off to the motherland 

So for the next month I’ll be in China for my cousin’s wedding. All the food, travelling, money, shopping, I’m legit pree hyped. At the same time though, Shanghai is the hotspot for the new H7N9 influenza, so if I don’t make it back, thats prob why…… or I eloped with some fob girl i’ve yet to meet…dunno.  

.

Finally get a chance to spend some quality time with my camera, I’ll try to keep blogging and upload some nice shots if I get any. In the meanwhile, take care. 

人注定就是孤独的。知道人字是怎么写的吗？孤独的我们来到乐这个世界， 就算遇到了对的人， 经过短暂的交集，到最后不是迟早还要分开吗。 

blog makeover 

I got rid of that infamous cleavage shot, happy? you’ve probably noticed that I completely redid my blog; hopefully you like the new look, I know its pree girly. but aside from the superficial changes I’ve made some other important changes to my blog you should probably know about. 

.

When I first started this tumblr, I really intended it to be a personal reflection of my vie quotidienne.  But I’m gonna confess, I got hooked on the novel concept of going through pictures and reblogging them, so recently I’ve been producing less and less original content. 

.

In order to fix that and keep this blog more “me”,  I created 2 more blogs…….yah, you think I have too much time on my hand right?

. 

http://stylishfobs.tumblr.com is everything fashion from style tips, trends and reblogs, the blog is to the world that fobs can be quite stylish and have decent taste. 

. 

whysohandsome.tumblr.com or everything handsome is a collection of all things I love and crave. From sexy cars to architecture to women to photography, you could call it my guy version of pinterest. 

. 

Links to these two new blogs are on the sidebar. So with these new changes this blog will have less reblogs and more me, whether you like it or not. Enjoy!

.

ps. brand new playlist, no more strange asian songs you can’t understand. check it out. 

cant wait

nothing but respect

Dear Michael … 

Earlier tonight Michael Huang, a senior from high school engaged me with his response to my post on budget cuts last night. It’s the first time I was introduced to his blog Alberta Pluralism, and I am very much impressed by Michael’s grasp, understanding and erudite discussion of relevant social issues.

.

In his blog post (original post: http://abplural.wordpress.com/2013/04/07/re-wenhao/) outlined 4 major criticisms of my stance. To my understanding, he justifies the student movement because of the concern over the role of the government trying to direct educational initiatives, the irreversible nature of the cut, the potential for greater cuts in the future and our excessive reliance on oil sands. My question to him and the entire point of my post is: “are these protests our only solution?”

. 

I completely agree with Michael and made it explicitly clear that the government has no place in directing academic initiatives of our Universities.  But lets be realistic, our government has been explicitly or implicitly directing academia for many years. Its long known that if a researcher wants government funding, they will often have to tailor their research objectives to align more closely with the government’s agendas. This is wrong on so many levels but are these protests our only solution? In my naïve opinion, the solution isn’t mass protests, especially when the vast majority of these students and expressing anger over the cuts and not the role of the Ministry of Education in directing our Post Secondary Institutions. Why not engage in public discourse via other channels such as SU, MLAs, letters, petitions, anything but the easy good-old protest.

 .

Michael also expresses concern that this budget cut will set the precedent for post-secondary cuts in the future. Yes, it will. If our economy keeps on plummeting, if our energy sector continues to perform poorly then the reality is that Post-secondary institutions will have to suffer more cuts. And if we wan to ensure a basic quality of life and equality for all Albertans, we will have to take these cuts. In light of all this, are these protests our only solution? No, we can help change this on two fronts. The University of Alberta will have to follow in the footsteps of others like UBC and UT in diversifying the sources of funding through industry and private donors, service agreements, contracts etc.  On the other hand students should engage with the government and public policy to ensure that education is a priority on the government agenda.

. 

Yes we’re reliant on the oil and gas sector. In fact as of late, we’ve become excessively reliant and consequently vulnerable to changes in the industry. That’s how we got ourselves in this budget deficit and funding cut situation. But are these protests our only solution? No, we can actually help the government push for a National Energy strategy to make Keystone and Northern Gateway a reality. There is NOTHING wrong with our focus on the energy sector. Oil and gas is a gift we’ve been endowed with and why can’t we play to our strengths? Without it, how else are we, as a province supposed to raise revenues. Yes, a lot of us often talk about investments in green energy, sustainability, and we are doing that through a variety of channels including the Alberta Heritage Foundation Fund. But these are long-term investments and without oil and gas, how are we going to make revenues in the meanwhile?  

. 

My problem with the protestors (pardon my blatantly offensive overgeneralization) is that they are quick to see issues in black and white. They view our conservative government as backwards and anti-progress and hence unwilling to engage in any discussion create substantial social changes for the future. Then when a government policy screws them over, they jump to conclusions about how our government wanting to hijack our education and then draw on the power of impressionable masses and start romantic public movements.

.

How is this ever a justifiable approach to solving our problem? Have we exhausted every other means of dialogue with the government? We all agree that we can’t just sit back and do nothing about it, but the whole point of my post is to raise the opinion that protesting is not our only option and hardly our best option. The possible options I outlined are hardly perfect and are full of flaws. But if dull mind like myself can see that there are other options we can resort to, I’m sure bright minds like Michael and many of the protestors can come up with much more viable and ingenius solutions for our province’s future. 

 .

Since our government has already fucked up and screwed EVERYONE over, why not just suck if up this one time, and use your bright educated minds to ensure via legitimate channels that something like this doesn’t ever happen again in the future.