English class

English is boring. Even with chocolate, it's still a chore to listen in class. And there's so much homework!!!

There's the stupid English essays and stuff like that, and we haven't even started on the lame Economist. Well, I'm going to tear out the nicest page in that magazine, and throw away the rest I guess. It's such a waste of money, especially if you're forced to buy it. Retarded. Also, there's the English project coming up. We have the emergency pack too. And apparently, a one page essay on why the emergency pack is needed. Which I'm obviously not going to do.

We're talking about McDonaldization now. Kind of a stupid argument. People are so resistant to the idea of McDonald's taking over their culture because they fear something. And one only fears something because they have something to lose. Look, in Singapore, why is there no uproar over the fact that Americanization or McDonaldization is taking over our culture? It's because we never had any culture in the first place! Because our forefathers and whatever people were immigrants from everywhere around the world, there is no sense of losing anything at all by adopting supposed "Western cultures".

Yes, there are traditions that have to be upheld, like Chinese New Year or Deepavali, or Hari Raya Puasa. I'm not saying that everyone has to drop all that and adopt "Western holidays" or "Western traditions" like Halloween or Thanksgiving. Look, I'm Christian, which is supposedly Western, but it's not like I have to stop visiting people during Chinese New Year. Or I have to stop eating reunion dinner. I guess what's lost is simply the meaning or the original intention of the symbols used. Like praying to ancestors during the cleaning of graves thing. Look, after all, it is still our choice if we want to become "Westernised" or not. It's not right to wage war against an icon just because you fear that it might take over your traditions or cultures. In fact, it's useless. People will always want what seems new or modern; how can any sort of tradition (the very word implies antiquity) compare with that? The way to "defend" these would be to inculcate these traditions into the very fibre of the people; going up against a symbol, whether you view it as gallant or stupid, is very rarely going to help improve the image of what you're trying to defend.

Sheesh. And that's what we have been going on for the last like 1 hour.

I mean, what is there to lose? Why is everyone so scared of something they once named progress? They support it when they're gaining from it, when all seems well, when everyone is rich; the moment trouble starts looming, or your own power base seems threatened, or your political power seems to wane, they go against it, and say that America is trying to take over the world. What if Singapore develops a new software or technology that helps eradicate famine or AIDS or cancer? Will the dissemination of this technology be viewed as we trying to take over the world as well? Some times I wonder why those engineers or developers or researcher just destroy whatever they've been working on, because "what if the rest of the world deems it as a threat to their cultures/traditions/political power/economic power". Good luck for the rest of the world; how about we simply keep all our technology to ourselves. How about every country just do that; what kind of world will this become?

This debate only comes about because of the feelings that some people have against a particular country or religion, which breaks out whenever topics like this come up. Bah English is kinda retarded. I can't believe that people actually think of these things in their free time. BORING.