Baby baby baby oooooh

I stumbled upon this video and I can't stop smiling. :) This one's for you, Fiance.

P.S I love you!

20.10.2011

5 years and counting :)

Read, dear.

MPH, Gramedia, Popular, Borders or any book store alike would be one of my must-go shops. Now you must be wondering why. Well, first and foremost, of course, I love reading. But more than that, I just love to walk through the many stacks of books available in the store, glancing through the name of the authors and the title of the book. And when there's a book of my interest, I might consider buying it. I usually feel a sense of enjoyment being surrounded by books. That, can't be explained though. I just feel that way. He he. I enjoy trailing my fingers on the books on the shelf while looking at the different sizes and covers. I love glancing through blurbs of the books which strikes my interest. Among my favourite sections are: Fiction, cooking/food, travels, hobbies, romance (ahem) just to name a few. But I'll normally go to the best sellers shelf, just to keep abreast with books/authors which I might not be aware of.

Thank God, Den shares the same interest! :) And recently we went to the biggest book sale in the world and spent around rm200+. We managed to get more than 25 books (if I'm not mistaken). And I was elated! :)

Actually, I grew up reading a lot of novels, both Malay and English. I still remember my dear dorm-mate, Nana, who was the owner of a mini-library (of Malay novels). She has a record of those who borrowed her books, and we had to agree to certain terms and conditions (which I can still remember!) for example books should be returned within 1 week. This is to be fair to the rest who have the intention of borrowing the same novel from her; and those who borrowed her book are not allow to hand it over to another person within the borrowing period. We can choose from a variety of 100+ books. I'm not exaggerating, really. She has that many! One of the books which was (and will always be) my favourite is Ombak Rindu by Fauziah Ashari. Why? It was my 1st Malay novel! He he.

But there's another story that I want to share with you. Den and I went to Alamanda last week. He wanted to buy a book for one of his classes. While waiting, I browsed through some of the books on the shelf nearby. What caught my attention was this:

And I was smiling to myself. This novel definitely reminded me of my highschool memories. The most used word upon seeing a person reading or holding a novel was "after!" or "aku nak after tau", indicating the intention of wanting to borrow it after one is done. So there I was, contemplating whether or not to buy it. And suddenly Den approached me, he already paid for the book he wanted to buy earlier. So I said, lets go. But he hesitated. To my surprise, he said this "Eh, I know this novel! Wasn't it popular? Do you want to buy it?" And I was like, "Err..errr.. I dunno..". (Really, I don't know if he's just trying to be nice or he really knows the existence of the novel, or maybe his sister has it, but wth, layankan je lah..he he). So he asked me to pick one, and stormed to the cashier. Half way, he turned around and said, "Eh, you go and pay lah!". And I LOL-ed. Ha ha ha. Really it was hilarious. Imagine the sight of a man getting excited about a Malay novel, which obviously is very much stereotyped as corny, jiwang, etc. But he ended up saying, "Oh, never mind!". And I smiled.

P.S Thank you for being such a sweetheart. I love you. :)

*** Ombak Rindu has been turned into a movie! And it's gonna be released end of this year. I can't waitttttt!!!!! :D

Can I have him to sing me to sleep at night?

I am so in love with Chuck and Flynn/Eugene (sebenarnya nak tulis Zachary Levi tapi it sounds more decent to refer to him using his character name. Therefore I don't feel that guilty because I fall in love with a character, not the actual person. HAHAHA).

I've just watched Tangled recently. Got the copy from my sister. I watched Tangled and I really fell for Flynn/Eugene. His voice sounds familiar. Very familiar. And when he sang I see the Light, I fell more in love with him. Seriously. And so happened that the credits at the end of the movie was not included. So I Google-d and there you go. It was HIM singing. And I didn't know that he can sing that well. I love youuuuu Chuck/Flynn/Eugene/Zachary Levi but I love my fiance more. But I love you jugakkkk! Hehehe. Please please please listen to Zachary Levi & Mandy Moore (I see the Light) and Katherine McPhee recorded Terrified featuring him.

we're so cute for two ugly people

I don't see what anyone can see in anyone else but you

What were you thinking?

Seriously.

In my honest opinion, there are a lot of things to be considered when writing a book, especially when it is meant for children. Specifically, ABC picture books.

Here's what happened. I was reading one of the books (but this one is the Bahasa and English version) with my cousin's son, Isyraf (4 y.o). Approaching the letter Y, Isyraf spontaneously said "Eeee, tak malu, kencing berdiri". So I was like "what?". Then only I noticed THIS.

If the overall content of the book is about/describing human body parts, then by all means, it is totally fine. But I guess the word Penis is guised in so many terms, the same goes as Zakar in Bahasa. It's never wrong to expose them to the actual word, but what Isyraf said (eee, tak malu kencing berdiri) is a proof that the intended objective has not been met. Instead of identifying the picture as penis/zakar, he focused on the action. Which is not wrong, I would say. Really, I did not know how to respond. But eventually I said "Ini Zakar *while pointing at the arrow*". And I can't believe it myself, how I sounded like a pervert Aunt. Haha. And I quickly asked him to give me another book to read.

Den asked me to take a picture of the publisher but somehow it's not in the camera. Too bad. I would advise them to revise the contents. The thing is that, ABC books are not only for children to learn the letters but also help them to read. Thematic books (books with theme) which may accommodate all alphabets including (q,x,z) would be more desirable. Contents should also be more engaging. The items included should be those which children can relate to and easily available so that the letters and words can be reinforced. That way, they'll learn better.

Moral of the story: Take your time to really look at the contents of the book before buying them.

Honesty is the best policy

I was flipping through Dad's students' assignments. Some of their works are good. As in really good. They were supposed to write a 15 pages essay on a quote of their choice, related to volunteerism. The medium of instruction is in Bahasa, but Dad encourages them to use English if they were to have any class presentation. So they were given the freedom to write the paper using the language they prefer, or feel more comfortable with.

Some papers were good. As in real good. And that surprised me. Not being sceptical or anything, but what's written in some of the essays were exceptionally flawless. I was like 'Dayumm! This student is really good'. But being a critical person (NOT), I noticed that (in this particular [unlucky] paper), the font colors in some paragraphs are not the same with the rest. Some parts are black (the automatic font color in MSWord) but some others are greyish black. Dan ada macam bintik2 (on the letters with the grey fonts) as compared to the black ones which are solid lah kan, without the tiny dots. Tak guna magnifying glass pun boleh nampak kot. -_-" So there you go. Apparently not everything in the paper is genuine.

Personally, it upsets me that uni students are very prone to 'copy and paste'. It's like they're taking the easy way to complete the assignments when other people are going through the hassle of doing it (honestly). I'd appreciate a genuine work,with acceptable grammatical errors rather than a 'flawless' paper (done with zero effort, of course!). If you don't feel comfortable writing in English you can resort to writing in Bahasa. And there's a writing technique called paraphrasing. Always, always paraphrase when you want to report someone else's works. And there's a proper way of citing or quoting information obtained from other people. And logically you need to have a page with the heading Reference at the end, right? Because in order to come up with a good piece of work, you'll have to do some readings. Unless if you're really smart to the extent that you can become a theorizer.

This is a serious problem I would say. And again, I'm upset. First is that they're not even doing it right. You want to cheat, please do it the right way. C'mon, takkan lah font color tak sama boleh tak perasan? Second, if they do not feel guilty about it, it'll create problem in the long run. Not being honest, get away with it and get good grades, and feeling good about it. Yes, that kind of problem. And what if they're the kind of person who hold on to the quote 'Buat jahat jangan sekali, buatlah berkali2'. Then what happens to keberkatan dalam menuntut ilmu? :( Kecewa.