Of sound and fury...

The Painted Veil

2011-12-04T20:28:00.001-08:00

Lift not the painted veil which those who live

Call Life: though unreal shapes be pictured there,

And it but mimic all we would believe

With colours idly spread,—behind, lurk Fear

And Hope, twin Destinies; who ever weave

Their shadows, o’er the chasm, sightless and drear.

I knew one who had lifted it—he sought,

For his lost heart was tender, things to love,

But found them not, alas! nor was there aught

The world contains, the which he could approve.

Through the unheeding many he did move,

A splendour among shadows, a bright blot

Upon this gloomy scene, a Spirit that strove

For truth, and like the Preacher found it not.

~Percy Bysshe Shelley~

Life begins...

2011-11-30T18:21:00.001-08:00

I turned 40 this month. I was not quite sure how to feel about the whole experience and it was like I was waiting for a big explosion of some sort to happen during the day. It was my second day at a new job and that sort of "cushioned" my edginess. Many people say that life begins at 40. Well, the truth is, life begins when you want it to begin. You don't exactly have to wait for your age to reach a certain number for your life to "begin".

Maybe what is meant by that statement (which I've always felt is a bunch of sugar-coated sour grapes) is that at 40, life has somewhat "stabilized" and is moving at a more constant pace. Let's use me as an example. I am more calm and collected. I no longer suffer from those bouts of restlessness, dissatisfaction and eternal anxiety that haunt many people who are of a younger age group. I am no longer on the hunt for true love. I've met with love, hung around it for a while, decided that it wasn't true after all and moved on. Now I understand that in order for true love to happen, I have to be true to myself first and foremost.

Most importantly, I have arrived at a point where I really know myself and I know what I want in life. I am no longer easily persuaded by what other people say I should do or who I should be. Other people's expectations are no longer my concern. I can now say (with panache and grace) "This is what I want, and this is what I will do". This, to me, is the most valuable gift for turning 40.

PS I have also survived a place that would make Mordor look like play school and Sauron like a kindergarten teacher. Nothing can beat that.

PPS Jared's turning 40 too in December :)

Mother and Son

2011-01-05T23:47:00.001-08:00

I have recently become a mother to a teenager. I am still trying to let this seep in and settle down somewhere at the bottom of my sanity. Hopefully it will seep and stay there, quiet and dormant for eternity. To tell you the truth, I am scared.

I walked down the "Teenager" road once and it wasn't an easy time for me. I was awkward, plump and prone to OCD. I was also in love with Michael Jackson. I read somewhere that who we love mirrors our own selves, our own personalities and psyche. Go figure!

So, I thought that, for my son's sake, I would be mentally and emotionally prepared to help him through this turbulent time. And the fact that he doesn't actually have a physically-present strong father figure within 5km of himself worries me.

But one thing I would never do is lie to him. I would never tell him that love would always be beautiful and happy. I would tell him that love CAN be beautiful and happy if you worked for it and worked hard to keep it. I would never tell him that money is everything. I would tell him that money CAN be everything if you let it. It can consume your live and your humanity if you let it rule you. In other words, I would choose to use the modals because 'modals', like my English teacher told me once, allows more possibilities, more gray than black or white. And life is full of that.

My First Love Story

2010-10-27T21:40:00.000-07:00

The minute I heard my first love story
I started looking for you, not knowing
how blind that was.
Lovers don't finally meet somewhere.
They're in each other all along.

Rumi

The Membrane

2010-10-07T20:43:00.000-07:00

I disappear into the person I love. I am the permeable membrane. If I love you, you can have my everything. You can have my time, my devotion, my ass, my money, my family, my dog, my dog's money, my dog's time--everything. If I love you, I will carry for you all your pain, I will assume for you all your debts (in every definition of the word), I will protect you from your own insecurity, I will project upon you all sorts of good qualities that you have never actually cultivated in yourself and I will buy Christmas presents for your entire family. I will give you the sun and the rain, and if they are not available, I will give you a sun check and a rain check. I will give you all this and more, until I get so exhausted and depleted that the only way I can recover my energy is by becoming infatuated with someone else.

Thank you, Elizabeth Gilbert

Night

2010-09-27T22:52:00.000-07:00

I decided to watch M. Night Shyamalan's latest work entitled "Devil". I decided to watch this with the thought that this is Night's attempt at redemption. That he's trying to redeem himself after his "failure" with The Last Airbender. And truth be told, I really wanted him to successfully achieve that. Maybe we shouldn't have such high expectations before watching a movie. The movie was what it said it was, a horror thriller, well more thriller I think. There were those scary-jumping-out-of-your-seats moments and those scream-your-heart-out moments. Okay, let's be fair. It IS a horror-thriller. So jumping and screaming are logical. Can't disagree with that. What saddened me was that this wasn't what Night is all about. He didn't deliver the typical Japanese crawling ghosts or the pale long-haired evil spirits either. His ghosts, or evil, were unseen. Sometimes, they didn't actually have a visually visible physical form. Night's fear formula was the fear inside ourselves. That is the thing that is most frightening. In his previous movies namely The Sixth Sense and Signs, we couldn't actually see the ghost crawling towards us but they appear is shadows, passing by too quickly in flashes. So the audiences are only left with their own fears and imagination to scare the bejeezus out of themselves. And I miss that, even in "Devil". Night's movies used to tell us that the greatest thing to fear is within ourselves, not the unknown entity that we conveniently call ghosts or evil. Night has come a long way in making movies but somewhere along the way, his trademark decided to take a different route. Night, where art thou?

The Titans

2010-04-15T17:43:00.001-07:00

This was one of those things that I had been waiting for, a great event for me. Clash of the Titans.

I watched the original version of the story in 1981. I was 10 years old. It was the most amazing movie I had ever seen at that point. I had a major crush on the actor playing Perseus (Harry Hamlin). I wasn't really interested in the Kraken, much less Medusa.

A few weeks ago I watched the remake of it, with a stellar cast reaching up to the heavens. I thought that Liam Neeson made the perfect Zeus, with his thundering voice and all. But after I left the cinema, I was nagged by a strange void inside. It was like I didn't actually see anything worth seeing in that movie. There was something lacking amidst the gigantic scorpions, wild-haired Medusa and the horrendous Kraken.

The original version was quieter, less extravagant and more philosophical I think. Laurence Olivier's Zeus was a more Platoic God, more intellectual and philosophical in his dealings with Man. He was witty and although might have appeared fickle at times but he made the Olympians look like a bunch of really clever and mature deities fit to rule Man. He embodied the Ancient Greek ideology and philosophy of a great thinker.

Frankly speaking, I left the cinema feeling like I've just watched a sequel of Avatar, minus the blue people and the weird language.

The only thing that filled me with wonder was Ralph Fiennes' Hades, the God of the Underworld. Although I was often reminded of Voldermort (plus hair and a nose), he carried with him the pain of being Hades, the contempt, the bitterness of being the one having to live in a horrible place while your siblings lived in splendour and glory on Mount Olympus.

Release the Kraken? I doubt it...

Shallow

2009-12-14T16:03:00.001-08:00

During my undergraduate years, I had to take a Comparative Literature module. Frankly speaking, up to that point, I never took Literature seriously. I enjoyed it but not enough to make me think that the written word is more than what it is. I read the compulsory texts and completed my assignments as required. The fact that my Professor was a 6-foot man who thinks that Samad Said's Salina was juvenile literature didn't help much either.

Towards the end of the module, I had to do a rather challenging assignment. The students were asked to pick two novels written by two authors (preferably diasporic and preferably "deep"), and write an in-depth evaluative comparison of both novels. I thought, well, I'd just read the novels and compare the plots and themes. That would be enough. Or so I thought.

I picked Gabriel Okara's The Voice and Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness. I read the novels and wrote a first draft of my comparison. I gave this to my Professor.

" Did you read those books from beginning to end?" he said.
I said I did.
"You sure?"
I said I was.
" After reading all that, is this all you have to say?"
The answer at the tip of my tongue died and crawled back to its grave.
"You read Heart of Darkness, and this all you have to say?"
I've never felt more shallow in my entire life.
I looked at my Professor. "All right, tell me what you want me to do. Just tell me what I have to do."
He gave a smirk and said, "Tell me what you feel, and then I'll tell you what to do"

He asked me to find out all I can about the authors. Then read the novels again.

"Why?" I asked.
"How can you understand the novel if you do not understand the author?"

I went to the library, searched high and low for Gabriel Okara and Joseph Conrad. I found them, lived with them for a few of days and got an A- for my assignment.

A piece of writing is an extension of the writer. Understand the writer and you will understand his writing.

The word in stone

2009-10-27T01:53:00.000-07:00

My students were doing their presentation yesterday. Many came up with rather predictable and safe topics. One student, however, managed to awaken me from a half slumber. She was talking about the architectural marvel of the great German leader, Adolf Hitler. I was listening very intently as subjects like this (involving suicidal megalomaniacs) really intrigue me. What I wanted to hear actually was her understanding of why Hitler's architectural ideas were as such. I wanted her to explain the underlying meaning behind the buildings that were built during the days of the Third Reich.

However, she didn't actually deliver it as such. Instead, what she did was merely explain the various architectural marvels found in Germany as a result of the Nazi regime. I can't blame her totally for her lack of depth. She is young, has only seen life within the first few layers of it. How could she possibly understand and let alone explain that Hitler's architectural ideals were a propaganda of his ideologies and dogmas, an extension of his megalomaniacal visions of a supreme race? That in creating buildings of great architectural designs, he was emblazoning his own sense of greatness and power into architectural history?

Youth protects us from the bitter truth of life. That's the beauty of it.

The Catharsis

2009-08-18T19:10:00.000-07:00

It's been a while, I know. But then, my creative energy comes and goes.

I encountered a very interesting word yesterday, Denouement. When I was an undergraduate student, this was the word. I studied Literature at some point and Mr John Greig, my lecturer, introduced me to this word. He of course pronounced it with all its French vowels intact. Denouement is the unraveling of things, usually events that unravel after the climax of the story.

I had my denouement many years ago. And being true to my Literature knowledge, I waited for the catharsis, the relief the audience was supposed to feel after the denouement had taken place. This has yet to happen. I have, however, met with Peripitea, the reversal of fortune. She has been kinder to me I think.

"It is the human soul that is purged of its excessive passions." - Aristotle

The King

2009-07-07T05:00:00.000-07:00

He has finally succumbed to whatever it was that took his life. There'll be many speculations, maybes and what if's. But let's not be overwhelmed by all this. The business of death is not ours to determine.

Let's instead talk about why when he died, I was speechless for almost 30 minutes. My collective unconscious just went blank. Total silence. I guess this was what it felt like seconds after the first A-Bomb dropped on Hiroshima (or was it Nagasaki first).

Many of my friends did not understand my apparently "extreme" reaction. Of course they wouldn't. Most of them were very, very young when that haunting song called "Beat It" was released. Some of them weren't even born yet, and even if they were, language comprehension was still a concept lying somewhere in Chomsky's blueprint. So how could they possibly understand the feeling?

For many of my friends and I, we were in our early teens when the phenomenon of Michael Jackson came into being. This was the time when many things caused anxiety and stress. Some of my friends were bordering on depression but we didn't know what to call it at that time and the popular belief was that depression was only something suffered by menopausal women like our Discipline teacher Madam Chan.

So, one of the "antedotes" that we had was music and one of those belonged to this awkward looking African-American called Michael Jackson. It was like a diversion for us to talk about him, scream at his posters or sing along to his songs. It took our minds off family crises, acne breakouts and hormonal turbulance. And with him came an array of other 80s icons e.g. Duran Duran, Eurythmics, Culture Club (Oh God, Boy George!) and hoardes others. In other words, Michael and his songs were part of the landscape of our teenage years. If I were to paint an impression of my teenage years, it would be incomplete and lifeless without him and his songs.

So, words failed me for half an hour...

The Button

2009-03-30T04:54:00.000-07:00

I watched The Curious Case of Benjamin Button yesterday. A third was for Brad, a third for Cate and the rest was like what the title promotes, curiosity. I wanted to know what was so curious about Mr Button. True enough, the whole concept of reverse aging was fantasmically curious. Going through the normal developmental stages was difficult enough for most of us, with growing pains and aging pains. So how would a person endure the process in reverse? At first the thought rather fascinated me. I thought it would be nice to grow younger instead of older. But then, I felt that this would be fine if everyone else was going through the same process. It would be very difficult if you were the only one growing younger each day, while the rest of the people around you were aging and eventually dying. In the end, like Mr Button, your child might end up becoming your parent! This is really sad. You would have to reconsider many things, make more difficult choices. Some people find it hard to have a child for the reason that they might be too old to care for the child when he or she grows up. What then if you are afraid to have a child because you might become too young to care for him when he grows up?

There is a reason why clockwise is clockwise. Temporal equilibrium is a doctrine in its own right.

Dejavu?

2009-03-24T06:14:00.000-07:00

While driving to work this morning, I decided to listen to a radio station's morning broadcast. It was one of those call-in thingys. The topic was Dejavu, and the DJs invited people to call in and talk about their dejavu experiences. I thought this was pretty interesting, so I listened. Their experiences were rather interesting. But what shocked me the most was the fact that these people didn't actually understand what dejavu meant.

Déjà vu is a word derived from French which carries the meaning of "already seen", is the experience of feeling sure that one has witnessed or experienced a new situation previously (an individual feels as though an event has already happened or has happened in the near past), although the exact circumstances of the previous encounter are uncertain. The experience of déjà vu is usually accompanied by a compelling sense of familiarity, and also a sense of "eeriness," "strangeness," or "weirdness," The "previous" experience is most frequently attributed to real life, although in some cases there is a firm sense that the experience "genuinely happened" in the past.

During the radio show, what the callers were describing were not dejavu. Instead, the descriptions were premonition, the ability to get a glimpse of what will happen in the future. I guess the DJ was also not aware of the difference between the two. Dejavu is 'seeing the past', while premonition is 'seeing the future'. It is not a continuum, but separate entities in the dominion of time.

Let's do examples. Let's say you were walking down a road and you suddenly get this feeling that you've walked this same road before but in a different time in the past. That's dejavu. If while continuing your walk, an image suddenly flashes in your mind that you will see an accident at the junction right in front of you, that's a premonition. Savvy?

The Acrobat

2009-03-10T08:58:00.000-07:00

There was once an acrobat who was very good at her art. When she first began as an acrobat, she was very unsure of her abilities. She didn't possess the boldness and courage to try breathtaking tricks. Instead, she preferred to perform the ordinary. And during each of her performances, there was a net below her, which she could be sure of falling onto whenever she missed a few twists and turns or missed the trapeze bar. As time went by, she became bolder. She began trying bolder and more difficult tricks. The audience loved her performances, and they began calling her The Fearless. The ring master took notice of the acrobat's increasing boldness and popularity. So, he decided that the time had come to remove the net from below the acrobat. He hoped that this would make the acrobat appear fearless and her fame, as well as the circus, would grow. The acrobat was unsure at first but then she thought that since she had become more confident and skillful, the net was no longer necessary. She felt that the net would make her look like a novice and was not in line with her image as The Fearless. She therefore agreed that the net be removed. From that moment on, the acrobat performed her tricks guarded only by her boldness, pride and sheer luck. Hopefully, these will not lead her to a tragic end.

Poison

2009-02-17T05:09:00.000-08:00

I had a rather frightening experience today. I succumbed to anger, something I rarely do. My outbursts have only been observed by the lucky few. Today, I felt the anger grew in me, just like what William Blake described in this poem. In fact, I wanted the same thing to happen to my foe.

A Poison Tree

I was angry with my friend:

I told my wrath, my wrath did end.

I was angry with my foe:

I told it not, my wrath did grow.

And I watered it in fears,

Night and morning with my tears;

And I sunned it with smiles,

And with soft deceitful wiles.

And it grew both day and night,

Till it bore an apple bright.

And my foe beheld it shine.

And he knew that it was mine,

And into my garden stole

When the night had veiled the pole;

In the morning glad I see

My foe outstretched beneath the tree.

The Psyclorama

2009-02-11T05:37:00.001-08:00

There was once a psyclorama, so great was it that it was the centre of attention and glamour. Everyone wanted to use it, for it was believed that it possessed magical powers that could render any image shown on it as fabulous and phenomenal. People even thought that it possessed a life of its own that could determine the failure or success of a performance portrayed on its mystical screen. The people who operated the psyclorama were very dedicated, spending their lives and time on perfecting the function of the psyclorama with such passion and determination, almost to the extent of delirious paganistic obsession. As time goes by, the psyclorama gained immense recognition and fame.

Fate is always envious of those glorified. The psyclorama slowly lost its magical powers and lustre. It could no longer portray beautiful images as before. The images became blurred and opaque. At times, no one could see anything on the psyclorama. Occasionally, there were images but mere distortions of the light and shadows of what were once breathtaking images. The people operating the psyclorama became contented with these blurry images and distortions, and believed that even in this form, it was still art. In the end, the stage owner decided that the psyclorama was no longer useful, and decided to turn into a backdrop, just existing for the sake of existence. Nothing more.

The psyclorama finally fell from grace...

The Wall

2009-01-30T23:39:00.000-08:00

A colleague of mine said something rather stupefying today. She was clearly upset with someone but didn't let all hell break loose by throwing a fit of temper. Instead, she calmly said these words. She said that if we don't really care about someone, if we don't give a rat's ass how that person feels, then the very least we can do is not to hurt that person's feelings. I find this to be true. Many of us just go through life forgetting that at some point we are capable of hurting other people's feelings, whether deliberately or not. Some of us do take a step back and apologize if we feel that we have caused a "scratch" somewhere. Others, unfortunately, just ignore or pretend not to notice that the other person has been "scratched". The wall that surrounds the ego is strong and it is high, but that does not mean that it is impenetrable. So, I agree with my colleague. If we just cannot afford to care about how other people feel, then at the very least try not to hurt other people's feelings.

Prevention is always better than cure.

A Prayer

2009-01-27T08:26:00.000-08:00

There's so much atrocities happening in the world today. I sometimes don't know what to say anymore. So I'll just say a little prayer. I hope that no matter what happens in the world, I will always have a heart and will always be human.

That's all...

Cirque-du-Imbecile?

2009-01-21T05:42:00.000-08:00

I attended a function earlier today. It was a charity function, the purpose of which is to highlight the pain and suffering of people in certain parts of the world, and to create awareness of their pain and suffering. I went partly because I had to, and partly because I wanted to witness the various layers of human self-absorbency. I actually felt like I was at a circus, a Cirque-du-Soleil performed by the various forms of Adonis, Narcisscus and surprisingly Dorian Gray (honest to God, there were a few!!) The plight of the suffering people was real enough, the deaths and killings were atrocious. But what was humorously prevalent was the performance of these circus artists, prancing around in a parade of vanity, narcissism and mockery. I seriously doubt that any of them were really interested in the images of the crying women and murdered children. I felt a strange sick feeling in my heart and disappeared on the pretence of going to the ladies'.

Charity is a self-evident word. There's no need to prove it.

If I Were...

2009-01-18T16:10:00.000-08:00

If I were a painting captured on canvas, alone in the portrait I would stand. And brush strokes bold, yet soft as a whisper. The work of a masculine hand. Caught in a still life, surrounded by shadows or lost in a background of blue. If I were a painting, my price would be pain, and the artist would have to be you. I imagine the colors would all run together, if you ever allowed me to cry. So don't paint the tears, just let me remember me without you in my eyes . It's only the frame that holds me together or else I would be falling apart.

If I were a painting, I wouldn't feel and you wouldn't be breaking my heart...

The Muse

2009-01-09T05:19:00.000-08:00

I just found out that Edie Sedgwick died on my birthday. As if there isn't enough melancholy in my life. For those who do not know Edie Sedgwick, let me introduce her. She's the woman in the black & white pic. She was, to some extent and at a certain time, the muse of Andy Warhol. And for those who do not know who Mr Warhol is, go google. Anyway, he was the artist who painted the Marilyn Monroe pic I've pasted in this blog. His talent lies in his ability to turn mundane everyday things, e.g. a can of Campbell's soup into a fascinating work of art. Edie and Andy had a special relationship and she inspired him in many ways, simply because she was an inspiration in her own right. I think that despite all her drug addiction and hedonistic lifestyle, she was a great person to have "mused" Andy Warhol. She died on November 16, 1971 from a drug overdose. I don't know but sometimes I feel muses tend to end up living tragic lives, some to the extent of tragic deaths as well. Maybe that's the price for being a muse. They inspire people but in exchange for that, they somehow lose their own selves, because the "idea" of them has been taken by the person they inspired. So all that's left it just a supermassive black hole full of emptiness and despair.

So much for muses...

Narc

2009-01-08T04:18:00.000-08:00

Narcissism has finally caught up with me. I think I have evaded it long enough, although bits & pieces of it did get stuck at the end of my pants or skirt once in a while. But it has never had the pleasure of possessing my entire being. Well, not to say that it has now. I've just been slightly bitten recently. My new surrounding is infested by the narcissus bug. Although some would assume that garbed in black would not leave much for the bug to feed on, I sincerely think that this is the whole irony of the situation. Black seems to cause a feeding frenzy for the narcisstic bugs. Because of the monotony, those bitten would find various methods of turning black into a fashion statement, be it in the form of accessories, shoes or other add-ons. I have become very conscious about what I wear to work. Even if the color is mandatory, I have begun to take the effort to ensure that at the very least, the combination is perfect. I would spend time profoundly contemplating my attire for the next day. And being true to the myth of Narcissus, I have also found such pleasure in admiring the woman in the mirror.

But I will not drown for her...

Anger Management

2009-01-05T07:06:00.000-08:00

I saw this on my department's notice board. I kinda like it...

Aristotle's Challenge

"Anyone can become angry - that is easy. But to be angry with the right person, to the right degree, at the right time, for the right purpose, and in the right way - that is not easy"

Aristotle, The Nicomacbean Ethics

Resolutions

2009-01-05T06:35:00.000-08:00

I've never been a resolution person. I feel that it's better not to have resolutions than to have one and then become depressed when it's not fulfilled. Why go through all the agony for something that's not necessary? Instead, I would just decide to do something I would otherwise never be caught dead or mummified doing. And then I would just do it (sounds so Nike-ish, doesn't it?), without canonizing it as a resolution.

That was exactly what I did on the 1st January 2009. I decided to watch Titanic. I've never done anything just because everyone else was doing it. In fact, I wouldn't do it, just to spite other people. When Titanic first came out at the movies, almost all of my friends went ga-ga over it. Almost all of them went to see it, cried themselves rivers and bragged about that when they came back. I could never understand all the commotion about the movie, and my friends despised me more because I didn't want to see it.

So, on New Year's Day, I decided to watch it. True to my word, I wasn't impressed. What saddened me more was the fact that Kate Winslet let herself become an archetypal Mills & Boon's female protagonist. In short, it was a gruelling ordeal for me to sit through the whole 3 hours of the movie (or was it 4?)

The only thing that made me happy was the fact that Kate Winslet has come very, very far from her Titanic days. Very far indeed. You should watch her in The Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. I think she has become more mature in her acting and in her choices of roles. Who would have thought that half-baked Rose would turn into a larger than life silver screen pesona she is now?

Waiting for Revolutionary Road...

Insomnia

2008-12-25T07:52:00.001-08:00

I hate it when I can't sleep. The mind starts to turn freudian and mess up my hair. So, I decided to do what others say would work in situations like this, to watch a really boring movie and hopefully sleep will creep in. I decided to watch The Hours. This has always been a thing with me, when I'm depressed or suffering from an almost nervous breakdown, I would watch a movie about people who are more depressed than I was. Sick masochism, if you ask me. I thought that watching Virginia Woolf contemplating suicide would make me sleepy. Like hell it did. I ended up wide awake and feeling sad for her and the prosthetic nose Nicole Kidman had to wear just to become Ms Woolf. So much for sleeping.

Dali

2008-12-21T04:53:00.001-08:00

My next impending project has emerged from the subliminal abyss of intoxication and utter chekhovian subconscious. Salvador Dali. Perhaps it's because he will be portrayed by my favourite guy, Robert Pattinson in the movie Little Ashes. Edward Cullen going Dali. What could be more surreal than a vampire turning into an eccentric, out-of-the-world Spanish artist, whose work made you wonder if surrealism is the realm of the living? That perhaps the world is as Dali saw it, but fails to manifest in our shallow minds?

My mind is my own. No one else can understand it...

The Lamb

2008-12-17T04:12:00.000-08:00

No one can say that this is normal, because it's not. Just like the lion and the lamb. But i think i'm happy being the lamb. Obsession has taken a new immortal meaning. When the time comes, I might even let the lion eat me. I might even let him take me wherever, even to the supermassive black hole. Doesn't matter anymore...coz this is real.

Finally

2008-12-14T02:52:00.000-08:00

Didn't quite see this one coming. It's been a while. Feels just great. Difficult, but then easy ones could never keep up with me. Have to go on a special diet. Probably lose some sleep (a lot by the looks of it). Absolutely nocturnal, so have to start rummaging through 24-hour outlets everywhere I guess. Immortality never looked cooler. I might even enjoy the whiplash. Definitely a sick masochistic lion. Just my kind...

Neighbours

2008-12-02T06:00:00.000-08:00

I visited a neighbouring city over the weekend. This would be my second time in 3 years. But I was somewhat determined that this time I would pay more attention to details and sights. The city had a rather cosy, comfortable ambience surrounding it. What I loved most was the architectural diversity of the houses and the shop buildings. Most of the shops or restaurants were placed in well-preserved old colonial buildings, and this made them appear classic as well as cosy. I was mesmerized. For a second I thought this would be a cool place to live in.

Then, I met the locals. I've heard many stories about them from various sources, but it never really hit me as the absolute truth. I seldom encountered warmth or friendliness in most of them, except for a selected few who I assume were exceptions to the norm, perhaps born on another planet or had intergalactic chromosomes. I was shocked. All the beauty of architecture and sophistication of the city melted away with the hostility of its inhabitants. I immediately wanted to go home, where even the newspaper vendors would gladly and patiently show a tourist the way to anywhere when asked. And with a smile, mind you. It is true what people say, that no matter how modern or beautiful a city is, the real beauty comes from the people who live in it. I guess the citizens of this city has become as concrete-hearted as the concrete jungle that surrounds them.

The grass is always greener on the other side...if you're colour blind.

My Theme Song

2008-10-18T23:50:00.001-07:00

If someone asked me what my life's theme song would be, it would be this. It's a soundtrack from the movie "Sepi" sung by Yuni Shara. This song is the story of my life...

Sepi hati terjadi lagi

Mungkin sampai mati aku sepi

Biar senyum hadir di hariku

Namun ini hanya ada di bibir

Di bibir saja

Aku ini yang bisa mengerti

Walaupun yang lain mau mengerti

Namun berat beban di hidupku

Biarkan saja biar saja

Hanya ku yang tahu

Sejarah cinta dan hidupku

Penuh duri dan banyak ranjau

Butuh kesabaran yang penuh

Untuk tetap kuberdiri

Ada saatnya kubicara

Bila hatiku t'lah bulat

Sepanjang ku bisa atasi semua

Aku tetap diam...

The Saint

2008-10-16T20:06:00.000-07:00

I had lunch at a kopitiam today. It's a pretty new establishment in my area. I could never understand my fetish for anything that spells Kopitiam at the end of it (the same way I could never understand my fetish for handbags!) Anyway, I was sitting at my table and the waiter brought me my coffee and lunch. I took a sip. The moment the coffee touched my taste buds, I knew the reason why I love these places.

Kopitiams remind me of my late grandfather, or "Tok" as I used to call him. He was my maternal grandfather. He and I had a somewhat special realtionship, much to my siblings' envy. On the days he received his monthly pension, he would take my mother and I to town with him and somehow we would always end up having lunch at his favourite kopitiam in Ipoh's Old Town area. This wasn't the glossy marked-up prices Kopitiams we have now. Ours was like the ones you see in Lat's cartoons. Nobody speaks to you in English, it's either simplified Malay or Cantonese or a mixture of both.

Tok would quietly drink his coffee while reading the newspaper. (Thank goodness the modern kopitiams at least kept the green-flowered ceramic coffee cups!!) Tok's newspaper was always in English. the NST mind you, because he never liked the Malay newspapers and he felt The Star was tabloid. And he would ask me to read the newspaper with him out loud and he would correct my pronunciations. He told me that I need to be good in English so that when I grow up, I could go anywhere I wanted and talk to the 'mat sallehs". This sounded pretty cool to a five-year old whose best friend were mostly non-mat sallehs (my best friend was a Singhalese boy who thought I was cool because I could spell "submarine" and I could smack him on the head harder than he could smack me).

When I was younger, my parents wanted me to be the perfect child, always getting As and being good all the time. My parents could never tolerate a B or much less a C from me. That was pretty stressful for a child. My sister was lucky because she was number 2, so she could get away with being number 2 all her life. The only person who didn't want me to be perfect was Tok. He used to have arguments with my mother about this and his favourite line was "Your daughter is not a saint, so don't force her to be one." He loved me enough to let me be imperfect and just be me.

Being imperfect is being human, and he taught me that.

The Second Conditional

2008-10-16T19:52:00.000-07:00

I sometimes wonder what it would be like if I were a very tall tree (in English grammar, that sentence is called the Second Conditional). Being tall, I would have the omniscient ability to see everything around me, every inch of the horizon. I've never been a very tall person, so this might be something rather exciting for me. I would have eagles flying around me, and clouds just barely touching the tips of my leaves. I imagine I would feel feel utterly divine and somewhat Godly at some point. It would be a subliminal experience...

But what good would all this omniscience do if all I could do was be omniscient and nothing else?

Love At First Sight

2008-10-07T07:29:00.000-07:00

I was surfing today when I suddenly found something really interesting. It's one of my favourite poems by a Polish poet, Wislawa Szymborska. The title is "Love At First Sight". It was originally written in Polish but has been translated into various languages by various people. But this translation I feel is the best. I first heard this poem while watching a Chinese movie "Turn Left, Turn Right". The real reason I watched that movie was of course Takeshi Kaneshiro, but I found this poem really captivating. I think it captures the essence of what is love at first sight, a feeling which baffles many of us, simply because we fail to understand the nature of it. It doesn't explain love at first sight in complicated iambic pentameters, or metaphysical Freudian imagery (which reminds you of Salvador Dali's paintings). It explains the feeling with normal, down-to-earth, day-to-day experiences and this I think is what makes the poem so realistically surreal.

Both are convinced

that a sudden surge of emotion bound them together.

Beautiful is such a certainty,

but uncertainty is more beautiful.

Because they didn't know each other earlier, they suppose that

nothing was happening between them.What of the streets, stairways and corridors

where they could have passed each other long ago?

I'd like to ask them

whether they remember-- perhaps in a revolving door

ever being face to face?

an "excuse me" in a crowd

or a voice "wrong number" in the receiver.

But I know their answer:

no, they don't remember.

They'd be greatly astonished

to learn that for a long time

chance had been playing with them.

Not yet wholly ready

to transform into fate for them

it approached them, then backed off,

stood in their way

and, suppressing a giggle,

jumped to the side.

There were signs, signals:

but what of it if they were illegible.

Perhaps three years ago,

or last Tuesday

did a certain leaflet fly

from shoulder to shoulder?

There was something lost and picked up.

Who knows but what it was a ball

in the bushes of childhood.

There were doorknobs and bells

on which earlier

touch piled on touch.

Bags beside each other in the luggage room.

Perhaps they had the same dream on a certain night,

suddenly erased after waking.

Every beginning

is but a continuation,

and the book of events

is never more than half open.

Where Paradise Is...

2008-09-28T08:14:00.000-07:00

I was travelling back from Ipoh to KL on a Transnational bus earlier today. It's been a while since I undertook a long journey on a bus, so I was not looking forward to it, honestly. But the bus was one of those newly-designed luxury coaches whose seats reminded you of the aisle on an airplane.

Anyway, there were three people seated near me. From the looks of it they were family. The old woman, I assume, was the mother and the two men with her were her sons. They had the same features, and the two men got their cheekbones from mom. Nothing was extraordinary about them, just a family travelling together on a bus.

Halfway through the journey, the mother decided to have a light lunch. She took out a bun and I thought she was just going to enjoy her share. Instead, she split the bun into three portions and handed out one portion to her son sitting behind her and the other portion to the son sitting in front of her, and she did this with a preciseness that you get from doing something which you have been accustomed to all your life. I was mesmerized. It was almost funny too since her two sons were full grown men, and the one sitting in front was a monk. But no matter what you become in your life, Mom will forever be Mom. She will never forget her responsibility to feed her children when the time comes, even if you are a monk. It was a funny sight but at the same time, it touched me very deeply.

There is a saying which goes "Paradise is underneath the soles of a mother's feet". I guess it's true...

Tenses

2008-09-17T01:24:00.000-07:00

I was teaching the Present Continuous to my students the other day. It's been a while sine I touched my rusty Tenses chords and I was rather apprehensive about the whole thing. Everything was going pretty well, the students showed signs of comprehension and profound understanding of the subject matter.

Suddenly, one of them stood up and asked me a question which I swear could've put the great Sphinx of Oedipus to utter disgrace and shame. He asked me why is it so important to distinguish when an action is carried out i.e. he was asking me why the hell do tenses matter so much? All the great Pharaohs of Egypt couldn't have answered that one, I thought silently. Obviously, this student could not fathom the complexities of the English verb tenses, maybe because his own first language (like almost half of the other languages in the world), does not care much whether an action is performed now, yesterday or tomorrow. What does it matter if you eat now, ate yesterday or will eat tomorrow, as long as the food goes into your system? At this point, I totally felt sorry for him and his bewilderment.

So I mustered up all the intelligence I had, gathered from my years of training as an ESL teacher and came up with a diplomatic answer (I am after all a UN part-timer). I said the English are very particular about when an action is performed because they are very particular about time. I gave an example of one of their previous lecturers, an Englishman, who was always very punctual and particular about time. I didn't want to give that ever-so-cliche answer that my teacher gave me when I asked her, "Because the rule says so". I wanted my answer to strike a note in his mind, and he will remember it forever. He seemed quite satisfied and nodded his head in satisfaction.

The truth is, I dread moments like this, when my students would ask me "Why?". I'm a bilingual, born with two language systems stuck in my linguistic blueprint. There are times when I just cannot explain why a rule is so because my judgement of what is right or wrong in terms of English, is purely instinctive because it is already there in my innate capacity. Like how most of us cannot explain the rule of our mother tongue. Still, I try my best to come up with a logical explanation for each of my students' questions.

But then again, when is language ever logical?

My UN part-time job

2008-09-09T22:00:00.000-07:00

I've always fancied working in the UN. For some reason, I thought it would make me appear sexier and extremely intelligent in that nonchalant, mysterious way. Something like Nicole Kidman in The Interpreter, but with a bit more tan and a lesser inches. But, destiny obviously had other plans for me, so I let that UN go into the depths of my memorial abyss.

A good friend of mine told me that you might fail to achieve your dream the first time, but it will always come back to you later, maybe not too quickly but it always comes back to you, in maybe a slightly altered manner. And so it has for me. I've started teaching again after an almost 5-year hiatus and my students come from many countries, mostly from Africa and the Middle East. And to my surprise, my dream of working in the UN has manifested in a rather peculiar way.

I've not been one to be very interested in international issues, especially about conflicts in countries whose names are difficult to pronounce (the ones with double consonants at the beginning are the trickiest!). I found them to be extremely boring and devastating. But, since I started teaching I found that I really need to know these things, especially those conflicts involving countries which my students come from.

You have to know that the Somalians do not get along well with the Ethiopians, so don't sit them next to each other, or don't ask them to do pair or group work together. They'd much rather not do the activity then to compromise their political beliefs. I also have to read up about cultural relations in these countries and also the political issues effecting them because all these will influence their communication in my class. The Iraqis are not happy if I mistake them for Iranians and vice versa (I was naive to think that just because they have almost similar country names, they'd be pals!). I cannot assume that group work (which is THE BEST way to practice using language) will always work in my class because of these problems.

So, you see, I'm basically functioning like a UN official in my classroom. Most of the time I have to be sensitive to the little problems that are happening in the world so that I will not have problems handling my students. I'm an educator and a UN peacemaker rolled in one. How cool is that! I bet you that even JobStreet can't offer you a job like that. My dream has come true, in a way.

Hieroglyphs

2008-08-08T19:26:00.000-07:00

Whenever I look at my Somalian students, I am sometimes reminded of ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs, those adorning the walls of the pyramids of the tombs of Pharaohs. Some of my students really resemble the figures in those ancient drawings. It never fails to amaze. When I look at their faces, I ask myself whether Tutankhamun's eyes are looking at me.

My chill space

2008-07-11T02:25:00.000-07:00

I asked my students to write a paragraph about their favourite place to relax recently. Amidst all the confusion (as always), they managed to write some pretty decent descriptions about their favourite places to chill, ranging from KLCC's fountain to Cameron Highlands although I explained to them that Cameron Highlands would probably be a complete holiday rather than a moment of chillin'.

So, it got me thinking, what's my favourite chill space? I took sometime to think about this and the answer came to me a couple of days ago, while I was actually seeking sanctuary in the place, away from traffic jams and blaring bus horns.

My favourite chill space would definitely be Pasar Seni, or the Central Market to old schoolers. I don't know why exactly but whenever I walk to the spot where I normally take my bus home, I will have to pass by Pasar Seni. During each of these walks, my head would be pounding from the traffic congestion and noise pollution. But once I step into Pasar Seni, I am transformed into a different world, where things are just so serene that you'll actually think you're somewhere else. And of course, there's that culture bit. Browsing in Pasar Seni is therapeutic to me. It reminds me of who I am, my roots and heritage. No matter where I've been or what I've done, this place will always take me back to my cultural identity. And that's really important to someone like me, to remember that I am who I am, no matter what.

Sepi

2008-07-07T02:22:00.000-07:00

I watched the new Kabir Bhatia movie, Sepi last week. I guess the first one he did, Cinta, set a bar high up to God knows where. So, many people went for this one with expectations up in the sky. So did I.

The movie did have the usual Kabir flavour, the fantastic camera shots & cinematography, the not-all-cause-and-effect-are-given bits, and that comfortable feeling you get when you watch a Kabir Bhatia movie. However (I know, I hate this word too!), I didn't get quite as 'touched' as when I watched Cinta. I cried a river when Shidi's character was left by his wife for another man, and I guess it got worse when he was cradling his daughter to sleep, alone in the darkness of his house. At that time I was comparable only to the Yangtze floods!

For Sepi, I didn't quite feel the sadness and devastation of loneliness. I didn't shed a tear, not even when I realized that Pierre Andre's character had actually died, and he was just walking around as a pigment of his girlfriend's imagination ( I thought that was awfully pathetic). I don't exactly know what went wrong this time. Maybe it's because my personal experience of loneliness far surpasses the feelings felt by each character in the movie, mine was far greater that what they were going through appeared to me as feeble and just a scratch on the surface of real loneliness. Perhaps it's because I've been to that bottomless abyss of darkness and destitution, and I have come out of it not unscathed. Perhaps...

Still, the camera works in this movie did give that sense of being alone and lonely. The shots emphasized that lonely feeling, the angles etc. And I also think that the director did a great job in choosing his cast. Maybe the actress playing Iman should let more emotions flow through her eyes.

How many stars for Sepi? I'm not in the habit of giving stars, so let's just leave it at that.

From Babel

2008-07-05T07:06:00.000-07:00

This is my first attempt at writing down my train of thought. I'm quite Chekovian, so things can just become slightly snip-snappy. Bear with me. It has never been easy for me to put this mess of a mind into words but I think it's about time I learned.