PR Advice

It says something about a person when someone like me dedicates two blog posts (to date) about them.

Well, it should.

It's really strange. I know better than most what it feels like to think that you're the best, that advice isn't necessary, because you're never wrong, because you were the biggest fish in the littlest pond, and you milked that for all it was worth. And even worse, you held on to that belief even when the pond water found its way into a river, which slowly but surely dumped you into the wide blue unknown that is the ocean. I know what it was like to have the magic bubble of relativity popped rather suddenly. And having to deal with the realisation that maybe you aren't all much to shout about after all.

It sucks. And I've needed multiple pep-talks to deal with the soul crushing insecurities that followed.

But I think it's easier to be a little fish in a little pond (well, a medium fish. He wouldn't like being called little.) and then to go into the ocean and realise you maybe aren't so little any more. And it's so easy to get caught up in that, and to lord that over all us shrinking anchovies.

The fish analogy is getting out of hand. But when don't my analogies?

Anyway. Said current big fish still asks for my opinion. Still (hopefully) values my feedback. And its in those moments that I completely lose the urge to strangle him for living my dream, and remember that he's probably worked harder than I ever did, and is probably more cut out for that high-flying stuff anyway. I remember that he's still him, albeit with a fancy university to slip in to introductions. And I remember that had our positions been reversed, no one would have heard the end of the fact that I was in a fancy university.

It's the little things that make you appreciate people, and sometimes maybe admit that the universe might actually know what its doing.

nk

I really don't do myself any favours

And so begins the mad dash to salvage the year.

The Hoodie-Tshirt Conundrum

Studying in my room has become a grueling quest for the appropriate 'sitting temperature'.

By appropriate sitting temperature, I mean the perfect heating that your body receives so that you neither sweat nor shiver while your butt remains firmly planted in one spot for hours on end.

I say hours on end, really it's the half an hour sprints of attempted studying in between trips downstairs for tea and cake.

Also, its not so much 'grueling' as it is really leaning more towards minor inconvenience.

Anyway.

It really is annoying! I put on a hoodie, and its too hot.
I put on a Tshirt/open a window and it's too cold.
So I put on the hoodie again.

Rinse and repeat.
You see? Its a vicious, thermodynamic cycle with no solution in sight!


Oh woe, WOEEEEE!




I suppose I could just turn up the heating a bit. Or whack on some jeans instead of shorts...

Nahhhhh.

nk

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