Cheat Work Thursday

Photo by Priscilla Du Preez on Unsplash Yes, I'm about to blog about "owning less things", and you're about to roll your eyes with "Oh, here we go, another person announcing how she recently found a light , or fell into a fad, and how it changed her life." You're most probably right. _____ I am not rich (yet), so owning less things is not that hard to do*. But this has become a growing interest of mine: having a small and effective wardrobe, stripping away clothing items that haven't been worn for a long time, and let's admit it, will probably never be worn again no matter how hard I try to convince myself otherwise. (Example: five-year-old top last worn four years ago that I still keep because "I'm just waiting for the right time to wear it again. Plus, it's so preeety!") do not make me happy (anymore). are not really needed / don't have much function / are excess / you know, part of the preparation in cas...

So you know these days, if you don't post it on the internet, it didn't happen? Everyone, I participated in a running event. Before you try to undermine my accomplishment by saying "This must be the 5km-thing..." -- let me confirm it -- it was the 5km-thing. So, I'm not born to run or do any hard sports. It's not my personality. I just need to be in a good shape (relatively). But boredom and probably a little bit of lunacy made me sign up for a "fun" run several months ago. The last time I ran was probably in school. I wasn't really bad at it, I just hated it. It was tiring. The next step was getting a pair of running shoes because the sole of my last pair broke about two years ago. How's that possible, you ask? If you don't wear your shoes, they can just break. So I bought the cheapest non-ugly shoes that I could find two weeks before the run -- right at the point where I started to get nervous and ask myself, don't I have...

I think I haven't gotten sick of the post-apocalyptic genre yet. I just saw The Maze Runner and loved it. I had varying degrees of obsession throughout the five seasons of The Walking Dead , though, from full-blown when it started to hoping-it-would-just-end-already in the middle. Seriously, how many zombie-eating-human scenes can you take in five years? But the second half of last season when the group was separated and making the journey to Terminus was great because we knew Terminus, advertised as sanctuary, was too good to be true. I understand these people were holding on to whatever sliver of hope they had, but come on. So that was enough to make me excited for season 5 to start. And you know what happened on the first episode, which aired last week. I still have to pause and cover my face every time I think of that scene. How could you, TWD writers? Let's move on and ponder what the hell happened on Falling Skies . So I kind of liked the first season. Then they...

Photo by Ohmky on Unsplash Q: What do some yogis, religious people and the new generation of 'hip' people have in common? A: Self-righteousness and the incessant need to be philosophical all the time. Oww, too much? In the words of one of my favourite blogs, therheeldaze.com, "... this whole positivity thing has become... a tad insane." 

Photo by Ohmky on Unsplash Gyms are DBs. Their MO always starts by making a potential client feel bad about themselves because "We need to crush these people, then tell them that we are the answer to their unhappy lives." I've stopped feeling guilty about making fun of them a long time ago. A few months ago, my yoga teacher went for a holiday. Coincidentally, during that time I got a free two-week gym membership from my credit card, so I went to use it knowing I WOULD NOT sign up with them and would only go to its yoga classes. But hey, I thank you for the free pass, and I'll play along. So I was given a form. (Their words are in blue .) Questions: 7) How long has it been since you were in great shape? 8) Besides yourself , is there anyone in your life that would stop you from achieving your fitness goals? I underline the word ' yourself ' because I want you to think deeply about it. And there was a timeline graph on the next page (I edited it a ...

Photo by Jenn Kosar on Unsplash (OMG I want that fish.) QUESTION: If you could have dinner with anyone, who would you choose? Right now, Damien Rice, please. Most of the time, I CANNOT listen to The Blower's Daughter. But every now and then, when I get home in the evening and it's cold and raining outside, it's a song that I put on repeat on both occasions: 1) when I need to further torture myself whenever I don't feel too good or 2) when I feel ok and love the quiet evening. Just like most songs that I listen to, I don't understand the meaning of this one. Or if I'm being honest here, most songs that I listen to do not require a lot of work to understand, actually. Back to this imaginary dinner. So right after I ask him questions like, "If you knew already that you look good with a certain haircut and amount of beard, why is there a picture of you on the internet looking like a homeless person? Yes, like this one you took with Salma Ha...

I went to see the premiere of Saloma biopic at UiTM last June -- the first half. Yes, sometimes people want to watch just half a movie in a huge hall, on a small screen, with the audience sitting as far away as possible. Worth all the RM6. This is not The Hobbit, so I don't get the 'show only half of the movie' thing. A full movie would leave a stronger impression and get the audience talking about it more*, no? (*More excitedly, of course. P Ramlee and Saloma's fans already love the genre.) So obviously this is a new marketing technique that I haven't caught up to yet. The full movie will be shown on Astro this month. No, not on any of the channels you already have. This is Astro we're talking about. Thoughts: Watching the other side of these movie legends is refreshing . I didn't know Saloma at one time was married to A R Tompel. Apparently, the latter was quite a ladies' man and was not really a Husband of the Year to Saloma. This is Mal...

I found the link to this article A Formula for Happiness via Twitter. I read the first page, and after I realized how many words the article has, I scanned the other two. I know it started with a list of what contributes to happiness and ended with a discussion about passion, skills and free enterprise. Promise (maybe) I'll finish reading it someday. Some excerpts: "After 40 years of research, they (social scientists) attribute happiness to three major sources: genes, events and values." "About half of happiness is genetically determined. Up to an additional 40 percent comes from the things that have occurred in our recent past — but that won’t last very long." "That leaves just about 12 percent. That might not sound like much, but the good news is that we can bring that 12 percent under our control. It turns out that choosing to pursue four basic values of faith, family, community and work is the surest path to happiness, given that a cert...

Photo by Nick Hillier on Unsplash The only book that I read after The Hobbit (which was in March last year, by the way) was Something Borrowed. The movie was ok. The book, unfortunately, was not really. But I tortured myself and finished reading it. This reminds me the time I had to wait for my niece Baby Noble when she insisted on putting on a shirt by herself. I tried reading Room and probably stopped after about 30 pages. I'm sure it really is a great book. I was just worried about what it could do to my English. The book was written in the voice of a five-year-old, broken English and all. The next day after those 30 pages, grammar and I fought more than usual. With a heavy heart, I think I won't be making any clothes this year. Last year, besides the two skirts and that one half pants, I actually made one and a half baju raya, which was great and nightmar-ish. I went through all sorts of phases along the process -- from being ambitious to a long hibernation, to variou...

As usual, this side of the world is 100 years behind. But I'm excited about the following movies (and will update this page once I watch them): Her — This is at the top of the list of movies that I want to watch right now. Joaquin Phoenix is one of my favourite actors. Also, I want someone to explain it to me how come this OS is that smart. I had to repeat "Her, film, Wikipedia" to my Google Voice Search four times before finally being directed to huh.com. It's humiliating. Blue Jasmine — I imagine this is cruel and funny. American Hustle — And this must be really a fun movie. Dallas Buyers Club — Inside Llewyn Davis — I've never heard about it before, but good things always happen in a movie when Carey Mulligan is in it. Oscar Isaac was in the movie 10 Years. I'm not saying it was hideous (it was ok, I watched it from start to finish, I can't complain), but from 10 Years to a role as a tortured artist that bagged him several nominations...