久しぶり

Sometimes I'm gone and that's a good thing. When I'm back here doodling, it means 2 things, 1 - I'm too free, 2 - I'm overwhelmed with emotions.

Well, this time is a little bit of both. I was gonna spam you last Sunday but Marc came to your rescue by insisting I spilled my torrents of angry words onto him, this time, you're not gonna escape my wrath!!!

Well, sometimes I wonder to myself, to love or be loved. But that's a meaningless question unless you understand the meaning of love. Where can you find true love?

Is going down for the one you love, like in Titanic, true love? Sacrifice.
Is feeling happy and on cloud 9 when together true love? Physical happiness
Is loving someone despite knowing that it would not be reciprocated true love? Longing
Is being able to stand by the person you love in all consequences true love? Steadfast

Seriously, I have no idea what true love is, that's why you keep looking for it, and some people say the journey is much more important than the eventual revelation. Everyone finds his own true love. Now what is mine?

I want someone who can and will sacrifice for me. I know she can't.
I want someone to make me feel loved even when she's not around. I know she can't.
I want someone to share my pain and someone i can my happiness with. She's not the one.
The thing is can I do the same for her for what I expect from her? I can't anymore.

Does she love me at all? Maybe I'm being too idealistic, maybe there is no true love anymore. Maybe my journey is to realise that. Strange...

Slack.

Why Women Love Romantic Comedies

Okie I saw this article which really struck me as interesting... why? Coz I'm also in love withromantic comedies... haha... oops...

Slack

By Shaun Goh:
Asking women why they like romantic comedies is as good as asking men why they live and breathe soccer. You just can’t. It is one of those truly inexplicable gender things that would have sociologists and psychologists up in arms against each other in their attempts to assert theoretical dominance by explicating such behaviour in purely social and biological terms respectively. That said, and heavy academia aside, I shall now attempt to explore possible and hopefully, plausible, explanations for such a generalization.
In essence, people watch movies to be entertained. But entertainment is subjective in nature and what constitutes entertainment to some may be pure drudgery to others. Hence, a better question to ask would then be "why more women like romantic comedies more so than men", since the previous question carries with it the assumption that all women are somewhat enigmatically drawn to romantic comedies.

Assuming also that women are indeed more sensitive emotionally than their male counterparts, it is not difficult to see why romantic comedies seem to appeal to a primarily female rather than male audience. Combining the elements of humour and love and straddling the genres of comedy and romance, such movies are essentially feel-good extravaganzas that leave you feeling satisfied, contented and perhaps even downright mushy inside. This is not to say however that men are inherently emotionless androids with an aversion to, simply put, feeling good. Instead, it is an unequal definition of the term that results in a disparity between preferences since the elicitation of similar emotions may have a different impact on the differing genders. Hence, while feelings and notions revolving primarily around love and romance may appeal to the female gender, excitement, suspense and adventure may have the same effect on men instead. In this way, it may be suggested that more women like romantic comedies more so than men primarily because they are more in tune with their feelings than men are and the emotions these movies evoke appeal more so to their sense of feel-good than to men’s.

What’s more, movies are a form of escapism. A time when one is allowed to momentarily abandon reality and be transported into another dimension, and a time when one is called upon to identify with certain onscreen situations and characters. It is, simply put, an opiate of temporal anesthetic effect. A visual and auditory indulgence that encourages viewers to suspend all notion of reality and to engage in an oft fictional or sensationalized account of events instead. In this way, romantic comedies allow women: both single and attached, to luxuriate shamelessly in a milieu of endless romantic possibilities. Giving them opportunity after opportunity to empathize with the story’s female protagonist: Causing them to applaud her sense of independence in the initial stages of her scripted single-hood and to sigh in both contentment and satisfaction at the sight of an ending that is oh-so-happy-ever-after.

But more than being just entertainingly escapist, movies also embody an element of fantasy. They reflect, enact, and articulate the otherwise unrealized desires and aspirations of many, thereby creating a sense of community in which individuals are inherently linked to each other through a communal form of expression. In this way, romantic comedies give fuel to a woman’s sense of hope. Hope that they too may one day be swept off their feet by a handsome prince charming. Hope that they too may find humour and true love in a world of meaningless toil and woe. Hope that somewhere out there in the vast sea of countless fishes, is a soul-mate, the one and only person that they would eventually grow old and happy with.

Men on the other hand, seem to place unrivalled emphasis on power and all its various forms: Money, fast cars, physical mutations and technological superiority. Hence the relatively larger appeal of testosterone-filled movies like X-Men 3, Tokyo Drift, and Torque to men is of no mysterious coincidence at all. The equation in this case is fairly simple: Gadgets + Explosions + Speed + Action = A Summer Blockbuster…And oh, let’s not forget the curvaceous, drool-worthy bombshell that male audiences get to ogle as well. In comparison, romantic comedies offer little more than the pretty face of a female actress to keep male viewers continuously captivated for the entire duration of the film. Sure, it may incite a few chortles every now and then but the experience is far from the titillating journey that thrillers and action flicks bring their audiences on. It is a relatively low-budget experience in every sense of the word but only, of course, in terms of men’s definition of "entertainment". Uncreative, predictable, mundane and even arduous, romantic comedies do nothing for men in terms of existing relationships other than to act as a reminder of their incompetence and romantic inadequacies. But before you ladies go nodding in agreement at real men’s seeming lack of sentimentality, it is crucial to realize that while fairytales do exist, they are realized more often than not in reel, not real, life. Simply put: If you really did think that that actor prepared that bonfire on the beach all by himself, you deserve a good smack on the head.

In conclusion, while the appreciation of different genres cannot be defined purely in terms of gender, it is possible and even plausible to state that more women like romantic comedies more so than men due to differing conceptualizations of the term entertainment and the importance that each gender tends to place on the different qualities of love, humour, excitement, adventure, and power.

irony of it all

Can you ever have the best of both worlds? Can anyone gain and someone not lose? Haha... that's the irony. In Japanese, there's this term　とか効果。Otherwise know as fair trade. we played mahjong and after 3 fengs of very very bad luck, i won quite a fair bit. Especially since I was down by alot to begin with. good cards just kept coming, and I seemed invincible. Starting with nothing much worthy of playing, I get superbly good tiles in the end. Lots of money. But Gwen lost. Obviously no one likes losing. So I was happy, and someone went away less happy.

We used to believe that 赌场失意，情场得益。How tru is that, I don't know, but obviously the night did not go well for me after my mahjong session. She provoked me, and I stubbornly refused to listen to her apologies. So... fair trade? Haha... If only we can gain something from nothing. If only Carnot's cycle is non-existent. If only..

Slack.

3 girls, lots of guys and lots of drinks

It was Vicky's birthday today. We went out to buy her a present.... freezin' cold out there. 8 degrees... brrr.... Just came back from drinking. As usual, the lousy slacker is drunk after a couple. Not really drunk, yet vomitted. A waste I must say... can't even get the drunk feeling. Anyway, realised the birthday girl was a damn good drinker... haha.. pity.

Slack.

Just me and her

Yup, the whole of the weekend was just me and her. Went down to Taipei where we visited Danshui and Zuoan. It was just eat and eat and eat... After that we headed for Ximen, where we ate again, then Shilin where we ate again. Let me remember what we ate. There was Wheel Cake, strawberry-seasoned sausage, fried Muah Chee, A-ge, fried Bee Hoon, Hand made pork bao, fishball soup, cuttlefish, chocolate fondeau, and hua zhi ball. Then we headed to Gong Zhan for Tau Huey, then Ximen for little sausages and big sausage. Lastly we were at Shilin where we bought Salted Chicken, jelly with milk, Big biscuit wrapping small biscuit... haha... literal translation, then there was Oyster with egg and chocolate ice. Oh gawd... Well... the next day we went to jiu fen where we ate alot too... haha... okie... so the whole trip was about eating... so? ^^

Slack.

3 girls, minus 1 girl, me and 3 packs of beers

Yesterday, I had a drinking session with michelle and her best friend Vicky and boy can they drink. After my 1 and a half can i quitted... yes, I suck... they carried on to 2.. 3... 4... and Vicky did 4 1/2. Not alot to some but to me... wow... I mean, this was the first time I'm drinking with girls who downed like 3 six-packs. Drunken girls... woohoo...

Slack.

3 girls, 2 guys and a bookstore

My girlfriend and her group mates decided to do a survey on the profile of people visiting a bookstore after midnight. In this case, it was a huge 24 hours book store in Taipei. YES!! 2am in the morning and the whole book store was still packed! Goodness! So anyway, we ended up in Taipei and spent the day meeting up with her Morey's friends and eating in Taipei. Then we headed for the bookstore, Eslite Bookstore. Yupz, an amazing place. Besides the fact that they have lots of Japanese books including my textbook, it was just simply amazing that at 2am, it was still jammed pack.

One more thing, finally some male company... been around too many girls!! Phew... Can't believe that one day I will actually say what I just said.

Slack.