Excuse Me While I Indulge Myself

You might as well...

2008-03-09T16:23:00.002+08:00

I grew up believing that looks don't (shouldn't?) matter. Consequently, I dated a slew of (no offense) inconsequential-looking guys. I didn't hold my breath waiting for a hunk to ask me out, nor did I dream of anything earth shattering and lasting with a hottie. I gave chances to each guy who asked me out in the form of at least one date. I was nice to each and every one. Yes, even the Ugs. Simply because the adage You Never Know rang strong in me. (Although, to be frank, I am human: if they were too representative of Citizens of Ug, I couldn't take them seriously.)

Then, my ex happened. He didn't have, physically, anything I ever wished for: he wasn't that much bigger than me, he was short for a guy, he didn't have a masculine voice (think David Beckham), his shoulders were unimpressive to say the least. But he was NICE. He was sweet and thoughtful. He wasn't arrogant or egotistical. He had a sense of humour. He didn't check out other girls infront of me (or he didn't get caught doing it). He respected my culture, my roots and my comparatively traditional way of thinking.

We were together for 2 1/2 years and we were blissfully happy for almost all of it. I loved him, so much... and I can honestly say that it was reciprocated.

We broke up suddenly. I didn't see it coming; apparently, he'd been going through his own internal turmoil which came to light the Sunday morning he came by to break up with me. He needed to do it because he had just realised exactly HOW LONG we'd been together. I was his first girlfriend and he didn't know how to deal with the idea of "two and a half years". I wasn't asking or hoping for marriage, but he was feeling the pressure of commitment anyway.

After two and a half years, he realised the commitment was too much. When I asked him, "Why now, after all this time?", he replied helplessly: "I didn't think about it. It never occurred to me."

And then I thought, "Wow, think about how you'd feel if he realised this after FIVE years or something similar...". I reckon it was the shock talking.

This was quite a while ago and I have since gotten over the pain and betrayal. Surprisingly, now I have a much stronger sense of self-worth. You would think that I'd come out of this with insecurity issues, but I believe in myself so much more now. I believe I deserve better than that. I believe I Deserve It All. The love, the commitment, the trust, the friendship, the companionship, and yes, the physical attraction.

I must admit, though, that while I have long-since forgiven my ex for his weaknesses (his youth?), I have also come out of that relationship with a sense of mild contempt for men in general: even a genuinely nice guy like him can break my heart. I had to let go of the popular stereotype that "only the blatantly good-looking ones can and will do that". Men are, regardless of their physicaly extrerior, human. And every human has the capacity to screw up, and screw you over.

So this is my current philosophy on dating: if a nice-but-unhot man can be an asshole as much as the nice hunk, then I might as well date the nice hunk. I have been doing this and trust me, it's not been a disappointing experience. Now that I allow myself to want the nice, attractive ones, I actually get them. Yes, they exist. Stereotypes of handsome JERKS are true to a large degree, but you'd be surprised at how many hot SWEETEHARTS are out there, too.

Like... the reasoning behind this philosophy is, until he fucks up, I would've had much fun enjoying him physically. I know this sounds dirty but it's not meant to be. I know I sound bitter/cynical...and I am, but only to a certain extent. I implore you, think about it.

If two products are generally going to perform the same, then why not opt for the prettier version? It'd look better on your arm (and feel better in your arms) until the expected shitty end. And if there IS no shitty end, just a happy ending, well, you struck it lucky. You got a happy ending with the more aesthetically-pleasing model than the basic 1.0 version.

You know how they say that "nice guys finish last"? I suspect that people say that to refer to the less-than-amazing looking specimens of nice men. And I completely disagree: I have never been into arrogance, and I don't do Bad Boys. There is complete disinterest. A man's personality and inherent goodness is the be-all and end-all for me. Looks don't matter, and I mean that to my bones. However. Until I find a man who is good enough on the inside, I won't stop myself from appreciating and/or pursuing those that are good on the outside.

Porn

2008-03-08T15:53:00.004+08:00

Wow, it's been exactly two months since my last post. Working 6 days a week'll do that to you, eh?

I hadn't been shopping in ages... and when that happens, I make for shoes.com, probably the best shoe site I know of for now. It has amazing choice and the most beautiful pictures, like many other websites, but the thing that makes it stand out for me is the description provided for each and every pair of shoes it sells. Nowhere else have I found such detailed narrative, and let me tell you, reading them is like porn for me. I could spend hours trolling the site, reading and savouring every word. Vamp, peep-toe, ruched, patent leather, satin, crushed velvet, column-style heel,... oh, shoe jargon! Unlike every other site I've been to, here, each gorgeous, evocative paragraph actually does justice to the shoe it is describing.

I don't know why, but I can somehow understand everything I read on shoes.com even though I had no idea of the different parts of the shoe before discovering this site. My heartrate kicks up reading the stuff here, I shit you not.

Take, for example, their description of Betsey Johnson's Warwick shoes in red:

Satisfy your craving for perfect fashion zen with these gorgeous Asian inspired
Betsy Johnson Warwick heels. Printed brocade fabric upper with round peep toe,
contouring heel with geometric scalloped cutout detail and metallic front ankle
wrap strap with adjustable metal buckle, open sided vamp and ruched brocade
instep overlays with triple center knot detailing. Cushioned metallic logo
footbed, smooth patterned logo outsole, 4 inch metallic wrapped stiletto wedge
heel.

Gaaaahhhhhhhh.

Read also, about Report Signature's Blondie in silver leather:

You'll be enraptured by this bewitching dress style from Report Signature.
Smooth leather upper in a dress slingback style, with a round open toe, mirrored
sequin style overlays on thin front straps, full outer arch panel, heel sling
strap with inner hidden elastic panel and open inner arch. Smooth leather
lining, cushioned insole with logo accented heel pad. Dress midsole. Smooth
dress style outsole with a polished TPU 3 3/4 inch high column style stiletto
dress heel.

Like I said. PORN.

Wooo-weee!

2007-12-31T14:47:00.000+08:00

The world feels right again. I went to Bukit Bintang today and scored my first pair of shoes since The Ban. Sure, it took me a while to find the one pair that I deemed worthy to be The Pair To End The Ban. But find them I did, and they are FABULOUS, people, just faaaaaaaabulous. Totally worth the wait. I think about them now and I still burst into a fit of giggles. I want to run downstairs, take them out of their box, take them to bed, snuggle them up (clasp them?) against my loving bosom through the night. That, or sleep with them on...and waking up periodically to admire them, giggle deliriously, and collapse into sleep again, of course.

It was instant love. I clapped my eyes on them: sitting, almost forlorn, on their Full Price shelf amidst the year-end-sale chaos of this random little shoestore, they were the perfect way to end my fast. They are bright, sunshine-y yellow slides with a slim wedge heel, and they each come with a gorgeous, shimmery, gauze-y, bright yellow bow/flower-thing topped jauntily on the outside edge that is just big enough to catch your eye, but not big enough to look like they're swamping your feet. How marvelously Stepford-Wives! How outrageously impractical!

Imagine that with a flirty, swishy little summer dress that comes just to your knees...ooh.

Hold on while I compose myself.

Anyway, here they are (Eeeee!):

Another Never-Will-Have Must-Have

2007-12-28T14:28:00.001+08:00

Yet another stunning, totally unique pair of shoes I stumbled across during one of my interweb-window-shopping sojourns:

These are by Charmone. Notice the pewter-coloured stiff-satin ruffles lacing the edges of the black velvet uppers of the shoe--which are done in d'orsay style, no less! (D'orsay heels are one of my favourite styles.)

I mean, can't you just picture them with a tight little black pencil skirt?

They are so fabulously dramatic, so unapologetically flamboyant, that I feel like I must have them. Le sigh... Be still my heart.

Boys are stupid, throw rocks at them

2007-12-26T22:35:00.000+08:00

Oh my GOD. One of my ex students developed a crush on me and confessed. Idiot that I am, I tried to handle it gently by giving him the "No I can't because I am your teacher and my career's at stake but let's be friends" speech. I also made it a point to be nice to him so he didn't feel like I was weirded out by his passionate confessions. He seemed all devastated, but kept talking to me online, which lulld me into a false sense of security. Over time he seemed to conveniently forget that I'd already rejected his advances at the very beginning.

He began to ask me out on dates again and I kept saying I'm busy; but because he knows I regularly lunch with my other students, I said (to be fair) hey, we can have lunch during your lunch break if you want. THEN, he says he can't understand me: "do you want something or not? sometimes you say you are busy busy busy, then you say no dinner but lunch ok."

And I'm like OMFG. Were you not listening? I am NOT one of those girls who plays games. What I say is what you get. Where along the line did my career become dispensible? Where along the line did I flirt with you or accept your proclamations/advances? Where along the line did I bring our conversations anywhere NEAR non-platonic?

Needless to say, I set the story straight then and there. Dude, it is NOT gonna happen. Dude, MY CAREER. Dude, the lunch offer was a lunch offer between FRIENDS. I DON'T WANT ANYTHING MORE. Do you understand? No mincing of words. I was/am so frustrated that I don't even feel bad about it yet. As expected, he spat out an Ok, I have to go now.

I blocked him on my messenger account.

I mean, he's my age, he's no longer a student at my workplace, and he's a really sweet guy except for the persistence and mild harassment. I would've given him a chance because I give all guys a chance (my only condition is that nothing about him repulses me, and you gotta admit that's a pretty fair call), but for him, I could not. He has friends still studying where I work, and if I went out with him, his friends would definitely hear about it... and that would be the end of my credibility as a teacher. I would just be another girl at the school. Not a teacher, but a chick who was fair game for anyone game enough to take a shot. Bloody hell, I think about it and it makes me shudder. I cannot imagine anyone tempting enough to change my mind.

What is happening to the world? Is there no more sense of boundaries between student and teacher? I mean, most of my male students hit on me; that's still tolerable because they're totally not serious (I think they're just doing it for kicks and to see how much they can get away with) and it's amusing (like wow, I'm the Hot Teacher), but when they start giving you love letters and proclaiming undying love for you after a month? When they leave the school without letting on that they fancy you, and then BAM! one day seek you out and tell you the reason they left was so they could confess to you and ask you out? Jesus.

Usually I feel so bad about it, which is why I make it a point never never never to flirt with my students in any shape or form. But it's still happening, and I am starting to fray at the edges.

I Wanna Know - Joe

2007-12-03T23:37:00.000+08:00

I was listening to the radio just now and this song came on. It's like so old; I think it was released when I was still a teen, and I hadn't heard it in yonks. I forgot how much I liked it! It's the ultimate in cheesy love songs, but I reckon we're all allowed our guilty pleasures. Besides, it's a notch up from Lionel Richie (--not that I don't like HIM either!--check out I Call It Love, his latest offering).

I mean, the melody is just so sweet, so soothing, so bone-melt-y. And the lyrics, while cheesy, are so romantic. The eye-roll factor is almost totally nullified when coupled with the melody and the earnestness that is Joe's singing. Well, it is in my book anyway:

I Wanna Know - Joe

It's amazing how you knock me off my feet, hmm
Everytime you come around me I get weak, oh yeah
Nobody ever made me feel this way, oh
You kiss my lips and then you take my breath away
So I wanna know

[1] -
I wanna know what turns you on
So I can be all that and moreI'd like to know what makes you cry
So I can be the one who always makes you smile
Girl he never understood what you were worth, hmm no
And he never took the time to make it work
(You deserve more loving, girl)

Baby I'm the kind of man who shows concern, yes I do, oh
Anyway that I can please you let me learn
So I wanna know

[Repeat 1]

[2] -
Tell me what I gotta do to please you
Baby anything you say I'll do
Cause I only wanna make you happy
From the bottom of my heart, it's true

[Repeat 2]

I wish that I could take a journey through your mind, alright
And find emotions that you always try to hide babe, oh
I do believe that there's a love you wanna share, oh, oh
I'll take good care of you lady, have no fear, oh
So I wanna know

[Repeat 1]
[Repeat 2 (2x)]
[Repeat 1 till end]

I guess there's no hiding that I'm a total romantic by now, so I'll just come right out and admit it: I think that many, if not most women, dream of a man out there who would feel (and do) for them, all those things Joe sings about in I Wanna Know. Sigh. No? C'monnnnn. He's singing about wanting to know you so he can do everything and MORE to please you. ;)

[Along the same vein of the sweet "I want to know you" type lyric is Inside Out by Bryan Adams (whom I love as well, incidentally!)]

Cue cynical Pfff from men and offended feminists.

Joe may just be trying to get into women's pants around the world, but he sure is on the right track with that song. :p

Quips

2007-12-02T17:17:00.000+08:00

Just wanted to share two funny things I heard while vegging out in front of the TV. The quotes below aren't verbatim:

(1) "In the end, we're all black...in the dark." - Some black celebrity-dude-person, I can't remember who, on some music channel.

(2) "Anything a man can do, a woman can do better. Except the stupid things." - Kimora Lee Simmons (she is so hot)

Fat Redistribution

2007-11-29T23:09:00.000+08:00

I've lost weight since I started working. At first I was all like, fricking ecstatic and stuff (because my stomach was flatter and my hips were slightly smaller and so I was feeling more physically attractive)... but then today I noticed something that shook my world. In a big bad earthquake-y way.

My bra was not being filled properly. I looked down today while I was getting dressed and I noticed that on the fabric of the bra cup, there was slight... RUCHING. there was tiny little air pocket where there should've been breast. OMFG.

Like, talk about life being a bitch!

Seriously.

Seriously.

Seriously!

They should invent some fat-gene genetic control pill thing that lets you choose where to lose fat or where fat should go if you gain some. Like I would do it so when I lose weight, it goes from my bottom half FIRST, not LAST, and when I put on weight, the fresh fat would go to my BOOBS first, my bottom half and face LAST. As things stand, with Mother Gene in charge, it's the total opposite of the ideal situation.

When I put on weight (which happens if I so much as smell frying bacon, goddammit), my thighs, hips and butt (and FACE) pad out. When--presumably--all those bloomin' fat cells are so full up that there's nowhere left for the new fat to go, THEN my boobs grow a little. But it's SOOO not worth it, because I need to look disgusting EVERYWHERE ELSE on my body in order to gain half a cup size.

When I LOSE weight, the fat goes from my face, abs and boobs FIRST. The first two places? Good: One can always appreciate a more defined face and flatter belly. But to take away from what is already a very AVERAGE pair of boobs? That's just cruel. And when my poor little babies have been depleted, THEN only will my hip, thighs and bum deign to bless me with say, a piddling one-inch loss in circumference.

I haven't done my research yet, but maybe plastic surgeons can suck the fat from my heavy half and instead of throwing it all away, maybe they can syphon some of it into my boobs. That'd be convenient.

Things of beauty

2007-11-24T20:53:00.000+08:00

Check out this black heel:

Very cute, yes? The sheer material, the artful gathering along the sides, the graceful scoop, the peep-toe. Ahhh. I can picture myself wearing them now. They would vamp up almost any outfit. I could wear it at work, out for lunch/dinner with the girls, out on a date. Versatile beauty.

Oh but wait. Let us now witness new heights of shoe-beauty.

Look at these babies by Rock & Republic:
Oooooh. So hot. I want want WANT them. So what if they don't match everything? They're SALIVA-INDUCING.

Imagine wearing these shoes with a pair of long-line, low-waist, slim-cut jeans and a white singlet (scoop-necked or with a square neckline), or with a strappy, knee-length, breezy-yet-fitted cream/white day dress. Mmm.

Can't talk, gotta go fantasize.

Bad Grammar as Key to Social Acceptance

2007-11-24T18:50:00.000+08:00

Was just killing time on the ever-entertaining Facebook when I found this link on one of the groups I am a member of ("I judge you when you use poor grammar"):

Your Modifier Is Dangling by Bob Morris, The New York Times, October 21 2007.

Not long ago, an elderly friend and grammar stickler stopped me midsentence. I
had just said, “They gave it to him and I,” when it should have been “him and
me.”“You have to keep in mind the object of the preposition,” she gently told
me. I felt ashamed, but also grateful to be corrected.“And now you won’t
embarrass yourself in front of someone else,” she said.
She isn’t the only one wagging a finger or a pencil these days. Bring up the topic of grammar at any party and you’re likely to be hit with a tirade.But then, this is a time when e-mail messages, hip-hop slang, and a “decider” president who said that
“childrens do learn” are chipping away at good grammar. Poor usage, of course,
goes back at least to Shakespeare, who invented plenty of his own rules.
In “Pygmalion,” George Bernard Shaw wrote that the English have no respect for their language, and spell it abominably. And Richard Brinsley Sheridan’s character Mrs. Malaprop, with her silly misuses, could hold her own on today’s White House cabinet, or anyplace where being folksy sells better than being impeccable.
“Unfortunately, using poor grammar comes off as less pretentious,” said Sharon Nichols, a 22-year-old law student. “Everything is just so calculated in politics.”Ms.
Nichols is one of many young people throwing off her generation’s reputation for
slovenly language, and taking up the gauntlet for good grammar. Last year, after
seeing a sign on a restaurant window that said “Applications Excepted,” she
started a grammar vigilante group on Facebook, the social networking site, and called it “I Judge You When You Use Poor Grammar.” Its 200,000 members have gleefully and righteously sent in 5,000 photographs documenting grammatical errors. Facebook offers several grammar-crusading groups in high finger-wagging mode, including Citizens Against Poor Grammar and Grammar Freaks United.
Meanwhile, Martha Brockenbrough, a Seattle writer, has started the Society for the Promotion of Good Grammar, for waging her own battles. She wrote a scolding letter to a shampoo company that used the word “structurizes.” She has also written to President Bush. “But I haven’t heard back from him,” she said.
Engaged as she is in flagging misuses, however, she doesn’t correct people face to face. Lynne Agress, founder of Business Writing at Its Best, a 25-year-old Maryland-based company, is another stickler who won’t correct people in social situations.
“You never want to make anyone uncomfortable,” she said.Of course not. And you probably don’t want to correct your boss, either. On the other hand, what kind of world would we have if everyone let grammar continue its drunken, downhill slide? Communication would become even more difficult than it already is. Civilization might even be hastened to its ultimate collapse.So, when is it O.K. to correct grammar? When you’re a teacher, of course, or when you’re coaching a nonnative speaker who has asked for help.
But if you can’t control the impulse to help a friend by correcting a mistake, what’s the best way to do so? It seems there are two options.You can ask, “Oh, is that the way you pronounce that word?” Then go on to say that you always pronounced it differently, and demonstrate how you do so.

A more subtle approach: Don’t point out the mistake. Instead, repeat what was
just said, but with correct usage this time, and in your own sentence. Then keep
talking.Ms. Agress, the business-writing expert, uses this technique.“So if
someone tells me that everyone has their issues,” she said, “I reply, ‘Yes,
everyone has his issues, but that doesn’t mean we have to worry about them.’”And
unless we really care, we don’t have to correct them, either.

It is true that many, MANY people perceive perfect (or good) grammar to be a sign of snobbery. But I don't think that is the case at ALL. I just don't get why you'd want to encourage--nay, CONSCIOUSLY BRING ABOUT--the degeneration of any language system (syntactic, phonemic, whatever). It hurts! It's the slow, deliberate death of an INSTITUTION, a beautiful SYSTEM.

In the case of English, I fight hard not to correct people I talk to (or overhear) because it's not very nice. And in case you're wondering, I have these impulses not because I'm pretentious, or because I'm a teacher--I've been like this as long as I could remember. Bad grammar (and spelling and punctuation and pronunciation) grates on my nerves, drives me completely nuts. Especially when they come from supposedly native speakers. People who by dint of their nationality and mother tongue are blessed with unconditional passports to unquestioning respect and financial ease, people who wield an invisible power, a perceived superiority over their non-native English-speaking counterparts.

When I do correct someone, I'm pleasantly surprised that I use the exact two techniques discussed in the article above. So it's nice to know that I'm strong enough to curb impulses that may otherwise brand me a social pariah (for example, I don't screech at people "It's YOU'RE taller THAN me, not YOUR taller THEN me! GAHHH!" or "It's MY FEET HURT not MY FEET HURTS, GOD don't you KNOW feet is PLURAL?!"). It's hard, but I try. ;)

Crisis Mode. Must...vent...

2007-11-17T17:51:00.000+08:00

Oh. My. GOD. It's starting up again.

When was the last time I moaned about wanting shoes here? I can't remember. It's just been a constant pain in my soul since my dad banned me from buying another pair of shoes (this was way back in January). I thought I'd banished my shoe-lust into its little banished corner--well, after the first few months of anguish anyway. You know. Cold turkey = CRAZED wanting-ness until the initial blaze of withdrawal subsides, and you become human again. Almost. What it is is that you THINK you have gotten over the worst part. But all you've done is you have managed to fool yourself into thinking you may not need/want those babies (whatever they may be--different stroked for different folks!) anymore. You are living in a realm of suspended reality, my friend. The world moves along without your full participation. You think you're all better but you still crave what you used to have access to. You merely got USED to living--EXISTING--in misery. You are not FREED. Eg, recovering alcoholics still feel THIRSTY even though they've been sober for years.

And me. Ah me. A fresh tidal wave of unrelenting, obssessive yearning has crashed upon me. I existed months without another pair of shoes--heels, to be precise--and now I have arrived at yet another tsunami of mad-eyed, shaky-handed need, of panicked, willing-to-kill desperation.

I no longer have even a vague idea of what shoes I want. I have disallowed myself from fantasising about them for so long that now, all I want is SHOES. period. ANY AND ALL SHOES. Something to adorn my feet, elongate my legs, match individual outfits, give me a strut, make me go "Ooooh."

GAHHHH!

I must hold on. I must not give in.

At least not until I get my first bloody paycheck.

...And if The Father tries to intervene, so help me god, there shall be bloodshed.

Memo to Future Cynical Self

2007-11-08T17:18:00.000+08:00

I write this to immortalise my current thoughts and feelings in black-and-white. I write this in the hopes that one day, when I feel all bitter and cynical and angry and unfulfilled with my chosen path in teaching ESL, I will chance upon this post again. I never want to forget the things I feel and believe in right now, when I have newly been launched into the practical world of teaching. I hope I never forget the main reason I decided to do what I do: to help others do things they always dreamed of, to touch their lives somehow.

I am two weeks into teaching my first ever class. My very own class. 21 of them, all mine. (Wow.) I've got 3 women--1 Japanese, 1 Arab, 1 Vietnamese. The rest are young men--2 Koreans, 1 Chinese, 14 Arabs.

My students are generally lovely. This class is anyway. (Most of the boys are just... so irrepressible. Deliciously cheeky. The quieter ones are equally charming because they find their ways to interact with me. And the girls! Gosh they do try so hard, and I feel their effort, and it is gratifying. They enjoy their boisterous classmates as much as I do.) I KNOW I'll get dickheads in the future, but this batch I've got are so... *sigh*. They are basically the reason why I love what I am doing. They LOOK UP to me. God.

They respect me. They believe that I am their (linguistic) superior and they accept what I say without snarkiness, without question. They come to me the moment they aren't 100% sure about something. They freaking THANK me for teaching them. I have a guy who changed classes to go to a more advanced stream because he was too good for the level I'm teaching, and today he stopped me in the corridor to ask me for help in an assignment. And in class today, two of my students told me to my face that they "only like my class" because they "always understand everything I teach".

I mean I know that people should always be all "independent-minded" and question everything, not just make like a sponge, as I've discovered in uni, but I think in 2nd language learning it might not work exactly that way, at least not in the beginning when they don't know enough to question you.

And I know it sounds like I'm just on some power trip or something, but well... you know what I mean right? I feel so APPRECIATED. Kind of how I look up to ...hell, all my bloody lecturers from uni. In my eyes they can do no wrong, they are Gods from the land of Knowledge, and if they do make mistakes it's "always for a good reason". As far as I'm concerned, they are on an indestructible pedestal. (Yes, I'm from that very ancient school of thought.)

And now, it overwhelms me that there are people out there who feel (at least a bit) that way about me. I feel totally undeserving. So humbled. And so freaking honoured. Does that make me a silly person? Does that scream "greenhorn" and "idealist"?

I am not sure I actually care. Sure, some might smirk and wait for the day I become completely disillusioned so they can laugh and feel superior to me. I hope that never happens, but cynicism is hard to keep away as the years of life pile on. Self: Don't ever stop trying and giving your best in every class you teach.

Long Live Punctuation

2007-10-22T00:42:00.000+08:00

Let me just get one thing straight: I love punctuation. I don't care that it may relegate me to one of the lower stratas of geekdom. I actually have a T-shirt custom-made with the slogan "Long Live the Apostrophe" across the front. I actually wear it--with pride. Imagine my horror when I saw this article in the papers a few days ago:

Is the Hyphen Facing Extinction?
Giles Foden

Yes, if the lexicographers are right. The latest revision of the Oxford English Dictionary eschews them, dumping more than 16,000 examples
(including the crucial ‘fig-leaf’) for their compound equivalents (‘figleaf’).

The reason? ‘Our world of fast keying and quick edits onscreen has largely given up searching for the hyphen.’ The poets won’t like it, or
so one first thinks. How could Hopkins have praised ‘skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow’ without a hyphen? In fact, the jury is still out on hyphens in poetry. Many early poets’ work varies hyphenation in different versions of the same text.

Nor do style guides agree on the hyphen. Fowler’s Modern English
Usage makes a detailed study, then admits ‘usage is so variable as to be better named caprice’. Another style book says: ‘If you take hyphens seriously you will surely go mad.’ Sir Ernest Gowers, author of The Complete Plain Words, replies: ‘I have no intention of taking hyphens seriously.’ So it doesn’t matter if they are being used less frequently? It does matter, but more because of politics than poetry or punctuation. Arab-Americans, for example, might set much store by them at the moment, just as other hyphenated Americans did when President Woodrow Wilson disparaged them back in 1919: ‘I think the most
un-American thing in the world is a hyphen — any man who carries a hyphen about with him carries a dagger that he is ready to plunge into the vitals of this republic.’

Actually, the great thing about American society is that it compounds and separates at the same time, making both the universal and exceptional case. That’s also the virtue of the term-cleaving hyphen. Maybe its death onscreen is really saying something about the American empire and its provinces in cyberspace. Perhaps this is a moment anthropologists of the future, looking down like hungry falcons on the blue-bleak embers of our world, will identify as a tipping point. Or tipping-point.

Devastation (Giles Foden, why would you SAY such a thing!). Then, hot on its heels, Fear: My beloved apostrophe might be next. Oh dear lord, let that not be so! It is already suffering in the hands of the ignorant! Being used when it shouldn't be used; being ignored, disposed of when it should be placed on its rightful throne, so it can shine its loving light over the letters that guard it... oh, my heart squeezes painfully, and my spirit roils with unease when such crimes are c0mmitted! And they are committed with increasing regularity, a sign of the public's growing disregard for punctuation. Punctuation is at times arbitrary (come on, few social / linguistic conventions aren't), but I maintain that it is still meaningful. At the very (very) least, punctuation is comfortable, a much-loved tradition that hints of education and culture. At the very least, a sound knowledge of punctuation is a pretty skill which adds a touch of refinement to any writing. (Ah, puristically-inclined me...) Why do away with it? I mean, look at the article--do you notice that there's a heap of hyphens used in it? And in my own writing?

Oh what is happening to the world?

I need to lie down.

Hopefully the extinction of my beloved apostrophe will only occur after my departure from this cruel, cruel world.

Lexical Approach (in teaching Second Languages)

2007-10-18T16:05:00.000+08:00

I was doing some reading regarding teaching methodologies/approaches in second language teaching last night and found the pieces on the Lexical Approach very interesting. (I think it was conceived with the teaching of English as a second/foreign language in particular, but I may be totally mistaken.) Anyway. The info below should give you the gist of the Lexical Approach:

(1) Lewis, M. 1993. The Lexical Approach.

The lexical approach concentrates on developing learners' proficiency with lexis, or words and word combinations. it is based on the idea that an important part of language acquisition is the ability to comprehend and produce lexical phrases as unanalysed wholes, or "chunks", and that these chunks become the raw data by which learners perceive patterns of language traditionally thought of as grammar.
-->Lexis is the basis of all language. [Lexis being differentiated from vocabulary: Vocabulary = a stock of individual words with fixed meanings; Lexis = includes those single words, and also the word combinations that are stored in every individual's mental lexicons]
--> Lexis is misunderstood in language teaching because of the assumption that grammar is the basis of language and that mastery of the grammatical system is a prerequitsite for effective coomunication.
--> Key principle: language consists of grammaticalised lexis, not lexicalised grammar.
--> Hence: one of the central principles with which to organise a meaning-centred syllabus should be lexis.

(2) Lewis, M. 1997. "Pedagogical Implications of the Lexical Approach" in J. Coadins & T. Huckin (Eds.), Second Language Vocabulary Acquisition: A Rationale for Pedagogy, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, pp 255-270.

Lexical items can be grouped like so:
words (table, chair)
polywords (by the by, upside down, what's more)
collocations, or word partnerships (community service, unbelievably cold)
institutionalised utterances (We'll see; That'll do; If I were you...; Can I offer you some tea?; I don't know about you, but...)
sentence frames and heads (That is not as...as you think; The fact/suggestion/problem was...)
text frames (In this paper we explore...; Firstly...; Secondly; Finally...)

(3) Nattinger, J. 1980. "A Lexical Phrase Grammar for ESL", TESOL Quarterly, 14, pp 337-344.

Teaching should be based on the idea that language production is the piecing together of ready-made units appropriate for a particular situation.

So essentially, we should teach collocations alot. [Collocation is defined by Lewis (1997, Implementing the Lexical Approach: Putting Theory into Practice, p8) as the phenomenon whereby certain words co-occur in natural text with greater than random frequency.]

As it is with all methodologies/approaches, it has flaws and weaknesses. One of the implications that I do not appreciate (perhaps because I am a little bit on the language purist side) is that concentration on the lexis will necessarily reduce the role of grammar. That makes things hard because up till now, most language teaching has treated grammar as the basis of language, especially of language understanding and language production. So while it offers a glimpse into a whole new world that looks to be refreshing and exciting, it's also quite disorienting. I mean, it turns everything as we know it, on its head! Think about it: language as GRAMMATICALISED lexis instead of LEXICALISED grammar? Amazing. Utter madness. Totally possible.

However, I woke up this morning still thinking about the key assumptions of this approach. I was dying of curiosity, because I'd never really thought about things that way before. So I nosed around, reading random pages from a couple of books, the newspaper, blogs, and guess what? I find that I agree. I think that a very large part of our language (spoken or written) appears to be fixed--just reused and cleverly fixed to appear original-ish. Look around. Read. Pay attention to the speech around you. It's really quite creepy! I feel like my head is going to explode with this new revelation. Very whoah-inducing.

So then I remembered this thing I got in my mail like years ago, one of those forwarded "interesting" things:

fi yuo cna raed tihs, yuo hvae a sgtrane mnid too Cna yuo raed tihs? Olny 55 plepoe out of 100 can. i cdnuolt blveiee taht I cluod aulaclty uesdnatnrd waht I was rdanieg. The phaonmneal pweor of the hmuan mnid, aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it dseno't mtaetr in waht oerdr the ltteres in a wrod are, the olny iproamtnt tihng is taht the frsit and lsat ltteer be in the rghit pclae. The rset can be a taotl mses and you can sitll raed it whotuit a pboerlm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe. Azanmig huh? yaeh and I awlyas tghuhot slpeling was ipmorantt! if you can raed tihs forwrad it

I can read it, no sweat. I didn't even pause. There was no deciphering required, almost as if everything were spelt perfectly. And this makes for very , very interesting implications. Do you think that perhaps the base assumption of the Lexical Approach can be applied to spelling/reading individual words as well? That is, maybe we memorise chunks of language (words, phrases etc), but we may also possibly memorize the the individual written word (perhaps as a whole image instead of discrete letters...) and apply it to our daily reading, instead of actually reading each word as we come across it?

Sure, I suspect that at least one of the reasons we can read the above excerpt is because of our stock of "language chunks" in our mental corpus--as per the claims of the Lexical Approach, we may have been able to guess the words in the excerpt because they are expected to follow from certain words or phrases. I say this because if you were to pluck out random words from the piece above and ask me to read them completely out of context, I'd have trouble doing it. I mean, I'm one of those people who suck at Unscramble The Word games. So contextualisation is obviously very important.

But maybe we also memorise the image of the written word as well, and we only skim over words when we read, not go over every letter that builds the word. Maybe we only do the latter when it's a new, unfamiliar or less-commonly-used word.

The Problem with Shoes

2007-10-16T13:30:00.000+08:00

One day, if and when I am wildly successful and rich, you know what I want to do? I want to be able to afford personally-tailored shoes.

Yes, yes, of course I want to do the usual--travel, buy stuff without having to think twice or even look at the price tag, regularly visit spas, have topless jean-clad smiling man-slaves doing my dishes... (that last one is a whole other story in itself.)

But...tailored shoes. Now that is something worth dreaming about. To have shoes--heels, to be exact--that fit my feet perfectly? Wow. It takes me breath away. Makes me feel a touch dizzy with impending joy, really.

See, my feet aren't the usual pretty, slim hooha. Length-wise, they're a size 4. Tiny tiny little freaks of nature, even for someone of my piddling 5 foot 1 height. But (there's always a but) they're wider than is normal--when I buy heels, I need to buy them in size 5 because the fronts are just too narrow. That is just something I have to do. To get a pair of shoes that fit, I have to settle for the shoe to be a little too long for me feet. [As an aside, allow me to point out that my body is also similarly disfigured: I can almost never get jeans that fit me juuuust right. They're always too tight around my thighs/butt when they fit my waist; too loose when they fit my thighs. I'm freaking Goldilocks who never finds her perfect porridge. Story of my life. On a Good Self Esteem day I tell myself it's because I have a fantastic nipped-in waist; on Bad Self Esteem days, it's definitely because I have birthing hips. So anyway, I usually make do by buying the ones that fit my thighs, then whisk the jeans off to my trusty tailor, who takes in the waistline of the garment. ] Admittedly, that doesn't pose too much of a problem finding shoes (just look at my shoe rack). But, like most things in (my) life, they could stand to be a liiiittle closer to perfect. So I intend to one day, be able to afford a SHOE tailor. Only instead of shortening the length of a pair of store-bought shoes, this tailor dude (or dudette) will make the shoes for me from scratch. (Seriously, the thought is such a turn-on). Because we all know that you can't shorten the length of a high heel shoe without throwing the aesthetics completely out of whack. Which would then prompt thoughts like "What's the point?" Like, duh.

My shoe tailor would totally make me shoes that are of the perfect length, perfect width, and have heels which are never higher than 3 inches.

I need to explain my three-inch heel theory, don't I? Well listen, and listen carefully, because some of the people who have been privy to this theory have made faces of complete befuddlement. What can I say, either they're not maths people, or they just couldn't deal with genius when they saw it...I probably should have it copyrighted, it is that good.

Ahem. So ok. I have basically linked the Pithagores Theorem to my heel theory. The longer your foot, the higher the heel you should be able to teeter around in. Think about it:

Okay, let me use my size 4 feet/size 5 shoes as an example. Due to my foot length (sadness and sorrow) my puny feet cannot deal with anything higher than 3 inches. I wouldn't be able to stand in say, 4 inch heels, much less teeter stylishly in them.

Obviously, the very similar numbers (size 4 base, 3 inch height) should not be regarded as gospel or anything, because they are not in the same units--basic maths sense. I really doubt that everyone can calculate their Comfortable Heel Height based on the theorem. This is not like mathematician-proven, people! You'd have to consider every person's pain threshold--we're all different. But you gotta admit it makes a lot of sense. All I'm saying is that if there is less foot to go over the hypothenuse slope-y bit, then naturally, due to physical shortcomings, it would limit heel height possibilities. Like, I would be able to wear gloriously high heels if I had bigger feet. Yes? No?

...I am so not a freak.

Of Breasts

2007-10-14T21:39:00.001+08:00

I found out something about my best friend today: we both have a problem hugging other females. And because of this, I know why we never hug each other too tightly for too long, front to front, despite the fact that we've best friends for more than ten years now. I mean, we talk about everything. Nothing is too private. We even lived together at one point and had no problems squishing up beside each other in a single bed in our underwear, chatting into the night. We just aren't one of those friends who feel comfortable hugging each other too much. We do that whole hug-from-the-side thing. Maybe it's just heartening proof that our sexual orientations are extremely straight.

Apparently the very same thing bugs us with those woman to woman hugs--breasts. It's just... ick. It just feels wrong! For her, she hates it more when the woman is ample in the boob department. She tells me that the give you experience when pressed up against big soft boobies gives her the creeps.

This is where we're different. I'd much rather hug a woman with big breasts! Then, I can delude myself into thinking "I'm sinking into cushions! These are cushions! Cushions, I say!" It's the small breasts (you know, those that sit apart from each other?) that make me recoil. Because then? I can't tell myself that these objects pressing into my objects are not another pair of breasts, not another woman's woman-y bits. Blech.

And god forbid if the small breasted woman is braless and cold. Small sit-y apart breasts that are each uhm... trying to say hello. To MY woman-y bits. Eurrghh.

Now, hugging men. Chances are, I can't feel their pectoral headlights randomly jabbing my chest. Chances are, their pecs are not fighting for space with my boobs--no no, they're just comfortably solid, pleasantly masculine, totally happy to hang out without trying to pee all over my (chestal) territory. Yes. I much, much prefer hugging men.

Anger

2007-10-05T10:22:00.001+08:00

I recommend that everyone listen to I Hate Everyone by Get Set Go. Seriously. I find it really refreshing how the angry lyrics are hiding inside this really catchy, upbeat melody. Sometimes you wake up hating everything and everyone; maybe it was a bad dream, maybe it is hormones, maybe it's just been your life the past god-knows-how-long, whatever. Sometimes you wake up fine, but then everyone shits on your day and you just want them all to... to... well, not die, but maybe suffer some small (okay, HUGE) public humiliation.

And since I'm not the kind of person who likes Hate Songs satanically screeched to the tune of Yuck, Get Set Go's modern rock, bubblegum version of this genre of song is perfect for me:

Some stupid chick in the check out line
Was paying for beers with nickels and dimes
And some old man who clipped coupons
Had argued whenever they wouldn't one
All I wanted to buy was some cigarettes
But I couldn't take it anymore so I left

I hate everyone
I hate everyone
I hate everyone
I hate everyone

All the people on the street, I hate you all
And the people that I meet, I hate you all
And the people that I know, I hate you all
And the people that I don't, I hate you all
Oh, I hate you all

Some f**king asshole just cut me off
Then gave me the finger when I f**king honked
Then he proceeded to put on the brakes
He slammed on the brakes, but I made a mistake
When I climbed out of my van, he was waiting
But he was six three and 200 pounds of Satan

I hate everyone (4x)

All the people on the street, I hate you all
And the people that I meet, I hate you all
And the people that I know, I hate you all
And the people that I don't, I hate you all

I bet you think I'm kidding
But I promise you it's true
I hate most everybody
But most of all, I hate
Oh, I hate you

All the people on the street, I hate you all
And the people that I meet, I hate you all
And the people that I know, I hate you all
And the people that I don't, I hate you all
And the people in the east, I hate you all
And the people I hate least, I hate you all
And the people in the west, I hate you all
And the people I love best, I hate you all
Oh I hate you all
____________________

Look at those lyrics. I don't know whether to laugh or cry at so much impotent rage. [I have always loved the word rage. Isn't it somehow so evocative of both its verb and noun forms? Rage. Rage. Rage rage rage. There is rage in her. She raged against raw beansprouts. Mmm. Good word.] I usually choose to laugh because, well, it's less detrimental to your blood pressure to laugh in the face of misery..and because you know someone out there is feeling totally shitty too.

I'd worry that I feel the lyrics a little too much, but I won't, because who cares?

Taking advantage

2007-09-30T16:29:00.000+08:00

Admit it. There are double standards in today's world re: Men vs Women. While I'm highly appreciative of women's rights and thankful for what we enjoy today (thanks to the efforts of brave women before us), I couldn't be further away from being a bra-burning feminist. I fully believe that--except for some very rare specimens of people--both the sexes have an ever-changing interpretion of the concept of "equality" which is dependent on the situation. For example, a woman may be perfectly happy to use her femininity to get what she wants, but she'll use the Is It Because I'm a Woman? card if she doesn't get a promotion at work. Another example: a man may be happy to let his woman foot the bill on occassion (in the name of equality), but he'll have a hell of a time accepting that she is more financially successful than he is.

I too am guilty of this, although probably not as bad. It's not like I use my looks to get what I want--pfft, there isn't much to use! I admit it: I take advantage of the double standards, but in little, harmless ways. I just... turn on the charm. And smile. And most times, it works. (Strangely, it generally works only when I'm alone or with other women.) To be honest? Half the time, I wasn't even angling for anything--men are just NICER to women, plain and simple. Sometimes, when the person who has "power" is male, the chances of a woman getting special treatment is higher.

I know it sounds suspicious: that I say I take advantage but not in an unethical way. Let me explain and prove it with some examples.

At restaurants or other eateries, I'm really polite and undemanding. Truth be told, sometimes I crank up the charm with waiters or chefs. Think about it. This contrasts greatly with the usual type of customers who don't even acknowledge their presence. So I get service with a smile, and my order prepared with more care. And sometimes complimentary food/drinks/dessert (I swear on my favourite shoes: this last one is never on my agenda when I make nice).

[Ooh. I just remembered. Last week, I went to a Japanese restaurant for a lunch buffet. All the mothers/housewives there were elbowing me out of the way (I was afraid, so afraid) so I just stood aside. The guy frying the tempura--whom I'd smiled at earlier--noticed what happened and when the ladies left (leaving nothing behind), he grinned at me and asked me if he could make me some prawn tempura. I thanked him (very prettily, if I do say so myself) and he made them for me on the spot. And the funny thing is? When other customers started sniffing around again, he fished the prawns out of the pan, dumped them on a plate and gave them all to me.]

When buying stuff/shopping, male attendants smile at you more, pay attention more, and serve you quicker.

Another example: when I was holidaying in Redang Island, I made it a point to say hi or smile to the staff. After the first day, they began to recognise me (and my friend), and the result? We got to go snorkelling at the locals' secret spots off the normal course, free snooker games until the day we left, dive instructors who showed us around personally, and great conversation. My friend was duly impressed: "Boy, did your smile get us places!"

I really don't see how this is wrong, because it's perfectly symbiotic. You get taken care of, the receipient feels nice because his job is a tiny bit less shitty, and you both have fun. No one is leading anyone on, no improper flirting, no unspoken promises alluded to--I don't do that sort of thing. However, to be perfectly honest, I realise that this state of affairs exists for me largely because I'm young and I don't look like a truck hit my face. I doubt I'd get similar effects if I did this as a middle-aged woman. Unless I was a HOT middle aged woman. Or a weeping one.

Face it. I like men, and I like being a (young) woman. I plan on enjoying the perks that come with my gender and my youth, at least until the latter runs out. There is nothing wrong with that--it's not like I'm doing anything immoral or underhanded.

I may be a complete throwback who's getting in the way of achieving true equality, but there are reasons for my satisfaction with the current state of affairs. The retention of values like chivalry and gentlemanliness are wonderful, and I wouldn't want them to ever die out. In my opinion, total equality is overrated, and it would be boring as hell.

"Asians"

2007-09-26T13:25:00.000+08:00

Before I begin, please let me say that all the following statements are huge generalisations. I am highly aware that there is (infinitely) more to the topic than meets the eye; it's just that I don't feel up to analysing and discussing more of it today.

The term "Asians" is used by most white people to describe any people who come from the continent of Asia, or those who look like they come from Asia. When I was first exposed to this trend, I was optimistic. I thought that they did it because they were trying to be politically correct. You know, because they can't tell what kind of asian you are and wouldn't want to offend you by calling you say, Chinese, when you were actually Japanese.

But the more I heard the term being bandied around, the more I suspected that this was just because they couldn't be bothered to learn about the different people and cultures that come from this continent. And I'm not just talking about the drunk ones who commit drive-by verbal shootings ("Stupid Asians, go home / speak English/Ching Chong Chong!").

You see, even after they are informed of your nationality, they hardly ever bother to describe you to others by your nationality. They don't go, "Sarah, remember her? She's the Cambodian/Singaporean/Filipino/Sri Lankan girl."

They don't even go, "Sarah, remember her? From South-East Asia?"

They go, "Sarah, remember her? The Asian girl."

They don't do this to other white people/non-Asian people. It's almost always "You know, Colin. The Italian/Irish/Polish dude." I suppose, though, you can't really blame them. They can't really say "You know, Colin. The white guy." when they themselves are white.

At first I thought they had some system of classification, a specific one like:

Dark hair? Check. Yellow-toned skin? Check. Tilted/small eyes? Check. He's an Asian.

But when they started to call Indians and even middle-easterners Asian? I was incredulous--they look nothing like the traditional sense of the term "Asian". It seems like their mental checklist went more like:

Is he white? No. Is he black? No. Hmmm... He's Asian, then.

(I am not unaware that the Americans, who are slightly more "exposed" to different ethnicities (!), also have "latino"/"hispanic" in their vocabulary as well. I do not apologise for any sarcasm this statement may have implied.)

It was quite sad to see that in their minds, the easiest way to go about things was to dichotomise the racial division of the world. Black, white, black, white. Unknown/Other = Asian. The catch-all group.

I wonder if "Asians" will ever develop a stronger identity. I wonder if people other than "Asians" themselves (whatever that means) will come to realise that we aren't all just the same.

__________________________

Anyway. My aunt sent me an old joke this morning:

A Chinese walks into a bar in America late one night and he saw Steven Spielberg. As he was a great fan of his movies, he rushes over to him and asks for his autograph.
Instead, Spielberg gives him a slap and says “You Chinese people bombed our Pearl Harbour, get out of here.”
The astonished Chinese man replied “It was not the Chinese who bombed your Pearl Harbour, it was the Japanese”.
“Chinese, Japanese, Taiwanese, you’re all the same,” replied Spielberg.
In return, the Chinese gives Spielberg a slap and says “You sank the Titanic; my forefathers were on that ship.”
Shocked, Spielberg replies “It was the iceberg that sank the ship, not me.”
The Chinese replies, “Iceberg, Spielberg, Carlsberg, you’re all the same.”

Bored? Try This.

2007-09-25T11:48:00.000+08:00

When I was working during my uni days, a really young girl got hired at my part-time job for the summer rush. My new co-worker was 15 and really quite adorable. She hung out with the other young 'uns and her "thing" in the group was to irritate the hell out of them. She did this by taking the lyrics of whatever song was playing, and kind of reading it over the song. You know. In the style of those old crooners "talking" during their songs (think Elvis in Are You Lonesome Tonight, Gregory Abbott in Shake You Down) --slightly off rhythm, totally monotonous/cheesy and 100% hilarious. And every time she pulled that, the other girls would groan, yell out vulgarities, or screech out threats of death.

I was so tickled by her antics that I semi-adopted it. One of the activities my brother and I came up with one day in a fit of boredom that summer was translating songs into Malay. There is an art to this. The key is to do a very shabby, literal translation, and then say the lyrics over the English version ala my co-worker. Try it. It's atrocious. (Note: the challenge is to do a translation in real time, while the song is playing.)

Here's my personal favourite--see if you can tell which song it is:
(Hint: Radio Hit in 2006)

Kita akan buatkan semua

Semuanya

Sendiri

Kita tidak perlu

Apa-apa

Atau siapa-siapa

Kalau saya baring di sini

Kalau saya baring di sini saja

Adakah awak baring dengan saya

Dan lupakan dunia

Saya tidak berapa tahu

Macam mana cakap

Macam mana saya rasa

Tiga kata itu

Disebut terlalu banyak

Mereka tidak cukup

Kalau saya baring di sini

Kalau saya baring di sini saja

Adakah awak baring dengan saya

Dan lupakan dunia

Lupakan apa kita diberitahu

Sebelum kita terlalu tua

Tunjuk kepada saya

Taman yang meletup dengan nyawa

Mari buang masa

Mengejar kereta

Sekeliling kepala kita

_________________________

Okay, I think I totally gave it away so I'll end it here.

Fear, My Driving Force

2007-09-24T23:00:00.000+08:00

My family and I were having a heated discussion about how to bring out the best potential (academically and work-wise) in people. My dad kept handing ultimatums to my kid sister re: her studies and academic results, as he had done with me and my brother before her. When I casually mentioned that maybe a gentler approach would bring about desired results with much less grief, he shot back with a very strong point: To do anything well, you need some element of fear.

I thought about the reasons that drove me to give my best in all that I have done to date, and they were all rooted in fear. Sure, some things I threw my heart into doing because I was genuinely interested, because I actually wanted to. But even then, there was still at least a little fear weaved through my personal desires. You can do something reasonably well on your own merits and talents, but if you let fear push you, chances are, you will do that thing better.

Many things, I did for reasons other than fear: to please my parents, to make my family proud, to prove my worth, to have a transcript that boasted a string of Higher Distinctions (ah, beautiful symmetry!), as a thank you to much-respected teachers, to get some promised reward, to be able to fit into size 8 tops, just because I loved it, you get the picture.

But even then, there was always an undercurrent of negative reason. In my case, fear did not paralyse me. It spurred me on to do more than I would have been willing to do, had I been resting on laurels of complacency.

I fear failure, and I fear mediocrity. It grew to be this way the older I got.

In primary school, I studied hard because I feared the caning I would get if I did not end up one of the top ten students of the year. Not because I coveted the promised reward of a meal at my favourite restaurant if I became one of the top three students. Not because of personal pride.

In high school, I studied hard because I feared the wrath of my father, the reduction of my already-paltry allowance, and also the possibility of being bested by a class rival. Not because I wanted to do well enough as to merit a raise in allowance.

In uni, I studied hard because I could not bear the thought of disappointing my parents, of returning home to Malaysia an overseas graduate with mediocre results.

I worked hard at my majors because they inspired me. I was in love with the courses, and in awe of my lecturers. But I worked harder than I needed to, to be honest, because I didn't want to sit back at the end of a semester and see some grade staring back at me, when I knew full well that I have the ability to ace them.

When I was doing my Honour degree, I worked like a fiend because I was terrified of not doing well enough, thereby branding myself a mere jack-of-all-trades (master of none).

Similarly, I believe I'll give my best to my work (whatever it may be) because I cannot stand the thought of being a passionless person who does only what is required of his station and no more. I want to excel and be bloody good at what I do--maybe not the best, but one of the better ones, for sure.

There are few things worse, in my opinion, than knowing that you could've done better, or could've avoided some mistake, if only you'd just tried. Made enough of an effort, before it's too late and you're left thinking "If only I...".

I do think that it's not that way for everyone. It's probably my uptight perfectionist tendencies, my paranoias and neurosis all working together.
While my views on tapping the potential from people are slightly more relaxed--I think that you should tailor your approach depending on the recipient's personality--I cannot deny the (at least partial) truth of my dad's belief. Everyone has huge potential. But not everyone's fears drive them to do achieve it.

A Discussion Rated (PG)

2007-09-18T14:15:00.000+08:00

Seriously. How clever is my title? Heehee.

Anyway.
I think we all can agree that there are songs out there that make you want to do things. Whether or not you give in is another matter.
_________________________

Sex(y) Songs

Obviously, the songs below encourage different types of ...shenanigans (Yes, I am using euphemisms now): fun, laughing romp? in-love, romantic romp? total-lust, rip-clothes-off romp? dirty dancing, make-out romp? You get the picture. Sometimes it's because of the lyrics. Sometimes it's the instruments (like saxaphones). Alot of the time it's just the melody, plain and simple. But another huge factor, I think, is the beat--there are certain rhythms that strike me as being very sexual. In no particular order, here are some of my personal favourites:

Sexual Healing - Marvin Gaye
Crash Into Me - Dave Matthews Band
Let's Get It On - Jack Black
Pour Some Sugar on Me - Def Leppard (this is more like a Lick Nekked Man song)
You Can Keep Your Hat On - Tom Jones (stripper song!)
Hurry On Now - Alice Russell
With or Without You - U2
The One You Love - Glenn Frey
Heaven Help - Lenny Kravitz
I Call It Love - Lionel Richie
Love Song - Sky
Ignition - R Kelly
I Shall Believe - Sheryl Crow
Deep Inside of You - Third Eye Blind
Punk Rock Princess - Something Corporate
Colourblind - Counting Crows
You Got It Bad - Usher
Fools Like Me - Lisa Loeb
Stay (I Missed You) - Lisa Loeb (classic)
Alot of Prince!! Eg, Do Me Baby, Adore... He sings blatant, blatant songs.

______________________

Dance around the room songs

I've Got My Mind Set on You - George Harrison
I'll Follow You Down - Gin Blossoms
Do It - Nelly Furtado
Fame - Irene Cara
Best of My Love - The Emotions
Glamorous - Fergie
Inner Smile - Texas
Love is Only a Feeling - The Darkness
The Way I Are - Timbaland (shameful!)
+ A lot of other 70s disco and 80s music

Groin Issues

2007-09-18T13:16:00.000+08:00

You know Dr Oz? The doctor dude who is frequently invited to the Oprah show? Well he offered up this hilarious bit of trivia (I am assuming that this only applies for men who are overweight to begin with) :

For men, for every 35 pounds of weight you lose, you will gain an inch of penis length.

Are your eyes widening? Mine sure did. Quite impressive, no?

Apparently, when men carry excess weight, fat accumulates, causing the gut to develop an overhang around the groinal region, and there's a flab build-up around the base of the shaft, which surrounds and "shortens" the penile shaft. So when they lose weight, the fat goes, thus unveiling more penis.

I cannot think of a better incentive for men to get on the Healthy Eating Bandwagon.

And to women married to overweight men everywhere: Whoo-hoo! Start cookin' low-fat! ;)

As an aside, it occurred to me. If men judge women based on their weight, deeming the heavier ones unattractive and undesirable, this penis thing gives women the same kind of power. See, I know for a fact that many (if not most) women do not take looks into account when they look for a mate--look at all those couples out there: stunning women, gross looking men. However, we could now turn the tables on men and judge them based on their looks as well. "Hmm you're a bit of a chubb, that's taken, what, maybe an inch off your penis? I'll pass thanks."

Fine... actually, I lied. Women probably don't consider penile length as a deal-maker or breaker when in love. Size doesn't matter. Unless said penis is tiny-winey. HAHA.

I'm kidding. Geez.

Insight from Sex and the City

2007-09-16T15:08:00.000+08:00

In an episode of Sex and the City (second season), Carrie was complaining about how this guy never called her: "Maybe he thinks I'm ugly."
Miranda told Carrie: "Oh, get a grip. A guy doesn't call you for 3 days and you're ugly?"
"So what's your point?"
"It's amazing. We can feel totally good about ourselves. And then, it all goes out the window if the guy doesn't mirror that right back to us."

I listened to this, unsure whether to laugh or cringe. It was true. It was a thing I myself do all the time. I spent so much time and effort cultivating a healthy self-image--no, you're not fat! no you're not ugly! you're an intelligent, kind, funny person and totally not worthy of being relegated to the inferior post as some man's Consolation Prize! etc. In times of desperation, I have even written out a list of things I liked and disliked about myself--left column Likes, right column Dislikes--in the hopes of putting things into perspective. But the moment I get a crush on someone, it all gets blown to bits. "Does he like me? Maybe he likes me. Oh but look at him. He's so this, so that, why would he even look twice at me? Oh but look at his exes. They're all leggy and busty and have big eyes. I have none of that. I am so stupid for even thinking that I have a shot. Give it up already. God, look at me, I'm disgusting." Suddenly, I'm a defect of the human race, unworthy of anyone's admiration.

I go from "I'm smart, indpendent, kind, funny. I can hold my own. Some days I'm pretty. I have a nice smile." to "oh GOD I'm so mediocre-looking I probably fade into the wallpaper, who the hell wants character and humour when there are so many sweet girls out there with better faces, better bodies?"

I suspect that I do all this to brace myself for the worst. I make myself expect rejection so that it doesn't come out of the blue and knock me for a loop.

I debase myself and batter down my ego so that there's less of it for the man to destroy if and when the time comes. So that if he rejects me, I can accept it better, because "Well, I'm not that great anyway, so who can blame him?"

I make the man into something greater than he actually is; I focus on and exxagerate his strengths. I hold up this paragon next to myself, and my own strengths are paltry by comparison, because I didn't bother to exxagerate my own as well.

Whatever self-confidence I build does not seem to be able to withstand the cold blast of insecurity and rejection, especially when it comes to matters of the heart. But that's so stupid, isn't it?

How can I let my sense of self-worth be defined by a man, any man? What happened to me that I feel this compulsion to rain such abuse on myself the moment a man does not openly reciprocate my interest or affection? Am I fundamentally flawed? Or was I traumatised somewhere along the line and am now in need of some therapy to fix my head? Why is it never about the man, but always about me, about my shortcomings?

Maybe true, unshakeable confidence will come with age. And visits to the shrink.

Sins of a puppy

2007-09-16T13:34:00.000+08:00

Look at her adorable face. Awww isn't she cuuuuute. Look at the baby fat. Her bespecatacled eyes.

She is Satan incarnate. The Devil disguised in fluff.

She made me run two days ago. No, let me be specific. She made me sprint two days ago. And if there's anything worse than running, it's running fast.

I was walking her around the neighbourhood and when we walked past a house with a German Shepherd inside. It growled, Honey got spooked, and she sat down in the middle of the road. Then in a flash, she decided to make a bolt for her life: the leash slipped from my fingers and I watched, stunned, as this puppy who still fell over her own paws while walking, just flew down the stretch of road. She almost looked like a rabbit from behind.

"I'm going to have to catch her before she gets run over. DAMMIT."

So I ran. As fast as my running-hating legs would carry me. For about 350 meters--which felt like eternity to a person who's never sprinted more than the compulsory 100 meters in my school's annual Sukantara. No amount of yelling the stupid dog's name would make her heel. Behind me, I heard my father laughing his ass off. I believe he was hooting "I've never seen you move so fast!" The indignity of it all. I looked like a prize idiot: doing something unnatural to me (running), screeching "Honey!! HONEY!!" and trying to ignore the stitch forming in my side, and the man who sired me was guffawing. I hope he wet his pants.

Then a guy on a bicycle saw me, then the dog, and he blocked her path--bless him bless him bless him--and she finally slowed down enough for me to grab her leash from the ground.

My father the smart-ass commented that the dog and I matched because we both panted all the way home. I'm still not talking to Honey.

Withdrawal Begins

2007-09-14T21:50:00.000+08:00

I was banned from buying shoes. By my dad, who decreed that I had too many shoes. By a man--pfff--what would they know about how many is too many? Please. I want to grow up to be like Imelda Marcos. The lady knew how to live. Sure, maybe thousands of pairs of (designer) shoes is a bit much. And I'm not even aiming for some finite number. Or designer ones. Just... you know. Nice ones that make me smile, and that couldn't feed a small nation for a day. Enough nice, affordable ones to fill up a small walk-in closet one day. And my dad is getting in the way of my progress. See how he likes it if someone banned him from buying yet another pack of golf balls to add his insane collection of 463. Pah! (Yes yes, hell hath no fury.)

It's been five months now. Of no trying on any shoes. Of avoiding shoestores so I don't chuck a fit in the middle of the shop, looking at something I cannot have. Of looking longingly at other women's footwear while I'm out. And I'm starting to crack at the edges.

A bad, bad sign that I'm going into withdrawal is when I start to browse online shoe stores. This is the worst thing. When I am free to roam in my natural habitat (the KL chain shoe stores) I am perfectly happy to covet normal-priced goods. When I am reduced to drooling over shoes in the really good online stores, the products are inevitably designer: they come with 3 to 4 digit price-tags in American dollars, Euros or British pounds. Even more depressing. But I need to look at them. So purtyyyy. Yesterday I spent 2 hours looking at the stuff they had on bluefly.com when I should've been doing assignments.

I'll also start to lose sleep. I lay awake at night, fantasising about the perfect shoe. The perfect shape, material, shine, heel height, heel type, colour.

D'Orsey cuts, ankle-straps, slingbacks, pumps, slides, sandals, espadrilles; black, brights, metallics, prints; leather (matt? patent? crocodile? cow? snake? pig? kid? natural black leather? dyed leather?), canvas, suede, satin, chiffon, sequins, crystals, chains; pointy-toed, round-toed, peep-toed, square-toed; flats, low heels, medium heels, stilettoes, wedges, platforms, stacked heels. The list goes on. I could go on. Bliss.

______________________________

Once, I went without buying (or trying on) new shoes for about 8 months. I was broke and too guilty to use the money my parents had set aside for my study allowance. So I myself broke. I am not proud to reveal this: I cried. I ran into my housemate's bedroom and burst into tears, crying the Ugly Cry, water coming out every hole on my face, wailing about how I hate having a conscience and "dammit I wish I could be a prostitute because at least then I'd have money!" Shameful, eh? The things we say in times of desperation.

She patted me on the back, looking slightly appalled that I was crying over non-existent shoes. But she became very sympathetic because she realised she'd be a wreck too if she had to go without buying new bags(her "thing") for 8 months. Anyhow, I felt better after that.

I don't know how long I'll hold out this time around. But I'll be strong. Maybe 10 months before I cry about it. Heh.

______________________________
It's not even that I'm starting to dream about shoes because I need to buy them all the time. It's more because I know I can't. And the more you can't do something, the more you want to. The more you can't have something, the more you want to have it. (Come to thingk about it, maybe that's why there are so many people out there who do things they shouldn't.)

Oh but they're shoes.Unlike clothes, they do not pick and choose whom to flatter, whom to make delirious with joy. No matter how you look, there will be a shoe to flatter you. I read somewhere once that "shoes are the fat lady's outlet--if you were fat, you couldn't have pretty clothes, but you could still have all the pretty shoes you wanted". See? Shoes are all about free love and equality.

The Fund

2007-09-09T15:39:00.000+08:00

I plan on setting aside a large chunk of my wages when I start working. I have no intention of blowing off all of my salary every month. I have never been a believer of the Gratification 24/7 theory--well, I do love to indulge sometimes. But I maintain that Occasional Hedonism is not quite the same as Gratification 24/7!

And let me really put it out there: I fully intend on treating myself to more glorious heels and lingerie once I become employed. (The thought gives me little shivers of happiness.) But I am much more a fan of Suffer Now, Benefit Later. So a large part of my wages will go into my savings, which will be systematically comparmentalised and labelled. Neurotic? I think not.

Want to know what I'm saving up for?

(1) Just-in-case Cash

The proverbial Nest Egg. Because you can never be too careful. And when bad things happen to good people (yes, me!) I will be prepared.

(2) Property

Because you can call someplace your own. And do whatever you want with it or in it. I plan on getting someplace closer to civilisation. Possibly nearby a train station, some bus stops, maybe even a mall. Inside my new haven of independence, I will be walking around in my underwear, doing my laundry only once a month, cooking beef (mmmm, cow), having single-girl dinners like salads and soup, and cleaning the house only when it really needs it--all the things my mother forbids in our family home. Oooh. The clincher: I'd be able to go out whenever I want, with whomever I want, for as long as I want. Without having to plan it like a bank robbery, ask for permission a month in advance, or be submitted to the Spanish Inquisition. Sounds glorious, no? Yes. Yesyesyes.

(3) Liposuction

Yes, it's true. I will have a Lipo Fund. I make no apologies for my seemingly-skewed principles. I've tried my whole life but Genetics plays God. And Genetics has decreed that my lower half shalt always be naturally slightly larger than is aesthetically proportionate--exercise or no exercise. Now, I could lay awake every night, praying that by some divine miracle, my fat would all band together and mass migrate (and I mean mass) somewhere more appropriate/appealing (read: my boobs). Or, you know. I could just wake up and smell the poo, and go for lipo. I have it all planned: once the precodure is over, I shall look over at the container of fat cells that once inhabited my body, point at it, and say "Hah! Take that!"
Oh, it will happen.
In the event that I somehow accept my pear-shaped self for the way it is, I'll have a nice bunch of unused money. Perfect for getting me more shoes.

Hold on... I'll just spring clean my room first. Then I need to wipe down each leaf of my money plant.

2007-09-09T15:06:00.000+08:00

Says it all, don't it?

"Equilibrium" is not equal

2007-09-09T14:01:00.000+08:00

Are you one of those people blessed with a high metabolic rate? You know, you can eat and eat and eat and you never put on any weight? If you are, I hate you. Ok, not really: I just want to be you!

They say the key to maintaining your weight and waistline (or in my case, butt-line!) is as simple as burning off as much calories as you take in. That makes sense. That sounds straightforward enough.

Eat more, exercise more. Exercise less, eat less.

Like a barter system for your body.

Except, in my case, it's really not that fair. Well it doesn't feel that way, anyway! It feels like I need eat less than what I burn off just to be able to keep sliding comfortably into my jeans. For freaks like me to maintain physical equilibrium, the output must outweight the input.

Sometimes I'm convinced that my body extracts all the fat from everything I eat and, like a good little factory, manufactures more from that--kind of like yoghurt culture. Stir some culture into a tub of warm milk and voila! yoghurt the next morning. Stick some fat into a conducive environment and voila! an extra inch on the hips the next morning.

Le Sigh.

So what do you do? You enjoy yourself when you eat, then you try to work it off. But even if you are a normal person--one who isn't blessed with a tapeworm or some other parasite, one who isn't cursed with a body that is constantly trying to pad itself out for some imminent war--the problem persists: food carries much more calories than most of us are able to burn off.

Eat one cookie, and you have to walk briskly for an hour. Have a hamburger, and you have to run for an hour. Have a caeser salad with chicken and a side of wedges, and you have to go for an aerobics Step class. Twice.

And me, I hate running. I think my body is just not made for running. I can use the cross-training machine, I can do weights and other toning/resistance exercises, I can cycle, dance, use the Fitball, swim. I can endure the grossness of sweating, the shortness of breath, the head-swimming nausea, the burn of lactic acid pooling in my muscles. But I cannot, cannot run 400 meters without feeling like I'd rather rip my guts out and get it over with already! Luckily, I have bum knees -I actually see a physiotherapist for them - and they always get me out of running.

On the downside, running is one of the most effective ways to burn calories. But:

Is it really worth it?

When you're eating and thinking "God I love smoked salmon so much I could bathe in it!" , the answer is "Hell yeah, biznitch."

When your muscles are screaming, the stitch in your side is stretching out its tentacles of hate, and you feel like your heart's going into cardiac arrest, the answer is "That's it! I'm going to live off carrot sticks!"

Or, you know. For those very confident people out there, the answer is "I don't exercise anyway. If I was meant to be a Chubb then so be it. In the meantime I'mma gonna enjoy myself!" I envy you. I am nowhere near comfortable enough in my own skin to live by that philosophy.

I'll tell you about my Lipo Fund another day.

This is me: Moron.

2007-09-08T13:09:00.001+08:00

I don't know why, but it's always the case that you will embarass yourself when you most want NOT to. In my case, this is especially true of the men I fancy, or have just begun dating. It just occurred to me while I was falling asleep last night, that with every single guy I've ever been attracted to, I end up saying the stupidest things. If I'm not attracted to them, then they will go away thinking I'm an intelligent girl.

I just suck in that respect. It seems as if I am incapable of impressing the men I most want to impress. It seems I am incapable of not coming across as a ditz. I cringe in mortification when I think of those moments--and some of them happened years ago. Sometimes I want to bash my head against a hard surface, other times I feel my body curling into foetal position. Most times I just want to slap myself across my duh-brain face. Anyway, here are some (just a few!) of my Moments of Glory:

Foot-in-Mouth moment #1: I was on a date with an extreme leftist/liberal (don't ask, I'd rather not remember him now). I didn't realize the extent of his hatred for all things government; I thought he was just being a moderate, Refreshing - Liberal, not Scary-Grassroots-Grassroots-Grassroots-Fuck-Capitalism - Liberal. Anyway, we were having one of those lighthearted conversations, and the topic that happened to come up was what clothes we find really attractive on the opposite sex. [I like heaps of stuff: jeans and T-shirt, jeans and no shirt (heh), button-up work shirts, suits-with-no-tie...and uniform. Seriously, if we're totally divorcing looks from brains and character, men-in-uniform almost always make me want to fan myself and go "Arrrr".]
So I announced, "I like men in uniform!"
He pauses for a moment, and as if to give me a chance to redeem myself, he goes "What, like firemen, postmen?".
But I'm on a roll; this is a topic I hold dear to my heart. I don't see the danger lights flashing, don't hear the sirens wailing: "Hell no. I'm talking soldiers! The navy! Marines! The airforce!"
Him: "You get turned on by men in government organisations that are helping to ruin the world and terrorise the little people?!"
The rest of the date was excrutiatingly strained.
(However, I maintain that this wasn't really my fault--just a clash of very dissimilar personalities. Hah.)

Foot-in-Mouth moment #2: Once, in highschool, I was having a conversation with my then-crush. He was chinese-educated and--to be honest--incapable of stringing together a single English sentence. So in order to make him comfortable, I spoke to him in Cantonese. My command of the Cantonese language was decent at that time (never let it be said that I was ever deluded into thinking it was spectacular at any point in my life), but due to the nerves and hormones that accompany teenage crushes, I flubbed it. I did this totally cool thing where I superimposed the tone of an equivalent Teochew word over the Cantonese word, so I sounded like a mountain farm-girl from mainland China. Flustered, I bravely laughed it off and continued...and flubbed it again, because I translated directly from English, so I sounded retarded. I never stood a chance with him, because I was deemed the "uptown girl" who wasn't in touch with my Asian roots. Sigh.

Foot-in-Mouth moment #3: I'm sure we've all been so in like with someone that our faculties have been affected. Michael was my someone. Physically, he was right up my alley. What turned him from a mere object of lust to a full-blown case of I-want-to-have-your-babies! for me (haha) was when we were introduced and became friends--he was funny, and the most genuine, the nicest, nicest guy I'd met in ages. I won't continue to sing his praises because we've since lost touch, but suffice to say, I was so infatuated with him that every time I saw him, my heart dropped into my stomach, my mind went blank, and I couldn't look him in the eye for more than a second at a time or I'd blush furiously. I was in awe: how could someone so blatantly gorgeous be so nice on the inside as well? I found it difficult to think, let alone speak without feeling like my tongue had doubled in size. (I even stuttered sometimes, when we spoke. I used to think that only happened to nerdy teenagers in the movies.) So I guess it was a disaster waiting to happen! Anyway. Michael was a football fan. I am too, but I'm not a diehard. So when we bumped into each other, we would sometimes discuss the World Cup, while it was on in 2006. The morning after the final match (which I missed because of assignments), he ambled over to say hi. I looked up at him, my brain blipped out "No Signal", and my mouth said, "So did Brazil win?"

Holy bejezus, Cher. Brazil? BRAZIL?!

I knew Brazil wasn't in the finals. I knew the final match was between Italy and Fan-fricking-France. I had just laughed about it with my brother the night before because I happen to think Brazil is overrated. Why did I say that? WHY did I say that? I was so mortified, but I didn't know how to fix that situation, so I just sat there and waited for the axe to fall. (I still want to bash my head against the wall when I think about it. It was just so...so... I must've looked like I was pretending to like football or something equally heinous.) To his credit, he was a complete gentleman about it--he didn't call me on my exhibition of stupidity or anything, just very gently informed me that last night was France vs Italy, and Italy won.

Foot-in-Mouth moment #4: Date number 1 with Brian, Irish man who has been asking me out for a while. He tells me his homeland is in this little town a little bit away from the capital of Ireland (where the university is). I go, "Ooh! I have a friend who is studying in Glasgow!" Cher, you dumbass.
"Uh... don't you mean Dublin?"
"No no, yeah, I meant Dublin, I knew Dublin was the capital of Ireland, I swear!" Too late. He was probably thinking "Man this isn't the sharpest tool in the shed." [You see, I have two friends who reminded me of each other, one who studies in Glasgow, another in Dublin. The night before I had just been on the phone with the one studying in Glasgow, so it was still fresh in my mind. And there you go, dear reader, this is your cue to snort in disbelief.]

Foot-in-Mouth moment #5: I was out on a movie date with Brian (second date--I know, he was still interested in me even after my Glasgow gaffe!) and we just finished Borat. While walking to his car, we were discussing the funny bits. Moronic Me happily chirps, "And I love how they made a mockumentary out of an imaginary -stan country!"
He laughed and said, "No it's not, Kazakhstan is a real country!!"
Here I hesitated. See, he had on this deadpan face that he uses when he is trying to tease me. And for the life of me I couldn't tell if he was teasing me or being serious for once. So we spent another excrutiating minute with me going "No...really? Okay... But no....really?" and him laughing his ass off and insisting "Yes! I can show you on the map!... Yes I swear it's a real country!" (when he stopped laughing long enough).
This one...hoo boy. I cannot say anything in my defense: it was pure ignorance on my part. But you know what? I don't think he liked me any less. Which is nice.

Hmmm. I detect a pattern. It seems like my most painful foot-in-mouth moments had to do with geography. Obviously, geography is not my strong suit. Maybe I should steer clear of the subject until the guys know I'm actually smart as a whip (pff) in other respects. Yes?

Oh, hope springs eternal.

Whinge whinge whinge. Whinge whinge whinge.

2007-09-03T23:31:00.001+08:00

So I've just come home from a buffet dinner at Hotel Nikko with a bunch of friends from class. It's 11:30 pm and I'm wondering: should I be content with the fact that I had a really good time with people I like, eating great food, while having wonderfully frivolous conversations? I suppose so. But two things have been putting a damper on my evening. And much as I try, I can't seem to get a grip and let them go. They're DEFINITELY not earth-shattering tragedies. In fact they are almost shamefully shallow. But they bug me all the same.

One: I was trying on dresses to decide what to wear for the event, and I discovered to my utter horror that the slimmer cut, non-stretchy ones were a touch tight around the hips and thighs. It appears that since I stopped uni and came back home (where going to the gym almost daily is inconvenient, and where my family does not appreciate my liking for lighter, one-dish meals ["Where's the rest of the food?!"]), the weight has been creeping back in. Nefariously, cloaked in Denial: Oh I must be bloated, it's that time of the month! Oh it's because these jeans just came out of the wash, they haven't stretched back out yet. Damn I HATE my washing machine, it shrunk all my clothes!

Despite my efforts (working out without a gym instructor who drives me and the rest of the class to the brink of puke-dom, eating via Portion Control), my thighs and hips seem to have sensed that The Boss (me) is not going to have as much control over them as She used to. So they rejoice, they cackle and rub their fat cellulite-y little hands together in glee, and they come back in all their disproportionate glory, they grow and grow and grow insidiously, like tumours that just won't quit. Give me back my remission period, goddammit.

Two: My classmates, who are all married women, found out over the course of dinner that I am single. Basically they did not believe me, accusing me instead of having some significant other hidden away (uh, like, for WHAT?). Then when they realised that no, I am dead serious, I am in fact enjoying my single status right now, well. They reacted with confusion ("Oh but you are so pretty, and you have such a wonderful personality! Why??"), confusion which seemed to me to be ringed with sympathy. Oh Lord. Sympathy. From women 10, 20 years older than me. Me, with my whole entire life waiting to be lived, with my bright future, with all those possibilities and different paths to take. Me, with no boring set-in-stone life yet. ME, with my pre-birth, pre-pregnancy body--no drooping breasts! no drastically loosened birth canal (if you get my drift)! no scars from Caeserians! (no offense, mothers out there)

I suppose I could take their gasps of shock as total compliments (Huzzah, I am so amazing I should have men panting all over me!) or I could just feel a touch offended and get sort of depressed. Hah. And me being me, I am leaning towards the latter. There must be something wrong if middle-aged women are clucking down at me like that! Oh my GOD am I going to end up alone with no one of my very own to love? (But that smacks of paranoid!) Should I have just not been so choosy about that last guy I dated? (But he was a crazy jerkhole!) Did I miss the final call for a partner because I was too busy playing the field and having fun? (But doesn't every young person have the right to date around and see what's in the market?) Thoughts that give me heart palpitations of the non-"Ooh Muscles In Sight" kind. Thoughts that make me want to hide underneath my blanket and wait for spinsterhood and the inevitable prune-ing up of my lady parts.

Yet when I sit myself down and think about it properly... I don't really care that I'm getting patronised by housewives. They have what they think is The Whole Point of Life. So you can't really blame them for patting the back of my hand and feeling sorry for me. I just happen to have a slightly different set of values to theirs. And if I do say so myself, it's not a bad one. I'm not going to launch into a whole tirade of the wonders of singledom, plentiful though they are (so says the cast of Sex and the City). However, I have to say this: I like where I am in life right now, and I'm content.

Maybe my negative reactions tonight are just because of my frame of mind this evening--my body and soul are weak from a supremely gratifying pig-out session. Tomorrow I'll probably wake up and laugh it off. I might find it funny instead of mildly panic-inducing. For God's sake I'm only 23!! (So she yells at herself). So goodnight, y'all.

Hold my hand, turn me into a slut.

2007-09-02T09:40:00.000+08:00

I'm sorry. I'm sorry. As long as you're here, you can't hold my hand in public. People can't see us kissing either. No, not even a peck on the cheek.

No, we're not going to get arrested. I know the other couples are doing it. But the other couples aren't mixed-race couples. Scratch that. The other couples aren't white-boy, asian-girl couples.

What? Explanation??

Well...it's not the same here. We're fine overseas. Specifically, we're fine over in Anglo-Whiteland. Any Whiteland. There are prejudices there too, but they aren't so bad. It's different here, sayang. Here, we're not going out because we're in love. Want to know what people see when we're together? Let me break it down for you.

You're with me because you can't find a white girl who'll have you. You're with me because you have an asian fetish. You don't see me as an individual person. You see black hair and pinched little eyes (so exotic!) and yellow skin that you think is a tan. You just like the thought of a female like that on your arm, in your bed, in your kitchen. You like how that female will not talk back like white girls. Totally at your mercy.

I'm with you because I can't get any decent chinese boy to want me--I'm sub-par: my skin isn't fair enough, my ass not small enough, my body not thin enough, my eyes not big enough, my cheekbones not high enough. Because the only guy who'll have me is a white boy with an asian fetish--he can't tell me apart from other chinese girls so he doesn't realise I'm not the best-looking one out there. He couldn't care less if I look like a truck hit my face. So long as I have that yellow skin, that black hair, those slanting eyes.

I'm with you because I'm uppity, a snob who thinks she's too good for asian men. Too modern, too westernised, too hip, too intelligent to settle for my own kind. Only a white boy achieves my exacting standards. Doesn't matter if he's hideous or a loser who can't hold down a job or an idiot who only sees me as an Oriental accessory.

I'm with you because you are impressive, everyone takes a second look when we're together. Like a designer handbag--it's imported, not everyone can have one, it's oh-so-exclusive. Look, I got me a white boy and he's going to take me places, buy me things, get me citizenship!

You're with me because I'm easy. I put out because I'm in awe of your whiteness, your inherent privilege. I'm a slut with no Asian Morals, no sense of propriety. I want to severe my roots, because I'm ashamed, because I want to be White, not Yellow goddammit. Conquer me.

Baby, that's so harsh. We both know none of that is even remotely true.

It's harsh but it's how things work around here. So I'm sorry, but please don't hold my hand or kiss me out there. It hurts to be pigeonholed. I don't like the judgemental looks thrown my way. They belittle what we have. Boil us down to horrible stereotypes. Take away the feelings we have for each other. Turn us into something cheap, meaningless, a farce. They make you ignorant, stupid, a modern-day coloniser. They make me a slutty banana (yellow on the outside, white on the inside).

Sometimes I want to not know what everyone is thinking. It's as if ... if these people think these things... maybe it's true. Maybe I'm not really in love with you. Maybe I'm just a Sarong Party Girl prostituting myself to get a greencard, and a little bit of Whiteboy in my life, in me (literally and figuratively).

That's why I can't handle the judgement. I might've been able to if they weren't from my friends, my family, my family friends; if they weren't from my peers; if they weren't from most of the people who share my homeland and my culture and my values. Don't snort. Everyone has prejudices, you know. And they might not show it, but I know they have thought those thoughts at least fleetingly. Because I would have too if it weren't me in this situation. I would have if I saw some white-asian couple canoodling in the open. I would stop myself from thinking those thoughts as soon as I realised I was thinking them...but I can tell you now that they would cross my mind at least during the unguarded moments. So please don't get angry at my friends. They don't mean to think those things. As for my parents. You know they love you. And they know me inside out, which is why I know they don't believe a snitch of all that crap. They know what we have is real. But they worry. They get hurt and protective when people judge their daughter like that. So they react with anger and tell me to stop it with the PDA--anything to reduce the sneers slung my way by the community.

But how do you go from holding hands to all that?

I don't know, sayang. You just do.

But I don't understand.

I don't either.

Okay. Okay... I won't hold your hand. And I promise I won't kiss you.

On religion

2007-08-23T16:09:00.000+08:00

First and foremost, I want to say that I have no wish or intention whatsoever to offend anyone out there. I say this because I am broaching a terribly sensitive issue today: religion. If you think you will become offended, read no further.

I do not currently subscribe to any particular religion, but I definitely do not deny the existence of God.

Don't get me wrong; I think religion is a beautiful thing. I know of no religion (occults don't count, obviously) that preaches to its followers to do bad things. If, in fact, horrible things were done in the name of religion, then I maintain that it is because the religion was interpreted wrongly.

I think the ability to believe in God(s) takes a lot of bravery and faith. I mean, take me, for example. I hesitate at "choosing" a God to believe in because I am terrified I'll choose the wrong one and be punished for it in the afterlife. I am staggered by fear. I do not have that blind faith, that bone-deep bravery. Yet.

Giving yourself over to God is rewarding as it grants the believer with a sense of peace, taking away much of the sting of fear and grief. How many have turned to God to heal the wounds of tragedy and death?

Also, the believer will have a sense of certainty: justice is promised. You see, (and I do not say this with any sarcam) all unfairness and tragedy can be undone:
-->those who suffer will get their share of joy and rewards at some point, and if not, they will after death.
-->those who perpetuate evil will be damned--again, if not during their time on earth, then during their time on the other side.

I suspect that perhaps, just perhaps, this was thought up to help us cope with the social/economic/everything-else disparities and lack of justice we see every day. How else would we mere humans deal with such a sense of unfairness? Bitterness, depression, jealousy would consume us, swallow us whole. Not that it doesn't happen anyway, but I think that believing in God makes a difference.

Now here's the real point of discussion. I don't want to choose a religion because it appears to me that religion makes hypocrites of its believers. And if there is one thing I hate, it's hypocrites. So it makes sense that if I can prevent myself from becoming something I hate, I should not prescribe to any one religion until I know for sure I can do justice by it.

You can't even say that the hypocrites don't count as believers because they're "bad people". That would mean that the world is flooded with "bad people". Which I refuse to accept.

Perhaps this happens because the rules set out by religions are just too difficult to follow. Perhaps the expectations are just too high. An if this is the case, then by a short stretch, you could even say that religion breeds hypocrites because you just can't hope to live up to its doctrine--so you just stop trying; you close one eye to your so-called sins; you interpret it so it suits you and your tastes; you do it all and hope that just because you are basically a good person, you will be Forgiven.

If I were to say it harshly, religion sets you up for failure. Few people would be able to live up the the expectations set out, purely because they are human. We are flawed, we are dark and twisted, we have desires that grip us by the throat.

You are a staunch Catholic who goes to Church every weekend and takes part in the church's youth groups; you even (apparently) can speak in tongue, but you suffer from vanity in the excess and you wish all dark-skinned people would just become extinct, the mongrels.

You hypocrite.

You are a Muslim who will not touch dogs or eat anything not declared halal, but oh, you love your wine, and you need to have sex daily with your boyfriend-of-the-moment.

You hypocrite.

You are a Buddhist who burns incense daily, and gives generously to charity; you visit your sick parents often, but you are a gambler who prostitutes his wife to pay his debts.

You hypocrite.

You are a Christian who converted to impress your new Christian boyfriend; you think it's all bull but you tell everyone about your newfound spirituality, about how the Lord brought you back to the fold by giving you your boyfriend. Your boyfriend, on the other hand, is chuffed: it's less of a sin to have pre-marital sex with a fellow Christian than to have pre-marital sex with a heathen.

You hypocrites.

All those scenarios...they're different from being human, making mistakes, and trying to better ourselves, feeling remorse for doing something you shouldn't have. People like the ones I described, they continually live in a state where they make a farce of the belief! When I think of people who flaunt such hypocrisy and indifference in the face something as sacred as religion, it makes me angry, it makes me sick. Don't call yourself a Buddhist, a Muslim, a Catholic, whatever. Don't do it if you happily, conveniently, practise only the aspects you are willing to practise, if you interpret the rules so they suit your lifestyle. Don't sully the belief with your name. Not if you feel no remorse, not if you do not believe you are living in a state you should not be living in, or if you don't think you have done something you should not have.

Maybe religion should just be taken out of the equation altogether. It would definitely be easier to be ourselves. Just wallow in our failings, our prejudices. Just bungle along in life with no restrictions, no judgements, no Judgement Day. But I can't honestly say I think that is going to make things better. That--suggesting that religion should be abandoned--is just my cynical side talking. Because when you think about it, when you look harder and don't get too upset by the hypocrites out there, you find alot of people who are genuine. They do alot of good in their own ways. They believe with their whole heart. And they practise with their whole soul.

But hang on. I'm NOT saying that I think everyone should be conservative if they want to practise religion. Let me get that straight right now. I'm not saying like all Christians need to be bible-thumpers yelling about Judgement Day and jealous gods. I'm just saying that if people want to practise religion, they should be more conscientous. Moderation is great. But moderation isn't spitting on the most fundamental rules and laughing it off.

Oh but there I go, passing judgement where I have no right to pass. I know this: I am biased. My opinions in this matter are purely from my OWN set of morals, from how I separate "human follies" from "hypocrisy". Why is it, for example, that I think a Muslim is merely adapting to a modern world when she eats pork-free food that isn't necessarily declared halal, but I then condemn another if she sleeps around? I have no damned right to think these things, but I do. I am not some paragon of perfection, but I condemn perfect strangers as if I were better than them.

And if it's a cherished friend who is guilty of only being a "part-time practiser", I justify it. I don't sneer at them. I make excuses for them. I become hypocritical myself, with regards to my stance on religion. And that is a major prejudice on my part that has to get fixed.

STOP murdering the language!

2007-08-23T10:17:00.001+08:00

It is one thing to play around with language and use it creatively. There is alot to be said about the infinite power of language to subtly and beautifully reflect moods, thoughts, opinions, anything. There is also a lot of pleasure to be had when you tinker around with taken-for-granted things in a language and perk it up. I personally love it when new twists are added, especially when it ends up being funny. Take, for example, this line from an episode of Scrubs:
"Disdain each other? I don't disdain you! On the contrary, I dain you!"

And in a post from Gofugyourself, the writer, when pretending to be Paris Hilton, wrote "But seriously, prison was a total epitome for me, Diary. For one thing, it expanded my vocabulation -- Bitchmaster Nunchucks taught me "epitome" while we were in the yard one day writing poems about homeless people. It means... shoot, I forget."

Then there's when Oprah (I think it was her) coined the very apt term "the Ugly Cry".

And who can forget this classic from 10 Things I Hate About You: "I know you can be overwhelmed, and you can be underwhelmed, but can you ever just be whelmed?"

All gave me heehee moments.

On the other hand, you see things happening around you that point in the direction of speakers' TOTAL IGNORANCE. By GOD I walk around in countries where English is supposedly the national language and there are horrendous errors splattering their accusatory blood all over the place--coming out of people's mouths, written on signboards, in university-level research papers, in magazines (hardcopy and the online versions), even real movie titles (Two Weeks Notice?? People, it's either Two Weeks of Notice, or Two Weeks' Notice. Gaahhh.). It makes me die a little inside. Every time.

This isn't some tirade against people who don't speak English as their first language. Nor is this some snobby holier-than-thou setdown, although I am sure it sounds like one. I just can't STAND it when people who should know better make ignorant ,basic mistakes. And I think this is largely because of TV. People learn a lot of their language from TV now, instead of through reading. And what I've been noticing is that alot of people now tend to write as they speak. So many words which sound the same are written the same as well--people just don't realise that they are different words. For example, "its bigger then me". (Two errors there alone, but I won't deal with the missing apostrophe today as that is another battle altogether.)

There's also this little gem: "In order to illicit a response, ..." I was not sure how to react when I saw this. Bang my head against the wall to distract myself from these waves of disbelief and frustration? Console myself that "at least she/he knows this word in the first place", misused and misunderstood as it was?

People also tend to spell based on what a word sounds like--and we all know how English is not the best language with which to try that stunt. Another very common example: "I will definately do it." Oh. My. GOD.

And the increasingly common "your welcome, it was my pleasure". This one, oh this one, it never fails to get my hackles up. This is basic knowledge, and yet!! Let me tear my hair out, please. I am too choked up with negative emotion to decribe the angst burning through my veins.

I'll have you know that all the examples given above were from actual research papers submitted by top university students--so you can't even fabricate an excuse of "maybe it's informal writing" to account for such ignorance/negligence. And they speak no other language but English. (The last one, "your welcome", was also seen on an official welcoming signboard at a popular tourist destination in Perth, Western Australia--I think it was along the lines of "your welcome to walk around...".)

Which goes to show, really, that almost all ESL organisations worldwide are up in the darkness that is their own bumholes when they operate by policies to only hire white people (preferably. if you're a Coloured you'll be considered as well, but only if you were born and bred in one of the Big Five: America, Canada, UK, South Africa, Australia) to teach because they (and the rest of the world) are under the impression that you can only have true expertise in the language if you are of the right colour or if your birth certificate carries the right Country of Birth. Brilliant marketing ploy, since the entire world is still ensnared by the (post-?)effects of colonialism. Illogical but powerful thing, this White Supremacy. Sometimes I even catch myself operating along that belief system even though I definitely know better--I guess it's because you're immersed in it from birth. Again, this is another story and I digress.

The influence of slang on spoken English is something that cannot be helped. In fact, I actually think it is something that invigorates any language and helps with their development, although admittedly some of the colloquial terms I've come across in English have made me highly uncomfortable (such as the tacking on of the plural 's' onto the 2nd person you, forming yous, in Australian English). So anyway. Ebonics is something I just can't work out, but it is really something. Almost like a whole other language, but maybe that's because I'm too old? Heh. It sounds quite cool actually, and what I like is that it takes full control and pride in itself. You sense no shame; it does not give others opportunity to belittle its culture, as is often seen in other non-standard forms of English. Also, the whole hiphop/rap culture is seriously the "cool culture" right now: if you can decipher the songs played repeatedly on the radios, you'll hear that it's patently obvious in the lyrics--subversive slang is being made mainstream.

However. A song was released recently: "The Way I Are" by Timbaland. When I heard the title, I felt faint. All of me, all of me just shriveled up in abject horror and consummate physical and mental pain, screaming "I'm melting, I'm meltinggggggg oh GOD take it awayyyyy"...and then I started bopping to the song. I didn't want to on principle. But I had to. You can't say no to its beat. I felt like I was cheating on my husband with the hot, adorably stupid poolboy.

I am sure young people everywhere who like this ridiculously catchy song will use, or are already using, this "I are" combination in their daily speech. I know it because I was a teenager not too long ago myself, and if I were not so horrified with this, I would probably use the phrase with glee (the reasons for which I shall leave to psychotherapists and sociolinguists out there). And I am helpless to do anything about it--talk about the unstoppable forces of media.

Sure, I sound like a pedantic nutcase, but everyone has their "thing". And un-fun, un-funny abuse of language is mine. So every time I feel that I need to be in a safe, dependable place where glaring errors won't jump out unexpectedly to stab my soft underbelly, I go to one these places:

Online international newspapers
TV or Radio broadcast of foreign language news (then I won't have to think about anything other than how lovely other languages sound)
My collection of favourite books (because books are immortalised in print and can never suffer changes from their grammatical perfection)
Gofugyourself - this is the most entertaining website, and they have the most impressively consistent, delightfully mistake-free collection of bitchy ramblings! I recommend it to all!

Snapshot

2007-08-17T16:01:00.000+08:00

Claire is talking to me. I love our casual, comfortable friendship; we aren't especially close but we like and trust each other immensely. On paper it doesn't make much sense.

Claire is talking to me. We're sitting facing each other with her desk between us, and for once it's not hot. The ceiling fan is going whoop-whoop-whoop and gusts of air lazily circulate. My pinafore is not biting in at my waist. The sun is shining outside and the light that filters into the classroom lights up Claire's pretty face. I fancy that it even lights up her voice. If there is such a thing.

I am paying attention to Claire, but at the same time my eyes are drawn away from her face. His hand. Long artist's fingers connecting into a masculine, sun-brown palm. Long, artist's fingers that are gently, affectionately, tracing the parting in her hair. Back and forth, back and forth. It doesn't mess up her neatly parted hair, and all the while, Claire is talking to me.

I break the trance I can feel myself entering. They must never suspect. And so I forcefully direct my eyes back at Claire. I hope she doesn't notice that my voice is cracking slightly. I hope they don't notice that my heart is cracking slightly. But only slightly, and only at the edges. Because I know that this isn't Adult (Ever After) Love. Just a silly little crush.

My eyes can't help it. They flick downwards--but it's safe, because I keep my features arranged so it looks like a casual conversation's "look away, look back again" flit.

They aren't joined at the hip. They are sitting on separate chairs, and he's angled himself towards her--only their knees are touching lightly. They aren't using honeybunch voices, or making cow-eyes at each other. She's still one person, and she's talking to me. He is listening in, and unobstrusively radiating affection.

I marvel at the perfection of this moment. A beautiful snapshot in time, immortalised, as my mind freezeframes it and files it away. Funny how we do that, even for insignificant things.

There is a bitterish, panicky, sad taste in my mouth: I am confronted with the fact that yes, you can fancy yourself in love with a friend's boyfriend, and yet feel no jealousy...or even envy. An oxymoron, but true in this instant. And this anomaly, perhaps due to the lack of bitterness in the heart, brings forth the aforementioned physical sensorial bitterness in the mouth. Accompanied by the cracking of a voice mid-conversation, and the cracking (edges only) of a heart.

To love but not covet. There is such a thing--but it doesn't make much sense on paper.

Love by elimination

2007-08-17T13:39:00.000+08:00

Let me discuss a matter that has been on my mind for yonks. The whole finding someone and being in a relationship thing is actually pretty difficult when you think about it. Which I have. Over the years I have fine-tuned my hypothesis (which means it is subject to correction), and currently, this is how I think things work in the World of Lurve. It appears to operate by chance/possibility and a process of elimination. Below is the breakdown:

First: eliminate the sex you are uninterested in (50% of the population down).

Second: eliminate the ones of unsuitable ages

Third: further eliminate the ones whom you are never going to meet (eg those existing in another social/economic circle, or another country)

Fourth: eliminate the ones of a differing sexual orientation

Fifth: eliminate the ones who are not married/have significant others, ie, are actually still available

Sixth: eliminate the ones who are "not at the right time in their lives", ie, unwilling to de-single-ify, or still damaged from previous relationships.

Seventh: actually, for reals, bump into and meet the men/women in question.

Eighth: eliminate the ones who have habits /characteristics / beliefs that you cannot abide by. (I would give examples from personal experience...but I won't for fear of offending. Common ones include things like smoking, extreme religious beliefs, alcoholism, lack of ambition, laziness, disgusting friends, horrible mothers...)

Ninth: eliminate the ones who cannot abide by YOUR habits / characteristics / beliefs. (Eg, you're too high-maintenance, too hot-tempered, too nice [I know, this isn't a typo], too bitchy, live too far away...)

[Notice how I did not include anything about how you should be lucky enough to meet someone with traits that you WANT, like the usual funny-smart-kind bullcrap. Dating around has taught me this: just because you have a list of traits you wish your future mate has, and you actually meet him and go out with him, the things you hate about him (and vice versa) will eventually drive you apart. I have now ditched my Dream Man list (it now comprises only of one item: My man must love me to bits.) in favour of a He Must Not list, which, tragically, grows with every man I date. I am convinced that one of the secrets to long-lasting relationships (besides love, duh) is the magical union of two people who just happen to be able to tolerate the other's shortcomings or eccentricities.]

Tenth: eliminate the ones you are physically unattracted to. Seriously. You have no idea how hard it is to make yourself kiss or hold hands with or even just look at someone who does not rock your yummy boat--unless of course, like me, you were once young and idealistic and wanted to believe that it's not about looks with you. Look. Once is bad. But imagine doing it forever just because you think you'll get used to it or "grow to like it". *shudder*

Eleventh: eliminate the ones who are physically unattracted to you. Because no one should ever be afflicted with having to bear the discomfort of extreme physical proximity or exchanging bodily fluids with someone who does not make their blood run hot. And, excuse my French, but no one deserves to be the Pity F**k.

[ Perfect on paper doesn't mean you'll actually be physically attracted to him, or vice versa. Shit happens, ya know? Also, as you know by now, I am a firm believer that physical attraction is central in actually getting a relationship started in the first place. Yes: I know it almost surely fades after that initial burst, but you need it to actually 100% want to be with the guy at first! Kudos and a congratulatory toast to those who are exceptions.]

According to my very professional calculations, after running it through the mill, we are each left with what seems to be a grand total of *drum roll please*

-43% of the population! Lovely.

All in all, a very depressing picture. I can barely fathom the magnitude of how crazy-hard it must've been for me to have met and ended up with my previous boyfriends. But it happened.

Now here is my question: If finding love were a game of (freaking slim) chances, why the hell are there so many couples out there?

(1) Is it that (*gasp*) it's really not as difficult as I think it is? I dunno. I have mulled over it and discussed it with friends (single and taken), and my arguments make more sense.

(2) Is it, as some of my un-single friends suggest, because it's all up to fate? I am sorry, but I think that's bull. I mean, sure, I think stuff like Fate can be real...but somehow if you blame everything on Fate then it just strikes me as merely being an excuse used to comfort ourselves when things go wrong in Life.

(3) Is it simply because there are a helluva lot of lucky people out there? I raise a sceptical, sceptical eyebrow.

(4) Is it because it's too lonely out there and many of these coupled up people have decided not to be picky? Like, just take whomever hits on them until a better one comes along, and so on and so forth until they meet someone who'll be with them til death do them part? A possibility, but still unfair to stereotype them so. (See, I know heaps of couples who are actually happy together and love each other.) Besides, how on earth did these people MEET each other in the first place, factoring in the problems I discussed above? I don't get it. It completely befuddles me.

Uh... seriously?

2007-08-02T11:31:00.001+08:00

I am not quite sure how to react to this piece of information.

Do I hope that this little titbit of information (I refuse to call it a discovery or a breakthrough or anything similar because hey, heaps of times you think you find something important and then it turns out to be totally unfounded) is true and gives the field of Language Acquisition a little shake on its foundations? Do I rejoice at the possibility that I can one day go "YEAH, SUCK ON THAT UNCLE NOAM!" because I love it when the old man is proven wrong? (He is an unstoppable force--those theories he postulates! Can't they ever be simple enough to understand? Can't they every just fade into oblivion, obscure and unimportant in the field of Linguistics, instead of causing a huge abandonment of ideas pre-Chomsky? Can't they be written in NORMAL ENGLISH, and not like they are a mad caricature of himself?)

On the other hand. Do I go all disappointed because I, as a human being, may have been stripped of the very cool Language Acquisition Device (LAD*) that Noam Chomsky claimed all people (babies/kids, at least) have? Do I shrivel up a little bit inside because I may have suffered a demotion in my set-apart-from-animals-ness? Oh God forbid, if this is true, am I a tiny bit less special? LOL.

(*Up til now it has been a widely accepted theory. But is it because of human narcissism or the plain lack of a better explanation for our capacity for language?)

I do suspect though that this will fizzle out in disappointment. It'll probably become yet another unfounded , unconclusively-proven hypothesis--because no one can faze the Chomsky. :p ...Or my spirit may merely be broken and defeated. It would be pretty cool if it panned out. Just for something different. There is hope yet.

On weird people, being strange, and kick-ass posters

2007-07-29T23:57:00.000+08:00

So the above comic is a beautifully hilarious description of how I feel about Life sometimes. I love how it marries Linguistics and paranoia/neuroticis ...and well, total lame-nerdiness.

For most of my life I have been accused of being strange, weird, bizarre, neurotic, paranoid... and usually by those nearest and dearest to me. My best friend spent most of high school calling me P. W. -short for Paranoid Wacko- and she still slips back into her old ways whenever I do or say anything she deems worthy of such abuse.

Once, when I was working part-time during my uni days, I cracked a joke--admittedly it was a little obscure-- to a lady at the office. Instead of laughing, she looked me straight in the eye and said, deadpan, "You are really strange." That's it. No "but you are amusing!" laugh followed, nada. And we were just introduced a day ago.

Oh the arrow of pain and sorrow that pierced my fragile, fragile soul.

These days I embrace my weirdness. I like to think I am funny-weird (quirky? pleasantly eccentric?). I also hope that maybe, because of my unpredictable take on situations, my friends look forward to CherTime. I mean hey, at least I'm not an extra-social freak. At least I don't need mood regulating meds or stalk people I just met--no offense to people who do, and if your doctor says you need meds, take them; and if you stalk people, well, that's pretty creepy (Don't justify it by saying "God kinda sorta stalks us all by definition then, so I can do the same" because man, that's crazy talk). At least I have a really good handle on social skills/norms/etiquette. I met several people through the course of growing up who were so truely strange that I by comparison am as dull as dishwater. But I do love strange people(they make me think, and they're usually blessed with amazing senses of humour). Well, the nice ones anyway . Not the crazies who make you fear for your life. And trust me I've met a few of them--dated a bipolar, lived briefly with a pathological liar, endured daily calls/texts from someone I only met twice before. Don't ask. They gravitate towards me, I've been told.

Anyway, one of the nicest, strange people I've ever met was one of my Linguistics lecturers. I love him so much I wish I could adopt him! He is a twice-married, vegetarian non-practising Jew who is an active member at his local synagogue--he reads holy scrolls at the synagogue on special ocassions. (Do you see the irony?) He has three children, all about my age, and all of them are truly wonderful people who are definitely not mainstream, in appearance nor in character. (The oldest son cross-dresses in ultraviolet stockings, top hats, floral summer frocks and pointy ankle boots, topped off with a full face of beard. The second son wears a monk's costume. Daily.)

So this lecturer of mine, he has on his office wall a couple of pictures. One is an adorable drawing his daughter drew for him like 15, 20 years ago (the paper is totally yellowed now): a snail, saddled up. Above it, in crayon: "To daddy, Royal Snail. Love, Reyna." Awww. And then, "Huh??"

The other is a poster that I wanted (and still do), just because it was so him. It's purple and has a picture of a man peeping sideways over a wall: "Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they're not out to get you."

Well said, well said.

Living with Hitler and Mussolini

2007-07-29T15:09:00.000+08:00

Here's yet another essay that found favour with the folks over at The Star's StarMag just last week:

>>I am a young adult, and I think my parents are cool.

>>Got your attention, didn’t I? It’s a commonly portrayed idea that kids stop hero-worshipping their parents when they hit puberty, moving on instead to that bizarre stage in life where eye-rolling appears to be one of the only expressions to animate their deadpan faces, where every sentence is peppered with ‘like’, where parents are demoted to being merely the source of Vitamin M(oney).

>>Like, you totally have to deal with us leeching off you, because, like, you owe us. Like, duh.

>>But I digress. Admittedly, I was briefly drawn into the Dark Side that is teenage-hood. Now, I have concluded this: my parents rock.

>>However, don’t assume that I think this because my parents are unconventional, hip people. Because they’re not! (Sorry, mum; sorry, dad! But let’s be honest here, okay?) They’re not liberal—they’re as Asian as they come. No one I know has been raised with my parents’ particularly suffocating brand of Iron Fist.

>>My mother, like all others, is predisposed to Repetitive Advice-Giving, otherwise known as Nagging. This may surface at any time. It can be about anything under the sun. There need not be anything to inspire her; it all comes from her Mother Gene. You can run and you can hide, but she will seek you out:

That’s not how you boil an egg!

For God’s sake, do your laundry more often.

You’d better make your sister do her homework because she’s ignoring me again, the terrible child!

Be careful when choosing a man.

Your room is so filthy, it’s shameful!

>>She also has this habit: she calls for you from the other end of the house—always when you’re busy—then, when you reply, you discover that she’s suddenly lost her recent ability to yell. Her request starts off strong, then tapers off into an indistinct mumbling: “CAN YOu plea…”. This is your cue to drop what you are doing, scurry to her, and find out what she wants you to do. Otherwise, it’s Bad Daughter Day at the dinner table tonight.

>>On to my father. He has an uncommon paranoia: to quote him, “I’ll be damned if I raise spoilt children!”. Such is the strength of his fear; he has been so strict with us kids that no one actually believes me when I tell them how I was raised. I was not allowed to go out with friends until I was 15. Even now, I have to ask for permission at least a week in advance. Details required: When, With Whom, and Reason for Outing. Until recently—when I turned 21—my curfew was dinner time (6 pm).

>>All through school, I was threatened with corporal punishment if I was not one of the top 10 students in my entire year. To give my dad credit though, I doubt he would have set such standards if I had not demonstrated an academic inclination.

>>Later, he devised the brilliant idea of denying me of things that I loved if I Did Something Bad. Examples: prohibiting the use of the telephone, cutting my allowance, or banning the television. If I was especially bad, then it’s all of the above, all at once. It was a fearsome, fearsome thing. I kid you not—it is the most torturous, brutal, effective punishment known to Teenage-kind.

>>Usually, it’s one strict parent per household—the disciplinarian is offset by the “softer” parent whom you can run to for sympathy. Not here! A friend hit the mark when she christened my parents “Hitler and Mussolini”.

>>Regardless, I think my parents are cool. Their love for us kids is obvious; it shows in the way they want us to grow into decent people. I look at the no-holds-barred way they interact with each other, and it makes me smile.

>>It is my parents’ rapport with each other that has given me such a secure family life. They don’t know this, but I spend a lot of time observing them. I watch how my mother chatters on, and how dad listens indulgently (while surreptitiously exchanging looks with me when she says something for the 56^th time). I watch how he pretends to want to drink some MSG-laden sauce, and how mum plays along by screeching at him not to do it unless he wants his hair to fall out. I revel in how they have the most offensive pet names for each other (favourites being lou hang “old hag” and lou yeh “elderly one”). Then there’s how mum humours dad when he deliberately asks random questions:

Mum: There’s this old man at the market, he sells mangoes. I asked him “Why so expensive?” then he said “Imported mah!”, but—

Dad: Does he sell langsat too?

Mum: No, only mangoes. He’s so old lah, lou ye, I think he eats too much salty foo—

Dad: Well that’s a pretty stupid fruit stall if he doesn’t sell langsat. Langsat’s how you earn the money. Maybe we should plant some trees and sell the fruit. You can be the rich Langsat Lady.

Mum: Please…you know how long it takes for the trees to bear fruit?

Dad: Oh! We can get the balding mango man to help.

Mum: He’s too busy, lah.

Dad: Hmm, actually we shouldn’t. All that salty food he’s eating must affect his blood pressure. Afterwards do business with us then die halfway, how? Eh lou hang, you should take him to the doctor, because mmph—

Mum: [shoving a piece of food in Dad’s mouth] Nah, eat some chicken and be quiet.

>>With conversations (which drip with love) like that to light up my days, how can I not adore my parents?

Something angst-y I wrote at 19

2007-07-29T14:16:00.000+08:00

I wrote the following story while I was doing a creative writing course in uni ("Narratives on the Self"). In April this year, part of it got published in The Star newspaper--it was heavily edited, but I won't gripe since it made me some much-needed pocket money!

When I think of my mother, I see her features softened with love. The lines of her face are youthful, and she is always smiling down at me. Her words—I cannot hear them; I am only aware of how her lowered murmurs have me awash in a sense of contentment and security, and how I have no need to try so hard to love myself any longer…no need, because here holding me is someone who does it so consummately.

Perhaps my mother did look at me that way when I was a child too young to consciously remember—after all, those wistful images I have of my mother must have come from some remnant of truth, much like the way clichés must have stemmed from a reality.

Perhaps my mother did look at me that way when I was a child too young to understand “the hard things”. Too young to question anything besides what was on the surface.

Too young to hurt her.

Reading at least a few of those storybooks aimed at (angst-ridden) youth, one would think that almost every adolescent female has a horrible “I-hate-her-she-doesn't-understand-me” relationship with their mothers. The truth of the matter is—and here is the biggest secret held by all women who have once been young—that it's all down to sensationalism, and the fact that it's such a romantic, tortured image of the mother-daughter idea. Uncertain, sitting on the cusp of everything and nothing all at once, neither child nor adult, neither here nor there, teenage girls have the opportunity to play martyrs; we are celebrated when we voice our conviction of victimisation, of being grievously wronged by mothers everywhere. Nothing wrong with that, I suppose. Such self-absorption is excused—nay, accepted—if there are enough of us who are “documented” feeling that way, much like the way a religion is made official if enough people claim to practice it in the census.

My mother used to kiss me all over my face, declaring that I was “too adorable” and had to be kissed. She was indulgent, grading my childish colour pencil drawings with lavishly drawn stars and “very good's”…Sometimes there were hearts as well, if my attempts were especially brilliant. At bedtime, I was bundled up in one of my father's oversized T-shirts (because I was Wee Willy Winkie) and wedged between my parents on their bed, surely the safest place in the world. I would fall asleep to the muffled sound of my parents talking into the night.

There wasn't a sudden change in her behaviour towards me. It was so gradual that I almost forgot that she had ever loved me so fiercely. But I remember now. God forbid that I ever forget again. I almost forgot. I almost forgot to remember the beautiful things. And now I am glad for age, for I am blessed with a different way of looking at things, and a different way of understanding.

Once, my arm was dislocated. The maid dragged my whole body up the stairs by my hand—she'd just been dumped by her boyfriend. My mother cried when she came home and found me prostrate on the floor, my eyes glazed with shock. The fever stayed for a week, and my mother treated me with such tenderness that even my 2 year old heart was sure could not last forever. After all, who could hold so much love for so long? Now, really.

I don't know when it began, her constant harping, my quick and bitter replies, all designed to hurt her as she hurt me. I still wonder when it all began, or rather, when it all ended - the time when a child loves her mother as a mother should be loved. I suppose my mother aches for the time when I was a child who loved her unconditionally, as much as I do the time she made me feel that I brought her happiness. So we have both lost. For, in moments of weakness, she sometimes asks me what happened to the child I was.

I always found it hard to breathe when her mask of authoritative, controlled parent slipped.

Why are you like this? You were darling. Why can’t you go back? I loved you. Go back.

Implying, of course, that it was only I who had changed, I who had left the old sweetness behind, I who had rejected her overtures of affection. She was never very good with words, my mother.

I, on the other hand, was unfortunately sensitive; easily hurt by my double-edged sword of a talent for reading between the lines and hearing what silences say. This difference in our natures resulted in the too-frequent offending of my adolescent sensibilities, and in me trying to inflict the same pain her careless words wrought—a futile attempt at teaching her to “do unto others”.

***

I always wanted a mother like my best friend's. She never raised her hand or her voice at her children. She encouraged them no matter what, always sensitive to the fragility of a child’s heart. She had the kind of soft presence that you could not help but love and revere. But I suppose it is too much to expect of an old-fashioned Chinese woman (a typical tong yan, my mother admits), much less one who has not yet learned to accept her own disappointing childhood. Which is why Laura turned out the way she has, and I turned out the way I have. She is best friends with her mother—together, they were all gossamer and silk and sparkling dew. I used to envy that, for I am not even friends with mine. But my mother and I …we are bound forever by a stronger, more substantial bond. It is alright now; I no longer ache for things that can never be. Our hearts are too different to be able to forge a gentler relationship.

Many years ago, I went up to my mother’s room in the middle of the afternoon, still in my uniform and my socks. (She tried for years to get me into the habit of removing my socks and going barefoot around the house, as it was the polite thing to do. I still require that certain disapproving look from her to be persuaded into overcoming this act of congenial petulance.) I was supposed to be doing my homework, and she was watching the latest Cantonese soap that caught her fancy—I have noticed only children have that disconcerting ability of picking the most inopportune moments to ask the important questions.

“Mummy, why don’t you bake cinnamon cookies like Mrs Davis does for Laura? You only cook tong sui. Do you know how to make cookies? Laura says her mum is real nice, so she’ll teach you how.”

The expressions flitted across her face: she was irritated (the heroine had gone missing), then mildly affronted (she made mat foong biscuits too—they are a kind of cookie!), then annoyed (her 9 year old daughter was comparing her culinary skills to those of a kwai loh woman). With the benefit of hindsight, I imagine she was trying hard to be patient with me, which explained the pained expression on her face when she tried to explain that she could make cookies, but preferred that we ate healthier desserts, so she only prepared tong sui the traditional way, using my great-aunt’s recipe.

I had her attention. Ah, how happy I was—she was not angry with me yet—perhaps she was in a good mood. So, foolishly, I decided to milk her moment of tolerance for all it was worth, and pursued the conversation to its crux.

“Mummy, why don’t you treat me the way Mrs Davis treats Laura? Laura says her mum has never scolded her before, even when she was bad.”

I don’t even remember what she said, just the angry snap in her voice and the impatience in her eyes. I believe the answer had something to do with the fact that it was because Mrs Davis was kwai loh and she was not—and neither am I, so stop coveting their way of life.

So.

I revel in the freedom of the West, but my beliefs are heavily tempered by the values of my home--I am undeniably tong yan, hua ren, deng nang. Chinese. Said in different languages, but basically the same thing.

I speak perfect English, but I also speak three different dialects of Chinese; I think pizza is gorgeous, but I also love my mother’s culinary concoctions; my mind, my body, is a mix of tong yan and kwai loh. I don’t know who to emulate: am I supposed to be the (overly-serious?) Asian girl who marries young and devotes her life to her husband and children? The modern-day powerhouse woman who brims over with confidence—any man’s equal—and just happens to have black hair and slanting eyes? Or the in-between? Do in-betweens even exist? More importantly, are in-betweens acceptable?

I grew up in an Asia which opened its arms to the western touch, yet tenaciously clung to its orientalism. It seems like my mother internalised this Asia. And now, it seems, so have I. That is all there is to it.

***

She seems to hate my grandmother. Although I felt afraid of the unnaturalness of such a thing and tried to close my eyes to it, intuitively, I knew it was true, knew it was her greatest hurt. I wielded this knowledge like a secret weapon, my very own trump card.

I only used it once. I cannot remember what she did, or what I did, but I remember the intense anger we both radiated at each other. I took pains to warn her that she shouldn't expect a good relationship with me if she hated her own mother.

“Practise what you preach, if you please.”

She opened her mouth to retaliate, and began one of her blustering spiels.

Disrespectful daughter. Know your place. Don’t forget you are tong yan by blood. Filial piety. I am your mother. You don’t know anything.

But I knew more than she thought. Completely ignoring her, I continued my charade, looking coolly away into the imagined horizon. When she stopped, awaiting some humble apology, I jumped slightly, shaking my head as if to clear from it the earth-quaking revelations which dawned on me as a result of her speech.

A calculated pause. A supposed quizzical smile.

Now.

“Funny, I always assumed that you didn't want to end up just like grandma. But I guess I was mistaken.”

An indrawn breath. Hers.

Then she slapped me, not hard though, because her shock was too great. I never said anything along those lines again, for I did not want to experience again that ugly mix of smugness and horror I felt in knowing my power.

***

While I had lost the innocent, unquestioning love I had for my mother a long time ago, there exists a different sort of love; an unshakeable, compulsory love that I believe all of us have for our mothers. The kind where you love your mother just because she is your mother. It is much like the way my mother will always love me because I am her flesh and blood, the way I know that I will always have a place in her life if ever I am floundering.

When it came down to it, it did not matter that we disliked each other. It did not matter that I was infuriated by the shrillness of her angered voice; her refusal to see things from a different perspective; her persistent dismissals of my youthful—clumsy—attempts at bridging the yawning space between us, by offering my confidences, and asking her for hers. And, I suppose, it did not matter to her that I refused to be moulded to fit her timeworn ideas of the perfectly woven Chinese daughter; that my actions more often than not mocked her status of mother; that the words that slipped past my lips were often designed to wound her—poison, they were. What mattered was that we were inexplicably tied together by the strings of familial love.

For us, there are no giggles, no shy confessions about the boy-next-door, no swapping of shoes. No idolisation. No gossamer, no silk, no sparkling dew. But there is a solid, unwavering bond that generations of women are gripped by that is, I believe, not a consolation prize, but simply the only prize worth having.

***

I thought I understood my mother.

My vision has cleared, and all those wasted years of rivalry have been but a misunderstanding on my part: because I thought I understood my mother.

Now I content myself with the knowledge that I am merely at the beginning of the slow unravelling of the workings of her soul. And that perhaps one day, my mother will be understood.