Catch a falling star and put it in your pocket, never let it fade away

Firstly, I'd like you to know that no national topic has concerned me, or conflicted me as much as 1Malaysia has. But it must be said. 1Malaysia will not materialise. Shame, because it is such a valiant effort by Najib, and it has, is, and will guzzle more taxpayers money. It is also a shame that his own Deputy put his efforts two (or more) steps back by saying "I am Malay first, but being Malay doesn't mean I am not Malaysian," in retaliation to DAP leader Lim Kit Siang's challenge for him to state whether he is a Malay or a Malaysian first.

If someone that high up does not believe in the Malaysian concept, how can any implementation possibly see results? For that reason, among others, including existing inter-racial tensions, 1Malaysia will not work.

"Will running down your own country make others respect us more?", said Youth and Sports Deputy Minister Datuk Razali Ibrahim. Quoted from today's The Star, page 9. Dear Minister, my answer is YES, if it means promoting change and action for the betterment of my homeland, then so be it!

I grew up thinking I was a Chinese Malaysian. But I can change. Hear me roar, I am Malaysian! Though I do it with a little timidness, and a little reluctance, because my country is not up to par with my expectations. 

And how can you stereotype Malaysians? Sure, perhaps our accents may be a little weird to other citizens of the world, but it is such a no-brainer, since Malaysian's are such a diverse bunch of people. 

And still I hope. Hope beyond hope, that someday we will be at peace with one another.

Branding me

Newsflash, everything is branded in this capitalistic world. Ideologically, branding can be interpreted as something unique, that sets anything apart. Hence, your own signature can be your brand. Your IC number is a brand, did you know? It's sad, but true, we are all branded.


How can I stop myself from being just a number, John Mayer.

But in the unflinching retail world, branding is, or should be, first and foremost about quality. Which is why overpriced high fashion products which is very likely of very similar quality to Thailand-made products deserve to be spat in its face. Nevertheless, paying for quality is acceptable, because I do that. I have one Country Hide tote/sling bag, and it speaks of quality without being ostentatious, like Gucci, or Coach, or Louis Vuitton(believe me, this is rather hard to say. It IS, after all, every respectable woman's staple luxury).


Oh, I also very much believe in the resilience of your typical Bata school shoes in a tropical rainforest. After my SPM, I decided to bring them to a camp which would ruin them beyond repair so I had sound reason to dispose them. They jungle trekked during monsoon season, climbed up a waterfall, abseilled down a canyon into a stream, and river trekked their way downhill. Unscathed but filthy and downright stinky. They were disposed anyway.

, it's historical mission is to "to increase and diffuse geographic knowledge while promoting the conservation of the world's cultural, historical, and natural resources." And I do so love watching documentaries. Cartoons and documentaries, that's what children need. 








The first one deserves acclaim for it's uplifting message, and split second dubbing. The second is just classy. And expensive, I bet.


Though moral suasion leads me to avoid illegal brands and illicit activites, religion has little or nothing to do with it. Religion is man-made, and everything that is man-made tends to jam, rot, explode, and/or expire.


But I do believe in chance. So my shopping list goes unbranded. It's like walking into a store and finding that perfect pair of [insert favourite item here].

I can't live without youuu

Post-Its. My reminders sometimes have to be really in-my-face, on my computer table, on doors... Anywhere obvious.

Albert; my laptop, with modem, obviously; something my brother calls WWH-Watch, Wallet, Handphone. Only, it's a Purse for me; iPod; hair clip.

Favourite Outfit

My prom dress, but no pictures, please. Only to be unveiled on 1st July 2010.


But it is supercalifrigilisticexpialidocious!

Economics Unit 2 notes. Well, it looks like it could be a book.

Aesop’s fables

Architect: a candid guide to the profession

I’d rather read

The Whitsun Wedding’s, by Philip Larkin. My English Lit Unit 4 coursework.

101 Poems Against War

The Picture of Dorian Gray, by Oscar Wilde. Hmm, I wonder where my copy went to...

Entertaining Aileen

TV

House, Leverage, So You Think You Can Dance (SYTYCD). My must-watch AXN primetime series’.

House for his amazing wit and sarcasm, plus a wonderful in-sync cast. 

Leverage for its Casino Royale kind of espionage and the array of misfits who orchestrate Robin-Hood-like acts of charity. 

SYTYCD for the pure talent.

Pushing Daisies, watched online at TvShack.net.

A show too brilliant for this lifetime, and the ABC network. Must watch for its exceptional dialogue and costume design.

Dr Who, from friends’ DVD set(s).

It’s a classic. What’s not to love?!

WORKING ON: How I Met Your Mother, FRIENDS, Glee

Disclaimer: Glee Season 2 gets weird. Plus, my connection has been screwing my TvShack.net viewing. Hopefully, misfortune avoids thee.

MUSIC

Most played on my iPod:

Together, by The New Pornographers. An instrumental extravaganza. Think Southern American hippie mix instrumental, meets rock. They’re Canadian btw. Found it while scouring the discerning album reviews on Pitchfork.com. This site contains little snippets of each song in whatever album they’re reviewing. THE place to find something unusual. Bugged my friend, Su Yuen, from college, who has heard of them, and she Dropbox-ed it to me! (more on that later)

Of Men and Angels, by The Rocket Summer. The best one man band around; a one man band is basically music that is written and often (supposedly) produced by, you guessed it, one man. Or woman, I’m no sexist. My friend Julian has been flooding me with his geekiness and music since 2003. Many thanks. Also Dropbox-ed. (wait for itttt)

Chopin, The Greatest Hits. No elaboration here, it’s a classic. From Joshua dearest, through (you guessed it) Dropbox.

DROPBOX is a phenomenal file syncing program which, when installed into your PC, appears as a Dropbox Folder, and is basically just any old Windows Explorer folder. Only, once you choose to sync (share) a file with a friend who also has Dropbox, anything either of you drag and drop into that folder is immediately sync-ed! And I mean anything. It’s perks? Well, it’s REALLY fast, and your account allows you to access your array of files anywhere in the world, provided an internet connection is available. Check it out at www.dropbox.com

FASHION

Mostly based on personal observation and taste, which is usually very simple and comfortable. If I feel like dressing up, I dress up. Vice versa applicable. At other times, it’s from friends. Can be a topic of discussion.

MOVIES I MUST SEE

Ironman 2
Ip Man 2
Shrek 3
Toy Story 3

The Facebook syndrome

It’s taboo not to have Facebook. Fact. Everybody has Facebook. Fiction. 

But let’s face it, there aren’t many people, especially youth, that we know NOT having Facebook. It’s almost a sin. A couple of friends and I were huge skeptics of Facebook, but are now converts.  

There isn’t much you can’t do there, aside from video conferencing, which isn’t necessary, since messages get across relatively fast, and to a lot of people. Beats texting, which is more expensive in the long run these days, though it is at times the faster alternative, next to actually calling someone.  But even that is getting increasingly rare. My fixed line at home sometimes only registers my grandmother’s outgoing calls, which comes to about RM6, and the rest is the cost of renting a TM phone (though we don’t. It’s compulsory folks! FYI) and the Streamyx, set at RM 60 a month.

The Loser’s Guide to Facebook. Thing’s you can do:

1.       1. Write your Status. It will appear as [name] [whatever you choose to write here]. You may remove it at any time by running your cursor over your status, and a REMOVE button will appear on the far right. You may also post new statuses for as many times as you wish.

2.      2. Put a profile picture up! Very important, since if your name does not sound familiar to me, I usually look at your profile picture. If it’s something like Final Fantasy, or some picture other than yourself, be prepared to be ignored.

3.      3. Upload photos in an album. Tag your friends and family!

4.      4. People can leave a COMMENT on just about anything you choose to make public, and/or LIKE it. Thankfully, there’s no DISLIKE button, yet.  As such, I presume most would prefer to have people they actually have met before in their list, like me.

5.     5.  Ignore all your invites. Or most, or some of em, no one cares. Probably why I only have 369 friends instead of 129030. Quality above quantity!

6.      6. Play mindless Facebook games. Not applicable to Scrabble.

IM-ing is so yesterday! But nothing beats a good ol’ ‘one-on-one’ ‘conversation’ with an old friend.

WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR? POST SOMETHING ON YOUR WALL FOOLS! Support the Chronic Facebooker's Foundation. We are a growing community with huge potential.

:B

My online life, interview style.

Because my answers are so short, there's no point in putting this in any sort of paragraph.

·         How many hours do you go online everyday? What do you usually do in the online world?

 Let's see, half an hour in the morning, another half an hour in the afternoon, and about 4 after 9pm. So that makes it 5 hours a day I guess. 

What do you usually do in the online world?

Check my facebook account, play my turn at an ongoing Scrabble game between me and my cousin, and boyfriend. Mind you, it's the only game I will (as of now) be caught playing on Facebook. Facebook games in general are mindless time-wasters. Oh, I also chat with friends occasionally, check my email. 

·         When you go online and interact with other users, do you use any nickname/alias profiles online? Tell us why you use it or don’t use it.

FD  I use names that are easily remembered, by myself, of course. Like leenster. I once had an alias with my name spelt backwards. Neelia. Not very creative, I know, haha. Basically, using my real name makes me feel more track-a-ble and vulnerable to scams, and stuff.

·         Have you become good friends with people you first met online? Tell us stories of how you make friends in the online world. How do you know whether to trust them or not?

 No. There was this one time, I think I was 11 or 12, and social sites like Hi5 and Friendster was very cool then. I met this... man, on Hi5, and he added me on MSN, and I accepted. It was normal amiable conversation for a while, but at one point I noticed that he had a funny dp. Now that I think about it, I think it was his penis. Needless to say, I've stopped using Hi5. And Friendster.

Even on Facebook, I only accept people I know personally. Sometimes when I don't feel close enough to them, I will 'Ignore' their invite as well. Depending on my mood that day.

·         Tell us if your parents monitor what you access online? Is it effective, or do you know ways around the controls? What do your parents think about you going online all the time?         

     My parents do not monitor me online. I do check for past year papers and their mark schemes online, and they know I catch some episodes of shows. And I've never had the urge to go to immoral websites and stuff, so that's cool.

·         Do you think the online world has made you to become more disconnected with your friends?

     No. My ex-schoolmates from secondary school and I have an immediate way of jesting and communicating with each other now, even though we can barely make time personally to go out. Birthdays are always an exception though.

THE BEST JOB IN THE WORLD

1.

Island caretaker for Queensland! 6 months of adventure, blogging, and promoting the beautiful islands around the Great Barrier Reef in Queensland. And Ben Southall got it! Lucky chap.

2.

Architect

This is a personal choice. It's really the passion (naiveness? Maybe).

 "Because architects are frequently associated with people and circumstances reflecting costly lifestyles, the public assumes architects are affluent, well-to-do, big-income professionals. Some are. Most are not." from Architect?: a candid guide to the profession, by Roger K.Lewis.

3.

Others.

There are no bad jobs, only immoral ones. 

The Economy according to Newsweek, and me.

Amid general global economic recovery, there is still cause for worry. Greece is defaulting, and there is speculation that the rest of the PIIGS (Portugal, Ireland, Italy, and Spain) will go the same way. Amid the crashing euro, the decline of the pound, while welcome for potential holiday-ers and exporters of UK product’s, is an added defect to the European supremacy. In any case, the pound has been over-valued for years, and I’m on the side which believe that it will not (or rather, should not), reach the levels of 2006.

There is change in the air. US is in as large a debt as any European country, but it is buoyed by its highly liquidity assets in investment and capital. Basically, money that hasn’t actually been cashed-in for its overseas investments, and overseas investments in US stuff, which flows from one side to another, or anywhere in the world. Think the motion of liquid. Splash splash.

Moreover, North Korea just sunk a South Korean warship, so there is friction to our North-East. Did you know, that China and US are fighting over oil field ownership in the Middle East? Or rather, US is diplomatically tip-toeing around the issue while China sends its nationals to even to warring regions to stake oil field claims. Makes you wonder if they are taking this comparative advantage of theirs ie. Human capital, also read as cheap labour, a little too far. Oh, and they docked two warships in Abu Dhabi. The Chinese are such nutcases, honestly.

Hey, I’m a Malaysian, not a Chinese.

This is all interesting to know, but honestly, it does not affect my family in any direct way.

In the future, China will seek to emulate Japan and/or Hitler and launch a full scale attack on the world. It will team out with fellow crazy, North Korea, and we will all die in a nuclear shower. If that happens, US will finally unveil whatever research they have been conducting in Area 51 upon the East. Oh, and by then Europe would be inconsequential because of debt, or they will disappear after the war. Russia will probably join China. Communist brotherhood die hard.

$$ to me

Really does make the world go round. Besides the Sun’s gravitational pull on the Earth, which keeps it in orbit, of course, dollars are still the accepted global currency.

Ever since I discovered that my education fund is almost non-existent, thereby nearly crushing all my hopes and dreams, money has become even more pressing an issue in my life. Yes, I think money is very important in my life. It is important to me.

Money is not the root of all evil BTW, greed is. It is one of the seven sins, and a typical human trait. Blaming evil on money is an act of denial. Yes human, it’s your fault!

This is my first part-time job, I have never worked before, but I have interned at an Architecture firm for three weeks. It was tiring, boring, but somewhat interesting at the same time. Now I know how office people feel. Kids, never ever underestimate the mindlessness your parents have to go through every day!

Like I was saying, I do not work, but I like to save, especially for important things. Like a prom dress, though sometimes it becomes pointless because my dad gives me back the money I spent, especially if he takes me to shop. But if he didn’t, I wouldn’t mind one bit. I’m a wonderful daughter that way.

Not only that, in typical girly fashion, I also love to deliberate and compare compare compare. Perhaps it’s still the part-naïve child speaking, but somehow I believe that even when working in the future, I will make the money work for me, and not the other way around. Or rather, I will try to work around my money, because though money is a very big priority, it isn’t worth dying for.

Generally, youth today are just as hardworking as their predecessors. Granted, technology does make many things faster and easier, but is only effective if you’re the only person having this technology. Only then are you much more fortunate than others. But since everyone else is getting the technology, everyone gets nearly equal opportunity again. You might be wondering about the poor youths in poverty around the world. Surely there were communities in misfortune back then as well. I am just reinforcing my stand on equal opportunities throughout the ages here.

In any generation, there are people who have flawless work ethics, and those who don’t. In a company, there are always the few people who come in late for work, forget to clock in, and hardly ever meets deadlines. It happened then, and it still happens now.

It’s a vicious cycle.

Aileen's 4 ingredients to success

A successful person is...

SMART: Successful people know how to turn challenges into opportunities. They know when to be aggressive, and when to back down. Being smart is not the equivalent to being well educated though education obviously helps. Or does it kill creativity and make us robots?

But that is a discussion for another time, another place.

HUMBLE: Arrogance gets you nowhere.

DETERMINED: Someone who is well-educated and smart (somehow using that term and verb as equivalents feel oh-so wrong), but is not determined enough will most likely fall short.

LUCKY!

All this is making me hungry. I'll bake cake tomorrow. nom nom nom

Success huh.

Success is relative, if I aim to wake up at 8am this morning and did, then it's a success. My personal three that I'm going to share may look like they are in the order of 'biggest success' to 'smallest success', but to me, they are of all equal value.

I got my Diploma in Pianoforte at the age of fifteen. I have said before that I am really untalented. It’s true, I had to work very hard to it. But I did it. Nowadays, I (quote Dad) ‘bang the piano’ for fun.

After a couple of years struggling with Taekwondo sparring classes, and losing battles, I joined my first poomsae competition. And won. It was predicted, moreover a closed tournament, so it was really small, but it still felt fabulous. If I look like I was crying in the photos, I was, almost. Now I’m getting too old for all this.

A kind of small but very important success for me is to finally convince my dad that I really do want to go to church. It’s in PJ, which is rather far, so I will have to convince Dad to allow me to take the LRT. But still, with God’s will, anything is possible, one way of another.

Also, I'm finally getting to Latin dance, just for kicks. 

Sure, the big things impress people, but really, it's the little achievements in life that make living oh so sweet.

Friends after family.

Friend's come after family, but are nevertheless crucial to our development. We meet many friends during our lives, but there are those who leave a lingering presense in our lives, and that deserve special mention.


I have 2 best friends whom I've known since we were in Year 1 at BBGS. When BBGS moved to Cheras and became SK Seri Bintang Utara, we moved together as well. Remaining in the same class till Year 6. By then, we were all prefects. In fact, there is this one picture that I have, I think it was Amirah's 7th or 8th birthday, and we were sitting on a bench in her house. I still have it on my bookshelf.

From left: Vi-Jean, Melissa, Amirah, and, uh, yeah. 

We've pretty much lost touch with Melissa since then.

Form 2. We are such retards, I know.

Our larger group of friends in secondary school, SMK Seri Bintang Utara, only served to enhance our friendship. We are not racially discriminate, but we love to tell racist jokes. Since my group of classmates consists of Chinese, Indian and Malays, everything becomes neutral.

Energy Before Explosion=Energy After Explosion

Total Energy in an Explosion, zero.

We do not discriminate between races. If it's one thing the national school system has thought us, it is this. Then again, there are schools that have fights between gangs of different races. I cannot even begin to fathom such atrocious acts, because in SBU, I've never seen such a thing. Even in the groups that most would categorize as 'infamous'.

12 years and counting.

The groups that I belong to; whether it be at school, college, or camp buddies, we are all people who are comfortable in our own skins. Not that we go around nude, because college can be quite cold. But let's just say we do not dress alike, some like skirts, some like jeans, some like heels, and some flipflops.

A self-motivated student effort for Dress Up or Suit Up Day on the last day of college. 'cept the backside in the middle in jeans.

Because guess what? It doesn't matter. We look beautiful just as we are anyway.

The Introduction list to nowhere.

Hi I'm Aileen, what's your name?

I'm from HELP, doing A-Levels.

Oh, I take, Physics, Math, Econs, and Literature.

You do Literature too? That's awesome! You're not a pleb then.

I play the piano, but I'm not very good at it at all. Extremely untalented. I wish I could play by ear.

I've been a black belter at Taekwondo for ages, but it's getting boring, and I feel like stopping. Now I'm just going for training for the exercise. 

Have you watched 'How I Met Your Mother?' I just started, and was hooked from, the first 30 seconds. The only resounding line in my head now is , "On your first date, never, ever, say 'smurf penis'". It's hilarious!

I plan to do Architecture.

abc should NOT have cancelled 'Pushing Daisies'! 

There are many things I regret doing in my life. Like collecting the Twilight saga, and Harry Potter.

I suck at Math...