My Immortal


I'm so tired of being here
Suppressed by all my childish fears
And if you have to leave
I wish that you would just leave
'Cause your presence still lingers here
And it won't leave me alone

These wounds won't seem to heal
This pain is just too real
There's just too much that time cannot erase

When you cried I'd wipe away all of your tears
When you'd scream I'd fight away all of your fears
And I held your hand through all of these years
But you still have
All of me

You used to captivate me
By your resonating mind
Now I'm bound by the life you've left behind
Your face it haunts
My once pleasant dreams
Your voice it chased away
All the sanity in me

These wounds won't seem to heal
This pain is just too real
There's just too much that time cannot erase

When you cried I'd wipe away all of your tears
When you'd scream I'd fight away all of your fears
And I held your hand through all of these years
But you still have
All of me

I've tried so hard to tell myself that you're gone
But though you're still with me
I've been alone all along

evanescence

Battle of the Sexes

So what am I not supposed to have an opinion

Should I be quiet just because I'm a woman

Call me a bitch cos I speak what's on my mind

Guess it's easier for you to swallow if I sat and smiled

When a female fires back

Suddenly big talker don't know how to act

So he does what any little boy will do

Making up a few false rumors or two

That for sure is not a man to me

Slanderin' names for popularity

It's sad you only get your fame through controversy

But now it's time for me to come and give you more to say

This is for my girls all around the world

Who've come across a man who don't respect your worth

Thinking all women should be seen, not heard

So what do we do girls?

Shout out loud!

Letting them know we're gonna stand our ground

Lift your hands high and wave them proud

Take a deep breath and say it loud

Never can, never will, can't hold us down

Nobody can hold us down

Nobody can hold us down

Nobody can hold us down

Never can, never will

So what am I not supposed to say what I'm saying

Are you offended by the message I'm bringing

Call me whatever cos your words don't mean a thing

Guess you ain't even a man enough to handle what I sing

If you look back in history

It's a common double standard of society

The guy gets all the glory the more he can score

While the girl can do the same and yet you call her a whore

I don't understand why it's okay

The guy can get away with it & the girl gets named

All my ladies come together and make a changeS

tart a new beginning for us everybody sing

This is for my girls all around the world

Who've come across a man who don't respect your worth

Thinking all women should be seen, not heard

What do we do girls?

Shout out loud!

Letting them know we're gonna stand our ground

Lift your hands high and wave 'em proud

Take a deep breath and say it loud

Never can, never will, can't hold us down

Here's something I just can't understand

If the guy have three girls then he's the man

He can either give us some head, sex her off

If the girl do the same, then she's a whore

But the table's about to turn

I'll bet my fame on it

Cats take my ideas and put their name on it

It's alright though, you can't hold me down

I got to keep on movin'

To all my girls with a man who be tryin to mack

Do it right back to him and let that be that

You need to let him know that his game is whack

And Lil' Kim and Christina Aguilera got your back

But you're just a little boy

Think you're so cute, so coy

You must talk so big

To make up for smaller things

So you're just a little boy

All you'll do is annoy

You must talk so big

To make up for smaller things

This is for my girls...

This is for my girls all around the world

Who've come across a man who don't respect your worth

Thinking all women should be seen, not heard

So what do we do girls?

Should out loud!

Letting them know we're gonna stand our ground

Lift your hands high and wave 'em proud

Take a deep breath and say it loud

Never can, never will, can't hold us down

Christina Aguilera

I'm all for the sentiment but I wish that the cause is more than about having sex.... I wish women get more respect and respect themselves more. This kind of fire is good but if it is directed towards female emancipation and ensure that no woman will ever be abused mentally, physically and verbally ever again. That we will be given credit where credit is due and not having to work doubly hard just to obtain the same stature and esteem as men do. When I see a woman in position of power, I know that she has to prove that she is better than any man for that position.

I have heard with my own ears how some of the senior management at my little university dismiss the candidature of a woman for a prominent position simply because she's a woman. The reason, "It's going to be awkward and difficult for us. She'll go on maternity leave and where will that leave us?" This coming from the leader of an organization??!! How very enlightened of them!.

Before this I was the only coordinator at the centre so I took care of both research and coursework. A few months back, a man was appointed to coordinate the coursework and my boss was happy at least he has another man. So months have passed, who performs better? The man or the woman?

Let me give you a hint, a pair of balls doesn't ensure intelligence. Enough said.

Hope and Expectation

The bright sword sharp and keen
Carrying you through your darkest hours
Lifting your spirit with faith and courage
In an instant, cuts you to the core

Life without hope is futile
Life without expectation is pointless
But what if your hope is dashed
And your expectation is thwarted

Will you pick up the pieces
And put together a semblance of hope?
Will you gather up your expectation
And hold it up for the world to see?

Or will you quietly brush them aside
And nurse the wound in your heart
Forsaking the coming hurt

Choosing instead solitude

Crystalline Knowledge

Crystal

Do you always trust your first initial feeling

Special knowledge holds truth bears believing

I turned around

And the water was closing all around

Like a glove

Like the love that had finally, finally found me

Then I knew

In the crystalline knowledge of you

Drove me thru the mountains

Thru the crystal-like clear water fountain

Drove me like a magnet

To the sea

How the faces of love have changed turning the pages

And I have changed oh, but you...you remain ageless

I turned around

And the water was closing all around

Like a glove

Like the love that had finally, finally found me

Then I knew

In the crystalline knowledge of you

Drove me thru the mountains

Thru the crystal-like clear water fountain

Drove me like a magnet

To the sea

Stevie Nicks

My friends told me hillarious stories that they gave permission to include in this blog. As I am sitting here, it dawns on me that I can't use them. The reason? Because they are not mine to tell. They were funny as hell but it didn't resound to me so that I can make it my own. By taking them and trying to make them my own, I'd be losing my voice, I feel. There will be stories from my friends which will end up in this page but they would have to ring a bell in me.

Heck, all the song lyrics and poems I've appropriated have all come from somewhere as they aren't really mine. But they spoke to me. They mean something to me and whether I can fully explain the connections of the various texts and what they symbolize to me, are another story but somehow I've made them mine and my interaction with the texts has made mine. They might mean something to someone else. There's a literary theory which for the life of me I cannot recall.

What does 'Crystal' mean to me? It puts to words what I feel. Feelings that I cannot put into words like she can. It's how I feel about certain situation or certain people. It might not all fit one person or one situation completely. I know how it feels like when she sings "I turned around/ And the water was closing all around/ Like a glove/ Like the love that had finally, finally found me." When something is definitely right, and you didn't expect it to be so, don't you just feel it in your very bones? The knowledge of it being right submerges and immerse you completely that there is no room for doubt. But then my way of saying it isn't as beautiful as hers. But the truth in the lines speaks so clearly to me and when that happens it's like deja vu. "I know that!! That's how I feel when such and such happen."

The very phrase "crystall ine knowledge" itself resounds in me. There are things that you just know. They don't come like lightning-- they come like something you discover within you. Rather like the Jungian universal consciousness and archetypes. It's already there, in you, just waiting for the right moment for you to discover it. If you bothered to, that is.

I'll be the first person to own up to the fact that there are so many things that I don't know. I feel that I'm surrounded by people who know more than me. I cannot quote you lines, or from books, or this theory or that theory. I can't remember hard and fast fact to save my life, like how to convert Farenheit to Celcius but I know that I'm intuitive. I read people rather well. I can tell by looking at someone if s/he can or cannot accept certain depth in their conversations with me.

I guess that's why I have many different groups of acquaintances/friends. If you talk to different groups, you will find that they regard me and what I mean to them or what I know differently. I have a group of friend with whom I'm the foremost authority of hair and make-up. There's another group who thinks that I'm a hardcore feminist. The list goes on and on. I'm not being a hypocrite. I am a feminist who knows her blusher from her lipgloss as well as her. I'm all that and more.

However, due to lack of time or inclination on my part or that I think that they cannot handle more than that, that's all they see of me. It's not always my decision either to say "Ok, she can't handle philosophy" or "Oh, I can talk about anything with her", people generally make the choice themselves. They choose what they want to hear and all you can do is go with the flow. A conversation is always about testing the water. At least with me, it is.

The first rule of conversation is about making the other person comfortable. Even if your passion is Antartica, you don't bend the other person's ear about Antartica when s/he is clearly glazed over and glassy-eyed about the subject. You find some common ground then you can have a conversation that lasts more than two minutes.

In conversations you can figure out the other person. What they are or aren't is revealed when they open their mouths. You can tell so much about a person just by paying attention and this is the communication strategy/skills that most people lack. You can tell if the person is widely read, observant, insightful or not in a conversation. Since Malaysians are not the world most avid readers, I find myself surrounded by idiots on regular basis. Snobbish of me probably but there you go. Someone wise once said, and he's famous too, just I can't recall his name, "It's better to keep your mouth shut and be thought a fool than open your mouth and remove all doubts."

I probably am removing all doubt even as I'm typing this.

Peace!

Nostalgia and Melancholia

Today has been a rather emotional day. Actually it has been a rather emotional week, but it especially in class. It started for real last night when I was appointed the judge of the “Battle of the Band” competition organized in conjunction with the 2nd convocation of my little university.

Last Friday, my future boss texted me saying that the offer letter for the new job was being couriered that day. I have been wrestling with the choices; do I want to take the job or stay where I am. I’ve known for weeks that I was the successful applicant for the job and the other two internal applicants just froze and failed the interview. I got the job fair and square. And as we, at the university, are restructuring my department, I saw that there is no future for great things for me at this place as one of the experts who was a deputy vice chancellor of academic at one of the established universities in Malaysia confirmed our suspicions of our insignificance to the overall grand scheme of things. As he put it, teachers of English at a technical university are “second class citizens”. They need us but we are to insignificant for them to invest a lot in. Their principle is, “ What do you need a higher degree for if you’re just teaching English. What’s so hard about teaching ‘is, are, was, were, am’?”

We are stuck doing the same thing year in year out with no prospect of expansion in term of subject matter or career development. Anyway, at that, I made up my mind to accept the offer to go into the industry as a communication and event manager at the research and development division of an oil and gas company.

Ever since I made that decision, I have emotionally disengaging myself from my current organization. Basically, nothing fazed me, I didn’t get annoyed even when I was dealing with the most idiotic people or irritating situations. Even the immigration people made me smile when usually every time I paid them a visit, I’d go to my boss and whine at how much I hate dealing with them and that I don’t want to deal with them ever again, only to do so again the very next day. And my boss would murmur comforting nonsense and send me back to deal with the same nonsense the next day.

I have 5 teaching hours every week along with my administrative duties and I have been looking at them as necessary evil for about a year now as I hate what I have to teach and I hate that I have to teach. I like being an administrator and teaching Technical Communication felt wrong when in my heart I know that what they need is Basic Proficiency English. I felt like I was shortchanging them by giving them not what they need but what is being prescribed to them regardless of their needs. For me, when I don’t want to teach anymore, it’s time to put down the marker and do something else. However, this week, knowing that I’m leaving, I have been storing up memories and I really put my heart and soul and love into every minute of what I will not have anymore and what has been my first love: teaching. I’ve wanted to be a teacher since I was 8. well, when I was seven, I wanted to be an airline attendant (what was I thinking??!!) or a nurse (I’m glad I didn’t as nurses no longer wear that cute little caps, the reason why I wanted to become a nurse) and I’m glad to say, my love of teaching has made me a good teacher.

My kids are amazing! They are a polite, punctual because I make them sing or do catwalk if they were late and responsive bunch. It’s a crazy big class, 69 people and of which only 5 girls. They are the sweetest things, second year mechanical engineering students who after every class, would tell me sweet things like, “Thank you, miss, for teaching me today” or “ I had a good time in class tonight, miss”, or “You’re so cool, miss” without fail. Come to think of it, maybe I like teaching for its ego-boosting benefits, who knows? J

Even while teaching, I was nostalgic thinking that I will never have this again. The other night, I was teaching citing conventions, one of the most boring things on earth and they were actually enjoying it. I could see the concentration in their eyes, not glassy zombie looks and they came up to the whiteboard without me twisting their arms. I managed to achieve every English teacher’s Holy Grail—lowering their anxiety towards English and getting them to enjoy the lesson when English is normally seen as a killer subject. I just fell in love with the whole bunch of them in that instant.

This weekend is the graduation weekend and I see my students everywhere—graduating, working at organizing projects like the band competition and helping to direct traffic at the graduation ceremony in the midday sun and I was thinking to myself, “If I had anything at all to do into making them the useful, cheerful, responsible people that I see them developing into, I’m truly blessed.”

It’s like God is testing my resolve by showing me everything that I’m going to miss by choosing to take this new job. It’s like He’s asking me, “Are you sure this is what you want? Are you sure you want to leave this?”

I was in the academic procession for both sessions of convocation today and that is another element that I’m giving up. I will no longer be an academician with all the privileges and esteem that go with it, things that have been a great contributor in shaping my self-concept for nine years—possibly more, since I’ve wanted to become a teacher since forever. This will be the last time that I have the rights to don the academic robes and the mortarboard unless I earn my doctorate.

To answer God’s question, I have not changed my mind. I have great love for not the academic world with all its bullshit but for being a teacher and contributing in shaping a young life and trying to make that life at least better than mine by sharing my passions and experiences and hoping that this charge of mine will take what he or she can to make his or hers a meaningful one. I like to think that I’m trying to make the world a better, tolerant place one student at a time. But it is time to look inward and see if I’m staying a teacher because I was afraid of changes and new challenges or because I truly love it. I know exactly what my life would be like if I stay a teacher. What I do not know is what if I choose another road. Will I able to survive? Am I afraid? I hate to think that I’d stop myself from doing something out of fear. As contrary as I am, if that is indeed the reason, I’d turn around and do the very thing I’m afraid of. That is what I like about myself, and if I don’t know anything about myself, that much I know.

Nevertheless, I was overcome by my emotions and it brought tears to my eyes.