Round World

It’s the day after a mid-week holiday and I’m at work under the following circumstances:

1. It is the morning after a late night out.
2. Failure to sleep in this morning as previously planned, eyes popped open at 6.30am as usual.
3. Cells are growing well and require no further disturbance until tomorrow.
4. Supervisor’s room still appears to be dark and indicates he is still on leave.
5. I have a great review article on the human papillomavirus life cycle in front of my desk which I have no remote interest in reading at this time.
6. I’m streaming Carly Simon in one ear and have several blogs I’m simultaneously reading on different Internet tabs, doing some internet banking on another and chatting with a friend on the last.
7. Slight glee that I managed to get free parking today due to the student’s SWOT vac.
8. There is a grand total of 5 people in the lab today, with everyone else on an (intended or otherwise) extended holiday.
9. Awareness that this is a superbly useless post.

Shine a light in my eyes why don’t you?

Is it just me or is everyone in my graduating class getting engaged and/or married and/or having babies? It seems like Facebook is now awash with photos and status updates featuring two thirds of my friends walking down aisles or serving tea to their in laws or squirting babies out of their private parts. Either that or they’re carrying somebody who has 50% their genetic material.

I guess 25 and 3/4 years old is a good time to start settling down. I’ve got great grand aunts who are asking about when they’re going to get invited to my wedding and if they can help my mom look for anyone for me. *scowls* I’ve got older colleagues asking me if I’m married as they know “good men who are praying for a spouse”. Needless to say that one got me politely declining and then running to the toilet to giggle hysterically. It’s not that I’m not thinking about it, I am. We both are (this is me telling you, boyfriend, that we are thinking about it), but there are quite a few things to clamp down on (e.g. finances, due to my current student status). That however is too long a story to tell people who are inquiring about my marital status so I just smile sweetly and say I’m seeing someone.

There must be a never ending ordered list of questions that people can ask you depending on the stage of your life.

1. When you’re 3: What is your ambition?
2. When you’re 7: Which school are you going to?
3. When you’re 12: What did you get for your UPSR?
4. When you’re 15: What did you get for your PMR? and in tandem with that,
What education stream will you be going into? i.e. Science, Arts, Humanities.
5. When you’re 17: What did you get for your SPM? in tandem with
What are you planning to do with your life?
6. When you’re 18-21: What college /  university are you in? What degree are you pursuing?

(Note: If you don’t have an impressive answer to give to question 6, prepare to come up with a template of socially acceptable answers i.e. I’m planning to travel the world / work at the UN for experience/ work in my dad’s business – because “I’m not quite sure what to do yet” simply will not cut it)

7. After a degree: What’s next for you / Where are you attached / What do you do? becomes the social norm. This continues for about 2-3 years and for females,
8. Around age 24: When are you getting married ? (Note, it’s not: are you seeing someone, are you thinking about getting married? No, it’s a point blank, only-one-answer-suffices question)

From ages 24 onwards until marriage comes along these two questions: When are you getting married? and What are you doing now? will crop up at various dinner parties and social functions.

Once you do get engaged, all everyone will be interested in is:
9a. When’s the big day? (when all they’re really interested in is question 9b)
9b. Am I invited?

10. After marriage, you would think that they would give it a rest but they then start, not even 24 hours after the wedding night is over, demanding ‘When are you going to have babies?’ Forget that you may still be in the midst of enjoying wedding bliss, forget that the sperm might still be traveling to the egg, no, it’s when are the babies (plural!) going to emerge.

Once you’ve popped one out, either by demand or neccesity, the questions cease for awhile when they see your pucat muka, your panda eyes and your hair sticking out in 2012 different directions. They pat your hand and tell you with an all-knowing tone of voice that this is pretty much your life for the next twenty years.

About two years after the first baby, they start to get a little bored and then begin again with question 10. Again and again and once you’ve had two, they ask about the third. After which, they begin to ask

Q11. Why won’t your husband leave you alone?

The Belled Cat

Today is the one month anniversary of the start of my postgraduate program. My supervisor who walks like a cat, managed to catch me on Facebook 3 out of the 3 times that I was on it. Hence I’ve developed a habit of looking over my shoulder every few minutes. He probably doesn’t know about Facebook and most probably doesn’t care but they are paying for my tuition here so let’s not take any chances.

My duties with my previous employers are almost over. Now all that’s left is the forecasting and tabulation of all the marks and I can officially hand over my work and receive my August pay. Why am I still working for them you ask? Because my contract stipulates I have to give 3 months notice, the last day of which has to fall on the last day of the term, i.e. November 18; or I would have to pay the college back for every month without service. Clearly once I got my scholarship I could not wait until November 18, neither could I afford to pay them roughly 4 months pay. Hence as a practical arrangement, my boss and human resources arranged a barter trade of me marking the remaining assessments, to complete forecasting and to be available for online tutorials should the need arise, in return for a waive of the three months pay.

Naturally I leaped at the opportunity and for awhile have been working at the lab during the day and marking at  night; a hellish nightmare of which makes me appreciate every working individual who is managing a full time job and full time study. And this is me not having a bunch of children to feed, bathe, spend quality time with and have them manage not to hate me because “mommy is never home”.

This is one of the reasons I’m happy I’m pursuing a postgraduate now, when I’m young enough to run around and survive on 4 hours of sleep and where my commitments are few and superficial. I don’t have young lives whose emotional stability depends on my physical availability or a household who depends on a two income salary. I don’t have it all figured for the rest of my life but I think everyone who has ever had to make a difficult decision has learned several things.

1. To strike while the iron is hot.
2. That sacrifices have to be made for the greater good. The worth of those sacrifices will eventually be outweighed by whatever you are giving it up for.
3. That some decisions have to be made by considering the long term impact.
4. Nobody has all the answers except God. Sometimes leaving Him to answer some questions for us is the best course of action.

And so I am happy. Which is a good place to be.