Ignorance is bliss. Some of the time.

What the hell is wrong with me. I'm the most together person I know and suddenly I'm acting all bimbotic and uncool. Seriously, get a grip and hold yourself together.

Reading through my previous post, now on this first day of the new year, I honestly wish that I could go back in time and hug my november 30th self. I'ld tell her that everything will get better when she least expected it. That grabbing the first opportunity that came along was the best thing she could do. That she shouldn't have worried about what people thought about her because they didn't matter anyway. That yes, while people can hurt and you wanna do all you can to impress these same (insanely ridiculous) people, all you should do is continue doing what you've been doing, be as friendly and nice as you possibly can, generally be a better person- and if they don't get it, it's THEIR problem. That while living life in the moment may be awesome, getting personal down-time is awesom-er. I'ld tell her that it's okay to feel downtrodden sometimes; just remember that at the end of the day, you're the only one who can pick yourself up and carry on. And you did.

And then I'ld wish myself the freshest of experiences and to embrace & learn from what's to come, because that's the beauty of a new year. Starting afresh with a clean slate while building on the past for the present. Looking forwards while looking back (but not too far back or else it's just plain self-indulgence). Then I'll give my 30th november self another hug and then send me on my way, while wishing her all the best.

This is not exactly the first post that I would want to write after my very long hiatus in the world of Tumblr blogging. But there are definitely certain things that I would rather not share to a whole bunch of unknown followers. I don't want to feed something so negative into a space that has made me feel happy and warm inside. In this case, I'm throwing this entry out into the wilderness of cyberspace, which is freeing, in a weird sense.

The notion of being free- I guess, that's the theme for this entry. The feeling of being trapped, or terkongkong, that there's no escape so there's no point trying. I hate to be consigned to my fate of being the person who would ALWAYS be there. The girl who would go down and cheer you up at a moment's call, or would call back diligently if she sees a missed call. The girl who feed words of encouragement through a text message. The girl who would listen to your troubles and try her hardest to give down-to-earth advice. I don't want to always be there for someone else. For a change, I would want someone to be there for me. But there is no truly such person who thinks that silence can be comfortable or have to be filled with endless interesting small talk. There is no such person in the world for someone to spend a free day just for me, because frankly, I don't think I deserve it. Already I see people bored by just 10mins of my talking, let alone the whole day. You may say that I'm "emo-ing" (whatever that means- is it wrong to feel some sort of emotion other than cheerfulness? What, you expect me to be a freaking happy clown all the time?) because it's one day before the exams and I've hardly touched my tomb of readings. But really, who do I go to when I need a cheering up? Not a boyfriend cos I don't have the patience for one. Not my own friends, who have their own lives to lead and their own significant other to cater to. Not my family, who are all absorbed in their own lives. My parents don't understand, because all they see is a commodity, someone who can do stuff for them at a moment's notice and then be thrusted into the limelight to boost their own ego. Begging for time from the people I know is like begging the ground to produce rain. They hurt me with their callousness, always needing to fill a space with endless chatter, and assume that insulting or making careless remarks about me would be the best way to make me "improve". People sometimes forget that I have feelings so saying things like "You're very kampung, very clumsy and not "atas" like other girls are", "Don't smile so wide, you have ugly gaping teeth and have a big nose. Don't make it worse." "You're inherently selfish because you won't share your laptop or money" just does wonders for my already edgy self esteem.

It isn't a crime to be sensible or boring or righteous. But there is even more pressure to let people hear my voice or else be drowned out by other, more charismatic voices. Which is why I act overly ditzy or bimbotic or incapable. Because that's probably the only way I can get people to notice me, even if it's not really the real me. Whatever the real me is. No one will miss me. All they miss will be the girl who used to always be there, and then if I'm gone, it doesn't matter anyway, it is not as though I add on to the conversation anyway. All they do is take, and all I do is give. Is it hardly a wonder then, that I've almost forgotten what it means to have an opinion rather than keep quiet and not "talk back" because speaking my mind is "un-girly" behaviour. Maybe if I was more rebellious when I was younger, or prettier, I can get away with more. Sometimes I feel like Anne Hathaway's character in Ella Enchanted who is forced to do what others tell her to and tries to break free from such a trapped life.

I know I have many things to be grateful for. I have a roof over my head, I'm not disabled or handicapped in any way, I've got a healthy body and a functioning mind. What I do want is a decent chance to let me do my own thing and not always be burdened by responsibilities which I should not be the only one holding in the first place. That I'm not inhibited by what others think or expect of me. I want to be able to go to cafes and libraries and bookstores in my free time without someone labeling me as a "loner". Look just because you like to surround yourself with more friends than you can count does not make you a likable or popular person. I don't understand why it's shocking to people I know when I want to wear eyeliner, curse, or refuse to help. Also, would it kill you to give honest compliments rather than saying stuff you don't mean because "that's what friends do?". Being random is not to be weird; it's a way of expressing what you subconsciously want to do. I want to be more than the pigeon hole that they ascribe me to but I don't know how, other than socially cutting everyone off and not come home for a year.

after 467 posts & SIX YEARS later (six long emotic happy sad grieving understated emotional angry don't-give-me-crap crowded lonerish weird random "whatever" years), i'm finally moving to a new site.

who knows, if you're lucky and visit here again, i might post something unexpectedly (*wiggles eyebrows* get it get it?). plus, it's just fun (and cringe-worthy) to flip through my archives.

so technically it's not EXACTLY good bye.


so here's the ooh-i'm-so-creative-now link:
http://rumpledskirts.tumblr.com

also, here's my sister-to-sister link:
http://look-howtheyshine.tumblr.com



(on hindset this is damn ass lame but i'm gonna include it anyway JUST BECAUSE.)
a little song by the Bear From The Big Blue House:




Hey this was really fun, we hope you liked it too
Seems like we've just begun, when suddenly we're through-oo.
Goodbye, goodbye, good friends goodbye
'Cos now it's time to go
But hey I say "Well, that's Okay,
'Cos we'll see you very soon I know".



i feel really sad all of a sudden.

i like the new ndp song. i don't care about the nonsense that yes, perhaps it may be a ploy for the ndp organisers to be seen as current and 'hip' (who actually uses that word in real life anyway? "Hey check out my ipod. It's so hip right?" eww.) and that Electrico's using it to gain more publicity. but hell, what's wrong with a little publicity. they need all the publicity they can get. plus, i don't care if it sounds like a something from Snow Patrol or Coldplay. what i like about it is that it fulfils the 4 rules of NDP songs: it's catchy, remember-able, sing-able and SO MUCH BETTER THAN LAST YEAR'S- which for the life of me, i can't remember what THAT song was or the previous previous year's one was.

my laptop's gone psycho again. last sem it was the hard drive that went crazy. this sem, it's probably the screen. this of course had to happen NOT during the THREE MONTHS holiday but the week before school officially reopens. i think my comp found out that i was boycotting Acer products, that's why it's punishing me like this.

so now, the screen goes blank whenever i switch it on so i have to plug it into my bulky desktop monitor which annoys me to pieces especially when i have to do my least favourite part of school- CORS. technically i have 4 semester's worth of module points to spend so it should be a piece of cake right? WRONG. i still get nervous, feverish and on the verge of a heart attack whenever i log on and start looking at the bidding points. and the worse part is that there's so many things to choose from. maybe if i had no choice, it would be better.


and. throughout this whole week, there was a major onslaught of leading men.
i have a crush on Aaron Eckheart again. it's so nonsensical how a guy like that can be so adorably charming in his movies i've seen- No Reservations, Batman: Dark Knight (he was Two-Face remember?) and Thank You For Smoking. like move over George Clooney, i'll pick Aaron any day. and then there's that mysterious Johnny Depp who looks so good i wish i could eat him in Public Enemies. and and Stephen Moyer from True Blood. hottest vampire ever. plus Daniel Radcliffe is starting to look so cute and he's turning out to be a great actor through his roles as Harry. i'm glad he got over that wooden-ness and awkwardness of the earlier movies. and finally, Richard Gere. ok i know he's damn old but my mom made me watch Pretty Woman with her over and over and over and over again so i kinda had no choice especially when he looked SO DAPPER in that grey tux.


on more somber news.
Yasmin Ahmad always had been and always will be, in my opinion anyway, the most promising and inspiring of Malay directors of her generation.

she didn't let her films and adverts fall into the cliches of the melodramas and weak plots of the throngs of Malay movies flooding the industry today. neither did she falter in the light of the conservativeness of her many critics. she showed life as it is, and not as it should be.



(Petronas Advert) Malaysia's Independence Day




of all her movies, her second- Sepet- is still my favourite today because i'm still moved by how refreshing the storytelling and the cinematography was when it came out. it was a simple love story that had immense depth and heart, just like her. while it may not compare to the deliciously epic Puteri Gunung Ledang- the only other Malay movie worth mentioning as it pays homage to the traditional Malay culture, classical language and history so beautifully - it's just as worthy in it's own right. she made us smile, laugh, cry, even sing. the rawness and sincerity was what made her films so special.



(Patronas Advert) "Forgiveness"- Hari Raya Aidilfitri




it's sad that we should lose such a talented storyteller, for it is for young people like us, worldly cosmopolitan english-educated-but-remembering-our-roots Malays who dare to dream for so much more for our mothers and fathers, that her stories would continue speak so vividly to and through us.

Semoga dia kembali ke pangkal Tuhan yang Maha Kuasa dengan selamat dan menerima sepenuh-penuh kerahmatan-Nya. Insya'allah. Al-Fateha.



Allahyarhamha Yasmin Ahmad
1958-2009

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one last Yasmin Ahmad tribute. in the light of the coming Ramadan fasting month
(yes, it's a happy one)

i think i know where my (sometimes) inner bitch comes from.

watching "queen B" Blair Waldorf and "that motherchucker" Chuck Bass on Gossip Girl nearly kill each other with words kinda fills me with happiness. i'm rooting for them when season 3 comes out- oohh i hope they'ld stay together cos watching them crucify themselves all the way to the season 2 finale made me want to throw my soci textbook at them (say the magic eight letters already!). the emotional tension almost killed me- both of them are seriously the most talented actress/actors on the cast list. (i'll stop with the bimbotic-ness after the next paragraph but humour me will you?)

plus, Nate Archibald is too boring when he's with Blair- he should totally stick with Vanessa, the brooklyn indie street-smart sunshiny girl. ever since the day Vanessa ignored Nate's incredible good looks and got annoyed at him for thinking he's "all that" by dumping his old SATs books onto her friend, Dan Humphrey, she got my vote. oh and the only way i got through 50 episodes of gossip girl was wanting to know what Blair & Chuck were gonna do next, rather than what Blair's best friend, Serena Van Der Woodsen (the main protagenist on Gossip Girl), was gonna do. i mean, Serena's a nice person and all but watching her do the bad-girl-redeeming-herself-but-gets-into-deep-shit-anyway routine irked me after a while.

(ok ok. so i cheated a bit in the middle of season 2 cos i just typed in "chuck and blair" with the episode number (2x07 for example) on youtube just to get ahead a bit- the dan and serena plot got on my nerves.)


picture below: pretty Serena Van Der Woodsen (Blake Lively- i love her hair & she was on Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants which i also lovelovelove), Chuck Bass (played by Ed Westwick, who's BRITISH but has the most convincing snooty upper manhattan american accent that i forget he's not a native american. like hello. HE'S BRITISH. how is that not irresistable? like a young Christian Bale that boy is), the beautiful Blair Waldorf (leighton meester- i swear i keep wanting to steal her clothes) with preppy-handsome-boy Nate Archibald (Chace Crawford).





cast shot with Blair, Chuck, Vanessa (played by Jessica Scholz- isn't she just gorgeous? i'm freaking jealous cos i can never pull off 'effortless' like she can), Nate, Serena and Dan Humphrey (Penn Badgley- he was kinda dull in the beginning. but was alright in the end).





they're supposed to be 16 year olds in the show, but seriously, the directors MUST be kidding me.


and before i dive into my annoyance with the skeletal 90210 show or do a 90s flashback comparison with Dawson's Creek or gush happily over watching re-runs of Gilmore Girls or go wax lyrical over vampires, i should really end my chick fest here for now. haha.


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out & about in geyland: it's all about being GLITTERY GREY.