Holy HELLS

I've written about fourteen 8pt pages of lj entries today at work, about various subjects - Japanese toothpaste, high school graduation and closing ceremonies, my supervisors, why I only got two hours of sleep last night, and so forth, but those have all been put on standby because ( oh my *god.* )

ATTENTION

The following is NOT, in any way, an lj entry:

My Korean lessons, which have ended, were an utter waste of money, but my self-study does seem to be progressing at a fair clip. Earlier this week I entered the past tense section of my textbook. As should be clearly apparent from the above information, I feel that I am now a fluent speaker of Korean. After all, with two verb forms, some keigo, particles, and past tense under my belt, how much more can there be to learn?

I have been harboring a secret desire to learn Chinese for some time, and now that I have become fluent in Korean, it seems an excellent opportunity to start doing so. After all, Chinese has the same sentence structure as English, no verb tenses, and I've already learned all those pesky characters thanks to having studied Japanese for so long, so what could be simpler? Hell, you could even say I practically speak Chinese already - I just don't realise it yet! Of course, I've heard that mastering tones is somewhat difficult, but I'm going to China in a month, and I'm sure I'll have no problem picking them up while I'm there.

And just think, once I'm fluent in Chinese, I can read all the BL novels being released commercially, not to mention the fan-produced stuff, which is rumored to be quite good. I'll be able to see if the characters in Wei Hu's Shanghai Baby really were as vapid, shallow, and unlikeable as they seemed when I read the book, or if that was just the fault of a crappy translation. And with Chinese under my belt, surfing Chinese message boards for pirated Japanese BL games will be a cinch! I can't wait!

Oh my god, I'm on a roll!

That will be all.

BS when you see it

A quotation from the The International Labour Organization, on the 'necessity' that women in developing countries support themselves via prostitution:

“In many cases, sex work is often the only viable alternative for women in communities coping with poverty, unemployment, failed marriages and family obligations in nearly complete absence of social welfare programs.”

To which I ask, why is sex work the 'only viable alternative?' The quote sure begs the issue of what men in 'communities coping with poverty, unemployment, failed marriages and family obligations in nearly complete absence of social welfare programs' are expected to do as a 'viable alternative.'

Probably because there's a 'viable alternative' for men that doesn't involve prostitution. And if that's the case, why isn't it viable for women too?

That will be all.