كـــــلـــــم

كلم (Kaaf-Lam-Meem) form the root words for speech – essentially the main goal of learning a language is to be able to communicate, to be able to think in a particular language to express an idea or to exchange thoughts. Kalimots is a play of the words Kalimah (كلمة, Arabic) and Mots (French) which both mean “word”. Hopefully with words in different languages we can all better communicate with one another 🙂

This blog is going to be the place where I share all of my thoughts about TLDR (Travelling, Learning languages, Discussions I host or come across, Readings I do or write — poetry / prose / books). Previously when I visited BookXcess in REXKL, I was so fascinated by the book layout and categorisations — it was truly an artpiece, almost like how such topics are organised in my mind and how they intertwine, with spaces in between to facilitate discussions internally and externally. I came out of the bookshop with five new books and this thought on my mind : Ilmu bukan je kena belajar, penting kongsikan jugak, semua pengalaman dan dapatan boleh buat perpustakaan (en : not only must knowledged be learnt, but it is also important to share, all of my experiences and takeaways should be put together into a library). So here this is my library of experiences, takeaways, writings, readings, for us to reflect on and discuss about. As always, I am open to feedback ! Write to me or catch up with me on any of my socials !

Another phrase I coined which is the subtitle of the blog name is pourquoi pas, right ? (en : why not, right ?) which was a phrase I coined back in 2014 when I was in Brest. This is one motto that I carry about in my life which is really just about going ahead and doing something because as Lemony Snicket once said “if we wait until we’re ready, we’ll be waiting our whole lives.” My idea is just don’t live with any regrets because whatever decision you’ve made cannot be “undone” so let’s move forward ! We make mistakes along the way but that’s also the one of the ways we learn and exceed ourselves at every juncture.

I will be blogging in a series of languages — no primary language is set ! However, I believe in our technologically advanced age today, all of you are capable of searching out ways to translate things you don’t understand. I may or may not provide an english translation for full posts but will try my best to include them for short interjections !

Meanwhile, here’s the flux containing all the posts I make. Click on their individual tags above for the filtered content !

  • الزواج في بيت العائلة.. حل أم مشكلة؟

    ما رأيكم في هذا الحل: أن تسكن الأسرة الجديدة في بيت العائلة في السنوات الأولى بعد الزواج؟ لماذا؟ المعروف أن السكن في بيت العائلة مفيد لأنه دعامةً مهمةً للزوجين حيث تكون التكاليف أقل في البداية. بالإضافة، إذا كان للزوجين أطفال، يمكن العائلة الممتدة المساعدة في رعايتهم. لكن في سنغافورة، هذه الإيجابيات محدودة بسبب المساكن صغيرة…

  • This Island

    This piece of poetry was written back in 2016, a quick context behind is probably a bit more existential where people used to keep asking me for help or to look for something, which made me curious whether the reason was (1) convenience, (2) knowing that I would not say no. Another question I asked…

  • Bal Masqué

    This piece of prose was written back in 2016 when I was perhaps surrounded by a lot of people who were taking advantage of my kindness and willingness to help them, teach them. Back then I was an angsty student in junior college, still wading through what it’s like being such a supposedly high stress…