Saturday 31 December 2011

Light

“You give me a reason to live”

The warmth radiated, the passion emanated, cascading like a waterfall from her skin, bring me to fear. You are so beautiful, are you meant for me? I’m just nobody in the world of everybody, a small speck, breathing only to exist. Just as the divine stars twinkling in the skies, you are better than a million princesses, and just like stars, you’re out of reach. You are here… when the truth, I’m not sure of how I could live with you beside.

Bury the Horses

And there he and they march
The drums beat even faster
Every world collides
And the demon just got out

Sole proclamation of death
Whispers through the air
Black tears of blood
Mortal shells incapable of the end

A whimsical hope
A hauntingly sweet lie to the mind
Heat coldly creeps to the bones
The day clear as dark

Horses come and garrison holds
Fleshy arms bleed by metal arms held
For slaves are nothing but to rule
The truth is all but deceit

Before long, his victory is
Gaining a mournful defeat
Let the worlds collides
Only the winner takes all

True reasons are his enemies
And now silence echoes loud
Faith to the fate
Trusted in threat

Wishing Ya'...

A Sweet, Blissful, And Exciting Year Ahead!

HAPPY NEW YEAR

Monday 19 December 2011

Hallyouuuuuuuuuuu~!


Kpop: one of those many facets of Hallyu that invades the shores of so many countries not just in Asia, but Africa, Europe, and the Americas. You can say the Korean Invasion started with that very series Winter Sonata. If you don’t know what Hallyu is, then let’s say you are not riding the waves.
So, what about Kpop? Kpop unites and divides people. Some people are avid supporters of the music and are willing to pay hundreds of Won… err… Ringgit, just to see their favourite idols. Others meanwhile belongs to the group of people who tries to steer away from the manufactured sounds of these Korean artists. Manufactured seem good enough word: three top Music Managements in that country seem to churn out more idols faster that you can see kimchi. Well, I belong to neither of the groups. I listen to Kpop music, and I have groups that I like [calling them idols is… err… not for me], but an over-the-top fan, I’m not. I like Jpop better.
Of course, I can’t deny their mass appeal. People love Korean groups, both male and females, and they are devoted to them that they know every single Korean words to the songs that they like, even if the fans really only understand a handful of Korean phrases – oppa, gamsa hamnida,and sarang haeyo being the typical ones. They love Kpop groups for their catchy, danceable, upbeat songs, or in many cases, for the cheery, bubbly songs, even if the people who sing the songs are 20 to 25-years-old males with Asian features. I find myself to love some of those songs. That’s the thing that makes Kpop, Kpop. Plus, their videos are always filled with all those slick dance moves, or mellow heartfelt performances. God knows how long they trained to get those grooves on – though you really should confess [especially the girls], you just want to ogle at their… err… physical attributes.
And that’s something that I think makes those Kpop groups likeable. Their… physical – attributes… [Okay, their bods…]. They work for it. That’s something that I really salute. Girls just can’t get enough of that hotness, can they? That’s determination. Meanwhile, some of the girls in the girl groups don’t really have that good of a voice [not that I have a good voice…], but they sure know how to strut and sashay their stuff on the dance floor. Just look at Girls’ Generation, or SNSD, or Shoujo Jidai, or SoShi, or just whatever that you want to call them… for all I know, you could call the group Stinky Tofus and those hungry Kpop fans would still come to their showcases… Now, back to SNSD, with too many faces in a group, I don’t even know who’s who, but they share one asset– legs… See? Of course, to think that they are grouped together just because of their legs would be something of a stretch... hey, why not show what you’ve got, right?
Talents?
Yes, you have to have talents to be in the entertainment business, and South Korea seems to be bursting with talented people. Just how many groupos appear in these few years? I only stick to those that I knew. Sometimes, many groups sound almost the same… their music are not that different, and of course, their faces… handsome or pretty, but I just can’t separate one from another. Only Kpop fans could recognize different groups. Some groups manage to at least distance themselves from the rest by being different – F.T. Island, for example, plays their own instrument [thanks, Amirah]. You know, people love groups, but there is a solo artist that I think is really talented. It’s a good thing too that she’s easy on the eyes [then again, they always are. Ask the girls]. She’s IU. I love her, and she shows growth over the years – from bubbly songs to more adult-oriented music.
So, I guess Kpop is here to stay.

Thursday 15 December 2011

Here's the Issue

JUST TO PUT THINGS INTO A PERSPECTIVE:

About 30 days until I reach this age:



21


I DON’T FEEL LIKE I’M IN MY TWENTIES!!!

Waiting

So, I was reading Berita Harian last Friday when I saw this:
You see, this is a letter sent by a Cohort 4 student. The C4 had graduated about eight months ago, but are still not posted anywhere. I’m not sure if this is a letter from Gaya’s C4 [my seniors] since C4 didn’t just exist in Gaya only – IPG Kota Bharu also had one before.

What the heck happens to MOE? I will be pissed off too if I am not posted anywhere after toiling for the past six years in my IPG and university. This is a waste of talents and teachers. Of course, some of them are now pursuing their Masters Programme. At least they have other things to do. How about for those who did not? The only way for them to kill time [and earn wages] is by doing other work.

I just hope their problem will be solved soon. I am hoping the same thing won’t happen to me after my class’ graduation… blahhh~

Tuesday 13 December 2011

Gladiator: Fight for Freedom

Gladiator: Fight for Freedom
This is the first book from the new Gladiator series by Simon Scarrow. If you are familiar with the word gladiator, then you will get the idea that the story is set during the Ancient Roman Empire.

The novel is basically about a young boy named Marcus Cornelius Primus. His family is thrown into hell [well, hypothetically speaking] – his father, a former centurion named Titus, is killed, while his mother, Livia, after a failed plan to get away from their captor is turned into a slave in a winery somewhere in Greece. Marcus, who manages to flee meanwhile embark on a quest to save his mother by finding a Roman army general in Rome as instructed by her mother. He leaves his Greek homeland with nothing the clothes that he wears by being a stowaway on a ship. Fate proves to have another plan for Marcus as a sailor aboard the ship notices him to illegally board it and a fight ensues. A man seeing Marcus capabilities to fight finally buys him so that he can be trained as a gladiator in his school. His life as a trainee gladiator now begins, but his hope of saving his mother is rapidly diminishing. Unknowingly, Marcus actually holds a secret that even he does not know, that secret that will threaten Marcus’ life… and with it, the very foundation of the Roman Empire.

Basically, the novel is a children’s novel, and I’m 20 going on 21. So, maybe most of adult novel readers will not find this story a great read. The language is simple enough – it is not the kind of language that you could read in novels like The Lost Symbol by Dan Brown, but that does not rob the excitement from reading it. I love the story because I love history. The novel really shows what it’s like to be enrolled and trained as a gladiator and the life during the Roman Empire as a whole. The characters are quite alright. Some proves to be fascinating, like the Athenians and the Spartan. A Celt who is the rival of Marcus is a good antagonist. Marcus being 10 years old during the course of this book is still developing. Perhaps more about him will be revealed on the second book. If you have a lot of free time, you could finish the novel in one setting.

The second book in the series, Street Fighter will be out on the next February.

Why I love 西野カナ




Why I love 西野カナ
Nishino Kana‘s cute
Nishino Kana‘s pretty
Nishino Kana’s Japanese
Nishino Kana sings beautifully
Nishino Kana’s songs are perfect
Nishino Kana always makes me smile
Nishino Kana’s my dream Japanese girlfriend
Nishino Kana has one of the best voices in Japan
Nishino Kana’s English and Engrish are pretty awesome
Nishino Kana’s albums always have the word ‘love’ as their title
Nishino Kana’s singles always have three full songs, no instrumentals
Nishino Kana always does her quirky fish lips in every single/album cover art

The Last Ink

We are losing something. In normal circumstances, these things seem to have infinitesimal importance to us. We don’t really care about them, but in the end, in a way or another, the disappearance of the seemingly innocuous aspects of life will have a profound effect on us. It is quite an irony because we do these things every day, and we take it for granted. The things are writing and reading.

Writing, we are rapidly losing our penchant of writing. At first glance it should feel absurd. Writing is the thing that we do every single day of our lives. We tweet each thing we’ve done, or say the things that cross our mind on the cyber wall… using our PC, or laptops, or smart phones. Some of us have blogs. In addition, we have forms to be filled, exercises, and other academic or non-academic stuff to write about – the main writing tool being the computer. Those are examples of what we call writing isn’t it? In a matter of speaking, ‘yes’ is the answer, but when we think of it traditionally, they are not. Each tweet has limited characters. The same goes to the comments and stuff in Facebook. We don’t write long materials anymore, and we don’t write manually much of the time.

I read an article in NST about this young 15 years old British traveller who visited Penang during its colonial heydays [at that time, there was no such thing as adolescence]. He gladly wrote a journal about the things he saw – the smell, the sights, the sounds, the life of the city. It is not a simple task to capture everything there, but this is the time when writing tells everything. The article didn’t really show the writings of the boy, but stated that the young traveller had brought to life the colourful and wonderful Penang’s colonial times with just ink and papers. You can’t beat that.

I think that is what writing is all about – getting the delights of living alive with just words. We couldn’t remember all the highlights of our lives, could we? Yes, we do take photos, but why rob the pleasures of writing away? We write shorter and shorter as time passes. We don’t know how to write well, let alone capturing the senses in our writings. Our essays are lifeless and bare.

Reading meanwhile is an acquired hobby. Why acquired when it is just a simple thing to do? The reason: many choose not to read. In this modern world, information and entertainment that you get from a book can come easily via the sprawling cyber web. Just a click and you have the things you want. Still, as with writing, reading things on your computer or your smart phones come with a catch [or two] – unlike the conventional method, reading with e-gadgets means that you are not engaging yourself with a higher level of comprehension and you will have an attention span that is short.

Besides, the novelty of the traditional book is something modern thingamajigs can never beat. Holding a real book gives you a feel of reality. Sometimes, you might even smell your book and heard yourself reading it out loud. Flipping a real book excites your senses, every page has new things. Imagine when you’re reading a novel, and you really, really want to know the event that happen to a character, or when you are trying to find an answer to your exercise in a text book. I think that is why books can be so engaging. They rouse our emotions in a way nothing else can.

In the lights of all modern conveniences all around us, we should not pretend that we are losing nothing.