the story of us

I always wanted to be a writer even I knew I can’t write beautiful words like Carrie Bradshaw . (Oh wait, she does not even exist. She just a fictional character in a novel that I’m obsess with). But if I’m a writer, I really love to write about my friends. Just the problem is… what to write? I spend half an hour to think and finally I realize that my friendship is just as same as my relationship status. Come and go. Well, plenty much of my friends ‘break up’ with me. Even they didn’t said any words, but I can tell if someone doesn’t like me anymore or mad with me. It is not an assumption. It is an intuition that I have, like sixth sense. Sorry for keep repeating this thing. I knew I had said all this in the previous entry. Well then, someone asked me to put a few pictures on my blog to make it less boring because it is now full with thousands word. Therefore….

**pictures really tell everything, do they?

In my Chuck Taylor sneakers

You never know someone’s story until you walk in her/his shoes. People intend to judge whatever they see without knowing the truth behind the stories. In my case, some of people that just get to know me without reading previous chapters of my book, they will say it is lucky to be me. Well, maybe it is. But they didn’t know how much pain that I’ve paid to be this lucky. I’m not born with a silver spoon in my mouth. I wish I was. In fact, my father has almost turned 60 but he still has to do 2 jobs to support our family which work at private company in the morning and drive a taxi at night. You don’t know how it feels like when you drive back home approximately 4 hours away from your study place just to hear your family members fighting about money. Sorry. I didn’t mean to get your sympathy here.

Sometimes when I feel really sad and then the tears want to fall from my eyes, I try to hold it as much as I can and think about others that have worst situation than me. Who am I to ask people to try fit in my shoes? Everyone has their own pain in their shoes. But is it wrong to feel sad about a little thing? Am I ungrateful or this world is just an unfair place? Okay, this world is unfair. Actually, it does not matter how much pain you have in your shoes because maybe, just maybe.. what we need is not people to try to walk in our shoes but someone that willing to walk with us to hear our story and share our sadness and pain.  I just wish I have one….

The walking Pinocchio

Yesterday, I watched the new episode of ‘Once Upon a Time’ series (one of my fav drama series) and it was about Pinocchio. Pinocchio only can turns to boy again from woods if he tells the truth, be a brave boy and not selfish. Those 3 things are hard to do in our life nowadays. It makes me realize that basically we’re all walking Pinocchio. If we not telling lies to each other, then maybe we could be a coward by not telling the truth. And about selfishness, sometimes we should think about our happiness first without considering about others feeling. Well, I do that. But it is so hard not to be selfish. If you put others first too much, you’ll getting hurt at the end of the day. I used to be that type of person, since I got that behavior from my mom. And believe me, it wasn’t good. People will take advantages from your kindness. So, maybe we can be selfish sometimes and put others first on a certain condition or depends on the situation. We can choose to be a real person or walking Pinocchio. But it is not easy to be real. It requires some sacrifices and maybe you will lost something or someone. It is still in my head, these questions. Like how to be honest without hurt someone feeling? How to be happy without being selfish? How to be brave to tell someone the truth, make them listen and then have a real talk instead of telling that you’re okay because obviously you’re not? Is it as simple as “hey, we need a talk?” 

sweet nightmare

Tonight I’m not sleeping. I choose to stay up finish my writing as much as I can. While everybody is on their way to the dreamland, I’m writing this entry and thinking. I keep dreaming these few days but with my eyes wide open while staring at the blank page of Microsoft word. In my dreams, I saw me having so much fun with my friends which I guess will never ever happening. (I blame Taylor Swift - 22 video for this!)  Some of them are busy with their life, while some of them probably still ignoring me for what I had said and done. It's our choice after all. To live our life with full of dreams or nightmare. I’m still not sure which one is mine. I want something like in my dreams but my behavior and my words put me in the nightmare. And I guess it is not sweet. Even literally. Just wondering… Have you ever wish that you can wake yourself from a long sleep and nightmare, then bring yourself to the life again?

good girl finishes last

It is not easy to do something good in life. I am not just saying. Last 3 weeks I send my volunteer form to SPCA but I guess they didn’t accept it. I’d try to be positive by thinking that maybe they have more dogs than cats since most of the volunteers there are Chinese. It's okay. I’d try to join another organization that offers volunteer in hospital department but I guess they didn’t accept me either since they didn’t reply to my second email. It is still okay for me. These are all obstacles that I have to face in order to do something good. I think that maybe you guys out there experience something like this too. Even though it’s hard to be or to do good things, it is not a license for us to be a bad person. Oh…and another thing. It is funny when people tend to see bad things we had done but when we did something good, it’s like nothing happen. Of course we shouldn’t show off after doing something good but it hurts to see your friend left you just like that because of one small mistake that you did compared to everything that you had done for him/her. Wait.. Is this out of topic?

hot and cold

I don’t know about you but the weather is so freaking hot today. I’m staying at the 17^th floor and usually my place is not that hot even I live in the island. Well, I see some complaints about the weather either on Twitter. While we in Malaysia complaint about how hot our place can be without an aircond, people in Europe complaint that their places are too cold. According to the date and time, it is suppose to be spring by now. But I still heard about the snow storm in certain places like U.S Midwest, Europe in the news today. Global warming is that bad, huh. Or maybe it can be another sign that out mother earth can’t hold for too long anymore. Since today is the ‘earth hour’ day, maybe we can do something about it. Yes, of course as usual you can see people say something like “huh, earth hour. Whatever.” or “it's only an hour. What’s the difference anyway”. It is true that we should help mother earth every hour, everyday in our life and not just an hour. But as a starting why don’t we be a part of the world to help reduce global warming. You have nothing to lose after all. Okay, now I sound like I’m doing an advertisement on my blog. *switch off light*

Educational system or societies’ perception?

8 years ago, I was in the same situation as most of the SPM leavers today. Since my high school was 2 hours away from my hometown, I was on pin and needles along the way to get there. I didn’t know why I felt that way. I was already in for a place and during that time, I was doing my foundation earlier 5 months than any other normal kids. I should be grateful for that but on my second thought, should I? I was so confused that time. I didn’t know what I want to do in the future or what course should I take for my first degree. The worse part was none of my family members can give me an advise on that topic and my friends were as confused as me. There were some seniors and counselor tried to help, but I guess they can’t clear my path either. I used to dream about study abroad and took medicine course, but since I didn’t get straight A’s and with my result that time, the only choices I had was either to finish my foundation and take any course which suit me the most or go for matriculation and start struggling all over again to get 4 flat, and then go to medical school. One thing that I can admit is I’m the type of person that love to do anything faster or take a shorter cut than long way. So, I guess you knew which path I took. Well, that was a part of the story in my book.

It is true that you’ve to get straight A’s to get into medical school. But that is if you want to. You, not your parents. Sadly, not all students think they have any other option when they have straight A’s result in their hand. The choices are tight between being a doctor or an engineer. If they have any other dreams or plan for the future, maybe they still have to choose between that either since their parents will say “You got straight A’s but you want to take an art course? Are you insane?” Yeah, kinda like that. That is how societies’ perception either. They look up really high to you when you get more A’s and asking the same question “So, you’ll be a doctor, huh?” And when your results have less A they will say you’re not trying hard enough or you don’t have any future. I teach this one kid and her mother really wants her to get all A’s printed on her result. Even she just takes UPSR, she struggles like a university student. No kidding. People should aware that we are not machines that produce A’s on a paper. We’re more than that. What a waste if a student can score straight A’s on an examination but their thinking is not like their result? They can’t make any own decision or have critical thinking, they only memorize the text book and exam format. I didn’t say all of them but maybe some. If someone not excel in her/his examination, maybe she/he can be successful too by being a good writer or international chef (for example). The only thing that can measure people success is how they can turn their failure into a motivation to change her/his life.

I know I write too long for this entry, but I have the last part which to blame on our educational system. Another example on my another student; he is a form 4 student this year and he is no choice but to take some subjects that he is not interested. I asked him once why and he said the school give not too many options and either you like or not, you have to take the combination subjects. Yup, NO CHOICES. So, some students in our free country have to study some subjects they don’t like because of no choices. And then when they did not success in that subject, people will say that they didn’t try harder. Fair enough. As we know, pmr will be the last this year and it changes into the band system from next year on. I just hope there is a room to change for spm too. By change I mean is not terminated the examination but students should give more options on subjects that they want to take. Like US educational system for example. Declaration of Bahasa, English and history as subjects must pass is a good thing, but again the marks of the paper when it comes to big examination is based on the graph. I’m still not sure if it is a good thing or not. It maybe helps some students that are weak in the certain subjects but the question is, The number of students that got straight A’s every year is just a number or it is based on what they are? 

Top 20 ways to get smarter

1. Play games involving words. E.g: crossword puzzle/scrabble (my favorite game ever!) /scramble, 4pics1word (any other apps also can) 
2. Play video games 
3. Read or watch news (don’t just watch tv3 news for God sake) 
4. Eat dark choc, berries and yogurt (Yummy!) 
5. Drink a lot of plain water and coffee (Thank God I’m coffee addicted) 
6. Sleep-a-lot (But please don’t sleep in your workplace) 
7. Take a look at the green plants sometimes or go out and do outdoor activities like jungle tracking instead of going to the mall every week.  
8. Turn off your Smartphone sometimes, logout fb/ twitter, don’t check your email for every half an hour. Enjoy real life.
9. Read at least one book a week.
10. Travel and go see other places!
11. Learn another language
12. Play an instrument ( I can’t play guitar L )
13. Write using your hand instead typing using your keyboard or touch screen
14. Listen to music
15. Do exercise regularly/ yoga/ dancing/ taekwondo
16. Write your thinking on blogs or Twitter (Twitter is always the best way to argue with others which have a more interesting theory compare to people on FB)
17. Spend some times in the kitchen making your own meal or baking (I’m not sure if making instant noodle aka Maggi count)
18. Visit art gallery (Devianart also can ha?)
19. Build a ‘memory place’
20. Follow some inspirational people on Twitter.

*sources: Newsweek last year edition

what are you waiting for?

Every day in our life we will spend some times on waiting. Either waiting for our food, waiting for the traffic light to turn green, waiting for the public transport and others. So today I’m writing about this entry after I had to wait like 3 hours for my ATM card replacement. While waiting that long, I was so regret because I didn’t bring anything to read to kill my precious time. In life, there are some cases where we HAVE to wait in order to get what we want or another case is it depends on our choice whether we want to wait or not. And if we want to wait, is it worth the thing that we waited for? For example, you’ve been waiting for your food in a restaurant for quite a long time and then the food is so bad and you feel like wanna have your money back. Or waiting for your gf/bf to finish her/his study, and suddenly when the person did, he/she already has someone else. Then, are you going to regret because of the time that you have wasted on waiting or just accept it as another lesson in life? 

happiness equation

Weekend is over and as usual Monday will be the most hated day of the week. Usually, weekend is the time to spend with family, or sleep the whole day if you’re single, away from family and have normal working hours/days. Well, my weekend is quite boring because I have to work on Sunday. But I’m so in love with Saturday because I can spend my day by watching movies while having some snacks and laying on my comfy bed all day long. Even so, that’s not enough to make me happy. Happiness to me is when I can hang out with my siblings or my friends watching football games, karaoke or just having a good time. Since I’m away from my family and have no friend at all in here, I have lost the definition of happiness. It’s like I’m forgetting to feel happy. For some people like us, money can buy happiness. For the rest, money is just a printed paper that has a value. There is a friend of mine said that she is not happy with her job even though she got quite high pay check every month. I had been there when I was working with WD like 2 years ago. What I did was I quite my job and further my study. But still I felt like this is not the life that I wanted and I’m not sure if I’m happy with the path that I choose.

Sometimes work makes us feel depressed and hate our life so much but it is not an easy task to find a job that can make us happy and enjoy our working day. Even if we did, there is another thing that required to sacrifice. I can find the job that can make me happy but maybe the payment is not higher and I can’t help my family with that value. So, instead of being selfish, I choose to go with the flow and hopefully someday I will find my happiness. 

Hero or Zero

2 months ago, video ‘listen, listen, listen’ had been a phenomenon in our country and it just passed 4 days since I wrote an entry about free education. Don’t worry. I’m not going to give a talk about it again but coincidentally, there was a forum about free education in Unisel last night and one of the panels is Miss Controversy itself, Bawani.  

Honestly speaking, I don’t understand why a lot of people presume her as a hero. Just because she has a voice to speak in a forum during Q & A session? Like seriously? Anyone could do that and it just happened someone recorded that incident and upload it on YouTube which of course after that made her famous. If no one recorded that incident, probably she is not well-known as she is today. I don’t think she deserves that kind of honor, plus her points are not all right too. I’m not writing this because I’m on syarifah’s side. I think she is even worse. If only anyone can give me a valid reason why she is a hero besides she has ‘the voice’, be my guess and explain it to me in the comment below. Oh well, maybe our country is lack of heroes and because of that, when someone speaks up in the forum against the government, suddenly that person is a hero to most of us. Even her points and the way he/she acts is somewhere wrong and not most of us can see it.  

I hate love songs

Music is my best friend. I’m pretty sure lots of people out there addicted to music as I am. So, today there is a music festival held in the city that I was born. Since the line up consists of not-my-favorite-artists except fun, then meh. I don’t really care at all not attending that festival. The best thing about this kind of festival is how music can unite people with different race and gender. What's more, music also can change our mood. Like me, I listen to happy songs when I’m happy, rock songs when I’m mad and melancholy songs when I’m sad. (Is it the right way to change your mood anyway?).  Oh, also I only listen to love songs when I’m in love. Practically, I’m still waiting for someone to be a reason that can make me listen to love songs again. Anyhow, what’s more important is I can’t never call a day without listening even to a song. That would be weird. On top of that, I can’t and never have a jog or work out without listening to music. So……Blog 5? 

Welcome to the internet! Enjoy your stay or you can leave.

The internet is another world that we create to make a connection with each other easier and also to find all types of resources that we need. However, it is also another world where we can be another person that we always want to be or be another face that we hiding from the real world. Oh well, you can see everyone trying to be Einstein, Sherlock and prove they’re smart just because they read it on Wikipedia and Google. Who am I kidding? In fact, I’m trying to be Carrie Bradshaw too even I know my writing is not as beautiful as hers. Among of all characters, being a wicked witch on the internet is something that someone shouldn’t be, but (not surprisingly) many of us choose to be one.

I came across with another article on another magazine that I read. It was about how Facebook can change friend to enemy and a story about someone ruins another person’s life by using an internet. It’s kinda sad when you used to be friend with someone and suddenly your friendship is broken just because something that he/she does or says on the internet. This thing happened to me either on Twitter last year and now I lost some of my friends that I knew since high school. I’m not sure either I was a wicked witch once or them (trying not to play the victim’s role here). After all, it was not a good feeling and trust me, you got what you did to others even it’s on the internet. I still didn’t get though, why do some people spend their time on the internet by making this fake account on a person that they hate or get jealous with? Is it really worth it or they just don’t have a life? Btw, those are just questions that I had been asking myself for a long time ago.    

kinda out of luck

We’re all lucky because we still can breathe and enjoy another day in our life today. And if you have a fancy meal for your lunch and drive the luxury car instead of taking public transport or riding motorbikes to work, you’re more lucky. Well, I’m quite lucky today since traffic so nice to me and I don’t even have to pay for parking while waiting for my takeaway order. Sometimes, I always think that I’m pretty lucky in my career but no luck at all when it comes to love. Like seriously, I’m not that smart and all results that I got since high school till today are based on my luck. People that have career and love are the luckiest people in this world and I’m so envy with them, even it is so wrong to envy with others’ luck. Well, the questions of the day here: Do we live based on luck? Or do we earn it? Or do we have to work hard to get something instead of depends on luck? 

For frrrrrrreeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!???

Firstly, I’m sorry if the title annoyed you. But hey, who doesn’t love free stuff? Speaking of free stuff here, the free education topic is still on. Maybe it is one of the opposition’s manifesto. Okay, let’s kick politic out of this entry. I think I have commented about this before on Twitter. Anyway, as everyone already knew, school fees for primary to high school had been repealed starting last year. I still remember that time when I was staying with my housemate which happened to be a school teacher. She kinda pissed about this. The good thing about school without fees is it will help poor people but then schools have to be dependable for the school activities. And when they asked for extra money from parents, of course they will get money WITH lots of complaints. I can’t write much about this since I’m just a tuition teacher.

In my opinion, free education for all levels (hope government can include polytechnics and community colleges too) are a good thing except for the high level (degree and above) for IPTA and IPTS. But actually there is a free tuition fee and allowance for students in higher institutions. Surprisingly, not many of people that complain about free education knew about this. Maybe they knew, but they try to hide the fact since they’re not qualified. Yes, you can’t get free lunch without invitation. To get the invitation, what students should do is work hard and take their study seriously. It is unfair for others that work so hard to get the invitation and at the end of the day, everyone demands for free lunch too and they just sit down and wait to be served with free delicious meals. After all, there are 20 public universities, 28 private universities, 22 private university-colleges and 403 private colleges in our country. If all fees for free (even for public universities only), just imagine what will happen to our economy. My hope is before any parties want to complain or consider about free fees, maybe they should help research students first. Hey, we really need a grant for our research!  

the broken ones

Ever heard broken heart is the most hurtful pain in this world? It’s quite true though since you can see by yourself its effect on someone’s life or yours. According to scientific fact, someone could die of a broken heart. When you lost someone (doesn’t matter if that person dies, through a breakup, divorce, rejection, etc. ) you feel like someone ripped your heart out, literally or sometimes like me, it feels like my heart fall from the top of the twin towers, break into pieces and then everyone steps on it. And then its beginning, the dark chapter of your book where you sleep with tears on your pillow, eat a lot of desserts and you even forgot how happiness tastes like. It takes a long time to heal a broken heart, sometimes months and sometimes years, depends on a person.But there is a good thing comes out of this.

A broken heart will turn you into a stronger one within hope. A piece of my story, I always perform in my studies every time after I had my heart broken. This is the power of being a broken one. After you finally can move on, you become stronger and its like you live in the new world with new hope. Though you wish in vain that the pain is still there, life continues and you have no choice but to press forward button. It's funny in life that you have to fall very hard in order for you to rise and shine. It’s good to be the broken ones as long as you know how to twist your sorrow into success and make everyone see what you're made of. Obvious example? Of course Taylor Swift and Adele.

How to be Forever Alone 101

Being alone is like being a single. It’s an option and it’s your choice. Well, maybe not. But here are the simplest lesson ever (you don’t even have to practice it!) I want to share since I’m the ‘Mother of Forever Alone’ :

1. Find work or apply place to further your study far away from your hometown and your family (if you got the offer, then you’re lucky)
2.  Don’t keep in touch or call your family and friends, wait until they call/message/whatsapp you first (unless you’ve something important)
3. Find some issues to start a fight and make your best friends hate you
4. Stay away from social activities.
5.  Avoid interaction or conversations with strangers.
6. Rent a room and make sure your housemates are different race/gender with you or not friendly
7. Be a mean person, so that everyone hates you (maybe this is too much)

If you follow all these steps...Congratulation! You’re now me. :D

Keyboard Warrior VS Drama Queen

Yesterday, I bought Personal Money magazine latest issue (my favorite magazine so far) and read this an article entitle “why do we overreact online”. In summary, this article is about keyboard warrior, some study made by the famous University about it and the reasons why some people enjoying being one. If you’re on social networks site now (either Twitter, Facebook or blog) you can see the keyboard warrior everywhere. The number of them is too damn high and it is more scarier than ghosts. We can’t stop a person from being a keyboard warrior and I don’t even say it is wrong to be one.  It is okay as long no one will get hurts or commit suicide from the words that you said .

Drama Queen is another term that I used for attention seeking whore. There are plenty ways to be famous on the internet but being a drama queen is my least favorite. In fact, I hate it. If you’ve Twitter account, I’m pretty sure you familiar with several names that used to be trending because of this (I will not mention their names here). I don’t even get why is so important to be famous on the internet. What they get actually instead of shame and people keep talking something bad behind their back? I used to be a drama queen before, but not on the internet. I must admit, it isn’t fun at all. Indeed, people have a tendency to hate you more. In before, if there is a battle between these two characters on the internet, I always prefer keyboard warrior than drama queen.  

just because I have XX chromosomes

It is not easy to be a human called woman. I don’t say it is easy to be a man either. But if you were born with XY chromosomes, at least you don’t have to be worried a chance you might bury alive or called bearer of bad luck in some culture, experience the nightmare of period pain every month and endless pain of giving birth. Yes, men have lots of responsibilities. However in this modern age, some of their responsibilities are shared with us, women. Women nowadays are more independent, smart and have their own career. We are so much luckier compared to women in the 1960s. Back to my mom’s year when she was a teenager and got an offer to further her study, my grandma didn’t give permission to her since most of the people think a women’s place should be in the kithchen. Well, most of us today are in front of a computer at the office instead in the kitchen.

Even so, there are still some issues for example in our culture, when it comes to rape or sexual harassment, some people still condemning women’s clothing as the reason this thing happened. Meanwhile in the western culture, it is okay if men sleep with many women but when women do the same, they will labeled as a slut. I’m trying not to sound so sexist while writing this entry and of course I’m not demanding for gender equality here. Just for men out there, it is very much appreciated if you can give us, women some respect. That’s all we need instead of love and a little bit attention. For women, please try to stand up for yourself (seriously, I hate to see women that are too dependent/needy) and love yourself since we’re all beautiful. Hey! We have our international day which men don’t have. Yup! We’re special after all. J

If CTRL + ALT + DEL doesn’t work, press ESC

Admit it. It is always easier to run away from people that you don’t like and problems that you have than face it. I’ll admit, I do it too sometimes. Oh well, what the hell! Everyone does. So the question here is why are we too afraid to face the truth or to tell someone that “we can’t be more than friend” or just being honest and tell them the truth? Someone told me that running away is probably the best way since you can drag the time and as the time pass by, the person that you are avoiding might forget about the unresolved issue. We all know that things never work that way. It is not easier for that person to just forget about the issue especially when that person is a woman; unless she doesn’t care about it.

So, if you can solve the issue in the first place, why bother to run? Is it because we afraid that the person might get hurts? What's the difference anyway? If you keep the person in the dark for too long, trust me, it hurts more than knowing the truth. That’s why I prefer to face my problems by telling the truth to someone. Okay, maybe the risk here you might lose her/him. (That's explained why I keep losing my friends and some people that I know around me). Some people give another name for a person that like to run away from his/her problems which is a coward. But how about the other person that is the victim of the issue? If that person let he/she ran away for too long, is it means that person is just as same as her/him? It isn’t wrong to run away sometimes but somehow you know that you can’t run away forever. At some point, you have to stop because you will get tired of running. So, maybe it is better for all of us to stop running, avoiding and ignoring the problems or some people, and just be a man and face it. 

W T F

Hey, it's Wednesday again! Yup. I’m happy because it is Wednesday. Wednesday is my favorite day of the week (for now) because I can watch my favorite drama series, Revenge at night and of course, we can watch movie in cinema with the cheaper price compare to other days. For those who are working, Wednesday means you have another two days to the weekend. (Okay, I’m being captain obvious here). Anyway, nothing much to write today. But really though… it seems times flies really fast now. I felt like just yesterday I wrote a post about best friends and it was last week. Last two days, I talked to my friend about this and she felt the same too. Its like the end of the world is near. Agree?