Alive

Feeling lucky just to be here tonight
And happy just to be me and be alive
-Jennifer Lopez, "Alive"


Evidently, have bounced back - even on 4 hours of sleep. :D

Samurai X! Not quite.

You are a Samurai.
You are full of honour and value respect. You
are not really the stereotypical hero, but you
do fight for good. Just in your own way. For
you, it is most certainly okay to kill an evil
person, if it is for justice and peace. You
also don't belive in mourning all the time and
think that once you've hit a bad stage in life
you just have to get up again. It's pointless
to concentrate on emotional pain and better to
just get on with everything. You also are a
down to earth type of person and think before
you act. Impulsive people may annoy you
somewhat.

Main weapon: Sword
Quote: "Always do the right thing.
This will gratify some people and astonish the
rest" -Mark Twain
Facial expression: Small smile


What Type of Killer Are You? [cool pictures]
brought to you by Quizilla

Long time coming

"Yo te quiero porque tu dolor es mi dolor."
(I love you because your pain is my pain)
- Juanes, 'Para tu amor', in Mi sangre.

Had a wonderful time yesterday - sisterly bonding and ice cream with a very dear friend. After the stresses of the previous week, I had decided to give myself a day off...only to be confronted with a pile of work today. Ha ha. Not feeling stressed about it - still don't care about assigments. Read Lexicology reading yesterday - just a bit of light reading. Was quite interesting.

It was fantastic to see Ain again (after two weeks. Ha ha). We had ice cream (yum), checked out cute waiter (sorry to both our dearests) and talked. I am glad that I have a couple of friends (Ain especially) with whom I have reached a certain comfort level - enough for us to not need to apologize for anything and to share almost everything (excepting those facts bordering on indecent, eh?). Although, I must say, Ain and I have reached beyond comfort level...after knowing each other for sixteen years, it's hard to be just 'friends'. We've seen each other at our best and worst...and still remained good friends. You can't beat that.

Yet, sometimes friendships change - those you have thought were your friends would disappear...when you have ceased to be interesting to them...only to reappear when it is convienient for them. Then, there are others with whom you thought you had shared a close friendship with, only to find, when shit hith the fanth, they were not such a friend after all. You also have those with whom you are perpetually uncertain as to the status of your friendship. :S

Here's to friendship - the good and the bad.

But, of course, there is no friend like a sister! Huggies!

Freedom

Have just had one of the shittiest weeks of my life. Details will just bore everyone but let's just say NUS administration sucks. So much so that I am reduced to swearing.

Curiously, I have ceased caring about my grades and what I would achieve. My attitude is a stark contrast to many of my fellow students who are busting ass to get that 1st class etc. Me, I find that I do not care. Even comments on my presentation, as part of those evaluation thingummy, have failed to elicit anything but an 'Oh really?'. I used to be a stressed basket case when it comes to presentations - especially the graded ones. Now, I don't care! I really don't - it's a very strange sensation not to be worrying about grades for once in my life. I must have given up the bad habit. Or just given up.

I guess one can say that I am sick of structured education. Having tasted the manna from heavens (reading what I like, not what I have to, at my own pace), honours seems a little hellish in contrast. Not to say that I am not learning anything; just that getting that information seems to be not worth the effort.

A pun my word

In a crazy mood; sick, drugged up, and vibrating at a different frequency from reality.

Aight! (Aiming for Ja Rule, ended up with Ali G) Let’s get rolling…


If the best things in life are free, then why did I get a husband?
Hee hee.
‘Cause you see, a husband is not just the balm for my wounded soul, but also a cash bull.
Am just shitting with y’all. Having just cracked, I have to crack myself up.
I love you, Sayang (Possibility of the rest of my readers gagging be damned).

Also, a reiteration of a joke I had made that no one but my sisters get:
Men are from Turdistan.
Check the meaning of “turd” to get it.

Finally, something I had read which is damn funny:
“I still miss him, but my aim is getting better”.


n.b. Title of entry not my own but from a book of the same title. As always, citation!!!

Shipman, Robert Oliver. A Pun My Word: A Humorously Enlightened Path to English Usage. Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc, 1991.

Aggrieved student goes on a rampage

From tomorrow's TNP:

Yesterday, a Year 4 student from the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences went on a rampage, taking a baseball bat to the computers, the IT unit and the CORS offices in NUS. After gutting the inefficient computers, she proceeded to slaughter the unhelpful staff with the jagged pieces of the computers. Eyewitnesses reported that she had laughed insanely and could be heard muttering, "Poetic justice. If you even know what that means!"

She was driven mad after 3 endless hours of attempts to log in the registration website. An interview with the eeriely calm student revealed that she had rushed home and skipped lunch to do the registration. She also said that attempts to contact the helpdesk had failed: all three lines to the helpdesk were engaged, and the reply she had gotten for her email was an automated "Out an Office" reply.

She is pleading insanity for her acts of violence.

...

Ooookay. Not strictly true...except for the second paragraph. Why? Why? WHYYYYYYY?

*howling in frustration*

Highbrow, lowbrow and browbeaten

The Blog Gestapo is menacing a certain junior college in Singapore at the moment. Singapore's last refuge for freedom of speech is being threatened by nameless, insignificant tin-gods. And now, they have reduced me to sounding like a hysterical newspaper writer (I just had to make that dig).

The thing that amazes me is the fact that these people even bother. Displaying an amazing amount of narcisscism, they have actually 1. searched for their names or any references to their selves, 2. bothered to track the writers and 3. taken action. Three words: Get a life!

It is quite interesting to observe the nature of blogging from these incidents. What sphere does blogging inhabit? Private (as blogs are usually for friends), public (after all everyone with Internet access can read it) or somewhere in between? Can there, arguably, be 'defamation' when one is only recounting experiences or expressing hatred?

Not exactly apropos Blog Gestapo:
I have read a range of blogs, either friends' or sisters' friends', and am somewhat amused by some attempts to be highbrow...I call it pretentious. Especially the one which tries to analyze a complicated issue such as the Israeli occupation of Palestine. Long live Darth Brutus! (Sorry, an in-joke shared between sisters. I would rather not mention the unfortunate writer I am poking fun at.)

Well, some do succeed and I salute the wonderful writers. But for the most part, the ones I really enjoy reading are the simple lowbrow, news-y sort. If I want analyses for the masses, I would read a newspaper. Or Darth Brutus. Ha.

Platonic flirting?

This post is triggered by yesterday's Berita Minggu - but due to a rather thick pile of papers to read, it had been postponed for a better day.

Yesterday's run-of-the-mill issue was ADULTERY. Throw in the usual villians - widows and divorcees - and you have a recipe for Malay drama. I have been rarely accused of being elitist (obtuse, maybe) but this is one occasion when I shall parade my elitist streak and say, enough already! Don't you masses have better things to think about? Better villians to parade - like the vampy overly made-up tart? Hee hee.

Well, being a semi-socialist, I have decided to join the ranks of the masses and post my own take on this.

Is there ever an occasion to go out with a married wo/man socially? More pertinent, perhaps, is there ever an occasion for the married wo/man to go out with a member of the opposite sex?

I'm excluding instances where it is absolutely necessary for work (e.g. discussing things over lunch) or instances where the whole office is invited but only two can make it. Rather unavoidable, wot? Wot?

A friend of mine recently told us that she had gone out for a movie with a married man. Our reactions were not surprising, but hers was. I credit her with the ability to meet criticisms not only with equanimity; she actually does listen to them. Usually. But in this case, I thought she was too defensive and had shut us out. I had thought, but did not voice it then, that there is a reason that she is defensive - I guessed she's trying to convince herself. I don't know.

It was quite surprising that it even disturbed me. I'm not much one for sticking my nose in others' business - except to laugh at them (eyeroll). As much as I trust my friend to do the right thing, the fact that the guy had even gone out with another woman without his wife...well, frankly, pissed me off. It showed a certain lack of respect for his wife and insensitivity. It's all very well to say 'Nothing happened', 'It's not like that', 'We're just friends', but the sting comes not from the potential of adultery (emotional or sexual), but the fact that the guy IGNORED his wife's feelings. Her feelings obviously did not matter to him, and therein lies the insult.

I shall just repeat what I had told my friend: I don't fear my husband straying - if he's jerk enough to do it, well, there's always a handy skillet. It doesn't matter, not really. If there's an action, there will be a reaction. Problem solved. But how does one 'solve' an insult?

Finally, can he handle it if the situation was reversed? If his wife had gone out with another man and said "We're just friends, what." Watch him go and beat the crap out of the man and quite possibly, his own wife.

Misfortunes on the Internet

Super mad at Trillian and MSN. Screwed up systems or something. Hate computers that don't work. Micro - sodding - soft. Frust frust frust.

Need a hug. *pout*

Misfortunes on bus 96

If anyone had been to NUS, or had the misfortune to take 96 to NUS, they would realize quickly the intrusion of something I affectionately call the blight of public transportation...the wonderful TV mobile!!! Today, I had to take 96, instead of my usual 189 and the first thing that greeted me was Taufik and whats-her-name singing the national day song. Apparently, still stuck with national fervour, bopping (and a five, five six seven eight; rhythm not being too plentiful all around)to the music. I was compelled, the way people are to road accidents and The Artist Formerly known as Prince (or is it currently?), to watch the damned video. Sorry, Taufik, I really like you but that video is too much. It struck me, how absurdly 'progressive' Singaporeans are. The message was, basically to move forward, make Singapore proud by winning awards etc. Why can't we be grateful to the cogs once in a while? The people who make things function - like people who clean the loos. When they are not there, trust me, everyone will miss them. But we don't see them winning awards, ergo, they are not there. Where are the little people? The people who have to take the crap? It's all very well to have vision, excellence and all that rot, but what about those who get us to the vision - even if it is just by cleaning up after the visionary? Even they have to take a crap sometimes, and I don't mean at meetings. (Ha.)

Waiting for donkey's ears

My Sunday morning had been spent (wonderfully) with my dear sisters. Over vadai and juice, my sisters and I read the newspapers, laughing cruelly at leaps of logic, shockingly bad English, bad phrases, and generally bad writing. Wendy Cheng has rekindled an interest in newspapers in me, an amazing feat. Today's gem: "donkey's ears" instead of "donkey years". Erm, okay...it's one thing to publish bad English, but bad SINGLISH! Wah lau! Tak boleh angkat, seh. [~loosely translated: Why, it's more than I can bear!]

Her caricature of a 'homeless' man was disturbing in its insensitivity. The man was only interesting to her, it seems to me, in his violation of her personal space and convictions. Viz. "I suppose it could have been because I was startled by his unkempt appearance or his unsettling lack of an arm." Unsettling for whom, my dear?

The whole "Show" page (22, The New Paper) simply underscores the appaling hiring practices of SPH: bad writing seems to be the main criteria to get published, it seems.

A happy chance

I met a good friend from university yesterday. By an odd quirk of fate, I ended up behind her in the line for 96. We ended up having a great time, chatting for some hours over tea and lemonade in school about books and films. I do not often meet people I like talking to, but when I do, I love to keep in touch with them. So, here's to a great chat, minerva!

After that, I went to Orchard. It has been a long time - how I missed that lovely stretch of shops! With affordable stuff, not in pounds! My sister had given me Kinokuniya vouchers so I got Prachett's books and 84, Charing Cross Road (the latter recommended by dear friend mentioned above, and I also had a sneak preview which sealed it for me).

To end a perfect day, I got a cheaper version of the Louis Vuitton shoes I wanted! Books, good company and a pair of perfect shoes. :D

How Azrifah got her groove back

Ha ha. Am in a corny mood today. I just met a dear friend today - we exercised (!) together, and had breakfast. It was so fun! I missed having my friends a phone call away.

Well, I got all my modules. Am so relieved. I have no idea why NUS has to torture us like this!

Home...at last

Arrived at 7.45am yesterday. It was one of the most horrible flights I had ever taken - interminable boredom and turbulence. But, alhamdullilah, the baggage was cleared without a comment, no heinous security checks, baggage arrived and I got to sit at the window seat next to a very nice Australian couple. Other than the awfulness of the flight, it all went went. Travelling is a pain in the butt, literally. Again I wish there were transporters.

Heard my first dose of Singlish after a long time - how I've missed it!

Was greeted at the airport by family and two dearest friends! Even though they had to get up bloody early, they came. Totally unexpected, in a great way. :D I was so happy to see my nearest and dearest; made having to leave Nazir behind almost palatable.

We had murtabak after that at Arab Street. Then, went home, unpacked, lunch (squids in tumeric sauce), more unpacking, and giggles with dearest sisters.

Couldn't sleep last night - third sleepless night!

Trying to get into the swing of things. It seems so odd without Nazir around; it's like I've never gotten married. :-(