The week is coming to an end. It has been productive, despite the occasional hiccups here and there. I am proud to announce that my dissertation project is finally underway, and I had shortlisted areas which I would be working on. Now, I just need to get my preliminary report out and chart the framework of my chapters.

I need to prepare myself to moderate for a seminar tomorrow. Drats, that means no late night for me today. And to think that it is Friday ):

Going for a friend's housewarming this Sunday. That promises to be loads of fun. We might even be catching Michael Moore's latest film.

Life is looking up for me as I managed to pull myself out from the rut of never ever starting on my thesis. I need to get it done as soon as I can so that I could get on with life before I become too old.

Maybe I will blog more this coming weekend, if I have anything else to say...

 

We move in different worlds....

I am sure that you would already have read about things like this in the other blogs, about how people are never satisfied with what they have or what others have. I am certain that many of you have seen the bitchings and mud-slingings that go on in other public internet forums and even newsgroups. How we all seem to have a great capacity for passing judgements and make bitchy remarks about others, even those who have not done anything to harm us or anyone else. I know that I can be guilty of this sin.  And I do know that I, and many other people reading this, have a superiority complex when dealing with other people that we deemed inferior to ourselves. In my case, the fact that I am able to contain such feelings is because I have gone to school, university and work in jobs with all sorts of people from all walks of life. I do get to hear about what they do and their lives. And I do know that not everyone always make the choices that they make out of freewill. It is often dictated by a necessity to survive, to live on in a world screwed up by humans. It is always easy for us to think that we are not them, therefore there is no need to empathise but we never realised how fucked up we really can be until we are thrown into similar situations. Perhaps we need to stop being such a navel-grazing generation, ne c'est pas ?

In 1969

Monday night gave a pretty stimulating event, something one seldom find in Malaysia, due the level of intellectual depth of most of its people. Beth Yahp gave a reading of her short story " In 1969". I hope that it could get translated into other languages, so that other people would be able to read it for themselves. Even if you do not identify with the contents of the story (it is about a black part of Malaysian history), you would still enjoy the voice of the narrative, of the narrator of the story. Its use of language and imagery is powerful and poetic, even if Beth does not consider herself a poet (:
 
The reading was followed by a discussion of the invisible or silenced voice. Of whether one should or should not write about something. THe censorship that follows it, whether internal or external. The people who feel that they have to earn a living and maintain a precarious position in the society. People who feel too repressed from talking about black history, race, nationality, ethnicity and sexuality. Even Beth, a Malaysian writer with the full freedom to write whatever she wants abroad, is faced with this dilemma. Would one hurt the people one is closed to? Or is one able to cut of such ties and write with a vengeance, come sorrow or pain. Write in order to tell the truth. But then, many of us in this postmodern age seem to regard the truth as subjective. I beg to differ. History or Herstory is subjective. But not the truth.
 
If none of you have heard of Beth Yahp, just google her. She comes up quite a lot.
 
I take my inspiration from her, and I hope to be as great a writer not too far in the future. I am not growing younger everyday after all.
 
Fictional narrative provides an alternative explanation to the supposed objective history, when everyone now knows that there is no such thing as objective history. History is what we know or choose to remember. But fiction could play a part in reawakening interest in history, a subject badly taught and much magligned by the education system in Malaysia, and most probably elsewhere.
 
 
 

I am an idiot, but so are you..

Oxymoronic quotes overheard

"I love to read but this book has got too many words"

"I am not prejudiced, but I can't stand Malaysians, Indians, Afrikaneers, Thais, Chinese, Indians, (insert whatever other races/nationalities that come into your mind)"

"I am doing a PhD now but I can't stand the subject I am researching on. I will do it anyway, for the PhD. Beats working."

"I love to write poetry, but I don't read poetry."

Best things that people ever said to me (though I didn't like the context in which some were said at that time). Interesting how the same people(some of them, not all) did not take their own advice.

"Don't you ever fall into a rut."
"The world does not owe you a living or respect. You earn it."
"You are too self-centred. Think of those around you for a change."
"Always live your dreams, no matter what. Don't let frustrations and obstacles stop you."
"Capitalise on whatever strengths you have."
"Do you want to be part of a problem or part of a solution?"

Hmm, can't think of more. Let you know when I do *wink*

of cattle shows and beauty pageants

This is quite a lousy day for me, suffering from a stomach flu that reduced me to running to the toilet every 1 to 2 hours. Horrid. Since I can't get in to work today, I thought that I would alternate between sleeping, eating (bread is all I can ingest without too much ado), and surfing the net. Currently at my friend's place, but will be going home soon to mull for the rest of the day.

Here are some interesting things that I had picked up from the NET. It started with me innocently going to other ppl's blog (I read blogs when I am feeling too mashed up to really concentrate on anything heavier). There is this ongoing debate about what is beauty, what is a beauty pageant and who has the right to represent. Thought that I should post it here for my readers to peruse.
http://n1kki.frens.net/archives/2004/06/02/miss_malaysiauniverse.html
http://www.nicsteronline.com/archives/000908.html

One thing that I do agree about, with regard to international competitions, regardless of the principles behind it (be it a showcase of true talent and hardwork or a cattle show of flesh), it has to go by standards. Being optimistic, brave and irrepressible does not make me a suitable candidate to represent my country at whatever it is that I wish to do. That has to be won through true skill and ability. That, my friends, differentiate a solid performer and a wanna-be. I would like to be a good poet someday, and I am brave enough to work towards it. But if I am talentless, all the hardwork and sheer gumption would only give me 15 minutes of fame, and I would most probably be pelted with rotten tomatoes, like Mcgonagall

I am still so not very well ):

Money, money, money

Sometimes, I wonder whether I should work for money or for love. It would be good to combine both and become a millionaire one day. To know that you have all the money in the world to spend without worrying about creditors and debts can be quite exhilarating. It could also lead to one's downfall if one spend indiscreetly. But then, I would definitely like to give it a try in making as much money as I could, without crushing too many people. But then, it is hard to be filthy rich without crushing people in the process, right?

I must say that this is a funny article from express India.
http://www.expressindia.com/fullstory.php?newsid=32353#compstory

Talking about money, there has been much speculation about China's supposedly burgeoning economy. Naysayers think that it would burst. I am still trying to understand China's economics, so there is not much that I could add now, but I will provide the links that I feel is useful in the further understanding of China.

postmodern science and some personal tidbits

I have recently finished reading Luce Irigaray's "The Sex Which is Not One", a book that compiles a collection of her writings and interviews that have been translated into English. I will discuss more on it later. Suffice for me to say for now that she refutes many of the attitudes that Freud took with regard to the question of feminity. I found some interesting quotes that I could use for an academic essay that I am working on, and will tell the rest of you once it is published (somewhere *wink*). I also googled for Sandra Harding, a feminist philosopher of science, and will be getting her book from the library later today, the title being, "Is Science Multicultural". Go google out the book yourself, you lazy uns :P. And in my search, I found an essay critiquing her work, which I have not properly read through as I was busy with Irigaray yesterday (stayed late at work just to finish her). Anyway, you can check it out yourself at http://www.uno.edu/~asoble/pages/HARDING.htm .

Also, thought that I should mention that this blog appeared here. Must be due to the fact that I have linking out of me blog to a few urls that you will see on the site. And a search for Clarissa's Blog does rank it quite high, though there are other Clarissas around. Indulge my ego for a bit :D

Anyway, that's all folks. Til later.

Requiem For A Dream

Just a few days ago, I was watching the film, Requiem For A Dream,about addiction (to everything, from tvs to drugs). The underlying motif that run through the entire film is the fact that the characters in them have no hope, felt crushed, unwanted, alone, lonely, bored, self-hatred. They were mostly ordinary people, though one was initially a rich kid who finally had to prostitute herself to feed her habit. It is as much a critique of the American culture (the kind of food that leads to obesity, the repetitive and trancelike television shows, the holier-than-thou attitude, poverty, materialism and self-centredness). This darkly hints on the direction that Malaysia is spiralling into, with rising crime and psychotic people, that not stemming from a lack of morals (after all, they have all these moral and religious education rammed down the kids throats from an early age), but from lack of direction, goals, self-hatred, boredom, complacency, selfishness and everything that we see as happening in many first world countries. Seeing how the world has evolved, be they war-torn countries like many of the countries in the African continents and some in the Middle East, dictatorships in Latin American countries and most parts of Asia, or supposed democracy in the US, my belief in social Darwinism grows stronger everyday. We want and we need values, yes, but why aren't as practising it? Moralising aout all these things, as many institutionalised religions are apt to do, will not solve the issues, especially when many of their own people are the perpetrator of some of the most heinous conducts. It merely skims over things and dissolves us from the responsibilities of thinking further and to look beyond our mini-Pinochio noses. However, while I do not believe totally in the cold objectivity of social Darwinism, I believe that society will become self-destructive deal to its lack of altruism. This brings me to an article I read about anthropology in this magazine called 21st Century Science and Technology , which accuses this discipline of empiricising and othering non-White cultures. While my piece here is not going to go into the epistemological arguments in the article, a particular paragraph caught my attention. Since I do not have the magazine with me now (I am at work after all), I will paraphrase it for my readers. It says that when anthropologists go to certain 'primitive' cultures to study them, they make the empirical and ethnographer assumption that such there is uneven evolution within the human species, hence there are the very developed Aryan race (as the neo-Nazis would be proud to say) and the undeveloped, almost simian-like, Aborigines. What the anthropologists failed to address, the article claimed, is that these so called 'primitive' cultures could have been leftovers, or marginal groups, of a lost civilization, or one that is destroyed. I find this fascinating, as the level of knowledge of the average person of the great civilizations of the past is almost nil. Many can't even name the civilizations, let alone know why they fell. It seems that our education has failed in this regard, when we have postdocs and even some academics who do not know or understand what could have destroyed a supposedly sophisticated society. Perhaps we have doomed ourselves to repeat the mistakes of the past. When people like Darren Arofnosky and other non-mainstream publications (the fact that they are non-mainstream already marginalised them and hamper their ability to reach to the average Joe or Jane) try to rub some form of awareness into us via their art or creation, we often choose to ignore them. The people I know who have watched this film, which is the title of this post, agrees that showing impressionable kids the stuff in all their gory bits (even if it could be traumatic, but that is where the parents and more mature adults-note the use of the word 'mature'-is there to explain things to them) rather than moralising to them, serve as a stronger deterrent. Don't you agree?

Wasted Education

My friend and I were reading through Jeff Ooi's archive and we found a story on LimKokWing. HAving only spent 3 months in a private college (the sum of my private education), I am not able to comment too much, though from what I hear from college students of private institutions, the Education Ministry has failed in regulating the setting up of colleges, accreditation of the institutions and even in checking on the quality of the teaching staff, facilities, internal examinations and course contents. I have attended an interview for a job as a lecturer with a private college. They put me through some role-playing, by having me present a short lecture to a 'class' that consists of my interviewers. They seem impressed enough and I was shortlisted for an interview with the MD. That was where I met my Waterloo. Firstly, he thought my asking price was too high (due to my youth and my lack of consistent full-time work experience. Apparently, my past part time teaching experience and other related work experiences do not count) and from the way the interview went, I had a feeling that he was more interested in how much he could milk out of me for minimal pay. I was pretty appalled that the lecturers who were more senior than me were paid less than my asking price, which I felt was it was in a fair range (=RM2500) based on my past experiences and the amount of responsibilities I have to take on if I was to be given the post.

While waiting for that interview with the college's MD, I chatted with a fellow interviewee, whose idea of teaching college was teaching a tuition class (I wonder if she got the job), but I guess they must be impressed enough (or desperate enough) to pass her on for the second interview.

Anyhow, throughout the final interview, the MD seemed less interested in my teaching capabilities and how I could contribute to the students' and college's educational achievements (as to whether it existed or was I faking it) than how much he could pay me and all the roles that I was to assume as a "team-player" in a "corporate"-like environment. Needless to say, I never got the job.

While I would never deny the fact that many of the lecturers who decided to take up lecturing despite of the bad pay (though if you are some acclaimed professor from a public university, you can go in for a good position and higher pay. It is all about publicity) do it for the love, there are many others who do this job because no one in the industry or anywhere else would hire them. It is the second breed that we should be most concerned with, as there are more of them in private colleges, than the first breed. And also with the money grasping directors of colleges. What can one do when share-holders are more interested in profit margins than quality of education? After all, they see such ventures as a business, regardless of whose lives such ventures would affect.