if i may rant for just a minute...

yes of course i can, it's my blog, and i can cry if i want to.

so i have been wasting time on myspace, yes i know it's a waste of time but i do it anyway. i have actually connected with some old friends and it's a neat way to keep in touch with people or engage in online flirting but really, yes it's a waste of time.

the funny thing is that sometimes when i am bored i will go to one friend's page, then click on someone on their page, then just keep clicking until i hit someone completly random and get an insight into their lives. and so far what i have found are a bunch of egocentric partypeople whose ambition in life seems to be going out and getting drunk, getting as much money as possible and spending it on stupid shit like shoes and versache sunglasses.

a little annoyed??? yes i know it's petty, it's judgemental, it's not the Buddhist thing to do. well i guess sometimes i am not a very good person. maybe it's because i used to be that way and to see so many people shallowly wasting their lives without a care in the world the way i used to do makes me sad. maybe it's because i am in china, a place where the dollar is 8 times more valuable than the native currency, a place where that pair of sunglasses or those designer shoes would feed and house someone for a month. wheres the justice in all of that??

a little petty, sure. but hey i think i deserve a little pettyness every once in a while. i teach kids that are struggling to make something of themselves...to learn english is a lifeline. maybe they can be translators, or tourguides or maybe they can just get a job. these are people who probably will never see this golden land of opportunity, where people practically wipe their own asses with their money and piss hundreds of dollars away on a night of drunken debachury so that they don't have to feel bored.

so yeah, maybe i do feel a little judgemental. and yes i know not everyone is like that. and living here i know it's not just westerners who are rich and spending money in silly ways. i guess it just frustrates me sometimes. it is frustrating to think of the number of people in the world who basically only care about themsleves, and would rather walk over their fellow man in the gutter. but where is the solution?? how can people change, or how can you change people? is it possible?

more importantly, can i have compassion for those who i look down upon morally, and can i take myself off of my highhorse and realize that i am wrong to be judgemental? that perhaps they are doing the same thing that we are all doing...trying to be happy and avoid feeling bad, that perhaps they don't have the same tools in their belt that others have?

who knows.rant over.