On love and loss

I think about you often. Almost as often as I did when we were still something. A little less now, but you're still on my mind. I think about you at odd times of the day, and mostly in passing. I think about you when eating food that I know you loved. I think about you when I listen to certain songs. I think about you when someone holds my hand, and when no one is holding my hand. I imagine your hand in mine and how it used to feel. I imagine how your face used to be, right up close to mine, feeling each other breathing as we fell asleep. 

But the thoughts have changed. They used to be thoughts filled with extreme love and the intense sadness of losing you. I missed you too much, you were away for too long. Now it's changed into fleeting thoughts passing through my mind before they're overrun by other things. A very short reminder of what we once had, but they're still there. You're still in my head. You probably always will be. The blips become fainter, less jarring, less painful, but I think they'll always be there.

I'm still sad about what we lost. I wonder whether I'll ever again feel what we felt together. I hope for it, but as the days and months go by (and eventually years), I yearn for it less. I wonder if I'll really end up alone, and whether I'll be alright if I do. 

The truth is, I think I would be alright because I'm left with an awareness of how deeply I'm capable of feeling for someone, and that I'm worthy of that same depth. It rarely lasts for an eternity, and it just didn't for us. We'll move on with our lives no longer intertwined, our planes of existence further separating as more time collects between our final goodbye. 

I'll still think about you often, but no longer as a loss. You're a reminder of what I'm capable of. I'll be lucky to feel it again, but I've made peace with not feeling it with you. 

Turning 30

It's 2022. I'm turning 30 this year.

I'm not excited, nor am I upset about it. My feelings towards life these days is a general meh-ness. A certain kind of lost-ness. I don't think I'm depressed, I still feel a lot of joy from small things. I love my daily coffees, I look forward to my time in the garden, every hug I get from my family brings me comfort and security. I have friends who I love and trust, and I have absolute faith that we'll be friends to death. I have a beautiful home, I'm healthy. I'm not unhappy. 

The problem is that I'm not happy either. While the small things in life are fine, the big things in life are missing. I feel as if I'm missing out in big milestones and my life has hit a plateau. I'm wasting my potential in a way. I'm beautiful but haven't found a partner who complements me. I'm smart but haven't found a way to fully make use of it at work. I'm financially comfortable but not enough to have assets of my own. 

So I think my 30s are going to be big. My make or break decade. 

I need to find a way to shake off my small comforts and make the big things happen. 

I'm terrified, to be honest. 

Watching death

I had a strange day. I visited a family friend who is on her deathbed, sick and bulging with pancreatic cancer. A 73 year old woman, the world at her feet with a net worth of almost a billion ringgit but reduced to a yellow skeleton with a bulging tummy. A woman who once motorbiked across the African continent and the Chinese Silk Road, shared many laughs and cried multiple times with my own mother, a woman who has existed on the fringes of my own life ever since I was a child. I was never close to her but was aware that she had watched me grow up through her close friendship with my mother; never playing a part in it but still existing within it. Curled up next to her was her husband, an Australian man who came to Malaysia to make a home with her, partnered with her in building that billion ringgit empire, drove the motorbike across the continents with her in his sidecar, held her as she wept hearing their adopted daughter had been raped and holding her now as she lies in bed waiting for death to take her.

As I sat by her bed reading Surah Yasin with my father, I couldn't help stealing glances at the two of them curled up next to each other. Seeing her eyes barely open, hearing her ragged breathing, watching her occasionally struggle to sit up but completely failing. Seeing him stare at her with the saddest eyes I have ever seen, seeing him reach over to draw her closer to him, hearing him kiss her cheek and whisper, "I'm here" as I whisper the next ayat. She was curled up like a baby in the womb, her hair wispy and cropped close, in diapers, looking every bit as helpless as a newborn. He was stroking her head and holding her with all the tenderness and affection of a parent welcoming new life, but instead he was determined to deliver that tenderness and affection until he would see the life go out of her eyes.

How beautiful it is to be able to build such a life together and share so much, but how sad for it to end with something as lonely and cold as death. To share every aspect of your life, not existing without the other person only to end up on a path where you can't follow or can't be followed. No person to come with you into the next world. No amount of money, love or memories can save you from the solitude that comes with death. Which is lonelier? The solitude of passing on to uncharted territory without the one you shared everything with, or the solitude of being left behind in a world that you used to share? 

Faith and doubt go hand in hand

Poked around my very dead Facebook profile and found a note draft from 2011, titled "Favorite line from favorite book". Had to look it up to find out what book it was, turns out it's from the Life of Pi by Yann Martel.

"There are always those who take it upon themselves to defend God, as if Ultimate Reality, as if the sustaining frame of existence, were something weak and helpless. These people walk by a widow deformed by leprosy begging for a few paise, walk by children dressed in rags living in the street, and they think, "Business as usual". But if they perceive a slight against God, it is a different story. Their faces go red, their chests heave mightily, they sputter angry words. The degree of their indignation is astonishing. Their resolve is frightening. 

These people fail to realize that it is on the inside that God must be defended, not on the outside. They should direct their anger at themselves. For evil in the open is but evil from within that has been let out. The main battlefield for good is not the open ground of the public arena but the small clearing of each heart. Meanwhile, the lot of widows and homeless children is very hard, and it is to their defence, not God's, that the self-righteous should rush."

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One of the things I really appreciate about the internet is how it's allowed me to look back on my past self to see both how much and how little I've changed. It's also given me a way to look back on my life and almost pinpoint a moment in time where I developed a principle to live by.

If I remember correctly, the first time I read Life of Pi was when I was around 16 or 17. Young enough to be a blank-ish slate, old enough to start understanding real principles and reflecting on how they apply to my life. The fact that I felt compelled enough by this excerpt to immortalize it online shows just how much I resonated with it 10 years ago. 

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"For evil in the open is but evil from within that has been let out. The main battlefield for good is not the open ground of the public arena but the small clearing of each heart."

I've held onto this for a long time, but it turns out that the small clearing of the heart is pretty difficult to keep clear. You tend to forget to clear it, and it gets crowded by doubts and temptations. You get distracted, your head is occupied with things that don't matter but those things take up space. You start prioritizing things like money, careers, possessions, achievements until the space in your heart gets crowded and God gets pushed aside sometimes. 

I often catch myself when my heart or head gets too crowded and I wonder whether I still have space left. I get scared that I've gone too far, I've crammed so many things in that space that I don't have any more to give which then leads to guilt. Am I worthy? Am I now that hopeless, evil creature I never wanted to become who doesn't have space for God any more? Have I gone too far? Is it too late? 

The thing is, this catching myself when I feel too crowded - this has happened so often that it has become a cycle. A constant ebb and flow between faith and doubt. It's happened so often that I'm inclined to believe that this is just how it is. Doubt and faith go hand in hand but faith needs to be nurtured, developed and grown over time. Every cycle, something different happens but the same principles and faith bring me back up, although in different ways. I can only hope that as time goes by, I'll keep proving to myself that faith is what picks me back up again and again, and each time it'll come back stronger until one day, it'll squash the doubts and I'll be able to live the rest of my life in that faith. The clearing in my heart will grow so vast, wide and powerful that all the distractions that have crowded my head won't get the chance to take up space again. 

Halted time

It's 2020 and the world is in the middle of a pandemic with no vaccine available, leaving something called 'social distancing' as the best combative measure for now. The entire globe has been at a standstill for about a month now including Malaysia.

With social distancing, public events are cancelled indefinitely, public spaces are closed, businesses and schools are shut down, restaurants and bars are not allowing customers to dine in, roads are empty. Everyone is shut into their homes until further notice to prevent the virus from spreading from person to person.

I've been at home since March 18th, not leaving unless it's to buy groceries which is on average once every fortnight.

Since being shut in, time has sort of blurred. I wake up late in the day and only fall asleep deep in the night. Weekdays and weekends have almost no distinction between themselves. Most of my work is accomplished after sundown.

Earlier in the year, I wrote about the tangibility of time - of having meaning assigned to days, dates, months, years, and being able to count the passage of time. How hopeless and exhausted I would be if I truly felt that every day were the same, with no end or beginning in sight. How strange it is that the world has given me exactly that.

With everything at a standstill, my days are almost always the same. Time feels frozen when nothing in your environment changes. The calendar says the world has been in this state for around a month and yet, I feel like I have been living the same day over and over again with no foreseeable end or beginning. I could close my eyes right this instant and I will see these same walls when I open them, right up until I close them again. When I glance at the date and time, there is a sense of disbelief.

"It's only Tuesday?"
"It's already Tuesday?"

My perception of time no longer matches its passage. I am not moving with time, I am stuck with time.

Time.

The first few words of this post were typed out at 2.50am on 2nd January, 2020. 

The past week has felt a bit strange. Being off work means that there is no structure to how I spend my time. I sleep when I want, wake up when I want, eat when I'm hungry, shower at 6pm; wiling my time off from work with books, TV shows, movies, going out with people and it has all seemed to mold into a giant time blob. My day starts at 1pm and ends at 5am, making me lose count of what day and date it is. The sun sets at its' usual time but I'm often caught off guard ("How can it already be dark? I just had lunch."). Hanging out with my friends at our usual mamak at 1am on a Thursday feels perfectly normal. The friends who are still working on the days between Christmas and New Year's leave at 4pm without guilt because time and professional conduct has seemingly come to a halt. Suddenly no one cares if you're skipping out early because, hey, it's the end of the year. On Twitter, people are joking about how time is a construct and yes of course it's okay to spend all day on your couch watching the entire Lord of the Rings trilogy in one sitting. Who cares when the year is ending, do whatever you want! 

Time truly is a construct, but it seems to be an enormously important one. People seem to be so eager and willing to abandon the usual routines and expectations at what is believed to be the end of a year because it feels like something has come to an end. A 'thing' has passed, but all that 'thing' is is a certain number of days. 365 days, that's all it is. But come January 1st, the past 365 days magically evaporates and we are granted a beginning. A fresh start at life, even though your circumstances have not changed at all since December 31st. Everyone is charged with a bounding sense of optimism that THIS is when I change. This is when I become better, try harder, get stronger. The characteristics of time doesn't change; it's still the same second, minute, hour, day of your life. 12.01am of January 1st isn't very different from 11.59pm of December 31st. Nothing's changed except your sense of time. A deeply human trait of assigning tangibility to something intangible and unchanging. 

I don't see my cats joining me lighting fireworks and wearing little party hats just because the date has changed. But as I watched the fireworks last night with my friends, hugging each other when the clock struck 12am and talking about our hopes for the new year, I'm grateful to have been born a human being. To be able to assign this tangibility to time and to feel a beginning, a middle, and an end. How hopeless and exhausted would I feel if I truly believed that every day I lived were the same. To feel my life stretched out ahead of me; a never ending line of moments, one the same as the other, right up until the moment I die. 

Time might be linear but it feels like a circle with a dot at the top (wow, Nadia, great job of describing a clock). 

Each moment we re-arrive at the dot at the top, we're reminded of the illusion (?) that we're somehow not bound by the linearity of time. We're given a sense that we can start over, do things a little differently, make a change. Bend the line. 

But why wait for 365 days to pass? That's the big circle, but there's the bonus of even smaller circles. 30 days, 24 hours, 60 minutes, 60 seconds. Each circle is an opportunity to change and to bend the line. 

It's now 3.45am, January 2nd 2020 so I'll start bending the line tomorrow. Who cares, I've got all those little circles, all those little chances to change and make something of my life. All I have to do is pick one dumb little circle, I guess whichever one doesn't matter. Every moment is the same, they all offer the same opportunity. It's all on me, not time. 

Writing about trying to write

I'm finding it strange how I used to be able to write a lot more when I was younger; and writing was a much easier process as well. Words would flow out of me and I'd pour my heart or my head out onto the keyboard but funnily enough, I never really had anything of importance to say when I was younger and full of words. I'd just write whatever came to mind, even if it wasn't really about anything concrete or mind-blowing.

Now when I try to write, I find myself stuck at the first sentence, almost crippled by doubts and second guesses like "Wow that sounds so pretentious", or "Why are you writing like this, you don't sound like this in real life"; deleting drafts over and over again, rewriting sentences until I'd lose what I even wanted to say. I'd get stuck on topics that have been whirling around in my mind, I want to write about them all and finally get them out of my head, but which one should I write about? When I do start writing it, I stop halfway (as I literally just did 2 minutes ago) and think, "Why am I even writing about this?". I write paragraphs and paragraphs, reread them and think, "What am I even getting at here?" and proceed to delete an hour's worth of writing (which I also just did).

Ultimately, I think this struggle to write reflects well on how I've changed over the years.

Having this blog survive from my high school days right up to now is quite a feat to me. Looking back, I'm quite happy it did because it's helped me somewhat come to this conclusion that I'm trying so hard to write about now. Back in school, I was happy to blurt out anything that would come to mind. Inconsequential, shallow, immature and badly written but I didn't care because that's who I was at 16. I didn't have very many cares, I was happy to mold myself to the environment I was in because it was an easy environment (this environment being secondary school in Kuantan). People were content with themselves, I had friends who were easy going and we all got along really well. My priorities were simple and direct: schoolwork, exams, boys. Very straightforward 16 year old girl stuff. Things were easier to write about precisely because things were easy.

Now that I've "grown up" (side note: I think "grown older" is a more accurate term because most of the time I don't feel any more adult than I did at 17), life and it's problems have become a lot less straightforward. Stress, anxiety, people falling short of expectations, not living up to your own expectations for yourself, balancing work friends and family, careers blablablabla. Each problem presents it's own episode of picking apart, dissecting, rationalizing and takes a long time for me to figure out in my head. Most of the time the problem is abandoned to try and figure out another problem I have in my life, until my head is filled with half thought out problems that seem nowhere close to being solved. I start to lose hope that I'll ever figure out what to do with those problems and I'll just have to stay this way; confused with a head full of problems.

Even so, with my head full of problems, my feelings towards writing never really changed. It's always helped me sort my thoughts out and come to a conclusion, the only thing is that now I have a lot more thoughts that are a bit more difficult to sort through and conclude. It doesn't mean that writing won't help anymore, it just means I need to do more of it.

So to help myself, I'm going to make a list of things I want to think and write about. Something that I can look back on, refer to and make it easier for myself to build, reflect and expand on as I move through this life. And hope to God I don't forget my password or get locked out of this account.

Let's start with 10 first. Here goes...

1) Mortality (I'm wondering why this is the first thing that popped into my head. It still makes me a little scared how much life has changed me, from thinking about boys and exams to thinking about mortality? What happened, kid? ... Life!)
2) Being female
3) Loneliness and isolation
4) Religion and identity
5) Social media
6) Parenting (but I'm not even a parent)
7) My eating and exercise habits
8) Making efforts for other people
9) Making efforts for yourself
10) Being great or being good


It took almost this whole week to finish writing this post when all this post is saying is that my head is jammed up, I want to try and write more and here are 10 things I want to try writing about. Which, in hindsight, is really nothing substantial. I wonder how long it'll take for me to finish writing about these 10, will I even finish writing? Will it take another 10 years? One year per post? I'll be 37 by then. That's really scary. But we'll see, won't we? Or, I'll see... It's just me here anyway.

2016 goodbyes and 2019 goodbyes

2016:

Whenever I watch movies, it's always goodbye scenes that tear me up. Whether it's a boy saying goodbye to his alien friend like in ET, or a little girl saying goodbye to her father like in Interstellar, or an ape mother having to say goodbye to her adopted human son like in Tarzan. Goodbyes are hard to take in without weeping like a baby.

That's because, to me at least, saying goodbye to people you love is the hardest thing to bear. That's because, even though you know it might be temporary, everything is thrown into a change. Things you want to share with the people you love - you won't be able to. Things lose their sweetness. Whether you've had to leave to bigger and better things, you'll miss the people who made it possible for you. You won't be able to help but think "I wish they were here to see this with me." The new things you're supposed to enjoy have a bitter aftertaste to the sweetness. You'll be engulfed in these bigger and better things, building something you wouldn't have been able to if you stayed but in the back of your mind, you'll think, "I wish you were here with me to see this." "You would have loved it." You can record and recount every detail of your newness and joy but you'll never be able to bring that moment back to share it with that person you said goodbye to, no matter how much you want to.

Whether you've been left behind while someone has gone - nothing has physically changed in your life but everything looks different to you. Something as simple as buying bread at a place you once went to together could make you think, "When we were here together, you made a funny joke and we laughed about it for a long time". You could look at your couch and imagine that person sitting there like they used to, curled up in their usual spot.


2019:

Edit: I saved that as a draft in 2016. Here I am now, 26th January 2019. I revisited this graveyard of a blog because this morning, I said goodbye yet again. But this time it wasn't a physical goodbye. It was a more difficult goodbye. Now I sit here at my usual spot in the office, pretending to work and holding back my tears, marveling a bit at how little my circumstances have changed. Goodbyes still hurt, the pain of wishing you could share joy and happiness with someone who isn't present is still there. But now, the goodbye comes with the sting of realizing that even though you're hurting and upset and angry and bitter, the world still moves forward. Life is still progressing even though you're not ready for it. Things are happening whether you like it or not so you just have to pull your socks up, wipe away your tears and snot, get on with it.

Goodbyes and uncertainties are certain.

Uncertainties

Since I only seem to write when I'm upset, I'm going to write about something that has always managed to upset me for the longest of times - goodbyes and uncertainties. Even as writing this, I realize that this is a somewhat childish thing to be upset about and as an adult, I should be able to accept that goodbyes and uncertainties are part and parcel of life. Nothing is ever permanent and nothing is ever set in stone. I should be able to accept that because most goings-on my life right now is testament to these two things. 

I never thought that I would be working an office job, with a desk and phone and business card with the whole charade of meeting clients and acting professional; yet it happened. I went into uni a blank slate, not knowing what I was going to do with my life but ever so optimistically assuming that whatever it was, I would love it. My first internship at the zoo seemed to confirm this - I had magically gotten a temporary job that I was in love with, that was stimulating, that was 'cool' and I never woke up feeling unhappy about where I was in life. I had interesting conversations every single day, I rarely felt isolated or stuck - I was growing, even though I didn't know it at the time. I thought I would magically fall into a profession that would suit me and that I'd always be in an environment as stimulating and dynamic. It didn't occur to me as literally as it does now, but it never occurred to me that I could one day feel bored and uninterested. 

Now, I work in an office. The most stimulating conversations I have revolve around where to eat for lunch and whether I should offer a mint to the colleague suffering from halitosis. This was far from what I expected from life but - nothing is set in stone. Accept it. You can try to change it, but nothing is set in stone.

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Goodbyes

As a child, I was always a huge blubbering baby whenever it came to saying goodbye to anyone. When I was really young, I'd always feel a little daunted when going to sleep at a cousins' house because that meant leaving home and my bed and my parents and things would be different at this cousins' house. I would be fine during the day and enjoy myself when playing with them, but when it came to night time I would pretty often lose it, start crying because I missed my parents and my bed and all things familiar. It could get pretty bad because I remember my parents often coming over to pick me up from the failed sleepover. As I grew a little older, I outgrew the habit of crying when it came to bedtime and could stay with any relative for however long BUT the crying moved up to when my parents dropped me off and I had to say goodbye to them. I'd cry at the beginning but I learnt how to keep a brave face and go through with spending time away from them. Obviously, when you're that young, your parents are your whole world and whenever you're away from them, every sense of stability and security vanishes. 

When I became a teenager, the family dynamic changed. I was at home a lot less often, my parents would spend a lot of time away from me and I'd spend nearly weeks on end with a family friend. No crying as a teenager but it taught me to rely on myself more and to be self-sufficient when it came to stability and security.

Then when you get a serious partner, self sufficiency becomes a little moot. You might revert back to childhood and assign most of that stability and security to this one being that you love and luckily, loves you back. As far as relationships go, that's the goal. You share and shape your life, your habits and your whole self with a person who wants to do the same - much like how a child shapes their life, habits and self with their parents.   

What will really test your stuffing and your tenacity is when life forces you to say goodbye to those who have that much anchorage with your life. When you've had to watch them leave with no say in it. It could come in any way - death, distance, time, anything. What makes it harder is when you watch other people go by with the privilege of merely having their loved ones around them and life has somehow not granted you that privilege. You will find yourself clenching a hand just to remind yourself that it will be some time until someone else will clench back and that you have to stand strong and be patient on your own for a while. You will find yourself doing something simple like eating a piece of chicken and being a little upset because you're not able to share it with someone you miss. You will not have the privilege of taking a person for granted. It's truly a test of what you're made of, but whatever it is that separates you from a loved one will change you. You might not feel it's for the better, but you won't be the same version of yourself as when you had them by your side. 

By "you", I'm talking to me mostly. Life is full of uncertainties, but one thing that is certain is goodbyes. We will all bid farewell to someone we love in this life, we will all feel this emptiness at some point. The only question is when it will happen. I night as well get used to it?     

Probability of everything = 0

Now that I am at something of a crossroad in my life, I've found myself wondering lots of times about what I will eventually end up doing for the rest of my life. For about a year, I've enjoyed calling myself a researcher, carrying out several (mostly failed) experiments but haven't yet found the courage to commit to a career. I'm lucky enough not to be forced into a career, my parents are strong enough to just sit back and let me find my own way in doing something that I enjoy. But then, being the spoiled and privileged brat that I am, I'm like "K so what the hell should I do then?". Possibilities are endless now that I'm done with school. I like writing, I'd love to be a writer. But then, I like animals too, maybe I could be the next Jane Goodall and continue my ape research. But I also want to be a psychologist because that's why I signed up to study psychology in the first place. But I don't really want to spend the rest of my life listening to people's problems. I want to fix things. Which is why I really enjoyed my internship where I did humanitarian/political work because I felt like I actually had a hand in changing something. Decisions, decisions, decisions.

Literally everyone (parents, the internet, friends) say, "Just do what you like and stick to it". But if you like so many things, how do you stick to just one? So I guess the key is to find balance, and ultimately, the key to a good life (also according to parents, the internet etc) is a good balance between every aspect of your life. But yo, I'm 23. There's no such thing as balance. I'm only just learning that waking up at 11am and going to sleep at 3am is not balance, even though that worked while you were in college. I'm only just learning that one day everything around you seems sorted out but the next day, it can all fall apart because of one single fuck-up. One day you think you've figured out what you want to do with your life and the next day, something so beautiful catches your eye and you can't help thinking, "I'd love to do that too." And then a day after that, you think about your present life and realize how something else would be way more suitable, sensible and probably just as satisfying - you just haven't tried it out yet. How do you "balance" when everything around seems to be resting on a ball, not a box?  At 23, you're only just starting to figure out this seemingly impossible balancing act and I can't help but feel that if anyone has their whole life planned out at my age, they probably haven't opened your eyes to the vastness and improbability of the world.

I applied for a job the other day at a company I really respect because all the company is built on is change. For the life of me, I can't find that "one" purpose of the company. I don't know if it's media or tech or education reform or lifestyle or whatever, but the one thing I do know is that they do... Lots of things. Which is essentially what my problem/strength (?) is - I don't know one thing I want to do so I want to do all of it. I don't know how they did it, I don't know what they're secret is but they seem to be wildly successful at doing many things which is something that just blows my mind. How do you bring together so many different things and make every single thing work? They have this secret. I want to know what it is. But when I applied for the job, I kept thinking about the same vastness and improbability that has been confusing me about commitment, only in a different way - so many things can go wrong with my application. I might not be what they're looking for, they're full up, my application was too long, I didn't answer the right questions and on and on and on. The possibilities were endless. As is the way the world works - so many different things can happen and yet, only one thing does. I can either get rejected (for various reasons) or I could get hired (for various reasons). I could live until I'm 100 or I could die tomorrow.

Although I sound really negative and pessimistic, there is one solid thing that I hold on to though.  There was an article I read a couple of months ago (I wish I could cite it but I've really forgotten where I read it) and it explained the mathematical probability of there being another copy of you in this world. It was literally 0. There is mathematically no chance that you could have been born differently because the number of things that need to come together to make you you are too many, so the chances of everything coming together again to produce another you is zero. ZERO. So maybe my indecisiveness now doesn't even matter because at the end of the day, whatever I decide will be what was meant to be decided. And that will make it all the more meaningful because I know that whatever path is for me, is tailor made for me, regardless of who the tailor is. I believe it's 100% God, some might disagree and just say it's fate, some might say it's maths again but whatever happens and whatever I choose or am not chosen for, it is what it will be. So I should get on with it.

I can do it.

The houses we live in

I was driving around with a friend a few weeks ago and we were going around one of KL's more affluent areas called Bangsar just looking at pretty houses. Normally I can't stand any "affluent" area in KL, I find them completely charmless, pretentious and over the top. If houses in KL could speak, they'd be speaking in those annoying put on American accents and any conversation with these talking houses would be a series of humble brags about how its doors were designed by Gucci in Italy just because they were #blessed. But Bangsar is a different story. Bangsar is full of tiny houses tucked away in quiet little streets and they usually look like nothing but give it a couple of seconds and slowly you begin to realize the beautifully subtle details like vines growing on the fences and a bookshelf by the window that extends from floor to ceiling. But the downside of house-watching in the middle of the night is that you run the risk of looking like a stalker or criminal then realize that someone in that house is probably watching you and is contemplating calling the police. So you move on to the next house.

I think it's entirely true that the way houses look is an extension or a reflection of the people living in it and the start of this "reflection" starts when you try to develop into your own person. When I was a teenager, my room was exactly like me. My mother is a very clean person and would physically ache upon the sight of messiness so there was never clothes on the floor or an untidy desk. I simply wasn't allowed that privilege. Neither was I allowed to have posters on the wall because apparently I would damage the paint work so my walls were pristine as well. But, once you opened up my cupboard doors, you were faced with a mad collage of my favorite bands, actors (I was crazy about Orlando Bloom and Viggo Mortensen) and weird so-called cool indie patterns I'd find in random magazines that I thought were cool and edgy. My clothes weren't allowed to be thrown on the floor so obviously my cupboard was never organized. The teenage mess instinct in me had to be let out somewhere, so instead of neat folded piles, I was faced with a mountain of clothes that I'd pick apart everyday to decide what to wear. I didn't mind at all. It was the same with my work desk. Sure, all my papers were put away into cute little boxes and files but inside those boxes and files was a tragic mess. My drawers were a nightmare of discarded worksheets, exercise books and I'd sift through that nightmare every night to find that single sheet of homework I'd need for the next day at school. So in essence, my teenage room was exactly like teenage me - controlled chaos. Organized, clean and presentable on the outside, thanks to an external force (aka my mother) but complete madness and disarray on the inside (aka the true me).

So fast forward to the present where I am house-snooping and wondering what the people who live in these beautiful houses were like. One house had a window large enough to show off its book shelf that was 2 storey's tall (ie from ceiling of the first level to floor of the ground level). I was in love. So many thoughts were running through my mind like, "Hey there, owner of beautiful house with dream library. What do you have there on that divine piece of architecture? The full Harry Potter set? The works of Homer and Shakespeare? Encyclopedias? Yo man, don't even hide if you've got the whole 50 Shades of Grey trilogy because it doesn't matter. All that matters is how wonderful it must be to come back to a beautiful house with all those books in your own comfort. What else do you like? What colors exist in that beautiful space? Do you have a garden or are you like me and plants just wither and die under your care?". The monologue was endless and continued from house to house.

Some of the houses were open enough for me to catch a quick glimpse of the people living inside them and thinking back,  I've realised that it's a strange thing to watch someone else live their everyday life. Isn't it weird that while you have your own thoughts and experiences and dreams, someone else has their own thoughts, experiences and dreams that are entirely different from yours. There is an entire monologue going on in their heads that is separate from yours. They see the world through a pair of eyes just like yours and yet, the things you both see are different. That person is sitting there on that couch that they are probably so used to sitting on and you are outside, watching them sit on that couch and thinking, "Hey, that looks comfy". Then I go back to my own couch in my own home that I am used to sitting on, living my own humdrum life giving it no second thought and I  remain acutely unaware that someone might just be watching me for just a minute thinking, "I wonder what it's like to be her. She looks really comfy in that space that she owns".

Again I think is a pretty solid conclusion about this strange life that we all live. On the outside, the things that we have and surround ourselves with seemingly reflect what we are on the inside. Some people keep books around, some people are tidy, some people only like the colours black and white but the things that led them to keep those books around or keep tidy or decorate with certain colours are all completely individual decisions made according to experiences and thoughts that we will never know of. But our own habits are made up of these similarly individual experiences and thoughts, and while we're so busy wondering about the lives of other people and how lovely it must be living in that space that they've created, there might be someone out there looking just as longingly into our lives wondering what it's like to live in ours.

Syria

Earlier this year, someone close to me who lives in Saudi Arabia told me something quite scary and somewhat unimaginable to me - one of the guys from his circle of friends, Ahmed (I changed his name) had disappeared and was not heard from at all. He had been gone for almost a month at that time. A few months later, they heard that Ahmed was seen in Turkey, had sold the family car he took and was presumably about to use the cash to get himself across the border to Syria. They feared the worst, thinking he had joined ISIS but were hopeful he would come to his senses and then come home safe. A few months after that, they found out that he did manage to get into Syria but was not involved in crackpot delusional ISIS but had joined the rebels to fight against the Syrian regime, against Bashar Al Assad. A few weeks ago, that someone close to me came back to KL. We had a fun week that was spent watching movies, eating a lot of food and just generally caught up on the time spent apart doing things that normal young adults do. Days before he was supposed to return home, he got news from home telling him that his friend Ahmed had been killed while fighting against this demon regime.

When he told me about what had happened to Ahmed, I was stunned and did not know how to react at all. This was foreign territory to me - how do you respond when you hear that someone close to someone you care about has not just died, but killed while fighting? Do you say sorry? Doesn't that sound a bit weak though? So do you reach out for a reassuring hug? What? I just stayed silent.

After a while, we were back to normal and continued our usual activities without a mention of Ahmed. But occasionally he would say things like, "I was really looking forward to him coming back home" and "I bet he must have kicked ass while he was out there", again throwing me into those unknown waters, not knowing how to react and hoping he'd go back to normal.  

Fast forward to the present, about 2 weeks after hearing about Ahmed. My friend has gone back to KSA, I'm here at home in KL. It's almost midnight, I am sitting on my living room floor with the TV playing in the background. I had a good dinner a few hours ago but my stomach has just started rumbling again and I was looking through the stories of my friends on Snapchat with my 64gb iPhone that my dad bought for me a month ago. I looked at my friends Stories and thought, "Ugh they're at a mamak shop having supper and they didn't invite me?". Then I watched Masterchef on the 30 or 40something inch TV we have in the living room in HD which only further reminded me of my rumbling tummy. I then head into the kitchen and get myself a giant bowl of cereal. I walk to the living room again and plonk myself back down onto my comfortable couch with an ample selection of big fluffy cushions. I grab my laptop and start scrolling through Twitter. I've got Star World playing in the background and the program has switched from Masterchef to Candidly Nicole. Nicole Richie has now apparently picked up online dating to help her friend find a partner. Nicole insists on tweaking her friends profile on the dating site because apparently "you won't get a man just by being completely yourself", to which her friend just replies with a stony stare. I think that is supposed to compute as funny in the viewers head.

At this point, I'm only half listening to Nicole's opinions because I found a link on Twitter depicting a timeline of the Syrian crisis that has just massively blown up since the pictures of the toddler washed up on a beach has spread across the internet. I click on it. It's a series of tweets by a Syrian activist who has been documenting the crisis from the 2011. Then I find another link to a YouTube video. It was a group of men who had found the body of another activist who had been killed. His larynx had been ripped out, the men around him were saying words like "Shaheed (martyr)" and "Allahu-akbar (God is great)", at which I realized I had tears in my eyes and I felt a little nauseous.

I look up at the TV and see that Candidly Nicole now has a bunch of frat boys who are playing that weird beer game where they do a handstand over a barrel while trying to chug down lots of beer until someone throws up. Everything in that show seems to deliberately show how wonderful it is to be American and rich. All the colors are so vivid and bright. Why is her garden so green? Why is that red bucket so brightly crimson? How is their sky so incredibly blue? I look around my house - at my comfortable couch with my ample selection of big fluffy cushions, my HD tv, my iPhone, this laptop I am staring at. I think about my mother sleeping soundly in her bed, safe in the knowledge that she is there and is alright and will wake up tomorrow safe in that same bed.

Then my thoughts switch back to Ahmed, who is my age and has been killed in a fight and to the dead activist who had his larynx ripped out and then I realized why I teared up. This issue is so real and is happening right this moment, as I type these words out. As I am sitting here in physical comfort on my couch, there is someone out there who is just like me and going through what seems like hell to me. No six degrees of separation between me and this crisis, even though it is happening half way across the globe. No distance or buffer anymore, no feeling of "it's just something on the news". This has affected someone that I know and care about which has subsequently affected me. Yet, here I am like many lucky others in this world, in my comfortable home with the world still safe for me. I am enjoying these privileges merely because I am allowed to. Because I am lucky. Because God has granted me this blessing of a roof over my head.

Why me? I don't know why. Why not them too? I don't know either. Allahu-akbar.

What do I do now? I remember that this life isn't about finding the perfect partner through online dating. The grass isn't always that TV green, sky isn't so bright hyper blue, that bucket isn't that red in real life. There are other things happening in real life that are terrible and unimaginable and cruel. You're just a little speck of life in this life of millions but someOne has chosen to bless you with this life of joy and comfort and stability. Some people like Ahmed may choose to leave all that and try to make a difference. But you are you on the other side of the world and all you can do is watch everything around you happen. You may wonder why such bad things happen and you may never find an answer to that. But you will always remember that you are one of the lucky ones and maybe you can do your part in just remembering that and being thankful. Being thankful means you are aware. Being aware means that maybe one day, you'll be able to take part in doing something about it.    

F*ck you/Thank you, Charlie Hebdo.

Charlie Hebdo.

I'm genuinely surprised at how much you've managed to affect me, Charlie. You are something so far away, so non-existent to me, you have had absolutely nothing to do with my life until just about a week ago. You have managed to make me think and reflect and even cry for what has happened because of you.

I have thought and thought for days on end about you and I can't help it because everyone is talking about you and yet I can't agree with most of the people you have seemingly influenced, no matter how eloquent or rational or admirable they may be, because to me you have done something wrong and the damage you have done seems so large that it's just difficult to bear. Maybe this is what you wanted, though. This continuous talk about you and this giant shift of thinking towards defending what you have stood for. Although now that I think about it, I don't really understand what you stood for. Humor? You weren't funny at all. Bravery? You're just a piece of paper making fun of people. Loyalty? You insulted pretty much everyone. What was the message you were sending? I don't know, but I guess that's just me. Other people seem to think you had a solid enough message to defend and by that, I mean millions of people. Is the message supposed to be that you should be allowed to be rude to others and make fun of what they love? We were taught not to do that when we were in kindergarten. 

"Your mama so fat ....." "DON'T bring my mom into this, that's really rude" "Well, she IS" *fist fight starts*

Are you saying that it's okay now that you're all grown up and you're paid to do it anyway? I don't think it's okay at all because the consequence was much much much more severe. It wasn't a fist fight, it was death.

Maybe I'm missing the point. But nevertheless, it's quite amazing - all you are is pieces of paper and you have managed to change so many things. 

You've shattered my pristine, sheltered little world by showing me that the religion I practice has been so terribly twisted by some people that they used it to justify murdering someone over itty bitty pieces of paper. Just because of your so-called "message", these twisted people decided that you should pay the ultimate price but now it's probably made millions think that people like me are just like them. We are all the same - violent and cruel and dangerous, we believe in weird things and we should be stopped. 

I'm not the best practicing religious little Muslim girl around but I am slowly trying to find my way. You've made me see that another person who's probably like me, just slowly trying to find their way to Islam, isn't going to have it as easy as I do. They could get attacked for something they wear on their head, they could get shunned by their friends because of what they believe in, they might not get a job because of a law against them and their religion; all these things I can do comfortably here where I live. Lucky for me, I'm not from where you are. I live all the way on the other side of the world where it's fine to be a Muslim and for once, I am proud of identifying as a Muslim. I would like to think that  if I were living in France as a Muslim, if I were in those Charlie Hebdo stained shoes, I would be brave enough to stand up for my religion and for what I believe in. I'd risk having all these dangerous things happen to me because the right thing to do is to defend my religion. But I also think that if I were truly in those shoes, I would just duck down and hide because it's so much safer and I just want to live in this world as peacefully and as problem-free as possible. But at the very least you've made me think about this. At least you've made me realize that yes, I identify as a Muslim and I want people to know that I am a Muslim. Now I know that my religion is definitely a part of my identity after all and if you have managed to upset me this much, Charlie, that means it's a big part of my identity. You haven't shaken my faith but possibly strengthened it and that makes me one step closer to becoming a better Muslim. You've succeeded in something, Charlie but I don't know if that's what you were going for. 

Did you even know what you were going for?

Maybe not, but you're really making lots of people think. Good for you, I hope it was worth it. 

Lonely, Alone and Being Alone.

What does it mean to not belong to a group but instead, belong to several close friendships that do not overlap? Social psychology classes (not that I attended very many) insinuate that forming groups is a natural part of human social interaction. Forming a sort of alliance to reach a common goal, as it's formally put forward. But often, I can never share a common goal with a whole group of people. Or actually, I don't even have a goal. I don't know what I'm aiming for with a bunch of people. It's easier to find a common interest with just the single person. One life partner. One best girlfriend. One best boyfriend. One best friend to act stupid and do nothing and talk about nothing with. One best other friend to have serious conversations about society. Isn't that simpler? Well, maybe only to me.

And yet, it's incredibly lonely to not belong to a tight knit group. Here I am in this two-way problem - on the one hand, I like my single friendships because it's so much easier and fulfilling to maintain. I know who to speak to about specific things and where to turn to for specific problems, where to go to feel or say a certain thing. And yet, I long for that sense of belonging to a group or a society. To be accepted by a whole bunch of people who like the same things I do. Although, I know this will probably never happen because... I don't know. Because I'm too cynical? I think too differently? I think too much? I think thoughts that are un-thought of by most others? I don't know. ***

Lots of the time, I talk to other people and wonder why they think the way they do and why they come to the conclusions they draw. Maybe that's the problem. I'm not supposed to think about THE WAY THEY THINK but about WHAT THEY THINK. I'm supposed to relate to the problem, not relate to the way they think of the problem.

But doesn't that make me the same as everyone else? Won't that make me give the same opinion as what everyone else does about their problem?

*** Then there are the feelings and problems that I think God has designed exclusively for me so I don't speak about them to anyone I know at all. At least not extensively. They might know the gist but the details are always inside my head and never out. Mostly because I know they won't or can't relate. Even if they try, they aren't capable of giving me the advice I need because it is a decision/conclusion I need to come to on my own. I don't blame anyone for not being capable of helping me solve a problem or dealing with a feeling because they aren't in my shoes and they don't know how I feel 100% no matter how eloquently I can express myself. No matter what, my thoughts will always be mine. So the problems that I have related to thoughts, they will only be solved by me. And those are always the hardest problems.

There is the one person, however, who claims to know me better than anyone; maybe better than even I know myself. "I can read you like a kindergarten book", his exact words. Everyday I am grateful for this opinion, because even though it might probably be untrue, I'm glad someone feels they truly understand me because sometimes I don't even understand myself. On the other hand, maybe he's right. I actually AM an open book, it's just me who complicates situations in my head but once they're unraveled out in reality, my thoughts and actions are clear.

I suppose situations seem complicated in my head because there are so many things I am unsure of. I don't even know the point of writing all this. Funny how I've changed. Past blog posts all had a point - a story to tell, a single opinion to express, one complete thought. But now, I don't write with a purpose. I write to find a purpose. I write to help myself find a conclusion. But then, a conclusion to what? I don't know about that either.

A conclusion to why I'm often alone? I know why I'm often alone, though. Not many people here connect with me. I can't find many people who think the way I do or see things the way I see it. I find many people shallow minded, hypocritical, purposeless, and so many other majorly wrong things that I am not interested in fixing. I'm not even interested in ignoring it. I just don't want to have anything to do with it. That's why I have very few friends. But alhamdulillah, the few I have are good people. The friendships we have are simple and honest. The people I connect the absolute best with, I love completely and luckily for me, they feel the same. Maybe that's all I need. No maybe's. That IS all I need.

A conclusion to why I often feel lonely? Because the friends I have are often not in the same place. Months separate us and I often find myself going through days alone and having distant conversations with them. I have to deal with time differences and different schedules and different lifestyles and that's obviously difficult. I have to go days without speaking to them and months without seeing them. Sometimes even years. I am here, living my life without them, while they are wherever they are, living their lives separate from mine. Although we keep connections strong, we communicate often but obviously I'm lonely because long distance conversations are very very different from physical presence. I am lonely because I am alone. I am alone because the people I connect with, the people I WANT to spend time with, are rarely with me.

A conclusion to why I feel alone? Because I think alone but not in the physical sense. My thoughts are rarely shared by people. I find very few people who view things the way I do. And again, the few who share my views are rarely with me. I feel alone because I'm trapped in a place where the opinions of the people where I am are very different to mine. And usually, very different in a negative way. A view that doesn't allow discussion. I don't want to have empty conversations. I don't want narrow-minded friends. I don't want arrogance. I don't want sheep. I want people who challenge, I want people with opinions, I want people with perspective, I want people with logic, I want people with knowledge, I want people who can teach me new things, I want people who can tell me stories about places I've never been, I want people who agree with me, I want people who disagree with me and can rationally tell me why, I want people with reason, I want people with faith, I want people with perspective, I want people with the capacity to change their perspective and also mine, I want people with opinions, I want people with confidence, I want people with grounds, I want people with eloquence. So many other things.

Maybe THAT'S why I'm lonely, why I'm alone and why I feel alone. I want too much out of people. I expect too much and whenever I meet someone new who falls short, I end up disappointed and disheartened and annoyed even. Maybe I'm too picky.

But is it too much to ask? I don't think so. I HAVE found people who possess all that and more. I know they're out there, although few and far in between. They exist. Why should I lower my standards of the people I surround myself with just to make myself feel content with company? Why should I be with people who don't make me fully happy? At least I know what and who and what it is about whoever that makes me happy.

Why am I just generally, not 100% happy with the company I have?

Because the company you enjoy isn't always here. That's all, Nadia.

They always come back, though. But sometimes, you're all you have and that's okay.

The fucked up test

ATTENTION DEFICIT HYPERACTIVE DISORDER:

[x] Your mind is all over the place.

[x] You are hyper most of the time.

[x] You barely pay attention to anything.

[x] You can’t cooperate well.

[ ] You talk all of the time.

[ ] You need attention 24/7.

Total: 4

BIPOLAR DISORDER:

[x] You can act wild at times then the next day you are depressed.

[ ] You are very irritable.

[ ] You are antisocial

[x] You have very high self esteem sometimes.

[ ] You are abusing alcohol, drugs or sex.

[x] You have thought of or attempted suicide.

Total: 3

DEPRESSION:

[ ] You are always sad.

[ ] You find no hope in your future.

[x] You find no longer excitement over the activities you use to love.

[x] You always find yourself around the house all day.

[ ] You have low self esteem.

[x] Everything bad that happens is always your fault.

[ ] You always seem to be weak or have physical features hurt.

[ ] You are failing school.

[x] You have thought of or attempted suicide.

[x] You have/tried to run away from home.

[ ] Hope is no longer there for you.

total: 4

OBSESSIVE COMPULSIVE DISORDER:

[ ] You have daily rituals.

[x] You have disturbing thoughts or thoughts you hate.

[x] You have to do a certain thing until it feels right.

[ ] You have to keep things in a certain order.

[ ] You have to check some stuff over again.

total: 2

POST-TRAUMATIC STRESS DISORDER:

[x] You repeatedly have flashbacks of horrible moments or memories in your life.

[ ] You repeatedly have dreams of horrible moments or memories in your life.

[x] You sometimes think the event will happen again.

[x] You can be antisocial.

[x] You have lost interest in the things you used to love.

[ ] You have not had a lot of sleep lately.

[x] You worry about dying at a early age or dying at all.

[ ] You can have angry outbursts.

[x] You act younger than your age.

total: 6

SCHIZOPHRENIA:

[ ] You often have hallucinations.

[x] You think people are always staring or talking about you.

[x] You have strange, unusual dreams or thoughts.

[ ] You can be confused about reality and fantasy.

[ ] You have extreme anxiety or fearfulness.

[ ] You do not take care of your hygiene like you should

[x] You are very shy.

[x] You often talk to yourself.

total: 4

23/45 That's alright... I think.

You're a prized possession

Conversation Number 1:
"I don't want to spoil your fun la, you're going for the Lil Jon show and I don't wanna ruin it by telling you all my problems now. Besides, it's not a big deal. 'll be fine."
"Nad. I'm one of your closest friends. You know you can tell me anything and I'll be right here for you."

Conversation Number 2:
"Is it okay if I wanna vent?"
"Nadia, you dumbass, you don't even have to ask. You know I'll listen."

Conversation Number 3:
"He's really creeping me out with these messages, what the hell am I going to do?"
"Don't worry, Nadia. I'll handle the idiot. Just stop worrying, I've got your back."
"Yeah Nadia. It's fine. I'll talk to him"


My friends might not be the most conventional of people. They might look weird, seem bad-ass, have a twisted sense of humor that nobody gets or seem strange. They may seem weird and annoying to you, you may not understand what they say sometimes.

Your friends have the perfect hair, beautiful clothes, like mainstream, they're loaded, have the coolest things on the market. But do your attractive, cool, popular friends stick around when you ask them to listen to a problem you have? Do they have your back when you're in a jam?

They don't? Think twice about them. They're not real.
They do? Awesome. You lucked out. Just like I did with my weird friends. And I wouldn't trade them for anything. Neither should you.

#100factsaboutme

This thing has been on Twitter for so long and I hated having to see it all over my timeline. So I'm putting mine up here so that you have a choice to read it or not. Aren't I nice? :)

#1 I'm doing this because I'm bored but don't want to flood people's timeline with random rubbish about me.
#2 I'm doing this because I'm conceited that way
#3 I am very tech savvy. NOT.
#4 I love citrus or dairy in my food. Combination of the two: HEAVEN. For example, McDonald's Peach and Mango sundae. Fruity creamy deliciousness in a cup.
#5 I can move my ears
#6 Alfred Hitchcock's movie The Birds freaked the stuffing out of me.
#7 I'm bad with numbers. Don't let the A- in SPM Addmath fooled you. I think it was the low grading curve.
#8 I procrastinate like a mother -
#9 I love playing Guitar Hero
#10 I have an autistic brother
#11 I picked my major (psychology) mostly because of my autistic brother. But it's also because I think human behavior, in general, is interesting as hell.
#12 I'm not so very religious but I like to believe that I know right from wrong.
#13 I love everything about books - the smell, the weight of it in my hand, reading from cover to cover, bookshops, libraries etc.
#14 My favorite book ever - Life of Pi
#15 People tell me I'm good at writing but I hate it. I only write when there's too much stuff in my head.
#16 I'm a movie buff.
#17 I feel insecure around people I find very cool.
#18 I turn very quiet when I feel insecure
#19 I can't cook to save my life
#20 I like watching cooking shows and turn green with envy because the chefs make everything look so incredibly easy
#21 My sense of humor is very weird, not many people get it. But the people who get my humor say I'm very funny.
#22 I used to never cry when watching sad movies, but now I cry a lot more. I don't know what changed.
#23 I have too many clothes but I only wear the ones I really like all the time
#24 I'm lazy
#25 My favorite number is 7
#26 Tall people grab my attention very quickly
#27 I have stretchmarks on my knees, my worst feature.
#28 My dad is my favorite person in the world
#29 I like wooden floors. I think they automatically make a house look cleaner.
#30 I don't like drying myself off with a damp towel
#31 I don't really like partying.
#32 I have never smoked a cigarette in my life
#33 I think I'm slightly addicted to Facebook
#34 Smart people are super sexy in my eyes
#35 I used to dance ballet but I stopped after Grade 6
#36 I regret stopping ballet lessons
#37 I regret not visiting the studio to talk to my old ballet teacher before he died
#38 I used to act as a child
#39 I can recite almost every line from the movie Emperor's New Groove
#40 I can touch the floor without bending my knees
#41 My sense of direction is horrendous
#42 I was on my school debate team
#43 I can sleep for more than 12 hours if nobody wakes me up
#44 I used to have stick straight hair when I was younger. I don't know why or how it turned wavy
#45 I can make a really weird cracking sound with my shoulders
#46 I don't know what NATO stands for
#47 I've always wanted to visit New York
#48 I always wonder who my future husband will be and what he'll be like
#49 I have 4 cats at home
#50 As of now, I have 5 scars thanks to my cats
#51 I'm bad at keeping in touch with people
#52 I get pimples all the time on my forehead
#53 I bite my lips
#54 I don't like wearing skirts or dresses
#55 I HATE wearing make up
#56 I always wished I had the ability to play the piano by ear
#57 I like taking hour showers
#58 Prominent cheek bones are a huge turn on for me. Exhibit A: Johnny Depp. Exhibit B: Olivia Wilde
#59 I'm very disorganized
#60 I don't like Malaysian weather
#61 I don't care for politics
#62 I get annoyed when people ask me for advice but never take it when I give it to them.
#63 The voice in my head swears a lot
#64 I love mangoes
#65 I like sleeping with a lot of pillows
#66 Red is my favorite color
#67 My music taste is very diverse. In my iPod right now, you can find metal, classical music and dubstep in the same playlist.
#68 I don't usually talk a lot. It's usually people talking to me and me listening to them. Which I don't mind at all.
#69 I don't get what the number 69 means in "those" terms.
#70 I've never tasted alcohol
#71 I am, however, tempted to try out weed. But I don't think I will.
#72 I don't like people calling me by my middle name
#73 I lose respect for people when they tell me "I just did it to fit in"
#74 I clench my fists and walk away when I'm angry at my parents
#75 I never pay much attention to what I look like.
#76 My parents and I are pretty racist. But we only show it among each other.
#77 Pink = bad
#78 I like waterparks and themeparks
#79 When I laugh, my eyes practically disappear
#80 I pierced my nose before I pierced my ears at 18. Then I realized the nose piercing looked slutty. Plus it snagged on my blanket anyway so I took it out.
#81 I am not close to any of my cousins even though I'd like to.
#82 I hate my campus food. I eat like a pig when I come home.
#83 I think girls with short hair are hot.
#84 People think I'm bi, but I honestly am not. I just like looking at pretty girls because there are a lot more hot girls than hot guys.
#85 I used to be an awesome horse-rider
#86 I can still do cartwheels
#87 My hands are roughly the size of my face
#88 I've dated 2 guys who are shorter than me. Didn't really like it.
#89 I don't like being poked in reality. Facebook pokes are ok
#90 I'm very ticklish.
#91 I have zero knowledge about public transportation
#92 I always have a good time in IKEA
#93 I like long sleeved tops and shirts
#94 I love beaches
#95 When I was a kid, I made a promise to an uncle to become a doctor but ended up taking psychology. I don't know whether he remembers the promise but I still feel kinda bad.
#96 I can't stand long toenails
#97 I'm taller than my mother
#98 I hated primary school
#99 I love durians
#100 I'm done! I need the bathroom

Toy Story 3 made me cry

I have just finished watching Toy Story 3. I've watched it two times and the ending has made me cry both times. There's something funny about these movies that have something to do with your life. Any movie that I've watched countless times as a child leaves me with mixed feelings now that I'm grown up. I feel sad, nostalgic, happy, giddy, depressed and sharp all at once and it's very easy to understand why.

You know when you're a kid and whenever you watch a movie, you feel like it could just happen in your own life? Don't be a wuss and deny that. I'm not going to lie, I used to watch for my toys to move and talk after I watched Toy Story for the first time. Then when I never caught any of my old toys moving, I'd beg my parents to buy me the Toy Story models that Toys 'R Us were selling because I was convinced that those toys would walk and talk. And when I realized they wouldn't, I'd try to make it as real as possible. I'd write my name at the back of Woody and Jessie's boot the way Andy did, I'd make up short soap operas with my Barbie dolls, I'd construct trains or spaceships out of boxes to transport my toy troops to wherever they needed to be, be it space or a desert or just to MS Garden (the biggest hotel in Kuantan which was the most glamorous place ever to a child growing up there).

Then the stories stop. Andy and I grow up. We went through primary and secondary school, and suddenly, we're off to college (at the same time, no shit). At the end of Toy Story 3, Andy ends up giving his toys to a little girl called Bonnie. He gets all emotional and gives some kind of elegy about every single one of his toys.

Some deprived teenager's reaction to this:
"MY GOD, THIS BOY. SUCH A WUSS, JUST GIVE AWAY YOUR DAMN TOYS AND GO GET LAID IN COLLEGE ALREADY."

My reaction:
"OH MY SWEET PATOOTIES, THIS IS SO BLOODY SAD, DAMN IT WHERE ARE THE TISSUES?"

Reader's reaction to my reaction:
"What. The. Fuck."

Yes, yes, so maybe I teared up and got really emotional at the end of Toy Story 3 and you know why? Because I didn't like saying goodbye to my childhood. Nobody does. Andy sure as hell doesn't like it. If Andy had his way, he'd take Woody off to college with him and probably have Woody by his side while he tries to pick up chicks (and failing, obviously, because what girl would want a guy who sleeps with a cowboy doll at 17?)

But then, nobody gets to have it that way. Everyone would like to have some part of their childhood to hold on to. We all want to keep the carefree feeling we had as kids. Our biggest worry was when our favorite toy got ripped or lost. Then when we grow up, when things start getting bigger and serious, simple things like the joy of making up a story with your own imagination becomes forgotten. We try finding joy from complicated things, which more often than not bring stress and sadness, like relationships or success at work or drugs.

We all grow up. We all have to deal with moving on to the bigger things in life and let our old things go. But then, I like to think that it's more than okay to look back occasionally and keep some parts that can remind us of our childhood because all in all, those good times with our imagination is part of what made us who we are now in the first place.

Fucking cheesy, but deal with it.

So yeah, Andy turns 17, I turn 17. Andy can't seem to let go of Woody, I can't seem to let go of Barbie (and her massive collection of clothes and kitchen set). Andy gives his toys to Bonnie, a daughter of his mother's friend. I give my toys to Shayenne, a daughter of my mother's friend. Andy goes to college, I go to college. Andy grows up, I grow up. Hmm.

I think that Pixar has been secretly stalking me to get ideas for when they get stuck on a plot for Andy's life. I mean, you never know right?

Because it's my blog!

I was browsing through random people's notes on Facebook and found this. I used to like filling these out and posting it as bulletins on MySpace but since it's as dead as my uni campus and putting this up on Facebook will make me look like a bored stalker, I'll just put it up here. Because it's my blog!

1.YOUR REAL NAME:
-- Nadia Zulkifli

2. WITNESS PROTECTION NAME:(mother and fathers middle names)
-- Zalikha No Middle Name. Crap, I don't like Zalikha. I had an ustazah with this name when I was in primary school and she was a preachy middle aged virgin who would get on my case because I was the only kid not wearing a tudung/hijab. I was 10! She could have cut me some slack.

3. STAR WARS NAME: (the first 3 letters of your last name, first 2 letters of your first name)
-- Zulna. Wow that does sound like a Star Wars name! :D

4. DETECTIVE NAME:(favorite color, favorite animal)
-- Red kitten. Lol that's fieerrrrceeee


5. SOAP OPERA NAME:(middle name, town where you were born)
--Amirah Kuantan -________________-"

6. SUPERHERO NAME: (2nd fav color, fav drink, add "THE" to the beginning)
-- The Lime Green Mango Juice. Yeah, that'll save the world.

7. FLY NAME:(first 2 letters of 1st name, last 2 letters of your last name)
-- Nali

8. STREET NAME:(fav ice cream flavor, fav cookie)
-- Chocolate chocolate chip.

9. ROCK STAR NAME:(current pets name, current street name)
-- Letchumy Selamat.

10. PORN NAME: (1st pet, street you grew up on)
-- Cherry Selamat. Well yeah, that does sound porn-y

11. YOUR GANGSTA NAME:(first 3 letters of real name plus izzle)
-- Nad-izzle

12.YOUR IRAQI NAME:(2nd letter of your first name, 3rd letter of your last name, first two letters of your middle name, last two letters of your first name then last three letters of your last name)
-- Alamiafli. Wonder if I actually got that right.

13. YOUR GOTH NAME:(black, and the name of one of your pets)
-- Black Ah Chong.

14. STRIPPER NAME: (name of your fav perfume/cologne, fav candy)
-- Madame Mars Bar


This was fun!

Random happenings

Today is a completely ordinary day, but for some reason, I'm being super sharp in my observations and have come to realize that my ordinary days are filled with random but funny occurrences.

Waking up; I didn't play my usual morning playlist (yes, I have a morning playlist) because I woke up slightly later than usual. As I was getting ready for the day in silence, I heard lots of things going on in my hall. My bathroom mate had her boyfriend over for the night. He's probably one of those people who have extra flatulence because while he was using the bathroom, I heard a several small farts and a big one. Trying not to laugh out loud, I immediately stepped out of my room and went to class regardless of my hair looking like a turban.
Random thought: If my boyfriend farted a lot in the morning, or in bed, what would the proper reaction be? A gentle snub, merciless teasing, silent suffering or a break up?

Walking to class; A British girl who looked like she was entering an Olympic walkathon passed by me. She looked damp, like she didn't towel off after taking a shower, her hair was wet and even weirder, she was muttering things to herself. Everyone she overtook was staring at her.

In class; I usually sit with a group of 4 other friends, but since I was late today and the table had only room for 4, I sat at the back with another group of people. From the back, I saw that my math lecturer had really big love handles that were especially obvious when he bent over a table to explain a problem. I saw that most of my Malay classmates sit in a row together. I saw a couple in class playing with each others hands under the table. I saw that at least half the class kick their shoes off halfway through the lecture. Before this, all I saw were numbers and random alphabets on the whiteboard and then blurriness, because I'd be too sleepy to concentrate.

During lunch; My powers of observations got switched off because I was hungry and my friend and I discovered that they sell corn on campus. And I'm not talking about those little cups, I'm talking about the WHOLE CORN COB.

Life is pretty surprising sometimes, aye?