I've been listening to Shimizu Shota on repeat, almost the entire day. I've lost count the number of times I've played HOME. Gosh. He's so good to listen to. @.@ I am ADDICTED. (Scroll down to a past entry for a sampling of Shimizu!)

About schoolwork: I am afraid for bioinformatics. Also, for drug design. :s The practicals and projects seem formidable. Only my USP Human Relations module is truly enjoyable. The previous lesson, we discussed prototypes of men and women. And then we read this account of a murder, and we ranked the different people involved by the amount of blame they deserved, and everyone had very differing ideas. It was super amusing. :P

Love is or it ain't. Thin love ain't love at all. ~ Toni Morrison

Yu Jie was right about obsessions. Why do they always have to crop up during semesters. It'd be great if they could all wait and accumulate during the breaks, so that I don't drive myself to distraction during the times I'm supposed to be working. Then again, I'm always obsessed about one thing or another. :S Oh, time management skills, where art thou!

Got back from Kelantan yesterday evening. And met with a mountain load of undone work. I've made a list. And it's scary to even look at it. Nyeeah. But I shan't be depressing any longer.

Kelantan was sweet but rushed. It seemed like we dropped off, said hi and gave hugs and then left, waving madly from our car windows. It was extremely short, but still hectic and fun and I liked meeting with the kids and seeing kampung life and eating such GOOD FOOD (I need to diet badly, I think). The weather was rather unbearable though. There are a number of interesting things to mention including the state of Pakcik Mail's ancient van which looked ready to fall apart from old age and rust. We took a trip in it to Pakcik Mail's house from the hotel and Ahmad and I spotted a hole in the floor of the van. It was amusing. Also: cockroach encounter on everyone's parts. Funny in retrospect, but of course, panic coursed through me like electric current when I spotted it next to the vanity mirror at midnight, while I read a bit of The Queen of Attolia. I did a hurdle jump across my sister who was lying next to me and became annoyed at my panic, and made a mad dash for my dad's room. I ran out into the hallway in my pajamas, not caring at all and knocked on my dad's door. XD It was funny; he thought something horrible had happened and his eyes were red from sleeping but he came to our room anyway and flushed the roach down the toilet. Thank goodness. Other cockroach encounters by the others include roach in a cup and roach on toothbrushes. O.O Imagine my shudders. They were violent.

We also tried sugar cane, in its most original form! Cut into pieces and then just chewed on. It's like candy. Awesome. No wonder pandas love this stuff. :D Mami Bi also cooked her amazing mee goreng for everyone there, and the ladies learnt from her. Awesome, awesome. The little girls were very clingy but adorable and kept begging me to keep taking photos. Ah, nyah. It was a sweet experience.

My sis, with Adam, Wahidah and Adlina, outside Pakcik Mail's house. His van is in the background.

We drank fresh coconut juice! Look at Wahidah: she couldn't stop doing the peace sign once we taught her to.

At the school canteen, where we had our mee goreng feast.

Doing jumping shots with the nice 'tar-road-in-the-middle-of-the-forest' background.

The morning we were leaving, the road was suuuper empty (4 am) and we had such fun taking photos in the middle of the deserted road.

Ja! Got work to do. HAVE to get to it.

I am still so totally in love with Nodame Cantabile. I need to pimp it. WONDERFUL REVIEW HERE. Beware though; it's slightly spoiler-filled. And she kind of goes a bit over the top with her raving of Tamaki Hiroshi, XD haha. But otherwise, I agree. I adore this show to bits. And cannot wait for the future movies.

Also: Am going off to Kelantan over the CNY break, to visit Pakcik Mail's family. It's been ages since I went. I think the last time I was there was during secondary school times. So it'll be nice to go back. So, won't be around for a bit. Will probably post again near the end of next week. JA!

And Happy Chinese New Year. :)

:D I am amazed right now. Because I'm using the BioSLAX OS. It's basically an entire operating system (like Windows or MAC) for bioinformatics. And it's just! :D Quite cool to have an entire OS just for my module and bioinformatics in general. They have a lot of stuff already installed like JalView which I remember painstakingly installing during my little research experience at IBN last year. And like every other bioinformatic tool out there. Mukya! :D It feels exciting. I feel like a pro. I want to learn to be a pro. Mukya! (You can see I am still in post-Nodame excitement; Nodame says "mukya!" a lot.)

Watched Obama's full inauguration address just a while ago, because I slept incredibly early last night (at 10.30! :O) so missed it live. And I thought I was already immune to Obama's charisma; he more or less talks about the same thing every time. Unity and forefathers and sacrifice and hard work. But dang it, he has this knack of pulling the best phrases from thin air, and it's so freaking inspiring, that I cried anyway. And it's just this whole idea of building a better world and unity of humanity that just resonates in everyone, not just Americans, that overwhelms one with feeling. Because, really, most of us, if not everyone, wants world peace. Ne?

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My sis discovered a singer called Shimizu Shota quite a while back, and because sisters influence each other greatly (that's why we fangirl almost the exact same things), I have come to like this guy too. He has an awesome, awesome voice. I categorise him together with Siti Nurhaliza, Sami Yusof, Jean Baptiste Maunier and Tego too, I guess. People who are just meant to sing you know, because no matter what they sing, they're just so good to listen to. I feel like I can never get tired listening to his songs. And it helps that the songs rock too.

This is my favourite, I think. HOME, by Shimizu Shota. <3 The song is so good, I promise. It doesn't matter if you don't understand jap; music is universal, you'll understand anyway. Eheh. :P



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My sis has requested I do a synopsis of Ryusei no Kizuna for her Jap Club's Notice Board. -_- I should be paid. Seriously. Fine, I like raving about stuff anyway, but I should still be paid. Because I WANT A JOB. Can someone reccommend me a well-paying job please. I need to save some money.

Sawajiri Erika really got married. (To that 44 year old dude, no less.) O.O I really thought it was still at the rumour stage or stg. I don't know. When people near my age get married, I still get seriously weirded out. Because I still feel like I'm too young for something like this. Too young and utterly inexperienced.

Oh well. Does this mean Sawajiri is out of the entertainment scene for good? No loss for me. :P I sometimes think she was just born to play Aya in 1 Litre of Tears and then that's it. :P Like how Elijah Wood was born to play Frodo.

Anyway, TODAY I will attempt to be really hardworking. To fight old pangs of despair I thought I had thoroughly overcome.

READ NOBUTA FIC HERE: Clover

It's full of nostalgia and sweetness. I adore the Nobuta trio. I feel that burst of love for them, the way I feel a burst of love for the HP trio. :D How can I accurately describe the feeling... It's like coming home, I guess. It's familiar and wonderful and liberating. When I know I'm with my friends, I feel the same way. You know, you feel like, I can be completely me. And there's this comforting knowledge that no matter what you do, it could never be so wrong.

When I sit and talk with my cousins; the boys; basically the people I grew up playing with, it feels the same way. It feels like home. It's really quite a special thing to have known each other forever since we were born. And to have known who was the absolute scaredy-cat among us. Who was the nuttiest. And having conversations filled with, "Oh, do you remember the time he broke his thumb! And do you remember the other time - !"

There are times I feel like Nobuta and I feel like looking at the sky and just smiling, because I'm glad that somehow, I came to have people I cherish like this. (And I did just that last night, when I was walking home after four lectures in school and despite being exhausted and all.) It's like that mole analogy - how is it that a mole, digging blind and all alone underground, manages to find its mate, you know? :) Fate and miracles.

I just finished watching Nodame Cantabile. (Watch it for yourself HERE, I urge you.)

OhGOD. I'm trying very hard not to spaz. I love it so much. It's one of the best Jdramas ever for me; up there with Nobuta and Hana Yori. I don't understand why I didn't watch this sooner. And I don't just love it; it's really, objectively, very very well-done. You know... how some shows are well-done but I don't love it so much; and there are some shows I adore to bits but aren't exactly great productions. But this one. This one. O.O It's seriously good; seriously. It just had the perfect elements of everything for me. It had the whole Hana Kimi or manga style of crack comedy - with crazy kyaa-ings and weird characters - but at the same time, there's like amazing non-slapstick humour too; ridiculously-insane-made-me-laugh-out-loud dialogue. And all the beautiful friendships formed. And just. Chiaki Shinichi was played superbly, I think. The way he transformed throughout the story seemed so natural and effortless and real. And although Nodame irked me a little with her incredulous mannerisms, she grew on me like she grew on Chiaki. And the Chiaki/Nodame pairing is just all kinds of entertaining. XD The drama just built up nicely and ended perfectly and ohmygod -- THE MUSIC.

THE MUSIC. This drama is making me regret my absolute lack of knowledge of classical music and like DUCKIE, teach me something! :O Haha. I don't know much about orchestras and performances and possibly I am slightly tone deaf, but the finale performance of Beethoven Symphony No. 7 was amazing and made me feel like squealing and when they finished I clapped quietly but enthusiastically in my bed, trying hard not to wake my sister at this ungodly hour. I really didn't want this drama to end. :( And I watched it within two days too.

I give this drama five hearts. <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 Hee.

Hello friends. Come sign a petition for a ceasefire in Gaza HERE. Avaaz will be compiling a million signatures to urge Obama to do something once he steps into office on Tuesday. It will also be sent to various other authorities like UN's Ban Ki-Moon and the league of Arab nations and maybe, something can be done to stop this evil.

Nights like these. When I'm taking a breather from fandom and I'm not msn-ing and spazzing. I try hard not to blog hop. (Tonight, I am succeeding!) For me, blog hopping is just one of those things you know is bad for you, but you end up having some any way. Like candy, or chocolate, or heroin. Because as we've ascertained, blog hopping is a depressing affair. It is dispiriting to see other people's happy faces plastered on my screen, as they flounce around in some big, wild party. Am I sadistic? Maybe, eh. It's just. I like to live in my bubble. And looking at other people breaks that bubble. I like to know only of my business, and my friends, and fandom.

Oh, Obama is coming into office real soon, right? I hope he does something ASAP when he steps in. I can't stand listening to the news anymore or receiving all the depressing chain emails of the suffering in Gaza. It's sickening to keep hearing of how the world is protesting and facebook-ing about stopping the war but nothing is really being done to stop Israel's crazy, evil rampage. Seriously can't stand it. The helplessness is sickening. I can't stand myself. I watch the news. Feel sickened. Then move on with daily life. Watch the news. Feel sickened again. Move on with daily life. @.@ It's just. Sometimes, I just don't want to know anymore okay. Because, what can you do. Seriously. I am sick of it. It's like when you know... you just need to do something. But what. whaaat. It's just. eeeeeeeeeeeyar. Stop being evil, damn it!

Been trying to convert portions of my Jap Holiday video into shorter wmv files. Here's one of the Shinkansen ride. We were going from Osaka to Tokyo on the third day, and my mum was kan-cheong as ever so we were waiting on the train platform extra early and it was frigging cold. And so I occupied myself with filming the train that came by before ours.

Song is Push On! by NEWS, of course. :P

OMG. WHY IS IT SO FRAKKING IRRITATING. I can't find any good references on QSAR! Other than the fact that it stands for Quantitative Structure-Activity Relationship, I know little more about it. And I'm supposed to be giving a lecture on QSAR sometime this semester. -__- Okay, there's still loads of time, but dang it. This is just frustrating. Every book I google up on the net is not available at the national library. And I tried looking at the school's science library too, but that came up with nothing as well. I need to do more thorough searches. >:| Man. This is frustrating.

School restarted yesterday. It was four lectures back-to-back for me, from 12 to 8, and let's just say I had brain-shock or stg, because it's been some time since I did work. Halfway through combinatorial bioinformatics, my headache started. And my head throbbed throughout the rest of the day until I got into bed at about 10. It dissipated as I watched Ryusei. Haha.

I loved Ryusei no Kizuna. :) Was very impressed by it. The entire cast. And the amazing blend of humour and mystery and family drama. I mean, this drama really made me laugh out loud at many parts. So MUCH wonderful crack. And awesome acting by Nino. To be honest, the last episode was a slight let-down. I'd expected a more wow ending, but it was still nice, I guess. Enjoyed it all very much. A WONDERFUL REVIEW HERE.

I feel like now that the sem has restarted, my mood to blog will progressively get less frequent.

A quote from cynicalism's fic: "Yeah, what do you say we go back to my room and do some math: Add a bed, subtract our clothes, divide your legs, and multiply."

XD whaaaaaat.

Right now: my brain = jumble of thoughts. This is why some people blog; to sort out their thoughts. Granted, why do it publicly? I guess it's nice to be heard. Especially if you're some small fry with no power or influence, and you just want to shout a little, "Hey, I may have some good ideas to share too, you know!"

Last night, the family discussion was BLOGS. And how like apparently the entire world knows my blog. And by entire world, I mean the entire Bafadhal clan or stg. Plus people I've been to school or work with throughout my life. And their friends. Seriously, at this stage of my life, I really don't care much anymore. This blog has been with me as I grew up, and for that simple fact alone, I'd like to keep it. And hello, it has a wonderful URL!!! It's like I'm the only Shamiah or the first Shamiah in the world. :D Also, also, also: somewhere in the back of my mind, I'm aiming for a place in the Guinness Book of Records for longest-running blog ever. (I don't know how realistic this is. Heeeh.)

So, when my brother tells me, "So-and-so reads your blog, you know!" I tell him, "-_- I had already guessed." And don't give me horrified looks. (He squawks, "You put my photos on your blog!" Muaha. Why should he care. His girlfriends put a ton of his photos on the web. I have more right because of blood relation. :P) I am also learning to deal with the fact that I am crazy on my blog and this does not seem be very in sync with how I appear in person, and that this surprises some people. And yes, I do get embarrassed sometimes that CRAP, THE ENTIRE WORLD SEEMS TO KNOW ABOUT MY JAP OBSESSION although I swear, I always try to suppress my spazzing by at least ten-fold. But haiyah. Whatever. I am an uncontrollable force. :P

You know, I thought I had a point to all this blog discussion, but eh... no. Ahak.

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On Friday, Eunice and I watched Ponyo on the Cliff by the Sea, to celebrate Eunice passing her driving test! :D Our verdict: VERY VERY cute but incomprehensible. XD HAHA. For instance, what creature is Ponyo exactly??? She started off as seemingly some undifferentiated ectoplasm in the sea. But has magical powers. IT'S JUST SO FUNNY AND CUTE, but honestly, we don't get it. HAHA.

Here is the Ponyo Song! With Jap subtitles.



And this one is the full song with Eng subs.



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Promo pics of Nakushita Kioku, the TegoMakiMatsuKen movie! (God, I can't believe I just wrote that, haha.)

Here: http://pics.livejournal.com/calledinvain/pic/005gbt6g

Someone said at helloyourself: Occasionally, Tegoshi can look manly. Somewhere, D is choking on her tofu soup.

Someone else said: @ a certain angle, Tegoshi does look a little Yamashita-esque.

WAHAHA. Yes, Tego is manly now. Nyaaaaaah. I am seriously amused. And I've always suspected that Tego tries to be like Pi. :P Nevermind, Pi, imatation is the highest form of flattery. Heh.

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Kak Naz is over at our house now, and we've established that chibi me looks like chibi Aaliyah. :D We compared baby photos! Haha. I was a cute baby. What happened, man. Haha.

A bit of randomness today:

1) I hate the comfort driving centre website. It keeps stalling. -__- And I am seriously losing enthusiasm for driving.

2) I am lazy to check with the Science Dean's office if my Drug Design ISM form is okay or not.

3) Woke up this morning to my sister shouting that HSJ was on MTV. Yay! Your Seed was playing. When will I see NEWS on tv, I ask you.

4) JDorama progress: Ep 5 of Innocent Love (which gets uploaded at snail's pace, dang it.) and Ep 6 of Ryusei no Kizuna.

5) Still have not started on holiday video! ahhh!

6) Also, was laughing away when I voted for Colin as Mr. Harvard Freshman this morning. Just - it is funny! XD Who would have thought! Colin = Mr Beauty Pageant. At least, they don't discriminate against height, I say.

7) A crazy quote from the people at helloyourself: It's not like we operate on the Giant Panda rule of cute: just because they are, you can't smoosh them together and hope for babies. Ahahaha. Omg. Whaaaat. XD

8) I want several things: dvd of the NEWS winter con (plsplspls, Johnny!) where yamapi apparently moonwalked (I have to see that!); also, yamapi on VS Arashi!!! I cannot wait lah. Also the release of Nakushita Kioku, the movie TegoMaki are gonna be in - when is it happening! Most of all, I want the miracle of a yamaki drama/kurosagi season 2. -_- If that happens, I dont know... I'll do something crazy in happiness. I'll bake a cake for everyone. I also want NEWS to have their own show. :(

And I want to RAISE MY CAP. Dear Allah and Rasul, help me help myself.

9) Getting slightly nervous about the new school sem. Psyche up, friends!

Ja.

Being a parent is like being the Dark Knight. (Yes, I'm referring to Batman - you watched the movie, right? If you haven't, GASP. Please do.) That's what I decided after watching Kak Asmah and thinking about my mum (and other wonderful mums out there) and recalling a memorable quote from Everybody Loves Raymond: If your kid doesn't hate you, you ain't doing your job well. (Something along those lines. Raymond answers his dad, with a deadpan face, "Then let me congratulate you on your resounding success." Haha!)

Why is a parent like The Dark Knight? Because like the Dark Knight, a parent has to do the necessary evils; make the difficult choices. Be a freaking monster, metaphorically, if need be, so the kid knows to be disciplined, knows what's right from wrong and knows he can't get his way all the time. Essentially, make your kid hate or fear you, if that's what it takes. Yes, I believe that if you spare the rod, you spoil the child. Really, parents. Be the Dark Knight. So your kid turns out right. Let's have less of spoiled brats in our Primary 1 classes. I've seen them. They're horrifying. And I had always wondered where all the good kids had gone. Now, I'm thinking the right question should perhaps be: Where are the Dark Knights?

I haven't had the privilege to be a mother yet, but I've already started to understand how wonderful my mum is. And how special a mother is. (Daddys too, but always, always, and always mummys more.)

And anyway, at the end of the day, you know The Dark Knight always wins.