A Life Less Ordinary

Forward: Congrats to America for passing health care. Now if only it was a real change, not a small step, that would be awesome. Plus, it’s hard to get excited about anything watching Nancy bang the gavel. I wonder if the bill contains coverage for botox? Sometimes I want to scream that no one is doing enough, and then I remember that a lot of the people in congress are unfortunately very dim and therefore can’t do those hard maths and make all those scary numbers fit together in the little box. Yikes.

It’s war here in Cartias Bianchi Lodge. Tensions are rising and it’s all because of these five letters: b-l-o-g-s. We’ve had a rash of blog attacks recently, the garrisons are shaky and the troop’s morale is low. The barbarians at the gate are constantly gathering, feeding off each other’s mutual cruelty and insidious sense of humor. The Battle of Chinese Class was an epic disgrace for the side of emotions, while fraternizing and “bro-ing” out were on the march of victors heading into lesson. The blog’s defenses had been leaked earlier in the day and were hastily defeated in the run-up to the battle.

Once the hooligans had control of the all-powerful computer, the game was all but won. The tapping of keys preceding the decisive access to the web page. Public readings from the blog ensued. The Battle commenced and the leading women banded together in defense of their sister, the author, who was visibly troubled. The readers were quickly shouted down and the battle stalemated. The stalemate was a relief to see after the blog reading Battle of the Lodge Room 1312. I was lucky enough not to have witnessed that gory skirmish, but the battle reports included lots of screaming, tears, and a highly prized MacBook Pro being thrown to the floor.

The reports and finally witnessing the blitzkrieg of internet use in the Battle of Chinese Class were almost enough to make me want to put up even stronger defenses on my blog. Passwords? Moats? Fire breathing tarantulas? I just don’t know if any of it will be strong enough against the onslaught of bros who want to target another helpless blog and do the unthinkable: read it. Oh the horror. Then again, maybe keeping it a secret will protect. Secrecy is the ironic secret of success in this battle; those of us who write do so in silence, not knowing if our neighbors and classmates are writers, or readers. Who can one trust? It took only one blog to go down the road of Tituba in The Crucible, now we’re all witches; 21^st century heathens armed with words and a shoddy internet connection. Knowing there are supporters out there is all we can do, for our personal blogs are taboo as a topic of conversation, as it should be. Reading another’s abroad-mates blog is like a longer, worse version of Twitter, except you already experienced what they’re writing about.

The preceding story was a dramatization of a few events that have happened in the last week. It was also a very real, and in my opinion accurate portrayal of some of the ridiculous reactions towards what was simply someone finding out about two blogs. Public readings ensued and while not kind, you’d think someone’s best friend had been shot and pitched out the window. Good God people. We just passed a health care bill and people actually care about shit like blog access. If the bill the house passed doesn’t make you want to scream, this Neanderthal-like behavior should.

As an aside, we went back to our romping ground at Lon Kwai Fong and there was a massive carnival like food festival. Upset because I just spent HK$20 more on a drink than I should have, we looked at all the stalls and suddenly I heard the voices of angels. A stand had corn dogs. Not like Pronto Pup mind you, but at this point bits of hot dog and a corn tortilla chip would do. I did not buy because it was chaotic and I didn’t want to be the fat kid who held the others up. I regret that decision now because once we had circled around, the stand was closed down. No corn dogs for me. It’s all for the best I suppose, and the carnival was fun. Additionally, I found a new park called King’s Park that is great for reading at in the sun, which I’ve thankfully seen a lot of more recently. Things are looking up here at the Hong Kong Life & Times, and I’m excited to both leave for traveling and to come back. Apologies for the length of this post!