Jon's Theory on Relationship

It was a very lazy week. Again, I didn't do anything useful this week, not even writing a little bit more on this blog. I haven't spent Saturday night watching TV for long. As I just get the TV license renewed, I 'd abuse it a little bit. So Saturday night, I was lying on the bed, holding the remote in my hand, watching TV and getting fatter. The programs were surprisingly good though.

Today, Jon and I were talking about how come gay relationship is always harder than straight couple. He made some very sensible comments.

“I have a theory (i have a lot of theories, many of which are wrong) that the reason so many gay people do not find partners is because they have high standards about how things should be and find it hard to compromise. It's easier for men and women because women are very accepting of how men are and have other means of working things out. whereas, when you get two guys together, they are much more similar and so it's harder to work things out i have this theory because i find myself being like that. ”

I never doubt that one has to compromise in a relationship. I never agreed with the statement of “I am whom I am and don't expect me to change”. But this also means that one has to give up seeking the unrealistic idea of things in one's mind. The question is then that: do I have the courage to give up and is it the right time to do so?

Robots from RO-MAN 06

The last few weeks have been very busy. Finally I managed to have a short break before I dive into more geeky research. Funny thing is that I've had lots of things in my mind during these days that i though I might write them down in my blog later when I have time. Now, I have the time but I don't know what to write.So maybe I should leave the writing for another time. I attended the RO-MAN 06 conference last weekend, which is an IEEE conference on social robotics. I uploaded some pictures of me, my new friends and some robots on the exhibition. They are in my gallery. In case you are curious about how the real robot research is going, I will just briefly explain what the robot in the exhibition can do.

This is a humanoid robot. It can have some basic human emotion expressions and some basic behaviours. But so far, it is still in the early developing stage.

This is a guiding robot. The job of the robot is leading the visitors to each post in the exhibition. You can input the location you want to go on the touch screen. There is a human face on the screen that will interaction with you (very simple interaction at the moment). There are two cameras on the robot and the robot can identify different human face so that in the future, if the followers are falling behind, the robot will wait for them or go back to look for the followers.

These little things are called I-Swam. They are animate ants. The work they can do is very impressive. As you can image that each of them can do actually very limited things because you can't build such a little thing with a very complex system. But, they cooperate as the ants society. They share information and communicate so that when are work in a group, they become very powerful.

This is a robot build on the basis of Pioneer PeopleBot (TM). It is a project from COGNIRON. This robot is currently used to analyse how people react toward social robot, such as a home service robot. It can do some impressive things like serving food, hand shaking etc. But I think at the moment, its actions are mainly under human supervision.

This worm-looking robot is developed on the real structure of the neuron system and muscle structure. It can swim in similar way that animals do. It is impressive not in the way of the job it can do but rather the way of how it does it.

Selfishness

"It was like a slap on my face last night, waking me up from the delusion I was in for many years. Of course, i stayed awake thinking about it till late night.It was his fault. My friend suggested that human genes were programmed to be selfish. Whatever we do are actually founded by our own selfishness. Even contributing to charity monthly is just a deed of self-indulgency. Because I think making others life better makes me happy, and there, I have a motive --- I want to be happy. It simply doesn't matter how you spend your money, charity or drugs, you just want fulfilment out of it. Just because the way that I choose to fulfil myself fall on the righteous side, it is just me being lucky.Suddenly, the values and principles I've hold up to all this while have collapsed. The world seems so pathetic. It seems like everything I do everyday, there's always something in it for me. And I was taught that when I give, I shall do it without asking for reward.Certainly what he said make sense. But something is not right, what is it?"

That was Yu's post on OUT and unfortunately I was the friend which he was blaming. There was a episode in Friends, where Phebie and Joey were arguing about whether there is something as selfishless good deed. There is none as I told Yu. Being selfish is one of the basic instinct for human to survive. The term selfish, however, does not merely refer to the actions that people actively behave for their own benefits sacrificing others'. It is rather a phenomenon or a fact that human and any other creatures are behaving for one principle selfish reason, not surviving as we normally think of but spreading our genes; if we need to die for that at some point, many of us will do. Jyri told me before of where this theory came from but I forget the qutation and the person's name (Jyri told me later that it was from Richard Dawkins). Such selfish behaviours do not need to involve any damage of others'. In fact, when the selfish behaviours of a person match the current moral standard of the society, it becomes a good deed and we call such person a kind generous gentleman/lady. Well this does look like just a matter of terminology at some aspect. If we call some selfish behaviours that benefit others to be good selfishness, there is a quotation that give a conclusion of the bad selfishness we are talking about:

Selfishness is not living as one wishes to live, it is asking others to live as one wishes – Oscar Wilde

So, don't do that!

An Early Night

I opened my blog and found it strange to have a ugly photo of mine staring at me. Then I decided to take that photo away and put on something more interesting. In case there are folks curious about how funny I look like, there are lots of them in my gallery. FINALLY, the HTML design feature is ready in the new beta version but it is saying that the tags will be totally different. I will have to work it out before I offically switch my blog to the new template version.

I went to gym finally for this first time in a month. I felt that I couldn't follow the weight of strength I was on. I will certainly have to go more otherwise it will make it a big waste of the gym member fee. Yu and I were talking about the body shape again over lunch. He has got better built body and I really wonder where did he get it from. He said it was because he swim often. I kind of agree with it. I haven't been swimming for like three years now. I am not even sure about if I still remember how to do it. But I did take his point anyway and we went to get me a swimming trunk. I am going to rejoin the pool tomorrow. Well, at least, that is the plan.

The weather was totally terrible here in Hatfield. It was not simply because that it was windy and dark all day. The worst thing was that you never got the rain down. Then here is the thing. The sky looked ready for a heavy shower all day. If you didn't get rain falling down, you would have to keep suspecting that the next minute you step out of your house, it would rain. That would be how I end up stay at home for all day and regret for not going out to pick up the grocery in ASDA in the evening. OK, this sounds a little bit of strange but I am such kind of man who will worry things like that.

But to be fair, I did go out today, the gym, lunch and then ASDA. So I guess I am still not in a hopeless situation of worrying stupid things. I was going to cook something really but I had Forest came over tonight and he cooked. He is a really nice kiddo and I never let any advantages going away. So I just enjoyed another lazy evening. We didn't go to Yu's place as we thought we might do earlier because it was 9:00 pm already when we finish dinner and no one felt like going outside after eating. So I sat on my old chair again. I managed to use a pillow to make this chair a little more comfortable.

I didn't get any headache from the drink last night and I did get the call, which I wasn't really expecting. I feel an intention to cool down and reorganise myself. I am a greedy person, though not in a material way. There are times that I could lost my mind totally simply because a case like a girl can't get the doll she wants. But I do feel tired of being in this way. I have lots of heavy baggages on my should and I don't know if I can get another one on. The phone rang, I picked up and I opened my mouth. There were lots of things in my mind, questions, statements, expressions and many more, none of which came out. I think I really should call it a early night. Maybe just for tonight, no MSN before sleep.

Good night. Fluffy Dreams and just a small quotation poped to my head before bed.

Life is a city. Those who are inside want to get out; those who are outside want to get in. from Wei Cheng by Qian Zhongshu

"城里的人想出来，城外的人想进去。" <围城>:钱钟书

After Two Glasses of Wine

I have been busy for a few days. I was doing the preparation for a conference, RO-MAN'06, which is an IEEE annual conference held in my university this time. I showed my boss the presentation I am going to do and he appeared to be happy with it. Then I tried to talk to him about my funding and he appeared hopeless. Lucky me.

We, Yu and I, have got a friend visiting today. Actually, he is a friend of Yu's. They were just kind enough to ask me out with them. It was nice. We watched another DVD borrowed from Jyri. The film was a nice once, Latter Days. But Yu claimed that it was too good to be true in the film and ranked it as a trash. I liked it though. We also watched a documentary on channel Five, Austin Stevens Adventures, which was a very good one on wild animal, snakes to be precise.

Then we sent our friend to the train station and said good bye to him. Then I went home. Now here I am, half past eleven on Friday night, sitting in front my old laptop, expecting a phone call that won't ring up and staring at my helpless MSN. The only good thing is that Jyri is on-line so I get to throw him all my complains. I like to complain a lot and I complain anything because I always expect too much and of course realities never fails to disappoint me. So I complain and it makes me feel much better if I can find someone who really understands it. Jyri said that I am just too analytical in things. Maybe it is a bad habit I get from my research. I think stuff and I think way too much. Sometime, I don't know whether I am just going after an illusion or not. It is so funny that I always mark myself as a mature person but I always trap myself into naïve situations. Maybe I am not what I thought. Do I ever know who I am and what I want? Interesting...

I went downstairs and couple of my house mates were having a night chat. I got myself two glasses of wine from them and now I feel a little drunk. Actually, I am much deeper than two glasses of wine but maybe I just want to giving out all the emotions inside of me with an excuse. I was talking non-sense to someone, which I shouldn't. But I did anyway. Now, maybe it is a time to sleep and cool down, or maybe I will do a few pages of reading. I am reading TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD. It is a nice book and I have to finish it soon as I always find some book in Waterstone, a book store, which I want to buy. But I can't do it until I finish this one. Anyway I should stop boring my dear visitors now.

Meeting the right person at the right time is a happiness; meeting the wrong person at the right time is a sadness; meeting the wrong person at the wrong time is a ridiculousness; and meeting the right person at the wrong time is a sigh.

Just Sleepless

I was reading Hardus's blog and I found his pages look much more pleasant than mine. I was comparing ours and I notced because I always wrote a loooooot of words, it can really make readers' eyes feel painful, sorry for my previous visitors. Anyway I decided to use couple of hours to reorganise the pages a little bit so that they are just easier for readers. Also, I made my MSN space, or rather they call it WLS now, my gallery and guestbook. Welcome to visit. ^_^

The night is starting to get longer in England now. But my sleep doesn't come back with it. I have developed this very strange sleep pattern recently. Normally, I just sleep at random time for random length. So after another sleepless night, what shall I write? I think I really should give the sentiments of mine a rest and try to sketch some other beauties and ugliness around the world. It is 6:30 am in the morning. I hear birds singing for a new day outside. I am sitting on this very uncomfortable chair; oh my, I will have to do something with it at some point. My mind is blank. So I am not going to seek a topic today. I have something I want to write about but it is a little big that I think I'd better leave it for the weekend. The last long weekend before Christmas is coming, I can write something awfully long and boring. Good luck, my dear visitors.

So today I will just post down a picture here. The lady in the picture is the TRUE traditional Chinese beauty in Chinese eyes. Funny thing is that we find westerners sometime have a very different view of oriental beatuy. Lucy Liu is a good example that Chinese found very hard to understand. Well, if you happen to have trouble to recall her face, just look it up in google. But her in the picture is what Chinese class the traditional beauty. The picture is from a 80's TV series that were made from one of four best classic Chinese Novels: 红楼梦 (Hong Lou Meng), the English of which is known as :The Story of the Stone.

I have got to get a new chair!!!

New Life

It has been ten days that I haven't updated this blog. May I use that universal excuse again that I have been very busy? It is true that I have been literally living on Red Bull for a week. My room looks like a dungeon hole. Well, I have made the resolution that I will recollect myself and see Andy more often. Who's Andy? Well that will be a funny story. My friend, Yu, always suspects that people on the street are checking him out. He insists that there is a guy who works in the gym has been seriously checking him out for many times. Without his real name, we started to refer him as Andy. I don't believe Yu though. From then on, when we say "see Andy", we mean "go to gym". I really need some working out as I can feel that the fat starts to wrap me up.

So, what should I share today? My dear visitors, have you ever had the thought that at some point you will start a new-life, a totally new life. I have seen many of my friends had this ambition and I have seen many of them ending up disappointed. Hence, I can't help thinking that whether there is something as "starting a totally new life". When we say we want to start a new life, what do we mean? Do we mean we want to abandon all of our past? Do we mean we want to discard all of our beliefs? Do we mean we want to put ourselves into a new world and try to fit ourselves in for dear life? Do we mean we want to be someone who is not us anymore but a totally stranger?

Well, if you were a murderer, you might have those wishes. But when we put our sight to normal people, do those questions apply? Are those what we really want? Yes, we have to admit that sometime a new environment does help but is that all. Do we really want put our hope into something else and rely on it? I doubt the answer is YES for most of us. Questions I listed above are not an option for us to make a so called "new life". It is not that we have to change ourselves into new strangers. If we give up everything of ourselves, we will end up being a disaster with no doubt. Then what makes a new life?

When you wake up one day, try to think of things you never think of; try to speak to the people you never speak to; try to understand those you never understand; try to see the things you never see, and there you are off to something new. Will it be a new life? It might be. But the most important thing is: you are still you and you are off to something new and better. Maybe we should stop chasing the so called "new life" and try to explore something in our existing life. There is no such thing as absolute new life. Everyday is new. Every morning is the new beginning. Every second is possible for something impossible.

I was! I am. I will be?

I am really busy at the moment. I feel everything get so mixed up that I have got myself stuck in the middle of a spider web, struggling for a way out. However, when I was talking this to Jyri, he made it seemed like such a simple problem that all I was worrying about was no more than a high school student facing a coming exam. Is that so? Am I still that naughty boy who will only get active before the deadline? I thought I have been growing, a lot. I thought I should have had a very sensible and mature mind as a 24-years-old. All those things I was telling him were those I thought I had a reasonable knowledge of, but it turned out to be frustrating. Have I really been growing? Well, certainly my height hasn't, but even my mind?

Just today, I got a mail from a friend. It was saying something about how he was falling in love with the totally run person. This really reminded me of how I used to be the same. Those might be heart breaking but they are such precious experience. I got a flash back of those old times and then I try to get a mirror to look into. I want look into my own eyes and ask: how much have you changed?

I sit back and put on some music. I am dong nothing but trying to think through myself. I want to write down a lot about what I was and what I am. However I feel lack of words or rather lack of idea to do so. But I don't how and where I get this feeling that I am no more than what I was. With years of experiencing in this sophisticate world, I have been developing. I have developed many shells to wrap me up tightly and safely. Those shells protect me. But they are selfish, arrogant, aggressive and short-sighted. I tired very hard to rip off those shells and to find out what is inside and I saw it. It is the person I was. Inside, I have never changed. I was going to share more about that person but one of my shells grew back and cut off my mind.

There was a short tale in the internet telling people the story of how a young boy was falling in love with wrong people and how he got his heart broken and how he recollected them back again bitterly. It was telling the story of how a young boy was viewing the world regardless to all the devils. It was telling the story of how a young boy was picturing the fantasy of his life. When the world shuts in the midnight, when the moonlight goes through the window, when the cigarette extinguishes in the ash tray, the music brings up my old memories. At this very moment, I know that: the one I was, the one I am.

Who will I be?

Time

I am sitting here again, alone, in my room with a pot of instant coffee. I want to write some thing down but I hesitate. There is something in my mind that I want to share but I am afraid to do so. There is a fight in my mind, at which another me is laughing. Maybe I just need a little more time as they say that time is the universal solution of everything. It is the extreme truth in the human world, just as true as the energy conservation law in physical world. So I think I will just need more time and maybe I will find it easier to be open with it then.

So time, what is this thing? Why does it have this ultimate power that we all say that it is the cure of everything. 'Give it time and it will be fine'. Is it the advice we give to everybody but ourselves? Then what is time anyway?

Physically, time is still a very debatable concept. Many people believe that time is just a element as fundamental as energy and space in the universe. With the existence of time, our world becomes physically 4-dementional. With this cognition, time travelling will be just a matter of 'time'. However, the place I stand, like some of other people of us believe, that time does not exist independently. It is nothing more than a measurement of the change of energy. Thus no energy, no time, which means our world is physically 3-dementional and time travelling is just a matter of 'Sci-Fi'.

Ok, enough geeky stuff. Let's try to think about why time cures. It does not. Try to think a little bit more on this, you will find that it is not time which cures you. You do. When there is a problem, when there is a wound in your mind, time does nothing to it. It is you healing it. When you give it time, you are collecting facts that make you still good; you are thinking that makes you throw away the toxics; you are struggling against the pain to bandage the wound; or you are just being given other interesting things to fill up your mind so as to forget.

Time is a NOT rescue pill you can use. If you don’t help yourself out, time will do nothing but stand beside you and laugh.

Turn Left, Turn Right

Well, as I am having a break from the research at the moment, I think I should take the advice of trying to write something here more often. Actually, I have had something in mind that I thought I may write. I was going to argue something about if we should still keep write paper based letters to our friends or families in this MATRIX world where SKYPE and MSN have been all over the globe. A friend told me that it is so out of time, happy birthday to Lok by the way. Well I had a big speech prepared that I am so sure I will be able to take his idea down, but, again suddenly, something in me is triggered by a song, which I want to share.

I was cleaning my room. I have got a bunch of old CDs that left over by some of my Chinese friends who have finished their study and left. I just randomly put one in my CD player. They are really old songs now, from my college time I think. While I was still fighting in the battle field in my room, a soft and very familiar melody went to me. It was a sound track from a movie and sung by Gigi, a famous singer in Hong Kong. The movie is made from a well known city comic: Turn Left, Turn Right (also known as: A chance of sunshine).

It was such a simple story, a story that can't be simpler. There was a girl and there was a boy. They lived next to each other, where a wall is shared by the building they lived in. They lived in this small city and they went across each other everyday many times. But, she always turned left when she went out the building and he always turned right. She always turned left at the tube station and he always turned right. She always looked at left side in the bus and he always looked at the right side. Just like this, they have been there for on one knows how long but never meet. One day, just that one day, the joke in the heaven came down to the earth. The big shower made them know the existence of each other for the first time in the park. Maybe love did happen on the first sight. At least in their case it did. The shower stopped and they had to go. So they exchanged their numbers. But right after they parted, both of them lost it. Then, in the little city with nothing special, there were two people seeking their love. They were looking everyplace they knew of, everything they could think of. Every night, they were sleepless and sat in their room and listened to the same song. They passed away each other just in the same way while she turned left at the same place where he turned right. Two hearts had finally been broken and the pain made them unable to stay in their city of sadness so both of them decided to leave, in the same day. At that day, the girl left the building and went to the park for the last time and so did the boy. They stood there on the lawn where there was only a big tree separate them. Both of them didn't say a word, didn't know the existence of each other either, and at the end, the girl went left and the boy went right. They never meet again.

I am not going to start on the movie that made it to be a happy ending. Obviously, movie makers are stick to their directions of making money. We all stick to some directions, do we? Maybe they are not as simple as left and right, but they are still there. We take it so naturally and actually we judge others who are on the different tracks. But is that too naive to define people just because they used to turn right but we turn left? We are going in our way so we never see what they see, never think what they think. We will never know them and maybe never meet them. We may miss nothing, but we may miss everything. I am not saying that change whom you are and try everything stupid. However, maybe just one a while, try to walk to the side that you rarely walk, try to read books you rarely read, try to understand something you barely approve of, try to know someone you barely like, and there will be a big surprise waiting for you. Right or left, which way will you go tomorrow?

Dilemma

I haven't written anything here for a while. I was so busy at research for a while, haven't even been sleeping much, and now I have to take a break from all those AI stuff. So what should I write today? I have too many things in my mind that I even find it hard to put something down as a start.
Well, I will have a very relaxing week, no hard working and enjoy a long weekend. This PhD thing is certainly driving me crazy. I think maybe I should just marry the little dumb metal box I have got, by which I mean the little robot I have in the lab. But in another way, it is addictive. The feeling of success is incomparable very time I manage to finish something there. Ah, I guess life is all about dilemma. Every time we face one, we have to choose one side to go. It is gambling really. No matter how rational we claim ourselves choice to be, it is still gambling. Most of us will say that facing a dilemma is one of the things that they hate. But maybe deep in our nature, we are addictive to it, like many of us are addictive to gambling. It is the choice, by knowing choosing one side meaning losing the other side, makes this exciting. The ending is always unknown into a degree. Surprises can always double the happiness, and unfortunately, the same applies to the sadness.
So we all gamble in life. Things barely happen in the way that you can expect. Being random is the rule of the physical world and chaos is the basic of matter. A very interesting Finnish friend of mine claims that he can always find the optimistical sides in a dilemma. Well, I doubt it. If you can see the optimistical sides of both or all the choices facing a problem, it does not really do anything as it won't help to shift the weights among the choices but just give you a feeling that no matter what you choose won't hurt you. Does this have something similar to the so called "beggar's attitude"? A dilemma is a cross road where you have to and you can only go into one directions, all of which are one way road.
For thousands of years, human beings are suffering from the fact that they HAVE TO CHOOSE. In order to remove some of the pressure of deciding our own fate, we developed many tools. Tarot, horoscope etc. are all on the list. Why are we so scared of doing the decision of our own lives? Thinking that the right of doing our own choice has been a fight of every nation for so many years, the intention of asking some unknown force to help us while using such a right is very ironic. Personally, I do have a deck of TAROT and playing it is great fun. There are times that I wish those printed coloured cards can be believable. I am wondering the reason...

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By the way, how many of us have seen Windows 1.04? A friend of mine did a 5 minutes demonstration on his lovely old IBM 5160 XT which was launched 25 five years ago. Have a look of the ancestor of your Windows. Anyway, here is the link on YouTube, just click to watch it: Win 1.04 Demo

The picutre at the right is the picture of the PC. Cool piece, right?

Following Your Head or Your Heart?

Suddenly, I feel like that once naïve 18-yers-old boy again. I am holding the motto of living in real for so long and so hard and now I am falling into a fantasy. My head is struggling but my heart is going away. I am lost and scared. Once again, a big title jumps in front of me: following your heart.
Ok, it is not a movie or some kind of novel where we know that we are going to cry for the happy ending. We are living in a life where things are not working as they are in fairytales. We can't just have a head fever of heart following and lost in the wonderland. Alice had a pair of magic shoes to take her home. She was lucky that a good witch gave them to her but we will have to make our own with every single piece of our heart and swallow the pain seeing those fragile pieces gone with the wind without konwing when we are going to collect them altogether again.
So there is no wonderland for us. Again we live in real and a realistic head is what keeps us safe. Then why is there no such expression as: follow your head. I think it may because when your heart is really beating fast, it sucks the blood all over the body and manages to take over your mind. You still have a choice. However, how many of us can really kill it at the moment before we lose our mind; how many of us can stop wondering if this is the right time, this is truly real, and we are going to end happily? Should we take the risk?
Or maybe we can follow neither. Some of us will say: just enjoy the moment and see how it goes, take it easy. I do believe for me sometime,'take it easy' is something easier said than done. If it makes your heart flying away, it is not something you can just take it easy any more. Heart follower then will argue that if you don't gather the courage, you won't get anything. If you don't try you don't win. I guess so. But if all your past experience tells you that every time your heart has been beating like this the next thing you know is looking for the broken pieces, will the conclusion be the same?
Now, it is just like an illusion for me, like a fountain in a desert, that I don't know if I am cheating myself. My heart is still beating and my head is still struggling. If this makes me a head follower, I don't know how long I can hold the place. Maybe I should write my motto on my face.

Romantic Fantasy

My friend, Yu, was talking about the most romantic scene of his fantasy. He said the scene would be a raining day. He was running for a shelter. Suddenly, out of no where, a careless guy ran into him. Both of them fell over. Yu's documents were then all over the place. The careless guy who was also super handsome kindly helped him to put everything all together. They couldn't help laughing by looking at other and realised how funny they looked in the rain. They went for a warm cup of coffee afterwards and exchanged the number. A great romance of the history then began, at least in Yu's fantasy.

Yu might have watched too much TV. But this is then left to me to think about what is the most romantic scene in my dream. No matter we are aware of it or not, we all have one of such in our mind. So I start digging. There are so many things that are tagged with romance: flowers, champagne, beach, candles, lake…..and raining (apparently). When I am going through all these things I stop my step in front of a little thing, or rather an enormous thing: the star.

I always like just looking at the stars in the dark sky and trying to figure out all the constellations. England has a clear sky. Every time I happen to walk alone in the night, I can't help to raise my head. I look at the stars and I feel calm and peaceful. I can't remember any trouble I was going through in the day. Maybe that's the power of those sparkling fairies of the heaven. If I could, I will find a place to sit down, probably on a lawn and enjoy the moment. I need no drink or smoke to cheer me up. The happiness grows deep from me with no reason. The wrong I have fades and leaves me to be pure and clear. The little diamonds in the sky are magical that block all the sorrows away. They are the witness of countless the most romantic loves and I know they will be mine too.

Right this moment, a gentle breeze passed over and woke me from the fantasy. Suddenly, I felt a piece of me was empty and I started to seek a shoulder to rest, a hand to hold, a face to kiss, and a mind to share. The only thing missing in the romanic scene of mine was someone else. The lawn was still silent and the fairies were still sparkling up there. The romance of mine is still waiting for me in somewhere I haven't passed. So I collected myself and lighted a cigarette, and I realised that it would make me a cheap date.

Monogamy or Polyamory

Polyamory is such a rare word. Apparently, poly is the Greek for many and amor is Latin for love. Homosapiens are smart because we make things simpler. So another equivalent (but technically not identical) of this word was coined in 1972 by Nena O'Neill and George O'Neill in their book: Open Marriage. Unfortunately, marriage is not a concept well developed for gay people (no matter what is the reason), so another phrase comes along. Please meet out guest today, here goes: OPEN RELATIONSHIP.
Open relationship denotes a relationship (usually between two people) in which participants are free to take other partners (mainly sexual); where the couple making this agreement are married, it is an open marriage. Open relationship has been so well used inside of gay community and people may actually suspect that it is made for gay people. Monogamy is not something to mention in straight world. They follow it as instincts, moral and as stated by law. Although the law does not regulate the relationship, it regulates marriage. So is the existence of marriage justifies the existence of monogamy or just because homosexual is off the common route and marrige is barely the regulation for us so the conventional moral doesn't apply? My brain does not give me answer.
Gay practitioners of open relationship are actually smart. The relationship itself is still about two people. They love each other (at least, most of them claim so). The only thing different is they are not bounded by sex. Each of them are free to sleep with other people. Is that brilliant that suddenly, the love and the sex are totally separated?
Of course, it will be hard to argue that sex and love are inherent to each other. We don't love everyone we slept with. But is there a point that we finally find someone that we want to sleep with for the rest of our lives? How many times we have seen in a movie that right at the wedding day, the bride or groom finally find out the feeling of sleeping with the same person for the rest of their lives and freak out. Is that sad that if they just practice an open relationship, none of them will be bothered?
I think it is beautiful when they finally overcome it and realise nothing will get in their way of the commitment. I do believe that real sex means something more than fluid exchange. Under the vow of commitment, two people decided to be with each other and sacrifice their possible sexual fun out there for each other. Is this one of the point of commitment, well conventionally? Is it a concept that romance has adopted forever? I don't have anything against the polyamorist; people have the rights to choose their lifestyle. However, every time I put the term completely monogamous in my profile, I feel strange. Why are the monogamists putting down extra notes but not the open-relationship parishioners to mark polyamory in theirs? Again, that may be something beyond my understanding.
So, reader, if I have any, monogamy or polyamory, what will be your choice?

Smoking

I am a smoker. But I think I am still a good boy because I started smoke after my 18. The first time I tested this little smoking tip was the time when my heart was first broken. The problem was simple. I fall in love with one of my best straight mates. He found out and cut me out of his life. I was devastated back to that time. But now I think it is kind of funny. What an unprofessional gay that made me, to fell in love with a straight guy.

Now, that was no more than some dusted memory that makes me laugh sometimes but smoking is something left over by it, which I can't get rid of. I am not a strong smoker but I smoke. Unlike alcohol or drugs that make people high, cigarette is a dose of calmness to make me cool down and think better. Well, I think a lot. Actually, as a research student, I think that is all I do. But surprisingly, gym makes me smoke less though it won't take the cigarette out of my life. I am addictive to it. Well, smokers are barely immune to its addiction though one of my friend is, which I still find it very hard to believe.

This addiction to me is the addiction of calm and peaceful moments. We do have moments of these without smoking but I need more. I hope that does not make me greedy. I am emotional, judgmental and I have my baggage (wow it is a big one with a very dull robot). Thus before I have the moment to erase all my emotions off with a huge hang over, I need to cool down. I don't force the feelings (at least I am trying my best). I know what harm it will do if we just press all the feelings deep in our mind (I will tell you the story of my grandma one day…). Smoking helps me to get rid of the emotions softly.

However, another drawback of smoking is I can't eat fried chicken anymore. I do like fried chicken a lot. But after I saw a report said the harm done by eating a fried chicken leg is equivalent to smoke 60 cigarettes I decided to save most of my health to smoke. I might quit one day and have a big reunion with fired-chicken eaters. However, that will need a much stronger reason than my health.

By the way, below is a picture I found very interesting on the web today.

Destination

If you don't know where you are going, you are going nowhere. Horrifyingly correct isn't it? It is horrifying because when I saw this sentence I just realised that I am going nowhere. Simply because I have no idea of where I am going, all I have done for all this time is becoming nothing. I am scared. So I cool done and think really hard about where is the place I am heading. Mr. Right? That's all I have asked for. I don't know if this really makes an eligible destination. It looks so far away. I don't want to be needy and desperate but a thirst of romance is sucking my blood. But I could not give up my belief and head to seek fun. If it has been my dream since I was born, I want it. If the place where Mr Right is does not need me, I will step farther to look for him. Probably I have made too big a deal out of this. But a fool I may be, a dream I am going to.

Stunning Body

It's about 2 o'clock in the morning. I was woken up by the cold wind through my open window and couldn't go back to sleep again. I know I have to make myself go back to sleep at some point otherwise I won't be able to make the gym tomorrow, which I have to go. Working out is a good thing that I think no one will disagree. I started to go to gym about one year ago and was trying my best to make it three to four times a week. For me, it is not only to have a healthier body but more importantly, a stronger confidence, and this can be the part to make me sallow: I do think that the reason I feel less confident sometime is because of my body build is not good enough.
However, does confidence really have something to do with a stunning body? Rationally we know that personality is what counts. If you win over someone by your stunning body, you get a nice one night stand; if you win over him by your personalities, you get a nice boyfriend. But a stunning body is something you can perceive very easily. All you need to do is watching, targeting, talking up and doing the business, well sometime without the talking up part. Personality however is something you have to dig up or show off. This is the part that you have to use the term know wisely, no matter you are getting to know someone or make someone to know you.
Then, is this to say that if you are off the gay scene and you are targeting something real your personality is enough to give you full self-confidence? I like my personality, caring, witty and other good words you can find in a personal profile can be applied to me as well. But I still feel there is something missing. If we say every people is like a park that you have to go inside to find out the true nature of it, how do we send off our tickets? Here is where a stunning body comes into handy. It's like a brilliant movie preview is so important although it may not really have anything to do with the essence of the film itself. But you get the people to buy the tickets and, at the very least, win yourself a chance.
Here comes to another reason that a stunning body can easily fills up my need for confidence. We know that with such a body, the tickets are definitely going out with no problems but we never know if our guests are going to enjoy the inside of the park or not. The body is relatively a very simple matter. If it is stunning, very body is going to like it. But the same does not apply to the personality. First of all, there is something called a perfect body but there is ''no such thing as a perfect personality. You never know how other people judge yourself and there is not list of 'criteria you can follow, though at body building you have. Every gym coach will be more than happy to give you such criteria that are the guidance to the stunning body, at least the guidance they think leads to a stunning body.
So maybe, this is the real thing. A stunning body is easy to achieve and I know exactly how people will react to it and thus I feel more confident with it as what I am expecting is predictable. Or should this so called confidence here be better interpreted into feeling of safety? This may sound like fool myself but anyway, I like a good body and I am going to gym in the afternoon and so it is the time for going back to sleep now.

Romance

The Lake House, what can I say? Another spoiled commercial Hollywood happy ending movie? I don't want to judge the movie itself because I am very sure lots of people will do it for us and much more professionally. They story was good and I suspect that the original South Korea one was a tragedy because that is just so South Korean (the one I watched was the Hollywood remake). After the movie, however, I have got a big question mark: is such romance really possible to take place in real life, of course not the time part (if you watched it, you will know what I mean).
A man falls in love with a woman through letters; plus a dance and a kiss. For this he is keeping a promise for years. For this, he is paying his life. Are there people actually buying this or is it just me that stars to lose faith in romance? I believe in romance. A candle dinner is what I call it a romance. A Valentine's Day present is what I call it a romance. However, a story that two people are like soul mates and are coming to meet from thousands away won’t convince me.
Ironically, I claim that I am aware of the cruelty of world and not believing such romance that has died in the 80's films with the dust but I find in my true mind, I am waiting for it. I am actually waiting for one. I am saying that I do not believe soul mate. I do not. Monica in Friends made a very sensible statement that there are no people who are just made for each other. We work for our relationship and sometime, we work really hard. But I am finding that me, right here, right now is waiting for one. It has been so long that this has become my excuse of why I am still complaining my bachelorhood.
But again, I still enjoyed the happy ending though a sad one would've made the movie much better.