As the title shows, it’s my 3rd last Friday here,
which means I have another 17 more days before my loooong journey back. I’m not
looking forward to sitting in a plane for more than 10 hours, what more having
to change planes twice and a transit of 4 hours before I can see Penang again!
I’ve been getting up tired these last few days; not sure why.
I sleep fairly early, before midnight, so it’s not as though I’m not getting
enough sleep or rest. But then again, it could be the fact that I just want to
snuggle under the warmth of my covers and not go outside. J
It was -3C this morning! Brrr….my hands have started to
freeze again. L And
I felt slightly under the weather today.
By the way, did I mention that there is a Janet Jackson look-alike
on the bus that I take to work? The first time I saw her, I did a double take.
And then, every time after that, I found myself being on the same bus as her! I
am so tempted to approach her and tell her about her similarity to MJ’s sister
but she has an unfriendly face, so I better not do that.
There was a talk today at work. The speaker was Peter Weiss
(born 1925, in Vienna , Austria New York ,
with which he has been associated with for forty years, and a prominent member
of the National Lawyers Guild, a radical lawyers’ association. During his long
and prolific career, he has been involved with the campaign to rid the world of
nuclear weapons, and is President of the Lawyers Committee on Nuclear Policy
and Vice President and former President of IALANA (International Association of
Lawyers against Nuclear Arms). Moreover, he is a member of the Executive
Committee of Americans for Peace Now, which advocates a just peace in the Middle East . In the past, he served as President of the
American Committee on Africa and as Chairman of the Board of the Institute for
Policy Studies in Washington .
He was also the principal author of the draft brief on the
illegality of threat or use of nuclear weapons used by many countries in making
written submissions to the International Court of Justice in the 1996 nuclear
weapons advisory opinion, and served as counsel to Malaysia at the hearings. When he
spoke about this, my boss here introduced me (as a visitor from Malaysia ) and
the crowd actually applauded when they learned about my work. The way my boss
spoke of my work sounded so noble and important. Lol! Not that it’s not
important but you know what I mean…J ! (My boss
chose to introduce me at the exact same moment that I took a bite out of a
pastry! It was supposed to be a lunch talk but by 2.30pm, no one was eating. I
took a pastry after I saw Bibiana eating. Anyway, I managed to avoid being
terribly embarass as everyone was understanding and just laughed; later on,
Carolijn said that I’m such a charming person, that no one else could have
gotten away with that scene as graciously as I did. Aww…). He came with his
wife who is such a lovely lady and she told me that Malaysian officials at UN
events don’t even know about the nuclear talks that Peter Weiss was hired to
do. I told her these issues don’t usually reach the public and only stays at
the level that the government think is important.
Sighs…I’m kind of glad it’s Freitag; although I will not be
sleeping in tomorrow as I’ll be going to the Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp.
I’m really excited and I hope I feel better tomorrow. Christoph said that this
camp is much smaller than Auschwitz , and does
not have much of the real buildings left; nevertheless, I’m still going coz
it’s a once in a lifetime opportunity to see these places and try to grasp the
horrors that went on.
Oh…I also called my mum. It’s her birthday tomorrow (23rd
Feb) and so when I called her at 5pm my time, she was just ushering in
her birthday. She told me that there were only 6 people with her at the shop
and she loved it that it was such a small group. J
--
p.s. Just as I was going to upload this, the electricity went
off!! I knocked on my hsemate’s door and there was no answer. So I called her
handphone and she was actually sleeping. She told me to wait for a few minutes!
After 10 minutes, she got out of her room and lit two candles, giving me one
and taking the other for herself. She said it sometimes happens but not always.
She acted like it’s normal!! Thank God it came back after 20 minutes or so.
2 comments:
The mundane life creeps in, even in Berlin!
Except for the applause, you'd not know you were living a dream.
So glad you have so many wonderful experiences.
I'm blessed to have such an opportunity!
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