Notting Hill sentiments

Watched ‘Notting Hill’ tonight with my mom. Love the quirky English sense of humor and the fragmented speech. The ending was marvelous. I told my mom so and she started this diatribe about how life can’t be like that. She says that American men are now becoming less ashamed of ‘having sugar-mamas’. Our friend paid for all her boyfriend’s rent, food…etc. Our neighbor expected his girlfriend to provide childcare (and the children weren’t her own!) and housing and she broke up with him after he repeatedly refused to marry her. My mom told me I should not expect true love, because there are many men digging for gold nowadays. I should not look for a rich man to lean on either, because everyone wants something. I never said marrying for money is my ideal, I want to be able to provide for myself. Being a housewife and devoting myself to the family appeals to me somewhat, but I realize such an arrangement is no longer a guarantee nowadays:
1. My spouse may not be willing to love me for life and I must be self-efficient so if he becomes infidel or abusive, I always have recourse.
2. I want to be able to contribute to society instead of cleaning house all day, a job that sounds rather, ah, endless.
3. 2 incomes could establish a better financial foundation for children and old age.
4. No work will make me stupid and rusty.
It truly pains me to think that marriage may not be a secure place in life anymore, not in the financial sense, but in the sense of having a home to come to always. Many divorces can be prevented. How can one be absolutely sure of the one you are to marry? The fear of a bad break-up chills my heart so I don’t dare love my spouse fully, and I know it is an evil thing to not love your spouse candidly.
I think psychiatry is like philosophy, because the point is getting to the bottom of the issue, trying to look into issues we take for granted and wonder why we take it for granted, why humans behave in that manner? I find it intensely interesting.

An American impression

Been going to school with Nan for the past week as a visitor, so did not have chance to go on computer for a long time. Met Linda from Taipei yesterday, she’s an exchange student who wants to become a fashion designer. She said she wants to go to California University in the U.S. and has no plans to return to Taiwan for college because the educational system in Taiwan is biased against such career choices – makes the people who choose ‘job education’ seem like dimwits who can’t get good grades and have no choice, but her grades are good. The fact is she is interested in being a fashion designer and Taiwan colleges who have such courses, to speak frankly, suck. I agree and wish her the best. She was painting this amazing watercolor of herself in green. She was, as I understand, a popular girl in Taiwan. For me, talking to the popular girls is like talking to celebrity (not American standards of popular, though, I’ll explain the difference later). They shine from some unknown source, an aura that just makes you unable to stop looking at them.
Nan is cool, but she feels insecure a lot too. She is especially sensitive about the slights she receives from people who are racially prejudiced, arrogant, or plain mean. I wish she could understand there are many sides to people, just as she is a deep person, perhaps others have merits that go deeper than who they seem, it just requires a little digging and a great deal of tolerance for their everyday nuisances. I believe I have been slighted many a times (there may be more, as Nan point out, but I don’t usually notice), but it is only the blatant bullying that can make me aware… guess I’m just thick-skinned. Whenever someone slights me for no apparent reason, I either think the individual must be having a bad day, or is simply narrow-minded. It is, after all, their loss in refusing to accept the presence (and value) of others. Nan is truly a paradox for categorizing people. She plays brilliant scrabble, gossips about people, reads great works of literature, bluffs with tough words in essays, adores her designer clothes, and doesn’t seem to totally approve of the value system of the preps yet accepts it. It is such an interesting experience to interact with a person like her and observe our personalities unfolding. Nan is also gruesomely polite – she opens doors for me and chops off pig heads. But that is a story for another time.
I cannot believe how incredibly preppy Nan (and some of the people in the school) dress. They wear name brand t-shirts in tropical pink, blue, carnation yellow, white, sea green and so forth – there is no personality whatsoever! Like I would wear black with baby pink, or rich purple with green + goth accessories…etc. But they are way out. Man lent me this preppy tropical pink t-shirt to wear today (that cost 36 dollars! Sheesh! How can any decent human buy something that expensive???) and it was, well, okay. I promised her I wouldn’t make the whole outfit goth, so I didn’t wear the dark purple denim I would have worn with something so horribly perky as normal. In that school, Goths are considered stupid – well, some are rather immature, but goth is a absolutely gorgeous look, why don’t a lot of smart people dress that way?
Nan told me in the school in order to become the top of the pyramid one must always wear designer clothes, look good in it, makeup, be extrovert… and you don’t necessarily have to be smart (i.e.: try to make good grades). That is simply absurd! I mean, why do people in American High schools put such stress on designer clothes in order to be popular? That is no guarantee for success in the future and you spend your parents’ money while giving undeserving designer bosses a good income. It’s so stupid. I wish there were some way to change that environment. For example, in Taiwan it is sometimes considered vulgar and tasteless to like designer clothes explicitly because they are designer.
I will, however, work on being a little more extrovert. What is important really isn’t how many dollars you are wearing, but what kind of person you are. These people are so shallow and immature I could strangle them. Ostracizing people who do not fit that clothes quota is the dumbest thing I have ever heard.