Life was like a box of chocolates.

Well here we are, 17 days more to go before I need to go back and continue my service. Dang, I wish I had more time here. Not to mention, how scary this new academic year is going to be. One last push, that's it....

From Evernote: A dream I was at a 'kenduri' with my family and relatives. All the familiar faces were there, my uncles and cousins. For some peculiar reason the curious side of me realised that I did not know what this 'kenduri' was all about, for all I know was I needed to be there, without really understanding why. Regardless, I decided to put away that curious feeling of mine and tried to enjoy myself while I was there. We were all busy chatting, helping ourselves to the food served, then a woman suddenly approached me. She asked me to follow her to this room. She opened the door and let me in, telling me to get ready on time. Only then did I realised what was going on.  I was supposed to get married. That room was actually a dressing room. Inside it, a woman with a few others helping her with the make up. I believed she was supposed to be my bride. Usually one is expected to feel happy when they are confronted with such ...

From Evernote: Note @ Kuala Lumpur, Federal Territory of Kuala Lumpur This is Alisyah, she is my cousin from my dad's side of the family. She is about two years old. The two of us have never been close or anything, but this Raya things turned out to be different. In the photo below, you'll see how close the two of us were last Raya. Perhaps it was the fact that early this year, her parents had a new addition to the family, hence she now gets less the attention she used to. Together with the fact that she do not really fit in well with her elder sisters, maybe that was why she turned to me. That was my theory at least. When me and my family went to ziarah our relatives, she suddenly came and looked me in the face, asking me to hold her hand to bring her along. Thus with her we went. Her parents were not with us, so in the most houses we went to, when they saw me holding her, they thought she was my daughter! Lol. Rilek brader....

From Evernote: I have no regrets, but do you? Studying Economics is fun. It really is, no joke. Being stuck with the subject for what, almost four years so far, I never had any regrets. Back when I was in high school, the business and trade section which is usually found in the middle section of the papers never made much sense to me. Not that I never tried reading them, I did try, especially when I am doing research for a debate or something, sadly the news that were in there never seemed to be relevant to me at all. I used to think, so Malaysia signed an FTA with Australia, so what? Terms like bilateral agreements, tariffs and free flow of goods & services would usually entail such news article, but I did not paid much attention to them. To me, these were all the works of the government, nothing to be a cause of concern for a normal citizen such as myself, so why bother.   That was then. Today, the business section is a must...

    I was just having my morning tea before Hakim asked me,'apa nak jadi dengan negara kita nie Fie?' I know that I am hours away from boarding the flight that is home bound, but funnily enough, I was entirely caught of guard by such a serious question. Silently I though to myself, this is definitely not the right time to do this.  Of course I do have my own views, if you know me well enough, you'd know by now that I make it an exercise for me to come up with an opinion on issues, old habits I guess.  Well anyway, just to answer Hakim's questions, two major issues were pointed out, the rise of the younger generation leaders in our country, as well as the issues pertaining to the rise of the middle class. But after giving it much thought the moment I got back in KL, it suddenly occurred to me that these two are actually inter-related. They were both borne out of the same thing, given that I am thinking of growth as following a timeline. They are both sym...

Earlier this month I embarked on a brief tour around some of Europe's famous places. For two weeks, Nik and I went from Budapest to Bratislava (this is the capital city of Slovakia, just in case some of you are wondering. It is not so much of  a famous place, but because we were around the area we thought what the heck, lets pay this place a visit), then we went off to Vienna before setting foot in Berlin, Germany. Initially we were supposed to head to Prague, Czech as well, but due to the heavy flood we decided not to take a chance with it. In a nutshell, I would have to admit it was a very fun and exciting trip overall. Surely the places there were very beautiful indeed since Nik being a photographer, he managed to shoot very awesome shoots of them too. These are of course in his possession, so sadly I am not able to share it with you., I'm afraid. What I can share with you are the takeaways I got from the trip though. Expect to see A LOT of museums in Europe. Apparent...

Last year I read Aleph by Paulo Coelho the day I finished my exams, this year he published yet another book, the Manuscript Found in Accra. Being a big fan of his books, surely I did not want to miss this chance of having finished my exams so early in May to read this new book of his. Unfortunately to my surprise, this new book of his is way shorter than his previous books for some strange reason; it was only 111 pages when I read it on my iPad. But I reckon it was meant to be as short as it is not much a novel given its narrative style.   There was not much story woven into it, the book in its entirety is about the words of a Greek guy, known as the Copt to the people of Jerusalem during their last days before the holy city was invaded by the French army in the name of the Pope in the month of July in 1099. He told the people of Jerusalem who began to crowd him where he stood, “I am a learned man, and yet, despite having spent all these years restoring antiquities, c...