Once upon a teh-segan

Once upon a time in 2004, ketika aku masih belajar di UIA, aku telah memulakan sebuah blog. Aku belum lagi jadi seorang novelis but I was eager to let people know what I think... that is, IF there are readers at all. But at the time, readers were not important. Apa yang penting ialah getting your words across.

Aku registered masuk blogdrive (it was the first link in yahoo at that time). And I called it teh-segan. Why? Same ol same ol. Dalam bahasa arab, Shai means "Teh" dan Shy in English means "Malu", but I preferred the word Segan rather than Malu.

Aku rasa aku tak pernah berhenti menulis dalam teh-segan sejak 2004. Ada banyak benda dalam tu yang menampakkan perubahan cara aku berfikir all these years, more than any pictures can tell. There was the time when I was so into Jay Chou. There was a time when I was so critical about politics. There was also the time when I can't get over how much I hate Yasmin Hani (tak benci dah. It was a temporary thing), Erra Fazira (tak benci dah. Also a temporary thing) and Dr. Fazley (I still find him annoying, but whatever). There was that time when I wrote about how my bestfriend (Iza) punya stalker suka stalk aku sekali, yang memberikan aku idea bahawa it is quite annoying being a pretty girl's fat sidekick and make me understand why sidekicks always ada low self-esteem dan sangat sensitive terhadap people's comments. There was also that time when I was in a rut tak dapat kerja, the time when I think that Michael Scofield is the best man ever exist on TV, the time when Mr Darcy is the best man ever exist in literature and when I started to gain readership, and was known as "that sarcastic blogger". 

Teh-segan jugak memperkenalkan aku pada my two blogger-buddies - Masni dan Jis. 

It was also filled with my day-to-day activities when I was working in CO - the stars and celebrities I met, how I think of them (to which my bosses made me delete it...... ahahaha) and what I think of my colleagues. It was filled with all the praise I have for the workplace, all the stupidity that made me leave it and all the reasons why I still freelance for it. It also filled with every dreams, every one of them yang berjaya aku tunaikan (ada degree dalam Polsc, jadi novelis, kerja bebas, jumpa orang yang aku nak jumpa, cam Mamat Khalid dan Mustapha Maarof... yeah, I do think that he was the shizzz in BAWANG PUTIH BAWANG MERAH... ahaha)... ia juga filled with semua benda yang crushed me to a point where I can't breathe, bisnes yang lingkup, heartbreaks, pekerjaan dalam bidang Polsc yang tak berjaya didapati.

Aku berhenti menulis dalam teh-segan awal tahun ni. Our lawyer told us that they wanted to get on with suing the defendant, so I decided that I will not let us lose the case just for some stupid angry things that I might have written here and there on the blog. So aku tutup blog tu buat sementara waktu, dengan niat that as soon as the case concluded, aku akan bukak semula.

Tapi kes tu dah conclude Julai lepas. 

Masni, yang aku kenal masa dia masih belajar, dah jadi lecturer dan dah ada MA.

Jis, yang aku kenal masa dia masih di MMU dah pun jadi PTD dan in a relationship.

Sesetengah link blog yang ada kat teh-segan dah pun berubah dan dah ditutup oleh ownernya.

Nuffnang dah lama stop counting visitors coming.

Visitors pun dah lama beralih ke blog ini. Yang tak tau kewujudan blog ni pulak dah lama jumpa hobi lain dan berhenti interested in reading strangers' blogs.

Aku bukan lagi pompuan sarcastic yang ada opinion about every single brouhaha in the world, cusses like nobody's business atau perempuan yang can take another legal suit for things she said/wrote. Things yang betul-betul private dah jadi betul-betul private, not private 'sikit je' for people to know. 

Tahun depan aku dah 30 tahun. I dun wanna be the same person I was when I was 23. I am not the same person as her, anyway. 

So, like I always said in teh-segan.... toodles!

Reminder: nurulsyahida-thewriter will be the only blog yang NS ada. Any other blogs menggunakan nama NS atau nama novel2 NS bukan milik NS.   

I am being an annoying critical person again...

Ah, jumping the shark. Most hated word by my peers. They would of course just say "Ah, come onnnn. Shai is talking about shows that is jumping whales or bombing the freezer or those things and bore us to death wi-it again." (I am just pretending my friends are all Cockneyed British, that explains the weird english)

It's actually "jumping the shark" and "nuking the fridge". Also known as "the pompous terminology reviewers use to explain stuff people don't care".

Which of course I have to explain (again!) before I start on my whimsical journey through criticising television... because my life is so great I have to find faults in others. That's sarcasm, by the way - and I have to explain that because Malaysians have this weird understanding of what is sarcasm. You see, "Whateverrrr" is not sarcasm and no, it doesn't make you cool. It makes you even uncooler when you use it without really understanding how to use it. Okay, back to the subject.

Jumping the shark is a term that means.... like, when a television series is starting to lose its je ne sais quoi (which is my pretentious French for saying "uniqueness") and starts doing all these nonsensical stuff or the other way around, in order to get its ratings back. It derives from (uuu... using the word "derive", how very elitist of me) from the 70s show "Happy Days", when the show made Henry Winkler's character Fonzie (or "The Fonz") show his ultimate coolness during water-skiing by jumping over a shark.

"Nuking the fridge" is the movie equivalent of the term, and derives from the scene in "Indiana Jones 4" where Indie hides himself inside a fridge to survive a nuclear bomb test. Which is pretty ridiculous and too McGyver-esque rather than Indiana Jones-ish. It shows that the movie is trying too hard to be as great as its predecessor, thus they make him too great, which is another word for "ridiculous". 

So now, every single television shows or movie franchise that bombs (negatively, I mean), will be called these two terms. You diggin it now? 

Which is what I want to talk about now. My most favourite shows on the planet going blergh. And them went blergh with the same reason.

HOUSE

I don't watch HOUSE anymore. I used to. He was this very snarky, disgruntled old man with a cane, sexy blue eyes and that attraction of knowing that Hugh Laurie is actually English. House was a mean bastard, agnostic to a T, and was the first ever racist-sexist that was accepted by the public. 

But then he started to not use Vicodin. Which is mistake number one, because everybody wants to see a broken House and House is broken with Vicodin. You can't make him the same man with only ibuprofen. That's jumping the shark number one.

Then, everybody loves the whole love-hate relationship he had with Cuddy. But viewers (in another word, ME) don't actually want them to be together - or being together and spending half of season 7 groping each other. Eww.

But it actually starts losing its way since he fired every single one of his staffers. Okay, that was a bold and brilliant plot, but what comes after that is bullshit. A SURVIVOR type show where House eliminates doctors he doesn't want?

These type of shows cannot last more than five seasons without starting to get all messy and ridiculous. 

HOW I MET YOUR MOTHER

The problem with the show is it doesn't define itself. Is it an ensemble cast? If HIMYM was an ensemble, like FRIENDS, it should not have called itself "HOW I MET YOUR MOTHER" because then we will read it as "a story about this guy named Ted and his friends"... in short, his friends are only secondary to anything Ted does. 

Note to readers (again), ensemble is when the show is about everybody in it, rather than a story about one person and all the others are just his sidekicks. FRIENDS is an ensemble cast, so does DESPERATE HOUSEWIVES. Usually all these sitcoms are called "an ensemble cast", but actually that's not the case.

So when you make up plots about Barney or Robin and put Ted behind, it makes it feel slightly weird because it is about Ted, isn't it? But if it is not an ensemble, then why would I have to care about who Barney is marrying? 

The thing about FRIENDS (and I have to say, I love HIMYM MORE than FRIENDS, because FRIENDS felt a bit too gay for me.... I still am not convinced by Joey's ability to get girls), is that the title itself is self-explanatory. It's about friends. It's about all six of them. So it's not weird if today's show centers on Monica's obsessive behaviour and then next week it's all about Ross. It's a story of them all. But the title HOW I MET YOUR MOTHER kinda narrows it to this idea that it is about Ted (because it even started with Ted telling his kids about it), and his friends are just the background. 

So yes, I have issues with the latest season because they wanted to emphasise on the other characters, leaving Ted mopping behind. And yet, unlike FRIENDS (where you can do that), it makes it feel detached from its objective. You kinda go, "It's seventh episode already, why the hell I am still watching Barney getting all lovey-dovey with Nora? Where is Ted?" 

It used to be exciting and quirky and very random. Each story, no matter how ridiculous it is, has an explanation (like the goat that attacked Ted) and make you go "That is so brilliant!". Now it's just "Oh, Barney is getting married.", "Robin has a psych boyfriend", "Marshall and Lily is getting a baby" whoopdeedoo.

I have a thing about this Barney thing. He is not humane. Don't make him one. I know that everybody has a heart, but Barney is funny because he has no heart. Shouldn;t make him fall in love. It's a boon to every single rebellious character. See:

1. HOUSE : House falling in love -TANKED

2. SUPERNATURAL : Dean Winchester has a love that got away - TANKED

3. HIMYM: Barney fell in love. Twice. - DOUBLE TANKED

4. TWILIGHT : A wolf and a vampire in love with the same woman? TANKED BADLY. Sorry, this is not a tv series nor it has anything to do with what I am saying. I just don't like TWILIGHT by principle, that's all.

CSI

CSI started going nowhere when William Peterson quit. Langston cannot compete with Gil Grissom by any level and the attempt to make him slightly interesting only makes me lose more interest. And then Laurence Fishburne quit by the end of season 11 and Ted Danson took his place. And he tried to be all suave and interesting. I mean, here's a penny for a thought. Stop trying to make them unique. Just make them normal. Why do you have to make every single old men character unique and all witty? It's exasperating. 

CSI Miami, I can't say. I never liked Horatio from the start - him and his shades. 

Meanwhile, CSI New York jumps the shark when they use ridiculous gadgetry. 

"Oh, what is the COD?" (which is Cause of Death, not Cash on Delivery, thank you)

"Let's check it with our extremely technological 3D thingy that the military don't have but we have because we're in New York and Anthony Zuiker just invested all his cash into CGIs. Oh look, a 3D version of the body. Yes, the court will accept this, I believe, since we just have an image of a body and its liver, nothin else. He died from liver failure."

"I guess he didn't 's-liver' himself out of this."

"Ha. Ha. Ha. What a witty thing to say, you CSI you."

Pfft. Come on now.

DESPERATE HOUSEWIVES

Do you even need to make every single new neighbour bad? There are 50 houses in my neighbourhood, the most annoying thing one would do is honking late at night or car alarm setting off because a cat jumps on the roof. I don't want to live in Wisteria Lane. It's so scary. The scariest would be neighbour with Susan Delfino and her goody-two-shoes demeanour. Yes. Demeanour!

I watched this show while doing my nails. I didn't even look at it, that's how uninteresting it is now.

GREY'S ANATOMY

I never actually watch this. But this show is like.... it's not a normal tv series. This is like a soap drama that should be nominated on Daytime Emmy, not your night show. 

UGLY BETTY

Thank God it was cancelled after a few season. Because I was a fan of the telenovela "Yo Soy Betty La Fea" and there is NOTHING mildly interesting about the Americanised Betty (which is my way to say the US version of Betty and the fact that it is played by a woman named America Ferrera). The fact that Ana Maria Orozco's Betty (the original) is called ugly is because she is ugly. No man wanted to be with her, no girls wanna share any fashion tips with her. But Ferrera's Betty is just a girl with braces. And she ended up in a relationship with five guys. What? Are you trying to trick me into believing ugly girls can get five guys, three of them hot, while another is actually hot without the glasses? What a load of baloney.

How the week has gone with the wind...

It seems like the universe is conspiring for me not to write my next story.

Aku telah berusaha sedaya upaya selama tiga minggu untukmenyiapkan semua kerja yang aku patut buat dalam masa sebulan, demi mendapatkan satu waktu clear untuk aku menulis novel. Aku dah bahagikan masa aku:
Siang : Kerja translation
Malam : Kerja gosip news (and reviews if any)
Tengah malam : Menulis novel

But there is a thing called "Shai cuma ada sepasang tangan dan sepuluh jari", which means that even when I have a lot of energy in my body tapi kalau jari aku sakit... to quote JAMBU... "...apa pun tak boleh".

So minggu ni sepatutnya aku siapkan semua kerja aku yang ada jadi aku dah ada masa full time untuk novel. Tapi tiba-tiba hari Selasa Aying warded. Okay, for those yang tak tau, Aying is my brother, the third in my family. Dia dah demam sejak Jumaat tapi tak kebah2 dan asyik demam balik (atau dalam bahasa Indonesia, "Penyakitnya kambuh"). So Selasa tu dia pun pegi drive semula ke DEMC untuk check dengan doktor. Pergi pagi, sampai pukul 12 tak balik2. Tau2 je rupa-rupanya dia kena tahan kat hospital untuk check darah.

So the whole issue was... Aying suspected denggi. But doctor also suspected him kena kencing tikus (which is funny when you say it, NOT funny when it becomes your disease). Tapi DEMC punya second and third class wards dah penuh, so cuma tinggal first class wards yang harga over RM500. Sekali lagi aku katakan, kalau aku ni Ramlee Awang Murshid, mungkinlah aku biar je dia masuk ward first class tu (ahaha, sorry Abang Ramlee, ni kira cam saya mendoakan prosperity abang la ni). Tapi siapa nak bayar? Insuran pun tak akan cover penuh ward first class.

Bertambah pening kepala aku ialah bila ayah aku pulak ada masalah pendengaran, which means, it's like I am the only one there to make decisions. Dad wants him to be transferred to PPUM. Done. Doctor tanya sama ada nak hantar dia sendiri ke hospital atau nak pakai ambulance. Here is my train of thoughts at that time:

1. Kalau naik kereta, ayah kena hantar kereta Iswara balik rumah and then come back for the Kancil. I can't drive - I don't have a license because I have trust issues with other drivers. Isn't that cute?
2. Kalau naik ambulance, at least dia akan hantar terus ke ER, which means less hassle in trying to locate kat mana nak daftar, kat mana nak tanya itu dan ini. Since we're in Malaysia, you know how it is...
3. I can ride in an ambulance and explore something new just in case I wanna write such scene in a novel.

So, dengan bayaran sebanyak RM270 (yes, ambulance swasta is THAT expensive) riding a very uncomfortable van angkut-like ambulance that have a very noisy siren and makes you think, "No wonder people died on the way to the hospital", I sent an SMS to my sister (yang tengah dalam perjalanan balik ke rumah) to come to the hospital segera because I only have RM50 in my wallet.

Sent the dude into the ER, uruskan semua hal pendaftaran dan X-ray fee, bladiblabla, then listen to the ER doctor yapping away about how people always want to sue them (if she didn't stop, I swear to God I will sue her) dan sejam lepas tu baru mak, ayah dan kaklong sampai.

Balik rumah only after 11pm, lepas Aying dapat wad. The only good thing about dengue (nope, nothing is good about dengue), is that you don't share a room with anybody else. Balik tu tak tido sebab cuba nak menulis, lepas tu baca plak komen editor aku dan dalam penat2 tu aku suruh dia scrap out jela kerja aku (there was no room for thinking about Girls Generation photo at that moment). Memang tak boleh tido sampai Subuh.

Esoknya plak boss satu lagi email tanya kalau aku boleh buat another set of translations. Aku terpaksa tolak for the week sebab kena ulang alik tengok si Aying. Petang tu my cousin Dila and family datang jenguk, same goes with Pak Long yang datang dari meeting. Tak boleh tidor jugak malam tu sebab kena siapkan kerja. Pukul 4 baru nak merangkak naik katil. Tapi belum sempat rasa tidur yang nyenyak, mak panggil kata Aying dah discharge. Pergi pulak uruskan dia punya discharge bills and blablablabla (I hate company HR. Their lateness membuatkan aku terdampar di kaunter bayaran selama sejam).

Oh by the way, PPUM has the weirdest building blocks ever. My family sesat nak ke ER, then aku sesat nak ke ward Aying, and earlier today nurse bagi arahan yang salah untuk tunjuk kat mana kaunter admin. Entah kenapa la orang yang kerja kat bangunan sendiri tak tau kedudukan utama admin part dan which fax number is to be used for faxing GL.

Tengah fikir yang bila Aying dah keluar ni aku boleh la start menulis novel, boss translation bagitau esok dia akan datang hantar kerja, aku ada press conference and movie screening on Tuesday and my weekend akan dipenuhi activity booksigning Pesta Buku Selangor (whisch is at 2 to 5pm. Harap maklum). Where was my novel-week? Gone with the wind.

Oh by the way, thanks to semua yang concern dan mendoakan kesihatan Aying. Alhamdulillah he is okay now and dah mula menjahanamkan laptop aku balik serta menengok AVATAR untuk kesekian kalinya sampai aku rasa nak muntah tengok makhluk biru. Drats.

Aku ni menulis blog ke menulis diary ke menulis novel hidup sendiri?

The Whole Day with my Dad

Haji Kamarudin bin Haji Ahmad @ Ahmat adalah seorang lelaki tua berumur 64 tahun yang aku sangat takuti masa aku kanak-kanak. Kalau beliau threaten nak lempang, beliau akan lempang. Kalau beliau ajar Matematik, jangan berani-berani nak garu kepala sekalipun memang sebenarnya kepala memang gatal masa tu. Memang nak kena rotanlah jawabnya.

Tapi sebagai anak kedua, there is something about that fact yang membuatkan aku - sekalipun takut dengan ayah - masih cuba untuk menduga tahap amukannya, partly sebab anak kedua memang ada that sense of trying to attract their parents. Yes, huge attention issue especially when the first born was a girl, so I'm like the been-there-done-that. Sebab tulah aku menjadi anak perempuannya yang paling menguji kesabaran. Aku tahu betapa susahnya untuk seorang ayah menahan diri daripada merotan anak perempuan, tapi aku memang biasa kena. Hahahahaha. Ya, aku yang carik pasal, so no sweat. 

Tapi dalam masa yang sama aku juga sangat admire ayah. Aku admire his love for my mum sampai sanggup tinggalkan Jakarta sekalipun tinggal exam seciput lagi sebelum dia akan dapat degree (sekalipun nowadays aku akan kata "bapak aku menggatal nak kahwin masa tu"). Aku admire his taste for knowledge dalam semua hal (ada tak orang lain study bil eletrik TNB sampai boleh explain tentang rotation meter?). Aku admire his crude jokes. Aku juga admire the fact that he can say almost all absurd things you can possibly think of (macam menyamakan kereta Proton Saga dengan perempuan jalang - "Cantik di luar, buruk di dalam".)

Semalam aku temankan ayah pergi TNB. Ayah memang ada masalah pendengaran sekarang ni, jadi sekalipun dia cuma nak tanya soalan je kat kaunter perkhidmatan, aku kena ikut sekali just in case dia tak dengar atau tak dapat teka mulut pegawai perkhidmatan tu (ya, my dad now reads mouth). Tapi masalahnya aku memang tak faham apa masalah sebenar bapak aku dengan bil letrik rumah kitorang yang cuba dia jelaskan pada pegawai tu. Nasib baik dia berjaya guess apa yang pegawai tu cakap. 

Sepanjang dalam perjalanan balik, bapak aku cerita fasal meter rotation kat aku. Okay, biasanya aku memang dengar je suma citer dia, tapi kalau ada satu topik yang paling tak menarik minat aku selain matematik, adalah topik bekalan letrik rumah aku. Lepas tu singgah stesen minyak dan beli cendol kat Seksyen 9. Ayah terbaca pasal baucer RM100 yang kerajaan Selangor nak bagi pada warga tua dan terus excited.

Balik rumah je ayah bukak cerita fasal bil letrik lagi pada mak. Ayah kata bil letrik rumah meningkat sebab muka kakak aku bercahaya (maksudnya ialah kakak aku selalu tertidur dengan laptop dia masih menyala kat depan mata, jadi  dalam gelap cuma nampak muka dia je yang bercahaya.). Lepas tu dia kata dia nak daftar Twitter (aku dan mak gelak guling2 mendengar kenyataan rasmi lelaki yang tidak tech-savvy ini) dan nak buat novel bertajuk "SENJA DI JAKARTA". 

"Dulu aku pernah tulis sikit. Tapi mungkin sebab aku bercita-cita nak tulis novel yang kontroversi, jadi anai-anai makan manuskrip aku." kata ayah pada mak.

Aku cerita kat ayah pasal the whole last Friday punya case (argh, sangat susah nak menceritakannya bila aku tak boleh bercerita betul-betul kat blog). Aku rasa dalam banyak-banyak benda yang bapak aku bangga dengan aku, ini kali pertama aku tengok muka dia bangga gila, macam seolah2 aku baru menang Pullitzer Prize. Aku rasa kebanggaan bapak aku, ialah bila anaknya menerima ancaman dalam hidup atas nama kerjaya. Dia tak berhenti-henti bincang pasal benda tu dan baca email bos aku berkali-kali seolah-olah dalam email tu bos aku nak bagi aku anugerah insan cemerlang. 4 tahun aku bekerja di syarikat tu, ini kali pertama bapak aku rasa macam kerja aku ni sangat worth my time. Hahahaha. I mean, ada artikel kecik kat dalam majalah RAPI bulan ni pasal buku aku pun tak berjaya membuatkan bapak aku sebangga kes Jumaat lepas.

Bila mengenangkan balik yang benda macam tu yang buat bapak aku bangga dengan aku, aku rasa macam patutlah ada skru yang tercabut dalam otak anak2 dia. 

Ya, sepanjang hari semalam aku habiskan menemankan ayah membuat kerja-kerja hariannya. Pergi bayar bil, study bil letrik, pergi isik minyak, pergi beli kuih. Tapi aku rasa ayah sangat enjoy buat kerja-kerja mundane tu. Dia enjoy merokok kat luar rumah sambil termenung tengok pokok jambu. Dia enjoy baca semua buku yang ada kat rumah aku, sampai ke pamplet GIANT pun dia study bagai nak rak. Dia enjoy mengancam nyawa kucing aku dan ketawakan Phibun bila mangkuk ayun tu larikan diri dari dia.

I always thought my father wanted to be a professor or a writer (based on how he always talk about writing a book and stuff). But instead, he just love to be a father.

Happy Father's Day, Ayah. You are the only father for me, in this world and HereAfter.

Shai's Perfect(?) Week

Ada banyak benda yang aku nak tulis tentang minggu ni. A lot actually that happened. And yet, I don't even know how to start. And I was even advised not to talk about the best part of it. Darn it.

Tapi...

Isnin lepas adalah permulaan yang grim. Ahad tu aku dikejutkan dengan berita pemergian Allahyarham Shah. Kalau nak kata aku kenal sangat dengan Shah, tak jugak. Dia bukan satu sekolah, satu tempat kerja, atau satu kawasan perumahan. Tapi dia husband kepada Hawa - our angel. Seriously, if there is an angel on earth, Hawa would be it. I met the guy when they were dating. When they were married. When they got Qiesya. So his death felt real to me. It doesn't feel like a story you heard from someone you knew. It even felt grotesquely real when you witness Hawa siram air mawar atas kubur jenazah. Suddenly you have this weird feeling that at that age, Hawa should not be spreading flowers on a grave, with a daughter in her arms while other people looking at her and sympathising. It felt surreal.

Shah should not become a subject in a blog. But all this week, that he had become.

I had two movie screenings the next day. The morning in Mid Valley, and the afternoon in One Utama. That's not the point at all. Nor it is that I was still recuperating from going to majlis pengebumian the day before and only arrived home at 12am and spending the whole night finishing work. It's just that.... man, Damansara taxis are rip offs. I was charged RM40 for a taxi ride from Mid Valley to One Utama, how dumb was that? But since aku tak ada masa dan dah terlambat, aku tak dapat nak habiskan masa untuk mengamuk kat teksi tu. Aku cuma bayar, babikan je dia dan harap kat akhirat esok aku boleh tuntut balik dan terus cari surau.

Dah tu pulak, aku siap solat (dan qadha solat Subuh sekali), tapi bila sampai kat location, rupa2nya kena tunggu lagi sejam sebab artis belum sampai. Tau tak betapa membaranya hati aku sebab kena bayar teksi RM40 hanya untuk menunggu artis lambat? Kalau aku boleh solat dan sampai pukul 2 tepat, apa masalah diorang nak sampai lambat sangat? Ha? Ha? Kalau aku tau, dah lama aku naik bas je. Baru kene RM2.50. Camsial. Balik tu kene RM40 lagi sebab terus balik Shah Alam naik teksi. Masa tu dah tak pedulik dah. Tak pasal2abang teksi tu kena dengar bebelan aku pasal filem dan artis, siap aku iklankan website ofis sekali.

Rabu tu ada preview lagi. Aku siap tertidur dalam wayang selama lima minit sebab kebosanan dan juga sebab dah tiga malam tak cukup tido. Balik tu nak naik teksi sampai Kelana Jaya, rupa2nya diorang sume pakai flat rate RM25. Alasan: "Jauh kena pusing." Siapa suruh kau pusing jauh2? Ko hengat aku tak pernah naik teksi sampai Kelana Jaya ke? Teksi sampai KJ pakai meter baru RM8. Ko nak suruh aku naik teksi sampai sekangkang kera kena RM25? Aku memang anti-Damansara je sekarang ni. Unless aku kena pergi rumah Mun kat Kota, atau ada kerja yang aku tak boleh tolak, pi mampos la sama Damansara. Tak hingin aku jejakkan kaki kat sana, IKEA meatballs or no IKEA meatballs.

Apartment pon harga sejuta.... gile ke apa. Aku bakar semua club2 yang ada kat situ baru korang tau langit tu tinggi ke rendah. Maaf atas bebelan ini.

Lepas tu aku baru nak berehat, bos SMS kata kena hantar kerja sub sebelum Khamis. Rasa nak menangis bila baca SMS tu sebab masa tu aku memang dah tak ada daya ketahanan untuk buat kerja lagi dah. Semua orang ingat kerja aku senang. Meh aku bagitau. Unlike what people might think, I am not a bilingual person, let alone speak three languages with ease. I don't even speak English in real life and unless I need to, I prefer to answer questions in Malay (especially if I know the english speaker can speak malay). But my work entails me to be grammatically correct in BM, English and Indonesian. To think in grammatically correct words are not THAT easy. To think in grammatically correct words AND write a creative piece of writing at the same time? TORTURE. Thinking in grammatically correct Indonesian and turn them to Malay or English? GROTESQUE.

It gets to my head more than anything. I can write. I can move around. But my head pays the price. Headache tahap babi hutan tercekik belantan woooh. At one point I was even thinking that this is too severe to be called a migraine and suspect myself of having brain cancer. Nauzubillah! Aku drama queen je tu.

Tapi kerja diteruskan.

Oh, aku dah tak mimpi Jep Sepah lagi lepas tiga malam berturut-turut. Awwwwwwh, I kinda miss dreaming about him. Hahaha.

Dreams should be a private matter right? Nahhhh, I always think my dreams are too exciting not to share it with people. It's a novel of its own!

Kenapa Jep SEPAH?

Two days in a row I have been dreaming the weirdest dream.

Aku mimpi Jep. Yes. THAT Jep. Dari kumpulan SEPAH. Of MAHARAJA LAWAK. Sangat aneh, since like, tak ada sebab logika untuk mimpi Jep SEPAH. Entah, mungkin sebab novel terakhir aku, ada watak bernama Jeb, atau mungkin sebab aku tengok MAHARAJA LAWAK... aku pun tatau.

First, I dream Jep Sepah ajak aku kahwin lari sambil "likas". (don't ask. my friend dah tengok maksud likas dalam kamus. it's that machine yang gulung benang).
Then, aku mimpi Jep Sepah mintak maaf tapi dia tak jadi masuk reality show Korea dengan aku. Dia nak masuk dengan Cameron Diaz. (don't ask. mimpi aku memang kebiasaannya tak berapa nak difahami)

I told Mun about the dreams and she was like, "Ko ni asyik mimpi Jep je ni, apa kata ko tulis surat kat dia."

Aku nak tulis surat apa kat Jep?

Dear Jep SEPAH.
Saya asyik mimpikan awak.

............................................................................... gile ke apa.

Look, if I have like ten more dreams in a row starring Jep SEPAH in it, I will write him a letter by then. Or sue him for entering my state of sub-conscience, walaupun aku tak rasa dia bersalah dalam hal ini.

Aku rasa aku terlampau banyak bekerja.....

Marrying Gambit

Aku jarang nak bercerita tentang perkara peribadi sangat kat blog ni, tapi sekali-sekala, apedehalnye jah (aku kesian dgn mak Nabil yang dah menjadi sebahagian daripada made-up words anaknya)...

Suatu hari aku berborak dengan Mun yang mengatakan bahawasanya:
"Shai, aku tak pernah terbayang lelaki macam mana kau akan kawin. Aku boleh bayangkan orang lain akan kawin dengan orang yang macam mana, tapi aku tak boleh bayangkan lelaki yang sesuai dengan kau."

Aku gelak.

Lalu aku pun ceritalah pada Tim.

"Aku selalu bayangkan Mun marrying someone yang dalam bidang business, atau mungkin engineering. Aku boleh bayangkan kau kahwin dengan penceramah bebas atau pakar motivasi ala2 Ustazah Gelang Banyak (itu gelaran aku untuk Ustazah Nor Bahyah) dengan hasben dia. Tapi Mun kata dia tak terbayang aku akan kahwin dengan siapa."

Tim gelak.

Aku sambung.

"Aku macam nak rasa bangga sebab macam aku ni sangat unik sampai tak ada sesiapa yang sesuai. Tapi dalam masa yang sama aku jugak rasa risau mendengarnya."

Tim gelak lagi. Lepas tu aku harap dia sambung dengan something yang reassuring. Tapi dia kata.

"Ha'ahlah, Shai. Bila kau cakap apa yang Mun cakap tu, baru aku sedar, aku memang tak terbayang kau akan kahwin dengan lelaki macam mana."

Adakah aku patut risau?

Dinie kata.

"Tulah. Betul jugak. Nak kata kau ni serius, memang kau serius. Nak kata kau lawak, kau lawak jugak."

Lepas tu Dinie sambung.

"Aku rasa kau akan jadi macam aku dengan laki aku. Kau akan kahwin dengan lelaki yang tak sama macam kau."

Aku sebenarnya tak rasa reassured langsung. Mungkin aku sesuai dengan mutan, macam Havoc atau Gambit............................................................. ye, entry ni saja2 je terpengaruh dengan cerita X-Men. Tapi aku rasa Gambit memang sesuai dijadikan hasben. Dia pandai memasak dan pandai main card. Boleh layan bapak aku main Blackjack halal (suka hati aku je menghalalkan Blackjack). Dia juga mempunyai tongkat yang panjang untuk digunakan untuk jolok buah cempedak di luar pagar. Haha. Lagipun nama dia Remy LeBeau. Gila karat ah nama Shai LeBeau.... macam adik beradik Shia LeBeouff.

Aku still rasa Gambit versi filem sangat tak best dan merosakkan Gambit.

Maaflah, orang yang tengah tunggu kerja masuk memang macam ni. Aku tak tau apa yang cuma aku sampaikan.

Workaholic sama messed up macam Alcoholic, cuma we don't drink benda haram dan unlike Alcoholic, we end up getting money, not wasting them.

Aku bekerja macam nak mati.

Mun kata this whole working frenzy is kind of worrying. It's as if one has choose to work not for the money but for the work. I know of such person - my uncle. He used to say that "24 hours is not enough for a day" and I used to laugh hearing that.

But now I guess it rings true.

I have taken a job with CO that I am not sure how to wing it, but somehow I can never not take a job. Then I thought, maybe I should stop doing translation work for at least a week to familiarise myself with my own pace in doing that particular job. But instead, my boss called and offered me to do the whole SAFA DAN MARWAH for June. SAFA DAN MARWAH for me is a bonus job. Yes, it eats my soul little by little with the dumbness of its plot, but still, it's easy money. I don't even need a dictionary for that one. The whole Safa Marwah in June is like, I don't know.... 35 1-hour episodes? The only bane is that when I do SAFA DAN MARWAH, I have little patience for everything else. What it means is that:

i. I don't care about people on YM. And if they force me to talk to them, I will snap.
ii. Anything mum say at the moment goes in and out like a fart-wind.
iii. I get mad when people use the advice "You should go out once in a while."
iv. My state of emotional being is really high. If one even say trivial things like "Oh my God, my husband is so annoying." I will answer, "Woi babi, kalau ada husband boleh bersyukur tak? Jangan jadikan nikmat kemudahan sebagai satu kesengsaraan." Beware of my SAFA DAN MARWAH mood.
v. I will have issues with people talking about expensive stuff and how they don't have enough money to buy them. Kalau tak ada duit jangan beli. Jangan nak mengada2 lepas tu bila tak ada duit nak beli keperluan, nak bising kat orang lain. Menyampah nak dengar tau tak? ME-NYAM-PAH...... oh my, belum lagi aku start buat SAFA DAN MARWAH, mood SAFA DAN MARWAH aku dah muncul.

So of course I said yes and I will do it... yela, aku kan "BERTUAH" sebab tak ada expenses nak dibayar kononnya.... BERTUAH betul aku ni. Alhamdulillah, aku belum kufur nikmat yang Allah bagi lagi. Masih lagi boleh hidup sekalipun aku kerja setiap hari tanpa berhenti.

But anyways, this is just a heads up. June is not a good month to be "mengadu dekat Shai" thing. I know, I kept saying April will be busy month, May will be better, but then I got busier in May, and then I said "May is so busy, maybe June will be better" and June is packed with stuff. I am sorry. Let me just put it like this.

I work with four different companies altogether. I have four different bosses that have four different approach towards how I work and four different time lapses in giving me answers I need even when I need it urgently. I also have a new venture I am getting myself into with this whole strawberry chocolate business. So that makes it five. Two of the companies where I work doesn't give me one type of work. It varies. Another company is subjective - as I may work for them or for another company that does the same thing like they do or do both at the same time.   So how many work I do in a week? Godzilla-many. That's how many.

Even Bill Gates will be proud. I work like those Chinamen in the era of Mao Zedong. Like a Mexican immigrant. Like those masons building the pyramid.  

Oh, I also have Pesta Buku Selangor in June. So......

*Watching Jalan-jalan Cari Makan right now. Qi Razali really doesn't know how to express taste.

Monolog seorang wanita dan asam pedas

Sometimes I do not know what else is there to blog about.

Semalam pergi makan di UNITEN. Dah lama tak makan asam pedas Melaka kat sana. Aku dan Mun tengok gerai yang jual asam pedas tu dah ada papan tanda dan nama. Dulu cuma "Asam Pedas Melaka" sahaja. Lepas tu aku kata, "Wow, sedar tak kali terakhir kita datang sini adalah 2 tahun lepas?"

Kali pertama aku makan di UNITEN, kami baru selesai berkursus untuk membuka tadika. Masa tu kami  semua penuh harapan. Dapat makan asam pedas ikan patin kegemaran aku. Sedap gila. Rasa hidup akan bertambah baik lepas apa yang berlaku dalam hidup sebelum tu. Aku baru berhenti daripada kerja freelance subtitling dan review filem. It's a new life for all of us.

Kali kedua aku makan di UNITEN, kami baru pulang daripada ministry dan dapat tahu cita-cita kami tak akan jadi kenyataan. Masa tu kami dah putus harapan. Aku nak asam pedas ikan patin itu untuk mengubat hati tapi dah habis. Jadi aku beli asam pedas ikan bawal dan rasanya tidaklah sesedap mana. Rasa macam tak ada yang betul dari sudut career dan relationship. Rasa semuanya terbang.

Kali ketiga aku makan di UNITEN, kami baru pulang dari LimKokWing. Dari sebuah tadika, kami mulakan perniagaan dessert-based pula. Mak cik di situ kata mereka tak lagi jual asam pedas ikan patin. Jadi aku beli asam pedas ikan siakap. Rasanya tak sesedap patin tapi lebih lazat dari bawal. Waktu ini kami tidak lagi punya apa-apa harapan. Kami tidak berharap, kami tidak berputus harap. Aku kembali bekerja membuat sarikata dan ulasan filem. Aku bekerja tanpa perasaan, tanpa emosi, tanpa komitmen, tanpa keinginan yang lebih untuk apa-apa. Aku umpama robot in this one huge cycle of life. Optimus Prime juga lebih bernyawa daripada aku.

Hidup aku ni macam satu kitaran yang tak pernah berakhir kan?

"Eeeeeeeeevvvveeee..."

It's been a hard day's night...

Demi menunjukkan tahap busy aku, aku post the same entry in all blogs.

Busy week it was since last Saturday.

SATURDAY
Finishing the last of my work for the week before that. Tidur pukul 4 pagi. Disebabkan minggu lepas Kong Hey Fat Choy dan HBO tak mainkan original series diorang, aku tak dapat my dose of BOARDWALK EMPIRE and boy how me cranky...

SUNDAY
Mak masih membebel about the whole interview with SAFIYYA, worrying because our house looks like a shipwreck. The problem is, mum's too uptight about it when it is actually fine. She has to learn to laugh at herself. That's how I see it. I'm still single at 28 - haha. I live in a crappy home - haha. My life sucks so bad, it's an enigma - haha. See? We don't need to be all positive and say everything's gonna be fine or that there is beauty in everything. We don't need to be positive. All we need is a sense of humour. So I went to the backroom, get a box and start filling it up with all the junks that is thrown all around the house, And it's not JUNK junk. It's more like stuff people don't throw away - like origamis my sister made two years before or a piece from a shattered robot toy. Just, you know... stuff.

MONDAY
The boss called and said that the TV network has yet to update the software for subtitling so I didn't need to go to the office. All I need to do is go to her house and pick some work. Mun called and said she's bored and ajak makan ice cream at the same time I said yes to finish a rush job my boss gave me to be finished before 6pm. Mun had to wait for me to finish it before we went to Alam Sentral - buying stuff from Nagoya, buying tudung from the pushcarts, and makan aiskrim at the Steamboat restaurant or whatever the name was. Malam tu siapkan kerja lagi - a whole lot of sinetron. Then remembered it's my editor's birthday tomorrow and sent an SMS. Slept like a log.

TUESDAY
Hantar my review to CO then finish another episode of SAFA DAN MARWAH. I seriously think there is something wrong with the scriptwriter. I mean, what's with the whole old woman chasing after a young girl and beg her for forgiveness by hugging her from the back or standing in the rain, saying things like "Ibu gak boleh hidup tanpa kamu."... even that lesbian movie THE KIDS ARE ALL RIGHT weren't THAT gay. Ludicrous.

WEDNESDAY
Try to finish two sinetron episodes at one go, while at the same time cleaning up the house. I had to cancel a lot of plans and rejected a few calls because I just can't be bothered. Pinat asked me to go to a press preview on Thursday - and it's an Anthony Hopkins movie. God dammit, I want to but of all the things I can do, canceling a TV show is not one of them. Went to buy groceries that night, watch HANTU KAK LIMAH BALIK RUMAH, then bake a cake. I seriously need a new oven. My oven is busted.

THURSDAY
Getting ready for the interview. Had a quirky interesting time seeing how the whole interview works. Part of the shoot is in the house, part at Dataran Shah Alam, part kedai buku section 7. It will be shown on SAFIYYA TV9 in March, as Kak Farah said. Will inform the actual date when informed meself. (Funny thing though, they ask me to do this one scene where I pretend I am doing my work on the laptop, and instead I ACTUALLY do my work while they're filming. I finish a chapter at that. If you see that clip on the show later on, do note that I was ACTUALLY working, not acting like I was).
Then after the show, I fell asleep on the couch like I have never slept before. The one who was worse than me was dad - he slept all the way to oblivion. Later that day, Pinat nudge me again on YM and asked me to go to the press preview for the movie SANCTUM on Friday. I said yes faster than you can spell SANCTUM (I needed to get out from Shah Alam, and the only way to do that without wasting money is if I have a job to do OUTSIDE Shah Alam). Malam pi beli lambchop to celebrate the end of an era (aku saja2 guna ayat macam best)

FRIDAY
I nearly did not wake up to go to my press preview. But I did anyway, and arrived there at 10am. I didn't think it was THAT long from the press preview I did before, but that coffee place at South Court of Mid Valley? THE DOME? Yeah, suddenly it turned into ESPRIT.......................... so weird. Went home as soon as the movie ends, write the review and here we are, finally updating the blogs after some time. I still have some sinetron episodes I need to finish but for now, I just want to sleep.

*terminology: for you out there that are new to my blog, PRESS PREVIEW is when a movie is shown to a bunch of media people (or a freelance movie reviewer like yours truly) before it is released nationwide, so that we can tell you people if you should go and watch that movie or not. Usually I will update my reviews on that top right corner of my blog (on the RELATED NEWS section).

Sherlock Shai Deducts!

I post it here because my other blog is having it's 'period'. 

Had the most violent headache.

It's the weather, I tell you. It looks normal from the inside. But when you get out of the cold bus, it hits you with the weirdest air of damp hotness, it gets to your head like a plague.

I tried on the new cotton blood red shawl today. As I was standing at the stop, waiting for the feeder bus, when a girl came near me and asked me how to go to Pusat Bandar Damansara. I looked at her and she went, "Oh! I mean, are you a malay? Do you speak it?"

I laugh and said I do in my most cikai-melayu way. Man... I knew that shawl will only make me look as if I'm a girl from the land of hennas and itsmids.

Life is about investigations nowadays.

I investigated the emergency staircase in Mid Valley and realise that no I have to re-do the whole plot of my novel. Which is really annoying come to think about it. All this while I was thinking of stairs and actually it was Sunway Pyramid's!

Last week, Mun and I was investigating the SMS that I got. And if you think it's petty stuff like 'spying what your boyfriend does behind your back', teeet, wrong answer.

Remember the kindy? Them stupid people once gave us a list of potential customers to call. I look through it and realised that my name is on it. I asked them, "Where did you get this list, because all hell freezes over before I ever called a kindergarten." I don't have a kid nor have I heard about them before the whole shenanigans. They never answered me. That was the first time I realised these people are another bunch of fake aunties and their oh-so fake dreams of educating children.

I mean, what is the first thing you should teach your kid? "Don't lie." And ironically, here's the foundation of every single deceit.

So when they sent me an SMS and invite me to their Open Day, I knew that they haven't renew the list, and my name is still on it. They never knew my number. And they think that I am another 'potential customer', eager to send my 'invisible' kid to a place that are not insured.

So Mun and I went to the place to check if there IS a kindergarten as mentioned. Sure enough, they went and open it at the same place we had to close it. Funnily enough, when they pushed us to get two lots (and we had to pay RM3600 every month for that shit), they only use one lot. Which goes to show, they are sooo not getting the authority's permission. You see, if you open a kindergarten in a shoplot, you have to have two lots to ensure that there is a solid emergency staircase. They don't have it, and I can just hear their justification for that, for they are the people of excuses - which once said, "There was no license in the Prophet's time."

That's because he was the one who will set the ground rule, moron. Yeah, I came from a religious background too, I know my sirah nabawiyyah too. Oh, and I also came from the bitchy side of the literature world, so I have the permission to cuss your ass up and down, in perfect Queen's English too, you tactless incomprehensive fools.  

Anyway (*betulkan rambut sambil tarik nafas panjang2*), my third investigation was the longest one, and it took me 3 weeks, interrogating 5 different people, and suspects from 4 different venues.

I was introduced to this thing called IP Blocker. Shouldn't have too many difficulties to know what it is from the name itself.

After being stalked twice, it kinda messes with my head and every time I check my tracker, I will get this paranoia about other stalkers. Yes, I can just assume friends checking up on things and all that, but well... blame the previous stalkers for making me feel uncomfortable about writing in my blog.

But after three weeks of finding out, I decided to just stop trying. It's a blog for goodness sake, people bound to read it. It IS meant to be read. I just have to make sure I do not write outrageous stuff anymore. But please do not make this a place for you to spy about my relationship. I never write about relationships here. I only write things when it's over or when it did not work out. So whether I am still single, in the process of knowing someone or in a relationship, in here, in my blog, I am always the girl tutting about "Where all the good guys gone?"

SMSing with Swee Wei today. Girl is looking for new avenues. I am so grateful I did not listen to her and her "Oh, don't resign now, let's resign together." Yeah, like 2 years later. If I did, I think agaknya baru tahun depan aku publish "AKN".

Asked her if she would like the MAHB job. She would have to suit up though. And she gave the S-face. Hahahahaha (yeah, I knew we're not a bunch of suit up girls).

Oh yeah, actually I went to Mid Valley today to watch Potter preview. Read all about it.