EPTSupport our fellow Liquid-er ohsea.toc
A friend told me that I ought to spend more time out and about today.
"You should spend more time with us man."
"What do you guys usua-"
"Like 2 days ago we went to the the flats nearby and at this I dunno lah, this zinc hut or whatever there was like shit inside. Bo-yi said he smelled something damn disgusting so he went to check and see then he saw one pile of shit there. Damn fucking funny I tell you."
He starts laughing uncontrollably and slaps his knee as his face starts turning beet red. I never thought I'd actually see someone slap their knee in real life. I always imagined that knee-slapping was reserved for redneck grandpappies after telling a crude sexual joke about his wife.
"So the next day we went there again and we brought Ming Ta along but we didn't tell him the shit was there." At this point I could tell that stuff was about to get ridiculous and I started laughing along with him myself. He struggled to continue the story amidst our hyuck hyuck hyuck-ing, "When we were near the place Bo-yi said that he needed to shit and asked everybody to turn around but everybody except Ming Ta knew that the shit was there and the shit-smell wasn't so strong anymore so he didn't really know. After like 20 seconds Bo-yi said he was finished and asked Ming Ta to look at his shit. So he did and Ming Ta was like 'What the fuck?'"
Alright, that story was kind of pointless but I thought I'd share it to start things off. Things have been coming along quite well recently. Sure there are a few hiccups and bumps here and there, they're all manageable.
I got around to reading a couple of books lately. I've bought Lord of the Flies, Brave New World, Disgrace, and 1984. I have read LotF and Disgrace, and am now starting on 1984.
Lord of the Flies was a fine book. Kids stranded on an island, boys being boys, so on and so forth. It was interesting to read about how things played out, but I have to say that things got predictable pretty quick. It wasn't as shocking as I had expected it to be, but it was a good book to get into reading again.
Disgrace by Coetzee won the Nobel Prize for Literature last year, deservedly so. I thoroughly enjoyed reading it cover to cover. The storyline was gripping, I especially took delight in relishing how eloquent the author was. The part where David was working his magic seducing Melanie made me say out "David, you dog!". The whole business with the symbolism of dogs took quite a bit of thinking for me to get, and the ending left me puzzled for an hour or so. It was pleasurable to just sit and think about the book for an hour, where pieces of the text flit through your mind and you let your imagination play out parts of the book.
I thought that I had lost the ability to read something purely for entertainment and was only capable of analysing a book, but Disgrace sparked something within me that made me want to read and feel more. Damn it, I love reading.
1984 looks to be an excellent read. I cannot wait to read on.
The Chinese have an idiom "猪朋狗友", that when translated directly to English is "Pig friend dog friend", and when translated properly to English, is "Bad friends". We have obviously had some bad friends before, and we've either cut them off, keep them at a safe distance, or become them.
These friends are the ultimate success-sucking machines. They encourage you to procrastinate, they see you working towards your goal and drag you away from it by your feet. Most of the time we don't even know they're doing this to us. I'll admit that I have a few of them now, and they laze around all day refusing to study, tweet about how their parents are stupid for not getting them what the want, then make fun of teachers who they think have no lives.
Now this is fine and all, because what they say is what they say, but it bugs me that when asked where they see themselves headed to, they put on this huge smug grin and say," I'm going to be like Bill Gates, not like you bitches!"
Nevertheless I've learned to ignore their hedonistic self-defeating behaviours and just mind my own damn business.
There are a couple of friends that I am truly grateful for. These friends are the people that I just want to thank them for existing while giving them a firm hug.
Here's a great piece to end the blog.
I hope you enjoyed reading this! Haven't done a blog to just ramble for in quite a bit of time.
