A very long breath...
I am very sorry I have not updated this weblog for ages; and the following may be excuses for not doing so, but are not exactly the main reasons for my absence:
I have been very busy with degree show work, putting my independent study together, attending interviews, organising my personal documents and writing important letters to people who might be able to give me the help I need; as well as trying to keep my health, both physical and mental, in check.
It's not a writer's block, which one may be able to diagnose had he or she been keeping track of my posts for the past seven months since this blog was launched. It's just that since my visit to Aberystwyth, I have tried to put together a post that is good enough for its worth.
Today, I am going to take a long, deep breath and close my eyes; and try to picture my father without looking at his photograph. Would I be able to remember how he looks like without referring to his picture? Would I be able to recall the sound of his voice without having to put on the mp3 file which I created from an audio piece extracted from a family video taken ten years ago?
Hopefully.
Tears can never bring him back, I know, but he will always be in my heart. He's the reason I'm here now. Despite the pain I am going through missing him, dreading the fact that I might have to leave Cardiff - a place I have grown to love, fearing that I might have to end up working at a place that I might not like; I am still happy that he would appear sometimes in my dreams - though most of the time, I wake up and cry from them.
When I went to Aberystwyth, the place where my father studied when he was about my age, I took a deep breath everywhere I walked past. Walking down a park that led to the School of Art, I wondered if he had walked that same lane. When I walked past a cemetary, at a time I had gotten lost, I thought about how seldom I had an opportunity to visit his place of rest. When I wandered through the town, I asked myself which of the shops he would have liked to visit then, or which ones existed during his time.
And finally, when I went to the beach, I smiled and said to myself "I am breathing the same air he did more than 20 years ago".
He was the most ambitious person I knew. My aunt told me that when he was three years old, he wrapped a hand towel around his neck, and dragged a wheeled suitcase behind him saying "when I grow up, I'm going to be someone big, and see the world".
And you know what? He did just that.
He was a mathematical genius. And was also the most patient person I had ever come across. He had only scolded me twice. Ever. When it was my fault. He never thought it was a burden to help give someone a lift home or pick them up; even if they were two hours away. He was a great guy.
I know it has been 4 years since he left, but I still cannot let go. Every birthday I attend, every Eid celebration, I despise because I have always taken advantage of those events when he was around. I hate how I was back then. So spoilt. So unappreciative over what I had. I hate how I had been moody during those times because I thought about the logic side of things, how I thought those days did not matter because they were just a waste of time, effort and money; but he was just trying to make me happy, trying to spend time with the family.
I especially hated that day when I turned 17; after my exam, when I shouted at people because I couldn't be bothered to blow the candles on the cheap $12 cake. And then one week later he fell ill... and the next month we couldn't celebrate Farah's 10th birthday because he was in hospital... and the week later, when it was Luqman's 9th birthday, we couldn't celebrate it either because our father died the day before. And obviously we couldn't really have him around for Zahidah's 5th birthday, 3 months later, either.
Stupid. I was just stupid. I was the only one among my siblings who had the chance to have a decent birthday and I blew it. Ask me why I hate celebrating my own birthday and everything in the above paragraph is my reason. I am a very nostalgic person.
Anyway, I had gotten myself carried away. This post was not meant for me. But for him.
I miss you, Bapa. You would be 48 now if you were still around.
And I know tears will never bring you back. But just so you know, I will never forgive myself for being so mean to you that day.
But please forgive me.
Grab your helmet, check the air in your tires, and hop on your bike because in many U.S. cities, May 12 - 16 is Bike to Work Week! Six Apart has a lot of biking enthusiasts, so we're very excited to support this event by encouraging all of our employees to bike to work this week. San Francisco's Bike to Work Day is tomorrow, Thursday, May 15th, and New York's is Friday, May 16th.
Six Apart is helping out its employees by providing maps (shaded according to steepness - a must in SF!) to help everyone plan out his/her route, as well as finding first-time riders buddies to commute with. We're also supporting ALL SF riders who pass the front of our office by handing out coffee, juice and snacks from 7 a.m. to 9 a.m. tomorrow morning. If you're in our neighborhood, look for the sign that says "Six Apart Supports Bike to Work Day" and stop by to say hi and get energized!
Improve your health, financial status, productivity, and happiness by joining thousands - maybe even millions - of commuters around the country who are hopping on their bikes to get to work. Visit the Bike to Work Week website to find out more about events in your area.
Support the two-wheeled way of life with the "Passing Left" theme found in "Photo-Based" in the Design Area. Planning on cycling to work this week? Let us know in the comments!
As we mentioned last week, we had to postpone the maintenance that was due to occur on Thursday, May 8th.
We have rescheduled the maintenance for tonight, Tuesday, May 13th, starting at 6:00 P.M. Pacific Daylight Time (that's 1:00 A.M. UTC/GMT). We'll be taking Vox offline for a bit in order to move the service to a brand new home in some bright, shiny new server racks. We don't expect to be offline for more than an hour or two, but we apologize in advance for any inconvenience this may cause.
Again, thank you for your patience as we continue to invest in Vox's infrastructure!
Tonight, starting at 6:00 P.M. Pacific Daylight Time (that's 1:00 A.M. UTC/GMT), we'll be taking Vox offline for a bit in order to move the service to a brand new home in some bright, shiny new server racks. We don't expect to be offline for more than an hour or two, but we apologize in advance for any inconvenience this may cause.
Thank you for your patience as we continue to invest in Vox's infrastructure!
Update: we've postponed tonight's maintenance, and will let you know when we reschedule. Thanks for your patience!
So so sorry for the lack of updates. It's assessment season, yes yes I know that's not an excuse but I've just been preoccupied lately with work, personal and financial matters - it's just difficult to find a time for me to just relax ad unwind. Oh well, I am going to Aberystwyth tomorrow... I do hope that would help.
But just to fill some of the intangible blank posts that have appeared between this post and the last one, I will first introduce you to Part III of my Red Tape Project, which was done on Thursday, 24th April... in which I was tied up with ribbons... I had intended to be completely covered with these rich red velvet strips, but unfortunately, I did not cut enough ribbons for the show. Well, it was an experiment anyway, so I had to make do with what I had at the time. The idea was to try to move outside the sheet of paper that I was on.... And that was very difficult... very, very difficult.
Here is a collection of photographs for the piece, click on the image to look at more photographs:
The weekend after, I spent my time in Caerleon, then in Usk with Jay, while we celebrated our 6th month together. We had dinner at the Newbridge Inn. Very fancy and very romantic... but the best part was; it was all a surprise for me. Did I ever mention that I love my boyfriend insanely??
I think that is all for now. It's just too hot for me to type. No seriously... why is it so hot in here?
Last week, we announced the winners of the HP "What Do You Have to Say? Theme Design Contest and promised you we'd make the winning themes available on Vox in the coming weeks. After a little more thought, we decided you shouldn't have to wait a second longer to use these creative and inspiring designs on your blogs, so we made them available for you today. Who says good things only come to those who wait?
Straight to Video
Now you can share your Flickr videos on your Vox blog!
A few weeks ago, Flickr announced that pro members are now able to share videos of up to 90 seconds in their photostream. Many of you already post photos to your Vox blog directly from your Flickr account, and now we’ve made it so you can do the same with your Flickr videos.
To post a Flickr video to your Vox blog, just follow the same steps you would if you were posting a Flickr photo. (Yes, that means you’ll find your Flickr videos in “Photos,” not “Videos.”)
Not using Flickr to add photos to Vox? Find out how to connect your Flickr account to your Vox account. Plus, using Flickr means you’ll never have to upload a photo twice, or waste valuable storage space!
Around the World with Vox and CupCate
A little over a year ago, we announced that CupCate was one of the Grand Prize winners of the Vox World Tour. A month ago, Cate and her husband, Iain, packed their bags and flew to San Francisco, the first stop of a three-cities-in-fourteen-days vacation.
While they were in SF, Team Vox was lucky enough to have a yummy lunch with Cate and Iain and some of us even made it out for a late night karaoke session at The Mint.
We were also happy to hear, however, that she took some time to enjoy a glass of wine, a roaring fire, and the luxury of utter relaxation.
Then it was off to Tokyo where she saw gorgeous cherry blossoms, the Tokyo Tower and the Sensoji Temple, and even got a special tour around Tokyo with Ayako from Six Apart’s Japan office!
And it wouldn't be a Vox World Tour without Paris in the spring time, decadent French meals, and, of course, the Eiffel Tower.
It sounds like an amazing adventure. Congratulations again to CupCate. We had so much fun with you while you were in SF and we can't wait until your next visit!
It was hard to choose from the 355 entries, but the judges have announced the winners of our month-long "What Do You Have to Say?" theme design contest, sponsored by HP. And the winners are....
And while we know it's not polite to brag, you'll forgive us for a moment while we gush about the fact that the 2nd and 3rd prize winners are both Voxers!
The Second Place theme, “Live and Learn” was submitted by Li Kim Goh, or as you may know her: gollykim. We thought it was pretty cool to hear that Li, “didn't really think about winning, but mainly [entered] just for fun [while also] creating a few new banners for [her] own Vox blog.
When asked why blog design was so important to her, Li answered, ““because it draws readers' attention and makes your blog stand out from the millions of other blogs.” With such a great design, we think Li did just that.
The Third Place winner, Terri, showed off her “funky-fresh style” with her theme, “Vector Drips.” Terri said that having her theme picked made her day. You know what Terri? It made our day too!
The best part of the contest? In the coming weeks, we’ll make all the winning themes available on Vox, TypePad and LiveJournal so that you can use them on your blog!
Thank you to everyone who entered the contest and CONGRATULATIONS to all the winners!
You know how your life depends on things that are not essentially vital to your 'survival'?
It's an almost fatal situation when you have to share a laptop -the only machine in the comforts of your home to have access to the net- with 2 other siblings. Nah, you can't even think of exercising your veto rights on them coz all you want to do with it is surf till you drop and to try and win another season with your mesmerizing, tailored-to-success Man Utd (read: Football Manager). They on the other hand, are tight-faced about their assignments.
My 'survival struggle' has been going on for weeks now. With no effort of doing anything that's remotely close to productive, I compensated my lost net hours with flippin' TV channels and racking up my sleeping hours to unattainable heights.
But today, today in particular, was different.
It's
been close to 2 full months now that I've been silently moaning about
the sudden writers block that swept my songwriting senses off my
half-dead brain. So naturally I did all sorts of things to kickstart
things back into the course that it should be threading on but sadly,
none of it worked. This block, and a combination of so much more
slumped me on a slow ride to somewhere I'm not sure if I'll like it
when I get there. It did occur to me that perhaps what I need is after
all, just a plain ol' soul searching; something I've yet to do in my
"did all sorts of things" claim.
So today, I unearthed treasures that I thought was gone in the folds of history. The ones that stood as witness to my teenage years of being an avid follower of the local music scene. Oh boy, it was surely booming with immense quality back then. The discovery of press clippings that I collected from 2001-2002 surely brought me down to earth. I remember daydreaming about 'making it' someday. I can't say that I've made it yet with Telephony Delivery but the thought of whatever we're doing now is the sort of things we somewhat should be doing to achieve that, it's pretty surreal. I was looking back at how I started my fascination with all this.
Yeap, that's it. All of 'em scattered on my bed.
Damn. I even have the flyer for TONEdef. One of the many things that should've been the highlight of my high school years. Hmm.
Back then Poetic Ammo was still rockin' da flow and Lostprophets circa Shinobi was even cooler than Muse but they 'lost' their 'prophets' and pull off that emo anthem drag a.k.a The Last Train Home. Slipknot was donning the coolest jumpers ever but unfortunately it wasn't during their brilliant self-titled release phase. I could never find even an ounce of love for Iowa.
Urban XS mannnnnnnnnnnnnnnn! I miss it so much I can't even recall how's the song was like. And that Butter article was from Malay Mail, they got the coolest local music content next to TONE coz Terrina Hussin can really write. She's the one married to Emmet, yes? And that ATDI review was nicked off Galaxy. That former tween music bible had its awesome moments. Much missed.
Damn fucking Dirty Apes weiiii. After reading that brief yet inspiring review by Daryl Goh, I sprinted to the nearest cyber cafe and mailed Pedram about.....I don't remember what. That Nirvana piece was cut out from Times mag. I think I stole that from the school library. Hey, rather than it being a proof of felony, it proved that I even set foot there at least once. I so proud.
I don't remember which came first. My love for Herb Vendors' infectios jungle twists or Cyberwerk's ambient wickedness. Perhaps it was Discomafia's earth-shattering breakbeats (the only electronica record I still listen to till today). But local electronica was not spared from my ever-hungry ears for music. And apparently, not even Hong Kong's LMF too.
Fwah. Bloodymary also got. I remember writing a letter to them coz I wanted that cassette so badly. But the letter never even went into the envelope anyways. Also, if my sense of history serves me right, Jayzuan of Free Love's fame (or now, of Mohd Jayzuan's fame) was playing bass for that Ipoh band.
Haha. I plan on posting that pic of Irman on Malaise.
Back in '01 this would be considered the closest thing ever to a Holy Grail. The maniacs behind that crazy Slipknot masks were yet to be known by the general masses so this Kerrang! exclusive shot of Corey's mask-less back was something to lap up about.
So yeah. I found myself
smiling like a kid again going thru all that. I miss that innocent
naivety that was once my driving force to prove that I was not just
some kid going through a phase. Deep down I know what I was doing then
would run its course throughout my entire life. So did this whole
rediscovery helped solve the block? I doubt so.
But I can now move on knowing that I've not left any stone unturned.
