study to study

so my last paper was on tuesday, and i still don't have much to express despite having more free time. to fix that, i decided to skip through the news for some random blogging.

first up, an article which provides a pretty picture, and a tiny bit of Kriticism!



looks pretty good, yah? it's made out of paper, and it took the dude 4 years to construct! it took up so much space in his flat that he ended up sleeping under a table!

(dude's from japan, so go figure lah about the space)

so yeah, very nice. lets move on. i read this article on telegraph.co.uk. and the telegraph is a pretty reputable news organization, no?

i don't know. but throughout the entire article, they call this thing an origami model.

"Origami city: model crafted entirely from paper"

"An origami artist from Japan, Wataru Ito, has spent four years crafting an incredible model city from paper - but now plans to burn it down."

(oh ya, he plans to burn it down... which i think is really cool! 'cos he wants to film it, then reverse the film to see his model 'rise from the ashes'. neat! ok back to the origami quotes...)

"Origami castle on display at the exhibition in Umihotaru, near Tokyo, Japan"

actually, i think that'll be enough origami quotes for now. basically they refer to it as origami lah, right. PEOPLE AT THE TELEGRAPH UK, ORIGAMI = PAPER FOLDING.

yes, you need to fold the paper!

not stick the paper together "using craft glue, an art knife and holepuncher."

still amazing art, but get your facts right lah please. if a newspaper from the uk can't do it, habislah malaysia's future. just like what will happen to the boobs of someone who didn't get to use a sports bra in the deserts of wherever in that overrated movie of robots with teeth.

and they didn't just screw up the meaning of the word origami!

"Wataru, who lives in Tokyo but is originally from Saitama, Japan, started working on the castle while he was studying to become an art student."

if you're studying, aren't you already a student?

jeng jeng jeng

i'm still here...

My LURVE Affair with webcomics

i love reading. but a blog post about books would probably make you feel the way i felt when i read the back cover of angels & demons several years ago.

sooo this story about cardinals in conclave being pressed against time in selecting the new pope because of the presence of a bomb is supposed to be good?

yes, it was good. but back covers usually aren't able to provide an accurate indication. and i'm not in the business of furnishing spoilers.

so i will talk about a form of reading that i love just as much, which has consumed a lot of my time over the past few years.

my name is konrad senf, and i'm a webcomicholic.



and yes, there is actually a clear distinction between webcomics and traditional syndicated newspaper comics and dc or marvel comics.

the biggest difference here being that i believe that webcomics are much much better. this is because they have complete creative freedom, and are not tied down by commercial concerns.

but don't just take my word for it. allow me to present you with some examples. meet garfield, our 3-decade old obese and narcoleptic friend, who also happens to be the world's most syndicated comic strip. here are two original strips from the official garfield comic archives:


today's strip (08/072009)


random strip

nothing remarkable. this is what garfield has grown into over the years. in fact, the internet community (which includes some of the brilliant minds behind webcomics) shows us that garfield is now funnier when...

1) you randomize the panels from different strips:





2) when you mute garfield's dialogue:





3) and when you completely remove garfield from the strips, to explore the life of a lonely and depressed young man (aka garfield minus garfield):





but strip randomizers and garfield minus garfield are not the only contributions of the internet to the world of comics. there is wayyyyyy more to explore out there!

we've got former nasa contractors drawing stick figure comics about "romance, sarcasm, math, and language."






don't underestimate stick figure doodling

we've got collaborations between writers and photographers...


from a softer world

we've got people making a living out of only selling prints of comics and tshirts (uhhuh, he has no ads on his site!)...


click to read original strip here

we've got charming art, superhero spoofs, actual superhero comics, more superhero comics, supervillian corporations, beautiful and witty fantasy-based comics, d&d-based comics, >1500 strips of comics where the panels are always the same and only the text changes, left-handed comics by right-handed people, AND THE LIST GOES ON!

and that is why i'm never bored.

and while i'm busy never being bored, i'm also never hungry!


but i may be sad even after my hunger is satisfied

webcomics can keep me clicking for hoursss on end, and it's only natural to want something to munch on when you're in front of your laptop (whether or not it's a MacBook Pro) for extended periods of time. but to snack too much is unhealthy usually unhealthy. not anymore, with LURVE Multigrain Chips!

whoever came up with that idea is brilliant wei (healthier snacking, but with no sacrifice of flavour - seaweed, spicy and french onion to choose from!).

just like the people in webcomics. a lot of these guys really stand out. exceptionally bright minds creating original, unique and consistently enjoyable content (including great merchandise that i want want want! but that's for another post). i won't gush over all of the cartoonists that i admire, but i've mentioned ryan sohmer here before. and the dude just continues making the industry proud! one of his comics, least i could do (which he produces in collaboration with the incredible artist, lar desouza. their other comic is the fantasy one linked above), has been nominated for THREE harvey awards!

and this is not a webcomic award thing - these are awards for achievements in the comic book industry! meaning that sohmer and lar are in the company of nominees from DC and marvel here!

and they're only two out of so so so many many more great minds producing marvelous free content on the internet for you and me to discover.

just don't go hungry while you're at it =)

i'm here...

can't hear myself think

funny how while preparing for my finals, i had half a dozen or so ideas for posts lined up. but now that finals are over, i've got nothing.

so here's a tiny post while i allow my thoughts to settle, and hopefully i'll have something better tomorrow.

sooo while still on the topic of finals (disregarding for a moment that we had to read through 13 post-midterm chapters for this paper - not forgetting the pre-midterm chapters since she declared our finals cumulative. oh and did i mention that it's a short sem?)...

what really got to me as i was staring down (not at) my paper in the hall today was... that... i really don't appreciate having to question my lecturer's intelligence!

it makes questions harder to answer, people!

on top of the usual process of selecting answers that we think fit best, which is already hard enough as it is (no thanks to last min preparations), i have to crack my head wondering whether my lecturer is clever enough to give us tricky questions!

"hmmm. this one looks cunning..."

"but... i think my lecturer may not be smart enough to play with words this way!"

anyway what i'm saying is that chocolate is good!

or at least that's what i'm thinking right now. live testimony.

sooo goood.

i'm here...

[citation needed]

"Many clients do not know that sexual contact between counselor and client is unethical and illegal."

that's from my issues and ethics in the helping professions textbook, written by corey, corey and callanan.

does the statement make any sense to you?

ok. so it's a statement from a textbook. i'm sure they have their sources, right? after all, all facts in textbooks are backed up by proper citations and references.

only thing is... this ENTIRE subsection has only ONE citation. and that citation sure as toilet paper ('cos i have trouble believing in hell) isn't in the paragraph that makes this outrageous claim.

in other words, this is a statement put forth by corey, corey and callanan without any statistical or empirical evidence whatsoever.


somebody teach this man how to draw diagrams, use graphs, and summarize his points into tables, please

if the statement was true, it would be very worrying indeed. but are many of the people who seek therapy really like that? hello, we're not talking about bomohs or exorcists here! this is modern therapy, counseling in an office or centre. with informed consent and professional responsibility.

and you're saying that people who opt for that are not aware that it is wrong if the counselor knocks on their unconscious by tugging on their ding dongs?

i think the issue of sexual contact between counselors and clients is that the power differential between the counselor and the client gives the counselor a certain amount of control which could potentially be used to manipulate clients negatively, or possibly even to induce attraction of some sort. but this is mostly only among the distressed, the traumatized, the anxious, the depressed, the young, the impaired, the vulnerable, the weak... because "many modern day consumers" are actually "highly informed and seek therapy to enhance the quality of their lives, improve their loving relationships or find meaning in their lives. they are neither depressed nor traumatized nor vulnerable" (Zur, 2009).

meaning that these individuals are less subject to this supposed power differential. which means that not all clients are vulnerable to the sexual advances of frustrated middle-aged counselors who are experiencing personal distress and professional isolation (according to our dear authors).

"come sit on my lap. let daddy sort out your electra complex"

and you think clients really aren't able to tell that something fishy is going on? being afraid of lodging a report is not the same as not knowing that something is wrong!

i can understand rural folk being fooled by bomohs who take advantage of their naivety. but even there, i'm pretty sure that their radars of shame and dignity are firing off telling them that something doesn't feel quite right. so what more in a clinical or therapeutic setting.

right?

hmmm. here i am upset at the fact that corey is so long-winded, and this is the kind of response i produce in place of a simple, "i don't think that's quite right."

here, lemme try again.

"Many clients do not know that sexual contact between counselor and client is unethical and illegal."

yeah, right.

i'm still here...

soul triplets

according to facebook,



ooooo.

but what exactly is a soulmate?

according to google:

"Soulmate" is a pop song written and produced by Natasha Bedingfield, Mads Hauge and David Tench for Bedingfield's second album, N.B. (2007). The song is written in the key of E Minor and set in 4/4 time.

ok. apparently we can't rely on google's first result as the definition of choice. good thing you have me here to handpick the relevant definitions for you, yah?

Soulmate is a term sometimes used to designate someone with whom one has a feeling of deep and natural affinity, love, intimacy, sexuality, spirituality, and/or compatibility.

Someone with whom one has a special, almost spiritual connection

hmmm. ok. like lisa hannigan and i (she just doesn't know it yet la).



actually, that's not quite true. ok, maybe in my wildest dreams it is, but in reality, lisa hannigan is far from being my soulmate.

'cos i only have one soulmate right now, and that soulmate isn't lisa.

introducing, my soulmate...


aka zebwa / foxy / shazlin

no, we aren't having (and haven't had) a love affair of any sort. subject matter of jason mraz and colbie callait's crooning i am not.

shazlin is my soulmate simply because we seem to have this peculiar connection that triggers coincidences beyond the possibility of chance occurence.

like in this post, where...

ronny and me tapau-ed nasi briyani to eat in the common area of our block... just as we appeared in said common area carrying the pink plastic bags that every other stall uses, shazlin spotted us from across the place... and exlaimed, "nasi briyani!" (i might add that that was the first and only time i have eaten nasi briyani throughout my undergrad life at HELP)

but there are so so many many more examples that selecting any would be disservice to the others. msn always finds us saying similar things at the same time. msn must also be annoyed at how often she says something seemingly random which i then exclaim has actually been on my mind too, and vice versa. and that is unrelated to the similar views that we share on topics ranging from movies to music to relationships.

but that's just according to us. these special and amusing coincidences are merely our own observations, and reporting personal opinion is rarely the best method of convincing others.

well last week, ren was seated next to me in the car, with shazlin at the back, as i was slowly maneuvering my car through the shimmery sleepy quiet housing area streets of bukit damansara (or maybe it was just me who was sleepy with shimmery vision, as i had only 2 hours of sleep the night before), when ren said something about her frequent runs there, to which shazlin and i chimed the exact same words in the exact same intonation in response.

yeah, so you're probably not impressed after reading that. but imagine being ren, hearing the exact same sentence from behind and beside you. with the words echoing each other in the exact same rise and fall of voice pitch.

scripted movies don't do it any better than that.

but regardless, relationships are subjective experiences, so shazlin is my soulmate because she and i both say so. although i say it in seriousness here, while she probably says it with her tongue firmly pressed against her cheek.

ok, i know shazlin is an attractive girl, but you may take your mind off of the image of her tongue now, and return your focus to me.

for through my thorough research for the construction of this post (which involved one fb quiz of 5 questions and one google define search), i went straight to the source of one of the definitions of the term soulmate provided above, and found its expansion...

A related concept is that of the twin flame or twin soul – which is thought to be the ultimate soulmate, the one and only other half of one's soul, for which all souls are driven to find and join.

twin flame, you say?


image first pasted here

it is now the turn of my tongue to lodge itself in my cheek. and you may draw your own conclusions.

and hey, fb said that



so there's room for one more. one more to coax my tongue out from behind my cheek?

i'm still here...

jealousy

a crowbar in the hands of an intruder.

a wedge jammed between oneself and one's partner.

friction, splintering, chipping away.

an uncontrollable emotional burst. often irrational. sometimes understandable.

usually damaging. whether the partner decides to 'compromise' and adjust their behaviour to suit the other's level of comfort (possibly going against their own levels of comfort due to forced manipulation of values), or whether it creates constant suspicion and friction.

insecurity. fear. anxiety. anger.

it could be an outing with an ex.

a drink with a colleague.

a flower from a suitor.

or it could just be that there was this guy in the girl's very recent past whom she rejected purely based on the fact that he was together with her best friend before that. otherwise they'd be together.

and it could be that this guy is fully aware of this situation, and so feels that he deserves this girl more than you do. he's convinced that what she felt and still feels for him is more than what she feels for you.

it could be that he displays displeasure, expresses anger and frustration, talks about turning "love" (are you fucking kidding me?) into hate, tells the girl about his desire to stab a dagger through your chest. and i guess you get the gist here.

it could be that he continues to actively pursue her, despite her attempts to explain to him that she's with you now. despite him moving 200km away for his studies. despite him then getting a new girlfriend there. or was it two? was there also an attempted rekindling of that old flame? well lets pretend there was only one other.

it could be that through all of this, the girl still lets him take her out. still considers him her 'best friend' or 'bro'. still listens and entertains and shows appreciation for his gifts and tokens and occasionally attempts to make him understand that she's happy with you.

and as mentioned, all this while, he believes that he's the one she truly wants. all you are to him is this frustrating obstacle. he needs to get past you somehow, to 'show' her that she belongs with him. but at the same time, he's got that other girl 200km away from where you are? hey, a guy's got to satisfy his lust somehow, right?

right.

not to forget all the other guys vying for her attention. and the way she deals with this is by naming them her 'bros'. you think that this is the best bloody excuse in the world for them to get even closer to her. she doesn't seem to hear you.

then after the distance becomes too much to handle, one of these 'bros' occupies the space of physical closeness that you left vacant.

hey, you're the one who left it vacant. you were too weak to hold on, so you let go. so someone was there to catch her. tough luck.

but after some more time passes, she somehow slips out of his grasp too, and it is now your turn to wish for a dagger through that other guy's chest, because his wildest fucking dreams came true and she's now letting him in.

i'm still here...