Malaysia

I like to think big, and make plans.

My past goals included:
- Studying in Japan
- Making friends from all over the world
- Experience different cultures
- Learn a foreign language

And some of my future goals include:
- Working overseas
- Moving out of my parents place
- Make my parents proud
- To enjoy my work

I know I wont be able to achieve all my future goals, but just like my past goals, you win some and you lose some. I am pretty sure though that everyone sets some compulsory goals for themselves, or plans that have to be done in the future. Mine would be to end up back in Malaysia. Even if by some chance I did not make it overseas, I still do want to live here eventually.

At the moment our country is pretty messed up, but aren't all countries messed up to their own locals? I still really like to stay here, although more important than that is I'd like even more to be able to get some overseas work experience. Mainly to help with me getting an even better job when I come back. So I'm sorry to most people if it seems like I want to leave this place so badly, it's only so I can have a better life when I eventually do come back.

When people ask me why I didn't travel so much while I was overseas, it was only cause I had no interest to (well.. slightly because it was expensive). Honestly speaking I actually prefer seeing more of my own country, so if I had a choice to travel to a new place in a foreign country and taking a holiday somewhere nearby, I'd actually choose the latter. I love being next to water and the beaches around here aren't too bad. I wouldn't mind going to neighboring countries to see the beaches though.

Before going anywhere else, I'm going to travel my own country! So the next time someone asks me what does Malaysia have, I'd know what to say. Also, I'll be able to bring my friends around to places outside of KL confidently! Time to start saving up some cash to travel my own land! =)

Pfft.. and they called me unpatriotic for not knowing how to speak Malay properly.... PPFFFFFFFTTTTT!!

Music

Ever since I got myself my precious headphones, I've been able to properly listen to music. I do love listening to music, be it chilled out music just to make a relaxing day even more perfect, some rap in the car while being stuck in a traffic jam, techno to pump me up through a tedious maths question, or dancing in the club to RnB. I love all types of music.

As i was looking through some new songs that were out, I also like browsing through Youtube comments to see if there's anything interesting and I found this while listening to Bruno Mars: 

The Script taught me how to move on.

Greenday taught me that government's gonna fail someday.

Bruno Mars taught me to do anything for that one person I love

Eminem taught me that life is hard but you can make it through

Travis taught me to be generous

Taylor Swift taught me not every girl is going to treat me right

30 Seconds to Mars taught me to speak whats on my mind

Michael Jackson taught me to always love the people around me

Music taught me to live

I love how music makes me feel =)

I make my own luck!

So I went to get a reading a few days ago. I don't usually believe these things. I also don't like listening to people who tell me how lucky or unlucky I'll be. I much prefer to make my own luck!

So anyway, it all started when I was walking around with some friends who were visiting. They're looking for a shop where he could get a Jade bracelet. A friend of mine and his sister get their fortune for this year told. Their mom translated everything the lady was saying.

After both my friends got their fortunes told. The shopkeeper told them to buy things that will improve their luck, or that will counter their bad luck for the year. This is where I went "AHAH! so she is trying to sell something!" which proved what I thought about all these fortune tellers. They come up with this general story that can be applied to anyone, just to sell you something. I thought, now it was my turn to get my fortune told and now I had to come up with several reasons why I wasn't going to buy anything from her.

She then went on telling me about my luck this coming year:

• I'm very friendly and attract alot of people [hmm... ok, fair enough. She could be saying this to anyone though]
• I have alot of opportunities, but i will just have to be less fussy about the things i choose. [well, obviously! if you lower your standards, you'll have more things to choose from]
• Once i set my mind to something, I will not change it no matter what people tell me. [If that's a nicer way of saying I'm stubborn, she's right...]
• (at this point the shop lady tells my friends mom to stop telling me stuff before my head gets too big from hearing all the good things) [hahahha, she has a sense of humour too!]
• When I go out with people, they will expect me to pay [HAH! way off! I don't even have the money to pay for people!]
• My year will be great after 1st of October 2011, I will achieve that which i dream of [wow.. that's pretty specific, maybe it's something in the chinese calendar or something, i wouldn't know. but wait.. does that mean my year's gonna be shit until then!!?!?!?]
• I will have to be very careful of who I attract. To keep the bad people away I will have to buy an Obsidian bracelet. [EHHH! i knew she was going to sell me something!!]

I was listening so closely to what she was saying about me that i completely forgot to think of excuses not to buy anything! My friend's mom then tries to convince me to buy it too! I knew something like this was going to happen! that's why I never like going into these shops! After awhile though, the shop lady was saying that I don't have to buy it now, because I cannot be pushed to doing something i don't want, like the reading she gave me earlier said. Right after that i thought to myself, "Oh! that's understanding of her." She just said to buy it when I want to, because it is only for myself. I guess all of them aren't so bad.

Later that night I had dinner with my friend's family and when we called for the bill, the waitress came to me with the bill! All of us joked about how the reading was true. 

It's fine joking around about it, but i just really don't believe these things. I don't believe everything is set in stone. I have nothing against anyone who believes in it, because everyone has the right to believe what they want to, but please don't shove your beliefs down my throat. The shop keeper was being very nice about it and I thought why can't more people be that way about their beliefs. Sometimes, the reason why nobody wants to believe what you believe in, is because of the way you approach them. This one time i was walking around Aberdeen and there was this American guy who was coming up to random people to preach to them. He came up to a friend of mine and after he already said he was Christian, my friend pointed him straight at me saying that I'm Muslim. The guy then comes up to me ands starts with "Do you know in the Quran/Koran, it says Jesus is god 16 times?" Oh, there's no way I'm going to be listening to you now. You know what? I think all people who preach should at least be open minded enough to think that there are people that believe in things other than my own beliefs and know when to just keep quiet and move on to the next person.

Been really bad with blogging lately. I really cant find a good day just to sit down and write stuff. Oh well, at least I'm doing it. =)

Language

So! If you know anything about me then you'd know that my Malay isn't anywhere near as good as it should be. I usually joke around about it alot but sometimes I just think that I've lost out somehow.

I used to dread learning Malay Language in school, mainly because I was so bad at it. It was one of my worst subjects in school, my worst being Agama (Islamic Studies). Since my parents chose to speak to me and my siblings in English and going to a school where the majority of people spoke English, I didn't really have anywhere to practice. Whenever I had to write an essay i used to think up the story in English and then translate it into Malay a little at a time. Since my grammar and vocabulary is pretty bad, this usually ends up making the story I'm trying to tell extremely boring! Which sucked because I loved writing.

After awhile I kind of gave up on trying to improve my Malay Language, since I realised that I would be going overseas to study, I did not see the point in learning it. When I went overseas to study and realised that all the other Malaysians that I met could speak at least English and Malay, and most spoke Mandarin and Cantonese as well. Some of my friends were really impressed that Malaysians knew how to speak so many languages. Sadly when they asked me how many languages I could speak I only said one and a half. Though I did meet some Malays who were more than willing to help me improve my conversational Malay. Sadly, I slowly lost contact with them and my Malay slowly deteriorated as time went on without speaking a language that it suppossed to be my mother-tongue.

As my studies were coming to an end and as i saw my chances of working in the UK taken from me, I realised that I had no choice but to come back home and look for work. This scared the sh!t out of me. I honestly didn't know what level of Malay I needed to have for it to be acceptable or whether I would actually have to speak Malay. I still feel insecure when I speak to someone in Malay. I feel that because I try to rush myself with the words, I might end up saying something I don't mean.

I will do my best to practice Malay and hopefully not embarrass myself or my family longer.
I will stop making jokes about myself not knowing Malay.
I will get more confident when speaking Malay.

Gahhhh! there goes another promise about Wednesday posts. U know what, I'm just gonna try post every Friday instead. That way I'll have the whole week to write something up and leave it to be posted at the end of the week! I think that makes more sense than posting in the middle of the week.

Whiteberry

I got an awesome new phone! Thanks to a certain sponsor who will not be mentioned =)

I never considered getting a blackberry before. Mainly cause i thought of them as being very boring. I took back everything I thought about it when I saw this Blackberry Bold 3 in white! It looks amazing, and it was like love at first sight! 

I love the phone, there was some trouble getting the internet for it sorted out, but once it was done, i had my facebook, twitter, whatsapp and my bbm all in working order. I think i use it too much cause the battery on it runs out way too quick. The only thing missing from my Bb is skype! Probably wouldn't need a laptop anymore if i could get skype.

Oh well! I'm enjoying the new phone! =D

Going to try start blogging regularly every Wednesday. Hopefully with mini-posts like these inbetween Wednesday posts. Main posts will be where I talk about what's been on my mind that week.

Should I take a left or a right?

Hmm.. So far so good, been blogging roughly once a week, so I hope I will be able to keep this up.

Currently I'm at a very important stage of my life where my next job could probably determine the path of my future career. My career will also probably affect everything else in my life one way or another. For the first time in my life, I am actually genuinely scared. The feeling of not knowing what to do next. The aunts and uncles that keep talking about my future, all insisting that I should take a different path than the previous aunt/uncle. The worry about whether I can actually be happy or at least satisfied with. The pressure is just building up and it's starting to scare me.

I like to think of life as a really really long road (well, at least until u reach that dead end called death, but let's just ignore that dead end for now). I think any decision that we make in life can be simplified in to a simple YES or NO. So all decisions that you make in life is either a left or a right in the junction of life. Now planning your life, you would usually want to set an end goal for yourself which will have its own combinations of rights&lefts or yes&no. The end goal is probably based entirely on your priorities. Be it money, satisfaction, convenience, career, power, popularity, or even the love of your life.

How do you reach that goal? lol! Like I'd know. If I did I probably wouldn't be looking for a job at the moment and blogging at 2am. One thing I do know, there are no U-turns on this road.

Among all the talks I received about life from my family members, I'll probably take two things to heart. The first, NEVER make a half-assed decision. I do not want to regret any choices I make, I have enough of that already. If I have to make a decision, I will think it through and stick by it! The second was an unexpected advice but set my priorities straight: Be happy.

Apologies for the pointless rant on absolutely nothing, this post is mainly to remind myself  in possibly a few months time about how I felt. =)

Don't tell him/her I told you this but....

Don't you just hate it when someone tells you to not tell anyone else a secret they told you? It's like they think if they say that they're getting rid or at least lessening the responsibility of keeping a secret. It's a pretty hypocritical statement if you ask me.

Let's say this completely made up situation where Andy tells a secret about himself to Beth and later on Beth lets Cathy know of Andy's major secret! Oh, and of course Beth says, "Don't tell him I told u this, but.. ". Saying that is not in any way making things look better for yourself. Most of the time this secret is going to be spread to someone else and is somehow going to come back to Andy and Beth will have some explaining to do.

Now, if i stop here, this would probably be a pointless rant on how annoying some secrets can be, so, of course there's more to the story!

What really annoys me is that when a Beth asks a Cathy to help Andy with a problem he's having. Cathy however, cannot let Andy know that Beth told her Andy's little secret. Here Beth is only breaking Andy's trust but also putting all responsibility onto Cathy. So if Cathy screw's up, Beth has someone to blame. It just irritates me how some people can just give away another person's secrets like that. If Cathy was meant to know, I'm sure Andy would let Cathy know WITHOUT the help of Beth.

Names used in this post were completely made up and have no reference to actual people. Gender however is a completely different story, as we all know, (since Beth and Cathy were women) women are more likely to tell each other secrets anyway! ;p jokes! lol.