You Are My Sunshine

What’s reflecting my life, my affection, passion and freedom?


“Love is by near, love is by far, You loved me, and you complete me”

Yes, life is an illusion. We foresee people to appreciate you, to give you full attention and what you want. Question, ladies and gentlemen, what is that you want in your life to be happy? I asked a few of my friends, most of them refer ‘materialism’ and culture rather than the elements of life and humanity.

People always dream of something and expect things too much. You want them to give almost everything, but in some space, you forgotten others. Disrespectful? Let me tell you a story 'about her'.

Love me then leave or love tried to save me?
I am a prejudice of relationship. I fought and told everyone that love is a lie, a fake and an illusion. But how far can this ‘fairy tale’ go?

You had put a move on my heart
Lately I’m in a phase where I never felt moved in my entire life. No one could ever express something genuinely true to me. I know when people lie and when people tell me the truth sincerely. Now it’s the real thing. I’m in love, it could be forbidden. I was treated the way I never treated before. Have you experience nice things such as going out for a movie, have a nice romantic dinner, walk in the park beside the lake, and give roses and romantic tête-à-tête? It could be just a dream then, but not for me. I only have to say this. To that person, I would like to give my greatest appreciation for opening up my heart to love once again. And I cherish this moment on that I will forever remember you in my mind. You are my soul mate that I long for. You sacrifice yourself, you express entirely to me and you had given me a chance to believe I am worth. You build my confidence and you take me to places I never thought I could see beyond the ordinary things, ordinary love. You love me for who I am and I love you for who you are. God have plans for us. And we all have to cherish the moment as much as we can. Time will tell, so let's keep it going as far as possible.

'Sayang' is what you call me. And you know what I call you :) Can't wait to be with you forever.

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Who is she to you?
She was born to love, to make people smile and laugh. She is so passionate to share her world of her intellectuality; her personality is inspiring, compassion, creative and talented. She is independent, smart and hardworking, yet inconsolable right at that very dark space where no one who can understand what is going on inside her heart, mind and soul.

In this world, I never came across any lady who can do things not like any other woman can do, she got the guts and courage. Funny that all these beautiful bitches and bimbos in Kuala Lumpur who only ought to know beauty is the only that can sell off to men and they are so wrong. How many of you guys know or see your girlfriend or wife who are capable at doing things? Who can DIY on home improvement, send kids to school without nagging like a baby, think before act? Nien (or perhaps 10-30% percent).

Typical and modern Malay men think nothing else then want woman with big boobs, beautiful fair skin, nice body and she have to be hot so you can impress and express your girlfriend or wife in public. Malay men are such fools for not to see the value of what she has. What she has crowned more than other woman does. The only cause is that she’s not pretty enough to these Malay men’s eyes. They were too superficial, too stupid and they absolutely have no noble plan in the future. They know and see beautiful woman so they want to f**k. Treat woman like ‘Touch’Ngo’ or destroy their hearts with their very game.

She had understood once, what love is, until that ‘particular person’ that she admires most rejected her. She become de-motivated and gave up on possibility. She became ‘prejudice’ and judgmental, rampage to hate few and certain target crowds. She also realized that some of her friends only care to use her because she’s educated and full of charisma. And she always claimed to be alone and try to stay cheerful to public even though she was so frustrated and depressed.
Yet, It’s even more depress to see her sad but I couldn’t tell her to 'stay and hope' that are out there a man who can love her, because if so, she wouldn’t have to be single? Time will tell. Sabar. I took most of the chance I can to make her feel comfortable, make her feel great, a smile just helps herself and had help my heart, a sign of relief. What really make her happy? She needs a boyfriend who can love her, THE WAY SHE IS now, before, present and future. She is beautiful in my heart.

Another part of her, that she thought I don’t know is that she regard too much of me. What surprised and tear my heart apart was that she had fully break into my 'privacy', read my messages (sms) in my cellphone, even browse the files in my desktop. This is one thing that I would never forgive, because I never betray her. But it seems that she just want to know so much. Sometimes I wonder why she could do that. Now, there is no stop to it and today, it’s even sadder that she had disrespect me. She is the only person I thought could understand, but now I just lost my important person who I thought I believe I can count on. My ‘lover’ told me that she cares too much about me and she loved me and it’s all right. But I asked him, why she rejected me? My lover keep on telling me just be patient. There are good things in life she wants me to be and she is leading me in a right path. I then realized that I was wrong.

But, she, would not understand what I am what I am now is never meant to be like this. Allah has plans. This is the challenge I must face. All I need is to be happy, but why can’t she acknowledge my happiness? I am happy that she got a good family which she thought one of the family members had ‘betrayed’ the entire family. Yes, she is sick and tired of me going to experiences that she didn’t like. She is sick of me actually. There’s nothing I can do to ‘win’ back her trust and respect. After all, there’s nothing for her to be respect and proud of me but humiliation. A fair trade…
But I never hate her. I never lost my respect towards her and I know she loves me.





* This is my first step to your heart, so let’s dance the night away.
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Blissful Weekend

Last weekend was a blast! It started with three (3) major deadlines of freelance work, an art event, BeautifulJunk2005 which I happened to missed, and a beautiful event, my sister’s engagement day. I slept only 6 hours from Friday to Saturday.

Attending engagements or weddings could be very 'boring', however this time, I learn something new, which happens in my family, to see our dearest sister being proposed and engaged to the man she believes and truly love, same as the man himself, who love our dear sister very much. I also would like to take this opportunity to thank my dearest family, relatives and friends, such as Amir, for the wonderful make-up, and my dad’s workers who have helped achieved this event. Funny that for all these years living in this army camp, we never bother to do any events or such, open to public, but there is was, that day, full of people, new faces, new family and life.

Now, another ‘terrifying’ subject I faced the same time and day is that all my relatives start asking me that F.A.Q (Frequently Asked Question) about ‘so-when-is-your-turn-thing’. Daa! It’s not easy to marry people these days especially your in the heart of Malaysia. Modern metro ladies these days gives you direct-denial or rejection when we look at them or give that body language at them. It’s so superficial. You can’t find a woman with brain these days who can love for who you are, despite most of them are being too self-centered and full of attitude because they believe that they have a career that they thought can take self-esteem from a local man. That’s why they end up alone too. Ha-ha!

Anyway, I told my aunty if I don’t have any girlfriend in 3 years time (who seriously care and understand about me, my career, my friends and my family commitment), I would just have to marry my cousin Mona! Ha-ha… they surely surprised. But both of us (me and Mona) agreed with my proposal (as if!), but hey, who knows what fate might brings in near future. Things might change. Things that are unexpected!

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Now, let's see and read what my sister have to say, (here) her very own version of the following event (the engagement day tu lah...)

Visualize!
Now, let’s check out some of the event happen last weekend. Yeay!
You dear people can take a look at a photo gallery I had created.


Aniq with quick posse in front of the mirror

Aniq & Malik’s Engagement Day Photo Album:
http://moedlatif.com/misc/gambar/engagement/

Other than that, drop by Beautiful Junk 2005 photo gallery via Doxob Design Community here and Tau-Ew’s Image Gallery (http://tau-ew.com/gallery/BJ2005 ). Thanks guys! Really appreciate it.

Today
Just came back from Midvalley after a 'visit' at a company called MotionWorks. Then me and my sister hang out at a fast food restaurant and met Boy and his friend. I managed to do few sketches, and new designs, will update my site soon.

I got two more upcoming events, one is an art exhibition at Wondermilk, this 31st of July in Damansara Utama (Uptown), Petaling Jaya, Selangor and Graffiti event around 21st of August. I guess I might not be going to Jakarta this August, instead, would be this September (sigh). NotThatBalai II is around the corner too. Hope DMP can participate this art event with new artwork installment combining Muid+Shieko+Perez+Yadd.



* just another dance so long ago…
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Welcome to the real world young designers!

Written by Muid Latif.

Like A Virgin
Yes, you may have infatuation, you may be talented, you got the charisma, you got that thang going on and you are ready to ‘tackle’ the market with your crazy ideas and designs. And then, there was ‘Once upon a time, there was a young prince’s who love to write poetry (ideas) so he decided to travel to the Castle of the Two Towers (KLCC) and presented his poem to the King of the Never land (The Client) and the King was so upset therefore he sent his guards (Stakeholders) to sentence the young prince to the dungeon (Car Park)’. Well, few turn out to be lucky instead of successful, some were successful but they are not lucky. Successful comes when you are hardworking, dedicated, being a trustworthy person and full of courage. But if you are lucky, you’re just doing fine then. What I mean is that either they are charming, opportunist, love to take advantage or they ought to work in a different environment, a place where people appreciates creativity, allowing designers to express their freedom in design, or have clients who love beautiful ideas that came from a designers visionaries.

Young graduates might envision being a designer in Malaysia is so ‘cool’. Being able to dye their hair (yes, here in Malaysia), wear funky clothes, carrying cool electronic gadget such as iPod, Sony Erricson or a Nokia cellular, carrying Lomo or a digital camera. But reality calls to foresee each an every one of them, as once they are in the design industry, things goes the other way around. Let say, after three (3) months, we can perceive sound from designers, argumentative about their current situation as a designer. Telling how pitiable their live as they are now. You be acquainted with, “I have to stay back; we got too many datelines, the client is so f%#&up, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera!”

Let’s face it. How can you see a quality design work in Malaysia? You can identify and count how many agencies who works for quality and other agencies or companies who just simply lick client’s %^*es to make sure they get paid, “Yes Sir to everything!”, and at the end, hurting their own employees, deceasing employees and abusing the law of labor. They never had been thought to protect themselves with justice.
So, how many of your clients can give you free flow without getting that bounce-back (return) of your creative ideas that you have been working for over a month?? “No, that green kaler (color) look similar to 7-11 woh…, We wany something related to mother-nature, can we have pink??” Hello! Well, ain’t that a fact that this is Malaysia and we are bounded with the rule of stereotypes clients and those I should called *katak duduk dibawah tempurung* which means naïve people who still living in the Stone Age.

What are ‘monkey business’ in design world?
It covers the aspect of these catagories: office politics, conspiracy, gender discrimination, and you have to pleased people to get to the top. Going to job interview is like heading for an audition, like American/Malaysian Idol. The look is much matter then your work. It’s changing you to somebody you are not. We can’t accept people to change, so? We are the one who should change. *Sigh… And when you are working, you will be frustrated with your Project Manager (PM) or programmers, thus creating that versus conspiracy again. More funny is that more senior designers are taking more jobs or workload compared to the junior designers. You start losing control over yourself. You are in deep pressure. You have to attend another three to four meeting to brainstorm again and again, documents are well planned as claim but action? - Not any. Everyone lost their respect towards each another; consequently, short of appreciation because everyone believes they are too important, pleasing people they had work more than everyone else and lead that person to become self-centered and breaking up the professional relationships. No more ‘harmony’ working environment in the office.

Getting yourself as a talented and hardworking person, apart of being noble doesn’t exist in the Malaysian working system. You have to cheat, you have to lie, you have to be ‘opportunist’, you have to rip-off or stole other else’s ideas and have to stab a lot of people to get to the top, yes it’s true. And that’s the way to survive if you want more notes in your pocket, to get a higher ranking in your company. Yes, to Malaysians, those subjects are very important so they can lavish more lifestyle. And that is heck that these youngsters don’t realize what they are about to face. It’s a poor thing.

Not-so-free-lancers
I was just talking about being a full time designer just now. What about the freelancers? Now freelancers ‘did well’ in Malaysia, they make more money but hold on, there’s a tight challenge and it’s unpredictable. There’s no accuracy, too many hidden agenda and to stay strong, you have to know a lot of people, get in touch with the design communities and seek friends as much as possible to increase information and knowledge as far as possible. It’s all about the contacts. You can’t just sit there and expect people to approach you work. Freelancers have to struggle more then they used to be and work as much wiser and harder than those who work on ‘9-5’ basis jobs. Oh, unless you’re a government servant, then you can just simply relax and be passive as usual. The bad news is that, at any moment when you (freelancers) who involved in freelance projects, nevertheless you will face the most hair wired situation; i) clients who corn designers, ii) mistreated ‘deal’ in terms of pricing, iii) shut you down immediately on current project iv) etc, thus, leaving you in ‘devastation’ and emotionally disordered. A lot of lesson learned.



We know here in this industry, there’s too numerous “conman” who plays cheapskate, who desires quality of work, that all-in-one package, but pay designers for the price of a garbage cleaner (no offense!). How is that possible? Aren’t we graduated from a good design school? Didn’t we learn philosophy in art & design, those avant-garde or whatever the heck we can turn things and around us into art? We got all it takes to give a full-blast in proper design development, and why the heck we get low payment on every work we produce? Our quotations and invoices seem to be rejected every time we send to them. What was the reason behind all this? They acclaimed that RM1,500 for a website is too much, leaving us completely berserk. FYI, we freelancers also have to settle our own bills too, but seems to ‘eat’ whatever we got, as long the client can pay us. Isn’t that pathetic? It’s life. That’s a learning experience, but for how long can we hold on to this career? Do people really abuse arts & creativity? Do we still have to be a designer at the age of 30? Where do we go from here?

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Commencing on the response of this article, I feel that I didn’t mean to offend anyone, especially the designers. My intention is to ensure those young designers out there who are about to face new challenges, must first know what they are about to be drawn against.

I feel that on my end, I will and ought to strive harder, have more compassion and try to be as patience as I can, though sometimes I have to admit controlling emotion is difficult. Yes, there’s flow and I’m getting on it. It’s like a roller-coaster, you thought you know all the direction of the track, you predict it but actually you never know when it’s really going to go up or down, all depends on how prepare you are to face it.

I like to thank Syamly who had inspired me with his quote: "We experience d it and thank God we survive". And that is to be thankful and grateful for all the things build upon our life till now. I cherish and joy for it from this moment on.

And would like to thank my dear friend, Danny Foo for his POV on his experience, as well as the follow up to my article. Read his 'Malaysia Now' from his blog. [+]



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Written by Muid Latif. (copyright protected)
* This ain't my last dance, sugah
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