Can't touch me!

I had a great chat with L, who was running a stall at lunchtime today.
I think we get on heaps better when he's not trying to convince me to join anything and I'm not trying to justify why I'm not.
We got to discussing some really interesting topics, and I just thought it was a nice moment in an otherwise frantic and busy day.
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Met up with Leanne for lunch, and I've only just realised how much I miss her! Good thing I'll be seeing her Friday, along with the rest.
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We watched an interesting documentary in cinema studies class today. It was called 'Pucker Up', and was entirely devoted to the art of whistling, with the International Whistling Competition held in North Carolina as the focal point of the film. One hilarious comment overheard from one student in the screening hall, after the film had ended: "If I hear anyone whistling today, I am going to punch them in the face."

Today, I met a pervert on the tram.

After a long day at uni, I got on the tram near the Royal Parade Circular junction.
Got on the tram. Thanked the driver for waiting for me (I was running to catch the tram from across the road).
Sat down.

At the next stop, a large bespectacled man in a red polo shirt with white horizontal stripes got on and sat next to me, on my left.

After a while, I felt his leg press against mine. I thought little of it, assuming that he needed more space, being larger in size than I am. I shifted a little bit to the right. Well, a few seconds later, I again felt him subtly shifting towards me, and felt his leg press against mine again. Again, I tried to dismiss this, even though I was starting to get a bit wary.

I decided to give him the benefit of the doubt, thinking maybe he was just using the extra space to get more comfortable. I shifted to my right again. To my utmost dread, I felt him move towards me once more.

I shifted a third time. He followed. This time I knew for sure he was up to no good, but decided to squash myself way up against the window, just to confirm things. So there I was, cheek pressed against glass, face turned away, left arm clutching my right shoulder in my best attempt to protect myself. Curled up and pathetic and scared and sad.

And what do you know, he moves again, pressing the length of his thigh and calf and shoe against mine.
My worst suspicions confirmed, I suddenly stand up and walk to the end of the tram to sit down elsewhere. I catch him turning back to see me go, but thank god he doesn't follow me. When he gets off the tram, he full on stares at me when he walks past.

Now, I can already imagine what people would say to that. They would go, "You should have screamed. You should have scolded him. You should have told the tram driver. You should have slapped him."

I should have, I should have, I should have. Done this, done that. But to be honest, the only thing I was feeling then was fear. He was more than twice my size, there was hardly anyone else on the tram to turn to for help and I did not go to the tram driver, because it would have been the pervert's word against mine and I would have had no solid proof.

The reason why I bring this incident up is not to have a laugh about it. Nor is it some sick, twisted attempt to say "hee! I'm attractive enough to get weirdos try to feel me up!" No fucking way. I felt violated, I felt angry, I felt scared. I was dressed conservatively in jeans, t-shirt and jacket. Normal uni garb. (note: this does not mean that I think people who are dressed revealingly should be molested or raped, no! It is my firm stand that no one deserves to get raped/molested regardless of what they're wearing, what they look like, and so on. I will bite the head off anyone who says things like "she was asking for it, her skirt was so short") I was sitting quietly, listening to my ipod, not inviting any attention. Yet I was made to feel unsafe, on something as prosaic and mundane as a tram ride home in the late afternoon.

I am fully justified in yelling out sexism on this one. Men who feel entitled to women's bodies do this sort of thing. Men who feel they can intimidate women, just because she appears to be harmless while he's much bigger and stronger, do this. Men who think that forcing themselves on women and inappropriately touching them, is ok. My experience is very very common, and lots of other girls and women would have gone through much worse. I stand in solidarity with all of them.

Labels: Sexism

I've only told one person in Australia about my blog.
Pray tell, who are the others?

That asshole is always blowing hot and cold. What's your problem, man? See if I ever turn up again for one of your rants aimed at Howard.

Not that you would, you know, care.

Peeping Tom

Weird actor dude with a weird German accent pretending to be an English cameraman who has an obsession with filming snuff films, due to his father's abuse of him as a child.

You know, I really do trust Roger's taste. He's picked out great films for film soc so far, but I'm afraid this week's film was far off the mark.

How much blame can we lay at the feet of our parents for our own dysfunction? To be honest, I wish it could be a 100%. Then all the problems in the world can be traced back to our first ancestors, whatever life-forms rose out of the ocean, threw off their fins, grew some hairy pits and began eating bananas while hunting for rats. Doggone it, if Grug had been more open with Uggna, maybe their children would have been more balanced, and tracing that through eons of human development, I wouldn't now be a crazy psudeo-Englishman with an obsession with my camera and it's freaky third-leg bayonet!

Speaking of crazy people and killing, I'm sure everyone has heard of the VaTech massacre by now. I think it's shocking, I think it's horrible, I think it's awful. I am in no way condoning his actions. Cho deserves utmost blame for his disgusting attack on the lives of innocent university students.

Certain things people have been saying, however disturb me. One of these is the notion that Cho is some he-devil from the abyss, some crazy psychotic nutcase, or he's Satan godchild (excuse the paradox there). Was he mentally ill? Yes. Was he psychotic? Yes. Was he unstable, dangerous, should have been confined to a mental institute, should not have been allowed to purchase guns? Yes, yes, yes, yes. But he is, after all, a human being, I don't believe in a world of Edmund Hoopers, where great evil is implanted by some cheeky imp from limbo. There's a reason for his isolation, alienation, violent impulses. I'm not going to blame it solely on society, because Cho must take the greatest brunt of his disgusting actions. But at the same time, I'm not going to blame it all on biology. I don't believe biology is destiny. Not anymore that I believe evil individuals grow up in some vacuum bell jar, ready to be released when they're 23 to unleash hell on unsuspecting people. It's a combination of nature and nurture, I think. Soc Party sent me an email encouraging me to blame the massacres on the 'system'. On the other hand, some American political blogs I'm reading have been blaming it solely on teh-evil-devil-pulsating-hatred-cannot-understand-him-lock-up-the-crazies-ban-video-games-by-golly-we-need-our-gunz-to-shootz-down-the-yellow-peril!!!

Can I, can I just take the middle ground here? It seems to me most reasonable to say that Cho was a seriously disturbed individual. Perhaps chemical inbalances in his brain had caused or exacerbated his psychotic tendencies. At the same time, society has to take on some blame. A culture that makes it difficult for people with mental health issues to seek help, either through stigmatising it or through inadequate funding, staff and resources. A society that breeds on competiton, stress, and pressure. A system that thrives on inequalities, that marginalises and alienates those not up to scratch. A country that glamorises guns and violence, makes guns easily accessible, then blames homicides and massacres on video games. I think an explosive combination of these factors was responsible. If we pretend that this was some biologically determined thing we had no control of, or that we should now start locking up quiet and weird people (99.9% who will never go on to committ mass killings), then God save us all.

Labels: Virginia Tech Massacre

Lying on the grass, or sitting cross-legged on the lawn, or legs stretched out, face basking in warm mid-autumn sunlight.

We can sit and talk, and we can pluck the grass with our fidgety fingers, and we can twirl dried weeds between our palms, and we can turn our face up to the sky. We can dust dried bits of grass and soil off our pants, and lean against the black sculpture in the middle of union lawn. We can use our backpacks as pillows, or the trees of trunks as our back rests. We can munch on our sausages and bread and sip on our beer (I'll pass thanks - I'm off red meat, and I hate beer).

We can chat, or we can remain contemplatively silent, or we can eavesdrop on the group next to us, or spy on the couple up against the tree engaged in some full-on kissing. We can watch people mill past, carrying plastic boxes of chicken rice or glad-wrapped pita wraps or sushi rolls in brown paper bags.

We can listen to the sounds of the band playing in North Court, hear the sound of people clapping and laughing and talking and arguing and shrieking. We can look on, amused, as the socialists skulk around campus putting up posters (*blushes*), as people waving leaflets and pamphlets yell out slogans and anti-Howard chants. We can smile wryly and put our hands up to signal 'no' when people carrying boxes of chocolates come up to ask for our donations.

We can sit and just be, and wish that one 'o clock never comes, because that would mean the start of lectures and more frantic running around campus to make it on time for tutorials.

And we did.

Thank you Al, Remy and Asher. You guys really made my day. : )

Labels: University

A stirring quote from D.G. Leahy, writing in Foundation: Matter the Body Itself:

"Total presence breaks on the univocal predication of the exterior absolute
the absolute existent (of that of which it is not possible to univocally
predicate an outside, while the equivocal predication of the outside of the
absolute exterior is possible of that of which the reality so predicated is not
the reality, viz., of the dark/of the self, the identity of which is not outside
the absolute identity of the outside, which is to say that the equivocal
predication of identity is possible of the self-identity which is not identity,
while identity is univocally predicated of the limit to the darkness, of the
limit of the reality of the self). This is the real exteriority of the absolute
outside: the reality of the absolutely unconditioned absolute outside univocally
predicated of the dark: the light univocally predicated of the darkness: the
shining of the light univocally predicated of the limit of the darkness:
actuality univocally predicated of the other of self-identity: existence
univocally predicated of the absolutely unconditioned other of the self. The
precision of the shining of the light breaking the dark is the other-identity of
the light. The precision of the absolutely minimum transcendence of the dark is
the light itself/the absolutely unconditioned exteriority of existence for the
first time/the absolutely facial identity of existence/the proportion of the new
creation sans depth/the light itself ex nihilo: the dark itself univocally
identified, i.e., not self-identity identity itself equivocally, not the dark
itself equivocally, in “self-alienation,” not “self-identity, itself in
self-alienation” “released” in and by “otherness,” and “actual other,” “itself,”
not the abysmal inversion of the light, the reality of the darkness equivocally,
absolute identity equivocally predicated of the self/selfhood equivocally
predicated of the dark (the reality of this darkness the other-self-covering of
identity which is the identification person-self). "

Look, I'm not trying to be an anti-intellectual here. Ideas are important. But how can anyone tolerate this? Big Smarty =/= Effective Communicator. Good to know this book won an award for Bad Writing in 1998.

On the other hand, when I'm feeling the frustration in my head nearing explosion point when I'm trying to wade through my readings, I read the above quote and return to my notes feeling profoundly grateful that obfuscation exists in varying degrees, and not every talks or writes like they're frantically intellectually masturbating.

Paraphrasing heaps here, but I liked this comment on one of the blogs I was reading today.

"When privilege becomes normalised, it becomes a right, at least in the eyes of those who hold that privilege. And when people challenge that privilege, it is seen as an attack on that person's rights. Which is when people get all iffy and hysterical and call out reverse-racism/sexism/classim/ableism etc."

No such thing as bloody reverse racism/sexism/classim/ableism. Period. People who are dispproportionately disadvantaged by the system do not have any responsibility to sooth and nurture you so you, you in the position of power, won't get your feelings hurt. Bullshit is bullshit, and bullshit will be called as and when it happens.

That being said, I appreciate that a lot of this discourse comes from a very American context, where the White/Black dichotomy is at its starkest. But it can very definitely be applied in an Australian context, where Aboriginal issues are pretty much swept under the carpet and indigenous people are continually marginalised and typecast as 'lazy bums who sniff glue and rape 13 year old girls', so they have to be locked up in prison where they, in many cases, suffer under police brutality.

It applies to the Singaporean context as well. We Chinese are to Singapore what the Whites are to America. No, we didn't have historical systematic lynching of minorities, (God forbid), but comparable in the sense that we occupy nearly all the positions of power. I for one am bloody sick of the 'smelly Indian jokes'. The only smelly ones are the rich fat towkay neos re-incarnated as merc driving Nassim road dickheads who treat their Indonesian maids like shit.

Not directly related, since I'm on a stream of consciousness rant, but anyway : my brother is a misogynist. When I told him that women only earn 80% of what men in comparable positions earned, he said, "huh? that's very good already what."

Looks like the Gare Bear's back to his old smoking habit. No comment.
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It's getting chilly. Autumn is nearly at it's height. If there were big maple trees lining the city, the streets would be ablaze with red and gold. But they're not, so the closest thing to it are the traffic lights.
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Easter break is coming soon. Easter means something different to me this year. Last year, it was Jesus, rebirth and renewal. This year, it's a break to get my assignments done. And maybe the occasional chocolate fix. It's all in a big mess now, but there is clarity elsewhere.
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I can trace it all back to one day. Why, oh why, did I sign the !@#&^& petition?
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Know why it's so disjointed? Know why it's so unconnected (as opposed to disconnected) ? Because that's the way it is now, that's why. That's the way the mind is when it's over-worked, and when its neuroses don't ever, ever let up.
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Please call me.

I wonder how the Gare Bear's doing. I hope he's not too grumpy over his nicotine withdrawal.

1. Dear Diary, I woke up early today and had breakfast. I got into an argument with my mother. Harsh words were exchanged, I left the apartment in a huff, I went to the school library. Then I realised the fight was all for nothing. Can I take back those words? No, I can't.

2. Dear Kitty, today was a busy day. I think I have a problem with eating and talking at the same time. I get extremely self-conscious about my mouth and the way I eat. I find it highly embrassing when someone is looking at me while they talk and a big piece of lettuce, halfway pulled out of the wrap with my teeth, flips over and lands on my chin.

3. Dear Diary, I don't quite like the way I walk. I think I wobble more than I walk. I don't like it. I think both my feet point outwards. I look clumsy.

4. Dear Diary, I don't like it when I'm saying something and his eyes are looking elsewhere, thinking up arguments to counter mine instead of focusing on what I'm saying. Then I realised that I do it all the time too. And not just with him, but with everyone else in my tutes.

P.S: My heart beats faster just before I speak in my tutes. It takes all the willpower in me to control the nervous pulse in my voice, though I think you can hear the heartbeat in my voice. (please, for God's sake, don't shoot my ideas down!)

5. Dear Kitty, I like using the microfilm machines in the basement of the library. It makes me feel like a detective, sourcing out murder cases from decades long past. But of course, history students are detectives too, right? But we aren't searching for killers. Not most of the time, anyway. We're searching for people and places and stories, removed in place and time, and the microfilms are our portals to these things. Pretty lousy technology, don't you think? When I tried winding one of the reels through the machine, the reel got stuck and then spat out two piece of paper at me when I tried to pry it loose.

6. I waited for a fucking phonecall all fucking day. Then I think I realised that it wasn't ever going to come. And I should be happy, but I'm not.