Because I haven't posted in a while and it's Thursday night:

The best put-down of Satan I've heard: "Don't listen to Syaitan... He's just full of himself." (from Refinement of the Heart) I think that would anger him more than anything else, haha. Because Satan's biggest problem is arrogance, right.

And I am reminded of this cute cartoon from stickgirl:

nooo! I don't want to be evil! heheheh.

---

Also, been listening to Arashi's Subarashiki Sekai (i.e. Wonderful World). And I think all the existing English translations are deficient in some way -- because the song sounds amazing and poetic and heart-tugging, but putting it in English seems to make it lame, and results in a deflated feeling. This is why I feel like learning every language possible in the world (because like Allan Massie said, "the limits of your language are the limits of your world", and to truly understand a world, you must embrace the language). Okaylah, no, not every language. :P But Japanese at least. Arabic first, and then Japanese.

I'll board the last train and rush past the station of despair
Just a little bit further to your town
We cry and we laugh, but still we end up dreaming of tomorrow
Thank you, wonderful world.

Arigatou, subarashiki sekai!

(Translation taken from Taiji here.)

So, I finally reached the parts on love in the lecture Refinement of the Heart by Shaykh Hamza. And, I have been wondering for days now on how to express what happened, because it profoundly affected me. At one point, I was sitting in a corner of my house just sobbing away until my sister came and was like O.O, what. The other time I cried that hard was probably when I was at an all-time low back in 2007, and my life direction felt like it was downward spiraling.

But this -- it felt like a lot of my life prior to that point was to come to that precise moment of understanding. In a way, it was tears of joy -- and I believe in true love now. :))) It's hard to pinpoint or summarise what exactly impacted me most; but perhaps this: that the platitude, the greatest thing in life is to love and be loved in return is truer than I could imagine. True love has been staring me in the face all my life, and I had the cheek to doubt its existence. It's like, you know, you go around all your life trying to figure life out, trying to figure love out, and then finally, you stop and realise, this is love. And how could I not see this before? That divine creation was the greatest act of love to begin with.

I gave myself a few days so that I wouldn't be so emo when I blogged, but I suppose it can't be helped. Ahah, love is an emotion anyway. And neither can it be told, no matter my efforts here; only felt and experienced.

And here's a big thank you to Farhana. Some people walk into your life like Godsend. :)

balance is the elusive ideal.

Warning: JE fan raving.


!!!!!!!

Yamapi appeared on VSA and scored again!



This is why Yamapi is made of WIN.

XD Even ever-competitive Jun was like, you can see it on his face, Damn this dude, I can't win against him. And ohmygod, Duckie, why have you not told me about this VSA episode yet (or have you?)! Pi and Arashi together, yo. I want it.

As is clear, tonight, I decided to revisit fandom and only realised NEWS has a new song called Fighting Man, which sounds quite fun and bouncy but whose lyrics crack me up -- especially the part which goes: "Don't be wet! Get a grip." and "DON'T LOOK BACK. DON'T LOOK BACK. Slash the darkness!" Seriously! XD Someone with a decent grasp of English should proof-read their songs before making it public or stg. But whatever it is, at the end of the day, it's still lame JE boys > korean boybands. :D

for my sister:

Because I am bored and takde kerja. :P

---

---

This week has been filled with friend meet-ups, and my thinking of that wonderful line that duck came up with some time back: girlfriends who keep you sane when you feel like you're going nuts. Not that my life is in any way hectic now; but it warms my heart to think of my friends sometimes. That they're part of the reason I can still smile when things don't go right -- like the fact that I did not get the NHG scholarship and therefore still have no money for school next year. :OOO I shall practise patience and perseverance.

Today was especially memorable because the birds met up to exchange birthday presents after more than half a year! -- and I really, really like mine. <3 I've been wanting a decent wallet for ages now, and now I have it and it's pretty and sleek. I also have Totoro on DVD and actually feel excited to watch; plus the cute totoro keychain from Japan! Then, near the end of the day, Eunice and me walked around Nat Geo the shop before going home, and browsed the awesome $69+++++++ tops that are soft and pretty, and made us wish we were tall, thin and rich, hahah.

This is my most favourite Arashi song, hands down. And I can sing every word save the rap part, which is just too fast for me. JE has apparently requested all JE-related music to be ripped off youtube so that I had to go hunt around elsewhere for this. >:\ Seriously, what is up with them. Or is it just Johnny, the nutcase. Does he not understand the global fanbase that Arashi has??? How do non-Jap people like us find Arashi if they insist on copyrighting everything???



And then there's Monkey Majik's Together -- possibly one of my most favourite songs OF ALL TIME. Love it to bits. And the meaning -- just beautiful. It alternately makes me want to cry tears of joy or go hug someone I love.

Sometimes things go wrong, and life seems pointless. But then at other times our lives do seem to have meaning. For example, life sometimes seems to have taken a wrong turn -- we fail an exam, lose a job or a love affair ends -- but then we find our true métier or true love as a result of this seeming wrong turn. Or it happens that someone decides against boarding a plane, which then crashes. If something like this happens, we may feel as if 'someone up there' is looking after us, that our footsteps have been guided. We may have a heightened sense of the precariousness of life, how easily things could have turned out differently had it not been for an almost imperceptible, perhaps otherworldly nudge.


Similarly with the down-to-earth, science-oriented part of ourselves we may see a coincidence as a chance coming together of related events, but sometimes deep down we suspect that a coincidence is not a matter of chance at all. In coincidences we sometimes feel we catch a hint, albeit an elusive one, of a deep pattern of meaning hidden behind the muddle of everyday experience.


And sometimes people find that just when all hope seems lost, happiness is discovered the other side of despair, or that inside hatred hides the growing germ of love. For reasons we'll look at later, questions of happiness are these days closely connected with notions of sexual love, so that it is often the experience of falling in love that gives us the sense that 'this was meant to be'.


~ The Secret History of the World, Jonathan Black


:) This made me happy, and then it made me pity atheists such as Richard Dawkins and that unbelievable snob, Christopher Hitchens. (Usually, they irritate me with their generally condescending manner.) Because if they fail to see such things, it's more sad than it is stupid. Maybe behind it all, they simply had a terrible heartbreak that they couldn't recover from, and therefore lost all hope in anything good from heaven. Like the Quran conveys, God is as you think He is. If you insist on not believing in Him, then He will not be made manifest to you. Why do that to yourself.

JK Rowling's Exclusive Interview with Oprah



This was awesome in ways that I cannot even convey. I cried in the beginning when they talked about the end of Harry and what it meant for her, and I cried when she talked about how a fan came up to her and said, You are my childhood, and also when she described her difficult life and when they quoted her Harvard speech again: It is impossible to live without failing at something, unless you live so cautiously that you might as well not have lived at all.


I mean, really, like that girl, HP was an indispensable part of my childhood. I am sure I would have turned out different in some way if I hadn't loved the books as much as I did. And it would be impossible for me not to have fallen in love with it because like JKR mentioned, Harry was testimony to the wonders and power of imagination. And I was nothing if not an incredibly imaginative child (if I can say so myself). I didn't have imaginary friends, but I used to imagine a lot of things (being a superhero for instance, heheh), and Harry's world was like the most amazing playground ever. I swear, when I was in the throes of HP love (haha), 13 years old and walking home from school, I would ardently wish that a boy on a broomstick would land in the tree in front of me. And when I got home, what did I do but explore the internet for Harry again -- I would actually credit my learning about the internet to Harry, because I did not care much for internet chat or networking or whatever and couldn't have cared less otherwise.

So you know, when something is special to you... it's just special to you, in its own way. And JKR is inspiring and to whom I am exceedingly thankful for giving me a colourful childhood.

Russell Peters talking about arabs -- funny!!! XD

I love Lion King. It's probably the only Disney movie I watched properly in my childhood, and watched SO MANY times that every part of it is deeply ingrained in my memory -- like the shape of Mufasa's mouth for instance, haha. And this clip is the touching one between Simba and his dad before tragedy strikes. Simba is adorable.



But then, I also find things like this: Disney e Satanismo! It's a pastor passionately speaking about the evil poisoning of children by Disney. Obviously, if this is true, it is too late for me. Whatever subliminal sexual messages were intended, they're already done deal for me. >.< I wonder, have I been corrupted horribly by them.

haiyoh, you know what -- the day I become a mother, I'd like to throw out my tv. I have seen enough to convince me that it's better to be safe than sorry. I'll tell my children to read Roald Dahl and Enid Blyton and Harry Potter but not watch television.

Sesame Street even! Yesterday, I only discovered what the fuss was about Katy Perry and Elmo -- Katy Perry appeared on Sesame Street singing that Hot and Cold song, albeit with the lyrics modified. And a lot of people made fuss about how her clothes were too revealing for a kids' show, only to have the industry saying how surprised they were at the negative response. -.- I just. Don't know. Am sick with the lies I feel the media is saying. I don't see the point of a kids' show inviting an immoral popstar to have a play date with their character, is all. Come on, she's only barely short of Lady Gaga. Real parents with their heads screwed on right would, at the least, be concerned. And the fact that Sesame Street also invited Neil Patrick Harris on the show doesn't sit well with me -- it's like they're trying to introduce the idea of homosexuality (Hey, everyone, Mr Neil is Gay! -.-) even before kids really know the difference between boy and girl.



The world has never seen more confusing times. Good is bad, bad is good. And if you're the least bit religious, you're a prude.