another girl's paradise

Channelling my inner Powergirl. #boobwindow (Taken with Instagram)

onlinecounsellingcollege:

There is a difference between blaming and shaming a person. Blaming is being told you did something wrong. Shaming is being told that there’s something wrong with you, and you’re worthless, bad, inferior or inadequate. Examples of shaming statements include:

Number 4. Seriously.

zuky:

sciencesoup:

Kowloon Walled City

Kowloon Walled City, Hong Kong, was once a military watchpost that protected the area against pirates before China came under British Rule. After the Japan occupied it during WWII, squatters moved in and neither Britain nor China wanted to take responsibility, and it effectively became an independent, anarchic city. There was no police because there was no law, so it was soon thick with brothels, casinos, cocaine parlours, opium dens and unlicensed doctors’ practices. Since it was confined to just 6.5 acres, the city was forced to grow up using every inch it could—300 interconnected buildings layered up 16 stories in a ramshackle labyrinth, so interwoven that the lower levels had to be lit by fluorescent lights because sunlight couldn’t reach. The population flourished, a testament to human ingenuity and survival, but the lawless city wasn’t as romantic as some might think—50,000 people were crammed like sardines into just a few blocks. The average apartment size was 23 square metres, and the living conditions were so far below the rest of the country that the authorities eventually agreed to tear it down. Many protested, but Kowloon Walled City was demolished in 1993 and a park was built on the site—including a scale model of the once-thriving city.

I spent time in the walled city in Kowloon before it got torn down. All kinds of stuff happening in there, not just prostitutes and opium dens, come on (opium which, by the way, was brought by the British mentioned above, whose rule China “came under” via the Opium Wars, which were waged to force China to accept opium and trade away Chinese tea). I’m talking traditional Chinese medicine, acupuncture, herbalists, dentistry, massage, also lots of tailors, seamstresses, shoemakers, eye doctors. Basically, a bunch of human beings making do in very tight crowded spaces, something Chinese culture has traditionally been very good at. However, my family was happy to see it torn down, like most Hong Kongers. It was was past time to clear that space for a fresh start. One thing most people don’t know about Hong Kong is that the majority of the housing there is public (i.e. government-owned), despite its reputation as a capitalist haven, so it’s possible to relocate people into new public housing when big infrastructural changes occur.

Yep. My aunt (my mother’s sister), still lives in Wong Tai Sin. Until my early teens (before HK reverted from British rule), she lived in the same apartment that my mother grew up in after the family (except for my eldest uncle) moved to HK from southern China back in the 50s after my grandfather died. When they decided to tear down that set of blocks, she was relocated into a smaller apartment in a newer building in the same area.

thefemme-menace:

shikola:

do you ever feel like you like someone a lot more than they like you and then start to feel like you’re just annoying them because while you always want to talk to them they probably don’t always want to talk to you and it stresses you out a lot and then you just start to feel really depressed about it

yes.

So, this is basically my whole life. I’m better at the stressing about it and getting depressed, these days, but yeah, I’ve broken plans with people because I’ve decided they probably didn’t really want to hang out with me.

(Source: moved-to-berlitz)

ardhra asked: Did you have a complicated time figuring out that you're poly?

Actually, no. I first figured out what poly was when I was seventeen and got involved with a guy who was already in a poly relationship. In hindsight that relationship wasn’t the most functional, but I figured out enough to work out that this was for me. It’s not always been easy, but relationships generally aren’t without their challenges, poly or otherwise.

I actually have a huge amount of admiration for people who work this out whilst in an existing mono relationship. I know quite a few poly folks who have opened up mono relationships after much discussion and such, and obviously it’s worked differently for different folks, but the ways some of the people I know have successfully moved from mono to poly relationships are quite phenomenal, to me. I can hardly imagine how wrought that situation could get, and to an extent I’m super grateful that I had the introduction I did.