Tears in my eyes

I like onions. I love 'em raw with my satay. I love 'em chopped in my pasta sauce. I love 'em caramellised on my burgers.

I just hate peeling and/or chopping and/or slicing them. For obvious reasons, no?

It is good to know that scientists have discovered what is it about them that made me (and loads of other people) cry. However, until they come up with an eye wash or eye drop that contains a powerful inhibitor to that pesky enzyme, I guess we onion peelers/slicers/dicers will have to continue to cry us a river.

A fishy story

I hated The Little Mermaid story. I thought she was stupid to throw away her entire existence on a mirage and I saw no romance in that kind of idiocy. But this?



 Oh, if only I was a slash writer ...

The Perils of Doing Laundry

What have been seen cannot be unseen.



Try not to watch this where people could see you howling with laughter like a complete loony.

God bless the child

Title from this song. Ah, a walk down memory lane.

My childhood was rife with epic adventures. Whooshing down mountains on cave rivers, battling the Nazis in a Sopwith Camel, fighting for what is rightfully mine with magic, plotting to regain royal thrones, performing in a circus, solving mysteries with my boyfriend Ned, and much, much more.

No, it's not just because I'm lucky enough that my parents were unsuccessful in curtailing my television viewing, but because of BOOKS.

Beautiful, marvelous, magnificent BOOKS.

Enid Blyton, Carolyn Keene, Captain WE Johns, Rubaidin Siwar, Khadijah Hashim, Othman Puteh, Othman Wok, and many, many more has helped fuel my imagination and vocabulary. I became addicted to reading at a very young age, and the habit remains to this day. It got to a point that I was borrowing a book every day from the school library, and I made no bones about harassing the student librarians to open up the gates to paradise. I can still recall the crisp scent of my primary school library, the hushed hall and the rows upon rows of delicious books. Mmm.

School holidays were highly anticipated for the opportunity to haunt bookstores. Those stores were wonderlands for exploration, racks upon racks of fragrant, bound pages that harboured secrets and knowledge. I think my Mom sighed a breath of relief when we discovered the rental book store that carried books that I would read (I was an age appropriate reader up to a point); the money would go for much longer with rental and would save on storage space.  

However, I find that the section for children's books in Malay these days are terribly disappointing. I posit the evidence below:

Some desultory fairy tales, and ooh. Encyclopaedia stuff. Exciting.*yawn*

Hikayat Derma Taksiah modernised, most of these.

These pictures were taken at Borders in Bangsar Village 2. Notice that the children's books actually occupied only the top one and a half row of a SINGLE RACK. Those are mostly encyclopaedia types and a miserable collection fairy tale fictions. The rest is taken up by religious tracts and sappy, I-like-to-be-emotionally-abused romance novels. I mean, WTF?

How on Earth can we hope to inculcate the reading habit in our children with such a meager selection? How do we encourage them to explore worlds and dig for information and knowledge beyond what can be Googled? When most of the books are directed to the Malay Muslim audience, how do you hope to encourage non Malay children to love the national language when they have nothing engaging to read?

What happened to the writer of children and young adult fictions in Malay? What happened to the translated books? I remember seeing Harry Potter and Twilight in Malay on display in Popular Books but I don't see them any more.

I got to read Shakespeare, Charles Dickens, Jane Eyre, Jules Verne and many more English literary works, not in its original form, but beautifully translated and abridged (I did get on to read them in the original version). Most of my Enid Blyton, Nancy Drew, Hardy Boys and Biggleswort adventures were in Malay and what a wonderful discovery it was to read them as they were first published. Those books taught me about life in foreign lands, understanding motivations and reading between the lines, and made me pretty good at comprehension exercises.


The English books selection, on the other hand, is fantastic. You can get up to 6 racks for the young readers and the same number dedicated to young adults. But how do we instill a love in the national language when there's nothing to read in them? Children rarely read newspapers, and most of the Malay magazines for children (except for Dewan Pelajar and Dewan Siswa) appear to be geared only for the Muslim readers. Not to mention that it is darn hard to find Dewan Pelajar and Dewan Siswa in regular bookstores anyway.

Truly, we cannot blame the children for pooh-poohing the national language. Not with this appalling situation.

*shakes fist*

Just for laffs

Cos it's Monday.

Cut it out!

TL;DR.

(accidentally deleted post cos I can be lame that way) *head desk*

My dearest friends are well aware of my radical liberalism tendencies when it comes to matters of faith and religion. If you are not in the know, you can read it here.

Oh, and plus a tiny edit.

Sweetness need not be cloying

The Arrangement by Mary Balogh
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Ms Balogh has a knack for writing characters that has a realism that is really appealing. This is the second book of the Survivor's Club series, this time chronicling the love story of Vincent Hunt, Lord Darleigh, who escaped the Napoleonic Wars with permanent loss of his sight.

The development of his tendre for Miss Sophia Fry is sweet though flavoured with hard practicality. It is delightful to see how a penniless orphan manages to liberate the proud aristocrat of the boundaries of his disabilities; escaping from the usual rescue trope. In this case, they rescued each other, making for a more satisfying story telling.

Lovely stuff. Go read.


Favourite quote:

"If people cannot beg pardon on one another," she said, "then nothing can be forgiven and wounds fester."

Male protagonist: 4/5 stars
Female protagonist: 4/5 stars
Storyline: 4/5 stars
Pacing: 4/5 stars
Fun Factor: 4/5 stars
Repeat Reading Factor: 4/5 stars

View all my reviews

Couples that kill together, stay together.

Broken by Kelley Armstrong
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Ms Armstrong writes cool, unsentimental werewolves. None of the barf-inducing romantification of a potential spree killer who look at humans as meat.

Broken is the third book in the Elena Michaels and Clay Danvers series. I like they way they have grown as characters, the flow and ebb of the relationship, how it all ain't sugar and roses.

This time round, the adventure includes a pair of zombies.

Werewolves and zombies, fun and games all around. Go read.


Favourite quote:

"That's all I get after three years? We spent a harrowing week together, locked in an underground prison, fighting for survival --"

"I was fighting for survival. You were drawing a paycheck."

"Hey now, in my own way, I was just as much of a prisoner as you."

I snorted. "A prisoner of your greed."

"Trapped by my shortcomings. It's tragic really."


Male protagonist: 4/5 stars
Female protagonist: 4/5 stars
Storyline: 4/5 stars
Pacing: 3/5 stars
Fun Factor: 4/5 stars
Repeat Reading Factor: 3/5 stars

View all my reviews

Nothing says love like running away together from a maniac

Deception Cove by Jayne Castle
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This book is the latest installment of Jayne Castle's Harmony series. Adventure? Check. Steamy romance? Check. Demented villain who would have been a Mary Sue if not for psychopathy? Check.

The book hit all the right notes, but nothing particularly spectacular.

If you're a fan of paranormal romance flavoured with a little sci fi, go for it.


Favourite quote: He gave that some thought. "Not that I'm against sex in a garage or anywhere else, for that matter."


Male protagonist: 3/5 stars
Female protagonist: 3/5 stars
Storyline: 3/5 stars
Pacing: 3/5 stars
Fun Factor: 3/5 stars
Repeat Reading Factor: 3/5 stars

View all my reviews

I missed Movember!

Gosh!

I completely missed November! Not a single post. *hangs head in shame*

And I really don't even have an excuse for it. Not even NaNoWriMo (which I tried for the first time and failed utterly) could be put forth as a reasonable lieu. I moved about in my daily life, taking note of stuff that may be of interest to blog, filed away a few in my head, and promptly forgot about them. *face palm*

And it's all because of this man. OMG, I don't even ...

*sigh*