taipei and stupid people.
written: 3:59 p.m. on Wednesday, Mar. 26, 2008

There's something really masochistic about making yourself wait 12 hours to watch your current and most recent husband on TV when you're absolutely dying to find out what song he did. And since you're not a masochist, you carelessly ventured onto his Facebook fan page and accidentally read the spoiler that you so masochistically tried to avoid for the whole day.

So here goes: Oh my god David sang Billie Jean!!!!!!

You know, by Michael Jackson? How totally UNEXPECTED OHMYGAD!!

I'm this close to YouTubing the performance but I know that I'd never forgive myself if I did that, because David has to be watched in high def (or, you know, analogue high def). So I'm just going to torture myself some more and wait until ten freaking p.m. to watch it. I think I'm nuts. I have Star Movies and all, but it's from 6 to 7.30 which is dinner time and I don't want anything to interfere with my David time!

Seriously, of all the songs from 1982 (theme is songs from the year you were born and my husband is four years older than me) that I YouTubed because I'm obsessed with coming up with songs that he'd sound great singing, he chose a song that I already knew, and more importantly, is a freaking massive hit. Like seriously. Seriously.

Of course, it's possible that he completely screwed it up. But is that probable? I don't think so. I don't marry failures and losers, thank you very much.

Okay, so I'm probably gonna wake up at 8 a.m. tomorrow to obsessively YouTube David's performance over and over again, and I'm definitely going to write another findulgent rambling post-performance entry, and I'm not going to stop gushing about David Cook anytime soon, so I'll just stop typing about him now and move on to something else. Yep.

***

On a more serious note, I suspect that I'm falling ill. My head has been feeling very heavy the entire day, and I had a couple of migraine attacks. And I think I'm mildly feverish. I want to sleep! But I can't fall asleep. And I haven't read for tomorrow's Comparative Crim class, as usual.

Speaking of class, apparently my presentation didn't go down as badly as I thought it did, but I still think it went down really badly. I finished typing my outline at 11.30 p.m. last night. It consisted of a bunch of rehashed facts about South Thailand without any legal analysis whatsoever, which of course, did not escape S!mon T@y. He was surprised when I went to talk to him during the break and told him that I was really confused about my paper. I would have added that I absolutely had no idea what I was doing, and it was the first time that I felt this unsure about a research paper that I was supposed to be relatively good at, and therefore I was freaking out a little; but because we were really strapped for time, I just left it at "I'm really confused".

He did give useful advice. I'm just concerned about what the hell it is that I'm supposed to be arguing, because I don't want to hand in a descriptive essay about, you know, the elements of the applicable international laws and apply it to the situation. Who wants to read such a boring essay? Certainly not me.

Hopefully I'd have a definite idea of what I want to do with this paper after I see him next Tuesday. As it is though, the paper is giving me a major headache. I wouldn't be surprised at all if I do fall sick for reasons causally linked to the paper.

I still can't believe that David sang Billie Jean.

In other news, my dad came home today! And of course, he came back bearing lots of fattening food that I cannot resist eating.

I swear, Taiwanese food is FAMAZING. As in FUCKING AMAZING. My eldest aunt gave him a box of mochi and some cheese pastry, and they were both soooooooo delicious. Like, ohmygad, I almost don't mind getting fat on them because they are soooooo yummy. My brother also requested a box of cheesecake that my other aunt brought from Jiayi to Taipei the last time we were back. And Jiayi is like, in the southern part of Taiwan, and Taipei is, naturally (naturally if you speak Chinese that is) in the north of Taiwan. And because my brother is my grandparents' precious grandson, being the first grandson born into the family and everything, my grandfather was all, "He has to have the cheesecake! If he asked for it, he has to get it!"

My aunt was out of the country. So it was up to her husband to buy five boxes of the cheesecake and express mail them to Taipei for my dad to bring home. Amazing, right? I think so too.

Oh, but the cheesecake is super yummy. My dad only brought back two boxes. One of them was left at my grandmother's, which is for the better, of course. I can't have such diabolical temptations lying around the house, because 1) there are enough diabolical temptations lying around the house; and 2) I'M GETTING SUPER FAT OHMYGOD.

WAH LAU I MISS TAIPEI LAH.

We're going back in December. YAY! Despite the cold and all. I mooted the idea of going to Tainan to my mom just for the hell of it, and because I'm beginning to find it ridiculous that I've been to Taiwan so many times and yet have never ventured further south than Taichung. Apparently Tainan is very old school and rustic, which should be interesting.

On the subject of travelling, I can't wait to go to Europe in June! So totally excited OMG. And I miss Mag. MUCHLY!

***

On another note, I joined a pro-Taiwanese independence Facebook group ages ago called "Face it - Taiwan is not a part of China". After the presidential elections, I checked out the wall posts and discussion board to see what people were saying about the results.

I didn't get further than the first page of the wall posts before I decided that it totally wasn't worth my time.

Maybe I shouldn't have been, but all the time, I was really quite shocked by the number of people that were upset about the DPP's loss (or Frank Hsieh's loss, whatever). Not only that, there were people making comments like, "I wonder if there will still be elections 4 years later."

That is just so wrong on so many levels. I mean, yeah, no one is disputing that the KMT ran a very brutal regime from the time they fled to Taiwan to somewhere around the 70's, 80's. But why do pro-independence, pro-DPP people insist on somehow ignoring the fact that Taiwan's democracy was initiated by Chiang Ching-kuo, and that the first democratically-elected president of Taiwan was a Taiwanese-born KMT member? Even if CCK didn't initiate democratic reforms for benign reasons, the fact still remains that he did initiate those reforms.

And using history to cast doubt on the current president-elect without considering the personal convictions, traits, and qualities of the said elect is just extremely childish and ignorant. Ma Ying-Jeou isn't Chiang Kai-shek Incarnate; he's his own person, and if people have read what he's said about China, they should know that he isn't any more pro-unification than Chen Shui-bian is. He has no plans to visit China, and he's advocating closer ties with China for pragmatic, and smart, economic reasons. I find it hilarious that many of the people making stupid comments about Ma handing Taiwan back to China and how electing a KMT president somehow spells the death of democracy in Taiwan and how the KMT is totally evil and the DPP the bearer of freedom and democracy and Independence! are people that don't freaking live in Taiwan. How can anyone that purports to love Taiwan re-elect a political party that has made a complete mess of the Taiwanese economy and caused major hardship to a lot of Taiwanese citizens? I distinctly remember a period of time when the Taiwanese news stations were rife with reports about parents gassing an entire family to death because they were just so poor.

I mean, I totally sympathise with pro-independence sentiments, and I am totally for independence. But it's just absurd to blindly support a political party that is pro-independence and blithely ignore all the short-comings that they've displayed for eight freaking years. Seriously, what has Chen contributed to Taiwan over the last eight years, except stupid things like changing the name of Taiwan's international airport and the Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall for which I will never forgive him? What has he done except to further divide the nation along Taiwanese/non-Taiwanese (which is BULLSHIT) lines? Why would a president want to divide his people? Why would a president want to pursue policies that isolate his own country, one that he supposedly loves so deeply?

Someone also said that Ma is Taiwan's first "China-born president". What the fuck? He was born in Hong Kong which didn't belong to China then. And even so, I don't think anyone really associates Hong Kong with China. More importantly, if anyone bothered checking, he moved to Taiwan when he was one. So his spending his first year on this planet in Hong Kong will determine his citizenship for the rest of his life? That's just patently absurd.

Stupid people need to shut the fuck up.

Okay, rant over. You know I only follow Taiwanese politics because a part of me identifies myself as kind-of-not-really Taiwanese, right? I didn't follow the Malaysian elections and I'm not following the US presidential elections. The only thing that interested me about the former was that the ruling party Lost OMG!, and I don't really care whether Clinton or Obama becomes president as long as it's not another gun-touting, dumb-ass, cowboy Republican who isn't known for his voracious appetite for books.

I just spelled 'appetite' wrong - twice. And I'm still feeling strange. I still can't believe that David sang Billie Jean.

I'm glad my dad's home. :)

music: Pearl Jam's Ten

before sunrise // before sunset


Previously:
- - Tuesday, Aug. 29, 2017
I'm moving. - Sunday, Jul. 11, 2010
In all honesty - Tuesday, Jul. 06, 2010
What I want for my birthday... - Sunday, Jul. 04, 2010
On Roger's behalf. - Friday, Jul. 02, 2010