[Like You Care or Something]

If you have ever been to my room, you would notice how peculiar
my study table and the wall in front of it looks like. Compared
to others, mine is just a piece of folded-up set of table and chair
that comes with it a lot of books and files and CDs lying around
in a very disturbingly chaotic manner.

Most of the time, my table would be just that: a table. I spend
a lot of time in front of the tv nowadays, considering that there
is no more classes until the summer session kicks in. But if it
were in the middle of a semester, you bet to see my sorry ass on
the chair in front of a textbook as bulky as a piece of red brick.

a lot of people have seen my table since my apartment is the most
visited place. it's stuck so close and so convenient to the U that
not stopping by for a conjugal visit is seemingly a social sin.
however, not so many people have had the opportunity to really gawk
at it because well, there is nothing much to gawk at anyway. it's
just a piece of furniture, right?

to me it's not. it's the daily therapy session.

the table is always occupied with something, so to me it's hollow
and meaningless in the sense that it provides me with nothing which
could invigorate my imagination or relieve me of my stress. it's the
wall in front of it that does all the magic of healing.

there are a lot of stuff pasted onto that wall. i don't really call
them 'artwork', but they serve the same purpose, i guess. the most
noticeable (by means of being the most humongous) is a poster of
a medieval armored zealot equipped with a sheild and hurling a sword
towards you, with the words 'Dungeons & Dragons' down near his feet.

i got it from a D&D expo booth and only like that, it was really
lame. i altered it with putting on a dialogue box next to the
zealot's lips saying "Say your last prayers Petronas! 'Tis your
own creation that destroys you!" and coloring his eyeballs and his
front row teeth bloodshot red as if he was consumed with sheer hatred
and burning rage. excellent! now it's gory and funny.

that D&D poster represents a few things which is me. (1) i am a
hardcore PC-gamer (meaning i loathe console ports like PS2 and
Dreamcast and those who play them). i prefer the classic 'mouse and
keyboard' entertainment. my dream of a perfect weekend is being
locked up in a dark basement, in front of a PC playing Half-life
on a 48 hours marathon of splashing blood, blowing up aliens and
massive destruction, all done naked. (2) i hate Petronas. more on
this later. (3) "if you don't put your eyes back on that book, i'll
make sure this sword ends up in your skull!".

next to him, there is this photo of Malaysian students taken for
Utusan's Sampaikan Aidilfitri Year 2000. close to a quantity of 50,
we all lined up and smiled (i didn't) for the camera. it was a great
photo shoot-out despite of the gloomy sunlight and chilly wind. the
food that comes with that occasion was the real deal though. i felt
that the picture would bring me bad luck at first. it did. everybody
in the kampung were freaked out by it when it got published on Utusan,
including my grandDad. no, especially my grandDad.

at the time, i was sporting a long hair. not 'rock-star' long, just
'penganggur' long, y'know. the typical oversea students' hairdo
phase, nothing serious about it. i guess they thought the otherwise.
my younger brother said that vicious rumors were spreading like mad
forest fire about me. he said my step-aunt told my grandDad that i
had gone wayward, religously and sexually. the old man knew nothing
and was a senile fruit anyway, so he gulped them down and got worried.

words got around and worse enough, the Utusan photo convinced them
fools more. at certain points, i also got worried sick because of it.
but you know what? my dad didn't give a flying fart about it, not a
single grunt at all. my mom was like "whatever, dude" to me. haha!
my parents and brothers are the coolest bunch, they even made jokes
about it everytime somebody iterated that rumor. the thing was, when
my dad was in his college years, he also had sported a long hairdo,
much worse that mine considering it was the 70's and all.

i cut my hair anyway and sent a photo of the new me back home, just
to be on the safe side. ensuing, the rumors died a painful death.

that Utusan photo on the wall, i pasted it upside down so that this
time it would bring me good luck for a change. i wrote the words
"The world as the eyes see it" on it, meaning that don't let yourself
be fooled by what you see because what your eyes see is different
from what your brain see. so, trust your brain on this matter.

next to that photo is a picture of a guy lying on his back with
rows of 9-inch nails stabbing upward on him and 2 pairs of feet
on his belly pushing him downward and the words "Good Luck!" on
top. i think it's some kind of a gypsy/magician trick called the
bed of nails or something. i find it (as usual) gory and funny,
so i pasted it on. then i realized that i could do something really
creative on it and so i did. i wrote the words "dreams/passion/
youth/ambition/desire" on the nails, "sponsorship/responsibility/
future-security/expectations" on the 2 feet and "me" on that poor
bastard. (get it?)

other than those, there's really nothing much but my class schedule
and a zikir selawat from my silat cekak hanafi days. oh! i do have
small pieces of paper with words that i paste randomly sometimes
and they are the ones that deal with my therapy thing i said before,
actually. nobody understands them well enough to comment on. maybe
it's because i didn't want them to.

usually, they are just fragments of Radiohead lyrics that really
struck me hard. in case you didn't know, i am a great fan of them
Brits. they are pompously ignorant and enigmatically deep at the same
time and their music are just heavenly depressing. compared to the
music my roommates listen to, Radiohead's is like French-kissing
Princess Charlotte Casiraghi of Monaco and eating mee jawa at the
same time. yes, that much lust and love to both.

examples: "i wish i could be who i wanted all the time", "the planet
is a gunboat in a sea of fear", "i'm not here, this is not happening"
and "everything is in its right place". Thom Yorke is a genius.

one of the most outspoken of them all is the one with the words "I
am nothing but a corporate pawn". frankly, that is how i feel about
myself in terms of Petronas' invlovement in my live. i also wrote
another one, "Kecemerlangan = 99% Usaha + 1% Rezeki, Usaha = 99%
Minat + 1% Wang Penaja". these two bits and the sword-holding dude
pretty much sums up my bitterness towards the corporate beast. 'why',
you ask me? well...i'll just leave you folks high and dry there.

"Di saat-saat akhir, hanya kepenatan dan harga diri yang mendorong
si degil yang bodoh - Hisashi Mitsui" was from Takehiko Inoue's
brilliant SlamDunk. That comic and the character that said the above
will forever be my favorites. Sometimes, i really felt that that
'stubborn fool' stuff relates to me eeriely more than anything else.

"I have no shadow, I am my father's son" is totally mine. it sounded
really of epic proportion when i say it with a sad and hopeless face
in front of the mirror. too bad my dad is too cool of a dude to be
ashamed of, if not i could really make this one my life's motto eh?

"I wish i was gay so that chicks will dig me" is utterly hillarious
and thought-provoking all at once. i forgot who said it but the guy
meant it like nothing i've ever heard before. to me, it reflects to
the secrets of the mind of the opposite sex, on what they want from
men and relationship. what do they want actually? (answer me girls,
sign my guestbook). pampering? good laugh? Cadbury? 'remember my
birthday'? what is it? what?!

in the West, it has been factualized that the best and most ideal
girlfriend a girl could have is a gay guy-friend. they are a girl's
dream-rescuing Prince Charming on horseback, the whole package but
without the sex part. a gay guy-friend gives good advice on interior
decorating, relationship hassles, proper dress and make-up, and they
listen to girl-talk stuff and cook physics-violating recipes. they
dress with elegance and style and work out to an athletic body that
churns out sex appeal like a queen bee's pheromone. what mad society.

another one that is very peculiar is the words "Mereka semua hanya
pelakon tambahan" repeated and arranged in a downward spiral form
that finally zero-in towards the word "Aku?". it, verbally and
graphically, explains how i see others around me, academic-wise.
if this were my movie, then i am supposed to be the star, right?
this one's very motivational for me but very condescending towards
others. it's like i'm saying "i don't give a crap about y'all", but
it's not true. i still need others for the sake of competition.

actually there are a lot more stuff i want to say about my study
desk, but i have got to halt my babbling somewhere/somewhen. next
time, i'll tell you about why there is a pink and green monkey
with a death-by-hanging rope around his neck, dangling on top of
my table and what kind of a sick psycho would do that to a cute
animal (like you care or something). thanks for reading this.