Jealousy

It can sometimes be a problem when your significant other gets a bit too jealous about you spending time with others - or certain others rather. But how jealous is too jealous? 

Love is a very irrational thing, and since jealously is as a result of love, it only makes sense that the behavior surrounding jealousy can be extremely irrational as well. Jealousy is kind of like a very angry, possessive form of love. It never really shows itself in attractive ways, and the word itself has very negative connotations.

Lets say you meet the partner of your dreams. You like them, they like you - and it all goes rather swimmingly for a while. You're at a friend's party, and the two of you meet someone else. You perceive mutual attraction between your partner and your new acquaintance. You start comparing yourself to your new rival. He only has one eye? You're alright. But its a pirate party! - now you're in trouble. Maybe she could be a part-time model? Perhaps you should intervene and suggest a trip to the drinks section to get the fuck out of there. You've already seen her on Victoria's Secret catalogues? Maybe screw the jealousy and suggest a threesome. She's hot and you'd totally do her. Plus, he's totally got no chance with her afterwards.

One part of being jealous about others is how your potential rival is perceived. You'd be more scared than jealous of the creepy guy making dodgy movements all night. Another part is how comfortable are you in the current relationship. If you never want to give them up, and would totally die if anything happened to them, then somehow everything is perceived as a threat. If you're a little more jaded, some might say realistic, and realise that they're here with you tonight, then nothing is changing that.

The other big thing is what you think of your partner. Are they the type of person who would dump you for something 'better'? Maybe you should be re-thinking about seeing them instead of being jealous all the time. Or maybe they're already batting above their average. You're safe until you take them for granted, but that's a whole other story.

Reading

Do you ever like how reading a novel can put your mind in a completely different world? It's as if the words can make the topic a real place with real people. I mean, normally authors write about people, but then there are ones about aliens from different planets, or really anything you could possibly imagine.

It's also good for taking your mind off your current problems. I mean, if the novel you're reading is about someone saving the galaxy, or investigating a serial murderer who is roaming the streets preying on young women, it probably puts your problems into a bit of perspective. Lets hope that the problems you have don't get worse than the above two examples. Try not to read novels about vampires trying to sparkle and kill each other. I think its probably a bit too far fetched and brings your problems back to haunt you. Especially if the first three quarters of the book are about a depressed girl. You know what I'm talking about.

This is totally different from reading a textbook. When I read a textbook I either a) struggle to understand what its trying to tell me, or b) fall asleep. Sometimes both of these things can happen at once. Reading this post again is making me sleepy.

Solution Interrupted

Do you ever hate it when you've been wracking your brain for ages trying to work out the problem, and just when you think you've got it solved, somebody tells you something completely different to what you were thinking?

Hopefully not too often.

If at all, preferably its just when you're watching or reading a murder mystery. Otherwise these kinds of surprises aren't really all that fun in real life.

Globalisation and disease

One of the major fears people have about globalisation is that it actually makes it very easy for disease to spread. The fact that humans could travel around the world in a day is something that is actually quite astonishing. Especially when the time in which your grandparents were born, flying was definitely not commercialised, let alone safe for the average traveler.

So how come nothing as big as the black death has actually come around and wiped out a significant portion of the population within the past hundred years? The last big one was the 1918 flu epidemic, which took up to 100 million lives with it. Hardly anything compared to the last 'major' pandemic, which was the one in 2009. That one took under 20,000 lives overall. One might say that we're actually winning the war against disease. Maybe the human body is actually becoming more resistant to disease than disease is becoming more virulent. Maybe the world's health care is just so much better than it used to be.

Perhaps the day where the next Spanish flu-like epidemic is right around the corner. Globalisation would have been a bad thing, helping to spread the disease like wildfire around the world, wiping out half the population. There would be a couple of silver linings. Firstly, those that are left probably won't have to worry about global warming as much since half the people creating the problem wouldn't be around any more. The other thing is that humans as a race would be better off, as the remaining population would be more resistant or immune to the disease. This of course assumes that the disease doesn't actually make you into a zombie. The only thing I know of that would make you immune from having your brains eaten out is a really strong helmet. This would be one situation where stackhats would make a massive comeback. I would curse my cousin for selling them at the garage sales.

On the other hand, maybe diseases have realised that killing the organism that keeps you alive isn't necessarily the best thing to do when you need it to survive as well. Or at least if you're going to kill them, at least give them some time to spread the disease before you do. The most successful disease these days is HIV/AIDS, which currently affects more than 34 million people worldwide. Its also actively spreading, so that number is probably growing. One of the problems with HIV is that it takes at least 3 weeks for it to be detected in the body. Some people don't find out they have HIV for years as their symptoms can be minor.

I think next time I'll write about something less morbid.

Being an idiot

OK so I'm an idiot.

But does it make it any better if I know I'm an idiot? 

Of course I'd be better off if I wasn't an idiot in the first place, but idiots can't stop themselves from doing idiotic things in the first place. This doesn't help things in the slightest. I wish I could write about what I'm being an idiot about, but the Internet is a big place and if I can't even keep secrets from myself then I'd probably go insane.

All I really wish for Christmas is that I no longer be so idiotic.

Putting thoughts to the screen

Being halfway through a bottle of wine always seems to make me a little bit deeper. Deeper in shit or deeper into my thoughts is a subject of debate. Its also possible that shit and my thoughts are more or less the same thing, so maybe its not really a debate at all. Drinking by myself is something I used to give people crap for, and I suppose this is the point where I finally understand what its all about.

If you combine that with the fact that nobody will read this for a long time,  it makes me want to write down everything I'm thinking right now.

But what am I thinking?

Actually its a lot of things:

• Should I quit my job because its unsatisfying?
• What would I do if I did actually quit my job?
• Is it actually a new start I'm looking for?
• I could actually have a new start if I just stayed, since everyone else is moving on
• Parts of the reason why I wanted to leave in the first place have gone away
• I need new friends
• Maybe I should stop thinking too much
• Maybe I should move out
• I need to go for a run
• Phil Collins is classic
• You can't hurry love, you'll just have to wait

OK so that last part was inspired by what I'm listening to.

Maybe I should really just go for what I want more often, and stop just fucking around.

Travelling around Mekong

The Mekong river goes through 5 different countries and amazing to think that I've actually been through 4 of them now. Myanmar is still on the list of places to go but I think its a little harder to do than the rest of them. Actually its probably only just a little more expensive, and that not too many people actually want to go, which I guess all adds up to a little bit harder.

Lets start from the source.

Even though I've never actually been anywhere close to the Mekong river while in China, its a bloody big country, and I've only seen parts of it. The big parts with lots of cars and trucks and people doing squatties on the side of the street.

I've written about China in previous posts, and even did one where I would say I would talk about how everything there is a little bit half baked. But now it turns out that theres a book written about how the entire country is half baked and everything that goes wrong when you do business with it. Remind me to post a link to it when I find it, so I won't bother going through it again here, just read the book.

Laos I just came back from. Actually everything downstream from China is quite similar, which makes me think that the source of the Mekong river in China would be very similar to the rest of the other countries, just Chinese. Theres enough Chinese stuff in Laos that you wouldn't think they're totally separate. Its not like they have a Chinatown in their capital, but then who needs to since all the foreigners can't tell the difference between the two kinds of people anyway. I'm pretty sure Ghengis Khan also made it all the way down here so everyone is pretty much related anyway. Otherwise, Laos is a sleepy country where it seems like nobody is in a rush to get anywhere, since theres really nowhere to go, and taking your time lets you drink in the lovely scenic route on your way over there, and maybe stop along the way to explore a cave or bathe in the local waterfall.

Cambodia is a country that just seems wrecked by war, over and over and over again. A lot of the 'attractions' around the capital revolve around how many people and who got massacred during the last 50 years where there have been wars and internal strife on and off. People still suffer from random land mine explosions from munitions left behind decades ago. Siem Reap is the other side of it. While war was still felt there and around it, it feels cleaned up. The land mines either stepped on or cleared so that tourists can come and see the temples.

Vietnam, from the mouth of the Mekong, has two very different parts. The old, French and slightly slower Hanoi which actually still feels a bit communist up in the north, to the capitalist bustling Ho Chi Minh City. I still haven't been in between yet, so not really sure whats in the middle, except for nice spicy noodles with crab. I suppose thats what happens when one city is on the Mekong and the rest are kind of inlandish a bit more. The only thing communist about the south are the customs officers at immigration when you first enter the country. Otherwise I really couldn't tell.

People around the area aren't all that different. A lot of them still make their living from the river itself. Who knows how everyone else got around to building cities and stuff in the middle of nowhere. All you really need is a boat and some fishing rods!

Oh. And the water.

Change

Its a strange feeling when you know everything that you have for now won't be the same in a few months. "The only constant is change" so they say. Drastic change is usually a daunting prospect, even if it is initiated at one's own behest.

I don't think I'm that naive to think that changes that I ask for will always end up for the better. Either that is just the way things are or I'm just really bad at making decisions. It will probably be a while and a few experiences later that I will actually figure which of the two it is. I guess this time is a combination of "It can't possibly get any worse" and "I've got nothing to lose".

Now I'm just making myself depressed, so I'm just going to stop here.

Dreaming

I just woke up from a dream. Its 3:30am in the morning and I've got to get up to go to work in about 4 hours.

Its weird because normally I don't remember my dreams. Maybe its because I'm sleeping in a strange bed tonight. Maybe its because I'm still not used to the time difference so waking up at 3am has kind of become the norm these days, and dreaming has become my body's natural way to wake me up at strange hours of the night.

This dream was actually quite strange because I remember it so vividly. For some reason I was going to work in different office. It kind of resembled one of those insane asylums that they use for those horror movies, except for some reason they were doing university lectures in them. I was looking for somewhere to sit, since this office was essentially hot desking. I'd also taken what seemed like the freight elevator to levels 1, 2 and 3, because I couldn't decide which level to go to. Finally getting off at level 3, I stumbled upon a lecture theatre and suddenly remembered I hadn't done my psychology research assignment which was due a few months ago, leaving me with a maximum mark of 40 and already a fail for the subject. For some reason my sister was also around.

How work and university got mixed up was a bit strange, but then I guess it wouldn't have been the first time that I'd been working and studying at the same time. Only probably in real life I'd actually remembered to do all my assignments on time and miraculously never failed a subject.

Anyway then I woke up, as if the stress behind being late for work and failing a subject caused so much stress. If it wasn't 10 degrees in the room I'm sleeping in right now, I suppose it would have been in a cold sweat. So lucky I'm not in Singapore then.

The thing with death is...

Its been a while since the last death in the family. Fortunately or unfortunately, this last one has not been totally unexpected, so we've had time to prepare. Also its the first close family member on my dad's side of the family, so its a little different than the last.

I don't think it has changed my perspective on death. I guess it has even less of an effect since I wasn't actually in the same geographical location either. Being half a world away makes things that happen back at home seem a more surreal, like they're happening to someone else. I mean, they are, obviously, but I'm just that more removed from it all.

Now its time to decide whether to go back for the funeral service. The decision is suffering from the same level of indifference as the death itself. Maybe I should stop being so cold about it all.

Sleeping patterns

I've been waking up a lot earlier than usual. I suppose its not totally unexpected, I probably sleep earlier than usual too. The amount of sleep is probably around the same.

The early mornings are generally a better time to think though. This is of course in comparison to the late evenings. At least the sun is out so your forehead can photosynthesise all that light hitting it in the morning. So in addition to waking up earlier, I'm also thinking earlier and probably a bit harder than usual. For example, like now.

There is a problem with this though. Its 8am on a Sunday morning, and it just feels wrong to be awake like this. Sunday morning is, and has been, the traditional time for sleeping in and not worrying about anything until at least lunch time. I want to go back to sleep but I have a feeling its not going to happen. Its also better to digest while sleeping after 10 hours of non-stop eating and drinking yesterday.

Also the stuff I keep thinking about is not exactly the best, but lets not go there.

I'm going to try read myself to sleep again.

Somewhere in Taipei

Its the first day back in Taipei and I've eaten too much already.

That's it so far. Really.

Getting out and meeting new people

So I thought I should finally make an effort to get out and meet some new people.

It hasn't completely come from no where. The last time I thought I should go and meet new people, it was probably a couple of years ago now and it ended up in catastrophic failure. This is probably why it hasn't really happened since. Rather than going through the last few years of my life in detail like the start of this entire blog, I'll summarise. Essentially - boy meets girl, girl breaks boys heart, boy decides to give up on girls. Not that I'm gay. Not that I'm against gay people and their rights. Not that I should keep digging the proverbial hole in the ground. Perhaps I should just stop there.

Anyway, it is a little dramatic. There is no real defence for it either, other than I couldn't be bothered any more.

So part of the meeting new people thing is just not to say no to things. A lot of the time I might say no to new things where its either far away, I don't know anyone there, or I'd rather just sit at home and read a book. Rarely is it because I really have a lot of better things to do - such is my life.

Now just to get out and start doing some thing. Sitting around and blogging about it isn't really helping the situation though.

Yay

So I saw something today that makes sense. "The problem with the world is that the intelligent people are full of doubts while the stupid ones are full of confidence." - Charles Bukowski I was going to write about it... but I think its OK by itself.

Diet

So I’m on this diet now, basically to try and lose all this weight I’ve gained ever since I stopped studying and started working. Since I started working I’ve gained approximately 20 kgs. That’s almost an entire bag of rice. Its likely to be due to all the eating and drinking I tend to do now. Not to mention the sitting around staring at a computer screen all day at work.

Basically the diet just goes by the principle that I should be eating less. It doesn’t actually change what I eat, just how much of it. I’ve stopped eating breakfast (mostly) and only allow myself one coffee per day. Also, snacking is more or less non-existant except for the bananas on my desk. For meals where I eat out and its one of those places where everyone orders their own dish, I am not allowed to eat other peoples’ food, even if offered. Lunch tends to revolve around soup and sandwiches. Though if I’m really hungry there may be more food involved. Tuesdays is chicken for lunch at the Rotisserie. Weekends can sometimes end up with one meal for the day if I’m lazy and can’t be bothered finding food and if I stay home the entire day. That used to happen before but now I guess there’s a reason for it.

Apparently its going pretty well so far.

Book Review: God's Forgotten Truth

I'm reading a book about God at the moment. No, its not the Bible. No, I haven't been converted yet. I was asked to read it by a friend of mine who is Christian. We kind of agree to disagree, and he's not really that intent to try and convert me, but does try to make me understand his point of view. So, knowing that I've got an IT background and that I've got issues with the existence of God, he bought me a book about it. The fact that he actually bought the book and gave it to me kind of gives me the obligation to read it.

At first I was quite open to the idea. It helps me understand better what I'm currently rejecting and gives me yet another perspective on the whole idea of Christianity. Also, it was touting itself as being written from an ITIL perspective, which I guess is something I'm more familiar with.

But then I read the first chapter and got very frustrated. Then I read the second chapter, and got even more frustrated. From each chapter from there, I almost dreaded picking the book up and reading it. The author attempts to debunk the theory of evolution by basically saying its a lie. Oh theres a few good arguments like how its completely feasible for the world to be at the current population level within 4000 years of growth given the history of growth in the US or how theres no human bones next to dinosaurs. But then he doesn't realise that these have perfectly plausible scientific explanations (i.e. the US within the last 200 years is not indicative of the world between 2000 B.C. and now and that dinosaurs did not live at the same time as humans). I remember he explained that science is compatible with miracles like the parting of the Red Sea. If you blow hard enough, water will part, so God made a big wind come up and part the sea. He forgot to mention that if it was blowing hard enough to part the sea, it would make it quite hard to walk.

I got to about chapter six, where it talks about the Book of Revelations, where I laughed out loud while reading it on public transport. As you all probably know, the Book covers a lot of things about demons, the end of the world and judgement day. I don't think I can explain it properly, so i'm going to copy out a bit of the book and let it explain itself:

"In Revelation 9:7-11, he describes the locusts: "The shape of the lucsts was like horses prepared for battle. On their heads were crowns of something like gold, and their faces were like the faces of men. They had hair like wmen's hair, and their teeth were like lions' teeth. And they had breastplates like breatplates of iron, and the sound of their wings was like the sound of charios with many hores running into battle. They had tails like scorpions, and there were stings on their tails. Their power was to hurt men five months. And they had as king over them the angel of the bottomless pit, whose name in hebrew is Abaddon (= the destoyer) but in Greek he has the name Apollyon."

It then goes on to show a picture of a Cobra and an Apache helicopter like so:

"The locusts describe by John in his days."

Yes, with that caption.

It then goes on to say something similar about steel horeses with fire coming out of them for tanks. At least this makes some more sense. The helicopter one didn't even say they were flying!

Thats about as far in the book as I think I'm willing to go. I'm not sure if I can take it anymore. It is shaking my faith in humanity.

Oh well

As usual, its been a while. Also as usual, I'm lacking inspiration to write anything. I'd really like to write something inspirational, but I really can't come up with much =(

That damn question

This was originally part of the previous post, but I thought I'd separate it since it probably deserves a post of its own. It detracted too much from the point, and has a point of its own.

This is probably more for the guys. I'm probably alienating the huge proportion of females who read this blog, but oh well! (btw I'm just joking, I don't even have webstats set up on this blog, and I think I'm the only one who reads it. Also if you hadn't noticed, this whole blog is a joke.)

Anyway, without further preamble, here we go.

Heres the classic situation:

"Whats wrong honey?"
"Nothing."
Sometimes followed by: "Just go away, I don't want to see you right now."

Now, does she mean:
a) Nothing
b) Something
c) You
d) All of the above

As contrary as it may seem, the answer actually increases in likelyhood as you go down the list. I shall now attempt to prove this using feminist logic.

A is actually easy to prove wrong. Lets start with the axiom that we want things to be perfect. Women seem to want to change things all the time. This implies that they are currently imperfect. Therefore, something must be wrong - the opposite of nothing. See above for proof of option B.

Now for C to be more correct than option B, you must be subject to more change from women than 'something'. Using emperical evidence, I've NEVER seen a woman want to change a lawn mower, yet women always seem to want me to change things like my clothes, or my hair, or the way my arse seems to take up the whole chair. Assuming that my life experience is a realtively good sample size and leaves a pretty good confidence level, I'd say thats pretty good.

Option D is the weird one. It includes both 'nothing' and 'something'. However, as stated previously, you will find that this option is usually the true meaning of 'nothing'. For option D to be true, the following must be true:

• You must be equal to nothing;


• You must be equal to something;


• Something must be wrong with you

We've already established that something must be wrong with you, otherwise you'd be a lawnmower and wouldn't be able to read this. Though I'm guessing I'll be proven wrong in a few years. In addition, you're also something, even if you're a lawnmower. The problem is connecting you with 'nothing'.

If we can combine the fact that women don't lie about serious things like this, and also that you're being changed by being told to go away (and thereby also being wrong), and also that 'nothing' is wrong, nothing must be something and something must be you, and therefore you must be nothing. Voila! Proof by feminist logic.

Don't try this at home kids.

Elephant in the room

I just emerged from a domestic. Thankfully it wasn't my domestic, otherwise some people might get the wrong idea. Like as if I was seeing someone, or somehow family moved over to Singapore too. Actually it was a domestic of a friends'. Notice how the apostrophe is behind the s? Yeah. Well I guess in a country where you don't have any family, friends are the only family you've got, and somehow you get dragged into it.

The harsh part of me just wants to tell people to take their drama back into their own corner of the world. Its not my business and I shouldn't have to deal with it. But then the realistic part of me knows that these kind of things aren't always the ones you can bottle up, and nobody can stay in theor own little corner of the world for very long without going insane. They have to share their misery. I guess its inevitable.

As uncomfortable as being in the middle of a domestic is when you're there in the middle of the day, I think its probably worse when its about 3am in the morning and you haven't slept in a while. Add on a few more points when you're playing Scrabble, theres only four people and the guy who normally talks a lot isn't talking very much. Did anyone say awkward silence? I think we made it worse for ourselves because we actually said we wanted to play. Not that we knew it was a domestic in the first place though. That only came out during the ride back...

I was actually quite lucky. If I'd gotten the letters to make 'domestic' or 'lovers tiff' or maybe 'awkward silence', I wouldn't have been able to think of any anagrams afterwards. The good news would have been that I would get the extra 50 points for using all 7 of my letters - well, for some of them anyway.

Now that I look back on it, its funny that nobody actually said anything about it. Everyone kind of tip toeing around the subject like it doesn't exist. The elephant in the room scenario. Reminds me a bit of work, where we have those meetings where we get told some people are being laid off, but management puts a positive spin on it even though everyone knows they're just talking crap. The ones who've gone through it before just yawn and move on - its the same old stuff over again. The newbies just kinda sit there and listen. The brighter ones read between the lines, the not so bright ask stupid questions.

Theres also the possibility that I'm reading into it a bit too much. Maybe everyone was just a bit too tired. Maybe my perceptions of social interation were off that night. Maybe we were concentrating on Scrabble a lot more than we have previously.

Though to tell you the truth, sometimes its nice to have a bit of drama in your life. I guess that all the drama I got away from when I left Australia isn't just there. People are more or less the same the world over. We all have things to deal with, and people we don't always get along with. Its nice to know we're all still human even we do speak with a little different.

Clean

1. I found a cockroach in my apartment.

2. Its dead.

I don't know whats more worrying. That I found a cockroach, or that its dirty enough to kill one.