blackrose_influenza

So the big event has arrived. The parade of the A (H1N1) virus, right here at our beloved INTEC. When you're an aspiring virotoxicologist (the study of toxic effect of viruses in humans - I made that up but I would like to make a thesis on that) you tend to view this with amazement. Wah, so the deadly virus, close companion to Ebola, beloved sister of Spanish Flu, is now so close to me. How interesting.

(I am not that crazy/obsessed to let myself be infected with it, anyway)

Thanks to that infamous virus, all UiTM branches were forced to be closed, sending us students for a quarantine at home. This very abrupt news broke out yesterday, barely after I've finished making plans for my going back home next forthnight. And it was very abrupt that I had immense difficulty on believing it, due to the informal method used to relay the message (Zetty my housemate: Tim, kite kne balik ah! INTEC kne kuarantin! Me [just awake from my beauty nap]: Tipu ah [continues sleeping]).

I didn't mind going home, really. I've been planning to do so anyway. But how the hell am I going to buy a Shah Alam-JB bus ticket within such a short time?????

So I planned to buy the ticket this morning, along with Linda. Failed to analyse the severity of the whole situation of people rushing to go home, we went to Ole-Ole and had some karaoke sessions (wanna go bowling but the place was damn packed). Only at 11.30 am did we manage to leave Section 18 for the bus station. And as expected, tickets were sold out everywhere.

Dang.

So, panic-stricken, I searched for any ticket counter selling tickets to JB. Dragging along my berat-cam-anak-gajah (heavy-as-a-baby-elephant) bag, I began my quest for the valuable Willy Wonka ticket. Asked the people behind the counter, "Tiket bas ke JB hari ni ade lagi x?"

Counter 1: "Hari ni sampai Isnin habis la dik"

Counter 2: Ditto

Counter 3: Ditto ditto

Counter 4: "Ade, tp kol 9 malam dik"

Counter 5:"Ade, kol 3 petang. Nak tak?" (Yes of course la kak! Thank God!)

Alrighty, so I got da 3pm ticket, and it was barely 12 noon. No big deal? Maybe, if I'm taking the bus from Terminal 1 (I could like, go window shopping or something). But what the heck am I going to do at Shah Alam bus station, a place where the only window shopping you could get involves staring at shelves of Twisties, refrigerators of soft drinks, an avian cage with doves and a little yellow ayam serama chick (comeyyyyy), myriads of counters selling tickets to Kelantan, and various lauk kampung for lunch?

Ah hell. It's better than not getting any tickets at all anyway. Shou
ld not grumble and always thank God for His mercy and blessings. Humhum.

So yeah, back to the question. How am I supposed to spend the excruciating 3 hours before the arrival of the bus? I am sooooo not going to sit there and let myself collapse from heat stroke. Then suddenly, Subconscious provided me a solution. Hey, it's the bus station. And INTEC's just across the road. Why don't you go and have some fun in the deserted INTEC library and get yourself some hypothermia-inducing air-conditioner, Maya? Subconscious, you're ingenious!

And so that leads to this situation:

(it's H1N1 season so it's only appropriate for me to read something related to virotoxicology - um, I mean, viruses...)

I really love that library. It has all kinds of books you could think of. It even has toxicology books ohmigod! And the air-cond is damned cold! And I get to check my Facebook with my faithful laptop there! I was right, Subconscious, you are ingenious! Even though I had to suffer some mild awkward moments going there with the rattling sounds of my luggage trailing with me, it was worth the effort. And finally after I decided that I'd had enough of the books, the WiFi and the hypothermial air-cond, I returned to the bus station and wait for a few more minutes for the arrival of the JB bus...

JB, my beloved homeland, here I come!

Oh wait. Forgot something. Where is my mask????

blackrose_bahasa jiwa bangsa

Aku suke tol menipu orang. Kali ni aku tipu korang ngan tajuk blog aku.

Sure korang pelik, nape aku tetibe tulis dalam BM ni? (alrighty, bukan Kamus Dewan punye BM, tapi still leh paham kan?) Narnye xde reason pun, saje2 jek. Cam best la pulak ngimol dlm BM SMS ni. Lagipun aku xnak certain people yang hanya leh paham BI tp xleh phm BM bace post yang ni n terase la hape la (xyahla tanye aku sape diorang). Hati orang mesti dijage, tu satu akhlak yang mulia.

Btw ingat x last post aku yang sal eclipse bagai uh? (kalo xingat leh skrol bawah...dipersilakan...) Post yang ni didedikasikan untuk mengexplain (aku suke gune word hybrid camni) part yang last skali uh. Simply put:

Aku dah clash

Bukan niat di hati nak promote kat orang or membukak iklan bagi single guys yang lain mencarik teman idup diorang, tapi aku rase sangat terpanggil untuk mengimol something pasal tuh kat blog aku. After all, blogs are for expressing your thoughts, d-oh.

Problems started mase gerhana matahari bulan 1 aritu (26 Jan, see last post). Malam lepas gerhana tu, aku dapat mesej kat fs dr sorang makhluk Allah dari I**q ni, die kate die sangat tertarik sebab aku ngan die banyak persamaan. Dari mesej kat fs, kitorang progress to YM pulak.

Dipendekkan cerite la kan, pas beberapa minit kitorang chat (aku tak tipu n ni bukan hiperbola macam aku bese buat tu), tetibe die tanye aku soklan cepu emas, iaitu "Do you have a boyfriend?" Aku yang terlalu jujur ni pun jawabla no, walhal tyme tu aku masih digantung tak bertali. Pas lame2 tu, die progress lagi ke next stage (bile orang dah tanye ko ade lover ke tak, mmg nampak sangat la wey yang die ade niat lain uh). Next stage die ialah dengan bertanyekan pada aku "Will u be my girlfriend?"

Hambik ko.

Aku mintak mase 2 hari. Lemme think about that first. Soal ati dan perasaan bukan leh wat main2, or so aku berhujah. Bodo x bodo uh, mintak 'thinking time' 2 ari jek? Gile. Lepas ari tu hari2 kitorang YM. Dalam jangke mase 2 ari tu jugak r die xputus2 tanye aku dah wat decision ke blom. Tengok r, blom ape2 lagi dh tunjuk pushing attitude die uh.

Dan sebab rase rimas kne push constantly, aku jawab yes.

Bodo kan?

Memule memang r excited. Sebab die perkenalkan diri die cam seorang Victorian dark count something tau tak, ngan genteel manners die bla bla. So naturally, I was attracted (baru attracted, huh). Susah nak jumpe guy yang ade characteristics cam Raphael (well not exactly cam Raphael, tp adela sket2. Not in terms of looks, but in personality). Apparently die ni bercita-cita nk jadik animator, sbab die sangat suke games n animations (esp the ones with blood and gore, and fighting stuffs). I said okay, fair enough. I don't judge people based on their interests. Die kate susah nak jumpe girl cam aku yg interested in bende2 yang same cam die (back then la. Aku dah lame x update fs profile aku, so mase die bace sal aku tu die ngah tengok aku pade mase Form 3, n tyme tu aku still lg into KOF la, Street Fighter la, Castlevania la...). Mmg so flattered la bile ade org puji aku ni tu la ni la, kate aku beautiful la (itu sumer hanya tipuan. I'm not beautiful dammit).

Tapi bile lelame, aku rase len macam. Die cam terlalu obsessed kat aku lak. Hari2 soh online, kalo xonline die sms "why don't u online?". Hari2 mintak gambo la, voice recording la, video la. Hape mamat ni, bisik hati kecilku (cheh). Bile dah slalu aku rase rimas la pulak. Bese r aku ni xsuke dipakse/di-push, so bile ade orang push aku sure r aku beng tol x tol x??? Lagi satu aku anti, aku xsuke tol bile mak bapak/siblings taw yg aku ngah bercintan cintun ngan bf aku, but he seemed like wanting to tell da whole world about it. Malu n awkward weyh!

Oh, aku ade mention x yang die nak gile kahwin ngan aku? Kahwin, as in, lafazkan akad nikah, jadik suami aku, rukun nikah, tanggungjawab suami isteri, bla bla...?OMG!@!!%$^%&^*%$#$

Kemuncak segale2nye adalah mase satu malam tu, aku YM ngan die, n tetibe die tanye soklan cepu emas lagi. Since die mati2 ingat aku mmg nak kahwin ngan die (which I'm not tp aku trpakse gak ckp yes sbb nak jage ati die), die expect aku akan bukak segale rahsia aku kat die gaknye. Watafeck??Aku cakap yang aku ni secretive, tp die pakse gak. Die pakse aku open up for him n tell him aku pnye darkest secret (die ckp "i won't push u, but please consider bla bla"). Like hell la wey. Mak bapak aku pn xtaw, nikan nak gtaw this single stranger? Gi mam. Sejak ari tu, aku ngan die dh mule jdk renggang (dh lame dh narnye. Tp aku pendam)

Sampaila eclipse 22 July 2009, a fateful day in our relationship. Aku realize yang selame ni aku hanya berpura-pura. Aku xcinta pn kat die (not anymore at least), but it took me almost 3 to 5 months to realize n to tell da truth. What took me so long?

AKU KESIAN KAT DIE!!!!

I believe that life is like a courtroom. It should be fair all the time. So aku rase xfair la kalo die gegile sayang aku, wat tu wat ni, korban tu korban ni, tp aku wat cm susu dibalas tuba plak. Kalo tuba okey lg, tp besenye as a toxicologist aku curah cyanide jek trus. Oleh hal yang demikian aku pun paksela diri tok bertahan, but later I realized that aku xleh nak selamenye jage ati/ikut kehendak orang. I have a life of my own too. I don't wanna be confined to the tangled strands of fake love. I just wanna be free. And I hate pretending (tp napela aku slalu wat?hmmm).

So aku ngan berat ati (sambil menyalahkan diri sendiri) mintak cerai (remember, aku dh jadik 'bini' die).

Of course la die xnk trime, n salahkan bff aku plak, tp pastu ngan senangnye die ckp bye.

Dammit, why make me feel damned guilty??????????????????

Seriously aku ckp, sampai skarang aku rase guilty n rase it's unfair for him, but what can I do? Xkan aku nak terus menerus seksa hati aku sendiri (seb bek aku xwat self-mutilation taw)? Xkan aku nak berterusan tipu die n tipu diri sendiri? Xkan aku nak jeopardise future aku? Ne taw t aku leh jumpe laki yg wayyyyyy better? Xkan aku kne selamenye jage ati orang len, walhal ati aku sndiri xterjage? Cmane kalo kitorang btol2 kahwin? Sanggup ke aku tinggal ngan lelaki yg aku xcinte forever, n pretend aku sayang die for the rest of my life? Sblm aku cerai lpas dah nikah, bek aku 'cerai' sekarang. Ni for his sake jugak. Makin lame simpan, kalo satu ari t kantoi, makin dahsyat collateral damage die. So bek aku stop skarang.

I'm sorry I have to be that selfish. But I just wanna be free.

So, from the eclipse it started, from the eclipse it also ended.

blackrose_eclipse

No, not Twilight Saga Eclipse (despite the Jasper fangirling mode that I'm in this week

The arrival of the new moon (refer to 'When Is The Next Full Moon' gadget) also marked the arrival of the second solar eclipse in 2009. Being a freaky Goa/psychedelic trance enthusiast that I am, I've been waiting for this event since eons ago. The last solar eclipse, on January 26th 2009, was a partial annular solar eclipse so it lacked the darkness-y elements as only 96% of the Sun was blocked (okay so 96% is kinda a lot, but there's nothing significant about the surrounding of that day - Sun was still shining brightly). The 22nd July solar eclipse, on the other hand, was a total one. which was cool coz when you have total solar eclipse, people would start to mutter words like darkness, evil, bad omen, Damien, 666, doomsday, retinal burns from staring at the sun without proper eye protection, etc. Like, sooo Maya Arielle (minus the retinal burns part lah).

Only one thing, though. I was not able to witness the phenomenon with my very eyes, thanks to the fact that I'm currently living in Malaysia and Malaysia is not located on the umbra. Well, there would always be the partial solar eclipse, but d-oh, that's like, so not darkness-y (watched January 26th partial eclipse at home. I knew the feeling. No darkness whatsoever). To make things worse, it was raining barely half an hour before the actual eclipse started, obstructing any possible spheric form of the Sun from view. Even if it's not raining, I was in my Biology class at the time of occurence. What do you expect - me walking straight towards the lecturer in front, asking for an excuse to walk away and witness the solar eclipse, telling him "I am a freeky lunatic psychedelic trance devotee, and it's eclipse so I have to do my ritual eclipse dance, so that I'm able to be one with the Universe and posssibly gain access to next year's Full Moon Festival in Germany"? And then expect the lecturer to mouth off something that rhymes with "what the muck"?

So no eclipse. Hell yeah. Gone was my reputation as a psychedelic trancer.

But hey, there's always YouTube so I can still imagine myself doing meditation (not yoga - yoga haram doh) at Anjuna Beach, Goa while waiting for the peak event to happen.

Doh. Talking about eclipses and India, I suddenly remembered something. Total solar eclipse marks a very emotional phase of my life. From the eclipse it started, from the eclipse it also ended. WTF am I babbling about? Read the next post coz I'm too twisted to put everything here. Mwahahahaha.

(the next solar eclipse will be on January 15th 2010. Annular - very beautiful - but I doubt that we in Malaysia will be able to view it. T_T)

blackrose_minipost

like, very mini

turns out that i am not the only one obsessed about inferiority-superiority

will explain more later

oh i just love self-hate

what's wrong with me?????

there you go, ladies and gentlemen, my minipost on obsessions.

i should stop this.mwahahahahahaha (Marquis de Sade mode)

blackrose_bon odori!!!!!

OMG

OMG!!!!!!!!!

One fateful day my friend from the Diploma Kejuruteraan Jepun (her name is Shafienaz, thank you) started one fateful conversation. It was something like this:

Fify: Tim (kantoi name btol), do you know about Bon Odori?
Me: Of course I know that one! I'm dying to go there!

Fify: Wanna go there? It's on the 18th of July. Heard that INTEC will provide a bus to go there.

Me: NANI???????? (random Japanese words followed later)

I AM SOOOO GOING TO BON ODORI!!!!!!

It turned out that INTEC did provide a bus to go to Panasonic Sports Complex, hence saving my RM2 worth of bus fare (okay, so it's just RM2, but I can buy one ikan keli with that. Life is hard without allowances T_T). Initially planned to go there with Nemo and Fatin, but ended up going with Linda, Fatin and Oura instead (the two made a last-minute decision, while Nemo decided that a beauty nap is better than a Nihon festival).

By the time we reach there, the place was already packed with people.

Sugoi! I was like, am I really attending a Bon Odori Festival????OMG!!! It's been a part of my dream since, what, four years ago? And now I'm able to brag in front of my bro, telling him "Akak dah pegi dah Bon Odori [menacing laughs]". How sugoi was that?

Being compulsive buyers that we all are (despite the absence of JPA allowance money), we headed straight to the Japanese product booths. 6 pm at that time, we had like 1 hour to go before the real event starts, so might as well get something to eat. Or drink (not sake or Asahi beer!).

So the Sushi King booth became our first victim.

the RM4 crabmeat sushi. Jusco's was rm1 each, but what do you expect from Sushi King?

Linda and Oura. Linda's first sushi experience?

everybody say "Oishii!!!"

Food was okay, but the price turned us down. I would especially love to eat an unagi bento set, but for RM6? No thank you. Iie, arigatou (direct translation). One cup of ice cream can cost up to RM5, and two cute balls of mochi costed RM2. A bowl of ramen costed RM10 (yet people were waiting in long queues for it). I was dying for some dango and takoyaki, but there's too many people at the booth. So all of us had to do with nasi lemak for dinner (like, very ironic. You go to a Japanese matsuri to eat nasi lemak for dinner????).

others prefer unagi bento, but whaddaheck, nasi lemak rulezzz!!!

Apart from eating and 'shopping' (told you we're compulsive buyers), another favourite among us is to snap pictures with people in yukata...

sweet Japanese family ^^ awwww

we 'kidnapped' this girl while her mother went to buy some ice cream...smthg..

...And also with a Gothic Lolita (hello sister!!!) [note that at Bon Odori you are not advised to wear cosplay/Decora/Gosurori/Alice Auaa/Moitie/Algonquins/h.naoto Blood so as to respect the Japanese ancestors and their traditions. But the Gothic Lolita was cuuuuute!!!]

the gothloli's not at the centre. She's at the far right

cool plushie. Hangry or Angry?

And then, the best part would definitely be the Bon Odori Dance! We only managed to join the second part of the dance, but it was something not to be forgotten of. Fancy Parapara-ing to traditional Japanese songs? Then Bon Odori is the place to be! (You know me rite; that Parapara was an exaggeration).

hai!!!!let's parapara!!!!

It's a pity that our dance was cut short (very short indeed, we only managed to follow one-sixth of the second part dance T_T), coz someone (president of INTEC's Japanese Club I guess) told us we were required to go back at 8.30pm. But despite the short duration of our first Bon Odori experience, I dare say that it's one of the best things I've ever had in my life!

Who's going with me for next year's Bon Odori?

blackrose_alice and the jabberwocky

"`Twas brillig, and the slithy toves

Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:

All mimsy were the borogoves,

And the mome raths outgrabe. "
Jabberwocky by Lewis Carroll, from Through The Looking-Glass, 1872

I bet you are all aware of the classic Alice's Adventure in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll, and possibly may have heard of the sequel Through The Looking-Glass as well. For years ("Alice" was published in 1865) the bizarre tale of a girl's adventure in LSDland had adorned many a little children's bedtime story and had captivated numerous adults alike.

(No, I'm telling you the truth, adults do like Alice in Wonderland - Tim Burton won't make the live action version if it isn't so.

Freekin enough for a goth to love Alice? Not really. For those living in the secluded, private world they called Gosuroriland (me included - 'gosurori' means 'gothic lolita'), Alice is like an official mascot, just like what Marilyn Manson is to the gothic underworld (apparently he has his own version of Alice, too. Something with the word Phantasmagoria as well)

Now, you wonder; how can a children's popular tale be gothic, or even lolita?
For me, I view Alice in three points of view:

1) The Lolita Side

Alice is a Sweet Lolita. It's obvious. She wears blue baby doll dress with drawers and crinoline and frills resembling that of Baby The Stars Shine Bright. She wears Mary Jane and attend tea parties. And she's sweeeeeeeet.

2) The Dark Side

Four words, "Off With Their Heads!!!!"

Like, very grotesque.

And the Jabberwocky part - have you ever seen the 80's version of Through The Looking Glass ? That Jabberwocky was awesome.

And the poor innocent baby oysters becoming victims of the merciless Walrus? How gory was that?

3) The LSD Side

Mad Hatter and the March Hare portrays the best example. Surely there's something in their tea that makes them act like that. And the freekin caterpillar was very psychedelic trance. I mean, hippie (he smokes hookah/shisha. Hashish?). And you notice the whole surrounding of the Wonderland? You won't get all of them if you're not on an acid trip. Maybe Alice did take LSD.

So yeah, Alice in Wonderland, along with Through The Looking-Glass, is definitely more than just a children's tale. I know it, coz I'm Alice of Phantasmagoria. Man, can't wait for that Tim Burton version to come out! I just so love Alice (Liddell and Cullen-Hale)!

blackrose_inferioritycomplex

Ah, hey, sorry for the long absence.


I told you I'm not good in updating blogs (think I should give the credit to AUSMAT programme, but then again I think it's just me~~).


Say...the long drought of a decent blog post was mainly due to the fact that I'm in college now, so most of the time I'll be sitting on my desk shuffling through RM300++ worth of books (actual price may vary) instead of writing a journal. That, and the absence of a proper internet connection.


BUT...everything shall change now that, thanks to my dearest housemates, I'm now experiencing the wonders of w1max!





So on to my main topic.


Living in college was not something new to me. Of course, that sentence was a false statement, as I am not some kind of a maths wizard who attended Cambridge when I was 14 or so. What I meant with 'not something new' was that I had been away from my family for 5 straight years, so it's not alien anymore for me to live on my own along with 3 other girls. Yeah, yeah. BUT then again (my catchphrase?) when you're an ex-boarding school student with 5 years of spoon-feeding experience, college life (in terms of academic) can be quite scary. Hey, there's no Mr. XXXXX forcing us to study, there's no Ms. YYYYY to wake us up for Subuh prayer, there's no step-by-step demonstration on how to solve inequalities using sign diagram (or something like that. By the time I'm writing this, Maths has been haunting me for days). No more spoonfeeding, no more orders from adults, no seniority whatever.



But that's not the worst of all things.



The very worse, I should say, is the fact that you are no longer the superior and the special one in your community.



OMG!!!!!



And there you have it, ladies and gentlemen, my inferiority complex.
According to Wikipedia, "an inferiority complex, in the fields of psychology and psychoanalysis, is a feeling that one is inferior to others in some way. Such feelings can arise from an imagined or actual inferiority in the afflicted person. It is often subconscious, and is thought to drive afflicted individuals to overcompensate, resulting either in spectacular achievement or extreme schizotypal behavior, or both. Unlike a normal feeling of inferiority, which can act as an incentive for achievement, an inferiority complex is an advanced state of discouragement, often resulting in a retreat from difficulties". (don't tell me this is plagiarism; I've cited properly already)

Sounds like I belong in a mental asylum? You betcha.

Problems arise as soon as I started lesson. I have learnt (in a hard way) that 7 months of idle-lic (a play on word based on 'idyllic') life is proven fatal to the brain cells (it has got to do with either iron (III) sulphate deposits, or the mass suicide by my neurones). All of sudden my elaborate piece of essay outline seemed minuscle compared to the others, with their incorporation of myriads of bizarre Anglo-Saxon words as well as intricate sentence structure that rivalled those of Shakespeare's (or Ernest Hemingway. Or Bram Stoker. Or whatever). What happened to those essays you used to wow the teachers with, Maya? At that point, my long-abandoned inferiority complex started creeping up slowly, and by the evening it had turned into a full-blown one.

I just so hate inferiority complex. It made me feel as if I was having a disintegrating mass of pink jelly for a brain.

But hey, a good news. I am a new Maya, and I shall not repeat the mistakes I have done in my past teenage years. So instead of whining all over again about my psychological disorder in this very blog, I will do something about it. No, I'm not going to have an appointment with a shrink (but I would be more than happy if you could be generous enough to sponsor my appointment), I'm going to change. Oh yeah. Change we can believe in. Like, so Obama.
The first step that I would like to take is to be less pessimistic. Pessimistic is cool for a goth, but nothing is good when you have too much of everything. From now on, instead of letting Subconscious repeating "I am a pathetic loser going down from her throne", I shall force it to say out loud "I can do this!". Um, sounds very Oprah/geeky physics student, but somebody's gotta do the grim task. It's better than self-mutilation anyway.

So there, this is my new-life-in-college resolution. Combat inferiority complex and change for the better. I wish I have enough capability to do it. See? I'm sounding pessimistic again! So, guys, you know me better than I do myself. Do you think I could make it?

Hope so.