Sunday, November 30, 2008

Life's Surprises...

I was about to fall asleep when it suddenly popped into my head that one of the not-so-bright friends of mine is getting a Phd.!!! Can you believe that? Throughout school she was always at the bottom 10, and even when she started working, I always picked up the errors, some major, that she made here and there but now...she's going to be a Dr.!!!
Last year an ex-student of mine, who was a head prefect but wasn't intellectually-inclined, came to school to get some signatures. I taught him in my first year of teaching, in 2001. I bumped into him at the office so I asked him what on earth was he doing at the school after 6 years, and he calmly said "I'm going to UK".
"Oh nice. For a holiday?" I asked.
"No...no. I'm pursuing a degree", he happily informed me.
There I was open-mouthed, because I remembered he hardly had any As in his SPM.
"I'm doing aeronautical engineering", he continued.
By this time I almost fainted.
"I remembered what you said about having big cars and great houses and hot chicks. I thought I'd make a go for it. The only thing is I only decided to really focus on my study after the junk I got for SPM".
I could only nod and left. I couldn't even congratulate him!! I remembered thinking...Is it safe to get on the planes say 5 years from now?
See, how a little something in the way could change the path of life? The doctor-to-be friend of mine is 32 and single. In this community, if you lack in the love department, you'd better make up in the career department. So if someone ask whether you really plan on remaining a spinster forever, you can at least say "But I have money and I am smart!" And that is what that friend of mine is doing.
As for the aeronautical engineer-to-be, being the head prefect with the lousiest SPM result in record history actually propelled him (pardon the pun) for a greater good.
For me who graduated top of the class, with countless As, about 3 Bs and no Cs in my testemonial, who scored a CGPA of 3.67 in my incomplete master's degree, who dreamed of a life of doing academic research and giving lectures to undergrads and postgrads, changed my life path too.
I chose a family life. And the event that triggered that change is, of course, the big C.
Once I thought a successful career would satisfy me, but after facing death in the face, and after the birth of my daughter, and after BRCA1, I chose love. Maybe I can have both, career and love, if I have, say, diabetes or some other controlled illnesses. but cancer with BRCA1 is an entirely different thing. It's like having an aneurism in your brain, except that before you die you'll get plenty of warning, thus the morphine but it's kind of the same too.
So life is a surprise...

Thursday, November 27, 2008

Hairy Matters

The school holiday has begun. Actually, it began 2 weeks ago. On the last week of school, I noted some worrisome spotting on my panties and after a visit to the doctor, I was given pills to increase my hcg level, which in turn, gave me horrible, horrible pregnancy symptoms!! Well, you have to understand that my first pregnancy was relatively smooth sailing. I didn't have headaches or feel neousous and I could eat whatever I want and go wherever I wanted to. This second pregnancy was similarly easy too for the first two months. Then the pills change all that...

Anyway, baby is safe. I will begin the routine visit to the O&G next Tuesday.

Well, I'm thinking of getting a digital perm, whatever that means. I have a weird attachment to hair salons. I mean, I don't have a headfull of amazing looking hair. I used to, when I was younger. People complemented me on my hair over everything else before I completed puberty. But somewhere in my late teen, the volume just mysteriously disappeared and I was left with this limp looking hair that is not really straight, yet not curly either. It isn't even a good wave. It's just nothing and everything in between. So in my early twenties I had a full perm that made me look like ... to put it nicely, a poodle, or to put it not so nicely, like an ah so.

Then when the new millenium materialised and rebonding was in, I had my hair rebonded. It was okay then, because I weighted around 45-48kg back then. Then I got cancer, lost all my hair and the new one turned up very curly at the beginning, giving me nightmares on afro hair for months. Then it loosened up and I was left with a nice wave, which I stupidly straightened once influenced by a hairdresser who was probably on the verge of bankruptcy!!!

Everybody hated this hair, so I had it highlighted with brownish/blondish streaks. Now I'm thinking of digital perm. My students commented that I never have the same hairstyle for more than 6 months. As I admitted earlier, my hair is definitely NOT the most pleasing attribute of my persona but this obsession with hair salons should be stopped before I lost all my hair...and be bald again...and this time, maybe for good...