Ludicrous

Do you know how apathetic or insensitive alot of people in Asia are to "accidental deaths"?

I was 16. Out of a homeroom of 40 students, there were only 9 girls. Naturally, we girls formed quite a bond and got very protective of each other although we may not know one as well as the other. The school had around 10 or so homerooms per grade. There were only 5 grades. Basically, it's a damn small school.

One day there was news spreading around that a girl from one of the lower grade passed away. Accidentally fell off her high rise apartment building. But not from her home apartment, rather, just outside her unit somewhere along the open-air corridor. For that to happen, she had to on-purposely climb over the solid smooth concrete safety barrier which was to the height of my neck and had no stepping-stone design whatsoever as my eyes had observed. That's one hell of a determined climb, if not probably made easier by a conscious act of physically moving something there to prop oneself up and over the barrier. And the barrier was not designed to be sat on while enjoying the glorious horizon - unless you have a death wish. It had a long horizontal metal rod on it which would make it very uncomfortable and more importantly, unstable, to sit on.

She was the younger sister of one of us 9 girls. My classmate's childhood friend was a close guy friend of mine. In fact, both girls were his childhood friends. He was there with the family all throughout the crisis and the media circus that followed after. The whole damn world including him claimed it was accidental, ludicrously trying to explain the mechanics of how it happened. Obviously I wasn't there, it wasn't decent to challenge grief stricken people and the family did not need to deal with the added burden/stigma especially since it would be blown up as the media was involved. So I respected what I was told/heard and told my inner Sherlock Holmes to let it go.

Few days later we had a physics class and the teacher was ill so we had the Substitute. She was a middle-aged lady who I can tell have no malice in her heart whatsoever. Eager to be liked and is the definition of "not jaded at all". Half way through teaching about mass, acceleration and force, we took a break and she decided it was a good time to ask the class if we knew about "the girl in the news".

Silence. You could hear the eyeballs looking at each other and then at this female classmate.

No one said a word. Lady then wondered out aloud if we knew which homeroom the girl was in or what her name was or if we knew anyone who knew the girl. Erm. Wow. The lady, ever so clueless, thought that we as kids probably were not as informed because we ain't the news watching kind of demographic so she decided to dish out the 'details' of this case to us and comment on the matter with her media molded opinion. In her defense, the media had never mentioned that 'the girl' had a sister in the same damn school. Her ramblings started to become a little judgmental and presumptuous and a mutual friend (we're still friends for a reason and you know who you are) decided it's enough by requesting to return to the physics. Lady was so perplexed by our unwillingness to listen to this juicy gossip and unexpected desire for physics. She started a few attempts for our interest and maybe engagement in the topic but my friend would just simply reply on behalf of the class, "Yeah, ok, you're right. Interesting. Now let's go back to the work" every single time.

Lady finally realized that something is up and is about to get back into the physics...or so we thought. She looked at the the drawing she drew on the board to illustrate how mass, acceleration and force worked and decided that using 'the girl from the news' would make understanding the concept easier. I kid you not - she literally joked about how if the girl was XX mass and gravity/acceleration/whathefuckever was XX, we could calculate the force.

Now, is this just being apathetic or insensitive? Does it mean that if we did not know the person, or people related to the person, it makes it ok to for us to belittle what happened? So what if we didn't know the person or didn't really know if it was an accidental death? What happened to common human decency, empathy and basic respect for the dead? How did we as a people, as a society become like...this? And don't you dare brush her off as an anomaly. Because convincing yourself that there isn't a problem isn't going to make the problem go away. It would just make it as ludicrous as failing to recognize the epidemic that is happening to our society/people by calling it/them "accidental deaths".

It ain't a small world after all

When people say "I'm going to go find myself" they usually don't take a year off to do that. But that's what I did. And yes, this year of Sabbatical technically wasn't supposed to be but it just...became.

I've tried so many different hats, worn different identities. I guess the dress always looks different in your mind than when you are actually in it. Haven't found the perfect fit yet but at least now I have some ideas. Some things can be improved on and some things need to go. The practical part of me is pissed that I spent so much time with nothing to show for but the spiritual side begs, no, politely demands to differ.

Not really sure who I am...but sure as hell know who I'm not. It's not much but I think it might just be enough, for now.

If it's time for me to move on and try this new version of the dress somewhere else, so be it. It ain't a small world after all.

I get by with a little help from my friend

Let not this anger infect my heart,
let not this fear consume my soul.
Dear Lord, Father in Heaven,
I turn to thee,
down on my knees.
I yield to your wisdom
for you are God Almighty.
But if You see it fit,
please be gentle with me?