October 2008 Archives

Okay, okay, life has kinda swallowed me up again, but I made it spit me out because, even though I'm sweet, I'm tough. Err... okay, bad analogy :P

The good news is, I have a new PC! Dragged Erna all over Low Yat on Tuesday (I had the day off work) and bought all the necessary components. I had three consultants assist in putting together my shopping list: Erna, Mr TDH, and Sean. Remember that saying about two heads being better than one? Yup, so I decided to be safe and have three heads :P

The bad news is, I went over budget by RM400. The entire thing cost me RM1.4k, and I was hoping to keep the cost under RM1k. Luckily my consultants offered their services pro bono; I'd never have been able to afford them otherwise! I hereby declare November Tightening The Belt Month.

My kind and wonderful (and long-suffering) housemate Mr TDH helped me assemble the PC and is now helping me install what-all needs to be installed in order for the thing to work properly. You can tell I haven't been paying a great deal of attention ;)  I feel lucky to have friends like him, Erna, and Sean who care about me and want to help me <3

By the way, Mr TDH is tall, dark and handsome (that's why "TDH" lah) and very available -- hint hint! *grin*   He has also recently bought a car! (Which was painted the wrong colour... but this shall soon be remedied, never fear.) Interested parties may send in their applications c/o The Wilful Sunflower with a detailed resume and cover letter. All applications will be duly considered and a thorough background check conducted on each applicant to eliminate the possibility of psycho stalkers. The most important criteria, apart from similar theological viewpoints, is "geek grrl". Should you have any further enquires, please address them to Mr TDH, c/o The Wilful Sunflower.

Meanwhile, I've been doing some helping of my own. I'm, err, 'involved' in Minishorts' wedding, which is on Saturday. I somehow got placed in charge of the pageboy and flower girls (oooh so cute!!), and on Tuesday before I went to get my PC I accompanied Minishorts to go choose flowers for the church decor. Man, all this wedding stuff is crazy expensive!

I was just thinking about those three little words, "I love you". They're laden with such meaning. It's always something special when someone says, "I love you", whether it's a parent, sibling, close friend, or lover.

For the longest time I couldn't say those words to my parents. Those of you who've been following my blog over the past 2 to 3 years know that I've had my ups & downs with Mom & Dad. For many years I didn't feel at all loving towards them, which sounds terrible, I know. I respected them as my parents, tried to be a dutiful daughter, and to a certain extent did care because I didn't want to hurt their feelings. But I just wasn't sure if I actually loved them.

Me being me... I steadfastly refused to say the words until I was sure I could say them and mean them. Okay, rather intransigent and unnecessarily petty, you might think, but words are very important to me. They have power, and I don't wield them lightly. I always want to choose the correct word to convey exactly what I mean, in order to reduce misunderstandings and miscommunication to a minimum.

Anyway, I eventually reached a point where I realised that I do love my parents, even if I might not be able to gush that I couldn't have had better parents in a million years or that they've been the best parents in the whole wide world. They've been good parents, very human parents. Not the best, not perfect, but they probably got more things right than they did wrong. Do you know how hard it is to buy a Father's Day or Mother's Day card that doesn't gush??

While I've finally gotten over the hurdle and have started saying "I love you" to my parents, especially Dad, I've yet to say the words to anyone else, especially not in a romantic context. It's one of those things you can't take back once said -- so again, I want to be very, very sure before saying it.

When you think about it, though, the "I love you" said to a parent is different from that said to a lover. I guess it's unfortunate that English has only the single word, "love", to express this level of feeling. Everything else -- caring, affection, adoration, fondness, admiration, fascination, infatuation, devotion, passion -- none of these words come close to expressing the state of truly loving someone, whether it's loving someone passionately as a lover, deeply as a friend, or selflessly as a parent loves a child.

The ancient Greeks had 4 words to encompass various aspects of the concept of love: Storge, a kinship love or the natural caring and devotion that family members have for one another; Phileo, an affectionate, close friendship type of love; Eros, the passionate and sexual aspect of love which exists between lovers; and Agape, a selfless, unconditional love. It's also a love that is not primarily composed of emotion, but can be born of the will -- a love by which you can seek to "love your enemies", as Jesus adjured. (Incidentally, agape is the way God loves us, and is most clearly explained in I Corinthians 13.)

When I think of the words "I love you", no matter which of the other types of love they encompass, they are inextricably intertwined with agape as well. I don't think one can truly say one loves another unless one is willing to give of one's self unconditionally, put the other before yourself, and demonstrate love in action.

For example, in our culture, as adult children, when we demonstrate love to our parents we consider their comfort and try to abide by their wishes where reasonable, we afford them respect and are patient with their naggings or ramblings, we tend to them when they are old and infirm. I watched my parents care for my great-grandma, who died at the age of 98, and I saw agape in action. Of course there were also elements of storge, but the kind of selflessness Mom demonstrated in tending to my (towards the end) bedridden great-grandma could only have been inspired by agape.

Perhaps that's why I feel those three little words are so weighty. I want to be sure that when I say them, I really love the person with an agape love. And you know, I probably don't fully love my parents like that yet, especially considering how frustrated or irritated I get with Mom sometimes, and how short I occasionally am with her. But I want to love her that way, and I'm trying.

The blog banner is giving me conniptions. Dahlah my graphic design skills are non-existent, MT has to further stack the cards against me with its complicated template system. Why? Why? Why????

I'm going to leave it like this until I get my computer. Oh, you didn't know? My PC died an agonisingly slow and painful death, but Mr TDH, bless his heart, lent me his iMac to use. It is AWESOME for going on Second Life, has a top-notch graphics card and my SL experience has never ever been this smooth or pretty. On the flip side, I can't use the Mac to do some other things I normally do because I don't have any of the programs I normally use. So, I KNOW the banner is ugly, but you come to my blog to read my ramblings, right? Not to look at pretty banners? *bats eyelashes*

I was off work today to present my research proposal at University Malaya for my mini-dissertation. So nervous coz I wrote that proposal a year ago as a Research Methodology assignment. That's called "killing two birds with one stone"... but the drawback was that now I can hardly remember what it's all about!

Ever since I finished my coursework in May and started teaching in June, it's like I've switched gears. I no longer need to attend classes, so it feels like I'm finished and done with the whole thing. Or maybe this whole Masters stuff has been just a dream.

Uh-uh, no such luck! *grins*

So here I have to gird up my loins once again, and have been meeting with my supervisor to discuss the research project and methodology and what kind or how much data I should be collecting. The real work will start soon, since I got the green light to embark on the project after presenting the proposal today.

What's funny is that my study is going to be based on printed media -- it's got something to do with journalism and reporting, but I'm no longer a journalist (not that I was ever a news reporter anyway; I wrote lifestyle features). In short, yup, you guessed it -- my project has nothing whatsoever to do with my new direction in life or my new career. Very smart, Sunflower! Very relevant! *rolls eyes at self*

I chose this area of research mainly because it's based on printed text. I didn't want to have to record conversations or speech and transcribe them; that's A LOT of work and... well... I'm lazy. *blushes*  But if I'd had a little extra time to think about it, I might have chosen to study chunks of my students' writing instead of analysing news reports.

Don't get me wrong, I'm still interested in the study I'll be doing; just that it seems extremely disconnected from what I'm doing now and where I'm headed. I'm looking at it and asking myself, What were you thinking??!? Ever have one of those moments? Yeah. *rueful smile*  But I'm hoping to get it done and graduate by June next year. Woohoo!!!

I think ultimately, every single person on this crazy planet is looking for love. Not just any old love, either; we want to be accepted as we are, we want to share ourselves with someone else without fear of rejection or ridicule, we want to have our intrinsic worth affirmed by someone who cherishes and cares for us, we want to connect with someone at the very deepest and most intimate level that two human beings can connect.

Watching the Footstool Players' Crazy Little Thing Called Love last night reminded me of this. So much emotion. You know love can bring lots of joy but can also lots of pain; there's potential for both as you make yourself vulnerable to another person. When I wish my friends who are getting married, I often write, "May the laughter outnumber the tears," because there's bound to be both. But one hopes the balance will tip in favour of the former rather than the latter.

Act 1 comprises scenes focusing more on romantic love, while Act 2 comprises scenes of parent-child love. Both are poignant, and many of the scenes from both acts resonated with me. For me, it was a stark reminder of the ease of miscommunication, the difficulty of conveying accurately all one thinks and feels and hopes and desires and wishes to another person. Expectations get in the way, preconceived notions get in the way, perceptions get in the way. Words, signals, body language, facial expressions, are misinterpreted.

I think miscommunication causes a lot of pain in relationships. Barring people who are abusive or selfish or downright mean, most others are simply trying their best to be a good parent, sibling, child, friend, partner. It's bewildering when you try your best and the other person can't or won't see it, or interprets it as something else entirely. You end up talking at cross-purposes and they think you mean one thing while you really mean another.

We're all walking wounded in one way or another; our backgrounds & experiences shape all of us. We tend to interpret actions and words through this lens, sometimes inaccurately. There's really no way to be rid of assumptions, at least not entirely. But I believe in seeking clarification where I can.

I was also reminded of the power of words. It's so important, the things you say to another person, the way you say it -- tone of voice, gestures, posture, facial expression. Something seemingly minor can pierce the heart, as in Scene 6, Act 1. You just need to say something once, and the person remembers it forever. Words can wound beyond anything you can ever imagine. "The pen is mightier than the sword", for a sword wound pierces flesh, but words pierce the heart, wounding your very being, the essence of you, the person you are deep inside.

I'm trying to prepare a handout on prepositions for my class tomorrow and it's driving me batty. WHY must English have so many prepositions? And use the same ones for all different kinds of things? I go to the USA by aeroplane but I also have to be home by midnight, and I can do anything I want in the morning but I have to sleep at night. It's no wonder my poor students find these things so crazy confusing!
 
Today has been spent mainly on this... I did plan to go to church, in fact got a text message from Mom at 10:30pm last night:

"Dear Sunflower sleep early tonight and go worship God tomorrow. Goodnight. Love fr mom."

No, of course she doesn't call me Sunflower! lol. Anyway, I slept late, about 4am, but I did wake up in time. Only, then I remembered how busy today was going to be and how much I had to get done and I started debating with myself. When you start debating with yourself, you've already lost half the battle.
 
My Sunday was to be like this: Church at 10am, followed by catechism class immediately after, quick lunch then meet my thesis supervisor at the uni at 2pm, back home to finish up this preposition handout for tomorrow, then dinner with Erna at 6:30pm, and on to the Footstool Players' play, Crazy Little Thing Called Love, at 7:30pm. Phew. Did you feel tired just reading that? Because I felt tired just thinking about it!
 
Since I didn't go to church, I missed catechism class as well, and then my supervisor called to postpone the meeting to 5:30pm tomorrow. I ended up having the whole morning & afternoon free, which has given me more time to do the preposition handout and finish up some marking. And blog. Because I'm the queen of procrastination and easily distracted like that :P

How difficult can it be to purchase deodorant? Apparently, very difficult.

See, I'm the type of person who will usually find something I like and stick to it like glue. I mean, if it ain't broke, don't fix it, right? Why mess with a sure thing?

So I have this ONE type of deodorant I use, from a particular brand, and over the past two weeks I've walked into Watson's outlets, Guardian pharmacy outlets, and anywhere else that might conceivably sell deodorant, only to be met with... empty shelves.

*cries*  I need my deodorant!!!!

And I don't even know whether this particular range is being discontinued, or if it's just out of stock due to all the recent Hari Raya sales. Who can I ask? What will I do if it's discontinued? Noooooo please don't let it be discontinued! My underarms will be consumed by grief and go into a decline!!

The best advice Dad ever gave me was: "You must know how your car moves, and you must always know its position." He even drew me a diagram to demonstrate, and because my mind works the same way his does -- that is to say, in a logical, straight line -- I completely got what he was trying to tell me.

Every time I manoeuvre the car into a parking space, I remember what he told me and think of him :)

See, when I had a small car, it didn't matter so much. There was no way the car wouldn't be able to fit, and I could go in any old how and never need to worry. But now that I'm driving a bigger car -- his car, in fact -- I can't just zip into a parking spot anymore. Where I used to go nose in first, I now reverse in.

My previous boss once told me my parking was crap, which was true at the time :D  But now I'm pretty proud of my parking. I have a horror of being the stereotypical hopeless, helpless, incompetent female driver, so I'm elated to have punched that stereotype in the nose once again!

And it's all thanks to Dad. Everything I know about driving, I learnt from him. Yes, I went to driving school to get my licence, but as soon as I got it, he took me out driving every evening after he finished work, putting me through my paces, determined to make sure I wouldn't be a menace on the roads when I was unleashed on the world. I may drive like a demon, but I'm a harmless one! XD

Planned to go to cell group today but I started feeling completely exhausted at 4pm and by the time I left the office, all I wanted to do was go home. It was raining too and traffic was bad, so all in all I was very relieved to go home.

Don't know what's wrong with me... this week I've been getting very tired very early in the evening. It's like like the clock chimes 9pm and all of a sudden a tidal wave of exhaustion hits me. I haven't been doing anything differently, still wake up at 6:30am as usual, so I can't imagine why this is happening.

Strangely enough, where formerly I would've considered 6:30am an ungodly hour -- I'm not a morning person, by any stretch -- I've never had ANY problems waking up at 6:30am from the very first day I started this job in June, till now. Through rain and shine and sleep deprivation, I've constantly tumbled out of bed in the morning without a single "Do I really have to?" thought whatsoever. As I said in a comment on a friend's blog in early August:

I hate mornings. Admittedly I hate them less now that I have to wake up at 6:30am to go to work. Because it takes too much energy to hate anything at 6:30am, and if I had to hate them every single weekday it would make life a real drag :P

This is quite amazing, if you stop to think about it. Mornings have always been a huge challenge to me, and now instead of slipping in "just in time" I'm actually arriving at the office 45 minutes to half-an-hour early, with enough time to eat some breakfast, pin down my plan of action for the day and surf the Net a little, before my first class starts at 8:30am. And I'm not even grumpy! Perhaps the right job really does make a difference. \o/

Well, the blog's finally set up on the new server, which is why it looks all different :)  I haven't had the time or energy to fiddle with the template. There's also been some difficulty moving my archives over, so for the moment we shall be archive-less. Almost like a brand-new beginning.

Stay tuned for more updates :P

Recent events have left me feeling that I must refocus and make a little more effort in my journey with God, so as not to be easily led off the straight and narrow. As a result, last week I went to both cell group and church!!

I enjoyed cell group, we were doing Bible study but had a spirited discussion on the passage. Didn't leave with any concrete answers, but I always find it refreshing to have questions welcomed in a church/Christian setting and I like it when people are not afraid to say things like, "I'm still angry at God."

Church was... um... very Lutheran coz apparently Oct is Reformation Month and Sivin's sermons will be focusing on Lutheran views or ideas of the faith... something like that. I nearly fell asleep close to the end. Then Sivin pounced on me and got me to attend cathecism class, which was right after church service. So happens this week is the first week of a new cycle. Now I have homework: To read Luther's short cathecism. Aiyoyo :P

I was baptised at 15 and my membership is still in the Methodist church (the one I used to attend in PJ; I had my membership transferred from Sitiawan Wesley way back when). Sivin is very into this whole Lutheran thing but I don't really care to call myself Methodist or Lutheran -- or Presbyterian or Anglican or Brethren or AOG, for that matter. Not sure exactly how important it is to me to transfer my membership to BLC. I used to take church membership as a sign of commitment and belonging to a church community, a declaration & decision that I wanted to serve and grow there. These days it's a triumph just to turn up for Sunday service, the question of membership is kinda like rather irrelevant since there are more important issues to settle first!

However I was reminded of why I like BLC when, just before the sermon, Sivin asked us to turn to the person next to us and share why we found this morning a "good morning". The guy next to me said, "It's good because I managed to get here, that's no mean feat!" I was like, "I TOTALLY know what you mean!"