Little Things 95 : Little Garden

I spent some time at Dad's last tuesday.

My dad loves plants and animals - the effort and time he spent to take care of them always leave me with odd feelings of both amaze and envy. He has an amazing nursery behind his house and another one in Dengkil. 

How can a person take a great care of plants and animals with so much love ? 

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I remember things he taught us about plants and gardening when we were much younger. Although we hated it at that time. The weekly activity spent at that time was the last thing we wanted to do on lazy Sunday morning. It was hot and sweaty, and I didn't find any reasons to agree on things he said - kids being kids. 

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I remember one particular moment when my dad let us choose any flower/fruit/veggie and plant the seed ourselves. I chose watermelon and every afternoon after school, I'll stop by to take a look before entering the house, to see if there were any improvements. It got bigger and bigger by days. When it was ready, Bibik helped me pick it up and cut it. It was halfway red and white, it was not so juicy nor sweet. But that was the most exciting fruit experience I've ever encounter in my life :D 

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Current books : Spiral & The Reader

It took me several rides to work to finish this book : Spiral by Koji Suzuki. The book is the continuation of the previous book I read several months ago : Ring *the Japanese horror movie. It's not really a good idea to write my thoughts on the book at 2 am in the morning but ah well -. 

Basically the horrifying parts of the story turned into more or less a paranormal fiction. The book told us more detail about the Sadako viruses, how it spread/mutated and such. There were a bit on research, medical jargons and codes decryption which aroused my curiosity and kept me entertained all the way. I dislike the ending but didn't mind reading the third book : Loop.

By half of the read, it changed to : mystery instead of horror. 

Anyhow, the writer's research on the topic he wrote about was impressive. 

He surely did his homework.

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I picked the book : The Reader by Bernhard Schlink, after considering reading some lighter book to find the reading mood back again. This is one of my favorite book *and even the movie by Kate Winslet. It is mainly a story about first love, illiteracy, the love for books, backgrounded with the Nazi-Jew huge unspoken issue. 

I remember crying after reading and watching the movie - I was touched by the pain it held in the story. In the book, it focused more on the pain dealt by the young character, about the lost of his first love, being left and met again after so long in court when she was accused of the mass murder *not quite. He found out about the woman's dark secret along the court's hearing process and chose to keep it hidden. The book was more on his personal thoughts and questions. 

Too much pain, 

I loved the book so much !

:F 

There's no need to talk, because the truth of what one says lies in what one does.

and I felt compelled by this quotation I read just now while waiting for the bus. I stated so many things in this life that I still haven't achieved. 

What are words without action? Only words.  

Update :

I finished reading the book in the train this morning. The last few chapters were so over-whelming I felt like crying T^T The writer wrote the story in the main character's personal thoughts and that way I felt closer to what he felt. The reading experience felt exactly like when I was reading The Time Traveller's Wife.  

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Current book :

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Little Things 94 : Eid Adha

I think posting pictures of cows about to be sacrificed for Eid as insensitive.

1) Insensitive because we are by fact, living in a multi-racial country and should be a little more aware of other races' belief. 

2) I really don't think we should snap a photo of soon-to-be-slaughtered animals. It makes us human seems a little bit barbaric - to be happy and excited over the death of others. 

I just don't see the point in that.

PS :

This post is written because of the overload pictures of cow in my Instagram feed since this morning. And I've been thinking about this since the vast use of social network in our lives. Salam Eid Adha. 

Little Things 93 : Observe little things

Capturing human in words is never easy, observing little intricate behavior and putting those up in lines like an artist's careful strokes on his artwork to tell certain details. 

Like how swiftly an old man's finger moves on a modern touch-screen smartphone, while reading his latest e-mail that pops-up. How lightly a middle-aged man's hand touches his forehead, easing his headache, his eyes are all empty and tired. How intense a young girl's look while reading a paperback fiction. How two young lovers smile's curve while standing across each other, giving eyes signal, channeling what's in their mind. 

I observe silently, scribbling lines of word in my head, to remember and to feel. At the same time I observe myself in such a way that I have a third eye beyond things in the moment, like reading my story from a book written by someone else.

I love observant people, as much as I aware of my observant attitude towards things, I am aware of other people's observant behavior, to what extent will the person notices things or how little does the person sees it, does the person holds on to those little things as much I do ? 

I also like how they tell stories on little things in French movies, or how the Japanese writers write fiction along with abundance of those things unseen by the norm or meeting a certain people with observing skill beyond things I see. 

This thing delights me. 

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It was Before

 

Yang pertama.

"Ya Allah, ya tuhanku. 

Kau tunjukkan aku jalan yang terbaik untuk diriku. 

Agar aku dapat menbuat keputusan, berdasarkan petunjukMu." 

Mimpi.

Hari yang panas, kita berjalan bersama di Cambodia. 

Bukan, bukan kau yang aku harapkan. 

Yang kedua.

Kalam ke 34 - Menyerah diri kepada Allah ketika berdepan dengan kesulitan.

Sakit.

I waited so patiently because I wanted to be with you. 

Despite the limited time and shared love. 

Waiting becomes so natural, 

I forgot I was in pain. 

In denial 

"Ya Allah, ya tuhanku. 

Benarkan aku memilih jalan yang lain. 

Bukan aku tidak percaya petunjukMu. 

Tapi izinkan aku memilih jalan yang lain. 

Mungkin bukan yang terbaik, tetapi yang baik sahaja pun cukuplah."

Little Stories 61 : New Jobs

After 3 months of hiatus from routined working life, as planned, by the 4th month, I'm back on track. The original plan was : help my mom with her exhibition and be at the gallery for the whole October, but there was a slight change of plan. I was called in for an interview on the first Oct by an international company, been called in for the second session of the interview a day later, and by the fifth day, I got the job as a part time designer in the company; which requires me to come to the office only after lunch. So half day at the gallery and another half day at the office. Working half day as a designer in one of the building in Kuala Lumpur and my new boss is a tall Australian guy, sounded like a great offer for me, *additional point : it pays well - who would complain to that ?

My workplaces are in walking distance, it's about 20 minutes walk from Matic to the building, near KLCC. 

I never told my new boss that this was my first job interview and I didn't even have a designer portfolio because my previous works mainly focuses on research and pre-development. I never told him how basic my knowledge for InDesign was - like a feeble baby just starting to crawl. I said 'yes' to most of the things he asked. On the second interview, he assigned me with editing things in InDesign and with my basic knowledge of using the software 'once' in my life - I succeeded. I remember on my first day of work, I Googled 'how to insert picture in InDesign' before entering the building, *which was not the same as using Ps or Ai, but to use File > Place instead. 

What I had in mind was to try and explore the possible working skills. I love my job scopes in my previous work very much, but what I am lacking is the skill to come out with a visual design instead of all the wireframe and concept. I realized back then, that I can't visualize a finalized design myself, but I can imagine the flow and concept of something easily. I know what is needed, but I can't put it in graphical way. I think it's important for a designer to have that skill - and seeing how bad I am in that, I didn't want to claim myself as a designer rather - a researcher instead, because I am quite good in that. 

I also realized that I need to learn a lot of other skills to be great in what I want to do. As for now, I work half-day in the office learning as many as possible on Indesign, indirectly from another part time designer before my afternoon session - by imitating his works, in hoping that by the time my contract ends, I learned good enough from him.

PS : Learning takes time and effort.  

So that's for my routine life for October.

A view from my desk :

Extra :

On my first day, I realized that I had to use an Acer personal computer with Windows Os, *I had not use those in 3 years ! I didn't even know how to turn on the computer, I looked like a fool noob trying to find the start button - until other colleague saw how clueless I was and turned it on for me =.=' 

I didn't even remember how to force quit the application when it got stuck while I was working so I had to Google, "how to force quit a software on windows", using Task Manager of course ! And I claimed to be an IT student. 

Laugh world, laugh. 

The Puzzle Piece

it took me by surprise

how you take my heart and put it next to yours 

and how it synchronized into the same rhythm 

how perfect it is 

like putting a lost piece of the puzzle into the intended place

Random Rambling : 12102013 - 2

Saturday at home felt refreshing.

Newly washed comforter smells flowery soft and warm. 

Silence in the house, while watching Awan spreading her body on my bed all day long.

Long reads on bloglovin' posts of too many blogs that I followed plus Tumblr posts of beautiful things and places of the world.

Two cups of coffee once in the morning and once during tea-time, overloaded with writing session I've been missing for awhile. No photos, just words and more words. *I've been flooding my Instagram with daily pictures I took, what I need now is words.

I love my silent Saturday, 

where are you ?

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PS :

Oh and yes yes yes,

Shaun Tan said this is his latest book : Rules of Summer. 

Watch the 'extra' part in the website link - he talked and explained about the book. Did I mentioned that he resembles my dad ?  *the nicer and younger version of my dad, plus the Australian accent.

Random Rambling : 12102013

About 3 weeks ago, I had the busiest weeks of the year. Two days of Art for Grabs at Annexe Gallery, and my mom's exhibition. The preparation was over the top, as I planned for my own little booth, I had to prepare and help with my mom's big event. Those two weeks felt surreal now and I patiently said to myself everyday that it's going to end soon. 

Those sleepless nights and exhausting days were worth the effort we took. The launching day last weekend was great, and I am very much thankful for all the help we got for those days of preparation. 

My brother's and sister's friends played a big role in taking all the paintings from our apartment and my mom's little gallery to Matic - which was one of the hardest part knowing my mom's paintings are just too many. The second part was hanging all the paintings in Matic's gallery, which requires a good balance on the ladder and tying skill - in this case, many of us in the team did a great job. So, those were two of the big works, other little tasks were mainly on putting the price tags, keeping the place organized, and other little stuffs. 

I met all remarkable people, thank YOU.

A lot of things happened in those two weeks and I haven't rest ever since. I managed to get a day off today, by request from my mom and Aja's helped with her staying at the gallery for today. I woke up in the morning thinking so many things passed and we survived it all. 

My morning coffee said let's start on simple things to heat up the day :) 

Happy October. 

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Update :

I called Streamyx asking help from the customer service on how to configure my Wifi's connection from Mac - but they can't help me due to "we are not specialized on set-up for Mac user , Mac is Apple product, no? " - duh. So, I tried it once again, this time, erasing the password and try-and-error other password possibilities, suddenly the line is connected =.=' 

So all these weeks, the reason I can't get connected was not because of the Wifi setting but because of the password error - I don't understand why on earth did my Mac just did not state any 'invalid password' so I would notice ! Gah.

Random Rambling : 10102013

Scheduled post on 10th Oct 2013 :

It's been more than 2 weeks after my Mac's short coma resulting auto-reset on every settings including my WiFi's connection, and since then, I haven't had time to call Streamyx or ask help from Mac center. I've done everything from trying to set the wifi connection again myself with the help of Google and I even went back to the lab to ask two of my previous colleagues' help. Nothing worked. 

I am beginning to feel restless, I miss my writing session and huge Tumblr posts of beautiful things in this world from my Mac. 

PS : Really need to work on my Wifi connection problem. Few more days before clients start to complain about my working ethic on freelance jobs. *Phew*   

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