Discredited

This is going to be a few entries about my life experiences. I will try to write minute pieces of my past as I remember them, while growing up in each entry.

A lot of us get discredited sometimes. It's meant to belittle our work, effort or talents. We hear it often, but we usually do not care much when it is about others.

But in our personal lives, being discredited is sometimes painful to hear. I remember when I was 9 years old. I was a late bloomer so I didn't know my ABCs and I didn't know how to read. I was always the last 5 in class because I couldn't possibly read the questions in the exam papers. I memorize the shape and order of letters to answer questions, which of course would read out nothing but nonsense. But one thing I was good at was math. It was the only thing that made sense to me at that time. I could do math because there is nothing to read. All I had to do was to understand how the numbers are affected by the symbols "+", "-","x", or "/". When the results for the math exams came out, a teacher came up to me and asked me, "Are you Rizal". I said, yes. Then she asked, "Betulker awak yang dapat markah penuh?" (Is it true that you got full marks?". I said I don't know, cause the results was not out yet. She said only two people got a 100 in the whole school, and then she asked me if I had copied the other chinese student(lets say Siew Yen) and where was I sitting at that time. Confuse by her remarks, I just told her I don't know any Siew Yen in my class. Then she realized that I was from a different class. She asked me again, "what is your classroom name?". I told her it was 3 Merah. She was shocked. I was from the worst class of standard 3, and yet I got a 100. Disbelief, she told me, "You are lucky".

I was hurt, cause it had nothing to do with luck. At least not for my math exams. For the other papers that would require me to read, it was pure luck. Even though I didn't know how to read, I have always managed to get around 50%, and that is what I call luck. Luck is when I was still able to write a few sentences to answer a question without knowing how to read. Luck is being able to infer what the questions were from pictures and diagrams and select similar words from other parts of the exam papers that would help my inferences. Luck is the ability to select a few random words from the paper itself, reorder them to look something that looks like an answer and got it half right. Of course more than half of the time, i wrote nonsense. But nobody suspected that I didn't know how to read. They just thought I was stupid.

But when I was discredited for something I was good at, I was hurt. In math, everything was clear to me, and it was definitely not luck. I knew every single question and knew how to answer them. It was just sad that a teacher who was suppose to encourage me, choose to discredit me instead. If she had investigated further, she would have found out that I suffered minor dyslexia.

Lucky for me, mom was a better teacher. I went home with all my exams papers graded. Though most of them were with bad grades, she was nonetheless proud of my 100 in math. She wondered why my answers doesn't make any sense for the other papers. It'a as if I was answering something totally different. It is as if, I purposely wrote something wrong. It is as if I didn't understand the question at all. She then investigated my weaknesses and came up with a theory of her own. Her theory was that I was bad at reading. She tested her theory by forcing me to read out loud the questions in my exam papers. She was surprised to find out that I could not read at all. Not a single word. I remembered, mom saying, "Don't tell me you don't know how to read. Do you really don't know how to read? or are you refusing to read". I remember her scolding me, shouting, "READ JOEY, READ.....what does that say....", and I just mumbled, refusing to show my handicap in reading cause both of my sisters were such good readers. They were reading novels by the time they were 8.

Of course when she realized that I couldn't read at all, she was disappointed. But it was an "Aha" moment for her. She was just amazed that I could still write some nonsense down without even knowing how to read. Lucky for me, mom wasted no time. She rolled up her sleeve and spent the next few weeks teaching me how to read.

Today, I can write though still hate reading. Some even say that I'm not such a bad writer. Well, thank you mom. Without you, I would still be playings crayons drawing pictographs in my room.

More stories to come later.....about historical past.

Blogimental

The last entry I had was July 26th. That was a long time ago. Some, might even wonder what happened? Why have I not written anything new? But for most, nobody even comes to my blog, so I doubt anyone would even care. I choose to write on my blog, not only as a way of self therapy, but also to keep in touch with family and friends with the latter being the primary reason. However, recently, even my mom now knows how to use facebook. I am really proud of her for being so in tuned with the progress of cyberspace. A lot of moms out there don't even have an email account, but not my mom, she even have her own blog. Again she has proven herself to be ever versatile and dynamic. She keep true to her words, "Joey, nobody is stupid. What differentiate the stupid and smart people is the effort to learn". So the need to keep her updated with writings on my blog seems somewhat irrelevant as she now reads my status on my facebook profile and seems to participate in the comments a lot.

My sisters, my friends and office mates have facebook accounts too. This sudden change in cyber social activity changed the perception that technology separates people. Technology like facebook now strengthen the bonds of friends, increase envy within coworkers and foster the love within families. My particular facebook activity increases everyday, as more of the people I know and love uses facebook just as much as I do. Hence, the fun and luster of writing a blog seems to fade away.

Being in an institution that cares too much on what you say, writing a blog seems to be less interesting. I should have remained anonymous, cause then I can write what ever I want. But now, I feel like i have to shut myself up from writing acerbic stuff about the world. As arrogant and sarcastic as I am, I get no satisfaction from people trying to discredit me just because of my different views. A lot of people do not appreciate diversity. So I will try to comply with the norm of the world, being a mediocre boring arse in the monotonous cog wheels of society. Hence, I write only non controversial stuff.

Much of these days I spend my time doing research. It's about the only thing that keeps me excited and sometimes even euphoric. I know to some its boring, but one, like myself, can get lost in the world of what if this and that, that seems to linger in my head.

I have contemplated about closing this blog and quit blogging altogether. But, after thinking about it, i might keep it for a few more years. The thing is, this blog, is more than just a tool to keep family and friends updated.

"It is a history of my life, a collection of my thoughts organized in chronological order. It is the very essence of my individuality.

As I foresee, my inevitable future is to be one of the drones of society.

I feel myself assimilating into the collective behavior.

I feel myself getting lost in the thick hay stack.

I feel myself being just one of the pebble stones in the river.

Slowly becoming a grain of sand in the desert of swiveling dunes and disfigured sand domes.

Someday I'm sure I will lose myself in this monotony.

What was once colorful, will be dithered away into monochromatic halftones.

Eventually, the only way to save myself would be this blog, to remind myself, that a person did exist. To give me a chance to find my way back home. To look back of where I came from, and pick up the bread crumbs to return in shape and form of the person that I have always been...."

There you go, sentimental views about my blog....aka....blogimental.

Hopefully, I'll have more updates in the futre, but it will be irregular updates from now on.

Take care my family and friends, and see you on facebook.

Running to the beat.

I have not been running for a while now. Particularly, because I feel that there is not enough hours in a day. If I run one hour, that means I'll be twice as tired, need extra rest, sleep and definitely lose one hour--most of the time wasting it anyways--which I could have instead done something more useful. I thought taking a break from a running will give me some extra time to concentrate on my prelims, but it seems that I am just getting even lazier than usual. It all started when my old Reebok running shoes got totally worned out and torned.

Needless to say, it was time for me to look for a new shoe. The criteria for this new shoe is that:

1) Must be a running shoe

2) Good ventilation, good cushion and very light

3) Not pink in color and does not look like a girls shoe

4) and most important, must be able to support my Ipod Nike+ running sensor.

So the shoe I got was the "Nike Air Max Moto+ 6". This shoe was the cheapest shoe I could find in the Nike outlet store that supported the Ipod running sensor. And it looked decent. Not exactly the most stylish shoe around but good enough to not get a ticket by the fashion police. The shoe is also light enough, feel very comfortable--though i prefer the previous reebok I had-- and it has enough holes for nice ventilation(which is important to make sure your feet gets enough air circulation to avoid it from smelling really terrible like a rotting cat carcass).

The nice thing about the shoe is that you can take out the cushion insoles, and there is a slot for your nike+ running sensor on the shoe soles. You can slide your running sensor nicely in the slot, and you can then put back the cushion insoles nicely. Hence, making the sensor practically integrated into the shoe. Now after all that, I can't wait to wake up early in the morning, to put on my Ipod, selecting all my power songs and running to the beat.