Waterflieeduque

Blogging

I seriously don’t understand the idea of blogging. Is it me, or do I have a particularly short attention span when it comes to it? It’s sort of a one-way conversation between me and myself. Somehow, I can’t keep it up for very long. I’ve had several blogs over the years and every one of them didn’t survive very long. Some people keep diaries, you could think of a blog as something like that. I never did anything like that when I was young. Perhaps that could be the problem. But why would you want to let others read your most intimate thoughts?

I can’t sit down everyday and just write what happened to me. Who on earth cares about what I did and saw yesterday? I’m sure other people have better things to do. Cynical, I know. If you come to think about it, who started with the idea about blogging anyway? A ‘blog’ is supposed to be a web-log. A log? Of the things you do? Are you kidding me? 

I don’t know how long I can keep this up. Talking about nothing. Kudos to those of you who can blabber on endlessly. 

Raid the Metro

My friends and I are carrying out a project: taking photos of all metro stations in Moscow.

There are 10 Metro lines, each with about 15-20 stations, more or less. We’ve only managed to cover 2 of the lines so far, but the experience have been great. We encountered people telling us not to take photos (national security?), and old ladies saying that it’s forbidden to laugh in metro stations. And policemen, but they were just worried and warned us not to litter in the Metro station (while we were carrying our cameras and tripods and busy shooting).

After all

Tired and alone

Fighting against fiction

Convincing the unconvincible

Rain falls from my feet

My world is upside down

And shook until everything is out

Shall I go on?

Their minds are made

Only then we’ll know

Gore didn’t make it

Maybe I’m not supposed to

How the Beijing Olympics got its logo

via (vincentchow.net)

First Pay Check

I’m 25 and I haven’t worked a day in my life. Until now.

I’m Asian and in most Asian families the children depend on their parents for financial support until they graduate and get themselves a job. It is then that the parents demand or at least expect that their children will take care of them. That was the culture I was brought up with. 

When I was a high-school student, I knew some of my friends who used to work part-time as waiters or as data-entry clerks. It used to be the trend, not only to work for the money. So I tried to get a job, to no avail. That was my first and last failed attempt.

Since then, I made peace with the fact that I was not born to work, but to play and enjoy myself till I graduate and have to suffer the miserable daily affair of going to the office. I have friends now who have 9am-12am jobs (yes, that’s right - 15 hour days) and they keep telling me to enjoy my university life and worry about making money later. Spending your parents’ money is a blessing, they say. You don’t really want to spend your own money once you know how hard you’ve worked for it. And I still don’t know. How hard? How hard is it to earn a couple of bucks?

When I was traveling in Europe, every student I met had a job. So I interviewed every one of them. Why do you have a job, I asked them. Don’t your parents give you enough money to spend? Most of them replied: Yes, but sometimes you just want to have your OWN money. And sometimes, if you want some luxuries in life, like a mobile phone, you’ll have to pay for it yourself. I don’t think that would have gone down well in my life.

I know of a Russian girl who works during the day until 5.30pm and goes for evening classes at 6pm. And she does it 5 days a week. She sleeps at 2 am. Why? How? I have a million questions to ask but the most important one is “Why do you put yourself through this misery?” But I don’t ask. It’s their lifestyle and I realise that they could probably ask me the opposite question: Why don’t you work?

So when I finally found a small job, I felt like I’d accomplished something in my life. Learning to juggle that with studies is a new challenge for me. But I accept challenges, I embrace it. Overcoming the challenge is empowering.

The time has come for me to receive my first pay check, the money which I can call my own and the little space in my life which is mine and no one else’s. It’ll be a bitch if it’s less that I expect, though. I worked so hard for it. 

Getting better accelerated

My secret recipe for accelerated recovery from the flu:

1. Stay at home, but keep in the sunlight (induces serotonin production; to lift your mood)
2. Eat simple-to-digest foods eg soups, broths.
3. Stuff yourself with Vitamin C - while you’re sick, you have to take a double dosage ie 1000mg. But if you want an accelerated recovery: 1000mg immediately after breakfast and 500mg before you sleep.
4. Drink lots of honey - it has magical healing powers
5. Rest and rehydrate - you lose extra water when you’re ill
6. Isolation - keep away from others who are also sick, you might get a superinfection while your immunity is low