Friday, December 14, 2007

Surreal..

In 7 hours time, i will board my flight back to Malaysia.. It's been a wonderful ride and I would do it again if I had the chance :)

Selamat Tinggal, Sydney... for now :p

Sunday, December 09, 2007

And She's Good!



My dad listens to some of Los Zafiros' songs but I never did hear or know much about them. Just happened to google them today out of curiosity and found this video on youtube. This song is titled "Y Sabes Bien" and it's about a good girl (as the title suggests) who the guy is in love with. It's one of their biggest hits as at the peak of their success, they were Cuba's (or South America, in general) biggest chart topper next to The Beatles. I love the simple but sincere words they used in the songs. Kau berani buat harmony camni?? hahahaha


(To all the people who I've annoyed by sending them the link to the video, I'm "sorry" ;p)

Distressed

I've been thinking long and hard whether I should be writing about this issue. Someone told me that I shouldn't and I was very afraid myself that I do not have enough information or knowledge to talk about this but it keeps running through my mind despite me heavily teling myself not to think about it.

I cannot sit still and laugh at jokes when my nation is in distress. It's a ballooning issue and I have a strong feeling that it would not end soon. The most depressing part is that the both ethnic race (damn, we're all supposed to be just Malaysians) that are having this feud between them are parts of me. To think of it rationally, it shouldn't have been a racial issue. If one group comes forward with their petition, it should be something that the other groups should respect and try to understand why there is such a dissatisfaction within the nation. If a sibling complains to the mother/father, do we go and kick him in the head? If you do so, all I can say is that means you probably come from a family with troubles and not enough emotional support.

I was very disturbed with a few bulletins in my social network webpages written by Malays saying that they are racist and they are proud of that fact. Some wrote that the other races should go back to where they come from. If South Africa asks the Malays there to go back to their country, do you think it's fair? If Australia or United Kingdom asks the Malaysians there to go back to where they came from or Malaysians getting hassled all around the world for not belonging where they are despite having the expertise and knowledge to improve themselves, how would you feel? For all Malaysians, there is no home other than Malaysia. Stop telling people to go back where they came from because even you (in retrospect) might not belong where you said you do.

We're all in this together. Stop saying that you don't care because you should. This petition that came after another one by a separate ethnic movement about 7 years ago is an alarming sign. It is not enough to think of it as a phase because although some claims seemed pretty much far-fetched, others might have a strong case. Stop thinking that one is more superior than the others because honestly, we're no different from one another. The earth belongs to God and we were sent to govern it with harmony and equality. And we are obliged to do wholeheartedly regardless of our differences.

Saturday, December 08, 2007

Of Many Illusions

I was out with Durra, Fariza and Syada to Borders yesterday to do a little vital reading, accompanied with a cup of coffee to complete the mood. The posse read completely different things, I was tuned in to Rolling Stones and Blender (that features Jiggaman on the cover this month) the whole while, Fariza was very much into the gossip mags (gossip girls.. XOXO.. haha), Syada was attempting another book by a thai writer who wrote a book she has just finished reading and Durra was flipping through anything that was within reach. Owhh... yeah! I just realised that I have this annoying habit of laughing out loud and making remarks about the things I read.. Even worse, I constantly have the urge to share it with anyone who's willing (or not) to hear it. Will keep in mind to only say what I think when it's relevant and smart :p

After 2 hours, we decided to go back and it was about to rain heavily then. So in order to drift my mind away from the impending storm, I created this silly game of matching my friends to a certain celebrity.. It started in Borders actually when I saw Beyonce on a cover and told Fariza that I love Beyonce and would like to be her while Fariza wants to be Posh! So here is a list of a few nominations we came up with.. haha

Durra, Ana (and later at home, Nisa) decided that Fariza's character is like:
a) Julia Roberts
b) Jessica Simpson

Ana, Nisa and Fariza decided that Durra's character is like:
a) Reese Witherspoon
b) Reene Zelleweger

Nisa, Durra and Fariza decided that Ana's character is like:
a) Jennifer Lopez
b) Katie Holmes

Ana, Durra and Fariza decided that Nisa's character is like:
a) Oprah Winfrey
b) Queen Latifah

Durra, Ana, Nisa and Fariza decided that Syada's character is like:
a) Rosario Dawson
b) Anne Hathaway

Ana, Durra and Nisa decided that Tasha's character is like:
a) Delta Goodrem
b) Ellen Pompei

Yeah, that was how random the conversation was and how bored we all were.. I guess your friends are the best one after your mum to say who you are (are they?)..haha.

Thursday, December 06, 2007

5 Peratus

I've always been a fan of the hip hop genre and I often feel that the music is pure because they speak of what bothers them and why it does. I've grown to further loving the genre after I discovered that many of the rappers I listen to are Muslims. So you hear songs like "Allahu Akbar" by Brand Nubian and rappers having names like Rakim Allah. Other namely famous Muslim rappers would be Busta Rhymes, Mobb Depp and Nas. Fine, I thought I was listening to great and profound stuff while deepening my understanding about the beauty of my faith. i'm listening to another Muslim, I thought it would be alright.... right??

Boy, was I wrong... I've heard one of Wu Tang Clan's song (which I unfortunately can't remember) making a reference to the ignorant 85% but I didn't know anything about it and just bopped my head along to the beat. Apparently, I was indeed ignorant although I would strongly like to make a point that I'm not included in what Method Man was referring to. What he was talking about is the philosophy of the 5 Percenters Movement who call themselves Muslims but not the way Sunnis and Syiahs or even Sufis practices them. So, I decided to run a small research for my own awareness and probably yours too.

Ok, here's a quick run through of the movement. They're now known as The Nation of God and Earth which is a splinter from the Nation of Islam group and believe that black people are the true leaders of the world. They have a doctrine that believes black man can personify god through meditation and culture. For them, ALLAH is essentially an acronym of Arm, Leg, Leg, Arm, Head thus referring to the human body or self. They call themselves the 5 Percenters because there are 85% of the ignorant/blind population who are blinded by 10% of the knowing teachers who refuse to teach the 85% the real deal. Only the 5% gets the real philosophy of the world and they are the privileged ones. They memorise the Divine Alphabet and Supreme Mathematics which are popularised through rapping in the NY streets by the founder of the movement, Clarence 13X (also later calls himself Allah the Father)

They see themselves as god, so now you understand why a rapper usually has a bigger ego than all of the seven seas combined? This attitude can be hypothetically channelled through a historical connection between rap and this organisation who claims they are not a black supremacist movement. What worries me the most is that some kid out there is going to listen to these songs by rappers who claim that they are Muslims and be confused about the real teaching of Islam. I'm sensitive about saying what really constitutes the teachings of Islam but this is strictly out of the line. Islam is not a religion exclusively for black man, it's for everyone.

My ignorance has thankfully forced me to learn more and not to just nod my head to whatever I hear. It urges me to think about what I hear and to think before i emulate. I hope all of those who heart this genre would achieve an understanding about why there is such an egocentric and egoistical approach/attitude in the songs and comprehend the degree of its relativity to our practice as a Muslim, especially if you happen to make a career of it.


*just for the record, some members of the Roots are sunnis and Mos Def is a Sunni too :)*

Why Do We Forget?

Remember when we broke up the last time? We swore that we will stay away from love, swore that we will wait for that person to come knocking on our door to tell us that he/she has changed their way and finally realise that we were the one in the first place. Then in a few months, we find ourselves daydreaming about another person and all those promises to oneself seem to be blown away with the short time that went along?

Call me a cynic but judging from personal and some closest friends' experiences, I refuse to believe that a person will put a lost love ahead of themselves and devote their time to it, no matter how hard we tell ourselves to. I fanatically think that love is essential to life but I also think sanity and rationale is the fundamentals of life. Well, it might take some people years to fall out of love but to make a statement that "I will never love again" is going to be a-caught-in-the-spur-of-the-moment action that will haunt you, particularly when you start to feel some interest for another person. When this feeling blooms, it's such an embarassment to yourself and the people around you for saying all those things you've said when you were heart broken.

So, whenever you're caught in such adversity, stop telling yourself that this is the end because for all you know, it might be the beginning of a new life. Some people will have to go through a lot of pain to find happiness, some people find them in a single strike. Keep that in mind and get a grip of yourself so that the world and you can move forward.

p/s: no one loves a cry baby.

*this is a reflection of my current feelings despite feeling lost in love just a few months ago. It has nothing to do with any other poor sufferring souls out there*


Monday, December 03, 2007

Ceritera Cinta :)

Sampai hati nobody told me that Lah replaced Rio Febian to sing a duet with Jaclyn Victor in Separuh Akhir Muzik-Muzik 22 for Ceritera Cinta. I just happened to stumble upon the video on youtube today after about two weeks it was aired on TV3.

I liked it very much even if there are bits and pieces that might not be top quality stuff (2nd chorus was a bit here and there). The two final chorus and bridge was great!Jac strut her stuff but of course all of us can see that wasn't her 110%. Lah was exceptionally good too. I know some of you are smiling going, "Ana, you're biased." No, I'm not. I won't say Lah did a better job than Rio because that's not fair on either side as they need not be compared. This combination, however, did work quite well and I wonder if Lah is still going to sing the song in the finals (yes, they got through because this is, indeed, a composition that needs to be acknowledged)

All the best to Jaclyn Victor... We need you to win again :)

Sunday, December 02, 2007

Freaky Sunday

What a freaking coincidence?

How many times in life do you come across a person who has the same first name as you do, aged the same and taking up the same course which would necessarily mean that the both of you are going to share the same vocation in the near future??? Due to the cosmic strength of the Internet to find anything anywhere at anytime, I came across this person who shares all these criteria with me and also fancies writing as well as having her pictures taken (even if I personally prefer snapping my own pictures). Though, the difference between us might be that (I suspect) she is more musically gifted (the comparative “more” used there does not in any way indicate that I’m musically gifted by any nature at all :p)

Funny how much similarly different we can be in this world… hehe

Siapa Yuna?

Feel intrigued by the sounds of Yuna especially if you enjoy the likes of Corrine Bailey Rae, Norah Jones and bits of Colbie Caillat.. Sile, sile jamu selera ;)

Out Of the Box

I'm currently reading the collection of best short stories written by Franz Kafka and I'm strangely struggling very hard to keep up with it. I won't try to deny it, I seriously don't get him or his strange innuendoes of human flaws and falsehood in living. I feel choked by the way he clearly describes something yet his direct intentions remain unclear. I hate it that I have to make my own sense of everything and give every single incident my own personal understanding. But I think it might be that I'm just not used to the genre and subconsciously, I do not want to suit myself to it.

Some of my friends might know that I have this weird fascination over Indian and Chinese writers, especially of those living/had lived in Western countries. I seem to think that I can borrow their cap for a while and try to configure my thoughts according to theirs because we have the solidarity of coming from an Eastern country with all its mores and moral but realistically, it's a modern cut-throat world where these traditions cannot seem to survive. These dilemmas are something I think I can identify with even if I was just living in Malaysia because it encapsulates the possible ways I'm threatened to drive my life.

But the thing is that, usually these Eastern-Western clash is a potrayal of a real world where these writers somehow try to tell you how to function and how to act. They provide you with implicitly hidden solutions to life and I think I've been groomed to function in what is real and tangible that I find it very hard to accept the lessons immaculately postulated by the Metamorphosis of Kafka's Gregor Samsa or the Vampire Chronicles of Anne Rice's Lestat.

I wished that I was more open-minded and I wished that I can somehow tell myself to stop refraining to read the stories until they're finished. I guess education is going to be a lifelong process for me indeed and I hope to see the day that I will stop despising people for not writing the way I want them to... :p

The Shift

This past week has been a truly different vibe for the country with the change of government that has taken place on last Saturday. The ALP, under the leadership of Kevin Rudd has lived up to their promise by ratifying the Kyoto Protocol (yippe doo!), drawing up early plans of service withdrawals from Iraq and iniating proposals of scraping the IR Laws. Although the changes in the government policy is yet to be felt, it is quite clear that the Australian knew what they wanted and stuck with that opinion. The Ruddster was definitely a key point in ALP winning the elections because I believe that the former leader, Kim Beazley didn't have the appeal that Kev Sev had.. You can just understand that opinion just by seeing the nicknames he has. Rudd is a self-confessed dork and I can see why he appeals :)

The struggle of the Liberals to change came as swift as their loss to ALP last Saturday with the newly elected leader, Brendan Nelson among others stating his support for gay marriages (which has always been something Liberals has taken a stand against). I see this as a sudden and desperate, if I may use the word, attempt to show that Liberals are progressive and not mundanely conservative. Well, considering it is among the first statements made by someone who could have been the Prime Minister (if Howard and Costello weren't in the running), it signifies a certain importance and underlying message that the party is trying to deliver. Well, the fact that Nelson was chosen over Turnbull in the first place got me off my seats because Nelson was formerly a union leader strongly connected to the ALP (with snippets of video in the news showing him blazing into a microphone, shouting that he will never vote Liberals!). A perfect example of how politics is neither dogmatic nor sacred.

It's been a refreshing experience watching a real political transition (i think revolution is too strong of a word considering they always change their leaders when needed). Here, the promises for the election were concrete and absolute, they say what they want to change and how they want to change it and how much it would cost the nation. Back home, the promises are "untuk membina bangsa yang lebih berwawasan dan berjaya" or "untuk memantapkan ekonomi negara", vaguely described without any elaborations or the slightest hint of plans. Probably the only concrete thing we have is the posters and banners, which a political commentator in SMH easily laughed off as a reminiscent of Australia in the 1950s up to 1970s. Haha.. I let out a nervous laugh too when I realised how backwards the mentality is. Well, if it really is an election based on how many posters each contending party can put up, maybe we should just teach our kids how to count rather than how to crtically think.

Top 5 Holiday Destination

I keenly read the Traveller sections in SMH every weekend dreaming about where I want to go for holidays if I have the money. As expected, I change them every week depending on what is featured, so much so that I think I could live up to the philosophy that "The World Is Your Playground". If money is no object, I think I would like to visit one country (or a few regions) from each continent. I obviously have a lot of time in my hands so I have thought about each of this selection carefully ;p

North America: Probably want to visit Philadelphia and New York the most. Philadelphia for the spectacular grafitti and the respect that they give to the art. (Sometimes I wonder why don't we all appreciate it and see it as a healthy channel of expression but that's a whole different story). New York for the cultural setting and the opportunity to experience the hustle and bustle of a true city without the overpowering stench of glamourous life.

South America: Want to go to Brazil!!! Want to experience the magic of Rio de Janeiro and groove to the original jive of latin music, just imagining it makes me feel cool already (hahahaha!). Want to swim in the beautiful coastal beach at Sao Paulo, visit the Amazon and see the river with my own eyes..

Africa: I was divided between a few options but I ultimately decided that I should visit Zanzibar which used to be a part of Tanzania. I first came across Zanzibar on Amazing Race: All Star and was immediately fascinated by the charm of Zanzibar City. The city has a mixture of Africans, Arabs and Indians with a majority of them being Muslims. So food wouldn't be a problem. Zanzibar is considerably much more stable compared to their other neighbouring countries and boasts their beautiful, serene resorts as one of the most private and best in the world.

*muka berangan memikirkan percutian*

Europe: This is another tough call but I think first and foremost, I would like to visit France. It's just that the country seems to ooze sexiness and happiness that's almost unbelievable. It would be nice to visit the Disneyland there and try to lepak at the cafes, gobbling down every buttery pastry they have. I heard that they are racist and insensitive to the idea of religion but I also heard somewhere else that they are among the most tolerant people in the world. So it looks like I have to go there to judge for myself, eyh??

Asia: Would probably like to visit India first before I go to other places in the continent. In particular, I think it would be great to be able to visit the village in the Thirunevelli district of Tamilnadu where my grandfather came from about 60 years ago when he was only 15. My grandparents only went back once after that and my grandmother said that we were lucky that we were born in Malaysia but I won't go on with the details because it might be a bit sensitive. I also heard that visiting India is like visiting a whole continent by itself hence the Sub-continent nick that they have... It probably doesn't cost as much as visiting some other places and I'm also thrilled at the prospect of catching SRK live.. wohooo!

Australia: Been there, done that.. haha (amboi, sombong!)

Now, I'm tagging these people to know their favourite destination according to the 5 continents (or any islands In the South Pacific region)

1) Nina Yayang
2) Tasha Harun
3) Soya Chan
4) Cek Suhana
5) Alin Becks (walaupun kamu sibuk dgn assignment.. ekekeke)

Finally!

I've been haunted by another commercial jingle and have been singing the bits that's featured in it. The ad I'm talking about is the IPod Touch one where there's a girl singing "Music is my girlfriend, Music is my boyfriend, Music is my dead end and lalalalala". So out of curiosity I googled it today and found out after 3 weeks of constant singing that it's actually a full length song sung by a group called CSS entitled "Music Is My Hot, Hot Sex" (adik, takde tajuk lain ke???). But it is darn catchy and I love the cheekiness of the song. Macam comel dan boleh menari bersama clumsily with your friends... (nina, jom, jom! hahaha.)

Have A Watch!


*nak download lagu ni but terkejut pulak mummyku melihat lagu bertajuk begini dlm playlist anak dia.. haha*