Ob-la-di, Ob-la-da

Posted on May 4, 2012 by literaryhero

It seems like forever since I have sat down here to blog, and checking the date on my last post shows that it has been a month.  Wow, that’s a long time.  It isn’t that I haven’t been writing, but I have been entrenched in being a full time student and cranking out research papers like my life depended on it.  It is hard to switch between serious academic writing and whimsical rambling blog post, so unfortunately the blog begins to become overgrown with weeds.

Never fear, though, I have been blogging for approximately five hamster lifetimes, and don’t intend on giving up the hobby.  However, it will be slow going for a while, as school work is a hassle, daddying is tough, and I don’t actually do anything in Malaysia worth blogging about.  So.

Don’t make that scare you away, though, I do have news.  I received feedback for the first two modules I attended at the University of Nottingham, and to say that I am an excellent student with a perfect smile and lusciously wind blown hair wouldn’t be an exaggeration.  Well maybe the wind blown hair thing would be, the Malaysian weather gives me this constantly messy, oily rat’s nest of a hairstyle no matter what I do, but the other two things are true, and I have both the assignment scores and orthodontic receipts to prove them!

Even better than just being a good student, one of the professors remarked that I should look into getting my assignment published as it is an area of high interest, and also because I could show off my pearly whites.  Well he didn’t say the last part, but I’m sure he was thinking it.  So at least my academic career is going swimmingly, which is nice.

In daddying news, Hannah has reached the ripe old age of three months and isn’t dead yet, which I consider successful.  As an aside, when I say ripe, I really mean it.  No matter how much we bathe her she stinks like a yeti.  I mean she will smell nice for roughly thirty to forty five seconds after the bath and then she will drool some foul smelling saliva/baby formula mix that smells like death incarnate and it will all be ruined.  So.

The good news is that Jisun and I found a couple of suckers to take her off our hands for an evening.  Due to this kindness we managed to see the Avengers and eat cake/drink coffee without interruption at our favorite Secret Recipe.  It was nice to be out of the house without the baby, and the Avengers was solid, so all in all a good time.  We are also having a special 100 day birthday party for the little one on Saturday, where I intend on getting all juiced up on soju and acting like a lunatic.  In other words, getting back into my pre-baby form.  We will also be having all kinds of Korean food, which is nice, so I hope to put on a couple pounds while killing a few brain cells. Good times all around, amiright? *crickets chirp*

Posted in Baby, General | 3 Comments

Fruity

Posted on April 5, 2012 by literaryhero

Hi Everyone, long time no see.  I noticed Tuttle had his yearly ‘spring-is-coming‘ blog post where he looked at the foliage around town, and it inspired me to do a little foliage gazing myself. While living in Malaysia exempts me from waiting for seasons to change duty, there are still some seasonal differences.

Of course there is the difference between the very rainy season and the moderately rainy season, but in Melaka it doesn’t really rain all that much at any point, so that isn’t such a big deal.  What is a big deal is the type of fresh fruit that is available locally.  While most fruits are available year round, there are certain times when the fruit is ready to go.  Right now we are just entering the beginning of mango season, and I can tell because all the mango trees around the neighborhood are heavy with fruit (aside from mine, but that’s a story for another day).

There is only one thing better than a locally grown mango, and that’s a fresh mangosteen.  Fortunately, in the next couple of months the mangosteens will be hitting their stride, and then for the rest of the summer months you won’t be able to see Mr. Literaryhero without a purple stain around his mouth.  Of course the lychees and rambutans will be in season too, but to be honest, I don’t really care that much about them.  And I shouldn’t forget another one of my favorites, the durian.

Just thinking about all this fresh fruit that I am about to eat has me drooling. For the past several months I have been surviving on watermelon (both yellow and red), and pineapples.  While they are great, I want to start eating the real delicious fruit, and that time is coming.  Actually, this is probably the one thing I miss from living in Kelantan.  While life in Melaka is more comfortable in almost every way, I am going to miss the easy access to fresh fruit.  Our Kelantan house had papaya trees, mango trees, a durian tree, rambutan trees, wax apple trees…you name it, we had it.

But still, there is a lot of fruit available in Melaka, and I am going to eat it until I can’t eat anymore.  Yay fresh tropical fruit!

Posted in Malaysia | 1 Comment

Call Me Master

Posted on March 23, 2012 by literaryhero

So, as I mentioned before, I spent most of last week in Kuala Lumpur studying at the University of Nottingham KLTC in Bukit Bintang for my MA TESOL.  I am required to take seven ‘modules’ and write a dissertation.  I’m not exactly sure, but I think a module is the same as a class.  I don’t want to ask, though, for fear that someone will realize I have no idea what I am doing and laugh at me.

Anyway, these ‘modules’ are offered at a rate of two every three months.  Not coincidentally, each semester is three months long, so the basic idea is to take the module, do the assignment, and then take another one.  Now, two modules are offered each semester, but most students only take one at a time.  There are probably less than fifty people in the entire MA TESOL program, and out of those fifty people there are probably fifteen that are full time students.  Even though they are full time students, they usually only take one module at a time.

I, however, am committed to finishing the program as fast as I possibly can because a) I’m not sure how long I want to stay in Malaysia and b) my contract ends next September and it would be expedient to finish before that happens.  So I took two modules before the baby came and was able to finish the research papers expediently and with very little hassle.  Of course that was also during school holidays, so I had a lot of free time.

Now I am back at work and have the baby to deal with and I still decided to take two courses.  Since I don’t really have any other option I figure I will just knuckle down and do the work.  But then I was talking to some other students who put a bit of fear in me.  They started asking how it was possible for me to finish two research papers when they didn’t even have jobs and still had a hard time finishing one assignment.  Then I talked to my professor and he implied that I was out of my mind to push so hard to finish the program.

None of this would really bother me that much, except for the fact that I won’t receive the scores and feedback for my first assignments until I am well entrenched in the second round of papers.  What if it turns out that I am totally screwed up?  What if the professor calls me and says something like “Andy, we read your paper and it is a steaming pile of regurgitated pig intestines.  It is obvious that you spent very little time or effort on this, and I would like you to come to campus to I can kick you out of school and then punch you in the stomach.”?

In more positive news I submitted both of my assignment topic proposal forms and one has already been accepted.  The second I am still waiting to hear back from, but I am expected to get a call like the one mentioned above.  At what point will I gain some educational confidence?  I’m such a wimp!

 

Posted in General | 3 Comments

I Got Sick

Posted on March 22, 2012 by literaryhero

Last week was a school holiday, which is nice.  However, since I spent all that time in the classroom I didn’t really have a good chance to chill out like I had really wanted.  Instead, some vile human being manage to get me sick.

For the past week or so I have had a nasty sore throat and a cough that would make lifelong smokers pity me.  That isn’t the end of the world, though, and I dealt with it like the manly man’s man that I am, so not a single complaint was heard (no, this doesn’t count!).  However, Wednesday morning I woke up in the middle of the night with agonizing lower back pain, which I attributed to having the cheapest bed known to man.  Since I couldn’t go back to sleep due to blinding agony, I made the most of things by restlessly tossing and turning, you know, making sure Jisun couldn’t sleep well either.

Then at about 6:00am I woke up to feed Hannah and hopefully get an early start on my MA assignments.  I managed to feed Hannah, but suddenly was taken over by violent stomach cramps which caused a sudden and unexpected expulsion of my stomach contents.  Not a pleasant thing to happen on a Wednesday morning, not at all.

On the positive side, both of the teachers I was supposed to meet were out sick, so I didn’t have a problem staying home.  On the negative side, I had wanted to get an early start on my research papers, but that wasn’t possible due to my body falling apart.  Not pleasant.

The weird thing is that by around 2:00pm I felt ok again (aside from the sore throat), and managed to start doing work in the afternoon.  It is like my body is telling me that although I cut down my drinking to a bare minimum, it still wants me to enjoy the negative aspects of alcoholism through random morning vomiting, hangover-like symptoms, and a general feeling of illness.  Thanks, body.

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I’m Here!

Posted on March 19, 2012 by literaryhero

So it has been a long time between updates, and that isn’t really cool.  Well, I guess if you don’t want to read anything I write that’s ok, but if that’s the case, why are you here?!

Anyway, I’ve overbooked my schedule for about the next year, so life is going to be pretty tough.  I have a full time job, like a sucker, am studying full time for my MA, and of course am a full time dad.  That basically means I have no free time left to do anything, and of course the blog gets the short end of the stick.

Even worse, since I am so busy doing mundane stuff I don’t really have anything to write about even if I wanted to, so there is that, too.  Of course my life isn’t all diaper changes and studying, I do manage to get out of the house every now and again.  In fact, I spent seven of the last ten days in Kuala Lumpur.  I was there to take classes but I still managed to get in some interesting stuff.

For instance, did you know that they just built an air conditioned, elevated walkway between the Pavilion in Bukit Bintang and the KLCC Convention Center?  Well they did, and it is a great way to walk between the two places, though it probably stinks for all the shops that rely on passersby stopping in and buying stuff. But it is pretty cool for me, because it means you can cover the distance between KLCC and Bukit Bintang without breaking a sweat, which is nice.

On top of that, I was amazed to find out how many Chinese Irish live in KL. Unbeknownst to me, this past Saturday was St. Patty’s Day and there just so happened to be a huge outdoor party in front of my guesthouse.  They closed the street and had live music and Guinness all over the place.  Unfortunately for me, Malaysia has the highest priced beer of any place I have ever been, so I couldn’t justify joining the fun at the rate of about 10$ a pint.  Instead I went to the 168 Shop and bought a can of ‘Double Dutch: Super Strong Beer – 12%’ and sat on the curb outside the fence, forlornly drinking out of a paper bag and watching everyone else have fun.

Posted in General, Malaysia | 3 Comments

No Baby, No Baby, No Baby, No!

Posted on February 28, 2012 by literaryhero

Yesterday Hannah reached the ripe old age of one month, and she hasn’t died yet, so I feel like that qualifies me as a successful father.  That out of the way, let’s talk about something other than babies.

Ummm…Ummm…Ummm…I recently submitted my two MA assignments for grading, but since I haven’t heard anything back yet I can’t actually say anything about them.  However, the draft I sent to my Materials Development professor was well received, so that’s nice.  On the other assignment, for Applied Linguistics, I should be fine, but oh, do I ever like to worry.  At first I was worried that it wasn’t well written, but honestly that is the least of my problems.  So instead I started wondering if what I wrote was actually a linguistics paper at all.

The topic I delved into was gender bias in textbooks, and I analyzed the new Malaysian primary school year one and two textbooks.  This was no accident, as I am currently working as a teacher trainer helping the Malaysian year one and two teachers wring all they can out of these new texts. I hadn’t particularly noticed any bias, but when talking with this broad who was also taking the class, she mentioned that some stuff in there had a blatant bias against women.  Of course gender bias in language is a part of sociolinguistics and therefore the general idea can fit in an applied linguistics paper.   However, since we are dealing with textbooks for small children, a great portion of the bias manifests itself through images alongside the text, and I don’t know if that makes my whole paper faulty.  I guess we will see.

What else, what else?  Oh, listen to this!  I recently applied for a promotion, not because I am changing my ways and am willing to exchange hard work for more money, but because I am desperate!  Babies ain’t cheap, as the saying goes.  What, that isn’t a saying?  Well it should be.  But really the baby isn’t the problem.  The problem is that I decided to work my fingers to the bone in order to finish my master’s program in the next twelve months.  The work itself is daunting, yes, but more daunting than that is coming up with the cash to pay for it.  PHEW!

As you have probably guessed, while my pay is high for Malaysia it would be considered fairly modest elsewhere.  And since I am going to a British University, the tuition doesn’t really mesh well with my income.  Now I’m not broke, but I am pretty much fully extended, and have no desire to tap into savings at this stage in the game.  Hence the fact that I applied for the promotion.

That isn’t news.  What is news is the bumbling way in which the whole thing has been handled.  A company wide email was sent out advertising two posts.  I applied for one of them, but the other was too rural so I said I didn’t want it.  A few days later my manager stopped by (I work on the road 100% in case you were unaware) a training session that I was putting on (along with two colleagues, lest you think I am taking all the credit) and we had a chit chat.  I told him I wanted the job, and also happened to mention how qualified I was and how people with families not only are more reliable, but also need more money.

He agreed wholeheartedly and said that they would love to have me in the position, but had to work out some ‘logistics’ first.  I don’t know what that means, but whatever.  A few days later, another office employee called me in what turned out to be a misdial.  However, we got to talking about this and that and he said to me ‘Oh, I heard you are getting promoted to so and so’s old job, congratulations.’  To which I replied that I had applied for the spot but was unaware that I had been selected.  He hastily tried to cover his faux pas, and I went to bed that night thinking I was in good shape.

Fast forward two weeks, and I haven’t heard a single peep about it.  The position is being vacated as of tomorrow, and I haven’t heard one word from anyone on what is happening.  I don’t know if they decided to fill the position with someone else (those backstabbing jerks!) and just never bothered to mention it to me (those unreliable backstabbing jerks!), or if they still want me in the position and are currently working out the final ‘logistics’ in the matter (those hard working, diligent, kind-hearted souls) and will tell me any day now.  I don’t want to pester the powers that be with emails and calls about it because I had already laid it on pretty thick when I saw my manager a few weeks ago. And in case they haven’t made the decision yet, I don’t want to come across as needy and harassing, so I am patiently waiting to see what happens.

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Funniest Person Ever?

Posted on February 20, 2012 by literaryhero

There is this lady that I work with.  Well, I don’t actually work with her, but we are both employed by the same company, so we have a vague knowledge of each other’s existence.  Anyway, we are also both studying at the University of Nottingham, so do have occasion to cross paths in our coursework.

One of the times our paths crossed was in December when we were studying the same course in KL.  She was staying at a five star luxury hotel and I was staying at a 15$ a night dump (hellhole might be a more appropriate word) in Chinatown.  The thing is that she was staying at the hotel alone yet had paid for breakfast for two with the room reservation.  I’m not sure if I mentioned this before, but since she paid for two she kindly invited me to breakfast with her before our class.

Now, I’m not one to pass up free food of any kind, particularly a five star breakfast buffet, so I agreed.  While eating we were talking about life and I told her how Jisun was pregnant and shortly due (this was December, remember).  She was talking about her experiences being a single mom and somehow we got around to discussing the actual act of giving birth.  Not a great conversation to be having over breakfast, but she told me the most amazing thing I had ever heard.

She said that the human body creates the natural scent of baby powder just as the baby pops out.  She told me, and I quote, “As soon as the head comes out, you gotta get down there and take a big whiff, you will see what I mean.”  She also said, “You gotta be quick, get right up close as quick as you can.”  Of course I was incredulous, but she kept saying it was true, claiming that the scent of baby powder was the first natural odor that was synthesized in a lab.

For some reason she really sounded like she knew what she was talking about when she said that last part, so I almost believed her.  Fortunately for me, however, this is the internet age, and before doing anything rash I like to look stuff up.  A cursory googling told me that my colleague was, in fact, full of it, and that baby powder is not a natural scent at all.

Luckily I learned this before sticking my nose somewhere it didn’t belong.  The thing is that I haven’t had the opportunity to confront the lady about her outrageous claim, and to be honest I’m not even sure that I’m going to.  I mean there are two possible outcomes, either she is an idiot or she is the funniest person on the face of the earth.  I’m not sure I am prepared to deal with either outcome, so instead I will just leave myself wondering.

Posted in Baby, General | 3 Comments

What They Tell You and What They Don’t Tell You

Posted on February 8, 2012 by literaryhero

So there was recently a little addition to our family, a bundle of joy named Hannah.  When I say bundle of joy, what I mean is demonic sleep-thief.  To be honest it isn’t really that bad, but the fact that a baby immediately (and literally) poops on their parents’ schedule and shakes a tiny fist at circadian rhythms while crying out “You aren’t the boss of me!” is pretty unsettling.

The thing is there are a few choice pieces of information that the midwives at the hospital should be doling out to all new parents. The first thing that anyone said to me at the hospital after the baby was born was “Wow, she looks just like her daddy.”  The problem with this statement is that all babies look alike.  Now, before you start questioning me on this, answer one simple question.  If all babies didn’t look alike, then why were parents regularly taking the wrong child home from the hospital?  If babies don’t look the same, why does the hospital follow such strict rules in making sure that each newborn is properly labeled with the mom’s name?  It’s because all babies look the same.

Seriously, I don’t want to be bothered looking for proof right now, but I saw a huge ad at the local Giant, and the baby looked exactly like mine.  When I looked into the nursery at the hospital, if it weren’t for the name tags I wouldn’t have known which one was mine.  So, since we know that all babies look the same, why were all of the hospital employees so insistent that my baby looked just like me?  Is there some kind of conspiracy going on?  Do they know something I don’t?

Next, let’s talk about what they don’t tell you in the hospital.  They don’t really tell you anything about taking care of the baby.  I learned that breastfed newborns like to eat almost hourly and that formula fed newborns generally eat every three to four hours because I asked.  That’s important information to know, but the only reason I learned it was because I prompted them.  Why wouldn’t they break that kind of important information down for me straight off the bat?

I mean taking care of a newborn doesn’t exactly require genius, but since this is our first child wouldn’t it be nice to have someone come in and just give us a rundown?  Seriously, it would be so simple:

  1. There are four reasons why your baby will cry. Start at A and work your way down until the problem is resolved.
    1. Baby is hungry – Feed it!
    2. Baby has a dirty diaper – Change it!
    3. Baby is sick – Check for fever.
    4. Baby is angry – Good luck!
  2. Listen.  Lots and lots of people have raised babies in conditions much worse than yours.  Even though it seems like a daunting task, don’t sweat it.  If you’ve got formula (or boobs) and diapers you are prepared enough.
  3. Your baby is NOT going to die unless you do something ridiculously unwise.

There.  If someone at the hospital had just broken things down for me like that before we got discharged I probably would have felt a lot better about things.  Even a simple ‘Don’t Panic!’ would have been great advice.  Unfortunately they didn’t say anything like that.  All they did was give us the baby and say goodbye.  PHEW!

Posted in Uncategorized | 1 Comment

This is Not About Babies!

Posted on February 2, 2012 by literaryhero

Ok, well it isn’t directly about babies, but it is probably influenced by the birth of my little one.  I have been wracking my brain for other things to write about, but the baby topics just can’t stop cropping up.  Anyway, I promise this isn’t anything dramatic, so don’t stop reading here if you are sick of my emotional stuff.  No emotions here, I swear!

So here is the thing.  Now that I have a baby of my own, I am wondering when my fatherly superpowers will start to kick in.  I’m sure you all know the superpowers that I am taking about, they are legendary.  Off the top of my head I can think of two superpowers that my dad possessed and hopefully handed off to me.  The first is super hearing.

I don’t know exactly when it kicks in, but I do know that by the time I was about ten years old my father could hear everything I said, no matter how far away I might be.  My brothers and I would be talking about buying ninja stars at the creepy shop run by the old Chinese lady and he would hear me from three rooms away.  Or I would be talking to a friend about skipping school to play in the woods and he would somehow hear me even though I was at the bus stop and he was at home, two blocks away.  This superpower, though, doesn’t come without a cost.  Whatever super long range hearing he developed it was at the cost of his being able to hear regular speech that was directed at him.  For example, I would ask him for five dollars to go to the arcade with friends and he wouldn’t hear a thing.

The second superpower I hope to inherit was his power of super sight.  This one didn’t seem to kick in until later, but I can’t really be sure, exactly.  I do know that by the time I got my driver’s license he had eyes like a mutant owl.  I would borrow his car, and upon returning it, he would manage to spot a microscopic scratch from a hundred yards.  It is uncanny, really.  He could somehow see that there was a new scratch on the car, and would be immediately out in the driveway asking me what had happened.  The truth (almost) always was that I had no idea how the scratch got there, and I never thought it was important.  To him, though, it was important to notice every little detail and make note of it.  Again, this super power didn’t come without a trade-off.  While his eagle eye was as sharp as ever, his day to day vision was deteriorating.  At breakfast he would be attempting to read the newspaper by alternately holding it so close to his face that his nose would get black ink smudged on it, and holding it completely at arms length.  I’m not sure how that was supposed to help him read the paper, but that’s what he did.

In any event I can’t wait for my fatherly superpowers to come in.  I certainly won’t use these powers for anything so boring as keeping an eye on my daughter.  Instead I intend to have a thriving business as a private investigator, where my super hearing and super sight can be put to real use.

Posted in Baby, General | 1 Comment

An Apology of Sorts

Posted on January 31, 2012 by literaryhero

I don’t know how it works for women, really, but as for guys I’m sure that we have all reached the age where we realize that our fathers were pretty much right about everything.  Looking back, it is easy to forget all the good advice that Dad gave us, and honestly it makes life a bit easier. By forgetting about this stuff we don’t have to look back at all the dumb stuff we did growing up and all the times our fathers looked at us with those ‘I told you so’ eyes. However, I don’t think anyone can deny that their father gave them a large amount of good advice in their formative years.  I also don’t think anyone can say that they actually listened to him. I don’t know about you, but if I had listened to my dad more often growing up my life would have taken a very different trajectory.

I’m not saying it would be better or worse, and honestly that is a topic for another day, but it would have been very different.  Quite a bit less embarrassing, and probably a bit more fruitful, but that isn’t really important.  My dad, I’m sure, ignored his dad, who ignored his dad, and so on ad infinitum.  Luckily, between a father and a son no apology is really needed.  I’m pretty sure that he never expected me to listen to him, and by now he knows that I know he was right (which means that I know that he knows that I know he was right, and he probably also knows that).  Besides, between a father and a son there isn’t a need to talk about such uncomfortable matters.  Life goes on, everything is fine.

The thing is that I realized fairly early on that my dad new a lot more about the world than I do.  This is fairly common sense, but most guys don’t manage to pick up on it until their twenties.  However, I never really considered any of the stuff my mom told me.  My dad would give me practical advice along the lines of “Don’t pee on the front door of the police station, people are there twenty four hours a day waiting to arrest door pee-ers (peers? peeers?).” Incidentally, you were right, Dad, I really should have listened to you on that one.

On the other hand, Mom always wanted to talk about less concrete matters which weren’t immediately right or wrong.  And because of that, I never really had the occasion to think back to conversations with my mom and wonder if things could have gone differently. After having a baby, though, I do feel pretty bad about one particular thing. When I was young, my mom often wanted to talk to me about feelings or personal matters that I didn’t feel comfortable discussing with her.

She wasn’t invading my privacy by snooping or anything like that, in fact both my parents did a really good job of letting my brothers and I live our own lives.  My mom asking about my feelings and personal life was just her way of trying to have a conversation with her son, and I even knew that at the time. Honestly, though, I’m not sorry for refusing to answer her questions, because to a teenage boy talking with your mom about your feelings is probably the least likely thing in the world to happen.  However, when I would ignore my mother’s advances, she would always say that there didn’t need to be any discomfort between us and that I could tell her anything.  She would say, “I gave birth to you, Andy.”

For some reason that particular line would cause me to scoff and ignore her.  This is what I feel sorry about now, because I never really realized what she was saying.  The word choice is really important here, because she didn’t say something crass like “I wiped your ass for three years of your life.” Or something that would make me feel guilty like “Having you ruined any chance I might have had of performing on Broadway.”  No, she said that there could be no secrets between us because she had given birth to me.

While I am not in the position to actually give birth to anyone myself, when I was in the delivery room with Jisun for some reason that phrase came back to me and suddenly took on a whole new meaning of truth. “I gave birth to you, Andy.” So, I feel sorry because my mom was right.  There is nothing that could possibly be more intimate than the moment a woman is giving birth to her child.  Because of that, anything that a mother asks her child can’t be considered too personal or too private.  Compared to the act of giving birth, no other detail of your life could be considered off limits.

Yeah, Mom, I know that you stopped reading my blog years ago due to the fact that you couldn’t stomach my writing about all the wild stuff I was doing.  However, if you do happen to read this at some point, sorry for not being more understanding.  Now, now, I don’t think I would have answered the personal questions, but the least I could have done was refrain from scoffing when you mentioned giving birth to me.

Posted in Baby | 5 Comments