Assalamu'alaikum...

Aiiihhh... holidays are almost NEVER a good time for me. I mean, seriously, it feels like the more time I have in my hands, the more likely I find something that would make me wanna go "bunuh diri" and jump off a bridge. Ever heard of the expression "Ignorance is bliss?". If I can go through life being ditzy and not knowing anything, or maybe just go through life not feeling anything, I probably would. But then that would just be stupid, 'cause there's no room for self improvement. Let's just hope this Thanksgiving would go nice and smooth....

Alisa had her first "open house" for raya. Before that, Dayang, Hisham, kak Deng, Mel and Mehrun also had theirs. Food was great, company was great. At Hisham's, we watched Puteri Gunung Ledang. Note to self and everyone: lain kali jgn kasi Alisa makan byk sgt gule. Sgt hyper. No more sodas for you, young lady. I think all of us totally ripped PGL to shreds. Poor Tiara, trying to sound like an Indonesian. Honey, give it up now, it's not happening.

At Mel's and Mehrun's, there was this cute little bundle of joy that I just melted over. No, it's not a gift basket filled with Victoria's Secret undies.... it's a baby. A cute, chubby itty bitty lil' wee thing who's pink face and pretty eyes makes you go "aaahhh... sho cute". I love babies. They're so innocent and cute, and all they do is cry, poop and eat. (this would probably be a good time to make a crack at the men that I've known, but I'm gonna be nice today and not go there). I've always wanted kids of my own when I start a family. Honestly, kalau kate lah kan, ditakdirkan takde jodoh, I think what would break my heart more isn't the fact that I won't have a guy in my life, but that I wouldn't get to go through the experience of motherhood. However, that's a long way to go yet, and I'm nt gonna worry about things that I'm not even ready for.

The MSA newletter is out, and so is my article. They put in the front page, which I guess is kinda cool. The editor didn't recognize me, though, he tried to give me the newsletter and say "there's also this really interesting artcle from Sister Farah". I looked at him blankly and said "I'm Farah". He blushed, and as a saving grace I smiled, said "Thanks, I'll pass this along" and made my exit. I told this story to Alisa, Dayang, Ijat and Hanis at Alisa's house the second time I went there, it bombed because apparently, I don't know how to tell a story. Truth be told, I really don't, I'm more comfortable with writing a story than telling it. It was kinda refreshing to have people laugh with you at your expense, it keeps your feet planted to the ground and you don't get all hoity toity. Of course, that only works if the people doing the laughing does it in FRONT of you, not behind your BACK, 'cause if it's the latter then that would just be plain rude and kind of insulting. It doesn't benefit anybody and dosa pun bertambah bergelen-gelen.

I went senyap-senyap to a "something" and got a callback to host (or co-host) "something". If you've seen MTV or VH1, and you see the VJs talking to the camera about the scene behind them... yeah, that's what I get to do, if I decide to go for the second call and actually got the offer. It's nothing fancy, certainly not MTV or VH1. But we'll see. That's a long way to go yet. Honestly, if any of my friends even ask me about it, I would just smile and say "it's nothing". Wouldn't wanna jinx my chances. But most of the stuff that they want me to do would be during the next semester, the pay isn't all that attractive anyway, and the fact that I don't have a car makes everything more difficult. On the other hand, it would be a great experience. Since I don't even have the offer yet, I'm just gonna sit back and relax :) .

I went to watch "National Treasure with Sophia last night, along with her 2 guy friends, after chapter yesterday. By the way, Ayun and Ijat, associates punye social sgt sedap, sundae sume nyum nyum, great job :) . On the way, we got talking about stuff, and now suddenly I have a workout buddy. Haha! Sophia is really hot, having her there would definitely push me further rather than just me doing it all alone. I noticed that I work better when I have good-lookin' people to inspire me, hahaha, like my instructors during sophomore year. So we're starting off with Tuesday and Thursday mornings at 10 am, and then take it from there. Can't wait, this should be fun :) .

I have class in another hour, so I gotta go and get ready. Hopefully I'll be able to pen in again sooner rather than later..... Ciao!

Wassalam...

Assalamu'alaikum...

Such a busy week... I had 2 AutoCad assignments to do, which is more like 4 since each assignment has 2 parts to it. Those were so awful to do, and they were so tedious and not fun that I wondered what the heck did the professor mean when he said "fun 3D assignment"? I should write a letter to my prof:

Dear Sir,
Today, my otak almost go mereng because you gave me an assignment that make me wanna go weng-weng. Calling them fun does NOT make 'em fun. Fun is something that you can snap-snap-snap and they're done. Fun is something that isn't called an "assignment". Fun is something involving me, a couple of good lookin' guys with no shirt on, a roll of one dollar bills and a table top. Your assignments.... not fun.

-Farah-

Here's some other letters that I would just LOVE to dish out:

Dear Bus Driver,
The other day, ya almost langgar me at the bus stop. Why you wanna do dat? What did I ever to you. Dah lah you like to drive laju-laju when the bus is jam pack full of people, like you don't know that it's just not cool, man. Go masuk kelas driving again, or maybe just stop driving the bus altogether.

-Farah-

Dear Neighbor,
Just because you live under my apartment, doesn't mean I hafta like you. And vice versa. You cranked up the volume when I wanted to sleep, the bass almost made me insane. As such, I think I have the right to jump up and down and up and up and down and up and down in my living room just because I wanna. By the way, I DID NOT jump up and down yesterday, you're paranoid.

-Farah-

Dear Tupai Depan Rumah,
My neighbor is getting obnoxious. Sila berak depan rumah die. You're chubby enough.

-A Friendly Human-

Dear "Schtoopid",
First of all, you're not stupid. In fact, I'm hard pressed to find someone more intelligent than you are. But you treated me like crap, you still do, and you complain to ME that other people are crap. And your latest insensitivity today proves my point. Your crappy treatment of me makes you Mr. Schtoopid. Poopy-head.

-You Know Who This Is-

There. I'm actually feeling quit lousy today, I tried to pick my mood up but it's not working. Stoopis Windows Messenger. I solved the problem, but it's still bugging me. I'm all for hos before bros, but this ho is reaaaaalllllyy gettin' on my nerves. Oh hormones, oh history, oh stupid emotions. I'm not making sense to anybody, I better stop now before I start eating my laptop.

Wassalam...

Assalamu'alaikum......

First of all, HAPPY EID! SELAMAT HARI RAYA, MAAF ZAHIR BATIN. Di sini, saya ingin mengucapkan selamat raya, makan rendang ingat-ingat lah orang kat sini, to cik Dina/Bantut, kate nak hantar kueh raye mane tak sampai-sampai lagi... to mak sendiri, mane pegi baju raye, kate buat empat pasang, jgn kan sepasang baju, benang pun tak nampak ni... aiseh mummy, kite pun nak raye jugak. Moving on....

I just got back from an excellent night at Seva, a comedy club at central. Okay, backtrack for a bit...

So my sorority decided we should do socials with other societies. This semester's lucky winner is SGT, which is Sigma Gamma Tau, the aerospace engineering fraternity. So we've had bowling nights with them, which I didn't go, and trivia night, which I also didn't go. Too busy, since all of them were scheduled during weekdays. But the next event, the comedy club, is on a Friday, Aha! I thought. I decided, what the heck, I'll participate in this one, it sounds like fun. I asked Dennis if he wanted to come, he in turn brought Al along, and everything else is comic history.

Now, to those who were at the Gempitafest meeting and are ready to bash my head in for missing the meeting, keep in mind that I scheduled this WEEKS ago in advance, and they've already booked tickets for me. Plus since I had already asked Dennis along, and Al, I can't very well back out now, can I? Hahah! So there, I have a very valid excuse. Moving on....

I went to Dennis' apartment at around 8.45pm just to hang out and see his place. It's kinda cool, it's right across the IM building and the field where the band practices. I live right across the gym and my ass is still as big as ever. But I digress... The rooms are okay, the kitchen is nice, the rent is not so bad for a place on central, AND best of all, there's a pretty nice view of the Big House a.k.a stadium if you stand on the balcony. The downside: band practice at 8am on game days (Saturdays). According to Dennis, it annoys the shit out of everyone living there. I can imagine, I like my relatively quiet mornings too.

Anyway, we walked to the comedy club from his place in the freakin' cold, and we had to walk fast because it WAS so freakin' cold. When we arrives, Genevieve, Katelyn and Erica were already there, and we had to wait for another round of people to get tickets. Luckily enough, Phi Rhos don't need to pay, it's part of our funding (part of the perks of being in it).

The show was great. Abso-bloody-lutely great. First comic was sorta ho-hum.. and he was the host. I wasn't expecting much. Second comic, a woman, was pretty funny. Her impression of someone high on weed is pretty hillarious. Now, the main attraction, the comic all of us came to see, Mike Armstrong, downright slayed everyone. I couldn't stop laughing, the guy was so, so funny. Well, he should be, he was featured on Comedy Central, but I never laughed that hard watching TV. He's an ex-cop, so he had brilliant stories to tell. There are no words to decribe him. He's just downright funny. This is probably one of the best nights I've had in ages.

As it is, all good things come at a price. Aside from missing the meeting (which I do regret terribly), apparently I missed some good ol' fashioned DDR at Deera's with the other girls tonight. Crud, I guess one can't have it all. I wanted to go straight from Central to Deera's but I had to stop by my place first to wait for Kate to gimme my football tickets. After that I realize that not only is it freezing cold, but I'm much too scared to walk alone to the middle of Northwood all alone at freakin' 1 o'clock in the morning. Brr... and *sob*. Ah well, we win some, lose some....

Tomorrow I'm going to the Big House to watch us cream Northwestern. Look out NU, you're in our house now. Granted, I'm not taking them lightly, since some miracle happened and they did beat Ohio State earlier in the season to give Ohio State their first lost. The again, Ohio State did play some pretty crappy games lately.... or so it seems to me... and I was told so, too. So there. I can't wait to see us play against Ohio State next week. It's gonna be intense. Darn Bush lovers (and may I say, "darn" is a pretty mellow substitute to the word that I originally wanted to use... but since it's Eid I'll lt this one go.... dang Bush lovers). I'm doing the tailgate event for that game, and we're giving out prizes this time, for what I've no clue yet, but I will keep you up to date about it.

I got a nice/sad email today. Nice because I was commended on my writing, since apparently my writing skills "surpassed all of (the) newsletter staff", sad because I asked them to take me off the email list. I couldn't take all the drama that was going on, it's like an episode of The O.C. minus all the hot people or the interesting plot. However, it broke my heart to read the email I got.. so we'll see.... the compliment was nice, I always like hearing nice stuff about my writing. Sometimes I wonder if I really have talent or is it just repressed emotions that I can't say out loud because I'd sound like a pretentious American wannabe, so I write all of it down instead. We'll see about the newsletter, I don't want to take on responsibilities that I can't commit, it would hurt people and damage my credibility (whatever's left of it) and it would just be plain selfish and stupid. Like they say, when you take on any responsibility, just like being a leader, "satu kaki dah langkah masuk neraka". That is how serious things get, and that is how serious I take it nowadays.

My days of just letting things slide and hope that people will pick up after me is kept to a bare minimum. I'm getting older, I'm 22 years old, in 3 years I'll be 25. My mom already had 2 kids when she was 25, my sister-in-law had one. I can't keep screwing around anymore, I can't just take things lightly anymore. Time to grow up and move on.

I'm so sleepy right now, it's ridiculous. Catch you guys on the flip side.....zzzzzzz...

Wassalam....

MY CLASS WITH PROFESSOR TURNER ... AND OTHER STUFF HAPPENING UP TILL NOW

Assalamu'alaikum.....

"Okay, time to take your stinking quiz."

If that's the first sentence you hear from a professor in class, you know you;re not dealing with your everyday professor. Which, come to think of it, was literally the case for me. He's not my everyday professor, my professor (that's what I call him, even though technically he's not) is currently out of town on a convention. What we have here today, people, is the guy/very-cool-prof who taught this class last semester. And what a character he is.

I am used to coming to class, taking notes and being bored out of my mind. Don't get me wrong, Johnson certainly knows his stuff, but he can hold the attention of the class only for about as long as I can keep a diet (translated: not very long at all). And he's probably the master of all arcane AutoCad commands. Watching him manuever commands on that big screen up in the sky can be painfull, especially when he accidentally clicked on a button, didn't realize it, and started troubleshooting for about 10 minutes (when it could have been solved in 10 seconds had anyone was willing to speak up). Granted, like I said, he certainly knows his stuff, and he's always willing to help you at any time of the day provided he hasn't gone home yet. If he has, the you're pretty much a moron because he's in his office until 6 pm, what the heck are you thinking, trying to disturb the guy when he's having his dinner? Ahh, but I digress....

Today, Johnson isn't here. He's out, goodness knows where. Don't wanna know, don't really care. Instead, today we have Turner. Professor Turner, who goes to school here at the good ol' U of M in the 1970s, got kicked out, then somehow miraculously got back in again. And now he's a professor here. In the land where Bush is legally elected president and there's a Chinatown in every major cities, anything is possible, I guess. Turner talks really fast, and is really funny. So what if you barely managed to take notes because he was talking so fast? He's talking about an old guy snorting lead for fun, for goodness sakes. Groovey, baby. Turner = really cool guy.

So after class, it's off to work, la dee dah. As usual, I'm over worked and under paid, but that's okay. Then off to gamelan class. I then conveniently managed to cut myself in class, and barely managed to keep my finger from bleeding on the carpet. The cut was small, but deep, thank goodness Ayun had tissues handy. Why convenient? Because I have my guitar class right after. I could barely extend my pinky, let alone press strings using it. So today I can't go, which I'm not too sad about because I'm feeling sluggish today.

I went home, watched the O.C, checked my emails and suddenly found myself with a full weekend. Full as in tomorrow, I'm going to the comedy club with the Phi Rho girls and Dennis, and Saturday, to the Northwestern game, the last home game of the season. So I'm all set. Now, if I can find some time to get my pesky homeworks done in between those... and I do have a lot to get done....

Wassalam..

p/s: enjoy the new song

Assalamu'alaikum...

Okay, so I know I haven't updated for about... what, three weeks,give or take a few days. It's all a mixture of being busy with project and finding a new job and work all those other good stuff. Suffice to say, I had other thigs to do, and when I don't, I was just plain too lazy to update. But I'm here now, so turn those frowns upside down :) .

Okay, so on Saturday, Oct 30th (I think), I had my driving test. For someone who hasn't driven in ages, I did pretty well, hehehe :). So I passed. I was feeling happy, so I went to Kroger and the china market, bought a few key ingredients and messaged some people to come and *sahur* at my place. Deera did it the night before, so I thought about waiting until the next week, but I already bought the stuff and they won't fit my fridge, so I had my *makan-makan* thing on Saturday anyway. I walked home from Kroger, pushing my big-ass cart and stopping b y Deera's to get me a couple of big ass *periuk* (I still have 'em, by the way, Dee). It was a looong trip... pushing a cart that loaded with things is bound to test anyone's patience, especially since I found myself being stuck in holes numerous times.

Anyway, I got home in plenty of time to watch the biggest football game of the season: Michigan vs. Michigan State. I spent the entire afternoon cutting veggies and meat in front of the TV. Once, I almost cut my finger because I was so glued to the game, good thing the knife only hit my nail and not my skin. Phew. Anyway, we won the game!! Woo hooo!!! I think most of us were almost resigned to a loss when we were down by 17, but the comeback was spectacular. Okay, I might not know like a whole lot about football, but thanks to Dennis, who painstakingly explained the basic what's-goin'-on stuff to me, I was able to appreciate a good game when I see one. I kept throwing my arms up in the air whenever we scored and yelling..... which I probably shouldn't have done because I was holding a chef's knife most of the time. But everything's cool, I didn't get hurt and that night, people came to eat :) . I made my "sizzling" mee, by requests from some of my friends, however I bought a few packets of a different kinda mee so everyone kept saying *Eh, ade laksa!* . Haiyak.

Sunday was uneventful, aside from the whole Halloween thing. The weekdays after that was hectic, since I had way too much stuff to do and not enough time to do them. Mostly was planning Tech Day, we needed to meet and get the finer details down to pat. Oh, and Tech Day was Saturday, Nov 6th. I was nervous beforehand, I take planning things seriously, of course, you don't want things to go bust on your watch. Thank goodness that the volunteers for Tech Day were awesome. Genevieve, Katelyn, Erica and I did the banner the night before, and it looked gorgeous. Absolutely perfect. "Phi Rho and Nintendo: Two Rad Things From the 80's", that was our theme. Everyone was impressed with our old school Nintendo, hahaha, there was this UMEC representative that kept coming back to play with it. Gosh, I hope we can win best booth... it certainly had a lot of buzz....

And yesterday, Sunday, was chapter. I had a meeting before that with Liz and Kate, and all of us were kinda tense because we had to do a whole document in, like, 3 hours, and it was due this morning. So I was glad when it was chapter time, but then my stomach got into knots when I realize it's voting day for next semester's rush chair. Basically what rush chair is is that you would be responsible in planning the "rush" events, where you recruit new members to the sorority. Now, I was excited about being rush chair, but Katelyn, Erica and Amanda are also running for it, so I had to sell myself to the other girls and hope they would let me take a more active part in the sorority. Well, apparently they were happy with me since Tech Day was a big success (thanks to Genevieve's brilliant old school Nintendo idea), and they think my emails are.. ermm... in Veronica's words, "hillarious" (I was a real dork, apparently dork is in this semester), hehehe..... so I got the position. I'm happy :) . I know that it's gonna be tough trying to balance everything next semester, but I've been through a lot these past 3 years..... I feel like there's nothing I can't overcome as long as I believe in myself and I have good friends around me.

So right now I'm very happy :) ... I wore my Phi Rho sweatshirt today with pride and the confidence knowing that I've earned the Greek letters, hahaha (dork) ... and talking about confidence, I stood up for myself and defended my beliefs, which I'm proud of. Of course, I was a big ball of mess afterwards, but that's what sisters are for.... so thanks again, girlies :) . And hopefully, this feeling will last for for a long time to come.

Here's wishing all of you a great day and a blessed last week of Ramadhan...

Wassalam....