30th July 2009

Today is the day.

My mom-in-law's birthday. Did not really celebrate coz I could not bring myself to celebrate.

My Uncle Mokhtar passed away this morning, he was suffering from liver and kidney dysfunction. On top of that he had a weak heart and was also having signs of Alzheimer's. To make matters even more painful, he's an Australian citizen and died in his hometown, Perth. When my mom sms to tell me that, automatically, tears welled up in my eyes, as his image entered into my heart and mind. Suddenly, I remembered how he was so fond of me and bro, Alil. When he was younger, he lifted both of us in one go, walking along the corridor and into the malls.

Uncle Mokhtar and my Auntie June have no children. They pretty much live on their own and had their own corner Muslim Restaurant in Spencer Village Shopping Place in Perth. I cannot imagine the agony my aunt has to go through now that she's alone without her husband...

Without children, she would be alone in the huge house. Sure she has friends, but nothing comes closer than family. I feel so bad that sometimes I took her for granted. I do not know how it must have felt like right now.

My uncle passed away in his sleep around 10 am this morning. Please pray for a safe journey for him in the afterlife, InsyaAllah.

Goodbye Frank McCourt

When I first laid my hands on Frank McCourt's Teacher Man, I was immediately hooked onto it. Teacher Man was one of Mr McCourt's genius work. I drowned into his sorrows, his love, his difficulty, his ingenuity, his blatant yet dark cynical humour. Teacher Man talks about life as a young teacher and how he coped in his first few years of his teaching career. It got me inspired and if you are a teacher, you can immediately relate to him. It seems like he's speaking up for all new teachers out there. And how apt, I read his masterpiece in NIE.

After loving Teacher Man, I moved on to read Angela's Ashes. I was so moved to tears and I must admit that I teared up a couple of times. Angela's Ashes spoke of his childhood of poverty, when his family moved back to Ireland during the Great Depression and how poverty made him such a survivor. Poverty also grabbed away his sibling's life... and how his mother went to dirt, toil and shame just to make sure that the family live.

'Tis was a brilliant one too. 'Tis illustrate his life as a new man, his relationships, his family back in the states and how he picked up his life for a better one, from a blue-collar to a university graduate and eventually an inspirational teacher in a high school.

Frank McCourt serves as an inspiration to me, he makes me pick up the pieces of what I had left and move on and integrate into normal life that I had. He made me feel human again, and how he felt that poverty made him grew stronger... It really set me thinking, how ungrateful we have all become.

Frank McCourt left us all on 19 July 2009 at the age of 78. He wrote 4 brilliant books, won a pulitzer prize with his first book and at the age of 60, and when the other authors asked him where had he been with all that talent, he replied, "I have been teaching."

He wrote only 4 books in his career as an author, one on poverty, one on teaching and one for his Mom......

Frank McCourt, you inspire me.

Its a good thing I start blogging again. I have been driving myself crazy lately.

I'm so overly pressured to do alot of things and responsibility doesnt come easy. There are times when my patience is wearing me out, but I just had to keep my head up high. Last night was berserk. Ran amok. Mental. Delusional. Scary.

I did not know what to do or how to tackle such issues. I do not know whether to sleep it off, or solve it. I do not know whether to comfort or to ignore. It was a challenge for me and my super weary soul and yet, I'm force to decide. I was so afraid I could get physically hurt even. This had gotten way outta hand. So much so that an inanimate object is the victim of a blunderous catastrophy.

As silly as it looks like, it could turn very ugly if anyone was to be in my shoes.

Then I also have to decide whether work or husband. I know work will make husband pout but I have no choice. Most of the time, I will use his lappie and he will be either gaming or frowning. But how? I can never get things done without a laptop. I can't buy a laptop yet... Poor me.

Look I know I'm never direct in my blogs, but I just like it the way it is. Self expression.

A depressed blog again.

Alot of bickering and uncertainties now. Plenty of arguements and non-related issues. This is so painful. I can't sleep in peace anymore again. I have to turn and stir till I'm finally physically tired, but my head juices are still pouring with all the thoughts and solutions for everything.

I tried to sing myself to sleep, but with every song, I thought about how the lyrics relate to me... NO... too much thinking, I tried gaming on my new toy, but it reminded too much of how i scorned at this. I seem to never get away with alot of things.
Today, I woke up feeling tired, aching, uneasy, head throbbing... I can't do this. I need to stay away for awhile. I realised I lack the 'alone' time I used to have. So I stayed out of work to be alone, swallowed some cool drugs to ease my pain and catch up on what normal people call sleep.

But when I woke up, it was there again, the hurt, the stress... It was temporary. NOw, I'm forced to get out of my 'alone' shell and to face the ultimatum. How I wish I could run. But where? I have trapped myself in this rut.
I need more 'alone' time... But this will be a very rare activity.

..... as I am typing this, I was just shelled heavily without cover or protection....