This one's an old one, I should say it too - Haruki Murakami's After Dark

Not as good as his other works, there I said it.

I just remembered what I wanted to say - review of Orhan Pamuk's My name is Red

While my labours are not entirely fruitless I managed to get around to finishing this book, despite its label, Nobel Prize Winner, you could have lied to me! Okay, you want my honest opinion? This book, sucks, not entirely but somewhat about half the book is bad while the other half is not that bad. Probably, the cause is the LOST in Translation part, it was tedious and long with winding stories that none other reminded me of the translation of the One Thousand and One Nights, stories within stories, the problem was...it did not fascinate me. It had a tendency to repeat itself without any magic accompanying it. Answer me this, why is it that Pramoedya Ananta Toer is a Nobel Prize laureate but this guy wins the whole thing? Let me describe and ruin it for you, the image that was depicted of women for example, in the case of Shekure is too...fantastic. Although the erotica was good but I could say better of Haruki Murakami's works (more after this I'm going to review one of them as well). I disliked Shekure, for every reason in the book that Mary Daly and Shulamith Firestone could think of. For one thing, she's a dreamer, okay that doesn't sound so bad, no, she's a dreamer who wants to be gilded like a princess because of her looks. That is a character I find repulsive. If Pamuk could crack a pretty woman's head and show me what's in it, none of them bear any of the sensitivities that Pamuk displays, they are imaginary depictions of what women are. This is one of the more disconcerting things that I find about the Nobel Prize, they portray what the masses think and what it ought to be. The only people I like amongst that list is Pearl S. Buck, Wole Soyinka and Toni Morisson. The year they decided to nominate Orhan Pamuk was a bad year I think! Sure, at least he tries to connect the West and the East, but the writing...is fit for I don't know, a book called Tokaido that I read a few years back. It wasn't engaging, it didn't rack my soul like Ben Okri, it didn't leave me dazzled like Naguib Mahfouz and it didn't make me laugh like V.S. Naipaul. The characters were shallow, I cannot see inside them, why is that? They show me themselves but not inside their hearts, is that what it's supposed to be, another style of writing? I suppose the only person who could write whodunit novels is and always will be Agatha Christie, any takers on that one? I disliked Black, the only character I found engaging was oddly enough Shekure's dead father, Enishte Effendi. Spare me the book, just chuck it in the bin.

I've got two questions

I've got two simple questions, and shit I forgot about what the fuck I was gonna say.

Abortion/Love/Disabilities

I have three children and all three of these kids, for myself, I don't care. I've always loved children and I always will but when I had my first child I was eighteen, I thought and I thought. I was already engaged, I finished my diploma, I was somewhat responsible. But was my parents ready for a child? I asked and I wondered, should I get an abortion? It seemed easy back then, you have never met the person that you were going to carry, they were only seeds of flesh. But I didn't go through with it, then after my second child, six months after Ezra I was pregnant again. I thought, what the hell? I can't go through with this again, what will people say? And, is it safe? After being so close to another caesarean? So I asked around, Edward too was being considered for the drop. But it was okay, they were all extremely healthy children, they inherited some of my allergies, actually both my husband and I, thankfully very mild rashes and fever asthma. Considering I smoked when I was pregnant too, they were all above three kilograms with regular sized brains, perfect lungs perfect heart, hey I don't know how I did it but I did it! It happens in my family, people do smoke when they're pregnant, not too much just once in awhile. But we're all healthy and happy, and then I thouht some people who try so hard with their pregnancies and they have to deal with more, so I feel sorry. Now this is where I'm going to hit the right note, if a woman, has a higher chance of having a child with a disability, will she abort it? Even for small things like a cleft palate or a webbed foot? Or something more difficult like Down's syndrome? I've read about Down's syndrome, there are many who become successful, many who can live alone, have a job, get married and have kids. Focus, and learn (honestly, there are people on this earth with no disability whatsoever but they are far more dependent and sorry to say idiotic than a person with down's syndrome or autism). So what's the problem? Why are many more women aborting imperfections? Sometimes, a human being's worth on this earth is a lot more than you think, who knows they might save someone's life one day, they might be useful to a community. They might not, but you can take the same gamble on a normal kid who might end up as a serial killer/rapist/pedophile/politician. I'm not sure about abortions, for myself it's a case by case thing. it's not something for everyone, so I'm not advocating nor am I rejecting it. There are cases of incest rape, and maybe the person just doesn't want their child to be hurt. There are limits and unfortunately limits differ from person to person. But if you're pregnant and your child might have a disability, aren't the odds when you add up teenagehood, tween, college drunkfest or whatever is nasty, just the same?

What's wrong with people living on trees in Brunei?

I know the allegation, people think Borneans and Bruneians are a bunch of savages living on trees, meaning that we aren't even up on the evolutionary scale, not even Homo Sapien, unlike them Homo Sapien Sapien, not even close to Homo Habilis. Cos, we live on trees. But doing a lot of readings on Borneo, I realized that all this time Bruneians have a problem in the way they treat other races except themselves. Of course the given will always be true, those in power, those with wealth that can be translated to power, will always necessarily be able to wield enough to maintain that their positions will be higher than that of others. But the question is this, what's wrong with Borneans and Bruneians living on trees? I know they're a group on facebook, defying that Bruneians don't live on trees, but what is so wrong with that? What is so wrong being different? Why is everyone running after prestige so badly that they need to have a fricking mansion/flatscreen tv/study in UK/US/Oz/drive an expensive car. Last night I was talking to this lady I was hennaing and she was from Singapore, she said she felt a little bit relaxed because people were not so driven by materialistic culture, but...really? Bruneians are a bit materialistic, not to the extent of Singaporeans but we're getting there. Not just that they're prestige crazy. Everything is just as fake everywhere around the world. The views of Borneans and Bruneians living on trees only reflect the perspective of Orientalism. Where's the Occidentalism? As one white guy once pointed out to me (albeit he's a fricking idiot), it's been 50 years since independence, why do they all sound like they want to kiss the Western perspective?

Sex and disability

I just realized something very2 strong. All this time I only thought about myself being oveweight and all and having challenges concerning sexuality. Well there I'm completely wrong and something is fucking wrong with the world we live in today. Have we ever realized that sex and body types should not be one-sided? Why is there only one representation of sexuality minus the rest? Sex is white, barbie doll and massive cocked Ken, it's not Asian male, or Black women, sure these two do exist but they are not the central pornographic mainstream. And not just that, where is the disabled sex? Why are there no sex involving people on a wheelchair? People who are blind? Why does tv show only sex and love of two 'normal' (trust me everyone is so not normal) man and woman? And the gay men and women, fucking hell, they all look good, where is the reality in that? Not all gay men are good looking and not all gay women are good looking and good looking is questionable. I think I have come to feel quite surprised at the way society embodies humanity, they are either the tools of capitalism or the mass media but those are just simple explanations that skim the true surface. Humanity makes humanity, society perpetuates society, one girl once told me its not that she doesnt want to date this guy who she thinks was unattractive, it was because she wanted to wake up next to someone who wouldnt freak her out, well you cant teach an old dog new tricks, that's true, and therefore she can leave it at that, but what about teaching our next generation to be more realistic and open and humane about their sexuality? How about teaching people the fact that one way or another a so called 'good looking guy' can wake up next to you and scare the shit out of you, they can be disabled, they can be disfigured badly, is that the worth of your love? Then it must be shallow.

Girls Beware!

Interesting sexist and prejudiced videos from America in the 50s.
Enjoy!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-fAKo-i4jpQ
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nGqT_Z50w5c&feature=related

My exams are over but my thesis is not and atheists versus fanatics

So, I panicked a few weeks ago when I found out I had an F once because I decided to drop logic and thinking (why do you need to prove arguments using maths again?), and my lecturer told me that it could affect my honours. Hah! It doesn't thank God. Why does it matter? You know, like in the words of that guy Robert T. Kiyosaki, your accountant won't look at your school grades, bla3, but I think it takes a certain amount of gumption, tirelessness and hardwork to make a good business work.
Aside from that, I want to talk about my thesis, this will be my first time conducting fieldwork among the Kedayans of Bukit Panggal. Scared? Shit hell I am. I never realized to be the bottom of things and collecting all this data would hurt. Your effing nervous, you meet new people and you need to turn on your charms. This is what I realized, if all of those people who are gathering all this data that I have been using for my research all this time and to supplement my arguments in this blog and I think, well, that is difficult, and how do you do that? I've been reading and re-reading about the Penan till my eyes hurt (its just a part of my essay work), and honestly, if I was to live in the frickin jungle interior for a year or two I'd go mad, or maybe not if there was a hot guy involved (trust me, when it comes to the basic drive, anything will work, and I will work harder mind you, I got straight As when I was a kid because I liked this guy in my class so I went to school often). So that jumps me down to Malinowski and his psychological functionalism, I cannot help but think that he is smarter than Radcliffe-Brown, his contemporary and rival. Why? As much as it hurts to admit this, everyone is fricking selfish, everyone will sacrifice their needs only if that sacrifice will bring some sort of benefit in the end. People are good because they believe there's a heaven, they know they will be rewarded, if people didn't believe in heaven, and I hope some atheist could supplant me with this because I need to know some data, would anyone bother to be kind? And I'm not even talking about the run of the mill atheist with good morals, because that shows that they believe in 'something' be that it may metaphysical or abstract. I'm talking about hard core atheists who believe in nothing, not even one fucking iota, but I suppose and ironically also, :) corresponds directly to extreme religious fanatics, doesn't it? I'm showing you my thought process, people are not kind because they believe in something, people are not kind because they don't believe in anything (most often these people are just mean to themselves if I'm not mistaken...) . Well go figure, we're back on square one. The point being, society is made up of individuals who want to reach their goals, or desires, I'm not even going to say basic needs, but I do suppose that the dance of sex and life is as old as time itself. Something, the woman who is badly treated by her partner wants something in the end, Revenge? I'm trying to prove my hypothesis here...there must be something she wants and this cannot be said to be a basic desire. I mean I know some dumb frick psychologists of the ancient whatnots have claimed women to be masochistic and sadistic. Survival? Wtf? Society and its trappings? The truth is also, I have to add another dimension here, an abused woman won't be able to think outside of the box as to why she's not leaving an abusive partner, she just allows it to happen. Hmm, interesting, I'll get back to you people when I have the answer. Oh btw, one guy once told me, there's no answer to anything, that everything is just IS, well that is one dumb motherfucker I can tell you that. And please3, read Reza Aslan's No God But God, it's pretty good aside from all the dumb Islamic publications that I have read that are too sexist, too racist, too prejudiced.