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.
Wednesday 25 April 2012
Monday 23 April 2012
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.
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.
Sunday 15 April 2012
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.
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.
Tuesday 3 April 2012
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.
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.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)