Of My Moleskine Notebook

Its 4.11a.m., and I can’t believe its over.

I can’t believe this is the last one I’ll be savouring. The last one I savoured. The last one I’ll be vying to get on the day of release, be it at bookstore, supermarket or airport newsagents. It’s the last! I should’ve thought about that before I swallowed the whole bloody thing instead of taking it slow.

I do not mean to gush. In my opinion, that was the craziest 606 pages ever. In the whole series. You finally find the answers to all your pressing questions, find out whether those rumours people have been spewing around you (much to your dismay) have found a consensus with print (which is quite likely if you’ve been harping the internet for the past week or are a multi-genre reading fan-fiction reader [slash entries not included]), and oh my, the action. If you found the past books action-packed, they are nothing, and I could very well say, nothing compared to the doppelganger, cliffhanger, twisted page turner that it is. And the humour. Oh my God, my parents think I’m insane now, I’m telling you.

It’s obviously far more darker then any of the other books combined, and I do wonder if any of the more younger readers around the under ten threshold for example, might take to it as well as we do, as the themes are more complex, not that I underestimate the wordly and worldly awareness of 10 year olds.

And to amuse yourself, you can watch Potter-Nerds read, or at the moment as I’m writing this, one of them is just giving hand gestures trying to drive other readers crazy, probably. Either way, I don’t understand why they’re not jumping up and down in spasms.

And and and and. No, I have to stop myself. But but but but. No. No.

No no no no no no no no no.

WHYY NOOOO?!

To cut it short, she’s done six times before to crazy critical acclaim, and by (Fred &) George she’s done it again!

I’ll look back at this one day. I might remember that it was hurried, after prayers. Or the day that I first walked into Silverfish books; or the day we finished our exhibition for school; and I finally did some justice to Darwin with paper cuttings and posters;or my dad’s second day of retirement; or that I suddenly could write again; or that the whole Harry Potter ordeal was to be over the next day. Or that I cheated by two minutes due to looking for a Kamigoroshi article to post up. Grrrrrrr.

I’ll look back at this one day. Maybe.

I’m procrastinating my add. maths homework at one a.m. on a tuesday morning; so predictably this is just yet another random and unreadable post.

I was listening to Zane Lowe, after an age of not streaming anything and he played a song by Cajun Dance Party which just went bang in my ears. It’s fun fun fun, like Broken Social Scene but fun. Like a not-depressed-version of Arcade Fire. And fun.

The word Cajun makes me think of three things, Cajun Chicken, Cajun people and Shia La Beouf.

Cajun chicken is spicy and sweet style of cooking chicken and almost always served in overpriced salads in KL cafes; The Cajuns are an ethnic group from Louisiana who speak various dialects in French, and Shia La Beouf is the hot Cajun Jewish boy I’ve yet to watch in Transformers.

So judging by my very narrow and limited knowledge in certain fields in culture, I didn’t really expect young underaged kids from London in skinny jeans with messy hair, jangly guitars and thick accents to be playing fun fun fun music about Amylase out of all things.

Actually thats a lie, I was listening to British radio; the likelyhood of me listening to five kids that look as if they’ve all been starved to death before they raided Topshop is like “duh”. And I think I’ve seen the band around the place in last.fm; so it wasn’t a shock or anything.
It just gives a nice feeling.

Though I’m pissed about not getting to see Transformers yet.

Cajun Dance Party on : Myspace // Hype Machine // BBC London

By the by, Rock Corner in Subang Parade is hiring part-time (atleast I think I saw “part-time”). Funny thing is, they’re looking for “Chinese Female Promoters”. Not to start a debate on race or discrimination or whatever, but what’s wrong with instead showing some love to Malay girls with a music collection the size of your hard drive?

I’m 16 now and its legal for me to work part-time. Adli’s like, “just go and ask lah, or say you’re half Chinese or whatever”.

Yeah, but I don’t have the guts to ask my parents. I mean, come on.

“Ma, Pa, can I work part-time in a record store in the afternoons rather than falling asleep, I’ll spend my days immersing myself in a full musical educational experience. No need to worry about me every entering the world of wasted adolescense filled with drug-overdose, failed pregnancies, pre-marital sex and excessive alcohol consumption, or even cigarettes as I would already learn all about it from the wisdom of double disk Bob Dylan Best of CDs, Janice Joplin, Cat Power, PJ Harvey, Radiohead, Shostakovich to name the very few from the top of my head ?”

“…..Waddafark?”

I’m kinda used to it y’know by now. It all started when my sis went off to uni. It was hard to keep in touch ‘cos she was always so busy, because she had other things better to do than answer silly emails, because her MSN was on (away) because she was thousands of miles away and it was normal, but simply because she had reached that age of higher education where you do exciting things and you have to leave some things behind. I’m fine with that. Then two years later, my brother went off, and thats a whole different story; because I didn’t bother writing him any emails or calling. So thats even better.

Earlier this year I found all of you guys leaving me and doing the same things. You don’t bloody call, you hardly message me and of course the MSN is forever on (busy). We keep in touch by posting up accounts of our parallel but separated lives; mine still in school and yours in college. But I’m cool with it, because I’ll give a call once in a while, and you offer to let me borrow your dvds or books.

It’s just that when I say “let’s meet up!”, and you answer enthusiastically on the other end of the line, I know that you know as much as I do it’s quite unlikely we would anytime soon. Maybe during the holidays.

Now, Cik Raja Azlan Shah, you’re leaving to college.

Who am I going to call at three in the morning when Hanis and Adli are asleep? Who’s gonna ring my bloody doorbell with a Mynews.com bag filled with my magazines? Or where else in Malaysia am I gonna get cool magazines like axm or GayTimes? Who’s gonna tell me that I’m not fat and that I look like Kate Moss in Topshop even though its not true? Every single bloody time.

Talking about Topshop; with who else can I just storm into stores checking out the clothes/retail assistants and storm out laughing? Who’s gonna bug me to check out Dior Homme’s Autumn/Winter collection on youtube? Who else nudges me on MSN five times in a row at the most ungodly hour and types like “thiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiis omg! ?”

Who the fuck gets an idea to celebrate his best friend’s birthday with a chocolate cake in the goddamn school clinic? Who the hell can wrestle the bloody key to the clinic from Kok Hou, anyway?

Who’s gonna say really funny things like “gila bapak HOT SIAL” or “sekian sekali sekejap aaaaa!” or call me Joyah, Kenyah, Bedah? Who the hell can feign the same pseudo-ultra-malay sarcasm once in a while just for the fun of it, because he can?
Who am I gonna dance with on the grass barefooted at Alliance Francaise during the Fete de La Musique?

Who am I gonna sing theme songs from Lost in Translation with while its being played on a MotoRazr at the back of a yellow cab on the New Pantai Expressway?
Who’s gonna keep me company and cheer me up in such a weird manner when I’m depressed? Or give me all the support during hard times, whether its family or school, or drama and read my writing eventhough its tiring work? Who’s gonna borrow my vest and my kilt and whose Vans can I fit? Who am I gonna turn to for dance music?

What the fuck am I gonna do with this packet of Dunhill Lights? Who the heck am I gonna smoke this with if I suddenly break my bet? Who’s fag am I gonna be tempted to drag on if we ever go out to KL again for a gig?

And you know what? Eventhough I hate myself for not giving a proper goodbye; My Best Friend is Leaving Post is way better than Jiar’s or whoever that’s written such a thing.

Because six paragraphs down and I still have so so much to say.

I love you man. And it kills me to think that you’re not gonna have time for us all when you come back from college because then I won’t be able to say or do those things that we usually do.

And if you do become like the others, you can just fuck off. <3

If I were to look back (like I always do; like I always say) a year back from today, I’ll probably find myself in the exact same spot I am on today; nonetheless at the same time enormously displaced.

Lets see, about this time last year I was at an open day for some private school, contemplating whether I should transfer into a supposedly more wholesome education than the much more relaxed thoroughfare I was frustrated with. I paid eighty bucks for some admissions test and was promised that I will be given a call.

A year on, I’ve still not gotten that call.

About this time last year, I was pursuing a deep and interesting friendship with a boy who actually bothered to sit down with me and explain to me the various fundamentals of quantum physics. We found out that we shared the same penchant for certain writers, journals, and field of philosophy. I lent him my New Scientist issues, he lent me a book about mathematics; we kept having discussions about various random things for hours on end six months on and still kept in touch after I returned from Nottingham.

A year on, we don’t talk anymore.

When I returned to my French classes after my holidays, my teacher announced that he was to stop teaching at my language school. I brought a box of chocolates for the whole class to share during break time, the way we usually do; but apparently due to his resignation there weren’t any classes that day, and the office forgot to call to inform me. I gave him the box of chocolates, feeling very despondent that the first teacher who understood my love of architecture and literature was going away.

A year on, after much changing and rearranging, I now spend my Saturdays studying lyrics from songs which my teacher brings into class. She explains things anything from right-wing politics to singersongwriters, from explaining Doisneau’s photographs and giving commentaries on art.

At the age of fifteen, my playlist was filled with indie bands, distinguished and trusted alternative rock bands, new pop singer-songwriters, Placebo; angst and good fun. I immersed myself almost by accident in Broken Social Scene, bought an Arctic Monkeys t-shirt, tired the crap out of Aqualung and Coldplay CDs; gave that Damien Rice and Athlete CD one last squeeze.

Now I am quite weary of the indie kids. I think they sound the same (jangly telecasters, overaccented pronounciation, smart but not too witty lyrics), wear the same clothes (skinny jeans, Topman t-shirt) and go to the same barber (which means not at all).

Though a year on, despite still listening to and not getting bored with Placebo or Bloc Party, I’m now starting to grow very fond of folk and electro-rock. Who knew?

Yesterday, while opening my presents from my darlings Farhanis and Adli; which they had packed in a box made from her mother’s old Organic Chemistry textbook (she cut a a big chunk of the pages out to make space for the present); I had not only received a fantastic kinky gift of a black lacy nightgown but also, surprise surprise.. porn.

My first physical copy of porn to be exact. Throw that in with the box of cigarettes in the camera obscura on my shelf, the packet of condoms I got for my birthday laaast year in my drawer and my “innocence” or imminent proof of the lack of it is completely and utterly fucked.

A year on, I have worried about the many crevices of faith, discovered and acknowledged the engulfing pleasures of the flesh, professed and protested at all the beliefs I ever had in : the education system, global warming, sexuality, smoking, Iran, special rights, design of sanitary napkins, multiculturalism, pure friendship, evolutionary theory, techniques of obtaining the perfect pak choy, friends who call back, the exchange rate, alcohol, duty free, consumer rights, local & imported produce, shampoo, record stores, suicide bombers fucking up my visa, book stores, censorship, piracy, Salman Rushdie, Scrabble, academia, over the counter pharmacy, contact lenses, orthodontists-

I have devoured it all.

And spat it out.

It’s all been done. For sixteen times.