Bitches in my beer!

Weekdays are flying so fast for me but my weekends are miserably moving very slow. I am not as excited as I was a few months ago about the thought of home in these last few weeks of Spring semester. Maybe I will be again when home is a few days away when May approaches. Listening to Kyle pluck his guitar while I type here with a wall dividing us, I can sense my brain enjoying his tune even though it is slowly fading away. This weekend I learned that silence is a language. The silence that comes by when nobody talks. I hear a lot when I do not talk. Kyle's tune. The plane from Spokane to Seattle. The sound of my two-year old laptop. And nothing.

I speak a lot.

To appreciate this silence, something must have changed me. I cannot see if this change is good or bad but Kyle's sudden switch to a repetitive rhythm just switched my gears in this piece that I write now. Just the sound of my laptop and nothing. I must be really bored (so now I think). I gave a speech last Wednesday to my class, persuading them to speak up. I wanted that topic just because I had done it before but little did I realize that I had to do it better this time because I was in America. I spoke of how Americans are very lucky to have the freedom of speech that we didn't. I compared their 1st Amendment of their Constitution to that of our Article 10 of the Malaysian Constitution. Despite the lack of preparation, I came through the speech with Dr. Miller's comments of "fascinating topic and a very good passion".

Funny how education works. In Malaysia, I had to study what the government had set out for all of us. Here, besides the subjects my major requires, I am finally getting the TRUE sense of learning by choosing what I want to learn. This way, I would want to do well because it is my decision. Public speaking was one of those subjects. If kids were allowed to choose what they wanted to specifically learn besides a 'small' amount of compulsory subjects, they would! And I bet they would excel in it. Problem, sometimes, arises when parents or family members are clouded by the stigma that their kids must end up as doctors, lawyers, engineers and the like. Some want me to fulfill their unfinished dreams. So does that make it OK to make my children to finish MY dreams during their lifetime? Then, when does one LIVE for themselves and the dreams that they have always wanted to achieve?

Dream big.

That is my right. If someone comes along and tells me "No, you can't do that", I would certainly get angry. Who are you to tell me what to do and what not to do? I would consider in a polite manner if you have a good ethos with the elements of the world BUT you don't! You are not a good person when you can lie to people who care about you. You make me sneer with disgust whenever you justify your STUPID acts of 'norm'.

Now, that was me being angry at someone. Someone once told me that hating people wastes one's time. As always, I am going to laugh it off because you are not worth my attention and also because I am a Malaysian that has been brought up by warriors and leaders. After writing all of this, I realized that I have drawn a smile on my face. All these are 'jujubi' matters that I have never cared about when I was in Malaysia for two decades. Now that I am alone here in my own world in America, the silence that I was talking about earlier, sometimes starts to take its stroll in my life by focusing matters that didn't seem to matter last time.

I am still Thanges.

But as I assimilate my beliefs in this 8 months of American experience, the actual reason of my independent choice of coming to WSU is getting clearer and more emphasized; that is to discover my potentials and to stand on my own feet when it comes to making decisions. Being out of the bubble, has made me see many broken ladders in Malaysia's development. The board game, 'Snakes and Ladders' gave me the impression that one could either go up with a ladder or go down with a snake. However, in these 'broken ladders', the snakes now are gliding their way up to their privileges by forming a 'bridge' between two broken ladders to allow the players to sail through but little do these players know and realize that the actual function of these snakes is to bring them down!

So, to all the players out there, get your dices rolling and knock these snakes out of the game!

p.s: Finals is in two weeks and the question is not whether I have prepared for finals or not BUT rather, IS FINALS PREPARED FOR ME? HAHAHAHAHA!!!!

NALLA IRRE!