I love to type my Xanga entries at the most inappropriate times.
For instance, I like to blog the day before my midterms, hours before my incomplete essay is due, minutes before class time, and the strangest of all, I like to wake up at 3 in the morning and blog for a good hour or so, and then head back to sleep. Yup, I am just strange like that.
Recently, I have been thinking about the effects of globalization due to the advanced technology that enabled us to connect with different parts of the world in nano-seconds (for fast computers).
What do you think? Good or Bad?
"Technology is good because we are able to obtain more knowledge"-some chick said.
"It's bad because we are losing a lot of possible face-to-face interaction"-some other chick said.
No matter what your opinion is, I strongly advise you to think again.
Before going any further, I just want you to think about how your parents or the older generation communicate to each other when there's no such thing call cell phone, text messaging, msn, or even computer. We might have over 500 friends on our facebook already, but is that necessarily better compared to your parents' only 5 friends? I personally think it's pathetic to "check" on your friends' facebook, but we don't even initiate a conversation with them. Some people have argued that they don't have enough time, so they just check on their facebook to see how their friends are doing, that's BULLSHIT! If you have time to check on facebook, you have time to make a simple phone call. The reality is, we just don't, because we feel awkward to call (especially friends who you haven't talked to for a while, we are incapable of directive communication because facebook trained us to just click on "like" button instead of pushing the call button on our cell phone.
What pisses me off more (it happens to me as well), that me and a certain person are facebook friends, but when we encounter one another in REAL PERSON, we just act like we don't know each other. Although we clearly acknowledge each other's presence on facebook, we just simply don't want to initiate. What's more pathetic is later on after we get back home, we leave comments to each other's wall : "Oh I saw someone who looked like you, was that you?" or "I saw you somewhere sometime, it was nice to see you." At these moments, I just think to myself "WOW, WE ARE FUCKING PUSSIES." While technology has brought definite convenience and accessibility to us, it has also dramatically damaged our social skills that's required by our society.
Don't get me wrong, I am not hating on facebook. In fact, I am a fucking facebook addict as well, but at the same time I just think it's really depressing to notice how we are spending hours on facebook to check on other people's profile, but not doing anything in particular to initiate and build friendships. I argue that facebook and other social networking websites and messengers actually decrease and weaken our friendships with one another. It seemed like we are going toward the trend of valuing quantity over quality when it comes to friends. Isn't it GREAT to have 50+ people to throw a b-day party for you, and half of them don't even know you, and the other half barely know you, they only come here for the party but not for you????? I don't know, it doesn't appeal to me at all to throw a party out or host a clubbing event when I KNOW AT HEART that these people don't really care about you. I think I am just beyond the surface level of "fun" and "sensation," which I realize many people have not (and I am not saying one way is definitely better than the other, just my personal preference)
Think ahead of several centuries from now, what can people in the future tell about our current generations? Before we carve on walls and write letters, now we type on computers and text messages each other. Is there anymore meaningful work from our current generation that's worth more than "lol" or "fml" text messages that we send to each other. What are the effects of spending most of our time on IPHONES AND ITOUCH or facebook applications, and what do we get out of them? What can we tell or show the future generations than a piece of electronic? Many people say we are very fortunate to have computers and advanced appliances, but I actually think people from the past are more fortunate because they have ACTUAL FRIENDS, not facebook or msn friends. No matter how good your profile picture is on facebook because of a certain angle or photoshop, you still ultimately have to show up in person and socialize.
I can go on and on about facebook and other technologies, but I feel like I have talked enough for now. I don't really have a specific point of interest, rather I just want to pinpoint a few detrimental effects of using and having technology and how we make use of it. The creators of these technologies and websites are geniuses, unfortunately we are just a bunch of DUMB-ASSES who blindly followed and accepted as their targeted market.
Some years from now, when your kid ask you what's something meaningful you have done while you were in college or while you were young, you can either tell them you were the first to have a 1000 friends on facebook or you hold the all time record score on a certain application game from itouch. Good luck with that, I am sure your son or daughter will be impressed.
No, it's not about Bus Uncle or Bus Ar Mo, so if you only want to read about that, try somewhere else.
The birth of the Bus Theory came across my mind when I was sitting at the back of the city bus(Route 16) trying to get home. Before I explain the implications, let's start with a story (as always)
A few weeks ago, I was trying to get in that city bus to go home, the exact same one, with the same bus driver, the same timing, same location, everything was the same, except I wasn't sitting in the bus, I was trying to get in. As any UCSC student knows, city buses are always crowded, especially before or after class time. There are thousands of students who are trying to get in a bus that can only contain 50 students at the most. Anyways, as I stepped on the bus, the bus driver told me to step back down because there were no more room. I got pissed because I still saw some room at the back of the bus, and those ppl at the back of the bus were just chatting with their friends who were sitting. (Off topic, but I got even more pissed when I saw this guy who was totally trying to hit on this girl in the bus, he was standing and crouching toward her, and she was wearing a deep V tank top, the whole scene was disgusting because you could tell in that filthy guy's eyes, that ultimately he wanted to sleep with her, but anyways he was one of those fuckers who didn't scoot back to the empty space because he wanted that girl in his bed that night.)
Back on topic, so the bus driver told me to step back down from the bus, but being American and being Johnny Lam, of course I didn't back down just because some guy wanted to get laid. So I yelled:
"Scoot BACK!!! There's still a lot of room back there!!!"
"There's no more room," some girl was trying to be nice, but clearly she was stupid.
"Scoot back!!! Guys." another girls shouted, although she chose to say "guys" instead of "that fucker who wanted to get laid," I was certain she was referring to him.
After some snail movements within the bus, I was able to squish in. I gave the bus driver a cold stare, but he looked too white to understand what a cold stare looks like from a Chinese. He probably thought my eyes were naturally that small, but that's another issue to be discussed later. I felt justified and proud, although a small incident, a minority spoke up in a white populated campus and got what he wanted, BAM!
A few weeks later, which was yesterday, like I said I was able to sit at the back of the bus. The bus driver was white as usual, he probably couldn't tell the difference if I used ANY OTHER ASIAN'S ID on the bus. As others were trying to get on the bus, I noticed there was a HUGE ASS SPACE at the back, and a few students were busy chatting with their friends who were sitting in the middle of the bus, so they didn't move back. As the bus got filled up, I saw this Asian girl who was trying to get on the bus, but just like me before, the bus driver told her there wasn't any extra space for her. She didn't say anything, she just quietly walked back down, and I didn't say a word to the two chatty girls in the middle of the bus (I easily could have though), not one word.
As the bus driver closed the door, I started to reflect, why didn't I say something? It was much easier than yelling SCOOT BACK like I did a few weeks ago. What if that girl really had to go home for food, work, homework, going to her specialized bathroom? Guilt immediately filled up my empty and coward mind, I was really ashamed of myself, WHAT THE FUCK!!! YENNO??
As I continued to digest and reflect what just happened, I have finally found an answer before the bus reached my bus stop.
People have a need to feel justified, they have a natural tendency to fight for what they think they deserve, but only to a certain extent. Personal justice is much more important than general justice for the world, therefore people can ignore unjust things to happen as long as it doesn't affect them personally.
Everyone has a certain pre-existing boundaries of who they care about or not. Each person's moral community can range from just family to almost everyone around you. For those who are outside of our moral community, we don't really care, because we don't have a need to feel justified. For example, if you are Chinese, you are more likely to donate money to Taiwan for the hurricane, instead of donating to Hurricane Katrina. Although unfair treatments and situations always exist, we selectively choose to help or intervene in some but not others, all because of our limited boundaries that we set for ourselves.
What I am trying to say it, try to expand your moral community. While it's true that many unfair things that go on around the world won't affect you personally and directly, but this world is big and small at the same time. I am sure everyone is familiar with the concept of 6 degree separation, what we do and what we choose to think about have a huge impact to the world collectively. We always complain about class-ism, racism, sexism; but we don't take the initiative to change anything, we just complain and continue to be an individual who only cares about his/her own little part of the world.
Reach out, help out, expand out, we can't make a difference individually, but we can collectively and systematically change as a whole. Your positive energy will ultimately benefit you and the ones you care about, it's a positive chain, that will spread out geometrically.
I just found an reflective paper I wrote during my senior year in high school.
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Johnny Lam
Self Evaluation
To be honest with you, Mr. Seaton, I did not even come close of finishing the book. I am one of those people who is trying to “bullshit” the papers and just quoting the general ideas and concepts. Although I have several reasons for not finishing the book, but those reasons just automatically turn into excuses because I am obviously in an AP English class. When you said, “I honestly think some of you don’t belong in here…” The first thought that came to my mind was that I didn’t belong there. Although I have a passion for learning, I don’t think I have a passion for English. However, I tried my best to help out other students during the trial.
At first I was suppose to be a character, but later I got switched of being a jury because the trial didn’t need that many characters. Honestly, I think the jury job is best for me, because it doesn’t require knowing a lot from the book, all I have to do is to make observations and take notes of what they said. Despite that fact, I spend a quality of time researching the rules and process of being in jury, trying to make the trial as fair as possible. Also, I have tried to help the other juries to understand the rules and process also. I told the juries what key points and mistakes to look for from either side, and tried not to be biased of how you think about the case itself. I hope that will bring to a justified conclusion at the end.
Last but not least, you have told us to give ourselves a grade. I really think I should have a failing grade for not completing the book, but at the same time I don’t want to fail your class. So I have got a deal, you give me a C on this, and I promise I will put much more effort into finishing the upcoming books and spend more time into writing an essay you will enjoy.
School has started, and I have noticed a few changes for the campus and myself.
1) Someone magically built stairs on the STEEP HILL of Crown college. I still remembered when I used to slip on that freaking hill, and also saw MANY MORE OTHERS who slipped. Those lucky freshmen....they will never know how it feels to slip while walking down from Crown College, they are missing out......
2) The library is CLOSED on Saturdays, and limited hours on Fridays. Usually that's not a problem for me, because I never go there. But this quarter I have decided to go there everyday to study and become a nerd, so this is definitely NOT good news to me.
3) The campus overall is under many constructions that is beneficial to UNDER CLASSMEN because most likely they won't finish before I graduate. So another bad news.
4) GOOD NEWS!!! WHILE the freshmen are enjoying all these benefits, they are also gonna pay 30% MORE on tuition, so enjoy those facilities while you can!!! (it's bad news for our society in general)
5) Kresge college decided to open some SUBWAY food place next to the OWL nest cafe, and it's actually pretty good!!! (you can magically take away their drinks and they won't realize that because they don't really care)
6) If you are someone who ALWAYS feel like you have NOTHING to do, I suggest for you to SIT in classes that seem interesting or meaningful to you. I am currently sitting this CLINICAL psychology class, and it's WORTH my every minute listening to his lecture.
7) If you haven't seen me, you can find me in Science Library or Social Science computer lab because I am most in those two places when i am on campus. (also call me for dinner=)
8) Anyone is welcome to our house for dinner or to chill, just make sure you tell us in advance so we can prepare a delicious meal to you guys. (well...kenny and roy are making dinner...so...ask them....hahaha)
9) If anyone got a good suggestion where I can eat lunch on campus, please tell me. I am too lazy/busy to make a sandwich myself the night before, but I really don't want to spend too much on lunch everyday on campus.
10) If you see me on campus, please come and talk to me. Because chances are, after you pass me by, I will be by myself on campus most of the time....hahahahaah
I think I should listen to my DAD, and get a BODY CHECK...something's wrong with my body.
