prejudice or not prejudice, that is the question

i was having a midnight snack a few weeks ago with a bunch of friends. i was chatting with one of them but then i overheard another member of our party talk about a guy in her class. naturally our attention went to her. naturally..

she started off by saying that the dude was pretty good looking for an indian. then she continued to rattle off how suprised she was to see a good looking indian. she went on and on and on. right at the end, she told the group with a look of repugnance, the guy started to speak and she was utterly repulsed! he spoke with an indian accent apparently..and he wasnt so good looking anymore afterthat.

whats with this perception that an entire race of people can be ugly?..how can one be so small minded and shallow?..and the way she decribed how he spoke was absolutely demeaning and insulting. HE IS FROM INDIA, YOU DUMB FUCK!!..HE CANT HELP HAVING AN INDIAN ACCENT!!

i absolutely hate it when i hear "he/she wasnt bad looking for [insert race here]" what the hell?!!..everyone looks different. that makes us interesting. since when the way one looked made him a lesser person than anyone else?..everyone has an accent. speaking with different intonations and emphasis makes someone a freak? a weirdo?..or is it that you just think you are superior?

another friends of mine constanly imitates the waiter's accent ( in his face mind you ) when we go into a restaurant. many times i have jabbed her in the ribs for doing that. it just shocks me how rude people can be. i felt like someone slapped me when i first heard it from her. she tells me she cant help imitating the waiter and she didnt mean any harm by it.

true, she may have done it for her own amusement, but in front of him?..you start off the conversation speaking like you always do, with your own accent and the moment you hear a thick chinese accent, you put on a chinese accent as well. there is nothing fun or funny about that.

i dont think it ever occured to her that the reason he speaks english with a thick chinese accent is because its all he knows. he is surrounded by people speaking exactly the same way, many unable to utter a single english word. it also reflects on his education background. he is not very educated, thats why he is a waiter in a restaurant instead of being a..i dunno,..a diplomat. he didnt grow up in a english speaking community, he learnt himself from reading books and magazines.

there are so many reasons i can give but in all honesty i shouldnt and i wouldnt. why cant he just speak in whatever manner he is comfortable with? as long the message gets across i do not see a problem. why should he be feeling embarrased of himself when it is my friends who are the ones who should be ashamed?

it saddens me that in exchange for success, education, longer life, money and luxury, equal standings, human rights..men and women have lost their people skills. respect, courtesy, love, manners, humility are no longer part of the civilised society. we are back to square one. and no, we are not like animals..i am afraid that we have become worse than that.

everyone has prejudices, it all depends on what we have experienced in life and what we have heard from people we trust. i confess to having several myself. but in my opinion, prejudice people that allow themselves to be proven wrong and accept that 'defeat' with good graces, werent really prejudice to begin with.

no one person is better than another, no matter how rich you are or how beautiful you look..mutual respect for different cultures, mannerisms and way of life, makes you to have nothing to lose and a new friend to gain.

over and out.

chicken soup for the soul

i have a craving for the past few weeks. maybe because i was feeling sick. i felt like a bowl of steaming hot chicken soup. i kept picturing it in my head. how the steam curled out of the bowl. how the meat of the chicken would be so tender that it would just fall of the bones. and the smell!!..boy the smell that would get your juices running.

so i asked josephin for the recipe and the sweet girl went on the net looking for a simple, straightforward recipe for me. at that precise moment my sister calls and when asked she just rattled off the recipe. didnt sound too complicated. peel, cut, boil in big pot. easy.

and i did it!!!.. it was exactly how i imagined it would be. it was FANTASTIC!!.. i made enough to feed a small town ( my estimation needs a little work ) but what the hell..chicken soup for the rest of the week! WOOOHHHHHOOOOO!!

heres my top 5 comfort food

1. ice cream ( cures everything )
2. hot chicken soup
3. strawberries
4. hot crumpet smothered with nutella
5. 'apom balik' ( kind like a pancake with butter, corn, crushed peanuts and sugar on top )

yyuuummmmmm..

ps:- whoever reading this, why dont you list down your top 5 in the comment box?..

meatballs and sticky cake

i was thinking about josephin's cousin today. anna came last august and i didnt realise that her trip here is coming to an end. time really flies. josephin has been taking care of anna like a mother hen tending to her chicks( in this case chick, excuse the pun ). she feeds anna, takes her shopping and sight seeing, whatever she could to make anna's trip here worthwhile and memorable. im sure anna had a good time and i hope i havent scared her too much.

before's anna's arrival, jo has been pretty down with our friend marisa's personality change. well, both of us were but i dont see marisa as much as jo does. in a way i must thank marisa for introducing jo to me. when marisa stopped being the 'marisa', the only person i could depend on was jo and i still do. i really can relate to her, i didnt realise till then how much we had in common. i was grateful for her kindness and her willingness to let me crash her place when i needed to get out of the hell hole im currently living in.

but thats not the only thing great about her. she can cook. really well. damn if i were a guy i would kiss her everytime she made something to eat!!..( since i am not one i shall spare us both of that potentially traumatic experience ). i love her desserts [ excessive salivation ongoing ] and her meatballs..superb!!

you see..i cant cook. usually i eat out or one of those instant stuff. or my staple of bread and generous amounts of nutella. at home my sister or brother does the cooking for me. i'm often on the cleaning up duty which i gratefully accept. sometimes i have 'cutting the ingredients' duty but that usually does not work out too well. this is because i am not to be trusted with sharp objects and i often get blood all over the food. lets face it, i suck big time.

josephin cannot understand this. to her credit she simply cannot accept that some people ( ie me ) are useless in the kitchen. sometimes i ask her to teach how to make something, and the same words come pouring out, "its very easy, even my little brother can do it". if i am not mistaken her brother is 8 years old. totally embarrasing. also very, very funny to see her look of depair on her face. classic..

one more thing, she got me hooked on roswell, the tv series. i mean COME ON!!..its about aliens and i'm not a science fiction kinda gal. josephin absolutely loves the series and doesnt mind watching her dvds over and over again. there was a point when we'll just hog her tv for hours going through the episodes. i'm not a hopeless romantic like she is, and there's tonnes and tonnes of lovey dovey stuff going on with the characters. geezzz...this is something my sister would watch, not me!

but i must say, the sheriff and his son kyle are pretty hot..

anyhoo, anna is leaving on tuesday. i have to admit that i will miss her. she's such a sweet girl and i hope her experience here was fulfiiling and fun. i do worry about josephin though. anna provided her an excuse to be distracted for awhile but now what?..i dont want to see the angry, disappointed side of josephin that surfaced earlier this year. we provided each other company initailly but i didnt go over as much when anna came. i fear that she might be a little lost and a little miserable. i cannot replace anna's company and i think she wouldnt want that from anyone.

i dunno..we'll have to see i guess. time to make my instant pasta.

hasta la vista, baybeh!!

bibaddi-babiddi boo

barbra streisand: woman in love

today was not a good day for me..

i have one class on fridays. i missed it today because i overslept..thats not the worst part

i had to meet up kailin to do this fucking chemistry project. how many of you out there want to know how heavy metals and organophosphates in the environment can be detected using a mass spectrometer?

no one?? i thought so..

then i go to marisa's flat right after uni to get my new "well-deserved, hard earned, went-hungry-for-a-3-semesters, the-reason-for-not-getting-new-funky-underwear-or-shoes-for-the-past-year, still-in-the-box" toy and behold..she wasnt home!!!!..she was at john's place..suprise suprise

i bloody want it now so i send her a text message and she asks me to go over to his place to get it. why couldnt she just leave it with josephin; whom i know will be here for sure?..i appreciate her help in getting it but really, she could have a little more sense. she's hardly here and she could have just thought of me a little.

Andrea Bocelli & Stevie Wonder: Canzoni Stonate

anyhoo..i go to bobb and the worst thing happened. bobb died on me!!! i tried over and over but nothing. so i text marisa again and she said she'll drop by my place tomorrow. no toy for me today..boo hoo!!!!

but every cloud has a silver lining. i had a great time chatting with kailin today and we dont get to spend much time just by ourselves. she's a great friend and great friends are rare nowadays. im glad we can still be the way we were in collage, eventhough we are very different people now.

the best thing that happened to me today was when a dude drove up to me out of nowhere and offered to help me with bobb. he and his friend were on their way to somewhere but they delayed themselves for me. i didnt even get his name. eventhough it was no good ( bobb is still dead ) but i am grateful and so thankful for them being there when i was feeling so helpless.

so what did i learn today?
1. not all of your friends undergo a complete personality 'makeover' when they get attached
2. there will be friends in your life who will lose the very qualities that made you friends in the first place
3. not all strangers have the intention of mugging you or stealing your shoes, even though they arent wearing any themselves

over and out

matt munro: softly as i leave you