Thursday, October 19, 2006

nail in my tyre, and warmth in my heart

Due to a mischievious nail that loved my right rear tire too much, today i got all four of my tires changed and aligned for USD 250. That's equivalent to RM1000! a year ago, I would have been angst ridden about the fact that this would pay for my room in penang for 5 months, with change left for 10 or 20 meals. Yet after being here for a while, I'd come to expect 250, post 30 bucks discount coupons from various sources, as a reasonable price to pay for 4 tyres. It's inevitable. I've acclimatised.

This is a big step for someone who, 1.5 yrs ago, went through the trouble of cancelling 3.60 worth of baked pastries at the checkout, and had to borrow cash from an acquaintence because her purchase was now below the minimum limit payable by credit card, all because it said 1.86 at the aisle, and 3.6 is too much to pay for a lousy box of 3 sau pau!

as an aside, the guy who owned the tyre shop tried to sell me extra insurance that will guarantee replacement or repairs on any accidental damage to the tyres. Of oucrse i didn't fall for it, so he cut the price to 1/2. and at the end , when i still refused, he gave it to me for free, because he "would feel better if a young girl like you had some insurance while driving on some high ways, and i really want you to have it." which made me feel all warm and touched, and guilty too, for thinking that all he wanted was to suck that extra 16 bucks from a poor foreign student. It resumed my faith in kindness.
or, was it just a very clever marketing manuever?

written 10/17

Wednesday, October 11, 2006

a regression to lists

ok, there's been too much gloom going on around here! luckily, all soppy identity search blogs can be blamed on PMS.
so to perk things up a little bit, a list of 10 good things in my life right now, in no particular order:

1. my lavender, that was brown and sagging 3 weeks ago, has not only came back from the brink of death, but is sprouting new shoots and is smelling good again! the secret? rice soaked water. thanks to my mama, i am no longer a plant killer (though i've conveniently progressed to rodents, see below).

2. Didi's birthday is coming up! And he successfully transferred departments in spite of a lousy boss who tried to stop it. And, he gets to go home for 1 whole week during raya (my eyes are so shining green i could audition for ju-on 4).

3. spoke to parents today. they are well.

4. new interview shoes, from dsw, for 25 only, after a 50% discount and a 5 bucks dicount card from the lovely princess-lily-pad.

5. an interview where said shoes could be displayed. next week! (finger biting.. butterflies fluttering)

6. good stir fried ginger and scallion chicken. made by yours shortly.

7. very good hersheys marbled chocolate cake! made by ..ahem..yours shortly.

8. my boss man and boss lady, who remains upbeat and encouraging even though i killed a rat during a scan (it was an accident, i swear! i would make sure there's more than 50 psi in the oxygen tank in the future, and not rely on the technician).

9. a reply from a good friend, agreeing to a certain request of mine. after a month, i wasn't sure if he was going to reply at all, and was saddened to think that his new position occupied so much of his time that he might not be bothered with old frienships anymore. but i was wrong, and very happily so.

10. gibberish from the animal farm back home. ahh..the sweet nectars of life.

Sunday, October 01, 2006

The Smallness of Being

When one leaves everything one has known for the past 26 years, in order to start a new life as a student in a foreign country, one feels a strong sense of purpose. One might be rather scared and lost at first, but one has all these places to go, assignments to complete, assistantships to apply for, tests to ace.

Yet when one is about to graduate in a country far away from home, and has hardly gotten any job interview yet, one feels oddly displaced, extremely insignificant, unfamiliarly empty, and very lost, because one does not know how to define oneself anymore.

How does one define oneself? By profession – I am an engineer/writer/assembler? By relationships to family and loved ones– I am brother/wife/husband of so and so, best friend of so and so? By ongoing projects – I am taking up pottery/ completing a project designing so and so? By a fixed role in society? By gender? By sexual orientation? By age? By nationality? Crowds one hangs out with? Car? House? Weight of coins in one’s pink piggy bank? Quality of life one has?

How, then, does one define oneself when one is far away from family and loved ones, and have no job, no earthly possessions besides a Toshiba laptop that is partial to blue screen errors, and a very loose, if at all existing, tie to the surrounding community?

Does one define oneself by what is inside oneself? Bravery, kindness, cheerfulness, a healthy disregard of the rules? What if one chooses an unexplored path and gets so...rubbed... by the subsequent happenings that one isn’t so sure anymore? What if what one thought was inside, no longer is?