Happy new years! From 2011 to 2012

2011 was a great year. 

I did a lot.

I Started taking my Chinese language learning more serious. I moved closer to work, and I settled into Taipei. It really feels like home now.

This year has gone by faster then the previous years, maybe this is because I'm in more of a pattern again. I go to work, I go to play, I go to the restaurants and bars that I know and like. Theres a greater amount of similarity to things and repetitiveness. That's not necessarily a bad thing. It's nice to be familiar with things, with people. It's nice to know a place you can go and always enjoy yourself. The problem with this is that it all starts to blend into concentrated moments that can easily be put into just a few simple categories.

Only thing 2011 really lacked was a solid core of friends. I know a lot of people here, but I'm not really close with many of them, and I didn't find a best guy friend replacement for Christian.

2011 was a calm year. It did have its fair share of adventures of course, but it lived up to its Rabbit moniker. A bit more relaxed then the previous tiger year, no big rumbles in my life.

2011 was about moving beyond introductions and about really trying to get to know this culture and this city. Like really know it, although I wouldn't say I really know it yet.

Life doesn't feel like I'm on a trip, it feels more like I'm just living. Taiwan doesn't feel like a place I came to, it feels like the place I live.

2011 was a happy year. If I was to compare the amount of depression, stress, anxiety and other negative emotions I've battled in the past. 2011 saw the lowest levels in a decade. That's a great thing, and I'd like to see that continue in 2012.

I'm feeling more at peace with who I am and what I'm doing here. Feeling more confident about my life, values and dreams.

2011 was a great year, I'd like something similar in 2012

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My Best and Worst of 2011

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Worst of 2011:

sometimes being frustrated with how I'm ( sometimes ) treated as a foreigner. see the 5 reasons post.

Having my scooter stolen. Not only was it stolen, but it had my only warm jacket inside, and a brand new red helmet that fit my head better then any helmet I've ever owned. Thankfully its winter and I never feel like riding around on it anyways. Enjoy that red helmet you bastard.

Saying goodbye to my good friend Christian. See you in China next summer.

Saying goodbye to Comet, good luck in Australia.


Best of 2011


Chinese New Years at Omas in Miaoli with Mei ti, Val, Joke and Christian

Hanging out with the Belgian girls.

Scooter rides with Christian and generally acting like a ass with him.

Trash holiday with Val and Christian and Liona. That was fantastically ridiculous. Ran around a toxic beach like maniacs, almost stepped on numerous syringes, cut my foot open on a rock and had to get stitches. 5 hour scooter ride home. Great adventure.

Watching Christian audition for a dancing role in a commercial. I hadn't laughed that hard in years.

Moving to my own place closer to work. Sure living with roommates is nice too, but living alone is so comfy. I can do whatever I want, walk around naked, not clean up, leave my AC on full blast all day long if I want... and nobody gets to complain about it.

Meeting and hanging out with Comet. Going to Penghu island and grilling oysters over a fire on the beach. It doesn't get any more fantasy than that.

Climbing Mt Chilai with Ingred and her friends. That was an amazing adventure. Watching the sunrise over the mountains at 3400meters is priceless.

Being introduced to the Japo Place on Fuxing and some other cool places I didn't know about. Thanks "J"

My trip to Tainan with Comet. What a great place!

Meeting with tutors to try and find the right one!

Watching so many Chinese and Taiwanese movies! ( I still can't understand a thing damn it )

My new e-cig

Seeing Liz and Jay in Taiwan and having an amazing week with two of my best US friends.

Netti pot － thanks liz for getting me into this, its amazing!!

Being told by my Chinese tutor that she has seen a huge improvement since she met me. ( oh.... trying to butter me up eh..... )

Ok.... that's just off the top of my head. Every year offers up so many small amazing moments that are hard to recall later.... but those are the things that make a year really great.

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Last year New Years Resolutions - did I???

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Continue to improve my Chinese.  ---- I did I did!

Meet and make friends with old people. --- NO I didn't

work on not trying to control the outcome. --- this is a bit abstract... but, yeah I guess I did.

get a haircut. --- I did, twice, no... three times. My hair is still long though

Do more yoga. --- NO, I did significantly LESS yoga then in 2010

Try not to buy plastic bottles of beverages from 7-11... ( even though I do think they impart a special flavor that's hard to resist. ) ---- YES, I bought very little plastic this year, as I usually refuse to buy any drink in a plastic bottle. Instead I go for the cardboard cartons... which, who knows if that's better or whatever. Plastic is poison.

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This years New Years Resolutions -

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Continue to improve my Chinese. This will be the only big resolution for this year and is really a carry over from last years. the resolution part is to commit to increasing the amount of effort I put into it. I had only just started meeting with a tutor late 2011. This year I will continue to meet with a tutor on Fridays, as well as do Language Exchange every Tues day and Thursdays, while continuing to use my lunch hour to study my textbook. One thing I want to start doing more of though is instigating conversations with strangers to practice more.


A few small ones -- Make better guy friends, Go to Kenting, Visit the USA, Visit mainland China


oh.... and one more....big one...


No guilt : I commit to living this year guilt free. I won't allow others to impose their own sense of right and wrong or skewed sense of moral supiriority on my life or make me feel bad about who I choose to be!

Hey! 

新年快樂！

happy new year to all my friends in Taiwan, China, the USA... or wherever else you are in the world right now. You make my life special!


Chris!

Smoking is great

Smoking is great, and it remains great despite all the death and general disgusting side-effects.

I smoked my first pack of cigarettes when I was 8. We were living in North Carolina, and I simply went to the corner gas station and requested a pack of Camel filters for my dad. I remember this vividly because it was so exciting. It was naughty, I had to lie, and smoking cigarettes was bad. My dad would kill me, but I did it anyways, and it was great.

I smoked the cigarettes behind our house in an alley with a friend who was scared as hell we would get caught. But I wasn't scared. I felt like a bad-ass.

I didn't start smoking regularly till high school; After joining the football team. I was horrible at football, but It turned out that almost everyone on the football team smoked, which I was really good at. There was something exciting and rebellious about spending all week getting in shape, and then huffing down packs of Marlboro reds all weekend.

In 11 grade I got back into skateboarding and snowboarding, and thankfully most of those friends smoked. In Michigan one of the best smokes to be had was in the middle of winter, riding up a chair. Snow lightly falling all around you, floating up through clean crisp air, with no other place to be or things to worry about. Lighting up a warm minty Marlboro solidified the experience, burning the feeling into your soul . Sounds like poetry because it is.

The cigarette didn't make the snowboarding better, it just made it all more spiritual.

This feeling goes way way back too. 

Early north American Indians held tobacco, and the smoking of in a very high place. They believed that tobacco was a gift from the creator and famously smoked tobacco during sacred ceremonies to seal bargains They believed that the smoke was capable of carrying ones thoughts and prayers to heaven. While most modern smokers probably wouldn't go this far with it, I'd bet most would agree that their smoking goes beyond the obvious.

And that's the real reason I think its so hard for people to quit. Blaming it all on nicotine is too easy for those who don't understand the ritual part of it. 

I quit smoking in college, not because I really wanted to, but because it was hurting my throat. After quitting I can honestly say that I felt healthier. I could breath better that's for sure. And not having to worry so much about the cancer was nice too. But I lost something as well. I was no longer in the club. No reason to sneak out back with my buddy for a quick one, and share a quick bit of gossip. No reason to get out of my desk at work and take a quick 5. No instant friends out on the street in the cold. Nothing to help me look like I have something to do, when I really don't. 

I have a good friend who's trying to quit smoking. Part of me hope's he fails. He looks like such a bad ass when he smokes and I love it. Maybe that's because I learned to feel that way, but I enjoy watching him and other people smoke cigarettes in the same way co-workers with kids and wives still love to hear about all the singles kids crazy weekends. living vicariously is still living.

I started smoking again. But this time I'm using one of those new Ecigs you might  have heard about. I can hear the sighs already. But really, no carcinogens, no smoke, no stink, and yet the holding, inhaling, taste and feeling remain intact. There's no lighting to do, which is a bit of a drag, and so far Ive had more then a few people say it looks really stupid. But that's ok because I like it. It's fun, reminds me of how great smoking was, and its nice to add a bit of spirituality back into life. Even though it's relatively healthy compared to traditional cigarettes, there's still enough people who detest it to allow me to feel like I'm rebelling, like I'm being a bit naughty. That's good because it keeps things exciting, keeps me feeling like a bad ass. I'm trying to get all my friends hooked too. Soon enough we'll all be in the club again.

5 reasons foreigners don't have it easier

Twice this week I’ve been told by Taiwanese that foreigners have it easier here. ( living in Taiwan that is ) And this assumption is communicated to me and other foreigner friends here on a regular basis. While I do think there are many benefits to being a foreigner living in a foreign county like Taiwan, I feel there are some things about being a foreigner, that aren’t easy, that Taiwanese don’t always seem aware of.  I'd like to offer up 5 reasons why being a foreigner in Taiwan is not easy.

1. Foreigners will never be considered Taiwanese.

This might sound silly to a Taiwanese person but it’s a big one for me at least. Think about it this way:

If you, being a Taiwanese person were to immigrate to American, and meet some people say... in a cafe, they would unquestionably assume you are an American. That's nice, because the assumption means people also assume.... "you belong here" I sometimes feel I could live here in Taiwan for 20 years, speak perfect Chinese and still not be considered Taiwanese. It doesn't feel like Taiwanese think foreigners belong here at all. People don't ask me if I want to leave Taiwan, but when. It has the effect of making you feel like you shouldn't consider this place your home, and that the Taiwanese don't consider you a real part of their society. 

2. Most Foreigners don't speak Chinese

That means doing basic things like, finding a particular product you want to buy, getting directions, meeting people and making friends are more complicated. "But so many people here speak English" you say! Yes that's true, but that doesn't mean things are easier, unless you limit yourself to a tiny community of foreigner friends and ABC’s and never leave it. Most Taiwanese are taught English from childhood, so when they travel abroad I assume they have far fewer communication problems. There was no Chinese language class offered in my high school, and even in college the Chinese language class I wanted to attend, never had enough enrolled students for them to actually hold the class.

3. Speaking Chinese is hard

Well this sounds like a no brainer, but what I mean is a bit different then how that sounds. If you are a Taiwanese person, and you move to Australia on a working holiday to have a bit of fun and improve your English, I'll bet that virtually everyone you come into contact will speak English to you, because they assume you speak English. If your English isn't that good, it doesn't matter, they will continue to speak in English to you, thereby continuing to help you improve. Contrast that with trying to speak Chinese as an English native in Taiwan. First, many people simply avoid talking with you at all. They assume you don't speak Chinese, so don't want to bother. If they speak good English, they'll practically refuse to speak to you in Chinese. Why would they when it’s such a pain in the butt to listen to your poor Chinese? If they are kind enough to humor your Chinese, the humor usually doesn't last long. I'll sympathize with the Taiwanese a bit. Having to put up with my poor Chinese can’t be easy for them either. But the fact is, it’s harder for Foreigners to move here and speak Chinese with people, then it is the other way around. I constantly hear people complain about foreigners who still can't speak Chinese, but they don't try to communicate this to me in Chinese. They're forgetting what a huge amount of will power and energy it takes to get Taiwanese people to actually speak with you in Chinese.

3. Foreigner men just want to sleep with lots of woman

This is the general stereotype, which also implies that foreigner men are less moral then Taiwanese men, and I love stereotypes because most of the time there is some truth to them. I won't get into the fact that if you look at the numbers there are probably more foreigner men living in Taiwan with wives and families then there are single sexual predators. The problem I have with this one though is the "Foreigner" part. It’s a biological fact that ALL men in ALL countries want to sleep with lots of woman, which unfortunately includes Taiwanese men as well.  I also suspect that just as many Taiwanese (which includes Taiwanese woman of course ) who travel abroad have some fantasy about "hooking up" with someone while they are there. So what? Who’s that Taiwanese girl who travelled Europe kissing hundreds of guys? She made book right? Good for her!

4. Foreigners get stared at

This doesn’t bother me personally as much as it does others. It’s because there are less of us, we stand out. But what this also means it that you constantly feel you are being scrutinized and judged by everyone around you, because you are.

5. Working here seems to gain little respect among the Taiwanese

Getting an English teaching job here is fairly easy for most foreigners. The pay is decent and the hours are low by comparison. But they don't get much respect. In fact they are almost universally looked down on. I've had many Taiwanese tell me they think English teachers are "losers". This contempt doesn't go unnoticed by the English teaching community and can weigh quite heavy on them. Most of the English teachers I know feel bad about what they do, forgetting about the fact that the reason they have these jobs is because of the high demand for more English teachers. Even as a foreigner with an office job here, I still sometimes feel as if I'm seen not as someone who was good enough to get a job here, but as someone who must not have been good enough to get a job in the US.

Because of these things, its sometimes easy to feel like an immoral, low class, unwelcome loser who is obviously too dumb to communicate in Chinese. Of course I don't want to give the impression that me, or my other foreigner friends feel like this all time. I love Taiwan, the Taiwanese people and culture, that’s why I'm here. I could easily come up with another list of 10 reasons why being a foreigner in Taiwan is great! But living in Taiwan as a foreigner is not always the big "bed of roses" that I feel most Taiwanese people think it is, and it’s something I wish more of my Taiwanese friends were sensitive to.

Working in Taiwan?

A friend of mine ( we'll call him "R" ) recently posted a list of "working in Taiwan" assumptions on his blog. As someone who has also worked in Taiwan I felt compelled to make some commentary on the subject. I think his blog comes from a very western perspective on things which is appropriate for understanding the differences there are between working in Asia and the west. In this post I'm not trying to debate his ideas as much as I am trying to see some of the reasoning behind them.

You can view R's original post here

R- The pay is shit unless you are a foreigner."


What I think he actually means by this is that the pay is quite a bit lower then one would expect from a similar position in many western countries. This was one of the things that weighed heavily on my mind when I was originally deciding if I should stay here or not. In the end I chose to stay, and recognize the fact that as a worker in Taiwan, I don't deserve more pay then everyone else simply because I'm a foreigner. Many foreigners here do make more for that very reason, and its a bit unfair I suppose.
I think that most Taiwanese here assume that I make more as well. But I don't, and while I love money as much as the next, I feel fair about what I'm payed.



R- HR determines the pay, not your manager/director, and they base it on age, a little on degree level, and almost none on experience. 


This seems to be true, however as I seem to be getting older all the time lately, this appeals to me, but I can see his frustration. 


R- Most people get burned out within 2 years.. 


Yes, its a turn and burn culture right now, but that will change soon. As companies begin to discover the huge value in finding and retaining quality talent who enjoy their work, they will ease up, and the office culture will change. Those pioneering Taiwanese's companies who do this first will also be the first to reap the rewards, and when other companies start to wonder why they lag behind, they'll scrabble to catch up. 


R- They expect you to "work" long hours. 


It's true, and this is one of the huge contributers to the "turn and burn" culture. After a few years of working 100 hours a week, humans just fall apart, so they quit. And the biggest losers ( in terms of actual dollars because of this ) are the companies they quit on. They'll do the math someday.


R- They like to get in to your personal life. 


True. Thats just the Chinese in them. They might see it being less of "getting into your biz" and more about building "guanxi". Culturally this can seem a bit intrusive to westerners, but to the Taiwanese and Chinese, its about doing good business.


R- Not very many think outside the box or creatively.


At first glance it can seem this way. Taiwanese are taught from a very young age not to question authority, which can also lead to not questioning the way things are in general. Because of this, it can be hard for many Taiwanese and Chinese to think "out of the box" not because they can't, but because they were taught that it is disrespectful. In spite of this there are loads of young Taiwanese and Chinese who are remarkably creative. Taiwan in recent years has seen a boom in talented young artist and designers who have a truly unique style worth recognizing.

R- The manager (or director/VP/CEO) is always right. Even where they're very, very wrong. 


This too comes from an upbringing that stresses respect of elders and your authority figures. Its also about "face" and not causing your superiors to lose it. Taiwanese are much less direct then westerners, which can initially come across as being passive, however if a superior is very wrong in a decision, Taiwanese who are at the appropriate level can and do question decisions, they just do it the long way around in order to avoid any embarrassment and ill feelings. This long way around can be completely missed by us foreigners who are unskilled in this type of communication. 


R- The younger workers are way too coddled.


You could say this. You could also say that young workers are allowed to make more mistakes and given more wiggle room then you'd expect in the west. I don't see this is a terribly bad thing.

R- They have no idea how to budget time properly. 


Chinese and Taiwanese are a bit less concerned about time then us westerners, it's true. Thats why meetings can drag on for hours and hours with no clear decisions being made, and bosses don't see why you need to leave the office at 7pm, and coworkers can sit around on a 2 hour lunch break. I think this also stems from a deep rooted cultural value of time. Which is, time is no big deal. Chinese are more leisurely about things, which can come across as a waste of time to us busy-body westerners. Although it can be really frustrating when deadlines need to be met, I generally like this attitude.


Working in Taiwan is different then working in the west, in many ways, and on many levels. As a foreigner living and working in Taiwan I feel lucky to have been given the opportunity to learn about this culture in such an immersive way, and feel that with time and experience the best of both cultures will emerge to create new work environments that are truly dynamic and forward thinking.

What everyone wants to be asked

As an expat living in Taipei I'm asked a lot of the same questions, a lot of the time.

On a recent hiking trip, my friend noticed it too. She pointed out that in two days I had been asked, in about 8 separate incidents the same exact grouping of questions.

Which are, roughly as follows:

Where are you from?

How long have you been here?

what do you do?

How long do you plan to stay?

Do you have a girlfriend?

My friend said that I should just get a t-shirt made that answered all those questions,

so I could wear it around and everyone would just know without having to ask. 

Which is funny because when I was traveling I remember having the same idea with some other travelers, because, when you're traveling everyone always asks you a similar list of questions

Where are you from?

How long have you been traveling?

How long do you plan to travel?

whats the craziest thing you've seen so far?

Have you gotten sick?

The t-shirt idea seems to pop up as a joke, out of a frustration over having to talk about the same thing over and over.

The rub is that those questions get asked all the time, because they're somewhat necessary from a strangers point of view aren't they? When I was traveling I would become really frustrated with having what I call "clone" conversations with practically everyone that I met, but when it came down to it,  those were conversations we had to have, regardless of how bored we were with them. 

So…. How long HAVE you been here?

What can we ask that hasn't already been asked-to-death anyways?

I'll try to think of five  ( this was going be ten… but I trimmed it. )

• what's your favorite shape?

• when was the first time you saw a naked girl?( if its a girl, same )

• Whats your least favorite article of clothing that you still regularly wear?

• what was the last question your best friend asked you?

• What were you doing last year, on this same day?

When trying to come up with a few unique questions I realized I could just come up with five totally bizarre questions that nobody would truly ask in a day to day conversation, let alone when you first meet someone, but then they would be questions that nobody would care to have answers to anyways. They wouldn't lead to an interesting conversation, which might be what everyone wants.

I tried these questions out on my friend just to see….

Hearing that her mom was the first girl she saw naked wasn't quite as exciting as I had hoped for but the questions seemed to be ask-able, and they started a conversation instead of killed one.

Successes? I'm not sure, we concluded that these questions might not work for someone less acceptable of the strange.

I once read a story in a mens magazine about how to successively pick up cute bartender girls.

Seems that most mens failure is a direct result of asking them the same boring questions that the last 300 guys asked them.

Probably something like:

So.. How long have you worked here?

What nights do you work?

Whats your favorite drink?

What time do you get off work?

The article basically instructed men to be creative, ask something that hasn't been asked before,

in order to "arouse her personal interests".

So it isn't so much about asking the right "questions" as it is about asking the questions that the other person wants to be asked.

Everyone wants to talk about the things they wish they were talking about instead of all those things they're tired of talking about.

This month I  went to a performance called the "anthology of optimism". It was really amazing and thought provoking. After the show I bumped into the two guys who performed it. So I started asking them a bunch of questions about it, questions I would initially assume they'd like to be asked. But I quickly realized that they must be asked these questions ALL the time too….

 I mean… they've probably done the show hundreds of times. They want t-shirts too by now. Shit.

The thing is, its also hard for anyone to say what it is they would want to be asked about.

I was going to come up with 5 questions I want to be asked, but…

then I realized the final realization of this whole post.

Which is..... that I don't want to tell anyone what I want to be asked, mainly because I don't know, but also because when it comes down to it, I think people like me and everyone else, want others to instinctively know what it is we want to be asked, so we can talk about what it is we think we want to talk about.

Some Lin Yutang quotes...

Was reading from my Lin Yutang book tonight "The importance of living" ( which I can't believe I still haven't finished ) and felt like posting some quotes that I liked from a section titled "This earth the only heaven"

"A vague hope of immortality detracts from our wholehearted enjoyment of this earthly existence."

"Although we select our pleasures according to our inclinations --- some noisy and rowdy, others quiet and sedate --- yet when we have found that which pleases us, we are all happy and contented, to the extent of forgetting that we are growing old. And then, when satiety follows satisfaction, and with the change of circumstances, change also our whims and desires, there then arises a feeling of poignant regret. In the twinkling of an eye, the objects or our former pleasures have become things of the past, still compelling in us moods of regretful memory. Furthermore, although our lives may be long or short, eventually we all end in nothingness. "Great indeed are life and death" said the ancients. Ah! what sadness!"

"Belief in our mortality, the sense that we are eventually going to crack up and be extinguished like the flame of a candle, I say, is a gloriously fine thing. It makes us sober; it makes us a little sad; and many of us it makes poetic. But above all, it makes it possible for us to make up our mind and arrange to live sensibly, truthfully and always with a sense of our own limitations. It gives peace also, because true peace of mind comes from accepting the worst. Psychologically, I think it means a release of energy."

"We human beings have a limited span of life to live on this earth, rarely more then seventy years, and therefore we have to arrange our lives so that we may live as happily as we can under a given set of circumstances."

"For if we love a woman, we do not love her geometrical precisions of features but rather her ways and gestures in motion, her looks and smiles. But are a woman's looks and smiles physical or spiritual? No one can say."

"from the Taoist point of view, an educated man is one who believes he has not succeeded when he has, but he is not so sure he has failed when he fails, while the mark of the half-educated man is his assumptions that his outward successes and failures are absolute and real."

Nail biting and other bad habits...

I've been biting my nails for years. Maybe even decades.

It's hard to tell when it started, but its easy to see the results. Ragged, war-torn nails bound to snag and scratch everything they make contact with. Sometimes I look in the mirror and see strange scratches on my face, thinking I may have been attacked by angry cats in my sleep. A serrated middle finger suddenly makes contact with my thumb, and I know.

In and around 2008 my nail biting was so out of control that I started talking about it with others. "What could I do to curb this horrible habit of mine?" My boss at the time also suffered from this "bad habit" and gave me a bottle of No Bite nail polish. You paint it on your nails, and the next time you stick a finger in your mouth, you taste shit. It works, and the polish lasts for almost a week, depending on how much of it you eat.

Of course, you have to keep up the habit of painting it on. After a few weeks I stopped using it of course, and resumed my nail chomping, much to my mouths delight of course. It always feels quite good to relapse on a bad habit too.

I used to assume that my nail biting habit was the product of stress, nervous energy, anxiety about my day or whatever.

 I google it....

I wasn't surprised to see that there is a wikipedia page specifically on nail biting.  Wikipedia calls it "an impulse control disorder in the DSM-IV-R while the ICD-10 classifies it as "other specified behavioural and emotional disorders with onset usually occurring in childhood and adolescence"


That sounds horribly serious. After reading that, and the section about "behavioral treatments" I could easily imagine a life filled with visits to nail biting specialists, various physicians and psychologist, medications, treatment regimens, and support groups, all in the name of eliminating my "impulse control disorder"

It's true that I'm periodically concerned about it, and wouldn't mind quitting.... but... I dont care that much.

I went for another google....

Over at ezinearticles they're a little more kind on the subject. They say that "millions of people" bite their nails, ( which I KNEW ) and that it's mainly from "boredom, stress, or worries." They also mention that "people with higher levels of intelligence" start chewing on their nails earlier. I like the sound of that, and I suddenly feel.... almost proud...... of my habit. I do this because I'm of a higher intelligence.... yeah...

Perhaps my nail biting is, in reality, a quite sophisticated thing. Much like: smoking pipes, sipping scotch, and..... such....

The most effective solution to biting my nails, I've found so far, is simply to keep my nails as short as possible, thereby drastically reducing my teethes ability to grab ahold of anything to mangle.

I dated a girl once who told me my nails were way too short, and that I should keep them longer. So for her, I decided to give them a grow-out. It was a catastrophe. I chewed them into long disgusting sculptures of horror. I quickly went back to keeping them short.

In addition to biting my nails, I have another habit that involves biting. I use my teeth to pull out small hairs from my hands and fingers. I once googled this too just to make sure I wasn't alone in this odd sort of thing. I'm not of course. google it.

RadioLab ( podcast ) did an episode on stress, and they mentioned something interesting. "Biting and chewing is a natural way to relieve stress, and can be an effective way of lowering it". So I guess I can just look at it that way. I'm lowering my stress. Biting my nails is actually helping me. To quit would be unhealthy and would drive me to more..... harmful habits. Like smoking. Besides, if you quit too many "bad habits" you just end up with nothing to do during all those lulls in life. Instead of a quick moment to do something harmless and slightly destructive, you're just left with... boredom. And everyone knows what boredom leads to...

Bad habits.