I always knew it was the sun, you loved.

I've been feeling a bit mellow these past few weeks. Struck by sickness one after the other, but Alhamdulillah have been fighting through steadily. Sometimes what a girl needs is just a little timeout for R&R, a wonderfully loving husband to cuddle, and lots of bad TV shows as a distraction. Yeah, did all that - including the mind over matter psychotherapy thing -  and hey, I've found myself doing ok. I needed to work throughout the illness bouts anyway, so there really is no rest for the wicked(-ly fabulous :P)!

It reminds me of my sick days in the UK. Gosh, I was sick all the time. The bitter cold, the pressure of studying, the bitter cold, my rubbish immune system, and the bitter cold easily got me sniffling for weeks at a time. Oh did I mention the weather was always bitterly cold? Have I really? Oh, well... yeah. Those harsh winter days, I never thought I'd remember what it was like to be nice and warm. Or what normal room temperature should be like. Many times over, our whole house was actually much colder than the fridge. Really, you can tell that I'm Jawa to the very core of my soul by my not being able to stand the cold.

Surprisingly, my darling husband Syahrin never had as much of a problem with the unforgiving temperatures compared to his wimpy wife who was always shivering and bundled up in as many layers as humanly possible. He was almost never sick. Honestly I never thought I'd be the one who couldn't stand the weather. Well for one, I've got more fat percentage for my height than he does, although his perut is bigger (:P). Now I know that that doesn't really relate to cold-resistance or heat-retention, whichever way you want to look at it. Plus, I've experienced much lower temperatures in other countries, but I would buckle at well above freezing point in the UK. Especially when its raining and the crazy winds come at you from every angle. Ooooh, even the thought of it makes me feel like rolling myself into a cocoon of duvets (cause I'm dramatic like that). Meanwhile Syahrin, born and bred in Taiping, Malaysia (and absolutely proud of it! Wassup Tepen homies yawwww!) had absolutely no problem with whatever the weather decided to throw at us on any given day. He was always just so blasé about the cold and didn't need the heater or protective clothing on as much as I did.

Just so you know Sayang, I am absolutely in awe with you. You're my idol. When I grow up and decide to pursue my PhD in another one of those cold countries, I want to be just like you. But without the perut. Ahahaha. Tengok, merepek. Kutuk suami kena panah petir nanti Izza! Haih -_-"

Heh, its sort of funny to think of how much I despised the cold back then. Right now, in all of the tropical-climate glory of Malaysia, I avoid going out at daytime and would rather sit all day on my fat bum in my 2-horsepower-air-conditioned office room. Can we say, hyyypppooocrriiiiteeee? Uh huh! Although I've got to admit, I'd take the hot blazing sun all year round over snow-once-in-a-while anytime in my life. It really isn't that bad in Malaysia (wait til you get the chance to experience Mediterranean heat. Fuh! 47 deg Celcius!!), and we don't need to change our wardrobe every 3 months, or install heating systems in our house to survive, or wake up really early in the morning to de-ice the car, or worry about how to dry the clothes you just washed, or have to wait 5 minutes for the water to warm up before you can cebok.

I know this all sounds exaggerated. It probably is, to be honest. But like I've said before, people's experiences are always different. Students who live in dorms with private bathrooms, laundry and all-inclusive rent wouldn't need to worry about heating, bills, or dealing with landlords. Locals are used to the routine and have adapted their houses/lifestyles accordingly. Sebab tu la depa pakai kasut dalam rumah and mandi 3 hari sekali! Sekarang paham kenapa kan? Most people would turn on the centralized heating for many hours if they can afford to (heating uses a lot of energy and is very expensive), whereas poor foreign students like me would rather freeze to death than pay 600 pounds for 3 months of full heating during winter. My husband and I only turned on the heating for two hours in the morning and two hours at night, even in the coldest winter days. Lama sikit on kalau nak kena basuh baju and keringkan guna heater rumah tu. We paid about 150 pounds for 6 months.. jimat! 600 pounds boleh buat jalan-jalan around Europe for two people k. Sanggup lagi demam selsema tetiap minggu sebab nak jimat duit punya pasal. Macam tu lah susahnya kami yang hangpa dok ingat seronok sangat pi berjalan sana sini and shopping sakan. Susah tau tak susah, bukan senang lenang hari-hari makan nasi campur kat seksyen 2 pastu petang-petang dating kat Taman Tasik Shah Alam pastu malam sket lepak kat mamak plak. Aku tau sebab dulu aku pun selalu buat masa kat UiTM, tettttt.

Errr ok. So back to being sick. And the sun. The relation? I think being home in tropical Malaysia has made me less prone to illnesses, or at least I have had a better response mechanism to it. I can handle the heat much better than the cold. I can get over feverish symptoms in a day by drinking lots of water and sweating it out. As for avoiding weather-influenced illnesses, I can pretty much guess (from repeated patterns) when the rain would come in the day or when the peak of heat will strike and can then safely plan my day around the timings. The weather is relatively predictable and the nights and days are perfectly divided into 12 hours each. The malls here are open until 10pm at night. Eh tiba-tiba. Ok I know this is totally unrelated, but shops closing at 5pm in the UK used to stress me out sooooooo much! We all know that stress is unhealthy, right? But hold up hold up. The best part is: I don't need an air-conditioning device to survive in Malaysia, and I sure as heck don't need a water heater just so that I can cebok without accidentally freezing my ovaries. Believe me, these two things (surviving in natural ambient temperature and cebok-ing) contribute greatly to the state of my health. Well..air-conditioning I can understand. But the next time you use a water heater just because you think your water supply is cold, think again; do you really need to waste that much energy on a country that already has such a pleasant water temperature?

BERSYUKURLAH.

Pandai je cakap orang aku ni -_-"

Hokay! As a closing piece to my incredibly long and pointless rant about the weather, here is a song by a band I fell in love with during the cold rainy days in the UK. I felt like sharing this because I am currently so bored with the mainstream music in the radios (Seriously, am I the only living person in this country who is not obsessed with K-Pop?). A haunting song that just gets me each time I listen to it. Click play:

Raindrops, 
They're dropping on me
Like your heart's in the clouds above.
But one day, they'll drift right away,
I never wanted the rain to stop.
The sun you love.
I always knew it was the sun you loved...


You can listen to their other stuff here if you want to, although I personally prefer their live/acoustic performances rather than the recorded songs.

So what makes you feel better when you're sick?



P/S: I found out today that chocolate fudge sundaes are good for relieving swollen/inflamed tonsils. Worked like a charm and I'm now all goooooooddd! ;D

Hey! When did I start this blog... ?

Isn't it just like me to update once every 3 months. I even forgot what the title of this blog was!

Sigh. So much for being "consistent".

But forgive me, dear journal. I have been fighting to regain control over life in general. It's been a cosy 6 months since I've been home. I've put on so much weight, its not funny. I've been struggling to control my nafsu because being overweight is not just aesthetically displeasing; it is also very unhealthy. If anything, I hate being unhealthy much much more that I'll ever hate being fat. So yes, trying to keep my desires in check now please.

Work is steadily taking up 80% of my time, my weeknights, my weekends; constantly infiltrating my dreams and thoughts and holidays (if any). Orang muda kena kerja kuat, said my boss. Orang muda kena gigih berjasa kepada negara. I remind myself everyday that I shouldn't be complaining about work when this is what I chose to do.


Writing about work is something I'll do another day. Instead, I need to figure out if I can keep up with blogging. For me it takes a lot of effort because I put in a lot of effort in writing these posts. Pitfalls of being academically trained in writing - you tend to read and reread and reread everything you write to make sure it flows well and is appropriately analytical and isn't redundant and doesn't unintentionally offend anyone. The impact of this is that it takes me half an hour to write and edit a single paragraph -_-" Sometimes I'll write something and think, ok wait thats no good. *Proceeds to delete whole paragraph.* Haihhh. Waste of my bloody half an hour, I tell ya.

I've mentioned before that I intend for this blog to be an archive of my memories and experiences. But lets face it, that's quite a heavy theme for an inconsistent blogger like me. Sometimes I'd be excited to start writing something, but then the excitement would die about a quarter way through as soon as I remember that I'd need to think hard to actually remember those memories and experiences. Not to mention the need to edit a gazillion pictures for the post. So yeah, I've been trying to find ways to make blogging a lighter experience for me.

All throughout the time I've been keeping this blog vacant, I have been happily blogwalking and surfing through Malaysia's most popular blogspots (and blogshops! :D :D :D). I wanted a feel of what the Malaysian youths were writing about in their blogs, which style of writing was most common, what kind of topics the youth were out to discuss. I've subsequently discovered that there has been a recent outburst of fashion bloggers, and an increasingly widening audience to this genre. Apparently the most popular blogging styles were ones that involved minimal writing and heaped on lots of pretty pictures of pretty girls. (Minimal writing = minimal time deleting paragraphs = happy blogger).

Despite major criticism from people who think fashion blogging is 'bimbo blogging', I don't think its necessarily a bad thing. For one, I have found great inspiration in revamping my wardrobe based on classy young lady bloggers. As a student I was always just a t-shirt-and-jeans girl without much thought for fashion (plus the fact that I was constantly broke). However, as a corporate businesswoman (aicecehhh), I wanted to exude a bit more elegance. I rejoice in meeting hijabis in the blogosphere who embrace individuality while staying perfectly modest.

Then again, there is the fine line between being fashionable and being a fashion victim. I have witnessed too many people lose themselves in other people's identities for the sake of fashion. Trying too hard to be mainstream, I think? To be popular, to be desired, to have lots and lots of followers and admirers.

So the dilemma is; do I jump into the bandwagon and dip my toes into fashion blogging? It would be easy. I'd only need to take pictures of my (supposedly) pretty clothes. No heavy, intense organizing and re-organizing of thoughts. I could update by uploading my 'outfit of the day'. I could give out tips of fashion do's and dont's. Hmmm..

Alas, after laughing at myself for several hours, the answer is a big fat no.

Not only would I be making a fool out of myself since I am in no way a fashionable person, I would also be a victim of peer pressure. And really, what was my reason for blogging in the first place anyway? To imitate what other people were doing? No, Izza, it was not. Please slap yourself now. Stop being such an indecisive quarter-life-crisis person.

Anyway, I've decided to just wing it - a mix of light stuff and intense stuff here and there. Maybe a post on an outfit that I like, maybe a post on discovering my faith, maybe a post on happy memories, and maybe another post on another outfit that I like. But I've got to keep writing. Its actually really therapeutic :) Feels great to look back once in a while and read what I was thinking a few days, weeks, or months ago. Remembering what it is/was like to be me.

So. Here's to trying to post something up a bit more frequently than once every 3 months. Wish me luck.


Loves.


P/S: I've figured out why I'm so uptight with writing stuff. I have OCD.
PP/S: Sorry for the lack of pictures. Lazy. Yeah I know.