What is Your Favourite Pastime?

These days I realized that between balancing a career and a family
( and  a pay TV , named ASTRO), 
I have lost the time to do one of my favourite pastime : reading books.  
After what felt like ages, I managed to visit a book store yesterday. 

Living in this part of the world really made it hard for me to continue my hobby. Why, you may ask? Well, it is simply because the nearest bookstores ( which sell the kind of  books that I want to read ) are not very near. 
The bookstore that I visited yesterday was in Kuantan. Some 200km away from home.

Well,of course there are bookshops here in the area that I currently reside , but they mostly sell either school textbooks, references or those mushy malay novels. It's not that I hate novels, but sometimes I think my time is too precious to be spent on reading novels, especially mushy love stories. But I did finish all the Harry Potter series though. Fantasy and Magic,
they come under a different chapter.

Upon entering the store, I felt a tingling sensation,  a feeling which was very difficult to be transfered into words. Excitement was in the air. Non book lovers will never understand this, I guess.  Books, books, books.. they were everywhere. They had everything in store. From text books to references, from novels to biography, from politics to religion, from language to cooking, everything.

all I had to do was , choose the ones that I like. 

Now that was the problem.  
At first, I heard myself complaining that it was hard to get a decent book to read. 
And when I finally get to 'the' place, I still had a problem. What to buy???

I have a dream of setting up my own library at home .  At this age,
I still don't own a house simply because we don't know where to settle down , yet.  
So, Most of the books I have , I keep them at my parents'place . 

I learned a lot from reading books.  
My parents  did not have enough time and knowledge to teach me on most of things. I am not accusing my parents of 
neglecting their responsibilities. NO. 
But they only finished darjah 5  ( standard 5 of the primary school ). 
I never expected them to teach me on things they didn't know. 
I realized a long time ago that my parents were just 
human beings who worked hard and did their best  for their children so that we could have a better life than theirs.  
They have taught me a lot. More than any teacher could ever do.
They taught me to continously seek knowledge . 
They taught me that knowledge could change life.

Well, back to the bookstore,
I remembered reading on suhaimisulaiman's blog about him reading a few books. 
I tried to remember the titles but to no avail. 
So I just browsed through the shelves,
from bestsellers to the latest to the forgotten corners.
And after series of debates with my own self, I decided to buy these 3 books
( the thin blue book was taken from the state director's office waiting space,
It was very interesting to read, I decided to take its picture too.)



I will elaborate on each one of them when I'm finished .


I also had a tough time choosing which CD to buy yesterday.
I wanted to buy both but my allowance ,  ironically did not allow me to do so.
I had to set a limit to myself when it comes to buying cd or else
I will end up buying the entire store.
Music, apart from books is also one of my favourites.

Blogs really do have good advertising effects . 
One of my regular read is  k.Ruby 's blog, and she mentioned more than once
about Sean Ghazi. 
Initially, when I entered the CD shop I wanted to buy Sean's CD, Semalam. 
But when I set my eyes on the regional artiste section, 
I noticed one of my favourite singer was there. 

I think I stood there holding both 
her CD and Sean's for more than ten minutes, 
not knowing which to choose. 
After considering the odd of finding her CD at other shops,
I had to say goodbye to Sean and promised
to buy 'him' on my next visit to a CD shop.

This was the CD that I bought.



Ultra Blue - by Utada Hikaru.
I like most of her songs. I think she is a very bright young lady.
Some info on Utada.

She sings.
She writes her own songs and lyrics.
She's bilingual.
She's a billionnaire ( if not  a millionnaire) because she earned it
and not because her parents are oil tycoons nor 'towkeh balak'

Well, I have to stop writing and get back to being a mum.
I will listen to utada on my way to my daughter's babysitter's place.
And tonight, after she goes to bed, I will try to ignore my pals
on ASTRO ( namely, HBO, STAR Movies, Cinemax, AXN etc)
for a piece and quiet time of The Five People You meet In Heaven by Mitch Albon.