Rollercoaster ride

Very tumultuous time in my life. Coming to terms with the fact that I'm not much more than the childish, unlikeable slowpoke I was 2 years ago and that people around me are moving on. I've been trying to ignore this for what seems like forever, but I'm simply not stupid enough to keep it up any longer.

I've lost some friends lately, and the most damning thing I've learned is that I'm worthless to the people around me, in every way. The people that still talk to me do so out of kindness and pity. I've actually been desperate enough to ask them about it. And they deny it all, but there's this very very powerful dread and intuition that yes, this is the dead end. I've lost everyone. I've had so many chances and I blew every one.

My daily life is a rollercoaster. My mood goes up and down sharply. Bursting with hope one moment, then the next minute its all crushed and I can't see the meaning in life. My stomach constantly feels knotted together. I'm having anxiety attacks on the hour. I'm fucking whining about something on the hour every hour. Yeah, I'm desperate now. I can't think straight anymore and I'm afraid my logical reasoning is going. Every single bad thing about me is getting worse and exaggerating itself. Nosedive. Freefall. Inevitable. I want to hit the ground. I want it to end so badly I've begun distancing myself from what few friends I've left. It's like drinking salty seawater to alleviate looming dehydration. Dread is my entire life now; I can't think about anything else.

Remember that social experiment with the crying kid?

I was at Lot 1 late at night, going to the bus stop to wait for my father to fetch me. There is this walkway on the side of the mall that I always see various Malays hanging out at. As the taxi stand came into view there was this little Malay boy, couldn't have been more than lower primary school age, couldn't have been more than 8 or 9, sobbing and yelling for his mama.

I got no further than 10 metres away from him before I stopped and looked back. 2 minutes I stood there at the taxi stand, maybe a cab driver or two peering curiously at me, while I thought about what we had talked about during our last meet at Rail Mall. Most people would walk on without a second thought.

Kept going to the bus stop, putting a driveway and a line of decorative shrubs between me and the boy. My father would be picking me up here. I still had plenty of time, though. I could go see what's wrong. Or maybe the child's parents were around, they were just punishing him or something. Peeked through a low point in the shrubbery and saw that none of the Malays were paying the boy any attention. Not the couple by the motorbike. Not the bunch of guys. Not the Chinese woman. A bunch of teenagers my age walked by me, dressed in teenager's clothes. The girl's height and pants were alarmingly short but her hair was long around her bare shoulders. Petite; long hair; pretty. I don't know why I cared.

What looked like a young Malay woman - long, loose hair - was now with the boy. There was also a little Malay girl even younger than he. Oh goody, I thought. The woman reached out to the boy. I saw his mouth contort and he slapped something from her hand. The woman picked up the little girl and left.

Time passed. I could ask my father what to do. Or maybe I would get in the car, close the door, and he would accelerate away even as I mumbled out the words. Maybe the little boy was the brother of one of the big Malay guys. Maybe they would challenge me if I walked up to them. Maybe this would make a good short film. I was just trying to bat away the question of what I should do, and I knew it. My backpack made my shoulders ache.

I could hear the boy screaming again. Screaming for his mother. Mall was closed. Should I bring him to the MRT station? Do they have staff there this late at night? Who the fuck leaves their kid alone in a Malay-infested walkway at 11pm anyway? And how would this make a good short film? Without warning, the lights along the walkway shut off. I could still see the crying boy, on the steps of Lot 1.

My father's Nissan pulled up. I got in but left the door open. What if a bus came up behind us? It took a minute, but my father finally understood my babbling and told me to find out if the boy knew where his house was. I put down my bag in the front seat, jogged around the shrubs -

The young Malay woman with the little girl was back again. I halted in the middle of the taxi driveway and watched her carry him up and walk away in the other direction. She glanced back briefly.

After a few moments thinking, I returned to my father's car and drove home.

Got into a little facebook tussle + rant

Pretty common for me to pick fights on the internet =(

Protip: don't fight on facebook. It can be nearly as bad as having sex with the other guy in public.

I don't really have anything against the YOG, honest. I don't have too much interest in the politics at the moment, because my own life is a sinking ship. But once in a while I can't resist playing devil's advocate. The perverseness of going against the flow... it gets me hard!

So anyway I don't know either of these people, or indeed many people at all on FB, so I decide what the hell I'll just go bomb something off the top of my head. I thought the miss Tan up was just making a throwaway comment like me, but nooooo, she starts naming names. Everybody in Singapore knows that one person is just a dangerous detractor, but two people is a mob and you should call the police so they can bring in the riot vans and tear gas.

Anyway yeah, small beans, wouldn't even call it mudslinging (though I probably sound harsh for a Singaporean). The surprise is when I realize that Estell IS ON MY FRIENDS LIST LOL WAT. I keep a fairly tight friends list and never add anyone I don't know, and I have never known anyone by this name. I check the profile, and it's my junior in Mass Communication. She changed her name to this weird thing.

*headslap* Of course. It's the goddamn internet.

I guess it looks like I've lost another of my precious few media contacts, not to mention one of links back to my old life in secondary school and the Drama Club. I shall strive to be less snide on Facebook. *sigh* Miss Tan there added me as a friend though, lol. She appears to be a 20+ politically-minded girl, judging from her profile. I was hoping she'd be younger, hehehe.

Rant time. Why are Singaporeans so adverse to passionate debate and argument? It gets on my tits how many people keep interjecting variations of "OMG I HAZ MY OWN OPINION OKEY" and "agree 2 disagree can???" Those phrases have nothing inherently wrong about them - when an argument persists as a stalemate, you can talk about common ground and difference of opinion to bring things back to earth. But it has been feeling to me for a very long time that too many Singaporeans spam these lines at the first sign of tension, throwing a blanket on the debate the moment things get interesting.

Singaporeans like us loooooove the status quo. It terrifies us that our opinions may be OMG WRONG, it terrifies us that because Person A has different values from Person B, a fight might break out OMG! Or they won't be friends anymore. No, we just want everyone to keep quiet except when they're agreeing with each other. After all, we wouldn't want a repeat of the racial riots from 1962 now would we?

We're so fucking pampered, not just in the material sense, but in the social sense. In May last year or the year before, a Singaporean teacher went to lecture at New York. There, she taught that homosexuality was bad, which made the liberals there flare up and start up a little campaign against her. Did she stand up for what she believed in? Fuck no. She turned tail and ran for home. I'm pro-gay marriage myself, but that's not the point. The point is that Singaporeans shit their pants at the first sign of conflict, they either run away spouting "BUT IT JUZ MAI OPINON", or they get really defensive (see LKY's lawsuits).

It's probably the reason Singaporeans venture little into the international stage beyond business. One of the few reasons I would not migrate west is because I'm pretty sure I'm mollycoddled too. Wouldn't fit in.

-

I hate hypocrites and the superficial people who sometimes swarm themselves around me.

its starting to get really obvious and its eating the shit out of me.

yes, i slapped the hell out of you. but i thought to myself first if i was being hypocritical or not. and i realised i was not.

thus, your PMS ended this entire long journey.

So I took a quiz on facebook that says I'm a perfectionist kind of person. Quite true... And with taking all those moral ed lessons in school telling me I'm a very dominant and arrogant character, the same message is beginning to hit home.

Sure, I'm an arrogant guy and I'm a perfectionist when it comes to doing what I think I should be doing. Normally I would brush this off and in fact smile quietly under the facade that somehow, some people in this world understands. Yes, being a perfectionist also makes me rather elite in a sense.

Most of my life's ethos quotes are all to deal with Perfection.

I've been really inspired by Modern School's motto "Perfection cannot be acheived by the weak." and John Wooden's strive for perfection quotes. In fact, I live fueled by the drive to be perfect. None of us are perfect, but its the desire to outdo and the endeavour for perfection that creates new beings and pushes new boundries in us.

It all made perfect sense...

Until I got into a brush with a friend over being too perfectionist. This has nothing to do with the previous pfort discussion on elitism (not the dangerously elitism discussion). It was a quite scuffle with one of my close personal friends who disagreed about what I was striving for in life. Pushing myself to excel in everything wordly. Giant once said, I'm a go-getter. I totally agree. But to what extent am I going to push so hard for excellence and forget about what I stepped on for my great endeavour. 

Even in school, I'm beginning to make a name among the people around me for being arrogant, elite, a perfectionist and someone who wouldn't tolerate nonesense from others. I was never this serious about this in secondary school and I guess being in junior college has changed this in me. 

Its time to stop moving so fast and slow down to rethink. Nothing is wrong with being a perfectionist, but if it strains so much then it obviously means something is wrong.

Rethinking and retracing. But this obviously does not mean I'm not a perfectionist now. And I still despise stupid people and nonesense...

the Daily Buss

Its Wednesday of week 2, and what the long weekend is almost here, especially since my thursday is undeniably the slackest day of the week. Life is good in NP, if it wasn't for the daily bus rides. Packed like sardines be it early in the morning, at 11, or in the afternoon and evenings.
I have already taken most of the bus services I have access to in one way or another to and from NP. 52, 61, 67, 75, 184, 985. Yep, this morning I took 67 and had a nice walk up the hill to NP's back gate. By my watch, this way is the fastest and also the healthiest way to get to NP. Because even if I were to change from 67 to 184 mid-way, it would still be another 15more minutes as compared to the pure 67 line. Besides, I hate having to squeeze. Its unbearable, and another obstacle when you wish to alight.
Anyway, since I commute so damned early in the morning, I still feel sleepy all the time on the bus. So i used a few days to conduct a few tests on myself.
1. Bathe with shockingly cold water. I'm told this will keep you awake. Very wrong. Once on the bus, it gets so cold you feel like hibernating. Also, it make you feel very comfortable.
Conculsion: FAIL.
2. Buy a cup of coffee (hot!) and bring it with you on the bus to drink when you feel the urge to doze off. First of all, I finished my cup 15 minutes into the bus ride. Secondly, between the bumpy journey and the swaying of your body, beware of coffee spillage.
Conclusion: Near fail. I felt energized for the 15 minutes. But the hot beverage just made it easier to sleep after that.
3. STAND! Taking bus service 52 from Jurong Int at 7.15am ensures little to no other passengers boarding with you. As a result, I get to choose my seat. And I figure thats where it goes wrong. If I were to take any other bus, I would be forced to stand. And surprise, surprise. No fatigue to be experienced.
Conclusion: PASS! Also makes it more convenient when you wanna alight.

Now thats just for the morning. Going home is the worst. Imagine havign walked at least a thousand steps, carrying a heavy bag and laptop, and having to squeeze with students from ACS, Hwachong, SAJC, and other NP students. Terrible. And then, as the bus makes its way towards CCK, students from Primary and Secondary Schools (yea TOFU, i know... NSKs...) board it too. So the squeeze is always there.
Which brigns me to this. Yesterday, being fed up with waiting for 67, i took 985. And then a SAJB superior (not a student, some relative bigshot I think), boarded, and he being fat, still chose to stand at the exit, and play PSP. I don't know how many people had to shout excuse me into his left ear (his right ear was plugged with an earpiece) and then wait for him to slay his enemies before he moved.
I get it now. The more I experience society, the more I witness such stuff. Now I fully empathize with you TOFU. Retards...

"Happy" Birthday?

Yesterday was my 17th birthday, so all day long, people were wishing me "Happy Birthday". After the first half dozen of such wishes, it really got me thinking. Do these people have any idea as to what they are saying? In this post, I'm not even going to touch about how sincere they are in their words, also because i think Nosey has already posted about that.
How happy was I on my birthday, I wonder to myself. Frankly speaking, not a lot. To me it was just another day. I woke up with some difficulty and rather late due to leftover camp-fatigue, touched the com for an hour, and went to work. So yea, unless I have been through substantial hell in the days before 30 March, I don't see how happy I can be.
Perhaps its due to the fact that I didn't call for any celebration, or simply because I chose to uphold tradition and abstain from celebrations for a year, or I simply kept refusing my parent's queries as to what I want for my birthday (its a bad economy nowadays, business isn't exactly booming).
So in short, despite all of your wishes, I'm afraid I simply didn't have a "Happy" Birthday. Also, I have yet to touch any of my presents. No offense to my present-givers.
So now, I'll end off with this quote:
"I find it pointless to celebrate my Birthday. I'd really rather celebrate my Fertilization Day, after all, that is the day I won the first race of my life."

You and I

I've hit another crossroad of my life. Where I ask myself what have I been doing and what am I doing with my life. Where will each different path take me.

I'm struggling, with almost everything. Grades, my religious walk, friends, my social scene, sleep, girl.

You name it, I have it.

Indeed, times like this makes me suicidal. For the first time in decades, I consider alternatives that I would normally never consider once I put my foot down.

It all seems like a really sad maximum point on a parabola. 

The places where I used to draw refuge and encouragement from, now just serve like an empty abandoned house. 

You know what, I've decided. For one night, let me try to drink myself to sleep.

Assholes, and you guys deserve it SOBs.

I went back to my secondary school today and truffled the feathers of some sec 3 gangster wannabe in school. When I left school, he and his small gang were outside waiting for me. Notably, little roy as his boss. Those assholes were such losers.

They were on my cca groud trying to be funny so I asked them to go away. He couldn't understand me. by this time I was damn pissed and had enough. "Sometimes I wonder why I bother talking to animals" I blurted. And I didn't bloody hell regret it. If they can't understand, obviously that makes them animals. 

So this wannabe actually confronted me outside school and asked me to climb the stairs to meet him. I couldn't be bothered and ask him to come down if he wants to talk. He didn't move, but hurled a string of uncouth vulgarities aloud at me. I shook my head and walked the other direction. Eventually he budged and tailed me and confronted me (losers). And confronted me by repeating the same irrelevant points over again on how he's just born a loser and wants people to treat him like a loser. Eventually I decided that it's enough. If I wanted to talk to animals I would have paid money to the zoo. Eventually, I just walked away with those bastards being real losers and repeatint the same string of hokkien vulgarities over and over again.

Sometimes I wonder why we keep these assholes in our schools. Grow up losers. You're not going to live by knocking people's shoulders anymore cos you're no longer in school. grow up, cos I think you need it. I used to pity you for having low IQ, low EQ and coming from a poor family background. I changed my mind. You should commit crimes as soon as you turn legal. So they can throw you into jail and hopefully they give you the rattan early so you grow up quicker. Get a life bitches.

apathy, apple tea

JC life sucks tremendously where work is concerned. Already getting used to all these lectures and tutorials, that is I'm so used to not getting stuff. 

SPA for Chem and Physics is going to be damn anal.

Chemistry is going to be damn anal

GP is going to be anal (cos getting a grade A is super hard)

PW is going to be damn anal

Chinese is going to be damn anal

You can see how my life is taking the turn for the worst with more emphasis on the backdoor. I think I won't need sex ever in my life.

I finally understand when people tell my O levels are easy. I never did get it, until the gigantic, massive, super black A came. I'm at the third topic for most of my topics now, massive pace, and look at the f____ dept... Life sucks take drugs.

Have anyone noticed my previous few posts was about life in school? What a life. Bitch.

Iliterati el china

So today, Ms Gillian actually showed us a documentary called "Mad About English", during GP mass lecture, which talks about the chinese obsession to pick up the English language. From the common old man who wants to show off chinese culture to the rest of the world as volunteer guides, to the cabbies who want to give a good impression of the chinese people to the world, to the policeman who wants to be able to communicate and do his part for his nation.

As the video rolled and showed how these people practice and try to pick up English in the most hilarious ways, laughter drew from among the 800 or so gathered in the CC. It then suddenly dawned on me how even the old man made an effort to pick up chinese since 2001 when China won the bid, to when the movie was filmed in 2007. There are just so many more things we can learn from here other than granddy's determination here. Two things, how on my part as a chinese failed miserable to even speak my langauge, and the other, is how chinese nationalism can drawn patriotism on the part of the individual to strive for the greater good of his country without any string attached.

How many of us Singaporeans actually understand and fully appreciate our culture (if at all any) and also embrace our traditions and stand by our nation? The fact tht our culture and 'selling point' is diversity between races, and harmony between races and religons shows thaat we were prepared and still are to sacrifice culture and traditions for the sake of keeping the peace. No complains to that, but in exchange, we gave up our rights to a club, an exclusive club which counts and manages our culture points. I remember feeling extremely ashamed when my secondary school failed at showcasing a uniquely singapore arts presentation/performance. While our indian counterparts strutted their stuff and showed us what real culture really is about.

I still don't know where to draw the balance between this. Between culture, belonging and traditions and with harmony between different ethnic groups. We gave up a lot of civil peace, it all better be worth it. Because it sucks being part of nothing.

On a side note, school's been really awesome over the past week. The girls are simply phenomenal here. Everyday, its a new pretty girl I see in school. Though they haven't really aroused my intrest far enough for me to want to strike up a conversation. I'm still madly infatuated by so many of them... mmmhmmm 

Looks Ain't The Point Here, Mate

To all dear and cherished readers of the Pebblefort (believe me, we really do cherish you, yes, even the anon legion), this post a addresses an issue that frequently pops up every time we forters meet up and happen to discuss fortly-matters (which really is mostly what we talk about).
As you might or might not have noticed, the current colour scheme of the blog has been changing slightly more regularly than before. The reason, is simply because yours truly here has decided to take it upon himself to try and make up for the lack of any apparent cool skin found here.
You might now be wondering that if so, why not just go somewhere and pick one up and then paste it so we no longer have to watch these epilepsy-inducing colours.
Simple. The consensus among all 5 members of the fort believe that the content of the fort far outweigh superficial graphics often depicting emo bitches.


Hence, until one of us decides to pick up some swanky programming knowledge, or really struck a great deal with Miss Inspiration, the fort shall remain so, with a very simple and plain and basic blogger layout, with various colours for fonts and lines etc.


Not satisfied? Look below

The Best Is Yet To Be

Alright, yes I'll admit, I'm still damn sore I didn't manage to do well enough to enter ACJC. And now that my posting is out, the verdict is also here and I'll be part of SAJC for the next two years. Effectively, I have no more chance of becoming an ACSian anymore and instead, I'm being forced to settle for their rivals.

Who knows whats going to happen while I'm there? Maybe I'll even enjoy myself thoroughly during my tenure in SAJC. Honestly, what is this? Dammit. No more ACS, no more ACJC, no dover road. And now, its at bloody hell Potong Pasir. 

Though I'm honestly happy I didn't get my other options because AC and SA were the only two I was serious about in my options... I'm still mourning over ACJC. After so long, of targeting, aiming and finally doing the exams... My results were not good enough. Or shouldI say because I was not affiliated with the school. My score is definitely good enough for AC. Its just the number of bonuses I can deduct off. Damn.

Unhappiness, unhappiness.

School starts this monday. And orientation week is the whole of the coming week. I read the calander and it also shows SAJC annual cross country coming up soon in March. Its going to be a while before I fully embrace Saints culture and be a part of it. I hope its soon, because I know too, that all this moaning isn't good for me either.

I'll gladly trade my place in SA for a slot in AC's SB class.

Frustration. Frustration...

23 January (fuckfuckfuck)

An activity in psychology class called for us to write down three defining characteristics about ourselves on a slip of paper - two of them real, and one of them fake. These unsigned pieces of paper would then be passed around the psychology students, and guesses would be made.

This was my slip of paper:

1. I have been a perpetrator of sexual abuse on more than one occasion.
2. I have seriously considered a romantic relationship with a person of the same sex.
3. I have no real female friends.

Then when it was time to clarify identities, I was told that I had to read it aloud. To everyone present. And confirm that the third characteristic was the false one.

The girl I lunched with on Wednesday (thus far, best friend in poly) says she doesn't give a damn, but damn... was that a cockup.

Once again, I was too honest without thinking. Like in India, where I refused to apologize because of my staunch belief that apologies are hollow. Back there, I could explain away my iron grip on my idealistic drive as a response to having all things familiar and comfortable being thrown out of the window, but here... it was just careless. Real fucking careless. Now to the rest of the group, I'm either a former sex offender or an attention-seeking liar. Good job Nose, all the DPA Film students were in there.

During the module after lunch, I fell prey to my Neville Chamberlain side again, as in stubbornly idealistic. For group work in secondary school, when I want to do well, I usually attempt to solo the entire thing and leave most group members out of the loop (usually, most of them are content to let you handle it all for them). Although it means more work for me, it raises the quality of end result, as most former schoolmates were dumbasses.

Polytechnic DPA students are NOT secondary school turds. When we went up for presentation, I had already prepared a separate speech for myself to run outside of the others'; I certainly thought it would help overshadow the flaws I saw in their interpretation of the discussion topic. I cut into my own group's presentation and set off into a long winded, unfinished stutter that cost us dearly. The stuff I said WAS relevant (though since it was unfinished, it made me look fucking stupid and egotistic), but unneccessary and self-serving.

Two problems: Too focused on personal agenda (that is, to pour my heart and views out to people at every opportunity), and didn't trust my group enough to work with them. My group scored lowest for that presentation, and you can bet I didn't dare to look one of my group members in the eye when he reminded me to work more cohesively in future. The DPA film students now ALL have a distressingly accurate impression of me. Also, I STILL can't find much to say to team five except terribad sex-related jokes and repeated phrases. Bad day all around.

Today there was no school, so I invited Lime and Zeda over. Lime couldn't make it, turning the afternoon into a boring one. To make matters worse, team five went off on an excursion on their own with Glenn and I wasn't contacted. No matter if it's because I didn't give out my handphone number to more than two people, or because I've already been established as a sexually dangerous fucking weirdo who fucks up his own group mates so he can get more attention (LOOK AT ME I'M GAY AND I MOLESTED SOMEONE SEVERAL TIMES, SO SPECIAL RIGHT), I still had to lie to Glenn that my parents forced me to stay at home.

I have a feeling he would otherwise have taken steps to include me out of obligation and pity, or worse - he won't. I wasn't there to support him for his big performance while everyone else was, after all. I think this may be the point where I've forfeited more or less all possibility of getting any more friends in DPA.


fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuucccccccck

o level results lol

yes lol

Oh god, am I on a timer. I hit myself with sedatives (otherwise I'll probably make this post really long), and Bridge may not come through - if I had completed more refined drafts of it this probably wouldn't have happened. I had hoped that the drabness of my life and the absence of a motivating force would be things of the past after my O Levels. This has not been the case.

Not to say nothing has happened. There HAS been some progress on Bridge, and I did complete a video project. But that's just excuses, and let's talk about other stuff (dodged!).

Results today. Wasn't very excited to be honest. Was more worried about my social skills after two months of stagnation. Wish I had the courage to talk to JJ, but she and I don't talk much; in any case, if I advanced any friendships with the opposite sex right now, it'll probably just become a plug for a bigger problem, like Geia was.

I've probably already said this, but I went in expecting very mediocre scores. Frankly though, I didn't care much about the scores anymore. After DPA, my enthusiasm for learning things other people pressed into my face eroded very quickly. This is primarily why my revision was so lackluster - I did not have a strong purpose. All I had was a childish want to beat Mikana at studies and a little bit of peer/parental pressure.

I have DPA, born of my few talents, projects, and friends. Nothing academic. Even my testimonial had Zephy's Pistol Ninja in it, no joke. I'm done with bring told to tell the xylem from the phoelem when I don't want to. I got pretty good results anyway, despite studying little. I was expecting a C for my Science, got a glowing A1 instead. Bullshat the written F&N paper, A2. They said on the powerpoint slides I had five distinctions - five! The most I've ever gotten was three.

But alas. There were bad surprises as well. I had only 4 distinctions. Humanities was a dismal A2, and Literature even worse: B3. That was disappointing. It was also weird. Didn't know whether to jump for joy, or be very annoyed at myself. Does it mean I'm not a writer by nature? I got all these doubts.

Another reason why I haven't been revamping Bridge - I'm becoming pretty good at artistic critique (or so I think) and I don't want to have to see my own work objectively.

I've been slowly talking more to people on the GZF forums. Learning about their lives. Bits and pieces. Some people go there to rant. People who have socially-unacceptable romantic feelings, some guys who've had divorces in the family, joined real fight clubs, stayed in their rooms for months on end, got arrested. But it's all background occurences, cold newspaper headlines, until you really get into the rants and the raves. It's not about what happens. It's about how happy and terrible and destroyed they feel. And when I watch from this angle, or talk to people who are in a worse spot than me and I learn firsthand how they feel about their lives... I think I don't have the moral right to be lazy, and I don't have the moral right to complain and bitch. This is just me. I'm a selfish guy, so I won't presume to pass judgement on how much emowanking the rest of you should do.

In a few days I'll be in a 3D2N camp. The notification and details came the say day as the O Level results. It's chocked with probably useless team activities and group hippie crap, but I'll see what I can squeeze out of it.

I dedicate this poast to Vonterul! Internets ftw

Full of it

My sexuality is my own sexuality. It doesn't belong to anybody. Not to my government, not to my brother, my sister, my family. No.
Ashraf Zanati, in the documentary Dangerous Living: Coming Out in the Developing World; Zanati was one of The Cairo 52, a group of men imprisoned for homosexuality in Egypt


Personally I think there's more than a fair probability that most of the people we get to talk to, actually qualify for douchebaggery. Including me. Let's see what's on Wikipedia's disaster list today.

Let's not bother too much with the details (since we'll prolly forget that anyway) but:

Zimbabwean cholera outbreak - Five days ago, the inhabitants of Zimbabwe's capital city lost the privilege of piped water. The rainy season had washed feces into their water supply. Over ten thousand natives have got cholera, and only three out of four major hospitals are still operating.

Nov 08 Mumbai Attacks - Terrorists launched a series of coordinated bombings across the Indian city Mumbai, taking the lives of 188 and injuring 300.

2008 Jos Riots - Somewhere in Nigeria, riots have erupted, injuring 400 and killing almost as many. Religious/political conflict. Burn.

2008 Santa Catarina Floods - State Governor predicted deaths around the 50 mark. Instead, 162 confirmed deaths and 78000 people have needed to evacuate their homes.


So yeah, when a tsunami strikes Phuket and our neighbours we cry, send a couple chinooks to help, send them our used clothes and sit down to tea and listen to heroic stories about Indonesian troops saving a mother and her children. Then we go back to playing Call of Duty 4 and back to work, back to fraternizing with our buddies over MSN, doing our maths assignment, giving out maths assignments, writing, going to the movies to watch a movie about vampires and cuddly love, and maybe yeah, I'm saying these things in part to lash out at those of you who haven't talked to me, who were good butt buddies and now you're all silent, yeah, maybe that's what I'm doing. But you know what? While we're worrying about that Zimbabwe is still taking cholera up the ass, shit is still happening in Iraq and the Middle East, and we STILL don't know what the fuck's going on in the DPRK!

At least I was honest, right, about how I have a selfish ulterior motive. And yeah. I've been sitting at home. Watching JLU episodes. ENJOYING them. While people are dying out there I'm sitting here enjoying my fucking self (JLU is still a pretty nice cartoon). But you know how I'm going to be able to sleep after this? Because even if my mind is relentlessly scared that I have a flaw somewhere in my reasoning, I know that at the end of it all if I'm screwed up, someone can point it out and I'll try again. Because I try, at the end of the day, to be honest to myself. Yeah, I wouldn't give it a third thought to get up on stage and say yes, I'm a douchebag. I was shooting computer-generated terrorists while real ones were blowing the shit out of niggers in India.

It's not the deaths, not our selfishness that bothers me the most. It's the LIES. Not that there's anything wrong with telling people that you're a Christian when say, you prayed for Heath Ledger's soul and didn't give a shit about the North Koreans, you can keep up your pretty image. Make yourself look nice and normal. I'm FINE with that. I'm FINE with you not caring. I'm FINE when you shed obligatory tears. When you're full of it. Full of double-standardized bullshit about loving the world. I'm totally fine. It's when you say those things and you MEAN IT, that's when I get sick. When you cry for your dog and MEAN IT, I get sick. When you cry for the suicide of a pop star, your boyfriend, some unlucky murder victim, the victims of Phuket, and then NOT acknowledge to YOURSELF that you don't give a flying shit about niggers/chinks/foreigners ten thousand miles away and continue to spew stuff about how your deity loves everyone and how you're doing good, and when I look in your eyes and I see you actually believe it, well that's when I want to pull out a 12-gauge shotgun. FUUUUUUUUUUCK you.

So! To give this post more substance than me letting off steam to my treasured buds TOFU, Giant, Zephy-kun, Panzer and Lime, let's talk about the progress of my other projects. I've completed the 2nd draft of Bridge, got some feedba- oh fuck that, some time ago I read about an American teenager. Apparently he thought about what was going on in Iraq, and without his parents knowing, he took a plane to Baghdad. He was what...? Seventeen? I'll be seventeen in February. Yeah.


In our Sec 2 geography textbook, they said that in modern times the world was becoming smaller. They were right on more than one level.

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Torrenting Dark Knight. Gonna watch and have fun tomorrow.