77 times 7

Listening to: The Perishers
“I choose to be my own.”
Currently Reading: The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova

I wrote an entire post filled with pretentious bullshit, published it and then deleted it.

I was watching Ugly Betty and girlfriend can sure be feisty!

She is so honest sometimes that it makes me a little jealous. I mean, to be self-assured enough to open your mouth and tell someone exactly when they’re stepping over your toes without worrying about how it would make them feel. I mean if you think about it logically, why should we be concerned about how they feel when we’re just telling them oi, get off my foot, I’m in pain!

Versus the silent, oh shit, should I tell them they’re standing on my toes? Maybe he’ll notice in time. Oh wait never mind, I don’t want to offend them, I’ll just bear the pain, oh fuck it hurts.

If life is for the living, shouldn’t we just live instead of always doing it enshrouded in a cloak of fear and uncertainty?

Christ said, love your neighbours unconditionally. Forgive them, He said. How many times must I forgive them, his disciples asked, seven times? And He said, Seventy times seven times.

In Israel, the number seven means totality. In essence this means, we must forgive, totally and without condition, no matter what it takes and how many times it is required of us. If forgiveness is sincerely sought, we should not keep that request ungranted, lest we ourselves do not receive pardon from God for our own sins.

So the term forgiveness I understand but does that include taking a back seat to everything? Keeping silent no matter the cost? What if our dignity was at stake? What about our faith? Jesus always stood up for injustice, He spoke both boldly and righteously against the many sins of humanity.

I admit, I find it easier to gossip about a person’s faults rather than face them head on but clearly I should be taking a page of out the Bible and either stand up and say something or choose not to say anything at all. It’s easy to be a coward and suffer in self-misery, it takes pure guts to tell the truth and face the consequences.

For Jesus, the consequence was, well the cross.
And even on that cross He didn’t hold back, Father forgive them for they know not what they do, He said.

Jesus never held back, He gave freely and completely of his love and forgiveness and courage. And we, how petty we can be with what matters, our love and compliments and truth. Such misers, when all is given to us in abundance. And indeed, we should give and give all the more.

Luke 6:38 (New International Version)

38 Give, and it will be given to you. In good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over, will be poured into your lap. For with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.”

I don’t quite know how to end after that.

When you say nothing at all

Listening to: Earlimat
“The shadows of doubt on how things turn out is typically gray.”

It’s that time of the year.

I’m badly waiting to be done with this and go on a much much much deserved break. Nowadays I constantly look like I’m in need of a shower, I’m unkempt, messy and in need of a good grooming, bed and spa treatment. If someone places a ten ringgit note in front of me when I bend down to tie my shoelaces in public, I wouldn’t blame them. However in 24 sweet hours I’ll be done with this.

I will officially be a Bachelor of Biomedical Science (BMedSc) (Hons.) graduate. It took four years of my life to come to this and I had to do it in two continents and on a scholarship. My next career plan is to try and apply for a PhD and hopefully if I get an offer I’ll finally be paid to do research and at the end of 3.5 years, the PhD will be a passport for me for any job scope within my field.

I do have one thorn in my side, though, and be warned, this is a fairly big one.
When people ask me what my career plan is and I tell them about possibly continuing with a PhD they immediately get a WTF look on their face and they say something inane like, what? Study again? Is there no end? And then they turn to look at my mother as though she’s just announced that I’ve decided to eat my own baby.

And to all those people I would like to say quite humbly, whathefuck, back. I do not understand such reasoning.

Let me clarify.
A PhD (which is a Doctorate of Philosophy for you cretins) in science does not entail a bunch of students sitting in a classroom studying endlessly. It’s a research project that is planned, perfected, troubleshooted and reported over three years or so. It is hours of toil and labor and learning and lessons and heart ache and small successes and finally you become a master of that area of research and you learn so much more than by just sitting in a class room for hours. Due to the amount of hours spent over this project, a PhD scholarship is awarded so that you are paid as if you would for a full time job, because it literally does become a full time job. You go for conferences, attend seminars, training, workshops – the whole nine fecking yards.

It is approximately a 3-4 year commitment and as such many people decide to work for a while before they decide whether or not they want to do their PhD. Fair enough. However, being the commitment that it is, I would prefer to do my PhD now while I have the time and energy to devote to it. Besides, it is something I truly want to do. If I can find the right project, supervisor and lab, I will continue on with my PhD.

It is not an easy peasy lemon squeasy kind of affair that you do just because you’re afraid of entering the work force and quit living on your parents money – well, not until the local aunties come along and wag their fingers at your mother and announce that they have deemed it unworthy.

Well excuse me, but if you don’t understand fuck, don’t say boo about it.
I seriously cannot stand it when people criticize that which they do not understand and gossip about it at bus stop stands. Besides wet toilet seats, that is seriously becoming a pet peeve of mine.

Oh and by the way, some people wear their hearts (and unfortunately their distaste) on their sleeves so obviously that I wonder if they have ever heard of the word tact. Is a PhD so bad? Have I inadvertently announced that I am planning to shave my head bald and call myself Roland? (which honestly isn’t so bad either although my mother may choose to disagree)

Oh and another thing. This business about them saying I must be confused about my life direction and therefore am too afraid to go into the working world so that I’ve now decided to continue studying by doing a postgraduate degree. Pity her, couldn’t make it abroad so she came back and now she can’t start work, she’s going to study something new.

Exfuckingcuse me. Pity? PITY?

I have worked too hard and too long for some ignorant (insert obscenity here) to tear it down to : She couldn’t make it.

The only reason you should pity me was that I was not there to hear those words come out of your own mouths. A PhD is not for the confused or pitiful or lost or aimless. A requirement for a PhD in Australia (which is where my degree is based) is a three year undergraduate degree (BSc) and an additional honours year based entirely on research (Hons.). An entire year. And since I could not afford an additional year overseas, I was awarded a scholarship to do it at an Australian university branch here. All so I could continue with a postgraduate degree if I chose to, which I now would if I am given the chance.

Sigh. I don’t mind if people don’t get it, it’s okay, we’re all ignorant about some thing. But do not judge that which you do not understand. It seems that the further out of high school I go, the more it seems to catch up with me.

I apologize for what appears to be an entire post filled with my own excuses but I think this deserves to be said, if not for any one else’s benefit, but for mine. It’s been a long hard four years and I spent a lot of it grappling with my own insecurities and fears and turmoil. However I came through it quite well, by the grace of God, and I am finally done. The last thing I need to deal with are people who feel the need to tear me down just because I am now 23 and have not turned to wedding manuals or a nice cushy office job. I apologize for not having the right words (re: tact) to say all this as coolly as possible, but then again, tact was never one of my fortés.

So I’ll say it like it is.

When you have nothing nice to say, do as Ronan Keating once advised in a song when we all thought he was over and done with Boyzone, say nothing at all.

Eff.

Okay I am officially ffffreaking out. I have so much work left to do, supervisor will be away, need to pass her the thesis draft before that, finish all the work in the meantime (of which there is LOTS), prepare for presentation, prepare for thesis submission, prepare prepare prepare and I am nowhere near finishing.

Pardon me while I say this but fuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuck.

Podium elephant

Listening to: Jason Mraz
Love for a Child

I must MUST simply MUST start writing a credible well-thought clearly laid out introduction to my thesis. I was supposed to start at 2.30pm. In that time I’ve read Perez Hilton’s updates, messed around with some data analysis, scratched at some dry skin and now I’m staring at the clock and it says 3.25 p.m. almost one hour past my original start time. So leceh la.

I’m normally like this though, I roll around doing everything but what I’m supposed to and if I were at home I would have rummaged the fridge about 9 times by now. But I’m at work so I have to sit straight backed and frown at my computer screen like I’m trying to figure out how the science works when in actual fact I’m inwardly absorbed in reading what Matt Damon said about Sarah Palin. Is it just me or did this woman conservative governor (and her pregnant daughter) just emerge from out of nowhere?

Politics is so very hypocritical. One person decides they are the best candidate to represent the party and lead a nation and they get up there and do their rounds and make their campaigns and voices their opinions and stays politically correct and kisses the babies and shakes the senior citizen’s hands and frowns at corruption – until they win the election. And then it’s like, nation who, ethics what? There are so very few rare individuals that actually made a difference and stood up to their campaign promises; potential ones often find themselves silenced, defeated or imprisoned.

I mean I’m not asking for a perfect leader, humans in nature are flawed. But if you make a mistake, obviously eyes are going to be trained on you until you react to their response, step up to the plate and take responsibility. If you make a mistake, open your big mouth and apologize. People might respect you even more than if you paraded around claiming there is no mistake or worse, if you walked around silent, head high, pretending there isn’t an issue. If there is a white elephant in the room, other people can see it even if you close your eyes.

Omg, parents tak ajar ke, you politicians?

Now this isn’t focused on any particular politicking agent, it’s a general observation of how things are like nowadays. So stupidly focused on the mini microparticles of details rather than on the gigantic tusked beast that is sitting in the corner wondering what you’re going to do about it.

Equality, poverty, education opportunities, freedom, food, quality of life, peace, unity.

And you people focus on who is what colour, has what accent and is terrorizing whom.

Hey, mister nice guy

Tell me how it is possible that I can spend one day lovingly redesigning my blog theme and yet it takes me that long to decide I have to start writing the introduction to my thesis?

Because I had more fun with the former that’s why.

And then I had a long lunch and a few bands performed a few covers at the cafeteria in lieu of voting week, apparently they decided showcasing their musical talent was the best way to woo potential voters, although I don’t quite see what campus issues and the ability to keep in key had to do with each other. Some of them quite stunk, in my opinion the worst kinds of reunions occurs between a person who loves the sound of his own voice and a microphone.

I had to do an MC gig once with this guy who decided that we didn’t need a script to divide up the lines, we could just wing it. Do you know what happened? He got his hands on his microphone and quite literally took off after the joint introduction and introduced everything himself, told all the jokes, laughed at them, made all the points and just left me standing there gaping, trying frantically to shove in a few words of my own to no avail. It was a one man show that night and I was just standing there like some sidekick who didn’t quite get to do anything substantial except maybe hold Batman’s cape when he was tired of standing (he made me announce when dinner was ready to be served). Halfway through I just quit going on stage to speak with him and let him take the show on the road solo – which he quite happily did.

You know the type, all these guys who do their hair and talk on their phones all day long and who never really notice anyone else unless its some long leggy thing in a short skirt. Who don’t remember your name even though they’ve met you a thousand times and who only notice you if you decide to dress up one day and say all the right things and flash all the right smiles.

Seriously, you chicks may know the type I’m talking about. Unless you’re the long leggy thing in the short skirt in which case, I don’t really have a comeback for that one

ANYWAY, that was weird because this post wasn’t meant to come off like a rant but somehow it did. Despite that, because Cheryl keeps telling me this font is much easier on the eyes, I will assume this time, the rant may make a better impact.

My brother and his friends are convinced that Nice Guys Finish Last and for some reason use themselves as an example. Apparently, pretty girls always go for the jerks and get treated badly, all the time never noticing the nice reliable guy friends until the last moment.

To which I pose the question:

Why do nice guys always go for the pretty girls?
What about the reverse? What about all the not so pretty but nice chicks out there whom nice guys, in their quest to impress the pretty girls (and this is an assumption since the hot ones are the ones the nice guys always talk about) fail to notice?

So if all the nice guys are always waiting for the hot girls to wake up and pay attention and the hot guys never look at the nice girls, then, do nice girls finish the latest?

But why should it be about the finishing? Isn’t it the journey itself that matters the most? That you’re with the one that you’re meant to be with and not just with the person who just settled for you?

Mm, I should have taken philosophy instead.

Check Out

“I don’t believe that anybody feels the way I do.”
Wonderwall – Oasis
Currently Reading: The Chocolate War

There is a certain time every year where I get a little… spaced out. When I start to just walk around in a haze and do things on automatic, sleep at odd times and practically have an out of body experience – all the time.

This isn’t the most optimal mode to be on when you are needed to be at your most focused. For example, last year I was sitting for my first semester exam of my final year i.e. Fail and Your Entire Transcript Might As Well Be Shat on by Dogs. Yes, I used the word “shat”. Deal with it, ma – your daughter is not a lady. I practically sat for my entire exam in a blur dizzy abducted-by-aliens-type haze.

I walked into that exam two minutes before the start, which wouldn’t normally happen as on exam days I wake up so pumped I am there an hour earlier. I fell into the nearest possible seat and whispered to my friend, literally: “I am so fucked,” and it was one of the rare times that I really felt so.

I answered each question by beginning with a blank mental slate, put pen to paper and the words flowed but I didn’t know where they were coming from. I sat for that exam as though I was on some kind of hallucinogen and walked out equally undisturbed. I don’t know what happened to me that day. I must have made some sense because I did well for that exam considering the cloud of smoke that I was in the entire time – once again proving that God helps us when we least expect or deserve it. After that exam I slapped myself back to reality which was kind of hard because the haze was a numbing experience and sometimes it’s safer to just be unfeeling then to be open all the time to the shit people have to dish out.

But it’s no way to live, I realise when you stop feeling, you close yourself off to all other kinds of fulfilling experiences as well – moments that make us grateful or humble or loved. Moments that keep us from completely checking out of reality and into Hysteria Lane.

I think momentary hazes are the mind’s way of protecting you from trauma or stress that it feels the body will not be able to handle until the opportune time. Unfortunately it can get a little too comfortable in this land and there is a danger of wanting to stay there forever.

I feel one of those stress-inducing haze moments coming on again.
I’ve realllly gotta snap out of this.

I’m so sick of all the price hikes and now they’re talking about not allowing credit cards to be used at gas stations. So everybody’s just gotta be carting around money in their pockets now, is it? It’s bad enough the crime rates here are so high, now you’re just handing out people engraved invitations to rob you at petrol stations? Who is benefiting from this – there must be somebody or this would not have been implemented. Whoever it is, it’s not your so called rakyat.

Yeah a random selingan but this has been really bugging me.

And then just generally on non-political aspects – I’m really tired of people who take other people for granted. And people who let themselves be taken for granted. And people who sit around mindlessly talking about money and how much they want to make because of all the stupid things they want to buy – look around you, life is worth so much more. And those who just whine constantly about how they think they’re not good enough, face it, if you don’t think you’re good enough, no one else will. So just step it up and work it out or stop complaining.

And hypocrites who just judge you for things they do just as equally. And I’m tired of routine and of people saying I’m not really working just because I’m still technically a (research) student – I’d like to see them wake up at 630 in the morning and trudge through a day of endless work and constantly juggle and trip and stumble and drop the ball and not earn a single penny through it all. And OMG it really annoys me when people sit around and talk in their own language when you are right there in the SAME CONVERSATION and they don’t even consider that you may not understand it – they just drop everything we’re talking about and start off on their own language and you’re standing there wondering wtf do I do now? That is SO fucking RUDE and I don’t think people know how unbelievably uncultured they are being when they do that.

Do the words “multiracial society” ring a bell?
Look it up.

Now you tell me, do you think there a reason I check out every once a year?
I’m surprised I don’t do it more often.

Earth Day

Listening to: Ryan Adams
“The word is on the street that the fire in your heart is out.”

Yesterday, 22 April, was Earth Day and what did everyone do to play our part in taking care of the environment? I’d like to take this moment to strongly appeal to everyone that we don’t need to join environmental movement groups or hug a tree or drive a Toyota Prius in order to take a stand in this matter. Switch off lights or appliances when they are not in use or even turn off the water when you are brushing your teeth. If you don’t need it, take the extra step, and turn it off. It doesn’t take much but the benefits reaped, are huge.

For example, when Monash University showed its commitment to Earth Hour by appealing to students in all its campuses to switch off non-essential energy sources for one hour on March 31, it showed that in the Peninsula campus, there was a 29% decrease in electricity demand and an average 23% for all campuses. This is in one hour alone, so imagine how much we can help our planet, if we did this everyday at every opportunity?

So we can make a difference. It’s just that most of the time we have too much of the tidak apa (roughly translated it’s no problem or live or let live) attitude to even kick off in the right direction.

I attended a seminar yesterday by a research student who was studying the microbial diversity in peat swamp forests, 60% of which are located in Peninsula Malaysia and Indonesia but which are rapidly being cleared away for development projects. Peat swamplands support a wide variety of endangered species like the tiger, Asian elephant, Malaysian tapir and the Sumatran rhino. Forest fires and rapid clearing are just one of the many problems they face. What will it take for the authorities, whoever they may be, to realize just how important these ecosystems are and why they must be protected and how taking them away will eventually affect all of us in the long run? These forests do not apparently receive any formal protection.

There are many people who are actively trying to campaign for their protection and I am not clear about its progress but things have got to start moving with the times, people have got to start waking up and doing something about these things. Most of us are powerless because we may not have the money, seniority, authority or platform to do something about it, but I think awareness and education is the way to start.

So please, don’t just let Earth Day be the day you turn off those lights.
Make it a commitment because we have nothing to lose.

Not yet anyway.

simply blue

Listening to: Oasis
  “And all the roads we have to walk are winding.”

You’ll never believe the unbelievably sappy self-indulgent miserable post I was about to write. In fact I even started to write it. And then I realized that I just couldn’t do it. I couldn’t let myself wallow in the misery and negativity that I thought is my life. I have so much more to be thankful for!

I have to stop reading and watching stuff and associating with people whose sole purpose in life is to bring them and others around them down.

Shake it off.
Sometimes you have to know when to drop it all and walk away.

And now, for some chocolate.

nirvana. or lack thereof.

listening to: jack johnson – do you remember
 “you played me boogie woogie; i played you love songs.”

I’m trying this new thing where I try to make things sound more positive then negative so instead of starting out the post by saying I had a fucked up weekend I will try to begin by saying…

…I had a really challenging weekend.
The para familia is sort of going through the motions, struggling to find a routine again and get used to living in a new home.

Working out the kinks is not as easy as Keeping Up With the Kardashians make it seem. Of course it helps when you have shitloads of money…sorry, trying to stay positive right? Moving on.

Turns out, living alone and working out the kinks may seem harder but you get used to it because your routine only has to fit you. But when you’re living with four other people, it becomes even more challenging. Everybody gets stressed out because the hand soap wasn’t where they left it – when you live alone, if the hand soap wasn’t where you left it, it just means your new place is haunted. But when there are other people in the same living space, it’s a huge complicated blamefest carnivale.

The dog keeps getting into the house and you don’t have a phone line yet and there is that incessant itch that will not go away. The curtains don’t fit right, the TV is in the wrong spot, it’s too hot, it’s too cold; everybody gets annoyed really easily and that generates a huge wave of negative vibes that affects everyone else…it’s like some stupid but oddly cataclysmic chain reaction that once set off, shows no sign of slowing down or stopping completely. (Sorry, I could find no way to make this paragraph in the least bit positive.)

But…the silver lining is that with all its challenges, you can start to see how it all starts to fit in. Though we eventually find the hand soap in the oddest of places, we invariably always do find it. The dog has learned that there is only so many times she can be allowed into the house and that her puppy dog eyes, no matter how adorable the first 59 times, does have an expiry date, as does my father’s patience. I’ve finally learned how to work the blinds so I don’t get Vitamin D poisoning every morning, sorry, blinded in the face every morning (I don’t know which one is more positive so I added both).

Meanwhile, life goes on and if you can’t make sense of it for awhile, you make do.
After all, it’s only the first weekend.  The neighbors look nice, the big boss is away for two weeks and ironically, though work seemed to be stressful earlier, it is now becoming my refuge – ha ha, how the tables have turned.

Anyway, things are sloooowly getting better and that’s all that matters. If this were a movie, we would have moved in next to some either incredibly good looking family or a maniacal killer but this being Real Life, we have regular boring old neighbors; the ones on the left eat inordinately obese amounts of Secret Recipe cakes and the ones on the right have no furniture, at least none visible to the human eye.

So yes, positive note, maybe we are the normal ones. 

Blueberries

Listening to: Rain – Breaking Benjamin
        “All the world is waiting for the sun.”

I know I have this same rant at about the same time every year. This hopefully will be the last.

If I could be on a commitee that spearheads the abolishment of exams everywhere, I would be on it with a basket of mini muffins in one hand and a flaming torch in the other.

I maintain: Periodic assignment based assessments are the way to go.

Less students and teachers get killed and/or maimed that way.