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Thursday, October 09, 2014

English ~ Maybe and May Be, is there a difference?

Searched for...
Maybe and May Be, is there a difference?

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The Quick Answer
'Maybe' means 'Perhaps'.
'May Be' means 'Might Be'.
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Hot Tip ~ Use Maybe IF Perhaps Works



Like maybe, the word perhaps is an adverb. If it works perfectly in your sentence, then you should be usingmaybe. If perhaps does not work well (i.e., you feel there is a word missing), then you should be using may be. For example:

 If you trust Google more than your doctor, then maybe it's time to switch doctors. 
("..then perhaps it's time" — works perfectly. Therefore, maybe is okay.) 

 Listening, not imitation, may be the sincerest form of flattery.  (Dr. Joyce Brothers )
("Listening, not imitation, perhaps the sincerest form..." — sounds wrong. Therefore, may be is okay. Maybe would be wrong.)
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There is often confusion over maybe and may be.
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Maybe

Maybe (one word) can be substituted with perhaps or possibly. (Maybe is anadverb.) Try substituting the maybe in these examples with perhaps:

 Maybe this world is another planet's hell.  (Aldous Huxley)

 Courage is saying, "Maybe what I'm doing isn't working; maybe I should try something
else."  (Anna Lappe)

 Maybe you have to know darkness before you can appreciate the light. (Madeleine L'engle)

 There are a lot of people who can't write and maybe shouldn't write.  (Sarah Hepola)
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May Be

May be (two words) is similar to might becould be, or would be. (The wordmay in may be is an auxiliary verb.) 

Examples:

 Conscience is the inner voice that warns us somebody may be looking. (H. L. Mencken)

 If two men agree on everything, you may be sure that one of them is doing the thinking.  (Lyndon B. Johnson)

 The ability to delude yourself may be an important survival tool.  (Jane Wagner)

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GIF Signatures

I searched for...
GIF Sign Your Name
... and got to this cool Website.

Creating GIF Signatures using this Website
http://www.gif-mania.net/animated-signatures/

Here are some samples...





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A Bun Dance ~ by PGA (fONS)

May you be filled with lots of family love in a Bun Dance.
May you be filled with lots of family love in abundance.

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Forgiveness Is Very Important

In the news today.

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Forgiveness Is Very Important
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I feel that there is actually nothing to forgive, but she is a being a good mother and woman for trying to set things right; impossible as it may seem, I still think it will go a long way, very much longer than it would have, had it not been said. It's also a very good way of moving forward.
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News Article

http://www.straitstimes.com/news/asia/south-east-asia/story/mother-murdered-indonesia-transsexual-forgives-killer-20141008


Mother of murdered Indonesia transsexual forgives killer
PUBLISHED ON OCT 8, 2014 5:21 PM

Indonesian transsexual Mayang Prasetyo, 27, and her husband Marcus Peter Volke, 28. The mother of Ms Prasetyo said she had forgiven her son-in-law who killed and then reportedly dismembered and cooked her daughter, Australian media reported on Wednesday, Oct 8, 2014. -- PHOTO: FACEBOOK

BRISBANE - The mother of an Indonesian transsexual said she had forgiven her son-in-law who killed and then reportedly dismembered and cooked her daughter, Australian media reported on Wednesday.

Ms Nining Sukarni, 45, found it hard to believe that 28-year-old Marcus Volke had slain his transgender partner, Mayang Prasetyo, the Brisbane Times said.

"I don't believe it. I don't think it's possible. Marcus is very soft. he's not capable of hurting people. He's a kind person," Ms Sukarni told media in Lampung, southern Sumatra.

Police believe Volke committed the murder in the ground floor apartment he shared with Ms Prasetyo in Teneriffe, Brisbane, some time last week. He fled and, shortly after, took his own life following police investigation last Saturday, according to ABC News.

Despite her grief, Ms Nining said she had reached out to Volke's family in Australia, asking for forgiveness for both Volke and Ms Mayang's deaths.

"My message for Marcus' family is let's forgive each other," she told Fairfax Media. "Please forgive Febri if he did things that anger Marcus or his family... I forgave Marcus for whatever he has done to Febri."

Ms Mayang, 27, identified as a girl throughout her childhood but her mother still refers to her as her son Febri Andriansyah. She was the eldest of three girls and sent money home to Indonesia to support her single mother and pay for her sisters' education.

The murder case has grabbed the headlines, with some media reports drawing the ire of readers.

A petition has been launched under the name of the Brisbane Trans Community, demanding an apology from Courier-Mail for calling Ms Mayang a "she-male" and a "ladyboy" in its coverage, The Independent reported on Tuesday.

The couple, who met on an international cruise ship, got married in August last year and Ms Prasetyo moved to Brisbane to be with Volke. But she had complained of being "bored" and wanted to return to Bali where they owned a home, Ms Sukarni said earlier.

Daily Mail Australia reported that online advertisements showed Ms Prasetyo charged up to A$500 (S$560) for her services as an "international escort". A separate report in the Brisbane Times said she was part of a Melbourne transgender cabaret show - Le Femme Garcon - before settling in Queensland's capital with her husband.

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SEX-ED OR SEXED?

This was in the news today. 

Sex Ed (or Sex Education) or Sexed (Hyped, Sensationalized, etc...).

This Agatha Tan writes well. 

However, every thing written in this book and by this girl are all just rhetoric with well intentions. 

I'd say. 'Attempting to write is better than not writing at all.' And add, 'Always read anything with an open mind and from different perspectives while trying very hard to understand, impossible as it may seem'.

I am sure the book meant well and probably has a lot of truth in it and would probably need a lot of probably endless tweaking. 

If I were to hazard a try at correcting some of the things written in the book it would be like this...
Written in the book were these 2 columns...
Column 1 ~ If she says... 
Column 2 ~ She really means
I would tweak it to...
Column 1 ~ If she says... 
Column 2 ~ She may really mean
... or something to that effect to keep this Relative instead of Absolute.

Which brings me to my favorite topic which I have yet to write about titled 'Relative Versus Absolute' which I will do at another time.

Here's what she posted. I've also attached the pictures she posted of the the book from her Facebook.
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News Article

POSTED: 08 Oct 2014 23:56
UPDATED: 09 Oct 2014 00:10

Picture: Screengrab from Ms Agatha Tan's Facebook post.

Following a student's viral Facebook post highlighting concerns over a relationships workshop at Hwa Chong Institution, the Education Ministry said it would work with the Social and Family Development Ministry and the school, on feedback received.

SINGAPORE: The Ministry of Education (MOE) said it will work with the Ministry of Social and Family Development (MSF) and Hwa Chong Institution (HCI) on feedback received on a relationships workshop, which earned criticism from a student in a viral Facebook post.

Agatha Tan, a first year junior college student at HCI had raised concerns about what she called a "sex ed" workshop run by the MSF in an open letter to HCI's principal. In particular, she took issue with a booklet provided by Christian charity Focus on the Family Singapore, which she said, actively serves to "promote rape culture in school", and sends a "dangerous message" on what a girl means when she says "no" to sexual advances. 

Ms Tan also wrote that she felt the workshop emphasised gender stereotypes, and said the facilitator dismissed students' concerns that his viewpoint was "narrow".  The post on Facebook has been shared 2,300 times since Tuesday. A group of HCI alumni has also started an online petition to suspend the workshop.

In response to media queries on Wednesday (Oct 8), an MOE spokesperson clarified that the student had not attended an MOE sexuality education programme, but a relationship module workshop, run by a provider appointed by MSF to "conduct workshops on healthy relationships for junior college students".

The workshop, which was started in 2009 to equip students with social and relationship management skills, will end its run by the end of this year, the spokesperson said.

MOE said it has a stringent vetting and approval process for engagement of external providers of sexuality education programmes. "The vendors are to provide programmes and resources that are secular in nature and ensure that programme objectives are fulfilled," the spokesperson said, adding that parents can opt their children out of sexuality education programmes, or parts of it, such as talks and workshops, if they wish to.

- CNA/dl
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Monday, October 6, 2014 at 6:17pm
https://www.facebook.com/agathatheslowtortoise/posts/741950835884958

So I wrote an open letter to my principal about last week's sex ed:

Dear Dr. Hon,

I am Agatha, a C1 student, and my purpose in writing this open letter to you today is to express my sincere concerns about the MSF “It’s Uncomplicated” workshop all C1 students had to attend on Friday, the 3rd of October.

I attended the workshop with my class in the AVT. Before it started, I flipped through the booklet provided by Focus on the Family (FotF). While sexuality education rarely manages to teach me something that I have not already learnt through past sessions or mainstream media, this booklet was different. From merely glancing through this booklet, I learned a simple yet important lesson: that bigotry is very much alive and it was naïve of me to think I could be safe from it even in school.

While I do have many concerns with regards to this workshop and its content which I consider to be pressing, the most pressing is perhaps that the workshop and booklet actively serve to promote rape culture in school. On the cover page of the booklet itself, it is written, “no means yes?” and “yes means no?” (See attached photo for reference.) The facilitators from FotF neglected to mention that thinking a girl means “yes” when she says “no” is actually completely wrong. Rather, they spent their four hours with us discussing things such as what a girl “really means” when she says something else, as opposed to guys who are “direct” and “always mean what they say” (see photos of pages 20-21). By telling the student population this, FotF sends a dangerous message: that you should always assume that a girl means something else (like “yes”) when really she just means “no”.

Granted, the facilitators did make clear that these gender stereotypes they were promoting were subject to “some exceptions” and that they should be taken lightly, as a sort of joke. While it is reassuring to note that they have apparently realized not everyone fits into their binary model of a nuclear family that in their opinion youth should be actively working towards, not only did they ignore the presence of these people whenever it was inconvenient to them, but they also adopted an extremely damaging attitude.

When someone else tried to raise that the facilitator’s views were too narrow and that they failed to consider, for instance, LGBTQ or polyamorous individuals, he effectively shut her down by saying that her views were not what the audience wanted to listen to and that perhaps she could remain quiet for now and bring it up with him afterwards so they could end the first half of the course for break, which was coming up “very soon”. (He failed to actually ask the audience if we wanted to listen to her opinion and assumed we wholeheartedly accepted his, and break was in fact almost another half hour later.) I personally thought that listening to her opinion was more important than tea break, but what do I know? After all, I am just a “gal”.

The facilitators’ attitude of “jokingly” (I write this with inverted commas because I personally did not believe they were joking) promoting gender stereotypes, in particular, that girls always mean the opposite of what they say as compared to guys who are all very direct, is also extremely damaging in other ways. By endorsing these stereotypes as a tolerable joke, they effectively tell students that these are acceptable views and that it’s perfectly okay to adopt them. This creates a dangerous situation in which questions like “does she mean yes when she says no?” become valid in the male student population’s eyes. Their joking attitude here only serves to reinforce rape culture, since the guys now come to mistakenly understand that girls always mean the opposite when they say anything, including “no”.

Besides this, something else I found distressing was that the workshop seemed to emphasize and enforce traditional gender roles in a relationship. According to FotF, “gals” –as it is written throughout the booklet –are fragile and need guys’ support, and everything a guy does in the relationship is excusable simply because he is a guy and is wired that way. “Gals”, it writes, “need to be loved”, “can be emotional”, “want security”, “[want] you to listen to her problems”, and “[want] to look attractive”, and validation of each of these can only come from the support of a male (see attached photos of pages 25-26). It paints girls as hopelessly dependent beings who are incapable of surviving without guys. This is an extremely sexist view. It simplifies girls to nothing more than what FotF believes they should be like in their relationship with guys.

Yes, I agree that many girls probably feel a need to be loved, and can be emotional, but is this not human, and are these really things that only a guy can solve? Love and emotional support can come from many different people –from families and friends, for instance. Furthermore, that “emotional security” and “closeness” are “far more important to [girls] than financial security” is a questionable and even insulting claim, as is the claim that having a guy listen to a girl’s feelings “automatically solves the problem”. This sexist attitude not only trivializes girls’ problems, but also serves as a foundation for the further boosting of the male ego FotF seems so invested in doing.

This is driven home by the use of the word “gals” throughout the booklet. As a seventeen year-old –someone who should be considered a young adult –I resent the use of this word to describe me. Using the language of twelve year-olds to describe girls makes us seem immature and frivolous and ultimately, easily dismissible. We are not, and should not be portrayed as such.

Guys, on the other hand, are portrayed as guardians who can ultimately do no wrong even when they are evidently doing wrong. “Guys need respect” and “guys are insecure” are just some of the things written in the booklet. “While guys don’t want a girl to pretend to be clueless,” it writes, “they also don’t want a girlfriend that questions their opinions and argues with their decisions all the time”. What this really means is that guys apparently do not want a girl who thinks for herself. I am sure you agree that as a student, being told that I should refrain from having opinions of my own and daring to express them for the sake of keeping a guy’s ego intact is contrary to everything my education has taught me. Similarly, that I should take it upon myself, as a girl, to boost a guy’s ego by showering him with compliments in public because it is my responsibility to do so is equally demeaning.

However, I am also sure you agree that this view about guys does not hold true for everyone. Much as girls have been generalized and simplified in this booklet, so too have guys, and this is fair for neither gender. Yet while the simplification of girls serves to belittle their importance as individuals, the gross simplification of guys serves to boost their egos by perpetuating the message that anything and everything guys do is excusable simply because it is wired into them.

The most alarming thing I read in the booklet provided was that “A guy can’t not want to look” and that what a girl is wearing matters only “lest she become an “eye magnet” that cannot be avoided” (see attached photos of pages 27-28). There are two main problems with this –firstly, that guys are apparently incapable of controlling themselves or their hormones at all, and this is excusable because it’s in their natures, and second, that as a girl, when I dress, I should be thinking of what guys think rather than what I think.

FotF would have you believe that guys are slaves to their hormones and therefore girls should take their unwanted attention in their stride. When a “scantily-clad” girl walks past, for instance, a guy is sure to take notice because “no man with a pulse could have done otherwise” (page 26). It is precisely this kind of attitude that makes mothers warn their daughters not to wear short skirts and walk along the street alone at night, instead of warning their sons to be decent human beings and keep their eyes to themselves instead of appraising the female form like they own it. Certainly, we live in a male dominated world, and for this reason, guys do tend to get away with more. Yet that they do get away with more does not mean that they should. FotF, however, seems to believe that anything a guy does is excusable just because he is a guy. It is worrying that this is the message being imparted to students who are frequently told that they are they the future of the nation.

In my opinion, FotF’s portrayal of guys with regards to their raging hormones not only makes them seem pathetic, but again reduces girls to their role as supporters of their male counterparts. The booklet states that “Many guys feel neither the ability nor the responsibility to stop the sexual progression with [girls]”, and thus they “need your help to protect both of you” (page 28). I felt it disgusting that, for one, FotF has reduced guys to nothing but their hormones, and for two, instead, then, of suggesting that we should cultivate a sense of responsibility in guys with regards to respecting boundaries, FotF suggested that girls therefore need to support guys so that they are able to play heroes and guardians. Why should girls have to learn to help guys play guardian rather than learn how to protect themselves?

It should be noted that in the earlier half of the workshop, the facilitators had shared that in moving the relationship to the next stage, “the guy has to take the lead”. When I asked them why, they were unable to provide an answer beyond “It was just a general statement”. I find it strange that a guy can apparently be expected to take charge when moving the relationship forward, yet should not be expected to take charge in stopping it. Also, FotF does not seem to comprehend the damage one can do by reducing everything to general statements, as I have mentioned above.

After the workshop, I took it upon myself to look up FotF to better understand the views they actively promote. While I cannot say that I was shocked to find out that they are, according to their website, a “global Christian ministry” known for their socially conservative views and agenda, I was disappointed that our sexuality education was tasked to them. I feel that FotF has used sexuality education as an opportunity to further spread their own conservative, “God-ordained” beliefs rather than to educate students on arguably more important things such as safe sex, sexual identity and shared and equal responsibility.

At the JC level, students would have spent at least four years hearing about abstinence and why it is the safest way to go. Using the four hour long workshop to once again preach the value of abstinence seems excessive and unnecessary. If schools are to prepare us for situations we will face in the future, then should we not also be taught about safe sex and contraception and about healthy relationship dynamics?

It is especially unfortunate that FotF was in charge of sexuality education in JC. As young adults trying to figure ourselves out, having a known conservative group preach the non-existence or non-importance of individuals it does not approve of is extremely damaging to the self-discovery process because it invalidates our values and choices and ignores diversity in us as human beings. FotF had no problem using a clip with a gay character when it suited their purposes (a scene from My Best Friend’s Wedding), yet was also quick to denounce any relationship outside of the binary heterosexual norm as “unstable” and “unfavourable”.

Indeed, when the facilitator asked someone why he did not believe in the institution of marriage and he replied that it was in his opinion a flawed social construct due to the limits the government imposes on it, the facilitator was quick to declare that marriage had nothing to do with the government (considering what I now know about FotF, one might then assume that marriage is all about God) and that any unmarried or non-heterosexual couple was effectively participating in an unstable relationship. The quickness and ease with which the facilitator dismissed anyone outside of his limited moral framework was a clear display of bigotry and tells students that acceptance is beyond him. For someone questioning their identity, having someone in a position of authority tell them that they simply did not matter if they were not straight is emotionally destructive.

I do not mean to imply that the school management has to take a supportive position in the struggle for LGBTQ rights, though in my opinion this would be ideal. Yet even so the school has a responsibility to the diverse school population; even if the school is unable and unwilling to provide inclusive sexuality education for students, it has a basic responsibility to ensure that it is a place free of bigotry where students can at least feel safe to study in without fear of being persecuted for who they are or are figuring themselves out to be.

By engaging the services of groups such as FotF to teach sexuality education in school, the management hence indirectly participates in promoting rape culture, tells students that we should conform to traditional gender roles instead of being our own persons, demonstrates that the acceptance of diversity in people is unimportant, and erases minority groups in the student population.

I hope that these concerns will be taken into consideration for future events and workshops.

Sincerely,
(14A10)
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Attached Pictures
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