This blog is coming back to life

It has been a long time since I wrote anything for myself, about myself. Then it came to me that I had this blog. Started this blog way long time ago when I was still in high school. What was it that I wrote down in here back then? I remember I got to a point that I indulged in film photography (using 35mm film rolls rarely anybody uses these days), and this blog became a medium for me to showcase all those shots.

Then, 2012 happened. I got into college here in Purdue University. Shot a lot of photos on my faithful DSLR, as well as got to record and produce videos. This hobby of mine stepped up by a few levels.

Next, 2013 came. Everything was good. Seen a lot of faces and really adding up the memories. By this time I realize I was not posting anything much on here, and it was like I did not care about it anymore, then it just happened. I stopped posting.

And now, here I am writing this post on December 10th. Only few less than a month now till 2017. A lot happened from 2014 to 2015, but lets just save the story for another day. I just want to say that I miss this hobby, and hopefully that starting today I could give this blog a new light again.

Photo shot through the window of my leased house here in West Lafayette. It was the first day of snow here on Dec 5th.
It poured and covered the streets white. However the next day it was gone like the wind. Everything melted away.
Just like some of our emotions don't they?

I couldn't write.

My life is getting messy. It seems I've been getting a lot of stress lately. I wonder what's causing this. I wonder if it is regret. I won't lie, I do have regrets.

Moving.

It has been an exhausting day. I have spent more than 8 hours moving stuffs from my old apartment to the new apartment I just rented. Friends from other houses too are also moving to another house, so we rented one truck from U-Haul for the day for DIY moving. As bad as it seems for me as I had to carry and move my heavy stuffs along with other friends' while I fasting during the day, it got worse later in the night when the truck had to be returned. While returning the truck, I borrowed my friend's phone as my own phone died earlier in the evening to make a call. The thing is, the truck can be returned at anytime 24/7 just by dropping the key at the return place, which was only a small hole bored at the door for you to drop the key. Since we were returning the truck past 12, specifically 2 in the morning, we dropped the key when there was no one attending the area (only CCTV monitoring the place). Right after my friend dropped the key inside, I thought that the key-drop system was cool and wanted to take a photo of it. And yes, as mentioned earlier, my phone was already dead and so I asked the same friend again, Faizey for his phone. Faizey's face immediately froze in shock, and asked me back wasn't his phone with me. Then it occurred to me that I left his phone in the truck.

At that moment, I realized that my friendship with Faizey had deepened to a whole new level as we patted on each others back, laughing our souls out in frustration of the incident.

Anyway, we already planned on going back to the place early in the morning tomorrow to get back his phone.
____________________________

As of now, I am currently in my new apartment, which is a lot smaller than the previous one I rented.
Here is how my room looks like:

 It is pretty tight place for my stuffs as I am also sharing the room the same roommate, Pidot (Firdaus).

Believe it or not, this one box is how I organize my stuffs for moving. It basically contains all the stuffs I ever care about. What's in is important, what's out is less important. It is of course not the best way, but it works for me.

After some time rummaging, moving and arranging stuffs in this tight space of my room, I finally got my workspace back up.

I still can't be satisfied with how it looks though, cause there are still a lot more cleaning to be done in the other part of the house. So I guess this is it for now, I'm off to continue unpacking my stuffs.

BBQ at Prophetstown, Indiana.

These photos were taken last May 12, on Sunday. There's nothing much I can say about it, and I guess photos says it all. We had barbecue, there were a number of friends helping one another with the barbecue. Me? Well I just step back and grabbed my camera taking photos of them. There were already more than 10 people there at the time, so there was no need for me to add to the crowd of cooks. "Too many cooks ruins the food", my roommate once said to me which explains why we took turns cooking in our apartment.

Anyway, the barbecue was awesome, but nature surrounding the place was better. That place happened to have a river nearby, and it was green was all over the place.

 Me, with Crocs on top of a river rock.

I was stepping on the rocks to make my way across the river, and I can say that Crocs really had a strong grip on those slippery rocks. But even though it had a nice grip, I found it requires more effort that I soon had my feet in the river, which was easier.

That's Aiman Ramlee in yellow. Said the river was cold yet still crossed it not wanting to miss what Pidot was enjoying on the other side. None of these two thought about what was hiding under the rocks Pidot was sitting on,
until Muja found that there were crayfishes.

The funny thing was that my Crocs were used to capture these.

Apart from having barbecue and capturing crayfishes, I had plenty of good time taking photos in the river. 

The legendary Mujahid.

Awal Fikry watching from afar.

Finally, one of the best part of all, someone took a photo of me in the river.

Credits to Fairuz Hanipah (Apet) for this awesome photo.
I definitely had a lot of fun. 

Back from hiatus again.

I was testing the camera to shoot for something else actually, but then I ended up taking a photo of myself. Think of it as doing myself a favor (I rarely had photos of myself taken).

This was what I have been doing last two weeks. Edited a lot of photos. It should have been an enjoyable thing to do, but last two weeks, I have been saying a lot of yes to people, that I ended up helping the Malaysian student's association here at my university by being their photographer for the Graduation Night. That was okay, but the fact that Ialso had to produce them a video for that event, and also actually perform on stage with the band on that same event, really tested me. Anyway, I got out alive. All is well.

What now? Time to get things back together.

The little things I appreciate during hard times.

 A reliable keyboard for typing all those damned codes.

 A reliable mouse for scrolling and finding all those damned problematic codes.

It is now near the end of spring semester. Basically all I am saying is that throughout this semester, I sacrificed a major part of my life sitting in front of the computer. Am I losing a great deal of quality time? Maybe. Maybe not. Just maybe, maybe not.

Confused.

Heard the news that a friend who was majoring in the same field as I am just changed his major yesterday. I asked him about what brought him to that decision. He said that after much thought, his new major is all he needed for what he wanted to do in the future.

Tonight, I felt as though something struck me in the heart my while I was playing the guitar, which then I stopped playing. I can't recall what I was staring at that moment, but I do know that whatever my eyes were looking at that time wasn't on my mind as my thought went astray inside the collection of memories inside my head. I started to think back about all the things that I have been doing all my life, all the things I have done, what I used to like and who I used to love, before my thoughts and my consciousness were reeled back into reality when my friend who saw me motionless during that time called me and asked, "Kau fikir ape tu Naim?".

There was a pause,
and then,

"Apa aku nak eh? Kau pulak apa kau nak?", I questioned him back as a reply which implied what I was thinking.

I have come a long way following my dream, yet I am feeling that something is still amiss.
I wonder what pushed me to go this far.
This is saddening.
Sigh. I don't think I would want to remember.

Maybe, a good night sleep is all I need