life, love, *motherhood, and then more
Archive for August, 2009
Sebab Nila Setitik Rosak Susu Sebelanga
Aug 28th
Perplexed by this incident.
Once again we get another story of some insensitive Muslims doing something really stupid, i.e. bringing the severed head of a cow to protest the relocation of a Hindu temple.
Some people will claim to say that 'Let's not be alarmed by people like these, because they represent only a minority of the fundamental crazies.'
I've always be very candid with how I regard the fundies, be they Muslim, Christian, Buddhists, Hindus, or whatever. In my opinion, it doesn't really matter whether there's just one or two, the fact that they continue to exist and continue to be loud enough to disturb the peace is enough for us to keep reminding ourselves how important it that we not just shut up and ignore people like these.
I attempt to be gracious yes, but even tolerating behavior such as this and brushing it off makes no sense. Do you really think people like these are harmless? Were the two 'investigative journalists' who pretended to be Christians and entered a Catholic church, partook of the communion wafer then spit it out for a photograph to be published in their Islam-upholding magazine – were they harmless? Is that crazy Christian who tells you that your mother will be separated from God and suffer eternal torment and burning in hell because she hasn't accepted Christ yet – is that Christian harmless?
Mr/Mrs/Mdm/Ms Fanatic: seriously, are you trying to tell me that your God, who is so almighty, so amazing, so sovereign, so fantastico, are you telling yourself that His teaching *pushes* you to fight His wars for Him, are you telling yourself that He is so helpless that you have to hurt a fellow creation's beliefs and way of life in order to uphold the sovereignity of your God?
Are you saying that your God is so greedy for believers to be subservient and obey him that he commands you to do something as ridiculously nauseating and disgusting, such as chopping off a poor cow's head and parading it off in some stupid measure of protest while you jump around boasting how you say YOUR GOD IS SO GREAT?
When you say Your God is Love, are you so certain you mean it, or are you just eager to get this life over with, get to Heaven, and then smile smugly at the rest of the world who won't get saved? Is that why you keep telling people they will end up in Hell? Seriously.
Come on lah. Seriously.
…
When you were hurt by 'insensitivity' like this, didn't you feel harmed? Even if just one out of thousands spat words like this in your face, no matter how noble and how 'loving' their intent, didn't you feel stabbed? Didn't you feel like someone took away your life, took away your heart, took away your entire respect for the whole pot of people they called Muslims/Christians/Buddhists/(insert whatever).
You think one drop of oil in a pan of clean water is harmless? Seriously?
Seriously, don't tell me people like these are harmless.
Looking Pregnant
Aug 26th
I am officially 19 weeks going on 20 weeks and having reached the mid-point of this pregnancy, I must admit this: I haven't really had the guts to see myself in photographs yet.
In my past life I loved taking photos of myself, because records of what I looked like was motivating, and even in shots where I don't look so cantik, it was motivating enough to keep me wanting to dress better, stand better, look better. I'm a woman after all, and being vain is part and parcel of being who I am.
Alas, the pregnancy gift sort of toppled my world over, and I am GAINING WEIGHT everywhere! Urgh! Buying clothes has become a challenge, although I have been extremely fortunate to have received really pretty hand-me-downs from my previously pregnant mommy-mates. The truth is, when you get pregnant, you very quickly get initiated into a very exclusive club of 'mommies', and it's the most awesome girls-only-membership ever ever ever, simply because WE KNOW THINGS THAT OTHER PEOPLE DO NOT.
Because someone asked me to post photos of me now, here goes.
I still look like me, right?
Baby’s Brain On Writing Days
Aug 25th
I don't mention very much how often we do writing in the industry that I'm in, but even at my age and level (and I am OLD by industry standards, I think), I seem to have this knack of attracting all the writing assignments to myself.
It's not a good thing anymore, as much as I love to write. Because, where I am doing what I'm doing, I don't really write for myself anymore, rather, I have to constantly visualize what it's like to be the chief of a huge organization, and imagine the PR-worthy things such a hefty character has to say. When you're pregnant with your hormones totally unreliable, and nursing a very sore hip (baby is starting to press on my bones), you can't imagine being the head honcho, so I say some very absurd things in my copy.
So, totally, unprofessional. Urgh.
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The other thing is, for some reason, some people seem to think that I'm a running scanner or a word processor, and I get very very little time as deadlines. In the midst of quiet afternoons in the office, I'll suddenly get a damned phone call, or a sudden e-mail and then this other person would sms me to remind me, 'MEETING! Where are you?'
And I have a lot of things to write you know? I need the time you know? I write fast, I mean, I used to write fast, but these days, baby is distracting! Urgh!
These days, I've noticed that it's become a mighty task for me to concentrate and 'center' myself into the mood of a CEO/MD. Believe me while I *used to* be able to shift rather effortlessly into the shoes of a company's spokesperson, with baby swimming inside of me and sending mini gurgling taps across the borders of my stomach can be quite distracting, and I sometimes see myself going from 'We are certainly optimistic at our prospects for this quarter,' to saying, 'since baby is going to be really really cute and adorable…' only to frantically press on the delete button.
In Dr Miriam Stoppard's famous pregnancy guides she calls it 'developing baby's brain'. OMG, I NEED HELP! There I feel baby shuffling around in me again.
*sniff, what's a working mommy to do?*
Your Spirit tak sama with My Spirit lah..
Aug 24th
I want to admit first, that I'm not exactly the most gracious of people, and I'll be the first to claim to be a very judgemental, naughty, and sinful person.
It's not easy to start writing this, and believe me, I've wanted to jot down my thoughts on the matter of people claiming to have had God spoken to them for some time already. I do know I'm a very strong-minded person, and I psychoanalyse characters far too often for my own good, and sometimes, I react very violently in public towards behaviours which are, in my opinion, 'abnormally dangerous' towards the good of society.
So trust me, when I say that this is not that easy to own up to, especially since I have tonnes of friends and people I care about who very openly declare how affectionate God Jesus often speaks to them in their moments in struggle. Most of these, of course, come from the evangelistic-pentecostal-charimatic camps of Christianity, of which my roots in the faith sprouted and grew.
But my worthless two sen is this: I think some people who always get so blatantly proud and boast about how God often talks to them, and how the spirit always moves them to do 'strange' things, just like to pepper up their spirit experiences to sound a little more loved than the rest of us.
One of the reasons I find it highly doubtful that God's voice resonates thunderously in the actions of their lives is how these recollections of 'the moment God spoke', sounds so dubiously 'miniscule', often over the tiniest thing that shouldn't even be a struggle, like, for instance, 'I am telling you not to smoke anymore.'
'Listen to me, God here, I want you to stop talking to that person because he doesn't believe in me.'
Or, 'Be still, God speaking, turn off the lights.'
And, 'Wait, I'm the Holy Spirit, and I am telling you, give away that which is precious to you.'
To me hoh, if you TOLD me something like that = what God told you to do, I'll be thinking in my head, 'OMG you so stupid meh, cannot even be kind to yourself, to the world, to a poor man until it takes God to come to you in some thunderous voice to tell you to do something so easy – you would've done it anyway if you read the bible often enough or if you hung out with people-loving Christians / people often enough.'
So, when they recount how the spirit spices up their lives, I seem to get this impression that these people are also trying to ram it into my head the other subliminal message, i.e., 'You know, I'm doing it right, more right than you're doing it.'
Simply because, 'You know why? Holy spirit speaks to me, and He doesn't speak to you. In fact, Holy spirit Sayang me more because I KNOW, I can speak in fiery babblings I call tongues and you scoff at it.'
To be honest, I don't scoff at tongues. I just sit up and be a little more alert around people who claim to be anointed, and holier than me, and more precious to God than I am. Now this isn't because I strongly believe that God doesn't take sides in life, nor is it because I believe that God doesn't have favourites. It's purely because whenever someone claims so certainly that having the ability to speak in tongues demonstrates that he/she has the power of the holy spirit (and therefore you and I minions of people who just 'claim to sayang Jesus' do not have the Holy Spirit), they're just inviting me to be a little more careful to notice the details around them.
Then I start to see the disparities. Like, if the Holy Spirit is so powerful in you, why are you so unkind towards the poor. Or, if you're so filled in the Spirit, why are you having so many tiny struggles in life that always ends up with God booming in his thunderous voice telling you to do something that you don't like to do?'
Or, if the Holy Spirit is so strong in you, why are you so troubled that your neighbour who is still fervently devout towards her ancestors will not accept salvation from Christ?
Or, if the Holy Spirit is so so so heavily invested in your soul, why is it you are so intent on pushing me to attend services of tarrying and soul-healing and fire-miracle sessions even when I've clearly stated that I already attend another church?
Since when was my Jesus not good enough for you?
I just wanted to say that we're not all strange crazy folk who're intent on casting all non-believers to hell like THAT Christian friend you know. Nah-ah, at least, I'm not like that.
Damn hate your double standards, ’1Malaysia’
Aug 21st
Tuan-tuan dan puan-puan, dalam seminggu lagi kita akan meraikan tahun kemerdekaan negara kita yang ke-52 dengan lagu-lagu yang kononnya bertemakan semangat 'Satu Malaysia'.
Satu Malaysia with a good dose of very vocal people who have simply no sense of respect for their fellow citizens, and who think that just because they have a certain land-right, religious right, and colour right, it is all right to sound 'seditious' in a newspaper that speaks the 'national language' (that we all know as Utusan Malaysia), but it is not all right for newspapers in a language that they do not understand at all to be irresponsible.
Oh must I remind you that of course, most of these 'holier, I am better than you are because I have a Hak Melayu' over your measly Hak Malaysia, pakciks (sorry lah I have to sound gender-ist, since most of these idiots tend to be men, as far as I notice), just came to the conclusion that Chinese papers like Sin Chew, Nanyang and etc, are IRRESPONSIBLE and PROMOTE DISUNITY, based on assumptions.
Quoting this particular pakcik's anger driven opinion piece on the nutgraph, he says,'
Mungkin ada dua masalah utama akhbar-akhbar Cina ini. Pertama, daripada segi kualiti wartawan. Ramai yang tidak menguasai bahasa Melayu dan tidak fasih berbahasa Inggeris. Sebahagian pula tidak banyak pengetahuan mengenai undangundang, Perlembagaan dan pentadbiran negara. Ini menyebabkan banyak laporan berita dan ulasan mereka menimbulkan kegusaran dan kemarahan rakyat.
Mereka menimbulkan sentimen kebencian kepada pihak berkuasa kerana mereka sendiri tidak memahaminya.
Keduanya, sesetengah daripada akhbar ini hanya menyokong apa sahaja agenda yang menguntungkan kaum Cina. Justeru laporan berat sebelah dan berunsur menghasut kebencian kepada pihak berkuasa, kerajaan, Umno, Utusan Malaysia dan pemimpin Islam adalah lumrah dan satu kemestian kepada mereka.
Wahlau, like Pakcik, bila pulak Pakcik fasih Bahasa Cina sampai pakcik dapat menghasilkan kesimpulan yang begitu, err, how do you call it, 'promote hatred?'.
The point is, I don't pretend to understand Tamil and give my stupid two-sen over whether Tamil Nesan promotes 1Malaysia or not. I know that in my world where I exist, I'm required to do whatever I can to contribute to a loving society (I'm a Utopian-idealist in disguise, so kill me already). And hey, if you think the Chinese papers were insensitive towards your rights, hello, since when did Hak Melayu override our Nation's priority to move towards 1Malaysia? (Or Dato' Seri Najib, did I read your so called manisfesto wrong, and it was all just a political gimmick to draw our attention away from those smutty and scandalous rumours about … errr.. nvm, afturds I kena ISA).
As far as I understand, the if any of the Chinese Papers, or English papers, or Tamil papers make a wrong move, their licence gets suspended immediately. In Malaysia, our newspaper agencies have to get their licences renewed on AN ANNUAL BASIS. Freedom of the press my ass… now I don't always complain so boldly about this, but I don't freaking care if you've more rights to 'own this country' than I do simply because I am not Malay, and not Muslim.
All I know is that Merdeka is closing upon us and this country feels more like an unnatural prison of rights, and articles like this DO NOTHING to dispel that sense of dread.
