one thing i learnt about myself from this blog business:

i'm way way lazy.

probably too lazy to write down my thoughts and experiences. o well.

anyway i've been in UNC for a while! a couple of weeks actually. i'm starting to really love this place. it's a university town, the town of chapel hill revolves around UNC.

And i've met some cool people! The Singapore gang, over 10 of us, most of them on the Joint Degree Programme (I WILL CONTINUE TO SPELL THE BRITISH WAY). The Christians from Raleigh Chinese Church and Alpha Omega Fellowship who are ever so kind to me, a newcomer. The gang of friends I've met - Joy Praveesuda from Thailand, the girl who is very nice but does not know what she wants. Clemens from Germany who is obviously infatuated with Joy (but she does not know what she wants!) - he better not be too serious. Ryoko from Japan, who has no house-mate so we always go to her place to cook and eat. Eutine from HK, who is the arch-typical RGS girl, strong minded and independent.

And the gang of American friends! Roy who is so nice to always cook for us and drive us to Wall Mart, and who lives in the Episcopal (Anglican) Church at Franklin. Mike the Middle Eastern expert. Sagar the mad Indian guy. Dan with the place that we mess every weekend, drinking ourselves crazy (and sheesha!) and playing crazy beer games. And Dylan and Carl and everyone else, and Justin the homosexual who wants to teach music in Singapore (I tell him that its unlikely our conservative closed-minded government will ever allow him in, but he says that it's the same in the USA).

I'm straight, very straight, but I love gays, and God probably loves gays too.

but these guys, o man, they're way cool. I like the fact that they're so free, so liberal, so chummy, so intelligent, so intellectually honest, so open-minded, so willing to spend time with each other. I like the way so many of them think with their brains, not their balls, and are thus so un-desperate, like "we don't need girls man, let's party". I like the way they are not too busy to spend time together and have fun. I like the way they respect me although I am Asian (don't expect to find these attitudes elsewhere in the South, they tell me) I love the way they are intelligent enough to have an opinion on everything, yet be open (and intelligent) enough to accept differing opinions - if someone thinks that he has a monopoly on truth, and reality, he's probably a bit bigotted.

Last saturday Sagar announced that I (Jon) may as well be American. He's probably right. But then, maybe not. I gather that most Americans (especially the Southern-Baptist sorts) are not so open, not so liberal, not so intelligent. Stupid, close-minded, conservative people. And add to that racist, and rude, and homophobic. Eeks. I'm just glad I'm mixing with intelligent university people.

Sagar wants to participate in a peaceful march in DC sometime soon, it's about about anti-globalisation, and anti-MNC-ism. I hope I can make it. I do believe in it, that big businesses are screwing up the world, making the poor even poorer and short-changing everyone else but themselves with unfair trade practices. We should return to small businesses, and family enterprises.

I wish I'd have friends like these back home, not too busy to have fun, to just live together and hang and chill and drink and just say "screw you, world, we're gonna live our lives the way we want to. screw the expectations society places on us. we're going to have fun, and live life, and not going to work our asses off". I'd wanna live by myself after I start working, probably with friends, away from parents. As Roy told me, in America if a kid lives with his parents after college, it's an insult to his independence and his parents' upbringing skills. I wish my parents would see things my way. It won't be easy for me, financially, and it'll be like throwing me into the deep end of the pool. But it's a great way to train independence.

I look forward to the day when I can afford my own home, and when my parents would let me move out, and when I'd find like-minded people that I can live with. :)