I end 2011 with tons of memory. Roller coaster rides of emotions. In 2011

a) I was in and out of relationship.
b) I met and made new friends. I met sue, ri, seorang blogger and also Byrdie in person. And new found friends through blog wniza and rad_za.
c) I managed to fulfill most of my new year resolutions.

However

a) I did not managed to lose weight
b) I did not managed to write 365 entry in my blogs.

But

All and all it is a good year.

This is the last entry of 2011. See all of you next year.

The last of everything.

The last coke. And there will be no more ever.

The last sunset of 2011

Dinner

Last night we (me, whole family + bee) went out for a pre-birthday celebration dinner. My dad picked the place and my sister picked the menu. Before the food was served, my mum made an interesting statement

Mak : "Makan pakai jari je, kan orang Malaysia"
My sis : "Baek, senang nak kopek ayam"

When the food was served

My sis "Ai mak kata makan pakai jari, asal garfu and pisau je"
Mak : "You don't drop my water face, kan Kenny Rogers"

Hehehehe...It was the best dinner of 2011. Muah!muah!

Youth of tomorrow.

Nothing scare me more than knowing the faith of our future generation lies in the effectiveness of the current education system. All of us went through the system, but when, what, why it went wrong? That's baffled me. 

"Other than that, if I am psychotic or narcisistic person. And I wish to take over the world, I could done and make them my minions are serve for me. Don't you think these could harm humans? I could clone thousand or millions to serve as my army to conquer this planet, if this could be done it would start a massive war" (Written by a student, age 20) - Exam essay topic : "Cloning benefits mankind"

Having straight "A"s may not be the real reflection of our future generation capability to function in the real world, it may just be an indication what great memorizers they are. 

Nampak sangat budak bandar...(",)

On the last day of my outstation in Perak, I went to my colleague's kampung to pick up some "durian" and "rambutan", she wanted to take some back for her family and friends and she gave some to give to my family as well. While loading the trunk of my car with "durian", I walked around her house and found a very peculiar fruit or vegetable, out of curiosity I took a picture and showed her mother, she asked me:

Makcik : Rasa - rasanya tu buah ape?

Naz : Entah lah, mcm buah labu je. 

Makcik : (Smiling) Nampak sangat budak bandar. Mana ada labu tumbuh atas pokok. Labu menjalar. 

Naz : (Was smiling like an idiot).

Showed my sisters the picture, and the answers were hilarious, they guessed pumpkin, yellow watermelon, custard apple (buah nona) and even a beautifully stacked bananas.

It's look like that I am not alone. Confirmed that I am not a "budak kampung"!!!!! hehehehe. 

Why don't you guys take a guess.... hehehe

Kuala Kangsar..

The "IT" thing

From Kuala Kangsar with love. 

When I was in high school this was one of the "IT" thing. Boy friends gave their girl friends and best friends gave each other. Life was simpler back then. 

Journey

"The road of life twist and turns and no two directions are ever the same. Yet our lesson come from the journey, not the destination"

(Don William Jr.)

My first

"Any book that helps a  child to form a habit of reading, to make  reading one of his  deep and continuing needs, is good for him" (Mary Angelou)

This was my first

We bought a zoo

A story about a widower (Matt Damon) who embark in an adventure to rebuild back his relationship with his son and his daughter after the death of his wife. He moved all his family for a fresh start to the countryside and end up renovating and reopening a struggling zoo. The whole story focuses on his struggle and effort to keep the zoo afloat, and in that process he learnt to accept the death of his wife, and started to fall in love with the zoo keeper (Scarlett Johansson).

Overall, in my opinion it may not be the best acting done by Matt Damon or Scarlett Johansson, or the best direction by Cameron Crowe. Cameron Crowe is known for his previous movies such as Jerry Mcquire, Almost Famous, Elizabethtown and not forgetting Vanilla Sky. Children may like it for the animals in the movie, adults would be for the family values. 

As for me, at the end of the movie the only thing I can say was "It was just OK. It's not great but just OK".

Innocent

"Innocent is always unsuspicious" 

Thomas C. Haliburton 

La Comunidad

I remembered the 1st foreign movie I watched entitle "Life is Beautiful" and indeed the story was beautiful. Since then I believe that a good movie will surpass even the language barrier. 

I watched La Comunidad during the weekend, a black comedy directed by Alex De La Iglesia and the movie premiered in the year 2000. The setting of the whole movie was in an apartment building. The main character Julia is an agent from a real estate agency who stumbled across 300 million pesetas in an apartment owned by an old man who was found decomposed. Starting from that incident she has to face the wrath of the neighbors who were also gunning for the money. The neighbors were plotting to get the money and divided it among each other. It seems that they have waited 30 years for the old man to pass away and Julia is the only person who stands between them and the suitcase full of money. Throughout the movie, the neighbors resort to lies, cheats and even murders with humorous outcomes. 

I watched in anticipation of what is going to happened next and believe me when I say watching this movie can definitely keep you on the edge. 

Greed is a powerful motivator and this movie definitely depict how powerful it can be. 

New Year's Eve

A movie with all the stars come out to play. 

I am not that into chick flicks for various reasons 

a) It is cliche - boy meets girl, boy fall in love with girl, boy gets girl - what ever happened in between just to lengthen the duration of the movie.

b) Too many tear jerking moments

c) Most of the movie goers are couple - most of the time the men want to show how sensitive they are, women just went there for handsome line up of actors.

d) And again it is cliche. 

I watched this movie with bee (bee planned it as a surprise), just as a way for us to spend time together, well it is fair before this my selection of movies were horror, thriller and cartoons (gory, guts and gay..hehehe).

The movie was about how life of several people were intertwined during new year's eve. 

Michele Piper (Ingrid) , a passive secretary met Zac Efron (Paul), a handsome young bike messenger, and together they embark on a quest of finishing all the resolutions that Ingrid has planned herself but never managed to fulfill them.

Robert De Niro (Stan) a father whose dying wish was to see the ball dropped in Times Square with his daughter played by actress Hillary Swank (Claire) who coincidentally was the person responsible for making sure the ball really drop. Without his daughter beside him, he was accompanied by Halle Berry (Nurse Aimee) whose plan was to spend her new year with her husband via video conference. Well, twist and turn, he got his last wish. 

Jon Bon Jovi (Jensen) is a rock star who was afraid to commit to a relationship with the woman he loves played by Katherine Heigl (Laura), and he return as the star attraction for the night with the hope that Laura would give him a second chance. He purposely planned for her to cater the after party of the function as a mean to get close to her. And guess what, he got his wish.

Sarah Michelle Gellar played a single mother who met a man (Josh Duhamel) a year before during new year eve. They made a pack to meet up again during new year's eve to see whether they are meant to be with each other. And wait for it.......................... they were. 

Lea Michelle (Elise) played a back up singer who got stuck in a lift with Asthon Kutcher (Randy), a man who seem to be lost in finding the right woman for him. Surprisingly (eyes roll up) he found true love in a lift. 

Two families were at each others throat to win the prize money offered by a hospital for the first baby to be born on New year's eve. One gave in as a gesture of good will because he felt that the other family need it more than they do. 

The director tried his best to fit in a lot of stories that certain scenarios would not even jeopardize the movie if they were not there. He was trying too hard to to find a moment that each audience can relate to and due to that it made the movie seem to be out of focus. Perks of it , a lot of well known actor and actress even as cameo.

However it is a laid back movie, you don't need to crack your head too much in understanding it. I did enjoyed the movie, cliche and all. 

Why

Last night in my master class, we had a discussion on teaching styles and method, and my classmate who is presenting raised up an issue on moral value. The issue then was continued with in depth elaboration by my lecturer where she post a question "Why are students nowadays are less respectful of their teacher compared to students in the previous generations?" 

In the discussion, several factors were identified, and my one of my classmate's statement caused an uproar among some of the other students who are teachers, she said "Maybe the teachers themselves don't deserve to be respected". I look around and I notice some are shacking their heads out of disagreement, but for me what she said was true. Having a degree doesn't reflect what a good teacher a person can be, it is only a licence to teach. 

Sometimes taking the examples around me, I can only say, the new generation of educators some are not that passionate in the profession, they are just in it for the money and perks and having the right to brag, "Hey! look at me I am a lecturer".

Intend

"I am going back early, I came to the office early today, I came at 7.45".

I felt annoyed with a colleague that sounded like a broken record for kept on repeating that yesterday. He felt that due to the reason he arrived earlier than the office hours, it is his entitlement to do so. Previously, I did discuss about my colleagues' work ethic with my eldest sister, all she said was "If I was your boss, those people would be the last person I hired and the first person I fired".

Some people are really full of themselves, they feel like that they can come to work late and leave early, or not coming to work at all and actually parade it out loud. Like a friend said "It is all about intend".

Wait for it - Dary

I love Barney Stinson!!!

A self absorb casanova, playboy, smooth talking and Scripture quoting (his own justification) character played by Neil Patrick Harris in "How I met your mother". 

The character, self absorb as it may seem portrait someone who is living his life to the fullest no matter how immoral a person can be viewed. He has a very lousy opinion of women and objectified them sexually. Even his morality is in question having to sleep with one of his friend's mother, however he is a reminder that you are never to old to feel young and nothing should stop you to pursue what you want. It is fun to watch how he suave himself through life with all the irrational relationship theories in which some are quite logical. Fortunately I only like him in the series, if I meet someone like that in real life, heads will roll!!!!..hehehe

Anyway, Neil Patrick Harris rocks!!! for a gay guy playing a sex crazed ass chasing straight guy. (anything on two legs with boobs and an ass)

As Barney Stinson would quote it "To succeed you have to stop being ordinary and be legend - wait for it - dary" 

rereturn

How often at the end of a year, we would reminisce back what we had done through out the year? We started to count all the good times and memories we had, the mistake we made and the success we achieved. And sometimes we found ourselves to "rereturn" to an incident, or a conversation that we wish had a different outcome. 

2011 for me was an awesome roller coaster ride of emotions, and now tick..tock..tick..tock..... only a few more weeks more to go. (",).

A rose by any other name is still a rose.

"But he that dares not grasp the thorn should never crave the rose" 

(Anne Bronte)

Durian oh Durian

So delicious yet so intoxicating. Consume with care. 

Anthony Bourdain said "Your breath will smell as if you had been french - kissing your dead grandmother". I don't care what he said, but for me two thumbs up for durian. I like my durian as it is, nothing beats original.

Little old me....

I am a firm believer in getting revenge, even when I was young. I remember an incident of burning a coconut tree behind my grandmother's house just because my third sister did not allow me to join her in playing "masak - masak". I guess I was not keen in accepting no as an answer. Well, looking at the incident in a positive manner, I managed to encourage teamwork among my family, aunts, uncles, and cousins because they worked together to put out the fire. *grin*

Crash dummy..

Had a conversation this morning with bee, over the injuries that I sustain throughout growing up, never realize the torture that I put my body through until I actually list them down.  Now I feel like a crash dummy.

Thank you

Thank you for making my day. (",)