Blog Rules

With the presidential election that just went by, we were showered with ideas and promises of how the new administration will be run. If you have been following this blog you might be wondering what the hell this blog is about. Let me provide you with my own agenda and blog promises that I have made for myself and you, the reader!

1) I will write about interesting things.
When I said I would keep you entertained, I meant it! At least I will try. I want this blog to be a good representative of me, meaning you'll find a mix of posts that are entirely nonsense and posts about issues that I am passionate about. Come to my blog to learn things you never knew before about where I'm from. Read about interesting or controversial things in news or pop culture. Watch a silly video or laugh at something stupid I did. I'll try to either make you cry or make you laugh.

2) I will not assault you.
I will not attack your senses with excessive exclamation marks or question marks. Nor will I scream at you with ALL CAPS to make a point.

3) I will be tasteful.
I will not write about things you can easily go to Perez for. Because no one does Perez's job better than Perez. You also won't find celebrity nip slips or crotch shots here. Or profane language. Basically this blog is PC. For the most part.

4) I will provide quality.
Writing has always been one of the things I don't entirely suck at, so part of the reason I started a blog was so I could practice and get better. So ill make sure u wont find sentences like this. No shortcuts and no sloppy sentences here.

5) I won't leave you hanging.
I won't disappear for 6 months or just quit with no notice. If you say something warranting a response, I'll get back to you as soon as I can. I love my Blog on a Cloud dearly and unless I'm on vacay or stranded on an island, I check it everyday!

So there you are. Everything's in writing. If you've made it through this far, thanks for reading. Enjoy! Back to work for now...

Ridiculous Thai Trends #10002

This second edition of Ridiculous Thai Trends features a Ridiculous Thai Trend that has come and thankfully gone. Like other Ridiculous Thai Trends, it ripped through the country via schoolgirls and college girls and raged on and on like an epidemic case of MRSA. Alas, this accessory has now been replaced by the better, more expensive Hermes, Louis Vuitton and the likes. You'll see the few awaiting extinction while they are taken out once in a while by the style laggers hanging on to the tail of the curve.

These delightful creations are called the Kipling bags. You'll recognize a Kipling bag by its main distinction: a monkey, that will hang off of bag by its head. I will not bother to try to dive into the history of why, oh why, someone decided that having a monkey hanging off of a handbag would make for a valuable fashion statement. I don't think there is a single situation where I'd sport a bag with a monkey on it. If I worked in a zoo in Australia, then maybe. Or if my pet monkey needed a bag for her bananas and stuff. Other than that I simply can't make sense of it.

Personally if I were to wear a fake monkey on me I'd wear it as the backpack. So it would look like the monkey was hanging on to me, get it? Or I'd wear two around my ankles as legwarmers. But hanging off of my bag? Seriously. Talk about lame.

Ridiculous Thai Trends #10001

I feel that as a Thai-American, I have the honorable privilege of sharing with you the humble culture and poetic lifestyle of the modern Thai.

Welcome to my first edition of Ridiculous Thai Trends. Pretty self-explanatory, I think.

This first wonderful Ridiculous Thai Trend has all the makings of a Ridiculous Thai Trend. It's wierd, obnoxiously expensive, and utterly useless. Voila! Watch it fly off the shelves!

The gorgeous creation you see above is known as the Blythe doll. Okay, okay, they are actually kind of cute. Anyway, I know about this because I've been reading about Thai celebrities getting these dolls from their boyfriends at ridiculous prices. Next thing I know, everyone wants one.

What the heck is with this doll? After a quick consultation with my old friend wiki, I discover that Blythe:

is a doll created in 1972 by designer Allison Katzman with the now-defunct U.S. toy company Kenner. Reportedly, she was modeled after drawings by Margaret Keane, similarly to many other dolls of the '60s and '70s. Her most distinctive and notable feature were eyes that changed color with the pull of a string attached to the back of her head. Due to a lack of interest, Blythe dolls were only sold for one year in the U.S. (produced in Hong Kong), during 1972.

Blythe dolls range in price (at release date) from USD$60 (ADG versions) upwards of USD$300 (limited edition NEOs). Older dolls are sought after in the collectors market, and can sell for as high as several thousand dollars for a Kenner to a thousand dollars or more for the first edition NEO.

LOL. Her eyes that change color with the pull of a string attached to the back of her head? Fabulous. I need one for my cube. Girlfriend would keep me entertained...

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Words as Weapons

I strongly believe that verbal abuse is as painful and damaging as physical abuse, and now I have the tangible proof literally in my hands.

A few weeks ago I was lounging around in the copy room when I picked up the school's newsletter and read this article titled "Cutting Words May Scar Young Brains." Although the hypothesis that verbal abuse leads to sensory brain damage has been around for a while, this is the first published study that shows parental verbal abuse significantly damages brain pathways. In this study, adults who have experienced parental verbal abuse showed disturbed pathways involved in language processing, depression and anxiety. This is the first evidence of the effect of "ridicule, humiliation, and disdain on brain connectivity." Early abuse, says one of the authors "shows up in your brain structure late in life."

This article deeply saddened and numbed me. Sure, I knew that a child who was called stupid by his parents would probably have problems later on in life, but the thought that an adult could use words as weapons to physically scar a child's brain was disturbing to me. Now, we are not talking about just slow reading or some acting out here and there. We are talking about potential mental illness. Mental illness can be a handicap; affecting a person's career, day-to-day life, and relationships. Mental illness can mean never-ending visits to the doctor, pills, suicide attempts and a lot of heartache and hardship. Anxiety disorders and depression are the most common mental illnesses in the United States, and if parental verbal abuse is a risk factor for these conditions--albeit one of many--something must be done to prevent it.

Authors of the study say it is too early to act with anything other than additional research. For now, the article says, the most important message is that parental verbal abuse is damaging. So spread the word. In the US, emotional abuse is child abuse and can be reported. Here are some hotlines. If you know anyone in your family who exerts verbal abuse on a child, stop it. If you see it happening in public, say something. Remember that verbal and emotional abuse can be just as damaging as physical abuse.