On Waiting

“Wherever you go, whatever you do
I will be right here waiting for you …” Right Here Waiting, Richard Marx

Maybe this is a spillover from my previous post on aiming for a star.

I was just replying on one of the comments using an analogy of buying shoes, and I thought I might want to explain that further.  About a 2-3 months ago I saw this pair of really nice shoes at Charles & Keith, and I fell in love with them. Yet I didn’t buy them on the spot, as I normally would with other shoes. Sure, the price played a part in my decision, but mainly it was practicality issue and there was this gut feeling in me that told me I shouldn’t get it. So I decided to let Fate decide; the plan was to wait for the pair of shoes to go on sale and I would buy them. In these couple of months of waiting, I will drop by the shop then and again just to ogle at that pair of shoes. Just a week ago, the shoe went on 20% discount. Did I buy it? I didn’t. I asked for the shoes in my size, and they just didn’t fit right (although they did when I tried it the first time round 3 months ago). But it wasn’t something that cannot be fixed with some insoles or paddings. Yet, when I looked at the pair of shoes on my feet,  I didn’t feel right; somehow, I don’t like them anymore.

Was it because I waited too long? Or was it because when something was finally mine, I stop coveting and hence I stop all good feelings about it?

Yet I’m nothing but bloody good at waiting. If I were desperate enough, I would join the long queues for donuts or Playstations just to get paid by rich kids who can’t be bothered to waste their lives away in a line.
I seem to be always waiting; at the bus stop, at the traffic light (I, unlike disgusting people out there, do not jaywalk), for the lift, for latecomer friends, for unfulfilled promises, and for nevercame love. I’m so used to waiting sometimes I have to costantly remind myself to live for the present. So I started making blitz decisions to make myself stop hesitating. I started to learn to make decisions I can live with and to convince myself I will not and cannot have regrets. Really?

The tagline of the upcoming Singaporean movie The Leap Year read “will you wait 12 years for the same man?” I might, if it was a promise on my part, or if I know that man is worth it all. Then again, how can I say with any ounce of certainty the one I wait for will wait for me? Or how can I even foolishly want to honour a promise that spans 12 years without any guarantee of a good outcome? Most importantly of all, how will I know he’s worth it? Maybe some of you romantics might say if the love is strong enough to make me overlook these uncertainties, then I should go for it. Really?

And I guess another reason I might choose to wait is that if at the end of 12 years it all turns to naught, I would have wasted 12 years of my life but if I didn’t choose to wait, I might have to spend the rest of my life entertaining the eternal question “what if it was meant to be?” and never move on. Which would you choose? To have your hopeful heart terribly broken at the end of 12 years, or to have that heart freeze and die without any hope?

Strangely, what an emo night I’m having.

Where’s my star?

I was told by a friend to “aim for the stars but not neglect the moon” when it comes to choosing a life partner. And that perhaps eventually I’d find the “moon” better than the “star”.

Really? Is that how it works now? Settling for second bests and hope it works out?

Strange isn’t it. If we’re not all eventually going to get what we want in life, and we jolly well know that,  then what purpose does an aim serve? So that we can land the second best possible outcome? So we should always aim high knowing we can’t achieve that and in fact we’ll be content with whatever is one notch lower?  Or maybe we’ve become so good at rationalizing ourselves we wouldn’t even notice that we’ve landed something that isn’t exactly on our list of desires.

You know …

I would rather die early than to have to believe in all  those stupid unjustified urban legends that people try to impose on us through emails.

(And hence please stop forwarding emails of any inconsequential nature - urban legends, chain emails, goodwill emails, jokes, stories - thinking that I’ll be marginally interested in the content because seriously, don’t impose your taste in reading material on me.)

10×10 challenge

From The Ink:

Generate ten random words and link those words together using no more than 100 words, I’ve called it the 10×10 challenge.

Here are my ten words :semantics, friendship, sauce, approves, poetic, dire, automated, sells, draining, peer

I sit in my draining semantics class and peer out the window. I look at the automated vending machine that everyone approves of and wonder if it sells friendship because the dire state of my social life is nothing poetic, only pathetic. But then again, isn’t friendship just like the dipping sauce of life; it is not terribly consequential? (59 words)

Well, obviously that is not true. Sure my semantics class is draining but there is no vending machine outside my class, nor do I think my social life is pathetic.

Mid-term Wrap-up (Sem 2 07/08)

Another post to take stock of what I have on my hands:

Have done:

1. 2 take-home exercises for CL2102
2. EL4204 Pragmatics open-book quiz (got 17/20. Oh well)
3. Submitted group research project proposal/abstract for EL3251
4. Gave a crappy 5-minute presentation for said abstract
5. 1 open-book quiz for CL2102

(What a pathetic amount of things done by Week 6 this semester compared to the last!)
Upcoming (where the crap kicks in):

1. 400-word proposal for GEK1036 term paper (TP) due 6th March
2. EL3251 mid-term examination (yes, same format at the actual examination) 6th March
3. EL3880A mid-term quiz (cheat sheet allowed) 7th March
4. 1000-word group literature review for EL3206 due 18th March
5. 3-article literature review forGEK1036 TP due 20th March
6. EL3206 Psycholinguistics tutorial game-show on 20th March
7. 5000-word GEK1036 TP due 21st April
8. TP presentation for GEK1036 (either 10th or 17th April)
9. 8-page EL3251 group research project due 3rd April
10. Group presentation for EL3251 project (either 20th or 27th Mar)
11. 2800-word individual research paper for EL4204 due 28th March
12. Individual presentation forEL4204 research paper on 17th March
13. Group presentation of an article for EL4204 on 24th March
14. 1000-word EL3206 project due on X date (have to go find out)
15. 2500-word paper for CL2102 due X date in CHINESE (topic undisclosed yet!)

I’m beginning to see how screwed up my life for the next 7 weeks will be.

Can you really see?

I know you can see
the beauty of the blossoms in the park
the colours of the rainbow in the sky
the litheness of the willow in the wind
the radiance of the sunshine in the day.

and perhaps you can see
the pressure of the brush strokes in the art
the clauses of the pages in the prose
the capture of the queen piece in the game
the wielding of the sword blade in the fight.

but can you really see
the flutter of the eyelash in your view
the rosy of the blushing in her face
the wringing of the skirt hems in her hands
the beauty of the spirit in her self?

With Love and Irony, Lin Yutang

(Couldn’t find a book cover!)

Synopsis: With Love and Irony is a prized collection for all readers of Lin Yutang’s writing. First published in 1934, it contains succinct and deliciously pungent pieces most native to his genius: wise, fearless and unaffected commentary delivered with sparkling humour. The articles are highly varied, ranging from humorous observations on aspects of daily life to the witty and fascinating insight of the social and political scene at that time. The reader of the 21st century will be amazed that much of his observations recorded in the 1930’s are still valid and relevant today. The same cultural issues addressed by him then are still pertinent to the understanding of present-day China and her relationship with the international powers. Undoubtedly, this is one rare Chinese writer in the last century who was clearly ahead of his time.

I LOVE THIS BOOK, and I think anybody interested in cross-cultural pragmatics and communication will be too. He brings to light the many differences between the Chinese culture and other cultures it comes into contact with. Lin’s acute observations leave me either nodding with total agreement or laughing with joy. This book is very inspiring to the cross-cultural Pragmatician in me; each article I read I get a new topic to base my term paper on. Anyway, some quotes I need to share:

“A cocktail party [in America] is also an institution where you learn simultaneously to wave your hand to someone across the room on your right, smile a greeting to someone on your left, and manage to say, “oh yeah?” to the lady in front, with whom you are supposed to be engaged in a philosophic conversation.” — Pg 28

“Now I have had many conversations with these [Chinese] gentlemen. Invariably, the more educated my interlocutors was, the longer we had to bandy about compliments and beat about the bush.” — Pg 140

“Among other aspects of Chinese literature, we have very few taboos in Chinese, for we are so in love with earthly life that we regard nothing as too low or trivial to go into poetry. Take for instance the verse that I saw once on the wall of a Hangchow restaurant:

‘The bamboo shoots are fresh and I find my rice-bowl too small; the fish is delicious and my intestines are broadened with wine.’
What American poet would dare to incorporate ham and sweet potatoes into his verse or sing about the condition of his alimentary canal?” — Pg 247

Oh man. I love these lines (among others that were too long for me to post up here.) They explain everything, don’t they. Why the East-West dialectic has perpetuated and how tormented first-generation immigrants to San Fran must have been. This book rocks! One of the best I have read this year (so far, 13 other books). I’m seeing some kindling passion for cross-cultural pragmatics. Anyone?

The Book of Lost Things

Synopsis: High in his attic bedroom, twelve-year-old David mourns the loss of his mother. He is angry and he is alone, with only the books on his shelf for company. But those books have begun to whisper to him in the darkness, and as he takes refuge in the myths and fairytales so beloved by his dead mother he finds that the real world and fantasy world have begun to meld. The Crooked Man has come, with his mocking smile and his enigmatic words: “Welcome your majesty. All hail the new king.” And as war rages across Europe, David is violently propelled into a land that is both a construct of his imagination yet frighteningly real, a strange reflection of his own world composed of myths and stories, populated by wolves and worse-than-wolves, and ruled over by a faded king who keeps his secrets in a mysterious book … the Book of Lost Things. An imginative tribute to the journey we must all make through the loss of innocence into adulthood, John Connolly’s latest novel is a book for every adult who can recall the moment when childhood began to fade, and for every child about to face that moment. It is a story of hope for all who have lost and all who have yet to lose. It is an exhilarating tale of grief and loss, loyalty and love, and most poignantly, the enduring power of stories in our lives.

I like this book, but I just feel something lacking in it. I didn’t like the ending because it felt so cliche. But I do love the device of reformulating well-known fairytales to subvert childhood naivety of “happily ever after”. That bit I liked, but I didn’t like the main plot at all. Sure, the protagonist is a child, but he is not child-like at all. There isn’t any “growing up” as the synopsis suggested; I felt it was more like being pushed by fate from one corner to another that he was forced to do certain seemingly adult-like things that really is what a child perceives to be “adult”. Sure, he learnt to love his brother, but so? It’s just a little realization that doesn’t quite live up to my expectations.

(PS: Ack. I’m just pretty knackered from school and I’m blogging about this book that I read a week ago. Sigh. I promise to blog on time the next time round.)

I was so touched on Valentine’s Day …

(backdated post, I know)

because I saw subject-verb agreement on a graffiti on a bus.

It’s so heartening to see grammatical young people after all.

(And since this was a graffiti placed on a public transport, I don’t see why I can’t take a picture of it and place it on the net, since it’s technically public domain information. Technically.)

In-operation?

I saw this sign in the university a couple days ago and I went “What?! Right under the noses of the grammar sticklers in Arts?!” 

Seriously, someone explain to me the function of the hyphen in this case. Is it some norm I do not know about?

PS: The sign has been removed today, although the traffic lights are still not functioning. I wonder why.