NUMB3RS

I like numbers.

Last Saturday morning, after class, driving back home, annoyed with the usual radio stations I listen to, I switched to a random channel.

A song I've never heard before started playing. It made me grin (like a Royal idiot, of course, but I didn't mind) all the way home. A truly happy song. Love at first tune. I didn't care for the lyrics, the music and his high pitch voice, did the trick! So I memorised one line "my heart beats like a drum" and frantically searched for it on Youtube as soon as I got home! I have listened to it nearly 100 times since (talk about borderline OCD!).

Evening time. My girl friends made sudden plans to meet at a mall (yes, I know, sounds soooo girly). What to do, they are not the outdoor type!!!  While I really enjoy their company, I have to put up with ALOT of window shopping and wasting away time browsing through things I won't spend my cash on! But I did get the chance to see some beautiful outdoor scenes just outside the mall.

So yeah, back to my story...

After coffee, and MORE loitering in shops, it was time for the movie. I really really REALLY wanted to watch The King's Speech but they had all watched it. I was nearly tempted to ask them to go ahead watch whatever they liked and that I can go watch The King's Speech on the other side of the hall and we could meet up afterwards. I have no issues watching movies alone, but it would not have been polite in this case. So we all settled for No Strings Attached. Ashton Kutcher being the King of all things lame and cheesy, I KNEW the end to the movie before I saw it! Surprisingly enough, it was funny and more entertaining than I thought. The hot and steamy scenes were completely removed (thanks to local censorship boards) that it took awhile to piece together the plot in a couple of places in the movie since chunks of the storyline were missing! In the end, as predicted, the girl and the guy get back together for the umpteenth time. We were led to believe that this was the last time (going by the credits that started to roll on the side of the screen). I always like to sit until all the credits of a movie have passed, in hopes of catching a glimpse of special short scenes...

There were few of them. AND, a familiar song played at the end (IT WAS THAT SONG!!!).

My eyes popped out, jawed dropped, etc. No *Beep Beep* WAY!!! Needless to say, I was grinning for most of the evening too...

Hmmmm, what exactly are the odds of THAT happening??

"Rhythm of Love" by Plain White T's

Times are a changed

There was a time, when life was simpler.

Many years back, we had no central water supply and had to depend on wells to get water for basic washing and cooking. For other high consumption activities like laundry and bathing, we had to take a 5 minute walk down to the river. Those were easily some of the most enjoyable days of my time. We swam and splashed in the river for hours while all we heard, saw and felt was our own laughter, the calming sounds of the flowing water gushing by, the white bubbles that formed as the flow hit the stones, the cool breeze, flocks of birds flying overhead and the sun setting behind the mountains. All this was mixed with the fear of knowing that this very river was capable of drowning us as we might have helplessly strived to take those last few breaths, before being dragged down to the depths.

If there is one thing this river taught me, it's that life's fleeting moments that pass by me will never come back. The good moments will thus be missed. The bad moments will soon be forgotten. And a wise person should strive to live and make good use of the present moment.

Not Quite

Is it that time of the month?? Not quite. Or is it that lately many people are giving me enough reasons to get pissed off?? Yes, most likely.

Don't recede into your shell, Shu ... it's hard to get out once you do.

Dear Mum/ Dad,

I am fully aware of the fact I am 25 years of age and that it is customary for a girl my age to start thinking of marriage according to our social standards.

While I understand your parental concerns over who will be willing to marry me when I am 35 and relatively unattractive, I can assure you it is not any concern of mine. I am confident that when the time is right and when I feel ready for marriage, things will fall in place. I have not decided to stay single for the rest of my life and I will certainly give a fair chance to a decent guy I meet who manages to impress me with his personality.

You have brought me up to be independent when it comes to making big decisions. As far as I could remember, you have let me (or watched me) choose my subjects, my degree, my friends, my clothes, my jobs, my love interests, my hobbies, my finances, etc. Similarly, I would like to have my own shot at picking the person I would like to spend the rest of my life with. And I would rather live with all the consequences of my decisions than have you hand-pick a man for me. Not to mention, you dont even know me well enough to know what kind of personality would complement mine. I don't want to play along in an "arranged marriage" game as it is based on alot of underlying expectations and I do not wish to inconvenience another person or a family by giving any false hope. Also, I would not hear you take an astrologer's word over such a big decision that concerns me.

The reason I am pushing this off is simply for the fact that a committment such as a marriage at this point in my life, would be an inconvenience to the future I am paving for myself. I want to be able to support myself and you both on my own than have to depend on a husband for it. I have no doubt that I would make a good wife to a husband who treats me with respect and loyalty. I also feel my personality would make me a very devoted and caring mother should I decide to take on that responsibility.

Honestly, I can understand your love for me and the worry that follows as a result. But this is a decision that I truly want to make on my own and in my own terms. I will not be pushed to make this decision based on deadlines, social standards, biological clocks or what your friends/ our relatives think.

Dad, I know would not approach and talk to me about issues like this and that you always put across such things through Mum. That's too bad, because I think you are probably the only one of the two of you that I can have a logical conversation with in English. Mum as you know is too emotional and she always crushes me in with her polished grammar in our native language, which I am poor at expressing.

Mum, I admire you for the pains you took in bringing us up and for teaching us to be strong, independent, practical, compassionate and to do what is right. So you of all people, should be able to understand my reasoning.

Please trust me when I ask you not to be worried. I am the person I love the most in this world and that should be comforting enough for you because my priorities now lie in making my life secure and happy, within the noble means that you both have taught me to follow.

So I'll leave you two to best decide on how to turn down the marriage proposals that have been coming your way...

Love you always.

Yours,
Very special youngest daughter.

Big Dipper, small dipper

Perceptions keep changing all the time...

Work tomorrow.... it's laying-off season. Lost a good person last week. He was probably the only mentor I had at work and one of the best I've known. He will be dearly missed.

I hate ironing clothes. Today, I had to iron my nephew's school uniform for the first time. That felt strangely emotional. I realised I was old, as I ironed his little red checked shirt and shorts. The other day, his mother had a night out (much deserved, of course). The usual plan is for me to sleep next to him, once he has been put to sleep by his mother. So he *thinks* it's his mother and won't create any drama when he wakes up (partially) in the night and rolls back to sleep.  Sure, I have to sleep like a bird, waking every hour for every sneeze he has, but it works well, and he fell for it 2 times in a row!!!

Much like this scenario:

Let's see what this week unravels...



Im back, Im back

Ahhhh...feels so good to be blogging again!!! I have dearly missed it.

Let's see ... since my last blog, my flu's gone (a-lmost!), I have +1 wisdom tooth, my little nephew started school and I have a smart phone.

The long awaited Nokia C7 finally made its way to my hands a few days back. By now, most of my initial excitement is gone. It looks and feels great. Much more functions left to discover and use. The best two things about it are the free navigation feature and personalising experience with the phone. On the downside, it has annoyed me alot by eating away my credit by connecting to the internet in misleading ways... I was left stranded on a couple of occassions when I had to make important calls. Also, messaging on a touch screen takes some getting used to. 

After several weeks of shying away from family obligations and feeling gulity about it, I am trying to make time for them and to try and enjoy it while I am at it. It's working for now. Got to love my sis, she's a star. With all the challenges that come her way, she is still upright and keeping things under control. AND she puts up with my ways with little fuss.

I keep hearing a catchy song on radio these days, called Tonight I'm Lovin' You by Enrique Iglesias Ft. Ludacris. And today, I thought, hey let me check it out on Youtube because the beat sounded good. YIKES!! There are too many sexual depictions (of the disturbing kind) in it. Seriously, do these musicians overuse these elements just to attract fans and Youtube views? Are they not aware that they are creating new social standards which most weak minded youth feel obligated to conform to? *sigh*

Been bumping into too many jokes lately! Today, I came across a hilarious line uttered by one of my good humoured colleagues. I nearly fell off my chair. Apparently, she had forgotten to draw her "eyebrows" that day to work. OMG priceless. 

Here's one from Pink. I think she has a great voice and best of all, she expresses her songs without the extra frills and they feel honest. (Oops she used the F-word!).

"Perfect" by Pink

Reason and Persuasion

Today, I completed one year at my current job. MY thoughts?  Well, I honestly feel grateful for the livelihood it gave me and my family in the past one year. I've grown up, matured, learnt new skills, developed a few invaluable friendships with good people, pushed myself to new challenges, become more confident, acquired higher material and social status, started to set objectives in life and feel determined to work towards them. On the downside, my boss is not the mentor-type I expected. He has been unwilling to take a few minutes of his busy time to do a review of my performance for the past year. I am uncertain as to where I stand in the company or what opportunities for progress lie ahead. I am not working in a field I specialised in. I am underpaid. My potential is not exploited rightfully by this job or the company. Everything in life comes in packaged deals. This is the subscription plan I picked an year ago. I have 2 choices; be content with what I do have and keep going OR actively go looking for what I need and move on. Very simple, theoritically speaking.

Life is a funny thing, on one end someone extends you a hand and pulls you out of your despair. And then you turn around and see another in despair, and realise you can and should help. Empathy, sympathy, charity, generosity, compassion, kindness are all very Noble things ONLY if used wisely. It is easy to fall prey to being an "innocent fool" after rushing to help without first arming oneself with the necessary knowledge and equipment first. Much like a paramedic is of not much use without proper background knowledge of the accident and without his medical equipment. After all, the cause is lost if you do more damage than help or worse, end up damaged. These things make more sense as I get older and I leave behind my cocoon of naivety.

I've had better luck with the second book of Bertrand Russell I am reading. With the first one, I tried too hard. The vocabulary and writing style seemed beyond my level of comprehension. However, I am curiously drawn to the wide variety of topics he tackled in his works of literature. Not ready to give up yet, I picked up a smaller book of "Bertrand Russell's Best" from the library the other day. And like most secondary school kids who turn their Biology textbooks directly to the chapter on "Reproduction" when they need an interesting appetizer before starting the dry main course (of studying for the finals, of course! - in case you lost me there), I jumped to a random chapter on "Sex and Marriage". He wrote this in 1929 and eventhough his arguments were directed in opposition to teachings of the Church on the same topic at the time, I find that even in 2011, they still hold remarkable significance in certain conservative cultures (like mine). One simply feels challenged to argue back with his flawless logic, eventhough there were a couple of eye-brow raising moments for me here and there. Not only that, his wit and logic combine in some places and the resulting lines are too hilarious!

On the topic of "Sex and Marriage", he says in one place,

"If the old morality is to be re-established, certain things are essential....The first esssential is that the education of girls should be such as to make them stupid and superstitious and ignorant; .....the next requisite is a very severe censorship upon all books giving information on sex subjects.....These conditions, however, since they already exist, are clearly insufficient. The only thing that will suffice is to remove from young women all opportunity of being alone with men; girls must be forbidden to earn their living by work outside home; they must never be allowed an outing unless accompanied by their mother or an aunt;.....It must be illegal for an unmarried woman under fifty to possess a motor-car, and perhaps it would be wise to subject all unmarried women once a month to medical examination by police doctors, and to send to a penitentiary all such as were found not virgins. The use of contraceptives must, of course, be eradicated,.....These measures, if carried out vigorously for a hundred years or more, may perhaps do something to stem the rising tide of immorality. I think, however, that in order to avoid the risk of abuse, it would be necessary that all policemen and all medical men should be castrated. Perhaps it would be wise to carry this policy a step further, in view of the inherent depravity of the male character. I am inclined to think that moralists would be well advised to advocate that all men should be castrated, with the exception of ministers of religion....."

Perhaps, the world needs a couple of more Lord Russells on the Eastern hemisphere so that mental evolution (with regards to social problems) - constipated as it is - can progress steadily and healthily.

Looking forward to reading what he has to say on drier topics.

No, I'M your Master, and you are my slave

Trying to gain mastery over their minds has been an evolutionary human urge. It has no doubt been a driving force in re-shaping our society. Perhaps, it is a losing battle in the end from an individual's perspective. Nevertheless, they try.

When we are young and able, we develop interests that culture organised and disciplined ways of thinking and behaviour. We erect fences and dams in areas of the mind we know are weak in its foundations. We educate ourselves and re-validate our principles from time to time. We maintain lists and straighten out the world around us to achieve a sense of control and structure. We lean towards people who we think are like us or are better influences. We use logic and reasoning to defeat ignorance and misconceptions.We try to steer away from interests that may initiate uncontrolled disturbance in our surroundings. We enforce rules and regulations to help us trap ourselves into universally accepted ways. Sometimes, we even go as far as to use fear and punishment, when all else fails.

The eternal battle of the self over mind continues.