It used to be acceptable, not being able to buy your own car when you're in your 30s. It was understood that cars are expensive, and that there are more important things to spend on, whether it be your siblings' education, if you're single, or your children's education, if you're married and raising a family. If it's the latter, you also had to pay for the house - rent or mortgage, your pick - and you also had food and electricity and your kids' whims to think of.
Nowadays, if you're in your 30s and you still don't own a car, well, you have missed out, my friend. You're not getting any younger. You're running out of time to experience the fine things in life. What are you doing, still taking two jeeps and a bus to work? Yes, the majority of people still do this, but they're the people who have accepted that they're living in a dead end and are destined to stay there until they, well, die. You are not that person. Well, that's what I think you are when we first met. You had brilliant ideas and you had lots of dreams. You wanted to travel the world, and publish your own magazine, and be the cool guy everybody does not think you are. But you can't do that if you can't still afford to buy a car at 25, right?
My parents had to work hard to provide for us, and, yes, I thank them for putting my needs ahead of theirs. Now they're old, and they can just relax, maybe travel the world, do anything they want to do - but, thing is, they're old. You can't really enjoy traveling the world if your knees are weak, right? You can't cherish those memories if you haven't long to live, either. Also, times are different now. We are young, we have the world in our hands, and it is ours for the taking. Why stay where you are when you can go anywhere?
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11/26/2014
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11/23/2014
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Hong Kong is a busy city. With 7.2 million people crammed in just over 1,100 square kilometers, there always seems to be something going on wherever you turn, especially in the urban areas of Kowloon and Hong Kong Island. Or maybe it's because the streets, or at least most of them, are small. Or because the sidewalks are narrow. Or because there are just a lot of signs above you as you walk those sidewalks, fluorescent and neon, for convenience stores and restaurants and boutiques and, discreetly, mahjong places. You see newsstands to your left; buses and taxis to your right; and you navitage through pedestrians walking the other way, or showing up from out of nowhere, having crossed the street even though the lights are red.
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11/11/2014
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Taylor Swift is my god.
I don't know why I didn't see it earlier. Maybe it's because my mind was shut. I blindly believed in all of their gods and all of their beliefs; all of the rituals, especially on a Sunday; all of the lessons in school that they could not prove.
But then again, I was young, and I easily believed what I was told. But now I'm older. I can think for myself. Or at least I think I can think for myself. And I have seen things, and I have put two and two together, and now I can definitely say that, yes, this is what I believe. And I believe that Taylor Swift is my god.
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I don't know why I didn't see it earlier. Maybe it's because my mind was shut. I blindly believed in all of their gods and all of their beliefs; all of the rituals, especially on a Sunday; all of the lessons in school that they could not prove.
But then again, I was young, and I easily believed what I was told. But now I'm older. I can think for myself. Or at least I think I can think for myself. And I have seen things, and I have put two and two together, and now I can definitely say that, yes, this is what I believe. And I believe that Taylor Swift is my god.
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11/09/2014
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On my side of the world, everybody is talking about Big Hero 6.
Rainy and I were in line (or whatever amounts to it) for Interstellar yesterday afternoon - the IMAX screening, just because, never mind the ticket lady telling us that it's "just" in 2D, as if we want to watch anything in 3D, what with our collective dizzy fits and all. Anyway, we were probably the only people queuing to watch Interstellar; the rest were there to watch this cartoon about an inflatable something (and other superheroes, apparently, but you wouldn't know that if you didn't dig deep enough).
Granted, it was a Saturday. Family day. Kids get their weekend and they will want to watch cartoons, because they still can't tell the difference between mature animated things and not-so-mature ones. I mean, a cartoon is a cartoon is a cartoon if you're a kid. You won't be able to grasp the nuances of, say, WALL-E's sly conservationist slant; it's just a cartoon about two robots in love. So, yes, the animated film will get the longer lines on a Saturday. Or it will seem that way, because kids love to run around cinema lobbies while waiting for their chance to have a photograph alongside the Bibendum, err, I mean, Disney's version of Baymax.
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Rainy and I were in line (or whatever amounts to it) for Interstellar yesterday afternoon - the IMAX screening, just because, never mind the ticket lady telling us that it's "just" in 2D, as if we want to watch anything in 3D, what with our collective dizzy fits and all. Anyway, we were probably the only people queuing to watch Interstellar; the rest were there to watch this cartoon about an inflatable something (and other superheroes, apparently, but you wouldn't know that if you didn't dig deep enough).
Granted, it was a Saturday. Family day. Kids get their weekend and they will want to watch cartoons, because they still can't tell the difference between mature animated things and not-so-mature ones. I mean, a cartoon is a cartoon is a cartoon if you're a kid. You won't be able to grasp the nuances of, say, WALL-E's sly conservationist slant; it's just a cartoon about two robots in love. So, yes, the animated film will get the longer lines on a Saturday. Or it will seem that way, because kids love to run around cinema lobbies while waiting for their chance to have a photograph alongside the Bibendum, err, I mean, Disney's version of Baymax.
Read more »
11/07/2014
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The job opening said "Viral Content Writers".
I've long not checked my job openings. In fact, I haven't updated my CV in a while - it doesn't even say I've had my current job for two years. Talk about being too, you know, lax. I also haven't updated my settings in a while, so I'm pretty sure I'm still getting mostly entry-level writing jobs, even though I've been working for six years and I'm eligible, more or less, for middle-level jobs.
The job opening said "Viral Content Writers" and, perhaps testament to the nature of the job, I just had to click it.
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I've long not checked my job openings. In fact, I haven't updated my CV in a while - it doesn't even say I've had my current job for two years. Talk about being too, you know, lax. I also haven't updated my settings in a while, so I'm pretty sure I'm still getting mostly entry-level writing jobs, even though I've been working for six years and I'm eligible, more or less, for middle-level jobs.
The job opening said "Viral Content Writers" and, perhaps testament to the nature of the job, I just had to click it.
Read more »
11/02/2014
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"Ito ang aking lupain!" I was imagining myself telling Rainy those words. Or maybe I actually did say that. It's entirely possible that I did say that, that I wasn't daydreaming, that I was, instead, remembering something.
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Niko Batallones writes The Upper Blog.
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