Away from home away from home

Get my title??

It's all right if you don't, haha, it's semi-nonsense anyways.

I'm sitting in the nice Gatton library blogging because I have the excuse of not bringing more work to complete. Actually, that's a complete shitty excuse, I've yet to actually complete what I've set out to do, it's just that I'm experiencing that bout of un-drivenness, or, being in Neutral. (Or in my case, I might just be going in reverse).

I feel like the Mad Hatter from Alice in Wonderland, just that I'm half as verbally fluent and not quite 1/20th as madly ingenius as he is in the literary sense. Don't you think Lewis Carroll is amazing? If you think about it, the stuff that's in Through the Looking Glass, Alice in Wonderland and whatever other stuff written is so linguistically aware and smart that it makes me, as an undergraduate, feel like a kindergarten kid knowing what wonders the mind is able to work (If you were ever so blessed to have one)

I've been workign with Dyslexic children in clinic this semester, and boy has it been eye-opening. Well, not as eye-opening as I would like it to be (considering that this is only my second week working with them), but I was rather surprised with the emphasis placed here in Australia how much the responsibility is placed on the Speech Therapist to get these children working to their maximum potential. Whereas back home, these children are either

1) Called stupid and left to lag and be punished all their lives
2) Politically-correctly called 'Normal' and placed in either EM3, and then Normal Technical or Academic
3) Shoved into Learning Support Programs which ironically, fail to support but instead condemn the children further as they lag even more,
4) Thrown to special education classes which might actually prove to help (sometimes)
5) If they're lucky/rich enough, mummy and daddy can send them to Australia where they can receive the support/encouragement they need.

I'm not saying that it's a haven here, nor am I saying that Singapore completely slaughters children with dysexia, it is the unawareness that kills the opportunity and potential that resides in these children. (LKY should know) I have no idea how he mad eit through school, my guess is that he was mildly dyslexic.

Even in Australia, they can't emphasize how much the education system still fails to recognise the problems faced by the children, and they too have shoved teacher aide after teacher aide to help but to no avail.

And that's not even the tip of the iceberg! What about indigenous children who have a much much higher probability of experiencing literacy problems solely based on cultural differences or because of where they stay? We might say that in Singapore you see educational gaps between certain racial groups, but here, it's even worse.

But.. if you look at it in a 'WHO' kind of way, where they look at things like dyslexia or disabilities not from the point of an impairment, but from the view of how these things affect their actual functioning in life, then it might be a different story all together. If someone can't read, but is a successful dairy farmer or whatnot and is earnign shit loads, what is to say that that dyslexia was a problem?

Ok this is a boring post.

I'm just getting os overhelmed with organising and filing what I've been studying, that when I went to sleep a couple of nights back, I was having dreams about travelling up the neural pathways and reaching the different orders of neurons in the cerebral cortex, hypothalamus and midbrain (or something like that), which is freaking twisted!! Garh I woke up feeling such a hatred for Neuroanatomy for invading my dream land where I was supposed to be playing with cotton candy, ponies, fairy wings, giant jello, chocolate cake with mega sludgy icing and Hugh Jackman. uhh.. oops maybe not the last one, heh heh

I WANT TO DREAM LIKE A CHILD AGAIN.

POny pony poNY!! :D:D

I skipped class~ I skipped class~

My first lesson skipped this semester! (As opposed to the gazillion I missed last semester) And I have good reason for it!... It's raining. heh

But the sky is clearing up and I do have lessons at 10. I actually enjoy going to schools on Fridays, it's the best feeling of all because I end early, which means that the rest of my day is to myself (and generally the library), and I yet there's that satisfication coming from the 'I-learnt-something-today-from-the-teecher' feeling. So you feel like you've fulfilled your duty as a student, whilst still having a slack Friday. TGIF never meant so much =) Plus, it's normally the day MarkyMark comes back from the town in the middle-of-nowhere via horseback. (Okok, it's a BUS).

So it's a double bonus! =)

I was emailing my sister that day and she asked me how it seemed like Mark and I have a long distance relationship, which is, essentially so sometimes (Especially if either of us has exams and we don't see each other for a couple weeks at a time). But I feel that this is good 'training' in that sense. At least we have mobile phones and MSN and what not, whereas during our parents' time, they had pigeons, snail mail, the telephone with no caller ID, and telepathy.

If technically we have THAT much more times opportunity to communicate with the other in this time and century, shouldn't there be way way less divorces seeing that the couples should understand and know each other better? But of course we all know that isn't the case right? You'd probably say it isn't that our parents know each other any less than our generation knows the pther party, but perhaps it's just the lifting of taboos or the changed/thwarted views people have of marriage now.

I believe it's more like this - Our generation sucks at tolerating uncomfortable situations, compromising or just basically, sucking it up and continuing with the shit you're doing. We're all about this freedom of choice thing and tell others, why should you stay on and 'suffer'? Well, to a certain I think that's a good point... if the party was abusing you and being a complete bitch/asshole/drunk/gambler etc, but just because he's not lifting up the toilet seat? Or not helping with the dishes? I guess of course the married people are gonna scoff at me and tell me I don't know shit. And I'm not saying divorce is wrong, I personally am one of the ones who believe in freedom of not having to go through all the suffering and shit, after seeing so many mums of the earlier generation stay on in their families 'just because they have to' when it clearly is detrimental to their health.

I follow my mum's general advice to some of her clients:

If you have a tumor growing on you, cut it off straight! Or it's just going to destroy you.

Only difference I guess is, if its just a cyst, don't go cutting it off because you might cause larger problems by doing that. Or don't go cutting off your tonsils or appendix just because you think they're completely redundant (Because we've learnt from our multiple disciplinary lessons that, they are pretty handy sometimes)

Ok I need to go for class =)

I'm old!!

I know this is like, 3 weeks overdue, but it finally has been hitting me...

I AM TWENTY ONE.

21

Oh gosh... it wasn't until I saw pictures fromJuliza's 21st party that I reality hit me that, whilst my friends back home (especially the ones who can afford it), are able to spend a night splurging on a nice, all dressed up night full of friends, awesome catering, full blast airconditioned, pool-dunking, alcohol drinking (or not), celebratory nights dedicated to the day they were born and all that they have become for the past 21 years, I was here having an awesome, sweet boyfriend-orchestrated bbq out in the overcasted Gyutt Park near my home. The overcast part was pretty much the scariest part of it, cos wewere so afraid that it would just rain anytime and kill the food/us/pigeons(as if we cared). But the crappiest thing was that I had shitty cramps that day, plus, as most girls would understand that annoying predicament we deal with every month or so, comes the ever so slight crankiness, tiredness, angstiness and just low-energy level because you just feel.. FEMALE for a couple of days. I think everything would have been more perfect than it already was had I not been crampy and stressed over the getting-back-to-school syndrome and having the constant worry that my scooter would entirely back up on me (Which it eventually did a couple of weeks later when I brought it to service, but that's another update), or that I had a pile of work (at least according to my dictionary) to catch up on (Yes it was ONLY the first week of school, but hey, you guys know I'm anal about stuff)

But apart from that, every weekend from then seemed to flash past, so here I am on our lovely australian public holiday (Exhibition Day), sitting at the dining table with a satiated tummy full of failed chilli chicken (as in chilli crab sauce cooked with chicken instead - not nice) and just setting aside 15 minutes to update this blog.

I think everyone who wished, celebrated, came, sent me spices from Melbourne (Even though she's in Zurich - haha), gave me oranges/lemons (They have fed me really well yutaro and bwedon) cake (My sister and siyi orchestrated to have a ccake sent in from a local cafe which was sinfully good)and what not (you know who you guys are), deserve a HUGE

THANK YOU!!

the very cute apple pie from Shiyun and Aiping (I should have seen it coming!!) haha, the girls are ever so sweet as usual!! And the pictures are damn tat glam can. Piang eh! haha,..Trying to look sweet and young so that we don't differ too much from the photos...

One of the few shots I managed to capture of liner and my sister before they flew off to Zurich for his PhD. (Yes she IS pregnant.. and due in October!)
And here's a little shot of what the Shrek castle looks like in Universal Studios Singapore. And for some people, that's how my boyfriend looks like. haha.. Thanks =)) You make my life so airy fairy sometimes I think I've become blond. hehh..

I shall update a pictorial about the other 1000 updates that have happened so far. All right, my life isn't THAT interesting. I think the most memorial event so far since I've gotten back is when my scooter broke down just 150m from the workshop when I went to service it at a God forsaken place called Moorooka (even the name sounds stupid eh?) But the people there were awesome, thanks to Jawn for recommending that place, they didn't even charge for 'towing' my bike in! =) (Plus the guy at the counter was pretty cute...) But being surrounded by all the Kawasaki/Honda/Yamahahahas/ATV/motorcross dirt bikes was a little intimidating. haha. Do you know they start training little boys for motorcross? Like, their bikes are maybe a metre in length, and I saw this little 7-8 year old getting one with his dad. Shit man, those bikes are more powerful than mine!! (I feel disgraced). But they are SO awesome. I shall blog about that soon. Writing makes me happy= ) ACtually, writing CRAP makes me happy. muhahaha.

Peace out from the land of funny names like Moorooka, Woolongabba, Yerongapilly and Indooroopilly and Gayndah!