Aftermath.

Oh nois, this is bad.

Very bad.

Twitter has turned me into a stalker.

And a very pathetic one at that too.

Vying for the attention of one man.

A man I never actually liked.

Until very recently.

I have become the true embodiment of hopeless, pathetic girls worldwide.

I blame you, Twitter!

(And that man's surprisingly perfect English).

p/s: Nowadays I'm prone to writing short burst of sentences with no literary flair at all (not that i had any to begin with). Twitter has damaged me. I've become a defective item. Y0u may throw me into the waste basket if you feel you must. =__='

Keith

Someone hugged me today.

It was unexpected.

But it felt nice, being hugged.

"My name is Keith," he tells me. He puts a hand on my shoulder, his face just a few inches from mine and says, "I'm not short."

Which is ironic, because he is.

But i only smiled.

"Hi Keith, I'm Izzy."

"I'm ticklish," he beckons me to tickle him, and I did. That made him laugh. Pure and loud. His laughter was infectious. It made me laugh too.

And then he hugged me again. This time, without the element of surprise, it felt even nicer.

"I see someone made a new friend." Aogan says as he slips beside me.

I could understand the slight mocking tone in Aogan's voice.

Keith was, in a politically correct term, special. You wouldn't know just from his physical appearance that he was different. At a glance, Keith looked like any other 18 year old boy. He was dressed appropriately and he had a nice clean soapy smell.

Only, he was different. Somewhat.

But that doesn't matter.

Because I'm glad I met Keith today.

I had been having a horrible week and his hugs and laughter lifted my spirits, if only for a little while. Meeting him put things into perspective.

Sometimes, it's worthwhile to step out of your life for a bit, and step into another. You'll be pleasantly surprise at what you'll find.

I know i was. ^^

Wish List

Funny, it's when you're most broke that you yearn for stuff you know you can't afford, and it's when you're at your lowest point that you crave for things you know you can't have. My current wish list of stuff i can't have ranges from the impossibly expensive (by student standards) to the relatively inexpensive but almost impossible to get. I'm just writing this down because i know that someday when I've stopped blogging altogether, I'll backtrack on things I've written here and realize (hopefully~~) that i have everything on my list ticked.

These are selfish wishes.

Please don't judge me just because i want material items which in the bigger scheme of things is probably worth nothing.

1. Knee-high flat boots (Gosh these things cost a fortune, and i have so many unworn boots on my shoe rack, that dreaming of buying another pair probably isn't justified. But I still dream of that perfect pair of boots, regardless).

2. Complete Rurouni Kenshin Manga Set (Mom's gonna flip if she reads this. I already have the complete collection, from my Kenshin-obsession days in high school, but now i want the english version ones, which *surprise surprise* cost 5 times what i paid for the malay version)

3. Slam dunk manga set (self explanatory)

4. Polaroid camera (there's something oddly romantic about polaroids - the faded instant captures, the old school white margins, the way it's so permanent unlike digital photos - i absolutely have to have one! But again, way too expensive. Sigh~).

5. State-of-the-art wireless headset, with noise cancelling technology (yes, so i can multitask like do the dishes, the laundry or simply walk around the house as i listen to songs from Rei's playlist. *I don't own an mp3, mp4 or the equivalent.. probably need to put that on the list as well).

6. The wise man's fears. (I have been hoping and hoping for this to reach the shelves of local bookstores for years. It's finally coming in April. *Super excited*)

7. Axis. (Balong, since you introduced me to the first book, why not buy your lovely sister the second installment as a birthday present? I know you want to. =P)

8. A trip to Paris (All my friends have gone, taken pictures, enjoyed the view, eaten the food, experience the language of this city of love. That leaves me with no travel worthy partner to enjoy Eiffel tower with, and i really don't fancy the idea of going alone. Oh well, I guess I'll just go dgn future hubby je la someday *berangan~~*)

9. Fadh darling, happy birthday~~~ (hahaha.. just thought i'd slip that in since it's your birthday today. I miss you old WPP buddy, do u miss me? *this is when you should nod vigorously and say ABSOLUTELY!!*)

This list is not exhaustive. There's usually something new that i want every few weeks. I know what you're thinking. Go ahead and say it:

"Izzy is a material girl who self medicates through retail therapy. She must be off her rockers."

Hahaha, I am. ^^

(Unrelated note): Absolutely screwed my O&G paper. So I'm thinking this means I have to permanently scratch off 'Obstetrician/Gynecologist' from my list of probable future career options. hmm~

Men..

... and their lame jokes

****************************************

"I have a Q."

"Shoot," I said brusquely with my eyes still glued to the computer screen, not exactly excited about what he was saying.

"Were you breast-fed as a baby?"

If I wasn't paying attention before, I was certainly paying attention with that particularly weird question. I turned to look at him.

"Yes, I believe so." i stated with unblinking eyes, more to humor him than anything else. The real answer to his question would be "I dunno. You're crazy." But that would definitely kill the conversation, and I wasn't about to let that happen just yet, not when he's got my interest piqued.

"Why do you ask?"

"Well, they say that if you were breast-fed as a baby, your nose will get all hard because it keeps getting pressed to your mother's body," he explained excitedly while pressing the tip of his nose with his index finger.

"Oh, really?" I found his statement a bit funny - why the sudden interest in breast feeding? Or the hardness of one's nose?

But before i could stop myself, i was pressing my own nose just to check.

"Mine feels absolutely normal," I told him.

"May I?" He was reaching for my face before I could protest his lack of propriety, or tell him that i'm not in the habit of letting random men touch me. I only managed to get as far as instinctively closing my eyes, which was funny because in retrospect what i should have done first was turn my face away.

He gave my nose a couple of quick jabs, his finger cold against my skin.

"Hmmmm..." he hummed in what seemed like a contemplative moment of deep thought, his brows stitched together, frowning ever so slightly.

Then......

"Greasy." he concluded, chuckling.

Erk, say what??? "I never asked you to touch my nose, okay." I snapped, a bit defensive after hearing the word 'greasy'. But hey, it's a perfectly normal human reaction given the situation.

'Boy, this guy is a work of art,' i thought to myself. First, he sexually harasses me (okay maybe not, but touching someone without their permission crosses some sort of social boundaries, right?) and then he insults me?

Bravo dude. Bravo!

Instead of apologizing, my sudden outburst just made him laugh even harder. He was obviously enjoying himself. How he managed to get me off guard is totally beyond me. All i know is that I was blushing like crazy so I got up then, logged off my computer and told him I was late for tutorials and didn't have time for his jokes.

And you don't need to be Einstein to guess that my first stop was not the tutorial room, it was the ladies.

To powder my nose, of course.

Subbing Success

I'm so proud of myself today.

After days of hard work, i finally did it!! All by myself. Without anyone's help. So i'm gonna give myself a big pat pat on the back.

*pat pat*

"Good girl Izzy. You're the greatest!" <---this is my ego congratulating me.

*grins sheepishly*

Before i let you get a taste of the finished + polished product, you should at least hear all about my success story and the road bumps i encountered along the way. So here goes:

When I first decided to embark on this perilous adventure into an unknown territory, I had almost nothing with me except Rei (my loyal sidekick) and the drive to do something i've never done before. It was a spur of the moment decision, but one I'm glad I made.

We started off our quest by arming ourselves with the right tools - freewares!

But alas, most of the freeware subbing programs recommended by tech sites were ancient and obsolete. So i had to look around for a bunch of alternatives. I eventually did, by chance mostly (thank you anime subbers!!) and after some time-consuming trial and errors I finally managed to sub to my heart's content. Timing and timesetting the whole thing was a particular pain, and almost made me give up half way through.

But i persevered, for Rei's sake, if not my own.

After a few days of hardcore subbing, I suddenly realized that I couldn't upload my work without hardsubbing it first. And thus began another vicious cycle of trying to look for reliable freewares that'll do the job (keyword here being "free"). I found one that needed some sort of filtering system, which apparently doesn't work on the OS I use. I downloaded it nonetheless, did a bit of tweaking and......

Voilà! - my first succesful sub! ^^

However, I really can't say it's my best work tho. The English translation might be slightly inaccurate at certain parts because the direct translation site I used gave me some really confusing gibberish and I had to improvise (it turned out fine regardless, don't you think?). My valiant attempt at romanized transliterating too (tho great for "noraebang") might be slightly off in terms of structure. But again, it seems fine to me, so I can live with that.

Truthfully, I would have preferred Japanese instead of Korean, as I'm more familiar with the Japanese language. But Seung Gi (my current obsession) is Korean, hence I thought I should be a little flexible in that regard.

Anyway, without further ado, I present to you my very first successful attempt at subbing:

Not bad for a first-timer, huh?

p/s: Please comment if you like my work (or don't). And you may go anonymous if that rocks your boat. I'm too happy with myself today to be nitpicking on small details like that. ^^

My ideal guy

.....

My ideal guy is tall. He is cute.

He wears rugged clothes, but fusses about his looks.

He is accomplished, in so many ways.

His smile is to die for, his laughter I've learned to crave.

He says he can't dance, but he's got some really cool moves.

He is fun to be with, his husky voice makes me swoon.

I like his innocent way of thinking, I'm intrigued by everything he says.

He's funny, kind and sweet. But sometimes he drives me insane (in a good way).

.....

(LoL. I gave up rhyming half way through my poem, it's way too hard.)

Anyway, today i found out that my ideal guy's ideal girl isn't me. In fact, this "ideal" girl of his is my polar opposite. She's everything I'm not, and everything I wish I were if only that'll make him see me.

But I'm not her. And she's not me.

If I can understand heartbreak, being emotionally crippled and inexperienced in love as i am, I guess this is it. I didn't cry, funnily. But I did eat a whole bar of dark chocolate with hazelnuts before bed, totally forgetting that I made a New Year's resolution to go on diet. I also went on the net stalking my ideal guy (I know, pathetic) to see if anything is going on between him and his ideal girl.

At the moment - nothing major. (Relieved)

Maybe he was just kidding when he said she was his ideal girl? (Denial)

Perhaps my ideal guy's ideal girl statement was just to test me because the one he really likes is me? (wishful thinking)

Ahh, heartbreak~~~

(My heart currently looks something like this video down here)

Budapest

Basilica - Between two cars. And a girl.

Every street has two sides, the shady side and the sunny side.

Kürtőskalács - Stove cake (a.k.a Chimney cake)

Cooked over an open fire -- a Transylvanian specialty, famous as Hungary's oldest pastry.

The river flows quiet and swift

It twists and turns as the water drift

It branches and breaks - its fingers entwine

It grows and grows - snakes like a vine.

(Kailey Jennings)

A tender kiss, a whisper... and a sigh~

"A picture of many colors proclaims images of many thoughts."

(Donna A. Favors)

The scattered stars of purple dusk

Behind the smoke and glass, I tread this path alone.