Under The Weather Post

Don’t feel so well today. Throat feels like an F grade sandpaper and the forehead’s blazing. Must have been all the sun from yesterday’s telematch and screeching during karaoke. Not even Downton Abbey or the multitude of unseen movies in my hard disc can tempt me. Somehow here I am typing this post. 

On the upside, it’s great to fall sick on the weekend as my parents can pamper me and I don’t have to tolerate shitty college cafe food. Yes I am just that ready for India.

Also, going for facial today makes me feel like a sadist. Already sick, but I dragged myself to accompany mom to the horrible torture chamber known to all as a beauty parlour. I can’t remember the last time I went for a facial, but all I can recall was how tear-jerkingly painful it was. Pain is beauty indeed. However, my face is anything but beautiful now as it’s all red and blotchy. Sobs.

My face was like a war zone as the beautician wrestled with my blackheads and zits and there I was squirming and wondering when will it be over. A lifetime later, she finally left me alone with the mask and I drift off into a victorious slumber.

 

It’s that time again, where I’ve decided to write a post. It’s usually because I have nothing better to do or I had a mini mind breakthrough. And for this post it’s the latter.

The past few weeks have been pretty eventful. Ups and downs at starkly contrasting magnitudes.

Here goes, for the latest mind revelation (drum roll): this too shall pass.

So much for the breakthrough. Heh.

Well in my defence, the phrase has decidedly become my mantra. Shit happens, you just gotta deal with it. Of course the phrase is unfortunately ambiguous so the same thing applies even if you are high as f***.

But then again, nothing a good book and my faithful iPod can’t cure. I have so much more to live for. Everyday is a blessing with the beyond awesome friends and family. And there are simple pleasures that make each day an adventure, but also regrettably involves blowing off some bucks. Who said money can’t buy happiness?

Allow me to demonstrate:

1. Feast like a king. As in order the food anyway even if the price will normally bring about a  heart attack but you thought, screw it and order it anyway.

2. Buying a book you’ve always wanted to read brings a certain satisfaction, even if you haven’t gotten around to read it yet.

3. This might seem trivial but going to the cinema and karaoke joint just bring such joy.

Things that keep me sane and contented AND do not involve the paper include blasting the music in the car at dangerous levels, screaming along together with my sister (so glad we share some of our musical preference), discovering the Lumineers, guitar and talking to my dog. Haha.

At the end of the day, it’s not so bad after all.

It’s gonna be alright. At least that’s what I tell myself for now.

Placement is out and after listening to the (multiple) shattering of this thing called the heart as they announced it, it’s been decided that I will be heading to Krishna Institute of Medical Sciences in Karad, Maharashtra.

Let’s look on the bright side first (which will be brief) It looks nice, the university. And it is also pretty cold there which is a great change from scorching Malaysian weather. So guys, no I won’t be tanned when I come back from curryland (the general assumption).

But it is also some sort of a nunnery because only girls are sent there. Yup, just my luck. It’s funny because just before the placement my friend asked what if we end up in the all girls place (read: are we gonna grow old alone and die as virgins as people told me if you don’t have a boyfriend by the time you graduate from med school, you’re doomed) and I told her we won’t be that unlucky. Well guess what, shit happens. To me. She got somewhere else but I’m glad she did.

It’s okay I can deal with the nunnery part but the worse part is that I am separated from most of my friends. Yes I knew this was coming, it’s inevitable but still, it doesn’t make it any less depressing to have it confirmed. To top it off my bff Michelle won’t be heading to India at all. In fact she might leave anytime now. Gonna be a bit dramatic but a part of me died a little inside.

But it is not just me. Save for an occasional jubilation for much too few, lot of hopes were dashed, hearts broken in the hall where the announcement took place.

Also, perhaps the most tragic part, it really doesn’t help to have my worst fear confirmed.

Bleeding only to see the gloom of the clouds ahead. Can you hear the steady dripping sound?

Today I was introduced to the concept of philistinism.
Decide if you want to be a philistine.
I don’t.

All Smiles

Hi there. I am not gloating but I am just honestly really happy with my life now.

The leaves are greener.

The sun shines brighter.

The air smells fresher.

Plain water tastes sweeter.

The current song that I’m listening to reflects my mood just right: On Top Of The World by Imagine Dragons. Clever, clever Ipod.

In fact so happy that I can’t help myself from putting a smiley after this sentence. 🙂

Now on to the part as to why. For the past few months, as aforementioned in my previous post, I have been vegetating happily. Well, not exactly vegetating, I am faced with happy dilemmas each day. For example, what to eat for the next meal, where to go for the next short vacation, where to go shopping, which movie or series to watch, which album to blast out without any reservations to scream along since I don’t have to memorize anything from the textbook.

Amongst other gems that illuminate my now colourful life include countless hours spent with the close friends and family time. There are very few things can rival the content of a simple meal with good company. Oh and also the fact that I didn’t gain any weight in the midst of all this feasting without exercising. (!) Though that has to change soon, the exercising bit because it goes against the health freak principles.

Of course this elevated state I am in will not be permanent, I am a realist to a certain extent. But I am not waiting for the shoe to drop, let it be. So, to whoever who is reading this, I hope some of the positive energy I think I am emitting through this post will rub off on you. I do hope you feel great as I do, if not better.

“Look at all the beauty still left around you and be happy!” Anne Frank

A train of thought hits you and hey, suddenly it’s crystal clear that a revelation that should have hit home a long time ago finally did. What amazes me is how it has eluded my supposed existence of a brain for this long of a period. I’ve allowed it to gnaw at my consciousness for what seemed an eternity and now if I may, I can safely say I’ve seen the light.

This is the light at the end of the tunnel I have been waiting for so long.

Enough of personal reflections. Allow me to describe (brag?) my current way of life which is just a wee bit busier than what is called sedentary in normal social standards. My typical day starts off with a jog and then a hearty and by hearty I mean high-calorie, potentially artery-blocking but very satisfying breakfast followed by a post-breakfast nap in a very contented state. Brilliant isn’t it?

It gets better, when I awake from my post-breakfast slumber, it will almost be lunch time and I find myself in a happy dilemma to decide what to eat for lunch. Since I’ve already jogged in the morning, burning a few hundred calories that have been reimbursed by the hearty breakfast (which is as good as I didn’t have anything for breakfast), I figure it’s totally unnecessary to perform the act of chewing on grass biscuits and other bland, tasteless healthy food like muesli or oats.

Then I’m at leisure to scheme on what to do for the rest of the day that tickles my fancy, a liberty I thank God each day.  Life is good. 🙂

The Semi-feminist Post

First and foremost I’m glad to say the so-called writer’s block has been unplugged and from now on I’ll try to write everyday. No promises though because you must understand, this is coming from a world-class procrastinator.

This post is triggered by the grostesque gang raping and mutilation of the 23 year old woman in India, but the following feminist (considered) notions have been in my mind for quite a while.

I’ve come across this phrase many times and I have to agree with it, we live in a society that teaches female counterparts to not get raped instead of teaching the men to not rape. I don’t know what went so wrong that the human civilization has degraded to such extent to condone it.

Yes, we live in Malaysia where eastern values are deemed to be followed, women should be dressed conservatively and such, but is it really right to point the finger in the direction of those that will be viewed as insurgents that come in the form skimpily dressed women when they get raped? Raping is a detestable, revolting act, a murder of the mind and there is no excuse for it regardless of what drove the devils in the rapist to commit it. So no matter how fine (or lack thereof) the spaghetti strap on the tank tops or how short the hemlines of mini skirts go, it doesn’t warrant rape.

Needless to say I was pretty jubilant to read about SultWalks sprouting all over the globe. Nothing more empowering to see women to take on the male chauvinist pigs, not to mention sexily while they are at it.

The politicians that make sexist remarks, some insinuating that the rape victims asked for it by the way that they dress or how the protesting women were slapping on make up by the throngs, just crying for your goddamn attentions in the so-called pink revolution, should really be burned at the stakes for their ignorance. There is little wonder how our society are plunging into regression when we are being lead by these incompetent, downright stupid supposed leaders. Truly a classic case of the blind leading the blind.

Look, I’m not a bra-burning feminist. I still want my man to open doors and pull out chairs for me but I certainly do not welcome my dressing to be dictated. Any attempts will only be greeted by extreme hostility as demonstrated by this post.

Mysteries In Life Solved Through A-Levels Biology

During the so-called dark days, a period in my life when life consisted of trudging the treacherous pages of A-Levels text books, I was never really interested with whatever I was studying most of the time. But there were some “aha!” moments that genuinely probed my mind out of it’s semi-asleep state and I didn’t need conscious effort to lift my eyelids to read the next sentence.

I’m sure you had instances as a child where you wonder why something happens but never really bothered to look up for the answer from the almighty Google.

Warning, readers’ discretion is advised for those that are taking or have already taken A-Levels as some of the sentences that lead up might cause post traumatic stress, due to the almost straight up content from the Biology textbook. And yes, I’m that free.

1. Leaves change colour during fall season because the plant withdraws useful substances from the leaves by breaking down pigments in the leaves. Now perhaps this may be regarded as general knowledge and I’m a severe douchebag to not know it but in my defense, there’s no autumn in Malaysia. Since there are yellow leaves are out of sight, naturally they are out of mind too.

2. When you rub your eyes when they are shut, you might see streaks of light because your retinas have receptors for light and the brain interprets another stimulus, such as pressure in this case, as light. I must say upon learning about this, I felt immensely satisfied as I can recall at least a few times my sister and I wondered aloud why we see them light patterns. Fascinating.

3. Colour is an invention of the brain. Okay this doesn’t actually solve any mystery but I somehow find this fact very interesting. It’s pretty cool how the brain invents something constantly without conscious effort.

4. This isn’t exactly a mystery, more of a uhm… revelation. And the revelation is that it’s really not easy to be born normal or have a normal baby. There’s actually countless of things that could go wrong during the formation of a new organism. Mutations, chances of the problematic chromosome being passed on etc. Makes me feel so grateful to be born healthy and kinda afraid to have a child of my own.

5. To be accurate, I first learnt about this in SPM (O-Levels equivalent), A-Levels is merely a revision. It’s the workings and differences between vacciness and antisera. Vaccines make use of a weakened or harmless-version of organism that caused the particular disease to induce immune response from the body to gain immunity. Antiserum contains antibodies that provides resistance immediately. There’s something very awesome about injecting germs(antigens) into your body to fight the disease that was caused by the very same antigen in the first place.

Okay I’m done rummaging my Biology textbook.

I think I’m having what they call a writer’s block.

There have been many drafts comprising of one or two miserable sentences for a new post and there they shall remain.

“It never stops…

“It never stops hurting, the big losses never do, it becomes a part of your bones. It rips you apart and leaves you to figure out what to do next. It becomes a part of who you are and runs through your life like thread, coloring everything you are and do. It has informed how I choose to live, what I do, how I love. You will ache and you will hurt but you will be feeling, remembering how much love there was and how much there still is; death can never touch that. You heal and the wound closes, becoming a scar to remind you how precious things are and how well you were loved, how well you can love if you let yourself.”
— Anaïs Escobar