Last night, I mentioned feeling guilty for not making deadlines. Today, I still feel guilty, but for another reason.
My mum phoned me a few hours ago with news about my aunt (through marriage to my mum's brother). The news: My aunt's mother died a few days ago, at the age of 91. My first reaction was, "Um. OK. What do you want me to do about it?"
The fact that my aunt's mother was still alive/had existed at some point in my life was news to me. Apparently, I met her once, when I was a toddler, in a meeting that I obviously don't recall. I emphathise with my aunt, who has just lost her mother. I'm sorry for my uncle, who has just lost his mother-in-law. And of course I'm upset for the cousins that I've never met, who have just lost their grandmother. A little bit of the same sadness I would feel if anyone I knew lost a member of their family. But whatever I'm feeling, it's not grief, or even sadness. This is where the guilt comes in.
My aunt's mother was not related to me in any shape or form. I had only met her once. I bet she was an amazing woman who lived a long and happy life, but in theory, she was a complete stranger to me. So why do I feel so guilty about not managing to have any feelings about her death?
EDIT: I know it sounded really callous when I wrote this blog post out, so here's a a brief reason of why I feel the way I feel: I just don't know my family.
I don't talk to, and have no way (and no desire) of keeping in contact with my relations at all. I have no siblings, have only talked briefly with two of my first cousins on my mother's side, have never met/don't remember meeting the other two, and have never met my father's side of the family due to some stuff that happened after his death two weeks before my birth (I know, it can get complicated. Does it help that I was born on 14th December?). Oh, and I dislike the few relations I have met.
I've had more conversations with my mum's first cousin's daughter than I've had with any of my first cousins.
It may not help either that there's a massive language barrier between most of my relations. Although I'm fluent in Thai, I don't like speaking it to people I don't know well, and I can't understand their attempts at English. My immediate family circle consists of my grandmother, my mother and myself. In effect, this means that within two decades, I'll have no family at all. Go me!
Originally published at rammi.glomp.me. You can comment here or there.
I'd forgotten how good it feels when I meet a deadline on time. The relief, the "thank God it's over" feeling, and the warm fuzziness I get inside... This lasts until I'm hit with another deadline.
For some reason, I find it hard to work at a computer. There's too many distractions floating around on my screen, and before I know it, I've wasted several hours watching videos when I should be writing transcripts. Sometimes, I'll deliver things hours late, sometimes even days. But whatever I am late for, it makes me feel extremely guilty. Especially if I'm supposed to be getting paid for it, and there's no other person that can do it.
The guilt I feel when I hand in something late has become such a frequent part of my life that it had started to feel normal. Get told to do something by a certain date, miss that date completely, spend time freaking out because it's late, finally managing to do it, and freaking out again because it doesn't reflect well with my employers.
Today, when I actually did something on time, the feelings of happiness it gave me reminded me that the guilt I usually feel when I miss a deadline isn't normal.
Which makes the guilt I'm going to feel tomorrow for missing another deadline all the worse.
Originally published at rammi.glomp.me. You can comment here or there.
I received a beautifully done, wax sealed wedding invitation today from Harmony and Alex. Congratulations!
I met this young couple 2 years ago in London and remember we had a nice chat in an Italian restaurant one night, very inquisitive minds. I hope they still keep that in their spirits and don't let works bog them down. I'm not going to give you guys funny marriage quotes or advices, but let's see what I can find from an anagram of your names…… Harmony + alex…… "X-ray manhole"…. ok suppose marriage is like a manhole and... ok it means nothing….. here you go "Hoy! Relax man!" This I will sign in your guest book, and remember this gold sentence throughout your life!
Some people love the internet, some people hate it... I like it for the most part, but I know several people who are very anti-internet, for several long-winded reasons that would take too long to explain here. Instead of arguing with them, which I know I'd fail at - I'm rubbish at debates that don't involve food or prizes - I decided to write a blog post instead.
One of the things I love about the internet is the ability to share my opinions online - I was always too lazy to keep a diary, and always wanted to edit what I had written. Yay for blogs! I write a blog for myself, as a record of my life. In several years time, when I'll have hopefully have had more experiences, and generally be much *ahem* wiser, I'll be able to look back and say "Ooh, that's what I was like when I was younger! Why was I such an idiot?" I'm lucky in that respect. What other generation has been able to document their whole life digitally? Websites such as Plurk and Twitter also mean that I can keep track of what I was doing on a particular day, and what my thoughts and emotions were.
There is also an abundance of articles and information on the web, and this means that I no longer have to read through dusty old textbooks to find the relevant information that I need. Less time at the library means more time at home procrastinating on my next task!
Like most people, my primary use of the internet* is to talk to new people, make friends and forge relationships. The sad fact is that there will always be some people who are socially awkward, and I fall directly into that category. I trip over my words in real life, and speak without thinking (which usually means I am known as the 'sarcastic one', the one to avoid).
Generally, I hate public speaking, and will avoid it at all costs. But I do know how to write. Typing stuff to someone on the other side of a computer screen is easier for me because it gives me time to phrase my words.
The internet is a refuge; a place to meet and talk to people who actually know what a meme is, unlike most of the general population.
A forum post I read a few months ago stuck with me. I realised that even after I'm long gone, my comments and opinions on various websites will still be floating around the internet, hereby giving me some sort of immortality. Bwahahaha! I is living in ur internetz! Future historians will no longer have to assume what life was like in the early 21st century. They'll know from something as simple as a Google search. I have no qualms about the internet being here in 1000 or so years, provided the earth doesn't blow up in our faces then.
*Aside from faffing around with bits of code and wasting time playing games on social networking sites.
Originally published at rammi.glomp.me. You can comment here or there.
Here's some more photos of the real Moleskine Surprise boxes I've received on Monday. Last year when the Volant series was launched, collaborating with Moleskine Asia, we created beautifully designed envelopes for people to put colorful Volants in and send as Xmas gift. From our experience with huge Moleskine display during City Notebook's TOKYO/KYOTO release, we know people would love a gift box in the form of a Moleskine notebook for this Xmas. In addition, the retail price is almost like 30% off buying the contents individually. Its never done before.
What's unique about these boxes is that when sending them as gifts, you can almost certain they are on the top of your can't-go-wrong gift list, no matter what the content is. That's one big achievement as a brand. But don't get it wrong, these boxes aren't one of those quick and dirty ways some retailers would do to clean up old stocks, they are thoughtfully designed into themes for customers to choose easily when they think of their gift recipients.
For a more elaborated present, you may find it hard to stuff these big boxes into a Xmas hamper, but that's the point isn't it, a hamper full of discovery… and surprises. I can tell you the Luxury, For Him and For Her sleeves are the most handsome, they can be easily adapted to your hamper's color theme.
To give you an idea how large these boxes are, I've put some pocket and large sized Moleskines beside the box. There's plenty of space still to add more stuffs to your present, and again the box is not only a nice packaging but can be doubled as a storage box approximately the size of an A4 paper (unfortunately because of the round corners, an A4 paper cannot be laid flat inside).
It will be great fun to assemble your own perfect stationery Xmas gift box based on these. Put in a few more interesting products like MT masking tapes, Amadana calculator, rubber stamps, etc and a personal note written with ink and paper, voilà! A thoughtful and useful gift. The Moleskine Surprise Boxes are going to arrive city'super and LOG-ON before this weekend. For a list of available countries in Asia, please contact Moleskine Asia.
Somewhere along the line of when I was learning how to use a computer and eventually managing to build a website, RSS feeds became the 'thing'.* If you owned anything that updated, you HAD to have an RSS feed in case someone wanted to follow what you were saying.
In my case, no one.**
I did try to make a go out of using it, honest! I spent ages subscribing to the blogs I liked, organising all my feeds into relevant categories, and checked them whenever they updated. But it's just a bit disconcerting when you open Google Reader and there's thousands and thousands of unread items. I know I could just mark everything as read, but my conscience kept on whispering to me, "you haven't read that one yet. Or that one. Or that one. Or that little one you thought you could get away with. I saw what you did."
I'm one of those people that can't stand anything unread, and will always read all my emails (despite being crap at responding). Luckily, I can keep up with all my emails, but having thousands of unread items in Google Reader every day was annoying, despite me spending hours each day clearing it all. Eventually, I had had enough, and promptly removed the thing.
In retrospect, I could've just subscribed to blogs that updated less, but then what would be the point? The blogs I like update umpteen times a day, and I have no time to follow all their posts. Unlike some, I don't want to know what I've missed, which is what my RSS reader kept trying to do. I found it a bit like a whining relative. "You haven't read [blah]'s post on [blah] yet! Read it or it'll stay unread!"
This blog does have an RSS feed (but that really wasn't my choice; it came with Wordpress), and you're welcome to follow it if you like, but if you agree with what I've said above, don't. Heh. I would be honoured if you counted me as one of the people that you want to stay updated with.
I do see the virtues of RSS, as if you want to stay updated with everything a website does, and keep up with all the latest news, it's perfect. However, I feel that ignorance is bliss (at least when it comes to blogs). My way of keeping up to date with everything is... *le gasp* MANUALLY! I have a disarray of unorganised bookmarks of the blogs I like.*** I open them in multiple tabs every now and then to check on how they're doing; sometimes there's something new for me to read, sometimes there isn't. I may miss out on some things (for example, I missed out on the chance to buy a signed xkcd book a few weeks ago), but generally, I like the feeling of surprise and delight I get when I visit someone's blog for the first time in a few days to see that they've added something new that wasn't there before.
For me, the pros balance out the cons, and I know that my old-fashioned bookmarks won't nag at me if I don't read them for a while. They may be old, but they still lead me to amazing stories and show me new things every day.****
*Wikipedia tells me RSS properly took off in 2005, when Microsoft adopted it. Meh.
**A quick check of my stats actually reveals there are 17 people subscribed to this feed. Erm, hello there. Stay with me, please! *clings petulantly*
*** After spending ages organising my feeds in Google Reader, I just couldn't be bothered to do the same with my bookmarks, despite the fact that I am primarily using bookmarks these days. It's on my To Do list, honest!
****And my strange metaphor of the day is that RSS is the nagging aunt to my bookmarks, which are the really awesome grandfathers. I'll take the awesome grandfather any day.
Originally published at rammi.glomp.me. You can comment here or there.
I DID IT! I'm pretty surprised at myself, considering I usually blog every 3 or 4 months.
30 days.
30 posts.
About 5 hours of staring at a blank screen. Approximately 10 hours typing without proof-reading (because it was 2AM).
Having the courage to become a commenter instead of a lurker. I've realised it's less creepy to comment on a blog I visit often, because my IP address shows up in their logs anyway, and it's nice to put some numbers to a name.
Leaving hundreds of comments. Getting loads (compared to the big fat zero I usually get) in return. People actually read what I write now!
Finding new blogs to read. Different opinions cause interesting debates in the comments.
Talking to new people.
Learning about... stuff. From terms of endearment in Russian to infertility-related medical acronyms (no links here, because there are many, many blogs)... I've read many blogs that I would have never come across if it wasn't for NaBloPoMo. I'm gonna be awesome at pub quizzes. That is, if there are pub quizzes on building a family, what people did on Black Friday and butchering a cow.
Thank you!
I might try to keep this daily blogging thing up for a while. We'll see how it goes. December's an interesting month. My birthday's on the 14th *cough cough hint hint*, Christmas is on the 25th, Boxing Day (and a certain someone's birthday) is on the 26th, and soon the month will be over.
For all those I've 'met' during NaBloPoMo, thanks for letting me into your blogs. I love reading them and will continue to do so. I will also try to occasionally overcome my lurking tendencies to comment and say hi. Joining the Comment for a Comment group was the best decision I made this month.
Now, all that's left to do is eye up the 2009 Prizes and hope my name gets drawn for something like a sock zombie or a Twitter background from @caffeinatedelf. *drools*
Whee! I did it!
Originally published at rammi.glomp.me. You can comment here or there.
Sorry people, I thought I could post some more photos of the Moleskine Surprise Boxes tonight but I screwed up with the photos I took today. The colors were just plain wrong under office lighting. I'll just post here a sepia preview first, hopefully I will be able to find a good spot to take photos again during the day. Stay tuned.
November is cold, dark, and dreary - on this side of the hemisphere, anyway. I like Australian weather. Everything gets dark stupidly early, it rains more, and my tonsils give in easier to all the viruses floating about (because you really wanted that image in your head). Generally, it's a crap month, filled with failing portable heaters and limbs that feel like they're about to fall off.
The internet seeks to fix this by filling it with events with strange names.
There's NaBloPoMo (30 blog posts in 30 days), which is why I'm writing a blog post now. I CAN'T FAIL ON THE 29TH DAY!
The carbon copy of that is NaBloWriMo, which appears to do the same thing. >.>
...And these two are based on NaNoWriMo, where you write a novel in 30 days instead. I didn't do it this year, although I did say I would attempt it (and, er, didn't).
Last week, I also made a half-hearted attempt to take part in IComLeavWe, where I attempted to leave comments on other participants' blogs, that were largely about infertility and adoption. I do not know anything about either, which made the whole thing a major fail on my part.
Whilst these online events are fun, I wish they'd make shorter names so that I wouldn't have to abuse my shift key so much.
A typical comment: "Hi, I'm doing NaBloPoMo too (but not NaBloWriMo)! I might do NaNoWriMo this year, but I think I won't have time for it because IComLeavWe is on towards the end of the month..."
*flails*
Originally published at rammi.glomp.me. You can comment here or there.
Here you go a collage book cover for 1Q84 made from scrap materials, MT masking tapes, printed photos and glassine envelope. Today I could only find time to read 2 pages because of errands to run. Call it tantric reading pleasure :)
