…With my heart hanging out.

This post is dedicated to Bukhari Ramli (who hates this kind of return-to-blog-after-unannounced-hiatus post, but demanded I come back anyway) and to Lubnaa Belwael (who’s reminded me that before, I used to write to find myself, and I should stop doing things the other way around because it’s. not. working). You’ve both waited long enough.

Hello.

So.

Where have I been these past eight months?

[Hiding.]

I remember coming home in high spirits. I remember being proud of coming home with barely any tears. I remember getting into an argument with my brother, my first car ride home from the airport, as if reminding myself that things never change.

And then I got a hissy fit for the next eight months, precisely because things never change.

I came home riding on the wings of macho, because no tears at the airport, see, and everybody who’s watched Love Actually KNOWS that it’s an almost improbable feat. I came home thinking that I would glide over the humidity with the secure awesomeness of knowing who I am, finally, after years of living away from family and gaining more independence than I’d ever had, all my years in Malaysia.

First of all, let me tell you, the heat nearly killed me the first two weeks I was back. Crossing timezones and climate patterns in the middle of Ramadhan is insanity. My bones ache all the time, and I feel faint pretty easily, and I’ve had a flu that turned into a bronchial congestion, almost three weeks now.

I should meet Sarah Palin and other climate change-naysayers, because I’m proof.

And secondly, I spent three months being a bum, stalking my Melbourne friends on Facebook and silently resenting how they’ve moved on so quickly after I left. They were still in their certain routines of going to classes and sitting for midterms and finals and having little student soirees, while I was stuck here, no other Melbourne-leaver with me, and trying to figure out whether I was going to study or work.

(As it turned out, I’m now doing both. But that’s another story.)

And after that, I spent about another four months secretly resenting that I’m not doing what I really want to – that I’m getting used to a new job, and trying to fit in my studies at the same time, and making new friends, and trying to figure out what a social life means, because boy is it a whole lot different than when you’re all students and bumming together, as opposed to people you only see around 8.5 hours a day.

I spent most of that time being envious of other people, and how easy they had it.

I’m not going to overdramatise my situation and say that it’s hard. In fact, I suppose part of the resentment lies in the fact that it’s relatively easy – maybe not the most convenient, but hardly worthy of a reality TV series. My job is easy enough and pays well, and its flexible hours give me time for night classes at University Malaya. My classes in Philosophy of Science are finally something I’m enjoying (and getting).

Maybe it’s the heat that got me. Got me bad.

Or maybe it’s the way Malaysia has disappointed me in so many ways. Maybe also the way Malaysians have surprised me since I’ve returned.

But perhaps the most telling Maybe is the fact that in my thoughts, I saw myself in a singular category, and every other Malaysian in the other.

Judgemental? Yes. Unhealthy? Also yes.

Good thing I have parents who don’t take bull and who are consistent in the kicking it out of their kids.

So here I am, eight months gone, one semester over and four paychecks in, and only now beginning to seek out the rest of the world. Because you can’t venture across the universe if you don’t know where home is.

And I think I’m starting to figure it out.

P.S:- But seriously, and I know that we’re a merry Jom-Heboh pesta-pesta cuti lot and all, but what is WITH all the fireworks? Don’t you need an excuse for explosives, even the non-destructive kind? Aiyoo.

‘Broken parts that litter the night sky like stars’

I really, really, really should be studying. I know I should.

And yet here I am, googling the web for proof that Nike still belongs to my boycotting category, because I think I’ve fallen for a pair of Converse All-Stars. As if I didn’t bring enough shoes back with me this year, and as if that was all it took for me to feel better about myself, or even ace through this semester. Talking about high-ended principles are much easier than living them, believe me.

As I was googling with the keywords, ‘nike, zionist boycott’, I came across my old Blogspot blog. It was an entry from long ago, back in 2006, when I was idealistic as never before, and before reality hit me smack in the face. I felt like laughing. I felt like crying. I would attribute both to my cramps, but hey. Truth be told, there is something about reading your diary from years ago that pulls you into a time warp and threatens to cloud you over. There’s something else about reading public statements from yesteryear. It makes me fear for the fate of my blog in the years to come, really. It might be too much for the future me to behold.

Oh, the angst. The righteous fever of the young and utterly jaded and virtuous with conviction. Not that virtue is a bad thing – I mean, it is virtue after all. Only despite how righteous and daring it seemed back then, it seems like nothing more than naivete now.

Not that I don’t still believe in the boycott, although there are times I wish I still did with the same level of conviction. It’s just that the fever from before seems to have subsided, and I’d be suprised if no one else has noticed. I’m the last person who realizes anything that’s changed within me. It’s always my darling housemates and their alternately blunt/intuitive statements, along with some crude observations by acquaintances, because my closest friends are too blinded by love to care. I know I used to rant about compromising one’s principles with such vitriol as scared and bemused as many people, I am sure, but I find myself doing it all the time now. It takes people reminding me, and yet I wonder if I still believe in the same sort of things in the same sort of way anymore.

I was reminded of it throughout the six-day Seniors Camp ’08, organized by Young Muslims of Australia’s (YMA) Futuwwah. It was an awesome experience, which started out a little daunting with all the noise of the younger kids, all familiar with each other but alien to me; but soon enough we learned to live together and create a little microcommunity, right there in the deeps of the Yarra Valley. Six days flew by and before I knew it, we were on our way back to the rackish bustle of the city, and back to cars and smoke and restless hearts.

Ustadh Mahmud Kurkcu was splendid, masyaAllah, in his undeterring focus on us regaining our spiritual bearings and embracing our Islamic identity wholeheartedly and unapologetically. Rather than the spirited, almost agitated talks one pretty much expects to hear by Muslim scholars from non-Muslim communities, Ustadh Mahmud was quiet and meditative; stern and loving. He joked and poked fun at us and disciplined us throughout, but always, he kept on driving point after point into our hearts.

For the first time in the longest time – for the longest time since coming here – I truly and honestly began to cry again, for reasons other than me.

Now that I am back, I seem to be stuck at a crossroads between action and decision, and principle and conviction, and of logic and nafs. I re-learned so many old things that I’m stuttering to start; I had so many epiphanies I could only struggle to try and explain. Too many words for too many dreams, and not enough being done to claim heart to. I’m just, as always, as always have been, looking for my way (which is not necessarily THE way), I suppose.

I’ll let you know when I get there. But for now, one step at a time, insyaAllah, insyaAllah. And may we all find our home right where we are.

‘She said, that she would prefer a broken neck to another broken heart/I said “Remember, even the beauty of birth leaves it’s own scars/And know that you will find your home right where you are”‘

-Amir Sulaiman, She Said, I Prefer a Broken Neck…

(Not) In the mood.

Oh please.

Of all the things. Of all the things in this huge, bleeding (and I mean that literally), overcrowded, overshuffled, overterrorised world. Of all the remarkable things in the world to ponder, to investigate, to marvel at. I had THIS.

I make no qualms about my political affiliations, although, only having recently been considered legal in my country – speaking of which, Government, don’t you think it’s a bit ancient an age to take someone seriously? – my word hasn’t accounted for much but a lot of vented anger. And it worries me, yes, that I seem to be a perpetual rebel, be it culturally or politically. It’s worrisome for when the side I wing for wins.

But that aside. I mean, REALLY. If there is no other reason to vote for the other side, people, let’s just do it because THIS one thinks we’re all brainless dolts, and they apparently plan to keep us that way. All the better for them to dictate with.

We are not Cuba. We are not Zimbabwe. We are not Australia (oh, they had their elections in oh-seven) and no, ma’am, we are NOT the US of A. Let’s not even mention their respectable level of democracy, because oh no, the only thing we can see is their secularism and their East-bashing and their bigotry and their Islamophobia and their inherent need to force their own rules down the whole planet’s throat and that they’re the darned closest this century has to colonialism.

Oh no.

But I will not overrule that we could, possibly, maybe, sort of be Kenya. Because hey, where I come from, people can lose in every other district and still win the electoral seat.

BIG hint.

Sigh. Forgive the Aaron Sorkin-esque narrative. But I’ve been watching Studio 60, and he DOES do peeved very, very well. And, well, I like watching peeved people. Reminds me I’m not quite alone, you know?

So. Call this retaliatory. Call this revenge. I have read enough politics to know that in a land where cyber-laws are barely even considered (unless they have racked their balding heads trying to steal the headline – but with the scandals and the murders and the kidnappings and the espionage-turned-homicides, it’s pretty hard to compete when all you do is cheat and steal on a daily basis) that when there is scant jurisdiction, there will be no verdict. Especially when there are no names, and for all you know, the link could’ve been a copy-and-paste accident.

Oops.

‘Not scared.’ Let’s put that on a t-shirt.

Moving.

2007 was a year for change. Noticeable change, if more subtle than those experienced in the previous year. A year for new friends and acquaintances; more inside jokes; new family-away-from-family. I will remember 2007 as the year I became more confident of the person I am, because I became more of the person I always was, instead of a person I thought I believed in. If that made sense.

In 2007, I grew to be more myself than ever before.

In 2008, I expect a new precedent for change. A more confident me. A more diplomatic (if a tad political) version of the tactless klutz of high school years before. I don’t remember a year in which the Roman and Hijiriah ‘New Years’ coincided so closely. Maybe it’s symbolic, I wouldn’t know – I honestly don’t care much for new years, symbolic or otherwise. Who needs New Year Resolutions? New Day Resolutions. Now, that’s more my thing.

2008 will doubtless be memorable. If I want a decent shot at doing my honours, this is the year to buck up. This will be my final technical year in Melbourne. I began my New Year in Ireland, and spent the next day falling in love with Edinburgh, a place I know I will one day visit again – the city where I rediscovered the beauty of living, and a new faith in dreams. This year I take on new responsibilities with a fresh outlook on life and with far more self-confidence (which may often border on arrogance, in these early, early days) than I have had since I was four years old.

This year I turn 21, and God help the person who prevents me from voting in the upcoming election, because I will not forgo this right I have waited 10 years to qualify.

This year, I’ve found that I have outgrown Friendster in lieu of Facebook. And in the same way, I have grown tired of Blogger, and effective today, I am moving to the greener virtual pastures of WordPress.

http://www.syazwinarants.wordpress.com

In the next few weeks, expect more changes as I get the hang of WordPress through my usual way of never reading the manual.

Till then.