Sunday, April 09, 2006
"are you ok?"
ben and diana asked me if i was ok today.
and it wasn't because i looked unusually down or affected or irritable or anything like tt. usually if something is wrong for me, i am unusually quiet or occupied. unless i am tired of course. but today i was the complete opposite of quiet and subdued; i seemed so hyper tt diana asked me if i was suffering from a bout of adhd - attention deficit hyper disorder.
anyway what transpired, the whole damn long story, is tt to avoid the drunken ugliness of yesterday's arts county fair and all the mad fucks tt would return to totem, diana and i had stayed over @ ben's to study the night through. but i guess coz i didn't get enough sleep to begin with, i was very tired even before 3am. by tt time i was already crashing on the couch till 6am, whereby i woke up (ok. they were like "it's alive! it's alive!") from my fantastic 3 hour nap in time for breakfast @ mcdonald's.
fuck the whole "mcdonald's is an evil mnc" principles. when you have such cheap breakfasts - $3.49 for a sausage mcmuffin with egg meal... and plus ben's 2 breakfast sandwiches for the price of 1 coupon - price is a good enough reason to prostitute yourself to the evils of "mickey d's". in any case i never professed to have anything against mcdonald's. it's integral part of my life lah. formed too memorable a part of my child and teenagehood for me to forsake it for other people's so-called principles. i'm not french, for one.
so after breakfast, it was back to totem to crash. poor ben... not only did he lose his handphone in banff... last night he discovered tt his laptop was also spoilt! irrepairably so. it seems his technology problems are as bad as mine. anyway i lent him my handphone so tt he wouldn't be completely cut off from the world, before going back...
not tt it really helped. coz he accidentally locked my phone, which can only be unlocked with the 4-digit activation code, and as a result he can't even call me now. he can only take calls.
he woke me up at 4pm with a call before the phone drove him crazy, but our plans to meet @ the library at 4.50pm were equally thwarted by the fact tt both of us decided to sleep in for another 5 more min... tt for him translated to finding farnie @ the lib at 6.15pm. and me waking up at 6.15pm.
and this was my msn conversation with farnie, who had her laptop then (but ben has just confessed tt he was the one typing all this).
farnie said:
the ben is very stupid
farnie said:
he and technology dun click
no rebuttals needed here.
so anyway we met at our 2nd (1st) fave hangout, the chinese restaurant for dinner @ 7.15pm... and as usual, the topic(s) of the day was/were politics. ben had said tt according to a japanese newspaper, elections were likely to be held in the first week of may. which probably means tt i'll need to fly to san fran to exercise my right to vote (no WAY am i giving up this vote), because my GRC is likely to be contested.
and anyway we started talking abt who the ruling party would be fielding vs. who the opposition would be fielding in return, and a discussion about policies progressed in the direction of the rights to be fought for, like those of domestic workers, who ought to have their statuses upgraded from those of mere contract workers to employees entitled to full rights and protection as such.
and then because of the link between maids and singaporeans who hire them coz they are the cheapest way to care for aging parents, i was all for the idea of legalising euthanasia at will. i mean, moral implications aside, i feel tt this is a good way to solve the problems of the aging population, whereby the elderly are not just no longer useful economic units to society, but also constitute an economic drain on society, and a large proportion of them lead sad, lonely lives. worse yet if they are sick or suffer a disease, because healthcare is a fucking bitch in singapore and the medical subsidies are rarely enough for the sick here, unlike in canada where there is an established welfare net.
the only thing was tt the way i was arguing for the use of euthanasia and people's value to society as mere economic units, as well as among other things, the forward-looking policy of children's economic value to society and the attractiveness of migrating to brunei and possibly converting to islam in exchange for the benefits of wealth, no taxation, and the option of polygamy (although i later qualified tt peope shouldn't marry because spouses could constitute financial drains and obstacles to freedom and personal space); was in this undeniably gleeful manner.
like i was rattling off all my proposals and idealogies at like, the speed of sound per second, and i was so hyper and animated tt i looked as if i was high on speed. so tt was what totally disturbed them. at first, i thought they were just kidding when they first asked me if i was ok.
but later when they kept asking me tt as i was speaking, and this time with all seriousness... i realised tt they were *genuinely concerned* about my mental and emotional state.
gee.
haha. but yeah. i am fine. incredibly cheerful today; all is well with the world. high... on something but i don't know what... well-rested... :) things actually can't get any better. so maybe i enjoy playing devil's advocate much, probably because i have already established tt i am mad, evil and seriously disturbed, and maybe because i do on some level subscribe to some of what i propose, scary to believe as it is... but yepz. bottom line is? i'm ok.
so now it's back at the library to do some real studying. i was just reading an infanticide article about an abused woman in manitoba who killed her 3rd infant son by suffocating him to death with a plastic bag. the background story is tt this woman had been subject to continuous abuse by her common-law spouse, but because she'd already had 2 children by him and because she was dependent on him, she did not dare to leave the union. then she got raped by someone else during tt period, and the 3rd child was the result of tt rape. because she was so afraid tt her spouse would beat her to death if he found out tt she was carrying another man's child, she decided tt murdering her own son was a lesser evil. the original charge for this case was murder, but it was reduced to infanticide, which warrants a maximum sentence of 5 years in manitoba.
but the thing is after reading disturbing things like this, or about spousal homicide, or about just how fucked up the world can be - and it isn't just singapore... but in general how fucked up people as a race and a species can be... how can i try to take things or myself so seriously? and how can i otherwise keep my sanity if i don't try to make a joke out of things?
now playing: hotel costes - cafe de flor
and it wasn't because i looked unusually down or affected or irritable or anything like tt. usually if something is wrong for me, i am unusually quiet or occupied. unless i am tired of course. but today i was the complete opposite of quiet and subdued; i seemed so hyper tt diana asked me if i was suffering from a bout of adhd - attention deficit hyper disorder.
anyway what transpired, the whole damn long story, is tt to avoid the drunken ugliness of yesterday's arts county fair and all the mad fucks tt would return to totem, diana and i had stayed over @ ben's to study the night through. but i guess coz i didn't get enough sleep to begin with, i was very tired even before 3am. by tt time i was already crashing on the couch till 6am, whereby i woke up (ok. they were like "it's alive! it's alive!") from my fantastic 3 hour nap in time for breakfast @ mcdonald's.
fuck the whole "mcdonald's is an evil mnc" principles. when you have such cheap breakfasts - $3.49 for a sausage mcmuffin with egg meal... and plus ben's 2 breakfast sandwiches for the price of 1 coupon - price is a good enough reason to prostitute yourself to the evils of "mickey d's". in any case i never professed to have anything against mcdonald's. it's integral part of my life lah. formed too memorable a part of my child and teenagehood for me to forsake it for other people's so-called principles. i'm not french, for one.
so after breakfast, it was back to totem to crash. poor ben... not only did he lose his handphone in banff... last night he discovered tt his laptop was also spoilt! irrepairably so. it seems his technology problems are as bad as mine. anyway i lent him my handphone so tt he wouldn't be completely cut off from the world, before going back...
not tt it really helped. coz he accidentally locked my phone, which can only be unlocked with the 4-digit activation code, and as a result he can't even call me now. he can only take calls.
he woke me up at 4pm with a call before the phone drove him crazy, but our plans to meet @ the library at 4.50pm were equally thwarted by the fact tt both of us decided to sleep in for another 5 more min... tt for him translated to finding farnie @ the lib at 6.15pm. and me waking up at 6.15pm.
and this was my msn conversation with farnie, who had her laptop then (but ben has just confessed tt he was the one typing all this).
farnie said:
the ben is very stupid
farnie said:
he and technology dun click
no rebuttals needed here.
so anyway we met at our 2nd (1st) fave hangout, the chinese restaurant for dinner @ 7.15pm... and as usual, the topic(s) of the day was/were politics. ben had said tt according to a japanese newspaper, elections were likely to be held in the first week of may. which probably means tt i'll need to fly to san fran to exercise my right to vote (no WAY am i giving up this vote), because my GRC is likely to be contested.
and anyway we started talking abt who the ruling party would be fielding vs. who the opposition would be fielding in return, and a discussion about policies progressed in the direction of the rights to be fought for, like those of domestic workers, who ought to have their statuses upgraded from those of mere contract workers to employees entitled to full rights and protection as such.
and then because of the link between maids and singaporeans who hire them coz they are the cheapest way to care for aging parents, i was all for the idea of legalising euthanasia at will. i mean, moral implications aside, i feel tt this is a good way to solve the problems of the aging population, whereby the elderly are not just no longer useful economic units to society, but also constitute an economic drain on society, and a large proportion of them lead sad, lonely lives. worse yet if they are sick or suffer a disease, because healthcare is a fucking bitch in singapore and the medical subsidies are rarely enough for the sick here, unlike in canada where there is an established welfare net.
the only thing was tt the way i was arguing for the use of euthanasia and people's value to society as mere economic units, as well as among other things, the forward-looking policy of children's economic value to society and the attractiveness of migrating to brunei and possibly converting to islam in exchange for the benefits of wealth, no taxation, and the option of polygamy (although i later qualified tt peope shouldn't marry because spouses could constitute financial drains and obstacles to freedom and personal space); was in this undeniably gleeful manner.
like i was rattling off all my proposals and idealogies at like, the speed of sound per second, and i was so hyper and animated tt i looked as if i was high on speed. so tt was what totally disturbed them. at first, i thought they were just kidding when they first asked me if i was ok.
but later when they kept asking me tt as i was speaking, and this time with all seriousness... i realised tt they were *genuinely concerned* about my mental and emotional state.
gee.
haha. but yeah. i am fine. incredibly cheerful today; all is well with the world. high... on something but i don't know what... well-rested... :) things actually can't get any better. so maybe i enjoy playing devil's advocate much, probably because i have already established tt i am mad, evil and seriously disturbed, and maybe because i do on some level subscribe to some of what i propose, scary to believe as it is... but yepz. bottom line is? i'm ok.
so now it's back at the library to do some real studying. i was just reading an infanticide article about an abused woman in manitoba who killed her 3rd infant son by suffocating him to death with a plastic bag. the background story is tt this woman had been subject to continuous abuse by her common-law spouse, but because she'd already had 2 children by him and because she was dependent on him, she did not dare to leave the union. then she got raped by someone else during tt period, and the 3rd child was the result of tt rape. because she was so afraid tt her spouse would beat her to death if he found out tt she was carrying another man's child, she decided tt murdering her own son was a lesser evil. the original charge for this case was murder, but it was reduced to infanticide, which warrants a maximum sentence of 5 years in manitoba.
but the thing is after reading disturbing things like this, or about spousal homicide, or about just how fucked up the world can be - and it isn't just singapore... but in general how fucked up people as a race and a species can be... how can i try to take things or myself so seriously? and how can i otherwise keep my sanity if i don't try to make a joke out of things?
# posted by Kitana @ 4/09/2006 11:59:00 AM 
