The Caste System

Okay so I admit I sort of stole the title off one of the SATC episodes, but the inspiration that came brought about this post is non-SATC related. (Yes, I know....I'm indugling in too much SAT - can't help it though...love it to bits).

Anyway moving on:

A thought struck me the other day. Why is it that we Malaysians have a tendency to just overlook and 'see through' incidences that happen right in front of us, be it good or bad, and even when we are frowning severely upon something that we completely disapprove of, or are appalled by.

Most of the time.....if we see someone flagging cars frantically by the side of the road, we sail right by them with the notion that hitch-hikers are possibly muggers in disguise.

Or if we watch someone being mugged openly in the streets and launches into a screaming or chasing spree, the nicest citizen around will assist no more than take several steps back to clear the path for the victim so he/she can run after the thief.

Are we all so jaded that nobody actually takes anything seriously anymore? Have we all become so cynical and suspicious of everything and everyone around us that we have lost all the principles that we have stood so strongly by our whole lives?

I, for one, as guilty am charged. And it bugs me greatly.

A couple of days ago, in the midst of making notes for my presentation, a loud, disturbing scene outside the room distracted me momentarily and my eyes were drawn to the scene, after a which an expression of pure disgust and horror was etched on my face for a very long time.

Since when did social stratification exist amongst students? Since when did any of us practise the caste system that assigned individuals to their 'destined' places in social hierarchy just because of their heritage / culture / background? Were we in the 21st century or Middle Aged India?

I have never been a person to believe in demeaning or looking down our noses at others, who are, in fact, no different from ourselves in terms of social status or cultural heritage. We are ALL medical students for crying out loud. There is a need to swallow our pride at every milestone in our career. How will an ego trip benefit you now, when working with consultants in the future will hurt your seemingly gigantic ego even further, being at the bottom of the medical food chain?

True, I am not the nicest person in this world. I do not flash bright smiles and dish out free hugs willingly to people whom I dislike. I am not pretentious in any way. But I am not irrational either. There are obvious limits to my decisions and the actions I decide to take, simply because I know that everything I do, be it to others or myself, defines me as a person, and shapes my image accordingly.

I may have a thing for bad boys, but no way in hell am I a bad girl. Or an unclassy one, to be precise. I have my principles and my stands and I know the difference between right and wrong.

I have deviated horribly from my main point.

The fact that I was horrified by the treatment that a certain group of people were dishing out on to a few poor freshmen souls were enough to ensure that my humanity and passion was still intact.

But the fact that I continued to sit there and do nothing about it, was horrifying.

In all retrospect, I should have stood up, gone out, and spoken to them politely but firmly, that there wasn't a soul in this place that had bestowed this 'power' upon them to act like Kings of the social caste.

Clean up your act, guys. Discrimination based on YOUR self-created 'caste' is getting old.

And for that matter, the next time I see something like that again, I promise myself that I am putting my foot down and INTO the circle.

Just for the sake of updating this blog...

Contrary to my mum's belief, I am not 'studying too hard' or 'stressing out unnecessarily'. Instead, I am doing quite the opposite.

So I have really no idea why the hell I am still unable to sleep at night.

I'm supposed to be mugging hard right about now but I detoured to Net-a-Porter instead and spent my time sifting through De La Renta and McQueen and Mint Jodi Arnold and keeping the images in my head so that the next time I visit High Street stores, I can look out for similar styles without forking out 5000 US Dollars for a cocktail dress. I draw the line at Marc by Marc Jacobs and BCBG. Or rather, my Credit Card does. Haha.























I have a newfound love for Mint Jodi Arnold, and the purple silk of that dress just adds icing to the cake. I have yet to own a purple outfit/dress that is highly outstanding. Purple itself makes statements on its own, and it takes a great deal of poise and style to pull off wearing something in that colour without looking distastefully tacky or loud. And at USD$500, it isn't half as bad as the thousand dollar red Preen Power Bandage dress. I guess. If I can even find a Mint Jodi Arnold store around that is NOT in the US. Sigh.

There are certain styles that you tend to associate with a person when you see an outfit, and I do the same with myself. My sense of style has evolved slowly throughout the years though, possibly with age, possibly with experience.....who knows. I've gone from funky to hiphop Adidas Originals streetwear, to a zillion other things, and now I think I am just simply in for anything Classic yet trendy.

OK enough about fashion. My sense of style has been deteriorating slowly but surely as of late, and I can't even be bothered to accessorise anymore, when at one point in the past, that was the one thing I really prided myself on. And oh, I have the loveliest dark circles under my eyes to match.


This weekend is going to be filled with more and more monotonous studying (I hope). Last weekend was really fun, and even though I spent most of the weekend talking to people until 4 am, I had not laughed so much either since this year began. Unfortunately, that is short-lived for the moment. Or so it seems.

Back to more Peripheral Nervous System crap.

He's Just Not That Into You

I first picked up this phrase frm SATC, where Miranda was introduced to this concept by Carrie's Man of the Moment.

Ever since, I've been reciting it in my head. I particularly like enunciating it where necessary. Read as shown:

He's just not that into you.

Unfortunately, I haven't had the guts like Miranda to actually spread the gospel to others yet, well who am I to dish out advice like this when I, like Carrie and the rest of the girls, have spent a fair bit of my life deciphering mixed messages.

Maybe it's all like what Berger said:

"With men, there are no mixed messages. If we like you, we're coming upstairs."

And I really, REALLY believe that it's true. Well, save for certain extenuating circumstances. But isn't life so much simpler without the constant pain of reading in between the lines and constantly pondering why this or that happened, amidst juggling hot-cold tendencies and trying to turn them into a more favourable answer?

I guess there probably are no love-hate relationships in this world. You either mean what you say or say what you mean.

So the next time something like this happens, I'm embracing the gospel with open arms and an open heart.
There are no mixed messages.

He's just not that into you.

PS: I'm so watching the movie soon.

Slumdog Millionaire

So it was by pure chance that I stumbled across a Youtube video of local Harrow lad, Dev Patel on the Ellen DeGeneres show. I have a soft spot for Ellen DeGeneres by the way. I think she's the cat's pyjamas and pretty damn funny to boot. He wasn't exactly very good looking. A tad too thin and not to mention extremely boyish (hello....18!), but he had the most fabulous British accent AND I came to realise that he was the star of the much talked about Slumdog Millionaire which had scooped up a bunch of awards at the Golden Globes.

The storyline sounded pretty interesting so I decided to d/l it to have a watch. While waiting for it to finish, Zhin and I discussed bits of the movie and other things on MSN, but the one thing I remembered distinctly was being completely aghast when my file finished downloading and I opened it up only to realise one glaring point I had forgotten. It was a Bollywood film. Well, not exactly Bollywod per se but it was based in Mumbai and obviously it had to be as authentic as possible, so for the first part of the film, the language spoken was their native one, and for the second part, they spoke in accented English. I remember complaining to Zhin about Dev's own real life accent being masked and how horrendous that was, and I went to bed rather disappointed.

I brought myself to watch it again today, however, despite my phobia for Bollywood films, and to my surprise, I was rooted for the entire movie. I have the shortest attention span for movies - couldn't even take an hour of 'Burn After Reading'. But the authenticity of the film being shot in Mumbai.....the conditions of the slums....the children running around, the vast number of people there actually were in India.....the harsh reality of a Hindu-Muslim riot that killed a mother and left 2 boys orphaned, were all that tantalising for me. My heart wept when I saw the people who had to resort to picking up trash from the dumpsites as a source of income, or the women who had to do their washing in a river that was murky with pollution. I cringed on the edge of my seat in horror when I realised the true ulterior motive of the man asking a bunch of children to rehearse their singing, choosing the best songbird amongst them only to burn their eyes out so that they could beg on the streets as blind singers.

The love story that constructed the core of the movie was mediocre at the best, but the reality that was India opened my eyes to a whole new level, and made me aware of how, whether we liked it or not, some things were not fair in life and they never would be. We would always be stratified into different classes of society, whether we liked it or not, and there wasn't much we could do to change that. It made me so sad, however, that I had everything under the sun within my grasp while some individuals just miles away had to fight so hard everyday just to put food into their mouths.

I say this too much already....but c'es la vie, ain't it.

On a happier note, Happy CNY to all.

Another Year

Another year has passed. Again, I am pretty damn amazed at how fast it seems to zoom by. When I was in High School, all I could think about was how SLOWLLYYYY time seemed to crawl by and how I wish I could change that. And now.....oh well. A part of me sometimes wishes that I could build a clock whose hands could turn back in time.....just like in Benjamin Button, but then there is a huge part of me that embraces each year passing by. There is something fulfilling about growing up, getting older, looking at yourself mature slowly but surely over the years and realising this is what life is all about.

Of course there is still a part of me that harbours some points of Childish Girliness.....be it swooning at a TV Drama male lead or not being able to stop smiling when your crush talks to you, or even the selfish demands for more designerware when credit crunch is occurring all around you.....but nobody ever said that any of us were built to be perfect in any possible way.

We are humans, after all. And this year.....although I didn't have any hotshot party, didn't get pissed drunk on alcohol, didn't go out partying till the wee hours of the morning, didn't get any fabulous presents....I am happy. Mainly for the people who remembered and who cared, my God-sent friends.....with myself for finally being able to sort out priorities and see the silver lining beneath clouds despite my being ill with the flu this year and for everything that I have at the moment. I vaguely remember being incredibly upset last year about something so small and ranting to my beloved besties (what would I do w/out you guys ;)) and all that seems so vaguely far away in the distance, and oh so childish now.

PS: Manda, Niff: I'll email you guys soon. And yes I will stop procrastinating! Hahah

Much Love,
XOXO

Familarity Breeds Contempt

Or so I have heard once or twice, and would probably have been caught up unnervingly in an unpleasantly vicious cycle, had Noemi not told me to STOP right there, because Hell No....when you hate a person so much, you might just end up with him/her.

Let this be the end of contempt, for God's sake.

A History

22-year-old Female presents with bouts of vomitting and nausea, as well as chills and fever for the past few hours.

I can't even remember when the last time was, that I actually puked because of a pathological-related reason itself, lest food poisoning.

Such bad timing, I can't even begin to describe it -_-

And to put the cherry on top of the icing, I even have palpitations...and....woweee.....dyspnoea at times.

Am just praying and praying that I will survive the long, dreary flight, and everything after that.

Who wants to clerk me =P

I'm loving all the episodes that the TV Shows have come up with this week. Definitely a well applauded bang to the year end before they go on hiatus for the festive season.

I didn't go as far as to shed tears, because well, how can anyone possibly....for GG. But the pain in Chuck's and Blair's eyes actually scored a point within me, and I was undeniably impressed.

Am in a good mood and enjoying my bumming session already to celebrate a start to the holidays :)

I just realised a moment ago that I am actually going to see Niff again after a zillion years in a week's time!

Yes, I do realise this is horribly shameless...

But due to several requests for pictures of my bangs, I thought I might as well remember them when they still look okay. I'm pretty sure by the next week or so, my hair would have wilted to something unmentionable. Haha.

Bangs are the new Black

I finally decided to go opt for a change from my usual side-swept bangs today.

Not a blunt fringe, definitely. I don't do blunt fringes. Wouldn't know how to describe it except that I was opting for something like Kim Kardashian's new do. A softer blunt fringe, maybe??

But there are very few people I entrust my tresses to, especially when it is something as new as giving me new bangs, and at the end of it, I thought my hairdresser was the cat's pyjamas.

I also have way darker hair now. Strict instructions from my mum to PLEASE get rid of the original colour that had faded beyond mention.

Having spent the past week rushing essays and assignments and forgetting to eat a couple of meals in between in the process, this weekend is a HUGE welcome!

I have had the best time hanging with the chums on Thursday, and even last night. Am now running slightly out of time to fit in all my plans with different people before I leave for home next week.

The only downside is that my Toshiba's LAN Network card managed to get fried by lightning, and even though I had to switch back to my IBM, my connection is super wonky, which I can't, for the love of God, figure out why.

Where has all the time gone?

In the flash of an eye, it is suddenly December....all too soon.

November flew by as though I had never seen it occur, and when I look back on the past term, everything seems to be a blurry of events.

Sometimes I really do look back and wonder: Where has all the time gone?

Adults we are. Responsible, grounded, rational people we are expected to become.

Yet I still fluctuate.....flitting in between my own world of denial where everything is hidden beneath a facade of sarcastic jokes and laughter, and the real world where things are not as fine and dandy as they seem.

Much of life recently has been about rethinking priorities. Reorganising routines that I have become accustomed to for too long. Straightening out the messy bits of life and re-evaluating the words 'happiness', 'necessities', 'aims' and 'wants'.

While alot of the 'new life' has been about really connecting with Medicine and getting in touch wiht a side of me I had never seen before, for a moment there, out of the blue, it almost seemed as though you were a ghost from the past, appearing to haunt me in this one-off occasion.
How wrong was the capactiy.....the context.....the reality of it.
When one could have equated you with all of the above in the past, it is clearer than ever now that you were never meant to be here to stay.

Every now and then we find a special friend...

.....who never lets us down,


Who understands it all, reaches out each time you fall....


You're the best friend that I've ever found :)



HAPPY BIRTHDAY, MY BELOVED HANNA!


Hope you like this. Hehe.






No Russell & Bromley, hehe, but I hope this suffices.

Lotsa Love,

XOXO

Dream a little dream....

I remembered what we were eating.

I remembered who we were with.

I remembered bits and pieces of the very words you said to me.

I remembered some bits of the conversation we had with everyone else.

I remembered you slicing something into half and dishing it to me.

But I just couldn't remember the name of the place.

Hmmm.....I have no idea why I fell asleep with this scene replaying in my mind.
Random it is....

PS: I miss Manda soooooooooo much it's indescribable =S

Of Life and Lo-Lee-Ta

When I mentioned that Nabakov's 'Lolita' could potentially be interesting reading material to Buaya over summer, he made this disgusted face and proclaimed vehemently that the concept of paedophilia, which was introduced in the book, was downright sick.

Nevertheless, I went ahead and picked up a copy, and have been reading it ever since.

Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul.

Do people these days write like this anymore?

"There are two kinds of visual memory: one when you skillfully create an image in the laboratory of your mind with your eyes open…and the other when you instantly evoke, with shut eyes, on the dark innerside of your eyelids, the objective, absolutely optical replica of a beloved face, a ghost in natural colours...."

"It was love at first sight, at last sight, at ever and ever sight...."

I hadn't realised how fatigue had taken its toll on me until recently when my mum commented on how exhausted I seemed to look. Without realising it, I had let myself be enraptured in a steadily deteriorating mood-slump that often left me feeling more tired than I probably really was, and left me lamenting about the zillions of jobs that I was supposed to juggle all at once.

And then, as cliched as it may seem, the Lehmann Brothers hoo-ha left me realising that life is only full of uncertainties and unpleasant surprises, and we should appreciate it to the fullest as much as we could.

Really, you are only as busy and as exhausted as you let yourself be.

You are only as overworked and undervalued as you perceive yourself to be.

You only look as lifeless as you let yourself become.

At the end of the day, I realise that as much as the public perceives it to be otherwise, so much of medicine boils down to character building, and it is really up to us to grasp every opportunity and make the best of it before we are permanently moulded into people we don't even know anymore without realising it.

We live and we learn. I know I'm still doing it day by day

[Carrie's narration]:

"Some love stories aren't epic novels. They are short stories, but that doesn't make them any less filled with love"


[Les Mis']:

"He who does not weep does not see"

Ten Things I Love About You

Dear Niff,

1) You listen to me ramble on and on without breathing a single word of protest, despite how crappy the topic of conversation may get.

2) You still dub me the 'Fashionista' even though I have deteriorated beyond measure ;)

3) You are still one of the few people I can talk about anything under the sun with, even though it has been eons since I last saw you (my bad sorry!)

4) You tell me that I am 'thin' and 'skinny' and 'tiny' no matter how fat I have become. Hehe.

5) You manage to cheer me up every single time whenever I feel emo, and you never EVER complain that the topic of emo-shit is almost always the same =S

6) You let me call you silly names like Niffy and Niffy Poo even though we are full-fledged adults now ;) (You know how I only give pet names to special ppl hehe)

7) You let me spam you with MSN msgs, blog comments, wall posts etc etc and reply me patiently every single time without depicting a shadow of annoyance.

8) You have the best ways of dishing out advice and sound words tactfully even though many a time my issues are just downright stupid.

9) You humour me every single time, be it bimbotic conversations, complaints about other people or raves about Greys Anatomy ;)

10) You are just you. My newly-turned 21-yr-old Niffy whom I have now known for a total of 4 years, and still deem the day I met you at the airport, one of the luckiest days of my life :)

May the rest of your year be equally fabulous, just like you.

Happy Birthday Jenn!!!!

Much Love x

There is a reason why I was never a star athlete in High School.

5 or 6 years later, nothing has changed at all. Instead, I have deteriorated so badly that I am mildly appalled at myself.

Had I made myself believe that I could run pretty well back in school?? Or had the competition I had faced back then simply been a shadow of the competition I face now? Or maybe just simply that I have deteriorated beyond measure?

Amidst my horribly aching muscles, I am mildly glad now that my daily schedule is packed with a zillion and one things to do, despite several complaints in the past. At the very least, I can work on my multi-tasking skills, amidst keeping my mind off the most trivial of issues.

On the same note....You know how sometimes you have this mindset that there are some friends you have made in the past that will always have this bond with you?
That no matter how far apart you grow physically or mentally, when you talk again, it seems like nothing has ever changed?

We're no longer the best-EST of friends, no matter how hard we try to make ourselves believe otherwise.

We have different mindsets now, and different opinions of life. And we have grown further apart than you would like to believe.

In truth, there's so much we don't get about each anymore, that the only thing to go from here is just to push forward and let this rift grow further and further apart.

In the past, I was always pretty sure of myself, my mannerisms, preferences, quirks and which type of people I liked hanging out with best.

As of late, I'm all about versatility and adapation. And exploring anything new.

Cheers,
xx

Sometimes I wonder how something so simple can obliterate my mind so completely.

Exhausted.

Please let me sleep forever.

I miss Heffakite, ChanelVersaceRobertoCavalli, Playing Cards and Nua-ing.

It's Only Life

Gosh, I haven't felt this uninspired to blog since....man, I don't even remember.

But in an effort to revive this blog....well, sort of.....there are a few things to sum up this summer.

- Started missing my clinical attachment session after I got home, despite having had to return home late because of it.

- I didn't blog at ALL since my break started. Which is a huge shock. Usually, late nights up alone during hols at home seem to spark the most emo of emo-moments, hence leading to the need to blog.

- I got over my huge distaste and phobia of whiskey that has been present since the start of '07.

- Discovered that my tolerance got better despite having not consumed hard liquor for the whole of the first half of '08.

- Changed my hairstyle. Unintentionally, I might add. I have not had long, straight, layered hair for so long that it felt a little weird at first, but ah well.....hair is just hair =P

- Got a little bored of shopping. Didn't buy anything at all.

- Grew fatter *sobz*

- Lost touch with quite a lot of people, unintentionally too! I'll be back in touch soon ;)

- Booked my tickets to Jkt. See you all soon!!

- Had the most unhappening summer, contrary to hpy's popular belief =P But in so many ways, it was also a fantastic summer, filled with plenty of bumming and zero emo moments.

Relief #2

Relieved that exams are done with and passed!

My loonnnggg holiday of bumming and doing nothing starts properly right now

:)

Could nvr have done this alone.

Thank Youuuuu!