Things that should be socially acceptable #1

Under a hand dryer. 

Because, lets be honest, the wind means that the rain falls almost horizontally in this godforsaken country.

Don't hate on the kid who doesn't wanna look like a wet mop. 

nk

Aku Sebatang Pensil

In all my post primary school life, I'd never thought those stupid essay titles would ever resurface.

For those non-Malaysians who read my blog and need some help understanding the mild hate I have for the above sentence, 'Aku sebatang pensil' translates into 'I am a pencil'. And the reason that the title of today's dose of Nat-psychobabble will be met with choked snorts (and if I'm lucky, some orange juice up the nose) by my fellow UPSR educated amigos, is because these were the bog standard, and occasionally dreaded, titles for essays when we were a little littler than we are now. 

Other popular choices were 'Aku sekuntum mawar' (I am a rose) or 'Aku sekaki payung' (I am an umbrella - also how impressed are you that I remembered it was 'sekaki' and not 'sebatang'?) or 'Aku sebuah layang-layang' (I am a kite) or whatever other object our bored teachers laid eyes on while brainstorming for titles to dish out for homework. 

The basic idea of these sort of titles was to have us write an autobiography of sorts written from the inanimate object's point of view. Yes, you read that right. An autobiography from the day the poor, unknowingly doomed object was first picked out by it's soon to be negligent owner in a store because of its shiny coat of paint or its vivid red petals, up until the day that it gets inevitably forgotten, replaced, lost or mistreated (I remember writing one about a car that got crashed). 

Why the sob story? 

I have no clue. I think it was because with the literary prowess an 8 year old had to work with, emotional trauma was a bestseller. And to be completely fair to the 8 year old, if they lived in a house that was permanently tuned in to Wa Lai Toi or Drama Minggu Ini or ANY Tamil soap, I can see why they'd think that. 

I digress, as per usual. 

I only bring it up because I have just recently lost (hopefully only misplaced) the white gold anklet mumsie bought for me for my 19th birthday. Needless to say, it has sentimental value. In my earlier distress, misery gave way to momentary hysteria and I think I just pictured what that essay might have looked like if it was 'I am an anklet'. Only because (if it IS lost to the world) I can only imagine two possibilities:

1. It came off as I was walking around, and is now draped around some... other ankle that isn't as comfortable as mine (what? I'd like to think that I had a comfy ankle). 

OR

2. It's come off in the shower, to be sucked down the pipes into the Tartarus we label 'sewage'. 

I'm not sure which outcome I'd be less miserable about. 

"Aku sebuah rantai kaki. Aku tak pernah dinamakan, hanya diberitahu bahawa aku dihasilkan di Italy dan dihadiahkan kepada tuanku sebagai hadiah hari jadi dari ibunya. Tiga tahun aku hidup bahagia, dibawa merantau dunia oleh tuanku. Pemandangan dari aras kaki tuanku tidaklah sehebat pemandangan yang dinikmati oleh saudaraku rantai leher, tetapi aku cukup gembira. 

Tetapi kebahagianku ditakdir berakhir awal apabila mangkuk ayun bodoh yang aku namakan tuanku TAK SEDAR bahawa aku tidak lagi hidup sekililing buku lali dia sehingga TIGA HARI selepas saya dilupakan/terbiar/tenggelam dalam tab mandinya. 

Tak guna punya manusia."

How I managed to get an A in Bahasa I will never know. 

Puan Lau, if you ever read that, I apologise profusely.

nk.

Of Resolutions and Loose Women

Its that time of year again when my mind starts whacking out suggestions for new year resolutions. Inevitably a few of ye olde favourites are up and running - the 'procrastinate less' 'exercise more' 'revise harder' 'actually stick to your bloody resolutions'. Those ones. So i start to scribble the list down (im a traditionalist, sue me) and as i reach no 7, on auto-pilot, my brain goes - no.7: Grow Up. 

Now now, I know you're thinking "Jeez this reeks of retrospective over-dramatisation" but i assure you, true believers, thats what happened. 

Walking the path of the inner-shrink (self-shrink? Terminology aid required.) i turned on the music and thought about it. And i think whats bugging me is a combination of a couple of things.

1. The fact that everyone around me seems to be having intellectual growth spurts, and im still the same 4 foot 3, or whatever we were in highschool.

2. This line in a graduate recruitment handbook: 'Resist the urge to become an expert on day-time telly. Jeremy Kyle, the Loose Women - and much as it pains us to say it - Dick Van Dyke in the role of Dr. Mark Sloan have nothing to offer you.'

Aside from the fact that I have no idea who Dr. Mark Sloan is, and my only opinion of the Loose Women* is that it MUST be a poor incarnation of the Desperate Housewives**, the statement sat unpleasantly with me. Because im pretty sure that if the people who produced student guides tailored to people like me, it would have read:

"Resist the urge to be a, more oft than not, insane fan of things. Stupid amounts of information on spandex-wearing basket cases, Manchester United, fabricated concepts of heaven/hell/time-travel/mass-relays, anything that requires a console and - as much as it pains us to say it - things with Martin Freemans face in it, have nothing to offer you."

Which got me worried.

Because i know a shitload about some things, and a little bit about a lot of things. Which is how i like it, but turn potentially deep intellectual conversations about things like politics into fucking quicksand. And friends who i thought were (to return to my analogy) also 4 foot 3 in highschool, have gone away and come back NBA all-stars.

Its not like i dont WANT to be more world conscious. Believe me, you dont know what id give to punch that carrot-topped, condescending (i dont care if its unintentional) judgybee in university every time i shrug and say i dont really care about something and he looks at me as if to say 'why did they accept you?!'. Or to keep up with Jish past the point of conversational diminishing returns when the chit chat turns to politics or other 'grown up' shit. I dont know what a mortgage*** is outside of the Monolpoly definition.

I just cant be bothered. Is that a bad thing?

I read a lot, my brother will testify to the fact that i have amassed a tiny library, but I read to ESCAPE the world. Why read Freakonomics when you could be saving universes and slaying dragons? I read the occasional newspaper, but the news is depressing, our politicians are idiots and the new economic plan cant keep my interest for more than a couple of paragraphs. Im not completely cut off though, dont get me wrong. The environment, basic human rights, religion, law (for the most part)... fair enough. All that other crap?

Ngeh.

I guess all this applying for jobs and 'commercial awareness' shtick has gotten to me slightly. And i guess i will have to make a bit of an effort to placate the people who will inevitably be determining the affordability of shiny new things as we fast forward into the future.

But im removing 'grow up' from the list. It can wait a couple of years.


Over and out,
nk




*I was wrong. Its a day time talk show with interviews and shit. Whether its any more intelligent than Desperate Housewives remains to be seen.
** The only things i hate more than DH is Gossip Girl. And Twilight. And maybe tween-pop. Ok, maybe a shit load of other things.
*** I know what a mortgage is now. Dont panic.

Post-apocolyptic Update

Let me just start by saying im slightly disappointed that the world didn't go kaplauwee in a fit of sexy angels zombie induced panic.

As opposed to some other from of world-ending, obviously. 

Although... that slightly optimistic bit of me that went 'oh well at least i wont have to write this land essay if the world ends' is crying in a corner. That's pretty much what im going to tell mum next week when she enters the room at 3 in the morning to find me desperately mashing away at the keyboard.

"I fucked with the schedule I'd made a week ago and waited till the weekend just in case the world blew up - didn't want to waste any precious time i could've spent with you guys!"

Yeah, pigs will give up on naturally attained flight and invent jet-packs before she buys that.

So once again i find myself inexplicably drowning in a shitload of things that need to be done urgently. I say 'inexplicable' but you, me and the next door cat know that's a lie.

It's all her fault. 

So as it stands, I've got two weeks to hash out a grand total of 4000 words worth of respectable legal crap, apply to at least 10 firms for internships with a cv that is currently in the works and cover letters that are yet to see light of day, tutorial work for the week that I get back, Tort submission, organise flight plans for the uni bunch for summer 2013, kick ass in COD, finish Assassins Creed III, and clear Dishonoured Corvo Attano's name.

GAME ON.





nb: okay, maybe not the last three. It's that devil child, i swear. She's a bad influence.

nk

Fish-kites

I always liked airports. Because an airport equals airplanes and airplanes (unless you're just seeing someone off) equals travel.

Flying itself may not be the most fun of processes, but I like the high you get when you know that in a day, you'll be in a completely different place. Doesn't really matter where I'm going really. Whether is just next door or in a different time zone, going away or coming home - I'll never get sick of traveling.

See you soon, I guess :)
nk

Can We Talk?

Allow me to begin with the following disclaimer: 
If identical images are used to illustrate different points, it is for the sake of efficiency and uniformity. Not because I have truly underestimated how difficult it is to finger paint attractive stick people.

There. Now down to business. In the wind down of what has been a more-down-than-up summer, I have come to realise a couple of things. Firstly: I may be a spoilt brat.

I know, it's a shocker.

Let me explain. This is me now:

Stick limbed, vaguely triangular in body, bald, and most importantly - unhappy with my small pile of kryptonite-looking cool stuff. (hint: Only one of the above is true IRL.)

And this is where I want to be in about 15 years:

If you thought: skinny limbed, still bald, queen of a small island nation and owner of Superman's cape and a shitload of REALLY COOL STUFF, then you serrah, are correct. 

Because context is necessary to understand, I shall elaborate. I have recently updated my before-30-bucket-list (you come up with a better name) and while discussing some of the less personal goals/wishes with my mom, she commented amusedly, that she'd never thought of these kind of things when she was younger. Now I'm paraphrasing, but she basically explained that she just went where the wind took her, and she was happy. I got a little agitated at this, because I couldn't understand how someone just 'settles' for whatever gets flung their way. And then I thought it over, and I realised that I may be a little spoilt.

I mean, its not like my parents have left me wanting - I visited Disneyworld, a solid chunk of Europe and Australia well before I turned 15, and Irvin and I were given anything we wanted within my parents means for the fair price of doing well in school. I'm in a good university (though maybe not the one of my dreams) doing a very respectable course. And yet, I bitch and moan that if that list hasn't been completed by the time I turn 30 (35 at the most) I will not die happy.

To give you an idea of the utter whimsy of this list - Item 23: visit Madagascar and see those really cool alien-trees.

I guess what I'm trying to figure out here is whether I'm entitled to want all this stuff, or have I fallen into the astrological stereotype of the Pisces dreamer and I need to find someone to slap me really hard and get me back to planet Earth. Should I stop saying 'I'd be happier IF...' and just take stock and be grateful? Or would that be settling? Is it 'spoilt' for me to dream of bigger things when I have friends saving up for flights in piggy banks? Is it okay that I think I wont die happy if I never write a book, go backpacking with my brother, work for Bioware, finally master the violin, sing in a professional choir or eat funny-sauced french fries in Brussels? What if I never learn to scuba dive? I guess if my worst fear comes true and I'm eaten by a shark that wont really matter... And what if I finish everything on that list and i'm STILL unhappy/unfulfilled/clinically insane?

Can I, Should I, What if... Ugh. Someone point me to where I can find Answers.

Excuse the lack of segue, but now to problem no. 2.

This is me on a normal day:

Now you see why I needed that disclaimer.

And this is when the world decides to take a crap on me.

Lately (and by lately I really mean over the past two years) it seems that I've been asked either directly or indirectly to help with shit that people really should be managing themselves. Its not like I don't care for them or anything, on the contrary, I love these people -that I shall not name either by name or by title- to bits. But your emotionally taxing problems + my overactive brain + occasionally PMS afflicted emotional control = No sleep for me, or a lot of crying and yelling. 

These problems usually file themselves into two categories:

1. You're adults, you shouldn't be burdening me with this crap so SOLVE YOUR OWN SHIT.

or

2. I managed it by myself, why do I need to hold his/your hand?

I know that problem solving comes with the oldest-child territory since apparently all oldest children are inherently gifted in mitigating and all have Phd's in 'getting things done'. And I'll do it too! I'll figure out  all this shit to the best of my ability because I know that I can help, and because I know to a certain extent I should, and because I care. Even if I've been told that the feelings-fixer part of my psyche is going to doom me to a lifetime of attempting to cure, and being attracted to broken people. But I don't want to get suckered into the emotional equivalent of curing cancer or brokering world peace, yknow? Especially if Helping and my sanity are inversely proportional.

I'd just like to say that I'm perfectly happy dealing with my own pile of problems thank you very much. If you haven't noticed, its SMALLER than Mt. Other People's Crap. But if I point this out, I run the risk of being a Horrible Human Being.

Happiness is a pain in the butt.



nk.
Todays conclusion is brought to you by too much chocolate cake, a handful of potato chips and evil!goatees. 

Springeth Cleaneth

So I finally got off my arse and decided to test out my new sketchy-doohickies on the iPad, and viola! New blog header!

Also got around to clearing out some of the less than satisfactory posts, so if you're one of my more die-hard (HAHA) readers and you notice something's missing, that shit GONE.

Yes, this would be me taking baby steps to get my life in order before uni starts again. It seems insignificant (maybe it is, I'm weird when it comes to mine own literary works of any kind) but like I said: Baby steps.

Crawl before you can run, child. We'll figure out flying and all that other shit later.

Here's to 2012/2013 being awesome-r than last year!




Hopefully I remember to study this time.

nk