Errands day + Learning a few things

I spent most of the day running around the city doing errands, both at my scholarship office and at the Central Manpower Base (the military base for personnel stuff). I met up with my scholarship officer, Rachel and had lunch with her. We had a good talk about how PSC is doing as a whole and how the scholars are generally doing. Oh, did you know that if you're either a Leo or a Virgo, you can get a free cruise on Star Leo or Star Virgo? Time to go for a cruise!

Rachel told me that she's going through a lot of flak because her west coast scholars are "misbehaving". One was writing racist comments online in his blog from Northwestern and that got onto Straits Times, which became a huge deal. Another was writing bad comments about PSC. Well, all these occurrences remind me of a few things.

One: Singaporeans are among the most racist people I know.
I'm guilty of it too, in some ways, if not in many ways. My American friends have remarked from time to time how racist Singaporeans can be. I understand that Asians in general are very racist people. If you think the white Americans are mean to the black Americans, you should observe how Asian people treat the black people. With complete and utter disdain. I can safely say that few, if any Asians have close black friends. Although I have a few black American friends, I cannot in any way say that they are close friends. However, even if a person is racist, restraint in writing and expression is always a good thing, and an act of maturity.

Two: The World Wide Web is NOT private.
There is nothing private about the World Wide Web. Don't put thoughts and comments that can be turned against you on the web. The lack of privacy has always been a drawback with online blogs, and many friends have remarked that they would not start a blog because of its lack of privacy. Most people are not comfortable with their inner thoughts being read by millions of people. I too know that things you write on a blog, if bad in certain ways, can be used by people against you. I know there are people like that out there, ready to back stab you, finding things that you have written to use against you. I say, be responsible for what you write. Don't assume that people will just glance through it and forget it.

What about me? Have I ever thought about the privacy problem? Well, thing is, I don't really care. I don't have very much to hide in my life. Everything I think, I say, and everything I say, I do. There is nothing in my blog that I am ashamed of sharing. Maybe I'm being extremely arrogant, or overconfident of my ability to withstand possible shit, but thing is, if you live your life well, be mature and responsible, there is nothing to hide. Of course, my candor has gotten me into much trouble in the past. Most people here in Singapore don't appreciate my candor, and I've made many enemies when I'm younger. I realise that candor can polarize the people you know. I'm either well liked or hated. I don't think I've ever been an in-between person.

I think I like the way I am. It makes things so much easier. You don't have to guess at what the person is really thinking. I like candor in peole too. I would rather someone tell me in the face that they don't like me, than to pretend they do and talk behind my back. In Chinese, it's the difference between a "jun zi" (gentleman) and a "xiao ren" (literally, small person). That's one thing I appreciate about America. Most people are candid about what they think. They don't go around in circles trying to make things sound nice. Here, most people sugarcoat things so much that it's hard to know what they really mean. I remember this phrase that I'll adapt, "Stop trying to tell me, and tell me!" (From Morpheus, "Stop trying to hit me, and hit me!")

If you haven't noticed when reading my blogs, I think a lot. And my thoughts go in random directions. I have to keep trying to rename my titles to represent what my content is. But all these thoughts are genuine, and one day, I'll try to put everything together to figure out what type of person I really am, from all these thoughts.