Unstable entity

People should be very wary of me of late. I can’t either able to control my tongue or my words. The emotion, it is running high with anger and worry. The angriness is towards the selfishness that existed in someone heart and soul that even a blind man can see, yet he thought I am too young to be able to judge. The worry is about me, my research and study. The researcher in me is looking for the right way to make myself in my own way. I can’t depend on this person to be my mentor and yet one of my reasons of coming here is to get the international contacts. What can I say?

p/s Perhaps I shall zikir a lot as my mother suggested. Sigh!

Another series of sleepless nights

I have a tendency of difficulty of getting a good night sleep if something is lurking in my subconscious mind. It was not an easy tasked to live my life during the past three years since I started the PhD (permanent head damage?) course. My sleep, the main important factor in keeping my youthful look (sigh!) was deprived.

But then again, I am always an easy prey for stress, always fell for it. As a result, I will have an insomnia, or can't sleep at night.

And now, another series of sleepless night had began. Thanks a lot to the drama with my boss last Monday. Right after the face-off with the boss, insomniac night was initiated.

Last two days, he arranged a meeting with the other scientists to discuss the future of my research (ahem!) and during that meeting, these three men finally agreed that I will submit my article to any journal by February or end of February. That were a good and a bad news.

Of course, I now knew that I can finally dreamt about submitting a paper for publication and then graduation. That is a good news. The bad one, because the time is not on my side, I have to work around the clock, again! The purposes are to get new data ready and at the same time working on my writing. All, in a month time.

Anyway, I can accept that because those are my responsibility as a student. (Yes! What else can I do?)

Adding to the stress is actually this single habit of my boss. It's like rubbing salt into the wound.

What he did since yesterday? Once again the boss started his routine of going in and out of the lab checking every single thing that I touched, did or read, keeping me as one of his lab's rat. Oh! I can only pray that He will let this stage pass as soon as possible. I don't really want to graduate with the other type of PhD, let alone copying the habit of monitoring people instead of work.

Thank God!

How do you like watching three men fighting over you? Hehe!

Well, not really over me but they were quarelling for me. ;)

Today, the three of them sat down after 6 pm and started to discuss of how should my work be finalized. Beside the boss, there were two more scientists in the lab, both unmarried but that have nothing to do with my story anyway.

The two of them, one is in his early 40's and the other is about two years my junior. Both of them have different ideas of how I should write my article. In other words, my research has two different stories.

And this time, they wanted me to write each of the story into separate articles, unlike the boss' idea. I don't know why the boss gave in so easily. I just hope that he will not point his finger at me if the paper is rejected in the future.

Anyhow, I like to give credit where credit is due. The boss, he simply hold himself and not once go overboard when discussion become heated, almost to the quarel level with the younger brother. That was a good character of him, but only with his staffs, not me.

My hero, the older one, he simply sat there and gave his opinion whenever he felt the need to explain. Silent talk louder here.

Me, I just thank God that at last I can see the due date for my paper's submission. Accepted or not will be another different set of stories.

Because I have to...

I just hope that in my older days I will stop and listen to the younger voices around me. Older doesn't means wiser.

I happened to meet and have to get along an old and egoistic persona.

When I started this project, I had again and again insisted that we should be looking at the autophagy. It was an in-thing in research. Nevertheless, the water molecules were the interest of the lab. So, I let go of my idea and think about the water molecules all the way long.

Now, at the end of the journey, autophagy suddendly become the interest because somewhere, in a meeting somebody asked many questions.

Life will never become easy for someone who made life miserable for others.

I bowed because I need to, for now.

YM

Last night we had a session of YM; my mother, brother, sister-in-law and me.

The best thing of talking online with viewcam is that we can see each other.

And yes, I can witnessed with my own eyes that my bother was fatter compared to the last time I saw him. The happy man he was, since his marriage last year. And so my mother, fat and happy. Hehe! My SIL seemed tired, understandably that she was at her final pregnancy stage, waiting to deliver her baby soon. The expected date  is 4th February.

The effect of the happy hour did made me had happier dreams. I can't recalled the dreams but it brought the senses of satisfaction when I woke up in this morning. Aha!

p/s I read my horoscope this morning, it said that I shoudn't bear a grudge too long. Hehe! Wondering who is the unlucky one? Bos? Crap!

Cooling off period

I am trying to cool off since the bos will not be around starting from today for two consecutive days. Horrah!

I had discussion with the little 'brother' regarding yesterday's meeting about my research and as usual our argument was a heated one; his limited vocabulary made me easily insulted and then, I did what I did best, back off. But he later explained his point in a lower note which I was very much reciprocated.

See, I can't get close to any man in this world because it is either I feel that they think I am sooo stupid or I can't see that they wanted to protect me in a long run. I am rather blind when it comes to manly things. Guys out there, is it difficult to talk monotonously? Or like polygamy, monotonous never existed in man's vocabulary?

*Oh! Dear God. Is everything here will turn into man bashing post? Please pardon me. Sigh!*

Red Alert!!!!

I am angry at my bos. He was out of his mind again. It happened yesterday before lunch time. He asked me to do something that can be considered pelik and not in line with my study.

My reason to go against him was that I have another 8 months to be here. Plus minus the writing and submitting the paper, it was going to be another 3 months for lab work.

After the face-off, I went home and didnt even picking up the phone when he called. He left a message in the phone asking me to go to the lab for a meeting with another scientists, if they will agree with him. He used that technique of entrapment so often with another students before me that I knew it by heart.

The conclusion, his proposal was rejected since they felt it will not do any good to my study. But I still need to put up some other data and they are now thinking about one more experiment.

Gosh! Why can't they think about it, let say, two months before I go home so that  I don't have time to graduate? St***d people!!!!

Snowy lunch-time

Today, I skipped my plan to go home and have porridge as lunch because of the snow. Tokushima, being situated on the southern part of Japan is usually warmer than the northern area of Japan. Thus, it was rarely snowing and for the last three years, it never last more than 1 hour. Today, it started snowing around eleven in the morning and is still going strong.

This means that salad and onigiri from Lawson will do just fine for the lunch.

What if?

In our life, many things can happen accidentally, or so suddenly.

Last two nights, I called my mother and we talk about life. About being humble and the way we should carry ourselves.

Yeah, my mother and I are friends. We can talk for three hours on phone without interruption if we have a topic in common, especially about life; the past, the present and the future.

My brothers used to scold us that we can talk non-stop on phone, but then, we don’t agree on so many things when we stayed under one roof.

For me, it was just my immature-and-not-so-patience me being under her non-stop lectures.

And for her, I was and am her 17-years-old daughter. Mothers do that all the time.

Anyway, I digress.

During the conversation, we came down to the point that nothing in this world will ever lasted, be it good or bad. It was then that I realized that I will have nothing in this world if one day, God decided that He would take away my brain.

Everything that I worked out so far was stored in the memory of my brain. All the techniques and knowledge were there. What if, one day all is gone? What will happen to me at that time?

I guess, I am just nobody without Him.

New Year 2010 night

Tully's at night

On the bridge after dinner

At the very night of the end of year of 2009, Mirza and I spent the night having dinner of pastas and pizzas at our usual Capricouza restaurant, and then coffees at Tully's. It was a lovely and quiet night in Tokushima-shi.

I have decided againts my own wish to go anywhere but to stay in Tokushima. The least that I can do as this was the last-year that I was going to celebrate end-of-the-year in Tokushima. But then the coldness made me went home earlier rather than staying to witness hanami (firework) at twelve o'clock near Shin-machi.

Greedy & proud vs humble & optimist

Today, there was an article written in Bahasa Malaysia in Harian Metro about being greedy and the consequences of it. It did strike me on one or two things that made my mind started the processes of thinking, again. As Monsieur Hercule Poirot would say, “My little grey cells are working, Mon ami”.

In that article, it pointed out that one of the effect of being greedy is one will work to acquire a mammoth of wealth. Because of the wealth, the person will then subsequently gain a certain title, given to him, and finally, with that he obtained power.

Having all these, there will be a possibility that he would end up being too proud of himself and look down on others.

The thing about being too proud was what had pulled me down to the earth today - instead of flying around zip zapping with the aeroplanes.

I am afraid of so many things in this world. One is to forget the word ‘humble’. There are so many other things that made me scared of myself. One is to confuse the word humble with low self-esteem which is a negative point in psychology field, especially in being successful. There were many thin lines of being negatives or being positives in self-consciousness.

Me, I wish, though the knowledge that I acquire here will come up with a title -if I am alive to finish this- I will stay grounded. I am not here for the title but this is my dream to be able to do PhD. It is also one of my agendas, as a motivation indirectly to my other sisters and brothers of my big families. I want my cousins, nieces and nephews and hopefully one day, my children, to see that we all can do this. It is just a silent statement for them that studying up to this point is not the impossible thing to do. Those are reasons of me doing this silly thing, being here all alone by myself, talking by myself while waking or sleeping. I do not mind being call names (spinster?!) as long as I can succeed to prove that if I can, and so others can.

At one point while in USM, I was told that I being a science officer knew nothing about the scientific work. It was because I have no title. At that time, there were not many lecturers in PPSG who graduated with PhD in basic science, so my former boss asked me to help. He believes that I could. Thus, I did monitor the students’ work. Little did people know that some of the M. Sc students and a Phd student graduated under my co-supervision? But then, who am I? Not an MD or a PhD holder. I am just a person who graduated from UKM with M. Sc. in basic science. However, it never deter me from doing what I love most, ‘Investigate, Watson!’ We bowed when we need to bow, but life is like a circle. The same people who relinquish you today will be the same people who will cherish you tomorrow.

I just wish that people will not confuse the optimist me with the proud me. It is simply me who always optimist that sun will always come up from the north, till one day, day of the end of the world.

The pain

It was still very early in the morning as I cannot see any sign of light coming in through our wooden house but I had woken up. It was a restless sleep. The pain of my right hand lower arm was unbearable. I cannot sense of any reason why should there be any pain. However, the morning chilliness just made me turned myself over in hope to catch another hour of sleep.

But then I heard voices of my parents chatting happily. Then there were delicious fragrances of chicken curry and ketupat pulut coming from downstairs.

My eyes wide opened.

Oh! It is Hari Raya. I need to get up early. But wait, the pain? How could I have my Raya if the pain insisted? I felt gloomy.

I was 14 years old and Hari Raya was a day that I intended to celebrate to the fullest, even now.

Slowly, I pushed myself up. I could see that my two brothers were still deep in sleep when I took a peek into their shared room.

How can one sleep like those two?

Next, I took a steady stepped down the wooden stairs. Each of the steps of the stairs was made from polish black round lumber, so I need to be careful while walking on it. Especially at that time, coming out from the darkness of my room so my eyes still not get used to the bright illuminating fluorescence lamp hanging on the wall.

My mother and father were busily talking. I cannot make up of anything from their words. It was like they were gossiping, but he looked so happy sitting at the dining table and tasting the curry. He must have had his morning prayer because he had the white lebai covering his head, wearing only sarong with no shirt, showing his big stomach. She was standing next to her boiling curry, well known to the villagers for it taste, and because she usually used the ayam kampong which made it special.

Ayah, sakit tangan! Father, my hand is painful! Claimed me out of sudden. Both of them looked up.

I shove my hand towards his direction while taking my place on the stairs, halfway downstairs.

Pasal apa? Why? Both of them respond.

Tak tau. I don’t know.

My father came closer and took my hand into his. He smiles while his fingers strolled down my lower arm. He was a good traditional massager to a circle of friends.

Aduh!

Ooo..pasal buat kuih kelmarin la tu. Tekan kuat sangat kot. Oh! Probably because of helping me to make biscuits yesterday. You pressed to hard.

My mother was teasing me. Then I remembered that yesterday, I had made a few hundreds kuih kacang (biscuits) that needed me to use my thumb to press hard on the surface of the beans powder that was put into a mould, for Hari Raya.

Ya la. Orang tak pernah buat kerja kasar. Yes, you never do any hard work. My father took turned to tease me. Indeed, the only hard work known to me was to study for examinations.

She then handed him an oily medication in a bottle. Right there and then he massaged the pain away with his cold hard fingers.

It is a memory of love that will never fade away.

The first day of a new light

After almost 10 days lying on my stomach watching dramas or movies, under the blanket with heater switched on for 24 hours per day, and having enough food to fill the stomach for every 2 hours, today, I felt very energetic to start working in the lab again. The feeling puzzled me a little since I was so happy and greeting everybody in a cheerful mood. The moody me was somehow seeing the whole morning episode in a skeptic manner wondering what the heck with me and the mood. Probably it was because of the burned bread toast that I had this morning before coming to the lab or the un-stoppable stream of ideas that keep running into my head since I woke up.

Anyway, I am very thankful to the God that I am happy at the moment. Yes, I would like to see myself in a new light this year. The pathetic me most likely had flew away, and the new avatar is emerging. I wished to leave certain parts of my life in the past and am looking forward for the next century. Hurrah!

Happy New Year 2010

I should have write something yesterday, but I was busy making myself full with non-stop eating and then worried. What worried me is that I have indigestion issue. Eating usually leave some uncomfortable feeling afterward. Afterall, my other hobby after cooking is eating. I am sad if I can't eat as much.....:(

*Let not indulge on self pity, Che Na!*

On the happy note, I wish everyone, Happy New Year 2010!!!

p/s I shot these swan pictures at a pond surrounding Tokushima Koen (a garden). She (my guess) seemed to love the camera because she swam to be near me and gave a few posts for the photo shots.