Moments of Sleep Deprivation 6/21/2006 11:21:00 AM

God, I’m sleepy. It’s been like this for the last four days, thanks to the World Cup. Okay, it’s all my fault. After all, I was the one who decided to stay up all night and watch the 2 am game anyway (it’s GMT + 7 hours, here in my country). Being sleep deprived is not lovely, I’ll tell you! Feeling sleepy all day long, having your brain too lazy to think about anything…. Doesn’t mean that I’ll stop watching the game, though. I just need some compensation (in other words, more time to sleep). That's all.

It's not the only time football match makes me sleep deprived. Some of those moments of sleep deprivation really worth it, though. Like the time Manchester United won the Champions League in 1999 (I know, that was ages ago; but I can never stop talking about it ^_^). I ended up yawning all day at school, but heck, who cares when I got lovely images of the players holding and kissing (eww....) the cup.

Anyway, there are other not-so-interesting ways to get sleep deprived than watching football matches. School stuff, for example. There were times when I hadn't finished reviewing materials for exams, which meant extra work the night prior to the exam. Or the times when I got Lab Report to hand out the next day, while I hadn't worked on a single thing about it until the day before the due date. I know, I'm not exactly the paragon of student's dedication.

Nevertheless, the worst two weeks full of sleep deprivation happened four years ago. At that time, I was attending the initiation to become a member of a student's organization. Overall, it's a very useful program. The main objective was to prepare freshmen to enter varsity life. It gave you a more insight look at the world of Medicine (FYI, I'm studying Pharmacy at college), it gave you the opportunity to develop your potential, etc. But the method was quite horrendous. In order to make it easier for us to receive whatever doctrines or ideas transferred by our senior, we were made to be exhausted, mentally and physically. We were required to be prepared at seven in the morning each day, and were not dismissed until, at least, midnight. With that kind of condition, there's not much time left to rest. The result was: extreme tiredness (and sleep deprivation) and (nearly) total submission. The latter was, of course, the thing expected by our dear old senior. What a pity! Honestly, I'm sure most of them didn't realize that they're applying brain-washing methods to us.

I apologize if I have bored you. Sleep deprivation makes me too lazy to think about anything else. I'll write something that has more quality in it, next time. Promise!

Lost in Translation 6/13/2006 07:49:00 AM

Lost in translation. I heard the term for the first time from the movie directed by Sofia Coppola (I hope I spell her name right). I fell in love with the term right away because I find it very applicable.

Speaking of which, what does “lost in translation” actually mean? Regardless of the broad use of it in connotative sense, knowing the real meaning is a necessity (because we wouldn’t want to use it out of context, would we?). Therefore, I would use some sort of illustration in an attempt to explain the literal meaning of “lost in translation”, before delving on the “lost in translation” state.

As you all know, language is the verbal representation of culture. Since culture is a set of ideas that gives pattern to human behavior, you would expect language to represent those ideas as well. You could tell what is important and what’s not in a certain culture when you look at the words, terms, and expressions in its language (the language which is used in that particular cultural group). One example is the availability of a specific term that refers to seniority in a family. The term is available in Eastern languages, while Western languages are lacking it. Japanese, for example, has the term onii-san and onee-san that refer to older brother and sister, respectively. Interestingly, there’s also similar term in other Eastern languages (Indonesia, Malay, Mandarin, Korean, etc). On the other hand, there’s no such term in English (and other Western languages, as far as I know). It needs additional word to explain relative position in a family (big brother, older sister, etc). It implies that even though seniority is not an important issue in Western culture, seniority does matter in Eastern culture.

Because different languages represent different basic ideas, it’s not always easy to transfer ideas from one language to another. Translation is undoubtedly, a difficult task to perform. So, there’s always the chance that you’re not transferring the whole ideas as intended in its real language when you’re translating it to another language. Some points are, inevitably, lost in translation.

In a more general notion, “lost in translation” is used to point up any failure to communicate due to differences in principles. The movie, for example (which I haven’t managed to watch; feel free to point out any mistakes that I might’ve made concerning the movie). Regardless of its setting (Tokyo), it’s not the gap between American and Japanese that became the main theme of the movie. Instead, it’s the feeling of alienation that became central. The main character(s) of the movie felt that way because they had different things in mind, compared to their surroundings (in the case of Scarlett Johanssen’s character, it’s her own husband that she failed to connect with).

Why does “lost in translation” suddenly catch my attention? Well, that’s because I myself feel very much that way these days. It doesn’t make me feel alienated though, at least not in the physical sense. When I’m around my friends, I’m still able to talk about many things with them, connecting myself to them. Nevertheless, my view has changed dramatically in the past two years and I realize; it makes me different in thoughts from most of my friends (and most people, for that matter). The path they’re going to choose after finishing school, their main concern, the way they see things---they’re all substantially different from mine.

I understand perfectly why they see things the way they do, because I was no different from them, until recently. But once I started to think differently from them, it’s like talking with a different language. Most people just don’t get my point. As long as they use their own perspective to interpret my choices, some things will always be lost in translation.

Of course, I couldn’t force people to see things my way, could I? I’ll just have to explain my side of the story as best as possible. If that still doesn’t work, let it be. After all, being true to yourself and having your thoughts lost in translation is better than doing what people told you to do and being lost in the waves of the crowded world.

The Steward and the Witch 6/12/2006 09:28:00 AM

WARNING! The following piece contains unsubstantial rambling. Read it and you’re at your own risk. Don’t go around and flame me for writing such a lame piece (I know that already, thank you very much).

Have you ever heard of word-association? You know, the game where someone says a certain word and then the others are expected to response it by saying the first word that come up in their mind after hearing that particular word (when someone said “Fire,” I would say the first word that came up to me: “Hot”, and so on). We have to response every word as quickly as possible and that makes it hard for us to think about the answer, which is why the game is said to be useful in revealing one’s hidden thoughts. For example, there’s a chance that one would say the name of his/her secret crush when the word “Love” is spurt out.

Besides its sharpness, human mind also works in mysterious ways. It could hide the unwanted thoughts beneath the surface, yet still give them room to manifest themselves. One impulse could trigger a chain reaction inside the mind; one thing reminds us on another, and another, and another. Speaking about sub-consciousness and chain reaction inside the mind, strange occurrences happened to me recently.

As you probably know, the FIFA World Cup causes such a fuss all over the world. Even in my country, which didn’t qualify because we obviously wasn’t good enough (it’s hard to believe that my country was actually the first Asian country that participated in the World Cup), the World Cup was greeted with full enthusiasm. Responsive to this condition, the country’s leading newspaper even has a special World Cup section.

Last Saturday, the World Cup section put the pictures of twenty-three Argentina players plus their coach on its front page. Naturally, I looked for Gabriel Heinze amongst them because Heinze plays (very impressively) for Manchester United and I support United. Of course, his picture was there and the first thing that crossed my mind was this: “If Faramir of Gondor had existed, he would have looked exactly like Heinze”. See how my mind made the association there?

But that wasn’t the end of the story. You see, Faramir has always been my favorite character in Lord of the Rings. His character was the archetype of the perfect gentleman: strong, smart, perceptive, courageous, tall, handsome.... I startled at that notion. “Did I just think that Faramir was handsome?” my mind said. “That means, at the same time I was implying that Gabriel Heinze was handsome as well. Oh My God!” I analyzed.

You must forgive me for being extremely shocked at that notion. The only (and last) time I ever considered a United player good-looking was when I saw a pure and innocent twenty year old boy named David Beckham (^_~). By the time I started appreciating United for their performance as a team (and Becks started to do all the weird stuff with his hair), Becks wasn’t looked that cute anymore.

Unfortunately, it wasn’t the only weird thought that was triggered by football-related stuff. Another one crossed my mind yesterday when I was watching Trinidad & Tobago played against Sweden. Even though I supported Trinidad & Tobago, because I love underdogs, I didn’t really expect them to be able to do much against Sweden. After all, Sweden is the better team amongst the two. On paper, at least. On the second half however, with Trinidad & Tobago ended up with only ten men, Sweden still couldn’t manage to score any goal. For a brief second, something very weird and unthinkable crossed my mind: “I wonder if the Trinidad team had some sort of witch to back them up. Considering that they’re Caribbean, they must’ve had a strong root...,” and at that, I stopped.

I’ve always considered myself a rational person. Mind you, if I had said about it in front of someone on an attempt to joke, it’s understandable. But I was alone at the moment and the possibility of supernatural intervention was something that I thought seriously. It’s obvious that Sweden owed their failure to their hasty approach in front of the goal, T & T’s back four’s good performance, and Shaka Hislop’s composure to secure his goal. So, what on earth made me think about something really ridiculous like witchcraft?

The incidents revealed two hidden thoughts in my mind. One, despite my appreciation of one’s ability, I still judge someone by his looks (especially if that particular someone happens to be good-looking). Two, apparently I’m not as rational as I thought I was. Damn!

The Muse 6/02/2006 08:10:00 AM

“Where you did get the idea?”. That question seems to pop up every time an interview with famous writers, musicians, or whatever, is held. I may not be a writer (to self-proclaim myself as one would be an overstatement), but as a person who enjoys occasional writing, I know that ideas can be found literally anywhere and anytime. So, it can be rather difficult to find the precise answer to that question.

I never really have problems with finding ideas. There are a lot of things to write about; you can never run out of stock. The only problem is, of course, how to put the ideas into paper. Most of the times, I know exactly how to begin and end an essay or story (although I never write any of my stories; I just keep them in my head). The difficulty always lies in the process of getting the essay (or story) from its’ beginning to its’ end.

Apparently, it’s a classic writer’s problem. I came into various lines from writers, stating that they know how a certain story would end but they’re still thinking how they would bring it to an end. In the case of essay writing, making sure that I’ve mentioned all the important things (without blabbing too much ;>) in order to show my point to the reader is the biggest challenge.

Whenever I came to a deadlock, the solution was quite simple. I would try to find books or any other sources related to the topic which I was trying to write about. Another approach was leaving the subject temporarily and starting on another one (like I said, there are always lots of things to contemplate about). Nevertheless, the most practiced approach in encountering a deadlock, in my case, would be: sit back, relax, and forget the whole idea. That is, until I had some spare time, like when I was on my way to school, when I was on a queue in a cinema, when I was impatiently waiting for a friend, etc. Mind you, the best inspiration often came in the most unexpected time. Ah, the beauty of divine intervention!

By the way, I think writing an essay is far easier than writing a fictional story. It takes a whole lot of imagination, as well as logic, to write such things. Fictional stories need the perfect combination of both things, imagination and logic, which is quite difficult to formulate. For me, it’s either logic with the lack of imagination or wild imagination that doesn’t make sense at all (“sigh”). So, I understand how hard it must be to write fictional stories and for that, I greatly admire them, fiction writers.

Well, I just hope that Ms. Rowling doesn’t have trouble finding her muse so that she’ll be able to finish the 7^th Harry Potter book as soon as possible. Cheers!