as the cogs run

one notch of love.

no more than this. 

shoreline

belated realisation but it felt like God always puts me in situations i couldn't understand better before to let me experience the same emotion and self-deduce. 

hey

eid break passed in a blur.

so a couple of things happened. i was supposed to study for an upcoming anatomy test but i succumbed to the desire of resting and could only finish half of my target in the designated time. like last year, as well, i cut a worth of 5 kg meat along with my great granny and strained my trapezius.

this year, we celebrated first eid @ my paternal side of family, then i had to endure unsolicited advices from my paternal grandfather. nothing really changed, i am still awkward with my cousins... and again became the sore thumb sticking out. they're really nice and sweet, especially the daughters of my first paternal aunt but i personally think the timing is too late for me to blend with in the clique, and when you don't have common grounds it's even harder to strike decent conversations. we only got to visit one relative's house this time, and as we came back to my grandparents' house, the eldest brother of my dad whom i had not seen in ages were there with his three daughters. 

the next day, had to assist in the kitchen as my mom and maternal granny cooked a feast for the teeming guests (no exaggeration, it began eight in the morning and people did not stop coming until dusk fell). my hair and baju kurung literally smelled like salted fish because mom fried a bunchful of them. at times, my bored little brothers would run downstairs to the kitchen, and once a guest's son was calling his mom but my mom thought it was one of my brothers so she yelled what do you want completely unaware of the kid being a guest's son lol. one of the little boys that came brought a binder full of boboiboy cards and was so proud of it. as a fellow collector of seventeen photocards, i can relate.

that's how the 2nd eid went... it was really tiring for me bending down to the low sink and washing the dishes to the point that my feet numbed and one of my toes curled inert for a few minutes, but i know that my mom must had been more exhausted as she did laundry as well afterward. the kitchen was hella messy with seabass scale as the econsave worker refused to clean the fish due to the load of customers and my mom was descaling about eight to nine seabass total. meanwhile, my eldest younger brother was out and about with his friends to watch the movies. thankfully my second younger brother and aunt came to help. we ended up not going to our relative's house at all. 

we still had to prepare food for the guests on 3rd eid. honestly, the guests number weren't as crazy as when i was little. i remembered people coming until one to three in the morning, and how spent everyone would be as they left. my late maternal grandfather had a vast social networking of friends and relatives given his number of siblings, so a lot people even from different states used to come until my grandpa passed away, and the head of the families who came passed away as well. so now, my mom would lock the gates by 7 pm max. after all, my great granny and granny are getting older, and my uncles and aunts all have family and commitment, the household can't handle as much guests as it used to be. 

anyway, a younger brother of my late grandpa visited. he shared the most resemblance with my late grandpa, almost like the same man in a different font. actually, i thought the same about my dad's male siblings. they're really alike to each other, but the differences stand out as well. mom bursted out in tears as soon as she shook hands with that uncle of hers, as she was reminded of her late dad who truly doted on her. indeed, he was the best grandpa one could ever ask for. sometimes i miss him too. he passed in 2010, so it will soon be 14 years, and i only had little recollection of him intact. 

then at night, we had the annual salam raya session and family photoshoot... but it's a story too long i couldn't bring myself to write. only some things like. one petal of the polymer clay orchid pendant i baked broke before the photoshoot session. my dad telling me not to be too depressed about my study and hugging me. giving duit raya to my siblings and cousins as the first grandchild. my duit raya count made me happy and i got some really cute envelope designs... yeah. the sleepiness is talking. it's 1 am right now and i have pbl tomorrow :/ till then.

mishap

it's rotten.

it's like i live in a spiral. 

ramadan

yesterday was a great time. i went to classes the whole day with marsha, planned on making polymer clay orchids into bracelet charms and then went break fasting with 9/10 of my pblmates who tried fasting for the whole day, for the first time @ woodfire. they woke up early in the morning to have suhoor, and called everyone in the whatsapp group. i felt bad as i didn't even wake up, and i didn't even fast as i was having my menses. 

carpooled with other four people using one of my pblmate's car. it was raining the whole journey there, the traffic was almost hellish to say and we talked about our faculty dean who was fired one week after she renewed her posting (rumoured that she voiced out some doctors' requests and the vice councillor wasn't fond of that to the point that her appeal to decline the sudden dismissal was rejected). we arrived and apparently, the place is really close to the mrt station. it even has a prayer room at the end of the alley. 

woodfire burgers are massive as always, they're served early and the reservation was made really early too (around 12-1 pm). i managed to finish my burger, though, my meal capacity gets smaller by day. i'm still overweight by 1.5 margin from normal bmi, but yeah. it gets better. those ordering butter soda said it sucks, literally like melted butter in tasteless soda, and those who ordered madhen chicken platter went red because of the spiciness - they said it's equivalent to the red buldak samyang. 

i got to know some of them are subethnically cantonese, and some is hakka, and that not just hinduism forbids eating beef, some buddhists also do not consume beef like one of my pblmates. we waited for grab while catching sight of snails and listening to toads croaking at intervals, then parted ways in two cars. thanks to ainah misplacing her car keys and suspecting that she dropped it in the previous pblmate's car, people living in university tower decided to share the grab since the fee was low at that time. again, saved on transport, and dropped by kk1, kk2, and finally kk6. apparently besides one of my pblmates who is already married, three of them are in a relationship. 

going back to hometown next week. so far i just went to the mosque next to kwkk building once for taraweeh with amirah, sarah, ezrin and balqis, but then only amirah, ezrin and balqis could pass through the little aperture of a gate of the shortcut meanwhile sarah and i had to climb up a fence (so much deja vu, i routinely did so in high school lol). saw a few familiar faces and that's that. ended up we got lost in the diploma nurses' college because of ezrin and had to take a long route back to college - and i felt my back cramping somehow. that was how my 1st ramadan night went. life was quite productive, lately, being an eye patient for master's doctors' mock exam and getting paid myr50 for it, doing group tasks, decluttered my room, and just living. 

it's so laughable to think that i don't deserve some good people in my life, given how petty i could be at times. i am grateful if not for the regrets that does not let me go by a single day, is all. 

just

every day i wake up feeling so fucking tired i'll wonder how will i survive the workfield

vernon once said

about 🍊;

we are born // and we produce fruits // and with those fruits we make jam // and we share it. 

-

do you know how easy it is for admiration to morph into envy