The year...

Truly a December to remember where so many changes took place.

Instead of swimming to shore from the deep blue sea of microbiology and aquaculture to which I had thrown myself in July, I was barely treading water since my resignation.

November was a month where I was constantly losing time, my thoughts were trailing everywhere, I couldn't focus on a single thing for more than a quarter of an hour, and sometimes I just take several catnaps throughout the day just to screw my head back on.

Prayers were a constant cry for help...any help I can get. Gone were the days I prayed for something specific, for something not so vague and generic. No more words...just an empty space during quiet times, trying to listen and trying not to listen too hard until nothing can be heard.

It took a lot of courage for a person so naturally pessimistic to let go and let be.

But I did. I have. I will.



For as December draws to an end, I realised that all the instability and uncertainty that I've felt in the past two months were actually the changes needed in my life and some are still settling down in place.

Of course, not all changes are sweet and pleasant, and I truly, truly hope that some decisions taken are for the better, especially when they involve a decent amount of effort made in the past.




I wish I can truly say what I want to right now...but the one thing I'm trying to learn is that everything has it's place and time.


#100happydays was meant to be a planned event but me being me, I thought sooner was better than later which may be never.

Am I?

Am I just spoilt rotten that I am always looking for something more, something new, something different?

How happy am I with what I have now? Do I look for what I need instead of what I want? Do I acknowledge what I have and live with it?
If you look at the amount of eyeliners and mascara I own, the answer is probably no.


Am I just in actuality, an indecisive person leading a spontaneous lifestyle that jumps at every opportunity without much thought and then slip off due to lack of grip?

I didn't want to leave Sabah for a life of uncertainty in Penang so I grabbed the first thing I saw. On hindsight I should have bid my time despite my parents' assurance of support no matter what, and ignored my characteristic stubbornness.

Someone said to me once that I shouldn't be too independent. He was the superintendent of the university dorm I was staying at during the first year and a half of my undergraduate and those words were spoken to me after that creepy love letter episode following the naked dude episode.

Perhaps my unwillingness to ask and accept help when I am most in need of it was very obvious to others except myself. I am not the type to question...not that I haven't tried. The rare occassions I summon the courage to ask a 'stupid' question resulted in being ignored.

Ok, fine. I do speak too softly at times but that's beside the point.

No one has said no to me and I appreciate those resultant opportunities. However, those who didn't reject but stabbed my back are the ones who ended up making the bigger, longer lasting marks in my life. Hence,  another step to make will be to reorganise my goals, priorities, and mindset. The policy I live by from not making any effort for those who do not care must be enforced rigidly.

I'm taking that step backwards...to regain my balance, to start building a more long term and efficient momentum.

I tendered my resignation...after a mere 3-4 months of being thrown into the deep end of aquaculture and microbiology. I've been trying so hard to tread water not knowing I'm doing it all wrong and am actually drowning.

But...a door closes so another can open, right? It may not be a door but a window...whatever the escape hatch it, I'm going through it.


After all, I do get what I want. It's just the matter of how I get there and how am I surviving the journey.

Reshuffling life in a few steps

Yesterday,

I took the step in changing parishes.

From the Church of the Immaculate Conception, Pulau Tikus, where I've been baptised and confirmed, where I've formed my faith in the last 20 odd years, to the Church of the Divine Mercy, Sungai Ara.

Pretty big leap, geographically, but I made the decision not because the kareshi is based there (after branching from CHS), but because of the sense of belonging which I've lost since confirmation. Friends that have been with me since the formation years in catechism have all gone, and I wasn't comfortable in the couple of ministries I joined as an attempt to integrate myself into the community.

So when I was offered, nagged, and pushed into joining CDM, I gave in. The first few steps were naturally apprehensive, afraid of being singled out, and questioned. However, amazingly, despite the differences in a well rehearsed tradition of a celebration, I felt very much at home. There was an opportunity to mingle with like minded people, and to keep in touch with my new sayangs that I have met in Choice. I was asked to present the offertory gifts with Z, and instead of fear and stress that I would have had for such a public moment, all I felt was peace and love. It was like giving something up voluntarily and feeling all the better for it- like jumping off a cliff and enjoying the cool lagoon below and not splattered all over the bedrock. That moment may cause people to get a misconception about Z and I but really, everyone always have a misconception about me so why break tradition?

Proving small-minded people wrong is one of the best things in life for a sense of selfish entitlement and superiority.

Haha....ok, no. It's just fascinating to see how narrow- and single-tracked minded some people can be. It's like watching Spongebob.




Today,

I made a step in making it a personal mission to not give up on people. To be Dumbledore again, forever giving people a second chance. To allow a forever possibility to keep in touch, to keep our lives entwined.

It is a human trait to only do something that benefits oneself,  hence the recent lacklustre in communications between a group of friends. We blew up Whatsapp with 100s of messages a day in the first month and like a spawning event, it just...died down. People pulled out, started to say 'no', started to not just say 'no' but not responding at all.

Asking something from someone above the age of 5 without the promise of something in return is very difficult. Requesting time, effort, and especially money...they look for an investment or they look at it as a purchase. They want something back, more solid than gratitude. Understandable...the act of selflessness is a difficult thing and hence, is always looked upon as something commendable, encouraged but not pursued.


If I had pulled myself back...to think, to hell with them and their reserve, wouldn't I be like them?

So I'll commit to be myself, as usual, regardless of the quantity of responses towards friendships, relationships, and other commitments. My preference for quality time spent with those I care about and who cares enough in return is so much better than having life as a constant large-scale party.


The effort to keep in touch, will keep on going at least on my part. With some exceptions of course. Can't be keeping those filled with hypocrisy and negativity around...wouldn't make sense.

I wouldn't be me, oredi liddat.

Exhaust (ive) fumes

A week ago was my two month milestone at a job where I've explained to people that I run a (cannibalistic) confinement and nursery home.

I get paid a wage which was more of an allowance to play with crabs (the crustacean kind for you, gutter-minds) and water. Work started in a chaotic frame of mind since mostly everything is nearly everything I avoided in school and university - math and chemistry. Even my mediocre knowledge of crabs was the memory of the picture of my crab dissection in my 2nd year.

Last I wrote about was how I hit the ground running with adrenaline.

Now, I'm almost functioning on residual fumes.

To my absolute horror yet partial relief, this is nearly a 9-5 job. Minus the traffic jam since I head the opposite direction....away from the mass congregation of drones. I loathe having a chained-to-desk job but neither do I want to come home stinky and sweaty all the time. So far, it's been a good mix. I do have to run all over the place sometimes which is annoying because running around in a lab coat carrying beakers in thick lined gloves seems ominous. Breaks from desk work to go up and down several and many flights of stairs helps keep the butt expansion under control too.

I don't seem to remember a weekend that I could just while away the time on myself. I have had this on, that on, and before I know it, I'm neglecting the core for subsidiary one-offs such as routine household chores for a tai-chi introduction by a cousin who was back in Penang for a week or so before embarking on a year in London. Such as going for Break The Code games on a Sunday and miss out on a movie with Dad.

It does take a lot of effort to say yes. I made a promise to stop running away from people and saying yes to (almost) everyone is exhausting but saying no was, and is, harder.

Instead of saying no, can I hit the pause button? Ask for a raincheck? Reschedule?

A great fear or mine would be neglecting priorities - Sundays with dad. Evenings with mom and sisters. Time, any time at all with the kareshi. I came back for them but am I there for them?

A month of flooring the pedal

Tomorrow marks the first month of life back home.

I couldn't blog consistently since my first week because I was way too busy. I still haven't had the time to clear my bags, my boxes, my shelves, and my cupboards.

Also, consistent blogging about what's going on will be equivalent to a tweet which I haven't done in yonks and only do so if I have to say something, but can't do so on Facebook which is now not a social media platform for a rebellious, hotheaded, self-important teenager (like many others) to rant and display but a platform for a young adult with important (adult) social connections that shouldn't be introduced to that teenager on a daily basis, forcibly

I haven't been that teenager since I left high school for the second time in 2007. I say second time because after Form 5, I was plenty happy to chuck every single thing related to the public education system into the monsoon drains. Until I was marched back in for Form 6.

Life in my very own Cybertron-Planet Krypton blurred the edges and boundaries of my black and white world. University life in a different country with no friends you can actually trust (at first, because I'm cynical like that) but with the freedom of first world education system was no more a straight path with distance markers. It was a bizarre maze of paths where I have every inch of freedom...well, as long I stay on the cobbled stone and not step on the grass.

This freedom continued into my working life. The difference between here and Sabah is the stability I feel now, surrounded by family and friends, not just the rotating colleagues and associates.

I am now able to start on my NY resolutions and every hour of the day was so full that I have barely time to even read the newspapers. I take 5x longer to read a book but at least I get to buy real books now rather than settling for ebooks because I don't have the opportunity to maintain a bookshelf OTR.

I joined the Penang Fit Challenge (yes, by a Herbalife group but no, I did not buy more of what I already have in store from previous years) and even though I didnt give a crap and a half about the dos and don'ts about diet, I'm feeling better than ever before and I'm very, very glad I have excellent basic training in proper posture. The contagious enthusiasm was fantastic which is the whole point but at least it's really making me do something about my unsavoury bulging and jiggling bits besides bemoaning their existence

I picked up running and found the runner's high to be addictive enough to not shy away from a good session of sadistic-masochistic sweating but not enough to make me choose running over vacuuming the house on some days (I do get quite domestic when I'm nearing the end of my menstrual cycle).

I started an attempt at gardening where 12/14 adenium seeds successfully germinated and an adenium rootstock took hold after a couple of weeks. Now I'm on my second attempt on rooting rose stalks.

My new job was like belly flopping into the deep end of the pool and was told to swim like Phelps. I have no background in microbiology but somehow am getting through the 'training' in all things bacterial and some aquaculture but I've yet to find the time to sit and read the academic material like an archaeologist yet to dust off the entire fossilised representation of the Cambrian explosion.

The kareshi told me to 'make some friends' as sort of a goal. He knows how afraid I am of people. But like my fear of cockroaches, I got over it. Hah! I just compared friends to cockroaches. Anyhow, I stopped saying no, I stopped stalling, I stopped running away. Because I promised someone...no, not the kareshi. I promised a priest. Yah! IKR, me, of all people... like wtf happened?

I played board games. Not stupid monopoly where I can keel over from boredom before I even take my start up $$$ from the banker but strategy games like Saboteur and Citadel where 5 hours can pass by without much effort. I laughed more. I began honing my concentration skills which I sorely lack. I took more initiative, became proactive.

This is the beginning of a new life full of new starts and restarts.

I'm still revving. Ready or not, GO!

Betcha bottom dollar

A week ago tomorrow, will be my 550th day as a fresh graduate in Sabah's little world of wildlife conservation.

Sounds like a long, long time but it felt like a few weeks ago that I first landed in Sandakan with a bag still smelling of Australian soil.

I do have some regrets leaving but I was at a point of my life where I'd regret even more for not leaving at the time I did.

The realisation of a quarter-life crisis was all too real. I felt, and knew that I had to not answer soul-searching questions but to ask them instead; but what are the questions in the first place?

I found those during the CHOICE weekend. With the dirt of Sabah still under my fingernails I threw myself into a mind and body draining (but soul reviving) weekend.

My flight from Kota Kinabalu landed in Penang a whopping 15min earlier at 4pm on 9 July. The next day was spent making a decision to commit to a 9yr-long relationship with the bank on a car. It's still in process but I've opted for a manual, yes, manual, Myvi SE 1.3cc. It took me 3/4 of the day and the rest of it was spent meeting the kareshi's colleagues over dinner. On Friday, I was running around for the first half of the day like a headless chicken looking for my things around the house. My attempt in keeping my belongings in boxes was futile. I had stuff lying around hidden in every nook and cranny. All too soon the kareshi was picking me up to go for the CHOICE weekend.

Yesterday and today, I committed myself to a challenge. A weight-loss, fitness challenge with Penang Fit Challenge. I have no idea how I could still sum up the energy to workout after a mentally and spiritually tough weekend but I'm still waiting to fall flat on my face. In between, I met up with a catechism teacher who was keen on introducing me to gardening - he gave me a crash course on grafting adeniums. That, and a post mortem of CHOICE with the kareshi.

I'm going on and on about CHOICE and not explaining much about it...ok here it is: it's a once in a lifetime experience where one explores the meaning(s) of relationships. Wow, how much more detailed could I get without being vague??

It was a promise made on not to divulge details or discuss outcomes for very, very, very good reasons.

With all that in the past week that didn't just fly by but sped through in super sonic speeds that left a ringing in my ears, I'm starting on a new journey tomorrow.

I've prided myself as a zoologist with terrestrial, botanic, and semi-aquatic fieldwork under my belt. This new relationship with microbiology/biotechnology with CEMACS is totally beyond me but at least it isn't a physics or math class. I haven't prepared myself academically for this due to lack of time but hey, I'm born to dive in the deep end.

I'm a mushroom aspiring to be a grape.

Mushrooms love dark, damp corners. 
Grapes thrive in well-drained soil with plenty of sunlight. 
I want to broaden my horizons and push my borders.
I'm at the edge and putting up a hell of a fight. 

Final Countdown for a New Start

ONE MORE WEEK!!

One more week until I'll be home for more than a fortnight in five years!!!

It'll be an interesting adaptation because in the past five years, I've been setting up to live on my own. I have my own things which I don't (need to) share because I've always been territorial about my things as I had to constantly keep things in good order to pass down to my sisters who promptly tear them up.

No, srsly.

Have you not had to write gingerly with pencils on workbooķs and playbooks and trace out colouring books on scrap paper, proudly pass them onto your younger siblings as they come of age to that colouring/writing level and they got hold of crayons and marker pens and proceeded to annihilate the meaning of preservation?

Until now, I experience traumatic flashbacks when one of them asked to borrow something of mine.

In any case, I'll be extremely glad to feel settled (I feel cosy already!) and would be finally able to celebrate the kareshi's and my birthdays together for the first time, have Christmas and New Year's together for the first time (my grandpa passed away on Xmas eve last year so that didn't, couldn't count.). Yea, after about five years of dating, we don't have those milestones. How tragic.

I missed my parents' big 50s, Jessica's 21st, Juliana's end of public schooling...friends' life events (not mentioning weddings, I'm talking about other friends) and basically, just everything I ever wanted to do like join local events - I'm doing the bloody 10km Penang Bridge this November as a sadistic, belated birthday present to myself.

Hah!

Can't believe it's already July and I'm still not used to 2013. Maybe it's a quarter-life crisis - have I done enough?

But who says that I can't start a wee bit later?

The path taken

Two more weeks and I'll be a twenty-five year old moving back in with her parents. Sort of. My parents haven't been under the same roof for more than a couple of hours in a decade or so.

I'll be a twenty-five year old with no career progress and no stable financials, pretty much like a failure.

I haven't thought about how would it be after I've left. Would I erase it like I did with my life in Form 6? Like how I almost did with my life between the end of Form 6 until the beginning of my degree?

Life in Form 6 started with me literally being dragged into the compounds of SXI. School has already started for nearly a month and I had refused to be let off early from National Service to start because I never had wanted to start. A year and a half later I thought I gained friends for life. And over the next half decade, I lost them.

In between 2007-2009, I barely acknowledge the various part time jobs. I don't remember my life working as an admin in Areca School of Arts. I don't remember much of life as a student doing a twinning degree at INTI. All I remembered was an ignition of love and respect for the classic and jazz arts, and a couple of friends that I still have from a little group that truly kept me sane and alive in INTI.

Then I realise why I don't remember. I shut it all out. The blog posts I wrote about it was deleted. A permanent erasure of nearly three to four years. The following three to four years following my life as a zoologist undergraduate had the same fate not because I hated it, but because they just happened to be in the same blog. I know I wrote the longest post about my experiences as a volunteer with Bronwyn who stumbled across my blog because she set up a GOOGLE alert on anything that mentions 'eastern quoll' and God bless her if she finds this again because she didn't turn it off.

She's been on my mind a lot lately because she is to me, the epitome of what it means to be never too late to do something that you truly love.

I've hit a roadblock in life whilst everyone else is cruising. But I need to see if I've broken down and need dire repair work or is just a hitch between gears and I need to start back up again. For that, I need patience, and the diagnostic time that goes with it. This means I'm too old to just close my eyes and pretend the bad stuff isn't there. Pros and cons, highs and lows, ups and downs, it was the start of a dream came true but what those fairytales didn't warn you is that when dreams that come true in reality, it's never always pretty. It's just another path with the requisite twists and turns but at least a path I chose, a path I aimed for, with all the cracks and uneven surfaces.

I chose this. I walked this far. I will live through it. For this is mine. 

My choice. My consequences. My life.

She wrote what I didn't.

http://www.thestar.com.my/Lifestyle/Family/Features/2014/06/01/Heart-and-Soul-We-are-a-family/

And she had it easier.

As a family we weren't close. It wasn't habitual nor ritual. It's an obligation. The obligatory greetings and smiles a few times a year...

When I left on 30 June 2009 for another country I was elated. To finally be free and not-quite-but-still independant...and weirdly enough my severe animosity towards my youngest sister started to dissipate. I could hold a more coherent conservation with my parents, even though through text messaging instead of face to face because I tend to yell instead of throwing my phone (at something soft) to diffuse any tension.

Absence makes the heart grow fonder. Har har har.

My life as an undergraduate was admittedly a seclusive one. I avoided people as much as I could. I probably spent the most time, voluntarily, with Bronwyn Fancourt who could talk for the both of us as I absorbed everything like a newborn. Other than the occasional chit chat before, during, and after classes, I texted the kareshi a hell of a lot. He was my silent, unseen companion throughout those 3.5 years.

If I kept my eyes and ears open, and swallowed my pride in asking and buried my dignity in ruthless pursuit, I might have gotten far in realising that Steve Irwin-David Attenborough-NatGeo dream. But there's one thing that holds me back in pursuing the moon and it's one thing I find that I cannot give up for anything else.

Oh believe me, I tried...twice.
And both times it broke my heart.

It may rile a few feminist feathers to think I gave up a potentially high-flying career for a man. Especially when the relationship was 90% texting, chatting online and a few emails.Yes. We barely have facetime as a couple. Hell...the way I was going, we may never have facetime for more than a couple of weeks for the next few dozen years. Then what? Will we still be together? We tried going our separate ways but that just caused more misery.

So I took the risqué step of leaving DGFC to plonk myself back into the uncertainty in terms of a job/career just to have a normal relationship where the kareshi and I are not separated by more than a 45min drive in bad traffic. There aren't any confirmed commitments  but I feel this is a step to something more stable. True,  I'm deathly afraid that it may not work out but this is definitely, definitely, definitely, a worthwhile risk to find out because what we have is worth more than a fear of losing a race un-run.

Give me the scars of a past to build upon than whispers of what-ifs.

Continuation...

So apparently not only my last blog post potong stim.. but I missed out on some details...

Like learning how to throw a fishing net. And drive a boat. Very important on resumè. Jack of all trades, I am. Master at none, I am. If I were a flatworm I could split myself and do all the exciting things but alas, evolution made me so unlike my ancestor (yes, I'm Catholic, yes I believe in evolution, shut up again, gawd you criticise too much) that we only share bilateral symmetry.

Actually, I take that back. My ears are wonky...ask my optometrist. My legs are wonky...ask my pilates instructor. My boobs are wonky...ask my bras.

There is one main wonkiness about me: I'm too shy to ask if I don't know something. Not from fear of being ridiculed over a stupid question ( they tell you there's no such thing as a stupid question BUT THEY FUCKING LIE. Just sit quietly,  write a note to self and google it later. Google doesn't judge but fair warning,  it will remind you how stupid you were) but the trauma from being ridiculed. I have a VCR tape somewhere to prove how loud and strong-willed (and bull-headed) a child I was (and still am..albeit also a scatterbrain).

I've been told that I sit back and watch a lot instead of being all gung ho and hands on immediately. I've been told I read too much too. All those blasted women's magazines and Jodi Picoult have made me wary about things that seem to be or may be something else. Despite the influence of 'budaya barat', Asian mentality and the Malaysian school system has ingrained into me that One Must Never Fail. Everything must be done perfectly right the first time around so no energy or cost is wasted. Eat all your food, some African kid is starving. Don't run all over the place, some Cambodian kid has no legs.

So I sat back and watched. Hung back and observed. Very bad for a person whose job description is to LEAD fieldwork. To MAKE DECISIONS in the field on the spot (which puts me in a spot). But I get there eventually.

Btw, just to put it out there, if I want to bitch about someone, I'll never name names. I'll just write a very thorough description of you until your own mother won't realise she missed that birthmark between your toes when she was busy kissing each and every stubby one and I didn't. I won't (for now) be that kind of blogger because this is a public blog.

 

And despite the blog title, this isn't the continuation of the previous post. You have been fooled. HAR HAR HAR!!!

Initially...

I thought to myself that I'll write a blog post on why I am resigning from my dream job, or what I thought was my dream job.

Instead, I'll write about it instead..the experience, I mean. It'll be cathartic to start recollecting, reminiscing, and hash out the trials and tribulations that went on in the past year and a half of working as a field-based research assistant in wildlife conservation.

It is hard work. Back-breaking, I kid you not. Not just physically but mentally as well. Everyone thinks I'm working with animals and I have such a cool job. They probably think I'm a zoologist working in a zoo, cleaning out cages and feeding the animals (for a couple of years, my dad had been telling everyone I'm a marine biologist).

Far from it.

I've given up my usual mantra of "When I grow up, I want to be Steve Irwin!" Instead,  I tell people my work is pretty much like what you see in behind the scenes of National Geographic. Sweaty, muddy, sometimes bloody but no super cool video shots at the end, unfortunately. Just candid pictures of unsuspecting wildlife caught on our remote camera traps. But I did get on tv and the papers- the former as 'background cast' on a wildlife documentary for TV3 showcasing the collaring of elephants and crocodiles by DGFC, and the latter when being interviewed during a ceremony on reclaiming forest/ripariam reserve land from an encroaching oil palm plantation.

Currently, I work not with animals but with people and camera traps.

You'd think I would have been thoroughly familiar with the camera traps since I started working in them with Bronwyn Fancourt for one part of her PhD in 2011-2012. But if I had to compare to Andrew Hearn who has been CT-ing clouded leopards for yonks, I'm still quite a noobie. Although, I can work with them pretty well and if you give me free reign on how and where to set them up, I won't disappoint. Sometimes I feel I have disappointed some of the cameras themselves by putting them up for the sake of putting them up because I have to. So they seek revenge by taking empty pictures (a bazillion pictures of vegetation waving in the hot sun and wind or just nothing at all because ants got into the casings to build a nest and kept triggering the sensor) or just dying and not taking any pictures for absolutely no reason.

Here's the Banteng's album on Danau Girang Facebook page. 

Post by Danau Girang Field Centre.

Back tracking, let's start from the beginning... What did I really do after graduation?

Graduation was 19 December 2012. I landed in Sabah on 5th January 2013, so that meant a little more than two weeks since donning the Potter robes . For the first five months, I was a volunteer in DGFC, assisting in the various research projects that were ongoing there...not all, just some. Half of them were undergraduates and the other half were doing their PhD/Masters. Some were volunteers, some were on work experience. 

Shut up. I know half + half + some + some = >>100%

I 'dabbled' in maintaining the monitoring of the wildlife corridor which was basically checking the cameras which we set up along the riparian reserve, not far from the banks of the Kinabatangan river. Mostly this means scrambling up muddy banks on all fours and end up looking like an elephant.

I assisted in Grace Dibden's project on sunbears where we looked for signs - claw marks on trees mostly, and checking the bear traps which belonged to Roshan Guharajan, a KL-lang doing his Masters in a USA university (I forgot which. *cringe*).

Danica Stark and I attempted to do phenology plots but I was so bad in cutting trails (I actually had no idea what I was supposed to be doing) and she didn't ask me to accompany her anymore. I wasn't much help anyway since I have no clue whatsoever on Bornean flora. If you asked me about Tasmanian flora, I would have made my Plant Science lecturers proud.

Then I went along on some monitor lizard trapping trips with François Ciavatti and Sergio Mendes where blood and scale samples were taken, along with physical measurements.

I've only done one night walk when Priscilla Miard and I were looking for Boss, the resident slow loris and because of my really bad eyesight, I didn't see much.

In between all that, there was the Lahad Datu invasion. I was actually in Kota Kinabalu on a holiday with the kareshi when DGFC was ordered to evacuate.

If you noticed, quite a lot of people at DGFC are foreign and even if we tried to hash out a plan to attract more Malaysians, they don't go further than a discussed thought or an agreement to make a plan. Maybe that's part of the problem other than thinking there's not many of our 'species' to be had to create a population. Us Malaysians who are there aren't together often and the initiative slowly dwindled if kindled at all.

When I first joined, there wasn't a schedule to accommodate the fast expansion of the centre which was becoming busier and more active with more projects and field courses (which was basically a school or university coming in for a few days to a week or two to experience wildlife research). As I made periodic visits back to the centre after I left for BBP in May 2013, there were a lot of improvements and slowly I felt more and more misplaced (more on that some other time) from the new faces and changes.

I joined the Bornean Banteng Programme in May 2013...because there was an opening for research assistant and I was already desperate to get paid (haha)..no. I was actually desperate for something to do than just 'assisting'. All the research that's going on was incredible at first...like hello, such things do exist in Malaysia and despite me not knowing a single thing about the flora and fauna of my own country, I was pretty stoked.  Soon, I felt like dead weight. Sure, there was opportunity to further my studies but the life of an academia hadn't appealed to me the two times I was considering the Master's student position on the BBP. I did ponder quite deeply...going as far as downloading and reading journals for a proposal. But after graduation, my brain had decided to take a break from doing anything, really.

The next sentence will be a 'revomitation' of what I've been reiterating to everyone for the past year:


BBP is a statewide project funded by Yayasan Sime Darby (RM1Mil) for three years to locate remnant populations of banteng in Sabah. 


When I joined, the BBP was in it's 2nd year, expanding by taking me and two undergraduates (on work experience) on and going statewide after finishing Penny Gardner's PhD fieldwork in Tabin Wildlife Reserve and Malua Forest Reserve. Penny had been based in TWR for the past 3-4 years and after she finished in Tabin, we managed to get a house in the Lahad Datu Wildlife Dept staff quarters sorta for free..we had to clean it up some, deal with cloggy toilet when it rains and low water pressure if someone moves in temporarily next door. The house is barely inhabited so the electricity bill is never above the government subsidised amount of RM20 and the rats and lizards still run rampage, pooing everywhere.

But it was a place, close to civilisation for comfort. Although, sometimes I wish I woke up more often to gibbons and birds instead of the rumble of heavy vehicles and piercing whistle of the traffic police.

I can't fit my work with BBP here. It's way too much and way too much is way too silly for a blog post. So you will have to make do with knowing roughly what I did for the first five months in 2013. 

TBH...I lost concentration. My Skrillex playlist just ended. You know how it is.

 

Artificial Sacrifice

*this post edited due to grammatical, vocabulary, and overall presentation error due to the influence of heightened emotions in a public place*

I'm not sure why some people can describe me as friendly and out-going when in all honesty, I shrivel with dread whenever my phone rings. A couple of my friends asked for a Skype chat or a normal phone call recently and I gave all sorts of excuses...no, I didn't want to avoid them. Alright, in essence I was but couldn't Whatsapp or Facebook essay-like messages suffice? Why put this poor misanthropic sod through such a social ordeal?

Its just that I have this thing against phone calls.
I. DON'T.LIKE.PHONE.CALLS.BECAUSE.I.CAN'T.SEE.YOUR.FACE.

Plus, I hate it if the reception is extremely bad and I'm totally against saying 'hello' more than thrice. The standard polite hello-ing to determine reception quality is three times, ask Michael McIntyre. Repeating of sentences and questions is annoying to myself, and potential eavesdroppers; emotionally-charged statements and punch lines should only be vocalised once, and only once.

The introverted extrovert.

I read back with regret on some articles about joining clubs in university in order to do well in networking for the future. I didn't, albeit having all the freedom in the world. I wasn't being held back from joining clubs or other extra co-curricular activities like I was during school due to 'no transport' or the usual Asian Parenting Excuse: It's taking too much of your time from studying (but my sisters went on to join the choir, library, taekwando AND dancing classes - to relieve stress, konon - which made me to believe there is no justice in the world).

Perhaps money was part of the reason I didn't join the white water rafting or rock climbing clubs in university - the exchange rate...

Even so, I ended up dropping out from other fee/expenses-free societies like the Catholic Student Society when Father Michael Tate started to know me by name and gives a friendly wink during Communion. Oh, does that clue you on to the fact I get 'upset' when I'm recognised or remembered? Even the free pizza after every meeting couldn't entice me to stay; my excuse was that I don't like walking in the dark (and it gets dark after 4pm in winter but the excuse continued on in summer when it stays light until 9pm), with a valid reason since a few racially-influenced assaults had happened then.

I did get involved with the university's Mentor Program and was awarded with a mentor who was with the Tasmanian Forestry Department and not only had a 10yr-long part-time PhD about eucalyptus genetics under his belt but he was in his late 40s, pursuing an MBA part-time and read law books in his free time. Very mismatched but what am I to say when he was the only candidate for the (Plant) Science faculty? He was very, very well-connected and I felt quite intimidated and shallow around him. I needed the connection in order to land a decent job in my field when I was in the assumption I could pursue a career in that country.

Alas, the requisite was a year's working experience before I could apply for a job or PR in Australia under my field of zoology or life science related fields.

I had given up societies and clubs in university to dog PhD students in their research. Following them in their fieldwork (and some laboratory work), thinking it was the pathway for a National Geographic-esque job. That accumulation of experience in different sorts of fieldwork made me...over-qualified in a way. Especially in my current position. Some vacancies want a graduate with first-class honours or something but that sort of thing wasn't recognised in Australia and I don't even know my CGPA.

I had an offer, twice, to pursue a sponsored Masters' degree but after the initial interest, it was clear I never had the aspiration for higher education, although a higher certification would allow me to pursue a better job with better salaries - but that has never been the goal, although I would rather not be paid lower than what I got from McDonald's in 2006.

No, I wasn't after the usual rungs of BSc->MSc->PhD and landing a post-doc or lecturing job. Never. I wanted my hands dirty and I wanted to wash them in scented water after. *vanity*

I truly don't mind the wilderness (leeches, mud, thorns) but currently, my return to my lodgings in Lahad Datu, with proper (billed) electricity not generated by constantly-droning generators and water that come out of my pipes that are not pumped from the river or collected unfiltered rainwater, is a miserable affair. A never-ending battle with termites' shavings, rodent rave parties in the roof, and lizard anal deposits on every clean swept surface.

What I would truly want to do is spend a few weeks or months doing field work and then an equal, no less, amount of time in proper civilisation, but at this very moment, I want to ditch it all.

I cannot look to apply to Singapore or Australia because of love. Yes, scorn all you want. I did, to others and no myself. I've always prided myself as a strong, independent woman. Those parental warnings of not getting involved until you have settled down after your degree, a stable job etc? HEED THEM. They have a point. Now, my only goal is to return home to Penang (because there is no other choice nor any other option or possibility) but unfortunately such similar jobs in my over-developed hometown is non-existent to much of my knowledge. I don't blame my kareshi the slightest. I blame myself, and the economy (hah!).

Other than my expertise in fieldwork, I have no other certifiable skills to speak of.

 I don't have a writing portfolio to show that I am able to write for mass media or even teach English - I can't teach my own mother to use the computer properly without tearing her head off and frankly, head-stitching is such a pain.

I don't have entrepreneurial skills to create a start-up,no pro-active sociable skills for sales nor travel guiding (have I mentioned how misanthropic I am?), can't really draw an even if I could I don't have a portfolio (again) to overcompensate the fact I'm no designer graduate, not much of a proof that I can do administrative duties more than just data entry.

I can't even be a nurse in veterinarian clinics because I'm not certified and it's not something I can take up a course for like animal husbandry. Besides, tell me of any animal rehabilitation centres in Malaysia that you know of, and no, that man and wife with 84 or 120 dogs doesn't count. I can't work in zoos because there are no vacancies. Look at the job market. Unless you have a stethoscope around your neck or have sat for a bar exam (no, not the fancy alcohol kind) or have an ACCA certification or have done engineering of any sort, you're left with 'salesgirl' or 'driver' jobs.

Gee. All those years of tooth and nail fighting for the thing I loved most for what?

Jump on the Bandwagon

So I mentioned an ex-classmate and an ex-university mate got married in the same day. I found out,  after extensive periods on the internet, that another ex-high school mate and someone else from university as well got married very recently too.

Jump on the bandwagon? No thanks.

But this is age where everyone my age starts tying knots right?

Yes.. but no. I'd hate to think I got married just because someone else did as well. Have I demonstrated how insecure I am yet?

I'm not skinny enough.
I've got stretch marks that he wouldn't like.
I'm not financially viable.
I'm fat.

You thought I was a very confident person? Sorry...no refunds.

I've had evil thoughts...like:

>Gosh that woman's so fat and has a bulbous nose and she's got kids, so fat people do have sex so there's hope for me yet.
>Yes, but the man only needs to close his eyes, slather on vaseline and find the hole.

My mom is quite keen on me getting married as well I think, from what she (and dad) has been hinting everytime I go home for the holidays.

In all blatant,  soul-baring honesty,  I never thought I would.

I so love my kareshi very much and yes, I've entertained fantasies where I have his babies but therein lies the problem; I treated them as harmless fantasies.  I expected them to remain as random thoughts of a society influenced person like many others.

Marriage
Sex
Babies
Family
Life
Travelling

All that for other people, not me. Don't talk to me about FOMO. I have friends with pictures from Bali, NZ, Europe, Vietnam, fucking Italy and all I had to compare was a lousy picture of me and a baby echidna about to projectile pee. I never had a clique in school.  I spent half my recess in the canteen with those in science classes, and another half with other friends in the arts stream. There's no one I grew up with or went to school with before university that I could talk to about what I've been learning with the same commiserating empathy. The new acquaintances I had didn't have the comfort of history.  They had their own cliques from college or pre-U or local school. How do one integrate into an already seamed-up fabric? I can't even hold long, meaningful conversations, either face to face or on screen. I avoid eye contact when I'm out and about even with neighbours I don't have a feud with. I don't like striking up conversation with strangers unless there's no chance it'll be more than a one liner to diffuse a tensed situation.

Talk about misanthropy

People in the same field, the same line of work with the same experience and education are mostly pursuing higher degrees I have no intention, inspiration, nor interest to despite the possibilities. We can discuss the banes and boons of wildlife research now and then but for something that I've been pursuing with the utmost intensity for 15years,  I can't continue those discussions or conversations without it turning to statistics and politics, things I don't have the nerve for.

I am trying to explain that those six things doesn't seem to be in my deck of cards. I'm tired of forging my own path that I can't share with anyone. I'm sick of being left out, forgotten, misunderstood. I'm not that different from anyone else so why am I left behind?

I can't jump on the bandwagon. I didn't miss it. I just didn't have a ticket in the first place.

Growing Pains

The title seems more appropriate for a blog by a teenager, doesn't it? Well, fuck you, I have problems as well.

Recently, I started to notice in newspapers that victims above 18 years old were described as women, which seems a bit weird because when I was that age, I sure don't feel like one. In fact, it surprises me all the time that I've left school for six years (and a bit) now and it's disconcerting because I've been waiting for that moment for so long - as in to get out and make a mark in the world - and it's been that long, yet I don't think I've even started on something meteorite-ical.

My life since I gleefully left high school may be a little hazy (hands up if you still feel like you left school last week) but I still feel like a 17 year old without the exams-for-11-subjects stress. I was introduced to a bigger world during National Service in Perlis where I learned whatever I learned in school on a little island I barely left, is nothing to shout about. Then a stint in INTI college (yes, I'm calling that year and a half, a stint) broadened my horizons where I got to know more about other people in other states or countries. Three and a half years of doing a zoology degree in Australia was not just an eye-opener on how little I knew, or how ignorant and sheltered a life I had, it was an eye-gouging,  eyeball-flogging experience that shoved my face in the slurry pit that was my shitty attitude on how arrogant I was, and probably still am.

I swore to never have a job I would be reluctant to get out of bed for.

Well, I have a job that everyone gushed on how unique it was but I still am not finding myself hopping out of bed in excitement like OMFG SANTA IS HERE!! The problem was: I never liked getting out of bed. Ask the kareshi...he has been trying to literally drag me out of bed a few times already and if it wasn't for true love, I would have flogged him like a Bolton (Game of Thrones reference if you are that retarded) during that time he talked me into joining him for a bootcamp. Yea, you read right. A. BOOTCAMP. Where they scream and shout what is presumably words of encouragements but I strongly suspected they were actually words of abuse...which may work better in all honesty.

I read too much into women's magazines articles on how sometimes we don't keep all our friends forever and that's ok.

That's not ok. I was hurt when an ex-classmate for at least six and a half years got engaged and married and didn't even tell me nor extended a courteous invitation when everyone else (even Prince George) had got one. Then I thought it was because I wasn't close to her so I wasn't even thought of. Until I found out an ex uni-mate got married on the same day (the double valentine's day of 14 Feb) and I was so excited and cooed over her wedding pictures (and Emma was only in a couple of courses and a group project). Very unlike my expression(s) when I stalked (unashamedly) the said ex-classmate's fb page and whoever else that went to the wedding (I'm sure Prince George had to decline due to not being able to take malaria tablets at that age).

It's not ok when I realised I haven't spoken to my best friend in a year, not since I wished her a happy birthday, without the prompting of facebook, and she didn't wish me back on mine. I took my birthday notifications off to avoid the flood of forced-by-facebook obligatory wishes but still, your BFF forgetting your 25th birthday? So very not ok. But now the kareshi carries that BFF title on his already burdened shoulders (he has other titles other than 'HRM', such as fix-anything-electronic-coz-he's-an-engineer, movie/song downloader...) without the pinky swearing and blood mixing on slashed palms. In fact, I don't think he knows I've added another glory pin on his (sexy) chest of medals.

Making new friends at this age is harder. I can't just share my crayons anymore. People find it hard to believe I'm shy but I grew up learning not everyone likes blatancy. It's not very nice to traumatise people as a first impression. There are varying degrees of tolerance and being bashful at first is the best, and only way of sussing out each individual's immune system.

Like a virus with ambush tactics.

I find it extremely difficult to ask for help.

Like when after I was moved to a different university dorm (after finding a naked, drunk guy in my room and received a very disturbing love letter from someone else living on another floor a week later) and lugged 5 tonnes of stuff up and down stairs and steep slopes all by myself. The director of the dorm, who was still very worried that I had such a steely personality during my harrasment reports, found me huffing and puffing and refusing help, said these magic words: no one can be too independent. 

My mom 'proudly' describes me as a hardheaded person @ bulldog whereupon I refuse to let go of something. Namedly my independence and love for animals. I probably screamed the house down at the age of 9, declaring I was old enough to cut my own fingernails (and hair) and when I wanted a pet dog, the house was still in shambles. I cultivated dreams of buying my own diamond ring at the age of 21 and possibly my own place at 25. Who knew I didn't have the same financial savings mentality like Rosmah's?

A few days ago, I broke down, sobbing to my mom that I was fucking 25, earning shit money (with no possibility of increment like her own job when she started at the bank with the same amount) with no credible skills (I can't even juggle) and still accepting parental allowances *shudder*. It's not just the Asian mentality of getting a well paid job after graduation and caring for your parents but the financial dependency I still have at this age. You'd think 25 is not so bad but I had high expectations of myself but I found out I didn't learn to prepare properly for it. They don't teach you that in school.

Duhhh.

I have a hummingbird mentality

I fleet from thought to thought with no real weight or substance or seriousness. I can lose track of a conversation midway no matter the topic. Attention Deficit Disorder? Probably, if you could provide the funds to get an official diagnosis. My nose is always in my tablet where there isn't just oil smears on the screen but a dentation. The reason: I can do so many things at once I'm afraid the battery may not last its warranty. I've got notes to myself written down in so many places that I read in the papers that paleontologists in Egypt found them clutched in the paws of a mummified cat.

But hey, there you go. Life.

The Resurrection

If you think this seems familiar,  like you've seen this before,
Feels like deja vu, doesn't it, my dear, thought you read it all,
Well, this is not self-plagiarising,  nor am I reinventing,
I'm just restarting my passion,
This is a resurrection. 

I've opened and closed a total of three to four blogs now in the span of a decade. I'm reusing this blog title because I think, and feel, it's the most accurate, and precise self-description. Yes, it used to be all dark, moody, and so-called (once described by someone else) 'satanic'. Before you go all "ARGH!! JOCELYN'S GONE ALL PINK AND CUTESY!!!", let me show you how I'm still the same person, and then let me show you I'm not the same person anymore.

I spent 2013 avoiding people. I stopped blogging, gave up the pursuit in photography and drawing...all the things I loved to do when I was still in school. I barely read anything academic, I shunned new social media sites and unfollowed friends on Facebook - if I hadn't already deleted them. I didn't make any goals or resolutions; I expected nothing. 

Ended up like buoy in a maelstrom. 

I got seasick

So I spent the entire of January, and a little bit of February doing a little soul-searching and didn't find a lot of nice things to be grateful about, to be thankful for. That wasn't what I had expected, or anyone would have expected, from someone who is a quarter of a century old and with no extraordinary hardship in her life, a woman who always knew what she wanted, who (thought she) knew right from wrong. But I guess the growing pains of a teenager is incomparable to those of a young adult with a license of responsibility, a certificate of independence, a diploma of capability, a (certain) degree of trust and worth. 

Fake it 'till you make it, they say. 

I lost friends. I lost contacts. I lost part, if not all, of myself.  They had warned that adulthood is like another shedding phase and it's ok, people grow in different ways once out of the conformity of school, but they didn't mention that it hurt. My blacks and whites merged into fifty shades of fucking grey with streaks of stormy purple, dusted with the midnight blue of the past, and long gone pink of innocence, and green of fresh enthusiasm, and yellow of hopefulness...and you know that I've already gone off the rails at this point. 

Just let me...come back.