Books : March List

* 9. The Wind-up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami This reading took almost 3 weeks, longer than I intended. More than 600 pages long, with small text beautifully aligned near each other. My colleague asked me; "Is this your first Murakami's book?", I said it is my third. She said she will only read one book per author to know the writing style. I wanted to disagree but decided to only let...

Little Things 119 : Designers vs the World

01 : One of the editor came to me and asked me to find a suitable image for the latest article. We have accounts for Shutterstock and Bigstock, so finding images aren't so hard.  He stood next to me while we both searched for suitable image in Bigstock. But none could be used. So he said to me; "How about Shuttlecock?,  I looked at him, "Sorry?". "The other account. Shuttlecock." I...

Excerpt 04 : Missed chances and Regrets

Norwegian Wood ノルウェイの森 (1987)  -- by Haruki Murakami "But who can say what's best? That's why you need to grab whatever chance you have of happiness where you find it, and not worry about other people too much. My experience tells me that we get no more than two or three such chances in a life time, and if we let them go, we regret it for the rest of our lives." I think I missed all my chances...

Little Things 118 : Why interns need to be paid?

The cost for a student to pay for an internship costs around RM2k in one of our local private university. I exclaimed, "That's expensive! Why the university asked students to pay RM2000 for a course that they are not even included with, except for the 1 hour session of coming to the office and meeting the supervisor to check them up?". That's absurd.  This is a life of a student. They...

Little Things 117 : Maps

"It's this way, yes, trust me", and we hit the wrong way. "Okay this time, I think we are right, go this way", and again, nope. I am bad with maps. I have no idea where to go while looking at maps, even using the high-tech voice-out Map from Google. There are too many roads, too many junctions, which one is the right way? How many times did my mom scolded me for taking the wrong turn? Or...

Little Things 116 : Detachment

After reading 3 of Haruki books : IQ84, Norwegian Wood and The Wind-up Bird Chronicle, I can see a huge obvious pattern about Haruki, as a person. He is not only an introvert, it is more than that. He can't connect with the human, so he watches from afar, he learns human. That explains his detailedness.   I know that, because I am like that. I understand the detachment, I understand the...

Little Stories 76 : Immature Mean Kids

I'm not comfortable with kids in a certain age of 10-17. They can be a bit mean, and I usually avoid them. *salute all the teachers of the world. The age of immaturity, a sense of wanting to be someone, experimenting with different personalities all in one time.  I always feel a bit insecure with them. They can be mean and they have their parents to back them up. I'm not fooled by their...

Little Things 115 : Connected

When I run, I feel connected with my body.  The inner strength and physical movement combined to achieve something. I don't like to run, really. I don't like how the hot sun makes me darker, the smell of my sweat dampening my shirt, the huffs of my breath and my aching heart pumping blood rapidly throughout my whole body.  But it makes me feel connected.  The way our body...

Excerpt 03 : Solitude

“Solitude is, more or less, an inevitable circumstance. Sometimes, however, this sense of isolation, like acid spilling out of a bottle, can unconsciously eat away at a person’s heart and dissolve it. You could see it, too, as a kind of double-edged sword. It protects me, but at the same time steadily cuts away at me from the inside. I think in my own way I’m aware of this danger—probably through...

Little Stories 75 : Compiled

There are 4 lifts in the building I work in. Only one lift rings a 'bell-like' sound every time I press a button. For the past 2 months, I keep on asking myself, "why does only this lift makes a sound?". Later today my 'eureka' moment struck me. The lift is fully equipped for people with special need, in this case, the bell is probably created for blind people so they know that they had pushed...

Books : February List

I finally bought plastic wrappers for all my books.  Finished wrapping every books I got last year and this year while watching Season 10 Grey's Anatomy. Last night I even slept so late on work night, just because I want to finish off the whole half-season series and continue my busy schedule with no distraction. I haven't looked like a black-eyed panda for so long. Phew.  I might...