It was June I told myself, June that the flowers will bloom, all will end well and I will complete writing my thesis and live happily ever after. Well as a start, flowers don’t bloom in winter, my thesis isn’t due till March 2007, and I can’t live happily ever after when I don’t have a cent in my retirement fund. The targets were unrealistic I have to admit, but I can always use unrealistic targets as a good source of motivation. It works like this; create a pressure cooker to induce unnecessary stress, tap into stress induced to generate motivation for drudgery and at the same time, fairly distribute residual stress to annoy anyone who is somehow connected to me by blood, relationship or proximity.
I came to realise that through reasons unexplainable by biology, there is an inbuilt mechanism in me that dictates my productive output. It is a little like the digital timer I use to turn my column heater on/ off at certain hours of the day. When the off switch is flicked, no matter how much stress is being cumulated through self-infliction, the stress energy gets stored in a certain reservoir resulting in no productive output whatsoever. This mechanism appears to triggered by solar power. I came to this deduction because I notice that when the clock reads between 12pm (which is half hour after I usually wake up) and 6pm, I contribute as much to my academic endeavors as the soft-shell turtle’s contribute to a nation’s GDP (I don’t know what that means, but I always wanted to use ‘soft-shell turtle’ in an analogy). However, when the clock hits 6pm and the sun has set, a certain enigmatic force which has a certain resemblance to mom’s voice whispering in my ear if I have done my homework (think they call it guilt), will release a surge of impulse to write at least two whole paragraphs of my thesis. Quite uncanny really. But I musts say that this sudden rush of mental force can be quite draining, thus leaving me often with no choice but to retreat to my living room not long after to watch a DVD, preferably Stephen Chow, or watch the World Cup, or write a blog entry.
At this rate, think I’ll finish my thesis at the end of the World Cup, in South Africa.
Tuesday, June 20, 2006
Friday, June 09, 2006
The Story With World Cup
It is 10:40pm on a Friday evening and I’m sitting in my office typing an entry on my blog. It doesn’t really bother me that much, although I must admit that it used to. Not doing anything eventful used to feel like being robbed and an embarrassing occurrence that I need to hide from. I guess given the life I’m leading now, weekends is just a schematic conception, as everyday, if I chooses can be a long weekend.
It is the world cup again. The world cup is something quite special for me, as it is three world cups ago that I found my passion for football (that’s FOOTBALL not soccer) and found a very special friend whom I still call buddy till today. It was really strange, this bloke in class whom I didn’t think much of save his smelly T-shirt, became my best of friends just because I was so desperate to find someone to bet with. A phone call to a stranger whom I never once said hi to despite spending two years in the same class, and suddenly he became my witness in my journey through life. Since I’m talking about him, I should just drop him a line…… …..
…… …. poor fella, I woke him up in the middle of his slumber. He is prepping himself to watch the first game. Years have past us by and I do feel sorry that he is now a working man and needs to catch up with sleep after spending hours earning his money (a concept still rather foreign to me). I do wish that the clock will turn back to the days where we didn’t need to think beyond what happens after the school bell rings, yet I take a lot of pride and comfort that friendships like this just don’t change. Little thoughts like these make feel like a blessed man.
It is the world cup again. The world cup is something quite special for me, as it is three world cups ago that I found my passion for football (that’s FOOTBALL not soccer) and found a very special friend whom I still call buddy till today. It was really strange, this bloke in class whom I didn’t think much of save his smelly T-shirt, became my best of friends just because I was so desperate to find someone to bet with. A phone call to a stranger whom I never once said hi to despite spending two years in the same class, and suddenly he became my witness in my journey through life. Since I’m talking about him, I should just drop him a line…… …..
…… …. poor fella, I woke him up in the middle of his slumber. He is prepping himself to watch the first game. Years have past us by and I do feel sorry that he is now a working man and needs to catch up with sleep after spending hours earning his money (a concept still rather foreign to me). I do wish that the clock will turn back to the days where we didn’t need to think beyond what happens after the school bell rings, yet I take a lot of pride and comfort that friendships like this just don’t change. Little thoughts like these make feel like a blessed man.
Monday, June 05, 2006
I'm Blogging Again!
I’m blogging again! What are the odds? I’m sure my disappearance has been as noticed and I have been missed like how Eskimos miss the cold. I really wasn’t in the mood to blog over the last couple of weeks. For one thing, my workload had me spending too many hours before the computer, and the last thing I wanted to do was to unwind my day by romancing with the keyboard before I go to bed. Not to mention that by this coming Thursday, I will celebrate my 7-week anniversary over my dry cough. It is getting better now although I gotta stick close to my inhaler like an asthmatic. I love that inhaler, coz whenever you flaunt it before you shove it in your mouth and breathe deeply like a hybertensionaric (don’t even know if that word exists), people look away! You get the feeling that they get uncomfortable being put in a position to whether to offer a word of concern and risk a moment of awkwardness, or offer a sympathetic eye. In the midst of all the clumsy options, it will appear best to look away. I love it!
I’m really pissing my friends off lately. Coz all I can talk about is my infatuation with snow. I hope this infatuation thing won’t get out of hand but itz really exhilarating while it lasts. There appears to be a new story to tell, a new adventure waiting to unravel (walking to the supermarket to buy peanuts can turn out to be an adventure when you are infatuated) each day. I’m even finding the motivation to get into the office early (that’s 11am) just to start the day off sooner in hope for some stirring moment to take place. It really has been a while since I was infatuated (the last time was probably Vietnam, but I was pretty confused between being intoxicated – literally and infatuation). I really find myself in a strange dilemma between dropping the whole leaky heart ordeal and focus on my work, or continue to grin like an imbecile every time snow drops an email. Oh what the heck, I still have March next year before my tenure is over.
Okey I’m just saying this. I’ve been busy taking one step forward and five steps back with my research. Effectively, more than four months of work have gone down the drain. Tomorrow marks a new day where I will try to get my work back on track, now that the semester is almost over. I think I will dearly miss teaching when my short academic career is done. I received a lovely email today from a student, who had the kindest word to say. It is messages like this that make me want to teach, even if it is for free – not marking though, I’ll charge an arm and a leg for marking.
I’m really rambling on this entry. Can’t focus (wonder why). Hopefully this’ll mark a start to my blogging habits once again. It is nice to take a month break from blogs and focus on other things (snow). But watch this space, it wouldn’t be long before I rediscover my routine.
Over and out.
I’m really pissing my friends off lately. Coz all I can talk about is my infatuation with snow. I hope this infatuation thing won’t get out of hand but itz really exhilarating while it lasts. There appears to be a new story to tell, a new adventure waiting to unravel (walking to the supermarket to buy peanuts can turn out to be an adventure when you are infatuated) each day. I’m even finding the motivation to get into the office early (that’s 11am) just to start the day off sooner in hope for some stirring moment to take place. It really has been a while since I was infatuated (the last time was probably Vietnam, but I was pretty confused between being intoxicated – literally and infatuation). I really find myself in a strange dilemma between dropping the whole leaky heart ordeal and focus on my work, or continue to grin like an imbecile every time snow drops an email. Oh what the heck, I still have March next year before my tenure is over.
Okey I’m just saying this. I’ve been busy taking one step forward and five steps back with my research. Effectively, more than four months of work have gone down the drain. Tomorrow marks a new day where I will try to get my work back on track, now that the semester is almost over. I think I will dearly miss teaching when my short academic career is done. I received a lovely email today from a student, who had the kindest word to say. It is messages like this that make me want to teach, even if it is for free – not marking though, I’ll charge an arm and a leg for marking.
I’m really rambling on this entry. Can’t focus (wonder why). Hopefully this’ll mark a start to my blogging habits once again. It is nice to take a month break from blogs and focus on other things (snow). But watch this space, it wouldn’t be long before I rediscover my routine.
Over and out.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)