150 - Talking about exams

Like the husband who talks incessantly about his boss and his work and his colleagues at the dinner table in front of his wife and kids, students who chatter non-stop about an examination after the examination is over can be so annoying. Pondering whether or not you got this question right, or that question wrong, or drew this diagram incorrectly, or calculated this distance to the right degree of accuracy, continually for two weeks straight, induces such a headache. All these words being exchanged about how this exam was easy, but that one had a lot of tricky questions, and about how you managed to draw this graph, and how you did this question, scratched it out, and decided to do another one...... why?

Why do you want to talk about it? Why relive the pain, or the boredom, or the feeling of stupidity if you didn't do so well, or, if you did well, the so-called 'challenge' the examiners think will stump you? Why does it matter anymore? What's done is done, no? So why talk about it? Seriously?

Maybe it's fun to compare what we each did, sharing is caring, lalala... After all, going to school is a communal gig. Maybe we just want to have a better idea of how well we fared amongst our class. Maybe we highly value education, and ask everyone about what they put down as their answer so as to confirm or enhance your current amount of knowledge.

Oooooor, maybe you think education is actually a pile of horse poo, and find it funny how badly you did. I personally don't see the humor/sense in that.

Oooooor, maybe you're so confident that you did well, that you just want to show off your wonderful grasp on the information we need to know every minute before and after the exam.

Oooooor, maybe you knew you did badly, and just want to confirm... which makes you sort of sad.

It goes to show how I don't really believe in people's goodness. In conclusion, anyone who talks after exams are either cocky, arrogant showboats, or disappointing good-for-nothings who may or may not be using self-deprecating humor as a defense mechanism. Boo.

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My exams are over! I personally try not to bring them up in conversation... but they do, some how, every time.

That means I'm done with high school. For the next two weeks, I celebrate my 18th birthday... I also celebrate graduation. And I also celebrate the coming of summer. More than ninety days of fun until university begins... It's going to be wild.

On September 1st, I should be living and studying in London already. I look forward to writing entries everyday 'til then. Hope you've all been doing well since I've been gone. I'll be blogging more than ever now that I have so much free time. Hehe.

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.

98 - Skipping school

Hello, world. It's Monday night, and it's about to hit midnight. I didn't sleep last night and I only managed to catch around fifteen minutes of snooze in the past twenty-four hours. I don't plan on sleeping tonight either.

Yesterday, I had this essay to write, and tonight, I have three more. I would skip school to just get some rest and have more time to work on these, but I've been skipping too often now, for my own standards.

I think I have skipped school around twenty times so far since this school year began in September 2008, maybe been late a couple of times? To those studious, responsible teens out there, good for you on making it to school everyday, it's a bloody achievement and I could never do that. (I'm not being sarcastic.) I wake up in the middle of the afternoon on a school day and the first thought that comes to my mind is, "damn it, Michael, you lazy piece of shit." I loathe myself, and I hate myself for not going to school. There are several others in my class that also decide to pass when they're not feeling too eager about getting educated. I don't like their attitude to school, I don't think they should be wasting their parents' money. They often consider school to be a lameass obstacle in life that you have to get through before you reach the good stuff, the better stuff, the dream. I say, if the goals you have are not attainable through school and education, then piss off and go chase the dream. What on Earth are you still coming in to school for four days out of five for?

My aspirations can only be reached if I study, so as one of my New Year resolutions last month, I decided that I would try to stop skipping school so often. It's working a lot better than the past few years, but there's still room for improvement.

On the other hand, knowing the wide range of readers this blog attracts, there are bound to be a bunch of you that say that I should not stress so much over homework and friends at school. To be honest, I understand wholeheartedly. I hate people who think school is everything, who think that their role in life in this moment in time is and only is a student's role. Nothing else in life matters much, such as money, material goods, love and sex, leisure time and/or a social life altogether. These 'nerds' need to grow up and live a little.

I just felt that I needed to iterate that because I don't want to be seen as one of them.

But really, as I said, skipping school is just something that creates a pang in my backside. If you care about school, stop skipping it. If you don't care about school, quit. Stop wasting our teachers' time which could be better spent on present students, stop making us wonder and worry about why you're absent, and get a job, because if you ain't studying right now, by law and social standards, you should be working. Do something productive, stop wasting your life.

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.

42 - Drug talks

I'm sitting at a computer in the Hong Kong Central Library. These stations subtly remind me of why I never want to end up with an office job. There are strange people on either side of you, and in the row behind you and every now and then, you might also share an awkward look with the stranger who dwells behind the wall in front of you. Also, these chairs are unbelievably uncomfortable and every time I look behind me, it's either some old person staring at me or some kid staring at me or some old person holding a kid's hand, both staring at me.

At least it's quiet. And with a cubicle job, you can also personalize your work area by decorating your desk and your walls. That's always fun.

But let's get to today's topic. I was (barely) late for class this Monday morning and instead of apologizing to our teacher for being late, I found myself saying sorry to a young-looking Asian woman standing at the front of the classroom. I hastily opted to sit in the seat closest to the door, wondering what this could possibly be and oh, yeah, it was a drug talk. Whoopee.

We were given an hour-long presentation that supposedly raised our awareness of the dangers of consuming numerous stimulants, narcotics, hallucinogens and tranquilizers. I suppose the focus was to repulse us from the very idea of ever taking drugs and drowning our futures in a purple sea of addiction and short-lived euphoria. The lady spoke with a substantial Australian accent as she asked us several questions to find out what we already knew about drugs. Some of us knew nothing, some of us knew very little but none of us knew a lot. We've all been given the same old story before, though. Here's my understanding on the topic after being given four or five of these talks in the past few years:

Always say, "NO!" to drugs, even when it doesn't make any sense to respond with it. Don't succumb to peer pressure. Your friends are evil when they have drugs. Don't ruin your life. Drugs can do that. Don't find happiness in drugs. Drugs make you sad. Addiction is uncontrollable from the moment you take your first pill, sniff, injection or taste. Getting high will only increase the height from which you fall. Most teenagers don't even take drugs and that's because we give tons of these presentations. When you do take drugs, think of your family, even if it's weird. When you take drugs, think of your future, even though the LSD makes it seem like you have a pair of breasts right now. When you take drugs, think of your real friends that don't take drugs. It's nice to spare a moment of thought for those that couldn't join in with all the fun.

Seriously, don't take drugs. They're harmful to your nasal cavity, as well as your teeth, your gums, your throat and your esophagus, in addition to your tongue, your lungs, your mung bean-shaped kidneys, your hair, your head, your hands, your heart, your arteries, your veins, your capillaries, your red cells, your white cells, your B-cells, your T-cells, your sea shells on the seashore, and also, your liver, your pancreas, your stomach, your gall bladder, your spinal cord, your optical cord, your brain, your nerves, your CNS, and PNS, and ANS, and SNS, and SPD, and PSD, and your lymph nodes, your bones, and your genitals, your skin, your nails, your muscles, your joints, YOUR WHOLE BODY, OH, MY GOD! DON'T F***ING TAKE DRUGS, MAN!

You know what the funny thing is? If I'm being completely honest here, I still want to try taking drugs at some point in my life. Just once. Just a little.

I don't know about my classmates, but these talks have always appeared to be quite ineffective, to say the least. The worst part of the presentation we were given today was this fifteen-minute video. I had taken down notes in preparation for today's post but I've lost quite a lot of the frustration I was feeling as I was watching the video.

From what I can recall (and read from my scribbly notes) the video had a lot of sleazy animations, laughable-in-the-bad-way jokes and for no darn reason at all: child actors. A 'wise' teenager would ask some kid a serious question such as, "True or false: Consuming ecstasy will lead you into a deep state of depression." and the child actor would respond with, "Truuuuuuue." with an innocent voice. Why this was necessary to make the point is beyond me.

One the other hand, I guess the video was quite informative and captivating overall. The kaledioscopic colors succeeded in transfixing me and my fellow classmates and the over-the-top animations truly did mesmerize us for the whole duration the video was playing. It was almost like some sort of spell that had been cast over all of us. I caught a glance at them at one point and some of them looked like they were on the verge of being hypnotized. I was quite scared for their health. Man, don't play with vivid colors and crazy animations.

Anyway, the point that I have somewhat failed to elaborate on in too much detail is that drug talks and presentations are quite an ineffective drug prevention strategy. I believe that in order for one to truly fear the effects of drugs, one must first attain some personal experience and first-hand knowledge of what drugs can actually do to one's body and mind.

Sure, they're dangerous and they cause unpredictable effects. Sure, they're expensive, addictive and illegal. And sure, they can put you in a coma or worse yet, kill you. But, hey, treat the presenations a lot more seriously if you want to be taken seriously. Don't use child actors, cheesy jokes and unnecessary animations in your videos. Don't give us a wordsearch for us to find all the slang nicknames for drugs. And most importantly, don't think that talking about the ethics and the dangers of drug usage will convince us not to commit such acts. Us teenagers thrive on rebelling against society's moral standards and the highest part of getting high is the fact that we're snorting in the face of danger.