Relative Achievement

I was picking off a pair of underpants this morning when I saw the neighbour looking at me. Its not his fault that I insist on going around half naked and parading my youthful nakedness about, and frankly, I don’t care if anyone looks (I think that much is clear). But my attitude towards nudity is such that it doesn’t bother me if it doesn’t bother you. So.

Last night Richard set up the studio for his latest photo do, and we had a slightly weird time looking at our faces under UV lighting. The most horrid thing about it is you get to see all the fat deposits in your skin, and for all my worldliness, I am still a teenager, and my skin still conforms to the oily just-after-puberty model. Its gross and fascinating at the same time.

We did a search on the internet after that and found out there were two kinds of UV lighting tubes you could get and that we’d been sold the wrong ones. There’s the super low intensity sort you find at nightclubs and things, and than, there’s the ones used in sun beds. Which are no fun for your eyes, skin, or general health. We wanted backlights of course, not the latter, for christ’s sake. Something must be done about that incompetent salesman. To me, it’s just completely ridiculous. You can’t buy something like an after-morning pill at the pharmacy because unnecessary consumption might result detrimental side effects, but you can buy something like hardcore UV-B lights? What if some idiot that didn’t know better sticks them up for a house party? My, my.

In other rambling, self-effacing news, I’ve started cooking now that the gas has been connected, and I’m proving to be quite good at it. Having a maid doesn’t ruin your ability to function as an independent individual really. The problem with spoilt children is that no one ever taught them the value of being able to do things for yourself. And reading Wicked, the story of The Wicked Witch of the West re-created, I remember how I felt when it was told to me countless of times when I was younger, and I thought it very telling of how most bourgeoisie kids of my generation feel towards cleaning up after themselves. ‘Oh my, how miserable Dorothy must be, cleaning after the witch all the time’. Being a kid, it never occurred to me that someone in my life was actually doing the same thing, because if I’m not doing it, then someone else must be, mustn’t they.

There’s nothing denigrating about doing the chores, but because having a maid seems to be the prerogative of the educated middle-class, not having one implicitly suggests other negative social stigmas. Like, didn’t your parents go to school, are they not as smart as everyone else’s, so on. Some things, I suppose, are especially appreciated in a predominantly Chinese culture, and really it is not good enough just to shut people up when they say racist things about another ethnic group. The belief is still inside a number of people that grew up within the same, or similar environments as the people that voice out their disdain. And the underclass will always seem the underclass to the people that consider themselves in the higher castes of society, by virtue of the fact that they espouse the things they think are important in life. Say, economic advancement and scholarly achievement. But what we see as the ultimate markers for human achievement may not be what someone else’s view of things, and I can’t say anymore, because I’m just as guilty for being narrow minded when it comes to what sort of achievements can be constituted as success.

xoxox