Eat My Sandwich

IFG, 999, & Communication

2009-08-31T10:47:00.000-07:00

The Squash Inter-Faculty Games (IFGs) are right around the corner and I am not prepared a bit. I decided not to partake in any co-curriculars when I signed up for the current semester but then I figured I needed exercise and signed up for the IFGs.

Our first fixture is against the Engineering faculty (I am representing Arts), and our teams are such that a friend who plays better squash than me didn't get selected for the Engineering IFG team. I suppose that spells trouble for me!

What's more is that the fixture falls on 09/09/09, which just happens to be my special day of the year. But before you cry me a river over this 'massive' tragedy, let me tell you that I have NO intentions of celebrating this time around. I am old. Really old. Not in terms of my mindset, of course. But if you plot a graph of achievements versus age, this is as bad as it gets. At least, I have decided that will be the case. 26 is a giant number I think. It rounds off to 30. (It's not like 25, because even though contemporary Mathematics tells us 25 rounds off to 30, it can be argued that 25 can be rounded off to 20 with as much logic.) So, yes, 26 is scary.

I have decided to remove my birthday from my Facebook profile. Each year I get 50-100 wishes and a lot of them are from people who would never have wished me if it wasn't for Facebook. More importantly, some people I care for don't wish me because of all the clutter, perhaps.

Call me a hypocrite for having double standards, because, yes, I do wish people I would never wish if I hadn't seen their birthday on Facebook. I'm a hypocrite. But here I am trying to cut out unnecessary people from my life. I have 1,350 friends on Facebook, and I admit, at least 20% of them are not really friends. Perhaps people I met once or just spoke to once at some chance meeting. For the rest, this could be a 'great' test of friendship. All my old friends know I've been howling about 2009 as the year when my birthday would fall on 999. Sad how I never realised I would be turning 26 then!

A recent episode taught me a lot. As usual, because of my unique position, I was involved in a project with a bunch of people much younger than I. Some issues arose and in my efforts of ending the conflict, I got singled out, with both parties cutting me out (partially, if not completely). Perhaps I am old but not wise. Perhaps it would be wiser to let go of my prophecy that "lack of communication and miscommunication are the root of all problems in every relationship". Since - and this was my greatest learning - some people JUST DON'T WANT TO resolve differences. At least that explains Palestine and Kashmir.

And I HATE IT when people pretend to be okay when they're not. It's misleading. It's miscommunication! You're not helping!

Note to self: Stop using exclamation points like that. You're gonna be 26 in a few days. Act your age. Also, this better be the only note you have ever written to yourself.

999 Trivia:

September 9, 2009, could be a Beatles perfect storm | Digital Media | CNET News
September 9 is the 252nd day of the year, 252 adds to 9, 09-09-09 = 27= 9, 09-09-09 is the last of the single digits dates for quite a while. 1001 years to be precise, (it is also the upside-down number of the beast, of course).
How to Get Ready for 09/09/09
How to Interpret 09/09/09

Broke Ramblings

2009-07-07T22:53:00.000-07:00

I'm stuck.

I'm stuck in this limbo land now where everything and nothing make sense. Where rationality and idealism merge and diverge at the same time. Where life holds meaning and becomes senseless. Where oblique is parallel and delusions create multiple paradoxes.

After reading Mellumoley's "emo" blog posts early in the morning today, a Wednesday (which my kid sisters would point out is pronounced "when's day") began. But it feels more like a Monday to me - with the gloomy and "emo" thoughts running through my head.

The mother and kid sisters who arrived two-days-short-of-a-month ago would have left the island in another two hours. They brought amazing memories with them and gave me new ones that I shall cherish for a long time. The best parts in these fun-filled yet hectic (because I was interning 9-6) days were those deep and meaningful conversations I got to have with each and everyone. And of course, the snorkeling at Tioman!

The first one was with the mother. From midnight till dawn we discussed relationships, life, marriage, religion and personal beliefs and motivations. Somehow I was able to convey to her who I was, what I was set to become, how I wanted to live my life and how I don't need to put up a pretentious display of what I am to anyone. I also took this chance to explain to her how I needed her to understand why that fateful one meant so much to me and why it had been a rough ride letting her go, in order for her to understand me. I told her about the things I learnt from the other one, and how pre-marital relationships are meaningless without the sanctity of marriage. I discussed a lot of things. And I told her how I will always place my family's happiness over mine, and that it would remain my priority - even if that meant never marrying - since there is no woman out there who is cut-out for me - in any aspect (except the fateful one).

Then she left for Los Angelos and I got to spend every evening with my kid sisters, who had obviously grown in these two years I hadn't seen them. They have lived a somewhat confused life and I share their confusion - being stuck in the middle - not knowing if stepping on one side will be an aggressive move towards the other. The heart-to-heart with them was indeed earnest and heartfelt. Most of all, I hope they will find a confidant in me as they go through teenhood - the most troubled phase in everyone's life.

Meanwhile, the other one - the confused one - the confusing one - she talks of "friends with benefits" and relationships that don't end in marriage. I named them "short-term relationships" - assorting them somewhere close to one-night stands. Here, she speaks to a person who has trouble accepting the idea of pre-marital relationships because he thinks they're pointless in the first place and self-sabotaging by their very nature. (When you accept something as a 'trial', you can either treat it as the real thing, or you can treat it as something that is just temporary - in the latter case you hardly ever take it seriously. If you treat it as the real thing, there has to be at least a possibility where the temporary thing could become the real thing; otherwise it is completely pointless. And ridiculous.)

There was no possibility with the fateful one without consideration for elopement. That is why it ended so abruptly. The mother had made her refusal for acceptance sparkling clear, and the only possibility existed in fleeing as a possibility. The possibility for a possibility was the only factor that could eradicate the pointlessness. Upon her return from Los Angelos, however, the mother had a renewed mind. She was ready to accept. For my happiness, she said.

That changes everything.

But the fateful one still holds a grudge against the existence of the other one. She still avoids talking about 'us'. And the fateful one has painfully decided to move on it seems, asking "maybe it's best to just wait and see".

My argument: We're meant to lose the people we love. How else are we supposed to know how important they are?

And she has also developed a new trait: making demands. Now this becomes more like a business transaction.

I lost you; I lost myself. I tried to replace you; I replaced myself. I don't know who I am, where I am and what I'm doing any more. Save me; save yourself?

We need to have a long conversation. But I'm broke and you have no credit. O' atm! Thou art a heartless bitch.

Call me Confucious

2009-06-22T21:44:00.001-07:00

I've decided to change my name to Confucious. I feel it reflects the state I am in almost all the time - a state of confusion.

I'm confused about religion, family, love, friends, career, and studies, top-down. I don't know who to trust when I can't trust myself. Can you trust God without trusting yourself? Don't you have to believe in yourself before you can believe in other things, such as religion? Is it necessary to follow in your parents' footsteps? God may be all knowing, but how do you decide which side to take in any given conflict - He doesn't provide any answers. What are ethics and who has the right idea about them?

Life is confusion galore for me.

Recent news and events have made me numb. No, I'm not talking about world events, numbifying as they may be. I've lost respect for most of humanity. They're all treacherous, selfish and self-involved, caring as they may appear to be. Outward appearances deceive as usual. Like a friend said, at the end of the day, you come into this world alone and you go alone. So what's the rush? Why is everyone so eagerly chasing after life? Materialism doesn't appeal to me. I don't see the value in doing anything for yourself - there's more joy in doing things for others. But others don't think so.

I'm listening to Savage Garden these days. I remember listening to them 24/7 in 2001 while I prepared for my O level examinations. I found their songs highly inspiring after that fateful person introduced them to me. Now I look for the same inspiration I had then. What was my motivation then?

I can't think of one personal reason for my motivation then. Having failed Matric, and that too because my paper was swapped with someone who was willing to pay the Lahore Board to get a higher score, I was out to prove myself primarily to my stepfather, but also to the rest of the family that thought I was a failure. I wanted to prove that I was indeed intelligent and smart, and out to make something for myself in life. That I was not just gonna take over my father's/stepfather's business when I grew older. Little did I know then that you never do anything for yourself.

I was also motivated because of the immense freedom and independence I got at that age. The exposure that got me my street skills and my smoking habit. And then of course, I had the usual motivation - to get a degree or two, starting minting money, get a family, get laid, and have kids. With that one fateful person.

I remember fully believing in God then as well. I used to pray often - sometimes even saying prayers that were not mandatory. I used to fast every Ramadan without skipping a single day. Whenever I reached one of my lows, all I had to do was pick up a prayer mat and talk to God. It's been a while since I did that.

What is my motivation now? The fateful one likes another. I still believe in God, but not fully, to say the least - I am searching for the truth in this confused state-of-mind. I don't want to follow religion if it is just a brainwashing tool to have control over the masses. The family system has failed itself for me to have the desire to follow and base my life on it.

In fact, there is no system that makes sense to me now. The dual income model means leaving your kids' upbringing to the society you live in and the media. The housewife model means a relatively illiterate person mothering my kids, laying their future on the line (it also means not having a partner who will understand everything you say or care about). Single-parenting is a definite no-no for me as well. A Western style to me only means a possible divorce and dissection of children. An Islamic one means having to change a lot of things about myself that I am not keen for, at least at this point in time - but of course that depends on my partner.

So what am I living for? Certainly, I doubt the possibility of hell-fire or heaven. It doesn't make sense for people who are kinder than myself to go to hell just because they were born into another religion, which was not their own choice to begin with. Love? I don't think I need to mention that fateful one again. Another one? But it will take ages to find the person who I can connect with on the same wavelength. I do have a story to share with the world, so maybe I want to write and be published. But it's a self-effacing motivation. It is also materialistic. To live for my family? But my family doesn't exactly resemble a 'family' per se; and there are things that I'd rather not even think about - that have put me off.

In an atheist's world, it doesn't make sense to commit suicide because you waste the one life you have to live. In monotheistic religions, it doesn't make sense to commit suicide because you reject what God has given you, hence taking you straight to hell. My question is directed at the atheist who is a massive failure, and his life has been a series of misfortunes - one after the other: isn't killing yourself a short cut out of this world?

People argue if committing suicide is bravery or cowardliness. I think it's a little of both. But to me it's still not the right answer. So go ahead, and call me Confucious from now on.

Just.

2009-05-26T10:17:00.001-07:00

It is JUST three months for people who are in love. You guys weren't.

But she said she loved me?

Does she act like it?

No. But.

Full of Tiger Biscuits

2009-05-24T10:13:00.000-07:00

My version of Chocolate Brownie flavoured ice cream - Tiger biscuits for $1.25. I don't think I've ever reached this low point before. Not here at least. Friends. Money. School. Family. Her. And her.

When did love get separated from romance and converge with relationship? But it was me who always said that love comes out of a relationship. So I must have been mistaken.

When did insecurity divorce a person to be with material things? But it was me who always said material things were immaterial. So I must have been mistaken.

At least I was right about one thing all along though. All misunderstandings occur because of lack of communication or miscommunication. You never clarified yourself. You can't say sorry without understanding what you did. It's not an honest apology.

Then you said goodbye without saying goodbye...

Collapsing Romance

2009-05-06T19:07:00.000-07:00

Sometimes your woman can make guy friends who you just don't like. It's wise for them to stay away from them but they just don't get it. Like, it could be someone they recently met - someone they had no previous connection with (except for some vague one like they were in the same school or they kinda recognize each other from some place).

My problem is, I can't help it if you have already made a connection with someone before we met. But if you start making new, deeper and more intimate connections with other guys, then I'm sorry, I can't tolerate it. Because this is the person you're gonna go sobbing to if we break up or even have a fight, and this person will take full advantage of the situation - hell, he might as well be your next boyfriend.

The height of this problem would be if you throw away the cute little band that I gave you as a gift (and that too in front of me - and then ask me to empty the trash) - so what if it's not an expensive item - that is not the point of gifts - it's the emotional value. In contrast, if you have the emotional consciousness to store that blasted postcard he gave you, that chummy male friend of yours, then we have a problem. Because then, that means, you're not emotionally blind or cold-hearted. You are showing (and are capable of showing) warmth and love (affection?) for one person over the other (here it's some random dude over your boyfriend). And the fact that you do it so casually only makes it worse.

The complaint is simple - you don't show any love or affection towards me - so why should I be the one to end it - seeing that this is not working out? I am the one who is always showering you with love and affection. You're the one who is not in love, so you should be the one to end it.

And excuse me, but here's a simple idea if you don't know what to do with all the flowers I've given you - wait for them to dry, crush the flowers, throw the green parts, and then put them in that empty perfume bottle that you've got (the tiny one), and then keep it with you forever. Things like that build romance.

What to Make of Such Comments?

2009-05-03T11:50:00.000-07:00

So if your girlfriend had a crush on someone when she was 13ish, and she's still friends with the guy, it's perfectly normal. Of course. Then if the guy takes like 10 of those annoying quizzes on Facebook and she comments on one of them, that is perfectly normal too. Fine. But what if the quiz is "What sexual position are you?", his result is "Doggy Style", and her comment is "Nice!"? What to make of such comments?

Well, what if you know for a fact that the doggy style is her favourite position? And what if the only traceable online communication they had with each other prior to this 'incident' was when she posted a link to how the Kenyan women were gonna sex starve their men, where he commented, "It's 7 days only, what?"

Of course, you might argue that those kind of interactions are perfectly normal for any boy-girl friendly-only relationship. But what if her family believes in the Hindu caste system and wants her to marry only within the caste? And what if this guy belonged to her caste and you didn't come anywhere near it?

What do you make of such a situation? Is there any cause for alarm? Or do you just ignore it, slap a smile on your face and be on your merry way?

On your merry own way out of the relationship, if you ask me! Slowly and steadily, you will be filtered out.

Yeah, you're right. Facebook makes your private life way too public.

Complications of Two Hearts

2009-03-09T13:22:00.000-07:00

Feelings and emotions are the most complicated in this world - more so than science and technology because those are based on some rules at least. Out of feelings and emotions, love and affection take the lead. It's just so hard to tell the other's true intentions sometimes. You just wish you could take a peek inside their head; their heart.

It becomes even more difficult when an introvert finds love in the arms of an extrovert. Obviously, it's more difficult for the extrovert, who is used to sharing each emotion, sentiment, and every moment with the other. The introvert, when questioned about sharing their every emotion, sentiment or moment feels threatened at the loss of privacy.

In one such case where the girl was the extrovert, she took extreme measures to find out what was going on inside his heart - using his password to find out what exactly the person was telling his friends, or whether he was working on some prospects for when he will be done with her (and thus, if he has any intentions of ending it soon). Needless to say, she was paranoid.

But paranoia or not, she often found a lot of information that didn't settle well with her. Why is he talking to that other girl? They hardly even met; they're not even friends - why is he even chatting with her? Oh, so when he said he was out "with the boys", there were, in fact, girls present as well? Why? Why would he HIDE that information from me? Is there something I should know? Or maybe it was nothing and he didn't want to trouble me by telling me about it?

Of course on the guy's part, his girlfriend snooping around to find information on him by using his password that he had entrusted her - perhaps because he needed her to print something for him from his account or something like that - was something that didn't settle well with him. If she can't trust him enough, maybe she is not really into the relationship? Is she just looking for excuses to end this? In which case, it makes sense to go around partying with random girls and what not. Debatable.

Cause. And effect.

Which one is which? In a relationship, it's often hard to tell. And I don't just mean romantic relationships. It could be the same with your parents; or siblings; or just friends.

The question is: what are the ethical boundaries in a relationship?

If she cheats on him, is it okay for him to publish her lewd photographs?

If he lied to her, is it okay for her to slap him in public?

If she raises her voice in front of his friends, is it okay for him to raise his voice in front of her boss?

If he checks out every girl's behind, is it okay for her to have discreet male friends?

Missing the Lucky One

2008-08-03T11:20:00.000-07:00

It's easy to distract yourself when you are busy. I know most people wouldn't take it as a compliment if you tell them you missed them when you felt jobless, but I think it is still a major compliment.

There are so many things you could do or think about when you are bored and feeling jobless. To be perfectly honest, if you are interesting enough, you can never really be bored. What happens is that you miss someone so much that you feel like there is nothing that could make up for that person's presence; hence you feel bored. Possibly because it's impossible to meet or be with that special someone.

I often realize that there aren't many people that I really miss as I'm away from 'home'. In fact, I am quite close to making my own home here in Singapore. But there are some people - a number I can count on my fingertips - who I miss so much every single day. They are the only people that make me miss 'home'.

I wish Pakistan was as close to Singapore as Malaysia is. The distance from Singapore to Kuala Lumpur, which feels like it could be Lahore somehow, is about the same as a road trip from Lahore to Islamabad - Islamabad being the only 'planned' city in Pakistan where we have sectors, blocks and a lot of parallel and perpendicular roads - trying to say Islamabad is like Singapore in this comparison.

Anyway. You know who you are. And I miss you to bits. If graduation, getting a money-making job to get a wife, to get children and to raise a family weren't my top priority, I would just give up this whole business of being abroad and return home.

Life is quite peaceful here. People are generally nice - at least on the outside - and there is almost no racism here - at least on the outside. I would want my children to be raised in such a safe environment. But to make that happen there are so many other things that need to happen that it makes even the most strong-willed people doubt themselves.

Do you believe in palmistry? I ask as if it's similar to belief in a certain God, but I think that is how it is. There isn't a lot of proof to show that palmistry, karma or astrology are real. Somehow we tend to believe that there must be something awfully true about these things.

I don't have a luck line on either of my hands. It strikes me as strange because my hand is the only one I have ever tried to read that doesn't have a luck line. People always have a luck line - whether it's on the hand they inherit from their parents, or their self-made hand; whether it cuts off randomly or it is full or criss-crossed. But I don't have anything.

Does that mean I am not 'blessed' with any good luck? Or does that mean I am lucky not to have any luck line because everything that I work for will be achievable and I won't be sabotaged by my luck line dominating my life? Maybe it just means I won't have any bad luck?

The wise always have something wise to say about luck. Some say it's about being at the right place at the right time. Others say luck is the same as intelligent guesses in multiple choice questions - you can't ignore the role luck plays but you can certainly increase your odds. Yet there are others that just believe in hard work and think that luck doesn't deserve any consideration in our lives.

I guess I am just bragging on and on so I will stop here as this post doesn't seem to have any conclusion - or a topic for that matter, but if you think you can give one, by all means, leave a comment.

Author's note: I wrote this post a few days ago but because of lack of Internet I never got around to posting it. So naturally it had to make its way to Eat My Sandwich: Keeping up with yesterday...

A Monday Rant

2008-06-02T00:10:00.000-07:00

I didn't sleep all night because I woke up at 5 pm the day before and I was hanging out with some Pakistani friends till 1 am or so, playing cards and losing.

My air-conditioner had been messing up - the motor that is supposed to recycle the water was spoilt so I had to manually drain the water every 1.5 hours as it would overflow and shut down the air-conditioner as I did so. Luckily, a friend found a pipe from somewhere which I could use to drain water in a pail, but the pipe leaked! So every one hour or so I would have to get a load of tissue papers to absorb all the dripping water. But at least the air-conditioner kept working non-stop.

When I left for work in the morning, upon arriving at the bus stop, I realized that I had left my air-conditioner on! If I went back then, I would've been late for work. So I just took my chance. Now the pail is probably overflowing and there must be water everywhere in the room. What's worse - in fact pathetic - is that my new half-terabyte external hard-disk and Acer notebook are lying on the floor where the water can reach rather conveniently. What I face now is a possible loss of about $2,000.

I got to work and signed in to iGoogle (it's my modus operandi or ritual these days). There it was. The position for the biggest debut by a female-led film which bowed to USD 47.7M - the record that was held by my love Angelina Jolie for 7 good years for her 2001 action hit Lara Croft: Tomb Raider, was stolen by Sarah Jessica Parker's Sex and the City (USD 55.7M). I am now more eager than ever to see this so-called gay movie. No one has the right to take Jolie's place. No one.

I had packed myself a handsome serving of black-eyed peas (lobia) for lunch, and I had imagined I would get some chapati from that Oscar food place at International Business Park. I stood in line for 15 minutes or more only to find out they were left with one chapati only and no roti-prata. What's the point of standing in queue if the item you want is not even available. Earlier I had considered just asking the stall operator if there was any chapati available but I imagined the people standing in the queue would think I was trying to get ahead of them unfairly when all I wanted was to see if there was any point in standing in line in the first place. This Indian stall doesn't list their prices anywhere either, so each time you order you are always waiting for some surprise, guessing what it's going to be like. One time they charged me $6 for what I would call a full meal.

So I asked them to give me that elusive chapati only to find out it cost me a whole buck. I mean, look at the size of the thing, it's just three bites! What is the world coming to? Or was the stall owner just overcharging me as there are no quoted prices - he could charge foreigners more perhaps - give good discounts to the ladies, maybe? I don't know.

So then I headed to the supermarket nearby to get bread that cost $1.75. The bread was half the size of a regular loaf and at that point I could not have been bothered with the price so I just went with it. Until I got to my office to eat.

I was supposed to get a $2.90 worth Gardenia Raisin Loaf with the bread I bought for FREE! Those cheats!

And imagine the state of mind I am in - when I get back my laptop and hard drive could have been blown up - there could even have been a fire - or a short-circuit cutting off all electricity - my mattress could be drenched in water - the ice in my refrigerator could have melted - and well, I haven't even slept well (or at all) to be able to deal with the chaotic situation that awaits me.

Oh, and I need to do my laundry when I get back.

I just hate Monday.

Why should there be a Moon Day right after Sun Day? It doesn't make sense.

It.just.doesn't.

Smoke Break

2008-04-27T16:20:00.000-07:00

Sitting at the central courtyard at Raffles Place, I enjoyed my 15-minute smoke-break.

I had rolled two cigarettes while I was in my office on the phone with my clients so that I could save time spent on rolling during my break. Efficient time management, yeah?

Smoking is an interesting activity that can teach you loads about multi-tasking. You can do so many things while smoking: watch a movie or the teli, talk to people, listen to music, finish assignments, read, write, or even play Squash. And then, you can always do what someone likes to call 'people watching'.

You see them enter and leave the buildings in packs of five or three if they're in groups. Most of them are alone though. Dressed up in black suits and usually on the phone. Corporate whores, Aesa would call them. It's lunch break for most people, but many of them line up at ATMs before heading on for lunch. Some girls dressed in white walk about distributing tissue papers with material promoting the upcoming Boat Asia 2008 event.

A young man and a woman walk out of the OUB building, chatting away. They look like they would be discussing sub-prime rates. Then a slightly older white male joins them and engages the young man into a spirited conversation. The woman feels neglected, so she pulls out her phone and pretends to sms someone. Then the older man, who by now looks like he must be their boss, starts paying attention to the woman (who forgets all about the sms she was pretending to write and pushes the phone into her purse). The man tries to crack a joke to regain attention, but it falls flat. Promotion prospects fly in the air, I think to myself.

On the other end, a serious-looking woman appears, wearing stilettos. What a waste of good shoes, I think. If only she knew how to control her gait, that stern look would've done her some good after all. I quickly looked away.

A man stands in the middle and keeps looking at his watch. He had just come out of Clifford Centre. I guess he must be heading for lunch but then he stops in the middle, clueless, as if. A woman appears walking towards him in the distance. A smile appears on the man's face. They hug and kiss as they meet. I tell myself: young love - how sweet.

A shipment of what must be a few hundred thousand Today newspapers arrive. I grab one and head back to my office.

MCQ Nightmares

2007-11-27T19:20:00.000-08:00

You suffer from so many mixed feelings during exams. For one, you suffer from tension and stress because of the massive information overload you need to go through. (For some reason I always replace 'have' with 'need' in all my sentences. I blame call centre training for that - "If you like our product, you NEED to pay $xx.xx".)

There are random things like sleep schedules and extraordinary circadian rhythms to control in order for you to wake up on time before each exam. Everything needs to be planned and executed perfectly.

You also have to adhere to the wisdom of not studying till the very last minute, which means, even if you pull an all-nighter, you should 'rest' your brain for an hour or so before the exam so that it functions while you are taking the exam. (Please people, you 'take' exams not 'give' them. Your professors are the ones who give you exams.)

You also need to clean your room so that you can organize and file all those random pieces of papers that are your notes taken during lectures and tutorials. It takes time.

Then of course, comes the hard part - studying. You need to make sure you don't have any interesting TV shows to watch on your hard drive so that you don't get distracted while you're studying - so you watch them all; back-to-back.

Once you're done, you open the syllabus, note down exam venues and seat numbers, and sit down with your book; highlighter and pencil in hand.

This is where you realise that all the interesting topics are not in the syllabus and you wonder if they might be related to the topics that are in the syllabus, so you read through them, just to be on the safe side.

Once you run out of interesting things in your book, there is nothing for you to do except facing the music. So you finally begin preparation for your exam. Please note, this is not about a nerd who starts 'revision' at this point. No. This is the first time this student comes into contact with the readings and the lecture slides.

Halfway through the first chapter, you get this immense desire to doodle, and you doodle away. You fight the urge and wonder if inviting your friends to study with you would help. They arrive and you chat away. They soon realize it won't work so they leave after a couple of smokes.

Of course, then you get really hungry so you eat. A brain in action needs nourishment. You are used to having company while you eat so you watch some random TV show episode for the third time while you eat. That's when you get back to your book and finally finish the first chapter.

Then you must sleep, so that you give your mind enough rest to shift all the information from its RAM (random access memory) to the hard drive.

In the process you will of course have nightmares about multiple choice questions (MCQs). Especially MCQs set for a psychology exam. "What if the psychology professor uses reverse psychology on me in setting the questions?"

It's worse when it's negative marking too. "Oh so the professor wants me to think this is the right answer so it's obviously the wrong choice."

You make careless mistakes on all the questions you could've answered correctly and the ones you mark randomly also turn out to be incorrect. You get a minus score on your final for the first time in the history of your university.

I hate exam time.

The Secret of Overachieving

2007-11-14T12:25:00.000-08:00

So when you promise others and yourself to do the things you need to or intend to do, and then if you procrastinate doing other 'extra' things (like blogging regularly) that are less important in contrast, you end up doing more than everyone else. Or so it seems. That is the secret of overachieving: procrastination.

Hereby I publicly tell myself: STOP PROCRASTINATING LIKE THERE WILL ALWAYS BE A TOMORROW!

Like my friend Aesa just told me, it is time for WAR now. Together we shall 'fight' the things we need to do today. And mine's a long list. But first, we shall shower (individually, mind you), for it would be unethical to use our stench as a weapon in this war.

Projects, papers, news stories and exams, smell my Herbal Essences, in a bit!

Click here to read this Calvin and Hobbes comic strip. (Click here to download full-sized full version.)

The Cleaning Process - Part 2

2007-11-04T11:22:00.000-08:00

Sunday arrives, and you know you have no choice but to continue with the cleaning process. It's now or never, you tell yourself.

You realize that since the previous night, you have accumulated more garbage and you need to pack more stuff in those shopping bags. And things appear a bit different to you - what you didn't consider garbage before now looks like garbage. You end up packing three more shopping bags to dump down the garbage chute.

That is when you receive a shock - ever since you moved into your new room this semester (three months ago), you never tried to fit your clothes in the cupboard! You've been taking them right out of the laundry bag! No folding them up or ironing them and fitting them neatly into your cupboards. Now you have a laundry bag full of clothes recently washed; and that old one with clean clothes you didn't clear out since you did your laundry at the beginning of the semester.

Luckily, at this point your sister arrives to feed you and help you with the folding process. So you delve right into it.

A few 8-minute smoke breaks, a sheesha break and an ice-lemon-tea break later, you get back to the much-dreaded ironing part of the cleaning process.

Nine hours later, you're through with both your laundry bags, and you have ironed all your dress shirts - for the first time in at least a year! The trousers will have to see the steam of an iron another day.

You proceed to have your breakfast (you never slept but normal people have breakfast at the time, so you decide you must conform - a bit). Dirty dishes need cleaning too, but you have more important things to do, like classes. The cleaning process must continue some other time.

Save for a 'quick' 60 minute bath to wash all that coconut oil off your hair! (And that facial hair must go too - or the young girls in your class will go "Uh, tsk tsk.")

The Cleaning Process - Part 1

2007-11-03T05:58:00.000-07:00

It begins with your blog of course - you delete all the spam comments one by one. (I don't turn on word verification because it might make the few people who comment here run away too - so I manually delete each and every spam message.) It's always stuff like,

Xanax has left a new comment on your post "Life for sale at more than US$ 24,000?": LnYi3B Very good blog! Thanks!

What the hell is LnYi3B anyway?

Next up is your Gmail inbox and spam folder. It includes unsubscribing from accidental sign ups of unwanted newsletters. It doesn't take more than 10 minutes. (And who cares about hotmail inboxes anyway? I have 1000+ spam in my hotmail inbox.)

We move on to the real world from there, out of all the virtuality. You collect all your rotten and soiled clothes and throw them in the laundry hamper (if they're any less than that they're still clean, right?). You force them to fit in the hamper when it begins to overflow. Then you rush to the laundry room five blocks away, making sure you get 20-cent coins worth ten dollars on the way because that is how much laundry would take. (Batch processing only twice a semester means each time it will cost more.) You throw the necessary stuff in the washing machine and rush back to your room.

That is when you collect all the empty shopping bags (you tsk tsk yourself for not being environmentally friendly), and then start filling them up with all the garbage. Empty cans, bottles, empty juice and Milo boxes, used tissue papers, the 20% off coupons you will never use, styrofoam plates and trays, empty cigarette boxes, ash trays, that 18th century sandwich sitting in your refrigerator, and all the stuff in both your trash-bins - everything must go down the garbage chute.

Fascinating stuff I write on my blog, yes?

By this time you know your clothes need to be moved to the dryer, so you head down to the laundry room again. Then, after stopping at Super Snacks to get yourself a chocolate cheese waffle, you head back to the laundry room to fold all your clothes once they're dry and bring them back to your room.

You meet a friend on the way, who needs some of those extra 20-cent coins you have, and when he comes in your room, he proposes to make a trip to 7-11 to grab some drinks. You drink the next three hours away, before falling asleep while watching Arrested Development. After all, it was Saturday night. The cleaning process can continue on Sunday.

The Procrastinator's Creed

2007-10-15T13:48:00.000-07:00

I believe that if anything is worth doing, it would have been done already.
I shall never move quickly, except to avoid more work or find excuses
I will never rush into a job without a lifetime of consideration.
I shall meet all of my deadlines directly in proportion to the amount of bodily injury I could expect to receive if I miss them.
I firmly believe that tomorrow holds the possibility for new technologies, astounding discoveries, and a reprieve from my obligations.
I truly believe that all deadlines are unreasonable regardless of the amount of time given.
I shall never forget that the probability of a miracle, though infinitely small, is not exactly zero.
If at first I don't succeed, there is always next year.
I shall always decide not to decide, unless of course I decide to change my mind.
I shall always begin, start, initiate, take the first step, and/or write the first word, when I get around to it.
I obey the law of inverse excuses which demands that the greater the task to be done, the more insignificant the work that must be done prior to beginning the greater task.
I know that the work cycle is not plan-start-finish, but is wait-plan-plan.
I will never put off until tomorrow, what I can forget about forever.
I will become a member of the ancient Order of Two-Headed Turtles (the Procrastinator's Society) if they ever get it organized.

Prioritizing

2007-10-15T13:39:00.000-07:00

"All you need to do is to learn to prioritize realistically," he said. "The only way you can do well in your studies is to allocate the highest priority to your studies, and let everything else be second priority."

My friend had an interesting proposition:
Studies - First priority
Everything else - Second priority

Given all the things I want to accomplish in my life, I wonder now, if that was good advice or not...