What's Floating NJ's Boat?

Punca-punca keterapungan bot/sampan/perahu Nurjannah:
Masalah subletter? Setel!

Date: Thu, 03 Dec 2009 11:23:14 -0600
From: Rachel Belanger  
Subject: Re: 54th & Cornell, Jan-March 2010, $500
To: NJ

Hey NJ,

Is your room still available to sublet? I've explored a couple other options, and yours is my best one. It would be great to meet your roommate before totally committing, but I'm sure I'd be able to live with her. Let me know what's next...

Thanks!

Rachel

Gadis yang akan mengambil alih bilik saya benar-benar wujud, in the flesh bak kata orang putih; dan saya sudah pun bertemu dengannya dua hari yang lepas. It's a small world after all, kerana kami rupa-rupanya pernah mengambil kursus Environmental Studies bersama-sama.

Kami juga telah mengumpat tentang pensyarah kursus itu yang bosan lagi memualkan, Sir Peter Crane, (ya, he was knighted for his contributions to the Kew Botanical Gardens. Agak cool, tapi faktor ini will be discounted bila anda masuk kelasnya dan lihat kaca mata, pakaian serta intonasi suaranya yang boring).

Beliau adalah epitomi kepada segala stereotype yang wujud dalam kepala otak saya tentang kebosanan orang Inggeris (as opposed to Anglo Americans). Jangan tanya saya kenapa, but I'm averse to a lot of things British. Mintak simpang malaikat 44 jika saya perlu menonton wayang-wayang British. Sangat tak kuasa. Dahla gigi kuning and tak handsome (with the exception of Ed Westwick). And I digress.

Tidak akan menghadapi set masalah ekonomi dan statistik. Selama-lamanya!
Okay, I lied. Bukan selama-lamanya, only in my dreams. Well, sekurang-kurangnya buat 4 bulan yang akan datang. Juga ingin dimaklumkan di sini saya kini tidak sebodoh IT yang disangkakan kerana semalam, saya telah berjaya mengguna R, statistical software yang digunakan untuk kelas Statistik. Pada firasat saya, R adalah sejuta kali lebih user friendly berbanding Matlab. Pencipta R wajar menerima Nobel Prize. Terima kasih kerana membuat orang yang paling bodoh IT rasa pandai sebentar. By the by, kalau awak dah pernah nampak saya kecoh tentang ini, diam-diam sahaja. I've said it once, and I'm going to say it again, Statistics suck balls!

Berjaya mengecek Papanya untuk mendahului tambang perjalanan Cape Town ke Chicago.
Kejayaan ini telah dikecapi beberapa minggu yang lalu, melalui panggilan telefon yang sangat panjang, namun the euphoria baru kick in. Kenapa lampi sangat? Sebab saya baru sahaja short of $4000 setelah membayar yuran program ke Cape Town, dan apa-apa handout yang boleh disumbangkan adalah sangat bermakna kini. Of course, operasi untuk menukar cash advance ini kepada convertible loan/stipend akan dijalankan. Proses mengecek fasa 2 akan dilancarkan, jangan risau.

First fall of snowflakes on my shoulders
Maklumlah, awal-awal musim salju memang sexciting. Tunggulah 3, 4 minggu nanti when the novelty wears off, akan saya complain pasal sejuk nak mampus, inches of snow yang oh-so-annoying.

Now that you are privy to my source of transient happiness, you should know that hell awaits me. Sila wish me good luck dan beri sokongan padu dan jitu kerana saya akan cuba jadi Superwoman untuk buat (dan fail) segala-galanya. Nothing short than suicide, Kamikaze style!

Kadang Kala, Tahi Berlaku

This coming January, I'll be ditching the harsh Midwestern winter for the sun and all its glory in Cape Town, South Africa. Good for me, right? Yeah, awesome possum. But the possum isn't so awesome when what ensues the prospect of participating in study abroad programs is the arduous task of subleasing my apartment.

Mind you, it is not as easy as publishing friendly ads online and slapping eye-catching posters around campus while you goyang-goyang kaki and wait for those e-mails to flood your inbox. Especially not in the aftermath of the credit crisis and a shaky real estate market in Hyde Park, Chicago, coupled with the fact that less students transfer to the UofC during the winter quarter (who in their right minds would trade their comfort zone for deep snow that loses its novelty after a week and the awful wind chills that chap your lips and crack your skin, right?).

And especially not when you are a susceptible victim of deceit of one of those *tooting* Nigerian scams. Especially not that *blood pressure rising, temple throbbing*.

Did I just lose you at "Nigerian scam"? Are you nodding your head now? Never heard of a "Nigerian scam"? Well today is your lucky day, because with the powers personal experience has vested upon me, I will brief you about those *tooting* schemes.

In my college, this Nigerian scam phenomena is so prevalent that you're a social leper if you don't receive their emails. Congratulations to myself, because in a field I would rather not, I am not a loser. I used to receive an average of 3 fraud emails a week. The emails begin and end with extremely polite salutations involving the use of God's name in vain, perhaps to latch you on with their *cough*fake*cough good manners.

The conman then establishes himself/herself as the legal attorney of si polan who has just passed on and would like to honor si polan's wishes by granting you an X sum of money as testified in si polan's will.

It's entertaining and indeed laughable to think I am suddenly related to a good 20 plus people in Africa (presumably Nigeria) or that I can become a millionaire overnight without lifting an eyebrow. (Mungkinlah I have a penchant for sexy African/African American men, but I'm pretty sure the last time I checked I am born and bred a Malaysian Malay (ha ha)). It's even more entertaining to think that these people think people can be had.

Realizing that half the world are chuckling at their petty stratagems, these lowly creatures are now penetrating the online sales market. They scour sites like craigslist, ebay and college marketplaces and pretend to be interesting in buying and selling.

They pretend to be innocent, non-smoking female college students studying in UK who are transferring to The University of Chicago and are looking for a place to sublet. They also pretend to be the naive young girl who needs daddy to write the eager tenant a check and who waits for daddy to present her with ultimate directives.

Oh, don't worry, the only money I've lost over the weekend was to a Juicy Couture purse (handbag for the non-initiated) and 3 pairs of new shoes I don't need (damn those Black Friday sales). Receiving a check for $4500 signed by a different payer (not Laura Baily or Martin Scott) from a bank in California when I asked for $600, while the FedEx was delivered from Maryland when daddy is in Essex just points to something fishy that I can smell 10 000 miles away.

What I've lost was the time and effort spent over a long, week-to-week correspondence with an imaginary Laura Baily and her daddy, Martins Scott. What I've lost, is apparently my common sense; because how on earth did I not realize that daddy should have been a something Baily? What I've lost is my fuse because right now I want to kentut in the faces of the a-holes behind these nasty ruses.

Learn your lesson from my lesson learned: Bad english (beyond the common "that's mean" or "oversea") is a telltale sign of a scam. Especially when the foul language is coming from someone who's presumably "English" and residing in Essex, UK.

 

Date: Wed, 25 Nov 2009 20:07:25 -0600
From: Martin Scott
Subject: RE: Payment received!
To: 

Hello Nurjannah,

    I thank you for your email and am happy that you finally got the payment.The payment was sent to you from my client and he made mistake of forwarding the whole amount($4500) to you. He should have sent to you a month's rent and security deposit and have the remaining sent back to my Travel agent so as to book for laura's flight and some other traveling expenses that will be incurred.
  
      Thanks for the mail and your honest transparency, the funds you got was to secure the unit for my Daughter and i hope you are aware she will be taking unit for a period of 12 months or more ?
 I will need part of the funds to get her flight booked as am on a business trip now to secure my goods in transit and will not be able to make her flight bookings please deduct the first month's rent and the security deposit from the payment you received and send the balance via money gram money transfer to my travel agent so She will be able to get her a flight booked. She manages all our travel and tours through out the states,She needs the money to get Laura's flight booked and pay for other travel expenses that will be incurred.


Pls send money via money gram money transfer  to:

Name: Dorothy Beasley
Address:1260 Spring St NW
City: Atlanta
State: GA
Zipcode: 30309

Note that a transfer fee will be deducted from the funds you are sending

I will appreciate you help her out by putting her through as soon as she arrives in the States so she can get a bank account opened that way i will be able to send the remaining rent fee to her all at once when i get back from my trip ,so she can pay you on the first or each month or all at once pending on how you want the fee.


Please send the funds to the information above and email me the actual amount sent and the REFERENCE number and the actual amount sent.
As soon as i get the details i will forward you her flight itinerary so you can be aware of her arrival date and time .

Thanks a whole lot for your offer of accommodation i really do appreciate.


Martins.

                           A DEPENDABLE NAME IN ELECTRONICS WORLD

Oh, kadang kala, tahi memang berlaku. Well, I have the last word for now: "I'm honest and would not want to cheat you off your money". Ambik kau liar liar pants on fire.

KimbeeTurns 21

Hello, kenalkan kawan saya yang tak handsome ini, namanya Mohammad Shazwan bin Azizan. Please get his name right, it's Shazwan with an (H) aitch and not a (Y); dia tak suka orang salah type/tulis nama dia. Namun begitu, Shazwan lebih famous dengan gelaran Kimbu--an ugly nickname I never quite understood the origins of. Budak boarding school memang nama pelik-pelik, and Kimbu, despite it being derived from Kimi Buto, wasn't the worst in its era.

What you need to understand about Kimbu is that he is one of my two oldest, most ancient friends (the other being Sofia). Bak kata orang, we go back, waaaay back. It's now 11 years and counting for us. But if one wanted to be technical, out of those 11 years, we've only really been friends for 11 minus 2.5 years. 2 years in SKBD when we were never really friends, but mere acquaintance, and another half a year in 2006 when our friendship went on hiatus.

Ya, kami tidak bercakap selama itu dan persahabatan agak terputus begitu sahaja selepas saya meninggalkan our fellow schoolmate for another guy Kimbu deemed poyo. For what it's worth, the poyo guy was kinda poyo, but he was a really nice guy. Anyways, macam mana pun, pusing-pusing jugak, we patched things up dan perkara itu tak pernah kami bincangkan out in the open.

But I've never been more glad that day we became friends again. Kerana, kerana, Kimbu itu duduk 5 minit sahaja from my grandmother's place and we've been threading on the same path for as long as I can remember. From SKBD to KYS, from ADFP to the States, from all that to serving a 12-year bond in Bank Negara, you can say it's going to be awfully difficult for us to avoid each other kalau dah kena pandang muka each other for the rest of our lives, kan?
Jadi, walaupun bukan hari-hari sekarang, pandanglah Kimbu dekat muka saya yang berblackheads dan berspek ni, dan pandanglah saya muka Kimbu yang gelap, berkening tebal dan berhidung tinggi, eh silap, mancung. Dan jika kamu ingin membuat speculation kitorang patut just hook up and kahwin each other, please, please don't. . . don't make us puke.

Kimbu has seen me sleeping with my mouth wide open one too many times, and I've seen his lurah dendam if that matters. Kami mungkin serasi sebagai kawan, dan bapanya mungkin sayang saya (although Nasya mungkin lebih disayangi oleh Uncle Azizan), dan saya mungkin boleh tolerate Kimbu dan OCDnya, dan Kimbu mungkin boleh tolerate kegilaan saya, tapi that's all there is to it: kami akan kawan sampai mati, God willing. Kimbu's take on this is somewhat more practical--"our height difference makes it susah for us to cium". Bagus, at times like this I'm thankful I'm ketot binti spendot.

Now let's move on to the more serious matters, that is, Kimbu's severe OCD. Kimbu is very OCD. Did I mention Kimbu is suffering from a terrible case of OCD? Dia ni jenis yang kalau nampak tali bra orang terpintal-pintal, he'd be itching to straighten it. He is the sort of person who spends long hours Wiki-ing songs and syncing the spelling of his songs on the Ipod so that it matches those of the Wiki entries.

Alas, I find it very contradicting that he is such a cincai boncai person when it comes to cooking. A pinch of this, a spoon of that, throw in this weird ingredient, that ingredient, and voila, you get a taste of Kimbu magnificence. Yes, Kimbu can cook, but weirdly, he cooks like a normal guy, unlike his usual neurotic self in other matters. Tak konsisten sungguh.

Tapi yelah, Kimbu ni pandai memasak. Where I can even destroy something as simple as Maggi Instant Porridge, Kimbu can bake a pumpkin pie to perfection. He, along with Nik Munawwar, gave me a tutorial on egg-cracking, that is, after they laughed their booties off at my inept way of doing so.

Another thing we can all come to appreciate about Kimbu is that he is a wealth of information. For those familiar with How I Met Your Mother, Kimbu can be likened to Ted Moseby. Unlike Moseby whose every line uttered is always teaching someone about something, Kimbu comes annoyingly close. But I've learned aplenty from riding in the car with him, and you might wanna try that if you intend to become smarter. I swear, I'm probably 265-information smarter out of the 265 rides Kimbu has given me, heheh.

Tapi cubalah cari nahas dengan Kimbu pasal spelling, grammar and punctuation and he'll turn into the rightful bitch he can be. Cuba lah berbroken English dengannya, and you'll never hear the end of it. Mungkin dia ungkit balik setelah sebulan, mungkin dia letak status memaki hamun aksi itu di Facebook, mungkin he writes a lenghty post about it at shazwanazizan.blogspot.com. Gedik sungguh mungkin, tapi I agree with his sentiments no less.

Kawan-kawan kami juga pernah berbincang tentang satu lagi keistimewaan cum kecacatan si Kimbu ini, yakni dia ingat segala detail pasal segala detail. Ask him which exact seat he sat in the History Room in Form One, and he can point to it in a jiff. Only he can recall random stuff like the Geography teacher asking a classmate to drum on the table, or what someone said about someone 10 years ago. Dan sebab ini lah maruah saya tercalar, sebab saya tahu dia akan masih ingat lagi warna, bentuk, pattern, brand dan SIZE coli yang saya TERtinggal dalam vannya selepas lawatan kami ke PD tempoh hari. Cis bedebah.

Apa-apa hal pun, saya sebenarnya selalu tak sure birthday dia September 20 atau September 21. Ke September 22? Sebab dulu dia pernah mention lagu M2M yang berbunyi "I remember, date and time, September 22nd, Sunday, 25 after 9, in the doorway, with your caaaase" ada kaitan dengan birthday dia. Jadi saya ambil jalan mudah untuk tulis blog post pasal dia, sebab kalau salah hari pun it's still such an honor and oh-so-sweet, kan?

Kimbu--also known as Sazwan also known as Kimbee, who is the cucu of the renowned Pilus (Pilus was a common name on our tongues back in high school, maklumlah zaman-zaman ejek atuk orang)--will turn 21, tak kiralah September 20, 21 or 22. Dan pokoknya, he deserves to be remembered.

Happy 21st Birthday, Kimbu! You're no longer a juvie, sila buat baik. Seribu maaf dipinta if aku tersalah bahasa, musim-musim Aidilfitri ni we must forgive and forget, weh. Minal Aidil Wal Faizin. I lap you, you lap me (though I am still counting on you to discard that obscene, obscene picture of me on stage as Muna)! Sekian, salam sayang jangan lupa potong rambut every 6 months from me.

Salam Merantau

The roads to Jalan TAR are bottlenecked with cars transporting people young and old, male and female alike, who are there to shop till the cows come home. For the adventure-seeking, hot-blooded individual (like yours truly here), public transportation is the best alternative turned worst nightmare as it takes you traipsing along the trails of sin and spending from Masjid Jamek all the way to what was then called Batu Road.

I took to the wild city of Kuala Lumpur, scorching sun, impending rain and all, with the sole goal of claiming my grandmother's baju kurung from the tailor. The tailor was located rather unstrategically--right smack and center of the Hari Raya bazaar, close to Semua House. Naturally, I came back with no less than four plastic bags and a dwindling supply of the advanced duit raya I received from two aunts.

I emerged triumphant with the cutest slip-on tudung I'll probably only wear once, a striking green and fair imitation of the Rayban shades I cannot quite afford, three boxes of Pop-Pop (bought becaused I pitied the man, what else is new?) and another I<3KL t-shirt as a souvenir for whom?-I-haven't-quite-figured-out-yet.

So yes, I know it is the time of the year again as I bring my petite self across oceans of bodies that displayed a plethora of smells (BO being my least favorite). Raya songs were blaring on loudspeakers in the background while mountains of kuih raya were displayed under stuffy tents.

I wasn't fasting yesterday (for obvious and allowed reasons by virtue of being a female), so the feel of Raya did not really hit me until I was in the safe--not to mention cold--premise of the STAR to Masjid Jamek and PUTRA to Sentral (I took the transfers because 1.it was raining cats and dogs, 2. I was flat broke and couldn't deal backtracking on the bloody path of consumerism).

It is Hari Raya Puasa is Aidilfitri is Eid Fitri of the year 2009! It's also my third Raya as a college student without a Salam Perantauan in tow. This in mind, Salam Merantau is born.

Nurjannah Iman Syaqirene Ahmat mengucapkan Selamat Hari Raya Aidilfitri kepada keluarganya yang akan beraya bersamanya di Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia (wohoo, jealous tak you 'ols?). Seterusnya beliau yang mesra alam dengan panggilan NJ juga menyampaikan ribuan kasih dan sayang Aidilfitri kepada regularsnya yang sering ke hulu dan ke hilir bersama-samanya pada cuti summer kali ini (you know who you are).

Juga kepada sahabat-sahabat handai dan seperjuangannya di Amerika Syarikat, terutamanya di University of Chicago, University of Illinois-Urbana Champaign, Carnegie Melon University, University of Pittsburgh, Rochester Institute of Technology, Pennsylvania State University, University of California-Davis, Purdue University, University of Michigan-Ann Arbor, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Indiana University-Bloomington, Ohio State University serta rakan-rakan yang lebih tua dan sudah berkerjaya seperti kamu di Chicago, dan kamu lagi satu di Milwaukee (you guys know who you are). Salam sayang Hari Raya turut diluahkan kepada family-family yang baik hati terutamanya Kak Nana, Kak Ain, Aunty Jaz, Aunty Lin dan crew MSD Chicago.

Salam Lebaran tidak dilupakan kepada rakan-rakan di Australia dan New Zealand, terutamanya kamu di University of Queensland yang saya sangat rindui, dan rakan-rakan di United Kingdom (KYSERs di sana, teman-teman scholars serta orang random yang telah saya temui melalui dunia siber yang bersekolah di Dur-ham-I-tak- nak-sebut-Dar-rum), rakan-rakan di Russia (okay, seorang teman sahaja) dan Europe (Germany dan bekas-bekas teman sebilik Blok 2/504 Akasia saya di France).

Terima kasih dan seribu maaf dipinta kepada pendidik di SKBD, Sekolah Agama Masjid Saidina Umar Al-Khattab, KYS, ADFP INTEC (terutama guru Kalkulus merangkap Ibu). Saya juga sayang dan ingin mengirim kucupan Aidilfitri kepada 2 kakak angkat/kakak besar dan adik angkat saya yang gelap tapi masih comel serta junior-junior lain yang kian merata-rata juga. Di sini, saya turut menyusun sepuluh jari memohon maaf dan 'menyalam' aidilfitri kepada rakan taulan dan kenalan di UiTM, UIA, UTP, UKM dan USM. Walaupun kita jarang bersua, saya tetap sayangkan anda semua!

Last but not least, Selamat Hari Raya to you readers, random or not, followers or not, friends or not, and thank you. Yet another Ramadan has come and gone, and I pray that you're blessed with hope and happiness, health and faith and all good things that leave you warm and fuzzy.

Selamat!