the fleeting joys, the painful acceptance, cleaving to the unchanging

I'm quite broken about the fact that I can't spend as much time as I thought I could back home.

it used to be a month that I thought could spend back home, before i had to spend the bulk of summer in KL for the internship, before I a few weeks before flying back to London then spending the next two years there, as I know I won't be coming back next summer cos I'll be doing in internship overseas then. then after, I'll seldom be home because work is in KL, not Kuching.

it then became 3 weeks, because I had to stay for a workshop in London. then it became 2 weeks, not even the full 14 days, because we had to push the date back a little more. less time at home.

Who knew that leaving for London meant that home would no longer be the place I spend most of my time at? The implications of flying away from the nest are painfully, painfully sinking in.

It used to be that I would get to spend the whole 10 weeks of internship living with my sister. with another sister also living in KL, i thought that those 10 weeks away from home wouldn't be so bad after all, at least half of home would be there with me. but then the news came that my favourite second sister (note, I don't actually have favourites, it's a joke i share with her) has to transfer to Korea, ko-freakin-rea.

so then it became around 8 weeks that I'll have with her. Well, thank God, at least I have the time with her.

Then her company decided that she would transfer by the end of May. I would have just finished my exams! my freakin exams! I wouldn't even have to time to catch her before she flew.

Who knew that I might not see yet another sibling for at least another year? the pains of growing up and growing apart... sinking in. painfully, again, of course.


nothing is permanent is it? I can't easily be in that setting of having my whole family together again, like old times. "like old times" is gonnna be a very rare phrase in my life now. in fact, it always is, very rare, for everyone growing up, it's just hard to accept.

it's hard to accept that harsh fact, to let go, to accept what I know is permanent, because I've been hoping on the fleeting, temporary joys for too long.

Do you believe in yourself?

Omaigawwwd I can't believe how much self-reflection I've been forced into over the past few days. Decisions. decisions that will affect my time in uni, why am I doing or not doing, why am I afraid.

And the MSoc elections too, the whole excitement about it, all my friends running for positions, made the clutter in my head clearer. What you do, how you do it, how people perceive you when they see you do it, boils down to pretty much how much you believe in yourself. 

Yeah you might not be the best and I'm not promising that believing in yourself would make you the best overnight but do you trust in yourself enough to commit to improving yourself? Or is such efforts something that 'other more ambitious people' put their minds to? is it "just not me"? 

Really? 

I won't go on preaching, I myself am a victim of pulling oneself down. I'm usually my worst critic. 

So I'll end with not my own words but those of Stephen and Sean Covey. It's more of a paraphrase than a direct quote but a powerful message they say is that the private victory comes before the public victory.

manifestos of me friends running for MSoc! 

It's not about gender. It's about how serious you are about what you do

I had a conversation yesterday with someone I respect a lot for the role he plays in our ministry. The topic went to the girls we know going further in their studies than the guys who don't seem as serious about their lives. I just smiled in return but secretly disagreed. Because after my two years in IB, Penang and all around, I can't help but to think things to be the other way round.

I've seen more boys than girls being truly serious in what they do. 

*by the way, prepare yourself for undecidedness in this post, it's gonna be a direct cut-and-paste of my train of thoughts rather than a properly structured, well thought-out post*

So back to what I was saying, I've seen more boys than girls doing better in what they do. When I try to think back to instances when I've observed this, they're mainly at competitions and interviews where the boys' intelligence and sharpness blow me away and I'm like "where the heck did that idea come from?". But come to think about it, I'm always nervous and easily intimidated when it comes to competitions and I may have exaggerated my view of these boys. Because really there were also girls towards whom I thought the same thing - "where the heck did that idea come from?". 

What struck me as a similarity between these boys and girls is the focus and energy that they put into what they're doing. Yes, they're still humans and still play around when they want to, but when it comes down to work, they put their whole heart into it. Personally, I think that guys have more of what my friend calls crude bravery. They're not afraid to give their all despite the possibility of failure. Girls... dare I say this? I'll just put it in first person then. I generally don't take as many risks which also means when it comes down to business, I hold back in putting every possible effort in achieving what I want. Is it fear? It's not that obvious but when I reflect on it, yes, I think it is.

However, (see, I told you, lots of changing opinions here) there's so many outliers to this generalization. So many that I can't even call these outliers, outliers. It defies the definition of the word. I've seen girls so brave that they shame them boys, that people actually say that these girls got 'balls'. I've seen guys whose meticulous focus on their task at hand puts us girls to shame since we're often the ones expected to be experts at this skill.

So I've come down to this, that it isn't  about gender, or whether or not you have enough crude bravery or the ability to work hard. It comes down to how serious you are about what you're doing. What motivates you? How much blood and sweat are you willing to put in to what you do? Then, no matter what gender you are, you'll frikin move mountains and have people thinking "s**t, where the heck did that come from?"

On a final note, let's stop stereotyping between sexes. It releases both the person you're judging and yourself from the limited structure we've built and restricted ourselves with for generations.