On leaving.

The company has been great. The stay exceeded the notion of bearable. A period of eight months is all for a few things to last a lifetime.

Yet, in the dying hours here, my head is filled with asinine thoughts. I can't help but to forecast that it is going to happen again. A cycle that is destined to kick in after every parting. Maybe it's not that bad. But it is remotely the best. 

Packpackpack.Peck!

I now stand in the midst of packed items, accordingly quartered to their summer destinations. It's a process not to be undermined. Soon, this creaky top floor loft would convert to a past haunting. I must admit that communication was sparse. I was and still am a blithering hopeless at socialising around. Forever an outcast, I removed myself further from the idea of blending in. I had and would never use booze to loosen the tongue nor I was a keen member of the dancefloor. All that remains is an absence, which is something that I'm neither proud of nor regret.

Night wish

I have a fleeting urge to go to Tesco. I want to stand in one of the alleys, scanning the chaotic sea of packages that contain, preferably, food. And I'll stand there, and stare blankly at those colourful displays. And I'll stand there until the guard has to evict me from the premise, for the place is shutting down. 

I'm famished and half yearning for something chocolatey. Yet my conscience tells me that I shouldn't indulge the craving. 

I've reached a point that reality doesn't make much sense anymore. Such life.

Mocha is delicious, revision is not. Period.

This is rare, honest. Apathy has never swallowed me this deeply. PBL work = nada! It bugs me though but since this is gonna be our last session, I'll let it pass. No show today, perhaps? 

Sotto Voce

Do you have pesky teeny voices at the back of your head when you're ploughing through the mountain of lecture notes, online practice pages or text books? I do. In fact, this wee digression is a product of one of these voices.

It's really annoying considering the fact that you've strained considerably to put focus on your reading. But these haranguing voices, daring you to do stuff irrelevant to the task at hand, are always there. An omnipresent, infinitesimally important presence, if anything. 

Right now, I have these flitting happily through my mind:

- Did I miss something in that game?

- I should call them. Oh wait, how much credit am I left with?

- Where should I go next winter? Paris is definitely a yes but where else?

- Damn, the laundry! 

- Need to refresh Facebook now. God knows what have happened in the last, say, two minutes?

- Will there ever be justice in the world? When will Malaysian leaders wake up?

- What should I have for lunch today? Should I ask someone to eat out with me? Or should I just grab a bowl of cold salad from Tesco?

- Need to refresh Twitter too!

- What should I get her? And how to make sure it arrives on time?

- Who's gonna cook tonight?

And loads of other stuff. You see, I'm so distracted that there's no way that I'll ever get my revision done. Also, I have a very short attention span. I can hold it for 10 or 15 minutes. Or maybe less. After that, I'll do something really counter productive for hours on end. 

Acht weel!

Random rambling at half past one. In the morning.

I have to say that it did strike a chord somewhere when Jal pointed out that my blog is spending too long a time in desertion. To be honest, this sad condition is long noted by yours truly but nothing has been done so far and regretfully, it's gonna stay that way for a longer period. 

I've been wanting to continue doing my pet project for a few days now. I was fiddling with some ideas for the story development and even to the extent of creating the scenes in my head. A short digression in the form of rereading A Good School further augmented the feeling. I have to mention that, after a second reading, that novel is laden with dark and disturbing homoerotic connotations. But I mustn't slander that great work by Yates a porno because it's remotely that. It's just inevitable for a novel describing life in a single sex school to exclude anything sexual. Anyway, my point is, I could sense the long lost fluidity called creativity is brewing and coming back from its viscosity. 

I would have happily started tapping away on my keyboard but nay, I dragged my feet. Ultimately, all the sparks slowly died down and the last of the free running creative juice slowly seeped back to its little hidey hole. Yes, it stopped even before it began. 

Now, the future of my blog. I think I've reached that twilight zone. It's the time when I should seriously contemplate on throwing in the towel....

I don't know. God, give me strength.

Viva Italia!

Bonjorno!

It's been almost a month that I left Italy. I have a lot to recount but time is not a treasure that I possess. Furthermore, my writing block is getting bigger and bigger hence my inadequacy in describing situations well. For a more concise report, go here. 

Staying true to a certain travel guide series, I've come up with a top ten list of the trip.

#1. Traversing through Rome's urbanscape reminded me much of Kuala Lumpur sans the neck breaking skyscrapers. There, low cost flats made up the fringe of the city. I love the sights of clothes hanging from the lines and windows, the undeterred energy of kids playing and the ubiquitous graffiti...

#2 ...which leads me to the graffiti. You can find this so-called form of art nearly everywhere which includes walls of public buildings, bus stops, and the sides of trains! Sadly, with combined power of the enforcement lax and the unlimited passion of the artists, some of the historical sites are also desecrated by graffiti. One example would be Grand Rialto bridge in Venice. It's an eyesore to see some writings scrawled on one side of the bridge.

#3 Shopaholics, beware! Many fashion houses call Italy their mecca. And Italianos are so into fashion that they can easily fall into two categories, the winners and the victims. Anyways, you can easily get Louis Buitton or Bucci from dealers which you can find prowling the streets of all major cities in Italy. To make the irony more pronounced, some of them operate near huge billboards asking people to avoid these fake items. To be honest, most of the stuff are really second grade. You can tell the difference almost immediately. Maybe they should learn the art of faking from the Far Eastern cousins...

#4 Getting lost in Venice might be the most delicious experience ever. Don't bother consulting a map because the road network is equally complicated as the alveoli in your lungs. And trying to pinpoint your current location on the map is also a hopeless cause. Some of the roads are unlabelled while others are too minute to be spotted from the map right away. As I said earlier, getting lost might turn out to be good after all provided it's not nighttime. You might stumble upon hidden treasures in the countless alleyways or you'll appreciate the romance of the city even more...

#5 Italianos are most helpful when it comes to asking directions. The only problem is they always point straight ahead, neglecting the fact that there's a huge block of houses or a river right in front of you. You'll get to your desired location eventually but that's after 500 turns or so...

#6 I would say that it's a compulsory to have gelato every day in Italy. You'll be hard pressed to find any ice cream quite like theirs anywhere else...

#7 I think I've seen half of the most important work of arts in the world in Italy. There's the humongous yet deliciously detailed David, the famous frescoes of Sistine Chapel, the incomplete but highly revered Adoration of Magi by da Vinci, the famous Boticelli's The Birth of Venus and numerous other art objects that I've seen depicted in books or movies. 

#8 Water rides in Venice may seem fun for the first half an hour or so. It fizzles out soon after. It takes eons to get from one point to another. Gondolas are strictly for the rich due to its prohibitive ride fee.

#9 I'll seriouly recommend anyone visiting Venice to stay at Dimora dei Fiori. It's easily the best hostel I've stayed in. It offers the unbeatable view of the canal and is absolutely gorgeous at dawn/dusk.

#10 Rome: Historical (duh!), streets of Pisa - Dreamy, Florence - intensely Romantic, Venice - dreamily romantic.