25 August 2006

Blog merger!

With the new Blogger Beta I've managed to merge all four of my blogs under one account! Including this one, that's
The account under "Alternatme" has disappeared, and now it's just "Formosa" : )
That means I don't need to sign in to different accounts each time I need to publish on a different blog. I'm really liking this new version.

I'll customise my other blogs over the next few days to give them a 'newer and fresher' look.
Though I must say, even though the four blogs are under one account now, this 'alternative blog' will remain unlisted in my public profile, until I decide otherwise. At the moment I still feel I need an 'alternative' venting space to get rid of things on my mind that certain people around me wouldn't like to hear or know about.

Happy reading!
  • Related news: according to MapStats, the number of visitors to this blog has almost surpassed that to my main blog! And this one's just been running for less than four months, compared to the other one, which is more than a year old : )
    Which may mean this blog is either really good, or the other is totally boring...or both.

The 'clinic'


All that the sign on the door said was 'clinic'. You wouldn't know what it was a clinic of until you walked through.

This afternoon my brother's girlfriend asked whether I could go to the 'clinic' with her. She said she didn't know the way, but I suspect that perhaps she was a little scared to go on her own. Either way it didn't matter to me, so I agreed straight away. And she was grateful.

Sometime ago she had an abortion, as their 'security' measures they took failed (it's only 99.9% safe!). She had to go pick up a statement from the clinic today to prove that she in fact did undergo the procedure (for personal reasons).

It somehow felt strange going through that door. I eyed the colonial style building up and down, and tried to imagine what kind of machinery they have stored inside this elegant three storey maison which looked like all the other residences along the street. Then my mind drifted to images of bloody phoetuses, to death, to life denied... I could not help it but feel sick.

Ironically the clinic was situated on a round-about....maybe those who change their minds can always turn back. Or maybe some people just keep on turning and turning on the roundabout and never make it through the door.

A lady not more than thirty walked out the door just as we were about to enter. Instinctively my eyes glanced at her stomach. My mind wondered what life may be in there...or perhaps what life may have been. Another lady, this one looking much younger, passed us. Uncontrollably I eyed her stomach again, but quickly looked up, to be greeted by two pairs of sad eyes. Could it be...?

We didn't have to wait when we walked in the office. The doctor was already waiting there, along with her assistant. They say your mind influences the way you see the world. The moments I saw the doctor, she looked so haggered and wrinkled. When she spoke to us, even with a smile, she sounded like she was croaking and barely able to get the words out. Her assistant was not much better. I couldn't suppress the thought, but for a very split second the word 'murder' flashed before me.

After a few moments of exchanging pleasantries, the assistance asked my brother's girlfriend to produce an ID to prove that she is indeed that person she claims to be. It's for privacy reasons, since abortion is a very....private matter. It was more a matter of formalities really, as the assistant quickly compared her name and date of birth. Then she looked up at me and said:
"Yeah, it's her alright. I remember the boyfriend was here last time."
My initial reaction was to deny, deny that I had anything to do with this:
"Uh, I'm not the boyfriend..."
But she seemed unconvinced:
"Sure, I remember you were there with her. I recognise the face."
My brother and I are in no way alike. He's bigger, stronger and fatter. I'm thin, scrawny, and taller. He smokes, is loud and extroverted. I'm quiet, often alone, and can't stand the smell of cigarettes. He has a girlfriend. I never did.
"I'm really not the boyfriend,"I said, but feeling embarassed having to defend myself because frankly it didn't really matter much the moment we turned around and walked out that door again, "I'm the boyfriend's brother. His brother."
She didn't seem to hear what I just said, and then went on to talk about something else with the girlfriend and the doctor. I felt a little out of place, a little uncomfortable, but at the same time a bit of me was quietly laughing at the ridiculousness and surrealness of it all.

Soon enough, we turned around and walked out that door.

I know I shouldn't judge people for what they do, and I never thought I was against abortion, would never prevent anyone from doing it. I'm all for free choice, and believe that every woman should have the right to decide what is best for her life and health, regardless of the circumstances. But somehow realising that countless lives were denied in the very building that was surrounding me at that moment seemed a terrifying thought. As I exited the door, I turned around briefly and glanced at the stairs that led to the second floor. Narrow stairs, darkened stairs...stairs that in my overly imaginative mind could very well have been dripping with blood...

24 August 2006

Mr Gay Europe 2006


A'dam, being the self-proclaimed "gay capital of the world" is proud to host the annual Mr Gay Europe competition.

What the judges are looking for?

* shows an interest in the world and people around him;
* displays patience, has a sympathetic and considerate nature;
* will not be frightened by change, or things and people different from his own frame of reference, experience or cultural background;
* can articulate his thoughts and conduct an intelligent conversation;
* has a basic innate charm and sparkle;
* is special, but real;
* has poise and seems secure with himself, without coming across as arrogant;
* could be the young man a company would like to be their representative;
* can be an ambassador of goodwill;
* is the quintessential young man....and a bit more.
Feast your eyes on these hotties~

Brand new face!


YEAH!

As you can see, I've migated to the new version of Blogger, and it's looking good! :)
It's much easier and friendlier to use, navigate around in, and read.

Hope you like the new look~

Ouch!


I fell off the bike today. Ouch!

I can't remember the last time I fell off the bike, but it must have been years and years ago. Usually I'm fast and steady on my bike, and I can even cycle without using my hands (it can get very windy and cold). But today I fell off, slid a few meters and hurt myself.

I guess I should've been more careful, and should've known better not to go down the road they're rebuilding. There was lots of sand at a corner, the ground was wet from the continuous rain from the past few days, and just as I made the turn, the wheels slid, and so did I. I came crashing down, tried to steady myself with my hands, but then realised later that was a bad idea. Got bruises and scratches on the inside of my palms now. And I fell with my weight on the right leg, right on the knee and I think also on the ankle. So now they're a bit sore, perhaps they were twisted a bit during impact, but the pain is going away, and I don't think it was that serious.

Though, the impact and slide must have been quite foreceful, since I've got a hole in my new jeans, right where my knee is.

I did what you'd do when you fall.

I got up again.

23 August 2006

Sexual misconduct in the army...


...sometimes starts from the moment of recruitment.

The sexual misconduct almost always takes place in recruiting stations, recruiters apartments or government vehicles. The victims are typically between 16 and 18 years old, and they usually are thinking about enlisting. They usually meet the recruiters at their high schools, but sometimes at malls or recruiting offices.
Shocking thing is that most perpetrators are let off lightly, either with demotion or loss of pay, very unlikely in prosecution.

A weak defence for the prevelance of this kind of behaviour:

"Let's face it, these guys are handsome in their uniform, they're mature, they give a lot of attention to these girls, and as recruiters they do a lot of the same things that guys do when they want to appeal to girls. There's a very fine line there, and it can be very hard to maintain a professional approach."
But what about trust, imbalance of power relations, and the fact that these 'professional' recruiters hold the key to the future of these unsuspecting teens? If anything, the army/armed services should be the one sector of employment that preaches discipline and professionalism more than anywhere else.

See this for more on sexual misconduct in the US army.

UPDATE 24Aug2006

Here's even more

A survey of the U.S. military academies released last year found that more than 50 percent of female respondents and 11 percent of male respondents experienced some type of sexual harassment since enrolling. That survey also found 64 incidents of sexual assault among the more than 1,900 females at the service academies.

22 August 2006

Somewhat lonely...


Thinking back and looking at the pictures from the past couple of days, it was really a short trip, and overall a little more bitter than sweet. Seeing my friend get married, and seeing another who is about to do the same, it felt like I’m losing my friends to married life, which makes my life as a singleton seem more ridiculous and desperate. I mean, there are just things you can’t really say or do to a friend who is with someone else already, so at times I felt I had to ‘hold myself back’. One thing that popped into my mind while I was walking and traveling around, even just briefly, was: find new (single) friends!

Or at least find a boyfriend, soon…

(Plattesteen mural)

I went to Soho (the gay area) while I was in London and sat around in Starbucks there for a while. I’m not really a fan of modern and chain stores, but this particular Starbucks was one I used to go to almost every week to drink and read quietly alone, or meet friends and chat in. All I did was look out the window, sipping my hot chocolate. All sorts of people walked by, and that was all they did. It’s been a while since I went out at night, and I’d be lying if I said I didn’t think (or hope) ‘maybe something’s going to happen tonight…’A number of (gay) couples sat around, chatting softly, holding hands. I just sat there and passed the night away. There were many other pubs and bars around the streets in Soho, but I didn’t go. The crowd seemed so (much) old(er), and the mood was the kind in cruising places oozing with sexual tension that I felt more intimidated than welcomed, even just passing by the door.

Nothing happened. And I just went home late, walking down the river bank again. But to be honest that night I had the most intense erotic dream for a long time, and my ex was in it. It was really real, I felt myself even groaning in sleep, and woke up with a stiff…

...neck from the way I was lying all over the bed. I usually don’t move much and curl my legs up to sleep, but that night was somehow different.

Funny thing was, as I was walking around in Brussels, I accidentally stumbled into the gay district in Plattesteen (‘Flatstone’). There were so many bars and clubs there, and all these rainbow flags hanging on the buildings. But since it was daytime, it was very empty. Not that I’d have the courage to go into those bars alone had it been night time, but just the thought of, of being somewhere where so many other ‘like-minded people’ frequent made the place feel ‘homey’.
(Gay district in Brussels)

Hm, to be honest, the last couple of days I felt really lonely, more so than usual when I travel by myself. I mean I’ve made so many trips all over the place in the past year, but this one especially, perhaps seeing my friends as they are now, made the loneliness feel more intense. And walking around it felt like I was a wanderer, trying to fit in, trying to pretend I was part of the many who live and work in the city, or a simple tourist who came and went without second thoughts. But I was neither…I was something else in between, lost between someone who was seeing things for the first time, but at the same time seeing things that brought back memories. Worse still, by the lingering and nagging feeling that I’m in search of something, or someone, to hold onto, but still unsure what, or who, it is that I’m searching for. Hopes really, dreams mostly, imaginations more often than not accompany me wherever I went, and they seem to tease, provoke and mock the depths of my emotions, yearnings and desires. But soon enough those fantasies vanish as I turn another corner, as I continue to walk and wander, as if they never existed.

As if I and those people and places were never there. Posted by Picasa

In London

(London Eye and County Hall)

Came home, and my little cat greeted me with her tail up and head rubbing against my legs as soon as I got upstairs. I was drenched, from walking around in the pouring rain the entire day. Some drops from London, some from Brussels, some from just outside—all raindrops nonetheless. Kitty didn’t seem to mind the fact I was dripping wet, and was happy to see me. I realised then how much I missed her.

It’s been a long couple of days, and a good change from being home the whole day. Again, like the other times when I travel, I felt so free and relaxed, as if the world lay out there for me to explore, and explore I could as far as my feet and tireless mind could carry me. It was a nostalgic trip more than anything, so a bit more blue than I had expected. I guess when you visit people and places from the past you tend to remember things that have been or could have been. And then all these thoughts of regret, sweet memories, silent flashbacks, replayed dialogues return to make you realise how long ago all that was… and how much older you’ve become.

I actually got to the railway station on Friday just in time to see the train arrive. Had I been a minute later I would’ve never made it. I got on the train, sat down and panted. Relieved, thankful and a little bit of anxiety still lingering had I been just a few moments late. As the train pulled away and gained speed towards Brussels, I laid back into my seat and watched the flat Dutch landscape roll by.

Checking in at the Eurostar terminal was a breeze. There were no long ques and no more stringent measures because of the heightened security alert. I was worried my bottle of water and orange juice, and supply of lotions and fragrance would be mistaken for potentially deadly devices. But nobody said a thing. Checking my ID took less than 10 seconds. The customs guy glanced at the card and at me, smiling, and then went on to wish me a good day. Some two hours later, at times traveling at 300km/hr, and across the English Channel, I was in London. To my surprise there was no passport control, and passengers just poured out of the terminal at Waterloo with ease while heavily armed police stood and watched. Maybe terrorists don’t like trains.


Met up with the friend I stayed with the next couple of days in London. We met in the last year of uni, and got pretty close soon enough. He and I share a lot experiences, and I admire him for being such a strong person despite the things he went through growing up. He was put in foster care, and terribly abused by numerous people for many years. Even as recently as a couple of years ago he was molestered by his landlord. He’s taking legal action against the abusers, and has so far only managed to get a meager compensation from the landlord. The court decided my friend was a teen and homosexual, so didn’t really think it could’ve amounted to rape and anything traumatic. Shocking really…if it was a teenage girl and a grown adult, they’d immediately put the perpetrator in jail for years and have him under surveillance for the rest of his life.




He’s from Ireland, and I just love the way he speaks, both in the accent and the way he uses words. Maybe it wasn’t just the way he speaks I loved, and seeing him again at times brought back other feelings. For many months I helped him with his Chinese studies, since he’s a little disabled and dyslexic. Tutoring mostly, and also going along to his lectures to take notes for him. It was a test of patience sometimes, as he could be very bossy and sometimes didn’t really bother with the studies. But I got paid by the uni for being an assistant, well, so I didn’t mind too much. That meant on top of my own ‘heavy’ hours in the final year, I had to attend his classes too. A total of around 20hrs of lectures a week… Now, compared to the 10 or less hours of lectures I had in previous years that’s stressful!

(Whitehall)

I met him and his fiancé at the station. She’s a skinny, short Japanese girl, but nothing like the other Japanese girls I’ve met. This one actually talks, has a mind of her and is really playful too; unlike traditional Japanese girls who just sit in the corner quietly and humbly waiting to serve the husband. They both met at a meeting of SGI, a branch of Japanese Buddhism which does a lot of chanting and praying. Their upcoming wedding in November will be a Buddhist one, and I was actually asked to be the best man. For the moment I didn’t say for sure if I could attend. I felt I didn’t really have what it takes to be best man, but then again I really have no idea what it takes. He said there’s no one else better for role, but I still feel a little uncomfortable.



(Camden Town)

Anyways, dropped off my stuff at their little apartment just off of Waterloo station. Had some traditional English ‘afternoon tea’, and met their fat cat. She’s really huge, unlike my own. And the times I was there she never seemed to budge from the place she occupied on my friend’s bed. The only time she walks up is to get food, or to terrorise you by walking on your pillow just as you’re trying to sleep. And when she walks her belly is big and flabby it hangs to the ground. Her purr is really loud and wheezy like an out-of-tune machine. For the nights I spent at their place I sometimes fell asleep and woke up with her tail brushing against my face, and her loud, incessant purring.

Within an hour of arriving we were out and about, armed with three digital cameras and my memories of places I’d like to visit and see again. Walked down the Thames towards London Eye (giant merry-go-around also known as the Millennium Wheel), Houses of Parliament, Whitehall (where many government offices and ministries are located), Trafalgar Square, Piccadilly Circus, Oxford Street (main shopping in central London), then onto King’s Cross station to pick up my tickets for the trip down south to the wedding the next day.

It took some time to get used to the crowd and noise that describes and consumes London. I guess when I left the city two years ago, I also left behind what it was like—all that traffic, chaos, constant buzzing and din, the hordes of tourists and people rushing around, so many things and events taking place at a fast pace that can leave you out of breath just watching it all go by. And waling on the ‘wrong’ (right) side of the road didn’t help if you had to push your way through, against the flow of the crowd. I felt so disorientated and a little dizzy and unwell, plus perhaps the fact that I had just made a long trip to get to London. Everything was happening so fast, and I was walking around like a little boy from the countryside seeing everything for the first time. Though it wasn’t the first time. And that made it feel all the more disorienting.

I guess all the landmarks are still there, still standing, still glorious and beautiful in their special ways. Though undoubtedly countless eyes and cameras have captured them in the past two years since I was last in London. And many more events and changes have taken place in the country, in the city that it’s impossible to recount them all, let alone imagine. It’s a funny feeling, really. Like every corner I turn, there seem to be so many memories that return, saddled with voices and faces of those I shared with, all waiting for me around every corner, all waiting for the next step I take on this journey down memory lane.

(London at night, overlooking St Paul's Cathedral)

That evening I went for a stroll down the river, as I would do again a day or two later by myself. It’s so quietly romantic, with all those dazzling lights and rippling water. This is the one thing I really miss about London. I used to walk down the river along the south bank and thoroughly enjoy the quiet yet buzzing calm along the way, which is dotted with traditional pubs and the occasional street artist, not to mention homeless people with placards trying to show in so many words how hungry and whatever ills have befallen them in a lonesome attempt to squeeze pity and few pennies from passerbys. My ex and I spent a lot of time on this river bank too. Bitter… and sweet.

From this side of the river, you can capture the old, the modern, the chic and the derelict London all mingled together before you. The bright lights of The City (banking and financial district) glows in the darkness, almost brimming and humming with the sounds of money and stock transactions even at night. St. Paul’s Cathedral and its gigantic dome towers over the city, trying to compete for space with the mushrooming skyscrapers, only managing to distinguish itself by its pure whiteness and medieval architectural style, or otherwise would have all too easily been swallowed whole into the backdrop of the urban sprawl of concrete, steel and glass.

Now and then barges and sightseeing boats sail along beside you, flashes of light appearing from inside their darkened cabins, as yet another tourist captures memories and scenes to treasure one day when he is far, far away. And then there are the bridges, some rumbling like a low cloud of thunder as trains roll on it and pull into the many stations along the river. Others flash with red and white lights as cars and double-decker buses speed across them, from one side of the river to the other.

Shakespeare’s Globe, Tate Modern, London City Hall, Southwark Cathedral, the Tower Bridge, and in the distance three glistening towers in the Docklands…they all stand there, some after centuries, some just for a decade, others for even less of a period, but all proud to be part of the scene, part of the vibrance and life that embodies this great city. From the quiet of the river bank, you can see London, in all its shapes and sizes, in all its history and glory. You can feel and see it pulsate and wane before your eyes, and get closer to understanding why this is one of the greatest cities in the world.


"When a man is tired of London, he is tired of life”
Samuel Johnson


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Please visit the following links to my travellog for more exciting pictures!