Us

I found this photo online and I love it.  It's us.

You know how in Lord of the Rings when the ring is destroyed, everything else is destroyed with it......

or in Harry Potter when Voldermort is killed, everything also comes to an end? 

Well, I think that's how I will feel from now until July 1st.  It's kinda great!  =)

Not Bye, Miss American Pie

To stop and leave is not to say goodbye.

Hold on, Zooe; come again?!

Prof Evans (remember him from my previous post?) knocked on my door this afternoon.

He peeked in and said: Well, bye Professor!  I'm heading off to the airport now.
Me: Oh, hi Paul!  You are leaving today!
Evans: Yes, well, it was very nice meeting you.....
Me: Same here
Evans: I wish you all the best; Happy Marriage and Honeymoon and I hope that you will become a successful and happy and lovely professor in the next 5 years.
Me: Well.....that's......
Evans: No, I really wish that for you.
Me: Then, thank you very much!  Safe journey!  Safe journey!

And with that, he was gone like the wind.

I think he must have felt that I belong in academia, but maybe not in this current university.  So, he was always very encouraging in terms of me giving it another chance and thinking it through. 

I am ambivalent about this profession.  If I do end up doing it again, a miracle or something to that effect must have happened.  While I'm not ruling it out, but for me to step inside another university again, I know that it will take a whole lot of convincing and soul searching.

So, this trip / time off / 7-months-vacation-thing could not have happened in a more opportune time.  It's the perfect way for me to detox and un-jade myself.  I know for a fact that I have become jaded.  I don't understand nor do I believe in the university system anymore and this not good, especially if I work in such a system.

I really look forward to what is to come.  I'm not saying it will be smooth sailing, but at least, it will be in the right direction for me.  So while I am leaving and stopping this now, it doesn't mean I am done and through.

In fact, this is just the beginning.  For me and for Chris <3

A day (and a half) in my Life

A typical day in my life is, to be honest, not that exciting.  It involves me getting up, getting dressed, and going to the office.

But on some days, I do think it is a bit out of the ordinary.  Let me try to explain.

For many of us, a typical day - a normal day - is a day that is not out of the ordinary.  We dine at our usual venue, wait at the same bus stop, walk the same route, and see the same scenery.  Essentially, it means that we go through our day with the same group of people.  If you work in an office setting, you dine at places that are full of people like you; when you wait at the bus stop, you are also with people who dress like you.  In other words, you rarely meet anyone that is different, out of your social circle and different from your circumstance.

What I notice about my day is that it's not like that, at all.  When I go to work in the morning (way past the rush hour), I don't see office-goers; I actually see a lot grandmas out and about doing grocery shopping.  They talk about the sales that are going on at the markets, the fish, the meat and all the "little things" in life.

When I'm at work, my colleagues (tenured professors) talk about totally different things: ideas, concepts, abstract things.  Most of them drive to work and they are quite well off.  They eat at fancy restaurants and live a life that is above the average income earner.  I certainly don't fit into that high society, but that's where I work.

At lunch time, instead of dining with my colleagues at restaurants that I can't afford, I do take-outs like many of my students.  So yes, I would be that person with a window office, overlooking the great harbour view, and chowing down a burger. 

And when it's time to go home, again, I don't go the same way as my colleagues.  Instead, I walk down from the university campus to where stay-at-home moms pick up their kids from school and head home to prepare dinner.

So you see, my whole day consists of blending in with very different groups of people, literally, from each social class - from the poor and needy to the freshies who are just starting out, to the well-off "upper class" and finally, to the middle class stay-at-home moms.

And that is my typical day....and here are the pictures to prove it.


Beginning from yesterday:

I invigilated the exam for my course.  This was taken about 10 minutes before the students came in for the exam.

 
Early next morning:

 

I lined up to buy these famous cookies from this store.  These are all tourists.  I was the only local who bought a big enough suitcase to fill 20 boxes of cookies.  Does this sound crazy or what?  These are for Chris, not for me.  I ended up taking a taxi home because I couldn't manage the suitcase.  I looked like a crazy tourist. 

At lunch, I ate a restaurant near my house.  Here, I'm sitting with grandmas and grandpas and a lot of construction workers who are on their lunch break.

 

One of my favorite dishes is rice in tomato sauce.  It doesn't look appetizing here, I know.  But trust me, it's good.

After lunch, taking the mini-bus back to the office.  Again, I'm surrounded by tourists, students, grandmas and foreign maids.

Arrived at the office and began marking. Bumped into my colleagues dressed in suits and dresses.  Me?  I'm in jeans, T-shirt, and sandals.  Totally office appropriate =P

 

What about you?  What's your life like?  Do you live in one social zone or multiple social zones?

Weekend Update

Happy Mother's Day (yesterday).  I was far far away from home (15 hours flight time) and wasn't able to celebrate the day with my Mom.  I sent her a card and we talked on the phone while she was at work.  Yes, she had to work on Sunday. 

It was a brief conversation, but I think it was quite nice, a bit warm and fuzzy and all =P 

I spent the weekend at Chris' place and the change of scenery was good for me.  I was able to relax, forget about work, and stop relying emails. 

That was important.....because.....

I received a lot of emails from my students over the weekend about the exams.  Their exams are on Monday and Thursday and so, I imagine many of them are trying to get the official word or clarification on the readings.  I do reply to these emails, but I am selective:

Specific questions that have a focus: certainly.
Closed ended questions seeking for clarification: for sure.
Questions that demonstrate prior reading and attempt of comprehension: definitely.

However, there are some questions that I just refuse to answer:

Open ended questions that have a large scope - essentially, if I were to answer the question adequately, I would write a whole essay on it to do it justice: refuse to answer.

Multiple questions directed at the same topic/concept and without evidence of any thought: delete.

I think some of you may think I am cruel if I don't answer students' questions, but there is a reason.  If I reply these open-ended questions by writing an essay on it (in other words, I answer my own exam question), I am no different than giving the students the answers to the exam.  Moreover, can you imagine if they forward my answer in an email to everyone else in the class?  Then, I am definitely doomed.

So, that's why. 

Call me cruel, but I think this is only fair. 

Forgiving your ex

What a title!...and I'm quite certain that the rest of this post will not measure up.  So forgive me, I will try to tread on anyway.

I recently watched a YouTube video on Getting over a Breakup.  I watch a lot of YouTube videos and this just happened to be one of them. 

I have to say I don't have a lot of experience with breakups.  I've only had one (so far), which was my ex (aka the asshole), and after that, I met Chris, who saved my life.

I still remember vividly how I felt and all the emotions I went through during my breakup.  Yes, like all breakups, it was horrible......^&%$#)@#%! [beep] [beep]....whatever you want to call it, it was that.  It was bad enough.  I blamed him for everything. 

After watching the video, however, something clicked.  In my tiny little brain, in that very area where I store that breakup memory, something clicked. 

While nothing will ever change the fact that he was an asshole, but perhaps, he wasn't that big of an asshole.  Perhaps he was just as confused as I was.  Perhaps he didn't know how to express his feelings properly.....perhaps, he just didn't know how to handle it just as I was incapable of dealing with it in a better way.

You know, we were both young and confused.  I certainly didn't know everything and was probably just functioning with half a brain.  So, for me to expect him to know everything and be able to deal with everything --- was nonsensible.  If I didn't know any better, why would I simply assume or expect other people to know better?

Why do I have that expectation of other people?  I know it may be a weird question to ask....but that's how it is.

So, I suppose the point of this post is that to begin the process of forgiving your ex (and ultimately, stop being angry at yourself) is to realize that just as you didn't know how to deal with the situation at the time, so was he.  He was also confused, mixed with emotions....and whatever else he was going through.......that he just didn't know how to cope.

In other words, it's two people trying to deal with it when neither of them have a clue about how to deal with it. 

I like to think that that was what it was for me.  Nothing more.  I can accept that and it doesn't really matter anymore.

In the news....

Like many of you, I've been reading a lot about the Cleveland kidnapping and Abercromobie & Fitch in the news recently.  The former is about the escape of 3 women who were kidnapped and held captive for a decade while the latter is about the company's refusal to make plus size clothing for women.

Here are the links Story 1 and Story 2 if you want to catch up.

In reading these stories, I came across some funny things that people say when they are describing something.  For example:

"Cool as a cucumber" was how Charles Ramsey described kidnapper Ariel Castro.

"Then you become vanilla" was how CEO Mike Jeffries described other companies that tried to market to everyone.

Maybe it's just me that finds it amusing.....but when you are reading these serious and sometimes tragic or politically charged news items and something quirky or "un-news-like" comes up, it makes the stories more relatable, don't you think?

It just makes it real because that's how people really talk sometimes.  They don't talk like news anchors, they talk like normal people.

Yes, that includes CEOs ---- "Then you become vanilla"
Yes, you sure do, A&F, you are indeed vanilla.

Philosophers [random]

Philosophers talk about suffering, pain, love and life as if they experience it everyday. 

But the truth is, most of the time, they are sitting in an ivory tower and in the comforts of their secured space as they preach about experiences that they probably have never experienced themselves.  They are, in my opinion, the farthest away from the very thing that they philosophize about. 

Hence, they can sit there and talk about it in an almost glorified manner because it is a fantasy to them.  They probably have never tried to step outside of their door and take a look.  These philosophers - the ones that only talk - I have no respect for them. 

Of all people, they should know that the way to understand something is to live through it yourself.  Put yourself in the very situation that you talk about and see how you react under those real circumstances.  Not some hypothetical scenarios and what if's and why not's.  That's all bull.