During the weekends, I sometimes unconsciously look back on the week that’s just passed, and try to make an evaluation of how things went. It isn’t that I live by a strict regiment or that I measure myself by what Afiq calls a progress-o-meter, but I think as I grow older and my memory starts becoming less dependable, it’s best I start collecting little tidbits here and there so that I won’t forget to remember, and also to have some materials to go over when I’m old and grey (assuming I’d reach that age, insya Allah), to smile or laugh or cry over. There’s nothing wrong with a little sentimentality.
So what I do is I make a mental list of all the good and bad things, and see how they size up against each other. A mental list would naturally mean it would largely depend on the efficiency of my mental faculties, which you don’t need reminding, is not very efficient in the first place. What happens is everything tends to get jumbled up and sometimes even mesh incomprehensibly together, but I have a sensory instinct of where every memory belongs, under which category they fall under and the final outcome in the battle of the happy against the sad.
On all the weeks I’ve looked back on, I’ve tried my best to adopt a positive attitude. After all, Life is what you make of it and there is a difference between seeing things as they are, and seeing things as we are. For example, if you’ve had a week of both the good and bad, you have 2 choices.
One is to see it as a good week that’s been somewhat a little marred by a few bad things, which is like saying there’s been some rain on your parade, but you’ve had the parade anyway, despite the gloomy weather, so all is not lost.
The second is to see it as a bad week, sometimes punctuated by certain happy events, which is like saying you’re in the mood for a parade but you can’t have one because it’s raining. The gloomy weather here takes control over you.
I try my best to go with the first one, but there are weeks when you just don’t know how to look at things, or which outlook to adopt.
Take the week that’s just passed. I had the opportunity to experience good things, preceding bad things, in that pattern, one after the other. It was bewildering, and so very exhausting.
Monday started off on the wrong point - I was happiest on the gradient then. Shouldn’t Monday begin low so that the graph can climb as the week progresses? But no, I started the week on an absolute high. Who knew that so much fun only required 4 people, a table, a guy willing to cook his exquisite pasta for 3 girls, oreos, cupcakes and quotable quotes? I regret we didn’t take photos, not for the sake of putting them up on social networking websites or blogs, but to serve as keepsakes, and for me to file in my folders should I need to glance through them for happy thoughts. Anyway, right after meeting them, I had the worst of stomach cramps and was stuck in a nightmarish jam all the way home.
Tuesday, we had a meeting with a faculty member. Before we were called into his room, my partner and I were exchanging jokes and telling short anecdotes to pass the time. We were laughing a lot, quiet as it was, that even the secretary said “Suka gelak eh? Bagus lah tu” with a smile. And then we were invited into his room, where we had the most traumatising hammering session ever. If we could have someone take our photos before we went into his room and after we left, I think no one would’ve guessed we were the same people.
Wednesday, my group and I had to prepare for an interlocutory hearing for the following day. We decided to spend the night outside of campus, and work on our case at a McD joint, since we didn’t have anywhere to work on campus itself. It was a long night, but we had our fair share of laughs and jokes to get the job done with little pain. Liverpool scored against Real that night, which felt like a bonus, and I honestly thought we were going to be alright. I was confident, and in this case, it was overconfidence in myself.
Because on Thursday, Murphy’s Law kicked in with a vengeance. Everything that could go wrong, went wrong. Everything. We had problems with printing, I was locked out of my room, my handphone wasn’t working so I couldn’t contact my group mates, one of our court documents had suddenly lost half of its contents, my outline of submission was late and jumbled and wouldn’t print, and this was only before the hearing. I’d rather not say what happened during the hearing, because I might just cry. It was that bad. We were ill-prepared, that’s what it was. After the hearing, I felt so low I couldn’t even breathe. That was undoubtedly the lowest point of the week. In fact, I think the only point that’s lower than our hearing was my CP final exam, which killed my spirit for 3 days straight. The worst of it all is that I know we could’ve kicked butt, had we had the time to fully prepare. I felt humiliated and ashamed of myself after we were done.
Later that night, I had a Graduation Dinner to attend with my roommate and friends. And so the graph went up again, and I momentarily forgot about what happened earlier, because it was hard to not smile when you’re in the company of lively people. I smiled at cameras, poked friends and had a good time, but I guess the strain of the day was too much, and I promptly fell asleep after I got back to my room.
Friday was the in-between day, since nothing monumentally good or bad happened. I got to have lunch out with Abby, Yani and Kak Ateq, which was nice, got stuck at the Smart Tag lane which was embarrassing, and managed to give Teck Fann a little token before she flew off for Korea which felt good.
So given the circumstances, I don’t know what to make of this week. It had both ends of the extreme. So what do I do, keep the good, forget the bad? It’s difficult when every good memory has that tinge of something bad happening after it, and no matter what, I can’t separate them. They’re like conjoined twins, one cannot be without the other.
I hope I don’t sound overanalytical, but see this is one of the reasons why Life isn’t always black and white - sometimes it comes in shades of grey too.
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Despite this rollercoaster week, two things stuck with me. Firstly, help can come from people you least expect. When I was fretting over my stupid Nokia (Zionist) phone that wasn’t working, a friend took out her second handphone, removed her SIM card and pushed her phone into my hands without so much as a word. I was so surprised, so moved, so touched that despite the stress of Thursday, I smiled. I love it how kindness makes people glow in your eyes.
Secondly is that I’ve discovered the best form of pick-me-up cheer uppers for yours truly would be things that arrive in the mail. I finally got the book I ordered from the US, which my brother so generously bought for me. I’ve been hunting for this book in all the KL bookstores to no avail, and now I have finally have it. Come to think of it, despite everything that’s happened, I guess it doesn’t matter much whether this week was good or bad, when I have this to be thrilled about:
I love. things. by post.
Thanks Lutfi.
Enough said here.
