227 - The big deal about swear words

When I was a kid, maybe around five, six or seven years old, my mother used to tell me to 'Stop that crap!' when I misbehaved or said something incredibly heinous. This was the first 'bad word' I can remember myself being exposed to, and since I had the vocabulary of a seven-year-old, I took the word 'crap' and associated it quickly to the most accessible word that sounded the most similar - 'crab'. I literally, for a couple of years, thought my mother was telling me to 'Stop that crab!', thinking it was a combination of her non-native accent that interchanged the 'p' and the 'b' sounds, and that crabs had notoriously demonstrated naughtiness in some ancient Chinese folktale.

See, the word 'crap' isn't so bad, right? I haven't offended anybody, have I? (Actually, seriously, have I?)

Often, it can be awkward though when you're cussing, especially when you're on Facebook or on these blogs and you know your family or your teachers are following. But why does it have to be awkward? I mean, words like 'cock', 'bitch', 'boob', and 'ass' can all mean things unprofane, and don't forget the name 'Dick'.

I think that it is right to discourage children from using these words, as they don't know the implications of them... however, I don't see what the big deal is when we're older, so long as we don't use them maliciously, or lazily without other words at our perusal to express our vehemence, joy, pain or surprise. I guess often these words are used derogatively, profanely, in a socially disrespectful manner, but it just irks me slightly because they're only words, sticks and stones...

What do you think? What makes a word into a ‘bad’ word? How bad is too bad when it comes to normal, everyday conversation? Does it depend on who you're talking with? Where do we draw the line when writing in a public space, such as your blog?

205 - When other people touch your Christmas gifts without asking

First of all, Merry Christmas, my Blogger friends. It's coming to the end of the year, and it's good to know that I was actually capable of fulfilling one whole year of blogging. Even though the posts became a bit spread out over the summer, I'm grateful of it nonetheless, and I'm sure I will look back on this one day and be really proud and happy to read what I wrote and what you said in return.

I'm not sure when all of you open up your presents, but do tell. I opened mine today and was quite pleased with the results.

The amount of gifts you generally receive over Christmastime as you get older begins at a high plot on the graph, and gradually becomes a downward-sloping curve, until some time around adolescence where it basically just becomes a flat line, lingering around three to seven presents 'til the day you die. I remember when I was just eight years old, and I got around four times the number my mother received. Oh, to be a child again...

I remember one of my gifts that Christmas was a Pikachu watch, and I was so elated that I wanted to try it on immediately. For some reason the watch wouldn't switch on, so I searched in the box for the manual. And that's when my grandmother decided to snatch the manual and the watch from my hands. I got so angry at her, I nabbed it back, shouted at her for not letting me do it by myself, stomped on her foot, and ran out of the house.

I was extremely bad-tempered as a kid. Eight-year-olds - not the nicest people in the world. (I nod to my family in Gravesend.) But I guess I'll talk about eight-year-olds some other day (like when I have my own?).

It is rude and infuriating when someone takes something of yours without asking, though. Especially something like a Christmas present that's still new and being examined. With my relatives that I'm staying with here in England, everybody is fairly well-mannered, asking if that toy could be played with, or if that book could be taken to have a look at. That's the right way to do things.

At the time, I thought my grandmother was just jealous of the number of presents I got (which she probably was a little because she just got two from the whole family). But she was just trying to help, of course. But there's a way to go about things. You don't snatch people's presents away from them without asking. 

And you also don't go about stomping on grandma's feet.

194 - People who don't like Disney movies

So today, I'm going to talk about the reasons why I think Disney films are great, and the problems with people who dislike them. And when I talk about Disney films, I'm talking about the older stuff, the classical stuff, the better stuff in the earlier days, when the movies were completely composed of heart, fun and fantasy. Not the stuff that's been coming out in the past ten years. Not the films that they've sort of moved on with. I mean, Atlantis, Lilo & Stitch, Bolt and a couple of others have been fairly solid, but they've evolved (in the wrong direction, IMHO) since the good ol' days.

No, I'm talking about the masterpieces of Disney. I'm talking about Alice in Wonderland, Cinderella, The Little Mermaid and Peter Pan. They brought you to another world, a whole different reality where caterpillars speak in vowels, pumpkins turn into carriages, and kids can fly with the help of a little fairy dust.

In some films, like The Lion King, Tarzan and Dumbo, the anthropomorphic effect made you appreciate (well, they made me appreciate) animals, and at the time those films were released, I was a kid that would actually learn about the animal kingdom through these films. It even made me learn to appreciate my toys after watching Toy Story, even the furniture in my house after seeing Beauty and the Beast. The scenes, the landscapes that were all drawn by hand made it so beautiful and believable, and I find that with a lot of real-life, in the flesh, movies, it's hard to feel that way because cinematographers are trying to make real filming locations beyond what they really are. With animations, especially the way Disney have done it, it can just be breathtaking, and enthralling, how they make a deer's mother matter so much, or how they make a puppet/boy matter so much. It really makes you wonder, and appreciate how much larger the Circle of Life is outside our own lives, our own modern-day age.

One of the other key reasons I also like Disney, is because they bring us to different places and time periods. From China (Mulan), through India (The Jungle Book), the Arabian deserts (Aladdin), France (Hunchback of Notre Dame), Greece (Hercules), to Native America (Pocahontas), how can it not be amazing to any viewer? How can it not be appealing for a parent to bring their kids to see these movies when they're just so educational and mind-opening, yet fun, for the kids?

The overall underlying theme in Disney works is the moral lessons they subtly include. They don't know shove the moral spectrum of right or wrong in your face - and at times, it can be difficult to tell where the ethics lie. Should Snow White learn to distrust strangers like the evil witch? Then again, should she trust her one and only family member, her stepmother, the Queen? Seeing as the dwarfs are strangers to her as well, was it right for her to trust them?

After the movie is over, though, you take away from it a real story, with complexity in the tale. You can't blame Pinocchio or Tarzan for not knowing what's right and wrong, it makes you think, it makes adults think when they re-watch them years later. How can people not understand how Disney movies are so ingenious?

I think it's because they've got their head too far up their bum. They're so narrow-minded, that they only see beauty in what they find beautiful, they find that their morals are sufficient to live the lives they lead, and they can only be emotionally invested in their own life, not the life of some 'stupid cartoon character', because they're self-centered. From where I stand, Disney movies are used to be beautifully crafted, empathetic, exuberant, compelling, and at times, even haunting, morally thoughtful, and absolutely cultivating for grown-ups, and certainly, any child growing up with parents that want their kid to learn.

190 - People who pretend to be cats

When I was in my fourth year of primary school, I knew these two girls who would always sneak out of class to go to the ladies' room together. Even at my young age, I suspected that they might be engaging in some lesbionic activities at first, but it turns out that they were doing something a little less sexual, but a little bit more scary.

The bathroom doors weren't closed, so any passer-by could see the sink area, which is where they were, instead of the cubicles doing excretory business. One day, I decided to follow them out of the classroom, and I found them kneeling on the floor where the window of the washroom was, next to the sinks, and they were meowing up at the sky, so it seems, like wolves howling at the moon. Between purring toward the big blue, they would also lick the back of their palms (paws), and stroke their own imaginary tails (seriously). It was beyond bizarre for me to catch a glimpse of.

They saw me watching them, so they moved on their hands and knees toward me, like actual felines. I asked them what they were doing, and one of them, out of nowhere, reached out her hand, lashed me and scratched my face with her sharp nails. Then, I was left with a Jurassic Park-like laceration on my face.

That was weird, painful, and stupid. Damn girls and their weird games.

163 - When people complain about being tired

When people tell me they're tired, I don't know what exactly they would like me to do to help them. Is this just something that is a 'problem', an 'issue', a matter that deserves multiple people's attention? Does it make them feel better if they confide in me about their exhaustion? Or do they expect me to make them a double espresso, made with extra strong-tasting Coffea arabica beans, and with an additional dose of sugar/sweetener added? Or do they expect me to sing a lullaby to them? Perhaps count sheep with them? Get them home and in their jammies and tuck them in?

It's annoying how people say they're tired in the morning, although, it is understandable since they just woke up. But then again, people also say they're tired after they finish their dinner, and when they' realize just how late it is when they stay up in the middle of the night, and the next day, they complain, yet again, about their tiredness after vigorous exercise during the daytime, and after a good long afternoon of playing games, or work, or day out with the family.

You see, I am tired, if you want me to be frank. I work from 11:30am 'til past midnight for six days a week as a bartender. I have to keep a smile on my face, and talk to customers, my coworkers, and my boss constantly, as if I enjoy washing and polishing a thousand glasses a day. I have to pour over a hundred glasses of wine in a day, over twenty cups of coffee, and over two hundred glasses of beer. I have to remember the names of over fifty different beers, and what their corresponding bottles, glasses, and coasters, look like, as well as memorize each glass and bottle's locations amongst the shelves in the bar, their brewing methods and distinct features, their country of origin, and their prices. I have to remember all the food on the menu, all the ingredients in each dish, how they're cooked, what the chef recommends, what the manager recommends, what wine goes well with what meat, what sauce goes well with what meat, and to which customer every dish coming out of the kitchen should be served. I also need to know a lot of miscellaneous crap, like where to find the spare limes to make garnishable lime wedges, where to find the milk, where to find the various kinds of tea bags (English Breakfast, Earl Grey, Green, Peppermint, etc...), which dial or switch adjusts and controls which light in the restaurant, what music to play at what hour and with what atmosphere, and which credit cards we take and which we don't.........

Uh, of course, I'm tired.

But I don't complain about it, because that doesn't help anybody. It never helped me when I was primary school, 'cause that just made my parents bring me home earlier to put me to sleep. It doesn't help at school, it distracts you, it gives you a reason to not pay attention. It also gives you a reason to be lazy at work. And It doesn't help when you run, when you swim, whenever you do exercise, 'cause that one breath spent on expressing your fatigue could've been used instead on invigorating you one breath bit further.

I suggest people should just suck it up. If you're that tired, if you're really tired, then forget about your work, or your studies, or your friends and family, all your responsibility, and just go home, go to bed, go relax, go to sleep, go take a break, go rest your eyes, until you're not tired, and generally, just shut up, 'cause I get most of my tiredness, from listening to that one line too often: "I'm tired~"

Argh. People can be so damn whiny. (Oops, was that a bartender's pun?)

145 - When someone isn't close to their parents

We all feel lonely sometimes, even if we have a spouse, a sibling, or a large clique to hang out with. It's nice to have someone, or some people, who you can rely on, whenever you're feeling lonely - the kind of people that will answer your calls in the middle of the night if you need to talk, the ones that will always love you and care about you, the sort of person that won't mind accompanying you for dinner, even if it means they have to cancel other prior arrangements.

I'm lucky enough to have three of those people: my mother, my father, and my best friend.

They listen to me, they like me unconditionally, they have stuck by me for so many years. It hasn't been easy, no, not at all. My mother has kicked me out of my house, my father and I have had long periods in which we don't talk to each other for years, and my best friend has told me before that he hates me.

But the fact that these relationships have been maintained for so long, despite all the disagreements, is a testament to how strong these bonds really are.

I never understand how people can not be 'close' to their parents. I've tried to resist my relationships with my mom and my dad, in my iconoclastic, adolescent, rebellious spirit, but upon reflection, I honestly cannot help but be drawn to them. Still a teenager myself, I find it uneasy to say this, but people should make the effort to talk to family. I'm not going to cry out loud about my own domestic situation, but I know others with far worse-off conditions, and you know, they somehow function, and they function because the family communicates and works through their issues together.

Frankly, I hate hearing about people who "never really talk about stuff" with their parents because I find it rather sad. These people, like one of my older cousins for example, don't really know how to talk to their own kids either. It's a vicious cycle passed on from generation to generation...

But perhaps this familial flaw should be attributed more to the parents rather than the children. After all, when you're a kid, you just don't know any better. It's up to the parents to teach the kid that talking about "stuff" can be good. I say it's better than talking to a psychologist/counselor. I say it's better than withholding your emotions.

But meh, whatever floats your boat.

143 - Saying I'm 'too old' for cartoons

So I'm sitting on the sofa after school, watching Scooby Doo on TV. (I love Scooby Doo, as well as Popeye and Dexter's Laboratory and Avatar: The Last Airbender.) Then my grandfather comes out in to the living room, sees what I'm watching, and goes ballistic because it's unthinkable that a person my age would be watching such a silly program. Perhaps I should watch Bloomberg, or BBC/FOX News, and get educated on law, finance and politics, or so that I can perhaps learn about the murder of a family of four in Kentucky, or a case of food poisoning in Xian, or maybe I can find out about the deteriorating environment around the world, or get to know a little about the vast array of unnerving epidemics across the globe.

Jeez, what the Hell is wrong with me watching cartoons? Cartoons are fun to watch. Let's face it: the news, and most documentaries bore the crap out of everybody. Perhaps you would like me to watch some violent, gory, suspense drama instead?

Gosh, I love cartoons. The violence displayed when Tweety drops an anvil on Sylvester's head actually entertains me in a way that Jack Bauer never could: it doesn't increase the risk of me suffering from depression, it doesn't make me more prone to being a violent father when I grow up, and no, no, no, it doesn't make me hornier, it doesn't make me want to have sex more. (Those articles in the paper and on TV piss me off.) Obviously, this is because these cartoon shows are for children.

Actually, I think these shows are made for older people to watch, namely adolescents. It's not like a three-year-old actually understands what the heck is happening on Sesame Street, or really understands the wittiness displayed in cartoons like The Powerpuff Girls, or Teen Titans. Do you know how many great jokes there were in Finding Nemo? Paying for kids' movie tickets to see Pixar films is wasted money. They don't get all the quips, they don't understand what's going on, they don't comprehend the storylines, maybe only partially, but not all of it. Because they're too slow and stupid. Leave it to educated me to laugh at the seagulls repeatedly exclaiming, "Mate!". (The seagulls cry "Mate!" because they're Australian seagulls. Australians are known to refer to friends, and strangers, as their "mates". Hahaha.) (Don't you hate it when people explain their jokes/popular culture references to you?)

Teenagers can watch cartoons. And, in fact, so can adults. Humph.

112 - Fingerprints

A week or so ago, I was using someone's iPhone to check my e-mails, until I started to notice that I was creating tiny impressions on the screen with the small ridges and minuscule valleys located on my fingertip. It bothered me, and I attempted to make it all better by simply 'wiping' it off, wrongfully with my fingertip. This only achieved a smudgy gash of fingertip oil (is it actually oil?) spread out diagonally across the display. So then I reached into my shirt, poked my shirt from the inside, and tried to wipe the screen. The weave of my shirt's fabric just made it the smudge worse.

I hate fingerprints on television screens, mirrors, cutlery made of stainless steel, magnifying glasses, snow globes and paperweights, vases, marbles, calculator displays in mathematics class, scalpels in biology class, beakers and conical flasks in chemistry class, lenses in physics class, rulers, protractors, metal keys, CDs, aluminum foil, glasses/spectacles, computer monitors, metal doorknobs, windows, anything laminated, iPod screens, the front-faces of alarm clocks, lighters, sunglasses, glass cabinets, glass doors, those plastic lids that protect airplane food, those plastic cups on airplanes, airplane windows, the walls of greenhouses, shiny Rubik's cubes, tiled floors and walls, coins, pianos, knife edges, good-quality playing cards, beads, light bulbs, photographs, mahjong tiles, the faces of some wristwatches, folder slots, guitars and other instruments, especially drum cymbals, hard covered books, et cetera.

I think just prints in general peeve me. The worst case for me just has to be lipstick (or lip oiliness in general) on the edge of a glass.

No, no, scratch that. The worst occurrence is when people sit down when they're sweaty, so they leave giant butt marks with their perspiring posteriors.

Actually, no. The worst instance of fingerprints for me simply is a bunch of kindergartners deliberately painting their hand in order to make prints. It's intentionally done. And that's appalling.

111 - "Mommy! Mommy! Mommy! Mommy! Mommy! Mommy! Mommy!"

What is up with mommies in public who ignore their children's pleas of "Mommy, look outside! Mommy, Mommy, look! Mommy, Mommy, Mommy! Mommy, Mommy, Mommy, Mommy, Mommy! MOOOOOOOMMYYYYYYYYY!"?

Lord, I loathe these 'darling little angels'. They're so darn cute, and worse yet, innocent, but kids are like the spawn of the Devil himself. I mean, I want to sew their lips together whenever they open their mouths and emit sound. (Huh, perhaps I've said too much.)

I know we're all overworked, and the economy is bad, but really, a simple word of motherly recognition can go a looooong way in keeping the harmony.

Plus, it saves you from other people's disdainful looks. Like mine.

I absolutely abhor these callous mothers.

Or perhaps they're more deaf than they are insensitive and they can't hear their kids' beckoning in actual fact. Their eardrums have probably been shattered from years of adorable high-pitched screaming.

96 - Obnoxiously wide people on public transportation

I don't mean to complain about those who are fat, but what I'm implying is when people, either willingly or obliviously, are incredibly wide on public transportation seating.

There's always the big construction worker going home from a long day at work, who spreads his legs as far apart as he can, like he's trying to reach both ends of the bloody train. There's the kindergarten punk kid that won't stop squirming and doing somersaults on his seat. There's the old lady that's coming back from the supermarket, plastic bags filled with fish and veggies galore, laid out all over the floor in front of her and the people she's sitting next to on either side. There's the teenager with the loud rock music and headphones, his restless leg shaking up and down, nudging your leg. There's the guy with a lot of bags, or the big, big jacket, or the suitcase, who just can't help but nudge you, but really, really wants to sit down from carrying around that much weight.

And then there's me, the slight germaphobe, who doesn't really like coming into physical contact with strangers (or their fish). There's the pregnant lady who's clamping her legs together because she's afraid the teenage kid's hard rock music will transpire through the air, through her cervix and cause mental illness to her fetus. There's the aged man, who needs a cane to walk about, and who's just absolutely scared as Hell that the kindergartner might knock him in the face with his arm, or accidentally knee his bad hip. There's the mother, who has confidently placed her three-year-old daughter on her own individual seat next to her for the first time, but quickly regrets it when the guy with the big jacket looks as if he's going to completely flatten her dear little girl. And last, but not least, there's the stoic, modern-age businesswoman that's placing her leather briefcase in between her and the construction worker, because she doesn't want the cement dust on his clothes to rub off on her clean, black, formal dress.

61 - Christmas greed

As another example, I was having dinner with my mother at a buffet the other day and sitting on the table beside ours was this spoiled little brat that was screaming at his parents. He wanted a Wii for Christmas a lot, and he was disrupting everyone's dinner in a two-table radius, by crying hysterically because his parents told him the painful truth of a Wii actually costing a lot of money. Horrible, horrible stuff, and I'm glad I don't know any kids personally that are like that.

55 - Throwing children into the air

This image was taken from a collection about women and the different qualities they have. Displayed here is her innocence when a woman is in the form of a daughter.

Exactly. They're innocent. Why throw them in the air if children never asked for it? Why throw them in the air even if the child wants it?

It's dangerous because you don't know where the child will swing his/her arms while in the air and you don't know you will be able to catch the child. What if the child brings the hands close to his/her chest? Where are the armpits for you to safely bring him/her back down to Earth? Who are you to be so confident in your child-catching capabilities?

I never quite understood how parents can do this to their children. I think it's the thrill for the parent that makes it so popular. It's the adrenaline rush induced by the fact that the parent could potentially drop their child from a great height. It can be regarded as a challenge for the mom or dad, a sort of test of his/her ability to throw children, these weird-shaped little creatures, into the air, and catch them, a task that requires a fair amount of skill more than propelling a regular ball in the air and have it arrive back into your hands.

If kids really want to get a rush from going up and down in the air, save it for the rides at the amusement park, people.

45 - Indulging children with candy, toys and stuff

Even at a young age, my mother believed in indulging me with books, stationary and practical electronics. When I was a baby, she never gave me delicious baby food and she fed me tasteless congee and nutritional baby milk instead. When we went out, she would take me to the bookstore or the library, rather than the toy store. She led me by example by eating her vegetables in front of me and I love vegetables in addition to meat. Why is it so hard for some kids to do that?

This style of bringing me up has affected me greatly and she taught me that the finer things in life don't necessarily come in the form of a PlayStation. I learned that having what all the other kids had wasn't the healthy way to look at things and that I had to learn that what other children liked wasn't necessarily better.

She believed that those kids were the ones that would grow up never wanting to eat their vegetables. They're the teenagers that will never pick up a book. They're the students that will find learning at school boring. The kids that have always played with toy cars will become adults that'll want to spend extravagant sums of money buying fancy cars when they grow older. They're the kids that will never mature.

And I look at my teenage friends, and I see the truth in what she believed. The ones that I deem to be immature are the ones that like the chocolate-flavored/sweet foods. They're the ones that get extremely excited by the thought of holidays coming up even though they've spent their entire school year doing nothing productive in class or at home. They're the ones that don't do so good academically, the ones that never pay attention in class, the ones that never appreciate tasteful food or art or literature or do anything that's significantly beneficial for their future and indulge themselves with computer games, expensive electronics and trivial knowledge instead.

I see this happening with my younger cousins as well. They have trouble at school because they're not accustomed to reading or thinking about deeper things. It's the way my aunts and uncles have chosen to bring them up, though, and I can't change their parenting style or my cousins' likes and dislikes. I'm not saying that a good treat serves no good purpose at all. I'm saying overindulging children with treats can lead to spoiled children that will never learn that there are more useful things to spend one's time and money on. I'm saying that these are the kids that will never grow up.