Saving Up

So I had a little conversation with a film producer the other day. I told him of my intention of being an actor one day and he said that's cool, but he advised me to be prepared financially before I take the plunge. He found it helpful himself, because before he was a film producer, he was an engineer. He was on his way to the HR office to hand in his resignation letter when he thought to himself, "Eh, lepas ni aku nak survive macam mana?" so he put the letter back in his pocket and gave himself two years to get financially ready for resigning. Two years later, with enough money stored in the bank to sustain his life for a whole year without making any extra income, he did just that. And today he's doing okay for himself. He's not rich by any stretch of the imagination, but he has enough, and enough is good enough for him, especially when his day to day consists of focussing on doing things he loves doing.

I am doing that right now. I want to be financially ready for myself and for my family, so that I won't have to stress about how to pay rent for a whole year, because I have already thought ahead of time that transitioning between jobs will not be the easiest thing in the world. I'm glad that circumstances has allowed me to be frugal in spending and my upbringing has equipped me with the foresight to be prepared for the worst while still hoping for the best. Because honestly, leaving a steady job with a consistent paycheque is scary. To not be certain of where next month's money for rent is going to come from is super stressful, and is way out there in terms of me being in my comfort zone.

But I feel like it's something I have to do. I don't actually have to, but then of course I don't actually have to continue working for a monthly salary, either. I only actually have to survive, and take care of those who depend on me to survive, I think. And to that end, I have put in a lot of work already, and will continue to put in the work necessary to make ends meet at the end of the day. I guess it just comes down to me being a dreamer. A person who feels like a life not spent doing what one loves doing is a life less lived.

Or maybe it's just curiosity. I want to know what would happen if I were to pursue acting full-time. I want to know if I have what it takes to do it, and keep doing it. I would like to find out for certain, instead of just wondering about it in my car for five minutes after I've parked it before clocking into school. And whether I succeed or fail, it doesn't matter. What would matter is that I found out what the answer was. I already know what the answer to me being a teacher is. I don't like the answer, but that answer remains unchanged. I just want to know the answer to the other "what if?" in my life that I haven't been able to shake off for years now.

Here's to dreams. Or curiosity. Either one, doesn't matter.

Of The AMUK Preview and Revolution Stage

So this past week has been an interesting one. For starters, the AMUK play team finally staged a preview for the Damansara Performing Arts Centre (DPAC). Our director told us that our performance was "in no way bad," so that's okay. All four of us stumbled with our lines at some point, but we got through it and delivered the story that we needed to tell. It was a bit of a relief that we got through it, but now we wait to hear back from DPAC to see whether or not we get to stage our play there for the public to watch and scrutinise.

It was the first time I staged a play in eight years, so of course I wanted to do a good job at it, but at the same time I also think that in reality, I delivered a really rusty performance (at best). This might be because of the sheer amount of time I have spent away from stage acting. Not to say that I was any good at all eight years ago, but I felt more comfortable on stage back then than I did the other day. This could probably be attributed to the difference in the amount of time we spent to prepare for the respective plays. In Lela Mayang, we practiced for around five months, contrasting with the less-than-one-month of practice we spent on AMUK. So comparatively speaking, it makes sense that I was more comfortable staging Lela Mayang as Andak than doing AMUK as Michael, as I spent more time as the the former than the latter.

But even knowing this, I still feel like I should re-train myself as an actor. The last acting class I took was eight years ago, so it makes sense if I have lost touch with some of the basics. In an effort to re-learn those basics, I shall be attending an acting workshop that shall be conducted by Fauziah Nawi tomorrow. I am feeling nervous for it, both because it'll be my first time in an acting workshop in a long time, and also because it's Fauziah fudging Nawi, man.

After registering, they gave me a script and said that seven pages had to be memorised for the purposes of the acting workshop. I've always thought of workshops as people going to without having anything with them, and the teachers/facilitators will provide the knowledge one needs on the day itself. This is the first time I've ever experienced a workshop that asks their participants to memorise something before getting there. And I'm not the best memoriser (said the person who wants to be an actor), so it's been a struggle for me so far, and I haven't even gone to the workshop yet. Having said that, it's a challenge I welcome. If I can get through this and put the work in to be okay at this, then I might convince myself that I'm not making a huge mistake here, that me pursuing acting is something substantial.

Also, I've have attended career talks by Sharifah Amani, Sharifah Alesya and Bront Palarae. All established actors within their own right, and in Amani and Bront, people I have been looking up to for years now. A performance space called Revolution Stage organised these talks where these people who have been in the world of acting for a while come and share their stories as well as what they know about how things work in the scene. I was fortunate enough to be able to attend these talks and listen to what they had to say in person. Overall, it seems that it isn't easy being an actor that wants to do Good Work in Malaysia, because great scripts don't come by very often, and when they do, they might not be the actors that the directors have in mind for the roles, so it's tough.

In the Bront Palarae session, he was surprised to learn that I was interested in becoming an actor. Somehow, he knew that I wrote things here and there, so he recommended that I became a writer instead. He said something to the effect of "Malaysia needs more writers, not actors". And after listening to what he and Sharifah Amani had to say about the "industry" (as they put it), I can't help but agree. Looking at the kinds of stories that are on the big screen as well as on TV, one can't help but wonder if quality writings for the screen only come by once every five years in Malaysia. I'd love to write for the screen, but I don't really have a story to tell quite yet. Plus, if I'm being honest, and this might just be my vanity talking, the desire to be in front of the camera is currently stronger than the urge to be behind it.

I'm glad that I found the Revolution Stage. I now know of a space in which I could try out stuff for the stage. Maybe I could start writing things for the stage and perform it to a small audience there. The people behind Revolution Stage have invited me to do so, if ever I write anything I want to stage. Maybe I can try churning out a monologue and see where that takes me. It would mean I would have to change up my writing style a little bit for the stage, but it's an intriguing idea. Maybe I will. I most probably won't, due to my track record of procrastinating everything to the end of time. But maybe I will.

I recommend you guys try and check out Revolution Stage to see what's going on over there, if you have an interest in these sorts of things, of course. They're @RevolutionStage on twitter and facebook, so give them a search if you want.

Here's to taking steps in a new direction.

Sunshine Blogger Award Tag 2k17

So I was tagged by a certain Nurul Afifah to do a Sunshine Blogger Award tag thing. I thank Nurul Afifah for tagging me, and I shall answer the questions that you have provided. I am reminded of how fun it was to do these things. However, I don't think I'm going to abide by all the rules in this post, mainly because I am a super lazy human being. I apologise for that. I will, however, list down some questions that you may want to take back with you (person who is reading) and maybe write your own answers to. Tiada paksaan, of course.

Here are the questions from Nurul Afifah and my answers to them:

1. Introduce yourself in five words.
Person who doesn't know anything.

2. If you never have to work and never have to worry about money anymore, what will you do?
If I don't have to worry about money anymore, I would still work, I think. Just a very different job, though. I would want to act in as many Netflix Original series' as I could. And during intervals when I don't want to do that, I would write and perform my own rap songs. And during intervals when I don't want to do those two things, I would write short stories and novels. And during other intervals, I would take up improv comedy classes at UCB Los Angeles and teach what I have learned to Malaysians.

3. What is the craziest thing you have ever done?
I don't know how to quantify crazy, so I can't really be sure what of my answer here. And I don't know what qualifies as crazy, either. A lot of the things I do make sense to me. I reason things out with myself before taking decisions. Some might turn out to be bad decisions, but that's because I was, at the time, misinformed or under-informed about certain aspects of a thing. Also, because I allowed biases that I have to take over the decision-making process. I really want to answer your question though. So, what would I consider crazy? I think it was pretty crazy of me to rap on stage. Like, kurang siuman jugaklah for me to think my songs mattered enough to have other people listen to them live. So yeah.

4. Favourite movie of all time, and why so?
I keep going to Toy Story 3, because I can both cry and laugh within the same amount of time. I also love I Am Sam for the same reasons, but a lot more crying too.

5. Share with me your quirkiest nickname and how you got it.
I don't have any nicknames other than Abang, really. A fellow teacher once kept calling me Ibrahim, because of Anwar Ibrahim, but that's about it.

6. What is your greatest weakness?
My self. But oh what a boring answer that is. What about my self is the weakness? I don't know. I feel like I have bad thoughts from time to time, and those thoughts make me weak-willed. Super-low self-esteem stops me from doing things that matter to me. Ego makes me not show love and affection to my loved ones when they need it the most. My bad bad memory makes me forget important things. My desire for certain things stops me from living a fulfilling, guilt-free, meaningful life.

If the question was fruit-specific, the answer would probably be buah mata kucing.

7. What is your greatest strength?
My desire and ability to sleep lots and lots.

8. What is your best childhood memory?
One of the best that I can remember at the moment was a time when I was seven, we were in Dunedin, New Zealand at the time. I don't know how exactly, but my brother and I got our hands on one of those toy soldiers that had a plastic parachute tied to it on some string. I remember us going a few floors up of a nearby building and releasing it to the ground. I remember having a lot of fun. Our fun was cut short, however, when the wind blew the toy paratrooper into a nearby tree. We never reclaimed it from the tree, unfortunately.

9. If you can only keep five possessions, what would they be?
My phone, my laptop, both their chargers, and my wedding ring.

10. What is the biggest character turn-off for you?
The inability to admit when they are wrong, or even entertain the possibility that they might be.

11. If you could have any superpower (must be a skill, not something like time-travel or immortality), what power would it be and why? 
I think it would be the ability to read a whole book just by touching it for one second. I think that would be pretty cool.

***

So those were the questions from Nurul Afifah. Thank you again for the questions. Here are some from me:

1. If you had a time-machine, and that time machine could travel both backwards and forwards in time, when would you travel to and why? What would you do there?

2. What's one thing you've spent too much money on but don't regret?

3. What's one thing you own that you should probably throw away but never will?

4. What's something you thought was true for a long time until you found out that you were wrong?

5. What is the best possible future discovery or invention?

6. What is the worst piece of advice you have ever received?

7. Do you think you are "weird"? Why or why not?

8. What was the last question you answered "I don't know" to? Did you ever try to find out the answer?

9. If you were forced to work a job that you're not passionate about for 20 years, but you get to choose what that job is, what would it be?

10. What has art (paintings, literature, movies, songs, etc.) taught you that nothing else has ever been able to?

11. Nak makan kat mana?

Young And Malay [Book Review Script]

Young And Malay book review

Assalamualaikum wbt and hello there

in this video i’ll be reviewing this book right here

[what is the book about]

Young and Malay: Growing Up In Multicultural Malaysia is an essay compilation book that was edited by Ooi Kee Beng and Wan Hamidi Hamid, published by Gerakbudaya Enterprise.

Inside are nine essays from various writers who are young-ish and identify as Malays.

In the introduction, one of the editors of the book tells us what the book sets out to do, 

and what I understand from it is that they wanted to collect some essays about these writers’ experiences of growing up in Malaysia.

From reading the book, it became obvious to me that they weren’t given any strict guidelines or rules to follow,

So we get everything from one writer’s experience as a Malay boy in a Chinese school to another person’s critique on Dr Mahathir Mohamad’s 1970 book, The Malay Dilemma.

[what i liked about the book]

With an essay compilation like this, one cannot expect for all of the pieces to be amazing, but I did appreciate a few more than some others.

I like that this book tries to get the malay people of Malaysia to tell their own stories of their upbringing and their roots. 

Reading about these writers’ experiences growing up in different parts of the country, and even growing up outside of the country was great.

It allowed me to gain a better insight into what other people’s lives were like and the kinds of thoughts they had as young Malay people, and I appreciate this book for that.

I also liked that a lot of these writers picked apart the mainstream narrative and were critical of what they were told as young people. 

They go in depth into what formed their views of what Malayness has become and analyse why it has turned into what it is today.

As I said earlier, one writer even put aside sharing stories about their upbringing altogether and instead criticised The Malay Dilemma for the length of the essay.

In and of itself, it’s a worthwhile read, especially if you’ve never found any reason to doubt The Malay Dilemma.

But I have to admit that I don’t see it being a great fit for this particular collection. Nevertheless, I still enjoyed the essay.

[what I didn’t like about the book]

One particular essay, however, I did not enjoy very much. 

It didn’t fit into what the book said it wanted to do, nor was it all that interesting to me.

The second essay in the book started off with a review of a punk rock show they attended once.

Then continued to list down all their favourite punk rock bands of the past.

Then started recommending the reader some other books to read.

It was as filler as it could get, and people could skip that essay without having missed all that much.

Another thing I found lacking about the book was that all the contributors of this book were very much opposed to the way the country was run.

Not that I’m disagreeing with their views in any way, but I do feel like it made the book lean heavily one way politically, without having any voice to balance it out.

I would have appreciated the book even more if the contributors were from a wider array of political views.

That way, a clearer picture of Young and Malay people could have been portrayed.

[nak rekemen buku ni kat sapa]

I would recommend this book to people who are interested in alternative narratives. If you don’t understand why anybody would dislike Dr Mahathir Muhammad, then this book is a great starting point.

Overall, I like the book and I find it interesting 

I hope a newer volume will come out some time in the near future because I want to read about more Malaysians talking about being Malays.

The book we’ll be discussing next week is Gantung by Nadia Khan.

If you have any questions, you can send them to my email iniuntukakusahaja@gmail.com or tweet me @inianwarhadi

And that’s it for this video, may peace be upon you!

My (Limited) Experiences With Theatre So Far

So through participating in this play that I’m in the middle of getting ready for, I’ve been able to meet actors that have been in theatre for a lot longer than I have. One has four years of experience, with more than twenty plays under her belt. Another has been involved in theatre for six years. How I got to find out these things is by asking them. I have found that I have been curious about other peoples’ experience in acting. And through asking them about their experiences, they have asked me about mine, because they’re good at having conversations. And so I’ve had to answer that question more than a couple of times now, and I still struggle with my own story. In this post, I shall write my own story with theatre and the stage, so that my own version of my own story is clearer to me.

I don’t remember exactly how, but when I was in Form Five I found myself involved with some older people who had experience in Kelab Kebudayaan. They were Form Sixers who were from a different school. I think they were the ones who got an acting coach to come to our school and conduct acting classes. This was my starting point. I struggle to remember what my thoughts were at the time, but I do remember being enthusiastic about it. I also remember there being very few people who shared my enthusiasm. If I remember correctly, the training sessions were held weekly, and we started with nine people, and as the weeks went by, nine turned to seven. Seven turned to six. Six turned to four. I guess people didn’t see the point of it all. After about a month or two, the coach stopped coming, and understandably so because there were just too few people who were interested.

I was partly to blame for that as well. I remember training sessions were from 4pm to 6pm, but I would bail halfway because rugby training started at 5pm. At the time, rugby was definitely more of a priority for me. I had people who depended on me, and as a senior who was also the coach’s son who was also the team captain, I held a lot of responsibility in that team, so I gladly went. But of course that meant that the few became fewer. And I could only imagine how not-fun it was for only two or three people to be around for theatre training. I wouldn’t blame any outside coach seeing it as a lost-cause to drive all the way to a school that apparently doesn’t care.

I continued about my life after that without thinking about theatre or acting all that much at all. Until a couple of years later, when I was in teacher training. A lecturer of mine wanted to stage a play and asked for people who were interested to audition. I knew that I liked being on stage from all the English Club and literature activities that we consistently had during our foundations, so I was excited to have a go at it. I was pleased to find out a couple of weeks later that I got cast as one of the male roles in the play. I played the older brother of the lead character, and I loved it.

Through getting ready for that production, we were exposed to acting training and workshops to help us put on the play successfully. By the end of the experience, I had fallen in love with theatre. My lecturer was very supportive and coached us all very well. She made us believe that we could do it, and defended us against some criticism thrown our way. I’m very thankful to her for presenting me with the opportunity to explore that realm. 

That was my first experience staging a play. I wanted to immediately start working on another play after that. I had one more year before heading off to Macquarie University. There were whispers of there being a musical theatre in the works. I even went for an audition for it. But it wasn’t meant to be. The play fell through, everyone got busy with other things and I didn’t pursue it outside of campus either. I started having thoughts of participating in Macquarie’s theatre club when I got there.

But when I got there, I got scared. I passed by the theatre everyday to and from class. But I never went in. I never inquired. I never put in a serious effort to try out for anything. I didn’t even go to any staging of anything. I got scared, and I stayed in my comfort zone. I hung around people who didn’t want to do theatre. I didn’t seek out any opportunities to allow me to find out more things about theatre. I just stayed away, because I was scared of being the only Malaysian there. Of being around strangers, first language users, people who were probably already friends with one another. I didn’t want to put myself through to awkwardness of being the “new guy” who was also a foreigner. For two years, I was scared.

I came back to Malaysia and spent my final year of teacher training being busy with what final year students are busy with, and by this time, I had been out of theatre for so long that I didn’t spend any time thinking about it at all. I still found myself going to the Penang Performing Arts Centre a couple of times to watch some shows, but overall I didn’t make the time to be a performer at all.

My next opportunity came at the end of my second year as a full-time teacher. A whatsapp group that I was a part of posted a call to audition, and I jumped at it. I went for the audition and got the role. Rehearsals were weekly for three months, and we were getting paid for it as well, so that was good. However, by April I had to end my involvement with the production without ever staging the play because I needed my weekends back, as well as I didn’t feel comfortable with the script. Not because it was against my morals or anything like that, but more like I felt like I didn’t fit in the role at all and it wasn’t a story that I felt very passionate about telling.

After that, I remained out of theatre until this AMUK play came about. I found out about it through an call for actors to audition on twitter, I went to audition and am now part of the cast. If this play gets staged, it will be my first time acting on stage since the first time I did  it in 2009. Eight years separate the two experiences. That’s a lot. Too much. I hope the next experiences will come at a much higher frequency. And I’ll work towards making that a reality.

Here’s to theatre and experience.

When I Do My Thinking

So this week has been a real busy one, and I’m not begrudging it. The main reason for this busy-ness is the theatre rehearsals that I have been attending every night of the week. I enjoy rehearsing, but it takes up the whole of my night. I end up arriving home late and tired, so I’d just end up going to bed without having done any writing. I wake up in the morning both wanting so much to fall back asleep while also having to prepare for school in the afternoon. This is me giving excuses as to why I haven’t been writing on the blog as of late. Bad Anwar, bad.

Yesterday, during rehearsals, a producer asked me what I look like when I think. The only answer I could give at the time was “I do most of my thinking in the shower”. And this morning, while I was in the shower, I thought about that answer. I asked myself whether that answer was actually true. And to a certain extent, I think it is. But the kinds of thoughts I have in the shower tend to stay there. I am aware that I am thinking, but I am unaware of what I have been thinking about by the time I get out of the shower. I never really figure stuff out. I just sit there and marinate with random thoughts for as long as droplets of water are hitting my body.

The producer also asked me what I looked like if I were thinking on the sofa (because in the play, I play a character who is siting on a sofa, and he’s supposed to be thinking). So I answered truthfully (?) that I don’t think on the sofa. I watch Netflix on the sofa. And so he asked me to act that out. And it was a fun rehearsal session where we got to explore some things. But then I still wanted to know when I did my thinking, if it wasn’t in the shower. And I wanted to know when I figured stuff out, because it’s rarely done in the shower.

The answer that I arrive at is when I’m writing. Before and while I write, I think. I try to form a cohesive thought, and convey that cohesion (or lack thereof) in the writing. I ask myself, “okay so what am I thinking? What happened that made me think about that? What does this and that mean? Why do I think that? Am I wrong in thinking this? What makes me think that I’m right? Is this or that a problem? If it is, how do I solve it?” and so on and so forth, until I think I have nothing to write anymore about that thought, or at least until I’m too tired to continue typing anything else.

Besides that, I also form thoughts and opinions while having conversations. I find that when I’m trying to hold a healthy back and forth with another person, I tend to examine what I say. I form my sentences in my head and do what I can to make sure they make sense before vocalising them. I self-correct and self-doubt almost everything that comes out of my mouth, so that means thinking is happening. I also like it when people ask me questions. In forming my answers, I think about stuff and get stuff figured out before or while throwing my thoughts out there. Another thing I like about conversations is that I can hear a different (and probably better-informed) perspective to my thoughts so that I can build a more informed understanding of myself and the world around me.

I notice that I like it when I have to materialise my thoughts. That way, I can look at them, listen to them, stare at them, examine them outside of myself and be in a better position to be critical of them. That’s why I make an effort to write my thoughts. That’s why I like it when in-depth, thoughtful conversations happen to me. Because then I get to learn about myself, examine myself and possibly, ideally bring myself to a better perspective of myself and the thoughts I hold.

Here’s to writing and conversations.

Jemputan Membaca Buku 2017 Video Script

Assalamualaikum wbt dan salam sejahtera.

Tahun lepas saya start buat review buku. Lebih kurang sebulan sekali saya akan post satu video dimana saya bincang sebuah buku. Saya cakap tentang apa yang saya suka dan kurang suka tentang buku tersebut serta saya rekemen kat siapa buku tu.

Tahun ni saya akan sambung buat, pasai saja syok-syok nak buat. Dan jugak pasai saya masih lagi rasa macam kita tak cukup sembang tentang buku-buku yang ditulis oleh penulis Malaysia. Saya nak lagi ramai orang bincang pasai pendapat depa tentang buku yang ditulis oleh penulis Malaysia, dan ini adalah salah satu usaha saya kearah mencapai matlamat tersebut. Plus, saya memang jenih buat palataw.

Format review saya most probably akan sama ja dengan yang sebelum-sebelum ni, pasai saya tak terpikiaq lagi macam mana nak buat cara lain yang senang bagi saya.

Saya akan habaq awai-awai buku apa yang akan saya review pada bulan-bulan yang akan datang, supaya hampa boleh baca sekali, kalau hampa nak. Review akan di-upload pada akhir bulan  yang disebut.

Untuk bulan Februari kita akan review Young and Malay, edited by Ooi Kee Beng and Wan Hamidi Hamid.

Untuk Mac, kita akan bincang Gantung, ditulis oleh Nadia Khan.

Untuk April, kita sembang pasai buku Peninsula: A Story Of Malaysia by Rehman Rashid.

Mei, kita akan tengok buku Brave New World, by Azmi Sharom.

Untuk bulan Jun, kita akan try buku Assalamualaikum: Ulasan Tentang Islamisasi Di Malaysia yang ditulis oleh Zaid Ibrahim.

Julai, kita akan baca dan bincang buku Sekolah Bernama Kehidupan, ditulis oleh Asmar Shah.

Untuk bulan Ogos, kita akan try baca buku Alif Lam Lam Ha ditulis oleh Kru Universiti Terbuka Anak Muda.

Dan pada bulan September, kita akan bincangkan buku Anarkis, ditulis oleh Khairul Nizam Khairani.

Kalau saya rajin, saya akan tambah lagi buku selepas tu, tapi setakat ni, buku-buku tu yang saya nak bincangkan untuk tahun 2017, inshaAllah.

Kalau ada cadangan penambahbaikan cara saya buat video atau cara saya bincangkan buku-buku ni, bolehlah tinggalkan komen di ruang yang telah disediakan dibawah.

Kalau ada soalan lain, boleh emel atau tweet saya di iniuntukakusahaja@gmail.com dan @inianwarhadi respectively.

Dan kalau hampa suka dengaq podcast, saya ada podcast dengan isteri saya dimana kami sembang tentang perkara-perkara berbangkit. Boleh jumpa di soundcloud atau itunes, namanya BuahMulut. Kalau hampa suka dengaq dua orang sembang-sembang kosong saja-saja untuk mengisi masa lapang, boleh la try dengaq.

Sekian saja kot untuk video kali ni.

May peace be upon you.