The Rawpinions Weblog

Just a few minutes ago while I was making myself a cup of foaming tea, I considered the rights of unborn children.

I’m still on the fence where abortion is concerned, somehow I still believe it should be the mother’s decision as long as the baby isn’t born yet…but then again the foetus shouldn’t pay for a crime it didn’t commit.  In this case, lots of factors should be considered.

I’m not here to talk about abortion, but conception.  Isn’t that violating the rights of a child that doesn’t want to be conceived? In a really weird way, isn’t conception somewhat unethical?

Everyone’s got problems because it’s an “inevitable” part of life.  So no matter how protective parents are, they know that their kids will face all kinds of difficulties in his/her life.  A handful of kids end up hating their life; hating themselves.  They start asking questions like “why am I going through all this?”, “if there is a God up there, why does he hate me so much?” Some kids end up asking “why was I ever born?”

There’s some form of injustice in all this.  I feel that giving life to a child is the most beautiful gift…but if I were to have a child, would they feel the same way? Or would they turn to me and tell me that I had no rights to force them to ride on this roller coaster we call ‘life’?

Sometimes I feel we’re just animals with just way too much free time so we invented ethicism, which is sometimes a curse more than anything.

Current Mood: Mischievous

As much as it bothers many foreigners when we all have to pick off the same plate while eating Chinese food, that sort of thing doesn’t bother me much anymore - especially if there was plenty for everyone, and as long as the people I’m sharing the food with don’t spit on their chopsticks. This Chinese food sharing thing is an exception.

I don’t like sharing anything else, especially stuff that’s mine. If I were to order my own meal at a restaurant and my friends orders their own, it would bother me if they were to pick of my plate. I mean, if you like what’s on my plate, why didn’t you just order the same thing?

I do believe many people can still be generous even if they don’t like sharing their stuff. If I had 2 bars of chocolate, I’d be very willing to give someone one whole bar even if I didn’t know them well. If they refused and only asked for a small piece of mine (thinking they’re being less demanding), it would bother me. Likewise, if someone had 2 bars of chocolate and only gave me a piece of one bar I’d consider them greedy.

The ultimate worst thing someone could possibly do is ask me for a sip of (my) water from an already-opened bottle…and then handing it back to me after the sip. That is just g-r-o-s-s.

When it comes to booze, I’m slightly more tolerant. Especially when my friends and I order different types of cocktails and someone will tend to want to ‘taste’ what I got.

So I guess there’s such a thing as being generous and greedy at the same time.

Current Mood: Cool

I was reading a forum thread where members were listing out their 5 strongest and 5 weakest traits. Instead of replying to the thread (and give the site more keywords and thus more site visitors LOL) I’ve decided to post my reply here on my personal blog.

I also want to counter the assumption that people have a list of weaknesses and a separate list of strengths. Consider this: our strongest characteristics are also our weakest, depending on how you look at things.

Whether you’ve realized this or not, our individual lives evolve around special personality traits that will either make us, or break us. These traits is what I like to call the “make-it or break-it” factor in our lives.

I’ve listed 5 of my distinct personality traits as examples. They show both my strengths and weaknesses.

1 - I’m anti-social.
Negative: people who don’t know me well will undoubtedly dislike me, and this limits party invitations ;D, acquaintances and on a more serious note potential connections.
Positive: I can spend endless hours hanging out by myself and not be lonely. Which, also makes me a very interesting person to be around…(let’s not deny that one).

2 - I’m generous
Positive: My generosity and charitable-nature helps those in need.
Negative: I sometimes over do it and give more than I can, which ultimately affects my financial budget.

3 - I’m verbally straightforward
Negative: If you’ve got a bad haircut, don’t expect me to say you look great. This might hurt your feelings.
Positive: If I tell you to fix your hair, you might agree with me and get your hair fixed. This increases your chances of being complimented when someone else sees you.

4 - I’m reliable
Positive: you name the place and the time, and I’ll be there if you need me. I’ll drop my own things to be there for you.
Negative: I prioritize on your priorities and not mine. This is most likely my worst characteristic.

5 - I’m pro-feminism (I think)
Positive: I’m admired by people who feel women should not be into a guy’s money, and should earn a salary.
Negative: I’m perceived as domineering.

Current Mood: Cool & Cool & Cool

There were several debates on ICS this past week. One that came up was the difference between career-oriented women and family-oriented ones. Made me think about the conversation I had with my elder sister a few weeks ago.

Before marriage and a child, my elder sister was the typical career-oriented woman; it was promotion after promotion. All of a sudden, she’s got a financially-secured family which allows her to stay at home so she now feels home is where women belong (at least until the child starts schooling). She now feels career-oriented women should consider staying at home a bit, for the sake of their children. She told me that it’s something I should consider, if I were to ever have a child.

My reply was that both career-oriented and family-oriented women have their reasons for doing whatever it is they’re doing - that no one is wrong.

However, due to the fact that I am in university and I don’t have a family of my own, people are quick to assume that people like me are career-oriented. I believe, like family-oriented women out there, career-oriented women can be divided into groups.

Deep down inside, most of us are actually family-oriented women. We put what’s most important to us right at the very end of the road because at the end of the day, we’re saving the best for last. Some of my family-oriented friends who decided to start a family before finding a proper job, are struggling to make ends meet. They don’t have enough money for this, they don’t have enough money for that, paying the bills make them all cranky and take their anger out on their kids or spouses, they have to save for holidays abroad, or worse: their kids have never been abroad because they can’t afford it.

Money is what makes the world go round, unfortunately!
The better your career = The more money you make
The more money you make = The more things you can afford
The more things you can afford = The happier your kids & spouse
The more happier your kids & spouse = The happier you are
The happier you are = The more you’ll be willing to give to charity
The more you give to charity = The more the world benefits from people like you.

As for men who feel women should stay at home, they’re just being sexist. Guys generally want to have their cake and eat it too. They’re supposed to be all great with logic but somehow, nothing they say ultimately falls into place. Several examples:

- They want women to be intelligent and educated. Yet they want us to stay at home and do house chores (you don’t need a high school diploma for that one).

- They don’t want us to have a job in order to earn enough money for ourselves. Yet, if we date a relatively wealthy guy to sustain our genetically inherited OCD for shopping, they call us a gold-digger.

I only know one career-oriented women in my life (I won’t mention her name). As for celebrities…Jeniffer Aniston would probably be a good example of a career-oriented woman: She’s wealthy, she had a hot husband (now ex), a great career, fame, etc. but she was still not into the child-bearing thing. I totally respect her though. Like I said earlier, both career-oriented and family-oriented women have their reasons for doing whatever it is they’re doing - that no one is wrong.

Current Mood: Flirtatious & Flirtatious

Ok, so it’s not secret that my elder brother (probably the most popular member of my immediate family) is getting married…in about 2 weeks! He’ll be starting a family of his own and I’m sure my mum’s having mixed feelings about all this. I on the other hand and happy for him and that’s pretty much it. The beauty of siblings is that you are siblings forever. But the relationship between a mother and her child is a little different. Your child grows up and although they’ll always be their mother’s “baby”, many times they become a whole lot more responsible than their parents and the dependency eventually shifts over to the parents.

That said, I’ll be in China for the civil wedding…so I have no choice but to miss this special day. All of a sudden the spotlight has moved over from my elder sister to my elder brother…within a period of several months!

It was my elder sister who told me the date of the wedding, last night (early hours of this morning actually) on MSN Messenger.

Weird enough they believe in a pattern and think that one year from now, I’ll be getting married. I really have been away from home for too long; my own family don’t know me anymore. Even weirder was when my elder sister asked me how come I haven’t found a potential husband in all of China. I was left abashed.

It’s funny actually…that was probably what I thought before I came to Shanghai. I thought it would probably really easy to find the perfect guy especially because there are more pure breeds here (and pure breeds are more predictable, thus easier to understand). Is Shanghai the perfect place though, to find the perfect guy? I think it is. After all, treasures chests always ends up in the jungle.

But now, let’s consider my lifestyle and beliefs: I actually like Seychellois guys. My first guy ever was a Seychellois and I’d have to say I’m still single today because he really raised the bar on a whole lot of things. That said, I’m also a student here in Shanghai and I’m forced to go back and “serve” my country. Doesn’t that say enough already? I can’t take anyone here seriously unless they’re willing to move to the Seychelles for a few years after I’m done with China. See, isn’t this whole being single thing more complicated than seems? I don’t want to have to end a serious relationship only because I have to leave China.

One thing that’s FAB here in Shanghai is a single person’s life. Shanghai is “Transition City” for most of us here. It’s the place where you build yourself up before you settle down. You also need to taste every flavour of ice cream before you finally decide on your favourite.

I don’t understand why there’s such a huge pressure where marriage and kids are concerned. If you’re just married, no doubt you’re thinking it’s the best ever. But a few days ago {Twin Sister} actually told me that most of her married friends (most are Europeans) actually regret marrying too early.

So people should just cut me some slack. It is sad being single sometimes…but I was MISERABLE in my long-term relationship. It was such a hassle of having to tell {Ex-BF} my whereabouts, I had to force myself to feel guilty if a hot guy was talking to me, there were so many arguments, lies, brutal honesty, disagreements (in all aspects of the word), I had to be extremely nice to his family (without know if they actually liked me or had to force themselves to), and just when I felt I couldn’t go on with the guy and dumped him, I realized I couldn’t live without him. To make matters worse, I had a hard time forcing a killer-strong bond to detach. When something so solid and strong dissolve right in front of you, it becomes so believable that anything not quite as solid and strong will eventually dissolve as well.

At this age, I don’t want to have to settle for a compromise.

Married people with kids will teach their kids to embrace their childhood. They will tell their kids not to grow up too fast. Forcing me to get married is like taking educational toys away from a child. Why would you do such a thing?

Finally, I’m still a student. I don’t earn a stable income, I don’t have my own house, and I actually have to budget to go for budget holidays. Marriage = kids, so for crying out loud if you’re in my situation, respect your future kids and get married when you should, and not when you want to.

Current Mood: Sickly

Whoever came up with “Honesty is the Best Policy” was undoubtedly lying.

Throughout my entire life, I was forced to endure punishment because I obediently administered teachings of the nuns at Mary Cause of our Joy Catholic School (I told nothing but the truth). They told me that lying was a naughty, naughty thing to do. I am now 25; an expired product of that school and I can now tell them to their faces that they’re either very, very naive truth-tellers or they are delusional idealists.

In heaven where everything is supposedly perfect, people wouldn’t have to lie because these repented souls would also be perfect. On earth however, humans prove to be imperfect & men prove to be full of sins (hence the emergence of words such as “repent”, “forgiveness”, etc.). My dear nuns [and religious under-paid teachers] of MCJ Catholic School, nothing is as honest as a hard, solid fact of life…one of which was stated by St. Ambrose in 387 A.D. when he gave out this really lengthy explanation of his fasting habits and some smart person re-composed it into the following:

“When in Rome, do as the Romans do.”

In a world ruled by first-class sinners whose minds are soiled by compromised mentalities of earlier generations, how dare people indoctrinate us to pursue idealism, better known as “keep-dreaming dreams”, “dream-on-you-freakn-dreamer dreams”, “you-wish! dreams” or “wishful-thinking”.

A few years back if someone asked me how they looked in their new outfit, I’d tell them the truth; if they looked shitty or if they looked great. If someone asked me whether their painting looked nice or not-so nice, I’d add a little more flavour to my opinion; if the painting was nice I’d say it looked freakn awesome, and if it was not-so nice, I’d say it reminded me of the weird bunch of things I vomited the other day.

People started telling me to my face that I was this nasty person. Especially because I never really said anything they wanted to hear…and people only want to hear the good stuff. Why they ask for other people’s opinions (especially mine) is beyond me.

If you opt for the “I don’t know, I’m in no position to give you an answer because I don’t know anything…” it points to the negative.

So lately I’ve changed my ways to be a “better” person: I lie, and I lie a lot. Whenever someone asks me how they look in their new outfit, I tell them that I’ve never seen anyone looked that fabulous. Whenever someone asks me whether their painting looks nice or not-so nice, I tell them that no one else could do it better than them.

We should lie in all aspects of our lives. Key strategy: exclusivity.

If someone asks you whether the food they cooked tastes alright, you should tell them that it’s the best [place food item here] you’ve ever tasted. If someone asks you whether last night >ahem< was alright for you, you should say “that was best night” you’ve ever had…

If you think I’m exaggerating, I’m not. If you have to do something wrong, at least do it right. This isn’t even a white lie, it’s way beyond white. It’s the ultimate virgin type of lie. If you think people don’t believe they’re potentially the best at everything, you’d be lying to yourself. So people will believe your lie, and everyone’s happy. Ultimately, happiness is what we’re all trying to accomplish here…

Being honest in a world full of lies is like wearing a wedding dress at a funeral: it’s just not right. We live in a real world; we have to be realistic. We’ll tell the truth in heaven, but lies is the only thing that’ll get us by here on earth.

I used to think I’m the typical apathetic sort of person without a care in the world. When it hit me: I do care about a lot of things and in fact, I care a great deal. Several years ago I missed about one week of classes and my French teacher caught me “challenged (well, stuck quite frankly)” at a bunch of French classwork exercises we were supposed to do.

My French teacher was slightly bothered by the fact that I didn’t raise my hand up to ask for help. She then asked me a question I had never been asked in my life: “do you care, or don’t you dare”? It took me a few seconds to understand that question…only for me to realize that I didn’t know which one it was.

When you’re a teenager, not caring about anything in life is “ttly cool”. Teenage worry-warts are as repulsive as [dermatological] warts. So I was quick to come to the conclusion that it was the cool “I don’t care” thing.

Today, I sit in front of my PC desk retracting that conclusion and officially stating that it must have definitely been the “don’t dare” thing.

There are lots of things in life today that I just don’t do or I try to avoid as much as possible…and now that I think about it, it’s because I’ve been walking around with my face towards the ground and if I had a tail, it would be permanently super-glued, cowardly between my legs.

The worst part of this whole thing is that I just realized it. I just realized that I do care. I always care. It’s that I just don’t dare. I don’t ever dare.

This is not who I want to be, but it is very much who I am. This acquired fear explains a whole lot about my general personality. Namely, the vigilant defensiveness and inextinguishable cynicism.

Well Ms. (now Mrs.) French Teacher, I guess I did care…I just didn’t dare.

Edit (2:54 am / 07 March 2008)Â - I’ve posted a better quality video here.

I’ve kept ICS on for about 2-3 days now and they keep showing this advert on, as a campaign to promote kindness here in China and beyond. I’d have to say that it’s just way too pretentious for a place like China. You won’t survive in this place if you keep “U First” in mind. I think it’s an interesting campaign though. ICS (International Channel Shanghai) isn’t the only channel they’re playing this thing on BTW.

Firstly, what is the L-Word? Well it’s a TV show! To sum it up, it’s a show about lesbians and their life happenings. It’s also a show that many lesbians, bi-curious folks and straight men might find quite entertaining and a show that straight women might find enlightening. As for gay men…perhaps it’s a show that depicts a lifestyle they can relate to, I don’t know…

It’s basically a show about a group of homosexual women, the ups, downs and “unders” of their lives.

One thing that bothers me about the show is this: they portray lesbians as women with a typical man’s libido. I don’t have many lesbian friends (well, none that will own up to it anyway) so I can’t really ask any of them if they can really relate to the women in the L Word. I find many of the women characters quite perverted, the typical: a woman walks in and the lesbian character will start to ogle.

What’s more surprising is this: the movie pretty much suggests that every single woman is a rampant homosexual. A typical scene would be Shane entering a room and having her choice to “do” absolutely any woman in there. Choice is one thing, but actually succeeding without fail is another.

At the moment, I’m open-minded to homosexuality. That’s because I see it as merely a preference; a sexual preference.

Because it is just that to me, then what a lesbian feels for another girl should be similar to what straight women feels for a man. My being straight (sorry to burst your bubble there but yup…I am) if an attractive man were to pretty much jump on me and attempt to snog me, I’d push him back and think (or say) “wtf?”.

So how is it ‘ok’ for lesbians in general to accept 100% of the women out there??? Isn’t that a guy’s attitude? Is a lesbian simply a body of a women living with a guy’s mind & mentality?

TV shows…esp. one that has emerged into its fifth season is no longer just a TV show but a statement. When people who can’t really relate to the characters watch these shows, we watch these shows to learn more about these characters (in order to learn more about something that’s calling out to be accepted).

Or perhaps I’m the one who’s not really that normal? Perhaps it is normal for people in general to jump at attractive people of the same species with the intention of mating, and it’s also normal for the jumpee to accept the jumper without any form of restraint?

Current Mood: Mischievous

CAUTION: HIGHLY OFFENSIVE TO SOME - if you lack open-mindedness, close this window NOW.

Oops, I forgot to add a few more countries and perceptions…oh well.

p.s. This is not what I think, this is just what I’m sure a typical Seychellois thinks.