Entering A Fortress

I was meant to find it.

Noble Maiden Fair

Unbearable pain. Unbearable anguish.

Of all the things to be affected by, I am affected by music. Not in the typical sense where a catchy beat makes you want to dance, or when a sad tune makes you want to change the channel. But in the sense that I read so much into lyrics and tunes and melody that I end up even more miserable than before.

Really, go check out this soundtrack from the movie Brave: Noble Maiden Fair. It's a really nice lullaby in Gaelic, and the English translation is really nice and all, but the melody, the Gaelic prose, the instrumental affects me so badly, my mind goes on overdrive. My head and heart translates this lullaby into a lament, even though the lyrics have absolutely nothing to do with death, and everything to do with the prospect of the future. This song is on repeat on my playlist, and I'm so invested in this, every single time it comes on, I keep getting the feeling that someone very close to my heart has been taken from me, and there is absolutely nothing I can do about it. I can't prevent it, I can't get over it, and the anguish sets in. Unbearable.

This gives me a different kind of rush I get from Narnia The Battle; this gives me the same feeling I get from The Gravel Road. The feeling of helplessness, the guilt, the dying embers of the fire inside. The feeling that you would scream if you could, but no one is listening. No one is.

I've often said that I want to be a telempath like Emma deLauro, but if I can't get that, the next best superpower is the ability to transmit my feelings into music. At least then, it will be heard, and I can leave under the impression that I've confided in someone after all.

Moment of Distress

It's been ages since I last posted, but now that I'm home, bumming the holiday away while waiting to hear from Nott UK, there doesn't seem much to talk about. I'm caught up in the normalcy of life, and everything follows a pre-determined routine. I'm very boring, I doubt that will change anytime soon.

But during this holiday I've discovered Ellen DeGeneres. I mean, I've stumbled on her videos on Youtube every so often, but it's only now that I actually have the time to go through all 3000+ of her clips. And it's hilarious, her monologues, and she's like the female, American version of Michael McIntyre - she takes the normal stuff people do and she talks about it and insert witty pun here and I'm cracking up.

Ellen is so addictive I once stayed up till half past 3 in the morning watching her videos. And this was after I woke up around nine or ten, and went online the entire day. Every time I click on another video, I keep staring at the clock and go, "Just one more and I'll go to sleep." Two hours later I'm still saying the same thing.

Last night was the first night in a long while that I actually went to bed at ten-ish. Which wasn't really good, since my body clock had already adjusted to bedtime = 2 a.m. and as a result, I was tossing and turning the whole night even though I was mentally tired and my eyes wanted to commit suicide. I don't actually remember what time I slept, but I did it in the end, only to wake up in the middle of the night.

Which turned into another round of Toss N' Turn, since my body decided to wake up but my brain was having no part of it. Then I thought, "All right. My alarm's set to six a.m. as usual, I'm going to try to get up at that time." The alarm went off, my hand reached up, I turned off the alarm, and promptly went back to bed.

I sleep so soundly, and the turning off of the alarm is so automatic that I sometimes wonder if I'd even switch on my alarm at all. (I did; I do this every night. It's a habit. It's also something I'm in denial about, the feeling where I could get up at six if I wanted to.)

I'm feeling really guilty about bumming around when I should really get a job, so I go and look for internships, but one thing about it is that no one, absolutely no one, from Sime Darby all the way to Dutch Lady posts these internships on their websites. (I suppose they want us to work it out on our own, but...) So I'm forced to pick up the phone and call people, which I really rather not do because I have a thing about talking to strangers. Don't like it, don't want to do it. I'm just antisocial - and boring - that way.

(And the first time I called a company, I misdialled the fax number. I tried again - no one picked up. But then again, I did call on a Saturday.)

There isn't any 'set-in-stone' email address for me to email people, because I'd rather much email people. I'd rather just email them my CV and my transcripts and et al and it's annoying because they don't have emails. And almost all the jobs that are listed requires experience, at least one year. Thus starts the "I need to work to get experience, I need to get experience to work" paradox again. Chicken and egg, people.

There's a lot going on right now, and something happened about 24 hours ago that really upsetted me and has thrown my world into a bit of a mess. And even if no one reads this, it's nice to type this out, because it gives me more control over what I want to say, and it's just easier than telling someone, because this really is the kind of problem that you want to stew over, and have someone on the same wavelength that they instantly know what you're trying to say even when you don't feel like talking about it. It's not really something you want to talk about because, haters will hate, and most of the time people do tend to take things the wrong way so why even bother?

A Brush of The Unknown

To all you people who actually read my blog, can you please just leave a comment or something, just so I know you exist? Because the count rate on my posts go up every time I log into my blog, and it's creepy to have people reading your stuff but not knowing their opinions or if they're disagreeing with you or not. And I don't know if the count rate is up every time I check on my blog or what...I sense a cold wind passing by. So please, if just to say how much I suck or whatever, Leave A Comment.

Champion of the Old Religion

I've always wanted to be a knight. I know I've said this before, but right now, if I wasn't a scientist, and if I could trade pipettes and lab coats for swords and armour, I'd do it in a heartbeat.

My knight is flawed, is quiet. My knight stands at the edge, never obscuring, but always within distance. My knight's hands are clasped together behind her back, standing tall in a stern, military sort of way, her stance intimidating all those who see.

But inside is fear swirling around her. It is the fear of loss that makes her stand guard over the ones she hold very close to her heart, the fear of hurt that makes her shy away from things she don't understand, the fear of abandonment that causes her to draw closer, just a little bit closer, to her anchor.

I'm a Morgause at heart, and all I want is my Morgana.

To Be A Knight In Shining Armour...Or A Knight In A Shining Car.

So much for chivalry.

I know I'm not the only girl who likes romantic gestures and all that, but it really depends on what type of gestures we're talking about. Take for instance the age-old (now dying) tradition of opening a door for a lady. Men claim that when they don't open the door, women get all huffed up about not being gentlemanly. When they do, women (feminists, mostly) say that they don't need a guy to do it for them. I am one of the latter, though with valid reason.

I like it when guys open the door for women. It shows a measure of respect and it's romantic. I like romance. My sentiments were echoed by this speaker who was lecturing us one week in CF on Christian dating, and he told the story of a couple, friends of his, where the man, who is now rather ahead in age, opens the car door for the wife every single time. The speaker was impressed, and he found out that the man had been doing it for 30 years now.

So I retold the whole story to this guy pal, who scoffed at it. "It's not practical to do that nowadays." Dear readers, please keep in mind that in this case, practicality is key to this friend of mine. We will see evidence of it in a bit.

Okay, he doesn't agree. Fine, we can't force people.

Every morning I head to a shop near my housing area in uni to pick up the newspaper. Usually I get them when someone picks me up and makes a short detour on the way to uni. This sem, it's mostly my classmates, who are so patient and don't complain (bless them) though it's also probably since they do read my papers as well.

In certain cases, it's that friend of mine mentioned above that drives me around.

So here we are, driving to the shop, I dash out, grab the newspaper off the stand, pay the shopkeeper and dash back into the car. Now is where "chivalry" comes into play.

This friend of mine waits for me in the car, seatbelt still strapped on, and I've noticed that whenever he sees me coming back in, he leans over, still restrained by the belt, lifts the door handle and pushes the passenger door a fraction of an inch open. The first couple times, I was understandably bemused. The next few times, the moment I got into the car, "Thanks, but you didn't have to do that."

His answer? "You're holding the papers, scared you can't open the door, so I open for you." Or something like that.

Now, at this point, you'd be screaming at me for being such a stuck-up feminist who can't tell when someone's going out of his way to be helpful, and at the same time you'd be stroking the ego of my friend for being such a gentleman, and bashing me at the same time for not appreciating him.

But there are two sides to every story.

Let's check it out from his perspective: she's got something in her hands, so I open the door to let her in. By doing this I'm helping her out as well as showing her I'm being a gentleman. The proper reaction would be a beaming smile and a "Thanks so much, such a gentleman." My ego is stroked and I am the man.

From my perspective: You are restrained in your seat. You lean over, but you are still restrained in your seat. The belt is tugging you back. You reach out, open the door, and push it with your fingertips because you can't reach that far and you are still restrained in your seat. The door opens slightly, and falls back into that semi-open, semi-closed position which happens if you don't close the door properly. You lean back, smiling because you "opened" the door for me. But to me, it makes no difference because as everyone knows, the door is still partially hooked, so that means I still have to open the door myself. And you expect me to praise you on being "gentlemanly".

At least all I had in my hands was the day's newspaper. Can you imagine if I had a bunch of stuff in my hands, and this is the situation where I desperately wish that for once, all notions of romance disregarded, that you get out of the car, come over to my side and (I'm not even asking you to relieve me of my burden) open the door for me, and all you did was lean over, and did that half-open, half-closed door thing? I would have thrown the entire stack of stuff at you.

Don't get me wrong; chivalry is good, it's great to use anytime (not just during special occasions like dates and whatnot), but, as in the case study above, when you opening the door for me doesn't deviate much from you not opening the door for me (unless you suddenly developed super strength and blasted the door off its hinges, in which case I thank you and sympathise at the loss of your car door, which totally has nothing whatsoever to do with me, by the way) I'd much rather do it myself.

And please. Getting out of the car, coming over to the passenger side to open the door is not practical, but doing something that has such poor results you might as well not have done it is?

I just don't get it.

Ecstasy of Music

When you find that one thing that gets you really excited, it's higher than any drug in the world. But with the high comes a low, and the low is complete addiction. I'm fine with it, though, since my addiction is James Newton Howard's The Gravel Road.

Strange that a piece of music can be such an addiction, but there's just something about it that resonates with me. You know, there was a piece in the newspaper a couple of years back where they did a study with instrumental music, where they discovered that when it came to a certain point in the song, the part where whoever is listening to it feels the climax of the song, basically the part which they enjoy most of all, the brain releases dopamine, also known as the feel-good chemical. I don't know if you people have ever experienced that, but I have countless times, for Narnia the Battle, for Jacqui McShee's Morgane, but most of all The Gravel Road.

And when I say addicted, I mean addicted. Because right now I can't go a day without listening to it. Seriously, TGR makes me want to take up violin again, a sentiment I know I share with Li Sha. I can't say why I fell in love with this piece, but there's something about the melody that speaks to you, and I'm very pleased that TGR is used as the main theme for The Village, a movie that you can only watch once in a long time because it's draggy in the beginning, but the second half is way better.

Perils of Note-Taking: Beware!

It just struck me that I don't have any notebooks for university.

This is because all notes are given in the form of Powerpoint slides.

Which I dislike, because while it does allow me the freedom to not do anymore note-taking, it's annoyingly irritating because several lectures like to waste five slides or more on a step-by-step method. Don't understand? What I mean is, people who use one slide for an equation, the next slide for step one of that equation, the third slide for step 2 of the equation, and so on. So you're basically getting a six-slide page and the slide with all the required information is the last one on the page. Wasting paper, ink and money, because we need to pay about 18 cents per page, double-sided printing.

By extension, the lack of note-writing leads to the increased lifetime of my G1 0.5 gel pens, which I just adore watching run across the, page, but now...let's just say that slides don't agree with us.

People might say that, "Hey, slides are cool. We save time on re-writing notes, we save pen ink, stationery money, trees etc etc." Dude, by the end of class, our entire handout is so scribbled on, we HAVE to rewrite our notes. And I don't like the idea of just reading from slides because they don't usually give that much info. It's akin to reading a really cool story, and just when the climax is about to unravel_____

The book ends.

A bit cutting through water vapour, don't you think?

You don't say?

Seriously, anyone that doesn't get the cutting water vapour sentence is totally not Malaysian.

P.S. Genetics notes are suffering from Scribbled-Over-Disorder (SOD). Yea, it's a SOD alright. I'm gonna have to rewrite them. So much for saving trees.

The Cause of Madness

I find it somewhat amusing when people write things on a public networking site and expect me not to find out about it. There's always the tone of surprise when they realise I know. Why on earth is it so surprising? I simply don't get it sometimes.

Revelation after revelation keeps on surfacing, I can't quite keep up, but I'm making progress. The most surprising one was a bit on the amusing side. I'm sorry but it really was. The way it came about, the circumstances surrounding it. Honestly I'm such a sadist. I'm such a sadist I'm actually laughing at people's misfortunes. I would apologise, but it will not change or alter my opinion on the subject.

It was a bit interesting, really, because when I first found out about it, I had the sort of feeling that it would be the other road that would be taken. Then again, I've been wrong before regarding this. Clearly, it's not my forte, nor do I want it to be. There seems to be so much more than that in life.

Funny how I'm always the one that seems to be in the way. In this context, my name have almost always been used to incite the green-eyed monster. I honestly don't get how some people can be so unsure, of themselves, of their place in life. Granted, I'm probably one of the latter, but this topic that we're on, doesn't its existence already prove that you have nothing to fear from me? Why are you still feeling that it's not safe yet? Could it be that you don't really have a certain five-letter word that is imperative to most (the topic that we're on)? Or maybe you're of the school that says, "I trust you. I don't trust the other person." In which case, I have nothing to say to that. Rest assured that no move will be made on my part to somehow break the happiness that arose due to the union of two souls. You may think I'm lying. Well, if I were in your place, maybe I'd think the same too. In truth, I have no reason to lie, but I really don't care if you believe me or not.

Examination Woes

Things happened and we can't turn back time, so let's foccus on the present and ignore the rest.

The present, meaning the examinations, of course. Techniques is tomorrow, and I'm feeling a bit lax with my studying just because there isn't much to study for Techniques. Past years are being a big pain but I'm just waiting until Wednesday comes, then I'm home free - literally - and can study for Biochem at home.

It's a bit funny, having housemates. On one hand, you tend to think they are your friends, which is true to a certain degree considering you're all living under the same roof and all so you kind of gotta make friends. But on the other hand, you guys have nothing much in common besides the fact that you go to the same uni and live in the same house. So sometimes you have no idea what to say to them and you've lost all ideas for conversation starters.

I'm not saying I don't have good housemates; au contraire, they're really rather OK. But it's a bit of misconception, calling them Housemates when you spend most of your time there stuck in your own room.

Anyway, one of my favourite movies if V for Vendetta. Simple because of the loveliest scene in the movie: Valerie's letter.

Techniques grew to an even bigger pain when I found out that Germplasm conservation (a question that has been coming out every year) is not in our notes. Turns out Peter Alderson was supposed to lecture on this but never did. Read through it briefly but am firm on not doing that particular question. It's already so last minute I doubt I'd have time to study it properly.

Out of all the people I want to find, it's that I want to know the most. It's just the thought of whether someone like that could possibly be walking around on the other side of the world. It's getting so exhausting to try and pretend and deny myself and I don't want that. I'd imagine that it was all real, you know. Pretend that life as I imagine existed, even for a moment. The sort of dream you never want to wake up from just because, no matter how bleak that dream is, it's the closest thing you can ever have to having.