Ode to Opa

Opa died today. I'm not sure why, my father won't tell me anything. This is yet another one of the things I cannot do anything for, I can't go back home except to see his grave. I won't be there for his funeral, I won't be there for my father who would appreciate the company right now. I'm a thousand miles too far away for anything to be done except mourn, I suppose.

I guess the shit thing is, I really wanted to see him when I got old enough to have a decent conversation with him. I wanted to engrave his image in my brain, this is my blood, he is my blood. This is a man who was born before the holocaust. This is a man who survived refugee camps, fled to Indonesia, knew people who were in concentration camps and was a prisoner of war on the Malaysian-Thai death railroad. This is a man who was persecuted for his heritage and the colour of his skin and still fought to keep his name.

I was brought up to be proud of my family name. Even after my grandmother and grandfather divorced, they ensured that we knew how important our names are. I suppose that's the only real thing I have to remember him by. Well, I have a few pictures of him. One where he's dancing in his underwear drunk, another on his wedding day kissing my oma and one respectable one. Them, and his antics in the hospital. Apparently during the time he was going senile he used to keep his shit in a jar in a fridge. He also used to pinch the nurses' genitals whenever he got the chance.

It gives me giggles to know that the naughty streak runs in him, my father and myself. What pleases me more, is that those pictures also showed his personality. He was a man who knew how to have fun but be serious when the time called for it. A man who not only knew how to survive a horrible time, but to live through it. A man who lost everything and built up businesses from scratch during the great depression. Any man who can do that is a great man, one who deserves being remembered. I'm just sorry I didn't really get the chance to know him more, even though I can probably gauge what sort of man he was based on his actions, experience and through my own father.

May he rest in peace, pinching vag in the afterlife.

This ain't the movies, we're all in 3D

People aren't generally one or two-dimensional. There are usually many, many facets to one's personality. Sure, we all have characters and one-word stereotypes but there's always something more to a person than just that. What one word would define me? Singaporean, Eurasian, woman, scientist, bartender, lover, friend, sister, daughter, bitch? What would define anyone, most people are just that. They're where they come from, they're the people that they're connected to or they're the one word stereotypes.

There's always something more to a person though, I'm more than just a word and so is everyone else. We all go through similar things and most of us act a similar way. We all grow up and mature, get jobs, find our ways in life. We find a way to make ourselves useful to the community so that we may benefit in turn. A lot of us fall for somebody, find some weird connection in space to bridge the gaps between. Most of us will have children or care for one, trying to pass on knowledge and help another make sense of the world.

There's so many facets to our personalities however, I am not just strong, I can also display some form of cowardice. I'm not completely intelligent, there are parts in my life where stupidity shines through. I am not always a bitch, I'm a pretty caring individual when I put my mind to it. I'm not always loud-mouthed and vulgar, I can display periods of time of refinement when the situation calls for it.

I was just thinking of this when ecd mentioned that my comments about my refined relatives were sarcastic when they weren't. Another example of this is when chin, my best friend of 6 years said that a particular piece I wrote was too meek for my character. It's not just them though, most people have a particular opinion of somebody as if a particular set of behaviour is native to them. It's not though, I never thought of myself as a cheater until I cheated on my exes. It really shits me when people say things like, "Oh, that's something I'd never do." Bullshit. You'd kill a man if he were coming at you with a knife. Some people do things out of character from time to time, it happens. Would that seem... Out of character? Or just being human?

We were actually talking about this at work

You know all those horrible sexual medical stories you hear? Well, I'm going to share some of them with you. If you don't want to be grossed out, don't read on.



Ready? I suspect most of you have already heard them. I assure you, a lot of them are actually true.

Story 1:

Girl and guy have anal sex.
Girl farts.
Girl's anus creates a vacuum causing guy's penis to be sucked in.
Both end up having to be sent to the hospital in an ambulance.
Girl needs air pump in ass to allow penis to be removed.

Story 2:

Girl is horny.
Girl buys a lobster.
Girls screws herself with a lobster, using a lighter to burn its face.
In a few days, she has the worst cramps imaginable.
She queefs out thousands of little lobsters.
Lobster laid eggs in her bagingo.

Story 3:

Girl gets cramps, goes to doctor.
Results are in, doctor says she has vaginal worms.
She's confused.
Doctor explains that he needs to know who she has had sex with in the past 6 months.
Turns out, her boyfriend works in the morgue and has been having unprotected sex with corpses.
She is mortified.

Enjoy. Thought it was more light hearted compared to previous post.

Anti Smoking Campaigns Make Me Want to Smoke All the Time

I can't watch a single thing on tv without having to have some reminder of cigarettes. In almost every commercial is some sort of anti-smoking campaign, quit line or whatever. If I really were quitting cigarettes, I would totally want to smoke so much more every time one of these damned commercials comes on.

Anyway, I just realised that I let Lance bitchslap my argument in one of my ancient posts and didn't come up with a decent reply to it about smoking. Today, I will. Let me just start with, the pursuit of knowledge is long and painful, and I will have to baby most of my explanation just because most of my readers will be unable to understand it.

Getting cancer is a game of probability and chance. Now, as most scientists do not like this notion of chance however, in cases of cancer we'll have to admit that it happens. Your body grows new cells all the time. The difference between cancer cells and normal cells is that cancer cells are not controlled by the mechanisms present in normal cells that prevent excessive growth. You see, you don't normally end up dying from the actual growth themselves but what they cause to occur in your body. For example, tumours may end up in liver, impeding liver function causing you to die or they'll block an artery causing you to die, etc.

Think of a tumour like a mother who brings her baby to work. The baby's fine, sometimes it's a little cute but it's annoying and cries a lot. It slows performance down a little, but not so much that it is very noticeable. A metastatic tumour is like when the news spreads that parents can start bringing their children to work so they all do so. The presence of so many children is distracting and annoying, causing performance to dwindle down to the point where the company shuts down. Yes, I hate babies.

What causes cancer though? So, these cells are always dividing in your body and how that works is the DNA is a big database which is read and protein is made according to what DNA says it should be. It's not so much the DNA being fucked that causes cancer because when DNA damage is too severe, the cell just ends up dying. It's when the mechanism to kill the cell fails is when growths start to occur. So, that's mutation 1. Forgot to mention that you need a few mutations in order for cancer to occur. Mutation 2 is when the other check in place to make sure your cell only divides a certain number of times in its lifetime gets fucked. Then cancer is in business.

All right, that's the HOW. The WHY is through things that can cause mutations. You know, like the sun which gives off harmful UV rays. Like some types of fungi, viral and bacterial infections, heavy metals, radioactive waste, etc that give cancer once in contact. Stimulus A leads to Situation B type stuff. In the case of cigarettes however, stimulus A does not lead to situation B. It takes years for the POSSIBILITY of situation B from arising. Who knows that during that period of time you would not have been exposed to something else that may cause situation B. There is no such toxicological report on human studies that is as comprehensive as that. There is economically viable and reliable method of testing that is able to prove otherwise and there is no way to even predict cancer.

Thousands of the components that make DNA in each cell are broken off and damaged every single day just spontaneously or with physiological stress. You don't get cancer every day though. You know why? Because you systems of checks in each cell to prevent it from happening. If your family has a history of cancer, then you shouldn't smoke. Even I, would discourage you from smoking because you are at a much greater risk to get cancer. It shows that genetically, your system of checks have failed in previous generations and is likely to fail in yours. If you, like myself, have a family with no history of cancer then it is quite unlikely that you will get cancer.

That's why the whole campaign ads and idiotic laymen telling me that smoking causes cancer, like omg pisses the living fuck out of me. What do you know, you damned laymen, beyond the 30 seconds of repeated information from television ads, maybe a half hour seminar that schools give you with some reformed speaker that could be smoking 50 sticks a day. Like all those idiots I know who have no problems popping pills and doing drugs that cause immediate harm to their bodies but won't touch a stick. Do you even know how rare metastatic cancer is in the first place? I don't even know anyone who has cancer, most of them have diabetes. Why isn't anyone banning sugar yet?

Anyway, that was a long rant. Don't give me shit about this being too science-y, I don't care. By the way, this rant was in response to smoking causes cancer. If you point out other shit, I will address them too.

Sick again... Penis Envy

I stayed at home today again, which was really annoying because I really wanted to do this experiment that we're doing at uni. So much more interesting than getting dizzy spells from walking for long periods of time. The good thing about it is that my boy stayed home to take care of me which was fabulous. Nothing more comforting than knowing that someone will take care of you when you need it most.

Now, on a completely random note, the subject of penis envy. I have penis envy, and it's not just because you bastards don't get pregnant. It's the complete lack of regard for any female you happen to be banging at whatever time that gets me sold. That, and the ability to aim your urine into a porcelain bowl. I mean, my way of thinking is majority comprised of guy-osophys but nothing beats the masters of testosterone.

It's really annoying how the stereotypical female is expected to behave. We're supposed to be kinder, gentler, smoother, have better manners, care about babies and all that bullshit. If we don't, nobody would want to marry us, etc. Who wants to get married anyway, I reckon I could squeeze one out at some point and raise it by myself if my biological clock kicks in, in the future.

So penis envy, I do not actually believe in the superiority of the male sex. Unfortunately, I do not trust my readers' comprehension skills to realise this or even read the previous sentence. Sigh. Anyway, it's not putting one sex above the other, it's about advantages of one to the next. I like the fact that I'm female and have all the female perks like breasts, free shit, free reign to be a complete bitch for a week once a month and males being nice and protective over me, etc. I just like the fact that a majority of men are able to fornicate without caring whereas most women tend to get attached and annoying.

No, there was no point to this post.

The hardest thing is to let go

I'm a stubborn bastard and I'll probably always be one. The easiest thing to do is to tell me that I can't do something and I will do it. That, except climb mount everest and lose weight (hah!). Nah, it's true what chin's said before, if I really cared I would have done something about it and that's the same for any other person who has some sort of defect whether it's body odour, crooked teeth, flaky skin, dandruff, shitty hair, horrible clothes, etc. If you really cared about your image and all that, you would take care of it but that's fine.

Anyway I'm a stubborn bastard who doesn't know when to quit. I should probably quit now and instead of trying to push for medicine with my mediocre grades, a wonderful remnant of my partying days, and just accept the fact that I'll be lucky with a lab job and all that sort of thing. It's just accepting defeat which is so hard for me. I shouldn't have to, and I'm not going to until the very end. I'm going to keep trying until I get in, even if it kills me because I know I'll be brilliant. There's things in life you just can't let go, things you should fight for no matter how bleak the outcome seems to be. I should give up but I can't, which is probably one of the worst things about me.

I don't know when to stop arguing, I've had debates with friends that have lasted over the span of weeks, some of them are still unresolved. I don't know when to say, ok, that's it. I'm like that for many other aspects of my life as well. It gets a little tiring and yet, it is the very thing that drives me. Then again, I'm just justifying myself over things that I really should get over but can't.

The hardest thing for me, is to let go. There are some things in my life that I should get over that is hindering me from developing as a person. I'm sure my older readers may remember brief posts about my childhood and other experiences that I've shared. I can't get over them, but I will. I still have nightmares about my ex, but they'll stop eventually. I'll get better, in fact, I am better than when I first started this blog. Healing process and all that. It's over and I should get on with my life.

Merf

Meh, my internet's capped and it's gone down to dial up speeds so you know, fuck you. I'm not going to posting as much until it gets upgraded, which should be by this weekend. Hopefully. Fingers crossed. That's so bullshit though, it's probably not going to be upgraded because some fat bastard's scratching his ass and going DUHHHHHHH WHAT GOES WHERE AGAIN DUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUH.