on a Good Friday March 21, 2008

It’s midnight and I’ve just realized that the past 9 hours has been spent reading and understanding (haha!) empirical data and opinions relevant to my topic of choice. I haven’t even started my essay and I know I am screwed. Ravi laughed hysterically when I said I’m gonna sleep soon and get up at 0730 to continue.

Out of those 9 hours, I’d spent 90 minutes on repeated pseudo-cardiovascular walks to the refrigerator and back to the dining table which has been converted into a craze of

1. used tissue paper,
2. empty Essence of Chicken bottles,
3. chocolate wrappers,
4. waxy earplugs to shut out happy, screaming kids at the playground and stupid Mats and their stupid bikes,
5. a notebook adapter sprawled across the table annoyingly like a foreign hair across my laksa,
6. books that make me appear smart (e.g. The Psychology of Gender, Evolution and Social Psychology – both serving as effective paperweights),
7. my 15 year old Oxford dictionary which I love flipping right under my nostrils for a high that rivals 60% dark chocolate,
8.  out-of-ink highlighters which I hope would magically refill themselves if I leave them on the table long enough, and
9.  dead ant carcasses.

I’d be reading something that sounds like “Gender theorists stress how girls’ development gives-” and then an ant crosses my reading path. Squish! “-primacy to communion.” Today, I’ve killed about 15 ants, some manic, zigzagging across my notes, filled with the paranoia of being squished while others strolled leisurely to their deaths.

I’ve stopped cooking, don’t know where these ants come from.

Sheela mentioned she has to write 30,000 words for her thesis and that she’s just finished her 2nd chapter. I should just shrink and shrivel up into a conch. I bet one of her chapters is far longer than my essay on sex differences. While I’m in the conch, I’d love to float away to Bora-Bora. Or any Polynesian island with brown-leathered hunks, seafood, chocolate, vanilla and coconuts. Please.

I enjoy pre-writing hours, especially when I’m reading literature that attempts to explain why some men are pigs and some women whiny shits. I especially love going to the Lee Kong Chian Reference Library at Bugis. The clinical smell of regularly shampoo-ed carpets, the straight backs of librarians behind the counters and shelves and shelves and shelves of books! I’ve a thing for shelves.

They really should ban flip-flops in the reference library. Nothing more distracting than listening to piak! piak! –pause- piak! piak! –pause- piak! piak! piak! piak! piak! in the silence of the library. I also don’t understand how some girls can wear hot pants with woolly sweaters in sub-zero library temperatures. Their genes must have evolved to involve widespread numbing of sensation in their legs (which would be nice when it gets so cold, my nose drips a monsoon). A side effect must also include auditory impairment, since they can’t hear how loud their flip flops can get. That’s what flip flops do, right?

They flip, and they flop. Flop flop.

Fok.

hutan di bhutan March 17, 2008

since my last blog post below – i’ve been doing nothing less than tearing through days at speeds greater than any i’ve personally known. i don’t think i’ve ever been this diligent. and i’m sure i’m paying for years of sloth now.
but i’m thankful for it.

the day i was to go to the museum with Eds, i was called in for an interview (at an extremely short notice). i changed out of my cargo pants, into a dress i hadn’t worn in 5 years, got interviewed, went about my day cos they wanted to interview more people, then lo and behold, by afternoon, i was gainfully employed.

and then i wondered to myself – not the first logical worry that should come to mind (how can i study and work?) – how do i appear for work on Monday in clothes i hadn’t fit in for years?

and before i knew it, i was sucked into a vortex of work, assignments and classes that i never imagined possible. 10 classes in a row, including weekends was a bit much. even God rested on the 7th day, i wailed repeatedly. a few weeks ago, i worried if this life has turned into a blackhole, – if i’ll forget my friends, my family, my baking, my travels, my pictures, my words – swallowing anything that meant everything to me.

but i know it hasn’t turned into a blackhole.

they’re just chilling out in the backseat. for now. for the next three years.

and i am thankful for the friends in my life. my life would not shine so bright without them.

—

Ravi and i saw a documentary on Bhutan several days ago and were intrigued. a Gross National Happiness index instead of the GDP? how inventive is that! (either inventive or escapist, whichever way one looks at it.) the King of Bhutan was so concerned about preserving the country’s culture and centuries-old way of life, he restricted tourist numbers to Bhutan. to about 21,000.

first time i saw anything related to Bhutan was Tiger’s Nest monastery, in a magical photograph i stumbled across online several years ago.

and again, a few nights ago, we saw Tiger’s Nest monastery on television. we got excited.

i got so excited, i wrote in to the tourism board of Bhutan, begging to be part of the selected few allowed into Bhutan annually. we knew it was going to be expensive – we just didn’t know how expensive.

it so happens that NatGeo’s got a spread on Bhutan in this month’s issue – i choked on my saliva in bed when i read that tourists to Bhutan have to pay daily taxes of USD240 per person.

USD240 per person per day.

mm, other than sounding like several Swedish names in a row, it sounds like a trip which might actually include my selling a kidney or two.  i jumped out of bed and ran to Ravi (who’s quite the sexy househusband these days, ironing and all), “RAVI! WEHAVETOPAYTAXESOFTWOHUNDREDFORTYDOLLARSPERDAYPERPERSONINBHUTAN!”

to which he sleepily turned around and concernedly asked, “hmmmm?”

oh Bhutan, i know you don’t want backpackers – i promise to bring bags on wheels – but please, USD240 per person per day? sigh. i sure hope the rich leave Bhutan with more than just a trinket in their pockets.