How to date a pilot…

I entitled this entry “How to date a pilot” with no real idea of how to put it into action.

The title just popped up in my head during one of my marking stints at the airport. Sitting by one of the automatic doors that open into the spanking new Terminal 3 departure hall concourse, I watched as pilots of all age, ranks and sizes saunter their way to check-in. I was mostly impressed except for that one instant when I thought the young trainee wannabe was not starched properly and looked like one of my students by the end of they day.

But back to the title “How to date a pilot”. I was wondering whether to be snark and start with rule number 1: Be able to fit into an insanely figure hugging uniform, bun your hair up and ensure it sits exactly at 49.3 degrees on your head, wear either brown or blue eyeshadow assigned to you by a spiteful senior and be able to smile in an annoyingly sweet way while uttering the words “coffee or tea?”

But as a self-help, motivating, life-changing, philosophical entry (I’m hoping it’ll get published like one of those dating guru books), the conditions to which I need to adhere to begins with, identifying the problems to NOT scoring a date with some hot (well not necessarily hot) pilot who could potentially begin your jet-setting lifestyle around the world, or so you think. Unfortunately, blog entries aren’t meant to be long so I’ll keep the long story short and get on with life. =)

I’ll have you know, both my previous and current neighbour are pilots. Both seem like gregarious, cheery and generous men. So yes, in terms of credentials, I am well-versed in a pilots-are-my-neighbours kinda way. I assure you its every bit as credible as you can imagine. If you’re wondering, no, their wives don’t necessarily look like one of the girls off a catalogue magazine. They are quite ordinary and friendly people.

So perhaps Rule number 1 should begin with: Don’t over-vamp it. Perhaps beneath all the foundation and powder, they’re just looking for someone quite like you and me.

Rule number 2: Don’t idolize them. At least not in one of those jaw-dropping moments. My very very wise friend, who is also wisely stuck in grad school with a new boyfriend, reminded me that to be in love with someone is not to put them on a pedestal and worship their existence. It is merely reifying their existence as something much more unreachable then you think. You’re every bit as special (or if not more) than he is. He just gets to fly huge jet planes with hundreds of people on it around the world and that’s all there is to it.

Rule number 3: Work that smile of yours. It doesn’t need to be annoyingly sweet. Just make sure its you. Isn’t that the lesson that all dating guidebooks attempt to teach anyway, be yourself. That’s what they all end with anyway isn’t it?

There really isn’t a point to this entry other than a ‘eureka’ moment and a need to flex some typing muscles. Perhaps I’ll be inspired to write more, after all, I did consider writing a book. Now I just ned to figure some sort of theme and topic to write before I actually put down into words. Perhaps a “Idiosyncrasies of a teenager” type thing since it seems to surround my life nowadays.

Positivity

This is a job. I have to constantly remind myself that I am no longer working on my own and doing the things I love to do.

This is a job.

THIS IS A JOB.

Whether I like it or not, I have people telling me what to do, when to do it, how to do it with no real explanation of why I should be doing it.

And it makes me really unsettled. I guess its just high time that I learn to deal with the fact not everything will go my way. It makes me sad to have to come to that realization that working hard, wanting to work hard and showing that you are willing to work hard is not enough. You just do whatever is given to you and whether you like it or not, you just deal.

Perhaps Rachel’s motto is of the only relevance here: Positivity.

I am trying to keep myself afloat in this deep blue sea because at the end of the day, its not for my own benefit that I’m here. There are other people I should be thinking of and worried about. The nature of our job is to remember that there are always others involved.

So no matter how jaded you are, how upset, how mistreated/under-utilised you feel, take a deep breath because you could always be in a worse off position.

This is a job, there will be things you don’t like doing but you’ll have to do it..

So DEAL…..

在乌来写的字

 

有时候放弃也是一种执著。把手放开，不是你的就不是你的。人生的道路虽长，也不需因“他”而忘了凭感觉的那一刹那。

我知道你做得到，所以请你打开心房，这一次真的让他如漂流的河水，就这样流到迷茫的大海中，随著浪花，渐渐沉落海底。一切就竟在不言中。

我很喜欢你，可是我不能因为你而哭。

再见了先生，再见了。

这次真的不能回头看了。因为想像的真的真的只是幻影，只是记忆中不想忘掉的你。你早已不是那个人了。虽然“你的背影是我最美丽的所有”，可是我会学著活在没有你的世界。我不需要你的“對不起”，因為海闊天空，烏雲過後，還是有另一片藍天。

我也不该为你而存在。

Blessed?

So you see, that incidentally is a humanistic reaction to the way how life doesn’t quite fall into place when it should. Suddenly being displaced is scary. 

And then you live in memories or the re-living of the past as if by doing so you are able to re-create what happened before as if it is now, the present and of course in anticipation, also the future. I find it rather intimidating and yet still relish in doing so. 

This comes after watching a movie last night. Not that I am ready to do a movie review about the Emperor Dragon but as an East Asian Studies major, I watch with awe as hollywood picks apart myths and legends and transforms it into a fraction of what was to produce entertainment. It was entertaining to say the least, at least my guys friends seem to think so but that was all it was. Uninspiring entertainment that brought a few laughs to the audience. Yes, if you would like to watch a brainless movie (unlike Red Cliff or Dark Knight) then go ahead, spend that money to endorse a film that sounds suspiciously like the re-creation of orientalist rhetoric (or am I just imagining it) movie-fied  

But in any case, this is not supposedly a philosophical entry more of me thinking out loud to myself since I can’t quite fall asleep. 

Blogs are meant to express isn’t it? And so if I express how I feel here, it becomes public and real as if saying it out loud is not quite enough but I need to publish it in an entry so that I will remember how I feel. I don’t know why I am angry at certain things I cannot control and angry at not trying to control the things I can. I think it is because I am stubbornly resistant to change. Either that or this memory is worth keeping. Its worthiness is only dependent on precisely that, my memory. But no matter how I recall the past, read diary entries, think deeply, it was never exactly a happy one. But I am still stuck firmly in the pits of it. I don’t really like that because its neither something the other party would ever know about. Then I feel ridiculously useless for being stuck as if I have not used any strength or ounce of effort to dig out of the pit. 

So I am at a lost for words as to where to end this entire situation. I think I am about ready to end it. I need to make new memories. I think that’s the only solution. Newness always erases the past and then maybe I can always pretend it never happened since it never did work out the way I expect it to.

Its not time to move on but to move up. I’m growing old so forgetting should be a breeze.

Lamenting like it matters.

I am annoyed. I am utterly annoyed.

Yes, I am to blame for this lackluster performance but my complete disregard for my supposedly mind-blowing thesis has come to a point where I don’t quite care. Not a good sign for someone who once claimed to be “passionate” about the field. It’s not that I am not enthralled by some deep philosophical phenomenon that only the likes of Michel Foucault or Jacques Derrida can conjure up. But there is something that’s missing from all this. I think it needs to begin from a heartfelt, bottom’s up reminder of why I chose to do what I do in the first place. I’m sure some theoretical presumptions (that has obviously been made “real” through the reification of discourse) on the power matrixes of this world will do budding professors some good on planet dissertation writing but why does the average joe need to even know about some dilemma between what should be and what actually is in the formation of modernity. After all, hasn’t it already happened and aren’t we all just living in it? Is it simply a lack of relevance or are we just that apathetic about the things outside of what we do. 

But then again, I wish I had the actual audacity to call out our blindspot. Let’s face it, academia is myopic (so are many industries) and we see what we want to see. While some can deal with the stark black and white division of this world, my term for calling on those who live by the tangible, others may just be more inclined to side step that there is even an issue of black and white in the first place. For those who live in patches of grey, of negotiations, well, what can I say, life just isn’t about binary oppositions (sorry Ed, that’s if you ever read this). What I have learnt has taught me to accept that all these different visions of the world are valid, real and natural but I am always inclined to defend my patches of grey as if it is the only means of living. As I am writing this entry, I see the arrogance (and hypocrisy) of it yet I constantly insist on its “rightness” as if the others all don’t matter. 

I should be writing my thesis. I’ve said that many a times to those who would actually might just be interested in listening to me complain about how bored I am. I will continue to say that I SHOULD be writing my thesis until the little bugger is done (which is hopefully by the end of this freaking week before I explode of graduation-ritis). I should stop lamenting, it really isn’t healthy. Let’s hope this spring weather gets to me soon. I need to at least be excited about something. 

Hello world

   Hello world is perhaps the right words to the start off this blog. WordPress generated the tagline and all I can imagine is my sudden explosion onto the world wide web as the next big thing waiting to happen. Of course being the next big thing comes with a price, namely my lack of enthusiasm for my ultimately unsightly thesis. Yes, I am a thesis-writing-idol-chasing-coffee green tea-drinking-bathroom-singing-power-obsessed-soon-to-graduate-wedding-planner-air-force-wannabe thing of a person. Weird. But the last time I checked (which is about 2 minutes ago), I was not quite ready to re-start a blog and comment about the absurdities of this world as if I could make sense of them. Yet here I am succumbing to the objectification (or blogification if such a word exists) of my life onto the tiny little screen of my new found love- The Macbook.    

   But it is my way of saying hello to the world. Which honestly consists of much Mayday (五月天) obsessing. Though I am rather resistant to the term “obsession”, I have been told by my rather intuitive sister that it has perhaps come to that point of no return. I blame it on…I am searching for the politically correct noun to fill in the space but I all I can think of is “不知道，我不知道”. For those not of the chinese-reading world, it means I don’t know, yes literally that’s what it means but it is also the title of the song stuck in my head for the past 2 weeks. How appropriate.  And so this wordpress blog is titled “Chasing Mayday” which basically sums up my life for the past 5 years while away from home. It signifies my imagination of some sort of hope, opportunity and dramatics, all of which connects me to the romanticism of partaking in something so real and yet so far.    

   How? Well that’s the point of writing this blog. And if I may, here begins a life of uncertainties as I continue to chase Mayday and live with obsession of knowing that it’ll always remain simply that, Chasing Mayday.