Saturday, March 29, 2008

The Bag Tag

Just came back from Miri.


Dayana tagged me. The 'What's in Your Bag' tag. Senang saja, tangkap gambar and you're done.


To be truthful, I myself am curious to see what's going to drop out off my bag after I terbalikkan the contents. So, lepas susun-susun sedikit, tangkap gambar. Originally I carry a small and old digital camera with me as well because I like to take pictures of anything interesting I happen to bump into, tapi tak nampak the camera lah in this picture. Because I'm using it to take a picture of all these things. And I normally carry a packet of tissue with me also tapi sudah habis pakai tadi. Am disappointed to see what the contents of my bag are. I expected more of myself. Kecewa.



The usual stuff- lipgloss and a hand lotion because I hate having chapped lips and rough hands, a few cosmetics, a pen and a pencil, house key, wallet and an envelope and borang from bank transactions. Thinking and worrying about money makes me feel old. Tak suka. Tapi kena buat juga.


I'm going to tag all the young bloggers I know. Especially para lepasan SPM. You guys tengah cuti kan. Ni akak kasi homework.


Iqanabeera

Nana Shariff

Takahara


And last of all, a blogger who is not young at all.


47, I want to see what's in your bag. Don't tell me you don't have one. Beg sekolah pun jadi lah. Jangan malas-malas. Buat cepat! Jangan pergi kedai runcit atau shopping complex and beli barang-barang 'cool' untuk selitkan dalam gambar tag ini. Hehe.

Wednesday, March 26, 2008

Ini Aku Dahulu.

Ini tentang pengalaman aku semasa mempelajari Bahasa Inggeris. Ya, aku tidak dilahirkan dalam sebuah keluarga yang menggunakan BI sebagai bahasa pengantaraan.


Ini aku di sekolah rendah: terketar-ketar apabila harus membaca perenggan ikut giliran semasa matapelajaran BI di sekolah rendah. Sampai aku sudah rehearse perenggan itu berkali-kali dalam minda aku agar tak ditertawakan ketika giliran aku tiba untuk membaca. Sampai tapak tangan aku berpeluh-peluh memikirkan harus menyebut huruf ‘o’ atau menyebut ‘zero’ apabila sedang menyebut nombor telefon seseorang. Resah memikirkan cara yang betul untuk menyebut hotel dan butter. (ba-ter atau ba-derr?) Jangan jawab, ini cerita lama.


Dalam kelas aku sering mendapat tempat kedua. Aku sering skor markah penuh atau hampir penuh untuk BM dan Matematik, tetapi markah BI yang menjatuhkan posisi aku dalam kelas. Selepas mendapat balik kertas peperiksaan BI, rakan-rakan sekelas berbangsa Cina selalu datang bertanya, dapat markah apa? Supaya boleh kira purata markah untuk menentukan siapa yang akan menduduki tempat pertama. Dan aku selalu tewas semata-mata kerana subjek BI ini sahaja.


Ini aku di rumah: aku tiada kacukan ‘omputih’. Ibu bapa aku berasal dari kampung. Ibu aku suri rumah dan dia masak tiga kali sehari sambil memasang lagu-lagu Alleycats, Sudirman, Exist, Spring, Amy Search dan Iklim. Aku tak faham lirik lagu-lagu Inggeris; semuanya bunyi seperti membebel saja bagi aku.
Tiap-tiap hari aku melalak lagu Isabella dan Patah Tumbuh Hilang Berganti semasa mandi.


Aku pernah menyebut bintang horoskop Pisces sebagai Piskez. 8 tahun kemudian, kawan aku membuat kesalahan yang sama, aku gelak. Bukan mentertawakannya, tapi kerana teringat aku juga pernah membuat perkara yang sama. Aku pernah menyebut Lancome sebagai Lan-kam. Macam-macam lagi kesalahan pronunciation aku pernah buat (dan masih buat).


Proses pembelajaran BI itu benar-benar bermula ketika aku 14 tahun, selepas aku penat ditertawakan. Aku tinggal di kawasan yang agak snobbish – perkara seperti tidak berbahasa Inggeris (fasih atau tidak itu belakang cerita) dianggap hina. Sebelum itu aku membaca tetapi aku tak menghayati, sekadar membaca kerana dipaksa. Dan lama-lama aku belajar extraordinary itu tidak disebut sebagai extra-ordinary, perkataan-perkataan seperti plumber dan doubt harus dimatikan huruf b nya.


Aku tidak terus menerkam buku Oscar Wilde dan Sir Arthur Conan Doyle ketika mula membaca.Aku mula dengan Enid Blyton. Sama saja macam nak belajar baca Al-Quran, mula-mula merangkak juga. Sebab itu biasanya orang baca Muqaddam atau Iqra’ dulu, baru baca Al-Quran.


Ini semua cerita dahulu. Sekarang, tak ada lagi orang mentertawakan aku lagi bila aku bertutur Bahasa Inggeris. Sekarang, aku dapat berbicara dalam BI jauh lebih handal dari orang-orang yang mentertawakan aku dahulu. Setakat cakap ‘I’ dan ‘You’ tu takda hal la. Rakan-rakan yang tidak mengenali aku sejak sekolah rendah tak tahu tentang aku dahulu. Oleh itu, mereka sering menggunakan ayat-ayat ini dengan aku:


Nak copy assignment boleh? Aku tak faham sangat soalan dia... Aku tak pandai English macam ko la…

dan juga,

Kau bolehla, kau terer speaking. Aku tak reti.”


bila malas untuk membuat sesuatu yang perlu menggunakan kemahiran Bahasa Inggeris.


Scheisse lah wei. Pergi belajar Bahasa Inggeris. Malas cakap malas. Jangan reka alasan yang macam-macam.


Jangan guna alasan belajar bahasa lain adalah seperti berkomplot dengan penjajah. Aku belajar juga bahasa-bahasa lain, tapi aku tak kurang Melayu. Malah, aku boleh dikategorikan sebagai Melayu yang agak Maksima. Jenis yang bawa belacan bakar masuk dalam luggage apabila ingin ke luar negeri dan bawa cekodok sebagai bekal tiap-tiap hari semasa sekolah rendah.


Nota kecil: Aku juga seseorang yang malas.

Monday, March 24, 2008

The Wallet Tag

I’ve been tagged by Complexities and Contradictions, one of my favorite blogs. The tag theme is what is in your wallet. I have no idea how to describe my wallet, except that it’s three toned from the same shade of jade green and it has a denim texture. It probably sounds really weird/ugly but it’s actually pretty decent looking. So I’ll just list out the things in my wallet now:


1) RM75, 157 Brunei Dollar, 10 Francs and two 5 Dirham notes.


2) Public transportation tickets – Metrobus, Tiket Utama, KVV semester tickets. 1 Bahncard ticket for me to travel cheap in Europe and halfprice in Germany until this coming October. Serves absolutely no purpose for me now.


3) Life insurance card and a blood group card.


4) ATM cards. A BCB (I think they changed the name to something else now) and a BSN card, both accounts which I’m pretty sure have frozen up by now since I haven’t made any transactions for more than 1 year. 4 Deutsche Bank cards.


5) MyKad. I can’t remember the last time I needed to use this.


6) Student card, library card and work ID – all invalid now.


7) Discount member cards, all of which serves no purpose for me here. I need new cards!


8) Shillings.


9) Things that should have been in the garbage by now but aren’t- Receipts, namecards from people I only meet once every 2 years, used cinema tickets.


Conclusion – My wallet has a lot of rubbish. I need to throw them out and accumulate newer, much more significant rubbish.


I’m sure the people I want to tag now have already been tagged or will be tagged in the next few days so I won’t tag anybody this time.

Saturday, March 22, 2008

Beauty and the Beast


Like all husbands who discovered Jealousy and Suspicion, he stalked her.

He thought his doubts and anger were justified when she walked up to a man who was beautiful beyond words, certainly more handsome than he could ever imagine to be in this or any other lifetime. She had her back towards him but he saw the shoulders slouch as she reached him. Suddenly, as if aware they were being watched, the man stared directly into the husband’s eyes and smiled. He was taken aback. How could that man have seen him? He was hiding in a barn at least 20 metres apart. Yet those light grey eyes pierced him through all that distance.


Then before his eyes he saw the man turn into a wild boar. He saw the boar rip off his wife’s robes and mauled her. He wanted to run and save her until he realized they were fornicating. He stood, enthralled and appalled at the same time. He saw it devour the same body he had been with the night before and many nights before that. He saw the boar trailing its saliva down every nook and cranny of his wife’s body. Then he saw his wife’s eyes, dispassionate and lifeless.


When the deed was done, it attacked her. It stomped its hoofs on her ribs and smashed it. Then it greedily chewed and ate away her legs until there was nothing left but her head and her upper limbs.


Her head disconnected itself from her limbs and suddenly flew to the window of the barn he was in. She screeched, begging to be let in. She pressed up her face against the glass and stared into his disbelieving eyes. The head banged constantly against the window until it finally slid to the ground, leaving trails of black blood.


He fainted. Or maybe he fell asleep. In his sleep he dreamed that he died, run over by a carriage. He saw his young wife picked up his head that rolled over from under the carriage and wept. The carriage didn’t stop; the passers-by didn’t come over to help. They merely whispered and pointed at the young widow.


He saw his wife went to meet the Devil to set up a deal. He didn’t ask for her soul, he asked for her love. In his ability to turn into anything he pleased, he was able to have all the women he wanted, but he wanted someone who could love him even if he was a Beast. And so the deal was struck.


He saw the fountain of youth. He saw the bodies in there, the way they glistened underwater. The way their blood sparkled like rubies from their disconnected bodies under the sunlight.


He woke up from his dream, sweating. His wife was by his side, peering curiously at him. He marveled at the way his wife’s beauty seemed to be frozen in eternity. He saw his hair turn white, his face old beyond his years. After that, he fell extremely ill and never became the same again.

It went on for years.


And so it was written that the wife was Beauty, the Devil was the Beast. And the old man who was Beauty’s father? That was her husband.

Friday, March 21, 2008

Business yang Tidak Menjadi

Entah kenapa, tiba-tiba hati aku terdetik untuk meletak emel aku di profile, mungkin sebab aku bosan, mungkin sebab aku gatal nak berinteraksi dengan orang yang aku tak kenali setelah menghapuskan semua akaun networking aku dalam usaha untuk meng-invinsible-kan diri aku sejak dua bulan yang lalu. Sekarang aku bosan, dah tak ada mat rempit/minah 15 tahun/mat jerry yang horny mau add aku secara rawak, tak ada testimonial yang tak ikhlas memuji aku pandai atau cun. Tak ada contengan vandalisme di dinding Facebook aku. Cuma catatan penuh tanda soal,

"Eh what happened to your [insert network di sini] account?"

"Babe, why are you so quiet?"

Semua persoalan jadi berat untuk dijawab dan aku seseorang yang malas. Jadi mari kita bercakap tentang topik-topik kegemaran aku: makanan dan diri aku sendiri.


Aku dapat emel pertama tadi. Dia minta gambar dan dia tanya aku tengah study di mana dan apa aku buat di Germany dulu. Pembaca Merces Letifer kot. Soalan-soalan berat. Macam mana nak jawab?


Ada sebab aku tak letak gambar. Aku fotogenik. Kalau kamu pandai, 'fotogenik' itu bukannya satu adjektif yang bagus atau pujian. Fotogenik bermaksud kamu jauh lagi buruk dalam real life dari dalam gambar. Aku tak mahu menipu diri atau orang lain. Dan sebab aku agak vain, aku hanya akan memilih gambar terbaik untuk dipamerkan kepada public. Gambar di mana aku extra fotogenik. Itu belum guna DSLR dengan photoshop lagi tu. Jangan confuse fotogenik dengan cantik. Dua-duanya berbeza.


Aku tak suka menipu di dunia blog. Kalau dapat soalan yang aku tak reti nak jawab,

1) aku ignore.
2) reka cerita karut gila agar orang itu pun akan tau aku sedang mengarut.
3) reka cerita separa karut yang ada unsur-unsur half-truth.

Aku buka business jual roti jala di Jerman. Setahun aku dapat jual 250 roti jala sahaja. Yang tak terjual terpaksa diberi percuma kepada mulut-mulut yang lapar, Alhamdulillah habis juga. Tak terbazir. Oleh sebab business aku langsung tak berkembang di sana (orang Jerman tak reti makan kari, mereka cakap pedas sangat), aku berpindah randah untuk mengembangkan business ini di negara yang aku rasa target marketnya lebih sesuai untuk aku. Jadi ini nombor 2 atau 3? You decide.

Ini aku insert gambar-gambar untuk menolong kamu membuat keputusan. Tangan aku kurang fotogenik. Sorry. Tapi ini tetap gambar, kan?


Buat roti jala perlu skill dan precision, ok? Bukan calang-calang tangan.


Pelipat roti jala aku.



Burning the midnight oil membuat roti jala.


Just because I'm writing about food and flowers nowadays and living in a Stepford house, don't think I'm sedated. My cynicism is still intact!

Tuesday, March 18, 2008

The Evolution of Nicole Kidman

Behold this collage I made of Nicole Kidman, a woman who looks better at 40 than she was at 20:


Click on the picture to view the larger version.

I can't afford to pretend like I'm only interested in serious issues all the time and I'm bored. So humor me.

Monday, March 17, 2008

Is this Salvation?

While many were attending Sunburst, I was busy adjusting to my new home and a new culture.

On my second day here, I learned that mee goreng basah is actually mee ladna and mee goreng mamak is actually mee goreng basah.


Apparently owning four cars is normal here. They have huge houses with huge driveways that could fit at least eight cars. On the way to my house for the first time, I thought we were driving into a road when it hit me: we were driving into our driveway.


My first impression as I stepped into the house was, ‘This house sure has a lot of flowers in it.’


Exhibit A- The sight that greeted me at the door:




Exhibit B- On the other side pula:


Exhibit C- Situated in the living room:





Exhibit D- beside the dining room:



My thoughts as I was eating in the dining room were, ‘This dining room is as big as my whole apartment dulu. And to think that was a kitchenette, toilet, shower and a bedroom in that apartment.’


I still feel like a guest in this house. Maybe in time it’ll start to feel like home. My room has pink walls. Curtains with flowers. Blue, pink and magenta sheets with huge, bold prints. It’s hard to be sad when you wake up in that kind of environment.




I would have been extremely bored if it had not been for this kitten and his siblings.


This house feels as if it is was ran by a Stepford wife. Everyone here smiles a lot. There is something different in the air here. In the three days I’ve been here I haven’t felt angry, sad or depressed even once. I don’t understand what the people here are saying when they are talking to me but it doesn’t really bother me. It doesn’t seem to bother them.


I’m having a hard time adjusting to the fact I don’t have to cook at all. It used to be cook or buy something or you’ll starve. On my first day, the lack of chores to do made me restless. I asked my Mom for meat to dice and prawns so that I could remove the shells.


That night I greedily hentam udang sambal tumis with jantung pisang that I didn’t cook myself. I could get used to this, I thought happily.


That same night I told a friend, “I think I’m permanently damaged. I just ate meal that my Mom cooked and I felt guilty. In fact this whole place makes me feel guilty. It makes me all sorts of happy. I don’t deserve this. I’m like the pauper who suddenly found himself in the castle.”


And like all good friends do, she told me I wasn’t damaged.

Thursday, March 13, 2008

Clarifications


Some of you might be aware that I occasionally write on Merces Letifer, the latest post by me being the entry titled ‘
Entri yang Tak Relevan dengan PC dan Tak Tentu PC’. As a result from that post, I was dubbed a PAS loving arse hole and cyber fornicator (not on that blog, but on other blogs. Commenter tak berani nak refute me on my blog.), although I clearly stated in my entry that I did not take sides. Since when did it mean that I had to be a supporter of a party to defend them?


I had previously written on how I sometimes like to write about things that aren’t especially relevant to me. I don’t have to be fat to write about how fat people are indirectly being discriminated in this country, do I? I only need to see it happen to my friends. It’s true by the way. Malaysia doesn’t really cater to the needs of big women. The only shops carrying plus-sized clothes are usually given ugly and boring names such as ‘Big Brown Bag’. True, I never have trouble finding a size here but it pisses me all the same. It just further proves that here, there is a standardized perception of beauty in Malaysia. Slim, fair, Pan Asian features with long straight hair. I’ll elaborate further on this topic one day.


So back to the political discussions. I wrote that post on March 10, two days before it was published in the papers that a PAS candidate would be elected to be Perak’s new MB. Yes, when I wrote this in point number 6: ‘Apa, kamu terkejut PAS dipilih oleh parti-parti lain untuk menjadi MB di sesetengah negeri?’, I had Perak in mind. I just never expected the outcome would be like this. If anything, Lim Kit Siang’s reaction to the Sultan Perak’s decision is a tad immature, if I may say so. Edit: A reliable source just told me Tajol Rosli might be relected to become Perak's MB, but I can't confirm this. I guess we will be reading why soon, except I know most of you can already guess the actual reason. Take note, I hold no illusions that Malaysians suddenly turned into PAS or DAP fanatics. I believe that the sole reason the BA won big this election is because Malaysians got tired of BN’s bullshit. Even if you had a donkey running against a BN candidate, I believe that the donkey would have won.


In point number 5 I wrote, 'Golongan yang berfikir teori itu senang dipraktikkan dan berfikir pengalaman itu tak relevan. Change can occur in the matter of weeks'. I warned you about this. I can only further stress this point by recent developments. Experience is very important when it comes to politics. People were optimistic that BA was going to get to work straight away and we’d see some drastic changes in as early as next month. You didn’t take into account that some parties needed to resolve their childish issues first, did you?


Lastly, I don’t know where I come off as a racist when I said, 'I too, have faith in my race, but not that far. Kalau nak ambil crutches orang Melayu pun, at least train them to walk first. Jangan rampas terus. Nanti makin cacat jadinya'. Let’s not fool ourselves. If pure meritocracy or equality among races were to be carried out, how many Malays would survive in our economy? However, I did not disagree with Penang’s decision to demolish NEP, I believe that it would be a good way to keep Malays on their toes. Here I must explain that I do not mean that NEP should be demolished in all the states straight away. I just believe that fear is the greatest reminder and motivation of all. Edit lagi: Penang never proposed to demolish NEP, they simply proposed 'open tender' for all projects.


I’m not a political analyst or a law student, if I said something wrong, you may point out so.

His Kryptonite



"Awesome!", he exclaimed excitedly as he discovered what was in the small brown bag I handed to him.

"Main Monopoly mesti cepat je pass Go," he continued, holding the purple 20-sided dice up to the light.

I love board games.

Monopoly even more so than Scrabble, because I can remember losing to only one person in real life playing Scrabble. But that person's kin, so I basically went into the game expecting to lose.

Monopoly is a game of luck. And strategy. But mostly luck.

Tuesday, March 11, 2008

Magenta and I, Were We Two Completely Different People?

I used to laugh when friends would ask me if I sometimes felt like I was leading double lives. Maybe at that time, I didn’t understand the meaning behind that question yet. But as time passes by, it suddenly became clear that even my own friends couldn’t connect the person who was behind this blog with me. That became more apparent when a guy who got to know me solely through this blog called me last night.


“Your voice is very…tak dijangka. I thought you were gonna sound very…stern.”

“Why would I?”

“Maybe sebab Magenta suka marah-marah kot. Not only was I expecting to hear a stern voice. I was expecting to hear a…”

“Guy??”

“No, no. Like a girl's voice but with a much deeper tone. Serious punya voice. Your voice is like... lalala… hahaha... hehehe.”


Conversation continued with me laughing while we described what people would perceive Magenta as. A professional and stressed woman who speaks very quickly and seriously, wears glasses and is very unfriendly.


I remember when I wrote my first post. One of my closest friends commented that she was surprised that (and I quote) ‘an eyeliner wearing bimbo’ is capable of liberating arguments. In my defense I would just like to say, I only discovered the magic of the eyeliner last year. But I have to confess that the closest I am to being deep with my peers in real life is discussing and trying to interpret the meaning of Gwen Stefani’s songs on our way to the shopping mall.


The thing is, I am actually quite soft spoken in real life. I am lembut, but not to the extent of being lemah lembut. I hardly ever raise my voice and as much as you’d like to imagine that I tell people off everytime they steal my cab or potong queue, I really don’t. A friend who I am quite close to in real life told me last week,


“Kadang-kadang aku terkejut baca blog ko.
Bunyi macam marah. Tapi bila aku teringat kat ko ngan suara ko, dah bunyi macam tak marah dah.“

“Alah, tapi aku selalu maki hamun apa.”

“Ye lah, tapi ko maki tak bunyi macam maki pun. Tak bunyi kasar. Entah, aku tak reti explain.”


I’m not really sure how people perceive Magenta, but I can only imagine as someone not very pleasant. I didn’t really intend to create a character, in a way I always felt like she was someone who had always been inside of me. I guess you have to know me in real life to understand the real tone of this blog. Most of these posts were written in good humor, some even while laughing and smiling, even the post ‘Aku Masih Marah’. I guess I’m sort of twisted that way, but nothing here was meant to be serious. I just have a sarcastic sense of humor. For instance, I have nothing against marriage. I once read that there were many Malaysian blogs with elements of bitter truths and sarcasm because we are repressed people. Was I repressed? I could be.


I have my low moments but I like to surround myself with people who are loud and funny. Because I am a firm believer that familiarity breeds contempt. I don’t mind the cynics and pessimists, as long as they can find the humor in everything.


I may write about things that don’t concern me or things that I really have no strong feelings about- how women have trouble finding good men, how big women have trouble finding a size, Malaysian politics, how kampong people had it rough, stupid whitening commercials and how stupid it is that everyone wants straight hair. Mainly I do it because I’m bored and insomniac. People may think that it means I’m a single, obese, dark with Maggi hair kampong girl because I choose to write about these issues but the truth is, I really don’t care. Unlike some girls out there, I’m not searching for a male from the blogosphere.

Friday, March 7, 2008

The Funniest News Ever



I mean no disrespect to their culture. But I have trouble controlling my laughter after reading the first line of the article.


KATHMANDU (AFP) - Religious leaders in a town near Nepal's capital are searching for a young girl to worship as a living goddess because the incumbent has just got married to a fruit, officials said Monday.

-Yahoo News, 4/3/2008


Got married to a fruit? This is too funny. I laughed even harder when my sister said,


Dah la sekarang tengah election. The word incumbent means penyandang politik. Macam kalau you’re the MP satu kawasan tu…sebelum pilihan raya…You are called incumbent la.