the rule of etiquette

so today I caught the bus, yes folks, it happens. And during this 20min or so ride where my knees were jammed up the seat in front of mine so tight I feared my patella would fracture, I had a nice good look at the world in Malta and realized two things. We as Maltese are not quit blessed in the art of style, or social awareness. Regarding the first I shall not comment much as some people already consider me vain and superficial enough as it is, so I shall leave that for a further post, but heres a little comedy for now -LINK-.

Back to social awareness; it seems that although we are some 400K of us earthlings inhabiting this rock in the med, some still manage somehow to live life as though they are the singular most important thing around. Case in point: on a main thoroughfare which is rather narrow and has signs all along it indicating that no car should stop, there are examples  of these amazingly intelligent persons who stop their car (if you are lucky you might get the blinkers on) and just hop into a store for 5-10minutes to bring out the "pastizzi" for their local band club, or to just pop in to say "hi" to Jesobel behind the counter. This in turn leaves the bus and a string of four or five cars backed up wondering what in the name of foam is causing their hold up. Also some bright spark with a suped-up Ford Escort will swing into action and attempt, not just to overtake one car, but the entire row - on a bend...because he is a hero of course, but alas finds some one else in the opposite lane, driving perfectly within their legal rights. This would ensue to a range of very colorful language, from the Escort driver, Driver in proper lane, Bus driver, Crazy passenger at the back of the bus, and of course the driver of the blinking car who comes out "rushed" and says something that is meant to make us all feel better.

Another situation which is very typical of a Mediterranean country is the slow walk. When your bus arrives late due to causes such as that aforementioned, one would need to make up in lost time and rush on foot to where ever they may need to go. This is the perfect time to encounter the slow walking locals. These are generally a string of women, who walk side by side slowly enough to make you want to skip them, but fast enough for you to have to make it obvious with a small jog. They speak loudly and gesture to one another about some piece-o-crap spandex pink mother-wearing tank top they bought which needs another flammable-elastic-waisted-synthetic white bottom piece to go with it. All the time either chewing some 4hour old piece of gum, smoking a cigarette without the use of hands, clapping their anti-style anti-orthopedic footwear and re-arranging their love handle enhancing leggings. The only way to skip these obstacles is to excuse yourself (because you are taking up that extra piece of walk way to pass) and only use the one word they respond to, "sorry" (pronounced as: sori!). Any other phrase, such as "excuse me" or "pardon me" or "skuzani" will just be ignored.

I wonder, if people sometimes took just one extra minute to realize some fine details, such as, stopping around the corner from a shop that you want to get to so that you can park better or at least not block a main road. Or walking in pairs as opposed to a human barricade, or speaking in a tone by which only those interested would hear, or stopping to have a chat with someone not right outside the only entrance into a shop, but MAYBE a little to the side. These little things, even though completely minuscule and not life altering, can create a much smother flowing society. Where manners and politeness are rule, and therefore social etiquette is maintained and all of a sudden, we become civil. So that even when one is in a bad mood or in a hurry, services still get offered, people still get to where they need to be and we can all move on with this journey we call a life.

maybe.

connection success

so I was thinking to myself last time, about friendships. These things are the basis of any human interaction - they themselves have a hierarchy of levels and subgroups.
There are the acquaintances you do the polite nod and walk on by thing with, then there are the ones you do to "Hi! Al-right? How are you?" kiss kiss hug hug sort of thing with. Then start the more substantial sort of friendships, with colleagues where you have a chat about recent ongoings, what you did last night (censored if needs be) and the hot gossip from around. Then the better friends who you allow to know your frustrations and latest crushes and people you would actually chose to socialize with. At the very top of this ever so weirdly shaped pyramid...is the best friend.

This is the person who you can be 100000% yourself with, you do not have to censor your thoughts or beliefs, you can share discussions with about the most intimate of details, and where there are no big flashy signs saying NO ENTRY or UNCOMFORTABLE because you are both so open with each other that even discussing things like sex, fetishes, personal flaws, personal traumas, general observations on life, body issues, eating disorders, family issues...the whole bunch, is done with complete ease. Having this sort of person in your life, where all the masks that we use to protect ourselves and make ourselves "seem normal" to the outside world can just dissolve and one can just be. No fear of judgement, no fear of regret, just pure honesty. That is a great thing to have with someone. I call it "someone to show the crazy to". I believe that having this sort of bond with someone is a luxury and that unfortunately not everyone can boast of such a luxury. Okay some may find it in a close parent, or a lover. But when a person is a friend, their perspective is probably not tainted by the fact that that they remember you going to school on the first day or they have to kiss you later on.

I was also thinking about the events that lead up to someone forming such a friendship...and I have derived that it is basically all up to chance. Some of the best friends that I have ever had, I met by complete chance. Random midnight walks, bumping into each other in chemistry class, on-line social networking websites, asking for directions to the bathroom... that kind of thing. And it all adds to the magic of such a friendship. Not to say that such bonds are infallible, as major deal breakers do arise, but even when these friendships still dissolve - there is still a very strong bond that is kept between the two people. So that after months or even years of not talking or never seeing that person, just one look and smile can confirm the connection.

so I dedicate this blog to great friends....the real kind.

the softer side.

so, were obviously all different right? and so, what I do not get is how some people tend to be so insensitive to other people. We all know what it is like to be hurt verbally, and it kinda sucks. So why is it, that in this day and age of "social refinement" do people from all walks of life manage to pass such evil comments against others, just on the premise of  "I have an opinion, lets see how loud I can be about it".

I understand that sometimes when someone is specifically hurt by another person, they would want to call them bad words and stuff like that. Even though this is unacceptable in certain circles, it is surely understandable. But when people don't know each other from Adam, yet still find ways to be absolutely evil to each other - that I cannot understand. Case in point can be seen from any popular article on The Times of Malta where the idiocy of people and he hurtful comments are rife! People seem feel the need to pass judgement on anything under the sun. From the dying of a cancer patient who also happened to be a convict, to the use of anti-depressants in people who suffer from depression.

Even when watching a programme with relatives, the undertones of judgement and ignorance are so evident. I was watching The Weakest Link last time, and one of the contestants was an out-and-proud gay woman. She also happened to dress in a particular manner that identifies her as "butch". Now, someone passed a comment "What a DYKE!" and I thought "Well now, that is a very sharply tuned observant eye you have there." I mean Seriously. Yes she was gay, and she was comfortable enough with herself to go on international television and dress and present herself in a way that she felt comfortable. Why is that an issue for you? Why do you feel the need to speak in a derogatory manner about her? She certainly was not offending this commentator personally or directly, and had absolutely no connections with said commentator. Yet still we seem incapable of the very simple term: Live and Let live.

I find it incredible how even the most "educated" and high ranking professionals of this time, find it incredibly hard to accept variety within society, and that certain things just ARE, regardless of your opinion regarding them. An overweight person, IS overweight, but saying "oh my god what a fatty!" is not helpful, nor intelligent. A person with special needs, IS a person with special needs, saying "Retard" or "cretin" does absolutely nothing to help anyone's situation or prove any point - apart from indicate that you are not well bred yourself.

I personally try to follow a personally applied value: Live and let live, Love and let love.
I find myself very open to people from all walks of life and from all sorts of value backgrounds, as long as a person has made an educated choice in their life then I have no business interfering, as they have no business interfering in my life. Even when clashes can be on very fundamental differences, there is still a way to get along with others - just avoid the topic, or if you are going to talk about it, approach it with an open mind, and not in an aggressive defensive manner. Learning to disagree is another thing people need to appreciate. I have my opinion regarding certain issues and you have yours. It is OKAY to have a different opinion, we do not need to convert each other. The minimum duality of every issue is unavoidable.

enie menie minie mo

So I was thinking bout life recently, you know with all that spare time I have when avoiding my studies. And I was thinking about the choices we take in life. What to study, where to live, what kind of person I want to be, who I want to date, what to wear, what life do i want for myself, chicken or fish, manual or automatic...
these are all choices that we make. some large and some not quite so..but each and every single one of them shapes our life and to a greater or lesser degree has lead us down this path to right here. We each come from different lives but somehow, the two of you, that read my blog all have made decisions in your life that lead you in some way to my blog. poor sodders :P but seriously. Is it not fascinating how these things happen, how we get to know the people we do and how the situations that help make best friends come about? the butterfly effect if you will:  of one decision in our life and its ripple weeks/months/years/centuries down the line. We may not be aware of it or may never come to appreciate it, or it might smack us on the face some random boring Tuesday evening.

there are so many paths that one can go along, some premoulded and laid down by societies preferences and some a little off beat and its all affected by the choices that we make. some stupid and some smart. To push the button, to take that next drink, to make that call, to put on that condom etc...

just go back to one random moment where you made a decision and think about how different your life would have been...

freakeh!

and btw theres a song about the title of the blog (btw i apologize that its Justin Bieber)

fuel to the guzzler

during exam time there are a number of things that I need to keep me going...here is the list:

1. cheesy music: simple happy inducing songs that might be absolute crap but just help to jump and down to when the TO-DO list induces a headache

2.  Cappuccino: I love these little morsels of frothy goodness! When I just want to take a breather I make one of these and walk around the courtyard sipping away at it slowly.. ahh

3. Power naps: these little buggers are great...you have to be disciplined though right?! cos if after 15mins you say to yourself...naah just a little bit longer you would end up sleeping for like an hour or two and wake up feeling like a comatose gerbil who was in his wheel for too long!...here is the wiki how!

4. Sitcoms: these weekly doses of melo-drama and fabulous clothing reminds me that its the end of the week, especially when my bioclock is so fluked that I cant tell the ass-end of a week from the beginning. BTW this weeks Private Practice (starring the ever so gorgeous Kate Walsh - rawrr) was amaaazing!

5. Hot showers: this daily routine of clensing from a day of crap and stress is sooo good!

yet another blog for the uncoutntable number of readers... btw if u read this...comment or like/dislike...would be cool to know who is watching :)

some pics from around

yo MOM!

People who know me very well know that I am not really a big fan of holidays: mothers day, fathers day, womans day, mens day, valentines day, independence day, christmas, easter, new years...

[btw I know I probably sound like a massive cynic]

I find these days so materialistic and the main emphasis of each one is so fabricated and made up into some glamour-puss that it has nothing to do with what it was originally intended. Don't get me wrong, I know we all love an exchuse to not work or to have a really long lunch. I personally love the fact that it is a great reason to meet up with the family and have ridiculous large lunches that go on till the night. But the massive materialism really puts me off. Christmas and Valentines day being the worst, the forced happiness and ridiculous expenses spent on fine dining, flowers, chocolates just for that one night (in the hopes of getting laid) and then it vanishing for the rest of the year till some anniversary or birthday reminder on your blackberry reminds you that you should buy flowers. Valentines day was an old Roman tradition for coupling up strangers, basically a lotto for marriage. It also was the Lupercalia festival - fertility festival. The Catholics obviously didn't agree with this and some dude was killed for marrying people illegally or something and hence he is a saint now. Fast forwarding a few hundred years to now when it is a florists and an escort's busiest time of year.

Christmas is another one. If you see all the traditions that we have now, they are a massive concoction of older and definitely less (again) Catholic traditions. The red meat that is eaten on Christmas day - it used to be cheaper to slaughter the cows 'cos it was just cheaper than feeding them during winter. Santa flying over us during one night - from the German god Oden. Virgin birth? - birth of the unconquerable sun - Mithra (an ancient Roman god) being born from a rock on the 25Th.







And today...Mothers day. A tradition probably starting way back in Ancient Greece where they praised a day to the goddess of all mothers. But the modern one came about due to some woman in the USA who wanted to honour her mother and basically persuaded the US congress to make it a federal holiday. I think that's quite a sweet thing to do. Her original intentions were for people to spend the day in church and then write handwritten letters to their mothers. White carnations for mothers-past and pink or red carnations for mothers-present. By the 20's it had boomed and become so commerical that this woman was then petitioning to have the holiday abolished! Ironic isn't it...what is even  more so - she never had kids to commemorate her.

So, Even though traditions are nice and sweet, it is interesting to know where they come from and why people do them, and even though it is pre-manufactured I guess it serves as a yearly reminder to appreciate your mother or father or partner or local ground-hog. But should there really be just one day to act like you appreciate someone else? I prefer making random little gestures that show someone you care for them - all through the year.

tschuss - P

its a loveeee thing...

theres a balance with everything in life. Today I would like to talk about the balance between friendship and relationships. From what I observe there are again three set of people.

1. people that on acquiring a mate, go totally underground and need to be paid to hang out with their old friends
2. people that attempt to juggle the friend/partner time equally
3. people that spend way to much time with their friends and basically have their partner on-call for specific reasons.

So the first type of person. This person is in this situation either out of choice or out of exclusion. They may not have had that many good friends in the first place therefore replacing the mediocre occasional meetings with the partner and basically spending every social moment with them because there isnt anyone else to hang out with. On the other hand they may choose to not hang out with their previous friends either cos they think they are lame, or that they are so much better as a couple and hence no longer need their friends, or cos "our single friends are not interested in what we are interested in" etc. So many reasons, so few that actually cut the bar for me. I know that when two people are really into eachother they would want to hang out as often as possible and I get that, been there done that, got the T-shirt etc. But I dont think it is that healthy because if you only see your world as you+1 or WE then you lose a bit of yourself and isolate your individuality from society I guess. Some of these people I feel have some trust issues and would do well to self-analyze them. I see these people as the relationship-whores. They trade in themselves for the value of a partner and because they give up so much of themselves, they cant ever be alone. Don't get me wrong, if two people are happy in their situation and confident that their relationship is strong, who am I to evaluate it right? I just don't ever see myself choosing this course in my life.

The second type of person is the one that really tries to strike a balance. These people deserve a prize. Sometimes it can be very hard to meet the friends who you were so close to before the hook-up and still maintain a good connection, and still spend as much time as one would want with their significant other. I se that people who manage to strike a perfect balance have more self esteem than the people who constantly need the partner at their side, and they also get to maintain the great friendships that they had cultivated before.

The third kind of people, well...these guys have worse issues than the first group. They basically have a "relationship" as a front or as a title, just so that one can say "i have a partner". Big whoop. Everyone feels lonely at times and you would want someone special ever so often, but if you are just keeping a guy or a gal on hold for those moments and not really caring about them the rest of the time and wanting to hang out with your mates like 90% of the time, then there is obviously something not quite right. Can anyone spell commitment issues? I have seen friends of mine in these sort of relationships, and it just seems like a great waste of time, especially since generally one of the partners is a lot more invested in the "relationship" than the other is. This sort of weekend-thing or for the lack of a politer word fuck-buddy system works for some...not for all.

So the moral of the story is: Communicate with yourself - see what you want, where you see yourself in a few months time, is this person doing it for you? Then communicate with your partner, see what they feel and how they see the relationship. If you both see it fair then golly good luck :) if there is some stuff that you think you can work on...do so and re evaluate later down the line. And if it is time to call it quits..just grow a pair and do it, plenty of fish in that sea, or pond, or teaspoon (depends on what you are looking for)

xoxoP

the fruit or the cake

so you are studying right? trying to turn a thus far rather unproductive day into a slightly productive day and you get up from your pc/notes/books/empty coffee mugs to hunt for a nibble. You open the fridge and what do you see? A dilemma. On one side there is a glorious bowl filled to the brim with fresh succulent strawberries. On the other side is a decadent cake filled with promise of comfort and immanent pleasure. What do you choose?

This time I chose the strawberries. But if that dammed cake is still there next time...I cannot make any promises.
EBILLL!!

and yes I am being slightly over dramatic...because I can.

xoxo P

time-warp

today, as I was waiting for my German lesson to begin I had a seat and thought a while about where I was. The building is a very old palace in Valletta. I sat and wondered how many layers of paint the walls had, and what was hiding underneath the old fitted carpet. Looking at the doors one can just feel the history oozing out, some chips here and there, the lock changed so many times there are now 5 key holes on the door with only one functioning. Just think of the different reasons those locks could have been changed, how many times that house went though different ownerships. How many people stood where I was in that very same spot, over the years. Each of them with their own stories. Some interesting, some not so much. And the extended versions of each of their lives, the people they knew, the people they loved, the families they had, their little quirks and peeves. I felt as though all of a sudden I was made aware of all the fantastic stories and lives that passed through that very spot right there and then, just by looking at the chipped door under layers of old paint, in a way I felt connected to them.

oh the tragedy

I realize I complain a lot on this here blog, so I promise to try and keep it a bit more positive from now on.
So today I spent the day at home doing NOTHING...the reasons - hangover.

last night I had a massive birthday party of a friend of mine, it was great fun and as one can deduce, much booze was consumed - hence my current situation. So whats my observation on hangovers? I dont like them, they make me feel very useless and a little bit sick really...not in the alcohol inducing manner...rather just unwell. I do not have the energy to do anything or the will power. Im sure everyone has at some point in their life had such a reaction after an evening of boozing up. It sucks right?

Ah...im complaining again.

i shall retire myself to the one true safe place...my bed XD