administration is a clusterfuck of clusterfucks

was supposed to cover two days for some week-long event at school. as always, events organised by students are fucked up. the teachers in charge are unstable and just plain unpleasant and bitchy and as always, don't appear to be qualified to work with children.

not that the students are bad at organising things, it's just that most of them apparently have not heard of the word 'coordination', which you're fucking going to need in extremely large amounts when organising events for like four hundred people or something. so everything's fucked up and people are tired and not happy and everything thinks everyone else is wrong.

i happen to think that everyone other than myself is probably wrong, so i think i should go ahead and go all dictatoresque on their event lol.

the teachers are just... finding excuses to scold people and play guilt trip games and make people upset. i seriously think so. there is no other possible reason for them to be so...illogical. they just want to mess with the students. i mean, what they do is just plain mean and meaningless, if you get me.

as always, there's like no time for sleep, so everyone's basically running on four hours a night for a full week, so tada i don't fucking understand how anyone can expect such an event to go off smoothly. the participants are fifteen and the organisers are like seventeen. you can't not give them enough sleep. what kind of boot camp are you running?

also they fucked up the allocation of photographers and like expected two photographers to cover for six different venues which meant that the morning shift had to 'work overtime'. and also they expected phtographers to cover the event until 11pm and then go home and go to school bright and early the next day. i was puking blood. okay no. but i'm pretty sure my eyes are drier than sandpaper and redder than blood. see i can't even come up with good words when i'm this sleep deprived.

okay well that was a rant. i'm not even involved in the event except as a photographer, but i'm super pissed off anyway because mike is killing herself trying to do stuff. jolene bitched to me about the sleeping thing i mean like seriously. kids have to sleep. literally there is no way around it if you want kids to function they need to sleep what the fuck are the teachers doing? jackshit as far as i can see.

and don't talk to me about them 'trying hard' because nobody cares if you try hard but don't get results. is 'trying hard' enough when participants are falling sick and getting injured?? do something useful okay teachers are there FOR THAT REASON. to make sure no one overlooks important things like sleep. i fucking s2g.

anyway here are some pictures. i'm so pissed off wow. and i have so many thing to do i'm so busy i don't want to edit the photos.

essentially shuxien and i ran a starbucks errand for the participants
who weren't actually allowed to leave school during the event. so we brought over like
eight cups of starbucks when we arrived for our shift. let me tell you eight cups of starbucks
is fucking heavy 0/10 do not do it even if you love your friends a lot.

shuxien and i were messing around at night because we were basically dead and waiting for the
event to get its shit together so that we could take some photos. and then she realised
that there was a rainbow so we messed around yeah i'm repeating myself.

this is the school cat winding around shuxien's legs like "THIS HUMAN IS MINE"
i swear shuxien is like an honourary cat or something. i wouldn't let the cat touch me cause
i was paranoid about cleanliness but then afterwards i gave in and scratched its neck.
guess what it just turned into putty and flopped onto the floor in front of us.
like it was seriously enjoying it 10/10 always do that.

anyway administration is always fucked up. like i don't care if they're your friends and are really capable and sweet people administration is always fucked up. it might not be their fault but fuck. administration is just fucked up. there's no way around it.

on the topic of university and parents

what kind of parents determine that their kid can only be either university student or useless bum...

and then don't save up for their kid's university fees...

and then tell the kid to take out a loan/pay back the money to parents...

and then expect the kid to pay for younger sibling's university fees...

apparently my parents.

i seriously think they had me too young, and then never matured much afterwards as a person. like sure their skills and work improved but they're generally shitty people who don't know what they want from life and never made serious long-term concrete plans and act on impulse sometimes because certain things were easy for them when they were young and get irritated that their kid isn't perfect all over. hm.

i feel insulted that my parents talk about me getting a scholarship to harvard and then in the next sentence say matter-of-factly that i'll never get top in my level.

i feel insulted that they never saved up for my university fees but give me only the two generous choices of going to university or being a failure. like if you really want me to go to university, maybe you should've started saving up early instead of expecting me to take out loans and GIVE MONEY TO THE BANK WHEN I WOULDN'T HAVE HAD TO. like i'll return your shitty money whatever i'll pay you back for giving birth to me and raising me or whatever but at least you could be a bit cleverer about this. why the unnecessary expenditure when you can't afford it. also foresight and planning and shit. i am actually way more disappointed than insulted.

also the clusterfuck of expecting repayment when you're parents. it makes me question their love like seriously. i have always ALWAYS assumed that in a very practical manner, my parents would provide for me when i'm young and i'll provide for them when they're old. that's only fair, right. i'm thinking along the lines of a nice house and decent money every month for them. but apparently my parents don't think so. they don't trust me to provide for them. makes me feel two million times insulted.

also yeah i'd totally pay for my brother's education because i'm nine years older so that's practical really. but it really irks mw that they expect it from me. like an obligation. literally i have kind of no obligation to care for my brother at all, the shitbag that he is sometimes, but goddamnit i actually love him so i give him shit unconditionally.

honestly i have never ever thought about having my brother repay whatever money i'd give him in future. like sure i'd stop giving him money after a while. but i never expected him to pay back his university tuition or anything because kids have enough to worry about after university without debts!! i'd help my brother only to a certain point but i'd NEVER ask him to pay back any of the help i've given him before that point. maybe expect reciprocation, when the opportunity arises. but not repayment.

my plan is to be a lawyer and get decent rates which are technically kind of exorbitant but not for a lawyer. i'm literally prepared to work my bones off and do morally ambiguous things to get there. and i'm going to save 40% of my paycheck and invest 20% and spend the rest.

seriously who the fuck doesn't save up

living from paycheck to paycheck horrifies me so much i just can't picture it i literally can not. trying to picture it gives me breathing problems and anxiety because WHO THE FUCK DOESN'T SAVE UP

either they're stupid or so rich they've never had to think about money

i aim to have enough money to never have to worry about large purchases. like, no yachts for me but i'd like to fly business class without a single thought about the cost because it wouldn't be significant.

my parents upset me SO MUCH because they aren't as mature as i'd like them to be - which isn't a crime but it DOES mean that i can't trust them to do things and when you feel like you can't trust your parents to run the household it is VERY TERRIBLE especially because they refuse to let you have any say and continue running everything their shitty way

i am aware that this is almost exactly like working, but at least at work you are assigned ADULT RIGHTS subconsciously even. people don't demand that you make your bed. they don't feel entitled to micromanage your life. and you can do a lot with ADULT RIGHTS. children's rights are bullshit.

my parents upset me so much

i think i'm getting worry lines

god knows i'm already grinding my teeth from stress

sunday service

My parents are completely in denial about my atheism and they try to bribe me with food to make me go to Sunday service in the hopes that listening to sermons will make me more amenable to surrendering my common sense. And sometimes I give in and go for service because I'm very hungry for good food. But this plan was doomed to backfire from the start because every sermon I hear is a reminder that christianity makes no fucking sense and that christians are happily oblivious to the fact that christianity makes no fucking sense. It makes me tired and angry and cynical and decreases the likelihood of me ever converting back (and the likelihood was zero in the first place).

angry incoherent rant in lower caps

seriously dude

i need to get this off my chest

if you say morality comes from god and that you follow god's word, you mean that you follow the bible. so if the bible says homosexuality is wrong, you'd say homosexuality is wrong. also by that you mean if the bible says to kill your son, you'd kill your son (that happened in the bible).

all it means is that you're probably pretty pathetic and have no moral compass of your own. dude, you're pretty much following an antiquated book which was actually doctored and revised over and over again by people to promote a certain sort of message. what does it say about you if your only morals are from some shitty fiction?

if you're going to say morality comes from god, you'd buy some slaves and marry your daughter off to her rapist. sounds good to you? probably not. so what are you doing, following the book? if you're going to pick and choose instead, then you're not even following the book, so why say you're following the book?

if you say that there's no morality without god, then it's probably reflective of your own views, in which case you are a dangerous person because you'd do things if 'god' told you to. 'god' sometimes is literally just a delusion, and at other times 'god' is a shitty pastor telling you to do shitty things. you're just dangerous because you have no limit and can't process if people are being sensible or ridiculous - that is if you really literally just follow the bible. but you probably won't stick a knife in your kid just because, so why say you're following the book? anyway, why follow the book anyway?

why can't you be a fucking good person all by yourself, because you have a moral compass and you are a good person? why the fuck do people need a fucking book to tell them what to do? a shitty, antiquated, lying piece of fiction.

even if you're following the morals of some shitty book instead of thinking by yourself, who the fuck gave you the right to impose your shitty values on other people. they don't even believe in your god, your god is so irrelevant to them it's just pathetic. stop forcing your shit down others' throats.

i'm very pissed off all of the time because people want to actually

DEPEND ON SHITTY FICTION FOR MORALS

which should sounds extremely alarming if you think about anything at all

#likeagirl

I have a few thoughts about a few things.

The recent #likeagirl ad:



I really have to talk about this.

It's great that brands and companies have stepped up to promote gender equality and such things. It's really great. Some people think that the fact that it's done as a promotion for a brand takes something away from it. It really doesn't.

The recent trend of anti-prejudice advertisements indicates that we're becoming better people.

Companies want us to buy things. We're more likely to buy their products if we like the company, for whatever reason (it's been proven that just liking someone or something can make you very biased). The fact that they produce advertisements that promote gender equality means that we like gender equality.

Sure, women have always wanted equality. Men not so much, because they benefit from gender inequality (in most places, anyway). Not too long ago women were seriously expected to just stay at home and be subservient. Now we can see that gender equality sells. Enough people support gender equality that a significant number of companies are making promotional videos based on that idea because they think it stands a real chance of making them money.

We're seeing the importance of gender equality, basically.

Also these ads serve a very important purpose: it gets this positive message to a lot of people.

Ads are always going to reach a lot of people - that's what they're meant to do. The difference this time is that the ads are carrying very empowering messages to a lot of people around the world (or just U.S.A., which tends to consider itself most of the world) and a lot of those people are children. These ads tell children and adults alike that "like a girl" is pretty irrational and it's a societal concept that we learn as we grow older. It tells adults not to perpetuate this myth. It tells children not to buy into this myth.

It's important that people know. Of course some people will instantly dismiss it. Others may think about it for a few days. But there are some people, who've never considered this "like a girl" bullshit before, some people who will check their own behaviour for days and months and years after seeing this ad.

It's a (kind of) free empowerment. Feminist organisations don't even have to shell out any money for this. And it's a pretty good ad that'll reach a lot of people. Ads like this do a lot of good.

(There's also a possibility of a feedback loop - not the kind you're thinking about, probably - where we self-reinforce this message until everyone gets it. This has happened, but mostly for stupid things like anti-vaccination.)

I've always thought that if anyone were to tell me "you hit like a girl!", I'd tell them:

"Of course I hit like a girl. I am a fucking girl. So by definition anything that I do, I do like a girl. Now shut up and let me punch you 'like a girl' again."

A Christian blogger's thoughts about #likeagirl:
*I don't mean to pick on this blogger. I mean to pick on things that many people say that irritate me - he just happens to check the whole list. Sort of a rant.

http://marcellie.com/2014/07/10/likeagirl/

I’ve seen girls done amazing stuff. I’m going to marry one of the most amazing lady. She’s tender, talented, and thoughtful. I’ve also had the honour of coaching a few girls teams and it’s inspiring seeing how some of them play. Furthermore, some of my good friends are girls.

This is a really inane and pointless paragraph. I don't understand why people have to prove incessantly that they're 'not like that'. 'I have many female friends! They're great!' Yes, but it doesn't mean you aren't a fucking douchebag and those girls are very generous in putting up with your bullshit. You get me? It proves nothing. 'I have female friends and I never insult them for their femininity.' Doesn't mean you aren't a douchebag in other areas. You don't need to do this?????? It proves nothing. Move on.

This dude actually digs himself in deeper. "...it's inspiring seeing how some of them play." Really. What are you trying to say? We all know some girls play well and some girls play like shit. Some boys play well and some boys play like shit. I mean, duh. Really just duh. There is no other word. 

It's like suddenly, in a post about female empowerment, you're just really ridiculously eager to become pro-women. Too pro-women. It's ridiculous and sounds incredibly insincere. Would you say 'I've had the honour of coaching a few boys' teams'? Probably not. It's called overcompensation (where you know you're prejudiced and become extra nice to make up for it - it's nice but doesn't work, because you're still a prejudiced shitbag).

Right words
Firstly, I think it’s important for us to be mindful of our words. It is said that the tongue holds the power to life and death. We have all experienced the power of words to build up or tear down. Yet, we often say things at the slip of our tongue which may cause hurt to others. Let’s be careful not to use #likeagirl as a phrase to degrade or insult someone.

I think my version of the 'right words' is: 
Let's be careful not to let this neutral phrase become something negative in society. When someone says you do something like a girl, tell them that you are a girl, and that they are a misogynistic turd for saying that. If you are a boy, inform them that you are a boy, and perhaps they would like to consider getting their eyes checked. Also, that they are a misogynistic turd for saying that. Use this phrase to embarrass and insult the person who said it. They probably deserve that much.

Also, I'm just saying, people tend to suddenly become passive and non-aggressive and trite and useless in the face of controversial topics. As if gender equality should ever be controversial.

#likeagirl should be used to 'celebrate' girls? 'Oooo, I hit #likeagirl! Yay!' How about just no. Just. No. Just because the post is supposed to be about female empowerment doesn't mean you have to go to extremes and come up with saccharine idiocies. It contributes nothing. It is exactly enough to condemn the usage of the phrase as an insult. If you're going to contribute, contribute something concrete and practical. Be realistic.

'You hit like a girl!' is the most stupid insult ever. It shouldn't even be an insult. If someone tries to insult you with this, question their intelligence. Also question the intelligence of society, which perpetuate myths like girls are not athletic. Question the intelligence of yourself, if you've ever used this phrase as an insult.

Think critically. Just don't do stupid things.

misc

we had some training for photography club a while back and we messed with some stuff

idk

studio shoot of some cupcakes. aperture too big..? idk

more cupcakes. wanted to eat them but they've been in the studio the whole day

thing 

wow much artistic

we put some cutout in front of the lens

again

star-shaped cutout