Of My Moleskine Notebook

In the darkest moments of decrepitude or awe-filled moments of fleeting inspiration; I feel nothing but a resentment; a deep brooding envy for those who have in their feeble hands, a grasp of expressing their deepest most abstract emotions without having to explain themselves.

Be it their starkest, most undignified scrawl; intentional or unintentional strokes or lack thereof in their art-work; their unmistakenably self-assertive vantage point expressed in the most unique of angles in photographs; or the most awe-inspiring of all, the ability of some to completely mean what they say through music.

The gift of words however; as completely mind-shattering as they can be in the right hands of the most accurate of writers; comes with a guide. An explanation. A foreword, a footnote; a review of the piece in some sort of institution which prides itself over its literary obsession. While music reviews do exist in their millions; you never find Pitchfork having to explain a stroke of the violin as some sort of political manifesto, or the afro-bop a paeon to post-colonial society.

Various savants will of course write long treatises about Shostakovich’s involvement and subsequent rebellion against the Soviet Union, but never will they dissect the pause, the diction and the prose of music as they would to a Rushdie or Nabokov.

There are so many ways of expressing oneself; but only the usage of words could so effectively submit one into a category or an opinion.

Look here. My hands on yours could mean a million and one things that may or may not be a testament of how I would relate myself to you. A faint brush of your skin on mine could mean that far deep inside my writhing organs I desire you for every drop of worth you have. It could mean some sort of naive repressed limerence. Or it’s simply just a touch; a split second coincedence of movement and nothing more.

No sentence structure. No compound-noun subjunctive verb may may not be you I love desire forgive me fear dark deep shadow play of emotions.

With words, whatever I say or commit to paper with my pen is forever inked deep in the surface of how anything and everything will relate back to me.

With everything else, what you do – just is.

A few months ago, a dear friend of mine Elaine decided to help out a friend of hers set up a home stay program in a nice village called Natai, just outside Kota Kinabalu.

She had visited Sabah as a college student, and the short few weeks she had in the village had left a lasting impression on her. Her stay however was not without its mishaps; the accommodation she had paid for months in advance was a complete rip off, and she would have been totally clueless and lost if it wasn’t for her villager friend. Now the friend is setting up a properly planned homestay with Elaine’s help.

I assure you it is virtually impossible to speak to Elaine without her enthusing about the untouched nature and her frustration at the sheer ineptitude of the locals making the most of their land. There is just so much potential in the area, but the villagers (out of lack of exposure or education) just don’t seem to bother trying to make an income for themselves from bringing people to share their piece of untouched nature. As a result, there is a lack of competition and regulation of tourism in these areas just outside the main tourist attractions in Kota Kinabalu, and those who do open up hostels or homestays there often provide a rough deal for a premium price. Putting both the disgruntled traveler, and hopeful village economy at loss.

To curb this monstrosity, Elaine and her friend decided to set up an affordable and comfortable option for travelers who are looking for something off the beaten track. A traditional wooden Sabahan house, fitted with modern amenities; had been converted into a sort of bed & breakfast approach; but instead of offering just a room and a meal, the keeper provides three main meals a day and serves as a guide for the attractions around.

The website is linked here and I hope you’d all check it out and bookmark it for future reference. Please tell all your friends who are planning to go for a holiday East, those who want to experience something completely unique and still incredibly untouched; and for the lazier of you, just check out the pictures here and prepare to be spellbound.

I might be going after SPM or so; if I can get the approval of the ‘rents, but in the mean time I’ll be hawking this homestay to anyone who I think would be interested

All my life I’ve sat through exams that don’t mean a thing.

You kill yourself for months regurgitating facts you’ll forget a year later, memorising by rote whole sentences that you can recite by heart but never actually have heart for; you go through hundreds (or for the more diligent of you : thousands) of similarly structured questions trying, subconsciously memorising the patterns, the desire of the Kementrian; the teknik menjawab..

Pada pendapat anda.. a) b) c) or d) ?

You learn to adopt new thinking caps to put on depending on the subject you’re training your mind for. One cap for the more conservative BM language paper; one cap for the patriotic History paper, and one cap for the “all infidels will rot in hell” Islamic Paper.

It’s not a question of what you know, but how you trained yourself to know it. For some of us, it’s the only way out if there is a way out; for most, it’s for pride and the ability to conform. For all it’s just another hurdle to ace, because – because.

All my life these exams didn’t matter shit. I would get straight A’s and despite all that hoo-haa Berita Harian was bouncing off me; my parents aren’t on Auto-Glowing-With-Pride, and no my shit does not smell like roses.

You got 5A’s for UPSR? Good for you. Did you get into a super-elite Secondary School where they teach you advanced subjects like Quantum Physics or Greek Mythology? Did you go to a school for child prodigies where you have violin recitals during tea break? Oh you got into a goverment school? Where you realize that some people who didn’t get 5A’s and it wasn’t the end of the world for them. Or you got into a private school? Where its roughly the same too?

I’ve scored 5A’s for UPSR. And I ended up at the school across the road from my house.

If I didn’t receive those 5A’s; I’d still end up at the school. Across the road. From my house.

By some stroke of luck, I received 8As for PMR. And I stayed on at the school. Across the road. From my house.

But now it’s a whole different ball game. The train of thought I’m actually having trouble adjusting now is that the exam I’m sitting for this time actually does matter. It will play a part, somehow or another in where I end up and this time it won’t just be limited to somewhere across from where I live.

No, it won’t get me into Harvard, but it will be what I submit with SATs and (other pre-U programs; if I apply after college) if I want to get to an American university. No, I won’t be guaranteed a six figure salary in the distant future; but it will somehow count in getting me to the right channels that could lead me to that job.  It’s what I’ll submit to gain entrance into selective pre-university courses, it’s what the whole Aunty-Grandmother-Nosy Distant Relative- Circuit actually bitch full frontal about; and it’s outcome will be the deciding factor on how much my dad has to fork out for my education.

I’m scared shitless. But I’m immobile. I don’t understand why I still have the nerve to watch inane tv-shows on youtube, or read The Economist while watching some special on CNN. I feel angry that everyone can memorise chunks of text, a skill I was never good at but I could do before and am struggling doing now. I abhor the fact that every teacher is rounding up on me; making me feel like a complete retard, even at the subjects I thought I would be good at.

The frustrating thing is that I know I can do this. I did it twice before. Why not now? It’s not an examination. It’s a simple game. You learn the strategems, you memorise the rules and then you’re all set. Nobody cares about your intellectual curiousities. It doesn’t mean nuts if you actually know what differentiation is anyway is; just dy/dx the goddamn thing. You read Frank Swettenham’s books, so you expect a gold medal for that? Nobody gives a damn that you have incredible composition skills to rival Thomas Pynchon : you fucking stick to the 1119 Example Essay and you fucking recreate it.

These past two years have been the most morally and academically damned of my life; and I’ve learned to tolerate the fact that on official school records, and on paper; I am technically stupid.

I however have two months to turn my shitty record to fit the “Perfectly-Rounded-Individual” mould.

My only poison is my only way out. I need this. I need to win this one. I need to prove myself good enough to escape from this sadistic system.

I need, above all and everything; above all of what I believe or feel to believe; to win this.

I need to play to win.