The Bird Feeder

I received this email a couple of weeks ago. Read it and then compare your opinion with his/hers and with mine.

THE BIRD FEEDER SYNDROME-A SURVIVAL THOUGHT FOR TODAY


I bought a bird feeder. I hung it on my back porch and filled it with seed. What a beauty of a bird feeder it is, as I filled it lovingly with seed. Within a week we had hundreds of birds taking advantage of the continuous flow of free and easily accessible food.

But then the birds started building nests in the boards of the patio, above the table,and next to the barbecue. Then came the poop. It was everywhere: on the patio tile,the chairs, the table .. everywhere! Then some of the birds turned mean. They would dive bomb me and try to peck me even though I had fed them out of my own pocket.

And others birds were boisterous and loud. They sat on the feeder and squawked and screamed at all hours of the day and night and demanded that I fill it when it got low on food.

After a while, I couldn't even sit on my own back porch anymore. So I took down the bird feeder and in three days the birds were gone. I cleaned up their mess and took down the many nests they had built all over the patio. Soon, the back yard was like it used to be.... quiet, serene and no one demanding their rights to a free meal.

Now let's see.

Our government gives out free food, subsidized housing,free medical care, and free education and allows anyone born here to be an automatic citizen.

Then the illegals came by the tens of thousands. Suddenly our taxes went up to pay for free services; small apartments are housing 5 families; you have to wait 6 hours to be seen by an emergency room doctor; your child's 2nd grade class is behind other schools because over half the class doesn't speak English.

Corn Flakes now come in a bilingual box; I have to 'press one' to hear my bank talk to me in English, and people waving flags other than 'Our own' are squawking and screaming in the streets, demanding more rights and free liberties.

Just my opinion, but maybe it's time for the government to take down the bird feeder.

If you agree, pass it on; if not, continue cleaning up the poop!



That’s the writer’s opinion. Here’s mine.

First of all, taking things literally, I think the writer shouldn’t have fed the wild birds anyway. They are perfectly capable of taking care of themselves and feeding them leads to over population and aggressive behaviour, as was what happened in the story.

Great analogy, but I think the writer is wrong about the moral of the story. What makes him think he is feeding the migrants just because he pays tax? Migrants pay tax too. He is just one of the birds, and the country, not HIM, is the owner of the garden, who fed the birds. And for me, the moral of the story is people living together should try to get along, whatever kinds of feather they have. They shouldn’t squabble and blame each other for hardship and problems. They should take care of the place they live in and not shit around in it. They shouldn’t attack people who are kind to them and take care of them. If the birds had done this, they would’ve still enjoyed free food won’t they?

60 kilo mark

When I was in highschool, a very skinny boy called me ‘living skeleton’. He obviously wasn’t familiar with the pot calling the kettle black proverb, or maybe was delusional. But I’m not going to talk about him. Last week I stepped on the scale and found I’ve passed the 60 k mark. Yeeey! I guess I’m no longer a living skeleton. Unfortunately, my weigh is mainly alocated to my hips and stomach (and maybe my hair). So picture this, long skinny arms and fingers, long neck, big stomach, flat chest, big feet, short forehead, big hair. Who do you see? I see a female ET. Aaaaaaaagh!!!!

And today I put on one of my pair of jeans before I went to buy groceries. It was hard to button. I almost suffocated. Walking was horrible, like in an armour. I’m sure I looked more constipated with every step. Just because I was too lazy to go back to change.

I will have to buy a new pair of jeans.

Bahasaku

When I was teaching in Jakarta I also moonlighted as a translator. Since nobody ever gave me feedback on my translations, I was pretty confident about my Indonesian language competence. I felt superior when I compared myself to other Medan Chinese Indonesian, languagewise. After all, Indonesian is my mother tongue. And I was born in Medan, the homeland and source of bahasa Melayu (Indonesian, not Malaysian), which is the root of Indonesian language. Moreover, my adoptive relatives from Mom’s side are mostly Malayus. So when I was offered an editing/proofreading job, I quite confidently took it on. My employer happened to be Chinese Indonesian, but she moved to the US when she was 11 and went to school there. She does not speak BI very well, but unfortunately (or fortunately) she consulted KBBI (The Official Indonesian Language Dictionary) a lot. And so she gave me feedback. And from there I realized how little I know of my own language (Hey, it’s MY language, and I AM native, I was born there. I’m not indigenous, and neither are you, unless you come from one of the aboriginal tribes, who are still living in the forests now. Yes, I am, even though the Indonesian government never granted my application for citizenship, for which I’m still feeling hateful, spiteful, vengeful, as you can tell from my tone here.)
Here are some examples:
Which one is correct, dimana or di mana? Kedua or ke dua? 1960an or 1060-an? Mahluk or makhluk? Apapun or apa pun? Bagaimanapun or bagaimana pun?
Did you know that the relative clause with dimana/di mana does not exist in BI? This construction gave me a heck of a headache when I edited the texts.
And then there is a whole bunch of exceptions, such as: mukjizat, but kemujizatan. Where did ‘k’ go? Menyejajarkan, but penjajaran, not penyejajaran. Why??? Mengontrol (‘k’ disapearred), but mengklasifikasikan (‘k’ is kept). ???
There are also the choice between ‘s’ and ‘k’ endings: organis/organik, neurotis/neurotik, somatis/somatik.
My goodness, if there were such a thing as TOIL (Test of Indonesian Language), which I think there is, I don’t know how much I would score. That’s why I’m searching for the holy book of Indonesian grammar: Tata Bahasa Baku Bahasa Indonesia. I found a book here by one of BI expert (Chaer), but it costs about four times the price in Indo, so I refused to buy it. I’ve just borrowed a book from the library: Indonesian Reference Grammar, by James Neil Sneddon, and he’s not even Indonesian! So far, I’m up to Chapter 1, and I might as well be learning Martian grammar. I understand the examples, but the rules are completely alien to me (not Mr. Sneddon’s fault, I’m just completely ignorant). So, hat’s up to all the BI experts out there, native and non-native speakers. I hope you will write more BI grammar books, so I could buy a cheaper one.

My Rambling

A few weeks ago there was another shocking case of student shooting in Finland. The photo of the shooter was posted in the media. I looked at his face, his clothes, his hair and I couldn’t find anything to distinguish him from the boy next door. Normal hair cut, average looking face, no missing or crippled limb, he didn’t have a stutter or a funny voice. Nothing. He didn’t look dirt poor either. What was his problem? Why did he hate the world and Mankind?
Just now there was a news report about the return of Aussie’s Paralympic team. Each and every one of them has a disability. Yet they all looked happy, confident, proud to have contributed something to their country, and most importantly they are not homicidal-suicidal.
I’ve read somewhere that a person’s disposition isn’t determined by what they had gone through in life. A Tigger would be a Tigger in a hardship. An Eeyore would still be an Eeyore after winning Lotto. This seems true.
Then there is a strange social-role phenomenon. Look around a room full of people and you can always find somebody that you like the least, even if you basically liked everyone. Look at Big Brother’s House. After they get rid of the most annoying person of the week, they always find somebody else to take the place as the next most annoying person. When a leader of a group goes away, another person would naturally take the place. Whether he/she is a good leader or not is a different thing. But there is always a particular role in a group and somebody is always assigned that role, willing or not. Have you ever seen the girls in America’s Next Top Model and choose one as the ugliest? Isn’t that crazy? My point is, the normal looking shooter guy may have been assigned as something by his group, or himself. We don’t know what role his environment or himself assigns him. We just know he must be very unhappy about it.
And then there is the law of relativity. What is hardship, bliss? According to whom? What makes a person happy, angry, sad? When I was in the third grade, a friend gave me a marble. Then my friend lost a game and she asked me to give the marble back. When I got home I went to my room and cried my eyes out. Does it make sense to you? My brother heard my sobs and asked me why I cried. I told him a friend gave me a marble and then took it back. He didn’t understand either. You see, I had moved from two schools before, four houses, moved to Malaysia and back again. I never stayed in one place long enough to develop friendship. To me the marble was a token of friendship, so I was really touched by the gift. It wasn’t just a round glass thing to play with for me. It was so much more. That’s relativity. Next time you see kids fighting over a toy, remember, it’s not just a car, a dinousaurus or a red spade or a blue spade. There’s always something else.
Going back to the shooter, who knows what his marble was. There was an Aussie actor who committed suicide recently. He was young, good looking, starred in a popular TV drama, popular among his friends. What’s his marble? I wouldn’t understand even if they explained it. I don’t have any sympathy towards the shooter, or the actor. They had their own reason and reasoning. Hitler had his reasons and reasoning. Genocide must have been very logical to him. I’m beginning to ramble here so I will stop. I guess what I’m trying to say is, if there is a person at the office or in the family circle that you find annoying, maybe they’re not really annoying. Maybe you just assign them the role of VIP (Very Annoying Person). If that person moves away, most probably you will find another person to hate. Lastly, there is always a reason, even in madness. What is logical to you may not be logical to other people. If you sometimes think, “Why is he so unreasonable?” think again. And if you’ve said “I understand,” most probably, you don’t. You’re just saying that to make them feel better. And if you're feeling miserable, and you’re blaming your fate, your job, your boyfriend, your mother-in-law, your pet, they may not be the reason at all. Maybe you are miserable by nature (harharharhar!-Pirate laugh).