Where Do The Children Play?

When I'm twenty I'll drive my own car!

Probably. But you'll no longer want to play Superheroes then.

So how have you changed?

Apa Aku Tau

Please don't spoil my day

I'm miles away

And after all 

I'm only sleeping.

Waldron's Putdown

Talk of individual rights is often supposed to be a way of registering fairly basic objections to the arcane computations of the utilitarian calculus. It is the utilitarian who is supposed to be telling us that everything is all very complicated, and that whether we allow horrible things like torture, censorship, or the execution of the innocent depends on all the circumstances, long-run calculations of probability, etc. The theorist of rights, by contrast, is supposed to be the one who can produce the trump card, the preemptory argument-stopper: 'Thou shalt not kill. The idea of rights has often been seized on precisely  as a way of avoiding the casuistry of trade-offs and complex moral calculations - a way of insisting that certain basics are to be secured an certain atrocities prohibited, come what may. But if rights themselves are morally complicated, the spectre of casuistry reappears. Complicated problems presumably require complicated solutions; but it was the simplicity of rights-based constraints that was supposed to be their main advantage over other more recondite and precarious modes of moral reasoning.The sad fact is, however, that this simplicity and moral certainty is simply unavailable.

- Jeremy Waldron, A Rights-Based Critique of a Bill of Rights.

I Miss People

I've been under room arrest for half a week now - and two more weeks are looming.

I've been missing people a lot. In my now-routine siestas which divide day and night studying, I dream of people, and of home.

Just now I dreamed of pouring down a whole can of Sprite on the stairs at home - and thinking, 'what was I doing' and getting the intense desire to apologise to my mother, even after I woke up.

I noticed then that I had been in constraining myself in a tight space and, in the process, shut other people out for quite some time. Conducive for study, yes - but terribly lonely.

I miss people - of that feeling of knowing that other people lie beside me in the living room when I try to get to sleep, or of that happiness in seeing faces of friends after a long time.

I know it would be over in three weeks (just three weeks, imagine that!) but it feels a lifetime away.

Relatively true though - people say a part of you die during the exam period, and that part get reborn afterwards.

Anyway, rindu bah. Betul-betul ndak sabar balik.

Such Is

For I have known them all already, known them all:
Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons,      
I have measured out my life with coffee spoons;
I know the voices dying with a dying fall
Beneath the music from a farther room.
  So how should I presume?

- Prufrock, T.S. Eliot

Abbey Road

Prior to this I never properly went through the whole album in one listening. I didn't really get Sgt. Pepper or Revolver, White Album came close - but this one really did it for me. Let go of your inhibitions, and listen through the whole thing. There's a reason why it withstood the test of time.

Morning Has Broken

Next week it's week eleven. Shit is about to go down. I'm still stuck in a wave of unproductivity, what with waking up late every day.

But it's always a beautiful moment to have a real re-start. See you on the other side!

Nah, It's Canberra

A charming tumblr site: http://nah-itscanberra.tumblr.com/

To find what you're looking for, don't look far - learn to look closer.

Rights For Wrongs

All this emphasis on the inviolability of rights seems to lead to us not asking the right questions. It's suddenly a matter of 'Look, it doesn't matter what you think - the main thing is I have a right; I'm right because I have a right'.

- Moeen Cheema

Every Age

Weren't you ever afraid to grow old? I asked.

'Mitch, I embrace aging.'

Embrace it?

'It's very simple. As you grow, you learn more. If you stayed at twenty-two, you'd always be ignorant as you were at twenty-two. Aging is not just decay, you know. It's growth. It's more than the negative that you're going to die, it's also the positive that you understand you're going to die, and that you live a better life because of it.'

Yes, I said, but if aging were so valuable, why do people always say, 'Oh, if I were young again.' You never hear people say, 'I wish I were sixty-five.'

He smiled. 'You know what that reflects? Unsatisfied lives. Unfulfilled lives. Lives that haven't found meaning. Because if you've found meaning in your life, you don't want to go back. You want to go forward. You want to see more, do more. You can't wait until sixty-five.
...
'The truth is, part of me is every age. I'm a three-year old, I'm a five year old, I'm a thrity-seven-year-old, I'm a fifty-year-old. I've been through all of them, and I know what it's like. I delight in being a child when it's appropriate to be a child. I delight in being a wise old man when it's appropriate to be a wise old man. Think of all I can be! I am every age, up to my own. Do you understand?'

- Tuesdays With Morrie, Mitch Albom.

Frailty Of Humanity

There is no error so monstrous that it fails to find defenders among the ablest men. Imagine a congress of eminent celebrities, such as More, Bacon, Grotius, Pascal, Cromwell, Bossuet, Montesquieu, Jefferson, Napoleon, Pitt, &c. The result would be an Encyclopaedia of Error. They would assert Slavery, Socialism, Persecution, Divine Right, military despotism, the reign of force, the supremacy of the executive over legislation and justice, purchase in the magistracy, the abolition of credit, the limitation of laws to nineteen years, &c. If you were to read Walter Scott's pamphlets, Southey's Colloquies, Ellenborough's Diary, Wellington's Despatches - distrust of the select few, of the chosen leaders of the community, would displace the dread of the masses. The danger is not that a particular class is unfit to govern. Every class is unfit to govern. The law of liberty tends to abolish the reign of race over race, of faith over faith, of class over class. It is not the realisation of a political ideal: it is the discharge of a moral obligation.

- John Dalberg-Acton, 1881.

John

Children, don't do what I have done
I couldn't walk and I try to run
So I, I just gotta tell you
Goodbye... goodbye.

If You Want To Sing Out, Sing Out!

Harold, everyone has the right to make an arse out of themselves, you can't let the world judge you too much.

Revelation

The template of the taste of most tinned kari ayam is that of chicken vindaloo.

If nothing else, studying here has turned me into a curry connoisseur.

Accountability

How easy it is to say, I'll do it, when all your life you have had things done for you.

You live your life as if the roof over your head, the food on your belly and the money in your pocket are your God-given rights.

You make extravagant promises and you forget them after a while. You get angry when people remind you. You think they're asking for too much.

You screw up every time and you expect people to bail you out with a smile, because you think you deserve a second chance. How many chances have been wasted on you?

You think people make a fanfare of your mistakes - well, they're the ones always ending up cleaning up the mess you made, don't you think they have every right to do so?

Superficial Eloquence

"I doubt that people are attracted to whatever the persona is.... People are interested in the issues, and they're interested in the issues because they are important. We don't want to be swayed by superficial eloquence, by emotion and so on."

-Noam Chomsky.

Rule of Law

Arrest him!

For what?

He's dangerous!
For all we know he's a spy!
Father, that man's bad!

There's no law against that.

There is; God's law!

Then God can arrest him.

While you talk he's gone!

And go he should, if he were the Devil himself until he broke the law!

So, now you give the Devil the benefit of law!

Yes, what would you do? Cut a great road through the law to get after the devil?

Yes, I'd cut down every law in England to do that!

Oh? And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned around on you, where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat? This country is planted thick with laws, from coast to coast, Man's laws, not God's! And if you cut them down, and you're just the man to do it, do you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then? Yes, I'd give the Devil benefit of law, for my own safety's sake!

Yaya's A Sin Cara Fan

The first time she ever wanted to speak on the phone with me, of all her years of existence (four, that is) and that is merely to say 'Belikan aku topeng Sin Cara'.

Really.

Holiday Reads: Jane Eyre

"... Next morning, Miss Scratcherd wrote in conspicuous characters on a piece of pasteboard the word 'Slattern' and bound it like a phylactery round Helen's large, mild, intelligent and benign-looking forehead. She wore it till evening, patient, unresentful, regarding it as a deserved punishment. The moment Miss Scratcherd withdrew after afternoon school, I ran to Helen, tore it off, and thrust it into the fire: the fury of which she was incapable had been burning in my soul all day, and tears, hot and large, had continually been scalding my cheek; for the spectacle of her sad resignation gave me an intolerable pain in the heart..."

- Charlotte Bronte, p. 63.

Holiday Reads: Sons And Lovers

" ... He looked round. A good many of the nicest men he knew were like himself, bound in by their own virginity, which they could not break out of. They were so sensitive to their women that they would go without them for ever rather than do them a hurt, an injustice. Being the sons of mothers whose husbands had blundered rather brutally through their feminine sanctities, they were themselves too diffident and shy. They could easier deny themselves than incur any reproach from a woman; for a woman was like their mother, and they were full of the sense of their mother. They preferred themselves to suffer the misery of celibacy, rather than risk the other person..."

- DH Lawrence, p. 341.

Where The Wild Things Are

Where are the answers, I asked, I feel like I know what to do but still I don't know where to start.

Seek where it's at, answered Wisdom, repeatedly.

I could not remember where I stopped seeking. Ramadan it is, the goldmine of redemption, of chances, of rediscovery of your faith. But I have yet to find willingness or good faith. I found new beginnings and eventually, relapses. I went back to where I was, convinced more than ever that I was not meant for a life of piety.

I'm tired, I have no strength. I have not been tried, yet I am already faltering.

That's because your source of strength is not God.

God made it too difficult for me, so I rejected the pursuit. Now it abandoned me.

Blasphemy!

So I went into my own universe and shut the outside world out. At some point I became terrified of leaving it. I dread every recollection of my disappointments there. I get consumed with guilt but it wasn't enough to make me brave it out and find my way outside again.

Of all things, a writing about a mischievious kid in a wolf suit, denied of his supper - sailed, in a private boat with his name on it, from the retreat of his room, to an imaginary island where the wild things are.

And suddenly, it all made sense. Life, in its essentiality, is a contract. To abandon the tiresome social rules is to sail into an island where you are the ruler of the wild things, your vices. It may be simpler, it may be more fun, it may be more natural to you, but it also leaves you lonely. You begin to make sense of why the established rules are there as you find that it is much harder to govern yourself on your own. You begin to long after love and care of others, for no simpler reason than your need for it.

So once you choose to say 'No' to the wild things ('Oh please, don't go! We'll eat you up, we love you so!'), you sail back on a boat that no longer is yours alone, back to your room where the supper is still hot, waiting for you. Coming back to your struggles, but also to your nourishment.

You could choose to cry over the sad reality; of your pathetic need of others, and the pains of being a dependent - or accept the beauty of the one-way, perilous road, laid out for you so you do not need to walk through it alone. So if you need help, ask for it. You are never better fighting on your own.

P/S: Two links - this Youtube reading of the book and Professor Manderson's From Hunger to Love.

Ian's Soliloquy

"... The only time you can really be happy, is right now. There is no other moment that exists that is more important than this one. Do not sacrifice this moment in the hopes of a better one. It is easy to remember all these things when they are being said, it is much harder to remember them when you are stuck in traffic or lying in bed worrying about the next day..."

- From I Wrote This For You. Beautiful as always.

Will The Salad... Fulfill... KAAAANEEEEEE?!?!?!

Oh lawl. If I was the drive-thru lady I would be running for the hills.

Initiation Into The Aborigines' World

I have little propensity for art appreciation, I'll be the first to admit.

So naturally, I walked into the National Gallery, looking for pieces by well-known names - for the experience itself - instead of engaging with the exhibition. I found Monet's water lilies, a number of Picasso's paintings (which I was surprised to find, to be more than just weird disfigurations) and Andy Warhol's Mick Jagger series. But within an hour or so of taking in the European and American Art section I began to yawn; a habit I recognise as the hallmark of my contact with galleries.

I needed help, so I went downstairs to look for a guided tour. I would have preferred there to be others in the tour - my ignorance would not have been so pronounced, but come 2.30 p.m., I was the only one standing in the line. A kind elderly man introduced himself as the guide, and took me to the Aboriginal Memorial:

Taken, naturally, from here.

Now, I could not be blamed for thinking of these as mere woodwork and intricate paintings done by Aborigines, in a manner which is uniquely theirs. I saw it as a manifestation similar to batik prints and the like. My guide stood at the beginning of the path dividing the two sets of poles, and said in the most nonchalant manner, "These are hollow wood coffins."

I could not recall his description of the piece, therefore I take the liberty to quote the gallery website:

"The Aboriginal Memorial is an installation of 200 hollow log coffins from Central Arnhem Land. It commemorates all the indigenous people who, since 1788, have lost their lives defending their land... The path through the Memorial imitates the course of the Glyde River estuary which flows throughthe Arafura Swamp to the sea. The hollow log coffins are situated broadly according to where the artists' clans live along the river and its tributaries. The different painting styles apparent in groupings are related to the artists' social groups (sometimes described as clans) which link people by or to a common ancestor, land, language and strict social affiliations"

Every stroke of the brush had its story - the colours (representing the types of material prominent in certain areas), the heights of the coffins (representing the varied tides of the water), the symbols characteristic of the clans (patrineal, dots), orally-passed traditions... I feel that I could not do enough justice: there are thousands of stories in this piece, beyond what outsiders like myself could ever hope to grasp.

"The work is unified by an array of common themes: the celebration of life, respect for the dead and mortuary traditions and people's connection with ancestral beings... Whilst it is intended as a war memorial, it is also a historical statement, a testimony to the resilience of indigenous people and culture in the face of great odds, and a legacy for future generations of Australians"

"These stories that I just told you are very superficial. The clans regard these stories as sacred - they're passed down between generations - and all of them are kept between themselves. Just look at this brushwork" said the guide, after I professed my appreciation of indigenous art to be constrained to their beautiful intricacies, "How do you think these people paint it as if it is scrapped with one straight brush? They use ochre instead of paint, and brushes of no more than three hairs"

An example of the patterns on the coffins.

Monet's Nympheas.

I remembered remarking inwardly of the above piece which I saw just before, that the paintwork was rather untidy upon close inspection - but I kept it to myself for fear of exposing my stupidity. Ochre on tree bark, oil on canvas; what would I know of them?

My tour lasted for an hour, but it easily felt like no more than 30 minutes. My guide showed me piece by piece of the vast diversities of Indigenous Art. He did not have time to show me many; he hasted from one piece to another. 

I do not remember most of the overwhelming information, but I retained this as a unifying theme: the paintings, if willed by the observer to speak as they may, serve as an invitation to their culture.  They tell of their history, their beliefs, their struggles, and their hopes - only not in a blatant manner. One painting may tell of nine separate clan legends, while I may only, upon first encountering it, see dots beautifully arranged. I may see a series of scrawlings of colours which are actually stories of the women of the deserts - through the colours, the imagery, the passion on the strokes of the brush (with both hands, sometimes) - coming out of the context set by the artist. 

The observer would feel as if they are initiated into the clan, whom, through art which whisper rather than scream, reason rather than force, are earnestly in want of the outsider's understanding.

An example of those pieces with many hidden stories.

Another example: which I understand nothing of.

I may have felt myself turn into a humbug (a tendency I am becoming increasingly aware of) - so I apologise for this. It is just a kampung person's awkward contact with things which are not her own. Experiences such as these, however, may make beautiful memories later on, so write of them I will.

Hadha Al-Wakt Fi Al-Fasl

That time of the semester:

1. when for the past two weeks (last Friday notwithstanding) my room is my entire universe of existence.

2. when 4 pieces of stale bread and cheese is sufficient to get me through a day.

3. when the only human contact I had was limited to awkward hey-how's-revision exchanges in the corridors (or the inevitable vending machines, what have you).

4. when I suddenly pick up past obsessions again (ie The Big Bang Theory; Nodame Cantabile; football).

5. when I start making outrageous plans for the impending holidays. (Hobart ho!)

6. when I write pointless posts only to delete it afterwards.

On the bright side, come Friday (or Saturday, other things considered) I'll be back in the USSR (you don't know how lucky you are... boy!).

/// slaps self.

Within 3 Hectic Years

Please Please Me (1963)

Revolver (1966)

Confound it.

#edit: And two years later:


White Album (1968)

Work And Play

Funny isn't it? We're born honest and then we get taught not to say what we really feel.

I used to feel reluctant to be picked up by Nellie, to go and play with the boys. I'd take five hours of housecleaning than 50 minutes of trying to please them. Not one person who I told of my current part-timing express less than surprise. I have always found it difficult to feel affection for children in general. I love my younger sisters and cousins, but not other people's. Treat them as your own, said my mother. Yeah right.

Over the hours I spent at the Claydens, though, I have begun to feel attached to them, because they taught me of so many things that I have neglected to pick up on during my childhood. And they remind me, that children, more than anything, need to be understood.

Meet Oliver (3) and Piet (4-going-on-5) Clayden.

"Can I tell you something really serious?"
"Yes, what is it?"
"I like pink, but I'm a boy!"

"Smile, Oliver!"
"Geessshhhh"

Makes me miss Lahad Datu even more - how I have always neglected trying to understand the younger ones at home.

Protest Jam

I had a nasty feeling that I was always tucked away somewhere else when things were happening. Last Monday, I was at a tutorial when I heard the marching band across the Fellows Road, from the Chancelry.

If any school is poised to take the slough of the budget cuts head on, it would have been the School of Music. Although not in their usual repertoire (which many will testify to), they got their point across to people with low civic awareness (such as yours truly). Loud, and maybe uncharacteristically crass, but wonderfully unified:

Had it been the School of Law it would have been a pain to watch: a postulation based on stereotypes would conjure the image of a bunch of self-important know-it-alls shouting inexplicable proses of protest to the university and against each other. That, or a mass exodus elsewhere.

Cogito Ergo Sum

They have it best, don't they?

They can tell you why they are there
and they didn't even have to say

even you know their reasons.

But you,

why are you here?

As you walk down that road, every single day

talk to faces that pass you by

and stare into the same sky that other people do -

and think of things other people are thinking -
tell me,

why are you here?

You go where you're supposed to go

do what you're supposed to do

say what you're supposed to say

do you feel what you're supposed to feel?

are any of those really yours?

and, tell me
why are you here?

What do you stand for?

and what do you know?

what do you believe in?

now tell me, are they really yours?

or are they merely instruments for you to fit in
when you have nothing else to show for yourself
regardless, tell me
why are you here?

When all you are is reduced to one question

and you don't get to hide behind all the universe have to offer

and all those presumptions that define you are suspended -
just you - in your entirety and individuality
would you really exist?
and if you would, tell me
why are you here?

You and I might not know it
but they have it best
because they know their happenstances
and they went to lands of the mind
you would not dare traverse.

As for me,
I don't know much myself -
all I know is that life is dull that way
and that's perfectly alright.

Is it so wrong
to feel cheated out of the years
where I borrowed others' dreams and inspiration?

Is it so wrong
to seek for one's self?

You need not mind me
I'm not really here
and to me,
you're not really there.

# forgive the melancholy on crack - it's week 11 into the semester and I am currently, very dangerously behind.

Naaa Na Na Na Na Na Naaaaa

This video is the best thing on the internet right now.

1st part:


Fun fact: Oprah had a Paulie phase during her girlhood.

2nd part:


0.05 No Doubt on what I suppose to be a tribute of the Shea Stadium Concert attire - 'Hello Goodbye' and 'Penny Lane'.

Protip: You might want to skip to 2.39 for Dave Grohl and Norah Jones singing 'Maybe I'm Amazed'.

5.10 for Steven Tyler taking on Abbey Road: 'She Came in Through the Bathroom Window', 'Golden Slumbers', 'Carry That Weight' and followed by the sage wisdom in 'In The End'...

And in the end, the love you take is equal to the love you make....

9.23 James Taylor and an awesome woman whose name I don't quite know singing 'Let It Be'......

And at 11.47 the song slides into a big choir and the Na Na Na Na Na Na Na from Hey Jude we all know so well.

Oh, I have tears in my eyes...

Nowhere Man

So.

This is what my life has come down to.

Spending eight hours reading a manga even I find ridiculous.

Whilst listening to John Lennon calling me in a plea.



Nowhere man, 


Please listen


You don't know what you're missing


Nowhere man, 


The world is at your command....

Bayn Al-Qasarayn

The young man rolled over in bed. He turned his mind away from the deluge of memories and began to follow the beats of the dough once more. He looked around the room, slowly becoming visible as the sun rose outside the closed shutters. His mother was making bread! She would continue to knead the dough morning after morning. God forbid that anything should distract her from concentrating her attention on preparing meals, washing the clothes or cleaning the furnishings. Great activities would not interfere with minor ones. Society would always be flexible enough to embrace exalted and trivial matters and to welcome both equally. But not so fast…. Was a mother not part of life? She had given birth to him, and sons fueled the revolution. She fed him, and nourishment fueled the sons. In fact, nothing about life was trivial. But would not some day come when a great event would rock all Egyptians, leaving none of the differences of opinion that had been present at the coffee hour five days ago? How remote that day seemed… then a smile came to his lips when this question leapt into his mind: What would his father do if he learned about his continual struggle, day after day? What would his tyrannical, despotic father do about it and his tender, affectionate mother? He smiled anxiously, because he would be exposed to problems no less significant than if the military authority itself should learn his secret.

He pulled back the covers and sat up in bed murmuring, “It’s all the same whether I live or die. Faith is stronger than death, and death is nobler than ignominy. Let’s enjoy the hope, compared to which life seems unimportant. Welcome to this new morning of freedom. May God carry out whatever He has decreed.”

- Palace Walk by Naguib Mahfouz.

This book made me shift uneasily from my position many a time. The setting was restrained and the plot excruciatingly slow. The characters formed almost the entirety of the book - and more often than not I put the book away and declared all their drama too wearing. But it was not wearing in the typical annoying manner that can warrant its dismissal due to boredom - rather, it elicited  an intrigue to love them in a second, and hate them with renewed vigour soon afterwards.

Mahfouz spared none of the characters of his exposition, he seemingly made no effort to make the reader side with anything. His line of storytelling would sometimes leave traces of a message he was trying to get across, and within a few pages afterwards, through his turn of events, he would trample it nonchalantly. The glaring tale was that of Cairo, and he told it with the kind of affection which could only be believable by the way he made it so infallible, imperfect.

At points where the story got unbearable, because the story, as it was, allowed me absolutely no room for the construction I wished for them - for the construction most books would allow - Fahmy Ahmad Abd El-Jawad made the next page worth turning. He made me want to throw the book in frustration when he lost his strong outward resolve in confrontation with his father, even more when he could not help but cry - but second afterwards, in the same pathetic manner, he defied the latter and ran out of the room, thus making me postpone my desire to give it up.

And guess what Mr. Mahfouz did. He killed him off just before the book ended.

Thanks a million. Here's looking forward to the next two.

Another Pointless Post

Oh, this is so nice, I can lie here this way forever...

Ba'da dhalika dhahabtu ila alkhizanati kutubi haithu yujadu kutub (wa ma aakhar?) wa qara'tu kitaba amamaha suratun binjamin faranklin.

"Reading was the only amusement I allowed myself. I spent no time in taverns, games, or frolics of any kind; and my industry in my business continued as indefatigable as it was necessary" Benjamin Franklin, 'Autobiography" (1771-1784).

A 'shame on you' from 241 years ago, no less.

Yeah Nah Yeah

That awkward moment when the awkward moment you were at yesterday made its way into the awkward moments on 9GAG. It's the object of many's intellectual affection, Professor Stephen Bottomley himself.

Taken from here.

In Vain I Have Struggled, It Will Not Do

My feelings will not be repressed. You must allow me to tell you how ardently I abhor and loathe you.

Who else read the title in Colin Firth's voice?

Ahem. I have tried drawing the line between the blog and excessive university ramblings because, well, they tend to be annoying (read: oh my god my studies are so difficult I wanna set myself on fire aaaargh....). But I have reconsidered that virtually nobody reads this blog and if one is to find such posts annoying, it is likely that other posts are equally annoying anyway . I would like to have some written remembrance of how it is to be a student when I graduate, of living in that rites-of-passage rabbit hole before venturing out into the real world. 

-------

Just now I have typed a tirade about my current concerns and I am horrified by how self-centered it is. I realised that this was why I was doubtful about treating this blog as some sort of an online diary - my overwhelming shallowness will seek center stage and I will no longer be able to hide it behind short, vague posts.

The original intention of this post was to complain about how hard Corporations Law is - does it get any more annoying than that? Ha! I planned to become wax lyrical, wax philosophical, giving a short discourse as to why this area of law is forever elusive to me, but even such an attempt is elusive per se.

Trying to even comprehend what I have been trying to read is like my attempting to learn Science - I have no flair for it, absolutely none. For this darned subject I have two textbooks totalling up to over 4000 pages of minute words (I'm not even joking) with no pictures, filled with very little content that my feeble mind would be capable of engaging with.

I am most probably, at best, going to scrape off with a mere pass for this subject. And having to face that realisation in every single sentence I try to digest over literally 3 days of grinding them is enough to make anyone go hoolaa.

Psst, Ariah. You forgot something.

What's that?

No one cares, really. 

The all-nighter is not happening tonight. I should go grab some sleep, for my own sake. 

p/s: do tell me of how horrible you're having it, misery loves company. I'd like to feel better about my own situation. Anybody? (....body? ...body? ...body?)

Catherine Sloper

"... In her younger years she was a good deal of a romp, and, though it is an awkward confession to make about one's heroine, I must add that she was something of a glutton. She never, that I know of, stole raisins out of the pantry; but she devoted her pocket-money to the purchase of cream-cakes..."

- Washington Square, Henry James. Pdf here. (You're welcome!)

Apathy

"... the student activist culture has become splintered. It functions in categories of niched, specialised enthusiasts. These are students who have waded through the wealth of available information and are highly knowledgeable on the ins-and-outs of their specific cause but operate within their own activist realm, mutually exclusive from the other causes. So whilst we may offer a nod of agreement to fair trade initiatives, or sign a petition in favour of gay rights of green power, the majority of us have only a general understanding of these issues and so are reluctant to deeply engage in advocating major change. Replacing what was once a mainstay of an inclusive campus culture, there is now an increasing tendency to designate the 'enviro, hippy type' as the keepers of the student activist tradition, whilst maligning them for their misguided allegiance to a bygone generation of protest and placard rebellion. And with sociologists and behavioural researchers telling us that we are more career driven than any previous generation, it's difficult to simply accept the honourable aspirations of these passionate few without viewing them with a suspicious, disingenuous glint that it's all part of some greater self-serving resume-padding exercise."

- Lisa Visentin, ' Where Have All The Protests Gone?'

Handwritten

Behind him I stood, straining my eyes - and he moved a friendly smile. As he moved on to observe my preoccupation, as I did his - a chuckle escaped him.

"I thought I was going blind. This is Braille, after all" 

I concurred by giving a slight laugh. The parchment we were observing was a letter by Louis Braille, who was born a blind man, and is - according to Helen Keller - the source of indebtedness by blind people of retrospect and on the future - in the same manner in which mankind is indebted to Gutenberg. I moved on to the next transcript on display - Charles Darwin.

This was just this afternoon - a windy and chilly affair - and I was running across the lawn of the national library, ascending the stairs in haste lest I be denied of admission due to being an hour late. My audience was booked for 2 pm, and after spilling excuses I was inside. Having only an hour and a half to explore Handwritten, I set to the task at hand immediately. Instinctively I took my phone out, and proceeded to take a picture of Hegel's letter regarding the importance of dwelling in philology before traversing into the study of philosophy, only to be told to delete it by the exhibition official.

But at least I made away with these droolworthy postcards...

I was overcome with awkward awe as I primarily walked through the Justinian code manuscripts - the authoritative text which paved the way for the 21st century Western civil law. Among others - Galileo, Napoleon, Newton, Marx, Curie, von Bismarck, Einstein, Beethoven, Cook, Michelangelo, Watt, Volta, Schubert, Schumann, Mozart, Descartes, Brahms, Handel, Austen, Pasteur, Nobel, Machiavelli, Nightingale, Grimm, Kafka - among others, I lost count as well as memory.

But despite of leaving me feeling high, I was rather worn out. Not once did I yawn after an hour of walking around the gallery (unforgivably rude, as some would see it) - and I retired to a bench in the middle of the room, looking for a sense of liveliness in the guidebook instead. The stature of the things in front of me was undeniable - it was indeed a perspective of a thousand years of history being put there for my experience - for me to see, to feel. But they did not trigger the same jubilation that I experience when coming into consideration of, say, the judgment of Mason CJ on Mabo. Indeed, Eddie Koiki Mabo was the centerpiece of the exhibition for me. I spent a considerable time experiencing the text that he wrote on a regularly-lined A4 paper, using a ballpoint pen, as with the typical nature of self-written texts. I read his plea to his people, and to the pro bono heroes of the profession I aspire to enter, regarding the indigenous people's right to native entitlement of land and laws - spurning a ten-year battle for almost a century of sovereign denial.

Mr. Mabo's self potrait- placed beside his text.

Sitting on that bench, in the middle of all these manuscripts, written by those who have contributed to writing arguably the world's primary history,  I chanced upon a realisation. This was not my history, and I could only feel detachment. These letters did not elicit a scene in my head of the centuries of change, they did as much as to remind me that these people - who I revere as much as the next average person - are not part of my consciousness, they did not form my conception of the past that I claim to be mine. 

And instead of feeling deprived, feeling denied of the opportunities traditionally available to those raised in more affluent surroundings (such as early exposure to literature, and musical education, etc.), I breathed a sigh of certainty: my real history is somewhere else. 

In those tar streets of Taman Aman Tiga. In that preexisting state of messiness that my house has eternally been. In those wooden steps of St. Dominic. In the small library in Fajar. In the PCs of MacroTech in Milimewa - and of the 50 cents noodles in Angel Cafe. In the gravel-road rides to enter Silabukan. In the small buses that go to Sepagaya. In the universe that Batu Dua was. In the green-ness of the road to a certain SMS.  In the small town I knew every inch of. In the faces of those I have known all my life. In the conversations, or rather non-conversations with the ones I love.

I could go on forever, see?

Corps(e) Law

"One feedback said, 'Thanks to Corporations Act 2001, I have acquired wisdom AND upper body strength"

I flashed a quizzical look at Tali, who laughed before showing me a mockery of a barbell-lifting exercise.

Ohhhhh. That was the joke I missed on Thursday.

Beth and Jo

Beth lay a minute thinking, and then said in her quiet way, -
"I don't know how to express myself, and shouldn't try to any one but you, because I can't speak out, except to my old Jo. I only mean to say, that I have a feeling that it never was intended I should live long. I'm not like the rest of you; I never made any plans about what I'd do when I grew up; I never thought of being married, as you all did. I couldn't seem to imagine myself anything but stupid little Beth, trotting about at home, of no use anywhere but there. I never wanted to go away, and the hard part now is the leaving you all. I'm not afraid, but it seems as if I should be homesick for you even in heaven"

-Little Women, Louisa May Alcott.

And This Is (Just One of The Reasons) Why Paul McCartney Is Awesome

All the lonely people,

where do they all come from?

All the lonely people,

Where do they all belong?

Arrival

9th February 2011

... Arrival day. ANU's huge. Canberra's lovely. My room is okay. In fact everything is, except for the toilets which don't have pipes. Yes I'm okay, and Australians are very pleasant people...

17th February 2012

I've just arrived. New carpet. Felt like I've only been away for only a while. Music playing downstairs - O-Week party tonight. 

New SR, nice guy called Tristan, whom I've created an impression of being an extremist within seconds of our acquaintanceship. Made me laugh at the nameframe he installed on my door while I was away - 'Karim' (saw me laughing alone at the door, add nutter to the impression). Cece, Eva, and Shaneel (with his new fridge) are still my  neighbors. Max's room has a new tenant- Daniel. I'll miss the study groupmate/tutor/confidante in him.

Packing should have been a breeze, only it's not. Unpacking a lot of things I want stowed away from my mind. Finding things that were never mine in the first place. Thought about what Ani said to me at the airport, and what I have been thinking of, all summer. 

Journey has been okay. Still managing well after close to 40 hours of travelling. Went through two jet-lag sessions in the process. And would you know it, when the bus came to the Condamine Street stop it started raining heavily, thunders included. And I thought Canberra's best was weak drizzles.

Met an Indonesian-speaking Aussie who helped me put my 40 kg worth of stuff on the bus. Met Dan Rose, the new FRC president who used to help me sort out my internet connection, and he did not open the front door for me (mind you - 40 kgs of stuff, drenched in rain, no proper hygiene whatsoever for the last day and a half). Let me wait for the Duty Warden instead.

Have yet to call home. Have yet to send that dreaded email. Have yet to catch up with fellow Malaysians. Have yet to acquire secondhand textbooks (and, by extension, have yet to start the dreaded readings) for start of uni next week. Have yet to do the common registrations housekeeping.

Have yet to leave home, actually. 

Have yet to leave my sisters. Have yet to leave my parents. Have yet to leave my uncles, my aunts, my grandmothers. Have yet to leave the person I was when I was with them. 

When I sob at the thought of them, I realized that they are probably the only people I ever sincerely loved.

Trespass

You take me on a jolly walk

And I wandered across your kindness

Foolish me, I should have walked away.

Usurer!

Sweet talk me to loans I can never repay

And you think you did me a lifetime of favour.