Talking...

I have never loathed talking. Talking may mean differently to other people but to me, talking is a happy thing to do. No.1, I can keep secrets (I guess), so I never fear for myself that I'll be talking too much or spill other's secret out. Anyway, it's not like I have many secrets to keep. No. 2, I love talking to anyone I know. I like to bug my roommate, my housemates and also my friends next door. I can talk about anything with them, from secrets sharing to important academic work and also crap. We would laugh so hard until we drop flat on the floor gasping for air. This is how I talk.

However, after reading and viewing 'A Thousand Years of Good Prayers', I found it sad that a daughter find it so hard to talk with her own father. Well, it is not totally her fault. She was bought up in a quite family. Her family members never talked much with each other. She was not used to talk to her father since young. Her father, Mr. Shi, watched his daughter to grow up as a quite person and he never tried to change that. He thought being quite is a symbol of a good daughter, good girl and good woman. Besides, he always give excuse that his work is very confidential and ended up not talking much to his family. He would never answer questions. His wife had a lot of questions for him. But instead of trying to trust his wife and explain everything to his wife regarding what happened at work, he chose to close himself up and waited until his wife stopped looking at him with questioning eyes. This made it very difficult for the daughter to speak out. When Mr. Shi went to America to visit her, he kept on persuading his daughter to talk to him and tell him her feelings. Sadly, the daughter thought her father was being tiresome and got annoyed in the end.

This should not happen among family members. Family is supposed to be the one we trust the most, me, as a daughter, I love to talk to my father. Frankly speaking, I talk more to my father than to my mother. When I was still schooling, I used to talk about everything to my father when I got into his car. He would listen in silence. Well, I'm not sure whether he was listening, but I didn't care, my story never ends. I would tell him about the teachers, about the canteen food, about my friends and also my duty as a librarian. Sometimes, we would talk until I felt like crying. That was because he was talking about my bad results and he mocked me (it was a constructive mocking). At home, when I was not doing my homework, I would sat beside him and started talking out of nothing. I can't remember whether I was encouraged to talk a lot since I was young. But I was labelled as the talkative one by my family members. I guess talking just came naturally to me.

Talking may be hard due to language barrier. In the movie, Mr. Shi was trying to buy her daughter a gift, a good luck charm. When he went into the shop, he couldn't communicate well with the seller as his English was not fluent. He couldn't explain well what kind of gift he wanted for his daughter and ended up making the seller showing him a few things that were unsuitable for his daughter. Later, he was tricked by the seller by buying a wooden bear that he claimed to have a certificate to prove its origin which he couldn't show. Mr. Shi didn't doubt the originality of the wooden bear and ended up paying a very high price for it. I think if Mr. Shi was more fluent in English, he might understand that the seller was taking an advantage of him. Mr. Shi might not buy the wooden bear and go somewhere else to look for a more suitable gift.

I guess I have a little language barrier problem in talking. I seldom talk much to my mother because since young, I didn't express much of myself to her as she was the fierce figure in the house. At school, I talked in Mandarin, so my BM is quite bad. I talked only the basic daily conversation with my mom and hence, my BM never improved to a higher level. When I first came to study at KBU, my Malay friends around me said my BM sounded weird. I was shocked and I talked little to them as I found it hard to express what I want to tell them in BM. Later, with their encouragement and my own determination, I tried to improve my BM and started talking with them. Now, I can talk faster in BM and I became good friends with my housemates.

Talking shouldn't be that difficult. Without talking, there won't be any mutual understanding among different people. Should we all stop talking in the future, the world will be a silent and deadly world. Talking can be telling other people about happy things and talking can also be telling people the sorrow and pain we have in our hearts. Talking is the beginning of everything. Without talking, we can't make new friends, we can't get what we want and we can't let other people know what we know. So, take a step out and start talking.

My Friends

I have wonderful friends surrounding me, especially my precious housemates and my precious best friends here. I hereby want to introduce them one by one and tell you their personality, nice, odd, funny, and natural. I like them so much that I may not know how to describe them!
I will start with girls at room 1 house no.69.
1. Hooi Ying
According to Siew Wuen’s post, she’s known as a very narcissist girl. Well, I can’t agree more. Being with her every single day for about 4 hours or more make me on my limits with her. Sometimes. She can be very ‘big sis’-like for a while, giving advices and telling me what I should know (can’t share much about this, it’s a secret). The next day, I wonder what on Earth Siew Wuen and gang may have done to her, she turned, changed completely into a very annoying Hooi Ying. She can ask you something but not wanting an answer from you as she already has an answer in her mind. She can do weird stuff like holding my Blue Spot and caressed it as though it’s alive. She can ignore you for the whole time pressing her phone, sms-ing to her ‘invisible’ friends. Those things she does are very annoying. It annoys me so much that sometime I need to express my annoyed self to Shun Ling. However, no matter how annoying she can be, she can also be like my sister. We can share the same chocolate bar, share clothes, and do facial together and read magazines together. She is also my very useful and efficient antenna. Wondering what my source of gossip is, Hooi Ying! She tells me everything she gossiped with her roommates so that I’m up to date enough and not make a fool out of myself by being shocked on listening to old, out dated stories :D Love you so much Hooi Ying~~

2. Shun Ling
Shun Ling, unbelievable to many, is my ex-schoolmate and also ex-classmate. Again unbelievable to all, I was not close to her during my secondary school life. We were in the same class, but all I knew about her was that she was quite stern looking, did not talk that much, quite unfriendly. Then, one fine day, while we were in the Bio lab, the Bio teacher didn’t turn up. Coincidentally, Shun Ling was sitting in front of me. I was busy chit chatting with my friends at that time. Suddenly, Shun Ling and her friend turned towards us and started talking. I was so surprised. Hmm? Shun Ling talked so much! And she laughed a lot too. That was totally different from what I always saw her. Maybe the prefect training was really effective. Then, slowly, we started to smile at each other whenever we met each other. Until last year, coincidentally, we were here, together in KBU. From that onwards, we became best friends. And I discovered the shocking side of her. No need to explain. Whatever she is now is totally different from what I expected her to be. She likes to comment on our clothes. She’s our fashion consultant. Whenever Hooi Ying and I have fashion problem, we will ask her. If Shun Ling says it’s ok, then it’s ok. So if you see us wearing weird stuff, ask Shun Ling. Shun Ling’s cooking is good. Even though we keep on telling people that we cook together, but actually, she is the one controlling the heat, the taste and the appearance of the food. I am mostly the chopping, washing, serving and taking out veges girl. I don’t mind. Because her cooking is good :) I’m proud of having Shun Ling as my friend. Her memory is wide. She can remember all the directions, the high ways, the hard- to-differentiate roads. Without her, I think we can all only stay at BU. Shun Ling sometimes can be super caring, to the extent that you may feel afraid. Anyway, she’s who she is. I love her so much too :)

3. Siew Wuen
Frankly speaking, I do not know a lot about Siew Wuen when compared to her roommates. Siew Wuen is the cute cute little kid among us. With her significant height and cheerfulness, she’s really like a kid. More childish than me. But that’s on the outside. On the inside, my gosh, her English can beat many of us flat on the floor. According to my gossip source, she studies like mad. She can sleep at 2am and wake up at 7am to continue studying. She eats a little, which explains her size. She’s kind and caring. Like me, she likes cats. I guess both of us can’t bear the sight when Shun Ling does ‘something’ to the cats outside our house. I can’t explain Siew Wuen anymore. She is so very bubbly. I love her so much! Without her, we won’t have fun eating ice cream at Mc.D in the hot nights anymore. I enjoy the trip when she follows us to Mc.D to eat ice cream.

Now, I’m going to tell you about my housemates.

1. Fairuz
She’s my one and only roommate. According to many people, they can always hear her screaming in the middle of the night. Oh, she’s normal alright. Just that she has a very sensitive nervous system. She reacts exaggeratedly to any minor tickling or touching. I have to confess that the screaming is actually all my fault. I like to tickle her all the time. When I feel bored or when my hands are itchy, she has to sacrifice her waist for me. I will tickle her suddenly and she will be so shocked that she screamed. But I always can get away with it with my innocent look at the beginning of the year. Later, everybody in the house knows that it is my doing. Muahahah… I don’t care. I just like to tease her. She’s so funny when she’s teased. She likes to do weird weird facial expressions sometimes. Again, those expressions are so funny that I can’t stop laughing. Fairuz can also be quite melancholy sometimes. Well, don’t blame me for this. This will not be my fault. It’s her bf’s fault. They can be very loving at a time and annoyed with each other the other time. They can send lot’s of sms’s at a time and not sending anything to each other the other time. Then she will start bugging me about her not-receiving-any-sms-from-him issue. When Fairuz’s in a very good mood, she will laugh her head off with you and agrees with whatever you say. When she’s not in a good mood, she can ignore you for a whole night. She can act like as though you are transparent or an ant on the floor. Your existence will be forgotten. At nights like that, you will not be able to hear any screams as she release a kind of scary aura that makes you be out of her way. That’s Fairuz, I love her so much! I’m blessed to have a roommate like her :)

2. Athira
Oh, Athira is the happiest one in the house. She smiles and laughs every day. You can joke with her anytime. No problem, she doesn’t have Fairuz’s mood swings. Athira is a complete package. She’s pretty, kind hearted, smart, well to do and very cute too! She accepts praises but then will tell you not to praise her. Weird right? She will sometimes say weird stuff that makes you laugh not because of what she said but her actions and facial expression instead. At times like that, I will pat her head and say, “Athira nie comey lahh~~”. Athira is the professor in the house. Whenever we encounter problems in our studies, we always consult her and ask her to teach us. She’s so helpful and caring. Lately, Athira has become more and more eligible to be a good wife. She can cook nice food already. Sometimes, she will throw in what she can find in the fridge and make good stuff out of it. Isn’t that amazing? Ok, I may be exaggerating a little bit, but her cooking’s improving :D Athira, I love you so much! You are a very cute housemate.

3. Sherry
Sherry is the mother of the house. Well, not really but she is the motherly figure in our house. You can talk to her whenever you want. Her door is always opened for you. Well, maybe you have to knock as it is locked sometimes. She is caring; give good advices, very mature and smart. She likes to make fruit salad. When she does that, she will call the whole house down to eat with her. From what I have observed, Sherry concentrates in her study every night. She rarely got distracted. If she is distracted, it may be mainly caused by Fairuz’s scream and my laughter. She likes to be concern about us. Sometimes she will come down to our room and observe what we are doing. She will say things that are so funny and make us laugh. She likes to tease me a lot! Well, I can’t tell you what is it about but she does like to tease me a lot. Anyway, I still love her a lot!

4. Azreen
Azreen’s the noisiest in the house. You can hear her voice in the middle of the night. You can hear her screaming upstairs. You can even hear her shouting and laughing loudly upstairs. Her voice can make the whole house very lively. Without her, the atmosphere in the house can be deadly. Talking with Azreen is a very nice thing to do. She is a good listener. She will listen to you for a very long time without interfering. When you feel lonely or bored, Azreen is always there for you to ask her out. She usually will go with you wherever you want to go. Azreen likes to eat Maggie and porridge. That will be her breakfast most of the mornings. Azreen is the fun one. You can have lots of fun being around her. Love you Azreen!

5. Hani
Hani is the opposite of Azreen. She is the quite one in the house. I guess Hani is the most ‘normal’ one in the house. She never screams, shout or laugh loudly. She is sweet and gentle. She’s very pretty and everyone agrees with that. Hani too concentrates in her studies every night together with Sherry. She too seldom gets distracted by anything. However, Hani always go back during the weekends, so I can’t connect much with her. I can say Hani is the opposite of everyone in the house. Any guy will be very lucky to have her. Love you too,
Hani :D

6. Fatin
Fatin is the most generous girl in the house. The fridge never gets empty because of her. Every weekend, she will buy lots of groceries and stuff the fridge full. She loves to cook and serve everyone food. She will call for the whole house to eat with her. It will be like a family dining session. During these dining sessions, she will enlighten us the naïve ones with her knowledge about adulthood. The knowledge sharing session will always be funny and lively. Everyone will laugh until their stomach ache. Fatin is indeed quite knowledgeable about adulthood. She will always answer your questions if you have any. Fatin is always cheerful and bubbly. She too will never have mood swings and the smile always stay on her face. Even at 5am she can smile at you and start talking useful things or crap with you. You will never get bored or out of chatting topic with her. I love you so much Fatin!

See, all my friends are of different personalities. I love them so much so much that I sometimes hope we can always stay like this forever. However, time waits for no one. Someday somehow we have to be separated and achieve our dreams and our aims in life. Another 4 months time, I may not be able to see them that often anymore. I just hope during this 4 moths, we can tighten our bond, so that in the future, no matter what happens, our bond will not be broken that easily. Friends forever.

Happy Happy Birthday!!~~

This year's birthday was the best ever. I can still remember last year nobody knew me. Nobody knew my birthday, not even Shun Ling.... Ok, that was ok. At least my cousin bought me a birthday cake which I had to finished in about 3 days. Then I got cake phobia.

Siew Wuen wrote about my birthday in her blog but hey, I did not purposely show Hooi Ying my last year's birthday wishes..... Just that it makes me feel happy by reading it. So I read it. And I was also hoping this year I can get wishes like that too. See, I was not hinting anything. Ok, maybe a little... Heheh...

So, indeed I was the birthday planner. But it was not my fault, Hooi Ying and Shun Ling just came to me one fine shopping day and told me, ''You pick your own present, we don't know what to give you, '' and so, I picked. Since there are no more surprise birthday, so I made suggestions for my birthday. :D That's how the 'party' started. And actually, the food, except the ice and strawberry trifle, were made by my cousin. I just went there and waited for the food to cook. Heheh.... ^-^v

Seriously, I was touched. I'm very glad that I have such good friends here. Shun Ling, Hooi Ying, Siew Wuen, I love you guys so much~~~ I was also surprised by the 'amazing' game they planned. I knew they planned hard but still..... I felt like slapping their backs for thinking up weird weird things like that... But still, it was fun when I was not doing the weird weird stuff. Hahahah.... Shun Ling was the most shocking one. I can't imagine a person as mature as her can become so 'cacat'... Hahahah..... sorry Shun Ling, but it was just so funny :D

My friend from INTI, Nilai came to celebrate my birthday together with my friends here. According to Hooi Ying, they said my friend was very great as she came to BU all alone and celebrated my birthday with a bunch of people whom she didn't know well. Accept for Ming Chai who used her to get through the game. Hah, Ming Chai, if my friend dare not come to BU anymore, it's all your fault! Just kidding... She didn't mind at all.

Later on my birthday night, which was Saturday night, I nearly had my heart jumped out of my mouth and onto my hand. There was something very shocking happened. Well, I'm sure the whole world know it by now. I won't elaborate further.

Lastly, I want to thank everyone for their great wishes and gift. Thanks so much. Especially the girls from room 1, house no. 69. Thank you so much. And Su Xian, thank you so much for being here on my birthday. And someone else, thank you to you too. Friends who left wishes on Facebook, thank you~~ Papa, mama, Hannin, Kim sis, thank you to you all too~~~

Cultural Heritage

Sometimes I will wonder what race am I. I introduce myself as a half Chinese and half Malay. Some people said I'm more towards Chinese. So, what am I? In my IC, it's stated that I'm a bumi (surprise right!). To me, I don't think myself as neither a bumi or Chinese.

This week during English class, we were learning basically about multiculturalism and bilingual education. As I have mentioned above, I introduce myself as a half Chinese and half Malay. So, I know only half of the Chinese culture and half of the Malay culture. You may wonder how I was brought up. Well, I was brought up by my aunt who is a Chinese. You may argue that I should know everything about Chinese culture. The problem is that since I'm a Muslim, my aunt didn't teach me much about Chinese culture. Maybe she thought it was unnecessary. Well, I know only about the culture from what I saw her doing and by questioning her. I did not mix much with Malays until I come here, at KBU. This is the first time I have so many Malay friends. Obviously, I came from a Chinese school and all my friends including my BFF's are Chinese. My teachers were mostly Chinese, my tuition friends were Chinese, even the cousin that I'm close with is a Chinese.

I seldom mix with my Malay cousins which are all from my mother's side. I'm not even close with my grandparents from my mother's side. But I do respect them and tried to be a good granddaughter. I see only my aunts, uncles and cousins during Hari Raya. Other than Hari Raya, I don't even know what happens to them. The reason that I seldom mix with them may be caused by the language barrier (surprise again!). Yup! My BM sucks. To the Chinese my BM may sound right but to the Malays, my BM is weird. Totally weird. I didn't know that until last year when one of my friends from my part time job told me. The reason that my BM sucks may be due to the fact that I speak BM only with my mother. Seriously. Even Mr. Derick's BM is better than mine! I don't understand any of the slang and I can only guess when I'm listening to one of them.

I'm very confused. I don't know what cultural heritage I own. I cannot be a Chinese as I don't look like one. I cannot be a Malay as I don't fully adapt to the Malay culture and I do not speak BM like most Malays do. So what race am I? Maybe one fine day I should sit down together with my parents and ask them this question. However, although it's very confusing, I'm glad that I'm born with two different kinds of blood running through my veins. It makes me different from other people. I love speaking in Mandarin, Cantonese and also Malay at the same time (like what I always do at home). Whenever I look myself in the mirror, I see both my father (the Chinese side of me) and my mother (the Malay side of me).

Shocking news shocked me...

This week, a few days ago, I heard the most shocking news. OMG!!! My friend's boy friend smokes! Gosh, I was so shocked that after I heard it I was rooted to the ground. I just stared blankly at my friend who told me this. After I told this to the other friend of mine, then I realised another shocking fact. This other-friend-of-mine's boy friend smokes too!! Why do they have to smoke? Boys.... or males.... Not that I want to state that smoking is a stereotype of males as I do realise that females smoke too but why do they (my friends' boy friends) have to smoke? This is just way too shocking... They look so decent and respect and healthy...Why???!!!

Another shocking news I got from this week is the result for the EALD's assignment. That is way too disappointing. I never hated English, but now I do. I enjoyed doing the documentary and some of the other assignments but the result is very very very disappointing (the repetition is for stresses). How I missed my English tuition class during secondary school. We wrote many essays but since the standard for SPM is quite low the teacher didn't put too much stress on our writing skill. Besides, we got to read comprehensions and listened to many of the teacher's stories which sometimes had something to do with the passage and sometimes had nothing to do with the passage. We got to talk with friends and laughed around while discussing about the answers. He did not scold us for making noise but joked around with us too. We did not have any homework as all the essays and comprehensions were done on the spot. Sometimes when we finished our work fast, we got to play word games too. Those were the winderful times...

The third shocking news will be the fact that we have to do the speech thingy next week. I'm so going to die next week. Seriously. I took about 3 days to do the documentary review. Now, I will only be having 3 minutes to prepare the speech which is going to last for 5-8 minutes. Hello Grim Reaper.

These are all the shocking news I got from this week. I think I better go and sleep and enjoy the weekends first. I hate worrying... I have to read....

It was a rainy day...

The dark curtain fell across the sky. It was very gloomy as though the sky was mourning for someone beloved who has died. Suddenly, the sky groaned softly as though trying to let out all the sadness in its heart. Finally, it started to cry. It was so sorrowful that someone who watched the sky crying may cry too.
The earth received every drop of tears the sky let out like a good friend listening to the sorrow of the other friend. The people were all selfishly carrying on their own activities without stopping to be concerned with the sadness the sky held within it. The plants stretched their fresh green leaves and stood straight up as if wanting to hug the sky to comfort it. There was so much things happening outside in the nature, but the people still carry own their daily routine and selfishly cursed the sky for crying without finding out why...

Looking forward...

This week I'm looking forward to many things. Number 1, I'm looking forward to finish all the tests and presentation. Number two, on Friday I can go back home after class. Number three, my best friend is coming over to meet me next Friday! Life is full with excitement and happiness indeed.

Sometimes when I just came back to BU from my hometown, I felt like taking another bus ride home. I don't want to go back to the busy college life just yet. I don't want to start new lessons just yet. I don't want to run behind the others just yet. So, I always look forward for holidays. Sometimes when I feel busy or tense up, I feel frustrated. But then I save my energy for studying instead of complaining. I've known that it'll turn out like this all along. Nothing out of the blue.

This month is a very busy month for us. We have tests, presentation, documentaries to do and also econs assignment. Before starting the econs assignment, I want to recharge first. I'm going home this weekend to recharge. I wonder, if I manage fly to Australia, where am I going to escape? I can't possibly go home on every holiday :P

Ok, I think that's all for now. Have to continue to do the documentary and also study applicable maths. Sigh...