Pink Tuesdays

I’ve been blaming nearly everyone from God to my father for everything wrong with my life, but honestly, i share a vast majority of it. You see, I’m, down to the core, lazy. Lazy with no drive. When I told my best friend my plan, he immediately replied, “Knowing you, after a week or so, you’ll stop studying and go back to the same ol’ same ol’”. I vehemently denied that, but he’s right. One month after deciding to retake STPM, I studied precisely one chapter of History and a quarter a chapter for Calculus.

I was completely free. No job. No money to go out. My TV was out. My computer was spoilt. Yet I found the time to do nothing while I have something worthwhile to do.

And not only with procrastination but also drive. One day after I started my diet-exercise program, I stopped. That is the nadir of my existence - one day. And I stopped for the stupidest of reasons (I woke up late, didn’t feel like proceeding on). Sure, I would kill to become slim, but lacking anyone or anything to kill, bah - what’s the point.

And every time I resolve to change my habits and change my lifestyle, I put it off, “Bah, I’ll start next Monday” or “Bah, I’ll start next month”. Approaching the finish lines I put for my self, I move the goal posts further back and back. I mean, if I had any semblance of discipline and drive, I would be slim and muscular by 16.

And I make the silliest of excuses for my infractions. “Oh, I have gynecomastia, I wanted to get rid of it, but failing, I couldn’t be bothered” or “This year is exams year, I should study instead of going to the gym”. I once signed up for Fitness First, a mid-range, rather-expensive-for-my-family, gym in my neighbourhood. The first month, I went for only three times. The second, third, fourth and fifth months were better, but only slightly - once or twice a week when I planned six isn’t good enough and certainly not worth the money spent.

I quit after the fifth month (and because of my contract, that means I was officially part of a gym for 6 months). Earlier on, I joined a community gym with a trainer. I ignored most of his dietary advice and missed most of my sessions. While everyone else who joined around the same time as me when from literal strength to strength, I remained a tub of lard with minor improvements.

I keep on making promises with myself and breaking them to the point I no longer trust myself. I tried every trick - plan ahead (bah, didn’t work), organize (bah, didn’t work), put pictures of your goals on your walls (didn’t work too), put pictures of your fat self on your walls (doesn’t work). Since November, I’ve gained 8 kg’s and 4 inches on my waist. I’m regressing rather than progressing. In October and November, I could study for hours. Now, I’m distracted in 10 minutes tops.

In the area of my sexuality, I’ve moved from no porn to daily porn. I sneak my way to satisfy my lusts though I now lack a computer and have to use either my brothers’ or my father’s. Very soon, perhaps, I might even go back to old habits. Every week I have been planning to get an anonymous HIV and various other STD checks, but have been procrastinating. In December, I decided to wait until my 6 months incubation period is up, driving down false negative probabilities. Now, it’s way past 6 months and I keep on putting it off.

I’m disgusting.

But I suppose admission is the first step towards recovery. But I must ask, what’s the second?

One day the devil was having a sale, hawking his many diabolical tools of the trade. On display, with their price tags attached, were all the devil’s tools and weapons: the arrows of jealousy, the hammer of anger, the dagger of worry, the slingshot of doubt, the axe of hatred and numerous others.

- U.S. Anderson,
The Magic In Your Mind

The Wedge of Discouragement
by Tom Venuto

It’s at a church resource centre (a euphenism for a private school who can’t afford proper teachers thus hire unqualified facilitators pretending to do ‘homeschooling’, albeit not at home). It’s a proper job, and I’m sure if Christianity had the karma system, it would count for a few points. However, it’s an hourly rate of RM2.50 - I almost wanted to blurt out that I can get RM1 more in McDonalds.

But then again, McD’s rejected my job application, as with countless other retailers - I had a permanent, genetically-induced (my cruel fate started at conception it would seem) sleepy face that scares away retail companies fearing it would put off their customers. I could do plastic surgery, but it’s rather expensive, so I need to get a job for that, and thus the vicious cycle begin - no job without plastic surgery, no plastic surgery without job.

Oh, cruel fate. And those temp jobs are out of my league with the recent graduate unemployment. Plus, Malaysia is a racist country, it’s pretty hard to get a job in a Chinese or Bumi company, and being the Indian version of a ‘banana’ - yellow/brown-in-my-case outside, white inside - the ever so rare Indian company with a job paying more than RM300 a year is off.

So RM2.50/hour it would seem, nevermind my take-home pay would be around RM1 to 75 sen an hour (tithes, public transportation, food). It’s better than nothing - perhaps I can go mamaking again.

We refer to your application for admission to the Nanyang Technological University in academic year 2006-07.

Assoc Prof Loh Nee Lam
Dean of Admissions
Nanyang Technological University

NTU is the least selective of Singaporean universities. I’m not even waitlisted.

Every other Malaysian student with international qualifications that I know of have already been called for interview in Singapore at the Singapore Management University. So either I get rejected or I get waitlisted, admissions would be a wee bit unlikely at this juncture. And I guess the same applies to NUS and NTU.

Dissappointing really, though I probably would reject admissions because I can’t afford it, it still… dissappoints.

Maybe things are changing, for the past few weeks I have been catching myself checking out, you know, girls. Females. Ladies. Women. You know, the opposite gender. Perhaps I’ve always had that and just started noticing - the same past few weeks, I have been trying to stop checking out Martians. You know, men are from Mars, women don’t know - they couldn’t read the map to point it out.

I shared that at RLM yesterday and the coordinator claimed today she was blessed by it. But speaking of RLM, I don’t know, the whole vocab is getting on my nerves with the inventions of new words like “fetrosexual” (”metrosexual”, “fetrosexual” - geddit?), and “pro-gays” (people who live the gay lifestyle - the annoyingly wrong use for the prefix pro-) or the rampant stereotyping involved (I’m not metrosexual, I hate shopping, I could not look fashionable to save my life, I have *one* hair product (3-in-1 shampoo), *one* facial product and that’s only for my zits, I use disposable raxors, I like patterned boxers, I don’t match my accessories - if I wear any at all, I’m into rugby, my room looks ugly, I thought light blue, white and pinkish brown goes well, I get bored at most chick-flick movies, I would enjoy replays of any Rambo movie - the Fab 5 would be soooo displeased)

What annoys me the most is Edmund’s long talk at the first part of the meeting. For n00bs, its informative. For those who have been there for a few months and have been to a RLM Talk, it’s repetitive. But Edmund did say something that struck me - “don’t go to Singapore if you’re a recovering homosexual”.

That’s like a nail in the metaphorical coffin for me. My entire experience of applying to local university have been a downright frustrating one - like waiting 8 hours at immigration because the computer system was down, finding out my results and then finding out that the probability of me getting a scholarship is as likely as the French adopting English as their national language.

I would probably get accepted at Singapore’s universities *but* I have no idea how to pay for it. The tuition - after the 80% tuition grant subsidy - is doable but the cost of living isn’t. Especially now with limited passports abolished (as of last Friday), living in JB and commuting on SBS Bus 170 to Singapore daily would be an expensive affair (I would have to renew by passport every 4-6 months).

Which makes my decisions a whole lot easier: University of London External Program. I could do local universities, but Malaya University’s economics program is hard to get in and the rest are barely recognized within Malaysia itself, no less overseas for postgrad studies.

Plus, I can take out a loan on my studies from PTPTN - no interest so it is more like a deferred payment that decreases when you factor in inflation 3% “administration fee” - lower than the inflation rate, anyway. My father quit his old job effective last Saturday, it would be unfair demanding to go to Singapore.

This is my first day on Body-for-LIFE - it is hard. The program is essentially a diet of six meals (a portion of protein, a portion of carbs, and for at least two meals, a portion of vegs) and exercise alternating between aerobics and weight training. I’m putting my money on this program because I tried it out two years ago - for a month, stopped, lost 5-6kg’s, received dividends for more than a year after. This time I intend on making it permanent for that reason.

But the exercises are harder than it seemed - I guess I hit the fitness nadir some time in the past two years. Though I have my daily walks, the 20-minute aerobic workout (walking/brisk jogging) was a killer this morning. I struggle to reach my planned peak points throughout the 20-minutes.

The diet is another matter - it advertises itself as the eat-more diet, but when you are used to eating 6 full meals a day, 6 B4L meals seems rather small. I’m personally waiting for 12:30 where it would be 2 hours before my last. I can’t wait to eat…

I’m pathetic.

But I can imagine myself living like this. It isn’t that hard. I mean, it’s not like I’m eating grapefruits and apples only for 12 weeks. And it’s only 6 days of exercise and diet with one day of rest every week - yeepie! And this time, unlike all my other attempts, I actually planned it out. So I’m more optimistic.

Oh, this morning, besides studying half a chapter of History (4 parts, all divided into 8 chapters, you pick any two chapters you like that follows the same theme - I’m picking Economics and I haven’t decided on the second theme), I made mozzarella! From skim milk!

I stumbled upon this:

Please forgive me if this answer hurts you in any way. That’s certainly not my intent.

Therefore we are ALL sinners, and that includes me.
But this is why I’m worried about you. Did you know that anytime we are sexually intimate with someone else, we become one with that person’s soul? The problem is this can lead to a lot of tangled feelings and heartache….which may explain your conflicted heart.

I’ve never actually seen it that way…