Cultural Identity

Today I went to the Hills Youth Forum. It's where the Baulkham Hills Shire Council gets like input from youth about youth.

Today, in my group, we talked about culture and identity and how youth today find segregation among peers based on race. Seeing as how i go to a predominantly multicultural school (aka selective schools - where there are so many Asians, you can play the game "spot the Aussie") I found it interesting how this occurs in other high schools.

I'm bringing this topic up as at the beginning of the forum we had this entrepreneur giving a speech about opportunities for youth and so on and so forth. His name was Colin Something ( i have a really bad memory... it amazed me that i actually remembered his first name.) Through out his speech he told a couple of stories. One was about a Chinese farmer and his son. I can't really remember what the story was supposed to tell us... but that isn't put of the point I'm trying to make. For the duration of the story he used a Chinese accent (he was Chinese-Malay that came to Australia 8 yrs ago... so his accent was pretty good) . He also did another story about some Indian dude while using an Indian accent (He could rival Russell peters with the way he did his accents) Anyways... me and along the rest of the people from my school found this very funny... seeing how it was supposed to be. But what we found is that we had to kind of stifle our laughter as none of the other audience member found this humerus. Why? because people aren't comfortable with the other cultures around them.

Why is this so?

For generations, Australia has been a multi-cultural society. Then why are people still uncomfortable with other cultures?













My answer... I don't know ( that's why i asked the question in the first place... Der!!!)

Anyways I just wanted to put it put there to make people aware that there are issues regarding the way people perceive other races.


Also on another note... another person who spoke to us was like this random dude who always spoke in a monotone. So for like half an hour we were "listening" to him talk about what he put on a power point. ( i put listening in quotation marks seeing as how i fell asleep halfway through... i mean can you say BORING!!!)

anyways....

From a deranged lunatic... i bid you farewell.

Stereotypes

My Lil' bro told me this blonde joke the other day (no offence to any blond's)

A blonde was going to Manhattan.
She went up to the ticket person and asked for an economy ticket.
After some time here plane was boarding.
When she got on the plane she sat down in First class.

Soon an flight attendant came up to her and told her that she would have to move to economy class as that was what she paid for.
the blonde replied "I'm blonde, I'm beautiful, and I'm not going anywhere!"

So then the flight attendant went into the cock-pit and told the pilots what was wrong.
The co-pilot said that he was going to take care of it.
After ten minutes the co-pilot came back into the cock-pit.
"she's blonde and she's not goin anywhere!"

"she blonde!" this time it was the pilot that spoke up. "why didn't you tell me this before! I'm, married to a blonde and I can speak blonde", he spoke as he left the cock-pit.

After another ten minutes the pilot returned and informed them that the blonde had moved to economy class.
In amazement the co-pilot and flight attendant asked him what he said.
As he walked back into his seat he replied...









"I told her, first class isn't going to Manhattan"

Now what i find weird is how some people take stereotypes very seriously. Stereotypes are just ways to poke fun at people. It's just like racism... Now that i think of it... it IS racism.

Stereotypes are just broader varieties of racist jokes because they include hair colour, gender, etc.

This reminded me of the song "everyone's a little bit racist" by Avenue Q (if you haven't heard it... I really recommend it. It's hilarious. I also recommend "the Internet is for porn" by the same people.)




... Anyway back to the point. I don't get why blondes take offence to blonde jokes, because that is what they are... JOKES. I also find it hypocritical how they find it offencive when they tell racist jokes (or "reveal certain character flaws that associate with a certain trait" as one of my friends puts it")

I would just like to say that it is true everyone IS a little bit racist.

I'm not saying being racist or make jokes/comments pertaining to certain groups of people is a good thing... It's just that we all do it... so don't make too much of a fuss about it.

Anyways...

From a deranged lunatic... I bid you farewell

Organizing day outs = early gray hairs

During the span of the holidays i have come to learn one thing... organizing "get-togethers" are really hard to do.

STEP 1: get people
I don't know about anyone else but I have been brought up with the idea that "get-together" actually involve people attending.
Throughout this week alone i have been invited to 4 unsuccessful outings. When i say unsuccessful i mean that they were compiled of either under 5 people or that only 20% of the invited people attended. (plus also the fact that i didn't go to any of the unsuccessful outings aided to it's unsuccessfullness)

STEP 2: picking a date
Picking a day to hangout with friends can make or break an outing. I found out that some people
actually have a LIFE...
Like on one invite (that i actually accepted and went to for that matter) we had all decided to go on the 15th. Because Smokey wasn't free on some other days, i was going to be out of town for the first week of holidays, and Theo pointed out that, at towers, movie tickets are cheaper on Tuesdays (and to think only Asians were cheap - no offence intended)

STEP 3: picking a venue
Going to place that is both easily accessible and close to everybody makes life a whole lot easier for everyone.
Damn going to a selective school and not having the convenience of having everyone live near you. Deciding to go to a place that is very difficult to get to is one of the main reasons people don't have outings more often. The majority of my friends rely on public transport, so if it isn't accessible by bus or train, it is a no-no.

STEP 4: decide what to do
Having things to do majorly help when it comes to hanging out with a group of friends.
One of the outings that I didn't go to actually didn't end up happening because a) hardly anybody wanted to go and b) hardly anybody want to go was because the only thing that we were supposed to be doing was maybe watch a movie, lunch, and shop for a couple of hours - no offence Boston but you're a guy, you are not supposed to like shopping for hours on end. (also the fact that many of the people invited are povo or just cheap Asians may have been a turn off)

Get-togethers are way to difficult to organise and to organize it well. When in the off chance that they are organized well they are really fun. Just because organizing an outing is a hassle that doesn't mean it should be done. So if you are ever organizing a get-together just the remember the information above...

from a deranged lunatic... i bid you farewell

Sleep Deprivation = getting homework finished

A couple of days ago i had this contest with Dick (www.maplesyrupnips.blogspot.com) to see who could stay awake the longest. We called it a tie once the sun rose at 7am.

What i found is that it actually gave me time to finish off my science assignment we got over the holidays. You see normally my day would go like this:

6:30am - wake up

7:00am - leave the house

8:00am - School

4:00pm - arrive at home

4:30pm - surf the net

6:00pm - watch TV

10:30pm - do homework

11:00pm - surf the net

12:00am - sleep

(if holidays 12:00pm - 2:00am surf the net, watch TV, etc)

Man i really should change my study habits

OK now i forgot what i was going on about....

anyways

from a deranged lunatic... i bid you farewell

Persistence

President Calvin Coolidge once said:

“Nothing in this world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful people with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent. The slogan "press on" has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race”

... now sometimes persistence doesn't help. I mean if I take this morning for example. My ever loving mother was very insistent on my cleaning up my room. I mean seriously how is repeatedly yelling, "clean your room!" going to solve the problems of society... It's not! So sorry madre but i believe that my time is better utilized doing things that will better man kind
i.e surfing the net - knowledge = good job = status = power to effect humanity
ergo helping solve the problems of the human race.
I refuse to called lazy!
(then again i really have a short attention span and get really bored anyway... but that was my back up excuse)

While you started to read the beginning of this rant you may have been assuming it was going to be like my earlier blogs that gives some intellectual insight to the world as I see it. I assure you will be disappointed. (... and shame on you for making assumptions... they never really work out anyway) This entry was just a way to rave on about how my mothers constant nagging is very irritating while using a quote from a past president of the United States.

I find taking the simplest things and explaining them in a manner that is highly "sophisticated" quite amusing and the source of endless laughs.

Like this one time at camp, my best friend lost her voice halfway through. For everything that she wanted to say to people, she would tell me and i would relay it to them, which i found to be a very amusing task. For everything she said i would relay it in a formal manner and would take me for ever to relay the messages. She would get so mad at me (the source of my amusement) and couldn't tell me off for it as she couldn't speak loud enough.
For example when she asked me to ask one of the other campers if she could borrow a pen, my relayed message was this:

"I have been requested by a client who would wish to remain anonymous for legal reasons (she was standing right next to me at the time) if they may, for a certain time period have unlimited access to certain objects of a calligraphy kind"

By that point i was bursting in laughter and my lawyer like faced, erased. Whereas my best friend was so red from anger and tired form hitting me and stomping her feet, trying to get me to hurry along.

Ahhh good times, good times.

Anyways that is the end of my rant...

From a deranged lunatic... i bid you farewell

Good Place

You know you're in a good place in your friendship when you find yourself straddling that person without any awkwardness. (then again there was some awkwardness as Dick and Smokey were there to witness it, but that is beside the point as there were no awkwardness between me and Theo which my whole point in the first place)

Many people say that guys and girls can't be great friends it just leads to either sexual tensions that are oblivious to both parties, one-sided want of a more-than-platonic-relationship, or they stop being friends and become more. I say hell to the expectations of society! (or my friends for that matter) Why can't people just get it through their minds that we are just friends!!! (not that future evolution is unwanted - my frustration is toward the fact that people make assume things, wheather they are true or not is beside the point)

Anyway back the point...

I find it that if you feel like you can do anything around each other (or in my case actually doing it. see above) then you are in a great point in your friendship with one of the opposite sex. I take pride in the evolution of our friendship and i hope that it will last forever and continue to grow in a relationship anyone can be proud of.

From a deranged lunatic... i bid you farewell

Expectations

I had just recently come back from a youth camp and it got me thinking about the way people act around different people.

When you around certain people they tend to expect you to be behaving in a certain way. For example if you were with your parents you would be fooling around with them as if they were your best friends (but if you do... good for you for having such a loving relationship with you parents), you would hold some form of respect (or not) for them as they are your parents, they're older than you, they're your guardians, etc.

This is how i found camp. the majority of the people present are people who i haven't seen since last years camp. so what did i do? i acted like how i did a year ago when they last saw me. it's not like i was deceiving them in a way. it just that my subconscious is forcing me to act a certain way.

It is not like i have different personalities. it is just like i act in a way that allows me to connect with those people better. we all liked to be... well "liked" so we somewhat change ourselves so that we fit in.

it's like when I'm in school. i hang out with many different groups all the time. that means when I'm with a certain group i talk about different things and i act in a different way. for example when I'm whit Stein we would end up talking about music. and when I'm with Dick we would be goofing off or sleeping.

i just find it weird how i can be all different and still be one person.

I remember watching all these movies when i was younger and they all said the same thing: "be yourself!" but we like to be liked so we withhold a piece of ourselves. so much for being myself.

From a deranged lunatic... i bid you farewell

Anger

You know i was thinking lately about anger. It reminded me about a bible verse:

What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don't they come from your desires that battle within you? You want something but don't get it. You kill and covet, but you cannot have what you want. You quarrel and fight.
James 4 1:2 (NIV)

When we get angry it is because we don't get something we want. Be it something material or not if in the end we don't have it, then we get angry. Now what we do with such anger comes the problem. many of us vent it out on someone or something. Be it the focus of your original anger or some unlucky fellow who so happened to pass by you at a bad state. then there are the people who hold it in, bury it for a later time - which always seems to get further and further away. now these people are the one who you need to watch out for. they may seem to be all happy-go-lucky, but that is just the product of their superior facade.

but what i find about these people who mask their anger, is that they mask all other feelings as well. you will never see what they are really feeling because they have learned to hide away all tell tales through the years.

How do i know these thing? Because i am one of those people, actors, who hide away from all the pain.

But what i find comforting is that there are some few people who can see past my walls and see what I'm really feeling, and i know that their are real, genuine, friends that will stick by me no matter what i say.

From a deranged lunatic... i bid you farewell

Significant others

I don't get it!

Why do girls have the need to pair everyone up. We can spend hours just talking about all the people we know and who they would best match up with. I mean whats the point. The actual number of predictions that would end up true would be very slim, and yet we feel the urge to do so.

What I have also noticed when I'm talking to Smokey and Chase is that girls tend to see one little thing that sort of agrees with their "finding" and then make a big deal about it. See i spend a lot of my time with Theo therefore that immediately means that we like each others or something or other. Chase was saying to me how a guy and a girl cannot spend that much time together without developing some form of "more-than-platonic" relationship.

You see this is one of the reasons I hang out with they guys more than i do with the girls. Girls just tend to over analyze things. Then again, since I started hanging around the guys more, it just made things worse.

AHHH I hate the workings of a teenage mind.
I blame the establishment and their enforcement of the high school hierarchy.

Conforming

I started a blog because all my friends had one and i was bored (if you know me really well then you would know that I'm bored pretty much most of the time... so this would be much of a surprise to you.)

So in a nutshell, all I'm pretty much doing is conforming.

what i find weird about non-conformists is that they themselves conform to the image of non-conformists. they all wear the same clothes and listen to the same style of music which they say is "a way to keep out of the main-stream styles". they conform when they say that they are against conforming. either way you look at one must conform to the "conformists" or the "non-conformists".

This reminds me of what my drama teacher (Mrs mac) told us to do the other day. she told us to be unconventional. If everyone does something unconventional then it becomes conventional. Ergo in order to be unconventional one must be conventional. AHHH i hate reverse psychology. it's so confusing!!!

Conforming - We all do it and yet so many of us hate it. It makes no sense!!! I'm so confuzzled?

From a deranged lunatic... i bid you farewell