Rowing against the currents

Dream bigger, 2012

2012-01-01T02:07:00.000+08:00

And so another year ends. I didn't actually plan to write this year-end post until after my final paper, but the fireworks here has been going on since last night (and yes, the whole day today as well), and a huge party has been planned down the corridor. I doubt I can do much else tonight.

2011 has been amazing for me. There were ups and downs - and really sharp ones as well at that - punctuated by bouts of boredom and restlessness. But overall, it was perhaps the most surprising year of all.

The year began with tons of responsibilities and lots of pressure to perform. There was a research project, a paper to submit to a forum, three events to organize, a magazine to publish and of course, my actual studies. All in one semester. It was rather crazy, and by the time I received confirmation of an exchange spot, I couldn't wait to get out of that pressure cooker. I have written about my drive to prove myself before, and perhaps I took on too much, or perhaps I didn't have good time or stress management, I felt slightly burnt out by the time the semester ended. I just didn't want to do anything. And I didn't really recognize who I had become - what are my dreams? What do I want to do with myself? What jobs should I apply to? Should I keep on studying?

When summer came I buried myself in my indulgences - in books, TV shows, movies. I don't think I did much else. I expected my parents to chide me for not doing anything useful or getting a job for a second summer straight - I think I'm just about the only one among my peers who have never worked in a real job before - but surprisingly, they didn't. I'd like to think that perhaps they have seen me working hard and thought perhaps I deserved a break.

That thought gave me a strange urge to cry. I don't really know why. But my parents have always treated my brother and I as adults, and we have always made our own decisions. In fact, if they insisted on anything at all about our upbringing, it was 'independence'. It was a phrase ('独立') that we heard over and over again. It cultivated in me a strong instinct to go against the herd - though I didn't realize that going against the flow doesn't necessarily mean I'm not influenced by it until recently.

Perhaps it was due to that that I've always felt as if I was on my own; I know that I'm responsible for who I want to be, and if I mess up it is no one else's fault but mine. That thought is both empowering and scary at the same time, and knowing my parents won't interfere made me feel like I sometimes walk a lonely road. Maybe that urge to cry came from the realization that they are watching, that amid the physical aloofness and adult treatment and lack of conversation about matters of the heart, my parents are always watching my back.

Thinking back, I was quite silly to doubt them, wasn't I? Don't worry, it was a very happy realization; that urge to cry was out of happiness, not sadness.

And so, with a little bit of reluctance to leave my family just when I realize or relearn how they express their love, but with a lot more excitement about the months to come, I set off on my exchange semester in the Netherlands.

Perhaps I merely wanted to go away, and not towards anything, I didn't have too many expectations about the semester. I figured I would travel a bit during weekends, do some sight-seeing and get some cliche tourist photos at the major landmarks. I didn't expect to do so much, go to so many places, meet so many people and learn so many things in the space of a few months. Needless to say, my exchange semester has been wonderful and inspiring.

And that inspiration is what I want to hold on to for the new year. I want to remember this feeling of awe at the wonders of nature, art, humanity, the whole world. I want to rediscover the part of me that creates and connects - much like my fourteen-year-old self who wrote fanfiction and participated in various forums.

Funny how I yearn to be a bit like a fourteen-year-old again in the year that I will approach my twenty second. But what I did then was just things I enjoyed, and crappy as they may be, those stories were something I could really call my own. And when I see the intricate architecture, the breathtaking pieces of art and even Jamie Oliver recipes on youtube, not to mention the effort and care most people in Europe put in their craft, I feel intensely inspired to create something beautiful.

I know I have a long road ahead of me, but even if I write only unpublished stories or draw copycat anime figures for the rest of my life, they would still be more than I thought I could do before. And that is more than enough.

So here we go, 2012, may you be filled with many new stories, drawings and paintings and new projects. Be more imaginative about what you can achieve. Dream bigger.

It's amazing that people can sink so low

2011-11-14T04:22:00.001+08:00

Ok, wow, it's been a while since I blogged. I'm here again, though, because I'm hoping I can get some advice. (Erm, some bitching ahead, so if you happen to be having a good day until now, don't read it because it might spoil your day. If you're feeling gossipy, do read on)

You see, I'm on exchange now and I'm living in an 'apartment' style building where I share the floor with 16 other people. Most of the flat-mates are decent enough people, even if some don't really clean after themselves in the kitchen. Those are a bit irritating, but ultimately tolerable.

What has been really, really vexing us (and by us, we mean most of the female population here, all of us ethnic chinese) was this guy who has amazingly low sense of self consciousness. Right from the first conversation he already acted very condescending, bitching about how the place was really dirty and how some people smoke and don't go to church - while standing very close and resting his hand on the wall, effectively blocking my way - and not giving me any chance to reply. He's the kind of guy who talks at you, not to you and certainly not interested in having a conversation with you.

Fine, we all felt the initial condition of the flat was disgusting enough; sure, a few smoke, but they don't do it in the flat and they're very decent people; but did he have to be so condescending about it and act as if I don't know anything or am not civilized because I'm an Asian girl, who 'probably come from some third world country where people live on trees'?

I was still civil with him after that, because unfortunately we are stuck in the same flat for the semester. My flat-mates have worse first impressions: he asked one of them, another Asian girl, what she thought about one-night stands while standing in her doorway, the first time they met. He kept wanting to touch us - once to my friend who just came out of the shower, still wrapped in a towel.

He seems to have a thing for Asian girls. He pretty much ignored the other girls (one white and one latin american), though he called one of them a slut. (which she is not, at all, she's a good flat-mate, and just imagine how you feel when someone calls your friend a slut) He kept harassing us Asian girls, and when he talks at us, not only is he condescending, he also smile in such a way that makes you feel really disgusted. Eventually, we all started ignoring him, even when he hovers around - oh gosh, does he know how to hover - while we cook and keeps talking nonsense.

("Do you know that the weather is beautiful today? Look at the sun! Did you know that the sun provides vitamin D? Whenever there is sun I just go out and enjoy, you know, and I will be energized."

I was seriously tempted to say, then why are you standing in here bothering us? Go out and get your freaking sunlight!)

He doesn't care if we're doing something else, he just demands attention by interrupting whatever we are doing. Once, one of the girls had a guy friend visiting, the creepy guy went to her door (and he doesn't even live on this corridor!) and saw him. She told him that her friend is visiting and thus can't talk to him now, and he just turned to the guy and asked, 'What is your relationship with her?' WTH?

Sometimes he tries to acknowledge that he was being ignored, by saying things like, "You know, it is not polite to ignore me when I'm talking to you. You have to respect me." Him? Talking about respect?

Oh, we had several confrontations with him, both alone and together. He thinks we are freaking shy because we are ignoring him. Once, he tried to enter a friend's room without permission, and she told him very, very firmly that it was disrespectful of him and what is actually respectful behavior. He laughed it off and didn't change one bit.

Another friend told him flatly that she doesn't want to talk to him, and he laughed it off as well. Today, he tried to touch me again (not at sensitive areas) and I told him very firmly that touching people when you have no right to is rude, and that respect has to be earned, not demanded.

Guess what? He laughed it off again.

In fact, what really vexes me is that he seems to get a high out of being scolded. The way he smiles/laugh it off, it's as if he's like, "Ah, see, this doggie is finally responding to me". And he just go back acting exactly as if the confrontation did not happen.

How do I deal with a guy like him???

Ignoring him didn't work as a strategy. Confronting him is like talking to a wall that laughs back at you. Getting authorities (housing agency?) involved is rather premature, because we don't have any evidence against him and he didn't commit any criminal offense; he's just being a condescending jerk that is making most of the girls here uncomfortable (even the guys don't really like him, but it's funny, he talks about how he feels lonely because we don't talk to him, but he doesn't seem to try and talk to the male residents) And none of us can run away or hide because we live here (and he always, always try to be in the kitchen when we cook).

I'm thinking of telling him very, very honestly and concisely that he is a condescending jerk. (So far we confronted him about specific issues and about the need for respect, but 'respect' seems to be a hard concept for him) I don't think he'll get it, though.

Just try and live with it for another two months? Oh well. Just hope he doesn't do anything drastic, like putting stuff in our food or something.

How can someone be so oblivious? Someone who cannot see that the problem lies with himself? Normally if people ignore you or tell you flatly that they are offended by you or don't feel that they're being respected, you'd at least try to do some self-examination right? He seems to think the problem is us being shy. Because we're Asian girls from backward countries.

(His favorite question the past few days, "How many inhabitants do you think live in China? 100million? 200 million?" Seriously? Do you read the papers? How can anyone not heard of the statistic at least once? And why can't he just google?)

Oh, and because we don't go to church. I mean, I have nothing against any religion, but he acts as if his religion is supreme and the only valid one - he once asked, 'Why don't you go to church?', I replied, 'Why do you assume everyone is Christian?', and he actually told me, 'Because there is only one god.'

I was speechless, because I never encountered anyone with such lack of respect for people who are just different. (And I really appreciate how I'm brought up in a multi-cultural community, by the way, now more than ever)

Trust me, I'm not the only one having issues with this. The girl who told him (very early on) that she didn't want to talk to him is a Christian herself, and she is especially vexed by the fact that he is giving her religion a bad name.

I really wonder what kind of environment he grew up in that makes him someone so lacking in self awareness and inter-cultural communication skills. He either grew up in a super tiny community with homogenous population and no internet access, or he is filthy rich and is used to people clamoring for his attention. Or he is just plain spoiled.

I have never, ever, met someone who sunk so low. I think I might just pop by the counselor's office to try and find a way to deal with this. Or just tell him he is a condescending jerk, and hope he doesn't explode and make things ugly.

*

But seriously, though, he is just the worst part of my exchange. Otherwise, I'm having fun, so don't worry too much. I just feel ggaaaaarrrrhhhh!!! when I come back from class and have to deal with him when I cook.

Just Do It

2011-08-13T23:19:00.001+08:00

I have been quiet the past few months and even on FB, because I didn't really know what to say. I have been rather conflicted about who I have become and who I want to be, and whether these vague projections of the future that I'm chasing is really me or if I'm chasing someone else's dream.

But it's a funny thing, school has started again for most of my classmates, and I will be heading off to someplace really different, and really be by myself, in a few days. I suddenly feel motivated to just go ahead and do things again (which happen to include blogging, obviously).

I am reminded of something Mr Hsieh Tsun-Yan (a director at McKinsey & Co, and a Singapore President's Scholar in the same year that LSL got the scholarship) said in a talk I attended last semester. He talked about how he once mentored a brilliant new hire, an Ivy League grad, who spent a lot of time trying to 'find herself'. He said that she was too intellectual about it, and that a key ingredient to actually finding oneself is to put yourself out there and live. Glad that I actually had the foresight to record the talk, I listened to it again and reproduced the relevant parts here:

"The sculptor doesn't spend 5 days looking at the stone. He has an image, and he starts chiseling. And it is the chiseling that finally gives him the details of what the image will be. In other words, it is not sequential, that you do the freaking out and panicking and some linear equations and at the end of it, you go 'Ah-ha! That's me!'. It doesn't work that way. You have to get out there, and experience life. You have to get out there, notwithstanding your fears. You have to get out there, and put yourself at risk.

... You have to goddamn live, basically."

And also, regarding expectations:

"The important thing is, at some stage of your growing up, you gotta make up your mind to be courageous enough to step outside of what other people want you to be."

There.

I made up my mind. I'm going to apply for an internship in the banking industry. Not because other people expect me to, but because I owe it to myself to try it out before making judgements about the industry. Either way, in the course of researching the industry, it turns out that I know shamefully little about it, or finance in general. I may be majoring in the big picture side of things, but the details, the nuts and bolts of how money flows and how credit helps businesses, are rather alien but very fascinating to me.

I am humbled, in short. And I now groan at my previous arrogant attitude about it all.

I don't know if it is the 'right' choice, whatever 'right' means that this stage of my life. I just know that I really, really want a job. I want to work at a good company, learn how a business, the industry and the economy really works. I don't want to spend more time in classrooms and have people tell me 'You don't know how things really work in the real world'. And I want to have an income, to buy nice things every once in a while (like a new box of crayons and a sketchbook; or buy my parents a meal; or to give some money to charity that is actually mine to give, for once). If I can get good pay, that's a nice bonus.

Why worry so much about being wrong? I wouldn't be the first one to be wrong, and it won't cost me much beyond a few years of my life. I realize that life is precious and we should never waste even a second of it, but if I spend even more of my life worrying about living in a wrong or less optimal way, I may not live at all.

And about giving back to society, saving the world? I'll volunteer. I'll separate my trash and recycle. I'll keep myself updated on the latest developments and arguments and policies. And when one day, when I actually know how things work and have the contacts, when I can do something beyond petitioning politicians and make a real contribution, I'll do it.

But for now, I'm just gonna give my best and try my hand at something that is truly fascinating to me.

I'm gonna just do it, 'kay?

*

P.S. In a related topic, this article about the worst career advice made me think about a job in a different way. Especially this part:

If you are lost, and lonely, and wondering how you’ll ever find your way in this world, take a job. Any job. Because structure, and regular contact with regular people, and a method of contributing to a larger group are all things that help us recalibrate ourselves.

Even with these awkward wings, I'm sure we can fly

2011-06-15T15:55:00.000+08:00

Just finished rewatching Digimon Adventure.

In the last episode (54), when Takeru cried out loud because they had to leave the digimons, I had to chuckle at his lack of restraint, slotted so abruptly among all the rest who were trying to hold the tears in.

Then the urge to copy him followed.

Digimon, Digimon. What a fine work of art it was. I don't really get those fine arts stuff, whether they are abstract messes of paint or those weird 'modern' sculptures. Even Literature, a subject I took in high school, requires much effort even when I'm in the mood for it.

But Digimon (strictly season 1 here), I get. Beyond a good story and great characters, it has so much more: It showed how people are all different, and we need each other, even if sometimes we can't stand each other; it showed how it is all right to be who you are and walk your own path; it showed how it is important, and often not as hard as we'd like to imagine, to face our weaknesses and try to be better.

And of course, it has digimons, evolutions, crests and all the rest of the bells and whistles. And a damn good soundtrack.

But I guess what really got me was how it really is about growing up. About sometimes facing the things you don't want to face, and becoming responsible for something you believe in. I love how intelligent the show is, and how it doesn't treat kids like they can't take more grown-up things.

And thus, at the ripe old age of twenty, I relearn what it means to grow up. And that sometimes, even as we set out for the next adventure, there are things we have to leave behind.

There is also, of course, the urge to cry.

Let's be young about being older again

2011-05-26T22:57:00.000+08:00

If I could let my 16-year-old self talk to my 20-year-old self, she would be very shocked to learn about what I have become. Oh, nothing terrible, not like that. Just... you know, unexpected.

When I was 16, I was extremely optimistic, and all about becoming the best of the best and earning big bucks and writing great books and saving the world. These days, you know, I study to get As, I work damn hard to pad my resume in preparation for future job searches, I think about what kind of investments to make to build a passive income, and perhaps start a small business by the time I'm 35. Nothing terrible, or even terribly bad.

Just terribly... ordinary. And self-serving.

What happened to the big dreams?

What happened to giving back to society? What happened to bringing meaningful change to the world? What happened to writing, at the very least, a story that makes people laugh and cry, and touches their hearts?

Reading the mind-blowing 'Small is Beautiful' by E.F. Schumacher made me think about many things. Not just conventional economics' non-sensical assumptions and models, but also about the problems the world faces today, and the direction that things are going at. I can't help but wonder, the book was first published in the 1970s, why are we still here today?

What were people, especially those intellectuals who are supposed to be advancing the frontiers of knowledge, doing for the past 30 years? I'm still at Part I of the book, but already it's making me feel like shaking those intellectuals and asking them, 'You knew there were problems, they're so clearly spelled out in the book! Why didn't you all gather to figure something out? You had 30 years!'

Rationally, I know that the world is a big place, and momentum is a powerful thing. Without a viable alternative, an alternative kind of economics to replace the one we have, it's hard to digress from the current path. And even if there is one, it would take a while - which could even be decades - before the whole world switch to it completely.

For now, people have to work 'within the system'. Society has few choices.

It made me think about what can be different. It made me think that, if I continue to care only about my own life and my own little circle of concerns, if I end up working only for a paycheck, then I would be part of the reason why things are still the way they are.

It's exactly like what that saying said, 'If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the problem'.

I don't want to be part of the problem.

*

For the past year or perhaps longer, I had dismissed my younger self as naive. She didn't understand the weight of family responsibilities or expectations; she had never really had a taste of financial independence, or how that is something one cannot give up on after one had a sample; she didn't understand what she would be up against at all.

But you know, my younger self, ignorant as she is, had something that I seem to have lost sight of - the ability to believe in a better world.

She is a dreamer, and the world is a place where everything is possible. She dreamed that when she grows up, she would be changing the world because she would be older and wiser and trained, she would learn how to do it. That was what growing up, what being older means when I was young.

Yet how I let her down. Instead of learning how to reach that better world, I learned skepticism and made excuses. Instead of learning what can be done, I learned why things are the way they are, and how hard it would be to change. Instead of changing the world, I let the world changed me.

I can't even call those my dreams anymore, because to be very honest, I never fought for them. Fighting would mean marching on even when the going gets tough, but I gave up because things have become hard.

Admittedly, times are good again now. My summer vacation has begun, and my coming exchange semester means the academic and job search pressure is off for now. It seems quite... predictable to think about dreams again. It's easy to dream big when you only need to do the dreaming.

But I'd like to think I really am wiser, because now I know what went wrong the first time round, when things got hard. Now, I want to be part of the solution.

And this time, I am not letting go.

You may be inclined to doubt me, and you would have every reason to. But what matters now is I won't doubt myself. I'm not as naive to the challenges along the way like my 16-year-old self was; but I'm also no longer naive to the value of believing in something better like my recent self was.

It's true that I don't know a lot. It's true that I can never know everything. But you know, I'll learn along the way. That's what happens, when one grows older.

Let's all be young about being older again, shall we?

I will finish a story

2011-04-27T00:18:00.000+08:00

I like to think that I have no regrets. Sure, I made tons of mistakes, many of them rather embarrassing. But I learned my lessons from them, and given a choice, I won't go back and change things because that might mean missing those lessons.

I kept telling myself that. But I do have one, one that made me really want to go back in time to change things.

I wish I had finish at least some of the stories I started. I started so many.

And yeah, I just reread some of them, and some were quite surprising. Both surprisingly bad, and surprisingly good. And it was pretty funny to notice for the first time how what I wrote revolved around the issues I was unconsciously dealing with in the corresponding periods of my life.

Or maybe I just didn't admit them to myself. The earlier pieces revolved a lot around having a super close-knit group of friends (it was, after all, Power Rangers), and then it was about exploring the what-ifs and sci-fi/fantasy worlds. In recent years, there was this story about the post-SPM months, and then one about the identity issues of someone who grew up in a border town. Even though I know people don't like authors making characters their mouthpiece, I seem to keep doing it.

Sifting through all those unfinished works brought back so many memories. But I wish I have a lot more to read. I finished them so fast.

Stories written for NaNoWriMo are the most surprising. I never finish one, and most drafts just sit untouched afterwards, and I won't even remember what I wrote. But they can be rather comforting. In the sense that if I read them in sequence, I would wince lesser and lesser as I progress. That's... progress.

Just for fun, here's a short recap:

2004 - Dragon Girl (wince) - Chapter 1

ALL her life Alanna had been really fond of dragons.

Once, sitting on her grandmother's lap, she was told, for the first time, the great legend of the Chinese Zodiacs. With the noisy old fan from her grandmother's room whining and shaking dangerously above them, she had listened with an intense concentration that no four year olds could have.

You are born in the year of dragon, dear, her grandmother told her, her fingers pointing at a dragon sewn on a piece of cloth. The mighty dragon!

Staring at the scaly creature for the first time, she had imagined how great the dragon must be, with its strong claws and mighty grip, and that she must be special, to be born in the year of dragon.

All her life Alanna had been really fond of dragons. And all her life she had thought it must have meant something.

The name is one I stole from a favorite character. And the entire paragraph is based on the opening paragraph I read sometime earlier. Blatant plagiarism.

2005 - Fanged Guardian (wince) - Chapter 2

No one was in sight. She scanned the whole area again slowly. Maybe her guardian was testing her. There could be something that she was supposed to notice... something out of place. Her eyes widen. The only thing that was out of place was her. And she wasn't attacked yet.

"Hello?” she called out, her voice squeaky and out of place in the silent night. If she wasn't attacked by now, there was a good chance that whatever vampires that were out there were already taken care of.

There was a sudden noise somewhere to her right, about ten meters away. Kayla's hand closed on the sword strapped behind her waist. She inched closer steadily. “Hello?”

Someone was there alright. She could see two balled fists reaching up behind a broken wall, as if the person was stretching, accompanied by the a loud yawn. She stopped, staring incredulously. That guy, who was more probably her guardian, was sleeping in a place like this? Is he nuts?

The shadow suddenly shot up to the sky, its bat-like wings opened wide and clear against the moonlit night. Kayla felt her heart almost stop.

The shadow took a sharp turn and was standing in front of her in an instant. Its wings folded itself. He was shirtless and only wearing a pair of dirty ripped jeans. The pale moonlight shone on his skin that was equally pale, bringing out the surprising blue of his eyes, hiding behind bangs of black hair. He cocked his head and stared at her. He looked about eighteen. Slowly, he grinned.

Pale, shirtless guys. Do you realize what this mean? If I had finish this, Edward Cullen would be a mere wannabe.

(Right)

2006 - Skyward - Chapter 2

“What has the world gotten into,” Edward began with an elaborate gesture using both arms, not knowing how comical he looked holding a stick with a dangling bottle, “when the warm, beating hearts of humans are cheaper than cold hard metals?”

The bottle struggled, and fell to the ground with a very undignified pluack. Aayla laughed. Silently, though, she quite agree with him. It was one of the many things that did not make sense, to her, at least.

“For one thing, they are much more efficient,” Heather pointed out. Edward stabbed the bottle. It squeaked one last time, before falling into the dark murky depths of the big black plastic bag with a dying sigh. “And they don't complain.”

"Undignified pluack". "...falling into the dark murky depths of the big black plastic bag with a dying sigh."

Must have been desperate.

2008 - Untitled - Prologue

If I could meet the author of the book 'The Little Prince', I would tell him that the Prince came to me that year, during those listless, misty months after the end of high school. Time changed the Prince, much like it does to all of us; he was not blond, nor did he ask for paintings of sheep or talks about his flower. His hair was a rich dark chocolate, and even though he reaches only until my elbow when he stands on his toes, his eyes sometimes betrays a certain wisdom that could only come at the expense of innocence, a kind of knowing that was earned in the course of heartbreak and in the face of the unflinching truth of life's realities.

The author – a guy called St. Ex something, if I'm not mistaken – would perhaps deny vehemently and tell everyone that I'm a liar and that I could not be trusted. But how wrong he is! All of us know the Little Prince, and we all know that it was neither his looks nor his insistence on drawings of sheep to protect his flower (however misguided the attempt) that made him who he is.

It was his wisdom, his laughter, his soul – whatever you call it, that made him who he is. It was the truth that he learned from the Fox – what is essential is invisible to the eye – that made him who he is. It was the way he looked at the world, and the way he changed us and everyone he touches, that made him who he is.

It was the way he made us see what is invisible that made him the Prince. The blond hair, the paintings, the boots, those are not the Prince. What makes the Prince himself was – much like what the Fox said – invisible to the eye. So who can say that the person who changed my world is not the same Prince who went back to the stars?

My Prince never did make it to the stars though – he went back to the future.

It sounded cool at that time. But there were serious logistical issues.

2009 - Untitled - Chapter 1

So back to being practical. May understands ideals. She wants world peace. She wants to stop global warming. She wants to eradicate poverty and believes that everyone can get along and live in peace (well, with a few bar fights in between. But surely, human beings simply must be possible to live without dropping bombs – or hiding bombs and threaten to drop them – on each other. Even if testosterone backed violence seemed unavoidable). She does.

She respects the people who gave up high-paying jobs to work at some non-profit organization of some good cause or another. She admires people who could donate cheques with five- or four- or even three-figures donations to people who need surgery. Someday she would be in the position to do so.

That is the key, though, isn't it? At nineteen, no longer fresh out of high school and with the SPM results a strange, distant memory, she, like so many other of her peers, understood something much more important, much more pertinent, than ideals. She understands the value of a particular piece of paper called a Bachelor's degree (why Bachelor's, she would love to know – just so she can perhaps create a Bachelorette's degree when she has the power; perhaps). She understands the value of a good university education, of having titles like 'President' or 'Chairperson' on her CV, of internships and the fight for a good one at a good, reputable enough company and, most important of all, the price tag that comes with all these supposed value.

Wince. This is... such a personal rant.

2010 - The 9 Names of May - Chapter 1: May

May was born in June, like a private joke that will only elicit weird eyebrow quirks.

Of course, she wasn’t called May then. She was referred to as ‘the baby’, ‘Da Jie’s daughter’, ‘Ah girl’; in that order, after she was born, by the nurse, her aunt and finally, her father. She’d like to imagine that great thought and consideration had gone into the selection of her name, and that somehow, somewhere, there was a very special reason why she ended up being called Mei Ling, a name so generic that it is the first choice of all nine year olds writing their very first story, with the politically correct trio of Ali, Muthu and Mei Ling.

May – the name, the dream, the proud tilt of her chin – came to being so stealthily and mysteriously that May herself could not put a finger to it. It must be some time after primary school, some time during those strange, lonely years where people all around her burst into chatter in different tongues – so different from what she was used to.

These days, it was that strange language of her early years, that naïve, innocent, tongue laden with the burden of five thousand years of broken hopes and dreams that she could not reconcile with. She treats it like some crying child that she did not know what to do with, while the rest of the world showered their love on the child. She should have been thinking in those shapes and tongues and sayings, she should have been much better in expressing her innermost thoughts in those sturdy, beautiful characters instead of letting her thoughts flow and take shape in this external, acquired thing.

It was as if Mei Ling died.

It's rather obvious what I was or am dealing with these days.

But really, what a journey it was.

This summer, I swear I will write something. I really miss it.

And I will finish what I started. I don't want to regret about them like I do with the above stories anymore.

I want, but there is the I-have-to

2011-04-12T22:41:00.000+08:00

I'm becoming sloppy. As a student, that is. Very sloppy. I can't help wondering where my motivation to study is.

There was this lecture today for my International Trade course, and the lecture hall was barely half full. I was checking my mail, doodling on my ipad and basically doing anything but listening. Well, it's a fact that the lecturer is boring. His English is horrible, which is made worse by his monotone and thick accent. He comes very late for lectures, and on top of that, takes his sweet time in starting up the projector. He takes one hour to repeat exactly the lecture he gave the previous lecture. Then proceed to drone on mostly incomprehensibly about the new material (which he almost always cut short 'cos he ran out of time).

I love trade. Well, I think it's one of the wonders of humanity and how it affects countries are fascinating and very important. But I can't bring myself to put any effort into this course.

I used to think that it's the fault of the lecturer. But today, I looked around and realized that at least one quarter of those who attended were listening. Some even asked questions during the break.

I feel ashamed. Not that I didn't try to listen - god knows that is a futile effort - but that I didn't try to at least study on my own and figure it out. I don't even feel like I want to, I only feel like I have to, which makes it worse.

For all my grand words about becoming good at what I do and to be among the best, I couldn't even muster the will to at least try to do it. I had more concrete excuse at the beginning of the semester, at least - all three events I'm organizing were happening and there were a million things to sort out, I was grateful to have time to just finish the assignments, let alone do extra readings or studying.

Now I have time. But all I want to do is watch more Grey's Anatomy, read more books, write my own stories or even draw some manga. I want to immerse myself in stories, much like I did in high school. (I'm reminded of that quote, 'The more things change, the more they stay the same', but that is so cliche for me by now and I don't want to go down that road tonight)

But didn't I leave that world behind? That world of living in someone else's worlds, of fighting odds-defying battles with imagined bravery, of having virtual friends with whom I've survived life and death situations?

I remember making the decision to live my own life in the real world, to make my own story the best one I can. And also to give back in some significant ways to this world. It was why I chose Economics - I believe that life cannot be separated from it, and of all disciplines, this is the one that excites me the most with its relevance and potential for changing lives for the better on a much greater scale. And I love it, dammit.

But why can't I find the will to put more effort into it? Am I getting disillusioned by its limits? Am I too impatient? Am I just in need of a break, after back-to-back projects and competitions? Am I too greedy?

I'm pretty sure I'm being rather whiny, sigh.

I have other dreams, you know. Dreams of telling a really, really good story; even if it touches just one person deeply and make him/her cry and laugh, I would die happy. Dreams of making my parents really proud.

I could have just choose some straightforward career and write in my free time, but this highly insensible thing called ambition makes me want more. It makes me believe that the skills and talents I am born with - though proving rather elusive at the moment - should be put to good use and help make this mess of a world a better place.

I want more. I want to leave my mark, I want to be significant to the world, and I want to be dearly missed after I die.

Ah, yes. This want.

Will it make me happy if I get what I want? Am I wanting the right things? I don't know. But I can feel it again - that drive to do things. Wanting things drives people.

I wonder which is sadder, that I need to be reminded of what I want so often, or that what I truly, truly want - to tell a good story - is unlikely to be significant or useful.

Ok this is sadder - I just realized that my life is like an analogy to the whole GDP-as-measure-of-growth dilemma. Or the other way round: Ambition and significance are like GDP - they're not everything, but they can be measured and their value more or less universally acknowledged (if not universally agreed upon with regards to the magnitude of that value), and they won't guarantee happiness. But everyone wants them, and as long as some people want them, it's just very hard to not have them.

Is life, on an individual scale and beyond, always about this struggle between self and other people? About going back and forth between what we owe ourselves and what we are obliged to society at large? About choosing between being irresponsible to oneself or being selfish?

Do they converge at some point, or are we suppose to find a happy balance? The Taoist in me - actually I only know the symbol for certain, though you can tell its essence from the symbol itself - knows that balance is not stillness. It's more like a constant back and forth between the two extremes.

But that is very tiring, you have to admit.

It's also as useful as knowing that the things will tend to 'equilibrium' in the Long Run, despite whatever chaos in the Short Run.

And I have a feeling I will have to talk about faith at some point after this. Let's not. Not tonight.

Not when I want to do things again.

Yeay me (ahem)

2011-04-07T01:01:00.000+08:00

For once, this is going to be a happy post. Well, I'm not feeling over the moon, but it's pretty close :)

All right, I joined this recruitment competition thing organized by the students' union. Yup, recruitment competition, as in mock interviews, presentations that mimic real life recruitment processes by top companies. Prizes do not include confirmed internships, sadly.

The short story is that I got into the finals. I didn't win, but that's not the point. I actually thought about what kind of attitude I should bring to the finals tonight; should I give the judges what I think they want and act like the perfect jobseeker? Or should I just be myself and do what I would normally do?

I didn't actually decide consciously to just be myself, it just required a lot less preparation (I have assignments and projects to do). But yeay, being myself actually can get me quite far.

I think I did well in the individual round, but I was relatively quiet and not as assertive as the others during the group presentations and Q&A round. I didn't feel like fighting over the mic, and there were also other people who didn't get to speak much as well. So I didn't try so hard to be this really assertive person and grab all the opportunities to impress the judges - not a good move for someone who actually wants to win the competition, surely - but I was who I am.

It didn't, of course, win me the competition, but I got pretty nice feedback from judges who liked how I sounded more genuine. With all those advice out there about how to act and what to speak during our jobsearch, tonight proved to me that who we actually are matters just as much.

So. I am happy because I did well, when I didn't try to be anyone else but who I am. Being quiet is not the end of the world after all.

(Haha, this sounds so self-centric. But damn, it makes me feel a bit less uptight, and more hopeful about the world, you know?)

I want to be like my heroes

2011-03-31T00:03:00.000+08:00

I feel like venting. (nothing ruins a perfectly fine day like clearing up someone else's mess) But no, I'm not going to talk about clearing up someone else's mess, because that is just not worth my time.

It's funny, somehow whenever my mood sours, I don't usually get upset about the matter at hand, but rather something entirely different (though usually something suppressed). Just now my general bad mood led back to something my dad said to me a while ago.

I remember that day rather clearly. I read a free advertisement booklet my mom picked up at a shopping mall, and expressed my surprise at all the businesses I never knew existed in my hometown of Johor Baru. (Did you know that there are tons of interior design/home deco materials specialty stores in JB? Is the market that big?)

My dad, with all good intentions, told me that I should have made more effort to read these kinds of materials, or travel around my own hometown instead of 'reading those useless fantasy books' back when I was in high school.

I admit I don't know much about my own town. But really, 'useless' fantasy books? How dare you call them useless?

Those useless fantasy books taught me so much about life and how to be a better human being, and perhaps more than you did in some ways, I felt like saying to him then.

I didn't, of course. Because it's not fair to him, and he didn't mean anything bad. Because he's an engineer who grew up reading sci-fi and mysteries and probably thinks all fiction are about solving mysteries and exploring scientific possibilities. Perhaps he thinks fantasy has no use because it has no foundations in science, so what can you possibly learn?

What, indeed. I don't even know where to begin.

Let's take the beginning. Harry Potter. It was more about fun and wonder than anything else, but I learned that you don't need your friends to be perfect (yes, I was that snobbish as a kid). Then it was the fanfiction, most notably the long-running Power Rangers in Space fic 'The First Saga' by starandrea that accompanied me on countless sleepless nights. It taught me about friendship, love, courage and so much more.

Of course, as a Chinese-educated student, it did wonders for my command of English as not just a 'second language' that I must have working knowledge of, but as a beautiful language that I can love and use to express my deepest feelings and build wondrous worlds.

Then there were Alanna, Diane and Kel, from Tamora Pierce's wonderful fantasy world of Tortall. I started reading their stories in my late high school years, and saying that it changed my life would not be an exaggeration. And their stories are also why I felt so damn indignant when my dad said reading them is useless - it's not just that I love them, they are my heroes.

In that world, Alanna was like the English, middle-ages version of Mulan. She disguised herself as a boy to train for knighthood. What made this story different was that she was no chosen one heralded by prophecy, nor was she a genius with a sword or anything. In fact, she sucked with a sword in the beginning, and was the worst swordsman(woman) in her batch. But she made up for it by practicing super hard, going through countless drills with a much heavier sword every morning. By the time she did achieve knighthood, she had earned the title of the best swordsman in her country.

The stories of the other two have this common theme of hard work, with slight variations. My favorite is actually Kel (short for Keladry), who is also a knight and who trained hard. But she was also a leader and commander in a war. Her story taught me that leadership is not about glamorous things like the authority or making rousing speeches, but more of building a rapport with and really caring about your people.

Why are they so special to me, when there are countless others in the market? Why do I feel obligated to make them proud, as if they are somehow real?

Well, their stories came at a time when I needed them. When I first read Alanna's story, I wasn't sure of who I would be. I was a nobody at school - good grades aside - and I didn't think I have a talent in anything other than books. My mom and dad always told me to work 'smart', not 'hard', and I suppose they have their reasons for doing so (I got the impression that they were on the losing ends of office politics, and they didn't want their children to grow up working hard but end up with someone else taking the credit). But valuing hard work puts you in reach of so many other things.

Anyway, I was more or less convinced that I must somehow be stuck with the only thing I'm good at - studying. However, I knew with depressing certainty that the system is broken, and when I grow up and out of the system, having only good grades won't cut it in this world.

Alanna's story convinced me that it doesn't matter if I'm not good at something. Hard work will make up for it.

I had also wanted to know what it means to be a leader, and why does everyone value those 'leadership skills' (I had once wondered, if you hire all the leader types, who would be the followers?). Kel's story - which also emphasized the importance and usefulness of hard work - gave me some ideas of how to be a good one.

They really changed my life. I became braver, enough to take up challenges outside my comfort zone, because I want to be like them; I became more emphatic about other people, and less judgmental (though for this I seem to need constant reminders). I firmly believe that they are a huge part of my drive to succeed back in college. And of course, I have written about that part of my life frequent enough.

They are my heroes. I want to make them proud, even if they're not real. Should we meet some day in my dreams, I want to be able to look them in the eye and thank them for changing my life for the better, beyond my imagination, even (one day I will do that to the author, hopefully in person).

It might seem rather silly, sure. I don't really care what you think about them. But I refuse to let anyone dismiss reading them as 'useless'.

I don't know how to say this to my dad without hurting his feelings, as it implies that he didn't teach me these things. Well, both he and my mom had to work very hard when my brother and I were kids, and we didn't see much of them most of the time. There wasn't much chance. But that's okay, we understand. And we took care of ourselves. We learned what we had to somehow.

But I just can't let you dismiss my teachers as 'useless'. Yet how should I tell you this?

I'm planning to wait, though. I'll give my best to do what I want, and I'll wait for the day when I go further than you thought I would, and you finally ask out loud, 'How did you do it?'

Then I'll sit you down, and tell you all about my 'useless' fantasy books.

*

In the mean time, I needed to vent.

That was like a weight off my chest. I love writing.

And I used to say I will save the world

2011-03-26T00:19:00.001+08:00

I realized something today that threw me into a state of despair.

These past few years I thought I finally found that confidence in myself, that I believe in my own ability now to choose my own path, instead of doing what is expected of me. Today I realized that that wasn't true, that the opposite is true - what I have now isn't the confidence to choose my own path, just a new-found ability - a talent, even - to do what is expected of me. What despairs me is that I can't seem to resist the easy path.

And yeah, there's a pretty long story behind that. But I'll try to summarize:

I have always been different from my peers, even as a child. I was always shy and afraid to try out new things. I don't make friends quickly. I prefer to do my own things, to play with my own imagination than mix with other people.

But I was extremely eager to please the people whom I see as more important - adults. So I was the model (chinese-school-trained) obedient kid/student - I was polite, I keep quiet in class, I finish my homework and don't cause trouble. My nature is to please and to confirm to expectations.

Of course, come teenage-hood, things change. Suddenly, I was in this school where teachers expect you to speak up and heck, actually do things instead of just being quiet and listen in class. I didn't know how.

Looking back, I think I don't even know what exactly I did in response, but I think I withdrew somewhat into my own world - which was expanding pretty fast due to the arrival of DSL connection in the household, fortunately - and I did a lot of thinking and daydreaming.

Eventually, I realize there is this whole societal pressure vs listen-to-your-heart struggle that many face at some point of their lives. Those YA novels - for which, for some reason, listen-to-your-heart always mean choosing a bad boy or choosing to sing/pursue art/be a struggling actress - did not help at all. Being so enviously naive and sure of myself, I thought that I would, of course, listen to my heart when it matters. No doubt about it.

Yet even in high school, I recognize the type of people who are valued. Those who are the leader-types: the prefects, the athletes/team captain, the presidents. I was nowhere close.

So I was very, very hungry for opportunities to learn and be like them by the time college came around. I told myself that I wanted to be the best that I can be - yet who is to say that I wasn't just trying, yet again, to please someone? To confirm to society's perception of a high achiever?

Of course, I got all that now, the titles and the pretty resume. I also know, by now, how to smile and tell people have a nice day, when I in fact feel like strangling them; I know how to use emotional anecdotes and the right pauses to grip people in a speech; I know (roughly) how to make small talk and 'network', at places where everybody seem the same and I don't feel like talking to anyone; and I also know how to say things that people want to hear, whether in class, in discussions or even in interviews.

People seems to value those 'skills', and I was feeling rather smug that I now have them at my disposal.

How would I use them? What kind of career would I choose? I thought I was the one with the bargaining power now, with all those 'skills'. That I can choose what I want to do.

To put things in context, I've been struggling for a while now about whether to join an investment bank, or do some research work elsewhere. I enjoy research; I love having access to all those databases or archives in university, and have always enjoyed the essay contests I joined, where I had to do prior research, and then organize my thoughts and put them down properly. Academia seems, for the first time, an attractive possibility. But academics don't get any respect unless they win Nobel prizes. (More importantly and perhaps more illuminatingly for the matter at hand, my working-class parents have no respect for them at all) And they aren't rich.

Investment banks - well, you know the story. Jaw-dropping amounts of money, but banks squeeze out all the work they can get from you. No life to talk about, and seemingly not much meaning or purpose in their work, other than making the rich richer.

The listen-to-your-heart issue is for another post entirely. What made me despair was not that; it was the fact that I thought, with all the work I put in to gather the skills and experience needed to be a leader and thus a higher-quality job-seeker, I would have the confidence to choose what I really want, that I would have the confidence to believe that whatever I choose to do I would succeed.

I don't.

What I have instead, are some newly-developed skills that make it much easier for me to confirm to expectations. That quiet girl in school would probably never pass the first stage of a scholarship interview, let alone a job interview with an investment bank. Now I'm pretty sure of my ability to land a job there.

How can I say no?

I am extremely afraid of disappointing other people, my parents most of all. It feels like I am in primary school again, and they told me to listen to the teacher, so I would ignore the other kids when the teacher is speaking, even if they are trying to get my attention.

We are not rich people. Saying no to money is highly insensible, and saying no to the kind of money investment banks can give you is almost crazy, at least to my parents. To me, it is extremely hard.

Money is one thing, I also want the prestige, dammit. I want people to look at me and think I'm a success. I want those superficial success that I know are useless for life in general and don't make you happy. The saddest thing is, I want it because other people want it.

That's why I despair. I thought I was in the driver's seat of my own life, turns out I was following road signs all the way.

*

I would be lying if I said money is the only thing that draws me to the investment banking industry. As an economics student, I know they serve an important role in connecting capital and entrepreneurs with ideas that can benefit the world. Without the risk-appetite of an entrepreneur, this is perhaps one of the closest way I get to help turn ideas into reality.

Financial products also fascinate me, especially in a world where increasing awareness of financial literacy drive even ordinary people into investing. Intellectually, I'm quite curious about how they match people and money, and the innovative ways they do it. Banking was a pretty straightforward choice for me then.

But that was my cocooned world, before I learned about the pressing issues in the world today: climate change, human rights, gender equality, democracy and so many others. Back then, I didn't know about economics as a discipline, as a tool that has enormous potential to help build a better, fairer world for everybody. I know I am blessed in many ways, I want to do my part to make life better for other people.

Life is so much bigger than just who I am or what I want.

Perhaps investment banking will improve lives down the road. Fine. But then there is the long hours and disrespect for workers as human beings. Am I afraid of hard work? Not really. I am more afraid of neglecting my health, my family, my friends, my other passions. Things that make me human. If the hours are normal, I wouldn't have to struggle at all. But banks seem to just want to squeeze out every drop of work they can get, and if you fail, thousands others are ready to take your place.

I am afraid that I will turn into some soulless drone.

*

'Jangan takut saja.' ('Don't just be afraid.')

This line keep repeating itself in my head. A taxi driver told me this a long time ago, when I mentioned I took the longer option of a train journey to KL instead of bus because I was afraid of bus accidents.

But when you grow up poor and they wave money in your face, how can you not be afraid that you'll do whatever they tell you to?

Pieces

2011-03-18T18:29:00.000+08:00

Things have been rather depressing lately. I couldn't help following the developments in Japan. It's very mind boggling, reading through the accounts of how people lost their homes, saw their families or neighbors or whole houses swept away by the tsunami.

I have a soft spot for Japan. I did, after all, grew up watching anime, and watching travel shows about Japan. I wanted to apply for an exchange spot in Japan, before I learned that they had rather strict language requirements.

Anyway. Those pictures of devastation look the same after awhile. All debris and broken pieces. There was one picture that caught my eye though - one that showed a middle-aged man walking through his old home, which was in pieces, with this laminated photo of his wife stuck to his back. When I saw that I couldn't help thinking about how how hard it must be to find the one to grow old with, and to have the courage to love and marry and live a life together - yet now this. Walking through debris and probably never seeing her again. No home, no job, nothing.

Then there is the nuclear crisis, and reports seem to get worse by the day. In the longer term there is the economic aftermath.

Gosh. Other than donating money to Red Cross, I wish I there are more things that I could do.

I don't want to use this as an excuse to say that's why I'm in no mood to study for my midterm on Monday. But really, it doesn't seem to matter much in the scheme of things.

Stay strong, Japan. Gambatte.

Haste has taught me patience

2011-01-23T23:17:00.003+08:00

Today is the last day of the mid-(academic)-year holidays, and somehow there is a mood to just reflect on some of the things I've learned. Some of these I had learned before and forgotten, and I think they would be again forgotten and relearned, going in these endless cycles throughout life. That's why one of the keys to being happy is to laugh at ourselves, I reckon.

Well, the holidays were rather wonderful, I would say. It wasn't planned, the to-do-list was half completed at best, more than a few deadlines were missed, and many more things remain for me to tackle as the new semester dawns.

But then again, I went for a three-day Tioman trip where I just soaked in how beautiful simple things like sand and trees and morning mist are. And to stand in awe at the vastness of the sea. And watch the waves come in and recede again and again, going through its motions regardless of what happened.

Even more memorably, I hang out with my family, cracking jokes and being silly and laughing until our stomach hurt (really, I'm not exaggerating). We explored the whole beach and more together, and I am just so glad and grateful to be able to do it, after those terrifying months last year during my dad's hospital stint.

After we came back, it was back to missing deadlines, dealing with un-contactable colleagues who made me want to scream, having the uni's students' office throw us surprise after surprise that set my whole team and I into a scramble to replan everything - you know, the likes. Life happens.

And that is something that I re-learned - that life just happens. Things never really turn out as planned, life and other people throw you surprises. There is no use being annoyed or angry at the world, and there is no wisdom in focusing your attention to control everything and try to force other people to suit your working style.

I also learned the other side of that argument. Life doesn't just happen to me, it happens to everybody. So we should be more gracious to other people, realize that no one is really out to annoy you or disappoint you. If we just try to see from their points of view, it's quite likely that they meant well.

Especially the people you love. They may sometimes drive you crazy or disappoint you, but no one can deny that they love you. It's important to learn their stories, about what made them who they are. Bite your tongue before you use it to rebut them, and send your message across in a way that they will understand, not the way that you prefer.

I used to be awed by stories of heroes saving the world; of wizards and witches, of interstellar ranger teams, of knights and riders. I still am, but I am always humbled by stories of real, ordinary people, who braved lives much harder than mine and are still able to give so generously. In recent years I am much humbled by stories of my parents and elders, and I really hope I will be as brave in my own life.

I have also learned the value and necessity of patience, though perhaps not patience itself yet. I remember wanting everything; I wanted the adventure of living a life overseas, I wanted to write my own story and publish it before turning twenty, I wanted to influence policy and engage in nation building right after graduation, I wanted to save the environment, I wanted to earn lots of money, I wanted to save the world. Before twenty-five. Something like that. I was desperate not to waste my youth, and I wanted it to have meaning.

All that wanting wasn't too good for my focus, and I ended up not really doing anything particularly useful, or particularly well-done.

All those reflections and frustrations of the past holidays led to the realization of what it really means to be just a cog in the wheel that is life and the universe. That no matter how big my dreams are, I am just among billions of others with their own dreams.

But that's ok. I learned something important:

While I have potential I am not yet skilled, and while I have big dreams I am still naive.

Naive not in my ignorance of the harsh reality of life, but in my ignorance of what even better possibilities are out there, what even better ways to do things or save the world there are that my limited imagination didn't fathom about.

I have to be patient. To take time; to learn as much as I can, to be as good as I can be in my chosen field, to be humble so that I can learn from others on how to be brave.

There is a saying in Chinese that I used to scoff at, it suggests a sequence for a person's life:

修身，齐家，治国，平天下。

(xiu shen, qi jia, zhi guo, ping tian xia)

A rough translation means one must first master oneself (in terms of skills, mental maturity, the likes), then settle family matters, moving on to regulate and fix one's country, and finally, to help bring peace to the world. It suggests shifting our attention in stages from self, to family, to our country and finally to the world.

I used to think that that would take a lot of time for me to save the world. :)

Jokes aside, I can finally appreciate the rationale behind it. Because it takes time to sort out our principles and values, it takes time to build expertise, it takes time to build relationships and find comrades, and most importantly, it takes time to gather experience, so that when the time came for us to do what we are meant to do on earth, we would know how best to do it.

Patience, patience.

It helps, of course, to know that we are far from alone in this world. Many others would share our dreams; some started working on it decades earlier, and many more will work for it when they grow up. The best way we can contribute is by bringing our expertise to the table and doing our best jobs, not by being mediocre and whiny.

We are all part of this big, wonderful world. In the future we'll all bring significant, real changes to the world. And until then, we'll just have to be patient, and do our best to prepare ourselves for our turn.

*

I still want many things. But above all, I want to be good at what I do.

To quote a friend of mine - I am ready to learn again.

Hello 2011 :)

2011-01-05T12:18:00.000+08:00

Well, frantic packing and slow walks along the beach of Pulau Tioman made me miss all the New Year frenzy and the flood of resolutions-sharing, so it didn't really feel like a New Year to me. Still, tossing out the old calender and beginning a new one is a good excuse to take stock of the past year and see what I want out of the new one.

What was 2010 like? That is one hard question to answer. I'm still not so far from high school that I remember what it's like to have a structured and sheltered life, with the passage of time marked by exams and birthdays. Yet, in the past two or three years I've been through so much changes and faced uncertainties that didn't seem to have an end that all resemblance of structure has broken down and it's become more of a task to assess how I did in a year.

2010 began with tons of projects and more ambition that I could handle, the latter of which I only realized quite recently. What happened this year started further back, so please indulge me as I try to trace what made 2010 fly past in a blur.

In 2008-2009 I was hungry intellectually and I studied harder than I ever did in life, and I got very close to what I said I wanted to be. I was the model high achiever, and everyone thought really well of me and was certain of the high-flyer future I would have. But something very important was missing.

I wasn't happy. At all. Despite feeling an inflated sense of achievement and feeling very proud of myself, I was more miserable than ever.

So when I faced a choice between continuing down that road, which is laced with a vague promise of security career-wise, and the perceived 'inferior' choice with a future that is pretty much a total unknown, I chose the latter. I chose to be near the people who matter the most to me, because that is the surest way I know how to be happy.

Granted, I am very grateful that I'm blessed enough to be able to make that choice, I know many others don't have that privilege.

So that was how I ended up studying in Singapore, a place where I once vowed to never study in (as my family are eager to remind me whenever I'm enjoying myself too much).

But well, saying that I was the model high achiever was exaggerating, as I was rejected by all the scholarships I applied to (except the last one). I didn't really think of them as failures though, only very important indicators of my weaknesses and what I need to work on.

So in late 2009, when uni started, I was determined to take on most non-academic opportunities I come across and make full use of it. I joined clubs and organizing committees, I joined contests, I volunteered at the YOG; I didn't really study very hard.

As my math skills - something I was so proud of back in college - grew rusty and my interest in writing, environment, drawing, sociology, web design, history, marketing and everything except Economics grew, I wonder.

As my to do list grew endless with club meetings, reports, proposals; course assignments, projects, readings; stories, blog posts, attempts at learning to cook, practise driving; I grew tired and restless, and I wonder.

As my career aspirations wobble between banking, civil service, academia, business and doing something really meaningful, I wonder.

*

It's safe to say I wondered a lot in 2010. I worried a lot. I did a whole lot of stuff. But I don't think most of what I accomplished was the best I could do. Except maybe YOG. That I enjoyed a lot and had the most fun in.

Well, I miss being really good at what I do. So here are the goals I set for myself this year and beyond:

1) Pick my battles wisely. Learn to say no, even to opportunities (when I'm waist-deep in exploring other opportunities, that is)

2) Fight them well. Learn how things can be better done. Then do it.

3) Be a better friend. Care more, judge less.

They don't look very impressive or ambitious or SMART, nor do they point to a specific direction of what I should achieve in life.

That's because I'm not done exploring, you know? If there's anything I learned during my almost-desperate drive to prove myself, it's that the world is so, so much bigger than I ever thought possible; and I matter very little in the grand scheme of things (yes, I admit that my sense of self-worth was rather inflated).

For all I want to save the world from itself, no one really cares until I have something useful to contribute.

As for goal number 3... well, trying to do so much meant I had little time to just hang out over ~~coffee~~ bubble tea, or to say hi to old friends. Bad me.

I will be better.

*

So what was 2010 like? It was a bit all over the place, and I am a bit lost. But I had fun too.

How about 2011 then? I will explore more. Have more fun. But I'll be better at it.

So hello, 2011. Let's get things started.

:)

A song for children?

2010-12-12T21:51:00.000+08:00

Came across this song some time ago when the uni newspaper did a feature on the lyricist when he was conferred an award for cultural achievements. I literally stopped doing everything else to read the lyrics over and over again. Even though it was marked as a 童谣 ('tong yao'), or a song for children (something like lullaby), I think all adults should listen to it carefully.

(I translated the lyrics below, scroll down; that said, I did my best, but it's still a bit awkward. It's quite poetic in chinese)

童谣1987
亲爱的爸爸给我一个窗口
给我留一片还没有污染的天空
在层层的重重的铁窗后
让我望一望草地上绿色的自由

亲爱的妈妈给我哭闹的时间
让我迟一些才学会标准的笑脸
也许你可以先给我一点空间
让我喜欢自己再接受文明的训练

亲爱的老师不要那么紧张
不是所有的歌曲都要规矩的唱
一切的ABC可以慢慢的学
不要教我争先让我从容一点

亲爱的世界给我一个黑板
让我快乐地画一幅自己的向往
其实你不该教会我太多黑白
让我长大后不会对着灰色无奈

Tong Yao 1987 (Song for Children 1987)

Dear Daddy, please give me a window
leave me a piece of unpolluted sky
let me have a glimpse of the green freedom of grass
behind the heavy, layered windows

Dear Mommy, please give me time to cry and make noise
let me master the perfect smile a bit later
perhaps you can give me so some space
let me learn to like myself, before receiving society's training

Dear Teacher, please don't be so nervous
not all songs must be sung a certain way
ABC and everything else can be learned gradually
don't teach me how to compete, let me treat things calmly

Dear World, please give me a blackboard
let me happily draw a piece of my own dreams
in fact you should not teach me, too much about black and white
so that when I grow up, I would not be frustrated at the grayness in the world

I wish someone sang me this song when I was young. The world is turning out so different from what I expected. Or perhaps my expectations were too narrow, too naive, too small.

Don't get me wrong though, growing up is quite an experience. I do enjoy it. That will be a post for another day, though. Time to go back to my notes!

Close my eyes and it's November again

2010-11-01T23:50:00.000+08:00

For some reason I thought about being fourteen today. I guess it's because it's November again, aka NaNoWriMo, and I can't help but remember how things have changed over the years. I remember only hearing of that crazy venture just two days before November started, and signed up just like that.

Just like that, began a tradition of this really crowded, fun and procrastination-filled month every year, until - of course - the Big Exam Year of Form Five. Then college - with the usual drive that I can't seem to find after college ended - came and I hit the 30k mark for the first time, without actually having anything going on in the story. (There was an annoying kid who kept harping on about missing his ride back to the future and three aimless teens with lots of free time after SPM...)

And then last year, when I attended a kick off party for the second time (first was in college, surprise surprise) and did not even hit 2k. Hmm.

Sometimes I miss that fourteen-year-old's impulsiveness. Spontaneity. The sense of invincibility.

Yet I feel like fourteen today in all the wrong ways. Not like I have a fantasy world worth building and a great story worth writing, but like the real world seems to be against me. A little.

You can tell that I'm tired, can't you?

That fourteen-year-old also started a blog, which was updated very frequently and with rather imperfect English at first. But boy, did she love it. And I'm glad she did. For blogging is about living in the now, and I need to remember this, above all.

TED talk: The politics of fiction

2010-07-18T21:37:00.000+08:00

Just watched the TED talk by Elif Shafak and it raised so many interesting points for me that I don't know where to begin.

For starters though, what I found the most amusing and thought provoking was what she said about writing stories. As an aspiring author myself, it was very fascinating to see someone's whose views were quite opposite from my own. Well, she mentioned that fiction is imaginary and the stories we write not necessarily have to reflect our own; in fact, she disagreed with a popular method of teaching creative writing, i.e. teaching people to 'write what they know'.

If this talk took place perhaps three years ago, I would have totally agreed with her and point people - especially those at home who keep encouraging us to write 'local' stories - to her talk and justify my own fixation with writing fantasy stories that takes place in the U.S. or some other place that is not Malaysia (well, you don't see many books with stories taking place in Malaysia).

But in recent years I learned to observe better, and to be more patient to people, thus discovering the myriad of stories - and some really are stranger than fiction - that take place right here, where I was born. I am particularly fixated with the idea of writing a story about Johor Baru, and perhaps Singapore (these two cities are inseparable, especially if you want to talk about people). Because I feel that people don't know about these stories. I feel that JB and SG are very special places with very unique stories but no one really knows about how they are connected. Or how their people are. Something like that.

I feel this deep urge within me to tell this story - essentially my own - to the world. And I think it will eventually be told, whatever stories I choose to write in the future. I can't hide this part of me, not from something as intimate as my own works.

The latter, though, is something I always forget. I keep trying to find a plot or character or something, through which to tell this story; I keep looking for something concrete and perhaps 'obviously' JB or Singaporean.

Lately, though, I became aware of how uncreative this approach is, and how I really am stuck inside the figurative box. I am exploring other ways of telling this story now, even if I still haven't really give up on the old ideas yet.

Anyway, what was my point again? I think my interest was hooked when Ms Shafak mentioned how people expect her to write characters like herself, i.e. a Turkish/Muslim woman ('most likely sad', I love her sense of humor), and how she found that weird, even alarming. But that was exactly what I've been trying to do for the past year and more! I've been trying to write about someone like myself, trying to tell my story about this place that I love dearly to the world, but it still isn't working.

But maybe this is what Ms Shafak meant. We shouldn't just 'write what we know', but instead really use our imagination to tell stories - fiction, after all, is supposed to involve imagination.

*

She also mentioned that (paraphrased) 'politics separate, fiction connects', which just hit me like a revelation. I truly believe that statement, and I hope and will work hard to someday make that my vocation - connecting people through stories. That is, after all, why I fell in love with stories in the first place. It plugged me into the world, made me 'connected' to humanity and love and courage and millions of other good things that no website ever did, or could.

*

As a side thought, though, I can't help wondering, what of political fiction? Or even fictional politics? Probably not what the context she meant, but a thought worth venturing further when one has more free time.

*

Reminder to self: Finish a story before I reach 20! Around two months more now!!

What we did, what we are doing

2010-07-11T15:12:00.000+08:00

"You can't define yourself by what you've done. Only by what you're doing now."
-- Carlos, in "Final Days", Power Rangers in Space fanfic, 'First' series, by Starhawk (or her new site)

I wonder. How do we define ourselves? What does it mean to be who we are?

Extraordinarily vague questions with even harder to define answers. I remember in my old blog, there was a point - sometime during school holidays when I was either 16 or 17 (and man I feel old by thinking I'm older than that now) - when I knew for sure I have found who I am, or was.

I claimed that I was 'complete', and listed the things that made me so; they include my achievements, my family and friends, my feelings and thoughts, my dreams for the future and some other things.

I've since lost that conviction, of course, and found and lost it again a couple more times. Because I know that identity is not a fixed or tangible thing, it changes with time and what we currently do, even if there is a core that must somehow stay constant. (And I only know the latter because I'm sure we would have gone crazy if not for it)

But back to the quote. It made me think, because who are we if we exclude what we've done? Context often matters; in the above the character, Carlos, was talking to another character called Kerone, who was kidnapped and brainwashed to be evil when she was young and had only recently found out her real identity. And I suppose this definition, that only what we are doing now matters, come up more often in situations where redemption or forgiveness is sought.

How about generally, then? Can we define ourselves by what we've done? I'm toying with this question because at this stage of my life, with resumes and scholarship interviews just a year ago, I was required to think hard and list done what I've done. And I suppose that gave those achievements a greater weight than deserved.

The more I think about it, the more I think my 16 or 17-year-old self is wiser. Who we are isn't what we've done or our achievements, or it can't be just that. They are only part of who we are. What we're doing now, who we want to be in the future - they all form parts of who we are.

And we should all give equal weight to them, something which I think I'd done poorly at lately. Maybe that's why that quote triggered so much thought.

I've been looking too much at the past lately and at what I've done. A clearer phrase is perhaps 'resting on my laurels'. And complacent.

Yes, I have done things I'm proud of. But it feels like this past year I haven't been doing things that move me forward. I feel like my laudable achievements halted with that Cambridge offer letter, with that win at the essay contest (and certain personal stuff).

So how shall I define myself by what I am doing now? I would say I am better in the past month. I am ready to move forward. It feels like I've moved past a hurdle without knowing what it was, and that quote finally put words to that problem. Next time I would know better.

I am happy at that. :)

**

By the way, if you are curious about the stories, I have only two things to say - They are wonderfully long, and greatly satisfying to read till the end ('the end' is still debatable, actually). You need not know too much about Power Rangers because the author changed much of the original, and went far beyond that anyway.

Those stories were among the first fanfics I've ever read, and they remain among the best. They're also the very ones that ignited my dream to write my own stories. They've accompanied me throughout my high school life, and I've gone back and reread them dunno how many times. It gets better each time, somehow.

What I love most was perhaps that the author went beyond the happy endings, and showed us how their lives went on after they saved the universe. The 'season' I'm at now - after an exhilarating reread from season one - is when they were about to graduate from high school. I can so connect to that even though that happen a few years ago now.

Ah, stories. How would I ever live without you.

First Half

2010-06-30T20:52:00.000+08:00

Man, I miss Desperate Housewives. Can't believe I missed so many seasons.

Ahem.

Anyway. It's the 30th of June, the end of the first half of the year. As with all symbolic passage of time, this warrants some reflections.

It feels a lot like the same time last year. Last year, I just finished my A-levels and was finally home - though not for good, for I packed up and left for Singapore barely two months later. (It struck me many times, with the oddest sense of surprise and hints of sadness, that perhaps that three months after SPM was the last time I 'live' at my home. After uni it would be fulfilling my tuition bond, which means staying in Singapore for another three years. By then, where would home be? Did I and do I treasure it while I have it?).

These days I'm going back and forth the Causeway, not really staying at either place for long. My bed at home is the bottom half of those 'retractable' beds, with my brother occupying the upper half, and it's stowed away when I am not home. I feel somewhat like a guest, even if buying that bed was my idea ("It'll save space when I'm off to college!", I had enthusiastically suggested, feeling rather smart, during SPM exams, when my parents bought it at a sale). I miss having my own space.

Back to the first half of this year. I've done a lot, that I don't have trouble admitting. The massive undertaking that was NTU Model United Nations is but a blur of memories now, back in February. Then there was some exhibitions and a few talks that I helped organized; there was a whole semester of Economic Thought that kept my mind stimulated; the numerous chats about what to do during the 'Four-month break!' that seems rather laughable at this stage of the four months; the election that saw me clinching a position I didn't expect in my club; there was the exams, then the results. Then the vacation.

Yet I don't feel very accomplished. If this were a mid-term exam I think I missed the A grade.

Why? I'm not too sure of it myself. It feels like last year - because I am not really sure where I am heading, in general. And it feels like I should have matured more, grown better during the time that passed. I feel like I haven't progressed since the start of uni. Why is that?

Perhaps I should have done this on a less sentimental mood, on a night when lightning isn't flashing outside and the windows aren't shivering from thunder. Because there really is many upsides to the first half as well.

I got to know my uni friends better. I started another blog, the more 'professional' one that I always dreamed of starting (even if readership is non-existent at the moment). I joined a program about responsible energy usage and sustainable development, something close to my heart. I borrowed more books from the libraries around here and devoured them. I found incredible new shows and anime.

And I have many things to look forward to. The responsible energy program, my two clubs' respective events, the new courses I'm taking next semester.

*

I think I know why I don't feel accomplished. I'll turn 20 in September. And I don't feel like someone who's almost 20. That feels so old. I still feel like a teenager in many ways. There are still dreams left unfulfilled. Like finish writing a story. There is still such a big room for improvement.

*

All right that's it. I'm going to do a few things before I turn 20:

1) Give 100% to everything I do

2) Be much braver. Ask questions. Make mistakes. Dream childish dreams

3) Finish writing a story

On second thought, I shall continue doing them after 20 (writing and finishing more stories for the third. I will finish a story in 3 months dammit!).

And true, 20 may not mean anything. It is but another symbolic thing. But it is a good excuse to take stock of where we are now, give ourselves a pat on the back, and press on with a new war cry.

And that has made all the difference...

2010-06-22T16:44:00.001+08:00

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
-- The Road Not Taken, Robest Frost

I always thought that in uni, I would be all fired up and driven and all, and have a clear direction of where I'm going and who I would be. I lived like that for a while, in college.

Looking back, I am left very amazed by who I was in college. I wonder if I was really determined to succeed, or that it was either work hard, or become miserable by being so far away from home. I marvel at that determination, and more importantly, that conviction that Economics is what I am meant to do in life.

Because these days, I wonder.

I wonder why. Why Economics, really? Why not something more, I dunno, useful? Why not engineering? Why not medicine? Why not architecture? Why not even logistics and supply chain?

Why, of all subjects, did I choose one where people can't seem to be sure about what they're supposed to study, and no one can ever know enough to not be surprised by another market crash? Why a subject with the prospect of a job that involves sitting in a room and look at numbers and numbers and numbers?

Why do I dread lab work so badly? Why couldn't I see that that is where invention takes place, where the world of nature and human met? Why did I shun engineering because I am told it won't lead to anything good?

Do I still like Economics? Yes, I do and I think I always will. But I just feel rather helpless lately, compared to those people in the emerging fields of clean tech, whether in environmental engineering or other fields.

Economics has answers to everything, but only given the right conditions.

Just look at the attempt to introduce cap-and-trade in the US. Look at Copenhagen. Look at that real time, global-size tragedy of the commons.

I used to tell myself that I will help speed up the process of saving the world from climate change through economics. Somehow. I even wrote in my personal statement that money is the language that the whole world speaks, and thus economics must hold the key to solving problems of the world.

Nowadays I despair. Sometimes. That I chose a subject that seems so wimpy and helpless while people in engineering produces one innovation after another. I shudder away from the thought that I may have wasted my education and pure-science background. I hide from the thought of what if; what if I had chosen engineering instead? What if I could have contributed much more had I chosen science as my path?

But I come from a practical family. I am not going to allow myself waste time wondering. I will do my best anyway, even if those thoughts haunt me still.

Of mountains and mortality

2010-06-13T23:13:00.000+08:00

Due to my grandma's surgery, we went back to Ipoh for a few days and only came back yesterday. This trip has certainly given me a lot to think about, not just on mortality. But first, some showing off of how I was charmed by this place that is kind of my home, too:

Ah, Perak and mountains. A six-hour car-ride can be very monotonous with the continuous, repetitive sceneries of palm trees and grass and palm trees and trees. But you would know when you're near the Perak stretch of North-South Highway (almost home!), because the sceneries will morph into dramatic mountains and the straight road become winding and mysterious. It's almost as if there are many stories hidden within the mountains and roads and that even the road must give way to all that majesty. Mystical, always.

Anyway, back to mortality. I realized, firstly, that I am very glad that I didn't follow societal expectations (and those of a few teachers) and become a doctor. I simply am not comfortable dealing with people's physical pain or suffering. It feels as if I must somehow help, yet I do not know how. Even if I can learn how to, I still can't imagine how to deal with all those blood and scars and the lives changed.

We saw grandma waking up shortly after her surgery ended, aka, before the painkillers set in. My grandma is a very strong lady, but I've never seen her show so much pain, and I was, to be honest, terrified. And feeling quite helpless. Guilt is thrown in a while later when my mom remarked that that was exactly how she felt after giving birth to my bro and I - both through the C-section.

But just a few hours later grandma seemed much better, and she even said it's not big deal and all, but well, I wasn't fooled.

I respect doctors even more than I did now, and I really admire and am in awe of my friends who are studying and working hard to be doctors. Gambatte, you all! The world needs people like you.

*

And well, I learned something else. My dad kept trying to make jokes about stuff, some of which I wouldn't dare to, and at first I thought it was rather inappropriate, given that it was his mother who's undergoing surgery and in pain - but then I realized that it was just his way of making things better. It would not do anyone good for us to be worried and quiet and doing nothing. One might as well lighten up the mood a bit.

Lesson learned? There's always a reason beneath people's actions. Don't judge them superficially.

*

While this may seem a bit inappropriate, we did have a lot of fun back in Ipoh. Had some awesome adventures of the culinary kind. And around three cups of Ipoh White Coffee per day.

Ah, it's hard to find such good and cheap dim sum elsewhere.

*

Also, while dad's been driving us back to Ipoh every year, this trip is the first where he shared the drive with mom (who totally stunned us by how freaking fast she can go). Sometimes it's hard to remember that even as my future seems bright and full of possibilities, my parents are getting old.

No, I know that all the time. It's just hard to remember - or expect - that things will change because of that. Things are always changing. And these days, I kind of resent that, even if I accept it.

*

So how was the trip overall? Was there closure? I don't know. This trip, while gastronomically satisfying, gave me much more to ponder about. I feel like a kid again, not at all like someone approaching the end of teenage-dom.

*

And yes, I miss Ipoh White Coffee.

Even without great power, comes great responsibilities

2010-06-06T15:16:00.000+08:00

Sometimes life just throw you surprises that shouldn't surprise you, and you're left with a tiny 'oh' and a feeling that maybe you've become too comfortable with where you are going.

Last week or maybe the one before that, we got a call from my grandma in Ipoh that she needed to undergo a kneecap replacement surgery. And as my dad is the eldest son and admitted the most financially comfortable compared to his siblings, the burden fell on him. That's a sudden, unexpected RM30K+ expenditure. That's about the total of what I spent during my 1.5 year college education.

Grandma's knee had been bothering her for ages, as long as I can remember, actually. We should have prepared better, in a way. Dad even brought it up the last time we were back in Ipoh, during Chinese new year. But grandma didn't want to burden other people, even her children. She is one tough lady.

But it seemed that it got so bad that she can't even walk these days, so she finally agreed to a surgery.

We are fortunate that while financially that is a huge amount, it is not unaffordable. It just gave me quite a reality check about my future responsibilities.

Lately I've toyed with the idea that I don't have to go where the money is and try to somehow forge my own path and get a job that I would enjoy, even if the financial rewards are not that lucrative. In other words, 'chase my dreams' and all. People in the movies and books make it seem so easy. But it isn't. One has many responsibilities that one must prepare for.

It's like what the character Jet Li played in the movie Fearless said, "Life has never been about an individual".

Hmm. I won't give up on what I want, though. I will work something out.

The Connected Consciousness

2010-05-24T09:51:00.001+08:00

Last week I was locked out of my own cell phone because I forgot the password. So between that discovery and my replacing my SIM card in my old phone, I traveled around without a cell phone (which is for around one afternoon).

Being without a cell phone made me feel surprisingly vulnerable.

What if something happens to me and I can't call out? What if something happens to people I care about and nobody can reach me? What if I miss an important call?

All those thoughts, despite the fact that I rarely use my phone at all for calling. Mostly I text, and I use the phone's music player and camera much more often.

But knowing that I am reachable, knowing that all the people I love are just one phone call away, is a state of mind that I am used to. I am used to being connected.

Losing that connection - or being DC-ed, as my bro would say - even for one afternoon, is enough to make me feel nervous. At the same time, though, the other half of my mind can't help but laugh at how ridiculous this is. It is just beyond wimpy to hesitate about being outside without a working cell phone. And I thought I am well past that 'independent young adult' marker and am capable of surviving on my own.

I wonder, is this the price we pay, for always being on top of everything? Always connected; having the latest news, being able to talk to people far away, etc?

Is this a sign of progress for humankind? How is progress defined? If being increasingly interconnected and interdependent is what progress entails, then does progress necessarily mean the lost of self-sufficiency?

In this age, how many of us can work without the internet? Without even a DC-ed computer? Humans used to need so little to survive.

*

I understand, though, that the world has changed drastically and is still changing rapidly each day. We humans must always adapt to survive; adaptability, beyond all else, is what ensures survival.

But still, I feel that sometimes we must look at what we gave up, and ponder if it is wise to do so. Otherwise we may wake up one day and realize that we don't know what the world has turned into anymore.

Can you smell the free time?

2010-05-05T11:47:00.000+08:00

Summer vacation is finally here.

Oh yeay, baby. :)

I thought I would get real high and celebrate four months of freedom the moment my last paper is over, but it turns out that things don't work like that.

Once you are focused on or stressed out over a task, you are left a bit bewildered when that task is over. (Perhaps this happens only with long, drawn-out ones though) It seems like your mind needs to slowly unwind and leave that state of mind behind.

Once you do, though - wow. Even the air smell much fresher.

After a completely unproductive and lazy weekend, I'm beginning to feel the excitement. Time to do things I've been wanting to do! I have a list or sorts (in no particular order), and looking at it, I wonder if four months is really that long:

1. ESS Essay Competition
2. Write a novel
3. Visit other Toastmasters clubs in SG
4. Give speeches at TM clubs
5. Get fitter
6. Travel around Singapore like a tourist
7. Read books! Revive my library card!
8. Update my blogs
9. Get behind a wheel again and make my license renewal fee worth it
10. Clean up the mess in my room at home
11. Draw! Sketch! Paint! Color!
12. Visit the many free exhibitions available (even museums)
13. Help my mum with her marketing plan of her new company
14. Meet up with friends who are flying overseas later this year
15. Learn how to cook something. Anything will do.

... and various admin stuff.

I think I would need some funds. But add a job to all that? Oh boy.

Never fear, though! One thing at a time.

Drooping branches and shining ripples

2010-04-23T19:38:00.003+08:00

Just now I went out, and sat on the steps near the lake on campus. And stayed there just staring into space for some time.

And I think I figured something out.

I was feeling rather chaotic before that; a bit stressed from the exams, a bit anxious about the remaining papers, a bit worried about getting a job during vacation, worried that I would waste the four months of free time due to lack of planning, worried that I'm not making the most out of what I have; worried, above all, that I'm wasting my time.

I didn't have the mood to study, nor did I have the urge to watch my favorite dramas. When I open the books I told myself that after a paper today and all that studying before, I should give myself some time off and have fun; when I load the videos and read stories I feel guilty that I'm not studying. So I went out for a jog.

And ended up on the steps, facing the lake. It's become one of my favorite spots on campus. From there you can see the tiny lake, roughly the size of a football field, in the color of a warm, comforting green. Sometimes tortoises would swim near the surface, and now and then a bird or two would fly near the surface and touch the lake, sending weak ripples that fade into the greater, shining ripples from the wind.

Tiny and not-so-tiny shrubs and plants circle the lake, partly hiding the jogging tracks that I sometimes use with wary (as there is a very healthy population of lizards. Or maybe even chameleons. The not-small kind, mind you). At the other end of the lake there is the sheltered walkway, marking the border of this tiny haven on campus. At the sides, the ground rise up rather protectively, ending with a steady fence that is lined by huge, sturdy trees.

And just next to my favorite spot, another tree stood, its branches reaching out and falling ever so artistically into the corner of my view. I gotta sketch this scene someday.

Anyway. Sitting there and listening to the wind, the insects all around me - I have told myself to be braver - has a really calming effect.

While letting my thoughts drift, I had an epiphany. Or perhaps a reminder of something I used to know - sometimes, I just have to do nothing, and stare into space. Or reflect. Or think. Or not think.

The thing is - I must give myself some space to be with myself, without obligations, goals or other things to do.

That has always been how I got my ideas for my stories, how I motivated myself. I can talk to myself in my head, asking the important questions that I don't get to ask myself otherwise. Like, what did I want when I was a kid? Why did I want it? Do I still want it now? What kind of future do I want?

Just now, I asked myself, what regrets would I have, if I die tomorrow?

It cleared my perspective.

Why fuss over the papers? Why worry, when it is something I want to do well in anyway? I should just give my best and study.

Why assume that my career paths must be fixed? That I must somehow choose between all current 'established paths'? Why put limits on what I can do in the future?

I decided I won't regret those. But I've also decided that I do have a few regrets.

And I'm going to fix them.

*

Sometimes, we should just give ourselves some space. Away from chores and assignments and planning and goals. Space to probe and tickle and get to know that little part of our true selves.

You may love what you find. Or you may be dismayed.

But hey, don't worry, it is up to you to fix it.

Closer and closer

2010-04-10T20:26:00.001+08:00

The idea of freedom is so tempting. Facing a weekend with almost no official obligations (as I suppose studying is an official obligation), the relatively empty timetable of the last week of the semester, and the freedom - the free time! - to do whatever I want to do -- wow.

I feel like spending these few days watching the world go by. Walk around with a chair and sit and sketch my pretty campus. Go watch movies. Revisit the libraries (not the ones in school) again and borrow the maximum number of books, and sit down at the library cafe with a glass of fruit juice and just read.

Luxuries like those seem like a thing of the past. Growing up seems to mean a growing number of responsibilities.

I don't think I can do all that even if I want to. Or even if nobody can catch me and scold me for not studying. I don't even have to get straight As to keep my scholarship (average of Bs and B- will do).

As if by some invisible ropes, responsibilities bind themselves to you and don't let go. Again, my favorite quote - freedom is responsibility. I have study plans. I am making plans for the coming summer so that I don't do nothing. I am researching ways in which I can find out more about what I may want to do later, or where I can learn that.

And nobody asked me to do that.

This feels ... pretty amazing. That I'm doing what I want to be who I want to be. Every once in a while I need this reminder.

Because while it may be tiring, I feel like I am really living, or much nearer to this idea of a grown-up. I study because it's my favorite subject and I chose it. I look for jobs because I want the money and the experience.

I work - because I have a dream. Still rather fuzzy at the moment - oh, it involves some parts of being awesome and some parts of saving the world - but you get the idea.

Sometimes it feels tiring, so I have to remind myself of this (from a bookmark, actually): Every challenge is going to make me closer to who I want to be.

Who minds hard work? Who minds studying all day? I have a dream to chase. :)

Silly grin

2010-04-04T10:42:00.001+08:00

:D

I did something so incredibly silly yesterday that I can't believe I did it. And that I'm still laughing at myself for it.

You know how some products come with refills? I always go for products like those because they are more environmentally friendly.

So I bought this shaver that came with 5 refill blades (imagine how happy and proud I was), and yesterday I decided the first one had met its time.

And I threw it away. The whole thing, with the handle. I only realized it today.

So now I have 5 refill blades with nothing to fit into.

Gosh, what on earth was I thinking?

*

And what am I thinking, posting up something like this for the whole world to see?

Well, my first reaction was annoyance at myself for having done something so stupid. Now I go all the way out (my campus is rather 'ulu' or secluded) to hunt for the same model.

But hey, it's not the end of the world. Sometimes you just have to laugh at yourself because it's a much better alternative to blaming yourself and ruining a nice, if rainy, Sunday.

And you have to admit, it is rather funny.

:D

Leopard spots

2010-04-01T20:53:00.000+08:00

I stumbled upon an old question today, one that seems to me insists on showing up every now and then to remind me of who I used to be, and whether I will ever be rid of that, or accept it.

The question? Do people really change? Or must old habits stick with you your whole life?

It struck me again because I did a selfish and petty thing today. I thought I've grown more mature and less self-centered than this. But just like that - reflex took over, and I refused to help someone whom I think I should.

See, this guy needs help with his coursework, which involves conducting a 4-person game (of which the more samples, the better, of course). I was in the computer lab reading some econs- related blog (which I haven't had the time to, lately). What made me refuse to participate - even though I know I would be in the same situation some day - was that he assumed my consent to his offer. He picked 4 people in the lab - the other 3 were guys I didn't know at all - and asked me to join straight away, without considering that I may be busy. It really irked me because I thought that wasn't very respectful, or even polite.

Later on I met him during a dinner event. I avoided helping again, and I could tell that he noticed. I was still rather annoyed then for what happened earlier. It was only until I left that place that I realized how selfish and petty that was.

There was a reason why he annoyed me so much - he did the same thing before on other occasions, but somehow I think it's not his fault. He seems like that kind of guy without proper social skills. Rather awkward, and doesn't know what is proper or not during some occasions. Once, during a concert-like event and I was enjoying the singer's performance, he interrupted to asked me something about studies! In the middle of a really good live song! So he didn't leave me with a good impression. But still, I told myself that he didn't mean it.

And the same thing occurred to me just now. That probably he just didn't know he was being rude. It was unfair for me to judge him like that and refuse to help. I would be in the same situation some day, after all. How would I like it if no one helped me with my surveys and such?

Alas, what was done was done. And I don't feel like apologizing at all, even though I know it wasn't his fault.

But it just... saddened me a little, after I've calmed down a bit. That was very selfish of me. I thought I had changed for the better.

Can people change, really?

Responsibility

2010-03-31T00:09:00.000+08:00

Ahem. [Warning: Shameless engagement in showing-off below. Read at your own risk :P]

Yours truly was elected Vice President of Public Relations of my toastmasters club just now :D

Well, it wasn't a post that I thought I would take a few months back, but after some soul-searching I think it's the right fit.

Toastmasters has taken me so far beyond where I thought I could go, whether within myself - with what I can or cannot do, or externally - to places I didn't think I would have access to, that somehow I'm not very surprised that I ended up somewhere that I didn't see myself in.

With the title of VPPR behind my name, I shall now wade through the Toastmasters society with purpose. Time to build contacts and networks and my people skills.

... but this post isn't really about this. It's about a choice, and a reminder to myself of my responsibility.

Because I wanted to take on a bigger role in another club as well; I wanted everything, as usual. I avoided thinking about choices, and hoped that it will go away.

But to make sure I don't bite off more than I can chew next year, I had to choose. And I did. So time to take responsibility. Let TM be my priority for this year. And make it a great one :)

*

"First you make a decision, then you follow through. That is how things are changed."
-- (paraphrased) Lacus Clyne, Gundam Seed

Econs fatigue

2010-03-24T22:55:00.000+08:00

Sometimes, I get pretty tired of Economics. Most of the times I'm excited by it, awed by it, especially in all those graphs with simple curves that tell so, so much. Economics is like the language of common and not-so-common sense. It's beautiful.

But there are times when I grow weary of all those recurrent, persistent questions, all those signals that we as econs students are supposed to follow - GDP, inflation, exchange rates, etc. All those debates that we are expected to follow.

And don't get me started on Econometrics. I mean, the principles are a whole new level of coolness, but when it comes down to reality, you have to deal with the chaos that they call data. And data are always missing things, either there are missing values, or errors in measurements, or they don't behave the way you want them to (well, as in, don't follow the assumptions - another thing that makes Econs such a cool yet frustrating subject). And when you can only use the basic spreadsheet program that you have to run regressions 'cause you can't afford the Eviews and it's late and the school's computer lab is closed - you feel like tearing your hair out at the data.

(No, that was an exaggeration. You just feel your eyes closing and your mind wondering to the drama series you are currently following)

But let's get back to Economics becoming boring the more you follow the mainstream debates. I mean, where is the fun in all that? Where is the wonder of discovering something new? Where is the power of Economics, which makes sense of so many things?

*

When I first discovered Economics, I was hooked like I never was before. Not with Physics or Maths. Somehow I just knew that I would be doing Econs. I still remember what I wrote in my personal statement: Economics connected the dots for me and made my worldview a completed whole. Something like that.

It still does. When I learn something new in lecture that just makes sense after being explained that way, I still get a kick out of it. But I don't like working with data. Even if the math is cool, I don't like the data part. (Ahem, this reminds me of 'having style with no substance')

In a course I'm taking this sem, Economic Thought, the prof mentioned that we would study, among others, the 'language of discourse' in Econs and how it changed over the years. It was only when he said that that I realized that words and maths are two different languages.

And econs was not so mathematical back then. I remember prof saying that Adam Smith would never make it as an economist if he lived now, if he stuck to the same book. He was not mathematical at all.

I seemed to be attracted to that. Explaining with words (and well, graphs. No regressions though). But the academia seems to be using maths nowadays. And somehow I don't see myself do that.

And with my dislike of data, I don't think I would enjoy being an economist, even if I do like Economics.

Which leads me to a question - what shall I do?

*

I remember a quote from the days when I dream of becoming a published author - If you keep doing what you love now, wherever you end up must be somewhere you wanted to be.

I try to hold on to that in life; whether it was being with my family, keep writing stuff that never see the light of the day - and Economics.

I don't know what I will do yet if I don't want to be an economist.

But I'll always remember that kick I get from when I first understand the demand and supply diagram. I'll always remember the exhilaration from the realization that Economics can be applied in life in general, and not confined to GDPs and inflation rates and interest rates. I'll always remember that I have never enjoyed any other subject so much, even if I get tired of it sometimes.

I'll always remember that I love Economics.

Bookish Dreams, five years on

2010-03-21T10:59:00.000+08:00

I'm in a rather dreamy mood today. Maybe it's due to the nice, breezy weather. Maybe it's due to a less packed day, for once.

Reading the NYT book reviews and essays by book authors made me think about my so-called dreams. 'So-called', because they used to be something so concrete and shiny and real, but now seem so naive and distant.

Five years ago or thereof, I dreamt of becoming a published author. Preferably before I hit the 20-year-old milestone, so that I can be very famous and all.

(And my novel doesn't have to be cheesy or some teeny angst-filled book. Hey, Mary Shelly wrote Frankenstein at 19)

I wanted to write Fantasy (because of course, where did all these start? Where else? Harry Potter), but somehow I could never convince myself of setting my stories in a world with magic and super powers. I always wanted to have a mechanism, to know how it works, and it must be logical.

So my ideas turn out to be sci-fi related, almost all the time. I asked, what if...? What would happen to humans, then? What would It All Mean?

I always had big ideas. Epic ones, I dare say.

... and what about my writing, then, you ask?

See, that's the thing. I never really wrote a lot. Sure, I did some fanfiction, but I didn't finish those stories. The one that I wrote the most was one that I go back to again and again, writing the same scenes over and over, and patting myself on the back when over time, those same scenes did become more mature and - ahem - well-written. They are like a comfort zone, and writing those familiar scenes with characters whom I'm very well-acquainted with is like going to a mental spa.

But I didn't have any stories at all. I had scenes and ideas and big pictures, but how do they all connect together? I had point A and point B, but the journey between them always eludes me.

It's a rather pathetic excuse, what with all those plot generators found online and all. But ever since I realized that, that I don't have any stories to tell - I pretty much stopped writing.

But I started looking. I started listening. And trying to understand people, ordinary people whom I live and hang out with.

Then I realized something incredible. Their stories are so much more interesting than those of chosen ones and quest seekers that I thought of. They are so much more courageous than my characters who faced monsters and supervillians.

Looking back at my 'epic' ideas that explored the future and meaning of humanity, or end-of-the-worlds and survivors - I want to laugh. What do I even know about humanity? What do I even know about life?

But I'm learning, I think. I think I found a story, and this one has been nagging at me since a couple of years ago. I even wrote some of it during NaNo last year. Or last last year. It's a bit of a mess.

But you know what? It made me happy. Even if my writing skills is rather rusty, but for once, I wrote something which showed something that I saw and wanted to show the world. I translated those to paper (screen), and for the first time in my life, I think I managed to communicate a tiny bit of humanity through my writing.

It made me think that hey, maybe I'm not that hopeless as a writer.

*

So five years on, I still want to write a book.

The difference is, it doesn't have to be published. I just want to write a story. I just want to tell the world what I saw and what I think of it.

And I want to prove to myself that I can.

I can write a book.

Seeking my Hume

2010-03-09T23:32:00.000+08:00

Sometimes I wonder if I will ever find that elusive equilibrium that is so easy to find in Economics. I can fluctuate between extremely driven, hopeful, optimistic about the future and frustrated, tired, cynical about everything two or three times in a day.

A TCM doctor once told me I had 'hormonal imbalance' (when I went to see him for some inflamed tendon in my foot or something), a term I usually associate with my grandmother when I was young and she was just starting menopause.

How ironic.

Anyway, mostly I am optimistic and all when I think about all that university can offer me. All that I can be if only I do it. It's extremely empowering to think that you are responsible for who you are. (reminds me of the quote - 'Freedom is responsibility') And even more so when you're in a uni that has so many opportunities.

I want to join Earthlink, the environment-related club. I want to join SIFE, a club that starts real and sustainable business projects in developing countries. I want to learn archery. Muay Thai. Aikido. Wushu. Fencing. Swimming. They teach all that here (except swimming).

But I'm already heavily committed to two clubs that I love. And I have to keep up my grades to keep my scholarship, to make sure I don't get dismissed by future employers just because I don't meet their 'first-class honors' cut-off point. I want to be invited to do URECA, the undergrad research program. I want to learn Japanese. Maybe French.

... And when one ECA activity follows another and assignments and projects are due and I have to prepare for another project meeting and all I know how to do online is checking mails and news and forget how wonderful the Internet is with all its free fiction and articles and tutorials that I don't have time to enjoy anymore,

I just want to sleep.

I want to feel what it's like to not feel you are responsible to push your limits and be the best that you can. I want to feel why my friends can just treat Econs as just another subject and not care about what happens in the world. I want to feel what it's like to curse your lecturer and the subject when you don't get it, instead of trying to figure it out because you know the answer is there. I want to feel - just a little while - just what it's like to live a small, enclosed, cocooned life.

I think I lied. The whole previous paragraph. I don't even have the courage to just leave it unclarified.

I don't really want to live such a small life. I want to live big. I want to be the best I can.

But sometimes it's so tiring. Especially when you can't find someone with the same goals as you. My uni is good, but god, why don't the students here have more intellectual curiosity? Why do I feel like I am in high school and studying is for passing exams? I thought I left that kind of school life behind.

In times I this, I think about Cambridge rather wistfully. Not that I will ever convince myself that I want to study there, all the way away from home, but I wonder about the people I might have met.

Would I have met people who, like me, would rather talk about the cool econs updates over lunch than shopping or grumbling about lectures? Would I have engaged in eye-opening discussions about theories and unsolved question? Would I have known someone who would influence my life and intellectual progress and change its course forever, like how David Hume did to Adam Smith?

I read enough self-help stuff back then to know that it is unproductive to think about what-ifs or what-would-have-beens.

But sometimes I feel like I need to do this. Writing like this feels to me like talking to the stars and letting them know your secrets.

Maybe tomorrow, I will stop dwelling in what-ifs.

Tomorrow, I will still ask questions about things I don't know. I will do my best, and convince myself that I will find that my David Hume some day.

Dancing lights and loud music

2010-02-06T23:06:00.000+08:00

Loud music makes me sentimental. Especially loud, hyper type of music.

I have no idea why.

Maybe it's not sentimental. More like tired.

Sometimes I do wonder what is wrong with me, that I can't do all those 'let-you-hair-down-and-dance-your-heart-out' kind of thing. Sometimes I am completely at peace with the fact that I'm just not the type of person who dances. Not to those disco/clubbing type of music anyway.

All the source of the world's problems can be captured in a dance floor, actually. You have those people who dances, and those who don't. And one thinks something isn't right with the other. The same type of people stick to their own. And then there's those who would dance even if they don't want to, because they know it is what it takes to fit into that warm mass of bodies beating in tune. Sometimes they realize that they like dancing, sometimes they wonder why they are doing so. Sometimes all it takes to make sense of the dancing lights and deafening music is just one more face that you truly know, and the knowledge that you can face the world together. To hell with the dance floor.

Some other people get sentimental.

Wish you heard me

2010-01-31T22:14:00.000+08:00

I think I'm a sucky communicator. Why is it so hard to get a message across? Even when I lay it out plainly and openly and as clearly as I can? Or must the receiver bear part of the blame as well?

It took a whole lot, I tell you, to say the things I said out loud. Not that they are controversial or unthinkable or anything; they are merely things that I hold very close to my heart, and I'm not the type who just tell people what I feel. I'm not brought up that way.

Nor is my intended receiver(s), I suppose. Maybe that's why they don't seem to get my message at all. I just want them to listen. Is that something so hard?

Sometimes, though, I think it is a matter of trust. Which doesn't make sense yet makes all the sense in the world at the same time. I thought they trust me, but it feels like they don't.

*

Maybe I don't suck at communicating. Maybe I suck at love.

Reading in a city with libraries

2010-01-17T19:37:00.000+08:00

Ah. Libraries. I've been particularly fond of them every since I can remember. With the sole exception of the old state library back home, which held so much promise before I went there and it turned out so disappointing.

But this post is not about that. I just have - just must - record a sight so incredible and unthinkable back in my home country that it is one of the first real culture shock for me, a girl who grew up in JB and watched countless Singapore TV dramas.

It happened yesterday. I went to a library to return a book - and behold! There was so many people in the library! On a saturday! Reading! Browsing! Borrowing books! Returning them! I've never seen so much activity in a library.

I hadn't plan to drop in - I only wanted to use the also fantastic book drop facility outside - but I couldn't resist when I saw that there were so many people.

Not as many as those you see in shopping malls, of course. But I can bet that it was more than the number of people I used to see in bookshops in Malaysia. On weekends.

And while I was walking past the rows of books and dodging children - their children are apparently not stuck to screens like many seem to fear for kids of this century - trying not to look too much like I was being kepoh and eavesdropping, I witnessed a really different culture. One in which parents bring kids to library and the kids are eager about borrowing books; one in which reading is common because there are good libraries and efficient systems and public transport that made them accessible; one in which lack of wealth does not stop one from enjoying books.

I remember telling my mom that if I had grew up in Singapore, I'd probably be very different. On one hand I may have grown up with my nose always in a book and dreamt of becoming a librarian and work in these simply wondrous places; on the other I may turn out to be much more knowledgeable and have very different worldviews than what I have now.

Sometimes I am a little envious of that 'me' who grow up in a city full of accessible books.

This is already past the scope of what I intended to write - But I don't regret that at all. I don't regret not growing up with good libraries at my disposal. I love my life and what I am blessed with. I like who I am.

What matters now is, dude, I live near a library!

Colours of Childhood

2010-01-16T19:03:00.001+08:00

Today I went gawking at the stationery corner of three bookshops in Jurong Point.

Well, it sure wasn't intentional. (Though neither was it the first time) I was looking for something else in the papers section, and when I walked past the display of all the different brands of oil pastels (no, not crayons) and water colours, they took my breath away.

I used to have such a deep desire for new, huge 48 - or even better, 56 - colours oil pastels pack, back in those hazy days in primary school. The rows and rows of brand-new, flat-top oil pastels - not my used and broken-into-two-or-three and rounded pieces - hold so much potential. I was certain that I would be a great artist and produce great masterpieces with them.

The water colours too. I loved colours, even if I wasn't very good with them. I only got brand-new oil pastels twice though, because it is just too much of a waste to buy new ones when only one or two of the old pack was finished.

Walking past those displays today made me realise that that desire never went away. I still want them very, very much. And so much that I would even settle for a 12-colour pack. Truly. I had gone without using colours for a long time. I miss that solid feeling of using your hands to draw something on a blank page, and then using colours to bring that image you had in your mind closer to reality (alas, my paintings never came out the way I imagined; sometimes I think that was why I convinced myself I was not meant to be an artist).

It is a cliche, but drawing and painting is one of the most basic and true way of expression; a channel for saying what you have no words for.

Before words came into my life - way, way before JK Rowling and my own dream of telling the world my stories with words - I drew.

I was in a art class for two years (my longest record of learning anything; organ I gave up after one), enjoying every minute of it; I looked forward to the art periods in school, even if it meant bringing art supplies that bog down my already-heavy-schoolbag; I won drawing competitions in school, even poster-design; I drew in my free-time: Sailormoon, digimon, pokemon - I was already making up stories in my head and drawing pieces of what I could find (I imitate drawings very, very well, though I can't seem to draw decent original pictures). I still kept drawings that were especially good (and had the honour of being displayed at the back of the class)

And of course, I would always linger in the stationery sections in bookstores, telling myself that one day - one day, I would buy these papers and colours and brushes and special pens, like what people who draw do. Surely, I told myself, people must buy them that way, otherwise, why would the bookstores stock them?

*

I'm not going to lament or pretend to wonder what changed. I know exactly what - the digital world entered my life. Internet opened up a whole world I didn't know existed when I was at a very frustrated and confused and restless time of my life. I soaked it up. Words awed me, and took me away from fuzzy dreams of drawing pretty things.

I don't regret that. I wouldn't be half or even a quater of who I am now without the Internet.

But I do miss colours. I miss drawing. I miss just expressing in lines and colours.

*

I didn't buy anything, though I'm very tempted to start drawing again, when I can't find the words for so many things. I used to spend hours and hours just drawing and colouring. It was a true hobby, not something fishy like "surfing the 'net" or 'sleeping'. It did bring me peace.

But I stopped myself. What can I draw? Where do I start again after almost eight years of not drawing? How do I find the time?

Deep down, though, I know they are just excuses.

*

I want colour in my life again.

Lazy Sundays

2010-01-10T18:28:00.000+08:00

I love lazy Sundays. Perhaps a bit too much to be healthy.

We would wake up late, go for breakfast, laze around and watch a series of cooking shows and one called 'What's Good for You' on Channel 5. Then three of us would read the newspaper until lunch - we do love Sunday edition newspapers - while bro would go online.

Then we would talk about where to go for lunch, putting some options in the air and go 'Hmm...'. And go back to whatever we are doing. Then one of us would raise that question again after some moments.

Hey, there's no need to rush. It's a Sunday.

<3

Departures and words

2010-01-09T16:59:00.003+08:00

Bro and I just finished watching the Japanese movie, Departures. It left us both quiet and not really knowing what to say.

I was struck by how much need not be said in life for us to understand it, or to make it a good one. It's a funny and not the least reassuring realization for someone who hopes to one day call herself a writer, like me. Though I can't say that this thought was something new - wordsmiths had left me awestruck many times, yet silent scenes, portraits and gestures had left me humbled and speechless in more profound ways.

Like this movie, about an unemployed cellist who accidentally took on a job as an undertaker ('encoffiner'). It's a very quiet movie with breath-taking landscapes and awkward, ridiculous, dignified, hilarious and heart-breaking scenes. There wasn't much dialogue; gestures and gazes were enough to convey all the feelings that threatened to overwhelmed my tiny screen. There were moments, when the movie was coming to an end, when I wondered what was it really trying to say. What was the message of this movie? Were we supposed to treasure life more now? Were we supposed to be inspired to be better persons?

I couldn't find the words for it. And it was when I stop trying to that I understood. Not exactly, but a quieter comprehension, an inarticulate reflection on dignity, respect - something like that. It was humbling - the only feeling that I could clearly articulate. It is worth a second or even third viewing. We all need reminders like that every once in a while.

As for words, perhaps I have neither the talent nor skill with them. It feels so limiting, to use words to paint pictures and tell stories of so many feelings and layers and meanings. Yet, it only made me admire those who could tell stories with words even more. My hand itches to try as well.

Ah, perhaps one of the lessons of Departures was that life is but a journey, and it is up to you to make it a good one. Regardless of whatever skills I lack, I'm going to give a try anyway.

Year 2009

2010-01-02T11:10:00.003+08:00

First of Jan doesn't really hold much significance for my family and I these recent years. We used to say 'It only happens once a year!' and all that, nowadays we get that every day in the calender happens once a year; once in your lifetime, in fact. Every day is precious.

But even then, it doesn't feel right to not stop and reflect on the past year. So here goes:

Year 2009

'Eventful' would be an understatement. My expectations and dreams changed so unpredictably, and every few months at that, that I feel like I lived a few years worth of life in the past year. (This is, of course, based on my previous experience of what happens in a year, which, during my admittedly-content-and-cocooned high school life, wasn't much)

As organized thought seem to elude me for the moment, let's go through things chronologically.

Jan

This month was fleeting and surreal. For one, on the very day I went back to KL for the Jan exams (so, so long ago), I got a call from my mom saying that she got yet another acceptance letter for me in the mail. I thought it was Warwick's, since the online acceptance came some time ago, but my mom - I remember very clearly - said it was not.

"Huh? Then which school is it from?"

"Fitzwilliam College."

"HUH!?"

And it changed my life. Not very tangibly, to be honest, life went on exactly as it was expected to - exams, study, scholarship interviews.

But mentally, it was totally different. I was walking on clouds. People congratulated me. Told me I basically secured a scholarship by getting into Cambridge ('Hey, worse come to worst, there's JPA!'). Asked me what I had to do to get it.

Late Jan-May

As for myself, I imagined and daydreamed. About the kind of people I would meet. About the place I would be living in, the breath-taking buildings and landscape. About living on my own for three years.

Half of me was terrified. I was (still am) convinced that my parents would not take care of themselves without me to nag them (yes, I am the nag in the family, go figure). I debated long and hard with myself about what matters more to me, a prestigious degree and jumpstart to career, or the people I love most in the world. I told myself it wasn't a zero-sum game.

In the mean time, there was (scholarship) interviews and assessments, assessments and interviews. Group assessments were especially memorable. All of us smiled and shook hands and introduced ourselves and colaborated and 'networked' and pat ourselves on the back after tasks were completed. We looked professional. But I wondered how much of all that was genuine. I felt like a fake.

While all that was going on, there was still the study part. I remember Further Pure Maths 3 and how I was alarmed that I would be going into exams barely understanding what I learned.

June

Then there were the exams. Long, frustrating days in between papers; hoping that it will end soon and dreaming so much about what I can do after I am done with A-levels.

A highlight of this month was the prize-giving ceremony for the Perdana Leadership Foundation Essay Contest. I was already over the moon when I received a call to attend an interview some time around April. I spent more than a whole month doing research and writing and rewriting that essay in 2008, dreaming about this the whole time. Having won consolation prize in the previous contest gave me confidence that I was going to get something.

But the first three prizes? Oh my, I was jumping in joy.

Then I found out I couldn't attend the ceremony due to a paper. My family attended the ceremony and received my prize for me. And looking back, I didn't have much regret at being unable to go at all. They, and my mom especially, had so much fun there. My mom received the prize from Tun Dr Siti Hasmah herself, and later sat down with Tun Dr Mahathir. They took lots of picture. There were reporters, and a picture of her and Tun Dr M came out in the papers the next day, and of her and two other winners on the following Sunday.

I got my Mac. :D (And cash and a staggering amount in book vouchers)

I was as happy as one can get. Not really from the prizes (though Mac, yes), but from having proved to myself that I could do what I put my mind to.

July-August

By this time, I was rejected by all the scholarships I applied for thus far. I had to make a decision. By now it was not a hard one. Cambridge was something prestigious and precious, it was like a solid path to a shiny, pretty future. But I felt that it was not for me. I remembered that I only applied to see if I could get in. (Alas, the only one I badly wanted from the start was the one that rejected me - LSE)

I remembered then, so long ago before college even started, I had seen pictures of those 'achievers' in newspapers, who received scholarships and went on studying at big names like LSE or Stanford. I wanted to be like them. To get scholarships and study at big name unis. To have my face and achievements broadcasted in papers.

While what I told people, that I want to study with the best of the best, was true, it was also true that I wanted my ten minutes of fame. That I wanted to walk the path of acknowledged high achievers. A sure, conventional path.

Having focused the past fifteen months of my life on this goal, it was hard to admit that I never really asked myself whether it was what I really wanted. I had to do some serious soul-searching. And I decided that I'm not desperate to go. I would not settle for the second best just so I could study at a prestigious uni.

And so I came to Singapore.

*I feel compelled to say this as well, lest people think I'm a case of sour grapes: I completely accept that I was not ready, and that was why I was rejected by the scholarships. I am not making up excuses for why I didn't get them and thus did not go to Cambridge - I learned a lot from the interviews and assessments, most important of all being how much more I have to learn. So there. I still have a lot of room for improvement.

September - November

I missed orientation week entirely and three weeks worth of classes as well, having received my offer late. (And my A-levels results were immensely gratifying and frustrating at the same time) Spent a lot of my first uni days being sesat (lost), physically and otherwise.

Got a scholarship as well. :D

Days flew past in a blur of classes, homework, ECA and all that. I fell in love with my campus (and Canteen 2). Fell in love with uni life. At all the possibilities the future holds.

I am happy.

P.S. Oh yeah, I turned nineteen. Feeling a bit nostalgic now, for the years gone by. But there are so much more ahead of me, you know?

December

Came back home when the exams ended, and lazed around all day, but ECA still went on for most of us.

Then there was Hong Kong. Very fun. (That belongs to another post entirely)

So it has been a year of changes and surprise and lessons. There were moments of joy, panic, disappointments, wonder, frustration, ecstasy and hope. (Not in that order) A full and eventful year.

Here's to a even better one ahead. :D

Happy New Year.

The more things change...

2009-11-20T18:36:00.003+08:00

Recently I've been thinking about a quote, which I first heard from Giles (from Buffy the Vampire Slayer), but which I found out later is an ancient idiom/saying from ... one of the cultures (forgot which). It's this:

The more things change, the more they stay the same.

It haunts me because I'm a person who is rather committed to change. Well, at least mentally. I always try to see things from a new perspective or other people's perspectives when I can, and everyday I learn new things and life never cease to amaze me.

Yet recently I've got a funny feeling that I didn't change much at all. It seemed ridiculous, this notion, seeing how the old me two years ago wouldn't have recognize me now. I've done things I never thought I'd do - actually I always seem to end up doing things I said I'd never do, like studying in Singapore - and I've read so much more about the world that I felt rather ashamed to have live in such a sheltered life while the world changed in the past.

But in many ways I feel the same. Rather outdated, in fact. Old habits that I thought I had gotten rid of, old prejudices which I thought I'd grown out of, grudges which I thought I had let go. They just popped out all of a sudden, surprising me with their ... persistence.

I'm not so naive to believe that you can just get rid of your old self like you do with unwanted clothes that do not fit anymore, even if I believe one must change in order not to be left behind by the changing world around us. In fact, I am convinced that we all need a stable core idea of who we are to stay sane in this changing world.

But how do we change? Do we just add on new perspectives? Do we get rid of old ones and replace them with new ones? If the latter is true, I may have failed. Though I don't think anything related to matters of the mind can be so simplified. (In times like this I wish I could be like a Vulcan - telling you in 3D+emotions just by touching your face. What a world that would be, if people can literally feel what it is like to be another person. My writing skills - laughable, at times like these - somehow do not capture all those jumbled, complicated feelings)

Dwelling on things like these frustrates and calms me, depending on what else I have to do. Sometimes I think it's a waste of time, yet, if we blindly go on with our lives without stopping to see who we are becoming, or where we are going, would we like who and what we see at the end of it?

Good Writers

2009-11-19T18:08:00.001+08:00

Good writers are not those who write well. They are those who see things differently, they provide insights.

I Accomplished.

2009-09-08T23:03:00.003+08:00

I probably did more today than all two months of my vacation combined. Well, not did more things, but rather accomplished stuff. Being productive. I finished my Econs tutorial this morning, did a last minute draft for my writing class, read my sociology course's required reading of the week, attended stats tutorial and learned new things, began my writing class assignment, and finally, attended a fun Toastmasters meeting.

I got back around 10.20pm, collected and folded my laundry while waiting for my turn to the shower, and finally, with my hair still wet, I'm here to kill time.

And strangely, unexpectedly, I'm feeling pretty ... happy.

Happy is a word I hesitate to use. Because it's vague, you see. (My writing course lecturer would be so proud of me) At least, to me, it is. I seldom feel happy. I feel grateful, exhilarated, joyful, cheerful, silly quite often. 'Happy' seems a rather elusive innocent state in which I seldom think about. I do believe in 'the pursuit of happiness' and all, but what is happiness? I want to be successful, I want to be accomplished, I want to be able to fulfill my fiscal responsibilities. I guess you can call those stuff a kind of happiness.

Ah, but to feel light and carefree, a smile floating unconsciously to your face, feeling like you are doing the right things and enjoying it - this is what I would call happy.

Who is who I used to be?

2009-09-04T21:30:00.003+08:00

Somehow I realized from a very young age that change is the only constant in life. I am terrified of staying the same and not changing. Or, at least, when I'm old enough to realize what an absurd notion it is to stay the same.

I embrace change, or I try my best to. When I entered college I altered my lifestyle completely. I decided to be more disciplined, to wake up early and start my day with time to spare. Then when college was over, I felt suffocated. I cut my hair.

Maybe these are all superficial; maybe leopards can't change their spots; but nonetheless they are changes that I chose to make.

And then once in a while, I think about the person I used to be. In primary school, the early and late secs, college - they are so neatly compartmentalized, by the way - and more often than not I am rather amused. Amused by this memory of someone I don't recognize as myself, yet who felt so familiar.

Sometimes I feel a bit nostalgic; that person in my memory seemed so much braver, in a way. She had such big dreams, and they do seem to be in reach. Sometimes I feel like laughing out loud; that person didn't know what she was missing!

Sometimes I wonder if she is carefree childhood, or naive teenage-dom, and I am neither.

But most of the time, I don't miss her(/them?). I am proud of who I am.

*

Trigger.

The Waiting Continues...

2009-08-20T12:49:00.005+08:00

If my parents had look at my previous post, they would so totally laugh themselves silly. A kind of peace? Please.

That part stayed true, actually, until I lay down on my bed and stare into the semi-darkness. Then there was a replay of the all the papers I sat for - phy5 was ok wasn't it? econ6 went rather well didn't it? but was phy6 bad or was it not that bad? - and so on. The newly-fixed air con, which had been so helpful in inducing sleep the past few days, lost its magic. But on hindsight, it wasn't so bad. It took perhaps as long as it normally does on days when I didn't do much (read: most days of the past month and a half) for me to fall asleep.

But then. Then there was that stupid dream. I can't really remember it all, but one feature I remember very well - the scenarios changes and shifts, but it always ended up with me thinking I was there, at the finish line, only to be told I can't get my results. Gosh, I dreamed about getting my results, for goodness' sake. I woke up after some time, it was around 3am, and couldn't go back to sleep.

So this morning - after declaring on facebook that I will Not be waking up early for my results - I was booting up my laptop at 6.55am.

Then nothing.

Nothing.

GAH!!!

Explanation: Apparently the people at the office didn't notice something: it says that the results will be available online at 0600 GMT, not Malaysian time.

And thus, the wait continues.

*

In an unrelated matter - well, the big wait did indirectly cause my stumbling upon it - I found truly an enlightening and fun article: Business Advice Plagued by Survivor Bias.

How true. It rekindles my love for statistics - not the love for punching in data, of course, but how it can tell us so many things, if use correctly. And of course, it is but a tool, and incorrect usage will cause significant damage, just like any other tool.

But this particular tool is so... elegant. And cool.

Eve

2009-08-19T22:45:00.003+08:00

I want to remember this moment.

Context: Results will be out tomorrow.

I remember when SPM results were out, I did this too on the day before (albeit on my old blog; ah, nostalgia). Because... well, this is going to sound a bit silly: because sometimes your life changes without you knowing, and suddenly you just realise you're different, your worldview is different, even the air smells different, now that you think about it. And sometimes you feel sad because you seem to have let that old, comfortable world slip away.

But this ain't it. Tomorrow, whatever happens, it's gonna change a fact about my world. My history, my reality, my existence itself will change - only slightly perhaps, but different nonetheless - and I shall never feel this way again.

So what is my world now? What is this moment like?

It's rather calm, to be honest. Indeed, I don't feel like I did on the eve of SPM results day; back then I was quite a wreck, I think. Too many possibilities were swimming in my head, too many I-should-have-done-better-s.

But I learned that lesson now. I learned how to be sure - or rather, how to prevent regret: Give it your all. Like what my favourite T-shirt says: All it takes is all you've got!

This moment is anticipation. This moment is a kind of peace. I did what I could.

Maybe my world won't change that much after all. Maybe learning that lesson is learning how to ride those changes.

For the record

2009-08-15T20:20:00.003+08:00

To say that I don't feel any disappointment at all at not going to Cambridge would be a lie. There. I said it. It wasn't just all that prestige. It's the chance to be among the future movers and shakers of the world. The completely different world that I can live in for a little while.

But there is also so much on offer here, isn't it? The best of all is that I can be so close to home. (Which triumphs pretty much everything else already) Then there is a chance to get more in touch with my roots. Ah.

I don't need a Cambridge education to succeed in this life.

And I just don't do things the conventional way, haha.

Appreciation

2009-08-11T10:26:00.003+08:00

I just read an email titled 'What did you miss in your life?'. It's quite a typical forwarded mail, with a story about how someone only learned to appreciate his loved ones when there is no time left. The message is, as usual, Go tell your loved ones 'I love you!', and do it today! Or something like that.

I used to buy these kinds of messages wholesale, nodding along with it when I reached the conclusion. But somehow as I grow older, there seem to be too much simplification.

Like, in this latest one, it says something along the lines of: Nowadays, we work so hard to meet the society's expectations until we sacrifice the things that matter most - our health, our relationships, our children's growing up years, etc.

While I don't dispute the facts, I do disagree that it's to meet 'the society's expectations'. True, some work too much to keep up with the Joneses, but for every story of greed and materialism, you have many more tales about parents who have no choice but to work hard. They do it simply to survive, or to give their children choices that they didn't have in life. Some of them can't get it in their heads to take care of themselves. If they do, it is often with the justification that it is to enable them to work even more.

And I lied. They do have choices. Often, they have to choose between an easier life for themselves or easier lives for their children. The choice for most of them is rather obvious.

That is why sometimes I feel life strangling those people who generalize, those who assume they know all.

Nevertheless, I see the point in these messages. They are simple truths that often elude us. But sometimes there are no right or wrong choices.

*

I think I get what Da meant now, when he explained why sometimes people don't want to hear just the conclusions. Sometimes the conclusions are the same, but there are many different ways to reach it. I guess part of growing up is learning to appreciate these nuances, and learning how vast and diverse life can be.

*

It's funny, but like a corollary to growing up, I've learned in recent years to appreciate foods that I used to distance myself from. I used to wonder why on Earth people would like foods like bitter gourd. Or even Tom Yam. My young tastebuds seemed to appreciate only simple and pleasant tastes, like just sweetness and saltiness. Then, growing up, they start to enjoy the mix of more flavours; the nuances in taste and textures are appreciated and enjoyed.

*

While it is true that the innocence that we lose along the way in life is regrettable, I think we gain a lot more by growing up. And that is a good thing, isn't it?

The first lesson

2009-08-02T21:18:00.005+08:00

For the longest time, I thought that in life, you have to know what you're doing. It's part of something called competence. So I've always double- and triple-check things, making sure that I know what is supposed to happen, and what should not. I want to be good at the things I do.

But I am only good in so few areas. I became confident - in my most superficial understanding of the word - in those areas, and little else. It was always with a stab of envy, when I look at people who seem so sure in who they are and that there are no limits to what they can do. It was only in recent years that my perceptions about them were turned inside out.

They always say they don't know what they are doing.

After much thought, I finally learned the true meaning of confidence. It wasn't knowing what you're doing. It wasn't, as my eight-year-old-self had thought, the guts to walk up the stage and talk in front of the whole class or school.

It was trust. Trust in yourself; trust that you will do your best in all endeavors; trust that even if you don't know what you're doing, you'll just learn along the way; trust that if you fall, you can get up.

It isn't always about competence; it isn't always about knowing what you're doing.

It's about trusting that you'll learn. About learning.

I wonder what took me so long, though.

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both -- The Road Not Taken, Robest Frost