July 06, 2009

zr cracked at 8:12 PM

June 26, 2009

slanted and enchanted.
now playing: Greg Laswell - Girls Just Wanna Have Fun

niagara falls / buffalo, ny

picking up from where i left off from the previous farewell post to the King of Pop, today was much better. this ongoing journey through the east coast has made me more aware of my surroundings more than usual. for instance, passing through 3 or 4 different states, seeing the many little towns or cities no one has really heard of, places i'd only read about.

and people with things to do and places to go. i always wonder what it feels like, if they even feel anything that is, to be so far away from places that dominate the media, places that are forever spoken about by different mouths everywhere.

the fact that life flourishes just as well in forgotten places of the world, it blows my mind. because i'm able to see it, stand in it, while feeling a thousand miles away from places i am more familiar with yet still do not identify as home.

it blows my mind how massive this world really is and that we can't ever see it in its entirety in our lifetime.

things heard throughout the 9 hour train ride from New York Penn Station to Niagara Falls on Thursday :

新华网渥太华６月２６日据加拿大公共卫生局２６日公布的统计数据,

过去两天加拿大新增甲型Ｈ１Ｎ１流感病例１０４３例,

全国确诊病例总数升至７７７５例。 数据还显示，目前加拿, etc..

zr cracked at 11:58 PM

June 25, 2009

zr cracked at 11:58 PM

June 16, 2009

leaving town.
now playing: Kings Of Leon - Notion

this is pretty much what's been going on the past week :

DC, Maryland, Philadelphia, saying goodbye to my dad, bringing my brother back to Boston with me, hanging around the city, and Providence.

i can't update without leaving out a bunch of stuff, because my mind is in chaos at the moment, but i'll get to it eventually.

i'm headed to New York later today, so hopefully i'll be able to post more from there.

how's everyone's summer going so far?

zr cracked at 2:10 AM

June 10, 2009

i was hoping for replacement.
now playing: Rogue Wave - Lake Michigan



this is Danny, "aka Danny the homeless guy," he slurs on Saturday morning after bumming a cigarette off of me.

i missed my 8.45am train to DC by one minute that morning, and after the lady at the counter reissued me another ticket for 9.45am for no charge, i headed to the back entrance of the station to wait. Danny emerged a moment later and struck up the most inane conversation i have ever engaged in. it was pretty much the drugs that fucked with his speech and made it all almost incomprehensible, but i'd be lying if i said i didn't enjoy his company for that one hour.

DC is pretty great. it's easy to fall in love with its simplicity each day. the new faces, and the new places. i try to remember them as perfectly as i can in my mind, so i don't forget.

zr cracked at 11:31 PM

chilling.
now playing: A Tribe Called Quest - Can I Kick It?



hello from DC!

i got here late Saturday afternoon via a 7 hour Amtrak ride and reached Washington Union Station, where i met up with the only two important guys in my life :


my dad has a week long meeting going on in the country capital so my brother tagged along. we're staying in the Georgetown area of DC, a lively town adjacent to Georgetown University similar to the RISD/Brown area of Thayer Street in Providence, RI.

true story :

in one of my dim-witted moments in the recent past, i thought Washington DC and Washington state were the same thing. meaning, when hearing one of my friends talk about visiting the latter last year i said something along the lines of, "oh hey, so you can visit Capitol Hill and everything," which generated an awkward and confused conversation about US geography. and the amazing revelation that both cities were on completely opposite sides of a map.

i have more photos and stuff but i'm on my way out so i'll update later.

zr cracked at 6:54 AM

June 04, 2009

sounds transcending time.
now playing: Michael Jackson - Man in the Mirror

classic Michael Jackson always makes me feel better for some reason.

his was the first ever concert i went to back in '96 and i'm hella proud, since it's still the best live show i've ever seen. because it was soon after that his whole career went downhill and all was lost for such a still-living legendary icon.


remember when everything wasn't mediocre crap back in the day?

to quote the ever-tactful Kanye West, "do anybody make real shit anymore?"

i wish Boyz II Men was still making albums as great as CooleyHighHarmony or II.

for my 11th birthday my sister got me this Boyz II Men collection on VHS, thus introducing me to what would be a long lasting appreciation for R&B and soul. it was probably one of the best, memorable birthday gifts i've ever received, simply because it's that thing you recall years later as being responsible for single-handedly triggering a personal, enthusiastic exploration of music. i watched the tape so religiously i think it died. also, Sympin was my jam.

i wish SWV were still singing, and that Tina Turner and Whitney Houston were still relevant enough today to tell all these pseudo-talented hacks to take a seat.

i hope the Pixies' upcoming album will be nearly as awesome as Surfer Rosa or Bossanova, though i'm not holding my breath.

sometimes things fall apart, Lauryn Hill, but i still love you, but even more with the Fugees.

my earliest memory of music is hearing my parents playing Motown around the house, particularly The Commodores, followed by a solo Lionel Richie after he left the group. i can't hate on Lionel Richie, because his music has ingrained in me memories of a childhood that i would otherwise not have remembered so fully. it's like meeting an old friend that you haven't seen since you were a kid but still recognizing them. it's like the realization that everything else recent and present can't really compare to someone from your past, because you never knew them when they were still young, pure and completely human. time just chips away at all of us.

i think that scene in Garden State where the lady sings a melancholy version of The Commodores' Three Times a Lady at her friend's funeral is amazing. i remember thinking, what a great song to sing at someone's funeral.

this post pretty much reflects how i'm feeling right now. i think i've made my point so i will stop boring everyone now.

zr cracked at 8:00 PM

May 31, 2009

the life pursuit.
now playing: Common - A Dream



for the record, it wasn't me.

last night my dad and i were having a long phone conversation when it suddenly steered towards a favorite topic of mine. when i say favorite, i mean because it is a subject that i've held a fascination with for the longest time, due to the somewhat unorthodox upbringing i had that only fueled my curiosity as a kid.

i can't explain that further without having to talk about family, and i know now how to differentiate between what's blog-appropriate and what's too personal in regards to those i'd be writing about on the internet (since blogger doesn't offer private posts). don't get me wrong, it's a pain to have to censor/filter/consider/avoid what i want to freely write about, which in part makes my posts less frequent when compared to previous blogs because it's a bummer to have to limit myself so as to not piss off or implicate certain people. that sort of thing only works when you're actually penning non fiction novel material with the purpose of entertaining/enlightening the masses, which obviously i'm not trying to do so half-heartedly through a blog.

anyway, i was taken aback when my dad listened to me going on about the issue of discussion we'd come to and then replied, "don't get involved with that. it's too dangerous, and it will make your future hard." his reaction was so surprising that i thought about it long after the call had ended. which brings us to the notion that being told not to do something by a parent almost always leads to the kid doing it. it's in our nature, isn't it? when i think about it, every stupid thing i didn't do were the things my parents never really preached on.

take drugs for instance. the very idea of it always bored me because the only attitude they really had towards it for my siblings and i was like, by the way, there's this thing called drugs. dumbasses do them. you are not a dumbass. have a good day at school.

i will be turning 25 in less than three months though, so i figure my pursuing this enduring fascination should finally be fulfilled. who ever loses their childlike curiosity anyway? i'm considering minoring in this particular subject starting next semester. future? hard? life itself is hard, pops!

zr cracked at 8:04 AM

May 26, 2009

english, motherfucker, do you speak it?
now playing: The Strokes - The End Has No End




the wireless difficulties that rudely invaded the building's internet usage this past week prompted me to make do with the world outside. a good thing too because technology has made us humans the laziest species on the planet. how did i not acknowledge this glaringly obvious fact before? the internet has consumed me.

i was standing lazily in the H&M downtown, inspecting stuff without actually moving from my spot because i hate shopping in stores, when a perky blonde employee approaches me and proceeds to ask in loud restructured English if i needed help. "you...need...help...finding size...?" she inquires like i'm 4.

it took me a second to realize that stereotyping was in effect and i was on the receiving end. not gonna lie, the only thing i could think was, lol white people. this is like that one FML where some white guy went up to a Chinese family taking photos by the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco and asked them in restructured English complete with miming if they wanted him to help take a group picture, and the father replied, "no thanks asshole, i got this."

you know what else is getting old, is when people in class react in complete shock upon hearing you speak for the first time in comprehensible sentences.

someone needs to notify the uninformed young white's of America that there is a world that exists beyond the shores of the USA and Cancun, Mexico.

zr cracked at 9:45 PM

May 16, 2009

making something out of nothing.
now playing: Pete Yorn - Strange Condition


so last week we had to turn in our own self made "magazines" for Mass Media class. i did mine the night before, naturally. also i had my boy Oscar strike a killer pose for the cover, and being the sport that he is this was the sexy end result :




yeah i did misspell "people". i didn't realize the error until i already got to class and everyone was looking over one another's creations. the professor, a hippie who used to work in publishing and would occasionally profess her love for weed during class, got all excited upon seeing the cover of Random. i left before she could actually open it and realize what a half assed job i'd done with the content.

"don't worry about it..did you see that other kid's? he turned in loose sheets of paper with like..pictures of himself on them," Anne tries to assure me as we walk out of the building.

the amazing thing is that he really did. but then again he's that annoying guy in every class who loves the sound of his own voice so no one was really surprised.

your narcissism is showing.

we had to create our own ads as part of the content as well, and i don't know why i immediately thought of my favorite Kurt Cobain photograph, the one with the words Men Don't Protect You Anymore and a cop car in the background, which emphasizes the other perfectly. i guess i was the only one to find my own creation hilarious because no one else got it :



some people have asked me about my apparent obsession with Nirvana/Cobain because i talk about the man occasionally and have in the past collected a couple of magazines celebrating him in their feature articles, but the truth is i am actually more fascinated with the man synonymous with Grunge, his death and the ongoing legacy he left behind. i mean, every year some magazine does a cover story to mark the anniversary of his death on April 5 and there is always some new (newly spun?) story or something that just fascinates me. i was reading the one Q did this year (Green Day on the cover) in Barnes & Noble and got chills running down my spine. chills!

as for Nirvana's music, i like maybe 6 of their songs.

- - -

i'm officially on summer break now. i might go see Angels & Demons with Ben. or catch up on sleep. or eat that BBQ Chicken sandwich i bought an hour ago.

today is a good day.

it's so good i just want to walk around outside and hug everyone i see.

zr cracked at 2:29 PM

May 14, 2009

zr cracked at 1:00 AM

May 10, 2009

couching.

season 5 of The Office has been lacking, let's be honest. the last episode, Cafe Disco was pretty great though, not gonna lie. particularly the hilarious dance off between Andy Bernard and Kelly Kapoor.


why is Andy Bernard so awesome?

there were a bunch of songs played throughout this episode, probably the best being the super catchy Various Disgraces by now defunct indie band The Blam. holy shit it was hard to track down the song/artist, but listen or download it for free here.

zr cracked at 2:40 AM

May 07, 2009

a little bit of this is good.
now playing: Coconut Records - Wires


just took the Lit final this morning. as usual, i spent half the time gazing at the whiteboard trying to form a coherent sentence. a bunch of us ended up running out of time so the professor let us come upstairs and finish it outside of her office. i was walking with Sergei, who once let me borrow his pen and then told me to keep it (which i lost like an hour later), and Adam, who'd ask me for paper or a cigarette on occasion. Sergei was asking me questions, what's your plan for summer? don't know. where're you from? malaysia. where do you live? back bay. do you have facebook? yeah but i deleted it. what, why? i just don't get it.

we were lined up side by side outside the office, him scribbling questions relating to the exam on his paper and nudging me if i knew the answers. the cool thing about Lit exams is that there's really no such thing as copying, since everything has to be written in your own words and perspective anyway. a moment later, he tapped his pen on my arm lightly and pointed to the top right hand corner of his paper where he'd scribbled, can i have your number?

i laughed out loud.

i mean what a fantastic build up to asking for someone's number. during an exam too. slick!

guys can be cute sometimes.

anyway, when i passed in my exam booklet, the sweet little professor who i always feel the urge to hug but don't because that'd be weird clasped her hands together and told me she'd miss me, since i've taken all her classes already. i almost hugged her right then.


when i go forwards, you go backwards and somewhere we will meet.

zr cracked at 1:52 PM

May 05, 2009

floating in space.
now playing: Cassettes Won't Listen - Freeze and Explode


the previous issue of Mental Floss featured a list of the 25 Most Influential Books of the Past 25 Years. i've only read one of those books - The Known World by Edward P. Jones ("the book that made slavery less black and white"). i could lie and say i read The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera (also featured on the list) but i never actually finished the book. i didn't understand it. like that time i attempted to read Faulkner's The Sound and the Fury but couldn't get past the first page and then felt really dumb.




guys, how excited are you about Angels & Demons? it comes out next friday over here and i am so there. setting aside the fact that Dan Brown isn't exactly considered a literary genius, Angels & Demons kicks The Da Vinci Code's ass so hard.

also, i haven't been able to reply to e-mails this past week since finals are going on right now, but i'll get to it once the week's over.

why am i even blogging?

zr cracked at 1:36 PM

April 27, 2009

new york state of mind.
now playing: Neil Young - After The Gold Rush



the restless heart and disoriented soul led me to buy a ticket for a 1am bus to New York City a few days ago. the bus pulled into Port Authority at around 4.30am, where the first sights of Manhattan greeted me - a homeless drunk guy sprawled fast asleep on the street, men loading trucks with the days newspapers, and construction workers, coffee in hand, walking to work.

it was still dark, so i walked into a 24 hour diner nearby and had coffee.


10. these past few weeks have been hard for a lot of people. an 11 year old kid in Massachusetts hanged himself because the kids at school called him gay. eleven! i wish schools gave a shit. i wish people practiced better parenting. i was going through my music files on this laptop sometime ago and it dawned on me that i wouldn't have any real records or albums to share with my future kid(s), should i ever procreate. this kind of bothers me. i imagine the future would be me presenting my kid with anything from Van Morrison's Astral Weeks to The Roots' The Tipping Point and telling them, this is your shield, but i will protect you too.

the BU student now known as the Craigslist Killer tried taking his own life in his jail cell last week. i wonder what it feels like to be 23 years old and knowing that your life is pretty much over. or what his last breath of freedom felt like to him.

09. got a marriage proposal the other night, but from a guy i wouldn't have romantic relations with in this lifetime or the next. i would rather fight a bear while being chased by a lion than exchange vows with him. that is putting it nicely. do people feel that 100% sure about the opposite, like the person they choose to marry?

08. i wonder what bands or musicians Kurt Cobain would be listening to if he were still alive today. would the Foo Fighters even exist? would Courtney Love still be fucking nuts, and would Kurt still be with her?

07. walked past NYU Medical where my sister was brought into the world 29 years ago. took her first breath of life in that very building, her first glimpse of light and her first feel of the human touch. 29 years later, her younger sister of the future who hadn't been born yet at the time would walk by and have thoughts of the past she didn't exist in that didn't make any sense. it blew my mind at that very moment.

06. McDonald's happened to be the only place open at South Station at midnight when i got there. i haven't had McD's in 3 years now, but i was hungry see. and it'd be another 4 hours on the bus. so i made an exception and had a honey mustard chicken wrap. and proceeded to have the worst gurgling stomache ache i've had in awhile. McDonald's is so gross. i'm getting angry just thinking about how gross they are.

05. why has it become so easy to discard certain people from our lives. just last week i dropped _____ like a bad habit and never looked back.

i realize now respect isn't just a rarity. it also determines the quality of companionship in whatever sense. you had to have seen it coming.

04. ended up in the Lower East Side somehow and NYU stomping ground. had two large slices of pizza and almost cried because it was so good. i'm not a very star struck type of person. one time members of the Wu Tang Clan walked into the Starbucks i was chilling in and no one gave a shit. if i had seen Mary Kate Olsen walking around in that moment though i probably would've had a totally embarrasing fan girl moment.

03. i spent some time appreciating the fact that the things i feel most strongly about are the things i did not learn/was taught at home. i don't know why i appreciate that. you'd think it'd be better to have role models that infused within you a greater view of the world. but i think it was just the amount of negativity i was exposed to that drove me in search of positivity in the first place. i think there is greatness in all that you attain on your own, because it becomes your own personal achievement.

02. the diversity of New York City is so beautiful it actually hurts. i can't get over it no matter how many times i visit.

01. i'm sorry, but sometimes things fall apart.

zr cracked at 5:38 AM

April 11, 2009

zr cracked at 11:33 PM

April 06, 2009

zr cracked at 6:31 AM

April 04, 2009

zr cracked at 10:05 PM

March 27, 2009

if there's something strange, and it don't look good...


in hilarious news of the week, the Boston Globe featured a front page story on their site about a group of female students at the reputable Boston Latin School who were going around biting and sucking each others blood, believing they were vampires.

front page + high school + vampires = laughing my ass off.

the Boston Globe is known for their questionable albeit amusing journalism at times, much like the Malay Mail back in KL. no scratch that, the Malay Mail isn't any sort of journalism so i guess the comparison is pointless now that i think about it.





i can't decide what's better - the inane article or the comments.

zr cracked at 3:34 AM

March 20, 2009

i'm on fire so stub me out.
now playing: Bloc Party




Bloc Party kicked off their US tour playing the first show at the House of Blues in Boston last night. did i go? um, hell yes. not only did i finally manage to get tickets to a show that had sold out weeks prior, i was second row and center. those of us who'd shown up early were standing around, just chilling when the tiny Asian girl standing in front of me with her friends asked to squeeze into the spot beside me. she explained that the b.o. coming from someone near us was making her feel nauseous, and then said loudly, i mean is it so hard to take a damn shower?

it was right when Brooklyn based opening band, Longwave took the stage that the rest of us started to catch a whiff of the stench. it came over us like a deadly wave. at one point the girl standing in front of me turned around to see me holding my scarf up to my nose and indignantly stated, it's not me! anyway, Longwave wasn't bad. i listened to their stuff on the band's myspace page this morning but i think they actually sound better live. i can't decide if that's good or bad?

Bloc Party is amazing live. i haven't been to a real rock show in years, but seeing them was definitely worth it. i can't explain how much i love Silent Alarm and A Weekend In the City. it was when they started playing Banquet about two songs in that everyone lost their shit. by the time they started in on Hunting for Witches, tiny Asian girl beside me was getting squashed by the moshing and looked afraid for her life, so i tried to grab her so she wouldn't get trampled on. by the end of the song, she forced her way through the crowd and left.

someone threw a fan t-shirt on stage between songs asking that Kele put it on. this is so distracting, he laughed. it's so fuckin distracting, Matt added from behind the drum set. the Christian Bale reference/joke was lost on most of the audience. Gordon was the only member blocked from my view for most of the show, which was a complete bummer. and i don't think i'd ever use this word on any other grown man, but Russell is precious. he's still BP's mysterious lead guitarist, hiding behind the trademark hairstyle throughout the entire show, only peeking out at the crowd a couple times between songs. not to mention his t-shirt was a few sizes too small on him.

my only disappointment was that they didn't play I Still Remember.

after the show and 3 encores i just wanted to get home and take like 8 showers. which i did when i got in around midnight, but it was just one really long one.

zr cracked at 5:45 PM

March 13, 2009

don't hate, appreciate.
now playing: Afghan Whigs - 66



get a load of April's issue of GQ featuring Rob Pattinson on the cover.

i saw it and said, thank you God. damn, brother is fine.

i don't know what it is with me and British men too. besides the fact that i think Clive Owen is the most perfect man alive, there's just some other level of manliness that radiates from them Brits. just sayin.

the interview is the best part, if only for the fact that his endearing personality and genuineness emanates even on paper. which is kind of a rare thing. and i don't mean in a just famous people or Hollywood kind of way. i like that he's gained non psychotic fans not due to his association with the catastrophe that is Twilight, but simply winning them over due to his bona fide nature. which proves that at the end of the day, people appreciate honesty. i've learned that more people than you think are easily embarrassed or ashamed of their true characteristics and imperfections, and you can't tell what's real anymore, or what's a harried attempt to fit into society's standards and acceptance of normal or cool. what if you found out that in actuality there is no such thing as normal and cool? you just spent your whole life trying to attain a ridiculous invention of the shallow human mind.

it kind of makes life less awesome.

zr cracked at 10:27 AM

March 11, 2009

zr cracked at 1:53 AM

March 09, 2009

i'm here but i'm really gone.
now playing: The Frames - Seven Day Mile


in my Saturday class last weekend, while the professor was talking about the bias of language, the Chinese guy sitting in front of me leaned his body to the left and farted. then he continued taking down notes.

everyone stared.

here are some questions to start off your week with :

how come Asian people lack manners, or social etiquette for that matter?

on the T, why do certain Asians force their conversations onto others in obnoxious tones and foreign language, oblivious to the peace they are disturbing? actually, at the library, on the street, in stores, or any public place basically.

when waiting for the train, shuttle, or elevator, why do certain Asians rush to the doors scrambling to get on, pushing and shoving everyone else who was there first waiting patiently out of their way? i ask you. why?

someone once explained in a conversation we had that it was a cultural thing, that where they are from or how they were brought up, it is completely normal behavior.

the culture excuse is a cop out when it comes to certain issues. there is a difference between culture and bullshit that you are being taught.

the racist card doesn't fly here either, since i'm Asian and all, so i get to talk shit about my Southeast Asian peeps. the first step is accepting these faults. why does everyone ignore their inner flaws anyway? but when it's their physical flaws it's straight to the gym or plastic surgeon or MAC counter, here's a wad of cash make me look like a new person stat. this makes me sad. too bad you just look like a new person but you're still an asshat.



other pictures from the other weekend. the Woodsman and i ended up in Harvard Square as a last resort that night, and went into the Garage to get out of the cold. where we had Ben and Jerry's Strawberry Cheesecake ice cream. go figure.

zr cracked at 7:00 AM

March 06, 2009

don't ask me how i've been.
now playing: Stereophonics - Rewind


the other night while taking a break from the mountain of assignments i was having a face off with i found myself watching Con Air on youtube. John Cusack runs funny.

last weekend i came out of my building to find C.Wood leaning against the fence across the street, listening to his iPod. he seemed to just be chilling, so i walked over to him and asked what he was doing. turns out he was waiting for me, since he didn't know what time my Saturday class ended. we walked around the city, looking for a place to eat and ended up in the Jewish neighborhood of Brookline.




he made me take this picture because of the name of the building. when i asked if he knew what it meant, he just said, no, it just sounds like a word i would've made up as a kid. we stood outside for awhile, trying to figure out what knickerbocker could possibly mean. or why anyone would name a store or building that. don't you just hate it when these things aren't obvious in meaning and you just go your whole life wondering.

nevermind, i looked it up.

and then i had to take a picture of this store because the obviousness was screaming :



i know where to go now when i need to buy a door.

i'm watching Dave Chappelle's Block Party right now while simultaneously writing a Lit paper. if i was standing in a room with Mos Def, Talib Kweli, Kanye, ?uestlove, Common, and Dave all at once i'd literally pee my pants.

zr cracked at 2:48 AM

March 04, 2009

oh snap.








your everyday life stories

zr cracked at 3:54 AM

March 02, 2009

then the snow started falling.
now playing: Bon Iver - Blood Bank



i had so many dreams about death these past few nights. people i know just going away forever. i wake up and take a moment to differentiate between reality and a dream.

i don't understand anything. i just know it's okay to be serious sometimes. or stop talking completely for awhile. turn yourself off, and your phone too. smoke a cigarette even though it's bad for you. some people are bad for you. what's really worse - giving up on yourself, or every single person around you. what a scary island to be on. man what a scary thought.

everything locked away in that compartment inside is such a dangerous burden, what some people take with them to their graves. what a frightening, solitary ending.




and i know it well. that secret that i know, that i don't know how to tell.

zr cracked at 3:20 AM

February 27, 2009

extra cheese.
now playing: Mirah - Telephone Wires


the other night i had an amazing dream about pizza. part of it involved me waiting for my pizza in some restaurant and then Jennifer Garner walked in to place an order and we started talking about our favorite toppings. i don't know why Jennifer Garner but she's cool so it was okay. that night i pretty much had to have pizza so while roaming the streets and trying to decide on a place, i passed by the Apple store i talked about in an earlier post.

i'd had an accident the day before when the water bottle i had in my bag started leaking and destroyed all the contents inside, the most crucial being my iPod. so i found myself inside the Apple store, explaining to the guys at the counter my situation. i wasn't aware that you aren't supposed to tell the truth when it comes to getting a device fixed, a fact revealed to me when i simply started with, i dropped some water on it. one of the guys responded, rather indignantly, "okay, that story needs to change." i get the advantages it comes with, like free servicing/replacement, but the trapped water on the inside of the iPod screen was visible. i couldn't really come up with a story to explain that as if it weren't my own fault. i'm also hesitant to mess with tech specialists because they are usually geniuses when it comes to these things.

he took me aside to book an appointment with the customer service people on the third floor. around 8.30 i came back and went up to the third floor where the Genius Bar, a panel of product service employees, is located. yeah it's really called that. see last sentence in previous paragraph. the guy i was appointed to, a young, upbeat guy named Carl, responded to my situation with a knowing, ah, the water bottle story. he tried charging the iPod on his Mac and then proceeded to ask if i'd ever eaten at the Thai place next door (i'm a regular), which led to a discussion on food.

after it was confirmed my iPod was a goner, he replaced it with a new one. what was sad was that the old one had been a gift from my sister a couple years ago and she'd had my name engraved on the back. i'm sentimental about these things.


my brother wrote me a postcard. upon seeing the picture i cracked up - due to our not so private joke i wrote in an LJ post about showing Westerners the "real" Malaysia. and then i felt a little sad and started to miss the family.

T-Mobile barred my phone yesterday, claiming i had some sort of payment due. the front desk buzzed my room later that night, so i went out to use the phone in the hall and call downstairs to ask what was up. um, your brother is here to see you, Marie, one of the front desk people told me. i went downstairs to see C.Wood in the lobby. he'd driven up to Boston when he couldn't reach me on my cell, and brought along with him for the ride his mom, and their neighbors Roland and Joyce. i told her you were my adopted sister and that i couldn't get through to your phone, he explained, thought i'd be creative.

more pizza! or what's left of it.


we ended up having dinner at Upper Crust on Newbury. that's Roland in the photo along with C.Wood and his eyebrows. he's hilarious.

i think it'll be awhile until i devour my next pizza.

also :

Slumdog Millionaire winning 8 awards at the Oscars was great, but i was even more excited to see Irfan Khan standing on stage with the rest of the cast. that guy is way too underrated.

i laughed at Ben Stiller's impersonation of Joaquin Phoenix. although nothing beats the real thing.

zr cracked at 2:13 AM

February 21, 2009

me and my robot tip toe around creeping.
now playing: The Killers - Read My Mind (Rebel Remix)


this morning in Mass Media class we watched Good Night and Good Luck. some people slept (hey it was Saturday morning), and i know the film is considered a masterpiece based on journalistic aspects, but i was more focused on trying to keep my stomache from emitting weird sounds in those two hours. this actually takes a lot of work, as i've learned from much experience. you have to know the exact moment to shift positions in your seat, hold your breath in, lean over, cross your arms over your front casually, and so on. this is crucial if you're like me and the voices in your stomache are a cross between ET and Optimus Prime. the lesson here is to always eat breakfast.

after class i dropped into Tealuxe for some caffeine and banana bread and chilled for awhile. i flipped through a newspaper that was lying around and watched the weekend shoppers drift in and out of the stores. living in close proximity to the shopping mecca of Boston has made me realize a couple things. for instance, what stores i'd never be seen walking into out of sheer embarrassment.

Abercrombie & Fitch is a given. that place reeks of snobbery, which is ironic, considering the mass produced shit they sell there for laughable prices. not gonna lie though, i've been in once or twice in the past, mainly because someone once informed me that they have shirtless models posing at the store fronts and i had to see that hilarity to believe it. the first time i went into the store was with my sister early last year. we had to speak an octave higher the whole time due to the techno mess they were blasting. on the way out, she said to me, i have a headache. i replied with, i think i know why, which one of the models employees overheard. he gave me a withering look as i walked by him, i guess because i'd dissed A&F's massive fail in store music choice, or because i was Asian and don't look like Megan Fox, i'm not sure. probably both.

there is no A&F on Newbury Street, fortunately. other stores i deem similar is Hollister and Aeropostale. i have no reason to walk into one just yet, and i doubt i will ever find one.

Hot Topic, which doesn't have a store on Newbury either. this one is for obvious reasons. again, i have been into a Hot Topic before, but then realized i'm not a goth or into band t-shirts. as one of my sister's friends once said while we were walking past the store, there's nothing wrong with going into Hot Topic...you just don't actually leave with something.

the Puma store. nothing against the brand, i actually quite like Puma, but the store on Newbury was just too much for me. i walked into it early last year to be greeted with a DJ spinning tracks a little too enthusiastically in the middle of the store. he was hunched over the turntables, moving to the beat, a hand on one side of his headphones, the works. it was like guy had just stepped out of a Soulja Boy video. there were about 3 other people in the store. i laughed. and i couldn't stop, so i left.

American Apparel. no other brand has ever earned a spot stemming from deep hatred within me but AA. the mothership for hipsters or whoever reads Nylon magazine, AA exudes pretentiousness like no other. to be fair, some of their clothes are nice enough and really comfortable, and the pretentious front exists amongst similar brands like Urban Outfitters for example (honorable mention : the Apple Store). UO is tolerable though, sort of like Topshop in Malaysia, with the college-aged employees and their intensely thought out hairstyles who do their best to look like they're too cool to give two shits about you, but discreetly (or sometimes openly) give you the once over as you browse their racks of amazing, overpriced clothes.

i haven't been into the AA on Newbury, or any other for that matter, but every time i walk by there is always a fashion forward employee sitting outside smoking a cigarette, staring intimidatingly at passers by as if daring them to enter their awesome store. my real issue with the brand is their print ads and marketing that has itself garnered wide criticism in the past. have you guys seen this fuckery? actually, just image google the brand to see the rest of their cutting edge advertising. shit, there is so much sarcasm in this post i'm beginning to wonder if you guys are catching it. anyway, i can't stand AA models either, if you want to call them that. it's like they're saying anybody can model and sell a product - if you spread your legs and show us your breasts, of course. it's a lesser known fact that the company hires employees by asking them to submit photos of themselves in job applications, judging them by appearance and physical attributes. ironic, since unlike Abercrombie, AA models aren't that hot. yeah i said it.

i could go on about all the shit associated with this brand, like how AA CEO Dov Charney is behind all the trashy advertisements and is famous for sexually harassing employees, but i think i made my point.

having said all that, i own 3 items of clothing from AA which was bought online 2 years ago. long before i started to feel uncomfortable with the brand.

Victoria's Secret or lingerie sections in stores. i don't own anything from Victoria's Secret, except for their body spray and lotion, mainly because i don't exactly have a rack that requires that much extravagance. i always feel like if i walked into a VS store collective laughter would erupt around me. what i find embarrassing though, is when i'm in the intimates section of a store, looking at bras and underwear, holding them up to observe them better, and i turn around and there's a 40 year old man just chilling, staring. his wife is off in the changing room and he's standing around the intimates section being a creeper and totally obvious about it. some of them actually have the nerve to eye the bra you have in your hand, as if feeling the need to offer some sort of mental man approval.

also, i can't buy any intimates when the cashier's a straight male. the silence between us when he attempts to fold the bra/underwear awkwardly is embarrassment central. i know this from experience.

there's probably a few more but i can't think of them right now. i might enable the comments for this post just to hear what stores you guys try to avoid for personal reasons. do share!

zr cracked at 7:37 PM

February 14, 2009

the restless heart.
now playing: Sea Wolf - I Made A Resolution


today began with Ben reminding me that it was Valentines, a day he deems as special. which brings back memories of Valentines about 6 years ago when I bought Syukri a rose and gave it to him after class. a bunch of his jock friends joined us in the cafeteria after and commented on how sweet it was that he bought me a rose. after an awkward pause Syukri told them it was from me. stunned silence followed, and then we sat through a moment of his friends giving us shit about how backwards the times are now.



Ben makes plans that i never know about. like asking what time i'll be driving over to Dedham to pick him up so we can go out. i'll be there in ten minutes, wait outside, i text back before shifting positions in bed and going back to sleep.

the other night i was having a conversation with three of the male students in the building, 2 of which were smoking a joint. one of them asked where i was from, and after i replied, his friend wearing a cap asked, where is that?

South East Asia, dawg, other guy told him like it was the most basic knowledge, which i guess is.

it's not in the Middle East? guy in cap asked, doubtful. a discussion on world geography ensued for the next fifteen minutes.

the guy who works at the FedEx office in Copley Square which i dropped into to mail off my sister's bulk order of Havaianas and my brother's belated birthday gift, struck up a conversation on Malaysia after reading the form i'd filled out. a student at UMass Boston and studying International Relations, he started talking about everything from the British colonization back in the day to the country's present day economic growth. with genuine interest, he then asked me what Malaysia's main export was.

rubber, i replied immediately. truthfully i only remember this fact because of all the condom jokes i'd heard in college back in KL.

i don't usually go out on weekends because swarms of people wandering around purposelessly in packs triggers the urgent need in me to up and move to a cabin in the remote woods of upstate New York. or sometimes a seaside house in Westport, Connecticut, it depends. this morning i was feeling restless though, so i walked over to Tealuxe and had an Earl Grey and banana bread right before the weekend madness struck.

and then i walked home and lazed around in bed.

still not in love. i do think i have tried.

zr cracked at 6:06 PM

February 08, 2009

the loaded gun.
now playing: Ben Folds Five - Evaporated





it was my brother's birthday last week. it sucked to not be there when he turned the big 20 so i called in a cake request instead.

i don't know about you but i want some cheese cake right now.

zr cracked at 2:38 AM

January 31, 2009

here comes that weird chill.
now playing: Matt Weddle (Obadiah Parker) - Hey Ya





why is it that the men who cruise the streets late at night looking for ass are always old and rich? it was around midnight yesterday as i was walking home when this silver Lexus pulled up beside me and some guy who looked older than my dad stuck his head out the window. he called me over, but i ignored him and kept walking. he followed me with the car, calling out the window and i started wondering if it'd be wise that i start running. i only had a block to go.

wouldn't it be great if ladies could avoid situations involving sexual predators by simply uttering two words before being violated - "vagina dentata." then it's like, yeah what you gonna do about that, biatch? i had this great idea for some time that schools start implementing mandatory viewings of the film Teeth for male students as part of sex ed. i remember telling some guys about the basis of the film last year and even that verbal summarization proved traumatizing enough for them. and completely turned them off from ever seeing it.

at the risk of sounding sexist, i also suggest girls be shown episodes from Law and Order : SVU, particularly ones where Mariska Hargitay kicks some major perv ass while simultaneously radiating sex appeal and class.

"hey baby," old guy in the Lexus leered as i turned the corner, the apartment in sight. "i got something you'd like."

i would've picked up the pace but the puke in my mouth slowed me down.

zr cracked at 1:48 AM

January 26, 2009

take me to the airport.
now playing: The Magnetic Fields - Drive On, Driver


i need to be extremely far away.




there's no taking off and disappearing into the abyss for me just yet, so i'm lost within the pages of Jonathan Safran Foer's Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, instead. his writing is a little nuts, in a fascinating way. i bought his wife's (Nicole Krauss) novel The History of Love a few years ago but never got past the first chapter because i'm lazy. come to think of it, both of them have similar writing styles, i just have more intent on actually finishing this one.

Ben wouldn't tell me his exact age, since i told him mine, which means he's a lot younger. i imagine he's 19, and i hear myself becoming reminiscent like i can't even remember that far back. nineteen. wow. sometimes, actually most of the time, i wish i was nineteen again. if i could be nineteen again i would do a lot of things differently.

like what?

maybe everything.

zr cracked at 4:09 AM

January 20, 2009

there is a light that never goes out.
now playing: Nice Stupid Playground - She Wants





hanging out in a friend's room the other night, i realized when lifting the blinds that they had a magnificent view of the neighborhood and bright city skyline. i spent most of the time just gazing out the window before i was kicked out.

skipped the first day of classes today in favor of witnessing history go down. i didn't feel too bad about it, since it turns out almost everyone ditched school or work and the college website revealed that live viewings would be held around campus for students and faculty for this "once in a lifetime event" anyway.

i can't get over how cool and collected Obama is, damn.

also, so long Bush. it's been real.

i just got home from a major power walk tonight. it was 20°F but i walked all the way down Newbury until reaching the store i needed to drop into only to find that they closed at 7 and it was 7.15. i was pissed off for about five minutes, and then walked over to Shaws supermarket to get some fruit and the girl at the checkout counter was a huge bitch. usually this sort of thing gets me down, especially if i notice that the person was nice to the customer in line before me. then it's like i'm not really reading too much into it and this person isn't really having a bad day, they just singled you out for some reason. i'm good natured about it though. so i said thanks even though she sucks at her job, and enjoyed the walk home.

i also ran into Felix who i haven't seen in weeks. "you got fat," he blurted out when i paid for my water. such phrasing would have warranted a jaw drop, an angry exit, some unhealthy, self-conscious mirror fixation for most girls. me, i beamed. i have been trying to gain weight for years, to no success. in part it's due to my supersonic metabolism, but really it's because my stomache is a bottomless pit. i don't know what i've been doing right all of a sudden, but i'll keep doing it when i figure it out.

zr cracked at 10:15 PM

January 15, 2009

coma.
now playing : Tony Lucca - Devil Town


this whole week has been a little slow and lazy. nothing i'd want to talk about. i stayed home most of the time and finally got around to watching all 3 seasons of Friday Night Lights back to back, only leaving the room to use the bathroom or go get food. i know i'm about 3 years late on joining the bandwagon, but still.

can we talk about how amazing this show is?




first, i love Peter Berg's filming technique (The Rundown, The Kingdom, Friday Night Lights film version) so his involvement with the series is what really appealed to me. the authenticity of the show and characters - from the documentary style filming, to how deeply Texan everything is captured, and how the actors don't rehearse before shooting but deliver their lines and acting freely however they want, makes it incredibly realistic.

and then there's the whole "situation music" provided by Texas band Explosions In the Sky throughout the whole series, which makes certain scenes poignant in the simplest way. i have never thought much of any role Kyle Chandler played on other shows but holy shit, him as Coach Eric Taylor is one of the best, most affecting characters on television. actually the good natured, confidant-based relationship between the Coach and his wife are one of my favorite things about the show.

hilarity at Applebee's being the cool hangout spot, by the way. that place serves some of the worst food in the history of restaurant chains. but then again the use of the chain adds to the realism of small town dining i guess. at least it wasn't Cracker Barrel.

anyway. the football team is central to FNL, more particularly the captains - Jason Street, Smash Williams, and Tim Riggins, who are fittingly the team/town favorites. then there's the insecure sophomore, Matt Saracen who elevates to team captain status after star quarterback Jason Street gets hurt on the field, leaving him paralyzed and unable to play football ever again. Zach Gilford, who plays the quiet second string quarterback Saracen is a hell of an actor. his vulnerability is so unbelievably captivating to watch that it's really hard to not like him.

there is one scene in the first season where he has to end his first date with the Coach's daughter early because his grandmother, who he lives with and takes care of has one of her bouts of dementia. in this scene, he rushes home and results to singing to his crying grandmother through the locked door to calm her down. his forced, accelerated maturity as a teenager is really put into perspective in that moment. it's one of my favorite scenes.

as for the female characters, i think the Coach's wife is great in that "stand by your man" kind of way. their daughter Julie, the object of Saracen's affection, is kind of a dumbass though. i tried to give her a chance, but she's such an idiot it was hard to. i hate that the character had potential to be cool in the beginning, but turned out the complete opposite for the rest of all 3 seasons. such a waste.

and that chick Lyla, played by Minka Kelly, ex girlfriend of Jason Street, and cheerleader turned bible thumper. i hated her since the shows pilot episode. hated her. i think it has to do with the fact that she speaks in a baby voice all the time, is annoying, and tries to project this image of perfection by being all sweet and shit, even after Street's life altering accident. bitch, your boyfriend is never going to walk again, let him think the world is ending for a second instead of shoving false hope down his throat. her voice is so stupid to listen to, i had to forward through most of her scenes by season 3. i can't believe they haven't killed her off the show yet for being useless, but phased Street and Smash out by season 3. also, the New York Times called Minka Kelly's acting "heartbreaking".

oh really?

sorry for the rant, but yeah. season 3 might be the shows last? i don't know if this is definite but i really hope NBC comes up with something to keep FNL on the air. it's frustrating that overly dramatic garbage like One Tree Hill is reaching its 7th season while a smart, simple high school show with realistic storylines and an amazing cast doesn't get renewed.

that's all i have to talk about right now.

zr cracked at 5:15 PM

January 08, 2009

war all the time.
now playing: Joe Strummer - Ramshackle Day Parade

"Palestine belongs to the Arabs in the same sense that England belongs to the English or France to the French." - Gandhi

zr cracked at 9:10 AM

January 05, 2009

those who tell the truth shall live forever.
now playing: Explosions In the Sky - Snow and Lights


earlier today Carol from Canada and i decided to head to the Prudential and have lunch at the Cheesecake Factory.




we were walking through the neighborhood when i lost my balance on some sleet, did the splits and landed on my side. as if this wasn't funny in itself, Carol followed suit, plunging backwards impressively and landed on top of me. this immediately reminded me of a Craig David interview from years ago when he revealed his most embarrassing moment that happened on a date. he and his girl had been ice skating when he slipped, did the splits and farted. with that image in my mind, i laughed the whole way to the Prudential.

oh and we walked on the street the rest of the way.




it's probably just me, but i find the Cheesecake Factory's wait staff attire really unattractive. the whole white dress code just comes off as too saintly. and kind of reminds me of the Red Crescent Society. and just weird in a mental institution sort of way.




not a bad meal. Carol had her bible with her to catch up on bible study and i asked what the passage from John 3:16 was, since it's always referenced in pop culture. i have my own copy of the New Testament which was handed to me by one of those street Christians last year as i was walking out of the college, but i keep forgetting to look it up. "let's check and see," Carol says, thumbing through her copy.



she asked me to read the passage aloud, which i found incredibly poetic and sad. "you should convert to Christianity," she says thoughtfully, as an invitation. i've heard this several times before from others, though they approached the matter with more emphasis on the fact that i would burn in the fiery pits of hell if i did not heed their advice. i tell her i'm pretty devoted to my own beliefs, though i believe in Jesus nevertheless. "He's mentioned in the Quran," i say, to which she reacts with complete shock. the more you know.

last night i watched The Fall. interesting concept, and kind of trippy. Lee Pace was nice to stare at, but holy crap, i want to babysit that little girl forever and tell her all of my dumbest stories.

to Greg who left the comment - that video defined a park bench moment so precisely it hurt. "sit in perfect silence but love every second." a friend of mine once told me that his definition of real companionship is when you can sit with someone without saying a word and leave feeling like you just had the best conversation. thanks for remembering that ancient post, and for sharing the short film, i love it. everyone should see it.

zr cracked at 7:24 PM

January 03, 2009

things.
now playing: Ne-Yo - Closer







i've been snacking way too much on this stuff. ingredients are milk, rice, sugar, eggs, salt, and natural flavors. none of that artificial stuff.

it's the shit!






underrated film of last year. set in the summer of 1994 when "the girls were fly, the music was dope, and Luke was just trying to deal."

the awesome soundtrack carried the film, i think, considering it pretty much consisted of 90's music, when hip hop was in it's prime. everything from A Tribe Called Quest to Smashing Pumpkins. Mary Kate Olsen's annoying pothead character kind of bugged me though. i like her and everything, but girl needs to start shopping for some roles that do her favors.





easily one of the most fantastic films i've ever seen, based on the book Q & A by Vikas Swarup and directed by Danny Boyle. the child actors, picked from the actual slums of Mumbai, stole the whole film. amazing cinematography, dialogue, acting, and bad ass soundtrack. i like M.I.A. and all but the soundtrack could've done without her. i mean the whole thing was produced by legendary Indian composer A.R. Rahman - famous for his experimental use of traditional/cultural instrumentation fused with sick beats. truthfully, M.I.A.'s overhyped Paper Planes is the weakest track. i had to download the album off of Amazon because my Limewire is a bitch.

stand out tracks :

Mausam and Escape
Latika's Theme (the whole song is just a lady humming, and it's beautiful!)
Jai Ho
O...Saya (featuring M.I.A.)

i don't know if any of you recall, but another one of his Hindustani songs was featured in Spike Lee's Inside Man during the opening credits, and i remember thinking how completely and hilariously random that was.

extra love for the use of Sigur Ros' Hoppipolla in the second half of the trailer.



i like the Olsen twins, always have. they just don't seem to give a shit about what the media and bloggers say about them, or some of the questionable fashion choices they make. who cares? i've flipped through their book Influence when it was launched some time ago, but am still on the fence about getting it. cool pictures, nice stories, and a glimpse into their creativity..if you bought the book, what're your thoughts?


"I saw how people related to the characters’ stories as much as the cars and action.”
- Vin Diesel on returning for Fast and the Furious 4


also i just checked my grades online and did alright, except for Marketing which the professor gave me an IP for. so i e-mailed him immediately and demanded an explanation and he just replied saying i didn't do any of the exams or turn in any assignments, thus earning me an incomplete for the course.

what the fuck? he's telling me somehow all the work i did for the class miraculously disappeared and now i'm left hanging with a faltering GPA. now i have to prove that i did all the work and took the exam. not that big of a problem since i saved the e-mail attachments i sent to him and they're dated, but the exam..i passed it in on the last day of class and he must've misplaced it. this shit is stressing me out.

happy new year guys,
have a really great one and go crazy.
my friend Clive Owen agrees.

zr cracked at 12:02 AM

December 30, 2008

down to the lockdown.
now playing: Bon Iver - Blindsided


yesterday i was a ghost. except that i was visible, and people stopped to ask my name, ethnicity, hold doors open, ask, how are you? go figure.

i checked my mailbox downstairs a few hours ago and found that i'd gotten a package from Gary, who's all the way in Wichita, Kansas. he'd sent me a Christmas present. when i asked him why he went through the trouble, he replied simply, because you didn't ask for anything. logic, it seems, is interpreted differently for different people. i understood his logic and where he was coming from. personally i can't think of anything more embarrassing than asking someone for material items you want or writing down a list. i don't know. it's like, way to sound like a greedy bastard. but hey, to each his own.

he got me a vintage Quartz pocket watch! what's funny is that i love watches, which Gary has never known. and if i could start a valuable collection of anything it would be that. this fascination grew once i realized in high school that i could never leave the house without a watch on because i am always trying to keep up with time.

i can't sleep still, so i'm watching Slumdog Millionaire for the second time, the most amazing film i've seen all year.

today i am still a ghost.

zr cracked at 3:46 AM

December 27, 2008

zr cracked at 1:52 AM

December 22, 2008

suddenly there is a tidal wave.
now playing : Yael Naim - Far Far





how can you stay outside, there's a beautiful mess inside.

zr cracked at 10:32 PM

December 20, 2008

we go hard.
now playing: Santogold - Shove It


the snow storm finally hit the pacific northeast yesterday. looks like it'll be a white Christmas after all.

last night i was standing outside the building, taking in how beautiful everything looked, from the empty streets people had taken to walking on because the sidewalks were impossible to shovel, to the clear sky. also, all the people who think snow is all about giggly snowball fights and building snowmen, no.



view from my window last night.

question : what's worse than being snowed in?

being snowed in and realizing that you forgot to stock up on food supplies, leaving you with two options - waiting out the storm until Sunday and starving, or making the trek to 7 Eleven against the wind, snow, and slush.

i woke up this morning deciding i could handle walking across the street. even with boots on, nothing is more terrible than trudging through gross slush, slipping and sliding and trying not to fall on your face.

i finished my last paper for Lit on Thursday. i'm going to miss that class. on Wednesday night i took the Business final, which was both funny and stressful. funny because when i handed in my paper, the professor, who i'd gotten the inkling disliked having me in her class based on two different occasions, was suddenly surprisingly nice to me. the first time, she flat out asked me at the beginning of the semester, "why are you even taking this class?" considering it had nothing to do with my major. the second time, i went to see her at her office and revealed that i was having trouble writing my 15 page business plan (i was opening a restaurant and cafe, as unoriginal as that sounds) and the financial statements since i've never taken accounting in my life and never plan to. "i'm not surprised," she replied bluntly. pretty much a slap in the face, but i'm used to the discouraging educator types.

set aside the fact that i took a Business class merely to leave my comfort zone and explore, because not everyone ends up working in the field they hold a degree in. i mean i've always wanted to pursue writing, as laughably bad i am at it, but i also have other interests that i may have some minuscule amount of talent in. i just don't know where they actually lie. the real issue is that reverse psychology doesn't really work on me. besides the fact that i don't like being told what to do, having to prove myself to anyone is something i don't practice. because, well, why does anyone else's opinion of you have to matter when they didn't give you a chance in the first place? i don't see it as succumbing to their low expectations, but more like, there are a number of more important things i could be doing for myself, than having to prove anyone and their perception of me wrong. sorry, your half-assed opinions aren't the pinnacle of my being.

i stuck with the class because it was too late to drop it, and to stop going meant i'd regret it later on.

so when this professor handed me back my heavily researched 15 page business plan, along with my grades for the presentation on it i did (i got a B+), she suddenly added, in all seriousness, that if i wanted, "you and your brother can work on the financial projections for the restaurant and come see me. i can help if you both actually want to pursue this."

i won't get into detail about the so-called restaurant, due to the main "highlight" or competitive streak it features that makes it slightly original for the downtown Boston area, but i do have my dad to thank for being on the phone with me and helping with the brainstorming when i couldn't come up with ideas. also, she mentioned my brother because i listed him as co-owner of the family owned "company". plus he's a Business major so that gave the company some credibility i guess. it only dawned on me at that moment how professors here, especially those in the Business/Marketing department, take their students and their ideas seriously, that connections for the real world really do start in college.

"i heard them all say that i got heart, but not everything that it takes."

this wasn't to brag about my sporadic accomplishments or whatever, but only to maintain that good outcomes really are possible through those little, insignificant things called optimism and self-fulfillment, and not by kissing the professor's ass.

after the final paper on Thursday, i walked down Newbury Street to get tea. i also stopped in an optical store to look at glasses since i've been wearing my lopsided green ones for nearly three years already. on certain days, i'm the worst person to shop with because i am incredibly indecisive and picky. it's so bad that even i can't stand myself in those moments. so i spent about an hour and a half in the store, which had the best customer service i've ever experienced and then had an eye exam. so the two ladies attending to me were awesome. one looked like an older, red-headed version of Uma Thurman and was boisterous while the other was the complete opposite. i was torn between two different frame styles and kept switching between the two in front of the mirror.

"i like this one but doesn't it make my face look...mean? because i get that a lot," i asked the quiet girl.

after a pause she replied, "i don't think it's the glasses."

best response ever.

it came to the point where some guy waiting for his eye exam appointment joined in our debate of which frame looked better on me. "let's ask a man's opinion!" Dolly, the red head called to the guy when she caught him watching us. so i tried the first one, with a rounder and more retro look, and then switched to the more classic, tortoise-shell frame. "that one," the guy said immediately. "it looks really sophisticated."

the downside of shopping alone is having no second opinions, but having everyone in the store offer their honest two cents was a major relief. i mean this thing will be on my face for the next 2-3 years. after another 20 minutes of indecisiveness, i settled on the classic pair, since i'm not good at following trends anyway. they took half an hour to be ready, in which time i walked over to Boloco and had dinner.

i can't believe 2008 is almost over, but then again i say the same thing every year.

zr cracked at 2:10 PM

December 16, 2008

zr cracked at 8:34 PM

December 13, 2008

zr cracked at 8:43 PM

December 12, 2008

can't pay attention.
now playing: The National - Slow Show

what happens when you procrastinate and let work pile up.

yesterday Damian told me he fell in love. "that's exciting," i say, happy for him. he glows, and looks helpless. like he doesn't know what to do with himself and all those newfound feelings.

on Thanksgiving, everyone had left and the building was silent. i was standing in the elevator alone with one of the guys that weekend. surprised to see him, i asked if he hadn't left for the holiday, and after a pause he told me he didn't get along with his family. i felt bad for him. "sorry to hear that," i said, and he gave a helpless smile. like he didn't know what to do with himself.

this week wasn't the greatest. i was reflective most of the time. i did all the things i was supposed to do, and didn't run away from situations i normally would've. sometimes i receive anonymous and not so anonymous e-mails from people who follow this blog, and though i do not know any of them personally, the things they have to say are sometimes incredibly personal and painful that the honesty kind of floors me. i wish i were that courageous in sharing or opening up, even with a complete stranger. most times, i don't know how to reply to their stories because every response would sound generic, recycled. and you know what sucks is having your stories go ignored. take it from me.

i got to class early yesterday morning. it was empty, and i was sitting in my usual seat at the very back. do you ever get tired of talking? knowing your words almost always fall on deaf ears? communication is so wasted sometimes. i no longer find it humorous or strange when i overhear people talking silently to themselves, and turns out there are many. all those little things you are worrying about, all these people making you feel small and miserable because you're not like them, they only seem to matter at your worst moments.

- - -

finals week means a couple of things. it means no time to wash my hair, or giving any thought to the day's outfit. i didn't wear a bra out for three days, which was okay since i wore three layers and a jacket over that. i guess i am kind of a mess right now. i stared at myself in the college restroom's mirror and felt helpless. like i didn't know what to do with myself.

zr cracked at 9:00 PM

December 10, 2008

patient.
now playing : Bon Iver - Skinny Love

to bun's who left the comment, you're welcome and thank you, too.



a few early mornings ago while eating breakfast at Au Bon Pain, my dad called while having dinner with my brother. he put me on speaker as they ate their pizza, and he asked, "who're you eating with?"

"alone," i replied, since i can't think of anyone here who'd want to have breakfast at 6.30am anyway. i heard him pause and chew on his pizza, probably exchanging smirks with my brother, and then he said, "get a boyfriend, Zihan."

i mean the nerve. i should've just blamed him for my being single. through the years, he's offered only one major piece of advice to his children - "don't look into the eyes! that's where it all begins!" sucks for me, i kind of applied that advice to my life. turns out that i always try to distance myself from the guys i find most attractive or appealing. so you can imagine how many potential relationships i've let pass before me because i can't bring myself to look into their eyes, but instead look right through them. thanks, pops.

there is a girl in my Lit class who read The Namesake for the final analysis as well. she's Pakistani and has been living in Boston for all of her 22 years. yesterday we met up in the library to discuss the book for our presentation tomorrow. we spent most of the time trying to figure out a way to delicately touch on the fact that Westerner's are generally more reluctant to embrace other cultures when it comes to relationships and marriage, one of the issues portrayed in the novel.

she goes on to tell me about a couple she knows, a girl from a strict Muslim family and a liberal American guy from Boston. they got married in a traditional Pakistani wedding, right down to the food and music, with no complaints from the guy or his family.

"he's like the whitest guy ever, i'm not even kidding," she said. "they were such an unlikely match, but it was amazing how it turned out."

"how white are we talking?" i asked.

"his name is Matt."

there is no whiter name than Matt. the rest of the discussion was spent talking about the opposite sex and our own qualms with relationships. i haven't had the opportunity to have a serious conversation about all that guy stuff with a normal (i stress the word normal) girl for the longest time, so it was cool to finally be able to unload a little.

zr cracked at 12:36 PM

December 07, 2008

this road is strange.
now playing : Raphael Saadiq - Sometimes



Amazon.com just recommended this book to me while i was browsing for texts relating to my Protest Literature project.

i protest!

obviously this is a huge form of flattery for some women. for the rest of us, thanks for further establishing our insecurities and fueling self-conscious issues. pervs.

i'd totally read the book though. just sayin.



last Wednesday i nearly got hit by a car. it was after an evening class and i was crossing the street from the T station. the guy in the SUV realized he'd gone down the wrong street and reversed swiftly without looking in the rear view mirror, thus coming inches to colliding with me before i dodged out of the way. only then did he see me and raised his hand apologetically, right after catching the brazen what the fuck look i gave him.

last week was a little nuts. from writing a 15 page paper for my business class the day before it was due, finishing The Namesake, and returning stuff i'd bought. "you need to be banned from shopping," C.Wood said, who has taken upon himself the task of trying to steal my receipts after i buy something. he speaks the truth, kind of. i'm never really satisfied with my purchases, often ending up thinking once i get home, why'd i buy this?

maybe i'm just engaging in retail therapy and don't even realize it. i can't help it. all the things i want in life don't come with a price tag.

up until 2 months ago i didn't know what Twilight was. the insanity surrounding the whole movie was unavoidable, so i watched it the other night. the movie fails in logic. and dialogue. basically it was the most awkward film i've ever seen and i pretty much laughed through the whole thing. truthfully, it was so bad it was good. i'm indifferent to the acting, but i love Robert Pattinson's music and his off-screen personality. kind of unfortunate that he won't be pursuing music as his career choice because his stuff is amazing.

on Tuesday's and Thursday's, after my 8.30am class, i have 4 hours to kill before the next one (due to crappy scheduling on my part), so i usually head back towards Back Bay to get breakfast and chill in Barnes & Noble to get work done or pore over a couple magazines i'd never spend money on. coincidentally this is when the baristas at the cafe (which isn't a Starbucks but they serve Starbucks beverages) go around offering free samples of the season's newest drinks. i've tried the Gingersnap Latte and the Peppermint Mocha Twist so far.

let me tell you, that shit is gross. holiday drinks at Starbucks are generally puke inducing, what with the whole overwhelming mesh of flavors and sweetness diluting the original taste - i am genuinely amused at how people can consume that diabetic concoction with so much delight.

okay, they're living freely, enjoying what they can while they can, no need to be so uptight. i support living life in the fast lane without a care in the world, but case in point - it doesn't even taste good enough to cost that much.

as an end note, i'm leaving the awesome people who still check this blog with Sometimes by Raphael Saadiq off his latest album The Way I See It, my jam for this early Sunday morning. take it easy wherever you guys are.

zr cracked at 3:30 AM

December 03, 2008

zr cracked at 2:03 AM

November 28, 2008

zr cracked at 9:21 PM

November 26, 2008

simple things.
now playing: Incubus - The Warmth




earlier tonight after getting home from hanging out downtown, i sat in the garden for awhile to have a cigarette. a couple of the guys, who i swear are always high, came out to smoke and ended up pulling up chairs by me, interrupting my unending alone time. i didn't really mind though.

sometimes, i shut myself off from the rest of the world a little longer than planned. it becomes easier to lose yourself in time the more it passes until it takes a completely random person to remind me and step in and seize control of the moment. resurfacing, participating once again outside of your own private place.

the guy sitting on my left, who introduced himself as Michael with a handshake, struck up a conversation. "so what's your big dream for the future?" he asked, after asking what i was majoring in and revealing that he liked to read books too. i would've given him a straight answer but it was mostly the weed talking so i just said, "i haven't really thought about that."

he persisted, claiming everyone has given at least some thought to the future. so i told him what has become the embarrassing yet automatic response each time someone asks such questions, "whatever that has to do with writing, i guess."

after some more conversing i got up to leave and said good night.

"i think you're gonna write the greatest book ever written," he called after me right before i walked into the building.

most outrageous statement of the year - 2008 for me is now complete.

zr cracked at 2:52 AM

November 25, 2008

it won't be hard to find.
now playing: Stevie Wonder - I Believe (When I Fall In Love It Will Be Forever)


it's late and i'm tired and these photos pretty much sum up the past week, from spending a few hours sitting around Logan Airport reading The Namesake (which coincidentally mentioned Logan right as i started reading in the terminal), late night snacking, indulging in new music and old TV shows, hanging around scenic Portland, Maine and the usual bouts of vanity.

shattered dreams, worthless years,
here am I encased inside a hollow shell
life began, then was done
now I stare into a cold and empty well

the many sounds that meet our ears,
the sights our eyes behold
will open up our merging hearts
and feed our empty souls

zr cracked at 2:05 AM

November 15, 2008

resume.

zr cracked at 10:52 PM

November 14, 2008

pretend.
now playing: Kanye West - Heartless

let's talk about being a broke college student in these bad economic times.

i have returned nearly everything i bought in the past 2 months.

Ramen noodles save my life more times than i can count.

i owe T-Mobile $250 for leaving the country in June without paying my bills.

i walk everywhere unless going to school and have to take the T.

it pisses me off when you pay $80 for a "required" textbook and then use it a total of three times the whole semester.

Au Bon Pain's $1.60 egg and cheese breakfast bagels are my life.

Marlboro's are about eight bucks here.

looks like i'll be busking on the streets next. i don't know what my act will be. i don't have a guitar, and i can't break dance. guess that leaves miming.

there's also the option of asking my parents for money. apart from the education and rent they've already invested in my 24 year old ass, i don't ever ask them for money.

what're some of the crazy things you guys have done to stay afloat in times of financial duress? starving is a given. let's look at it as sort of like fasting. although my mom thinks i'm having meals at the Cheesecake Factory on a daily basis because sometimes you just need to lie to make moms sleep better at night. just don't tell her that.

earlier i ran into N in the hallway. the tension between us has since deteriorated because holding grudges is fucking tiring. so in neighborly fashion, we continue to talk once in awhile in our run-ins. one of her obligatory questions is, "how about guys? are you dating any?"

my usual response would be a chuckle and a no, but this time i told her about the recent guy i'd met. she screeched with excitement and hit me on the shoulder. i refused to reveal who he was, so she started telling me about three guys she'd just met who wanted to be friends with benefits. what can i say, my stories just pale in comparison. can't compete with that.

zr cracked at 1:24 AM

November 10, 2008

zr cracked at 1:22 PM

November 08, 2008

waiting for the day.
now playing: Beirut - Scenic World


the week in review :

for Immigrant Literature our individual book analysis is to be based on one of the novels listed on the list passed out earlier this week. among the books included on the list were

• The Color Purple by Alice Walker
• I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou
• Roots by Alex Haley
• The House On Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros
• The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri
• How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents by Julia Alvarez
• T'is by Frank McCourt
  
• House of Sand and Fog by Andre Dubus
• The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini
• Funny In Farsi by Firoozen Dumas
• West of Kabul; East of New York by Ansari Tamin
• Between Worlds by Amy Ling

i had a hard time choosing from the ones selected above, except for The Kite Runner which i've read one too many times so it felt too easy, like i'd be cheating. most of the books are old, i know, and it's made me realize how far behind i am in my general reading. i haven't even seen the film version of House of Sand and Fog, which always gets reactions of disbelief when i say so because it's supposed to be incredible, i've heard. same goes for Spielberg's adaptation of The Color Purple. i ended up going with Jhumpa Lahiri's The Namesake because i loved the film version and had been meaning to read the novel anyway, so this was a good reason to get to it.

last Tuesday after my 2.30 - 5.00pm Marketing class i was adamant on keeping myself going because i have been going to bed as early as 7pm these days. i walked down Newbury Street and had a drink at Tealuxe, and then went by Boloco to have dinner. it was election night and people were lined up outside Ben & Jerry's for the free ice cream they were giving out, and some others wore their Obama 08 t-shirts. there was a buzz in the air, and i stood outside of Boloco with my Mediterranean burrito just people watching for awhile in the night chill.

later that night Obama was announced the 44th President of the United States.


cooler than you.

a few people asked me why i cried. i didn't get their indifference as much as they didn't get my enthusiasm. but here is a quote i read in one of the forums on Boston.com that night, that i feel sums up most of the reasons :

overheard at one of the polling stations in the city,

(polling attendee to a lady standing in line) : have you been waiting a long time?
lady : about 200 years.

when it comes down to it, all those years of reading and watching films about slavery and lynching, white supremacy, the KKK still in operation in this day and age, the determination of human rights leaders and black activists from Martin Luther King to Rosa Parks, the fights and struggles for equality and an end to segregation, Tupac rapping about seeing no changes and that America "ain't ready to see a black president", Mos Def claiming in the Bill Maher Real Time interview earlier this year, "i shouldn't have to live in two America's", the expressions on everyone's faces when Obama won, the United States being the most powerful country in the world yet the most flawed in my opinion, Bush and his administration creating a mess that affected the rest of the world that a black man will now attempt to clean up.

much of that history was won over on November 4th, and it was overwhelming to witness even as a non citizen. it was a jubilation of human progress for me - that's why i cried.

"i voted for Obama for you," Joe told me on Thursday in class. this after i asked him the week before if he was voting for Obama, and he said he didn't think he was even going to cast a vote for the presidential candidate ballot because he didn't think Obama nor McCain were capable of being president.

also, someone stole Joe's bag with his textbooks and wallet in it while he went to get something to eat at the cafeteria. probably not the best idea to leave your bag in an empty class, but then again who sneaks into classrooms and steals bags? that's such a shitty hobby, get a new one. his bag never turned up too, poor guy.

Obama's newly elected chief of staff is Rahm Emanuel, a 48 year old Jewish Democrat from Chicago. he previously worked as an adviser during the Clinton administration. his brother, Ari Emanuel, is the super Hollywood agent that the character Ari from HBO's Entourage is based on.


i don't really have much else to say on the topic, i just used this as an excuse to post his photo from GQ here because damn, that is one fine looking man.

zr cracked at 3:25 PM

November 02, 2008

lights out.
now playing: Kings of Leon - Manhattan


i checked my mailbox this morning on my way out to breakfast to find Halloween candy inside. candy rules. jeah!




i think i slept through Halloween night and the raucous in the streets outside, i can't remember. i also slept through the calls from C.Wood, who had insisted weeks beforehand that i show for the party him and his roommates were throwing at their house that night. my bad. not that i would've gone anyway, due to a couple of obvious reasons :

1. saving money means going over to Providence less.
2. i'm the asshole that shows up at Halloween parties without a costume.
3. i find interacting with people a strenuous feat in general, so interacting with drunk people would make it an even more complex situation.

to prove so, the last Halloween party i went to was back in Nilai College, where a group of us ADP students drove out in several cars to a vacant spot by the KL International Airport. beer was passed around, and some people went off to dark corners after awhile to make out only because there was nothing else to do. i ended up hanging out in the open trunk of someone's car with a guy who will go unnamed. he was already drunk, and i was awkward being the only one who didn't drink, which made some of the others, namely Muslims, uncomfortable and startled when they handed me a beer and i said nah. it's moments like those that remind me why i don't do parties anymore. the irony is that while you are not openly judging those around you who drink and stumble around puking, you are being judged and ridiculed because you don't.

long story short, i was sitting there with this guy, just smoking a cigarette, watching the planes take off in the distance when he suddenly suggested we make out. i declined and he passed out in the trunk a minute later.

also, dressing as a slut does not a costume make. i know it's been the trend these past few Halloweens to go as Slutty College Chick, but really. unoriginal much.

i'm excited for the start of a new month. i can't explain it.

zr cracked at 3:00 PM

October 29, 2008

zr cracked at 4:52 AM

October 27, 2008

stray.
now playing: Tegan and Sara - Back in Your Head





i have a critical analysis on a James Welch novel we just finished reading for class due on Tuesday. the first draft i did last week was terrible so i'm basically doing the whole thing over and going through the book again, which i actually kind of liked. but it's 4.30am and my mind drifted after ten minutes. another day without sleep. shit sucks but what can you do.

zr cracked at 4:10 AM

October 24, 2008

to resist it is useless.
now playing : Cake - Comfort Eagle


C.Wood and i were talking about Halloween coming up next Friday and how his roommate and him had been planning on spending a night in Salem, a city several miles north of Boston. if you've taken American History or are familiar with the Salem Witch Trials, you'd already know why the town is an obvious stop for October 31st. too bad for them, the only B&B in Salem, they found out, doesn't book for stays less than 3 nights.

i suggested they stay at the famous Borden House in Fall River instead to which C.Wood instantly responded, "hell no." can't blame him, considering weird shit has been known to go down when guests stay over in the rooms where the murders took place. but then again weren't they looking to get spooked to begin with? what a bunch of wimps.

the other night after class while waiting for my food to be ready at the Thai restaurant, i decided to drop in the Apple store that opened next door earlier this year, hailed as the largest in the US and second largest in the world. so i had to check it out. not really. i just decided i should finally get a new ipod cable charger because i'd left mine in KL and hadn't used my ipod in months.




anyway, still not impressed. i'm biased though, and i'm sure there are a lot of hardcore Apple loyals who'd disagree and tell me to shove it. it was basically 3 floors of large open space in my opinion. one of the employees helped me find the charger, which was 20 bucks. my initial reaction was, fuck that. but then i got it. better than letting a still functional ipod go to waste. Apple employee then whipped out a portable credit card machine from his pocket, and did the transaction right there on the spot. i was amused, i admit, especially when he suddenly read my e-mail address from the tiny screen and asked if he should just e-mail me the receipt. i give credit where it's due, so yeah that was pretty cool.

imagine if i'd deliberately chosen to be a difficult customer and ruin the coolness factor of Apple's futuristic methods by asking for an in store receipt. "no, you shouldn't e-mail it to me, i want it now."

for some reason this reminds me of the time my sister and i were driving down Newbury Street last year and she asked me to run into a Starbucks to get her a drink. always something to avoid based on much experience, because my sister is absurdly particular of how she wants her beverage made. the theme song from Psycho plays when you hand her the drink, no joke. because that is the moment where she takes the first sip and either grimaces and soon after tosses the drink in the nearest trash can, or continues drinking it and no one feels like an idiot.

so i'm leaning down by the passenger side window, waiting for her instructions. she wants something complicated and makes me repeat the order about 5 times - a grande, decaf, 3 pump vanilla, 2 and a half pump hazelnut, low fat, no foam, extra-extra caramel drizzle caramel macchiato. and then i asked in annoyance, "well what size do you want?"

she just stares at me and asks, "are you stupid?"

man i kinda miss her.

season 3 premiere of 30 Rock already premiered on the NBC site before the television release set for October 30th. i watched it twice just because i missed it that much. also, still hilarious.

zr cracked at 6:15 AM

October 21, 2008

the fail train.

i had the Lit midterm this morning. Lit exams kind of suck because it requires a lot of writing, and i'm really bad at writing on the spot in short time limits. imagine that episode of Mr. Bean where he's taking that exam and only figures out a few minutes before the exam is over that he was looking at the wrong paper the whole time and then rabidly tries to answer the correct paper even after the time was up and his hand is flying off the exam booklet trying to write as much as possible and the overseer starts yelling at him. everyone has a Mr. Bean moment they can relate to, i better not be the only one.

maybe it's the 8.30am thing. don't get me wrong, i like early morning classes because it's a great way to haul yourself out of bed and be productive, but then there's also the possibility that you will result to this sort of fuckery :



amazing. i don't even remember writing that. it was from a quiz we had a few weeks ago but i only realized what i'd written this morning when going through previous quizzes and laughed at my own inanity. notice how the professor didn't even bother asking what it even meant. kids, let this be a lesson; get enough sleep and invest in a thesaurus.

zr cracked at 11:33 AM

October 19, 2008

panache.
now playing: Sia - Soon We'll Be Found


not gonna lie, drunk people frighten me. especially ones who hump lamp posts as i realized last night.




i was hungry this morning so i went in search of breakfast. i have been watching season 9 of Law and Order : SVU these past few nights so the walk through the still dark neighborhood suddenly prompted me to look over my shoulder every few minutes. sometimes i forget that i could be a potential victim due to my habitual fearlessness i don't know where i picked up from, especially when it comes to dangerous activities like taking walks or breathing. i forget that i don't know any self-defense moves, neither do i carry pepper spray in my bag like i used to back in KL. sometimes i forget that i'm a female, yes really, because all i feel that i am most of the time is simply another person.

my fragility was put into perspective this past summer when i was in KL driving my car alone late one night where i then made a stop at a gas station. no one was around except for an older man probably in his 40's, using the pump in front of me. he was already there when i pulled in, and as i started filling the tank of my car, he was already about to get back into his. except that he didn't, but waited for me to be done by stalling, taking his time to put his credit card away in his wallet and examining the receipt in his hand. he stood there the whole time until i was done and got back into my car, started the engine and pulled away, only then did he get into his car. it had been a subtle gesture on his part, though still noticeable, and i realized the whole time that i had greatly appreciated it.

- - -

my brother and i have this thing we do where we try to outdo each other with quoting Samuel L. Jackson lines from his movies, with facial expressions, tone and everything. usually we do it at the most random times, which makes it funnier than it should be. The Negotiator had some good lines, and basically the whole Coach Carter script was a laughfest if you watched it as many times as we did. the other night i was watching old Dave Chappelle Show episodes and came across the Samuel Jackson Beer skit i'd never seen before.

A Time to Kill is one of my favorite Samuel L. Jackson/racism related films. that movie is jammed with awesome lines, and Dave Chappelle was dead on in the skit. how i laughed.

zr cracked at 6:52 PM

October 14, 2008

dear diary,

life is kinda hard.

also, grass is green.



Mixtape from http://favtape.com/zihanr/Autumn In Boston



what songs do you have on your playlist that gets you through the days? pat yourself on the back, because getting through the day sometimes is a big fucking deal. i would know.

my tunes are keeping me safe. and mystical experiences abound. it's kind of like being on drugs, except that it works.

also, on a completely unrelated note, this morning in class we were discussing Robert Pinsky's poem Shirt when the professor asked where most American clothing is made. the guy sitting in the seat in front of me said, "third world countries, like Malaysia and Indonesia."

zr cracked at 6:38 PM

October 12, 2008

queen of the streets.
now playing : Ray Lamontagne - Hannah



these days are best accompanied with the music of Ray Lamontagne. Amazon.com defines one of my favorite albums by him, Trouble, with "LaMontagne has crafted a handful of quietly devastating meditations on life and love...a great disc for smoky Saturday nights, and rainy Sunday mornings." or walking through the deserted streets at 6am right as the sun starts to shine it's light. the streets are almost like people, i thought the other morning. they have names, and if you walk them long enough, you get to know them. perfect.

N hasn't stopped calling me ever since that strange day she threw a tantrum in public. to be honest, i had been avoiding her, but a few nights after the incident i was coming home from buying dinner and she was standing in the lobby of the building and saw me coming in. she waved and as i walked towards the elevators, she asked where i'd been and basically acted like nothing had happened between us.

"you just left me that day," she said to me in an accusing baby voice.

"yeah you were yelling at me in the middle of the street?"

she giggled, saying, "i was just angry."

she tried to strike up a normal conversation and asked me to hang out with her in the living room, but i said i was going upstairs to eat and study for midterms.

my brother, who got a huge kick out of the outing incident, suggested that she had a split personality and doesn't even realize it. i wouldn't doubt it, considering how she seems to shift between semi-normal and erratic so damn unexpectedly. it would explain a lot. and also now makes me feel a little bad.

the other night, walking from the T station after my evening class, i heard someone call, "yo, Z" from behind. Felix walked me the few blocks to my building, and we had a silly conversation about energy drinks and male strippers. i can't remember why. he and Ben, another one of the other guys who works at 7 Eleven, have been trying to get me to go to a club with them just to hang out. i would go just for the hilarity factor of hanging out with them outside of their workplace, but then clubs are the last place i'd hang out in.

zr cracked at 8:00 PM

October 11, 2008

zr cracked at 3:46 AM

October 05, 2008

nevermind what haters say.
now playing: T.I. - Whatever You Like

still got love for quaint Providence, R.I.



yesterday i got on a train and headed down to meet up with C.Wood. we haven't seen each other in five months because of, let's say, a misunderstanding. all is good now though. we cut through the Brown campus (seen above) to get to the apartment he'd just moved into nearby.

we hung out in his room for awhile listening to the new T.I. album, Paper Trail. amazing stuff. i can't decide if i hate or love the track he did with Rihanna, whose voice i can't stand, but also because they sampled beats from that crappy Numa Numa song. his sexiness and lyrics saves the song on the whole though so i guess i can overlook the annoying aspect of it.

"I'm the opposite of moderate, immaculately polished with the spirit of a hustler and the swagger of a college kid.
Allergic to the counterfeit, impartial to the politics.
Articulate but still I'll grab a nigga by the collar quick.
Whoever having problems with their record sales just holla 'tip.
If that don't work and all else fails, then turn around and follow 'tip.
I got love for the game but ay I'm not in love with all of it.
Could do without the fame and rappers nowadays are comically.
The hootin' and the hollerin', back and forth with the arguing.
Where you from, who you know, what you make and what kind of car you in.
Seems as though you lost sight of whats important when depositing them checks into your bank account and you up out of poverty.
Your values is in disarray, prioritizing horribly.
Unhappy with the riches cause you piss poor morally.
Ignoring all prior advice and fore warning.
And we mighty full of ourselves all of a sudden, aren't we?"

we also stopped by his old room at his mother's house to drop off some stuff and so he could check his mail.


guess who C.Wood's voting for come November 4.

we later walked downtown and had dinner at Murphy's. i got on the 10pm train back to Boston and was so damn tired i passed out once the train started moving until we pulled into the Back Bay station.

- - - -

the previous week has been one of the worsts i've had in awhile. what with the slight trouble with one of the classes i'm taking and Mike getting fired, the shit that went down on Friday afternoon was the definite cherry on the top that murdered the week.

it started with Naive Chick (let's call her N) sending me a text from her class asking if i wanted to have lunch at a Vietnamese restaurant in Allston nearby Boston College. having Friday's off, i tell her okay and i'll meet her at the train station after her class. i get there at 1.30 and she tells me sweetly once she appears, "you have to take care of me. i don't have any money."

that's strike number one.

if you suggest eating out at a restaurant that requires public transportation to get to, it is wise that you first not be broke. you're in your twenties, i'm not going to babysit you because you don't know how to handle your cash and blow it all on clubbing.

i let it pass because we were already out and i figured she could pay me back later. i don't know why i keep assuming that people will always pay me back though. you'd think after all these years of being taken advantage of i'd have learned my lesson by now. i may not do much ass kicking but i take down names. just sayin.

anyway. what you should also know about N (so that you'd have a good visual as this story unfolds) is that she is one of those girls who are used to be extremely sheltered and having their way. she has a shamelessly manipulative streak and giggles constantly to make herself seem more cute than retarded. in other words, she is the complete opposite of me and is the epitome of the kind of person i do not associate with. sadly, i learned all of this collectively on this very first outing with her.

so we head towards Copley Square to take the Green Line train to Allston and once we get to the station, she drops another bomb on me. "i don't have any money left on my Charlie Card."

a Charlie Card, for those who don't know, is the pass you can top up to ride the subway system in Boston, especially useful for college students.

so, strike number 2.

i had approximately $3.80 left on mine. already feeling dissuaded to continue with the plan, i suggested we just chill in Back Bay and find something cheap to eat. she refused, pulling me into the station. i told her even if i paid for her fare, there wouldn't be enough for the ride back. she seemed unfazed, so i shrugged and tapped the card twice, assuring myself mentally to keep my cool.

i ask her which line we have to get on (there are 3 heading down different routes) and she gets on the first train that comes by. three stops later she realizes we're on the wrong train and we get off at the Fenway stop. by now my patience is waning and i am quiet, uninterested in conversation with her and just people watching. once the next train comes by, i realize we have to pay again and tell her i only have enough money on the card for myself now. she rolls her eyes and accusingly informs me that she saw earlier that i had $3.80 on the card. i patiently explain to her that because i'd paid for the two of us earlier, i now only had enough for one person. she doesn't believe me, and we get on the train and i tap my card by the conductor. sure enough, my balance falls to $0.00 and the conductor looks at N, waiting for her to pay the fare. she tried to pull the innocent act and claim she didn't have any money on her but the conductor wasn't having any of it. we were holding up the crowded train of staring commuters so i told the conductor, "it's alright, i'll just get off." N shamelessly stood there asking for a refund for the fare i'd already paid. unbelievable.

when the train leaves, i tell her she's a mess and that i'd just paid $1.70 for nothing. what was i supposed to do, leave her there? she was unapologetic and just giggled. i could've topped up my card at the kiosk several feet away but in an act of defiance i refused to submit to being her bitch. i would rather walk a couple miles than easily fork out some money. which was exactly what we did. after walking a few blocks and lame conversation she started with "so have you met any hot guys lately?", we ended up around the Boston University campus and she pointed to another train and said we should get on that.

"do you not understand that we don't have any money?" i ask her.

"we can just get on, it's free," she replies confidently.

"that's not how it works.

"how much money do you have?" she asks.

"twenty bucks," i lie. she stares at me.

"that's not enough for lunch," is her catty response.

"well, i hadn't planned on paying for your meal too," i replied. i wouldn't be surprised if she was one of those thoughtlesspeople who orders the most expensive thing on the menu when someone else is paying.

she rolled her eyes and then asked, "do you want to go back to Back Bay?"

i said aight, even though i'd already suggested not leaving Back Bay before this mess even started to begin with. we start walking, but at that moment a good-looking BU student walks by us, distracting her. she walks over to him and asked if we had to pay a fare to get on the train. by now i was thinking, either this chick is seriously dumb or that's how she meets guys. if it's the latter, still means the former.

the guy says yeah, and she proceeds to sulk and whine about not wanting to pay the fare. he looks confused but is nice enough to suggest sneaking on to the train by using the doors in the middle of the car and hope the conductor doesn't see.

the whole time, i was looking for the way back and finally caught sight of the Prudential Towers in the far distant to our left.

"hey, Back Bay's right over there," i say, pointing. the guy looks over at me, smiles, raises his hand in goodbye and walks away.

N looks at me, pissed off for some reason. "we're not going that way. we're going to the restaurant," she snapped.

"you just said you want to head back," i said, my head hurting.

"no, i want to go to Allston," she whines.

"i have twenty bucks on me. you have nothing. i don't understand why we're even going. it's not worth the trouble. plus Allston is still a few miles down that way. look, we're going back, okay?"

that's when she lost it. she just turned to me and started going batshit crazy. by batshit crazy i mean she started yelling in the middle of the busy street.

"why are you mad at me?" she asked shrilly, like it was all supposed to be my fault. "i don't know why you're like this! and i was talking to that guy and you just interrupted me! why can't you just let me talk to him? you're so weird! you didn't have to interrupt me!"

people were staring, and i just wanted to slap her right then. i realized then that her intent was probably to hit on the cute BU student, and that i had ruined the chance for her. i guess i'd unintentionally cock blocked her. my bad.

but having broken English hurled at me smack in the middle of a college street by an unstable, backward chick - not having it.

"you need to calm down," i said, keeping my composure but embarrassed at the scene she was causing. "don't yell. i wasn't interrupting you, i don't know what you're talking about. we're in public. be normal."

"no, you be normal," she yelled even louder, "why are you so weird? i was just talking to him and you can't even let me say anything...," the shit went on like that, her calling me weird and accusing me of butting in on her flirting, if you could call it that. it wasn't my intent on denying her a lay for that night, but she must've been desperate because she just wouldn't stop yelling. this also made me think of that episode of Gilmore Girls where Mrs. Kim starts yelling at Zach on the street and he later tells Lane, "i can't have some short Korean chick yelling at me on the street, man." it's not as funny when it happens to you.

strike number 3.

i can take someone calling me weird. it wouldn't tear me up because it's not something i'd deny as partially, if not completely, true. i can take a person making fun of my strange habits and outlooks, haters who're uncomfortable with anything that's not conventional to their own standards, but if you're a raging lunatic you are in no position to be saying squat.

i responded to her yelling with a simple, "you know what, fuck this. i can't deal with you. you're crazy."

i turned and walked the few miles towards Back Bay. i think she walked in the opposite direction, i'm not sure because i didn't look back once. it was raining by the time i got to the intersection of Newbury Street, but i continued walking until i reached Tealuxe. C.Wood called me then, having just finished work, and i ordered a Mango Mist bubble tea and sat in the cafe telling him about the events that had lastly led me to Tealuxe. i talked his ear off and he listened sympathetically.

the hot chocolate C.Wood made for me yesterday came with this sentiment. how fitting.

how was your week?

zr cracked at 11:07 AM

October 03, 2008

square one.
now playing: One Republic - Come Home


Mike was fired on Wednesday morning.

it was also his birthday.

i won't get into details, but it was all based on bullshit and completely sneaky of those responsible.



the morning he was let go i came downstairs to have a cigarette and we sat in the garden for awhile like most nights the past month, talking. just normal conversation between kindred spirits. he kind of saw it coming, being let go, but i took an unusual moment to stop and tell him before i went back upstairs that i hoped he wouldn't get fired. unusual because i hardly ever meet a person so randomly that makes it feel so easy to talk and listen and to be myself, or to feel the genuine need to verbally express their importance to me.

he called me the next day to tell me the news. "i just want to let you know, don't be afraid to call me anytime," he said, "i know you're Asian, but you're part of the sisterhood now."

it's tiring to constantly have to go through the process of getting to know a person. all there is to learn, understand, take in, get used to. shit, it doesn't take a minute to open up to somebody else who seems worth the time. unless it were one of those rare occasions where you meet a person and have a fascinating five hour conversation with them right then and there, one that you probably wont have again for a long time, and then never see them again.

zr cracked at 7:12 AM

October 01, 2008

zr cracked at 10:12 AM

September 27, 2008

zr cracked at 8:44 AM

September 21, 2008

people.
now playing: The Great Fiction - Body Urge


this past week's been an interesting one. actually interesting is probably an understatement but who cares. all i can say is thank God it's the weekend.

last night Carol and i played a game of pool in the living room area of the building because it was Saturday night and we were bored. Carol lives on my floor, is from Canada and keeps me entertained with some of the most outrageous personal anecdotes i have ever heard.


she kicked my ass at the game. then we loitered around the building, and ended up in my room upstairs shooting the shit for awhile and playing music on my laptop.

before that two students living in the building walked up to me while i was standing outside on the phone with Gary. one of them, completely high on the joint he'd just smoked with his friend, proceeded to introduce himself as Parish and fired off a bunch of questions.

what's your name, he asked.

uh, Zihanna, i replied, trying to seem obvious that i was in the middle of a phone conversation.

Uhzihanna? he repeated.

after a moment of more nonsense, an open invitation to drop by his room, and then apologizing for being stoned, he lurched towards me and devoured me in a bear hug, squashing my face and phone against his right shoulder. he patted my back, shook my hand again, and then walked back into the building with smirking friend in tow.

a few days ago Mike and i went up to the rooftop to see the city skyline just as the sun was coming up and he told me a young girl had jumped off of the roof early last year.

it's become his thing to make fun of me for being a total homebody. from envisioning me settling down in Eu Claire, Wisconsin someday, to joking about me waking up some mornings and thinking, i think i'll go crazy today and head over to Barnes & Noble.

i didn't deny the small town possibility, though Eu Claire, Wisconsin wasn't exactly what i had in mind. the fact that he calls me a do-gooder with imaginary cape and all is, above all things hilarious. it's not a bad thing, to be seen not as a train-wreck by others but as someone simple and uncomplicated, even though secretly you might feel like a train-wreck and complicated. it's a conscious choice to wear it on the surface or an effort to hide it because either way, people see you the way they choose to. most of the time they are wrong, i think.

there is a girl in the building that everyone has come to know because of her promiscuous ways. i personally think she's a nice girl, just naive and curious. Mike suggested several times that i "take her under my wing" since she's become a subject of ridicule amongst the management and residents here. to put aside the fact that some of the guys living in the building are douchebags who take advantage of any gullible chick to begin with, this girl knows what she's doing, much like them.

zr cracked at 5:14 AM

September 12, 2008

just a thought.


i really wish Malaysia Airlines would stop claiming to be the world's best anything. that had to be said.

zr cracked at 11:54 PM

September 10, 2008

it's all about the pentiums.
now playing: Band of Horses - The General Specific


so last week i was folding laundry when i smelled something funny in the air. upon investigating i found that it was burning plastic. more specifically the plug adapter i'd bought in Newark for my laptop had melted and died.

anyone who knows me well enough understands the significance of my laptop, or the internet, to my daily life. the four leaf clover charm the newlyweds bought for my birthday was originally supposed to be a laptop charm before Rina talked Rezdi out of it. when my brother asked me once which i couldn't live without more, a cell phone or a laptop, i laughed. a lot of my life is stored in my beautiful black machine, from music i've collected over the years, to writings and photos, and of course the many websites i frequent religiously.

i had to drop into various stores for three days asking for plug adapters. people just gave me funny looks like i'd just asked them for a portable ghost detector. i finally had time to run over to Best Buy on Newbury Street before class today and found one for 20 bucks. way overpriced but i'm thinking this one will actually last.



i'd update with more stuff but right now i just got home from an evening class, have an assignment to get done for tomorrow, and need to eat the dinner i grabbed on the way back. Qdoba quite possibly makes the worst burritos ever known to man, but i usually end up at their store when i don't feel like walking further for something better.

zr cracked at 10:00 PM

September 02, 2008

hot as a fever.
now playing: Kings Of Leon - Sex On Fire




hey can fall come already?

this heat is making me lazy and greasy. plus it nearly made me pass out in the street the other night as detailed in the past post.

bitch, please, you're all thinking. you're Asian and from a country that boasts tropical weather practically year round. you don't get to whine about heat.

my conceited-like defense to that is i had a car back home. and air-conditioning. add to the fact that i don't wear shorts, tanks, tubes, light-weight dresses, or dresses at all for that matter, nor do i sunbathe in beach attire in parks and lawns throughout the city.

"more like can spring come already," Fazari counters all the way from Ann Arbor, Michigan.

a few days ago i was walking through the city, after stopping by the college to register for classes, and was just noticing the people around me. this one girl, probably 17, was sitting on a bench with her baby in a stroller beside her, smoking a cigarette. smoking is a terrible habit, let's not deny that piece of truth. but not agreeing with someone else's bad habits doesn't mean you can call them on it. i don't go up to every guy blasting 50 Cent from his car speakers and ask him to turn that shit off because in my opinion it's noise pollution. but this girl with her baby, she was sitting there blowing smoke into the kid's face.

i remember one conversation i had with a friend years ago at a San Francisco Coffee store. we were talking about something until she stopped mid-sentence, her eyes staring past me. i turned my head to see two ladies sitting a few seats away from us, puffing on Dunhills while a toddler sat between them in a stroller, watching them innocently.

"i can't believe they can sit there with all that smoke suffocating the baby," my friend seethed. "it's not like the kid can speak up and tell them, hey can you not blow that shit towards me?"

it can't be said better than that, i don't think.

the Kings' new album Only By the Night comes out September 23, 2008. i am super excited. so far i still love their sound as much as it's changed. i imagine i will spend many nights in the secrecy of my bedroom come September 23rd dancing like this

zr cracked at 4:22 PM

August 28, 2008

zr cracked at 9:27 AM

August 26, 2008

rolling the dice.
now playing: Joshua Radin - Closer

the night before leaving i met up with my hot friends Hanis and Diyana and Diyana's fab boyfriend Kori. i hadn't seen them in 2 years, but all three showed up at my sister's wedding reception on short notice looking amazing.

the usual reminiscing went down of the days we worked together at old school +wondermilk. and discussing our future and plan b's should our current ones not pan out. Hanis has a job, one she loves and that keeps her busy, a job with a nice-smelling atmosphere, where interaction with people daily keeps it entertaining. i point this out to her, and also the fact that i don't exactly have a plan b to begin with. not really.

except, i'd run away with you if things don't go as planned.

Diyana, the youngest of us three, interjected that she doesn't want to be sitting in front of a computer the rest of her life, messing with html and adobe web tools. her plan b, she said thoughtfully, is getting a job at the neighborhood mall, preferably at Topshop. best answer ever, serious or not.

man i miss them.

and the day before, i went to Melaka. unable to post all the photos on Blogger, i put them up on my livejournal instead, so check them out.

zr cracked at 1:45 AM

August 23, 2008

from a cold, dark hotel room.
now playing: Wilco - Hummingbird




having no plan of how i was going to get to Boston once landing in Newark, the one hour transit in Stockholm, Sweden stretched into 5 hours when they discovered a problem with the aircraft and passengers were asked to disembark again after already boarding.

after several "tests" we left Stockholm at 8.30pm and arrived in Newark at 1am. trains had stopped running hours before and i didn't even bother checking if there was a connecting flight to Boston, so i got in a cab and ended up at a budget airport hotel here in New Jersey. my Jamaican cab driver was hilarious. he didn't realize the hotel had changed names (neither did i) and was driving around in circles, trying to figure out where we were. i checked in close to 2am, tried to phone home to let everyone know i made it alive, and rummaged through my bags hoping i'd packed the plug adapter for my laptop. i didn't. this morning i went downstairs to the gift shop and asked the Indian guy, who's lived in Jersey for the past 25 years but still has the charming authenticity many shed, at the counter if he sold adapters. he whipped it out from under the counter and then asked me about school, Malaysia and advised me to do my Masters because "the world is so competitive now."

"i've always wanted to go to India," i returned, which is true.

the rest of the day will be spent at Newark Airport, waiting for my train to come.

zr cracked at 9:00 PM

August 20, 2008

capsize.
now playing: Matt Nathanson - Car Crash




turning 24 is like turning 23. and 22, 21 and kind of like turning 20 once again. the newlyweds bought me a lucky charm necklace from Thomas Sabo, probably as a way of making up for stealing the limelight considering how they cleverly planned their two wedding receptions to coincide with my big day. i mean selfish much?

desperate times call for desperate measures, like when the place you stopped by spontaneously once turns out to be the place you'd grow attached to, in my case a quiet Starbucks in a part of town that i normally can't stand. someone once asked me why i would pay RM10 for coffee when i could get five drinks for that price elsewhere. sure Starbucks is overpriced, as is Coffee Bean and the other specialty coffee chains, but why i frequently end up there is because of the ambiance. that's probably what i'm paying extra for anyway - the "third place", that's the catch.

hanging out at a mamak has it's own perks, like not going broke, but that's because you're sitting two inches from the next guy at the other table and involuntarily listening in on every one else's conversations. in three different languages. can't have it all.

my dad has a favorite joke he loves to tell everyone he meets. it basically takes place in a restaurant, among a large office dinner party. when the check comes at the end of the meal, the boss is enraged. he notices the most expensive thing on the check and asks furiously, "alright, who ordered the ambiance?"

"the usual?" one of the baristas asks me when i walk towards the counter, the one who reminds me of Troy. i say yes, even though he remembers it wrong and forgets the vanilla every single time. i've been drinking vanilla-less ice lattes for two weeks because this barista, who has a nice smile and gives a shit about my day - even though it's standard Starbucks formality, makes it hard to care enough to correct him about what's really my usual. it is our familiar ground, that latte.

and it tastes so bitter, but i hardly notice anymore.

zr cracked at 1:20 PM

August 16, 2008

bridges.
now playing: Mat Kearney - All I Need

my sister and Rezdi were married on 9th August, 2008 at Masjid Wilayah (Wilayah Mosque).

these photos were taken by my brother and i. a photo slideshow of the reception at One World Hotel can be seen on the uber skilled and awesome Saiful Nang's blog, the official photographer for the event along with his team from Candid Syndrome.

zr cracked at 9:15 PM

August 11, 2008

disorder.
now playing: MGMT - Kids



besides cruising the streets of KL, getting soaked since it always rains on me (pun), giving girl advice to Syukri, hanging with relatives, losing my appetite and my hair, making plans with Azirah and then canceling them, etc, everything else goes backwards.

the times are frightening.

i don't receive that many compliments, not in my 23 years, but when i do i realize that they are always overwhelming. not because you have never heard something nice said about yourself before, but really because it is something you have never ever heard before.

i am working on not having to say a thing.

and read my horoscope every time i come across one. as if it could help me understand myself better. as if any of it could explain anything at all, even though i am still skeptical of such easily attainable secret information.

on a different note, can deejays be banned from radio and the universe already?

also, thanks Lacy. i'm working on the comedic perspective of family though sometimes i think horror or thriller would be more fitting. just kidding. sort of.

zr cracked at 1:24 PM

July 27, 2008

live fast.
now playing: The Verve - This Time



i blew RM20 on a Jalapeño Chicken burger from Carls Jr. last Monday after my brother assured me it was worth it. he spoke the truth.

and i have been seeing my dentist a lot lately after the crown on the right side of my mouth broke off months ago and i went around with the gums exposed, leading to it's infection and thus nearly paralyzing the right side of my face these past few days. he fixed me a new crown this morning, but the pain hasn't disappeared as of yet so i'm popping pills and talking like 50 Cent, according to my brother. "what does that mean?" i asked him. "he got shot in the face or something years ago," he said, "so now he talks like he's always drunk."

watch : 21
read : When You Are Engulfed In Flames by David Sedaris

if my memory's correct, it was probably early this year when i was waiting for the elevator in my building and came face to face with Jim Sturgess when the doors opened. he was leaning against the wall, his hands in his pockets, and when i asked if he was going up he gave a slight smile and nodded. i let the doors close and waited for the next elevator, thinking to myself, wasn't that the guy in Across the Universe - a film i have yet to see but all the unavoidable hype surrounding it and the actors when it came out last year was hard to ignore, and i hardly ever forget a face. of course, there is a 99.9% chance i could've been wrong and it was simply some other incredibly good looking guy who shared an uncanny resemblance to the actor (just like how i once insisted i saw musician Mat Kearney on the T last year and no one believed me). this backed by the fact that he's British and probably still resides in England, and filming in the city already wrapped up in 2007.

pointless story aside, Jim Sturgess' acting is one of the most notable things about 21.

David Sedaris is awesome because he's David Sedaris. and because he makes me wish i could write about my own family with that sort of candidness.

zr cracked at 12:46 PM

July 21, 2008

things fall apart.
now playing: Azure Ray - Sleep




last week i went by our old house because i missed it. and also because so many of my stuff was still sitting in boxes that never made it to the new apartment. it was strange to see it so empty and abandoned. i got all sentimental and went through the boxes with all my stuff crammed in them, stuff my mother wasn't sure if i wanted or not while i was away. journals, books, photographs, letters, clothes.

i went through a Strokes phase at one time. it might've been my favorite of all the phases i went through. and then Shafeek stole my Room On Fire album and never returned it and that phase died.

i sifted through letters from people i used to be friends with until those friendships died too. the first friend i ever made when moving to KL back in '96 was Shef, a nickname we thought up together. she wrote me a letter after high school had ended in '02 and we'd been "running" with different crowds and hardly talked anymore. she wrote, of all the friends i have you are the one i need the most. we haven't seen each other since then. her letter still makes me sad though. partly because we don't know each other anymore, partly because i have such a letter that represents loss, but mostly because somebody needed me the most.

zr cracked at 1:03 AM

July 18, 2008

soul glow.
now playing: Tegan and Sara - The Con


this is how we do.

my brother and i watched his old dvd of Coming to America last night while having pizza. i forgot how funny Eddie Murphy used to be.

this week i realized how much i secretly like that Taylor Swift song, Teardrops On My Guitar. preferably the pop version because the poppier, the happier my soul. why does being honest almost always have to sound so cheesy and lame?

i had a friend in Providence who once told me that he only listened to music that he couldn't relate to because the stuff based on pain and loss made him want to hurt himself more rather than comfort him. i thought it was a fascinating outlook and only recently started listening to cheesy pop in unbearably dark times. "common themes in pop music are romantic love and feelings" Wikipedia states. the stuff i can hardly relate to. i can't stop dancing on the inside.

zr cracked at 12:38 PM

July 17, 2008

this cannot wait.
now playing: Jason Mraz - I'm Yours





my dentist and i have some good conversations when we meet during appointments :

dentist : so where are you studying again?
me : Boston
dentist : in Texas?
me : no Boston
dentist : Boston, Texas?
me : ..Boston, Massachusetts
dentist : it's not Boston, Texas?
me : you're thinking of Austin, Texas

my brother and i watched the new Batman film this morning. i hated the first one fiercely but The Dark Knight definitely lived up to all the hype surrounding it these past few months. go watch it.

the world has gone all quiet even in the midst of wars, controversy and disasters. the other night i asked Syukri if he would listen because i was in need of someone to talk to, someone who i am not usually intimate with. it helped some. helped with what, i'm not sure. maybe just being around people you know that makes you feel the most lonely. there are less sob stories to tell, write about, fret over. in a way it's a bore, because people love it when you fail, fuck up, or have issues they may or may not relate to. it's just entertainment for the most part to fill up the rest of their time in each day.

on the other hand, the hard times always seem like the most eventful times i'll ever live through. i thought about that while rummaging through boxes sitting in my brother's room and coming across my old writings and doodles, laughing to myself over everything that felt like a stab wound before.

sometimes i just want to stick my hand in the wheel and invoke chaos into this steady, unbreakable cycle. unless someone else came along and did this for me. i fear that i would owe them a lot, though. and i don't have much.

if being in elevators with total strangers determined the true character of a person, i would be fucked. if i ever end up in an elevator with any of you that i've never previously met, be sure to make the first move and say hey. also, ask me to do my Boston accent for you. it's so bad it's awesome.

zr cracked at 11:50 AM

July 15, 2008

zr cracked at 9:21 AM

July 06, 2008

zr cracked at 8:16 AM

June 28, 2008

i ain't gonna wear the clothes that you like.

[ edited]

i've decided that 20 hour flights suck.

after a day of running last minute errands and saying goodbyes for the summer later in the night to my favorite people in the neighborhood (like Felix) i threw some clothes into a suitcase and left early the next morning to catch the train to Newark, New Jersey. i was starving upon reaching Newark airport almost 5 hours later so lugged my bags to Chili's and had lunch while waiting for the check-in counter to open.

besides the fact that Newark is probably the shittiest airport in the world, travelers were being assholes in their careless maneuvering and i started feeling uneasy like i usually do in loud, crowded places. Gary, who is still awesome and now lives in Wichita, Kansas, kept me company on the phone for awhile as i tried to calm my anxiety with a cigarette or two outside the terminal.

i slept through the whole empty 7 hour flight to Stockholm, but later spent the next thirteen hours reading Barack Obama's memoir Dreams from My Father in between naps beside my Neil Gaiman-reading seat buddy, a Malay guy who boarded the flight from Stockholm and whose right shoulder braved the attacks of my drowsy head several times throughout those many hours. swell dude.

the other day i had to go for my first ever medical check-up at the family doctor. although he's the family doctor, i've never been to see the guy before, let alone any other doctor. so the guy left the ECG (Electrocardiogram) for last, which was smart of him because i will never show my face in his office again. if i had cared enough about the check-up, i'd have known what an ECG was and been prepared to bare my breasts to a complete stranger while lying on my back while his assistant stared over his shoulder.

call me immature or assure me that it's no big deal, he's a doctor and all. it still sucked.

i'm just a one-piece kind of girl rather than a bikini kind.

also, i lost everyone's numbers here and no one logs into MSN anymore, which makes it hard to get in touch with anyone. unless they blocked and deleted me then that makes sense. otherwise, hit me with your digits, yeah i said digits.

the grass isn't always greener. just sayin.

zr cracked at 1:27 PM

June 19, 2008

maintain.
now playing: Cat Power - I Found A Reason


this week :

the Boston Celtics winning the NBA Championship against the Los Angeles Lakers, 22 years after their last championship. i'm no sports enthusiast but ask me to sit through any type of team sport and i will simply choose basketball. why? it's awesome. i don't favor any particular team, i just like watching the game, but since it was the home team in the finals it was a no brainer. plus i hate LA with a fiery passion so that helped.

one of the things i learned through my in depth study of Boston before moving here was that it's a major sports city. major as in if you walk into a sports bar here wearing a Yankees cap..you best leave. the pride for home teams the Red Sox, Bruins, Celtics and Patriots are intense. see below.



the parade celebrating the Celtics win took place earlier today, weaving through the streets of the city. the team players were ferried around on those infamous Duck Boats with fans going completely nuts. especially when MVP Paul "The Truth" Pierce (best fan sign ever - "Kobe Bryant can't handle The Truth" seen at the LA game with Jack Nicholson in attendance. i seriously hope you guys get the reference) rolled by.

the first picture is not of fans at a Fall Out Boy concert, it's the scene at Copley Square which is a ten minute walk from my street. insane. second picture basically sums up the sports-fueled New England pride. Boston a sports city? yeah no shit.

[ all three photos swiped from Boston.com and used without permission ]

bone thugs n harmony to reunite.



i don't know much about Cleveland, Ohio but two musical groups i love are based out of The Forest City. one of them is Lovedrug, and the other is Bone Thugs n Harmony. so they've been performing as 3 members for awhile now ever since Flesh got 11 years in prison for threatening someone with an AK 47 and Bizzy Bone was kicked out of the group for having issues.

this is one reunion i can't wait for.

on the subject of television - out of inescapable curiosity i watched the first few episodes of the shitfest known as Gossip Girl. my take on it is that it's like the OC minus the beach. and forever sealing the fact that i will never again watch any show that Josh Schwartz is associated with.

tomorrow will be a long day and i'm already tired just thinking about it.

zr cracked at 6:03 PM

June 15, 2008

pseudo making it.
now playing: Fountains Of Wayne - Troubled Times




yesterday the Boston Pride Parade kicked off in the neighborhood, passing right through my street. Esperanza and i assumed positions by the curb to show our love for the gays, lesbians, bisexuals and transgenders.


Mayor Thomas M. Menino


it was colorful mixed with the few brave ones who marched completely topless, and by few brave ones i mean women. i'd have taken more photos but it was super hot, my camera was giving me crap, and i got distracted by the Barack Obama posse. ignore my black eye, i've had a long week.

the previous night Esperanza wanted to watch The Phantom of the Opera in the living room downstairs and asked if i'd watch it with her. we camped out on the couch and sat through 143 minutes of looking at Emmy Rossum's face. i'm not a fan. halfway through the movie i looked over at my couch mate to see her sprawled out and asleep. i watched the rest of it alone and although i tried my best to pay attention to what Raoul, Christine and The Phantom were caroling to one another my thoughts drifted to more important things. once the credits started rolling, Esperanza sat up bleary eyed and looked at me, "so how'd it end?"

how awesome is Alanis Morissette's new album? i was watching her perform Not As We on AOL Sessions last week and started tearing up. i just think of her heartbreak that went into writing and singing about the veracity of starting over until it became so intensely personal.

interaction with total strangers i will probably never see again has proved to be a slight boost in spirits just based on the fact that the world is made up of many, many miserable people. one early morning i dropped in a Starbucks to get a pasta salad right after an incident between barista and customer had gone down. once i had paid and was turning to leave, the barista stalled my exit by suddenly unraveling the previous occurance upon me. i would say bitching but she seemed more upset than bitter. also, it was 6.30am and that's a shitty time to get a beating from anyone. she ended her rant relating incredulously how the customer had stuck their finger in the drink to make sure it was as hot as they had asked it to be before stomping off. just to generalize a little, Starbucks baristas are usually dicks to begin with, but here i felt bad for the girl depressed at the very start of her day. people are nuts.

whenever the new out of state residents in my building relay their encounters with the Bostonian 'tude i try to assure them that they'll probably adapt to it eventually, after i share with them my favorite experience so far, what i like to call "the morning i got yelled at by a cranky Dunkin Donuts employee." good times. not really at the time, but it makes a comforting anecdote for new victims.

zr cracked at 4:02 AM

May 27, 2008

swim like you mean it.
now playing: Wolf Parade - I'll Believe In Anything


when i feel outrageously happy, i've noticed that there emerges a roaring in my ears. outrageously too, i am responsible for my own happiness 99.5% of the time.

in other news, Dolphins save surfer from becoming shark’s bait.

The shark — a monster great white that came out of nowhere — had hit him three times, peeling the skin off his back and mauling his right leg to the bone. That’s when a pod of bottlenose dolphins intervened, forming a protective ring around Endris, allowing him to get to shore

No one knows why dolphins protect humans, but stories of the marine mammals rescuing humans go back to ancient Greece, according to the Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society.

A year ago in New Zealand, the group reports, four lifeguards were saved from sharks in the same way Endris was — by dolphins forming a protective ring.

besides the Green Sea Turtle, i have to say that dolphins are now my other favorite sea creature. they rule! so much so that people who consume dolphin meat as a delicacy should be thrown into a tank. of starving tiger sharks.

i'm looking at you, Japan.

also, Divers recount 19 hours in shark-infested seas.

i watched the film Open Water two years ago, based on a true story about another couple who were stranded in the waters of the Great Barrier Reef and were never found. their fate in the film ended with the idea that they were eaten by sharks that had been taunting them for hours. this other couple went through the night in shark infested waters without a single attack.

as much as i grew up to love the water and swimming, it's shit like this that keeps me from wanting to go deep sea diving, or swim alone in a pool for that matter. the only time i've come several feet within a tiger shark - whose diet consists of "almost anything" according to Time Magazine, was at the New England Aquarium a few months ago. it swam right by me and our eyes met. and held for a couple seconds longer than it should have. in that moment i made a mental note to never go anywhere near a boat or decide some day how fun it would be to take up surfing.



seriously, can you imagine just chilling in the ocean and this dude surfaces right beside you to say hey?

and, Mountain lion surprises woman in hot tub. that must've sucked. though imagine the stories you'll be able to tell at dinner parties.

zr cracked at 10:46 PM

May 24, 2008

zr cracked at 2:36 AM

May 22, 2008

sonic waves.
now playing : Damn Dirty Apes - Death of Optimus Prime

being one who works better under pressure, i procrastinated like i usually do until 3am yesterday to clean my room. if i hadn't been so embarrassed by the state of it, i'd have taken a picture to reveal the perpetual absence of order in my home life.

if you're wondering why this is even news (it isn't really) it's because yesterday was the room to room building inspection by the apartment's new management. notice of the reviewing for current occupancy conditions was put up in early April, and i only vigorously cleansed my quarters, ridding it of any reason that might fit the suspicious tenant stereotype, a few hours prior.




place was spotless by 6.30am, after which i grabbed my laptop and left to get breakfast while waiting for the bookstore to open.

flipping through this month's issue of O magazine at the bookstore, i came across an article about a former anorexic make-up artist my age who courageously said in the interview that she never comments to someone she hasn't seen in awhile on how great they look, because how they look doesn't even matter when compared to how they are on the inside. i love that she said that. i love that you can't ever wear who you really are on your style and your looks. that you tweaked your hairstyle, wardrobe and maybe lost some weight to change how you appear to others, maybe to feel better for yourself or to feel better when walking down the street and have people look at you. all those changes and hard work on the surface and still as a person you are unappealing.

zr cracked at 2:41 PM

May 16, 2008

plotting the escape.
now playing: Edna Swap - 74 Willow



be right back, dying.

so i was flipping through one of the Rolling Stone magazines that keeps showing up in my mailbox downstairs and saw this ad.

two things ran through my head after i died from realizing the overwhelming seriousness of the company behind this atrocity :

01. why?

02. they just admitted that the first breed of Crocs are hideous. not that it wasn't already obvious, but that's like if the Coca Cola company issued a statement for Diet Coke Plus with the tagline, "Classic Coke was pretty bad for you. our bad. but our new soda has Vitamins B6 and it's way healthier, for real. always Coca Cola."

if i was a Croc consumer i'd be pissed. and an idiot. unless you knew from the moment you bought them that they were horrendous and couldn't care less what other people think of your questionable taste. more power to you. i guess. my dad always told me not to sacrifice comfort for style, and while i consider it sensible advice, i also believe that there are exceptions.

ladies, embrace the pain. i can't imagine any heels-loving woman i know falling for the idea of those uncomfortable footwear not giving them back aches. if i ever got my mom these Crocs out of love or concern she'd fucking beat me to death with them.

i just came back from my 6am walk, having walked 2 miles around Back Bay and then stopping in Dunkin Donuts for the usual and a spinach and cheese croissant from Au Bon Pain when i ran into one of the old guys who works in my building. we talked for awhile and then he randomly said, "this weekend, i'll take you shopping." i wasn't sure how to interpret that. either he meant we should go shopping together like how chicks do, or an i'll buy you anything you want sugar daddy kind of way. if it's the latter i'm totally asking for a Marc Jacobs leather wallet.


i love photos where there are random people in the background casually or wonderingly staring back at you and the camera. like this one with the two guys in the distance sitting in Boston Market probably wondering what the fuck i'm taking a photo of.

also, while searching for lyrics to fabulous now defunct 90's band AnneTenna's beautiful song 74 Willow (i'm listening to the also disbanded Edna Swap version - same vocalist), i came to find out that the old Natalie Imbruglia hit Torn was actually a cover, written by Anne Preven and Scott Cutler, both who used to be in Edna Swap. remember when that song was the biggest deal back in the day, and Natalie Imbruglia was the shit? i do, mainly because the boy i was greatly infatuated with in high school loved the song and would write parts of the lyrics in his e-mails to me. things used to be so dramatic when we were younger.

anyway, coming across that little fact was somewhat astounding for me. kind of sucks that they never got the deserved recognition or success for writing the song that later became such a massive mainstream hit. gotta show love for the underdogs.

listen to the edgier and original Edna Swap version here.

listen to the lovely and moving acoustic Anne Preven solo version here.

zr cracked at 8:04 AM

May 14, 2008

konichiwa bitches.
now playing: Vampire Weekend - I Stand Corrected

there are those who make you feel like you're going backwards, back into that phase that not everybody grows out of. that not everybody grows out of. nobody cares how badly you want to fit in. if you blend in, you blend in. if you don't there's something horribly wrong with you.

stop trying so hard.

damn this generation is doomed, doomed i tell you.


i went over to Coolidge Corner in Brookline yesterday. i'd set out to get something from a lady living in the area, but she wasn't around so i ended up hanging out at Peet's. those who're a little rusty with Starbucks history, not that it should even matter, Peet's is the coffee shop that originally inspired the birth of Starbucks.


much people watching was done. and then having a sort of dinner at Au Bon Pain. i have an addiction to their cherry danish. it might be a problem.

and then i spent the rest of the evening just chilling in beautiful Back Bay.

Back Bay
building in the foreground is the Christian Science Center world headquarters, not to be confused with the Church of Scientology. that would be too funny. the most the two beliefs have in common is probably the refusal of medicine applied to daily life. that's about it maybe.


they say the healthy amount of steps the average person should take in a day is 10,000. i basically own the rest of you.

zr cracked at 10:32 PM

May 11, 2008

destination, anywhere.
now playing: Ferras - Hollywood's Not America

this weekend i am confined to my dwelling after 2 days consisting of lengthy wandering on foot, trudging up the hills of Providence, or in a nutshell, having worn the wrong shoes. the whole of my body from the waist down is in excruciating pain and i can only get around by taking baby steps. it blows.



Thursday.

got up at 5am, took a shower, and walked to Dunkin Donuts in the Prudential to get breakfast. took the T to college and hung around the student lounge going over a couple stories and poems before heading in to take the Lit final at 8.30. never before had i been so happy that i'd done the smart thing and gotten a measly 4 hours of sleep the night before - the significance of it put into perspective when i opened the exam booklet and realized i had five different essays to write. even better that there was no time limit, because i only left the exam nearly 5 hours later.

i totally forgot the titles and authors of some of the stories and poems we had to reference for each essay. much of that time was spent straining to recall them. for the last essay i wrote about a poem that i decided was titled Because I Was Not a Jew. later, while sitting in Barnes & Noble charging the cell phone i'd just bought since the Samsung one died a few days prior, i checked the textbook if i'd gotten it right. turned out it was actually First They Came for the Jews. i wonder if you earn points for getting one word right.

so yeah. i dropped a frustrating amount of money on a new phone so the people who still aggravate themselves trying to call me would stop sending me angry e-mails, text messages and contacting the front desk in the building to check if i was still alive. i appreciate the love, really i do. which is why i finally got a more dependable albeit more expensive gadget. while in B&N, i sent C.Wood a text message, after a moment of figuring out how, suggesting the idea of having dinner that night. we haven't seen each other in a month. i took the train down to Providence later that evening and proceeded to have a pretty eventful night to end a pretty eventful day.

after walking through Thayer Street and hanging out along the Brown campus people watching, we had dinner at Byblos, a Middle Eastern place, and caught up a little bit. later we walked downtown and went into the Kennedy Plaza 7 Eleven (Kennedy Plaza is famous for being the city's outdoor bus terminal and also the main hangout for crack heads..actually it's only famous for being the main hangout for crack heads) and i got an ice cream bar while C.Wood got ice tea. a 20 year old black guy, who was a valet from nearby Marriot, was having an argument with the cashier over the fact that he needed some change to make a phone call, so C.Wood offered his phone to the guy. we ended up hanging outside the 7 E for the next half hour or so while the guy, Jay, called up person after person asking for a ride home. things that happened in that half hour :

01. a white guy who looked to be about in his late 20's approached C.Wood and asked him if he could go inside and buy him 2 cigars. after C.Wood returned with them, two other guys showed up, and they attempted to rob one of the cab drivers outside the store for a dollar.

02. two chicks dressed in neon hot pants and tube tops passed by us, prompting ogling from the group of cab drivers. Jay, who was still on the phone, stopped talking, turned to look at the two ladies, and then at us, and while shaking his head yelled in exasperation after them, "they look like whores. that's not even fuckin' attractive."

03. one of the other crack heads, a 50 year old white guy who lost his teeth because his girlfriend stole them and ran off (he felt the need to share that) stuck around to converse with us. he was rambling on about a number of different things while trying to get Jay (still on the phone) to shake his hand, who simply responded with, "you're high as shit, man."

04. there were a group of college kids walking towards us and one guy was wearing a t-shirt with Barbara Streisand's face emblazoned across the front. i found it extremely funny.

05. passers by thinking C.Wood and i were druggies and staring. i wouldn't blame them, seeing as how we were standing alongside a guy who was shouting into a cellphone, and an old unwashed man going on about his missing teeth. i just ate my ice cream.

06. Jay and C.Wood rattling off reasons why they think Providence is a shitty city and expressing how much they both hate it. "if this were Boston, the buses would be running like water!" Jay insisted, pissed that he had no way of getting home. people in Providence, i've come to learn, love to make comparisons to Boston when they hate on their city. sometimes i listen to them complain and want to say that Providence isn't so bad, but then i remember that it must be a common state to dislike the place where you've always called home. i guess home doesn't always necessarily mean it has to be great. i guess sometimes, it's really a place that keeps you from escaping or venturing out to some other destination you'd really rather be.

hearts to everyone and everything going on in Myanmar.

zr cracked at 5:24 AM

May 04, 2008

zr cracked at 4:14 AM

May 02, 2008

the secret.
now playing: Sia - Breathe Me

last night a homeless guy offered me his hot dog. it's probably a bad sign when a homeless person thinks you need food more than they do.

the day before, some guy told me i should smile more often. i've stopped keeping count of these occurrences.

Troy once told me a long time ago that at a certain angle, i look like the saddest person in the world. huge overstatement.




last night my dad called me and told me he was proud of me. for no particular reason, he just said it. for an underachiever, it could make a funny story. for an underachiever, i've met some interesting people out of mere luck. my favorite so far is running into a man who i later wrote about for a Philosophy paper last semester. he'd made an impression on that single chance run-in, the kind that doesn't occur with just any celebrity or important person, because most of them have little to show other than their fortune and status and their public identity. while walking back to our car that day, my dad turned to me and said, "you just shook hands with a billionaire."

some stories are sadder than others based on how they end.

my secret is that i have too many.

Felix and i had another one of our brief conversations at his workplace the other night. i figured i'd try to get to know him a little better considering how he was always the one asking questions. so i asked him what he did during the day before he came in for his night shift. he paused, shifted his weight while contemplating how to answer. "it's..uh..i can't really tell you," he replied after a moment. i asked him if it was illegal while browsing the rack for Twix bars and he doubled over laughing. "illegal like what?" he asked. i said drug trafficking because suggesting murder for hire or burglary would've seemed a little too forward. "drugs? me?" he said, pointing to his face, "come on now." being one who does not pry, i didn't get it out of him. not that night anyway.

i tried watching An American Crime recently but stopped after half an hour. that shit was seriously disturbing. i'd read about the case on one of my habitual visits to crimelibrary.com a few years ago but watching it play out in front of me was way too much to digest.

and then i hung out on one of the benches in Copley Square. i sat there for some time, chilling, and people watched.

zr cracked at 12:00 AM

April 16, 2008

don't stress.
now playing : Jesse McCartney - Leavin'


i'm always confused when a 6'3 white guy in over-sized hip hop clothing shows up to deliver my Chinese food at 12.30am.

it's the confirmation that you just foolishly paid for a watered down version of the Asian grub you just ordered. i now know better than to place my orders online when trying a new place. i now know that it could make a difference to call the restaurant up instead, and judge the probable authenticity of their food based on the speech of the person who answers the phone. had i not been lazy two nights ago, i'd have known that everyone who worked at the place was white.

but look, i was deceived by the name of the joint the same way you'd think P.F. Chang's serves Chinese gourmet, or that Taco Bell sells tacos.

their Crab Rangoon wasn't so bad though. i thought it was the imitation crab version like how it usually is here, but turned out it was actually crab. i don't do seafood, but i ate it anyway.

April.

a pretty name to tag your child at birth. she will grow up with the soul of Spring, a little rainy at times, but blooming all the same. i have never known an April.

He Keeps Telling Me to Get Some Rest. "you know you're in love when you can't fall asleep because reality is finally better than your dreams." - Dr. Seuss

guys, turns out i've been in love all this while and didn't even know it. shoot.


Jesse McCartney Is Cool. in a time where underaged Disney products disguised as teenagers with charming looks run the music scene with a target audience in mind, it's likely you'll become more of the music elitist that you are and cram as much boring, independent, non-radio friendly tunes into your iPod as you can in an act of defiance. or if you aren't one already you'll dig out your old New Kids On the Block albums and wish they were still together. or like, reunite as grown men. for me, this is where Jesse McCartney comes in.

Jesse McCartney is not a Disney product. he writes his own songs, co-writes songs for other artists that reach #1 worldwide and becomes the biggest selling single in the UK (Bleeding Love sung by Leona Lewis, co-written by that guy from One Republic), stays relatively low key in the celebrity circuit, and manages to crank out catchy beats all the while. he's also 21, gets compared to Aaron Carter a lot (which is kind of like the mother of all insults, i think), and is considered gay by most gossip communities - a tired view one usually results to when unable to form real opinions. haters will be hatin til the end of time.


Men In Suits. my friend Jess and i wrote a short story sometime ago. it was collaborative fiction and we aptly titled it In the Presence of Men. part coming of age, part hormonally charged. this story will never see the light of day. largely pertaining to true life events, my contribution to it was based on the sudden fascination i first began to develop at a certain point in history with the established male type. established can be broadly defined of course. established can mean an older, experienced, driven, civil, responsible, worldly, healthy, suit-wearing, briefcase-wielding or nerdy messenger bag-carrying, family oriented, independent, nice-smelling, Mont Blanc pen-in-breast-pocket (Bic is fine too, depends how he rolls), the list goes on, male. although most of these men have the female equivalent as their partner, they make favorable eye candy in a sea of lost boys.


My Blueberry Nights. Wong Kar Wai's film focuses largely on a girl with a broken heart who ends up at a cafe most nights to find comfort in it's hot owner, Jude Law and his unpopular blueberry pies. the protagonist's role was specifically written for Norah Jones. i like her song Those Sweet Words. and her dad has a cool name. i'm indifferent to her acting skills though. she goes on a super long road trip, minus the conventional use of a car, and meets some odd folks along the way. David Strathairn, Rachel Weisz and Natalie Portman added the phenomenal acting skills. Jude Law is hot as usual.

because pie fixes everything. don't even argue.


People Worry that Awkwardness Is a Phase that Will Plague Them Forever. besides the fact that i just gave Belle and Sebastian a title for their next album, Facebook's founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg is, arguably, the worlds youngest self-made billionaire. he is my age. also, he is known to be painfully awkward and quiet, and makes the prospect of holding a conversation close to impossible for anyone with such damned optimism.

i stress that he is the founder of Facebook, the website which hasn't even gone public yet and is thought to become more powerful than Google in the near future. Facebook, the tool of communication and interaction between 69 million users is run and headed by a socially inept dude who wears flip flops to work. if you can't find respect or admiration for that you are swamped with murderous envy. truth.

zr cracked at 4:46 PM

April 12, 2008

thoughts of she, thoughts of he.
now playing: Brandi Carlile - Throw It All Away

i can't decide how i feel about today.

gray and gloom can be nostalgic, which is how it is right now. and the wind that busts forcefully through the slight crack in my window emphasizes it all to the point where i feel displaced. this can be good or bad. good because you're not really in the present anymore but off having a mystical experience. kind of like Aladdin and his magic carpet. just not as fun. bad because then you don't know where you should be in the real world and worse, in your own head, which means you're lost.

what does it mean when people, relating to cigarettes, say, "there are cooler ways to die"? oh really. compared to what? i don't ask it because i support the cancerous habit, i just find the phrasing a little i don't know, retarded. that's basically saying that dying can be evaluated for awesomeness based on your particular way of demise. looks like we're all under a shit ton of pressure to bow out impressively when our time comes.

see you guys in the obituaries.

Fazari says : it's still raining here
zihan battles the evil robots says : it's been wet here the whole week
Fazari says : that's what she said this morning
Fazari says : man that was in bad taste..
zihan battles the evil robots says : nice

if you still don't get it.

last night on my way past 7 Eleven, i caught a flurry of movement from inside the store, and then heard an abrupt knocking on the window. i turned to see Felix, one of the guys who works there and who i've had many a conversation with these past few months on my nightly stops. he simply mouthed, how are you through the window, while standing lodged between the ice cream freezer and the ATM machine. okay, i mouthed back, and gave him a thumbs up sign in case my grin made it hard for him to interpret my reply.

zr cracked at 8:46 PM

April 10, 2008

zr cracked at 3:50 AM

April 06, 2008

life in a bubble.
now playing: Eric Clapton - My Fathers Eyes

this morning, due to another sleepless night, i decided to be productive. what i like best about weekends is Sunday's. on Sunday's, everyone sleeps in and the roads are mostly empty, save for the few number of people walking their dogs or out for their early jog. on Sunday's, i usually leave my apartment at 6.30am to take advantage of the serenity and desertedness, which i love. and is also ironic, because i've lived in 4 different, bustling cities all my life.

in previous conversations my sister and i had when she was still here, while we drove through the small towns of Massachusetts, past quaint little homes in quiet surroundings where you didn't really have to talk to your neighbors, but just lived privately, she would point to certain houses with one hand on the wheel, and ask, "would you live there?" i've come to realize that my usual answer was, "if i had a family, yeah."

on the train ride passing through Connecticut last month, while on our way to Newark, we passed by a small town where the houses overlooked the ocean. i told her that as beautiful as some places are, i always feel like i am just passing through. i am making these stops, but none of it really feels like a place i'd call home. it's probably necessary to learn another language out of the 5,000-6,000 spoken in the world and not base everything on convenience or familiarity. kind of makes sense.

back to the topic at hand. i took a shower at 5am. threw on clothes, and couldn't find matching socks (see photo) which slowed me down. i finally left for my one mile walk that counts as my exercise to Shaws supermarket at 6.45am to stock up on groceries. except that i kind of cheated and cut through the Prudential building to stop for my regular ice mocha latte fix at Dunkin Donuts first, and had a blueberry muffin. walked over to Shaws supermarket whilst braving the crazy morning wind, got some stuff, then walked back towards my 'hood where i stopped in 7 Eleven to grab the free paper and some iced tea.



last night i apologized to C.Wood for being a jerk and not answering his calls for the past 3 days. we were supposed to go for the Explosions In the Sky show last night in Providence, but i bailed on such plans because i felt anti-social. the weekend before that, he came up to Boston and we took a stroll through my 'hood, the lovely and predominately gay and artistic South End, also known as the "largest Victorian brick rowhouse district in the United States". how do i like it here? can't complain.

kid is wearing the CBGB t-shirt i gave him earlier that very same day.

last night my dad called to converse on Malaysian politics. those are always fun.

zr cracked at 10:00 AM

April 04, 2008

zr cracked at 6:05 AM

March 31, 2008

what matters most is how well you walk through the fire.
now playing: Explosions In The Sky - The Only Moment We Were Alone

story of my life.

the other day, while walking through the streets one afternoon, some guy passing by me stopped and turned and asked, "why do you look so sad?"

i walked on, having no answer to such intricate a question. this always happens to me. strangers seem to give a shit at the most random times. except at those random times, i'm not actually sad, i am actually wearing my usual expression on my face, set unalterably into my features from years of applicability. i cannot help that my eyebrows furrow at times, maybe because, like some people who do most of their best thinking on the toilet seat while they take a shit, i find myself deep in thought while i walk. also, it's possible that i am avoiding being blinded by the sun's rays. i can't help either, that the corners of my mouth turn downwards, giving off the false pretense to others, as i have been told on many occasions, that i am a cold hard bitch. maybe there are face exercises that i don't know about. if so, i am always open to recommendation.

today i realized that i am unafraid of failure. there are things that i am passionate about that set me free from fear. i don't really want to know where i am going or where i'm headed. there are things i put up with simply to avoid uncomfortable situations, and i can't really express myself fully with words, so i create these dialogues in my head as if i'm rehearsing for a time when i would really need to say them, even though i hope to never need to. i find less and less reasons to cry these days, which is pretty great because there are always alternatives to what you can't have.

watch : Taxi to the Dark Side
read : In the Country of Men - Hisham Matar

zr cracked at 2:11 AM

March 28, 2008

forever delayed.
now playing: Outlandish - Walou


Thursday morning we took the train over to Newark, New Jersey to see my sister off. many tears were shed in the final moments of goodbye's. especially since we couldn't walk her to the gate and watch her leave, but the other way around, because the check-in counter didn't open until 7 and our train was at 6.50. kind of a deja vu moment for me, as i remembered how 3 years ago, sending her off for her studies at KLIA, i was the only family member who broke down, along with her boyfriend.

C.Wood and i got emotional on the shuttle to the Newark Amtrak station. later when the silence had passed, i told him that i didn't think i would ever have what he and Rina had, the closeness that engulfs one on all bases of companionship. he asked me why, and i said, because i can't ever attach myself to people.

that may be my biggest loss.

we talked the whole 4 hours back until he got off in Providence, and i spent the next 45 minutes alone to Boston. my bladder was about to burst so i walked into the nearest restroom at the back of the car, which looked like something had exploded and died in there. at the risk of contacting Hepatitis A or TB, i lurched towards the door and walked back to my seat, thinking i'd wait a few more minutes when we reached the station. ten minutes later the train stopped in the middle of nowhere and the lights kept blinking on and off. one of the conductors made an announcement over the speaker informing us that the engine had died, they were trying to recycle the electricity and that we weren't in a discotheque. 15 minutes later we were still in the dark and stuck, people were bitching on their cellphones about being late and the girl a few seats away asked me the obligatory stupid question you ask in annoyance when you're in a situation that gets you agitated and need to reveal it, "can we just get off?" even though we were nowhere near a platform and all that surrounded us were the woods. i mean, and go where?

the train ended up making the rest of the trip without any lights or the use of an engine awhile later. i headed for the restroom once reaching Boston but it was closed for cleaning. exiting the station and desperately holding in my discomfort, it started to rain the whole five blocks to my building. i reached home close to 1am, relieved myself of my fluids, and went to bed with thoughts still buzzing in my head.

zr cracked at 10:04 PM

March 26, 2008

zr cracked at 3:30 AM

March 24, 2008

zr cracked at 1:05 AM

March 14, 2008

zr cracked at 12:10 AM

March 07, 2008

zr cracked at 11:45 PM

March 05, 2008

zr cracked at 11:05 PM

February 28, 2008

send me to the moon before it's too late.
now playing: Ultra Orange & Emmanuelle - Don't Kiss Me Goodbye




the other day i spent a few hours in Borders reading The Diving Bell and the Butterfly. i'd had the movie sitting around in my laptop for awhile, but was intent on reading the book first. i finally watched it earlier tonight.

this post will contain spoilers.

so if you haven't already heard of The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, it's the true story based on former French Elle magazine editor Jean-Dominique Bauby who died in 1997, ten days after the book was published. basically, he was driving one day with his son when he suffered a stroke, which left him paralyzed with the rare condition called locked-in syndrom, making him a prisoner in his own body with the only functioning part of him his left eye.

the film, which is in French, is tragic and amazing, but 2 things really blew me away when watching it - one, how he wrote the entire memoir (and communicated with people) by blinking his left eye while an amanuensis repeated the French alphabet over and over until they formed a word he was thinking. second, how he'd often escape into fantasy to leave the routine days of loss, and had only his imagination and memories to experience and appreciate a normal life and the people he loved. at one point earlier in the film, right after he spells out "I want to die" with his eye to his speech therapist (who i thought was beautiful), he thinks how he no longer wants to feel sorry for himself.

you would think it is insanely depressing to see a person deprived of so much, and it is, but overall the film came off as a jubilation of the human mind, enduring patience and loyalty - this portrayed by the mother of his children in particular, who he'd left for another woman that never came to see him when he became paralyzed. the scene where his father, who was too sick to leave his apartment, calls the hospital to talk to Jean-Dominique but realizes he won't ever hear his son's voice again was heartbreaking to say the least.

one of the best and most incredible film-making i've seen, and it actually follows the book almost entirely. if you didn't like this film, you probably have no feelings.

zr cracked at 2:14 AM

February 26, 2008

zr cracked at 11:04 PM

February 21, 2008

postcard from the edge.
now playing: Lovedrug - Down Towards The Healing



writing a postcard to someone is harder than writing a basic 5 page essay on the Byzantine Empire and the fall of Constantinople in the 1400's. at least with an essay you know where you're going with it. kind of. you know what the content should consist of and nobody really cares if it's boring. i could take days to just think of an opening line when writing a postcard. i'm just not one to write a half-assed message detailing the weather and what i ate for dinner the other night so the person could imagine me chewing on a burrito and shivering in 20° weather. that's what phones are for. i mean, if someone wrote me a climate analysis as a way of communicating i'd be pissed. and bored. worse, i'd probably not care about their postcard or letter.

no, the thought doesn't count if you didn't put much of it in to begin with.

Azmir was telling me last night on MSN how he had lunch with Texas post rock band Explosions In the Sky when they were over in KL for a show a few days ago. all i could ask was if they played Your Hand In Mine, one of the few songs for me that says what needs to be said without words. "that song is a given," he said.

also, i've now come to fully understand why Boston drivers are widely referred to as Massholes. i miss driving.

zr cracked at 6:25 PM

February 20, 2008

because it's not in my nature.
now playing: And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead - Caterwaul



many reasons have contributed to my lack of updates lately. it sucks how easily discouraged i get when it comes to the more important things in my life. hopefully i get it together in time to avoid fully embracing these daily pursuits as nothing more than pointless aspirations that are only meant for the strong.

the other night Armand from the front desk invited me to have Hennessey with him for Valentines Day. C.Wood gave me a box of Ferrero Rocher chocolates when i saw him a couple nights ago. despite being immune to the celebrated day, it touched my vacant little heart.

guy from 7 Eleven who's name i still don't know refuses to sell me cigarettes lately. usual scenario :

"can i get marlboro reds please?"

"no."

at one point he made me give him a specific time when i'd quit smoking. i suggested in the summer and he sighed. "i'm not gonna sell you these starting in June," he says, reaching for a pack from under the counter.

and then the news broke out about the DeKalb, Illinois shooting and i remembered that Amirah goes to Northern Illinois University. i didn't have her number or anything so i sent her a message on Facebook asking if she was safe. i heard from her a few hours later. "it's crazy over here," she said. sad stuff.

Sunday, C.Wood and i walked a couple miles through the streets of Providence while in search of the Blue Elephant, a restaurant he'd read about on some website and wanted to try. i can't get over the beauty of the architecture in Providence, particularly around the Brown and RISD school area. we decided to walk through the Brown campus and pretend to be Ivy League students for a moment. every time i relay to someone how charming (yeah i just said charming) the campus is, i am returned with, "you should totally apply there." i have grown comfortable enough to respond to this with the simple awareness that i'm not an academic. i'm a trivia geek, and i do believe that knowledge is crucial and am constantly seeking it out, in or out of a classroom. it's all the same to me, except in school you get a degree for it.

we found the restaurant by lunch time, where there was a long line of mostly students. after about 15 minutes of waiting, we decided to head over to Thayer street instead and have mac and cheese at Au Bon Pain. i had a little too much and it lasted until way past dinner.

best thing i've read recently : T.C. Boyle's The Love of My Life for Literature class. by the end of the story i could only think, holy shit. i forget what love feels like, but it takes a story, or a song like that to remind me, although i've never actually experienced the dangerous kind that tears us apart to begin with. i can't decide whether it's better to live through something so intensely scary personally, or to live through it vicariously like we do too often.

what has tried to bound me, i've severed every tie.

zr cracked at 3:18 AM

February 08, 2008

spring forward, fall back down.
now playing: The Weakerthans - Left And Leaving

still waiting.

book alley in Downtown Crossing, Boston

sometimes when you talk to me, i block your voice out. sorry.

when i walk through the city, i wonder what's their story. when they smile at me on trains or on the street, i tend to think they're simply reaching out for some sort of communication. the more courageous ones at least.

January started off funny for me. i met some new people. one of them happened to be a writer (i use that term loosely) who i happened to have a memorable conversation with. one night, as a conversation starter, i asked him if he'd ever been published. he paused awkwardly and thought for a minute, before slowly replying that he'd been published in a few journals and magazines. he started telling me about the life of a writer then, how he'd just graduated from a really good school, and now worked from a small desk at home and it didn't feel like much of a job. i made the serious mistake of saying that, "writers are usually struggling anyway, being in a competitive field and all." apparently i'd made an ignorant generalization that offended him, because he very gravely insisted while sitting upright in his chair, that he wasn't struggling at all but was doing very well (thank you very much), then started rattling off all the publications he's done.

maybe it was a little thoughtless of me to assume that he was struggling. still, i wasn't insinuating that he was cooped up somewhere in a shack hunched over a candle and 19th century typewriter. but writers are incredibly sensitive souls. my bad. it still didn't stop me from telling the story to my friend later, who found it just as hilarious and would until today at random stop mid conversation to mockingly say, "i'm not struggling. really. i'm not struggling." i'm mean.

the guys at 7 Eleven have started calling me Z. i'm thinking of changing my name to Enid. kind of like how a lot of Chinese and Koreans have English names, maybe out of convenience when their real names fuck with Westerners' minds. or when Westerners fuck up the pronunciation too many times and you get tired of correcting them. wait, why am i narrowing it down to just Westerners again? people back in KL think pronouncing my name is as hard as remembering the periodic table. Beyonce gets called B, but i'm pretty sure that's strictly a hip hop thing, like how Jay Z is referred to as just Jay in song shout-outs. either way, you're all lazy, thus you fail.

yesterday my dad called and said he missed the days when we used to hang out, just the two of us. i know when i go back, a lot of things will have changed. the house we lived in, the family, my mom's hairstyle, neighbors, a whole bunch of other stuff. i wish some people would change though. but people don't change.

all this time lingers undefined.

zr cracked at 2:52 AM

February 05, 2008

we have the facts and we're voting yes.
now playing: Kanye West Feat. T-Pain - Good Life

i just realized it's the year of the Rat. the other night at a restaurant someone read from a Chinese place mat decorated with horoscopes that Rat's hardly ever make friendships that last. should i be worried? i've grown prone to leaving folks behind all this while as i walk down these winding roads. i suspect now that it's never been just a habit.

as the whole world is already aware of, the Patriots lost to the Giants in the last 2 minutes of the game. i called C.Wood right after but he was too upset to talk. fans were audibly disappointed on the streets outside. Fazari couldn't watch the last 30 seconds over in Michigan because it was too painful. yes it was.

with lack of anything more college-life related to do, i watched the democratic debates on Youtube. my opinion means absolutely nothing on this particular subject, considering i'm not a US citizen, can't vote, and well, in general think all politicians are assholes, but then again this year's election affects the rest of the world in terms of cleaning up the disaster the Bush administration created in the Middle East. oh and watching the process of the United States mend their tarnished reputation ever since the Iraq invasion because the whole world hates them. that too.



Hillary seems like she'd be comfortable in the oval office. she seems capable as a leader, no doubt. Barack though, he's the face of change and inspiration. he's got something new to bring after 30 years of Bush's and Clinton's (if Hillary wins later on in the year anyway) running the country. i mean, i look at him and listen to him speak and i just want to shake his hand.

zr cracked at 12:59 AM

February 03, 2008

have you ever felt like it's too late.
now playing: Modest Mouse - 3rd Planet

i couldn't give two shits about football but being in Boston/Providence and surrounded by the enormous team pride of New England this whole season has actually led to my excitement about the superbowl tonight. the biggest rivals in sports are going to dance, though i'm not sure i'll be able to watch the game since i decided to come back to Boston earlier (i was in Providence), but then again the guys in the building have the TV turned on loud in the living room downstairs so who knows. anyway, here's hoping the New England Patriots send the New York Giants home crying.


C.Wood came out of his favorite pizza joint carrying 4 boxes of the enormity you see above in preparation for the game. by enormity i mean 3 layers of pizza per box, probably enough to last a week. he sent me to the train station with a box, insisting i feast upon it back in Boston. i graciously accepted. C.Wood is also responsible for infiltrating my brain with football trivia for the past few months, giving me ample reason to think more of Tom Brady than just Gisele Bundchen's man. blame him.

in other less important and narcissistic news, one of my photo's of the city was chosen for inclusion in this years Boston Online Schmap Guide. this could probably be a big deal if i didn't think the photo is crap and one of the laziest shot's i've taken. the nice people at Schmap chose it though, so i shouldn't be complaining. THANKS YOU GUYS.

last night i was walking down Thayer Street in Providence after having tea at Tealuxe, observing the drunken college crowd stumbling over each other. they were mostly chicks in their short skirts and long jackets, yelling "i love anal", portraying the epitome of no class.

i was almost impressed at how almost no guy standing around gave a shit about them.

"i hate drunk people," my guy friend muttered to me in a low, embarrassed voice as the chicks wobbled past us, shivering in the cold and cackling amongst themselves. "the only thing worse than drunk people are drunk people who don't know where to go next."

a white Honda filled with douchebags rolled past us then, and a guy stuck his head out of the passenger window and yelled happily "i have a big penis!"

zr cracked at 5:54 PM

January 30, 2008

zr cracked at 8:38 PM

January 27, 2008

zr cracked at 11:37 PM