South Paw

I am a left hander. In a world of 93-95% right handers, I am a minority.

Times are a changing. Society is weighing in on equality, slowly but positively. Society is becoming more tolerant of differences in gender, race, nationality, sexual orientation and even handedness.

I've had my fair share of challenges growing up in a right handed world surrounded by many right handed know-it-alls. It has ranged from the basic challenges of ironing, using scissors, avoiding elbow collisions with classmates, having smudged notes to more difficult challenges like answering nosy bystanders, being forced to change handedness and even sometimes ridiculed and looked down apon.

I have to commend my mother for not changing my handedness and shielding me as much as she could from the critics. I was often picked on at family gatherings, especially by older relatives. In my culture it is almost taboo to eat with the left hand, for reasons I will not elaborate here. They were hell bent on converting me into a right hander just like the rest of them. Almost each time, I watched helplessly as I was attacked, feeling bad and doubting myself. If I could go back now, I would gladly give them all a piece of my mind, very logically too.

Over the years, I combined adapting, changing certain ways and staying true to other ways in order to get to where I am today. I am no longer bothered by critics or onlookers. A lot of it had to do with prominently being the sole left handed violinist in a large orchestra at one point in time. I've learned to work around certain difficulties like using right handed tools, and I am as good a right hander ever will be in terms of dexterity. I've changed some things like taken to batting right handed and using the computer mouse like any right hander. Sometimes, all it takes is practice and in my case, a little extra effort. I still eat, write and do other major tasks involving strength or fine-tuned skills in my left hand.

Many interesting theories to understand lefthandedness and its associations have evolved over time; health conditions, intelligence, skills sets and testosterone, to name a few. How much of it is actually true, I couldn't tell. To me, it is just statistical significance and nothing more.

And now to present the one challenge I still face as a lefty. I've been playing a right hander's violin with my left hand for many years. It initially began with baffled teachers who didn't know how to handle a stubborn kid who refused to play like a right hander. Some of them took me on hesitantly and agreed to teach as long as I could keep up and did not expect individual attention, because they could not teach by example. Often ignored at group classes, I kept up with the rest in the best way I could. All this, and the fact that there were so many different teachers and hiatuses in between my learning experience, has made it difficult to progress steadily. It would be unfair if I didn't add here that I was lucky to have two extremely patient and dedicated teachers who kept encouraging me to focus on the learning and enjoy the music. Also during my last music spell of 4 years (2 years ago, that is), I learnt of a limitation. I was not able to reach some of the commonly played higher notes on the top right of the fingerboard, while reaching across from the left side. And this has left me in a standstill, unable to progress as I would like. 2 long years later and 3600 miles away, (yesterday), I met a teacher willing to teach me with the strings reversed. I am hopeful about it, though it will be learning all over again from the basics for me.

I've tried to find answers and advice on the internet, but each time my efforts have proved futile. People too often stray away from the topic and I am easily put off by narcissists on forums.

Crabs and Tides

Talk Shu, TALK! You are once again withdrawing into that shell of yours, which you love so much to reside in.

4 days of holidays later, I am ready to go to work. I must say it was a much welcome break. I caught up on sleep, movies and family time. We even a got the chance to take a road trip out of the state to visit a famous zoo and climb a mountain! The zoo was really depressing, with a few unfortunate animals, badly fed, poorly looked after and dazed by the summer's heat. The mountain was worth the climb.

The Future has been bugging me lately. I'm acutely aware that the years are piling on me. I have to think of savings, studies and settling down; though right now, nothing seems to be working out. Savings are hard to accumilate with this lifestyle. Studies need finances and informed choices to be made. Settling down, well, I don't feel ready to trust my life with a mate yet.

Left with a few hundred bucks for the month, I went and purchased a book today, recommend by a friend. "Eat, Pray, Love" - will be my latest story book. I did not get a chance to watch the movie yet. Maybe it is a good thing that I found the original book first.

It's been exactly an year, from the day I left my old life behind and took a leap into the unknown. All in all, I must say, it worked out pretty well during the last year. I have many to thank for helping me get back on my feet.

I Live.I Ride.I Am

I took the ride of my life today. And we made it home safely in two intact individual pieces. Phew.

I agreed to visit a mall with a friend to catch a movie. The original plan was that I would drive her to the mall in my Jeep. This was a comforting thought to me, as today would be the first day I am driving alone on the high speed highways (all these days I have been driving slowly and comfortably in my neighborhood). And I would have someone sitting beside me to make sure I dont miss out certain things on the road that I should be observant about and to make sure I don't crash onto any other vehicles. I was planning to be introduced to the high speed highways, slowly and gradually. But do things ever turn out the way to you plan them? Mostly, NO. I ended up following her car closely behind all the way to the mall and back home. It felt like being thrown into a pit of alligators to fend on your own. She drives like a crazy maniac and I had to keep up to make sure I dont get lost. I heard myself curse in bad language a couple of times. I have never driven so fast, not even with another passenger. At the end of it all though, it felt dangerously thrilling!

I watched Expendables. What a sorry excuse for a movie! It felt so lame with too much of testosterone, bad dialogues, over-acting and so much predictability. Halfway through the movie, it seemed like they killed so many people and did so much of damage to the town, just to save a girl. But it turned out, it was not even for her. BOOOOOOOO.

I LOVE GLEE. I think it is one of the best TV series they have come up in recent years. It is a good example of real talent in music, acting and dance. The series also does a great job in reviving golden oldies, which otherwise, we would never hear these days. Some performances give me the goose bumps! I've watched the first season countless times and watched certain performances over and over. I will wait till season 2 is completely over, so then I can get all of it at once and watch it back to back, rather than wait for a week impatiently.

After a long day, Shu deserves a good night's rest.

Déjà vu

Dreams are curious things.

When we are sleep, the brain makes makes interesting "movie clips" involving us or people we know about. It can range from familiar people and scenes to totally unrelated and new plots. The amount of involvement we feel while dreaming is so great. Dreams can make us experience real fear, sadness, love, happiness and the like. Some dreams are forgotten, some remembered when we wake up and others come to mind later on.

Dreams can feel real while dreaming until we wake up and realise otherwise. And if one continues to dream, one would not know there exists another reality (the one where I'm blogging right now!) we live in.

Makes me wonder if this "reality" we call real is real at all.

Travel Blog: Ras Al Kaimah, UAE

Last July on a weekend, 5 of us took a road trip to Ras Al Kaimah to celebrate a birthday. Ras Al Kaimah is one of the seven emirates that comprise the UAE. It was the peak of summer in UAE and temperatures went up to 45 degrees. We seized the chance of discounted summer rates at the Hilton and we were definitely not disappointed. It turned out to be one of the most memorable trips I have ever taken.

We set out early with 3 of them coming to pick up 2 of us who were in the same neighborhood. My neighbour decided to go out partying the night before and had way too much to drink. So we had to spend almost an hour dragging her out of bed, packing her clothes, warming up gross-looking leftover food while listen to her trying hard to recall the events of the day before, which included being pulled up by the cops. A very interesting tale, but that's not what this blog is about!

So we drove about 1.5 hours in a Peugeot 207 nick-named Titine, passing endless straight roads, desert on both sides, the occasional camel-sighting and beautiful sand dunes. We reached our destination, the Hilton Resort & Spa without much trouble. The hotel looked amazing with beautiful architecture and landscaping, strategically located overlooking the beach.

Most of our time was spent in several temperature-controlled pools and the beach. It was hard to beat the blazing heat even with all the shady beach umbrellas and loads of sun protection creams. It's funny how you don't feel the heat that much when you are having fun in the water. Only later when you see the skin tanned several shades darker, do you realise how strong the sunlight was. There was even a bar at the centre of a shallow pool. A very interesting concept, I thought, for reasons I will not elaborate here.

Food at the hotel was great of course (and expensive). Unfortunately, our friend with the hangover couldn't join us for a nice dinner. She was catching up on much needed sleep. After a good meal, we headed back to the room and went to bed. Early next day, we headed to the Spa for a head and shoulder massage. It was my first time at a Spa and I realised those places were carefully designed to make people feel relaxed and happy. Everything from temperature to sights, sounds and most notedly, the smells took one to a very quiet and tranquil state of mind within minutes. Luckily for us, an international buffet breakfast spread lay waiting to make our day. We ate as much as our stomachs could hold plus a little more extra. People always end up overeating at buffets. Buffets are a clever concept where people are invited to eat as much as they can for a high price. It's like a win-win-lose scenario, where hotels profit from the customers (win) and customers are left satisfied with the variety of food(win) and are also left with too many calories (lose). After that, we spent a few more hours in the pools, enjoying the last of it before check out.

By 2pm, we were all packed and ready to leave, reluctantly of course. It felt like a long vacation even though it was only a one-night stay. There were so many wonderful photos taken, with ample lighting conditions and pretty blue skies and blue water in most of them. My heart was beating unevenly at the checkout counter, wondering by how much we had exceeded our basic bed+breakfast rate. But to our joy, it was well within our budgets and we headed out feeling like that was the best weekend getaway ever!

An apple a day

I have been trying to keep this blog going, by adding my thoughts as often as I can. I must say, that I'm almost addicted to coming here and writing something each day. Throughout the day, I get good ideas and come up with interesting things to write about as I go about my daily activities and observe things and people. Most of them are forgotten by the time I actually get the time to type. What a shame! It is just like how I get the most creative ideas flowing out of my brain when I'm in bed about to fall asleep. That is when I compile the best essays, the best speeches and the best stories. That is also when I wish I had a pen or my netbook to capture some of those golden thoughts. Unfortunately, as I debate internally whether to get up or not, I've fallen asleep to wake up the next day blank.

This writing business has helped me to express parts of my character that I would usually not make known openly. And in writing, I am getting to know more about my own self as as read back what I blog. I have also come to learn that writing and expressing my thoughts is one of the best coping skills there is for me, when my mind is troubled or simply overwhelmed.

As a child I had great imagination and creative writing was a breeze in primary school. Teachers liked my creativity and encouraged it. However, as I got older, my imagination didn't mature proportionately. I struggled with organising structures of essays and expressing thoughts. I didn't read books as often as my peers and soon I was lagging in class in the subject of English. I was never able to score over 60% with my O/L teacher. And true enough, I ended up with a "C" for my O/L English and I was pretty torn apart about it, eventhough it was the only bad grade I had and everything else were A's and B's. So it's taken all this while to get over that failing thought and believe in myself enough to write.

Thanks, to a couple of people who have encouraged me to write more often! :)

Family duties, got to go now...