I Wanna Grow Old With You

I've actually forgotten that I own a blog, until I saw the word "Bygones" in a song lyric, and I went like, "Hey! I used to write in that!" (???).

Since i'll probably forget for another 5 months about the existence of this piece of skinny little thing, might as well I list down what has happened to me for the past 6-7 months, just so that friends could keep track with me and not removing me from their facebook friends' list. Hello friend!

1. I worked in Doha, and resigned. With no contributions, I still scraped one hell of a good pay slip.

2. Joined Petronas Induction, PIPE and it became the highlight of this year. My highlights are never real, so just ignore this point.

3. Moved to Miri and officially became a Malaysian workforce at PETRONAS Carigali Sarawak Operations.

4. Bought a used car (not telling you what model, MUNGKIN sebab malu), and rented a four-bedroom double storey terrace house with 3 other housemates.

5. Have been receiving 4 pay slips so far. But since I was obligated to give duit raya this year, make it 3 payslips lah.

6. Bought a 15.4 inch-screen MacBook Pro!

7. Bought an iPod Touch.

8. Got a new semi SLR camera, Canon G10 (Hey don't hate me yet).

9. Climbed to the summit of Mt Kinabalu (4095m above sea level)

10. Met 2 new possible bestfriends and some other cool people (but I'm way cooler, no doubt there).

11. Fell in love in Sandakan.

12. Warded in the hospital. Twice.

13. Made myself popular in Miri's Cherry Berrie and alFresco. And OH! Definitely in SOHO too.

14. Received my graduation scroll!

15. My external hard drive crashed, there goes all my photos and videos (if you feel me, please donate some money).

16. Got OVER Sydney. My BIGGEST achievement.

And no, I don't wanna grow old with you.

Forever 23

I seem to can't get enough of Akon. It's either I have just discovered my ability to tune in with his negrito groove, or I have dangerously slipped down the musical totem pole for finally resorting to enjoying Akon's music or I am just plain sick with the rest.

I was warded on the day I turned 23. I had been looking forward to this year's March 26th, as I could finally be with my family after years (since KYS years starting in 1999) of being away from home. But I fell ridiculously sick and was lying on the bed with my elder brother being the only one in the room wishing me all that everyone would.

The doctor somehow found it to be utterly ironic that I was turning a year older on the very day that I found it hard to even breathe, due to my swollen liver and infectious intestines. But he bent over and said that it has been a very long time since he was 23. I had no idea why he suddenly said that. He told me to stay 23 forever. He would.

I guess for me, being 23 is exceptional. It was Michael Jordan's favourite number, and Beckham wore his jersey that bore this number, though it may seem for just a flick of an era (I don't know why I wrote this, Jordan and Beckham don't amaze me, I'm hardly a fan).

At the age of 23, I finally finished university, and for an instant I thought I knew a lot of things due to the completed four-years syllabus and I was really 'head to toe' on the world being my oyster. At 23 too I feel very unequipped and uninformed for not having yet to enter the career world. At this age, I feel that I should travel more and I am beyond convinced of the fact that I could survive anywhere in the world wherever fate lands me at. I am ambitious to acquire more new skills and yet I am stupified by the fact that the more I learn, the less I know. At this age, I am very optimistic of people and I have willingly decided to give everyone the second chance that they so well deserved, but I am also mortified with certain people's unacceptable behaviours and how I swore that I would never be like one.

I know that a lot of things happen and countless thoughts occur to people at all ages. But for me personally, with the what little milestone that I have endeavoured and the 'new stage' of life I am now embracing (post-uni years, adulthood maybe?), it seems that being 23 alone makes me want to improve in a lot of sense. It's not just 23, it's a new era for me altogether.

I don't feel like this before, but for once, I want to be at this age forever, being 23 feels good. Unless of course, I later discovered a nicer number to hook onto. Oh well, with all this mess on age...they're just numbers, afterall.

I'm sorry if you don't make enough sense from this particular post. You know you don't have to.

The March Rush!

It has been almost a solid month since I last wrote something in this page. I have been half-hearted about this blog; it appears to be very old and unmodified and given that this blog so resembles me during my Sydney life is enough of an indicator that I probably need some alterations within it, to say the least. Or maybe a new blog, altogether? But browsing through the old posts has truly made me realise that I do grow and in ways more than one, I have truly changed a lot from what I was a couple of years ago. Probably that's the wondrous power of a blog; the old posts are meant only and only for you, just so you are able to recall on what consumes your mind and what tires your body in the yesteryears. And the funnier thing is, some of those matters appeared to be of utmost importance in those days, and yet they successfully appear to be petty and insignificant today. Am I just not stating the obvious?

Eversince I left Australia, I have lost a lot of self-touch within myself, and that includes translating perspectives and views I have throughout any given weeks into words. Would you believe me if I say that I couldn't stop thinking about Sydney even until today? Probably I did had the time of my life there, or probably my life did started there or maybe I was just a katak bawah tempurung, so amazed by the wonders of the outside world that whatever comes first in line (in this case, Sydney) strucked me speechless and emotional?

The 17 days I was in Malaysia was more like a series of event that I endured aimlessly to make the days pass quicker while waiting for my next flight to Qatar to meet my family. I managed to catch up with a few friends and settled a few important errands, but they all have now been diluted into unrecallable events as my mind was always occupied by Sydney all the time.

Now that I am in Doha for almost 2 weeks already, I have started to feel and see the hint of what I will be doing in the future and I am pretty much excited about it. I am more calm and stable and I have embraced the fact that once the time is up, there's nothing you can do about it. I have been here hanging out with my parents, taking things slower and furnishing myself with more elements that I believed would enrich me with more ingredients of life. In short, things are okay. And to those of you who lended your ears throughout me rambling about my ending Sydney escapade, I thank you and...thank you again.

So next would be massive job hunting days and Perhimpunan Agung UMNO (PAU), something I hope would be able to occupy me and give me some ideas and inspirations. Perhaps PAU would be the platform of when I would be able to get back in gear again, and no, this time not to prove myself (as I mindlessly did all these while, thinking that this is life is all about), but to just keep going forward and making the best of what I have of each days ahead.

And yes, to those Sydneysiders who contributed to me having a memorable summer, here's my thank you note again. And to the many friends I made along the trip, all of you truly were my saviour. All of you and the month-long trip that I took all by myself was something that I will cherish, hopefully, for the rest of my life.

Goodbye Sydney

Today is February 5th 2009. I have been thinking about this day for a very very very long time. And now, it is finally here, into the 6th hour of the day. I will officially bid my final farewell to Sydney, a city like no other, as my flight back to KL is less than 9 hours away. It feels scary, to tell you the truth.

Well, I wouldn't say that I am prepared to leave this country, Australia. There are still so many things I want to do, and so many sights I wish I could get the chance to lay my eyes on. But I know, no matter how hard I fought for this day not to arrive, although virtually impossible it may seem, I know it draws closer to me by every ticking second, and I just have to face it.

It is not easy for me. More than anything else, I have fallen in love with Sydney. I have cultivated an undivided acceptance of her perfection and imperfection. I know no other city could rival her stunning harbour, and I realized that Sydney is actually kicking goals against the bigger boys, like London and NYC. There are always things to do around, and the sun has been very kind to Sydney for 9 months out of the whole year. Yes, I am aware that the price tags of every-god-damned-thing here has put on a death grip on my wallet, and how horrid the public transportations are when the rush hour gridlock kicks in, but still, I found it very...contented by just being here. Why? I don't know. Suffice to say, I am indeed in love with Sydney.

But I am aware that the time God lended me is up. It is now my turn to leave Sydney, making rooms for new people to get in and experience the kind of thrills Sydney can bestow them with. It's not a tragic, it's just that my number is up. Sometimes, I feel bad and guilty to KL, my birthplace, for the lack of awe I have towards her compared to Sydney. Probably because I had my first total freedom here in Sydney. Or probably because I discovered a bigger portion of myself here too.

Nevertheless, alhamdulillah. I am grateful for the degree I have obtained, the wonderful people I have met and fostered friendships with, the travelling I have done, the soul-searching and self-discovery I have made, and most importantly, the gratifying series of events that I have encountered which has successfully turned me into what I am today. Everything seemed to be so majestic, and essential. And they all took place in Sydney. I probably didn't make the most of the time I had here, but I would like to believe that I have reached a certain standard of excellence and confidence. Come to think back, Sydney has contributed this massive block of structure throughout the construction of my well-being.

Now is the time for me to give KL the long awaited chance that she so well deserves all these while, and who knows, I might fell in love with KL soon? God knows I need that to happen. But for now, Goodbye Sydney, thanks and sorry for everything and I WILL miss you. You truly, are special.

Monday, December 15th

Today has been eventful, I'd say. I woke up at around 1 in the afternoon, thinking that I had the perfect sleep. Well I sort of did. The night before, I had the session with Rahman, and when our minds were so up in the air, he played all this rendition of songs that all people in their normal state of mind would find okay, but we found it highly soothing and melodious. Hence, the perfect night sleep.

At around 2pm, I gave Yus a call, to be greeted by the alarming news that we are supposed to finalise our stuff to be shipped back home to Malaysia by the night, although if I recall well, I thought that the finalisation should not be done until the next week. I was frantic; I haven't got boxes, I haven't decided on what to toss away and all in all, I haven't truly organize all my stuff properly that packing it to go back for good seems impossible!

I ran home to SUV from Bligh Towers and desperately multi-task myself into packing all my stuff, whilst running around Newtown in search of usable boxes and etc. When I thought that I'd have to ship my stuff alone at a later date (and paying all the taxes imposed alone!), as packing didn't seem feasible with my CK working shift at 6pm, I actually did it. Then it bugged me that Carrie Bradshaw took 3 days with the help of 3 friends to fold 2o years into 38 boxes. It took me less than 4 hours to pack up 4 years into 4 boxes, alone, with only Budin helping me in the last 40 minutes or so. Well, I guess I'm just not any New Yorker. White singlet and a 30 dollars Tsubi skinny has done me miracle!

(btw, if you missed the Tsubi sale at Paddington, which ran for some time and ended on Sunday 14th December, you have truly missed the wonders of SALE. My skinny dropped from the staggering AUD 250 to AUD 30, and so is Budin's, and Zarif's shade costed only AUD 80, and not AUD 400 anymore).

Work at CK was fine, it was quite boring that I couldn't even blogged about it.

Probably tomorrow I'll show Phil his carspace, have light breakfast with him, complete the sealings of all my 4 precious boxes, do some toning up at the gym and do the cleaning work from 4.30pm til 9.00pm. And oh! We're getting a new second-hand fridge tomorrow, which means I'll grow more muscles driving Izwan's van around. Perfect!

Why Red is RED

I like the colour red. No, make it I LOVE the colour red. I'm sure some of my close friends are well aware of that, but for those of who lacked quality time with me, yeap, I had always loved red and I tend to choose red over any other colours.

I don't just like the colour because of the essence it holds, but I sort of see myself in the colour red. In fact, I've started realizing that I like red since I was four years old. It was a bit early don't you think? But it's true. I was so certain about the colour that I've shown great affinities towards red at such early age (Proof: in 1990, my father bought my siblings and I story books of the same title. Whilst my brother and sister received one each in green, I received one in red. When i asked my father why he gave me the book in red, instead of purchasing all 3 books in green, he said: Sebab Papa tahu Mamat suka merah. That was in 1990, and I was indeed, freaking fresh and only four years old. To top it off, my brother and sister didn't entirely favour green, but my dad just had no idea what colours to buy them, but he knew Mamat likes red).

The next few paragraphs are entirely self-absorbed, but I'm sure red-lovers all around the globe will nod their heads in agreement;

First of all, we, the red-lovers, don't understand why other people don't favour red. Why don't you like red? How can you not like red? We think that liking red alone is a great portrayal of a certain strong traits that we want to possess in our lives, that we wonder; how come other people don't want these traits, that we tend to view as extremely vital? The red-lovers will surely agree with this; once someone likes the colour red, it is almost impossible for them not to like red anymore. Hence, we don't understand statement like this; "Oh, dulu mase kecik, aku suke warne biru. Mase sekolah menengah, aku cam suke kuning plak. Sekarang aku rase fevret kaler aku ijau". Most red-lovers will go like wth? How can you change your favourite colour? Yes, we grew up too, and I for instance, has discovered that I like blue and black too, and green is okay and brown is not that bad either, BUT, red will always top the other colours.

Well, colour experts argue that red highly symbolizes ambitiousness, passion, attention, daring, strong, patriotic and outstanding. So I believe what colour you like, to a certain extend, speaks for yourself. In fact, red-lovers view the colour red as so prominent, that we can spend hours to talk about the colour red itself.

Consider this (all three colours were carefully chosen so that they all 'stand out' equally against the black backdrop of this blog. Of course, I can't choose white, the exact opposite of black, or else it wouldn't be fair):

I like blue.
I like red.
I like orange.

Of all the three, which do you think strikes your eyes as more dominant? Red, isn't it? (That's what I think, and I found it hard to believe if you don't think like that hahaha. But yeah, if you see that orange or the blue as more striking, please let me know. I'd love to learn new perspectives on how other people view other colours too ;) ).

Scientifically, of all the 64 million colours in the world, shades of red has the shortest wavelength. Which means, if all 64 million colours of similar intensity were displayed right in front of you, the colour red will take the shortest time to reach your eyes, and it will tend to stay longer on your retina cells. I find that amazing, you know, given that we are talking about 64 million colours here.

But then again, to be fair, not everyone has that kind of attitude in life. Some are more relaxed and laid back (blue-lovers), some tend to be more peaceful in their mind (green-lovers) and some likes purity (white-lovers). But still, most red-lovers will go like, Hmm, but why not red?

What come to your mind when I say; World's most popular sports car? Or, English Premier League's most talked-about football club? If you think Ferrari and Manchester United, like I do, well they're RED. Of course, there are always exception in every scenarios, so let's not argue to much on this.

But yeah, it's a free world, and all colours are beautiful. It'd be boring too if everyone likes red. So I guess it's good that the variations in humanity are exposed through colours too.

(But still, how come you don't like red?)

theBygones

Muhammad,

Happiness deep down within,
Serenity with each sunrise,
Success in each facet of your life,
Family beside you,
Close and caring friends,
Health, inside you,
Love that never ends,
Special memories of all the yesterdays,
A bright today with much to be thankful for,
A path that leads to beautiful tomorrows,
Dreams that do their best to come true,
Appreciation of all the wonderful things about you.

Alhamdulillah, my utmost gratitude to Allah, for He has blessed me with the abilities to go through this stage of my life, this stage in The University of Sydney. Now that I've met all the grades requirements, I am just going to complete the remaining days here with optimism and grace. With or without Honours, I will leave that to Allah to decide, for He know what is best for me. I won't worry myself on the Honours issue, as that may make me forget that I have indeed, plenty to be thankful for. Once again, I am thankful to Allah, Alhamdulillah.

Muhammad HAMID
Bachelor of Engineering (Mechanical)
The University of Sydney
Class of 2008

It's December...Again.

well, lip lap lip lap, here we are it's December again. December is something you know, it's the month that signifies an end to yet another chapter, and of course it's the month when in Sydney all you will naturally plan to do is hoard more moolah, or trickle down to more new places, not worrying about assignments and better still, just do nothing while the time completes a dual-lap around the clock.

A lot of things has happened since I last wrote in here, well, given the fact that I've not been updating it for around 5 weeks, it's only natural to say, yet again, to say "a lot has happened" (yes, I have an eventful life, it's not boring and fabulous would be best used to describe it).

I submitted my thesis with Joe around November 6th, had a heavenly 2 weeks of nothingness (not exactly nothingness; waking up late, movie ultra-marathon, Sydney's indie cafes and taking a break from my cleaning shifts, whilst taking my own god-damned sweet time reading the two chapters for the IR&M Paper). Yeah, one of the perks of being a final year stud.

After the FINALest exam (and the only exam paper I had this semester), which was on the November 19th, I pretty much spent the time trying to look for a second job, on top of the cleaning job, just so you know, I can do another jalan-jalan Australia. But now that I've landed a job as a waiter with Cafe Kasturi (how cliche and normal, I know), with the cleaning job, I'm starting to become half-hearted about the trip. I mean, if travelling around Australia in a Greyhound coach requires me to enslave myself to about 8-9 hours of waitering and cleaning shifts, well, let's just say I'm not strong enough and not up to the challenge (simpler terms; aku penat nak kerja gila babi hanya untuk kumpul duit untuk berjalan...wtf).

Anyway, my final results will be out soon. I'm still leaning my hope towards Allah's mercy and endearment for a good overall results, with at least an Honours mark. And oh, I've been paying a visit to the gym almost everyday now, hoping to toned up my body, maxed up my weight (not maxed up, I'm talking about a 75 kilos weight for a 175cm height...PERFECT BMI) and to appear more attractive to a wider range of female.

To top up the crappyness of this post, here's my wish list for this December:
1. A final WAM mark that would at least qualify me for an Honours Upper Division 2.
2. The perseverance and determination to collect as much money as I can through cleaning and waitering jobs.
3. A month-long trip around the continent.
4. Nudie skinny jeans and the Stussy tool bag.
5. There's more I'm sure, just can't squeeze it out my mind.

And to Idzani Bidzani Cidzani...Zidzani, have a safe train ride to Melbourne. Masa untuk ber-indie!

The Final Week on the Calendar

My laptop is fully functional again (more like semi-functional), I'm sipping mild coffee to help keep my eyes open at least until 10pm and I have just finished my last Monday in the university calendar ever.

Yeap, as cliche as it sounds that time does fly, I am actually now embarking on the journey of completing my degree. Just another one more Tuesday, one more Wednesday, one more Thursday and one more Friday.

Amidst the victorious tone that this post may hold, there's still some despair within it, being clenched by the thought of how there won't be any more classes soon. Of me not being a university student anymore. How can I freely let go of USyd, the place that had taught me to at least pretend that I have it all together, when actually most of the times I skidded from the right lane and sometimes, had everything fallen apart?

Ok, enough on the sappy mode. I have four more days, will give it my best and I will the work of my thesis with the little remaining days and turn it into a masterpiece like never before (*cross finger*). For the record, I am pretty happy with the Monday; I attended all the classes, I survived French Oral Test, I perfectly compiled my last 30-pages report and I signed my final plagiarism form. Pretty sweet eh?

I know a few things are coming my way in a few months; I need to learn to love my next residential area, and I need to learn to love my workplace. That's what had kept me going all these while, despite all the turbulences I faced. The thought of loving where I am is enough to give me a reason to leave my bed every morning.

To my final Tuesday, and to the final presentation. If tomorrow is worth living, then it's worth recording too. So I guess it's tomorrow then, till then, take care and love today. Love the Monday that is today.

Eid Mubarak

Selamat Hari Raya Aidilfitri to everyone. Maaf Zahir dan Batin.

Hopefully my final raya in Sydney will be something of great memory, and I wanna thank Allah for all the blessings and personal growth that He showered me with throughout Ramadhan. Not my best Ramadhan I'd say, but better still, there's always something worth to be thankful about.

Another 4 weeks of my academic calendar, and I hope to make the best out of it. O Allah, give me the strength to go through it with the best abilities that I can. I have faith in myself.