Story from Multiple Eyes

That is a spreadsheet style plot written by J.K Rowling for the Order of the Phoenix. 

Looked how crazy detailed and planned out it is. I totes love it. 

And all these celebs (Paris Hilton, Nicole Richie, Hillary Duff (her writing is kinda atrocious)) all wanting to write and published books, I wonder if they actually took the time and pain to plan all their stories.

In somewhat similar words of Lainiey, it pains me to have Hillary Duff or Lauren Conrad included in the same category (published authors) as with J.K Rowling or Cormac McCarthy. 

Welcome to the 19th installment of my once-a-month blog post (sorry comrades)

Since Listverse is talking about the famous books, I think I might share a bit about one of my favorite hobby or can I say, ritual; reading books. I came from a mediocre family with low command of English. My dad knew a bit of English, my mum was far worse. My daily staple of reading came from a Malay newspaper (sadly Utusan, my dad's favorite til now).

I remembered my habit of looking the newspapers for its cartoon. I was 6 or 7 at that time. Then, I upgraded myself looking for the Intisari Rancangan where I could plan my daily TV watching. My hobby for reading then expanded to reading sports section and to national news.

Looking at my craziness over a newspaper, my dad took me to the Jitra Public Library, where I signed up as a member. There, I could borrow a maximum of 2 books, 1 week per book. While I was there during weekends, a couple of English books caught my eyes. Those written by Alfred Hitchcock and Enid Blyton. All those simple mystery and investigating team of teenagers, for me, was so awesome judging by my lack of adventures during my childhood.

The public library itself for me was the most interesting place that time. Jitra had nothing to offer yet for a curious boy, so I spend most of my weekends there. From literature, I upgraded again to reading atlas, yeah I 'read' atlas. The world was so big and I was like 'Wow China is so big' and 'England is here, so far away'.

During my primary school years, library was like a third home to me, beside my home and school. Jitra Public Library decided to close down and I was dissapointed at first. They were moving to a much bigger location and it was still there til now. I was happy again. The big library now was a two storey building, with much more reading material. I read documentaries, magic books, war books, military magazines, and borrowed fictions. Those, my friends, were my English teachers.

My high school, I was slowly forgotten the joy of reading. Maybe because I was far away from home. I bought only Dragonball manga and Hong Kong comics as a collection during outing.

Up until I met my Mrs, I rarely read any books. Newspapers and comics were the only exception. I started borrowing books with my Mrs since she was an avid reader. Suddenly, the joy of reading came back to me. Before closing my eyes, I read until it became a necessity, a must, a ritual. Until I just couldn't sleep before I read something.

Fast forward to now. We (Mrs and me) have a huge book rack full of books, mainly fiction, bought mostly during book sale or from second hand book stores. I like action mystery thriller kinda books and Mrs likes her romantic, feminine books. I need book to kill time, so I always bought a book and read during a ride back home on a bus, in an airplane, backseat of a car, waiting at the transit station and even in a toilet.


So there you are guys, my hobby. I'm reading The Road to Gandolfo now, written by Robert Ludlum (Michael Shepherd is his pen name) the master spy storyteller who brought you Jason Bourne.

People always asked us: How come you UTPian - with different range of age (from the more *uhuk uhuk* mature age to the youngest one) can be so close with each other?

I answer: We had #Grapevines.

Time flies. Realize it or not, it has been nearly 5 years since the photos been taken. At that time, we had no real responsibilities; no bills to take care of; no money to exquisitely lavish; we were just our own freedom soul, getting together to have some laugh and fun, striding through life's up and down with only friendship and innocence.

Some of us survived with only RM500 per month. Some of us survived with only RM300 per month. It's just enough to get foods on the table, some gas in the car (if we had a car; which most of us didn't), phone bills to stay connected. We were deserted in the land of no man, trying to reach our pursuit of knowledge with every doubts in our heart whether we will make it or not; yet the bond created has endured the test of time until today.

We laughed, we screamed, we wept, we reflects, we walked. We ate, we whined, we joked, we tease, we worried, we talked. We learnt the lesson of life one step at the time. We poured our heart out to strangers. Strangers that magically becomes friends. 

Sure, we had our fights. It's not every day that we see eye to eye. Sometimes we are at each other's throat trying to make our points. Sometimes life throws us some unfair judgement that makes us feels like killing each other. 

And the only things that STILL keep us together: respects and open-mindedness.

No, we are not the most civilized lot. This was where we learn all about grief, trolling, bromance, scandalicious, seditions, backstabbing, and more. This was where we learn about the sweetness lifes can bring at its simplicity. This was where we learn to navigate our doubts, self-expressions, fun. People outside may not understand this. You don't believe it?

I am not trying to making a point here. All in all, this was our best moments - maybe in life. We managed to capture it in photos, but we can't captured the time; nor can we reversed  the time to experience it again.  Time will never stop, and we will never be young again - but if the present seems depressed, or the future seems bleak; guys, remember this magic moments, and may those grief moments be forgotten for a while.

This afternoon I read an article shared by a friend on Facebook regarding halal meat sold in UK. You can read it here.

After reading the articles, I belief that most of the concerns are raised due to their Islamophobia (I am not interested to deliberate this issue here). Not because of their concern on the animals well being. 

Just because we slaughtered the animals alive, it doesn't mean that the animal suffer before their death. 

According to Islamic method, the animal must be slaughtered by a very sharp knife and it must be done as fast as we can because we did not want the animal to feel the pain. The request to compulsorily stunned the animal before slaughtering was rejected by the UK government because it was not scientifically proven to reduce the amount of pain from the animal.

You can read more about it here:

I never ate anything non-halal (as far as I know) before, but I belief it taste the same. Anybody cared to share their opinion in this issue?

Another thing, we are not allowed to eat the meat from a slaughtered animal if we feel sympathy to them before the slaughtering procedure. Selalu kan dengar orang cakap "Jangan makan kalau kesian". It always happened during public slaughtering during Raya Qurban. I am not sure whether it is really haram or it is a tradition.

Heartless.. I know :P

I traveled to quite a few countries in these last few years. I still observe my meat halal status everytime I traveled and I always return to Malaysia meat deprived. All because I was too lazy to find a halal restaurant every time I wanted to have a meal. So, I resolved on being a vegetarian then because to find Halal restaurant when you don't have a car and a GPS can be quite tedious.

Thank god I love salads.

It explains why I went to Seoul Garden right after coming back from UK to enjoy my red meat. Heheh...

Can you imagine eating the plain and almost tasteless egg/vegetarian burger while the person besides you ate gooey, yummy Big Mac?

I am a meat-eater. I love red meats, beef or mutton alike. I even ordered my sirloin steak medium/medium rare. As long as it is not bloodied, I am in!

When I was in Hong Kong, a friend voiced her concern on the "halal" restaurant we chose as there was a bar inside that "halal" restaurant. Do you know what I replied? 

"Alaa, selama ni malam minggu kita hangout kat Alexis, Hard Rock, Luna, Skybar.. kau tak pernah concern pon nak tanye status halal dia?"

Hehe