Why is there always some guy with an abnormally deep voice talking in every movie trailer?

I think squirrels are really cute. I like it when they hop about, stand and eat stuff, climb on things, etc. Today there was one outside the apartment on the landing. I could see him through the sliding door. I thought this was a bit odd since we live on the third floor. I didn’t give too much thought to it. After a little while I heard noises, so I hurried to the door and opened it. I saw that the squirrel tore open the rubbish bag that was lying out there and was treating himself to the lid of a container of Godiva chocolate-raspberry ice cream! I didn’t know whether to be amused or annoyed (since it spread our trash around the landing). But now I understand why some people think squirrels are just rats with bushy tails…

Why do so many guys want to be jacked? I understand why action movie stars need to be big and muscular. I understand why professional athletes need it. But who else really needs to be huge?

In the US male singers/rappers *need* to be fit and muscular as well. If you think about it, it's quite ironic. If they are singers/rappers then they should be known primarily for their music and how they sound. How they look should be of minor consequence. In other countries popular singers can be fat, old and bald. They still possess the most important attribute to be a good singer/artist - their voice. Many probably can't dance to save their lives. What is it with Americans and the obsession with appearance? I know they have to sell their look/image/lifestyle/whatnot. But sometimes it's so perverse that the importance placed on appearance supplants real talent, real ability to sing. How many popular singers actually write their own lyrics and music? Are they really artists? On a bad day I'd just want to slap one of them!

A related problem I have is that people who look good get unfair privileges in our society. Surely we should have greater value for and pay more attention to people who do good things, or are smart and talented. Instead we just drool over images in the media and aspire to be good looking and jacked. It's a shallow preoccupation. If people exercise or diet for their health, or for a love of sport or some other pursuit (e.g. martial arts, dance) then that's completely different. I don't have a problem with that. I highly commend it.

What makes my leg sexually appealing to a dog?

The other day I learned that in Spanish there's an expression that people say. Translated it's "did I sleep with you last night?" At first glance it's crude and kinda weird. It's said whenever someone doesn't wish you good morning, because typically husbands and wives (or people that sleep together) don't wish each other good morning. It's meant to be a bit sarcastic.

People in NY are very forceful and direct. When I move there, I don't want to get used to people treating me in that way. I also don't want to become someone who treats people like that. One comical example is an ice cream seller who shouts: "HEY ICE CREAM!" in a really menacing voice. They don't try to make something like ice cream appealing and sweet and for the kids.

"The course of true love never did run smoothe."
-William Shakespeare

Travelling makes it tough to post on a consistent basis. Not much profound to say right now. Just been taking a lot of things in. DC is very cultural and is a very good "showpiece" for the country (i.e. The Mall). I'm in NYC now, and I feel like an ant. I used to feel more natural in crowds before. I wonder why I changed. It's more than just being away from Hong Kong for so long.

Being caught in a strong hailstorm in a car is one of the freakiest things ever. You never know if one particularly large piece of ice will break the windshield or one of the windows and then allow hundreds upon hundreds to bruise you or cut you open. But what's interesting is that during the hailstorm I had a better grasp of what was going to happen in comparison to my grasp of what's going to happen after I graduate on Sunday. I don't even know where I'm going to be and what I'll be doing next week. Today during the Baccalaureate service the president of the university told us that we should use whatever difficulties or obstacles we face (in fact, it's Michael Caine's life motto). It's a good mindset because times are hard/difficult and it's a way of seeing the good in the bad. Right now there's a lot of bad... in my life, and in general. But I should take these things as challenges, and not as threats. The stuff that's going on in my life isn't inherently bad. It's more that things are going from certain/predictable/secure/comfortable to completely the opposite. It's tough to change from something that you're used to.

Even if you win the rat race, you are still a rat. What do you need to do? You need to change your mindset. Don't perform roles. Don't be absorbed or run from things that are essentially petty (most of our life takes on this form). Take hold of things and remember that it's the process, not the result. What is important is how we do things, not what we end up doing.

The value of discussing things in university is not so that we can remember what so-and-so wrote 20 years from now... but to trigger our critical impulses. In the future, we may have flashes of insight or anxiety when we think about particular issues. It's not really a pathological anxiety though. It's quite existential. We should see ourselves in some of the things that we learn about in university, since we're all involved in human existence. We should have new vocabulary and new perspectives. Anxiety happens when things that seemed familiar and simple turn out to be deeper or more complex. In existentialism, the greatest legacy is recognition, at least for a moment, that we've stopped and are forced to confront something we don't want to. There is discomfort. What we do is then up to us. There is a tainture of consciousness, it can come back and infect us, and lead to changes in a way that is interesting or revealing to us.