The next day, we ran into Narnie in the driveway. "Hey Jake, how's the pi?" she asked.

"Good. I haven't memorized anymore, though. Mom says it's a waste of time."

I had, because it was. Jake could keep going and going until the end of time -- but why? The synesthetic autistic savant Daniel Tammet memorized pi out to fifty thousand digits and recited it to raise money for an autism charity, which was a wonderful thing. (Ultimately, the recitation took him more than 5 hours. He used chocolate to get through it. That, at least, I could relate to.) But even Daniel Tammet talked more in his book about the challenges of managing his social anxiety and the physical difficulties of the recitation than any particular intellectual challenge.

Narnie came right back at Jake, with the world's most innocent look. "What?" she said. "No, silly. I was talking about cherry pie."

Jake cracked up, shaking his head as he got into the car. There's no chance of him getting a fat head as long as Narnie's around.

I laughed, too, but something was nagging at me. Halfway down to the university, I looked at Jake in the backseat in my rearview mirror. He was playing Angry Birds on his iPad.

"Hey, Jake," I said. "Why did you stop memorizing pi at forty digits?"

"I didn't stop at forty. I stopped at two hundred."

"But before. Why did you stop at forty?"

"It was forty including the three. Thirty-nine decimal digits, actually."

"Okay, but why did you stop there?"

"Because with thirty-nine decimal places, you can estimate the circumference of the observable universe down to a hydrogen atom. I figured that was all I'd ever really need."

-- The Spark, A Mother's Story of Nurturing, Genius and Autism 

O.O Reading about genius is mindblowing.

it's been a wonderfully busy break

How do we achieve sustainable development?

'Ilmu with akhlak.
'Amal with ikhlas.

---

this! is awesome.

passion is your greatest love.

great friend, great spouse,
great parent, great career.

Are they not one package?
How can you be one without the other?

This came along with my exploration of my current non-fiction read: The Spark, a story of a boy diagnosed with moderate-severe autism at 2 years, but whose Mother pulled him out of special ed so that he could continue learning in his own way. And now this boy is a 14-year-old Masters student and an apparent genius in physics and astronomy. This is phenomenal and makes me want to do probably-unacceptable things in my therapy sessions!

and here is Jacob Barnett -- he still has some brushing up to do with respect to his social skills (adorable boy), but if he's truly autistic, this is amazing. Amazing, amazing, amazing.

The basic message is this: that if we only allow ourselves to pursue our natural inclinations and passions, we will be capable of doing great things. 

Motivation is key.

And love really makes the world go round.

My mind has been sufficiently blown as I contemplate my thoughts in recent days.

I wonder if life is actually about discovering the truth of the platitudes we hear.

---

 on the k-drama front -- Healer is finished! I have so much love for it -- my drama love-list has been thoroughly scrambled, thank you. I need some time before I can decide what's at the top now. I'm actually spending the last night of this CNY break listening to a Healer-related podcast -- what the heck, I ask you. Didn't I use to do this with JE? What is happening! guh.

How do I summarise what I love about Healer -- god. I think dramabeans said it best: it's like a drama for drama-watchers. Like, you've watched a gazillion dramas and you think you know how this is going to go but, but, but! It surprises you! In such unexpectedly, wonderful ways! It made me wide-eyed with giddiness -- there were bits that made me go, For real?? Is this for real? Did that just happen in this drama -- they are not going to agonize over this plot point??? I felt like it brought k-drama to amazing, unchartered frontiers.

I think my favorite thing about Healer is that it never actually goes where I’m afraid it’s going to go. Jung-hoo has had plenty of opportunities to go full noble idiot on us, but he never takes the leap. Similarly, Young-shin has had numerous chances to believe the worst of Jung-hoo, but she never does. Past dramas have taught me to expect misunderstandings at every possible turn, but they never seem to come to fruition in Healer.

And yes, fantastic chemistry all round; not just between our leads! LOVE the whole team, seriously. 

Currently struggling through another new clinic at work, dealing with kids with sensory issues:

Also, I've been hit by another idea for a future venture -- and feeling super-excited, hehe. It trumps all the previous talks I've had with friends regarding opening of schools/bookstores/mobile speech therapy clinics with strict 3-day work-week/cafes/Muslim-casket-companies. I will probably regale S with it first when I see her this coming week.

I have too many ideas and not enough discipline.

If we consider men and women generally, and apart from the professions or occupations, there is only one situation I can think of in which they almost pull themselves up by their bootstraps, making an effort to read better than they usually do. When they are in love and are reading a love letter, they read between the lines and in the margins; they read the whole in terms of the parts, and each part in terms of the whole; they grow sensitive to context and ambiguity, to insinuation and implication; they perceive the colour of words, the odour of phrases, and the weight of sentences. They may even take the punctuation into account. Then, if never before or after, they read.

-- Mortimer Adler, How to Read a Book

Completely random this wee hour of the morning,

but this is such a beautiful cover of Taeyang's Eyes Nose Lips,

I couldn't not keep it.

I am totally sucked into k-fandom these days, I know.

Still so totally in love with this drama and this pairing!

And here paired with the super-addictive Maroon 5 song, Sugar:

If I was younger, this would have totally gone into my top 10 OTP list. But now that I'm far too grown (I do not want to say old), life does not allow me to dwell. Daylight hours steal my brain.

As a whole -- this show is doing superbly. At the start, I did feel lukewarm about it -- like, eh, it's compelling enough but the main plot was too convoluted to hook me in properly. This turned out well in the end though, because its slow unraveling is what's keeping audiences riveted now. It's so frakking exciting, I almost squealed on the bus home while watching today.

And the pairing! GOSH. I have harped on enough, but this is like the most functional hero-OTP pairing I've come across. They are so functional and workable and amazing, despite how screwed up their individual situations are -- you know how typical hero characters rarely ever get together, not until the very end? Because either the hero or both the girl and the hero have terrible issues to work out? Well, this pairing works them out. Waaay early. And it's so satisfying. So instead of getting the whole, extended pain-melodrama, how each is bad for the other, we get to see these two confront each other instead, and cry and say amazing, tear-jerking things -- and then they decide to be together. AND IT IS AWESOME. Because on top of everything, girl is helping hero with the missions, and their working together is super duper fun to watch. (KBS drama does not allow embedding of the episode clips, eesh. I wish I could keep them here.)

Healer: Okay, run!

Young Shin.: Okay -- wait, where?

Healer: *almost does a headdesk* Where you were heading!

Young Shin: Oh, right. *dashes off*

Ohmygod, seriously, so cute.

I may blog about real life the next time round -- hahh. 

Currently watching the k-drama, Healer -- and it's my typical hero archetye plot!

It stars Park Min Young, who's had a wonderful track record with her male co-stars for having great chemistry. (I mean, she made it work even with Lee Min Ho, who for all his super K-stardom, I feel lacks chemistry with most actresses). But this -- with Ji Chang-wook -- takes the cake. 

They're great together! They can be both funny and intense -- and makes this hero show a joy to watch after long workdays like the one I just had.

Much to talk about... but the night is short.

First post of 2015 --

I should have lots to say! I do. Back from my travels and all, and starting the third year of work. But where to start.

• After wondering for years in school which is more important: what you do or who you do it with -- 2 years of work has me deciding that it totally is who you do it with. For me at least. The worst type of work can be bearable with awesome company, and the best kind of work can be torture with horrid people around. Maybe it's because we're social creatures -- that for you to feel good after a day's work, all it needs sometimes is knowing you have amazing persons supporting you; knowing that you're not alone in your work. Perhaps it extends to life in general -- the road we're on will always be more bearable when there are others around, or when there's that one special companion, regardless of how crazy the road can get.
• Mawlid in Egypt -- meeting so many amazing persons who love Nabi s.a.w., from all over, and also, a total test of my Arabic skills!!! ohmygod. At one point, I was thrown alone into a group of ladies with not a shred of English, much less Malay, and it was, haha, hilarious, to recall. But I am sorta proud of myself because it was not completely hopeless. :P I could understand the ones from Saudi best because they used Modern Standard Arabic and weren't speaking dialect versions which completely befuddled me. There was one point however when I kept wanting to ask, "Where are you guys staying here?", so I literally asked, "في اين تسكن؟", and they kept saying, "Saudi, but we're from Yemen." And I was like, Yes, I know that, but where are you guys staying while you're here? And they kept repeating, We stay in Saudi, thinking I didn't understand them earlier. And after a while I kinda just gave up and wanted to headdesk, only to realise later that "تسكن" really means where you're like permanently staying. I should have used "تقيم" instead. I mean, seriously, the subtleties in meaning -- who knew. Not us while we're in class.
• We had a Syrian lady with her three kids living across from our Asian quarter -- GORGEOUS. Hello, Syrian people are just seriously gorgeous. She had two adorable boys that ohmygod, I think I seriously miss. They were 2 and 4 years old (just the typical ages of the kids I see everyday) and so cute. I wish they were still around for me to hug. And again, of course, I had to speak in Arabic with them! >.< And I would go, "هذا؟، هذا؟" as I pointed to things so I could figure out what the older brother, Taj, was saying. And still, we played this Monster app together on my iPhone, and he named the different foods he fed the Monster -- "!جبن", Cheese! "!بصل", Onion! Haha it was so adorable, man. I was totally learning Arabic from him. He still refused to let me sleep when it was like 1 am, and we were going to leave at 3 am (in the freezing cold, may I add) . He went under the covers with me (I was bunking on the sofa in the living area) and stayed stuck to my phone while I started building a headache from lack of sleep. Barely kissed him goodbye when we left.         

 

Even if I ever see the two of you again, you'll be big and won't be in the ladies' quarter anymore! Meh. Gosh, this would be a great opportunity for some Makcik to cut in 

and tell me to go get married and make my own boys. 

But... will the boys I have ever be this cute! And speak Arabic so adorably some more.

More awesome moments to share -- but another night!

I am so tired tonight, ahakz. I stayed at the office late just so I could finish all my work for 2014, then I got home and started binging on Supernatural and KFC like a brain-dead zombie.

I watched this episode of Supernatural:

SPOILERS FOR SEASON 10







Haha! And just when E was telling me how X-files (or was it Buffy?) had a musical episode, and I happily commented, well, yes, I can't ever imagine Sam and Dean singing a musical number, that's why it hasn't happened. Apparently, I should bite my tongue -- they managed to make a musical episode, embedded within some meta-fiction!

I half-hate it. Meta often feels fan-nish and tacky. But at the same time, it offers such hilarious stuff -- and that's why I really can't hate it all that much. (I mean, seriously, if you think about it -- we totally transplanted ourselves into our fandom when we were in our teen years; it was hilarious and incredibly fun, but ridiculously embarrassing.)

I've decided I like this, ahahah.


---


Anyway, finally -- I've had my last day of work for 2014. And I'm looking forward to my trip! (((:

I don't know what I'm expecting, but I really -- wish, hope, pray -- that when I'm back, somehow, I'll... feel different. Figure out things more, see more. Be better, be inspired. Insya Allah, Amin.

The last time I was in Egypt was literally 10 years ago!

You can't just have sincerity; you need sincerity and guidance. You've got to be mukhlis with guidance, and that's called mukhlas.

-- Shaykh Hamza Yusuf

This explains a lot of people. And we should always check every now and again, if we happen to be one of them. Sincerely problematic.

insya Allah, all is well

Had lunch with the Linear Algebra peeps this afternoon, and we concluded it with a round table on the highs and lows of 2014 -- and it has compelled me to blog, because I've been meaning to, and because it's December and my reflection for the year is due!

So here come the bullet points because my capacity for writing continuous prose has severely deteriorated.

• First off, it fills me with a deep sadness that I am writing in bullet points again. What has become of this space! I have no inspiration or mood to write anymore, and I am wont to blame it on the busy working life. :( Inspiration comes from good, lengthy down-time, when you let thoughts simmer and slowly come to life.
• Which brings me to point 2 -- I have been complaining a lot about this year; and I am not happy that I am complaining so much like an ungrateful brat. :((( It's just that this year has been the year when WORK WENT NUTS. Like work suddenly decided to dump a crazy amount on my plate and my plate is still overflowing, and has no signs of clearing. Ever.
• Inpatient training! Wraps up a lot about 2014 for me. Bad experience. Good lessons.
• 3-day work week (or something equivalent) -- a future that I hope to realise. Because I want my life to grow in many ways, not just one, and not when it burns me out like this.
• I feel the hard times made me closer to some of my friends this year! 
• A crazy number of books bought and hoarded.
• Nice work trips! KL, and Medan.
• Egypt and Istanbul trip coming up! The former for a Mawlid gathering that has been a loooong time coming, and the latter for a quick holiday. I'm hoping both of those will conclude the year on a high note for me. And fill me with zest for what's to come, 2015 and beyond.

---

oh, heart! how I adore you.

yes. in good moments like tonight, I contemplate everything and feel happy.

Insya Allah, all is well, though much is unclear in this messy world.

Lack of discipline is the source of all evil: whoever does not obey, will be disemboweled by the admiral.

-- apparently a French wisdom, quoted by Lymond, in Pawn in Frankincense

And I quote here because I know discipline is what I sorely lack. (and yes, against my better judgement, I am re-reading Pawn in Frankincense because I got excited about going to Istanbul -- a revisit after ~16 years, whoo!)

Ideas get nowhere if one has zero discipline. :(

How to get over lack of discipline, if one is not disciplined to begin with??? I need an outside intervention.

Sadness.

God, give me inspiration and motivation.

I will work hard! Tomorrow... ZZZzzz.

No, seriously. Tomorrow.

because this country is run like a corporation

Oh, Singapore. Please let's move toward a better life.

Let's think less of money and profits and being first in everything, 

and more about building a sustainable and enriching life.

What a day.



This is why I never feel rested over the weekend. My schedule on the weekend is always crazy packed, that by the time Monday rolls around again (in the blink of an eye, it feels), I'm possibly even more exhausted. This is not a sustainable lifestyle, S.

Just returned home from the Singapore-Malaysia Suzuki Cup match at our spanking-new-beautiful stadium (for me reminiscent of Camp Nou! ahah). We lost -- if you didn't already know, but what an experience. First off, the last time I was at Kallang Stadium... was... I don't know when, honestly. So just being in those spectator seats, amongst the pumped-up crowd, was exhilarating. It brought back some long-suppressed patriotic feelings, and I cheered like I was back in school. And the crowd! So many, and so red. And there were like two rounds of a perfect Kallang Wave.

But then we lost, which put a damper on things. And led to us witnessing some crazy fan behaviour. We totally wanted to keropok the referee, ahah. He gave a penalty to Malaysia at like the 93rd minute or something -- and you can imagine the rage in the stands, aiyoh. Bottles, toilet paper rolls, were flung at the said referee-kayu until police with shields had to come escort him. I thought it was seriously funny that people refused to go home until we booed him to satisfaction. Funny, but also, not very pretty.

Also, earlier in the day:

Cara's wedding! 

One of the most demure and classy brides I've ever seen.

STs unite! at weddings.

God, I miss my class. I really do.

Then we birds had a seriously overdue meet-up:

Arabic exam tmr some more! 

Ridiculous. I must learn to prioritise.

"The habit of apprehending a technology in its completeness: this is the essence of technological humanism, and this is what we should expect education in higher technology to achieve. I believe it could be achieved by making specialist studies the core around which are grouped liberal studies which are relevant to these specialist studies. But they must be relevant; the path to culture should be through a man's specialism, not by-passing it...

A student who can weave his technology into the fabric of society can claim to have a liberal education; a student who cannot weave his technology into the fabric of society cannot claim even to be a good technologist."

-- Lord Ashby, Technology and the Academics

This -- as E and I share books, and thoughts about the world. We lament almost consistently now how education should have been for us, and how it should be in our dream school. Instead of being given the tools for thinking, we've often grown up being taught what to think.

Currently in Kuala Lumpur, at the tail end of this 4-day trip for a workshop on pediatric dysphagia.

Feel like I just have to blog, since I have the chance to. Although, I'm dying to get back to watching American Horror Story, thanks to my colleague-and-current-roomie G -- and I can't say no to horror, ahah.

This workshop has been super-educational, insightful, and vindicating. Especially vindicating, because I feel like it makes even more sense now why I floundered so much at inpatient training. I haven't suddenly developed a love for pediatric swallowing management, but I now appreciate the field a bit more, and I still feel like I'm an okay therapist, despite not being great at this.

I have other thoughts but--

tonight I want to chill in this awesome hotel. (: 

It's been a good feasting, learning, and shopping escapade.

So yesterday, after what seems like eons in the realm of friendship, I finally met up with E (I have taken to not spelling names out because then they are not made google-able, and there can be some semblance of anonymity to the other people in my life -- but no, I will not backtrack and do that to all my previous blogposts, that would be a nightmare).

Blogging list-like so that my thoughts aren't so messy:

• I realise I have been worrying my friends about my previous drama with inpatient training. I am sorry for being drama! It may be the reason J bought me pastry for free, accompanied me for haircuts, and the very reason E finally called down for a meet-up after so long. There is an innate melodramatic instinct in me -- I don't know if I should blame the Indian part of my heritage, haha. But actually, yes, the problem is not as bad it sounds and I am not dying. And besides, inpatient training has been put-on-hold, so life is not so crazy for now.

• That I have a few best friends. I tend to say E is my best friend because our rapport is crazy (see comic below for explanation), and just yesterday alone, we sat in the same restaurant for 3.5 hours just chatting. But then I spend a whole lot of time with J nowadays and it's cause I realise we have the same... needs, for lack  of better word. Like we panic over the same things, and she totally gets why I panic about the things I panic about. And then there's S, with whom discussions of the theological sort are just super-amazing, and our thoughts on the way the world should be are super-congruent. 

• It leads me to that one time the Linear Algebra group had a discussion on this topic of best friends, and I was appalled at the idea of two best friends having a falling out with one another because one of them had been neglectful of the other, and not included the best friend in all of her outings/decisions/new friendship groups. I didn't know that to some people, a best friend was an actual label, like a boyfriend. And you had exclusivity rights! like your boyfriend/significant other would. That would make me a cheating best friend! D: Because I guiltily enjoy all my best friends. Can't we have a polygamous relationship with friends, please. I love you all. (And omg, I'm starting to wonder if this is what polygamous men say to their wives! OMG -- no, no, no, romantic relationships are different from friendships (and not just cause of the sexual intimacy bit) and the arguments are not all necessarily parallel.)

• My brother is getting married before me; not-so-soon, but soon-enough, and for a while, it became this other thing that underscored how not-normal I felt I was. So I had a bit of soul-searching for a while to regain mental and emotional stability -- and I realised after a while, that this has happened repeatedly in my life. Not the fact that my brother was getting married, but the fact that I would always fall short of some conventional expectation or other (and maybe everyone does, eh) -- and that the best times of my life have always been when I came to realise that I liked me for who I am, that I accepted me for who I am, that I am different and it's okay (or even wonderful!). It's not easy to explain how this happens... but I think it's got something to do about seeing the beauty of your own situation and not missing it for someone else's fairytale.

• Despite the nightmare that inpatient work was, I still actually enjoy this profession. Just because it puts me in a position to work on stuff that are supremely interesting to me (i.e. language and communication, its intricacies, its impact on life, the brain) and I actually am able to do stuff to help people. I've been thinking how annoying it is to have these boundaries of our profession -- like this is what a speech therapist does, that is what a teacher does, that's what a doctor does, that's a counselor's job, we're therapists -- not academics. All I want to do is help people and do what I'm passionate about. Stop labeling me! It's suffocating. 

And now that I've finally lost steam, here's the INFP-INTP comic (from oddlydevelopedtypes.com, which is hilarious and fun) that I think depicts my dynamic with E:

growing old together... with friends, is fun

Panicking about our lack of trendy online knowledge:

---

Another sign of time passing: 

the newest generation of Bollywood stars are starting to make their onscreen debuts. 

Tiger Shroff and Kriti Sanon in Heropanti; 

mostly, this music video is here because of how much pretty there is: both face and fashion-wise. (Tiger's face, while McCaulay-Culkin-in-nature, grows on me after a while; 

also, he makes up for it so easily with that physique.)

But seriously -- that blue sari; I have half-a-mind to replicate that somehow into a halal version.

And it seemed only yesterday (i.e. in reality, ~13 years ago) 

when Kak Naz (and fine, me too!) was raving about Hrithik Roshan making his debut.

Happy Islamic New Year!

Insya Allah, this year will be better than the one before.





You know how people say, everything happens for a reason?

I think we're not supposed to necessarily know what the reasons are... But how does one not harp on it? Especially when things don't make sense. And when it appears so bad in real life.

It's been a while.

Work has been nightmarish. I find dealing with the inpatient cases virtually an impossible task. And I'm still praying hard for a relief from this difficulty.



Behind the nightmare though, I have learnt to reflect on this lifestyle that I've been thrust into -- this crazy, capitalist, slogging system that's made me feel more like a machine than a human being.

And I have decided on a few goals, one of which is: to make a 3-day work week a reality in a few years' time. Regardless of my marital status, the number of children I have or not, I am quitting this nutty system, and will strive to live by my own terms; for my sanity, for my health and psychological well-being, and for my social, intellectual and spiritual growth. I have decided a life that has me only seeing the night sky when I'm in my house has no value -- I find I cannot read, I cannot further my understanding of the numerous mysteries of this world, I cannot learn what is truly of value to me, and I cannot really enjoy social relationships. It appears that to keep subscribing to this hamster-wheel of a system, one must cease to be a thinking person, and feel satisfied with the mundanity of everyday drudge. And I have been feeling like a suffocated creature over this past year.

So, a 3-day work week is an attempt to take more control of my life. I cannot live shackled to the capitalist system; either I exit, or it kills me, I feel -- sorry for being melodramatic.

And it's not like I'm the first person to declare quits -- I actually feel it's a rising trend; I've heard stories of young families (with children, mind you!), whose only breadwinner is the husband who works only ~3 days in the week, and makes quality of life a priority. And the couple goes for coffee dates on weekday afternoons?! What the frak. Kill me now, I want a life like that right this instant if possible. And no, they are not business tycoons who lord over their employees and are actually earning big bucks -- they are educated, typical Singaporeans with run-of-the-mill careers (i.e. teachers, behavioural therapists) who have decided to value life more than the race. And if it's me, I will homeschool my kids, damn it, because I want them to learn to cherish life too.

It is possible, some day, if not right this minute (because of my bond). And oh God, help me make it happen. I want to live serving You, not this bloody economic system.


See? -- other more prominent persons have been proposing similar ideas:

While feeling in control and working fewer hours may seem like distinct issues, they are fundamentally connected. When we own more of our time, we feel like we’re in charge of our lives and our schedules, which makes us happier and, ultimately, better at what we do. Our health and happiness also increases in the course of our lifetimes and, with it, our value to the workplace and to society as a whole. Additionally, we may finally recover from chronic sleep deprivation, which is one of the greatest health hazards currently facing the average employee. Sleep quality, in turn, translates to better cognition, clearer thinking, and increased productivity. Instead of the usual vicious circle, we get a virtuous one.

-- Why not a three-day week? by Maria Konnikova