Little Alicia & Little Alyssa

Little Alicia is running around in the warung, minding her own business. Weaving in and out of the tables and chairs sprawling in the warung, she occassionally runs back to the table where her father, mother and two brothers are sitting quietly, enjoying their dinner.

After taking another morsel of food from her mother’s plate, off Little Alicia goes to explore the warung. For a 2 year-old, the warung seems a fascinating place for Little Alicia to explore. One never knows what one will encounter at the corner of that table or behind that pakcik carrying food and drinks to the other patrons in the warung.

Dress in a navy blue and white frock with pink shoes and dangling earrings, Little Alicia continues to weave her way around the warung and its patrons, occassionally stopping to stare at a cat or a person that catches her attention. One of her brothers will sometimes join her in her explorations.

Little Alicia is running from the cash register of the warung towards the table where her parents and brothers are seated when she sees another girl who has walked into the warung and is standing a few feet away from her. Little Alicia stops and stares at this other little girl with curly hair and pink shirt and wonders where she came from.

She approaches this other little girl cautiously, looking her up and down while trying to decide if she is a threat or a friend. Unsure of the whole situation, Little Alicia starts moving her arms around, which looks pretty threatening. Any normal girly little girl would have run as far as they can from Little Alicia with her arms waving around looking like tentacles but this particular little girl, Little Alyssa her name is, stand her ground and continue looking at Little Alicia with her head cocked to the right.

At the blink of an eye, in the most unexpected moment, Little Alyssa reaches out and pushes Little Alicia for attempting to bully her away from the warung!Little Alicia took a few steps back, shocked at what just happened! The look on Little Alicia’s face is priceless!

“I will not have this!”, Little Alicia thinks in her little mind. “I’m not going to have another girl push me and walk away scot free!”

Little Alicia is plotting to push Little Alyssa, the same way she was pushed seconds earlier. She takes a step forward with her hand gradually reaching out when her brother, who is smitten with Little Alyssa, steps forward and places himself between the two little girls. He spreads out his arms, preventing Little Alicia from moving forward and executing her plan. During this minor commotion, Little Alyssa turns around and nimbly moves away from the siblings.

When both Little Alicia and her brother realise that Little Alyssa is not around anymore, Little Alicia continue on exploring the warung while her brother look around forlornly, since he lost sight of the little girl who stole his heart. Life it seems, is back to normal once more.

The above is just a little story I thought up after witnessing a few toddlers running around the warung and pushing each other around a few weeks back. I am not too sure if the story was what really happened in their cute little heads but the scenario is too cute not to be shared.

Is it me?

I find myself not doing very well in job interviews these days. I wonder if it is my confidence which is at an all time low or the positions that I have applied for? I seemed to have lost the zest for interviews and work.

When faced with an opportunity to take on a big challenge, is it just the inferioty complex in my talking which made me shy away from those opportunities? Or am I just plain lazy? Is my reason, “not having any sort of guidelines”, appropriate for me to turn away?

I’m feeling quite emo at the moment. Where is the ambitious drive that drove me to excelled in the things I did previously? What is happening with me these days?!

Job Interview

I’ve been looking for a new job for quite a while now. The reason behind the job hunt is sort of a long story which I have chosen to skip for the time being. Anyway, long story short, I have put myself into the job market. Again.

To make matters worse, Mum found out about my job situation. Now, I know she meant well when she tries to dish out advises on what to look out for for the next job but boy, do I feel thoroughly annoyed. It’s bad enough that I’m pretty stressed out about trying to secure a good paying job which I don’t mind doing for the next few years, especially in bad times like this, Mum has to add on the pressure with her constant nagging on my inability to strap myself down with a proper job for long. I know it is just Mum being Mum but frankly, her criticism or duty being a mother is gradually eroding my confidence.

Anyway, after job hunting for nearly a month, I finally secured an interview for myself yesterday. I did my best to prepare myself for it by researching on the company and the industry it belongs to. The bad news while doing my research? I cannot find much information about the company itself. Not from its own corporate website, not from any other links. All I knew about the company is its MSC-status and how they pride themselves in being the leaders of marketing research for mobile platform and websites.

Guess what? The answers I found on the company are pretty misleading. Firstly, they are looking for someone with a technical background, namely IT. As an Account Executive, the person they’re looking for should not only know client servicing and relationship management, but also be able to do html and stuff like that. I was told that my only advantage in securing the position was my PR background.

Next, I was asked if I had any questions for them. I did. They explained what their company actually does and almost immediately, I had a bad vibe about the synergy in that company. For one, they do not deal in marketing research, which they actually publicise in their website. Secondly, they pride themselves as the leading e-business solutions provider. Cut the jargon, what they actually do is help design websites for corporate companies from the beginning to the end. Thirdly, as a company whose main income lies mainly, if not solely on creating and maintaining pages and pages of websites for corporates, its own website is a flop.

I told my interviewers that before I came for the interview, I was doing research to help me understand the core business of the company and how I got a better idea after they had explained it to me. One of the interviewers actually laughed sheepishly and said that their company website does not contain a lot of information. The other interviewer quipped up saying that they were trying to assemble a group of people internally to handle their corporate website but all of them were caught up with work and sort of put the tweaking of their own website on hold. I came away feeling unimpressed with it.

Considering the basis of its business, one would have thought that they would have taken much time, energy and resources to ensure that their own website is at its tip top condition. But that is not the case. I came home feeling slightly demotivated about the whole thing.

At first, I thought I was a snob for feeling and thinking the way I did. However, after bringing it up with the bf, I realised that it was ok for me to feel the way I did. The bf even suggested that the company may actually be the main contractor for works like that and all other work i.e. designing team, etc, are actually sub-contracted out to other companies, which explains greatly about their own website. I’m not sure if the bf may be right about this but if, and that is a BIG if, the company decides to offer me the position, I doubt I’ll take on the position. I just do not see myself working there and doing the sort of work required of me for a long period of time.

Talentime by Yasmin Ahmad

Note: This is not a movie review. However, there may be spoilers ahead. Read at your own risk.

The bf and I recently went and watched Talentime, 2-3 days after its released in local cinemas. It was a much deserved break for the bf and a chance for the both of us to spend some quality time together. Also, the both of us are Yasmin Ahmad’s fan and could not resist not going for Talentime.

This is the first time in a really long time since I last catch a movie WITHOUT reading the synopsis first. Also, based on the teasers that I have seen on TV so far, I naively had the impression that Talentime would be light-hearted movie. Boy, was I proven wrong.

Ladies and gentlemen, this IS a Yasmin Ahmad movie. Her movies are always guaranteed to be dramatic and contain heavy social themes that plague multicultural societies like Malaysia, despite the sporadic comedic relief peppered in Talentime. Anyway, my naivety aside, I was thoroughly surprised at the themes that were explored in Talentime. Let’s just say that I left the cinema close to tears at how things turned out for some of the characters in the movie.

True to Yasmin Ahmad’s style, one can always find the theme of  inter-racial relationship explored in her movies, as shown in Talentime. However, the relationship contains a new twist that most major filmmakers will shy away from – the protagonist is deaf AND mute. However, the core theme that was explored this time around was race. The prejudice, the stigmatisation, the clashes, the fights, the deaths in the movie were all based on race issues and some of them were based on true events i.e. the clash and fight between the Indians and Malays which caused the death of Mahesh ’s uncle.

There were also several scenes in the movie that sounded and looked too familiar. In fact, I’m pretty sure that all of us would have experienced such things at least once in our lifetime, if not more. There was one particular scene where the mother of the boy, who came from an Indian family, was ranting about the injustices that Malay folks in general dish out to the people from other races. The rant was a familiar speech that I had seen and heard from friends and families for many years, especially of late.

The one scene that hits a sore spot for me is the prejudice that Datin Kalsom showed towards Aunty Mei Ling. Aunty Mei Ling may be a Chinese but she is a Muslim. Datin Kalsom, without knowing that Aunty Mei Ling is Muslim, made many insensitive remarks to both Aunty Mei Ling and the Harith family, which shown her to be a prejudicial, racist and uneducated person. It was only after Mrs Harith explained Aunty Mei Ling’s background did Datin Kalsom appeared to look embarrassed at her non-factual remarks.

One of the main reasons why this particular scene made me feel as if my stomach has been punched real hard and I’m out of breath was because I will be in Aunty Mei Ling’s position in the near future. If I were to marry the bf, I have no choice but to convert and try to adopt the Islamic lifestyle. Other Malays and Muslims who does not know that I’m Muslim then, may and will probably react the way Datin Kalsom did towards me because in their eyes, I will be 100% Chinese.

That aside, I thought Yasmin Ahmad really bite the bullet and air all racial issues as it is, without trying to make light of these issues that are so real in our world. The bf and I could relate to the movie in so many levels because more than half the issues and themes explored, are actual events that we are facing right now.

Overall, Talentime is definitely food for thought. I still think about the issues that were brought up in it up to this day.