Hi sparkles :) Nice to meet you.
Dila.
Dila.
That's the name that I go by.
Sometimes people also call me boss, sis, min, macik, kakak cantik :P and all sorts of other things.
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I was born in the late '80s, in a year which I won't be disclosing. The need to be anonymous is stupidly high seeing that being mysterious better suited me and my taste for secluded lifestyle.
If I were to take the Myers Briggs personality test, which I did from time to time, all the results did and would have shown of me being an introvert invariably without fail.
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| sounds about right |
I hate to reveal much of my personal info just so that no one can connect me to my real person. Hence with this, you only know my name as dila, and not the real one.
Do I have a siti, or a nor at the beginning.
Do I have a middle name?
Is my real name even consists of 'dila' in it,
or perhaps I have a totally different sounding name altogether?
You will never know.
But If perhaps you do know under some circumstances, don't spread my name around unless you want me to throw coconut at you. Understand?
I am counting on you!
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| my name is somewhere in here |
Also, the chance of me presenting my real portrait here is close to nil. So don't hold your breath for that, which I am sure you wouldn't anyway because why would you for a mere stranger?
Growing up, I always adore the English language. This in turn made me love all my English teachers and classes. I am constantly drawn to English books rather than Malay, American dramas, movies, cartoons and anything that are using English as its way of communication. Becoming fluent like a native has always been a dream of mine.
However, I am no good at it. Being passionate in something does not equate to excelling in something which right now is supposedly true to what I am. I hate to admit that I am still very far from where I yearn to be. I must have made lots of grammar mistake hitherto, since learning another language that is not in one's native tongue with almost no one to practice it with is pretty challenging. Having left the academic sphere no less than a decade ago doesn't help my case either really. What would a housewife like me be practicing English for after all? I seldom need it.
No assignments to make.
No mat salleh guy to flirt with.
But this is fine though.
Now I learned that we all have our own stages in life. As long as I never stop learning, that's good enough for me.
Furthermore, where's the fun in this life if there are no mistakes made right? So, let grammar be damned and just enjoy the journey.
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| this is what mistakes are |
Incidentally, this blog is just the right instrument for my needs and infatuation with this lingo. Assembling and disassembling phrase while being able to explore new synonyms are so gratifying. In hindsight if I knew the delight and charm writing in a blog can offer me, I wish I would have done this sooner. I am so late to the game.
But something has to start somewhere no matter the circumstances right? I am sure my future self would thank me for this later in life.
Heck, the today-me already did to the last-month-me.
Thank you me, I love me so much!
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| some desk setup that I yearn for |
If there is one thing that is more me than loving English that I could tell you, it would be that I am overly skinny. I am skinny personified capital S. Everyone around me keep letting me know of this fact since I heard it like what, only a million times? Even the doctor back in August at Queen asked me, “did you lose your appetite recently or are you usually this skinny?”, since perhaps losing an otherwise normal appetite may be a sign to something serious right?
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| how skinny can I go? |
But I'm perfectly normal the way I am. This is how I have been all my life. The term 'underweight' is my close friend. We go hand in hand always, never without the other. It is as normal as it is funny to me. I would be the one that you see flew with the windy breeze every time I used an umbrella, Mary Poppining my way in a storm. Random people came up to me and were horrified when they see my whole wrist fit loosely inside where they made a hole with their thumb and index finger.
However, with loads of remarks and questions as so, I never mind them. Just like how I never mind being asked about the absence of any children after so many years of marriage which would be another topic to divulge into in case I am keened enough to talk about it later. To me, they are just innocent comments coming from an honest observations towards me. It is the truth, and the truth does not hurt when you gracefully accept it. I am so used to it by now that it is a part of me.
Only that I so wish to receive a penny every time someone tells me I am thin or bony. In that case, my piggy bank would very well be plump and chunky by now. But woefully, it seems that it is as skinny as me in reality.
What a sad coincidence.
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| give me money please |
But one delightful thing about having a body like mine is that I can eat however much I want unapologetically. I am a foodie at heart while my brain is forever brimming with the illusion of attaining the extra fat I can never gain. Food is life to me certainly in literal sense and also figuratively. I daydream about food almost all the time if I am not thinking about money or sleep or cute cats and dogs.
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| seeing this makes me salivating already |
But I wasn't always like this. My older brother and me, we hated food with a passion when we were children. Always competing who would finish the last grain of rice on our plate first just because it was such a huge accomplishment to achieve. I fought with my other brother for all the fried chicken skins because chicken breast is an abominable tasteless crap. Dad had to resort to blackmail every so often. How naïve of us to believe that a guy in the neighborhood was really good at cutting throat to make it bigger so food can come through easily. Mom wouldn't let us get into our school bus if we didn't finish our lunch. All these saga which continued for a good deal of years due to how stubborn of an offspring we were. Imagine the headache our poor parents had to suffer because of us devil incarnate.
Sorry umi and abah, love you both <3.
Thankfully, the thing that I resent the most at that time became my bestie after I got introduced to the wonderful thing that is cheese cake. I don't really fancy cakes, but cheese cake is a whole another level. To me, it is the mother of all cakes side by side with durian. I can go into frenzy. I bought a slice or two every single day during my matriculation year when I was incognizant of the hardship of earning cash at that time. Satisfying the tummy was the main goal. The 'macik canteen' must have labelled me as cheese cake mania during those blissful and ignorant days. A day without cheese cake when the cafeteria runs out was a day without happiness.
Ever since then, I have such a blooming relationship with food. Suddenly all food looks delectable in my eyes. The change from little me to now is impressive. I enjoy eating so much to the point where I had a picture of a very cute tiny egg as my facebook profile back when I was in uni. That was me when I was in the era of discovering the exquisite taste of the mighty egg yolk. The succulent taste one can savor when it is done right. Not too runny, not too well done either, just right. The fresher the egg it made from, the better. Then you will get yourself a nice delectable yummy sauce. Pair it with a dry fried rice. Wow, chef's kiss!
To think about it now, I used to fight constantly with my brother on who would get the fried egg white, we both hated the yolk part. I have no idea why the little me was so dumb, not knowing how awfully delicious egg yolk taste like. I can never be bestfriend with the younger me, how odd is that.
My brother too grew up loving food and able to gobble up unimaginable volume of it in one sitting.
No more racing who would finish their food first.
Now, my niece; his daughter which is only 6, don't really like eating.
I wonder if these all are due to genetic.
Happy tummy happy me!
Alas, he regretfully knows how doom he is gonna be if I am upset while being full.
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| 'egg'-quisite taste |
To be honest, I almost couldn't remember anything that I learned in my university years.
Felt like a mirage when it happened.
Almost like an amnesiac after it passed.
The only thing distorting that alleged hallucination is a piece of paper with a signature of the vice chancellor which I, for the life of me can't remember the face of. A flimsy artefact the size of A4 awarding me with a bachelor's degree in chemical engineering. Hidden away in a clear holder file, now collecting dust on top of the shelf. I look for it from time to time and check to see if it has been eaten by the termites yet; the colony that is taking residents in this house as if they are the ducking VVIP landlord.
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| not mine |
Wasted a decade or more of my life doing basically none of those engineering stuff. Having impostor syndrome, I never thought I was qualified enough to be an engineer where people's life could depend on me. People might explode because I don't know how explodable a particular material is. Knowing myself well, that could be a plethora of unsuspecting ingredients. Chemistry is complicated and delicate and sensitive and mysterious and so on and on and on. It is also the very essence of all things in life, literally. The air that we breathe, the water that we drink, the cute cat that’s stealing your fish, and all the things in this universe, all are a part of chemistry. Anything can happen to the air, to the water, to that literal cat burglar when you don’t know better.
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| do I wanna work here? |
Like how I don't know better.
Pair that up with engineering, another major discipline.
How to make a bridge? that’s engineering.
How to make a factory? that’s engineering.
How to make an oil and gas plant? that's chemical engineering.
The safety of the process falls in the hands of these people, the engineers.
Where am I in all of these?
Stuck in the fear of erupting peoples’ brains off including mine into pieces by doing something totally mundane like daydreaming about food while I am suppose to concentrate on work.
So, do I wanna die?
Of course not.
Therefore, logically for the sake of the perpetuation of human race and their pets, I never applied to be an engineer.
The regret that I have pursuing that degree? -that's a whole another story.
Now, my dream job would be to work in a library somewhere quaint. Pretending to be the main character in an old-fashion fictional world where books are the main source of happiness, not the rectangular-shaped mechanical contrivances we have today. Piano ambience in the background faintly filled the library. Shelves upon shelves surrounding me, stacked with slightly dusty but treasured books.
I would probably argued with the caretaker from time to time about the dust, which is fine. Some romanticized make-believe professions must have come with drawbacks too you know. Rearranging heavy thick hardback alphabetically, I would convince myself to wear fake nerdy reading glasses on my face to make my dark academia aesthetic looks more veritable. Eating a candy or two hidden in my pocket when no one’s watching because again, in this fantasy, I still can’t leave behind my love of food. Waiting for patron to come and maybe give a smile or two to the regular old couple who come every Tuesday evening. What a world to live in.
Nonsense I know.
But this is me.
Sometimes a dreamer, always a food lover. Skinny personified who fell in love with English and is scared to be an engineer despite being a graduate of one.
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| yup, that's me! |
If you found someone exactly like this in real life, please pretend you never knew her since she highly likely would be an introverted person and that small talk would be very much one of her biggest challenges in life :)
This is a little a bit about me. I hope I didn't bore you too much!
Until next time, see you when I see you.
Have a good day sparkles!
Love,
Dila.
(I sounded like a narcissistic after re-reading this in 2024. How cringe)
If you wish, you can comment down below or talk to me here!
Enliven my blog with your comments :)