tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-83864360127002622072024-02-08T13:54:13.666+08:00Whatever You Say I Amanak pak manhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00676137847801027758noreply@blogger.comBlogger466125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8386436012700262207.post-64741308816070706032021-12-30T18:18:00.003+08:002021-12-30T18:18:37.273+08:00Remembering 2021<p> <span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; text-align: justify; white-space: pre-wrap;">So 2021 has been weird, hasn’t it? Right when we thought that the nightmare that was 2020 was coming to a close, it came back with a vengeance, globally and locally. I cannot say that for me personally, things have been amazing, but I am in zero position to complain. It’s been chee. Let the recounting begin!</span></p><span id="docs-internal-guid-cd0ce1a2-7fff-57aa-a8ab-53597cfbcf5e"><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">January</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">January both feels like a million years ago, and yesterday, at once. I check my instagram and there’s pretty much nothing of note there for January. My calendar does not say anything significant either. Even when listening to the Buah Mulut podcast, nothing very notable pops up.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I mostly just attended writer’s meetings throughout the month for the various TV projects that I’d eventually be writing on later in the year. I did some Pinball Monkeys recordings with Muzakir and Farid. And recorded a podcast episode as part of the Pinball Monkeys on Safehouse’s podcast called Mulut Murai. Fun stuff.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">February</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Bulan dua pun not very eventful jugak. Got the meetings. Got pitch deck-making. Got game nights, where Muzakir, myself and a few more friends played Jackbox games through Google Meets. Fun times.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">March</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">In March things started kicking into gear sikit. I was on the set of Sa Balik Baju (which is now available for viewing on Netflix). This was an interesting project which started off as a stage play by Siti Afiza Asram. Then she brought the piece to a writing workshop yang dianjurkan oleh Redcomm, and it got expanded to a feature-length movie. I got a small role in it, being one of the hosts in a fictional gossip/talk show. I got to be on set with Alif Satar, Juliana Evans and Farah Rani. At the time of shooting it, we didn’t know where the movie was going to end up yet. After dah siap, baru Lina Tan and the gang shopped it around for any takers, and Netflix swooped in and bought it. So now I can say that I have acted in a Netflix film (although I will not admit to it, since it’s just a small role, with me having less than two minutes of screen time sahaja). It was certainly an unexpected thing to have happened to me, but I am mucho grateful that it did.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Later that month, I started work on the play Orang Bulan. I was cast opposite Kak Dzeelfa in the two-hander play. I like spending time with Kak Dzeelfa, she’s loads of fun to be around. It was directed by Chris Ling, stage managed by Maza Maamor (aka Zameer), assisted by Emma Raj (who I’ve grown to be good friends with), and sound designed by Kirthana. It was a good time, and we staged it at the end of April. The rehearsals were fine, but of course my anxious ass was worried about whether or not I’d be able to get off-book in time for the staging. I eventually did, but goodness gracious did I cut it real close.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Pasca Sini was involved in a show called “Lepas Gian” at Angkasa Cheras. That was our first show in MONTHS, and we certainly were able to Lepas Gian at that one. It felt so good to be on stage again playing music to people who gave a shit.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">April</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">In April, Pasca Sini played another show, at Stesen Seni, Damansara Perdana. We played before Timemachine, and in our set were like four Blink182 songs. That was also a good time. I was finally able to learn some Blink182 songs, after putting it off for so long.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Pinball Monkeys performed our very first self-organised show on the 9th of April. It was a closed-door event, meaning that it was invite-only, but we managed to fill up Stesen Seni. We did live long-form improv in front of people again, and we had loads and loads of fun. I remember that there were sushi-serving lawyers, and a lot of imaginary boxes. The show tickets were by the pay-what-you-want model, and we even made a little itty bitty cheeky little profit from it, so we could pay for the venue and our improviser buddies, so that was uber cool. The audience was uber cool.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">By the end of the month, we were staging Orang Bulan at PJ Performing Arts Centre di One Utama. It was the first time that the space (Nero Space) was being used to put up a play, and we did an okay job with it, selling out our nights there. I liked playing there, and I had fun staging the play with people that I liked being around and coming to watch me play a KL-speaking Moon Miner from the future. Good times.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">May</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Whoa, May was quite uneventful for me. Mostly just busy work in terms of pitch deck making, script prepping, script writing and meetings and that. Raya happened, which was fine. I don’t remember much of it. I just hung out with Taka and family and that.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The final week of May was also the start of the Ex Aku Pontianak writer’s rooms. Ex Aku Pontianak was a show that I conceived to pitch to Astro a couple of months prior, and they picked it up so we started writing it. It was my first time head-writing a project, so Shamyl Othman (the director) took a lot of the reins as I tried to settle into the leadership position that is the Head Writer.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The writer’s room sessions were conducted through Zoom, and lemme tell ya, I hate Zoom writer’s rooms. My focus went more out than in, and I was not fully there most of the time. I really disliked it. But we got through it, with the help of Shamyl and Suzanne, keeping me accountable. We finished the writer’s room sessions with some pretty alright episodes for us to work on, and we started work on the scripts the following month.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">June</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Early June was my first vaccination date. 6/6/2021. I went to IDCC Shah Alam and got my shot no problem. It was rather smooth sailing, as there weren’t many people there during my time slot. So I was in and out within 30 minutes.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I was also writing the launch episode of the Fourth Season of Club Mickey Mouse. They recorded it through Zoom and published it on Youtube. It was called Fanfest, where a bunch of the fans of CMM were involved in the playing of the games and such. Not many people watched, if I’m not mistaken. I’m just glad that it’s over and done with. Remembering it makes my bones tired.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I was also writing through the beats of Ex Aku Pontianak, making the building blocks of a story (hopefully) worth telling.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">July</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I was tasked to write 5 episodes of Ex Aku Pontianak (episodes 1, 2, 3, 8 & 9). The whole season ada 10 episodes, so I wrote half of it from scratch. Writing it was fun, because it was my first time writing dialogue for adults, as opposed to the children’s shows I’d been writing for thus far. It was certainly a different head-space to be in, and I found myself being able to do much more when writing for adults, so that was fun.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">And as head writer, I also had to go through and “fix” the other scripts, so that the characters voices were consistent throughout the show, and that everything flowed the way that it needed to for smooth storytelling.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I was also writing some episodes for SMK Season 3. They were to be recorded via Zoom, so the approach to writing the episodes was rather novel to me. I think we ended up writing an engaging enough season, given the limitations that we had. Kudos to Suzanne for Head Writing the season.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">August</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I got my second AZ vaccine dose on the 8th of August. It was just as smooth sailing as the first dose, malah maybe it was even </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">more</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> smooth this time round. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I continued writing and revising the Ex Aku Pontianak episodes here also.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Also, the SMK Season 3 cast got new actors in, and one of them had to speak in an Utara accent, and I was tasked with coaching her Utara. She wasn’t too bad, just a few things here and there that were quite specific to Utara people ja that she got wrong and/or confused about. Generally, she was fine.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">September</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">In September, I got cast in another play. It was called Logaritme Bebalisme, a ten minute play about a specific kampung during the height of the pandemic. I was acting alongside Shasha, and it was directed by Chris Ling and stage managed by Kir. We rehearsed throughout September, first through Zoom (I hate Zoom rehearsals), then IRL at Lot’ng. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I was putting the finishing touches on the Ex Aku Pontianak scripts, as well as writing for some SMK Youtube things.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">October</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">We continued rehearsing for Logaritme Bebalisme this month, and staged it at Stor Teater Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka. It was part of a theatre competition that was organised by DBP, and Shasha and I were the oldest actors there. We eventually got second place in the competition, which was fine.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Ex Aku Pontianak commenced shooting this month. The shoot schedule was a month long, for ten episodes. I was on set for 3 or 4 days to play some roles in the show, so I’ll have some screen time here and there. The shoots proved to be tough on the team, but they powered through like the professionals they are.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">November</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Ex Aku Pontianak shoots concluded mid-November. I was there for the last day of shoot, because I had a small role on the day. It was fun to watch and be around the energy that was there. I eventually balik awal (like, 3am maybe?) because my scenes dah habis record, so I wasn’t there when they presumably shouted IT’S A WRAP!</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">November was a month of pitch-deck making, so there’s not much to say there.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I also wrote an air-fryer online ad for Philips. So that was weird, but okay lah, one minute long ja the ad pun.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">December</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Early December, I took a couple days off work to go to Cameron Highlands with Taka for a weekend getaway of rest and chilling. It was a good time. We went to the Mossy Forest, and the Boh tea plantation thingy, and spent a lot of time just chillin’ at the hotel, napping, reading, resting. Good times.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I was also tasked with writing, directing and producing three social media videos for Redcomm during this time. It was three videos for three occasions: Christmas, New Years, and CNY. We’ve shot all three, published the Christmas one, and are waiting to put out the other two. I worked closely with Suzanne throughout the thing. Brain Wong and Izzaldin helped a bunch as well. We ended up with fun leel videos.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">A sad note is when the floods happened in the Klang Valley area this month. My car got stranded at a cemetery parking lot (safe from the flood, fortunately), and I had to walk back home. I was very fortunate that I was able to walk home. Many people were stranded without a place to go. Some completely lost their homes. And I didn’t know how to help.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I just tried my best to amplify the people that needed the most help on twitter, and tried to do my best to help out secara langsung in my own limited capacity. It sucked not having a humongous amount of resources to help more people. It absolutely sucked.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">But it was beautiful to see how people banded together and helped each other out. I had a front row seat to that, and it was wonderful. I hate that it took a natural disaster and systemic failure for this to show itself, but it was still beautiful to see. When people help people, people win. Fuck the people in power. Anarchy is the way to go.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Besides that, I also read a 70-chapter novel and wrote a summary of it. I enlisted the help of Emma to do a percentage of it, and we got it done in two days. It was tough, but we got through it. And hopefully the project takes off next year, and we can turn it into something worth watching.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">***</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">And that was 2021. It was mostly filled with written-work things. Not a lot of stage work, since the cases were soaring throughout the year, and the lockdowns came back again and again. One hopes that next year is better for everyone. Fuck the patriarchy, fuck the ruling class, fuck capitalism.</span></p><div><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></div></span>anak pak manhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00676137847801027758noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8386436012700262207.post-65001590936330572472021-01-05T19:05:00.001+08:002021-01-05T19:05:57.818+08:00Remembering 2020 (Part 2)<p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> To read Part 1, <a href="http://anakazman.blogspot.com/2021/01/remembering-2020-part-1.html" target="_blank">click here.</a></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Blogging huh? I recently listened to a <a href="https://open.spotify.com/episode/5UP6HmsMq3LHF6notO53IZ?si=v_lWzmM3T9qfJ0csK3dwew" target="_blank">Good One podcast episode</a> where the host (Jesse David Fox) spoke to his friend and former fellow blogger Kelly Conaboy about their blogging heydays in the late aughts early tens, and it reminded me of how much I used to care about blogging. I would actively put in the effort to make sure that I wrote on here consistently and would feel bad for going through months without blogging. How I didn't know I actually wanted to be a full-time writer yet at the time, I will never know. I think that is worth exploring, but maybe in a different post. In this post, it's Part 2 of my 2020 wrap up.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><b><span style="font-family: arial;">April</span></b></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">So by the time April rolled around, I had already written a full first draft of a play script and I was feeling pretty chuffed about it. I was riding that accomplishment high all lockdown long. Lucky for me, at the beginning of this month, a local production company (RedComm) put out a call for writers to submit their work samples to them for them to choose who could join <a href="https://www.instagram.com/tv/B_AQCJKJpKB/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link" target="_blank">their first ever online workshop</a> thing. I submitted two things: a sitcom idea and the play script that I had just written the month previous. I ended up getting to join the workshop to develop the sitcom idea.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">I was part of 8 participants, and it was held over Zoom, and the workshop was conducted by Malaysian screenwriter Rafidah Abdullah with help from producer and CEO of RedComm Lina Tan as well as tv and film director Shamyl Othman. Basically we worked on our idea in the span of five days and got it to a point where it could be pitched to networks and funders. It was a very eye-opening experience for me, learning how to take the kernel of an idea and developing it to become coherent enough for other people to get what I was trying to do. I learned how to write a logline, a treatment, how to write scenes, how to make an idea "pop". Plus, I also got to listen in on the other writers' ideas and their processes. It was a very cool experience. This experience would also pave the way for me to get a job at RedComm as a writer in September, but we're getting ahead of ourselves here.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Pasca Sini also released DMB as a single in April (20 haribulan 4, 420 gitu). DMB has been quite well received by many people in our listenership. It's not stacking the kind of numbers that Dichotomy did, but it's definitely looking like it's gonna be a staple at our live shows nanti when we can do that again.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><b><span style="font-family: arial;">May</span></b></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">May was mostly empty in terms of activities for me. I got to go back into the Ripple office by the middle of the month, after working from home for two months. It was nice to be able to get out of the house again, and it was nice that the number of cases at the time were consistently below a hundred a day (remember those days? Good times). I liked being able to be around work friends again, feeling a little bit more normal as the days went by. It was strange in the beginning of course. At any one time at the office, there weren't more than ten people (from an original fifty), and we were distancing from each other physically. But we got to shoot in the studio again, so that was cool.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Also, Pasca Sini organised <a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/CAciGntBqgH/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link" target="_blank">our very first online streaming gig at Angkasa Space</a>. We roped in our friends Motherwit and W/SH to play with us too. It was our first time in a long long time playing music together again, and it felt good to be able to do that again, but it also felt super strange playing a show that had no audience members, just camera crew there. Also, my in ear monitor was on the fritz throughout the show, so I wasn't able to enjoy it as much as I would have liked. But overall, it was a super nice time to be able to play music again with the band after going such a long time without playing anything.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><b><span style="font-family: arial;">June</span></b></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">There weren't much going on in June for me either. I recorded <a href="https://fb.watch/2NxA-zj6CR/" target="_blank">a storytelling video for Kaki Seni</a> in which I read from a book called Shadows that was written by Maya Zaharudin and illustrated by Shufitri Mohd Shukardi. The experience was cool, as it felt like I was doing voice-over work for cartoons. I got to make up different voices for different characters and play around with my voice in fun ways. But because I hadn't used my voice that intensely in such a long time, by the end of the second take of reading, my voice was really cracking up, and I'm glad we didn't have to do it a third time.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Besides that, this was also the first time the state borders had opened up, so my family met up in Kuala Krai, Kelantan to visit my grandfather who had recently lost his wife (my grandmother) during the lockdowns. I remember trying to go to Kuala Krai the first time while the borders were still closed the month previous, and we were turned away by police as we were entering Bentong, Pahang.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">It was cool to be able to gather with my parents and brothers again. We hung out as we do whenever we're in Kuala Krai, tried to teman Tok Ayah and visited Nenek's grave.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Sometime towards the end of this month was also the first time I got to shoot <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7vN1fEqIjIs" target="_blank">The Nasi Kandar Show</a> with DestinasiTV. They texted me asking if I'd be interested in hosting for a new show of theirs and I was like "You want to pay me to eat and talk in front of a camera? Sure, why not?" I'll talk about it some more in July.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><b><span style="font-family: arial;">July</span></b></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">This was the month in which I stopped being a part of Thelaki and Ripple Media. I had been there for almost two years (since September 2018), and it was time for me to move on and see what other things I could do outside of creating videos for the internet. I even made <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KvhDkn4fOwc" target="_blank">a farewell video for Thelaki's Youtube viewers</a>. On my last day, I wrote personalised hand-written letters to everyone I cared about in the office thanking them for being a part of my life in their respective capacities. I had never done such a thing, and it felt nice to do. I think I'll keep the practice for myself in the future. It was a cool two years of my life, learning for myself that there is a future for me in a predominantly creative field. I got to do some pretty cool things with some pretty cool people. I met some amazing people who will forever stay in my thoughts and prayers. </span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">July was also the first time I got hired to write as a freelance for a TV show (the show title sounds like Slub Milky Mouth). I was tasked to write three episodes, and this was a massive learning experience for me as well. I got to participate in writer's room discussions. I got to pitch ideas, get my ideas shot down, learn the script format for this particular show and draw from my teacher training to come up with games that could be used for the show.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Besides that, I got to speak on a forum in Publika that discussed the topic of "Breaking Perspectives About Good Influencers In Malaysia". I was the only person in the panel who had no idea what he was talking about, but at least I was able to make the socially-distanced audience laugh a handful of times throughout the forum thing, so that was cool.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">And another thing that happened in July was my first time ever being involved in a live sketch comedy show. I was pulled in by Harith Iskander to rehearse for and perform at the Blackbox in Publika a show called <a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/CDBEYY2hgHi/?utm_source=ig_web_button_share_sheet" target="_blank">Lawak Mantul</a>, which was staged on the 24th of July. It was a fun experience, as I got to work with the funniest people I know (such as Mozek, Farid, Mad Sabah, Abe, Prakash, etc.) in front of a receptive and socially distanced audience. The show was also streamed live on Facebook, or so I was told. <a href="https://fb.watch/2NzjnoTksa/" target="_blank">There are a few clips from it here</a>. I talked about it on a Mentol Pecah podcast episode and went into detail about how the experience was for me. <a href="https://open.spotify.com/episode/2J6PzM4rLyjIqEHXQXYJnq?si=0Gmtlc2DRdyO9knQbgMXOw" target="_blank">You can listen to it here if you'd like</a>.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">This month was also the month in which I went to see a psychiatrist for the first time. I went to Pusat Perubatan Universiti Malaya with my wife, and we both met doctors that day. Taka got diagnosed with Bipolar 2 and got medication. My diagnosis was more "low mood" or something or other, nothing too serious that needed any medication. We spoke about this at length in <a href="https://open.spotify.com/episode/2ZEgVWWWboeGTNOBEe8iht?si=O0bQBvlpRsaVIsXlZp4A9g" target="_blank">a Buah Mulut podcast episode</a>, if you're interested in the whole process.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">This was also when we went to Perak to shoot a few more episodes of <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6EMXp90Etb8" target="_blank">The Nasi Kandar Show</a>. I got to bring Taka along on this trip and it became like a work trip for us, as during the day I'd be shooting the episodes, and in the evenings we had time to go around Ipoh, walk around and see the sights together. It was a nice time to spend with each other, and the food was nice. The Nasi Kandar Show has allowed me to be in the more public public eye since the beginning of IniAnwarHadi, as I started being recognised by people I wouldn't expect to recognise me (mostly people in the food biz, but also the layperson who watches Youtube content). I felt like I was getting exposure outside my niche for a bit, and it felt familiar but also strange at the same time.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">All in all, quite an eventful July ya nampaknya?</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><b><span style="font-family: arial;">August</span></b></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">August was taken up by mostly writing scripts for the aforementioned show. I did a bunch of writing at a new space that I like called Safehouse KL. It's in TTDI and it used to be IntunNation. It's a chill place and I liked being there. It felt like I was a cool kid doing work among other cool kids. Boleh la takat nak pretend.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">I went to watch a live standup show by Mad Sabah. He's one of the best standup comedians in Malaysia right now, and the hour that he delivered that night really was such a fun and sakit perut gelak kinda night. I went with Taka, and she enjoyed it very much as well. I recommend catching his standup whenever things open back up again.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">I also went on a family vacation in Melaka during this month. My mother's side of the family organised a family trip for us to go to Melaka. We rented a homestay type place and stayed there for a weekend. We played games and baca Yasin and ate and chilled. It was a nice time.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">The Pinball Monkeys also performed on stage for the first time since lockdown in August. I don't remember much of the show, as I am wont to do, but I do know that it felt great to be doing improv again with the Pinball Monkeys compadres. </span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">At the end of the month, Pinball Monkeys launched our <a href="https://www.patreon.com/pinballmonkeys" target="_blank">Patreon page</a> and improvised sketch comedy podcast. It's a weekly podcast where each episode is 20-30 minutes of improvised silliness made by Mozek, Farid and myself. We have <i>so</i> much fun making it, foreal. And in this iteration of the podcast, we feel like we've finally found a form and rhythm that works for us, in which we get to consistently make stuff that we like and let other people listen to them.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><b><span style="font-family: arial;">September</span></b></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">A lot of September was taken up by theatre rehearsals. I was involved in two out of the seven short plays in the show called <a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/CFzIDqSp26F/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link" target="_blank">Romansiprokal</a>: Darah Malam Pertama and Fault Sapa. All the short plays were ones written by the Penang playwright Yusof Bakar. I went to Revolution Stage quite regularly to rehearse the plays and it was good to be able to spend time with my theatre director friends again.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">I also attended a local film festival at this time. It was called <a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/CE0kDitJyhi/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link" target="_blank">Pesta Filem Kita</a> and it was held at Ruang by Think City KL on the 12th of September. I was able to sit in on a masterclass by U-Wei Hajisaari, listen to some forums, talked a little bit tu Amir Muhammad, and watch a handful of short films made by local film makers. It was a nice experience, but I did end up feeling rather lonely, as I did not go with any friends (I don't even know who in my friend list would even be remotely interested in going to this type of thing) and although I met a few acquaintances when I was there, it did feel like a solo activity for me in the end, which was fine, but I did long to feel like I belonged, as can be easily predicted.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">On the 15th, it was my first day of being a full time writer at RedComm. Towards the end of August, I had gotten really antsy about my job prospects. I knew that I wanted to be a full time writer, but how and where? I had no idea. I had applied to a<i> bunch</i> of places to become a writer, and in my desperation I even ended up sending in my resume to places that needed content creators. But I knew I wanted to be a script writer. I wanted to write for the screen. I had been wanting to write for the screen for a long long time. And I finally got to make it my full time job. It felt super nice and reaffirming and satisfying and anxiety-alleviating. I'm here now. I'm so grateful.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Pinball Monkeys performed once at The Joke Factory while still continuing to upload weekly sketches on our Patreon page. Pasca Sini also performed at a live stream show called <a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/CFTSPx2BKc8/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link" target="_blank">Sadtember</a> with some other local rock bands in the line up. I don't know if they're ever going to release the full show, but <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wyv990W_mgI" target="_blank">here is us playing DMB on the night</a>.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><b><span style="font-family: arial;">October</span></b></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">I started October with staging the Romansiprokal plays. It was an anxiety-inducing time also, since Covid cases were going back up to triple digits. On top of that, I was down but not out with a runny nose and cold (it wasn't Covid, but I still didn't want to get my fellow theatre pals to catch what I was having, so I had my mask on almost all of the time). It was nice to be able to do theatre again, but our run of shows had to be cut short since the number of Covid cases had made it untenable for us to continue with the staging anymore. It was sad, but it was also the right thing to do.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Besides that, Pasca Sini recorded a live session at Reka Karya for the Youtube channel (<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4wIIG7xizgc" target="_blank">click here to watch</a>). It was a fun time. We also shot <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C_Mo8x7Qbig" target="_blank">the music video for our song Fikir Sebelum Bertindak</a> in the later half of this month. It was shot at Petai Belalang studio, and it was also a fun time recording that one.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">I also spent a lot of this month writing my first telemovie script (it's a musical, too). It hasn't been shot yet, as of this time of writing, but I am excited to see how it turns out.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><b><span style="font-family: arial;">November</span></b></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">This month was taken up by a lot of rehearsals for the aforementioned musical that I wrote. I didn't do much at the rehearsals, since the cast was doing a lot of dance practice. I just ended up sitting in a corner and writing drafts for other scripts I was working on at the time. </span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">I also guested for two different podcasts that weren't Mentol Pecah. Once for the <a href="https://open.spotify.com/episode/6joOIIPNauAiqglBLFg80M?si=hJ3lR9rBTySFeW78nSBI3g" target="_blank">Mulut Murai podcast</a> made by the people at Safehouse (I like this episode muchly). The other is for the <a href="https://open.spotify.com/episode/7gsNTMvQzWsIAYKXUgQ4qt?si=BRKTj0MoQf-os3JoXxVPtw" target="_blank">How To Malay podcast</a>, with Mozek and Qam (this was also fun).</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Pasca Sini released our first full-length album called <a href="https://open.spotify.com/album/6oeXAhA5HOOR4mKETctR4W?si=HXbSceq0RrOc98_tdjCZrw" target="_blank">Emo Department</a> on all streaming platforms on the 20th of November. It consists of twelve tracks that we have been working on since 2018 with the help of our producer and friend, Shaheir Jibin. We really like how the album turned out. It's a bummer that we can't tour it, but we look forward to playing the songs on the album on stage whenever it is safe again to do so. Until then, have a listen to it and be emo with us.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><b><span style="font-family: arial;">December</span></b></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">The final month of the year, I was mostly on the set of Slub Milky Mouth (bukan nama sebenar), making sure that any rewriting could be done quickly and scriptwriterly. It was a new experience for me, seeing a show being shot on a multi-cam setup in a huge closed studio. Each member of the cast was very talented and sung and danced their way to getting the job done.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Besides that shoot, I was also involved in a script-reading workshop-type thingy at Lot'ng for a play that is scheduled to be staged sometime in the middle of 2021. We met up three times in three weeks and we helped the playwright hear what his script sounded like out-loud so that he can make adjustments where he feels necessary. I look forward to going into rehearsals for that play, as the cast members seem super cool and I'd get to work with Chris the director again.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Right after the shoot of that Milky Mouth show, we started shooting for the educational show I had been writing a script for. I was on set for the episodes that I wrote to make sure that the cast pronounced things correctly and that they got all the facts straight. I was also there to rewrite what needed to be rewritten. It was a huge learning experience to me in terms of finding out what is helpful and not helpful for a writer to do in their script. I also got to see some actors in action, and make up my mind about how to go about being an actor in the future if I were to ever be cast in a screen thing nanti (primarily learn my lines well before coming on set, and listen very carefully to what the director has to say).</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Pinball Monkeys also published our first comedy album called <a href="https://open.spotify.com/album/0s7kxmG8BrFhlu22HJ4FbQ?si=SOfus7i6SHGy5TX5fMeLaQ" target="_blank">Semua On The Spot</a>. It is a collection of all our favourite sketches that we've made at our Patreon page, and we like it very much. We had so much fun making the sketches, and we hope you give it a listen to have just as much fun as we had.</span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;">***</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">And that about wraps it up for my 2020. It has been a sucky year, it's true. I didn't get to tour with Pasca Sini, I couldn't perform more shows with Pinball Monkeys, I couldn't hang out with my friends, I couldn't travel anywhere most of the time. But it's also been a year of blessings for me. I finally got a job a screenwriter, I got to meet some amazing people, I got to be a part of the best comedy podcast in Malaysia, I was able to be a part of publishing both a music album and a comedy album, I got to spend a lot of time with my wife, I got to spend quality time with my family and friends and I learned how to cook. There is still much to be grateful for in my life.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">I hope your 2020 wasn't too bad either. May 2021 bring us more joy and serotonin.</span></p>anak pak manhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00676137847801027758noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8386436012700262207.post-64180831512106932021-01-01T00:52:00.003+08:002021-01-02T18:50:45.965+08:00Remembering 2020 (Part 1)<p><span style="font-family: arial;">So 2020 was a great big yikes, wasn't it? Who would've known that things would go south the way that it did? I guess, <a href="https://youtu.be/6Af6b_wyiwI" target="_blank">Bill Gates, in that one Tedtalk video</a>. But nobody else, probably! And how we've rued not taking heed of the dude's Tedtalk. But I feel that I am getting ahead of myself. Ehem.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">Every year for the past handful of years, I've done a month-to-month wrap-up of the things I've done throughout the year, so that I may remember the year that was, and document it for my future self's reading pleasure. And I shall be doing it in this post. Will it turn out to be in two parts like in previous years? I doubt it, but let's see!</span></p><p><b><span style="font-family: arial;">January</span></b></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">Ahh, January. Such wonderful times. A time of blissful ignorance. So naive. So young. So free! I kicked off the year by playing a New Year's Eve show (live shows, remember those?) with Pasca Sini at Impero Studio, Ara Damansara. We ended up playing like an hour or so late. We dressed up in button ups and blazers. We really wanted to play a good show. We played an alright-ish show. Kami dah mengantuk, semua orang lain dah mengantuk, tapi tibai ja lah. Oh how I miss it. HOW!</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">January was also when I first read and rehearsed for the first of only two theatre productions that I'd be involved in throughout 2020, 24 Jam Dalam 37 Tahun (directed by Chris Ling and written by Khairi Anwar). I remember <i>bawling</i> the first time we did the read at Lot'ng. There's this one sequence where the main protagonist (played wonderfully by Shah Shaha) was asking my character at that moment (his father) like 50 questions back to back to back. It really did me in real good. We started rehearsals on the 29th of January and continued to rehearse until the first of March.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">We also experimented with the first iteration of the <a href="https://www.patreon.com/pinballmonkeys" target="_blank">Pinball Monkeys Podcast </a>around this time. We did a few recording sessions, but we were happy with none of them, so they ended up never seeing the light of day. Having said that, I still had a good time recording them. Lots of laughs were had. Cumanya the episodes became unwieldy and hard to figure out, jadi we didn't feel comfortable putting it out to the world. We'd finally figure out how to do it later in the year during lockdown.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">I was also a guest on Syafiq Syazim's podcast called <a href="https://open.spotify.com/episode/442NmkoIC0Jz3vN0IutdYi?si=H_vJtHK0Sr22EMc8-TmBlg" target="_blank">Dramatic Dialogue</a> where he speaks to people mostly in the local theatre scene about their experiences and thoughts on theatre and the arts in general. I really like guesting on podcasts, and I aim to be a Paul F. Tompkins in the local podcasting universe, meaning that I want to be in any and all podcasts made round here if I can. I was still working at Thelaki at the time, so he came by Sri Pentas and we recorded the episode there.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">I played one Making Shit Up show and one Pinball Monkeys live show at The Joke Factory in this month, both of which very fun, I'm sure. Masalahnya I don't remember what happened in those shows anymore, such is the temporal nature of improv shows. But I do know how they made me feel, and they made me feel <i>amazing.</i></span></p><p><b><span style="font-family: arial;">February</span></b></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">A lot of February was taken up by rehearsals for 24 Jam Dalam 37 Tahun. I was around Lot'ng a lot, with my fellow actors Shah Shaha and Anissa Azis. We worked through the play, sorted ourselves out and became as prepared as we could've been going into the staging of the play that would happen the following month. It was my first time playing multiple roles in one play, and I've always wanted to do that. I've always seen it as a rite of passage towards becoming an actor. I've always, in my own little head thought that I wasn't a <i>real</i> actor until I can bawak multiple roles in one play, and I'm super glad that I was entrusted with doing just that by Chris.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">I was also an extra in two music videos in this month: for <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FfqRO3tcXpE" target="_blank">Ariff Bahran's Usah</a> and for <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R-Blvf9fmHc" target="_blank">The Venopian Solitude's Camaraderie</a>. The shoots happened on consecutive days in one weekend. Quite the busy weekend, but it was fun and nice to be on a set with friends.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">Pasca Sini played our final pre-Covid show on the 28th of February. It was called Jenuh Kampoi, and we played at Tala Records in Gasket Alley PJ. It was a cool show with cool people. Kami macam biasa, tak tight, but we had fun. The show was supposed to be the first of many many shows that we planned for our 2020 nationwide tour to get the word out about our debut album (that would eventually be released in November 2020) and we were supposed to be on tour with I Lost The Plot and Timemachine, and it would've been such a nice string of shows, I'm sure. Tapi apakan daya. Kita hanya mampu merancang, gitu.</span></p><p><b><span style="font-family: arial;">March</span></b></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">The month it all went downhill. But not before having a few highs in store for me!</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">I did my first ever BFM radio interview to promote the play 24 Jam Dalam 37 Tahun with fellow actor Anissa. I relistened to <a href="https://www.bfm.my/podcast/the-bigger-picture/front-row/24-jam-dalam-37-tahun2" target="_blank">the recording of it</a>, and I feel like the first half was rough in terms of me being able to give good answers to the questions asked by the DJ (Sharmilla). But I finally got to set foot in the BFM office, and they have like the best pantry, it's so cool, and the view is so nice, I was super jealous as Ripple's pantry wasn't even half as good.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">We started our staging of 24 Jam Dalam 37 Tahun on the 5th of March, and it lasted two weeks (taking Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday off). We put up eight shows, and I think all eight shows (or maybe it was seven?) ended up being sold out. That was a first time for me too, to have a sold out run of a show. It felt great and gratifying. I think it's the best play I've ever been a part of to-date. We had plans to re-stage it later in the year, but, y'know, Corvid. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">In the play I got to play five different characters, and figuring out how to pull that off was a challenge, but I managed it. It was such a satisfying experience, to embody the characters and tell the story of Haikal to a willing audience. The play ended up moving many people to tears, just like it did when I first experienced it. There's so much heart and honesty in it, it breaks your heart. Khairi wrote a super powerful piece, and Chris directed it immaculately, as one would expect from the great Chris Ling. Shah's performance as Haikal was amazing, Anissa did a great job, the sound design by Kir was onz, <a href="https://fb.watch/2JHejw5AiO/" target="_blank">the theme song made by Takahara Suiko</a> was spot on and the set made by Adry was cool esfak. It was great all round and I'm super grateful to have been part of this production.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">While the play was going on, I squeezed out some time to play with Pasca Sini at Gasket Alley again for a very pop punk heavy show. We wore Oasis-inspired clothes and covered Don't Look Back In Anger, because Oasis are pop punk as fuck. I also got to send my youngest brother off at the airport for him to fly to Romania. He did a semester over there under a student exchange programme thingy, and it was cool to see him study oversea like that (although because of Corveid, he ended up doing all of his classes online. Kesian kat dia). It was interesting to be at the airport at the start of Covid. It was the emptiest I had ever seent it. It felt very ominous.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">A day after we wrapped the 24 Jam Dalam 37 Tahun production, the government announced the first Movement Control Order. That was huge news. We were very grateful that we were able to conclude our production before the announcement. Throughout March, we were already macam was-was about everything dah. Sanitizing our hands all the time, sanitizing the Lot'ng blackbox before every show. And then the MCO was announced, and we were to work from home until further notice. We'd never done that before at Thelaki, so it was interesting to me to see how we would navigate having to still make video while being at home. We figured it out, of course, and made quite a few videos from our respective homes. I like <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OL-L78Ayzw4" target="_blank">this one in particular</a>, where we talked about our daily routines when working from home.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">I remember the first time I went on a grocery run during the first MCO. I was staying at my in-laws at the time and I was given a list of things to get. I went to Aeon and Tesco to find all the things that were in the list. I remember the line at Tesco being super super long because of the limit in the amount of people allowed in the shopping area at any given time, as well as the social distancing that was required of us while in the line. I waited like an hour and a half kot kalau tak silap, just to get into Tesco. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">This was the time that felt most apocalyptic to me. Everything was familiar, but surreal. Seeing all the shops closed like that. There was palpable fear in the air, and everyone was extra careful with everything. But there was also a sense of "we're all in this together"ness whenever I made eye-contact with strangers. Like we were saying to each other, "stay away from me, and together we'll beat this thing." It was weird, and cool, but mostly strange. I remember listening to <a href="https://open.spotify.com/episode/2YxXGjJXCZ9UBXziAd0lLG?si=u2HCEKJbQWW1_prbh9QYmg" target="_blank">the latest episode of The Anthropocene Reviewed by John Green at the time </a>and feeling like "Fuck, this is really happening. Fuck." But at the same time, "we'll get through this. It'll be a while, but we will get through this." I really recommend you listening to the episode, it's great.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">I didn't like this period at all though. I didn't know what to do with myself. I struggle with staying inside all day everyday. It made me realise just how important being out and about was to me. I am a much more social creature than I give myself credit for.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">I ended up giving myself the goal of writing a play script in two weeks. I met my goal and shared it with one friend so that they made me accountable. The first draft is finished, and I have no idea when I'm going to get started on its second and subsequent drafts. But I finished writing my first ever play script, so that is one thing to feel grateful about.</span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;">***</span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Well, looks like I've run out of gas here. I'll continue with part 2 esok, I hope. Have a happy new year everyone. May the next year be much much better than this one.</span></p>anak pak manhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00676137847801027758noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8386436012700262207.post-30793467267262312112020-01-28T10:42:00.002+08:002020-01-28T10:45:12.940+08:00What Am I Now?<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">So I was talking to a friend the other day, and the question of what we currently were came up, and I found the question interesting. Mainly because I have become so used to defining myself by my ideals, my aspirations, what I aim to be in the future. And I've written extensively about what I've done in the past in the form of those whole-year wrap-ups I do here on the blog. But rarely do I ever look at myself in the present and try to pick my current self apart in an honest and thorough manner, so I thought it would be an interesting exercise: to get down and dirty with my perception of my actual current self and see what's there, or rather: here.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">So immediately what comes to mind when somebody asks you "what are you?" is to switch the question to "what do you do?" and that's an easy enough question to answer. I do many things (eat, sleep and poop, primarily), but in answering that question, it is common convention to answer with your full-time job, and so I am an online video producer for a digital media brand called <a href="https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCtgULsKJT8q4NNdUiatB_1Q/" target="_blank">Thelaki</a>. I make (produce, write and host) weekly videos over there. I get paid to do it, which astounds me, since I have zero formal education in the matter. Everything I have learned in order to do what I do for a living right now, I have learned through experience, through doing, through trial and error. I have reasons to think that I'm good at what I do, and I also have plenty of reasons to think otherwise. I have a great team around me and we get the results that we do because of the combined efforts of everybody in the team.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Besides my full-time gig, I also do these other things on the regular, as readers of this blog might already know. I act semi-regularly. I have been involved in a handful of productions within these past couple of years in an acting capacity for me to be comfortable enough to say that I act. I am currently rehearsing for a play that will be staged in a couple of months, so I am a "working actor", so to speak. I would like to someday be a "full-time actor", but that will require more time, work and luck to be a thing. I don't know if I'm a "good actor", but I don't think that I'm a "bad actor" (not in my definition of "bad actor", anyway). I used to go to casting sessions more regularly, but nowadays I audition less and less. Maybe because I have a high failure rate as an auditioner (just like every other actor) and I take failure very poorly, so I don't audition so much anymore in order to save myself from all the heartbreak. But also maybe because the best acting jobs I've gotten so far did not come from cold auditions but from people knowing me personally and knowing what I could do and wanting me to do it in their productions. Maybe because I put myself out there on stage and on Youtube regularly enough for me to not feel like I need to go to audition rooms sangat, and value the exercise of building an audience organically, and trusting that if I gain enough of an audience people would want to work with me more because you never know who's watching.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I also play guitar in a band called <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lTZjepDadVs" target="_blank">Pasca Sini</a>. We play pop-punk, and pop-punk bands are not most known for their virtuosity, which allows for my mediocre playing of the instrument to be passable. I play live in front of audiences every so often and the band has a small small following that I'm very grateful for. We're in the midst of recording our first full-length album that we're excited about sharing with everybody who's willing to give it a listen.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">On top of that, I am an improviser. I feel comfortable saying that because I improvise in front of audiences semi-regularly, more often in the short-form format but also sometimes long-form, and I usually have fun every time. I don't think I'm a "good improviser", and I wish I knew how to accelerate my improvement in terms of ability to be funny at the drop of a hat, but I hope that with practice comes incremental comedic-ability gains.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">So those were the things "I do", but it doesn't actually fully tell you and me what "I am". I could approach the question by saying who I am in relation to other people. I am grateful to be able to say that I am a husband. A flawed one, I think, in the sense that I feel like I disappoint my wife regularly. I let her down more often than I would like, and new days bring new challenges and shed light onto how I could be doing better as a life-partner. But I'd also like to think that I'm getting better at it. I think I'm a better husband now than I was three years ago, and that's something to feel okay about, I guess. I'm not a great problem-solver, but I think I do listen sometimes, and I learn from my mistakes, sometimes. I try to show my wife that I love her whenever I can, and I encourage her to be autonomous and live her life to the fullest, with or without me.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I am a friend. I'd like to think that a handful of people in this world don't mind having me around. I don't know if I'm a "good friend", but I try to be one in my flawed ways. I try my best to avoid being a "bad friend", however I understand the term. I encourage my friends to be their best selves, I avoid being a burden to them, I always try to be honest with them, I do my best to be wary of doing and saying things that make them feel bad, I apologise when I do, I pay for their food sometimes, I share jokes with them, I try my best to listen, I put in the effort to spend time with them. But I also find it hard to find words that are encouraging or motivational when they need it, I sometimes allow myself to get too busy to spend time with them, I forget to keep in touch, I am a terrible interacter in a group setting, I get distracted very easily, to name but a few of my shortcomings. But I am grateful that my friends exist and that they don't seem like they mind me existing.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">But what am I when not in relation to other people? What am I as a standalone person, a solo-project? The format that makes the most sense to me in order to answer this question is the "I am [noun]", kan? I am a privileged Malay-Muslim guy living in Malaysia. I am a deodorant-wearer. I am a silly goose who is also a fan of silly geese. I am a disappointment. I am an ambitious MF. I am a lazy MF. I am an MF Doom fan.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">But I can also approach this question with the format "I am [adjective]". I am tan. I am taller than the average Malaysian (the average Malaysian male is 164-168cm tall). I am affectionate but cautious with my affection. I am unfunny, but goddammit am I trying. I am flawed. I am sleepy, most of the time, and I am hungry a lot of the time. I am tired. I am forgetful.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The format I'm most comfortable with, is (I think) "I am [verb]". I am trying to be a better person. I am working towards having more empathy for people. I am learning how to better be of service to those around me. For the most part, I keep my thoughts to myself, unless I'm writing on this blog. I am trying to be more compassionate, considerate, and generous. I am trying. Sometimes I fail, and sometimes I succeed, but most of the time I'm just trying.</span><br />
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anak pak manhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00676137847801027758noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8386436012700262207.post-28657190969062512612020-01-21T11:29:00.001+08:002020-01-21T15:27:28.672+08:00Starting With Why<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">So I just finished reading a book written by Simon Sinek called Start With Why (2009). I think I remember hearing one of my favourite internet people, Mike Falzone recommending people read it in one of his podcasts (alongside another book called The Creative Curve, still on the lookout for that one), so when an office-mate of mine shared that they had the book in their possession, I asked to borrow it for a while (leel crocodile), and I managed to get through it in two weeks and a half (hooray).</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I don't often write about the book I've read immediately after reading it, or at all, as the archives of this blog can attest. But I ended up having jumbled thoughts after reading Start With Why, so I turn to this blog to figure my thoughts out.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Basically the whole book can be summed up in <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u4ZoJKF_VuA" target="_blank">a TedTalk he did around the same time</a> jugak. If you've watched the TedTalk, you've basically read like 80% of the book. Simon argues that successful businesses are successful because they start with and continue sticking with why they exist in the first place. Simon elaborates it better and I have no desire to regurgitate what he has already spoken about at length, so if you're really interested, go ahead and watch the video.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I like the idea. The idea that you go in to any venture or endeavour with a core belief, a foundational philosophy. It sounds nice. It reminds me of when I first learned about pholosophies of education back in teacher training and how important it was to have not only a national <a href="https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&source=images&cd=&ved=2ahUKEwj19vTf1pPnAhXdwTgGHRPmDIwQjRx6BAgBEAQ&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.slideshare.net%2Fmrsnazlan%2Fnational-philosophy-of-education&psig=AOvVaw3h1DWawmALcuFfa5Yzm9_C&ust=1579661209411019" target="_blank">philosophy of education</a> but also a personal one, and how having one immediately empowers a teacher in their efforts within the classroom and school. It provides teachers focus about why they're doing what they're doing. It enables teachers to be clear about their role in the bigger scheme of things.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">A lecturer of mine (Madam Mariah) helped me and my fellow TESL classmates come up with our own individual philosophies of education, and I treasure that exercise very much. Unfortunately the only copy I ever made of it was sent in to Madam Mar and has been in her possession since, so I haven't been able to revisit it.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">But Simon Sinek was talking mostly about business, and why business-people and entrepreneurs needed to start with why in order to be successful at what they do. Maybe that's my first dislike about the book. I am such a non-business-person (or at least that's how I perceive myself to be). I do desire a comfortable life that is free from financial turmoil, but I have no desire to be a millionaire. I do not want to be a CEO of anything, I do not want to be a boss, I don't like the idea of being "at the top of the food chain". I like making stuff, I like telling stories and I like making people happy. So this book is already not a great fit for me, since I have no admiration for successful businesses and how they got that way. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The book talks at length about how great Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Herb Kelleher and the like are, in a way that rubs me the wrong way. It read to me like Simon was trying to say: hey, here's why these people are billionaires and you aren't. He didn't put it in those words, but that's what it felt like. And I have zero love for billionaires, so it's very easy for me to dislike any person who tries to espouse messages that sound like "billionaires are good". I am of course not denying that their contributions to modernity are great. And on the surface, how Simon argues that they got there sounds alright, but he of course only talks about part of the picture, parts of the picture that support his thesis statement, as you are wont to do in a book that tries to argue for something. It doesn't take into account or even address the positions of privilege these people had in their lives to be able to do what they did. It didn't elaborate on how these people were/are problematic in their ways. It all sounds too "from zero to hero-y" for me to be able to take it without a bunch of salt.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">But at the end of the day, it is a self-help book, not an academic book, so it has no imperative to be more critical than it has to be in order to make its arguments sound sound. Its main aim is to inspire, not inform, so whatever information that doesn't help with the inspiring bit would be edited out of the book, I'm sure.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Which was why I was surprised by the bit that tried to sound academic when it tried to draw parallels between brain anatomy and his argument of start with why. He talked about how his golden circle was similar to how the brain is built, how the why was the limbic part of the brain and how the hows and whats were the neo-cortex. That part sounded so psuedo-sciencey to me, it was hard for me to take it very seriously at all. And he tried to argue that parallel by himself essentially, not even bothering to quote any actual scientist or brain researcher person for the argument to try to carry any weight.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">And I guess the part that disappointed me the most after reading the book was that it never laid out any real instructions or road-maps for his readers to be able to figure out their own WHYs. There wasn't a list of questions, or a set of steps or anything in that vein that would allow a reader to gain clarity of how to figure out their own why. He did vaguely talk about how he came across his own why, but I never really felt like he helped guide me around that question. What was my why? By the time I finished reading the book, I didn't come closer to it than when I started. I knew that I had to find it out. I just didn't know how. And I really thought the book would tell me. But it didn't. And I'm disappointed. Now I have to do all this hard work in figuring it out for myself, and I'm fundamentally a very lazy person, so I will most probably end up just not figuring it out sampai ke sudah. I wanted my hand to be held through the process, tapi dia takmaw pegang my tangan, and I'm sad.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Maybe the omission allows him to sell his seminars. "How To Find Your Why by Simon Sinek". Thousands of dollars for two hours. Boleh kaya oo. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Maybe I'm just being cynical. Maybe the book was good at bringing out my cynicism. Maybe I've just turned into a cynic at one point and refuse to take active steps towards self-improvement by pointing out how everything else is wrong and how I cannot take steps towards self-improvement until everything is perfect, which will never happen because perfection doesn't exist.</span></div>
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</span>anak pak manhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00676137847801027758noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8386436012700262207.post-82965109379614634842019-12-27T12:58:00.002+08:002019-12-27T13:10:15.731+08:00Remembering 2019 (PART 2)<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">To read part 1, <a href="https://anakazman.blogspot.com/2019/12/remembering-2019-part-1.html" target="_blank">click here.</a></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">July</span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">So in July we (Mozek, Farid, Prakash, Henry and I) did our first Pinball Monkeys show at The Joke Factory, under the guise of "Mystery Show" on a Thursday night (4th July). Pinball Monkeys do long-form improvised comedy, as opposed to the more familiar short-form improvised comedy that people have gotten to know through shows like Whose Line Is It Anyway and AIIA Improv. The Joke Factory has their own short-form improv comedy night (Wednesday nights), and I am more often than not part of that line-up, but long-form improv is not something very common in the Malaysian comedy scene (at least not through my observation of it). I have been a fan of long-form improv since I started listening to long-form improv comedy podcasts in 2014 such as Improv4humans, Comedy Bang Bang and Spontaneanation (RIP), and it had always been a dream of mine to do it myself, but I thought it would never happen for me in Malaysia because most people simply did not know what it was, and I'd always thought that I'd have to wait until I moved to Los Angeles and register for Upright Citizens Brigade classes for me to actually do it.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">But thanks to the efforts of Mozek in pushing forward the idea, the long-form was tested out twice and finally approved to be a regular monthly show at The Joke Factory. It's been loads of fun learning how to do it well with semi-regular rehearsals and discussions about how to improve as improvisors, and even though no two shows are ever the same, they have all been well-received by the audiences. I still feel I have loads to learn in terms of being an improvisor, but I'm glad that I've been given the chance to do long-form improv in front of live audiences. I hope this continues to be the case, and grows in terms of frequency and scale.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In July, I also got to tick another thing I'd always wanted to do off my list, which was do a <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xzFOTq7K5eI" target="_blank">MaiTry Nasi Kandar episode in Penang</a>. Making it with Mirza and Helmie was a lot of fun. We stayed at a Sekeping hotel in Georgetown, and we also got to shoot <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zGFsO2bI7WA&t=2s" target="_blank">the MaiTry vegetarian episode</a> punya main part at the hotel. We stayed there for a weekend, and since Penang holds a special place in my heart, the trip was a memorable one.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Pasca Sini performed four times in July, the first weekend playing ROTTW's Battle Of The Bands thing called Soundstage (we didn't get past the first round), the third weekend playing two shows (one at Rumah Api, one at Angkasa Cheras), and the fourth weekend playing at Angkasa Cheras once again. We were feeling pretty tight as a live band during this time, as we were playing a lot of shows back to back, and that felt good.</span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">August</span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">And feeling tight was very important and good for the show that felt like what we had been working towards throughout the year, which was the <a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/B0qpSBUB1dI/" target="_blank">Naib Johan Music Festival</a> at Impero Studio, Oasis Damansara. It was organised by my brother and Pasca Sini bassist, Boy, with his small team of dedicated people. The line-up was super impressive, full of some of the most exciting bands to come out of the underground music scene, and the show ended up being sold-out. It was definitely one of the highlights of the year in terms of shows that we got to play, and I think we'll always remember August 2019 as the year we first did Naib Johan and had a blast doing it in front of our friends in the scene.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Pasca Sini played two other shows later in the month at Livefact Kota Damansara and at Impero again, but I have very little recollection of what happened at those shows.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I also recorded an episode of Naurashares on the 7th of August. It was a live TEDtalk-like show thingy that was recorded for television, and I had to speak about my hardships in life and how I overcame them, in hopes of providing people with some inspiration to get through their own hardships. To be honest, I don't think I've had that difficult of a life. I'm a middle-class Malay Muslim man in Malaysia, how hard <i>could</i> life be with all this privilege, am I right? So the choice to have me on the show made me go "Me? Really?" But I didn't turn it down because as the Malays say, "rezeki jangan ditolak". What I'm most proud of about the talk was that I was able to make the audience laugh a handful of times throughout my fifteen-minute slot, so I guess that made it feel like it was not for naught. I haven't seen the finished episode on TV ever yet, and I don't plan on watching it ever either.</span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">September</span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">A lot of September was taken up by my acting workshop's Task 1, in which we were required to act in a play directed by a professional director (in this case, it was the great Chris Ling), and the play we staged was an original script by Arshad Adam called Playing God. I was cast as Tri, a male prostitute who because a national celebrity, and went on the talk show called Playing God to fulfil his mission in life. Anything beyond that would be spoiler territory, so I'll stop there. The process was tiring but fun. We had three weeks to get the production show-ready, and we hustled until it happened. Chris put us through a rigorous process for us to be able to truly pull off the show, and the end-product was quite the spectacle. Being able to work with Chris again was great, and sharing the stage with Kak Dzeelfa, Kak Tini, Abang Rahim and Kak Tria was a wonderful experience. I learned a lot in terms of using feelings and impulses that were familiar to turn into someone completely different to become Tri, and I value the whole experience highly.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In September, Mirza suggested we start a new show on Thelaki called <a href="https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLygG49lyyRkiUnCZWyM-UlRWnDtBzpbjf" target="_blank">Yeh Meh</a>, which is basically our spin on the other Youtube show Dope Or Nope. It turned out to be rather well-received, and we've had fun doing it so far. My favourite episode is the one in which Helmie and Ijal are doing the hosting, talking about ten things we bought for them from DAISO. I had a blast being behind the scenes for that one, and it came out real good after editing too, so I'm glad about it. It's turning out to be our best-received series on the channel, so I'm very thankful that Mirza suggested this idea and that we went with it, because it's been great!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">There wasn't much else that went on in the month, as rehearsing for plays takes up a <i>lot</i> of one's time, but Pasca Sini did go into the studio to record a live session that's not out yet, so I'm not at liberty to disclose what that thing's all about quite yet.</span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">October</span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In October, Pasca Sini started going into Shaheir Jibin's studio to record tracks for our first album. The process already started with Pola Pikir Positif, but the rest of the record kicked into production in October. Recording new songs is definitely a tough process, both creatively and technically, and we're doing the best we can really. We hope that we get to release the album in 2020, and that enough people give it the time of day for us to continue playing music for people for years to come.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Thelaki was hired to make <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vc-2JpAA3YA&t=113s" target="_blank">a travelog video of us going around Perak</a>, so Mirza, Helmie and I got to go around Perak doing outdoorsy-type things that I would normally avoid (ATV riding, rock-climbing, white water rafting and caving), and I have to say that I had loads of fun doing it. Mirza and Helmie are fun people to hang around, and to be able to work with. It was a chill experience, and I appreciate that so much.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I also had a video shoot with my wife for a client I shy away from disclosing. We spent the day hanging out in and around KL, saw what sights KL had to offer while camera-people followed us around shooting our interactions with each other. It ended up feeling a lot like an extended date with cameras, and we had fun doing it, so that was cool.</span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">November</span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I personally played two flagship shows at the end of November at AOR Fest in Alor Setar, one for Delude and one for Pasca Sini. At the beginning of the month, I was asked by Shaheir if I could play guitar for Delude at the AOR Fest show that was happening at the end of the month since Haikal (Delude's real guitarist) wasn't able to make the show, and I immediately said yes, because playing for Delude had been a dream of mine since 2007. I practiced guitar for the four songs setlist they sent me pretty much every day, and I was super pumped for it. At that same show, Pasca Sini were also playing, but Syawal (our vocalist) and Thoriq (our lead guitarist) could not make it to the show, so what the band decided to do was to assign me as the vocalist for the show and have Sahaq and Wish cover on both guitars. This was major for me as I had always wanted to be the lead singer of a band, but my not so merdu voice had always been the penghalang utama.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Three or four days before the show, it turned out that Faridzul (Delude's bassist) couldn't make it to the show too, so I was asked if I could play bass instead, so of course I said yes and on the 30th of November, I got to play as part of Delude and sing for Pasca Sini. It was such a great day, and I loved being able to do both things.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">November was also the month in which the BMW Shorties were held. The BMW Shorties is an annual short film competition (held by BMW, I guess?) to highlight new local film-makers, and Taka and I were involved in one of the shortfilms submitted this year: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qajgL7X7GJ0" target="_blank">Khairi Anwar's Ralat The Musical</a>. Taka and I both had small roles in the short that featured Fimi Don, Tasha Shilla and OG Ahmad Daud, among some other theatre friends such as Mawar Roseka, Maza Maamor and Megat Adli, just to name a few. It was a big cast, for a short story with big heart, and it even won People's Choice Award in the Award show proper, so that's a nice thing to have been a part of.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I also hosted a few educational videos for Bahagian Teknologi Pendidikan in KL. I was approached by one of the producers for the show who happened to be a senior of mine from Kolej Sultan Abdul Hamid, and he asked if I would be interested in hosting some web-videos teaching secondary school kids some grammar, and I said I was down as long as I was getting paid, and we arranged for a couple of shoot days and they have been shot. It was interesting being able to see and experience how differently the BTP shot videos from how I had become accustomed to making them by myself and at Thelaki, especially in terms of scale.</span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">December</span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">At the start of December, Pasca Sini played a music school recital show as guest performers. At that show we got to see a whole bunch of kids take turns playing their chosen recital songs, either on drums, guitar or vocals. It was pretty cool getting to see these young people learning how to play instruments already, and they looked like they were having fun, so that was nice. I hope they continue to play and contribute meaningfully to the Malaysian music scene in their own capacities.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Pasca Sini also played two other important shows for the band: Rantai Art Festival and My Chemical Romance Tribute. The first time I'd heard of Rantai Art Festival was in 2007 or 2008 when Hujan played there with like hundreds of people in the audience, and somebody from like a storey above capturing that performance on video, making an impact on me about both Hujan and Rantai Art Festival. In my mind, they both became big deals. And this was the first time Pasca Sini played at Rantai Art Festival, and even though we played to a significantly smaller audience (probably around 20-30 people), it was fun to do and to be a part of.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The My Chemical Romance Tribute show was played in front of a significantly larger audience (the show sold out Angkasa, so like 300 people were there). It was a big deal because for as long as we have been able to play guitar, we have been playing My Chemical Romance songs as a band regularly. When we're in the jamming studio and we don't know what we want to play, our default had always been I Don't Love You. Whenever I was alone, I would play Cancer. When we heard MCR were getting back together, we introduced Teenagers into our set list. So even though I wasn't able to make it to the show (I was at a family vacation trip and Sahaq covered for me on guitar duty), watching the videos from the night made my heart explode. So much love, fun and energy throughout the night, all united by their love for a band that changed our lives (MCR). It was a very important night, and I'm glad Pasca Sini were able to be a part of it, so I am grateful for Ze Spooky for inviting us to play jugak.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">We have one more show to go. On New Year's Eve we'll be playing at Impero again for Underground Music Festival. Lots of bands, three stages, lots of fun also, so if you'd like, come on down and hang out.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In December I also got the biggest news in my acting career up until now, which is that a short film that I acted in will be screened at the 2020 Sundance Film Festival. The short film is called Benevolent Ba, and was written and directed by the very talented Diffan Norman. If you'd like to watch the trailer, <a href="https://vimeo.com/369059041" target="_blank">click here</a>. The short film was shot in August last year, and I didn't receive any update about it whatsoever until the day the film poster was made public, which was on the 11th of December. I was super surprised by it, and to this day I'm still kinda riding the high of realising that moving images of me will be shown in Salt Lake City Utah for a bit next year. I'm very grateful for Diffan for having me on for the project, and for everyone who was involved on that set for making it as good an experience as it was.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Besides that, I also got cast in a small role in a web-series thing that'll be published some time next year. I am unable to disclose what that project is, specifically, but I will say that it was my first time playing a doctor, and the script was silly and it should be a real fun watch when it comes out.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">***</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">A thing I would like to add at the end here is that I played in weekly short form improv shows called Making Shit Up at The Joke Factory a lot of times this year (maybe, like, thirty or something?) and they're always fun to do, and I am grateful that I get to keep doing it and keep getting called back to perform it for people.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I also formed deeper friendships with people I started to get to know last year, so that's been great. They know who they are, and I am very grateful for their continued friendships with me.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">And that's it for this year's wrap-up. It's been a whirl of a time, and I look forward to what other adventures I get to go on in 2020.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Cheers.</span></div>
anak pak manhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00676137847801027758noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8386436012700262207.post-40987661443149746102019-12-25T13:45:00.001+08:002019-12-25T13:45:36.815+08:00Remembering 2019 (PART 1)<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">So here we are again, with the year wrap up. I did this first in <a href="http://anakazman.blogspot.com/2017/12/2q17-wrapped-up.html" target="_blank">2017</a> and continued in <a href="http://anakazman.blogspot.com/2018/12/2018-in-review.html" target="_blank">2018</a>. I have grown to like this activity very much because it will allow me to convince myself that I didn't just sit on my ass and do nothing for 300 days straight, as my mind would have me believe. It allows me to see where I have fallen short, and where I have done okay, and be grateful for all of it. I also get to be thankful for all the people that have been responsible for making the things happen, and that counts for a lot. To look back at my life with both a critical and a kind eye is something I aspire to, and this exercise is an attempt at fulfilling that aspiration.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Butt first, let's revisit <a href="http://anakazman.blogspot.com/2019/01/2019-trade-offs.html" target="_blank">the three things I said I wanted to get done in 2019</a>:</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>1. Write three short plays. </b>I certainly did no such thing. I instead found myself writing weekly current-events-type things for <a href="https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLygG49lyyRkhnNtWFNY60eCIF8jbWMHFO" target="_blank">Thelaki Show</a>, in which would include two short skits that were aimed at making people laugh, or at least lol in our direction. Do I feel bad that I didn't end up writing three short plays? Totally. But did I end up feeling like this whole year has gone by without me ever writing anything? Not exactly. I wrote for work, and it was hard, and a lot of the things I ended up putting on the page and on the screen I ended feeling pretty okay about, so I'm not too bummed about it really.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>2. Submit short film for Short and Sweet.</b> It's laughable how not done this ended up getting. I didn't even end up being in the theatre category for anything (although I was offered a role in one play that I had to turn down because of scheduling issues). Short and Sweet ended up being so far back in my list of priorities this year, that I absolutely forgot that it was a thing I wanted to do langsung. Again, I sooth myself from this failure by reminding myself that I <i>did</i> end up writing, producing and acting in a handful of online ads for clients (such as <a href="https://www.facebook.com/thelakione/videos/647304455697675/" target="_blank">this one</a> or <a href="https://www.facebook.com/thelakione/videos/274377803261736/" target="_blank">this one</a>) who hired Thelaki to make videos for them, and that kind of feels like making short films (albeit less narrative-driven, more iklan-like). They all felt very DIY in the sense that our team was tiny tiny (all of three people including myself, usually) and we usually were not allowed a whole lot of time to make these videos (typically less than three weeks from conception to upload), and I wrote scripts and made storyboards and everything, so that's something to feel okay about, I guess?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>3. Act in more things. </b>I did not put in a whole lot of effort in going to auditions for stuff throughout this year (because I guess I've had my heart broken too many times by the process, revealing that I am a fragile fragile boi), and all the acting gigs I did end up acquiring were stuff with people who were already familiar with my work and wanted to work with me. I also feel like I acted a lot for the stuff I was doing with Thelaki, particularly the odd sketch or two in certain <a href="https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLygG49lyyRkjZbKgImAruZ5ruIkutAGbc" target="_blank">TLOGS</a>, if not for the Thelaki Show stuff. I was part of stage projects that were great, such as Playing God, Syyy! and Nadirah, and short films that were great such as Ralat and Benevolent Ba, all of which had great directors at the helm, so I am grateful for the opportunity to contribute.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Now that those three things have been addressed, let's take a look-see at what 2019 actually had in store for little old me:</span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">January</span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I kicked the year off by being part of Pasca Sini's music video shoot for our latest single called <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ykd4s6uq_hA" target="_blank">Pola Pikir Positif</a>. We (as in our bassist and my brother, Boy and our band manager Arep) rented out a nice-ass house in Taman Tun Dr Ismail and we spent the whole day there just recording the music video for that. I wasn't too tight on the git-fiddle when it came to playing that song, but by the end of the day of recording that music video, we had played it so many times that I ended up being able to play the whole song with my eyes closed. It turns out making a music video for a song really makes you practice the song many, many times. It was our first time recording a "proper" music video in the sense that we hired an external music video director to shoot and edit it, rented a location to shoot it, hired make-up and set designers (thank you Hannah and friends), so it was all in all a fun albeit tiring experience. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Pasca Sini ended up playing two shows this month: one at Rumah Api (our first ever at the legendary venue, to an underwhelming reception if I may say so myself) and one at LiveFact, so that was cool beans.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Over at Thelaki, two notable videos ended up making somewhat of a splash by our standards, which were the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q-TJDAEhoZE" target="_blank">Maitry Burger Lembah Klang</a> video and the first <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tQNAlbeMA4o" target="_blank">Maitry Cabaran Jangan Gelak</a> video (which ended up being our most viewed video of all time as of December 2019 at 264k views), so that was cool. I remember pitching the idea of a Try Not To Laugh Challenge video to our Brand Lead and him saying "okay, cool, go ahead", and being surprised at how well-received it ended up getting like months after it had been published. This video alongside the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=87PXIcpiuEw" target="_blank">Lelaki Tengok Kpop</a> video taught me that a video can reach its audience later in its life than intended, as I had previously thought that if a video didn't take off within a week of being uploaded, it was a flop. Rupa-rupanya tidak. It can gain lots of viewers even after months of being online, and that views for certain videos comes in waves, as long as those videos are not really time-sensitive.</span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">February</span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">For a significant part of February, I tried not eating rice at all for a month. It had always been something I was curious about but afraid to try out because of my overwhelming love for rice in all its edible forms. I finally did it this month because I thought it was a good video idea, like one of those Buzzfeed-type do-a-thing-for-a-month-and-see-what-happens type videos that tend to gain a rather large viewership. I started in the final week of January and finished in the final week of February, and recorded the whole journey (although <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7MhL8VOnbG8" target="_blank">the video</a> did end up being uploaded in March). I was glad that I did it, although I didn't have too much fun doing it as I was missing rice a LOT. I learned a lot through the experience, and the video did end up gaining a decent viewership, so I guess it was worth it.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Pasca Sini played the Hacktick showcase, where I got to witness first-hand for the first time just how amazing Hacktick were on stage, and how much their supporters truly loved their songs. Their EP was one of my favourite records from 2018, and getting to open for them was a great experience. I dare say that it was one of the starting points for a wonderful friendship between the two bands. Pasca Sini also played another show at ATASbyBijanFX later in the month. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I also went bungee jumping for the first time in my life on the 4th of February 2019. I did it for a <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qWDMvz40wB8" target="_blank">MaiTry video</a> and we did it at Sunway Lagoon. It was just as terrifying and fun as I had expected it to be, even though we grossly over-estimated how high the jump actually was after the fact (we thought it was closer to 50 metres, when it was actually around 20 metres ja sebenarnya). The video didn't do too well in terms of views, but man did I have fun doing it.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I also went with my wife to a <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D7OyX7DIDOQ&t=82s" target="_blank">DopsTV video shoot</a>, in which we talked about being married to each other with an old Youtube friend, Aiman Azlan. The actual recording was a whole lot of fun, as I got to get silly as much as I could, but the published version had cut out A LOT of those silly parts, I guess in service of staying true to the DopsTV brand, which is not known as a channel that promotes a whole lot of silliness. We recorded for about an hour, and only 35 minutes made it to the final cut.</span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">March</span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I enrolled in an intermediate acting class run by Revolution Stage at the start of March, and classes were on Sunday mornings. There were initially five people in the class, but as the months went by, it ended up being four, and it was a nice class to be in, coached by Revolution Stage's own artistic director and founder Abang Wan. The class was chill, but I ended up learning loads.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I played my first show in Ipoh with Pasca Sini on the 2nd of March at Insider Satellite, opening for Tell Lie Vision from Singapore (if I'm not mistaken). It was a band-tengok-band show, mostly, but we ended up having fun anyway. I got to eat nasi ganja Yong Suan for the first time, so that was very nice.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It was a particularly busy six weeks for me, starting from the third week of February up until the very last day of March because of Thelaki work, Pasca Sini stuff and theatre work all coincided very closely with each other. I was involved in two plays staged in the same month, which was Nadhirah (13-17 March) and Syyy! (27-31 March), so rehearsals were pretty much every day, if not for Nadirah then for Syyy! then for Pasca Sini. I got very little sleep in this month, but it all ended up being fine and we managed to pull it all together in the end.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Nadirah was great because I got to work with some great people in the production (cast was great, director was cool, stage manager was great), and I got to act in an Alfian Sa'at play, which is a big deal for me as I had directed an Alfian Sa'at piece just last year (The Optic Trilogy). I even got to perform it in front of some pretty big deal people, such as Sharifah Amani, Redza Minhat, Farah Rani and Iedil Putra (they came to watch because they had staged the play too, at some point in the past). I don't know if they particularly liked our version of it, since they didn't tell me if they did or not. But I'm glad we got to do it!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The Syyy! play was a Hatta Azad Khan piece that directly inspired the hit series Pi Mai Pi Mai Tang Tu. I got to play the role played by Imuda called Budin, probably because I was the most Northern Boy of the cast. We had fun doing it, and the people that bothered to come watch seemed to have a good time watching the play, so that was cool.</span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">April</span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Pasca Sini played one show in Melaka, and that one also felt a lot like a band-tengok-band show. We played as a three-piece, as Thoriq wasn't able to make the trip. My brothers Aiman and Ainul were able to make the trip though, so we got to hang out for an extended amount of time, which was cool, since it was rare for the four of us to hangout at the same place at the same time.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The start of April was also the start of rehearsals for the 16th Boh Cameronian Arts Awards (BCAA). The BCAA was the equivalent to the Tony's in the US, so when I got the call from the director Chris Ling to be one of the hosts for it, I lost my shit and said yes straight away. The BCAA was an awards show that celebrated the stage arts in Malaysia, so the hosts had to put up a musical of their own, so this was also coincidentally my very first musical to be a part of. The rest of the cast were like legit theatre people, legit singers and dancers (Tria Aziz, Kai Chalmers, Nave VJ, Melissa, Jia Xi), while I was a puddle of farts, so I definitely went into it feeling <i>super</i> insecure about all of me. I was definitely 6th of 6 in that list of talent, and felt it every day. I cried multiple times in the bathroom while on breaks during rehearsals because of how bad I felt, especially in the dancing department, as I was <i>terrible </i>at it.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">But all the cast members were super professional and un-judgemental. They were there to do their jobs, and do it well, and that was also expected of me too, so I did the best that I could. Chris was super super supportive and never allowed me to believe that I was less-than anyone, and always reminded us and me of why we were doing what we were doing, and that was super important. I was moved to tears while singing and dancing in that rehearsal space in TTDI because of his reminders. Our choreographer Kenny Shim was also such a supportive sweetheart, and believed in me enough that when I was finally able to do the dance steps, he was like "see? I knew you could do it!" and I was like "aww, thank you so much Kenny! Okay now don't cry don't cry we're rehearsing now, don't cry".</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I put in SO MUCH hard work and time to get even close to the level at which all the other hosts were operating at, and by Award night itself on the 28th of April, we had as close to a flawless show as I had ever been a part of, due to the efforts and competence of everyone involved, from the Stage Manager (Michelle Yip) to the musicians (Nick Choo and his team) to the technical team to all the people on stage. All came together to manifest the vision of Chris and had a ball doing it.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I also got to act in an online advertisement that never saw the light of day (or at least, not that I'm aware of). It was still a fun shoot though, and it was my personal first time working on the same set as The Ming Thing brothers, so that was cool.</span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">May</span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The first of May was an important date for Pasca Sini, as they had won an online contest for bands to see who could open for Mayday Parade when they came to Singapore on the first of May, and Pasca Sini won! Unfortunately for me, the news came too late as I had already booked myself for an ad shoot on the same date, so they boys went there without me, having the wick-edly talented one and only W/SH covering for me. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The shoot was for a Raya ad for Traveloka, and can be <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fK7j42J-ubU" target="_blank">watched here</a>. I had only gotten three hours of sleep the night before the shoot, so I was sleep-deprived throughout, but it ended up being a fun shoot anyway, and we got a lot done within the time that we had on location. The video itself turned out okay, and I dare say that I'm not too embarrassed by my performance in it.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In May, I also directed a play called Kenapa Tak Tukar Nama. It was a twenty minute script about the struggles of a Chinese Malaysian wanting to convert to Islam in Malaysia without wanting to change her name. I worked with two actors for this, namely Natasha Mohdali and D'Zulhakem (aka Akem), and it was kind of a breeze. The actors were cool, got their work done in a timely manner. My directing of it was minimal, particularly in regards to the set. We staged it at Revolution Stage. I made surtitles for it, which is rare for an RS play, and got my brother Aiman to be the surtitle operator on the show days. Audiences seemed to be okay with the performance, and it was my first paid directing gig, so okay lah at the end of the day the actors were happy, the producers were fine with it. Cuma the writers ja I didn't feel like they fuxt with the staging too much, so that made me feel a lotta bad for a little bit, but hey, whadaya gonna do, right?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Pasca Sini also played shows at Merdekarya (to an audience of four people, I think?) and at Impero for a buka-puasa potluck-type show, which was cool and alright.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">For Thelaki, we shot and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8V2afkIE_0E" target="_blank">uploaded a sahur video</a> that was super fun to make. The not fun was of course the waking up in the crazy early hours to shoot them, but we ended up having fun eating together and making jokes. I even ended up cooking at home for Mirza and Helmie for the video, which was a fun thing to have done, so that was cool.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I think we also shot an iklan for Giant during May, since the video was uploaded in June. I conceptualised, wrote, storyboarded and produced the video, and it turned out okay enough, I guess. Storyboarding was really a thing I learned to appreciate a lot this year, mostly as a time saving tool for when we go to shoot a thing. At least with a storyboard, we're not figuring out a shot while we're shooting on location. With a storyboard, we already have a good idea of what the shots are going to look like, and how many of them we want/need to take, so I've really come around to liking storyboards a lot and appreciate storyboard artists.</span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">June</span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The 18th of June was my very first time doing stand-up comedy. I went to The Joke Factory's open mic and put myself down for a three minute slot on the night, was nervous as all hell, got on stage, told my jokes and stories, and left the stage feeling okay about doing it. I'd been wanting to do it for the longest time (probably since 2017), and I finally got round to doing it, and I haven't done it a second time, mostly because I have not written anything to go on stage with, so that's not great, but at least I've done it ONCE.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Pasca Sini played three shows in June, once in Publika for Fete De La Musique, once in Nilai for an international school's sport's day thing, and once at Impero again for a Raya get-together type sitch. It was chee.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Yeah, June was a rather chill month for me, I guess, filled with more Hari Raya-type activities, and also going to my wife's band's album launch. It's called Hikayat Gundik Berirama, and it's one of <a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/B6YB6kyhsCq/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link" target="_blank">my favourite albums of the year.</a> It took five years to make, so be sure to try and give it a listen however you can (I would recommend getting it <a href="https://thevenopiansolitude.bandcamp.com/" target="_blank">on their Bandcamp page</a>).</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">***</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">And that's it for the first half of the year. I'll get on writing the second half soon enough. Until then, </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Cheers.</span></div>
anak pak manhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00676137847801027758noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8386436012700262207.post-80056745052900292862019-07-25T23:48:00.004+08:002019-07-25T23:48:58.508+08:00Happy Birthday AnwarI always feel a bad-kind-of-weird whenever my birthday rolls around (I think).<br />
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I remember feeling really shitty on my birthday a handful of years ago, and what I did to overcome the feeling was writing on the back of a receipt I had with me at the time the things that I felt thankful about. It was a good exercise, I think, and it helped curb my spiral at the time.<br />
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A couple of years ago I reread that receipt-list-thing (I think) and cracked a smile. I was a small bit proud of my younger self for taking care of himself in such a way. How nice of him.<br />
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I find myself not feeling great again tonight, which is why I have turned to the blog to duke it out with my thoughts here. My wife isn't here for me to kacau (she's in her final week of her second European tour), and besides, I really don't want to take up anybody else's time with these unclear feelings and thoughts.<br />
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I have two "happy" memories when it comes to my birthday. The first was the time my parents got me and my brother small foldable tables that were green (and I think there were pictures of Batman and Robin on the things) for my birthday. My parents don't typically get me or my brothers anything for our birthdays beyond a nicer-than-usual dinner, so this memory kind of sticks out in my mind.<br />
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The second memory is from my first year degree at Institut Pendidikan Guru Kampus Pulau Pinang. The other TESOL boys pranked me on my birthday (I think I wrote about it in this blog, I can't be bothered to check at the moment) by saying that one of their motorcycles had broken down and asked me to help. When I arrived on the scene, they pelted me with raw eggs (as opposed to hard-boiled eggs, I guess) and threw flour at me. We had a good laugh and took pictures (or at least that's how I remember it).<br />
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Every other birthday doesn't really register in my brain. I know that my father got me my first camera on my 20th birthday (I think), but I don't know why my brain and self have not tagged it as "happy" per se. It's just there. Every other birthday was either meh, or a variation of what I'm feeling right now, a feeling of dread and anxiety bordering on crisis.<br />
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I've been saying "I think" a lot in this post so far. This is because they are statements made with my memory as the primary (and singular) source, and I cannot be sure of what my brain chooses to retain and/or modify. Malcolm Gladwell has a couple of good podcast episodes about memory and how it's weird on his podcast "Revisionist History" (the episodes' titles are "A Polite Word for Liar" and "Free Brian Williams"). Those two episodes changed my relationship to memory, particularly my own, and I think it'll never be the same again.<br />
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Back to my birthday and me. I think about <i>why</i> I feel this certain type of way when it's my birthday. Is it because I'm, like, getting older, therefore closer to death, therefore less time to do the things I want to do and achieve the things I want to achieve? Is it also another reminder of how I'm still not where I want to be in my life as a actor/writer/musician, and so I feel bad about how little I have done and how I haven't really made anything I could really be proud of yet, and time is running out and I'm not even improving my skill-set and at this pace I will die not having achieved my versions of "success" after having taken into account how much privilege I was born and continue to live with and will forever be remembered as a disappointment, not only to my parents (because that's a given) but to everyone else too?<br />
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And then I think, am I only doing this to myself? Could it be possible that I don't <i>have</i> to think these thoughts, but I choose to think them anyway, only to justify to myself why I'm feeling shitty? And when I have told myself <i>why</i> I'm feeling shitty, I can continue feeling shitty because there's a legit reason to feel shitty, and I get to feel sorry for myself and wallow in that self-loathing and hate? And while I'm wallowing in the pits of despair, I have an excuse for not working on myself to becoming a better actor/writer/musician/friend/brother/person, because hey, who could be a decent person under <i>this</i> much pain and anguish, right? So am I just giving myself an excuse to be a shitty human being?<br />
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I don't think people care about me. But people prove me wrong. Some people, anyway. And I don't think I'm worthy of people caring about me. I oscillate between thinking "Why doesn't anybody care about me??" and "These people are <i>wrong</i> for caring about me!" pretty steadily. But I do understand that these are just my thoughts and my thoughts cannot be trusted, at least not a hundred percent. I also have to believe people when they say they care about me, and when they act in ways that show that they do. I have to believe their words and actions, because they can't <i>all</i> be liars, right? I'd like to think I have nice people around me. I really do think they're nice people. And that's nice.<br />
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But I do have to somehow take care of myself jugak. Care about myself jugak. Fight the voices that say "I'm shit" that come from my brain jugak. I am not only the voices in my brain. I contain multitudes, and I am valid in this multitudiness. I have to believe that, if not for my own sake, then for the sake of the people that love me.<br />
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I feel like I have to do the gratitude thing again. Here goes:<br />
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1. I am thankful that my wife is also my best friend. I am thankful that she's an amazing person, and that she cares about me very much. I am thankful that she finds some joy in my existence, and my co-existence with her in time and space.<br />
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2. I am grateful that I the band IDLES exist and make wonderful music, perform it with such vigour and energy, and are playing in my head currently.<br />
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3. I am thankful that I get to make Youtube videos for a living currently. it's definitely not something I hate, and I don't think I <i>absolutely</i> <i>suck</i> at it (most times, although sometimes it's a seesaw).<br />
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4. I am grateful for books and my continuing to read a wide array of them. I do wish I read more books, yes, but hey, I read books every now and again, and they have helped shape me into the human I am currently, for better or for worse, so there's that.<br />
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5. I am grateful I get to perform on stage semi-regularly as a theatre-actor, an improvisor and a musician. The times that I am performing are the times that I feel most alive and most useful to the people around me, and I am thankful that I have the opportunities to do those things.<br />
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6. I am grateful for the podcasts that I listen to regularly. I love them. They give me life. They are as follows in no particular order: The Anthropocene Reviewed, Freakonomics Radio, Good One, RadioLab, The Valleycast, Welcome To Our Podcast, Comedy Bang Bang, Conan O'Brien Needs A Friend, Dear Hank & John, Delete This, Dynamic Banter, Off Camera, R U Talkin' REM Re: Me?, Threedom.<br />
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7. Thank God for jokes.<br />
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8. I am grateful that I have enough resources to be doing what I am doing right now, which is taking my sweet time typing away at a laptop, not having to care about how I'm going to pay rent, or the car's next payment, or where my next meal is going to come from. I am grateful.<br />
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9. I am grateful that I have this blog as a punching bag for me to figure out what's going on in my brain.<br />
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10. I am grateful that I have found it within myself to write this blogpost. It has helped, somewhat.<br />
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I was actually planning on getting some reading done before turning into bed tonight (I am currently on Homo Deus by Yuval Noah Harari, after being blown away by his other book, Sapiens), but midnight is fast approaching, and my least favourite version of me (besides sick-me) is sleep-deprived-me. Maybe that's why I'm currently feeling shitty. I had a late night last night, as I do most Wednesday nights when I perform short-form improv at The Joke Factory at Publika.<br />
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Maybe one or two pages and then get to sleeping, yeah Anwar?anak pak manhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00676137847801027758noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8386436012700262207.post-72170037088802377402019-01-03T19:04:00.002+08:002019-01-04T10:21:29.955+08:002019 Trade-OffsSo in trying to write this post, I went back to read my past three start-of-the-year blogposts (2016 - <a href="https://anakazman.blogspot.com/2016/01/looking-back-looking-forward.html" target="_blank">Looking Back Looking Forward</a>; 2017 - <a href="https://anakazman.blogspot.com/2017/01/achievements-failures-and-rethinking.html" target="_blank">Achievements, Failures and Rethinking</a>; 2018 - <a href="https://anakazman.blogspot.com/2018/01/floating-with-no-direction.html" target="_blank">Floating With No Direction</a>), and what I've found is that I've been doing a variation of looking back at the things I've failed to do in the past, trying to explain to myself why I failed, setting myself some goals for the year that was to come and planning on how I was going to not fail this time based on what I've learned from the reflecting I just did. Always failed anyway.<br />
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I don't think the reflection bit is at fault. I'm always glad I do those, and I kinda wish I did it more often, since it gives me a sense of clarity that is evasive when I don't write. It's the follow-through that I always have a hard time with. Making sure that I fall into a habit of consistently doing things that will help me in achieving the things I want to achieve in the long-run has always been one of my biggest weaknesses. I am more prone to doing things that feel nice in the moment, as is the propensity for most humans, I assume. So instead of writing those things I said I wanted to write, I take a nap. Instead of studying script-writing, I swipe through instastories. Instead of spending the time to memorize guitar scales, I take a second nap. I have always been my own biggest burden.<br />
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I recently watched a John Green video entitled <a href="https://youtu.be/c6pGSQcHQmU" target="_blank">How To Make Goals, Not Resolutions</a> and in that video John explains that in order to do the things we set out to do, we have to be ready to make certain trade-offs. The example John cites is if he wants to spend more time with his family, then he needs to spend less time doing other things (such as make videos, write books, record podcasts, etc.). And those trade-offs aren't the easiest of things to make for him, since doing those other things brings a lot of people happiness and/or enjoyment of some sort, and he'd like to not disappoint those people. Not to mention that those other things help put food on the table for him and his family, so there's another dimension to it. The whole video is worth a watch and I like it a lot.<br />
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He also speaks about the importance of making those trade-offs consciously. And I guess what I've been trying to do with these start-of-the-year posts is an effort towards making those conscious trade-offs. But looking back, I guess my writing of those trade-offs have always been one-sided. I've always said what I wanted to do more of, but I tend to not think about what I want to do less of in order to make sure those trade-offs make sense. I seem to say "write more!" without bearing in mind "sleep less!" I tend to want to have my cake and eat it too.<br />
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Having this in mind, I play the scenario of the perpetually-sleepy me coming back home from work and mustering up the will-power to sit in front of the laptop some more just to put some words on the page, and I kinda don't see that happening. Me at home is the person who wants nothing else to do than watch some Netflix (I just started watching Ozark, Jason Bateman me likey) and fall onto the bed, scroll through some tweets before sleeping. I don't see myself changing to my workout clothes and going to the apartment gym to kayuh the bicycle for twenty minutes when I know that an episode of whatever-it-is is just waiting to be watched there on the couch.<br />
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Deep in the recesses of my heart, I know what I want to do this year. They are as follows:<br />
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<b>1. Write three short plays, give them to three directors to put up on the same stage (probably Revolution Stage, Bandar Utama). </b>Ever since I started watching plays more regularly in 2017, I've been intrigued by the idea of writing something for the stage. Teater Modular by Ridhwan Saidi in particular is a big inspiration in this regard. The challenge is pretty straight forward (I think): most plays that I've watched tend to happen in one setting. I'm not denying that multiple settings do happen too, but I think limiting myself in the setting department will allow me to challenge myself to write something specifically for the stage. And I think that limit will have me answer the "where?" question only once, so I can get to filling in the other blanks sooner. I have a handful of director friends now that I've gone through last year's directing workshop, so I look forward to collaborating with them again.<br />
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<b>2. Write, shoot and submit a short film for Short and Sweet: Short Films category. </b>I just found out that Short and Sweet also has a Short Films category last year when I was acting in the theatre category, and I immediately thought I would want to make something to submit there. But of course I have to write and produce it first, which will prove to be a huge challenge, since I even find writing on this blog challenging enough.<br />
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<b>3. Act in more things. </b>This one is kinda out of my control. What I've found is that the life of an actor isn't much in terms of autonomy. Even though I love doing it, I still have to depend on other people to <i>choose </i>me to do it in order to do it, which is more than a little disheartening, but as they say: that's showbiz baby. All I can do is put myself in positions where people might see me and my capabilities better, and hope that they see me fit to play in their productions.<br />
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But what do I trade-off in order to do these things? That's the real question.<br />
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Cheers.anak pak manhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00676137847801027758noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8386436012700262207.post-27553156815780009202018-12-28T00:48:00.001+08:002018-12-28T00:48:45.815+08:00Remembering 2018 (Part 2)
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">To read Part 1, <a href="http://anakazman.blogspot.com/2018/12/2018-in-review.html" target="_blank">click here</a>.</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><b><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">July</span></b></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">The first week of July was the first week of me working as a Branding Executive at IDTG Asia. I joined a small team of 4 people who managed the social media pages of a handful of brands, and was in charge of writing the copy for whatever content they had to publish. I also wrote press releases, came up with pitches and helped out with IRL events the clients needed help with. Most days I was at a desk, staring at my laptop, trying to come up with words to post as Facebook and Instagram captions. Sometimes I’d get to go out of the office to help setup booths for people to try out a client’s products, while taking pictures and Instastories of what was going on.</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">I felt incompetent at this job as well. Almost as much as I felt when I first started teaching. I didn’t feel like I was writing at all satisfactorily, and I felt like I was letting everybody down. The people who were working there were nice people, and they were patient with me. So much more patient than I was with myself. Additionally, through this job I learned that I didn’t really like social media all that much. I liked writing, but writing for other people’s products didn’t really give me the sense of satisfaction that I was looking for in my life, the sense of satisfaction that I had every intention of looking for when I decided to resign as a teacher. Maybe it was because it was the kind of writing that I was undertaking that didn’t jive well with me, or maybe it was plain incompetence on my part. I started dreading going to work pretty early on in the process, because I felt like I had to go through yet another day of what a failure I was.</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">Towards the end of the second week of working there, I received a call from the director of Theatrethreesixty, an English theatre company who was well established within the local theatre scene. Chris asked me if I wanted to act for him in a play that would be staged a month later. The first thought that ran through my head was “I have to resign from my job,” followed by “say yes, Anwar,” and I said yes to Chris.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">I took some time to mull over whether or not I wanted to resign from IDTG, because I didn’t want to make a reckless decision. I knew that rehearsals would take up a lot of time, and memorising my lines couldn’t be done at rehearsals. I knew that I had to put time aside outside of rehearsals (probably three or four hours a day) just for memorising my lines, and I couldn’t do that at work, since my workdays were pretty packed with writing copy. And I<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>knew I needed a sufficient amount of sleep, or else my mental health would completely go out of the window. So I had a decision to make.</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">It was during a client’s event that Friday that I became sure of my decision. I was doing copywriting work at a Gloria Jean’s at Dataran Maybank, waiting for the client’s event to wrap up, when a friend of my brother’s ran into me and sat down to chat with me. I wasn’t too familiar with the dude, but I was feeling talkative, since I had a lot going through my mind regarding whether or not I wanted to resign. I don’t know how, but while talking his ear off about it, I stumbled upon a sentence that went something along the lines of “kalau aku nak buat kerja yang aku tak suka untuk dapat duit, baik aku continue jadi cikgu ja.” That sentence kinda hit me like a tonne of bricks, and I became sure about wanting to resign after that.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">The following week was my last week at IDTG Asia. I worked there for three weeks and a half in total, and my boss Shane was great, but I had to say goodbye in order to pursue what I resigned teaching to pursue, which was acting. I took the IDTG job to put food on the table, but I wanted to act to feed my soul (try not to cringe challenge 2018).<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">We started rehearsing Cikgu Disiplin Sekolah Aku (written by Khairunazwan Rodzy and Khairi Anwar) in the second half of July. I played the character Agus Darman, an iron-fisted headmaster who would stop at nothing to ensure that his high high academic standards are met by all the students at his school. I got to reunite with Roro on this project, as she was acting in it as well, alongside Andy Poon, Amirul Syakir, Tria Aziz (replacing Nana, who faced vocal problems halfway through rehearsals) and Acad (replacing Anwar Pisang, who had unavoidable day-job duties halfway through rehearsals).</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">When rehearsals started, I became glad that I didn’t have a day-job anymore, since it meant that I could commit more time and energy to delving into my character and making sure that I memorised my lines. I needed every minute of it (and probably even more). We rehearsed at Lot’ng for a little bit, then moved to a space in Mont Kiara to make space for another play that was going to be using Lot’ng for two weeks.</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">Pasca Sini played at ROTTW’s Soundstage, their annual battle of the bands thing, and this year it was held at Publika’s Black Box. We played one recorded song and an unrecorded one, and I think I underrehearsed that new song, so I didn’t play as well as I wanted to in that show. We didn’t get through to the final, which is fine. It was a cool experience for us nonetheless, to be a part of an ROTTW show was a big deal for us and we are grateful for the opportunity.</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">This month also saw the end of the weekly First Time Director Workshop’s classes. From here on out, we only had one more task to get done, which was stage a full-length (hour-long) play as a director. I started looking for a script and found one that I liked on the internet called Tape by Stephen Belber, and proceeded to worry about whether or not I’d be able to obtain permission to stage it from the playwright, since he was all the way in the US. I also worried if it was going to cost a lot, since script royalties are a thing (and rightfully so).<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">Besides that, I signed up for another weekly Revolution Stage workshop, called the First Time Playwright Workshop, under the tutelage of Cikgu Siti Jasmina. I signed up because it’s always been one of my dreams to be a scriptwriter, so I thought this weekly class would help me towards achieving that dream. It started in the second half of July, and was more formal than the directing workshop we had attended with Abang Wan. With Abang Wan, we sat in a circle on the floor, munching nuts and chocolate while Abang Wan or other were talking. With Cikgu Siti, we sat on chairs with tables and had notebooks and homework and all that, which was different, but cool nonetheless.</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><b><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">August</span></b></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">I started August by going to a preview of a play that was going on at Lot’ng called “House Of Usher” and after that play ended, I was stopped outside the black box by Axyr, who was one of the ensemble cast members of the play. He asked me if I wanted to act in a Short & Sweet play that he was directing, and I immediately said yes with no further questions your honour, since I had always wanted to be a part of S&S ever since I learned about it in 2013 in Penang (I just never knew how to join), so that was a pleasant surprise.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">Rehearsals started at the end of the month, and I found out that the ten-minute play was called Cin(t)a Buta, written by Lenny Wan, and I joined fellow cast members Vithal Narula, Asher Au and later Nicole Kiew in shaping the play for the short play competition that would be held in October at KLPAC.</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">Cikgu Disiplin Sekolah Aku was staged from the 16th to the 26th of August (with a three day break in-between). It was a great experience, playing Agus in this play. I’ve made friends with the cast and Chris, the director. The stage managers Farisha and Wyman were also very good at their jobs throughout the rehearsal and staging process, I felt really taken care of. They were also very patient with my lame attempts at jokes, so for that I am grateful. I thank the whole CDSA team for allowing me to be a part of the journey of telling the story.</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">At the end of the month, I acted in a short film written and directed by Diffan Norman. I don’t think I can disclose much about the project just yet, since it’s not out yet, so I’ll just wait until it’s been published to talk in further detail about it. I’d just like to take this opportunity to thank Diffan for having me on set and being so great in the process. I felt that I was in such competent hands and around such distinguished company, I am honoured to have been a part of it.</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">Pasca Sini organised and played in a gig at Live Fact, Kota Damansara. There weren’t as many people in the audience as we would have liked, but it was the first time I played with a new guitar (a white Cort KX5), which I bought because I felt like I needed a guitar that had humbuckers (instead of the single coil on the Squier Tele I’d been using) to play the new Pasca Sini song that were being cooked up for the new album (or even the old songs, for that matter). Senang sikit nak main lagu drop C.</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><b><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">September</span></b></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">In the first week of September, I was involved in my first MingThing video, where I sat at a table with Ming Han and Harvinth and we just talked about our struggles with racism in Malaysia. I particularly talked about how I felt like I was still had racist tendencies because of the way that I was raised and taught to see the world, but that I was working towards noticing these tendencies of mine better and calling myself out whenever I did or said or even thought of anything that was prejudicial or racist. They made the video as part of a larger Youtube campaign called Creators For Change. <a href="https://youtu.be/C-4v5aOrtoE" target="_blank">Click here</a> if you want to see the finished video.</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">I went to watch a Californian band called Movements play at ATAS by BijanFX, and it was loads of fun. I had been listening to their debut album Feel Something for about a month at that point, and was able to singalong to most of the songs they played. By the end of the show, I was absolutely drenched in sweat and went back home a happy emo boi.</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">On the 18th, I started my job as a video producer at Thelaki. About two months before this, I had sent my resumé to FlyFM after seeing a poster of theirs on Twitter that was looking for online content creators. A couple of weeks after not hearing from FlyFM, I got a call from Alif, who said he had found my resumé in the FlyFM pile and wondered if I would be interested in the project that he was heading at Media Prima Radio Network instead (I would later find out this was Thelaki).<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">I continued to stay in touch with Alif and met up with him a couple of times in the following weeks. He told me about what they wanted to do, which was start up a new online media brand that made content for a specific section of society, and that they were interested in hiring me to be a part of the team. I agreed to taking on the job because it was what I had been doing for a while now (video making), so I felt like I could do it. Plus, this time I got to work in a team, which was something that I had always wanted to do. Plus, I was being paid.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">I reported for duty at Sri Pentas and was able to shoot my first video with them towards the end of the month (<a href="https://youtu.be/ARAKHBfYAnM" target="_blank">click here to watch that video</a>). I was also pleasantly surprised to find out that a theatre friend of mine, Maryam was interning there in the same building. It was nice to immediately have a friend to go out to lunch and make lame jokes with. I continued to bother her at random times of the day until she ended her internship in December. I continue to work at Thelaki to this day. A big thank you to Alif, Zura and Adam for taking me in, and thank you to Maryam for tolerating me.</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><b><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">October</span></b></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">By the start of October, I had already settled on a script that I was going to stage for my final task for the First Time Workshop, which was The Optic Trilogy. This was after attempting to gain permission to three other scripts for this purpose. I decided against using Tape by Stephen Belber because I had no idea how to reach Mr Belber, and apparently neither did Google. I tried asking permission to stage Jit Murad’s Visits after buying a book of his collected play scripts, but after receiving no reply in two weeks, I started looking for a different script. I then tried my luck asking Adiwijaya Iskandar if I could stage his script Mixtape For Maz, but he said that it was already in the works to be staged at around the same time as I wanted to stage it, so he couldn’t give me permission to stage it. I then borrowed a couple of books of collected scripts by a Singaporean playwright called Alfian Sa’at, and really liked The Optic Trilogy. I sent him an email, and to my relief, he allowed me to stage it.</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">I casted Amelia Chen and Alfred Loh to play the two roles in the play, and we had two reading sessions before Amelia pulled out because she wasn’t too comfortable with playing the role. I respect her decision, and I thanked her for telling me up front as straight forwardly as she did. Alfred suggested I approach Amanda Ang for the role, as he had been working with her consistently in the past couple of years, so I reached out to her and I was thankful that she said yes. I also met my very first Stage Manager as a director, and her name was Fifa. She didn’t have a lot of experience in theatre, but was willing to work hard and do her best, so I was happy to have her on. We would resume rehearsals in November.</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">On the 10th, I performed improv comedy in front of an audience for the first time in my life.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>I was invited by Mozek to do it at The Joke Factory as part of their weekly show Making Shit up, and even though I had my doubts, I said yes. I watched Who’s Line Is It Anyway all the time when I was a kid, but I never thought that one day I’d be able to do something very similar on stage, alongside Harith Iskander no less. I started having the desire to do improv comedy when I started listening to the podcasts Improv4humans and Comedy Bang! Bang! back in 2014, and I was able to perform improvised drama a few times in 2017 as a part of TheatreMob thanks to Umar. I was finally able to do improv comedy in 2018, and I’ve continued to be accepted on The Joke Factory stage every other Wednesday since, so I am very thankful to Mozek for inviting me to do it in the first place, Harith Iskander for continuing to put me up on stage, and all the real comedians for saying yes to my on-stage shenanigans.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">I also acted in my second short film of the year in a short that was written and directed by Ashraff Mokhtar. This one is also not out yet, so I hesitate to talk about it in too much length, but I do want to thank Ashraff for having me and Taka in the short film. Any opportunity for me to be in front of the camera playing characters is one that I take with a lot of gratitude, so thank you Ashraff.</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">We staged Cin(t)a Buta at KL Performing Arts Centre on the 24th to the 27th. It was my first time performing there, and it’s been one of my ambitions to act there, so it was a big deal to me. We even made it to the gala night, which was the finals where the top ten of nineteen plays got to perform one last night before the winners were announced. Even though we didn’t win anything, it was a valuable experience to have, and I’d like to thank Axyr, Vit, Asher and Nicole again for having me in the play.</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><b><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">November</span></b></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">November was primarily a month of rehearsing for The Optic Trilogy. Amanda was kind enough to let us use her living room as a rehearsal space, and she always had fruits to serve us during the rehearsals. The rehearsal process itself was a relatively pleasant one for me. Watching Amanda and Alfred work on their magic night after night was a delight, and added to it was a script that I really liked, so every time we rehearsed I got to watch a nice show. Fifa was a great help too, and I could rely on her for most things.</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">I was also given an opportunity to be a DJ for FlyFM for two weeks in this month. I was to fill in for Hafiz who was going on leave, and I was to do the morning show alongside Guibo and Ili. I remember wanting to be a radio DJ since I was a teenager who was listening to JJ and Rudy on HitzFM back in the day, so I was excited for it. I ended up making a video of this experience, so <a href="https://youtu.be/Dcoz6PWn0bU" target="_blank">click here if you’d like to watch that one</a>.</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">Besides that, I also got invited to deliver two talks, one in UniKL MIIT all by myself, and the other in IIUM with my wife. The UniKL one was real nice because I felt like it was so chill, and they laughed at some of my jokes, so that was cool. I was answering questions from the audience, which is my favourite thing to do at talks, so I felt like I was being helpful (felt ja la). The IIUM one was part of their Humanity Night, and we prepared for it and had slides and everything. I think we ended up having fun on stage, so that was cool.</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">Pasca Sini also performed at Gaslight Cafe, Bukit Damansara as part of their Goodnight Gaslight series, which was a string of shows to usher the closing of Gaslight Cafe, a very cafe that has been very receptive and supportive of the local performing arts scene, whether it be poetry or music. We played with Jetcetera, and to a crowd that was sitting down, which felt a little weird, but people seemed to be able to bob their heads to our music, so at least there’s that.</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><b><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">December</span></b></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">The Optic Trilogy was staged at the Damansara Performing Arts Centre from the 7th to the 9th of December. I was satisfied with the show, as the audience seemed really receptive towards it. They laughed when jokes were made, and some eyes watered when it came to the more sombre parts. Alfred and Amanda did a great job, and Fifa was just wonderfully helpful in all the ways in which one could be helpful. She recruited Zikri to operate the lights, Ron to jaga the audio, and Alziq and Kechik to be the stage hands. I am very thankful to the whole team for everything they’ve done to successfully put up The Optic Trilogy on the stage and in front of audiences. On the last day, I wrote letters to Alfred, Amanda and Fifa, telling them how grateful I am to have had them be part of the journey. I have now directed a whole hour-long play, and those three people made that process such a joy.</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">At Ripple (formerly known as Media Prima Radio Network) there are monthly meetings that all the employees of the company has to attend called town-halls, and in the December town-hall, Thelaki (plus Esther, the music producer) got a special recognition award from the CEO, Seelan Paul for our work in making a rap battle video for a client (Jabatan Zakat Selangor). That felt nice, because I wrote the video, the lyrics to the song and performed half of it. The whole team deserved it though, as Mirza was the one who shot, directed and edited the video, Helmie put his vocals on it, Ijal acted in it, Mok lent his voice in it, Esther provided the beat and Alif green-lit the whole thing. Thank you to everyone in Thelaki for being awesome. If you’d like to see the video, <a href="https://youtu.be/SsVk_4Gosvg" target="_blank">click here</a>.</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">***</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">So that was my 2018 wrap up. On a more personal note, I’d like to thank my wife for being patient with me during this topsy-turvy year. I have departed from stable ground into unsure territory, and she could not be more supportive. She’s the real MVP for that, and I will continue to support her in her pursuits towards world domination as well.</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">I’d also like to give a shoutout to all the directors that have now graduated from Revolution Stage’s First Time Director Workshop: Kak Dzeelfa, Adit, Lea, Za, Siti, Qiu, and Bung Remi. Thank you for being a wonderful bunch of people, and I hope the friendships we have formed continue for years to come. I know that I’ll certainly make an effort to go check out all of your future artistic endeavours.</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">Here’s to 2019.</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">Cheers.</span></span></div>
<br />anak pak manhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00676137847801027758noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8386436012700262207.post-66223525501805862792018-12-27T08:23:00.000+08:002018-12-27T11:12:41.430+08:00Remembering 2018 (Part 1)<div style="text-align: justify;">
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-size: small;">So 2018 has been an interesting year indeed. Not only did I manage to neglect my blog the most I have ever neglected it since its inception, I got to do so many things that I would never have expected myself to be able to do within just a year. So here I shall reflect on most of those things. I'll probably forget some things, and embellish on some others, but that is to be expected of your old boi Anwar.</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><b><span style="font-size: small;">January 2018 Goals Revisited</span></b></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-size: small;">So I went back to the first blogpost of 2018 on this blog and I definitely feel like I was in such a different headspace back then than I am now. This is to be expected, of course, since one wouldn't expect to stay the same person after twelve months, but it's interesting to see what I was concerned about back then and compare them with where I am right now, and how these to moments connect to each other in interesting, fun ways.</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-size: small;">The first thing I wanted to (fail to) do was write and record my final two book reviews on my personal Youtube channel, and wouldn't you know it, I actually didn't fail to do that. Sure, it took me a month to get it done, but I got it done, and it was fine. I think the last one where I talked about Anarkis is one of my favourite reviews to rewatch, simply because I got to act in it a leel bit more than any other book review video I made. Still doesn't change the fact that I dislike the book. I still think it's not a good book.</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-size: small;">I also said I wanted to write a fictional zine. I finished 2017 by writing a non-fictional zine called 0307 which contained five stories from my adolescent years (one story for each year from 2003-2007, hence the title), and I guess I thought I would continue to write stories into 2018, but my gosh was I wrong. I totally failed at writing anything in terms of creative fiction this year, and that is a doo-doo on my part.</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-size: small;">The last thing in that early-year list was that I wanted to learn more about script-writing. I did end up signing myself up for a theatre script-writing class around July (I think), but acting and directing commitments made me have to pull out of that class after three months, because I simply wasn't focusing on that class at all, not to mention my terrible attendance record of the class. I skipped more classes than I went to, so that was definitely a sign that said "yo, you should definitely do something about this", and I ended up just menarik diri from that one. Maybe I'll rejoin a version of it in the near future, but we'll see how it goes.</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-size: small;">I also reread the last time I did this year in review thing, and I went from month to month, and I think I like that format for now, so I'm going to do that. It's a good thing that I was a lot better at putting things I was supposed to be doing in the calendar in my phone than I ever was, so that makes it easier to go back to all the stuff.</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><b><span style="font-size: small;">January</span></b></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-size: small;">The first notable thing I did in January was sign up for and start attending Revolution Stage's First Time Director Workshop, a six-month training programme that aimed to teach amateur directors how to direct theatre. Classes were held every Saturday morning, and I even wrote down five entries in this blog talking specifically about what I learned in each of the first five classes I attended. It was a new and strange undertaking for me, but I so desperately wanted to get my foot in the door of local theatre, and I saw this class as a way of doing that. Two hundred ringgit a month was an investment I was more than willing to make in order to immerse myself more fully into theatre.</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-size: small;">I remember the first few classes, being a stranger to pretty much all of the other students in attendance and keeping relatively quiet a lot of the time, being afraid to speak out of turn or of revealing the corny human being that I actually was deep down. I didn't exactly know what I was getting myself into, but this decision to sign up for this workshop is definitely one of my favourite decisions this year.</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-size: small;">I was still a teacher in January, and in the middle of the month I found myself involved in bringing the school touch rugby team to a tournament nearby. To my surprise, they lasted until the last day, albeit only getting to the finals of the Bowl category (the third best category after Cup and Plate) and ultimately losing. My role was not much more than the teacher who drove the kids to the tournament, looked after their belongings when they were roaming the school they were not a part of, and occasionally telling the kids to put on their shoes because their game's coming up. I am not a good coach at all, I have found, and I have zero patience and zero drive to get these kids to play better rugby. I was just there to make sure that none of their flip flops got stolen, and in that I was successful (I think).</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-size: small;">Also, Pasca Sini played two shows in January: the first was opening for Gurryshang at their EP Launch at IntunNation TTDI, and the second one was a show at Impero Studios, Empire Damansara. We also shot a music video for the song The Best Sides around this time. That was fun, as we got to sneak our equipment up to the rooftop of Boy (my brother)'s apartment building and record some footage before being told to leave by the guards of the building. The video's up on Youtube now, and there's also a brief shot of the aforementioned guard in the video at minute 1:59, if anyone cares to watch.</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><b><span style="font-size: small;">February</span></b></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-size: small;">I don't know if I've ever said this on the blog, and I can't be bothered to go back and check, but I was the Setiausaha Agung PIBG of my school for a whole year since early 2017. And February 2018 was when I was to step down from that post and hand it over to a more able person (a monkey smashing a typewriter would be a step up from me as secretary, if we're being honest).</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-size: small;">I absolutely despised my time as a Setiausaha Agung PIBG. I honestly believed that I was the worst person to have the role from the one hundred plus teachers who were teaching the school at the time, and probably the worst person in Selangor. I did not like secretarial work in the slightest, and having to go attend monthly PIBG meetings was unpleasant at best.</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-size: small;">I was terrible at paying attention, and paid more attention to the kuih-muih and teh tarik at the back of the room than I did to what the PIBG actually discussed. All of the people in the PIBG were wonderful people doing Good Work for the children and the school, while I was the slacker there who was looking at his phone 99% of the time. Not only did I not know how to prepare a competent meeting minute, I couldn't write letters, nor keep track of important documents. Iw as terrible at keeping in touch with the YDP, NYDP, Headmaster and Treasurer, and I think I did more harm than good at the end of the day. I was terrible, and had a terrible time doing it.</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-size: small;">I was absolutely relieved to relieve myself of those duties when the Mesyuarat Agung PIBG 2018 came and went. I don't remember who the baton got passed to, and frankly I don't really care. I'm sure anyone who got that role was automatically a million times better at it than me, by virtue of not being me.</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-size: small;">I also found myself starting to attend meetings at Bahagian Pembangunan Kurikulum in Putrajaya in this month. I was part of a team of education practitioners that were responsible for helping make LINUS a better programme. I have zero idea why I was part of that team, since I was and continue to be an incompetent education practitioner, but the people there were cool enough and they let me eat their snacks and invited me to breakfast and all that, which was cool.</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-size: small;">I think I started listening to "R U Talkin' REM Re: Me?" during one of my trips to these meetings. The podcast was a continuation of Scott Aukerman and Adam Scott's last music-related podcast "U Talkin' U2 To Me?", and I'd already loved the U2 one, so I knew that I was in for a great time in the REM one too.</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-size: small;">Pasca Sini also shot and published another music video in February, this time for the song Untuk Mereka Yang Tidak Berpeluwang. We had been playing weekend touch rugby at Taman Rimba TTDI, and on one of these outings, we brought our instruments and camera equipment along to shoot the video there, so you can see people playing rugby in the background of that video pretty consistently.</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><b><span style="font-size: small;">March</span></b></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-size: small;">March was when I started the bookmeets. So earlier this year (in January, I think?) I started talking about organising a bi-weekly book club sort of thing, where a handful of interested people could gather in real life and talk about books they've agreed to read within those two weeks. Each of those gatherings would be called a bookmeet. Attendance to each bookmeet was not compulsory, so members could pick to attend the sessions they were interested in, and not go to the ones they weren't. Each bookmeet's book would be suggested by a different member of the book club, so everyone got a turn to talk about the book they really wanted to talk about.</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-size: small;">I wanted it to be small scale so that it would be more manageable. I limited the number of members in the book club to 15 people, and all of them had to live close to Shah Alam, since the main place we were going to meet was Shah Alam's Section 13 library called Perpustakaan Raja Tun Uda. I put out a call on social media for a person who would want to help me organise this thing, and a person by the name of Alia popped up, and she was great. She helped a tonne with making sure that things kept moving and bookmeets were happening.</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-size: small;">Our first bookmeet was in March at the aforementioned library, and I moderated the session, choosing to discuss John Green's latest book "Turtles All The Way Down". If I remember correctly, six or seven people came, and we rented a study room in the library to hold that bookmeet. All in all, we ended up doing seven out of a planned ten bookmeets throughout the year, and it's not that bad, I guess. The project kinda just fizzled out after June, and I don't think anyone was really super disappointed by it not continuing. It was an attempt by me to get together a group of people who might be interested in the same thing (books) and allow for a safe space for these people to be excited about the same thing together at the same time. I don't regret that I attempted it, but I do wish it kinda went a little better.</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-size: small;">But how could it have been better, Anwar? Thank you for asking. It could have been better if the book club members ended up being friends with each other. I kinda feel like for most of the group, we gathered for an hour and a half and then just went our separate ways until the next one came up. I don't know. I kinda also wished that it didn't just kinda fizzle out, y'know? That people were still excited about the next one, and continuing the project. But it wasn't an exciting enough project for that to happen, and I get that, and I take responsibility for that, since it wasn't really a main focus of mine. I filled my time with looking for theatre and music things to do, the book club became more of a back-burner project for me, and thus it couldn't have been as successful as I wanted it to be, because I didn't put in enough attention into it for it to be that.</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-size: small;">But maybe also it was just not a good undertaking to begin with, maybe? People are busy, and schedules change all the time, and people have lives to attend to and service, and who really has the time to go meet up with a bunch of strangers once ever two weeks to talk about a book you half-read, kan? Lagi baik they spend their time with their loved ones, friends or with other books. Or maybe it's not anybody's fault. Maybe the idea was alright, but the timing was off. Maybe it was destined to fizzle out, since all the people involved were not in the most stable stages of their lives. Maybe the only thing that this bunch of people (myself included) shared in common was their interest in books, and not much else, so there would always have been a barrier to the group being friends with each other? I don't know.</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-size: small;">I'd just like to take this opportunity to thank Alia for all her help during the short-lived Shah Alam Book Club's life. If it weren't for her, zero things would have happened at all. She went to more bookmeets than I did, so committed was she to the project, so I owe her a big thank you.</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-size: small;">Another thing that happened in March was I met The Ming Thing for the first time. I went to their office asking for a job, since I knew that I would be out of a job come April. I knew it was a long-shot, since I did not have too much skill to offer, and they're like super successful and all that, but I felt that I needed to at least ask for it. It would have been better to receive a "no" after asking than to not have asked at all. If nothing else, I got to meet two of my favourite local video-makers in the flesh, and that would make me plenty happy already.</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-size: small;">I went to their office and talked to them for about an hour. They're super nice people who are busy all of the friggin' time, so them clearing an hour to talk to me meant a huge deal to me. They heard me out and let me down the nicest way possible, and I left the meeting just being glad that I got to talk to some real cool guys doing real cool things.</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-size: small;">Besides that, Neck Deep came down to The Bee, Publika and I got to go watch them. I am relatively new to being a listener of Neck Deep, and I'd only ever listened to their 2017 album The Peace And The Panic, and I only listened to it because I knew they were coming to Malaysia and my brother Boy got us tickets and I wanted to have a good time, so I ended up knowing only about half of their set that night, but it was a fun time nevertheless.</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-size: small;">Pasca Sini played at Universiti Islam Antarabangsa for an event called MATi 2.0, and we shot some footage there to use in the music video for the song I'm Not Good At Being Alone Anymore, which is up on Youtube right now (man, we put out three music videos in three months. Not too shabby at all). It was a nice show, where we had to bring our own backline (drums and amps). I think people ended up enjoying it, but I can't say for certain, since I collected no feedback forms afterwards. Thanks to Umar for having us for the event!</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-size: small;">We also played our EP launch show in this month on the 24th at the Impero Studios rooftop to celebrate the release of the physical copy of our double EP "Hardly Do I Find Myself Speechless, But You Have Rendered Me So / Everything Looks Cooler In Japanese". It was a super nice show, with more than 60 people in the crowd, and we served overcooked barbecued chicken and drinks. It was a fun time. It felt really nice to have our friends there singing along to a lot of the songs and having fun together. It helped with our self-esteem as a band, since some people seemed to actually care about the band and the songs enough to take the time to learn the songs, come to our show, and sing and dance along with us, so that was super cool. It kinda said to us: not only do we like the songs, other people do too; and that felt validating. A super big thank you to everyone (and I mean everyone) who came to have a good time with us. You all made that night possible.</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-size: small;">It was also my last month as a teacher. There was nothing particularly memorable about it. I remember being asked by so many teachers about my resignation, whether or not I could even do it (some people even doubted the legality of my resignation), why I would do such a thing, about my future plans, et cetera. That was a bit of a chore, but ultimately it helped me become more and more sure about my decision to leave the profession. When I was justifying my resignation to all these people, I was also re-justifying it for myself, and it was nice to hear to certainty from my voice when I talked about wanting to resign. It felt reassuring.</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-size: small;">On the last day of school, the KL Shakespeare Company came to do a performance at my school. I went to watch during the periods that I didn't have classes to go watch, and it was great. They did a modified version of Macbeth using puppets, dance and song to get the students to participate in the story-telling process. It kind of felt like a sign, that what I was doing (transitioning from education to entertainment) was the right thing to do, even though it's most probably just a happy coincidence on the part of the universe.</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-size: small;">I'd like to take this opportunity to thank the good people of SK Raja Muda for being patient with me as a teacher there. They must have seen my incompetence and decided to tolerate me anyway, which was very kind on their part. They were friendly and accommodating. They still invite me to hang out at the school and outside of it every now and again. I was not allowed to leave the sesi petang Whatsapp group because it was a friend group, not a work group. It just so happened that 99% of the people in the group were working as teachers, that's all. I'd like to thank Puan Jamaiah in particular, for being very nice to me and humouring me whenever I drop silly joke attempts. She listened to my concerns and I felt very much that she wanted me to succeed. It's always nice to have someone like that in your corner.</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-size: small;">The last week of March was my first show as a theatre director. It was a monologue called Matte Love, a story told in six fifteen-minute monologues, and I was assigned to direct two wonderful actors (Alang and Own) to play one role interchangeably, depending on the show days that they were available to perform on. Working with them was when I saw just how good one had to be to be a professional actor, and the bar was really high. These two actors were amazing, and I felt like we collaborated to put up the show together. They learned the lines very quickly and put on stage such wonderful performances that I have become fans of theirs. It was good that my last days of being a teacher were filled with rehearsals. I wasn't able to dwell in any mushy feelings about missing school or whatever because I had work to do, a show to put up. I ultimately had a great time directing that show. Thank you Alang and Own for that.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span class="s1"></span><br /></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><b><span style="font-size: small;">April</span></b></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-size: small;">I started April with an acting role for the play Mayat, written by Hatta Azad Khan and directed by Akid Jabran. The cast consisted of the students of the First Time Director's Workshop, and it was in this play that we really started to bond with each other, I think. We had to rehearse together for hours in the night, and afterwards we would just lepak at the mamak, sharing stories about each other with each other. It was a short play (less than 40 minutes) and we had a short time to rehearse for it (about a week and a half). We got through it, and we got to learn from a really good theatre director, Akid Jabran by acting for him. He was a chill dude who stayed chill throughout the rehearsal process. He was punctual, and didn't drag rehearsals for very long. I admired his chillness and self-confidence. It seemed infectious, and I seemed to get some just by being near him. I am grateful to have had the opportunity to work with Akid.</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-size: small;">I also went on a trip to Banjarmasin, Kalimantan on the first weekend of April with my wife and my in-laws for a distant relative's wedding. It was the first time I had ever gone to that side of Indonesia, and we got to see what a wedding over there looked like (a lot of Jasmine flowers were involved). We also went on a river cruise there, where we got to see a lot of people who lived on the riverside waking up and taking their morning showers by the river. It felt weird, watching people go through their morning while we were touristing right by, but they must be used to it by now. A big thank you to my in-laws for letting us go on that trip.</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-size: small;">The second half of the month was taken up by delivering talks at three higher learning institutes (one in Melaka and two in Penang) and rehearsals for my second task in the Director's Workshop, which was to be staged in early May. In this task, each student director had to choose a 15-minute script by themselves, look for their own actors, and have the show ready to put in front of audiences by the first week of May. I chose the script Malam Pertama by Ridhwan Saidi. I sent a direct message to him on Instagram asking for his permission to use the script and he was gracious enough to allow me to put up the show for a small small fee.</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-size: small;">I chose that script because it was one of the first short plays that I remember liking, having seen it only a year before. I chose my friends Airah, Iman and Qayyum to act in it, and they were wonderful enough to agree to doing it and commit to the rehearsal schedule that I had set. We had fun rehearsing and I got to hangout with my friends in the process, so that was great. They were also very patient in the bump-in and the staging process, so to them I am very grateful.</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-size: small;">I was also casted as an actor for another student director's play that would be staged on the same night for the same show (it would end up being called Teater Kompilasi, since there were four shows being staged in one night, one after the other). I was the male role for the play Kopi Tiga Suku, adapted to the stage by Dzeelfa Zainal from a short film script written by Nadia Khan. I got to act alongside Roro, a very talented actress, who was the lead of the play, and the experience rehearsing for this play was also a fun one. I got to bond with Kak Dzeelfa and Roro, and we remain friends to this day.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span class="s1"></span><br /></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><b><span style="font-size: small;">May</span></b></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-size: small;">The first week of May was the run of shows for Teater Kompilasi (which the student directors modified to Teater Komplikasi because of the things we had to endure to put that show up). It was energy draining and it was great fun. My wife got to watch me act in Kopi Tiga Suku and was very critical of my performance, which was good because it allowed me to want to be a better performer. She also became a fan of Roro while watching her perform with me, so that was good. Thank you to Kak Dzeelfa for casting me as an actor for this one, and thank you Roro for being wonderful.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span class="s1"></span><br /></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-size: small;">And of course, 9 May 2018 was voting day. I wrote all about it in a previous post, which I'll link to here. I guess I'll just reiterate that I am grateful that I was a part of this historic moment in a small small way, and I hope the Malaysian people continue to take power into their own hands and make the people in power more accountable for their actions.</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-size: small;">I also delivered a few more talks this month, at Global Movement Of Moderates (RIP), UiTM Skudai, UiTM Shah Alam and UiTM Segamat. The GMM one in particular was interesting because I was there to teach people how to make videos, so it was like an IRL tutorial session of how to shoot and edit videos. I also got to talk to Syafiq Yusof, since he was there to deliver a talk with his father, Yusof Haslam. Syafiq seemed like an introvert who was keen on observing, but we didn't really talk too deeply about anything in the ten minutes we were able to chat. Thank you Raja Azraff for inviting me to that event.</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-size: small;">I had two plays to rehearse for in this month: as an actor in We Speak Of Love, written and directed by Remi Eldhani (one of the directing students) and as a guitarist in After Earl, written and directed by Jude James. My acting partner in We Speak Of Love was the aforementioned Airah, and she's always a delight to work with. Remi is an enigma with strong visual sensibilities, so to be a part of the set he made for that play was great.</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-size: small;">After Earl was the first time I'd worked with a theatre company outside of Revolution Stage, which was Kudos Production. It was an English theatre company, and they were staging the show at The Gardens Theatre in Midvalley Megamall. All I had to do was sit near the front of the stage and play my guitar when instructed, and that I did. I ate a lot of Family Mart sandwiches during this time, since it was also Ramadhan and rehearsals started right after maghrib, and those sandwiches were the quickest thing to get and consume mess-free.</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-size: small;">Pasca Sini played a show at IntunNation again for Jack-It, and it was a lot of fun. A small crowd, but we got them to stand up and move to the music, so that was cool.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span class="s1"></span><br /></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><b><span style="font-size: small;">June</span></b></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-size: small;">The first week of June was the staging of We Speak Of Love. Not a lot of people came, and some people who did come weren't too happy with the show in the end, and we absorbed all of that feedback and moved right on along. All in all, I was just happy to be performing with friends, and hanging out was cool. Thank you Airah for being patient, Remi for letting me act, and Roy & Wawa for being great.</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-size: small;">My wife departed for her band's European tour around this time, and I continued to be the guitarist for After Earl. Hari Raya Aidilfitri came and went and I spent it in Kedah with my family, for the most part.</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-size: small;">I invited a few friends over to my house for a bookmeet/open house type thing, just because I wanted to, and we hung out, talked about the book The Power by Naomi Alderman which was suggested by Hajar, and after that we played Settlers Of Catan which was brought by Mozek, who also brought super nice cookies (he never makes meh cookies, all of them are always fire-emojis-for-days). That was a fun day. Thank you to Mozek for helping out that day, and thank you to all the five people that came.</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-size: small;">Later that night I went to the Boh Cameronian Arts Awards at Hilton KL on the invitation of Remi Eldhani. I got to get all dressed up with a blazer and tie and all that, eat hotel food and meet a whole bunch of arts practitioners. I sat two rows behind Sharifah Amani and her crew, and they were stoked af for their friends who were nominated and won awards throughout the night, particularly Kandang, which had Ashraf Modee Zain, who ended up taking away the Best Performer Award for his role in that play.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span class="s1"></span><br /></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-size: small;">I learned that I was still largely ignorant about 90% of what Malaysian Performing Arts had to offer. I only knew about two or three shows that were talked about that night, and it made me realise that I had so much more to learn if I wanted to call myself an arts practitioner in Malaysia. Thank you to Remi for bringing me along to attend the Award show.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span class="s1"></span><br /></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-size: small;">Also, throughout May and June I had been sending out my resumé to companies that might be interested in hiring a writer, copywriter or a social media person. I had been going to a handful of interviews here and there within these two months. Towards the end of June, I was interviewed by a small branding and marketing company based in Kelana Jaya called IDTG Asia, and they were interested in having me on as a social media copywriter. I went for a meeting with the CEO, Shane, and she was a pleasant person to talk to and seemed like a cool person to work with. It felt like I was out of a regular job for a while now and I wanted to get back on that daytime-job-having horse, so I was keen on joining the company, as they were keen on having me on board.</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-size: small;">The final weekend of June was the run of shows for After Earl. I got to perform at the theatre at The Gardens, which was the nicest stage I had ever gotten the privilege of performing on, and I played the guitar for all the five shows. I had to buy myself fingerless gloves because of how cold it was inside the theatre space. It was a cool experience, being the musician for a stage performance. I've always looked longingly towards the musicians of any stage performance, and to be one in this production was great. Thank you Kudos Productions for having me.</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-size: small;">***</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-size: small;">I shall continue writing about the months July through December in part 2 of Remembering 2018, which should be up in a few days. Until then, take care.</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-size: small;">Cheers.</span></span></div>
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anak pak manhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00676137847801027758noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8386436012700262207.post-11258284093151079002018-05-16T14:29:00.003+08:002018-05-16T14:36:58.127+08:00My 9 May ExperienceSo it's been an interesting few weeks, with Pakatan Harapan winning, Najib resigning, the 1MDB papers being released, and Anwar Ibrahim being released from prison. Overall, there is this sense of optimism in the New Malaysian air. Everyone seems to be swept away by this feeling of euphoria, from achieving something most thought was impossible. It's a good time to be Malaysian, that's for sure.<br />
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All of this would not have happened if people didn't go out to vote the way they did on the 9th of May 2018. I had the privilege of helping people vote by being a Petugas Pilihan Raya (Election Officer), in the capacity of Pemandu Arah Pusat Mengundi (PAPM), or Voting Centre Guide (?). What the PAPM are tasked with is to facilitate people in their manoeuvring of the place where they were to vote. My Voting Centre was a school (the school where I was last a teacher), and in that school were four Streams or Saluran. Which Saluran you were supposed to be a part of depended on when you were born, with the oldest voters being in Saluran 1, and the youngest in Saluran 4. The PAPM are the people who helped voters get to their designated Saluran, and help those less able to walk on their own to provide wheelchairs if needed and be the facilitators of their movements throughout the voting process.<br />
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In this post, I'll write about my experience being a part of this historic moment as a PAPM.<br />
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Honestly, I didn't choose to be an Election Officer. My school picked me, for whatever reason they did, and I went along with it. I went to the first briefing in November of 2017, I think it was. It was held at the city hall, and almost all the Election Officers of the area were in attendance. We listened to the Powerpoint presentation the Suruhanjaya Pilihan Raya people had to give us, and we were informed of what our responsibilities were. We were also given a file with the slides as well as a book with all the relevant material pertaining to being an Election Officer.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjsVWoV-czFj79_RYUuQ2LZRS-58Kx4AD5eyl0SwBkXwD7BqIbSdDdIzOLPXb5HR_afhjtgB6spAMlW-IEjWQq9p5sae75eQnyhfmH_t1PDSrCOpyo3XKINuJHhv_i1plt0h6IMLJ5PR-9L/s1600/IMG_1258.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjsVWoV-czFj79_RYUuQ2LZRS-58Kx4AD5eyl0SwBkXwD7BqIbSdDdIzOLPXb5HR_afhjtgB6spAMlW-IEjWQq9p5sae75eQnyhfmH_t1PDSrCOpyo3XKINuJHhv_i1plt0h6IMLJ5PR-9L/s320/IMG_1258.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
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They were helpful things to have, and if I'd bothered to read through the material, I'm sure I would be a lot more knowledgeable about the electoral process than I am. Alas, I was me, and at the time I wasn't too stoked about the process. I was pessimistic, and thought it wasn't going to change much. Thank goodness I was wrong.</div>
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We didn't get any updates about the elections until they were announced sometime in April. By this time, I had already resigned as a teacher, so I went to school to get clarification as to my status as an Election Officer. Was I still one? If I were, what was I supposed to do?</div>
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The nice people at the school told me that I was still an Election Officer, and that any citizen could be one, regardless of job status. I was to report to the Ketua Pusat Mengundi, the Head of the Voting Centre, who was a teacher. I also had to hand in a passport sized photo to the school clerk to make this thing:</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7wCSPt2sbk93JIHKnVQK1gQqX9_QV0SHMs8mRtrWdsQZMZ52B0ZIGnKIa1OXHI6E1zbaaIILTv9yyUUITTJJ6jsLz5Pw8BF9HNkNT9iv12886GuNcuVE_Ybd9BAo6dXDyijzTwlEYOvEN/s1600/IMG_1254.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7wCSPt2sbk93JIHKnVQK1gQqX9_QV0SHMs8mRtrWdsQZMZ52B0ZIGnKIa1OXHI6E1zbaaIILTv9yyUUITTJJ6jsLz5Pw8BF9HNkNT9iv12886GuNcuVE_Ybd9BAo6dXDyijzTwlEYOvEN/s320/IMG_1254.jpg" width="240" /></a></div>
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The above thing is called a Pas Pusat Mengundi (Voting Centre Pass), and only people with these passes were allowed to be in the Voting Centres, besides the voters themselves, of course. Anyone who wasn't voting there or did not have a pass were not allowed to be in the Voting Centre. This made sense because if people who had no business being there were there, it might cast doubt on the voting process, as those who had no business being there might be up to something, something that might tamper with the election results.</div>
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A day before the elections, we were summoned to the Voting Centre to set up the place. We went to the district's vote-counting centre and retrieved the things we needed to set up our individual Voting Centres. </div>
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As you can see, there were a lot of people there. My Voting Centre brought 15 people to check and carry the stuff back to our Voting Centres, and there were quite a few Voting Centres around the area. What we had to do was to make sure everything that was supposed to be there was there, and if they weren't, to claim it from the SPR Officers who were there to facilitate. Once everything was accounted for, then the Ketua Saluran would have to report to the SPR Officers and get the blank voting ballots and indelible ink.</div>
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Since I was a PAPM and was only there to carry a wheelchair, some umbrellas, some posters, some banners and other things, I didn't have much to do there. I was mostly just waiting around, watching people do their thing, and try to help when I could.</div>
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Each Election Officer got a t-shirt to wear on the day (ours were all sized XL and bigger), and some even got caps to wear. These were not obligatory apparel for the Officers, but it did help us look the part. I'd like to imagine that people who saw me there wearing the shirt on election day had no doubt about what I was doing standing there at the Voting Centre, telling people where to go.</div>
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After that whole process, we carried the stuff back to our Voting Centre and set up the stations. I helped with setting up the registration table as well as putting up the banners that informed people of what the stations were. Others set up the actual voting rooms and made sure that directions were available for people to follow to their designated Saluran.</div>
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On the voting day itself, we gathered at the Voting Centre at 6.30am, had breakfast and set up the places even more. We put fans where it was most helpful, set up the laptops for registration purposes, put up tapes to make sure the passage from the registration table to the voting rooms were clear, made sure everything was as ready as it could be to receive voters.</div>
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At 8.00am we opened the gate for voters. voters showed up as early as 7.15am. They really wanted to get in early and have it done to enjoy the rest of the day. It was a good move on their part, in my opinion, since people started coming in big numbers as the day went by. The peak time people were lining up was at about 9.30am-10.00am. The lines were really long and people had to wait in line for up to three hours just to vote. </div>
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As a PAPM, I did my best to manage to traffic. I pointed people in the right direction, and listened to people when they expressed that the lines were too long. Saluran 2 was particularly long. It was a Saluran for ageing people. Not particularly old like 80, but definitely on their way. I felt sorry for them having to stand around for such long amounts of time, so I made sure that they would only line up in the shaded parts of the school. I also carried benches from the school canteen and arranged them along the line so that the voters could sit down while waiting in line if they wanted to. I did the same for Saluran 1 as well. Their line wasn't as long as Saluran 2, but they definitely had to wait a lot longer than I would want an 80-year-old to wait. People in wheelchairs started coming in as well, so I was tasked to help them move through the voting rooms.</div>
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I didn't sit down for hours doing all this. The traffic slowed down a little bit as mid-day came. I went to have lunch and got to sit down for a little while while others took my place in giving people directions, pointing out which Saluran was where and helping people move around.</div>
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I resumed my duties until the end of the day, and by 4.00pm my feet were screaming into my brain to retire. Fortunately for me, the final hour of the voting day did not see so many voters coming in anymore. I could sit for longer periods of time. </div>
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When 5.00pm finally came, we packed up, carried all the benches back to the canteen, cut off all the tape, took down the banners and posters, and called it a day. I went back home and napped.</div>
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While I was working as a PAPM, I could feel the energy in the air, an energy of change. People were out to prove a point, the point being that the people had had enough and wanted to take what little power they had into their own hands to turn this country around. A couple of times I was holding back my tears just thinking about if the Federal Government actually did change, and the changes that would come with it. </div>
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No more culture of fear, no more getting away with theft of public funds, no more sucking up to those in power only to benefit yourself, more accountability, more transparency, more freedom of expression. These were/are my ideals, and even though I wasn't very sure that it would be a reality, I liked the thought of it so much that it moved me.</div>
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I stayed up until 4.00am that night. They still wouldn't announce it, but the Astro Awani screen did say PH=113, and that was enough for me. With that I went to bed. I woke up to a New Malaysia, and it has been an amazing ride so far. Here's to a better Malaysia for all of us.</div>
anak pak manhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00676137847801027758noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8386436012700262207.post-44629612718894970332018-05-12T17:13:00.003+08:002018-05-12T17:13:50.288+08:00Thoughts On Tranquility Base Hotel & Casino<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; line-height: normal; text-align: justify;">
<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">So yesterday, the Arctic Monkeys released their latest album called <i>Tranquility Base Hotel & Casino</i>. People who have been reading this blog since the very beginning would know that I am a huge Arctic Monkeys fan. So much so that I even named the blog after their first album. In this post, I shall share my thoughts about their latest studio release after listening to it on loop for the past 30 hours.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">We first received word about the album when the Monkeys released promotional material concerning the album about a month and a half before the album dropped. When I found out that it was going to be named <i>Tranquility Base Hotel & Casino</i>, I got excited. I liked the fact that it was a name of a place, which hinted that the album might well be a concept album (and I like me some concept albums). I thought that it would be a collection of songs telling stories about the goings on in this mysterious hotel, and they pretty much delivered on that count, just not in the way that I had expected them to, as I’ll discuss later in this post.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">But before that, I’d also like to recount that a few recordings from a closed live-show pre-album-launch got on Youtube and I checked them out to see what I might be able to expect from the album. I only listened to them once, and the vibe I got was that it was a movement towards slower tunes, closer to the ones presented on Turner’s side-project <i>The Last Shadow Puppets’</i> latest studio release. I was also reminded of Cornerstone, for some reason, and that excited me since Cornerstone was one of my very favourite Monkeys songs. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">After my first listen in my car on the way back to Selangor from Johor, I thought to myself, “This will be the most difficult Arctic Monkeys album to listen to yet.” I didn’t get it. I thought Turner had traded in his ability to write catchy melodies with more drab and matter-of-fact tones. No particular lines jumped up at me either. Nothing quite as memorable as “<i>He’s struggling the notion that it’s life, not film</i>,” or “<i>I’m sure that you’re still breaking hearts with the efficiency that only youth can harness</i>.”<i> </i>The sounds weren’t urgent, drums were as minimal as can be, guitars as sparse as it has ever been on any Arctic Monkeys record, with only the bass doing some interesting things every now and again. I sighed and pressed the bridge of my nose by the end of the album.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">They had certainly delivered in one trademark Arctic Monkeys department, which was making sure that no two albums sounded the same. This was certainly one of the main appeals to the band, in my opinion, and part of why I like the band so much. I always liked that they always wanted to grow and do different things with every full-length release. But after the first listen to <i>Tranquility Base</i>, I was now asking, “Had they changed to something I now disliked?”</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">As with most albums I listen to, I cannot trust my first listens of albums all that much. There have been plenty of albums in the past that I grew to love over time (Kendrick Lamar’s GKMC took me three-months to properly “get” and now it’s one of my very favourite albums of all time). So I persisted. I knew there was something I didn’t “get” yet about the album. And I sought to find out what that was.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">I was surprised to learn that I started enjoying some of the songs in <i>Tranquility</i> as soon as I played it the second time. I found myself nodding my head to <i>Star Treatment </i>and swinging my hips to <i>Four Out Of Five</i> during my bathroom break at the Machap RnR. This was encouraging. I still didn’t quite get anything about the album at all, but I was more and more acclimatising to the sounds presented on the album and found them to be enjoyable, if on the slower side of my preferences.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">When I got back home, I listened to <a href="https://youtu.be/HgtXRstQhYg" target="_blank">an interview Alex did with BBC Radio 1</a> about the album and what they were trying to do on it. The interviewer, Annie Mac asked interesting questions and I gained a better insight into what the album was about. For example, I found out that the <i>Hotel</i> was on the moon (whaaa??) and how social media tied into the album.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">On my next listen, I did what I only do with albums from artists I care about: I listened to the whole album while having the lyrics in front of me. It proved to be a great move for me in improving my enjoyment of the album by many folds. I now see that the whole album is set on the moon, with markers such as “<i>So when you gaze at planet Earth from outer space, does it wipe that stupid look off of your face?</i>” in <i>American Sports</i>, and “<i>Cute new places keep popping up around Clavius</i>,” in <i>Four Out Of Five</i>, with Clavius being one of the largest craters on the moon. Indeed, the title of the album itself should have alerted me to this fact, since Tranquility Base is the site on the moon where Armstrong landed back in 1969. I was just ignorant to this fact before looking at the Genius page.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Besides being on the moon, another aspect that I admire about the album now is its critique of our infatuation with technology and social media and how Alex talks about how it affects people’s lives on the moon. “<i>Still got pictures of friends on the wall, I suppose we aren’t really friends anymore. Maybe I shouldn’t ever have called that thing friendly at all</i>,” Alex muses on The Ultracheese. He even seems angry in <i>She Looks Like Fun </i>where he says “<i>There ain’t no limit to the length of the dickheads we can be</i>.” </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">In the interview I talked about earlier, Alex said that he somehow felt that writing <i>Tranquility Base</i> felt like writing the first album, only he couldn’t quite put his finger on how they were similar. If I had to hazard a guess, I would submit that in both albums he was singing through the eyes of a persona who is in a singular, specific place. In <i>Whatever You Say I Am</i>, the persona is talking about his thoughts and the goings-on around Sheffield, whereas in <i>Tranquility Base</i>, the persona is speaking about this imaginary world on the moon with a taqueria on the roof. This is different from the other albums, where there wasn’t quite the specificity of location consistent throughout the individual albums. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">I’ll end by concluding that <i>Tranquility Base Hotel & Casino</i> is Arctic Monkeys’ most ambitious album to date. It is a concept album in the sense that the whole album is set in a specific place and tells stories relevant to the place. It’s not quite as cinematic as Kendrick’s GKMC, nor does it (in my opinion) pull off the no-guitars rule as well as Mountain Goats’ Goths. It’s not the easiest of listens, and it doesn’t have a standout “hit single” in the discography, so I think this will be their least popular album so far.</span></span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">But I’m still proud of the boys for being brave in their musical choices. They’ve never failed to reinvent themselves with each album, and they’ve continued to do that with this one. Even though I had every reason to expect them to change up their sound, I never thought it would be as drastic and radical. I like that they can still surprise long time listeners such as myself. I am going to continue listening to this album for a while, and while it may not be in my top 4 Arctic Monkeys’ favourite albums, I still cherish it and continue to be a fan.</span></span></div>
anak pak manhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00676137847801027758noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8386436012700262207.post-86809189136329187632018-04-02T16:25:00.001+08:002018-04-02T16:50:38.256+08:00Theatre and Resignation<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; line-height: normal; text-align: justify;">
<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">In the immortal words of Staind’s 2001 hit single, it’s been a while.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">A lot has happened since the last entry, but I guess the biggest news occupying my mind is that I have resigned from teaching. As of the first of April 2018, I ceased being a national primary school English teacher after 4 years of assuming the job.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Consistent readers of this inconsistent blog would know that it’s been a long time coming. I’ve expressed my thoughts about being a teacher multiple times on this blog, so I think it would come as no surprise for anyone who knows the history of my feelings about it. Currently, it just feels like I’m on a holiday, like a semester break, as if I’ll be returning to school in a week’s time. But I know that’s not going to happen, and I don’t know how I feel about that.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">My immediate concern now is how to manage my time so that I don’t just waste away at home doing nothing but sleep and refresh my Twitter feed all day long. I have three big life-long dreams, and I should draw up a roadmap illustrating exactly how I’m going to be able to reach those dreams, setting a trajectory for myself that is built on habits and practices that contribute towards my getting closer to what I want. It won’t be easy, and I’m pretty sure 15 consecutive daily naps isn’t going to help a whole bunch.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">A thing my father told me a couple of nights ago struck true: build a skill. I need to be able to <i>do</i> something, and do it well in order to survive, and that’s true about the world we live in. I spent 5 and half years training to <i>do</i> teaching, but now that I’ve found that that’s not where my heart is, I have to spend time training to <i>do</i> something else, so that I can be great at it, so that people will pay me to do those things. I already know what I want those things to be (writing, acting and playing music). I just have to work hard to be better at doing those things. I don’t think I’m particularly bad at those things. I just need to be excellent at them, and excellence takes time and hard work. If anybody needs an okay writer, actor or songwriter, hit me up.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Besides that, I have also been continuing along my path in theatre directing. To anyone who cared that I have not been more consistent in writing about it, I apologise. The combination of school, band practice and theatre practice is not conducive to me putting writing on the blog as a priority. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">I have directed my first piece of theatre in my life. It was a monologue in a show with six monologues, with each monologue being a piece of a bigger story. We received the script two weeks before the show and worked with our assigned actors throughout that time. I got two actors who would rotate the role between them throughout the five-day run of the show. The role was Syakir, who is the main antagonist of the story.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">At first I got the actors named Own and Zikri, but then after two practice sessions, Zikri had to pull-out of the show because of his work commitments. He was replaced by Alang and together Own and Alang, I tried my best to breathe life into Syakir the character. It helped that Own and Alang were amazing actors themselves, so there were some instances that I didn’t even feel like I was directing, since the choices they were making and the performances they were giving were so great. When I did step in to direct their creativities and energies, they were receptive, listened well and executed the directions so well, I was in awe most of the time.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Last week we staged it, and they never disappointed with their performances. The whole point of the character was to make the audience feel uncomfortable and dislike the character Syakir, and I think by the end of each night, they achieved that goal. Own in particular was even more amazing on stage than during practice, even when he set such a high bar during practice already. Alang was amazing from the very start, and to think that he only had four days to work on the monologue to get to where he was during the staging astounds me. Both of them have shown me that I have so much more to improve on as an actor. I thank them for working with me and for being such great collaborators.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times", "times new roman", serif;">The third thing would be that the band I'm a part of, Pasca Sini has been busy organising and playing shows to promote our songs. We played an EP launch show at Impero Studio, Empire Damansara which was super fun. It was also the show that kicked off our first leg of our Everything Looks Cooler Tour. Last weekend we went to Alor Setar to play our second show of the tour. The third and final destination of the first leg of the tour shall be in Pahang, but I won't be able to play in that one because I'll be going to Indonesia for a family trip. For more information about Pasca Sini, you can go to Pasca Sini's instagram @pascasini. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">And that's about it for a small life-update post. I hope with my resignation, I will have more time to spend doing things I like, building myself up to become the person I want to be, undertaking the vocations I was to pursue and write on this blog more. But I am weary of making any promises, so we’ll see how it goes.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Here’s to the future, and making the most of it.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Cheers.</span></span></div>
<br />anak pak manhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00676137847801027758noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8386436012700262207.post-4724431833225492732018-02-12T09:38:00.001+08:002018-02-12T09:38:09.440+08:00Directing Workshop: Week 5<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; line-height: normal; text-align: justify;">
<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">So the last class was a Sunday afternoon class, which meant that I was a hungry and sleepy person before and after the class. I forgot that I was sleepy when the class started, since we talk about listen to things I care about as a person right now. I alleviated my hunger midway through the class by excusing myself to go eat in the middle of the class. Mm, food. If I were a better manager of my own time, I would have eaten <i>before</i> going to the class, but I manage my time terribly, so I go eat only when the gastric kicks in.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">We started off by talking about how there were conflicts and crises in stories. Conflicts were things that were in the way of our main character’s main goal. Crises are small(er) conflicts along the way that the main character may or may not engage in, but ultimately do not hinder the main character from reaching the main goal.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">We were supposed to bring and present our chosen 15-minute scripts to the rest of the class, telling the class what our script’s all about, the theme explored in it, the conflict and the crisis on the pages. We spent a good forty-five minutes or so going round the group presenting our scripts to the rest of the group/</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">The script I have chosen is called “Malam Pertama”, written by Ridhwan Saidi. It’s about two strangers who just got married and are going through their first night together, but they speak different languages so there’s a translator there with them in their bedroom translating for them. I think the main theme explored is the awkwardness of the first night of a marriage between two strangers. Their main goals are to get to know each other better. The main conflict is the difference in language. The crisis is the translator, who is both the facilitator and also the factor that enhances the awkwardness in the bedroom.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">What I’ve gathered from trying to analyse and listening to all the other analyses of 15-minute scripts is that short plays (or even short stories) don’t necessarily fit into a traditional story mould (a traditional story mould being the story has a beginning, middle and end). A short story sometimes just wants to point a thing out, such as mine wanting to point out an awkward thing by making it absurd. Some short stories can be character-centric, saying “isn’t this character interesting/weird?” by showing how the character is interesting or weird. Other scripts still can just aim to deliver an image into the audience’s mind, showing for example, a scene right after a car crash.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">I guess one can mould a series of events into a beginning, middle and end, and if the script doesn’t connect the dots very well in the script, or maybe connect them in a way that doesn’t suit the director’s taste, then the director would be able to shape it into a form that more pleases them. But of course, if the initial form on the page is displeasing to the director, why did the director choose the story in the first place? Maybe they got paid? Maybe they weren’t aware what they were doing? Who knows?</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">We also talked about performance concepts and performance forms at the very end. Performance form being a choice from realistic, experimental, pantomime, musicals, et cetera, and performance concept being the art pieces that surround and inform the staging of the play (such as music, advertising, mood, lighting, graphics, et cetera). I don’t think there’s much to add on that.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Next week will be a week off, because of the Chinese New Year holidays, so we’ll resume classes the week after that. Until then,</span></span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Cheers.</span></span></div>
anak pak manhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00676137847801027758noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8386436012700262207.post-58060654526793864642018-02-09T01:18:00.001+08:002018-02-09T01:18:37.076+08:00Directing Workshop: Week 4So in this latest session we started talking about how to analyse a script, from the apparent to the less-than-apparent. What is apparent on the page are things such as the title of a script, its writer, the characters in it, the stage directions, etc.<br />
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To get to the less-than-apparent stuff, Abang Wan asked us to use questions as the key to gaining access to it, mainly the 5Ws and 1H (what, where, who, when, why, how). By asking all these questions, we get to dive deeper into a script and therefore gain a better sense of what the script is trying to do and what story it's trying to tell.<br />
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Abang Wan is of the school of thought that when a script goes from the page to the stage, the director is the main story-teller (instead of the playwright), so there are certain liberties that the director is able to take in order to tell a story on a stage. However, before the director can take those liberties, they have to respect the script by analysing it as thoroughly as they can.<br />
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The director must get to know the playwright, why they wrote a certain piece, what their thoughts are, what scripts were written by the same playwright around the same time, what the playwright's critics say about them, what their tendencies are, what they value in a story, what environment were they writing in, and so on and so forth. This is done to respect the writer and understand the core of the written story.<br />
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Once that step is done, a director can start diving into the theme of the script. What is the main thing that the script is trying to say? What are the recurring ideas in it? The director decides whether or not they want to keep the main theme. If not, then the director has to find a way to highlight different themes within the same story (not the easiest thing to do, I imagine).<br />
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The director also has to find out what questions are being raised by the script. These questions can form the main Acts in the story, as discussed in <a href="https://youtu.be/j56WPBaiPYQ" target="_blank">this Lessons From The Screenplay video here</a>. I like the idea that is put forward by Michael in the video, that Acts are questions that are asked by the story and an Act beginning when the question is first asked and an Act ending when it is answered.<br />
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A director also needs to analyse the characters in the story. A director needs to understand their motivations, why they say things the way they say them, their relationships with each other, their relationships with themselves, etc. A director ideally needs to get to a point where they know the characters even better than their actors will. This is so that the roles are cast as well as they can be, and any questions that the actors might have about anything relating to their characters can be answered by the director without wasting much of either's time.<br />
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After rereading my notes, I've noticed that in the four weeks we've been going for this workshop, there's not a whole lot about the elements of story in our discussions. We don't talk much about what a story consists of, story structure, what makes for a good story, and similar questions geared towards servicing story. Given that my understanding of the director's job as being the main story-teller, I find this lack of story-related questions a bit peculiar.<br />
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But at the very end of my notes for this week, I wrote "find out matlamat utama kita punya watak utama, dana apa yang menghalang dia daripada matlamatnya," and that's like the first thing about what makes most stories, stories: a character wanting a thing, but is kept from the thing by an obstacle or obstacles. So that's comforting. I hope more story-centric discussions happen in the coming classes. I'll also have to do my part by asking story-related questions, if those discussions are going to manifest themselves.<br />
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Cheers.anak pak manhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00676137847801027758noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8386436012700262207.post-72464768648830405222018-01-30T19:03:00.002+08:002018-01-30T19:03:55.153+08:00Directing Workshop: Week 3<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; line-height: normal; text-align: justify;">
<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">So I didn’t go to the workshop last week because my brother got engaged, so I was there to be a part of that important moment of his life. I wasn’t the only one who wasn’t able to attend. Fortunately for us, the first thing that was discussed during this third session was what was done the previous week. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">The group said last week they continued the activity that was done in the first week, which was the draw/explain activity thing. Abang Wan also started talking about the roles of the director, but didn’t elaborate too much on it (since I’m guessing they ran out of time?).</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">This week, Abang Wan continued with his explanation of what the roles of the director include, and focussed on “choosing the script”. He said the director has few things to consider before choosing a script, even if they liked it. Things such as whether or not the director is equipped in terms of knowledge, time and money to manifest the script on stage are important to consider.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">One person asked if it was okay that a director chose a script that had already been staged and staged it exactly the same way (albeit with different actors) as its predecessor. Abang Wan didn’t like the idea, but it wasn’t <i>wrong</i> per se. Then we got into a discussion into whether or not it was okay.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">I posited that it would be as if a person painted a painting that had already been painted before, in exactly the same way that it had been painted. It wouldn’t be <i>wrong</i>, per se to do that, but people would definitely put the value of the original higher than the value of the copy. It <i>would</i> be wrong, however, if the painter copy tried to pass it on as an original work. That’s a person taking credit where credit is not due, a corrupt practice indeed. The person making the copy needs to be transparent and honest about their work and clarify that it is indeed a copy and accept the feedback for what it is.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">One person put forward that because a previous work had already been staged, there’s no reason to do it again the exact same way it was done in the past. They said that even movie remakes put their own spin on the story being told, because there’s not much point in telling the same story twice in the exact same way.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">I suggested that because of the temporary nature of theatre performances, there might be a solid reason for a story to be restaged in the same way. Because what is performed on the stage begins and ends with the staging within that hour or two, and it’s not recorded on film or tv, then staging it again could be bringing the story to new, younger audiences. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">A play that I watched and <i>loved</i> when I was twelve might not continue to be told by the time I turn 28, and so out of love towards to play and what it had done to me, I would probably want to retell the story so that new twelve year olds might be able to watch and experience it in as close a way as I had all those years ago. In that regard, re-staging a play seems well-justified. But again, the onus is on the director to make it clear that it is a re-staging of an original work done by such and such so as to be transparent about the work of art.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">That was a nice little discussion we had near the end of the session. Next week we are expected to bring along 15-20 minute scripts to the session. What we’ll do with them, I don’t quite know yet. I guess we’ll have to wait and see.</span></span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Until then, cheers.</span></span></div>
anak pak manhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00676137847801027758noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8386436012700262207.post-85677007487114212002018-01-22T13:42:00.002+08:002018-01-22T13:42:29.327+08:00Get To Know Me Again (21-30)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Here’s the third and final part of the Get To Know Me thingy where I answer questions 21-30. <a href="http://anakazman.blogspot.my/2018/01/get-to-know-me-again-11-20.html" target="_blank">For answers to questions 11-20, click here</a>. <a href="http://anakazman.blogspot.my/2018/01/get-to-know-me-again-1-10.html" target="_blank">For answers to questions 1-10, click here</a>.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">21. I think every time the Auditor General of Malaysia publishes their report for the year, I get this overwhelming sense of “man, banyaknya duit yang dibazirkan begitu sahaja.” The marked up costs that the Government spends on things is borderline criminal, and I don’t know who should be taking responsibility for all that waste. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Also, when we came back to Malaysia from Sydney, we received the receipt for our tickets, and we found out that each economy class ticket cost around RM12,000. That was outrageous to us. We put in a few inquiries as to why it cost so much. Never got an answer.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">22. That a person may bear the sins made by another person.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">23. Theatre practice has always been a nice place to meet new people, for me. Comedy shows may also turn out the same, if somebody introduces me to new people. I find people in theatre and comedy pleasant and easy to have fun with.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">24. My favourite food would be nasi dagang. What I crave changes from time to time. I just ate a nasi lemak just now, so I’m craving nothing in particular. I think the thing I’ve had to stop myself from eating too often is KFC. Man that stuff’s so unhealthy, but so goooooooood.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">25. I don’t re-watch tv shows, unless they’re reruns and nothing else is on. Ever since I’ve depended solely on Netflix for my shows, I haven’t returned to any other show except Breaking Bad and Rick & Morty.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">26. This is a question I wish my friends would answer instead of me. But if I had to say something, probably bad puns, slow speech speed and soft-spokenness.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">27. If I had to name a name, Qayyum would probably be it, even though I think he would disagree. But I think all of my friends are unlike me. Qayyum included.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">28. The most traumatising moment of my life happened when I was studying in Sydney. A person made a fake Grindr account (Grindr is like Tinder, but specially for gay people) using my pictures that they took off of Facebook and details that they knew about me, including my phone number and home address. I received no less than ten strangers’ text a day ranging from “hi” to “sex?” for about three days. On the third day, one person even came to my house and wanted to come in. I turned him away, and stayed scared for the rest of the week. I changed my phone number shortly afterwards. I reported the account and got it shut down after a while. I even went to the police to see what I could do about it, to which I got an encouraging “there’s nothing we can do about it,” from the people in uniforms. It speaks to my privilege that this was the worst I got it. Many people have it way worse, and I empathise with them.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">29. I learned this from a Jeffrey Archer book: be on time. If you can’t be on time, be early.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">30. I’ll probably never get married again. Once is enough to last me a lifetime.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">That was nice. I got to write. Yay!</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">I hope it wasn’t too boring for you, dear reader.</span></span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Cheers.</span></span></div>
anak pak manhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00676137847801027758noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8386436012700262207.post-29501719556028962952018-01-22T13:38:00.002+08:002018-01-22T13:44:43.586+08:00Get To Know Me Again (11-20)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Here are my answers to questions 11-20. <a href="http://anakazman.blogspot.my/2018/01/get-to-know-me-again-1-10.html" target="_blank">Click here to read questions 1-10</a>.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">11. In most situations where it’s a social gathering, but I don’t know anyone there, or more realistically, the person I <i>do </i>know is busy talking to someone else or doing some other important thing. Like when it’s a kenduri and the only person I know is the groom/bride. So then I’d be like, “eat, don’t make eye contact with anyone, eat, don’t make eye contact with anyone, oh no I made eye contact with someone, smile, nod, continue eating, don’t make that mistake again.”</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Equally as out of place for me is when everyone else there has work to do but not me. No one gave me a task to do, so I’d just be there looking at people being busy. That’s a weird spot to be in. I just wish somebody would give me something to do so that I don’t stand out as this lazy person who’s only shaking his leg and checking his phone every five seconds. I find myself in this situation a lot when it’s raya korban season and all the Men would be cutting up the cow and I’d be there without a knife, awkwardly just watching all these Manly Men go to work. Sometimes a considerate Aunty would give me something to do, and I’m always thankful for that.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">12. I think I’m pretty unapologetic about what I like, in terms of art. But sejak kebelakangan ni there have been revelations about artists doing terrible things, and those are the ones I find tougher to admit to liking. Some examples would be Louis CK and Kevin Spacey. They have done terrible things, and I hope they never do those things again, but I can’t say that I’m no longer a fan of their past works.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">13. Every time I see people littering, I get really angry inside. Another thing that can get me on a rant is ignorant people who talk about a thing as if they were the leading authority about it. Oh man do I dislike that.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">14. I don’t know that I “belong” in any fandom per se, but I am a fan of certain things that a lot of other people are also a fan of (such as the Arctic Monkeys, Rick & Morty and Dynamic Banter). I guess for the former two, it’s that some people tend to think that just because they are a fan of that certain thing, it makes them better than other people who aren’t fans of that thing. I make Dynamic Banter the exception in this example because I’m pretty confident that people who are fans of that podcast are aware about how weird their taste in podcasts is, so they keep it to themselves and to each other most of the times. But I can’t say that I have met another living breathing fan of the podcast ever, so I don’t really know. This is just based on <i>feel</i> alone.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">15. I sleep, most of the times. If that doesn’t work, I watch some stuff on Netflix. If that doesn’t work, I go meet up with friends.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">16. I think it would be the day when I spent the whole day with my wife indoors watching Stranger Things 2. That was a nice day. But of course, too much of a good thing will turn into a bad thing (too much water, you drown. Too much food, you die. Etc), so any good day will turn into a nightmare jugak if I have to relive it everyday (but you know this).</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">17. Almost immediately, but I am almost immediately ready to be proven wrong as well. I don’t think I can refrain from judging people immediately, because I think that’s just how I am wired. But I try to keep my judgements to myself at all times, unless people ask me about them. If it’s negative, I’d be reluctant to answer.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">18. Nasi lemak, a laptop, a guitar and a bed.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">19. Nothing quite jumps out to me as the <i>most</i> satisfying thing I’ve done, but I <i>have</i> done things that I’ve found satisfying. Every time I finish a writing project is a satisfying feeling. A lot of times when I write a song to completion, it is satisfying. When I’ve successfully staged a play, it is satisfying. A good game of rugby is satisfying as well.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">20. Snakes. Or hamsters. Imagine whacking a piñata as hard as you can, only to find hamsters in it. You just killed a whole bunch of hamsters. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Or bombs that explode when you hit them. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Or your bills for the month. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Or a collection of your Facebook statuses from 2009.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">***</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">The next post shall be the answers to questions 21-30 (<a href="http://anakazman.blogspot.my/2018/01/get-to-know-me-again-21-30.html" target="_blank">click here to read 21-30</a>).</span></span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Cheers.</span></span></div>
anak pak manhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00676137847801027758noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8386436012700262207.post-42417534469973229802018-01-22T08:17:00.002+08:002018-01-22T13:44:04.727+08:00Get To Know Me Again (1-10)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">So I saw that people were answering questions from this picture thingy on the twitters and I wanted to do it too, but as some might know, I don't like the concept of likes in return for effort, so I'll just answer all the questions here in this post because I WANT TO.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">1. Basically it's just my Youtube name twitterified. Why that became my Youtube username was because apparently AnwarHadi was taken, and I didn't like the idea of numbers in a username, so I got around that by using "ini".</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">2. A lot of people have inspired me throughout my life. But I guess the question is in present tense, so the people that I can think of who inspire me right now include Mike Falzone, Scott Aukerman, Haruki Murakami, Joe Swanberg, as well as John and Hank Green.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Mike Falzone is a person who makes videos on Youtube, is a stand-up comedian in LA, and runs two of my favourite podcasts (Welcome To Our Podcast and Dynamic Banter). He's funny, honest and an unrelentingly kind person. I don't know how he does it, but he keeps making videos and podcasts that are not only entertaining, but provides perspective well beyond his years. I believe he thinks deeply about life around him and the relationships he has with people and is able to deliver advice in the most admiral way possible, with a good dose of humour and reality.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Scott Aukerman is a comedian, podcast host, tv show host and tv producer. He hosts my favourite podcast of all time: Comedy Bang Bang! Through listening to him, I have been able to be more and more comfortable with my own sense of humour. He has shown me what it means to be unashamedly yourself and honest with what I think is funny and rolling with it, not apologising to anyone about what weird things I find funny (this mostly relates to word-association stuff). He's loads of fun and is incredibly competent at keeping a conversation going while always finding a way to throw in as many stupid jokes he can fit into it. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Haruki Murakami is an author. Every time I read any of his writing, I come away rejuvenated with a desire to write. I don't know what it is about his way with words, but it allows me to tap into my own creativity and makes me go "there is no right way to write, so just write."</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">I mainly know Joe Swanberg from his work on Netflix's original series "Easy". I love the series, and I want to be able to write and direct stories like that one day in the future, telling the stories of my people in what feels like an honest, heartfelt and sincere way.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">John and Hank Green are among other things, people who make videos on Youtube, writers, entrepreneurs, and podcast hosts. I mostly spend time with them through their podcast "Dear Hank and John" (or as John likes to think of it, Dear John and Hank). It's a comedy podcast about death where I get my dose of dubious advice as well as the latest news from Mars and AFC Wimbledon. I love how wise, funny and honest they are on the podcast, and I can only hope to be able to be that way in a decade's time.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">3. I do more than I don't. I'd rather people have a positive view of me than a negative one, and that sort of dictates the way I treat other people, to a certain extent. But I am also a fan of living my truth, and if I am unhappy about certain things from certain people, I let it be known when it is asked of me. I try my best not to be hurtful, but sometimes my personal weaknesses (such as my inability to articulate my feelings, my bad choice of words, my carelessness, etc.) end up hurting people I'd rather not hurt. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">4. Right now, starting my career as a non-teacher.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">5. Be kind to people.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">6. I have three: writer, actor, musician. If I can be all three at the same time, that would be my dream job.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">7. Maybe Holden Caulfield from Catcher In The Rye, but as a middle-aged adult. I'd like to know how he views the world now, how he tries to help (or not help), and just have a nice long conversation with him over coffee or tea.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">8. My earliest ambition that I can remember was to be a pilot. I loved it whenever planes passed overhead (which kid doesn't, kan?), and I would stare at them until they got out of sight. I was fortunate enough as well to be able to go on a few plane rides as a kid, and I loved the experience. I kept that as my answer to "what is your ambition?" until I was 15.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">9. I don't really identify as any specific cartoon characters right now, but maybe Bojack Horseman would be the closest one I can relate to (without the being rich and famous part, of course).</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">10. There are plenty on my list of skills-to-work-on, but if I had to choose one, it would be the ability to write 5000 words of fiction in 6 hours everyday without fail. The more realistic version of this is of course somewhere nearer 500 words a day.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">I'll work on these ten questions at a time, so the next post will discuss questions 11-20 (<a href="http://anakazman.blogspot.my/2018/01/get-to-know-me-again-11-20.html" target="_blank">click here to read 11-20</a>), and the one after that would be 21-30 (<a href="http://anakazman.blogspot.my/2018/01/get-to-know-me-again-21-30.html" target="_blank">click here to read 21-30</a>).</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Cheers.</span>anak pak manhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00676137847801027758noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8386436012700262207.post-13881744767453880852018-01-14T12:07:00.001+08:002018-01-14T12:07:36.035+08:00Directing Workshop: Week 1So this year I decided to sign myself up for a theatre directing workshop. It's organised by the good people of Revolution Stage (Bandar Utama). It involves weekly classes that span six months, and by the end of the workshop, each participant will get a chance to direct a real play that will be open to the public. I am one of the ten people that have signed up and I hope to learn a whole bunch from this experience.<br />
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I found out about this workshop through following <a href="https://www.instagram.com/revolutionstage/" target="_blank">Revolution Stage's instagram account</a>. They posted about it and I immediately signed myself up, since being involved in theatre is a thing I want to do more and more of. Plus, directing is something I'd like to be able to do down the line, so it makes sense for me to learn about it sooner rather than later so that I am ready if and when those opportunities arise. I am going to use this blog to journal my experience of the workshop and reflect on what I have learned so that I don't forget <i>everything</i> I'll be learning from this programme.<br />
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Yesterday was the first class of the six-month workshop, and I had a good experience. We introduced ourselves to each other and shared why we signed up for the workshop, and then the instructor introduced himself. His name is Khairunazwan Rodzy (I'll call him Abang Wan) and he's been in the theatre game all his undergraduate and professional life, which amounts to a couple of decades' worth of experience. He's directed everything from the smallest to the biggest of stages, and has multiple Istana Budaya play directing credits to his name. He's a low-key, chill kinda guy with a great sense of humour.<br />
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One of the first questions we had a go of answering around the circle was "What is a director? Apa itu pengarah?" We got a range of answers from "a director is a person who directs" to "a director is a leader". My answer was: a director is the main story-teller.<br />
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I listen to podcasts regularly, and one of the genres of podcasting that I've been listening to more and more these past few weeks have been interviews with screenwriters and directors. One of the main things these highly successful professionals keep going back to is story-telling and the art/craft of story-telling, so it has shaped my understanding of their jobs as being first, story-tellers. It's just that their chosen medium of story-telling is film and tv that make them directors. And that makes sense to me.<br />
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People trust the director to tell the story the best way they can, and that's why the director gets to call the shots; because of that trust other people have in them to tell the story in an effective way, by putting the camera here versus there, and getting the actor to say these things versus those things. It's all to service the story, serving the purpose of story-telling.<br />
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Directors aren't the only story-tellers on set, of course. There are the actors, whose job it is to tell the story of their characters, the art director, whose job it is to tell the story of the settings the stories take place in, et cetera. And when a script is put in front of these story-tellers, all of them read it differently, because they're different people with naturally differing points of view. If one script is put in front of ten people, then ten different ways of telling the stories come out. It's the directors job to pull all these story-tellers together and say "okay, this is the story we want to tell, and we're going to tell it like <i>this</i>. Everyone needs to be pointing in this same direction, to achieve this thing, this story," and a good director is able to do this well, in my opinion.<br />
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One of the activities we did that I liked demonstrated how important it is that the director is able to communicate their thoughts to their team effectively. Each of the ten participants had to draw a picture depicting a story that was written by somebody else. Then one by one, we went to the front of the class and get the other participants to draw exactly what we drew on our piece of paper just by using the spoken word. We weren't allowed to use gestures or show our picture to the rest of the class.<br />
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It was a nice activity that showed to me how important it is for the director to be able to convey both the big picture and the small picture to their team. If all a director ever talks about is one of them, then people wouldn't be able to carry out the task quite as well. It's when everyone on the team is on the same page about what big picture they're drawing and what smaller pictures they're focussing on at any one time are they able to craft what the director intended all along. Directors really have to be mad-skilled communicators to be able to do their jobs well, in my opinion.<br />
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I'm looking forward to the next class and discovering what we'll be learning in it. I'm also looking forward to bringing snacks (because a three-hour workshop does work up an appetite) to share with the rest of the class.<br />
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Here's to communicating clearly.anak pak manhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00676137847801027758noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8386436012700262207.post-19211447649163326962018-01-09T08:00:00.002+08:002018-01-09T08:00:40.438+08:00Floating With No Direction<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; line-height: normal; text-align: justify;">
<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;">So it's a new year and I've been trying this thing out where I don't write what I want to attempt doing this year, mostly to see what it's like to start a year off without any expectations of myself, and I have to say, I don't like it.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Turns out, when I don't write down things I want to try and fail at doing, I do something even worse than that: nothing. And noticing that I'm doing nothing is usually the first step towards me doing something, but in this instance, since I haven't clearly delineated what I want to get done, I just sit there and stare into the middle distance, being fuddled by what I'm thinking, or even what I'm supposed to be thinking about. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">It’s like floating around in a body of water. Floating is relaxing and everything, but you’re never really going anywhere, not on purpose, anyway. And then when I get a panic attack about not going anywhere, I have nowhere to paddle to, since I didn’t set a course for anywhere in particular. So not knowing where to paddle to puts me into more of a panic, and I still get nothing done. And that sucks.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">If I write down what I want to do, at least I can float in that body of water with knowledge of where I’m <i>supposed </i>to be paddling. So even if I’m not paddling, I at least know in which direction I want to go. And when I panic about not doing anything or not going anywhere, I’ll know what I need to do to remedy the situation.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">So I guess this post is about what I want to (fail to) do in the immediate future, so that I don't feel like I'm the worst, most good for nothing person in the world.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>Write, record and edit the final two book review videos from last year.</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">I've already finished reading one of the books, and I'm halfway through the second one (and I'm only a year too late). I've been putting them off because the first book is the first one in my doing the reviews where I have been struggling to find anything to like about. The second one is alright, but because I haven't written and recorded the first one yet, I feel guilty for continuing to read it (tapi tengok netflix tak rasa guilty plak Anwat?) . I shall write and record the videos, finish reading the final book and make the video for that one too, and then probably retire from doing the book reviews for a while and focus on reading the international books that I have been ignoring for the longest time pulak.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>Start writing a fictional zine.</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">I have had this idea for a collection of five fictional stories in my brain for a while now. As usual, I haven't started writing it yet out of fear that it might turn out to be sucky. My brain keeps lying to me by saying "hey, writing nothing is better than writing something bad," which is completely false. Writing something bad is miles better than writing nothing. As writers day, a bad page can be fixed, a blank page cannot. So I just have to hunker down and knock those five sucky stories out and edit them later.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>Learn more about scriptwriting.</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">It's definitely something I want to do in the future. I just don't know how it's done. Some would say, "la, just write lah!" and that's fair. But writing for the screen is a craft all its own, I feel like, and there are certain sensibilities and techniques that go beyond the ones needed for writing blogposts in order to write good ones. So I think it's worth learning about.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">So those are probably the things I want to get done in the immediate future. Now, I shall proceed to ignoring to do all these thing, while feeling good about myself that I have planned my immediate future out. "I have stuff to do, I'm a busy boy," I can tell myself while listening to podcasts and watching a Netflix documentary I really don't need to watch.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Here’s to living life on purpose.</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;">Cheers.</span></div>
anak pak manhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00676137847801027758noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8386436012700262207.post-25284434461373187882017-12-30T22:17:00.001+08:002017-12-30T22:28:24.837+08:00The People Who Made My 2017<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; line-height: normal; text-align: justify;">
<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">After rereading the last post, I couldn’t help but notice how me-centric it was, and that made me uncomfortable. It was as if I did all the things I did throughout the year because I was me and I am awesome. The plain truth is that the year wouldn’t be anywhere near as enjoyable a year if it were not for the people who spent their time and energy on doing stuff with me. So in this post, I am going to mention a few people who have made my 2017 the year it was. This is not an exhaustive list. It's just those that I can remember at the moment. I am grateful for them and they are of very high value to me.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">My Wife</span></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">This year was the first year we moved into our own rented apartment. We have learned tremendously about one another and she has helped me through a lot of hard times throughout the year. One particular instance was when I was down with the mumps fever. She nursed me back to health throughout, fed me, made sure I didn’t have to move a muscle if I didn’t have to, and drove me to and from the various clinics and hospitals we ended up going to. She continues to be the main person who keeps the podcast up and running. Many a time I would only remember that I had a podcast to record because of her reminder. She continues to push me to work hard to make my dreams come true, the constant reality checker and motivator at the same time. She has stayed patient listening to and sometimes building on my lame, lame jokes. She continues to be my best friend, and for that I am grateful. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">My parents and brothers</span></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I think I’ve been able to talk and joke around with my parents more than I ever have this year. I would like it to be even more, but slow and steady does it, I suppose. In addition to that, I think 2017 has been a year in which I’ve been able to hang out the most with my brothers in recent memory. I’ve definitely spent a lot more time with Boy than I have in a long long time, now that I’ve moved to Selangor. Aiman has also stayed with me for a while during his holiday here. Same goes to Ainul. We’ve been able to just hangout as we would as friends and talk and joke around with each other, and I treasure our time together. I like being close to my brothers, because I think they’ve turned out to be cool and funny people. I love them lots and I wish only the best for them.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Mozek</span></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">In 2017, Mozek has grown to become a person I regard as a dear, dear friend. I’ve spent a lot of time with him this year, and I’m grateful to him for sharing his time, thoughts, books and cookies with me. Conversations with him often go on for hours and hours, where we talk about a range of topics, including (but not limited to) mental health, the craft of writing, hiphop all the way to just plain ridiculousness. I have learned so much from him throughout the year, yet I still feel like I’m only scratching the surface of the amount of knowledge and insight that he has to offer. I root for his success in all his pursuits, and I hope we will be able to spend more time in the future hanging out with each other.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Boy, Thoriq, Syawal, Arep and Palie have made a huge impact on the second half of my 2017 by inviting me into the band. I’ve always loved music, and have been a fan of Boy’s in particular ever since he started writing songs as a teenager, so it’s great to be able to play those songs with him and the rest of the band on a regular basis. They’re good fun, and we’re doing what we can to keep it fun while being serious about being able to play more and more shows as time goes on. If you haven’t listened to Pasca Sini yet, I would encourage you to (songs are available on Spotify and Youtube), because I certainly like the songs.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I spent a lot of time rehearsing for this 20 minute play, and I think I’m so fortunate to have worked with such great people. I don’t know if I could have worked with a better director than Jamal Raslan after not acting on stage for 9 years. He is flexible, a good listener, attentive, a great communicator and positive. The rest of the cast was wonderful too. Esther was professional and patient. Aishah was cheerful and energetic. I wasn’t able to spend as much time with Karan as I’d want, but he got the job done. I got grow closer to Umar, and he’s just a sweetheart. It also helps that he’s unrelenting at trying to come up with pun-based jokes, so I had a great time playing with words with him. Kasih was wonderful. I’m glad I got to know her and I look forward to her growth as a person. Mia was also a great person to have met. I like that she also has a tendency towards punnery. She also seems to know a great deal about the local theatre scene, since she’s been in it for quite a while and has acted in more plays than most people. I’m glad I got to play with all these people and I hope our paths cross again in the future.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Anis, Fikri, Ezzah and Azhar have shown so much dedication and perseverance in making the ApaKesah project a reality, and I respect them so much for coming week after week to make those videos with me. We all have the same goal of encouraging more constructive and critical discussions in the Malaysian internet space, and ApaKesah was our vehicle for that. We’re currently on hiatus because a majority us have personal things to attend to. I hope to be able to continue the project, but even if that doesn’t happen, I’m glad to have been able to work with these wonderful people.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">TheatreMob is an improv collective that Umar started for anyone who wanted to do improv theatre, so I joined and got to meet two other wonderful people: Iman and Airah. We’ve played together four or five times throughout the year in front of people and probably double that in terms of practice. Practice sessions are loads of fun because the four of us are very open to making it that way. From relative strangers, we have grown closer together, and I look forward to playing with this group more and more in the coming months and years.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">There’s more people I could thank for making 2017 as enjoyable as it was for me, but I’m afraid I do not possess the power of memory nor the stamina to be able to point them out in this piece of writing. I would like to thank them regardless. If you have, in any way, entered and affected my life in the past year, I thank you very much and I wish you all the best in the future.</span></span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Cheers.</span></span></div>
anak pak manhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00676137847801027758noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8386436012700262207.post-25288514546740619922017-12-25T17:43:00.003+08:002017-12-25T17:43:47.917+08:002Q17 Wrapped Up<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Arial; line-height: normal; text-align: justify;">
<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;">So it’s the end of 2Q17 and I’ve been wanting to write down what the year has been for me for about a week now. I know that I have done some things that I’m proud of, while also grossly disappointing myself in some regards, so writing them down will make it clearer to myself what those things are exactly. Merely having fleeting thoughts about a thing or two while I’m sat criss-cross-applesauce underneath a running shower shall not suffice. Let’s start from the beginning then (here’s one of the many instances where documentation of things one has done helps).</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>January</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">I started the year off by editing a book for FIXI called MicroMalaysians, which is a collection of really short stories (150 words or less). I did that pretty fine, and I think I ended up with something satisfactory. The illustrator of the book, Caryn Koh had a lot to do with how amazing it ended up looking. I really liked the art she put in the book, and it made the book a lot more enjoyable of an experience. I am grateful to Amir Muhammad for asking me to do it. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">There was, however, a bit of a thing with this book. I edited an ending of a story to make it (in my opinion) more cohesive. I thought that was within my realm of responsibility, since I was the editor. But the writer emailed me asking for clarification as to why I did that. I answered as honestly as I could and explained to her why I thought that my changes made the story hit better. I also apologised if they felt slighted in any way by my editing choices and asked them if they wanted to revert to the original ending. They never did reply to that email, so until today, I feel a sense of serba-salah over it.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">As I was reading through what I wrote in this blog in January 2Q17, I said that I wanted to make short films. I remember coming into the year being really enthusiastic about that prospect in my mind. But to nobody’s surprise, that didn’t end up happening. I didn’t write any short film scripts, let alone attempt to produce one. Maybe daily life got in the way. Maybe I’m just terrible at executing my ideas. I guess we’ll never find out.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>February</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">I started rehearsing for AMUK with the initial team that was to preview it for Damansara Performing Arts Centre (DPAC). The rehearsals ended up taking a lot of my time, and I loved the experience. Being busy with theatre was wonderful. We ultimately failed to get on the DPAC bill, but after a bit of a shuffle in the cast and some rewriting, we staged the play in September (I’ll write more about it in the September portion of this post). All in all, a busy but uneventful month.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>March</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">I went to an acting workshop run by Fauziah Nawi’s team. It was held at their headquarters somewhere in Ampang. I got to meet her in real life and act in front of her. I was the only attendee there who bothered to attempt to memorise the material that was given a week in advance. Overall, I don’t think I did very well. I think I was sleep-deprived when I went there, because I remember being very tired throughout the thing. I got to see other acting-types and it was quite a range of people, from the very shy to the uber-confident. I also got to see Syafie Naswip act in the flesh, so that was cool.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">I met a producer-type there too. I talked to them about script-writing and how one might go about doing that. They promised to send me some material to study, and took my contact details. About a week later, they invited me over to an event their company was holding, promising access to more actor/producer types so that I may gain some useful contacts. I had to “help” out in the running of the event with the promise of free food. I went and helped out, ending up being nothing more than an errand boy for the event. At the end of the day, no contacts were established, and no written material was sent my way. I learned that not everyone wants to help you. They just want your help is all. I didn’t mind helping, but I don’t think I’ll be doing anything similar ever again.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Besides that, I auditioned for a theatre company called TheatreSauce. Their HQ was somewhere in Subang Jaya. I memorised two monologues in English (or at least I thought I did). Completely failed at delivering them come crunch time though. I did terribly, forgot almost everything, and ultimately failed to get a callback. The directors and producers on the other side of the table pitied me, rightfully so because of my pitiful performance.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>April</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">At the very start of April, my wife and I gave a joint talk on the importance of social media and how to use it at the Kuala Lumpur Drama Festival. We spoke in front of about two hundred disinterested people, and most of my jokes fell flat. I don’t know if our content was of any use to them. But most of the audience did stay for the whole talk, and most had the courtesy of seeming attentive (a handful dozed off while another handful found more interesting things to do on their phones).</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">This month was also the start of ApaKesah. I put a call-out on instagram to ask if anyone was interested in making videos that were similar to the now defunct SourceFed. Several people reached out, and I thinned the applicants down to four people: Ezzah, Anis, Fikri and Azhar. They showed the most amount of interest and dedication, so I knew I could trust them with helping me making those videos a reality. We held our first meeting on the 22nd of April. We would post our first video a month later.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>May</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">I started going to improv practice in UIA this month, thanks to the invitation of Umar (who was also the AMUK playwright and huge performance-arts-enthusiast). Ever since, we’ve practiced seven or eight times and performed in front of audiences like four times throughout the year. I like that this activity has been a part of my year.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">ApaKesah recorded and posted our first few videos this month. We shot everything at my house, since my house had a nice blank wall and was sufficiently quiet for the shoots. Everybody chose their own stories and wrote their own scripts, with minor edits from myself. I shot the very first video while going through my worst week of the year in terms of health. I had the mumps and everything was pain inside my brain and jaws. If you look closely to the video in which I introduce ApaKesah, one would notice my swollen cheeks. It is the only thing I notice when I watch that video, or even when I see the thumbnail.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">I wrote a short story called Syed Joyce and read it aloud in front of a bunch of people in UIA. They were receptive towards it, and I like that story. I wrote it after watching Taika Waititi’s short film entitled Two Cars, One Night. I like that short film very much.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>June</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">I wrote nothing on the blog in June. This is disappointing. It often seems to be the case that whenever Ramadhan rolls along, I just completely stop my will to write anything at all. I haven’t found out an effective way of managing my time between writing and doing other Ramadhan-and-Raya-related stuff. I’m still looking.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">I perform with my wife at If Walls Could Talk at Gaslight Cafe. Walls is a monthly poetry event where poets new and old recite their material and snap their fingers in agreement/awe of their fellow poets. It was my very first Walls event, and the venue was packed to the brim, since it was an anniversary event. I recited my pieces poorly, while my wife mesmerised everyone in attendance with her songs.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>July</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">I wrote and directed my first short play for the performance bit of my school’s Raya celebration. I cast some 9 year old students of mine and they did a wonderful job. The script was my last blog-post of the year, before this one, so that’s <i>wonderful</i>, Anwar.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>August</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">I performed with my brother’s band “Pasca Sini” for the first time at Habit Art Cafe, Alor Setar. We opened for Killer Calculateur. It was fun, but we wished our former drummer was able to make it to the show.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">This was also when AMUK resumed rehearsals since we stopped at the end of February after previewing it at DPAC. It took up a lot of my time and I was happy about it.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">I was also a guru pengiring for a students’ trip to Cameron Highlands. I got to endure the stresses of a teacher taking a hundred kids on a field trip. Having said that, I got to hangout with some of my 9 year old friends, so that was cool.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">August was also the last time ApaKesah uploaded a video. We have been on hiatus ever since because two of the hosts had a child, while another got married. We hope to continue doing it, but we don’t know when exactly we can reconvene.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>September</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">I was an invigilator for UPSR. I had to be a runner, which meant I was to roam the halls to brings things from one class to another, while also acting as an escort to anyone who had to go to the restroom. All in all, it was a boring affair, and I don’t know what I would’ve done if U Talkin’ U2 To Me wasn’t there to entertain me along the way.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">I wrote another script for my school’s Hari Malaysia celebration, but I wasn’t able to direct it because I had meetings to attend in the run-up to the celebration, so another teacher had to direct it for me. I don’t mind the script, but I do like the Wonder Girls Raya script a lot better.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">AMUK was staged this month. This meant a huge deal to me, because I hadn’t acted in a play since first falling in love with it in 2009. I loved the experience, I loved the team, but I wish I did better. It was a 6-show-run, and there were two shows where I forgot the same chunk of the script, even though never forgetting that bit in rehearsals. My best performance, I feel, was the rehearsal round we did the day before the first show. I don’t think I did terribly on the actual show days, I just didn’t do as well as I wanted to.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">I wrote an istagram post after the experience. It went: First time I did theatre was in 2009. Second time I did it was this past week. Fell in love with it the first time. Still in love with it 8 years on. May this be a path that continues to bring more serotonin into my life. Thank you to everyone that made it happen. Everyone was wonderful. Thank you for the patience, the laughs, the tears, the time, the food, the feedback, the understanding, the companionship and the experience. A big thank you too to everyone who came to watch us tell some stories. Thank you.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">I also played my second gig with Pasca Sini, the first in Klang Valley. It was at the rooftop of Empire Damansara, and by this point, the band took me in as a permanent guitarist for the band. I’ve always wanted to play music regularly in front of people, and this was a sort of dream come true for me.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>October</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">I got to play two shows with Pasca Sini, one in Sungai Petani and another at Empire Damansara’s rooftop again.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">The improv group that I was a part of (called TheatreMob) also performed two nights in UIA. We had fun with it and I wrote another instagram post at the end of it because I liked the experience so much that went like this: I spend a lot of my time listening to improv comedy podcasts (specifically improv4humans, Comedy Bang Bang, Spontaneanation, With Special Guest, and more recently, Off Book). Ever since I started listening to improv comedy in 2014, I've always wanted to do it myself, and in 2017 these people have enabled me to, albeit in a more theatrical, dramatic, irl kinda way. I am grateful to these people for being my improv-enablers and I hope we continue to have fun doing it.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>November</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">I was the MC for two school-related events: Sukaneka Day and Jamuan Kelab Guru. I had to wing it most of the time I was on mic, because that was just the nature of the events. Instead of concentrating on getting words right, I just focussed on having fun on the mic, trying to amuse myself with bad jokes. I ended up being mildly entertained by myself, even though some others found my banter less than pleasurable (I think).</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">I also conducted an idea-pitching workshop for UiTM students. It was my first time conducting a workshop all by myself, and in my opinion, the attendees were already adept at coming up with and pitching ideas. I had a bunch of fun talking to them though, brainstorming and listening to what they had to say.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>December</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">I was involved in the recording of Pasca Sini’s latest EP (which should be out early 2Q18). We went to our producer’s (Shaheir) house and recorded four songs in the span of a weekend. It was a fun process, and I’m excited about letting people listen to these new songs. I like them very much.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">I also wrote a zine all by myself for the very first time. It’s a collection of five personal short stories from my days as a secondary school student (one for each year). I’m proud of myself for completing this personal project. I don’t complete a lot of my projects and to have followed through on this one feels good. It’s called “0307” and if you dear reader would like a copy for RM10 including postage, send an email to <b>iniuntukakusahaja@gmail.com</b> asking about it.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">***</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">That’s about it for the (in my opinion) noteworthy things I did this year. It was an alright year. I just wish I wrote more. I just wish I didn’t stop writing. I’ve gotten back on the horse with this zine, but I do need to continue if I want to stop disappointing myself.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">I hope you 2Q17 was nice. If you would like to list down the things you did this year like I did, you are welcome to. If not, then I wish you all the best in everything you do in 2Q18 and beyond. Stay hydrated everybody.</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;">Cheers.</span></div>
anak pak manhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00676137847801027758noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8386436012700262207.post-86431825444232801242017-07-23T15:48:00.004+08:002017-07-23T15:48:56.945+08:00Wonder Girls: Misteri Kehilangan Kuih RayaSo last Friday, my school held a Raya celebration thingy. I was put in charge of coming up with a performance for the Tahap 1 kids, so I wrote a short short play and got my standard 3 students to stage it. It went alright.<br />
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I'll put the script here for two main reasons. One, to archive it on the internet. Two, to allow anybody who needs a short 4-minute script to play with children to get a copy of this one, if they so choose. If I could add a third reason, I'd say that it's because I particularly like this story, but that's vanity speaking.<br />
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Here's the script:<br />
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<u>Wonder Girls: Misteri Kehilangan Kuih Raya <i>written by Anwar Hadi</i></u><br />
<u><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></u>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Pada suatu hari, terdapat tiga orang kawan: Wani, Wati dan Wawa. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Wani: Hi, Saya Wani!</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Wati: Saya Wati!</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Wawa: Wawa!</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Wani & Wati : Kami Wonder Girls, dan kami suka tolong orang!</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Wawa: Wawa!</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Pada hari raya yang lepas, semasa mereka baru selesai menolong seorang makcik membawa barangnya balik ke rumah beliau, mereka didatangi oleh Amir yang memberitahu mereka suatu masalah yang dihadapinya.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Amir: Wonder Girls! Saya ada masalah dan saya perlukan pertolongan kalian!</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Wani: Apa masalahnya Amir?</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Wati: Ha’ah, kami bersedia untuk menolong!</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Wawa: Wawa!</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Amir: Baiklah Wonder Girls. Kuih raya di rumah saya semua hilang! Dan bila saya tanyakan jiran-jiran saya, kuih raya mereka juga hilang!</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Wani: Wah, ini adalah suatu misteri!</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Wati: Ha’ah, misteri kehilangan kuih raya!</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Wawa: Wawa!</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Wani: Betul juga cakap Wawa, kita memang patut tolong!</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Wati: Ha’ah, jangan risau Amir, kami akan cuba selesaikan misteri ini dengan segera!</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Amir: Baiklah Wonder Girls, terima kasih dan selamat hari raya!</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Dan dengan itu, Wonder Girls menziarahi semua rumah untuk bertanya tentang misteri kehilangan kuih raya untuk mengumpul maklumat yang mungkin bernilai untuk siasatan mereka.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">[Wonder Girls bertanya orang kampung dan menulis nota dalam buku nota mereka]</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Tetapi selepas dua jam mengumpul maklumat, mereka tidak mendapat banyak maklumat yang berguna.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">[Wonder Girls duduk keletihan]</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Wani: Macam mana ni kawan-kawan? Kita tak dapat pun maklumat yang berguna!</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Wati: Ha’ah la. Dan hari sudah pun suntuk. Nanti kita tak dapat beraya pula hari ni.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Wawa: Wawa!</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Wani: Cadangan yang baik Wawa! </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Wati: Ha’ah, lagi baik kita pergi beraya dan makan dulu untuk mengembalikan tenaga kita supaya kita dapat berfikir dengan lebih jelas!</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Wani: Jom ke rumah Uncle Ravi!</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Wati: Ha’ah, jom!</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Wawa: Wawa!</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Wonder Girls pergi ke rumah Uncle Ravi dan duduk untuk makan bersama tetamu-tetamu lain. Semasa mereka sedang makan, Wani ternampak seseorang sedang mengambil kuih raya yang banyak sekali.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Wani: Eh, korang. Tu Faris kan? Banyaknya kuih raya yang dia ambil!</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Wati: Ha’ah la, entah-entah dia la yang mencuri semua kuih raya orang lain!</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Wani: Kita patut tangkap dia!</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Wawa: Wawa!</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Wani: Kenapa pulak Wawa?</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Wawa: wawa wawa wawa, wawa wawa wawa.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Wati: Ha’ah la, betul cakap Wawa tu. Lagi baik kita ikut dia, tengok dia bawa semua kuih raya tu kemana. Dengan cara itu, kita dapat jumpa semua kuih raya yang lain juga!</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Wani: Good job Wonder Girls! Jom kita ikut dia.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Wonder Girls mengikuti Faris secara senyap-senyap sehinggalah sampai ke sebuah rumah yang buruk dan tampak kosong. Bila sampai ke rumah itu, Wonder Girls nampak Faris meletakkan kuih raya diatas meja disebelah katil dimana terlantar ayahnya yang uzur. Wonder Girls sedar yang Faris hanya mahukan suasana raya di rumahnya dimana tiada sesiapa disitu kecuali ayahnya yang sakit.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Wani: Kesiannya Faris. Kita beraya meriah-meriah, tapi tiada sesiapa pun tolong memeriahkan hari raya Faris dan ayah dia.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Wati: Ha’ah la, kesian Faris dan ayah dia.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Wawa: Hmmm, Wawa!</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Wani: Apa? Wawa ada idea?</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Wawa: Wa. Wa.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Wati: Ha’ah la, idea yang terbaik! Betul kata Wawa yang kita patut ajak semua orang datang ke rumah Faris dan bawa segala jenis makanan yang mereka boleh bawa supaya dapat memeriahkan suasana raya di rumah Faris untuk ayahnya!</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Dan dengan itu, Wonder Girls menjemput semua jiran mereka untuk beraya di rumah Faris bersama ayahnya yang sedang uzur. Faris dan ayahnya sangat berterima kasih terhadap jasa baik Wonder Girls dalam menolong mereka mengecapi suasana hari raya yang meriah semula.</span></span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Sekian, terima kasih.</span></span></div>
anak pak manhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00676137847801027758noreply@blogger.com1