Love is overrated

Of all spectrums and variations of emotions that exist, love remains a strong and powerful feeling which anyone anywhere could relate to.

We are all pumped up, hyped up to believe that love, with all its perfectness and splendour to arrive at our feet, kneeling down, proposing with sugary sweet words, a magnificent 27 karat gold mounted with a blinding bright diamond and to expect a romantic reply as simple as 'i do'.

Awwww. How Schweeeet.

We are systematized to believe that our soulmates would come and sweep us off the ground through various writings, songs, poems and movies. A girl daydreams of Prince Charming or Edward Cullen (just to hike up visitors to this blog), handsome, macho, perfect eyes, biceps and triceps as large as 5 litre mineral water bottles, with six packs worth of abdomen, romantic and all that jazz. While a boy conjures up an image of their fantasy Sleeping Beauty, or Rapunzel, skin as white as snow (no racism here, if your choice is chocolate skin, then make yourself at home), sweet, beautiful, cute, nice, excellent at cooking and all that jazz. There is, of course, that search for perfectness, which i assume is normal, as nobody really wants a semi rotten apple for their dinner.

But of course everything is rosy when you're in love. You imagine the snow falling down as 7e slurpees. You don't mind the sun shining bright and hot and your skin goes all sticky sweaty wet because you believe it's your source of vitamin D. Your finger bleeds, but you say that's the colour of love flowing down. Quite simply, the world and all its inhabitants don't really exist, except the two of you. The hard cold facts of reality don't really bother you. Of course, all that comes before the package called 'maturity' arrives at your doorstep, which will be attained when the right time passes by.

So, what if your partner comes up to you and reveals his or her bad habit honestly. It's like being hit hard with one negative attribute or habit, when you're like thinking the sky is blue all day long.

'We have been going on for quite some time. I want to let you know something. I am..uh..diagnosed with CFO. That's the acronym for chronic farting disorder. I've been taking medications each time we meet. There are days when it blows like a machine gun, some days it's like the whisper of the wind. Most of the time, it's an atomic explosion. Well, there are of course those occasional engine start up sounds. Occurences coincide with inadequate intake of medications but i've learned to control it throughout the years through farthotherapy, preferring the silent smooth type. Don't get me started about the smell. There was this one night, i couldn't quite sleep, so i forced myself to fart just to make me faint.'

Of course, CFO doesn't exist in ICD-10, which is the acronym for international classification of diseases. It's easy to like someone for their positive traits, but the fact that every Tom, Dick, Harry and Suzie have bad attributes should also be put into perspective.

Whatever it is, love is simply overrated these days. From a historical point of view, relationships of the past have been arranged by parents and surprisingly, although i don't have statistics, i think most of them turned out well and spawned numerous writings of unrequited love of their ex lovers. I try being fair here, by not being a male chauvinist who is often referred to a pinkish animal that feeds on its own excrements or a female activist who screams for gender 'equality', which for me, is such a waste of time. Both contribute to the downfall of the institution of relationships equally because there are desires and the neverending search for the perfect love. Desires, in this context, refer to sex and exclusively sex for men (food comes a close second) and for women, they require their partners to satisfy each and every single need of theirs, according to this Allan Pease guy.

But of course, in the end, the ones with the most desires eventually contribute more to the divorce rates. I have a unofficially weak statistic to prove my theory. In the USA alone, 50 % of marriages end up in divorce, with 70 % of them being initiated by yes, you guess it right, women because the more desires you have, the more unsatisfied you are when they are left unfulfilled. Now call me a male chauvinist, but women are a demanding bunch and i've got statistics on my side! Boohoo! It's a touche too cliche to think of men as playboys but i have to say there are guys who feed on their egos and go on a love rampages, they will never be satisfied with one woman. They like to test their proficiency in the language of romance. These people would marry up to 10 women if the law says so. I grew up living with this fact in my head, too. That's why i found Hamka's version of love from the male perspective to be enlightening and astonishing, since 'Tenggelamnya Kapal van Der Wijck' was written in 1937. Additionally, i found El Sharizi Habiburrahman (hopefully i got that right) to be heavily influenced by his writings. Hamka wrote : -

'Laki-laki bilamana telah menentukan cintanya untuk seorang perempuan, maka perempuan itu mesti jadi haknya seorang, tak boleh orang lain hendak ikut berkonsi dengan dia. Jika perempuan itu cantik, maka kecantikannya biarlah diketahui olehnya seorang..Sebab itu, kalau ada orang lain yang hendak memuji kecintaannya,...semua itu tidaklah diterima oleh laki-laki yang mencintainya tadi.'

Another stupid invention related to the love memorabilia is something called 'prenupts' or prenuptial agreement. It's a pre marriage deal of property division and spousal support if anything goes wrong. My lawyer friend considers this as a 'preparation for an inevitable future divorce'. It's like saying, 'We are going to divorce anyway sometime in the future, why not just sign it so that we could reduce any friction when we go our seperate ways.' Another friend, a law student in UIA is more pragmatic, saying that it protects men equally as it protects women because women tend to demand for everything in a divorce. Men can declare what items are theirs before marriage so that there are no ridiculous demands upon a beak up. I say, it's just stupid. You're entering something as sacred as marriage, and you're preparing for a possible divorce even before you recite the solemn oath of 'til death do us apart'?

No wonder there's a spike of single guys these days, and god only knows whether i'll be contributing to an increment of such statistics. Of course i am not accusing only you of having such desires or motivation to start of a relationship slash marriage slash I have my own preferences, which i'd rather not divulge here on my blog. I keep those preferences to myself, as i am an introvert and that's what introverts do. But the fact is simple, I am not trying to prove there's a prevelant role of either the female or male gender contributing to divorce or a downfall of a relationship. All i can say is, there's no such thing as perfectivity (the word does not even exist), although there are still those who search for that impeccable love.

Fart-all-that. Love is overrated.

Lactose tolerance

I had a few discussions with Mr. Milky and we have decided to bury the hatchet. We are now on equal terms and i am drinking milk without any protests in the form of stomach upsets. So yeah, i have been enjoying bowls of cornflakes lately and enjoy them very much. Don't know what happened a few months ago when i ended up diarrheating after drinking milk, but now i'm back to my normal ways.

Health savvy might not be precise, but we have been controlling our diet together, as roommates. Less oily foods, regularly taking bread, and all that. I've asked my roommates to take vitamins because minus the hypotension cum food poisoning that i had, i am feeling better and rarely go sick like i used to after my regular daily intake of vitamin C, which is an antioxidant to protect our cells and fish oil capsules rich with vitamin E to make my sperm more motile, active, handsome and all that, and zinc tablets.

I used to neglect the health issue even though i am a medical student but now i've realized that my metabolism is failing me as i grow older and any extra food intake ends up making my tummy bigger and my butt bulkier. Now you have to think of healthcare the same way you're going to think of bills after bills and taxes, loans and downpayments and all that in the future.

You know how we used to eat THAT much in our teenage years and never end up putting weight. I also had a bad habit of letting the water run while brushing my teeth and never switching off the lights when not in use while i was younger. So now, yeah, i am thinking of my health more often (gotta be selfish), and try not to waste water and electricity because i will end up paying bills by myself instead of my mama.

And owh, accidentally, there's a research about ugly men producing more sperm. So, today, officially, i am an ugly Japanese guy. I am sure you'll faint when you meet me. See that Panda up there, that's why i don't put my own picture there. Seriously, let's just stop talking about my face because i'm nauseating.

One thing i've improved on is my intake of carbonated soft drinks. I've significantly reduced drinking those unhealthy liquid candies, only to be replaced by the sweetness of condensed milk in my Neslo. But yeah, that's a good step forward. I'll eventually kick away the habit of adding 2 table spoons of condensed milk into my hot drinks sooner or later.

2 days ago, we watched 'Super Size Me', a documentary about the fast food culture in America. It chronicles this guy who takes only McDonald's for 30 days, 3 times per day and how it affects his health. I don't know much about McD's ties with Zionism, but by watching the documentary and how it affects our health, it will be more than enough to motivate us to stop taking these fast foods. The majority of American dietitians and nutritionists opined that we should not be taking fast food at all.

It's this vicious cycle that continues on and on. Fast food restaurants spend billions on advertisements alone, and attack primarily kids which is a shrewd marketing strategy. The playgrounds and funhouses and toys, of course kids could easily fall for such ads. McD is also actively involved in some educational and charity programmes so that they may acquire this goodwill image. Before the documentary was made, 2 American girls with the help of activists decided to sue McDonald's for making them obese, but of course they lost the lawsuit since they could not prove that only McDonald's exclusively was causing them to be obese.

Of course, you're going to say it's a conscious decision and to eat fast food once in awhile won't do no harm. But always bear in my mind that there are better options than those synthetically made beef of theirs. McD even states that 'it is a matter of common knowledge that any processing that its foods undergo serve to make them more harmful.' It is a matter of choice. John Robbins, son of the co founder of ice cream outlet Baskin and Robbins walked away from the business which could have turned in millions for him because he thought that ice cream was the cause of death of his uncle, Burt Baskin, at the age of 46. Of course, that was due to a very high intake of ice creams.

I won't be hypocritical here, i put a lot of MSG in my food, another bad habit i will try to stop in the future. And besides fast foods, there are a lot of restaurants out there that serve unhealthy food. Having said all that, i am putting myself up for public humiliation if you end up watching me munching on Burger King or KFC. So, here's the deal. If that day ever comes, come up to me and give me a big fat slap on the back of my head. Yes, i do mean it. Just come up, identify yourself as a reader on my blog, wait, it would be more honorable not to introduce yourself and just slap me with all your energy.

It's easy to recognize me. I am that ugly looking Japanese guy with those healthy sperms.

E-mails and Airmails

Besides my yahoo e-mail, i have another e-mail which i rarely use. Infested with cobwebs and rust, i logged on to that account last week so that it won't expire. I was surprised to find an e-mail from one of my closest buddies.

Most of the time we have been contacting each other through e-mails, from the time i first came to Russia while he was still in Malaysia, right after he returned back to Malaysia after a year in Australia. He told me that he wanted to keep all of those old emails as they were precious to him, like a diary of sorts. We recalled back the time when he was so much into this girl, that he went as far as writing an instrumental song for her on the guitar. He's a wonderful guitarist with a liking for jazz and classical music. He e-mailed me that song and i liked it very much. Eventually, he never got the girl.

Long gone are the days when letters were the only mode of long distance communication, replaced by more modern ways of e-mailing and facebooking. Collecting stamps was once considered a noble hobby, i don't know whether the hobby still exists or not. My sister used to collect stamps.

I read Hamka's 'Tenggelamnya Kapal Van der Wijck' last summer while i was down with influenza like illness, and the bulk of the novel are letters written between two lovers. And i thought there were elements of Hamka's style in Habiburrahman's writings. I wonder whether there are still people who are stuck in that period of time in this modern era just for the sake of reviving tradition. Are there still people writing letters, besides those official ones, love letters to be precise? Handwritten, the warmth of a sheet of paper folded into an envelope, you actually have that emotional substance in it.

My mom told me that she used to write letters home while she was at a boarding school in Johor, and would intentionally cry and let the tears shed on those letters so that they will have that drying effect afterwards. My mom was that creative, but she missed home very much.

I might not have experienced that, but i am sure i will still keep on replying e-mails to this friend of mine. Maybe i am just a backward kind of guy, but i, too, enjoy writing and reading lengthy e-mails.

'I love emails. Thank you whoever created them for allowing me to preserve my memories.'

London is calling

Cue the Clash's classic punk rock tune, 'London Calling'.

I will be making a Eurotrip right after my exams are over. My mom always wanted me to travel a lot because i think, she has always imagined guys to be a bunch of adventurous beings. She pushed me to travel a lot of time, like last summer, she was asking me to travel to Jakarta and kept telling me about the AirAsia offers in the newspapers. So i called her few days ago and she asked me why am i not going to Paris.

'Everyone says Paris is slightly better than Alor Setar, mama. So why need to go there? We have our very own romantic Menara Telekom Alor Setar.'

'Who cares what others say. It's you. I want you to travel so that you can say you've been there done that and for you to see it yourself how boring Paris is compared to Alor Setar.'

Well, it didn't go exactly like that, but yeah, she wanted me to travel more.

I am only going to Germany, England and Ireland with a few friends of mine. I was hoping to travel to Spain and Turkey, too. I read a book on Mosques around the world and i came across the Mezquita while i was shopping for books at the Times (one of the best bookshops in KL) at Pavillion and it was pretty interesting to find out they incorporated Roman and Visogothic architecture in their capitals, as the building itself was a former Christian Visigothic church bought by the found of the Cordoba Caliphate, Abd Rahman I, before incorporating an 'Emirate style', purely Islamic architecture later on. I took shots of the book with my iPhone because i loved the explanation.

After the Reconquista, the Christians built a cathedral right in the middle of the mosque and at one point decided to bring the mosque down in all its entirety, only to be intervened by Emperor Charles V. Legend has it that he uttered the following words, "Had i known what was here i would never have dared touch the old structure. You have destroyed something that was unique in the world and added something one can see anywhere!". The author of the book mentioned afterwards, "One must remember, however, that the mosque might have survived precisely because a cathedral was built inside it. Any building frequented for whorship would be maintained, whereas one left empty is exposed to decay..".

Anyways, i have nowhere much to go to, except the following places.

1. Anfield stadium, Liverpool.

For your information, i am not going to watch a game there as a ticket costs around RM400. I would rather buy a few jerseys than watching this 'once in a lifetime experience'. Actually, i don't really mind not going there. Some people tell me, 'Rugilah kalau tak pergi kalau dah kat Europe.' I don't really think so, i could save the money for something else. As much as i love Liverpool, i love my money more than anything else. But i've decided to go to England, so yeah, why not go there. Maybe i will bring some luck to the lifeless Liverpool team nowadays.

2. The Beatles museum, Liverpool

This is a part of English history worth more than any architecture piece in England. Enough said.

3. Ramones museum, Berlin

The Ramones were the founders of punk rock before the Sex Pistols and the Clash became famous. Some New Yorker who collects Ramones' memorabilia moved to Berlin and decided to open a museum there. I was a big fan and it would be a nice experience to go there.

4. Shopping

I still don't have a nice grey blazer to accompany my nice grey pants, so hopefully i could find a cheap one at topshop and i want to buy some shirts and pants (hopefully i will be able to maintain my waistline) for work. After stalking facebook for pictures of people graduating, i think i am going to consider buying a nice pair of cheap (yes, i am that stingy) leather shoes. But i just don't like the color black that much and hopefully i will find a nice pair of brownish leather shoes.

I think that's about it. Maybe i'll google for some more places to visit there.

So, hopefully i will enjoy my time there. Hey ho let's go!

A road to wherever it takes me to

A working life awaits me in 2010. I've lived for almost 24 years on planet earth. That's quite far, although the journey is still far from the finish line.

Growing up was a clueless phase of life. Nobody really knows what goes on around them even after puberty hits. There wasn't any 'Growing up for dummies', 'Guide to live life in the 90s' or 'DIY : Build a decent life ahead of you!'.

At some point, my friends belonged in clans such as skinheads, hip hoppers, skaters, jocks etc because they wanted to identify themselves as they don't have a stable identity. Once they were fed up, they leave their clans. Now, a friend who used to be a skinhead fashions an expensive looking haircut. I was never interested, but it was interesting to have such friends.

Then, people around me had all sorts of ambitions, ranging from buying fast cars to big houses, wanting to become pilots, doctors and lawyers. I had a few ambitions : to be a footballer, or a rock star or a music journalist. None came true. I never really wanted any Mercedes or BMW like they did. The only ambition i had was to be like my mom, a nice, wonderful person. To be frank, i don't have any concrete desire to be a dad as i never had one, physically. And sometimes i do feel gutted that i don't miss my dad much, because i never really had the change to get to know him. But i do believe God has taken him somewhere better, far from the evils of the world.

At the age of 12, my mom wanted me to enroll at some school in Melaka, i wanted to go to a boarding school in Perlis, in the end i settled down schooling in an all boys' school in Alor Setar for my lower secondary. I love the people at that school and look up to them very much because i was surrounded by females at my house : my mama, grandma and my 2 sisters. They were like, 'I'm a fifth former, you're in form one, i'm not your brother, you're my friend. So don't call me abang.'

I was lucky enough to get a good result for my PMR, and packed my bags to Langkawi. I still remember filling up some kind of survey when i first arrived in Langkawi, that i wanted to someday continue my studies at Liverpool. That was just a joke, because i was such a big fan of Liverpool FC. There was not even the faintest of ideas that i would end up overseas. Russia was not even on my mind. It never crossed my mind that i would take up a 3rd language and study medicine in a former communist country.

So i got lucky again for SPM, and received an offer to go Russia and accepted it without much thought. That is a big deal, i guess. There are others who would do anything to be in my shoes, to study overseas and all that jazz. So again, i am just thankful for that. I chatted with a friend who told me he was jealous of friends who are studying overseas, but both me and him believe his time will come in the future. But all i can tell is, there's not much difference between studying overseas and in Malaysia except the weather. The difference between mediocrity and greatness is hardwork, and i am the kind who believes in hard work more than anything else. It's easy for me to say, i guess, because i got the offer.

Thinking back, I just didn't look beyond engineering and medicine because people kept saying there's a lack of those 2 professions in Malaysia. Plus, my mother was a doctor. And so, without knowing that much of the medical world at that time, i took up medicine, hoping that it would grant me a decent life ahead. I don't know whether those 2 reasons are strong foundations for me to be a good doctor.

Don't get me wrong, i am not regretting my choice whatsoever. For anything that has gone by, there's a slice of fate attached to it. Now i hope i will become a wonderful doctor someday, whatever that means. Some friends have decided on which specialisation they want to be in, but I don't look (yet) beyond my 2 years of housemanship. I don't know where this ambitionless state would lead me to, but i do believe it will lead me somewhere. The same thing with my car. I don't look beyond using any car besides my Proton Satria yet, because as long as it can move, i wish i could still be using it. Some call that zuhud, but i am not it. Marriage is just beyond my cognitive ability at the moment.

Maybe there will come a time for me to have a proper ambition and work out for it but i never had any proper planning and everything just happened by chance in my life. I don't have that consistent identity yet. I've seen friends who have foundd their identities and become matured, some politician like, some leadership like and all that. I really admire them.

If i have to give you an advice, do have a proper plan for whatever you want to do. Look forward to tomorrow, put your daily goals, your short term goals so that you have a sense of accomplishment in yourself and you don't wake up every morning not knowing what to do. I think that's what being progressive is all about. I don't do that, but i think planning is cool and i hope to change myself and become a proper planner.

Ceramah motivasi lah pulak. Haha.

Sometimes when i look back, all i can say is, i'm just so lucky to be blessed with these 23 and a half years of living. I always ask myself, what if i had gone to that boarding school in Perlis, or not go to Langkawi after my PMR. Would i have met the same nice people who have coloured my life or experience this journey. I haven't been a good guy, am not close to God and far from being a good Muslim, but i try to honestly thank God for everything and everyone i've been blessed with. God knows i am doing all i can to be a better man. I take every experience that has come my way as it is.

In the end, I don't know where will my legs take me to, or what my eyes may see, or what will happen to my muscular body, or what will i eat tomorrow, but i'm sure looking forward to it.

Oh hell yeah.

PS : Had roti jala (netbread.Go figure) for dinner tonight instead of rice. Have to say 'wow' to myself.

Snippets

1. Holidays are here. Final winter holidays, could possibly be the final days of enjoyment/relaxation since the working life ahead is just around the corner.

2. I would like to finish reading a few books. Don DeLillo's Americana is getting heavier day by day. Only 50 pages left but i've lost a bit of interest in the storyline. It's way too artsy for me. Then there's The Call of the Wild by Jack London which i've been reading on my iPhone. On the religious front, i've been reading a portion of Al-Ghazali's Ihya Ulum al-din, 'Wonders of the heart'. I'm half way through it. I'll try to summarize and share what i've got from the book later. Another book i wish i should start reading is Professor Thomas Arnold's The Spread of Islam in the World.' And hopefully then, i could begin 'The Master and the Margarita' by Mikhail Bulgakov. Caiyok!

3. I've just eaten a bowl of cornflakes and muesli with bits of chocolate chip cookies. Banana slices would make it perfect, but i didn't bring enough money to the kiosk just now. Our diet has been quite stable lately, we've been eating less fried foods, and at times we only eat bread for dinner. The only setback was my sudden craving for potato chips these last few weeks but now it has stopped.

4. Herald has finally been granted permission to use the word 'Allah'. There are opinions that it is good for dakwah, which, yes, i could relate to. Alhamdulillah, i'm still a Muslim but at the same time, i do realize that there are those who don't even know the real Islam although they were born Muslims. Ayah Pin, Rasul Melayu and some other unknown cults have managed to infiltrate their teachings. So what would happen if someone presents their teachings to these people, using the word 'Allah' ? There should be a need to propagate Islam even more, of course and a restudy of Islamic education in Malaysia. I don't know the implications of such actions right now or in the future, but i just can't agree. But if one day it is finalized, and they have the rights to use it, then Allah knows better.

5. I thought of changing the design for this blog since some of my friends just don't like it, but i just love the simplicity of the design. I've added a few more websites on the list to your right, so happy surfing.