Random Musings of teenage life (AKA: My Problems are Special!)

One day this will be published as a book, hopefully. And to reinforce this concept, everything was written in mind that this would be a book!

Foreword:

I don’t usually read the foreword of a book, because I believe that it’s an excuse for the author to waste pages while delaying us from reading the actual story. Hence I find it hypocritical to actually write a forward. But as you will soon find out in this book, ‘The best advice usually comes from hypocrites’.

READ ME!!!!!

For those of you who just started reading the forward, good for you, you should.

As a teenager, (which I hope I still am by the time this book gets published), I understand that first and foremost, our problems are special. So I hope that when you read this book, that although it’ll be great if you can relate to me, I am in no way trying to make your problems seem insignificant or unspecial. Everyone’s problems are special in their own special way, ^0^

YOU MAY CHOOSE TO SKIP THE FOREWORD FROM THIS POINT FORTH.

Now, to make myself author-ish, I shall continue this foreword by telling you why I wrote this book. The reason is simple, I feel obliged to write down certain musings of mine that I find ‘bloody brilliant’ and I found out that if writing them down and laughing about it while swearing you head off about it at the same time made me feel a hell lot better, then maybe it’ll make another person feel better too. Admit it, we all like to read about other people’s problems, it makes us feel happy in a twisted sort of way. The world is full of closet sadists, and if you’re reading this, you’re probably one too. 😛

It’s amazing that I have run out of things to talk about, short of giving an extended biography of myself, which I feel, takes the fun out of reading this book. Hence I shall proceed with the following warning:

This book contains explicit language, angst and sarcasm.

Do not read if you’re not open-minded about:

-Politics

-Religion

-Life in general.

That’s all.

Cliché I know but, HAHA! I JUST WASTED 5 MINUTES OF YOUR TIME READING THIS!!!

Oh yea, just a side not. I address myself as Chocomon, which is in no relation to the digimon from Digimon. I love chocolate.

Musings on College:

I decided to make this my first ‘chapter’ (I choose not to number the chapters in this book because there isn’t a storyline to follow, it’s all based on ‘categories’ I suppose, hence if this isn’t the first chapter you’re reading, just go with the flow yo!) because my inspiration to write this book began with the rant on my blog that received peer agreement was a piece on college, or rather, bitching about college.

So what IS up with college?

If you sailed your way into college, I’d figure you won’t be reading this book, or if you are then, I am in no way dissing you. You’re a lucky bugger, be grateful for it. For the rest of you who struggled to get there or are getting there, I’m probably preaching to the choir.

Have you ever wondered why, we spend 6+4+2=12 years of our lives trying to get into college for the sake of a piece of paper? I mean, yea, granted I can understand about the ‘getting a decent job’ in the future mumbo jumbo but really, I have asked myself this countless of times, is it worth it?

It’s not that education or studying or exams are the problem (though many may beg to differ), I believe that they are, to an extent inevitable. However, the general system of college is, well, for the lack of a better word, fucked up. In an ideal world, we all want to be in an ideal college studying our ideal major(s) and get an ideal degree to get our ideal job. Sadly, as we all know, our world in not ideal. (Let us mourn in silence for 2 seconds for this fact.)

What’s the problem with college you ask? Yea, any adult you’ve talked to will probably tell you college is the best years of their lives, and I kid you not when I say, ‘They kid you not’. The problem isn’t college life, but the path getting there.

Think about it.

Short of third-rate colleges  that you can pay your way into (which most of the people who fail to get into college cannot do anyways), most decent colleges require you to have decent grades and extracurricular involvements. I’ve spent weeks and months researching on college admission requirements, and I can tell you I sometimes wonder why I bothered to overload my internet history with all those links that basically tell me the same things. ‘Students who have challenged themselves with rigorous courses in their high school..blah blah blah’, sounds familiar? Bet it does, and no I did not copy and paste it off the web. Fact is, all colleges are, unfortunately, not looking to educate YOU, but to raise THEIR name and prestige. All the good ones at least; though I suppose we do have educators out there who just want to teach, seeing as my mom is one and all. However, this would mean that between US and COLLEGE, are, at the very least, 3 years of sweat and hard work.

Of course, some people will say that for a decent college education, the sweat and hard work is all worth it, and I say, ‘Hell to the yeah! You’re right!’ But really, at the age of 17/18, how many of us really know what we want? In terms of education anyways.

The great Marie Curie wanted to major in every subject available in her college, because she was just that into studying. We’re probably don’t even share half of her brain capacity or conviction and most of us can’t decide what courses to take either. Between 7^th to 10^th grade, I was hell bent on double majoring in Literature and sociology. Then in 11^th grade, I discovered that Literature was….not my cup of tea, and wanted to study Music business management and merchandising. Then halfway through my 12^th grade, I suddenly felt that, although I liked that music, I also like photography, cooking, anthropology and all that stuff. Yes well, some sensible research junkies (mind you, I’m one myself), will tell you that you don’t have to decide on your major until 2^nd year of your college. But that is only if you’re in America!

Actually, even if you are planning to go to an American university, that 1 year makes little to no difference. Why?

If you want to get into Brown University, it’s preferred that you’re a volunteer enthusiast and has done tons of social services. If you want to get into Wharton at University of Pennsylvania, they like students who have done serious internships or have immense work experience under their belt. And the no brainer would be that, if you want to study, say physics, at college level, you obviously have to take physics in high school, like, duh. If you don’t see where I’m getting at, read on.

In Singapore, which is the small island country I’m on, we have to choose our subject combinations, earliest at 9^th grade, latest at 11^th grade, and these combinations will impact what courses and in association, colleges I can get to in the near future. Your parents will probably call you fickle when you start doubting your college and career choices, but I mean, they, for most part, have a firm believe that we can’t choose a decent boyfriend/girlfriend at this age, what makes them think we can choose the right FUTURE!?

Not getting the big picture? Let me give you an example.

This is Bob. <Insert imaginary picture of Bob>

Bob is a triple science student (aka Chemistry/Physics/Biology) who has participated in many A* research programs (think of it as a science internship) and is on the school Robotics club. He has aspired to be a Marine Biologist since he was 5 years old. At 12^th grade, after watching an inspirational movie about hotel management, he suddenly discovered that, He, Bob <insert lastname> wants to be a Hotel Manager. Sadly, all of the preparations he’s done since he entered grade school were for him to get into Harvard University’s research school. He was not taken any business/economics related subjects or done any extracurricular activities that would make him legible for any form of business/hospitality management schools. But he’s a straight A student with a perfect record. Henceforth, Bob realized that he has potentially wasted 12 years of his life, doing something that isn’t really his lifetime dream.

See the problem now?

I’m not Bob, actually I’m a lot better than Bob, because all the courses I’ve ever aspired to take, I can, given the subjects I have taken over the years. But thing is, to have the quality of activities that colleges want by the time you’re 17 or 18 years old means starting when you’re at least 16, and dedicating all your time to it. I wanted to get into Brown and Wharton, but unfortunately, I was in the Student Council for a good 5 years of my high school life, which if you look at it mathematically, is the arithmetic mean between social work (what brown is looking for) and entrepreneurship (what Wharton is looking for). Sadly, colleges don’t really accept ‘arithmetic means’. On the other hand, had I chose to involve myself in other activities just as demanding, I would have ended up half-assed in both and not get accepted anyways.

I had a teacher who told us that we deserve to be anxious and jumpy about the sheer lack of time in getting our college applications ready because we should have prepared for this since we got into 7^th grade. Out of sheer politeness and respect, which I have thrown out of the window when writing this book, I didn’t tell him ‘Put a sock in it’ and really sock him in the face. You expect a couple of brats fresh out of elementary school to make a, pretty much, irreversible decision at 13 years old!? I mean, seriously? You don’t let us drive, drink, smoke, or fuck until we are 18 (or in some cases 21), but we’re allowed to decide, yes, well, just the REST OF OUR FREAKING LIVES when we’re THIRTEEN!? Someone PLEASE tell me the logic behind that.

It’s just plain screwed up to wake up one day and realize that you:

1. Suddenly don’t know what you want to do
2. You have to make that decision in like the next few months/weeks/days
3. The decision you’ve just made most likely don’t coincide with what you’ve been doing for the past 12 years of your life
4. Because of 3, you just noticed that you’re wasted the said 12 years of your life
5. As such you are stressed, emo and screwed.

And then, to add icing on the cake, or oil on fire, whichever floats your boat, when you start researching on colleges like crazy in hopes of finding the ‘one for you’, you notice that:

Big colleges are too impersonal, small colleges lack variety, prestigious colleges are skewed, lousy colleges are well lousy, oh and nearly every college is a ‘party school’. Suddenly, every college isn’t what you want, you don’t know what you want and well, nothing is what you want.

So lets summarize:

• No colleges are perfect
• You’re pressured into getting into a decent college
• You are forced to make the decision very early on, when you don’t really know what you want
• You notice that what you’ve planned for so many years ago, is not really what you want
• You’re stuck between a rock and a hard place because it’s too late to change anything
• But college dictates, for most part, the rest of your life.

You can say that this is the extremist view of the situation and I won’t disagree, but this happened to me and my peers and as I’m writing, I still can’t find the ‘one place for me’. Lets not forget that there are financial, environmental and cultural issues to consider.  Also, sometimes a major you want to study may not be the major that will get you the decent job. What do you do then!? Is a piece of paper really worth all this agony, confusion and hassle? Does 18 years of my life really amount to a sheet of paper?

Don’t get me wrong, college is awesome, but the entire system leading up and out of it could use some…adjustments.

PS: Link to the original, much darker and less structured musing <insert ranting link>

Musings on Happiness

Doing the right thing isn’t necessarily what makes you happy.

It’s a concept that’s been drilled into my head and I live by it, the first half of it anyways.

So the concept of: ‘Happiness one of the most important thing in the world’ didn’t quite hit me until the following happened.

I quit school a while back, 4 months away from graduation. Most people called me crazy and can’t wrap their head around my thinking. I don’t blame them. I was, not to brag (but as with all hypocrites, I am anyways) , an above average student, in Student Council for 5 years, secretary for 3, top two subjects almost every year and I almost always ranked in class. Why would someone like that just suddenly quit school, right?

Well, I’ll say that my school has its own trouble, but since I’m the only one who left and everyone else continued to persevere, I suppose that’s just a ‘push factor’. Yes I plan to going to college, yes I want a decent paying job and yes I will in my own way, graduate high school, preferably within the same year. I would like to think that I am level-headed enough to not just throw away my future on a whim, and I’m blessed with a mother who understands my hardships and weird thinking.

I’ve had a rough year: dramatic break up, bumps in family life and a demoralizing environment; your usual teenage drama, but nothing to facilitate, I dare say, dropping out of school. Yet it is the combination of all these small things and years upon years of ‘doing the right thing’ that set things into motion. Pulling late-nights, having painful reminisces, forcing myself to do what makes other people happy, surviving the day just to wait for the following day to arrive, it made me wonder, ‘What the hell am I living for?’

Between drastically losing weight, suffering from insomnia and nursing heartache, my body or mind, whichever figured that at the rate I was going, I would be a gone case, decided that should all causes be lost, I ought to live for happiness.

I’m not preaching you to do the wrong things that’ll make you happy, but if you have the choice between the ‘logical right thing to do’ and the ‘less conventional happy thing to do’, do yourself a favor and choose the latter. Actually at this juncture I want to introduce a cute concept I ‘stole’ from geography, called ‘sustainable development’ and rename it ‘sustainable happiness’. To define it very academically, it means: Happiness that will not compromise your future self’s ability to attain happiness.

To give you an example: drug is not sustainable happiness. You do drugs now, you’re happy now but your future-self will be and drug addict destined to become poor, caught for smuggling drugs, go to jail/sentenced to death and or forced into painful rehabilitation, which in short, means you have compromised your future self’s ability to attain happiness.

After conceiving this concept, I applied my own situation to it and suddenly, didn’t feel so stressed or guilty anymore.

Since I’m not planning on NOT going to college, merely taking a different route, per say, foundation courses, my future-self will still go to college, still get a degree, still get a job and ultimately still be able to attain happiness. My unconventional decision makes me happy and my future-self will still be happy, if so, why do I have to make myself unhappy just to fit into social norms?

When you think about it, letting the flippant comments of others rule our lives is quite pointless. They say what they want, but we are the ones we get affected and hung up over it while they continue with their lives happily. Why should I keep myself in a self-damaging situation just to live up to the words of others that don’t even affect them? Logically speaking, it really doesn’t make sense.

So I advocate, value your (sustainable) happiness above all.

Though, please don’t use my words as an excuse to not work hard or party your life away. This probably sounds preachy and like what your parents would say but, even I have to grudgingly admit, they have a point. If persevering through something arduous would bring your life greater joy in the future, unless you won’t survive, bear with it. You will thank your past self, like I have over and over again, for putting up with the agony to bring you contentment now.

This musing really goes out to all the perfectionists, over-achievers and all those who place others before themselves and always aim to do the ‘right thing’ but not what makes them happy. Your happiness is what’s most important. I can relate that if someone you care about is happy you are happy too, but if your happiness doesn’t bring them happiness or god forbid, affect them at all, then they’re not worth your sacrifice or effort. Because you always give up your happiness for others, you deserve more than anyone else to be happy.

There seems to be this moral barricade between happy and right. Whatever is right won’t make you happy and vice versa. That’s just miserable old men who want others to suffer like they do. What is all the money and power in the world if you’re not even happy? I’m not saying you should be poor and happy, though if you can’t help it, being positive all the way is definitely the best way to go. Won’t it be totally awesome however, if you could be happy AND successful? I’ve just seen too many successful people who aren’t happy. They are not happy, their family isn’t happy; I mean, the story of Scrooge doesn’t exist just for our Christmas leisure you know!

I suppose you will ask me why is happiness so important. Well, you can say that doing the ‘right’ thing gives you a sense of achievement and sometimes doing what makes you happy doesn’t. For example, flirting with someone who’s not your boyfriend makes you happy but it isn’t really ‘right’. But seeing as all scientists generally agree that when you’re happy you’re more motivated, you’re healthier, you’ve got more energy and you’re more likely to attract positive people, what’s wrong with being happy? Chances are if you’re happy, all the ‘right’ things you need to do will be done with better effects. You definitely produce a better piece of work when you’re happy, when you help others with things, they’ll be happier about it if you’re happy when you do it; overall, it makes the world happier and god knows the world could be a happier place. Being happy isn’t ‘wrong’ and we should honestly stop associating the two together. Drugs, killing, raping, getting piss drunk and doing stupid shit isn’t being happy, it’s called being high. I apologize if modern people enjoy associating crazy shit with happiness that has led to the new ‘happy-phobia’; so misconceptions aside, there really isn’t ANYTHING wrong with being happy.

‘Sustainable happiness’: happiness of your present self that does not compromise the ability of your future self to attain happiness.

Because really, if at the end of a long, wealthy, successful but painful and miserable life, you don’t even have happy memories to bring to your grave, you’ve really not done yourself any justice.

I won’t say don’t worry, but definitely, be happy.

Musings on Cartoons

I have a problem, and they are cartoons. Modern cartoons specifically, like Ying Yang Yo, Super Robot Monkey Team Hyperforce G (WTF!?) and whatever new crap that the cartoon industry has generated over the past few years. If you know me personally, you’ll probably be shocked because I’m a HUGE Disney fan, aspiring even to work there one day and my obsession with Anime is remarkable. But we have to admit, all the new cartoons that are being churned out are without a doubt, making most of the kids of today’s generation (by that I mean anyone 12 and under) retarded.

Myself, and the generation I am in, was fortunate enough to have grown up on old-school cartoons, like Top Cat, Flintstones, Looney Toons, Popey and heck, Mickey Mouse etc. I credit all these wonderful animated figures for our ability to understand slap-stick humor and sarcasm, which I notice, most kids today don’t understand.

Back when I was a kid, I’ve heard adults say that TV, well cartoons, kill your brain cells. I didn’t agree with them back then, but the new cartoons are making it difficult not to side with that argument. Come on, there HAS to be SOME reason why the newer generations are becoming, well, retarded, for the lack of a better word.

I know that on most part, if you read this book, you’re most likely my age and as such avoid little kids like plague, unless you have little brothers of sisters, which by then you probably understand what I mean then. I’ve had the unfortunate honors of meeting 2 kids on separate occasions, coincidentally, both watching retarded cartoons who: lack complete manners, laugh about the most inappropriate things and live in their own crazy little world. You can blame age but I have also met 3 other kids of the same age who are polite (for the age), have a sense of humor and can actually hold a proper conversation with you. Coincidentally, the two…mentally challenged (god bless the fact that they have perfectly functioning bodies and brains) kids were watching mentally degrading cartoons while I was over whereas the other 3 much nicer kids had older siblings who introduced to them, the finer cartoons in life.

Seeing as we believe in teaching fetuses and also stuff like ‘playhouse disney’, why should we deny the potential capabilities of retarded cartoons severely degrading the intellectual capabilities of our next generation!?  I don’t mean that cartoons need to be educational but they at least should have some note-worthy content or quality, kids aren’t retarded so please stop treating them like one or they really will become one.

I mean, we REALLY don’t want to, in the not so distant future, have to stand on the podium in a UN summit, declaring an upcoming global calamity or having generations of mentally impaired people because of mentally degrading CARTOONS now do we?

Musings on Break-ups

It’s ironic that as valentine’s day draws near, more and more couples begin to break up. I blame it on guys wanting to save money. I too broke up around 3 weeks before valentines. Be it getting dumped or breaking up, ending a relationship is almost always hell on earth. As Chris Brown’s song goes, there’s never a right time to say goodbye.

I’ve, except on one occasion, always been the one getting dumped. And the only time I ever dumped a guy was because:

1. He was cheating on me
2. He was an ass
3. I didn’t really like him anyways

Hence, although I can’t really understand the mindset of the ‘dumper’, I’m very well-versed in victimhood. A little too well-versed I’m afraid. I seem to have a knack for getting assholes as boyfriends, a talent I would like to think, came along with my uncanny ability to always pick out the most expensive item in any store.

My two most memorable relationships, which naturally translated into my most devastating breakups, were really sitcom material. I was however, pleased (?) to know that in the big bad world of dramatic break ups, I was special, but not alone.

Musings on internet identities

You know those horrifying news about young girls meeting people they met on the web and then go raped and killed? Sometimes, we have to ask ourselves are the media exaggerating the cons of internet friendship. I just made myself a movie buddy over the internet advertising website. Whilst I’m apprehensive if the other party is actually a 40-year-old pervert out to get some, rationally, there really isn’t that much to be afraid of.

Those girls who got killed, I suppose, in more recent years, in a sense, just didn’t do their homework. With the wonderful invention of addictive networking websites like twitter and facebook, there really isn’t an excuse to not know who you’re meeting up in real life. All it takes is to have someone’s name and email. Sure, the person can fake their accounts, but who really has the god damn energy, network and time to create as comprehensive a facebook page as a real teen would right? And if he or she has no facebook or twitter, a quick google will also help you discern if the person is a really who they say they are. After all if he or she is pretending to be a younger person but used their real names, it’s easy to get their background from company websites or old high school photos drifting around the net. Hell, if you’re enough of a stalker, you can even input their fake name if they gave you one and quiz them about the details you find on google. The possibilities of confirming someone’s online identity is endless as long as you’re diligent enough to do so, and if you think your safety isn’t worth the work, then maybe you need to reconsider blaming the internet for your misfortunes. Though for all those who did do their homework and met shit, you have my sympathies.

Musings on soggy fries

We all knew that this was coming. Ok, maybe not because unless you know me very very well, or you happened to be around when I was eating Macdonald’s take out, you wouldn’t know that I love soggy fries.

I have a theory. There are two types of people in this world, the ones that like soggy fries and the ones that don’t. I have nothing against crunchy fries people (this is what I shall call them henceforth), you guys are awesome, but so are soggy fries.

My friend and I love soggy fries to the extent that, since Macdonald’s started giving us extra paper bags for shaker fries, we have invented a way to actually soggify (yes, this is henceforth a VERB), fries. The concept is simple, using the steam from the hot fries themselves, we stuff them in a double insulated environment (i.e. two paper bags), thus effectively trapping the steam within the fries, causing them to soggify, really it’s not rocket science.

So what exactly is there to muse about soggy fries? Well for all you crunchy fries lovers out there, I thought I’m obliged to advocate to you the sheer awesomeness of soggy fries. Why do we love soggy fries!?

Well to me, I can’t say for other soggy fries lovers, soggy fries are concentrated in flavor. I mean really. All the sogginess locks the yummy flavors within the fries, what better can you ask for!? Another thing about soggy fries is that, they tend to be more potatoey and are larger in size. You can’t blame the fries, small ones have too little actual potatoes in them to soggify. Which leads us to the last, final and most important part of soggy fries, they have the illusion of being healthier. I mean, think about it. Soggy fries don’t taste crunchy or fried, thus they seem less oily, I mean when you really really think about, don’t they seem steamed and we’re all brought up to think steamed foods are good for us!!! That and also, like I said, soggy fries tends to be fries with more potato in them, which makes them healthier…I think.

And so that was 359 words of pure bullshit on soggy fries, the moral of the story? I bullshit very well. ^0^ Oh FYI, I thought about this while I was in line for burger king at Vivo City, thinking how to soggify my fries for dinner/lunch without 2 paper bags. Macdonald’s fries soggify the best, if you’re curious. Oh and yes, I soggify my nuggets AND cup noodles too. Just thought you should know.

UPDATE! My dear soggy fries loving friend has hereby introduced an even more effective soggifying method!!!

P.S: I like soggy fries too. For exactly the same reasons. No, no one else understands. Yes, MacDonalds fries soggify/taste best. No, I have no idea why either.

P.P.S: I soggify them by putting them into their respective brands’ plastic bag. Pro tip: Do it AS SOON AS POSSIBLE after buying them in order to lock in as much juicy soggy flavour as possible, because I’ve found that when they’re hot, the moisture evaporates more.. Then condenses more on the inside of the plastic bag. Which makes your fries more tasty.

It’s better than paper bags- even double insulated ones, because the paper bags ABSORB some of the moisture that you want in your fries!

Musings about ‘Twinism’

You’ve just met this guy/girl, and after talking, you start thinking: OMFG!!! WE’RE SO SAME!!!!!!!!!! WE’RE LIKE LOST TWINS!!

Sounds familiar? Yea, I thought so.

Whenever you talk to your parents or other friends about your best friend/new-found friend/boyfriend/girlfriend, usually the part on how well you guys get along involve a VERY VERY long chunk of how ridiculously similar you guys are.

I think you know that I know that you know where I’m going with this.

Most of us usually don’t have the same best friend through kindergarten all the way to high school. So go, think back to all of your best friends and how freakishly similar you thought they were to you. Yes every single one of them. Disturbing isn’t it, you have just thought that you were freakishly similar to probably more than 2 people in this universe. Man you’re boringly unoriginal. No really?

There’s nothing to emo over really, it happens to all of us I assure it. There’s actually a REALLY logical explanation for this

So I read once on the internet that there was this boy, whose mom got pregnant and looks like she inhaled a balloon. After he noticed his mom’s big tummy, he started noticing that there are TONS of women on the street who are just like his mom (pregnant wise that is), that weren’t there before!! Now, do you really think that women ALL get pregnant at the same time? Not likely right? That would mean that we would all have to have the same menstrual cycle and have guys to impregnate us at like the same god damn time. Universally coordinated fucking, now THAT’S a miracle. The reason for that is that after noticing the initial abnormality, he started paying attention and to look for similar abnormal (aka pregnant women), hence he’s tuned into all the pregnant women around him that he didn’t notice before.

When you’re looking for something, then that’s what you’ll find.

Similarly, how many of us actually bother to purposefully find uncommon things between your friends/lovers and yourself? Of course you’d be looking for similarities, the more the better because the more of them means that you guys have more things to talk about, more things to do together and most importantly, less things to fight over. In retrospect this means that you’re not paying attention to any of the differences between you two. Differences to friends are like pregnant women to little boys before their moms get pregnant, invisible.

Of course, I’m not completely disillusioning you from thinking that your friends/lovers and you are actually not the same at all and you’re just kidding yourselves. Actually even if it started out like that, you two eventually grow to become more similar. You guys eventually start taking alike, like the same things, same bands, and same music because of mutual influence. This mutual influence thus makes you more alike. It’s like how twins can finish each other’s sentences not always because of telepathy but because they know each other well enough to know what the other will say next so they just talk each other through literally. My bestie, hereby known as Ejelly and I usually say the same things at the same time, needs to go to the toilet at the same time; we even sneeze at the same time! Yes this means we’re the same and probably long-lost twins in bestie lingo, but logically speaking, if we’re at the same location, tend to eat the same thing, consume the same amount of water, wear clothes of similar thickness, what are the chances of us not being in sync if physical environment wise we’re already pretty much similar. Plus since we spend so much time with each other, we naturally transfer info/data/stuff from each other through communication. It’s like when you sync your phone with your computer, you don’t say that ‘OMG!! My phone and computers are telepathic!!’ do you? I mean, seriously?  If you do, I mean you no mockery, I’m just saying cause I’m saying.

I hope at this point you’re not too disillusioned about people and the concept of getting along. It’s GOOD to be similar to people, it’s GOOD that your good friends/boyfriend/girlfriend and you are super-duper alike and it IS true that people get along because they are similar in certain ways. I’m just telling you that don’t start jumping around screaming ‘TWINS’ at every other person you meet after like two gatherings because you have more than a few things in common. That’s what you’re seeking of course that’s what you’ll find. What if in the future you find you that your differences are bigger than your similarities? Are you going to start saying some ungrateful bitch bewitched your friend and stole them from you?

I suppose real best friends or lovers who really are similar are those who admit that they have differences, embrace them and then in their ‘twinish’ moments be well…’twinish’. Finding real twins doesn’t mean finding someone who’s a carbon copy of you, it’s finding someone who will accept you and you accept so that mutual influence is possible. Man I sound like a naggy old women!! NOOOO!!

Musings on knowing what you want

The fundamental stress of a teen, I tell you, especially all you adults, aren’t our hair, makeup, social status, newest drama series, idol or academics. It’s the stress of us having to know what we want. If you’re an adult and you’re reading this, I dare you now to think of EXACTLY what you want in the future 5-10 years in detail and how you’re going achieve it. I bet you either couldn’t think of one or if you could, you had to start making plans for unforeseen changes, which is good, because you just remembered unforeseen circumstances exist.  Good Job.

You know why sometimes we teens are all collectively like queen bitches having PMS on a really really bad day? Because we aren’t sure of what we want and you keep telling us we should know or we’re failures in life. For adults, you try to foresee unforeseen circumstances, for us kids, we ARE unforeseen circumstances.

As I have mused in musings of college (if you haven’t read it, please read it now, it’s the first chapter), as teens, we rarely know what we want, and even when we think we do, after a while it’s not what we want again. For most of us, we actually know how fickle we are either on a conscious or instinctual level. We know, so we’re unsure and so if we keep getting forced to make some sort of decision, you end up with a rebellious, frustrated and angst teen.

I had my emo period about not knowing what I want, or rather knowing too many things that I want, which social structures cannot accommodate. Apparently, you are only allowed to have one thing that you want. Or at least that’s what society tells us.

Do you have a phone? Can your phone take pictures? Can your phone listen to music? Can you phone sms? Can your phone surf the net? Chances are, it can. If we want a single gadget that can do so many things, why must we only have ONE thing that we want? Isn’t this somewhat hypocritical??

In fact, if we all only know and want ONE damn thing, our society will have very very little improvements indeed. Our cars won’t have comfy seats or air cons, all our technology will pretty much not exist or waste a hell lot of resources (imagine ONE gadget for ONE pathetic function, it’s like having an mp3, a text messenger, a net surfing thingy, a phone, a pager, books, maps and all that shit all in ONE freaking bag, it’s heavy and downright retarded.) If we are only allowed to want one thing, where came interdisciplinary studies? Actually why should we even have multiple organs in our bodies, they should all be their own individual and we can all be specialized organs!!! Or cells…and then if you keep getting down to it…we’ll be beyond microscopic existences….

I’m not saying that’s it’s ok to not know what you want…no actually that IS what I’m saying. People, it’s OK to NOT know what you want. If you do, that’s good, but don’t be stressed if you suddenly change your mind either. What’s important is to know what you DON’T want, which really, is just so much easier. It’s more difficult to name your favorite color than to name all the colors you dislike and in this case the concept is the same too. If you can strike off all the things you don’t want, what’s left will probably be the things you want, no?

Musings about trees

RECYLE YOUR PAPER!!! SAVE THE TREES! And RE-PRINT THAT ASSIGNMENT!

It’s the 21^st century, global warming is all time high, trees are a scarce resource that seems to be one of our last hope in battling the greenhouse effect and save many areas from soil degradation, mud slides and what you have it; trees are also the source of one thing that keeps bureaucracy running, paper.

Before you start thinking that I’m going to lecture you guys about saving the world and shit, I’m telling you now, I ain’t so chill. Leave that to some other environmentally conscious saint of an 18-year-old cause I’m not that guy, heck this book is printed on paper, what will you have me do? (Unless I suddenly decide to make this an e-book of course) So nope, this isn’t a boring lecture about going green, just a musing about the bane of all IB students and a semi-renewable resource.

If you don’t know what IB (International Baccalaureate) is, it’s a high school diploma program designed to prepare students for college level work and also the no.1 cause for the soon to be sharp decrease in life expectancy of the next generation due to overexertion in their youth. Now IB, as any other good education system do, has a couple of interesting morals, ethics and values such as being critical and philosophical thinkers who are caring and all that crap (I can’t be bothered to list it all out, google the IB student profile if you’re interested) they like to uphold and advocate and we’re ok with that. Especially with the CAS component that requires you to do 150 hours activities beneficial to the community in some form or another. However you look at it IB seems to be the tree-hugging hippie of high school education systems. Yet ironically, it requires students to write at least 4 language essays, 1 extended research essay, 2 math portfolios, 1 TOK essay, 2 humanities/social sciences report and or essay and (minimum) 2 lab reports, all of each are at least 1500 words, some more lasting more than 30 pages and all to be printed in hardcopy i.e. ON PAPER. If we take into account the 2 drafts, printing errors that account for re-printing of these assignment twice (which is the average times we re-print them) single-sided, it will total up to roughly 1 068[1] pieces of paper used throughout the whole process, that’s a hell lot of paper. And don’t forget the forms and official IB cover page for these assignments AND CAS portfolio which will add another 50 pages to that count. Now multiply that number for every IB student on earth. Typed the numbers in your calculator yet? (yes I KNOW you will!!) Pretty scary number huh?

That is a LOT of paper that translates to a LOT of trees being chopped just so a bunch of kids can graduate high school; oh oh and get a load of this, graduate to get their diploma certificates that is ALSO PRINTED ON PAPER!!! This is just bloody brilliant I tell you.  Of course, the irony isn’t lost on the fact that IB advocates its students to ‘care for the world’, but re-print every possible copy of their work until it’s perfect, and to submit everything in hardcopy, write our exams on paper and buy textbooks that are all 700+ pages, usually in color on glossy paper.

So yes, be environmentally conscious, waste not your paper; recycle your trash and RE-PRINT YOUR ASSIGNMENTS AND KILL MORE TREES!

Sometimes, we have to ask ourselves, with so much hypocrisy amongst adults, do we REALLY want to grow up?

Musings about internet connection

Ideally, we should have internet connections everywhere, even in the god damn jungle…now actually that isn’t so impossible with the invention of satellites. But the one of the most important places to have internet, in your own house that is, ought to be the TOILET.

Yes you heard me, the toilet.

So yea ok, most of you probably have wireless in the house and your toilets would thus also have internet connection!!! Which is a very very very, did I mention very, important thing. Why? SO THAT YOU CAN SURF THE WEB IN THE TOILET! THAT’S WHY!

Now I think more than half the people reading this book who have read that paragraph would have given me the ‘Are you kidding me?’ face. But this is based upon my very real experience. I’m sure that many people in this world share my guilty pleasure of reading in the toilet. You just made a guilty face didn’t you! Ok so maybe you didn’t but that’s not really my point. Thing is, when the books start piling up in your toilet and you have no more light reading left in your book shelves and more importantly, you are an avid fanfiction reader, there are days where you wished you can bring your fanfiction from fanfictio.net into your toilet to pass the time without committing homicide on the world’s rainforests. At such moments, we thank the brilliant people who invented the ipad, netbook and other portable electronic devices that surfs the web anywhere and EVERYWHERE!!!

Sadly, not every one of these devices are 3G enabled and if you like me have a wi-fi ipad, you sadly cannot access the beloved internet for comics/stories/retarded time-killing websites when you’re in the toilet doing your business!!! And yes, that is the very fate I encountered that day, after I felt the toilet beckoning me as I was reading chapter 72 of an epically long Naruto fanfiction.

Moral of the story: sometimes, it is the most retarded and basic of places that needs technology.

Musings about rich kids

I am an anime fan. I have diligently followed anime for the past 15 years, since I was 3 years old. This has absolutely nothing to do with the topic of this piece of musing except the fact that this piece is inspired by Ouran High Host Club, an old (well not THAT old) anime/manga that I’ve been reading/watching again recently. If you don’t know, OHHC is basically talking about a bunch of obscenely rich kids and a commoner (to make long story short….very very short).

Needless to say, the way the rich and famous spend money more often than not instigates the desire for us to either strangle them silly or bang our head against the wall, either out of frustration, jealousy or bewilderment (or maybe all of the above).  This is especially true about the affluent and privileged of my age, who buys branded goods the same way we buy canned drinks from vending machines. I have a friend, who is part of this fortunate group and splurges on LV, Kenzo and other brands I have never even heard of like nobody’s business. Back then his monthly allowance was twice of a Singaporean office employee’s monthly salary. Rich kid indeed. So while I followed him around shops and feeling totally out-of-place in a store where even the decorations in the shop window are more than my yearly allowance totaled, he was like fish in water, totally not seeing how it is downright WEIRD for a 15-year-old to be shopping in a luxury store like it’s the $1 shop. Probably the many of you reading this book will be shaking your head slowly and complaining about how money isn’t meant to be spent like that. (Aside from being blood-boilingly-> new word I invented, jealous of him.)

Then let me ask you, how should money be spent?

General consensus is that it should NOT be spent. Though, then what is the point of having money again? Letting it sit in the bank and uh….collect interest, gain more money…then what? Money has no value if you don’t spend. The whole point we try to earn money is to pay for stuff, so while spending money on trivial things we don’t need can be considered wasting money, the real concept ought to be NOT spending the amount of money that is disproportional to your income. In fact, the best way to earn money is to spend money. For example buying stocks, buying real estates, you get the drift don’t you? But I’m going off tangent here. The ways children of the rich and wealthy spend aren’t really looked upon kindly, but when you think about it, it’s not without reason.

I feel uncomfortable to be in a branded goods store and generally other high end places, I’m much more at home in places like Espirt and Guess, where I can actually afford the clothes. However, there are those who are less fortunate than me, who find GAP and Zara intimidating and feel much better in places like Wal-Mart and Giordano. In short this sense of discomfort is intimidation, caused by inferiority in face of wealth greater than your own. Whilst I don’t quite support the rich people are sad and poor people are happy concept, it is true that there are certain facades and skills one needs to have to do well in the high-class society and being intimidated by another’s wealth isn’t part of it. Hence it is important for these future heirs and heiresses to get used to such high-class places in order to hold their ground in diplomatic situations in the future. That and, if you’re a rich man, what does your son or daughter reflect about you if they show up to a dinner wearing old converse sneakers and Hang ten t-shirt? Nothing good, evidently.

Not just that, your ability to discern the value of goods are only as good as the things you come in contact with daily. Growing up with a silver spoon in your mouth means shopping at branded shops all day and constantly being in contact with ‘quality’, the concept of good quality and bad quality is instilled from early on. Being able to discern value means not being cheated by property agents about good houses and bad, making the right investments, not buying faux goods and insisting quality service/goods from their own companies.

Then again, there are still spoiled rich brats who don’t know when to stop spending and ruin their parents’ empire overnight, it’s one thing to be in touch with the high-society and another to over-indulge, but even so, these rich spoiled brats probably have a better idea of what’s more valuable materialistically than us average joe.

Bottom line is, the way the rich and famous spend aren’t without rhyme and reason, so instead of clinging onto our self-conceived bubble of comfort that money is evil, the rich are all spoiled and snobbish, maybe we should try to understand why they spend the way they spend and learn from it. We can bitch about money all we want but hey, money really does make the world go round.

So yea, your rich friends may splurge on the limited edition Nike shoes, Chanel handbag and own socks that cost more than your parents combined yearly income, at least those items themselves can still be considered as ‘normal’, because really, would it make you feel better if they bought penthouses and apartments on a whim instead of customized handbags and branded coats? Think about it.

Musings about fears

We’re all scared of something; it doesn’t even have to be a phobia. It can be anxiety, discomfort or outright disdain, there are things and people in this world we just want to avoid so that we don’t make ourselves miserable.

On one hand, yea, no reason why we should go look for misery, seeing as it has a knack for finding people without help, but on the other hand, sometimes it’s the matter of facing your fears, literally. No, I am not suggesting that you watch those stupid scary youtube videos repeatedly until your fear has been eradicated or killed with boredom, that’s called making yourself miserable. It’s stupid and pointless. But if you have a fear or something you want to avoid and it’s affecting your life in a big way and forcing you to compromise yourself, then maybe it’s a better idea to just face it head on. At this juncture let me re-introduce the concept of sustained happiness!! Don’t know what that is? Flip to previous pages and look for this awesome phrase. Read it? Good. Now you may proceed.

If ‘running away’ or avoiding it doesn’t compromise your happiness in the long run, then well screw it all, make yourself happy. Scared of roller-coasters, then don’t ride them! Not like in the long run it’s going to affect you or anything, it’s just a roller-coaster.  So yup, think sustainable happiness. Unfortunately, not everything in life is as menial as roller-coasters (though I personally do love them with a passion!). Arguments with friends? Messy break ups? Family problems? Fear of exams? Stage fright? Truth of the matter all the above stated things either make you uncomfortable or will hurt you in some way, but their greater common factor is the ability to cause drama to follow you around like a love-sick puppy. After all, an embarrassment onstage will most likely follow you and your dinner parties for eons to come. Thus, if they already make us feel bad, should we feel bad about it making us feel bad? Have fears about our fears? Anxiety over our anxiety? It’s quite surprising how well mathematics applies in real life. 2^nd degree anxiety and fear or exponents of our discomfort is one thing you really don’t need when you’re already down. I mean, who wants to be screwed over then screwed over again!? And no I don’t mean that in a sexual context, so get your minds out of the gutter people.

Sometimes, we scare ourselves more than our fears to. Humans aren’t always the most optimistic of the bunch and we tend to expect the worst when it comes to our fears. Breaking the bad news to friends? What’s the worst that can happen? The world falls apart? World War 3 is declared? At most your friend gets upset, but sometimes he or she won’t even have a reaction, you just keep psyching yourself out and thinking that they will. I know, we like to think that we know the people around us very well, but when fear or anxiety is involved, suddenly, it’s not that we don’t know them well, we know them TOO well, and start sprouting conclusions of every degree, usually each one worse than the first. I’m not going to say ‘deal with it’ because when it comes to facing your fears, we all know that those are just empty words. It’s always easier to say ‘deal with it’ than actually deal with it. Like how it’ll always be easier for teachers to assign us homework than us doing it (let us not go into the marking of homework shall we…).

In all honesty, it’s better to just accept that you are scared or uncomfortable about something, because you are supposed to. That is the logical reaction to something that upsets you! I mean, if someone hits you, even if you deserve it, it will hurt because, dude, someone hit you, like duh? Imagine if a guy died of anxiety attack over his anxiety attacks that would be pretty stupid wouldn’t it? But that’s what we’re doing to ourselves!! My take on it all, is to (to quote some cheesy whoever) ‘embrace your fears’. Though I think it should totally encompass more than your fears. Got a sad break up song you can’t stop crying to? Loop it on your playlist, trust me, there will come a time whereby you feel nothing listening to it or even get sick of it, there’s no such thing as one too many bucket of tears. Actually if you’re a cry baby, keep crying, you’ll get sick of that too, after all the after math of extensive crying is probably 10 times worse than a hangover. Have stage fright? Then keep forcing yourself onstage, eventually you’ll get used to it. Yea that’s the term, get use to it. You will probably not get over the fear in a life time, and the butterflies in your stomach may never go away, but you can get used to it and not let it impact you more than it should. We’re not talking about no impact or not getting affected, unless you’ve become the a robot, we’ll always be affected, whether or not we’re consciously aware, but we can get used to the feeling and get over it. Ever walked into a room that smelled all too strong and then 20 minutes later you can’t smell a thing anymore? Yea, that’s called getting used to it.

This is probably brutal, idiotic and downright masochistic, forcing yourself to look at your fears and anxieties in the eye till you get used to them, but really, chances are whatever reality has in store for you can’t be worse than your imagination? On the off-chance that it is worse, at least it will pass. The things in your head however? They tend to stick, for a long long time. So next time that heartbreaker of yours posts up a disgustingly sweet photo on facebook, stare at it till you don’t feel anything anymore. Uncomfortable talking to adults? Keep sticking yourself to them till you are. We humans aren’t just tenacious, we’re freaking silly putties, you will be very surprised at just how pliable, ahem, I mean adaptable we are.

You think this is hypocritical? Yea, I do advocate for people to treat themselves well, which is prexactly why I’m telling you, let your fears and anxiety become the norm, it’ll save you a world of trouble in the long run. <- note: use in conjunction with the theory of sustainable happiness.

Musings about being bored

I have survived IB!!!! I shall now take 2 minutes to do my happy dance and you shall imagine it in your head. Done? Awesome, wasn’t that entertaining?

Musings about ideas

Turning ideas into reality is what we all aim to do, its synonymous to turning dreams into reality, going about carrying out your ideas etc. you get the story.

So what is the MOST important part about turning plans and ideas into reality?

Determination? Conviction? Capital? Passion? Entrepreneurship?

Some will tell you all the above and more, and I used to be one of those ‘some’, until a while ago (it’s 5.20AM, 12/7/2010 in case you’re wondering).

And my answer to you is:

The most important part about turning your ideas into reality is KEEPING TRACK OF YOUR IDEAS.

I know it sounds absolutely positively stupid but it’s just so true. Especially if you’re the type who have many ideas. There won’t be much of a ‘carrying out’ part if you don’t even know what the idea is now would there? So sure you can have all the passion and determination and conviction in the world but if you have a tangled ball of ideas that you haven’t got sorted out then you’ll never quite see them come together.

I keep having ideas pop up but because I have them all over the place, and because we have commitments on a daily basis to attend to, a lot of our ideas don’t get down or are half-finished but because we don’t keep track of it all, none of it gets done! Serious!

I was just looking through my ideas notebook (yes I have one, I’m a nerd, I love to plan and you should be one too), and I finally figured out why I feel so UN-PRODUCTIVE this few days because HERE ARE ALL THE IDEAS AND THINGS I WANNA DO THAT’S ALL HALF-DONE! Yes an entire list of them. It’s not quite the I’m too lazy to do or I haven’t gotten started. It’s more of a: OH CRAP! THIS IDEA EXISTED! I WAS HALFWAY THROUGH IT!!!!!!

So after you read this, sit down, grab a pen and paper and start writing out all your ideas that you’ve ever had or wanted to do and see how much of it is actually being done. What are you waiting for? GOOOOO!!!!!!! SHOOO!!! HURRY UP!!

Musings about lectures

I hate getting lectured. I’m 18, so pardon me if long-winded nagging gets on my nerves, it’s supposed to. Actually, no matter who you are at whatever age you are, you will hate getting nagged at. After all, who likes being told what to do, repeatedly at that? NOBODY! Ok, if you do and you’re proud that you do, go slap yourself with a fish.

I have just had the unique experience of being nagged by someone who knows NOTHING about me over the internet. I was being bored in a chatroom and then this supposed 30-year-old guy just waltzes up to me in a P2P conversation and started nagging at how a young girl like me should be careful on the internet and if I’m planning to meet anyone, first meetup should never be in a secluded area BLAH BLAH BLAH. Nevermind the fact that it was a teenage chatroom i.e. for people UNDER 18, which means that being a 30 year old man in this chatroom is like….sick and wrong and probably labels him as a pedophile; and if that was a pick up line or a conversation starter, the person’s so immature and idiotic that he should be pelted by fire extinguishers. Being the amazingly awesome chocomon that I am, I gifted him with Eminem’s wise words, ‘Step off bitch.’

We all know that kids hate being nagged at by their parents. For any adults reading this, WE KNOW YOU DO IT FOR OUR OWN GOOD AND BECAUSE YOU LOVE/ARE CONCERNED FOR US! But there is a fundamental flaw in the concept of nagging, it assumes that the party being nagged at is a brain-damaged, retarded IDIOT. Don’t you notice that the things we get nagged at about are all COMMON SENSE? ‘Don’t forget to eat, don’t forget your pencil, beware of bad guys etc. etc.’ Alright so sometimes we may lose our common sense (and or there are just some people who are born without it –read Musings about drama queens for elaboration), but then how does nagging make someone, or anyone more receptive to your advice? It doesn’t? And why it doesn’t, BECAUSE NAGGING IS A FORM OF NEGATIVE-ENERGY DUMPING!

Now the following 3 reasons outline the reason why nagging is negative:

1. You are treating the person being nagged at as an idiot, which means the other party feels intrusted and disrespected, causing negativity.
2. You are releasing and transferring your worries and anxiety and other related emotions to the party being nagged at through your actions, and no one likes being on the receiving end of negative emotions
3. The person getting nagged at is expected to not give a negative reaction which is impossible due to the above 2 reasons, which then causes the nagger to get a negative feedback that causes conflict/chain reaction of negativity.

So you see, there is a LOGICAL explanation for why getting nagged at is hated! No your kids don’t hate you and no the kid probably isn’t going through some rebellious phase in life (heck, if you’re an adult and YOU get nagged by your parents at 30+years old, don’t tell me you don’t feel the irritation building up).

Musings about drama

Holla to the year of drama 2010! Thanks for passing by and being gone and thank you gods and deities of every religion that you won’t be fucking coming back. I love time, you know why? It can’t go backwards. Sure there are those moments you want to relive over and over and over again (like you won’t get sick of it), but damn am I glad that I never have to relive the worst moments in my life again. Humans survive shit in life, you know why? ‘Cause life goes on people, life goes on.

2011 kicked off to a not very decent start but it was better than 2010 and that’s all I can ask for. But somehow, recapping my life, I have an infamous line that I’ve used a little too much.

‘Drama follows me around like a love-sick puppy.’

Why puppy? Because puppies are cute and if I don’t put a positive spin on the combined entity of all the crap and was and is to come, heaven knows I won’t be surviving. I’m not saying my shit’s worse, or better than yours, but everyone has hell to deal with and no matter its size, hell is hell, pain is pain; conclusion: DRAMA SUCKS.

Actually I think we humans are somewhat sadists, we love to watch dramas, watch people suffer through problems, problems that WE’RE NOT having. You know why I don’t watch TV? Because my life is so much more entertaining, not to mention 10 times more drama tic than TV. But that’s not what you’re reading this for, you didn’t just pay <insert price you bought this book for> to watch me bitch about how my life’s a sob-story (and I assure you it’s not, for I will never allow it to fall so low). Nope, you’re here to read my smartass remarks about drama.

I have a concept (then again, I ALWAYS have a concept), if you have a dramatic life, there’s a 50% chance that you’re not really a drama queen. At this juncture I’d like to introduce the term energy vampires. What are energy vampires? Energy vampires are people who react irrationally, dramatically, ridiculously to sometimes normal and sometimes not normal circumstances to create dramatic situations, typically out of something trivial or nonexistent thereby sucking out you energy via this evil energy-sucking vortex they’ve create AKA drama that you have to deal with.

So back to the 50%, what if you’re not a drama queen? You’re in proximity to an energy vampire of course! You know the people who say: ‘but it’s my problem, it shouldn’t affect you!’ It’s BULLSHIT. If you live in the same house as them and or if you have a close relationship with them, of course their problem will affect you! Didn’t you watch Confessions of a Shoppaholic!? Her problem became everyone else’s problem! Hell, it’s a simple concept. You live a perfectly comfortable life. You are happy. You volunteer in a 3^rd world country and see poor homeless people. You are not so happy. Is it YOUR problem that they are homeless and poor? NO. But does this problem of theirs upset you? YES. So whoever tells you that their drama is strictly their drama and you shouldn’t be affected are just selfish assholes who don’t understand the term of the world ‘influence’. They don’t want to believe that they’re causing people problem.

Now where does the frustration come in all this? Have you ever been questioned by people as to why you’re so stressed and upset when you lead a (seemingly) perfect life? People are bewildered as to why you’re so high-strung all the time when you have no problems with your life! Well actually, that’s kind of it; you DON’T have problems with YOUR LIFE. I mean, chances are, you’re doing well in school or work, you have no money troubles, you have 3 meals a day and a shelter over your head. What’s there to be hating on? When you look at it this way, I’m sure even you yourself wonder, ‘yea, what the bloody hell am I so stressed over? Maybe I AM a drama queen.’ And then you go down the path of feeling guilty yet no truly feeling that your guilt is justified.

But have you thought about it like this? Maybe your best friend just had a bad break up. Maybe your cousin is having housing problems. Maybe this screwed up drama queen in your school is dragging you into some mess about stealing her guy. Maybe your teacher just lost her baby and she’s taking it out on you. Maybe the government has gone anal and decided to impose crazy laws like kids not being allowed out after 8pm. Maybe it’s not YOUR problem, maybe it’s THEIR problem!

Thing is my dear readers, it’s awfully easy to deal with your drama when it’s your own. In fact this may be why energy vampires don’t realize that their conjuring vortexes of doom. Because it’s THEIR trouble, they know how to resolve it, hence it doesn’t seem all that impossible and frustrating to them. You know, like how your own fart doesn’t tend to feel so disgusting to yourself? So you feel double the stress and frustration because it isn’t your problem, hence you can’t do shit about it. It’s like being stuck in a sauna endurance test and even when you say quit they won’t let you out.

In 2010 I’ve been lucky enough to be part of a vortex festival. My best friend had vortex trouble along with some parental issues regarding her relationship with her boyfriend. My own (ex) boyfriend had family problems, my mom had relationship problems. Put them altogether and they are stellar dramas, each worthy of a Grammy. My problem? I had a troubled best friend, a temperamental boyfriend and an emo mom. So sure, I had no PERSONAL problem, I just had people with problems to deal with. And that really spawns problems on its own. Think about it logically, if you care about people, when they are down, you will feel bad for them and you will in turn be down too. It’ll feel like the world is grey because nothing good is happening to anyone even if you’re getting by fine. It’s like how we feel that reality is cruel because so many cruel things happen around us. Sure you may live in riches and comfort, but if majority of the world is suffering, how happy can you be? It’s like physics, if you’re a proton but you’re surrounded by 5 electrons, won’t the atom in general be a negative one anyways!? It’s math people, think about it.

Lets go back to examples. Lets bring Bob back.

Bob has a decent job, decent house and decent life. His drama queen of a girlfriend have just received news that her company might be sacking people. Being the drama queen his girlfriend is, she starts overreacting and thinking that she’ll be sacked and that it’s some evil plot by the company to get rid of female staff because the boss’ secretary ratted on their relationship to his wife (you’d be amazed at how wild the imaginations of energy vampires can get.). She starts feeling unjustified, she starts feeling angry, she starts acting like an insecure PMSing bitch. Now whenever Bob comes home, she yells at him. She forgets to pay her/their bills, meaning Bob has to deal with debt collectors. She whines to Bob everyday meaning he’s never at peace and constantly exposed to negative energy. And when Bob tries to walk away and ignore her because he’s stressed and tired of dealing with her, she gets even more pissed because she can’t understand why Bob feels stressed when SHE’S the one with the problem. Essentially, Bob also can’t just leave her alone and not give a damn about her and her problems because he loves her and it makes him sad to see her sad. It’s also wrong to just walk away from your loved ones when they have problems.

So there, conclusion? When people, especially energy vampires, have problems, they BECOME a problem that spawns little minions of problems, that YOU have to deal with. And it’s really sad that in time, your accumulation of bad experiences with these energy vampires whom you hold close to your heart becomes this innate fear and dislike of being around them (since whenever you see their faces all you can remember are their evil drama vortexes of doom).

In short? You may have a dramatic life, but find peace in the fact that chances are, you’re not really the drama queen, you’re just surrounded by them and their incessant complication of simple matters. Sadly, as I’m not an energy vampire myself, I can’t really tell you WHY they want to make things dramatic. How the hell is it fun? Just because you escalate a matter to dramatic proportions won’t make other issues go away or any less insignificant. Perhaps it’s some sick and twisted sense of comfort they get from being the center of attention or victim, I don’t know. I really don’ know.  You know what’s the worst part?  No amount of garlic, holy water or silver crosses will get rid of them.

Typically at this point I’ll offer some smartass solution to you, but since I’m STILL getting mindfucked by energy vampires, I’ll have to get back to you on that and whilst  I’d love to tell you that ‘aren’t you glad you’re not alone in your problems’, but lets face it, we humans LIKE feeling like our problems are special, because if it isn’t, you don’t feel justified to be upset and bogged down by it, since other people have the same problems and are doing well anyways.

Your problems are special. I respect that.

To those people who complain about not having an exciting life, be fucking grateful that you’re bored and rotting. Drama is reserved for the big screen and books, and they should STAY THERE, like, indefinitely.

Musings about rationalization

You know, I don’t know if I should say life is way too fucked up or that I’m doing this right. I’ve been feeling down, in a funk, uninspired, lethargic, emo, what you have it. So I decided, as I did many times before when I was generally down, to list down the reasons why I’m upset (concrete reasons, like ‘I lost my wallet’, ‘friend’s not talking to me’ etc. not stupid stuff like ‘because I don’t feel good.’), I actually managed to list down 10, and I didn’t even try to break them up into smaller reasons, they just kept coming. On one hand, I’m glad to know that my lil funk is justified, on the other hand, I do feel quite sad at the fact that I can actually list down 10 different reasons as to why I’m feeling down (and they’re not even ONE LINERS, it’s like cause and effect of multitude of similar things).

This musing is about rationalization. So if you’re smart, you’d know that what I did is that I rationalized my emoness. By writing it all down, I can read and review if my emoness is justified, or is it all in my head. You can say that this is unhealthy, because I’m aliening myself from emotions that I as a human am supposed to feel, no matter how trivial the matter, but to me this is way better than being a swinging pendulum of emotions without any air resistance.

Life isn’t that bad. It may seem that way but sometimes we let past similar experiences amplify our current situation, making it seem worse than it is. So by writing it down, you are confronting your problems, understanding your circumstances and taking a step to resolving your emoness! See, 3 birds with one stone! (IT’S A NINJA STONE! You know, ninjas duplication and stuff?) The next step I took of course is to right out solutions to my problems, it doesn’t have to be all of them, because as you have read in musings about drama, you’d realize that many at times your problems aren’t yours meaning you can’t solve them (since solving other people’s problems tends to blow up in your face); so just write down whatever solutions we can to solve problems or at least improve your situation (recommended to be used in conjunction with sustainable happiness and if you know hypocrites, take their advice). It’s such a nerdy way of doing things, but hey, at least if someone asks you ‘WTF are you upset about?’ you can always pull out a list and ask them ‘You want it alphabetically or numerically?’

So, are you feeling unexplainably lost, confused, hurt, down, unmotivated and like the black body of negative emotions? Grab a pen and paper (rough paper, but if you want you can do it on your com, your tablet or whatever you’ve got at hand that lets you get words out into visual format), think and list out what is bugging you, then write down solutions on how you can solve them or make things better.  Done that?

Congratulations, you’ve just gotten one step closer to getting your life back on track in the hassle-free, drama-less manner. No aren’t you glad you’re not going to be the next energy vampire?

(P.S.: A tip, treat yourself to something nice every week, be it sitting at home doing absolutely nothing, going on a shopping spree, picking up cute guys/girls, wakeboarding or whatever makes you happy. It helps making the overall week seem more positive and enjoyable. You know how we only remember the last few dreams we have before waking up? Same concept, we’re ridiculously impressionable, so if you do something nice to spoil yourself weekly AND sustainably, it’ll make all those bad things seem less bad because the impression from the awesome treat you got overpowers it! Yea, you’re lying to yourself, but face it, this society is built on half-truths and whole lies, at least you’re doing it for a good cause.)

Musings about being a nerd

When I see my ever-growing wish list for gadgets and gizmos that rivals the cost of many LV and Prada shoes and bags, I find peace the fact that all the stuff I want has greater utility than shoes bags and cosmetics can ever serve.

Musings about perfection

I’m beginning to think that there are many of you who are selectively reading this book, like you know, you see a musing that’s short, and you read it and the long ones? You just skip them. Yes, give me the guilty face! I KNOW WHAT YOU THINK. Because yea, I’m like that too =P. That’s ok, no one’s perfect. That and if you’ve got boring reading periods like I did in school, or a super long flight with nothing to do, you’ll probably end up reading the long ones as well. Why? Because I’m just so much more entertaining than other authors. >-<  I think by now you probably think I’m a pretty egoistic bastard, and hey, who am I to deny you your imagination right?

And it doesn’t really matter how I am like in reality because, well, nobody’s perfect. You know it’s actually quite stupid how we all strive for perfection. I’m being a hypocrite when I say that since I’m a perfectionist but bleh, hypocrites give the best advice. Seriously, why do you want to be perfect?

Being perfect means being good at everything, which means everyone ELSE will start dumping their shit on you because you’re perfect at it. Why is that good again? Like you don’t have enough of your own things to worry about, now you’ve got to do everyone else’s too. Yea, being perfect is SOOO great. Besides, who will love a perfect person? Being the perfect guy just means you’ll get more haters who are jealous of you. Being perfect means your sheer existence makes people feel bad. No actually, that is probably the only good part about being perfect, if you’re a sadist and loves feeling superior…BUUT if you ARE perfect you’d never be a sadist because that’d be an imperfection. We hate mary-sues in fanfiction so what the hell made us think we’d love a mary-sue in real life again? (If you don’t know what a mary-sue is, I recommend that you google it.)

So no, I’d much rather be the imperfect bastard that has all the perfect people doing my work for me while I sit a home, lounge on my sofa, eat ice cream and watch the cash roll in. (If I can actually get over my pet peeve of perfectionism…OTL)

On the side note, yea I’m a perfectionist, but not even perfectionists apply this trait to every aspect of their life. If you don’t believe stalk any resident Virgos, we all have our quirks that makes you go: WTF!? And he/she’s a VIRGO!?

Musings about quirks

I eat my rice in rectangular blocks and I ALWAYS flatten my rice. I notice stupid stuff that regular people don’t take note of. I start doing stupid happy dances alone in my room for no particularly good reason. I talk to inanimate objects. I’m weird.

And that’s what makes me normal.

Name me a person you know who doesn’t have a quirk, and I’ll tell you to send that guy to the nearest psychiatrist. It’s the 21^st century, we live in a demanding society that expects us to slave ourselves to death under the pretense of self-actualization, we are under 24/7 stress since birth. So there is no freaking way any of us are going to end up normal or sane. But life goes on with or without us and our genetic programming tells us we’d much rather it move on WITH us in it.

I realized this fact while reading a Naruto fanfictions. Yea go figure the shounen manga that depicts a world which sends little kids of 6 years old to school to learn how to kill helps me figure out things. Have you ever noticed how all these ninjas have ridiculously weird quirks? And the stronger they are the weirder they get? Gai wears a green spandex and spews nonsense about flames of youth. Kakashi is a public hazard who reads porn out in the open and is chronically late. Jiraiya is the AUTHOR of said porn that Kakashi reads. We all know Orochimaru secretly likes little boys. And Naruto? He’s a ramen addict obsessed with a closet gay who wants to kill him and his own brother. See what I mean? Now look at Tenten, she’s like….normal! And guess what? All she can do is throw projectiles.

Ahem, so were am I going with this exactly? Well…it’s simple really. People need coping mechanisms. If your 9 to 5 job is killing people, you’ll probably needs some pretty weird shit to help you cope, especially when drugs aren’t an option. Lady Gaga smokes weed. Bruno Mars was caught with cocaine.  Michael Jackson? Well he’s probably the only white black guy, ever, so there. People need quirks to survive the ridiculous modern society that has this illusion of being normal and healthy. We can FLY. So no, I don’t think we were normal and healthy the moment we started conceptualizing how to defy gravity, though I’m grateful we did.

Sorry I’m going off tangent here. Anyways. So you see we’re all weird, be it openly or secretly. We all have quirks. Usually the bigger the quirk, in quality or quantity, usually the more successful the person and or the more demanding their lives are. The weird ones, we survive. Thus as you can see, being quirky is really the norm these days. It’s the normal ones you have to watch out for.

Why do you think it’s always the normal ones who commit suicide?

Musings about hypocrisy

Alright, this musing will be short because I’m serving it up straight, for one simple reason: This is practically an absolute truth.

Hypocrites give the best advice, period. Why? Because you can only give the best advice about problems when you’ve been through it, this means you’ve done that ‘something wrong’ and reflected/seen how it can be done better. Doesn’t mean you actually follow your own advice because when you’re the first person, you’re too illogical and emotionally driven (i.e too screwed at that point of time), that and because changing habits takes effort we’re usually too lazy to expand.  Oh and because we think we’re so smart ourselves that we forget to reflect about the stuff we’ve said. (Wondered why you don’t remember advice you give people?)

It JUST happened to me. I keep telling people to ‘Do what you love, do it well and money will come naturally.’ Then I got all hung up about giving up a business opportunity for going to a college where I can do fun stuff like filming and event-planning, which was what my so-called business is about anyways. -_-lll Yes I felt like a COMPLETE idiot. And reacted accordingly my banging my head against a fluffy pillow as punishment.

Hypocrites give the best advice.

Think about it.

Musings about life cycle

AND THE CIRRRRCLEE OF LIFEE~~~!!!! Ok no we’re not talking about the circle of life and lion king, though that’d make the musing damn entertaining. Point though I’m talking about is related to well, work cycle? Product life cycle? Well actually if you’ve read Siddartha like I did (it’s a book, and most IB students should have heard of it) you’ll know that we often go through epic processes only to find ourselves right where we started, and all that’s changed is our mindset.

At any rate, have you realized the process of working is a strange one? Well mainly for businesses I guess, or more specifically the boss of the business. You start off as someone who’s not doing anything, like you know the sit at home do nothing person, with no money. So you start-up your business and you slave your ass off the first few years to get it up and running AKA Micromanaging, then slowly as you expand you relinquish control to half-assed master degree holders aka managers and start TRYING to macromanage through them, then when you’re big enough you’ve earned yourself the 3 letter title of CEO and you now only stress about ivy league graduated smart asses who seem to do everything for you and all you do is lose your hair and feel stressed until ONE DAY FINALLY, your ultimate goal has been achieved and you’ve become some big shot shareholder with someone who reminds you of yourself say 20 years ago as your CEO losing their hair and being stressed about YOUR demands while you watch cash roll into your bank as you sit at home and do, oh absolutely nothing! Doesn’t that sound familiar?

Summary:

Sit at home do nothing (without money)-> Total control over company and slaving your ass off-> relinquishing control of your company while TRYING macromanage->remote control->doing absolutely nothing (with money)

Congratulations, we have just figured out the mystery of life’s work, literally. Yea sure, we laugh when dogs chase their tail, but at least they’re running in circles chasing something that’s ACTUALLY THERE. We just go back to nothing, but then there’s money, it’s always money.

Holy crap, money DOES make the world go round. (round and round aaand ROUND)

Musings about gym

I just finished my gym session and recuperated by eating 3 scoops of haagendaz ice-cream without guilt ^-^V, yes you jealous people with flab out there! As someone who is training muscle strength, I can skip out on cardio training, eat as much ice-cream and desserts as I want as long as I remember to nom my protein. So ok, raw eggs are cheaper but I believe in paying for taste. At any rate, though you can’t see it, because of Microsoft word’s awesome auto-correct and my editor (if this was a book)’s sheer awesomeness, there are more typos than usual. Why?

Let me summarize how my body feels like right now and holy crap I just typed the like after feels without even thinking that I should, my muscles just spasmed it out!! In short, I feel like some little green grey alien people thingy with huge head and bug eyes have hijacked my nervous system, numbed my pain nerves, installed little nanomachines that corresponds to their tiny remote controls which has a huge red button that says “SPASM” on it, causing every muscle in my body to spasm involuntarily every few seconds. And I think I’m getting a cram from pressing backspace so many times, I never knew you could get muscle crams from typing @.@….riight but before I muse about my pain which I’m masochistically enjoying to some twisted degree, let me muse about something else.

You know how gym equipments have quick start? Well I don’t really get why it’s there and why can’t they just put it as ‘start’ because where’s the slow start? There should be a slow start if there’s a quick start right? If not why can’t it just be a start? Or does start sound less cool to the almighty gym god who wants to sound intelligent behind all his testosterone and bulky muscles…and uh maybe I should shut up now before the gym god decides to punish me by restoring flabbiness to my body…right. Let us wriggle our cute butts to the next point of this awesome installment of pointless ranting!

STOP!! YOU HAVE NOT WRIGGLED YOUR BUT!! THOU SHALT NOT PASS HATH THOU NOT WRIGGLED THOU’S CUTE BUTTOCKS!!!!!!

Ok I know you wriggled and if you lied, YOU SUCK. I know, aren’t I just so entertaining? My awesome attempts at making this book interactive, see how many authors speak to their invisible readers who will never see her face much less talk to her!!! Thank you, I am awesome!!! >-<

Cool, now that our butts have wriggled to the right point along with the rest of our not so wriggly bodies. I really wonder sometimes, why do we torture ourselves so by PAYING to get our muscles to ache for days to come, drink disgusting protein shakes and do painful workouts again? I used to belong to the party of, ‘Why the hell do you pay to go to gym when you can work out by yourself?’. Well that concept worked for staying fit, not building muscle mass so you can achieve one hand cartwheels painlessly (which is why I’M headed to gym). Anyhow, I’m actually happy that I’m sore all over and that I’ll probably not be able to make it off my bed tomorrow without rolling my pathetic ass off the mattress and landing face flat on the floor in the process. But I’m happy. Because well, ok, you paid the gym and the secretly evil trainers who smile while they watch you lift all that heavy shit repeatedly so that you’ll lose your flab and well…look like them. So if you don’t feel a thing, it means you didn’t exercise, which means you didn’t get worked out and since the PRODUCT you paid is to be EXERCISED (which we all know is just euphemism for being TIRED and ACHING), if you don’t feel that way YOUR PRODUCT IS DEFECTIVE AND QUALITY CONTROL IS NOT IMPLEMENTED! YOU’RE NOT GETTING VALUE FOR MONEY (and once again almighty IB shows it’s lasting impact on the innocent mind). So though I feel like my muscles have just atrophied itself and that I don’t feel in ANY way any healthier or stronger, I feel that I’M GETTING VALUE FOR MY MONEY!!!!! Which makes me happy despite the pain, long story short? Pain is happy. See the screwed up-ness of summarizing?

Moral of the story? I just tried to go to subway to take away a foot-long sub as my lunch/dinner, but because of my awesome 3 scoop haagendaz, I can’t go in because stupid stores have all these crazy rules about how you can’t bring outside food in even if you’re patronizing their pitiful store which doesn’t sell the 40% fat goodness known as lovely ice-cream. Hence I figured ‘I’ll just buy some noodles from the supermarket’s sale at the event space’, but I remembered I need some fresh foods, AKA MEAT to go with that. And since I know that it’s not realistic to go INTO the supermarket itself to pick up fresh meat, I ACTUALLY THOUGH TO GO INTO 7/11 AND BUY SAUSAGES! You know, meat that’s been processed and stuffed into other meaty substances to make looong looking meat lengths known as sausages. I CAN’T BELIEVE FOR A MOMENT THAT I CONSIDERED SAUSAGES AS FRESH MEAT!! I mean…and the worst part is I was just enlightened about it today. I’m sure right now you’re JUST realizing it too. NO, 7/11 canned sausages or even your chicken cocktail DON’T QUALIFY as FRESH MEAT, they’re PROCESSED FOODS JUST like your INSTANT NOODLES and CANNED SOUP! Oh my gawwd, I can’t believe I thought even for a SECOND that SAUSAGES qualified as FRESH MEAT…look at the depths to which I have fallen to T.T

Musings about checklists

Checklists are like virgo drugs. If personality tests are girl crack then checklists are its equivalent to Virgos and any other neurotic people out there. FYI, my birthday is awesomely the 9^th of September, which makes me a virgo!

If I was the president of a country, or heck, GOD, I would order every single one of my people to get a planner/schedule book/notebook and what you have it and START MAKING CHECKLISTS for everyday life. Seriously, HOW DO YOU PEOPLE LIVE WITHOUT ONE!!!!! It’s like this god sent …list…with THINGS TO DO WRITTEN ON IT! SO YOU WILL NEVER FORGET! Granted, it means you can’t really use ‘I forgot’ as an excuse when you didn’t do something but it’s so…powerful!! Yes I’m obsessed with checklists, I think if I didn’t have one I wouldn’t be able to live my life.

Ok I lied, when I’m in ‘I don’t feel like doing anything’ mode, even though I write down things to do, doesn’t mean I do them. But but THAT’S THE BEAUTY OF IT! Checklists are like mini-plans! Except they’re shorter and easier and uh shorter and you just write them! I mean ok ok let me get back to the point I’m trying and failing to stay on.

Basically, when you make a checklist, you feel like you’ve got everything sorted, you feel secure, you feel assured and you feel prepared. Then….just go do whatever you want! Screw the checklist! It’s like you vomited all your worries and problems onto that little list so now you can enjoy life! Alright so if it’s REALLY important stuff you can’t really just say ‘screw it, I wanna enjoy life’ but I mean come on! Checklists are like stress balls! It relieves anxiety and UNLIKE that useless squishy thingy, YOU GET THE ILLUSION THAT YOU’RE DOING WORK! So it’s like…even illusively productive!! SEE! Aren’t checklists amazing!

And you know that’s not even the best part! The single most awesomest thing about checklists is WHEN YOU TICK IT OFF! You feel so damn accomplished and the more ticks you tick the more accomplished you feel, nevermind if the thing is something completely retarded and insignificant. Do you people see the POTENTIAL of this!! It means, if you’re ever feeling down, or useless of unaccomplished, all you have to do is make a list of simple things to do or heck SPLIT the things into smaller easier things to do and then tick them off, and you’ll feel SOO damn accomplished because you finished a to-do list of like 20 things in one day (even if effectively, 19 of those things were negligible). It’s all in the mind anyway, we need to keep our minds happy so in the long run we’re happy and more productive, yup, I’m totally coming up with excuses for cheating checklists but…ALAS! What has to be done, needs to be done.

So yes you freedom loving people who don’t appreciate the AWESOMNESS and USEFULNESS of checklists (I mean it’s like a life-planner, sedative, stress ball and ..list, ALL IN ONE!!! Talk about value for money! It doesn’t get better than this man). See this is why, though we have handphones with planners in it, people still buy the paperback planners and notebooks, the PHYSICAL actions of putting your pen on the paper and making that awesome TICK is just SOOOOO satisfying, I swear sometimes it’s better than sex. Ok so maybe I’m exaggerating, but IT’S JUST THE AWESOMEST FEELING IN THE WORLD. It’s like I DID SOMETHING!!

Ahem, anyways, people, REVERE IN THE AWESOMESSS OF CHECKLIST!!!!!!!!

Musings about gumtree

I’m writing these two musings back to back. Holy crap, I can’t believe that I just wrote 558 words about checklists….k, moving on!

I don’t know why no one puts gumtree as the ultimate time-killer on the list of additive websites, I really don’t’.  It’s like so…addictive, especially the part-time jobs section. I can just sit there the whole day, every day, reading the posts for new job offers. Ok, so I’ve almost never signed up for any and I didn’t find my job there but it’s so….addictive. It’s gives you this sense of…direction, like you’re doing something with your life.

Yea, so why isn’t gumtree listed again?

Musings about grownups

What’s worse than little kids trying act like adults are grownups trying to act like adults. It pisses me off like no tomorrow because well, it just rubs me the wrong way and have you been rubbed the wrong way. No? Try it, it’s sooooo…ugh~~~ Yea I can’t even find an adjective for it, so make do with sound effects yea?

Basically the problem lies in this, you ARE and adult, you don’t need to go the extra mile to ACT like you ARE mature because like it or not, at your age you NEED to be mature. The fact that you have to put in the extra effort to BE mature means that you’re immature, because real mature people appreciate their time to be immature.

Don’t you just absolutely hate it when an adult talks down on you like they’re more experienced and know more about life and god forbid, that they’ve been through more shit? Shit is shit and it doesn’t matter how old you are when you go through it. Besides, you should never wave your sufferings around like a competition trophy, you can be proud of surviving it but it’s not something you should show off. RESPECT MISERY DAMMIT!

Essentially, the worst part about adults and their superiority complex is that they don’t bother finding out anything about you, they just automatically assume that they are inferior for living longer, never mind that sometimes living longer means that you’ve probably taken less risks in life and led a shelter life, and that you despite being younger could be more experienced or at least more mature than they assume you to be. And as kids it’s ridiculously annoying that we can’t tell these immature adults to just ‘shut up’. Instead we have to put up with being insulted and annoyed.

The real problem with these adult wannabes however is their innate love for showing off and feeling superior. They feel obliged to show off their ‘maturity’ by lecturing us endlessly and telling us stories about their lives that are usually COMPLETELY unrelated to the topic at hand just to show how amazing they are (much to my annoyance most of the time), which can go on for hours. And even when you agree with their points or show some form of recognition towards their story, they just start getting fuller of themselves or in worst case scenarios, refute your points and then repeat what you said. Talk about frustrating. Grownups trying to be adults have inabilities to listen and comprehend.

For most part, while they annoy the hell out of me and irritate me to the point where I feel the urge to smack some sense into them very literally, I do actually wonder why they become what they are. What is their mindset, why the hell are they so fucked and for the love of Ra and any other gods in the this world we live in, HOW THE HELL DO THEY SURVIVE!? Probably maybe because the world is so saturated with grownups of this kind that the society has evolved to accommodate for their incompetence, and or maybe that as you grow up you regress and become more immature? I don’t know and frankly I don’t want to. But I suppose mindset wise there are some decent explanations and I would like to call it overcompensation.

Evidently, subconsciously (or consciously) these grownups know that they are immature incapable, hence to compensate for their lack of confidence, self-pity and what you have it, they feel the need to put people down to make themselves feel better. After all, real adults and mature people don’t need to prove their maturity to anyone, hell people who’ve actually been through things would know to NOT show that you can deal with crap because when you do, people will start dumping all their shit on you and boy is that bad news. Only people who’ve had to go through hard times alone know how to appreciate being taken care of. So grownups trying to act mature evidently are spoon fed and lived too comfortable lives for their own good.

Though probably the most UNCUTE part about grownups trying to act like adults? Well at least little kiddies trying to act mature compensate for their annoyance by being cute and entertaining (hence forgivable), grownups are neither cute nor can you brush them off, hence they are not entertaining in the least and in no way forgivable. So next time grownups, if someone half your age isn’t respecting you, I’m sorry to say, you better reflect if you’re a grownup trying to act like an adult rather than an actual adult, because there is a bloody difference. That and respect is earned, not given, if you’ve done things to earn respect, no reason why you need to act all high and mighty for people to look up to you. Those who do are obviously patronizing you and if you were a real adult, you’d have known that already and not need an 18-year-old kid to tell you that.

So my dear grownup friends, how does it feel to be lectured for once?

Musings about end of the world

Alright, so we know that recently Japan’s just had this disastrous earthquake that killed millions of people followed by a ton of other related disasters, some natural, some…not so natural and all over the world there are other disasters happening and people are now screaming that END OF THE WORLD IS COMING!

But really people, don’t you guys think you’re overacting a little? (or maybe try, a lot?) The world isn’t going to end. Even if all the ice-caps melted, or if asteroids crash onto earth or god forbid, the freaking SUN explodes, the world won’t end. Heck, our solar system can cease to exist and the world will STILL continue on with millions of other solar systems in this galaxy and other galaxies in this universe. So bottom line is THE WORLD WON’T END, only HUMANITY will (and other living creatures here with us). And in case you’ve never watched that awesome youtube video about how you’re just a TINY TINY microscopic existence in this universe, we humans don’t constitute much of the world, so get off your high horses and see reality, the world ain’t going to end, it’s just us.

Though that is ALSO not the point. Sure, the Mayan calendar ends in 2012, never mind the fact that people can’t accept the possibility of MAYBE the person who was making the calendar died before he could do more, or maybe he just got tired since YOU CAN ALWAYS MAKE MORE AFTER TIME PASSES? I mean, even right now, do we print year 4438’s calendar in year 2011? No we don’t, I don’t think anyone’s bothered to calculate it, so there if WE don’t bother doing that what makes you think Mayan people who probably had better things to do in life unlike use who are so free that we can surf facebook and titter everyday, have the time to make calendars so far into the future that they don’t need just yet? Please, stop being such drama queens? Well if you really want drama, here’s one for you. The Mayan’s didn’t die, they  actually faked history and all went into space and is currently using superhuman technology to cause our disasters and in 2012 they’ll return to take back earth again , so why leave calendars for people who will be following a NEW master plan from them right? -__-lll

Jokes aside however…we’ve talked about end of the world, what we’re going to do if the world is ending but lets face it, short of asteroids, sun’s explosion, not even really really bad bio war-fare can actually wipe out ALL humans on earth in one shot. There will be survivors. So yea sure, we all don’t to die and stuff but if humanity is ending, I’d prefer the quick painless death cause, MAN being the last of mankind to be left just plain SUCKS. It’s one thing if the last of mankind are all the geniuses and scientists, they can probably at least do something about all the leftover infrastructure and rebuild humanity (rather, our society) again. But look at all the reports from disasters! Parents shield their children and normally in families it’s the youngest children who survive. So imagine, WHAT HAPPENS IF THE LAST MANKIND ON EARTH ARE ALL KIDS!! I’m pretty sure it’s not going to be anything like lord of the flies either since probably our world hasn’t got enough wild-life left. That and the little kids these days don’t even know enough about killing and skinning animals to make meals out of each other (pardon the crude example but yea…)

So whilst UN is talking about how to prevent disasters, how to stop global warming and people discussing how the world is going to end, how about some of us ACTUALLY think of something more realistic and functional like HOW TO REBUILD HUMANITY! I mean yea if we’re going to talk about ‘end of the world’ and crap every other day in the news, at school and at work, perhaps it’s a good idea for all of us to be educated with BASIC knowledge about the basics of HOW to BUILD and CREATE the infrastructure our society is built on? Last time you can count on people knowing how to at least build tents and houses, now? Since we google everything, I swear, the survivors might actually instinctively try to find a way to access google (nvm that internet probably won’t exist) and search for ‘how to repair humanity after end of the world’. Yea sure, prevention is more important that cure but since we all seem to be so bloody sure that the world IS going to end, how about lets plan HOW to get back up from this crisis? Maybe instead of learning about social studies or sex education we should be having ‘Basics of Human society 101, how to rebuild human society’ or better yet, let us follow Disney’s great idea in Wall-e and MAKE A GOD DAMN HAND BOOK on how to rebuild earth/humanity and provide 1 copy to every human on earth in every language (to the best our ability). You know like, Step 1: Survey the left over world and infrastructure. Step 2: Find communication devices and set it up according to instructions on page 45…you know?

Isn’t that a LOT more practical than freaking out? Or are we just all too selfish to be concerned about the future of our own species? Hell, I mean it when I say UN should address this issue, how to help mankind do its best to rebuild itself after ‘end of the world’. Yea it sucks to die when humanity ends but damn, it’s gonna suck so much more to be the survivors and last of mankind. Talk about pressure and expectations man.

Though what happens if afterlife really exists and if we REALLY all died together at the same time, won’t the current society actually be carried over into the afterlife and we effectively just continue living except in spirit form… so we just don’t need food and sleep anymore but society goes on as usual…holy crap I don’t know if that’s good or just plain sad. Our entire lives have just moved on with us….O.o

Musings about optimism (optimistic pessimist)

Optimism is like some all-achieving power that manages to turn the world into care bears and unicorns territory. Yea, what nightmare, I know. Though honestly, the concept of ‘the bigger they are, the harder they fall’ quite applies in this place. The opposite of optimism isn’t pessimism, it’s really REALISM. Optimistic people aren’t realistic, and to be fair neither are pessimistic people.

Take for example a lost wallet (because I recently lost mine), an optimist would believe that they would find the wallet either because a good Samaritan picked it up or it will be mailed back to their house (since their ICs are in it). A pessimist will think that their wallet will be sold in the black market, credit cards abused, bank account made blank and IC sold to some random dude trying to smuggle himself somewhere. I know, both speculations seem highly -_-lll-able. Why?  BECAUSE THEY ARE NOT REALISTIC ! But you must think, well won’t the pessimist at least be happy when reality (that isn’t as bad as what he/she imagines) sets in?

Guys, and girls. We don’t really get upset because of circumstances, well we do, but it’s not really what bugs us when things go wrong. You know that annoying feeling that nags at you and makes you feel detached from the world when things don’t go your way? Yes, THAT feeling happens not because something BAD happens, it’s because IT DIDN’T GO YOUR WAY, i.e. IT’S UNEXPECTED. When you win a competition you didn’t expect to win, you get that SAME detached feeling, excepted it’s made into a positive detachment by your happiness since it’s a GOOD thing. Which is why when unexpected good things happen you suddenly feel light and happy and a little overwhelmed and need to pinch yourself to confirm that you’re still attached to reality; the same can be said for when bad things happen except your negative emotions turn that detachment into a negative one, since you’re inevitably upset. Bottom line is, we get that weird feeling because THINGS DIDN’T FOLLOW THE PLAN IN OUR HEAD.

Let us be honest with ourselves and admit that we all have god complexes no matter how minor, we like things to be predictable, it makes us feel safe, we have time to prepare and deal with whatever comes our way. You may like surprises but in general you already plan to be PLEASANTLY surprised, not badly. Like on your birthday, you secretly wish that people will throw you a SURPRISE birthday party, but once that thought enters your head, it becomes a plan, an EXPECTATION, and when expectations aren’t met, we get disappointed and unhappy. And when expectations are exceeded, we’re happy, surprised but also innately and subconsciously uncomfortable because we’d have to recalibrate all our OTHER expectations of the people/environment etc, there’s a sense of insecurity that is usually blanketed by the happiness but that insecurity and induced change happens and is STILL THERE.

Hence in both cases, optimists and pessimists will feel uncomfortable either way. And if expectations are NOT met, typically optimists have it even worse than pessimists; and pessimists being pessimists will find ways to emo about things being BETTER than what they expected anyways. (Go figure.) Alright, just to highlight the point, optimism isn’t as good as you think it is. You want to be happy, don’t be optimistic, real happy people aren’t one sides optimists, because if you are, you will one day face that grave disappointment that will devastate you. You will get up of course, but you’d have faced reality and there are better ways to compromise with reality and positivity than a wakeup call as rude as this. Real happy people, real positive people are those who can see and assume the worse but still take it in stride and think of it as ‘well that’s not so bad.’ In essence, real positivity is being able to be optimistic about the most pessimistic possibility. So yes, it sounds contradicting and almost hypocritical but it’s TRUE and it WORKS.

‘Yea, the world’s going to end, and we’re all going to die, but I can deal with it. At least I’ll die happy.’ See when you think about it that way, it’s not that bad is it? ^_^V

Musings about choice

Can’t decide which ice-cream flavor is better? Can’t pick the right dress? Can’t choose the best holiday destination? Meh, better to be complaining about all that than be screaming out, ‘I DON’T HAVE A CHOICE!’ (Though in actual reality, people who scream that are those we actually have one. Those REALLY without a choice just become resigned and try to make the best out of it.)

So next time you’re complaining about not knowing which choice is better, always remember: Better fuss over having too many choices than having NO choice at all. Choices=freedom. You want to be free, don’t ya?

Musings about money

Money brings people closer, not necessarily the ones you want to be close with. (Zon, 2011)

All the stupid things we do, we do for money (and love)….including trying to get acquainted with people we hate. See how logical this quote actually is?

Musings about wads of tissue paper

I have a problem (yes ANOTHER problem…) and that’s WADS OF TISSUE PAPER! They’re like…the bane of my existence. Alright, so in case you didn’t know, my biggest fear is butterflies, I hate pink, cartoons that kids watch these days absolutely annoy me but WADS OF TISSUE PAPER MAKES ME WANNA CLOBBER SOMEONE’S HEAD SILLY, BANG THINGS AGAINST THE WALL, JUMP AROUND IN IRRITATION, SHAKE IN FRUSTRATION AND shrivel up and die. Yes. I hate wads of tissue paper, but wads of tissue paper love me.

I can name SO many reasons why wads of tissue paper annoy, irritate, frustrate, disgust and just UGH me. But none of them can truly convey how baleful I feel towards it….it’s like if you stuck me in a room full of wads of tissue paper, I’d die. AAAH. Ok that’s my worst nightmare. I’d really much rather deal with ghosts and bloody shit….wads of tissue paper?? Uhh….*cringes*

We all know that tissue paper, though biodegradable, kills trees. Not only that, when you throw them on ceilings, wet of course, they stick and become stuck; they clog your toilets and they’re highly unhygienic and even as I think about them I’m getting goosebumps RIGHT NOW, but…all these reasons simply can’t address how much I HATE WADS OF TISSUE PAPER!!!

They torture me so, and I know that they secretly enjoy this power they have over me..these evil wads of tissue paper just have to sit there and POOF they are unleashing inhumane torture upon me! I mean, do you know what they’re problem is!? Before they become wads of tissue paper, they were once nice soft, usually square, pieces of TISSUE PAPER!! Wads of tissue are like crumpled, disfigured….DISRESPECTED!! DEFILED!!! Versions of those awesome tissue paper. But alright, we ALL turn tissue paper into wads after we use them, so the REAAAL problem I have is wads of tissue paper LYING AROUND!!!!!!!!! So they disgust me in waste paper baskets..uncovered, but they’re in the trash..so I can live with it. But what I ABSOLUTELY CANNOT STAND, is WADS OF TISSUE PAPER LYING AROUND ON THE TABLE, ON THE FLOOR, ANYWHERE IN MY SIGHT AND NOT IN THE TRASH, it irks me to no end. It’s like…THERE and..NOT IN THE TRASH, all disgusting in their crumpled, damp…probably dirtied, glory *shudder*. I mean, common, why do we crumple tissue paper into wads? Because there’s something on it we want to hide and don’t want to see!!!!! It’s like…dirty even without me hating it!!!! But honestly, if you crumpled a clean piece of tissue paper into a wad of tissue paper, I’d still freak out on you. I just…can’t stand themYUGIYTWERWITV@%&RE#GV(E&%((F%GEH)@!E(&%@DYSYDUTSYD URGHHH WAHHH WADS OF TISSUE PAPER!!! It doesn’t help that people usually wipe their sweat with it and LEAVE IT LYING AROUND IN ITS DAMP AND SOAKED SELFF!!EWWWWWWW!!!!! OK, my sanity is leaving me due to over exposure to thoughts about wads of tissue paper.

So…yea…”UGHH!”and“WAHHH!!!GROAARRRRrfuffyasydfisdet@(&e%uaitdaitd9ASIDGAISYDTFVE5E9125E27STSTSASDGASDFAD(@%e*@$e&%@$eutbsadIATASDTUAY” kind of sums up how I feel about wads of tissue paper.

Musings on being happy

I mused about happiness but I forgot to mention why being happy is important…

Why is being happy important:

1. 1.       If your mood is shit, you’ll feel like shit:
   1. If you’re happy, you’re motivated and enthusiastic
   2. If you’re happy, everyone else is happy
   3. If you’re happy, you don’t mind dealing with shit
   4. True love doesn’t conquer all, but happiness does

We’re born to be happy, don’t let anyone else tell you otherwise.

Musings about conviction

  If you find a dream, or a person, hold on tight and never let go.

I’d like to point out that if your dream are fucked up or that person is seriously screwed in the head that it’s better for your health and sanity to let go. If you caught on to the difference between these two statements I just made, chances are you don’t need to read this musing or this book, so feel free to skip and read some of my more random and pointless rants instead of this one.

For those of you who didn’t figure it out, let me make it simple for you with a mathematical statement.

Holding on ≠ Clinging on

The mistake that many people make these days is equating holding on to something with clinging on to it. My wonderful readers, there is a fundamental difference between holding on and clinging on and that is the element of desperation. I’m not saying that conviction is bad, it’s not, We all need to have conviction and determination or we won’t get anywhere. We can’t just call the quits whenever the going gets tough, but there is a limit to this. First of all would be assessing if your dream is even good for you, I mean there is wanting to get married by 25 then there is forcing yourself to get married to a guy you don’t event love at 25. Once again I’d like to bring in sustainable happiness, if your dream brings you sustainable happiness, no reason to not be convicted about it and toughing out the trials and tribulations but for god’s sake people, if whatever you’re holding onto DOESN’T make you happy and won’t contribute to your well-being or happiness in the long run then freaking LET GO.

The real problem about conviction? We’re all dedicated and convicted to hold on, but we have problems letting it go. But really, what is wrong with admitting that you simply don’t want what you used to want anymore? Things change, people change, is it really that bad to admit that you’re fickle or that you were wrong? Is your happiness worth clinging onto something you don’t even want simply because you can’t accept the change?

Of course, I can name many psychological reasons why we tend to cling onto things even when we don’t want them. I used to want to be music producer and until weeks ago I couldn’t accept the fact that I’m simply not that into producing artists as I am into planning events and concerts. The main reason being the fact that I could not accept the fact that if I did give up my previous dream then it would mean that all the efforts I’ve invested towards it and things I’ve told people would go to waste, sometimes we just can’t live with that. Isn’t that why many of us force ourselves to stay with people we don’t even love anymore? Because if we do let go, it would mean that all the time and effort you invested in this person would have gone to waste. But honestly, what would all that time and effort amount to if you didn’t let go? If you clung onto it desperately simply because you didn’t want it to go to waste and you didn’t want to admit you were wrong?

You’d be miserable, confused and frustrated.

Is that really what you want? If we could have negative worth then that’d be it. So yea, giving up and letting go might mean that things amount to nothing but better zero than negative in my book.

There’s a brilliant chinese saying tht summarizes what I want to say perfectly:

拿得起,放得下

If you can pick it up then you can put it down.

In short, if you’re brave enough to convict yourself to whatever something is regardless the risks and sacrifices involved then why the hell would you not have the same courage and determination to put it down when it’s not something you want or something you should want anymore?

It’s one thing to be convicted and another to be desperately clinging onto something, it’s better to be lost than forcing yourself to cling on to something out of desperation. Remember, conviction is never an excuse for desperation. You had the guts to take on the challenge, so never be afraid to give it up should you have to.

Musings about loneliness

I wrote in my blog once, that loneliness isn’t physical, at least it rarely is.

I’m probably not alone (no pun intended) in feeling lonely when surrounded by people. Why do we feel lonely? Superficially, the cause of loneliness is the lack of company, thus strengthening the feeling of ‘being alone’. With that said, how do you feel lonely when you are surrounded by company?

Yet, fact of the matter is, we can feel lonely when we’re surrounded by people in the bustling cities that we live in, when we’re in the company of strangers and at times, even when we’re in the company of those closest to us. How does that work though?

To some extent, I’m sure you readers know what I’m talking about and instinctually we all know why we feel lonely even when we’re surrounded by people we know. Somehow, it’s completely understandable to feel lonely when we’re surrounded by strangers but not with people we know. That is because we have already established that strangers do not know us, do not understand us. Our identities are only as real as those who acknowledge it. This is going to get a little if not very abstract but bear with me.

We all exist physically, with our bodies, fat or skinny, old or young, tall or short, no? Our senses of touch, hearing, sight and smell constantly reflect our surroundings to us, providing our consciousness with proof that we exist. We wouldn’t need to do this if our human minds could comprehend existence outside of our conscious knowledge, but we cannot. Alright , so all these sound like some philosophical bullshit, I blame IB and TOK again, but let me make this easy to understand.

Once again, let us bring in my favourite imaginary person, Bob.

Let’s just say that the reality Bob lives in is a white box that 4m by 4m big. Now in this box, there is a rabbit, a pot of flowers and a rock. Bob knows that the rabbit exists because he has felt it, heard it, been thoroughly annoyed by its furry existence and is forced by his senses to recognize that his only animate company is a fluffy white rabbit. Bob knows that the pot of flowers is there because he sees it, he smells it and well, it’s like, THERE, so naturally Bob’s consciousness registers that there is a pot of flowers in the room. So far, Bob’s version of this reality he lives in tells him that there’s a fluffy white rabbit and a pot of flowers in the room along with him.

Of course you will ask me now, what happened to Mr Rock? Well sadly, Mr rock is at the far corner of the room, out of sight and thus out of mind. Bob cannot see the rock, neither the rabbit nor the pot of flowers will tell Bob that there is a rock in the room, so as far as Bob is concerned, in this reality, there is no rock. Poor Mr rock’s existence isn’t acknowledged. Does that mean that Mr Rock doesn’t exist? No, of course not! Mr Rock knows full well within his own consciousness that he exists, but because no one else in that white box knows he’s there, he’s effectively, alone. Why? Do you really need to ask why? BECAUSE NO ONE KNOWS HE EXISTS DAMMIT! HE IS ALONE IN HIS VERSION OF REALITY! Does that not call for the right to feel loneliness?

Now if we swap Mr Rock, the pot of flowers and the rabbit into people and the box into the world we live in, does that explain how we can feel lonely when we’re surrounded by people? We are bloody selfish entities, humans that is. We only comprehend the things we have some sort of relationship with, directly or indirectly. As far as our minds are concerned, if we don’t know it, it doesn’t exist to us. So it is very likely that on the other side of the world is a stranger you don’t know and precisely because you don’t know him, he doesn’t exist to you. But if someone tells you about this person, suddenly, HIS EXISTANCE IS ACKNOWLDEGED.

Alright, I’m totally straying now. Ok, so if feeling NOT LONELY is as easy as getting our physical existences acknowledged then why do we feel lonely even around people we know who knows that exist?

The theory behind this would be that we humans can never make things easy for ourselves. To us, our existence is our consciousness, not our body. (You know feeling when you’re out of it and suddenly when you look into the mirror and you don’t recognize your physical self? Yea that happens because our recognition of ourselves is what’s in our head and not the head itself.) What does this mean? This means to feel like our existence is acknowledged by people other than ourselves, we need our consciousness to be understood, not just for our bodies to feel like we exist because there are other physical bodies around us.

So after that extremely long rant, the summary is that: To feel not lonely, we need to be understood.

Sounds easy doesn’t it? We just need to be understood! Yea right, how well do you understand yourself? We need to update our understanding of ourselves every moment we’re alive because we change, things change. What about people who aren’t us and don’t live on our heads? So it’s entirely possible that someone who knew you as well as you know yourself yesterday doesn’t know you today, because you’ve changed. Then what? Then this current version of you suddenly feels like your existence is only validated by yourself and you will feel….yup you guessed it, LONELY!

You know what’s the most ironic thing? We handle loneliness better when we’re actually physically alone. Because we don’t register the existence of other beings around us, so it feels vindicated that we feel lonely because we’re ACTUALL ALONE. When feeling lonely is justified, we treat it just like any other physical condition, like being cold or hot or bored. We deal with it because that’s how it’s supposed to be. The adaptive abilities of mankind…

On the other hand, because we logically assume that we are NOT supposed to feel lonely when we are with company, our minds reject the feeling of loneliness, amplifying it and isolating it, sticks blinking neon lights on it to tell you “YOU SHOULDN’T BE FEELING LONELY!” and soon you’re frustrated that you feel that way and you’re annoyed with yourself and you kinda just spiral down the deep end because you innately refuse to deal with it, since that’s not how it’s SUPPOSED to be. But the people around will continue to refer to you and acknowledge the existence of an being that WAS you and not the you that is now, effectively meaning that your friends are repeated DENYING your present self, whilst constantly reaffirming the existence of “you” who is now a stranger to yourself. Ok, I know I’m confusing, but sit on it, stand on it, do whatever, think about it and you’ll know that this really makes sense ok? Or you can just take my word for it (I personally think this way is easier….)

This explains why we feel lonely even amongst people, be it strangers or the ones close to us. We crave for intellectual understanding of our minds, not bodies, which is why loneliness isn’t in physical. To quote someone I know, “It’s all in your head.”

Musings on music

I don’t know if I’ve ever written this quote in my book but I know I’ve pretty much waved this quote around on every other available ranting space, so here it is in case I missed out on putting it here.

“Love life, live music.”-Chocomon, 2011

If you’re not a music lover, I hope you can relate to this musing on other levels because this musing is going to be very darn biased towards music and you better believe it! (dattebayo!) ..=P Sorry about the Naruto moment there.  And I’ll be making a lame attempt here to cover my ass and say that music isn’t the greatest, it’s all subjective to personal tastes and interests. Buuut, since I haven’t really been the one for political correctness around here so….MUSIC IS THE AWESOMEST THING OUT THERE RIGHT UP THERE WITH FOOD AND SLEEP AND YOU SHOULD THINK SO TOO! Am I trying to be biased, propagandistic and convert you to agree with me? OF COURSE I AM! This is my book, I’m the authoress, hence my word is law. (I’m guessing my editor, when I get one will award me with 2 raised eyebrows at this comment and I’ll shrug sheepishly and stick out my tongue and he’ll let it slide because I’m just that awesome.) Not happy with it? Then eff off and don’t read!

Okay, back to the topic. Have you guys realized that my ability to stay on topic has been deteriorating as the musings go one? Oops, and there I go again….right BACK ON TRACK YO!

Have you ever wondered why so many people love music? I haven’t. But I have wondered why so many of us find music so darnn awesome and I think I have an answer to that. This answer may probably only sound justified to me but what the heck, that’s why you’re reading this right? Cause I’m right >-<

The best thing about music (I’m so going to get killed for saying this) isn’t it’s artistic qualities or beauty or ability to touch people’s hearts. What makes music special is how it doesn’t discriminate; before music everyone is equal. No matter what some professional musicians may say, everyone who loves music is equal. It doesn’t matter how good you are at it, you can amateur or a veteran, hell you can even be a mere listener, the happiness, passion and enthusiasm that we have when we’re part of music, be it the ones making it or enjoying it, it’s the same for everyone regardless of skill level. Sure, a group of professional musicians will probably make better music than some random garage band in a rundown home somewhere, but that doesn’t change the fact that these two groups of people love music equally much and are enjoying music as much as the other party is.

Recently I have thought about giving up music, sometimes it’s hard not to, knowing that there are so many people out there who can play better than you or sing better than you, but you know what I realized? We make music, listen to music, live music and breathe music because music makes us happy and that’s all that matters. How good you are just doesn’t fucking matter. Because when you’re happy, you’re happy, there are no ‘levels’ of happiness, happiness is just that.

Maybe this is the reason why music is capable of touching people’s hearts, because ultimately we all relate to music on the same level, music doesn’t discriminate, it escalates, from the pits of despair to lows of our lives, music is always there to bring us up and always will be.

There’s music for every mood and occasion, you just have to listen.

So love life, live music.

 

Musings on wuggling

Right, you must be thinking now what is wuggling, and my reply to you is: “I know right! WTF IS WUGGLING!???”

I’m currently on the phone with my bf and talking about snuggle~~ And you know how you say “snuggle wuggle”? So I started wondering WTF is wuggling!?? I mean, is it wriggling+snuggling=wuggling? What type of action is it!? Something like waddling? Or like wurmbly feeling and I also don’t know what wurmbly is it just sounds like an adjective that’d be associated to wuggling.

So my dear readers, if you have any, like ANY idea about wuggling, please tell me. I really need to know.

Thank you

Musings on self-help books

Went for an interview for a job that turned out to be some network marketing gig, the whole process was rather standard, some woman trying to advocate propaganda into my supposedly easily influenced teenage mind to convince me that I want to join because I want a luxury car and ‘passive’ income.

No hard feelings to my recruiter, she was doing her job, did it splendidly in fact; fact of the matter is however, I just wasn’t a network marketing person! (And of course she was a wonderfully nice person, which was the only reason why I actually sat through the whole process nicely and attentively). Basically the whole process was her trying to leverage on recent self-help books like The 4 hour work week and similar titles, to convince me to join the company as many of us want PASSIVE INCOME, PERSONAL FREE TIME and SOCIAL STATUS. Apparently this ‘new’ form of business/employment is the new hype. After running through articles and testimonials of people ranging from Donald Trump to like successful cases in their company, my brain began to kick into musing mode.

Like I said earlier, I just wasn’t such a person. I’m by no means dissing these books or these concepts, if that is how you want your life to be then by all means, follow these books and concepts! After patiently sitting through her well thought out argument and analysis, it did seem on the surface like the life many people want, keyword? PEOPLE, not ME. Even with some fancy quadrant crap and supposedly enticing promise of cars and easy income I have to be honest, I’M NOT A HEDONIST so why do I have to bring myself into thinking that I am? Alright now I know I really am ranting because after re-reading the entire previous paragraphs I realized I’m not even making basic ranting sense.

To get to the point, I spent majority of this epic interview struggling to try to find her offer enticing and appealing because logically it seemed to be so, but I couldn’t. Then I started wondering, all of these concepts of having a 4 hour work week, flexible working times, passive income, a lot of it are coming from self-help books that advocate these principles. On one hand, sure there are people who are sick of the normal 9 to 5 lifestyles who genuinely seek the 4 hour work week and a hedonist way of life and wants help towards making the change. On the other hand, how many of the people now who are looking to change their lifestyles to the 4 hour work week actually REALLY GENUINELY want such a life?

Yes, some of you guys must have probably figured out where I’m going here. How many people who buy self-help books are actually reading them because they need it and not getting brainwashed by it? I dare say that grave majority are being brainwashed by self-help book propaganda to want such lifestyles as opposed to that really being something that suits their personality. Sadly, no one really reads the fine-print of these self-help books where authors tries to cover their asses as say “I only recommend this to <insert certain type of people>” as they’re too busy being brainwashed by the glorified concepts that the book is offering.

I literally stared down at the paper where the wonderful recruiter was analyzing the advantages of being part of a NWM (network marketing) team like how it did not involve the risk of your own business but you get to work flexitime  as you would if you ran your own business…yes it all sounded great on paper but PEOPLE THERE ARE MASOCHISTS OUT THERE LIKE ME! I actually WANT to take the risks, I want that sense of achievement, I WANT to have no life and work towards making something of myself by doing something that I actually believe in. I tried to force myself to WANT to conform to such a supposedly ‘appealing’ lifestyle, but I just can’t, that’s not the life I want. It may be the life that some of you want, but it’s not what I want, so who the fuck gives a damn if Donald Trump says that this is the next best thing since sliced bread and iphones? I don’t give a flying duck about what Trump says, I only give a damn about what I want because ultimately it’s MY LIFE. Why am I letting some oil tycoon tell me what I should want my life to be like? Yea sure, maybe if I wanted to be like him then perhaps I should listen but I want to be my own person!

Basically, what I’m getting at is that self-help books exist to HELP you achieve your goals, not TELL YOU what your goals ARE. Self-help books are like instruction books on the elusive topic of life. You buy an instruction book because you want to figure out how you want to make something work, NOT to figure out what that ‘something’ you want is.

So next time people, before picking up a self-help book, ask yourself,

Are you buying this book because you want it to tell you what you want or HOW to achieve what you want?

I mean think about it, if all self-help book actually WORKS, then technically speaking wouldn’t everyone be rich and successful? At the end of the day, you’re your own individual and the road to success for everyone is different, so yes, read from it, learn from it, but don’t let it brainwash you into becoming someone or something you’re not.

Just because it’s printed in black and white doesn’t mean it’s always right. (And if the book is printed on ANY other colored paper with ANY other ink, it’s STILL NOT always right, okay my lovelies?)

Musings on technology

  MY WONDERFUL READERS IT’S THE 21^ST CENTURY!

Right, I’m expecting raised eyebrows about at this statement, you’re probably going “no shit Sherlock.” But no really! There is a point to this statement! (as much point as there can be in a book of musings and rants, but you get my drift….) We’re in the 21^st century and right now the most technologically advance thing I have in my possession are the metal wires in my braces. (To which my dentist might indignantly reply: THEY are THE SAME MEMORY-WIRES USED IN SPACE SHIPS AND RELATED TECHNOLOGIES.) But do you see where I’m getting at with this!?

IT’S THE FUCKING 21^ST CENTURY AND WE STILL DON’T HAVE HOVER CARS, SONIC SHOWERS AND ALL THAT CRAZY SHIT SCI-FI NOVELS PREDICTED WE’D HAVE! Am I saying that sci-fi novels are prophecies that predict our future? No. But they are the basis of our technological advancement expectations! Our cars are STILL funning on 4 wheels! I mean really what’s UP with that!? Whilst many of you may give me the deadpanned look and tell me ‘why change what works’, let me ask you, did you think we NEEDED touch screens when we had cursors and mouse? Nope, but then ipad came along and suddenly everywhere everyone needs a fucking touch screen, ya see my damn point!? It’s not about what works it’s about ADVANCING. And no my wonderful readers, the different number of ways we can improve touch sensitivity on screens and clarity doesn’t qualify as a giant leap for mankind.

What happened to the space travelling? The terraforming? The replicators and alternate energy sources? I mean really everyone, think about it, the excuse of ‘our technology just isn’t this advance yet’ really isn’t very good. Why? Do you know how many different retarded research goes into stuff like machines that can pick up gel like liquids, robots that can let dentistry students do practical on and (because I’m really not a big fan of touch screen on every damn device) IMPROVING THE DIFFERENT TYPES OF SLATE TABLETS WE HAVE. If researchers, scientists and inventors spent half the amount of time they do researching on these things on developing space travelling, we’d be in space in the next 20 years.

Honestly though, it’s not the time they spent on these research, I’m not saying these more….inconsequential researches are unimportant, some of these inventions do go towards making the society more efficient and convenient, and of course I can never say that medical science research is bad. What really is the big bad problem in the development of our endless gadgets are the NUMBER Of COMPETING AND REPEATED RESEARCH IN THE SAME DAMN AREA ABOUT THE SAME DAMN THING. Talk about inefficiency man! For pete’s sake (then if not for MY sake), do we really need SEVEN COMPANIES researching and developing better touch screens AGAINST each other? (There are probably wayyy more but that’s all the big players in the industry now so…) How about if these bloody developers and researchers WORKED TOGETHER and develop the awesome glass touch screen in all our daily appliances that we see in the amazing videos?

Actually, you know what; a LOT of our problems would be solved if the damn scientists, researchers and what have you not just WORKED TOGETHER. It’s no WONDER our society is becoming so bloody stagnant technologically! (And yes you may argue that we have new gadgets coming out every month, but ask yourself honestly, does a new improved model of the SAME gadget really considered a vast advancement? I don’t really care if the case of my phone can now be green instead of black because that contributes little to no technological advancement value.) I’m going to drag Bob’s sorry ass into this argument because I need an example now.

Bob has suddenly become a researcher for new fuel sources for company A. Bob’s friend, Tom is a researcher in company B. They’re researching the SAME thing, but because they’re rivals, they don’t share their research, the two of them start at the same point make the same mistakes take the same amount of time to reach the same conclusion and ends up spending 20 years to find some measly new fuel source.

Now imagine if they worked TOGETHER, they can NOT MAKE REPEATED research and effectively cut each other’s research time by half and find some new lead in 10 years!! Which means that in the SAME amount of time they work ALONE, by working together, in 20 years they would have actually gotten somewhere PRODUCTIVE. Look people, yes some friendly competition is good for motivation but flying solo can only get us so far. If all the world’s brilliant minds working on solving global warming would just work TOGETHER instead of individually (in their groups I know but still ‘individually’) for the sake of bragging rights, maybe we would have solved this damn problem YEARS ago. Look at transformers!!! That damn movie has got the military, creative directors and a ton of other people WORKING together and see what kick ass shit they make! SO DEAR SCIENCE PEOPLE, START FUCKING WORK TOGETHER!!!

Seriously my dear readers, do you think bragging rights and patents would mean much if the humanity ceased to exist and or was in a state of peril?

On a completely unrelated side note, did you know that there’s actually a feasible cure for cancer existing but no big medical companies or hospitals are working on it because they can’t get patent over it so no one knows about something that could SAVE LIVES because everyone else are just too concerned about making more dough. It’s true, and your skeptical self can go read the article here http://www.foxnews.com/health/2011/05/18/big-pharma-ignoring-potential-cancer-cure/  Yes, to you innocent readers out there, all that ethics crap are exactly just that, CRAP; nice fronts people put up to cover up the fact that everyone runs on financial incentives. (And no I’m not saying money is bad, I’m saying that if you’re going to be money-minded then be honest about it instead of pretentiously trying to be all righteous and holy, no one gives a fuck.)

So whilst the rest of us hype about next season’s iphone and ipad, I shall sit in my room emoing over the fact that even with our ‘advance’ technologies, we still have to wait for 4-7 working days for whatever we ordered on ebay to arrive because superficial researchers, scientists and other people in the technological R&D industry won’t work together to get the god damn teleportation device to work.

I WANT TO ORDER TAKE OUT FROM JAPAN DAMMIT!  *grumbles*

Musings on speed

  Speed is to adrenaline junkies as drugs are to drug addicts. We love the feeling of the wind in our face, sceneries passing us in a blur, but what we love most is the feeling of us teetering on the edge of losing control but simply not quite there yet.

I have a theory (when do I not?), we humans understand things comparatively. We find ourselves appreciating warmth most the moment we step out of the cold, cream never tasted so sweet until you have tasted the bitterness of coffee, black. It is like figuring out an object by touch, you only figure out what the object is after you’ve felt the outlines of it, places where the object begins and ends. Thus in the same logic, we are immersed in the epitome of control when we’re on the edge of losing control.

And that my dear readers, is why we love speed. Because when we are racing at break neck speeds, we can actually feel control in our grasps. As for why we love control so much, who doesn’t like being in control? Though as for why we are all such control freaks, that’s for musings on control, which I haven’t been inspired to write yet…yes I’m a lazy ass.

Musings about villainy

Did you watch Dark Knight? Because I didn’t, but I do know this awesome quote from it.

“You either die a hero or live long enough to become a villain.”

A disturbingly true quote if you think about it, somehow death seems to glorify people’s statuses. Then again, maybe it’s only fair that if you forego your life, your past mistakes should be overlooked as well, after all nothing’s as important as life right? God knows how many people only rose to fame after they’ve DIED, it’s ironic really, we fail to appreciate people while they walk amongst us. Could be the fact that we no longer have to deal with them, it is kinda a bitch to deal with weird people and if you’re awesomely awesome in something, you’re definitely off your rockers, it’s the universal truth! Yup yup, so in retrospect this means that if you’re alive, one way or another people will find some way to turn you into the bad guy.

Fear not! There is a logical explanation for this!! I mean first of all, if you live a REALLY REALLY long life, won’t most people assume you’re some evil life-sucking dude? We all know good guys are too valiant to attempt anything remotely self-preserving. *nods furiously* Secondly, (OMG I’M NUMBERING MY POINTS FOR ONCE!?)you know how when you die, all the things you do kinda like dies with you? So like when you’re dead you can’t really influence anything or anyone anymore (not directly at least) since you’re well…dead? I know this comment is highly subjective since famous dead people influences a lot of people, but I mean when you’re dead you’re sort of a dead corpse unable to initiate or do anything, ghostly haunting aside. My point is, you’re incapable of making mistakes to add to your list of mistakes and if you died doing a good deed that that’s the last thing people remembers, being the remarkably short-term memoried creatures we are, we just leave you and your dead self to that. Sadly, as long as we live, we make mistakes and people will remember those more so than our contributions because we tend to only look at the present, then people will scrutinize you and your mistakes and then somehow, no matter how many awesome things you have done, you’ll eventually be perceived as the bad guy. We humans just can’t accept that good guys make mistakes, that or they live long. *shrugs* don’t ask me why.

Though, you might punch me (as if you haven’t had that urge a gazillion times while reading this book), all the amazing musings above isn’t the main point for this musing! Amazing ain’t it!! I know right? Yup yup, my main point is actually…

WHY WOULD ANYONE WANT TO BE A HERO!!??

Let me summarize being a hero for you:

• You sacrifice yourself for a bunch of assholes who don’t appreciate you
• You have to follow the rules
• People expect you to do EVERYTHING  and do it RIGHT
• You can’t make mistakes
• Everyone expects and asks you to save the day
• Everyone’s out to get you
• The people love you…some of them at least
• Ultimately, you die, albeit heroically
• Did I mention EVERYONE is out to get you?

Now let me summarize being a villain to you:

• You can and is expected to be a complete selfish bastard that does whatever you want
• You never have to follow the rules
• People expect you to fuck up; there are no expectations of you!
• You never have to save the day, unless you feel exceptionally gracious, which when you do everyone will worship you
• Everyone hates you, supposedly that is, we all know some random kids who are fucked up secretly worship you
• You SURVIVE
• Oh, and everyone’s out to get you

My lovely readers have you arrived at some sort of epiphany yet? No? Alright this is what you do. Click your heels together 3 times, waddle once around your room, wriggle in your seat for 8 seconds and make the cutest expression you can muster…congratulations you have entertained my imagination enough to tell you what the epiphany is!!! And if you did it even though you reached an epiphany, you get a high 5 from me and an imaginary box of Royce chocolates because they’re bloody awesome. (Yes bloody, cause people shed blood fighting over that thing.)

What do heroes and villains have in common? EVERYONE’S OUT TO GET YOU. Heroes have enemies so do villains, actually less people are out to get villains, like if you’re a bad guy the media can’t be bothered to scrutinize you, stalk you and report your every movement. But if you’re a hero, you might get blasted for being unheroic because you stepped on a fucking ant. Yes an ant. In fact, being a hero redefines the phrase “everyone’s out to get you” cause really everyone IS out to get you, from the paparazzi to the fans to the government (like heroes don’t cause collateral damage?) and of course your enemy the villain. Frankly speaking though, the villain will probably cut you the most slack because he or she functions on the ‘I’ll kill you if you get in my way’, which means if as a hero you don’t get in a villain’s way, they don’t really give a flapping duck about you, unlike the remaining populace who are in your face, some even trying to find out what brand of toilet paper you use.

Summary? Why bother being a hero if you’re saddled with all the shit AND have to die young? If everyone’s out to get you anyways, might as well be the villain so you can get away with anything. And conscience? I don’t think you’d have anything riding on your conscience NOT helping a group of lazy ungrateful spoilt bastards who wants your blood (or gossip or kids, whichever),so really, it’s all good. In fact, I can see how heroes who do survive end up becoming villains, kinda hard not to be with that sort of following, don’t you agree?

Conclusion? VILLAINS FTW!!

Musing about education

I think in a way we have to grudgingly admit that some of the less prestigious and well-known colleges are actually doing their job better than your first tier universities. In our heated debates as to which university has propelled the traditional tertiary education model to its greatest glory, how many of us actually stopped to think if the model itself was anything good to begin with?

The fundamental concept of education is to educate people so that they may serve their purpose in social dynamics, hence it would be logical to state that education ought to cater to people, not the other way round. Yet, after spending 13 months searching for the ‘right’ college, I find myself more often than not doing the complete opposite. What started off as a search for a college that suited my needs quickly turned into me trying suit myself to a college and its programs. Admission requirements aside, since when did the people start conforming to the needs of education? Were education not meant to satisfy people’s needs?

Here’s the history of education crudely summarized. Old Greek men decided to gather and exchange philosophical ideas in the form of discussions. Stripping this concept of its bare basics, we are left with a want and a means to satisfy said want. It’s basically the concept of supply and demand in its most rudimentary form as it is with most things in this world. Ironically, whilst most facets of human society have managed to adhere to this theory, education has not.

The following list outlines what most high school juniors, seniors and parents look out for when sending their kids to college, in order of importance:

1. Prestige, ranking, reputation
2. Cost and financial aid
3. Distance from home
4. Safety on campus

After entering college however you then realize that what you should have been looking out for were:

1. Quality of education and faculty
2. Quality of student body
3. Quality of administration staff
4. Quality of campus facilities

Why is it that the above 4 points have never made into aspiring college freshmen and parents’ of freshmen’s heads is simple. If the college is prestigious and costs a bomb then its facilities, faculty and services should also match up to that. And I will not argue with this concept. It is perfectly logical. A large, prestigious university is bound to have greater financial assets and wider network to hire better faculty, build better facilities and pay for better staff. So why is it that only when you have enrolled do you realize the level of, for the lack of a better word, crap, you have involved yourself in?

Here’s a simple analogy. No matter how good the ingredients and machinery are, a shoddy recipe will always yield a miserable cake. It does not really matter how good your faculty may be or how great your facilities are, if the whole education system is flawed then the results will be flawed. Perfect execution will only redeem a good idea so much; if a university has top notch professors but no decent courses or degree, whilst many will flock to the school, but how many of them are really deserving of the education?

In fact, let me summarize the problem with your traditional university education system:

• Universities are so caught up with rankings that it is more important for students to score well rather than learn
• New information are being discovered and created every day, knowledge is constantly becoming outdated and social dynamics are always changing, yet no one’s actually making any persistent effort to keep up with the change, favoring old ways, just with new names
• Quality education is not going to those who deserve them and or put them to actual use
• Poor execution of the system
• Biggest whited sepulcher of the commercial industry

As stated in the very first musing, vast majority of us dedicate 12 years of our lives to get into a good university, with the definition of good being prestigious. The 12 years however are not the biggest sacrifices we have made. I would say that after 12 years of education, many of us have somewhat come to a conclusion as to what we want in life, to varying degrees of course. The main issue lies in whether or not there are universities offering the right degree and most important prestige that caters to what we want. Chances are, as decades pass by, more and more of us find the answer to that question to be “no”. I am sure you like me have had such experiences during your tiresome college search.

You find a university of suitable prestige and fees only to find it not offering the course or degree you want. It is one thing to be unqualified for a college of your choice, be it academically or financially. It is another to be deprived of an aspect of education at a quality in which you deserve. Here is a true example of my friend who is holds high aptitude in the area of fine arts and is equally blessed to be academically inclined. She has made the brave choice of giving up academic prestige for a specialized arts education, never mind what society says. However, how many of us have such courage. An even better question would be how many more areas of study have not recently been propelled to more acceptable status as arts have?

I shall cite distance learning aka online degrees as a brilliant example. Internet was invented to allow for a more flexible and productive lifestyle, to reduce distance and encourage diversity in life. Hence distance learning should not have earned its infamous reputation that it has today. Fake online universities and unaccredited universities aside, the true reason behind the sullied reputation of distance learning is because most ‘prestigious’ universities that have ventured down this path all declared it a failure, thereby declaring the concept a failure in general. Columbia University’s online degree venture ended in a measly 3 years as did NYUonline.

Ironically, the smaller, much less prestigious The New School have managed what those titans could not, they created a successful and efficient online learning module that actually benefitted people. Crux of the matter however lies in the fact that despite its benefits, people who have to resort to online learning to finish their education, usually for good reasons such as work or family and are disciplined enough to complete such a degree through sheer-self motivation are not receiving what they deserve reputation wise. Note the term used here, reputation but not quality. By ignoring traditional tertiary education systems, The New School has managed to create a new education system that catered to the people’s needs and most importantly worked.

As an aspiring media and entertainment management major, a major that is rare and offered by (what seems to be) few legitimate universities, I have found myself at this heart of college education’s inadequacy. Reputable universities either offer my desired course only at MBA or Masters Level and the less reputable one simply do not have the right resources to make the most out of their stated curriculum. Living or at least studying Japan has always been one of my aspirations, yet recent research and attempts in trying to apply for Japanese universities have shown me that despite finally moving into providing English taught degrees, the top Japanese institutions never once stopped to review if their current education system was flawed when translated into the western culture, or even on a whole. I can point out several to you without trying. There is a distinct lack in flexibility, all courses are pretty much set in stone, the area of studies are rigid and stringent and highly Japanese-centric, this includes the major that is provided which is highly irrelevant to the global society (Study of Japan in east asia hardly qualifies as a major in demand).

As a firm believer of value for money, I believe in getting the most out of your college education; and the first step to that would be to be paying for something you actually want to learn. Hence I have considered throwing the concept of prestige out the nearest window and attend the closest school with the degree I want, but as I have said, these schools hardly have the resources to execute their pedagogy to its intended effectiveness. To the few institutions that do, another problem would be the student body. Yes, the course can be exactly what you seek and the faculty may even be decent, but it is important to ask yourself, do you want to be in a class full of de-motivated and demoralized peers who are either drop outs or people who have opted for these degrees because they have no better options?

Of course, you can reply that it is all about one’s personal integrity but mind you that the bulk of your grades in college do come from course work and projects that rely on team efforts; your grades rest as much on your shoulders as it does your classmate who probably ditches group meetings for drinks and parties. This creates the wonderful vicious cycle of smaller private institutions that has great ideals and pedagogy. Low quality students enroll into the institution, this puts off better students from enrolling thus reducing student body’s increment thereby hindering the financial and reputational growth of the institution which continues to attract low quality students.

Amazingly, for all the bad rep that these less prestigious, probably for-profit universities have, they are actually doing their craft right for once. In being frank in their monetary motives they provide the service that comes with the price tags. Admin shafts are less common, the employees in the office tend to be much more helpful and polite, when complaints are lodged, actions are actually taken; this compared to your prestigious private and public institutions where administration is a nightmare is probably what you would expect from the reputation that Ivy League equals have.  This just further proves the point that many of the smaller, less prestigious universities are actually doing their job right. At the very least, they are providing supply to the students’ demands.

To add on to the already disturbing revelations here, a friend of mine once read a book on how Brown University catapulted itself into its Ivy status today and let me tell you that the entire process was not as glorified as most would like. It turns out that the recipe to educational prestige and success is the same as every other product in the world, exclusivity and a hefty price tag. By limiting its yearly student intake and marking a high price for its cost of attendance (financial aid aside), Brown quickly attracted a brilliant student body and before long rose to fame. LV did the same and was successful, so did Givenchy and Audi, it is all about making the product ‘limited edition’ and ‘insanely expensive’.

NYU certainly has got this concept down pat with its recent opening of NYU Abu Dhabi, branding it as the world’s honors college and boasting an acceptance rate lower than even Havard with its already astounding NYU price tag, before the graduation of its first batch, it has already created prestige that might have otherwise taken years to forge. Perhaps the only downfall of these less prestigious and small scaled universities was their immediate desire for profits, by accepting as many students as possible regardless of quality to increase revenue; they have created the image of a second-class school that takes in only the desperate and not the motivated.

When you think about it however, what choice do we have? In the world of education, it is not about supply and demand but customer’s compromise. To survive in the society that has built itself around clamoring academic excellence rather than in name, many of us have little choice but to force ourselves to conform to degrees and courses that we know do not actually impart us with anything and or that do not (intellectually or technically) contribute to our future goals. Those of us opinionated non-conformists try to rebel this inevitable fate end up in second-tier universities, grudgingly accepting the fact that socially we will never receive what we deserve reputation wise whilst most of those who do parade around with degrees exalted with ‘years of tradition and excellence’ mock the resources and investments wasted on them by consistently diving back into the world of the scholarly and never actually contributing to our physical society.

At the end of the day a prestigious university degree is about as valuable as an LV handbag. It cost you a bomb, gives off all the right impressions and is a coveted status icon, chances are however it will never be as durable as your Samsonite backpack that looks like shit, nor will it have all the compartments you secretly want and need, it will probably not follow you wherever you go because its precious and fragile self will never survive a mountain hike or a tour in the less auspicious parts of Thailand, yet you will still buy that LV handbag just because society tells you “You need it.”

Musings on health

I bet at one point you were roped into obsessing about health and health foods. You meticulously read the labels on the food you buy; you weigh yourself everyday and spend an insane amount of money on health foods and supplements. You spend an unholy amount of time reading health books and articles on maintaining a healthy lifestyle and the pros and cons of different health foods and products only to find them all contradicting each other and confusing the shit out of you. At that point you promptly declare everything useless and go back to your previously unhealthy lifestyle because all you can do is give up in the face of confusing, tiring, troublesome and unrealistic health routines.

How do I know all this? I’ve been there, well not the calories reading and whatnot, but I definitely advocate healthy lifestyles and at times obsess over it. What I do stress more so than anything else though is effectiveness and realism. Face it, short of becoming a lifestyle trainer, there’s no way to maintain such a lifestyle. We don’t have the time or energy to memorize and check the calorie intake of everything that goes down our throat or remember to eat that gazillion pills.

Unless you’ve really been leading a self-detrimental lifestyle like I had due to stress and work, and or you are actively trying to build muscles or lose a serious amount of weight (like more than 10kg), save your time and money on better stuff like gadgets or a good book (aka this book). You wanna keep fit and healthy? Here’s the Chocomon version of guide to a healthy lifestyle, guaranteed to be easy to memorize and convenient to keep:

• Fuck your health supplements and calories calculator, eat your 3 meals a day (and whenever you’re hungry) and make sure that there are carbs, meat and veggies/fruits in every meal
• Saying no to junk food is impossible and inhumane, indulge whenever you want, just remember to compensate it by eating healthier the next meal, drinks lots of water and work it off if you feel fat and unhealthy, that and that junk food isn’t your every meal
• Sleep is god, sleep at least 6-8 hours a day, it doesn’t matter when people as long as you get your damn sleep and when you have to stay up for days on end, give yourself a long self-declared holiday of doing absolutely nothing but stoning and sleeping
• Work out (note how I said work out and not exercise, climbing stairs counts as exercising for some of you lazy asses out there, but it’s not a work out and you know it.) at least 2 times a week, go to a gym, spend an hour use every equipment there, play a physically demanding sport, I don’t care what, just physically exhaust yourself, yes WORKING OUT IS SUPPOSED TO HURT
• Stop freaking out over everything and anything, quickest way to a health disaster is stress, and yes you can get second degree anxiety over not being healthy enough, so just take a chill pill and relax, enjoy life, indulge, have fun, R&R etc.

I’m not saying those supplement pills don’t work nor am I discouraging you from signing up for personal training because I do both, but I do them because I actually want to increase my physical strength and gain bulk, and I have fucked up my health beyond typical repair. If you know you’re a decently healthy person who just wants to stay fit and healthy, follow the above 5 points and you’re good. Remember, human population have lived without intense gym trainings and health products for the better half of the millennium and it’s not like our life expectancy are doing any better these days than it was back then.

Musings on twister fries

I personally think they should be called slinky fries because they look more like slinkys than twisters or cyclones or tornadoes! Though probably if you tried to drop them down a flight of staircase they wouldn’t ‘slink’ their way down…they may bounce all the way though, I have absolute faith in the tenacity of MacDonald’s fries, 2 weeks and they still look as fresh as when you first bought them, amazing.

Ahem, so back on track with them slinky fries. What exactly makes them so much awesome than your regular straight fries!!!?? Is it a placebo effect? Because we think slinky fries are tastier so they taste better to us even though they actually taste the same as your regular boring fries, or are they actually made to taste differently!?

To get to the bottom of this mystery, we must compare slinky fries against normal fries in a scientific and logical manner…

But okay, I’m a lazy ass, so I couldn’t be bothered so I’ll conclude with one thing : SLINKY FRIES ARE AWESOME!!

(I later find out that slinky fries DO taste different because of the different seasonings used, which results in a slightly different color from regular fries….go figure..)

Musings on demand and supply

You know what I think? I think we’ve gotten it all wrong in our business management and economics textbooks. The whole demand and supply theory is utter bullshit. Whilst it’s true that only when there’s demand there will be supply and that this is the rule businesses should follow (logically), but in an age where supply outstrips demand, does anyone think that this wonderful concept is still a competitive one? I personally think we should end demand and supply at needs at necessities (from a business point of view of course, never the consumer’s.)

As I have said before, like more than a gazillion times, we didn’t know we needed and demanded slate tablet devices until Apple decided that we needed one. Half the things we use and own now there never was a demand for it! So when I’m writing my business plan and staring at the guideline that says “demand forecast”, I’m wondering, how the fuck do you forecast demand for something that doesn’t yet exist!? If you’ve never had it how the hell do you know you need it!?

Whilst all the other companies wreck their brains to figure out products to meet people’s demands, there we have Apple making products that is creating a demand. What is this telling you exactly? I know for sure that it tells me that under business plans, we shouldn’t be writing demand forecasts but demand creation.

It’s not about making a product that people wants, it’s about making people want your product. Good businesses forecasts demand, smart businesses just brainwash their consumers.

Musings on being convincing

If you sound like you sound like you know what you’re talking about then people will think you know what you’re talking about, so just keep talking.

(Why else do you keep reading this book? )

Musings on bejeweled

I’ll be the first to admit that I’m hopelessly addicted to bejeweled blitz, as an addict, I’ve carried out my faithful ritual of wasting an entire afternoon playing this silly game, and with each game being a minute and there being 60 minutes in an hour and roughly 6-8 hours in an afternoon, when you get down to the math of it, it’s a horrifying how many rounds of bejeweled blitz I plough through on my good (bored) days.

What I’ve learnt from this game (and definitely Fruit Ninja Arcade mode, games ftw!)?

A lot can happen in 1 minute.

Musings on negativity

How do you define assholiness (ooo HOLY ASS!!)…well okay that sounded kind of wrong. But really how do you justify if someone’s an asshole or a bastard? The person’s lack of niceness! And how do you justify if someone’s an idiot? The person’s lack of intelligence!

What exactly am I getting at here? Have you realized how we judge things based on the lack of the positive? I mean, why do we not define someone who is smart as ‘the lack of dumbness’? Hell, why is it that for exams we’re graded by the number of questions we get correct? Why isn’t the scoring system the other way round, for every question you get wrong, you get a point and the person with the least points is the highest scorer? And heck, why is it that we call it the ‘highest’ instead of the ‘lowest’? The logic that I’m getting to is so simple and direct that I can’t think of any more ways to simplify it anymore that it already is obvious. We humans rate things on an upward scale (as if it’s not obvious enough), meaning we determine the highest and we assign value from the highest down.

For example, you know someone’s been a bastard to you because you compared him to someone who was NICE. Think of someone who’s only ever met bastards in his/her life. He/she probably won’t think of those people as jerks or asses because his/her standard of nice ARE those people and anyone else whom he/she meets who are nicer than those jerks and bastards can only become NICER people. Until of course someone reeducates the poor bloke’s ‘personality grading system’. You know that a cake is bland because you’ve tasted a sweet cake, someone who has only ever eaten bland food won’t think bland food is bland until he has something higher to compare it to. Thus the word bland only exists after one has tasted what sweet as bland is the lack of sweetness/other tastes.

Need more examples? Cold is the lack of warmth. Dark is the lack of light. Difficult is the lack of ease. Tired is the lack of rest. Can all these definitions be turned around? Of course it can, but why don’t we? The answer is simple and absolute, WE JUST DON’T. Just like how we can use -1+2=1 instead of 2-1=1  but we still use the latter simply because WE JUST DO. Hence, sure people say the bad exists to justify the good, and even I say that bad things exist to give value to the good things, but all my amazing examples have proven that although this logic is sound and applicable, the basis in which we humans judge things are based on the positive and we do this instinctively since like, forever.

Fact of the matter is THE FUNDAMENT OF THIS WORLD IS A POSITIVE ONE.

Yes my dear readers, the world is POSITIVE, so get your emoball heads out of the gutter and face the sunshine. WE LIVE IN A POSITIVE WORLD, you just have to learn to appreciate it.

Musings on physical bodies

You know why we have bodies to house our minds?

Our bodies are IMPORTANT as they are well..unimportant?

Ok I know I’m being shit ass confusing as usual. Basically here’s the deal, short of being sick, it’s usually our minds that torture us. We scare ourselves, we stress ourselves, most things that make us uncomfortable are more likely to be emotional or psychological than physical. And so I realized after skipping gym for nearly a month, OUR PHYSICAL BODIES ARE IMPORTANT AS THEY ARE OUR ONLY FORM OF STRESS RELIEF.

Face it; the best way to relieve stress of any sort is to exert yourself physically. I find myself a much more amiable and agreeable person when I gymmed 3 times a week. My reason? Trust me, after 1 hour of lifting weights your muscles aren’t supposed to be able to hold up, you will have no bloody energy left in you to be angry, annoyed or pissed off. And if you do, it’ll definitely be targeted at the nearest weights/machines or your coach, or all of them. You’d be too caught up in trying your best to not crawl back to the changing room to even feel bothered by any other stupid shit. SERIOUS!

Think about it. When you’re pissed we get violent, you either yell or punch or do something PHYSICALLY destructive. You don’t try to THINK something to death when you’re angry do you? Well you do and you end up getting angrier until you finally lose it and find something to take your frustrations out on, physically. See what I mean? And even people who drink to get over their problems, or those who do drugs (I’m promoting neither, just so you know), it’s also a form of PHSYICAL PUNISHMENT to oneself to relief our MENTAL stress.

So by being..unimportant as in thoroughly abusable (you realize that all our stress relieving methods are actually self-abuse? Punching walls, hitting stuff, physical exertion, crying, drinking, drugs etc.) our bodies exist to make sure we stay sane.

Wow, I can’t believe I just rationalized why we have bodies. But it makes sense nyaa?

On a completely random note: “Our present selves are actually the past selves of our future selves, so essentially our past selves are our present selves and our present selves are our future selves, and since our future selves all ultimately inevitably die, doesn’t that mean we should actually be nicer to our past selves? Yet our present selves torturing our past selves and living for our future selves; don’t we realize that when we die, all we take with us are our past memories, and because of the way we live, they’re all going to be shit…sometimes, I think we were born to be stupid.”

Musings on gay guys

There are so many arguments as to why gay guys are bad. Realize how it is the word ‘gay’ that’s an insult and not ‘lesbian’. The most typically used one is how gay guys don’t contribute to the society, mainly in terms of procreation.

I happen to like gay people. (I meant that in terms of their sexual preference, not personality.) So I shall refute those arguments.

PROCREATION in a time of LOW BIRTH RATE in developed countries is a LAME EXCUSE to discriminate gay people. Even women who are born with the right organs for procreation AREN’T giving birth to kids after sex, so why the hell are we hating on gay guys? <insert look of bewilderment> I do realize that if this book is published and my editor is a straight guy, he might ask me to remove this musing, in which I will retaliate by doing my best to turn him gay.

I mean, ok if you’re really going to pick this bone, then lets come up with a good solution. Look at Ricky Martin! Gay guy, got married, had two kids and went back to his gay self. He lived up to social expectations, fulfilled his responsibility and BAM he is gay again. What problems CAN we have with him being gay? (Aside from maybe lying to his wife and kids, but the details can be altered during future applications of the same method.) Have a problem with gay people not procreating? Then just knock them out, have them procreate with a willing (kinda) female, tadaa, you have just resolved the problem of gay men not contributing to society!

And really, if you actually put aside your prejudices, you’d realize how gay guys actually contribute MORE to society. A gay guy is still a guy, so effectively he can so the same work as guys, and they consume the same goods as guys and promote the economy. But how do they contribute more? Because they’re gay, they’re likely to buy fashion goods and skin care goods and all that shit AS WELL. AKA they contribute TWICE as much as regular men do in terms of promoting economy and AT THE SAME TIME, accomplish the same work regular men do.

Let us not forget that gay men are typically nicer, more amiable (I’m stereotyping), understanding (though sensitive), especially towards women and for one thing THEY ACTUALLY RESPECT FEMALES as HUMAN BEINGS instead of sexual objects. The only down side is that if all men were gay, women would get no love…(You can argue that the problem would be solved if all women were lesbian but lesbian women contribute no more or less than straight women to society…so yea.)

And thus, we realize that even when men are GOOD, they are still BAD. Fucked up much.

Musings on being a workaholic

I’m a workaholic. It’s actually a really obvious trait of mine that people tend to miss out…I mean come on people, I’m WILLING writing (as up till this musing) 30 thousand over words that isn’t going to get me grades or money.(if the book sells then that’s another story) but anyways, I WILLINGLY DO WORK AND I’M HAPPY DOING IT. I.e. I’m a workaholic.

I personally think that this is an awesome trait because I’ll be productive pretty much the rest of my life. As with all my arguments it is arguable but I don’t give a damn cause it’s my book and I have ALL the say. If you too are a compulsive workaholic, feel free to write an entire book to refute everything I wrote but I bet you’re too lazy…Aaand I’m straying again….god I’m getting old…I love being a workaholic, I mean yes I bitch about work a lot and stress a lot (let me tell you secretly that one of the perks of being  a workaholic is being ALLOWED to bitch about work and stress because you actually well…do work.) but it’s eustress (you should google this word, it’s epic.) and it makes me feel productive and happy. The only downside is that I get bored extremely fast and when I’m bored I’m actually STRESSED. So okay being a workaholic means you’re weird, but that’s okay with me.

And as I rant, I shall go into the key point of my musing. DON’T PISS OFF A WORKAHOLIC. You see, I have two modes, work mode and non-work mode (yes very creative of me, I know) and my non-work mode self had an epiphany yesterday that she’d rather die than piss off my workaholic self. Kindly ignore the fact that I seem to have developed some sort of a personality disorder and keep up with me here. My non-work mode self when pissed off is at worse an extremely violent person with potential to destroy physical items and cause bodily harm…it sounds bad but because I’m female…it’s really not that bad. Neither my bite nor my bark really hurts so to speak. Piss off my workaholic self however is another story.

My workaholic self will neither scream no shout or cause you any bodily harm. In fact, she will smile at you angelically (perhaps a little forced) and maybe almost break the pen she’s holding, and then leave you to your own devices. Sounds good so far? Then wait till you hear this part. THEN she will proceed to draw up pages upon pages of rules, regulations and policies you need to follow and then even MORE pages of consequences that shall befall upon you should you break them which you most definitely will. And THEN she will compile every single little mistake and mishaps you’ve ever had into a neat little table or list, write a 2-3 page report as to why you are unfit for your role and submit it to whomever can bring you doom. These are very true consequences of pissing off my workaholic self as she has managed to get someone removed from their vice-president position. Whilst you cackle evilly at all the work she has to do to make your life miserable, remember that SHE IS A WORKAHOLIC. SHE ENJOYS WORK. She is actually having FUN while planning your suffering. All the work adds to her productivity and happiness meter which all ultimately leads up to your demise that also adds on to her overall achievements.

Hence a word of advice. DON’T PISS OFF WORKAHOLICS.

Musings on berries

I was opening my fridge, getting my delicious power berry juice when I realized, we have no redberries. I mean yes we have berries that are red, raspberries, cranberries, strawberries BUT THERE IS NO REBERRIES. And I wikied and we have yellowberry, greenberry, blueberry, blackberry….WHAT OF REDBERRIES!?

Musings on men and women

I recently just bought a kick-ass book called I’ll Mature when I’m Dead by Davy Barry, since at the point of writing this, I’m still just your regular teen who likes writing down her crazy thoughts and ideas, thus I don’t have an editor, thus I do not know if the name of this book will be taken out because of some laws regarding promoting other stuff on certain types of media.

Ok you didn’t need to know that at all but I felt like writing it down anyways and I hope that you will read the book because it is what inspired me to write this musing. Anyhow, back to my main point, the book had a little section (and it was a little book so the little section is really well…little.)on the author’s perspectives on the differences between men and women. I won’t spoil it for you (actually it’s because I can’t be bothered to dig through my mountain of books to find the book and reference it for you…but you didn’t need to know that either =P), but the summary of his differences can be described as follows:

Inside of a guy’s brain: A dot

Inside of a girl’s brain: A MASSIVE COMPLICATED MATRIX AND SQUIGGLES AND GOD KNOWS WHAT.

I thought it was utterly hilarious. I would definitely agree off the bat that women are complicated, hell even we can’t figure ourselves out (but don’t quote me on this or you will get mobbed by angry females…or you CAN quote me and get mobbed..your call *shrugs)…sometimes.  But yea in general girls think more than guys do and on a lot more complicated level, women are just GOOD at complicating things! Here’s an example, if two guys hate each other, they just hate each other, they make the other guy’s life hell or avoid the other guy like plague and make it explicit that he hates the guy’s guts. With girls…we have friends, then we have enemies and enemies who are actually ‘frenemies’…you get my point. And this is by no means because women are ILLOGICAL. I’d admit, women are more governed by their emotions than men are, apparently we are biologically built this way so kids don’t get abandoned or some crap like that. But honestly when a woman is being difficult chances are she had a very logical train of thought, the only problem lies in the fact that she has too MANY logical train of thoughts.

Here’s an example with BOB! Woot! HI BOB! LONG TIME NO DEBUT! *wave wave*. Bob’s friend (who is a guy) is upset that his girlfriend dumped him. Bob would just call his friend’s ex a bitch, take him out for a drink and probably get it over with. Bob’s girlfriend however would consider the matter from Bob’s friend’s point of view, his ex’s point of view, Bob’s point of view, the mother of Bob’s friend’s point of view….and the list goes on. And thought straight lines are lines, many lines becomes a complicated mess and it starts to look illogical because well…you’re kind of not supposed to look at them ALTOGETHER.

Oh and while we’re at it, let me tell you GIRLS HAVE THE SAME PROBLEM WHEN ANSWERING THE ‘AM I FAT’ QUESTION. We ask it, but we can’t answer it. At least I can’t. Though aside from my biology I’m often not considered female…so that could be the reason….anyways. Here is why girls get pissed off no matter you answer yes or no. The point is the girl isn’t REALLY asking you the question. The girl is asking you this question because she feels insecure about herself because she thinks she might be fat but her more rational side is telling her she probably is just fine and she’s just being paranoid, however she doesn’t want to just go to you to tell you to compliment her and reassure her because then it’d just sound like lying and she wants to have a fair impartial judgment about her size or at least a SINCERE comment instead of what guys normally say to get rid of the girl, so she packages her desire to be reassured as a yes or no question when what she really wants to hear is neither yes nor no  but rather a sincere answer that will make her feel better. Yes she will not let you off the hook if you said ‘you look nice no matter what’, but truth be told she doesn’t plan to let you off the hook no matter WHAT you say, there ISN’T a correct answer, she’ll keep fishing for reassurance until she feels better and then move on to a new topic. The whole trick is to remain sincere and reassure her and NEVER take a stance as to whether she is fat or not fat. But anyhow, SEE THERE IS LOGIC BEHIND HER THINKING.

But all of that isn’t really my point for this musing. My point is that I don’t quite agree that all of the differences between men and women are a ‘men and women’ thing. Basically aside from our biology I genuinely do not think that our gender makes us SOOOO different. Because looking at guys these days, and I do have many guy friends who are not gay, they are just about AS complicated AND troublesome to deal with as girls. Who says girls are the nightmare when they go shopping anymore? Who says it’s just girls who ask if they’re fat and spend HOURS in the toilet fixing their hair? Who says it’s just girls who have petty fights and frenemies and make friends with people they don’t actually like? Guys do that too! *stomps feet indignantly*

These days a guy is as likely as a girl to be concerned if their pair of jeans fit and if their waistline is profound. Sure we have guys to don’t give a damn about their looks and don’t mind getting dirty but fact of the matter is guys these days will cling onto their girlfriends and make calls every 5 minutes and whine if they don’t get a message every other hour. Guys will pussyfoot around matters and gossip like housewives. And it’s not cause all guys are turning gay, it’s just our upbringing.

In the past there’s a distinct model for what a guy should be and what a girl should be and we’re brought up accordingly. Girls get barbies and guys get power rangers, it just makes sense. Guys should spend their time outside playing soccer while girls sit down and have tea parties. Yea well those times are over. Both guys and girls are equally likely to be found gaming on some electronic device or another and you’d just as probably catch a guy fixing his hair in front of a reflective surface as a girl. Because we don’t have such set definitions about how guys and girls should think and behave anymore. Guys are allowed to ponder over their emotions instead of being told to stuff it and be a man whilst girls have the choice of not being weak and passive the time.

Hell I know the sheer number of times I get calls from my guy friends who are as straight as an arrow saying that they don’t want to be friends with this guy because of this stupid petty matter and he can’t trust the guy no more because of so and so reasons. What happened to fist fighting and moving on? Beats me, but as far as I’m concerned guys no longer have the right to say ‘she’s being such a girl’ whenever a girl is being difficult because guys, you guys aren’t that different from us anymore. In fact next time if you want to refute a girl’s arguments as illogical JUST because she is female, think about this, as an embryo we were all exactly the same, it was our upbringing and external factors that made us different, not our gender. We are all human, with a brain a heart and a mind.

On a completely unrelated note, here’s my little toast of feminism:

Guys, do you really wanna piss off something that can bleed for 7 days straight and not die?

Musings on success

Asians believe in success through sacrifice, westerners believe in success through hard work. Is there a difference? Yes there is.

Who has gotten it right though? Seeing as Forbes has named almost the entire world’s richest to be westerners, I’d say that we Asians have some serious reflecting to do. Like, majorly.

Here is your typical Asian successful businessman, he hoards his money, spends all his time flying around attending business meetings after business meetings, golf games after golf games, he’s home for 24 hours a month, spends negligible amount of time with his family, who chances are works in his huge enterprise and calls their father by his job appellation rather than ‘dad’. He’s probably bold by 35, 40 if he’s lucky, with grey hairs before he’s even 50 and justifies himself by leaving his family with a fortune and mansions with maintenance fees to match, if he feels gracious that is. Or he just might want to die a philanthropist and redeem himself socially, you never know.

Here is your typical western successful businessman, he spends as much as some country’s people’s tax money combined, but he earns just as much if not more. He flies around on a daily basis and brings his family with him. On the rare occasion he splurges on expensive holidays for his families, he’s actually home during major holidays and if possible cancels meetings to attend that all important little league soccer game. He’s probably got a good beer belly going on, balding because western men just bald easily and whilst the rest of his countrymen figure out how to pay for their kids’ college, he’s either lined up his business to be inherited by his son so he can retire by 70 or dumped a sum on his kid so they can start their own business and leave his bank account alone. And oh yes, he’s publicity advisor probably started some philanthropic endeavor along the way, he probably signs the papers without looking anyways.

Am I being completely and entirely biased+stereotypical? Yes I am, how else can I prove my point? Sure these examples are exaggerated, but I mean lets compare Donald Trump to any of Asia’s richest. And you see how I don’t know the same of said rich Asians not because they aren’t as rich but because they’re so low profile and not seen or heard! We know Donald Trump, Kimora Lee Simmons etc. cause they do reality TV, I’m not saying rich people have to (because we all know Bill Gates don’t), but face it successful western people actually HAVE a life in some way and as such we are able to see/watch/read about them from some media. KEY WORD: HAVE A LIFE. I mean, look at the facebook dude, he’s got a movie made after him and we all know you can’t make a movie out of someone who has no life unless one is being forced upon him/her. The only movies of ‘successful Asians’ we have are of politicians and honestly it’s not so much the guy than the politics that makes the movie.

Since we’re on the topic of successful people and media lets do a quick comparison shall we? The content of media involving successful western people is either reality TV or a biography of their life. It talks about their family, their work, their relationships, their vacations…their daily LIFE. Even when it’s a movie about their success it talks about how the family supported them, how everyone struggled together as a family to achieve the goal, how the ‘protagonist’ lost himself through work and found it again with help from friends and family and usually ends up with him/her HAPPY and FULFILLED or at least on a emotional/spiritual level at peace. What do we see from movies about successful Asian people? How ‘admirable’ they are sacrificing this and that to achieve success, sacrificing their family, their relationships, their time, their health; oh yes, that is SUCH a RESPECTFUL model for success. -_-lll I don’t see why anyone would think they’re great. They gave up a lot to get to where they are…I mean…HOW IS THAT ADMIRABLE!? O.O  Because willingly giving up things and people around you and in your life for something as superficial as monetary success or hell even SUCCESS and FAME or ACHIEVEMNT won’t make you or anyone else around you happy. No one is thanking you for giving up so much, so one is ASKING you to, you’re doing it yourself, feeling bad for yourself and being miserably successful…how is that good?

The whole point of being successful is because it makes you satisfied/content/happy etc. you know like POSITIVE! So why would you want to be successful if you’re not happy? You can’t enjoy success if you’re sad. At least if you’re a poor asshole at least you have a GOOD reason to be sad and you can at LEAST bitch about unfairness in life and all that shit. If you’re successful and miserable, you’re either a bloody ungrateful BRAT or you’re a self-serving bastard who deserves it cause you had a choice to not go the ‘holy self-sacrificing’ way. You want to know why success is hard work? Because balance family, work and fun together is HARD. Dumping everything and just pouring your life into work….it’s tough but it aint hard, how hard can something get if that’s the only damn thing you need to do? So yes, I have no fucking idea why all these rich “SUCESSFUL” Asians are oh so proud. What the hell do you have to be proud of? That you exchanged everything in life for your commercial success? Well I feel sorry for you that you think happiness and life is only worth that much. Last I checked, happiness is priceless. (Family…not so much, we all know you can adopt kids at a good price =P, and yes I’m just being technical.)

As such if you are a reader of this book, HEED MY LECTURE (aren’t you glad I’m being honest about the fact that I am lecturing you? ^_^) THE DEFINITION OF SUCCESS IS ACHIEVEMNT IN YOUR CAREER AND IN YOUR PERSONAL LIFE. You are only successful if you are happy. So you can say that if you are happy you are successful. Seriously, you have NO IDEA how hard it is to be genuinely happy for a undetermined period of time in this century. So guy it’s like I always and will always say: BE HAPPY. <-IMPORTANT

P.S.: Do I need to tell you guys again to use this in conjunction with sustainable happiness? I should right? You don’t know what that is? GO READ THE RELEVANT MUSING! And no I won’t tell you what page it’s on because you’re a lazy ass who can’t be bothered to read the book thoroughly. *sticks tongue out*

 

Musings on time management

I personally think that time management is extremely important. Oh hell, who am I kidding, if I ruled the world I’d make not owning a schedule book and not using a schedule book illegal and punishable by death (by tickling.) I find that it is important to always manage your time, organize your tasks accordingly and prioritize the things you need to do. But honestly…I can’t believe I’m saying (well wirting this), time management isn’t really that efficient. In fact sometimes time management is less efficient than a moment’s impulse. (I shall henceforth call this impulsive motivation)

True, in order to be consistently efficient and productive, time management is important. It makes sure everything is done when they need to be done…that is if you actually FOLLOW your time management plan. I have this concept about planning, make a plan and shelf it. Oh yes, I’m an epic planner, I plan everything and anything, I even have the next 55 years of my life planned out, but more than half the time what I plan I don’t follow. The whole point of planning to me is to FEEL organized and the whole point of feeling organized is to feel like you’re IN CONTROL. Planning makes you think, when you think you sort things out and when you sort them out you have control over them and when you have control you will usually get things done one way or another because you’re not fretting and panicking all over the place, as such to me once you’ve achieved the objective of feeling IN CONTROL, the plan as achieved its purpose. And lets be REALLY honest, what beats giving one the illusion of productivity aside from planning? We can spend HOURS, YEARS, LIVES planning and none of it actually DOING what we plan. And therein lies the problem of time management.

You know the whole issue with this time management thing? It requires TIME. Yes, you need to set time out to MAKE a schedule and organize your time. That usually takes a while. If you’re lucky it’ll take up your day, if you’re an unlucky bastard who has tons of commitments and responsibilities that are dependent on someone ELSE’S time, then I’ll probably take you days before your schedule is finalized. And sure you can say that time management isn’t necessarily scheduling, it can also be prioritizing. You know that little prioritizing quadrant thing? You need to take TIME to draw it then MORE time to LIST DOWN everything you have on hand and spend MORE time prioritizing and by the time you’re done you declare your work done for the day and you’ve not actually done anything you just prioritized. Lets not forget the mountains of ‘unforeseen circumstances’ that will knock on your door forcing you to RE-PRIORITIZE. And then the next issue occurs. Your plan gets derailed. Truth be told the most ANNOYING part about plans getting derailed isn’t so much the derailing…as in, it’s not so much the physical setbacks that gets you. Nope, it’s the DISAPPOINTMENT that your perfect plan needs to get redone which OH, TAKES UP MORE TIME!!! And when you’re disappointed (or in some other cases annoyed, miffed, pissed off, whatever…) you are demotivated and when you are demotivated you are not productive. And I’m sure you are smart enough to understand why being not productive is bad right? (Don’t answer that, it’s a rhetoric question.) So yea, it’s highly likely if you are one of those people who follow your plans to the T and replan over and over again until your plans are finally perfect and incorporates every bloody unpredictable element that you wake up one day and realized that none of what you’ve planned has actually been done. I know, realizing all your sense of productivity has been fake is horrifying.

Let us summarize, time management is bad because:

• It is time consuming in its own
• If messed up, it’s demotivating
• It gives you the ILLUSION of productivity when not actually being productive

Ironically, as much as people say it’s bad to be impulsive, impulsive motivation is actually more productive in certain cases. Why? Ok, before I go to that I’ll jump to this little phrase in Chinese, it’s called 三分鐘熱度 which basically translates LITERALLY to minutes heat, it means that someone is impulsively passionate about something and it fizzles out quickly. Logically it doesn’t seem like a good trait to have since you probably won’t finish anything if you keep shifting your focus and passion…but when you think about it, at least an impulsive person actually DOES something. Oh sure they most likely will never finish what they start but hey they start, and if it’s a race, these people would cover more distance than those who sit at the starting line, PLANNING.  Think about it! Because you are impulsively motivated, you will IMMEDIATELY start on the thing and probably because you are so high on motivation you’d be multiple times more productive and get more work done than if you followed a planned pace (in which you aren’t really motivated and you’re just coasting). Basically, the quantity and or quality of work you do in the same time will be higher, mathematically that makes you more efficient when impulsively motivated.

So what’s my point? For once I don’t think I have one. I will still be a hard core planner…I’m a virgo, ‘nuff said. Just well…EMBRACE YOUR IMPULSES! And…PLAN AND THEN SLACK! Actually ooo! I JUST CAME UP WITH A POINT! Manage your time and don’t follow it, instead slack, because the urgency will eventually force a bout of impulsive motivation upon you to finish your work. Actually wait…there’s a word for that, it’s called procrastinate…aw damn… and here I thought I was coming up with something awesome too…*pouts* and please don’t quote me when you tell your boss/teachers why you procrastinated yea? Won’t want them to ban this book at your school/workplace after all. That and I actually value my life from scary parents…(and if your parents really wanna kill me, make them read musings on faith first!!!!!!! You might have saved my life)

Musings on arguments

There’s (most likely, I’m not sure, but it seems pretty real to me) been a long-standing argument about the pros and cons of arguments. Some people say it’s healthy and having one once in a while is good for relationships, others say that they are EVIL and break people up and should be avoided. I’ve been on both sides of the coin and honestly…I think arguments are really good. (Ha, I bet you thought I’d be impartial).

Yea, my best friend and I have never argued. EVER. You can say that we avoid arguments because I suppose there were many things we COULD have argued about but didn’t…cause there isn’t a point. Why argue when you know each other’s stand about things and have mutual respect for it? No point ruining a good friendship over something you already KNOW. And I probably never will argue with my best friend simply cause we have nothing to argue about, or at least no NEED to argue. I respect her and her ideals and she respects mine, we don’t see eye to eye but we already know that so it’s kind of logical to just leave our differences be and focus on our similarities. Yes, when you respect someone’s ideas and opinions means you DO NOT try to convince them or brainwash no matter how tempting it is. (Amazing feat for me I think…I DESERVE PATS!!!!)

But honestly, I don’t think that’s good for all relationships. Especially not romantic ones. The whole reason why my best friend and I don’t argue is cause we magically know each other so well (magically means instinctively we are ridiculously observant and or inobservant and as such we managed to figure out each other) that we don’t need to use arguments to find out where the other’s lines on things lie. But not everyone is like that or even if you are your partner might not. And only through arguing will you know that person’s ideals, where their integrities lie and stuff like that. Some people say that arguing is just two people yelling at each other and throwing dangerous sharp pointy objects at one another, but for me arguments are where two people figure out where their respective opinions clash, learn about each other and understand each other more, all whilst venting out their negative emotions in an debatably healthy manner. You’re probably most honest when you’re mad and that’s the only time you won’t package your words or feelings as such it’s the best time to learn about someone (once you’ve calmed down enough to review the contents of the argument). It’s also the time to learn when the other person won’t compromise. The best part is no matter whose fault it is, by partaking in an argument you are leveling the playing field because in arguments both parties get hurt! So it evens out the situation and once you’ve exhausted your energy from all the yelling and screaming and physical labor, you become a positron and become an extremely amiable, understanding and agreeable person who will apologize in which cause the other person to apologize and actually start RESOLVING the problem TOGETHER! And since we all know that shared bad experiences causes people to become closer (for some unknown reason, having seen a person at their worst or in a situation that makes the person as such, it makes you closer to them!!), after knowing that you can still stand and love the person after such hellish experiences actually makes a relationship STRONGER!

So girls, I don’t know what your moms have been teaching you about secretly letting the guy win or to take something sitting down but I’m telling you that if your relationship with a guy can’t even stand epic arguments then you guys shouldn’t be together anyways. Taking everything sitting down (this includes you guys too, I know you secretly think its oh so admirable to let girls win) will just cause grudge to accumulate and make it explode into an emo vortex with no solution. When you argue there’s probably a cause and hence a solution, but if you’re arguing over grudges, it’s an emotion and as such it can’t be resolved…so don’t let things become grudges…argue, fight, do whatever you need to sort out your differences short of killing each other and move on. Trust me it’ll better for you in the long run. And here’s a little secret. You know why you are sick of arguing and fighting? Because you’re having arguments and rights that have no solution because it’s all about grudge. Normal arguments don’t actually tire you out because it replenishes your positive meter at the apologize/make up stage. So there, I should have covered all the bases…

GO FORTH MY MINIONS AND FIGHT TO YOUR HEARTS CONTENT! YOU HAVE MY PERMISSION AND BLESISNGS! Just know that I am in no way liable for any consequences you might face. ^-^V

Musings on lies

Here’s a theory for you to chew on (food for thought anyone?), if we stopped lying, the world would fall apart.

Have any of you realized that before we are taught love, honesty and other moral values, we are taught to lie?
“How are you?”

“I’m fine, thank you. And you?”

What if we’re not fine? What do we say then? No one taught us that, no one taught us to be truthful about it, the very first conversation we learn (of course the ‘first’ part is debatable but alas) we were taught to lie. Impressionable little kids were taught to not tell the truth. By dictionary standard that’s a lie. This is how we are brought up and this is the world we live in.

Everyone is a liar, short of new-borns who have yet been taught to speak, or maybe they lie in their own ways we don’t know yet. God knows 9 out of 10 times they cry, it’s probably just ‘practice run’. And a world built by liars can only have lies as building blocks. It sounds horrifying; to know that nothing you know is probably a lie to some degree. But what if we all stopped lying? If we all said what was on our minds? For every ugly person you walk past you’d loudly insult their appearance, for every business meeting and social gathering there were no pleasantries but blunt truths about who is using who, for every election speech there were just undisguised narcissism and self-benefit?

The truth sounds beautiful, on paper, just like every other word does.

Unfortunately mankind came equipped with something called emotions. We lie usually to make people feel better. You don’t tell your friend that her boyfriend is a complete asshole whom she really shouldn’t be with because you don’t want to hurt them, we make pointless, stupid, blatantly FAKE compliments at parties just to not offend anyone; and those who are being lied to knows that these are lies but feel good anyway. And you know something? Happy people are working people, if we stopped lying the world will be filled with lots of unhappy people, and we wouldn’t want that. We have enough of them as it is.

In retrospect guys, is it really a lie if we all know it is a lie? To realize something is a lie means being privy to the truth and if we are all collectively maintaining the same lies that we know are lies, then perhaps the world isn’t as pretentious as we thought it was.

Musings on cowardice

Very few things in life make me think “oh wow, I’ve really grown up.” I usually look back at my younger self and go “Man I’ve really become more immature.” Logically I know it’s probably cause I’ve become more mature and thus managed to realize my own immaturity, but yea the point is the more I grow up the less I feel like I’ve grown up… which might be a good thing. *shrugs*

Today in the car as I stared at the unmoving cars before me and wondered how long it would take for me to get my tired and sore ass (blame gym) home, my brain which has a brain of its own decided to stumble upon this epiphany. I’ve become more of a coward than when I was younger…man I’ve really grown up.

No it’s not about being afraid of heights and other exciting stuff though I suppose in an ironic way it sort of applies. As a kid I’ve had this conviction towards the truth. I always want to find out the truth, or just to ‘find out’, you know? Get to the bottom of things. I want to know how people really think about stuff, what are the secrets that people are keeping, that sort of thing. And I didn’t care if it hurts. In my point of view, it’s better to be hurt knowing the truth than to be happy and lied to. Now…I still maintain that view but I guess from a different angle.

Honestly this came about when I thought if someone wrote negative comments about this book (which there will be, and many…like loads). As an honest person I will tell you here and now that if I read them they will upset me, I will be hurt and it will bother me. I’m not one of those godly people who can brush off what other people say or think about me, if it seems like I do its merely because I’ve analyzed those comments to the last minute detail and have managed to come to terms with it or refute it. Anyways, back to the point. If it was the younger me, I would have braved those comments and criticisms and whatnot and be bothered and be hurt. My desire to know would have simply win out against my better judgment. But now, older (though not necessarily wiser), I realize I don’t mind not knowing anymore. I know those comments would bother me, sure I might learn something from it, gain something from it (which is usually what prompts my younger self to find out about stuff), but I’d rather not know and stay unruffled, if it does more bad than good to me then I’m fine with being a coward and hiding away from the big bad truth.

Perhaps as you get older, your identity becomes more defined and you no longer have the luxury of letting things smack you around and shape you up so to speak, you need to protect who you are, even if that means remaining blind or being in denial. There is simply too much to lose if you let every other person’s words get to you, losing yourself is simply not an option as you get older. Seeds of lies, perhaps even harmless ones, or merely ignorant ones, grow to become part of you and eventually there comes a point where you can’t undo them or you yourself will fall apart. Cowardice becomes an undesirable shield, to protect ourselves from both good and evil.

But you know something?

It takes guts to be a coward.

Musings on faith

There’s this traffic junction near my house that I am forced to walk across if I want to get anywhere. (It leads to the MRT stations, ‘nuff said.) I’m just about as sick of this traffic junction as I am sick of the entire journey from my house to the station. But as usual, that’s not the point and I’m just bitching to you cause I can. The point is little kids and crossing the road.

Now as you may already know, Singapore is probably one of the safest places to jaywalk. Of course there is the point of us not NEEDING to jaywalk because our traffic is so well regulated (in my not very humble opinion at least) but then again some idiots do it anyways and they don’t get run over because we are just that awesome (brownies for patriotism??). Anyways, how do jaywalking idiots connect to little kids? Well if you had a little kid you probably wouldn’t teach him/her to jaywalk. You’d make them wait with you at the traffic light until the red man turns greed and then you’d hold his/her hand (if the kid lets you) and cross the road before the green man starts flashing. *nod nod* At least that’s what a responsible parent would do. (A smart parent would teach their kids at around the age of 10 the skills of how to jaywalk safely. Because we all know it’s a skill you need in life, that and traffic lights may not always agree with your rushed schedules.) However we do have the saying of how kids are extremely impressionable and whatnot and as such we need to give them good role models (and thus we have parents who are screaming and complaining to Disney about Miley Cryus).

Now imagine this wonderful scenario, you have a little kid with you at the traffic junction waiting for the annoying red man to turn green for that magical 20 seconds. The kid bounces excitedly to the traffic light and presses that magical button that supposedly turns the red man green (EVENTUALLY…) and waits like a good little kid does. And you probably would nag at the kid a couple times about waiting and how it’s unsafe to cross the road before the man turns green. And RIGHT AFTER you said that, a guy with headphones in his ears, texting on his phone walks across the road while the man is still red and reaches the other side safely. That guy OBVIOUSLY isn’t setting a very good example to the kid and he evidently just threw everything you said to the kid out of the window.

So what, does this mean because bad examples are everywhere on the streets you don’t take your kids out? I mean for some unknown reason parents have enough common sense to take their kids out, teach them road safety when jaywalkers are abundant.

And going back to our imaginary traffic junction, magically the little kid will wait patiently with you and chances are him/her will NOT ask you why that guy can walk across when the man is still red and didn’t wait. In fact, chances are the next time the kid is crossing the road himself/herself, she will WAIT despite the number of people jaywalking. And you would LET your kid out of the house to cross the road themselves despite the number of jaywalkers on the roads because you have FAITH in your kid.

Ironically this magical common sense that parents don’t apparently don’t apply everywhere and to everything because we still have parents pointing fingers at every child actor growing up who is supposedly being a ‘bad role model’ and asking them to be persecuted. Parents, teachers and adults, kindly use that amazing commonsense and FAITH that you know you possess when you trust your kids to cross the road and walk on the streets even though jaywalkers, thieves, homeless guys  and many other terrible role models are abound and apply it to when your kids are obsessing over an actor/actress/idol etc or even surfing the web. You obviously know that you can’t protect your kid from the evils of this world, and you also obviously know that your kid has the common sense to NOT copy what that pickpocket in the back alley is doing. So shouldn’t you have faith in them to NOT imitate what Lindsay Lohan and Demi Lovato and Miley Cyrus are doing on youtube, facebook, Twitter and god knows what? Yes, us kids are impressionable, but we’re not STUPID.  Logic’d-> this means ‘justified. (see I just saved you a google trip ^-^V)

 

Musings on anime

I think after reading this musing you’ll go back and read the title again and then skim through the content and go wtf…O.o…but nevertheless I WILL NAME THIS MUSING AS SUCH!

Moving on…*waddles forward*. Have you guys realized that many popular or at least kind of popular anime involve humans being hunted/harvested for something? Like for our blood, our mana, our gold, our body, our metal etc. I mean look at Aquarion, Raxephon, Freezing, Genesis etc. and many more mecha/mecha-ish anime (it’s always the mecha ones…) that involves guys fighting alongside with a harem of girls to repel aliens trying to hunt humans and or specific people for something. Hell anime aside, even movies are like that! The Darkest hour, Cowboy and Aliens just to name a few. When you think about it, don’t you wonder WHY? WHY HUMANS! WHAT HAVE WE DONE!! THE SOLAR-SYSTEM IS SO BIG! WHY COME TO EARTH AND HARVEST US AND OUR RESOURCES!?

Yes well I thought about it and came up with a theory that totally does not answer this question. (Yes you read it right, it does NOT answer my question.)

What did chickens, cows, pigs, fishes etc. <insert many other animes in which we farm and harvest> every do to us to be harvested for food. Nothing! In fact the chickens are the most innocent! They are the ONLY land animals that has not pissed off ANY religion (nor have they made themselves important enough to any religion) to be banned as food! And thus they are the most widely farmed and harvested ones but really WHAT DID CHICKENS EVER DO TO YOU!!!!! NOTHING!! THEY NEVER DID NOTHING!! (meaning they’ve never done anything.) And so, if chickens never did anything and are still farmed for food…I guess we can’t really question why aliens and other-worldly beings trying to farm us for any purpose.

We shall mourn in silence for 2 seconds for the poor chickens…

Okay! I’m off to eat my lunch now…I think I was frying pork…(HA! I BET YOU THOUGHT I’D BE HAVING CHICKEN! SUCKERS!! =P)

Musings on bad memories

I’m one of those people who don’t regret. Not as in I don’t feel bouts of regret now and then, but just that if I actually had the chance to do everything over again, I won’t change a thing. I probably talked about this, everything that I’ve experienced makes me who I am today and I won’t deny me my identity<insert quote>

Bad memories suck, they’re fucked up, they make you cringe, they make you cry…but hey what doesn’t kill you only makes you stronger, so you can always puff up about how you’ve survived so much shit and is still standing. In addition, your bad memories make your happy memories more valuable. So as an advocate for your memories (sh…they secretly sponsored this book! =P) please treasure your bad memories as you do your happy ones. They’re a part of you, they define you, they ARE you.

Musings on flights

I’ve just written like 3 musings (excluding this one) in one shot, which is a rare feat for me because I usually slack after writing one or two…paragraphs. At most I finish one musing and I feel the need to go on FB, watch anime, read allkpop, check my email and take a nap. (Oh yes, I’m definitely one of those people who have Bruno Mars’ The Lazy Song as my personal anthem!) The reason why I’m so ridiculously productive at the moment is because I’m on the plane.

I don’t know why not more people do this because apparently out of the whole cabin I’m the only person working away diligently on my beloved lappy. Ok, granted it’s a night flight and I’m one of those poor unfortunate souls not blessed with the ability to sleep on planes no matter how long the ride (OMFG 20 HOUR PLANE RIDES ARE SO FUCKING EVIL I TELL YA!). Point is FLIGHTS ARE SUCH A CONDUCIVE ENVIRONMENT FOR WORK! I mean SERIOUSLY. You can’t use your phone, no one can call you and you have a LEGIT excuse to not be disturbed for as long as you’re on the flight. That means no phone calls or messages distracting you. There is no internet so even if you have your computer, you can’t surf the web. That means no facebook, twitter and all that other time-consuming, efficiency-destroying drugs…ahem I mean addictive websites to derail you from your work. Yea there’s in-flight entertainment system but if you don’t do you work normally then it probably means you went to catch all those movies on the stupid system when you are SUPPOSED to be working…so really, no distractions, no OPTIONS, you’re confined to a damn chair and a table for the minimum of like 4 hours…what better things to do then WORK? You’re going to be bored to death either way, so the choice is really staring at the same boring wall for those hours or taking out your laptop and to actually get work done. Since when we work we tend to eventually be inevitably absorbed in it, time actually passes faster. (Here’s a tip you should know about making time pass faster, QUIT LOOKING AT THE STUPID TIME EVERY SECOND, IT AINT GONNA MOVE ANY FASTER!) I know some of you might actually choose to stare at the wall be stone to death rather than work on the flight but here’s the deal. If you actually work those wasted flight hours away, you will have more free time when you land and have access to ENTERTAINMENT and all that glorious crap.

But anyway, that really isn’t the main purpose of this musing. The whole point for this musing is really for me to bitch. WHY DO FLIGHTS TAKE SO DAMN LONG!? I DON’T FUCKING GET IT! Before any of you tries to lecture me about the speed distance and time thing, I’m telling you, the speed at which a plane can travel probably increased leaps and bounds since planes were first invented until the 20^th century and then it hit a standstill. And you KNOW that’s true. It takes 7 hours to get to Japan from Singapore in the year 2012, it took 7 hours to travel to Japan from Singapore last year and the same amount of travelling time like 20 years ago. What’s improved? Well we have better seats, in-flight entertainment, plugs, potentially even wi-fi on the plane…you know all that stuff to make the hours long journey more tolerable, and more ideas are on their way, from an official mile high club room to improved noise-cancelling headphones, to make our flights more comfortable and enjoyable and inevitably MORE EXPENSIVE.

Well here’s a thought guys, how about try making the flights FASTER and travelling time SHORTER so we won’t NEED all that crap! Why the hell are we trying to make long flights more comfortable instead of just making the flights shorter? I don’t really care HOW comfortable the suites are, it can be the most comfortable suite on earth but I’m sure NO ONE wants to be cooped up in one for 20 over hours. Our flights are expensive these days really cause of all the comforts we need to pass time as proven by budget airlines. And fact is if flights were SHORTER we wouldn’t NEED all that stuff!! We won’t need business-class seats that folds out into a flat-bed because we won’t have flights long enough to require you to SLEEP on the damn plane. And honestly, I have no fucking idea why no one’s worked on it for the past I don’t know how many years. Sure there was the concord and all that safety issues, but I don’t know, it doesn’t seem any safer to install more contraptions on the plane that will consume more fuel and make the plane more complicated than it is. I’m sure it’s not easy to install Jacuzzi tubs in the plane but Emirates have bloody done it and I’m pretty sure if we combine the amount of technical skill needed to install all these wonderful comforts onto the plane today, we’d have planes that travel twice as fast and safe. It’s like instead of making the concord safer we’ve decided to make in-flight entertainment touch screen instead of via remote controls!!  WHY!? FOR WHAT PURPOSE!?

It’s not like I’m asking for a teleportation device. I’m just asking for faster planes. Actually the same goes for our cars…but that I can still forgive because not everyone can achieve godlike reaction time to drive a car that goes 300km/h. But you already have pilots who are TRAINED to pilot a sophisticated device that goes at ridiculous speeds and an autopilot that does the same…so why don’t they make these damn things faster AND safer!!?? @.@ Aviation hasn’t really been making any improvements and for once I can’t even think of a reason why. Sure airlines want their profit but it’s not like airlines are the ones making planes. I’m sure some people would pay for time instead of inflight wi-fi. Seriously, the world is becoming globalized and ‘borderless’ cause of the internet that is becoming increasingly faster with no trend of stopping. We can already stream data live from two different countries thanks to the internet, OUR BLOODY COMPUTERS ARE FASTER THAN US IN TERMS OF TRAVELLING TIME!! Shouldn’t it be time to do something about OUR travelling time? Cause none of it would mean anything at the end of the day if our physical selves can get to these countries faster. Unless of course we’ve decided that the internet is powerful enough to replace our physical selves…and even if it sadly actually is, does that mean cause the internet is so fast and efficient that henceforth we shall all live only in our own little house tied to our computers and lan connections!? WE INVENTED WI-FI AND LAPTOPS FOR A REASON!! TO MOVE AROUND DAMMIT! I really don’t know how I can emphasize this point any more…so I’ll just go back to my original statement.

SOMEONE INVENT A DAMN TELEPORTATION DEVICE DAMMIT!

Musings about Japan

God and I have a very good relationship. I don’t bother him, he doesn’t bother me. But I do have this one little problem with the omnipotent one. He doesn’t pay enough attention to his day job (it’s definitely his day job because if it’s his full-time job then all of mankind would have been destroyed a long time ago.) I say this because out of all the countries in the world, Japan is going to get destroyed by the next biggest natural disaster. (Check a research report done by University of Tokyo, M8 earthquake to hit Tokyo directly within next 4 years…woopdeedoo).

Now why on earth shouldn’t Japan be put in such grave danger? For one, NO countries ought to be put in such a predicament. Doesn’t matter what mistakes ONE leader may have made, no country deserve this, especially not one with the GREATEST AND AWESOMEST DISNEY RESORT IN THE WORLD. Which brings me to point number two, and probably the ONLY point I need; GOD IS GOING TO LET DISNEYLAND SINK AND DIE!? O.O I mean if you have EVER EVER EVER visited Tokyo Disneyland (AND DISNEYSEA.) You will know that it is the MOST magical place on earth, even more than the American ones, because it ACTUALLY feels like an out of this world experience and not a THEME PARK. Proof? 99.9% of kids there don’t cry, don’t run off and don’t throw tantrums. People there willingly get into the Disney world, everyone queues up and everyone is HAPPY. I bet you can’t say that for the Disneyland in other countries, and I am living proof cause I’ve been to all those other Disneylands.

Seriously god, how on earth do you JUSTIFY destroying the one place on earth that teaches kids love, compassion, imagination, happiness and most importantly MANNERS. !!!????? Not to mention the one country on earth with the BEST convenient stores, BEST manners and customer service. And then we have all the cars, Sony and Nintendo and god knows what brands in Japan that’s a big deal to the world. I get it, we did Maldives in ourselves, can’t bitch about that but JAPAN!? EARTHQUAKES!! THAT IS NOT OUR DOING!!

So yes if I ever sincerely pray for anything, it’s the peaceful and continued survival of Japan. On the other hand since it’s always been the greatest cities in the world that’s been destroyed by massive natural disasters at least Japan can find peace in the fact that they’ve been recognized as one of the greatest cities (and cleanest, which means a lot because I live in SINAGPORE) of this time. On a gloomy bright side, seeing as Japan has managed to rise from the ashes of two freaking atomic bombs…maybe they’ll rise again, even higher after this quake…but the deaths…and DISNEY! I SWEAR, if they do not rebuild Disney after the disaster, I WILL PERSONALLY GO DOWN THERE AND BUILD IT MYSELF! So if my future professor is reading this, don’t be surprised if I took a gap year to run to Japan, I’m probably just helping rebuild only the most magical place on earth.

P.S: Oh omnipotent one, if you happened to be bored and read this book, please DON’T MAKE JAPAN GO POOF!

Musings on hair

I’ve been the proud owner of long hair for…18 years of my life? And now…I’m not. Ahem, yes after 18 years of having bloody straight long hair I decided I should chop it all off. And part of my defending argument is that it’s easy to take care of.

Really it literally HALVES your showering time, gives you an excuse to not buy a comb (or throw them away if you have them) and well…not do anything when you wake up except shake your head to make your hair messier.

There is this ONE little thing about my short hair…it needs wax. Like hair wax. Or hair spray but I’m a wax person. It used to take me 1 minute to get ready (in terms of my hair), brush and done. Now I need to style, check, style, finish and fix my hair every 5 minute as I walk…

Well…of course the whole point of my argument is that SUREE styling short hair is a bitch more so than  long hair but you don’t HAVE to do it unless you WANT to and since braiding your hair (which I can’t do) into some intricate style probably takes longer…my argument stands. Though yea, just pointing out the damn irony.

When I had long hair all I needed was a blow dryer, a brush and hair ties. Now that I have short hair I need a blow dryer, 3 tubs of hair wax (cause I have one for every bag…), a phone (THEY DOUBLE AS MIRRORS) and the occasional comb. Oh that and styling my hair=having to wash it the same day (of course you COULD argue that I could just go to bed with wax in my hair, but my pillow will probably revolt so…) so…who knew short hair could give long hair a run in being troublesome. Or maybe it’s just me.

Bottom line?

My dear guy friends. I STILL take less time to get ready than you even when I have to style my hair JUST LIKE YOU DO. Bleh~(Ok so on the unfair side, I don’t actually style my hair much..if at all, but even when I  DO…YOU GUYS TAKE TOO DAMN LONG!)

Musings on words

Nom Nom=ノムノム(nomu nomu)= 너무너무=very very

Don’t you just think the circle of words is awesome?

Musings about cleaning up

When you have the urge to just throw everything away.

  Omake (that means extra in Japanese): If a virgo ever starts cleaning his/her room and you want to help, go grab a coffee and come back when he/her is done.

Musings on games

You know I have no idea why it took me so damn long to muse about games because I’m an avid gamer (btw, avid doesn’t equal to good). Now I’m willing to bet kids are going to take this piece of musing and shove it in their parents’ face and go “HA I TOLD YOU!”

Yea well, were you expecting me to denounce games!? UTTER BLASPHEMY! Games are good for you. (Yes I finally said it, rejoice people, rejoice.)

Oh yes, a gazillion people in the world lose themselves to games but really that just shows a lack of discipline; it’s got nothing to do with GAMES. In fact a good gamer generally can get very far in life if he/her applied themselves and here is why!

To get good at gaming, you need the discipline to practice. You think games are so easy? Try playing it then! Many tactical games can give chess a run for its money; and just like chess, you need to practice to get good at them. You must think “well games are fun, the incentive to practice is like omnipresent”. I don’t know, if you keep getting your ass whooped, I’m not too sure if you’d still be keen to practice. But there are those who strive on, you know those pro-gamers? They actually have practice EXERCISES so that they can play more efficiently, I’m willing to bet a lot of you non-gamers don’t game but slack on the couch all day so who are you to point fingers at people?

And aside from the consistently mentioned perks of games teaching tactical concepts and what not, it does teach you social skills (if you play a group game). You have to manage your teammates if you want to win, that includes sore losers, temperamental players and egoistical bastards. That probably means leadership skills are included too… but to me the best part about gaming (including non-tactical games by the typical gamer standard) is that it teaches you responsibility at a young age.

Gamers are all starkly aware of the concept of action reaction. You do something, something’s bound to come at you because of it, aka there are consequences to your actions. (And if an enemy is just standing there and let you hit him, you know you’re in trouble.) However, unlike in life, where you can sometimes avoid or escape consequences, in a game, if you want to keep playing you have to face the consequences straight on and take responsibility for it. I’m not sure about how parents look at it but here’s a kid’s point of view. When I eat a cookie before dinner time and I get hit for it, it doesn’t teach me consequences OR responsibilities, it just inspires me to invent new ways to steal the cookie. But if I get my sorry ass whooped by enemies because I did something stupid in game, the humiliation actually teaches me what consequences are and at the same time inspires me to come up with better tactics that are towards a good cause.

And really, gaming makes you think. There are brain dead games but generally all forms of gaming require some level of thinking. Yes even bejeweled blitz and fruit ninja, of course you can be brain dead and play these games in zombie mode but all of those freakishly high scores are a combination of good luck and thinking (or focus). Though on the topic of casual games, yea they may not be perceived as as ‘awesome’ as your hardcore games but they have their merits. Like serve the BASIC purpose of games which is to DESTRESS. Really, ultimately games are meant to be fun, why are we nagging at games about being unproductive and uneducational when all it should be is FUN!? O.o And on the side note, as I am crazy about my angry birds, I think we would epically enjoy  learning projectile motion more if it was taught by flinging birds towards pigs. Just a thought you know?

The list of benefits for gaming can just keep going, like enhanced reaction time, improved typing speeds, keeping calm under dire situations, improved hand-eye coordination etc. but my point is that games are good and there is no fault in taking it seriously (by serious I mean in a reasonable and responsible manner).

And so since life’s just a game too, maybe we should start taking it a little more seriously eh?

Musings about friends

Life is like a fucked up roller-coaster, and just like any other roller-coaster, it’s fun because you have friends sitting next to you screaming their lungs out with you.

I dedicate this musing to my friends, all of them, especially my precious jelly and chilli! (I’m using nicknames here but you know who you are). You guys are more than friends, you’re all family! So I’d like to thank all of you for being there in my times of need, making me feel better about the world and myself. I’d also like to thank you for sharing your joy and happiness with me because it makes the world a brighter place! (My world at least) Also, I want to thank you for sharing all your sadness with me, it’s good to know you trust me enough to take my positive energy for yourself and that I’m needed too. I’ll also like to thank you guys for having faith and trust in me when I don’t, many things I do that are impossible are possible because you guys believed in me. I also want to thank you guys for putting up with my craziness, emoness, happiness, sadness, randomness and all that is me. Thank you for certifying my awesomeness. Also, thank you for being brutally honest, real friends tell each other the truth, so I’m grateful that you guys have no qualms about putting me down a peg or two. I don’t know, I’m just so thankful and grateful and full of gratitude that I have you guys. I love you guys.

I’m writing this as a musing instead of telling it to you guys (well you guys already know how much I love all of you),because I want the world to know I HAVE THE AWESOMEST FRIENDS IN THE WHOLE OF DEFINED EXISTENCE AND REALITY! And beyond maybe… ^-^

And to my other friends who are not mentioned, thank you guys for just being friends, it makes life worth living.

I FEEL THANKFUL TODAY!!! >-<

Musings about decision making

My mom and I never have the stupid ‘I know what’s best for you’ argument. And no, we also don’t have the bastardized version of said argument known as ‘I just want the best for you’ argument. In fact we rarely have arguments when it comes to decision making; well we do argue, just not about the decision. We argue about all the other unrelated factors being mentioned in the decision making process (hence the need to argue because why bring up unrelated crap?).

Point is, arguing over who knows best for whom and what is a stupid argument to have. Because knowing what will happen and something actually happening are unfortunately two very different concepts. For example, I know that if you boil an egg for 4 minutes, it will be cooked. Whether or not the egg I put into the boiling water will cook properly after 4 minutes due to a gazillion factors not under my control is a whole other story. So similarly, knowing what’s best for the person (including yourself) and having that ‘best case scenario’ actually play out are two radically different concepts.

So what exactly matters in decision making? Ability and or willingness to bear consequences regardless of what it may be. If you are a parent or an adult who has used or thought the ‘I know what’s best for you argument’, have you realized something? No matter what happens to the person you’re making the decision for, he or she will be the one bearing the consequences whether she likes it or not. Oh sure, you can say that if it turns out bad, said person can hate you, that doesn’t change the fact that is it he/she who actually goes through the direct consequences! You’re just the guilty bystander. You can have the best intentions in the world, but it wouldn’t matter if the person is unwilling to take up the consequences of it. Lets say you get lucky and you are right, and the consequences are good (there will ALWAYS be consequences my dear friends, ALWAYS, just good ones or bad ones), you might be thanked, said person will be dealing with happy consequences and subsequently, happy. But what if you’re wrong?  Then you’ve just fucked someone up.

It’s always easier to say that you know what’s best when you don’t have to bear the consequences.

And for those of you who go ‘I know what’s best for myself!’ don’t go around feeling all self-righteous either. Oh yes, you know what’s best, but are you willing to bear the consequence when shit hits the fan? Lets say that you know going out with this guy is best for you and he’s for a thousand reasons awesome and amazing reasons, but what happens when he cheats on you and breaks your heart? That’s most likely not what you think is best for you unless you’re a masochist. Who are you to blame when things like that happens? No one but yourself, and what are you going to do about it? Are you ready to do anything about it? Have you thought about what to do about it? The quote begin with the end in mind is a good one, not that things should end but it never hurts to prepare for a rainy day.

Thing is, no one can really say they know best because we don’t. Shit will happen. Randomly and perhaps at low/unpredictable intervals, but they will happen. Every best or worst scenario has unexpected possibilities within, no one can say for sure what will really happen. So how can you say you know best? Best would mean you’re 99.9% sure, but statistically speaking, you can never be. So doesn’t it make sense to instead discuss the willingness to bear consequences, the worst possible one, should it happen, for a specific decision?

I mean, the whole point of arguing about who knows best is so that whoever the decision will affect will end up with the best most probable consequence, because no one wants to purpose end up fucked up, but seeing as everything may possibly blow up in your face I think the only merit to this argument is that the ‘best choice’ should have the best worst consequence. Did I make any sense? Probably not. BOB! I NEED YOU!

Ok,so Bob wants to kill himself. He is debating as to whether he should jump from a building or overdose on pills. His friend who says they know what’s best for him says building is best, because objective of this action is to get him killed and even if he survives the jump (this is the worst case scenario), chances are the injuries will kill him. Bob disagrees, he thinks overdosing pills are better because if he survives, he’ll at least be in less pain, though he won’t die and it’ll be harder for him to die thereafter. They argue, but Bob says something important. “I’m willing to bear the consequences of my decision, even if it means I have to live on for the rest of my life.” And then Bob’s friend promptly shuts up.

See what Bob did there? The reason why people can even ARGUE with you about making the ‘best choice’ is because they know no one wants to deal with the worst possible consequence. But if you say that you are willing to bear the consequences of your decision regardless, then you’ve just made the whole argument invalid because there is no reason for it to exist.

My point is, guys, don’t bother arguing who knows best, god knows best and he sure ain’t going to tell anyone what to do for a damn long time. So instead of arguing who knows best, why not discuss all the possible consequences and see which one you’re willing to bear or if there are alternate options. Who knows you might actually come up with something that might make everyone happy. And if nothing does, you can still say “Well I’m the one who’s going to deal with it, I’m willing to deal with it, you obviously will not be dealing with it, so shut up.”  (And if you say that to your parents/authoritative elder; or if your kid said that to you, don’t blame me cause I’m saying it write here, USE THIS LINE AT YOUR OWN RISK, I am not advocating anyone to use this line nor am I responsible for any consequences thereafter, which includes this book being taken away from you. Omg…I just realized I just proved my point in a weird roundabout way.)

Musings about dorm life

I have a problem. Actually I have many problems, and one of them right now is dorms. More specifically it is people not shutting up about it. From a completely (or at least reasonable) neutral standpoint, I can see how dorm life is an enriching and helpful experience. You bond, you learn to deal with people, you learn to put up with conditions you hate, you learn to be independent (as independent as having all your bills and meals sorted can be) and you enjoy freedom with a whole other bunch of teenagers.

That said, from a personal point of view, I find it rather pointless. Look, you will never in your life aside from college, NEED to live with hundreds of rowdy teenagers whom many for the first time are finally free of parental supervision and support. The skills you learn here will be as applicable as reading up about the history of paper clips, NOT VERY. Independence wise, living alone outside is a more educational experience because you are responsible for everything from bills to laundry to dealing with brokers and land lords, if you get into shit no RA will bail you out. Arguably the only useful aspect of dorm life is ‘community’ which if you are not a huge ‘community’ person is more of a nuisance than a perk.

Oh yes, this musing is extremely biased, i.e. ENTIRELY BASED ON MY POINT OF VIEW, so feel free to disagree with me. I am just unfortunately fed up with the level of PROPAGANDA that has been spread with regards to dorm life. It’s a great college experience, I GET IT. Bungee jumping is a great experience too, but I don’t see everyone advocating it. Thing is, vast majority of the population have been so badly brainwashed with a ‘model idea’ of what college experience should be that there is little space to be different.

I don’t disagree with the advantages of dorm life, especially for freshmen, such as having a community around you, having experienced support to help you settle down and not having to deal with things like rent, landlord, food and bills while you’re studying. It all makes SENSE. I am just thoroughly annoyed that no one even TRIES to see the advantages of independent living for freshmen. Let me re-iterate that more simply: YOU WON’TDIE IF YOU DON’T EXPERIENCE DORM LIFE AT LEAST ONCE IN YOUR LIFE, YOU WILL LEAD A HAPPY LIFE AND STILL GRADUATE WITH A DEGREE, SO STOP SHOVING IT IN THE FACE OF PEOPLE WHO CAN’T CARE LESS!

Glad I have your attention now.

See rejecting dorm life has its perks. For starters, you have more space, which means more privacy. You also have more independence which is a double-edged sword, but everything bad that comes with this independence is something you will have to deal with for the rest of your life, I suggest getting it over with fast when your parents are still around to pick up after you. And parents, if any of you read this, yes it may seem like you’re sending your kids to the lion’s den by sending them away from the safety of the school; the problem with this concept is that the school is safe. Robbers, rapists, thieves, arsonists and criminals of many other sorts are dangerous, no doubts about that and since they are declared universally dangerous, we actually have many methods devised to keep them away from us. Statistically, the chance of your child being robbed while living alone will be a lot lower than him or her being talked into trying drugs at school.

In fact you are as likely to have your things stolen by dorm mates as you are by thieves. And if you will argue that regardless of where your kid lives he will deal with shit, I agree, but getting walked over by your land lord is a valuable learning experience, getting trashed at a party and waking up in the hospital covered in bruises, not so much. There is of course a whole list of disadvantages of rejecting dorm life, but honestly speaking, the only reason to ever mourn over missing out on dorm life is due to the propaganda that been advocating it.

So people, please. If we can aim to see two sides of an argument for just about everything else, why can’t we start doing the same for dorm life? The level of bias towards it is just LUDICROUS. Choosing to stay in dorms or out of it is a personal choice, there is no perfect solution to it, one person may benefit from dorm life another may suffer unnecessarily because of it. So please take into account about the individual before you start nonsensically FORCING the dorm ideal on someone. It is very very very, VERY annoying.

Musings about emoing

What is emoing? It’s the act of being emo which is the act of being sad down depressed and negative and um…emo. Basically. So why am I talking about it?

Because it’s important, duh.

Life is never perfect, many a times, it will suck, you will have bad days or many days littered with little misfortunes. And if you are a workaholic or simply someone who is always enthused and positive, when those things start weighing down on you and you finally snap, you might and probably will fall harder than most people. It is after all hard to accept why you are taking harder than regular people who have problems and seeing as you are typically positive, your inability to revert to your previous state will only frustrate you even more making you a giant emo ball. (I love that word)

People, shit happens. It will always happen and they will pass but that of course doesn’t make them any more tolerable when they happen. (It’s like telling yourself falling down doesn’t hurt because the wound will heal, BULLSHIT!)  And so instead of forcing yourself to be okay and suppressing your inevitable emoness, my advice about emoing is to do just that, EMO.

When bad things happen, when you suddenly feel the need to break down, when you are in despair, GIVE YOURSELF TIME TO BE SAD. I know everyone will be trying to cheer you up, make things seem less bad than they are, make you happy and you’ll feel obliged to get better and in the process feel worse about yourself because you don’t want to and can’t. IT’S OKAY. No one wants to deal with sad people, yourself and myself included, when someone is sad our NATURAL reaction is to try to make them happy ASAP. But it will not happen immediately; if it does the person is lying or forcing themselves to be alright. You know why we have funerals? It’s to give people time to MOURN. AKA, EMO!

There is no real way to magically instantaneously get over something bad or sad. The only temporary option is to shove it to the back of your head and THIS IS A BAD THING TO DO, DON’T DO IT. I once tried to do that and force myself into working condition, I spent the rest of a little over 6 months wondering why everyday feels so tiring, stressed and depressed. Emotions are NOT logical; they need to HAPPEN to get out of your system, if you don’t let it out, IT WILL GO ON STRIKE AND MAKE YOU MISERABLE. If something makes you sad, even if you manage to logic your way out of why something is bad, IT WILL NOT STOP YOU FROM FEELING SAD.

As such, since being sad and miserable is INEVITABLE and NECESSARY, isn’t it much better to have it PLANNED OUT so that it doesn’t affect your life and work instead of letting it have a revolt and fuck up your life? For example, if your boyfriend breaks up with you, you are entitled to feel sad and emo no matter what your friends or boss say. So if you can take a few days off, or if you go to work, take it easy. Yes, you might feel EXTREMELY guilty about how weak you are and that you’re putting off such IMPORTANT things in reality and in life just to mope around. You will feel irresponsible letting something so stupid affect your life. When you feel that way, tell yourself this. If you DON’T take time off to emo and instead force yourself to be okay, you will have background depression running EVERYDAY of your life and it will make you twice as unproductive in the long run. It is SMARTER, more EFFICIENT and more RESPONSIBLE, to cut yourself some slack, give yourself time to be emo and then wake up feeling that it’s a brand new day instead of waking up feeling like shit and facing Monday blues while you’re at it.

I repeat, DO NOT FEEL BAD ABOUT GIVING YOURSELF EMO TIME. IT IS NECESSARY. Better you plan it than let it hit you unexpectedly. Take it from someone who’s gone through both. And more importantly, do not feel bad or inferior to others who seem to never be affected by stuff and don’t emo. They DO and they will, doesn’t mean you will know about it because no one goes around telling others they are emoing! That and even if they really don’t emo over the same problems as you, they are NOT you, they are in different circumstances as you and they probably don’t deal with as much crap with aplomb as you normally do, hence you DESERVE to feel emo about whatever you are emo about regardless of how stupid it seems to others.

Just to help you feel a little more justified. You just got insulted by a stranger about your hair today. This may have happened to your friend and they laughed it off, it happened to you but you are so deeply affected and emo about it that you can’t sleep. No need to find yourself pathetic and add on to the emo fest. Perhaps you’ve just been too constantly insulted that you’re at your breaking point compared to your friends. Perhaps your hair means WAY more to you than it does to your friends. Perhaps you had haunting past that left you scarred about insults aimed towards your hair? And if all else fails to justify your sadness, know for sure that your ‘friends’ all have at least ONE STUPID thing (stupid in your opinion of course, not theirs) that absolutely crushes them. Be fair to yourself.

So there, go ahead and emo. Give yourself a good timeframe so your life and reality won’t go terribly out of sync and enjoy your self-declared holiday. You’ve earned it regardless of what people say. And if you need reassurance, read this book. *Hugs* It’s okay to feel bad, to feel sad, to cry and to emo. It’s a basic fucking RIGHT. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.

P.S: Also don’t let anyone tell you it’s not okay to be happy. We are born to be happy. Ironic isn’t it? <insert cute ironic laugh and scoff!>

Musings on blame

It’s so much easier to see the world in black and white, or hell even black, white and grey. But the world doesn’t really work that way. The world has a tendency of portraying things in multiple conditions simultaneously, like how light is both a wave and a particle. What does this mean exactly?

It means when it comes to wondering ‘whose fault is it anyway’, it’s both everyone’s fault and nobody’s fault, well rarely is it the latter. It’s of course easier to just blame ONE person, but everyone has circumstances, situations that they are a victim of which causes them to do stupid things and become the ‘bad guy’. I’m not saying that just because of this, when people makes mistakes they are justified and should be forgiven, not by a long shot. But I am saying, don’t be so hard on yourself.

We all strive to be good guys, it’s in our nature to be nice, but even being nice is sometimes being mean, so if you really made a mistake, did something wrong, don’t beat yourself up over it, learn from it and move on. To live is to move on with the weight of your sins and guilt. Notice how I’m not even saying that you have to apologize or atone for your mistakes. If you feel the need to and you feel ready to, I don’t see why not, but sometimes life is a fucking mess. It’s complicated. And sometimes it’s just smarter to leave problems be and move on because trying to apologize or make up for it will just make it worse.

In an ideal world, if a murderer went back to the victim’s family, apologized and tried to make up for it he’d be forgiven and everyone will be happy. Humanity doesn’t work like that. The murderer could even kill himself to atone for what he did and the victim’s family will still not be happy. Why? It’s complicated. First there is this issue of trust, then there is this issue of the dead person never coming back, third there is this issue of the murderer merely attempting to alleviate his/her guilt, fourth there is the guilt of the family for forgiving the murderer if they do….the list goes on, basically, IT’S COMPLICATED. It’s much healthier if the murderer just left the victim’s family alone because his existence will aggravate the situation.

You may feel the need to apologize, you may feel the need to make up for things and you can do it, perhaps you should do it. But so much of whether or not solving a past problem or making up for a past mistake is up to fate and luck to decide if it’s a good idea that unless you’re somehow led to do it unknowingly, it’s just for the good of everyone to leave it alone. Even if you have to live with feeling like a bad guy.

And here is me telling you, don’t feel too bad. If you backstabbed your friend, don’t feel too bad. If you dumped someone, don’t feel too bad. If you lied to your parents, don’t feel too bad. You can feel bad, feeling bad is what makes you a good person. Because no one, NO ONE, never makes mistakes, everyone fucks up, it’s whether or not you feel guilty/bad about it that separates the good guys from the bad guys. So if you feel bad, then you’re already a good guy, so don’t feel too bad about it.

Like I said, we all instinctively strive to be good people; most of the time what makes us make mistakes, hurt people or do something bad is because we were victims of something else. You might have yelled at your mom because you were stressed. Did she deserve it? No. Is it wrong? Yes. Does that make you a bad guy? Not really. If the world was a clear cut place, you’d be decidedly wrong and the bad guy. But the world isn’t such a place, so you did something wrong but you deserve some pity and understanding too, perhaps not by others but definitely by yourself.

Here is one of the few smaller situations in life that probably plagues everyone, screwing up a relationship. You could have stolen your friend’s boyfriend/girlfriend, dumped someone, cheated on someone, ignored an ex who didn’t deserve it, played with someone’s feelings etc. And the complications will never end, but even if you did do something wrong, YOU ARE NOT A BAD PERSON. You are a good person who made a mistake. You will pay for it, the world will make you pay for it, so don’t make your life harder for yourself. You will ultimately only have yourself to count on, so if you aren’t nice to yourself, then who will be!?

And whilst these following reasons do not justify the above actions, victims of these actions, make your decision. You can either hate them for life, ignore them and move on or forgive and forget them and move on.  Because chances are your boyfriend cheated on you because he felt no love for you and had no better way to deal with it, yes he is an IDIOT and dealt with the situation badly, but he probably felt guilty about it or your friends or his friends gave him hell about it. Perhaps that guy who played your feelings grew up in a family without love and is incapable of loving, he will never learn to love or be loved properly, yes you got played, but you will find happiness and he won’t. In retrospect, you probably dumped your ex because you needed to focus on your career/life/personal problems and you feel bad so you don’t want to face them and ignore them. There is no shame in not wanting to deal with it, self-sustenance beats out being a repenting saint. Who is to say that your ex wasn’t giving you trouble, being inconsiderate or being a jerk? You fell in love with your best friend’s boyfriend/girlfriend, yes it’s your fault, but can you help who you fall in love with! Can they help who they fall in love with? Is there even a GOOD way to handle this situation? You don’t need to feel bad that you acted on your feelings, maybe you tried to make amends and it worked and got your friend back but if you did and it didn’t work or you didn’t, know that you are paying for your ‘stupidity’ by losing a friend. And who is to say your friend was treating their partner right? That your friend wasn’t being an ass?

I guess all I’m saying is that for every problem/mistake/issue, everyone is a victim. Yes, it is possible for someone to be completely innocent in a situation, like for example you walking down a safe street one random sunny morning and this guy just punches you. You didn’t do anything wrong, that guy DEFINITELY did, but he probably is a victim of some crazy childhood abuse that screwed his mind or was pushed around too much that morning that he thinks you looked at him funny. So, know that even when you’re the ‘bad guy’ you’re a victim too and sometimes, it’s important to forgive yourself because no one else will. Cut yourself some slack, because reality will deal out your punishment and it doesn’t need help.

We are all victims of emotions and bad circumstances, your reasons for doing something wrong may not be right, justified or even forgivable, but you had a REASON, and sometimes that’s good enough for you to move on and try to be a better person.

Musings about statuses

My mom isn’t big on the idea of facebook, she thinks that it’s a invasion of personal and intellectual privacy. Why do people post everything they think and feel on it? I have an answer to that. Unlike in the past, there are so many things going on in modern life, so many aspects and facets we have to constantly process, that we need all these platforms to share and document our thoughts and feeling before they run away.

Musings about guys…and games

If guys spent half the time and effort, more the effort, that they do in troubleshooting their games in dealing with their relationships problems, restaurants, chocolatiers and florists would have more business all year round instead of just on Valentines day.

Musings on bulllshitting

  If you read this book, then you know that I’m a master of bullshitting. And so as a master, it is only right that I pass on the skills of my trade.

Above and beyond all, to be good (good meaning convincing) at bullshitting, you need to at least be partially convinced of the crap that’s pouring out or your brain/mouth. If you don’t believe yourself, no one’s going to believe you.

Yes these means I am at least partially committed to all my wonderful musings. Moving on now!

Musings on efficiency

Humans can never be efficient because we want choices. Choices means resources are diverted. However having no choices makes us emo which makes us inefficient. As such humans can never be efficient.

We cannot strive for maximum efficiency; we can only strive for minimum inefficiency

Musings about travelling

Travelling is great, it’s popular, it takes you places, brings you new experiences…short of shoddily planned trips I don’t really have much to bitch about traveling (how amazing is that?). But don’t really means there is STILL something.

FOOD.

And I’m not talking about bad food or food poisoning, food culture shock and all that shit. Nope, my problem with travelling is the GOOD FOOD. What’s the problem with it? IT’S TOO GOOD! THAT’S WHAT!  How is that a problem? Technically it isn’t a problem, at least not until you return home FROM your travels. You see the thing about most food is that they aren’t exactly portable. They’re perishable and some won’t even survive the plane ride or customs, especially restaurant take aways. So if you find this awesomely wonderfully totally delicious food somewhere when you are abroad, there is practically nothing you can do to satisfy that craving when you are back home. And do you know how EVIL it is to suffer from a sea salt caramel donut craving for AN ENTIRE YEAR! Too evil, just too evil.

Yes, we have delivery, but not everything is deliverable! Or if they are they aren’t available for delivery! Now multiply these delicious little devils for every place you’ve travelled to…I swear to God I’m unstable half the time because I’m having food withdrawal symptoms.

Yes I’m going to say it AGAIN. SOMEONE INVENT THE DAMN TELEPORTATION DEVICE!

Musings about fashion

  On a model on the runway, an odd piece of clothing is considered fashionable but pop it on someone on the streets, even if they look good in it, it’s apparently tacky. People think Japan is a weird place, I think it’s just fashion-liberal. As you all know, I’m not a big fan of the states so I’ll bring it in here. For a liberal country, it’s really fashion-intolerant. I mean when you read that there are people who say “wearing things that was fashionable in their hometowns…” you know they’re not as liberal as they say they are.

I’m sure no one will see eye to eye about fashion, there are people who think Gap is a boring Pajama brand and those who are anti Ed Hardy. But why is it that we can’t come to the same consensus we have for everything else art related that: you may not like it but you should respect it? Obviously if a fashion designer designed it and it was produced, it should be considered SOME sort of fashion, no matter how bad it looks to YOU. What I’m getting at is how the ‘fashionability’ of clothes vary from place to place. The same dress can be deemed fashionable in Seoul but not in New York, I mean what’s up with that?

I find that in fashion-intolerable countries (i.e. places where if you wear something out of place you will feel the repercussions beyond being stared at), everyone is somehow forced into the same style of fashion because it’s intolerable. What happened to dressing to express yourself? Honestly if someone is happy wearing a clown suit out then leave them alone, they’re happy, why do you care? Not like anyone is making YOU wear it. A clown suit is probably fashionable in clown land and your Prada suit is probably tacky, so what gave you the right to tell people that what you’re wearing is crappy if what you’re wearing can be considered crappy where they come from too? It’s one thing to say ‘when in rome do what romans do’ but note how they don’t say ‘wear what romans wear’. What you wear represents where you come from and where you are, short of religious or cultural reasons I don’t see WHY there is a NEED to generate social pressure to force people to dress a certain way (okay and maybe when dresscode is necessary).

I’m not saying you can’t voice your opinions if you think someone is dressed badly, but that’s under the condition you know that person and it is inappropriate for a GOOD reason, like if you’re going for an interview dressed like a hooker. If you see someone on the road dressed weirdly, stare longer than usual if you must but keep your remarks and any indecent action to yourself. In Japan if you dress uniquely, your social circle is less likely to ostracize you for it compared to say UK. There is no FEAR in experimenting with clothes, even in Singapore. I mean yes most people don’t here don’t wear really weird thing but if you do no one is going to do anything to you. In middleeast or the States, you will actually fear something being done to you because you are dressed differently, either physical harm or disrespect on the streets, poor service at stores….Are a few pieces of cloth REALLY a good measure of how you should treat someone?

So please, next time you feel the need to degrade someone just because of what they are wearing, remember, in a different time and place you are likely to be a victim of the same treatment because of wearing what YOU think looks good. Guys, GROW UP.

Musings on the UAE

My head might roll for saying this but I as a female, I do find the application of the Islam law seriously flawed. No I don’t mean the fact that women have to keep themselves under wraps literally, but the fact that if a woman got raped, it’s her fault. Of course, if you actually read, then you’ll know that there are in some ways where the Islam law is better than our social regulations, one of which being marriage laws, how so? GOOGLE IT. I personally think the whole problem with Islam laws are the people executing them, AKA the men, it’s so obvious that guys are interpreting it in as biased ways as possible to remain in power. But enough about that, I’m not here to rant about gender equality.

I’m here to speak up for the kind and helpful people of the UAE. I’m surrounded by uninformed idiots who think that the Middle East is populated by terrorist wannabes, oppressed women and male chauvinists (ok so the latter two isn’t EXACTLY false). But after personally being to Qatar and meeting people from Middle Eastern countries, I must tell you, they are some of the nicest people I have ever met.

Way nicer than all of the people in the supposed more civilized countries. People there are just ridiculously friendly and nice. They treat you like a close friend after meeting for just the first time, they open their heart to you…it almost makes you think that they are too naïve for their own good. My friends in the Middle East are very straight forward with what they think. If they are not happy with you, they will tell you outright, I’m mad at you. Yes, it may seem immature but aren’t you sick of every pretentious bastard trying to suck up to you right and left? I know I am.

We build so much barriers around ourselves that it often takes us months and years to become close friends with someone else, to make sure that your relationships is based on friendship and not some benefit or another. Yet with my friends at the Middle East, I practically feel bad at how close they hold me in their heart compared to how I view them. After only spending a few days together (and that’s hours in a few days), they would surprisingly make effort to keep in touch through skype, be concerned about your problems and post supportive posts on your facebook wall. I’d be grateful if some of my high school friends don’t ignore my facebook wall post.

I have often wondered why their world is as such…so unguarded and naïve…I suppose it’s because they’re sheltered. Laws that keep external complications at arm’s length make for a far simpler society. On top of that, because they are so strict…it’s actually an easier society to navigate, follow the rules and you’ll be fine. God knows how many ‘invisible’ rules our society have that ‘we don’t know about get screwed for overstepping them. Of course there is a price for their perhaps simple minded trust and care, especially in their women and girls. So many of them have dreams to see the world, be themselves but are forced to conform by being married young or merely not allowed to leave their ‘idyllic’ society. Perhaps it wasn’t so bad before, when they didn’t know another world existed, but now they can see that there is a vibrant world outside theirs but they can never step out…it’s heartbreaking to watch really.

Sad musings aside (I rarely have them don’t I?) My dear readers, the UAE and Middle East are not a colony of terrorists and rapist. If you make the effort to keep an open mind, respect their customs you’d realize that many of them are ridiculously safe countries where you can leave your car unlocked and wallets lying around and neither will be stolen. I wouldn’t advise walking anywhere though…not cause it’s unsafe, but cause you’ll be baked to death by the sun.

Musings on apps

We have too many apps. WAY TO MANY. I’m sure for kids born into the smartphone age, they can never imagine living without apps. How am I going to keep my schedule without a timetable app!? Ok…so maybe I’m exaggerating…but we really do have too many apps.

I understand of course that the diverse offerings we have are a result of entrepreneurial spirit and hopes to make everyone’s lives easier. There is just one problem with this concept, how does making you live off your phone make life easier?

If your life is in your phone, then when your phone dies..well so does your life. Of course real smart phone junkies will now look at me with a vilified expression and tell me about all these wonderful portable batteries and charging accessories we can utilize and I’d pointedly ignore them. I agree apps make many things more convenient. A tipping app sure beats having to calculate your tips when drunk, productivity apps makes working on the go more efficient…but when you sit down and think about it, some apps really defeat their purpose.

Apps that fall into this category for me are lifestyle apps. If downloading apps are a way to a healthy lifestyle then why oh why are there still so many fact and obese people? I downloaded a sleeping app a while back, mainly to keep track of my sleeping habits and sleep debt. I deleted it after 2 weeks. The app is technically supposed to help you sleep better…or at least sleep enough. They just didn’t take into account that when you are dead tired and want to lie on your bed, you don’t exactly have the energy to ‘punch in’ and when you have the energy to punch in you probably don’t fall asleep right away. I ended up with screwy sleep debt. Ok so that may be the fault of my own laziness but people think about it. The whole point of this app is to make my life healthier and more convenient, instead I have to spend my time fretting over my sleep debt and remembering to punch in and out of my app. Sleeping became a stressful routine. I feel so much better napping and waking whenever I like, without having to make the extra step to grab my phone from wherever it lays to tap a stupid button.

So okay 1 failed app. What about others? The stupidest one I’ve seen thus far is one that talks about maintaining a good eyesight. You know, like watch these videos and look at these pictures to help retain your eyesight. I think you know what’s wrong with this right? The app is supposedly trying to help you prevent your eyesight from failing but it does so by increasing the amount of time you spend looking at a screen. No, I really don’t see the point of this. In fact even some productivity apps leave me bewildered about its supposed efficiency. You see the thing with productivity apps, liken note taking ones and to-do lists are that they are offering a whole new way of organizing your thoughts and life, that you have to follow in order to get the most out of your new app. You gotta type your notes a certain way, assign your tasks in a certain way, spend hours inserting your calendar into it…on a whole it takes so much damn effort to really get any productivity out of these apps that I’d rather just save my time and my life by scribbling in a note book where I can have my to-do list, random thoughts and timetable on the same page, in short hand that I can understand (because the app simply isn’t smart enough to understand where to file “mom money”).

I know that apps give the illusion of making life more streamlined and convenient by converging everything on your phone and to a certain extent, it does and if you master the use of one, it may actually radically change your life for the better. But truth of the matter is, so much of it requires a learning curve that isn’t justified that you can be equally efficient in life without it. If I had the time to plonk my life into my phone, I’d rather spend that time taking the lives on pigs on my phone if you get my drift.

Conclusion? ANGRY BRIDS RULE!

Musings on growing apart

I just watched a TED talk by a dude named Byrad Yyellander, go watch it, it aint half bad. I’d like to say that I don’t really agree with him completely, his theory seemed a bit stretched for my tastes (and I hope this means that it takes one good bullshitter to know another) but I do agree with his conclusion. Sometimes it’s not that some people aren’t good friends or good persons, it’s just that you happened to have gone further than they can. That your mental construct and capacity has exceeded theirs and they can no longer accommodate you.

I’m feeling too lazy at the moment to really get into the philosophical side of this and I’m too lazy to give Bob a ring so I’ll just keep ranting and you’ll just keep reading.

Anyways. People grow apart. Friends, family, lovers etc. Whenever a relationship fails, it’s always a painful experience, because we find the need to blame someone or something. Relationships don’t just FAIL, or do they? We say people change like it’s a bad thing, people change, it’s inevitable, I’m a different person from who I am 10 minutes ago because of a video I watched, I’m a different person from who I am a second ago because god gave me an epiphany, point is we are constantly changing. Growing up is part of changing, both of which means your mind is expanding and making space to accommodate more ideas and opinions that may be very different from yours; and you can only do that when your own ideas and opinions have rooted with enough integrity for you to challenge it with others. Though this is slightly off the point from what I really wanna say (like that’s anything new to you?)

As a girl, I know the pains of ‘betrayals’ of friendship, even starting from the early days in primary school where you preferred to go have recess with a different girl and ended up somehow backstabbing your ‘old friend’ in the process (god knows how that works, but yes.)…as someone who is followed by a lovesick puppy known as drama, I’m constantly stuck in some sort of a relationship issue, mine or someone else’s. I’d like to say it as a fact, I’m surrounded by many extremely talented and awesome people, who also happen to be terribly flawed and to keep sane I realize that sometimes you need to stop judging and start accepting. When you deal with humans, it’s not like a problem, problems you can solve, emotions and personality, not so much, so it just came to a point whereby if I kept measuring everyone around me with my mental ruler of what things ‘should be’, I’d be direly depressed.

At some point I started wondering if I was the problem, why am I not being understood, why is everyone disappointing me, why is everyone hurting me and I came to the conclusion, I’m not the PROBLEM, but I am a FACTOR. I’ve written before somewhere that you become lonely because you’re not understood, a lack of understanding forces people apart but sometimes it’s not easy to facilitate understanding, especially if you’ve gone past someone’s level of understanding things. Your past close friends or lovers or whatever have probably at one point or another been on the same level in terms of mental and intellectual understanding, at some point one of you went to a level the other can’t catch up to, you start fighting, you misunderstand each other, you feel misunderstood, you both feel wronged, you part on crappy terms. Sometime down the line, you’d reflect that it was your fault or their fault and you’d just end up making yourself more upset.

You don’t have to. The wonderful thing about expanding the horizons of your mind is that you start understanding where someone else is coming from better. Or at least you can grasp that a person is thinking differently from you, you don’t agree with it but you can at least respect it. Your friend who could not live up to your expectations as a friend in your time of need probably couldn’t instead of didn’t. They probably don’t even see that you were in a time of need. You don’t need to forgive them, but you also don’t need to be upset and frustrated (and suffer because of it) if you can just accept that at some point you have matured beyond them and that that can’t understand what you are facing and thus can’t help. It’s like an alien trying to ask a human to help out in a inter-universe war, the human can’t even comprehend the concept of an alternate universe and you want him/her to travel to the universe and help!? HOW!? (without the alien’s help that is.)

If you’re the kind of person who happens to change fast (aka grow up fast) you’ll probably find that you lose friends easily, not that you really break up with them, you just feel more alienated from them at a faster pace because they don’t seem to understand you anymore. AKA you start drifting apart.  It hurts, you may act up, be really snappy because you’re frustrated that someone who can relate to you like your twin just yesterday is talking to you like they don’t know you. But that’s just it, they don’t, you’ve exceeded their level of understanding because you’ve experienced more than they have and matured from it more than they did. You can’t expect them to begin to understand where they have gone wrong if they can’t even comprehend the whole situation.

Realistically though, I know that the disappointment, frustration, loneliness, sadness won’t disappear just because you now know that these relationships are falling apart or people are failing you (especially those who aren’t doing it on purpose) because of a difference in the speed of change in people, but it does make it easier to deal with. Some people aren’t worth being friends with but some people aren’t even worth the effort of unfriending.

It’s not their fault, it’s not yours either, you just grew up and they haven’t. Don’t cause yourself unnecessary woes and drama because you are changing faster than they are and don’t force yourself to stop maturing and becoming better (or worse  =P) either. Appreciate these people for their good points and focus on those who can provide you with the level of connection and support you need in the areas you need. Why focus on all the bad things when you can focus on the good things?

Oh and if you feel indignant or un-vindicated because you have to keep ‘understanding’ these people who just never seem to get it, don’t. I never said you have to understand them, they DID screw up and hurt you, they just aren’t worth the effort of you even getting mad at them because you won’t get anywhere besides being stuck in misery. Go spend your time and effort on people who are worth it, and in case you’re wondering what worth it means. Worth it means people whom when you get mad, understands and why you’re mad and apologizes+makes up for it accordingly, is able to give you the support you need when shit hits the fan and doesn’t look hurt and accused when you tell them they fucked up.

Musings on being different

Humans are such a cute dilemma. We want to be different but we want to find people who are like us. We like to belong basically, but belonging usually stems from having something in common. So what to do?

On one hand we try to change ourselves to be like someone else, on the other hand we strive so hard to be different. Yea, sometimes it makes you wonder why we try so hard to make ourselves miserable…maybe all humans are born masochists…anyways back to the point. As I’ve said many times before, it’s important to love yourself and just be happy. I don’t know, being happy just makes the world a better place…why do you want to be miserable if you can be happy? O.o

So in order to be happy, I find that accepting that you are an INDIVIDUAL who is different from everyone else is a good place to start. I am not denying we need to belong, but forcing yourself to be the same as someone else just raises the ugly head of something called a rebellious streak…you don’t want that…well you COULD but that just means you want to be different in the first place so…why not just BE DIFFERENT to begin with right?

I’ve come to realize that radically different people tend to have close and sustainable relationships than people who are extremely similar. Oh yes they don’t get along very well…but they will hang around each other for many many years to come. My bestie and I are very different…she is a science person, I’m an arts person. She believes in passive aggressiveness, I believe in aggressiveness. I plan my life to the utmost detail, she…not so much. But we get along. I would say many great teams and combos are formed by people who are very different from each other. Ironically these people are so different that they are similar. Doesn’t make sense?

There are so many different types of success, but all successful people have something in common that they are successful. Unique people are all just…unique, but they are united in that fact that they are unique. And that’s how it is. The WAY that Jonny Depp and Tim Burton are weird aren’t the same, THEY aren’t the same, one is an actor the other is a director. But they make a great pair because they are united in being different, in being weird.

So lets all stop being masochists and embrace our individuality, enjoy being different from other people, take pride in it, feel comfortable in your own skin and find belonging in people who like to find belonging in other people who enjoy being their own person as well.

We are united in our differences.

Musings on nature VS nurture

I’ve just had this epic debate about nature VS nurture and the thing about debates face to face is that…it gets personal and you tend to not use all the brains you’ve got to come up with great arguments. So as usual, the great arguments come AFTER the war of the worlds and my dear readers will have to sit through it and have no say in what I’m saying (or well, at least I don’t have to hear it.)

Our experiences make up who we are, I always say if I could turn back time, I wouldn’t change a thing because I don’t want to change who I am. So technically I’m on the nurture side of the argument. But I also don’t believe that had I made a different choice in my life, such as going to a different school or dating a different person, I’d be a fundamentally different person.

Here’s my theory. We are born with some fundamental stats. Our biology, genealogy  (which by the way plays a small part in deciding if we’re nice people or nasty people due to structure of the brain releasing certain types of hormones and chemicals etc.) were all decided by nature. So is our family and upbringing to a certain extent. I believe nurture can only build upon the factors nature gave us, which means they are many possibilities in which what type of person we can turn out to be, but we won’t LEAVE the RANGE of possibilities that nature dictates us to be.

Also, different aspects of nurture affect people of different nature AND nurture to different degrees. For example, a person who is genetically more rebellious towards authority AND has a family environment that influences them more than other environments will be less likely to be molded by their school experiences. You can send an artist to an art school or a science school or no school, they will still be an artist, but the type of art they pursuit may vary due to the school they went to, but the degree of influence cannot change who they are FUNDAMENTALLY.

It’s logical…mathematical even. If prime numbers are nature and their multiples, quotations and all other mathematical possibilities are nurture…a 3 can become MANY MANY MANY things…but there are some things it can NEVER become. A 3 can never become a C or a word…you get my point? And the fundament of whatever number it becomes will still be a 3 and you can never change that.

We will always change, but we will always be ourselves, we will change into who we CAN be and we have a CHOICE in decided who we can be…so believe in yourself and believe that even if things were different, you’ll still be the SAME person deep down. I know that regardless of where I schooled, who I hang out with, I’ll always be this odd ball of a person, as to HOW I’m odd..it may be different, but it’s just who you are. And honestly, you can’t deny nature. If you’re born to be a musician…somehow someway, nature will find a way. I swear if Mozart never made it to a family that will lead him to a piano and instead was a dishwasher…he may have became the inventor of making music with pots and pans because it’s just in his blood and genes…It just makes sense you know? You can change the medium he makes music with, but he will always be a musician one way or another.

If you’re athletically inclined…you’ll just NATURALLY end up making use of it in your process of being nurtured and gravitate towards a certain athletically related goal in life…regardless of the path you take. As cheesy as it sounds…I believe that we were all born with certain amazing possibilities, but it’s up to us to make the most of it.

Moral of the story? Ignore extremist and have a cup of hot cacao, they like not agreeing with anyone, themselves included.

Musings on degrees

I’ve recently (recently being in the last year or so) started a project, and I don’t mean a project like collecting tin cans or making a mural. I mean a project like something with events involving people that goes into double to triple digits and money that doesn’t lie around in people’s bank accounts. But that isn’t your concern, not that you’d care, it’s also not what this musing is about. (And you wonder why I write these introductions anyways)

I was inspired by my friend who happens to be helping me out in my evil scheme of a project (AHA, so that’s where it relates!). I’ve also been very recently accepted into my all time dream school for which I will not name, but I can make my own major there, so it probably narrows down your guesses quite a bit. The same university that has accepted me also has a business school which many students from my wonderful home country who will be attending said university will be going to. How does the two add up?

It just so happens that my friend goes to a business school that my future schoolmates call ‘cheap, crappy business school’, unlike the apparently reputable ones they have gotten themselves accepted to. I’ve apparently been out of the typical Singaporean circle for a little too long because I was (for once) taken aback by the casually elitist comment. I wasn’t mad though…just…surprised, because there hasn’t been many people around me who has such mindsets for a long time.

I probably should have stuck up for my friend but bleh…you’ll see why I don’t need to.

My dear friend who is helping me out in my project has been able to help me establish some level of connection with the many universities and professors of said universities all over UK. He has also managed to single out all the huge accounting firms and banks that has CSR funds to sponsor projects such as mine, with some sort of personal connection to all of these firms and banks. He’s also got an airline sponsorship sitting somewhere in his back pocket. Oh and he’s managed to help me get contact persons to do what he’s doing down at California, Columbia, Greece and Turkey. It doesn’t seem like he’s actually DONE much, but all of this was the product of less than a week’s worth of work. The level of networking that goes behind all this though is years of work put into being a natural public relations person.

Compared to this, my dear future school mates who were scoffing at his soon to be degree don’t really have much going for them at the moment except a rather attractive admissions letter and perhaps a full-ride scholarship. Of course, I’m not demeaning anyone here. But honesty demands that I be frank and say that my future schoolmates have perhaps one or two several month long internships at some big financing firms and that’s it. Compared to my friend who not only has done international internships, internship at the UK stock exchange AND is months away from graduating with a Masters degree DESPITE being the same age as my future schoolmates..well you get my point.

So you can argue, my friend’s already in college, he’s bound to have more resources and experience. True that, but he already has friends working in Emirates airline, fashion industries and heirs to major corporations when we were only in high school. Sure my future school mates will graduate with a degree that is of higher market value than my friend, but they will be competing with tons of other graduates with similar degrees during an interview whilst my friend will be waiting in the lounge with the few other godlike individuals who have established networks of epic proportions and probably got invited to the job.

I don’t know…I’m probably biased, but if I were a boss (and in a way, I kind of am the boss of my friend for the project), I don’t care if my staff has a second rate degree if he can offer me the sort of network he is doing now. In fact, if I were a boss, I won’t find any of my school mates very employable, because there’d be an ocean full of other graduates with equally pretty looking degrees out there but only a handful of such PR geniuses. At the end of the day, in the career world, it’s your connections that get you the job. I’m not denying the strength of a good degree, but alone the degree is nothing but a fancy but useless cover.

Which leads me to think, WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH MY COUNTRY!? We are breeding complacency! All of my future schoolmates came from top schools, a number of them even have a full ride to university plus a stable job waiting for them for the next 10 years of their lives at a government organization…so they are quite literally just bumming around now. It’s like…they are spoon fed everything that taking initiative seems to be beyond them. My friend only got so many internships because he made the effort to fight for them by writing in to firms and bugging the hell out of them. He only had such connections because he made the effort to network with people, on the plane, in school, at work etc. And we have these scholars who sit at their internship all day, doing whatever is thrown at them, nothing more, waiting for their internship to finish and not even making an effort to impress their managers.

How on earth did we ever manage to inculcate in these supposed elites that as long as you have a good academic record and degree then you’ll be guaranteed a good income and salary? What you want you get by fighting for it, taking initiative to grab it…by happily spoon-feeding our young we’re just making them sitting ducks for the future! These people will never go the extra mile or think outside the box to get what they want, they’ll blame the system for not providing them the opportunities, but opportunities are grabbed, not given.

In the end…I guess I just feel bad for my future schoolmates who are so caught up in their self-perceived value of degrees and don’t see society and reality for what it is…graduating is going to be a rude awakening when they realize that that degree they so revered suddenly means nothing and even if it got your foot through the door…that’s all that piece of paper is going to do for you. Which is why people should study what they WANT to learn, at least all that money spent in education is going to be put to good use.

Musings on Teenage angst

I look upon teenage angst with fond memories. Probably cause I wasn’t really very angsty…though technically I’m still a teen. We all suffer bouts of teenage angst, and whilst old people (aka psychologists and whatnot) have fancy explanations for them or regulate them as a ‘phase’ or some weird shit or another, I happen to think that teenage angst is just like angst at any age, a natural reaction to a messed up world.

You can call it ‘teenage angst’, but really angst is angst, age is irrelevant. And the reason anyone angsts is because life throws crap at you. In fact people below teenage years have angsty moments too, people just don’t bother labeling those moments. Why is teenage years such a prominent time to angst? Has anyone thought about perhaps it’s just that kids have finally grown up enough to see how shitty life can be and so they start emoing/despairing over it?

And in line with that thought, as…twisted as it may sound, to finally be mature enough to not just see, but also feel and understand how terrible the world is actually somewhat exhilarating. It’s like stepping into a whole new world and putting on grown up shoes. Putting on heels for the first time is an exciting experience, it’s also as painful as it is exciting and that’s exactly how teenage angst operates. It is a sign that we are officially growing up and becoming mature mentally. (Which explains why tweens can be angsty too, it’s all about the maturity of the mind). It takes a while for all that angst to become acceptance and appreciation hence the whole phase, but we never truly grow out of angst.

Bars and clubs, alcohol and cigarettes still have a mass market because people still angst, they just do it differently, instead of listening to Simple Plan and screaming at people for screwing up their life or cutting themselves for fun, we instead legally consume harmful substances.  After all, I don’t think we will ever be able to take all the ridiculous neon rainbow colored crap that life seems to pull out of nowhere and throw at us without freaking out and stressing about it at some point or another. And lets all just admit it, we LIKE being angsty. It’s an INDULGENCE. It makes you feel safe, all that hate is a great protective mechanism. You don’t have to be responsible for anything when you angst, you don’t have to solve anything and you don’t have to do anything. It’s like of like being depressed except when you’re depressed you can’t hurt people or get back at people but when you angst you can rage hell, which makes it a slight level above emoing for me.

Misery loves company, if my life is going to be hell, then yours should too. (Ironically, when someone is depressed they don’t feel any better if another person’s life is crap too, see why angst is just so much more superior to emoness?)

Musings on liberal arts

Liberal arts seem like a useless thing to study, especially in the modern society. The degree is so…vague that you can’t seem to bring it to any company and expect it to be accepted readily because it just isn’t niche enough. Since when has niche become a good thing? O.o

Education started as liberal arts, first few universities started out as liberal arts college and as impractical as it all seems in the 21^st century, I personally think the diminishing of liberal arts education is the reason for the burgeoning number of idiots in this society. By idiots I don’t mean people with low IQ, I mean socially awkward people, people lacking common sense, people who makes you scratch your head, bang it against the nearest surface and go “WTF!!?”. Liberal arts though, I do agree, has failed to move on with time, the way education has; though I’ve probably bitched about education systems enough as it is so I’ll refrain.

Getting to my point, let me tell you why liberal arts is good. Liberal arts basically forces you to learn everything under the sun, or at least academically. Yea, why would a biologist ever need to know how to paint pictures right? Well let me tell you why. He needs to draw pictures of anatomies and shit! The thing is, everything in life is dependent on each other. From philosophy came physics and math and business and humanities and arts etc. You get my drift. You think all these specialists of today can exist without each other? I’d like to see Square Enix come up with the next installment of FF without a programmer. But a programmer is useless without an artist. And they’d all be useless without the people who built the computers and made the pencils.

Liberal arts teaches compound skills, it makes a person for the lack of a better word, more well-rounded. Many people lack common sense these days because they don’t have compound skills to compliment their existing niche, so they don’t understand certain concepts that should be…taken for granted. Lets use the simple common sense of why should you be polite. If you’re not you’ll piss someone off and they’re going to punch you in the face. That sounds like an obvious answer but some people don’t get it. (Crazy right?) If I exaggerate, the concept of being nice to avoid having bodily harm inflicted upon oneself is a mix of psychology, anthropology and humanities. Some hard science people or even arts people whom in this time and day love being in their little specialized bubble will thus be unable to comprehend this concept though it is common sense. They don’t have the compound skills to do so.

And really compound skills are IMPORTANT. I mean sure you can be the greatest philosopher in the world, but that means crap if you can’t effectively write it in such a way that people understands you. And you can be an amazing journalist, but if you don’t understand crap about science then you’d have a hoard of angry sci-fi fans on your ass and no paycheck. Point is, all specializations need to be paired off with one or at least a few compound skills to truly help it achieve its potential. Ultimately, we may take being able to add and subtract for granted now, but if this specialization trend continues, perhaps in the distant future, we’d have a generation of people who need specialized people to fold their clothes, count their change and brush their hair because math or home economics or grooming it’s not their niche.

So dear employers, think about it. Do you want an expert who can’t even communicate his point across to you or understand your orders or a jack of all trades who can at least get work done? Look down naught upon liberal arts. Conclusion? Common sense, not very common anymore.

Musings on productivity

I think I said somewhere in one of the musings that one day our generation will start dropping like flies because we’ve ruined our health beyond repair by overworking in our youths. I am pretty much nocturnal and almost chronic insomniac but even a workaholic like myself knows that at some point, slacking is the most productive thing to do.

We are getting more and more deluded in the concept of perceived productivity. We think working overtime, sacrificing sleep to work is being productive. I say that is complete and utter bullshit. If you don’t sleep before a math exam, no matter how hard you studied, you will do something stupid like press multiply instead of plus on the calculator and screw up a 20 mark question. The same applies to other stuff in life. I know, working, regardless of how trivial the work or how crappy the quality of work is makes you see productive, at the end of the day, you want to do GOOD work, not ghastly work.

NOT RESTING=SHITTY RESULTS. You have less energy therefore you are less focused, less sharp, less aware and you brain functions slower, in conclusion you are less efficient and thus less productive. Really, those of you who take pride in working overtime, think about it like this. You’re so bloody inefficient that you can’t finish the given workload within the allocated time so you have to stay over time to finish it. That doesn’t seem very productive to me.

Workaholics, REST. I know resting makes you restless, but that’s the point. By the time you have enough energy to be restless means you are energized for work then. At that point you will work twice as fast and twice as hard (since you slacked off an the procrastination+guilt is bound to drive you to a new level of productivity). The only time I agree with someone NOT resting is anyone working on something that is directly linked to a sudden inspiration. Unfortunately, inspiration runs away, so you really gotta work with it until you drop dead, but even then, get the gist of your inspiration out and fine tune it later. Perfection cannot and will not be created when you are functioning on half a dried up mind and body.

Here are the very real consequences of NOT resting. You will fall ill, you will feel emo, you will snap, you will fall asleep on the job, you will make people around you feel like crap, you will make tons of mistake and you WILL end up FAILING and NOT FINISHING your work because your body WILL go on strike eventually. Real responsibility and productivity is taking care of yourself so you’ll always be in you top condition to be at your most efficient.

Yes, I just justified slacking to be productive. All ya laze peeps out there, REJOICE! (and feel free to worship me for 2 seconds! =P)

Musings on Zombie Apocalypse

For some reason, as we approach the 22^nd century and become an increasingly more tech-ed up society, instead of becoming more concerned about global warming (to be fair we can do shit about that), real life Matrix happening, we are hyping about a zombie apocalypse.

Just some completely useless information for your reference, I don’t like zombie movies, never have never will. What is the likelihood of mankind becoming zombies!? Really? That’s less likely than us getting a replicator in the distant future! Hell, vampires are more likely. Actually, I’d like to rant about zombies for a bit. So zombies are a kind of undead, they’re basically dead people revived without soul of conscience and eat people, or so I’ve been told. So Zombies are walking corpses…I can’t begin to explain to you how this is scientifically impossible, if we are dead, our brain is dead and our motor functions will not work. Thing is zombies are DEAD, however all these zombie apocalypse scenario deal with alive human infected by stupid viruses and regressing to some primal, aggressive state. THEY ARE NOT DEAD.  Which means they’re not zombies! So the whole zombie apocalypse thing is unjustified.

Though for the sake of ranting, let me humor the idea a little. My vision of a zombie apocalypse does not involve any biological warfare, mutated diseases or heck supernatural causes. It’s just us humans, totally zombified from overworking. Don’t face fault on me just yet. You know I’m right! How many of you wake up every morning feeling like a living zombie? (pardon the oxymoron) So many of us, students or office workers and god knows what occupation you are spend nearly all our waking moments working and our sleeping moments STILL working. Sure we do go out shopping, eating and drinking on that occasional weekend but even that’s at the cost of our sleeping time. As I’ve said a thousand times before, the next generation is going to die young because we work too much, sleep too little and eat poorly.

I can safely foresee in the distant future that because everyone is somehow being forced into sleeping 3-4 hours a day and slaving their ass off all the time that eventually we are in a zombified state 24/7 until we have the whole population that are all zombies. If you’ve ever been in zombie mode, you know that you basically run on autopilot, you eat, you work and ignore all human contact except to chew people’s head off. What happened to the kids you say? Well the ones old enough will probably end up just like us because school think it’s better to start making kids live like working adults early on and the ones too young will die off because no one is capable of taking care of them.  I don’t know, this version jus seems more plausible than teethbaring monsters. Really the zombies of Hollywood are just too energetic to be real. You are a WALKING CORPSE, how vivacious can you be!?

Musings on impressions

I don’t like mangoes. I mean I really really really hate mangoes, they’re one of the many fruits that I can’t stand and will not, absolutely refuse to eat. However mangoes never did anything to me, these innocent yellow pulpy fruits don’t cause me to develop rashes or poison me in any way, they have never traumatized me as a kid and they’re most likely good for my health, but somehow I JUST DON’T LIKE THEM. And it’s not the mangoes fault.

What the hell do mangoes have to do with impressions? Nothing really, though I can always add that mangoes never made a bad impression on me either, I DON’T LIKE THEM, END OF STORY. That’s how people are actually, there will be people, many of them at that, who just don’t like certain people or things for no good reason. You can try to persuade them, convince them but when someone just doesn’t like something or someone THEY JUST DON’T. It’s like how magnets of similar polarities just repel, and magnets of opposite polarities will attract each other, IT JUST IS AND YOU CAN’T CHANGE IT.

Which is why there is this age old advice saying “just be yourself” when it comes you leaving a good first impression, because ultimately, if someone doesn’t like who you are, they won’t like you no matter what you do or how you act. This sort of innate dislike won’t change because you change how you dress, how you talk and how you look. THEY DON’T LIKE YOU DEAL WITH IT.  That being said, being yourself isn’t exactly very easy, especially when most people aren’t quite sure what ‘yourself’ is exactly. Seriously, trying to define yourself is quite impossible. Oh sure, you can quantify a few traits, some characteristics, but none of it will truly be all of what you are. The thing about being human is, we change, we are not constantly the same and we don’t change predictably either. It’s not like saying, heat up the ice cube it’ll become a liquid, heat it up some more and it’ll be a gas. We don’t work like that.

Instead of attempting to define yourself, or anyone for that matter, as any other object or noun, try to think of us as an idea, a theme, that is loosely defined by a word, aka our name, which encompasses all that we were, are and all the possibilities of what we can and will or will not become. Basically, humans are more like a concept which can be interpreted many ways, we are the summation of all of our potential of the past present and future. Which means you basically can’t DEFINE a person; it’s like trying to quantify truth, or god, or god forbid, LIFE.

Honestly, there are so many sides to a person that I sometimes think ‘be yourself’ is a very shitty piece of advice. Which ‘myself’ should I be? Because we are all multi-faced bitches in a way, though actually it’s not that we WANT to be two-faced, it’s just called adapting to the situation. Think of it this way, you don’t call toothbrushes two-faced bitches just because when you brush your teeth it’s a tooth brush but when you scrub the fridge or shoes or floors, it’s a cleaning brush. In school we are students, at work we are employees, there’s some essential concept of you that never truly changes but a large part of you is constantly being redefined to adapt to a situation. We of course could act the same way around many different people but you wouldn’t because it is inefficient, illogical and accomplishes nothing. You COULD act the same way you do with your friends in front of an adult or a superior, of course you can, but it’s illogical because by doing so you’d be disrespectful and get into trouble. Doesn’t mean you’re being fake, you’re just being pragmatic, what’s wrong with that? If you have it in you to be polite that means some part of you must have manners. It’s still you. Just because you suddenly learnt to ride a bike doesn’t mean your name will suddenly change and you’ll grow a tail.

Deep down we all know who we are, in a loose, vague, instinctive sort of way. We will know, innately, when we are not being ourselves or defying that core idea that makes us, us. And so, since we are who we are and we can’t stop people from hating who we are no matter what we are, why care about what other people think about you? The problem with so many of us is that we care far too much about what people think about us, about what impressions we are making on people. We are scared to be judged, and it’s a fair fear, but a stupid one.

Because really, what truly matters isn’t what people think about you but what you WANT people to think about you. It’s called ‘making an impression’ for a good reason, you’re the one who is creating that impression, so it is your job to make someone think of you in a certain way. Making impressions isn’t about being judged, it’s giving someone a judgment for them to declare. You are in control, not the other way round. What part of ‘you’ do you want to impress upon the person is within your control, the only thing the person can do is to accept whatever impression you wish to throw upon them, they have no control if you want to impress yourself as a monkey or as a CEO, all they can do is take it as it is and if they don’t like it they can leave it because THERE IS NOTHING THEY CAN DO TO CHANGE IT. And there is nothing you can do to change if they like you or not.

Of course it takes courage to shake off the concept of how we are being judged, which is why being yourself takes courage, not because ignoring what other people think or say requires bravery but because accepting the concept that YOU are in control is something that is beyond our comfort zones and a stressful responsibility. There is no one to blame but yourself if you made someone think bad of you because you made the wrong impression, but at least you know, you can always stay true to yourself no matter what because if they don’t like you, they don’t like you, and it isn’t your fault.

Musings on singers

People look at singers more like an item, or a product rather than a person. It sounds sad and inhumane but there is some truth to that. Singers, or rather musicians, embody the music that they are performing. At that very moment, when they are singing, or playing, they aren’t people, they are music.

A human voice isn’t a human voice, it’s an instrument in a song, its job is to convey the meaning of that song, the singer’s face, body, outfit, very being is not himself or herself but a physical representation of the idea that the song is about. Which is why singers sometimes dress in such weird outfits (cough meat dress cough), have such weird hand gestures and dance weird dances. You’re representing a SONG, aka a form or art, last I checked, most art don’t exactly qualify for the sanity or logic award.

But as selfless as singers are in music, they are also in the zenith of their individuality. Because when a singer sings a song, even more so for the ones they write, they are drawing on their own life experiences, emotions and memories and passing them on in the form of music to the audience. Every word, every note, every action represents that one memory which the song wants to convey. Alas, music is one of the ultimate forms of self-expression.

Which makes me wonder why we give a damn about someone else’s self-expression, seeing as how humans are all so self-centred and likes being the protagonist of their own sob stories (admit it, we are all like that and there is no shame in admitting that you’re selfish). Perhaps because we can relate to the experience/emotion/feeling the song seeks to convey? It’s like having a friend who can relate to your problem without all the downsides of an actual friend, such as having to comfort them as they bitch about their sad stories and pretend you actually care. Music is like a companion whom lets you drown in your own sorrow, or happiness, without butting into your thoughts, it’s just there, supporting you, relating to you and your feelings.

This is probably why people get so attached to singers, because singers represent the song(s) they people relate to, so we automatically form an attachment to that person even when they are in their moments of being human instead of music. We feel like we’ve made a friend, a companion, someone who understands us, out of that singer because we share all these common experiences that only we can sympathize with. Yet ironically we don’t truly know the singer as a person, just their songs and their moments as music.  Fans are just people who can only befriend the singer when they are music and not when they are people. In the same way, some people are willing to give up their personal life to become singers because they want to share themselves with more people and befriend more people, because music can take away loneliness and provide companionship in a way that no living being can.

Music is a religion, a friend, an experience, a feeling, an idea, a story and a slice of life.

Musings on gundam

Though I’m a huge anime otaku, gundam and most mecha anime really, aren’t on top list of animes to watch. I’ve only ever followed one gundam, that’s gundam wing, so my dear friend, be grateful that I’m watching Gundam unicorn because you asked me to.

How did I find the anime? Well, less than 10minutes into the anime, the only thing I find myself awing about is “Oh that’s a lot of space trash they’re creating” and “Who cleans up all the debris and mobile suit carcasses?”

Yea I know, not something I should be musing about in the middle of a supposedly epic anime but I REALLY WANT TO KNOW! Do enemy factions clean them up for each other or does each faction have like its own clean up truck? Or is there like a company that makes money from cleaning up space junk from gundam battles? If there isn’t, they should make one because it looks like it’ll make a whole lot of money. And why do I ask this question? Because almost every battle happens on a clean spot of space! And I mean at the rate these guys are fighting, space should be littered with mecha remains but nooo it’s all sparkly clean! So someone must have picked it up! I mean yes space is HUGE but considering that the humans probably only frequent certain routes anyways, the battlegrounds are obviously limited and often repeated which means THERE HAS TO BE A SPACE JANITOR!

And in the words of a wise friend of mine, “It’s a freaking ANIME, stop thinking and just watch!”

But but but…I CAN’T KEEP WATCHING UNTIL I’VE FIGURED THIS OUT! Okay so I can, but I’ll spend every minute wondering if a clean-up shuttle will appear and blue janitor looking mobile suits will start picking up dead mobile suit trash, oh and probably dead bodies of the pilots too, actually yea, clean up is damn important because in space bodies won’t rot, they’ll just kind of…stay that way like Macdonalds fries and if they don’t get cleaned up there’ll be dead bodies everywhere…that just CAN’T be convenient for setting up satellites.

And people wonder why I avoid mecha animes. (You see in fantasy animes, all unexplained things can be lumped under the umbrella of ‘Magic mumbo jumbo that just MAGICALLY works.”)

Musings on religion

I believe there is a God, or Gods, or whatever you call omniscient and omnipotent higher entities of the universe. I just also happen to believe that when you are that powerful, you’d have already known the hopelessness AND hopefulness of mankind when they were created to not give a damn about them. Basically, if anyone or anything had all that power in the world, they would have better things to do than listen to people pray about cars and money and perhaps occasional world peace. When you have all that power and knowledge, you obviously DO NOT need a group of idiots to worship you to prove anything to yourself or the world, I mean the whole point of being a God is to be absolute right?

Which brings me to my point, religions are obviously manmade because no God would ever ask for a religion to be created for them. That means God will exclusively have to cater to such a group of people, THINK ABOUT THE COMMITMENT! No wonder most prayers get ignored… Anyways, in my opinion the bible and religions are all just really smart ways (which obviously backfired) for people to grow some morale conscience. Isn’t that basically what all holy books preach? Be nice to this guy, be nice to that guy, don’t do anything bad…BLAH, rephrase said concept about a gazillion times and POOF bible!!

I mean when you think about it, it’s so much easier to  get people to follow rules when they think that there’s an all-seeing eye surveying them from above that they can’t lie to and can and will punish them wherever whenever however and doom them to lifetimes worth of pain and suffering even AFTER their death. I don’t know, if I wanted to come up with a really impressive threat, this would be a really good one, albeit farfetched and crazy, but as some people will say, all genius ideas are based on craziness. So basically, religion is just one big blackmailing organization that tries to coerce people into being good, or that’s the basic idea. Evidently along the way they decided that having millions of people wrapped around their little fingers meant getting said idiots to do stupid shit like kill people and give money whilst praying for a first class cabin in heaven.

And they are REALLY REALLY good at what they do, they pray on human weakness and need to blame something (or in nicer terms, it’d be the human need for faith and emotional dependence on something absolute). Once they place the basis of you’ll always be forgiven, everything happens for a (good) reason, God will save you, the people will take up whatever other crap they feed like starved blind mice over food. After all it’s so much easier to just follow written instructions on ‘how to be good and go to heaven’ rather than make decisions and choices for yourself and having to suffer the consequences, good or bad. I really have to applaud the GENIUS behind religion, as I always say, you wanna do something, do it right, that includes everything from saving the world to committing heists and of course, manipulation of the masses.

If God did occasionally spare a thought for us, I’m sure God and his/her many different incarnations would sneak a glance at us during one of those annoying TV ads or whatever the holy equivalent is and go “Oh they’re still being stupid, okay back to the show”.

Musings on kamu kamu ume

I have many loves, food wise, but when it comes to candy I swear to god, my favourite has to be CAMU CAMU UME! Aka chewy plum candy. Mentos is good and all and so are jelly beans but honestly plum makes for the best candy flavor, it’s sweet and sour and slightly salty and it doesn’t make you feel sick after you’ve had too many. Before meals it’s a great appetizer, after meals it cleans your palette.

Sadly most plum candies are HARD, made with plum extract. NOT CAMU CAMU UME!! THEY ARE SPECIAL! Think chewy candy but with plum juice AND plum powder rolled into it, it’s perfectly reddish pink with dots of the plum powder so you know it’s the real deal. AND it’s made with locally (by that I mean Japan) plums. I can’t tell you how awesome it is except I’m currently trying to figure out how much Camu Camu Ume will constitute a year’s supply for me because, I WANT TO EAT IT EVERYDAY AND THEY DON’T SELL IT IN SINGAPORE!!!

Yes my dear readers, this wonderful godlike candy is not available in the island country I live in but in the island country that I DON’T live in. It’s like god hates me. Now we all know that Japan is like home to everything I love to eat but this is just so much worst. If it’s some kind of food, like Ramen or steak or a proper DISH, I can at least try to make it. But this, my dearest is a CANDY. As in artificially created, through the use of machinery and chemistry, all of which I lack, AKA, I can’t even TRY to reproduce it! See why this is so devastating now?

BUT I WILL NOT BE DEFEATED! I WILL GO TO THE NEAREST DAISO AND ASK THEM TO IMPORT THIS CANDY! Or I can just order them online for an insane 50 bucks per bottle including shipping (rip off much, it’s like 1 dollar a pack in japan, 1 FREAKING DOLLAR!). Actually these days, I’m starting to think that I should just move to Japan so I can eat this everyday. Yes everyone, you’ve just witness me admit that it’s not Disney, not the fluffy pancake waffles at Shibuya 109, not the milk tea but CAMU CAMU UME that is making me seriously consider moving to live in Japan. Sometimes I think I have strange priorities in life…BUT IT’S CAMU CAMU UME DAMMIT!

Musings on birthdays

I have concluded that when it comes to birthdays, there are two kinds of people, birthday people and un-birthday people. By un-birthday people, I don’t mean celebrating un-birthday days like in Alice in the Wonderland (cause if they DID then the world would be so much happier! And everyone a lot poorer). I mean people who think of birthdays, even their OWN birthdays as any other day in the year and don’t celebrate it.

HOW CAN YOU DO THAT!

IT’S A FREAKING BIRTHDAY! THE DAY WHERE YOU WERE PARTIALLY SQUEEZED, PARTIALLY DRAGGED, COVERE D IN BLOOD AND OTHER DISTURBING SUBSTANCES, OUT INTO THIS WOLRD TO BRING (plague) THIS WORLD WITH THE JOY (and annoyances) THAT COMES WITH YOU! It’s the day that symbolizes your existence, the reason when you are standing (or sitting or lying down or walking or <insert verb>) here right now! How can that not be a big deal?

Without your birthday you wouldn’t exist, I don’t know, I’m sure everyone, even those depressed emo suicidal peeps, finds some importance in their own existence, so how can you say birthdays aren’t important? I mean, I can understand not wanting to be a year older (really I can, because I know until the day I die, I’ll always be a kid at heart) but birthdays isn’t about age. (REALLY!? IT’S NOT?) Okay so legally it is. But it’s also so much more than that! It’s the day where you can pig out on cakes, get free gifts and be loved and treated like someone who matters! How can anyone just throw all that out the window!? I mean if you think that your birth is no big deal on your half, at least think of your mom, celebrate it for HER, give HER the presents and cakes because she did after all carry you, a parasite, around for 9 months before she popped you out in DIRE pain at the risk of her own LIFE! How is any of that NOT A BIG DEAL!? SERIOUSLY!

But really un-birthday people, you know what’s my biggest problem with you? Not letting other people, aka us birthday people make a big deal out of your birthday. Here’s the deal, we WANT to make a big deal out of it because you ARE a big deal to us and we want to SHOW YOU how important you are to us and MAKE YOU HAPPY because you MADE US HAPPY. By brushing it all off in all your stupid, indifferent, slightly snobbish ways, you’re basically throwing all our good will, care, friendship and love in our faces and telling us you don’t give a flapping duck’s ass about how we feel about you and how important you are to us. Gee thanks, we feel SOOO appreciated.

I don’t understand you guys, I really really don’t. You say you don’t want people to waste time or money or effort on you, that you don’t want to trouble people. Yes well to us birthday people, celebrating someone’s birthday ISN’T trouble, asking us NOT TO, IS TROUBLE. It’s not like you’re going around bugging people to celebrate your birthday like this and like that, people are doing it cause they want to, and to treat all this good will as time wasted is just plain disrespectful and RUDE. RUDE YOU HEAR ME!

You know why birthday people like to celebrate birthdays, not just their own but everyones? Because it makes people HAPPPY, it’s a joyous occasion. We like celebrating birthdays because we like to see the birthday boy and birthday girl feel special and be happy, we want to know that we’ve managed to show our appreciation to this special person and make this special day the happiest day of their life (or as close as it can get). If they’re happy, we are happy and if the celebration is a happy one then everyone is happy and WHAT DO YOU WANT TO STOP PEOPLE FROM BEING HAPPY!???? TELL ME WHY!

And don’t you feel that wonderful sense of achievement and accomplishment when you’ve managed to make someone’s birthday special? Sure it sounds self-gratifying but I don’t see what’s wrong with a little self-satisfaction when you’re bringing joy or doing good to someone else at the same time. Why must you suffer to make someone else happy? Isn’t it better if everyone feels satisfied and content? So un-birthday people, listen up. We Birthday People, LIKE to rack our brains for birthday surprises and celebrations, we like to spend our money on a special gift, WE LIKE BIRTHDAYS!

I know from experience that it’s almost impossible to convert un-birthday people, so despite all my propaganda above, I shall not try but at least respect birthday people’s wishes to make a fuss out of your birthday. We just want everyone to feel loved, special and happy. And really, think about it, if you have kids in the future, kids you love, not kids you want to shove to the orphanage or flush down the toilet (really if you feel like doing the latter, I don’t know why you ended up with a kid and you sure as hell don’t deserve one), on their birthday, wouldn’t you want to make them feel special and loved and HAPPY? Wouldn’t you want to celebrate the day when your bundle of joy was born? Birthdays are IMPORTANT and SPECIAL and IMPORTANT. Little kiddies whom have somehow managed to get your hands on this profanity abound book, remember what Chocomon says, BIRTHDAYS ARE IMPORTANT, don’t ever forget it and don’t let anyone convince you otherwise!!!

On a side note, if I ruled the world, I would declare un-birthday tendencies against the law and punishable by death, really I will. FREE CAKES AND GIFTS AND CANDLES!! What is wrong with you people who hate it all!?

Musings on Marvel

2012 is like the year of Marvel, with Avengers and Batman and what not running everywhere. Apparently we all haven’t outgrown super heroes yet, at least there haven’t been any incidents of any kids jumping out windows trying to fly..oh wait Superman wasn’t in any of those movies. Right.

If you’re a (fellow) Marvel fan then you’ll know that the movie makers are taking liberties, MANY liberties with the characters and the Marvel verse. Some Marvel fans, unlike me, have a problem with that. Look I understand how frustrating it is to have the Phoenix force mutate into some personality disorder of Jean Grey instead of the awesome cosmic entity it actually is, but lets face it, the Marvel Universe is a huge ass mind fuck machine, at least to non-fans it is. And with so few Marvel fans out there in this world (compared to the number of non-marvel fans), how are the movie makers going to cram 73 years of Marvel Universe history into a 2 hour movie?

One of the many reasons why Marvel Fans are a minority in this big world (once again I say that is IN COMPARISON TO THE WORLD POPULATION) is because the Marvel Universe is too damn complicated, it’s like women logic but worse. It runs on a sliding timescale, has multiple alternate dimensions, timelines and universes that are all somehow interlinked! It’s not exactly something you can just run to the comic store, pick up and random copy and start picking up on. Which is why movie makers, whom after reading through all those Marvel comics must dumb down everything they’ve read and start from scratch with the characters except for their costumes..which they also take liberties on.

Basically, in order for movie makers to impress upon the sheer awesomness of Marvel heroes onto the general population, they need to stick all of them through a Hollywood cookie cutter. But really, what’s so bad about that? Yes the ORIGINAL Wolverine will always be a gazillion times better but heck people, Marvel itself has a gazillion alternate versions of each hero, so why bother making a fuss with another for the ‘movie universe’? Can’t you just think of it as an alternate dimension and leave it at that? We should just be glad that Marvel characters are now getting recognized by more and more people instead of dying out. That little kids who probably will never pick up a Marvel comic because of Facebook and 9gaga will still have proper super hero role/super villain models to look up to!

And if all that doesn’t convince you then let me put it this way. MARVEL THE COMPANY ITSELF ISN’T COMPLAINING ABOUT THESE CHANGES, SO SHUT UP! If the authors of the comics are okay with it what are you screaming about right? Marvel is doing something smart, they’ll never earn as without all these movie ADAPTATIONS and Captain America, Spiderman, Iron Man, Hulk etc. will all just end up as ‘uncool’ retro old school comic heroes that our parents used to read. That would be SO MUCH worse than just Nick Fury becoming a black guy. Just saying.

Musings on Napping

I have this ranking about the awesomest things in life, it’s a constantly changing ranking but at the moment it looks like this:

1. Google
2. Naps
3. Music
4. Chocolate
5. Fluffy thingies!

Google, which is almost always number 1 (I swear the world will cease to function without Google) requires no explanation but take note of number 2 (which is very close to being number 1, mathematically speaking), Naps. Notice how I use the word naps and not sleep? Don’t get me wrong I LOVE to sleep, but only during napping hours.

Remember when we were kids and it was criminal for us to nap from our point of view because we were wasting precious day time where we could play? Well that obviously all changed as we grew up and found the joy of staying up (it’s like day time only LONGER!), and THAT mindset changed even more when we got even older and were forced to stay up because our days suddenly became incessant source of work and stress. So napping is basically an escape, a form of procrastination, a way of slacking and an all-rounded lazy man (woman)’s drug.

If my kid self saw me now she’d be giving me the O.O face as to how I find napping awesome (or maybe she wouldn’t because even as a kid I got to stay up..staying up meant having napped first.) Napping is like the most relaxing form of sleep, mainly because it’s during a time where sleep isn’t mandatory. Really this whole you MUST sleep at night for AT LEAST 6 hours thing is actually very stressful and makes sleep very stressful. You feel the pressure of being REQUIRED to go to sleep and worst, a COMPULSORY time to wake up. Sleep is supposed to be relaxing, it’s resting for god’s sake but NOOOO we have to  force ourselves to sleep even if we are not sleepy and wake up before we are ready to. See how sleeping is a really flawed concept? And the natural rebellious nature of all humans call upon us to RESIST  the stupid rule of “WE MUST SLEEP AT NIGHT”. We should sleep when we are tired and if that means it’s in the dead afternoon then so be it!

The following is why napping is superior to sleeping (at night). If you can nap, chances are you’re free, which means you can sleep for as long as you like or as short as you like, there’s no stress about when you have to wake up. Napping is during non-designated sleeping hours, which means you’re actually sleeping when you WANT to not when you HAVE to, that alone makes sleeping 1000 times less stressful and a million times more relaxing. Naps occur in the afternoon, what better way is there to fall asleep than to look at the beautiful clouds in the blue sky in and cozy air conditioned room under your covers, compared to at night where your neighbours are all at home, some getting drunk while watching soccer and yelling on the top of their lungs and the idiots in next door is blasting heavy metal? What makes naps such an awesome way  to indulge though is no doubt the fact that WHEN YOU ARE SLEEPING, EVERYONE IS WORKING!!! Yes, it’s sadistic, but more often than not our joy tends to be someone else’s misery, so what the heck eh?

So little kiddies, I don’t blame you for hating napping (and I would also like to ask which awesome parent allowed you to read this book which is most likely rated NC-16), kiddie naps are unfortunately forced to occur during designated napping hours, which makes it just as bad as adult’s designated sleeping hours. So yes, RUN FREE MY FRIENDS AND SPEND YOUR NAP TIME PLAYING TO YOUR HEART’S CONTENT! After all, we should start getting into the habit of actually sleeping at night starting from young.

Musings on Polar Bears

I feel obliged, yes OBLIGED in this very moment (6^th August 2012, 2.07pm) to muse about Polar Bears. Why? Because my brain said so and I listen to my brain because it’s the boss of me and my body. Back to the polar bears.

THEY ARE WHITE AND FLUFFY!!!! But did you know that polar bear’s furs aren’t actually white? It’s actually clear but reflects light in such a way that it looks white. And under its white fluffy fur it’s actually a mass of black blubber?…Okay disturbing mental image forming, lets not think about that. Basically it’s white and fluffy and adorable as a kid and awesome as an adult. They’re most likely uncuddly but in my imagination they are so it doesn’t matter!

What I my actual point is for this musing though is Polar bear’s light reflecting fur. If it’s actually clear and uses reflection of light to attain a certain color, doesn’t that mean Polar bears can actually come in all colors of the rainbow? Or even better, they’ll have natural stealth mode by reflecting light in such a way that it reflects the surroundings and becomes invisible! NINJA POLAR BEARS! Sometimes I don’t get Americans, you have a bunch of polar bear sized turtles and actual polar bears and yet you don’t choose the animal that has ninja stealth mode that can actually be explained within sci-fi boundaries. Why? Polar bears are SO MUCH cuter than TURTLES! And stronger too, they get away with stealing penguin eggs, what more do you want from them!?

Musings on stupidity

Stupidity has a cure, it’s called a gun, though actually any other sharp pointy hazardous objects would work. Point one at any afflicted being and suddenly they will grow a brain, and intelligence. Thank you, now I’ll just wait for my nobel prize letter.

Musings on hate

People say that there is a thin line between love and hate, I say love and hate walk hand in hand. You just can’t love someone without hating them and you can’t hate someone without loving them. Do note that this only applies to people or at least sentient objects. Inanimate objects don’t count, I don’t see how you can hate and love durian at the same time, I just can’t. Or maybe you can, you can love chocolate and hate it for making you fat, it’s a love-hate relationship. Though I’m sure I don’ love what I hate so I guess you can only hate what you love but not love what you hate…And that’s actually what I am getting at for once.

Hate often comes from disappointment, you hate someone because of something they did that displeased you which indirectly disappoints you. You won’t be disappointed though if you didn’t even remotely care (love) the person. It’s unlikely that you hate a stranger, you won’t give two flapping ducks, of even one flapping duck, or chicken, about a stranger. Sure a stranger can piss you off but you don’t care about them enough to hate them.

See hate requires ENERGY. It takes an awful lot of energy, effort and dedication to hate someone, it really does. Hating someone involves being angry for long periods of time, and being angry takes energy, so hate takes A LOT of energy. We all know we only spend inordinate amount of energy of things we are passionate about, same for people. You wouldn’t waste that energy on mere STRANGERS. In fact if you think about it, the energy you spend on making people you love happy (because you love them), is probably the same amount of energy you spend on hating someone.

In retrospect, you also can’t love a person without hating them. I foresee the need of Bob to help us demonstrate this point. Bob loves his girlfriend (yes that mood-swing prone, emotional, dramatic, complicated one from previous musings; what I can say, Bob is a very faithful man. Good on you Bob.), he also hates his girlfriend, and he obviously has many reasons to hate her, why? Go read previous musings and you’ll know why! But even if his girlfriend was Barbie perfect, he would still hate her for being too darn perfect (or just for being women because we all know men and women hates each other’s guts when it comes to certain things, like kids, money and I don’t know, life?). Point is, Bob hates his girlfriend.

And so, Bob who hates his girlfriend as much as he loves his girlfriend (though many at times he wonders why he loves her if she is such a screwed up person) write a love letter to said girlfriend and it sounded something like this. “My dear, even though I can’t stand how you spend hours bitching about people I don’t know of, cry over the loss of every single hair you have every morning when you brush your hair and kick me off the bed every night, I still love you so very much because as much as you are a hopeless drama queen  you are also the most caring, loving and adorable woman I have ever met and will ever meet. Yes, even the way you cut your ingrown toenails is adorable to me.” And if you are a girl, then chances are after reading this letter you’d want to punch Bob (given that you’re his girlfriend) as much as you want to kiss him.

No human is perfect (I say that a lot don’t I?) and so we are bound to hate some parts of SOME people and SOME point. I know you guys hate how rambly and lectury I sound but meh you guys love me too or you wouldn’t have made to this damn page of this freaking book (unless you’re my editor then um…well dude you’re getting paid, so shut up and read)…buut back to the point. Love is therefore made more meaningful by the sheer fact that you love a person despite all the things you hate about them. That’s why people say love is unconditional, because you can be a total bastard and asshole and people will still love you (me being a perfect example). It means less in fact, if a person loves you and doesn’t hate or dislike anything about you because well, since you have nothing for then to dislike then what else can they do besides love you? Though usually said person will also wonder why they should love you just because you have nothing for them to hate on? (If that is possible at all) The only way you can have nothing to hate about a person is if you don’t know them well enough but if you don’t know them well enough you wouldn’t love them either!

So you see, if you love them you gotta hate them. So next time someone screams at you or gets mad at you or tells you they hate you, APPRECIATE IT! It just shows that they love you enough to hate your guts! On a completely unrelated note, one of the top perks of being a touch typist is being able to type through a turbulence without looking at neither the keyboard nor the screen and therefore not getting motion sickness. Yes, I am musing on the plane yet AGAIN!

Almighty god of plans, without you, this book wouldn’t be nearly as prolific as it is now. Amen.

Musings on life

Oh dear it is yet another one of those profound musings (as profound as a rambling teen can get of course). I have this concept about death and afterlife that most people don’t quite agree with me on. What happens after we die? Well one thing is for sure, we are obviously NOT ALIVE. And guess what, before we were born we were also NOT ALIVE. Before you were born you obviously can’t be DEAD, since being dead has the pre-requisite of having lived first, something an unconceived infant can’t possibly achieve; but pre-birth (as I would like to call the time before we are born) and after death share the same state of NOT LIVING. What does that tell you? It tells me that in a very sick sort of way that life is one big circle, you start off not alive and end up not alive.

Yes I have just insinuated that the entire process of living aka your entire life is you walking ONE BIG CIRCLE back to where you started, not alive…talk about wasting your life…I mean when you think about it this literally means you’re born to just die and your ultimate destination in life is where you started so why do you have to live at all if you’re just going to end up where you came from!? AAAAND cue THE CIRCLE OF LIFE!!!!

Okay no more Lion King…well be it out of necessity to preserve human sanity or out of philosophical brilliance, the phrase “the journey is more important than the destination” was coined for a reason. More often than not people embark on journeys only to end up where they started, I mean that’s how going sightseeing works no? You go overseas from your home and return home again. If destination was such a bloody big deal then why go out only to go home again? But it made a difference didn’t it? The entire trip, the JOURNEY made a difference. The journey of life made a difference, which is why the state of being not alive after having lived has a special term, called death. Which means to say being dead is a sort of achievement, okay so technically having lived is the achievement but….right I’m confusing you guys as well as myself.

What I am getting at is, if life is a road, it’s a roundabout, so if you’re walking in circles just by living, what’s the big deal if the other paths you take in life, the smaller (but yet somehow more significant) are all round about routes too? I get it, time is limited but at the same time we want our life to be long and I don’t see how we will be living a long life by rushing through everything? What’s the point of having left-over time that serves no meaning or purpose?

Walking a big round isn’t necessarily a bad thing; you see more things along the way, reflect on more things, experience more things and have a more fruitful journey. Isn’t it more important to have a memorable journey than a quick one? Yet in life we try to rush everything and think that the long roads are wasteful ones. What would you rather waste?? Your youth or your life? Think about it, we try to rush kids through primary education and secondary education and tertiary education because we want to work earlier….why? Why are people so afraid to “Waste their youth” on actually experiencing youth? Why use your youth to experience adult life?

You may feel smart when you graduate college 3 years before everyone else and getting a head start in life, but did you really? Sure you are young and thus have more energy to spend on working on your career but those people who spend 3 more years than you did may have experiences that are invaluable. Like internships, friendships and understanding every stage of life instead of rushing headlong into the next stage. You know Pokemon? When you think you’re so smart and taking advantage of type advantages to beat gym leaders with higher levels than you so you can be ahead of your friends playing that silly game? Remember how because your pokemon is under-levelled because you rushed through everything that you had a hard time beating the Champion league? Well life works the same way. What you’ve missed out by speeding through life may cost you in the future. You think you saved your youth but you end up wasting your life, not enjoying it, experiencing it to the fullest.

And this paragraph I dedicate to those who have chosen roundabout roads in life. Be it delaying marriage, education, so long as you are not delaying things and stages in your life as a form of escape but towards a proper goal and dream, who cares if you’re taking longer than others? Even if people around you tell you that you’ll be wasting your life and time, taking such a roundabout route, as long as you know that the road leads you to where you want to go, have faith that your way will bring you more fruits and experience than the normal road. After all, life is already one big roundabout, so who cares if you take a few more twist and turns to finish the course? Life isn’t a race, it’s a journey, it’s not about who finishes first but who finishes with the richest, be it mentally, physically or emotionally. So don’t be afraid of taking the long way, whatever people say, you are neither stupid nor wasting your life, you are living it. (Besides, with today’s medical technology, age and time are one of the only things that human are getting richer and richer in.)

And so I say, the best roads in life are usually the roundabout ones.

Afterword:

It’s okay you don’t have to read this if you don’t want to.

Yes I know it’s supposed to be called epilogue but heck this isn’t a novel and there is no plot to speak of so what am I supposed to be tying loose ends of? Me? My life? My brain? I’ll let you know about those loose ends when I’m dead. Great now I’ve just tasked myself with addressing my readers in my will…more work….why do I do this to myself!!!??? *bangs head against window*

I LIED! DON’T YOU DARE NOT READ THIS! READ IT READ IT READ IT OR I WILL SPAM YOU UNTIL YOU DO!!!!!!!!! READ MEE!!!!!!!

You’ve come this far, just finish this damn thing and read it to the end! Have some PERSEVERENCE!

Glad I caught you before you decided to quit on me halfway. To all my future readers (as you know this isn’t published as I am writing it), thank you in advance for reading. I won’t thank you for your support because I’m not writing this for you to support me or my book, I’m writing this for my amusement and your amusement (and grief if I’ve caused any =P). I hope I have entertained you through my nonsensical ramblings, please don’t take them too seriously, I’m not responsible for your high blood pressure if you disagree (violently) with me in any way.

So what do people usually write in afterwords? I don’t really know because I don’t actually read them in books (HYPROCRISM WOOHOO!). Ah Well, my book my rules. Lets see, this book was first started in Australia in 2010 sometime in August if memory serves me right, in a serviced apartment in the middle of the night (1, 2 am, the usual time where I am most awake), plagued by life. Magically, it’s reached completion today (26^th August 2012, 9.30AM Singapore time), also in August. So I guess this whole thing took 2 years, which means you guys have been reading what my brain has been conjuring at random moments for the past 24 months…okay now I feel like I’ve just let people take a long walk in my brain and it feels disturbing…

I’d just like to point out that this was finished on the plane, as with many other musings and I actually made conscious effort to finish this in the air because…I don’t know, flying in the sky is magical and significant for me, so to end this on a meaningful note means a lot to me. Yes, I am one of those sentimental bastards. Another sentiment you may or may not have noticed (depending on whether or not I number these musings) is that there are 99 musings, why 99? Why not 100? I like the number 9, it happens to be my birthday, (September 9, 99, get it?) so it’s meaningful to me! Oh and actually why I finished this in August is because in September I’d be 20 and in my humble opinion not a teen anymore.

But meh, I’m a kid at heart, always will be, so it’s really just a technicality.

So will I ever do a continuation of this? I don’t know but most probably not because this is called random musings to teenage life and as I’m not going to be teenage for very long I can’t really write a continuation of this in uh…less than 2 weeks. This damn thing took TWO YEARS! Hey don’t give me that “you’re just lazy” look, QUALITY MUSINGS take time! Besides my brain has a brain of its own, I can’t order it to muse, all I do is type out what it muses. Yes , being bossed around by my own brain, the shame, oh the shame. Though this doesn’t mean I won’t write other things anymore (yea right, like I will ever be able to write anything more serious than musings >-<), but to be frank, I’m one of those people who’ve tried something once and most probably won’t do it again. Writing isn’t my passion, I’m not aiming to be a writer, which is also why I got this far writing this, I haven’t got any stress about standards, as long as I had fun writing and reading this I’m happy. Yes HAPPINESS IS OF UTMOST IMPORTANCE.

So in the name of bwebwism and sustainable happiness, lets for the last time WRIGGLE OUR BUTTS, one time for each musing so that’s 99 TIMES! (3 minutes later, YES I ACTUALLY DID THIS ON THE PLANE, 99 TIMES and praying no one stares at me weirdly). Thank you for wriggling your butts with me, it’s been fun. Stay happy, humorous and mildly cynical. Please don’t send me anything, I don’t want to know what you think about me or my musings. If you feel like sharing your brain, START YOUR OWN MUSINGS! And this time I’ll be the one to read it, if I can be bothered.

With love, gratitude, hypocrisy, hyperness and eternal immaturity, Chocomon.

PS.: on a more serious note, I do hope I made your problems and life seem more entertaining, even if it’s in a cynical, sadistic sort of way.

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[1] All assignments printed 4 times, Language and TOK 3 pages each , E.E 50 pages, math portfolio 30 pages,  2 humanities/ social sciences assignments 40 pages each,  lab reports 30 pages each