197 - Sore losers

My 4-year-old cousin is a sweet boy, who brings a lot of love and laughter to our family dinners. He's learning to be conversational within the family, he's active and loves running around, and he's fairly disciplined in his general behavior and potty training, thanks to my grandmother's heavy hand.

If there's one problem that I had to point out, though, it would be the problem of him being a sore loser. He throws a tantrum, cries, kicks and screams if he believes somebody else is the winner, he cannot stand to lose. To be fair, we've taught him to think he is always a winner. I remember when the four of us cousins had a race at one point, and obviously, it was a matter of whoever was older, was whoever that ran the fastest. We like to tell my 4-year-old cousin that as long as you finish the sprint, everyone wins, we want to encourage him to think that everyone's a winner in the eyes of the family. So when it comes to him really losing at something, it upsets him immensely, because in his mind, the best policy is shared, unified victory.

But then again, he's only four years old. Who can blame him?

Who we can blame are the grown-ups, even the teens. They say it takes a real man to admit defeat, as people nowadays are so obsessed with keeping their reputation and dignity above everybody else's. I'm sure everyone out there knows of the sore losers I'm referring to - the kind that quit (not forfeit, they quit), and lose their tempers in the middle of a game because they know they're going to lose. I'm talking about the type that whine about how their tactics went wrong, or how they were tired, or weren't paying attention, the sort that complain after the game is over about how the rules were biased for those taller than him, or those with better mathematical skills than her, or how the opponent had a lot more time to spare to adjust to the controls than he/she did, how the sun was shining in their eyes, or on their side of the pitch, how it was their first time playing, how they got stuck, how they tripped, how they weren't thinking straight...

Why don't you just shut up, and move on with your life, instead of dwelling on it? What is wrong with healthy, happy competition where there are winners, and losers that just happen to be you? Jeez, no need to throw a hissy fit, just try again next time!

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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.

106 - Leaving the potty seat on the toilet bowl

I've had seven hours of school, which luckily featured the mundane Othello, mind-boggling mathematical set theory, a very boring hour-long physics class about how a CD works, and major grilling by my chemistry teacher about some missing assignments.

I've had a long day. I don't need to find my three-year-old cousin's potty seat... there when I simple would like to satisfy my urge to pee. I just - want - to take - a piss.

I don't need it.

I don't need it, I tell you. I don't need the horridly happy horses, and the creepily cute cats, and the foul, funny frogs, and the damn distasteful DOGS, welcoming me to my daily urination after school.

Who the Hell left it there?!?!

92 - Being uninspired

Oh, I lack ideas today. It was the Chinese New Year yesterday, my non-Chinese friends, and our whole family got together to eat traditional Chinese food for lunch, play mahjong in the afternoon and have a big meal for dinner. Right now, I could talk about a huge multitude of things, but I'm just not feeling too strongly about any of them. I thought of some ideas, but I knew I couldn't carry them out to make a substantial post.

Yesterday, I wore a pink shirt, and my family made a few comments about it, like pink is a girl color not to be worn by guys. I could talk about that but I don't feel like it.

I could talk about how my mother ate the last piece of food at lunch without politely asking if anyone would like to have/share it. But then again, I have already written about gluttony before.

I was also just about to write about how I won money from playing mahjong, but did not receive any because my family forgot. But hey, it's the Chinese New Year, it's inappropriate for me to demand for money or complain that I didn't get any for my mahjong skills...

Then there's dinner, at which everybody was all loud and chatty, when all I was was hungry, and all I wanted to do was eat. I had to listen to their talking, answer their questions, take care of my younger cousins all night, argh. In fact, my three-year-old cousin wet my bed for the very first time last night. I didn't get as angry as I thought I might, and so I don't want to write about that either. During dinner, my family were only eating merrily, and after dinner, my cousin was only three years old, young and incapable of controlling his pee.

So I guess today, I hate how I am uninspired. Writer's block, they call it, but I don't like that phrase either. I wish I could expand on any of those aforesaid things, but they don't seem right. I'm not annoyed today, which is a good thing, but I am annoyed at myself today.

I have some friends who never seem to be inspired for anything to do with school. They search in their textbooks, they ask more insightful friends for ideas for their essays, and their work reflects how uncreative and lacking of ideas they are. That annoys me.

I also don't like how some people are not inspired enough to travel elsewhere, or to learn new things, to learn about other people, to learn of other cultures, to understand what is not understandable to them right now. The world is much bigger, inspiration allows you to dream, to want to do things you wouldn't normally do. Why some people never feel inspired to do something saddens and irritates me.

90 - Staring at others when they cry

Have I seriously had this blog for ninety days already? Because it feels like so much longer...

It must be the way that time flies when you're having fun, the way you reflect on months that've gone by without you even realizing it, as you're caught up in the everyday errands you must complete, with the school you must attend, the work you must do, the holidays you must celebrate, the meals you must have and the people you must spend time with for your entire life. We are born with nothing.

Let me illustrate this for you: when we are born, we are born with no sight and limited senses of touch, taste and smell. All we perceive are sounds, loud, loud sounds, and we cannot express how scared we are as we are exposed to the world and the world is exposed to us. We cannot run away in fear, we are incapable of speech or mobility. We cannot hold our pee, help our hunger, handle anything for ourselves at all. We are unable to hold up a briefcase full of paperwork, a schoolbag full of books or even a small toy truck, let alone our own heads, let alone support our own bodies on our own two feet. When we're born, we can't even roll over, or breathe upside down without killing ourselves. We even require help to simply burp, and all we can do, all we know how to do, is cry.

From the moment we are born, we cry all the time. We're told that there's nothing wrong with crying by our mothers, that there's everything wrong with crying by our fathers. We cry on wedding days and at funerals, at baptisms, births and birthdays, anniversaries, holidays, on good days, on bad days, in the spring, summer, fall and winter, in the rain and sun and wind, in war, in public, in hospitals, on planes, boats and trains, on beaches, when we're by ourselves in our own rooms, or when we're together with friends, family or a group of strangers. Whether we're young or old, gay or straight, rich or poor, happy or unhappy, male or female, intelligent or ignorant, alone or otherwise, we all cry at some point or another, whether we're frequent criers or not.

We all cry for many different reasons. What I sometimes do whenever I get extremely mad at someone, especially someone I care deeply about, is imagine them crying. It makes them human, the image makes me empathize. The pain, the struggle strikes me with a lot of impact and it calms me down to know that these people that are pissing me off have another side that I can sympathize with.

Whenever I actually do see someone crying, I want to help them. When it comes to people that I don't know so well, I'm not one to charge at the opportunity to dry the tears, but I will take some action. I don't want to overstep my boundaries as crying is personal, so I will just put in my effort and if they want more, I'll give more.

A few years ago, I saw an old woman on the train. She wasn't that old, she was wearing a pink T-shirt, had a sports bag, relatively 'hip' glasses and a stylish hairdo. I was sitting across from her and I listened to her talk to her son on the phone. The son, most probably a full-grown man already, according to his mother, never went home for dinner to drink his mother's soup or inquire about her back pain. The old lady was telling him how disrespectful and cruel her son was treating her after all those years in which she raised him to become a man. I was welling up from the opposite side and I shook the tears out from the corners of my eyes. The old lady's son hung up on her and I watched her bow her head and cry to herself.

It took me a while to realize I was staring at her. I looked around and everyone in their school uniforms and business suits were staring at her, too.

And I despised them all, I despised myself. What was I looking at?

When the time came for me to get off the train, I walked over to the old lady and gave her a pack of tissues, with one taken out and placed on top of the pack of tissues for her convenience, so that she could wipe her tears away. She sniffed and thanked me. She was a cute old woman... Everyone else was staring at us during this ordeal, but I didn't care.

Since I realized I was staring at her that day, I've hardly ever stared at someone else in public again.