naziehah

I asked Mr. Z today, if you can pick one thing about our culture that he would like to put his effort on preserving - what would it be? The question to the hubby inspired by recent conversation, blog reading, and general wondering about my stand in our culture.

I am not the most ‘Malay-culture-savvy’ kind of person, a realisation that came with a bang during the preparation of my very own wedding. Apparently, I know nothing about Malay wedding. None, nada, zilch. And from that, it leads me to even more realisations that I know nothing about Malay musical instruments, Malay folk songs, Malay dance, Traditional Malay food….well, the list is shamefully, a very long one.

I then started to think, that I might never be able to know all about my own culture, let alone to preserve it. But I have an experience in one form of Malay art, that is Pantun. I was a ‘pemantun’ back in my schooling days and I had fond memories of that. It is a skill that I still have (hopefully). And I love to blog. So guess what, I’ll start a new Pantun blog!

I know it’s not much, and I have no idea how long I will be able to continue with this ‘effort’ to preserve the only Malay culture that I know. But I am sure going to do my best!

So here it is: http://pestapantun.wordpress.com. Wish me luck people!

I don’t know about many of you, but in terms religion and faith, I came from the school of ‘CAN’T’. You can’t do this, it’s HARAM. You can’t wear this it’s HARAM. You can’t. You can’t. You can’t. HARAM. HARAM. HARAM.

See, I didn’t say ISLAM is like that. What I said is, the ’school’ that teaches me this religion - is like that. Vast difference there.

As I slowly (but surely) mature, I realise that not all that I was taught is right. Not all the values that was fed to my mind is the true teaching. I figured out, surely a faith that has the most follower in the world is not just about things that you cannot do. There must be much more to it.

I am determined to find a positive voice in Islam. A voice that talked about the things that made the religion so attractive a few hundred thousand years ago that people came in flocks to embrace it. A voice that is missing from me for so many years.

As Allah opened the way, I found a few sources. I found Harun Yahya and his great writing. I found Sis Zabrina, our own local genius woman author! I found more and more sources that bring lights and joy to Islam, to My Way Of Life.

I say we preach CAN. Stop preaching so much of the negativity. It’s so stifling and demotivating. We look for the nice things that Islam teach us and emphasise on that. Discuss about that. Ponder about that. Spread the word about that. Stop all these shallow nonsense and let’s start using our brain to think and evaluate. I am sure when we start doing that, we will be able to find much more things that we CAN do as oppose to what we CAN’T do.

(image taken by Mr. Z at Cyberjaya Lake. He CAN take good picture and I CAN use it on my blog)

Maybe I should just grow up and realise, that there are people in this world who is just plain cruel and stupid. Strong statements, I know. But it’s a FACT.

I avoid these kind of people, God knows I really do. If I can smell their ’scent’ a mile away I would be running for my life. Because more often than not, these people; the plain cruel and stupid people - are also Energy Suckers. And you don’t want your energy to be sucked dry by these dreadful creatures roaming the earth calling themselves human being!

I was mad at myself for letting these kind of people get to me yesterday. I was in a pretty emotional state. Hullabaloo state of mind. Probably not my best day. And these creatures sensed it and forced their ugly tentacle straight into my heart.

I will be stronger next time. And when their tentacles tried to grab me I will mercilessly cut it off with my equally sharp tounge ;).

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 Image taken from here.

My effort to ‘tahan’ the sakit not as strong as the will to end it as soon as possible. Hence, I resort to the Pill.

And now I can function much better. I need to do a hundred thousand more things today.

I woke up with a bad cramp in my tummy. I know today is THE day.

Cannot.type.anymore.

I was watching the ’swooshing’ Black Stick and the ‘freet-freet’ White Stick for a few weeks now. Those 2 things, they really bothered me.

I think they have supernatural powers. It made Mama Kitten do crazy things. Just this morning, I saw that Black Stick possessed Mama Kitten and she made the chair move! My eye nearly pops out from it’s socket.  The chair legs (my scratching spot), is now moving about and flying on it’s own! It must be the doing of the Black Thing.

Because normally Mama Kitten just sat in the chair; and goes ‘tap-tap-tap’ on that White Blinky Box she has on the table. That’s all she does, whole day. Except when the time the Grey Box made a very loud noise (that always made me hide behind the mirror). When the Grey Box made noise, normally Mama Kitten will start moving about in weird way in the living room, in front of the mirror. Sometimes she has 2 or 3 friends more, all doing the same weird movement. I didn’t watch too much to know the details because I was busy hiding behind the mirror.

Ok, now on to White Stick, this morning I saw it moves, left-right,left-right, all the way from the top of the stairs and down. All the while I was trying my damn hardest to scratch my way up the stairs. It’s not fair. The stairs just too high for me! Mama Kitten, again, possesed by the White Stick, ignored me the whole time.

I am going to keep investigating about those 2 weird Sticks. What are they up to actually?

Until then, miaow!

(not me, but a friend online that has the same look as me when I am confused)

I like working with women because when women are being nice, they are usually genuinely nice. Nice with no ulterior motive. They are nice, for the sake of being nice.

Unlike guys. Ehem, some guys.

Unlike some guys who offered you a lift once or twice and the next thing you know - will you marry me? (based on true story).

Unlike some guys who gave you 1 business contact and stalked you for 2 years. (also a true story)

Unlike some guys who is 40, balding, ‘buncit-ing’, and had the nerve to ‘ajak tengok wayang’ because my ‘bini‘ is not in town. (at least the other 2 is nice, this one is horrible!).

To date, I have yet to receive a marriage proposal by a woman, or stalked by a woman, and I don’t mind ‘tengok wayang’ with a woman whom the husband is not in town. And they were all as nice as sugar and spice to me!

Don’t get me wrong, I have a fair share of nice guys out there too. My bestfriend, for one, is a perfect gentleman. My BEST bestfriend, Mr. Z, is always very polite when talking to women. Most of my uni mates, college mates, are nice wonderful guys. But these kind of guys, is what we call - a ‘rare breed’.

Besides, I also do encounter ‘witches’/'bitches’/or whatever names you call women that is ‘not-so-nice’. And you know the occasional ‘ouch’ comments you receive from PMS-driven women.

But from my experience, for 1 Witch, there are normally 10 Fairy-Godmothers. But for 1 Prince Charming, they were usually 10 Ugly Toads.

 Eheheh.

Me and Z were laughing at the antics of our kitten this morning. After feeding her, she kept doing this yoga pose -Downward Facing Dog.

Cat doing Downward Facing Dog.

Z (recently introduced to the pleasure of stretching and Downward Facing Dog by me) asked a question:

Why didn’t she do her own movement, the Cat?

- Susah nak jawab soalan-soalan macam ni

I was watching a few Middle-Eastern Dance (MED) video clips to get ideas and inspiration for choreography and also, for the decoration for my hafla, when I came across a few dance videos that just made me feel really sick to the verge of puking. It’s my ‘Yuck’ Factor of MED.

Ok…everybody knows that the ‘costume’ for belly dancing is the bra and skirt (real name: bedlah). And ok…everybody knows that most dancers do wear those ‘costume’ when dancing. Ok, I get the fact. Of course. Duh.

Although me myself never wore any of those ‘costume’ for personal reason, I have no problem watching ladies dance in those. Well, provided they know what they are doing and it was danced - with class.

What really irk me is these dancers who keep touching and fluffing their hair every 3 seconds. Not to mention those steamy bedroom-eyes and mouth-pout! What’s up with that? It looks so tacky! It really looks like the only thing missing - is a pole! (NO, I also have no problem with pole dancing, again - provided you do it at the right time, the right place, and perhaps, to the right person ). And no, these are not the videos of students, or some attention-deprived teenagers in Youtube. These are people that call themselves -professional.

I mean, it’s bad enough people from left and right look at us, the MED enthusiasts with scepticism and pre-judgement, why do we need to encourage the behaviour?

For me, personally, the dance is for us ladies. You do not need to ’seduce’ ladies. So drop the erotic act. Don’t do that.

Do that whole bending over ala Pussy Cat Dolls, hair-fluffing, mouth-pouting, excessive booty-shaking - to some other form of dance. That actually requires those movements to be done!

aku tak peduli lagi
pada mimpi kamu
bisa silam yang halus
- nyilu

biarlah aku bersatu dengan angin
ia paham mimpi aku

©Naziehah Feb 2008