Our Dead

A short poem I wrote for one of my gaming things. o/ Pacifica

Our dead lie where they cannot be seen,
As if the steps they took had never been.
The mark they made is viewed not by eyes,
The mark they made is where our heart lies.
The bravest of the brave, the truest of the true,
They gave their lives for me and you.
And as they fell, memories past they did relive,
But still uttered, "if I had one more life to give".
Face down they fell, and they fell head first,
Still in death, at the enemy they cursed.
We who still live, we all do know,
That though they're lost like summer snow,
Our comrades of those battles past,
Will be with us when we breathe our last.

Post 1/13

Well, I haven't updated this blog in...something like three or four months. But hey, I still get the email notifications of spammers posting comments on posts, so it's not like I've forgotten about it. What's new? Hmm. Well, it's 2013. Hopefully, my final year of university (assuming I don't fail anything). Let's take a look back at the past few months.

I couldn't think of anything worth writing about, so I'm just going to talk about Christmas. Went with family and a few other families out to Lakes Entrance for four days. Crabfishing, fishing, played some beach cricket. It was fun, haven't done anything like that in a while.

Oh, also, I got my P's. Green ones, since I turned 21 before I got them. Dad bought a car and since he isn't here for most of the year, I get to drive it. It's a Volkswagen Tiguan Pacific, pretty sweet, but I can't drive the damn thing yet because it's turbo so I need to apply for an exemption from VicRoads. Sent it in already but it'll take three weeks to get a response.

And in three week's time (or, well, two weeks now, since I sent it last Friday), I'll be somewhere in Vietnam. Flying up on the 14th with mum and sis for two weeks, first time heading over there so it should be an experience. Tossing up whether I should take my camera or not, apparently petty thievery is a common occurance, especially targeted against tourists, but I'd probably regret not taking it once I get over there.

Oh, my harddrive died a while ago, and along with it was two and a half years worth of photos. Something like 20,000 photos from various events and countries. Would have cost over two thousand dollars to retrieve the data though, and that's simply money I don't have. Most of the decent photos are uploaded to Facebook anyway, so it's not like I'm missing anything especially. All my music and all my past classwork/homework/assignments/projects crap from three years of uni is on there too, which is actually more of a loss than the  photos. Also movies and games, but those are pretty expendable.

Steam sales, probably spent like $60-70 in about a two week period, picking up some pretty good deals. AOE3 complete, Dawn of War pack courtesy of Hungy, got the THQ Humble Bundle, picked up Red Orchestra 2, and Shogun 2: Fall of the Samurai. All in all, I've probably spent well over $200 on my entire Steam collection, which...isn't that much, considering I've spent about 1400 hours on various Steam games. That's literally a solid two months straight of gaming over the past three years. Holy crap, that means I've spent like 6% of the past three years gaming. Minimum, considering the games I play which aren't on Steam. Probably more like 10%. That's pretty damn impressive. And sad, very sad.

So what's the plan for this year? Study hard, get decent marks, graduate. Need to start looking for graduate programs and internships and jobs. Got a few sites bookmarked but they don't open till February/March, so I've got a little bit of time yet. If I'm allowed by the university to take a lower sequence of Chinese (long story), I'll be doing a Diploma of Languages on top of my Bachelor of Arts/Bachelor of Science, which means five units a semester instead of the usual four. That being said, I've got a second-year Genetics unit first semester and a first-year Biology unit second semester, and a lower level sequence of Chinese would be fairly straightforward, so the year wouldn't be that bad despite the fact that I would be overloading. On the other hand, if I can't take the lower level sequence then I won't do the Diploma, which means three units a semester. On top of the one first-year and one second-year sequence, and that would be an incredibly breezy year.

I need to start looking for jobs. Preferably retail, preferably flexible hours. Looking at EB Games, Coles, Safeway, Big W, that kind of stuff. I'm terrible at customer interaction though so I'd prefer something like those guys that work after the store is closed to get the shelves all ready. EB would be easy though, since I'd know what I'm selling pretty damn well. Actually, I'm not too bad at telling people where stuff is, I might be able to do alright. Coles never has any openings though (took two years for Box Hill to have anything), and Safeway/Big W I've never recieved anything after signing up at their website. Eh.

I'm pretty healthy, I guess. Somewhat. Maybe. Not really. I need to do more start exercising.

My laptop is an absolute piece of shit. On a hot day, it'll overheat if I'm just running Firefox and Skype. Need a new laptop/computer. Probably a computer, it'll handle the punishment mistreatment strain better.

Went clubbing for the first time in Melbourne. Shanghai was better. And Hungy lost my sunglasses :(

My sleeping pattern is all screwed up.

Welcome to 2013, y'all.

Racists on the train

On Thursday 26th of September 2012, at approximately 8:45pm, I was with a few friends (all Asian, all born and raised in Australia) at Ferntree Gully railway station waiting for the city-bound train. We were doing what friends do when we're bored, just swapping stories and jokes, nothing lewd, trying to pass the time. Sitting within earshot of us, however, were three skimpily dressed Caucasian teenage females, who threw a few disparaging remarks at us from afar about not being able to understand us, sarcastic imitation laughter whenever we laughed, and so on. A short while later one of the girls approached us and, in deliberately polite but no nonsense terms, told us to shut up. She followed up with a request for cigarettes, then complimented one of my friends on the glasses he was wearing. She then stated, rather matter-of-factly, that she would "roll him" for those glasses, that she would push him in front of a train, and then she retuned to her two waiting friends. We resumed our carefree banter but with a slight edge that hadn't been there previously. A few minutes later the train arrived and two of our group departed for their car, leaving three of us to board the train.

When the train stopped a few stations later, one of the girls ran from the carriage ahead of us along the platform to the carriage behind ours, while her two friends followed by passing through the inter-carriage gangplank. These two sterling individuals drew level with where my two friends and I were seated just as one of my friends tried to pass me the paperback novel he had been carrying. One girl grabbed onto the book from his outstretched hand and tried to continue walking, but I had a firm grip on it and wrested it from her, and the two continued on their way down the aisle. But before they left the carriage one of them threw back the following phrase:

"Fucking Asians."

Mercifully, this was the last time we saw them on our journey (or at least before I got off at my stop). But one of my friends did raise an interesting point before I left; how do you respond to a racist like that?

There are three approaches that I could come up with, each as unsuitable as the next. The first, responding intelligently with reference to their increased likelihood of obesity, disease and early death would be unintelligible to them; in simple terms, they are too stupid to insult. Resorting to their level of intelligence, the second option, is overly antagonistic, with retorts such as "fuck off white trash" more likely to lead to a physical confrontation than a peaceful resolution. The third, to simply ignore their ridicule, simply emboldens their racism and encourages them to further their attacks in the absence of a response. Silence solves nothing, especially since without a proportional and measured response there can be no deterrence of future racism.

The only viable solution I could think of, as I sat on my lonely bus ride home, would be to deliberately and aggressively reinforce their racist notions in order to belittle them. This, I thought, could be done by pretending not to understand English, and responding only in an Asian language (for the brave of heart, phrases such as "Ohh me ching chong chinaman" would serve a similar purpose. As Sun Tzu said, "the opportunity of defeating the enemy is provided by the enemy himself"). Their lack of comprehension would serve only to confuse them and give rise to a sense of dumbfound stupidity, reinforced by the laughter of my fellow comrades. Worst case scenario, escalated violence is a possibility but with them as the clear aggressor. The best case would result in them simply walking away, either smugly justified in their racism or feeling confused and unintelligent.

Thoughts and opinions?

Rejection letter

Hi OJ,

Thank you for your recent submission to the website. Unfortunately, we feel that an article which is an attack on another society, operating in our close vicinity, does not align with our best interests. We feel that our website is not the right medium through which you might deliver such a passionate critique, however justified.

Your article is extremely well written and thought out, and belies great potential. Please do not let this discourage you from writing for us in the future, on topics which align better with the society's purpose.

Regards,
Hanbo and the ESSA Publications Team

First post in a while, and I've been busy since...whenver it was that I last posted. I won't post up the article that I wrote since it is pretty goddamn aggro (passionate, you might say). A hint for those in the know, it's related to my recent departure from a particular student organisation.

Anyway, shit's been pretty good. I kinda treat my FB status updates as a miniblog nowadays, which is probably why I don't bother committing shit down to blogposts. Hit me up if you wanna catch up.

No title necessary

Alright, I may be an asshole. At least I'm not a liar. At least I never turned on a friend.

Fucking deal with it, or get the fuck out.

Some may claim that you shouldn't take sides. Fuck that shit. There's battle lines being drawn. Where they stop, nobody knows.

The only question that remains is:
Are you with me, or are you against me?