Sakinah Abdul Aziz

And she's going to learn that this life will hit you hard in the face, wait for you to get back up just so it can kick you in the stomach. But getting the wind knocked out of you is the only way to remind your lungs how much they like the taste of air. - Sarah Kay

'Primadonna' is my current earworm. But I prefer her acoustic version. This.

Say hello to the girl who cuts apples with fangs. About more than a week ago, I was arrowed to bring something for breakfast before the meeting yesterday, halloween-themed. So a dear good friend of mine sent me this link for ideas. Really creative and cute right? Anyhow, I decided to make monster jaws out of apples after some persuasion by a couple of colleagues who were in charge of the breakfast. And mine turned out like this (photo credits to a colleague). LAWLS. I tried my best. Although this was a far cry from what I intended to make. Anyway, by lunchtime where there was a steamboat lunch in the office, I was officially known by everyone in the staff lounge as the 'girl who cuts apples with fangs'. So it turned out that I was the only one who brought something halloween-themed. Another colleague was supposed to bring a pumpkin cake but that didn't work out. There was even a joke that if anyone needs apples with fangs, "Sakinah would gladly do it at 5...

I've recently started reading John Green's books and I thought this one is a good read. John Green has an amazing sense of humour. If you read the book, you would know what I mean. It's how he injects a good amount of light-heartedness for a book exploring themes that are supposedly heavy, dark and sad. I wouldn't say that the plot is particularly tragic, but rather it reels in and brings readers through the thought processes of teenagers who are battling cancer. And how they approach life, love, and people. And how they struggle in between life and death. And how they make out of that. This book brings a whole new dimension of flirting. Flirting, is an art, really. I reckon John Green is a good flirter himself, the way he strings these words together. And to be the recipient of such level of flirting is indeed an honourable thing. Again, if you read the book, you would know what I mean. And of course me being me, there would be some striking excerpts that jump out ...

Why taking time-off from work on Monday is a good thing: 1) There is no such thing as Monday blues. 2) I could sit in and take my time to have breakfast. Hotcakes from Macs. Super yums.

'Cause there is nothing more beautiful than the way the ocean refuses to stop kissing the shoreline no matter how many times it's sent away.  - Sarah Kay - The stars almost never shine, and the sky is always bright here. But the best way to chill after work is to spend a couple of days in a week to really lie down and gaze at the night sky despite all that. To distance yourself away from the crowd and to embrace silence and quietude. With the best of company. To walk to a nice park and lay down the mat by the lake, and to eat rich chocolatey cakes and oily, soggy fries. To fill the silence with basic catching up, to deeper conversations about life, to spazzing about the favourite lines and scenes from The Notebook, and back to comfortable silences. To feel the breeze seep into the bones and to enjoy the moment of tranquility with just the wind, the water, and to feel the body so close to nature, while lying on the ground. To watch the silhouette of the trees against the re...

Do you have lingering thoughts in your heads whenever you bid farewell to someone? A loved one, a family member, a dear friend, a recently made acquaintance, and a stranger whom you barely know? At least I know I do have them. There are some farewells when we would go our separate ways, and there would be thoughts like, "Should I turn back?" and "Will the person turn back, too? To share that one last goodbye for the day?". There are some farewells where I would board the bus first, or leave the train first and I would wonder, "Should I search for that person amidst the crowd?" and "Will the person scan her or his eyes to meet mine, too?". There are some farewells when I would enter the lift and I would wonder, "Will the person stay, to have our eyes interlocked and to be smiling at each other, till I go out of the person's sight?" And there are instances when I would doubt, "Oh, the person probably wouldn't turn back, or ...

I absolutely love this poem by the spiritual Sufi poet, Rumi. I am so close, I may look distant. So completely mixed with you, I may look separate. So out in the open, I appear hidden. So silent, because I am constantly talking with you. - Rumi

I'm just gonna run right through the rain, I'm just gonna dance right through the pain, I just wanna feel that rhythm, feel that drum, Let my heart beat louder, Let my heart speak louder than my head.

Don't we learn something new each day? Mostly I would learn about the job itself, but there are some parts of the day I would learn about the simplest things. Like learning how to pass through the massive security when I have to make a visit to the prisons for work. Even when it was the second visit there, I was still as blur sotong as ever and I had to give that embarrassed laugh to forgive me for my sheer bimbotic-ness. I lost count as to the number of times I had to scan my pass. I learnt that sealing envelopes 3 days in advanced is important to ensure that my mail is reached on time because they contain very important details of someone's life. I learnt that we have gazillions of passwords to everything, be it the share-point, or logging into the computer itself and many more, and you know that you need to write them all down when you realize that your memory is failing you. I learnt that I should be aware of certain times of the day when the taxi drivers are changing sh...