I have the best boyfriend ever

(Everything sent through SMS!)
Me: I love you! :)
Him: :P Would you still love me if I go to sleep now? (It's only 8.47pm! -_-)
Me: No.
Him: Wah! Okay, I shall try to stay awake.
Me: Are you really that tired? If yes, then nevermind go to sleep!
Him: But you won't love me anymore :(
Me: Hehe. :B You send me a really sweet message and if it's sweet enough you can go to bed with me still loving you. HAHA.
Him: I love you, not for what you are, but for what I am when I am with you. :)
Me: It's a quote. I've seen it before!
Him: That's created by me! Because at the touch of love, everyone becomes a poet.
Me: That's by Plato! I know 3/4 of love quotes in the world alright, I'm on Tumblr.
Him: How about the classic - I love you. :D
Me: Junhao! You're horrible!
Him: Can a horrible man love you like there's no tomorrow? Can a horrible man miss you like hell? Can a horrible man love such a wonderful woman?

I've therefore come to a conclusion that my boyfriend is the absolute best and I'm really, really lucky to have such a sweetheart for a partner hehehehehe.

Hello bangs.

Was rotting away at home, and my fringe was irritating me. Green scissors just at the next table. And voila, I am back to bangs baby (alliteration!!) ;)

Taipei

Day 3: 291109

Woke up even later, at 9.20am! HAHA. And Auntie Mary swore to wake up at 7.30am the previous day. Quiiiite funny. :B Anyway, she showered first, so she went to buy breakfast for us! Sandwiches from the same eatery opposite our hotel. And she tied braids for me!!! :) YAAAAY.

Headed to Houshanpi Station, to go to Wu Fen Pu, the biggest shopping district in Taipei (I think). :D




Walked in to Wu Fen Pu, only to realize that at 11am, most of the shops were still closed! -_- So we decided to pass the time by going to Sparta Coffee to have coffee (duh).




My very bitter latte (with a cute cream design) which I swallowed down with no gusto, and this really antique coffee maker that was on display in the cafe. 8)

Went through our itinerary, made some changes, and flipped through some magazines in the cafe. It was going to be about 1pm already, so we decided to leave!

My mom enthusiastically posing haha.
And her shoes were spoilt, so went to buy a new pair.


I think 90% of the Taipei's population own dogs or something, because they were freaking EVERYWHERE. Even in SHOPS. I SWEAR. -_-

Anyway, didn't take much photos, because I was busy shopping heheehhe. :B My mom wanted to buy clothes for my brother, so went to this guy's clothes store, and omg they're really damn serious about their business!!! Yknow why?!

Notice anything about the mannequins... ?

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THEY HAVE FALSE EYELASHES HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

I laughed out loud when I noticed this and I was alone, and the people passing by must have thought I'm a stark raving lunatic!!! Anyway, I turned to face my mother who's in the shop to excitedly point this out to her, and I noticed one of the staff (female) smiling at me. HAHAHAHA. Quite funny. :B

Such a waste of money lor!!! False eyelashes on mannequins! Not like people will notice unless they really nothing better to do (like me) go observe everything!

Anyway!!! We felt hungry after shopping, so decided to try cold noodles.


It is YUMMY. Really!!! It is COLD lah (obviously) but it is damn delicious!!!!!! :B

After eating WE WENT TO SHOP SOME MORE (bwahahaha) and I saw another bunch of funny mannequins -_-

RAINBOW WIGS. -_-
So ugly lor. My mom said they used it to attract attention but still.

It was about 6pm already, so we left for Taipei 101! :D

Entrance + the really pretty Christmas tree inside the mall!!! :D


:)

Mom was hungry, so we went to have ice cream. (H)


After eating, we went to the washroom and discovered lockers that we could store our shopping bags in so we did. ^^

And we headed to Taipei 101's observatory! :D



Bought tickets, and I had student price again woohoo :)



And after waiting in line for a while, we stepped in to the world's fastest lift! :D From th

Amazing view! This was the best I could take haha.


There wasn't any holes in my jeans or anything, I just censored it because my legs were open and it looks quite unglam so I censored it heh. My mom told me my collarbones are scary. :(



And we decide to go to the 91st floor! :D


It was FREEZING COLD (literally!!) so quickly ran back in to the building after taking a few pictures!




After walking around for a bit, took the lift back, and went to get our shopping bags we left in the lockers. :D

Heh. :B

Went back to Taipei Main Station, and my mom was still feeling hungry so ordered chicken cutlet before we went back to our hotel!

Went back to the hotel and released my braids. Voila, I have curly hair.

HAHA. Totally don't suit. I look like such an auntie. -_-

And that's all for Day 3! :)

Such injustice

I was browsing through news articles, and this article (click) is horrifying. It's about a 13 year old girl who committed suicide after a photograph of her breasts, which she sent to a boy’s cell phone, was forwarded all over the school.

The rest are taken from this post about the article.

At the end of the school year at Beth Shields Middle School, the taunting became so bad that Hope Witsell's friends surrounded her between classes. They escorted her down hallways like human shields, fending off insults such as "whore" and "slut." A few days before, Hope had forwarded a nude photo of herself to a boy she liked — a practice widely known as "sexting." The image found its way to other students, who forwarded it to their friends. Soon the nude photo was circulating through cell phones at Shields Middle and Lennard High School, according to multiple students at both schools.

School authorities learned of the nude photo around the end of the school year and suspended Hope for the first week of eighth grade, which started in August. About two weeks after she returned to school, a counselor observed cuts on Hope's legs and had her sign a "no-harm" contract, in which Hope agreed to tell an adult if she felt inclined to hurt herself, her family says. The next day, Hope hanged herself in her bedroom. She was 13.

I recommend that you go read the full article, because despite the many problems with it, there is a lot of information there, some of which I will not have the time to discuss here.

As Veronica Arreola said on her Twitter, while the media insists on calling this a “sexting-related suicide,” it’s much more accurately referred to as a “slut-shaming suicide.” Because the photograph she sent is not what drove this poor girl to kill herself — the non-consensual spreading of the photograph, and the subsequent reaction that her classmates and all adults in positions of authority had to it seems to absolutely have been what drove her to despair. And that is a truly vital distinction to make if we actually care about the fact that a 13-year-old girl is dead, and why.

The set of circumstances here are increasingly common ones — and by “set of circumstances” I do not mean “teenage girls sending sexual photographs of themselves to others” but “the non-consensual spreading of said photographs.”

A poll conducted by her organization, WiredSafety, found that 44 percent of boys in co-ed high schools had seen at least one naked picture of a female classmate. Overwhelmingly, they shared the images with others.

And while everyone sure as hell seems to be worried about What! We’re! Teaching! Our! Girls! that they send the photographs, no one seems to be saying a goddamn peep about what we’re teaching our boys when they think that non-consensual sexual conduct is okay. Yet again, apparently consensual female sexuality is seen as a bigger threat to society — and to girls themselves — than non-consensual male sexual behavior perpetrated against them.

But it’s also important to note that while boys appear to overwhelmingly be the ones to receive these types of photos and then spread them, in Hope Witsell’s case, it was another girl who was the culprit:

Accounts vary, but many students describe the chain of events this way: The last week of school in June, Hope forwarded a photo of her breasts to the cell phone of Alex Eargood, a boy she liked. A rival girl, who was the girlfriend of another boy Hope liked and a friend of Alex’s, asked to borrow Alex’s phone on the bus. That girl found the image and forwarded it to other students.

Alex, now 16 and a freshman at Armwood High School, told the St. Petersburg Times last week that he deleted the photo. He does not remember whether he deleted it before or after the girl borrowed his phone. The mother of the girl told the Times that her daughter would not comment for this article.

Non-consensual sexual conduct is no more consensual, no more right, and no less devastating when committed by a girl against another girl. Bullying is no better when committed by girls — and anecdotal evidence seems to show that while boys are more likely to spread the photographs in the first place, girls are more likely to attack the victim afterward. Sexual harassment and slut-shaming does not magically turn into something else when it’s not boys doing it. And while a partial explanation, internalized misogyny is no more of an excuse for girls and women who commit such acts than rape culture is an excuse for boys and men.

And no matter who is the perpetrator, victim-blaming is still victim-blaming, which is something else Hope was made a victim of. First, she was a victim of cultural messages that told her that what her classmates did to her was her own fault:

At the same time, friends say, Hope knew that the biggest mistakes made were her own.

“She didn’t blame it on anybody,” said Rebecca Knowles, 14. “She realized it was her fault for sending them in the first place.

Secondly, she was a victim of attitudes like ones in that quote right above: attitudes that confirm and refuse to contradict this false belief. Even after she died because she couldn’t cope anymore, the newspaper is sitting there telling her that she was the one to blame. Hope didn’t believe that she made the biggest mistakes. She didn’t think it. Apparently, she knew it, because who could ever question the idea that if you send a nude photograph of yourself to another person, you’re obviously a slutty slutty slut slut who deserves whatever is coming to you?

The display of these kinds of attitudes went beyond words, though; they were also shown in actions. Hope Witsell was punished severely for taking the photograph. She was grounded for the summer. She was suspended from the first week of school. She lost her position as student adviser. And when another boy coerced her into sending another photograph, and she complied out of fear, she was again treated as a culprit rather than a victim:

No one knows how Hope met a group of boys staying across the hall. Rebecca Knowles, who is the FFA president, saw Hope talking to the boys by the hotel pool.

The boys were in their late teens and were not there for the FFA convention. They insisted she send a nude photo to them.

One of the boys was especially aggressive and called the room repeatedly on the conference’s last night, asking Hope for a photo of her breasts.

“They kept calling and they kept bugging her,” said Rebecca, 14, who said she was in the room but asleep. “I think she was just scared. One of our roommates was scared as well and said, ‘Oh, my God, just do it.’ They were scared and wanted to get it over.”

The boy calling didn’t have a cell phone. So Hope used Rebecca’s phone to take a picture of her breasts, then slipped it outside her door.

The phone, which Hope had left outside for the boy, was still in the hallway when an adult found it and saw the photo.

As for the boys who demanded the second photo, the girl who orginally forwarded the first photo, the girls and boys who harassed Hope in the hallways, chased her, taunted her, and made her life a living hell … there is not a single word indicating that they faced any consequences for their actions.

And while the article rightfully goes on at length about the certainly awful way that the school dealt with their knowledge that Hope was self-harming and in danger, there is no mention of how the school’s actions also contributed to her being in danger in the first place. The fact is that they punished her — they told her over and over again that she was being called a slut and a whore because of her own actions, that being a “slut” or “whore” are very, very bad things that deserve punishment and bring reason for shame, that sluts and whores deserve to be taken out of school and to be used as an example of what happens when girls display any form of sexuality (with their consent or not), and that sluts and whores cannot be trusted to advise other students, because apparently they have no moral compasses. And the fact is that they apparently failed to punish the other slut-shamers, sexual harassers, bullies, and sexual perpetrators for whom they were responsible.

Hope Witsell made the decision to end her own life. A whole lot of other people seemingly decided that keeping women in their place was a lot more important than protecting a 13-year-old girl, and than stamping out sexual misconduct. A whole society backed that second decision up.

And so while Hope Witsell made her decision, that decision rests not only on her, but also on the head of our misogynistic, victim-blaming, rape culture. And we can either wash our hands of the whole business, blame teenage angst, and say “you know how kids are,” or we can accept responsibility, and do our damnedest to try and change that culture and prevent this from happening again.

(Written by Cara)

Taipei

Day 2: 281109

Wrote in our itinerary that we have to leave the hotel by 9am, but we woke up at 8.20am and only left at 10.15am because the two ladies took eons to apply their make up -__-

My mom. She's obsessed with makeup while her daughter spends her life makeup-free. :) (Ok fine, I use concealer sometimes.)

The temperature was 16 degrees so I had to wear my fleece.

Went to this eatery opposite our hotel, and had brunch. I had pepper pork burger, and it is biiiiiig. Tasted good as well! Mom and Auntie Mary had egg cakes (that's what it said on the menu) and it tasted really good!!!


Our hotel! :D

First destination: National Palace Museum! Went to the train station, and we bought EasyCards (like Ezlink cards) with a value of NT500 inside. So we wouldn't have to buy the coin anymore even though it's damn cute hahaha. Traveled to Shilin! :)


Damn, the Wikipedia page was not kidding when they said there are tons of scooters in Taipei. -_-

Took Bus R30 to NPM!




There are approximately 650000 pieces of ancient Chinese artifacts and artworks in the museum, making it one of the largest in the world. The collection encompasses over 8,000 years of Chinese history from the Neolithic age to the late Qing dynasty. :D

Yeah, copied and pasted from Wikipedia. :P



I like this picture because I look skinny hehehehe.


After taking a few pictures, went in to the museum to buy tickets!

Bought joint tickets for the ferris wheel at Milamar Entertainment Park as well! It was quite cheap, and I managed to get a student price. Just had to present my ezlink card. :D

Our tickets!
No pictures allowed inside the museum, and I meekly obeyed. It was quite interesting, but I'm not interested in ancient Chinese history and I couldn't read anything in there because my Chinese = ultimate fail. -_- So it was quite boring for me.

My mom bought this jade piece for my grandmother:


Left around 1pm, and walked around the area before we took the bus back to Shilin.


At Shilin, we decided to have our late lunch at this really cool restaurant modeled to resemble the South Pole! It's called Northern Light Creative Cuisine. Really creative, haha.



I had Japanese curry baked rice, and it tasted awesome. :B
After eating, went to shop around Shilin, and I bought more presents for my friends! :D Saw a mini piano model and wanted to buy it for Carolyn since she plays the piano but it costs S$100 wtf.

Took the shuttle bus to Milamar Entertainment Park at around 5.30pm, and when we reached there, WOAH I WAS TOTALLY AMAZED

SO PRETTY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!11

My mom said the lights are damn ugly because it's green, and that the green makes the ferris wheel looks so alien-ish. -_-

Pictures while inside the cabin!




My mom and Auntie Mary were damn scared haha because they are afraid of heights!! I was the only brave one, although I'm so young. HAHA. CHEH. Praise myself only. :B

After we got off, took a pic with my mom at this fake backdrop!

Decided to go to Shilin Night Market, and while walking out of the mall, I saw this awesome puzzle:

So pretty right?!

Anyway, took the train to Jiantan, and walked around the night market. :D I bought a pink hoodie and I wore it on the next day!! Hahaha. We bought this really cute snack:



In the shape of animals! Haha. Auntie Mary's holding the elephant one! :D

It was around 11 alr, and we were all very tired, so we took the train back to Taipei Main and walked to our hotel, packed the things we bought into our luggages, and slept!

AND THAT'S THE END OF DAY 2! :D