Saturday.

I've finally got around to buy this. It's slightly unforgivable, because I saw this in the bookshop about a month ago.
As far as I can tell, it isn't very well written, but Einstein is my personal hero, and any book about him that's more than 700 pages thick is worth the 30 odd ringgit I paid for it.

I spent the last few minutes of my teenage years watching this episode of Would I Lie to You: 

Now, this constant posting up of comedic panel shows and well, Youtube clips of comedic shows in general, AND the lack of any camwhore pictures wherein I smile and frolic about in the sun doing banal things with my friends, would make you think that I'm a sad nerd and the only thing I do is watch comedy shows at home alone. 

That's where you're wrong. 

Because I devote some time to my legal studies too. 

But while watching the smexy Victoria Coren, and all the other smart funny people on the show, I realise I go about interacting with the world like a plank of wood would. Well, a plank of wood that has to walk about. Yeah, I would be as awkward as that. 

This realisation isn't newborn or anything, but I saw the show and while marvelling at the absolute beauty of it, thought 'oh God, those people are so smart! So funny, and so socially graceful! How do they do that?' And then I reflect on my own acute deficiencies and go sulk about in a corner like Marvin the Paranoid Android.

How do you get social grace? Are you born with it? Do you inherit it from your parents, like curly hair or skin colour? Did they put you in a class for it at school, a class I somehow missed?

Because for as long as I can remember, I've been that awkward one that never knows how to act normal. Even if I do manage to stimulate it, I'd feel dead inside, which is no way to go about life. 

And I'm a stickler for sincerity, which I suspect might be a 'problem'. Not one I'd willingly fix, I'd admit. 

Friday.

I was contently sipping Milo while watching 30 Rock (because that's the only way you should drink Milo: contently), when - wait, do I sport someone that looks like David Mitchell? Someone with the signature Mitchell/Hitler hair, large forehead, moon-like face, and slightly largish eyes that would suggest themselves to be slightly doe-like if you thought hard enough about it? And the same sort of height too?

*That was definitely not David Mitchell.

Yeah, I really do have nothing to write about.
Well, I can write about catty people, or my response re the pictures + videos of Gaddafi being published everywhere in the press. Or what I think about the way Gaddafi/his body is being treated in the most appalling way possible. But I really don't have the elegance to bring both topic off without elements of righteous indignation, which isn't pretty.

#4

"It is personalities, not principles, that move the age."

From The Picture of Dorian Gray.  

Updates.

1. So yeah, the cooking thing didn't work out (I think I mentioned the 'valiant sacrifice').
This friend I was talking about - I'm starting to think that Fate will forever render our relationship asunder, keeping us at physical distance even though we live so stupidly near to each other. Hitherto, our relationship will commence merely on facebook walls, by longingly posting up links of recipes + pretty pictures of food.
But Tuesday is the postponed-to date. We're probably making chocolate meringues.
If something turns up again to muck this up, then Fate, I'd like to have a word with you.

But I've also discovered the BBC's cooking website yesterday. Yay joy! It's a delight to use, and it's so well designed. Guaranteed to make even the laziest of you pick up the cooking-bug.

(Don't go about thinking I'm domesticated now. I hate that - this stupid Chinese checklist a woman has to have to be 'wife-material'. To this I bluntly say: 'fuck off'.
Cooking is just a very fun thing to channel your creative energy into. AND the end products can be eaten!
Besides, no decent 'wife-material' woman would be caught dead trying to make banana + honey + milo as comfort food. Therein I draw the distinction.)

2. The Big Bad Wolf Booksale thing didn't work out :(
Mostly because it's in The Middle of Goddamn Nowhere (you're also allowed to call it Serdang, I think). It's at somewhere I have to take two trains and a cab to get to, and be left with an absurd bill for the cab fares for my efforts. I don't feel very enthusiastic about taking a cab alone in Serdang anyway. I have been inculcated to fear taxi drivers, brought up with enough warnings to think that you should assume that they are All Evil until after you get off the cab and nothing happens to you. And so you should Never Get on a Taxi, and if you have to (say, to go to a library), you Have to Have a Friend With You. The last option isn't even entirely safe - it's something you should do only when you really must.
Long story short, two friends ended up cancelled on me (two!). And on the last day of the sale, when I happened to be in KL, I was sufficiently motivated to go alone, even with the taxi, but I wasn't wise enough to bring money you ought to bring to a booksale.
Needless to say I went home that day needing comfort food, and there is still a hole in my heart for beautiful new books that isn't filled yet :(
I will be heading to Booksxcess tomorrow to fill that gaping hole that can only be filled with new books.

About whether or not to be sorry, and my 'writing skills'

I'd say sorry about last night's omission, but that would mean I'm assuming you even care, or even noticed, which let's face it, you don't. So now, I just don't know what I should say. Say sorry to myself for breaking my own rule? But I'm not feeling very sorry for breaking it.
See what happens when you overanalyse things? Sorry, anyway, if you noticed and was upset. Here's a bit of virtual chocolate.

But if you do like to know: I was studying, and I was tired. Didn't feel too zippy to fire out some sentences for your amusement because I am sure they would amuse no one, not when I'm feeling too drowsy to be zippy. And besides, there wasn't much to write about.

Now, my writing skills is simply appalling. You know it's quite bad when even the writer herself can't stand it, what's with all of us probably having personal egos that convince us we are better at various things than we really are. Even my personal ego didn't feel like it was up to the task of convincing myself that I can write well, and just threw in the towel. Or maybe my personal ego is just the lazy sort, like the rest of me.
How do you suggest I go about improve it? The writing I mean, not the personal ego or the laziness.
(I read a lot of newspaper articles, by the way - not out of fastidious ambition or anything, it's just a very relaxing way to procrastinate - so the typical advice to 'read more' would probably not apply here. I'm most probably reading a newspaper article, or looking for one to read, when I'm not channelling my energies into productive activity. And besides, the Guardian's site is just good.)

#3 From Lady Windermere's Fan.

'I don't think now that people can be divided into the good and the bad as though they were two separate races or creations.'

*

'We all have ideals in life. At least we should have. Mine is my mother.'
'Ideals are dangerous thing. Realities are better. They wound, but they're better.'
'(shaking her head) If I lost my ideals, I should lose everything.' 

Just nice snippets from the play I'd like to pen down on a piece of scented paper and keep in my wallet.
Of course, with smartphones and like devices, I don't have to do something that sentimental any more.

Ventriloquism.

Watched this:




Got curious about ventriloquism, and turned to my Godfather, Google, to ask questions.

Basically, the collector of various trivial hobbies she never bothers to really develop, has now got a new hobby she wouldn't bother to really develop.

I laughed when I found myself in front of a mirror last night, singing a litany of Beatles songs while looking at myself in a mirror to make sure I don't move my lips.

This wouldn't be a serious hobby because I have no shot in hell when it comes to developing a stage presence. My own normal, day-to-day, personal presence needs dealing with in itself.