Not on my turf

The moment something doesn't affect us personally is the moment that we just don't care about it, or any of its outcomes.

Simple as that. If toll rates don't affect me, I don't care. If I don't have to worry about paying for xyz, then I just don't care. Selfish? Maybe?

We should increase minimum charges for hospitals from RM 1 to RM 3. Enough to raise a hue and cry right? Perhaps, depends on where you stand on anything, if I was prepared to pay RM 300, that would be the best discount in the world. If I was prepared to pay RM 0, that is 100% above my WTP and I object. If I am the person who can barely afford to pay for my dinner (and most likely correlated with unhealthy outcomes and sickness therefore making me the main subject requiring these treatments to begin with), then I'm in serious trouble.

But the truth is, it doesn't affect me, and I don't care. General take innit?

Strings of Time

"We didn't have the gallery in order to look into your souls. We have the gallery to see if you had souls at all."

~Never Let Me Go (2010)


The movie struck a chord with me. Never mind the annoyance at Keira Knightley's pouting face and similar acting skills (read the Last Night and this movie), or that Andrew Garfield (although pretty good in his role) still didn't come across as entirely believable, but Cary Mulligan, well her face honestly speaks of a thousand emotions and she might just be the next actress who I really feel deserves to be called that. An actress.

"What I'm not sure about, is if our lives have been so different from the lives of the people we save. We all complete. Maybe none of us really understand what we've lived through, or feel we've had enough time."

The movie did make me think, not so much of the ethical concerns of cloning for vital organs sake, but for the fact that sometimes we live on strings of time, that whether this time, artifically taken from us through "completion" or whether taken from us by some greater power or willingness of fate, happens to everyone. That people we take for granted will always be there, will one day not be. Then maybe the Grey Havens and eternal life wouldn't be appealing at all. After all, what is there left when there is no one to share memories with anymore?

"You have to accept that sometimes that's how things happen in this world. People's opinions, their feelings, they go one way, then the other. It just so happens you grew up at a certain point in this process." 

Thoughts

Siempre igual es el camino 
que ilumina y dora el sol... 
Si parece que el destino 
mas lo alarga 
para mi dolor

Education is such a sensitive topic due to the fact that just about everyone will have gone through it sometime in their life, and therefore will hold steadfast opinions over what was "good", what IS "good", what was bad and which schools they hated. For sure.

Doing more research into education has led me to start thinking about the sort of education that I had, that explaining myself and anchoring it to something I must have picked up from spot A, or spot B has again made me realize that I really am a hodgepodge of everything =.=".

For Chinese school I thank for my strength in mental math, grasp of chinese and disciplined attitude. I also thank for my fear of authority, confucian ideals and switching 7 teachers in 1 year.

For KLASS I thank for my interest in sports and general competitiveness. I also thank for my abject fear of public speaking (re year 5 carpet time).

For Umich I thank for helping me grow up, for showing me other things than academics, for bringing me into contact with some of the most inspiring people and ideas ever. For letting me know that I have control over who I am.

As the struggle over bringing up kids well continues, I have slowly forgotten what it means to have a workload that can honestly kill you (homework, tuition, EC's), and what on earth for? To get into a good University really, but above and beyond that, to shape and mould interests so they stick with you for a lifetime. But really, the only way you know what kids get up to in schools are by its byproduct (grades), unfortunately the older you get, the more you also forget how little they truly capture what school is. Maybe it's just great that you have a functioning child =S.

Wants

-Green silk pleated dress
-Urban decay palette
-New bikini
-Restful holiday
-A good read
-Massage in Bali
-Tango in Bali
-Exploring new places
-New Cifs

So why?

Sitting in a booth at Shivz, one of the waiters asked me what I liked about Tango with quite a mystified look on his face as I was waiting for Ogie to finish his first class. I didn't know how to enunciate the way that this dance made me feel, or why it drew me in, thinking about it myself, it's still hard to really put into words, 'why tango?'

Maybe I'd have to bring him back to September 2009 where a very harried me was running from Sushi dinner at Miki's, to the Union Ballroom on a end-of-summer weather night in Ann Arbor, post swimming. Entering the vast ballroom with flipflops and being asked to walk backward isn't really a good combo for Tango.

Or then the next week, learning about Ochos for the very first time in the cafe on the ground floor of the Union and meeting Phillip.

Or continuous lessons in 3rd floor Mason hall with the wonderful people from Mtango.

Or first milongas in Novembers with bubble tea at hand and darkened Vitosh Guest House.

Or Fire&Ice noobs and practicas and milongas where all one could do is stare in astonishment at the talent on show.

Or Triangulo on a May night in NYC with old New Yorkers with stories to tell.

Or last milongas at the Phoenix Center post Indian makans and giggles.

Or flying back to the root of it all 11 months post graduation, back to where it all began, back to Tango with the old guards.

All the leaders who have taught me so much, and the followers who are there for gossip, entertainment, makans.

How do I sum that all up to him? All I said was, it was a great dance =). That is all.