Friday 18 August 2006

Money Matters

Since everybody has been expressing their concern about my entries of late, I have decided to ease up a little bit. One can only go so far in tormenting others with tasteless jokes before they're hauled off to court on the charges of causing grievous hurt. Besides, I would not want for little children to be reading my blog and then complain to their parents afterwards of how they never, ever want to connect to the Internet again.

But anyway.

It has crossed my mind that in the past few years, I have become no good with money. I don't mean that I would prefer to avoid money, or that I am afraid of it. Nothing of the sort. I am no chrematophobe. No, not me.

If I were a participant on Fear Factor, I would not hesitate to dangle on a tightrope suspended in mid air over a deep pit filled with money. Lock me up in a small room and send currency swirling about in a vicious and threatening manner, I will not blink an eye. If I were to pull up my pants one morning and discover that several banknotes had crawled up the legs in search of warmth from the chilly night before, you would not hear me shriek.

So no. I have no aversion towards money. I would even go so far as to say that when it comes to money, I am an enthusiast. In fact, I'm planning to start my own collection.

What I mean to say is that I am no good when it comes to working with money. Some people understand money as a living organism, with its own logic and life cycle. Some people can feel the particular rhythm inside money, and allow money its own momentum and follow as it leads them to even more money, just as the flowing river leads you to the sea. Not me. I cycle through alternating phases of hoarding and spending, interrupted only by alternating phases of spending and spending.

I do not let my money work for me. "No money of mine is going to work!" I thunder. "Not while I am the head of this house!" (Of course, I am not the head of any house yet. But it is a fantasy that coyly plays in my head often).

Every so often my parents will ask me to sit down with them and they will explain the state of my finances and advise how best to improve things, but when they do I sit there feeling like an illiterate Sicilian peasant farmer with a large moustache when the men from the government come around with their clipboards. They rattle on about savings and accounts and dividends, and I watch their lips move and think about supper. When they are finished, all I can think of saying is: "But do I have enough to feed my goats this winter?"

So honestly speaking, I have yet a long way to go in reaching financial maturity. Of course, the same goes for intellectual, behavioural and social maturities, if you ask my parents.

postscript: On a happier note, I would like to congratulate Ayumi on her excellent results. Plans to send her off at the airport are already underway *smile*

Tuesday 15 August 2006

Hear, hear

A cause of concern for most of the youth today is the mindless advice being handed around like a length of artificial lawn being rolled out. Normally, the counsel would come from professional advice givers and well meaning, but misguided relatives.

Advice is a little bit like the low impact aerobic skiing machine that you bought over the late night Home Shopping Network. You purchase the bulky piece of machinery, hide it under the bed without actually ever using it yourself and then hand it down to some relative who so happened to drop by the day you were spring cleaning the house. Advice gets punted around by one generation like a rusty soup can and eventually arrives at the doorstep of the next generation, only to be punted around in its turn.

For one thing, I have always wondered about those puzzling hand-me-down bits of wisdom. Why, do we insist that "Where there's a will there's a way" when in fact in recent years, it's been a Kate Middleton? Or that "A watched pot never boils"? That is one of the fastest ways to shatter the myth of parent infallability. All the little tyke needs is a pot, some water, a heat source and a pair of eyes and he will come to know that you are all busk and bunkum, just like your parents before you.

Another thing; the next time you are tempted to solemnly intone that "A rolling stone gathers no moss", I suggest that you take a gander at Keith Richard's teeth.

No wonder young people don't want to listen to advice anymore.

Monday 7 August 2006

Something About Me

Did that title catch your attention? Did it? It didn't? Maybe next time, I'll have to wrap my titles heavily in flypaper. Just to make sure that I get your attention.

I did a bit of reminiscing today. And by reminiscing, I don't mean I read and re-read DITH's blog over and over again. Anyway, there I was sitting by myself on the sofa with a glass of plain water in my hand, thinking about how life has been so far.

Actually, I'm not too proud of it, but I have never entirely trusted the human race. I never really have. In fact, personally I feel that any race which doesn't have the merry ring of a gun shot to start you off and a finishing line where you can wave your arms in the air once you've crossed it, deserves to be looked upon with eyes full of suspicion. In those kinds of races, sooner or later you're going to have this feeling that you are turninig into Forrest Gump; running the endless run.

But I digress.

I consider myself - what some people might call - a pessimist. I always look on the negative side of things and people. Where others see summer in a flower, I see a funeral. My outlook towards life is a very bleak and gloomy one, plus, I only ever use tungsten lightbulbs.

It is of the general opinion that pessimists are bad. That pessimists are evil. They should be gripped firmly by the collar and hurled out of the window or tied up in sacks weighted with rocks and dropped into a river. Pessimists should be avoided like the plague, lest you want to get infected.

For me, I think that pessimists are okay - though it would be advisable to not hang around with more than one of them at the same time. Generally, pessimists are more satisfied with life as they have lower thresholds of satisfaction. If anything manages to be better than the lowly benchmark that they have set, then the pessimists will have been pacified.

Still, it's nice to be given a shot of optimism from time to time. And at the end of the day, whether we are pessimists or optimists, we are all humans. And humans get hungry and need to eat. Which I am about to do right now. Later ~

Wednesday 2 August 2006

When My Mind Is Idle

A quirky question I was thinking about the other day.

If there is one common trait that all women share, what would it be?

And no, the answer "their anatomy" didn't cross my mind.

Any feedback to this? Of course, if you are a woman, you are more than invited to give a common trait that all men share (which in my humble opinion, shouldn't be all that hard. Women have a lot to say on men, don't they?)