sigh

englebert humperdinck's 'please release me' has been a staple tune in my head for a long time. my dad's a huge influence in my musical tastes.

but nowhere in memory has it been this loud in my head.

it's straight to it, the love is dead. let's move on sayang. the end of it becomes a downright plea of desperation.

"please! release me, can't you see?! you'd be a fool, to cling to me! to live a lie would bring us pain... release me and let me love again!"

it's astonishing how determined you are to continue trying to salvage this. but, admirable, noble -- even touching -- as your intentions may be, i have told you time and again that i cannot find it in me to continue.

and i have been upfront about it, honest, even blunt. but you're just swatting all that away "let's just not think about that shall we? just be nice to each other and move along, we don't need to end"

i mean, what's the whole point of this sayang? i loved you, i really did! what snapped it? time i guess... it just eroded. i don't see how our families can blend either. hence any future i may have seen has just gone up in smoke.

cruel as i may be to have that point of view despite how strongly we wanted each other, but that's how it is.

please understand this isn't easy on me too. i have to be cruel to be kind to you because i will be a worse person to play along and pretend. it'll be a lie.

even your closest friends have been trying to talk sense to you, to make you see that there's more to the world than just you and me, that there's a world beyond me, that really, in the end, there's always someone else!

i can't make you stop loving me, but i don't want you losing your head screws either. it's getting rather pathetic to look at you. and i'm angry because you have more self-worth than that. it's just pathetic. definitely not what i fell in love with in the first place.

i sometimes wonder if i'm really doing you an injustice, but i've consulted the very same friends who were advising you and none of them said so.

am i a jerk? am i an ass? am i a touch n go s.o.b? but i'm told that at least i'm honest enough to tell you instead of just walking out.

you say you're praying to god that we can work this out. i'm praying to god he lets you see that the only way this will work out is when you see that you're better off loving someone else than me. 

i've always had a special place for our friendship, and it was lovely that it blossomed to what it was. but i can only say it ran its course and really i cannot go on anymore.

so please, release me, let me go. i have done so with the slightest pang of guilt, but knowing that i'll be even guiltier if i continued and lied. please move on.

our time together can never be replaced and will be cherished, but that's a closed book now.

"to waste our lives would be a sin, release me, and let me love again."

 

hmmm

i'm going to wade into the dog story here.

the video starts with what looks like a guy, wearing his baju melayu and cargo pants, walking his dogs down a road with the 'takbir raya' playing in the background.

upon reaching their destination, the guy proceeds to wash his dogs' feet, his own feet (looking like he's doing his ablutions) and then dries himself.

then he gives his dogs kuih raya, pets them and poses for a group photo with a selamat hari raya message, reminding us that we should be kind to all species.

first things first, it's a woman in that video, not a man. not that it makes any difference, i'm just clarifying because i genuinely thought it was a guy, and found out it's a lady by the name of Maznah.

now, the uproar.

i can't comprehend it. insulting to islam? really? how? that a person is keeping a few dogs, and spending raya with them, petting them affectionately, and giving them kuih raya is insulting to islam?

i still don't see the insult. she just chose to care for a few creatures created by god himself.

i speak from memory here and recall rather clearly that, muslims cannot consume pork and dog meat. coming into physical contact with them, however, requires a specific cleansing process before you can begin your religious activities, such as praying, reading the holy quran, etc.

therein lies my perplexity: she's merely caring for them, keeping them as pets, not consuming their meat. so how is she insulting the religion?

alvin tan and vivian lee were insulting muslims, knowing full well that pork consumption and the muslim religion are like oil and water.

what alvin and vivian did, was obviously a case of 'cari pasal', yet i don't detect that notion of ill-tasted mischief with maznah and her dogs.

put in cats, we'll all be gushing at how cute they are, but because it's dogs, it becomes associated with dirtiness, the halal/haram spectrum and everybody's interpretations of what a muslim can and cannot do with dogs.

but i still don't see where is the insult coming from.

to insult is to treat or speak of something with disrespect and scorn, so how has she done that by spending raya with her dogs?

rather than fussing over a muslim who seems to have great chemistry with an animal that most other muslims in this country would have no clue how to deal with, please, pay attention to the real problems at hand.

homosexuality, alcoholism, prostitution, misguided islamic practices, drug abuse, polygamy abuse, real education of islamic principles, not mere regurgitation of holy scripture from memory are among some of the major issues our religious figures can contribute their workload to in making sure muslims in malaysia don't fall victim.

yes, while you may be accused of conservatism, won't that be a better argument to have than the rights and wrongs of a dog trainer whose alleged insult of islam isn't even clear?

dear me...

i sit and type everyday, telling the country, perhaps world, stories of what goes on in and around the country,  and have them either tell me i did a good job(rarely), that i need to improve here and there(quite often, but that's good because i learn), or it just passes by without anyone noticing.

such is news. we painstakingly think up an intro, put the facts in order, then be made to look like a fool by editors because i'm such a noob, then up the story goes on air for about ONE bloody minute, and it just flashes by. one days work for a minute's presentation.

i can't remember the last time i actually sat down to get in tune with myself over the keyboard.

it has been one hell of a year at work. it has been one hell of a year in my personal life too.

i just don't know where to begin, and so, as the name of my blog so aptly captures, i shall exercise my right to ramble.

i feel a certain kind of emptiness. a kind of empty that really can't be explained, defined, described.

i had a good love life, i shall stress HAD. and she's still a very very special and dear friend, despite all the emotions, and tribulations of dealing with those emotions. i sometimes wished the break-up was a bad one, so it'll be easier to get through my days.

but thankfully, though i lost some kind of romance, i never lost a friend. and that means much more to me.

i enjoy my job. i love it. the going out, meeting people, talking to them, getting up close n personal. but the stories i do are to serve the purposes of the company. i have yet to find a beat that i can truly call a beat.

i used to think that i could walk into the sports desk and reel off names of every superstar there is. turns out i am sorely mistaken. thank god i didn't stick my head that far out.

i work in the general desk, and cover anything that i'm asked to. from politicians, to loan shark victims, to funerals, and the occasional crime.

what do i enjoy writing about most? after one whole year, i honestly still don't know. apart from my ramblings, i really don't know.

thankfully though, i have had the good fortune to meet good people. and recapture some fun moments with old friends.

living alone here is the toughest thing. it's one thing to be a student away from home, very much another to be earning your wages away from it.

as a student, you can ask for extra allowances without batting an eyelid. as a wage-earner, it becomes so so demoralising.

i guess that's one source of the emptiness or the slight unhappiness that i feel. i love my job, but my friends on the other side of the atlantic doing the same job are earning comfortably more than i do. which gives me a real sucky feeling.

because i wanted to be there, i asked to be there, i hoped to be there. but for reasons that i might not know till my last breath, i was put here. where i feel like i cant string two sentences together without feeling like an absolute douche.

let's see how my fortunes change after the general election. insyaAllah.

i have never been one to put criterion on the kind of girls that i would like to go out with.

but i guess i just didn't know what i wanted in the beginning... it was all about just trying anyone i fancied.

now i sort of have an idea... a general idea. that she must be able to cook, and learn mum's cooking. that she must be able to be the better home-maker than me. that her priorities would be her children, me and ONLY THEN her career. will it matter if she earns more than i do? as long as she takes care of me and the children well, i don't give a flying fuck how much she earns.

earn all the money you can my love, as long as you can take care of me and the children while doing so. i also hope that she has a stable family background, though i know every family has their fair share of skeletons in the closet, basement, ceiling and in the walls. as long as agreeing to disagree can be practiced.

i think i've rambled enough for one night. please don't think that everything i say tonight, will be the same in my head tomorrow. some might stay, some might change, some might be totally forgotten, until i go through this post again and wonder what made me say such things in the first place.

god bless, and good night.