News Coverage

We've been watching in awe the news coverage of Hurricane Katrina. It's really awful and very scary. It's hard to know how to react when you see video of all the destruction. You kind of get numb after a while. A lot of people evacuated to Houston and yesterday on the news they were talking about a certain hotel gouging their prices to keep out "rowdy people". It's just sick that people would take advantage of others in a situation like this. NOLA is a lot closer to Houston than Florida and if Katrina hit Galveston, it would be us that are up the creek.

No compromise

Today I encountered something that I have never encountered before. I was getting my hair done at the salon by H2O when she told one of the other stylists that I was getting married. Dude immediately said, "don't do it, don't do it". My first internal reaction was, "How are you going to tell someone that is getting married that they shouldn't do it? That's so bloody rude." He quoted the miserable statistics that we all know about marriage and said that everyone thinks that they are going to be the one that falls through the cracks and that their marriage will last. I said that you have to work to have a successful relationship. He said that "relationships should'nt be work, I have a job, I don't need two." At this point, I'm shocked, because I've just never encountered such ignorance or maybe arrogance. We then launched into a conversation about how you need to be able to change and grow and compromise. He said flatly, no. He likes who he is, is not gonna change for anything, or anyone, for any reason. He feels that consistency is the most important virtue that he posesses.

I said that one has to make a conscious decision to have a relationship, to have a successful relationship, you have to be active in it. It just doesn't happen by itself, you're not on autopilot. He responded by saying that perhaps that might be why his previous relationships have failed.

We talked a little bit more about the topic and we ended the conversation amicably. But in my head I'm thinking how sad it is that this man feels this way. He is in a relationship right now and has a child from a previous relationship that he is active in raising. He seems to be really smart, creative, talented at what he does. We just have completely different viewpoints on certain things which is no surprise. I just have never met someone so diabolically opposed to yielding to another point of view. Granted, he did listen to a different point of view. But he was absolutely not willing to concede on any point. I guess we all do that to a certain point but to be so outright uncompromising and proud of it. Wow.

So why is it?

Yesterday was a bit of a grumbly day. Topic of the day: So why is it that people don't read emails? We love sending emails, actually I think some of us love receiving emails more than sending. Whenever I send an email I like to be concise. I save my long and winding language for personal emails written on Sunday afternoons. Business emails are short. Just the facts. Which is especially important when you are emailing the big company telling them when you want them to migrate your web server. It's very important. Because you don't want to be down on the day of the big event when people rely on going to your site for info about the afore mentioned event. Don't you think?

The event went very well. We had a good turn out. Though it was also fraught with mishaps, the biggest of which being the fact that when you host a film screening, you should not forget the film. Luckily, I'm always available in my fastcar to zip across town to retrieve forgotten DVDs.

Why lah?

Because it's better is a classic phrase you will hear in Sunny Singapore. Often used in response to any question one might offer. It's probably a very good answer in itself about any question pertaining to Singapore because it doesn't really answer anything, now does it? Yet leaves the questioner with the satisfaction of having received an answer but at the same time the dissatisfaction of not having resolved the question.

Seems fitting for this blog, as it is not better nor is there a reason for it.

Just like Singapore.