A.N.I.S.

My mother told me that it was either Anas for a boy or Anis for a girl.

And since I am a girl/woman*, she named me Anis, which means 'good friend' or/and 'the listener'. However, she also told me that she named me after a Malay writer, Anis Sabirin, whose book I've tried looking for but never found. And the name Anas was taken by her friend who gave birth to a boy, just a few month after my birth.

Why am I telling you this? Well, I'm not sure yet. However, the meaning of my name does reflect who I am to a certain degree. I am very good at making new friends but I don't think I am very good at keeping them close. Then, there's the issue of my name being a 'manly' name, as pointed out by my Pakistani ex-lecturer. He told me of a Pakistani hockey player by the name of Anis Mohamad and that if a girl is to be named Anis, it should be Anisah. I told him that I don't mind either way because I love it for its simplicity and if I want to play around, I can just add the letter M at the front to make M+Anis = Manis (sweet) heheh.

However, I do think that I could be more like my name sake. I love, LOVE, LOVE to read and I used to love writing. I love reading romance (Nora Roberts & Judith McNaught to name a few), love thriller/suspense (Robin Cook, Patricia Cornwall & the latest Dan Brown), love Harry Potter! and loved Enid Blyton. As for my writing, well, I think I stopped writing due to my academic requirements that leaned more towards formulas, equations and theories rather than poetic or romantic. Nevertheless, I do remember being praised by my English teacher during Matriculation, for a story I wrote about a boy who worked in my high school's canteen. She told me that my piece was heartfelt and honest and she really connected with the story. It was the nicest thing anyone ever said about my piece.

I think I may have chosen the wrong path with regards to career choices. All my life, I was told that I am clever, gifted, though not superior (Bakagroove gave me a certificate!) and that I should either be a doctor or an engineer (like there was no other job choice EVER). Such were the expectations placed upon me during my teens.

I could have been a doctor. I mean, during matriculation, I was given the chance to visit our Health Campus in Kubang Kerian and I also went through my very first interview for a position in the would-be-doctors list. There was a panel of 3 doctors from HUSM and me and 2 other students had to prove to them why we should be given a spot in their list. The competition to get into medicine was pretty intense. Alas, after going through all that, I didn't make it, my grades were not enough to qualify me as doctor material. So, I got the next best thing, chemical engineering. A lecturer at my Chem. Eng. School used to say that we chem. students were mere cast offs from medicine, in a nice way. These days, I am thankful that I didn't go down that path. I now know that I could never have survived the sheer energy & determination you'd have to put into completing medicine. No sleep, always studying, face in a book for hours on end and let's not forget the grueling hospital rounds, being on-call 24/7. I would have had a nervous breakdown within a month, heh.

Hmm...I have to look deeper inside myself to find out what I'm supposed to accomplish in this life. I'm still clueless. *sigh*

*I'm not a girl, not yet a woman....hahahahahahaha