Quotes II

Humanity takes itself too seriously. It is the world's original sin. If the cave-men had known how to laugh, history would have been different.

What does it profit a man if he gains the whole world and lose... his own soul?

The books that the world calls immoral are books that show the world its own shame.

All three from Oscar Wilde's The Portrait of Dorian Gray

There's Still Nothing Wise About Them

So I went and got my other wisdom tooth pulled. Once again I'm not very happy. Much of it was the same except this time I remember more, maybe. So rather than type the entire story again, I'm going to copy paste last time's and change some stuff and you can play spot the difference. :D

My mom and I ride to some weird part of the city again to visit for this epic doctor to get my other tooth pulled. We walked for what seemed like forever until we found the place again, filled out paperwork and then the doctor plopped me down on the weird chair. But this time when the assistant called my name I gave out this clearly audible groan of protest. I noticed that there were two syringes. One of them was bent, like > only less acute. So he starts shooting me full of anesthetic again but with the third shot (wait I thought there was two...) I feel this burning sensation shoot across my chin and I'm sitting there thinking, "what the heck." So he tells me to go wait in the waiting room again. Apparently the burning sensation was a lack of sensation because the left side of my chin was all numb like when you sleep on your hand for too long and it turns all dead and limp-like. I really hope this wears off...OH OOPS I CONJOINED THE NEXT SECTION. Oh well.

So the x-ray room. This time I remembered the claustrophobia. The room was dimly lit and all sepia and small, and you only had these two x-ray machines as friends. It was worse than my school bathrooms. Then we waited again. Oh darn I forgot about the stitches. Before the doctor started stabbing my gums with anesthetic he took out my stitches, which didn't hurt at all. By the way, the stitches were the reason it hurt for me to eat with the right side of my mouth. Stupid stitches. I could've been enjoying nice Taiwan food if it weren't for you. Oh and before that the doctor and I had a nice conversation of stuff to eat and yeah... :P

The doctor calls me to the tooth-pully room and I let out an even louder audible groan and he just says "no need to be so excited." He's a funny dentist. :D

So I'm waiting and waiting and waiting and observing and then more waiting. He shows up again and cue flashback! Then he takes those cloth things that they put over stuff during a surgery. Not sure what it's called but it's usually blue, mine was green. He starts cutting through my teeth and this time I actually had to raise my hand to tell them "stop that's not painless." Everything was going fine until they got out the drill. Yeah. It sounded like they had no idea what on Earth they were doing. It sounded like they were randomly trying to force my tooth into submission. Then they tried to yank it out; sorry my tooth is stubborn. They tried to use the drill again, and then more yanking. Some time later they started stitching the hole in my gum-- or at least that's what I think they were doing..

The assistant starts to hastily tell me what to do in Chinese and the entire time I was giving this really annoyed "mhmm" sound and she says, "oh you still remember from last time?". So they stick some kind of...thing into my mouth and tell me to bite it for an hour. Some other things happen that I can't remember. Oh! They asked if I wanted to keep my tooth. I just gave them this displeased look again and they told me to look at it. Then they asked again. I saw the really bloody tooth that was sliced in half and shook my head. Now I regret that decision. It would've been cool to look at all the blood vessels. But heck, I still have two more chances.

So now I still have an ice pack on my face and I still look like an idiot, still an incoherent idiot, I still feel like a squirrel that's stuffed its face full of nuts, and I still have to keep this stupid ice pack on my face. I'm just kinda like :| right now. Or :J if you use your imagination. Cookie to whoever can tell me how many changes I made 'cause I sure don't know.

There's Nothing Wise About It

Wisdom teeth are nothing but a hindrance. Not only do they grow all wacky and disoriented, they also mess up your once perfect teeth. And then you have to go get them pulled, which is not fun at all, especially not in Taiwan.

So here we are. My mom and I ride to some weird part of the city to look for this epic doctor to get my teeth pulled. We walked for what seemed like forever until we found the place, filled out paperwork and then the doctor plopped me down on the weird chair. Instead of all the other dentists I've had, he doesn't talk about the procedure or recommendations. He just dives into it.

"Yes it will be difficult to pull. But I'll do it" And then he starts injecting me with anesthetic without any warning. The first shot hurts the most and everything else is, "I think there's something wiggling in my gum." But I didn't know that, so instead of playing along and being a good little girl I recoiled from the 2nd shot. Haha. So there I was, being pumped full of anesthetic and filling my mind with all these gruesome pictures of what could possibly go wrong. I was then let to get x-rays and the assistant tells me to do some random stuff and had my x-ray taken.

Then the nice dentist's assistant tells me to go take a seat in the waiting room where my mom was happily conversing with some stranger. The stranger proceeded to tell me about all the things that could go wrong. That's so very helpful. I fool around in the stupid waiting room for what seemed like ages before the assistants call me into the yank-your-teeth-out room.

I waited for ages again in the room while using my vivid imagination to imagine all other kinds of disasters. Some of them include the anesthetic wearing off and I'm there flailing around like a maniac trying to get their attention. I also managed to imagine a fountain of blood spurting from my gums. Needless to say, this didn't really help my anxiety. To pass the rest of the time, I started to play around with my numb mouth. "I think I'm biting my tongue. I'm not sure, but it feels funny so I'll stop now," and "what a great blog entry this'll be."

So at last the doctor comes and he's disinfecting my mouth and the sort. Then he takes those cloth things that they put over stuff during a surgery. Not sure what it's called but it's usually blue, mine was yellow. And the first thing I notice about it was, "there's blood. Oh shoot." After it was put over my face I closed my eyes and listened to them attempt to calm me down. Everything was going fine until they got out the drill. Yeah. It sounded like they had no idea what on Earth they were doing. It sounded like they were randomly trying to force my tooth into submission. Then they tried to yank it out; sorry my tooth is stubborn. They tried to use the drill again, and then more yanking. Some time later they started stitching the hole in my gum-- or at least that's what I think they were doing. Then they take the stupid thing off my face and start wiping my mouth. Oh yeah, there was blood.

The assistant starts to hastily tell me what to do in Chinese and the entire time I was lagging behind by a word. So they stick some kind of...thing into my mouth and tell me to bite it for an hour. Some other things happen that I can't remember. Oh! They asked if I wanted to keep my tooth. I just gave them this displeased look and they said, "Oh well, it's in pieces anyways."

Then I have to go back to get my other tooth pulled and get my stitches removed. Great, just great. So now I have an ice pack on my face and I look like an idiot, an incoherent idiot, I feel like a squirrel that's stuffed its face full of nuts, and I have to keep this stupid ice pack on my face. I am not happy. At all.

Edit: So turns out the stupid thing they told me to bite down on was some kind of...cotton-ball-type thing to stop the bleeding, and it made my mouth seem all swollen. Now the anesthetic is wearing off and my ex-tooth is hurting. So I took some pain-killers which aren't working yet. :(

Edit #2: So the normal painkillers didn't work at all and I've resorted to the powerful painkillers. Which still haven't kicked in. >:(

Edit #3: I ate the frikken strong painkiller and it's not doing all that great of a job. My cheek is throbbing and I'm not happy at all.

Quotes I

Violence can only be concealed by a lie, and the lie can only be maintained by violence.

- Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

What's the Matter With Kids Today!

Not only has our fashion sense changed drastically over the years, but what's popular in hobbies, music, and possibly some other thing I'm unaware of, is driving me insane.

Girls, do you really need to show that much skin? Sure if it's hot and stuff I can understand (by the way, people in Taiwan, wear long sleeves and pants when it's 90 degrees F outside), but are short shorts necessary during the winter? Something else that annoys me is skinny jeans. Those things look like they could cause vasoconstriction, not to mention, they look very uncomfortable.

Boys, no one, and I mean no one, wants to see your boxers. Girls don't find it attractive at all. Another thing is, acting rude does not make you cool. No one wants a boyfriend who goes around picking fights and thinking of themselves like"I'm the center of the universe."

The biggest thing is music. Some of those songs out there are just the same line repeated 35 times; I actually counted. Rap and hip hop have gone down the hole. Who cares about your drugs and money and sex-life and girls? There is nothing in that. Everything that's being said is meaningless. Songs are getting shorter and shorter, the lines are being repeated more and more, and they're making less and less sense. There are artists out there that use music to make their point, and isn't that what music is? Music is supposed to be a way that we express ourselves, our concerns, our feelings, in a way that any one can understand. True music transcends words and dives into the soul.

So... How's the Weather?

Not only is a bad conversation starter, it's something that we all worry about in our daily lives. The weather here is mercurial. The morning is all clear and cool, then at noon it's hot and suffocating, in the afternoon the skies turn dark and you can hear thunder. In the evening its hot and suffocating again and when you're happily asleep there's thunder, lightning, and rain.

Now there's science behind this seemingly random weather. Yes I know what you're thinking, "so why does this happen?" And the answer accepted by several scientific communities is the chaos effect. The chaos effect states that there are an infinite number of variables that cause the weather. In short, we don't know. The good news is, we're getting 1% more accurate at predicting the weather every year.

But until the day comes that we can be 100% accurate about the weather, I say, forget the weatherman. Go with your instincts. But then again, I'm the one who uses the weather to start a conversation.

Misanthropy I.V

Just use your imagination and think of that as 1.5

Sometimes it annoys me how people always say, "oh no, I'm really bad at ______" whenever they're complimented. It's especially annoying when they're persistent. I'm not sure if this is just something that happens in my little Asian bubble, but seriously? Sometimes it gets to the point where I can't tell if they're trying to be modest or they're trying to get more compliments. Once you think about it, it could really go both ways.

Even if it's not out of vanity, you guys should really give yourself more credit. Who cares if that person who's been practicing for twice as long as you is better than you are? I am a hypocrite for saying this. Maybe it really is an Asian thing, but then what would I know?

Now this modesty leads to something else, or so I've experienced. I noticed that by being modest, I actually doubt myself a lot more. I have less self-confidence and I'm less willing to speak my mind out of doubt. Of course this could also just apply to me. Where I live, how successful you are depends entirely on how loudly you can express yourself and how well you can brag and sell yourself out for a job.

Great.

Misanthropy I

I hope you're happy in the end

(OMG I love the harmony there :D)

So if you care to find me/Look to the western sky/As someone told me lately/Everyone deserves a chance to fly/And if I'm flying solo/At least I'm flying free/To those ground me/Take a message back from me

I formatted it differently or else it'd take up the meaningful stuffs, which I forgot what I was going to write about.

So I decided to rip my meaningful-ness off an SAT essay prompt. Something about materialism.

I think that people are too materialistic, but of course who cares about what I think? Why do we feel the need to cling to tangible objects? We have our memories, we have friends (hopefully), we have trust, we have love. Somehow we need to turn those feelings and memories into photos and convince our friends and and that special someone that we love them or care about them with cheap trinkets. Is there a need for all this? All of these items are fragile, a giant fire would consume everything we acquired. Instead of spending all this time and money on materialistic items, wouldn't it be better to spend all this on making memories with those that you care about?

Misanthropy crossing choo choo!

All this talk about money brings me to another point. Why can't we have utopianism? Because humans are selfish beings. We can't give up money because we need to feel superior. We need something to rub into peoples' faces to prove we're better. "Look I have all this money so I'm better than you. I'm superior. All because I have more pieces of paper than you. So go and sulk and feel inferior while I have all this paper of no real value."

Speaking about selfishness, our goal in life is to prove our superiority over others. Community, country, species, kingdom, whatever. Humans are cruel creatures. Sometimes I think that we're the real animals that should be kept in cages. Everything we've invented serves only the purpose of placing us at the top of the food chain, and then some. Of course we can't simply stop at being at the top. We need to drive species to extinction to show off our fancy fur pelts or ivory jewelry.

Another trait I find rather irksome is laziness. We invented email because we can't bear to handwrite a letter that's ten times as more meaningful and has a hundred times more thought put into it. We're so quick to send that email that we don't even bother thinking about the tone or content we put into it. Well guess what? Chances are, you'll be understood and hurt someone. Oh now I'm digressing from laziness, sorry, I'll get back on it. An idea mentioned in Brave New World was..hold on I'll go find the quote.

"Getting rid of everything unpleasant instead of learning to put up with it. Whether 'tis better in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, or to take arms against a sea of troubles and by opposing end them...But you don't do either. Neither suffer nor oppose. You just abolish the slings and arrows. It's too easy."

Yeah that pretty much summarizes it.

"Misanthropy develops when without art one puts complete trust in somebody thinking the man absolutely true and sound and reliable and then a little later discovers him to be bad and unreliable...and when it happens to someone often...he ends up...hating everyone." -Socrates (or so wikipedia says)

Hi. :D

I hate the human race, but I still love the humans in my life. I will acknowledge that people are capable of being good, evil, and both at the same time. Don't worry I have more human hating reasons.

Are people born wicked?

Or do they have wicked thrust upon them?

SAT Classes

Can be fun! OMG! So I go to a very not-well-known SAT class on that side of the world. The class may only cost 1200 dollars and meet only twice a week for 4 hours each session and only 14 weeks, but the teachers are awesome. The only reason I actually like going there is because the teachers are so ineffably cordial. So here are some really weird experiences I've had there.

English Teacher :D

FACEBOOK

Some random guy: Can I go to the bathroom?

Teacher: Yeah, sure.

Me: Can I add you on facebook?

Teacher: uh....yeah...How'd you find it? I have a super secret profile.

Twilight and Song Reference #0

(We are having a debate on whether the definition of effervescent is bubbly or sparkly)

Teacher: So remember, effervescent is bubbly like Colbie Caillat, not sparkly like Twilight.

Song Reference #1

Teacher: You know that song by snow patrol? Chasing cars? -silence-

Random guy: Well you can't just randomly mention a song and expect us to know it.

Teacher: Yeah well you know that part? If I just lay here, would you lie with me? Is it grammatically correct? -silence- well it's not because...[insert lie vs lay lecture here]

song reference part dos

Teacher: So you know that song we were talking about? Chasing cars? It could be grammatically correct because of the [enter word I forgot], "if", it would actually be if I lay.

Song reference #2

Teacher: You guys know what [another word I forgot] means? Well you know Andrew Lloyd Webber? -I raise my hand- Really? You know that song Memory from "Cats"? -nod- So you know that word?

Me: No...

Teacher: Well it means...[enter another lecture here]

Vocab Quiz

Teacher: I'm going to go find out about your vocab quiz. -leaves the room-

-comes back a few minutes later-

Teacher: Well guess what? You guys are having a vocab quiz on chapters 1-11.

Me: WHAT!??!

Teacher: Just kidding.

Me: You're mean.

Teacher: I'm sorry?

CVS

Teacher: You know what I do during our 10 minute breaks? I run over to CVS to get you guys food.

Some random guy: You can do that in 10 minutes?

Teacher: It's hard to believe isn't it? I mean they only have like one line open at a time.

Grammar

Teacher: I think [subject] is funner.

Me: Funner?

-class laughs-

Teacher: Yeah, more fun. But I think "funner" is more fun than "more fun."

-writes on board:

more fun than

funner > more fun

Capybara

-reads section in SAT book-

Teacher: Have you guys ever seen a capybara? It's so weird. -draws a "capybara" on the board-

(If I can access a scanner I'll show you a copy of the "capybara")

Math teacher :D

I'm a FOB

(Although this is a disparaging term, where I live, it's completely commonplace)

Teacher: So is this all you guys do during break? Play with your graphing calculators?

Random guy: I'm a FOB

Teacher:...Hey that could actually work for a lot of things. Why are you so good at math? I'm a FOB. Why does your essay suck so much? I'm a FOB

Cheating on the SAT

(We're doing a practice drill)

Teacher: So you guys would rather learn how to cheat on the SAT than do drills?

Everyone: Yes

Teacher: [explain how to cheat here]

Random guy: Actually you don't take the same section at the same time anymore.

Teacher: Really? Huh. Well forget it, you're screwed!

More for Your Money

Teacher: Your parents are going to be so glad I kept you guys in for an extra 5 minutes. Even if we are just filling out instructor evaluations.

Counter Lady

Game

Counter lady: [My name]?

Me: -gives weird look-

Counter lady: We're playing a little game

Vocab Quizzes

Me: Was our vocab quiz supposed to have two of the same words on it?

Counter lady: No. You lucked out.

My friend: What? There were?! OH SHOOT.

Socializing

Counter lady: So who did you say you had last year?

Me: [lists teachers]

Counter lady: Oh [name of history teacher]. Isn't he funny?

Me: You had him?

Counter lady: Yeah! He would tell you all these weird stories. Did he tell you guys?

Me: For example?

Counter lady: Yeah how during World War II with the assassination of some duke.

Me: World War I and Ferdinand?

Counter lady: Yeah!

(on a side note, my history teacher mentioned that the only thing students remember about his class is his stories)

Just on a random note. My friend and I flipped two of the pictures in the classroom upside-down/sideways. I don't think anyone has noticed yet. There are more stories but I can't remember them right now. Maybe I'll update this, maybe I won't.