Love just is.
Was in Chicago over the weekend for Citylights. It was an interesting weekend: almost died laughing at Hossen Leong's jokes and his legendary Sang Nila Utama song, got stuck in Midway Airport for 4 hours because of legendary American midwest snowstorms (though got back $100 travel voucher for that and my delayed + almost misplaced checked bag :D), had an eye-opening experience regarding the potential of *amusing acts* overseas Singaporeans can be up to, and realised how atypically nerdy JHU Singaporeans are. And got back (free) chilli sauce and fried rice sauce from Yeos.
Haha well, I don't deny that I am a nerd. I don't get drunk; I don't flirt with girls; I don't force people to dance with me (which I cannot do at all anyway) and because of that instigated *hatred* in someone else unknowingly.
In fact I really dislike every one of the above three. I rather spend time writing nonsense here, writing nonsense to newspapers and writing nonsense to journals than to do all those.
I know I sound really condescending but I still have to say this. If you want people to respect you, you must respect yourself. Mutual respect is the basis of all forms of relationship! I rather be over-cautious than to be over-casual.
And it is very interesting to note that it is considered INAPPROPRIATE to just stand around and watch people getting drunk and flirt with girls without joining in. Why would that be the case? Simple logic, but I think I should save the answer. Oh well.
One more thing:
How very true: Love changes everything
(Sarah Brightman). And how potentially it can whack a person lateral medial cranial caudal dorsal ventral. You choose to live or perish in its flame: just try your best not to choose the road to condemnation. Yet again, that is subjective. Well, argh, just don't do it.
And moral of the story:
Don't speak against your heart. Let down guard, be open about it, let the other party involved to be the FIRST one to know about it, and then go whichever direction both of you deem fit. A lie is needed to cover another, and it will accumulate so much such that in order to break the chain the stake would be too high for you to bear. In the end, you can't even be friends, cannot act when you need to, and you will feel like beating up people. Most importantly, problem for yourself comes when UNRELATED people (i.e. a mob, etc,; brother sister good friends not counted) are involved before anything conclusive firmly establishes; you will have MUCH LESS room for yourself. Never let that happen.
Might not be the best solution, might still have a lot of weird unpredictable consequences, but oh well, can anyone think of anything better?!
Anyways, was working on my anthropology paper.
Title: Do you think that culture shapes emotions such as love?
My whole brain is filled with all kinds of weird theories because of this. Tried my best to put everything together; should be pretty successful though.
And people ask me what 'love just is' mean. Well, it's from here:
There's a song in Hindi ... [Love is not created, love just is.] ... Love can't be created, ... [I]t happens by itself ... Now, really, that's how it happened with me.
Laura M. Ahearn: Invitation to Love: Literacy, Love Letters and Social Change in Nepal, Ch. 7, pp.150
Labels: Relationships
Yayy!
Done with the week's work! :D and mid-term over! Left with 1 response paper due next wed and routine work. Only the coming weekend will be a bit more slack though. The week before spring break is going to be pretty bad again.
Hence, time to get out of town :D and anyway, has kind of decided not to go anywhere for spring break, unless anyone is interested in going to New York or DC or Philadelphia or Virginia or anywhere near for a day or two. I kind of need that week to do *quite a bit of* reading for my research proposals, for lab and history class. I might need to start reading and writing on some policy-related stuff too. Oh well...
Before Chicago.
When things start to break down, they always break down together all at one go. First it is the bulb in the exhaust hood, now my bathroom is leaking. Waiting for the third one to come.
Things to be done before Chicago:
1. 10-source bibliography. Due Wed.
2. Book review revision. Due Wed.
3. The Triple-helix general meeting. Wed evening. Let me email the guy first.
4. Organic Chem mid-term. Thursday.
5. Sort out my lab notes. ASAP.
6. Ask Brian what is p10! I know what is Akt/PKB, roughly what role it plays, but can't even find what is p10 on Pubmed. Weird.
I am now surviving on coffee/tea 300ml q.d.s.. Very soon I will need IV aminophylline 100mg stat before every lecture. Obviously I am watching too much House :P
That's why I need to go to Chicago; I will still need to read stuff on the plane. Oh well...
The good thing is, tomorrow we're doing lab 5 for cell bio already. Which means, almost halfway through :) :) :)
Happy Chinese New Year!
This poem is dedicated to everyone currently away from home. Wish everyone a smooth-sailing year ahead! 心想事成, 萬事如意!
次北固山下王灣
客路青山外，行舟綠水前。潮平兩岸闊，風正一帆懸。
海日生殘夜，江春入舊年。鄉書何處達，歸雁洛陽邊。
And, I definitely have to post this song. It is just, too, beautiful...
如果 . 愛張學友
每個人 都想明白
誰是自己生命不該錯過的真愛
特別在午夜醒來更是會感慨
心動埋怨還有不能釋懷
都是因為你觸碰了愛
如果這就是愛
在轉身就該勇敢留下來
就算受傷
就算流淚
都是生命裏溫柔灌溉
哦愛 ~
在回憶裏總是那麼明白
困惑的心流過的淚
還有數不盡黑夜等待
如果這就是愛
如果你 當時明白
後來的生命裏是快樂還是悲哀
特別在夜深人靜時想起未來
是否能平靜不會像現在
只是因為你擁有了愛
如果這就是愛
在轉身就該勇敢留下來
就算受傷
就算流淚
都是生命裏溫柔灌溉
哦愛 ~
在回憶裏總是那麼明白
困惑的心流過的淚
還有數不盡黑夜等待
如果這就是愛
如果這就是愛
:)
白鷺鷥 李白
白鷺下秋水，孤飛如墜霜；心閒且未去，獨立沙洲旁。
(As you can see, I am very chilled :P)
Woo-hoo!
No school today! JHU cancelled classes for the whole day because of snow. I will still go down to the lab later though, as it really not that bad... Though there is some accumulation on the ground which made it difficult to walk/drive on.
Haha and I finished all those heavy duty work for this week! Cell bio midterm was over, submitted lab report yesterday, and submitted a response paper and 2 book review outlines today. So I'm left with routine work! Though, things will begin to pile up over these 2 days and I'll have to start clearing them and revising for midterm again over the weekend. Oh well.
Since today is Valentine's Day, it means I am officially off my probation plate! Though I have probably drove only 200km in total since I got my license, but I AM OFF MY PROBATION PLATE. :D
I have decided to go to Chicago for Citylights next weekend. And more importantly talk some crap with GCS and others. Will book tickets later, now I've to make lunch...
Update.
Alright, cell bio is fine. I will reward myself with one packet of those precious noodles Aunt Bonnie sent me later in the morning.
Now, time to get some sleep...
Blog Style.
> Yan: If you are still having problems, scroll all the way down and there is a tiny link "Revert to Old Template". The new template screwed up my layout completely, conveniently removed all my added features, made my link-box extremely ugly, and used a code which I have no knowledge of (well, whatever I paste into the code page doesn't work, and I don't know what's wrong). So I reverted.
Haha and I found this site yesterday! Fantastic fantastic fantastic! Their collections of CDs and DVDs are very up-to-date and complete, and it's not considered very expensive by US standard. I expect myself to be buying quite a bit of stuff from there as I always make it a point not to download things that I like :P
Based in the US and Canada, but available globally too:
YesAsia.com (USA, Chinese)YesAsia.com (USA, English)Also available at these places!Cell Bio? I just found out that I docked probably 5 points at least. Well, for this test, either I have done really well, or I screwed up really badly. I hate tests which have MCQs that worth 3 points each and an 8-point question asking you for only 2 circles and 3 words. :I :I :I Maybe I am still too used to the HC bio style of answering questions...
!! :P
Ch.8 Drama: The Peak最高点Well, this is NOT good. Anyway, thanks sis for letting me know, after being jeered at with comments like 'How's 晓阳哥哥?' from her friends who know me, emphasising on the 哥哥 part, and then figured out that, to her horror (yeah it better be horror), the character in the show called 晓阳 is played by Jeanette Aw...
(First it is
Yang Yang Bakery, now this. I should seriously consider applying copyright for my name, and charge these people for advertising for them on my blog.)
Work, work and more work.
I don't really use my iPod outside except when I am on planes or trains mainly because I don't fancy having to take out and keep it all the time. And it freaks me out when I can't see/hear things happening around me :P Though NY is even more paranoid...
YahooNews: New York may ban iPods while crossing streetWas telling Vera, there is so much work that, once I switched on my computer, I have absolutely no will to do anything constructive.
Just declined the ski trip to save myself from inevitable demise. And since no one I know seems to be interested in the CNY dinner, so I guess I have to do something so that my life won't just be school, lab, work, and computer :(
Yup and will be attending Singapore Embassy's annual CNY dinner 1 March. Something to look forward to! :)
I was pretty surprised that I can understand perfectly the papers I was supposed to read and the project (more or less) my post-doc is doing. Tried my hands with the mice that we would be working on today... Basically getting embryos from pregnant female mice and trimming tissues that we need from there. My post-doc says that I would be doing it pretty often when I start on my project eventually. Guess it will become something like setting IV plug soon?
Yeah and it snowed pretty much Tuesday night, so finally got to take some pictures of Hopkins in winter. I only got to take them at around 11am Wed, because I was rushing to class in the morning, and the snow was already 30% gone by then. Well, good enough :P check them out in my
photo journal...
Cousins!
Sis, Malvis, Kevin, Conald, and Dad!
Hahahaha I am immensely amused by this photo my sis placed in her blog (sorry for stealing :P). Look at my dad's expression :D :D :D I can imagine how absolutely happy he will be when he finally becomes a grandfather (to dad: sorry hor you can continue rehearsing as I don't think that will happen anytime in the foreseeable future unless something strange happens to my sis or me which I don't think will be anything you want).
P.S. Argh work is just simply unfinishable. And spent almost the whole night out somemore. Goodness this is going to be rough...
Principles.
Just had a rather unsettling discussion with GCS earlier in the evening, which prompted me to dig this file up and post it. Was written not too long ago; I believe some of my fundamental principles are somehow subtly addressed in this seemingly unrelated post.
Should we allow commercial trading of human organs?I don't know how the recent hype about commercial trading of organs came about. Though this reminded me of something which disturbed me quite a bit.
About a year ago I went to Thailand with my parents. When we are at Pattaya, as arranged by our tour guide, we watched the famed 'Thai-girl' show for the first time.
I won't elaborate how the show was like here; it is, just, simply, explicit. Well, I won't deny that it could be entertaining. However, after the show, I told myself I will never go back to watch similar things again. And I will encourage nobody to go.
It cannot be an art (although it is so claimed). Really.
The experience gave me the feeling that, us, as audience, were basically culprits of human exploitation. Though not directly, our curiosity generated demands for such to be put up, and hence these shows were put together by the direct exploitors to satisfy us. We are definitely the most important part of this sin committed against some other fellow citizens of the world.
My way of looking at it is, well, these girls who were featured in the show are definitely those who came from the lower classes of society, who received little or no education, who are not aware of what is happening around them, and who are certainly unable to make a better living via means familiar to us because of ignorance and illiteracy. Hence, when such organisations approached them, offering them better standards of living for selling their dignity, they either have no choice but to accept, or because of ignorance or out of their desire to make a better living with relative ease accepted the offer with glee. Then, people like us flock to Thailand and pay the organisation (most probably illegitimate) thousands to watch the show, further encouraging such acivities.
If such a cycle does not exist, these girls could have found some other ways to make a better living (sell food, for example, or be maids, or factory workers). They might not earn as much (in fact I doubt they gain anything substantial from these shows), but at least they live a life a human should.
We are all created as equal. That's why I am so pissed when I read about that RJC blogger's comments on a fellow Singaporean last year. So what if you are more able; you still treat everyone else with respect!
However, a friend looked at this from another angle.
He told me something to the effect of 'the existence of such clans are actually beneficial to the lower class'. The economic condition of the country, the level of intellect and the level of education these girls possess would not allow them to have any other alternative to lead a better live. They have two choices: be part of the clan and entertain us, or live a hard live forever. The clan is actually helping them to get out of the vicious circle.
Another important claim: since the girls are willing, we cannot say anything about that. We cannot judge their situation with our perspecive; such is considered condescending because we are way higher on the economic and social ladder.
That is a saddening reality. Even in the issue of organ trading, we face the same problem: the rich needs the organ, the poor needs the money; they both get what they want, and the middleman gets his commission. Win-win-win situation; it makes complete economic sense.
But it is still wrong. It is just wrong. This is, well, exploitation. Exploitation of the poor's need to feed his family; exploitation of his desire to live a better life; exploitation of his need to get out of the poverty cycle. In exchange for his dignity as a human being.
In the poor's point of view, my stand could be utter nonsense. What dignity am I talking about, when he can't even live a decent life? And what am I preaching to bar him from the chance to make a better living? What right do I have to do it?
No, I have not. I am living such a comfortable life now. But why is the poor asking all these questions? In fact, he should not have to: if there isn't such a wide gap between the rich and the poor; if there isn't such an imbalance of oppourtunities between different classes of society.
Tolerating 'Thai-girl' shows to exist and allowing commercial trading of organs is an easy way out. A cowardice, shameful easy way out. I do not believe that there is no other way to meet both the needs of the rich and the poor; it just require some willingness to commit from the higher levels of society, some determination to act, some form of sacrifice from both parties, some sense of humanity, and some respect for other fellow human beings.
Do not let utilitarian considerations and needs completely obscure our souls! There are things fundamental to human life that are worth defending.
Things.
Just came back from my interview with the PI of the lab that I'll be working in. Will be starting work officially next Wednesday, and it sounds like I should be able to get all the support possible should I want to do a project and write a paper on my own. I'll see whether I can be that good :P
And it sounds like I will be learning how to operate on mice! :D
By the way:
This was outside the library yesterday. I have no idea where all those people got the snow from; though yes it was snowing extremely lightly the night before...
And this is what you get when you are eating goldfish and reading stuff at the same time at 12am. You will start to realise that some goldfish has an eye and a mouth while the others don't, and you will pick out those with an eye and a mouth and take a photo of them. Oh well...
