Ulangtahun *

He waited for her arrival with a styrofoam cup of McDonalds coffee in his gloved right hand. The gentle, morning wind still sent a shiver up his spine despite having bundled up ever so painstakingly. Although it was officially the tail end of winter, the unpredictable Mid-west weather was something he had got used to. A beautiful, crisp day today, a blustery one tomorrow.

Her train would pull into the station anytime soon, he thought while glancing at his trusty Swatch watch.

He always looked forward to her trip up from her college. Traveling downtown from his suburban college and a McDonald breakfast while waiting became a ritual that he had grown accustomed to. They would have a fun time catching up with one another over a movie, lunch and coffee, although not necessarily in that order.

In fact, they had been so close that it was a wonder they were not seeing each other exclusively. Although the thought had crossed his mind, he would never want to jeopardize the friendship for something more. He liked the way things were. Besides, he wasn't sure if both of them were ready for the transition.

He loved that they were on the same wavelength (well, most of the times), interested in the same recreational pursuits, and shared an adventurous streak.

Admittedly, no one had come even close to being so attentive and sincere in their acquaintanceship with him. She can be so guileless and uncouth at times, but strangely he found these qualities a part of her charm.

He is fond of her, he inwardly confessed. Let's hope she would be patient and wait for him.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

She looked out of the Commuter Train passing through the rundown section of Chicago's South side. Her mind was fully occupied by the phone conversation she had with him the night before. They were talking about the movie they planned to watch and other attractions in downtown when she broached the subject.

Well, she didn't actually broach it per se. It was more like alluding to the obvious fact - taking their friendship to the next level.

However, he seemed to be either dense or uninterested to pursue the matter. Pursue was the operative word here.

She sighed out loud and inadvertently let out a steam of air onto the glass window. Deep in thoughts, she only came to realize that the temperature had dropped since she boarded the morning service. Luckily, she didn't miss the train like she had previously a couple of times before due to a delayed taxi ride.

In a bid to gather her thoughts, she quickly buttoned up her pea coat and put back her journal in the knapsack.

She knew he's a private person. It was hard to read what he was thinking most of the times. Although she confessed, it was part of the mystery that attracted her to him in the first place. She liked to hang around him as he was the least judgmental person she had ever known. She could just be herself, up to a point that is. Sometimes, she needed to watch herself lest she spurted some blunt remarks.

The train had come to a full stop. Time to face the music. Whatever that was in store for them, she would wait with bated breath. She cared too deeply for him to run away from the unfolding scene. There was no denying the strong bond they had formed. "I've grown accustomed to his face" played in her ears as she descended down the steps to see a familiar, Godsent figure.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

* Anniversary.

Facebook Fiend

Hi. My name is Theta. I'm a Facebook addict.

I have wanted to write about this newfangled fixation for the longest time, but you guess it, the time spent on Facebook (FB) has somehow derailed me from penning my thoughts down. That, and other regular interminable distractions (read: Sadia).

When my dear twin sister invited me to join the crazy bandwagon (as it has been quoted by someone in my husband's FB circle) back in December last year, I declined on the basis of rejecting the 'mainstream' movement. (I could just imagine Nina rolling her eyes at my attempt to be 'different' :) ) Besides, I told myself, the long-ish form - at least that's how it appeared to me in the older FB version - one has to fill to enter this 'cult' just put me off.

Hah! The snobbery of it all. As this incident goes to show, you should never ever say never. Because once you tread into the beautiful unknown, there is no turning back. At least, that's how it applies in my sorry case.

Ahhh, the sheer embarrassment of it all.

In February this year, I finally decided to give FB a try after reading to no end about it on various blogs that I follow - how they are hooked to it, the different, interesting applications involved and meeting friends - old and new - online. In my weak defense, curiosity got the best of me. I wanted to check out what the hullabaloo is all about.

Little did I know I would be sucked into a powerful vortex that seems to turn on its own axis. Once I finished with the form-filling part and had my first view inside the sacred portal, I literally ran all over the place - finding people I might know, adding new funky applications and accepting new gifts in return. For some inexplicable reason, I was completely entranced.

Nine months have passed since that fateful, hyperventilated day. I can safely say by the end of October, my euphoria has somewhat died down.

In fact, the end of Ramadan saw with it my usual interests taking a backseat to more pressing matters, like attending to Sadia and spending quality time with my loved ones (Unbeknownst to me then, my gradual lack of enthusiasm and acute fatigue were attributed to having conceived a baby).

Digression aside, I must reiterate that FB still figures largely in my life, and there is not a day where I will not take a peek at it (except of course, when I'm in rustic country). This almost morbid fascination with FB even boggles me. Surely I could just run away from such frivolous electronic affair. Then, how come the mind tells me no?

Sometime in early September - also the Ramadan month - I chanced upon a delightful exposition on this successful FB phenomenon. All of a sudden, everything that I'd ever mused about FB clicks together. The said article talks about the concept of 'ambient awareness' to explain the feverish rise in online form of contact.

It is, they say, very much like being physically near someone and picking up on his mood through the little things he does — body language, sighs, stray comments — out of the corner of your eye.

As a matter of fact, the current News Feed page on FB - the default Home page on everyone's FB account - is essential to this site's popularity. When News Feed was first introduced two years back however, people in general were initially mortified by the constant updates flashing across the page. Who broke up with whom, whose less than flattering photos were tagged and so forth had caused a thunderous uproar. Fortunately, the clamor died down within days after people got accustomed to this new feature. Many people were happy to receive tidbits about some of their friends which they would not normally know in real life.

Now that it is socially acceptable to showcase a snippet of your life in a blip-like manner on FB, the internet has seen a surge of 'microblogging' tools like Twitter in the past one year.

The phenomenon is quite different from what we normally think of as blogging, because a blog post is usually a written piece, sometimes quite long: a statement of opinion, a story, an analysis. But these new updates are something different. They’re far shorter, far more frequent and less carefully considered.

This brings me to another facet of FB - Status Update - which, like Twitter, has a limited number of characters to play with. Truth be told, it is the one I most utilize and look forward to each day. When I began using it, I even surprised myself that I didn't have any reservation towards it. Not even a teeny bit shy. I love skimming through Friends' status as well and, like the article elucidates this long-drawn exercise gives me a sense of the rhythms of their lives. When followed for an extended period, I get a feel of their ups-and-downs, personality streaks and other boring yet strangely meaningful information that make up a bigger picture.

This is the paradox of ambient awareness. Each little update — each individual bit of social information — is insignificant on its own, even supremely mundane. But taken together, over time, the little snippets coalesce into a surprisingly sophisticated portrait of your friends’ and family members’ lives, like thousands of dots making a pointillist painting.

An 'extrasensory perception' gained from such unending virtual contact might be superficial at best, but the fact remains people do find the time to compose their thoughts on Status Updates in order to attract cursory or loyal readers.

While the author discussed the dangers of dabbling too much in ambient awareness activities - spreading oneself too thin for real-life emotional relationships, the 'parasocial' phenomenon of developing a misleading deep connection with someone whom you hardly know, and the dilemma of wanting to extricate yourself from your own noseyed 'small village' of FB (privacy, ex-lover issues, tagging of your old horrible pics, for instance) or staying put just to see what others are talking about you - , I am more inclined to agree on this point - creating a more self-aware, reflective individual.

The act of stopping several times a day to observe what you’re feeling or thinking can become, after weeks and weeks, a sort of philosophical act. It’s like the Greek dictum to “know thyself,” or the therapeutic concept of mindfulness.

As the Status Updates demonstrate, you cannot help but to wonder what had possessed you to rant about certain problems and therefore make a conscious decision to tackle them better. You in turn become more objective. That's the best side-effect for emotional-laden persons such as me. Though the pull of FB inevitably remains, I'm increasingly 'aware' where my priorities lie and that face-to-face interactions are more precious and rewarding than the FB versions I might engage in any given day.

Oh, by the way, my FB Dunbar Number currently stands at 123. That's propitious enough, don't you think? :)






First image taken from here.

Second image stolen from here.

Last image filched from here.

Tagged : The Magnificent Seven

In the ever competitive world of blogging - who has the most hits per day, which old-(blog)timers have the largest fanbase, who has read the most books in the bookblog circle, and who has the most outrageous scoop in the so-po blog circle - , it's nice to retreat in your quiet little corner to soliloquize about the 7 wonders of your world. Or plainly speaking, as this tag by Aezack dictates, 7 random facts about me :

1. I like to eat Chicken. Period.
   
   Any chicken dishes suit my fancy. As long as it doesn't involve any foreign parts of the chicken like gizzard or liver. The good old-fashioned greasy fried chicken is my favourite, bar none. I believe this strong affinity to the fowl started from my childhood where my mother always fed us the poultry for lunch and dinner. The domestic favourite is of course fried chicken. However, I should also qualify that I dislike the drumstick part of the chicken, whereas the most vaunted part is the wing! The more, the merrier.


2. I clean my plate. And any other perishables, consumables and supplies for that matter.
   
   If you give me a plate of rice with the usual trimmings, I'd, more often than not, finish the spread. Naturally, the food must be palatable and considering my rather indiscriminate culinary taste, the probability of me scarfing down the whole grub is high. In the case of finger-lickin' chicken, I will eat the pieces until the bones are exposed for all to see. Even my MIL is impressed by my ostensibly 'Waste Not' motto when it comes to eating, but I shrug it off to the glutton in me. Also, I will use any consumer product to its last drop or squeeze. Toothpaste, chilli sauce, shower gel refill, shampoo and many others have fallen under this meticulous practice.


3. I am not a groupie. Nor do I subscribe to cliquish mentality.
   
   Partly borne out of growing up in a family where two of my siblings are of the same age and partly due to a self-imposed reclusiveness, I rarely felt the need to venture out of my comfort domestic zone as a kid. I also abhor the politics involved in making friends back in school, most prominently amongst the feral-like females. It didn't help that I was an awkward and confused teenager, unlike others who throve on their adolescent hormones. Yes, I didn't mix much and can be socially inept when it comes to mingling with others. Outside of school and into college, this perception stayed and was reinforced by the presence of cliques in the Malay community. I find the 'automatic' solidarity existed among people coming from certain states of Malaysia stuffy and limiting. While it's nice to connect with your fellow countrymen when studying abroad, we must not do so at the expense of experiencing the (good) culture and meeting new people where you live. If one feels the pressure to behave in a certain way to please a group which in itself goes against one's principles, I'd be the first one to get out of the door.


4. Patience is not one of my strongest virtues.
   
   I am stickler when it comes to being punctual for a meeting. Well, at least when it comes to meeting my friends for coffee or a movie. I'd lose my cool when he or she shows up late without any good explanation. Like leaving late for our tete-a-tete. However, when I'm the one being late, I'd expect them to understand. Heh heh - how unfair, right? Also, when I have set my mind on something, I'd want to get it done and over with as soon as possible. Like Now. I'd be restless and impatient until it's out of my To-do lists.


5. Like Aezack, I used to have a crush on Richard Dean Andersen during the formative tween years.
   
   Other honorable mentions of crush are Simon MacCorkindale (of the Manimal fame), Richard Chamberlain (from the forbidden love of The Thorn Birds), and Jan-Michael Vincent of, what else, Airwolf. Perennial favourite actors are John Malkovich, Gary Oldman and Brad Pitt of course. :)


6. I have two stitches on my forehead resulting from two separate incidents : (a) a major car accident on Federal Highway and (b) an attempt to fly off to a gate located on a steep decline.
   
   I vaguely remember the first, but I was told that we're hit by another car where most of the passengers unfortunately died in the accident. If I'm not mistaken, I was between the age of five and seven at the time. I do remember 'waking up' shortly after the collision and looking at others - my family members (except for brother, Shol) and an aunt - whom I thought were 'sleeping'. I then touched my wet forehead and saw crimson colour on my teeny fingers. Thereafter, I lost consciousness again. I can also recall indistinctly going in and out of consciousness at the hospital and the operating theater.
   
   The second one involves a former neighbour's gate in our old Shah Alam abode where I literally flew - flapped wings ala superhero - down the narrow slope and hit the galvanized steel gate so hard that it left a deep gash on one side of my forehead. Needless to say, I was hurried to the hospital for a stitch-up. The two incidents happened within a short period of one another and luckily the scars have long gone since that memorable time of my early childhood.


7. Despite feeling jaded about some things in my life, I am a firm believer of soul mates. Some people might pooh-pooh it either as hogwash or an enduring byproduct of Tinseltown. I do believe there is someone out there who understands and accepts us completely and unconditionally. That someone thinks the world of you and would even risk his/her life for you. It might not be someone whom we end up marrying - it can be a friend, an elderly person, a mentor or even someone in the family. It's a tall order this soul mate business, but I reckon it's far from impossible. I'm grateful that I got to marry mine. :)

There you go, my Magnificent Seven facts. By the by, The Magnificent Seven is one of my favourite movies from the '60s. The dashing Yul Brynner cut a fine figure in his Cowboy outfit and macho swagger. Another great actor - this one is a legend.

I won't be tagging anyone this time around as this meme tag has been around for a while. However, please give it a try if you like and let me know so I can pop over to your place and take a gander.

And baby makes...

Lest the news be stale by the time I decide to write it, let me do the honour of putting the record straight. We are having a baby.

The rambling nature of my previous post, coupled with the insomniac episode and bottomless stomach, should have been an indication, if any. And all the talk about having another baby to make the panic attacks easier has ironically enough come to fruition, in a manner of speaking.

Also, there were the persistent dizzy spells and feeling of nausea which had rendered me horizontal for some days. I was feeling more fatigued than usual that I decided to break my sunnah fast in the middle of an afternoon after becoming exceptionally woozy.

I had my suspicions about being pregnant but I didn't want to put my hopes high. As such, I attributed the constant headaches to one of my PMS symptoms (interestingly enough, most pregnancy signs can be the onset of menstruation) while the bloatey, queasy feeling was always a culprit after eating the wrong kind of food.

However, my sense of intuition kept gnawing at me for failing to heed the apparent signs. So when the headaches and nausea became more pronounced, I threw caution to the wind and decided to get the home pregnancy kit. Last Sunday night. Yet, between the fear of being disappointed and the strong womanly instinct, the former sadly won. I dilly-dallied until the next morning.

Suffice to say, it was great news! I was overcome with mixed emotions. Exhilarated, disbelief, worry and most of all, gratitude.

As advised, we went to the clinic again in the afternoon to reconfirm the pregnancy and get a referral for an ob-gyn. Only then did I text my mom and three other sisters.

It sure is surreal to be expecting again. I remember the last time I made the excited series of calls to my family. That was late July 2005.

I pray to God for a safe pregnancy and delivery and a healthy, bouncing baby.

For now, the nauseous feeling still lingers. Thanks to God, I have a strong stomach.