Reading as Refuge

I did not plan to write this but Kenny’s piece and this article have converged with my own thoughts, and now they overflow.

What gets me there each day passing each day doesn’t change though, no. Words. They kept me sane and they’ll save you too.

Words. Just words.

Kenny Mah, A Deconstruction of Daisies

Over the past few months, I’ve looked forward more and more to quiet times with good coffee and a good book. There is relief from the cruelty and malignancy of the world found in the pages of the books, in the words crafted by other people, and the worlds conjured by them. Through the rows and rows of black type, meaning seeps back into life, bringing with it reminders of beauty and worth and goodness.

It is no surprise that I should turn to reading for refuge. As an only child, books were my constant companions. I did not mind being by myself (contrary to the belief of those around me that only children must crave the company of other kids) as long as the space I was in included books. Growing up, and finding unexpected - and fragile – pleasure in friendships, books became sources of inspiration, ambition and adventure. Growing older, books frequently restore my faith in humanity.

Billy Thompson, in his essay “Soulbroken“, claims books to represent still unopened doors and windows that real life may have shut forever:

Growing up is eliminating possibilities. Who I am is as much what I am not and what I will not be. That’s not meant to be a dour take on things; growing up, I mean really growing up, acting the part and filling the role, is an accomplishment, its own reward. But with it comes mortgage payments and home repairs and a car note with car repairs and insurance and gas and not-yet-born-but-planned-for children and their braces, tuition, etc., and so on. I was going to live in a one-stoplight town and then in New York City and on an island where I would lead snorkeling trips. I was going to live in a western city and a foreign one; and I’ve always wondered what it’d be like to live in Tornado Alley. I was going to join a band and the NBA and go teach English to kids in the Far West. I was going to drink more and drink less. I was going to be an actor. I was going to do nothing but do it somewhere else where it’d be something. Etc., and so on. As it is, I am a technical writer, by which those aforementioned bills, with the help of my wife’s salary, are paid. So, a technical writer I’ll remain. Because once amongst your responsibilities, there is no going back to being tether-free. You can always start again, as it were, but you can never really start over.

That’s what creates the void books fill. In them all possibilities still exist and I can live with them and in them.

Me, I find comfort in words – some more than others. The world may be at war around me and deliberate malice may abound, but as long as I can still find pleasure in the beautifully crafted phrase and humour in elegant plays of words against one another, living can still, somehow, go on.

Filed under: Books, Personal Note , Books, reading, words, Writing

Selamat Awal Muharram

It’s the last day of 1429Hijrah today, with sunset marking the start of the first day in the new year in the Islamic calendar, 1,430 years approximately after The Prophet’s and his followers’ migration (the hijrah) from the increasingly hostile city of Mecca to the more welcoming Medina.

This year, the new Islamic year coincides with the Gregorian New Year (2009), with Chinese New Year barely a month after. So it seems like a good time for fresh starts and new beginnings, for wiping slates clean, bringing closures to festering issues, discarding negatives and bringing forward only the good and beautiful.

New Year’s Day is every man’s birthday. 
Charles Lamb, an English essayist who lived in the 18th century and died in the 19th, and so could be forgiven for using the masculine to mean men and women
(Quote lifted from quotegarden.com)

Unfortunately, this new year is marred by violent attacks by Israel on the hapless Palestinians, on the heels of an inhumane siege. Hundreds of Palestinians will not be able to greet the New Year with their families while scores of others will be spending the new year in overcrowded hospitals where medical supplies are never enough. The reports from the newswires claim most of the dead and wounded are uniformed security officers of Hamas, but that’s impossible to believe, given that a hundred tonnes of bombs were dropped.

It’s a cruel end to 1429H/2008 and a ruthless start to 1430H/2009. Given that the international community did nothing to end the siege and have done nothing these past years, I don’t expect much but verbal protests. I shouldn’t be too surprised, after what I’ve observed in 2008, at unfortunately closer range. A lot of seemingly decent people perversely enjoy, or are indifferent to, other people’s sufferings (see Roman Holiday).

Let’s see how the New Hope of America (and the World, Mr. Obama, the World), Barack Obama, will deal with the latest development in Gaza.

An optimist stays up until midnight to see the new year in.  A pessimist stays up to make sure the old year leaves. 
Bill Vaughan, American columnist (lifted from quotegarden, again)

The Muslims greet the end of one year with a prayer and welcome the new year with another prayer. The prayer for the end of the year seeks forgiveness and blessings for actions and deeds of the past, while the prayer for the new year seeks protection from all that is bad in the next twelve months.

That seems to be a good way to say Adios to the old and to seek help for what is coming.

So, Salam Maal Hijrah to all Muslims, and a Good New Year to all. 

God bless, to all the good people I know are still out there.

Cheers to a new year and another chance for us to get it right.
Oprah Winfrey (ibid)

Filed under: Collectibles, Islam, Newsprint, Personal Note, World , doa, Islam, muharram, new year, palestine, World

An Unexpectedly Painless Process (Changing Schools)

We have moved so the kids need to be transferred to a new school for 2009.

Given our work commitments, neither Hubs nor I could take time off earlier to see to the paperwork and processes involved. As such, it was left to the eleventh hour (this week) for us to attend to the matter.

I expected it to be an arduous process, filled with a lot of waiting and paperwork. What happened has been pleasantly the opposite.

Last week, my sons’ present school efficiently handled my forms, typing them up and having the headmistress sign off on them on the same day itself, instead of the usual two to three working days.

This morning, I went to the District Education Office in Shah Alam to get the application approved. There where long queues of parents waiting with forms in hand. Apparently, we weren’t the only last-minute ones. I had around 25 people ahead of me, with only three counters open and one hour before Friday prayers and lunch break. When 12.30 rolled around, there were ten people still to go, and I half expected to be told to come back after the customary two-hour Friday lunch breaks. Instead, the Assistant Registrar himself came to the counter and called all parents of primary schoolkids to come forward with our papers. Having checked that all the necessary documents were in order, he told us to wait. Fifteen minutes later, he re-appeared, and I received my application to change my sons’ schools chopped, signed and approved. All I had to do was to deal with the new school itself now.

I said thank you, but it’s hardly an adequate expression, given how much bureaucracy and waiting time I was expecting. To have that slashed to less than two hours seem quite miraculous. Either this is a normal turnaround time for applications of this sort, or the Assistant Registrar had the sense (and initiative) to realise that with a week to go before the new term starts and three working days only next week, an express solution is needed or some children will not be going to school in time for the new term. Whatever the motivation, this is one very grateful parent. It would be wonderful if all other parts of the Malaysian civil service could be as efficient.

Well, all that remains now is for me to bring the kids’ files (obtained within fifteen minutes today as well) to their new school and hope they will get into the best classes with the best students and that the new environment will be as conducive for learning as the old one has been.

Filed under: Malaysiana, Personal Note, government , civil service, education, education system, kids, malaysia, public school

Saved by Starbucks

Note: This is another of my not-a-review-but-a-collection-of-thoughts kind of note

I don’t know how I missed this book the first time around, given how addicted I am to overpriced coffee.

Published sometime in the third quarter of 2007, the book tells the story of Michael Gates Gill, a once high-flying ad executive who lost his job after more than 25 years of slog, and who – wonder of wonders – got desperate enough to accept a job in Starbucks where his new Boss, Crystal, is not only an African American female but is also half his age. A fifty plus guy working under a young lady boss of a different ethnicity is not exactly head-twisting stuff in this day and age but it’s a remarkable turn of events for a “son of privilege” like Michael Gates Gill, son of New Yorker columnist Brendan Gill, who had everything from school to grand piano to first job handed to him on a silver platter.

The author, I suppose, must be commended for being quite honest about all of his mistakes and prejudices, though his air of naivete does make you wonder whether it’s all real. I give him the benefit of the doubt and choose to believe his change of heart and newfound happiness behind the bars of a Starbucks outlet in New York.

The excerpt below is at the beginning of the tale, when Michael revisits his childhood home and finds himself longing for those comfortable times again.

How far I had fallen from those happy times. I had come a long way from my childhood, when money was never mentioned. I was now nearly broke.

Turning away from the comforts of the past, I looked for some comfort in a latte. One of my last remaining treats. A Starbucks store now occupied the corner of Lexington and Seventy-eighth, where during my childhood there had been a pastry shop. In my depressed daze, I did not notice the sign in front reading: “Hiring Open House”—not that it was the kind of sign that I would have noticed anyway. Later, I was to learn that Starbucks has hiring events at different stores every week or so in New York. Managers from other stores in the area come in to interview prospective employees. Looking back now, I realize that the good fortune that had left my life returned the moment I chose to step into the store at the corner of Seventy-eighth Street.

What does smack of commercialism is his raves about Starbucks. However much I love coffee and appreciate Starbucks for being here in Malaysia to serve up RM8.50 lattes and RM12.50 frappucinos, I can’t imagine it to be the workplace heave that Michael has made it out to be. A lot of its employee policies sound great – healthcare benefits, study loans, a conscientious effort to locate its staff closest to their homes, an entrenched culture of mutual respect and open communications - but perhaps they got the raves from Michael because his former place of work treated him so unfairly. When you’ve been mistreated, kindness, fairness and courtesy gain higher currency in your eyes.

Starbucks photo from Barneto.net

If you give in – yes, give in – to the book and its message, it is a heartwarming tale of how a fair and positive work environment can do wonders for an employee’s morale, confidence, performance and general sense of well-being. It also fosters incredible loyalty, as the Starbucks “partners” demonstrate. In the store, Michael also finds out what it feels like to be in the minority in terms of race and age (he’s white, and he’s one of the oldest employees), and it’s clear that he thinks the world of Crystal, his new Boss. What’s touching is how much he’s willing to learn from his much younger colleagues, and how much of his own past ego he’s willing to let go. Now that is unusual.

This is not a book to read for its writing but for the tale that it tells. It’s a nice story, made meaningful because it’s true but made suspect because it raves just too much about Starbucks. Take the lessons offered – that life is full of surprises, many of them nasty, but that it’s still possible to deal with change and be happy – and soak up the myriad things you would learn about Starbucks (it provides a chart for displaying pies and cakes and has a system of calling out beverages ordered for its baristas). The story is also a sobering reminder of the yawning gulf that exists between the haves and the have-to-work-for-it groups.

It’s only in America, I suppose that a high-flying ad executive could be fired, broke, divorced, humbled, renewed, and then land a rich movie deal through the whole experience. Yes, that’s right, Tom Hanks has secured the rights to this story, so it’s likely that Michael will be the richest Starbucks barista very soon. B

Well, given the recent troubles the chain is facing, Michael’s story and Tom Hanks’s visual dramatisation, could be just what it needs to heat up its business once more.

As for the author – well, all I can say is, well done. And in the spirit of Christmas and the New Year, let’s all take whatever inspiration we can find to make our lives brighter, bigger and better. Whatever time that we have left in this world, let’s make it good.

Merry Christmas, all, and Happy New Year.

Filed under: Books, Personal Note, Reads, Work & Productivity , authors, Books, coffee, how starbucks saved my life, michael gates gill, movie rights, not-a-review, reading, starbucks, tom hanks

Readers and Writers in Residence

I caught The Business Traveller on CNN today and was tickled pink by the segment which featured what must be a new career niche for writers: Bedtime Reader. A hotel in London is offering the live reading services of their Writer-In-Residence for customers who request for the service. That’s right. This writer will show up at a guest’s bedroom in his pajamas, and read from a book the guest selects. He’ll shuffle off when guests fall asleep, I guess. I wouldn’t be comfortable having a complete stranger read a book to me in a strange city, but it sounds like a wonderful way to earn money: getting paid to read and write. Hmmm.

Speaking of Writers in Residence, Shakespeare and Co, an antique bookstore in (where else) Paris, offers around six Writers-In-Residence places for aspiring writers. Among the warren of bookshelves the bookstore has sited six beds for wannabe (or present) writers and what is required of the writers in return is that they write (but of course) and read – yes read – a book a day. Sounds heavenly, if you don’t mind tourists and customers wandering in and out of your “bedroom” through opening hours (and sharing toilets)! Anyway, here’s a good, if dated, primer of more conventional writers-in-residence programmes in London.

The show also takes an enticing look at some of the world’s best bookstores. London’s most famous, Foyles, is listed among them but I remember this bookstore as being difficult to navigate, categorising books as it did then (in the 1990s) by publisher instead of author. From what’s written on their website, the store has had a huge transformation and now instead of housing books in overflowing, crammed quarters, the store has lifts, a cafe and even an art gallery. It even offers books for sale over the Internet. It’s good to know a century-old bookstore can keep up with the times.

You know, after watching Richard Quest and reading these articles, I am overcome by the urge to visit London and Paris…..

Filed under: Books, Collectibles, Writing , bedtime reading, bookstore, reading, shakespeare and company, writers-in-residence, Writing

60 Years of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights

“Where, after all, do universal human rights begin? In small places, close to home — so close and so small that they cannot be seen on any map of the world. Yet they are the world of the individual person: the neighborhood he lives in; the school or college he attends; the factory, farm or office where he works.” Eleanor Roosevelt

10th December 2008 marks the sixtieth anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Since December last year, the Every Human Has Rights campaign has been running, with a different theme each month, and highlighting the various worldwide efforts to remind governments and individuals of the UN Charter, and to push/agitate for compliance.

If you haven’t yet, please, visit the website, read the Declaration, and give your pledge. There is even a plain language version, which strips away the legalese, and makes the Declaration understandable to children.

There is a good article on Malaysiakini, which revisits the human rights issue, and reminds us that:

…rights are universal. Rights do not depend on membership of a particular community or citizenship in a certain state. They are not derived from a social contract.

Rather, because rights are universal, they are attributes of all human beings. Indeed, they are part of what makes us human. Each of us may enjoy rights. Those who exercise power may do so only in limited ways. The limits are set by rights.

..the Universal Declaration marked a giant step forward, as the world’s governments – with abstentions from the Soviet bloc states, Saudi Arabia, and apartheid South Africa, but with no votes in opposition – agreed that rights should take precedence over state power.

Today, the most effective force promoting human rights is global public opinion, informed and mobilised by the large and growing non-governmental human rights movement, which, as in the recent war between Georgia and Russia, has focused international attention on violations of the laws of armed conflict that protect non-combatants.

There are many countries in the world, including the US, that continue to flout the Declaration they pledged in 1948. But, as the author Aryeh Neier reminds us, “without the legitimacy derived from the Universal Declaration and its role in promoting compliance, the non-governmental human rights movement could not have developed into a global force.“

So, head over to the Human Rights website, and give your pledge. To date, only 43,000 plus people have signed the declaration, a paltry number. What is happening to your brothers and sisters, either in your own country or outside, can happen to you, and nothing would hurt more than to have other people close their eyes to your pleas for help or even, God forbid, endorse as well as support the violations.

Filed under: Collectibles, Malaysiana, Newsprint, Personal Note, government , government, human rights, sticky post, UN, war

Non Sequitors

(Alternative Title: When You Are Low on Energy and Time, This is What You Post)

I found this months ago and while I am not a communicator per se, a number of the items listed below (bolded) strike a chord. From a communicator’s blog:

You know you’re a communicator when…

You put together a “you know you’re a communicator when…” list while sitting in traffic in a hot taxi cab.

You have this silly little grin on your face when you hear people say on the elevator: “that was an AWESOME speech (or e-mail) from the CEO”—because more than likely, you or one of your colleagues wrote it.

You’re willing to put your marriage on the line by continually correcting your spouse’s grammar.

After 10 years in the profession, your family and friends still don’t understand what you do.

There’s nothing better in the morning than your coffee and getting your news fix for the day.

You ponder for hours the irony of the phrase “elevator speech,” given that most of the time in and around elevators, no one says a word or make a sound.

You still get nervous anytime you have to launch a company-wide e-mail.

You start a family newsletter, quit doing it after two months…then start it up again a few months later. It’s a continual cycle.

You take the photos that “supermom” e-mails to all the preschool parents and create a video slideshow with background music and cool transitions and send it back out to one-up her.

I will also add the following:

• You get excited at finding typos in published novels and magazines 
• You don’t notice scenery or graphics but instead keep your eyes peeled for errors on roadsigns and notices
• You evaluate the worthiness of an organisation based on the grammatical correctness of its written materials
• You are always, always finding text to amend on written copy, and get near heart attacks when typos and errors slip through (and they usually do, slippery eels that they are)

Well, there’s always room for Grammatical Correctness, one hopes, as Political Correctness gets shooed out of society’s doors.

Anyway, before you heave a sigh of relief, this entry is not done yet as I have to make up for lost posts (ideas swirl in the head, indignant narrative spurt out of the little grey cells, but unfortunately not when the fingers are on the keyboard).

Ms Bibliobibuli Sharon, already an enticing read, had to reel me in further by posting a link to this fun tool called The Typealyser which will read your blog and decide which personality type it belongs to. All you have to do is to type in your blog URL. Go on, try it. I did, several times, and each time, got The Haberdashery classified as:

INTP – The Thinkers

The logical and analytical type. They are especialy attuned to difficult creative and intellectual challenges and always look for something more complex to dig into. They are great at finding subtle connections between things and imagine far-reaching implications. They enjoy working with complex things using a lot of concepts and imaginative models of reality. Since they are not very good at seeing and understanding the needs of other people, they might come across as arrogant, impatient and insensitive to people that need some time to understand what they are talking about.

As I said, The Typealyser is a playful vanity outlet for bloggers and their blogs, though am not sure if The Haberdashery agrees to the above, or if she can preen with it.

Filed under: Collectibles, Personal Note , communicator, fun, grammar, language, personality types, typealyser