And so, another year has gone by and I'm no better as a blogger. I had one resolution for 2016, which was to get Facebook, and I didn't. I feel that when I verbalise my goals to other people, I'm less likely to do them. So there's nothing on the agenda for 2017.
New Years Eve found me cleaning up one of the storage closets in our house. My parents and my younger sisters are in Sri Lanka, and since they've left, my older sister and I have been selecting various corners of the house daily and cleaning them. I don't know if this happens to everyone, but I find that once you've settled in a house for a long time, it's near impossible to keep it pristine. There are corners of our house we just can't clean, because we don't have the time and energy on top of our daily routines. But with the most of the family gone, my older sister and I don't make a lot of mess, and it's the holidays, and we like cleaning.
And we accumulate. I feel that this comes from my mother's side. I have been told that her mother is a hoarder, who never throws anything away. I think my mum is similar, but only a part of it is due to attachment; mostly, she has a lot of stuff that she never gets back to. So in this closet, amongst many, many bags (is that weird?), I found a couple with her papers. Stuff to do with studies and whatnot. And one with her obstetric history.
It was... surreal. I know most of her history. I know she's had two miscarriages and one abortion, because of some miscommunication with the healthcare professionals involved. I know she must have had complications with sister number three, because I remember the visits to hospital, how ill she looked, jaundiced and drained, barely there. I've asked my parents for the stories, what it was like, how did they feel. I am increasingly curious about the lives of my parents, my aunts and uncles too. For a long time I wasn't, just because I had unconsciously accepted that they wouldn't have the types of stories we saw in movies. You know, awkward first dates, prom, romantic marriage proposals, fairy-tale weddings, drama, sacrifice, that sort of thing. I knew we were the products of arranged marriages, parents who seemed to have had a strict and boring upbringing. What was there to hear?
As it happens, I think... somehow, at some point, I realised that however different the time and place was, my parents, my uncles and aunts - they're all human too. They were kids once. Adolescents. They had hopes and dreams, fantasies. Crushes. Hobbies. Favourite celebrities. They made mistakes too. They have stories. And when you ask them about this stuff, they melt a little. You close the gap. You realise you're not so far apart.
Where am I going? I don't know. I started looking through all the paperwork. Innocuous appointment schedules, routine check ups, blood test results. Referral letters from the doctors. Charts, before and after birth. The labour documentation. The ultrasound of myself as a fetus, as well as my sisters. Something just snapped, and I started crying.
I am not usually so sentimental. Actually, I am quite soft, but I've never been the type to look at a photo and cry, or something like that. But to see this, everything my mum went through, the entire rigorous process, the complications, three out of four kids in a foreign land, by herself, it was just. Something. Tears brimmed just noting the 'interpreter required' sticker on one of the hospital forms.
I'm not entirely sure why I am sharing this. It's been another year, and it seems sensible to share the highlights, of which there have been a few. But this is what is on the forefront of my mind, so this is what I have for you.
It's just that the more I get through life, the less I seem to know. Is this a popular platitude that everyone's already heard of a million times already? Perhaps, but it's certainly one I personally attest to.
I remember being so very strongly opinionated in high school. I still have certain values and causes that I am devoted to - I still bleed easy for humanitarian crises. But I remember that I was so passionate, dogmatic even, about how I argued the contexts of these issues, particularly the political side of things. I was so sure. And now I'm not. There are no heroes versus villains in my world anymore. Nothing is simple. Everything is murky, fogged up, twisted, complicated. We have so much access to information, knowledge, and yet there is no way to know what is real and what isn't. Who is telling the truth, who isn't. What version of the truth is the right version. Is there a right version. And what do we do. How responsible are we for everything and everyone.
I feel a little hopeless, a little small.
This was not meant to be a dismal post, though. I suppose, I don't know, you spend your life trying to find your purpose or whatever. 'The meaning of life'. Who you are, what you're meant to be doing. I guess, in realising how complicated the inhabitants of this world are, I'm trying to balance... I don't know, forgiving their flaws, giving them the benefit of the doubt, but then, not depending or expecting too much. Acknowledging that there is always more to a person. Still devoted to the humanitarian cause, but no longer from the top. I want to help from the ground up, do big things but do them quietly. I'm a little sad that I don't have convictions anymore, makes me feel a bit insubstantial. Perhaps they'll come back, perhaps they won't.
It's all very vague, but there's something in there that is starting to make sense. Still be spiralling out of control, but trying to go with it.
Peace in,
Laila
Sunday, January 1, 2017
Wednesday, March 16, 2016
and then I grew up
So this is what happened.
I was falling apart last year. Maybe you have some ideas why, maybe you don't. But throughout the year, I was gradually losing it, accumulating a whole lot of badthoughts in my head. It's a bit hard to explain.
And then.
I went on placement. Mental Health placement. In the youth ward.
My first placement with patients about my age, and they were crazy.
I don't mean crazy in the sense of prison like setting, residents rattling the bars to their cages, gabbling away, paranoid, eyes darting, mad laughing, that sort of thing. Okay, there was a bit of that, but mostly it was a combination of drugs and trauma, and it was awful. Awful because I collected stories, as I usually do, and these were tragedies. These were dark stories, depressing, scarring, heartbreaking.
I ended up loving the placement, because I was exposed to something I was so uncertain about, something that unnerved me just by me thinking about it. I'm not saying that by the end everything was hunky dory, and I could just live with these terrible things. I just came to the understanding that people who have horrible baggage attached to them do not get better when you run away. They're the ones that need you most.
But, as I said, I was not in a 'good place' myself. I could actually write my own mental health nurse notes. Isolative. Irritable. Flat affect, congruent with depressed mood. Minimal speech. Poor diet. Low self-esteem. Blah blah blah.
It was pretty bad. It was bad enough for my mum to notice. Even though I try to keep this stuff to myself, I suppose some of it cannot go unnoticed. Or maybe it's because she's my mum. But there were nights where I just bit my fist and cried, and I can't explain why. Or I'd just lie still for a long time and not do anything. I convinced myself that I was alone, that no one liked me. Sometimes I felt like I couldn't breathe, that the world was too small, and it was closing in. I was pathetic and hopeless.
(The other thing you need to know is that throughout the whole of last year, I dreamed about going to Sri Lanka at the end of the year. If it wasn't with family, my sister promised we'd go together. She made some elaborate plans. I was super excited.)
But come the end of placement, and despite all my talking, and all my family agreeing, no one had booked tickets to go. My sister bailed on me. And my parents kept saying "We'll go, hang on, just wait." Wait for what?! I was hysterically thought-screaming.
So I kept wallowing, kept falling apart, and finally, my mum said, okay, kid, you can go. You need it.
We found a family friend going, and I booked myself on the same flight as them. (That's about as much connection I had with them for whole trip. I saw them just before I got on, during the transit, and when I landed.)
(My stomach aches a bit when I think about Lanka. Ow. I miss it.)
And I went.
I found my little happy place again.
Like, really. I went on January 14th, arrived back in Melbourne on the 1st of March. And I've been genuinely happy, warm right to the core. I don't know, it's kinda scary. I can't imagine it lasting. But it is. Even though I'mback to the same routine. Even though there are more assignments than ever. Even though I'm still kinda unemployed. I'm good.
So I should probably tell y'all how it all went, but. But I've already done it.
See, one thing Star roped me into before I left was to start a blog with her. And I blogged while I was there. And I feel like I did it my best there. So I'll link ya (here and here), if you really care to know. But I'm not Laila there, so don't use that name if you want to comment. (Come to think of it, neither of us have put our names. Maybe just don't comment at all. I donno. BUT DON'T CALL ME LAILA.)
Anyway, something has really struck me since I've come back.
I've grown up.
Duhhh, you say. You're twenty. You better have grown up.
No, listen.
There are little things. You know, I'm more than halfway through uni, I'm graduating next year. Then I'm in the workplace. My friends are getting married, one by one. Cousins close to my age as well. They all have boyfriends in a more... steady, mature way. I do things a bit more independantly. (I've had driving lessons too. I'm getting there). There's more, though.
When I got back, a few days later, I accompanied my dad to an appointment with a cardiologist. I accompanied him. And after that, I explained to him what was going on. And he told me about some tests he had done while I was away, and he told me how scared he had been, and I comforted him. Since when does this happen? I've never had that explicit role of explaining this sort of stuff to my parents, nor have I ever had the job of reassuring them, having them so dependant on me. And yet, there it was.
And since then, I've noticed all these other little things. How my parents always seem to ask my opinion on how to handle stuff in their lives. How we sit and talk about our day like we're on the same level. I mean, sure, I still feel the need to answer to them, to always tell them where I am, ask permission, etc. But it feels like roles are slowly reversing. They always used to say there would be a day when we'd be wiping their butts, and it really feels like that day is coming.
My parents are getting older.
It's scary.
I deal with patients like this all the time, but now I'm thinking: my parents fit into this group. That's the reality. No, they're not ancient. And they're pretty healthy. But they're still ageing. It's happening. It's real. And I can sense that now, even though I still need them, now they need me too.
And what strikes me more than anything is that for the first time, I feel like I can do it. I can deal with this. I can take care of them. I'm not so scared anymore. It's a bit disconcerting, sure. But it's not incomprehensible, unmanageable. I can do this. I don't know. Is this what it means to grow up?
Peace in,
Laila
I was falling apart last year. Maybe you have some ideas why, maybe you don't. But throughout the year, I was gradually losing it, accumulating a whole lot of badthoughts in my head. It's a bit hard to explain.
And then.
I went on placement. Mental Health placement. In the youth ward.
My first placement with patients about my age, and they were crazy.
I don't mean crazy in the sense of prison like setting, residents rattling the bars to their cages, gabbling away, paranoid, eyes darting, mad laughing, that sort of thing. Okay, there was a bit of that, but mostly it was a combination of drugs and trauma, and it was awful. Awful because I collected stories, as I usually do, and these were tragedies. These were dark stories, depressing, scarring, heartbreaking.
I ended up loving the placement, because I was exposed to something I was so uncertain about, something that unnerved me just by me thinking about it. I'm not saying that by the end everything was hunky dory, and I could just live with these terrible things. I just came to the understanding that people who have horrible baggage attached to them do not get better when you run away. They're the ones that need you most.
But, as I said, I was not in a 'good place' myself. I could actually write my own mental health nurse notes. Isolative. Irritable. Flat affect, congruent with depressed mood. Minimal speech. Poor diet. Low self-esteem. Blah blah blah.
It was pretty bad. It was bad enough for my mum to notice. Even though I try to keep this stuff to myself, I suppose some of it cannot go unnoticed. Or maybe it's because she's my mum. But there were nights where I just bit my fist and cried, and I can't explain why. Or I'd just lie still for a long time and not do anything. I convinced myself that I was alone, that no one liked me. Sometimes I felt like I couldn't breathe, that the world was too small, and it was closing in. I was pathetic and hopeless.
(The other thing you need to know is that throughout the whole of last year, I dreamed about going to Sri Lanka at the end of the year. If it wasn't with family, my sister promised we'd go together. She made some elaborate plans. I was super excited.)
But come the end of placement, and despite all my talking, and all my family agreeing, no one had booked tickets to go. My sister bailed on me. And my parents kept saying "We'll go, hang on, just wait." Wait for what?! I was hysterically thought-screaming.
So I kept wallowing, kept falling apart, and finally, my mum said, okay, kid, you can go. You need it.
We found a family friend going, and I booked myself on the same flight as them. (That's about as much connection I had with them for whole trip. I saw them just before I got on, during the transit, and when I landed.)
(My stomach aches a bit when I think about Lanka. Ow. I miss it.)
And I went.
I found my little happy place again.
Like, really. I went on January 14th, arrived back in Melbourne on the 1st of March. And I've been genuinely happy, warm right to the core. I don't know, it's kinda scary. I can't imagine it lasting. But it is. Even though I'mback to the same routine. Even though there are more assignments than ever. Even though I'm still kinda unemployed. I'm good.
So I should probably tell y'all how it all went, but. But I've already done it.
See, one thing Star roped me into before I left was to start a blog with her. And I blogged while I was there. And I feel like I did it my best there. So I'll link ya (here and here), if you really care to know. But I'm not Laila there, so don't use that name if you want to comment. (Come to think of it, neither of us have put our names. Maybe just don't comment at all. I donno. BUT DON'T CALL ME LAILA.)
Anyway, something has really struck me since I've come back.
I've grown up.
Duhhh, you say. You're twenty. You better have grown up.
No, listen.
There are little things. You know, I'm more than halfway through uni, I'm graduating next year. Then I'm in the workplace. My friends are getting married, one by one. Cousins close to my age as well. They all have boyfriends in a more... steady, mature way. I do things a bit more independantly. (I've had driving lessons too. I'm getting there). There's more, though.
When I got back, a few days later, I accompanied my dad to an appointment with a cardiologist. I accompanied him. And after that, I explained to him what was going on. And he told me about some tests he had done while I was away, and he told me how scared he had been, and I comforted him. Since when does this happen? I've never had that explicit role of explaining this sort of stuff to my parents, nor have I ever had the job of reassuring them, having them so dependant on me. And yet, there it was.
And since then, I've noticed all these other little things. How my parents always seem to ask my opinion on how to handle stuff in their lives. How we sit and talk about our day like we're on the same level. I mean, sure, I still feel the need to answer to them, to always tell them where I am, ask permission, etc. But it feels like roles are slowly reversing. They always used to say there would be a day when we'd be wiping their butts, and it really feels like that day is coming.
My parents are getting older.
It's scary.
I deal with patients like this all the time, but now I'm thinking: my parents fit into this group. That's the reality. No, they're not ancient. And they're pretty healthy. But they're still ageing. It's happening. It's real. And I can sense that now, even though I still need them, now they need me too.
And what strikes me more than anything is that for the first time, I feel like I can do it. I can deal with this. I can take care of them. I'm not so scared anymore. It's a bit disconcerting, sure. But it's not incomprehensible, unmanageable. I can do this. I don't know. Is this what it means to grow up?
Peace in,
Laila
Thursday, November 5, 2015
the worst came and went
I mentioned, in my last post, that I'm part of a girls' soccer team that consistently loses. Allow me to elaborate.
Once upon a time, a year or so ago, my sister decided to organise indoor soccer - or, well, futsal - for girls. The focus was mainly for hijabis. It can be annoying playing sport in a headscarf. Besides it flapping around (depending on your style), it can get pretty darn sweaty and disgusting. I mean, even without the hijab you can get sweaty and disgusting. But it's worse with the headgear.
So she put her feelers out made some calls, and the lovely people at Monash were nice enough to accommodate our needs. My sister set up a facebook group, and basically, the idea is that every time enough girls were available at the same time, my sister would call and book. The people at Monash would block out the camera feed so no one could see us uncover, they gave a sign to put on the door so no one would come in, and they allowed us to cover up the glass doors with black garbage bags.
These are just details. At first we had difficulty getting games together. The thing about facebook is that people find it really easy to like and agree to things, because it's just the click of a button or two. But then they don't show up. And we don't have the numbers, but we'd have to pay up, where the cost is supposed to be divided. Then many people realised it wasn't nice to do that, and we just didn't have enough numbers.
Hence, our games, at the start, were a bit sporadic. But over time, particularly at the start of this year, we had an established set of 'regulars'. We played consistently, on a weekly basis, sometimes more. Our games went from "Look! There's the ball! Go get it! Try kick it!" to a little more coordination, a little more structure, a little more control and teamwork.
So one of of the girls at the start had this bright idea that we should make a team and join a league. She, herself, had played mixed with her hubby, so we kinda assumed that if she thought we were good enough, we must have been.
I remember our first game. In fact, the first couple of games went the same for me. On the drive there, we'd play pumping up music. I'd fight down the kind of jitters I get before exams, this sick feeling at the pit of my stomach. Controlled breathing on the verge of hyperventilation. Pep talks to myself, under my breath. Kinda of smiling like crazy, terrified.
Then we'd see the team we were up against. They'd look ... Well, effortless. Graceful. Synchronised.
And boy did that pit in my stomach sink a little bit more.
Nevertheless, we'd go in, gritting our teeth, giving each other supportive looks, nervous motivational speeches. And. We'd be slaughtered.
As I mentioned in that last post, the fact of the matter is, these are professional teams. These girls play outdoor usually, and these futsal tournaments are like kick-back scrimmages for them. Not to mention that their games are naturally tougher than ours. When we bump into each other, in our casual games, it's all giggle giggle, sorry hun, are you okay? There are no apologies here. No one holds back. It's crazy.
And yet, I have a point to make, and I'm making this point now because one of the girls almost had a breakdown/meltdown yesterday when we lost once again last night.
She was frustrated because there are so many ways for us to improve so that even if we don't win, at least we won't lose so terribly. Like one of the girls would be better at defense because she's too soft for striking, but she won't take the hint. Or someone else isn't there when a goal is being set up oh so perfectly. Or the fact that we've tried to arrange regular training sessions, but it just doesn't work. We can never get the whole team, because everyone is at different universities, doing different courses, different jobs, different family commitments - heck, we even live far apart. But sometimes the girls miss out for dumb reasons, like "Oh, I slept in, soz guys".
Yeah, it's annoying. And it's breaking her heart because she genuinely loves the game, and we could be better, but we're not. I know this, because it was so disheartening for me, at the start.
But.
It seems to have worked out backwards for me. See, I no longer have pre-game jitters before a game. I no longer feel depressed after a loss. Every week, I'm pumped. Every week, I'm like haha, what a surprise. We lost again. Star sends me a message after every game. And every time, my response is: Kid, you will know if we won. Believe me. I will write it in the sky.
And this is what I've learnt. In the context of a soccer game, this is the worst that can happen. That we lose. That we lose game after game. And so what. Big deal. Is that all there is? I can take it.
What I'm trying to say is, if this is the worst that can happen, then it can only get better.
We are getting better.
Let me illustrate. After the first one, two, three losses, I made this little goal in my head. I thought to myself: please, even if we don't win a single game, let us at least score once before the season is over. Then I'll be happy.
Well, guess what. We did. Guess who scored the first goal? Me. I've scored four, all up. More than I ever anticipated, more than I could ever hope for. And it happened. And I'm not the only one who's scored, mind you.
And I love these girls. Many of them I wouldn't have made friends but for this soccer thing, and I am so glad. We're all so different, but we fit so well, and we have spunk. Once again, even though we're losing, it's all right 'cause we're going down together.
And I'm going to gush a bit more. More than those goals, I feel like I've improved a lot more in ball control. I don't freak out and just kick it as soon as a girl from the other team looks at me. I can take it up a bit more. I can set up goals. I make little rules for myself. The first rule was don't just kick it away when you get it. And now I don't. My next is don't be afraid to shoot. Don't hesitate. Just do it. Shoot as many times as you can.
What have you got to lose? I think.
At this point: nothing.
Peace in,
Laila
Once upon a time, a year or so ago, my sister decided to organise indoor soccer - or, well, futsal - for girls. The focus was mainly for hijabis. It can be annoying playing sport in a headscarf. Besides it flapping around (depending on your style), it can get pretty darn sweaty and disgusting. I mean, even without the hijab you can get sweaty and disgusting. But it's worse with the headgear.
So she put her feelers out made some calls, and the lovely people at Monash were nice enough to accommodate our needs. My sister set up a facebook group, and basically, the idea is that every time enough girls were available at the same time, my sister would call and book. The people at Monash would block out the camera feed so no one could see us uncover, they gave a sign to put on the door so no one would come in, and they allowed us to cover up the glass doors with black garbage bags.
These are just details. At first we had difficulty getting games together. The thing about facebook is that people find it really easy to like and agree to things, because it's just the click of a button or two. But then they don't show up. And we don't have the numbers, but we'd have to pay up, where the cost is supposed to be divided. Then many people realised it wasn't nice to do that, and we just didn't have enough numbers.
Hence, our games, at the start, were a bit sporadic. But over time, particularly at the start of this year, we had an established set of 'regulars'. We played consistently, on a weekly basis, sometimes more. Our games went from "Look! There's the ball! Go get it! Try kick it!" to a little more coordination, a little more structure, a little more control and teamwork.
So one of of the girls at the start had this bright idea that we should make a team and join a league. She, herself, had played mixed with her hubby, so we kinda assumed that if she thought we were good enough, we must have been.
I remember our first game. In fact, the first couple of games went the same for me. On the drive there, we'd play pumping up music. I'd fight down the kind of jitters I get before exams, this sick feeling at the pit of my stomach. Controlled breathing on the verge of hyperventilation. Pep talks to myself, under my breath. Kinda of smiling like crazy, terrified.
Then we'd see the team we were up against. They'd look ... Well, effortless. Graceful. Synchronised.
And boy did that pit in my stomach sink a little bit more.
Nevertheless, we'd go in, gritting our teeth, giving each other supportive looks, nervous motivational speeches. And. We'd be slaughtered.
As I mentioned in that last post, the fact of the matter is, these are professional teams. These girls play outdoor usually, and these futsal tournaments are like kick-back scrimmages for them. Not to mention that their games are naturally tougher than ours. When we bump into each other, in our casual games, it's all giggle giggle, sorry hun, are you okay? There are no apologies here. No one holds back. It's crazy.
And yet, I have a point to make, and I'm making this point now because one of the girls almost had a breakdown/meltdown yesterday when we lost once again last night.
She was frustrated because there are so many ways for us to improve so that even if we don't win, at least we won't lose so terribly. Like one of the girls would be better at defense because she's too soft for striking, but she won't take the hint. Or someone else isn't there when a goal is being set up oh so perfectly. Or the fact that we've tried to arrange regular training sessions, but it just doesn't work. We can never get the whole team, because everyone is at different universities, doing different courses, different jobs, different family commitments - heck, we even live far apart. But sometimes the girls miss out for dumb reasons, like "Oh, I slept in, soz guys".
Yeah, it's annoying. And it's breaking her heart because she genuinely loves the game, and we could be better, but we're not. I know this, because it was so disheartening for me, at the start.
But.
It seems to have worked out backwards for me. See, I no longer have pre-game jitters before a game. I no longer feel depressed after a loss. Every week, I'm pumped. Every week, I'm like haha, what a surprise. We lost again. Star sends me a message after every game. And every time, my response is: Kid, you will know if we won. Believe me. I will write it in the sky.
And this is what I've learnt. In the context of a soccer game, this is the worst that can happen. That we lose. That we lose game after game. And so what. Big deal. Is that all there is? I can take it.
What I'm trying to say is, if this is the worst that can happen, then it can only get better.
We are getting better.
Let me illustrate. After the first one, two, three losses, I made this little goal in my head. I thought to myself: please, even if we don't win a single game, let us at least score once before the season is over. Then I'll be happy.
Well, guess what. We did. Guess who scored the first goal? Me. I've scored four, all up. More than I ever anticipated, more than I could ever hope for. And it happened. And I'm not the only one who's scored, mind you.
And I love these girls. Many of them I wouldn't have made friends but for this soccer thing, and I am so glad. We're all so different, but we fit so well, and we have spunk. Once again, even though we're losing, it's all right 'cause we're going down together.
And I'm going to gush a bit more. More than those goals, I feel like I've improved a lot more in ball control. I don't freak out and just kick it as soon as a girl from the other team looks at me. I can take it up a bit more. I can set up goals. I make little rules for myself. The first rule was don't just kick it away when you get it. And now I don't. My next is don't be afraid to shoot. Don't hesitate. Just do it. Shoot as many times as you can.
What have you got to lose? I think.
At this point: nothing.
Peace in,
Laila
Monday, October 26, 2015
"Presume that everyone is a douchebag unless they prove otherwise,"
said a barrister to me, yesterday. I like her. She scares me a lot, because I feel like she has this fine-tuned BS-ometer and she can just see through everyone, and what she will see in me, I don't know, but all fears aside, I like her.
I should be studying for my exams, but I can't. As echoed by jizbillions of uni/VCE students around Oz at the moment, I suppose. I'm just tired. I finished up another block of placement on Saturday, I have my own students who've been requesting sessions and sending me things to read a lot more in the recent days, I've had to work on some exam study, and I have soccer. I now just have a craving to bake, but I know I'll feel bad doing it when I should be studying, so I'm not. Instead, I'm feeling bad writing this.
But it's okay. I can deal.
I have a cute story.
The patient was an elderly male, who lives independently with his wife, but kind of as her carer, because she has some dementia. Right before they went to bed that night, he fell over, as old people do.
"Are you okay?" wifey called out.
"I'm fine, love, you go to bed, I'll be right," he replied.
When she got up in the morning, he was still on the floor.
It's a lot harder for the elderly to deal with falls - it's one of the most common reasons for being hospitalised. But he just didn't want to wake her up. So he was admitted with hypothermia.
D'awww ♥
I have another one.
One of my students came today for, perhaps, his last session. I love this kid. I've only been tutoring him for a couple of weeks, and extracting an essay from him is a painful process. But, funnily enough, he really, genuinely enjoys studying his book. He won't admit it outright, but he said that in procrastinating for other exams, or even for just writing essays in general, he'll pick up his book (Cat's Eye, by Margaret Atwood), and just pore over it, analysing, looking for ideas, trying to make sense of it. It's a pure kind of appreciation, and I adore him for it.
Anyway, today, in discussing this habit of his for the umpteenth time, he said: "You know, I even had this fear for a while that what if I died, right now, and you know, the angels came to ask me what my book was - you know how they do that - and instead of Qu'ran, I said Cat's Eye. Freaked me out."
LOL. I mean that literally. I teared up laughing.
I'm so sad to be losing my students. Not in the sense of an income (although that's going to make the future a bit unstable, I'll have to be stingier than normal), but in the sense that I really love these kids.
I'd like to go over the conversation with the barrister though. She's a family friend, and kinda like an older cousin to us. I mean, we call her our cousin. On the Sunday, my sister confessed the state of her current romance to her, schmaltzy fuzz and all, and oh, how she ripped her apart. Not as in crushed her dreams, but gave her a reality check that we both actually enjoyed, despite the cynicism. But I suppose that's one of those you-have-to-be-there-(andknowthefullstorywhichIcan'tbebotheredexplaining)-to-appreciate-it things.
Meanwhile, we continue to consistently lose in soccer. Did I tell you guys that? From our casual futsal games, some of the regulars decided to form a team and join a league. We exemplify the literal meaning of 'out of your league'. The girls we're up against are from actual teams, who train with coaches and play in official tournaments. They're vicious, they're masterfully skilled, they have tactics, and, on a side note, they all tend to be a lot bigger than us.
We even played against professional 14-year-olds and lost. To be fair, they looked a little soft, so we were reluctant to play our toughest. Although I'm a little sceptical that our 'toughest' would have made a difference.
But it's fun. I like these girls. I don't mind losing with them. We have this sense of sisterhood, camaraderie, that makes even the losses feel like a gift... just by being something we share? Something like that.
I should get my driver's licence.
I could go to Nepal to volunteer as a student nurse for 8 weeks, for under $4,000. I can afford that. Okay, it doesn't include the ticket and visas and vaccines. But everything else. It's pretty good.
I could go to Sri Lanka and do it instead. Free accommodation and food with the relatives. Hmm.
I'd love to write a story. Some things never change, do they?
Peanut butter cookies. The craving. It's killing me.
Okay, I feel bad. I should stop now.
Peace in,
Laila
I should be studying for my exams, but I can't. As echoed by jizbillions of uni/VCE students around Oz at the moment, I suppose. I'm just tired. I finished up another block of placement on Saturday, I have my own students who've been requesting sessions and sending me things to read a lot more in the recent days, I've had to work on some exam study, and I have soccer. I now just have a craving to bake, but I know I'll feel bad doing it when I should be studying, so I'm not. Instead, I'm feeling bad writing this.
But it's okay. I can deal.
I have a cute story.
The patient was an elderly male, who lives independently with his wife, but kind of as her carer, because she has some dementia. Right before they went to bed that night, he fell over, as old people do.
"Are you okay?" wifey called out.
"I'm fine, love, you go to bed, I'll be right," he replied.
When she got up in the morning, he was still on the floor.
It's a lot harder for the elderly to deal with falls - it's one of the most common reasons for being hospitalised. But he just didn't want to wake her up. So he was admitted with hypothermia.
D'awww ♥
I have another one.
One of my students came today for, perhaps, his last session. I love this kid. I've only been tutoring him for a couple of weeks, and extracting an essay from him is a painful process. But, funnily enough, he really, genuinely enjoys studying his book. He won't admit it outright, but he said that in procrastinating for other exams, or even for just writing essays in general, he'll pick up his book (Cat's Eye, by Margaret Atwood), and just pore over it, analysing, looking for ideas, trying to make sense of it. It's a pure kind of appreciation, and I adore him for it.
Anyway, today, in discussing this habit of his for the umpteenth time, he said: "You know, I even had this fear for a while that what if I died, right now, and you know, the angels came to ask me what my book was - you know how they do that - and instead of Qu'ran, I said Cat's Eye. Freaked me out."
LOL. I mean that literally. I teared up laughing.
I'm so sad to be losing my students. Not in the sense of an income (although that's going to make the future a bit unstable, I'll have to be stingier than normal), but in the sense that I really love these kids.
I'd like to go over the conversation with the barrister though. She's a family friend, and kinda like an older cousin to us. I mean, we call her our cousin. On the Sunday, my sister confessed the state of her current romance to her, schmaltzy fuzz and all, and oh, how she ripped her apart. Not as in crushed her dreams, but gave her a reality check that we both actually enjoyed, despite the cynicism. But I suppose that's one of those you-have-to-be-there-(andknowthefullstorywhichIcan'tbebotheredexplaining)-to-appreciate-it things.
Meanwhile, we continue to consistently lose in soccer. Did I tell you guys that? From our casual futsal games, some of the regulars decided to form a team and join a league. We exemplify the literal meaning of 'out of your league'. The girls we're up against are from actual teams, who train with coaches and play in official tournaments. They're vicious, they're masterfully skilled, they have tactics, and, on a side note, they all tend to be a lot bigger than us.
We even played against professional 14-year-olds and lost. To be fair, they looked a little soft, so we were reluctant to play our toughest. Although I'm a little sceptical that our 'toughest' would have made a difference.
But it's fun. I like these girls. I don't mind losing with them. We have this sense of sisterhood, camaraderie, that makes even the losses feel like a gift... just by being something we share? Something like that.
I should get my driver's licence.
I could go to Nepal to volunteer as a student nurse for 8 weeks, for under $4,000. I can afford that. Okay, it doesn't include the ticket and visas and vaccines. But everything else. It's pretty good.
I could go to Sri Lanka and do it instead. Free accommodation and food with the relatives. Hmm.
I'd love to write a story. Some things never change, do they?
Peanut butter cookies. The craving. It's killing me.
Okay, I feel bad. I should stop now.
Peace in,
Laila
Thursday, September 17, 2015
the one that got away
I left the house at 0650 this morning, or a minute or two earlier.
I do have this down to a science. Usually, I catch the bus at 0644 that goes towards the campus closest to my house, then catch the shuttle at 0715 towards my campus. But just today, I decided to loosen the reigns on my otherwise rigid, self-imposed schedule, and go the other way, a bus and a train towards the station near Panda's house, so she could pick me up and we'd head to uni together, for Thursday Pancakes.
Heading towards the warmer seasons as we are, the days getting longer, the sun rising earlier, so there was sufficient light for me to see when I stepped outside. It was of the ambiguous variety, with no clear sun to pinpoint as the source, just a grey sort of brightness. I said my salaams to my mother, shut the door, took a few steps before registering the splatter on the pane beside the door.
I'm not really a zombie in the morning; I'm sort of a morning person, but I'm also a bit slow. It looked like someone had thrown some small, juicy red fruit, so that it had splattered, and dripped down, gradually drying as it did. My initial thought, as I slowly processed this, was why would anyone bother? Our house is sort of on a hill. It would take some effort to walk up the steep driveway, or the stairs, to get close enough to take exact aim and hit the glass right. To what purpose. And why. Why, between last night, and this morning, would someone do that.
As these thoughts slowly came together in my head, I gradually became aware of the bigger picture. This dried up red, smudged across the door, on the glass panes in the middle, on the side. Thick, congealed drops on the floor. You wouldn't see this from way out front, but when you go up the final steps to my door, there is another set of steps on the right, that go into a space behind the garage, but in front a tall fence that separates it from the backyard. Even there, there were these smidgens of red, at the top too, like someone had reached over and grasped the top.
My stomach turned over. Blood. It was blood.
In this sort of sickened haze, I knocked quietly and rapidly on the door; my mother had just woken up as I was leaving, everyone else was still asleep. She opened the door, frowning.
"Mum, mum, look," I said, swallowing the lump in my throat and gesturing vaguely.
She went in and called my dad, who was awake, it turns out, just listening to Qu'ran in bed.
I know we discussed this briefly, what was to be done, but even though it was this morning, I can't remember what was said. I know my dad was a bit reluctant to call the police. I said I had to catch my bus. I left.
On the bus, I just. I felt sick. And strangely on the verge of tears.
Last night: it was one of those nights where it was cold, but also warm. I had a bit of a cold sweat going on. My little sister kept waking me up, sporadically, throughout the night, because she was feeling unwell. I only checked the time once - it was about 0250. The whole night went by in this stage between sleep and wake.
But there was a moment, in the night, somewhere, I'm sure, between 0300 and 0500, maybe 0430, where there was a loud banging. I'm a light sleeper; the slightest sounds can disturb me. I have a tendency to come up with dark theories if I can't automatically detect the cause, and the absurdity of these theories eventually lulls me to sleep. I know that's weird, but honestly. I live in the dullest part of my suburb, quiet, middle to upper class suburbia, with a touch of a retirement living across the street. Nothing. Happens. Here. You've heard me say it before.
So when I heard this banging sound, I thought to myself: sounds like someone getting hacked to death. Which is, of course, ridiculous in my world.
Also, the sound seemed to becoming towards my sisters' end of the house, which is the back, like my room, but on the other side. Far from the front. When I think about it now, I've heard that human hearing is terrible at pinpointing sources. So maybe that's another reason why it didn't register.
My parents also heard it, apparently. My dad thought it was someone knocking, but my mother assured him it was probably cats. I mean, Kiki knows how to knock on our door. And we've had quite a few cats visiting and kicking up a fuss recently. So my father didn't get out of bed to check either.
All I could think of, on that bus ride, was that somebody, in the night hours of the morning, was hurt. That they came to our door, banging on it loudly, in search of help. And they didn't get any from us.
On that bus ride, I felt like throwing up. I kept an eye out for bodies, for some kind of disturbance, but I saw nothing.
When I met up with Panda, I called my mother straight away. She told me they had decided to call the police after my dad had come home from work - he drives a school bus, so he just had to drop the kids off. After that, I allowed Panda to reassure me, and I got back into the routine of Pancake Thursdays.
I can't believe I was able to do that. I don't know if others would do the same. But somehow, I managed to put it at the back of my mind. It's not that I didn't think about it at all - I checked my phone frequently, expecting an update if something came up. But I was calm. And I eventually stopped worrying.
I got home earlier than usual, but it was still dark. That was the fastest I have ever walked from the bus stop without a purpose. I was paranoid, my eyes flitted everywhere. The sick feeling came back when I arrived and the dried, drippy blood was still there.
The police hadn't come. My parents had called about 0900, and it was about 1840.
Some thoughts that had come up since:
Yes, I had heard the banging on the door, as had my parents. But we hadn't heard any yelling. No one had tried calling out to us. Why not?
My mother had contacted our neighbours. Our neighbours on the left checked their front gate/door (there house has a difficult layout to explain), and yes, they too found flecks of dried blood. They also heard sounds during the night, but thought it was possums. But our neighbours on our right found nothing. And no one else in our neighbourhood seemed to be kicking up a fuss. Why was it just our two houses - two houses, mind you, that do not have the easiest access to front doors?
The night before, my sister and I got home late from soccer. We brought a friend home, because her parents had gone out, and they said they would pick her up from our house. My sister let her out when her parents came, but half in this world and half in the virtual world of her phone as she is, she did not lock the door. That night, this morning, the door was not locked. Whoever was banging on our door tried to climb over our back fence - you can see the stains on the top. All they had to do was try the door and they could have gotten in. It's not that I wanted them to, or not; it's just that for some reason, the possibility sends chills down my spine.
Anyway, my sister called again, about 1915. They said they would come. It's 2316 now and they haven't shown. What does one have to do to get the police to show up? I'm not usually overly cynical about law enforcement as a general rule, but today, I have lost all my faith in them.
And I'm scared. I'm not sure what I'm scared of exactly, but I am. Maybe there's a reasonable explanation for this, one that isn't dark. Maybe some silly person went bike riding at this odd hour for kicks, had a bit of an accident, and came staggering up our driveway in the hopes of getting us to call an ambulance or something. Maybe it was some sick person's idea of a prank. I don't know. I just don't know. And I guess it's this not knowing that is scary. I don't want to think about the other possibilities, but they're there, they're in my head. I can't get rid of them. At times like this, I crave oblivion. Or just some kind of comfort, someone to hold on to. But I know if I get my little sister to sleep in my bed, I'll just end up scaring her.
Remember when I said I wished I'd have a story to tell? Spoke too soon, I guess. I want normal again. The kind of normal where all the variables are known, the dramas are petty, the kind of boredom that is safe.
Peace in,
Laila
I do have this down to a science. Usually, I catch the bus at 0644 that goes towards the campus closest to my house, then catch the shuttle at 0715 towards my campus. But just today, I decided to loosen the reigns on my otherwise rigid, self-imposed schedule, and go the other way, a bus and a train towards the station near Panda's house, so she could pick me up and we'd head to uni together, for Thursday Pancakes.
Heading towards the warmer seasons as we are, the days getting longer, the sun rising earlier, so there was sufficient light for me to see when I stepped outside. It was of the ambiguous variety, with no clear sun to pinpoint as the source, just a grey sort of brightness. I said my salaams to my mother, shut the door, took a few steps before registering the splatter on the pane beside the door.
I'm not really a zombie in the morning; I'm sort of a morning person, but I'm also a bit slow. It looked like someone had thrown some small, juicy red fruit, so that it had splattered, and dripped down, gradually drying as it did. My initial thought, as I slowly processed this, was why would anyone bother? Our house is sort of on a hill. It would take some effort to walk up the steep driveway, or the stairs, to get close enough to take exact aim and hit the glass right. To what purpose. And why. Why, between last night, and this morning, would someone do that.
As these thoughts slowly came together in my head, I gradually became aware of the bigger picture. This dried up red, smudged across the door, on the glass panes in the middle, on the side. Thick, congealed drops on the floor. You wouldn't see this from way out front, but when you go up the final steps to my door, there is another set of steps on the right, that go into a space behind the garage, but in front a tall fence that separates it from the backyard. Even there, there were these smidgens of red, at the top too, like someone had reached over and grasped the top.
My stomach turned over. Blood. It was blood.
In this sort of sickened haze, I knocked quietly and rapidly on the door; my mother had just woken up as I was leaving, everyone else was still asleep. She opened the door, frowning.
"Mum, mum, look," I said, swallowing the lump in my throat and gesturing vaguely.
She went in and called my dad, who was awake, it turns out, just listening to Qu'ran in bed.
I know we discussed this briefly, what was to be done, but even though it was this morning, I can't remember what was said. I know my dad was a bit reluctant to call the police. I said I had to catch my bus. I left.
On the bus, I just. I felt sick. And strangely on the verge of tears.
Last night: it was one of those nights where it was cold, but also warm. I had a bit of a cold sweat going on. My little sister kept waking me up, sporadically, throughout the night, because she was feeling unwell. I only checked the time once - it was about 0250. The whole night went by in this stage between sleep and wake.
But there was a moment, in the night, somewhere, I'm sure, between 0300 and 0500, maybe 0430, where there was a loud banging. I'm a light sleeper; the slightest sounds can disturb me. I have a tendency to come up with dark theories if I can't automatically detect the cause, and the absurdity of these theories eventually lulls me to sleep. I know that's weird, but honestly. I live in the dullest part of my suburb, quiet, middle to upper class suburbia, with a touch of a retirement living across the street. Nothing. Happens. Here. You've heard me say it before.
So when I heard this banging sound, I thought to myself: sounds like someone getting hacked to death. Which is, of course, ridiculous in my world.
Also, the sound seemed to becoming towards my sisters' end of the house, which is the back, like my room, but on the other side. Far from the front. When I think about it now, I've heard that human hearing is terrible at pinpointing sources. So maybe that's another reason why it didn't register.
My parents also heard it, apparently. My dad thought it was someone knocking, but my mother assured him it was probably cats. I mean, Kiki knows how to knock on our door. And we've had quite a few cats visiting and kicking up a fuss recently. So my father didn't get out of bed to check either.
All I could think of, on that bus ride, was that somebody, in the night hours of the morning, was hurt. That they came to our door, banging on it loudly, in search of help. And they didn't get any from us.
On that bus ride, I felt like throwing up. I kept an eye out for bodies, for some kind of disturbance, but I saw nothing.
When I met up with Panda, I called my mother straight away. She told me they had decided to call the police after my dad had come home from work - he drives a school bus, so he just had to drop the kids off. After that, I allowed Panda to reassure me, and I got back into the routine of Pancake Thursdays.
I can't believe I was able to do that. I don't know if others would do the same. But somehow, I managed to put it at the back of my mind. It's not that I didn't think about it at all - I checked my phone frequently, expecting an update if something came up. But I was calm. And I eventually stopped worrying.
I got home earlier than usual, but it was still dark. That was the fastest I have ever walked from the bus stop without a purpose. I was paranoid, my eyes flitted everywhere. The sick feeling came back when I arrived and the dried, drippy blood was still there.
The police hadn't come. My parents had called about 0900, and it was about 1840.
Some thoughts that had come up since:
Yes, I had heard the banging on the door, as had my parents. But we hadn't heard any yelling. No one had tried calling out to us. Why not?
My mother had contacted our neighbours. Our neighbours on the left checked their front gate/door (there house has a difficult layout to explain), and yes, they too found flecks of dried blood. They also heard sounds during the night, but thought it was possums. But our neighbours on our right found nothing. And no one else in our neighbourhood seemed to be kicking up a fuss. Why was it just our two houses - two houses, mind you, that do not have the easiest access to front doors?
The night before, my sister and I got home late from soccer. We brought a friend home, because her parents had gone out, and they said they would pick her up from our house. My sister let her out when her parents came, but half in this world and half in the virtual world of her phone as she is, she did not lock the door. That night, this morning, the door was not locked. Whoever was banging on our door tried to climb over our back fence - you can see the stains on the top. All they had to do was try the door and they could have gotten in. It's not that I wanted them to, or not; it's just that for some reason, the possibility sends chills down my spine.
Anyway, my sister called again, about 1915. They said they would come. It's 2316 now and they haven't shown. What does one have to do to get the police to show up? I'm not usually overly cynical about law enforcement as a general rule, but today, I have lost all my faith in them.
And I'm scared. I'm not sure what I'm scared of exactly, but I am. Maybe there's a reasonable explanation for this, one that isn't dark. Maybe some silly person went bike riding at this odd hour for kicks, had a bit of an accident, and came staggering up our driveway in the hopes of getting us to call an ambulance or something. Maybe it was some sick person's idea of a prank. I don't know. I just don't know. And I guess it's this not knowing that is scary. I don't want to think about the other possibilities, but they're there, they're in my head. I can't get rid of them. At times like this, I crave oblivion. Or just some kind of comfort, someone to hold on to. But I know if I get my little sister to sleep in my bed, I'll just end up scaring her.
Remember when I said I wished I'd have a story to tell? Spoke too soon, I guess. I want normal again. The kind of normal where all the variables are known, the dramas are petty, the kind of boredom that is safe.
Peace in,
Laila
Friday, September 4, 2015
People and their sides of wonder
I finished reading Stasiland, and I realised - or re-realised - just how much I love stories.
I mean, you know this. You know this because you absolutely must know by now how much I love reading. I am always reading. I always have a book on my bedside table, or in my bag - I'm always in the middle of some book or another. The more stressful or busy life gets, the more I need a book. I may read in smaller increments, but I solemnly swear - I am always reading. The gap between me finishing one book and starting another is v-e-r-y narrow.
So this realisation, you may think it's a bit... well, glaringly obvious, le duh.
But this is different. Nothing's changed, I've just evolved a little - a little in understanding about myself. Sort of.
I usually gravitate towards the fictional. I love make believe. I love it in something as outrageous as fantasy, the occasional drip in sci-fi, but I also love it in the slightly more believable, still romanticised, high school or family dramas. Even closer to reality, give me a bit of historical fiction. Or just shock me with something terrifying, something disturbing, something mysterious. I'll take it all.
There are only two things that bother me with fiction. One is, well, it's fiction. It's not real. The other, while closely related, is still a little distinct: it's not real, and it'll never be mine. No pirates or witches, no struggle through war or some other colossal disaster, no tragic romance or numbered days with impending doom - I know it's sort of terrible to wish these things, but I can't help it. When I've read it in a book, it's always romantic. It's an experience, woven together in such pretty words that I can't help wish they were describing me.
And that's just fiction.
So you can imagine how I feel when I read someone's epic story, and it's real. Like Stasiland. Oh how my heart broke for Miriam, who went and asked them every day how Charlie could have hung himself in those sparse cells she'd experienced herself, and they gave her different answers every time. And Frau Paul, who sacrificed seeing her baby boy to save a guy she barely knew in the West. She so was so brave and so selfless, and you wish that she was just that bit selfish enough to take the bait, because it's her courage and selflessness that makes her deserving of the right to see her kid.
People are so extraordinary.
This is what I've realised. I know it doesn't sound like much, it's just... It's just one of those things, those ideas or thoughts that are blasé, you just take them for granted, and then, one day, bam: it hits you. It touches your soul.
Look at that. That's Hitler with a little girl. Hitler. Do I need to iterate what this guy is responsible for? And yet, when Star showed me this, it came with a little tumblr discussion that pointed out that yes, he did many horrible things (I don't have words), but we cannot just simplify him as this creature of super-evil in order to comprehend what he did. The fact is, despite all that he did, Hitler was still a man, and there must have been a great many other things going on in that little head of his, not all of them psychotic, that we will never know.
Stalin, man. Putting aside the bigger picture of his endless cruelty, this is a guy who said "He can't even shoot straight" when his son tried to kill himself. But when his wife died, according to Wiki (and a certain historian), he is quoted as saying: "This creature softened my heart of stone. She died and with her died my last warm feelings for humanity." He threw himself in her open grave at her funeral, and had to be dragged out. His gun was taken away from him because his comrades were worried about the extent of his grief.
(I mean, let's be real, grieving or not, I would never think a gun was safe in Stalin's hands.)
The point is, would you ever associate this tragic lover with the heartless dictator?
I'm not writing this to elicit sympathy for the nastier figures of history. I'm just astounded.
Isn't it just so amazing how absolutely complex people are? These gallimaufries of stupidity, courage, malice, selflessness, imagination, ridiculousness, contradiction, empathy... I mean, it goes on and on and on and we could never, ever get to the bottom of it.
And it is the stories of people that I am in love with.
And I think this is why I've found my niche in paramedics/nursing. It may sound unrelated, but really, this course has given me the best platform to discover people. Really, since I started, I've wondered why I chose the course. Yes, I like the idea of paramedics and nursing - helping people, taking care of them, etc - but there are other ways to do this, right? I mean, all careers end up doing this in some way or another ('cept politicians?). We all contribute to society, so we will all inadvertently helping each other.
Aside from that, I've never been interested in medicine or health. I've never been fascinated by biology, or anatomy and physiology. I've always been iffy about needles and blood and all that.
And I've always been a humanities kid. I love my reading (did I mention that?), my writing, my history, studying issues and discussing ideas. One does go into my course looking for this stuff.
But over the past year and a bit, within uni but mainly through a series of placements, I have made the acquaintance of so many different people, and... it fills me up. It opens my mind, it changes me, it moves me, it gives me new perspectives - I can't explain it. I just love the experience.
It's not that I only pick up amazing people in the ambulance, or that only quirky people come into hospital. These people are everyday people. Sometimes it's their medical story - the dog bite, the spider bite, the rare genetic condition - the one with the unlucky lottery of a jumble of rare conditions, for that matter. The guy with the apple piece up his butt (best ice-breaker ever).
Sometimes it's their personal stories.
There was the relatively elderly gentleman who spoke to me about his experience of moving from England to Australia, how he and his family may not have explored much in the former, but were prone to just packing, selling, upping and travelling around the latter in a caravan, settling in whatever state or territory took their fancy, every now and again. How just once, he and his wife wanted to do it by themselves, so when all the kids left the nest, they did. How soon after they completed the dream, they found out she had lung cancer - though she'd never smoked in her life - and suddenly she was gone. It had been a few years, but he still had tears in his eyes as he told me, lying in bed in the recovery room.
There were a few travellers - the guy from Germany, another who travelled constantly on business... Contrary to what I thought, that you'd be left in a perpetual state of longing to take flight again, he said that no matter how wonderful it was to see the world, he never stopped wishing that he could just settle down, for a bit, and just be with his family.
And sometimes it's just who they, in general. The 42-year-old woman who ended up in the same room as another 42-year-old woman and they ended up becoming soul sisters. When one was discharged before the other, they literally wept because of the separation. In the following days, the one that was discharged would call daily to catch up - she actually wished she was back in hospital to be with the other. The one that stayed, she was my patient, and I adored her. She was in because one of her implants, following a bilateral prophylactic mastectomy, became infected with cellulitis. But despite over 15 days in hospital, and many more to come; despite the constant IV medications, the drain tubes, the pain, the loneliness, the discomfort, she was such a bright spark. We talked about her daughters, my sisters, her conditions, my understanding, and just anything, and I've decided I want to be like her when I'm 42. (Divorced, 2 kids, happy). (Probably not a healthy ambition). (Whatever).
I remember my clinical educator, at my second aged-care placement last year, telling us about how when she went up to the Northern Territory for missionary work, there were these Indigenous people who, even though they'd be given housing, preferred to sleep outside at night. Just like that. In the bush. How beautiful is that? I don't think it'd be as breathtaking and liberating in the middle of suburbia, but up there, where it's remote, with the starry night sky as your blanket... They'd occasionally have an issue with people being run over, but I prefer to look at the side of wonder.
There is so much to say about people. Everyone seems amazing one way or another. They always seem to have something to share. This quote, from Death in The Book Thief: I am haunted by humans.
And I know this is cliché, and I know you probably saw this coming, but I wonder: what is my story?
I feel like all I have to relate belongs to someone else. I feel like I'm always the prop in a production starring someone else, like a rock. Or a tree. It's not really that I want centre stage. I don't really do well in the spotlight. But what I would like is a story worth sharing, something I own even if no one hears it in the end. It's like... It's like life is this gift, this... Notebook. (God, how often I've been given stationary, and I love it, but I never know what to put in it). And you have to write something worthwhile in that notebook, make the words count on the page, even if no one ever reads it.
So I want mine to be a good one. I know what I want. I have these dreams, these ideas. The problem with this metaphor - that you are the star of your own show - is that you don't get to write everyone's lines, things don't happen in accordance with the script you devised. I don't know how this is going to unfold. I don't know what the point of this post is. I just had some thoughts I wanted to get out.
Peace in,
Laila
I mean, you know this. You know this because you absolutely must know by now how much I love reading. I am always reading. I always have a book on my bedside table, or in my bag - I'm always in the middle of some book or another. The more stressful or busy life gets, the more I need a book. I may read in smaller increments, but I solemnly swear - I am always reading. The gap between me finishing one book and starting another is v-e-r-y narrow.
So this realisation, you may think it's a bit... well, glaringly obvious, le duh.
But this is different. Nothing's changed, I've just evolved a little - a little in understanding about myself. Sort of.
I usually gravitate towards the fictional. I love make believe. I love it in something as outrageous as fantasy, the occasional drip in sci-fi, but I also love it in the slightly more believable, still romanticised, high school or family dramas. Even closer to reality, give me a bit of historical fiction. Or just shock me with something terrifying, something disturbing, something mysterious. I'll take it all.
There are only two things that bother me with fiction. One is, well, it's fiction. It's not real. The other, while closely related, is still a little distinct: it's not real, and it'll never be mine. No pirates or witches, no struggle through war or some other colossal disaster, no tragic romance or numbered days with impending doom - I know it's sort of terrible to wish these things, but I can't help it. When I've read it in a book, it's always romantic. It's an experience, woven together in such pretty words that I can't help wish they were describing me.
And that's just fiction.
So you can imagine how I feel when I read someone's epic story, and it's real. Like Stasiland. Oh how my heart broke for Miriam, who went and asked them every day how Charlie could have hung himself in those sparse cells she'd experienced herself, and they gave her different answers every time. And Frau Paul, who sacrificed seeing her baby boy to save a guy she barely knew in the West. She so was so brave and so selfless, and you wish that she was just that bit selfish enough to take the bait, because it's her courage and selflessness that makes her deserving of the right to see her kid.
People are so extraordinary.
This is what I've realised. I know it doesn't sound like much, it's just... It's just one of those things, those ideas or thoughts that are blasé, you just take them for granted, and then, one day, bam: it hits you. It touches your soul.
Stalin, man. Putting aside the bigger picture of his endless cruelty, this is a guy who said "He can't even shoot straight" when his son tried to kill himself. But when his wife died, according to Wiki (and a certain historian), he is quoted as saying: "This creature softened my heart of stone. She died and with her died my last warm feelings for humanity." He threw himself in her open grave at her funeral, and had to be dragged out. His gun was taken away from him because his comrades were worried about the extent of his grief.
(I mean, let's be real, grieving or not, I would never think a gun was safe in Stalin's hands.)
The point is, would you ever associate this tragic lover with the heartless dictator?
I'm not writing this to elicit sympathy for the nastier figures of history. I'm just astounded.
Isn't it just so amazing how absolutely complex people are? These gallimaufries of stupidity, courage, malice, selflessness, imagination, ridiculousness, contradiction, empathy... I mean, it goes on and on and on and we could never, ever get to the bottom of it.
And it is the stories of people that I am in love with.
And I think this is why I've found my niche in paramedics/nursing. It may sound unrelated, but really, this course has given me the best platform to discover people. Really, since I started, I've wondered why I chose the course. Yes, I like the idea of paramedics and nursing - helping people, taking care of them, etc - but there are other ways to do this, right? I mean, all careers end up doing this in some way or another ('cept politicians?). We all contribute to society, so we will all inadvertently helping each other.
Aside from that, I've never been interested in medicine or health. I've never been fascinated by biology, or anatomy and physiology. I've always been iffy about needles and blood and all that.
And I've always been a humanities kid. I love my reading (did I mention that?), my writing, my history, studying issues and discussing ideas. One does go into my course looking for this stuff.
But over the past year and a bit, within uni but mainly through a series of placements, I have made the acquaintance of so many different people, and... it fills me up. It opens my mind, it changes me, it moves me, it gives me new perspectives - I can't explain it. I just love the experience.
It's not that I only pick up amazing people in the ambulance, or that only quirky people come into hospital. These people are everyday people. Sometimes it's their medical story - the dog bite, the spider bite, the rare genetic condition - the one with the unlucky lottery of a jumble of rare conditions, for that matter. The guy with the apple piece up his butt (best ice-breaker ever).
Sometimes it's their personal stories.
There was the relatively elderly gentleman who spoke to me about his experience of moving from England to Australia, how he and his family may not have explored much in the former, but were prone to just packing, selling, upping and travelling around the latter in a caravan, settling in whatever state or territory took their fancy, every now and again. How just once, he and his wife wanted to do it by themselves, so when all the kids left the nest, they did. How soon after they completed the dream, they found out she had lung cancer - though she'd never smoked in her life - and suddenly she was gone. It had been a few years, but he still had tears in his eyes as he told me, lying in bed in the recovery room.
There were a few travellers - the guy from Germany, another who travelled constantly on business... Contrary to what I thought, that you'd be left in a perpetual state of longing to take flight again, he said that no matter how wonderful it was to see the world, he never stopped wishing that he could just settle down, for a bit, and just be with his family.
And sometimes it's just who they, in general. The 42-year-old woman who ended up in the same room as another 42-year-old woman and they ended up becoming soul sisters. When one was discharged before the other, they literally wept because of the separation. In the following days, the one that was discharged would call daily to catch up - she actually wished she was back in hospital to be with the other. The one that stayed, she was my patient, and I adored her. She was in because one of her implants, following a bilateral prophylactic mastectomy, became infected with cellulitis. But despite over 15 days in hospital, and many more to come; despite the constant IV medications, the drain tubes, the pain, the loneliness, the discomfort, she was such a bright spark. We talked about her daughters, my sisters, her conditions, my understanding, and just anything, and I've decided I want to be like her when I'm 42. (Divorced, 2 kids, happy). (Probably not a healthy ambition). (Whatever).
I remember my clinical educator, at my second aged-care placement last year, telling us about how when she went up to the Northern Territory for missionary work, there were these Indigenous people who, even though they'd be given housing, preferred to sleep outside at night. Just like that. In the bush. How beautiful is that? I don't think it'd be as breathtaking and liberating in the middle of suburbia, but up there, where it's remote, with the starry night sky as your blanket... They'd occasionally have an issue with people being run over, but I prefer to look at the side of wonder.
There is so much to say about people. Everyone seems amazing one way or another. They always seem to have something to share. This quote, from Death in The Book Thief: I am haunted by humans.
I imagine that when people see that as my status/whatever it's called on WhatsApp, they probably roll their eyes and see it as a wannabe attempt at depth. It's just that those words really hit home for me. When I hear peoples' stories, they stick, in my head, and I ruminate over them, I ponder them, I picture them playing out before me. I collect them.
And I know this is cliché, and I know you probably saw this coming, but I wonder: what is my story?
I feel like all I have to relate belongs to someone else. I feel like I'm always the prop in a production starring someone else, like a rock. Or a tree. It's not really that I want centre stage. I don't really do well in the spotlight. But what I would like is a story worth sharing, something I own even if no one hears it in the end. It's like... It's like life is this gift, this... Notebook. (God, how often I've been given stationary, and I love it, but I never know what to put in it). And you have to write something worthwhile in that notebook, make the words count on the page, even if no one ever reads it.
So I want mine to be a good one. I know what I want. I have these dreams, these ideas. The problem with this metaphor - that you are the star of your own show - is that you don't get to write everyone's lines, things don't happen in accordance with the script you devised. I don't know how this is going to unfold. I don't know what the point of this post is. I just had some thoughts I wanted to get out.
Peace in,
Laila
Thursday, June 25, 2015
A Child's Prayer
The Messenger of Allah (PBUH) came out to us for one of the two later prayers (dhuhr or asr), carrying Hasan or Hussein. The Prophet (PBUH) then came to the front and put him down (next to his right foot) said takbir for the prayer and commenced praying. During the prayer, he performed a very long prostration, so I raised my head and there was the child, on the back of the Messenger of Allah (PBUH), who was in prostration. I then returned to my prostration. When the Messenger of Allah (PBUH) had offered the prayer, the people said: 'O Messenger of Allah! in the middle of your prayer, you performed prostration and lengthened it so much that we thought either something had happened or that you were receiving revelation!' He said: 'Neither was the case. Actually, my son made me his mount, and I did not want to hurry him until he had satisfied his wish.'" (Reported by Nasaa'i, Ibn Asaakir, and Haakim)
Sujud used to be my favourite position in prayer. I've heard many people say that this is where they feel closest to God. These days, I would definitely agree, but back in the day, I used to love peering between my legs at the person behind me, or if I was at the back, at whoever was playing or coming in. And when one is exhausted, labouring through twenty rakahs of taraweeh, it certainly was the most relaxing position.
I remember quietly racing the imam in the recitations at the beginning of the prayer. No, actually, I used to race him on everything, feeling immensely self-satisfied when I bet him, when there was a significant delay before the next move, like maybe secretly I was better than him.
I used to race everyone else, too, every time we changed positions. First to bow, first to straighten up, first to prostrate, first to sit up. First to finger tap, first to salam. Standing up first was the most fun. I felt so accomplished, when I'd stand up and look at all the other old people slowly get to their feet. Only as a kid did it make sense that coming first in the so-called race of prayers made you somehow first in the sight of Allah (SWT).
I also experimented with the finger tapping, or arranging my feet (together, apart, inverted), or even in the way I positioned myself. Sometimes in rukuh it would be a matter of how low I could bow, or if I could touch my toes. In sujud I'd try to scrunch myself up as small as possible, or flatten myself on the floor. When I was really bad, I'd like to sit like a sphinx, just stick my head up and look around, at everyone else being bottoms up.
Regardless, I did my prayers. I didn't complain. They felt good. Taraweeh especially brings you a sense of peace, I can testify to this then and now. I remember figuring out the imam's routine at my masjid - when he started on surah al-fil (my favourite!), I knew we had reached the middle of the twenty, and all the surahs that followed would be ones that I definitely knew (the first half were always the seemingly never-ending ones). Even without that trademark middle, I used to keep count by drawing lines on the velvet green carpet with my finger. Looking back, I think the other adults were secretly relieved that someone was keeping count, because every now and then they'd look at me and ask for an update. It made me feel important.
Once, during Ramadan, I was praying taraweeh beside a friend at the masjid, when her aunty came in late. My friend looked around while the imam recited on, and watched her aunt hurriedly take off her shoes, drop her bag in a corner, and bustle forward.
"Has taraweeh started?" her aunt whispered loudly, looking at her. I let my chin press against chest and bit my lip. My friend gazed at her aunt.
"Is this 'isha or taraweeh?" her aunt persisted.
My friend continued to look at her. I don't know what her expression was, but I imagine it was something along the lines of blank.
Then the imam said: "allahu akbar", and we all bowed. Her aunt kind of got it then. I had to fight off giggles. We didn't talk about it afterwards, although I'm pretty sure everyone heard this exchange. Never mind all that I was taught in madrasah up until then, it was only on that night I fully appreciated focusing your gaze on the ground while in prayer.
What madrasah really did fuel, though, were my dua. Every time they reinforced that we could ask whatever we wanted and Allah (SWT) would definitely give it to us
I never got the hamster, but hey, I'll gladly take my cat over a hamster any day.
Peace in,
Laila
Friday, May 22, 2015
where your education closes doors, when it should be opening them
I have heard, time and time and time again, how the 'education system is screwed up'. Many times. I've watched the Sir Ken Robinson video, I've discussed it with friends, and the book I'm reading now - 'Linchpin' - skims over it too. And I've always kind of agreed - I remember ranting a bit about it when I did an issues thing in year 9 about the nation curriculum. But there are times when you can talk about something a lot without it really hitting you. Like advocating for the death penalty, until you know someone personally who's being put on death row. And then it's personal.
Well, this just got personal.
So right now, my sort of excuse for a job is tutoring. I have three students. One is a girl in year 12, for English - let's call her Vera. I have another kid in year 8, who's a family friend, and I'm prepping her to take an exam for a selective entry school (*growl*). She will be henceforth known as Zena. And lastly, I just got a new year 12 student for History, but we won't worry too much about her. Mostly, this is about Vera and Zena.
Selective entry schools. I hate them. With a passion. I know hate is a strong word, but for the amount of unnecessary pressure they cause, I think they can take my hate. I had to try out when I was in year 8. They have a policy where they don't take more than 12 kids from any school, and my school met that limit, so I didn't get in. I know I would have gotten in otherwise, because they sent me a letter explaining this, and they said that if I really wanted, I could apply through another way. But I sabotaged this application, because I had decided that I was not going there, that I could do well in my below-average public school, and I would prove it. The arguments I had with my mother, the tears - bad memories, man. But I proved it, didn't I?
Yet it came back to haunt me with little Zena. Zena... When she started tutoring with me, she was really quiet and reserved. She's still pretty impassive, but I think it's her natural state. Our relationship has evolved, in the sense that she talks to me more, and she's even brought in her school homework, which makes me giddy because it means she actually thinks that I help her...
Anyway. Selective entry schools. Firstly, they don't do anything. I have friends who have gone to these schools, who have told me that these schools don't do much for them. Really, there's a higher level of competition, but in the end, the school doesn't have to do much because they already handpicked the smartest kids around, so it's sort of guaranteed that they're going to do well. And more often than not, these kids already attend jizbillions of tuition classes, so it's not like they have to put in a lot of effort. So these nerdy kids go into this high pressure environment with a million extra classes on the side, and they get good results because really, they've had it written for them their whole lives, and when it's all said and done, the school looks great because all their kids did well, and they take credit for it, but they didn't actually do much for the kids because those kids were already going to do well anyway.
And then you have All Other Normal Schools that take in all students and cater to all needs, and people think they're not so great because there isn't a 90+ average in VCE, but in fact, these school are just doing their job by accepting everyone and giving them all an opportunity. Selective entry schools are missing the point of schooling in general - it's not about pumping out the highest achievers, it's about giving everyone the foundation of a good education to pave whatever path they want in life. If it's something academic, that's great. If it's not, well, that's just as great.
No matter what people say about my school, and God knows what they say now considering the shooting of Numan last year, the arrest of two more this year, plus the death of one who went overseas to apparently fight for ISIS - all boys I knew personally, two I went to primary school with... this is a whole other crisis... BUT. No matter what they say, I think my school is a good one. I think we are limited in resources, and the students have difficulty seeing it, but the teachers really try to help you get wherever you want to go. They try to help you achieve your personal best. They help you when it comes to academics, they help you get into TAFE, they help you join police academy or whatever. They do it without judgement. And I appreciate that.
Anyway. Selective entry schools are stupid, they serve no worthy purpose, and I hate them. Let me talk about the kind of pressure this puts on kids.
On the weekend, Zena went to one of the specialised tuition centres that train kids specifically for selective entry schools, to sit a practise exam. She brought the exams and results to her next class with me so we could go over them. She was disheartened by her results.
So I know from experience that these exams are pretty harsh. I had to attend tuition a month or so before doing the exam myself, and at first, I was absolutely distraught because I did terribly on each practise test - like, barely scraping 50% at times. And then I learnt that this was pretty average in the class, if, at times, above average. And then I was mortified.
But taking a look at the practise tests now - I was downright horrified. Disgusted. Let's talk about her reading comprehension test. It runs for 30min, with no extra reading time. There are 50 questions. Did you see that? 50. That's already less than one minute per question. But now keep in mind that it's reading comprehension. Now tell, where the Hell is she supposed to find time to read the damn passages before she tackles the questions?
It's basically designed to fail kids. It's impossible to excel. It's just...
It... It... makes them feel stupid because they don't realise it's impossible.
Can you see how cruel that is?
I mean, it's not even just this tuition thing. Think about VCE. You can't get a perfect ATAR, only close. And that system is all about ranking. I mean, let's say a vast majority of one cohort worked super hard in preparation for an exam, and they all got 90%. Well, that just gets standardised so that when they get their results, it gets scaled down because it becomes average. How is that fair? Why must we take down a generation because so many are smart? Why can't we embrace their effort?
Even university. A few weeks back, I was in a tutorial, and everyone was expressing their frustration over the recent results that had come out. I was feeling quite good because I did well (it's my blog, let me brag ^_^ ), but then I listened to the tutor talk to the others, and ... ugh. Basically, she said that if everyone did well on their exams and whatnot, the higher ups would tell them that their assessment wasn't 'sensitive enough'. So in fact, no one should feel bad about getting an average mark, or a credit, because, well, average isn't bad. And I'm not saying average is bad. It's just that the way this tutor spoke, she was basically saying that they design tests with the expectation that most people won't do particularly well, and we should be satisfied with that. It's that... attitude. That attitude that you can't ever shine, so don't bother.
And sometimes they don't even seem to care about their subjects. In one unit, last year, the staff in our tutorials said at the start that they didn't expect people to show up to lectures or the tutorials, which weren't compulsory. For our assessments, they said that we wouldn't need to put in too much effort - they even told us that we could keep all our notes open when we do the quizzes. I've had similar experiences this year too. Now, how do you expect anyone to be motivated if you can't even fake enthusiasm for your own subject? If you, who teach it, don't value it, why should we?
Do you see what I'm saying, or am I just in an irrational rage about everything?
So let's get back to Vera. For English, you have three main types of written pieces that you do - a text response, a language analysis, and a context piece. A context piece is really a written piece of your own choice, which responds to a prompt about a theme that you've studied for the year - the main ones being Identity & Belonging, Encountering Conflict, and Whose Reality? I don't know if there's another one... But basically, you study them with a few texts, and it's got a lot of philosophical aspects to it.
So my kid is doing Identity & Belonging, which is what I studied. I coached her into writing a creative piece, a sort of made up reflection. Her writing has really improved since I started tutoring her, not because of me in particular... I think it's just that the school she goes to isn't so well off, according to her, and because her peers aren't too bright, the teachers are focused on bringing them up to speed, and they don't challenge them that much. But I've been challenging her, and she's basically risen to the challenge. She has deep ideas. She expresses them well, because I've helped her to expand her vocabulary, and so now she has more words to say what she wants to say. I'm so proud :')
So she does her SAC for context, and she gets her result. It's a B+. It's not bad, all things considered, but we had hoped for more. But then she showed me the feedback. There's literally ticks everywhere, there's positive commentary on the clarity and depth of her ideas... So where'd she lose a whole grade? On the marking rubric, the only 'negative' or 'critical' thing this teacher had to say was that she was too 'wordy'. Well, I didn't know what she meant by that in relation to the piece, because it looked reasonable to me. I know what loquacious looks like. I've tutored kids, and seen peers writing, and believe me, I know loquacious. As for word limits, technically there aren't any for any of the essays you're supposed to do. It's your own judgement call - in the end, they're going to look at your response, the quality of them, and how well you express them. If you can do this in less words, good for you, and if you can do them in more, that's fine. As long as you finish on time. So she can't have taken off a whole grade for it being too 'long', because there's no such thing as too long - if you wrote it within the time limit, well, that's that. Does that make sense?
So I got Vera to ask her teacher what she meant by that. Her teacher basically said that for example, where one person might say 'let's have lunch', Vera's approach was a bit 'when the sun is at its peak on the third day of the week, let us convene under the ancient oak at the park in the corner of the city for a simple meal, yadda yadda yadda'. What is that? That is loquacious.
I understand that. Except this piece wasn't like that. It was a creative piece, for God's sake, so it had description in it. But it wasn't irrelevant or frivolous. It had a point. It was art, and it suited the mood of her piece. Besides - even if you were to write this as an expository, I would think that you would still have to be quite descriptive if you want to break down your ideas for this kind of topic. Identity and Belonging has the potential to be really deep, so you really can't just leave it at 'let's have lunch'. You need to explore it. Heck, that's the whole context title - exploring issues of identity and belonging.
I mean, this goes back to the whole 'schools kill creativity' thing, right? I don't think all schools do that. Just some schools, and in particular, some idiotic teachers. When I was in year 12, yes, my teacher was wary of letting kids do creative for context, because he understood that it could be difficult to come up with something brilliant and original on the spot. But he humored whoever wanted to try it, including myself, and let me say it again - I did well. What's important is that he let us make our own choices, because to him, it wasn't about doing it a certain way to get a certain grade; it was about achieving your own personal best, something you could be proud of. And he was happy if you were.
So I guess this rant touches on many little things to do with schooling and education, a bit here and a bit there. Let me sum it up for you:
Erm... take feedback too. I don't mean that people should always hug you and tell you you're awesome just because you did the work. Sometimes you are wrong, sometimes your ideas have a flaw or two. That's okay. Take it and improve. But don't let people limit you. Don't ever let them hold you back.
Man, it feels good getting that off my chest.
Peace in,
Laila
Well, this just got personal.
So right now, my sort of excuse for a job is tutoring. I have three students. One is a girl in year 12, for English - let's call her Vera. I have another kid in year 8, who's a family friend, and I'm prepping her to take an exam for a selective entry school (*growl*). She will be henceforth known as Zena. And lastly, I just got a new year 12 student for History, but we won't worry too much about her. Mostly, this is about Vera and Zena.
Selective entry schools. I hate them. With a passion. I know hate is a strong word, but for the amount of unnecessary pressure they cause, I think they can take my hate. I had to try out when I was in year 8. They have a policy where they don't take more than 12 kids from any school, and my school met that limit, so I didn't get in. I know I would have gotten in otherwise, because they sent me a letter explaining this, and they said that if I really wanted, I could apply through another way. But I sabotaged this application, because I had decided that I was not going there, that I could do well in my below-average public school, and I would prove it. The arguments I had with my mother, the tears - bad memories, man. But I proved it, didn't I?
Yet it came back to haunt me with little Zena. Zena... When she started tutoring with me, she was really quiet and reserved. She's still pretty impassive, but I think it's her natural state. Our relationship has evolved, in the sense that she talks to me more, and she's even brought in her school homework, which makes me giddy because it means she actually thinks that I help her...
Anyway. Selective entry schools. Firstly, they don't do anything. I have friends who have gone to these schools, who have told me that these schools don't do much for them. Really, there's a higher level of competition, but in the end, the school doesn't have to do much because they already handpicked the smartest kids around, so it's sort of guaranteed that they're going to do well. And more often than not, these kids already attend jizbillions of tuition classes, so it's not like they have to put in a lot of effort. So these nerdy kids go into this high pressure environment with a million extra classes on the side, and they get good results because really, they've had it written for them their whole lives, and when it's all said and done, the school looks great because all their kids did well, and they take credit for it, but they didn't actually do much for the kids because those kids were already going to do well anyway.
And then you have All Other Normal Schools that take in all students and cater to all needs, and people think they're not so great because there isn't a 90+ average in VCE, but in fact, these school are just doing their job by accepting everyone and giving them all an opportunity. Selective entry schools are missing the point of schooling in general - it's not about pumping out the highest achievers, it's about giving everyone the foundation of a good education to pave whatever path they want in life. If it's something academic, that's great. If it's not, well, that's just as great.
No matter what people say about my school, and God knows what they say now considering the shooting of Numan last year, the arrest of two more this year, plus the death of one who went overseas to apparently fight for ISIS - all boys I knew personally, two I went to primary school with... this is a whole other crisis... BUT. No matter what they say, I think my school is a good one. I think we are limited in resources, and the students have difficulty seeing it, but the teachers really try to help you get wherever you want to go. They try to help you achieve your personal best. They help you when it comes to academics, they help you get into TAFE, they help you join police academy or whatever. They do it without judgement. And I appreciate that.
Anyway. Selective entry schools are stupid, they serve no worthy purpose, and I hate them. Let me talk about the kind of pressure this puts on kids.
On the weekend, Zena went to one of the specialised tuition centres that train kids specifically for selective entry schools, to sit a practise exam. She brought the exams and results to her next class with me so we could go over them. She was disheartened by her results.
So I know from experience that these exams are pretty harsh. I had to attend tuition a month or so before doing the exam myself, and at first, I was absolutely distraught because I did terribly on each practise test - like, barely scraping 50% at times. And then I learnt that this was pretty average in the class, if, at times, above average. And then I was mortified.
But taking a look at the practise tests now - I was downright horrified. Disgusted. Let's talk about her reading comprehension test. It runs for 30min, with no extra reading time. There are 50 questions. Did you see that? 50. That's already less than one minute per question. But now keep in mind that it's reading comprehension. Now tell, where the Hell is she supposed to find time to read the damn passages before she tackles the questions?
It's basically designed to fail kids. It's impossible to excel. It's just...
It... It... makes them feel stupid because they don't realise it's impossible.
Can you see how cruel that is?
I mean, it's not even just this tuition thing. Think about VCE. You can't get a perfect ATAR, only close. And that system is all about ranking. I mean, let's say a vast majority of one cohort worked super hard in preparation for an exam, and they all got 90%. Well, that just gets standardised so that when they get their results, it gets scaled down because it becomes average. How is that fair? Why must we take down a generation because so many are smart? Why can't we embrace their effort?
Even university. A few weeks back, I was in a tutorial, and everyone was expressing their frustration over the recent results that had come out. I was feeling quite good because I did well (it's my blog, let me brag ^_^ ), but then I listened to the tutor talk to the others, and ... ugh. Basically, she said that if everyone did well on their exams and whatnot, the higher ups would tell them that their assessment wasn't 'sensitive enough'. So in fact, no one should feel bad about getting an average mark, or a credit, because, well, average isn't bad. And I'm not saying average is bad. It's just that the way this tutor spoke, she was basically saying that they design tests with the expectation that most people won't do particularly well, and we should be satisfied with that. It's that... attitude. That attitude that you can't ever shine, so don't bother.
And sometimes they don't even seem to care about their subjects. In one unit, last year, the staff in our tutorials said at the start that they didn't expect people to show up to lectures or the tutorials, which weren't compulsory. For our assessments, they said that we wouldn't need to put in too much effort - they even told us that we could keep all our notes open when we do the quizzes. I've had similar experiences this year too. Now, how do you expect anyone to be motivated if you can't even fake enthusiasm for your own subject? If you, who teach it, don't value it, why should we?
Do you see what I'm saying, or am I just in an irrational rage about everything?
So let's get back to Vera. For English, you have three main types of written pieces that you do - a text response, a language analysis, and a context piece. A context piece is really a written piece of your own choice, which responds to a prompt about a theme that you've studied for the year - the main ones being Identity & Belonging, Encountering Conflict, and Whose Reality? I don't know if there's another one... But basically, you study them with a few texts, and it's got a lot of philosophical aspects to it.
So my kid is doing Identity & Belonging, which is what I studied. I coached her into writing a creative piece, a sort of made up reflection. Her writing has really improved since I started tutoring her, not because of me in particular... I think it's just that the school she goes to isn't so well off, according to her, and because her peers aren't too bright, the teachers are focused on bringing them up to speed, and they don't challenge them that much. But I've been challenging her, and she's basically risen to the challenge. She has deep ideas. She expresses them well, because I've helped her to expand her vocabulary, and so now she has more words to say what she wants to say. I'm so proud :')
So she does her SAC for context, and she gets her result. It's a B+. It's not bad, all things considered, but we had hoped for more. But then she showed me the feedback. There's literally ticks everywhere, there's positive commentary on the clarity and depth of her ideas... So where'd she lose a whole grade? On the marking rubric, the only 'negative' or 'critical' thing this teacher had to say was that she was too 'wordy'. Well, I didn't know what she meant by that in relation to the piece, because it looked reasonable to me. I know what loquacious looks like. I've tutored kids, and seen peers writing, and believe me, I know loquacious. As for word limits, technically there aren't any for any of the essays you're supposed to do. It's your own judgement call - in the end, they're going to look at your response, the quality of them, and how well you express them. If you can do this in less words, good for you, and if you can do them in more, that's fine. As long as you finish on time. So she can't have taken off a whole grade for it being too 'long', because there's no such thing as too long - if you wrote it within the time limit, well, that's that. Does that make sense?
So I got Vera to ask her teacher what she meant by that. Her teacher basically said that for example, where one person might say 'let's have lunch', Vera's approach was a bit 'when the sun is at its peak on the third day of the week, let us convene under the ancient oak at the park in the corner of the city for a simple meal, yadda yadda yadda'. What is that? That is loquacious.
I understand that. Except this piece wasn't like that. It was a creative piece, for God's sake, so it had description in it. But it wasn't irrelevant or frivolous. It had a point. It was art, and it suited the mood of her piece. Besides - even if you were to write this as an expository, I would think that you would still have to be quite descriptive if you want to break down your ideas for this kind of topic. Identity and Belonging has the potential to be really deep, so you really can't just leave it at 'let's have lunch'. You need to explore it. Heck, that's the whole context title - exploring issues of identity and belonging.
I mean, this goes back to the whole 'schools kill creativity' thing, right? I don't think all schools do that. Just some schools, and in particular, some idiotic teachers. When I was in year 12, yes, my teacher was wary of letting kids do creative for context, because he understood that it could be difficult to come up with something brilliant and original on the spot. But he humored whoever wanted to try it, including myself, and let me say it again - I did well. What's important is that he let us make our own choices, because to him, it wasn't about doing it a certain way to get a certain grade; it was about achieving your own personal best, something you could be proud of. And he was happy if you were.
So I guess this rant touches on many little things to do with schooling and education, a bit here and a bit there. Let me sum it up for you:
1. Don't waste your time with selective entry schools. They suck.
2. There are some institutions, some schools, some teachers, that just - for whatever reason - drag you down. Sometimes they do it because it's a system they're used to, sometimes it's because they think they're doing what's best for you. Sometimes they don't know what they're talking about. But they suck too.
3. Don't let people make you feel stupid. Wherever you go, whatever you do, put in a 100%, and you may reap the rewards, or you may not. The point is, you need to feel like it's your best, because you can't rely on these systems or people to appreciate you. You need to appreciate yourself. Own your genius, whatever kind it may be.
Erm... take feedback too. I don't mean that people should always hug you and tell you you're awesome just because you did the work. Sometimes you are wrong, sometimes your ideas have a flaw or two. That's okay. Take it and improve. But don't let people limit you. Don't ever let them hold you back.
Man, it feels good getting that off my chest.
Peace in,
Laila
Friday, May 15, 2015
These Are My Favourite Things #4
So what happened between then and now is
life. It goes on, as it normally does. And things get better. They put
themselves back together. It all works out.
Oui, you were right Ghadeer, as was Arvie... as was everyone. I knew it then, I know it now. It's just that at the time, you're just so overwhelmed, it's not so much the worrying about whether things get better, it's more about the when will they get better, because you can't see the light at the end. Yet.
How completely and utterly bizarre is that? I'm the big two-oh. I'm two decades old. It's not that I feel different or anything. It's just that the idea of it is so... strange. I feel like things should be different. But I feel like I'm no different than I was at the end of high school.
I mean, I certainly know more things, I've experienced more things, I can do more things. But as a person, I don't think I've evolved much. Or I can't see it.
Anyhow, I actually haven't much to write about. I feel like my life has become a pleasant series of minute moments, only worth reiterating for a short period of time, before they become irrelevant. I say 'pleasant series' rather than 'pleasant moments', because in all due honesty, there are still the normal stressors of assignment/exam pressure, family dramas, and everyday hiccups, but that's to be expected. And it's okay, I like it like that.
But I like keeping this blog alive, so I thought I'd do another one of these things, just because. It's kind of therapeutic, too.
Firstly, I've been re-reading Harry Potter, because, as a self-professed fan (and having been labelled as one too), I actually haven't re-read it too many times. Watched the movies a dozen times over, but not sure about reading the series. It's embarrassing. I'm not going to bother recommending it, because, well, come on. If you read books, you must have already been recommended this series jizbillion times, and I can't see why my recommendation would be the one to finally compel you. But. I wanted to show y'all this...
- Melissa Anelli THROWS IT DOWN about the way Ron and
Hermione have been adapted in the movies on the latest episode of PotterCast.
Listen here.
This glorious rant starts at about 49:00.
Oui, you were right Ghadeer, as was Arvie... as was everyone. I knew it then, I know it now. It's just that at the time, you're just so overwhelmed, it's not so much the worrying about whether things get better, it's more about the when will they get better, because you can't see the light at the end. Yet.
I got there.
So it's okay.
And now I'm 20.
How completely and utterly bizarre is that? I'm the big two-oh. I'm two decades old. It's not that I feel different or anything. It's just that the idea of it is so... strange. I feel like things should be different. But I feel like I'm no different than I was at the end of high school.
I mean, I certainly know more things, I've experienced more things, I can do more things. But as a person, I don't think I've evolved much. Or I can't see it.
Anyhow, I actually haven't much to write about. I feel like my life has become a pleasant series of minute moments, only worth reiterating for a short period of time, before they become irrelevant. I say 'pleasant series' rather than 'pleasant moments', because in all due honesty, there are still the normal stressors of assignment/exam pressure, family dramas, and everyday hiccups, but that's to be expected. And it's okay, I like it like that.
But I like keeping this blog alive, so I thought I'd do another one of these things, just because. It's kind of therapeutic, too.
Firstly, I've been re-reading Harry Potter, because, as a self-professed fan (and having been labelled as one too), I actually haven't re-read it too many times. Watched the movies a dozen times over, but not sure about reading the series. It's embarrassing. I'm not going to bother recommending it, because, well, come on. If you read books, you must have already been recommended this series jizbillion times, and I can't see why my recommendation would be the one to finally compel you. But. I wanted to show y'all this...
Okay, okay, I’m going to tell you what Hermione sees in Ron.
A trio is a balancing act, right? They’re equalizers of
each other. Harry’s like the action, Hermione’s the brains, Ron’s the heart.
Hermione has been assassinated in these movies, and I mean that genuinely—by
giving her every single positive character trait that Ron has, they have
assassinated her character in the movies. She’s been harmed by being made to be
less human, because everything good Ron has, she’s been given.
So, for instance: “If you want to kill Harry, you’re
going to have to kill me too”—RON, leg is broken, he’s in pain, gets up and
stands in front of Harry and says this. Who gets that line in the movie?
Hermione.
“Fear of a name increases the fear of the thing itself.”
Hermione doesn’t say Voldemort’s name until well into the books—that’s Dumbledore’s
line. When does Hermione say it in the movies? Beginning of Movie 2.
When the Devil’s Snare is curling itself around
everybody, Hermione panics, and Ron is the one who keeps his head and says “Are
you a witch or not?” In the movie, everybody else panics and Hermione keeps her
head and does the biggest, brightest flare of sunlight spell there ever was.
So, Hermione—all her flaws were shaved away in the films.
And that sounds like you’re making a kick-ass, amazing character, and what
you’re doing is dehumanizing her. And it pisses me off. It really does.
In the books, they balance each other out, because where
Hermione gets frazzled and maybe her rationality overtakes some of her
instinct, Ron has that to back it up; Ron has a kind of emotional grounding
that can keep Hermione’s hyper-rationalness in check. Sometimes Hermione’s
super-logical nature grates Harry and bothers him, and isn’t the thing he needs
even if it’s the right thing, like when she says “You have a saving people
thing.” That is the thing that Harry needed to hear, she’s a hundred percent
right, but the way she does it is wrong. That’s the classic “she’s super
logical, she’s super brilliant, but she doesn’t know how to handle people
emotionally,” at least Harry.
So in the books they are this balanced group, and in the
movies, in the movies—hell, not even Harry is good enough for Hermione in the
movies. No one’s good enough for Hermione in the movies—God isn’t good enough
for Hermione in the movies! Hermione is everybody’s everything in the movies.
Harry’s idea to jump on the dragon in the books, who gets
it in the movies? Hermione, who hates to fly. Hermione, who overcomes her
withering fear of flying to take over Harry’s big idea to get out of the—like,
why does Hermione get all these moments?
[John: Because we need to market the movie to girls.]
I think girls like the books, period. And like the
Hermione in the books, and like the Hermione in the books just fine before
Hollywood made her idealized and perfect. And if they would have trusted that,
they would have been just fine.
Would the movies have been bad if she was as awesome as
she was in the books, and as human as she was in the books? Would the movies
get worse?
She IS a strong girl character. This is the thing that
pisses me off. They are equating “strong” with superhuman. To me, the Hermione
in the book is twelve times stronger than the completely unreachable ideal of
Hermione in the movies. Give me the Hermione in the book who’s human and has
flaws any single day of the week.
Here’s a classic example: When Snape in the first book
yells at Hermione for being an insufferable know-it-all, do you want to know
what Ron says in the book? “Well, you’re asking the questions, and she has to
answer. Why ask if you don’t want to be told?” What does he say in the movie?
“He’s got a point, you know.” Ron? Would never do that. Would NEVER do that,
even before he liked Hermione. Ron would never do that.
I saw this on CricketFreak's tumblr (I do not
thank you for the distraction, but then I sort of do), and I decided it was
gold. I'm not usually one to fangirl about relationships, but I've always loved
how they panned out in Harry Potter, so it irks me a lot when
people criticise them. Ginny is an awesome gal, and she and Harry make such a
great team, as do Ron and Hermione (*squee*). But what I really love about that
little rant is that it just revealed to me how important details are. I have
always loved the movies for Harry Potter, no matter that they can't
do the books justice, and I've always thought the cast was perfect. But I never
realised how the little shifts to do with the character really impacted the
bigger picture - how utterly perfect it was in the books, and how damaged it
became in the movies. Poor Ron, mostly. I think I filled in the gaps when I
watched the movies, but now I see that he was robbed of his noble traits to be
made comedic relief, almost. What a tragedy. I still love the movies, but you
know, I really appreciate the finer details of the books now.
Okay, that was just food for thought. The real food that I
recommend is sugar, of course. I don't think I've ever done this before, but I
really ought to, because honestly, I love sweets, and baking to sublimate my
rage has always worked for me. So now I'm going to link you to a website that I
tend to covet, because it is my all time favourite dessert/sweet blog,
and it is utterly divine.
Behold: Pretty.
Simple. Sweet.
I'm telling you, this is gold. I've made a dozen recipes
from here, and they have all worked out superdy well. 'Superdy well' is an
understatement. I don't have words. And I love Shiran, the lady that runs this
blog, I really do. This will sound creepy, but she makes my dreams come true.
And she's such a sweetheart (haha, see what I did there?). Anyway. My
favourites thus far are her Cinnamon
Streusel Coffee Cake, Cheesecake Brownies,
& Classic
Peanut Butter Cookies. You do not know how hard it was for me to narrow it
down to just those. Trust me. Everything is worth trying. I've made it my
lifelong goal to make everything on her blog. Until then, I spend an inordinate
amount of time perusing her recipes and salivating. So there you go. My secret.
Take a look. She has pretty photos too :)
What else can I recommend? Music. I have two new
obsessions.
Firstly: The Script. Most people know them, right?
'Breakeven' and 'The Man Who Can't Be Moved' were pretty big. And 'Hall of
Fame'. Well, Panda gave me two of their albums, and I just found a dozen more
songs that I absolutely adore. Give the Love Around, No Words, Superheroes,
Never Seen Anything (Quite Like You), The Energy Never Dies, to name a few, and
...
(I mean, the video isn't particularly spectacular, besides
the fact that he is actually on that wire so very high up... but it's the song.
This song :') )
Secondly: Ella Henderson. Have you heard of her? I first
heard her song 'Ghost' when I was placement last year, one of my paramedic mentors
kept playing it, and I did quite like it. But then Panda reintroduced me to
her, and gosh, she is something else. She's become our cruise-y singer,
because she just has all these wonderful songs that you really just have to
blast out and sing along to. My recommendations: Mirror Man, Glow, Give Your
Heart Away, Pieces, The First Time, and...
Come on, ain't that the perfect feel good song? ^_^
Anyhow, I don't have anything else to recommend, except
maybe getting yourself a cat, and reading. Every day. It's good therapy.
That is all.
Peace in,
Laila
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