Little Things 231 : Do you bleed?

I went to the office's toilet at the end of the corridor this morning.

The fourth floor of our building. 

There are big windows at the end of the corridor, opened.

I smelled the freshly cut grasses and sunshine. I asked myself, is it? Is it really the smell of the freshly cut grasses? Is it possible to smell it far up high? Does the grass bleeds and that is the smell of their blood when they are mutilated and cut open? Do they feel the pain?

Later I found out there were people cutting out grasses along side of the road in front of the building that morning. 

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I watched Split last night, and I was touched by the ending's wrapped up line. 

About the broken being more evolved, stronger, perhaps mentally in this case. About how the brain creates a mental barrier towards something painful or traumatizing. I used to call myself 'the broken ones', so it is relatable - in a way, I know what it feels to be in a club where no one wants to be in. 

We know what it feels like.  

I'm telling you for you to know that I survived.

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Little Things 230 : Sweet Things

I'm old !

I no longer enjoy sweet and sugary things. 

Instant coffees and hot drinks in cafes/mamaks make me feel really uncomfortable in the mouth - I rather have unsweetened green tea, mildly sweet coffees or plain water. I used to like desserts and sweets very much.

Daww, I'm old.

Well, my brother is taking orders for home-made carrot cakes - and chosen cakes by request. 

You can contact him if you have something in mind. He made this nice white vanilla cake with purplish flowers for a wedding cake today, even I can't do something that beautiful and eatable at the same time. Kudos! Ps - Too bad I don't eat desserts as much nowadays.

Little Things 229 : Patreon

Hello !

I just created my Patreon account here.

This Patreon account will help me pursuing my dream to become a full-time illustrator and publish as many books/zines possible. This platform helps creator, maker, illustrator, writer, anyone at all to achieve their dream - it is like Kickstarter for an individual/group. 

This year I'm planning to publish several books and zines, so I will need some big helps from all of you ♥ I'll be a bit busy making this year as productive as I can *like I've never been productive before :F 

I'll be posting a lot of doodle journals in my Patreon account, if you like this, you can pledge minimum $1 to be entertained by my mini-mini doodles, aaaand if you want, you can get my first ever mini ziiiine or book? Hah, I'm currently finishing of my visual travelogue : the mini stories when I went to Beijing, Istanbul, Bromo and Singapore, compiled into one. 

Here is my first doodle journal post in my Patreon, expect a lot this in the account ♥ :

Little Thing 228 : On Creativity and When to Start

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I was one of those people : the ones who feel like they are not good or skilled enough, the ones who feel afraid to tell who they are because they feel like they are not qualified to be one. True, I didn't learn graphic and the rules of designing when I was a student. True, I started with such a low salary that I didn't dare to tell my friends what I'm gaining compared to their salary at IT department.

But I'm way too stubborn too give up, and I hated the labels or inferiority. I wanted to put myself in the place where I can negotiate things that I can offer and what people want to offer to me. I worked myself day and night, weekends and holidays. In those early years : I sent more than 30 emails to random companies that might need some skills that I can offer, I applied more than 30 jobs even without strong experiences in the job I applied for, I accepted so many random freelance jobs : to learn, to learn, and to keep learning. 

Everything I want to learn, I make sure I start learning and keep on improving throughout the year.

Try and try again. Even if it's ugly, or wrong, or need a lot of amendments or get repeated rejections. 

That's how I get here, that's how I taught myself that I can be what I want to be if I want it strong enough :) Anyone can start somewhere. You just have to make the first step : Just Start.

Note :

You can learn at Skillshare for $0.99 - 3 months premium membership, just click here. 
I take classes here.

Little House : Clothes minimal, NOT

We moved back to my red bricks apartment last weekend.

They are still staying with us until March, after we come back from our Japan trip. So for now, Af & I are going to stay in the medium-sized room in my apartment. We finally have a large windows and sun lights ! And our own personal moss-free wardrobe. 

Moving out has always been a fussy matter.
One of the things that I hate is organizing my clothes because I have piles and piles of unused stuffs. So 4 weeks before moving back in, I went back and took out all my clothes from my old wardrobe and started to divide it into 3 piles : Definitely will use, Probably will use, and Will never use. The ones that I will never use were donated at the charity box near my home : a huge pile of clothes, the size of super-packed big IKEA bag! While the ones that I will use and probably will use were taken back to my rented apartment to be washed in the washing machine. That was phase 1.

Phase 2 was re-organizing all the clean clothes and filtered again. I did 3 phases of filtering to decide on which clothes that I will really use and which clothes I will donate because I shouldn't be keeping all these old clothes that I don't use anymore. Learning to let go things is something I need to remind over and over.

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Clothes :

Among all my clothes, most of the stuffs I hardly wear were donated to the charity.
I now have :

• 2 jeans *black & blue, 
• 2 outing t-shirt, 
• 2 track suits,
• 5 running shirts
• several pajamas & stay at home shirts
• 2 telekungs
• 6 working semi-casual shirts,
• 6 kurungs, 
• 2 singlets
• 2 bras
• 2 sport-bras
• 4 socks
• 2 towels
• at least 5 tudung bawals (black x 2, red, dark blue, purple)

On dozens of running shirts :
I had to filter all the running shirts 3 times before deciding on which running shirts I do want to keep - even though I actually wanted to keep them allllll T^T I can explain each running shirt's history to Af, like my first run, or the night run when I had a bad headache and we all looked like flamingos, or the ugly red cotton shirt from our UPM run when Af first started to run in an event officially, or the nicely designed purple running shirt that I really like but seemed a bit too tight nowadays - and remember that I did looked good in it, or my first 21km finisher's shirt ! Can you believe I have around 20 running shirts? Even the ones with super ugly design and colours that can blind the eyes!

So I only kept several, I donated more than half of it. I now have 2 of my Milo running shirts for training because I love those shirts, and my favorite orange Harimau Malaya running shirt because it looked nice even though it looked a bit worn-out, one of the light blue running shirt that I might need, my finisher's shirt and the black shirt from our gym :D I think I still have a lot of them..

It is an organized mess.

Extra note : I'm a bit clingy to my old kurungs, because I personally selected them and I like having them even though I can't remember the last time I wear any kurungs these days.

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On keeping clothes :
Being a woman is a bit fussier in terms of keeping clothes, because we have so much layers and clothes for different occasions and use. On one occasion, we can wear : tudung and anak tudung, and bra, probably a singlet then the shirt itself, and then underwear, and the jeans, the socks and the shoe : at least 6-9 items at one time. While man can just wear the tshirt, the boxer and the jeans! 3 things, and 4 including the sandal.

Af is simpler, like this one black shirt; he can use it for work, for outings, for events, and even for working out. So his wardrobe is less packed than mine - he's super proud of it =.= I'm actually inspired by him, because his goal is to have everything minimal and keep only things that he uses all the time. So it's easy for him to pack stuffs for travel or choose anything to wear everyday.

Learning to be minimal and keep all items that I will use - only is hard.
Having only 2 tshirt that I use when I go out is hard. It's either that black tshirt or that dark blue tshirt, repetitively. For the work shirt, I keep it all in rotation. So the one I wore for that day will be washed and dried afterwards and kept in my wardrobe in the last line, so I will meet it again the next week. That way, I won't get confuse and wear the same shirt in the same week. Any clothes that I don't wear for more than 3 months will be donated, because obviously I don't really wear it.

I think buying new clothes is way easier than donating the old unused ones. Kan?
But I know at least 2 hoarders in my family, and I see how they get too attached on unused things. I didn't quite like the idea of wanting to collect and keep and collect and just make piles and piles of things that 'might-be-useful-someday'. You do know what I mean, right? Hoarders, keepers of things, the person who keeps things from 10 years ago, the collectors, the one with 6 watches, 7 shoes, and 15 hats?

The only thing I collect now is books.
And probably money :D

So do you think you are a hoarder?

Little Things 227 : Perfect Strangers Project 3

I participated in the Perfect Strangers project by Oh Comely Magazine again last December. This was my third participation since 2015, read here about my first Perfect Strangers project.

I came in to the office a day after my birthday leave and saw a big parcel on my table :D Finally it arrived, it felt like getting a birthday present because the parcel did arrived at my office on my birthday. I had to wait until after work hour to open the parcel at home.

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I was really excited. Nothing beats the feeling of receiving parcels with curated items by people who really want to make an effort to send something, even to a total stranger and we actually had to wait up to a month for our parcel to arrive after we signed up for the project.

I opened the parcel and saw a lot of mini packages wrapped in brown papers and colourful ribbons. It was the most delightful moment, I had to snap stories for my IG instead of taking pictures because it was getting late and the lighting in my room was quite bad.

Items I received :

• 2 mini and super mini green notebooks
• dried oak leaf
• huge fur cone
• mini wooden doll used for drawing
• peacock's feather
• home made hot chocolate with added chocolate chip and marshmallow
• sketching set : 3 graphite pencils, 1 woodless graphite pencil, 2 sketching sticks, 1 kneadable eraser
• mini canvas and mini easel stand
• a hand-written note in a card

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Here is my favorite stuff; the pine cone.
Look at the size, it's bigger than my hand!
I never saw a pine cone this big.

I also love the oak tree, now I put it in my doodle book :

I got several artsy-stuffs, because I mentioned that I am a designer.

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Here is my take on the item I sent to Nikki :

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I'm definitely going to join again in the future.

Little Thing 226 : 30th Birthday

Tuesday : Birthday leave, because no one should work on their birthday !

I turned 30.

I survived 30 years of human's life ♥  I always have the feeling that I'll die a bit early and maybe I won't even reach this age, but I did somehow, with God's will T^T This feels like I reach the third check-point in my life. 

Life is still like this, I am still working, still writing, still doodling, still travelling, still reading like I used to 10 years ago. The biggest change in my life would be being married, but somehow I'm still not pregnant (yet). So nothing changed drastically. I am still me, but I'm 30. The number sounded big, huge, and old, but nothing feels different much inside. 

I'm still the sarcastic introverted person, less gloomy and dark than before, but still the same-old me. I'm a woman now, I've left the childish version of immature girl I used to be, the one who doesn't want to grow up and doesn't speaks her mind. In a way, I became more bad-ass and an ass myself, but hey, I realized that it was who I am from the start. 

I noticed that I've always been this loud and stubborn person, the difference is I embraced who I am now instead of hiding in second layers like before. So instead of 'perfecting' my social media view of how people see me, now I don't really care much. I hope people can see that I am this not-so-friendly, a bit awkward, sometimes too open, sometimes just don't want to open-up, a little bit too reserved, choosy-picky person who doesn't want to socialize or try to fit in. Ma always reminds me to show the best of me in social media, so 'no-goofiness-no-whines-nothing', just curated view. Of course, I never agree with that. Can't let people think I'm nice and friendly when I'm not :F I'd be betraying myself if I keep on showing perfected little life I'm having in social media, kan? 

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Anyhow, on other stuffs regarding my birthday :

We celebrated at The Manhatten Fish Market. 

I love seafood and my sister is on diet + avoiding rice and meat, so I just decided to dine there. We got 3 free birthday desserts + unlimited chosen drinks *that we didn't want because there's too much sugar in everything else so we asked for plain water instead. My family also bought a huge cake as well even though I'm trying to restrict my sugar intake, gah, I ate a lot of those afterwards.

The flamin' platter :

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We also watched The Assasin's Creed. I dozed off several times, I got lost along the way, the storyline was messy, the changes between real world and inside the Animus was a bit too distracting, there's no character development so I didn't get attached to anyone from the movie. All in all, other than Micheal Fassbender as Callum/Aguilar, everything else seemed a bit like a movie franchise-trying-too-hard. I've watched Af played Assasin's Creed for far too tong to know the game meant something for PS gamers. But the movie was not. 3/10 stars, 3 for Micheal being there.

Plus I redeemed my free birthday juice at Boost! - Opted for huge Mango Magic. And I still haven't used my free movie ticket from GSC yet. 

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For my little sister's birthday - her birthday on the next day, I gave her :

• Canvas sling bag for our next family trip
• 2 temporary tattoos with wordings 
• Hair Oil 
• Shungite pendant from Russia, the one that I ordered for both of us from Etsy. 

Note : Shungite is all black carbon mineraloid - it is not like other crystal or gemstones. It is said to shield-off electromagnetic radiation from your phone, tv, or computer. It is also used for water filtration, natural anti-oxidant and ancient healing process. There's a lot of research regarding the use of shungite medically but I'm not really into those stuffs much. I just love how black it is compared to all the shiny gemstones, and considering both of us are quite dark and sarcastic, I like how it represent us. Black and not-shiny, but really resourceful. Kan?

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For my 30th birthday presents :

I chose these 2 books from Kinokuniya, one is the picture book/comic by Lorena Alvarez : Nightlings and another one is Infinite Icon. I also received a black Macbook cover/bag, new black super stretch jeans for work, a comic : Matilah Kali Ini by Santa Fung and money. Looove every presents came from my family ♥ because I don't have friends anymore hah hah. Except for Tasy who wished me early and perhaps Ping (?). 

Other people in Ig wished because I told the world that I just turned 30, so that doesn't count lah, main tipu. 

Ohh, and for my own birthday present, I subscribed for unlimited Premium classes at Skillshare - because I got the 0.99$ for 3 months offer again. Remember I once took these premium classes when I was a freelancer here? I love the classes offered there, I'll try to cram as much as I can in these 3 months! And more new paperback fictions that I'm still waiting to be published.

My current read : Snow by Orhan Pamuk

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I'm 30 !