Hacking the Good days…

It’s fun to receive an email from a friend who always mesmerizes me with his anti-capitalism, non-conformist attitude. Instead of commenting on my blog he replied through email and I think there is something endearing about that.

The main argument he had, on the email, it’s that blog is something too public and he felt that it’s not write to read someone’s ‘diary’ as it’s supposed to be something private.

Well – so much about this – with the Internet and the increasing ease in personal publishing, there is an increasingly softened line between being private and public. As for me I still get quivers when I see people posting their intimate pictures publicly online (like those kissing hugging ones?) or diaries that are darn too personal. For example, I can discuss about the impacts of the Internet on how we communicate, but I would never write in the public about, say relationships, as this is too private and not fair to those who are being commented.

So what I am writing now, and what I try to limit myself to, is some observations and sharing of things that I can tell almost anyone. Definitely not things that I would talk about when I am having a few glasses of wine with my friends. That’s the difference.

What I worry is that, as a generation in between, I see two patched of people who share absolutely different ideas on this – the pre-blog folks and the post-blog folks. I reckon that a 40 year old person reading a random sample of xanga (the notoriously ‘lame’ site felt by some) would be horrified by how some of the kids post their intimate aspects online publicly (try this google link with keywords search ‘xanga love hate damn f*cking stupid’ – it’s pretty interesting of what we got at hand). I used to term that online emotional exhibitionism. Again, I can post pictures about architectures, things that I see in the public, but never private pictures online.

Of course, rant is a hard categories. I do have my rants filtered though – a rule of the thumb is that we shouldn’t name people (well perhaps except public figures) considering it’s public when you hit the ‘save’ button.

But something like – d*mn those undergrads at the dorm are really noisy and it’s already 12:30 am. Right.

No, this is not an example – I’m definitely complaining ;)

/from a person who never live in a dorm till now

It’s been a while since I have blogged, the main reason is I have been busy (un)packing and left Robert Black College to London for the new degree that I’m undertaking at King’s College London. MA in Cultural and Creative Industries. Sounds fun, huh? Yeah it is! For those whom I haven’t spoke to for a while – I promise you I will seriously consider fulltime job but hey, who really want to do 9-5 when they can just hang out like a student? (mentally suppressing the financial reality here ducking into my little surreal universe…)

I know you’ll be happy for me, and semi-wanting-to-kick-my-a** when you know that every single breath I’m inhaling contains some sort of history throughout London. It’s great. I really like my school especially the campus – probably exquisite is the word to describe it.

Although it’s the second time I have been to London, this is the time I actually get to spend a lot of time with myself and experience the ultra-ego baptism – just me, me, and more me. I got to hang out a lot, feed my eyes and brain a huge amount of visual data. It’s incredible.

First few days were indeed hiccuppy, as much as I expected I still didn’t really quite figure out how things could get so expensive. I was particular upset when I saw that there was nothing in the kitchen when I desparately wanted to have something like some noodle or soup. Luckily there was a second-hand utensils sales right opposite to my block and I was lucky enough to scoop most of the things I needed with like £9! Even better all my flatmates are really sweet and they kept on adding stocks – so now when I got into the kitchen I felt like I was in some sort of magazine showing those model family lol. Bunch of banana, bread and milk! Got lost a couple of times, but a new buddy thought that I knew London quite well, so have my ego fed and am a happy explorer. Yesterday I met E and had a great night out went to C&R that made really pretty authentic Malaysian food, it was amazing!

If I had any homesickness at all, I think the Singaporian LaSah cured it! We planned to go watch The Queen, and I can’t tell you how much I extremely looking forward to. (as much as I tried to act cool I am forever fascinated by the Royal family). It feels like reading Da Vinci Code on the way to the Vatican City two years ago. Man, I can’t get any lamer. ;)

Well for my course – at first I thought I could take the Tate Modern module, which showed you inside-out of how this museum worked and allowed you to be an intern of the place at the end of the semester. But since there was limited quota, I couldn’t get into to this. Well as much as a pseudo Taoist-wannabe, I was just a bit disappointed learning that I wasn’t the lucky girl being able to get into this thing – not much, but a bit, since I had been awaiting some severe cultural stimulations from the class on Visual Culture. Stay tuned. I might randomly blog on that here too.

Finally, thanks for bearing with me for this relatively long blog. Gosh I had no Internet for first 4 days. FOUR SOLID DAYS. Absolutely sucks. I feel like I was a salmon swimming upstream almost drying out these few days scrapping information from broken expensive internet cafes. Now with access I’m back to life again. Paradoxically even though I’m so tired now I still have to finish this blog. Alas. CMCs could be killing us as much as CO2 (was watching An Inconvenient Truth on the plane).

PS: I watched a great movie Miss Little Sunshine today. Gosh it was brilliant. I love the outragiously smart dark dark humor. M you gotta watch it. I was making a lot of mental note thinking how funny we would find this movie :)

Right, getting back to compiling the postgrad list of my dorm….

Okay let me not exaggerate.  It’s not exactly THE happiest day, but it’s definitely one of the happiest days – I am now typing from my fixed powerbook with a brand new keyboard and screen.  Life is GREAT.  I am HAPPY. :)

Sometimes it’s great to be reminded that it doesn’t take to much to be happy.

OKay I’m not making sense anymore, by just seeing the title?

I’m blogging much more these few days as I have a lot to think about, and sometimes it’s hard to talk to someone about it because I am so confusing anyway – writing it helps. And finishing the thesis has left me too much time with just me, and my computer, so here I am..

It’s quite an interesting day, with the highlight of picking up my powerbook – they changed the screen, the keyboard, and logicboard (which attached the usb and other hubs) and I feel like I have a new mac! That’s pretty cool considering I’m gonna stick with it for at least another year. Don’t know what you think about macbook – but honestly and truthfully I don’t like the keyboard and the built-in camera – well if you’re a guy maybe you don’t care, but it’s pretty nerve-racking to have a camera that you can’t really cover while you’re changing clothes. Okay okay, I know if the camera is on the light is on – but who knows? If I were a hacker, I would love to hack into all the cameras and spook the green light so that I’ll get to know what’s going on behind all the macs…

Right. So Cath, what’s the point of writing this blog? Well it’s a long story. I’ve been quite angry recently, about people in my life that give me too much stress. As much as I don’t want them to affect my emotional well-being, they somehow link to people who mean something to me. that’s tricky. Have you ever talked to someone who just won’t listen? And whenever they get a chance they would just press on their opinion? Right. Something like that. Also it’s about respect again – there are times you know people who are heartless, but you don’t want to deal with them. Incidentally you did, so what do you do next? Ignore them? But your ID tells you to bite them. Your Ego tells you to yell at them. And your Superego tells you that they are wrong. That’s it – every single pore, vein and cell in your body is reacting to the anger boiling through your soul. What do you do?

Right. You blog. And as much as you don’t understand what you’re writing, it doesn’t stop you from feeling better.

Man I miss writing crap.

I know this could be weird to share with you guys, but I realize there are just something I need to do before I leave town. To begin with, I need to get a new pair of CouberG (equivalent of Goretex but only 1/3 of the price). Trust me – T-shirt, jeans and a pair of CouberG are what I wear everyday. Comfy comes first, being pretty? Nah. I had witnessed quite a scary scene recently, and had a new conception about man-and-woman/men-and-women. Right now I had weirdly adopted the same mindset I had when I was 15, of which all men are evil. Not sure how far away it is from the truth (no, I don’t want to get bogged down into the epistemological aspects of truth, just take the face value here, will you?) but being surround by all the pretty, smart, humorous, generous (and emotionally generous) girlfriends is just simply amazing.

Talking about that, I have to drift from my shopping list to lecturing you guys about the the importance of safety net. There are people when they started off a relationship, they basically ignore all their friends. As much as we try to see things in their light, we can’t help but pissed. What? All the years we invested in the friendship a boy/girl comes by and scoop her/him away?

No, at this point you need to hold back your anger. It’s quite natural that this happens. After all I doubt how many of us can have our superego defeating our id. (well if you are not interested in Freudian you can look up Wikipedia, but having said that we’re not that in tune so you can probably passed this blog anyway…) But if you really treat your friend as your good friend, you will probably remember life is unpredictable. Once they break up they will need your company. So the point is, when you’re dating someone, try to keep the safety net open, keep company to your friends. Meet your girlfriends to discuss what’s going on. Keep your sanity in control.

I realize it’s very important for one to be single, and to travel and while experiencing your own true self. There are people who look at their lives in a here-and-now perspective – they don’t care much about their family, their future, of course not to mention the community and the society they live in. But I had come sense that these people are not necessarily the happiest. Buddhism talks about detachment and how the ability to detach from all the wants and lusts can free your soul – I think this doctrine can be too extreme for some of us, so I adopted it and modified it – when you put other people’s feelings and needs the first, you come to realize yours are not as important, and that empowers and liberates your true wants. After all life is just a journey, and it’s nothing more than just to be with someone you care.

Hm… I guess leaving home for a year is enough to wake up the introspective me – thanks for bearing this by reading the blog up till here. I will write more about my taoism/buddhism thinking when I have the time…

PS: so much about being psuedo-deep… I need to dry clean a jacket that my mom bought me when I was visiting New York during the winter, which is very cute and feather light. ;)

There are four stories here, just want to share with you guys. Quite touching. I’ll try to translate them when I have the time…  I think I read them somewhere before… whatever!  That’s the beauty of the Internet ;)

1. 誤會 :

早年在美國阿拉斯加地方，有一對年輕人結婚，婚後生育，

他的太太因難產而死，遺下一孩子。

他忙生活，又忙於看家，因沒有人幫忙看孩子，就訓練一隻狗，

那狗聰明聽話，能照顧小孩，咬著奶瓶餵奶給孩子喝，撫養孩子。

有一天，主人出門去了，叫牠照顧孩子。

他到了別的鄉村，因遇大雪，當日不能回來。

第二天才趕回家，狗立即聞聲出來迎接主人。他把房門開一看，到處是血，

抬頭一望，床上也是血，孩子不見了，狗在身邊，滿口也是血，

主人發現這種情形，以為狗性發作，把孩子吃掉了，

大怒之下，拿起刀來向著狗頭一劈，把狗殺死了。

之後，忽然聽到孩子的聲音，又見他從床下爬了出來，

於是抱起孩子；雖然身上有血，但並未受傷。

他很奇怪，不知究竟是怎麼一回事，再看看狗身，

腿上的肉沒有了，旁邊有一隻狼，口裡還咬著狗的肉；

狗救了小主人，卻被主人誤殺了，這真是天下最令人驚奇的誤會。

註：誤會的事，是人往往在不瞭解、無理智、無耐心、缺少思考、

未能多方體諒對方，反省自己，感情極為衝動的情況之下所發生。

誤會一開始，即一直只想到對方的千錯萬錯；因此，會使誤會越陷越深，

弄到不可收拾的地步，人對無知的動物小狗發生誤會，

尚且會有如此可怕嚴重的後果，這樣人與人之間的誤會，則其後果更是難以想像。

2. 釘子 :

有一個男孩有著很壞的脾氣，於是他的父親就給了他一袋釘子；

並且告訴他，每當他發脾氣的時候就釘一根釘子在後院的圍籬上。

第一天，這個男孩釘下了37 根釘子。慢慢地每天釘下的數量減少了。

他發現控制自己的脾氣要比釘下那些釘子來得容易些。

終於有一天這個男孩再也不會失去耐性亂發脾氣，他告訴他的父親這件事，

父親告訴他，現在開始每當他能控制自己的脾氣的時候，就拔出一根釘子。

一天天地過去了，最後男孩告訴他的父親，他終於把所有釘子都拔出來了。

父親握著他的手來到後院說：你做得很好，我的好孩子。

但是看看那些圍籬上的洞，這些圍籬將永遠不能回復成從前。

你生氣的時候說的話將像這些釘子一樣留下疤痕。

如果你拿刀子捅別人一刀，不管你說了多少次對不起，那個傷口將永遠存在。

話語的傷痛就像真實的傷痛一樣令人無法承受。

註：人與人之間常常因為一些彼此無法釋懷的堅持，而造成永遠的傷害。

如果我們都能從自己做起，開始寬容地看待他人，

相信你（妳）一定能收到許多意想不到的結果…. 幫別人開啟一扇窗，也就是讓自己看到更完整的天空….

3.且慢下手 ?

大多數的同仁都很興奮，因為單位裡調來一位新主管，據說是個能人，專門被派來

整頓業務；可是日一天天過去，新主管卻毫無作為，每天彬彬有禮進辦公室，

便躲在裡面難得出門，那些本來緊張得要死的壞份子，現在反而更猖獗了。

「他那裡是個能人嘛！根本是個老好人，比以前的主管更容易唬！」

四個月過去，就在真正努力為新主管感到失望時，

新主管卻發威了－－壞份子一律開革，能人則獲得晉昇。

下手之快，斷事之準，與四月表現保守的他，簡直像是全然換個人。

年終聚餐\ 時，新主管在酒過三巡之後致詞：

「相信大家對我新到任期間的表現，和後來的大刀闊斧，一定感到不解，

現在聽我說個故事，各位就明白了：「我有位朋友，買了棟帶著大院的房子，

他一搬進去，就將那院子全面整頓，雜草樹一律清除，改種自己新買的花卉，

某日原先的屋主往訪，進門大吃一驚的問：『那最名貴的牡丹哪裡去了？』

我這位朋友才發現，他竟然把牡丹當草給剷了。

後來他又買了一棟房子，雖然院子更是雜亂，他卻是按兵不動，

果然冬天以為是雜樹的植物，春天裡開了繁花；

春天以為是野草的，夏天裡成了錦蔟；半年都沒有動靜的小樹，秋天居然紅了葉。

直到暮秋，它才真正認清哪些是無用的植物，

而大力剷除，並使所有珍貴的草木得以保存。」說到這兒，主管舉起杯來：

「讓我敬在座的每一位，因為如果這辦公室是個花園，你們就都是其間的珍木，

珍木不可能一年到頭開花結果，只有經過長期的觀察才認得出啊！

4.寬大 :

這是一個甫自越戰歸來的士兵的故事。

他從舊金山打電話給他的父母，告訴他們：「爸媽，我回來了，可是我有個不情之請。

我想帶一個朋友同我一起回家。」「當然好啊！」他們回答「我們會很高興見到的。」

不過兒子又繼續下去「可是有件事我想先告訴你們，他在越戰裡受了重傷，

少了一條胳臂和一隻腳，他現在走投無路，我想請他回來和我們一起生活。」

「兒子，我很遺撼，不過或許我們可以幫他找個安身之處。」

父親又接著說「兒子，你不知道自己在說些什麼。

像他這樣殘障的人會對我們的生活造成很大的負擔。

我們還有自己的生活要過，不能就讓他這樣破壞了。

我建議你先回家然後忘了他，他會找到自己的一片天空的。」

就在此時鄐 l 掛上了電話，他的父母再也沒有他的消息了。

幾天後，這對父母接到了來自舊金山警局的電話，

告訴他們親愛的兒子已經墜樓身亡了。警方相信這只是單純的自殺案件。

於是他們傷心欲絕地飛往舊金山，並在警方帶領之下到停屍間去辨認兒子的遺體。

那的確是他們的兒子沒錯，但驚訝的是兒子居然，只有一條胳臂和一條腿。

故事中的父母就和我們大多數人一樣。要去喜愛面貌姣好或談吐風趣的人很容易，

但是要喜歡那些造成我們不便和不快的人卻太難了。

我們總是寧願和那些不如我們健康，美麗或聰明的人保持距離。

然而感謝上帝，有些人卻不會對我們如此殘酷。

他們會無怨無悔地愛我們，不論我們多麼糟總是願意接納我們。

今晚在你入睡之前，向上帝禱告請祂賜給你力量去接納他人，

不論他們是怎麼樣的人；請祂幫助我們了解那些不同於我們的人。

每個人的心裡都藏著一種神奇的東西稱為「友情」，

你不知道它究竟是如何發生何時發生，但你卻知道它總會帶給我們特殊的禮物。

你也會了解友情是上帝給我們最珍貴的贈與！

朋友就像是稀奇的寶物。他們帶來歡笑，激勵我們成功 \ 。

他們傾聽我們內心的話，與我們分享每一句讚美。

他們的心房永遠為我們而敞開。現在就告訴你的朋友你有多在乎他們。

Just got back from Edge, after C Club. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not going men-hunting – it’s been a long day and I was just meeting the girls for drinks, and we’re trying to look for a place without much powertrip but fun for dancing….

It was about 10:00pm when we left FINDS of which they served the best veal, then proceeded to C Club of which nothing much was going on – it’s too early and weird to go dancing there. The good thing was not many people smoking there – but once we got to Edge and started hanging out, there were just too many young kids smoking.. I had fun dancing with V and J, but the smoke made me want to throw up (with 3 glasses of wine)… and we just had to leave – when I checked the time it was only 1am! Man in the good old days I usually checked the clock, like, every 3 hours. I was so worn out and sick within that one hour??

So we decided that we needed to grab a cab home, and a young boy (who obvious had no sense of telling mean Chinese locals from nice Chinese locals) acted he needed directions but instead he wanted our numbers.

The Boy (B): Hi ladies, I saw you just got out from there, was it okay?

Us (u): yah, there are bunch of young girls, go ahead and hop in.

B: Wow. You have thick american accent. You must be americans.

U: (‘duh!’ he’s weird)

B: (continued, not knowing what we’re thinking) So you girls are special. What are you doing?

Me: Are you using Mac, Linux, or PC?

B: PC

Me: That’s pretty much the end of the conversation. We don’t use PC. We’lll give you direction if you want, but we’re too old for you. Are you twenty three?

B: twenty two

Me: Alright. now go in. There are a bunch of pretty Chinese girls inside who are half of our age.

B: Right. How old are you? (trying to guess but wrong, like, older???)

Me: No you’re not going to have our number. Go. In. Now.

B: No. What is your number?

Me: huh. Are you from the mid-west or something? (note: no offence but he sounds like someone from Brokeback Mountain)

B: I’m from Norway.

Me: Oh. So you eat a lot of salmon. (note: the reason I titled this blog as ‘confession’ was how condescending and patronizing I could be when I was sick and tired, and I sincerely felt bad but good at the same time. d*mn.)
.

.

.

So anyway he didn’t give up asking for our number, and V probably gave him a fake one (let’s hope so..)

I got home at 1:00am, thinking of my powerbook of which it’s ready for pick up tomorrow (hurrah!). Great. Life is good. With my powerbook.

Disclaimer: again i’m not a racist. This post has nothing to do with the boy’s nationality but the way he wowed at our accent. it was just… equally patronizing, you know? I’m so going to pick up London accent… And guess what, I’m gonna mix them up with my broken italian. Right. Life is good. With all the accents.

/tired but hyper cathy.

/yes, that’s quite paradoxical..

Nice fun nite out, thanks J and V! I’m so gonna miss you guys..

/smelling all smokey now..

So it was a long day – lunch with 2 girlfriends, coffee with M, helping little Em with her homework on Marco Polo (and I made up a lot of the answers), dinner at home. The wounds of my wisdom teeth extract sites actually hurt. Probably it’s because of the stitches that are too tight, and there’s no blood going to my left lower jaw for a week.

Not to be an anti-Feminist here, but when girls get together we naturally talk about life. And when we talk about life, we talk about men. M’s three golden rules were still in complete integrity – someone you marry gotta be (1) humorous (2) hardworking and (3) loves his mother. There are just so many people out there who are either hardworking OR funny, not both – while there are people who are not funny but they think they are. That’s really hard, because you feel bad about telling them that they are not funny. The hardest patch would be those who are funny and cute, but not hardworking. You have great time with them, but you realize that is not sustainable, so you have to leave.

And it’s very hard to be kids sometimes. I like to quote Li here, ‘your mother will always see you as her daughter, but as you grow, you are more than just a daughter to her’. That’s right. I have been meeting interesting people recently, and I learnt that a couple decided not to divorce because of their kids. Given my age (between being a daugther and a parent), I pleaded my friend to not assume that their kid don’t know nothing about what’s going on between mommy and daddy. I just amaze me to no where when parents assume that their kids don’t see through the problems in their marriage and pretend that things are still okay. Sometimes I feel that some of my friends who have troubles in their relationships because their parents acted as if nothing happen, and that has forever scared my friends.

Anyway, I know. If you’re a man reading this, you may not be following the passage, i.e. wondering the coherence of the passage. Amazingly enough I’m pretty sure that most women get what it is. Right. I’m so patronizing and condescending. I should probably go back to school for even more sociology ;)

Aphaia recently reminded us on the translation list that there are users on Wikipedia who would like to raise questions and comments to the Wikimedia foundation, however these users may not speak English.  In that case should these Wikipedians be encouraged to post in their languages on the foundation list?

This has been quite an interesting ad hoc question on Wikipedia; with all the people from all around the world working together, languages and internationalization are always two important considerations for policy implementation and actual collaborations.  Although there are a bunch of translators on Wikipedia, I have recenly come to sense that the community is quite antagonistic to users who only speaks one language.

With the original idea of the World Wide Web, the Internet was supposed to be a net that covers the world, the main question is, with the heavy reliance on organizational, collective problem-solving that encourages spontaneity and creativity, will Wikipedia be the first to find a model that can overcome the difficulties in internationalizing its content?

I had the best dinner tonight – my mom made me the best steak in the world I’m really *really* happy to be home again, after months of being deprived from any socialization.  We sisters were having so much fun today; Alice took us to a swimming suit outlet and gosh!  They have all the rip-curl bikinis there!  I wanted to buy everything!  Well ended up I got something new, and very wearable, for London.  (yes it’s crazy to actually bringing swimming suit to London, but you never know… there’s gotta be a swimming pool somewhere in the campus… and the only sport that I can handle is swimming because that doesn’t require any balancing..) So after shopping we bought like a tons of sashimi home, it was great fun.  I love my crazy sisters.  (man their birthdays are only 6 days apart which means that I become broke every year in September…)

Okay I have to admit that the nature of this blog has changed pretty dramatically.  I first started thinking that this would be a quasi-professional blog.  More about Wikipedia, research; less about personal stuff.  But then you have to understand that Cathy’s mom really loves reading blogs.  She has recently picked blogging over calling or texting me, as she thinks it’s, ‘cool’.

My mom is the coolest.  Anyway I just wanted to say I was very excited to have taught my mom how to curse today.  It’s the happiest thing I have ever done in my life.  Seriously.

Mom, you rock!