Books read in 2015

A tremendous feeling of pride will truly taken over our body after finishing a phenomenal book! I've learned that it does not only widen our aspect, but it broadens our mind on the philosophical questions that revolve around the novel and its writer as well. Furthermore, I've also realized how greatly beneficial for us to list down the books that we have read in order to remind ourselves of the poignant, beautiful and wild feelings they gave us while we walk down the memory lane through the long (or short) list. Henceforth, this is my humble list of novels and poetries that I have read in 2015. Enjoy!

1. The Nutcracker and The Mouse King by E.T.A. Hoffmann (1816)
2. 'My Last Duchess' by Robert Browning (1842)
3. Les Misérables by Victor Hugo (1862)
4. 'Goblin Market' by Christina Rossetti (1862)
5. The Golden Key by George MacDonald (1867)
6. 'Jenny' by Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1870)
7. The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson (1886)
8. The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde (1890)
9. The War of the Worlds by H. G. Wells (1898)
10. The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum (1900)
11. The Marvelous Land of Oz by L. Frank Baum (1904)
12. Ozma of Oz by L. Frank Baum (1907)
13. Dorothy and The Wizard in Oz by L. Frank Baum (1908)
14. The Road to Oz by L. Frank Baum (1909)
15. The Emerald City of Oz by L. Frank Baum (1910)
16. The Patchwork Girl of Oz by L. Frank Baum (1913)
17. Tik-Tok of Oz by L. Frank Baum (1914)
18. The Scarecrow of Oz by L. Frank Baum (1915)
19. Rinkitink in Oz by L. Frank Baum (1916)
20. The Lost Princess of Oz by L. Frank Baum (1917)
21. The Tin Woodman of Oz by L. Frank Baum (1918)
22. The Magic of Oz by L. Frank Baum (1919)
23. Glinda of Oz  by L. Frank Baum (1920)
24. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald (1925)
25. 'Burnt Norton' by T. S. Eliot (1936)
26. The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry (1943)
27. A Streetcar Named Desire by Tennessee Williams (1947)
28. The Neverending Story by Micheal Ende (1979)
29. The Land of Stories: The Wishing Spell by Chris Colfer (2012)
30. The Land of Stories: The Enchantress Returns by Chris Colfer (2013)
31. The Land of Stories: A Grimm Warning by Chris Colfer (2014)
32. The Land of Stories: Beyond The Kingdoms by Chris Colfer (2015)
33. The Sleeper and The Spindle by Neil Gaiman (2014)
34. Grey by E. L. James (2015)

Bird of Prey

Little bird of prey,

Flying high in her pastel paper plane,

Are you searching through the woods?

Or soft cotton clouds in mere wonder?

Come, hither! Come, hither!

The moon is singing to his sons and daughters,

On a broken piano of one thousand years' lullaby,

Let us soar through the fluorescent sky of starlight,

Where blue flamingos and pink ocean vomits love,

Together in this earthly paradise of Adam and Eve.

Little bird of prey,

Did you see the shooting star last night?

A golden dust rocketed through our cosmic space,

Marking its presence on our humble doorstep,

What a memorable sight!

Trees, rivers, ghosts and wild creatures all hailed,

This mysterious entity whose seducing my sister on cold blood,

Who feeds her poisonous fruits and candy canes of dusts,
Look! There she dances through the silver moonlight,
Up, up, up into the night; consuming the black stars.

Little bird of prey,

You've blossomed into an immortal pale swan,
Gliding your tiny feet in the magical lake of the forest,
With a stone crown on your head to kill the men,
And protect your chastity from the merciless hunters,
What once was an innocent youth turns upon darkness,
Biting and gnawing on the unicorn's metal juice,
Their rust and salt are your midnight's precious meal,
Satiated, you conceived on the venomous wine and cake,
While they devour hungrily at the stone of your feet.

Father Sagittarius now cries upon his phantom children,
His operatic lyre soothes the spirit of the victimized sopranos,
Thus, she floats on the unseen pathway for eternal elation,
To revive her timeless demise unto the little bird of prey.

- a.i.a.

Georgetown

It has long since I last wrote or updated anything. In the past few months, I was literally drowned in multiple assignments to be submitted for my previous semester. Now that has been completed and sent, I can now focus on a more clear retrospect on what to write about and reminisce on the good memories that I experienced with my dear fellow classmates which took place about 3 months ago.

To begin with, a few of my classmates and myself participated in joining on a road trip for Georgetown, Penang where the town would hold annual literary festival. The Georgetown Literary Festival is an event which brings together all writers and major figures in the literary industry from every corner of the world to discuss and debate on some of the most critical issues in literature in terms of politic, economy, or social views. The event is open to the public and each workshop brings interesting and eye-opening topics and lessons to everyone. This would actually be my second time in attending the Georgetown Literary Festival and considering that the event only takes place in my father's hometown annually, I am pretty determined to make it my goal and attend this occasion every year. And on the happier note, my father himself wishes to attend the literary festival with me next year! Being a huge reader of literature himself ever since he was a boy, I find that this would make a great beneficial addition for both of our sakes.

Now, let me begin by recalling on what happened during our first day upon arriving in Georgetown. We got to our hotel which was only a walking distance away to the festival, went to our rooms to freshen up, then went down to the lobby to regroup with the rest of my classmates. As much as our main priority and reason on coming to Georgetown was to actually attend the festival, we may have strain from our main purpose for quite a bit hehe. Jon became our tour guide and had led us the way to find the best cendol in town! The walk was pretty tiresome considering that the day was blazing hot and we had to wait for the public bus with what seemed for hours and hours. (Note: We did wait for almost one hour for the bus to actually arrive. But we had fun while waiting hehe) We then continued to walk for some time until we finally arrived at the cendol stall but before that, we just couldn't restrain ourselves from not having to take a few memorable photos of the beautiful old buildings in the historical Penang. Most of us who went on this trip are from Penang or at least our parents are (like myself!), but we would still act as if we were tourists and some of us even took silly and laughable poses. Recalling it now makes me miss that day already.

The following day, we attended the festival and got an incredible opportunity to watch Marina Mahathir gave an incredible talk on who are we as a Malaysian nation, in both literal and political sense. I especially liked the part where she links on the subject of how would our countries' mentalities will progressively develop if all Malaysian novels ever writes about are having women as a domestic and submissive roles in a patriarchal society. What with their ridiculous titles and it's always the same plot over and over and over again. The repetition of the genre is completely nonsensical and gives no moral values to the younger or elder readers at all. And to that, I completely agree! Honestly, I am not trying to be a feminist or to discriminate our own writers but in all God's sense, how would we ever develop from this narrow-minded domestic thinking if all the novels that are ever published in this country only centres on the docile workforce of women? Times have changed and we do not need to abide ourselves to the rules of men, thank you very much! Nevertheless, it was definitely a great speech by one of the amazing female figures in our country and I felt so blessed to be attending it.

After the event had concluded for the day,  Jon, Yasmin and myself decided to visit Armenian Street and had a little silly photographs taken of ourselves with the street arts. We would walked and made hearty jokes, it was so fun! I always had a good laugh with them. It is so very nice to have friends whom are your classmates that you could always talk about almost anything in the whole wide world with, especially books!! Endless conversations of books, literature, movies, and more books hehehe. Which reminds me, we stumbled into this great mini bookstore which sold classic vintage hardcover books! And I am not just talking about those second-hand classic books, I'm talking about those really old yellowy-papers with old fragrant smell which predated back to 100 years ago! These books had been imported straight from England and all of them had been owned before by people from the late 19th and early 20th century. How can you not be in love with that! I think I spent almost two hours in there with Yasmin and that is only because our minds were not properly fixated on the reality of all these wonderful books that had laid before our very bulging eyes. With each book that I took, I couldn't help infusing the heavenly smell of those 100-year old papers which literally belonged to those poor dead Victorian souls now. May God rest your kind souls, Good Sirs and Ladies for handing down these books to us a century later hehe. Now, let me list down the books that I purchased from this God-sent paradise mini bookstore:

1. To The Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf (1927)
2. Black Beauty by Anna Sewell (1877)
3. Nicholas Nickelby by Charles Dickens (1838)
4. The Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens (1859)

The very latter contained notes from the previous dead owner which he/she writes the date of their purchase in the year 1916! Gobsmacking, isn't it? Ugh, I was in Seventh Heaven and just felt so lucky to be purchasing these rare books! I only wish I could've bought more but I'm sure my parents will scold me for buying too many. But no matter, I was completely over the moon!

As our educational and fun road trip was coming to an end, I then realised that this year would mark the third and final time I would be coming to this literary festival with my dear classmates. How soon will we part! I could not bring myself to think about this dreadful moment yet. To cheer myself from this unwelcome thought, I would always remember and recite the beautiful message that T. S. Eliot had written in his phenomenal piece of "Burnt Norton":

"Time present and time past,

 Are both perhaps present in time future,

 And time future contained in time past.

 What might have been, and what has been,

 Point to one end, which is always present."

 (T. S. Eliot, 1936)

This brilliant masterpiece would bring solace every time as it reminds me that the past and future are not what matters in our lives, but it is the present which we should enjoy and engross ourselves within it. For it teaches us that time present is crucial and we should appreciate the existing day of our lives while we are at it before the present-day fades into nothing but a memory. Right, I am getting too deep now. I did not mean that. But God, this poetry is absolutely beautiful. I would love to end this entry then by reminding everyone that do not fret about the past and your upcoming time ahead. Value the moment of your present-days and acknowledge the beauty of every thing with families and friends. Time waits for no man and we must be aware of our surroundings before nature devours us.

Flamingo Blues

The lights of carousel flashes their brilliant colours to my brain,

Blinding my living cells to the core of hot lava, and kiss and kiss

With its sculptured lips to my lifeless heat, of pure eroticism which

Burns my sorrow into raging flames, I rode on the lilac pegasus with

Ecstasy painted on my face, as the magical creature soared me higher

Through the sky castle. Like Icarus, he flew me too close to the sun

Which burns my flesh into smoke, I lost myself to the giant apricot-

Spotlight and fell gracefully to the face of the earth, and landed upon

An ocean of pink flamingos and blue hydrangeas, soft piano swaying

Gently in the perfumed air of goblin fruits, turquoise water glistens

Madly upon the horizon like rich mermaid's jewels, I crave the mad-

ness of love and decadence in one blue-china heart, peeping its way

Through the evolution of mankind and religion, I find myself again

Among the soft jazz and melancholy tunes on the broken radio, but

Lost myself once more when silence eats the music of the velvet suede

Morning, and I stare like a lost child into the constellations of paper

Cosmic, burning with branded books on each breast, churning with

Chess pieces on jaded grass, novella of science and aliens are far from

My candy-eating brain, goblins and nymphs are fantasy of aestheticism

As I hunt for their haunted source, and found the hidden cottage in the

Dark woods of elves and werewolves, the pale moon will smile widely

From ear to ear tonight as I glide through this forest, twilight approaches

And echoes of footsteps are tapping their rhythm like a Spanish dance,

Towards my stoned feet as I picked these scrumptious fruits and wilt

Flowers into my rotten basket, centaurs fighting with silver weapon while

Goblin men and wood-elves laugh through their serpent tongues, deafening

My soft ears like high-pitched screaming of a fallen woman to her grave,

All creatures halt and crawled menacingly forward as they saw the fresh

Flesh of this young maiden, alone in the woods with a death wish written

In her two ripe almonds of innocence, they shoved and kicked stardusts

Of poisoned sugars into my mouth, the history of violence was true then

As I was beaten and ripped to my knees, left twitching among the sweet-

Scented flowers and juicy fruits under the sad moon, as he cries unto my

Unholy body to wash the cranberry of shame away with its crystal tears,

The rain cruised me into the diamond ocean of degeneration where I swim

With Moby-Dick, and melt away like caramelised apple on the dancing fire

Of resurgence, leaving my voice for the mourning blue whale to choir upon

The angry waves, as I slowly transformed into a holy white swan of songs.

- a.i.a.

Hungry Heart

Beauty! I French-kissed it on my red-rosed lips,

Naked women crawled on all fours

To devour it with their salivated mouths,

While some ballet gracefully on their bleeding toenails

To lick my ruby tongue and poke my sapphire eyes,

Men even vomit religious raindrops of tears

As they worshiped my sinful aestheticism,

While I posed highly in all Hell's glory

With a shameless grin on my painted flower,

Biting and clawing the innocence

Of those fools' beliefs with my sharp thorns.

Youth! I made torturous love with my

Greek body on the Parisian canvas,

Staining the yellow wallpapers and

Turkish carpets with our holy liquid of fume,

For there I stood on God's head

Upon the sorrow garden of roses and kings,

And slain the grandfather clock of Youth

With my golden dagger that holds guilty history,

I watched Time plucking its final operatic harp

To my immortal soul as I ripped the virginity of men.

What a curse! The Devil has sneaked in his winged boy

To cheat on my blessings of society's prying eyes,

Shoot rage on my timeless beauty of decorative women's hunger,

Stab blindness on my ageless youth of masked men's inner thirst,

Yes, I sold my face to Michael for eternal soul,

The damnation of regret and pleasured desire as I

Kiss His cold-lithe hands and skeletal feet.

Ah, foolish girl! I would rape your mindless

Stupidity and spiritual innocence,

Had you not done that yourself as you

Swallowed the pills of acidic sugar,

Does it taste nice like my licorice lips?

What joy it is in learning upon your timeless death!

Do not cry to me, you pathetic little Shakespearean,

As I had only murdered your useless beauty,

While you carved your own hungry heart out,

And feed it for the street rats in your home of sewers.

Time present lingers on a thread as the roses withered,

The Sun aged around lazy dancing flames,

Clouds puffing thin smokes of white doves,

Dragonflies tire listlessly on poison ivies,

Yet I remain God-like in the wild eyes of merciless

Men as they slowly fade from the face of earth,

Drooping pink-fleshes and wrinkled masquerades led me to

Ponder on Nature's power of cruel mortality,

Fifty winters has snowed and I am supposed to be

Lounging six feet under with the worms,

The curse! The curse!

What have I done? I have sinned!

I have ripped my one love's chastity to midnight's ashes and

Beheaded my good friend's honesty for maggot's food,

My soul has painted horrible fairy tales of vulgar

Crimes like the wings of broken butterflies,

It must be burned at once!

It must be punished as I howled musically

On my disgusting beauty of men's jealousy,

Beauty! A sinful gift from God as they

Blinded the heart of aesthetic society,

Wrecked of one man's soul for the importance of

Youth! I am forever cursed.

So long now, as I pirouette my way through the decadence

Path against Beauty and Youth to win my mortality in death.

- a.i.a.

The Light of Ithil

The city has fallen silent. The nightingale stopped singing. Nothing was alive, except for the great glow coming from a precious stone lying cold dead on the floor, beside a motionless pale figure.

Delia Wood is a tall and awkward girl of eighteen. A very lonely and isolated girl from everyone else since her parents are too occupied with their jobs that they do not even have all the time in the world for their only daughter. Oddly, Delia does not mind about this matter at all because she has made acquaintance with loneliness for many years now and they have become the very best of friends.

One thing that Delia loves to do on her everyday agenda in order to fill her time and clear her head-space is strolling through a beautiful park which lies two miles away from her home. Quite a small park in acres, but very peaceful indeed. Families from around the neighbourhood of the city would often go there with their little children on Sundays for a little picnic, having tea and scones with butter and jams of all flavours. As content as her heart feels, there is always a little green of envy and pure sadness buried deep inside her as she watches other families bonding lovingly with each other. She wishes for those things to happen to her, and prays with all her might every night for the Holy God to grant her lifelong wish someday soon.

On that particular night, Delia couldn't concentrate on reading her book and decides to take a leisurely stroll in the park and have some fresh air to ease her troubled mind. She grabs her night robe and wraps it around her slim body, and she is out the door. When she arrives at the go-to destination, she discovers several animals up on the trees and on the grass. She studies their movements intently like a hawk eyeing its prey. A squirrel is running for its dear life while holding an acorn firmly under its tiny arm. For a moment, it seems like as if some other animals are chasing after it to steal the acorn away from the poor creature. A snail is gliding on the wet grass very painfully slowly to the point where it hurts Delia's eyes to follow the poor creature's ridiculously slow pace, and thus decides to leave the snail behind and continue on to study the other animals in the park. A rush of chilling air blows by Delia suddenly and she instinctively wraps her arms around herself, a gesture to protect and shield herself from some invisible entity. All at once, she instantly hears a distant singing somewhere deep in the heart of the park. The singing is carried off by the cool wind and chimes beautifully in her ears like a soft ringing bell:

'A stone of weight in gold,

Bright as stars of the old,

A pretty sight to see,

Beware of what it can be.'

Delia is now eager to discover for whose voice could sound so angelic and runs hurriedly to investigate it by following the source of the singing through the night. At last, she comes upon an old oak tree and sees that the singing belongs to a nightingale that is perching gracefully on the oak branch. The nightingale continues to sing its song dreamily and if her eyes have not yet to deceive her, she had thought for a moment that the bird is actually singing to something. For under the feet of the pretty bird, a great glow is producing itself in the dark of the night. Now, this precious light rises luminously and is calling Delia closer and closer, pulling her so murderously near to its enchantment. The next thing she knows, her shaky hand is gripping the great light. It is like nothing that her eyes had ever laid upon before. After the luminous light has dimmed its glow a little, she soon realizes that it is coming from a stone on which she is now holding. And this is like a stone that she has never seen before. Small in size, but even diamonds, rubies, emeralds, sapphires and topaz could not compare their beauties with the fairest of the entire white gem that Delia is now holding. The stone is cold in her hand and she holds it high under the bright moon to appreciate and gaze at its full magnificence. It is like a globe with thousand facets. So beautiful. She imagines on how it would shine like silver upon Moon, like gold under the Sun and like rain under the twinkling stars. In that moment, she immediately realizes that she could never bring herself to part from the stone and swears an oath to keep it to herself for all eternity.

When Delia reaches home that night, she changes into a sheer lacy nightgown and climbs onto bed. The white gem is kept safely in her hope chest on her bedside table which is locked securely with the key around her neck as a locket to her necklace. But what she doesn't know is that the nightingale has been silently following her home ever since, observing her from her bedroom window that night and again, singing its angelic song as a lullaby to her:

'A stone of weight in gold,

Bright as stars of the old,

The girl has caught in its spell,

O' Lord! Soon down will she fell.'

She succumbs herself to slumber and sleeps peacefully that night for nothing fills her heart but joy. At last, Delia Wood feels bliss and all her troubles are worlds away from her mind. Or so it seems.

The next morning, Delia wakes up with a queer feeling in her chest as she remembers that she had a wonderful dream last night.

"Strange. I thought I dreamed about finding a magical stone."

She is thoroughly convinced and thinking that it was nothing more than a silly harmless dream. But at that precise moment, she spots a nightingale eyeing her from her bedroom's windowpane.

"Wait a minute, I remember you. Yes! You're the pretty bird!" she squeals. "I've seen you last night. You were - hold on,"

she halts as she soon registers what the reality means.

"If I saw the bird last night, then that means..."

she whispers in horrification to herself and slowly turns her head towards the hope chest on her bedside table. She takes a careful moment to stare at it while her heart is beating faster and louder, right up to her throat. But she can no longer prolong the anticipation and quickly opens the chest to see the content. And there it is, glowing brightly as ever of pure starlight.

"By my life.."she chokes on her words,

unable to stifle her hyperventilating breath. Outside her bedroom window, the nightingale is watching her in full fright:

'A stone of weight in gold,

Bright as stars of the old,

She now lives on the edge of a knife,

For the stone will soon eat her up alive.'

Time goes by and ever since the stone was in the firm possession of Delia, she barely eats and refuses to leave her bedroom. She talks to no one but only to the stone about everything and in return, the stone will ultimately responds back to her by glowing every now and then. Sometimes the stone will even produce its glow in the colour of Delia's emotions and feelings. Other times, it would even entertain her by telling the tales of the galaxy on its globe-like facets. Her bedroom would then be filled with thousands of bright colours on the walls and with many constellations of stars upon her dark ceiling. Delia would even play a little game of guessing the shapes and zodiac signs based from the stars' constellations. For the first time ever, she feels life in her.

Several more weeks and months had passed since Delia uncovered the stone. All is well until one frightful day; bad instincts are starting to bloom from her heart. It's as if someone has ripped her soul out of her chest and trampled it to extinction. Her thoughts straight away flashes to the stone. Oh, no! She immediately races on her heels to her bedroom, snatched the hope chest and opens it vigorously.

Her lungs stopped breathing.

The stone is missing.

What? Why? How?

Who steals it, she knew not for the existence of the stone has never escaped her lips to any living soul. This is indeed a dark mystery to her.

But what she has done next could never be imagined in any humanly way possible.

She begins to cry, howl and bites herself in agony. But the writhing pain that she inflicts on herself is absolutely nothing compared to the pain of losing her precious stone.

With every cut that she thrusts on her flesh, the more pleasure her body accepts it. She enjoys every moment of tearing her beautiful body to pieces, skin and bones.

Actually, she feels satisfied as she does this.

The bird is watching her sadly from the windowpane.

The stone does that to people.

She cries yet laughs at the same time. But why did the stone betray her?

She cares for the white gem. She loves the white gem like any mother would love her child, even though many children acted sinfully towards their mother when they grow up. But why did the stone leave her? Has it gone to look for another master? A new prey to sink its teeth into?

As all these thoughts are running through her head, she feels a sudden pang of hatred.

"Curse it!" she screams.

It is no longer a mystery that the stone has been eating her mortality all along, yet it is also the only thing that has been keeping her alive. The floor is now drowning with blood, oozing and gushing from her fresh cuts. Darkness begins to close around her, blinding her from sight. And for that last moment, she sees a white light approaching her. She knows that the white light is of Heaven and is ready to carry her to the palace of angels and saints. This is it. The white light draws closer and nearer, but there is no more voice left in her to cry piercingly at the great glow when she finally perceives what it actually is.

The precious gemstone is smiling wickedly, exposing its teeth of a thousand bright razor-sharp stars. Distant singing could be heard for the last time in Delia Wood's ears before the shadow swallows her:

'A stone of weight in gold,

Bright as stars of the old,

Another prey is dead,

And soon more shall pay in red.'

Shakespeare Birthplace Trust

On February 17th 2015, you can say that my literary dreams had been achieved. And this is how it began.

Four months ago, my family and I went for a short vacation in London. During our time in the British soil, we met up with my uncle, his wife and four of my dear little cousins whom are living there for almost four years now. The last time I met up with my uncle and auntie was in 2012. And so, you can imagine on how much we had caught up on with how our lives were doing and everything. Meeting with my auntie was the best thing during our trip because she is a very, very lovely person. She had asked me on what I am studying right now and gave me such supportive advises, which is why I adore her. But on one night during our family dinner together, my auntie had asked us on what was on our agenda for the next day. Coincidentally, we didn't have any exact plans on that specific day and my auntie also took off work just so she can spend time with us. Therefore, she and my father had suggested that we should go to Warwickshire and visited the birthplace of William Shakespeare! Being an English Literature student and a literature bookworm myself, they completely understand on how much this would mean to me and how it would affect my studies in the future by witnessing and going to the birthplace of my literary idol. My auntie then immediately bought the tickets online for all of us to visit the historical place. I was beyond ecstatic and really could not contained my excitement for the next day. Truth to be told, I was almost in tears.

Our road trip to Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire from Hammersmith took us almost two hours to arrive at the destination. When we finally arrived in Warwick, the first thing I noticed was antique second-hand bookshops. It was everywhere! Moreover, their bookshops and little cafes had the name of Shakespeare on every board. And I do mean, every one of them. Well, almost all of them. Being in that quiet little town, I felt like I was in the 16th century period, what with most of the people are dressing in that way because they happened to be tour guides for the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust. Anyway, the first place we went to was a little convention they set up before going out to the gardens and house of William Shakespeare's father. (Essentially, the house he was born in and raised at). The little convention had all these information of Shakespeare's early life, his family tree and most excitingly, all the works and plays that he had written during his lifetime which what makes the foundation of all literature in the world today.

After learning the historical background of Shakespeare in the convention, we then proceeded into going outside to the garden. Now, the real tour begins. Stepping outside into the fresh air with the sun smiling down upon us, I finally saw the house. The house of William Shakespeare. The birthplace of William Shakespeare. After all these years, I was finally there. Stepping my shaking foot into the door of the house was an absolutely bizarre moment for me though, to be quite honest. Because I really could not believe it. But when we got into the first hall, we were given a bit of introduction about the house and the Shakespeare family by a lady whom was dressed in a 16th century garments and she was apparently the "Lady of the House". To this day, I still specifically remember what she said before we continue on our site visit: "Now just remember, when you are about to go exploring into the house, just keep in mind that you are walking onto these very floors that William walks on, and these are the very walls that William touches." I was gagging! Immediately I found both of my hands touching the very same wall that Shakespeare used to touch with his very own flesh hands 500 years before. Like ahh! I was on Cloud 9, literally. Next, I came upon a room with a single bed which was the very bed that Mary Shakespeare had given birth to William. You can imagine how excited I was by this time in this small confining room, soaking up the raw information that I am only a few feet away from the bed and standing in the very room that Shakespeare was born into.

The tour went on. Afterwards, we then went to visit the garden of Anne Hathaway, the wife of William. But sadly, our trip was in February which means all the beautiful flowers and plants that were planted in the garden there had withered and were not blooming. But I can imagine that it must have been absolutely lovely and colourful during spring and summer. At the end of the day, the last place we visited was the graveyard of the great poet/playwright in Stratford Church. I must say, I was feeling completely emotional and overwhelmed when I visited his grave. It was all just too surreal to handle because it really felt like I was feeling his presence there for a moment. I felt like his spirit was floating near me.

Overall, I found the tour to be very educational indeed. And I was so happy that I purchased a leather and hardcover book of Shakespeare's Sonnets, a beautiful leather bookmark and a mug with illustrations of characters from all his famous plays. What makes me absolutely thrilled was that the book and the other items that I purchased are obviously not available in Malaysia because they were only sold in The Shakespeare Bookshop in Stratford! 

I really couldn't be more grateful towards my family, especially for blessing me with an incredible opportunity of making my literary dream turning into reality. On that note, this is only the beginning of my literary journey and I am optimistic to embark on another one in the future as there are still so much to learn yet in the world of literature. As for now, Shakespeare Birthplace Trust: checked!

Tiny Dancer

Gargoyles guarding handsomely at your gate,

Halting my way to wait as I bow my head in fear;

The door of Heaven then opens like a wondrous parade,

As you see me running to you like a maddening child.

Soft burning kisses flame our desired faces,

Icy sticks of fingers intertwine like tangled leaves;

Great sea of tears worth of fourteen winters,

Electrify two withered drums like cannons kissing fireworks.

“My dear”, you say,

“Too long have I slept in these dark caves of winter.”

“O’ Mama,” I cry,

“Too long have I trembled in those phantom shadows of despair.”

Fourteen autumns of agony has buried its seed in my soil,

Into crisps like tiny dancers’ broken feet of yellow roses;

They licked our Garden of Eden with sweet sugar venom,

And stabbed my painted childhood with Cupid’s poisonous dagger.

What have I eaten in the Devil’s land when you were with God?

Fungi mushrooms for health and a glass of rotten potion for strength;

Intoxicated, I was raped by the angelic slaves of Lucifer,

And thus, I vomited with birth to beauty and rage.

I am awake now from these soft clouds of resurrection,

Greeting in the light by a chaste kiss of God’s wrath;

Drowning and choking into your blanket of vicious love,

Willingly, I am to greet Death as an old lover.

“My dear,” you say, “Let us plant our yellow roses

In the Garden of Eden here, with God’s tears to water it.”

“O’ Mama,” I say, “Let us lull our garden always with His laughter,

And your carol for this blessed union.”

A mother’s love to her daughter is like an ever blending note,

Her voice powering in an endless changeling lullabies and music,

A mother’s song rules this land and far beyond,

And thus, my mother carries my spirit with her serenity.

United at last, we are home together with God as my father,

And Death prancing gleefully to greet us again as an old friend.

- a.i.a.

'You Only Live Once'

As all of my family and closest friends know, I am not the adventurous/outdoor type of person. And I have never ever been. I guess I was never lucky or blessed enough to be born with that in my DNA. Even if I wanna inject those kinds of stuffs in my system, my body would literally not accept it and would eventually vomit it all back out. BUT, recently I had decided to turn it all around and try something new. Something different. Something outdoorsy. Something to live up to the phrase “Live a little”. Hence, my friends and I went to ride ATV yesterday morning at ATV Adventure Park in Kemensah Heights. If you ask me two weeks ago, I would never imagine myself having to ride and participate in these kinds of things. Even my friends were shocked that I would agree to do it. Well, even I myself am shocked. For myself! Unlike me, my best friends have always been the adventurous types of girls that I personally believe all guys would love. They have ride on jet skis, ATVs several times, banana boats, ice skating, roller blading, skiing on top of snowy mountains and more. You name it; they have experienced it all. Whereas I would just prefer to sit back and watch them have all the fun. But they completely understand where and why all of this is coming from me. Why I would prefer to miss out all the fun. Why I am so scared to join them. And this is my reason:

Four years ago, I went on a road trip to Singapore with my friends and their family. We went there right after we completed our SPM and high school. It was all very enjoyable and we had the best times of our lives by going to their cousin’s wedding, having sleepovers, telling ghost stories in the middle of the night among all their cousins; guys and girls. It was all just good fun. To top all of that, we were staying at this huge creepy rental bungalow in Singapore. And mind you, it gets double creepy since our bungalow was located right beside the abandoned Changi Hospital which we can see perfectly clearly from our bedroom window. And yes, all of us did get and feel that sense of ‘something’ that night. You know that bad feeling to the point where the hair on the back of your neck stands up and you have goose bumps all over your arms, legs and whole body. You start to get that cold feeling on your chest which makes you shiver like crazy. And you know what’s worse? You can’t help but to feel paranoid of the fact that someone might be watching you. From the hospital! Because there are a lot of stories regarding to the haunting site and I have watched a documentary on the Changi Hospital once. (At the exact moment as I am writing this, there's a dog barking so loud outside my house. And it's 2am in the morning. I'm having chills. Dog, stop). However, I have never been the type of person who believes in these paranormal things but that night completely makes me second-questioned my beliefs over these stuffs. Or perhaps my brain was just trying to psycho the shit out of me. Well, I don’t know. It’s all over and it’s four years ago anyway. 

So, back to the story! I am so sorry, by the way. I always tend to stray from my actual points whenever I'm trying to deliver a story. It’s one of my flaws. Anyway, one sunny morning my friends, their cousins and I decided to go to this famous park in Singapore called East Coast Park. It’s such a perfect spot for having family picnics, playing kites, jogging and doing other outdoor activities. Just perfect. So the park provided this service of renting bicycles and roller blades which you can leisurely stroll and play around it. I was obviously gonna go for the bicycle. It’s cuter, it’s easier and more importantly, it’s much more safer! But since every one of them was too adventurous and thought that bicycles were just “mehh” for them, they decided to choose roller blade instead. And me, thinking that I do not want to look like an idiot and a loser by being the only one who would go with a bicycle, stupidly decided to change to roller blade then. I was obviously not confident in roller blades because I don’t have enough muscles in my legs to support them. That thing was literally heavier than my foot. No, it was heavier than me. So how am I supposed to be able to play and support them? After I put on and tighten those devils on both of my feet, I tried to stand up but I couldn’t. I just sat there like a sore loser for five minutes, took a huge deep breath till my chest ached, then tried standing up again. This time, I managed to but I couldn’t help shaking like crazy. My legs were shaking so bad as if an earthquake was happening right under my feet that day. But I told myself to get a grip and don’t be such a wimpy baby. However, my best friends and their cousins were super supportive and helpful to me, and they guided me through every single step. For 15 minutes or so, I was doing quite okay and I thought to myself, “This isn’t so bad after all!” I was actually enjoying it. I enjoyed it a lot UNTIL, that horrible moment came. Oh yes, honey. Next thing happened was the moment that eventually changed my life forever and made me anti-adventurous/outdoorsy since. I lost my balance and everything was happening too quickly that I didn’t see what was coming for me next. I fell hard, face first, on the tar road. The impact was so strong, so quick that my face basically slams real hard on the tar road. I don’t know why, but I just laid there with my face down on the road, thinking that I was already dead, gone, goodbye, until I heard someone calling, shouting my name in such a panic voice and came running over to me. I heard a bunch of footsteps coming over as well a few seconds later and they were all bending down on me. I couldn’t get up from my position yet. But I know I had to at some point. And so I did. The first thing I noticed was blood. It was everywhere. On my shirt, on my jeans, on the road. And what’s worse, the source of the blood was coming from my face. So you can imagine how my face looks like on that unfortunate day. I had blood oozing and gushing from my forehead, my nose, my mouth and my teeth. It was bleeding so much to the point where I really thought it was never going to stop. But thankfully, that day happened to be our last day in Singapore. Therefore after the accident, my friends and I immediately went back to KL. They were driving beyond the speed limit as blood was still oozing down my face in the back of the car, rushing to the hospital. It took me months and a monthly visit to a specialist doctor to get completely healed from all the wounds and scars on my face. After that, I learned my lesson to not be a fool of taking such risks ever again and doing things that are beyond my capabilities. Way, way beyond. Since then, I have always traumatized with participating any more outdoor activities and that’s why I would always prefer to be left behind.

However, recently I don’t know what came into me. Something just knocked me on the head and I decided to agree to go ride on an ATV yesterday morning with my friends. They have persuaded and dragged me to go with them before but only this time did I agree. To be honest, it was such a fun experience I ever had. But however much fun it was, I think it would probably be my first and last time. Just as long as I had the ‘experience’.

But before I was going on the ATV, Mama couldn’t help feeling really worry for me and I completely understand that since the Singapore incident happened. She kept on telling me to be careful and asking me, “Do you really wanna do this? It’s dangerous.” Saying how scared she was for me but I assured her that I’ll be absolutely fine and there’s really nothing to be worry about. So yesterday, my friends and I finally went for it. Our ATV session ride only took about one hour where we would drive into the deep jungle and stop at a waterfall. But through it all, or 'behind the scenes', my friends and I obviously had some misfortunes along the ride. There was one time where I would accidentally drove my ATV straight into a cliff because I happened to lost control but I managed to steer it immediately back on the right path. Moreover, we also had to cross over some bumpy, rocky and muddy paths where there’s uphill and downhill roads. My favourites are definitely riding on those uphill roads where I can just accelerate the motor engine to the maximum and going crazy as I was riding up these rocky paths and shouting like a monkey with a ‘Mission accomplished’ wide grin on my face. However, those rocky downhill paths don’t like me very much. Mm-hmm, no. We were told that we had to do a double break whenever we come across those very steep downhill roads. But since the pulling gravity of the earth happened to be extra strong that morning, I really felt like the earth was pulling my ATV down like a magnet. As I was going through these very steep downhill roads, I pulled on both of the brakes with as much energy as I can muster. But to my horror, it was still going down very fast! And I couldn’t even understand why it won't slow down and stop since I was already pulling these two breaks with my butt off. There was even a time where I thought to myself “Oh my God, I am not going to die today. No, I am still too young and still too precious to die at this age. I still have a lot more going on in the future. No, please stop!” That was literally what I was thinking as I was going down the road. And by some God’s miracle, the ATV eventually stopped right at the bottom of the downhill road and I thought to myself again which you know that whole thing where people say ‘You Only Live Once’? Hell no! Screw that! Screw. That. I love my life too much to be risking it like this again. You only live once, so that's why you have to take extra care and extra love your life because life is too precious. Don't do risky activities where there's a potential-death sign at the end of the line. I had an accident once, and it is not going to happen for the second time now. 

But overall, I couldn’t deny the fact that I was really enjoying myself with the girls. It’s been quite a while since we did something adventurous like this together. We really enjoyed every second of the ride through the jungle and it’s definitely one of those moments where I would cherish and smile back over the memory with my girls for the years to come.