Sakinah Abdul Aziz

You know, I have never really thought much about zombies previously. Well yeah, I grew up listening to 'Zombie' by The Cranberries thanks to my uncle who played it rather frequently back in our old house and I loved how they repeatedly sang "zombie-eh-eh-eh", but I never really wondered what the heck zombies are. Not that they truly or predominantly exist (but then again, I can never be sure). But I was introduced to a game of zombies sometime last year and I learnt that they are these people who are ironically alive while being dead, walking around, soulless. Pretty terrifying creatures with stains of cold, hardened blood on their decaying clothes who walk weird and make weird noises. With this, I suppose all the more you feel motivated to shoot them in L4D2. Anyway, sometime ago I caught the movie 'World War Z' and learnt that the dead cannot be any dead-er so it is pretty hard to kill 'em and pretty recently, I finally succumbed to watching 'Warm B...

There is something about the nature that is so alluring, so calming and so awe-inspiring. I give my sincerest and greatest thanks to the very person who used to bring me to listen to the sound of the waves, to be near calming waters, to bask in the glory of sunshine in appreciating the trees and the clear blue skies, and to discover the beauty of the darkest nights by gazing at the stars and the moon shining brilliantly. It was then when I discovered this side of me who is truly inspired by the wonders of nature. To uncover this side of me is truly a gift. And the heart just yearns to gain nearness and closeness to nature everytime. Thank you. Recently during one of the last few days of Ramadhan, I was reminded by this scholar who spoke about nature which almost brought me to tears upon the realization of how truly, it is one of the greatest signs of all creation. And that indeed, the sun, the moon, the planets and all that is in the nature, follow a specific system by which, o...

I found myself walking towards the regional library after one tiring day at work. Not only just because I wanted to escape from the crowd and the noise, but rather, to be in a place where I could re-connect with myself, especially when my job requires me to connect a lot with others. That was when I started evaluating the places I would go, the very few people I tend to gravitate towards, the things I enjoy doing, and the conversation topics I tend to make, whenever I feel I needed to unleash myself. They actually reflect who we really are and provide insights into our true nature. And when we pay more attention to these things, we have found ourselves clues to our core self. Regardless of how we tend to appear in front of everyone else. Because sometimes, at the end of the day, you just want to be  you , at the fullest, all stripped and bare. No more layers of masks to peel. You want to be the real you , who you feel most alive. No more residual energy trapped within ...

There are days that call for celebration, and there are days that call for grief. While we have newborns every day, there are those that pass on every day as well. At the end of the day, we need to be reminded that we are placed in this world and we are given this life, to live. Regardless of how short or long our stay here may be. I have learnt that as you get older, birthdays are no longer about presents and wishing you get to eat a delicious cake, but it's about realizing the gift of a day. It is about waking up and realizing how blessed it is to be alive and well. And to be able to see the morning Sun, and the faces of the very people you are living your life for. And for that, I am thankful. Cherish your loved ones, never intentionally hurt them, and always tell them how much you appreciate them, be it through actions or words. Because having to live one more day, is a gift.

It is in our very nature, as human beings, to have desires. We yearn for so many things, it is impossible to list down all the possible wants of mankind. Generally, we yearn for and we aspire towards perfection and beauty, we love the notion of eternity, we want to experience eternal bliss, and to be in a state of tranquility, free of internal turbulence and worries. We want good things to last forever and we want to be free of hardships. These desires, I believe, are inherent within us. Look at how we naturally gravitate towards things or people which/who we think can fulfill these desires. Indeed sometimes, we are lucky to have found the providers for our wants and needs, but sometimes, it is either we are never completely satisfied, or we are always wanting more and something better, or we never learnt how to appreciate with what we have. We are always on this slippery slope where we either fall into the pits of disappointments or we struggle to trek on this uphill slope to fulfil...

The other day, I visited the dentist. She's my newfound favourite dentist because she not only does her job just by examining teeth and calls it a day, she would further explain and educate me on what she had done to my teeth and plus, she's really nice. But that day, it was a painful visit. The dentist hit a very sensitive part of my gum near the upper front teeth, and as natural as it was, tears started flowing down my cheeks that even the assistant had to wipe them off for me as the dentist was still cleaning my teeth. I told the dentist afterwards, "I'm so sorry I teared. I just... had to. It was so painful." I was still surprised at myself because I never had the intention to cry, it was something beyond my control. It was merely a physiological reaction. Just like how our eyes start to tear when we cut onions. I went home that night thinking so much about tears. I thought about the times when I cried. Why do we cry? Why was this reaction even created? It...

What struck me as an interesting phenomenon I stumbled into last week was how an untouched tupperware of pineapple tarts is almost empty right now as I'm typing this. That poor tupperware has been resting on the television cabinet for 2 months. All I had to do was to bring it into the study room so I could start munching on some while watching my Korean drama and then leave it there next to the computer. And for the next few days, voil à , alm ost half of tarts were eaten. Of course, by everyone else at home. All I had to do, was to make it more reachable, more visible. And these pineapple tarts were so good, soft tart shells and really sweet fillings. There has been claims of 'out of sight, out of mind' phenomenon which I cannot completely attest to because there cannot be things we can completely get rid of despite the physical absence. Things such as memories. But on the flipside, we can make things more salient if we push them enough to exist within our attention span...

We seldom really experience some moments in their entirety until we are being pushed to be subjected to them and to face them head-on. These are the moments where we find ourselves struggling to escape but there are no exit signs in sight. Like not really knowing what a heavy rain means until we've experienced being caught in a heavy downpour in the middle of nowhere, with no nearby shelter and no cabs that would stop for us. And to feel extremely drenched to the point where our clothes stick to our skin. Or like not really knowing how much misery loves company, until we land ourselves in some stupid mess or problems which may require us to start all over again to clean them up. Or like not really knowing how long 5 minutes can be, until we were told at the very last minute, to do a presentation in front of so many people, unprepared. Or like not really knowing what fear is, until we are eye-to-eye with whatever it is that we are scared to death for. We seldom really exp...

I think introversion comes with age, really. I'm a very good example. Ever since I stopped interning, I've just been keeping a lot to myself. If you compare a 4-months ago me and the present me, I was probably more extroverted back then. I don't know if social networking sites are accurate means to gauge one's extroversion, you could check me out on Facebook and with the timeline feature (a great way to stalk, may I add), you could see the number of things I was sharing or how people connected with me, 2 years ago as compared to now. There were more random stuffs I was happy to entertain and crazy, crazy wallposts (now that I'm reading them I cannot stop laughing!). I suppose Facebook does show how much and how well you are connected to a certain extent. Of course I do not dismiss the other factors that contribute to one's extroversion and I do agree with the superficiality of certain interactions via social media. Dang, I need to get out of this. Don't ...

One moment, this state of oblivion seems very settling and the next moment, life grabs and takes you to places you never thought you'd be. Or places you never thought you'd be so soon. And soon enough you need to face up to the complexities of the world and accept the fact that the world is this colossal place, full of infinite ideologies and knowledge, and more that are waiting to be discovered. It makes you feel small, knowing that you only know this much, when there are actually so much more out there, much more than you can possibly imagine. Scientists have discovered the amount of brain usage a human can possibly employ and that the average amount we actually employ is not maximized to its fullest potential. Thus, it is daunting to know that on top of what we already do not know, there are more unknowns that are beyond our comprehension. And so it is the duty of us to seek the best that we can. And the hardest part is to seek with an open mind knowing the vastness of the i...

Often we hear of the challenges in the pursuit of happiness. But I think the difficulty lies in the pursuit of inner peace, not the pursuit of happiness. If your heart and mind is at rest, there lies contentment, and ultimately, you will naturally feel the glow of happiness. Seek for inner peace. If something is troubling you and it is disrupting your state of tranquility, there is then very little room for happiness. Happiness will not be possible if the body, mind and soul is not at rest. Seek for inner peace and find balance. Only then you'll find happiness.

Amidst the busy week, perhaps I had forgotten why is it that I love school. It's really sad that due to the academic workload thrown to us, we have transformed into some sort of humdrum existence along the lively corridors of school. We all have been there before. Every now and then. So why is it that I love school? If I were to look back to catch a glimpse of myself back in the primary school days, and then to the secondary school days, and then to junior college, and finally to where I am now, I see two things that remain to be in common as to be the reasons why I love school throughout the whole chunk of my academic life: 1) People 2) Joy of learning It's always been these two. I think I could go on and on if you really want me to explain why people, or rather, socializing with people, really makes school so fun and enjoyable to me. Simply put, I love socializing. If you ask me, it's really where I get my energy from. I see a friendly acquaintance or a friend or a profes...

You know what's the difference between the ladies and the gents? You rarely get to see a snaking line outside the gents. It's one of the sights I absolutely detest whenever I need the loo. But fortunately I don't really have to resort much to queuing most of the time for I am a true 'squatter'. It's probably due to the plenty of training back in Hillview where I grew up which had a squatting toilet. Really, given 4 empty sitting cubicles and 1 squatting one, I choose the squatting one 99.9% of the time. Actually, let me correct that. I automatically head towards the squatting toilet, like it's some sort of an innate preference. This must be one of the strangest behaviours ever cos I strangely find squatting rather thrilling and erm, easier. And I usually get asked by some friends while washing my hands; "Oh, so you prefer squatting isit?" Why is it that people would not, EVER, go to the squatting cubicle even if it means having to wait in a very l...

I always find myself in the same situation too many times before. The world's a fast-moving place, I'm in a whirl and I just want everything to be in slow motion, I want it all to stop even just for a minute. And then I would ask myself; what is it that I really want to do? All I want to do, is really to be in the entirety of myself and treating myself like I am my own lover; listening attentively to myself and listening to my needs, my wants, independent of anything, anyone and any influences of any sorts. All I want to do is to sit somewhere and do nothing, with no disturbances, no emails, no text messages to attend to. I want to pick a good book and read in a safe, comfortable place, and just be pensive. And do a great deal of catching up with myself, perhaps with a good movie or in places where I could find tranquility. To take a bus to nowhere and just plugged into great music. And to think about life, think about the good times, think about many good times to come, think ...

Through and through, I always believe that happy people are the most beautiful people (although yeah, it could and might work in reverse; the most beautiful people are the happiest people). But I persist to think that the former correlation is far more true. Because I've seen these people. It's really their inner soul that shines through whatever their physical appearances may be, whatever life they are leading, whatever hardships they may have faced. You can really see this glow on the faces of genuinely happy people; people with sincere duchenne smiles, people who exude positive energy, people who laugh, people who allow you to bask in their warmth, people who spread their joy and make it all so contagious. It's this ball of happiness that comes from within that is so beautiful, so strong that their faces just mirror that. To happy people out there who do happen to be reading this, I think you're beautiful.

There are days when you feel like crawling into a deep hole, to stay there and to never leave. And you just want to let the world spin without you and you'd be more than happy to be missing out on it. I think this phenomenon is worth investigating; the one-week, delayed PMS. If there is such a thing, really. I have been having half-written entries stuck in my postings. I also realised that my blogging style has been pretty cryptic most of the time (or I try to be as much as I could). And if you don't think that my entries have been cryptic in nature, then I've failed to be a cryptic blogger as I aspired to be when I first started this. So anyway, it's about time I should publish something and not let this be stuck, halfway-written like some others. So anyway, I had a pretty good but tiring start to the semester last week, and perhaps there were just so many things that I feel so damn tired right now. It's as if school never really ended, you forgot that it actually ...

If there is one thing I'd tell a person at this moment, it shall be; to be around people who make you laugh. Doesn't really matter if you're a giggler, or a chuckler, or a cackler, or a guffawer, as long as you truly laugh in your very own special way. Life is too short to not see the lighter side of things. And if you're really lucky, you'll meet the very few special people who make you laugh in a way that instantly ignites this small part of you, spreading to your bones and skin, and then you suddenly feel so, so alive. And the best part? You never really knew you could laugh like that. Don't miss out on it.

As I am sitting here, waiting for a bus to Rey's place, a man in his prayers attire cycled passed me. And so my random wishful thinking on a Friday would be how much I wish I'd stayed in the suburbs so I could cycle everywhere I go, like how people commute in Europe, in China and in all pockets of suburbs in the world. Besides I think bicycles are neat, and people can look pretty chic on them! They don't need buses unless they want to head down to the city. And they can head to the nearest bakery and have a lovely morning chat with the baker and bring home some awesome croissants!

I would think that most of the chapters of our lives have their very special or unique or tragic or ordinary, rightful endings, like the end of secondary school, the end of a beautiful trip, the end of a suffering. I think that closure is a very important notion in our lives. Often we think of closure as something negative when it actually forms the very process of life. If we don't have closure, then we're not really moving on with that particular phase in our lives, like how we're still holding onto the book without being able to turn the pages because we're still stuck on that chapter. Because closure indicates a new beginning. And typically I started analyzing back upon which there could have been a closure. So could it be that the story hasn't ended yet?

Hello earthlings! Woa, just like that time flew. I withdrew myself from this blog and I realized that it REALLY does need a lot of updating. For one, I had a temporary job for 2 months at People's Association. I was back in the same department I worked in exactly a year ago. For another, there was one point in time when I thought my life was a mess, it wasn't all so long-lived though (or so I hope). As they say, when it rains, it pours. But also, there's this saying that time heals all wounds, and that there's always light at the end of the tunnel. I, for one, believe that there are truths in such cliché-d sayings. And also, I went to Bangkok for a short, awesome shopping trip. I honestly do not know how three months fly. I attempt to update my blog more, not for the sake of readers (I don't even know if there's anyone reading this anymore), but purely for myself. I remembered the humanistic feel I had a couple of years back, completely in touch with my feelings...