From www.quilted-lizard.com

Interview went well, or so I hope. I'm now wondering why on earth I was so afraid and nervous before it. Seriously, had my sphincters been weaker, I might have actually pee-ed on myself. Yes, I was that afraid. After all those bad experiences, worry and what-not last year doing those interviews, I was left with a deep-seated fear... from which I have finally escaped! Turns out five minutes isn't so hard to fill as I had thought. A fact which I think I'm still... subconciously celebrating, for I'm oddly filled with a sense of acheivement every time I think of my tape. Not that I never made it to five minutes before, but it's a five minutes interview that I didn't really prepare for as well as I had last year... Time to stop blowing my trumpet I think. Though after doing my transcription (a very painful hour I tell you! I'm thoroughly sick of hearing my own (and the actor patient's) recorded voice *grimace*), I wondered if I should have been exploring less his worries and asked a bit more about what he actually did and so on. I kept running FIFE through my head and in between, used silence to hopefully make the patient say more... it took quite some time before he actually opened up. And I wonder if my face actually looked like it was showing empathy... seemed to me that I was rather cold and emotionless. *shrug*

I wonder if there's a point living if there's no quality of life. I guess my SI tutor last year was right. Last year, our SI's were meant to be ones with happy endings. At that time I questioned it. But then now that I've done one or two I've come to realise that I should expect to feel a bit depressed at the end of the tutes. It's not that they are really bad endings, but the most recent one where to me her suffering was just drawn out for a period than was necessary reminded me about some stuff I read for my death, dying and post-mortem practices - what constitutes bad deaths and good deaths. A bad death where the 'event' is drawn out and painful, where one has no say in what happens and where one is just not prepared for it and so on, which kind of suits my personal definition. But then again, I guess what sort of death one has depends on what sort of idea one has about dying, rather than having a set definition based on the norms of the period we are in. So, while I might be sad that so and so died with a painful sort of crippling disease, she probably didn't think so. But that still doesn't make it any less depressing somehow.

Watched, for the first time in my life, tortoise porn and other bits of animal porn. *wince* How do I describe the experience? Disturbing. I guess youtube.com had a damn good reason why it was labelled R18. It's totally skewed, polluted, destroyed... the innocent image of tortoises in my mind. In my kiddie's mind, tortoises don't have sex organs. Tortoises don't get horny and chase tortoises of the opposite sex. In short, tortoises don't perform coitus!! And animals don't masturbate. Animals don't try and rape humans or the floor or the farm truck or smell their paws after touching themselves and other what-nots... T_T... and interspecies mating is just... just... disturbing. Cat and dogs? What the heck is gonna come out of that? Mutant alert! Mutant alert! Just as well such things don't produce anything... *double wince*

I'm pleased (*drips sarcasm*) to note as well that times haven't changed much. For all I know, we might still as well be stuck in the dark ages, for all our tendencies to hate and love of war-mongering. What's happened to love and good-will amongst people? What's the point of wishing people all manner of good blessings only at church/ mosques/ temples when afterwards some go out and continue being biased or disliking people with skin of different colours? What's the point of having religion when one is still stuck in the pool of dislike for differences? I'm not sure about you, my dear reader, but this only serves to strengthen my dislike for organised religion where control is always the main issue rather than to promote what I think should be the actual message, it only serves to deepen my beliefs that I should stear clear and keep my freedom... I shan't say perhaps that I should hope that the world will wake up one day and be rid of organised religion, but perhaps I should change my ideals to one less radical, that one day perhaps people can overlook differences. But then after my 20 plus years of living, knowing that skin colour has always been an issue, knowing that there can be such things as tick your religion in boxes, knowing that there can be biases based on what sort of jobs you have, what sort of people you know... that's an impossibility. Whatever, but meanwhile I shall keep myself clear from hypocrisy as much as possible and my freedom. May everyone else keep theirs. Perhaps we should remember that people died just so that peace and love may prevail.

On the same note, sometimes I wonder about the wisdom about the advice that are given occasionally to others on gf forums. Maybe one doesn't have to go as far as interspecies, but sometimes I do wonder how well I will fare with differences myself. I remind myself that differences are what makes things unmonotonous, but then again, differences can be likened to bumps that can produce friction. But then again, like someone pointed out, closing my eyes to the differences in one person, but not to another, can one live with oneself like that? I think probably yes, until we realise what we have had been doing all along.

I'm facing the reality of parting again once again in my life come end of this year. The probability of my whole group being together still has been long gone, which is just something that I had chosen to ignore as a fact until I had voiced it out loud to myself sometime ago. That inner self is starting to scream out 'what to do now?' again. I don't just want family around. I want the friends that I've gotten familiar with too. One don't just part with precious jewels frivolously! Even though promises are made here and there, it's just hard to remain positive at times that the possibility that we might become strangers unto each other might not become reality. This thought has been popping up again now and then in my mind since then and is so very hard to quieten. I wonder.

Now that I've found out that the exchange rate is a whopping 2.8, I'm wondering if I should make my 'pilgrimage' to meca07. It looks so interesting. Add in the fact that it's in Dud this year, which is a plus. Should I? Can I? May I? I'm afraid that I shouldn't delay my decision for too long but I can't quite make up my mind. Add in the fact that my rent is going through this weekend and the thought of fishing out the money for the event just seems somewhat unpalatable. How now? How?

I wonder if I should commit time as well to spca. I'm not sure where the centre is but if I have to go there do volunteer, I sure hope it isn't too far. I'm not sure if I'm big-hearted enough to walk long distances just to be useful. But I think, now with HX essentially defunct, I need something to distract me from med school as well. I can't stick myself in front of the oven or stove for long for knowing me, it's probably going to hit it's off-peak season soon now. Fingers crossed.