuvenating, maybe not as much as some of the chapel services that ive been to, and it has been a long time since i felt that. it was also quite 'relieving' to realise that hey Islam is practised in a spiritually oriented way, just that its not as common as in other religions.

on to more light-hearted stuff. Firstly, HATI IS LIVER NOT HEART. HEART IS JANTUNG! gah! i was so amused/irritated/agitated by the presentation thingy that had a hugeass beating heart as he background while the rest of the presentation was taling about hati.

Next, the silat performance was great, but why like got so many more girls than guys ah? isnt silat more a guy thing? so why the need to have so many girl performers? [actually, im affected not cos of that, but cos khairi prefers watching people of the opposite sex fight. hehehe]

n nani was also affected by that because she was wondering why girls performing silat is more Islamicallysocially accepted than girls performing tarian. heh, frankly, i think that if people were to lead Islamic lives in a 'strictly-speaking' sense, the Islamic community would be SOO different. i mean there are so many things that are islamicallysocially accepted that are actually[in the strict sense] just as wrong, as what self-confessed Islamically-inclined people frown upon. like say, religious ppl smile at tudung-ed girls but frown on those whose heads are uncovered. but if u notice, in Singapore, most tudung girls dont cover their feet, which i believe, is jus as much as an aurat as one's head. but u generally dont see ppl shaking their heads at un-socked girls entering the masjid right?

n oh, the silat was so good that it was distracting ppl from the sajak being read. especially for ppl like me who need to concentrate 100% to understand anything audio that is in malay.

the dikir was fun and funny, but thats how dikirs always are. ohohoh, the dikir-ers looked like clowns. n then upon further staring, they looked like babbies and for a few moments, i thought they looked like very pregnant women. hahaha, n all because of the huge bib thingy they were wearing. hehe, jangan marah..

n then there was the short skit thing based on the traditional satan vs angel fight thing. watching it, n it was a bit draggy, i was thinking that someone seemed so cuteboboy.. haha, but put it off as him simply acting that way because of the role he was playing. noticed the boboy thing going at other parts of the event where he was present. again, i shrgged it off as just me thinking that way because of the skit. heh, but at the end of the event, gad was like, eh, your friend seems so litle boy-ish [or something along those lines], n nani agreed. haha, so it wasnt just me! im wondering if he had always been that way but i neh noticed it, or upped the boboyfactor recently? if its the latter...

heh, dengar2 klau nak jadi budak baik perangai mesti cam budak kecik ah, bab budak kecik kan innocent...

Eid '07

2007-10-20T12:09:00.000+08:00

Assalamualaikum, peace be upon you

khairi is going to mug hard this weekend because she 'wasted' a whole friday playing. 'Wasted' being in inverted commas because i've learnt in jc that blajar tu blajar tapi jangan tak ingat dunia and lagi2 jangan tak ingat akhirat. [= must study hard, but don't forget the rest of the world, and more importantly, the end of the world.] having just bebualworld [= speak intellectually?] in MALAY, i must add that i realise that ironically, i've become much more Melayu ever since uni started. which i guess isnt so surprising considering that i became more Melayu in jc.. so its sort of a progressive thing. haha, i guess i find it strange mostly because i thought khairi became as Melayu as she will EVER get in jc...didnt know that im capable of much more. hahaha, i speak like being Melayu is a crime!

Anw, so yesterday night i went to nusms syawal gathering aka Eid'07. It started at 6.15 but me, amirah and izy were already kaypoh-ing around since around 2. haha, cos gad is the programmes ic and she seemed pretty stressed about it the pass few days. so being nice, we decided to help her out. regardless, i kinda enjoy kaypoh-ing around. there is something very relaxing and fulfilling about wilingly helping people who are stressed up about the event they are organising.

but we kinda lost enthusiasm to help out upon reaching the venue. partly because some people [or rather PERSON] just take so long to change and get pretty for the event. mostly because all the comm people whom we dont really know were there so we didnt want to erm invade their turf.

as for the event itself, i think gad handled the circumstances pretty well. i mean, they were like 45 mins behind scehdule ah! cos ppl only started flowing it at close to 7pm. izy said that she seemed much more stress than i was when pbm iftar started way beyond schedule, but i disagree. haha, i think i smiled and joked around more thats why ppl didnt think that i was freaking out. hahaha, but thats just good acting, not good handling!

the preformances, when it finally started was great. i think i enjoyed hasan and fahmi and cassim's sing cum strum thing best. heh, i think i just have a thing for guys and guitars. its the MINAH in me. i thought the kompang guys aka purple bros were great too, n i was about to comment to izy that they are better than our nj kompang mats [whom i think are great stuff] when they started to berterabo at a part where the tempo changed. hahaha, so close yet so far. n i think i would think that their lyrics were creative if only i could hear them. heh, they prolly shouldnt have drummed that hard. but great effort nonetheless and omg,they made me so miss my nj mats [hehe, 'my' eh..]. gah, i love it when guys have brotherly-fun. its so.. ukhwah. hahaha, makes u think, for a moment nonetheless, that world peace is possible.

but im not so sure about how i feel regarding group-teasing though. i used to be vehemently against them taking advantage of the apparent obliviousness of a particular someone for the sake of having their own fun. sure, he doesnt show any unhappiness regarding the way they treat him. heck, he may not even feel unhappy at all. but there is always a possibility that he is upset but doesnt show it right? n even if ur dem sure that he doesnt mind it at all, do unto others what u want done unto you, man. then again, as i said earlier, i USED TO BE against this whole thing. but after yesterday, i realised that this group-teasing thing is beneficial in its own right because it actually bonds people together. heh, its like how the govt works hard at creating the notion of a common 'enemy' so that the people in the nation will feel a stronger sense of togetherness. so yeah, my current take on this is yup, its all in good fun, until someone gets hurt lah. so i will tolerate, n heck, i might even laugh along. i totally doubt that i would join in the teasing though and i will so continue to throw a scowl or two when people attempt to go overboard. cos really, its all fun till someone gets hurt.

speaking of getting hurt, some guys are just so insensitively mcp lah. the feminist me was itching to put a handprint on someone's face.

anw, aft the event, we took oh so many photos using oh so many cameras. hahaha, heck, i didnt take a single picture using my phone ah, n im still confident of getting good pics with me in it. this is what happens when u dengan-tak-tahu-malunye [=with no sense of shame] insist that ppl take pics of u using their cameras. hehehe. but it works for ppl like me who are reluctant to bring their own cameras cos we are bound to misplace/break them in our excitement. the only problem is when you have to wait for ppl to upload those pics :(

so ppl, if u havent already done so, upload those pics! hehehe. ok, i got to go mug now.

Zoo raya

2007-10-12T14:04:00.000+08:00

Assalamualaikum, peace be upon you.

im so glad half of today is over. yes, the half that included a test and the mad rush to mug for it before that. ok, im lying. It wasnt really a mad rush. because khairi gave up. im still wrapping my mind around this idea. the idea that im so undetermined. i dont remember ever giving up so easily. especially when it comes to academic stuff. Especially when it comes to bio. i guess i was just too tired. but tt jus sounds like a lame attempt at coming up with an excuse.

So the story goes that this week, i had to write the hardest evolution self-learn essay so far, a Paper2 peer review draft for writing module [which is always freaking hard for khairi], study for a gentics test [like really hard, because as previously reported, i flunked the first one] and of course the recent biochem test. And not to mention a field trip to the botanic gardens last sat and to the zoo AND night safari yesterday. Add it all up plus the lack of proper time management and you get khairi coming home at 9.30pm on thurs night pooped and hungry from walking around the zoo n night safari while 'puasa'-ing, realising that she has completed less than 1/4 of her revision for the test the next morning.

So the mad rush supposedly began. After a quick shower and a force-fed dinner [no appetite at all], i sat down and thought "hmm, im hardly sleepy, i can so pull this off." Then, while waiting for ivle to load to check the seating plan for the test, i zonked. Do u knw what is zonked? its when one moment you're not feeling sleepy, and the next moment, you realised that the world passed by 2 mins or so without you in it. best part is, its so sudden that you're not even sure that you fell asleep in the strict sense of the word [ie close eyes]. all you knw is that suddenly, the page has long loaded and you dont remember waiting. so yes, i zonked. n so after zonking a few more times while reading the textbook, i decided to sleep n wakeup at 2am to mug like i did the previous day when i was rushing my essay.

n wake up khairi did. this im proud of. but no big accomplishment because im used to it since pre-As days. but i kept zonking while reading the textbook. so i tried reading the notes instead. still more zonks. Drank like a litre of icecoldlemontea and force-fed 2 bananas n still more zonking. soon it was almost 5am. this was when khairi gave up and went back to sleep, refusing to wake up for sahur and even sleeping again after subuh. note that at this point, i had 'read' less than 50% of what was minimally required and god knows how many % i actually processed while reading cum zonking. n so i went for the test prepared to fail. n for the first time, i really had given up. refusing to read anything on the bus and only glancing through unread notes while waiting outside the hall.

Alhamdulillah the test was doable cos it was half mcqs and half saqs. if it had included essays like i thought that it was going to, i would have surely died. But i screwed up the saqs and i thank god i did. really truly do. because i dont think i would have learnt my lesson if it was too breezy. n so now im taking a tiny break to finally catch my breath. but im going to plan my next two weeks after this though im so reluctant to. no world, ur not going to get khairi so easy.

On to more happy things! the zoo and night safari trip was a blast. much better than the botanic gardens trip, though that was already pretty awesome. just as i was thinking of the unlikelihood of being assigned the same TA again, my group got allocated him. haha, i love it when god plays little probability 'pranks' like that. n no, the trip wasn't great just because of the company as much as because im just turned on by the amazing stuff that nature gets up to. hehe, ok i lie. [again] the company did count for quite a bit but not in the fun-with-friends sort of thing like when ur on excursions in pri sch. More of the intellectual conversations abt evolution, weird animals, commercialisation and.. *widewidegrin* to nani, kj and everyone else who had prayed for otherwise, i cant help it lah, brains turn me on big time, regardless of the physique. ppl, ask me more and i'll spew the details like a pre-teen!

so wed night was a pretty eventful night too. I buka-ed in school with the lifescience ppl while bandung had her first date ever just a few tables away. so exciting seh. i was so hopeful for her. but what happened was so deja vu of my own first date. heh. key word being anti-climatic. though bandung's date did have a climax [a few actually!] jus that it was the waaay wrong sort. i felt kinda sorry for her. ok, i admit, the first thought that came to my head when the first unexpedted climax came was " Im SOO glad im not the one having the date her tonight!" hehe, mean i know. but yeah, i really did think that.

n then i got an sms from izy which was dejavu again. why do the things happening to my friends have to remind me of the things that happened to me? n the sad thing is i never really analysed or got over my own experience so having gone through it before doesnt help me to offer much solution or comfort.

for the first time in a long time, i had a bus pal going home from school! yes BUS. hehe, i have had it with mrts lah. fast yes, convenient somewhat, but god i just hate it lah. i dont mind coming home slightly later if it means i get to sit. anw, yes na'im was nice enough to abandon his friends [i think] to accompany me on a new alternative route home that he intro-ed to me. i love bus rides. and having bus pals who are nice enough to layan me. n as much as the feminist me hate to admit it, i like it when guys feel this obligation to make sure girls get all the way home safe and sound. n yes, izzati, i like it too when GIRLS feel the same obligation.

n raya is tmr.

im not in the mood. for one, i havent been puasa-ing. n when i was, i've been too busy with school to get in the swing of ramamdan. i did buy baju raya-s this year. but more because my clothes are getting old rather than due to any festive inclinations. My room is a mess. Heck, i dont even have an outfit in mind for tmr. yest, i came home and suddenly noticed that there were ketupats in a corner, sambal goreng and rendang in the fridge, and lots of kueh in the cupboard. n i thought, god, is raya that near already? n where the heck was i when all of THAT happened. n today after the test, i was thinking abt the work i have to get done this weekend until sarah and jihan wished me slamat hari raya. im so not in the mood. is this something that occurs with age? or when u feel that u dont deserve to raya?

Opiniated red queen

2007-09-28T22:24:00.000+08:00

Assalamualaikum, peace be upon you.

Matt Ridley in The Red Queen, Sex & the Evolution of Human Nature: "What was the secret that the serpent told Eve? That she could eat a certain fruit? Pah. That was a euphemism. The fruit was carnal knowledge and everybody from Thomas Aquinas to Milton knew it. How did they know it? Nowhere in Genesis is there even the merest hint of he equation: forbidden fruit equals sin equals sex. We know it to be true because there can only be one thing so central to mankind. Sex.

You know, i used to go by the nick poulet[ pronounced poo-lay] all the time. That was until i found out that aside from meaning 'chicken', the french word is also colloquial for 'prostitute'. heh. so i switched to khuldi [btw, the meaning of the words have no significance to me. i just like the way they sound], though as you can see from the end of my posts, that poulet still does appear here and there not unlike a vestigial organ.
So now that i've realised that to some people, like the ever opiniated Matt Ridley, 'forbidden fruit equals sin equals sex', and that as you should already know, khuldi=forbidden fruit, i guess its time i find a new nick. hehe. riiight,like khairi is that affected by this.

Yesterday's iftar with the iftar comm was fun. i realised that yesterday was the first time i ever stepped off the train at Kembangan station. haha, am i a Westie or what. So i was like 30mins early, hurhur, due to bad estimation. n decided to stare at the locality map to quell the temptation of browsing through the This Fashion nearby. heh, i dont think ive ever seen so many 'jalan's on a map ever. haha, n its like just 'jalan's and lots of emptiness[not literally though, because its all occuppied by private housing], unlike other MRT locality maps that have streets and avenues and tons of blocks and government buildings. so strange. i cant imagine myself ever living in such a place. thats it man, like that how to be elite Malay? hahaha.

so we prayed at Mjd Kassim and ate at Mak's place and then slacked at Telok Kurau Park[i think] and then i got sent all the home by Cassim. All of the above being firsts for me. I like Mjd Kassim. its got a well-maintained-due-to-no-lack-of-funds feel to it. hehe, so this is where the elite Malays go to pray. Then off to Mak's place which has bad food, service and ambience. seriously, so overrated. but the company was good. i guess. heh, i was pretty silent and out of the main convo throughout the meal. prolly cos i wasnt warmed up yet. also cos we were in a corner where voices kinda have a tendency to bounce off the walls and get all jumbled and so ohhh, headache ah. so i was glad when we finally got out of there. also appreciated the majority deciding not to head for shisha. hehe, im very anti-shisha if you must know. was tempted to plunder them with the truth behind shisha myths like i once did to monsieur [he stopped shisha-ing, i think. haha, or he could have just said that to pacify me.] but nah, felt that wasnt the best time to be a knowitall. hehe, done too much of that already during iftar planning. heh, but i must say that it took A LOT of self-control siah. especially when someone whom i though is smart enough to know otherwise said "Shisha is just tobacca lah. not addictive because got no nicotine and all the other bad stuff in cigarrettes." so wrong dude. Nicotine COMES FROM tobacca. so how can u say that shisha got no nicotine. Read on, or you can just google on your own.
http://archive.gulfnews.com/notes/Issues/10081839.html

anw, so lepak-ed at a pondok at the park with horny bullfrogs erm croaking away in the background. tried to 'play' the hotseat game. didnt turn out well. so in the end everyone told everyone about what our first impressions of everyone were, and what we think of the person now. i think i must have gotten the most consistent first impression accounts lah. haha, the keywords of everyone's account being 'strongly-opiniated' and 'biting' and 'intimidating'. Hahahaha. i find it dem amusing since i know for a fact that im not half as strongly-opiniated as i was say one or two or many years back. in fact, i think since i made the effort to be less stubborn throughout the project, i think they only saw 3/4 of how strongly-opiniated i can be even now.

btw, notice that im not particularly affected by the seemingly 'bad' first impression people have of me. because ive since accepted that being strongly-opiniated is just part of who i am, n sesungguhnya[=truly] there is much hikmah in that seemingly undesirable quality. i admit that it gets in the way of socializing [cos new ppl just get turned off by it, duh] but its an asset when it comes to projects and such. [and yes, i do realise that i am currently being very strongly-opiniated in analysisng my strongly-opniated-ness. haha, so i shall now balance my view.] having said that, theres no use being an asset to a project if you're not even part of it, so thats why ive learnt to tone down my opiniatedness over the years in order to perform better at socializing. hehe, classic example being refraining from warning shisha-lovers about its health hazards. haha, but ofcourse when it comes to my blog, jeans are unbuttoned and everything is free and easy dok. so no worries; you can expect to read entries that are just as strongly-opiniated as they are now in years to come.

kekasih gelapku

2007-09-27T00:51:00.001+08:00

i think every girl wishes that there is constantly one random guy [or more] out there who upon thinking of her, would say and mean every single word of this song.

mugging makes me jiwang.

IFTARs

2007-09-22T08:54:00.000+08:00

Assalamualaikum, peace be upon you.

Randompieceofinfo= the cartilage of my ears are hurting now.

haha, cos of one whole day and one whole night of wearing a serkup[=snowcap?? haha, the thing u wear under your tudung to keep your hair neatly covered]. hoho, i must learn to bring telekung that doesnt need serkup the next time i go qiyam so that i can take off my tudung AND serkup.

yes, i just came back from qiyam. my first actually. i myself am surprised that at the age of 18, i still was a qiyam virgin. hoho, its always been one of those things that ive always wanted to do, but never got around to doing/got the chance to do. anw, it was a nice experience. nothing too dramatically new or unfamiliar. in the sense that i expected it to be more you know.. haha, more what? spiritual, religious, magical? yeah.. heh, i think i got all these preconceived ideas from Religious[just christianity im afraid]EmphasisWeek in MGS.

But the again, its not as if i worked too hard at making it a spiritual experience. haha, because half the time, i was doing non-qiyam-ish things like:
1. tagging along for no reason when Gad, the designated driver for the night, fetched things and people. Gad is my new hero! because she can drive a hugeass car/van so smoothly and confidently. like wow. haha, i shall strive to achieve such coordination dexterity...once i've collected enough courage to even register for driving lessons that is, hehe.

2.Oh, then on the way back from one trip, i randomly made Gad stop by 711 to get tubs of icecream that Sarah paid for because i didnt bring any cash. hehe, n we were so greedy because we bought 3 tubs but in the end only finished one, left one unopened and another was donated to the guys. heh,i guess we didnt expect the other girls to be so much less enthusiastic about icecream.

3. Making all sorts of comments during the movie screening and drifting into plain chatting with izati and sarah to the annoyance of ana, haha.

anw, in short, it was definitely a good experience. n a relaxing one at that. i think they should organise qiyam on the fri just before all term breaks. its a great way to renew your energy to mug hard and make full use of the holidays. talking about mugging hard, im so going to do that this week. i think i'll be going to school everyday n mugging like crazy not unlike during the pre-As era. im sick and tired of getting left behind despite working at my maximum. so yeah, its time i embrace that im a slow learner and start dealing with the problem.

n im really not exaggerating. i really am having problems keeping up with schoolwork. I would like to think that its because my involvement in the pbm iftar comm took up too much of my time and energy. It would be great if that was the case because then i'll just stop organising stuff and problem solved. but really, once a week meetings dont really count for much. n yes, i'll admit that the deadlines and volatility involved in organising events do add on to the stress, but its the good sort of stress you knw. the sort thats necessary in order to feel accomplished.

speaking of pbm iftar, alhamdulillah it went well. notice the neutral-ness of the adjective chosen. heh, ive always been critical of ppl who blog about how proud/happy/satisfied they are with how their events turned out eventhough it seems pretty obvious to me[n thus SHOULD be pretty darn obvious to them too] that it wasnt as much a success as a failure. not that im saying the word failure applies to this event. its just that yeah, sometimes when you've worked dem hard at something, you tend to get deluded about the success of your event. i mean, afterall, who likes to think that their efforts had gone down the drain? so yeah, its better to try to be objective about it, n when thats not possible, you should just keep your subjective thoughts to yourself.

so anw, i was in charge of programmes. 117 people came, way beyond the aim of 70ppl. though i think no more than 40 stayed on for the games and terrawih. but all the better anw, since i dont think the games would have been half as fun[admit it ppl, u LOVED the childish evo game! haha, i could see it in your faces, n ive got pictures to prove it!] with more ppl. i realised through the event that ive indeed learnt to be less idealistic...or rather, less insistent on perfection and more in tune with pragmatism. heh, realised this when i decided to scrap one of the major games [which i reallyreallyreally liked because it was so suitable for the event] due to the lack of time n too many ppl running off after buka, despite fahmi [=mr PD] insisting that i try to go on with it. n im surprised at my level of calmness. haha, i mean there were so many things that went wrong. n more importantly many of those things were preventable. haha, i think if this had happened a year or so ago, i would have broken into a furious yet useless rant halfway through the event. heh, its amazing how age has a tendency to mellow one down. i do however still have to work on the people skills bit because despite my relative calm, i think i still stepped on a few ppl's toes during the event.

ohohoh, and speaking of stepping on ppl's toes, the funniest incident must have been when i accidentally backstepped into fahmi and literally stepped on his toes right after we were talking about how hard it is to jaga wudhu' while running around so many ppl. i was like this close to swearing, haha, only to realise that stepping on him not counted as touching since i was wearing socks. haha, all hail the humble sock!

n i moved one step up in the pact since hoho, 1. he finally knows and remembers my name. 2. i have his number! 3. i had a decent convo with him that lasted more than a minute. problem is, hehe, he no longer looks as cute as before leh, how? hah, which makes it a good thing tt im really not that serious about this whole thing. afterall, khairi has options!

a first almost

2007-09-13T12:00:00.000+08:00

Assalamualaikum, peace be upon you.

i almost had my first breakdown in nus this morning after my 1-1 conference with the prof. nono, he wasnt that mean. it was just the straw that broke the camel's back. well, almost anw. what a way to start off ramadan this year. n i mean that in both the negative and positive sense. because if you think about it, just like how cake taste sweetest, and arguably best, when you eat it after drinking something hot and bitter, the nikmat of happiness/success is most intense when it comes after much excrutiating emotional agony. im looking forward to the rainbow after this rain.

god, that last line was corny.

anw, right now,im glad for mainly 2 things:
1. that i remembered that god is with me whenever, wherever, [i was in the little girl's room after all, hehe] the moment i started wishing that i have a shoulder to cry on at that very instance.
2. 4 years of drama club in mgs has taught me enough about acting to help get me through the rest of this day.

note: aside from the phobia of puking, im also intensely afraid of crying in public. heh, dont ask why. phobias are intrinsically idiosyncratic in nature, i feel. at least when it comes to mine.

frivolous organic chem

2007-09-06T19:26:00.000+08:00

Asslamualaikum, peace be upon you.

for the first time ever, i really truly dont know what to blog about. like, theres so many things that i could type lah, but somehow nothing seems blog-worthy. blog-worthy in the sense that after i write it here, i would feel better [doesnt mean that im feeling bad now though, just happier and more satisfied i guess]. n yet i dont want to close this window until ive clicked the publish button. heh. okok, khairi will get a move on cos she has got to mug!!

yup. mug for organic chem test next mon. Questions:
1. Do you know what is the lowest grade khairi ever got for a proper and important test/exam?
Ans: O8. n i cant remember what mark range that is because of the whole selective memory thing. haha, but i remember that it was NOWHERE near passing, haha.
2.More importantly, do you know what #&$^ topic the exam was mostly on?
Ans: organic chem
3. Do you know what the upcoming test is about?
Ans: ORGANIC CHEM!!
n i mugged dem hard for that lah. like really2 tried so hard. but in the end i made it [yes, i know you know this] because you know how khairi is, shes a really slow learner. but she gets it eventually. just give her tons of time. n even if she doesnt truly get it, she practices till she remembers what to do, despite a lack of understanding. but anw the POINT is =CAP [omg, i just made an unhappy face with the word =CAP, hahaha]. like i cant afford to not make it first n then make it later. must constantly make it. gah, so i got to really2 mug this weekend. pressure sia.

btw, i've already flunked my first ever test in nus; my molecular genetics module. like really flunked because i had no idea how to even begin to do 1 essay question out of 2. heh, what a way to start off uni right? bt im not feeling too bad about that because i really didnt study enough. n i knew that i needed to study a lot more..i just didnt have the time because i had two essays due on the same day as the test and my weekend was wasted away by the mendaki anugerah ceremony and the rehearsal for that. so, it was just a plain case of PASRAH [=submit to one's fate, haha, im so happy that i learnt a new Mat Melayu word] lah. cos i really tried my best once i realised how dead i was. heh, even skipped lunch. the first missed meal in nus. veh sad seh. that was not supposed to happen till like at least a few months more. uni is supposed to be happy! 'A's were supposed to be hard. uni is supposed to be the reward for that. its all an urban legend i tell you.

ive got a feeling that its my major mods that are going to pull my cap down and my usp mods are going to be what temporarily save me. which is ironic since usp mods are supposed to be harder due to the lack of familiarity.

but im really enjoying them though. especially my evo mod. i like the way he sets us these really vague, yet strangely guided essay questions on topics that i know almost nothing about [ex: Spend about 1-2 hours looking up terms like the null hypothesis, microevolution and Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium. See where this leads you and write a 600 word essay.] as graded assignments before the lecture on that topic. Initially i thought that the vagueness was dem irritating. but then i realised that it makes a lot of sense to set the homework that way. because it really forces you to understand[though at a very touch-n-go level] the terms and more importantly, their connections with each other, since you actually have to form your own thesis before starting on the essay. the BEST part is when you've spent precious sleeptime writing the essay after finally coming up with a thesis that makes sense to you, and you come to class the next day feeling all lethargic yet triumphant, only to go "OOoooh" halfway through the lecture. the first part of the "OOoooh" being eureka-ish because you finally found a satisfying answer to the doubt that was hanging over your head while doing the essay, and the later part being because you just realised how messed up your whole thesis and thus essay is due to that revelation. but since its usp [i think..or it could just be the prof], its perfectly ok! like because its the best way to learn. n i totally agree. n i think uni should be like that. singapore should so hurry up and set up a liberal arts college.

on to more frivolous things. before i had the chance to [or rather, guts to]execute my 'accidentally' drop my pen act, flabby made the first move.
punchline is that its not on me. heh. but its ok because its not a clear-cut move. n i've got options! haha, yes, i will remember that. speaking of options, im still debating in my head [when im not mugging] whether i should 'forsake god' for the frivolous social night. ive always wanted to qiyam n this is such a great opportunity to start with. n since ive never previously thought of going for social night, the decision should be quite clear right? heh, but frivolous is always fun.

Activ8/07 bazaar

2007-08-28T06:56:00.000+08:00

Assalamualaikum, peace be upon you.

Alhamdulillah, the final installment of Activ8/07; bazaar @ al-iman went well. a few glitches here and there, but really nothing unmanageable, though as usual, even the tiniest divergence from the ideal plan made khairi incredibly uncomfortable. The kids had fun, and actually earned quite a bit of moolah; an average of about $180 per group of 6 or less. thats like a week's worth of allowance each? more importantly, i think they got a lot more used to the masjid compound and the whole idea of masjid-going being something other than just what the oldies enjoy doing. i think thats nice, though a bit jealous ah that i never got such an experience at that age. haha, well at least i had monsieur.

speaking of whom, he was there. when i first saw that flying-fox and archery were one of the main highlights of the carnival in the poster, i kinda had an inkling that he would be there doing one thing or another. what more with the apparent fact that al-iman is kept youth-friendly by grapes from the same bunch. so he is still pretty much the same. n i like to think that i am too, but really khairi, u think? for one, khairi from the past wouldnt have so blatantly chatted him up in public. n she would also have been more self-conscious of her un-glam-ness[think: mud all over track pants and shoes and even on white tudung]. but like the khairi of the past, i didnt hesitate when asked for a troublesome but doable favour. what are friends for eh? heh. n like instances from the past, it was pretty obvious that the favour wasn't well appreciated, though also like the past, it could have merely been circumstances that made it seem that way. ok, khairi should really stop defending people.

oh n hilya [lifescience mate] was there too with her siblings i think. they set up a food stall. hahaha, was so surprised to see her there since she lives at like the other end of Singapore. just shows how small Singapore can be.

thinking about it now, i think at the postmortem, when asked to give an advice to the rest of the comm, i should have shared what i just learnt that day at the zesty syarahan about zina [=erm premarital sex +adultery?] by ustazah rahamah. it was very refreshing by the way, since its been such a long time since i last attended a syarahan or madrasah for that matter. bt dont think i'll be a syarahan-convert anytime soon since i still dont like how some go 'overboard' by exaggerating and thus spreading minimyths in their exasperation to get us on their side. ohoh, anw, what i learnt was: "mesti yakin dengan jodoh" and " jangan desperaaate" [with the 'peraaate; pronounced as 'periiit']. haha, pretty funny really, but kinda very useful and succint advise. it seems pretty duh, but i think its one of those things that we want to think that we believe in as an extension of our general faith in God, but really, do our daily actions reflect this?

Plus that with a previous conversation that went something like this:
pm: [jokingly:] be wary, there is a participant going around asking for email adds and friendster.
me: just say dont have loh. oh no,wait, we at masjid, cannot lie. hehe. did u give her yours?
pm: i said tt i have. she asked if she can have it. i said no. but i told her to ask me again tmr.
me: why u ask her to ask u again? not like ur going to change ur mind tmr what..
pm: hmm.. well, i dont know what is going to happen tmr. or what im going to feel tmr. only God knows.
me: what?! but ur giving the poor girl false hope. thats like so evil..

but maybe its not so evil after all.

so the two things added up in my head and it produced this question: is it really up to me to decide who gets a chance? or a second or third one for that matter. or rather, SHOULD is be up to me?

2ndweek nus

2007-08-24T22:41:00.000+08:00

Assalamualaikum, peace be upon you.

flu flu fly away, come again another day.

I wanna say that im sick. but that would be lying. because im almost sick. runny2 nose. i realise that i get nearly sick often but hardly ever really sick. which is annoying. haha, ungrateful i am. anw, i dont wanna be nearly sick now because this sun is the al-iman bazaar. [infomercial: Al-iman Mosque (bukit panjang ring road) is having its annual family bazaar this sunday. Highlights include flying fox, bouncy castles and Didi Cazli (i still dont know who he is, except that his sidekick is Chico) Come down if you're in the neighbourhood.]

speaking of bazaar, i have yet to ransack my cupboard for things i can donate to be resold. im thinking of all those clothes i bought on impulse but never got around to wearing because a)they dont fit or/and b)they're just ugly. like for some reason they were pretty enough to be bought but undergo some sort of transformation on the way home. yesyes, i tend to be a pretty impulsive shopper when im emotionally unstable. anw, as i was saying, i was thinking about those clothes, n i wonder if they're appropriate to be sold near the mosque. because i think most of them are spag dresses..n pretty skimpy and kinky ones at that. hahaha,no, im not THAT impulsive.. as a tudung girl who freezes more often than overheats, i wear layers which un-kink and un-skimp the dresses. but yeah.. selling skimpy dresses at mosque just seems wrong lah. haha, so howhowhow?

i wonder if i can donate annonymously...hehehe

this week has been a better week at school. now that ive found ways to cope with the stresses of school life.

for one, i am now addicted to chocolate. i go through an average of a whole Dars bar per day. It helps keep me awake in lectures and makes me happy. Its also a lot more portable than bottles of icelemontea.

for two, i am getting very used to eating at Megabites. i love their sandwiches, service with a smile, comfort, efficiency and convenience. n the prices are really quite reasonable. im like, so going to get fat. hahaha, right..

for three, im getting used to the musollahs. im like so excited about cleaning/fixing up [think mirror and proper storage and dustbins and tissue and fan...] the one at MD9 because yeah, musollahs should be welcoming and i've got nothing better to do. oh, n i was finally shown the one thats at AS6, ie, nearest to central library[where i 'hang'(actually mug lah) most other than at science]. believe it or not, before that, i've been walking all the way to As4 just to solat. haha, but then again, i like walking, when im not in a rush.

for four, and most interestingly, i've found an eyecandy :> hehehe, dont tell you who.

nus first week

2007-08-17T21:00:00.000+08:00

Assalamualaikum, peace be upon you.

Wahseh, why does noone want to answer the qn in my prev entry...no fun eh..

anw, i guess its high time i blog about my first week in nus. heh, i dont know man, havent had the mood to blog really. its not been the best of weeks, though not the worst either. its like nothing particularly bad happened so nothing too interesting to blog about, but yet i still feel shitty cos tons of slightly bad stuff have a tendency to form a mountain. and eventhough they make a mountain, its just boring to talk about many little stones right?

heh, so moving on from feeling generally shitty, school has started n its on full-steam. im already feeling stressed. whichever baskets who said that a-levels is the most stressful part of ur life and that uni life is such a breeze comparatively, are like, well, such baskets. because i dont remember feeling so stressed at the beginning of j1 or end of j1 or beginning of j2 or..well, you get the idea.
so here is a list of possible reasons why as of late my average heartbeat has increased and my jeans are seriously falling:

1. usp modmates who are more kiasu than me.
on the day when we had the first lesson of the sem, i had a 4-hour break. so i figured i'll go borrow ONE of the books from the supplementary reading list. but i got distracted when i met my ex-schoolmates at central library. so i sat down to chat and decided to start a little bit on my assignment first. an hour or so later, 2 usp modmates walked by and stopped to comment on my enthusiasm in completing homework. so khairi felt sheepish for being a crazy mugger, but not for long, as she soon discovered that they had just double-handedly borrowed all the books in the supp reading list which they could get their hands on n even zapped the first chapter of the RBR book.

2. reading blogs of fellow freshies
who are already so into serious mugging mode. the sort of mode tt ur only supposed to get into when the real a-levels are a month away. this one, i cannot say much lah cos its my fault also for being so voyeuristic, haha.

3. repeatedly falling asleep in lects and tuts.
it could be my bio clock being unused to being continuously awake, after months of waking up late and taking aftnoon naps. it could be that since the topics are currently mostly revision, my brain subconsciously thinks that i dont have to listen, though i want to. OR most likely, im just cursed.
heh, if you were my classmate in lps, you would knw that i used to have to stand in class because i repeatedly fell asleep during science lesson. if you were my classmate in mgs, you would knw tt our hist/ss teacher used to get so pissed with me falling asleep in her class after just 3 mins of her talking[my lame defence: she was monotonous!]. if you were my classmate in njc, you would knw tt the time i spent sleeping in econs lects is much more than i ever spent being fully awake. heh, and so i guess if you're my modmate in nus, you will soon get to knw that im a cursed creature of habit. but no, im not one of those people who are so smart that they think that they dont need to listen to lects, because im not! i reallyreallyreally want to stay awake. but it seems like the more i want to keep awake, the more sleepy i get.

4. the CAP system
if u were to describe the most thrilling thing about khairi, it would be her grades, because its a rollercoaster ride. [:> i know im lame, wee!] heh, yeah, im a freaking slow learner lah. if people need to do a sum thrice to get it right, i need to do it 30 times. so even though i consistently mug hard, the results dont show it until the finals [which so far have been what really matters] because its only then when i would have finally done the sum 30 times, analogically speaking. so i am feeling veryveryvery anxious about the cumulativeness of everything. doing usp mods which i cant s/u makes it even more frightening and oh, all the horror stories of seniors having their cap single-handedly pulled down by one lame-assed mod they took..

5. im a scholar leh
to be honest, this fact and its implications hasnt quite sunk in yet [probably because the money hasnt come in yet, haha], but when i think about CAP, the number 3.5 comes to mind and thats because nus says that if i dont maintain atleast that magic number, they will stop giving me money. n then i'll be back to square 1 of being indebted to my parents n thus obliged to do as they say, or rather, as she says.
n being a uni scholar also kinda makes me feel obliged to be more than a mere average non-commital to any cca undergrad. n the route to fulfiling this obligation has been pretty rocky so far.

6. the people,people and more people
is nus crowded or what? like seriously. i've only just realised how much i treasure the many quiet lonely deserted spots in nj now tt i cant seem to get away from people. people in general of course..haha, i havent made any enemies yet. i mean, even solat corners are crowded lah. like gah! no matter how cramped and dark and mosquito-filled the angklung room n sliding-door cca room were, atleast u could be alone with god for a bit. oh well, i guess maybe its jus a matter of time n lots of getting randomly lost before i find my own little oasis.

btw, this is soo funny [NANI, click it!]: http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=ya+ya
expecially the first one:
1.ya ya
A woman's vaginal area, consisting of all the parts of the vagina.
I had to go to the ya ya doctor today for my annual pap.

To nani: i couldnt find a single definition that says even vaguely that 'yaya' means what i 've been using it to mean [=enthusiastic]. so i admit defeat! haha, let the internet be the judge!

Ath-thalaaqi= At-talaq

2007-08-12T18:03:00.000+08:00

Assalamualaikum, peace be upon you.

"And unto everyone who is conscious of God, He [always] grants a way out [of unhappiness], and provides for him in a manner beyond all expectation; and for everyone who places his trust in God He [alone] is enough. Verily, God always attains to His purpose: [and] indeed, unto everything has God appointed its [term and] measure."

At-Talaq-65:2-3

when shit happens, look away, stand back,see the big picture and walk a different path. noone is forcing u to step on it. im going to trust god on this one. dear God, find me a new nice path please.

The moment you worry, you're no longer trusting in Him. Do YOU agree?

song

2007-08-09T01:00:00.001+08:00

i swear i'll marry the guy who writes and sings me a sincere song.

mcspicy

2007-08-09T00:57:00.000+08:00

Assalamualaikum, peace be upon you.

I just ate 3/4 of a mcspicy burger. Every few months or so, i'll walk into macs planning to buy something decent like double cheeseburger and while in the queue, think: hmm, i feel like a mcspicy..i wonder why i havent had it for ages. n then i'll go home, take the first bite and remember why. haha, way too spicy for me lah deh.

anw, lets see. ever since the tioman entry i've been to
1. 3 bbqs: nj perbayu, vault reunion, usp oweek
of which, only one didnt suck too much. n its the one where i actually ate bbq-ed food. haha, happy guessing which one.

2. countless usp talks
of which, the informal briefing abt bidding and such by usp science fac seniors was most stressful yet helpful. the rest either bored me or made me oh so idealistic. haha, i've even pledged to not touch my yearly 6000bucks unless its for going overseas. like yeah, use the money for nothing else but traveling and studying overseas. which means tt i must suck it up and continue giving tuition at a frequency that guarantees me no less than 350 bucks per month.

3. freshmen inauguration ceremony
i fell asleep while the pres was talking. like 'fell' being the operative word since i really didnt mean to. but jus couldnt keep awake though i didnt do anything tt whole day and had enough sleep the prev night. haha, what a way to be inaugurated. and so much for my resolve to stop sleeping in lects like i did all the time in jc.

4. bidded for the first time
for usp modules. competing with usp seniors with Ks of points. thank god i had 400 points and only 2 mods to bid for. with only one of them being cut-throat popular.

5. won the modules i want at first go
dem great feeling to read the confirmation mail. haha, now i understand gambling addicts. btw, im reading 3 lifescience allocated core mods [group a1], danger n national security writing mod and evolution mod. oh, n i just found out that my usp advisor is the lecturer for my evolution class. woots! haha, like this i'll get to know my advisor right from the start. andand, since he is in bio science department, chances are i'll do ISMs under him in yr 3. hehe, khairi havent even start sch already thinking of isms..

6. tried a new route
to school. it takes forever in the morn. haha. was late for usp welcome talk cos of that. plus of course i did get lost lah. but anw, i really like the route though. cos its like an all bus route and its from the busstop nearest my home. though being driven would still beat it hands down.

7. sorta went for usp orientation
haha, 'sort of' being the operative words. cos i ponned half the stuff, like helping with rag, stayover, repetitive talks, nightwalk...okok, i hardly went for anything lah. n even when i did, aside from the consciencious mingling[i met very nice ppl btw.], i was slacking half the time. including during flag. haha, was enthu for like an hour, n then it just got hot and tiring. n wearing my favourite colour didnt help much since the shirt was oversized and thus unecessarily hot. oh, but i learnt that if u cross 2 streets from parkway parade, u actually reach the beach! haha, like how cool is tt? haha, well i think it is.

7. got a fujitsu lappie
which is so much lighter than the lenovo, but still not light enough n the battery life sucks, so im prolly going to get a secondary battery, which will not make the lappie any lighter. im loving my bed even more cos now on top of sleeping, reading,mugging and thinking, i can surf on it too. but i hardly get internet since my room is far from the modem in the living room and my bed is on the top bunk[wait, does that matter?].

8. had serious thoughts about staying at PGP next sem
after touring a fellow usper's room and associated facilities. the room is not tt small afterall. seems bigger and more 'airy' than the kentridge hall room tt i slept in during camp. best part is, i dont have to accumulate points to stay there, just need to be in usp. oh wait, no, the very best part is tt theres a playground! with swings! haha, im such a kid.

oh, my parents and baby sis are out of town, holidaying at Cherating. which makes me parentless til sat. n the best part is I HAVE ABSOLUTELY NO PLANS FOR TOMORROW. the sarcasm should have been easily detected btw. nehmind, i shall be a good girl and read up evolution tmr.

oh wait, library is closed right? dang it.

binger

2007-08-02T22:29:00.000+08:00

Assalamualaikum, peace be upon you.

i have a confession to make. sometimes, when im upset/pissed/stressed, or sometimes just plain exhausted, i binge. Im not sure if the word 'binge' automatically connotates the throwing up part, but thank god, i dont do that. i just eat alot. like really a lot. at one go. n although i dont puke[or maybe because of that], most times, my digestive system goes haywire for a few days.

u probably never knew this about me, because i never binge with company. its a very solitary activity. its like if ur eating with ppl, u would naturally have to be socially alert and to somewhat entertain them. even if u choose to keep totally quiet, the ppl are still there and like it or not, ur brain will automatically process whatever that is going on around you n prescribe a reaction, which u would then have to forcefully stop from doing, since u've decided tt ur not going to talk. whereas if ur eating alone [dont have to be in an ulu dark corner, a moderately filled fastfood joint works too, so long as u have ur own table], its just you and the food. n for that hour or so, all u think about is...well, u really hardly think; u jus eat. u dont think abt anything but getting the food in ur mouth. u dont feel anything but the taste of the food. n u feel like ur in total control. thats the best part really. because if u think about it, being upset/pissed/stressed is unsettling mainly because u have no way of controling the situation. n so for that hour or so, u r numb and almost oblivious to ur surroundings.

up until the nausea sets in. n if u are me[i have a phobia of vomitting.], u stop. take a final sip of water, n u leave. n for me, its therapeutic really. most shrinks would forbid such self-destructing activites, but hey, theres no denying that it freaking works. for me lah. cant quite put my finger on how exactly its therapeutic, but the words refreshing, satisfying and yet punishing comes to mind.

anw, the point of all of the above is to tell u tt if one day, u spot me at a table eating alone, PLUS with way too much food, please dont attempt to 'save' me from having no company for lunch because firstly, ur stalling my therapy, and secondly, i prolly wouldnt make good company since im likely to be in a crappy mood.

oh, n i guess a trigger for this is the fact tt i just had a mini binge session.

some random thoughts:
1. socialising is hard work. its hard n tiring to continuously do something that is against one's nature. im very pooped.
2. its a freaking small world. which reaffirms my belief that everything happens for a reason, including all the dodos we meet, its just a matter of time before the reason takes shape and appears.
3. public transport sucks. especially if ur running late and its peak hour. u would think tt the phrase 'money can buy anything' would stand true in this scenario. but ur dead wrong as u wait in the taxi queue. n wait some more despite pumping in more money into ur efforts by calling for a cab. n then u realise tt for the time u have spent waiting, u would prolly be 3/4 there if u had taken the train instead. but ofcourse, by then, even if u decide to take the train, u would be way beyond late. n so u get so irritated tt u decide to cancel ur appointment and just go home. by train. of course.
4. learning to drive wouldnt make u a happier n more punctual person because time can be wasted in tons of other ways, like finding a parking space, parallel parking, filling up the tank, getting lost on the road...
5. amidst all the pessimism, u find a strong motivation for quickly finding the ONE. think: the ONE who drives. hehe.
6. number 3,4 n 5 r closely related, which makes this list of thoughts, not so random afterall.

Bunga2

2007-07-27T23:09:00.000+08:00

Assalamualaikum, peace be upon you.

Today i shall try something new. Instead of writing about the tioman trip in chronological order, i'll write according to themes. hehe, lets see if it'll help to cut down on the long-windedness. actually, i doubt so, but atleast u can just jump to the interesting-sounding topics.

Background
Nani, aini and khairi went to Tioman for 3 days. yup, no guys, no parents. independent women, heh. We stayed in a standard chalet at Paya Beach Resort and spent about 200 sing in all. tight budget, but comfortable nonetheless.

Just keep swimming
The main highlight of the trip was sea-bathing[direct translation of mandi laut] and snorkeling. Me and nani never snorkeled before. heck, nani couldnt even swim. haha, emphasis on the past tense though. because we somewhat taught her how to in one afternoon. initially, she reminded me of me attempting mass dance back in nj orientation days [think: when hands move, legs dont move. when legs move, hands forget to] but soon she got the groove. only problem was she still didnt seem to erm, whats the physics word for it, acquire displacement? haha, she wasnt going anywhere lah deh. but it improved once we strapped on the life jacket on her and she could now focus less on remaining afloat. heh, n i learnt how to snorkel. like, breathing through ur mouth is not as no-brainer as u would think it is u know. haha, initially i had to be so conscious of breathing in and out through the mouth that i was making these nazak-sounding breathing noises. but u kinda get the hang of it after a while. we spent the second day snorkeling at the designated areas tt the boat took us to, where there were tons and tons of fishies. n when we fed them bread, all the fishies would just rush towards us, flapping their fins and scales against our goggles n faces. there were so many pretty fishies that i was surprised that i didnt find any lost souls stuck in my pants pockets. the weather was supposedly great i think, cos it wasnt raining, but the cloudy sky made it more bearable than if it had been all sunny. problem was, it was too cold for me, and tt kinda sucked the energy out of me.

The soccer playing-resort working-chain smoking-kampung mats
While i was in the shower after the snorkeling trip, nani met Pak Atan, who was our boatman earlier in the day. He invited us to tumpang the boat to Kampung Tekek [its like town to tiomaners] since they were going there anyway to play soccer. n tt was how we met the above mentioned mats. It turns out that it wasnt just a bunch of resort workers going there to kick around some balls on their day off, but a whole football club with a whole entourage of fellow kampung supporters going to play a match against a team from Kpg Genting. its like a less superficial version of the S-league. but just as serious with referees in smart uniforms and players having separate uniforms for warm-up and for play. but as serious as they were, they were still mats. n in their eyes, or atleast the ones who were still single, we were still minahs. heh, n so naturally, the small talk cum flirting thing ensued. especially from this player number 9. but it never got to the point of being irritating or degrading. despite their chain-smoking, they're pretty decent ppl, i think. although i could have been mistaken since half the time i couldnt understand half of what he was saying, n i think vice versa. haha, it was a case of mutual misunderstanding.

tt night, Pak Atan took us to a beach side tiki hut of a bar where some of the soccer mats worked n where some chilled. they served Bacardi? ,Vodka?, Nescafe and Iced Nescafe. yes, thats all. very 'zen'. n the qn marks above are not meant to indicate uncertainty on my part, haha, it was seriously written that way on the menu board. anw, so we had iced coffee and slacked with
Pak Atan and Shah Rukh Khan who is rock kapak. we told SRK[he looks nothing like the real deal, btw] the bunga2 joke, but he didnt, couldnt and refused to get it. i suppose finding kinky jokes funny is against the rock kapak culture ai.

The number burger mats
On the bus trip home, we stopped at a restaurant for lunch. by then we were almost dead broke and thus had to plan carefully before we ordered anything. n since we were running out of time, we decided to tarpau cheese burgers. nothing strange about that. then we went to the shop nearby to get packet drinks while they prepared our food. when we came back, i noticed that the restaurant workers mats were stealing glances in our direction. again, nothing strange about that[haha, so says the primadona]. after waiting a bit too long for a simple order, a mat came up and handed me the filled plastic bag. n i remembered he was weird because he totally avoided eye contact. then instead of goin up the bus like the mats must have anticipated, we decided that we stil had time to eat. so we found a table. [Be patient;the puncline is coming..] n i opened the bag. 'Ayam' [=chicken] it said on the styrofoam box in a nice cursive handwriting. i was about to comment about about it, when i saw the top of the next box ' Daging-017-73XXXXX'[Beef-017-73XXXXX]. and the last box simply had '017XXXXXXX' scrawled hastily on. n so i blurted "they gave us numbers." muahahaha, as if it was a wrong order like that. i was so amused, and yet impressed. i mean, come on lah, can u ever imagine singaporean mats ever having the guts/spontaneity/ingenuity to do that? like, they didnt even know where the heck we came from ah. snob noses would probably think that its a very distasteful n degrading way of picking up girls. but hey, it worked didnt it? i mean, noway im going to ever call them, for obvious reasons [think mutual misunderstanding], but it sure did catch my attention. i think its the little things like that which makes all the difference when u start talking about birth rates.

The sun-tanning mat
Coincidentally, we weren't the only Singaporean undergrads on the beach. on the first day while being all bimbotically jakun with our snorkeling gear, a sing malay mat strolled down the beach n decided to sun tan on the sand right in front of us. this is despite the fact that there was no sun and that he kinda needed a workout more than a tan and that we, being in his direct line of view, were obviously going to ruin the scenery. after careful staring, i realised that i saw his face at ms+pbm camp. n so we concluded tt he must be one of the nus silat ppl who we knew were also there for a holiday. n that kinda only made it more awkward to be where we were, wearing what we were wearing and doing what we were doing. not that it ever occurred to him, i guess. anw, we were formally introduced later on in the evening when nani's faci frm camp intro-ed us to the rest of the bunch. hehe, then, it was his turn to be embarrassed.

Bunga-bunga..
has got to be the phrase of the trip man! n yes, obviously it doesnt mean what it does literally. inside joke lah deh, lazy to explain. realised that i can come up with a lot of kinky crap when im fueled by darkness, seaside breeze and ice nescafe. brgs a new meaning to the proverb 'tin kosong nyaring bunyinya',haha, because obviously, im all talk but no walk.

The key that was meant to be..
...lost. on the first day, just as we were getting the hang of snorkelling at the beach, aini realised that she had lost our room key. to avoid the 50 rm penalty, we chaotically put our newly acquired snorkeling skills to good use and desperately searched for it. to make things worse, aini had just ventured further out to sea, n so the key could be anywhere, including at the deeper areas. naturally the meLAYU in me kicked in; i did attempt to find it, but i never believed that it was possible. but out of the blue, i saw the keychain swaying in the water with the key it was attached to partially embedded in the sand. the water wasnt too deep, but it wasnt exactly shallow either. for a moment there, i wished that i didnt spot it. [side track: i used to learn swimming for years as a kid. but i never got higher than a beginners cert because i could never pass the dive and grab the sunken watch component of the intermediate test.] but once that fleeting thought flet, i dived and grabbed it. n i was so very happy. n i thought uhuh! thats the
hikmah behind me failing the swim test. success is always sweeter when unexpected.

the next day, we put the key through aini's metal necklace, thinking that it was the ultimate secure place. to cut the story short, when we were on the boat, leaving the snorkeling spot, an angmoh man came up to us and asked if a necklace he had found on the boat belonged to any of us. it was aini's and the key was gone. n the boat had started off so it was too late to jump in and search like we did the day before. besides, the waters were much deeper this time, with abundant sea urchins. n nani kept saying smthing along the lines of the key was just meant to be lost. i suppose she was trying to reassure aini, but it triggered an overwhelming emo-ness in me. lets just say that the story of this wretched key makes an awfully brilliant analogy for the
most significant episode in my pathetic love life. n u knw how the sea always smhow naturally triggers ppl to self-reflect.. so yeah, it was jus a horrible double whammy.

The janji melayu minahs
Heh, we were constantly late. we kept the whole bus waiting when we were first taking off by bus frm Royal Plaza on Scotts. we were late for the boat ride back to the resort after the soccer match and me and nani actually ran quite a long way back to the jetty. we consistently woke up half and hour after our alarms first rang. we kept the bus waiting again on the way back home after getting distracted by number burgers at lunch break. hehe, bt unlike ALL the family vacations i've been on, i wasnt the main course. n tt was a nice change.

[ok, i prob can come up with more themes if i try, but im falling asleep.. its been a loooog day and tmr will be a long day too. for now, enjoy the ms+pbm camp and some of the tioman trip pics. at the links on the right.]

Open Venom

2007-07-22T12:19:00.001+08:00

Assalamualaikum, peace be upon you.

wow, i really dont know where to start. u knw when ur a super anal long-winded witch, and theres just way too much to say, u always dont feel like saying anything at all. haha, its like, if its not going to be perfectly detailed, im not going to do it at all. yes, i think im bordering on the line of OCD too. okok, i'll do it chrono and will TRY to smack the bush straight to the saucy stuff.

so we [nani, izy and me], the only nj freshies as it turned out, started the first day of social camp with a macs brunch and then cabbed to kent ridge hall. we were split into different groups, which was great cos we would have so stuck together and not made friends if we had ended up in the same group. my group, Venom, is pretty slack i must say. n very the non-competitive. hahaha, like totally MY type of ppl ah. if u dont already know, im always the win or lose still sincerely just as happy type [its the meLAYU in me]. i didnt notice it at first, but as pointed out by shikin, all the girls in the group are minah tudungs except for one, and thus making us the group with the highest rate of tudung-ed girls. heh. im not quite sure how that might have affected the group's socio-economics, but if there is one thing i learnt, its that the distinction between the minah tudungs and the non is getting increasingly blurred to an extent that its increasingly difficult to put a stereotype on a girl based on whether or not her head is covered. to put it more crudely, just because u are covered, it no longer makes ppl naturally think that u are any less mentel than the non-covered. im not quite sure yet what i think abt that.

so anw, the first day kinda just passed. but the night activity was dem tiring. we had to go around analysing scenes and looking for clues CSI style with the aim of finding the murderers. initially, everyone was kinda enthu. i even volunteered to be the secretary. yes, me with my worst handwriting in whole of perbayu, took down all the notes. [go ahead, laugh] but the number stations were never-ending and the looking for clues in all the wrong places thing kinda drained the energy out of us. in the end, we just hantam all the answers. obviously we didnt even come close to winning. but noone was particularly upset about it. haha, n the non-competitive me was happy. we were pooped, so the roomate and i went straight to sleep after a dem quick shower. n we shared the bed because we are both curlers when we sleep and thus there was enough space for two.

the next day was station games all around campus. but i think throughout the whole camp, we only went to Science fac once. so much for getting familiar with campus. but i know the kent ridge areas and business pretty well now, so if being in usp takes me there for some reason, i wont be so lost. we also took the shuttle bus quite a bit. but it was more of just blindly following the group. haha, so i still dont have much of a feel of the shuttle buses. we won some and lost more of the station games. heh, not that i was keeping track. n we were so dem slack lah, prefering to sit around waiting for our competitor groups to come instead of searching for hidden clues. again, not that i had any problem with that.

then at night, things got more interesting with more station games at West coast park. but first there was the walk there. n me, nadia and nazeera had good girl talks. haha, n they discovered how long-winded i am because i never got to the ending of my mcp story. at the park, they decided to randomly regroup us. n i ended up in the same group as nani [whom i have had a mysterious connection with eversince i violated her in a dognbone game gone wrong during njperbayu orientation] and shukri, my long lost madrasah friend [hahaha, honestly, i used to hate his snobbish nose like shit, n him beating me at the sec 4 finals just made me dem bitter. but its all in the past i guess.] .my west coast park group was 10 times more havoc than Venom lah. which also suited me just fine. i mean, smtimes, being non-competitive can get a bit mendak. but i dont think i would have liked it if i was in that group for the whole camp. haha, i would have died of exhaustion or thrown off my ferring, depending on which came first. the games were dem fun, but after i got repeatedly groped by a certain vertically-challenged guy[tak baik seh.. haha] during a game where we were blindfolded, it dawned on me how exactly god-conscious [not] a society MS is. not that i minded being groped. ok.. that sounds dem wrong. as in, i didnt kick a huge big fuss lah, because it was all in good fun, n i did get to slap him, accidentally while blindfolded nonetheless. but i was thinking, if it wasnt me, but maybe some ex-madrasah girl, the scene might not have turned out with tons of laughter and joking.

the walk back was less kecoh with me being mostly quiet while accidentally eavesdropping on the guys walking behind us discussing their near-death merry-go-round experience, and simultaneously enjoying the jiwang songs by the impromptu girl band walking ahead. but halfway through i somehow ended up with shukri's and nani's group and spent the rest of the walk excitedly engaging in merepek nerd talk. haha, i usually get my fix of this through msn convos with a particular poly nerd, but since got no msn, nani and shukri would do since they layaned me as i explained the logic behind the urine test and attempted to explain shukri's weird bladder urges.

but the best part happened late at night, or rather early in the morning. after bathing and such, i didnt feel like sleeping yet, but my roommate had to cos she had qet the next day. and since nani got pangsehed by her group, i decided to accompany her to find supper so that the roomate can have the bed to herself. n so we walked to 711. on the way there, there was a black and red tree snake right in our path. nani was like, eh, snake. n i was like, no lah, just string. [it looked like a thinner version of bungee rope.] n then the string wriggled. heh. n my first instinct was to whip out my phone and take a pic. sorry ah, bio nerd instinct. but nani pulled me away before a steveirwin incident occured. then we saw Aliff who just won Anugerah a few hours ago at the cheese prate shop with his parents. heh, it was so coincidental cos me and nani just spotted him at Causeway point with his parents also a few days ago. but we were not really fans of him so we maintained, haha.

when we got back to KRH, there were no freshies at the lounge but tons of the facis and helpers on one side. so we just thickfacedly conquered a sofa and started talking while stuffing our face with food. soon the seniors bunch dispersed, n fazli, instead of going back to his room like the rest of the seniors, plopped his butt on our couch and went 'so how how how?'. [sidetrack: fazli is a senior we know previously from the Activ8/07 comm. but since Activ8/07 has had only like 4 mtgs thus far, we hardly know him lah. ] being nice couch hosts, we offered him a sandwich. being a nice guest, he malu2 kuching-ly refused. in the process of refusing, the club sandwich plopped onto the floor. n we started accussing each other as the one being at fault. all through this time, fazli was like bent on the floor, seemingly picking up the sandwich and its contents to be thrown away. but the next thing u know, he had stuffed the fillings back in nicely and ngaup, a big bite went into his mouth. hahahaha.that was when we knew that we would be spending the rest of the night with this guy. n yup, we only went to bed at 5am. n we are no bosiahs in the making ok.. cos we had a chaperone! hahaha, in the form of this pakcik security guard who left us alone most of the time, except for a good 15 mins he spent good-naturedly lecturing us about the importance of speaking good pure melayu. anw, what did we talk about for like 3 plus hours? we basically told him about all our nj mats who are now mia in our lives due to ns loh. kinda realised how much we missed them. oh, n i kept mentioning that fazli so reminds me of kj. like the way he could listens to us ramble and his slenger ness and the way he fiddles with his fringe, and i think the gedabak nose also came into play. n it turns out that he can be just as equally bitchy, haha, bcause it was dem obvious that he told his roomate about smthing i said about his roomate. but yah, he is an overall nice guy really.

the next day was station games again cos the actual plans were canceled due to rain. n fazli's roomate repeatedly picked on me, though he didnt always succeed. then there was the wet games. again, not very god-conscious, haha, because this time a guy got violated at the dogandbone game. im pretty wary when i play this game as abovementioned, i had a bad/interesting experience once. so yeah, i didnt touch anyone this time. then there was the special dinner. the sound system was bad and plain irritating at times. especially the tunes played as fillers. im glad fazli's roomate didnt pick on me then, though he had ample oppurtunity to cos i swear i would have kicked him in the dick or smthing along those lines.

then it was free and easy time and our group went to west coast park to just crap, or so we all thought. but it turned out to be a heart to heart session really. which is strange since we really hardly know each other, n yet there we were pouring our deepest secrets and sharing our insecurities and unashamedly trying to find solutions for our bgr problems. it was plain wonderful lah. as each of them took their turns, the main thought bugging me was how plain boring my life has been thus far. like seriously. all throughout the camp, i had gelled in quite well with everyone and i didnt feel particularly different. but on that night, i suddenly felt so unique. n there was no denying that its because of the fact that i had a different environment growing up, in particular mgs. n when it came time for me to share, i really had to think hard lah, because frankly, the story that i initially thought was interesting was obviously not when put side by side with the rest. so i spontaneously decided to share the one story that is not particularly interesting, but is what i really feel for and had never had enough strength to share with anyone. n heck, i even removed one entry frm this blog, because i was so paranoid that smone might be able to figure it out. but in the end, im glad i opened up, eventhough i think none of them would remember anythign i said, because it made it easier for me to open up to the ppl that mattered.

so now, im gonna talk about what happened yesterday. me, nani and kj went to watch bahas, nj agaisnt rj. BTW NJ GOT INTO FINALS AGAINST MA'RIFF.SMS ME FOR MORE DETAILS IF U WANNA GO WATCH. we must have pissed cikgu, because we kept talking amongst ourselves rather than watching the bahas properly. but there was just so much to talk about.
then it was off the ppl's park to settle the rest of the tioman trip payment with aini. n we tried to story to aini all the juicy stuff, but she was dem stoned from whatever she did in the day. so she went home while the three of us went lucky plaza to get ayam penyek since the ns guy wanted it. then we went alfalah to maghrib and dem coincidentally, we bumped into camp commandant haikel who was just leaving. so while the two went in to solat, i was left to talk to him and his bro who is an nj j1. n it came out that im yana's sister. n he was like, 'ooooh... so u are yana's sister...' heh, sometimes i seriously wonder what the heck did my sister do that illicits such a response.

when the two were finally done with isya', we walked all the way to suntec because we couldnt decide what to do. in the end we hit 711[creatures of habit seh] and slacked at the fountain benches in front of a security camera n we had a heart to heart. i told them stuff that few or none ever knew. including my 'secret' to good grades. n also the same story that i told Venom at that sharing session, except that this time, they knew exactly what and who i was talking about. today i woke up without saying 'oh shit.' so i think i made the right decision to finally share. i guess an essential part of recovering is to first stop denying. and the best way to stop denying is to personally narrate the story. n we made a pact to help each other overcome all the emotional barriers thats keeping us from movign on.

i got home at about 2am. after like 4 calls from the mother who obviously mengamuk-ed. i know its bad of me to make her so pissed, but i felt and still feel that whatever we were doing is important to me. just like getting so involved in perbayu, not wanting to do medicine, not wanting to apply for an astar scholarship, going to tioman with just two other girls, and all the other stuff that the mother never approved of. it comes a point in time, like when u realise how much u've missed out on as compared to other ppl ur age, when u just got to go against the flow and hope that god will forgive u one day.

as an ending note, if things keep up, soon enough, khairi will be able to allow herself to be loved again.

giant zoo

2007-07-14T20:38:00.000+08:00

Assalamualaikum, peace be upon you.

So the free zoo tickets were well spent today, i think. considering that we[me, nani, aini and izy] covered almost the whole zoo. though we didnt see anything particularly interesting or unique today, except for maybe the newborn pigmy hippo. perhaps cos the animals were all being lazy after lunch. haha, next month [i have a tendency of getting free tix monthly.] we shall go in the morning.

The zoo seemed much tinier than what i remember it being when i was a kid. haha, i remember it used to take forever to get to the kids world and an even longer and torturous walk back after a whole day of playground-ing and waddling in the pool. n i can remember it well from the countless trips to the zoo when i was still very much in love with nature and we were Friends of the Zoo[meaning, we could go to the zoo as many times we want with our annual membership]. when i have kids, i'll make sure we're FOZ.

i think the zoo has also become much more commercialised and somewhat pretentious. varied uniforms of keepers 'inspired' by ethnic asian wear, overpriced snack wagons sprouting everywhere, themed animal displays [Great Rift Valley of Ethiopia,australian outback, splash zone, like whatever happened to seeing animals whenever and wherever they pop up?], a tribesman as one of the highlights of an ANIMAL show, albino peacocks, horse-drawn carriages. Also, the giraffes are much shorter now and population numbers of kangaroos and mousedeers and polar bears and butterflies have declined drastically. hehe, im such a pessimist. but yeah it was fun nonetheless. to me, nothing beats a relaxed and almost aimless walk surrounded by nature, no matter how artificial it may be.

i cant wait for camp and then the tioman trip. yes, the tioman trip is currently quite on after i talked to the mum again and she once again changed her mind, this time, back to the positive answer. im simultaneously crossing AND crescent-ing my fingers, hoping that no more mind changes is made by her. however, im not looking forward to the fact tt i'll be missing two weeks of tuition [i want the moneh and my tuttees need the help.] and two Activ8/07 meetings in a row. which reminds me that i have yet to inform any of the 3 parties. heh, i just hate having to say tt im not free, because i feel like such a non-committal minah.

i discovered tt one of my tuttee's home is walking distance to imm. heh, which means that i can hop over to giant whenever i have a sushi/pizza/fried food craving. i also discovered that giant has a wide variety of track pants for asian build [think short lengths, less clingy material] going for 10 bucks. i have yet to get a good travelling backpack for camp and tioman and all the other short trips i can imagine myself going for in the near future. i also have yet to find a reasonably priced water-resistant sport sandals that dont look oversized when i wear them [i've got long skinny feet.]. i should have bought two pairs of those radar rubber sandals when they were still selling them. n nani and i have yet to get cheap bikinis for tioman. n last but not least, i have yet to figure out how do people pack tudungs for camps without them getting all crinkled? [the hotels i go to usually have irons]

heh, yes im excited. half the fun of going on camps/trips is the pre-trip shopping. :>

2007-07-08T00:44:00.000+08:00

Assalamualaikum, peace be upon you.

So today i went to [what i believe to be, cos i honestly cant remember] my first tunang[engangement] ceremony. haha, that sentence sounded like i was the one who got engaged. heh, it was cikgu's pertunangan. i think it was a good experience. because next time i wouldnt be so kekok[awkward] at such things. haha, n im anticipating more and more such invitations in the near future. but seriously, it was more awkward than what i expected. heh, i think ive gone out of touch when it comes to such melayu social events because it has been literally years since ive been to any. ok, the cousin's wedding was just a few months back, but yeah, other than the rare close cousin marrying, i've hardly been to such events. haha, not that im totally against them or anything[noo, i am not that elitist.. yet.], heh, i guess the parents just stopped insisting that i go.

anw, im wondering if 10k is the standard rate for hantaran[dowry?] nowadays. i know in the religious standpoint, tunang is not necessary and that its more of a culture thing, but im wondering if its encouraged. im also wondering if it'll be too unacceptable to the conservative traditionalists if i insist that my mas kahwin is more that the hantaran, refuse to tunang or sanding and request that the whoever gives an english/malay translation to the customary doa selamat-s[err, safety prayers??]. i've never wondered about such things before because i figured when its time, i'll get to do it how ever i want to because due to the lack of strong extended family ties, and essentially contemporary/radical parents, i wouldnt have to be bounded much by tradition. bt today i wondered about all these after cikgu said that she initially didnt want to tunang but didnt dare to refuse when the other party requested for it. hmmm. u get what i mean?

aside from wondering, today, hypocrisy shoved its nasty face in my face. First there was this article PENYANYI DITUDUH 'DEDAH TUBUH'. [Singer accused of baring body.] http://cyberita.asia1.com.sg/luarnegara/story/0,3617,99177,00.html? This particular line especially:
'Mereka minta kami tunjukkan (kad pengenalan) MyKad, tetapi salah seorang pegawai enggan menyentuh kad itu sambil menyifatkannya sebagai najis,' kata Siti.
[They asked us to show our MyKad(identity card), but one of the officers refused to touch my card while describing it as impure.]
Talk about being SELF-RIGHTIOUS. Come on lah, like you've never sined like that. and since when is the back [they arrested her in particular due to the semi-bare backed top she wore] more of a necessary aurat then say ur arms[which typical malaysian 'hijabed' ladies have a peculiar habit of revealing via their short-sleeved shirts.]. n what does that one little sin got to do with her identity card. dude, one sin, or tons for that matter, doesnt turn a person into a walking spitoon, fit for only crude and derogatory treatment.

n then in the Straits Times, there was an article 'Malaysian Woman's Dilemma' about an Indian woman who was born a Muslim but married a Hindu and wanted to convert out. " She claimed she was placed in solitary confinement and that officials tried to make her attend religious classes, pray as a Muslim, eat beef which is forbidden by hindus, and wear a headscarve." What ever happened to 'There is no compulsion in Islam'? i dont object to the court's ruling that she be detained at the Islamic rehabilitation centre [cos u knw, she might have been temporarily blinded by love], but i dem right disagree with the methodology of the centre if what the woman claims is true.

i think jakim officers need to watch this http://ummahfilms.blogspot.com/2007/06/new-ummah-films-video-haram-police.html. i dont fancy such ppl hijacking my religion by giving a bad impression of what it means to be a good practising southeast-asian Muslim, thank you very much.

n then oh, the Live earth concerts. Lighting enough to light 10 houses, private jets flying tens of artists all over the world, millions of ppl turning their tv sets on all day and for a significant number, all night, 24 hours in all. n for an effect on ppl's consciousness that will last no more than a month at best. need i say more? unless the singers continually promote such green awareness by practical and all-out means, like say reusing their costumes rather than practise the unbendable wear once rule, i think the cost-benefit anaylisis of such a project would result in a nil.

i am aware that i am being extreeemely cynical today. i might be pms-ing. or it might be the dem vivid dream with such a well-developed plot that i had last night [its soo eviiil and like oh so relevant to my current reality that i dont dare to spill it here. but do ask me to personally story it to you. its a dem good one i tell you.]

or it might be because khairi is upset because she is jealous because she is greedy.

i want a personal escort too.

2007-07-04T00:14:00.001+08:00

Assalamualaikum, peace be upon you.

So i've signed up for the ms+pbm social camp and signed down frm the usp camp. which means tt there is no more changing of minds; im confirm going for ms+pbm[btw, izy loves me for this]. if u read my prev entry, at the time i wrote tt, i was bent on going for usp camp. but the friend whom i was supposed to go for med checkup and usp camp with pangseh-ed me today for med checkup and i soon realised that she was having thoughts of pangseh-ing me for the camp too. no, dont get me wrong, im not that dependent on others when it comes to social interaction[actually, im more of the other extreme]. n neither am i bitter abt being pangseh-ed. i kinda just took it as a sign[together with the cute postcard ms+pbm sent me but not izy or nani] tt i shld go for the ms+pbm camp instead. haha, not that i had solat istikharah, though i did think of it[its the thought that counts?] but of course, u are obviously expecting a more pragmatic reason frm typical khairi. heh, ms+pbm camp is gonna be at nus while usp will be at chalet. khairi needs to familiarise herself with campus. u would understand how great a need this is if you have ever been anywhere with her. so i figured whats the point of getting to know ppl who will be in my usp classes before school starts only to never meet them when school begins due to not being able to get to my classes. heh. so as strange as the whole process of decision making sounds, its perfectly logical to me. n tts enough to keep me happy.

so sun was spent shopping with izy and watching the double bill Bulan Madu with aini, syikeen, nani and farah. i bought a top from zara which i have yet to fully enjoy because i left it in syikeen's bag n forgot to claim it. madu2 was entertaining. it was relatively light, on-the-surface-stuff lah, so yeah, it was just entertaining. but the creative way it was written and directed made it less bland than the typical light-hearted drama. anak bulan di kampung wak hassan was hmm, i dont have much to comment about the play itself. but the sole ACTOR from that was dem incredibly good lah. n i do mean literally incredible. the way he switched between so many characters so swiftly yet gracefully so many2 times was a treat in itself.furthermore, each character was so real and dimensional. i mean, u would imagine tt with so many characters and such quick changes, the acting would likely to come out flat right, but tt wasnt the case at all. so basically, it was worth my 16 bucks. im looking forward to ABV3 and wishing that alfian [mcm kawan gitu eh=like my friend like tt ah] would not migrate blog and disappear frm the online world.

Activ8/07[the al-iman youth entrepreneurship project] is going fine. i realise tt i enjoy the late night mtgs at al-iman, not just because of the un-bumming nature of it, n the company, but also because i can reach home late and technically just hit the pillows because isyak has been taken care of. haha, funny how much comfort a simple thing like tt can bring.

n we nj minahs are going tioman. to be honest, i've been wanting to blog this ever since the idea was spurted. haha, but i didnt want to jinx it because i blogged about my previous THREE separate attempts to go climb Ledang, n we all know how those turned out right [NONE of them were succesful ok]. haha, but it seems quite ON considering the relatively positive response of my parents and the relatively long duration of semangat[ie, bkn semangat sepuluh saat lah ni=not 10-sec enthusiasm]. n besides, i dont believe in jinxes wat[crosses fingers, eh wait no, crescents fingers kan nani, haha].

ok next up on social calender, cikgu's engagement this sat. woohoo. bt i have nothing to wear. i shall call and chat with her tmr.

2007-06-30T23:17:00.000+08:00

Assalamualaikum, peace be upon you.

Surah Al-A'raf (The Heights) 007.042
YUSUFALI: But those who believe and work righteousness,- no burden do We place on any soul, but that which it can bear,- they will be Companions of the Garden, therein to dwell (for ever).

haha, so the story goes that just as i was panicking about the whole big-ness of my assigned duty for the al-iman project, the big-ness got reduced to a much more manageable size. a size that im much more confident of being able to accomplish well. all i can say is, God knows exactly what you are capable of, and He won't make you suffer too much for too long. sometimes He likes to play little games with you.. but there's always some hikmah[today i learnt that i had always misunderstood the meaning of this word. it means wisdom btw.] behind it.

in this case, im thinking its to make me think twice about my plans to be yaya in nus. by yaya, i mean, like incredibly enthu and volunteer-y in ms and pbm. because tt incident gave me insight on how different and out-of-my-league-ish things can be at undergrad organisations. perhaps my innate capabilites falls short of what is required. i mean, i dont think there is anything wrong with admiting to/reconciling with the fact that we have limits. ppl say im very melayu when it comes to this because im so easily contented. but i dont think its very fair to equivalate it ; im aware of my limits, but who says that im contented with them? right now, i do not think that i have the ability to plan big scale events[n it seems neither does God], but im working on it, and so you should like check back with me again next year or something,haha. but of course there will be some limits tt might never change, like my ability to read any form of maps and to find my way without getting miserably lost, heh.

anw, my point is, perhaps its time i crawl out of my comfort-zone again. i mean, i did a lot of that in njc. perbayu and leadership were like soo way out of the zone then lah. but now, those are kinda part of my widened comfort zone, so maybe its time i venture out again, this time in a new direction. which makes me more sure that i should be goin for usp camp rather than the ms+pbm camp[they're on the same days].

so today we went for a youth discussion thing at al-falah. To be honest, i had initially registered alone, with the plan of going alone, thinking which other bugger i knw would be interested in such things. haha, but i thought about smthing someone had said. about being yakin and how that intangible yakin-ness in you smhow draws ppl in and makes them do things that you had never expected them to do. when i first heard it, i was kinda critical. it didnt make sense to me really. but the scientist in me got the better of me. [the reason why scientists produce such detailed research papers is actually so that some other scientist who is critical of the results, can repeat the experiment and see for himself the hypothesis turning into fact.] so i figured i'll test his hypothesis for myself. n so far, it hasnt been proven wrong. haha, n i didnt just conduct one test lah, conducted a few already. veryvery interesting stuff.

anw, the discussion, wasnt much of a discussion. haha, but what do you expect when u open up the session to such a varied range of youths. like from madrasah kids, to emo mats, to ppl who find pleasure in hardcore logical discussions. its impossible to even begin to discuss anything lah. haha, its like the moment u attempt to talk about an issue, 80% of the ppl there are already tuning out because its not relevant to them. not what they wanted to discuss about. so basically i think it would have been more successful if they had an even smaller group who have about the same mindset. like maybe just jc kids one day, and madrasah kids another. not that that is a perfect banding system lah, but atleast there is some attempt to cater to differing interests. actually i figured the title of the discussion " Developing Our intellectuality" is already quite a filter.. but i guess some ppl just like to go for everything, and spoil it for ppl whom the discussion was initially meant for.

excuse the elitist tone of the previous paragraph please.

then we skipped refreshments and had swensons next door instead. where everything was literally lukewarm. ice-cream,water, food.. haha, and soon, syikeen and i were off to the ARTrium [ooh how i hate such pretentious words. puns are nice for standups, but not so for govt buildings in stuffy Sing] for the launch of the global melayus portal. to be honest, i didnt know that it was going to be just a launch. thought that it'll be a typical launch plus speeches plus maybe a tiny forum sort of thing. but instead, there was just a stage and everyone kinda stood around in close proximity to the glorious refreshments. it was supposed to be an informal thing. haha, but it seemed pretty stiff to me. even stiffer than the usual sit-in-an-audi setting. anw, so after the launch proper, the idea was to mingle. but haha, nampaksa khairi's social mingling skills havent improved much. i practically chased away the poor guy who tried to mingle lah. but i cant help it if i just have an unfriendly aura... hahaha.

Watching Bulan Madu with the same bunch again tmr. lovely.

half bunny entrepreneur

2007-06-27T21:49:00.000+08:00

Assalamualaikum, peace be upon you.

Yesterday, or shld i say this morning after subuh, i had a vivid dream. if u dont already know, i seldom remember what i dream about. anw, i dreamt that i was brushing my teeth at the sink, next to someone else who was also brushing his teeth. yeah, HIS teeth. no particular face though. but thats not the point. The point is, halfway through happily brushing, the bottom half of one of my 2 front [bunny] teeth broke off. more of like just slyly fell off. so i only realised it when i looked in the mirror and my bunny teeth were no longer symmetrical. then i looked in the sink and picked the broken tooth up. n the guy, whoever he is, just shrugged. n then i continued brushing my teeth and thought to myself, "Maybe instead of getting the dentist to paste it back, i should get him to file my other tooth so tt both will be short..just like what i always wanted to do, but never got around to.."

so when i finally woke up and was brushing my teeth, i remembered the dream and took extra care to brush my two front teeth gently, haha. cos honestly, i like my bunny teeth. it makes me me. thats why i never got around to filing them[if such a procedure exists] or getting braces. oh, n today, i also made sure i got my daily intake of calcium through a starbucks mocha frapp, haha. hmm, u knw tt advert where they say tt horlicks has calcium the equivalent to dontknowhowmany glasses of milk..heh, i wonder how many a mocha frappe has. oh wait, doesnt caffeine cancel out calcium? oh well.

so today i got my phone fixed. it turns out tt nothing was spoilt.. haha, im just very dodo. but the nice mat at the singtel inquiry counter was very nice about it. i think inquiry counter mats make good husbands. haha, because they are very patient, like to[have to] make ppl happy, have the answer for everything and best of all, they dont make you feel like dodos eventhough u knw u are one.

Excerpt of convo:
mat: ok, so u see, u just press this one and then u wait for the phone to scan for the network.
me: orh..[but the inside of my head is still blank.]
mat: besar burger..
me: *huh? look* [thinking: wat does 'burger' mean in phone/tech/mat slang?]
mat: *continues to fiddle with phone*
me: *looks at the phone screen and sees my wallpaper: me pretending to take a bite off a picture of a hugeass burgerking burger* orh, that is just a picture lah..[convo was stale so i just shut up]

so yesterday was the first mtg of the adhoc committee thats organising an al-iman youth entrepreneur workshop cum bazaar thing. it was very enlightening. because the way things were done was very different from how i did things in perbayu. haha, for one, they did everything much more chop2. like we covered in 2 hours what would have taken njperbayu two weeks to cover. muahaha. not tt they were super hardcore efficient or anything. its just tt there was alot of trust and liberty going on. like, they just delegated and ppl were simply expected/trusted to know what are all the little tasks that falls under that delegation. n also trusted to have enough brains/sensibility/far-sight/decisiveness to decide and plan out everything that they were delegated well, without prior discussion with the rest of the team. i think if i had done that with perbayu, i would have gotten nothing except complains that they didnt know exactly what they're supposed to do. nono, not that im saying that njperbayu ppl are lesser beings than those kakaks and abgs i just met. its just that, we were more comfortable with the ok, lets sit down and discuss every single thing that needs thinking and then each one of us goes home with a list of exact little tasks that we have to do by such and such dates. im not going to pass judgement as to which method is better. cos though the project may seem similar, obviously the context is very different.

but basically, i feel like a fish thrown out of water. i know i can do it. but im just so unsure of everything. n tts smthing tt my anal brain cannot take. hoho, lets hope two anal brains are better than one. haha, cos im banging on nani to help get this thing moving. i think we'll do fine and will have fun like the good ole gpa days. hehe, so long as this time, we dont let our wild and self-righteous sides get the better of us.. but thats always fun anw. :P

2007-06-25T20:41:00.000+08:00

Assalamualaikum, peace be upon you.

'Let go, Chris, let go! You only hang on if there are regrets, for things done and not done. Yes, we all have that extra strength, if we can muster enough energy to find it. But once found, this strength must be used to create memories that will last-memories that will ease the passage of time on remembrance and memories that will turn that sad tear into a tear of good things remembered. ' Peculiar Chris, Johann S. Lee

'There's beauty in not revealing too much.' Ever After, Nurfa'izah Tubi

thats why the prev post has been taken down.

there is something strangely comforting about the scent of old books and the touch of paper made thin and yellow by time and previous readers. im currently happy waking up past noon and bookworming the rest of the day away. n im bookworming on novels and short stories! an exclamation mark for the fact tt its been ages since i touched fiction. its refreshing really. but i hope i dont get too used to the comfort of reading without having to crack my brain at understanding. because i like cracking my brain at non-fic. haha, its an acquired taste.

SD is back

2007-06-19T00:10:00.000+08:00

Assalamualaikum, peace be upon you

Today i earned 25 bucks but spent about 50 bucks while i was out. like my mum always says, tak balik modal kau keluar kerja! anw, no, i havent stopped bumming. in fact, im getting sick of even tuition lah.. haha, khairi is never satisfied. i got the 25 bucks for sitting for a maths and physics test tt some prof frm nus invited me to. haha, they paid me to test the tests. n no, i never took alevel physics, and was horrible at olevel physics. i emailed the prof this and even reminded him today, but he insisted that i 'just try your best' . so yes, i think i was paid to see if someone who obviously shouldnt make it, can slip through and pass the test. n so i happily did the MCQ. u know how i love mcqs. haha, today i realised tt i love it even more when the results of the test dont matter at all, and i have absolutely never seen the type of questions before or have any inkling as to how to approach them. u knw, if u do enough mcqs, u begin to develop a sort of unexplainable intuition tt enables u to just know which option is right, or atleast, which are wrong. i mean there is always tt level of risk tt the answer u pick is wrong, but practice hones ur analytical skills such that u can considerably lower that risk. its like the art of smart tikam-ing.

anw, on the bus home, i suddenly thought of sheng-de. haha, ok, not really suddenly lah, its just tt i forgot what was the trigger. i think it had to do with it being mt's birthday. so i smsed him to ask him why so long he still havent ask me out. [nono, im nt tt slut. hahaha, inside joke lah] n he was like, okloh, today dinner can? n a few hours later, me, aini, him and gwenda were at taka's delifrance totally crazilly deliriously laughing. it started with just me and aini on the bus. when we are both in the right mood, we are pretty capable of feeding off each other's lameness n getting quite high but u knw theres always a limit as to how much fun two ppl can have before it gets old. so, when sd popped on the bus, it was like splashing water into hot oil. omg, its been ages since i've laughed tt much lah. been a long time since anyone can be so lame and yet make me laugh so much and so continuously. its always great to have lame friends who can so easily make u laugh and forget everything tts on ur mind. gah, im so glad he is back and i dont ever want him gone again.

im like listening to all my favourite jiwang songs on imeem and irritating my mum who wants to listen to nothing but taufik's. it feels good to be able to enjoy jiwang songs without getting so overly affected again. i should have regular laugh sessions. hahaha. cant wait for the next friends outing. like with the perbayu ppl especially.

2007-06-17T00:14:00.000+08:00

Assalamualaikum, peace be upon you.

So i just came back from a day trip to Batam after spending yesterday in Singapore and the 4 days earlier in KL. To put it more interestingly, i went to KL a day after the flash floods hit and came back a day before the bomb exploded at Pudu Raya[or so i've jus heard on the radio]. If tomorrow we hear in the news that something happened at Batam, i shall conclude that... the world is still in need of khairi the great! muahahaha. I think the world is becoming increasingly dangerous. Just today, in SINGAPORE, the drizzle made it hard for us to decide where to park the car; it was either near a construction site with a steep barren slope [landslide mah] or under a big old tree[falling tree loh]. we chose under the tree. it looked strong, heh.

The trip to KL was a trip to kl. haha, its like my 17367357 there. considering anywhere that requires a plane ride is way too expensive for my family [think 6 ppl and 1 breadwinner], and the mother's paranoia of dirty toilets, mosquitos, leeches, canoes, cats, trees.., KL is pretty much on the top of the list of preferred vacation spots each year. of course, we have always[for years really] toyed with the idea of forgoing a few kl trips in place of a week in Australia, but the mother can never wait that long to get away. dont blame her really, rotting at home as a job can be pretty boring.

Anw, yes, we went there. n i shopped. not excessively though. feel kind of wasted for all the hassle of getting there and hours of browsing. ate good food. which was immediately burnt through the tons of walking we did. walking in the malls plus to n fro from the hotel. this year, we learnt that klcc is within walking distance to micasa[the hotel we analy like to stay in..like the bellcaptain remembers us.] and it takes as long as it does by cab because the streets are just inefficient. we also learnt abt the existence of something called a tourist privilege card that gives you discounts at selected shops. n that those recyclable bags u use on the first wednesday of each month at ntuc are great for carrying your shopping excesses as they can go through customs conveniently. So, my point is, we are continuously improving our tourism skills each year. yes, upgrading of all sorts is so vogue nowadays.

we also skipped the theme park this year and took the Eye of Malaysia instead. tt was nice. haha, a bit boring, but nice in a touris-y sort of way. we also spent half a day at petro sains. haha, i so loved the holagrams and the mirrors! cos its like so physics-y and yet i could understand. n they had like cute undergrad part-timers stationed EVERYWHERE to explain any queries we had. n did i mention that they were cute? hahaha, n yes, they did serve their other purpose[aside from sparking interest] of answering queries once we got used to the malay terms[did u know that malay for heat is haba?]. i dare say, its tons better than singapore's science centre in terms of personalised service and value-addedness to the visitor. maybe one downside is that although it had tons of other interesting exhibits[like the holograms], most of it was concerning the science behind the petroleum industry.

so today was my first visit to Batam. the cousin wanted to blanja us eat seafood. i ate tons of shrimp, prawns and crabs. so far, neither my face nor any other part of my body is itching. i will not be surprised though if i wake up tmr all red and raw after having scratched in my sleep. we also did some shopping. so the brandless clothes there are cheap to begin with, and the departmental store was having a typical longgok sale at one section. so there were longgoks of clothes going at 50-75% off. n the sis actually bothered to calculate the price after discount in sing $. so she would mumble some numbers while doing mental gymnastics and would suddenly exclaim 2.50!, 4 dollars!.., and then went huh? 2.50?? 4 bucks?? hahaha. yes, the top that you would smugly pay 25 bucks for during a 'sale' in sing can actually cost that little in an impoverished country. n while she was trying to reconcile this concept, we hear a local woman commenting out loud in indon to noone in particular along the lines of " The discount is a lot, BUT the price is so expensive to begin with!" Such is the 'diverse' world we live in today.

ohohoh, i learnt that my snowhite[the new handphone] is useless overseas. me is pissed. ok, when i bought the new phone, and thus the new 3G sim, i figured i'll be smart by simultaneously transfering the line from my dad's name to mine so that i can enjoy the student perks like free campus calls and extra free smses. it never occurred to me that im UNDERAGED for autoroam. like, wth. underaged?? for AUTOROAM?? what rubbish. so daddy was saying that its probably a law to protect youths from accumulating mountains of phone bill debts from chatting with overseas friends. like as if u cant do that by simply overusing your phone locally. n how can i be underaged for autoroam and yet qualify to have a debit card? humph. me is very pissed. they better have some way for me to get autoroam, like get a parent to sign sm form or smthing.

Usah Lepaskan

2007-06-11T00:13:00.001+08:00

this is what the old khairi would have felt connected with. nice song anyway.

snowhite

2007-06-08T22:03:00.001+08:00

Assalamualaikum, peace be upon you.

im on the mend.

i got a new phone!! haha, yes, i finally spontaneously bade goodbye to my dear N7260 that i was so pack-rat-ishly, sentimentally, and plain resistant-to-change-ly hesitant to let go. despite the vibration function being totally screwed, muffled speaker and scratched clean buttons, amongst other disabilities. i mean, afterall, it had seen me through most of my jc life, and actually, it did see me through ALL of the significant stuff. i did have a really old nokia model for the first 3 months of jc life but no matter how fun and carefree tt period was, it wasnt really tt particularly significant u know.. or at least not for me. so gone are all of the 200 plus smses tt i refused to delete because each one was special for some sentimental/slenger/embarrassing/funny reason. gone are all the pics tt i never had the patience to download [infra-red is just dem slow]. including all those beautiful yet poignant nj sunsets. gone are also some of the random contacts in my phone tt i accumulated during my short stint in perbayu exco. poof are also my favourite ringtones like mr brown/pm lee's mee siam mai hum song, and my mum singing belaian jiwa.

hmm, but what i really wanted to say was simply, gone are all the smses. tts whats important. first step to mending khairi.

SO, say hello to my sony ericsson W850i. im calling it snowhite. cos its white. hahaha, i just came up with that. nono, i dont usually name everything i own. i'm amazed at my impulsiveness. because its really not the sort of phone u would imagine khairi getting. for one, its like a walkman phone, ie, ppl buy it for the music player. n khairi is no music fan. i listen to the radio and stuff, but i've never been dilligent nor 'fanatic' enough to have favourite artists and genres and whatever. more importantly, i have yet to figure out this whole mp3 thing. like how do u download? legally or otherwise. n why do they still sell cds when everyone prefers mp3 players to discmans? n do they sell cds filled with mp3s? yeah, dumb bimbo qustions, i know. haha, i've had them forever. tried once or twice to cajole some guys to explain everything to me. haha, but its either they give up or i just tune off. so yes. new phone, new khairi. i will learn! for the sake of the moolahs i paid for it. haha, ok, lets be realistic. haha, i will TRY to learn. but its ok if i die halfway because i love the camera functions anw! hehe.

so the new phone took my mind off things for like 5 seconds. haha. cos i had to rush to nj and then to tuition. n thus didnt get a chance to get acquainted with the guidebook. but had more than enough bus time to think abt things. but as u can see, right now, im back to my normal self. haha, though i was a wreck yesterday. i think im getting good at this pull urself together shit.

n getting the new phone does really help i think. or rather, getting rid of the old one is wats therapeutic. i feel like also getting a haircut like tomorrow morning or smthing. haha, i always get a haircut after something major or before smthing challenging. BUT. i like how my hair is. its like long. hahaha, been a long time since its been this long. oh well. we shall wait and see when the next impulsive lightning strikes khairi.

n ppl! im serious about the embracing music technology thingy. haha, FEED ME. or the phone rather. send me ur favourite songs n dwloading tips and yeah...i promise this time i will not be a bimbo and i will retain whatever is explained. hahaha.

98%

2007-06-08T01:27:00.001+08:00

Assalamualaikum, peace be upon you.

[just wanna let u guys knw tt for this entry im goin to try as hard as possible to not reveal the identities of ppl involved. but if u THINK u've figured it out, just do me a favour and keep it to urself aight. im ok with u knowing, i just dont wanna hear about it.]

so i found her blog. and i just read like 98% of it. i was going to read everything but my heart is just bursting with way too much intense emotions. so im going to blog first to release some of the tension. maybe after this i'll never read it again.

there are no words to describe how im feeling right now. all i know for sure is tt there is just this numb pulsing ache right where my heart is. n occasionally, i have to swallow hard because im choking up. jealousy. regret. awe. haizness. touched. TOUCHED. yeah, touched mostly.

though im going to continue being vague, i have to make it clear tt i didnt just trip upon a sudden realisation/revelation. nono. i've known about them for the longest time. but.. i guess just knowing is a lot different from knowing in depth. different frm knowing each and every key event, hurdle, irrational moment that they went through together. n thus actually piecing together for myself their perfect continuing lovestory. if previously, just knowing very little from hearsay allowed me to continue to self-indulge in reckless, foolish, SELF-DENIAL thoughts. now, its kinda impossible. its like having a bomb blow up in ur face. only then do u realise the realness of the terrorist threat. nono, not that im talking about anything so violent. ok, maybe violent in terms of the emotional earthquake tt just occurred.

so thats it then. thats just it. no way in #%@* can i ever think the way i used to. no way can i ever dream of what i used to dream. no way can i ever think up of tiny little sly plots to smhow win him over. heh, no more weighing the option of polygamy. no more being oh so irrationally critical of her. no way can i do all that knowing what i now know. when everything used to be fuzzy still, it was very possible and easy to think about just getting what i want. but now tt its all so much more REAL. how can i even think about doing anything tt might ruin the perfectness of it all.

n amidts all of these seemingly 'duniawi' and 'nafsu' issues, somehow thoughts of just how much i've drifted away from God, from the essence of FAITH, drift about unattached in my head. maybe because i've grown so accustomed to turning to Him whenever i face any hardship that the brain goes on auto. or maybe, just seeing for myself how perfect and pure their love and the evolution of their relationship are, it makes me wonder if the reason why i havent even caught a whiff of such bliss is because i didnt put Him first. not becuase i havent worked hard enough. not because ive missed the boat. not because im too intimidating. not because im too subservient. it makes me wonder why the heck have i forgotten the motto i held so strong in those idealistic girls school days; love god first, ppl later.

very simple really. i didnt put Him first. i didnt trust tt He is sufficient for me. tt he will provide me with all tt i need.tt all i had to do was to have faith. simple idealistic undoubting faith. idealistic.. god-forbid, i have become way too pragmatic for simple faith.

wow, i now know what im going to do for the next two months. what i have to do.

but for now. im going to go to bed. n im going to lie in bed. n i wont be able to help but think: DANG! I want that too. i want that perfectness. i want that purity. i want that unexpected yet still oh so meanttobe. i want to go fishing right this instance!
but lets hope tt two months from now, khairi will do less wanting and be more satisfied and grateful.

oh sh*t, i have to go njc tmr. wat unperfect timing.

Feel Think

2007-06-06T21:20:00.000+08:00

Assalamualaikum, peace be upon you.

I had trouble falling asleep last night
Please don't play me out
The 2nd blow is always fatal
If only i don't have a heart.

i consumed like a whole month's ration of oil and fat today. hoho, i woke up with a craving for kfc chicken. satisfied that with two drumsticks. went for tuition. came home with 2 wings of ayam panggang. was halfway through the second one when i remembered that i already ate fried chicken earlier in the day. finished it up anw. plus had zombie-ly bought keropok lekor plus cempedak goreng at the same pasar malam.ok, those two are excusable because they are my all time favourite foods. but afterwards, parents came home with another bag of cempedak goreng. hahaha, the mother had thoughtfully remembered that i love them. didnt occur to her that thus obviously i would have hunted them down the moment i saw the tents of the pasar malam. well, its the thought that counts. n i am SOO tempted to eat them all now.

i think i will die of smthing clogged artery related.

so i started my second tuition gig today. this one is very different from the one i have had for the past few months. could tell frm the moment i entered the house. a huge clean and tidy study area. tons of assesment books. dont look like they watch much tv. can hear azan from the masjid next door. a home timetable tt looks very well followed. a teacher for a mother. a maid to take care of the house.woaho, i think if i had the same sort of family support as them growing up, i would be like dem good at academics now.. haha, plus more anal i suppose. i left the house wondering what the heck am i going to do with them next lesson since their holiday homework were all done and they're already pretty good at schoolwork so nothing to catch up on during the school holidays. furthermore, the mother is a primary school teacher! like why the heck do ur kids need a tutor? so apparently, the mother just thinks tt me being part of her kids academic life will help to inspire and thus push them a little more. amazing..the trouble parents nowadays go through to get the best for their kids. im dem envious and also a tad apprehensive. is this what being a highly meritocratic society means? will i have to do all that to even begin to be a perfect parent to my kids?

so im now seriously wondering if im about to waste the next two months of my life. i Feel like i shld be packing up and setting on an impulsive backpacking trip around theworld or sign up with some humanitarian group or smthing of tt nature. but instead, all i Think about is what im going to have for lunch today and what must i buy before gst hike kicks in. haha, n i havent even been reading books. i Feel like making a reading list and working through it systematically. but i Think tt i will never get around to doing it properly.

Feel Think. haha, the battle between the heart and the mind.
If only i don't have a mind.

2007-06-02T01:29:00.000+08:00

Assalamualaikum, peace be upon you.

So i decided to go for KSS's syf preview instead, after being pangseh-ed TWICE to watch tpjc's manifestasi [im like so not fated to ever watch it.]. it was at RP's cultural centre. i think it might have been the first performance held there, judging by the scent of fresh paint and wood dust. RP's cultural centre is much smaller than NP's convention centre both in terms of audience capacity and stage size, but its definitely more cozy. it also has the same 'concept' as UCC, which is still my all time favourite concert place. [notice that i focused more on the physical venue than the performance itself... hehe, well, what can u expect from a sec sch performance?]

so after the performance, me, daddy, babysis and the mother went kap because i was hungry. that sentence is significant because i was actually hungry AND unlazy enough to insist on finding food in the middle of the night. hahaha, i guess bumming has a tendency to increase one's appetite. anw, we had a good old loud discussion/argument/fight about some new islamic concept the mother picked up at the syarahan which she went to instead of the syf preview. hahaha, that was fun. like in a strange sadistic way. i would love to say that i like such occurrences because its intellectually stimulating, but really, to be honest, discussing with the mother can hardly be considered intellectual because she does not follow the general 'rules' of an intellectually stimulating activity. it just turns into an all out brainless catfight. which is why i only 'discuss' things with her in the presence of the father who is a really good peacekeeper. anw, it was nice to be dynamic and alive after such a long period of brain inactivity.

btw, just this morning, i finally received the nus scholarship package. n they want me to confirm if im accepting it by monday. like wth? haha, admin ppl shld really learn to take into account public holidays and weekends when setting datelines. to make matters worse, i have yet to receive moe's package. so i had to call them up to enquire about what they're offering me. anw, long story short, i've decided to take up NUS's offer instead of MOE because i value the freedom from bond more than i value job security and absolute financial ease up to master's level. besides, to me, it seems kind of unethical to commit myself to MOE, without being 110% sure that that is a career that i want and will enjoy. i mean, knowing myself, i know tt if i sign on tt dotted line, i will for sure atleast serve the bond, but as to whether i will do it willingly, happily and passionately or vice versa, that i cannot say, and thus to accept moe's offer would be just as unethical as literally breaking the bond.

so today, i also got a really weird sms. nono, not from a stranger. from someone i know. n it wasnt sent wrongly. tts why its very strange. haiz, and it brought back to mind the funny thought that had first suddenly occurred to me while chatting with a friend not too long ago. i thought, What are the chances that i had been/have been/will be the subject of a guy's wet dream? hahaha,yes, its a dem strange and repulsive and somewhat self-indulgent thought.. but if only u knew knew the content of that freaky sms.. u wouldnt blame me for thinking such thoughts.

ok.. i think i have blogged too much.

byebye psc

2007-05-29T20:21:00.000+08:00

Assalamualaikum, peace be upon you.

The bubble finally popped today. n i have to say that i didnt really feel too much disappointment. more of relief than disappointment really. maybe its the 'no expectations, no disappointments' motto working. or maybe the whole thing is just getting kinda old. i mean, its high time, my lucky streak ends, you know..not tt i believe in luck. its just that

If GOD increased the provision for His servants, they would transgress on earth. This is why He sends it precisely measured to whomever He wills. He is fully Cognizant and Seer of His servants." [42:27]

yeah.. that sums it up pretty nicely. its just high time God keeps my elitist ego in check.

yeah, i didnt get the PSC scholarship. but they being psc, didnt say that outright though. they sent me a letter saying that the committee has found me suitable for a scholarship with MOE and that they'll be contacting me soon. which means i won a teaching scholarship? i dont know. i dont really care honestly. because NUS has offered me an undergrad merit scholarship. that is tuition fees, $6000 yearly and NO BOND, provided i get a cap of 3.5, which is what i need to do an honours anyway.. so yeah, very2 attractive. dont get me wrong, im not one of those selfish baskets who apply for everything just to 'see if im great enough to make it that far' without having any serious thoughts on accepting anything. i really wanted to be bonded with psc. thats like my dream career path. putting teaching as a second choice was a 'just in case'. just in case i dont get anything. only then would i consider being obligingly bonded to teaching, just so that daddy wouldnt have to pay my school fees. SO, since i've secured the nus scholarship, the right thing to do is to just withdraw from the running for the moe thing. but im waiting for them to contact me. i mean, who knows, maybe they might offer me the sort that still leads to psc's MAP.. rather than just plain old teaching. but yeah, thats like not very possible. so yeah, nus scholar it is. which i think suits me quite fine since i can imagine myself being an academic.

[btw, im so sorry if ur like dem sick of reading about scholarship issues entry after entry. its just a very exciting phase in my life now. n i kinda just wanna record it, you know. it may seem a bit flaunty to some ppl i guess.. but really, i dont think its anything to brag about. i think its a bit ridiculous really to brag about getting scholarships. its like.. oh, u got a scholarship.. so? hahaha, so yeah, im not bragging really. just erm, recording stuff. ok, i dont make sense.]

so im half watching ANUGERAH on suria. its like so merepek[ridiculous]. as in, i dont know.. it just has a very unpro, tepijalan[roadside], air about it. heh, not very helpful description. so i shall elaborate. firstly, whats with the makeup? its like, all of them have the same makeup. n its like so thick, especially the eye makeup,and unnatural, and doesnt show much personality. n it doesnt enhance their features.. which is the point of makeup. n the outfits are like so complicated with layers and tons of accessories but its just not appealing and again, doesnt show off much personality, n neither do they suit the songs they're singing. n oh god, the hair.. i mean, i know the theme colour for the show is orange. but that doesnt mean everyone has to have at least some streaks of blonde to go with it right? n then the judges. today they have tt ex miss singapore/lawyer/bad malay actress who was in cinta bollywood as a guest judge i think. like what does she know abt singing? or acting for that matter. heh. n the choreography is just bad lah. i guess to sum it up, its like just in a totally different league as compared to other talent search shows like Singapore idol, or project superstar. its such a stengah jalan [halfway] production. its so... melayu.. like matminah sort of melayu. n no, im not being so cynical just bcause i have a hatred for anything malay[which is not true anw], i mean, the contestants have pretty good voices and to an extent, personalities. its just that the show doesnt seem to complement and promote those abilities, just the opposite really.

ok, dont know why i even bothered to comment. based on the fans and ppl who vote week after week, the producers sure did a good job at capturing the market. i guess im just cynical of the whole market itself.

which makes me somewhat excited to watch asian boys vol. 3. by alfian sa'at. a very unmelayu production by a melayu for once. its R18 because its theatre about gays. haha, at times like these, im so glad im 18. glad that i've got the cash to spare too. i also wanna watch dim sum dollies. but the cheapest tix for reasonable seats is like 80 bucks. seats any cheaper are just a waste of time due to the restricted view. with 80 bucks i can rent like 20 dvds. seriously, there is no point in having tons of art festivals and making the content more accessible to the average Singaporean, if the prices continue to be so steep as compared to other entertainment substitutes.

tomorrow, i shall officially stop doing nothing. n start on the list of random stuff i want to do before uni starts. yeah, initializing project serious bumming. i shall clean my room tomorrow. clear out the sacks of uni and scholarship brochures i've accumulated. plus my olevel and alevel stuff. that would be hard though. heh, cant bear having to part with my notes. escpecially the self-writen ones. gah, this pack rat needs more storage space.

2007-05-27T01:11:00.000+08:00

Assalamualaikum, peace be upon you.

Im currently icing my face. no, i didnt get into a fight with anyone. neither did i get hurt at kickboxing. my whole face is just dem itchy right now and im trying to numb it. i dont know why its itchy. actually, it already started itching at Aristal but it only just got out of hand just now. gah, im now trying to trace the cause. it could be 1) due to that one tiny shrimp i ate at long john today, or 2) the moisturiser i used today, which is different from the one i usually use, or 3) no apparent reason. i doubt its 1 because i dont usually respond to such a small serving of shrimp. besides, my ezcema spots will respond first, n they are so not itching. i doubt its 2) because i have used this moisturiser before with no problems and the brand [Simple] is known to be good for sensitive skin. so it leaves me with number 3. which is not very absurd considering my track record for strange ailments. sh*t, im running out of ice.

i shall distract myself from the itch by blogging abt today.

so today i did a lot of catching up with jc classmates. or rather, catching up on, haha, cos was mostly with only yw and clara today who told me about everyone else. so the day started with the nus science introductory talk. just a repetition of everything tt i've heard countless times. but yah, repetition is good. it helps to convince the unsure heart. im having second thoughts on going for the science camp though.. haha, lets just say the 'presentation' by the science club rep was the opposite of impressive. besides, its like 5 days of mostly beach activities. the physical beach itself, im ok with. i mean, i dont mind getting wet, sandy and salty. its the beach with guys part im not too sure.. not that khairi is all that conservative anyway.. but yeah, i guess i dont wanna start uni on the wrong footing. but im definitely going for the usp camp though.[btw, i got accepted into usp.] dont know wats the itinerary like, but there is no escaping tt camp since theres only about 180 ppl in the programme and since im going to be mixing a lot with all these ppl, getting a head start socially will be good.

then, it was a rush to kickboxing. kickboxing was as usual relaxing, or rather, therapeutic. hardly did any cardio today. did a lot of kicking which suited me just fine really. today i imagined mr chairman's face as my target. yeah, im talking abt the chairman of psc, who interviewed me. okok, let me explain. im not particularly pissed off with him lah. he was just doing his job. it was just the concept of the interview as a whole tt pissed me. n the fact tt me being ignorant of the concept, kinda made the interview especially tough and thus i think i screwed it up. like even worse than the final nus gms interview. dnt know lah, all hope is not lost yet though. not lost until PSC sends the rejection email AND does not send an email afterwards that voids it [haha, me not getting my feelings cheated again man.] n yes, i know, i've been very vague, so i shall entertain u with an excerpt of the interview. btw, there were 9 panelists seated in a semi-oval, with Mr chairman directly in front of me.

Mrchairman: Do you have cousins who are graduates?
me: one or two. most of them dont make it that far.
Mrchairman: oh really? [mildly shocked expression]
me: yeah. my family is kind of like the white sheep in the extended family.
some of the previously silent panelists: LOL.
one blur panelist: *nudges guy next to him* what did she say?
nudged guy: her family is the white sheep.
me: [thinking: very funny meh?] *smiles in appreciation of their laughter*
Mrchairman: *unamused look* well, thank you for your time. we have no more questions for you.

so if ur reading this because u googled psc scholarship interview looking for tips, a lesson you can learn is this: once the panelists laugh and Mrchairman doesnt, your interview ends.

then i went home to shower before heading off the Ngee Ann poly for Aristal. It was at the convention centre. wow, never knew such a gigantic place existed in NP. i mean, u never hear of ppl having their concerts/recitals/drama there. aristal itself was a mediocre production, in my opinion. but my opinion is probably flawed because last year's was excellent and its always difficult to top your own excellence. the after that, me and yw went to kap to get a drink and chat till 11 plus.

ok, im like so falling asleep. n the face has stopped itching, though it feels irritated still. so, im gonna sleep while the slight comfort lasts.

2007-05-22T22:53:00.000+08:00

Assalamualaikum, peace be upon you.

So the minah smsed me today, saying that she got the OVERSEAS teaching scholarship. dem shock and happy and proud of her. haha, shock because she hasn't even applied for any overseas uni, n yet they gave it to her so willingly. happy cos that lazy bum would not have even applied for the scholarship if i didnt arm-twist her into submitting the application on the deadline itself, and thus, U sooo owe me a big treat. proud because woohoo! now atleast one of us nj matsnminahs is going places. haha, less pressure on me now, somewhat. gah, great2 news.

im like all jumpy from the excitement. hehe, makes me REALLY want to go overseas now. its like suddenly this idea of going abroad for a few years is so much more REAL and 'touchable' now that it is going to happen to someone in my life. gah, which makes me rethink abt what im going to tell the PSC ppl this friday at the interview. hoho, but yeah, nus is good too. i'll DEFINITELY make sure that i go on a long-term exchange programme. but then again..thats nothing like being totally overseas and isolated from singaporean singapore. oh well, i'll just be honest at the interview. kinda glad tt i resisted the mother's nagging for me to quickly accept nus's offer.

u know, i wonder if PSC runs google searches on its scholarship applicants. because if they do, my blog will be like all over the list. heh, i wonder what impression they will get from this blog, considering that i have been rather bimbotic in my written thoughts as of late due to the lack of intellectual stimulation from sources like school. haha, i mean, college, because i have been going to school.

the random para above was triggered by the 'preparations' i have done for this big interview [considering how i think i screwed my nus gms final interview]. what preparations? haha, i googled psc scholarship interview. i tell u, im now an expert on the controversial-ness of the whole psc scholarship system, because most of the hits were regarding the dislike for and dismerits of it. other than that, i read a book on making good first impressions.[most stuff are pretty common sensical. its just that i just cant be bothered to practise them, and i'm probably too 'autistic' in the sense that i just dont have much innate social intuition.] n just started one entitled 'Thank you for being a pain. Dealing with difficult ppl'. nono, i dont think the panelists are going to be that evil. [though i think there might be a designated 'bad guy' like the one at the nus interview who asked me if i feel discriminated against] its just tt i remembered that quite a portion of my psycho interview was spent talking abt events/issues involving a certain difficult person that i had to deal with, and it was obvious that i havent quite reconciled that somewhat significant issue in my life. so yeah, im soo cleaning the dead bodies i chucked under the rug. i will either come out of this a stronger and more stable person, or a total psych-wreck. wish me luck. n oh, i wanted to read LKY's memoir which has been on display untouched for the longest time on the family's bookshelf [daddy got it free from his school. they were giving it out like expired candy.]. but hehe, i guess the old resilient guy can wait a little longer.

Dear PSC personnel,
If you're reading this and other seemingly unpatriotic/controversial/ ISD -triggering entries, please take them lightly [by light, i dont mean like what they mean on those potato chips packets. in fact, please take them with a large handful of salt.] because i dont mean, and am not likely to be able to cause, much harm. heh, just look at my non-existent readership. feel free however to judge my personality based on them because this blog is a perfect mirror for such a purpose; brutally honest and objective. oh n erm, tagging would be the polite thing to do. *smiles* [desperate times calls for charms]

ok, i am so high on starbucks mocha frap.

2007-05-20T20:31:00.000+08:00

Assalamualaikum, peace be upon you.

So amazingly i didn't get into trouble today for yesterday. when i got home, they were already in bed, so i slept. then when i woke up today, they were already out sending the sis to madrasah, and when they came back, i guess it was just dem basi [old] to start scolding, so the mother just made a comment or two and i somewhat tried to explain the misunderstanding, but it was kinda clear tt she wasnt interested. so, oh well, i'll just play it low for a while.

anw, yesterday i stepped into the sacred soil of the elites [RI/RJ] for the first time ever. yeah2, i knw im so jakun. not much of an experience really.. as in, no particular feeling of awe or regret or envy or irrational hate. its like, rj, oh ok. hahaha. cant say the same abt the ppl we [did not] bumped into. so i was there to watch their malay drama. i actually was going to leave with the opinion that it was reasonably interesting, well executed and very pro... that was until the director[producer?] came on stage in a low cut spag dress that was in no way ethnic and started rambling in english and omg-ing like she just won an oscar. n they made the audience sing a birthday song for her? hahaha, that was plain ridiculous lah. n can u say e-go-cen-tric? so yeah, thanks to that, i left feeling indifferent towards the so called elites. like, how much atas [better?] can they actually be if they can manage to pull off a gaffe like that.

so ur probably wondering why im so blatantly bitchy today. haha, prob an after effect of Bersantai Round 2 with kj and nani at newton circus after the drama. haha, round 1 was with them and dinie at esplanade before they went ns. anw, so like round 1, we just ate and talked. nothing particularly interesting. just random stuff i guess. i think its nice how we can just talk freely and openly. i suppose its prob cos we now have more time on our hands to indulge in unimportant matters of the heart, and the fact tt now tt we're no longer in school, its not likely tt anything politically disasterous could erupt frm knowing too much from too many ppl. in a strange way, i think its kinda therapeutic. as in, it kinda helps u to reconcile stuff that u previously pushed under the rug with the excuse of having to concentrate on studies.

i realised that im pretty good at pretending/acting if i really put my heart to it. no sniff of suspicion at all. too bad no amount of determined acting can change how i really feel. btw, if u go to newton, crispy chicken is so not the same as bbq chicken. :>

gah, i've got work tomorrow. i cant wait for next week to pass. i've decided to not work next month. i'll just continue with giving tuition. tt should earn me a reasonable 400 bucks per month. n i'll just slack the rest of the time. probably try to polish up my brain before school starts. so if any of u juniors need help preparing for common tests, i'll be dem free and dem interested to help. no strings. i really need to force myself to use my brain.

2007-05-14T20:58:00.000+08:00

Assalamualaikum, peace be upon you.

So it turns out that my sunday wasnt as boring as anticipated. haha, sun morning, wani [nj pesta pantun grandjunior] smsed me to accompany her shopping. so cun i tell u.. haha, i think we have a little mind connection thing going on haha. Cos it turns out that we have extremely simillar tastes. haha, now this is amazing stuff because i have a penchant for things that are less ordinary and sometimes, the simply outrageous. actually, ive already suspected that we have some common taste when we first met and she liked my favourite retro orangeyellowwhitepink bag, which plenty of ppl have been trying to get me to ditch since day 1. but what happened at the shoe shop at fareast was out of the world lah.

ok, so what happened was she was looking for casual maryjanes and i have room for another pair so we went into like the 58236835th shoe shop at fareast and looked around. she went to the left side, i went to the right. then i saw the perfect shoe n so i picked it up to show her. her back was facing me and she seemed engrossed, so i called out to her and she turned around and she showed me the exact same shoe!with the exact same eureka look on her face! hahaha, dem funny sia. so she bought the shoe, and me being me, decided to just take a mental snapshot, look at other things and then if i havent bought anything at the end of the trip, i'll go back and get it.

but hoho, i spent abt 40 bucks on a crinkle button down yellow with tiny purple flowers top at Wh. i dont usually splurge so much on a top, especially since it was at normal price, so i couldnt bear to part with any more of my hard earned money and so forgot abt the shoe. and also the really nice and simple fushia spag dress i saw at fareast whose price was a bit steep. heh, but im kinda regretting it now. heck, i want that dress! n it no longer counts as impulsive shopping since i went home and thought about it right? right? haha, dont care, im so going to get it this weekend.

anw, ur probably wondering abt what happened to getting the interview outfit. yeah, i thought abt that on the bus home and so made a pitstop at bhg[big hairy giant eh aini..] cos they're having a sale. n i got a plain yet nicely cut white button down. boring? heh, i decided that im going to wear my pink pants. :> yes, to the psc interview. haha, n yes, im not particularly sane. i hope they appreciate my 'spunk'.

so, the teacher i have been relieving finally came back from her course. woohoo! hahaha, im sorry, im just really sick of this sh*t. so yeah, two more weeks, maybe lesser, and im free!

n i'll also be unemployed and soon to be broke. dang. i wish im Paris Hilton.

hahaha, right...

2007-05-12T19:47:00.000+08:00

Assalamualaikum, peace be upon you.

im going to be incredibly bored tomorrow. just realized today that i have nothing at all to do tomorrow because last sunday was my last arab lesson and i had conveniently forgot to bring my marking home from school.[hehe, i think my rebelious subconscience is responsible for this heinious sin] so, anyone up for shopping? i got my pay...hehe.

im like so in the mood to shop for uni things. haha, like uni needs alot of things like that. bt yah, the excitement is building thats for sure. i've already been accepted to NUS science and NTU biological science. quite sure of accepting nus though for some reason im reluctant to officially accept it right away. haha, as if im waiting for some holy sign or smthing. did my final interview for NUS scholarship. havent heard the result of that yet though. same for usp. done the psychological interview for psc, and surprise2[im not being sarcastic here], im clinically sane enough to proceed to the interview with the psc selection board. which is the first of many more i suspect. just hope i dont have to decide whether to accept the nus scholarship before i get the final verdict abt psc though. been thinking abt which one i'll eventually take up if im offered both. haha, kinda hoping for god to step in by leaving me in a position where i dont have a choice. but i've got a feeling that im going to have to make the call.

so yesterday, after a hectic day of school and science common marking, it was a nervous rush to get to nj in time for the mldds drama Tak kenal maka tak cinta. The drama had its fair share of hits and misses, in my opinion. There were times when i thought that they're incredible and other times when i couldnt help thinking what the heck were they thinking?

heh, but u knw wat i noticed, no matter how well or sucky a major project ends, the ppl who worked so hard for it will still be dem happy and feel dem accomplished. its as if hard work makes ppl oblivious to the outcome. i mean ive been to other events which were like so obviously failures and yet i'll read the blogs of the organizers and they're like so darn happy n i just wonder what the heck are they thinking? haha, n then i wonder about myself and all the events and competitions i've been involved in and if i also exhibited such illogical behaviour. i guess the answer is yes to a certain extent. cos im a mega critic who is especially critical of myself, so that keeps the yayaness in check i guess. its like yah, i'll go for a meal with the team and we'll talk about the high points of the day and we'll complain about the unfairness of this and that, but at the very end of the day when im lying in my bed just before i sleep, i'll be thinking abt what the heck went wrong and wat should have been done instead. now im wondering if this phenomenon of oblivious self-praise is just human nature or another one of those never ending idiosyncracies of the malay race that makes us forever a step behind the rest of the nation. feel free to comment. i got my tag board fixed if u had'nt noticed, hehe.

Anw, after that we went for supper. i was dem hyper n unexpectedly energetic despite having had such a long day. but it was quite late already so it was jus a short and unsatisfying meet-up. i cant wait for 2 years to pass so that the whole batch can be somewhat partially reunited in uni,hahaha. it'll never be the same would it..heh. which makes me even more excited to start uni and like restart the whole process of meeting new ppl and bonding. im hoping they'll be a bunch thats just as open and unpretentious.

i shall spend tomorrow fruitfully preparing for the psc interview, which ofcourse involves shopping for the right outfit, hehehe.

college day 07

2007-05-06T21:29:00.000+08:00

Assalamualaikum, peace be upon you.

ok, i promise i will not be unusually jiwang today. hard to believe considering the previous two entries. but yeah, will try.

So yesterday was college day. i got a CCA award for MLDDS. these sort of things are probably no biggie for most ppl, but it is to me. heh, its been a looong2 time since i ever got any award from mainstream schools. heck, the last time i got such an award was in primary school for being a responsible senior librarian. [kinda lame i know. i thought so then too.] other than that, its always been close misses or just way out of the league [in the negative sense].

Anw, so the parents were unusually enthu about coming. my mum even insisted on sneaking in despite not getting an offcial invitation. unusual because i win a prize for madrasah every year since pri4 and they've never come for even one prize-giving. n it took so much coaxing to get them to come for my perbayu drama last year. even then the mum backed out on the night it self. heh, funny thing is i only found out that she didnt turn up a few months back. then no need to say lah about other school events or even PTCs.

So when they really did show up, on time and everything, it made me kinda very happy. cos i thought that finally they're[especially my mum] able to understand and appreciate that i am able to be and want to be more than an academic-results-churning-machine. so when it came to refreshment time, i was more chatty than usual with the mother, while daddy went down for his second round.
Mum: We talked to Shermin's father just now. [shermin is my bus friend frm mgs. her daddy is my daddy's ex-colleage] so she won the best arts student is it?
Me: yup.
Mum: ohh... so what did u win?
Me: erm, the MLDDS cca award [could already feel that i wasnt going to feel good after this convo]
Mum: only? means u didnt get any academic award ah?
Me: er, no. not good enough ah.
Mum: ohh..
Me: [trying to change the subject] u knw, salihin also got the same award as me. but i think he couldnt come cos he's got ns.
Mum: oh, really ah? [she always gets excited when i tell her abt the accomplishments of my Malay friends] he was the president right? [n she said this so confidently]
ME: no, i was. he was the secretary. a very good one.

waahlau. cheat my feelings sia. she may as well have been there just for the food. anw, khairi shall REALLY learn to stick with her motto of no expectations, no disappointments.

then, u knw wat they say.. [shit i forgot whats the phrase.. bad news loves company?] so a few minutes later, daddy came back with food. then i was explaining to him that not all the cca award winners are the presidents of the ccas. some of them are just normal exco members. told him that gwenda was a store manager, but she still got the award.
Daddy: [still grappling with the concept] ooohh, thats why u got the award lah.
Me: huh?
Mum: [butting in as usual] she was the president lah![n she said it like it was the dumbest thing daddy ever said.]
Daddy: oh, yah..
Me: [to the mother] eh, u dont say2, just now u also didnt know ok. hahaha

and so all the tension is laughed away. but at the end of the day, i wonder, for all the effort i put in trying to maintain a civil relationship with the mother and an extra close one with daddy, how much of it actually produces yield? like all the long talks and discussions and yadayada... how much of it went through their left ears and out the right?

and there i go being pessimistic again. thank you god for blessing me with such wonderful parents. wonderful despite their occassional silly flaws. n yes aini, i have cute parents. thats where i get my uber cute genes frm, hahahaha.

ok, im going to go find out who is Tan Chin Tuan now. Its been bugging me since i saw the name on the ACS barker building and remembered that the wing at University Hall where i had my first interview was named after the same person.

ok, that was random.