Time takes pleasure in kicking our asses. For even the strongest of us, it seems to play tricks. Slowing down, hovering until it freezes. Leaving us stuck in a moment, unable to move in one direction or the other.

Time waits for no man. Time heals all wounds. But what we want is more time. Time to stand up. Time to grow up. Time to let go.

My past seems to have caught up with me, though I knew that it would. Perhaps, I care too much for making others happy, that I've left my own sense of happiness in their hands.

Fresh starts thanks to the calendar, they happen every year. Just set your watch to January, our reward for surviving the holiday season is a new year. Bringing on the great tradition of new years resolutions, put your past behind you and start over. It's hard to resist the chance of a new beginning, a chance to put the problems of last year to bed.

But who gets to determine when the old ends and the new begins? It's not on the calendar, it's not a birthday, it's not a new year. It's an event - big or small, something that changes us, ideally it gives us hope, a new way of living and looking at the world, letting go of old habits, old memories. What's important is that we never stop believing we can have a new beginning, but it's also important to remember amid all the crap are a few things really worth holding on to.

In general, lines are there for a reason. For security, clarity. If you choose to cross the line, you pretty much do so at your own risk. So why is it, that the bigger the line, the greater the temptation to cross it?

We can't help ourselves, we see a line we want to cross it. Maybe it's the thrill of trading the familiar for the unfamiliar, a sort of personal dare. Only problem is once you've crossed, it's almost impossible to go back. But, if you do manage to make it back across that line, you find safety in numbers

Romeo and Juliet

Back then, I really believed that Juliet was an idiot. For one thing, she falls for the one guy she knows she can't have. Everyone thinks it's so romantic. Romeo and Juliet, true love. If Juliet was stupid enough to fall for the enemy, drink a bottle of poison, and go to sleep in a mausoleum, then she deserved everything she got.

That was till she explained to me that when fate comes into play, choice sometimes goes out the window.

Maybe Romeo and Juliet were fated to be together, but just for a while, and then their time passed. If they could have known that beforehand, maybe it all would have been okay. When I grow up, I'd take fate into my own hands. I wouldn't let someone drag me down. Even now, I believe that for the most part, love is about choices. It's about putting down the poison and the dagger and making your own happy ending, well most of the time. And sometimes, despite all your best intentions, fate wins anyway.

There are certain things which I dislike about myself, one of which is being left stumped. It can be said that I'm the type of guy that does not like to be at a loss for words.

Some people have the Messiah Complex, where they feel obligated or to make the world a better place. Hence, these kind of people will go one step furthur just to make others happy even at the expense of their own happiness. Of course I can name a few people I know that fits in this category but that would be discriminating.

There's also the Rubix Complex. Now these kind of people have the tendency to solve puzzles. Anything that is strange or dumbfounded, these people are attracted to it. I guess I fit into this category, since one of my lifetime goals is not to make the world a better place. And I'm a sucker for puzzles or anything that's out of the ordinary.

Which leads me back to the topic, I hate it when things that happened just left me stumped. I can spend all day just thinking about it. Asking myself that question, 'Why?'.

Why it happened?
What's the cause of it?

Dreams are never easy to intepret. Sure most of the time dreams don't mean anything, it is just the mind playing tricks on us. But sometimes, it means a lot of things. Ever experience 'Deja Vu'? Ever feel like you have seen it before but you just can grasp when or where and then it suddenly strikes you, you have dreamed it before. I have my share of dreams, dreams that forever remain a shadow and dreams that re-enacted right before my very eyes.

How do we explain dreams that comes true? If the mind is playing tricks on us, its a damn good trick then. Are we subconsciously able to tell the future? I think so but the explaination is still not reasonable enough. And what if dreams are signs of things to come? If you dream you are falling but you are not frightened or harmed shows that you will meet with adversity but overcome it with ease. If the fall greatly frightens you then will you under go a major struggle in life. If you are injured in the fall you will lose many friends.

This of course has not been deemed true, its just speculation.

Bottom line, I had this dream last night. The events pertaining to this dream greatly affect when I woke up. Questions that linger in my mind?
-Will it happen?
-Why I dream about it?
-Why it 'felt' real?
-What does it mean?
-How do I go about it?

Human beings need a lot of things to feel alive. Family... Love... Sex...

But we only need one thing to feel alive, we need a beating heart. When our heart is threatened, we respond in one or two ways. We either run from it or fight it. There's a scientific term for this, its called fight or flight. It's instinct, we can't control it. Or can we?

We all go through life like bowls in a china shop. A chip here, a crack there. Doing damage to ourselves, to other people. The problem is trying to figure out how to control the damage we've done, or that's been done to us. Sometimes the damage catches us by surprise. Sometimes we think we can fix the damage. And sometimes the damage is something we can't even see.

A wise man once said you can have anything in life if you are willing to sacrifice everything else for it.

What he meant is nothing comes without a price. So before you make a commitment, you better decide how much you're willing to lose.

Too often, going after what feels good means letting go of what you know is right; and letting someone in means abandoning the walls you've spent a lifetime building. Of course, the toughest sacrifices are the ones we don't see coming, when we don't have time to think about it, to pick a side or to measure the potential loss. When that happens, and not the other way around, that's when the sacrifice can turn out to be more than we can bear.

I can't think of a single reason why I should be in poly, but I can think of a thousand reasons why I should quit. They make it hard on purpose. There comes a moment when it's more than just a game, and you either take that step forward or turn around and walk away. I could quit but here's the thing, I love the playing field.

I'm sure this goes against everything you've been taught, but right and wrong do exist. Just because you don't know what the right answer is, maybe there's even no way you could know what the right answer is, doesn't make your answer right or even okay. It's much simpler than that. It's just plain wrong.

A 2 days 1 night Samba camp might seem a bit short but it also means 2 days and 1 night of fun and laughter. Throughout the camp, jokes were made for even the slightest reasons. A few moments that's deemed memorable during the camp...

Latin introduction: Bambang and I made our own rendition of a Hari Raya song when the guests were playing a jazz piece. The guests were playing the song La Bamba and we changed the lyrics quite a bit. For example; the words 'Por ti Sere' was changed to 'Oh you sewel'. Sewel is a malay word, in English it means

Games session: Musical chairs might seem to be a kid's game but if you add in the Samba members into it, you'll get fits of laughter with our crazy antics. Despite our age, I guess we all still want to be the last one sitting on the chair. And Azeimah can scream real loud! Even if she's playing or when she is out.

Composing our own Samba piece: It was a headache, having only 5 members in our group and needing to compose a full length Samba piece with introduction, groove, 2 breaks and an ending. But all in all, it was fun. We won best overall piece.

Night games: Fadzley organise the night games, unfortunately the fun was mainly about him rather than the game itself. Guess that's what makes it fun. 'Oh your England so the powderful!'
We played cluedo, walking around TP and finding clues regarding a crime invloving the death of 2 person. Nadya's portrayal as a senile nurse with her so irritating phrase, 'May I help you?'. Abdul as the keyboardist of a band, he really doesn't know anything about his bandmates. 'No idea?'. Well, we can't blame him as Ferhand didn't tell him what to say and what not to say to us. Last but definitely not least, Razin! He acts as the ghost of the dead manager, that we know after the game was over. What kind of ghost walks around acting weird and dressed wearing 'kain pelekat'? He can be seen imagining 'ambil air sembahyang' near the drain, and then out of nowhere running towards us screaming and scaring people. Not to forget, he is the only ghost that suddenly showcases his 'silat' technic. The ghost who know martial arts. He even stole some of our slippers! For fun of course, we got our slippers back eventually.

Fadzley and Bambang duet: With a guitar, they can come up with songs about us anytime. Victims was Shikin, Raziz, Raodah, Damien and Ferhad. Ferhad was the worst, they can compile the songs into an album just by using Ferhad alone. A lot of funny rendition was made about him. Ranging from his cravings for nutella, eating bread, standing by the door, walking pass our room, his body and his phrase "Your time will come" eventually became the chorus of the song.

Ghost stories: We lie down in a room in the dark and start telling ghost stories. Ended up sleeping around 4-5am in the morning.

You can have all the faith you want in spirits, and the afterlife, and heaven and hell, but when it comes to this world, don't be an idiot. Cause you can tell me you put your faith in God to put you through the day, but when it comes the time to cross the road, I know you look both ways.

Despite all we are told, life is not dynamic and ever-changing. Life is in fact a series of snapshots. Millions and millions of instamatic portraits of a given time in space. The pictures are pressed into our memory or at least version of a memory, until we pull them out, dust them off, and look back and wonder if we really knew the people in the pictures, including ourselves.

The worst thing about good things is that you run the risk of taking them for granted. If you do that, you tend to think the good thing is merely a normal thing and when the good thing goes away that's a bad thing. So rather than being grateful when the good thing happens, you end up being bitter when it doesn't.

Of course, when I say 'you', I'm talking about a hypothetical person rather than you specifically. There is even a danger that the 'you' might be me, but so far I count myself lucky that these good things happen at all.

Being intentionally dense

A short story...

I was strolling in the gardens of an insane asylum when I met a young man who was reading a philosophy book.

His behavior and his evident good health made him stand out from other inmates.

I sat down beside him and asked:"What are you doing here?"

He looked at me surprised. But seeing that I was not one of the doctors, he replied:

"It's very simple. My father, a brilliant lawyer, wanted me to be like him. My Uncle, who owns a large emporium, hoped I would follow his example. My Mother wanted me to be the image of her beloved Father. My Sister always set her husband before me as an example of a successful man. My Brother tried to train me up to be an excellent athlete like himself.And the same thing happened at school, with the Piano Teacher and the English teacher- they were all convinced and determined that they were the best possible example to follow. None of them looked at me as one should look at a man, but as if they were looking in a mirror.

So I decided to enter the asylum. At least here I an be myself."

Dinner at Arab Street was memorable. We dine at Amirah's restaurant somewhere at Pahang Street. The table was cool, it was located at the rooftop hence we dine outdoors beneath the crescent moon. The weather was fine as well, windy and a bit cloudy.

So it was the first time for the 'Old Timers' Gamelan boys to plan such an outing. I unfortunately is the youngest of the 'Old Timers'. The 'Old Timers' consists of the SNO members from the batch of 2001 SYF group. I miss that batch. Although we had our differences, we were united. Sure we caused a lot of problems and headaches, but the memories we made can't be forgotten.

As always, we arrived late. We planned to meet at 6pm, ended up being there by 6.45. I came with Yan, Shah, Jimi, Amjad and our driver Suhail. Mr Khamis, Hafiz and Neng were already there. Sheik, Maya, Aisyah, Nura, Azlin and Kahar arrived later. I had bbq Chicken Chop, though I thought of having the Twin Kebab. It has 2 kebabs, gravy and rice with it. It looks delicious but I don't dare to rate the food based on sight. It's the taste that counts.

Anyways, we chatted, remininsced and asked how things are going. Some people just never change, but I guess that's what make them so easy to remember. Yan and his jokes, Nura and her non-stop chattering. We should do this more often, dedicating just one night to meet up. Most of them, its been atleast 3 years since I last saw them. Some however I do see them due to work and school.

I think when I look back to my secondary school days; Friends and SNO will be the first thing that comes to my mind. Like Nura said countless times yesterday, I have something that I can be proud of and that's SNO.

Emotion runs high
Memories are a thing of the past

Ever feel the need to just let loose?

I'm over it. Yeah, I'm over it. But memories still lingers and I'm just too stubborn to let go. Good? Bad? Who knows. One thing is for sure, I can't do this alone.