IT'S A PANDAN LIFE ...!

Muse: The last time I ******, I left the States and came back to Malaysia. Now, where shall I run to? I'll leave for Indonesia, then! *Amused tone, probably joking* Me: *Thinking: 1. If he got a penny for every time he said he wanted to leave (he uses many variations of the word e.g. run, migrate), he'd be a millionaire now. 2. My heart stops every time he says he wants to leave - the ruthless manner in which the word is uttered sent icy-cold jolts to my heartstrings. 3. I don't think he is aware that the word is associated with loss. When someone leaves, either by death or by choice, it is a  great loss to the people who care about him/her.   4. I'll probably lose my cool the next time he utters the word (or its variations).*                      

Muse: ... Please do not assume my life is like a walk in the park ... Me: *Taken aback, thinking: Why is he talking to me like I am a stranger? Like I do not know him at all? When have I ever assumed any thing about his life? All this while, what he told me is what I know. My life is not a walk in the park either. Even if it is, it is a bloody lonely walk in the park!* Moral of the story: What we say can sometimes affect people for days and days.

“It was not the feeling of completeness I so needed, but the feeling of not being empty.” ~  Jonathan Safran Foer Recently I discovered how to know whether you're important to other people who matter to you. Just keep quiet at home and don't get in touch with them. This is what I did for 4 days. Except for those calls from banks offering loans and what not and those spam texts telling me about sales here and there, no one actually called and text! I couldn't believe it! My own family didn't even bother to call me! If I died at home, alone, my body would probably rot for a few weeks before people discover them! Great! This isn't a game of popularity. It's a simple game of whether people care about you. I'm not angry at anybody. I learned not to get angry at people I care about. When I'm angry, it can become really ugly.The last time I got angry, my best friend didn't talk to me for six months! Sometimes I wish I didn't have to go on a study leave...

     A tribute to my feline son, Izzy, 21.09.2002 - 08.11.2011. I'd always thought, perhaps I'd even taken for granted, that you'd live a long healthy life. To hear that you died in so much pain was really heart-wrenching, I felt like killing myself. Please forgive me Izzy, for not being there. You came into my life when there was really a large void in my life. I'd been divorced, had moved in to my new house. At the same time my family, my main pillar of strength, had  moved from KL to Johor. The emptiness was simply too much to bear. Words can't describe how much joy you brought to my life when I adopted you. You were barely 4 or 5 months old when I took you home. Only a kitty, totally helpless and dependent on me. Well, yeah, you did bring some headaches during your formative years but those were really  peanuts compared to the happiness you brought. You'd wait  eagerly for me at the sliding do...

                          A stroll in Lower Earley, Reading, with Faiz.                                                                              Picture credit to Hassan. Some ramblings about my third trip to the UK. The first was back in 2003, second was in 2008. This time around I took comfort in the fact that my buddy Faiz was there - accommodation can be so damn expensive in UK, as I learnt in 2008. So yeah, Faiz was my main motivation. I wouldn't have embarked on the tri...

Once upon a time in history.... Me: (Fuming) So, tell me about this female buddy of yours? Muse: Well, she comes from a rich, broken family, bla..bla..bla... Me: (Listening attentively) Muse: ....She even cooked for her boyfriend.... Me: (Eyes rolling and thinking: Don't I do that for you sometimes?) Moral of the story: A woman would do things that she normally wouldn't do for the person that she loves.

History, though, shows us that the people who end up changing the world—the great political, scientific, social, technological, artistic, even sports revolutionaries—are always nuts, until they’re right, and then they’re geniuses. ~John Eliot, Ph.D. Apps available for Androids or iphones or whatever computer-cum-smart phones out there, can do wonders. Really. Like the Zombie Booth. I almost fainted when I saw my Zombied face. I've never seen anything so hideous! And so funny (this realization came after I overcame my paranoia). The use of Apps has got me thinking. Those geeks out there should really come up with an App for people like me. Believe me, if I could come up with it myself, I would. Well, for ease of reference, let's tentatively call this App - The Nut Graph. It's an App that would record the high and low points in my life  in the form of a graph. Like those bell-curve graphs you did in Physics or Add Maths. The rationale for this App is plenty...

Okay, times have changed and so has my list of hunky guys - God's gifts to my imaginary Planet Rakish - where yummylicious hunks rule (and covet my delicate sensibilities...)! 1. Josh Holloway. Yup, you're still my No. 1! 2. Go Se Won Encik Park Yang Hebat...! 3. Jang Hyuk You can be my Slave, and my Hunter...! 4. Takashi Sorimachi Here's one of the reasons I look East! 5. Joe Manganiello You can have my True Blood anytime! 6. Takeshi Kaneshiro Another Japanese gift to women! 7. Patrick Dempsey Yes, ain't gonna tire of this McDreamy..! 8. Daniel Wu Yup, you're still in the list! 9. Lee Byung Hun IRIS me!

No, I don't wanna clear the air on the issue I don't wanna sacrifice my peace of mind I don't wanna face reality But most of all... I don't wanna rock the boat Because the boat is all I have. Yes, I guess I'm stupid I'm a dreamer I keep up an easy facade But most of all... I'm a repressed romantic Because I'm good at holding back.

Muse: My maid wants to work for other people when my dad is no longer around. Me: Huh? Why don't you just continue to employ her? Muse: Me? Whatever for? I can take care of myself. Me: Ok, then let her work for me... Muse: *incredulous tone* What do you need a maid for? Me:  [Choose the best answer. The right answer can be found at the bottom, scroll down.]                    A.  Err... you know how I don't fancy doing housekeeping. I 'd                 rather cook  than do that kind of chores....           B:  So she can take care of my kid (or kids) when I go to                work...          ...

Pandan is exiled from government service, forced to sharpen her critical thinking and emotional endurance for three years. A typical day in the life of Pandan would entail her sitting at a desk either at home or at the library in the heart of the city, engaging in dialectical monologue with the likes of Karl Marx, Greg Garrard, Edward Said, Lawrence Buell, Aijaz Ahmad, Pablo Mukherjee, to name a few. In between this commonly-perceived intelligent undertaking, she also juggles thoughts of quitting her job, dying, and retiring early. She has keen interests in literature, Korean culture, culture, traveling, performing arts and history. A recent event that happened in the country, coupled with unintelligent news-reporting in the media, have resurrected a storm of  patriotism in her inner-self as well as helped her revise how the current Malaysian society has evolved. Politics fascinates her actually but that does not mean she harbors an ambition to get ...

Me: I wanna retire early. Maybe at 50. Muse: *in incredulous tone* What for? Watcha gonna do? Me:I wanna stay home. Bake cakes. Read all those great novels I've bought but don't have time to read. Muse: *even more incredulous, laughs a bit* You wanna stay home just to read??? Me: Yup! *starts imagining picking up her kids-to-be from school*

We never know the worth of water until the well is dry ~ English proverb A recent encounter with environmental ethics left me thinking about the distinction between instrumental and intrinsic value; value being the worth one attaches to something. A thing is considered to have instrumental value when it becomes useful to other things. Land, for example, becomes useful when it can be worked on. On the contrary, a thing has intrinsic value when it has value in its own right, regardless of its usefulness to other things. Forests, for example, have intrinsic value because they have value in their own rights, not because they serve as the sink for CO2, they provide timber, they are homes to the indigenuous people and so on. Our anthropocentric conditioning has made it hard to look at things intrinsically. We don’t have to talk about forests to understand this. Take a person who befriends someone because that someone is rich and knows all the right people in the industry. Take a wife who...

I am convinced that material things can contribute a lot to making one's life pleasant, but, basically, if you do not have very good friends and relatives who matter to you, life will be really empty and sad and material things cease to be important. ~ David Rockefeller I love you. I haven’t heard this for a long time. But when it was uttered by two dear female friends recently, I was shocked and couldn’t believe my ears. Did I hear correctly? My heart stretched like a huge garden of blooming and dancing tea pink roses. Kinda like the ad for Flora Gucci. See the video above.  Yup, that’s a very apt imagery. Not to mention hyperbole. Hehe. But who cares? Maybe I need a hyperbole once in a while. Especially when it makes me so humbled. How these words can do wonders to a person varies. Some people may hear them often enough. Some couldn’t care less. But to some, like me, these words can do wonders. Most probably because they were uttered effortlessly. And when I l...

When your muse says He doesn't look forward to the future Because the present is too much to bear Even with your presence in it You can only ask How much more can your ego take And hope for some divine intervention Amen.

1. I started writing my thesis. It’s not a very pleasant experience, time and again I find myself working religiously on it, motivated beyond words. But there are times I just stare at it so hard my heart burns. 2. I confronted my muse. Again. I’d had all kinds of questions at the back of my mind but chose to ignore them for fear that I might push him. Yes, I was that considerate. Until Facebook reared its ugly head. I guess it just boils down to the fact that when you found someone you want to spend the rest of your life with, you want the rest of your life to start as soon as possible. I hope my muse understands this. 3. I cycled out. I used to cycle on Sundays, around my housing area. I got bored after a while. When an ex-student asked me to go on a bike ride in Putrajaya, I was ecstatic! We cycled for two hours up, down, and around the garden. It was F.U.N.! 4. I sat in the UM library for more than an hour. I’ve always dreaded the thought of having to work in the librar...

“ Wah, bestnya tak kerja .” This is a typical response that I get from most people that I’ve met for the past six months. Come to think of it, I enjoy the fact that I’m not working. It’s fun. I don’t have to worry about those make-believe ISO files, for-show publications, and insane office politics, all of which have more or less made teaching lost its appeal to me. So, yup, I need a break from all these nonsense. And there’s no better time than now. When I look back on my life for the past six months, it has been quite an experience. I spent the first three months reading vigorously and trying to make connections here and there. This was challenging and at times I just went bonkers. I also audited a postgraduate class. It was fun, I couldn’t ask for a better lecturer. But after 5 months have passed, I found myself reaching what a friend has prophesied: the land of the unknown. The phase in my life when everything seems so unsure and nothing is stable anymore. My mind is unstable; my...

2011 would be a positive year. You will experience a dynamic & vibrant approach in career. It is also a period of growth in money matters.This would be an eventful year in love & marital matters. Diet should be controlled, else food related health problems could come up. ~ 2011 Libra Horoscope ~ http://www.indastro.com/ 2011 is here and I’m not going to waste my time recapping 2010. I did that already. What I want to do here is list things that I don’t want to do in 2011. Enough of those ‘What-I-Want-To-Do-in-2011’ crap. Thanks to one of Iman’s friends, what’s his name, who came up with this idea. Cheers! Oh, and Iman, I think you should come up with this list as well. If you're up to it. WHAT I DON'T WANT TO DO IN 2011 1) Stall my PhD thing. 2) Put on more weight. 3) Stop traveling. 4) Accumulate all my anger and then bitch and cry about it in front of Ann. Or Yat. Or Miza. 5) Forget to save money. 6) Print out all those nice recipes on the Net and forget abo...

Celebrate what you want to see more of. ~ Thomas J. Peters New Year's eve is practically celebrated worldwide in a variety of ways, e.g. fireworks, countdown parties and the list goes on. No doubt, the New Year's eve is pretty significant to most people and the symbolism is pretty obvious. I am not the type of person who'd go all out to celebrate it. Parties have never been my thing. Plus, I just hate the idea of crowds. In fact, I don't really remember making a conscious effort to be somewhere on NY's eve. Most of the time I'd have people asking me to join them. If not, I'd just stay at home. On reflection, there have been times that I stayed at home and just watched TV. I was OK with that. There were also times when I had the pleasure of being invited to spend NY's eve with friends and what not. I was OK with that too. But to be honest, my idea of a perfect NY's eve is watching fireworks. I love fireworks! The reason is pretty simple. Chemistry + ...