my home is in empty spaces.

There is a rare peace that comes with knowing what one wants to do in life and being safely on the way to achieving it; this peace is sweeter than dreaming in itself.

Every so often there has to be something twitty in this blog or else it'd look too pretentious, what with the tiny little Arial-font words (the more space to squeeze them in, hah!) severely plain orange/white colour scheme and all.

I was reading this lady's blog for the first time, ever, though she's really quite famous and eloquent and all that, and also a close friend of a close friend, and I find that she has shut it down. Like, okay..... whatever *shrugs*. But the reason she intriguingly gave (don't you love women who are intriguing) was that through her past few years' blog entries, she felt that people who trolled her or commented with her actually had some kind of insight into her, because of so much that she'd put in her blog over time.

Well, see that's always a problem there. Blogs don't go away and visibly die little decomposing deaths. Thing is, it's only obvious that things have changed when one's regular writing style has changed (and I mean, regular writing style, not twitty pieces like this) - if one keeps writing the same way forever and ever, with just that dose of humour, a pinch of cynicism, and much sweetness, people might think that you're just the same ol' you. And horror of horrors, when you are actually the same ol' you and one realizes you have put too much of yourself on da web......

I don't have this problem.

I would also like to kick the tWiT who introduced me to the taste of hard liquor. Now I can hardly be bothered to try unknown red and white wines just to find one good one, where I can instead get very reliably distilled spirits (that are remarkably potent, *frowns*). It's like drinking Coke. And no, I don't like Coke, so there's no reason why that should come up here except that it's another product with extremely reliable taste. But of all the alcoholic drinks, I really like hard liquor. This could be a problem.

For the kaypohs reading this, I only drink about every once in 3 weeks. Each time being an occasion for live music, conversation with friends, half a normal-sized glass of whiskey/brandy/whatever on the rocks, and very very late nights. It's not nice drinking alone. And the pubbing part of things is really important - my only chance to inhale cigarette smoke and watch people cavort in dim lighting, you know.

Have I ranted long enough yet? It seems not. Lately I've only wanted to write and read and write and read and write and write and write some more. But there's only so much one can write in certain forums (fora?) and you just can't overdose on that, no way.

And I have an interview tomorrow.

Two links, on different topics:

Yawning Bread on the distinction between state and government, entitled The misuse of the state.

The Students' Notebook on Social Mobility (or Lack Thereof).

Slept a lot yesterday. Came online intending to write an email on an ST Lifestyle article today on the sexual harassment of men by women, but not too keen to have my views published non-anonymously by the journalist in some follow-up article. So it goes here.

In the article, a group of drunk women in a pub held some men down and ripped their shirts off, while the women in the guys' group "could only look on, eyebrows raised, jaws slack".

Now, this really sucks. As a woman, if someone held you down and ripped your shirt off, you would not expect the women around you to be passive accessories to the fact. You would in fact hope very much that the women around you, regardless of gender, sexuality, nationality, and race, would be screaming bloody murder on your behalf and tearing those idiots off you. You would in fact expect the men around you to do so.

So why should it be socially acceptable for us to allow such traumatizing things to be done to our men and plead a shy feminine "oh but i was frozen in shock, oh dear me dear me" reply when questioned?

Ladies, wise up. Protect your men. They do the same for us after all. And you love them and cherish them too, don't you? Don't you?

This was the most original of the lot. I suspect the presence of a random number generator.

aeryise -- [noun]: A person with a sixth sense for detecting the presence of goblins 'How will you be defined in the dictionary?' at QuizGalaxy.com

By the way, the search using my full name gave me this highly entertaining entry:


Yeah, baby! I would have put it up here, except that my surname doesn't show up anywhere on the Internet. So says the Rule of SM.

When I first started this blog, it was a reliable record of my life - as a rather demotivated and foolishly complacent student whose time was taken up fully by journal reading and work, most of which was done on a computer, I could freely create pockets of time here and there to blog things as they had occurred, or as I'd felt them. E.g. over a cup of instant noodles at lunch in my room. It was only the merest sacrifice - thought-sorting over real food. One that all of us made every time we had lab anyway (24/7, anyone? *grins*).

But that time was unusual also in other ways.

Ever since I'd started working, and seen more possibilities than before, I've found less and less time to write though. Which is a good thing, because I like the alternatives to habitual ritualistic blogging that have come up. It would take me more time to write what is significant to me now than to actually do them. One might consider this a stage of metamorphosis. =)

Cryptic post.

I hate hypocrites. There can't be any reason you're withholding that suddenly from me except pure spite, because I certainly can't get anywhere only on what I have right now. That spite so goes against your _____ values (but doesn't go against your ______ values, I suppose, leaving it thus a logical conclusion that your ______ values do not supersede your _______ values, which is an odd piece of work indeed).

Second in line after that are people who try to "protect" me by not giving me all information they have on something I'm deeply concerned with, thinking they're being helpful that way.

Guts and determination and hard work again, to save the day.

Told ya about the anger. It's still lashed in, deep.

It went in so deep the next day (Thursday) that everything green seemed to be pulsating, and that was when I knew it was time to get out. All the way, out. Out of it all.

One of the reasons I seldom get angry is that when I get angry, I make hydrofluoric acid look like the sweetest spring water. "Scathing" is the word.

Another reason I seldom get angry is that it renders me effectively useless and brain-dead for the duration. I won't be able to read, because the mind won't be there. There's a danger of subliminal programming when reading without a brain, you know. :)

But the most important reason I almost never get angry is that when the rage has ebbed, what remains is scorched-earth desolation. Not loneliness; my hell isn't that simple. But instead loss of all hope. Hope in the things I consider essential is what drives me to live. Without it, I cannot taste, cannot smell, and cannot feel touch. I would rather die than be dreadfully angry.

But I am dreadfully angry now. With you. And watching the tide flow out in lieu onto this paper.

Sooner die than live this way. I live in hope of life.

I can't promise that the next time you do this, you'd still be around to tell the tale, though.

(Note: this refers to a relative.)

"It's only when the past takes over the present that it's bad." - C.

James Gomez has been arrested at the immigration checkpoint?

Surely there has to be more than this.

In other news, the lovely ash-blonde Benedicta (no pics, sorry!), whom I met the night before the Elections and spent some time shelling peanuts with in the Long Bar, said this,

"those are not research, those are developments!"

Yes.

If you treat us like commodities, we might sell our bodies to the highest bidder, but as with all such transactions, you will never have our souls. Never.

*quiet and serious*

Now, some people are born "shiny happy people". (not my phrase. Patty's. But most apt.) They wake up feeling happy every morning, they have the resources to do exactly as they wish, to grow without burden or hindrance and often with much encouragement, they end the work day with enough energy to exercise. Or go clubbing.

Other people are not born "shiny happy people". They have a greater sense of how things can go wrong, because most likely something has gone horribly wrong in their lives before. They treasure small things more, and thus may appear unambitious. They also have more appreciation of internal qualities rather than external appearance. They are steadfast, and endure in their optimism. They enjoy clubbing while simultaneously realising its transience. Skilled practitioners of this order enjoy the transience of clubbing and can totter around intoxicated without being in any way drunk.

The shiny happy people don't understand these other people. Why can't you be shiny and happy like me, they say. The world is shiny and happy. So you're not part of the world, you.

I consider this to be discrimination of the stupidest kind, and I always have.