I’m aware of the fact that I am very hard to handle. Sometimes I’m too quiet. Sometimes I’m too loud. Sometimes I get hurt too easily. Sometimes I’m so evil I just feel like hurting people who hurt me. I’m so random at times too. Sometimes I think I’m weird, but sometimes I have a lot of confidence in myself.

No matter which part of me it is, it seems like you just know how to treat me. When I end up bawling on the phone, there’s always something that will eventually make me laugh before we end the conversation. I end up crying again before I go to sleep because somehow, I miss being comforted when I can see you up close. Does that make me selfish?

I am selfish in the way that I want to monopolise you for myself, perhaps. To other people, it may seem that I am controlling, but we both know what we’re doing.

I never get enough of hearing you say you love me, not because I’m a smug and perasan idiot, but because the feeling of being loved is great. I can’t even begin to explain how it feels. Perhaps if there’s one thing I would regret about us, it would be not finding each other earlier than we did. Well, I had fun being friends with you. I found happiness being lovers with you. When I’m being VERY perasan, I like to think that you and I – we’re meant to find each other. I believe so.

There’s nothing wrong in being vocal about our love, methinks. Keeping quiet about it is wrong. I’m not ashamed to admit to the world that I love you. I love you. It’s pretty funny I can’t imagine calling you anything else than the way I call you now. The best part is that I can’t even remember how and when it started. I guess the transition was very much natural.

I think about people who are going to frown or make disgusted face/gestures at this entry. I think about them and I can’t help but feel like laughing. Frankly, I don’t care.

Eheh.

Happy Anniversary to my beloved.

Abang, thank you for everything. Being loved by you has made me extremely happy. I may cry a lot, but that’s only because I miss you very much. Like now. I hope I make you happy too. I hope the days we are currently waiting for arrive soon. We are going to create more exciting anniversaries, but we both know 10th May will always be special in our list of anniversaries ;D

~chu.

p.s/ I cried lotssssss reading this, okay!

© 2011, Adlina. All rights reserved. Please link back to this page if quoted.

Once upon a time, one of the best medicines for me was writing. When I was sad, the pages of my diary would be filled from left to right, top to bottom. When I started blogging in 2000, I began to keep electronic diaries. Some were stored in the form of HTML pages, which I still keep until today. I was once a very active writer hiding behind pseudonyms because I have no confidence, only watching in silent pride when words from the bottom of my heart made their ways onto the pages of the newspapers. I used to take pride in my poems, songs, short stories, and even my musings.

I’m constantly feeling sad now; I don’t know if I should blame the weather or myself for making me feel like this. All I know is that I should really pick up writing again after a long time. Maybe I will be calmer that way, InsyaAllah. I believe this is the first blog entry after being called a teacher officially now, no? I’m a bit excited to write.

360 degrees twists and turns: The road to my school is a long winding one. There isn’t a day when I don’t feel like “Is this the day I die?” when I go to school every morning. I drive approximately 52km to and fro every day, going at 60~110km (usually 85km constant). My car eats up around RM250~300 worth of fuel per month, not counting the itty bitty maintenance bits. Well, that’s parts and parcel of working, I guess. Sometimes, I am envious of those who can walk to school and those who can reach school within 10~5 minutes because they honestly save a lot. If they complain, then obviously they aren’t grateful enough (or they’re just greedy and lazy, idk).

I couldn’t see oncoming cars because of narrow roads and sharp turns. Huge trucks are everywhere, every day. When I’m almost late to school (as in I have 20 more minutes to punch in before the print is red on my punch card), it’s natural that I would be very annoyed if I had to drive at 40km/h. Yet, there are rocks, red soil that could challenge the grip of your tyres, sometimes small streams of water (after a night of rain or when it’s raining) or even dirt-water pools, trucks going at 30km/h, motorcyclists using the roads as if they own them, etc etc. Sometimes, I just had to overtake the vehicles in front of me even though the road was too small, praying I’d be okay.

Thick, thick mists: We seldom drive with the high-beam on unless we’re leading the way at night where there aren’t any street lamps. Otherwise, we could incur the wrath of people driving on the other side of the road -_-” The situation is different with my usual route to school. The mist is so thick; I can barely see anything every morning. The fields to the left and to the right of the highway would be completely white and impenetrable. Using high-beam is a must to survive the journey. Every now and then when the clock shows time after 7.10am, there would be ignorant oncoming cars with their headlamps off. Overtaking is made impossible even if you’re going at 30km/h in this situation. They may have magnificent visions able to penetrate the thick blankets of mist, but I don’t. Most of us don’t. Even more annoying when you see oncoming cars overtaking the road, missing your car narrowly by less than 10 meters or so before assuming their right lane. I was going at 90km/h when this happened once. You can probably guess how scared I was.

So, yes. 6.30am when I start the engine, I’d be saying prayers after prayers while my brain would ask the usual question: “Is this the day I die? God, please don’t let this be the day.” Along the way, my treacherous brain would conjure up visions of how my loved ones would react in the aftermath of my passing. Well, let’s not jinx the ‘d’ word. My parents – my Mom especially would be more than just devastated. My beloved male counterpart, I try not to think about it at all. You know how painful it is to imagine a faceless person replacing yourself, standing next to your beloved. I pray for my safety. Pray for mine too? *winks*

Sometimes I cry while I drive to school. Sometimes I play the mp3s at very high volume until the motorcyclists look at my car like it’s a UFO. Well, that’s life I guess. Until the next entry~

© 2011, Adlina. All rights reserved. Please link back to this page if quoted.

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My degree years are finally, finally, over. It was a long journey, but I made it. I’m 23, and I’m done with my degree. I hope I can do my masters soon, but there are things I must accomplish before that. Dreams are important. Reality, however, must always take precedence.

I am not the type of person who thinks about migrating and working overseas. The Malaysian system won’t cripple me much, so most of the time I’m not comfortable with talks about breaking away once the teaching contract is over. This country didn’t kill me while I was growing up. Something must be right somewhere. The only thing that teaching in Malaysia disappoints me is the placement part. Don’t even try to argue this shit with me; we all know how hard it is for teachers who are either born or live in Kelantan to get posted to Kelantan. We are always fed with shits about ‘There’s no more place in Kelantan. All full.‘

Heh.

Bullshit.

Explain the lack of teachers in my schools back in the years when I was still young. Hello. My house is surrounded by many schools that lack teachers. Words get around, and still they say it’s full? All of the time, I heard people grumbling “Because Kelantan is governed by the opposition party, so the central wants to teach them a lesson” blablabla crap. When you ask for transfers, you need cables. Families and friends always come first. Complete, utter, political bullshit. Bureaucracy. Professionalism? Floating in the drain most of the time, maybe.

Personally speaking, I don’t want to teach in Kelantan for some reasons (not political, thank you very much. I hate that stuff). I’m making sacrifices because of my mother, who’s now old and always down with sickness. I’ll have years ahead of me, InsyaAllah, but my parents are old. There’s only myself and my two brothers. My parents are both above 60 years old, only have three children, and only ONE daughter, so is it too much to ask for when we hope to get posted somewhere nearby so we can check up on them always?

Seriously, people don’t feel anything if it doesn’t happen to them. Empathy is lost, I suppose.

I don’t remember the name of this one official from the education division, but she said she was involved in placement (as told by her in her super long speech). She told stories about how this one woman requested to get posted near her parents’ house, and when she finally got posted (by asking that official personally), she only got to spend a little time before her mother passed away. Would the female teacher get her transfer if she had only applied for transfers the normal way (aka the paper system)? Meh, don’t think so.

My brother has been applying for transfer, and his application has always been rejected. Just very recently, 6 of his friends’ transfer requests were approved. Not to Kelantan, OF COURSE.

So, full huh? I want full statistics, complete with school names, staff list, fields of practice and divisions of work. That’s how they can redeem themselves in my head.

Peace, out.

© 2010, Adlina. All rights reserved. Please link back to this page if quoted.

I thought the most flattering thing a girl could ever receive from a guy on his confession is a bouquet of red roses. Apparently, I was wrong. Being presented with a ring that carries so many of a person’s hope and feelings defeats all other thoughts I may have had. Maybe I was dumbstrucked by the words he said, or maybe it was the ring, which strangely fits my ring finger so well. I’m not so conceited as to think that maybe, this is fate that was waiting to happen, but I was hit by pleasant warm feelings that made me all calm, warm and fuzzy.

If you ask me where, when and how it started, I won’t be able to tell you because I myself don’t even know. I was pretty convinced that it wasn’t me he liked, considering his adamant repetition of “I don’t want a teacher” and the sudden “It definitely wouldn’t be me” when I joked with my friends about something like “Lol, who the heck is the poor husband who marries me XD”. What was I supposed to think when someone tells me something like that? I guess you can say that that was the first time I sort of thought that he thought I like him, and that he was giving reminders to me so I don’t continue liking him. Surely you wouldn’t be so serious telling other people the criteria of the partner you want in life, especially when the criteria goes against the other people, unless you want them to get away from you… right?

Or so I thought. So in an attempt to make him feel at ease with me, I summoned the picture of someone I used to have feelings for and used the feelings I once had for him to pretend I was still hung up on him. I felt bad for using people, but hey, I was trying to preserve a friendship here! If he thinks I like someone else, surely he won’t think I, um, like him…right?

Again, so I thought.

Now let’s fast forward a little bit. He started talking to me more. He started spending more time with me , and for some unknown reasons, I couldn’t find it in me to turn him down when he asks me out for dinner etc, even if he was asking me in his roundabout ways most of the time (until I had to ask him ‘Do you want me to accompany you?’. Seriously!). At this point, people who know me well started giving me hints, pointers and whatever else you’d call a wild rumour. Catcalls? That’s the least of my worry then. Of course I didn’t believe them. In my mind, he was still so adamant about wanting nothing to do with someone like me, so there’s no way he was spending time with me because he liked me more than just a friend.

Not much happened after that. So many beating around the bushes and so many hints that I regarded purely as false hints. A couple of days after the exam, we had dinner where he asked me to watch a movie with him at the cinema. I said yes because somehow, spending time with him has become something like a habit. We started YMing. For once, my YM behaved pretty nicely, so we ended up chatting for a whole night. In the middle of our conversation, he suddenly went into contemplative mode where he started a string of conversation I couldn’t understand (until much later). I know I’m slow when it concerns my own self, but I never thought I was that slow. I was so frustrated that I couldn’t understand what he was trying to tell me, so I cried. I always cry when my emotion is on the extremes – too frustrated, too angry, too sad… It’s just something I think I got from my Mom =)

I stared into the mirror for quite a while before I went to bed, thoughts swirling in my head. And then I thought about one person I thought I still have one-sided feelings for up until a certain point in time. Actually, I don’t quite feel anything for him anymore as I’ve learnt to let go over the years. I know I’ve stopped thinking about that person a couple of years back. I also know that at one point in time, I was mildly interested in him (him as in him, not that person) but I didn’t put much thought into it. That was foundation years, maybe? I couldn’t remember.

It took me a while to realise that I may possibly have stronger feelings for him after all, and that scared me into tears.

Moving on. The movie outing was nice but confusing as hell. I don’t know if he was simply teasing me, or if he’s trying to give more direct hints. Direct hints or not, I was not convinced. Time to pry a bit more? Yes, of course! I don’t really like prying, but my heart was at stake. If he really does feel something for me, maybe then I’d admit that I do feel something for him too. I’m too used to burying my feelings deep inside me, so I didn’t know how deep my feelings for him run. Even at that point in time, it’s probably deeper than I thought if he was affecting me so much in so many ways. Not amusing, okay? Hmph.

The next day, we went out with Hanin, watching the same movie. More hints and teasings. From ‘our house in the future’ to Love Letter to heart-shaped onigiris, right until before we went back. I was waiting for a time where he won’t suspect a question from me, so I asked him midway as we were walking to the taxi stand. I hate to recall our brief conversation because I totally interpreted what he said as something along the lines of ‘I’m actually just using you in order to rediscover my feelings‘. That was my interpretation. The hurt intensified. I was ready for a firm ‘No, I don’t feel anything for you’ or ‘No, I was just playing with you’ or ‘No, I don’t like you.’

I never cried so hard out of frustration and possibly anger in a long time. I cried so very hard for most part of the night until I fell asleep.  The last time I did something similar was probably in 2007 because of some issues… heh, not worth remembering. I was holding on to his phone and HDD at that time. Just one look and I got frustrated all over again. Heck, I even saw him in anything red and black, like my own Nintendo DS – and I got frustrated all over again and again and again. When I woke up in the middle of the night to find a few lines left by him on my IM, I let my fingers smash the keyboard keys. I let him know how hurt I was, and I gave him an ultimatum. That wasn’t very nice of me, but I was tired. So very tired of feeling weighted down by the unknowns. In my own twisted way, I want to hurt him as much as he hurt me, or at least just let him feel the hurt I felt. I don’t care anymore. If he doesn’t tell me soon, if he continues to be so indifferent in his roundabout ways, if he asks me to forget about everything that transpired for the past few days, I’m not sure I could talk to him like I always did.

I was edgy the next day. I went into the lecture hall without looking up. I simply grabbed an empty seat and sat down. Hanin actually texted me to tell me that he was pestering her about wanting to talk to me. I actually smiled then. At least he still wanted to talk to me. I was actually scared that he’s just going to be the average guy who’d shrug everything off at his convenience. I’m not used to staying angry at someone for long, but this time, I’m not going to give in. I tell myself that I’m not at fault this time, so I’d wait for him to apologise. I thought I was going to have to wait for a few days.

Scratch a few days. Our conversation happened not a couple of hours after Mdm. Ooi’s lengthy speech about the INTEL course. It was a somewhat solemn conversation. I didn’t let him go the roundabout this time. What I wanted at that moment was blatant honesty – honesty that drips from his heart.

And honesty was what I got. I was expecting an apology when he gave me the three words a girl always wishes for deep down, even more so when those words were accompanied by a ring. I was so touched that again, tears came to my eyes. I didn’t realise I was such a crybaby. Did I wait for this? Did I wish for this to happen? Not really, as I was expecting an apology and a ‘let’s just be friends like always’ sort of speech. Was I happy? Yes, I was, and I am. He was shaking, and that just moved me to another extent.

How cute. And touching.

I was happy. So, so happy.

I accepted the ring. I accepted his feelings. I accepted his heart as I open my heart for him and him alone. I’ve never opened my heart to anyone else, even when they insisted that they really do like me. It felt as though a heavy burden had just be lifted off of my shoulders. And then I realised that all of this time, maybe, maybe I do feel for him longer than I thought.

How come I never realised he was the one I was waiting for in my life?

Somehow in the end, I’m just a girl who is always fearful of so many untold possibilities. Sometimes when I look at him, I think about how long he’s going to feel this way for me. I think about the possibility of him getting bored of me after a while, or of him realising that he’s chosen the wrong person after all. After all, I’m not that much of an interesting person to hang out with, I’m quite possessive, I get jealous quite easily (though I don’t show it), I’m not pretty, and the list goes on and on and on….

But well…

Dear Zaki,

When you’re in doubt, come back to this lengthy entry I wrote for you. Come back and read every word because I meant every word with all my heart. When you think I’m being annoying, come back to this entry and consider it my apology for being such a girly girl at times. When you think I’m being pushy and you can’t stand it, come back to this entry and see that I am just a scared person who might be thinking about you more than you’re thinking about me.

It’s okay if you don’t think about me so often. It’s okay if you don’t spend time with me so often. It’s okay if you don’t want to walk with me or stay next to me so often. It’s okay if you think I probably am not the one you imagine spending the rest of your life with. As long as your feelings for me are sincere, you’ll make me very happy, and I’ll try to make you happy too. I can’t promise much, but I can at least promise that I will try my hardest to not break your heart; so please try not to break mine. Please, please, please try. Maybe we’ll argue here and there, now and then, but that’s parts and parcel of life. As long as you stay loyal to me, I promise that my eyes won’t ever divert to another. We’ve both been through so much in this life. We’ve both been through (what you call) emotional blockades of sorts. We’ve both been heartbroken and used before. We both have deep scars that run deeper than anyone thinks.

I may not know what love really means, but I don’t mind learning the meanings with you.

Pinky promise?

Sealed with a flying kiss,

W. I. Adlina ~2010~
Written originally on May 12. Final revision written on June 8.
Approximately 2050 words.

© 2010, Adlina. All rights reserved. Please link back to this page if quoted.

A couple of weeks ago, I submitted my last assignment. Just a few days ago, I sat for my final exam. The next semester? It’s all practicum. I’ll be going to SMK Seri Saujana (info, anyone?) with Hanin and Mira, but this post isn’t about practicum. Not yet. It’s not that I’m not ready to go into school for actual teaching. I’ll be lying if I say I’m not scared, because I am, but I’m not ready to let go just yet.

I may be quick to have a change of heart at certain things, but to let go of the last five years is something very hard. I know I’d still see my best buddies until the end of this semester and during practicum. Next year is still over 6 months away but I’m already thinking about separation. I know I’m not close to every one of my coursemates, but I acknowledge and applaud them for their unique personality that makes them… well, them. You can describe someone without mentions of names and we’d probably right away know whom you’re talking about. If I can sum up my coursemates in one word, I only know of one:

A W E S O M E

I probably won’t ever come across similar lot of people anymore – people with talents ranging from sewing to drawing to singing to playing multiple musical instruments to sports et cetera et cetera. It makes me a bit sad. When I return to my hometown, it’s probably going to be even harder to find people like them. Don’t try to correct me. I know this by experience. Even if you think your lot is 100 times more awesome, I can’t verify that since I don’t know them (duh!). Will there still be someone who’d listen to me when I speak or joke?

When I was in secondary school, I remember my teacher saying something like “The friends you make during the last 5-6 years of your life as students are likely to be the ones who’d stay in touch with you throughout your whole life our of pure friendship. They’re likely to be the ones you’d remember the most anyway, so cherish them always.” I seriously hope this is true.

Mira, Hanin, Khairiyyah, Nisrin, Hijrah, Lucille, Zu Lee, Rozi, Dyau, Fifi (I’m stuck calling you that, LOL, sorry!), Zaki, Fayadh, Atie and the name goes on. You guys know which ones of you lot changed bits and pieces of my previously monotonous life. You made me smile, smile, smile, laugh, cry, laugh, smile, cry, smile, and you let me feel all sorts of feelings and emotions – so much that sometimes I’m scared of how dependent I’ve become on my friends. Thank you for being my friends. Thank you for even listening to whatever I’ve crapped about.

I’ve been through changes, like the once smooth surface of wood now lavished with cracks here and there that let sunshine, wind and even rain through. Some parts, though, remain the same, but not so – just like a splash of water to the sand. Splashes after splashes, changes in texture are bound to happen, but they probably would not be so noticable, unlike those obvious cracks in the wood. Some changes made me happy, some not so. I want to leave IPBA so much because sometimes, it feels like I’m living in a military camp where some of the higher ups bark rudely and bitchy-ly most of the times. At the same time, I don’t want to leave my friends and the happy time we had.

And now I also have wonderful juniors as apartment mates and young friends, and special mention to Shap for being my cute and not so naive (anymore because there’s Mira and me , LOL) roommate. Our time of knowing each other is short, but at least I want you people to know how happy you made me feel when you acknowledged my existence.

I’m being emotional. Maybe it’s the time (4.18am). Maybe it’s just me.

And now I’ve lost the stream of words I was supposed to write down. Maybe I’ll continue later.

Ciao.

p.s/ Credit to Zaki for the photo.

© 2010, Adlina. All rights reserved. Please link back to this page if quoted.

I’ve always known that I have some kind of fear of failures, but I didn’t think it would haunt me in my dream. Despite my dislike of writing about dreams, I find myself compelled to write this one for memory’s sake. In most of the dreams that I could remember, I was always in school or academy – the kind of environment that’s only suitable for learning. Last night was different in a way that it deals specifically with assignments. For some reason, my dream self did not submit an assignment due in January and only realised about it when it was already October. I was not sure if I truly did not submit it, or it was just my fear taking over (in the dream, of course). There was arguing and begging and pleading with the lecturer in charge of that subject.

What woke me up was the lecturer’s words, “They are all looking to catch you off guard and fail you. You know you’re finished if you fail the next one.”

I never failed a single paper in life. Not ever. I guess this is what the last semester does to me. I’m not performing as good in two of my subjects now, so the fear of failure is taking over me. It’s funny to have myself flail and squeak and freak out, unlike my previous self who would study like mad by now.

I just can’t find it in me to study so diligently like when I was in secondary school, chasing after scores and grades. The enjoyment I could gain only from studying seems to be gone somewhere. I can’t feel it anymore. Now that I think about it, maybe it wasn’t what I should call ‘enjoyment’. It was not even ‘self-accomplishment’. It’s more like a ‘drive’ to please and fulfill the desires and meet the expectations of everyone around me. I failed to realise that all along, that was my fear of getting scorned by others, mainly my parents.  This particular fear is one that binds my dreamscape to school scenarios up until now.

It’s somewhat irritating, really. Hmph, and this entry is so pointless it hurts.

© 2009, Adlina. All rights reserved. Please link back to this page if quoted.

Writing For People vs Writing For Oneself

People are hard to please. When you write for an audience, you lose your freedom of speech. What started out as ‘I write because I like this topic’ becomes ‘I write this because many people like it’. It’s horrible. It’s like you’re doing a 3000-word assignment and hoping to get A+, but in the end managing to scrap only a B+ at most (Oh my, why am I comparing this to assignments? I really need to get mine done ASAP.)

My biggest pet peeve when it comes to writing: People who literally begs for comments and reviews.

Let’s take good ol’ dumpster Fanfiction.Net. You find people begging for reviews everywhere. EVERYWHERE. Worse still, there are noobs who write comments like ‘I won’t update the story/add a new chapter until I get at least [insert number here] reviews, so READ AND REVIEW PEEPS. Kthnxbai!’. Seriously, what the effing hell is wrong with those people? That’s even worse than begging. Ordering readers you don’t even know to review your story, especially when you’re new and still struggling with grammar building readership, is a big no no. Ugh.

Right. I’m rambling. My point is that when we write for the purpose of meeting someone else’s expectations, our tone of writing is noticeably different.

The Web Hosting Scene

Why can’t we have subdomain hosting that rocks on the English speaking side of the world too? I don’t need more domain name. I want something nice and cool and isn’t long like thisismydomainlolz.TLD

I’m kind of dismayed that we don’t have services like the ones offered by Japanese companies like Lolipop, Chicappa (and all other services under GMO), Stepserver, Sakura Internet and some other hosts. They provide pretty list of domain names to choose from for your subdomain. It’s paid service, I know that. I also know that many people frown at having to pay for a subdomain hosting. Random reader who accidentally stumble upon this entry might think I’m crazy, huh.

Yes, we have many free hosting services. You can have subdomains if you don’t have a domain name but your host would have lame names that don’t mean anything to you. I wouldn’t want my site to be hosted on a subdomain with the word ‘host’ in it. It’s just so uncool. So not unique. If there’s a company offering paid subdomain hosting with great support, with choices of domain names that actually have wonderful meanings, I’d be glad to pay. What we have over here is domain name squatting. I fucking hate that lame ass strategy of buying domain names and keeping it, looking to sell it for 1 million bucks (excuse the exaggeration, please). At least develop the damn domain OR design a better looking ‘parking lot’ for the ‘oh so beautiful’ domain names. The closest I could find is the cute free hosting at Bubble.Nu. Some pretty awesome domain names available there.

The practice of holding back expired domains for years and years and years is another infuriating thing. After estdomains went poof, and the registrar of one of my domain names disappeared along with it, keeping me from renewing the domain (That guy I was dealing with was Malaysian!), I’ve been waiting for that domain name to be released. But nooooo, it just had to be kept. Fuckers.

Okay. Signing off now before I get more too aggressive offensive.

© 2009, Adlina. All rights reserved. Please link back to this page if quoted.

Web Diary Professional with PaintBBS & Shi-Painter/Shi-Painter Pro integration
私の新しいシンプルなＰ－ＭＥＭＯです：）　これからもっとお絵かきをする！ (LINK)

I wonder if there are English versions of their softwares, because all of them are really cool~ It’s a bit sad that you need to understand Japanese in order to fully utilise their scripts. I spent one day getting Web Clap and Web Diary Pro to work (because I desperately want to use the integrated PaintBBS, Shi-Painter and Shi-Painter Pro that WordPress and Wacintaki Poteto have been depriving me of). After hours of getting either ’500 Internal Server Error’ or ’403 Forbidden’ and a few more hours of tweaking the skin files, I now have a fully working Oekaki Log (or P-Memo, which sounds cuter). I’m so happy, because now my oekaki belongs to only me instead of a whole community. The fact that it’s actually a blog is a big plus.

I was deciding between Nicky!, Web Memory and Web Diary Pro for a few days before settling on the last of the three. Nicky! is pretty decent, but not as flexible as WDP. If you’re thinking of installing your own oekaki blog, I recommend WDP to the extreme (LOL). Here’s some extra bits of information to those who aren’t familiar with web claps and the likes:

• Web Clap: It’s widely installed on Japanese sites, including blogs (like those hosted by FC2). Webclap is simply a script that let visitors ‘applaud’ your website content. They can also leave comments if they want to. It’s like the karma system, only web clap means giving good karma. I wonder if they have something like Web Boo! for the opposite effect. Hahaha.
• Oekaki: The downside to being familiar with oekaki is not knowing how to exlain what it is, like what I’m feeling. Just think of it as drawing using Java appletsand then publishing the piece of art as a blog entry (or in a more popular case, pictures on bulletin boards). See, I suck at explaning what oekaki is, so feel free to Google it up if you need more info. PaintBBS, Shi-Painter and Shi-Painter Pro (the last is my favourite) are three most famous applets ever created for this purpose. Why the heck isn’t it integrated with WordPress yet?! EDIT: Finally found the most useful Oekaki plugin! Details in this post

As I was working on the scripts, I drew myself a brand new avatar. I think is decent. I don’t know. It might be one of the most decent avatars I’ve ever made for myself.

Notice that all of them are in the same colour scheme. This is because I’ve designed for them to be integrated into my fanwork gallery, Toffeepops. Yup, that’s my finalised circle name. The last was discarded, and I registered under Toffeepops instead. It’s cute anyway. Toffeepops is multi-hosted, but the main gateway is hosted by 2Style, under the domain Sweety.Jp. I wanted Psycho.Jp, but I made a very stupid mistake… by giving them the wrong e-mail address. Moron. This is a part of Project Catharsis and the simplest site I’ve planned/made since 2004. It’s like going back to basics – less coding, more styling. Lol.

Okay, I can’t stay awake. I need to go to sleep for a while even though it’s only 7.55pm.

© 2009, Adlina. All rights reserved. Please link back to this page if quoted.

Other than admitting to the fact that I am hopelessly in love with my own name (this has nothing to do with narcissism, thank you very much), nothing particularly interesting has been going on around me lately. I’m back to being snappish, easily annoyed, feeling like wanting to sleep the whole day without doing anything and anything else that you can associate wih extreme laziness. The weather the past few days were not helping either. Waking up to a white blur out of the tall window was not a pleasant experience, just like having temperatures above 15 degrees celcius during winter was kind of uncool (literally).

I’ve been switching from books to books, one piece of writing to another, sites to sites – unable to focus on anything. Even this entry feels forced. I haven’t been updating my other journals as well. Those are just a few examples of my laziness at the moment. The biggest accomplishment during this reign of ultimate boredom is probably that I’ve managed to write over 10,000 words of fiction in a week. They’re actually pieces that I really had fun writing too.

I guess I should go back to my DS. It’s been a long time since I updated my gamelog. What a shame. It’s time to go hunting for good DS games again. I’m also putting DSi on hold. Nope, not going to buy it anytime soon, at least until they find the proper flash cart for it. I’m still extremely happy with my red DS~ I’d rather buy a second Wii or a new UMPC.

I’ll be back to feeling very, very bored after this. Huffs.

© 2009, Adlina. All rights reserved. Please link back to this page if quoted.

At one of the hallways at the Old Governtment House, University of Auckland

Today was supposed to be my day off, seeing as how I only have classes on Tuesdays and Fridays. On Wednesdays, I have a weekly housekeeping session as well as a 2-hour Professional Development (ProDev) course with Sheryll, but they don’t actually apply as ‘classes’. We, IPBArians, have been invited to a morning tea with representatives from the Malaysian Ministry of Education (Pn. Kartini and… Ok, I forgot the other official’s name. Bad me =O).Basically, we introduced ourselves to them, and listened to speeches by John et al.

It was during this meeting that we were informed of the new B.ed TESOL cycle (the third and supposedly last cycle). The next cycle is going to be a big one (more than 500 will be sent overseas for cohort 1 and 2 of the new cycle every year), and 90% of them are going to be primary school students. Compared to us, 130 students, that’s going to be a lot to manage. I wish our coordinators luck on dealing with a relatively larger number of students.

After the intros and speeches, it was time for the awaited morning tea. I admit that I’m one of those money-oriented ones attending the meeting for free morning tea + lunch. Not working this year, so money… Yeah.

There were fruits, scones, French macaroons, orange juice, tea and coffee. Seriously, the macaroons were awesome when taken with creamy butter filling (I didn’t take the raspberry/strawberry ganache). I ate two and brought one home. Now that I think about it, I should have taken some more (LOL).

Library: The book by Widdowson that I want is currently on loan until the first week of April. Grr. I’m tempted to just recall the book, but since I can still make do without it, I won’t be too hasty. I borrowed a few books on Linguistics, language in general and the teaching of English and literature in the classroom. They look so interesting that I couldn’t resist.

Fun times: Atie visited mine and Mira’s apartment this evening. We had fun playing NDS and listening to oldies, which of course include our infamous Malaysian jiwang karat and rock kapak songs. Hahahaha. No, really, please don’t ask. Finally, someone who likes those awesome songs from the 90′s!

Skype woes: On another matter altogether, I’ve been having bad experience with Skype lately. Skypeout and video calls have been extremely poor in quality. Bloody volcanoes. Bloody storm. Bloody backward-technology broadband. Why is Skype the only one affected? Hurrrr.

© 2009, Adlina. All rights reserved. Please link back to this page if quoted.