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No More Than Reason;
Tuesday, July 6, 2010
From plinky: When was the last time you thanked someone? I really can’t remember. I think it was when, during TCSHMUN 2010, I sent the delegate of North Korea a thank-you note for livening up my boring resolution with a joke amendment. Or maybe it was the time I baked a batch of cookies for Trishna and her family for doing a disproportionate amount of the ferrying to-and-from college and our various activities this year. You see, those emails telling everyone that the hardest two words to say are “thank you” worked themselves into my head: I thank people a lot. I thank people for holding doors, librarians for processing my books, sales clerks for tending to me, cleaning ladies for allowing me to use the bathroom even though they’ve only just cleaned it. I don’t mumble it either; I say it loud, I say it proud. And still, I feel that I don’t thank the people in my life enough. Let me explain. I made my dad a huge thank you card for Father’s Day, thanking him for working his back out doing overtime. And yet during the holidays I went on a big shopping spree. It wasn’t a huge amount of money by my peers standards but it did blow out my wallet. Receiving the invoice for my flight tickets to London and Istanbul recently just increased my guilt till I felt like barricading myself in my room if my dad so much as looked at me. I also acted in a really irresponsible way, not bothering to coordinate my social events with everyone else in the family, and being irresponsible with his things as well as my own. I feel like sometimes I can’t blame him for treating me like a kid, because I certainly haven’t been acting like the 18-year-old I am supposed to be. After every meal every day, I thank Aunty Eva (our maid) for preparing the meal. She’s been with us for as long as I can remember – apparently she arrived to work in our household a month before I was born, so she’s been here a good long eighteen years. She’s really cheerful and capable, but she IS getting on. I hear her coughing a lot, and I can make a rainbow out of all the pills on her breakfast plate. And yet I don’t help her with the cooking and housework as often as I should. I shove it to the back of my head with the thought, I cleaned the upstairs last week. I’ve done my part. & It’s not like when I thank my dad and Aunty Eva, I’m not saying it sincerely. I say it with all my heart! But maybe “with all my heart” means and thank you for having to absorb all the shit I throw at you, because I’m really really sorry but I’m going to do it again. Another person I don’t thank enough would be my cousin Dennis a.k.a my Favourite Cousin (FC) whom I undeniably bully more than I should. He’s my know-it-all and my go-to for almost everything. A lot of pre-debate tournament nights were spent on the phone or in front of the computer with him, and he’d have to fork out his work hours just to come and layan his nut of a cousin who hasn’t got two feet to stand on and a brain to think with. For those of you at TCSHMUN, you know that my resolution passed with hardly any abstentions; the truth is that Sheng Hoay and I had spent the night before in front of the computer, and he was helping with it. He never spoonfed me information (I don’t think Lundu is reading this but just in case, HELLO :D), instead asking me questions that got me to think for myself. As a result I came up with a wholesome resolution that covered all aspects of a problem that was relatively minor. The bottom line is, I didn’t do it alone, as everyone is of the mistaken opinion that I did. A lot of times he says things that are hurt and cutting but absolutely true. (Not the time he called me an orangutan) I mean like the times he told me I wasn’t treating my younger brother well enough. It absolutely hurt to hear it, but it was the pure shameful truth – half the time I brush my brother aside like a fly on the wall. And yet I forget to return his texts (ignore them sometimes when I’m busy), and in general forget to return all the kindness he’s bestowed on an OKU such as myself. Heh. It’s easy to thank cleaners, librarians and acquaintances, because you know that given the means, you would be able to help them back. It’s easier when you know that repaying them isn’t a task that will ask much of you. Conversely, it’s the most difficult to say thank you to those whom repaying means changing yourself for the better, because it means admitting that who you are now really isn’t good enough; which is why they had to step in in the first place. But what can I say right now? Because I realized that thanking somebody goes beyond just saying thank you. Really thanking the people who deserve it most requires action and change, to show that what they did for you wasn’t for nothing. I can resolve to be a lot more responsible and hope that my dad and Aunty Eva are going to notice, and I hope it makes a difference to them. But if that resolution goes down the drain like every other promise before that, there’s really no point in talking so much here. And so once again this is just a blog post full of hot wind and little else. PS: Hi FC I’m not going to pick up your call this time because I’m too embarrassed. What you should do is say IT’S ABOUT TIME. There you see, even saying thank you is a Herculean task for me. Haih why am I so gutless. Labels: Musings, Personal, Very Long Posts
INTRODUCING
Name: Louise
13 April 1992
You can only call me Lulu if you don’t think the name’s funny.
I am a member of the Smiley Conspiracy and a proud ex-CHS-ian, graduating class of 2009. Now doing A-Levels at HELP University College. Is proudly Malaysian, but doesn’t look like it and is proud of that too.
This is the 7th time I am editing this about section of the blog this year; I have sort of accepted that my personality is ever-evolving, ever-changing, therefore rendering my moods as volatile as the weather. But just as there are some things that have stood untouched across the centuries by harsh weather, so there are some things with me that remain ever the same: a belief that to live is to learn, and the ability to bounce back from setbacks.
What I love also remains constant. I love good food, dancing, fresh experiences, open minds and friendly people, all of which can be found in the wonderful wonderful city that is Istanbul. I love musicals, plays, good books, stickers, owls, colourful wrapping paper, hugs and kisses, chocolates, almost any music from the 17th to the 21st century, intense debates and post-it notes.
Fictional characters I have been compared to (in terms of personality) are Piglet from Winnie The Pooh and Kelsi from High School Musical.
I dream of finishing this list [29/8/2010: list is undergoing revamp!], and my secret ambition is to become a hairdresser or bartender. Unfortunately I’m also incredibly kiasu, so I’m going to go to university just to show everyone that I can. But want to go to uni also because I love learning lah!
Words that describe me are impulsive, impetuous, quixotic, sanguine, quirky, bewildered, kiasu and hodgepodge. The last one also refers to my sense of fashion.
*GRINS* :D
No More Than Reason;
Tuesday, July 6, 2010
From plinky: When was the last time you thanked someone? I really can’t remember. I think it was when, during TCSHMUN 2010, I sent the delegate of North Korea a thank-you note for livening up my boring resolution with a joke amendment. Or maybe it was the time I baked a batch of cookies for Trishna and her family for doing a disproportionate amount of the ferrying to-and-from college and our various activities this year. You see, those emails telling everyone that the hardest two words to say are “thank you” worked themselves into my head: I thank people a lot. I thank people for holding doors, librarians for processing my books, sales clerks for tending to me, cleaning ladies for allowing me to use the bathroom even though they’ve only just cleaned it. I don’t mumble it either; I say it loud, I say it proud. And still, I feel that I don’t thank the people in my life enough. Let me explain. I made my dad a huge thank you card for Father’s Day, thanking him for working his back out doing overtime. And yet during the holidays I went on a big shopping spree. It wasn’t a huge amount of money by my peers standards but it did blow out my wallet. Receiving the invoice for my flight tickets to London and Istanbul recently just increased my guilt till I felt like barricading myself in my room if my dad so much as looked at me. I also acted in a really irresponsible way, not bothering to coordinate my social events with everyone else in the family, and being irresponsible with his things as well as my own. I feel like sometimes I can’t blame him for treating me like a kid, because I certainly haven’t been acting like the 18-year-old I am supposed to be. After every meal every day, I thank Aunty Eva (our maid) for preparing the meal. She’s been with us for as long as I can remember – apparently she arrived to work in our household a month before I was born, so she’s been here a good long eighteen years. She’s really cheerful and capable, but she IS getting on. I hear her coughing a lot, and I can make a rainbow out of all the pills on her breakfast plate. And yet I don’t help her with the cooking and housework as often as I should. I shove it to the back of my head with the thought, I cleaned the upstairs last week. I’ve done my part. & It’s not like when I thank my dad and Aunty Eva, I’m not saying it sincerely. I say it with all my heart! But maybe “with all my heart” means and thank you for having to absorb all the shit I throw at you, because I’m really really sorry but I’m going to do it again. Another person I don’t thank enough would be my cousin Dennis a.k.a my Favourite Cousin (FC) whom I undeniably bully more than I should. He’s my know-it-all and my go-to for almost everything. A lot of pre-debate tournament nights were spent on the phone or in front of the computer with him, and he’d have to fork out his work hours just to come and layan his nut of a cousin who hasn’t got two feet to stand on and a brain to think with. For those of you at TCSHMUN, you know that my resolution passed with hardly any abstentions; the truth is that Sheng Hoay and I had spent the night before in front of the computer, and he was helping with it. He never spoonfed me information (I don’t think Lundu is reading this but just in case, HELLO :D), instead asking me questions that got me to think for myself. As a result I came up with a wholesome resolution that covered all aspects of a problem that was relatively minor. The bottom line is, I didn’t do it alone, as everyone is of the mistaken opinion that I did. A lot of times he says things that are hurt and cutting but absolutely true. (Not the time he called me an orangutan) I mean like the times he told me I wasn’t treating my younger brother well enough. It absolutely hurt to hear it, but it was the pure shameful truth – half the time I brush my brother aside like a fly on the wall. And yet I forget to return his texts (ignore them sometimes when I’m busy), and in general forget to return all the kindness he’s bestowed on an OKU such as myself. Heh. It’s easy to thank cleaners, librarians and acquaintances, because you know that given the means, you would be able to help them back. It’s easier when you know that repaying them isn’t a task that will ask much of you. Conversely, it’s the most difficult to say thank you to those whom repaying means changing yourself for the better, because it means admitting that who you are now really isn’t good enough; which is why they had to step in in the first place. But what can I say right now? Because I realized that thanking somebody goes beyond just saying thank you. Really thanking the people who deserve it most requires action and change, to show that what they did for you wasn’t for nothing. I can resolve to be a lot more responsible and hope that my dad and Aunty Eva are going to notice, and I hope it makes a difference to them. But if that resolution goes down the drain like every other promise before that, there’s really no point in talking so much here. And so once again this is just a blog post full of hot wind and little else. PS: Hi FC I’m not going to pick up your call this time because I’m too embarrassed. What you should do is say IT’S ABOUT TIME. There you see, even saying thank you is a Herculean task for me. Haih why am I so gutless. Labels: Musings, Personal, Very Long Posts
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