The nature of apologies
12.29.08 (12:38 am) [edit]
Part of my proposal is done! Yay! Now, I just gotta polish it up and get it sent in. The new year is fast approaching, but I don't really have any resolutions except to not freak out. People are always telling me I'm too tense - my doctor, my family, my friends. I was a nervous kid and now I'm a nervous adult. Ever since my doctor told me I had the beginnings of a ulcer that would surely perforate and kill me if I kept stressing out, I've tried to calm myself down. Old habits die hard, though. I still get worked up too easily over minor things - which is not to say that everything I get worked up over is minor. Being stepped all over. Being taken for granted. Being ignored. Being relegated to an afterthought. These are not minor things and these are all things that upset me, and rightly so, I believe. It's only recently that I've had the strength to shove person(s) who treat me that way out of my life. Can you believe they're trying to make me feel guilty about it?
Final thought: "I guess I'm sorry" doesn't count as an apology, especially when you don't know the nature of the dispute.
Final thought: "I guess I'm sorry" doesn't count as an apology, especially when you don't know the nature of the dispute.
Outlier
12.28.08 (3:12 am) [edit]
Sometimes I can't help but wonder if I'm not stuck at the age of sixteen. I sometimes feel - more frequently as of late - that I have the emotional trials and tribulations of someone much younger than myself. Not to sound angsty or whiny, but I do believe that the bulk of my problems stems from the fact that I don't really have anyone who understands me. It's not that I'm unique, because everyone's unique in his or her own way, but I'm just different from everyone else in my life. I can't relate to my colleagues at work, and they can't relate to me, due to a confluence of coincidences concerning my education and upbringing. By similar tokens, my parents don't get me either. My brother is a boy, and yes, gender still translates to differences. I love my friends, but to be brutally honest, aside from a shared academic background and some particular interests, I'm not really like them as well (and vice versa). Sometimes I feel like the one circle that doesn't overlap with any others in the Venn diagram. I don't really understand others and they don't really understand me. How much it has bothered me has ebbed and flowed through the years - age does have some benefits, like the realization that things that constitute drama as an adolescent mean absolutely nothing once you hit your twenties. Yet, at the moment, I'm feeling once again like a dismal teen. This feeling came about at dinner, when I told my parents I couldn't possibly go out for a New Year meal with my grandmother, I'm too busy working on my proposal. It's been a very trying ordeal for me, one which I am plucking away at right this moment. I literally slapped myself today in frustration. My mother looked upset and said, "I haven't seen you doing anything." I don't know what she means by that. Does reading piles and piles of research count towards "anything"? Does scrolling through countless pages of dissertations and theses count as "anything"? Apparently, to her, they don't. No one seems to understand what "busy" means to me. It means deadlines. It means grading papers and planning lessons, both of which mean I have look things up online so it seems like I'm goofing off. It means taking off some time to blog or play a short word game so I don't go on a killing spree. Everyone thinks my job is a breeze, and yes, in a lot of ways, it's definitely easier than being a surgeon or a businessperson or whatever. But every job is difficult. I don't look down on other people's professions. Why does everyone look down on mine?
Final thought: Have to get this darn proposal out! No more self-pity.
Final thought: Have to get this darn proposal out! No more self-pity.
Starstruck? Not.
12.24.08 (4:03 am) [edit]
Well, it seems my fate to always be surrounded by celebrities and to have no idea of their fame. I think they ought to be offended, but they barely know me as well, so it's a mutual ignorance. My high school was a crucible for Thai stardom. Off the top of my head, I can think of close to a dozen high school classmates who are now singers, actors, models, television hosts, and combinations of these occupations in the Thai entertainment industry. Then there was college, and now, just so I know how old I am, my own students are entering the industry. I was sitting around watching Thai TV with my mom, thankful my cold seems to be on its way out, when she turned to some horribly sappy Thai soap and noted, "Everyone on this show is a newbie." I was like, "Really?", without really caring. We watched this awful bit of "entertainment" for a few minutes when the hero of the piece shows up. Lo and behold, it was one of my students! Now I know why all the girls in the class were swooning over him, despite the fact he looks a little like an overinflated rooster. I Googled him and it turns out he has quite the drooling fanbase. I can't help but laugh as I type that. I look at him and I see a baby, someone to chaperone and shepherd into adulthood. Others look at him and see a hunk of man beef. LAUGH OUT LOUD. I'm getting old.
Final thought: Still laughing.
Final thought: Still laughing.
No twinkly lights
12.21.08 (11:16 pm) [edit]
My throat feels like miles of desert and my nose has been running nonstop for two days. Yes, I have a cold. A very natural, normal, human occurrence, but how come everytime I'm hit I feel like demons are attacking me? I had to proctor an exam yesterday and I felt like my life was ending. Big drafty lecture hall. Six hours. Uncomfortable chair. Not anyone's idea of heaven. My best friend called today because I went AWOL on her. I seem to be doing that a lot lately - if it's not a virus, it's work. It seems my entire life is controlled by outside factors. I've been trying to take my life into my own hands for years now, but I can't help it, I'm a bit of a dependent. Was walking past Central World the other day and saw the Christmas lights up. I love twinkly lights. I thought to myself, I'd love to get some photos here. Then I realized they'd look best at night and until I get a license, I can't go out at night. No twinkly lights for me. Just runny noses. Sorry if I don't comment for awhile, I feel crummy.
Final thoughts: Off to try to do some work.
Final thoughts: Off to try to do some work.
Our PM, Mark
12.18.08 (12:05 am) [edit]
Thailand just got a new prime minister - our twenty-seventh, in fact. All I know about him is that up until recently, he was the leader of the opposition, he's British-educated, and his nickname is Mark. I know nothing of politics, but it interests me how Thai people always end up calling politicians by their actual nicknames (practically every Thai has a nickname, as our real names are reserved for formal settings) or made-up, often derogatory, nicknames. I know Bush is called Dubya, but you'd never expect that name to show up in a respectable publication like The New York Times. Not so in Thailand. I just saw the front page of Daily News, a rather well-circulated Thai newspaper, they're calling our PM "Mark", as in "Mark did this" and "Mark did that". I don't know if it's familiarity or contempt.
Final thought: What's in a name...?
Final thought: What's in a name...?
Let me eat cake
12.16.08 (12:26 am) [edit]
There is way too much cake in my house! My brother graduated yesterday (master's) and as a result, there are cakes galore. There's the blueberry cheesecake I bought him that said Congratulation! [sic] We love you! Then there are two cakes from our aunt - one is a crepe cake (which is basically many crepes folded on top of each other) and a fruit-cream cake that's very lickable. Cake overload. To be honest, I don't have much of a sweet tooth but I've never said no to shortbread or a cupcake, so now everyone at work thinks I'm a sugar fiend. I guess there are worse things to be known as - like the office cheat or something. Anyhow, I bought my brother a stuffed monkey yesterday (because that's my nickname for him - Monkey) and even though he rolled his eyes and gave me that annoyed little look that only little brothers can ever give you, he did hold onto it for some photos. He had a fever and his nose was running a mile a minute, but my bro's not the type to complain. In that respect, we are very, very different. Overall, though, it was a good day and my parents and my bro were happy, so I was happy.
Final thought: Always nice to have a good day and some cake.
Final thought: Always nice to have a good day and some cake.
Why, TV Powers That Be? Why?!?
12.13.08 (10:46 pm) [edit]
Known for awhile, but am still trying to process it. They've canceled both Pushing Daisies and Eli Stone. What the heck? In one fell swoop, they've taken away two of my favorite shows. I've said it once, I've said it a thousand times. I. AM. A. TV. BABY. I likes my TV, sir. I likes it a lot! All those studies that say TV-watching is somehow correlated with unhappiness/gluttony/hoar ding etc.? Phooey! I think I'm pretty well-adjusted for someone my age. I don't smoke, I don't drink, I don't do drugs, I don't sleep around, I haven't written a manifesto that involves any of the following words: kill, death, weapons, explosives, disgruntled. That's despite the fact I watch more TV than almost anyone I know. I like my TV. As a matter of course, I get quite peeved when they cancel shows I like. Especially shows that are well-written and well-acted. And unique. Well, no entertainment is really unique - but adorable. Very, very adorable. Pushing Daisies - adorably quirky. Eli Stone - adorably visiontastic. I admit they both sound kind of...odd, on paper. Daisies is about a piemaker named Ned who can bring the dead back with a touch, but they can only stay alive for a minute or else someone else dies in their place. He brings back to life his childhood sweetheart for more than the previously-mentioned minute and she deliciously assimilates into his pie-making, murder mystery solving life, even though they can never touch because "First touch life, second touch death. Forever." Eli is about a talented lawyer who gets visions from a higher power, often in the form of extended musical numbers, which prompt him to turn his life around. Okay, as I finished typing that I realize a little why these shows have such abysmal Nielson ratings. But still, awesome. To me. Why would they cancel such fantastic shows but let drivel like Two and a Half Men live on? They better keep their mitts off Supernatural!
Final thought: I wish Ned's power extended to television shows.
Final thought: I wish Ned's power extended to television shows.
Happy Thoughts
12.11.08 (4:44 pm) [edit]
There's a school of thought that all emotions are state of mind. If you think happy, you are happy. Well, I'm not so happy so I'm going to think happy.
Things that have made me happy this week:
1. The sound a new white-out makes when you shake it. I've always wondered what's inside - a tiny rock?
2. Walkers Shortbread in Festive Shapes. Ermmmmm, buttery, crumbly goodness shaped like Santa's head.
3. One of my literature students telling me my class inspired her to finish her short story. No teacher could ever hear sweeter words.
4. Bangkok's persitent cold snap. I got to break out my favorite lavendar turtleneck which I almost never get to wear.
5. Belly dancing. Just because.
6. Hearing the story of how popsicles were invented. Strangely enough, heard it twice this week and I still think it's a cute story.
7. The Little Book of the Environment I grabbed from the Oxford Dictionaries' booth at a recent seminar. It has a ton of great vocabulary items I can use on my students.
8. Google Image Search. Fantastic.
9. Finding a really interesting site via Mental Floss. Well, Mental Floss in general.
10. Passive-aggressive notes, courtesy of the site of the same name. These people could totally live in Bangkok!
Final thought: Think happy thoughts!
Things that have made me happy this week:
1. The sound a new white-out makes when you shake it. I've always wondered what's inside - a tiny rock?
2. Walkers Shortbread in Festive Shapes. Ermmmmm, buttery, crumbly goodness shaped like Santa's head.
3. One of my literature students telling me my class inspired her to finish her short story. No teacher could ever hear sweeter words.
4. Bangkok's persitent cold snap. I got to break out my favorite lavendar turtleneck which I almost never get to wear.
5. Belly dancing. Just because.
6. Hearing the story of how popsicles were invented. Strangely enough, heard it twice this week and I still think it's a cute story.
7. The Little Book of the Environment I grabbed from the Oxford Dictionaries' booth at a recent seminar. It has a ton of great vocabulary items I can use on my students.
8. Google Image Search. Fantastic.
9. Finding a really interesting site via Mental Floss. Well, Mental Floss in general.
10. Passive-aggressive notes, courtesy of the site of the same name. These people could totally live in Bangkok!
Final thought: Think happy thoughts!
Bangkok's bit of trouble
12.10.08 (3:18 am) [edit]
I've been doing research on blogs and there's such a phenomenon as "blog rot", when a blog falls out of use. It happens for a number of reasons. Apathy, forgetfulness, boredom. In my case, there was one sole culprit: real life. I'm not going to go into a laundry list of what's been plaguing me. Suffice to say, I've been more than swamped, both physically and mentally. There are days when I don't know if I'm coming or going. Sometimes I take the bus just so I can have the few minutes walking to the bus stop to clear my head. It doesn't help that my country (well, Bangkok) is in a bit of a ruckus. It was a full-on ruckus awhile back, but things have quieted down somewhat. To be honest, I don't really have a clear idea of what's going on. I doubt anyone does. It's just one of those crazy pseudopolitical things which culminated into a huge protest mob shutting down both of Bangkok's major airports and stranding hundreds of tourists. Not to mention kicking Thailand's economy in the face, spitting on it, and slamming it across the face with a chair. I happen to live close to one of these airports and the first day they took it over, my brother called me and told me to come home from work. It was a little after twelve in the afternoon. Everyone was sure there was going to be violence. Maybe there was. I don't know. It's hard to know what to believe. News here isn't exactly reliable. My parents taught me never to talk politics with anyone, so short of people just coming out and telling me, I don't really know what people think. I know what I think though. You live so long with what seem like tedious, unending protests and you start to think, "Get over it. I just want to get home without being stuck in traffic for three hours." Is Thailand safe? I'm living my life like I'm always living it. I understand why people are canceling their vacations to Thailand, though. I mean, come on - people hear "Third World country" and "protest", and on top of that, "airport shutdown" - they're running for the hills. I get it. Perfectly logical. I just want anyone reading this to know however - my life hasn't changed in anyway. I still get up and go to work. I still go shopping. I still ride the bus. I still buy food from street vendors. If that's a good enough endorsement for you, that's great.
Final thought: Bangkok is in the midst of a cold snap. Fantastic!
Final thought: Bangkok is in the midst of a cold snap. Fantastic!