I've actually had trouble writing any sort of blog or journal entry, believe it or not. Hell, last night I even sat down, pen in hand and journal in my lap, trying to scribble something meaningful down. Naturally, that goes against a lot of what a journal is there for.
I don't believe forcing yourself to write a journal entry will have the effect you want. You can't make yourself write anything meaningful or interesting, you should just start writing and see where it takes you. I don't know if you've noticed but that's basically what I'm doing right now. I spent the last week or so rummaging my brain for good "topics" to write on and sadly I never made it very far with any of them. It's one thing to have a topic materialize out of what begins as the first few thoughts you pluck out of your head.
It's another to sit down and try to write, at best, what will only end up being a marginally entertaining essay about yourself.
Yesterday I came down with a bad case of food poisoning that can be attributed to "bad ice." As Robert/FF correctly assumed, it is indeed an infamous water-borne stomach bug that is prevalent in unfiltered water. I am doing better now…still a bit frail (haha, me, ME, frail, HAHA) and recommended against eating solids or cold foods or spicy foods, but better. Well enough, in any case, to have to come to work.
Then again I did spend most of the day at home and playing Planescape: Torment (woohoo it doesn't crash anymore but I still cannot get Sybil to reward me for sneaking out of the Tenement…oh well I'm in the Modron Maze now holy fuck I forgot what an XP farm that place is). The longest stretch of sleep I got was two hours long…everything else was, well, rudely interrupted. Plus I jumped on webcam with people I haven't been on cam with for a long time, so that was pretty nifty.
For those who are curious (and awesome enough to be in the know), I am playing through PS: Torment for the first time as a Mage, and my party consists of Dak'kon, Morte, Annah, FFG, and Ignus. I've never used Ignus before so I'm gonna keep him around until I can get Vhailor…though I've never used Nordom, either.
I wanna go ahead and say that this week so far has been wretched for my health. Friday night was Remy's 7 Deadly Sins costume party, with a picture of my costume over there on the left (as at the time of this blog's posting). If you and I talk a lot, you know what happened. If we don't talk a lot, then um, well, basically Friday night was the drunkest I have ever been, to the extent where, after a certain point in time, I do not remember a goddamn thing.
Saturday morning saw an early wake-up and one-hour bus ride out of the city for beach volleyball. For this particular leg of the trip I was still drunk, and upon getting off the bus my hangover started settling in. After downing some water and playing for a while, though, I was fine…but not for long. A combination of excessive heat, leftover alcohol in my system, sweat, and sun all culminated in a whopper of a migraine at about 5 pm (which, thankfully, was about the time we were due to leave the place). I went home, showered, and pretty much made an effort to rest my head. I can't really complain about Saturday though…out of the 29 people who went to volleyball, only 5 of us were girls. I was very much enjoying the view.
Sunday was pretty tame, though I ate a shit-ton. Brunch with my favorites, then over to Romain's to wade our way through a little more Prison Break. (Seriously guys, what the hell do you see in this show, I don't get it. Sure the dude is hot but that doesn't mean the show can't suck ass.) Then, later that evening, came Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End, which I saw with the crew (or most of it).
We found out early on that the Chinese version had sliced about 30 minutes off of the front of the movie. If you've seen the whole thing, what we saw as an opening sequence was a black screen, a 5-minute spoken summary, and then it opens up with them in the ice floes. It was, simply put, extremely disappointing.
The thing is that I'm not gonna go ahead and say the Chinese government was censoring anything. I'm gonna go ahead and offer up my two hypotheses: if they remove those 30 minutes, they get more showings because most movies in this country are 2.5 hours in length, tops. Alternatively, by removing those first 30 minutes, it makes the movie harder to pirate, and I shouldn't have to remind you that pirated DVDs are a big deal here in China.
Minus that hiccup, however, I found the movie to be quite excellent, which makes me want to watch all three movies again, back-to-back, pretty soon. I noticed the pendants almost right away in the second movie, though I'm sure I'm not the only one. (I make a big deal out of it because I had to point it out to my sister…even though Lilz had seen the movie tons of times more than I had before I even saw it once.) Awesome ending, overall an entertaining movie. Definitely blew those other miserable excuses for trilogy-enders (Matrix Revolutions, here's lookin' at you) out of the goddamn water.
I never thought much of Orlando Bloom's looks after LotR, but I gotta say that that boy makes one excellently sexy pirate captain.
Moving right along Monday was pretty normal too, though because of Friday I didn't drink nearly as much as I normally did. Just a couple of margies, and only because it was pretty freakin' hot that night. And man was there some amazing eye candy at Zapata's that night. It's gonna be a long three weeks, compadres, that's all I gotta say, hahaha.
Enter Tuesday morning at about 6 am. I wake up in an excruciating amount of abdominal pain. And so begins my saga against bad ice, which I fought off with an inane amount of water and Planescape: Torment.
I still haven't heard back from the new job, which I feel is my cue to start officially looking again. It's a pity because if they said yes I'd be all over that in a minute, but I guess things just got a bit too hectic for them. Ah well. My resume still looks sexy and there are still people out there who haven't seen it yet.
That was a pretty dry update, if I do say so myself. Then again, it does follow a series of very upbeat, egotistical ones wherein I basically told you that I was the best anything ever and that I was amazing at everything I did.
Here's the irony, though. On Monday night, I fell victim to my ultimate vice: a guy that I'm attracted to but consider way out of my league. This happens all the time. As some kindred souls were sweet enough to point out, yes, I know I have all the "necessary equipment," but that doesn't get rid of this mega-mental block I have in my head. If I perceive a guy to be ridiculously gorgeous, I have a hard time being my magnetic, charming self around him. I get all shy and hesitant and self-conscious and then I generally start to ramble on about random things. Yes, I guess you could call it intimidation.
I think in my head it goes something like "why do you even bother he's probably got a hot chick in his sights already" or "he can do so much better than you" or something silly like that. Now I'm not saying hot guys are all shallow…I definitely do not mean that. What I'm trying to say is that I'm a crazy person.
The most psychotic part of it all is that I know all of this is madness but I can't stop myself from thinking it and it is extremely hard to overcome. I can't even say I've been getting better! I mean I can hit on guys just fine, but that only applies to guys that I perceive to be in my league. When it's someone I perceive to be way OUT of it (even though realistically my league probably doesn't have many exclusions at all), I turn into a verbal-diarrhea-spilling toolbox. I become a total tool. Socially inept, even. I say silly and stupid things because I'm too busy second-guessing myself.
So. Frustrating. RRRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHH someone smack me in the back of the head and loosen up that block because dammit it is gonna kill my game.
Wednesday, June 27, 2007
Tuesday, June 19, 2007
I am so adorable it makes kittens jealous.
Okay, let me break it down for you, okay? Okay.
I am a feminist. No, that does not mean I burn my bras or cut my hair short or get boob reduction surgery or anything stupid like that. What that means is that I believe women and men are equal. Yes, men are better at some things, but they are also worse at some things. The same can be said for women. You will generally find that they are well-balanced in this respect.
I do not think little of women, nor do I think little of men. I have respect for both sides in varying things and I will be the first to recognize when women may not be the best gender selection for a specific task, just like I will be the first to recognize that a man might not be the best choice for a job.
I take a similar stance on attraction.
Someone approached me via the internets about my last blog post, which I do encourage you to read if you haven't already. They told me that all that was easy for me to say because I am "good-looking." (I'm sure they meant drop-dead gorgeous but they didn't want to creep me out. It's okay. Your secret is safe with me.)
Yes, my friends, being presentable is a large part of being appealing.
I am a very firm believer of the whole "do unto others" deal. What you expect to receive, you better expect to give. Simple as all that.
That said, let's say you're in a bar. You are a typical male geek, just hanging out by the bar and checking out all the hot chicks. Let me ask you something: what are you wearing? What do you look like? Because, believe it or not, it matters.
If you want a well-dressed, fashionable, cool, suave, hot chick to respond to you positively, you better be fucking ready to give her the same image of yourself. Why should she, after all, put in all the effort to look good and bother with a 500-pound piece of lard ass that looks like it just fell out of bed and hasn't showered in a week? A girl who puts that much care into her appearance isn't going to want a guy who puts none into his. It's as simple as that. She knows she can do better, and she's right.
(Switch the genders and the same is true here, too, ladies.)
You can argue all you want about "golden personalities" and "eye of the beholder" until the fat ugly cows come home but that doesn't change that what I say is more than partly true.
Want to present yourself as unkempt, dirty, and socially retarded? Then expect the only girls to respond to you positively to be unkempt, dirty, and socially retarded. If you're okay with that, then go nuts.
If you want a physically fit girl, get physically fit. If you want someone intelligent, come off as intelligent. These are not the "opposites attract" aspects of male-female interaction, folks. These are very basic things that make you attractive to others.
Be interesting. Be charming. Be nice. Be attractive. Be intelligent. Pull all these off and I promise someone of the caliber you're looking for will take notice, and you can move on from there.
But Viiiiiiiiiiiv, you cry in that annoyingly whiny voice that only your mother would love, you just told us in the last entry that someone who didn't like us for who we are can just move along!
To that, I respond with a very eloquent L2READ. Seriously. Presenting yourself a certain way is not the same as the content of your interaction. So you got their attention. So what? How are you going to keep it? THAT's where what I said in the previous post comes in. You've engaged them in conversation, so what do you talk about?
Most of the time, sounding passionate about something that you are generally interested in is a turn on, regardless of the actual content of your conversation… and you really can't fake genuine passion in something you're not interested in. Why does this turn people on? Because if you can talk like that about something you are into, that makes the person you are into that much more willing to let you be interested in them so that you'll talk about THEM like that.
If they're simply not interested in what you're saying, that's when you let them move on.
Of course, all of this doesn't account for hot people who don't know they're hot. Like myself up until recently. Sometimes, you'll get lucky.
Now. What I'm talking about is initial spark and attraction… about getting approached. This NOT RELEVANT to developing a real relationship. That's a different can of worms that I will not go into right this second, but suffice to say that it is immensely more complex than getting positive attention and being memorable.
That's where my appeal is. I am pretty, I am intelligent, I am able to carry a conversation, and I am able to make people laugh and feel good about themselves. I am interesting. I am magnetic.
I talk about myself a lot, I know… but that's because I'm just so damned interesting.
OH HO HO HO
I am a feminist. No, that does not mean I burn my bras or cut my hair short or get boob reduction surgery or anything stupid like that. What that means is that I believe women and men are equal. Yes, men are better at some things, but they are also worse at some things. The same can be said for women. You will generally find that they are well-balanced in this respect.
I do not think little of women, nor do I think little of men. I have respect for both sides in varying things and I will be the first to recognize when women may not be the best gender selection for a specific task, just like I will be the first to recognize that a man might not be the best choice for a job.
I take a similar stance on attraction.
Someone approached me via the internets about my last blog post, which I do encourage you to read if you haven't already. They told me that all that was easy for me to say because I am "good-looking." (I'm sure they meant drop-dead gorgeous but they didn't want to creep me out. It's okay. Your secret is safe with me.)
Yes, my friends, being presentable is a large part of being appealing.
I am a very firm believer of the whole "do unto others" deal. What you expect to receive, you better expect to give. Simple as all that.
That said, let's say you're in a bar. You are a typical male geek, just hanging out by the bar and checking out all the hot chicks. Let me ask you something: what are you wearing? What do you look like? Because, believe it or not, it matters.
If you want a well-dressed, fashionable, cool, suave, hot chick to respond to you positively, you better be fucking ready to give her the same image of yourself. Why should she, after all, put in all the effort to look good and bother with a 500-pound piece of lard ass that looks like it just fell out of bed and hasn't showered in a week? A girl who puts that much care into her appearance isn't going to want a guy who puts none into his. It's as simple as that. She knows she can do better, and she's right.
(Switch the genders and the same is true here, too, ladies.)
You can argue all you want about "golden personalities" and "eye of the beholder" until the fat ugly cows come home but that doesn't change that what I say is more than partly true.
Want to present yourself as unkempt, dirty, and socially retarded? Then expect the only girls to respond to you positively to be unkempt, dirty, and socially retarded. If you're okay with that, then go nuts.
If you want a physically fit girl, get physically fit. If you want someone intelligent, come off as intelligent. These are not the "opposites attract" aspects of male-female interaction, folks. These are very basic things that make you attractive to others.
Be interesting. Be charming. Be nice. Be attractive. Be intelligent. Pull all these off and I promise someone of the caliber you're looking for will take notice, and you can move on from there.
But Viiiiiiiiiiiv, you cry in that annoyingly whiny voice that only your mother would love, you just told us in the last entry that someone who didn't like us for who we are can just move along!
To that, I respond with a very eloquent L2READ. Seriously. Presenting yourself a certain way is not the same as the content of your interaction. So you got their attention. So what? How are you going to keep it? THAT's where what I said in the previous post comes in. You've engaged them in conversation, so what do you talk about?
Most of the time, sounding passionate about something that you are generally interested in is a turn on, regardless of the actual content of your conversation… and you really can't fake genuine passion in something you're not interested in. Why does this turn people on? Because if you can talk like that about something you are into, that makes the person you are into that much more willing to let you be interested in them so that you'll talk about THEM like that.
If they're simply not interested in what you're saying, that's when you let them move on.
Of course, all of this doesn't account for hot people who don't know they're hot. Like myself up until recently. Sometimes, you'll get lucky.
Now. What I'm talking about is initial spark and attraction… about getting approached. This NOT RELEVANT to developing a real relationship. That's a different can of worms that I will not go into right this second, but suffice to say that it is immensely more complex than getting positive attention and being memorable.
That's where my appeal is. I am pretty, I am intelligent, I am able to carry a conversation, and I am able to make people laugh and feel good about themselves. I am interesting. I am magnetic.
I talk about myself a lot, I know… but that's because I'm just so damned interesting.
OH HO HO HO
Sunday, June 10, 2007
Sunday, Bloody Sunday
That title is actually more amusing to me than you will ever understand, for reasons that I will not mention here.
I just back from a gorgeous day, and by gorgeous I mean a combination of weather and my mood. You could tell I was in a good mood because, well, I WORE SKIRTS TODAY. A denim miniskirt to brunch and then a girly salsa-dancing-type skirt to watch Shrek 3 with my friends.
I never wear skirts. Seeing me wear one in any setting is a testament to just how good a mood I'm in. It generally means that I feel great about everything, from content with my life to proud of how I look. Very little can get me down on days like this.
It doesn't mean life in general is perfect or that it couldn't use improvement, but it does mean that for a singular moment of my life, I can be happy with who I am thus far. It's a great feeling that is so rare that you really have to enjoy it to the fullest when it comes.
I know what I'm about to say sounds kinda gay, but seriously... with life throwing so much bullshit at you on a day-to-day basis, when a day comes that you feel wonderful about yourself, take it as far as you can and enjoy that feeling. This is the kind of day that you live for. It is the reason you work your ass off and keep pushing through all kinds of crap. It really does make everything worthwhile, because for even a little bit, you forget everything terrible and are guiltless in your happiness.
And you'll be amazed how many people you can lift up with you when you are just enjoying life.
What brought this feeling on? I could probably try to pinpoint a cause if I wanted to, but why ruin it? Can't I just be happy and, for once, not worry about what brought me there or what might end it? Enjoy those moments when they come. They are rare in this single life you have to live. Worry about them later.
I'm a cynic by nature, so I imagine that me saying these things kinda sounds like me speaking with a completely different voice. Well, come on... it's me in a skirt. I NEVER WEAR SKIRTS.
Yeah, I have those days where I just want to punch a baby or shit on a kitten, but those things matter so little compared to rare, diamond days like today. I'll remember a day like today for much longer than I would ever remember a bad day. You could even argue that the knowledge that days like today are so infrequent is what drives me to work hard, to earn my next wonderful day.
Plus, Shrek 3 is a hilarious movie.
Do I have my new job yet? No, not yet. If I do get it, obviously I will be psyched beyond reason. If I don't, time to start sending out that sexy resume of mine some more. Keep your fingers crossed for me all the same.
On a sidenote, Shanghai needs more hot geeks. Seriously. They seem to be crawling all over the US, but you can't find them in Shanghai for some reason. I wonder if they're hiding their geekiness because they think people in Shanghai are judgmental and pretentious like that (they kinda are), but seriously... just let it out. You are so much more sexy when you are talking about something that genuinely interests you than when you are feigning interest in something you think everyone thinks is cool.
So, let's review: MORE HOT GEEKS IN SHANGHAI PLEASE. The only one I know is my best friend and a) he's my best friend and b) he hides it as well as the rest of them.
BUT VIVIENNE YOU DON'T GET LAID EITHER NYAH NYAH NYAH. Oh shut up. Like I'm really going to pretend not to be a huge dork just so I can get laid or get someone to cuddle with. Folks, I am WAY too hot for that. If a dude gets turned off because I'm a geek, it's his epic loss and you can quote me on that. I wear my geekiness on my sleeve and guess what, anyone who doesn't like it can just move along.
People remember me where they wouldn't necessarily remember anyone else. It is virtually impossible to ignore my presence in any social setting. I am fucking magnetic. Why? Not just because I know how to navigate any social scenario (which I do, and so very well). Not just because I am so very good at expressing myself.
Because I am interesting. Because I'm not ashamed of the things I like. Because when I talk about something I find interesting, I talk about it with such passion that it makes me infinitely more appealing to the people around me, friends or "men" alike. I turn people on because I am interesting when I am actually interested in what I am saying. I turn people on because I get so animated and energetic and ALIVE when I talk about the things I like.
IT'S SO ELEMENTARY but so few people out there seem to get it. So you like Backstreet Boys music. So you own every single issue of the Ultimates. So you play DnD. So you LARP. So you play Final Fantasy at home instead of going out on a Friday night. So you like to salsa dance. So you like to do any number of things deemed "uncool" by faceless fucks who only make the distinction because they are insecure with themselves. Who the fuck cares? It's who you are, and it's what makes you interesting, intriguing. Anyone who gets turned off by that shit ain't worth your time anyway, so if they shrug and walk away, let them go.
They missed out, not you.
GOOD NIGHT.
I just back from a gorgeous day, and by gorgeous I mean a combination of weather and my mood. You could tell I was in a good mood because, well, I WORE SKIRTS TODAY. A denim miniskirt to brunch and then a girly salsa-dancing-type skirt to watch Shrek 3 with my friends.
I never wear skirts. Seeing me wear one in any setting is a testament to just how good a mood I'm in. It generally means that I feel great about everything, from content with my life to proud of how I look. Very little can get me down on days like this.
It doesn't mean life in general is perfect or that it couldn't use improvement, but it does mean that for a singular moment of my life, I can be happy with who I am thus far. It's a great feeling that is so rare that you really have to enjoy it to the fullest when it comes.
I know what I'm about to say sounds kinda gay, but seriously... with life throwing so much bullshit at you on a day-to-day basis, when a day comes that you feel wonderful about yourself, take it as far as you can and enjoy that feeling. This is the kind of day that you live for. It is the reason you work your ass off and keep pushing through all kinds of crap. It really does make everything worthwhile, because for even a little bit, you forget everything terrible and are guiltless in your happiness.
And you'll be amazed how many people you can lift up with you when you are just enjoying life.
What brought this feeling on? I could probably try to pinpoint a cause if I wanted to, but why ruin it? Can't I just be happy and, for once, not worry about what brought me there or what might end it? Enjoy those moments when they come. They are rare in this single life you have to live. Worry about them later.
I'm a cynic by nature, so I imagine that me saying these things kinda sounds like me speaking with a completely different voice. Well, come on... it's me in a skirt. I NEVER WEAR SKIRTS.
Yeah, I have those days where I just want to punch a baby or shit on a kitten, but those things matter so little compared to rare, diamond days like today. I'll remember a day like today for much longer than I would ever remember a bad day. You could even argue that the knowledge that days like today are so infrequent is what drives me to work hard, to earn my next wonderful day.
Plus, Shrek 3 is a hilarious movie.
Do I have my new job yet? No, not yet. If I do get it, obviously I will be psyched beyond reason. If I don't, time to start sending out that sexy resume of mine some more. Keep your fingers crossed for me all the same.
On a sidenote, Shanghai needs more hot geeks. Seriously. They seem to be crawling all over the US, but you can't find them in Shanghai for some reason. I wonder if they're hiding their geekiness because they think people in Shanghai are judgmental and pretentious like that (they kinda are), but seriously... just let it out. You are so much more sexy when you are talking about something that genuinely interests you than when you are feigning interest in something you think everyone thinks is cool.
So, let's review: MORE HOT GEEKS IN SHANGHAI PLEASE. The only one I know is my best friend and a) he's my best friend and b) he hides it as well as the rest of them.
BUT VIVIENNE YOU DON'T GET LAID EITHER NYAH NYAH NYAH. Oh shut up. Like I'm really going to pretend not to be a huge dork just so I can get laid or get someone to cuddle with. Folks, I am WAY too hot for that. If a dude gets turned off because I'm a geek, it's his epic loss and you can quote me on that. I wear my geekiness on my sleeve and guess what, anyone who doesn't like it can just move along.
People remember me where they wouldn't necessarily remember anyone else. It is virtually impossible to ignore my presence in any social setting. I am fucking magnetic. Why? Not just because I know how to navigate any social scenario (which I do, and so very well). Not just because I am so very good at expressing myself.
Because I am interesting. Because I'm not ashamed of the things I like. Because when I talk about something I find interesting, I talk about it with such passion that it makes me infinitely more appealing to the people around me, friends or "men" alike. I turn people on because I am interesting when I am actually interested in what I am saying. I turn people on because I get so animated and energetic and ALIVE when I talk about the things I like.
IT'S SO ELEMENTARY but so few people out there seem to get it. So you like Backstreet Boys music. So you own every single issue of the Ultimates. So you play DnD. So you LARP. So you play Final Fantasy at home instead of going out on a Friday night. So you like to salsa dance. So you like to do any number of things deemed "uncool" by faceless fucks who only make the distinction because they are insecure with themselves. Who the fuck cares? It's who you are, and it's what makes you interesting, intriguing. Anyone who gets turned off by that shit ain't worth your time anyway, so if they shrug and walk away, let them go.
They missed out, not you.
GOOD NIGHT.
Friday, June 8, 2007
Memory
I was browsing through some old journal writings last night at home and I found something that amused me rather deeply. It's been slightly edited for timing (i.e., how many years ago this took place), but otherwise it is largely what I'd originally written.
========
Was it first grade? Or second? No, wait. It was what we called "Primary 1." That's right. Primary 1 at the Chinese International School in Hong Kong. Mrs. … Bullon. Yup. That was her name. I don't think I'll ever forget it, if only because she resembled a bull. With long hair. Or was that the creepy teacher from Roald Dahl's Matilda? The world may never know. There's a good chance she only slightly resembled that teacher, only now whatever memory I have of her actual face is tainted by what I saw in the movie of said Roald Dahl book. I am positive, however, that she always had her hair up in a bun. And she was a brunette. I'll eat my left foot if she was actually blonde.
I can't say I remember what the project was for, but I do remember it involved everyone in the class making a hot air balloon. Well, the "primary 1" version, which was just a brightly colored piece of construction paper, a couple of strings of yarn, and a paper cup. Oh, right, I remember now. It was the beginning of the year, and we were making these hot air balloons to tack up on our classroom wall. The idea was that every time we did something good in class, we would get little "merits" to put in them. Punishments were given by the removal of those merits. Then, every so often, you could redeem your merits for a little prize. Or a sticker. Or maybe the prize was a sticker.
Mrs. Bullon handed us a pile of "hot air balloons," which weren't really much more than two-dimensional paper circles of varying colors. They already had our names on them… I got a red one, with the word "Vivienne" spelled on it with black marker. Two little holes, punched in by what I now know was a hole puncher (and not incredible skill with a pair of scissors) were found at the base of the paper circle. One strand of green yarn dangled from each hole. It was up to us, she said, to put it together at home. That was homework. Everyone who turned it in on time got a merit.
Off I go, excited about this new project. Well, I think I was. If I wasn't, I damn well should have been. Naturally, the nanny asks me what I did at school today. I tell her, with a sense of urgency: "Big Sister Ping, do we have any paper cups?"
(It didn't come out quite like that… I likely asked something that sounded like "Ping tse, ngo dei yau mou tsi bui ah?" I was still in my Cantonese-speaking phase, you see.)
I remember my nanny's response, not because it was anything profound, but because of the horror I felt when I heard it. "Hou tsi mo woh," she answered in Cantonese, telling me no, she was pretty sure we didn't. If I'd known how to cuss back then, that would've likely been the time to do it.
I can't say I know what happened next. I don't think I was angry, just a little worried. My nanny apologized and then said, "Nei haw mm haw yee tsi gei tsing yut goh ah?" That, I imagine, would make more sense if you read what my brain interpreted as, "Can you make one yourself?"
My mind goes a bit blank right here, and then I can see myself very enthusiastically yanking out a sheaf of perfectly-square origami paper. I picked one that had blue on one side and white on the other, I think. Maybe I say blue because it's now my favorite color. It's certainly what I would've picked today.
I remember not needing my origami books to help me. All I did was fold it, taking my time to get the creases perfect. I didn't need more than one piece of paper! As I tucked the last flap in, I held up my final product. I beamed.
It didn't look like a paper cup so much as it did a trapezoid. But if you held the "cup" up the right way, with the longer horizontal edge on top and the short one on the bottom, and then squeezed the edges in toward each other, a mouth opened at the very top! Now that I think about it, it wasn't so much a paper cup as it was a flattened pocket made of paper, but hey, the book from which I first learned it said it was a cup, and if it was good enough for Cheer Bear, it was good enough for Mrs. Balloon. I mean, Bullon.
During my escapade with the trapezoidal cup, the nanny had gone home. I only know this because when I emerged from my room, my mom and dad were back from work. I can't say I'm sure I know when the nanny left; I might've been too focused on my cup to care.
I ran to show my mom, showing her my cup and telling her as quickly as I could what the project was all about. I remember the look on her face when she saw it; it was probably my favorite part of the project. Her smile was so huge and her eyes looked at me full of pride…I didn't know it at the time, but she was impressed. Impressed! By me! I remember her asking if I did it myself, and I beamed up at her with all my 6-year-old glory.
Mom helped me punch two holes, one in each upper corner of the cup, with a pencil. Then she took the paper circle, made sure it was the right way up, and threaded the two pieces of yarn through the holes. She tied the strings into the holes and held it up for me.
"This," she said in a voice brimming with delight, "is going to be the only balloon of its kind on that wall." (Yes, this came out in Cantonese as well, but owing to the fact that Cantonese is a pain in the ass to type out in English, I'm not going to bother doing so yet again.)
My dad came into the living room then, curious as to what was going on. I didn't hear that conversation, though… I was too absorbed with my hot air balloon.
Fast forward to the next day. Mrs. Bullon was collecting everyone's homework, and I was grinning ear to ear. Everyone else (as far as I know) had plain, boring ordinary paper cups. Thinking back, they were a bit like the little Dixie cups that dentists like to give to their patients during an checkup or a cleaning. Some of the cups were white, some had flowers on them, some had funny cartoon characters on them, some were big, some were small.
But not a single one of them was a trapezoid. I was worried, because I thought I did something wrong.
I remember my friend Hamilton having Barbie's face on his cup. I can't tell you why that sticks out in my head right this second, but it might have something to do with the fact that he's now living in San Francisco (last I heard). Nope. Can't put my finger on it.
I remember showing Mrs. Bullon my hot air balloon, with her saying, "You made this yourself?"
I told her how we didn't have any paper cups at home, so I decided to just make my own. I think I might've asked her if that was all right… as I mentioned, I was worried I got it wrong.
Mrs. Bullon's smile was a tremendous relief. So were her words: "It's lovely. I think it'll go… here." And with that "here," she stapled my balloon on the classroom wall to join the others. It was, as my mom promised, the only balloon of its kind on that wall.
I don't think I knew then that that day was the day I resigned myself to the life of a geek. Well, no, not geek. But a specific kind of person, to be sure. You see, for many years after that day, my mom would love to remind me that I made a paper cup. When would she whip that out? Oh, right about when I was whining about how I couldn't do something.
From there, I learned something that I have carried with me all my life. I know of two kinds of people. One will give you ten solutions to a problem. The other will give you a hundred reasons why that problem can't be solved. Which is better? Which are you? That day seventeen-some years ago marked the day that determined on which side of that coin I fell.
I am a problem-solver. Sure, nowadays I bitch and moan when I feel like I can't do something, when I feel like I've tried every way to handle a situation. But I don't let it end there. Once I get all that nastiness out of my system, it's back to thinking of a solution, of a way to manipulate what I've learned to give me the result I need, of a way to approach the problem from an angle I hadn't tried before.
Something just occurred to me. It might not have been Mrs. Bullon at all. Maybe the fact that her name sounds like "balloon" linked her to this memory. Come to think of it, it might have been in my Primary 2 class, with Mrs. Woods and her teaching assistant, Miss Wood.
Nah. It's a better memory if Mrs. Bullon's in it. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.
========
Was it first grade? Or second? No, wait. It was what we called "Primary 1." That's right. Primary 1 at the Chinese International School in Hong Kong. Mrs. … Bullon. Yup. That was her name. I don't think I'll ever forget it, if only because she resembled a bull. With long hair. Or was that the creepy teacher from Roald Dahl's Matilda? The world may never know. There's a good chance she only slightly resembled that teacher, only now whatever memory I have of her actual face is tainted by what I saw in the movie of said Roald Dahl book. I am positive, however, that she always had her hair up in a bun. And she was a brunette. I'll eat my left foot if she was actually blonde.
I can't say I remember what the project was for, but I do remember it involved everyone in the class making a hot air balloon. Well, the "primary 1" version, which was just a brightly colored piece of construction paper, a couple of strings of yarn, and a paper cup. Oh, right, I remember now. It was the beginning of the year, and we were making these hot air balloons to tack up on our classroom wall. The idea was that every time we did something good in class, we would get little "merits" to put in them. Punishments were given by the removal of those merits. Then, every so often, you could redeem your merits for a little prize. Or a sticker. Or maybe the prize was a sticker.
Mrs. Bullon handed us a pile of "hot air balloons," which weren't really much more than two-dimensional paper circles of varying colors. They already had our names on them… I got a red one, with the word "Vivienne" spelled on it with black marker. Two little holes, punched in by what I now know was a hole puncher (and not incredible skill with a pair of scissors) were found at the base of the paper circle. One strand of green yarn dangled from each hole. It was up to us, she said, to put it together at home. That was homework. Everyone who turned it in on time got a merit.
Off I go, excited about this new project. Well, I think I was. If I wasn't, I damn well should have been. Naturally, the nanny asks me what I did at school today. I tell her, with a sense of urgency: "Big Sister Ping, do we have any paper cups?"
(It didn't come out quite like that… I likely asked something that sounded like "Ping tse, ngo dei yau mou tsi bui ah?" I was still in my Cantonese-speaking phase, you see.)
I remember my nanny's response, not because it was anything profound, but because of the horror I felt when I heard it. "Hou tsi mo woh," she answered in Cantonese, telling me no, she was pretty sure we didn't. If I'd known how to cuss back then, that would've likely been the time to do it.
I can't say I know what happened next. I don't think I was angry, just a little worried. My nanny apologized and then said, "Nei haw mm haw yee tsi gei tsing yut goh ah?" That, I imagine, would make more sense if you read what my brain interpreted as, "Can you make one yourself?"
My mind goes a bit blank right here, and then I can see myself very enthusiastically yanking out a sheaf of perfectly-square origami paper. I picked one that had blue on one side and white on the other, I think. Maybe I say blue because it's now my favorite color. It's certainly what I would've picked today.
I remember not needing my origami books to help me. All I did was fold it, taking my time to get the creases perfect. I didn't need more than one piece of paper! As I tucked the last flap in, I held up my final product. I beamed.
It didn't look like a paper cup so much as it did a trapezoid. But if you held the "cup" up the right way, with the longer horizontal edge on top and the short one on the bottom, and then squeezed the edges in toward each other, a mouth opened at the very top! Now that I think about it, it wasn't so much a paper cup as it was a flattened pocket made of paper, but hey, the book from which I first learned it said it was a cup, and if it was good enough for Cheer Bear, it was good enough for Mrs. Balloon. I mean, Bullon.
During my escapade with the trapezoidal cup, the nanny had gone home. I only know this because when I emerged from my room, my mom and dad were back from work. I can't say I'm sure I know when the nanny left; I might've been too focused on my cup to care.
I ran to show my mom, showing her my cup and telling her as quickly as I could what the project was all about. I remember the look on her face when she saw it; it was probably my favorite part of the project. Her smile was so huge and her eyes looked at me full of pride…I didn't know it at the time, but she was impressed. Impressed! By me! I remember her asking if I did it myself, and I beamed up at her with all my 6-year-old glory.
Mom helped me punch two holes, one in each upper corner of the cup, with a pencil. Then she took the paper circle, made sure it was the right way up, and threaded the two pieces of yarn through the holes. She tied the strings into the holes and held it up for me.
"This," she said in a voice brimming with delight, "is going to be the only balloon of its kind on that wall." (Yes, this came out in Cantonese as well, but owing to the fact that Cantonese is a pain in the ass to type out in English, I'm not going to bother doing so yet again.)
My dad came into the living room then, curious as to what was going on. I didn't hear that conversation, though… I was too absorbed with my hot air balloon.
Fast forward to the next day. Mrs. Bullon was collecting everyone's homework, and I was grinning ear to ear. Everyone else (as far as I know) had plain, boring ordinary paper cups. Thinking back, they were a bit like the little Dixie cups that dentists like to give to their patients during an checkup or a cleaning. Some of the cups were white, some had flowers on them, some had funny cartoon characters on them, some were big, some were small.
But not a single one of them was a trapezoid. I was worried, because I thought I did something wrong.
I remember my friend Hamilton having Barbie's face on his cup. I can't tell you why that sticks out in my head right this second, but it might have something to do with the fact that he's now living in San Francisco (last I heard). Nope. Can't put my finger on it.
I remember showing Mrs. Bullon my hot air balloon, with her saying, "You made this yourself?"
I told her how we didn't have any paper cups at home, so I decided to just make my own. I think I might've asked her if that was all right… as I mentioned, I was worried I got it wrong.
Mrs. Bullon's smile was a tremendous relief. So were her words: "It's lovely. I think it'll go… here." And with that "here," she stapled my balloon on the classroom wall to join the others. It was, as my mom promised, the only balloon of its kind on that wall.
I don't think I knew then that that day was the day I resigned myself to the life of a geek. Well, no, not geek. But a specific kind of person, to be sure. You see, for many years after that day, my mom would love to remind me that I made a paper cup. When would she whip that out? Oh, right about when I was whining about how I couldn't do something.
From there, I learned something that I have carried with me all my life. I know of two kinds of people. One will give you ten solutions to a problem. The other will give you a hundred reasons why that problem can't be solved. Which is better? Which are you? That day seventeen-some years ago marked the day that determined on which side of that coin I fell.
I am a problem-solver. Sure, nowadays I bitch and moan when I feel like I can't do something, when I feel like I've tried every way to handle a situation. But I don't let it end there. Once I get all that nastiness out of my system, it's back to thinking of a solution, of a way to manipulate what I've learned to give me the result I need, of a way to approach the problem from an angle I hadn't tried before.
Something just occurred to me. It might not have been Mrs. Bullon at all. Maybe the fact that her name sounds like "balloon" linked her to this memory. Come to think of it, it might have been in my Primary 2 class, with Mrs. Woods and her teaching assistant, Miss Wood.
Nah. It's a better memory if Mrs. Bullon's in it. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.
Thursday, June 7, 2007
Oh Goddammit
Apparently, certain governments can't make up their minds as to whether or not Blogspot should be blocked.
CHOOSE ALREADY.
GOD FUCKING DAMMIT.
I mean, I can update it... but I can't view it?
What the fucking hell.
CHOOSE ALREADY.
GOD FUCKING DAMMIT.
I mean, I can update it... but I can't view it?
What the fucking hell.
It is a Beautiful Day
Well, it is for ME.
Every so often you just have a day where you wake up looking and feeling fantastic. That day, my friends, is here.
I imagine with three days of utter crap (which culminated in several emotional outbursts just yesterday and a 2,888-word therapeutic blog entry), it feels especially good to look at yourself in the mirror right before you leave work and realize that, well, holy shit.
I am fucking GORGEOUS. My hair is perfect and my favorite work shirt looks, well, enticing is the only word for it. Zero make-up and a little lip balm and I look THIS good? Shit, back off, when I actually try I must be scorching.
Screw cute, this is HOT.
I feel good because I look it, and I feel especially good because I've been plowing through three days of feeling utterly shitty about everything, including myself.
And sometimes it is JUST FINE to have a day or two where you feel like you are the most beautiful person on the planet and that your friends are lucky to be your friends. You should try it. It does wonders for your self-esteem and it makes you feel like you can take on anything.
Sounds shallow?
Fuck you. :3
Every so often you just have a day where you wake up looking and feeling fantastic. That day, my friends, is here.
I imagine with three days of utter crap (which culminated in several emotional outbursts just yesterday and a 2,888-word therapeutic blog entry), it feels especially good to look at yourself in the mirror right before you leave work and realize that, well, holy shit.
I am fucking GORGEOUS. My hair is perfect and my favorite work shirt looks, well, enticing is the only word for it. Zero make-up and a little lip balm and I look THIS good? Shit, back off, when I actually try I must be scorching.
Screw cute, this is HOT.
I feel good because I look it, and I feel especially good because I've been plowing through three days of feeling utterly shitty about everything, including myself.
And sometimes it is JUST FINE to have a day or two where you feel like you are the most beautiful person on the planet and that your friends are lucky to be your friends. You should try it. It does wonders for your self-esteem and it makes you feel like you can take on anything.
Sounds shallow?
Fuck you. :3
Wednesday, June 6, 2007
Stupid LiveJournal *and* Xanga
Yup, both LiveJournal and Xanga have been blocked here in China for reasons I will never understand. Irony? Blogspot USED to be blocked... but no longer, and I like the software a bunch even though I don't know anyone else who uses it.
Okay let me clarify that... I've always loved Blogspot's software (I mean anyone with a Gmail account basically gets a blog), always thought it was head-and-shoulders above the rest, but I got an LJ because so many of my friends were using it. There. I admitted it.
I don't mind not using LJ myself, but I am pretty pissed that while I can still see all public LJ posts and make comments on them, I can't see friends-only entries even if they have me friended. Apparently, proxies can only do so much, and one of the things they can't do is keep me logged in. :(
Anyway. I will be importing my latest and favorite LJ entries into Blogspot as well as throwing them up on Facebook when appropriate, don't be surprised if I direct you here and some of it's stuff you've seen before.
Anyone can comment, just leave a name so I know who you are.
Thanks kids! <3
PS - and no, this isn't a blog for UNIFIED. I don't know if I'll run one of those at all since I'm already swamped with other things for the game... all the same, I created a placeholder for the Hardy Clinics. It's nothing more than a C&P'd post from the Penny Arcade forums (where UNIFIED is being run), so eh.
Okay let me clarify that... I've always loved Blogspot's software (I mean anyone with a Gmail account basically gets a blog), always thought it was head-and-shoulders above the rest, but I got an LJ because so many of my friends were using it. There. I admitted it.
I don't mind not using LJ myself, but I am pretty pissed that while I can still see all public LJ posts and make comments on them, I can't see friends-only entries even if they have me friended. Apparently, proxies can only do so much, and one of the things they can't do is keep me logged in. :(
Anyway. I will be importing my latest and favorite LJ entries into Blogspot as well as throwing them up on Facebook when appropriate, don't be surprised if I direct you here and some of it's stuff you've seen before.
Anyone can comment, just leave a name so I know who you are.
Thanks kids! <3
PS - and no, this isn't a blog for UNIFIED. I don't know if I'll run one of those at all since I'm already swamped with other things for the game... all the same, I created a placeholder for the Hardy Clinics. It's nothing more than a C&P'd post from the Penny Arcade forums (where UNIFIED is being run), so eh.
FBC
[I'm going to get in trouble with this post. I just know it.]
The first language I ever spoke was Cantonese. My first official word, according to my darling mother, was "mum mum," which did not actually mean "mother" as you would suspect. It actually meant "food" in pseudo-Cantonese-baby-speak. This does not surprise me; I was a very fat baby. I went to a local nursery in Hong Kong (called Woodland Pokfulam Pre-school, and if I could remember the words in Chinese I'd throw them here just to show off a bit) for two years prior to my family's move to Peoria, IL.
Sure, while I went to the Rainbow Kindergarten in the States, I must've picked up some English, right? Nah. I was all of 3 to 4 years old with a wailing, loudmouth, oh-god-the-walls-are-shaking of a baby sister at home. (Yes, ladies and gentlemen, that is precisely how she has American citizenship. She was born there.) Beyond memories of folding an origami-type scarf for a snowman from old newspapers and maybe getting tackled by a neighbor's dog so hard that I flew back about seven feet (it was a German Shepherd, too, the bitch)…I don't remember much of Peoria.
I imagine that dog-tackle had something to do with it. (Though seriously, my parents say that the incident is the reason why I was scared of dogs for a while.)
On return to Hong Kong in 1988, I attended my first international school: Chinese International School. Now, here's the hilarious thing: for three years, I was in ESL. For those of you who don't know what that is, it's English as a Second Language, which basically means that I was retarded with my English and had to be stuck into this class in an effort to improve my English skills. I still remember Mrs. Castle, the ESL teacher. (I do, in fact, remember all my homeroom teachers from K-12, because I have a terrifyingly powerful memory.)
To give you an idea of just how bad my English was, I spoke Cantonese daily, in between classes and after school. My parents, both working at the time, would demand that I be watching Sesame Street every afternoon. What did I do instead? Well, I would watch my Cantonese cartoons (which was really the anime show Attack No. 1 dubbed in Cantonese… my first ever anime and probably what made me end up going for volleyball years later)… and then, when I heard the elevator outside the apartment ding onto our floor and heard the key turn in the lock of our front door, I would quickly switch to the English channel and pretend like I was watching Elmo the entire time.
I was a sneaky little brat. Still am.
Anyway, lucky for me, I graduated from ESL just in time for our family's move to Singapore.
Now the point I'm trying to get at here is that my English, in the early years—the years that psychologists and linguists alike say are most key to language development in children—was abysmal. I mean, think stereotypical Chinglish, and that was me.
Singapore didn't exactly help, either, with the whole country speaking "Singlish" and me attending a local, all-girls school. If you've never heard it, it is a brutal combination of English, Mandarin, Cantonese, Hokkien, Malay, and Tamil that, when coupled with a terrifying accent, is designed solely as a linguistic challenge—a secret language, if you will—that only an elite few (i.e., the population of Singapore) is capable of understanding.
It does make Singaporeans easy to spot in a crowd, though. Just listen for a "OH MA GOTT WHY YOO SO LIKE DAT AH?" and yeah, just ask them if they're from Singapore (or Malaysia) and come back and tell me I'm wrong. I dare you.
(There's actually a really old E-mail type thing out there where Singlish has been put into the written word to recreate the "TREE LEETLE PIK BLADDAHS"…aka the story of the Three Little Pig [Brothers].)
Up to this point, I had a cute little British accent and my English, thanks to the influence of my parents (who refused to speak in Singlish at home), was decent, if not good.
Then came the Philippines in December, 1993, and my second international school: Brent International School, Manila. This international school used the American school system and taught American curricula, which basically meant that it also taught American English. This is where my English really took off, as our English teachers were primarily Americans, not necessarily Filipinos. It was also here that I picked up my American accent, as many of the students themselves were American.
Five years later, when I moved to Beijing, I took on the International Baccalaureate Diploma program in my last two years of high school (think AP but a million times worse), complete with Higher Level English (as opposed to Standard Level). I graduated and completed the Diploma program with a 6 in English (max score 7). Not perfect, but far from bad. I know I was happy since I'd survived a—for lack of a better word—bitch of a teacher.
My American slang made its appearance during my years in Beijing, since the International School of Beijing was not allowed to take local Chinese students, taught an American curriculum, and had a predominantly North American student population.
I should note here that, by this time, my Cantonese had long since taken a backseat to my English, with English being my primary, "native" language.
It was in college that I realized that while I may not be the best at plucking literary devices out of a piece of classical literature, I was by no means a slouch at writing...particularly in a grammatical sense. I was the go-to girl for all of my friends' paper-writing needs; they'd write their papers and I'd go at it with my trusty red pen (which, strangely enough, ran out of ink too quickly for my liking), editing for grammar, spelling, and punctuation…not to mention your basic essay-writing do's and don'ts.
I, the international student whose early years were marred with aye no speekee gud inglees, was now asked by native English speakers to edit and correct their English.
How the hell did that happen?
Well, it's a combination of three things. First, there's the fact that I had to build my English foundation from the ground up, and that I was educated not just using English as a primary teaching medium, but I was actually educated in the basic usage of English. The humiliation of being in ESL (which is what it was considered to be back in those days… an embarrassment to be sent to ESL classes) also drove me to try much harder when learning English. Ergo, I had to pay very specific attention to what I was doing when writing and speaking, if only to ensure that I did not make any mistakes.
Second, there was my seventh grade English teacher, Ms. McKibbin, when I was in the Philippines (who I maintain had a thing going on with our Social Studies teacher, Mr. Jordan). I will always remember her because she was the one who basically drilled basic English structure into our brains. We didn't do literature in that class. We did grammar. Syntax. Breaking down sentences daily to identify each individual part, from punctuation to word form to sentence structure.
Third, there's me. If I have to name a single talent, well, I'd say it was my ability to remember names like no one's business. If I had to name two talents, however, I'd definitely have to mention my affinity for other languages. Now, I don't speak very many languages (unlike some people I know who make the rest of us look bad, right Romain/Remy?), but my pronunciation and memorization skills are, well, elite.
(I would like to take this moment to note that the Penny Arcade Forums are being a butt and it is annoying me somewhat and ooh that rhymed.)
But yes, in most cases, my pronunciation of any language is pretty spot-on, even if I can barely speak the language itself. This is what I like to call "accent immersion." No matter where I am or what language is being spoken, give me a day or two and I can adapt and immerse myself in the accent almost flawlessly. It's what happened when I went to Oxford in the summer of 1999, it's what happens every time I go back to Hong Kong or Singapore or the Philippines, and it's certainly what happened when I was in Texas for volleyball camp. However they speak English in that country, it's how I inevitably end up speaking it (sometimes without even noticing it) if I spend a while there.
I cannot, for some reason, whip this arsenal of accents out at will. My "fake" British accent is appalling. I have to be surrounded in the accent, hearing it regularly, and being spoken to in the accent before I can pick it up. Almost an assimilation, if you will, of the accents around me. Once I leave, I revert back to my "default" accent (which, while American, is not representative of any specific region of the United States), at least until it's time to pick up a new accent.
That was actually a pretty severe tangent from the topic that I've been trying to lead you to. The entire post up to this point is an explanation regarding how my English has become so good. (Usage, practice, etc.) The rest of it, well, is the topic itself.
Here in Shanghai, English teachers are in great demand, to the point where most of the my foreign friends are only here to teach English. Depending on the company, you may or may not need a college diploma or any experience at all in teaching, and even with minimal qualifications you can still make a good salary that is enough to live quite comfortably on. I, too, briefly considered this track for a while, as teaching English would pay me more than what I'm making now while working half the hours.
But then comes a horrible truth: there are no language centers who will hire me to teach English. Why? Because I do not look like a foreigner.
Welcome to Shanghai, folks. Maybe even China in general, I can't say for certain. But even though my English is better than that of all my peers here in Shanghai (including the ones who are English teachers), no one will hire me to be a teacher. I look Chinese. Even if the company is willing to overlook that fact and hire me anyway, their clients sure as hell won't.
Their mentality would likely be, "What the hell, why am I paying this much money to be taught by a Chinese person who is exactly like me and probably doesn't know shit about English?" Even if I were to walk into the classroom, looking spiffy, and speak in my perfect English, the judgment is still there and anything that comes out of my mouth at that point would probably go through a severe filter or two in their brains, to the point where they are more likely to complain at me (or to the company) than bother listening.
Isn't it depressing? My mother wanted to teach English up in Beijing, and mentioned it over lunch to her Chinese teacher and a fellow student (yes my mother took Chinese classes up in Beijing, at Qinghua University, no less). My mom laments to the teacher that no one would hire her as an English teacher simply because she is Chinese. The Chinese teacher says no, that can't be true… when the fellow student jumps in and says that "No, they've asked ME to teach English, too!"
This "fellow student" is a 40-something woman from Hungary, with blond hair and blue eyes… and whose CHINESE IS BETTER THAN HER ENGLISH. That entire lunch conversation was in Chinese.
They would rather hire a foreigner who can't speak proper English to teach…over a Chinese person whose English is close to perfect. The even more moronic fact is that people like my mother and I are probably going to be better teachers, period, just because we came from a Chinese background but LEARNED and eventually MASTERED the English language.
I mean, we went through everything they're going through in trying to learn English. We MIGHT know what we're talking about when we're teaching them, you know. Maybe. But okay let's be fair…we at least have a better idea than most foreign teachers with regards to just how hard it is to learn English coming from a Chinese-speaking environment.
At least.
English teachers make twice my salary working no more than 30 hours a week, and they don't even have to be qualified in most cases! (Granted, the better places require that you have some experience in teaching, but many language centers don't ask for much more than looking white.)
And twice my salary is more than enough for a foreigner to get by comfortably here in Shanghai.
This is just one of the things that an FBC (foreign-born Chinese) has to deal with while living in Shanghai. You wanna talk racism? Talk Shanghai and its very special brand of it.
Now. Looking at me, it's blatantly obvious that I'm not local Chinese. Whether it's the way I look, dress, act, or speak, anyone with half an eye and a second's worth of attention can tell that I am not Shanghainese. Another second will tell you that I'm not from the mainland, either. I know this because my coworkers have pointed it out, as have many other locals who actually pay attention to people instead of judging them right off the bat.
Yet, because most people can't be bothered (or, to be fair, just don't have the time) to spare me an extra second's consideration, I get treated like a local. Is this bad? In Shanghai…yeah, it is.
Shanghainese people treat foreigners infinitely better than locals. Foreigners are put on this glamorous pedestal, so that people who were nobodies back in their home country are treated like kings and queens out here. They are paid expatriate salaries, for the most part, and are therefore assumed to be affluent and rich. Which is technically true; expat salaries are head-and-shoulders above local salaries, allowing for very comfortable lifestyles for most foreigners.
When I'm hanging out with my friends, the vast majority of whom are foreigners, it is instantly assumed that I am a local Shanghainese girl who's obviously only hanging out with them for their money. This assumption is made by just about every type of person, from locals to foreigners alike, and it drives me up the fucking wall.
It's not that being a local Shanghainese girl is a bad thing. It's that being labeled as a gold-digging, unintelligent skank is a bad thing. The fact of the matter is that local Shanghainese girls are, for the most part, NOT gold-digging, unintelligent skanks. But, as with their counterparts in the western world, there are enough of them that it gives them all a bad name. These GDUS are everywhere, in every country and city and culture…and I get labeled one just for looking Chinese and chilling with my friends. Especially when foreigners (aka "rich people") are involved.
How do I know this assumption is made about me? Oh, the stories I could tell. On the not-so offensive side, they simply involve a local ignoring my friends and speaking to me in Shanghainese when I've already made it quite clear that I am not Shanghainese…or even looking bewildered when I take the check to pay for my own dinner. On the more aggravating side, they involve snooty little French punks apologizing to me for one of his lady friends hitting on one of my guy friends because he assumed that, since I was even talking to my guy friend (and even though it was blatantly obvious to 80% of the bar that we were JUST friends, being that I was getting looks regardless), I was flirting with this friend and looking to get him in bed… and that I was somehow disappointed that my guy friend went for the French chick instead.
Man WHAT.
Shanghai is essentially what Hong Kong was 20 years ago, and while Hong Kong has gotten to the point where it treats locals and foreigners on the same level, Hong Kong has also become ultra-judgmental and snooty and pretentious, to the point where I would rather live in Shanghai than Hong Kong and deal with reverse racism.
I say Shanghai the city because this kind of mentality is less prevalent in Beijing. In Beijing, yeah, foreigners get treated like shit…but so does everyone else. Beijingers will treat anyone, white/yellow/brown/black the exact same way, and I appreciate that about the city.
I guess my problem with Shanghai isn't that I get treated badly just for being Chinese. At the core, my ire is fueled by the simple fact that there is a difference in treatment to begin with.
The first language I ever spoke was Cantonese. My first official word, according to my darling mother, was "mum mum," which did not actually mean "mother" as you would suspect. It actually meant "food" in pseudo-Cantonese-baby-speak. This does not surprise me; I was a very fat baby. I went to a local nursery in Hong Kong (called Woodland Pokfulam Pre-school, and if I could remember the words in Chinese I'd throw them here just to show off a bit) for two years prior to my family's move to Peoria, IL.
Sure, while I went to the Rainbow Kindergarten in the States, I must've picked up some English, right? Nah. I was all of 3 to 4 years old with a wailing, loudmouth, oh-god-the-walls-are-shaking of a baby sister at home. (Yes, ladies and gentlemen, that is precisely how she has American citizenship. She was born there.) Beyond memories of folding an origami-type scarf for a snowman from old newspapers and maybe getting tackled by a neighbor's dog so hard that I flew back about seven feet (it was a German Shepherd, too, the bitch)…I don't remember much of Peoria.
I imagine that dog-tackle had something to do with it. (Though seriously, my parents say that the incident is the reason why I was scared of dogs for a while.)
On return to Hong Kong in 1988, I attended my first international school: Chinese International School. Now, here's the hilarious thing: for three years, I was in ESL. For those of you who don't know what that is, it's English as a Second Language, which basically means that I was retarded with my English and had to be stuck into this class in an effort to improve my English skills. I still remember Mrs. Castle, the ESL teacher. (I do, in fact, remember all my homeroom teachers from K-12, because I have a terrifyingly powerful memory.)
To give you an idea of just how bad my English was, I spoke Cantonese daily, in between classes and after school. My parents, both working at the time, would demand that I be watching Sesame Street every afternoon. What did I do instead? Well, I would watch my Cantonese cartoons (which was really the anime show Attack No. 1 dubbed in Cantonese… my first ever anime and probably what made me end up going for volleyball years later)… and then, when I heard the elevator outside the apartment ding onto our floor and heard the key turn in the lock of our front door, I would quickly switch to the English channel and pretend like I was watching Elmo the entire time.
I was a sneaky little brat. Still am.
Anyway, lucky for me, I graduated from ESL just in time for our family's move to Singapore.
Now the point I'm trying to get at here is that my English, in the early years—the years that psychologists and linguists alike say are most key to language development in children—was abysmal. I mean, think stereotypical Chinglish, and that was me.
Singapore didn't exactly help, either, with the whole country speaking "Singlish" and me attending a local, all-girls school. If you've never heard it, it is a brutal combination of English, Mandarin, Cantonese, Hokkien, Malay, and Tamil that, when coupled with a terrifying accent, is designed solely as a linguistic challenge—a secret language, if you will—that only an elite few (i.e., the population of Singapore) is capable of understanding.
It does make Singaporeans easy to spot in a crowd, though. Just listen for a "OH MA GOTT WHY YOO SO LIKE DAT AH?" and yeah, just ask them if they're from Singapore (or Malaysia) and come back and tell me I'm wrong. I dare you.
(There's actually a really old E-mail type thing out there where Singlish has been put into the written word to recreate the "TREE LEETLE PIK BLADDAHS"…aka the story of the Three Little Pig [Brothers].)
Up to this point, I had a cute little British accent and my English, thanks to the influence of my parents (who refused to speak in Singlish at home), was decent, if not good.
Then came the Philippines in December, 1993, and my second international school: Brent International School, Manila. This international school used the American school system and taught American curricula, which basically meant that it also taught American English. This is where my English really took off, as our English teachers were primarily Americans, not necessarily Filipinos. It was also here that I picked up my American accent, as many of the students themselves were American.
Five years later, when I moved to Beijing, I took on the International Baccalaureate Diploma program in my last two years of high school (think AP but a million times worse), complete with Higher Level English (as opposed to Standard Level). I graduated and completed the Diploma program with a 6 in English (max score 7). Not perfect, but far from bad. I know I was happy since I'd survived a—for lack of a better word—bitch of a teacher.
My American slang made its appearance during my years in Beijing, since the International School of Beijing was not allowed to take local Chinese students, taught an American curriculum, and had a predominantly North American student population.
I should note here that, by this time, my Cantonese had long since taken a backseat to my English, with English being my primary, "native" language.
It was in college that I realized that while I may not be the best at plucking literary devices out of a piece of classical literature, I was by no means a slouch at writing...particularly in a grammatical sense. I was the go-to girl for all of my friends' paper-writing needs; they'd write their papers and I'd go at it with my trusty red pen (which, strangely enough, ran out of ink too quickly for my liking), editing for grammar, spelling, and punctuation…not to mention your basic essay-writing do's and don'ts.
I, the international student whose early years were marred with aye no speekee gud inglees, was now asked by native English speakers to edit and correct their English.
How the hell did that happen?
Well, it's a combination of three things. First, there's the fact that I had to build my English foundation from the ground up, and that I was educated not just using English as a primary teaching medium, but I was actually educated in the basic usage of English. The humiliation of being in ESL (which is what it was considered to be back in those days… an embarrassment to be sent to ESL classes) also drove me to try much harder when learning English. Ergo, I had to pay very specific attention to what I was doing when writing and speaking, if only to ensure that I did not make any mistakes.
Second, there was my seventh grade English teacher, Ms. McKibbin, when I was in the Philippines (who I maintain had a thing going on with our Social Studies teacher, Mr. Jordan). I will always remember her because she was the one who basically drilled basic English structure into our brains. We didn't do literature in that class. We did grammar. Syntax. Breaking down sentences daily to identify each individual part, from punctuation to word form to sentence structure.
Third, there's me. If I have to name a single talent, well, I'd say it was my ability to remember names like no one's business. If I had to name two talents, however, I'd definitely have to mention my affinity for other languages. Now, I don't speak very many languages (unlike some people I know who make the rest of us look bad, right Romain/Remy?), but my pronunciation and memorization skills are, well, elite.
(I would like to take this moment to note that the Penny Arcade Forums are being a butt and it is annoying me somewhat and ooh that rhymed.)
But yes, in most cases, my pronunciation of any language is pretty spot-on, even if I can barely speak the language itself. This is what I like to call "accent immersion." No matter where I am or what language is being spoken, give me a day or two and I can adapt and immerse myself in the accent almost flawlessly. It's what happened when I went to Oxford in the summer of 1999, it's what happens every time I go back to Hong Kong or Singapore or the Philippines, and it's certainly what happened when I was in Texas for volleyball camp. However they speak English in that country, it's how I inevitably end up speaking it (sometimes without even noticing it) if I spend a while there.
I cannot, for some reason, whip this arsenal of accents out at will. My "fake" British accent is appalling. I have to be surrounded in the accent, hearing it regularly, and being spoken to in the accent before I can pick it up. Almost an assimilation, if you will, of the accents around me. Once I leave, I revert back to my "default" accent (which, while American, is not representative of any specific region of the United States), at least until it's time to pick up a new accent.
That was actually a pretty severe tangent from the topic that I've been trying to lead you to. The entire post up to this point is an explanation regarding how my English has become so good. (Usage, practice, etc.) The rest of it, well, is the topic itself.
Here in Shanghai, English teachers are in great demand, to the point where most of the my foreign friends are only here to teach English. Depending on the company, you may or may not need a college diploma or any experience at all in teaching, and even with minimal qualifications you can still make a good salary that is enough to live quite comfortably on. I, too, briefly considered this track for a while, as teaching English would pay me more than what I'm making now while working half the hours.
But then comes a horrible truth: there are no language centers who will hire me to teach English. Why? Because I do not look like a foreigner.
Welcome to Shanghai, folks. Maybe even China in general, I can't say for certain. But even though my English is better than that of all my peers here in Shanghai (including the ones who are English teachers), no one will hire me to be a teacher. I look Chinese. Even if the company is willing to overlook that fact and hire me anyway, their clients sure as hell won't.
Their mentality would likely be, "What the hell, why am I paying this much money to be taught by a Chinese person who is exactly like me and probably doesn't know shit about English?" Even if I were to walk into the classroom, looking spiffy, and speak in my perfect English, the judgment is still there and anything that comes out of my mouth at that point would probably go through a severe filter or two in their brains, to the point where they are more likely to complain at me (or to the company) than bother listening.
Isn't it depressing? My mother wanted to teach English up in Beijing, and mentioned it over lunch to her Chinese teacher and a fellow student (yes my mother took Chinese classes up in Beijing, at Qinghua University, no less). My mom laments to the teacher that no one would hire her as an English teacher simply because she is Chinese. The Chinese teacher says no, that can't be true… when the fellow student jumps in and says that "No, they've asked ME to teach English, too!"
This "fellow student" is a 40-something woman from Hungary, with blond hair and blue eyes… and whose CHINESE IS BETTER THAN HER ENGLISH. That entire lunch conversation was in Chinese.
They would rather hire a foreigner who can't speak proper English to teach…over a Chinese person whose English is close to perfect. The even more moronic fact is that people like my mother and I are probably going to be better teachers, period, just because we came from a Chinese background but LEARNED and eventually MASTERED the English language.
I mean, we went through everything they're going through in trying to learn English. We MIGHT know what we're talking about when we're teaching them, you know. Maybe. But okay let's be fair…we at least have a better idea than most foreign teachers with regards to just how hard it is to learn English coming from a Chinese-speaking environment.
At least.
English teachers make twice my salary working no more than 30 hours a week, and they don't even have to be qualified in most cases! (Granted, the better places require that you have some experience in teaching, but many language centers don't ask for much more than looking white.)
And twice my salary is more than enough for a foreigner to get by comfortably here in Shanghai.
This is just one of the things that an FBC (foreign-born Chinese) has to deal with while living in Shanghai. You wanna talk racism? Talk Shanghai and its very special brand of it.
Now. Looking at me, it's blatantly obvious that I'm not local Chinese. Whether it's the way I look, dress, act, or speak, anyone with half an eye and a second's worth of attention can tell that I am not Shanghainese. Another second will tell you that I'm not from the mainland, either. I know this because my coworkers have pointed it out, as have many other locals who actually pay attention to people instead of judging them right off the bat.
Yet, because most people can't be bothered (or, to be fair, just don't have the time) to spare me an extra second's consideration, I get treated like a local. Is this bad? In Shanghai…yeah, it is.
Shanghainese people treat foreigners infinitely better than locals. Foreigners are put on this glamorous pedestal, so that people who were nobodies back in their home country are treated like kings and queens out here. They are paid expatriate salaries, for the most part, and are therefore assumed to be affluent and rich. Which is technically true; expat salaries are head-and-shoulders above local salaries, allowing for very comfortable lifestyles for most foreigners.
When I'm hanging out with my friends, the vast majority of whom are foreigners, it is instantly assumed that I am a local Shanghainese girl who's obviously only hanging out with them for their money. This assumption is made by just about every type of person, from locals to foreigners alike, and it drives me up the fucking wall.
It's not that being a local Shanghainese girl is a bad thing. It's that being labeled as a gold-digging, unintelligent skank is a bad thing. The fact of the matter is that local Shanghainese girls are, for the most part, NOT gold-digging, unintelligent skanks. But, as with their counterparts in the western world, there are enough of them that it gives them all a bad name. These GDUS are everywhere, in every country and city and culture…and I get labeled one just for looking Chinese and chilling with my friends. Especially when foreigners (aka "rich people") are involved.
How do I know this assumption is made about me? Oh, the stories I could tell. On the not-so offensive side, they simply involve a local ignoring my friends and speaking to me in Shanghainese when I've already made it quite clear that I am not Shanghainese…or even looking bewildered when I take the check to pay for my own dinner. On the more aggravating side, they involve snooty little French punks apologizing to me for one of his lady friends hitting on one of my guy friends because he assumed that, since I was even talking to my guy friend (and even though it was blatantly obvious to 80% of the bar that we were JUST friends, being that I was getting looks regardless), I was flirting with this friend and looking to get him in bed… and that I was somehow disappointed that my guy friend went for the French chick instead.
Man WHAT.
Shanghai is essentially what Hong Kong was 20 years ago, and while Hong Kong has gotten to the point where it treats locals and foreigners on the same level, Hong Kong has also become ultra-judgmental and snooty and pretentious, to the point where I would rather live in Shanghai than Hong Kong and deal with reverse racism.
I say Shanghai the city because this kind of mentality is less prevalent in Beijing. In Beijing, yeah, foreigners get treated like shit…but so does everyone else. Beijingers will treat anyone, white/yellow/brown/black the exact same way, and I appreciate that about the city.
I guess my problem with Shanghai isn't that I get treated badly just for being Chinese. At the core, my ire is fueled by the simple fact that there is a difference in treatment to begin with.
Friday, June 1, 2007
Reading
So apparently my rambling entries are a "superb" read if you can stand to actually start reading them instead of scrolling down and being intimidated by the appearance of length. Thanks Jay! That comment (on LJ) actually meant a ton, haha!
(I'll probably be throwing up entries like that for a while, if only because it's nice to get all introspective when you're in a good place in your life.)
The funny thing is that I know people do that…before they even start reading anything, they'll flip through it to gauge the length and then decide then and there whether or not it's worth the effort it's going to take to read it. This happens with books, articles in newspapers and magazines, blog entries, and basically any other place you're going to find a significant collection of text.
I remember back in college, whenever we were given a reading assignment, the very first thing everyone would do is a little math: he wants us to read how many pages? Depending on their own personal aversion to large numbers, they will then approach the assignment as either tedious or quick or not-worth-their-time and so on. So, even before they have read the actual content of the text, they already have a very strong opinion about it…simply based on its length.
Now, stepping away from the textbook analogy for a moment (as the content can occasionally be dry and most of the time you're only reading it because you have to), let's have a look at how this works for "voluntary" reading material.
Sometimes, you'll read a book because someone else recommended it to you. They assure you that it is a good read, that you will be a better person for it, that upon reading it you will gain lots and lots of sex, that it contains the key to happiness and that shiny new BMW Z-4 Roadster you've always wanted. (Man was I ever conned.) Therefore, you consider reading it, no matter the length…though you will naturally choose to read the blurb to see if you really are interested in the topic.
Picture yourself wandering through a store (and for the love of god don't nitpick this section I know I'm not you for fuck's sake just work with me here). You're just glancing at titles off the shelf, occasionally reaching out and grabbing a book written by an author you like, a title that sounds particularly catchy, or a cover that's flashy and cool-looking. You pick up the book for any of these reasons and, almost automatically, turn it over to read the blurb on the back. Maybe (if it's not wrapped up in plastic wrap), if the blurb is intriguing enough, you flip through the first few pages.
To accommodate the changing times, I should probably also add that you get to access things like reviews, summaries, blurbs, and user comments on this nifty little place called the internets.
When it comes to newspapers, you read the headlines and generally only read the articles with headlines that catch your attention. (I cheat and use Reuters.) For the rest, you skim through. In magazines, the process generally goes along the lines of flip-flip-flip-flip-flip-reeeeeeeeeeeeeeeaaaaaaad-flip-flip-flip-flip-ooohthatiscute-flip- flip-flip-reeeeeeaaaaaad (because really no one looks at the table contents in most magazines unless it's like The Economist or something). Short of a lengthy flight or a magazine centered around a very specific interest, very few people actually read every single article in every single magazine that they happen to pick up.
Enter the human psyche. Very few people actually want to read anything unless there's something in it for them. Usually, that' interest that stems from a preview or a catchy title/headline.
The only time you're going to sit and start reading something that you know nothing about prior to the act of sitting down and picking it up is if it looks short and quick.
Which, let's be honest, is pretty fair in all respects. No one really has the time to waste reading a long article about something that they may not even find interesting. So they stick to things that are short and take little time to read through. This way, even if the topic was stupid or sucked or whatever, at least they didn't waste a bunch of hours reading it.
So here's my question: when approached with a long article on a blog or even a forum post, do you scroll down to see how long it is before you even begin reading? If yes, do you often groan when all you see going down the screen is a blur of text and, as a result, often find yourself disinclined to read it?
How often do you really stop to read a random blog or forum post without scrolling down first to check the length?
I ask only to lead to a conclusion on the human psyche. We like to know, in advance, what we're spending our precious time on. For textbooks, we have grades. For books, we have blurbs. For news, we have the need to stay updated. For magazines, we have personal, topical interest. But in the world of blogs, where topics range far and wide across tentacle porn, video cards, the latest trends in scarves, how to ace an interview, introspective journal entries, bored kids whining about life and darkness and pain while posting from their US$1500+ computers, giggly accounts of sexual exploits, gaming expectations, movie reviews, music reviews, book reviews, blog reviews, review reviews…and the most random of rants…it is nearly impossible to know what you're looking at without actually starting to read something.
There are no blurbs, no summaries. Occasionally you have a catchy, informative title but let's face it, seldom do they venture beyond of realms of "lol this is cool" or "omg wtf." Even rarer are those bloggers who categorize every damned blog post they make. Rarer still is to find a blogger who consistently posts something meaningful, interesting, or engaging. So, the best defense you as a human have is to check out the length of the post.
If it's too long, you figure that no one on the internet could possibly post so much text so as to make it worth your time to muddle through. For all intents and purposes it could just be the most inane of rants with countless grammatical, logical, and factual errors. It is, after all, the goddamn internet. Birthplace of things like 4chan, orca stacks, and MySpace.
(Oh yes, yes she DID.)
Let's say you dive right into a blog post without knowing how long it is. Let's assume that it ends up being a whopping 2,500-word post.
Worst case scenario, you waste upwards of half an hour navigating your way though the chaotic muddle of keyboard bashing and reactionary thinking, to the point where you lose a few IQ points and probably get a bit ornery that people out there really think like that. (Even if it's just the internet.) Best case scenario, you surface refreshed from an entertaining, enlightening, informative, and probably humorous read that gives you perspective on something that you'd never before considered.
Run a quick cost-benefit analysis, adjusted for the lolinternetz factor, and generally speaking you're going to find that the chance of a best case scenario surfacing often enough to make saddling a whopping number of worst case scenarios worthwhile is horrifyingly slim.
Therefore, when you see an "lol wall-o-text crits you for 2500 dmg," you sigh, throw down your tl;dr card, and move on with your life, unmolested. Reading 50 words of utter retardation, after all, is far easier to stomach than 5,000 words of it.
Not to mention, some people are capable of being insightful and clever in under 200 words. So, statistically speaking, the speed required to read through sub-200-word posts is so much less than working through 2500+ word posts that you basically have a better chance of reading more fascinating articles if you stick to the short stuff than if you gambled with the long stuff.
It's just more time-efficient if you simply ignored anything particularly long to which you have zero attachment.
Welcome to the human psyche.
I, unfortunately, am incapable of keeping my insights short and simple.
WOE IS ME.
(I'll probably be throwing up entries like that for a while, if only because it's nice to get all introspective when you're in a good place in your life.)
The funny thing is that I know people do that…before they even start reading anything, they'll flip through it to gauge the length and then decide then and there whether or not it's worth the effort it's going to take to read it. This happens with books, articles in newspapers and magazines, blog entries, and basically any other place you're going to find a significant collection of text.
I remember back in college, whenever we were given a reading assignment, the very first thing everyone would do is a little math: he wants us to read how many pages? Depending on their own personal aversion to large numbers, they will then approach the assignment as either tedious or quick or not-worth-their-time and so on. So, even before they have read the actual content of the text, they already have a very strong opinion about it…simply based on its length.
Now, stepping away from the textbook analogy for a moment (as the content can occasionally be dry and most of the time you're only reading it because you have to), let's have a look at how this works for "voluntary" reading material.
Sometimes, you'll read a book because someone else recommended it to you. They assure you that it is a good read, that you will be a better person for it, that upon reading it you will gain lots and lots of sex, that it contains the key to happiness and that shiny new BMW Z-4 Roadster you've always wanted. (Man was I ever conned.) Therefore, you consider reading it, no matter the length…though you will naturally choose to read the blurb to see if you really are interested in the topic.
Picture yourself wandering through a store (and for the love of god don't nitpick this section I know I'm not you for fuck's sake just work with me here). You're just glancing at titles off the shelf, occasionally reaching out and grabbing a book written by an author you like, a title that sounds particularly catchy, or a cover that's flashy and cool-looking. You pick up the book for any of these reasons and, almost automatically, turn it over to read the blurb on the back. Maybe (if it's not wrapped up in plastic wrap), if the blurb is intriguing enough, you flip through the first few pages.
To accommodate the changing times, I should probably also add that you get to access things like reviews, summaries, blurbs, and user comments on this nifty little place called the internets.
When it comes to newspapers, you read the headlines and generally only read the articles with headlines that catch your attention. (I cheat and use Reuters.) For the rest, you skim through. In magazines, the process generally goes along the lines of flip-flip-flip-flip-flip-reeeeeeeeeeeeeeeaaaaaaad-flip-flip-flip-flip-ooohthatiscute-flip- flip-flip-reeeeeeaaaaaad (because really no one looks at the table contents in most magazines unless it's like The Economist or something). Short of a lengthy flight or a magazine centered around a very specific interest, very few people actually read every single article in every single magazine that they happen to pick up.
Enter the human psyche. Very few people actually want to read anything unless there's something in it for them. Usually, that' interest that stems from a preview or a catchy title/headline.
The only time you're going to sit and start reading something that you know nothing about prior to the act of sitting down and picking it up is if it looks short and quick.
Which, let's be honest, is pretty fair in all respects. No one really has the time to waste reading a long article about something that they may not even find interesting. So they stick to things that are short and take little time to read through. This way, even if the topic was stupid or sucked or whatever, at least they didn't waste a bunch of hours reading it.
So here's my question: when approached with a long article on a blog or even a forum post, do you scroll down to see how long it is before you even begin reading? If yes, do you often groan when all you see going down the screen is a blur of text and, as a result, often find yourself disinclined to read it?
How often do you really stop to read a random blog or forum post without scrolling down first to check the length?
I ask only to lead to a conclusion on the human psyche. We like to know, in advance, what we're spending our precious time on. For textbooks, we have grades. For books, we have blurbs. For news, we have the need to stay updated. For magazines, we have personal, topical interest. But in the world of blogs, where topics range far and wide across tentacle porn, video cards, the latest trends in scarves, how to ace an interview, introspective journal entries, bored kids whining about life and darkness and pain while posting from their US$1500+ computers, giggly accounts of sexual exploits, gaming expectations, movie reviews, music reviews, book reviews, blog reviews, review reviews…and the most random of rants…it is nearly impossible to know what you're looking at without actually starting to read something.
There are no blurbs, no summaries. Occasionally you have a catchy, informative title but let's face it, seldom do they venture beyond of realms of "lol this is cool" or "omg wtf." Even rarer are those bloggers who categorize every damned blog post they make. Rarer still is to find a blogger who consistently posts something meaningful, interesting, or engaging. So, the best defense you as a human have is to check out the length of the post.
If it's too long, you figure that no one on the internet could possibly post so much text so as to make it worth your time to muddle through. For all intents and purposes it could just be the most inane of rants with countless grammatical, logical, and factual errors. It is, after all, the goddamn internet. Birthplace of things like 4chan, orca stacks, and MySpace.
(Oh yes, yes she DID.)
Let's say you dive right into a blog post without knowing how long it is. Let's assume that it ends up being a whopping 2,500-word post.
Worst case scenario, you waste upwards of half an hour navigating your way though the chaotic muddle of keyboard bashing and reactionary thinking, to the point where you lose a few IQ points and probably get a bit ornery that people out there really think like that. (Even if it's just the internet.) Best case scenario, you surface refreshed from an entertaining, enlightening, informative, and probably humorous read that gives you perspective on something that you'd never before considered.
Run a quick cost-benefit analysis, adjusted for the lolinternetz factor, and generally speaking you're going to find that the chance of a best case scenario surfacing often enough to make saddling a whopping number of worst case scenarios worthwhile is horrifyingly slim.
Therefore, when you see an "lol wall-o-text crits you for 2500 dmg," you sigh, throw down your tl;dr card, and move on with your life, unmolested. Reading 50 words of utter retardation, after all, is far easier to stomach than 5,000 words of it.
Not to mention, some people are capable of being insightful and clever in under 200 words. So, statistically speaking, the speed required to read through sub-200-word posts is so much less than working through 2500+ word posts that you basically have a better chance of reading more fascinating articles if you stick to the short stuff than if you gambled with the long stuff.
It's just more time-efficient if you simply ignored anything particularly long to which you have zero attachment.
Welcome to the human psyche.
I, unfortunately, am incapable of keeping my insights short and simple.
WOE IS ME.
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