Wednesday, May 25, 2011
In the end, only kindness matters
Whether the RH bill gets passed or not, we'll still have to LIVE with each other. So can't we keep discussing but keep the snide remarks and the condescension and the name-calling to a minimum? You can win the argument but lose the person, and is that honestly what you really want? Similarity in political beliefs is not a pre-requisite of friendship.
Sunday, May 15, 2011
My Candidate for Twelve
This is Jeremy Baines. I have no idea who the Twelfth doctor will be, but if I root for any particular candidate it'd be him.
Matt Smith's winning the part of the Eleventh doctor made me realize that, because we'd got used to David Tennant's good looks, we were kind of let down by Eleventh's strange features--that broad forehead and those crazy eyes and unattractively disheveled hair. (I don't know, I still think he's kind of handsome, but then I think Benedict Cumberbatch is handsome too; obviously I have no taste.) But I was thinking what, no doubt, a lot of Doctor Who fans before me have thought: that it's not about looks, but about character. The Doctor, no matter who plays him, is supposed to be a memorable person with lots and lots of character and self-confidence, as well as a particular quirk that will make you remember his particular incarnation. I think Matt Smith has character in spades and is knee-deep in quirks. Similarly, I think that Harry Lloyd, who played Jeremy Baines in the series 3 episodes Human Nature and Family of Blood, would make a beautiful, unforgettable Doctor.
Look at those crazy eyes and that slanted mouth as he plays this school boy "possessed" by a species of aliens bent on destroying the Doctor. I hope he gets chosen!
Matt Smith's winning the part of the Eleventh doctor made me realize that, because we'd got used to David Tennant's good looks, we were kind of let down by Eleventh's strange features--that broad forehead and those crazy eyes and unattractively disheveled hair. (I don't know, I still think he's kind of handsome, but then I think Benedict Cumberbatch is handsome too; obviously I have no taste.) But I was thinking what, no doubt, a lot of Doctor Who fans before me have thought: that it's not about looks, but about character. The Doctor, no matter who plays him, is supposed to be a memorable person with lots and lots of character and self-confidence, as well as a particular quirk that will make you remember his particular incarnation. I think Matt Smith has character in spades and is knee-deep in quirks. Similarly, I think that Harry Lloyd, who played Jeremy Baines in the series 3 episodes Human Nature and Family of Blood, would make a beautiful, unforgettable Doctor.
Look at those crazy eyes and that slanted mouth as he plays this school boy "possessed" by a species of aliens bent on destroying the Doctor. I hope he gets chosen!
Friday, May 13, 2011
A bit of snuff
I'm not dealing so well with the advent of SNUFF, the 39th (and upcoming) Discworld novel by Terry Pratchett.
If Vimes dies in this book, I'll just go die with him.
Just kidding. But honestly. I cried for two days straight when I found out Severus Snape died, and I hadn't even read the book yet. When Inspector Morse died I couldn't even read the book (it's still just sitting there in my library). And now to have Samuel Vimes shuffle off the face of the Disc? I can't handle it. The Watch were my best friends during my saddest and most awkward years, because there was a little part of me in each of them (or is it the other way around?).
I LOVE Samuel Vimes and he's one of the few characters who have never, ever, ever disappointed me. When a new Watch book comes out I just go uunggggh! and have to get it LIKE NOW (ie have it shipped from the States because it takes the Pratchett books a long time to get here). Personally I'm not a huge fan of most of the other Discworld subseries, like the Tiffany Aching stories and the Rincewind books, and it's been breaking my heart that the Watch books have been so few and far between. (Though, yes well, I did enjoy the Moist von Lipwig books very very much and they were a nice break, but I probably enjoyed them best because they were still set in Ankh Morpork and Vimes and Vetinari still play a role).
Probably I'm overthinking. But the cover has just been released, and see that little hourglass there on the boat with him? Sometimes an hourglass is just an hourglass, but sometimes an hourglass is something Death (or his apprentice, Mort) carries around with him to see how much longer a poor bugger has left.
Sam Vimes, if you can hear me all the way there in Ankh-Morpork... please don't die.
If Vimes dies in this book, I'll just go die with him.
Just kidding. But honestly. I cried for two days straight when I found out Severus Snape died, and I hadn't even read the book yet. When Inspector Morse died I couldn't even read the book (it's still just sitting there in my library). And now to have Samuel Vimes shuffle off the face of the Disc? I can't handle it. The Watch were my best friends during my saddest and most awkward years, because there was a little part of me in each of them (or is it the other way around?).
I LOVE Samuel Vimes and he's one of the few characters who have never, ever, ever disappointed me. When a new Watch book comes out I just go uunggggh! and have to get it LIKE NOW (ie have it shipped from the States because it takes the Pratchett books a long time to get here). Personally I'm not a huge fan of most of the other Discworld subseries, like the Tiffany Aching stories and the Rincewind books, and it's been breaking my heart that the Watch books have been so few and far between. (Though, yes well, I did enjoy the Moist von Lipwig books very very much and they were a nice break, but I probably enjoyed them best because they were still set in Ankh Morpork and Vimes and Vetinari still play a role).
Probably I'm overthinking. But the cover has just been released, and see that little hourglass there on the boat with him? Sometimes an hourglass is just an hourglass, but sometimes an hourglass is something Death (or his apprentice, Mort) carries around with him to see how much longer a poor bugger has left.
Sam Vimes, if you can hear me all the way there in Ankh-Morpork... please don't die.
Thursday, May 12, 2011
A plea
Please be nice to me if you do read my blog; unfortunately I have extremely thin skin and my feelings are really fragile. Haha.
Wednesday, May 11, 2011
Anti-gay Ugandan bill
I thought the Ugandan bill that gives the death penalty to homosexuals was a joke, until one of my friends linked to a petition site and I got wrapped up in the whole thing. I'm just... it's coming from both sides, really. On the one hand there are the ultraliberals that make me want to just sit and stare at the walls, depressed at the state that humanity has come to--that it's okay to be abortionist, that it's okay to treat divorce as casually as any old break up, that it's okay to show things on tv that you can't watch with your family without blushing and wanting to close your eyes. On the other hand there are these extreme conservatives, who want to protect the "cohesion of African families" by extending the criminalization of homosexuality, including and up to the death penalty. Who want to uphold ideals by sacrificing human dignity and freedom.
I do believe that there are plenty of things that damage the family as a social unit. I believe that the current climate of promiscuity has contributed to this--leading down a slippery slope of teenage pregnancies, increased abortion rates and sexually transmitted disease, child pornography, human trafficking, and the like. Society has made all of these things, to some extent, acceptable. Do I wish they'd disappear? Sure, because I can't stand to see holy purity and prudence stepped on at every turn, and to see marriages breaking up easily because people knew from the very beginning that there was a way out.
However, as a Catholic, the most basic premise of my faith--and here no sane Catholic will contradict me--is that people have free will; this freedom, not license, comes with responsibilities and the knowledge that you are free to choose, but whatever choice you make will have consequences. I have the choice to turn away from God or to fall in love with Him, and it is a personal choice; nobody can force me, and I won't let them; more importantly, I can never force others to believe in the same things, primarily because of freedom, but also because faith itself is a gift and not a fruit of coercion. Another consequence of this freedom is that I must respect the choices others make; I might disagree with my classmates on the RH bill or similar topics, but I would be the first to defend their right to make their own informed decisions and to express them. I might not be comfortable with homosexuality, but I would never ever ostracize or penalize somebody for their sexual orientation.
Others brand Catholics as extremely close-minded, along with all those hot-blooded other Christians, all set to smite those who do not match their ideas of what is good--homosexuals included. But if you really studied the Catholic stand on homosexuality, you would see that actually, Catholicism is one of the few religions in the world that truly respect a person's freedom and his ability to make his own choices. Whether these choices are misguided or not is a matter of moral truth--and the consequences of our moral decisions will always be there--but that doesn't change the fact that each person comes equipped with intelligence and will, both of which can be educated and enlightened, and that each person has an inviolable dignity.
Christianity is a religion of love. It bothers me that we should be branded as haters, and sometimes with good reason--because we can be overenthusiastic and self-righteous and defensive, feeling that society is beating us down on all sides. I know because I've been there, and sometimes I can still be all of these things. But what matters, before anything else, is that I and my fellow Catholics should remember charity. To fight for our beliefs--to picket, if necessary--but to know that there is a line we can't cross; we can only do so much; to cross over to violation of human rights is to contradict our own objectives. Charity before anything else, understanding before anything else.
It's a good reminder for me. And it would be good to remind the legislators at Uganda, too.
I do believe that there are plenty of things that damage the family as a social unit. I believe that the current climate of promiscuity has contributed to this--leading down a slippery slope of teenage pregnancies, increased abortion rates and sexually transmitted disease, child pornography, human trafficking, and the like. Society has made all of these things, to some extent, acceptable. Do I wish they'd disappear? Sure, because I can't stand to see holy purity and prudence stepped on at every turn, and to see marriages breaking up easily because people knew from the very beginning that there was a way out.
However, as a Catholic, the most basic premise of my faith--and here no sane Catholic will contradict me--is that people have free will; this freedom, not license, comes with responsibilities and the knowledge that you are free to choose, but whatever choice you make will have consequences. I have the choice to turn away from God or to fall in love with Him, and it is a personal choice; nobody can force me, and I won't let them; more importantly, I can never force others to believe in the same things, primarily because of freedom, but also because faith itself is a gift and not a fruit of coercion. Another consequence of this freedom is that I must respect the choices others make; I might disagree with my classmates on the RH bill or similar topics, but I would be the first to defend their right to make their own informed decisions and to express them. I might not be comfortable with homosexuality, but I would never ever ostracize or penalize somebody for their sexual orientation.
Others brand Catholics as extremely close-minded, along with all those hot-blooded other Christians, all set to smite those who do not match their ideas of what is good--homosexuals included. But if you really studied the Catholic stand on homosexuality, you would see that actually, Catholicism is one of the few religions in the world that truly respect a person's freedom and his ability to make his own choices. Whether these choices are misguided or not is a matter of moral truth--and the consequences of our moral decisions will always be there--but that doesn't change the fact that each person comes equipped with intelligence and will, both of which can be educated and enlightened, and that each person has an inviolable dignity.
Christianity is a religion of love. It bothers me that we should be branded as haters, and sometimes with good reason--because we can be overenthusiastic and self-righteous and defensive, feeling that society is beating us down on all sides. I know because I've been there, and sometimes I can still be all of these things. But what matters, before anything else, is that I and my fellow Catholics should remember charity. To fight for our beliefs--to picket, if necessary--but to know that there is a line we can't cross; we can only do so much; to cross over to violation of human rights is to contradict our own objectives. Charity before anything else, understanding before anything else.
It's a good reminder for me. And it would be good to remind the legislators at Uganda, too.
Tuesday, May 10, 2011
A visit to the pulmonologist
On the plus side:
I'm off the steroids. I might still have asthma, but it's pretty controlled.
On the negative side:
While I was walking in, he told me hi and asked how I was, before looking at me more closely and saying quite bluntly (though nicely), "Are you gaining weight?"
AAAAAARGH.
I'm off the steroids. I might still have asthma, but it's pretty controlled.
On the negative side:
While I was walking in, he told me hi and asked how I was, before looking at me more closely and saying quite bluntly (though nicely), "Are you gaining weight?"
AAAAAARGH.
Thursday, May 5, 2011
A late entry
From March 27, 2011.
It’s raining where I am. Tomorrow (Monday), we have a huge exam (that may determine whether I’m to make it to third year med school or not) and on Tuesday we have two more—medical jurisprudence and a comprehensive exam that encompasses the entire year. It’s all a bit much to take in and over the weekend I did experience a few moments of sheer unadulterated panic. But the human body can only take so much worry. This morning, having gone to mass and having shooed home a beloved friend who came to spend the night and study with me, I went to a coffee shop near the bay—not so near it that I’d smell the water, but close enough to be feeling the breeze. I tried studying there from about nine to twelve, but was getting nowhere. I was struck with the brilliant idea of cutting my hair, and called my mom to ask if she thought this would be a good idea; moments later I found myself in a tiny salon a few streets away.
I’ve never gotten a hair cut for fifty pesos before. Somehow the sheer cheapness of it made me even giddier as I sat there, watching the scissors snip away more than a year’s attempt at growing my hair out. Where it reached down to the middle of my shoulder blades, now it’s barely past my chin. I find it kind of glorious. It does make me look a bit fatter, but I do think I look five years younger, and that’s enough. I went to another coffee shop by the bay, sitting out on their terrace, and watching the rain fall really gently and silently. Everything smells like grass after rain and where I’d usually find it a bit distasteful, I couldn’t stop breathing it in today. Everything is peaceful.
Only two days left til the school year. How can I not be excited, and how can I not want to step into a small oasis of calm in the middle of all the panic?
It’s raining where I am. Tomorrow (Monday), we have a huge exam (that may determine whether I’m to make it to third year med school or not) and on Tuesday we have two more—medical jurisprudence and a comprehensive exam that encompasses the entire year. It’s all a bit much to take in and over the weekend I did experience a few moments of sheer unadulterated panic. But the human body can only take so much worry. This morning, having gone to mass and having shooed home a beloved friend who came to spend the night and study with me, I went to a coffee shop near the bay—not so near it that I’d smell the water, but close enough to be feeling the breeze. I tried studying there from about nine to twelve, but was getting nowhere. I was struck with the brilliant idea of cutting my hair, and called my mom to ask if she thought this would be a good idea; moments later I found myself in a tiny salon a few streets away.
I’ve never gotten a hair cut for fifty pesos before. Somehow the sheer cheapness of it made me even giddier as I sat there, watching the scissors snip away more than a year’s attempt at growing my hair out. Where it reached down to the middle of my shoulder blades, now it’s barely past my chin. I find it kind of glorious. It does make me look a bit fatter, but I do think I look five years younger, and that’s enough. I went to another coffee shop by the bay, sitting out on their terrace, and watching the rain fall really gently and silently. Everything smells like grass after rain and where I’d usually find it a bit distasteful, I couldn’t stop breathing it in today. Everything is peaceful.
Only two days left til the school year. How can I not be excited, and how can I not want to step into a small oasis of calm in the middle of all the panic?
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