Songs and Happenings

ever listen to certain songs n be reminded of things that happened which can b related to them? like usually when a boy-band song comes on the radio, we'll b reminded ov the late 90s? ahah..
here r some songs that reminded me of certain happenings, be it a happy, sad, or just a memory:
"stay" by lisa loeb - one rainy nyte when i was in 3rd grade n my brothers n sisters all gathered
in my room, trying to transcribe the lyrics to that song (dont ask me why)
"what i've done" by linkin park - idan n me in the car, back from melaka n caught in a
fairly stupid traffic jam bcoz of jomheboh
"hysteria" by muse - my roommates in KMS...bcoz we swore to secrecy, i cannot write down
the events of this song...huhuhu
"how to save a life" by the fray - NAP 2007...the best month spent with u guys...(also "berdua
lebih baik" by acha)
"mungkin nanti" by peterpan - terminal 1. him. enuf said.

u noe wat? im not gud at this.
i'l continue when im feelin a bit better.
hehe.
~peace~

from a fren called denot

bored?

"Hari Raya Machang"

"David Blaine (parody)" Pt 1

"David Blaine (parody)" Pt 2

thank u denot for these wonderful funny sengal videos~
(that is his guitar btw...maybe he'd like 2 remain anonymous rite now...
any comments sile rujuk kpd dia..huhu)

Candid Camera

It's not really candid, we were setting up for it actually.

A few days before Raya, we went back to our kampung to make rendang and help out a bit. While we were having fun playing with fire, I realized the setting is perfect to go with the story I wrote. So, my sister and I located Grandma's mortar & pestle, pretended to pound something in it (it's empty! pandai x kitorang belakon), pulled a dulang of coconut shells into view (the shells are used to build the rendang's fire) and searched for the nicest angle for the picture. After setting the camera to black & white and made a few shots in sepia, I settled on this one for my story.

Worth the effort. I really like it.

^_^

Putting Shoes On. sdrawkcaB.

Different cultures make impacts everywhere.


I'm not talking about our own multi-racial nation which results in many cultural jokes/views/manners/etc everyday, I'm talking about transoceanic cultures.
My roommate is a Japanese girl. She came to USM for a month last February with a group of her Uni-mates for Program Intensif Bahasa dan Budaya Melayu, an annual program organized by Pusat Bahasa USM. We started being friends there, and now she came back here starting September to study intensive English. With a bit of effort here and there, we succeeded in becoming roommates. We overcame the language barrier easily, as she's a fast learner and have a fairly good command of the English language, and I learned Japanese language as my minor. And so, we lived happily ever after.

Until one day, I came back from class and found out something amiss at the front door. It took
me a while to realize all our shoes and slippers are arranged backwards, with the backs pointing towards the door. I grinned to myself as I suddenly remembered that Japanese culture requires
you to arrange your shoes that way, whenever you enter a room/house.

Since that day, I began paying attention to our different cultures and habits, such as Mari-chan likes to shower right before bedtime (which I now have followed) and the way she uses a knife (which always points the blade inwards, towards the user) and other seemingly trivial stuff but amuses me nonetheless.

Above all, we're still great friends, and this proves that you don't have to be the same to get along. We celebrate our differences, and that's what glues us together.

~iLiE-chan~

bloopers!

You know, some people have been asking me what is the meaning of Sofia @ Piah's last line in

my story. Well. When readers don't get what you mean, that's one of the first signs of a

terrrrible writer. Hmm...forgive me, saye budak baru belajar~~


So here goes. The line "Opah, it seems like we can't have one without the other,"

refers back to Opah's dialogue when she said "I don't have to have another appliance when I

already have one."


Obviously, it also refers to the fact that you can't use the mortar without the pestle, and you

can't use the blender without electricity, hence the title of my story (I changed it banyak

kali..huhu...finally I used Alia's idea...u came up with a gud one, thanx so much bebeh~)


And, it also means that Sofia can't be what she is today (beautiful, sophisticated, etc) without her

grandmother, be it biologically or sebab Opah dia yang didik dia dari kecik...so that's the

meaning of "you can't have one without the other" according to what I wrote.


Okay, so other bloopers. Why didn't anyone realize I made this mistake? I said Opah was

"rushing to the window" and Sofia followed her, so after that, at the end of the story, I said

"Opah led me inside"...hello?? they ARE inside! hahaa! I know I can make a lot of mistakes but

nobody realizes that, huh? (Except maybe for my Creative Writing lecturer...he can spot a

misspelled word from miles away...let alone a huge mistake like this).


Okay, so I hope everyone enjoyed the story. I promise I'll have many more and I hope I'll

improve my creative writing skills by doing so.


Thanx for all the support!

1st draft, full! Finally!

Blender, Mortar, and Pestle
by Suhaili bt Khalidi

“And her family has all these modern kitchen appliances, you know,” I said loudly, hoping my grandmother would hear. “She never even has to do much in the kitchen, except pouring herself a glass of water.” My younger cousins sat there gawking at me, transfixed by my story about life in the city. “I bet she never even touched a kitchen knife before.” I finished, while slicing onions from a great distance to avoid making my eyes water.

“What are you prattling on about, Piah…have you finished slicing those onions? Hmm…slice them thinner, will you?” My grandmother said, bustling around with big pots and pans that clanged noisily against each other.

“It’s not Piah, it’s Sofia. She still hasn’t got that right,” I muttered, looking down at what I thought was finely sliced onions. To make them thinner, I would need a paper shredder rather than this blunt, wooden-handled knife. I sighed in frustration.

“Opah, don’t you have machines to do all these?” I asked, standing up and stretching. It felt like hours sitting on the cold, hard, cement floor of my grandmother’s old house.

“What machines? This is how I cook since I was your age,” Opah said, her head still buried in the cupboard, searching for something. Finally, she extracted a funny-looking wooden contraption with a star-shaped blade pointing out on one end. She began taking half a coconut and started grating it on the blade.

I looked closely at Opah and imagined what she looked like when she was my age. I tried picturing a younger version of her in one of my outfits. Somehow, the baby-Ts and capri pants refused to take shape and kept being replaced by faded, flower-print baju kurung Kedah and sarong, which suits her better. I focused on her gray, brittle hair pulled tightly into a messy bun. A few tendrils have escaped and framed her wrinkled face. A long time ago, her hair must have been black and sleek, decorated with ribbons and flowers. I touched my own shoulder-length straight hair, adorned with shiny butterfly clips that never failed to attract attention.

The sharp scent of onions is getting to me, so I moved further away from them and sat next to my grandmother.

“Opah, what are you doing?” I asked, as I have never seen anything like it before.

“Grating coconuts. To make santan,” she answered matter-of-factly.

Puzzled, I blurted out, “But…isn’t santan in liquid form?”

Pausing mid-grate, she mumbled something that sounded like “ignorant city-folks” and explained in a condescending tone, “You get santan by adding water to these grated coconuts and squeezing the juice out of them,” she punctuated her words with a final grate and then wipes her hands on her sarong.

Reaching for a mortar, she begins to put in a few chunks of the onions I abandoned and crushes them repeatedly with a pestle. Her face was frowned in determination as she works on getting the pieces crushed just right. I am perplexed by this act of hard work when it could have been effortless. My eyes fell on a blender sitting on top of a wooden cabinet.

“Opah, why don’t you use the blender? It will make things easier,” I offered.

“It won’t come out right,” she replied without looking up.

I scoffed quietly. It doesn’t make any difference to me, I thought. So I took the blender and after washing it, placed a handful of onions inside. Plugging it in, I turned the blender on full blast and it made a loud clanking noise. Oops. I forgot to put in some water. I filled some water from the big kettle on the stove and switched it on again. When I’m done, I got something which resembles a runny tomato puree, so I dumped the whole thing into the sink and repeated the processes again. This time, when I switched it on the blender gives a funny whirring sound, a splutter, and stopped mid-blend. I switched on the power again but nothing happened. Above us, the ceiling fan spun slowly to a stop.

“Oh, the power is out again. Erfan, will you go turn the main switch on?” my grandmother shouted in the direction of the living room. Continuing her onion-crushing, the clanging contacts of the pestle with the mortar seem to mock me with every sound.

She gives me a fleeting look and tries to hide a growing grin on her face. Sometimes I think she is even more childish than I am. She continues to bang away on her ‘traditional blender’ and begins her usual Opah-nagging mode:
“You see, that’s what happens when you belittle your elderly. I don’t need blenders; I’m doing fine just with my trusty old mortar and pestle. I don’t have to have another appliance when I already have one. People nowadays are very lazy and easily dissatisfied,”

Before she can go on and on, I wandered silently out of the kitchen into the spacious living room. The wooden floorboards creaked with every step I take. Outside the old-fashioned window half obscured by hand-tailored curtains, I can see my younger cousins who have escaped outdoors climbing trees and throwing pebbles into a pond. Their laughter rang out among the cricket chirps of the afternoon.

The 19” television set sitting in the corner of my grandmother’s scarcely furnished living room seems so out of place, almost as if it’s unhappy living in a house that lacks technology. Pak Ngah Amid bought the television for Opah two months ago, and judging by the thick film of dust gathering on top of it, I’m sure it has never been used. I was searching for the remote control when I heard Opah yelling at the younger kids not to take her pestle. Pestle? Why would anyone want to take that heavy stone?

Opah rushed past me to the window and I joined her, just in time to see my mischievous cousins climbing the highest tree and throwing an oblong shaped stone with a round end into the pond. Opah’s pestle made the biggest splash, much to their amusement.

I craned my neck to steal a look into the kitchen, where I saw the mortar located among half-chopped onions – without the pestle. Lumps of ingredients are still in it, waiting to be crushed before being sautéed in the frying pan.
Hah! I thought, the perfect timing to take revenge!
I looked up at my grandmother to hit her with my best shot, only to find a frail-looking old woman with an expression similar to a child having her toy taken away.

The sarcastic remark died in my throat. Suddenly, I feel so guilty at not understanding what it is like for her, about not being able to bridge the gap between two very different generations. To make things better, I grinned and hugged my grandmother.

“Opah, it seems like we can’t have one without the other.”
She smiled back at me at the depth of my words and led me inside, presumably to let me show her how to use the blender.

(1179 words)

Consecutive Interpreting---Final Exam

10 minutes of torture: the most suitable description for it.

I had my final test for consecutive interpreting yesterday. Other students who don't take translation & interpreting don't know what it's like for us. I don't even know what it's like, when I first heard about this course. I used to think it's going to be easy, and I'll breeze through it. I mean, is it so hard to translate? Everyone can do it, right? WRONG. I can only say that right now, I know better.

People don't really understand why I'm so nervous about the test. Some even say it's easy. "What? 10 minutes only meh? Easy loh...Better that kind of test than writing2 one."

What they don't know is, in written tests, you are allowed to think. You are allowed to form thoughts in your head for more than 2 seconds. You are allowed to skip a question and come back to it later. You can even study for it!

For interpreting tests, my lecturer just gave mere keywords as clues: Bush, Blair, Ahmadinejad, Palestinian and Iraqi issues. There. We don't have textbooks. We never did. Try studying those, among the millions of information from the Net and newspapers and magazines. Entering the recording booth or exam room (torture chamber, we call it) we are immediately graded on professionalism (appearance [from head to toe], attire, manners [the way we sit]...body odours and bad breath are OUT, and we can't even cough or sneeze! Sometimes I felt like I cease breathing altogether). While interpreting, we are also graded on fluency (voice clarity, no "um.." and "uh..." fillers, no long pauses or hesitations, grammar) which means we have to listen to what they say, immediately after they finished about 2 or 3 sentences, convey the same message in the other language. And, we are graded on the content (whether we managed to get all the information given).

So...is it still an easy 10 minutes? You tell me.

je ne sais quoi, mon amis

Making friends.
Sounds easy, as if you can conjure your own friends out of thin air and mould them the way you want them to be. But of course it's not like that.
Throughout life, I made friends everywhere: at school, at home,summer camps... Sometimes it's easy, sometimes I am too shy or too choosy, but at the end of the day, I have this wonderful group of friends that I wouldn't trade for the world.

I have always wondered how friends are made. Not with sugar, spice, and everything nice, obviously. Maybe there's a certain je ne sais quoi about the person which made you click with them instantly, or gradually, depending on the situation.

I used to have this wonderful friend, whom I've known for a long time and we understand each other better than anyone else in this world. We were always together, which sometimes prevented me from hanging out with others for fear of my friend feeling neglected. We stayed together until the time comes for us to go our own separate ways. Never before have I felt sooo miserable at losing a friend, but nothing could be done. So for the past few months I learnt to accept it.

Tears of loss were replaced by joyous laughter when other friends, whom I've ignored all this while for the sake of my Numero Uno Amigo, came into my life and decided to stay. Wonderful times lie ahead with this new circle of friends, and I am grateful for this.

I've learnt that sometimes rubies are lost to make way for diamonds.

Peach Blossom Luck

Peach blossom luck is a story, which has "karma" written all over it.

I never thought it would end that way, although if i did think thoroughly,it does seem inevitable. "Dou fa wan", in Cantonese, means peach blossom luck. In other words, it's the playboy luck. In this story, Connie and her friend went to meet a fortune-teller to help her with a problem. Her husband cheated on her and wants to marry a younger woman. Distressed, Connie went to this fortune-teller who told her about her husband being born with the peach blossom luck. He also stated that her husband will have women coming and going in his life, but he will encounter serious relationship for three times. A desperate Connie wants this luck to change, implying that it's unfair for her husband to want to divorce her and remarry. The wise fortune-teller then delivered his line which made the perfect ending for this story: "Didn't your husband divorce his first wife to marry you?"

:) Although it is unfair for Connie, she was once in the same situation as the new woman is now. What goes around, comes around.

However, I have my own view of this situation. It IS unfair for the guy to be born with the dou fa wan, as he never experienced being heartbroken.

Well, maybe the tables will turn on him this time. Who knows? Karma has a funny way of sneaking up on you when you least expect it~~~

it's been a year!

What??
It's been approx. a year since I last posted anything here...
If it weren't for this Creative Writing class, maybe this blog will gather dust and be full of cobwebs...
(haha..tipulah tu)
So, It's time to type again. I promise I'll do a good job this time.
(to my friends-->blog ni mmg kne tulis ngan proper English, sbb utk klas English kan..huhu..bear with it, ok? jgn ngamuk lak~~)
So here we go...the re-launching of my blog site! Yeay

urs truly,
~~Suhaili~~