Category: Uncategorized

searching eyes

We all need someone to look at us. We can be divided into four categories according to the kind of look we wish to live under.


The first category longs for the look of the infinite number of anonymous eyes, in other words, for the look of the public. That is the case with the German singer, the American actress, and even the tall, stooped editor with the big chin. He was accustomed to his readers, and when one day the Russians banned his newspaper, he had the feeling that the atmosphere was a hundred times thinner. Nothing could replace the look of unknown eyes. He thought he would suffocate. Then one day he realized that he was being constantly followed, bugged, and surreptitiously photographed in the street. Suddenly he had anonymous eyes on him and he could breathe again! He began making theatrical speeches to the microphones in his wall. In the police, he had found his lost public.

The second category is made up of people who have a vital need to be looked at many known eyes. They are the tireless hosts of cocktail parties and dinner. They are happier than the people in the first category, who, when they lose their public, have the feeling that the lights have gone out of the room of their lives. This happens to nearly all of them sooner or later. People in the second category, on the other hand, can always come up with the eyes they need. Marie-Claude and her daughter belong in the second category.

Then there is the third category, the category of people who need to be constantly before the eyes of the person love. Their situation is as dangerous as the situation of people in the first category. One day the eyes of their beloved will close, and the room will go dark. Tereza and Tomas belong in the third category.

And finally there is a fourth category, the rarest, the category of people who live in the imaginary eyes of those who are not present. They are the dreamers. Franz, for example. He traveled to the borders of Cambodia only for Sabina. As the bus bumped along the Thai road, he could see her eyes fixed on him in a long stare.

Tomas’s son belong in the same category. Let me call him Simon. (He will glad to have a Biblical name, like his father’s). The eyes he longed for were Tomas’. As a result of his embroilment in the petition campaign, he was expelled from the university. The girl he had been going out with was the niece of a village priest. He married her, became a tractor driver on a collective farm, a practicing Catholic, and a father. When he learned that Tomas, too, was living in the country, he was thrilled: fate had made their lives symmetrical! This encouraged him to write Tomas a letter. He did not ask him to write back.

He only wanted him to focus his eyes on his life.

strange steps

a year gone unrecorded, or better yet, lived rather elusively, gone, buried between a heap of oof other memories, images so vivid, they bear no real significance, but kept none the less. what’s the use then? a buzz of this and that, events you hold so dearly, routine routine routine, a walk in the park, lectures more lectures, adding up and down, trashing crashing into your brain, a flood of things, clogging, freezing, clotting, leading everything to burst out in the open field and you go aaaaaah. what’s it gonna be then, eh.

she speaks again of her escape fantasy. alone, with a heap of cash, a backpack, no id, no phone, no nothing, a book, a notebook, a pen, your favourite music; across the country. be rid of everyone you ever known. incognito. on the road. the search for the self. watching all sorts of people doing different things, believing different things, having different upbringings. watching life . or go up caves and live in solitude. i said, go watch into the wild. look what happened in the end. tragic. she said, what’s the point of reading, watching, admiring all those things, and dream about it day and night but never go attempt it yerself. i said, courage, dude. i very nearly tried it but failed. failed. failed. needs no repeating. better preparation. busy. busy. college bound now eh. aaah youth. silly hopes you got there, buddy. grow up dude. she said how pathetic. mountains of reasons. he would’ve done it. and leaves us accordingly.
okay.
someday, perhaps.

shiver stop shivering

I’ve a runny nose now. And boy it sucks. It’s been raining rather heavily these days. Chilly night breeze. Like, super chilly. It’s all okay every now and then, but with six hours in air conditioning non-stop during classes, you kinda wish for the opposite. I oppose air conditioning during learning hours. Or for any condition, for that matter. . But whatever; I’ve a flu now and bound to be feverish for the next couple of days, and this against loads of homework to do, and it’s kinda… ugh, stressful. I hate using that word, so no, it’s kinda… troublesome. leceh.

Speaking of academics, there has been a lot of laments and complaints from the lecturers about our uh, marks for last phase tests (or mid-terms), the one we had to sit before the raya holidays. I, for my own part , did rather, shitty-ly, but whatever. The thing is, compared to last semester, where everything is rather easy, this semester seems a bit of a… hassle. More homeworks, more strictly by the book lecturers, more elaborate lab reports. Perhaps, things haven’t changed much; only a few subjects bother us gravely,
But these lecturers, have great expectations towards us, us being “Transfer Degree Students”, the ones who are “gonna fly overseas”, “the selected ones”, “the best from the best”, “dipilih dari result Trial SPM” or that kinda bullshit . Henceforth they expect us to exceed all expectations and have excellent results. Or kalau ini OWL dalam Harry Potter, kau kena dapat O untuk Outstanding. Dah la bagi soalan extra susah, bagi “prepare untuk dunia luar. kat sana, lagi susah”. Macam babi, kan?
The thing is, and the truth about the difference between the secondary education and tertiary education, is that at the university level (i think), you require good studying ethics. Good SPM results doesn’t exactly translates to good working ethics. In school, things are spoonfed, 100% information comes from the teacher himself. Kalau tak pun, ada nota atau buku teks. You don’t need to go to classes or do buku latihan. Kau tak perlu sangat bertungkus lumus nak dapat result gempak. Effortless bebeh. Contoh terbaik semestinya aku. Tapi ini cerita lain.
Hey, but enter undergraduate studies, things are far different, in terms of dependence on learning materials and lectures. There’s homework to be done, little researches and cross referencing between different books and all that pile. Banyak masa kena spend nak buat homework, cause it’s worth a certain percentage. Kuiz gila babi banyak dan sering tak kena masa. Hei, takde life doh. They say, cara belajar kat MRSM macam belajar kat Universiti nanti. Tipu sungguh.
So yeah, bila kena bebel, now everyone is pulling their act together, insaf sikit, and start poring over books. Burning the midnight oil. Pay more attention to classes. Kurang tengok movie. Degree agak leceh, ye, rakan-rakan. Boleh buat kamu gila sebentar. Jadi, jangan main-main. Betul tak, Faiqah?
The thing is, I don’t own a single book relating to anything learnt here. Because they’re heavy and inconvenient. Then go borrow la, kan? Well I hate not being able to scribble in them books. So yeah, I’m lazy and don’t know much, and don’t have a clue about what I’m learning.
Plus, I’m kinda sick. Plus, I never wanted to pursue a higher education in the first place. Credentials, job stability my ass. Dostoevsky once said (wrote), that if he can to be anything he wanted to, he wanted to be a lazy man. Free, unattached. So yeah, I want to be lazy. Macam El duderino. I’d take comfort in that. So yeah, I’m compaining here, do ignore me.
Kerja buang masa.
title dari sini. red confetti and chasing. wooo.

shit happens

after a most agonising three hours trying to figure wtf is wrong with the computer, formatting, reinstalling, rebooting, i give up. what say you if you see the blue screen of the death every other minute. a beauty, isn’t she? inevitable as fuck.

in times like these i’ll usually throw a fit and start mumbling out quite useless incoherent epitaphs to the deceased one. and sing whatever words that seem to come out.
but whatever. i shall be a darling and study for the rest of the week, read whatever needs to be read, and write whatever that needs to be written.
shit happens. and it happens often.
atau kalau kamu kenal aku masa zaman ketahian masa form 5, aku akan cakap ini;
“tahi sungguh”.

kisah kecelakaan 5

Turun daripada kelas fizik petang tu, dalam lif, aku cakap;

“Malam ni aku nak makan Kuay Teow Goreng Basah”
“Apa? Ketiak Goreng Basah?”
Gelak ketawa.
**
Esok malam hari, aku makan benda yang sama. Lepas makan, aku basuh tangan. Masuk bilik, aku cakap kuat-kuat;
“Cis, tangan aku bau kuay teow weh”
Disambut dengan orang-orang “Eeee….”
“Huh? Bau kuay teow, bukan ketiak la weh”
Lagi diorang gelak sampai terhantuk kepala.
Celaka.
Memang masalah bila malas sebut betul-betul. Jadi bahan gelak orang.

stow them safe away, please

There hasn’t been much writing here, eh? All useless scraps of memories contorted and written that won’t make sense except to myself. And perhaps, to a few others. There is no greater pleasure than that. Perhaps, there is, but we won’t go into that.
I’m getting increasingly lazier to do things. No, it’s not that. Let’s rewrite that. I’m getting increasingly lazier at finishing things. Yes, that’s it. There’s too much stuff at hand, and too many things to let go. A much unsustained interest. Perhaps that would be it. Unable to complete things. Not liking the stuff you once like. I talk to myself. I’ve a friend named Tony. Yada yada. Textbook dsm iv depression weehee.
So you see, you can twist every single utterence into a symptom and pick whatever diagnosis matches best. Like you said, psuedoscience. Go do psychology, by all means, yeah. But don’t expect people to like you. Whatever noble cause you have of sincerely helping the unhealthy ‘broken’ people, keep it. Be Alyosha, pure kind and loving, Alyosha, listening to all the Ivans and Dmitris and Smerdyakovs in the world. Hah. Poyo sungguh. Tapi seriously, analytical>clinical, if you can choose. But then psychiatry is different from psychology. I dunno.
But whatever. I’m not the issue here. Not even you. Some girl around these parts is getting increasingly emo-er. Crying in the class. Getting avoidant and all. By occupying yourself with more important responsible stuff, you’re escaping from the responsibilty towards the self. What the hell, dude? But whatever. Better than to wallow in self pity and off to path destruction.
I’m not Sick Boy, downgrading your own struggle. I’m here to tell you something, and leave you off to whatever you want do next. Sometimes throwing a few stories or two. Old stories. But we mean no more damage. No more.
Heh, banyak gila reference. Maaf.

fluidity of things

his most awesomeness farish a noor, petang tadi, explaining the history of the malaysian flag and how it came to be, and how it could’ve been. extremely interesting. now, if only i had taken social sciences for my degree. *sigh* oh well, there’s always next time.
aku dah balik semula tempat ini, semalam, naik ke tingkat atas, sambil terdengar bunyi anak kucing, lima ekor kesemuanya (seekor dah mati), hitam dan putih, dengan mata yang separuh terbukak, mak kucing takde, dan membuat bising hingga keesokan paginya. yeh, tengah malam yang penuh bunyi hujan dan kucing serta guruh. worst of all, you’re alone. bapak shit.
esok petang sila datang dengar aku berucap pasal ‘adakah kita perlu ban kereta, atau kenderaan hak milik sendiri di bandar bandar sesak’, di “borak borak corner” (buruk gila nama) jam tiga petang. hah, gila fail nanti. i haven’t done a thing yet.
selamat malam (lagu tidur).

without meaning

so you really want to do this?

do what?
you know what.

yeah, i don’t know. probably. what’s it to you?
nothing.
oh really? then why bring it up in the first place?
just asking.
*silence*
but if you really wanna know, yeah, it’s a, definitely maybe, thing.
oh. go on, then.
just like that? you ain’t gonna say a thing?
i’d rather not. i’m not too good on goodbyes. or anything for that matter.
hmm, well, okay. take care.
aaaaarghhh sial.