New view on beauty
3 May 2008, 11:30 pm. 4 Comments. Filed under Miscellaneous, Rants.
Last year, I looked down on fake cake faces. This year, I have begun to bow to the magnificent powers of professional make-up and Adobe Photoshop.
When you cut off a model/celebrity's access to godly photographing/photo-editing skills and knock off their powders, how many of them still look so stunningly mouth-gapingly attractive?
What's physical beauty nowadays? Fake eyelashes, fake boobs, million-dollar noses and what else? It's because you can't see at first instance into the inner content contained within this outer shell that physical appearances do matter so much to a certain extent. Pretty people do receive extra benefits. People often (at least) begin with treating good-looking people better. And hence, I've changed my views.
With the latest make-up technology, it makes no difference in the end whether the person had natural beauty initially or not. It is time to recognise that superficial beauty prevails over natural beauty at least in the short-term. It is time to succumb to routine face-caking and eye-painting sessions.
You know what? I don't like this world. Because I can't spare enough money for a full set of Chanel and Christian Dior make-up equipment, laser treatments and regular beauty therapy. So I'll just have to live with my flawed shell and get used to unfair treatment. Bottom-line: Money = Beauty. Once again, money makes the world go 'round dammit.
How I cope with uni
22 April 2008, 8:36 pm. 25 Comments. Filed under School.
Actually, I'm not coping at all. Just looking at my schedule of essays, tests and exams for the coming two months make me want to faint. But, I'm finally making some progress shaking off the holiday mode.
Wait. Am I really though? I still haven't managed to get rid of my habit of falling asleep in classes; and it's worse when I fall asleep in a small tutorial class of no more than ten students. There has to be something wrong with Economics which makes me fall asleep in all Economics classes since 2006. No matter how hard I try to stay awake, I just end up falling asleep again and again.
Awake... awake... zzz... shit. Awake. And repeat. That's how it is in every Economics class.
Test tomorrow and I'm still confused in some places. But I have made effort to cram in the content! (Into my books at least. Not too sure about my brain.)
I'm glad I recorded my exam studying freak days from end of last year to remind myself of how I got through all that. But it's hard to feel so determined to study at this time of the year. 
That's why I'm still procrastinating. Zooming in on handwriting is fun.
Attempts at "whitening" oneself
15 April 2008, 4:54 pm. 34 Comments. Filed under Personal, Rants.
I can understand why many (Southeast) Asians would like to have Western last names. Southeast Asians typically get a (boring) single-syllable last name so much more common than a Western last name (boring x 2). Just think of some of the most popular Asian last names: Lee/Li, Chang/Zhang, Wang/Wong, Chen/Cheng/Zheng, and so on. And my last name—Sun—is almost as absurd as Moon or Star. But so what? My last name is part of what defines who I am.
There's a long line of ancestry behind my last name which has survived thousands of years of history. The first on our family's official family tree is Sun Tzu, dating back to the 6th century BC. Our family tree (a massive book with names) has been passed down 2500 years, each time to the eldest son. Technically, there should be just one in the world. But since my grandparents currently hold one, I highly doubt that's the one (because that's too hard to believe. And surely, someone would've thought of publishing multiple copies to pass to all their sons). Either way, I am a (very, very, very distanced) blood relative of Sun Tzu or his next-in-line Sun Bin, as recorded in our family tree. Anyone who has a reasonable level of knowledge about Ancient Chinese history would have heard about Sun Tzu's Art of War. There's something to feel proud about to be a descendant of him.
And I am sure, whichever last name one owns, there's also a story behind it relating to its origins. We are here because of our ancestors, whoever they are. Yet some people are more than happy about giving up their cultural heritage for a "cooler" Western last name perhaps so they feel superior among other Asians? When Asian Girl A sees an obviously-Asian Asian Girl B with a Western last name, something like this happens:
A: "Wow! Are you a mix?!" (I agree mixes are cool)
*anticlimax*
B: "No. I changed my surname."
A: "Oh."
What for? What's so bad about being a Chinese that it makes some people feel ashamed to own a Chinese last name? There's historical meaning behind every last name that a new meaningless one doesn't give. There are even worse Western last names out there like "Sucks". It's nice to know how I came to be, and my last name connects me with my ancestors. I vow I will never be as ignorant as to pay $100+ to the New Zealand Department of Internal Affairs to change my name to some random unrelated Cheryl Smith crap. Marriage, of course, is a different matter.
