Singing in my head

It's that time of the year again!

Firstly, yeah this blog space has been ignored for a while. Heh. But anyway.

Time to present to you all my annual songlist. This year has been ... well it's been a rollercoaster of a year, so my choice of songs range from the horribly depressing to the mindnumbingly happy. A contrast, I think. The songs will be listed in no particular order. Not repeating any songs from last year, but a lot of those are still very important to me. :) To see my list for 2009, click here!

Disloyal Order of Water Buffaloes

Fall Out Boy

This song deserves a spot here at the top of the list. I don't know what I would have done without it - the same way Breathe was my emo song last year, this replaced it this year. It helped me get up from a lot of things that brought me down this year. Man, the number of times I'd be yelling out to the lyrics while driving. 'Boycott love, detox just to retox. And I'll promise you anything for another shot at life.'

Broken Strings

James Morrison Ft. Nelly Furtado

Hmm what can I say about this. I've always had a thing for duets and this one makes my ears happy. Haha. Also another song I used as an emo song. But I listened to it more for the sound, I love the melody and rythm. Like I said in another post a long time ago, it gives me a very Another Heart Calls vibe. 'You can't feel anything that your heart don't want to feel. I can't tell you something that ain't real.'

Don't Stop Believing

Glee Cast

Yes, I mean the Glee version. Can I just say that I love this show? It was my stress reliever. Every week, when I'm down with assignments I would look forward to waiting for the new episode to download. There is just so much love! So much love! :') This show makes me so happy. The characters, the wacky plot lines. I don't care that most of it requires some suspension of disbelief, it gives me happy fangirl feelings. 'Another movie never ends, it goes on and on and on and on.'

Sparks Fly

Taylor Swift

Hmm? I don't care that I only got into this song a few weeks ago, it is going onto this list. I have it on repeat on my playlist while I walk to work every day. I can't help it. 'Drop everything now, meet me in the pouring rain.'

Amsterdam

Anberlin

Oh wow, this song. THIS song. I just. I don't know why is it exactly, what quality makes me cling to the melody like I do but I love this song. I love the sound, the instruments, the rythm, the lyrics. This is a driving song - which means it lives in my car, pretty much. Which is why every time I hear it, in my mind all I can see is the grey of the dashboard. 'Say all you will, say all that you can. Words have no meaning when I see where you've been.'

Our Song

The Spill Canvas

Hmmm I'll just ... leave this here. I know you're reading this. :) 'Be kind when you rewind the story of the two of us.'

Made For You

One Republic

The first time I heard this song, my heart soared. There are four types of songs in the world. The kind that I can't stand, no matter how often I hear it. The ones I have no feeling for. The ones that I have to listen to for a while to like. And then there are songs that just propose marriage to my brain, to which my brain says YES A THOUSAND TIMES YES. I listened to it once and I wanted to leap up and save the world. 'And I start to wonder, how're you gonna handle me when I'm under, swimming in the darkest sea.'

I'll Hold My Breath

Ellie Goulding

I actually found this song during my post-Inception dive into fandom. Special mention, why? Because Inception is awesome. Very awesome. Mindblowingly awesome. And while my traipse into the fandom was pretty short-lived, I had never felt quite so alive over a movie in a long time, so yeah. 'Fight fire in you best clothes, touch skin with your eyes closed.'

My list this year is shorter than last year.

Here's to 2011 bringing along more awesome tunes. :)

End where I begin

Here's a Create Your Own Sonnet Meme:

Put your media player on, press play, and post the first line of the first twelve songs that play. Let's see what interesting pieces of literature we can come up with, shall we?

Now that she's back in the atmosphere
Baby can't you see
Breaks on breaks on the car is running empty
He woke up from dreaming and put on his shoes
I was watching when you lost direction
Well I know a thing about contrition
I first saw you at the video exchange
A burning desire to live and roam free
My head is saying no but my heart keeps giving in
Here's another pity
When I was younger I saw
The way that girl can break a heart

Songs:

1) Drops of Jupiter - Train

2) Toxic - Britney Spears

3) Science of Fear - The Temper Trap

4) Remembering Sunday - All Time Low

5) As Long As It Takes - The Spill Canvas

6) House of Wolves - My Chemical Romance

7) Hands On Me - Vanessa Carlton

8) Utopia - Within Temptation feat. Chris Jones

9) Anybody There - The Script

10) Mona Lisa - The All-American Rejects

11) The Only Exception - Paramore

12) The One I'm Waiting For - Relient K

--

I thought this was cool so posted it here. Give it a try, it's fun. I quite like how this one came out. Sem's over by the way, and I think there's gonna be some big changes rolling around the corner. I'm both excited and really nervous.

Happy hols unimates.

Drove for miles and miles

Dear Self.

What the hell are you doing staring out of the rear view mirror, look ahead!

-__-; Adoi.

I have this huge urge to get my mind wiped and then having data inputted back in manually out of context so that maybe things will make more sense.

Currently listening to 'She's Got You High' by Mumm-Ra.

I need more How I Met Your Mother.

I also need to get my butt back onto slaving over assignments.

I also want need a Volkswagen CrossPolo.

The latter can wait for a while though.

Freebie

Baskin Robbins opened at campus yesterday and there was a promotion: The first 100 people to turn up at the opening wearing pink will get a free ice cream scoop each. Somehow, the girls and I managed to get pink stuff even though we only read about the promotion that morning itself in the computer lab. :p Lucky thing I brought my pink backpack and a pink and red necklace that Aishah could borrow. Haha.

I was number 14 in line. :) Mint chocolate chip scoop on a cone. Yum.

Updates are erratic due to assignments.

Right now I am simultaneously working on:

IDM video (shooting is today and audio's not done)

IPD factsheet (2 pages out of 6. Argh)

GS case study. Due in two weeks, nothing done.

ML annotated bibliography. Crawling along.

Busy busy all the time but it's better than idling away doing nothing.

NaNoWriMo's next month! I don't have a plot. Here's to getting hit with an idea within the next few weeks.

To the sky

The weather these days is rainy and cloudy and making me sick.

I miss the clear blue skies and fluffy sheep clouds.

Sweet noms

This here is a plate of all the kuih raya my family and I baked during the week before Raya. One of each! Middle is a pineapple tart, clockwise from top, honey cornflakes, chocolate chip and almond cookie, jam tart, a slice of kek lapis, kuih suji and a cornflake cookie.

The honey cornflakes are by Mama. Pineapple tart, cornflake cookies and chocolate chip and almond cookies by me and Mira. Jam tart by Mira, kuih suji by Acu and the kek lapis is my baby. I love kek lapis. I love making kek lapis. :)

Voila, wall of kuih.

Kek lapis in the making. Clocked in at 7 hours with 18 layers in total.

After I was done Mama said that I smelled like kek lapis. The kitchen smells gorgeous during the pre-raya week. Haha.

Chocolate chip and almond cookies before going into the oven.

Pineapple tarts pre-baking. Looks the same, I know.

The pineapple jam stuff is really sticky. Mira said that you could totally suffocate and die if you somehow got stuck in a vat of it. Death from trying to eat your way out and getting your face stuck in it, hence suffocating yourself.

*cough* Moving on.

That, my friends is a cup of dark chocolate chunks sitting in a tub of batter which will soon become the cornflake cookies.

Cookie dough. Hmm hmm.

The cornflake cookies are another personal favourite of mine. They're a combination of cornflakes, dark chocolate chunks, milk chocolate chips, macadamia nuts and cookie dough. So very good. You don't know how much I had to hold myself back from licking the spoon while making this stuff.

That's all the pics I have, I don't have any from the stuff I had no hand in baking, sadly. I'll update about Raya soon, once I get the photos from Mira. :)

Huit neuf dix

Buka with ... Mr Khuirul and family. Haha.

Breaking fast at Saujana is an annual thing for us, but this year we're marking it pretty late what with only two days left to Ramadhan. I'm typing this with a bloated tummy and satisfied appetite. Yay!

By the way, pictures up ahead. Of food! Yay food.

This was a small plate of kerabu and salad I picked up for myself. I love me my salad and salad dressing. :)

Mira's mee kari. It was yummy.

Plate of mee goreng, roast lamb and mint sauce. One of the best parts of eating at Saujana is the roast lamb. I ... love roast lamb. Seriously. And with mint sauce. So much love.

Another best part? Bread and butter pudding. Ladies and gents. Heaven swimming in a pool of vanilla sauce. Hmm. I'm stuffed full of food and I'm still salivating at the thought of it. I had two helpings - the last one I took happened to be the very last scoop left in the buffet. I call myself lucky. Haha.

There was a lot of other types of food but this was what I had. :)

The two adiks, Acu and Atuk and Maktuk.

Family photo! I don't really like the lighting here but it was the best shot we got. The rest had weird facial expressions (I'm looking at you, Hanna. ._.) and blurriness.

Also, today I went shopping avec ma mère et soeur. :) Also, manicure + pedicure combo. My nails are all shiny now and bought some earrings and a necklace for raya. Even got myself a t-shirt. Haha. I enjoyed myself today.

Tomorrow I hope to blog about my baking adventures! Stay tuned!

Remember when

Buka with Sophie, Nad and Aidil last night at Subang Parade's Dave's Deli. :)

I only get to see you girls like, once every few weeks or months, it's sad. I'm so glad we got to do this. It really brought my spirits up, It's so nice being with people I've known for years upon years.

This picture was above our table. Nice. :p I like the dude's expression, one of ... awe and excitement. Haha.

After dinner we went walking around and Aidil and I bought matching jackets! But hers is in purple, mine is in black. Now we're jacket sisters. We have to go on an epic shopping trip together girls, like seriously. Then I went to Dome and got myself a Fluffy Koala Espresski. It's chocolate heaven in your mouth. Ugh. Beautiful. No picture 'cause I drank it finished before thinking about it. Haha.

Forgot to take a group picture with Aidil since she went back with her sister. :(

But it was a fun night. I love you girls like burning. :')

Earlier that evening, I found a pair of boots in the closet. They were beautiful. They were Mama's and she said I could wear them if I wanted to so I tried them on but they were half a size too small. ;_; So now I'm waiting for duit raya to come in and then I'm going boot hunting. You will be mine. Yes.

Où est-tu

--> sassygayfriendmeme.tumblr.com

That is the plan, Sassy Gay Friend.

That's always the plan.

I had an epic song recommendation thing going on at my FB status so now I'm slowly sifting through all the songs and choosing what I want for my playlist. And I cleaned up my iTunes so that I won't find myself skipping over so many songs I don't feel like listening to anymore.

Went to MPH Merdeka Sale and got a pretty good haul. I'm happy. Even bought a Malay novel, haha. That's something.

I am looking for my platypus keychain. Can't find it.

I think it's time to find a new one, but everything in the market is just so ... blegh. I'm picky, can't help it. *cough* Secretly wanting this keychain to be my totem, that's why so picky *cough*.

University is being challenging and Ramadhan's almost over. Exhausted, physically, mentally, emotionally. I've gotten all my Raya stuff already so I'm happy for that.

--> lovequotesrus.tumblr.com

Why yes, I have taken to mentioning my image sources.

Blame assignments.

So. If I had no fear, I would try ... so many many things. I'd play sports I'd never thought of playing, go where risks are part of the thrill.

I'd say things to people.

What would you try?

Nothing

Confession:

I've been on and off depressed for the past ... three to four months?

I'm tired and I just don't want to think anymore.

I'm watching stuff that's supposed to cheer me up, how the hell does it end with me feeling even worse than I did before?

Today wasn't all that great for my self-esteem.

Temporary pleasant surprise was temporary.

Now there's just doubt.

:(

Inside jokes

First time buka puasa with friends this year! :D

Went to Pyramid after a long day in uni and did some (window) shopping and looking at pictures of puppies and kittens in pet encyclopedias in MPH. Heh. Girls talked me into wearing crazy 5 inch heels and I felt like I was going to fall over. Interesting though. :p

We buka at Burger King! Was craving the mushroom swiss and mozzarella sticks so I'm satisfied now. I overate I think ... after finishing the food I laughed so hard I started to feel nauseous. But hey, I hadn't laughed so hard in ages so I had a great time.

Darlings. :)

Awww. *heart shapes floating everywhere cheesily*

Dudes!

... Err. Haha.

AND SUGAR GLIDER.

I named it Ninja. Because at one point it was climbing around crazily and stuff. So cute.

It was a good day. :)

Flashbacks

Tarsha-Llama is flying away on Monday! :(

So went to say goodbye today. Also got to meet up with Nahjan, Gursh, Shumi and Darshini. It was nice to catch up, haven't seen everyone in so long. We got to talking about school and everyone else. I realised that I must have been a total blurcase then; half of the gossip I was not aware of. Self, you fail. But now I know. Haha.

I saw the meter turn 8888 while I was driving in a housing area. I got my camera out and snapped it while I was cruising along but ... missed it. Some things in life are just hit and miss I guess.

Here's to catching 9999! :p

Chase thunder

I love this song right now.

Can I just say how amazing it is that just by finding one person to tell things to, everything changes. The sky is brighter, the load is lighter and I've been walking around with this ridiculously high level of optimism.

That can't be practical, but there you go.

Thank you for listening to me. Why didn't I do this sooner.

In the event of that, I think I'm done with lingering.

It's been so long and the whole thing resurfacing just brought so many things back, y'know? And I realised that I had never really given myself a proper closure to it. I won't call what's happened now closure per se but this is what I needed: confirmation. The situation's changed and now I can confirm it. And I'm OK. :)

On another note, I don't want to care about a certain something right now.

There are so many other beautiful things to focus on.

I'll worry about it if it comes up.

Vague post is vague.

Ps. Drove the freaking GTI to freaking campus. I am freaking high.

An idea

My FB and Twitter accounts are in French.

Haha. :D

Hoping this will help expand mon vocabulaire.

First two weeks of sem 2!

I haven't been using Perry that often I'm afraid so no sem 2 pictures. There are some photos in Macaroni but dang am I lazy to transfer at the moment. So, pic-less post today!

What have I been doing?

Well I watched Inception twice, once with Acu and Mira and a second time with Sammie and Nick. And I've been like. Obsessed. And fangirling (Oh Arthur you beautiful thing in a three-piece suit) and other excited happy things. There's nothing quite like being a fangirl in a beautifully written fandom. Haha.

And I finally got to go rock-climbing omg. It was fun.

And there have been uni stuff to do which I have been completely procrastinating. Argh. Starting to get back into the groove though. Slowly does it. I think I have an idea for the IDM video already ... it hit me out of nowhere last night and it's been sitting right in my face.

Other than that I've been doing a lot of thinking.

Thinking complicates things though so I guess I should start going with the flow like Nad says. Instead of clinging to an Idea all the time, just go with the wind. I have no idea where the wind will take me though and I'll be honest and say that I'm worried about that.

What's the most resilient parasite?

Oh well.

A bientot.

Unicorn cake yay

In celebration of the new semester (or mourning of the lost holidays) I baked ... DUN DUN DUN A ~**UNICORN CAKE**~. And a baby. I think the baby looks weird though. :(

The ~**UNICORN CAKE**~ is made of rainbows.

I got some interesting suggestions on how to improve the anatomy of the ~**UNICORN CAKE**~ in future, all of which I have taken note of. The next time I attempt this, it will be even AWESOMER (which is not a word, children).

Oh noes the ~**UNICORN CAKE**~ was slaughtered by the Evil Fyra and now it is a SHARK HEAD CAKE. With a horn.

I HAVE WORK TO DO but NO MOTIVATION.

I AM TYPING IN CAPS

JUST BECAUSE

And I am reading Inception fanfic like nobody's business, you know how high I am at the moment?

I AM SO HYPER

AND THIRSTY

I've been drinking so much though, my body doesn't make sense to me right now.

OK BYE

Homecoming

The past two weeks have really been something.

Last week Atuk went for an angiogram which went well, Alhamduilllah. He says that he's not as easily tired as he once was so that's awesome. I love you Atuk. :)

And then a couple of days ago Spyro broke his tail so we had to send him for surgey. Poor baby lost two inches of his beautiful tail. Here he is with his new pretty satellite dish collar. He's fine now, albeit a little groggy and weak from a jab the vet gave him.

I have three days left to the holidays.

I think I'm just going to take it easy. No epic war-on-boredom plans, no deliberate jumps into activity. If things happen, they'll happen. I have to teach myself to accept that not everything we plan will come through ... sometimes Allah has a different plan for us. :)

Beautiful

Atuk got admitted to hospital yesterday and he went through an angiogram this morning. All of us drove down to Singapore last night but didn't get a chance to see him so we went to the hospital this morning and waited about for him to be done with the procedure. Picture above was taken on the way South, somewhere over the Johor sky.

Everything went well Alhamdulillah and we went to see him in the recovery room. His lunch was already there so Papa asked me and Mira to help feed him. We were going to, but Atuk said that we should let the nurse do it since that they have experience. So we left it at that.

A male nurse came by after a while and offered to feed him. And Atuk just laughed and said that he wanted 'the beautiful nurse' to feed him. The male nurse just laughed and called out to the nursing station behind him for a beautiful nurse and the nurses there just laughed. I left the room for a bit after that.

When I came back in later, Atuk was having his lunch - Maktuk was feeding him.

She used to be a nurse.

There some moments in life that are so beautifully scripted that you're completely blown away. This has got to be one of the best ones I've ever seen in my life.

Looking down the ladder

I was watching Fellowship of the Ring and I realised how it's been almost ten years since it first premiered. Can you believe that? It's been almost a decade since I finished reading the trilogy and all the other books I had gotten myself into. It's been such a long time.

I was delighted to see that the movie was dripping with dramatic epicness. I mean ... wow. Some of it is horribly cheesy but it works so well and damn, Frodo is such a damsel in distress. Blegh. I used to have a crush on him, hehe. Pretty blue eyes.

I'm in the midst of rearranging a lot of stuff in my mind. One thing I'd like to change is my lack of drawing, writing and reading.

Maybe I should go offline more often.

Hahahahhaaha.

Moar plz

O rly.

This makes me feel like watching the Keira Knightley movie again. I haven't watched it yet this year. I've seen it once every year ever since it came out and I have yet to grow tired of it.

Been pleasantly busy the past week, couldn't be happier. The war I have waged against boredom is still ongoing ... sometimes I emerge victorious, la championne de la bataille. Other times, I sink to a shameful defeat. But hey, I may have lost a few battles but the war's not over. ;)

Today in particular was good because of 3 things.

One being productivity!

The second being that I have achieved my personal goal of sitting in every chair in LT3. Fo realz.

The third being that Jov and I found a place which sells bubble tea near campus.

I am at the moment a very content human being.

Our specialty

Today's Aishah's birthday!

So we planned a little surprise for her yesterday. Hehe.

We drove up to her house and got Sheik to do some baiting for us while we hid behind the wall.

Outside her house. Unsuspecting.

This is a surprised person, everybody. :D Success!

Went to Lake Gardens for a picnic, had KFC chicken and potato salad. Yummeyh. We just finished packing up when it started to rain. So we ran for the nearest shelter but not before we got totally drenched. Mandi hujan, baby!

It was a hapeee day. :)

Keep your mind busy

My initial plan for today was to do something I haven't done in months.

Instead, I ended up doing something I haven't done in months.

Heh.

I shall now call this particular DIY frame kit My Little Pony Antidepressant.

I bought this thing in ... I dunno, December? It's about time I got to making it.

The window. I repainted all the wood they included in the box with acrylics.

The swingset was my favourite part!

They included cloth to sew the cushions with but I messed up and cut it up too small. So I made do by taking an old shirtsleeve and snipping it up. Why yes, I did have an old shirtsleeve lying around. Long story.

Flowers, basket, a tiny book (I love this one) and a mug.

Detail shots.

Time to get a new box! :p

Messages

Here're some things I'm thinking, directed at certain people.

1. You've only been gone a few days and I miss you. :/

2. I'm disappointed, that's all.

3. It's so hard to look at you now. I'm actually angry.

4. I don't talk to you as often as I used to. I don't know what happened.

5. I'm glad we got to meet up again. :)

6. Do you have any idea where we're standing? Cause I don't.

7. I want to talk to you, but I don't know how to initiate the conversation.

8. Stop all this self-pity. Tell me straight out please.

And most importantly, to the most important person:

Always have a back-up plan.

Ps. Siapa yang terasa, it could be directed at you. Or maybe it isn't. You'll never know.

Semaine deux

I think it's time for a holiday update!

And blurry cat photo is blurry. Very aware if that.

Week One of holidays was ... actually sort of depressing. But emoboy tendencies aside, I got to watch A-Team and eat durian mochi, which by itself chases most troubles away. I also got to eat real durian, which also chases most troubles away. Except for bad breath, but hey that's what breathmints are for.

Week Two is so far miles better than Week One. It's been interesting. :)

So yeah, things I planned to do at the beginning of these hols:

1) Paint shoes

2) Make DIY kit

3) Get a part-time job

4) Put together Book of Motivation

5) Read books

6) Short film

7) Sleepover

8) Morning swims

9) Sky Trex

10) Paintball

11) Rock-climbing

12) Draw portraits

13) Picnic

14) Learn at least one guitar song

15) Make at least one piano cover

16) Shoot zombies

That's all I've got so far. Must get my butt into gear.

Meh

Meh.

Baby Sloth agrees with me.