Monday, May 26, 2008

Dust


It's most often at the deepest hours of the night, when Chaos triumphs over Law, enabling creativity to turn mundanity upside down, when the darkest thoughts swirl around me, threatening to sweep me away like an uprooted sapling, that I turn to writing in an effort to calm the frenzied waves.

Apart from the obvious creative gratification, there is a certain pleasing utility in churning out word after planned word, the sensation that by focusing on typing letters on a keyboard, a disordered mind is straightened into neat rows of sentences and thoughts. It's almost like that scene in Mushishi, when miles and miles of written text escape from the supernatural bondage of their scrolls, a seething inky mass across all surfaces in the room, and Tanyu grabs her special chopsticks and expertly proceeds to stick the lines of words back onto the page in the order that they belong.

See? Feeling a great deal calmer already.

So, why the ruminating around at 3-something this morning? In one sentence, the end of childhood, the beginning of adulthood and assuming the responsibilities attached to it, and trying to tackle head-on the tough decisions to come.

I worry about how I've done in these last few exams of my university days. I worry about how this one wasted year is sending difficult ripples through my future years. I worry that the decision not to redo 3rd Year was the wrong one after all. Most of all, I worry that I'll never have the strength to get better and stand on my own feet again.

I think I can pinpoint the beginning of this rapid downward spiral - when all these years I've managed to cope - to that moment last July when our exam results were released on the intranet. As expected, I did pretty all right with middling grades that were hovering around the 60 mark, give or take a couple. Except for one shocker of a grade. 39.66 for the 'Marketing: Foundations and Applications' exam. Luckily that 20-credit module was saved by the essay which made up the remaining 50%, for which I'd gotten 76%.

Thing is, it's not as if I'd never failed a paper in my life before. Just the previous August I had to resit for 3 Year 1 papers, but those were in Quantitative Methods and Finance, and it's no secret that numbers ain't my selling point. But this time around, I failed in Marketing. Of all subjects, one that I enjoyed and was so sure I was good in. It's one thing to do poorly in something you have no talent in or don't even like doing, and a completely different issue to fail something you thought was a breeze. It wreaks havoc on your confidence. And for someone who always got away with just intelligence and marginal hard work to get good grades, the crumbling on this last bastion shook my faith in myself to the core. So badly that it's taken me 9 months to admit this on my blog.

In the end, I've failed to build a solid foundation of tertiary education for my future career to stand on. With so much competition in getting a job, one way of salvaging my marketability is to get a further qualification. But is further study what I really need? Then there's the IGS which has been extended to 2 years, and at the same time a change in British immigration policy. It's the big boys that can afford to pay £1,000 to get onto the register to legally issue certificates for foreign employees to obtain work visas, but they are the ones with the highest degree class requirements. Smaller firms are more likely to take me in, but can't afford it. On the one hand, there is a desire to try and live out the next year in the UK solely on my own endeavours, prove to myself that I can handle things on my own, make something of myself without relying on others. It's partly the urge to properly 'fly the nest' all the way through, the pride in saying I was fully independent from my parents even for a short while, and partly the need to reestablish my own esteem by doing so. But already we've seen 55,000 jobs lost in the UK financial sector (of which insurance is part of) due to the credit crunch, and at the same time I've completely lost the confidence to go into marketing. Then there's that conflicting pull of home - that I still call Malaysia "home" means that there's still something there that I can't find anywhere else. It's pretty probably that home is the only place where I can get better quickly and fully, plus the added benefit of being able to *ahem* "pull strings" to get a decent first job, but will that then deny me the career advantage of first gaining work experience in the UK? Decisions were easier to make when you were still a kid.

So many choices, only one lifetime to live it all. It's finally time to go out into society as an individual, not an extension of my peer group, nor a continuation of my parents' hopes, but just as me.

I guess it is futile to resist change - each of us lives in an continuous state of limbo throughout our lives. We only reach the state of completion when there is nothing more to see, to do and to learn, when the journey ends and we die. The ancient Greeks had this saying, "Never call a man happy until he is dead." Somewhat cynical, but so very true. Seeing that life is unpredictable from one moment to the next, we earn the right to call ourselves something only when the possibility of change ceases to exist, that is, when we are no longer living.

And though the darkest period of night allows luxurious time for silent contemplation, it is in the brightening of day that one gains renewed strength to take charge of the exhilarating changes from dawn to dusk.



Dawn's dreams are done.
From misty slumber half-born sprites
spring towards the fingering light
tumbling, cavorting
golden ether forming,
caressing contours
and raising clamours,
melting into the blaze of day.

Wednesday, May 14, 2008

Write to me a letter each day
Be sure you don't neglect
To pour libations, bless and pray
Or else you shall regret.

Traversing waters, skies, furlongs
My sailor 'cross the sea.
Lonely Odysseus dreams and longs
For land; Penelope.

Enduring long days, months, swift years,
With spindle, broom and comb.
I'll wait with patience just to hear
Your voice saying, "I'm home."

Write to me a letter each day
So I do not forget
To watch and wait come First of May
For your homecoming silhouette.


Tuesday, May 13, 2008

Of May and Media

Been trying unsuccessfully to sleep for the past few hours. Blame it on the caffeine from the bubble tea? Nah, that was consumed ages earlier. Habitually trawled through the latest news feeds. Oh boy, when it rains, it really pours, and May certainly feels like monsoon month. Let's see, this month we've had:
  • Infamous blogger Raja Petra Kamaruddin the first blogger to be charged under Malaysia's 1948 Sedition Act
  • Cyclone Nargis wreaking havoc and devastation across Myanmar
  • A Tibetan woman hoisting the Olympic Torch at the top of Mt. Everest
  • A horrendous 7.2 earthquake hitting the Sichuan region in China, with the quake and aftershocks felt across the whole country and even in Thailand
  • Barack Obama just about to clinch the Democratic nomination for presidential candidate
  • Mother's Day in Malaysia
  • And last but not least,
EXAMS
(kill me please.)

~~~~~~~

The New York Times is currently running a series "examining the lives of youth across the Muslim world at a time of religious revival", and it was to my utter dismay when I saw that articles #3 and 4 were about the lack of individual freedom in dating and marriage in Saudi Arabia. Click on the numbers for the links, but I wouldn't advocate either article if you're looking for sophisticated or intellectual reading. Considering how this series was meant to showcase a current snapshot of Muslim youths in general, I was quite stunned by such a biased and blinkered representation of the Islamic world in the two articles, and even more so considering the prestigious reputation of the NY Times.

Yes, I can understand the need for journalists to produce attention-grabbing headlines, and their fondness for intense coverage on issues that are guaranteed to stir up their readers, but has journalism fallen to such a low that even the higher ranks of journalists (ie non-paparazzi) resort to such sensationalist, one-sided reporting in order to increase their readership? I'd freely admit that even I have succumbed to the cheap allure of the shock headliner (t0 illustrate, see my previous blog post, 'Of Airports and Boobs', which actually elicited a response from Mr. Malat-Lou-in-Miri), but the main point is that I write for my own enjoyment and limited circle of friends, whereas a newspaper has the responsibility towards its shareholders and readership to produce neutral, balanced, discerning journalism. (Politics-studying/loving friends will argue with me that no newspaper is
ever neutral, but I digress.)

What's even worse is that the 3rd article, "Young Saudis, Vexed and Entranced by Love's Rules", obviously succeeded in eliciting an outpouring on views on the issue - 257 comments by readers from all over the world. Quite troublingly, a sizeable chunk of them express different combinations of revulsion, anger, and outrage, some directed against the Saudi Arabia as a whole, and others sweepingly at Saudi-Islamic male-female segregation practices even though the ultra-conservative practices in the article are in fact limited to a small number of ultra-conservative Saudi families.
One sentence that struck me as being particularly sloppy reporting was: "Saudi Arabia’s strict interpretation of Islam, largely uncontested at home by the next generation and spread abroad by Saudi money in a time of religious revival, will increasingly shape how Muslims around the world will live their faith." Firstly, just like how traditional Christian/religious practices vary across countries, the situation in Saudi Arabia is hardly a blanket representation of that of other Muslim countries. Furthermore, what an idiotic assumption that Saudi Arabia's considerable but hardly unrivaled oil wealth grants it leader status among Muslim nations!

Gaah, I'm peeved. Accuse me of making sweeping statements, but what's with the plummeting standards of Western journalism nowadays!

Thursday, May 01, 2008

There and Back, Again

Joyful tidings! It's official. Those of you who've been tracking LOTR news would already know The Hobbit is definitely on its way from book to screen, and although it's a shame that Peter Jackson won't be returning to helm the project (due to his infamous falling out with New Line Cinema), he will still be executive producer. So, who else to fill the long-contested throne of director for the most successful fantasy film franchise ever, but the man who's possibly the latest visionary for creative fantasy films?

GUILLERMO DEL TORO

*Chilipadicello whoops for joy.* (Read the news here.) With Peter Jackson out of the picture, Del Toro is arguably the most fitting person to direct Tolkien's, with his experience in delivering brooding, epic historical/fantasy/comic adaptation films. I've only managed to catch one of his films, the fabulous Spanish Pan's Labyrinth, and I've been a fan of his ever since. Looking forward to see how Del Toro will merge his darker, mordant directing style with the initial lightheartedness of this children's book, as well as Jackson's expansive masterpiece. He thinks The Hobbit is a "world that is slightly more golden at the beginning, a very innocent environment taking you from a time of more purity to a darker reality throughout the film, but in the spirit of the book". And the icing on the cake, Ian McKellan is now officially reprising his iconic role as Gandalf. Yipee! Can't wait to see the extended line-up of cast and crew for the movie. It would be interesting to follow the casting process for Bilbo, cos obviously ancient Ian Holm wouldn't be able to reprise his role from the LOTR trilogy. It would be a joy to see Andy Serkis back as Gollum (my preciousssss...) and Hugo Weaving as Elrond - Del Toro wants actors from the trilogy to reprise their roles, plus key members such as Howard Shore (composer), Richard Taylor (WETA boss), Alan Lee and John Howe (conceptual artists). My money's on Del Toro regular Doug Jones as Beorn the bear-man.

2 films have been scheduled for back-to-back filming in - you guessed it - New Zealand, to be released in 2011 and 2012. The 1st will be a more straightforward interpretation of the book, with the 2nd an original plot covering the 60 years between events in The Hobbit and the beginning of LOTR.

Ahh the delicious anticipation! The wait's gonna kill me!