Wednesday, February 07, 2007
Exercising my apathy
So yesterday, someone from Socialist Alternative called me and we got into a pretty interesting discussion about the Iraq war, evil-bad-greedy-fat-cat-capitalism, John Howard and racism, environmental issues, religion and sexism.
Now they're asking me to come down for their public meetings and to help stick posters around campus.
Naturally, I am apprehensive. The reason I gave the representative - "I hope you understand, I'm at a point in time of my life where I feel my political views are not fully devloped and I'm not sure if I want to align myself to any one side when I don't have a full understanding of many of today's current issues." sounded good to me, but also carries with it a not-so-subtle current of laziness, don't you think? I don't know, so don't ask me, is what I'm basically saying. The onus is on me to educate myself on issues, and I can honestly say I'm trying, but I need to try a lot harder.
I decide I'll give it a shot. I'm much less hostile to the ideas of Socialism and Communism than a lot of people I know (and a lot of people I don't) and I wouldn't go as far as to say no harm trying, but I would have to at least concede - lots of harm sitting on my ass complaining and not doing anything about any of the social injustices that plague our world. After all, talk is cheap. I can sit here and argue about how much I hate the war and how much I hate sexism and racism and imperialism and classism, and yet continue to contribute to the structure upholding these injustices through my passitivity.
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Last night I decided to hit the gym. I had to use the toilet halfway and then realised -oh shit- that I couldn't get the door open and had basically locked myself in. To make things worse, it was nearing 10pm, when the gym closes, so basically there wouldn't be anyone around, meaning I had better find some way to make a pillow out of the toilet cistern and blankets out of toilet paper.
"HELLO?!?!?!" I screamed as I hammered the door with my fists. Desperate, I clicked the lock back and forth a few more times, until lo and behold, the door swung open. I must have looked like a complete idiot with my left fist still half-raised to pummel the crap out of the door and my mouth still half open to scream bloody incarceration. Luckily (or unluckily, if I was really stuck) the toilet is seperated from the main gym area by what appears to be a sound-proof door. As nonchalently as possible, I went back into the gym and hit the stationary bikes.
There were two other people there, an Indian man and a rather cute German tourist (from his "Deutschland" jersey and, as I later found out, a very funny accent) We worked out in silence for about 15 minutes before the Indian guy informed the German tourist and I that we had better leave soon because the concierges don't come in to lock the gym anymore, it's on autolock. He had been locked in the previous night and only managed to leave because he had the concierge's number stored on his phone. Phew, thank goodness he warned us then, since I don't even carry my phone with me to the gym, yet alone store the concierge's number in my phonebook!
What a good samaritan, huh? But in retrospect, if he hadn't been there, or hadn't warned us, I would have been locked in alone with a young, sweaty, funnily-accented cutie. On a particularly cold night. Damn, we might have had to remove our clothes! You know, to burn for warmth and all.
Now they're asking me to come down for their public meetings and to help stick posters around campus.
Naturally, I am apprehensive. The reason I gave the representative - "I hope you understand, I'm at a point in time of my life where I feel my political views are not fully devloped and I'm not sure if I want to align myself to any one side when I don't have a full understanding of many of today's current issues." sounded good to me, but also carries with it a not-so-subtle current of laziness, don't you think? I don't know, so don't ask me, is what I'm basically saying. The onus is on me to educate myself on issues, and I can honestly say I'm trying, but I need to try a lot harder.
I decide I'll give it a shot. I'm much less hostile to the ideas of Socialism and Communism than a lot of people I know (and a lot of people I don't) and I wouldn't go as far as to say no harm trying, but I would have to at least concede - lots of harm sitting on my ass complaining and not doing anything about any of the social injustices that plague our world. After all, talk is cheap. I can sit here and argue about how much I hate the war and how much I hate sexism and racism and imperialism and classism, and yet continue to contribute to the structure upholding these injustices through my passitivity.
-----------------
Last night I decided to hit the gym. I had to use the toilet halfway and then realised -oh shit- that I couldn't get the door open and had basically locked myself in. To make things worse, it was nearing 10pm, when the gym closes, so basically there wouldn't be anyone around, meaning I had better find some way to make a pillow out of the toilet cistern and blankets out of toilet paper.
"HELLO?!?!?!" I screamed as I hammered the door with my fists. Desperate, I clicked the lock back and forth a few more times, until lo and behold, the door swung open. I must have looked like a complete idiot with my left fist still half-raised to pummel the crap out of the door and my mouth still half open to scream bloody incarceration. Luckily (or unluckily, if I was really stuck) the toilet is seperated from the main gym area by what appears to be a sound-proof door. As nonchalently as possible, I went back into the gym and hit the stationary bikes.
There were two other people there, an Indian man and a rather cute German tourist (from his "Deutschland" jersey and, as I later found out, a very funny accent) We worked out in silence for about 15 minutes before the Indian guy informed the German tourist and I that we had better leave soon because the concierges don't come in to lock the gym anymore, it's on autolock. He had been locked in the previous night and only managed to leave because he had the concierge's number stored on his phone. Phew, thank goodness he warned us then, since I don't even carry my phone with me to the gym, yet alone store the concierge's number in my phonebook!
What a good samaritan, huh? But in retrospect, if he hadn't been there, or hadn't warned us, I would have been locked in alone with a young, sweaty, funnily-accented cutie. On a particularly cold night. Damn, we might have had to remove our clothes! You know, to burn for warmth and all.
# posted by me lah @ 5:50 pm 
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Hahaha, that would have been nice, my friend. That would certainly have been nice. Wie geht es dir??
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# posted by 
: Thursday, February 08, 2007 2:16:00 pm
: Thursday, February 08, 2007 2:16:00 pm << Home
