Was wondering about my friends' relationships lately. With many of us flying off to every which where, those with relationships were forced to rethink and decide on new status for the relationship. One was flying to the US with a girlfriend going to Australia. Another was going to the US, same as his partner, but to different universities in different states. Yet another was staying in Malaysia while his girlfriend went to Sydney.

Would long-distance relationships work? Two of the above couples seem to think not. Considering the latter couple got together a couple of days before the girl went off to Sydney, I think that counts as a perfect score as the relationship had not been consolidated yet. That outcome will be worth watching.

A fourth friend broke up with his first girlfriend after coming here, then hooked up with another girl while in Malaysia for the 1 month hols. I won't reveal more details here but he seems to be extremely infatuated with his new girlfriend, so much so I really think this will have a lifelong effect on him.

Anyways, a fifth friend thinks that long distance relationships will be a true test of the couple's feelings for each other. To me, that may have some grain of truth in it, however in order to maintain and develop a budding relationship over an extended period of time with no physical meetings is a hard, hard task requiring massive amounts of effort. It may be possible, but the strain of a long distance relationship may in fact push the two parties apart, especially if the relationship had only just begun.

Still, it makes me wonder what could have been.........

I've been talking a fair bit with a new guy at IH. He's an introverted science student who seems to have rather strong views that disagree with mine. Sadly, I don't see him convincing me of anything anytime soon.

Issue 1: Existence of God. Me: Freethinker that believes in a higher power but does not subscribe to any religion. Reason: Intelligent design has to be behind human intelligence and the creation of the universe. Him: Claims to be agnostic but seems to be more atheist. Spouted lots of facts about evolution which to me did not explain the reason behind creation itself.

Issue 2: Malaysian politics. Me: Don't give a f*** anymore, however still supports the BN as the only viable multiracial ruling party. Him: DAP supporter because of socialist beliefs. Unfortunately does not realize the political power of the 65% Malay population. And that the DAP has not done anything concrete for anyone's betterment. Although the BN is corrupted, at least they are doing something.

I'm not sure how many more of those conversations I can take. The more I argue, the more I realize how set in my ways I am, and I also realize that I am not ready to let my views go. That's in my more reflective moments. In my more conceited moments, he's an idiot.

And I realize how attached I am to my group of friends. I find myself unable to join in most conversations at the dinner table now, which is sort of sad, considering I used to pride myself on the ability to make relevant contributions to discussions. Or perhaps I just do not find the conversations interesting.

There's a guy I find myself becoming more and more irritable towards. This is becoming worse and worse everytime I listen to a conversation he's taking part in. He like to think of himself as "cool", yet his actions are just plain retarded. If being retarded were cool, the word cool would be used as an insult. Here's an example of his more brilliant moments. With a microwave in perfect working condition 5 metres away, he puts a bowl of cheese and ham in the toaster to melt the cheese, with the bowl, not just the contents. On a night of a day with continuous rain, he is the one person that does not wear at least 2 layers on an outing. At the tram stop, he complains of the cold. When asked why he did not wear a jacket, he replies, "I didn't know it would be this cold". Dude, this is Melbourne, not Malaysia. When it rains here, it's cold for the rest of the day. And you didn't know this after 6 months? And of course there's his (really, really bad) American accent. If you can't do something, realize it when you fail, and either get better, or DON"T DO IT.

Maybe this is why I am becoming more and more introverted. I am surrounded by idiots.

On a different note, I read a friend's blog post where he touched on Malaysian tertiary education and social policies that are race-centric. In all fairness, Malaysian tertiary education is doing badly because of rubbish selection policies. An absolute lack of transparency and apparently arbitrary distribution of the nation's best STPM scholars among "universities" do not contribute in any way to a university's reputation or achievements. I am lucky that my parents are sufficiently well-to-do that they can afford to give me a choice of where to further my education. When a country sends its best students abroad on full scholarships when it has its own supposedly well-developed tertiary education system, it says a lot about the confidence the country has in itself.

And on socially biased policies, it is perhaps ethically justifiable. There has, and always has been an element of bias in any policy. Take scholarships for example. Between an intelligent young person whose family can afford an education, and a not-so-intelligent one who can't, who should the scholarship be given to? Obviously the intelligent one, in which case the policy is biased against the poor. But if its given to the poorer student, it's biased against the intelligent and perhaps more deserving. Meritocracy has been implemented (I hope), so stop whining. Has it occurred to these policy's detractors that the policies may not be racially biased, but that the majority of beneficiaries are of a certain race because they are in the majority, and hence statistically speaking, are more likely to benefit? This is racial arrogance speaking. Not everyone of your own race is competent and deserves a scholarship, not everyone of other races are incompetent and undeserving. True racism is evident not in Malaysia, but rather in countries such as Zimbabwe, where people's possessions are taken from them on account of skin colour. Malaysia, in comparison, is a paragon of unity. As a nation, we have to realize that the only way forward is to stop looking at our differences, and look at what we share as a nation, how far we have progressed together, and how much farther we could have gone without the spectre of racism hanging over our heads. Let bygones by bygones, and stop thinking that you deserve more. Make do with what you have, and make the best out of it. Do not be defeatist, but do not allow yourself to be oppressed. You may or may not deserve whatever hand you have been dealt, but you have to do the best you can with it. Or you don't deserve being dealt a hand in the first place.

I stand by the view I have expressed in a previous post: dictatorships are the most efficient governments, yet the only way for dictatorships to reach its full potential the dictator has to be an absolutely unbiased person, of which there is none.

First post in a loooooonnnnnnngggggggg time. It's not actually a good thing, just because I have another 400 words to go for my essay which is due tomorrow at 5pm and yet I'm writing this. Procrastination FTW!

So what inspired this sudden burst of blogging activity? A call from a friend to go to the common room to watch something on his laptop. Guess what it was? An amateur porn clip, made in Malaysia, with a very good camera, by Sunway college students, by a Johan and his Chinese girlfriend.

Apparently this video was leaked onto the Net, which is utterly stupid, even more so than posting it on the Net himself. If you don't want to embarrass yourself, bloody well keep it hidden and safe or others will do it for you.

But I digress. The focal point of the invite to watch the clip was not for me to identify the kids (that was the secondary objective), but rather to laugh at the incredibly funny things the girl said during the acts. If anyone's wondering "What's YJ, this really quiet nice guy doing commentating on porn?", please let me inform you that I do not know a single male above the age of 15 who has not watched porn. Anyway, with a really soppy love song blaring in the background, the girl stops performing oral sex on her boyfriend because her throat's too dry.

Wait a minute, that doesn't sound funny enough. Awwww..... guess you'll have to watch it to appreciate the joke.

Or maybe I've just been hanging around b-tards too long. For the unenlightened, 4-chan is an online forum and there's a board on it called b, for random stuff. And by random stuff it means anything that can't fit into the other boards, mostly remotely sex-related.

One of the most dedicated b-tards I know is a medical student, and she happens to laugh most randomly at certain stuff. Maybe that's the beauty of it, your mind becomes so corrupted that anything can be related to procreation and a joke about it.

Procrastinated enough I think, considering I've written more in 15 minutes for this blog post that I've written in my essay for 4 hours. March onwards, my friends, do not let the daunting mountain of work overwhelm you, for the long-awaited saviour of lives and banisher of stress is arriving in 4 days!! holidays soon!! :)