A New Year, A New Resolution?

Mmm, it's that time of the year again... the time where old father 2008 grabs his cane and waves it wildly about trying to ward off people dethroning him and hopefully the cane connects with the infantile 2009 so he gets to stay. But we all know how that story ends don't we?

Another year passes, another year older and wiser etc etc... Well I don't buy all that baloney. You can choose to stay as young as you want... in the mind and heart of course. Your body will protest in ways you cannot even begin to fathom: a creak here, a tear there, some pulled muscles and perhaps an arthritic limb or two and you'll eventually join the masses of old neglected people with toothless grins sitting alone, absent-mindedly stroking their cats. It's sad really. But that's life for you.

I kinda like the more realistic approach to the new year. Instead of being oblivious to the fact that you're slowly ageing, most ignorant people tend to choose to end the year with a bang, a countdown, a party. Sure folks, party into your grave. Don't you know it's the new in? I find that with the approach of the new year, it's time for more contemplation and recollection of the past year and what you've missed out. Perhaps also to find ways to redeem your miserable existence you call life.

I'm being slightly pessimistic aren't I? Nah, I'm alright. If you don't expect so much, you won't be so disappointed :P Better not to aim too high, in case you should happen to fall (and yes, everyone falls sooner or later) the impact won't kill you. Yes, I think being optimistic is the way to go here. Definitely.

P.S. After all that drivel about people being idiotic when they go celebrate the coming new year, I'm actually going to participate in one too. After 23 years. Odd. I must be slowly going round the bend. Wish me luck.

Reassessment of my life?

You know, it's odd how sometimes when you think you've gone on for long stretches of time without anything interesting happening to your life and you expect it to continue for some time, suddenly BAM! Things just change 180 degrees. And just when you think your life has finally assumed a form that slightly resembles the word F-U-N or even interesting, life decides to be cruel to you and takes it all away and yup, back to the age of mellow and slow moving things. Like watching ants crawl along on their little trail, looking for crumbs of food. Or watching snails slowly inch forward. And perhaps even watching tortoises crawl. Yeah that.

My life was boring, mundane, and just when I thought that things will never change it did. For a brief time at least. Sort of like how you expect how your childhood will stay static when you're still young, but you suddenly find yourself all grown up, with responsibilities and problems you never even thought you'd encounter. All through my life in IMU I wouldn't say anything interesting has ever happened in my life. Well sure there's the occasional event that might make you arch your eyebrows slightly. But nothing that makes you go WOW!

I'm being longwinded I know. And yes, something rather big did happen. In fact on several levels. First, I went and volunteered for caroling in IOI mall. Well it was a church event, but it's actually organised by a non-profitable charity organisation. And it's a HUGE thing for me since I don't do singing in public. I just don't do it. It's strange. But I guess it's not that bad when you've got others singing with you. The first time we did it it was embarassing, singing was a bit off and we were way too fast. Fast Noel Noel simply doesn't cut it. Things got much better the second time though. We were still singing faster than usual, but it has a merry feel to it. Yeah merry Holy Nights. Can't get any better. It was still fun, albeit tiring.

Secondly. The most unexpected thing happened. The batch decided to vote me as president for the Malaysian Studies project. Totally not what I wanted, and after we went to all that trouble to get someone else to be president. Someone definitely more responsible and hardworking and more suitable for the job. But there you go. Nothing I can do about it you know, unless you want me to bitch and moan like a girl. I do admit I want to do that sometimes, but you can't win em all. So just do this one thing for the next month or so and I can finally slip back into the veil of unfamiliarity, just like how it was supposed to be. Irrespective of whether I want to or not.

Also christmas shopping is making me penniless. I really need to watch my spending for the next few millenium after this. I did get a nice little cookbook for myself though :)

In the end, why am I thinking so much about this? I should just go with the flow and see where the tide takes me. Perhaps to a lovely Hawaiian tropical island. But the more probable thing is being washed up to some muddy marsh surrounded by mangroves and crocs. Yes. Sometimes I love my positive thinking. It's just so me.

The mind boggles

I often wonder what goes on in people’s minds to motivate them to do something. Why is studying so much more different than say, playing games, sleeping, reading novels or perhaps listening to music? I don’t think I can vouch for everyone but I certainly have trouble bringing myself to study. My concentration falters only after a while but I could go on and on and on if I was doing any of the latter things I talked about. I mean, the human mind is so strange. We feel ‘tired’ only after a few hours of sitting for a lecture or a dull experiment. Why then do we feel nothing of sitting in front of the PC for hours on end chatting up friends, surfing the web, gaming or even watching movies? Or are we actually tired, but we tell ourselves that we’re not? Or perhaps we ignore the signals given off by our body that we’re actually tired? Case in point, I went through just 3(?) hours of lecture and by the end of it I was ready to for lunch, tired etc etc… then when I got back to my apartment I went online and watched a movie, then surfed the web, definitely more than those measly hours I felt I was trapped, tired and wanted to just switch off. And the worst part is, I do know how important studying is. I do know how it’s going to affect my future. And yet… I still don’t have the motivation to persevere.

So the thing is… when we claim that we’re tired and in need of rest, do we really? Or do we simply tell ourselves that because the particular activity we’re doing are things we don’t enjoy doing? It’s definitely food for thought, although everyone knows why. At least to a certain degree. We all know deep down inside why this happens, but it’s not easy to explain why. It just is.

And yes, experiment today was pretty dull to be quite honest. Then again, the ‘experiment’ we had yesterday wasn’t any better so no surprise there. However, the pace for Semester 3 is much faster, and if I don’t start soon, I’ll never catch up. And then I’ll seriously have trouble later. So like it or not, bored and tired or not, I’ll have to do it somehow. Study I mean. Many rounds of repetitive poring over the same content ought to help me remember, though I have a very poor memory. At least I hope so.

What a long, strange trip it's been

Yup. Sem 3 has started and suddenly it's like everyone has gotten enlightenment or something. The lectures have been quiet, which is really odd... considering how the batch was really noisy in the past. Does it have something to do with the fact that people have started realising how hard the sem is going to be and it's only going to get harder? Or everyone just suddenly got an epiphany and wanted to improve themselves? I don't know, but personally I wanted to do better after that crazy stint with Sem 2 which nearly made me fail it. Never again, I hope.

I went and celebrated Khong Hern's birthday last night. I didn't go for the second part though, only the dinner at... Chicken Hot Pot I think. Dang, the food was awfully spicy, but it's pretty good. Except when you keep burping spicy stuff :P Anywho, updates later... when I have PRIVACY

UPDATE:
So... updates updates...

Hmm, well to be quite honest I ran out of inspiration for writing these past few days. I'm not exactly sure why that is. Perhaps I'm just getting dumber and dumber. Apparently E-jinq cooked twice this week! Which is a feat in and of itself, considering how rare his cookouts seem to be. Then again there were quite a lot of people who came for dinner everytime so I guess it's not a surprise. And the food is a welcome change from the same fare from the outside stalls everyday.

I ended up being one of the nominees for the post of emcee. And believe me, I do not want to be emcee. Not that I don't like it or anything but I think that I'm not cut out to be one, especially for an event as important as the P109 orientation. I just hope I don't get chosen and someone else who is more suited for the task to get it.

Sem 3! Are YOU ready?

Oh gosh, it's been an obscene long time since I last updated the blog wasn't it? Truth is, I really don't have the inclination to update blogs in Kuching for some reason. Probably something to do with the same routine I'm subjected to every day back there.

Surprise, surprise. There wasn't an emotional turmoil this time. Or rather there was the beginning of one, but I found out that just keeping one's mouth shut all the time helps. A lot. I just try not to reply my parents' retorts about my academic life and my uselessness and what have you. And they didn't pursue. That's how I'm probably going to handle it from now on I think.

Another pleasant surprise was finding out I passed Sem 2 after all. Was quite happy in fact. I really expected to resit the physio paper. Now we'll just have to see how bad Sem 3 is in comparison :P Oh and we're going to be seniors. Finally. I look forward to tormenting the juniors during Orientation hehe >:)

Not much update to be honest. The cats have become much larger now. And they're still filthy everytime we go visit them. Ugh!

Perhaps when the Sem starts I'll have more updates. But at the moment this is all I have to say. Pretty short for a month long hiatus huh? Oh well.

Homeward bound, again?

I'm going home again today... I think it's odd and strange that they've arranged it this way: to have to come back only to sit for one paper and then back to hols for the next 4 weeks or so. I guess it's good in a way, being able to go home and not to think too much about food. Enjoy it while I can.

This whole week has been rather unproductive. I didn't do much, if anything at all. Got bored the day after physio exam, so I went to Midvalley and walked around a bit. I didn't know Brisingr was out though, so you can imagine my surprise when I happen to stumble upon it in MPH. A VERY nice surprise for a change ^^. Pricey book though, it was RM85 or so. Only reasons I bought it was a) I'm bored shitless and b) I was been waiting for quite some time for the third installment of the Inheritance trilogy. However, I found out that there's going to be a fourth book, unlike what the author said earlier! He said it was because it was simply too long, and now it's no longer a trilogy but rather a cycle. More waiting then :( I just hope it'll be all the sweeter when it comes out.

Got to pack now, going off in a few. See you on the other side bishes! ^^

The mists of space and time retreat from my mind...

Perhaps the flow of time isn’t so hard to grasp after all. I go to the university to study, come back and do something else to pass my time, and then worry about assignments and upcoming exams. Sure procrastination is bad, but who hasn’t procrastinated before? Certainly not me.

It’s been some time since I last wrote because I thought that well, there wasn’t much to report on. I go home for the study break, study a bit here and there, enjoy myself while I can (although it’s not easy to define enjoying oneself when you’re under the watchful eyes of both your parents) and generally goof off the rest of the time. In time I came to understand that I was procrastinating, not unlike the many times I’ve been doing during the many holidays I was given right before an exam.

I’m not sure why I do it, to be quite honest. I attribute it to the strong desire to complete the first part of my miserable life; that is, to study. I’ve realised some time ago that I simply dislike the act of studying for an exam. If for some reason I can treat it not as a chore (as in, not studying) then I can put my fullest attention towards it. I guess I’m not exactly a model student then huh? :P

Alright, updates inbound. I didn’t really do much at home. I stayed upstairs most of the time since I needed to get some private space to study but it’s amazingly hot back in Kuching. Strange, you’d think that KL would be hotter but no… it’s not really, when I came back to KL it rained and rained and it was cool ALL THE WAY. Anywho. Apart from the insane heat, I tried to get some studying done, although as I said earlier not much was accomplished. And per the tradition of going home for the hols, there will definitely be a moment when my parents brought the issue of my being lazy, wanting things spoonfed, yadda yadda yadda up and yes, the usual Liverpool, the how-am-I-going-to-face-my-colleagues rant and stuff. And as usual, I cried. And cried. And wondered why I have to be subjected to this again… After that, back to normal. It’s like it never even happened. That’s how my long hols are always like. There’s this barrier between my parents and I that stopped us from completely understanding one another. That’s probably why I’m not keen on going home for the holidays, but then again what about the filial son thing? Sigh, life isn’t easy, never was roses, daisies and chocolates, never is and probably never will be. Don’t get me wrong, I love Kuching, although there really isn’t much to do there. It’s my hometown, I absolutely think Kuching food is the best bar none. But there’s always this dread whenever I go home, wondering when will the emotional floodgates open and if I can go through it again.

Coming back here to KL made life at least a little more… um, breathable. No judging people here trying to scrutinise every single little thing I do. Judging me for who I am. But the prospect of the physio exam loomed ahead like a huge tombstone. And I wasn’t prepared. Oh no I wasn’t prepared. Regardless, I went through it. Although it stung like the most vicious wasp when I looked at the questions in despair, racking my brains, trying to find a single iota of information which could possibly help me in that horrible predicament I held my head up high throughout the whole agonising process. If it comes to retaking the exam, so be it. Parents or not, I have to go through this eventually don’t I? It’s not like I haven’t gone through it before. Another scar to add to the already numerous marks from the never ending battle that is Life. No biggie. I think. God.