Hiatus: I’m off to Japan!

The title says it all. Will update once I’m back with tons and tons of stories and pictures!

Have a good summer!

Cheers,

jjme

I still don’t understand where I am

My mum told me that when I was growing up as a baby, she would hardly talk to me. She was afraid that I would learn poor English as she was not at all fluent in the language at that time. I think that is why I was slow and dumb as a kid. Not that I am blaming my parents or anything, although, I am still quite slow and dumb at times. It’s just the way I observe parenting and children. Sad to say, I am at a weird age now where I constantly dream of having my own family.

I have to say, growing up as a kid, I can hardly remember a genuine interest in talking or conversations. Maybe there were some past experiences that I cannot recall, but I felt more inclined towards arts and crafts. When I started learning piano at the age of eight, I fell in love with it too.

I do wonder if my life will be more satisfying if I was never pushed to excel in science or math. As I look back, I realize it was very much what my father wanted me to be good at. Perhaps, he wanted me to be like him. The mindset that being in the science stream at school was a far safer choice in terms of pursuing professional career options. Hence, a better life they say.

I never had much of a social life growing up as a teenager. My mum would skew my believes about friendship that I think it could be part of the reason why I don’t function well around with people. She would not allow me to hang out with friends after school for fear that I would be influenced in doing unhealthy activities. Parties were never a part of my life. Sports, maybe … but in an Asian society … nobody cares … girls just want to show off their colourful bras in their white sport shirts. In general, I don’t think I ever understood how to deal with people.

I became a sensitive person because of the traditional values and rules that I grew up with. I am not surprised if many people in school thought of me as a weird fifteen-year-old. I am not a funny person. I have little compatibility with humour.

My mum did loosen up the rules when I reached 16 and 17 … but I think that’s a little too late to develop those interpersonal skills. Moreover, the way society drives Malaysian children to scream those A’s after examinations, I don’t think there was a chance for someone like me with a weak personality to learn how to socialize.

Coming to Canada did benefit in some ways and I became more aware of the importance of this skill. I guess I improved a whole lot. But I’m still not quite there yet. You would expect a 23-year-old woman to not have silly worries over stuff like this. But it’s true … I do all the time.

I do believe that I am not a good engineer. I am not passionate about it at all. It’s a great job to support my living and what not, but I find that I do not gain any satisfaction around it. I never want to talk about it after work. I cannot comprehend how jokes around engineering would be funny at work.

I get so drained just dealing with people 8 hours a day at work, every single week. I try to catch my breath to find my inner peace but I am lost. Is it wrong to be this way? This is just who I am. I am just like a battery, and one day I will reach a limit where I can no longer recharge my energy just to fulfill other people’s expectations. I will wither away like a fallen leaf, self-forgotten, lost in crumpled pieces. People say that I will become a good leader. Apparently, I have the potential. I don’t think so. It’s just a facade that I’ve skillfully learned to stage over the years. Often, I feel that I just want to be alone. I become more energized this way actually. Maybe I’m not so much of a team player. I seriously don’t know why they hired me into this job.

What if this job isn’t really suitable for me? What if I was never forced to excel at things that I was never interested at all? What if I was guided in the right direction to pursue what I love doing? Would I still be here … dreading how things are going to turn out the next day at work … not motivated to drive to work in the morning … wishing I was somewhere else perhaps doing journaling, photography, playing in an orchestra or even just being a stay-home-mum to nurture my children?

I do believe that I will be a good mother. And maybe that’s just what I want to be. I feel like I’ve been trapped in a maze of people’s expectations that I have totally forgotten what it feels like to be happy; what it feels like to be truly excited from the bottom of my heart.

I still don’t know where I am. Who knows how long it’ll take me to understand this and find the courage to walk a different path?

Book Review: Nineteen Minutes (Jodi Picoult)

“Nineteen Minutes” by best-selling author Jodi Picoult is a gripping tale of revenge. Actually, it is more so on what bullying really means to our children in today’s society.

The story carefully spins an intricate web of the lives of people in a small, ordinary New Hampshire town named Sterling. A story that truly portrays what dangerously lies beneath the calm surface of the water. Have you ever wondered how society is born and bred into this world? What makes us different than one another yet on the outside, we all seem to fit in as one identity. But do we all really fit in? Is a person ever whom they seem to be?

The author’s story reflects how society can bring out the best and the worst in some people. Even better, the author uses a backdrop of a shooting in a high school by a teenage boy named Peter Houghton, who was a victim of bullying ever since elementary school. As I read on, each character revealed the chilling side of their feelings; the judge, the best friend, the bully, the dead students’ parents, the detective, the murderer’s parents, and the murderer himself. It is a tale of how Peter’s best friend, Josie Cormier, cut friendship ties to join the popular clique in school. It is a confession of how Peter’s mother wished she never had a son like Peter. It is a dark secret of the true personality of Peter’s older brother, who in society’s eyes, is a son any parent would be more proud of – but in Peter’s eyes his brother was a monster, who terrorized Peter with the other bullies in school.

When you’re hurting deeply, you go inward. Endorphins kick in – the body’s natural morphine – and carry you somewhere far away, where the pain can’t find you – Jodi Picoult in Nineteen Minutes

What really brought me to shivers was how society can be so cruel even in a community of children as young as six year olds. How bullying can even begin at such a young age? After reading this book, you will question if parents can truly help their children and prevent them from falling victim to bullying? Peter’s parents thought they were giving him all the love they had. However, they fail to realize that Peter could see through his parents’ true feelings – where his mother wished Peter was dead, and his father wished Peter had never been born into this world. More often than not, parents tend to think that they know their child best; that every decision they make for their child is the right one. Worse still, how do you deal with a child who does not want to talk about it?

If we just let our children be who they want to be, and not judge who they are or force to be someone who we think can survive in society … would incidents like the Columbia High School shooting be avoided? Do we really understand what children today are going through? Then again, how do you define cruelty as the norm in society? How do you define every man’s ability to step on the weak in this dog-eat-dog world?

The structure of this book is written from a third person point of view. At the beginning of each main chapter, there is a short diary entry capturing Peter’s true feelings of a particular phase in his life. I found this useful as I could connect better with the events that unfolded in each chapter. The ending is somewhat tragic, even though it began with an already devastating incident. The story after the school shooting is very much based on the court trials and how a hidden clue led to a twist in the final verdict.

All in all, this is a book that will remind you of your growing up years, and what could have gone wrong if you were Peter Houghton, his best friend, his bullies, or his mother and father. This is a book that will remind you how bullying, which seems to many as just immature, can seriously and adversely affect people’s lives.

Lastly, to end this post, I would like to quote my favourite part of the story – a diary entry from Peter Houghton. I feel this is the best explanation of what bullying is, and what it feels like to be the victim.

When I was little, I used to pour salt on slugs. I liked watching them dissolve before my eyes. Cruelty is always sort of fun until you realize that something is getting hurt. It would be one thing to be a loser if it meant no one paid attention to you, but in school, it means you’re actively sought out. You’re the slug, and they are holding all the salt. And they haven’t developed a conscience. There’s a word we learned in social sciences: schadenfreude. It’s when you enjoy watching someone else suffer. The real question, though, is why? I think part of it is just self-preservation. And part of it is because a group always feels more like a group when it’s banded together against an enemy. It doesn’t matter if that enemy has never done anything to hurt you – you just have to pretend you hate someone even more than you hate yourself. You know why salt works on slugs? Because it dissolves in the water that’s part of the slug’s skin, so the water inside its body starts to flow out. The slug dehydrates. This works with snails too. And with leeches. And with people like me. With any creature, really, too thin-skinned to stand up for itself … – Jodi Picoult in Nineteen Minutes