When the world feeds you Adderall...

Yesterday I left the TOOP meeting at 1am, and got back to my dorm.

Today I left the CT office at 7am, and got back to my dorm.

Tomorrow I will be leaving the debate office at some-fucking-a.m,, and go back to my dorm. Debate tournament this weekend. Gotta prep.

Why do I do this to myself. So much so when I walk out into the world I don't really know how to feel about the people around me. Do I feel superior because I can do all this, while they can't, because they are, right now, at this moment, all sleeping soundly in their beds? Do I feel pity for them because they can't? Do I feel envy because really right now I can't even sleep, but instead have to read as much of 350 pages as I can?

I am superwoman. Hear my caffeinated roar.

If it's a machine you want, world, it's a machine you get. Peace out, motherfuckers.

Giblets.

Everything's falling apart.

I'm no longer eating well. I'm not sleeping at regular hours. I'm not going to the gym. I'm not reading more. I have started torturing babies as my hobby. I've turned into a useless blob and I just roll myself to class everyday. I have osteoporosis.

Things like that.

I wish I could fall apart gracefully, seeing as I do it often, like you know I could resemble this collage, a work of art, where all of my pieces, despite not making any cohesive sense at first, eventually form the image of a beautiful, broken butterfly. Yeah fuck that I don't like butterflies. Maybe a beautiful, broken Siberian Husky.

But no. Instead, I get to be giblets. The entrails and internal organs of a butchered animal. That is me. Giblets. Scattered on the ground as cat food.

Here's a picture of me:


Yeah, I'm pretty disgusting.

Speaking of giblets, I've been thinking about feelings. What it means to like someone. Is it because they make us laugh? Is it because they're tall and suave and is named Andrew Garfield? Is it because they show affection and care for you? Is it because they are "special"?

The answer is: no.

To like someone is really like getting hit in the face by a bus. I know I like that analogy a lot, because it's awesome. And true. You don't ever know why you like someone. When you do, it comes at you hard and fast. So fast you didn't even see it coming. And then BAM! You're in the ICU. For the rest of your life.

If there was that reasoning behind emotions, we'd all be logical creatures by now. Which we are not. We are stupid, and we do stupid things, especially when driven by emotions.

You think I don't want to be able to calculate why I like someone, or why I shouldn't? Oh, he has this length of hair, I would prefer guys with this length of hair. No, that's dumb.

So yeah. Just shut up and let yourself be hit in the face by the bus. You can't stop a bus anyway. Good luck trying.

SH Day 27 - Updates and Viagra on hamsters

I've befriended the snow, we're good now.

I've made the effort to befriend more people too. I will try to take this effort beyond hanging around grad buildings.

I've left campus for a lovely dinner with my roommate and her friend ... only to be harassed on the street. But it's not like I didn't expect it. I've been adequately warned.

I've looked up places, and I'm ready to PARTY IT UP IN ROCHESTER!!

I am buying a plane ticket to LA for Spring Break, and I heard it is warm enough for me to prance around in shorts and dresses.

My diet is working wonderfully. I have lost the craving and appetite for food in general.

Gym plan is mega fail, so let's sweep that under the rug. Soon, American treadmills, soon I will be all on you and we'll make sweet love together.

I am reading more, though it's class readings. Even so, Soviet literature > Irish literature anytime. Solzhenitsyn can kick McCourt's ass anytime. WHOOPS maybe I shouldn't say that as I'm being insensitive as McCourt just died a year ago and saying that his corpse's ass might be kicked is offensive and insensitive and I should be stoned. *roll eyes* His close friends would be offended you know. *roll eyes*

Sleeping regularly is mega mega fail, due to jetlag and the fact that I welcome jetlag. I  took a nap from 6pm to 12am, so I am up all night. I suck.

I've also been decidedly nonchalant about SEPs. Sometimes it's really best to walk away. I've recognized that nothing I do is going to amount to anything, whether I had stayed a few more minutes, or said a few more words, or felt a bit more emotions. The futility of it all. So just walk away.

***

I was looking up the cure for jetlag, and this is what I got:

1. Before flight get plenty of rest, exercise and follow a healthy diet. (Before my flight to Malaysia I had no sleep, I've never been to the gym for four months and ... okay I was eating normal-ish.)

2. During the flight avoid alcoholic beverages and caffeine. (But I wanted to stay awake to watch Andrew Garfield because he was hot hence I had tea.) Adjust sleeping hours on the plane to match destination time. (Err it's so fucking boring on the plane sometimes there's really nothing to do but sleep, you know.)

3. Upon arrival, adapt to local time and eat accordingly. Exposure to sunlight is helpful. (Obviously, all fail. I mean, eating salads is eating "accordingly" right? Exposure to sunlight - you can forget about that.)

Apparently animal studies show Viagra helps. Interesting.

Too long for Twitter.

So last night, I had my first experience of being genuinely scared in America. Of course keep in mind I am a paranoid person, so all this must be read with my paranoia in mind.

I was walking to a restaurant with some friends, and it was a neighborhood that was not too brightly lit, hence fucking scary for three girls walking there. 

And then it happened. From behind this man approached us, and started talking to us. He said something like, "I just want to ask you a question. Hey, I just want to ask you a question. Don't you have any black friends?!" And then went on to harass us about how we don't have any black friends and that we are scared of him for being black, or something like that.

He was, of course, black.

First of all, buddy, if you're going to come up to us and in your first few lines you say, "Don't you have any black friends?" that's going to make us think you're not mentally stable at the moment, and it's going to scare the shit out of us.

And then he just kept following us as we walked on, ignoring him. I was the last one in the trail, so I was feeling pretty fucking scared. For the first time, in my life, I genuinely thought I was going to be shot. (See what I mean about my paranoia?) (Also it's the first time I've been in a country where it's legal to own guns, and a country where 78% of homicide cases are gunfires.) 

I was scared. Don't get me wrong. It's really a minor incident, and I've been more scared in Malaysia when I was alone in a cab at 4am and the cab driver just kept making the same turns, over and over again, and wouldn't let me off, and I genuinely thought I was going to be raped, killed and have my body thrown into a ditch somewhere. (See what I mean about my paranoia NOW?)

(He just ended up dropping me at some random apartment, where in an attempt to get in I had to pretend like I was a stepdaughter who just moved here from Singapore and I'm too scared to call my mom to let her know I'm home, so the security guards should not call my parents, and just let me in.)

(It worked.)

This just got me somewhat miffed, because of how sensitive that man was to being black. And a lot of people here, actually. I admit, I get a little more scared when I see black people, but that's because a lot of the crimes I've read about and heard about have mostly involved black people. Can you really blame anyone if they want to step up the security on a certain race if there are statistics showing they commit crimes more than any other race? 

Bah. Whatever. I was just really quite scared, and cold, and those aren't good combinations, so I've found out.

America greatest country in the world, yo.

So, funny story.

So reading my blog you must know I'm extremely politically incorrect and say extremely fucked up shit that society frowns upon, right? Like, go fuck a flamingo. Okay, not like that, and not always with awesome alliteration. But you get what I mean. I was threatened with a lawsuit for once, for God's sake.

Yeah so, last night someone was stabbed at my college's frat party, and apparently died this morning. I just heard it this morning.

So, last night, I sent out an e-mail to my writers (I'm the editor of the newspaper's news section), asking if anyone wanted to report about this.

No, I'm not done.

In the e-mail said, "Shit is going down. Report about this."

FUCK RIGHT? WHY AM I SO INSENSITIVE?!?!? MAY ZHEE YOU ASS YOU ARE NEVER TALKING TO GENERAL PUBLIC AGAIN. I AM TYING YOU TO A FUCKING FLAMINGO AND YOU'LL ONLY TALK TO MARK TWAIN OR OSCAR WILDE OR SOMEONE ELSE WHO IS JUST INSENSITIVE AS YOU ARE.

I mean, obviously when I find out things like that, I get excited that I have an "exciting" news for my section. It's completely normal to get excited about a piece of NEWS, regardless of what is it, even if it's a freaking genocide. Everyone feels that way, it's normal, I just actually had the guts to say it.

So today a) I found out said victim died. b) Everyone got their panties in a bunch over my e-mail.

Double dosage of shitiness. God hates me. (Yeah well I'm not a big fan of him either, to be honest. Not like I'm walking around with a giant hand foam that says "He's #1! He's #1!")

FUCK. I am so fucking stupid. My trap is going to get me in trouble someday. Imma befriend a lawyer now.

PS - Yeah on the whole issue. Frat parties are pretty much stupid. You know how I feel about them. I swore never to go again, just because they are retarded. I mean, how can you fuck up a party in a house?!?!? Seriously. No nice music, dance floor is pitch-dark, beer is horrible, people's horrible. The environment is just SO bad that you know something bad is just waiting to happen. 

Now apparently you can get stabbed at them. Perfect.

PPS - Also I would like to point out here that I thought it was wrong to have sent an e-mail to my staff like that, but if I had expressed it here or anywhere else, as a personal view, that's completely my business.

Totally forgot I was supposed to blog about this.

I officially hate flying.

No. I officially hate flying long international flights.

No. I officially hate flying long international flights during the winter.

No. I officially hate flying long international flights during the winter where after traveling for a ridiculous 30 hours or so across two continents I get to America and I am delayed for a further five hours, after which I wait the entire night in the airport of my final destination for my delayed LUGGAGE, which ends up not coming anyway, and I go home disappointed having to wait for it to be DELIVERED to my CAMPUS the next day.

Holy fucking shit indeed.

Don't even get me started on how I had to walk from one end of the Chicago airport to the other end, to another end, and faced the possibility of having to walk back to point A. Or more precisely, TERMINAL FUCKING F. Oh, how apt.

I hate Chicago O' Hare airport with a passion now. Why does it have to be so goddamn big?!?!?

I literally did not know I could even leave Chicago to Rochester until like five minutes before the flight was going to TAKE OFF. Can you imagine the emotional turmoil I had to go through?!?!??!

Not to mention I had to lug around a total of three handcarry items (bag, laptop - yes I carry it separately - and a bag of gifts from my friends at the airport), four if you count my coat, which I had to wear because it is BLOODY WINTER IN AMERICA, and it was VERY INCONVENIENT TO DO ANYTHING AS YOU CANNOT LEAVE YOUR BAGS UNATTENDED BLA BLA BLA WELL GUESS WHAT I LEFT IT UNATTENDED ANYWAY. It was a bag two fluffy toy dogs, one that can bend its shape into a pillow. I highly doubt that counts as a suspicious-looking baggage.

I was so hungry but I just didn't feel like eating, and when I did feel like eating I couldn't because I had to run to another gate. I FUCKING HATE CHICAGO O'HARE AIRPORT GRAAAAAR.

And that was just the delayed flight. Don't even get me started (which means I'm going to get started) on the long international flights, which is totally my fault for being born in Asia and wanting to study in America, and because I love my family and wanted to see them during winter break.

I had to wait a fucking 6 hours in Changi airport (PLEASE do not ask me why and how my travel routes are like that bla bla bla because I will BITE your HEAD off) at night, when all the bloody shops are closed and everything's dark and sad and lonely. The transit hotel was fully booked, the nap rooms were fully booked, my ASS was fully booked. GRAAAAAAAAAAAAAR.

And then the 14 hour flight from Hong Kong to Chicago. 14. freaking. hours. on a plane. Okay to be honest I don't mind the flying itself, it's not too bad because you get to watch movies and if there's someone interesting next to you, you get to have good conversations. If there's someone hot, woohoo you get a phone number. Which I did. (Former, not latter, unfortunately) Talked to this American from Texas, who likes traveling and partying. Awesome. We bitched about America, so that was good. And obviously, the movies - that flight was when I fell in love with Andrew Garfield, so no complaints there, though I would have preferred my personal inflight system ... which United fucking Airlines did not have. But no matter, not as big of a deal.

It's the stopovers that I hate. I hate, hate, hate stopovers. With a passion. Long flights over stopovers anytime.

Fuck this shit I'm marrying an American, getting a greencard and bringing my entire family over. End of story.

Oh and btw, PLAY COMPLETED. I totally wrote a whole new play (same concept though) in the past like four to five hours. Jetlag did me good this time. It is 6.22am, and I am fucking awake. International students FTW!!!! Until I die later in class of course.

PS - I found an inspirational quote!!!

‎"Water is the only drink for a wise man." - Henry David Thoreau

"Henry David Thoreau is a dumb man." - May Zhee

SH Day 24 - Ha! Haha! Ha! + People on diet don't have love problems.

Going back to Malaysia I received some useful advice from three awesome teachers I visited. They are the following:

"Lose him."

"Attend grad events."

"Manchester United is awesome. awesome. awesome."

Okay all totally condensed and the last is not even advice (just a fact), but I took them all to heart.

***

So remember me asking you guys to shoot me in the last post? It was totally called for, as I am an idiot. But for different reasons now.

Just when I sunk at my lowest, thinking that despite this whole stupid self-healing thing I embarked on I was still the same person as before ... I come back to America and BOOM! I feel fantastic!

Better, I feel in control.

And when I finally get my ass to go to the gym, I am going to feel like a fucking king.

Muahahahahahaha.

I think I did it. Whatever I set out to achieve to do - like rising above my emotions - I've finally achieved it. In a way I got a glimpse of what I thought I wanted, and once I got it BAM! I don't want it anymore. I gotta think of better ways to represent my realizations than what seems like a bus is hitting me in the face.

And today I was walking around campus (possibly wandering into the grad school of business, possibly) (men in suits are really attractive) (why didn't I discover that place earlier damnit?!?!) and it just hit me how the campus has grown in size and magnitude ... of hot men. I saw them everywhere! Either I'm only noticing them now, or this spring semester is really bearing its fruits. I don't even know what I just said I think I was trying to equate men to food.

And sure, they don't always flirt with you the way men in bars do, or buy you drinks to get you to agree to flirt back with them too, and all that. But if you pretend hard enough, college could be a giant bar. It could be.

Bah. I think that's the problem with college. You don't do the initial flirting, you just become friends straight away and ask each other boring things. If you're lucky the flirting goes from then on. There's no playful banter, or that glint in the eyes when you sort of know both of you might end up together naked in bed at some point. And if there is that glint, it's possibly from some stupid frat boy who overdoes it and really does expect to bang you by the end of the night. And will be horrible at it. Stupid frat boys. How did I get on to this again?

Oh yes I was talking about how awesome I am. Or feel. Same thing.

Having a hot supply of guys out there helps anyway. As for the problem of intoxication (or lack of), that can always be fixed. >:)

So yeah college is great. I also have a hot history teacher in the league of Jose Mourinho and Roberto Mancini, if you get what I mean. (That older men, sexy European look.) I get to shop online again, and have fast internet, I'm starting to like the people more (ie I'm hanging out at the grad schools more), oh and ...

I AM FUCKING IN LOVE WITH ANDREW GARFIELD I WANT TO MAKE SWEET SWEET LOVE TO HIM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

How is he so hot?!? How did I not know him before The Social Network and when he was chosen as the next Spiderman???! And how is he Spiderman?! Spiderman is not smoking HOT; Spiderman is nerdy! I watched The Social Network on my way to America (it's a good movie btw) and I'm pretty sure I jizzed in my pants a few hundred times in two hours. I could have passed out! Andrew Garfield is such a hazard for plane rides.



Pictures really don't do justice to his divine hotness, so here's the trailer for The Social Network. He plays Eduardo Saverin, which is the dark-haired guy who's always wearing dress shirts (HOT) in the trailer. The Winklevoss twins or however you spell that name (don't care because I don't like them, even in real life. You guys didn't come up with Facebook, idiots) are hot too, though they're really just one person.

Isn't life great???

***

Edit: Okay I'm adding this last bit because it seems sad that it's just men making my life great. I mean, they only take up like 50% of my life. I have another half of it too. So on the other half's front, life is good too. I'm gonna edit the play I wrote, hopefully in time for this one-act play festival submission, my classes are awesome, I've made some simple good resolutions that I should stick to (start papers earlier, sleep regularly and early, gym followed by a big meh, read more and better time organization. All fairly doable).

Life's finally kicking back into gear, and I'm finally becoming important in it again. It's all me now. Me first. Me everything. Me. Me. Me. Me. Still me. Me.

Also I don't know how, but with what I thought was minimal eating in America, in some unthinkable way, I. gained. weight.

That's why I don't post pictures anymore. Because in every one of them, I look like a blob.

Just kidding I still look like this:



Obviously with careful angling and all that. But I am now more prone to fat pictures, like x100 more, which is really just a way of saying I've gained weight ... in pictures. It's that annoying fat that you don't see in real life, but just shows in pictures. So goddamn annoying.

So point is, I'm on a strict diet now. Only salads from now on - maybe a side of soup if I've been good, and I'm going to the gym. I have cereal - and only those bran and granola nonsense (NO FUN CEREAL!) - for breakfast , and I'll have fruits for snacks. But that's it. All other food on campus, no matter how good, is now officially out of bounds to me.

And that is making my life miserable (I caved in twice today, in the form of a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, and half a box of sushi... fuck) so it is really helping to distract me from SEP (Silly Emotional Problems). Like, really. You have no idea how fucking hard it was for me to turn down a bowl of mac 'n cheese. I love those those things like they are my life. I dream about them. I think about having them after sex. I LOVE THEM. And pasta. And mashed potatoes. And horrible campus Asian food that still manages to make you want it somehow.

How can anyone on a diet have love problems, I really don't know.

Life is great.

SH Day 21 - Same

So if this journey back home was supposed to help the self-healing process and somehow change me from within, let me show you a very honest documenting of said process, in the form of my e-mail to my roommate after leaving America, and the one I just sent her.

But of course due to privacy matters, I have decided to replace a lot of words with pineapple so you can see enough to get the gist of it (that I'm crazy) but not the explicit details (that I'm crazy in so-and-so way).

***

Okay I don't know who better to tell this to, but I wanted to document how I feel at the beginning of my trip home, and at the end of it. So right now this is how things are:

1. I think about *pineapple* way too much. *pineapple pineapple pineapple* THAT'S JUST NOT NORMAL ARGH. He's just always at the back of my *pineapple*, it's annoying and it's distracting and I can't do things I would probably have spent my time better doing.

2. I think about being with other people to *pineapple*.

3. I see him *pineapple pineapple pineapple* Facebook and I think about how it's done within 30 minutes and how he *pineapple pineapple pineapple*. I then suspect maybe *pineapple pineapple pineapple* I start to compare how I'm better than her.

4. *PINEAPPLE TO THE MAX NO WAY IN HELL YOU'RE SEEING THIS*.

5. I think ......... I think sometimes maybe I can *pineapple* him. To be fair at the same time I also think of how I can't.

6. I picture *pineapple* with him.

(At this point you must think the above are dirty things. At this point you must also know me well enough to know that it's not the dirty things that I censor...)

7. Okay now I'm just being repetitive let's think of new things. I don't know. I think about him *pineapple* his friends, and getting drunk, and having another *pineapple* in his arms :( I see his *pineapple pineapple*  always away coz he's on his phone and I wonder what he's *pineapple* now :(

Melani this is really bad. Because even with my previous guys that I *pineapple*, I was never *pineapple*. It's the *pineapple* part that scares me. Why am I still doing this to myself. Why is it that I convince myself that I need to end this, only to go back to him again. *pineapple because I'm quoting a cheesy song ew* I remember the e-mails I sent you ... asking myself the same thing ... why am I doing this to myself... gah. I forget. I forget way too easily. I forget how bad it is to want someone, and how it just *pineapple pineapple*. Just because I'm fine for a while. In fact I feel that "badness" slipping away now too ... and I'm happy and I know I'll go *pineapple again*. I thought I mended it right by telling him I can't do it if he *pineapple* ... but that was only the beginning. I have a bigger step to take.

This is it. I'm giving myself an ultimatum. Like a real one. Not the one by Thanksgiving, not some bullshit one I set for myself over one weekend. I was like, okay May Zhee if he doesn't *pineapple* you this weekend, he's not for you. NO MORE BULLSHIT ULTIMATUMS. If by the end of my visit here, and I go back to America, and I go back to him, and I'm basically still like this .. still pining for him while not having him, then I'm ending it. For real. Because there are times when it just distracts me entirely from my LIFE, and that's just bad. I can't do this. I'm going to have to give him up, if my mind can't learn how to behave.

Sometimes I really wish he would sleep with another girl so I would give up already. Sigh. Sorry for the long e-mail. I'm just mad at myself. Merry Christmas!!

May Zhee


***

And now an e-mail I just sent, 17 days later...

***


Melani. I am the exact same person in the e-mail I first sent to you. Exact. fucking. same.

I'm boarding a flight back tomorrow. See you on Tuesday.

May Zhee

***

So yeah. I'm gonna go shoot myself in the head now. Self-healing process officially derailed.

SH Day 14 - Back to August

Okay so my Blogger is still operating in Eastern Standard Time so the days are a little fucked up, but nevermind.

And my title has no relation to a certain Taylor Swift song. Please no.

I waited a few days to blog this, so I can safely say it's not just an impulse, and I can say this now: things have turned around. The one thing that has changed between now and Day 8? A very long-delayed acceptance. It should have come when he told me months ago that he can't reciprocate; it should have come when I was sitting on the floor of his room one day, when he casually brought up a girl, and I remembered that moment clearly as the point I realized I was just another girl to him, an indistinguishable face, and also that I didn't want to be.

But no. It came months after that, and it cost me a little bit of my sanity, but it came. So fuck you all.

A few days ago I've finally accepted that nothing's ever going to happen between us, and with that the hoping stopped too. Or at least, experiencing a slow fade. I stopped looking for signs, when it's clear as day that he was right; he can't reciprocate. Regardless of his reasons, his excuses, ("I like you but ...") these stupid signs that I've been subconsciously picking out, today I've realized it's not okay for me to keep thinking about us, when there clearly won't be an us. Your sub-conscious can really fuck you up, I've learned.

Why the sudden change? I remembered it before as ... because I was then worrying about what dress to wear for New Year Eve's, and I realized how simple life is again. Because Malaysia won the Suzuki Cup and, even bigger than than, I watched the Away match, and I realized how Malaysian football doesn't suck anymore. Because there's a lot of focus on Malaysian education now, with people speaking out against the content of our history textbooks, with Teach for Malaysia gaining attention, with the deputy PM saying he's aiming for  100% literacy in the nation. Two things I've always wanted to see happen - improvement in sports and education - happening before my eyes.

Even if on NYE I ended up with a dress I didn't like (which I did), or Malaysian football will suck again, or all this focus on education is just talk, for today I am reminded that there are things bigger than myself.

Also a slew of really embarrassing drunken messages kind of woke me up to the realities of it all. And the distance helped. So yeah.

On the American side, well that's the true relation to the title of this post. Going to America meant something to me in August, and I just had to find it again (which I did). It represented progress, being able to start over, and moving on with my life. Instead of doing that, I spent my first semester moping and whining and clinging on to dumb nostalgia, like I said I would never do.

Right now I'm excited to go back. I've been home, I've been with family, I've drank beer, now I'm ready to go back. I'm going to befriend the snow and the people, and I'm going to drop the past and move on. And that includes any guy problems I was stupid enough to pick up in the first semester.

Yeah the inspirational quote thing is not working let's cut that.