Monday, May 19, 2003

10:55 p.m. Kuala Lumpur Standard Time

All manner of Panic

Am trying not to beat myself up for all my inadequacies. Am trying to focus on the awesome and empowering marketing phrase of Nike: Just do it.

Never mind that Nike is disgustingly commercial and I am sick of the swoosh.

I wanted Tariq to buy me a nice pair of Nike sneakers, but despairingly, it is impossible to find Nike sneakers in Malaysia that does not have the swoosh. I hate the swoosh, but Malaysians are apparently obsessed with the swoosh and refuse to buy Nike sneakers that don't have the swoosh.

I miss America, where I can find Nike sneakers without the swoosh. Or at least, sneakers with very small swooshes.

Why am I obsessing over Nike swooshes?

The point is that I am working. I should work more, since I have a lot of work due on Friday. And an assignment that's already late....

I am trying not to beat myself up. That wastes my time. I should "just do it." Yes.

I should also try not to panic at the sheer amount of work. I am trying to just think.

I have decided that if I manage to hand everything in by Friday, I will have deserved the awesome and amazing Creative Nomad Jukebox 3 that costs well over the RM1500 range. Not that I will actually get it. I will only deserve it.

Sigh. I never get exactly what I want.

Be honest.
Link to the start of entry: #20030519

Sunday, May 18, 2003

09:05 p.m. Kuala Lumpur Standard Time

I was too scared to blog

Had you been looking at my life as if I was in a movie, you'd have thought I was just being completely slothful. I spent Wednesday night through Friday morning just reading fantasy novels. I didn't even stop reading long enough to cook stuff to eat. I just lived on those Baker Street Hearty Pies you microwave for two minutes.

Dad says I've lost weight again. Oops.

I couldn't blog either. I just couldn't bear to think. I couldn't bear to let my head clear.

Even when Tariq called, I was just manic. Tariq got really worried, the poor boy. You should ask him what it was like. I don't remember much of it. The only thought I allowed myself to think was, Don't think.

He finally broke through my stupid head yesterday. Out of nowhere, I just said, "I'm so tired of being afraid."

Then I started crying, and I felt better. So this morning, I woke up and started doing some of my schoolwork.

I still feel scared, but running away from it just makes it worse. In the long run, running is more tiring than to turn around, take a stand, and face my fear.

I have to keep telling myself to focus on doing what I can do, and not worry about the results. I can't control the results, but I can control my behaviour. My goal has to be the behaviour, not the result.

Maybe I should print out a poster about that, and stick it somewhere near my computer.

Be honest.
Link to the start of entry: #20030518

Wednesday, May 14, 2003

07:08 p.m. Kuala Lumpur Standard Time

Missing People

I spent a lot of money today. I guess I was attempting to distract myself from missing my family. They've gone back to Kelantan for a cousin's wedding, and won't be back until Sunday.

It's funny how, for so many years, I never missed anyone, despite so many people going in and out of my life constantly. World-traveling parents, siblings studying overseas, living in New York, and visiting Malaysia twice a year, on top of holidays to other countries. I should have been missing tons of people. Yet, I didn't miss anyone.

Tariq was the first person I ever missed. Suddenly, I started missing all sorts of people. It was like he broke a dam that held away all feelings of missing people.

I guess, in those days of constant change of people, it was necessary to avoid missing anyone. Now that I'm in a more stable situation, seeing people on a more regular basis, I can miss people.

And I miss blogging from my own computer.

Be honest.
Link to the start of entry: #20030514

Monday, May 12, 2003

11:24 p.m. Kuala Lumpur Standard Time

The Love of My Parents

I see one or both of my parents asleep on the TV couch a lot. Sometimes, Daddy would even sleep on the floor. I tease him and tell him he's weird. The both of them look really sad and deprived, sleeping in the TV room. Like they don't have a really comfortable bedroom with carpets worth RM30k.

Whenever I take pity, and suggest they retire to bed, they always refuse. They wait for each other. Only when the TV watcher is ready for bed do they then trundle off together. It's so sweet that they just want to be in the same room as each other. It's little things like that, that make me feel reassured that my family is no where near broken.

Before I came back from New York, I was much closer to Mom than to Dad. Dad was sadly, just a distant relative to me. Not that I was all that close to either parent. My head was full of weird, dark self-hatred in those days, and I wouldn't let anyone near. Then I came back to Malaysia without Mommy, and I can tell you that it is very strange to feel homeless when you have two apartments and a house to call home. Despite my passive hostility towards Dad, I somehow have found myself feeling a lot closer to him.

Mom shouts and screams when upset, and Dad will rarely praise. Yet Mom will steal kisses from you every day, and Dad will do little things for you without being asked, like buy your favourite cereal or skin mangoes. Now that I'm back home with both of them, I can see how good they are for each other. I hope that wherever they go, they'll always go together.

Time stated above indicates moment entry was written.
This entry was uploaded on Tuesday, May 13, 2003 at 01:54 p.m.

Be honest.
Link to the start of entry: #20030512a

Monday, May 12, 2003

08:21 a.m. Kuala Lumpur Standard Time

Internet Update

Immediately, the line was fixed. It took a call to the boss to get a line, several days messed up, fixed. Telekom is complete nonsense. Even the governmental agencies are better than Telekom nowadays.

So now, people can call the house. Alas, the reason the phone went haywire in the first place, was because the modem on my computer is haywire. So I still have no internet. A Streamyx (ADSL) technician got sent down on Saturday too, but since I didn't have the ADSL modem yet, he couldn't do much. He did say that he'd gotten the service on, so all I needed to do was get the modem and get everything installed.

Bought the modem yesterday, and will be calling TMNet today. God help me. I hate dealing with Telekom and any of its subsidiaries. I wish we had an alternative competitor in ADSL. Hell, if they have such difficulty providing technical and customer service, just bloody outsource everything. If you can have resellers for Streamyx itself, why not resellers for technical and customer service? I'd gladly pay some small monthly or annual fee for some bloody prompt service. That's why I picked Maxis for my cellphone, after all.

So enough ranting on the current state of my telecommunications. It couldn't have come at a worst time, since all my projects are due within two weeks, and I have to start studying for my final exams next month. I'm pretty sure I'll pass Consumer Behaviour and Public Relations, but I could still kill of my Statistics, and really, that's the subject that I will live or die by.

Be honest.
Link to the start of entry: #20030512

Friday, May 9, 2003

01:09 a.m. Kuala Lumpur Standard Time

Depressing Ramble

"How would you justify your existence?"

I may have misquoted the question above, but you can check the source from any of Isaac Asimov's Black Widowers Club stories. I love those stories, but I have never actually asked the question of myself. In the past, I've had such a poor viewpoint of myself, that I didn't feel that my existence was justifiable.

What use am I? I'm a wastrel, a scholar afraid of studying, wasting my parents' money on repeating failed subjects. I can't keep my room organized, much less my life, long enough to do much that is helpful to mankind. I make my mother cry with worry and get my friends into trouble through my thoughtlessness. Most of my life, I believed myself to be a disappointment.

So how can a disappointment justify her existence? Imagine that one day, I stand before al-Hakm (the Judge) for my very existence to be weighed. Should I continue to exist, or shall my life just blink out for eternity? What kind of justification would be required to make it acceptable that I exist? How would I state the case for my very life?

Perhaps HANIfans, friends, family and college-mates would sit in the witness box and defend me. Perhaps Pooh might attempt a counter-suit to proof that the end of my existence is justified. I cannot say how others might or might not justify my existence. I can only submit my humble opinion on the matter and hope my lame excuses are acceptable. Anyway, it is God, in the end, who decides our existence, not us.

On some bad days, I feel like the only thing that justifies my existence is my blog. It's the only thing near to productivity that I do on a daily basis. This blog gets a hundred hits daily, and I know that should I close down my blog, quite a few people would miss it. On days I've made my mother lose her temper, my father shake his head in disappointment, and my boyfriend snap at me, this blog, in its strange way, is like a baby that needs me to nurture it and care for it.

On better days, I can remember that I affect people's lives, and that I am important to them. I have changed the life of at leaset one person, and foremost among those, is Tariq. He relies heavily on my continued existence and my love for and my faith in him. I like to think that other people I love might feel affected too, if my existence were to end.

I am no Einstein to advance the world's knowledge of physics. I am no Madonna to scandalize and entertain the world, despite what Pooh tries to portray me as. I'm just struggling to grow and be better for the sake of people (including myself) who want my existence to continue and would sorely miss me were I gone.

Maybe some day, I'll find a way to strengthen my case for justifying my existence. In the end, it's not anyone's place but God's to make decisions on my existence.

Time stated above indicates moment entry was written.
This entry was uploaded on Friday, May 9, 2003 at 08:45 a.m.

Be honest.
Link to the start of entry: #20030509