I like to ramble... sometimes...

I have been jumping around from blogs to blogs, and found myriad ways of how people express themselves, as well as the topics that they decided to write about.

Some people simply write about their daily life, which somehow reads to be a lot more interesting than mine, and some elaborate events in their life. Some write informative articles, and managed to turn their blogs into a side income. As for me? I guess I just like rambling. I have been posting online for quite a little bit actually, just not in the form of blogs, but as a forum poster in the gaming forums. Blogs has a different feel to it because well, comments are not really the same as a thread, where people can go back and forth with information. Yet, it is not that much different either. The only difference is I usually reply to threads intead of creating one, and posting blogs feels much more like starting new threads.

Which reminds me, I got to write something about smoking.

I do not smoke. In fact, I hate smoking.
People who smoke, are burning their life, and the life of people around them away. Granted there are always exceptions. There are people who will never get any ill effect from continuous smoking, but if you're hoping to be one of them, you might have a better chance of hitting Toto. Cigarettes are extra harmful because they cause both physical and mental addiction.

Having said that, I have managed feel a little more tolerant to people who smoke. When I was in Japan, an acquaintance of mine shared with me that due to her company's culture, she has to smoke sometimes to 'keep in touch' with her colleagues. Usually these people take a 'smoke break' during their working hours, and this is the time that is used for casual bonding. Adding to that, the after-work culture in Japan is very conducive to smoking. A non smoker will find it hard to 'integrate'. Needless to say, she got hooked on the cancer stick, and even though she claimed that now she only smoke when she drink, I can see that she's dependent on it.

Of course, this is not true for all companies in Japan, but it used to be a major phenomenon. Now even Japan has stepped up their anti-smoking laws, and hopefully this kind of 'need' will not be there anymore in the future.

A Japanese is traditionally brought up to first and foremost 'not to trouble other people' or '迷惑をしないこと'. Even if a non smoker has stated that he/she is fine with them smoking, the smoker might actually feel uncomfortable about smoking. I was in an English-conversation bar talking with a group of Japanese people, and each time one of them needed a cigarette, they first ask me if it is ok for them to smoke! I guess I could have said no, but they did ask, so... (When was the last time anyone you know asked you if it is ok to smoke?) And if you're wondering what they would do if I had said no, they would have stepped out of the bar to smoke before returning to resume the conversation. Because I did say no once, in a joking manner, and I had to stop the guy from going out. (It was winter...)