sotto voce

people around me seem to have some issues they deeply care about – and i’m not talking about activism, btw. it can be anything: religion, relationship, war, friendship, food, science, being chinese/jewish/african american/asian american/what-nots, love, money, soccer, the yankee and the list never ends.

meanwhile i care about everything, which makes me care about nothing.

makes sense?

this realization makes me really really sad.
i feel like a little girl who refuses to be placed in any sort of box that years later she’s still running around from box to box, trying to find a place where she can settle down and keep the numerous things she has accumulated from all over the place.

Running, running as fast as we can
I really hope you make it
(do you think we’ll make it? )
We’re running
Keep holding my hand
It’s so we don’t get separated

No Doubt

 

when i told people about what happened to me today, they all laughed and thought it was funny. personally, although i do somewhat appreciate the humour, i’m more mortified than anything else.

so this person this guy (whom i hooked up with once), who has been asking me out to dinner etc., followed me to my lab tonight. he was supposed to eat his dinner while i finished up my work in the lab. but at the end he offered to massage my neck, that’s thoroughly sore, thanks to yesterday’s squash practice.  plus i can’t really say ‘no’ to the offer, knowing how he’s been complaining about the lack of massage subjects for him to practice on.  and man,... the massage was good, except for the last part when he started caressing more than massaging and he tried to make out with me, probably because i didn’t really respond negatively when he was at the caressing stage. i mean, i was half-asleep by then because the massage was so good.
it became obvious soon, though, that the situation was getting too steamy and way too out of hand. so, not really knowing what to do, my jerk reaction was to stretch out all my limbs, yawn, and look at my watch while commenting, "wow… look what time is it now. i think i need to go to work." thank god i didn’t hit him while i was executing the motion.

i know,... it must be quite an ‘ouch’ for the guy. and i truly truly sincerely pity him.
sorry, not pity… just sympathy. 

if i don’t have a bf, i’d totally go out with him. he’s nice, caring, sweet, politically savvy, smart, and funny in a dorky way. plus, he’s here, not hundreds of miles away (although he is studying abroad next sem). but yeh… i just felt bad and god knows how i’ve been trying to not lead him on by rejecting all his invitations blatantly with whatever excuses i can come up with – even if they’re obviously lies.

i’m just afraid he’s the type of dense person who’ll never realize that i’m not interested in him.  

sighhhhhhhhhhhhhh.  

i say, things will fall into place eventually.
blame it on my chem teacher in high school, who told us over and over again that everything tends to stabilize itself toward the equilibrium.
every disturbance, no matter how chaotic, will move towards the equilibrium.

amen, amen.

he told me today about this girl he recently met. from the details of their encounters, it seems that the girl is attracted to him – mostly because he needs a strong figure to be her hero, who’ll save her damsel-in-distress self from her troubles. and my dear boyfriend is the exact kind of figure she currently needs.

i told him, and he accepted my analysis.
then he said, "I think  I should avoid her the next time I see her, because I know I’m very susceptible to these weak girls." Take these poor kittens into his shelter, so to speak.

I told him he should think twice before doing that. Because from my experience, avoiding someone is equal to making conscious effort to block that person and as a result, he/she stays in the periphery of your conscious mind, instead of relegating the person to the back of your mind. in short, avoiding someone is the best recipe to keep the person in your mind. quite non-intuitive, i must say. 

and he said, ‘hmmmm. i get what you mean.’

If this had happened a year ago, I’d be running around like a cat who just lost her favorite toy – pacing about aimlessly. But, as I’ve said repeatedly these couple of weeks, I’m pretty zen about things right now. Sure, this sounds so familiar and our bruhaha two summers’ ago came to mind pretty instantly. Sure, this sounds like it’s going to spell trouble in the future, but there’s no point worrying about it, really. If we’re really meant to stay together as planned, we’ll get through this shit, like how we’ve got through our other shitty storms. And if we don’t make it through,... well I guess then it’s just not meant to be. Of course at that time I’d be slightly more devastated than I am right now, but until then, I’m just gonna be a chill bean.

i’ve told him to start keeping the details to himself, though. i don’t think i’m strong enough for that kind of ‘openness’.  

I think we have a pattern here:

1. Boy is interested in the girl. Two possible motives: silly attraction, or wanting to get into my pants. The second motive seems to be the stronger cause

2. Girl feels flattered but tries to ignore the boy.

3. Boy comes and go, checking his luck.

4. Now girl wants boy and finds way to get close to him. Hanky panky is normally involved in this.

5. Girl develops slight attachment to boy and starts having wild thoughts about the future. Overactive imagination, clearly

6. Boy plays along at first. But as are most boys, they have problems with commitments. So boys act flaky

7. Girl feels confused and gets really uncomfortable with the hot-cold treatment.

8. Girl wonders what’s the intention of the boy. This corresponds with the start of her self-deprecation cycle.

9. Girl has insecurities problem, thinking that her worth lies in her ability to make all kind of boys fall head over heel for her.

10. Girl tries to "get" the boy, and get herself involved emotionally in the process. Even as she knows that boy is not exactly the perfect boy for her.

11. Boy flakes out, girl feels crappy and can’t get rid of the obsession until there’s a new boy for her to start step 1.

My adventure with the cucumber transforms the Korean vegetable market on my block into an erotic boutique. Like Pavlov’s dog, I can’t pass by without getting wet. The vegetable bin in my refrigerator has become a pleasure dome, bountiful with zucchini, cucumbers, corn on the cob, and an occasional freak potato. Vegetables stay hard for days. A zucchini never asks for a back rub. A carrot couldn’t care less if I smoke when we’re done.

"But the best part," I tell Irving, "is that no vegetable asks if it was good for me too."

"You’re shtupping vegetables? Why not a vibrator? What gives with the vegetables?" Irving asks. He does, however, concede to me the corn on the cob, nubby kerneled and mythologically substantive.

"Vegetables," I tell Irving "are not stand-ins. But a battery-operated penis is. Plastic." I scrunch my nose.

"You’ll pardon me"  – Irving’s voice is as dry as sand – "I didn’t know it made a difference what you stick up yourself had to be of natural fibers."

What I don’t tell Irving is that you can’t put a battery-operator vibrator down the garbage disposal. If I couldn’t grind up the evidence. I’d be faced with it.

From Binnie Kirshenbaum’s "History on A Personal Note."

hilarious and couple of lovely gems now and then.
I copied the part above not because I can empathize with the vegetable-shtupping part (hahahahahah…), but the part when she said "no vegetable asks if it was good for me too."

it’s nice for guys to be considerate and all, but that’s the kind of "do i look fat, honey" question – the type where you half-coerce the truth from someone because he/she feels bad about telling the truth. so rather than to have your ego inflated by some lies, they should just keep quiet and don’t ask.

so how do you get feedback?
ask the girl if there’s a particular position she likes. most girls will be more than happy to let you know what get them off.

just don’t ask "the sex was amazing innit?" and let the poor girl grit her teeth, faking a smile and muster a faint nod. 

i’m adding frosted grass into the list of my favorite things.
it’s way too bizarre to step on frosty field at 7am in the morning and you realize the field looks a weird shade of green. but it might just be the after-effect of one rockin’ halloween cocktail.

last night i was britney spears before she got fat pregnant, although i must say my abs aren’t as toned as hers used to be. hahaha pffft..
my mean bf would insult me abt my belly fat, but i’m currently trying hard to develop a positive body image. i mean, i do want to tone up etc. but not for the wrong kind of motivation.
but anyway… yeah… i’m still very much too self-conscious about my belly. boohooo

thanks to yesterday’s high, now i’m feeling super down.
i mean, i’m supposed to recuperate at home because i only got three hours of sleep after yesterday’s party and my nap this afternoon was interrupted a couple of times. my gigantic eyebags most probably are extremely mad at me for staying up, but i just felt so blah (read: loser-ish) for staying inside, especially while i can clearly hear the party noise from lo-rise downstairs.

it’s stupid really. i’ve become the kind of person who goes out because of peer pressure, goes to party just for the sake of it, even when i know my body can’t handle anymore alcohol, anymore smoke, anymore socialization, anymore of other harmful substances. i need my beauty sleep dammit. i need my alone time. i need my rest. i need my chill time with a good book and a cup of chamomile tea.
but it seems after knowing how ppl perceive me as the ‘party’ girl, the one who can be spotted in various parties, i feel i need to keep up with the image. or.. i want to maintain this ‘cool’ image because i don’t want to be another ‘geeky international student’.
i mean, come on, i’m one of the lucky juniors who get to be senior interns. attending senior cocktails free-of-charge and mingle with the seniors as if we’re one of them. how can this senior intern stay at home on a friday night? plus i don’t have the excuse of being sick – other than sick of partying and sick of drunk silly people, in general. (hm… on second thought, i’m kinda sick. can feel sore throat developing…

so. bloody. inane. am. i.

so right now i’m resisting all temptation to go out by taking off my contacts, change to my silky pajama and put on some calming blues. you just don’t know how much effort goes into this simple process.

other than my party behavior, i’ve been thinking a lot about what someone told me before.
"i like you, but i think i don’t like you as much as i should."

translation: i like fucking you and you’re sweet/attractive/cute/good in bed/etc. and all, but sorry honey, i don’t think we can be in a relationship.

of course i was fuming mad (not right away, of course. a girl gotta keep her cool in this kind of situation) when i heard that. i felt like shoving his ass with barb wire when the meaning of his sentence crashed into my reality.
but after two years of mucking around, it actually made a lot of sense.
there are just some people whom you like, but not to the extent that you want to be in relationship with them. you want to be their hang-out buddy, and occasional hook-up partner, but no more than that. you just can’t conceive being in a relationship with them for whatever reason.

(although i do wonder if this is mostly because i CAN’T be in relationship with these people due to my pre-existing stable relationship (one that i’d like to keep), hence i’ve develop some sorts of mechanism to convince myself that i’m off the market)

but i still think that fella was an idiot for saying this blatantly in front of me. can’t he come up with a more politically-correct explanation as to why we can’t be together?

and i’m so very glad i’ve decided to pull the plug : life’s been so pleasantly placid and idyllic without that mad roller-coaster ride he always got me through. i do, however, find myself occasionally wishing that he’s still a senior i’d bump into everytime i go to house parties, senior cocktails and other happening things around campus. which means, i haven’t completely de(insert his name)ized myself yet.

whatever… i will eventually. 

can someone tell me why oh why is bacon (crispy crispy bacon) so good???

when i’m on my deathbed, bacon shall be the last thing i want to eat before i die.
hahahah… such is my love for that fatty fatty delicacy.

and i just found the best way to salvage dried bread (thanks to winter my french roll now resembles stone more than anything, even though i only left it outside – covered, too – for two days)

oh yes, the solution to dried bread: ROTI JOHN
basically you dip / soak your bread in beaten egg (add cheese, milk/cream, shallots/onion, chives, and whatever other herbs you fancy. i like rosemary and a bit of ground coriander seeds) and then fry it.

nyumnyumnyum 

For ‘wacky’ and cost-effective (read: cheap) halloween costumes idea, click here

.  skip the first page, not very interesting, but the rest are soooo awesome.
unfortunately i can’t be lame and i need to up my sex appeal a bit for this senior cocktail.

so dammit… i can’t be a piece of gum stuck to a shoe. 

blahhhh 

i’ve decided (pretty much) that i’m going to foreswear that boy.

1. i’m going to delete him from my AIMlist

2. i’m going to unfriend him on facebook

3. i’m going to delete his cell no. from my cellphone

these steps are safeguards against my notorious rash behavior. he can still contact me – he has the means to do that, and i’m not going to ignore his calls / emails, but i am not going to contact him for sure. it’s not that i hate him or anything, i just can’t afford to stay entangled in this situation, because i can’t keep my head cool. it’ll be different if i’m actually able to isolate my emotion and place it somewhere else. 

so there.
i move on.

this is what i really want to tell her: 

you better fucking snap out of it, or else…

i know you’re sick, i know you’re depressed, i know you think life sucks, i know you have tonnes of work that just piles up surreptitiously (or not) no matter how conscientious you think you are, i know you think the world is a fucked up piece of shit.

but all of us already know that fact. it’s just that you choose to moan and groan and refuse to budge out of your pithole while the rest of us choose to crawl out of that mudhole and slog through the journey.

i’d rather be outside than trapped inside that black hole. and i’ve started enjoying the walk itself, i don’t care if i actually don’t have a destination in life, if i’m nothing more than another speckle of dust in the universe. i don’t give a fucking damn if life is meaningless, if Earth is going to be a dead planet soon (see geologists’ definition of soon, please). i don’t give a hoot. i just do whatever makes me happy.

and it makes me damn  unhappy to see you so incapacitated by this depression and then i have to pick up the shit that trails your unhappiness. and at the same time i don’t want to tell you how annoying it is to see the kitchen in a perpetual messy state even after i clean it up, and how annoying it is to see the toilet roll left unchanged when new rolls are right there in the toilet itself.

probably your depression and your erratic behavior are unrelated. perhaps you’re just messy.
but i know you’re capable of organization and cleanliness, because i’ve seen you in that state before. so why can’t you now?

just fucking snap out of it, will you? 

dear liz,

i don’t think it’s a matter of age.
some people just have this untainted view of love and i bet it’d take more than ten heartbreaks until they turn into people like us, who’re so jaded by poets’ definitions of love. sometimes i envy these people (the types who believe in love-at-first-sight), because they really have unwavering faith in love, whereas i don’t.

perhaps it’s my definition of love that’s warped.
i’m not a christian, but i was brought up as one, and therefore i’m culturally christian. my definition of love is shaped largely by christian definition of love. thus, i equate it with fidelity, trust, purity, self-sacrifice, and all other positive christian adjectives. so when i realize how i can feel love (it’s that intense warm  feeling – almost like supernovae – at your core when you’re with your loved one) but i don’t act as if i love.
in other word, i have immense feeling for my boyfriend, but once he’s not within my sight i can’t feel that love anymore and i simply go astray.

soon, i think, i’ll stop using the word love altogether (except when i’m talking to him, who still believes in the goodness of love).
toward my boyfriend: i won’t call it love anymore; it’ll be ‘dedication’, it’ll be ‘to make relationship work’.
as you mentioned, love is trying to make things work so that in return, we can have someone we can depend on.
that’s why i totally understand why you’d think your boyfriend is worth the trouble of LDR. because you know he’s the one who’ll love you at the end of the day, when all else fails.
of course i’m being way too vulgar in defragmenting the whole situation, which i believe, can actually be romantic sweet and lovely. and i’m probably wrong too, to apply my case to yours.

about the non-committal trend in our generation, i’m not so sure about that, because, hypothetically speaking, i’ll be perfectly content with my boyfriend if only he’s at wes, or i’m in toronto. i’d have never hooked up with other people, and there’d have been no episode with the NY boy. i’ll be the kind of girl who’s attached to the same guy for four years and get married right after college.
haha, probably not the last part, but you get what i mean…

i do want to be committed, i really do. but how on earth can he (or anyone else) expect me to be committed when there’s neither carrot nor stick to keep me inside the circle of chastity?
first, i know i can get away with it (note: he wouldn’t have known abt NY boy if i hadn’t told him).
second, he never rewards me with "i’ll come visit you every month" if you don’t hook up with other people.
btw, i think your boyfriend is dangling the carrot of "endless and oh-so-bountiful love" in front of you. =)

so yes, i am able to justify my hook-ups with other people. plus, we just love to be swooned and pampered and flattered by other guys, don’t we? but my fear is that, unlike you, i can’t separate love from lust.
it happened with H. supposed to be a normal hook-up, but i ended up so broken-hearted for a year or so.
and now it’s this stupid NY asshole. thanks to him, now i’m on a perpetual roller-coaster ride, which i know i shouldn’t be on because this was supposed to be a casual fling with no feelings involved. but i just can’t keep my emotion under control. i wanted him to behave in certain ways that would confirm his ‘supposed’ attraction toward me, and then i’d be the bitch who’d kick him away because he’s too wimpy. but all these games don’t work the way i want it to work, and it makes me feel miserable, and i hate feeling miserable because it means i do have feelings for him, when i’m not supposed to have feelings for him because i’m supposed to love my boyfriend heart, body and soul with no spare for other people. (you can see i’m pretty muddled right now)

oh well, saturday night blues.
im all decked in pirate’s costume but i suddenly feel too tired to go anywhere. =(

btw, congrats on your new job, it sounds awesome.
i’m so happy & so proud of you girl.
i was just telling my friend the other day, how my world only opened up when i started reading english books, and how it’s so unfair to other kids in indonesia who never got to read english books to not know about the world, and just being fed constantly with terrible gossip tabloids and japanese manga (not that i’m anti-manga, but it’s not that educational, is it? haha.. sounds like a good EAST thesis).
liz, can you please write more good indon books… we need indon lit revival. so far it’s just chick lits, and ppl already rave so much about it. and please, not a single english word in the novel/ book.

lol. aight, i think i’ve rambled enough.
reply when you have the time yea?

miss you too,

sel

i don’t know if i’m happy or unhappy or someone who’s not happy yet not unhappy.

all i know is i hate feeling the way i’m feeling right now.
i blamed myself for not bringing my phone to astrobio, that i missed his 5 o’clock call, that we couldn’t get hold of each other for the next 8 hours until we accidentally met in a house party in which we merely gave each other a cursory wave and went our separate ways.
or more like, i waved and he waved back and i thought he’d come my way like he always did but he just disappeared into the night.
lost in delirium, i thought the meeting was imaginary, that i wanted to meet him so badly i imagined seeing him at the party.
but it wasn’t a dream, when i confronted him about it, he owned up to seeing me, and said he didn’t want to approach me because he didn’t want me to have to "neglect" my friends.
i wallowed in self-tirade for the past twenty-four hours for that tiny oversight that turned my friday night into one friggin’ comedy that ain’t even funny.

funny. i remember, the first time we met he pulled me to a corner (such that i was out of L’s sight for five seconds; she never forgave me for that five seconds of loneliness) and said,
"so what do you want to do now? i don’t want you to neglect your friends, y’know..".
and i ignored him as if the words were swallowed by the resonating beats of the hiphop tunes blasting from the nearby speakers.
and i ignore him still, thinking these superficial nonchalance on my part would hide how jittery i feel everytime i see him.

i keep on telling everyone, including myself, that i don’t have a thing for him.
and everyone, including myself, knows that merely calling the statement above a lie is the best understatement of the year.
but no one, including myself, can understand why i have a thing for him. there’s no rhyme or reason to it, plus… "you already have a boyfriend you love a lot."
so everyone, including myself, is constantly trying to find out why the fuck do i care so fucking much for a fucker like him who always mindfucks me till i’m totally fucked?

K said i gave him too much benefit of the doubt. why don’t i start calling him asshole (i think i already did) and treat him the way i’d treat the biggest asshole in the world (tell him to go to a proctologist? haha).
when we couldn’t get to each other’s phone yesterday, why did i keep telling myself that perhaps his battery ran low (like what happened to mine at 8pm, such that i had to run from one end of the corridor to the other end, trying to find someone who has LG charger), instead of leaving him a voicemail that goes: "hey jerk. you’re the biggest fucker i’ve ever known in my entire life. do fuck yourself and leave me alone!" ?
when he didn’t come up to me at the party yesterday, why did i keep telling myself that he’d have a good reason for doing so, instead of quickly unfriending him on facebook and probably sent him a really offensive email while i was still under the influence of alcohol?

don’t think i don’t feel ashamed for feeling this way about this boy, who is not my boyfriend, who’s the biggest jerk ever, and who has ruined a couple of my days, and who has turned me into the most pathetic person i truly detest.

by far this is the stupidest game i’ve ever played. we just grit our teeth and play it tough, never mind my heart is often jabbed and ripped from his callousness.
what the fuck is wrong with me, and him, and us?

stupid. stupid. stupid. 

i never forgive you for being the wingman who got lucky.
people say it’s such an uncanny beginning, perfect for conversation at the dinner table.
"why don’t you tell jack, darling, how we first met."

but no, i’m not satisfied.
‘twas luck that bind us together, how many unfortunate events then will it take to tear us apart?

i never forgive you for the love that doesn’t come at first sight. 

(i swear i’ve been trying to write this entry a grand total of ten times and it always got deleted before i could successfully hit the save button. wth right)
 

i feel so weak and my head is throbbing like mad and my heart is thumping at 1000 Hz and my soul needs major soothing therapy.

i can’t think and i can’t eat and i can barely sleep. and i justify all these miseries as if they’re the punishments i deserve for cheating on him.
but it’s not really cheating either, since we’ve agreed that it’s going to be an open (but committed) relationship from here onwards , until the next agreement. it’s the "don’t tell me" portion of the treaty that’s being an ass of a burden.
sure you can date other people, sure you can do whatever you want, just don’t tell me about it because i’m not grown-up enough to accept it. although that’s not how we say it, we say, we love each other too much that we want exclusivity, even if it’s just a mere facade of exclusivity.
a bounded circle with tiny, invisible pores just so we can get out of the loop once in a while…

i’m tired of lying, of dusting the evidence under the carpet. of being the guilty criminal.
i always look forward to a day when finally he’s the sinner and i have the right to reprimand, but on the flipside, it’ll be totally devastating to be in the position because i’ll question how much he actually loves me.
don’t we all want to be the one who’s being loved more than we love?

when i told S about my dilemma, she dismissed the whole thing with that cute flick of her wrist.
"pfft" was the sound she made. there’s no decision to be made, she said. there’s no guilt you should even worry about, she assured me.
i think it’s the whole zen thing that convinces her so much that things will eventually fall into their respective place.
"look at me," she said, "i used to date several people simultaneously. people think i’m flighty and a slut, but whatever… now that i’ve found my boyfriend i won’t even think about dating other people. i’ve found the one."

i thought i’ve found the one. everytime i see him, talk to him; everytime he coos to me in his sweet gentle voice, i really believe i’ve found the one. and then the reality of life and long distance relationship just have to take him away from me and i wander somewhere else while wondering if he’s really the one and if it’s worth my time, my youth, my life, my energy, and my money to stick to this supposed ‘one’.

doubt.

and this other guy. i don’t know what’s the fucking deal with him. we’re literally fuck buddies and i’m blown by the fact that it actually works. the emotional attachment i used to have toward him is steadily wearing off and all that’s left is convenience when either (and both) of us wants/needs it.

so now the problem isn’t about who i want to date. clearly this NY boy and i aren’t gonna be a pair – it simply won’t work. i don’t like him enough for that, but the arrangement we have is affecting my relationship, because i have to live with this stupid self-inflicted guilt, all thanks to my catholic upbringing and i push people (read: my boyfriend) away from me because i think i don’t deserve all these love after what i’ve done to him.

and i can’t convince myself – no matter how many times or how hard i try to drill this fact into my head – that i’m not doing any wrong. we’ve fucking agreed that it’s gonna be an open relationship and we’ve immense trust in this relationship that at the end of the day we’ll come back and stay together.

but what kind of open relationship is this, when the slightest mention of other boys’ names sets him off and he’ll start the whole interrogation process and ill have to constantly lie because i know the truth doesn’t set him free, it merely hurts him and makes him realize that he can’t live with this arrangement. and i wonder if perhaps i should do this and be done with him.
but i can’t, because i’m selfish and i’m scared and i love him.

on a different note altogether, i was browsing through my pictures folder and i realize i have very little nice, artsy pictures of myself, mostly because i’m the ones behind the camera.
this realization makes me want to write a romance novelette, where the girl is a travelling photographer and one day a brooding, handsome man in a new strange town follows her around. she’s scared and intrigued by this man and decided to follow him around as well. so one day as she’s trying to take a picture of the man, the man moves forward until he’s right in front of her camera, takes her camera away and tells her: "it’s time for you to be in front of the camera. stop hiding behind the lens; you’re too beautiful to be hiding behind it".
tadadada… and the rest is history. =)

a romantic at heart, i am. i’ve always wanted to be with someone who can sweep me off my feet: someone equally romantic, but all i get so far are rational men who don’t believe in wishy-washy romantic stuff. why can’t i meet someone like CW (my classmate) who asked fifty people to hide under this alcove so they could release a hundred balloons as the gf and him were above the alcove, for the gf’s birthday. or someone who’d serenade me with a song he wrote himself? vai oh vai?

blah blah blah blah…

me: i miss you, y’know

him: i miss you too.
him: do you need to be fxxxxx?

me: what kind of question is that? (sort of ambiguous answer, innit?)

him: well, if you do want. then you should get multiple entry visa.
him: MULTIPLE ENTRY, y’know.

me: HAHAHAHAHHAHAHA. you so dirty you make me horny.

him: of course.

haha.. that’s kinda®ated, but yeah.. no wonder we get along well. we’re both dirty as dirty can be. lol.  

i remember last year i went to this talk where this woman (her last name is economy, i believe) defended the bad big MNCs operating in china and claimed that most of the environmental/labor violations are perpetrated / committed / encouraged by the chinese governments/ local companies themselves.

now, now… what about this:

 "SHANGHAI, Oct. 12 — China is planning to adopt a new law that seeks to crack down on sweatshops and protect workers’ rights by giving labor unions real power for the first time since it introduced market forces in the 1980’s.

The move, which underscores the government’s growing concern about the widening income gap and threats of social unrest, is setting off a battle with American and other foreign corporations that have lobbied against it by hinting that they may build fewer factories here.

The proposed rules are being considered after the Chinese Communist Party endorsed a new doctrine that will put greater emphasis on tackling the severe side effects of the country’s remarkable growth.

Whether the foreign corporations will follow through on their warnings is unclear because of the many advantages of being in China — even with restrictions and higher costs that may stem from the new law. It could go into effect as early as next May.

It would apply to all companies in China, but its emphasis is on foreign-owned companies and the suppliers to those companies.

The conflict with the foreign corporations is significant partly because it comes at a time when labor, energy and land costs are rising in this country, all indications that doing business in China is likely to get much more expensive in the coming years.

But it is not clear how effectively such a new labor law would be carried out through this vast land because local officials have tended to ignore directives from the central government or seek ways around them.

China’s economy has become one of the most robust in the world since the emphasis on free markets in the 80’s encouraged millions of young workers to labor for low wages at companies that made cheap exports. As a result, foreign investment has poured into China.

Some of the world’s big companies have expressed concern that the new rules would revive some aspects of socialism and borrow too heavily from labor laws in union-friendly countries like France and Germany.

The Chinese government proposal, for example, would make it more difficult to lay off workers, a condition that some companies contend would be so onerous that they might slow their investments in China.

..."

Full story, here.

Sure, this might just be a political act devised by the chinese govt to curb social unrest that’s growing in the country. but the fact that these multinational companies react so aggressively against basic rights of workers that should be there in the first place, merely shows how they’ve unscrupulously taken advantage of poor labor law in developing countries.
and to think how some people wholeheartedly believe that there’s trickle-down effect from these foreign investments. (note: there’s been study done to prove the minimum trickle-down effect and minimum transfer of technical knowledge by foreign investment in china).

i think it’s gonna be interesting to see how this increase in production cost in china will affect south-east asian countries whose FDI portion has been swallowed by china. =)

been trying to get hold of the song, to no avail. =(
perfect for gloomy days

 "A Certain Sadness" – Astrud Gilberto

Look out the window when that rain storms
I let the wind blow up a brain storm
and now I’m wondering whether weather like this gets you too

It may go on like this for hours
Too late in Fall for April showers
So what we got here
Got a thought or two
I need to share with you

Here goes

Darling tell me now
Have I done wrong somehow
That you won’t look at me

It is pointed out
Can’t keep my wits about
When you won’t look at me

Is there something I oughta know
You’re finding hard to say
Well there’s just a trace
Hiding on your face
And I learned it that way

Just another soul
That really knows my soul
And you won’t look at me

Does that take the prize
How much I love those eyes
and they won’t look at me

Now the rain has gone
But something lingers on
There’s certain sadness here
Now that the sky is clear

And it’s so so clear
yes, it’s all so clear
To me now

And I can’t help but feel
That certain sadness’s here
To stay

 geomorph midterm sucks big time. i’m so gonna die. =(

i think i’m having my first allnighter of the year, thank to geomorph midterm and my inability to be a good science student.

so here i am, with one full carton of OJ and a bag of cheddar pretzel.

life’s been pretty platonic.
nothing’s exciting – i’m not even excited about the upcoming trip to philly and dc and ny this weekend. the only thing that jolts me nowadays is searching for deals for my winter vacation. not going to reveal where and what yet, but i think it’s gonna be fun. =).

btw, yesterday i gave up my dignity in the name of science.
yeah … right.
haha.. during geomorph lab i jumped into the coginchaug river (fucking ten degrees sia!) and swam across so that we can measure the river discharge.
wth man..

plus i have to do it with those bloody weighters.
afterwards i kept shivering and everyone threw me a pitiful look,

chah-lee: "are you cold?"

me: "nah.. i’m fiiii-nn-ee. ’s jjjuust ttthatt i cannnt sttoooop shiiiveerrring. othherrr than that i feeeel okkay."

chah-lee: "i think that’s called : BEING COLD" 

 how do you know you’re in ws:
you see a cute guy and the first thing that comes across your mind is – "i hope he’s not gay".
lol. honestly though, a lot of ‘em lots are soo fucking cute, it’s so unfair. =(.
although my friend just scolded me for being greedy – she said i should keep my hands, feet, breasts and ass off the market. whatever that means.

ahhhh… the walk home tonight was good: i miss smelling wet cold earth; the fresh ainfall, etc. reminds me a lot of my hometown.

btw, i skipped econs today to watch V for vendetta.
damn late, i know. but what the heck… good movies never get stale.
i cried too, even though the plot was oh-so-very-passe and why oh why must you put romance into everything, dear hollywood?
but yah… the part when everyone gathered in front of the parliament in their costumes was just so moving. someone told me today, the writer (comic author) was probably marxist and imagined the proletariat revolution to be like that.

i dunno man, i’m still trying to figure out if marx said the revolution supposed to be bloody and violent or not. 

oh dear, my brain has clearly degenerated. brain transplant, anyone? 

people who still get good grades and are able to solve their problem sets effortlessly, without ever appearing in class, should be rewarded – not reprimanded.

if ever i become a professor, this shall be my principle.

it seems that a girl can go back to the guy’s place without being a slut only if she’s drunk/half-drunk/pretend to be drunk.

that’s just lame.
 

i know, i know.. i just posted something a minute ago.

but people and their poor photography skill just pissed the hell outta me.
why oh why must my camera broke down today?

VAI? 

Wislawa Szymborska wrote,

"I’m working on the world,
revised, improved edition,
featuring fun for fools,
blues for brooders,
combs for bald pates,
tricks for old dogs,...

...

Only a world like that. To die
just that much. And to live just so.
And all the rest is Bach’s fugue, played
for the time being
on a saw."

I felt sick in my stomach and I still feel that dormant butterfly is picking up speed to create some sort of turbulence with its fluttering wings.
you wish you could be simplistic, ignorant,  prejudiced, evil, myopic… but not until you found the reset button and reformat whatever beliefs you’ve held for the past two decades.

i came home from dinner (fancy one) to see three blinking conversation windows in a row:
and a lil’ part of me gloat over this so-called femme domination i have in my hand.

but i think out of the three messages, this one made my day:

pxxxxx: we would be great travel buddys
pxxxxx: its just that i am not the most talkative on the internet
pxxxxx signed off at 5:33:57 PM. 

i guess i’m going to call him when i’m in ny after all. lol.

just a thought,

the only person i’ve to try not to disappoint is me, myself, and i.

Me, myself and i
Are all in love with you
We all think you’re wonderful
We do

ach! the guilt of skipping class… worse when you’re fully conscious than when you’re half-asleep.

so my boss, after his long vacation to japan, started giving me more and more responsibility – and not necessarily extra power.
so what if i have access to all the copyrighted application on campus and had the power to key in how many licenses can be used on campus? i don’t feel powerful at all. i don’t get perks (other than having the most control over Prozac, the new mac pro book in the office) from this job, and my boss has done a really good job of tellng me the possible million-dollars law suits/fine that could happen if i mess up. the law suits won’t be against me, of course, it’ll be against him. but all the same, everyone’s ass is getting burnt.

i can’t help but think that my boss chooses me because, "*tweedle fingers* hahah, now i have this placid innocent lil’ asian girl i can bully and most probably not smart enough to turn her knowledge against me / loner who won’t spill the secret of the trade. let’s bully her!"

ok. i don’t know why i’m so mean and so skeptical of people.
my boss is nice, very trusting and funny. he teaches me a lot of things and is extremely patient, even when i fuck up (no major fuck-ups yet). plus, the job pays really well (actually i don’t know how much more i earn from this job as compared to last semester’s no-brainer work. the payroll office hasn’t updated our new rate. DAMMIT. plus, i don’t know if the waking-up early and chipping my nails opening up CPUs are worth the extra money).

so why do i question my boss’ motivation for teaching me these new stuff – things he doesn’t normally impart to the techs.

i guess i just have the quasi-survivor syndrome, i.e. feel i’m not worth it to be in this ‘powerful’ position. in what way have i set myself apart from other techs such that he chooses me to do all these high-security things, instead of more experienced techs or other new techs who already know their PXE’s, SATA’s and IDE’s (yes, i do know about these things now).

the answer, honestly, could be as simple as,... i’m the only tech whose working hour fits my boss’s , since he works crazy hour from 6am to 2pm.
yeah, that’s a plausible reason, although i also wonder why he wants to delegate all these jobs when he’s extremely capable of doing it himself.

meeeeeh. who knows? probably in his eyes, i am a highly-capable individual (despite my bimbotic sense of dressing) and he thinks i have integrity, which makes me qualified for this job.

i really should stop self-deprecating myself. it’s the most unhealthy habit ever. 

it’s probably an implicit evil, but still it bothers me so very much.
y’know when you realize one day that you’re pissed at other people’s accomplishment, that you always suspect the worst of other people, that you glorify over others’ misery?

grah.. i just hate this side of me.

i mean, granted i didn’t do anything about it. i didn’t express it, i still offer my help, i haven’t been spreading rumours or whatever shit about people…
am i culpable still?

Do Not, i repeat, DO NOT, drink nik’s coffee after late dinner. i’ve no fucking idea what went into that cup of coffee, but it kept me awake till 4am this morning when i need to wake up at 6.30am.

blardee hell.

just when i was telling myself to get decent rest so i wouldn’t get panda eyes during freeman dinner this friday.

although, showing up with huge eyebags may well give an encouraging sign to mr&mrs. freeman, since they evidently show how hardworking i am.
or, perhaps they know better: eyebags can be a result of too much partying too.

it takes up so much space in my room i feel i’m crossing the red sea everytime i hop from my bed to my chair. i really should deflate it and return it to its rightful master, instead of letting it lie unattended there, serving as a constant reminder of your absence.

but it’s more than just an airbed.

i fear, that if i were to remove it from my room, i’d return to my usual self, my un-lovesick sel who raves about her new adventure with this and that person, who complains about her sweet boyfriend because she thinks she finds him too early in life.

right at this moment i wonder if my sense of ‘adventure’ is innate or artificially conceived by societal pressure?
as if admitting that i want to settle down will be a betrayal of my feminist belief.

even wollstonecraft was married, despite her condemning marriage as legalized prostitution.

yet, i’d be lying if i say i have no doubt about ‘us’.
as we’re cuddling, i’d often take a hard look at him and wonder if there will come a day when i’ll be tired of looking at his face, of relishing the impish glint in his eyes. i compared how it’s like to cuddle with him and with other boys. i want to know if this feeling of love is evanescent and impermanent, like every other feeling in this world.

i, don’t know the answer.

or, i refuse to acknowledge how superficial i am. how i still secretly desire (and try to find) that ‘perfect’ man who fulfils every category i have.
well-versed in music (jazz + classical + indie), literature
excel in sport(s)
tall and tan and young and lovely
...

J thinks, this is an indication that he is NOT the right person for me because i’m still finding faults with me. although i’d like to think that i’ll always see blemish no matter what and it’s a matter of convincing myself that the blemish is a rare work of art.

i still don’t know the answer – if this love of mine follows the pattern of an ECG with multiple peaks and plenty of flat lines. and if you can call this love?
or must love be an even distribution with constant percentage every season every day every hour every minute every second and milisecond?

i still don’t know. (or i refuse to find the answer)

i found him staring into one of my paintings as i came into the room with a plate of sweet potato muffins, and he asked  – while motioning for me to spoon him (not with the muffins) – if i’d work in TO for one year after my graduation, when he’s in his senior year so we can live together.
that, was my idea last year, btw, which he ignored. but discounting that fact for a while, i’d love to ask him, "then what?"

then i’d go to grad school while he works somewhere in asia and it’ll once again be a long-distance relationship. and although both of us have passed the standard test and know we can go through another long distance period, ... you’re not tired meh?

why on earth are we so optimistic as to be sure that we’ll eventually find a way to stay together, to be together. ...somehow, someday,... that’s so much of your romantic lyrics bullshit.
i’m scared, because i know i can’t keep my love constant – as constant as the c in mcsquare – when he’s not around. that i forget and forget and forget and keep forgetting…

so why would i want to remove my only reminder of him and of ‘us’ from the room?
let the airbed stay.