Twisting and turning

This is hilarious.

Xander took personal umbrage against what I wrote in a previous blog. So he posted a one-sided argument on his blog (please find link on the right).

If anyone of you local lads are inclined to join in the fray, please take a careful second read at my blog and you'll realise that I've not generalised ALL local guys. Thank you.

Perhaps, Xander, this is an obvious explanation as to why I'm the editor of INDULGE! and you are still a writer. Perhaps that explains why I'm a copywriter cum editor, while you are an accounts executive cum assistant copywriter.

I don't mean to boast further but another agency asked me in for an interview for a copywriter post, a statutory board asked me to quote my rates to write their company report and I'm still doing book reviews for The Peak magazine.

If you think it's all fun and games, it isn't. But I admit I get an adrenaline rush from being swamped with work and surrounded by words.

When you are a lass who engages in so much mental activity, you do require an equal amount of intellect in the people you know.

An individual that scores high on my cards needs to read extensively, write well, speaks well, appreciate the arts, has his/her own views but accepts other people's views, open to new ideas and school of thoughts. You'll also appreciate that these individuals have their own views towards certain issues, are more open to differing schools of thought, are not so quick to judgement or adament about their own views.

The problem is that most of the local guys I meet are a disappointment for a few reasons:
- those that are well-read often have stoic values and opinions towards issues
- those that read only the papers or periodicals tend to accept all that is reported without having their own opinion
- those that do have their own opinion are often unwilling to accept that someone else may have a viewpoint that's quite different from theirs
- those that don't read don't think there's a need to do so especially after they've left school and entered the workforce
- few have a deep appreciation for the arts like poetry, music and song lyrics, plays, musicals, dance performances, films. I'm not talking about movies because most (except for an exceptional few) are too commercial.

Perhaps what Xander has not realised is that this local Chinese girl (ie. me) has a preference for Asian guys. But, the qualities she has named are invariably ingrained in Western dudes because of their upbringing. Best of all, she doesn't really fancy white guys as anything more than friends.

What takes the cake is that local guys put the blame on the Western guys for 'snatching' away the local girls. How convenient. The typical way of doing things - shift the blame to others.

I say take a look at your ownself before putting the blame on others. Admit it that you've not made the constant effort to read and enrich yourself. If my girl friends can do it, why not the guys?

Lack of time is not an excuse. Read a novel while travelling to and from work. You can also listen to music at the same time. Portion out half an hour of lunch break for reading the papers or surfing the online news sites to get updated on the latest world news (I recommend BBC Online and Time). After work, go catch a film especially during the film festivals (the Singapore International Film Festival begins Thur Apr 15). Over the weekend, check out which theatre group has a production anywhere (The Arts House has a fairly good programme this wekeend). Spend a Sunday afternoon browsing through Borders or Kinokuniya. Buy the books home to peruse twice or thrice if you have to.

yes, welcome to the generation fo multi-tasking! Everything all boils down to time management. If you are single, you have all the time in the world to spend on yourself and manage it for yourself.

It's not really tough because no one's asking you to be an expert on every subject or topic. While it's essential to have minimum knowledge of what's happening around the world, I'll be swept away if you can talk indepth about just one topic. Like F1 racing; or the Renaissance painters; or how Nostradamus' predictions apply to our current world situation; or why men should also be allowed to be vain; or why the Williams sisters deserve to dominate the tennis court; or why trance has so much loops; or why even now most DJs still prefer to use vinyls instead of CDs to spin. You get my idea.

So go ahead and impress me. I stand to be corrected, very soon.