Possibly

For someone who has never passed a class test on algebra or understood their history textbook, there are many concepts and other things in the world that continue to befuddle the thoughts of my teenage mind.

One of those rather tricky topics is gender equality.

While people on tumblr bravely post text posts after text posts of their views on the issue, I find myself sitting on my bed attempting to separate everything into black and white.

That's pretty much the point where I give up thinking about such things and decide to go watch cartoons instead.

With issues like this, I can never seem to clearly define a good view or a bad view from a neutral point. I'm always finding grey parts in everything.

I never wanted to decide on my opinion but there has to be a day when you have to take a firm stand to speak out against something.

That day came sooner than I thought.

I was at a camping trip organised by my school this week. One of the things we were required to do was to go to a school to teach the students. At one point of the lesson, my classmate decided to give out prizes to the kid who raised their hand the fastest and answered the question correctly.

The kid who raised their hand first was a boy. 

After giving the prize to the boy, my classmates decided to allow only the girls to receive the next prize.

I suppose that from my classmates' point of view, it was only fair to allow a girl to get the next prize after a boy got one.

That was when I found myself protesting to it before I could fully process what they has planned.

I lost the battle anyway. Everyone against one.

I know that discrimination against women is a much bigger problem than discrimination against men. According to the lessons we have back in school, women are always in much more danger than men and the situation for girls are often worse in many parts of the world.

But still, at that moment, I wanted to stand up and fight for the boys in that class the very moment my classmates announced that only girls could get the prizes next.

You might disagree with me, but I believe that just because one boy received the one prize, does not mean that the rest of the boys are denied to chance of winning one. It's just unfair, being unable to receive a prize because of your gender.

Despite the fact that we were taught that boys will mostly have more privileges than the girls, I still couldn't let this go. I argued that it was unfair to the other boys. If another boy raised first, that would still be fair to everyone.

The second problem was that my classmates felt that the girls would not be able to raise up their hands as quickly as the boys.

I can't help it if this makes me sound silly. I felt that the girls are able to do things as well as the boys. Just because we're girls and are considered physically weaker does not mean that we can't do something like raising our hands as fast as boys can.

I was relieved when the next fastest person to raise up their hands was a girl. Number one, it was still considered fair to everyone as she was the fastest among both the girls and boys.

Number two, it proved my point that the girls could raise their hands just as fast and there was no need to act like they needed a help for something so simple. They're just as capable.

As much as there shouldn't be any discrimination towards the female population, there mustn't be any discrimination towards the male gender either. There shouldn't be discrimination towards anyone. I think that it's important to keep things fair as much as possible.

I am still bothered by the choice made by my classmates and when I tell people about it, they simply laugh and say it doesn't affect my life anyway.

I still can't help but wonder if the students learnt from the bad example. After all, my classmates never explained why they had suddenly allowed only one gender to claim the prize.

I hope that they don't learn anything from it. Because even this could affect the fight for gender equality. For all you know, the boys could have denied a girl a chance to do something in the future and vice versa for the girls.

Whatever it is, everyone deserves a fair chance. No matter your race, religion, sexuality, gender or financial situation, I feel that to achieve as much fairness in society as possible, we need to set the example of being fair as much as possible.

I wish I could have put my thoughts down in better words. But the point is, I'm still trying to figure out certain issues. And even when I'm forced to take a stand, I can't help but wonder if it's even possible.

We Come In Peace, 2013

I'm a little late for my annual greeting but nevertheless, it's better late than never.

So, hello there 2013! You must be a little surprised to be here. 2012 just ran past us really quickly!

And I believe you will too-as soon as we find a pair of expensive sneakers for you.

All jokes aside, I will now send 2012 off with a thank you for being such a lovely and eventful year. In reference to the post I made to greet 2012 last year, you have indeed lived up to the expectations of 2011 and I can't wait to see you pass that excitement to 2013.

I hope that 2012 has set a great example to what may be ahead this year. For 2013, you are an important year in which I must absolutely have to stick to my resolutions.

Also, THIS IS THE YEAR OF THE O LEEEEEEVEEEEEEEEEEEELS!

I literally jumped onto my sofa and shouted that in a rather agonized voice after the countdown.

There are great expectations, 2013. But I believe that you and I can get through this together.

With the help of some others of course.

This year, we'll correct some of the things that needed improvement from 2012 and we'll remember the good things from it too.

But most of all, I think we'll be able to accomplish some things that no other year had ever done before.

Oh it will be busy alright, 2013.

But somehow I know that we can definitely get through the year's obstacles.

And off we go, to a new year!

A Post Containing a Video

I need this on my blog.

Inspiration

I like to think that everything that a person does is influenced by something in their lives. That without that influence, we would be something completely different. That we would never have done certain things because that influence was not present in our lives.

I'm currently trying to finish my holiday assignments at this very moment and have just completed one of the book reviews I am required to do. As I had my computer switched on, I decided to take a break from the scratching of an old pen across lined paper and instead type up a post for this blog.

Anyway, I am going to list the things that inspire me to like or do a certain something. Not everything of course(that would to take too long) but those things that matter most.

I suppose that this shall have to be considered one of the more serious posts on this blog. But not serious-depressing like some, it is more like that this post will lack the random bits of humour or air-headed sayings that some other posts may contain. Perhaps the next one will be like that? I must stop delaying the post of the tutorial (mentioned in an older post) any further.

I don't think I would like to become a serious writer that only writes for a living as some people have suggested to me. I still do, however, love to write and read and do count it in as one of the most important and wonderful things I love to do.

I shall start with how I began my love for reading.  Reading was sort of an accidental thing, really. I didn't have anyone forcing me to push my nose into a book or anything like that. Back in Kindergarten, we had reading circles and I would get really frustrated because everyone read so slowly. During a trip to Kinokuniya(a bookstore) when I was six, my brother got my parents to buy me Roald Dahl's Charlie and The Chocolate Factory. It was kept in a small bookshelf, never to be touched till a year later.

Around that time, I had entered primary school. A classmate had recommended Enid Blyton's books to me. Being curious, I dragged my parents into a bookstore (MPH, to be specific) and I got two books that day, "The Magic Brush" and "The Brave Little Puppy". I also discovered the local newspaper's comic section.

After my collection of Enid Blyton books grew, I wanted something else to read. I found the abandoned Charlie and The Chocolate Factory on the shelf and decided to read the book my brother had picked out for me.

I loved the book.

I had never read anything like it. Well, probably because I've never read much other than newspaper comics and Enid Blyton. I couldn't stop reading it! It was just so exciting. It felt like someone had pulled me into the Chocolate Factory and I was watching the adventure unfold before my very eyes. It was amazing.

After finishing the book, I got my parents to buy me the whole set of Roald Dahl's books for Children. I remember when I read about how you could travel anywhere with a book in "Matilda", I thought it was the most magical thing ever.

 Before I knew it, I had finished reading them.

By then, I grew bored of just reading the comic sections and went on to reading short newspaper articles and the funny pages of magazines. My books were all dog-eared and some sentences were underlined in pencil from when I tried to teach my toys to read.

I was already seven when a friend told me about The Chronicles of Narnia. I had only read The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe at that time as I felt it was the most interesting one. Nevertheless, I was absolutely astounded by the wonders of the magical place and a grand lion, Aslan.

This also led to hours of conversation on the phone with said friend as we imagined working for Aslan and the Pevensie children.

Fast forward.

I was nine when I discovered What Katy Did. I had read quite a bit by then and that was the one book that stood out. It was rather humorous at some parts. Though it wasn't meant to be a book made purely for laughs, I felt that the comedic elements was so well-written that I would someday write a novel which had comedic parts that made others laugh as much as I had with What Katy Did.

When I was eleven, I was required to read Oliver Twist as part of the school's literature programme. I absolutely loved it. Sometimes when I re-read the things I've written after having read the book and compare it to the stories I've written before I read the book, I can see the influence and the change in the style and the stories I wrote. In other words, my writing has been greatly influenced.

There are many books that shaped and changed my perspective on reading and writing. I'll provide a little list of some I have not mentioned:

-Ways To Live Forever by Sally Nicholls
-Judy Blume's Fudge Series
-A Bear Called Paddington by Michael Bond
-Diary Of A Wimpy Kid by Jeff Kinney
-The Princess Diaries by Meg Cabot
-I Am Not A Serial Killer by Dan Wells
-Jacqueline Wilson
-Coraline by Neil Gaiman
-Chocolat by Joanne Harris
-Dav Pilkey
-The Perks Of Being A Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky
-Topsy and Tim Series by Jean and Gareth Adamson

And honestly, I could go on and on but it's dinner time now.

So today, I wrote about what inspired me to read and write. Perhaps next time, I shall write about the thing I am most passionate about.

No, get your head out of the gutter. I did not mean using the internet is what I love the most.

Honestly, the gutter is full of absolute nonsense and rubbish.

Throw it all in the Cauldron

To brew today's blog post, we'll need:

-A pinch of laziness

-A spoonful of random videos that one particularly enjoys

In order to fully appreciate this video post(also known as a post that lists videos one likes when in grumpy cat mode), one must grab a cup of hot chocolate and a blanket and settle down in front of a computer or laptop screen.

I Can't Afford Anything

This post will contain a tutorial.

You see, when I give instructions, I have this tendency to spill a bottle of good o'l vulgarities which later spread through the sentences I speak. If vulgarities were a liquid, they'd spread of course. Hence, the bottle.

An example would be like this:

You take the censored little piece of paper and you bend the censored edge towards here. Then you take this little censored and fold it across in this censored direction. Censored yeah. Afterwards, you grab this censored corner and censored fold it down over here. There, you have a censored magnificent paper aeroplane. Enjoy your censored flight.

As you can see, I have censored some of the words. This will hopefully please and frustrate people of two groups. Oh anyway, though I have the urge to spill that o'l bottle all over this post and letting it seep through the words which I am typing, I SHALL NOT.

But you can imagine the appropriate vulgarities (that sounds like an oxymoron, ha!) in between sentences yourself, can't you?

Onwards!

As much as I would love to write the post with an introduction like:

I'M DIRT POOR. I SHALL TEACH YOU THE WAYS OF BEING POOR.

I'm really not and do very much appreciate this fancy second-hand laptop I own, thank you very much.

However, I do have the tendency to be rather thrifty and sometimes can be a little extreme as to calculate the amount of savings I can make with writing pad value packs at a bookstore.

I am, for the record, pretty much the only person I see tapping away at a tiny phone calculator and muttering numbers under my breath in front of value pack sections in bookstores.

And as much as this may sound a little strange to some, merchandise is a no-no for me.

Better off saving the money for the future. There I said it.

This results in me side-eyeing the censored out of people who just stroll into conventions and blow thousands of bucks in a second.

I know I used a censored in the sentence above but the sentence pretty much begged for it. So please excuse it this once. Honestly, reading the word censored is much more annoying than reading the actual word itself.

Back to the topic, I can't afford to spend any money on merchandise when I could be saving up for rainy days is a better title for this post but I decided to keep it simple.

Thus, to overcome one's hunger for overpriced merchandise, I have followed in the footsteps of my fellow starved fangirls who experience a similiar fate as I do. What similarity you may ask?

It is that we all do not live in mansions near beaches which sand seems to shimmer like gold, own fifty plump ponies and a collectible dinosaur fossil and never seem to have the heart to break their stuffed piggy banks.

We turn to making our own merchandise. It's as easy as curtains, copper and candy.

For example, due to my inability to donate a hundred bucks to Homestuck's Kickstarter, I could only look at Scalemates through the photograph provided by the site.

Number One: I couldn't get my hands on a credit card.

Number Two: I could never spend a hundred dollars on merchandise.

I found the solution to this problem upon discovering handmade scalemates. This led me to this useful tutorial which I shall post a link to again because I do not wish for you to trouble yourself to find the link which I had also post previously.

Here it is.

And here's a picture of my second scalemate! I'm in the middle of making my third one.

Well, there was suppose to be a tutorial here according to the first sentence, I have none right now. I am working on a project though which I suppose I shall make a tutorial for. I think I shall post it as soon as I get the materials, make the project and take those photographs.

I was totally joking about the side-eyeing thing by the way. It's nice to see such eager people, even when they're buying merchandise.

And there are new curtain rails (or whatever you call those things curtains are attached to) in my house now! The old ones were rusty and broken. So that's some news on something new! 

Badly-Drawn Dragon

I'm still a little tired and rather confused after returning from my week long trip to Malaysia. It seems that while I was away, my family members decided to get haircuts and rearrange the furniture in the house.

Ah well, I suppose I will get used to it all soon. In the meanwhile, as I did not feel like writing about my trip, I drew a dragon on Paint instead. A badly-drawn one according to the post's title. It's supposed to look goofy to cheer people up.

So here it is: