RACONTEUR-ESQUE SCRIBBLINGS

Over my sandwich and a steaming mug of coffee during my lunch break, I often unwind by reading science articles and blogs on Discover Magazine. There, I've openly admitted my pseudo-geek and nerd-like tendencies on this blog for all to see.  A few weeks ago, there was an uproar among the scienctific community that had nothing to do with the Higgs Boson. Everyone was talking about a certain promotional video that was released by the EU to encourage young women to get involved in science. Turns out, the scientific community found the video extremely distasteful that I had to watch it for myself. Here it is, below. To be honest, if I was a young girl on the brink of deciding between arts or science as my future career, I don't think this video would sway my final decision towards science. I thought it was shallow on the whole, like a comment a lab assistant once gave me a long time ago when I first started working. I have long nails most of the time, but it's not bec...

First of all, they are confusing, because they are probably a confused lot themselves. And due to their tendency to be confusing, they end up causing a whole lot of confusion! Juvenile as it seems, and unlikely as it is to have a thirty-something lamenting about something like this, here I am. P.S: Nope, this is not one of those girls vs boys posts, I just had the need to let this out due to some personal reasons and I had nowhere else to put it. PPS: Title of the post modified from the lyrics to the song "I don't like Mondays" by Boomtown Rats.

You call a hot but dumb girl a bimbo, but what would you call a girl who is not hot but equally dumb? I had an encounter with one of those types yesterday... I don't mind her being not hot, but it was the dumb that I couldn't stand. It all began on Monday morning, starting with an e-mail from my boss regarding a certain problem I was supposed to investigate. With Sherlock Holmes-esque enthusiasm and reasoning (Elementary, my dear Watson), I dove into it, hoping to get some leads before I was imprisoned against my will from 10:00 am till Tuesday afternoon. For that, I had to communicate with a certain person, the person who initiated the chain of e-mails to be exact. To my dismay, I didn't get an immediate response on the office instant messenger. So I went looking for the evidence myself, with hopes of finding some information so that I could proceed with the necessary tests, but the information wasn't where it was supposed to be. Someone must have taken it away. ...

We're slowly making our way to the end of August, and in less than a week, the nation once again celebrates Independence Day for the 53rd time. As usual, I was listening to the radio on the way to work this morning, and to mark the celebrations, they had a new special segment interviewing powerful and influential women of Malaysia (or Malaya) from the days gone by - mostly from the time right after independence. Today, they interviewed the very first woman ambassador. Now, I've always heard this particular radio dj interview people in the mornings, and I'd say she prepares herself quite well, in the sense that she doesn't ask stupid questions, and is able to handle any topics they're discussing about either if it's regarding business, politics or any other current issue. I do find her voice a wee bit annoying, though... just a wee bit. The person interviewed this morning (to be known as PIM hereafter), however, was a totally different kettle of fish. I suppo...

If there is one thing that annoys me, it's the fact that some people just cannot seem to grasp the idea of privacy. Why don't they understand, if someone doesn't tell you something, then it means they don't want to tell you. Perhaps for obvious reasons. For some unknown reason, people seem to look at me as their secret keeper. They kind of pull me aside and say something and then add "it's a secret, you know". And I nod and acknowledge the fact. That makes me feel like Post Secret at times, but I don't mind. No doubt I have been able to keep people's secrets for years without it being leaked out at all. Ask my sister, she knows. Anyway, as I mentioned in a earlier post, my direct boss had sent in her resignation and it's official at the moment. Everyone knows she's leaving, but the reasons behind her departure and future plans are perhaps known to only a select handful, perhaps those of us who were particularly close to her. The day s...

As the world sits back and watches life go by (and the news on tv every evening), some very real people are fearing for their lives, living amidst bombings and gunfires as they fight to keep the land each group thinks is likely theirs. Ever since I became aware of what was happening in the news (around the age of 8), nightmarish tales of the fight that is ongoing in the Gaza strip has always been there, from the time Yasser Arafat and his missions to negotiate peace right until his death, and up till now. And with all the nations surrounding it, some strong, some weak, taking sides with perhaps the group they think ought to live there, or based on ideology and political interests, it is a wonder that the conflict has never ended even after all this while. I can't help wondering why, and yet I can't seem to think of any reason, or how anyone can make things better. This is probably one situation where the phrase 'make peace and not war' will fall on deaf ears. In lig...

Competition is tough, and things like quality time away from work are almost non-existent. In fact, you'd find people staring at their computers late into the night just to get that nasty report to sound nice so that no one throws a rotten egg at them the next day. Ok, maybe I'm exaggerating a bit. Anyway, this story was shared by one of my colleagues the other day when we were waiting for a meeting to begin (somewhere in the late evening) In December 2006, this guy's son was born. Having worked till about 7 he rushes off to the hospital to see his wife and new baby. Excited and (most probably) distraught at the time, he had asked the nurse which tank his wife was in instead of which ward/bed. (We work in a paint manufacturing company, and our products are made in tanks, so whenever we are asked to investigate problems the first question asked is always 'which tank'?) And I may also add that the reason why I'm blogging about such a lame story (it was funn...