honest to blog

am not usually the type of person who wears her heart on her sleeve. most of the time, my emotional chip gravitates more towards subtlety or some very, very delayed response. so far, this works for me.

i had just finished processing some good conduct certificate for my visa’s penal clearance, and was walking back towards the car with my parent that day. to get there, i actually had to walk past some kind of boarding house for rookie police and luck placed me chronologically synchronised with the loading of some mini troops unto uncomfortable-looking vehicles. maybe it was the heat, or maybe the fact that i had to pay for some "administration" fee to retreive the certificate was getting to me. either way, those government minions, and a cornucopia of them, were giving catcalls and wolf whistles and whatever it is that neanderthals do. and it got to me. bad. nothing really artery-bursting. but bad nonetheless. and to think that they wouldn’t actually act the same had they not been in groups. and here’s to hoping that their camaraderie would actually produce certain benefits for the betterment of society of the amount directly correlative with that of the taxpayers’ money. am personally not against public appreciation stares. i do that some times as well. and if people, and there are still many of these fine specimens left, can just do that with respect, that would be really nice. i’d say bless you and may your souls go gleefully to heaven.

and as for the other kind. particulary THAT other kind. well, let’s just say that i had to act like the educated, mature, nice little lady that i was.

i told them to go to the other side.

and that they should go do it like they do on the discovery channel to themselves.

guess it’s about time to bring some sense and sensibility back to the drawing board…

that i should be scared. very, very scared.

turns out that the world is way bigger out there than the usual never-ending academic life and afternoon extra-curricular ballet courses. that the super-almighty ministry of schooling in their self-entitled glory of so much self-importance, is not that super-almighty after all. turns out that that particular power-hungry control freak machine has been making me undergo tests and exams that are nothing short of like real life. and in the process, has been conditioning my simpleton brain into believing that those tests and exams ARE real life. and there goes some late-night memorising on some fabricated history lessons. though little miss me 2008 would believe that the truth is relative after all. and it turns out that if i don’t have any idea on how many floors does the local government office building has, i can still survive another day.

that said, the me 1998 should not fret so much. it turns out that one can stay up even after the 9pm news and that one doesn’t have to finish all those pesky veggies on those dinner plates if one doesn’t wish to in 2008.

word.

what is philosophy, really?

it’s naught but learning about "dead guys who came up with the answers to questions no one asked" - s.c.

always brings tears to me eyes…

i describe myself as self-driven.

so self-driven, in fact, that my source of drive should only come from my very own awesome little self. if anybody else attempts to drive me to do something, i’d make the outmost effort to refrain from doing whatever it is that said anybody else pushes me to do. all in the name of ensuring the genuine maintenance and integrity of my self-driven quality. even when i have had the intention and some motivation to perform a certain task. if some dudes or dudettes pop in in the middle of my thinking process, and decide to voice out their concerns and encouragements, i would rather choose to wait and postpone that thing that i planned to do. because then, if the task is done, i would be dudes-or-dudettes-driven. but if nobody else is pushing me to do something, then i’d have delay in hope for the revelation of the perfect time to execute the actions. if not, that would be circumstantially-driven in all technicality. makes one think that one has to do something ’cause one has to do it. and if it’s that important, why is nobody else reminding me to do it? that’s a form of personal principles’ selling out, mind you. and i don’t want that.

yep. i’m a purist that way.

- Procrastinator Anonymous -

the first time i made my way towards monash college to register for some ielts test, i discovered that the office had been closed for 15 minutes. i had no idea that their office hours were one hour short of the already so very short australian office hours.

the next day i managed to arrive way earlier. just to be sure, you know, and uncovered the fact that i would need to bring along my passport, photographs, and filled in some forms available at the nearby area. and they say that lightning never strikes twice. oy, i couldn’t believe my luck.

i visited the place again the week after, every single thing required had been either filled in or carried along and therefore i could confidently march forth towards the registration desk. universe decided it wasn’t over yet, however. reception lady said that the sizing of my photograph didn’t match that of the intricate legal prerequisites. so i went to a post office nearby to get a new photo taken, but was seriously feeling too ‘blah’ to go back yet again and finish up the whole business.

another further week later i returned, with the papers filled and the correct photo attached, only to remember that i had forgotten to carry my passport along (my first technical use of paradox, no less, and already the irony). so i walked home and came back to finish up "the job". too bad it had turned out that the place for a test would only be available a little more than a month from the original brilliant plan i originally had. 27 september to 8 november does have lots of spaces in between if you check the lunar calendar.

darwin said i must be shot…

i like to pick my battles. i really do. my sense of motivation has quotas written all over them.the other day i was hanging out with a bunch of peers when the conversation started steering into the realm of Hollywood actors. my interest piqued when someone suddenly mentioned Johnny Depp … and stated how he’s actually one of the worst actors currently alive.

ok …

i’ve always been pretty vocal about this particular topic (or person) and have in the past been repeatedly professing my praise and veneration in regards to said actor. and upon hearing such proclamation, i started mentally preparing my side of the arguments. after all, i could use some exercise on my merriment muscles.

“i read on a review somewhere…” the person began diplomatically.

hmmm…oh well, so it’s not like mr. contra had actually deduced his statement from firsthand experience. i started seeing red. but hey, maybe i could just hear the dude out first and decide on whatever next.

“…that Johnny Depp is actually the #1 worst actor because…”

na na na na na…la di da di da…mental note; should try the yummy-looking apple pie next time around. argh! need to lengthen attention span, need to lengthen attention span. ow, wait for it, here comes…

“he’s always the same in every role he plays in his movies. like, if you watch him act every time, he’s always the same. like, he’s still Johnny Depp…”

eh?

i drew back lips sealed. of course Johnny Depp’s still Johnny Depp every time, if the guy had even a single percent of deviant DNA strand, he’d be a dolphin. talk about stating the obvious. nophunetal. i dropped my intentions and let that one pass. for one, how do you argue with someone who, say, starts their point by stating that mcdonald’s originate from china? or that whales eat chickens? you don’t. at least i won’t. nu-uh. how do you argue with ignorance, anyway? (woo-hoo! sense the drama cookin’). am too lazy. fuhgetabouddit. to say that that actor is “always the same” when he’s anything but. my choleric cow, even the most bitter skeptics are fully educated on that one.

on some other times, however, i could go all out on my personal battles. like that argument with a friend on whether her apartment’s bathroom actually has two instead of one stool in it. or when i fell into infatuation with a certain skirt a few months back; ah, the things i did just to get my claws around that particular one. i even turned half the world upside down once trying to retrieve a handphone’s memory stick from the wrong insertion on my laptop. it was an accident on behalf of my common sense (or lack thereof) and the slot was too large. yep, i can genuinely be so determined at times.

nevertheless, it should be noted that when it comes to the daily showdown between myself and the morning alarms, the snooze button always wins. to be fair, i did say that i like to pick my battles, not that i’m remotely any wise at it.

the problem with befriending some certain people for around 8 years is that one should lose hope of ever having the slightest borderline normal conversations with them. instead, one should always expect in-jokes, rather bamboozling double-meanings, or randomly scattered innuendos. expect past embarrassments or catty compromising remarks to colour any form of verb-involving interactions. expect something like this;

“wouldn’t a nicely constructed coffee table be useful right now?”

“why so she can have something to dance on?”

“wha…?”

*insert yoda references here*

*insert spongebob references here*

*insert cryptic hand gestures here*, *here*, and *here*

*insert evil laughter here*

on some circumstances where some conversations occur in the context of girlfriend’s apartment, one can also expect the presence of her majesty fuzzy furball cat. there is a certain kind of felinarchy going on in this living arrangement; a status that mostly consists of The Cat, and us her sycophantic courtier at her recently claimed black luggage bag previously belonging to another girlfriend tiny throne. our humble services included door-handling, grub-providing, being doormats human mattress and acting as natural obstacle courses. 

other than that, a weekend rendezvous at sydney has proven to be a neat one indeed. one can never run out of mini entertainments like that certain sidewalk prophets who preached that “we should all skip”, much kudoism for mentioned couple who didn’t just talk the talk but also skip their talks. a group of babes actually took heed and were converted. or that other guy who inquired whether us ladies “would like to donate for guys in speedos”. oh, and that a portion of mushroom literally consist of a single piece of mushroom in a certain japanese restaurant.

some getaway exercise that was, where all the wits got worked up and the banter easy. possibilities shared and “concerns” discussed, like a sorority of three.

or four actually, if you count the megalomaniacal cat.

"A black swan is an outlier, an event that lies beyond the realm of normal expectations. Most people expect all swans to be white because that’s what their experience tells them; a black swan is by definition a surprise. Nevertheless, people tend to concoct explanations for them after the fact, which makes them appear more predictable, and less random, than they are. Our minds are designed to retain, for efficient storage, past information that fits into a compressed narrative. This distortion, called the hindsight bias, prevents us from adequately learning from the past.

Black swans can have extreme effects: just a few explain almost everything, from the success of some ideas and religions to events in our personal lives. Moreover, their influence seems to have grown in the 20th century, while ordinary events - the ones we study and discuss and learn about in history or from the news - are becoming increasingly inconsequential.

Consider: How would an understanding of the world on June 27, 1914, have helped anyone guess what was to happen next? The rise of Hitler, the demise of the Soviet bloc, the spread of Islamic fundamentalism, the Internet bubble: not only were these events unpredictable, but anyone who correctly forecast any of them would have been deemed a lunatic (indeed, some were). This accusation of lunacy would have also applied to a correct prediction of the events of 9/11 - a black swan of the vicious variety.

A vicious black swan has an additional elusive property: its very unexpectedness helps create the conditions for it to occur. Had a terrorist attack been a conceivable risk on Sept. 10, 2001, it would likely not have happened. Jet fighters would have been on alert to intercept hijacked planes, airplanes would have had locks on their cockpit doors, airports would have carefully checked all passenger luggage. None of that happened, of course, until after 9/11."

New York Times (April 8, 2004)