Perwira Cakerawala

So I recorded a new song today. 

The beat was provided by one of my childhood friends, Shaheir. It's the first song I've recorded using someone else's beat.

You may listen to it if you want to at https://soundcloud.com/inianwarhadi/perwira-cakerawala-prod-by-shaheir . 

Here are the lyrics:

Perwira Cakerawala by Anwar Hadi

Tidak tahu dimana jarum jam sedang tunjuk

yang aku tahu cuma hari sudahpun suntuk

aku mendekati speaker radio yang buruk

sang arjuna balada sedang khayal melalak

tiba-tiba kesunyian makin terberanak

makin kedengaran suara lembut terkeluar

daripada mesin bunyi tong telingaku bergegar

aku sedar itu bukan suara pengacara

aku sedar itu suara dari luar angkasa

terus ketelinga gagang telefon diangkat

mujur kau dengar juga, jadi kita sependapat

mungkin kita dapat lihatnya di TV 2,

aku ada nampak cahayanya luar jendela

mungkin jika kita lambai dia akan turun

jadi melambailah aku 69 tahun

kepada dia sang perwira cakerawala

A Sunday

I feel like I don’t know what to write about, so I’ll just write about my day for a bit in a bid to stumble across something to elaborate on.

Today started off as a lazy Sunday, with me taking extended naps during the morning and afternoon, in between novel reading sessions (I’m currently reading Tuhan Bukan Manusia by Zharif Zainuddin, a book I hope to make a book review video of by the end of the month). 

As I was planning on recording a video today, I needed to print the script I had written yesterday, but my printer ran out of ink, so I told the wife that I needed to go out to get some ink. Turns out she’d been wanting to get out of the house too (since she’s been glued to a writing assignment for almost a week now), so we went together after lunch.

We first went to a nearby Popular bookstore because I remember seeing printer cartridges being hung behind the counter, but as soon as I discovered that a cartridge costs like RM70, I was like, nope. We decided to look for just ink refill at another spot I knew that sold computer stuff, but it turned out they didn’t have any ink refills.

I told the wife that I only knew of a spot that definitely sold printers, but it was on the island, so she suggested that we get our stuff (for me, my vlogging equipment, for her, her laptop to write) and do the work on the island after buying the ink refill. I could afford to do this since luckily I had posted the blog script on this blog yesterday, so I could just refer to my phone for the script. We decided to go to the island to get the ink refill and subsequently go on a work date.

After getting the printer ink refill, we went to a cafe I knew that had a view that I was fond of and did our respective works there, with her typing away at her laptop and me trying to talk to a camera after having not done that in a while, edited and uploaded the video right at the cafe.

Afterwards we went to the pasembor place on Gurney Drive and had dinner, and finally went back to the apartment.

And now I’m typing this. I suppose today was a good day. Mostly unplanned, but pleasant, nonetheless.

First Vlog Script of 2016

(You may watch the video here: http://youtu.be/oCq9fo0zwKY  )

Assalamualaikum wbt. And hey, what’s up?

So a few quick updates la kot, since lama gila dah tak bust benda ni.

First thing ialah aku plan untuk buat video book reviews lepaih ni.

It’ll be a once a month kinda thing, dimana aku akan bercakap tentang buku yang ditulis oleh penulis tempatan sahaja. Because, reasons.

The main reason being aku rasa tak cukup orang cakap pasai buku tempatan, especially dalam bentuk video, so aku harap dengan usaha hangat-hangat tahi ayam aku ni, dapat menggalakkan lagi orang untuk sembang tentang buku tempatan.

Bila ada lagi ramai orang sembang pasai buku terbitan Malaysia, boleh aku buang masa kat Youtube tengok video review buku daripada actually membaca buku. Hooray!

So buku yang akan disembang pada bulan Januari ialah Tuhan Bukan Manusia, by Zharif Zainuddin.

Februari kita try The Other Malaya, by Farish A Noor.

March saya nak try sembang pasai Terima Kasih Si Babi Hutan by Ismail Ariffin.

April kita try Liberating the Malay Mind by M. Bakri Musa

dan May kita try sembang pasai Badrul Hisham punya Advantura Pulang Ke Malaya.

Kita try lima dulu, kalau nampak macam masih steady by the end of it, kita tambah lagi buku lain plak.

Pasaipa saya habaq awai-awai buku apa yang akan disembang? Well thanks for asking dear live studio audience!

Pasai pertama sekali, nak jinx the whole thing supaya gagal akhirnya.

But secondly and more importantly, aku harap dengan habaq kat hampa awai-awai, hampa akan pi cari buku ni kat kedai dan baca sekali ngan saya.

Then bila video review tu keluaq enam tahun depan, hampa boleh setuju ataupun tak setuju, since hampa pun dah baca buku tu. What enam tahun *tengok skrip*

Saya akan try upload video review tu roughly antara 28 hingga 31 haribulan pada bulan tu, but we’ll see how it goes.

So that’s the main thing, really.

Kalau hampa ada apa-apa soalan yang hampa nak tanya, you can always find me on twitter, @inianwarhadi

ataupun emel saya, iniuntukakusahaja atgmail.

Mana taw, kot-kot saya cuba jawab soalan dalam emel hampa tu dalam bentuk video, mana taw.

Hang bukan reply pun emel hang anwat! What who said that?

Sekian ja kot, may be peace be upon you!

Branding, And Thank You

So I’ve been thinking about this blog lately and how I treat it as more of a diary where I put anything and everything I’ve been thinking about in and how that approach doesn’t really help with branding.

It’s a somewhat of a douchey term, but a real one nonetheless, where a thing (or a brand) portrays a certain something that is consistent and people can get behind easily enough. Like, say, Levi’s. They brand themselves as a denim maker, and even though they might make other things such as wallets or shirts or whatever, a casual consumer would always associate Levi’s with jeans.

In terms of people, let’s take the brand of Zizan Razak. He’s most known to the general public as a comedian, and even though he does do other things (rapping, for instance), people will always tend to associate him with being someone you want to make you laugh. That’s just the way he has been branded, either on purpose or otherwise.

And I guess branding makes sense in the sense that it allows people to kind of know what to expect from a certain thing or person. It facilitates our need to put people in boxes and label them, because life’s easier like that. Nobody wants to go to a Sephora and suddenly see that they’re trying to sell bedsheets and only bedsheets for a whole week, right?

For myself as a consumer as well, I always go to The Needle Drop to get well thought out, well articulated music reviews from a person who has a good sense of humour but takes music very seriously when need be. If one day I go there and suddenly see that he’s trying to sell cupcakes, I’d click off that video rather quickly (unless it’s a joke lah).

But over here in this blog, there’s a lot going on. In this year alone, here is where I put my rap lyrics, my poor attempts at music reviewing, me expressing my feelings about not being an adequate writer, my insecurities as a primary school teacher, and my thoughts and reflections as a husband. Basically, a branding nightmare.

But I guess this blog doesn’t function as a place to brand myself. I guess this blog is a place where I can be myself, in my entirety. Where I don’t need to fit into any boxes except for the one labelled “Noor Anwar Hadi bin Noor Azman” and whatever that brings. I guess that’s the thing about being human. We’re not brands. We’re not simple beings. We’re complex. There are more than one or two sides to any person out there, and even though branding is convenient, it sure isn’t the best portrayal of people. 

So I guess a thank you is in order for anyone and everyone who has read whatever I’ve been writing here. You might not be interested in everything I have to talk about, but your insistence on reading anyway just goes to show that you are at least interested in me. Dull, incompetent, uninformative me. And for that, I show appreciation. Thank you.

Masa Lepas

So a few days back I started reading this book called "Tuhan Bukan Manusia" by Zharif Zainuddin. I intend to review it by the end of the month in video form.

But I got stuck on chapter four, where the protagonists were talking about regret over the past and stuff like that, and I decided to make a song based on the chapter. The name of the song was decided just earlier today, which is "Masa Lepas". I spent four days making this song, the longest time I've ever spent making a song. This is also the longest song I've made to date. It was challenging, but I'm glad I got it done.

I just finished recording the song a few minutes ago, so if you want to give it a listen, you can head on over to www.soundcloud.com/inianwarhadi .

Here are the lyrics to the song:

Masa Lepas by Anwar Hadi

Alangkah lebih indah

jika semua masalah

kancah masa kini yang membuat aku gelisah

dapat aku berpisah

pindah juga berhijrah

ke masa silam yang lebih mudah

lebih dijajah dengan segala hasanah

hidup umpama hadiah

mengenangkan betapa bertuahnya hidup aku

tenangkan jiwaku

bebaskanlah aku daripada dibelenggu

hukum alam waktu

sana sini wara wiri

masa kini rasa tiri

ku lebih senang sendiri

dalam alam silam cari

selam rendam dalam memori

aku pergi aku mari

lebih manis setiap kali

jadi jangan kau beriku pandangan itu

tempat ni terlalu asing terlalu baru

biarkanku bercandu dengan masa lalu

biarkanlah aku bercandu

Kita tak akan terlepas daripada masa lepas

Aku tersilap

kalaulah aku tak cakap ku tutup mulut sekejap

mungkin aku tak dilokap sesal-sesalan tergelap

tiap malam aku singkap apa yang patut ku ungkap

aku terlalu cemerkap

kenapa jadi begini?

Dulu aku berjanji nak menjaga tak memaki

kini telah aku bukti bila payah ku lisani

kata yang hanya sakiti mereka yang ku sayangi

terus aku sendirian

temanku hanya rintihan

penyesalan 

kebodohan

beriku sebab aturan kejam ini diberikan kepadaku sang cebisan

mungkin aku memang celaka

memang ditakdirkan untuk neraka

dan azabku diawal ke dunia

oleh sebab mulutku yang puaka

aku celaka

Kita tak akan terlepas daripada masa lepas

Sang Adam dan Sang Hawa

buat dosa jatuh dunia

fikirlah. Kamu rasa itu tak disengaja?

Tolonglah. Jangan terlalu naif

setipa perkara berlaku dah tentu ada motif

Lauh Mahfuz dicipta degan komprehensif

Kun Fayakun, ini kalimah tiada kontraseptif

tukar perspektif

Salah tak bermaksud silap

anggap setipa hempap hinggap

demi gilapmu ke tahap

yang lebih dekat ke bahan jadianmu

supaya bau syurga bila kau jadi abu

jatuh kedalam lubang jangan lupa untuk belajar

kau sengaja disungkurkan agar dapat kau sedar

yang engkau cumalah manusia

didalam tanganmu tiada kuasa

sedar luka yang kau terima itu disengaja

tundukkanlah egomu wahai anakanda

Writer Lens

So I’m in a bit of a rut right now, staring at the laptop screen not knowing what to write.

I remember last year, when I was in that “write every damn day” thing, I saw the world a little differently than I do now. I tried to look at everything from an angle of “okay, so how would I write about that?”

It was a weird lens to put have on, and to have on, and even weirder to have them on all the time too. I remember asking myself that question constantly whenever any stimulus came my way, that is to say whenever a fellow teacher told me something, or whenever a student did or said something (sometimes they don’t even do or say anything and I’d still ask the question), or whenever an interesting tweet came up on my timeline. It was always a question of how I would write about that thing.

Like, I remember this one time, when a teacher was telling me something, and midway through her talking to me, I got lost in my own train of thoughts as I was trying to figure out a way to write about something she was telling me, and I had to say “sorry, what was that?” when I finally snapped out of it and figured out that I had no idea what she was telling me. So it’s like that.

Not to say that I ended up writing all that much, anyway. I always found ways to say that a thing wasn’t interesting enough to write about, and when I did find myself saying that a thing was interesting enough, I still procrastinated on typing the stuff out, eventually leading me to either forgetting about it, or eventually having something else to write about instead.

I don’t ask myself that question throughout my day that much anymore. Heck, today I didn’t ask it even once. I struggle to remember how many times I’ve asked myself that question these past few months. I’d be surprised if the total was more than the amount of fingers I have (I have ten, in case you were wondering). 

And as a result, I think I’m less observant a person. I gloss my eyes over a lot of things, not bothering to ask questions about things, not being critical about things a lot of the time, just float on by living my life from day to day. And I don’t know if that’s a good thing or a bad thing.

On the one hand, constantly being in writer-mode allows me to be critical of things more of the time, and makes me craft words in my head regularly while experiencing the world. But on the other hand, it also makes me feel detached to my surroundings. It’s almost as if I’m trying my best to look at things from afar, seeing life as more of a story of which I have very little part to play in. I cannot vouch for how healthy this may be as a member of a community or society. I might come off (to myself as well as other people) slightly less than human.

And about the opposite thing if I have my writing lenses off. I ask less questions about the world, and am less ready to write about things in general. But it can also be construed as allowing the world to rotate while one fades into nothing, so that something special may happen. Although I do like the sentiment of that, it also doesn’t get me to write much of anything. And if I were a super talented person, then I might be able to not write anything for years and years and then with a kaboom write a Nobel prize winning masterpiece in one go, but I do not see myself as that person. 

I see myself as a person who needs a lot of practice, a lot of hard work just to be as good as the next person, and if I want to be better, then it takes even more work. So I find having that writer-lens thingy to be helpful in the regard that it helps me practice and get better. At least, I hope I do.

So after talking to the wife about it a little, she said something that made sense, which was balance. I just have to find a balance between experiencing life and writing about it. Experience life to the fullest while it’s going on, and have the ability to re-experience those things as a writer when I’m in the process of writing things down. I say that as if it were an easy thing to do. It’s not (I chuckle to myself at this point because every time anyone says “it’s not”, my brain reminds me that it sounds a lot like “it’s snot”). But like most good things, it’s worth doing, even if it’s not easy (lol, it’s snot easy).

Building Relationships Or Increasing Test Scores?

So today was the first day of school. 

Not much to say there, except for probably the fact that this year is the first year I’m being put in charge of a class. I am now the class teacher for a standard two class, and I am unfamiliar with all of the students in it (as I am unfamiliar with the other two classes I will be teaching this year), so today was a whole day of trying to remember people’s names. Not the funnest of things to do, but personally, I find that the sooner I remember my students’ names, the easier it will be for me in the future, not only for classroom management (since I can call out individual names from way across the room if and when a situation calls for it), but also for getting closer to my students. I don’t want them to feel like I’m just there to babysit or even work. I want them to feel like I’m there to help them (because I do want to help them), and if I don’t even bother to learn their names, what would convince them that I would be bothered to do anything else, right? I don’t know, that may be a flawed logic, but it’s my flawed logic, so chill it, skillet.

I remember a TED talk video I watched last year (link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SFnMTHhKdkw ) that talked about the importance of building a relationship, or rather, a connection with your students, and there was one quote from her that I liked very much which went something like “kids don’t learn from people they don’t like,” in response to some other teacher saying “I get paid to teach, not to be liked.”

Her saying that made me think back to all the times I liked or disliked a subject, and true enough, the subjects that I liked and excelled in were the ones in which I admired the teacher who was teaching it. I also remember the subjects in which I didn’t like and wasn’t motivated to learn in, and they were taught by teachers that I did not like. When put head to head with each other, I certainly learned more from teachers that I liked instead of the teachers I disliked.

So working towards being liked by your students isn’t something “extra” that you do, or one that comes with your “style of teaching”. I think as professional teachers, we should make a conscious effort towards being liked by our students, because it is an integral part of the teaching and learning process. At least in my view, it is.

And so I joke around with my students. Kacau them to lighten their day. Play with them whenever I can (since these are little kids we’re talking about), as long as by the end of it, no damage is done to the teaching and learning process. Sure, I may get through content a little slower, since I take the trouble to come up with games and see them through to the end instead of force-feed my students worksheets, but I think by the end of it the students benefit from all that. They like me more, and so they learn more from me. 

That is the hope, at least. If it is the case, then it sure has a hard time showing itself in the exam results. And maybe that’s why I’m not a good teacher. Because I seem to focus more on building relationships than increasing test scores. I dunno man. I dunno.