more!!

Came into the office yesterday and was approached by colleagues who just came back from their week long breaks telling me that they had heard about my little book sale stint last week and asked if I had any more books to sell. Yup... I really thought that I had already closed shop but since there was a demand... yup, I re-opened shop today. Don't want to let my colleagues down. Books are a good thing and it's always nice to know that there are people who share my passion for reading.

So yes, it looks like the little book sale is still on folks! :)

bOOk SaLe --- Mine!!! :) :) :)

A few days ago, I came up with this bright idea of selling my paperbacks at the office. I thought that since I am done with reading the books and really, just how many books am I going to re-read again and again and again??? None! So, with that realization, I thought, I might as well hold my own itty bitty "warehouse" book sale and make some space for more new books in my home library! I'm selling my books off dirt cheap but I figured that since I am done with reading them, someone else might benefit from them now and for less bucks too!

I wasn't so sure how the girls at the office would take to my sale so I brought in a sample of 12 books to the office today just to see how they would take to the them and surprisingly, they did quite well. More than half were picked up and many of my colleagues were surprised that they were "so cheap". Now, all I've got to worry about it collecting the money from them!!! Pray hard that they pay up quickly!!

It's not easy parting with those books since I spent hours and hours selecting them but there is no point in them lying around at home not doing anyone any good (I'm tring to convince myself that I am making the right decision!). Sigh...it's so difficult for me to see them go. I hope they will be as enjoyable and enlightening to the people who take them home and I hope they are treated well...

Oh no, MNG is on sale!!!

I dropped by the shopping mall on Thursday after work thinking that I was going to do some grocery shopping and discovered that MNG was on sale --- oh no! So, in I went, browsing for stuff that I really didn't need.

The store was busy when I got there but it wasn't jammed packed with people. The que for the fitting rooms was snaked around the store and so was the que to pay. It was a relatively small store and with that many people in it, it was soon very hot (the halogen downlights didn't help either).

I picked up a few items, joined the horrendously long que for the fitting rooms, found that nothing really fitted me, gave them back to the girl manning the fitting rooms, went back out and picked up some more stuff which didn't fit me either, picked up some bags which I thought were nice but as the store got warmer and warmer, I kinda started feeling faint (must have been all the heat generated by all those people and the lights in the store) and I started asking myself if I really wanted that bag badly enough to want to stand in the VERY long que that was snaking around the store to pay for it.

In the end, I took one look at the bag and thought --- "I just bought a bag that I REALLY wanted last week and this one, while it would be nice to have, would not really be something that I have to have" and with that thought, I put it back where I found it where it was quickly snapped up by someone else.

I am happy to say that after an hour and a half in the store, I emerged from the sale with NOTHING!!! :)

lazy tuesday afternoon

Tuesday afternoon and I'm in the coffee shop watching the birds pck at left over food on the ground...ahh...life is so nice and blissful when I don't have to go to work. There should be more days like this where I can just sit in the shade and be lazy as I write my blog. This is certainly a nice break from the circus.

I should make more time for myself to unwind... I need more days like this one.

playing God

Been spending the last three days with the moderator. It's a new guy moderating my modules this time around. He's not new as a moderator but he is new at moderating my modules and God, is he a tough one! A third of the grades have been adjusted. Okay, I do admit that my teachers have been kinda lenient when marking but can you believe it that NO ONE and absolutely NO ONE made an A? Yup, like I said before, this one's a tough one.

I have my reservations about him though. These modules are communication modules and he is not of language training. I wonder how fair it is on the students to have someone like him (whose background is architecture) to moderated communication modules. The moderator who usually moderates these modules of mine is not down here this time around. He too is of architectural background, but he is not as tough. I believe that he has a better understanding of the modules than this new guy.

The new guy is a second language speaker himself. I always find that second language speakers are harder than native speakers --- they are more critical of their own kind. It is almost as if they have something to prove (whatever that may be).

Sigh... it's so sad to think that even my best of the "bestest" (if ever there is such a word!) students has been pushed down from an A to a B+ :( :( :(

updates

It's been a loongg time since I was last here. I always mean well, you know... always mean to write posts often but work always seem to get in the way :(

Anyway, updates. Been working late for the past weeks --- it's the end of the semester and I have to finalize the students' grades (AND decide their academic fates in what seems like endlessly long and boring meetings -- did I mention that I dislike going to meetings???), need to organize the students' work for the external moderators from Australia and then need to sit in yet ANOTHER long and boring meeting to finalize the moderated grades. Ah, so much for "quality control".

Yesterday afternoon, J, my boss announced that she had tendered in her resignation.Yup, tendered in her resignation after six months. I was hoping that she would last at least a year but I guess, she's doing the right thing --- she doesn't belong in this place and it's really no use wasting any more time here.

I have to give it to her though --- I have seen many bosses (and believe me when I say MANY) and out of all of them, I deem her to be the most professional one and the one that I can relate to the most. She makes decisions and knows her stuff --- that's what I like about her. On top of that, she acknowledges the problems that we have in the office. I suppose, that is the other reason why she is leaving --- we have a team mixed team of people who have different agendas. Unfortunately, very few are willing to slog it out and get things happening.

So...where does that leave us now? Oh, there is this other "boss" but we have no confidence in him. He seems to not know ANYTHING and half of the time, seems to not want to know anything. Yup, I'm stuck with clueless as boss. Sigh...one more year to my masters and then I'm a FREE woman!!! .

friday, not at work and still not having fun!!!

it's yet another friday and i didn't go to work today... took the day off so that i could sit for my final exam. it's over now and DON'T ask me how i did...

i've been spending the last few days in a mad frenzy trying to do last minute studying while trying to meet my OWN deadlines at work. yes, it's THAT time of the semester again where i have a mountain of boxes of students' assignments to grade (all that PLUS the final exam papers as well!...oh joy...). I can just see sleepless nights ahead of me... it's gonna be a perfectly splendid weekend ahead... NOT!!! sigh...the things we have to do just to pay the bills...

i'm not at work!!!

it's a friday and i'm off work!!! i should have more days like this... i took today off to work on my psycholinguistics project (deadline is seriously drawing close!). on top of that, i've also gotta prepare for my exam which also happens to be round the corner too.

i've gotta work on this project and get it out of the way before the exam... need time to study for that too. sigh... life of a part-time student!

discovered!

Hey... what do you know...I actually got a request for more posts on my other blog...

Hmmm... a reader of my posts... I know you'd think this sounds corny but I never really contemplated that possibility... yeah, yeah, yeah, I know, I know... why write a blog if you plan not to have an audience, right??? Sigh... I have absolutely NO reason why I should think that but I kinda thought it would be neat to just have a place to write my thoughts... a place to be heard by no one in particular... just a place to be...

He said that my blog was "bloody well written (and humorous too!)"... motivation enough for me to keep on blogging away!!! Me a happy bunny! :) :) :)

ayah

you went away so suddenly
we didn't have time for goodbyes
i didn't have time to ask for your forgiveness
for all the misdeeds that i have done

i think of you every waking moment
wishing that we had had more time

i never told you often enough just how much i love you
just how much i value you...

they tell me that in me lives a part of you
the part of you that is on the quest for knowledge

i don't want to make you promises that i can't keep
i don't want to disappoint you
but if Allah permits
i shall try to achieve your dreams for me
i shall do it for you...

i know your dreams are for me and not for you
i know that you loved me
and i want you to know
that in me exists a void that will never be filled
i love you so much
i regret that i didn't tell you often enough that i love you
i only hope that you know...

the holiday

It was a holiday that she had been looking forward to. She counted weeks and days to it. It was to be a much needed two week break in a land she had never set foot on before. It turned out to be the longest week of her life. Her holiday became a nightmare. Her holiday was cut short and she returned a week later with a shattered heart. He didn’t love her. He told her to go away. He told her that he never planned to marry her. He left her alone for most days and nights. She came home empty, broken, . She knew that she should have known better. A man with children was most likely to not prioritize her. They were his priority. She was secondary. She felt betrayed. She longed to be with him but not in this way. She wanted him to love her, to be with her. Their plan for a holiday in Europe was ruined. His daughter did not like her. He accused her of attacking his daughter when she meant well. She avoided going to visit the daughter because she was afraid of the inevitable and it happened. The daughter disliked her. The mother of his daughter disliked her. He disliked her because of that too. He blamed her for many things that happened in his life, including his daughter’s illness that she knew not until she went there. Suddenly, she found herself alone, unloved, unwanted. She wondered if she would ever be lucky in love. She wondered if love was an elusive thing for her, something for the others around her but never for herself. She wondered if there would be anyone out there for her, to love her for all her flaws and shortcomings. She looked within herself and found herself to be beautiful. Hers is a beauty found in few. Would there be anyone at all for her?

She spent the rest of her holidays at home, asleep most of the time. She found comfort in sleep. It offered her an escape from the dark and dreary days. She didn’t have anyone. Her hurt and pain was hers and hers alone. Nothing that she did and no one whom she spoke to seemed to be able to heal the pain that she was feeling. She would soon have no home to go home to either. He is taking back the home as well. Her whole word is shattered. What will become of her? Is there possibly a silver lining in the cloud for her? She has no choice but to be brave and face the days to come. She is unable to fall asleep on most nights. She stays awake till the wee hours in the morning and has a headache in the afternoon due to staying up too late into the night. She faces the world with a smile in her face everyday but little do they realize just how much she is hurting inside.

Her weekends are empty now. She used to spend Sunday afternoons talking to him for hours. Now, she speaks to no one. Her world has become silent. She does many things alone. Is this a curse, she wonders…

August 17, 2007

trust

I set up a blog page a couple of months back as a pilot project on collaborative writing. Since it was a collaborative writing project, I kicked started it with someone who, at that point in time, I considered was a pal of mine. I didn't know how it would go and that was just it --- that is what pilot projects are really all about.

Two months down the road, he slows down on it (down to no contributions) and I am left with a collaborative project with no one to work with. So... in comes H, another pal of mine who was kind enough to help out in my project. Out of courtesy, I texted G to ask him if he would mind having someone else participate in the project (never mind that his contribution to the blog site was absolutely nil at that point!). Anyway... as it turns out, he doesn't answer my simple yes/no question but insteads asks me a list of what seemed like endless questions about the new participant. At the end of it all, he asks if this new participant is an ex (like... why should that even be an issue???). Truth be told, it was MY pilot study and I had control over the project and who got on it (and if I so wished, who got thrown out of it as well). But he wanted to turn this into a territorial game instead.

I just wish that G would grow up... but I know that is simply wishful thinking on my part. It is not ever going to happen. It upsets me that G is unable to share the sandbox with others and that he is so suspicious of my intentions and of the people around me. I guess, he must be doing it on purpose. He just wants to fight and win at whatever cost it may take. He doesn't know what it means to be a friend. He only wants to provoke. It seems very likely that he will lose me again... and this time around, I'm not sure I would reconsider having him back on my pals list. A real pal wouldn't set out to control the other... and that is what he is doing...it is all about control with him. Everything has to be about him... I don't think that he even stopped a moment to think how it is going to affect me as it is my pilot study.

He says that I am evasive. Truth be told, I've offered to lay down the cards on the table, to tell him everything but he avoids such a meeting saying that the Swiss CEO is in town, he has to entertain his international colleagues, he is ill (yup, ill with early signs of pneumonia but I later find out that as "ill" as he was, he wasn't too ill for the 12 hour plane trip back to the UK... so much for getting pneumonia and about to die and not seeing his 42nd birthday). Yes, the signs are loud and clear, he doesn't want to hear the truth and if he did, he probably couldn't handle it. He just wants to be a pain in the rear end. Complain, complain, complain but when truth is offered, he avoids it.

I guess, I could do without him... if he's hurting me this much, he isn't worth my time.

Time Drainers

Do you get the idea that some people are champion whingers??? There is this woman at school who is not even my coursemate but because she hangs out with some of my coursemates, I am stuck to socialize with her over breaks. She has a lot to complain about from classes being offered on the wrong days (the "right day" being just Wednesdays), to having to drive from Ayer Keroh to Serdang, to her boss, to not getting time-off to pursue her masters from her place of work, to her kid not being looked after properly by her babysitter (mind you, when I first met this woman, I thought she had a very young baby only to discover later that this is a 9 year old boy!!!) and as you can imagine, the list goes on and on and on...

Such people are emotionally draining to talk to because they really don't want to take any of your suggestions on board. They just wanna whinge!!! I got to the point that I just gave up on offering solutions when I realised that solutions were not what she was seeking. This was one person who was happy being unhappy! She makes having one 9-year old son sound like having a 9 month old baby! Last week she was whinging about her boss (why am I not surprised???).

As far as I am concerned, we make conscious choices. We decide what to do, when to do them and where we want to be. Whinging is just draining not only to yourself but also to the people that you whinge to. Yes, nobody said that going to school part-time while having a full-time job is easy but it is a conscious choice that you make. Nobody is asking you to do it if you don't want to. Stop whinging and start doing something positive to make matters better!

a soul searching journey alone

It has been four whole days since we had that discussion about life in class but I can't seem to forget it. There is a lot of truth in what my lecturer said. Don't know how we got around to it but the Genre Studies class discussion suddenly diverted, went off course and before we knew it, we were all involved in a discussion about women pursuing higher education and their partners' perceptions. He said that in the beginning, the partners would be supportive when they think that it is not really possible for the wife to complete the whole course of education but when they see that it is becoming a possiblility, they get hard on their wives. That's when the cooking doesn't taste so good, the house is in a mess and extra marital affairs happen. I thought about it for a moment and see the truth in what he says (wisdom speaks as he has been a lecturer and supervisor for a long time).

My own experience seems to have been similar. He was in the beginning supportive, but as my pursuing of my masters degree got longer, and as he saw that it is a possibility that I might graduate, he began saying things like, "What's in it for me?". I had no answer for that question of his. It is true, it is all for me, for my own self satisfaction. It is about me alleviating myself professionally.

In the beginning, it was about us getting somewhere as a couple. That I would use this time apart to pursue what I've always dreamed of... a masters degree. In the meantime, he would be working on his end on trying to build a life for us so that we could eventually be together. But as things turned out, the journey required serious commitment on both sides. I was keeping to my end of the deal. I went to work in the day and school at night. On nights that I didn't have school, I would be busy working on school assignments.

He started getting tired of everything even though he wasn't in the same place with me. He started finding fault with me over the smallest of things. He would ring me close to midnight on Friday nite when I was dead tired not only over work but over school assignments as well. I wouldn't be too chatty and that would be an issue too. Other issues started cropping up, what used to be great years ago now wasn't good enough. In short, he was looking for fault because he wanted out --- that was what happened in the end... he called it quits and left me.

My lecturer had some real world advise for us. He said to marry someone who is a PhD holder as someone who already has his PhD would not have issues about you pursuing higher education and would probably be more sympathetic towards your journey as he has undergone a similar experience. Now, that is something to think about...

hey, this is easy compared to that!!!

I just realized how easy it is to set up a blog as opposed to setting up a wiki. I had such a pleasure of first of all looking for a wiki site that was user friendly for the uninitiated and next, having to give the site a go. It's Friday evening, I rushed home after school and jumped right into this wiki exploration. I guess for those in the know, it would have been absolutely a breeze and no sweat at all but for someone like me, it was loads of perspiration (good thing I use a pretty reliable anti perspirant) and pressure. I know, I know... at the end of it all it will all be rewarding... but for the time being, it is taking up loads of time just trying to figure this technology out! I am gonna figure it out!!!

the gas station experience

Yesterday...I stopped at the traffic lights on my way out to a late lunch close to where I work. I saw this guy in the next car who was looking at me and appeared to be waving at me. Not wanting to appear impolite as it could have been one of my students (I couldn't really tell as the windows were tinted), I smiled back and then looked away. The lights turned green and we went on our separate ways.

Lunch went the way lunch should have went --- it was quick and soon I was on my way to university for my evening classes. As I got into my car, I looked at my fuel tank gauge and thought to myself, "Hmmm...might as well fill up now or else I would have to do it tomorrow morning and I might be in a mad rush in the morning (as often is the case)". So off the the gas station I went, happily humming along to the songs played on Fly fm.

Once I got there, I took my own sweet time on deciding which pump I wanted to stop at...maybe this one...nah...I think I'll use that one instead. Once parked at the pump, I took my time retrieving my credit card from my wallet. From the corner of my eye, I noticed that there was a guy standing beside my car, waiting for me to get out. I thought that it was one of those pump attendants and thought nothing of it.

When I got out of my car this guy introduced himself. I guess I must have looked confused because he had to mention about having waved at me earlier before I could make sense of what was happening. The guy then went about with the normal pleasantries before he asked me out to lunch! God, I was in such a strange situation. There I was in a gas station, trying to fill up my tank and at the same time was wondering how to politely get rid of this guy who was asking for my contact number. Talk about having to multitask! In the end, I said to him, "Why don't you give me your number and I'll get back to you?". No, I am not proud of coming up with that line but I was under pressure!!! I know, I know, bet many of you guys out there have heard that line before and I could have been more original but that was the first thing that came to my mind!

Then when I got to the university carpark, guess who should pull into the parking space next to mine...Taha!!! But that is a post for another day!

challenges...

So here I am again writing and checking out that this works from my office. Tried using another blog site but my office's systems administrator seems to have blocked it. Wet blankets, they are! How is one supposed to run a research when the authentic tools required to run the research aren't allowed??? Sigh...small minds...

lazy sunday morning

testing this blog to see if there is potential for more.