I have a problem with people. I put too much faith in their goodness too easily.
You want to be hopeful that people are naturally inclined to be decent and honest people.
Because that's how we should all aim to be shouldn't it?
And yet...
And yet..
you come across people who just ..what can I say, yank that hope away from you. You can't help but feel that maybe this crap about keeping "hope" is futile.
Life is. ..full of shitty people whether we like it or not. we must just deal with it as best we can and hope we don't bring ourselves to those levels.
Wednesday, August 5, 2009
Friday, July 24, 2009
Back to school
Whew...
haven't seen this website for ages.. I guess I have been penning somewhere else..
I used to love to write. Even with my hideously crap grammar which I have recently realized is one of the many silly phobias I have. Probably why I only wrote for my own private viewing before ...kesian kesian.
Anyway, one my favorite haunts on the WWW is fanfiction.net. Thanks to JAG shipper - i found this site some 9 years ago. Do I feel like a loser because I ship TV/movie romance?No.. my thoughts and feelings are mine, so whatlah if I do..we all do silly stuff to entertain ourselves. This happens to be mine.
So anyway, ever since I saw Twilight ( Although to be quite honest I loved vampires eons ago with Lestat and the gang), i got hooked on the Cullen family. So baliklah to FF to get my weekly dose of TWI based FF stories. I tell you, there are so many talents out there... I've cried buckets and laughed so hard reading FF stories by 14 year olds, 30 years olds 50 year olds...
I'm a movie buff. I collect DVDs so i can watch them again and again...( Obsessive much?) SOme of the recent movies I recommend aside from Twi ( only cause Jasper is so smokin in that baseball scene..damn and Pattinson does Edward's sex hair sooo unbelievably well..sends shivers down you know where...lol) is the movimentary( is there such a word?) MILK ( Franco and Penn kissing you say? Oh God..I never thought I'd say this - because I'm straight and I avoided Brokeback Mtn for obvious reasons, sheesh..their liplocking scenes were *squee*-a-licious. I couldnt help but go aaahhh everytime they traded spit. Such is the power of penn hey? He was good there and so was Franco. Oh yes.. I musn't forget - franco's backside..totally worth my R45 ticket!! ), Vicky Cristina Barcelona.
Anyway, I'm digressing. I was talking about writing.
Yup, thx to Twilight, I have been visiting FF.net again as a reader, finding my angst, romance, dare I say it - smut *gasp!*, humor , friendship fix in the FF twi world.( some are so much better than the books..I should know, I read it in one go, and the books are part of the 'benda benda cantik' sitting on my bookshelf these days)
I feel compelled to cite this powerful quote below:
Words - so innocent and powerless as they are, as standing in a dictionary, how potent for good and evil they become in the hands of one who knows how to combine them. ~Nathaniel Hawthorne
Imagination put to words. That to me is where the power of written works lie. Watching a movie, you get the audio and visual input simultaneously. Not to say that movies made aren't great works of art themselves. They are. But written imagination is well simply magical. How with the tweaking of words put together in a sentence or a phrase, then a paragraph can evoke such 'real' emotions from the reader. Magic.
I was so blown away by this that I've gone back to school. Not literally.
I am back in writing class 106 with Mr Nama or maybe it was English form 5 with Cikgu Uzaimah.
flexing my writing fingers with my cheap BIC black pen and from time to time, the keyboard. Writing. and absolutely loving it.
Grammartical errors be damned. ( but I'm learning too! so not all is lost). So far I have written approximately 72 0000 words...and going strong, I think. I am sure Mr Nama would be proud, even if my text contains a lot of expletives. (wooops)
of course, it helps when you write about things you like...and i happen to like the very thing I am writing about..hehehehhe...nasib baik lah.
visit me : http://www.fanfiction.net/u/1972933/vampirelover44
signing off now,
vampirelover44.
haven't seen this website for ages.. I guess I have been penning somewhere else..
I used to love to write. Even with my hideously crap grammar which I have recently realized is one of the many silly phobias I have. Probably why I only wrote for my own private viewing before ...kesian kesian.
Anyway, one my favorite haunts on the WWW is fanfiction.net. Thanks to JAG shipper - i found this site some 9 years ago. Do I feel like a loser because I ship TV/movie romance?No.. my thoughts and feelings are mine, so whatlah if I do..we all do silly stuff to entertain ourselves. This happens to be mine.
So anyway, ever since I saw Twilight ( Although to be quite honest I loved vampires eons ago with Lestat and the gang), i got hooked on the Cullen family. So baliklah to FF to get my weekly dose of TWI based FF stories. I tell you, there are so many talents out there... I've cried buckets and laughed so hard reading FF stories by 14 year olds, 30 years olds 50 year olds...
I'm a movie buff. I collect DVDs so i can watch them again and again...( Obsessive much?) SOme of the recent movies I recommend aside from Twi ( only cause Jasper is so smokin in that baseball scene..damn and Pattinson does Edward's sex hair sooo unbelievably well..sends shivers down you know where...lol) is the movimentary( is there such a word?) MILK ( Franco and Penn kissing you say? Oh God..I never thought I'd say this - because I'm straight and I avoided Brokeback Mtn for obvious reasons, sheesh..their liplocking scenes were *squee*-a-licious. I couldnt help but go aaahhh everytime they traded spit. Such is the power of penn hey? He was good there and so was Franco. Oh yes.. I musn't forget - franco's backside..totally worth my R45 ticket!! ), Vicky Cristina Barcelona.
Anyway, I'm digressing. I was talking about writing.
Yup, thx to Twilight, I have been visiting FF.net again as a reader, finding my angst, romance, dare I say it - smut *gasp!*, humor , friendship fix in the FF twi world.( some are so much better than the books..I should know, I read it in one go, and the books are part of the 'benda benda cantik' sitting on my bookshelf these days)
I feel compelled to cite this powerful quote below:
Words - so innocent and powerless as they are, as standing in a dictionary, how potent for good and evil they become in the hands of one who knows how to combine them. ~Nathaniel Hawthorne
Imagination put to words. That to me is where the power of written works lie. Watching a movie, you get the audio and visual input simultaneously. Not to say that movies made aren't great works of art themselves. They are. But written imagination is well simply magical. How with the tweaking of words put together in a sentence or a phrase, then a paragraph can evoke such 'real' emotions from the reader. Magic.
I was so blown away by this that I've gone back to school. Not literally.
I am back in writing class 106 with Mr Nama or maybe it was English form 5 with Cikgu Uzaimah.
flexing my writing fingers with my cheap BIC black pen and from time to time, the keyboard. Writing. and absolutely loving it.
Grammartical errors be damned. ( but I'm learning too! so not all is lost). So far I have written approximately 72 0000 words...and going strong, I think. I am sure Mr Nama would be proud, even if my text contains a lot of expletives. (wooops)
of course, it helps when you write about things you like...and i happen to like the very thing I am writing about..hehehehhe...nasib baik lah.
visit me : http://www.fanfiction.net/u/1972933/vampirelover44
signing off now,
vampirelover44.
Monday, March 16, 2009
Reality check.
I went for a test today.
I was pretty sure what the result would be, but it was a nerve wracking 15 minutes nevertheless.
Which goes to say that being 90% or even 99% sure about your partner's status based on what she or he says isn't proof enough.
I was lectured by a concerned but good friend yesterday for taking someone's word of their status as gold. Stupid, I know.
Never. Again.
We have to appreciate the health given to us.
It means taking the precautionary actions. Always be 100% sure.
I was pretty sure what the result would be, but it was a nerve wracking 15 minutes nevertheless.
Which goes to say that being 90% or even 99% sure about your partner's status based on what she or he says isn't proof enough.
I was lectured by a concerned but good friend yesterday for taking someone's word of their status as gold. Stupid, I know.
Never. Again.
We have to appreciate the health given to us.
It means taking the precautionary actions. Always be 100% sure.
Tuesday, February 24, 2009
Baby sold for pittance
The AFP reported that an indian women who had recently given birth to a baby sold said baby to a childless couple to pay for her hospital bill. It was further reported that she received a grand total of 6000 rupees ( about USD120 = ZAR1200) in the exchange. A pittance.
Apparently baby trading is on the rise in poverty stricken India. This is just one of the many social ills - or trends if you will, inflicting this godforsaken country. It seems ironic to see how India's society is falling apart in so many ways, when one considers the fact that the plains of Mohenjo Daro and Harrapa once supported one of the oldest human civilizations in history.
Who do we blame for this? do we blame the mother for her lack of morality for selling her own flesh and blood for money? or do we blame the hospital for forcing a poverty stricken mother to pay for fees she cannot even afford? Maybe we should point the fingers at the couple who were party to the exchange - even though the baby might now have a chance at living a better life?
In today's world where money is the ticket to surviving the modern world - the thousands and millions who are without are left to fend for themselves by whatever means necessary. This means selling babies, selling body parts, killing people, maiming children, kidnapping young girls and putting them in the flesh trade...Put this way, it paints a very scary prospect for the future. When money becomes the singular currency by which society measure their quality of life, ........moral values or decency might cease to exist.
All of us that work for somebody or something.. we are dependent on money to live. We have been brainwashed to believe that the more money we have, the better our quality of life will be. Its not so far fetched to think of this because every month we have bills to pay for what we consider as "basic necessity" - i.e house to live in, car to drive from one point to another, cellphones by which we communicate with others, ADSL to be connected with the world, food to eat. etc etc.. its like a neverending need for more money..a downward spiral to more and more dependencies on a piece of paper.
which brings me to my point - if you have a means to reduce your dependency to the green/red/purple/blue paper - do it. If you have arable land, don't waste it - till it and grow your own food. Barter skills when you can - "I fix your roof, you fix my toilet"...that kind of thing.
A little bit of consciousness/awareness when collectively put - can make a huge difference. Don't you think?
link to feature: http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5hbq93uNbFurrROW6KeyJaKVa1i0Q
Apparently baby trading is on the rise in poverty stricken India. This is just one of the many social ills - or trends if you will, inflicting this godforsaken country. It seems ironic to see how India's society is falling apart in so many ways, when one considers the fact that the plains of Mohenjo Daro and Harrapa once supported one of the oldest human civilizations in history.
Who do we blame for this? do we blame the mother for her lack of morality for selling her own flesh and blood for money? or do we blame the hospital for forcing a poverty stricken mother to pay for fees she cannot even afford? Maybe we should point the fingers at the couple who were party to the exchange - even though the baby might now have a chance at living a better life?
In today's world where money is the ticket to surviving the modern world - the thousands and millions who are without are left to fend for themselves by whatever means necessary. This means selling babies, selling body parts, killing people, maiming children, kidnapping young girls and putting them in the flesh trade...Put this way, it paints a very scary prospect for the future. When money becomes the singular currency by which society measure their quality of life, ........moral values or decency might cease to exist.
All of us that work for somebody or something.. we are dependent on money to live. We have been brainwashed to believe that the more money we have, the better our quality of life will be. Its not so far fetched to think of this because every month we have bills to pay for what we consider as "basic necessity" - i.e house to live in, car to drive from one point to another, cellphones by which we communicate with others, ADSL to be connected with the world, food to eat. etc etc.. its like a neverending need for more money..a downward spiral to more and more dependencies on a piece of paper.
which brings me to my point - if you have a means to reduce your dependency to the green/red/purple/blue paper - do it. If you have arable land, don't waste it - till it and grow your own food. Barter skills when you can - "I fix your roof, you fix my toilet"...that kind of thing.
A little bit of consciousness/awareness when collectively put - can make a huge difference. Don't you think?
link to feature: http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5hbq93uNbFurrROW6KeyJaKVa1i0Q
Friday, February 13, 2009
Breathing new life into the old
The other day, I was listening to one of Sepultura's singles.( W%^&#$G?! Joche..you?) I know.... this heavy metal group is definitely not one for my ear or heart for that matter, but this album is not too bad....because it has elements of tribal music in there that I like.
Maybe it's the tribe in me, you know how the saying goes ~ you can take the girl out of the kampung but not the kampung out of the girl. Educated I may be( ahem!), far as I may be away from all things familiar ~ I will always belong to those violent tribes of "headhunting, spirit appeasing people of Borneo". (It's cool what!)
Anyway, so there I was listening to the native Indians 'hahaa-ing and hoho-ing' with the guitar riffs and drum beats of the band in one of the tracks and it made me think of the bobohizan chants. How awesome would it be to incorporate this "mystical albeit somewhat eerie" sound into contemporary music?
I know, I know..ATAMA has already done it, and he's hasnt done done a bad job either - but really, can you expect the majority of people to take hiphop that seriously? er...No...
Honestly, I'm thinking a more serious genre of music - one with a wider reach.
( yessslaiik it.. mencari nahas budak ni..)
That said though, I have to credit the likes of local musicians like him (ATAMA) and Kan'id ( of Sarawak) who have taken our ancient, folk music and breathed new life into it. Yes, some may see it as a sign of disrespect as these traditional sounds/tunes have deep/esoteric meaning attached to them and isn't just a play of words that one can simply 'hiphop-tise' as it were. But in another perspective, by incorporating these ancient tunes into contemporary music as they have done, it serves to remind others - us natives really, of the threat of extinction to our language, and thus culture.
As a child, my mother told me that I must conquer English foremost and I spent many a times watching Sesame Street as a kid to achieve this. She wasn't necessarily wrong, but the mistake lies in the fact that no one impressed upon me or my siblings the importance of mastering our mother tongue as well. I believe Kadazan is one of those endangered languages of the world. And when you think that the preservation of a lot culture (and this is true to the Kadazans of Borneo as we do not have our own writing system) depend heavily on the existence of our mother tongue - it is most sad to think that if we do not actively promote the preservation and continued use of our language, one day the Kadazans of Borneo will be akin to the the Yetis of Himalaya - a myth.
"The 2003 Convention recognizes the vital role of language in the expression and transmission of living heritage. All intangible cultural heritage domains – from knowledge about the universe to rituals, performing arts to handicrafts – depend on language for their day-to-day practice and inter-generational transmission. In the domain of oral traditions and expressions, language is not only a vehicle of intangible heritage, it is their very essence. " ~ UNESCO
Maybe it's the tribe in me, you know how the saying goes ~ you can take the girl out of the kampung but not the kampung out of the girl. Educated I may be( ahem!), far as I may be away from all things familiar ~ I will always belong to those violent tribes of "headhunting, spirit appeasing people of Borneo". (It's cool what!)
Anyway, so there I was listening to the native Indians 'hahaa-ing and hoho-ing' with the guitar riffs and drum beats of the band in one of the tracks and it made me think of the bobohizan chants. How awesome would it be to incorporate this "mystical albeit somewhat eerie" sound into contemporary music?
I know, I know..ATAMA has already done it, and he's hasnt done done a bad job either - but really, can you expect the majority of people to take hiphop that seriously? er...No...
Honestly, I'm thinking a more serious genre of music - one with a wider reach.
( yessslaiik it.. mencari nahas budak ni..)
That said though, I have to credit the likes of local musicians like him (ATAMA) and Kan'id ( of Sarawak) who have taken our ancient, folk music and breathed new life into it. Yes, some may see it as a sign of disrespect as these traditional sounds/tunes have deep/esoteric meaning attached to them and isn't just a play of words that one can simply 'hiphop-tise' as it were. But in another perspective, by incorporating these ancient tunes into contemporary music as they have done, it serves to remind others - us natives really, of the threat of extinction to our language, and thus culture.
As a child, my mother told me that I must conquer English foremost and I spent many a times watching Sesame Street as a kid to achieve this. She wasn't necessarily wrong, but the mistake lies in the fact that no one impressed upon me or my siblings the importance of mastering our mother tongue as well. I believe Kadazan is one of those endangered languages of the world. And when you think that the preservation of a lot culture (and this is true to the Kadazans of Borneo as we do not have our own writing system) depend heavily on the existence of our mother tongue - it is most sad to think that if we do not actively promote the preservation and continued use of our language, one day the Kadazans of Borneo will be akin to the the Yetis of Himalaya - a myth.
"The 2003 Convention recognizes the vital role of language in the expression and transmission of living heritage. All intangible cultural heritage domains – from knowledge about the universe to rituals, performing arts to handicrafts – depend on language for their day-to-day practice and inter-generational transmission. In the domain of oral traditions and expressions, language is not only a vehicle of intangible heritage, it is their very essence. " ~ UNESCO
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