Falling stocks? Declining economy? WHAT DOES IT MEAN??!!

According to my friend’s father, this crashing economy of ours signals the start of the apocalypse, as narrated in the Bible (They’re a very religious family). Everyone, but mostly Russia, will all-out invade Israel in the most massive world war ever, and Israel will come out unscathed while the rest of us suffer heavy losses, as if there was some metaphorical holy shield over the country.

It’s a bit hard to believe, I must admit. One of the reasons why I’m agnostic (My religious status: Not sure if there is a God, don’t care to find out if there is one).

Although, it did sound plausible when my mom went super-nice on Thursday night. (I nearly had cardiac arrest, people.)

Here’s a shoutout to all my e-pals: Sorry–you know I’m horrible with keeping in touch. And now that my parents are mad because two of our computers are infected w/ viruses (Which I’m not sure is entirely my fault, because the only sites I visit frequently are fanfiction.net and… well, I think that’s about it), I’ll have restricted Internet access until further notice. Which means I probably won’t get to contact you guys for awhile.

Unless I pull out my sneaky sneaky computer surfing skills…

 

Cheap vs. Frugal + Palin + Another Attempt at Peace

Spoke too soon. My laptop privileges were taken away not too long ago. Well, looks like the only time I’m going to have my own high-tech electronic devices is when I can afford them. I mean, the only nice electronics I own are my iPod and my cell phone, and that iPod isn’t even mine, because my dad sometimes shares it (although nowadays I think he just gave up on it), and my cell phone has a whopping five hundred prepaid minutes.

FOR THIS ENTIRE YEAR.

That’s right. For those of you who think that my parents are more frugal instead of cheap, this’ll prove you wrong. Jason gets a thousand minutes A MONTH while I get half that amount for TWELVE TIMES that cell phone plan period. I even asked Sean on his viewpoints of my mom’s fiscal habits, and he said (and I quote), “Cheap. If she was frugal, she would repair the broken handle on her car door.”

And the sad part is, he’s not even exaggerating. The left passenger (from the rear end of the car) door’s inside handle had been ripped out of the car, so now you have two choices if you’re too lazy to go out the other side: 1) Roll down the window and open the door from the outside, or 2) have someone else get their uptight tush off their seat and open the darn door for you. Like a really pissed off chauffer.

So, if you still don’t think my parents are stereotypical Asians, you have got one of the densest minds I have ever seen.

Obama is no longer the celebrity of this year’s election. The media has now moved onto Palin, McCain’s vice presidential candidate, whom has brought back support for the Republican party, whether it’s because a) she’s a woman, b) she has a pregnant teenage daughter, or c) her inexperience and therefore her stupidity.

Sean’s dad argued in favor of Palin (Partly because he himself is a very right-wing Republican), saying that her daughter is seventeen or eighteen years old, and therefore old enough to make her own decisions, so if she went and got pregnant, it isn’t Palin’s fault.

But I just think that Palin should take some responsibility, because, after all, she is the mother of the pregnant teenager, and while she may legally be an adult, she may not actually be one. It’s better than Jamie Lynn Spears, who got pregnant at 15, but to modern society’s standards, pregnant at 17 is still not a good choice, and with successful, (mostly) intellectual parents like Palin, I think that maybe her teenage daughter might’ve been raised to make better decisions.

But that’s just my opinion. Which is biased, because my mom controls every aspect of my life.

Anyway! I’ve found a few hilarious comments on Time’s Middle East Blog, which posted a summary of an ABC interview on Palin’s foreign policy views:

September 12, 2008 9:28

Palin Foreign Policy: Eyes Wide Shut?

Posted by Scott MacLeod

Other vice presidents and even presidents have been relatively inexperienced in foreign affairs, but Palin’s limitations are laughable for someone seeking the second highest office in the free world. She said that until she traveled to Kuwait and Germany to visit Alaska national guardsmen last year, her previous foreign travels were only to Canada and Mexico. Until recently, Americans were not even required to obtain a passport to visit those bordering countries… Palin had obviously never heard of the “Bush Doctrine”–the justification for launching unilateral, preemptive wars. You’d expect even an ordinary hockey mom would know about that, especially if, as Palin proudly noted in the interview, that very day she was sending “my first born, my teenage son” to the war in Iraq launched under the self-same Bush Doctrine. She committed a faux pas concerning the Cold War in claiming that America had defeated Communism “without a shot fired.” The prospective vice president seems unaware that the Cold War involved hot proxy wars throughout Asia, the Middle East, Africa, Europe and Latin America during a span of 45 long years. The U.S. alone lost 58,000 troops in Vietnam, and the Cold War nearly led to nuclear annihilation during the Cuban Missile Crisis.

What I find more worrying than Palin’s lack of experience is her lack of humility about it. “I’m ready,” she declared, after Gibson challenged her to “look the country in the eye and say ‘I have the experience and I have the ability’.”… Palin had duly rehearsed the pronunciations of difficult foreign names like Ahmadinejad and Saakashvili. Very good! Then she sounded sophomoric, as McCain has done, in straining to argue that Alaska’s close geographical proximity to Russia was tantamount to providing her with foreign policy expertise. When Gibson asked her what insights into Russia the proximity gave her, she replied, “You can actually see Russia from land here in Alaska.” (I wonder if she can look inside Putin’s soul from that distance–Bush didn’t do so well in that regard, and he was standing right next to the Russian president.) Nearly as bad, Palin argued that her support for developing Alaska’s oil and gas reserves was another foreign policy “credential.” Maybe we should ask Bill Gates: does owning a computer, or even having seen one once, while shopping at Best Buy, qualify someone to be the next vice president of Microsoft?

This is the same type of genius present at the local Model UN convention center that I endured last year in April (I regretted it so much), where the participants were, like politicians, all talk and no substance. Did I tell you that on the issue of blood diamonds in the General Assembly, one of the representatives wanted the UN to put tracking devices in every single illegal diamond in Africa, and actually sounded serious while he was presenting his ideas?

The rest of the article is pretty interesting, too. I just don’t understand enough about the Iraqi conflict to comment about it.

(But honestly, you don’t need to know that much to understand the message of the article.)

There was a few good things that Palin did, though, that brought the election back for the elephant party. I just can’t remember what they were…

Also, in one last effort to save myself, I have decided that I will try mom’s way of doing things for awhile and see if maybe it’ll cure my depression and anger (which I have treated with gluttony for the past year, much to the displeasure of my mom). It’s hard to adjust to such an ascetic lifestyle. It’s even harder to accept that at the end of the second semester, I’m going to willingly go to that state piano competition and win something against everything a rebellious teenager stands for.

 

Asian Stereotypes

Found this @ Magellan’s Log:

How to be a Perfect Asian Kid
(from the first generation perspective)
1. Score a perfect 1600 on the SAT.
2. Play the violin or piano on the level of a concert performer.
3. Apply to and be accepted by 27 colleges.
4. Go to an Ivy League university and win enough scholarship money to pay for it.
5. Have four hobbies: studying, studying, violin/piano, and studying.
6. Love classical music and detest talking on the telephone.
7. Become a Westinghouse, Presidential and eventually a Rhodes Scholar.
8. Aspire to be a brain surgeon.
9. Marry an Asian-American doctor and have perfect, successful children (grandkids for ah-ma and ah-ba!).
10. Love to hear stories about your parents’ childhood…especially the one about walking 20 miles to school without shoes.

How to be the Perfect Asian American Parent
(from the second generation perspective)
1. Be a little more lenient on the 7:00 p.m. curfew.
2. Don’t ask where the other point went when your child comes home with 99 percent grade on his/her report card.
3. Don’t “ai-yah” loudly at your kid’s dress habits.
4. Don’t blatantly hint about the merits of Habadu (Harvard),Yeil (Yale), or Purinsuton (Princeton).
5. Don’t reveal all the intimate details of your kid’s life to the entire Asian community.
6. Don’t ask your child, “What are you going to do with your life?” if he/she majors in a non-science field.
7. Don’t give your son a bowl haircut or your daughter two acres of bangs.
8. Don’t try to set your kid up on a date in anticipation of their poor taste or inept social skills.
9. Incorporate other phrases besides, “Did you study yet?” into your daily conversations with your children.
10. Don’t ask all your kid’s friends over the age of 21 if they have a boy/girlfriend yet.

Top Ten Reasons There Won’t Be
a Chinese-American President Anytime Soon
10. White House not big enough for in-laws
9. Engineering, medicine, and law always preferred over politics
8. Oval Office has bad feng shui.
7. Can’t find decent roast duck inside the beltway
6. Secret service can’t handle nagging from mother
5. Dignitaries generally intimidated by chopsticks at state dinners
4. No chance for promotion
3. Lactose intolerance not considered politically correct
2. Senior aides won’t take off shoes before coming in
1. Air Force One: No frequent flyer miles

(First generation = crazy asian parents, second generation = suffering asian teens)

The one about the Secret Service cracked me up. Can you imagine?

Mama: Ex-kuse me, uh… (barks in rapid Chinese towards Chinese President)

Chinese Pres.: (In Chinese) Mama, that’s the (In accented English so Mama can understand) See-kret Sur-veece.

Mama: Oh. Ex-kuse me, See-kretuh Surveesah man! Do yoo no wheahr de kitchen is?

Secret Service guy: Down the hall, to the right.

Mama: Uh, wheahr again?

Secret Service guy: Down the hall, to the right, ma’am.

Chinese President: (In Chinese) Mama, he said down the hall, to the right.

Mama: (In loud Chinese) Are you sure? No, I can’t trust you, even if you’re my own son/daughter who has graduated from Yeil/Habadu/Purinsuton/MIT, I have to ask the guy again!

Chinese President: (Slowly backs away into the Oval Office as Mama continues to ask the guy the same question over and over)

Secret Service: Listen, ma’am. It’s DOWN THE HALL. TO THE RIGHT. It isn’t that hard.

Mama: But how fahr is itah?

Secret Service: It’s not very far. Just. Down. The. Hall. To. The. Right.

Mama:… What ahr yoo where-ing?

Secret Service: Ex… excuse me, ma’am?

Mama: What ahr yoo where-ing?

Secret Service: What am I wearing? I’m wearing the standard Secret Service uniform.

Mama: Is itah 100% cotton?

Secret Service:… No, ma’am, if it was 100% cotton, we wouldn’t be prepared. It’s built with heavier material and some Kevlar.

Mama: Itah is nawt won hondrehd percentah cotton?

SS: No, ma’am. It’s-

Mama: Oh, so uncahmfortable! I vill talk to mah son/dahter to get yoo 100% cotton!

SS: But, ma’am, cotton won’t hold bullets-

Mama: How mach is itah?

SS: Somewhere around three thousand dollars, I think?

Mama: TREE TOUSAND DOLLAHS?! AT WOH-MAH [Note: This is how Asian parents say, 'Wal-Mart'] IT’S ONLY TWENTEE DOLLAHS!

SS: …How much does the President’s suit cost?

Mama: (Proudly) Seven dollahs ahnd fohty-nine!

SS: (Pitying the President in his mind. Makes mental note to be nicer and less stoic towards Mr. Prezzy. And maybe take him/her out to his first casual dinner at Chili’s.)

Mama: I vill buy yoo a 100% cotton clothing frum Woh-Mah today!

SS: …No, ma’am, that will not be necessary.

Mama: Ahnd why ahr yoo bent like dat?

SS: Excuse me?

Mama: Yoo need too stahnd up steraight! (Pounds Service Service guy in the back)

SS: Ma’am, this is how we’re taught to stand. It’s the best for protecting the-

Mama: Steraighter! Chin high! Ahnd yoo need a haircaht!

SS: But my hair is only an inch long-

Mama: Shortah! Do yoo no, in Chinah de men hair is only won centimetah?

SS: (To himself) Poor hairless Chinese monks…

Mama: Ahnd wat ahr yoo standen dere for? Take me too da kitchen!

SS: But ma’am, it’s only down the hall, to the right.

Mama: (Louder) Take me too da kitchen!

SS: (Cringes) Yes, ma’am…

[In the kitchen]

Mama: Oh, no no  no! Yoo cahn’t put dat much salt in da food! Only dis much! (Takes a teaspoon and puts about twenty salt crystals on it) Dat is enough!

SS: Ma’am, these are the best chefs in the country. I’m sure the amount of salt they’re putting in the food is perfectly safe-

Mama: Oh, ahnd why doo dese cooking things not have foil on dem? Dey will get derrrty!

SS: But these are state-of-the-art stoves-

Mama: Ahnd why doo yoo wash dese dish in dishwashah? Dat is not clean! Yoo must wash by hand!

[Thirty minutes of squabbling later]

[In Chinese]

Chinese President: Mama, what did you do in the kitchen?

Mama: Oh, nothing. Just talked to the people.

Chinese President: … Hey, where’s Carl?

Mama: Who?

Chinese Pres.: The guy you asked where the kitchen was.

Mama: Oh, him! He was strange. After I was nice enough to offer to buy him nice clothes and tell him how to keep his kitchen cleaned, he marched out the front door and said he was never coming back.

Chinese Pres.: … MAMA! YOU-

Mama: DON’T USE THAT TONE WITH ME! NOW GO BACK TO YOUR STUDYING!

Chinese Pres.: But I graduated already-

Mama: THEN GO PLAY THE PIANO!

Chinese Pres.: But I have a meeting in twenty minutes on nuclear threats in the Middle East-

Mama: PIANO! NOW!

Chinese Pres.: Aw, mama…

Okay, so maybe there are *some* really, really awesome Asian parents that will shop at places other than the fifty to seventy-five percent off clearance sales at Wal-Mart, Target, Sears, or Dillards, and maybe there are good Asian cooks that have more sense than to add a few nanograms of salt/flavoring in food, but this is how my mom is. She will buy nothing but 100% cotton at prices lower than three dollars per article of clothing (I’m not joking. All my clothes cost ten dollars or less). When I showed her a pair of athletic shorts that were around three or four dollars, she immediately went to the tag and told me to put it back, because, oh-ho, it was entirely polyester and therefore wasn’t comfortable.

And let me tell you, those polyester athletic shorts was probably the most comfortable thing I’ve ever felt. Next to my long-sleeved PJs. Which are, unfortunately, 100% cotton. Oh, and my bed. But I don’t wear my bed, so that doesn’t count.

Congrats to Nastia Liukin and Shawn Johnson for the 1-2 finish in the all-around Olympics! I knew Nastia was going to win. After all, she got a 16.9 on the uneven bars. And scored high on all the events during the team competition. What other signs do you need?

And congrats to Phelps, also, for winning his sixth gold medal. Only two more to go, you big human fish!

 

Settling In

I surfed WordPress for awhile and found it a nicer blogging site than blogger.com. I absolutely swooned when I saw that I could import posts from other blogs. It took a horrendously long time to get the tags and categories right, but now I’m happy.

So, from now on, this will be my main blog, and zoeysranting.blogspot.com will be no more. Go WordPress!