If the army is as efficient as it should be, I would be in the company of several other young men at this very moment, each of us preparing to surrender our souls for the next two years or so.
Considering all the important tasks I’ll be expected to accomplish during that time, you could say I’m a bit too concerned about uncovering potential tools for etching the number of elapsed days on by bunk wall. More importantly, my last words before enlistment.
Remember remember the eighth of November
What a day it was for me
For on that day, my hair went away
And I became Recruit Syahmi
These words are all I leave you, my loyal followers, during my two-week absence; or in army time - approximately three and a half million push ups.
When did we decide that unrewarding quirks should be considered traits of the attractive? It seems that when it comes to writing one’s social résumé, qualities such as “awkward” and “nerd” have greatly increased in popularity. What used to represent an unnatural attraction to the corner of the room whenever the need for human interaction arose, today, simply describes a somewhat shy individual with thick-framed glasses.
I won’t deny understanding the appeal of being associated with the long-oppressed underdogs. Still, trying that desperately to be part of the other team, borders on Loserdom. Therefore I advise you embrace your social adequacy and revel in knowing what the inside of a vagina feels like.
Playing the role of a thousand-word introduction to oneself, you’d think the profile picture would be taken a lot more seriously. Not to mention as a society that hardly ever listens to Mommy, we find ourselves judging the metaphorical book by its just-as-metaphorical cover a little more than we should be. Still, the many inhabitants of social networks seem content with the idea of having pandering, rather than a glimpse of actual substance, make up the majority of their life’s synopsis.
Discount the stock images of automobiles, cartoon characters or anything else that isn’t an actual photo of the person it’s supposedly representing and you’ll find that a lot of us rely on a few general approaches when it comes to setting a profile picture.
To simplify the human mind’s thought processes in terms of responding to a stimulus, I’ve summarized it in three steps. First, the person is exposed to the stimulus. In the event that no instinctive reactions occur, the person then decides whether or not to respond to the stimulus. Finally, the person decides the manner in which he/she would deliver said response.
In the case of Alex Chang, he was exposed to the sound of the prayer call for Muslims, otherwise known as the Azan, while having dinner at a McDonald’s. Believing that it made for a non-conducive eating environment, he chose to respond by sharing his sentiments with the world on the internet. In the case of the many people who read to his comments, they chose to respond by operating a computer keyboard under the influence of their own stupidity.
Seeing someone open their mouth and have strange sounds appear used to have some sort of comedic effect; then I stopped being 5 years old. I am of course referring to foreign accents.
Still, I guess you could always justify that things outside the boundaries of “normal” in our society have their way of drawing such reactions. The same way it might be a bit tough making friends with the boy whose parents happened to be immigrants from a country where the word “vagina” was synonymous to a virtue which was conveniently the best thing they could think of at the time of his birth.
I digress. Though you can’t really blame me. The “you can’t be mean to someone just because they’re different” song had been sung so many times, I had to think of a slightly different angle.
With National Day around the corner, it isn’t exactly the best time to make me want to feel less Singaporean. Yet as I write this, fellow countrymen are relentlessly bombarding my Twitter feed with distasteful Bangladeshi-themed jokes. Of course, try something similar with our Malay community, unlock the gates of hell. Racial Harmony, ladies and gentlemen.
Dear Reader,
This post was the first one published, designed to be the last one viewed. You’ve reached the end of The Real hotFISH blog. Regardless of how many posts you had to go through to eventually make it to this point, I congratulate you.
Yours sincerely,
hotFISH
