Write my bloooog?? Moooom, do I haaaave to??

I certainly hope Mommy doesn't read this blog. My intended audience is mainly myself, more precisely myself in years to come. I guess there's the chance I'll end up like my mother after a few more decades, so if my mother reads this it wouldn't be such a travesty anyway. So please keep reading, Mother dearest, just know that this isn't actually the handsome son you know and love, just an ugly impostor who hijacked his laptop in Singapore. Jerk.

So here's a question for you, Mr. Pei-in-20-years-time-if-you-manage-to-live-that-long-which-would-actually-say-I-was-wrong-about-you-lucky-bastard. What's the most dangerous thing in the jungle? I hope you aren't turning into Dorothy from Wizard of Oz, with images of lions, tigers, and bears roaring and growling in your head. That's just plain childish. Unless you're reading this blog right after reading a traditional bedtime story to your kids (holy cow, you have kids!? are you actually normal now?! good for you, old man). Would you say something like the monsoon then? Mosquitoes? Technically those are more of a threat to your health than the former type. Or are you some kind of freak environmentalist now, with the world succumbing to severe global meltdown in these days of the future, and your answer is mankind himself, wrecking havoc on the natural habitat with his greed of resources? Errr. Wrong. Get over yourself, we're all going to die eventually, unless they found the cure for death, in which case, this answer I have for you makes even more sense than it does now. So what is it? Boredom!

I'm already starting to see the look of disapproval on your face, Mr. Pei. You think I'm some wild youth with no commitments, no responsibilities, just a love of fun and adventure, someone who would say something like "boredom" being the root evil of the jungle. But think about it, why is there even a jungle in the first place? Would the world be a better place if it was all pine trees and Great Plains and deserts and what not? No, the world is a fun and happy place because the jungle is part of it. Just this weekend you were feeling soooo bored after a long, stressful week in school, and you finally went out with your friend Leon to a local reservoir/nature-park which was of course, in the jungle. And there you saw all sorts of cool things that you used to love as a child, insects, fish, plants, birds, etc. You were also impressed that Leon, a finance major with no background in biology or anything, knew what an arowana is when you pointed one out in the reservoir. Leon's a cool guy, I hope you're still friends with him. And I also hope you have some cool pet fish, like an arowana. If this video is still on YouTube in 20 years, watch it to see what I mean:



Badass right?! If you don't have some of these yet, go buy an aquarium now and restart the awesomeness that your life was meant to embody.

Ok, getting a bit off-track here. So you were walking around the jungle, looking at cool things here and there, when towards the end you were just sitting at the shore of the reservoir looking at the water and the forest with beautiful wisps of mist floating around. So tranquil and pretty, it was nice to look at, but granted, you were starting to get bored. That's when the jungle came to save you. You saw the dark clouds start to roll in, and a drizzle came. Then a distant siren was calling somewhere, and Leon said that was a cue for everyone out hiking to start coming back, because there was a danger of lightening strike in the area. So you gradually got yourself up and walking towards the entrance to the park, when it really started to rain hard, and the thunder and lightening was cracking loudly all around you. And you were walking right next to the lake, a prime lightening strike area, and you even had to cross the lake on a long, twisting pier/bridge to get to the entrance, with electric death roaring at you from above with every step you took, eventually motivating you to run for it through the mud and puddles. Now that was exciting.

Granted, if you died, that would have been a damn shame. No more fun and adventure for you, unless God has a crazy amusement park of eternity planned out for you. But you have to give it to me at least that life is no fun without risk. And running through a lightening storm by a lake is pretty mild compared to things you've done so far. Remember that spring break you were racing Jaimeet on a 4-wheeler on your uncle's ranch back in Texas, and you flipped it and your body was pinned underneath? That was some scary, but very exciting, stuff. So let this be a lesson to you, don't be a boring dude. On the other hand, I'm really glad you decided not to go to Bangkok this past weekend. You were actually about to buy tickets too, and now the city is bogged with protests, troops are firing into the mob, and the prime minister just declared it a state of emergency. Not your thing, I know.

Oh but Mr. Pei, I hope you aren't so lazy anymore, either. You just slept through church on Easter Sunday, you dolt! Jesus is not pleased. That's probably why He gave you such a hard time on this MRAM project you had to do with a group for class. Only one of your fellow group members bothered to do anything useful for the project, and you ended up staying up all Sunday night working on it while the others slept, and eventually turned in a half-ass piece of shit that, if lucky, you'd get a C for. But seriously, who would let the one exchange student in their group become the lead man on this sort of thing? Are you guys crazy? Do you care about your grades even less than I do? Maybe I'm more of a tightass than I thought, but that just seemed outright negligent on the part of my team members. NUS is one of the top schools in Asia, right? No evidence of that on Sunday...

But, but, buuuuut.... did get an email "Easter egg" that same night around 6am that really cheered me up. Prof. Lou and the ETH Zurich group sent me a draft of the paper that they want to publish in IEEE, and guess who they put as one of the authors... That's right, "R. Pei", read and weep suckers! Who knew 4 simple letters on an obscure science article could bring me such elation. I'm on my way to become a professsional paper-pusher in no time, so watch out Mr. Pei, here I come ready or not.

I'm so full of sarcasm today, it's even getting on my nerves now. Sarcasm is a precious thing, but it can't be used all the time. I've seen a lot of variants of sarcasm in my day, and I'll try to take some brief note of the ones I notice in particular now. This is not a case-by-case study, mind you, just an observation of which groups of people are the "most sarcastic" in their own form, named by prevalence of use over the group as a whole.

Most politically sarcastic: Americans
We like to be full-blood patriots, but we also love to insult ourselves under our breath. I think it makes us actually feel even more powerful, that we can be smart and witty enough to make such sneaky observations about ourselves and our quirky ways. I think in no other culture will you find such popularity of political satire like "Daily Show", "Colbert Report", and especially the cruder varieties like "South Park". I think the Brits were like this too just when their own Empire started to fall apart, with the likes of Rudyard Kipling and Cockney-accented jests and self-defamation leading them to their downfall. Lousy Brits, please let's at least promise ourselves to never become like them. Unless it's like Winston Churchill, he was a total badass. And completely sarcastic.

Most well-wishing sarcasm: Asians
Asians are famous for being indirect conversationalists. They tend to avoid confrontation, and as a result their culture has given birth to the world's most recognized form of complimenting someone while secretly wishing they get run over by a truck as soon as they walk out the door. Asians are very competitive, but they also want to get on people's good sides so they can get help in their rise to success. The historical analogy to this would be China's willingness to take over the State's national debt, but at the cost of completely owning us later. Common Asian sarcastic remarks of note: *when eating at their house* "Why aren't you eating more? Do you think I will poison you?" (actually means, "you're a pig for eating so goddamn much, and I think this relationship between us is beginning to turn into my own self-poison."), and "The point you bring up is interesting, and I can't say I've heard that idea before" (means, "That is inexplicably retarded.")

My heros of sarcasm from literature: Hercule Poirot, Horatio Hornblower, Ellsworth Toohey, so many more...
The best heros and the best villains in any story, for me, are those who are masters of sarcasm. Poirot is a egomaniac crime-detective (even the author, Agatha Christie, said after writing Poirot stories for so many years that she was getting sick of his egomania... but I never got tired of reading him), who often uses sarcasm to point out clues that the average joe would overlook. He is also quite endearing to me because he loves food as much as I do. He calls fine dining not just a thing for the sake of pleasure, but "an intellectual exercise". Bravo, Poirot. Hornblower is also a sarcastic hero, who tricks his enemies in various games and battles, not in a manner as blatantly as I would call sarcasm persay, but along those lines of intense deception. Toohey, on the other hand, is Ayn Rand's evil monster from the "Fountainhead", who uses sarcasm to bring down the lives of so many people. He is a genious for making people think he is giving them approving support when he is actually reinforcing their moral weaknesses. In general, poetry can also have very good sarcasm, but I just never learned to like poetry so much. I need a plot, a story, I'm a kid at heart.

Most sarcastic friendship: An ex-boyfriend/girlfriend
I am probably the worst. Seriously, ladies, if you ever find yourself attached to me and have to dump me later, do so without saying "We should still be friends". It's better for your health and sanity otherwise. Every new boyfriend you have after me will receive plenty of sarcastic commentary from me, even when I meet him face to face, especially if I think he's too stupid to pick up on it. I'm trying to break the habit though, honestly. I know it doesn't make me a hotshot for doing it, it's just a faster way to lose good friends, and frankly makes me look like some passive-aggressive pansy. Good examples, "I think you two make a great couple!" ("You both suck") and "Wow, that's great that he has the same taste in clothes/movies as you!" ("He's a fag")

Speaking of which, most sarcasm-for-sex: Gays
I have a few gay friends, and sometimes watch gay comedy/movies (hey hey hey now, don't start your questioning, I hold dear to my love of women, OK? Never watched Brokeback either). Homosexuals seem to have perfected the art of "sarcastic fishing". They can make comments that could be construed as sexual, but can't be blamed for actually being literal. I think this is what years of social oppression has done for them, sort of like how African Americans invented rap music. Rap is an evolved form of pre-abolition/segregation song and music that was created by blacks for them to be able to freely express themselves without the white people knowing what they were actually talking about. Similarly, gays invented their own code of sarcasm so they could slip under us-straight-folks' radar and still find game among the crowd. Examples? Don't have any good ones, but I've tried some on my friends, usually getting amusing responses. Alec Swafford is a pro though, I still question him to this day...

Most sarcastic business: Haggling
All of us in Asia have done this at least once, and those who are the most successful are probably buying way too much to even fit in our suitcases. Haggling is just the street version of business negotiation. But it's all the same, whether you're in a fancy conference room in a suit giving a presentation to an interested client, or out on the street gesturing like primitive apes with a street vendor trying to beat down the price of some tacky t-shirt. You typically use sarcasm. Even if you really really want whatever it is they're offering, you act completely nonchalant and as if you could easily just walk away and find something else. You shouldn't be rude, that just gets on their nerves, but you should be tough. They don't take pride in ripping you off, they just want to earn an honest living, but you are also just trying to get an honest deal. Example, *they just named the price, and you respond...* "What?! Are you kidding?! Is that a joke?!" *keep smiling though!* (you are actually surprised at how cheap it is, but they think you're flabbergasted over how high it is, and will usually lower).

Most "unwanted-guests" sarcasm: Natives to immigrants/foreigners
Nothing says "Who the hell do you think you are coming to my own country and flaunting your alien ways here?!" like a bit of sarcasm spoken in an exaggerated accent. Sometimes it's even just a plain insult spoken in the native language if they know that the foreigner doesn't speak it. I experienced this a lot more in Europe, especially French or Italian speaking countries, but here in Singapore you can find some as well if you really try to piss the locals off. Last week my prof gave a surprisingly sarcastic statement about Americans, although pretty benign. He was reading Alan Weisman's "The World Without Us", which is about what would happen to the world if humans suddenly all disappeared. He wrote the title on the board, and then capitalized the "US" so that it read something a bit different... and then told us that some people also wonder what would happen if that were the case, looking at me as he said it. Yeah, I know, very funny. He's just infactuated with everything to do with the US, I mention this same guy in my earlier posts.

bleeeeeehhh sarcasmed myself out... well at least it's out of my system and I can rest easy. I've noticed his blog is starting to have little to do with Singapore itself though. I don't know if that means I'm not doing enough to explore the local culture anymore, or if I'm just too settled in to care or notice. Who am I kidding, there's ton left for me to experience that's new. But this weekend I'm off to the Philippines, so that will be a whole new cup of tea.

Until then, enjoy your week! Finals are not for a at least two more weeks, so no need to stress out yet. But when they come, they will certainly come...