Kaikoura... Again!

So, tomorrow I leave for Kaikoura for my second time in like a month. This time it's not gonna be so cruisy though... We have to measure rocks and angles and stuff, it's gonna suck! I actually really don't wanna go. I lose my weekend, and I lose it to the pointless pursuit of rock-measuring! It's only worth 3 credits too, ridiculous! I actually wanna come down with a disease or something tonight. I'm considering having unbelievable amounts of unprotected sex tonight in the hopes that I'll have syphilis tomorrow morning... They couldn't make a guy with syphilis go to Kaikoura, that's unheard of!

So yeh. That basically completes the main topic of this blog, except that I'm going to crap on for a bit longer, just cause I hate you:

Guess what? I finally finished watching Sex and the City! It's actually the greatest and most horrible thing ever to happen. Great because the ending was so happy and just satisfied all my desires. Horrible because I've basically lost my best friend. Sex and the City has kept me company for at least an hour every night since like... January. I'm not sure what I'll do without it. For now I'm occupying myself by downloading heaps of dance movies, cause I'm so manly. Namely Save the last Dance 1 & 2, Strictly Ballroom, Coyote Ugly, Dirty Dancing, Step Up and Center Stage, but I'm sure I'll download more as I think of them...

What else to say... Ah! I moved my drums out of my room cause I got sick of having no room. Now I have a mirror on my wall in the space they were, so I can check myself out without having to go to the bathroom. It's quite grand, yesterday I was wearing my favourite underwear so I just spent a good while looking at my sexy body.

I think I need to say something manly now, just so you don't all think I'm a raging homosexual. Um... Ah, yes! Yesterday I had wild sex with multiple members of the opposite gender whilst monitoring the barbecue, drinking beer and watching the big game. Needless to say, this whole time I was completely emotionless, simply bearing a "If you touch me I'll rip you limb from limb and bathe in your blood" expression...

Fourth manliest moment of my life.

See you, Mr Blog, in 3 days!

Porn

This is just another thing I want thoughts on. I had a discussion with some people on uThink about it. I was coming from the perspective that it's wrong and demeaning to women, and they were coming from the perspective that it's just sex, and sex is natural. However, now I am confused because some of the female members of uThink have said that they think porn is fine, so now I begin to wonder if it's demeaning to women, then why are some of them fine with it?

Basically what I want to know is what all the females out there think about porn. Do you think it's demeaning to women? Do you think it's OK for guys to look at it? Would you mind if your boyfriend was looking at porn? Just some general thoughts about it would be good. Guys can comment too, though I am more interested in what teh_girls have to say about it.

TY!

Music

Just wondering what people think of illegally downloading music?

Personally I'm all for it. If companies are gonna be greedy and charge at least $25 for a new CD then they dam well deserve it. They've tried making alternatives, like on iTunes where you can buy songs for like 2 dollars or something, but in my opinion that's still a rip off. 15 songs would cost $30, so it's basically like buying a CD, except you don't even get the CD.
Since the beginning of this year I would say I have downloaded over 20 albums of music, maybe even closer to 30. If I had bought those it would have cost me over $500. Most people are constantly finding new songs or artists they like, and to expect them to fork out $2 a song or $30 for a CD each time is completely ridiculous. At the moment I download probably a minimum of 10 songs a week, which I don't expect to change for a long time, so that basically means, to be legal, I would have to be spending at least $20 a week on music for the rest of my life. In other words, from now until I'm 37 I would pump over $20,000 into the music industry if I wanted to remain legal. That means if 1 million New Zealanders spent the same as me over 20 years (and I'm being nice here, I wouldn't be surprised if it was over 80% of the population) we would put $20000000000 into the industry. I don't even know how to pronounce that number - it's too big.

Anyway, that's enough about what I think. I'm mainly interested in what others think... So, are you for or against illegally obtaining music? Or are you half and half? Not sure? Share away...

Though I don't expect much sharing to happen lol. That seems to be the way of things on this here blog.

Gender

So, what's on the a-gender today? Well, it's a blog about gender.

And with the obligatory terrible pun aside, let's get on with things.

With the rising homosexual population, the integration of civil union into society, and woman moving away from the traditional 'housewife' role, gender is becoming of less importance in our society. Men (or boys) can now get a little more in touch with their 'feminine' side without being persecuted, and women (or girls) can be a little bit more 'masculine' without too much condemnation (though women, in this sense, still have a lot more expected of them in terms of looks).

I think this is a step in the right direction, as there is no good reason to place certain activities, looks or personalities into a male or female category. Having the freedom to do something you enjoy, regardless of gender, helps to make everything feel a little 'freer'. Gender should mean nothing other than what kind of anatomy you have, it should create no restrictions.

Though in saying that, some boundaries are still important. If our society were to evolve into a completely genderless one, then I think there would be a rise in gender dysphoria (the feeling that your 'brain gender' is different to your physical gender), and therefore an increased number of individuals seeking SRS (sexual reassignment surgery). Though it's important that people have the freedom to do what is stereotypically not of their gender, it's also important that they are comfortable with their body. Perhaps the removal of gender-based stereotypes would in fact fix this problem, eg if a male who knits doesn't think knitting is for women, maybe he won't feel like he was in fact meant to be a woman.

And I don't think I have much more to say on the topic... First blog that I'm not completely disgusted with in a while...

Thoughts?

Candy!!!

I've got nothing interesting or controversial to put here, so we'll have to have a boring update of Rowan's week:

On Wednesday I went to cell group for the first time this year, just to catch up with everybody. For the 'study' we went round saying the people who had caused us to become closer to God. Of course I don't believe in God, so that was interesting. The highlight of the night (mint rhymage there) was actually what one of the leaders let slip out by mistake. He was talking about how when he was in France he drunk, smoked, did drugs and he goes "You know, all the stuff that bad people do", and I must say, that was possibly the worst thing I'd ever heard a Christian say. To lump every drinker, smoker or drug-user into the one category of "bad people" is absolutely ridiculous. I would even go so far as to say that it's unchristian. There is no such thing as a 'bad person' anyway.

But assuming there is, for the sake of argument, it's not the drinking, smoking or drug-using that makes someone bad anyway. It's the reasons behind the drinking, smoking or drug-using - it's why they're doing it. Most people do it because they want to have some fun, because they're addicted or because they want to escape reality. None of those sound like 'bad people' reasons.
It seems like this is one of the biggest flaws with Christianity, or at least many members of the church. They associate certain activities, words and looks with being a bad person. They cover it up with this supposed non-judgmental exterior; this 'do all things for our Father in heaven" attitude, but often they seem to do things because they want to feel better than other people.

I don't even see how you can grade people good or bad. I'm guessing it was man who invented good and evil, so that means that to grade someone as good or bad is to grade someone based on someone else's opinion - the opinion of our society built in over hundreds of years.

Lol. Massive. Next item:
I've finally finished at Countdown!!! Yay!!! Honestly, it was the greatest feeling ever when I walked out those doors without my uniform! It was like, to use a awful cliche, the weight had been lifted from my shoulders.
I'm not sure where I'll go next though... Apparently there's some openings at Dick Smith on a Monday and Tuesday, which is perfect for me. I reckon that'd be sweet, but what I really want is to work at a clothes shop. Like in SaveMart or something. Considering that you always need to be updating your closet, a clothes place would be a mint place to work. You'd get mass discounts off everything so you'd have more money for all things non-clothing!

But anyway. On Saturday I went shopping with Mrs G and bought some pretty sweet stuff! I can't tell you anything about it though, apart from that I got new shoes (finally). No more New Balance! The rest is a surprise for Tuesday.

And today I got my haircut. To be honest, I'm not very happy with it. It's too short. If it was like, 2 cms longer it'd be sweet... But it's not. Problem with my hair is that you can't do anything with it no matter how long or short it is. It's always just average. Oh well... I may always be a crap-haired ginga guy, but at least I won't always be skinny and pimply.

And there you go - one crap blog!

Enjoy.

My Birthday

Yesterday was my birthday and it was a reasonable success. It started off crappy in the guys' bunk room in Kaikoura, where I was lying on the bed crying, but turned good once I got off the bed and decided to be happy. At first I was angry that the other people who were up after 12 didn't remember it was my birthday and didn't sing me Happy Birthday, but I realised it was unreasonable for me to expect that.

In the morning I was happy birthdayed by everyone which was nice. Mrs Stevens even went and got me two cakes (though I was too full to eat any)! After the bus ride home I had my birthday dinner/dessert (it was sirloin steak, and some crazy banana white chocolate thing for dessert) which was hardcore nice. Then I got to open my present (because there was technically only one lol) which was some new underwear from Chloe. I also have an IOU of $200 for my graphics card from my parents.

Overall I'm pretty happy with it. There'll be more presents on the way from Karin and Laura, but I'm honestly not that worried. I do want some more money so I can buy some new shoes and clothes though, but I can work for it :D.

I'm still wondering whether or not I'll bother with a party... I hate organising them cause of the inviting people part. There's always people who consider you a friend but not vice versa, and I never know whether to invite them or not.

And this has most definitely been a pointless blog. Two blogs in like less than an hour though... That's pretty hardcore. I guess I could just write more about other stuff.

Maybe an explanation of the blog I wrote last night and then changed to a draft, for those few people who might have read it during the time it was there:
I don't hate life, and I don't feel outclassed by everyone else. Yes, I'm a skinny pimply ginga, and yes, there are funnier, more interesting people about, but I don't care. I think being a skinny pimply ginga is pretty funny. It's like all of the stereotypical unattractive things all rolled into one, but its not a bad thing. I plan to be pimple free by the formal, I already am working on not being so skinny, and, while I won't be changing my hair colour, I will be getting a haircut within the next week so that it looks as good as ginga hair can.
As to there being funnier and more interesting people around - who gives a crap? I know (in a non-up-myself way lol) that I am a pretty good guy overall. I know that some people have found me creepy in an 'OMG! He wants to put his banana in my fruit bowl!' way because I've been nice to them, but hell, if people think that being nice means wanting to rub lotion all over them then they're the one with the problem. Too often I've not been as nice as I could of been from fear of being the creepy nice guy.

I think I might stop now. That was getting really ranty... though it was quite ranty from the beginning anyway. It's getting more ranty though, and everyone knows that too much ranting leads to impotence, so I'd best be stopping.

One more thing though - I saw the outline of Will's penis today... It was decent (though I am still miles ahead)! Is it weird that I find that exciting? Maybe I'm excited in a 'Good for you man' way, rather than a 'There's a parking space in my chocolate factory' way. Yeh, that must be it.

What a sexual blog. Gross. Don't judge me!

Abortions

I thought I needed to write another blog since the one last night (which is now saved as a draft, where no one can see :D) so I decided to do an abortions blog, seeing as my views on them have changed.

Back when I was a hardcore Christian I would have said that abortions are not OK under any circumstance (including pregnancies due to rape). Since then I have developed a much more... understanding view on abortion.

There are two cases where I would completely agree with an abortion:

1. Rape: it would be completely ridiculous to force a woman to go through with a pregnancy due to rape. She would be reminded of it every time she looked at the child.
2. Pregnancy at the fault of contraception (ie broken condom, pill didn't work): As long as the couple took correct precautions then there is no reason why they should be forced to have the child. Just like rape, the pregnancy isn't their fault.

The next two cases I'm just OK with. I would say that an adoption would be a more fair option here, but I understand that 9 months of morning sickness and bigness only to give your baby away is almost too much to expect.

1. Drunk pregnancy: The reason I'm OK with this is that, while getting drunk is (generally) the person's fault, having sex while intoxicated isn't necessarily. Alcohol effects your decision making, so technically it isn't the regular 'you' making the choice, it's the much more impulsive 'you' who isn't thinking about consequences.
2. Lazy pregnancy (ie couldn't be bothered going to get a condom): Now this is an interesting one. The reason I'm not saying this isn't OK is that, as humans, it is extremely easy to get caught up in the moment. To me it seems it's as easy a mistake to make as forgetting to do homework cause you were watching T.V., it just has far bigger consequences.

I think there is only one time I would say that abortion is not OK, and that is when someone begins to use it as a contraceptive tool. Rather than using a condom or something they just say "It doesn't matter, I can just get an abortion afterwards". It seems like a stupid thing to do, but people do it.

Of course I'm not just limiting it to these few cases. These are just more general/common cases. Another one could be where the guy walks out on the now-pregnant girl leaving her to fend for herself.

What I think people need to realise is that everyone makes mistakes, and that getting pregnant (without intending to) is quite easy to do. I can't really be bothered talking about it anymore though.

Argue away if you're anti-abortion. I'm interested to know what people think.