Happy New Year Shout Out

Lots of folks out there like to describe the passing of a year as a blink of an eye. Well, it certainly wasn't like that for me, it was a long year, filled with all kinds of emotion for me... Both the joyous and the gloomy ones. So now at the end of the end of 09 and the beginning of the beginning of 10, I'd like to reflect abit on what happened this year, and what sort of resolutions I should attempt to achieve for next year.

Firstly, alcohol was my downfall this year... I think I must have got overly drunk more times this year than the past few years combined. Thinking back, it surely is something to be ashamed of. One of the most significant distressing moment of my 09 was that in my drunken state, I accidently outed myself to a few friends. That caused more than a few problems for me, because obviously I'm pretty closeted... I tried to amend the situation by making the people I told not to out me, but it was slightly too late people started talking behind my back, and even started asking my housemate to scrutinise my every move to verify that I am gay.

That brought me to one of my happiest moment in 09, in an attempt to get the support of my housemate, and to ensure that he doesn't become a 'spy' for the people trying to find out about me, I outed myself to him. It was something I've been wanting to do for a long time now... And because of that circumstance, I decided there was no time like that moment, so I just pulled the trigger and came out to him (I was sober then, mind you). It was a most memorable moment of the year because he turned out to be okay with it, he is absolutely straight by the way... Lol I already know what some of you are thinking. So now at least I don't have to live a lie and pretend to be straight around my bestest bro.

I guess this year, I've started to make a lot of new gay friends, and my circle of gay friends have increased quite a bit, that is a happy thing for me, because I can be my gay self in front of gay friends... I don't have to put up a facade and pretend to be straight like when I'm around my straight friends. Its not that I don't like hanging around my straight buddies, coz I love and treasure them to shreds and would do anything for them, but sometimes its tiring hiding the real me from them all the time.



Anyway, knowing lots of people also means going out a lot more, and because of that my grades have suffered and took a plunge. I regret to say that this certainly is another thing I ain't proud of. My parents spend a fair bit on my education, and I really shouldn't repay them with bad results. That’s already 2 bitter sweet events of my year.

The final thing worth mentioning is that I've started to hit the gym more this year, this year I go at the very least once a week. I can feel that I'm a tad bit healthier, but certainly I have yet to lose my baby fat, haha yea I think of them as baby fat (despite my age) coz I'm hoping they will go away when I grow up (as in grow older), lol.



Anyway, my resolutions I hope to achieve are closely related to my downfalls of 09. Firstly I will try my best not to get overly drunk anymore... Drinking socially is fine, but I think I've learned that drinking is not only bad for your health, but when you're overly drunk... You might do silly things, like unnecessarily outing yourself. The next thing is that I wanna make sure I find the right balance between my social life and my study life. A balance meaning a lot more studies than social, because ultimately my profession is a student, so yea... Since its my last year of uni, its really time to put my head down and make the final year count.

Finally I also hope to be able to maintain a 3 times a week visit to the gym, and my goal isn't to build bulging muscles like them body builders, but my focus is to tone up, lose all my baby fat (yes, I've already decided thats what I'm calling them) and get fitter. I guess since I've made up my mind to pull up my grades... This also means there isn't going to be much time to hunt for a mate, so that is going to have to wait. I'm not saying if my other half shows up in front of me I'm not going to accept him - I will if the right one appears, its just that for now I wont actively be searching.

With that, I'd like to wrap up my last post of 09. I'd like to thank everyone reading Finding Relevance for taking a few moments every week to check out my blog, thanks for your support and comments :) lol, keep them coming. And finally I wish ya'll a very very Happy New Year, and may all of your New Year resolutions be fulfilled. Hugs.

Signing out.

Censoring Censorship

I recently got into an unpleasant disagreement with a friend over one of our intellectual exchange of ideas last weekend. You see, she was very upset about the Malaysian media censorship board because apparently they broke an age old tradition. In the past, most of the censorship of the media (mainly movies and T.V. programs) were done by an older more elderly group, probably 40s or 50s, of censor officers. But recently instead of up holding the age old tradition when the older batch of censor officers retired, the board instead hired a bunch of young (I mean to say the following term without stirring any racial issues) tudung clad fresh grads to man the censorship board. By the way for all non-Malaysians, tudung is the local term for the head scarf that Muslim women wear.

So anyway, my friend was livid and felt that these fresh grad girls weren't experienced enough to actually work on the censor board. I think she was hoping for me to agree with her and start criticising the powers above that broke the age old tradition. I on the other hand decided to criticise something else, and that was what got us into the heated argument, err I mean intellectual discussion in the first place. The reason? Instead of questioning the appointment of the supposedly inexperienced girls, I questioned the existence of the censorship board all together and also their role.

In my humble opinion, I think that a censor board should be monitoring and categorising films based on age groups but what they are doing now is far from that. Nowadays anything remotely sexual (a mere kissing scene) or violent gets totally edited out from the film or T.V. program before the general public can view it. I question this act because I feel it may be a little over doing things and is quite very much so unnecessary. Do you mean to tell me that even after putting a Rated-18 or Rated-21 tag on a film, it still need additional censoring? What the heck... Are our adults in Malaysia really so immature that they cannot tell what’s right from wrong and need the help of a censorship board to edit out sexual and violent scenes? Maybe.

Certain people I spoke to recently are of the opinion that scenes containing sexual references or violence need to be censored because there is a chance that the public will watch something on screen and then follow suit to do it in real life. Hmm... I always thought monkey see monkey do was a kiddie thing? Thats why we have age ratings for movies, right? Once again I ask... Are our adults here not 'adultish' enough to tell right from wrong and will imitate what they see on T.V. Maybe.

But to edit out scenes from a movie is a desecration of art, if I were the director or an actor/actress in the film, I would find this act of defilement insulting to all the hard work I've put into making the movie. I mean lets face it, if 'Sex And The City' is rated 18sx, and the word sex was in the title, would it still be appropriate to censor out the sexual scenes? Ain't this is an adult comedy for adults... Does it really need censoring? Apparently.

I can only imagine a documentary on T.V. about the great Michelangelo, he was gay apparently, and the documentary was about all his greatest work done in his creative lifetime. But guess what, the segment about David was censored out because the sculpture was naked... It would have been a blasphemy to Michelangelo. But in reality that is something that can happen here.



It is sad that there are people whom feel our adults aren't grown up enough to tell right from wrong, but it is even more sad if they were actually correct. Did we go wrong in our decision on the scope of power and portfolio of the censor board? Or did we go wrong in the moral teachings of our people? I guess the censor board are always going to continue doing what they are doing today, whether the reason is politically motivated or the reason is to keep crimes such as sexual or violent assault cases down. So I suppose illegal DVD peddling is always going to be around as their goods need not go through the censorship board. Should I 'sigh' out or 'sign' out...

Signing out.

A Merry Merry Christmas

Someone asked me if Christmas started becuase there was once a fat guy that got into a car accident on a snowy night and became santa clause. Huh??? I was like... you cant be serious mate.

Christmas is the day Christians celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ, so like any other cultural or religious celebration, its about family because of the birth of Jesus Christ and its about a time for giving, because the Lord gave us his only child. So it doesn't matter what religion you are, you can still probably take this time to appreciate our loved ones around us and spend more time with our family.

A Merry Christmas to everyone from Lucas.

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Signing out.