3 things i learnt from trip up north

1. My laptop is a notebook, but does not qualify as a mobile desktop. It is just too heavy.
2. Kenyan cab drivers in Chicago can be a Computer engineering student at the same time. (Isn't that cool!)
3. Business suits are not as warm as they should be.

Also, it's very likely that there's a conspiracy between the phychiatric hospitals and airports. The scheme is simple, delay or cancel flights due to "bad weather", and simultaneously deny baggage reclaims. Repeat process a couple times in an hour ON THE SAME FLIGHT. That would definitely perk up business in the wards.

Choices choices

Today I went to an interview at a little place beside a big lake in the mid west region. I’m on my way back to Indy from OHare airport, where the usual shitty weather in Chicago caused a delay on all flights (I use the word 'usual' because it makes me sound like a seasoned traveler, an important person. In truth I’ve only transited in Chicago only a few times. Ok, twice if I count the trip from home yesterday).

The position that I was interviewing for is a business consulting job, in the capacity of data analyses. This was not the world-changing, life-saving, cancer-curing, rat-torturing industry that I had in mind when I came here to study. I have some doubts about accepting the job, if they offer me one, because engineering had been all the life I knew since sick 17.

To stave off depression due to boredom excerbated by counting the number of airport power outlets, I’ll hash out some pros and cons working in consulting vs engineering.

Pro engineer:
I can pretend to understand the workings of a car/a washer/the aircon/the world.
I can publicly love for Dilbert, and laugh loudly at the strips, without being thought of as weird.

Con engineer:
Hot guys think I’m a geek.
Hot guys assume that I’m smarter than them = not hot (both entirely baseless).
Engineering guys are not hot (though warm, kind and fun. But who needs those?).

Pro consulting:
Hot guys will think I’m smart AND hot.
There might be occasion where nice dressing is required (high heels and make up).

Con consulting:
Consulting guys dress better than I do.
I don't know how to use make up.
I've only leanrt a few months ago to walk in heels without falling and skinning my knees.

It seems there’s tie.
Tune in for results a few months later, at about the same time (+-12 hrs), and day(+-3.5 days).

nail in my tyre, and warmth in my heart

Due to a mischievious nail that loved my right rear tire too much, today i got all four of my tires changed and aligned for USD 250. That's equivalent to RM1000! a year ago, I would have been angst ridden about the fact that this would pay for my room in penang for 5 months, with change left for 10 or 20 meals. Yet after being here for a while, I'd come to expect 250, post 30 bucks discount coupons from various sources, as a reasonable price to pay for 4 tyres. It's inevitable. I've acclimatised.

This is a big step for someone who, 1.5 yrs ago, went through the trouble of cancelling 3.60 worth of baked pastries at the checkout, and had to borrow cash from an acquaintence because her purchase was now below the minimum limit payable by credit card, all because it said 1.86 at the aisle, and 3.6 is too much to pay for a lousy box of 3 sau pau!

as an aside, the guy who owned the tyre shop tried to sell me extra insurance that will guarantee replacement or repairs on any accidental damage to the tyres. Of oucrse i didn't fall for it, so he cut the price to 1/2. and at the end , when i still refused, he gave it to me for free, because he "would feel better if a young girl like you had some insurance while driving on some high ways, and i really want you to have it." which made me feel all warm and touched, and guilty too, for thinking that all he wanted was to suck that extra 16 bucks from a poor foreign student. It resumed my faith in kindness.
or, was it just a very clever marketing manuever?

written 10/17

a regression to lists

ok, there's been too much gloom going on around here! luckily, all soppy identity search blogs can be blamed on PMS.
so to perk things up a little bit, a list of 10 good things in my life right now, in no particular order:

1. my lavender, that was brown and sagging 3 weeks ago, has not only came back from the brink of death, but is sprouting new shoots and is smelling good again! the secret? rice soaked water. thanks to my mama, i am no longer a plant killer (though i've conveniently progressed to rodents, see below).

2. Didi's birthday is coming up! And he successfully transferred departments in spite of a lousy boss who tried to stop it. And, he gets to go home for 1 whole week during raya (my eyes are so shining green i could audition for ju-on 4).

3. spoke to parents today. they are well.

4. new interview shoes, from dsw, for 25 only, after a 50% discount and a 5 bucks dicount card from the lovely princess-lily-pad.

5. an interview where said shoes could be displayed. next week! (finger biting.. butterflies fluttering)

6. good stir fried ginger and scallion chicken. made by yours shortly.

7. very good hersheys marbled chocolate cake! made by ..ahem..yours shortly.

8. my boss man and boss lady, who remains upbeat and encouraging even though i killed a rat during a scan (it was an accident, i swear! i would make sure there's more than 50 psi in the oxygen tank in the future, and not rely on the technician).

9. a reply from a good friend, agreeing to a certain request of mine. after a month, i wasn't sure if he was going to reply at all, and was saddened to think that his new position occupied so much of his time that he might not be bothered with old frienships anymore. but i was wrong, and very happily so.

10. gibberish from the animal farm back home. ahh..the sweet nectars of life.

The Smallness of Being

When one leaves everything one has known for the past 26 years, in order to start a new life as a student in a foreign country, one feels a strong sense of purpose. One might be rather scared and lost at first, but one has all these places to go, assignments to complete, assistantships to apply for, tests to ace.

Yet when one is about to graduate in a country far away from home, and has hardly gotten any job interview yet, one feels oddly displaced, extremely insignificant, unfamiliarly empty, and very lost, because one does not know how to define oneself anymore.

How does one define oneself? By profession – I am an engineer/writer/assembler? By relationships to family and loved ones– I am brother/wife/husband of so and so, best friend of so and so? By ongoing projects – I am taking up pottery/ completing a project designing so and so? By a fixed role in society? By gender? By sexual orientation? By age? By nationality? Crowds one hangs out with? Car? House? Weight of coins in one’s pink piggy bank? Quality of life one has?

How, then, does one define oneself when one is far away from family and loved ones, and have no job, no earthly possessions besides a Toshiba laptop that is partial to blue screen errors, and a very loose, if at all existing, tie to the surrounding community?

Does one define oneself by what is inside oneself? Bravery, kindness, cheerfulness, a healthy disregard of the rules? What if one chooses an unexplored path and gets so...rubbed... by the subsequent happenings that one isn’t so sure anymore? What if what one thought was inside, no longer is?

Latest exchange rate - Finally, everyone could afford bungalows in Sausalito.

From the headlines of a popular chinese daily.

At this rate I could have bought microsoft in a month. I should really look for a job back home.

Soda Fizzle Days

Today is a day of contradictions - in weather, thoughts and actions.

For the past few days it had been cold and gray and wet - the kind of cold and gray and wet that threatens to erase memories of brighter days. The change from summer to pseudo-winter came abruptly - Fall seems to have lasted all but 1 day and a half in Indy. Yet, it was sunny and warmthis morning, with blue skies and white clouds, and rays of the morning sun waking me up.
I woke up late, refreshed, and ready to do great things with my day. A breakfast of sumptious leftover Tomyam vermicelli seemed like an indicator (or augury=important omen. new word!) of good things to come, and I left home with my (shot) glass half full.

However , the day did not unfold as promised, like a Gaussian distribution that is skewed very much to the left with very big standard diviation, causing the whole graph to fall flat . Great achievements became a series of small, unimportant tasks, and time spent reading papers that couldn't be read in time. Class was unenergetic, both students and the-almost-always-enthusiastic-professor. Notes taking went from neat perky letters to barely legible scrawl. Thoughts about supposedly important decisions and contradictary choices swirled about in my head.

Then, sadly, in the evening, it resumed pouring. The temperature dropped, and tomorrow will be the coldest day since the start of this pseudo-Fall.

Some days are just like this - they start off beautifully, with a great storyline and cast, then fizzle off like the sodas left in the open for too long. Reminds me of Gray's Anatomy.

Well, at least we've got tomorrow.

Maybe.