Time To Say Goodbye

I'm done here. Au revoir~

It's a wrap!

Make a wish!

With dila's birthday present safely in her possession (albeit her birthday's tomorrow actually), there'll be no more gifts to be given to my dearest friends.

I observe the rituals of gift-giving to my compadres with near religious devotion. I revel in it and this year's been a definite success. I managed to present my people with gifts that their hearts desire. This year's success lies in Something Wicked This Way Comes, the second installment of The Gallagher Girls series, Do-It-Yourself Diary of A Wimpy Kid and a Velvet Underground CD.

When it comes to giving people presents I always do my best to give them something that they want. It involves some extent of detective work and intuition-based guessing with a dash of financial approximation. When it involves the people that matters to me at least, but then again, I don't really give people I'm not particularly keen on gifts anyway. To me, gift-giving is personal. I put my love into them because I love the people who they are meant for.

The surprise, delight or excitement expressed when they get things they really like pleases me to no end. I just adore it. Makes me very very happy. It's one of those happy memories I store that I can tap into whenever I feel nostalgic or something of that sort.

And the wrapping! Gosh, I love wrapping gifts. It makes my heart sing, haha. My favourite part will always be when I pinch the paper wrapper hard along the edges of the gift box so that the wrappers have sharp, crisp and well-defined edges and corners. In their anticipation to unwrap them gifts, I doubt anybody ever notices such detail. But it's all love. Those visible edges and corners are LOVE I tell you. It is.

Although one disappointment every year for the past 5 years has been, my older brother's birthday. I NEVER get to give him anything. Mainly because he currently resides 18 time zones away from Malaysia, which is Toronto, Canada. Each year I have this grand idea of making some kind of home movie which involves footages of each and every family member wishing him a very 'Happy Birthday' while holding their own personalized birthday 'banner' (a piece of drawing block with their personal wishes written on it). I'd then edit all these precious footages into a film collage filled with love and good wishes from home. Fantasy, fantasy. I don't even own a video camera. I could borrow somebody's of course, but *sigh* I don't know.

Last year, I almost managed to pull it off. Though instead of video clips, it was really pictures of family members holding the aforementioned drawing block 'cards'. Except, it turned out that the pencil drawn 'cards' weren't legible because they were too thin. I abandoned said plan because it'd take too much time to redo them cards :(

Thought I'd pull it off this year. But again, it's a fail. All we did was skyped and bullied Adi till he ran crying into the bathroom. And to think that he got me a real Harry Potter wand (which, I take out daily to stare obsessively at) this year D: Augh... Someday, perhaps.

Anyway, if you've ever received a birthday gift from me, do know you are very dear to me :)

Sapphires

Icy blue orbs frozen in a stare,

Through thickets of the unseen,

Where memories and dreams meet,

Like a flame his longing, burning.

His eyes twinkled as it pools,

Pearlescent tracks down his cheeks,

In unbroken streams,

His very soul leaks.

A personal apocalypse,

Made visible by an unruly heart,

With those sapphire eyes,

He bade his goodbyes.

'Have it your way'

Despite the title of this post, no, I haven't had Burger King in months. SACE Results will be out in one week's time. If anything, it means I've got to milk this week's worth of reading, video gaming and uh, 'movie'ing.

I have given up trying to play Resident Evil 5 by myself. I've admitted defeat and surrendered the console to my little brother and cousin. I just watch them play in co-op mode. Them zombies are just, yeugh. Pity.

Am currently reading The Magicians by Lev Grossman. Since I'm a vicious Potter fan, I quite hate the book. The protagonist, Quentin Coldwater, is a Holden Caufield wannabe. Eh, I just hate him. He's exceptionally prodigious, pathetically depressed and ultimately boring. I don't know, he just doesn't come across as an enigmatic and witty tortured soul that I belief the author's trying to get him to be.

Basically, book's about Quentin being mopey. Dude stumbles on a magic college where he studies 'Magic'. Stuff happens, he does a card trick, pulls a sword out of a table, and vwalla passes the entrance exam, becomes a magic undergrad boy, makes friends. Then he's turned into a goose- know what? It's actually about him being mopey all the time. And the 'Magic', gah. Dullest most unromantic and unattractive take on 'Magic' I've ever read. Imaginative, yes but viciously repellant. I'm not even going to explain.

Also, the Potter jokes annoy me. Unworthy of having Rowling's masterpiece adorned in its back cover, unworthy of being related with the Potter series in any way whatsoever. It's a wonder I'm still reading it. But esh, I paid for this book and I will finish it. Within this past 3 weeks I've read 7 books yet my reading list seems to have grown instead.

Holiday's been great so far. Watched Rapunzel (I like it~) in Pavilion and ate at the Tarbush Restaurant in JW Mariott across Pavi last night. Cousin's birthday. Had a nice time. Finally got to eat real food. My new maid's horrid cooking only grazes the category of being 'edible'. I mean really, she's as bad as me! And I only know how to 'cook' rice in theory (Yea yea, I deserve to be stoned to death).

On another note, the streets of KL in the night time is quite fascinating. The lights, the assorted people, and I just love the musky scent of rain. The smoke, the loitering teenagers and the bottles of booze in plain sight on the other hand...mortifying.

To think that this indulgent, carefree and jovial mood of mine will be replaced with manic anxiety as I expectantly wait for my results next week is a bit of a downer. But whatever, I'll worry about that later. Now, we sing, we dance and steal things (Nah).

P.S: Happy 23rd Birthday Abang :) Made up with our little clone trooper by threatening to return them borrowed PS3 games. Cruel yes, but effective. Called you back on Skype didn't he? Heh.

Roger Reigns Supreme

6 - 3 , 3 - 6 , 6 - 3 (1 hour 37 minits)

Defeating top seed and close friend Rafael Nadal, His excellency Roger Federer celebrates his victory in the ATP World Tour season finale Barclays 2010.

Roger is now one of only 3 players to have won the Barclays Championship 5 times. This is also Roger's 66th ATP World Tour Title.

Where only the top 8 players qualify to play, Roger once again proves that he IS indeed, worthy of being noted as the greatest player of ALL time.

Beating Rafa in three sets, 6 - 3 , 3 - 6 , 6 - 3 (1 hour 37 minits), Roger won an incredible 92% of the points played on his first serve in the final, and lost only 13 points on serve in the entire match (San Francisco Chronicle, 2010).

Roger's elegant style of playing exhibited in all its glory is a sight to behold :) Where artistry and sportsmanship blends into a masterpiece of peRFection.

CONGRATULATIONS ROGER!

P.S: Take that naysayers out there! HAH. I shall shamelessly gloat.

Scenes

Got bored for the first time since college ended, thus here I am. Went through some of the stuff I wrote in high school. Them 'short stories' I've long stopped writing because I discovered that my attempts at poetry are much less time consuming.

I think...I ought to give writing another stab. I miss it. You know, just cooking up plots, characters, dialouges and scenes. I particularly liked thinking up that something special that I'd usually start with before I build up the characters and story around it. It's usually a scene. Never a message though. I've never been able to write something to convey a message. It's always been about, a 'something'.

For example,

THIS, put a scene in my head. Of a guy playing this song like in the video, under a hazelnut tree by a brook, so close he was to the water, he could dip his bare feet in it. Surrounding him, is a field of dandelions that swayed in the breeze, as if dancing to the song played on the guitar. There's also a girl, in a yellow summer dress that matches the sun and the dandelions. Spinning like a mad gypsy, her long dark hair and dress billowing. Sun kissed, the grass is gilded in gold.

So, I wrote a chapter with such a scene in it. Oh, since I was particularly fascinated by fire then, dude's a pyromaniac. For some reason, the girl's blind.

MEH. There, click if you may and laugh at my amateurish attempt.

At any rate, I suck at it hahah.

P.S: I'm not even gonna get into my long stagnant attempts at writing 'novels'. Those chapters are probably decaying. If electronic documents can rot, they probably would have. *shrug*

All my lies

Let me swim in the channels of passion

So that my actions may be driven by love.

Stoked by the fumes of desire, I will step

Out of these smog of loss and confusion

This mist of anger and dissatisfaction

That clouds my eyes and blinds my heart

So that heavy sighs lace all my lies

All my smiles.

Can I not be what I yearn yet still be

What embodies the wishes of ones I care for

Bear the responsibilities they ask of

And fulfill the expectations they have bore.

Show me that the world is gentle and kind

Tender feelings of tolerance and resilience

Bare to me their generosity

If it be a must, let it be even pity.

I cling to such grand notions of liberty

That I know many have fallen prey to.

Mere indulgences of foolish romantics

Where thrive only things of beauty

And odes to our depraved humanity.

With my dreams in the palms of my hands

I offer myself brittle promises

In the face of denial, all my lies made fatal.

More than words

Thanks, dila :)

Deathly Hallows Part 1

My precious Harry

Just got back. Love it, can't wait for the second part. Potter fans out there, hurry along to the nearest theaters and welcome our dearest boy-who-lived into thy arms.

The journey to the end starts here :') After the books, you have movies. After the movies?

Legends they be those stories that beats eternally within the hearts of the readers

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P.S:

And this. After you've seen the movie you know that the scene where this song is played is not in the book. All the same, it's all good. I like it. Have always been a Harry-Hermione fan, though of course that can't ever be because of darling Ron.

My apologies

Candle-lit faces, Candle-lit gazes

Last night was AUSMAT 21's grand dinner. I went and that is to be considered an achievement (yeah, boo-hoo I'm a loser). I mean, I paid RM80 and all. I believe, it's the first time I ever went to any social gathering (of such scale) quite so willingly. I really wanted to see everybody all dressed up and happy and stuff.

It was nice. I don't know. I wimped out when everybody started singing at the end of the dinner. I left. It was dark so people didn't really notice.

It was dark because the committee planned a surprise gift thingy for the lecturers. They gave twenty of us one of those small perfumed candles and had another twenty carrying roses and a small gift follow us in the dark to where the lecturers sat. The candle bearers stood in a circle around the lecturers' table, the gift bearers handed their gifts, then the lecturers blew each of the candles out. Pagan much? Hahah. Naww, it was nice. Some of the lecturers actually cried and that probably worthed much more than RM80 I'd say.

It was after the candle-gift event that the singing started. It was still dark while I made my getaway. Pretty darn rude of me to sneak off like that and not tell my classmates. They looked nice in the diffused light and I want to remember them like that. I only bid farewell to Alia (fellow victim of Otago's mass interview slaughter session. Egh, I'm just sore. Ignore me). She insisted that I at least say goodbye to the others but I just gave her hand another squeeze, an apologetic smile and left.

I bet she cried when the singing ended. She's such a nice person and she always cries when things gets a bit, uh, 'feely' and I don't want to see her cry. Saw her cry plenty of times already. After the interview, after the interview results came out, at the class party... so none of that for me.

Blame my conspicuous avoidant nature but really I just don't want to say goodbye and that's that. Hopefully, I won't ever have to say goodbye to any of them at any point in the near or not-so-near future. Let everything stay as if we'll all just meet up in class tomorrow (though thank god NOT! Haha).

Thus the end of the College phase. What's next remains to be seen.

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P.S:

I've finished reading 3 of my Big Bad Wolf purchases. One was crappy (Exurbia by Molly McGrann), the other two were absolutely brilliant (The Reminder by Rune Michaels & Beat The Reaper by Josh Bazell). Also, Beat The Reaper has this 'medical/mobster' game at its website. If you have nothing to do, then do click.

Exurbia was an unplanned purchase anyway. *sigh* Never judge 'Young Adult' books by their covers. Never. Not that Exurbia's cover is particularly attractive anyway though.

Like A Painting

The grass made greener

The skies made bluer

All is touched by the Sun's gold

And all is untouched by Time's 'Old'

In a painting, all is frozen

The subject or scenery from a single moment

The artists' brief yet passionate limerence

A single point in our space-time continuum

What you see is but a mirage

Underneath the concrete idea of the painting

The dashes of paint and the strokes of brushes

All you really see is the artist's visage

Their countenance made bold

By the language of colours and texture

Their personalities made bare

By the painting's essence and nature

If I can reveal to you my true feelings

And have you understand my feeble thoughts

On a canvas that spans skies and seas

My mind to you I'll paint transparent

Big Bad Wolf

My preciousssss

Total: RM162

Number of books: 22

Quite a bargain indeed. Housies Alice & Linda (she spent RM230!) tagged along in my trusty taxi cab Atos. Good thing mom was kind enough to show me the way the first time I went with Alice. Yeap, we went twice. Alice slept over at my house and all.

Alice and I got to go on the Media preview day because we won the Big Bad Wolf BFF photo contest heheh, which is a good thing. Otherwise, on the first day itself...gosh. The crowd is just plain brutal. Bibliophiles ravished the book piles with hungered gleams in their eyes, I kid you not. It was so crowded I felt pretty darn nauseated.

Also, got to meet an old friend from high school. Grapes, I mean, Grace. Heh. She's working as one of the 80 staff on hand. If you go over to the sci-fi section, she's the girl with the orangey bob haircut :)

Lovely days ahead of me. Just me, my books, my cats & Adi in my room. Still, I'm kinda hung up that I didn't get these titles. I want these SO bad. Like, real bad.

(Especially this The Periodic Table by Primo Levi. Somebody, do get it for me from Kino)

(BBW had practically every other book Roth ever wrote EXCEPT this one. Oh, the INJUSTICE of it all!)

Liberty

I have officially finished the South Australian Matriculation (S.A.M). The results of my South Australian Certificate of Education (S.A.C.E) shall be known on the 16th December 2010.

What more is there to say? :)

To celebrate, here's something I wrote sometime during SPM. Form 4 and 5 seemed to last decades instead of two years. I remember scribbling this in one of my notebooks while studying. Those days, I care not to return to them. SPM was, IS, a nightmare. Sheesh.

Liberty

Can you smell it?

The scent wafting towards us,

Sweet and delicious,

Perfume of 'freedom'.

Can you feel it?

Tugging at our toes,

Teasingly soft caresses,

Of awaited 'Liberation'.

Can you hear it?

Whispering our names,

Beseechingly silent,

The winds of 'Release'.

Can you see it?

Just over the horizon,

Fleeting glimpses,

Of dawning 'Liberty'.

Run we must not,

Savour the flavour,

These cold shackels,

Soon,

No longer part of us.

P.S: Tomorrow, Big Bad Wolf Book Sale! *howlsssssssss* Now, BE JEALOUS heh.

Nobody

Wake from this silly enchantment,

Open your leadened eye lids and look,

What you see around you are Truths ignored,

Realities smothered by petty fantasies.

Should you look at the person by your side,

And he or she unconscious of your gaze,

You'll see them as they really are,

Unguarded with thoughts unhindered.

What little you know of them, revealed,

In ways you could only dream of,

But really don't be greedy and seek,

What their private souls may be in need.

Vague elucidations of many versions,

What really do any of us understand,

Of souls and thoughts and emotions,

That define our arbitrary 'I's.

So stop looking for angels and soulmates,

Stop wishing for devotion and attention,

In your reflection you will find,

The Nobody that rules your body.

Mr. Cut Here

With his palm down, over the bright green bushes,

He lets his hand brush over them as he walks down the hall.

Caressing droplets of dew from the shoots,

He smiles a very private very lopsided smile.

Thinking thoughts I imagine to be rather discerning,

His glassy eyes not seeing the shoots he's caressing.

As I look upon his ghostly slight figure with venom,

Never, not even once would he glance around.

Not realizing the confused hatred of my unsound mind,

He went on walking at his decidedly measured pace.

Careless, uninformed and unknowing,

Eternally, wholly, unaffected by my misplaced enmity.

A milky white latex glove in his slender hands,

He blew until it ballooned like a cow's udder.

The fat girl by his side laughing, and he laughing,

Its echoes filled the vacant corner where I stood.

Over the days, I silently watched and brood,

Waiting for a glance that never came my way.

What few recollections I have of him,

The one that loops like a broken film,

Are of him in the hallways, walking steadily,

Not in herds as boys often do; solitarily.

His head tilted back, slightly to the right,

Staring into depths unfathomable.

Reptilia

A 'Reptilia' cover by VSQ (Vitamin String Quartet).

This is just, Perfect.

Check out other covers here.

Who're the VSQ (Vitamin String Quartet)?

The String Quartet Tribute is a series of string quartet tribute albums, released by Vitamin Records and performed by several different groups of musicians. These string quartet tributes are commonly referred to as "VSQ," or "Vitamin String Quartet" by fans. Albums generally focus on one band per record, and perform classical versions of that band's songs, generally note for note. They use a wide array of instruments but primarily violins and violas.

Also, here're some awesome behind-the-scenes B&W photos of Julian's Phrazes For The Young solo tour by Chris Searl. The rest are here.

(Yes, Jules is a rock star that reads Hesse's Siddhartha. He's cool like that.)

To Their Ashes

. . . . . . .

Burning steadily,

Burning readily,

This warmth you feel,

Is my Love made real.

Should you be so lucky,

To have been loved by me,

I would've promised you immortality,

For I'll never forget your beauty.

Things even you don't see,

Words even you don't hear,

I witness them to their ashes,

Meaningful yet brief flashes.

All this may seem just as well,

But really let us not dwell,

On things past and ancient,

So old they may be poison.

If an ending is what you desire,

A finale I will give you,

Anything to kill this fire,

Of my Love that's smothering you.

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Note: For some reason, whenever I pen anything about Love, it comes out all wrong. Vengeful or...defeated. What do I know of Love anyway? Nothing. Thus the overt tones of resentment. Then again...haha.

Gates of Hell

I confess, I caved in and started reading one of my not-so-recent purchases. Ones I've carefully stashed at the very backs of my bookshelf. But really, after 4 consecutive days of working on my Mathematical Studies cheat sheet, I need a break.

And so, I read a little of this deligthful book:

The Gates (John Connolly)

It is quantum theory, demons, and philosophy rolled into one. Not to mention humor that makes you smile and laugh out loud. I've no time to be writing a synopsis, so read here if you will. But to sum it up, it's about an 11-year old boy trying to save the world and humanity. Why? Because his neighbour who lives in No. 666 opened a portal to Hell with the aide of a 'Singularity' that escaped from a Large Hadron Collider, LHC.

Anyway, my birthday was last Saturday. It was alright :) Got a Black Forest cake (baked by my cousin herself), some gifts, cards and the usual phone call from Canada. I'm 19 and it's not a big deal at all, which suits me perfectly fine really. As a matter of fact I actually forgot that it was my birthday if it weren't for some other acquaintances' birthdays in the same week.

Although, it is so mainly because SACE (south Australian Certificate of Education) is in less than a week. 6 days, to be exact. 1st of November til the 10th. Five 3 hour papers to be tackled down by mediocre me in the lovingly cold arms of INTEC's Great Hell, I mean Hall.

Laugh if you may, but have you ever wondered why people say "Cold as Hell"?

Because, in Inferno by Dante, Hell is described in 9 levels. The innermost level (9th) being the coldest, a frozen lake of blood and guilt as it is the farthest from God's warmth. So, I suppose Hell is cold. Figuratively that is.

Yes. I am full of useless trivia.

I shall now go and stuff myself with Chemistry. Some 'useful' knowledge.

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NOTE: I've successfully summarized a 448 paged Math textbook into the 4 pages of 2 pieces of A4 papers. I shall laminate them and guard them with my life.

A testimony of my efforts in perusing Mathematics, here are the 2 surfaces of 1 of the 2 A4s. I ain't posting the other 2 (as if this matters huh. Meh) You can click and make em' big:

I Hear You

It must be lonely out there,

It must be cold down there,

I yearn to tell you,

The coldness I feel it too.

But these barriers of mine,

Keep me from the door,

Like a silenced moor,

That pain of yours I abandon.

Forgive my cruelty,

But I can't show pity,

For I can't have your gratitude,

Not with my shallow fortitude.

Through these walls,

I hear your cries,

Through those sobs,

I lay awake.

A heartless stranger,

With your pain I'm too familiar,

Believe me dear friend,

I hear you.

________________________________________________

This is for you. Let those wordless tracks you adore sing your decadence.

Everything will be alright.

*coughs*

I, have been coughing for 3 months straight now.

It hinders speech, gives me unnecessary headaches and is a source of constant irritation. A stupendous bother because I keep coughing in my air-conditioned class, cars and that great freezer of a Great Hall during tests and examinations. Also, it keeps me awake at night til 3 in the morning (on average). As if I need any other additional sleep inhibitors aside from my on and off insomnia.

When I wake up in the morning, I feel like ripping my head off. Sometimes, others' too. It adds to my generally latent misanthropic disposition.

In short, it's killing me. I think I've developed asthma. Or maybe I have worms in my lungs or something. Yes, yes. I ought to get a check up.

What a pain. What a pain. *coughs* *sigh*