woohoo

5 days out of the office, 5 days of freedom (30 Apr - 1 May in Jakarta, never been there before so I'm looking forward to that!)

What matters is that for 5 days I can not give a shit about all the hostility and bad vibes back at camp, and relax. Honestly they've all but thrown empathy out of the window and all they care about is screwing people over 'cos they can. Shucks. Enough!

and breathe.

thoughts about aware

I've been reading Kurt Vonnegut's extremely short and engaging semi-autobiographical musings A Man without a Country, and lots of things he mentioned struck me. Particularly these: 

• "I say of Jesus, as all humanists do, 'If what he said is good, and so much of it is absolutely beautiful, what does it matter if he was God or not?'"
• "For some reason, the most vocal Christians among us never mention the Beatitudes. But, often with tears in their eyes, they demand that the Ten Commandments be posted in public buildings. And of course that's Moses, not Jesus. I've never heard one of them demand that the Sermon on the Mount, the Beatitudes, be posted anywhere."

And for those who don't know, or need reminding, here are the Beatitudes (from Matthew 5:3-5:10)

Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. 
Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted. 
Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth. 
Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled. 
Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy. 
Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God. 
Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called sons of God.
Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

-----

It's struck me, too, that few people have looked at the unfortunate events at AWARE from a Christian perspective. I'm eminently unqualified in this, not being a Christian myself. But on the other hand, I've always thought that it's far better to be Christian at heart and in spirit than to be a self-righteous, lecturing Pharisee – a small-c christian rather than a capital-C Christian, if you will. 

And it strikes me that looking at the Beatitudes (Matthew 5-7 and Luke 6:17-6:49) that these capital-C Christian women trumpeting their "pro-family" "feminist" agenda have missed the mark.

The old AWARE was about empowering women – including lesbian women – and this, among other things, means tolerance and acceptance, even love in the agape sense. It was very much about comforting the persecuted, downtrodden and neglected members of society. It was much closer to the spirit of the Beatitudes than anything I've heard from or about the "new guard".

It seems to me that in their zeal they've forgotten about the meek and the persecuted and the peacemakers. In their urge to change locks, hold press conferences and generally drag the good work of the old members of AWARE in the mud, they've actually lost sight of the central message of their own religion – that their God is a God of love.

Shame on Thio Su-Mien, a very un-christian Christian. She and her ilk disgust me.

more ns angst

I am hard-pressed to find a better phrase to describe that post-lunch mid-afternoon ennui, than Douglas Adams' "the long dark tea-time of the soul". The morning buzz has quietly settled down, there's basically no work – it being a Friday – and except for occasional mouse-clicks and keyboard clattering, the office is basically silent.

Friday lunches are ghastly. I have a theory: early Monday mornings, they bring in a convoy of refrigerator lorries in carrying all the food the cookhouse's going to use over the week. (And on Friday evenings they get in a convoy of dumptrucks to cart away the chicken bones and putrid unused inedible sauces and veggies.) It's basically the same ingredients, just dumped together and stewed in different combinations, week after week. On Friday, they've just about run out of ways to pair chicken wings or drumlets up with whatever crappy spindly limp vegetable that's left, and that's what you get. Plus, Fridays are porridge days, I believe because they run out of rice so they've got to stretch their stock. Friday lunches disgust me. Cookhouse food disgusts me.

-----

The main diversions in office life, besides the internet connection (spotty, erratic – but amazingly fast if you can get it – and consequently unsatisfying), are eating and drinking – although that leads to morbid obesity, as evidenced by examples all around me. So my main diversion is drinking water, which can't get you fat, only better hydrated. And of course it has the side-effect of requiring frequent toilet trips, all of which lead to more time spent out of the office, hurrah.

The toilet, though, is in bad shape. The flushes, like the internet connection, often do not work. And there're flies all over especially at the urinals, getting high on the caffeine and nicotine from the semi-dried piss they feed off. The one present paranoia in my life right now is one of those flies landing on my whatsit while I'm in the process of voiding my bladder. Like my work and the food, they disgust me.

-----

Often, people with sinecures for jobs have a wonderful self-image, which they cling on to in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary, of being gainfully and honestly employed in the pursuit of some noble and heroic goal, and putting in a hard day's work whilst at it. Nothing could be further from the truth; they're surfing on the internet, playing ungratifying games day after tedious day, and getting increasingly and dangerously self-delusional.

I'm not like them; I choose to be honest. I'm in the business of drawing a monthly pittance while doing the littlest jobs that no one really cares about. "Pushing paper" as you might term it, but even that might be too elevated a term for what I do. I compile files of unendingly boring papers on matters of shockingly little importance. I fend off my superior's undiagnosed obsessive-compulsive disorder attacks with a face of sullen incomprehension. On occasion I've been asked (read: forced) to scrub the floor (yes, literally). I harbor no illusions over my job.

Satisfaction? Don't make me laugh.

moral black holes

Sometimes some people are just such absolute fuckers that you wonder how they manage to muddle through life. I mean, why does evolution produce people of such deficient moral fibre as my superior at work? 

Maybe this is actually perverse proof of Intelligent Design. That God is really up there playing silly buggers with us.

Ok jokes aside, I really wonder why there isn't such a thing as a moral black hole, which rips up through the fabric of space-time, swallowing people up whole when they do evil things to other people. I mean, that's the feeling sometimes I get when I've been bastarded so bad I don't know what I've been hit by - that sinking feeling of "oh no I'm going to be in deep shittttttt".

And some people - no matter what you may believe about innate goodness - can really be evil, mean-spirited, cruel and selfish. These are the people we are enjoined to love as we would ourselves, while we inwardly hope and pray for the day of reckoning when they finally get their just desserts as the absolute shit-piles they are.

Perpetual Astonishment

I don't know about you, but I practice a disorganised religion. I belong to an unholy disorder. We call ourselves "Our Lady of Perpetual Astonishment."

- Kurt Vonnegut (look here!)

no news

I haven't updated for quite a while. There hasn't been anything going on anyway. Quite sad, life.

I don't thrive in the job. Either I get tired and depressed or I get bored. Being outfield sucks, true, but that's a whole different world of suckiness from being stuck in an office with an absolute bitch who's using you for her own purposes. Selfish, self-centred, screwing up my life. Got into my RSM's bad books just cos she clashed with him. All fucked up. All because she needed to bitch about his assigning me for some course without her knowing first. All because she needs me in the office so she can fucking slack her arse off by taking MCs, going for 2-hour teabreaks, coming in late and leaving early. Fucking lazybum. Lots of the regulars are like that, sucky people. Of course you get a few good officers at the top and the NSFs slaving away, holding the fort but the centre's all rotten.

I guess it's just a clash of worldviews. I fundamentally don't believe in making people's lives miserable just because I can. I mean, what's the point? We're all trying to live our natural lifespan without dying first and trying to get as much brownie points and good karma as we can, while we're at it, right?

And people are human. Just scolding and nagging isn't going to do any good if you're constantly wearing down a person's self-esteem. Negative feedback is self-reinforcing; it generates a negative feedback loop. (In other words, if you get screwed every time you try, you're likely to give up.) On the other hand positive feedback is self-reinforcing too. 

And I look at the NSF officers; what's the difference between me and them? Nothing but 3 months more tekan, $300 more pay, and a whole different rank ladder. Crikey. And that makes a world of difference. There they are playing flash games on the internet, no one to kick their butts, while I'm running meaningless chores for a functionally-paralysed (from mouth down, typical NATO) superior with no manners. Well too bad I wasn't enthu enough to go to OCS though I tried. So now being stuck in the middle somehow gives me an excuse for mediocrity. Life famously works in mysterious ways.

I bet out there someone is trawling the internet for all kinds of shitty, angsty ramblings like this one. Thank God I'm from Bermuda!

the big two-nil

has come, and is nearly gone. It's been a nice quiet day, and I'm going to turn in for the night soon. Just when things get kinda dreary it's great to be reminded of friends and catch up a bit.

We are here on Earth to fart around.
Don't let anybody tell you any different.

- Kurt Vonnegut

Aiding is Abetting

A startlingly fresh perspective on the Great African Problem.

http://www.guernicamag.com/interviews/954/moyo/

new books!

• Leo Tolstoy, War and Peace, trans. Pevear/Volokhonsky
• James Joyce, Ulysses
• Virginia Woolf, Orlando
• Marcel Proust, In Search of Lost Time Vol. 1: Swann's Way
• Azar Nafisi, Reading Lolita in Tehran
• Kurt Vonnegut, A Man Without a Country

Yeah, good stuff. (I still don't have Dune, though)

reading

I'm actually reading books faster than I'm buying them now, for a change. Just finished Ovid's Metamorphoses over the last week and took a break by learning how to read the Russian alphabet, polished off Toni Morrison's Beloved in one mega-session two days back (not doing it justice but I did appreciate it much more than I did the first time I tried to read it, 3 years back) and I'll start on Gunter Grass' Crabwalk pretty soon. 

I need a good translation of War and Peace! I'll be going out to get the Pevear/Volokhonsky one tomorrow. With all the time on my hands I think I'm ready to face that tome. And then Ulysses or the Aeneid or something. And I think I should read Dune.

children nowadays

I'm quite disturbed by kids nowadays (I mean primary school, kindergarten, that kind of age). They're awfully spoilt. They get the latest phones, tons of junky toys, their doting parents do their homework and overfeed them, that kinda thing. Just look at the kids you pass at the supermarket or on the MRT or generally around the place, they're glued to PSPs and stuff. Or the ST surveys that show primary 3 kids on the internet 15-20 hours a week, that sort of thing. (I mean, I do that, yes, but that's out of the time that the SAF's robbed off my life. And I'm not playing maplestory.)

The thing that really gets me is when parents don't raise their kids right. Like when they wonder why their kids are failing, when they're doing all their projects and homework for them. Or when they worry about their kids getting fat while they're busy feeding them. Parenting is vitally important for kids to be all that they can be, fulfil their potential and all that. I'm glad that my parents seldom interfered with my learning after primary 2 or 3, and almost never after pri 4. 

And to tell kids that it's ok to fail is all nice and politically correct, but I believe it's wrong. Parents shouldn't be satisfied with mediocrity; worse, they shouldn't let their kids be satisfied with mediocrity. If they have to suffer to get their grades and mould their minds, by all means make them suffer.