erratio

I didn't expect it, but I'm finding cooking to be strangely satisfying. At home I would never cook, or at most heat up or shallow fry something that had already been prepared for me. But last week I made stir fry, cooking the meat and vegies myself, and there's just something about being self-sufficient which pretty much outweighs all the hassle I always associated with the activity. This afternoon I'm making another stir fry to use up the rest of the vegetables in the fridge, after that I'll see what we have left in the fridge and start thinking about what to make next. Yup, I've got the bug :)

Then there are the covnersations.

One of my coworkers watched some YouTubes about the 9/11 conspiracy theories, and became unsure about whether they were true or not. In the ensuing discussion I mentioned in passing that conspiracy theories are fairly common, just look at all that stuff about how the moon landing was faked. So of course he comes in the next day we were working together and tells me about how he looked up the moon landing conspiracy stuff and is now unsure about that too. 
On the one hand, I'm sort of horrified that I work with people who could believe this sort of stuff. But on the other hand it does make me wonder about my own upbringing, that I've been so immersed in the mainstream Western point of view that I dismiss all this stuff without even thinking about it. Those guys are fringe lunatics, of course they're wrong. Unlike my coworker, I haven't bothered reading or watching any of the 'evidence'. I just accepted the status quo. And that's a little bit alarming to me.

Then there was the other coworker I was arguing with this morning about gender stereotypes. He'd been complaining about one of our mutual coworkers and ended by comparing this guy's style of talking to a girl, because he was pestering him for juicy details. And by doing so he pushed the button on one of the few things that will get me really riled up, namely the whole gender equality/stereotyping thing. He could accept that saying that all Jews are stingy or all Indians are smelly is definitely a racist thing to say but couldn't accept that there was any similarity between those and saying that all women are fragile. The difference he cited was that one is just being racist while the other is proven scientifically... I'm not even gonna bother commenting on that one anymore.

And then there was the conversation I had with Zhe about why I'm almost a Luddite when it comes to taking up new technology. The main thing that came up was that it's an issue of cluttering up one's life. All my friends who've gotten cars and/or laptops have quickly found those things to be indispensable, which then leads to going to all sorts of measures to ensure that this now-all-important device can be used all the time. Any hassle associated with owning one quickly becomes invisible to the owner in the face of the device's usefulness. But as a have-not I can definitely see the hassle involved. To me a laptop means having to lug around an extra 2kg and constantly worry about it being stolen or damaged. Not to mention constantly being on the lookout for a powerpoint because it's not the sort of thing you can forget to charge for a day or two, like a mobile. The associated benefits of having a laptop are pretty good but I'm still not sure I can be bothered complicating my life with one, especially as everyone seems to become dependent on it surely after getting one. And it's much the same for the car. Most car owners become ridiculously dependent on the convenience to the point where they'll often refuse point blank to use public transport if they can possibly help it. Having a car means paying large amounts of money for the privilege of worrying constantly about bookings/accidents/damage. Of course it also means being able to go from point A to point B a lot more efficiently most of the time and at any time of day, but once again I'm not really sure it's worth the extra clutter in my life. *shrug* 
I'm sure there are lots of my friends who'll read this and think it's a stupid attitude, but.. I really do prefer not being dependent on half a million things just to feel as though I have a good quality of life. I can totally see myself becoming a hermit one day, the kind who spends their days meditating and stuff...